This Day, December 14, In Jewish History

DECEMBER 14 In Jewish History

164 BCE (3597): On the secular calendar date on which Judah Maccabee restored the service in the Temple in Jerusalem.

1503: Birthdate of Nostradamus. Nostradamus was not Jewish but his family had been. His paternal grandfather converted to Catholicism ending the Jewish line.

1754: Mahmud I, Sultan of Turkey, passed away at the age of 58. Under the reign of Mahmud I, the treaty of Belgrade was signed (September 18th, 1739). This gave rights to the Ottoman Jews. Their situation was so good that Austrian Jews applied for Ottoman citizenship.

1760: The Board of Deputies of British Jews was founded. The Board of Deputies was composed of elected Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews.

1799: President George Washington passed away. Washington’s letters of acceptance to Jewish communities in the early days of the United States set the tone for acceptance that has made it possible for the Jewish community to flourish.

1819: Alabama becomes the 22nd state to join the Union. For those of you who think that Jews only made a contribution on the eastern seaboard, please take note. Abram Mordecai came to Alabama in 1785 and is credited by some with the founding of Montgomery, the state capital. He was described as “’an intelligent Jew who lived fifty years in the Creek nation.’” (The Creeks were an Indian tribe made famous by their battles with Andrew Jackson and Davey Crockett.) He traded with the Creeks, married a Creek woman and found what he considered proof positive that the Creeks were descendants of the ten lost tribes. The first congregation in Alabama was formed in Mobile in 1844 and a second congregation was founded in Montgomery in 1852.

1825: A group of disgruntled Russian Army officers begin what is now known as the Decembrist Revolt, an uprising against the newly installed Czar, Nicholas I. The Jews had nothing to do with the revolt. The officers were animated by the tainted road to throne followed by Nicholas and their desire for a more liberal regime. The unsuccessful revolt reinforced the despot’s drive to follow in the reactionary footsteps of his father. Among other things he increased the drive to remove the Jews from Russian society by forcing growing numbers into the Pale of Settlement and by enforcing draft laws that forced young Jewish boys to serve 25 years in the Russian Army.

1827(25th of Kislev, 5588): First Day of Chanukah.

1856: Birthdate of Louis Marshall, prominent lawyer and leader of the United States Jewish community. He passed away in 1929.

1862: Following the crushing Union defeat at Fredericksburg caused by the ineptness of General Burnside, Lieut. G.L. Snyder, Company B, of the 104th N.Y. was among the group of Jewish members of the Army of the Potomac who were buried near the hospital that had been set up across the river from the battlefield.

1868: A Hungarian Jewish Congress was convened today which created Neolog Judaism a “mild reform movement” that was concentrated in the “Hungarian speaking regions of Europe”

1870: A large number of Jews and Christians including several governmental dignitaries attended today’s cornerstone laying ceremony for Ahavath Chesed on the corner of Lexington Avenue and 55th Street in Manhattan In his introductory remarks, Ignatz Stein traced the history of the congregation which began with a few Jews from Bohemia holding High Holiday services at house on Ludlow Street. The congregation’s real growth began in 1848 when large number of Jews fled Europe following the failure of the liberal revolutions.

1879: Mr. Isaac Rosenwald chaired the annual meeting of the Society of the Home for Aged and Infirmed Hebrews in New York City today. The home is providing shelter for 44 women and 32 men. The election of officers was held which included the re-election of Mr. Rosenwald as President

1895: Birthdate of King George VI of the United Kingdom, whose reign covered the dark days leading up to World War II and the war itself. According to documents published in the Guardian in 2002, in the spring of 1939 George VI instructed his private secretary to write to Foreign Secretary Lord Halifax: “Having learnt that ‘a number of Jewish refugees from different countries were surreptitiously getting into Palestine’, the King was ‘glad to think that steps are being taken to prevent these people leaving their country of origin.’” Halifax’s office telegraphed Britain’s ambassador in Berlin asking him to encourage the German government ‘to check the unauthorized emigration’ of Jews.”Halifax’s telegraph in 1939 initiating the request that Hitler not allow “unauthorized” Jews to leave Germany was thus a direct result of George VI’s letter to him. “When it came to anti-Semitism, King George VI did not stutter at all!” King George Street in Israel is named for George V not George VI.

1900: Max Plank publishes his study on quantum theory. His greatness as a scientist is transcended as his greatness as man. He protested Hitler’s treatment of Jewish scientists. At great personal risk he resigned in protest but stayed in Germany.

1903(25th of Kislev, 5664): First Day of Chanukah

1903: Herzl explains his position on Uganda in a letter to Sir Francis Montefiore, President of the English Zionist Federation.

1903: The United Zionists of Greater New York continued its semi-annual meeting today. The 250 delegates representing 74 Zionist societies were scheduled to deal with “routine business.”

1908: Birthdate of comedian Morey Amsterdam.

1909: Marcus M. Marks, President of the Tuberculosis’ Prevenotrium at Lakewood, NJ met with Samuel Untermeyer, counsel for Max Nathan in an attempt to reach an agreement on the disposition of Mr. Nathan's share of the Lakewood Hotel Property which is valued at $300,000.

1914: Birthdate of Solomon Spiegelman. Spiegelman was American microbiologist and geneticist who discovered that only one of two strands of molecules that make up DNA, carried the genetic information to produce new substances. The carrier was called ribonucleic acid (RNA). In 1962, he developed a technique that allowed the detection of specific RNA and DNA molecules in cells. This technique, called nucleic acid hybridization, is credited for helping to lay the groundwork for current advances in recombinant DNA technology. Much earlier, his Ph.D. thesis (1944) was the first work to establish that genes are activated and deactivated by compounds that he called inducers, which thus radically affect the pattern of proteins that a cell fabricates without actually altering the genes themselves. He passed away in 1983.

1917: A Reuters’ telegram to Amsterdam reported that the population of Palestine is suffering terribly; and that the population has been reduced to one third because of hunger, sickness and distress. Only 23,000 of the 60,000 Jews are left in Jerusalem.

1922(24th of Kislev, 5683): In the evening, kindle the first light of Chanukah

1922: Birthdate of producer Don Hewitt, the man who created Sixty Minutes.

1923: Sir William Graham Greene wrote Churchill congratulating him on finally being cleared of charges that he issued misleading reports about the Battle of Jutland that benefited Jewish financiers to whom Churchill owed a greater allegiance than he did to the British people.

1924: Dedication of the Beth El’s new synagogue took place today in Camden, NJ. Participating in the ceremonies were Mayor Victor King of Camden, Dr. A. A. Neuman of Philadelphia's Adath Jeshurun, Judge William M. Lewis of Philadelphia and Rabbi Samuel Freedman of Beth EI in Philadelphia. Rabbi Grayzel and Cantor Mickleman officiated at the service. The Cantor was accompanied by a choir under the direction of Gedalia Rabinowitz.

1926: Louis Marshall is honored on his seventieth birthday for his success as a lawyer, a philanthropist who raised millions, supporter of forest conservation and immigration reform, statesman and champion of Jewish causes.

1930(24th of Kislev, 5691): In the evening, kindle the first light of Chanukah

1930: Rabbi Nathan Krass delivered a talk memoralizaing Louis Marshall of blessed memory on the 74 anniversary of his birth.

1930: Dr. Nathan Krass delivered a sermon at Temple Emanu-El “on the significance of the festival of Chanukah and on the problem of human suffering.”

1930: Murray Seasongood, the Jewish former Mayor of Cincinnati, Ohio and Rabbi Samuel S. Cohen of Hebrew Union College are two of the speakers scheduled to address tonight’s fourth annual dinner of the metropolitan conference of Temple Men’s Club at the Emanu-El Community House in New York City

1932(15th of Kislev, 5693): Dr. Angel Pulido y Fernandez, Spanish researcher of the Sephardim passed away. In 1904 he wrote Espanoles sin Patria (Spaniards Without A Home) which sparked the idea of the Sephardim returning to Spain. He became a member of the Spanish Parliament, and later the King made him a Senator. He spent the latter part of his life writing, holding meetings and passionately advocating for the return of the Sephardim.

1935(18th of Kislev, 5696): Science fiction writer Stanley G Weinbaum passed away.

1935: Lillian Hellman's "The Children's Hour" is banned in Boston. Calling it "indecent," Mayor Frederick Mansfield issued a decree banning Lillian Hellman's first play, The Children's Hour, from being staged in Boston. Showcasing the destructive power of lies, the play depicts the experiences of the headmistresses of a girls' boarding school, who are ruined by a malicious rumor that they are lovers. Although the play was also banned in London, The Children's Hour had opened on Broadway in 1934 to critical and popular success. One reviewer called it both "a venomously tragic play" and "one of the most straightforward, driving dramas of the season." The scandal associated with the play's lesbian theme was reflected in a 1936 film remake, These Three, for which a screenplay written by Hellman transformed the play's rumor of lesbianism into a rumored love triangle centered around a man. Another film version, starring Audrey Hepburn and Shirley MacLaine in 1961, restored both the lesbian-rumor theme and the original title. The play remains a significant milestone in the representation of gay themes in American letters and an important piece of the contemporary American theater repertoire. Hellman, whom the New York Times has called "one of the most important playwrights of the American theater," was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, on June 20, 1905. Her parents both came from wealthy German-American Jewish families. After her high school graduation and three years at New York University, Hellman took a job reading manuscripts at a Greenwich Village publishing house. After a year, she left to marry writer Arthur Kober and move to Hollywood. Although their marriage ended in 1932, the move proved a good one for Hellman. She worked reading scripts and was soon writing them herself. Other significant Hellman plays include The Little Foxes (1939), Another Part of the Forest (1947), and The Autumn Garden (1951), all loosely based on her mother's family, and the two anti-fascist plays Watch on the Rhine (1941) and The Searching Wind (1944). Watch on the Rhine and Toys in the Attic (1960) each won a New York Drama Critics Circle Award. If her later plays were less controversial than The Children's Hour, Hellman's offstage life was even more so. From 1930 to 1961, she lived off and on with writer Dashiell Hammett, with whom she was active in left-wing literary circles. Hellman became known as a pro-Stalinist, and in 1948, she was blacklisted from Hollywood as Senator Joseph McCarthy's anti-Communist witch hunt began. Called to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1952, she offered to speak about her own activities but refused to name names or speak about the activities of others. In a line perhaps more famous than those from any of her plays, she wrote to the committee that "I cannot and will not cut my conscience to fit this year's fashions." It was considered a brave statement at the time, but Hellman was later criticized for never explicitly condemning Stalinism. During a decade on the blacklist, Hellman wrote stage adaptations of four plays, including the book for the operetta "Candide," with music by Leonard Bernstein. She wrote no new plays after 1960, but did publish three volumes of memoirs. The first of these, An Unfinished Woman, won the National Book Award for 1969. Hellman died on June 30, 1984.

1936(30th of Kislev, 5697): Rosh Chodesh Tevet

1936: The original production of “You Can't Take It with You” a comedic play in three acts by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart opened at the Booth Theater tonight and played for 837 performances. The play won the 1937 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

1936: Dr. Maurice B Hexter “summed up Jewish grievances when testified before the Royal Commission. These include a complaint that survey and settlement of titles to land take too long to be completed are required and a demand to accelerate the pace of the work.

1936: The Palestine Post reported that despite official assurances further instances of violence and arson were carried out by various Arab armed bands throughout the country. There was arson in Tel Aviv port, bus passengers were robbed on roads, and trees in Jewish settlements were uprooted. Moslem youth boycotted the Christian-owned National Bus Company, claiming that it had offered assistance to the British army and police during the Arab strike. But both the Jerusalem Mufti, Haj Amin el-Husseini, and the Arab Higher Committee appealed to both Jerusalem's Moslems and Christians to settle their differences.

1939: Heydrich issued a modified directive ordering all rural and small-townJews in the General Government (occupied Poland) to be transported to the larger Polish cities where they would be quarantined from the rest of the Polish population and kept under tight SS surveillance.
1940: British military intelligence confirmed that the effect of the Patria decision on the Arabs had been “remarkably small.”

1941: The German military commander of Kharkiv, Ukraine ordered the Jewish population to move to the city periphery within 2 days and to occupy the barracks of the works of a machine factory. In the next days, 15.000 Jews were shot at Drobitsky Yar.

1941: Jews by the hundreds are dying from hunger and the cold in the Warsaw Ghetto. Two Jews were shot dead at a funeral for a friend

1941: A Jewish ghetto at Kharkov, Ukraine, is established.

1944: Birthdate of Mitchel Jay Feigenbaum, a mathematical physicist whose pioneering studies in chaos theory led to the discovery of the Feigenbaum constants. In 1983 he was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship, and in 1986, he was awarded the Wolf Prize in Physics "for his pioneering theoretical studies demonstrating the universal character of non-linear systems, which has made possible the systematic study of chaos".

1945: Josef Kramer known as "beast of Belsen", and 10 others were hanged for crimes committed at the Belsen and Oswiecim Nazi concentration camps.

1945(10th of Tevet, 5706): Asara B'Tevet

1945(10th of Tevet, 5706): Lucie Hadamard Dreyfus, widow of Alfred Dreyfus, passed away.

1945: The Broadway production of “Dream Girl” by Elmer Rice opened at the Coronet Theatre

1947(1st of Tevet, 5708): Rosh Chodesh Tevet

1947: Birthdate of entertainment mogul, Michael Ovitz.

1949: In keeping with a resolution adopted by the Knesset, the Israeli government moves from Tel Aviv to Jersualem.

1951: Birthdate of Norton A. Schwartz, a graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy, the 19th Chief of Staff of the U.S. Air Force and the first Jew to hold this position.

1951: The Jerusalem Post announced that for the third successive year the Board of Trustees of the Rockefeller Palestine Archaeological Museum refused to admit the participation of Prof. E.L. Sukenik of the Hebrew University, the board's sole Jewish representative, to its deliberations. Since the museum was located in the Jordanian-occupied part of Jerusalem, Prof. Sukenik suggested that meetings should be held at the Mandelbaum Gate, on the border, but his offer was turned down.

1952: In Little Rock, Arkansas, on the third day of Chanukah, Agudas Achim dedicated its new synagogue.

1952: “Anne Frank: Diary of a Young Girl” a radio drama written Jewish journalist Meyer Levin who had visited the concentration camps after the war and had contacted Anne's father Otto Frank to request the rights to create a play based on the diary of Anne Frank, appeared on The Eternal Light series, produced by the Jewish Theological Seminary on the NBC network.

1953: The Brooklyn Dodgers signed pitcher Sandy Koufax.

1967: The first synthesis of biologically active DNA in a test tube was announced at a press conference by Arthur Kornberg who had worked with Mehran Goulian at Stanford and Robert L. Sinsheimer of MIT. Kornberg chose to replicate the relatively simple DNA chain of the Phi X174 virus, which infects bacteria (a bacteriophage). It has a single strand of DNA only about 5500 nucleotide building blocks long, and with about 11 genes, it was easier to purify without breaking it up. Having isolated the Phi X174 DNA, they used the DNA from E. coli, a common bacterium in the human intestine that could copy a DNA template from any organism. The viral DNA template thus copied was found to be able to infect bacteria - it was error-free, active DNA.

1973(19th of Kislev, 5734): Composer Yitzhak Edel passed away.

1974(30th of Kislev, 5735): Rosh Chodesh Tevet

1974(30th of Kislev, 5735): American journalist and political philosopher Walter Lippmann passed away.

1974: In New York, WNYC is scheduled to broadcast “The Story of Chanukah” adopted by Pearl Klein

1976:The Jerusalem Post reported from Washington that the US State Department, Pentagon and industry were becoming concerned over Israeli use of foreign military sales credits (from the US) not only to obtain US weapons for its inventory, but also to import technical data packages that eventually could be exported in competition with American products. Syrian troops moved into East Beirut where two Christian militias continued to fight each other.

1977: Representatives of Egypt and Israel gathered in Cairo for their first formal peace conference

1981: Israel annexed the Golan Heights which had been captured from Syria in 1967. The Syrians had shelled Israeli farmers from the Golan Heights for almost twenty years. The IDF took the heights in an amazing exercise of physical courage at the end of the Six Days War.

1984: Howard Cosell retired from Monday Night Football. The Carolina Israelite via Brooklyn was no longer the third man in the booth.

1989: Joel Brinkley, writing in the New York Times, reported that Soviet Jews are leaving at a record pace, with many of them opting to settle in Israel. “The number of Jews streaming out of the Soviet Union has reached a record. Not counting people departing this month, more than 62,500 Jews have left this year, surpassing by more than 20 percent the high of 51,320 set in 1979. In recent years most Soviet Jews have gone to the United States. But because of immigration limits imposed by Washington recently, the number of Jews going to Israel has increased dramatically in recent months. As a result, Israel is bracing for its greatest flow of immigrants since its early days of independence four decades ago. #750,000 Over 6 Years Possible More than 11,000 Soviet Jews left in November - the first time the figure exceeded 10,000 in a month - and almost 2,000 of them arrived here, 10 times the number who came to Israel in January. The number of émigrés is monitored closely by Israeli officials and the National Conference on Soviet Jewry, a nonprofit American group. Early this week the Government projected that Israel might absorb as many as 750,000 Soviet Jews in the next six years, an addition of 20 percent to the nation's Jewish population. Although the projection may be exaggerated, several hundred thousand Soviet Jews have in fact requested Israeli visas, largely because they fear increasing nationalist turmoil in the Soviet Union and because of the American decision to admit fewer Soviet refugees. An influx even close to the projection would enhance Israel's sense of national identity after years in which more Jews have emigrated from the country than arrived, but it would also pose major problems for the country. It is accepted wisdom here that Israel is simply unequipped to handle immigrants in those numbers, and many Israelis resent such a migration at a time when unemployment is already high and housing already scarce. But for Israel, the numbers are only half the problem. The people in this wave are different from other large groups of Jews to come to Israel or Palestine since the ''first Aliyah'' from czarist Russia 100 years ago. Most of the Soviet citizens coming now are not Zionists. In fact, they have little if any Jewish identity. And many people worry that their lack of Jewish zeal might make it more difficult for them to weather hard times in their new homeland. Tugging sleepy children and overstuffed carry-on bags, about 65 of these immigrants arrived at Ben-Gurion International Airport in Lod just before dawn Monday. Like many other Soviet citizens stepping off planes that are landing here almost every day, these people looked startled, even a bit disturbed, as two dozen yeshiva students greeted them, chanting, clapping and singing traditional Jewish songs the Russians had never heard. ''This Aliyah is different from the Soviet Aliyah of the 70's,'' said Lizy Zlotnik, an Absorption Ministry official who handled paperwork on the new immigrants at the airport. ''Most of these people are very educated. These are Russians. They don't know anything about Judaism, and they don't really care about it.'' As part of the liberalization under President Mikhail S. Gorbachev, the Soviet Union has made leaving the country much easier for the nation's 287 million citizens, including its estimated two million Jews. A new emigration law is expected to be enacted early next year, removing most restrictions on travel abroad. Some Soviet officials estimate that four million Soviet citizens will emigrate in the next few years. President Bush has already promised trade concessions to Moscow once the law is enacted. Many of the new Jewish immigrants are leaving the Soviet Union ''because Russia is in turmoil, and they are afraid of what will be left for them when it ends,'' said Simcha Dinitz, chairman of the Jewish Agency, the quasi-Government organization largely responsible for settling immigrants. Fear of Nationalist Movements With all the assertive nationalist movements now spreading across the country, ''we are scared,'' said Leon Kostavitch, a 26-year-old engineer who had just arrived. ''It's dangerous to be there. The country is in revolution, and we don't know what's going to happen for us.'' ''When the dust settles from all this turmoil,'' Mr. Dinitz said, ''it will be the minorities who suffer.'' In addition, there are unconfirmed reports from some immigrants arriving here of spreading anti-Semitism, particularly in Uzbekistan, the largely Muslim Soviet republic that is also home to about 250,000 Jews. Israel and the Soviet Union do not have diplomatic relations, and for now the emigrants are flying to Bucharest, Vienna or other cities before flying on to Tel Aviv. But Israeli officials say the national airline, El Al, has signed an agreement with Aeroflot, the Soviet airline, to begin direct flights between Moscow and Tel Aviv early next year. The commercial agreement has not yet been approved by the Soviet Foreign Ministry, the Israelis say. But if and when it is, the number of Jews coming here is likely to grow even faster. Even with direct flights, it is not likely that all of the several hundred thousand people who have applied for Israeli visas will move here. But whatever the final number, the lack of awareness of Judaism among these immigrants creates ''some real challenges for absorption,'' said Natan Sharansky, a leader among Soviet Jews here. Faith and Zionist zeal, most people here agree, help carry many of today's new immigrants through the difficult challenges and hard times that Israel almost invariably presents. As he waited in line at the airport to register with immigration authorities, one of the arrivals, Oleg Finkelstein, a 24-year-old from Leningrad, said, ''I've never practiced Judaism, but I guess I'm interested in learning about it because it's what keeps the people of this country together.'' The Music Is Strange For now, Mr. Finkelstein, like the others, had to be prompted to stand when the yeshiva students began singing ''Hatikva,'' the national anthem. When the yeshiva boys held hands and danced in a circle, singing ''Havenu Shalom Aleichem,'' one of the best-known Jewish folk songs and dances, hardly anyone in the group of new arrivals seemed to recognize it. In most cases those people came to Israel because this is the country that invited them and for no other reason. They are simply looking for a better life and hope they can find it here. ''These are people who want to come and succeed in their work,'' Mr. Sharansky said. Many might just as well have gone to the United States. But in September the Bush Administration, citing humanitarian, financial, political and bureaucratic concerns, set a ceiling of 50,000 on the number of Soviet refugees in each of the coming years. Israeli officials warmly welcomed the American changes, knowing that the Soviet Jews who could not get into the United States would most likely come here. But as the numbers swell, Mr. Sharansky and others are openly complaining that Israel simply cannot handle the flood. The nation is hard pressed to find housing and jobs, partly because of the economic troubles that the Palestinian uprising has helped to spawn. ''We don't like the fact that our Government isn't ready despite all our warnings,'' Mr. Sharansky said. While Israel desperately wants Jews to move here to fulfill the tenet of Zionism that Israel be home for all the world's Jews, immigration from all sources has been at relatively low levels for years. Slightly more than 20,000 people moved here in 1980, but in most years since, the number has fluctuated between 11,000 and 14,000. In recent typical years, far more citizens have left than have arrived, a fact that deeply wounds many Israelis. Though the number of emigrants is not known - most of them move to the United States illegally - the coming wave of Soviet Jews may tip the balance back at last. The Soviet Jewish émigrés counted so far this year give 1989 the highest total for any year since the National Conference on Soviet Jewry began tabulating emigration statistics in 1968. The previous peak, in 1979, occurred during the Carter Administration, when Washington and Moscow completed a strategic arms treaty before relations soured over the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. An earlier period of relatively high emigration came in the early 1970's, during the Nixon Administration, in the so-called era of detente. Better to Smile Now As Israelis warmly welcomed the new arrivals at the airport on Monday morning, the yeshiva boys' organizer summed up the situation when he told his charges: ''The most important thing is to smile at them because you know they are coming and are going to have a lot of trouble. So smile now.'' But despite the smiles at the airport, Israel is involved in an angry internal argument over the resentment many people feel about the Government's efforts to find jobs for all the Soviet newcomers while thousands of longtime residents remain unemployed. The nation's unemployment rate stands at 9.1 percent. Early this month, the Government started a classic Israeli political quarrel when it issued statistics showing that nearly half a million of the country's 4.5 million citizens are now living below the poverty line, $390 a month for a family of two. With that news, the daily newspaper Yediot Aharonot wrote: ''Things that were whispered under the surface are beginning to burst through. A surge of Russian immigrants is about to arrive, and at least a few residents of the Jewish state, it is now clear, don't want them.'' Mr. Dinitz and others suggest that the arrival of well-trained Soviet immigrants will help the Israeli economy. But that could take years. And in the short term, at the airport, the newcomers have little idea what awaits them. Mr. Finkelstein said he may not know much about Judaism, ''but I know how to work. ''I know if people want to work, then this country will find us jobs.

1993: As a closely watched target date came and went with no change in the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin suggested today that there could be still further delays in withdrawing Israel's soldiers and introducing Palestinian self-rule.

1997(15th of Kislev, 5758): Musical comedy “second banana” Stubby Kaye, passed away. Two of his more famous film credits were “Guys and Dolls” and “Cat Baliou.”

1997: The New York Times book section included a review of Gloria Steinem by Sydney Ladensohn Stern

1998: President Clinton stood witness as hundreds of Palestinian leaders renounced a call for the destruction of Israel. Based on what has happened since then, the deeds did not match the word.

1998(25th of Kislev, 5759): First Day of Chanukah

1998(25th of Kislev, 5759): Actor Norman Fell passed away.

1998(25th of Kislev, 5759): Annette Strauss, the former Mayor of Dallas, passed away
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1999: U.S. and German negotiators agreed to establish a $5.2 billion fund for Nazi-era slaves and forced laborers.

2000: Marty Glickman underwent heart bypass surgery

2000: The International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation presented the Raoul Wallenberg 2000 Award. This award, which is being offered for the first time, was presented to Oscar Vicente, CEO of Perez Companc Holding and Peter Landelius, Swedish Ambassador to Argentina. This new distinction was created with the purpose of recognizing the exemplary conduct of individuals with rectitude and outstanding performance in their respective occupations as well as their thorough and continuous support of non-governmental organizations.

2001: In what some considered an unusual turn of events, the men who gathered for the funeral of a local boy killed by a Palestinian attack spoke little about revenge or military reprisals. Instead the talk was about God's mysterious ways and about what many saw as a divine signal that Jews had strayed from their faith in their own land.

2003: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or about subjects of Jewish interest including Unsettled: An Anthropology of the Jews by Melvin Konner and The Conspiracy Club by Jonathan Kellerman,.

2004: Gary Shaprio reviews Ron Rubin’s book on the New York City Marathon's co-founder, Anything for a T-Shirt: Fred Lebow and the New York City Marathon, the World's Greatest Footrace .The book - the first biography of Lebow - has been published on the 10th anniversary of his death.

2005(13th of Kislev, 5766): Dr. Herman Roiphe, a psychoanalyst who explored the notion of sexual identity in early childhood development, passed away in Manhattan at the age of 81. The cause was a heart attack, his family said. Working with another researcher, Dr. Eleanor Galenson, Dr. Roiphe (pronounced ROY-fee) drew on his clinical practice and time spent with children in nurseries to refine existing Freudian notions of when children begin their psychosexual development.Their research resulted in an important book, "Infantile Origins of Sexual Identity" (1981), which showed that "sexual awareness starts earlier than what Freud had held, and that by 18 months of age children start feeling the differences between boys and girls," said Dr. Leon Hoffman, a psychoanalyst and director of the Pacella Parent Child Center of the New York Psychoanalytic Institute. Dr. Roiphe and his wife, Anne, a novelist, collaborated later on a popular book, "Your Child's Mind" (1985). The book looked at mental health aspects of divorce, spanking and toilet training, and explained possible causes and therapies for autism and child psychoses. It focused on children up to age 10, and was an effort to summarize and place into context many conditions that Dr. Roiphe considered to have been obscured by academic jargon. Herman Roiphe was born in Brooklyn, and earned his undergraduate and medical degrees at Columbia. After training at Yale and the New York Psychoanalytic Institute, he became an assistant professor of psychiatry at the Albert Einstein Medical College at Yeshiva University, from 1967 to 1978. That year he was named an associate professor of psychiatry at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, and remained there until this month.
2005(13th of Kislev, 5766): Nathalie Babel Brown, a daughter of Isaac Babel, the illustrious Russian-Jewish storyteller of the Soviet era, whose literary work she edited, died in Washington at the age of 76. Ms. Babel Brown was the editor of "The Complete Works of Isaac Babel" (Norton, 2002), which collected his writings - stories and sketches, journalism, Soviet propaganda, diaries and even screenplays, all previously available only in partial collections. The first complete English edition, it featured new translations by Peter Constantine. Ms. Babel Brown and her mother, a Soviet citizen, survived the deprivations and dangers of being Jews during the German occupation of France. Ms. Babel Brown graduated from the Sorbonne and came to New York in 1961 to teach French at Barnard College.

2006: Haaretz reported that The Philatelic Service of the Israel Postal Authority launched a new stamp in memory of former foreign minister Abba Eban, who died in 2002, and was for many years considered Israel's most prominent diplomat. He was born in South Africa in 1915, studied at the University of Cambridge, in England, and in 1950 was appointed Israel's ambassador to the U.S. Eban served as foreign minister from 1966-74 and played a critical role in the formulation of UN Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338. He retired from political life in 1988. The stamp, which was first issued in September, was officially launched at a ceremony at the Foreign Ministry. Among those attending were Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, Eban's widow Suzie and his nephew, Tourism Minister Isaac Herzog.” Just as in the United States where some of the finest leaders do not win the Presidency, in Israel, Eban never served as Prime Minister. In the 1950’s when the newly created Jewish state was struggling to find friends and create an international identity, Eban was a one-man p.r. blitz for Israel in the United States. While serving at the UN and as Ambassador in Washington, his urbane, educated wit projected an image that Americans – Jew and non-Jew alike- found appealing. Every time he opened his mouth, out came those round English tones and everybody was amazed that Israelis sounded just like the hero of World War II, Winston Churchill.

2006: The Jerusalem Post reported that Ha’eda, the official organ of th fiercely anti-Zionist Eda haharedit, characterized those Jews attending the Teheran Holocaust denial conference as a ‘tiny group of insane people, who are liable to incited hatred agiainst hareidi Jews.’ The paper’s editor lambasted them for having ignored the ‘opinion of Torah Sages’ in pursuit of their distorted anti-Zionist zealotry.

2006: In Boston, The Improv Asylum presents its new production, "Andy Warhol's Christmas Special, or, How Hanukkah Stole Christmas." It's a story narrated by Andy Warhol about a sick, young Jewish woman who makes a wish for Hanukkah to replace Christmas. Sadly, it comes true.

2007(5th of Tevet, 5768): Seventy-two year old Hank Kaplan, an American boxing historian and writer who was the founder and editor of Boxing Digest, passed away today, at his home in Florida.

2007: In New York City The 92nd Street Y School of Music presents a recital by pianist Laura Barg as part of its series of one-hour faculty concerts in the Weill Art Gallery.

2007: The Washington (D.C.) Jewish Community Center continues “Theater J,” its successful series of informal play readings, with a presentation from “Forgiveness” by David Schulner, directed by Daniella Topol, featuring Tim Getman, Conrad Feininger, Helen Hedman, Kimberly Gilbert and Julia Proctor.

2008: Final performance of The Czechoslovak-American Marionette Theater production of “The Very Sad Story of Ethel & Julius, Lovers and Spies, and About Their Untimely End While Sitting in a Small Room at the Correctional Facility in Ossining New York.”

2008: In Washington, D.C., the 3rd Shalshelet International Festival continues for its second and final day when the composers and performers will provide a day of free creative workshops beginning at 10:00 am, also at the Sixth & I historic Synagogue.

2008: At the Chabad House in Little Rock, AR, Rabbi Pinchas Ciment facilitates the beginning of the writing of a Sefer Torah as part of this special year of Hakhel. . This momentous occasion will take place as Mrs. Ruth Itzkowitz will be celebrating her 90th birthday and is being partially underwritten by the Itzkowitz family in loving memory of Bob Itzkowitz (obm).

2008: The Washington Post book section featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or on topics uniquely related to the Jewish people including The Alchemy of Air: A Jewish Genius, a Doomed Tycoon, and the Scientific Discovery That Fed the World but Fueled the Rise of Hitler by Thomas Hager, Jewish Pirates of the Caribbean by Edward Kritzler and American Priestess: The Extraordinary Story of Anna Spafford and the American Colony in Jerusalem by Jane Fletcher Geniesse.

2008: Funeral services are held for Holocaust Survivor and long time resident of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Ann Gilbert (Chana Zylberstajn) at Tempe Judah with burial at Eben Israel Cemetary.

2008: Avraham Infeld, President of the Chais foundation confirmed today that the California-based foundation that doles out about $12 million per year was forced to close as a result of the securities scheme orchestrated by Bernard Madoff, The Chais Family Foundation, which gives away approximately $12.5 million annually to Jewish causes in Israel, the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, closed Sunday because all of its assets were invested with Madoff. The United Jewish Communities and the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee were among its main beneficiaries.

2009(27 Kislev): On the Jewish calendar, Yahrzeit of Harvey David Luber. He will always be missed and never be forgotten.

2009: The Center for Jewish History, American Sephardi Federation and Center for Traditional Music and Dance present: “Ilyas Malayev: Remembering the Poet Laureate of the Bukharian Jews.” Born in 1936 Ilyas Malayev “was an immensely popular musician across Uzbekistan, deeply loved by the Bukharian Jewish community. He was a master of the Central Asian classical music cycles known as "Shash maqâm," and a major innovator of traditional forms through his musical compositions, poetry and theatrical works.” The evening’s program includes a discussion led by Walter Zev Feldman and Evan Rapport with a special performance of Malayev's compositions by Ochil Ibragimov.

2009: Gary Schmitt and Washington Post columnist David Ignatius take part in a discussion of "The Essential Herman Kahn: In Defense of Thinking" with one of the book's editors, Kenneth Weinstein, at the Hudson Institute in Washington, D.C.

2009: Israel's top-ranked player won the 2009 Chess World Cup. Boris Gelfand, a grand master from Rishon LeZion, defeated former world champion Ruslan Ponomariov of Ukraine in a playoff today in the Russian town of Khanty-Mansiysk to take the $120,000 top prize. Gelfand, 41, was the No. 1 seed among 128 players in the event, which had a prize pool of $1.6 million. Ranked sixth in the world, Gelfand is now eligible to compete in the 2010 World Championships as one of the eight best players in the world. He immigrated to Israel from Belarus in 1998.

2010: The Historic 6th & I Synagogue is scheduled to present “Food for Thought: Digesting Ethics, Mysticism, and Philosophy” with Rabbi Yosef Edelstein of MesorahDC

2010: In New York, the YIVO is scheduled to present a program entitled “Ukrainian-Jewish Relations in the Aftermath of the Schwarzbard Trial.”

2010: In Hawaii, The Kahului Union Church is scheduled to host a program entitled “A Voice for Israel” featuring Nora Finberg the wife of Pastor Robb Finberg of Grace Church in Pukalani.

2010: Today Israeli officials canceled a ceremony planned to honor the Palestinian firemen who assisted in battling the Carmel fire last week, after a number of crew members were refused permits to cross the border. Palestinian Fire Services Commander Ahmed Rizik said that he and his staff were surprised to learn when they arrived at the checkpoint that only seven out of the 10 fireman would be granted entry into Israel, although all of them had been allowed in at the time of the disaster."There is no logical reason and I don't know what the catalyst was, but unfortunately we could not make it, and therefore the event has been postponed to a later date," he said.The Israel Defense Forces said that the permits were denied due to a bureaucratic mistake, explaining that the list of names was processed without the firefighters' identification numbers attached. The army said it was now working on getting the honorees the correct permits. Israeli Arab MK Ahmed Tibi deemed the incident a "not just a march of folly or a theater of the absurd but stupidity and the normative lordly attitude of the occupation regime." "This is a complete shame," he added. The Palestinian Authority said in response that it had sent its firefighters out of "humane responsibility" and could not understand why those who risked their lives were now refused entry into Israel. "It's not clear how the same firefighters who got permits to go out and help snuff the fire now are now refused permits to their honoring ceremony," said the PA. "We did this despite the occupation because it was our humane duty," it added. "We knew the occupation would still be here after our assistance." Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad had called President Shimon Peres less than a day after the fire began to offer the aid of Palestinian firefighting teams. The fire in which 43 Israelis were killed, ravaging forests outside the port of Haifa, caught Israel without enough firefighting equipment, and forced Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to seek foreign help from about a dozen countries.

2010: It was reported today that Former White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel is off to an early lead in the race for Chicago mayor, but there is plenty of room for other contenders in the crowded field as the fluid contest takes shape, a new Tribune/WGN poll found. Emanuel had the support of 32 percent of voters, just ahead of 30 percent who were undecided, making him the only candidate in double-digits with more than two months before the Feb. 22 city election. He was well short of the outright majority needed to avoid an April runoff between the top two finishers. If elected, Emanuel will be the first Jewish mayor of the Windy City.

2011: Opening session the Union for Reform Judaism Biennial is scheduled to take place today at the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Session in suburban Maryland.

2011: “Yiddle with His Fiddle” is scheduled to be shown today at the Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage in Beachwood, Ohi


Created and Edited by Mitchell Levin; Cedar Rapids, IA melech3@mchsi.com
Copyright; December, 2011; Mitchell A. Levin