This Day, December 21, In Jewish History

December 21 In Jewish History

69: The Senate acknowledged Vespasian as emperor. This marked the end of the so-called The Year of the Four Emperors during which four individuals - Galba, Otho, Vitellius and Vespasian – held the position of imperial leadership. This period of apparent anarchy was very unsettling for the Romans and part of Vespasian’s acceptance as emperor stemmed from the fact that he would be able to provide an imperial heir and stability for the emperor. In Rome and Jerusalem: The Clash of Ancient Civilizations, Martin Goodman ties the destruction of the Temple to the unsettling events of the Year of the Four Emperors and Vespasian’s determination to prove that he could bring order to the Empire.

1140: Conrad III of Germany besieged Weinsberg. Seven years later, Conrad would be one of the leaders of the Second Crusade during which the Jews of Mainz, Cologne and Worms were all attacked.

1375: Italian writer Giovanni Boccaccio passed away. Boccaccio was not Jewish but Jews play an important part in his literary life. Boccaccio wrote about the “corruption and decadence” that were part of the Church in the 14th and 15th centuries. “In his classic work, Decameron, a Jew by the name of Abraham is convinced by a Christian friend to visit Rome in the hope that he will be so impressed that he will convert to Christianity. Abraham returns disgusted and reports: ‘I say this for that, if I was able to observe aright, no piety, no devoutness, no good work or example of life or other what did I see there in any who was Churchman: nay lust, covetise, gluttony and the like and worse ... And as far as I judge, meseemeth your chief pastor and consequently all others endeavor with all diligence and all their wit and every art to bring to naught and to banish from the world the [values of the] Christian religion ...’” Boccaccio and others like him help lay the groundwork for the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century.

1804: Birthdate of Benjamin Disraeli. Disraeli was born Jewish but his father had him baptized. The baptism resulted from a dispute that the father had had with the local Jewish community. The change in religion opened the doors to a political career for Disraeli that resulted in him serving two terms as Prime Minister. Disraeli was the victim of anti-Semitic remarks and was also quite proud of his Jewish heritage. He passed away in 1881.

1828: Birthdate of Albert Cardozo, the Philadelphia native who became a prominent New York State jurist and was the father of Benjamin Cardozo, the second Jew to serve on the U.S Supreme Court.

1859: Birthdate of Gustave Kahn. The French Symbolist poet wrote works on a variety of topics including Zionism. This theme was the inspiration for “Terre d'Israël” published in 1933. He passed away in 1936.

1860: Birthdate of Henrietta Szold, American Jewish leader; founded Hadassah. Among other things she was responsible for the Youth Aliyah that brought European Jews to Palestine before the war and saved them from the final solution. She passed away in 1945, three years before her dream of Jewish state came true

1861: The Congressional Medal of Honor was created at the start of the Civil War. Six Jews were awarded the Medal of Honor during the Civil War.

1863: Mendez Nathan, the son of Seixas Nathan, was one of the signatories of the agreement to form a public stock exchange, to be known as the "Open Board of Stock-Brokers" which was made public today.

1867: The Austrian constitution abolished discrimination based on religious differences. This did not mean the end of anti-Semitism in Austria.

1870: The Hebrew Charity Fair came to a close tonight marking the end of the three week long successful fund raising event. The fair raised almost $155,000 which will divided between Mount Sinai Hospital and the Hebrew Orphan Asylum. The hospital will get 75% of the money and the orphanage will get 25% The funds will enable Mount Sinai to complete its new hospital and the orphanage to build a new industrial school.

1872: It was reported today that the human remains found on the shore of Oneida Lake in New York were not those of a farmer named Blodgett but were probably those of Jewish peddler who was known to carry large amount of money when he travelled through this area. It is thought that the peddler was attacked by a local gang and killed during the robbery

1876: The Hebrew Charity Ball took place tonight at the Academy of Music. The ball is a fundraiser for the United Hebrew Charities, an organization devoted to taking care of the poor Jews of New York that has been so successful it is a model for similar non-Jewish organizations. Last year the ball raised more than $13,000.

1878(25th of Kislev, 5639): First day of Chanukah

1879: Birthdate of Joseph Stalin. As head of the Communist Party and Prime Minister of the Soviet Union Stalin gave vent to his anti-Semitic beliefs on more than one occasion. At the same time he was the head of the Soviet nation that fought the Nazis and whose forces liberated several concentration camps. His decision to recognize the state of Israel at the moment of its birth may be been one of the facts that prodded the U.S. to take the lead in the recognition race. Also, Stalin’s support of Israel at its moment of birth, made it possible for Israel to acquire much needed arms in Communist dominated Eastern Europe, including the first combat aircraft of the IDF. This may be one an example of the Rabbinic admonition that Yetzer Ha-Rah (the evil inclination) can produce a positive result.

1883: The first Permanent Force cavalry and infantry regiments of the Canadian Army were formed. According to the Jewish Canadian Military Museum “members of the Jewish community have participate in every significant conflict that has involved Canada” since 1759 when Jews fought in the forces of General James Wolfe. These conflicts have included the Boer War, World War I, World War II, the Korean War and various “peacekeeping activities” since 1953.

1890: Birthdate of Hermann Joseph Muller. His method for recognizing spontaneous gene mutation led to his discovery of a technique for artificially inducing mutations by means of X rays that has since had broad theoretical and practical application. For this discovery he was awarded the 1946 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

1903(2nd of Tevet, 5664): 8th and final day of Chanukah

1904: In an article simply entitled “Benjamin Disraeli,” the New York Times takes note of the fact that this date is the exact centenary of the birth of the English statesman. The Times reminds its readers that despite the fact that he had been named Earl of Beaconsfield, he will always be known to posterity by his given name or by the nickname of “Dizzy.”

1906: It was reported today that Dr. Schmarja Levin, a former member of the Duma which has been dissolved by the Czar, had denounced a recent bill promulgated by the Russian Council of Ministers while visiting the New York home of Dr. J. Leon Manges, the Secretary of the Federation of American Zionists. Levin said that the bill did not give the Jews living in the Pale of Settlement any new rights and actually discriminated against Jews living in or trying to do business in other parts of Russia.

1913: It was reported today that the Sisterhood of the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue will holding their annual Chanukah Ball at the Astor.

1914: The first feature-length silent film comedy, "Tillie's Punctured Romance" was released. Charlie Chaplin was one of the three stars in this feature film.

1915: The Board of Directors of the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York has named Dr. Cyrus Adler who is currently President of Dropsie College, as acting President of JTS following the death of Dr. Solomon Schechter.

1919: Emma Goldman, along with 248 other radical "aliens," was deported to the Soviet Union on the S.S. Buford under the 1918 Alien Act, which allowed for the expulsion of any alien found to be an anarchist. Emma Goldman, born in Kovno, Lithuania (then Russia) in 1869, came to the United States in 1885 at age 16. By the time of her deportation, she had made a name for herself as a leading anarchist, public speaker, and crusader for free speech, birth control, and workers' rights. Goldman first became interested in radical politics in Russia, where she came into contact with populists and political organizers. In the U.S., she was disappointed to learn that instead of streets paved in gold, workers were subject to gross economic inequality and inhuman working conditions. The defining moment for Goldman came in 1886, when eight anarchist radicals were convicted, on flimsy evidence, of setting off a bomb at Chicago's Haymarket rally causing a riot in which several police officers were killed. Convinced of the defendants' innocence, Goldman resolved to learn all she could about anarchism, and soon became active in the anarchist movement. Unfortunately for Goldman, the decades of the late 19th and early 20th centuries were difficult ones in which to be an anarchist in America. Federal anti-anarchist laws restricted Goldman's ability to give public speeches and subjected her to frequent harassment and arrests. Still, she had a profound influence on American political activism. Mother Earth, the journal she founded in 1906 and ran until 1917, provided an outlet for the writings of radical thinkers. Roger Baldwin, who heard Goldman speak on free speech in 1908, went on to found the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). Margaret Sanger, a prominent birth control activist, looked on Goldman as her mentor. Although Goldman was not a pacifist, she believed that governments had no right to wage war, and actively opposed U.S. involvement in World War I. She argued that the war was an imperialist venture that aided capitalists at the expense of workers. When the U.S. entered the war in 1917, her anti-conscription activism was considered a threat to national security, and she spent 18 months in federal prison. On her release, she was immediately re-arrested and sentenced to deportation under the 1918 Alien Act, which authorized the deportation of any alien found to be an anarchist. At first excited by the chance to see the workers' republic of Soviet Russia, Goldman was soon disillusioned by the Bolshevik regime. Barred from returning to the U.S., she spent the last two decades of her life wandering through Europe and Canada, giving speeches on radical politics. When she died in Toronto in May 1940, her body was returned to Chicago, where Goldman was buried near the Haymarket anarchists who had first inspired her.

1922: Birthdate of Paul Winchell. Born in New York, Winchell was an accomplished ventriloquist. During he 1950’s he starred on television with his two “wooden friends” - Jerry Mahoney and Knucklehead Smith.

1923: In Baltimore, MD, Fannie Hirsch Flom and Itak Flom gave birth to Joseph Harold Flom, pioneering corporate lawyer who helped build Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom into one of the nation’s leading law firms. (As reported by Jonathan D. Glater)

1925: Premiere of Eisenstein's movie “Potemkin” in Moscow.

1926: Birthdate of Arnost Lustig, an acclaimed Jewish Czech author who drew on his own harrowing experiences as a teenager in World War II to produce novels and short stories laced with tales of young people who survive the Holocaust. (As reported by Dennis Hevesi)

1928: The New York Philharmonic Symphony performs Gershwin’s “An American in Paris” and Bloch’s “America.”

1930(1st of Tevet, 5691): Rosh Chodesh Tevet

1931: Birthdate of Ysrael Abraham Seinuk, the native of Havana, Cuba, “a structural engineer who made it possible for many of New York City’s tallest new buildings to withstand wind, gravity and even earthquakes.”

1934: Churchill wrote the High Commissioner, Sir Arthur Wauchope, expressing his support for the practice of collective punishment – in the form of fines – aimed at terrorists who burned groves of fruit trees “in a thirsty land.” The fruit trees had been planted by Jewish pioneers; those burning them were Arabs taking part in the armed revolt organized by the Grand Mufti.

1935: The 75th birthday of the pioneering Zionist Henrietta Szold was celebrated with a radio address broadcast across the United States. It included addresses by the President of Hadassah, Rose Jacobs and by the President of the World Zionist Organization, Chaim Weizmann. Hadassah chapters hosted local celebrations and numerous Shabbat sermons across the United States were reportedly devoted to Szold's life story and achievements.

1935: The British High Commissioner announces to Arabs and Jews the British intention of setting up a Legislative Council in Palestine.

1935: Sir Grenfell Wauchope, High Commissioner of Palestine, summoned Arab leaders today and presented to them a memorandum outlining the features of the proposed Legislative Council of Palestine. The preface to the memorandum states that in view of the fact that municipalities are now functioning smoothly the time is ripe for the establishment of the Council.

1936: Helmut Hirsch, the German Jew who actively worked to carry out a plan to murder Hitler was arrested by Gestapo agents in Stuttgart.

1936: Rabbi J.Z. Dushinsky, representing Audath Israel, told the Peel Commission, "The holy Torah has promised the Holy Land to the people of Israel, but is by the very Torah that we are commanded not to occupy the country by force...but we are confident that to the extent that the returning exiles to Zion will fulfill the will of god, as revealed in the torah, and will make the national home the abode of the torah in all branches of economic and cultural endeavor...

Sir Horace Rumbold questioned him:

Q. There should be a proportion of members of Audath Israel employed in the posts and in the railways, but you also object to their working on Saturdays?

A. Yes

Q. do you not see what that leads to?...The railways certainly are an important element in the economic life of the country...do you not thinking that is going to make it rather difficult?

A. They will be run by Arabs on Saturday, by non-Jews. On Saturdays the work can be done by non Jews

1937: In a debate over the visit of Lord Halifax, the British Foreign Secretary, to Berlin, Churchill spoke out against the Nazi treatment of the Jews. “It is a horrible thing that a race of people should be attempted to be blotted out of the society in which they have been born.” He further expressed his fear that the British were negotiating from a point of weakness and that the Halifax meeting would result in German acquiring the Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia.

1938: As British, Zionist and Arab leaders prepared to meet at a conference in London designed to bring the 2 year long Arab uprising end, Lord Halifax, the British Foreign Secretary, stress “that the forthcoming conference…must be co conducted to ensure that the Arab States would be friendly to us.” In other words, the British government was poised to turn its back on the promises of the Balfour Declaration and close Palestine to the Jews.

1939: Hitler named Adolf Eichmann leader of "Referat IV B"

1940: Birthdate of Frank Zappa, composer of the controversial, satirical song “Jewish American Princess.”

1941: immediately after the arrival of the first group of Eretz-Israeli residents who were trapped in Nazi occupied Europe at the outbreak of WW II and who have been exchanged for Germans living in Palestine, Haaretz published a story about a woman who had left Palestine with her daughter before the war to visit her hometown and family in Poland. "Our little town did not even have a cemetery in ordinary times," the unnamed woman was quoted as saying, "but now the Germans have established one, and it contains hundreds of graves of local Jews and of others deported there from the big cities."

1943: Hersz Kurcweig, a Jew, and Stanislaw Dorosiewicz, a non-Jew, escape from Auschwitz after killing an SS guard.

1945: The United States and Great Britain announced that the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry on Palestine will open hearings January 7, 1946.

1946: Arabs in Palestine refuse to pay taxes if money is used for Jewish immigration.

1946: Birthdate of Josh Mostel. Mostel followed in the thespian footsteps of his famous father, Zero Mostel.

1946: Morton Gould's "Minstrel Show" premieres in Indianapolis

1946: Rabbi Jonah B. Wise declared at the centennial celebration of Central Synagogue that "Reform Judaism looks forward to the union of all Jewish religious groups in a great synthesis with freedom for all."

1947: Arabs plan to win full control of Palestine and set up an all-Arab state

1948: Birthdate of Zev Yaroslavsky a Los Angeles County politician who served on the Los Angeles City Council from 1975 until 1994, when he was elected to the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors. He was preceded in both offices by Edmund D. Edelman.

1950: Birthdate of Jeffery Katzenberg. The former head of Walt Disney, Katzenberg produced the car.

1952: Paul Celan married graphic artist Gisèle Lestrange over the opposition of her parents.

1952(3rd of Tevet, 5713): Eliyahu Hacarmeli an early Zionist leader, who served in the first Knesset, passed away.

1952: Shlomo Hillel entered the Knesset today as a replacement for the deceased Eliyahu Hacarmeli.

1952: Near tragedy struck the Sephardic Jewish Brotherhood of America when fire destroyed the headquarters at 1380 Jerome Avenue, Bronx, New York. Fortunately, complete tragedy was averted because of the diligence of some members of the brotherhood residing in the area and who were nearby at the time of the fire. They prevailed upon the firefighters to saturate the office area with water, thus averting any major destruction of the records.

1954: Congregation B’nai Jeshurun marked it 130th anniversary as the second oldest Jewish congregation in New York by staging a Chanukah celebration in its Community Center on West 88th Street. B’nai Jeshurun is the oldest Conservative Congregation in the United States. Rabbi Israel Goldestein opened the festivities by lighting the “torch of freedom” which had been flown to New York from Israel last week

1958(10th of Tevet, 5719): Asara B'Tevet

1959: Shimon Peres, a member of Mapai, began serving as Deputy Defense Minister.

1958(10th of Tevet, 5719): Lion Feuchtwanger, German born American author passed away while living in his Los Angeles. Born in 1884, and writing under the pseudonym, J.L. Wetcheek, Feuchtwanger’s life reads like something out of suspense thriller as he fled Nazi Germany, took refuge in the Soviet Union and France before escaping to the United States under a secret program run by Varian Fry. Of course, he was a significant author in his own right to boot. At the same time, there is something depressingly repetitive about his life – one more European Jew forced to take it on the lamb before finding a final refuge in the United States, England or Israel where he or she then enriches the culture, science or business communities of their place of refuge.

1967(19th of Kislev, 5728): Chabad celebrates

1967(19th of Kislev, 5728): Louis Washkansky, a Lithuanian born Jew and the first man to undergo a heart transplant, dies in Cape Town, South Africa, after living for 18 days after the transplant.

1968(30th of Kislev, 5729): Rosh Chodesh Tevet

1969: Former Chief of Staff Yitzhak Rabin, who was serving was ambassador to the United States, was summoned from Washington to Jerusalem to give his views on an American response to a change in Israeli policy that would include in-depth bombings of Egyptian positions beyond the Nile in response to Nasser’s policy of bombarding Israeli positions.

1971: UN Security Council chose Kurt Waldheim as 4th Secretary General. Naming a former Nazi officer did nothing to engender Israeli or Jewish confidence in the world organization.

1973: Representatives of Israel, Egypt, Syria, Jordan, US and USSR met in Geneva.

1977: The Jerusalem Post reported from Cairo that the Israeli and Egyptian peace negotiating teams were near an agreement on Israel's continued presence along the Jordan River.

1977: The Jerusalem Post reported that 3,700 government employees in the Tel Aviv area would be transferred to Jerusalem.

1979: It was reported today that “12 case of latkes – a donation from Empire Kosher Poultry of Miflin, PA – were delivered earlier this week to Manhattan’s Town Hall, where audiences were offered the potato pancakes and kosher wine after matinees this week of ‘”Rebecca – the Rabbi’s Daughter.’ They were also invited to join in a Chanukah blessing by a leading lady, Mary Soreanu, who is starring in the production at the concert hall – which leads to another reason for the celebration at the hall. The production marks the return to Broadway of Yiddish theatre after a 10-year absence.”

1979(1st of Tevet, 5740): Rosh Chodesh Tevet

1987(30th of Kislev, 5748):Rosh Chodesh Tevet

1988: Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir's agreement on a new coalition government with the Labor Party barely survived a challenge early today from hard-line members of his own Likud party led by Ariel Sharon.

1988: An Israeli court today postponed a lawsuit by the Bankers Trust Company of New York to break up troubled Koor Industries, Israel's largest industrial concern, over a $20 million debt. The Tel Aviv district court judge rejected Koor's request to have the suit dismissed but agreed to delay the hearing for five weeks. He ruled that Koor would be allowed to continue normal operations until the next court session, Jan. 22. The decision had the effect of reopening vital credit lines from local banks, closed under Israeli law since Bankers Trust filed the suit on Oct. 9. Koor, which reported a record loss for 1987 of $250 million, owes foreign banks $405 million. Bankers Trust is the largest foreign creditor, with $135 million in outstanding loans.

1989: In an article entitled “Deserted Synagogue of 1919 Sets Off Boston Tug-of-War” Constance L. Hays described the struggle over the fate of the Hub City’s Vilna Shul.

The Vilna Shul is tucked on a side street along the north slope of Beacon Hill, where generations of immigrants clung to life in a cold new world. Now the synagogue itself stands deserted in what has become a fashionable neighborhood of expensive town houses. Nearly all its former members have fled to a more comfortable life in the suburbs, and its congregation has been dissolved. What is left is a battle over what to do with the 70-year-old synagogue, one of a handful remaining in a city that once had more than 50. In 1919 the immigrants from Vilna in Lithuania completed the synagogue, a small brick building with a stained-glass Star of David over the door and an eagle, the symbol of America, topping the hand-carved ark that held the Torah. There are those who wish to preserve the building as a monument to the faithful of the past. And there are others who want the building sold and the proceeds shared between the Charles River Park Synagogue, the only other Orthodox synagogue in Boston, and charities in Israel. Under state law, proceeds from charities that are dissolved typically go to a similar charity. A neighborhood group has proposed converting the building to a cultural center with commercial offices on the first floor and keeping the sanctuary on the second floor. Last week the group won local landmark status for the building, although the group is not sure it will be able to buy it. The building has been valued at $750,000 or more. The president of the Charles River Park Synagogue, Allan Green, objected to the action on landmark status. ''This is an unconstitutional procedure that they've gone through,'' he said, citing freedom of religion. ''We feel that designating this shell of a building is really to no fruitful purpose.'' Mr. Green said the building should be sold without landmark status, which devalues it significantly, with most of the proceeds going to his synagogue. ''We have need of funds,'' he said. 'It's Not High Style' Thomas W. Porter, the lawyer for Charles River Park. said, ''The proceeds should go to the living faith.'' Others are equally emphatic about the need to preserve the Vilna Shul. ''What you see is a clear expression of religious impulses at a specific period of time,'' said Stanley Smith, the executive director of Historic Boston Inc., a nonprofit group that has recommended preserving it. ''It's not high style, not one of the great monuments of architecture that you would travel miles to see. It's like many of the early meetinghouses and churches that are highly representative of the immigrants who built them.'' Cynthia Wall, who lives across the street from the synagogue, has petitioned the city to grant landmark status to the building's interior. Another neighbor, Estelle Shohet Brettman, said she distributed fliers urging residents to support landmark status. ''There is a very understandable emotional attachment to this building,'' said Bernard Wax, director of the American Jewish Historical Society in nearby Waltham. which has no official position on the dispute. But he added, ''We have no record of any important event ever taking place at that congregation,'' and he said the synagogue was not the magnet for the community some say it was. Most of the historic houses of worship preserved in Boston are Protestant, like the Old South Church and the Old North Church. About 125 years ago neighbors banded together to save the Old South Church from a developer, Mr. Smith said. ''What we're proposing is a repetition of history, but this time for another religious group,'' he added. A receiver has been appointed to oversee what happens to the building, said Richard C. Allen, chief of the Division of Public Charities in the State Attorney General's Office. ''It's up to the court receiver to handle the sale,'' he said. As the debate continues, the building's expenses, mostly legal fees and maintenance, keep mounting. ''Last year a gentleman proposed demolishing it and putting up a parking garage,'' Ms. Wall said. ''We felt it was so important in the cultural and social history of the city that it should be preserved.''

1991: El Sayid Nosair was acquitted of killing Meir Kahane.

1992(26th of Kislev, 5753): Ukrainian born violinist Nathan Milstein passed away.

1992(26th of Kislev, 5753): Actress Stella Adler passed away. Born in 1902, Stella Adler was the daughter of the famous actor, Jacob Adler. Hers was an acting family. In 1939 there were 15 fifteen members of the Adler family contributing to the Yiddish Theater and the Group Theater in New York.

1995: Israel barred entry today to seven American Jews, including a New York rabbi whom the Government considers to be a security risk in light of the assassination last month of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. The Interior Ministry said Rabbi Abraham Hecht, 73, of New York, had given a religious justification for the killing of Mr. Rabin only months before it occurred -- though he later apologized in a letter to Mr. Rabin days before the assassination. The ministry said today that the six other American Jews had been linked to illegal activities in Israel, had backed groups outlawed in Israel or had been active in the Jewish Defense League, which was founded by Rabbi Meir Kahane, an anti-Arab activist who was assassinated in New York. "All of these people have a criminal past, could endanger the public order or endanger national security," Interior Minister Haim Ramon said. As a result, they would be barred from entering the country or being granted immigrant status, he said. The names of the six others were not immediately available, nor was it clear whether Mr. Ramon's statement was a preventive move or whether the seven had actually been turned back by immigration control. Under Israeli law, a foreigner whose mother is Jewish can become a new immigrant and claim Israeli citizenship. "The files of these people were considered over a long period by security officials and the state prosecutor, who unanimously recommended I exercise my authority," Mr. Ramon told the Israeli radio. Israeli officials pledged to crack down on extremists after the assassination of Mr. Rabin on Nov. 4 by Yigal Amir, a religious Jew opposed to Israel's handing over control of the West Bank to Palestinians. Within days of the assassination, the Interior Ministry put into effect a policy banning Jews identifying with Jewish "terrorist" groups, announcing it would prevent the entry of an activist in Rabbi Kahane's Kach movement, which is outlawed here. In a speech in June, Rabbi Hecht talked of the "illegality" of turning land in the West Bank over to Palestinian control. And citing the teachings of Maimonides, he said killing those who endangered Israel was justified. In remarks widely quoted in the American Jewish press, Rabbi Hecht cited religious law that allows a person to be killed for handing over Jewish people or property to an alien people -- apparently a reference to Mr. Rabin's deal with the P.L.O. giving Palestinians self-rule in the West Bank. After Mr. Rabin's killing, Rabbi Hecht was suspended from his synagogue in Brooklyn for six months, though he maintains that the message of his speeches was distorted.

1995: The city of Bethlehem passed from Israeli to Palestinian control as part of the peace process begun at Oslo. Unfortunately there was no peace to go with the process.

1996(11th of Tevet, 5757): Margaret Rey passed away at Cambridge

1997: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Bible As It Was by James L. Kugel and Barney’s Version by Mordecai Richler.

1999: Shortly before the end of his term as Mayor of Philadelphia, Ed Rendell resigned to take up the chairmanship of the Democratic National Committee (DNC

2000: Four Israeli soldiers were injured when a Palestinian rammed a truck into a West Bank checkpoint.

2001(6th of Tevet, 5762): Sport’s journalist Dick Schaap passed away.

2003: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or about subjects of Jewish interest including There Are Jews In My House by Lara Vapnyar, Sephard by Antonio Muñoz Molina; translated by Margaret Sayers Peden, Wise Men and Their Tales: Portraits of Biblical, Talmudic, and Hasidic Masters by Elie Wiesel and The Roaring Twenties: A New History of the World's Most Prosperous Decade by Joseph E. Stiglitz.

2006: The annual report put out by Israel's intelligence agencies was presented to the prime minister prior to discussion of it by the security cabinet. Olmert heard the assessments of representatives of the Shin Bet security service, Military Intelligence and the Mossad concerning the Palestinian Authority, the Iranian threat and the situation along the northern border. Defense Minister Amir Peretz also attended the meeting with the intelligence officials.

2006: In Boston, JDub records and Heeb magazine cohost a "Jewltide Hanukkah Bash" at T.T. the Bear's. Headliners are the LeeVees, a duo featuring Adam Gardner (of Guster) and Dave Schneider (of the Zambonis), whose songs include "How Do You Spell Channukkahh" and "Goyim Friends," a tune about gentile pals. The show also features Golem, SoCalled, and Shtreiml

2007: Today Shari Ellin Redstone, president of National Amusements, vice-chairman of CBS Corporation and Viacom, became chairman of Midway Games (a position she would subsequently relinquish in December 2008 when her father Sumner Redstone sold all his stock in the company). Through National Amusements, Shari Redstone and her family are majority owners of CBS Corporation, Viacom, et al.She is the daughter of Sumner Redstone and Phyllis Gloria Raphael, sister of Brent Redstone, granddaughter of Michael Redstone (who changed his name from Michael Rothstein), and a 1975 Bachelor of Science graduate of Tufts University. She also received her law degrees at The Boston University School of Law in 1978 (LLB) and in 1980 (LLM). She has three children with her former husband, Grand Rabbi Yitzhak Aharon Korff. The marriage ended in divorce.

2007: President Shimon Peres apologized for the Kafr Kasim massacre of 1956, in which Border Police officers killed 48 of the village's residents. "A terrible event happened here and we are very sorry for it," Peres said. On October 29, 1956, a Border Police platoon shot and killed 48 unarmed Arab civilians in the village of Kafr Kasim east of Petah Tikva because the residents were unknowingly in violation of a curfew imposed on the village due to the onset of the Sinai Campaign. The subsequent trial and conviction of the border policemen created a legal precedent that determined that certain military orders - such as those to shoot unarmed curfew violators - are so manifestly illegal that they must be disobeyed. "Religion must be separated from violence. We are all sons of the same god, who didn't give us permission to murder, humiliate or oppress any human-being," Peres added. Sheikh Abdullah Nimr Darwish, the founder of Israel's Islamic Movement, who was hosting Peres in Kafr Kasim, called on religious leaders from both sides to help build a peaceful connection between the Israeli and the Palestinian people.

2008: Opening session of the AJS (Association for Jewish Studies) 40th Annual Conference in Washington, D.C.

2008: Dr. Rafael Medoff, director of the David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies will present research at the annual conference of the Association for Jewish Studies in Washington, demonstrating that while some American Jewish leaders such as Rabbi Stephen Wise were firmly pro-British and opposed aliya on the eve of the Holocaust, others including Louis Brandeis recognized the need for emergency measures to rescue Jews from Europe and were willing to take a more hard-line position, Louis Brandeis, the first Jewish US Supreme Court justice, supported illegal Jewish immigration to Mandatory Palestine in the late 1930s, in defiance of British policy, new research by a Holocaust historian shows. Brandeis, who was appointed to the Supreme Court by President Woodrow Wilson in 1916 and served until 1939, was a leader of the American Zionist movement in the 1910s and early 1920s. Even after he resigned from the bench, Brandeis remained extremely influential in the movement and was repeatedly consulted by both Wise and other Zionist leaders. A newly uncovered memo composed by the Zionist leadership's chief representative in Washington on July 31, 1939, shows that Brandeis actively supported aliya in defiance of British policy as outlined in the May 1939 White Paper that severely limited the immigration of Jews to then British-run Palestine. "Speaking on the question of the immigration he [Brandeis] said that Jews would continue to immigrate regardless of the White Paper," the letter written by Isadore Breslau reads. "When someone suggested that it was illegal, he said that the Jewish people considered it legal in view of the fact that any attempt to curtail immigration was in violation of the terms of the Mandate; that it may be considered illegal by Great Britain, but that we Jews considered it to be legal." The letter reveals that the widely respected jurist, who had just retired after nearly a quarter century on the court, held views on Jewish immigration to the Land of Israel that were in direct opposition to those of the British government, the Roosevelt administration and mainstream American Jewish groups and leaders. "It is remarkable that a Supreme Court justice, who spent his whole career upholding the law, urged breaking the laws of America's closest ally, England," Medoff said. "Brandeis recognized how desperate the situation of Europe's Jews really was, and the need for extraordinary measures - something that too many of the established leaders were incapable of understanding. "For Brandeis, the law ultimately was not just words on a piece of paper, but had to relate meaningfully to real life. "A law that doomed innocent Jews to their deaths could not be truly legal, not in the sense that Brandeis understood the law - and the campaign of taking Jews out of the Nazi inferno and smuggling them to freedom and safety, could not be illegal," he said. Brandeis died in 1941.

2008: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including American Therapy: The Rise of Psychotherapy in the United States by Jonathan Engel and The Hanukah Mice by Steven Kroll; Illustrated by Michelle Shapiro.

200824th of Kislev, 5769): In the evening, kindle the first Chanukah Candle

2008: A British tourist working in an archaeological dig in Jerusalem today unearthed a treasure of 264 gold coins from 1,300 years ago. Archaeologists called the find "one of the most impressive deposits ever found in the capital." The coins were found by Nadine Ross, who came to Israel for one month to volunteer at the archaeological site at the City of David. They all carry the portrait of the Roman emperor Heraclius, who ruled the empire between 610 and 641. On one side of the coins, Heraclius is depicted wearing a uniform while clasping a cross in his right hand. The flipside of the coin also features the sign of the cross. According to archaeological records, these coins were made during the early years of Heraclius' rule, between 610 and 613 - one year before the 614 Persian conquest of Jerusalem. The two Israel Antiquities Authority archaeologists who oversaw the dig, Doron Ben-Ami and Yana Tchekhanovets, say they believe the cache was placed inside a hidden niche inside the wall of a building. "When the building collapsed, the coins would have been buried in the rubble," proposed Ben-Ami, who added that his diggers have found no signs to suggest that the treasure was placed in a clay pot, as was customary in that time. However, the two researchers say they cannot make an educated guess as to why the building collapsed and whether this happened during the Persian takeover. The Antiquities Authority began digging in the area two years ago, together with the Israel Nature and Parks Authority and with funding from the Ir David Foundation - a non-profit organization dedicated to the preservation and development of the Biblical City of David and its environs. Since then, the site near Henyon Giva'ati has produced a number of notable finds. Earlier this year, for example, the site yielded a remarkably well-preserved golden earring tasseled with pearls and precious stones. Like the coin treasure, the earring was found inside the remains of an impressive structure dated to the seventh century which diggers are gradually unearthing. It is believed that the building was built in the twilight of the Byzantine era in the land of Israel, which began in 324 and ended in 638. Alternatively, it could also have been built in the early days of the Umayyad Caliphate, which reigned in this part of the world from 661 to 750.

2009: Theatre Company Jerusalem presents "The King and the Magician," a tale of a soothsayer king, Balak ben Zippor, and a great magician, Bilam ben Beor. This is unique adaptation of the Biblical story, for children - story about curses and their disadvantages and blessings and their advantages.

2009: Habima Theatre presents "His Whole Life Ahead of Him," a new adaptation of Roman Gary's novel Emil Ajar.

2009: Today archaeologists unveiled what may have been the home of one of Jesus’ childhood neighbors. The humble dwelling is the first dating to the era of Jesus to be discovered in Nazareth, then a hamlet of around 50 impoverished Jewish families where Jesus spent his boyhood. Archaeologist Stephen Pfann, president of the University of The Holy Land, noted: “It’s the only witness that we have from that area that shows us what the walls and floors were like inside Nazareth in the first century.” Pfann was not involved in the dig.

2009: Polish police detained five men today for stealing the metal sign that hung over Auschwitz, the former Nazi death, and said they were common thieves not neo-Nazis.

2009: In article published in Sports Illustrated entitled “Welcome the King of Israel,” Lee Jenkins describes the life of “Sacramento rookie Omri Casspi, the first Israeli to play in the NBA” who is “a modern extension of the league’s Jewish roots.”

2010: Rabbi Yosef Edelstein of MesorahDC is scheduled to lead “Food for Thought: Digesting Ethics, Mysticism, and Philosophy” at the Historic 6th & I Synagogue in Washington, DC.

2010: Dulce Pontes, the famous Fado singer from Portugal, is scheduled to appear in Tel Aviv.

2010: A Qassam rocket struck the Ashkelon beach early today exploding in an open field near a kindergarten and lightly wounded a a teenage girl in a nearby building. The girl, who was cut by flying glass in the shower, was treated by Magen David Adom paramedics and then taken to hospital for further evaluation; two other people, include a propane delivery man, were suffering from shock. A number of buildings in the area sustained light damage. "We were lucky," said Ilan Goldsmith, community manager at Kibbutz Zikim, where the rocket hit. "It exploded at quarter to eight this morning, the exact time when parents are bringing their children in." The Palestinian-made Qassam rocket corkscrewed into the kibbutz, he said, exploding on a shady path about 10 meters (30 feet) from the kindergarten and two adjacent nursery buildings for the under-three year olds. There were about 10 children already on the grounds when the rocket struck, said a teacher at the kindergarten. "I quickly got out of my car, ignoring the siren to help the children. I gathered them together and kept them busy," she said. Residents of the area had felt that a strike could be imminent recently, she said. "The doors are always open and the children are not allowed to leave the area," she said. "We are very strict about that." Responsibility for today's rocket attack was claimed by a group calling itself the Army of Islam, which has the same "global jihad" ideology as the Al- Qaida movement. It said it was responding "to the massacres committed by the Zionist enemy." Some 13 rockets have struck the western Negev over the last two days. The Israel Air Force carried out a series of air strikes in the Gaza Strip overnight Tuesday in response to the rise in attack. Two militants were wounded in the strikes, which hit a Hamas training camp, smuggling tunnels along Gaza's border with Egypt, and other unpopulated areas, Hamas officials and witnesses said. "The IDF holds the Hamas terrorist organization solely responsible for maintaining the calm in the Gaza Strip and for any terrorist activity emanating from it. The IDF will also continue to respond harshly to any attempt to use terror against the State of Israel," said the Israel Defense Forces in a statement.

2010: A high-level priest on the morning show of the largest television station in Greece blamed world Jewry for Greece's financial problems on today. The Metropolite of Piraeus Seraphim also blamed world Jewry for other ills in the country during his appearance on Mega TV. Mixing Freemasons with Jewish bankers such as Baron Rothschild and world Zionism, the Metropolite said that there is a conspiracy to enslave Greece and Christian Orthodoxy. He also accused international Zionism of trying to destroy the family unit by promoting one-parent families and same-sex marriages. Thirteen minutes into the program the Greek host asked the Metropolite, "Why do you disagree with Hitler's policies? If they are doing all this, wasn't he right in burning them?" The Metropolite answered, "Adolf Hitler was an instrument of world Zionism and was financed from the renowned Rothschild family with the sole purpose of convincing the Jews to leave the shores of Europe and go to Israel to establish the new Empire." Jews such as "Rockefeller, Rothschild and Soros control the international banking system that controls globalization," the Metropolite also said. The Metropolite of Piraeus Seraphim is not the only Greek priest with such extreme ideas, as Salonika's Metropolite Anthimos also has preached similar ideas from his pulpit. "Watching and listening to the program, I felt disgust hearing the Metropolite of Piraeus expressing himself like that against world Zionism, and shamelessly saying that Hitler with the help of Jewish bankers did what he did," said Benjamin Albala, president of the Athens Jewish community.

2010(14th of Tevet, 5771): Marcia Lewis, an actress and singer known for bringing a comic brassiness to Broadway revivals of “Grease” and “Chicago,” died today in Nashville. She was 72. A sturdy woman with a trumpet of a voice that she could muster to comically piercing effect, Ms. Lewis came to prominence late in her performing life, when she was already in her 50s. She earned her first Broadway credit in the original production (though not the original cast) of “Hello, Dolly!” She subsequently led the respectable career of a character actress for three decades, appearing in television sitcoms, occasional films and theater productions on and Off Broadway. Then, in 1994, she landed a role in a revival of the hit 1972 musical “Grease.”The revival, which also starred Rosie O’Donnell, was roundly scorned by critics but lasted four years, and Ms. Lewis was nominated for a Tony Award as best featured actress for her performance as Miss Lynch, the crabby old-maid English teacher. In 1996 she was in the opening-night cast of the long-running Broadway hit “Chicago,” which began life as part of the “Encores!” series of musicals in concert. (The original “Chicago” ran on Broadway from 1975 to 1977.) Ms. Lewis played Mama Morton, a prison matron who shares the profane show-stopping duet “Class” with the murderess Velma Kelly and belts out an audience favorite of her own, “When You’re Good to Mama.” Again she was nominated for a Tony. “She was so outrageous and so excellent,” said Joel Grey, a friend of Ms. Lewis’s who also starred in “Chicago.” “People used to gather in the wings to watch her.” Marcia Bernice Lewis was born in Melrose, Mass., outside Boston, on Aug. 18, 1938. Her father, an engineer for General Electric, was transferred when Marcia was a girl, and she grew up mostly in Cincinnati. She attended the University of Cincinnati and became a registered nurse, but she also performed in local theater productions and in her early 20s moved to New York City to become a professional actress. Before landing the “Hello, Dolly!” job, she worked at a hospital taking care of newborns. Ms. Lewis played Miss Hannigan in the original Broadway run of “Annie” and Golde in the 1990 revival of “Fiddler on the Roof.” Her other theater credits include the musicals “Rags” and “Rosa” and the 1989 revival of Tennessee Williams’s “Orpheus Descending,” with Vanessa Redgrave. On television, she appeared in “The Bob Newhart Show,” “Baretta,” “Happy Days,” “Kate and Allie,” “Mr. Belvedere,” “Goodtime Girls” and the mini-series “Rich Man, Poor Man.” She was also a cabaret singer and recorded a solo album, “Nowadays,” in 1998. (As reported by Bruce Weber)

2011(25th of Kislev, 5772): First Day of Chanukah

2011: The band Girls in Trouble led by Alicia Jo Rabin is scheduled to perform this evening at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York.

2011: Dan & Aviva and Drory Yehoushua are scheduled to perform at The Spanish Portuguese Synagogue as part of the Sephardic Music Festival.

2011: Yad Vashem is scheduled to posthumously honor a Polish man who saved the lives of Jews during World War II by hiding them in his attic. The Holocaust Museum will bestow the title of righteous gentile upon Wojciech Wołoszczuk, a farmer who let Frances Schaff, nee Feiga Bader; her brother, his family and two other Jews secretly stay in his house to avoid persecution by the Nazis and their allies. Food was scant during the war and Schaff's brother was shot dead while trying to forage food for his family outside the house. His wife and children survived the war but were murdered by Polish peasants in its immediate aftermath. Schaff, the sole survivor of her family, grew up in an orphanage in Israel. She later emigrated to the US In 2009 Schaff submitted a request to honor Wołoszczuk, who died in 1963, after visiting Poland with her family. His daughter, Janina Wołoszczuk, will come from Poland to accept the medal and certificate of honor on his behalf.

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