This Day, December 26, In Jewish History

December 26 In Jewish History

1194: Birthdate of Frederick II, the Holy Roman Emperor who improved the conditions for the Jews of Palermo, Naples and Jerusalem.

1424: The city of Barcelona, Spain was granted the right to exclude Jews for all time.

1495: Savonarola expelled the Medici and the Jews from Florence. The Jews, who had previously served as the Medici's bankers, were replaced by a Monte di Pieta, a public loan bank.

1634: Religious freedom was granted to Jews and Catholics in Brazil. This was the period of time when Brazil was under the control of the Dutch. Things would change in 1654 when Portugal took Recife, Brazil and the Jews were forced to flee. One group of these refugees would arrive in New Amsterdam and the rest is history.

1776: In an act of daring-do Washington ferries his freezing, starving troops across the ice choked Delaware River and leads them to victory at the Battle of Trenton. There were certainly Jewish soldiers among those who joined in the Crossing of the Delaware two of whom may have been Abraham Levy and Phillip Russell. Since Washington’s Army was on the verge of destruction, defeat at Trenton would have meant the end of the American Revolution, a war which created a nation rightfully described as “the last best hope men” – an appellation with which the Jewish people would heartily agree. One of the most readable treatments of this turning point in American history is The Crossing by the Jewish author Howard Fast which was the source for a film by the same name.

1783: Áron Chorin, a Hungarian rabbi who sought to reform some Jewish practices, married today. Following his marriage he had short, unsuccessful career in business before making use of his Talmudic knowledge and rabbinic skills as the leader of the Jewish community of Arad.

1823: As the struggle between Reform movement and traditionalists became more pronounced, a party of Orthodox Jews obtained a royal cabinet order that frustrated attempts “to adapt the old ritual to new forms” including sermons preached in German. This forced Isaac Noah Mannheimer, a rabbi who was a leader in the Reform movement to leave Berlin for a pulpit in Hamburg which led him to a position in Vienna where he was able to fully display his intellectual and oratorical gifts.

1825: Several Imperial Russia army officers lead force of approximately3000 soldiers on the Senate Square in the failed Decembrist uprising. Pavel Pestel, one of the leaders of the unsuccessful Decembrist revolt, proposed sending all Jews from Russia to some territory in Asia Minor, especially acquired for this purpose, where they would be able to establish independent state.

1843(24th of Kislev, 5595): In the evening, Kindle the first light of Chanukah

1852: The Reverend Samuel Osgood delivered a talk at the Church of the Messiah in NYC entitled “The Enigma of History- A Discourse on the Jewish Race.” Osgood based part of his talk on information provided by Rabbi Morris Raphall with whom Osgood had carried on a correspondence.

1853(25th of Kislev, 5614): 1st day of Chanukah

1861: During the Civil War, in what was known as The Trent Affair, Confederate diplomatic envoys James M. Mason and John Slidell are freed by the United States government, thus heading off a possible war between the United States and Britain. Slidell, the Louisiana politician who had been a power in the Democrat Party, before the war, was a close ally of August Belmont who had married his niece. During the war, Slidell would serve in Paris where his daughter would marry a leading French-Jewish financier.

1870(2nd of Tevet, 5631): 8th and final day of Chanukah

1870: Dr. Max Landsberg was chosen to serve as Rabbi at Berith Kodesh in Rochester, NY. He began serving in that capacity in March of 1871. Prior to his selection, the position had been vacant for 2 and a half years. Landsberg’s three predecessors were Marcus Tuska, Isaac Mayer and Aaron Ginbserg who completed his service in 1868.

1873: Rabbi Aron Chorin gets married and leaves the rabbinate for the world of Commerce. The change will be short-lived and will become the Rabbi in Arad in 1789.


1875: It was reported today that “an ‘English Jew’ had recently written an essay on modern Judaism in which he asserted that it was utterly impossible to convert a respectable Jew to Christianity. When it was pointed out to the author that the Prime Minister of England was a convert to Christianity from Judaism, the ‘English Jew’ claimed that the Disraeli’s father, Isaac, had a quarrel with the Synagogue about money and that he had left the Synagogue. While the Prime Minister had somehow become a churchgoer, he had “never been baptized as a Christian.” [Editor’s note – “The English Jew” was right about Isaac but wrong about Benjamin. The father had the children baptized after his falling out with the syngagouge.]

1878(30th of Kislev, 5639): Rosh Chodesh Tevet

1878: An article published today entitled “A Romance of Rascality” described the life and times of South Carolina’s Franklin J. Moses, “a Jew” who “held his among the planter aristocracy.”


1886: Paul Heyse, the German-Jewish writer, is one of the “eminent authors of the 19th century according to Dr. George Brandes, whose book of the same title was reviewed in today’s New York Times.

1891(25th of Kislev, 5652): First day of Chanukah

1897: The American Jewish Historical Association held its seventh annual meeting in Philadelphia. The meeting was chaired by First Vice President Simon W. Rosendale who read a letter of resignation from the association’s President, Oscar S. Straus who can no longer fulfill his duties because he is serving as United States Minister at Constantinople
1898: President Albert F. Hochstadter presided over the annual meeting of the Hebrew Free School Association which was held today at Temple Emanu-El in New York City. With but one dissenting vote, the association voted to decide on a plan that would lead to a merger with the Educational Alliance. The Association had ended the year with a shortfall of $5,000 and it is believed that the merger might allow the two groups to meet their goals in a more economic manner. Uriah Hermann volunteered to pay for the new prayerbooks needed for the People’s Synagogue

1898: Birthdate of Ernst Fraenkel, German born political scientist, lawyer and university lecturer who fled Nazi Germany but returned to Germany after the war and resumed his career.

1901: The Fifth Zionist Congress convenes in Basel. The Jewish National Fund is established. The Jewish Colonial Trust, the monetary arm or bank of the World Zionist Organization, finally raises sufficient sums to be established. By the end of the year, 250.000 English Pounds have been collected.

1902; Birthdate of Anatoli Lvovich Kaplan, the Russian painter whose work often reflect his Jewish origins.

1902: Final publication of the American Hebrew which would merge with The Jewish Messenger and resume publication in 1903 as The American Hebrew & Jewish Messenger

1905: Winston Churchill was approached by a leading Jewish constituent, Dr. Joseph Dulberg of Manchester, who was seeking British support for a Jewish national home.

1907: Months of organizing work by sixteen-year-old Pauline Newman culminated in the start of the largest rent strike New York City had ever seen. One reason for the strike's success was Newman's enlistment of neighborhood housewives. While working-class activists like Newman had to work during the day, the impassioned housewives that they organized could go from tenement to tenement to convince others to strike. Thus, the success of the strike depended on shop floor networks of teenaged girls and on networks of neighborhood housewives and mothers. The strike, involving 10,000 families in lower Manhattan, lasted only until January 9, but about 2,000 families succeeded in having their rents reduced. More importantly, the strike attracted the attention of leading figures in the settlement house movement who suggested capping rents at 30% of a family's income. Though their suggestion was not implemented, it introduced the idea of rent control into New York politics. The idea stayed alive into the 1930s, when rent control was finally implemented in New York City. Newman's leadership of the strike began a lifetime of activism. It brought her to the attention of the Socialist party, which ran her for secretary of state of New York the following year (despite the fact that women did not yet have the vote in New York). She used the opportunity to call for woman's suffrage. Newman also began organizing female garment workers and was a key organizer in the 1909 Uprising of the 20,000.

1915: In an attempt to “weaken Russia internally, the authorities in Berlin handed Russian Jewish Bolshevik, Alexander Helphand, a million rubles to spread anti-war propaganda through Russia.

1916(1st of Tevet, 5677): Rosh Chodesh Tevet

1917: Orthodox rabbis in Jerusalem establish the Ashkenazi Community Council to oppose the Zionist dominated City Council of Jerusalem Jews.

1917: Fresh Turkish troops attack the British hoping to take back Jerusalem. After eight hours of fierce nighttime combat, the British beat them back.

1916: In a protest against the high cost of kosher beef, nearly 3,000 shops refused to receive or sell kosher meat today. “Many kosher butchers closed theirs shops and put up signs in their windows reading ‘Because of the high prices on kosher-killed products, this shot will be closed until further notice.’”


1916: Inspectors working for Joseph Hartigan, New York City’s Commissioner of Weights and Measures, reported to him tonight that the people had virtually all stopped buying kosher meat.

1918: Following the British elections, Churchill wrote Prime Minister Lloyd George cautioning him against appointing three Jews to a cabinet that had only seven openings. This was not based on any anti-Semitic feelings on Churchill’s part. He was merely expressing concerns for the reality of British politics at a time when Lloyd George needed to build a broadly supported government that could “win the peace” now that the World War had been won. In the end, Lloyd George appointed only one Jew to the first post-war cabinet.

1919: Sir John Monash, Australia’s ranking General on the Western Front in World War I, who served with great distinction, returned home to a hero’s welcome. Monash was the son of a German-Jewish couple who had arrived in Australia two years before Monash’s birth.

1919: Birthdate of Sam Aaronovitch

1919: Harry Frazee, owner of the Boston Red Sox, sold Babe Ruth to the New York Yankees. Boston fans never forgave Frazee for the sale of the Bambino which was the start of the Yankee dynasty. On top of everything else Frazee was one of those gentiles who had the dubious distinction of being smeared for being Jewish. “The Dearborn Independent, a newspaper published by one of this nation’s most infamous anti-Semites, automobile pioneer Henry Ford, published an article titled “The Jewish Degradation of Baseball”, which insisted that Frazee was a Jew, that he was out to “get” Ban Johnson and that he was part of a grand Jewish conspiracy designed to place Organized Baseball under Jewish control. Frazee was in fact Presbyterian and a Mason and, though he was not Jewish, being a Freemason branded him guilty by association. The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a forgery originating in Russia that detailed a Jewish plot to dominate the world, claimed that Jews and Freemasons were acting in concert. Judaism and Freemasonry were so intertwined in Europe, even as far back as the 1860s, that the Nazis eventually adopted the slogan “All Masons Jews—All Jews Masons,” and Hitler abolished Freemasonry in Germany in 1935. But, as evidenced by Ford and his newspaper, bigotry wasn’t just endemic of Europe, and Organized Baseball certainly was no stranger to it.”

1924: Birthdate of Israeli spy Eli Cohen. Since we cannot do justice to this heroic figure you might want to go to http://www.elicohen.org/ for more information about his contribution to the survival of the Jewish state.

1927: Birthdate of Alan King. King was equally adept as a comedic actor and as monologist. One of his most famous lines was, “It is not how long you live, but how well you live” that counts. After uttering that bon mot, he would take a deep, long pull on his signature cigar and give you that knowing smile. His philanthropic commitments included founding the Alan King Diagnostic Medical Center in Jerusalem, establishing a scholarship fund for American students at Hebrew University, and establishing a Dramatic Arts Chair at Brandeis University. He was also a member of the Board of Trustees of the Long Island Jewish Medical Center. He passed away in 2004.

1931: George and Ira Gershwin's Pulitzer Prize-winning musical play "Of Thee I Sing" premieres on Broadway

1934: Anna Birshtein married Louis Geffen. Anna’s uncle was a rabbi and Louis was the son of Tobias Geffen had been who had been an orthodox rabbi in Atlanta, GA, since 1910. Geffen and his brother Samuel formed the Atlanta law firm of Geffen and Geffen, a firm founded out of the need for the brothers to be able to practice law while remaining observant Jews.

1936: Founding of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. The Polish born violinist Bronislaw Huberman is credited with founding the orchestra. It was originally called the Palestine Philharmonic Orchestra but changed its name after the founding of the state of Israel.

1936: In Tel Aviv, Arturo Toscanini, who had fled Mussolini’s Italy, conducted the first performance of the Palestine Philharmonic. At the end of the concert Bronislaw Huberman, dec;ared that "Nothing could describe this concert except the word divine."

1936: Birthdate of Kitty Dukakis, wife of U.S. Presidential candidate Michael Dukakis. She is Jewish; he isn’t.

1937: The Palestine Post reported that over 1,000 British troops, police and troopers of the Transjordan police force, spent Christmas under pouring rain in a raging battle in the Wadi Hamud area, north-west of Tiberias, where nearly forty Arab terrorists were killed. The troops and police suffered five wounded.

1937: The Palestine Post reported that Taleb Nanini, a local notable, was killed by an Arab terrorist in his village of Akraba. Yehuda Mintz and his two sons, Isaac, 35, and Eliahu, 27, watchmen of the Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives were wounded on their way to work. In Haifa, Private Mott, a British soldier of the Essex Regiment, picked up a bomb with a burning fuse and threw it off the pavement, saving by his bold action lives of numerous passersby.
1940: The British government suspended the quota for legal immigration for three months, thus halting all immigration until March, 1941.

1940: Birthdate of record producer Phil Spector.

1945: The Jewish Agency charges that Palestinian government has stopped issuing immigration certificates despite British foreign minister Ernest Bevin's declaration that monthly quota would be permitted.

1946: Diamond factories in Natanya and Tel Aviv are raided, reportedly by Jews who would have been using the proceeds of the raid to finance the fight against the British.

1946: Peter H. Bergson, Hebrew Committee of National Liberation, formed exile government for Hebrew Republic of Palestine in France. In the wake of British intransigence, he promises a revolt.

1946: Bronislaw Huberman the Polish born violinist who was President and founder of the Palestine Symphony Orchestra returned as a soloist performing in Tel Aviv on the tenth anniversary of Arturo Toscanini’s first appearance as conductor of the orchestra.

1947(13th of Tevet, 5708): Hans Beyth, a central figure in welcoming newly arrived immigrant children to Eretz Israel, was one of seven Jews killed by Arab snipers as they traveled in convey coming from the coast up to Jerusalem. Beyth had just completed arrangements for the care of 20,000 young survivors of the Holocaust and other youngsters from Europe.

1947: Golda Meyerson, acting head of the Jewish Agency’s Political Department escaped injury today when the convoy in which she was traveling came under attack by Arabs.

1947: One Jew was killed and two were wounded today when Arabs attacked a Jewish patrol at Imara in the Negev.

1947: A four year old Jewish girl, whose name has not been made public was killed today a bullet in Tel Aviv. The assailant has not been identified.

1947: In Jerusalem, an Arab Legion truck that had illegally entered the city, was fired on by Jews manning a Haganah outpost. No casualties were reported by either side.

1948: Despite defending itself against a war of annihilation, immigrants keep coming as can be seen by the fact that today, Israel greeted the arrival of its 100,000th immigrant since its declaration of statehood in May.

1948: The International Ladies' Garment Workers, Union (of American Federation of Labor) donates $250,000 and lends an $500,000 to Israel.

1948: The Knesset, the Israeli Parliament, which had been meeting in Tel Aviv moves to Jerusalem.

1952: The Jerusalem Post reported that the Mapam Council voted, by 232 to 49, to support a very carefully worded "protest" against the Czech anti-Zionist trials and activities while identifying itself completely with "the world's revolution." The Sneh-Riftin bloc justified the trials and advocated a complete acceptance of the accusations.

1953: Monnett B. Davis passed away while serving as the second U.S. Ambassador to Israel.

1953(20th of Tevet, 5714): Dr. Alexander Marx, the director libraries and Jacob H. Schiff Professor of History at the Jewish Theological Seminary passed away today at the age of 75. A native of Germany, Marx served in the Prussian Army and earned his Ph.D. in 1903 following which he came to the United States where he took up his position with JTS. When he arrived, the library contained 5,000 volumes. At the time of his death, the collection had grown to 144,000 books and 8,000 manuscripts making it one of the finest collections of Judaica in the world.

1965: "Funny Girl" with Barbra Streisand closes on Broadway. The Broadway hit had a Jewish diva portraying Fanny Brice, the Jewish comedic star of the Follies and radio-fame.

1968(5th of Tevet, 5729): Arthur Fellig, known by his pseudonym Weegee passed away. The American photographer and photojournalist was born Usher Fellig in Złoczew (Złoczów) near Lemberg, Austrian Galicia (now Zolochiv, Ukraine). His name was changed to Arthur when he came with his family to live in New York in 1910, fleeing anti-semitism. Fellig's nickname was a phonetic rendering of Ouija, due to his frequent arrival at scenes only minutes after crimes, fires or other emergencies were reported to authorities. He is variously said to have named himself Weegee, or to have been named by either the girls at Acme or by a police officer. He is best known as a candid news photographer whose stark black-and-white shots documented street life in New York City. Weegee's photos of crime scenes, car-wreck victims in pools of their own blood, overcrowded urban beaches and various grotesques are still shocking, though some, like the juxtaposition of society grandes dames in ermines and tiaras and a glowering street woman before the first night of the Metropolitan Opera, ("The Critic", 1943) turned out to have been staged. In 1938, Fellig was the only reporter with a permit to have a portable police-band shortwave radio in his car, and he maintained a complete darkroom in his trunk, to expedite getting his free-lance product to the newspapers. Weegee worked mostly at night; he listened closely to broadcasts and often beat authorities to the scene. Most of his photos were taken with a 4x5 Speed Graphic camera preset at f/16 at 1/200 of a second with a flash. He had no formal training, and was a self-taught photographer and relentless self-promoter. He is sometimes said not to have had any knowledge of the New York art photography scene; but in 1943 The Museum of Modern Art included several of his photos in an exhibition, he was later included in another MoMA show organised by Edward Steichen, and he lectured at the New School for Social Research. He also undertook advertising and editorial work for Life and Vogue magazines, among others. His acclaimed first book collections of photographs, Naked City (1945), became the inspiration for a major 1948 movie The Naked City, and later the title of a pioneering realistic television police drama series. Weegee also made short 16mm films from 1941, and worked with and in Hollywood from 1946 to the early 1960s as an actor and consultant. In 1958 he was an uncredited special effects consultant for Stanley Kubrick's film, Dr. Strangelove. His accent was purportedly the inspiration for the accent of the title character in the movie. In the 1950s and 60s Weegee experimented with panoramic photographs, photo distortions, and photography through prisms. He also travelled widely in Europe in the 1960s, and took advantage of the liberal atmosphere in Europe to photograph nudes. A 1992 motion picture, The Public Eye, starred Joe Pesci as a 1940s tabloid photographer who has a police radio in his car. TV Guide states that Pesci's character is "based, of course, on Weegee" and imdb's trivia notes state that some of Fellig's photographs are shown in the film (as having been taken by Pesci's character

1968(5th of Tevet, 5729): Arab terrorists in Athens fire on El Al plane, killing 1.

1972: Harry S. Truman, the 33rd president of the United States passed away in Kansas City, Mo. Truman’s activist, anti-Communist policy and his progressive domestic program earned Truman the support of Jewish voters. But his greatest moment, from a strictly Jewish perspective, came when he decided that the U.S. would support the creation of the state of Israel and single-handedly ensured that the U.S. was the first nation to recognize the new Jewish state

1974(12th of Tevet, 5735): Comedian Jack Benny passed away at age 80

1977: The Jerusalem Post reported from Ismailia that Prime Minister Menachem Begin, after a meeting with Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, saw "peace in a few months." Begin had also expressed his anger and disappointment with Knesset members who leaked details of his peace plan before he could hand it over to Sadat. The Egyptian president described the meeting as "one of the happiest days of his life" and added that he was now ready for full ties and normalization with Israel.

1978: Birthdate of Alan Senitt, a British political activist and volunteer in the campaign of Virginia’s Mark Warner. Senitt was stabbed to death in Washington, D.C. defending his female campaign co-worker from street thugs.

1988: Benjamin Netanyahu began serving as Deputy Foreign Minister

1990: Tele 5, a Spanish television station, is scheduled to broadcast an interview with President Hussein that had been taped on December 22nd in Baghdad during which the Iraqi leaders says Tel Aviv will be Iraq's first target if war breaks out in the Persian Gulf.

1992: New York Jet announcer Marty Glickman retires at 75

1992: The standoff between Lebanon and Israel over the fate of 415 Palestinian deportees trapped in a snow-covered valley in southern Lebanon, continued today as both sides again rejected appeals to allow relief agencies to deliver food or medicine. Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri, whose Government has blocked relief assistance from reaching the group, asked Washington to intervene with Israel to allow aid to reach the Palestinians. But at the same time, his Government turned down a request by the deportees to give the ill and injured treatment in Lebanese hospitals. An envoy of Yasir Arafat, chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization, said he supported the Lebanese Government's decision to refuse entrance to the men. He said that if the deportees were accepted by the Lebanese, Israel might carry out new mass deportations across the border."We highly appreciate the position of the Lebanese Government of not receiving the deportees and barring any contact with them," Zeid Wehbeh, the envoy, said in Beirut. Israel expelled the Palestinians last week, saying they had links to to two Islamic fundamentalist groups that Israel contends are behind attacks on soldiers in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip. The expulsion came after five Israeli servicemen were killed in attacks for which the militant group Hamas took responsibility. The Israeli authorities vowed again that they would not accept the return of the deportees, and said they would not retreat from yesterday’s Cabinet decision to deny permission to the Red Cross to deliver aid through Israel's "security zone" in southern Lebanon. In Geneva, a spokesman for the International Committee of the Red Cross said the group was still working to provide assistance to the Palestinians. He dismissed an Israeli charge that the organization's request to send supplies from Israel into southern Lebanon was political. "By refusing to let this aid through, Israel and Lebanon are violating the Fourth Geneva Convention," the spokesman, Claude Voillat, said. The convention covers the treatment of people in occupied areas.(As reported by Chris Hedges)

1993: Comedian Rodney Dangerfield weds Joan Child.

1999: The New York Times book section includes a review of My First 79 Years by Isaac Stern with Chaim Potok.

2001: In Moscow, a monument honoring Shalom Aleichem was unveiled at a public ceremony attended by Nathan Meron, the Israeli Ambassador. The Moscow newspapers reporting the event described Solomon Rabinovich as “the great Russian Jew” and “a sagacious writer.”

2002: In the following article entitled “The Cultural Spoils of War,” Ronald Lauder the chairman of the Commission for Art Recovery and co-chairman of the Research Project on Art and Archive describes attempts to reclaim and return cultural treasures stolen during the Holocaust.
Recent weeks have seen two promising steps toward putting to rest lingering ghosts of World War II. One was the much-heralded return of the Smolensk archives, a voluminous collection of Soviet files seized by the Nazis in 1941 and recovered by American soldiers at the end of World War II, to Russia from the United States. The other was a little-noticed decision by a federal court in California in a case brought by an American citizen against Austria for the return of artworks lost by her family during the Holocaust. Disparate as they may seem, these two events show how far the world has come in facilitating the return of World War Two’s stolen goods to their rightful owners. Yet they also highlight the difficulties we still face, especially concerning cultural property stolen by the Nazis from the Jews. The return of the Smolensk files was in many ways an acknowledgment of the important contributions Russia has made to the international art restitution effort. In 2000, it allowed Russian courts to hear claims on art looted by the Nazis that ended up in the former Soviet Union. Last year Russia entered into an agreement with the Research Project on Art & Archives, an American nonprofit group, to work with museums, art experts and cultural groups to return art that was stolen from Holocaust victims and is now in Russia. This work complements the restitution efforts of the Commission for Art Recovery. Our goal is to get all countries to respect the Washington Principles, standards agreed on by more than 40 nations in 1998 to provide for just and expeditious outcomes in matters of Holocaust-art recovery. The California lawsuit, however, shows that more than half a century after the Nazis were soundly defeated, many challenges remain in returning their spoils. At issue are six paintings by Gustav Klimt, including the well-known portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer, currently held by the Austrian National Gallery. On Dec. 12, Austria failed in its attempt to block a lawsuit by an 86-year-old American citizen who fled the Nazis in 1942 and whose uncle owned the works. In a promising ruling, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit said that Austria was not immune from a suit in American courts when the interests of justice outweigh the inconvenience to a foreign country. Another test case is looming in Spain, where the government has refused entreaties to return Camille Pissarro's ''Rue Saint-Honoré, Après-Midi, Effet de Pluie'' to a California family, despite excellent documentation of Nazi theft. Hungary, too, has resisted using the Washington Principles for resolving claims, particularly in a dispute over paintings from the collection of Baron Maurice Herzog now hanging in Hungarian museums, which are claimed by an American citizen. (At least Hungary's Supreme Court has dismissed out of hand the Hungarian government's claim that under international law, it was no longer obligated to return art.) A solution to these problems may be on the horizon: the European Parliament has scheduled hearings in Brussels next year to consider a uniform art restitution law for the European Union, which would help to resolve current inconsistencies in policies among member states. This is not just a matter of returning property. These works are often families' only connection remaining to loved ones killed in the Holocaust. And because the looting of cultural property during World War II was an essential component of the Nazi genocide, it violated international law and, under Nuremberg principles, constituted a war crime and a crime against humanity. The goodwill generated by events like the Smolensk transfer, and the good sense shown by the California court, will go a long way toward returning these cultural objects to their rightful owners.

2003(1st of Tevet, 5764): Rosh Chodesh Tevet

2005: In an article entitled “Builders Reveal Hidden Synagogue and Dark Era of Portugal's Past.” the New York Times describes the fate of Medieval Jewish Community of Porto.
“A chance discovery in recent months during renovations of a building in this Atlantic port city has revealed a dark secret from Portugal's past: a 16th-century synagogue. Built when Portugal's Jews had been forced to convert to Catholicism or risk being burned at the stake, the house of worship was hidden behind a false wall in a four-story house that the Rev. Agostinho Jardim Moreira, a Roman Catholic priest, was converting into a home for some older parishioners. Father Moreira, a scholar of Porto's Jewish history, said that as soon as the workers told him of the wall, "I knew there had to be some kind of Jewish symbol behind it." His hunch was confirmed when the wall came down to reveal a carved granite repository, about five feet tall, arched at the top and facing east toward Jerusalem. It was the ark where the medieval Jews kept their Torahs. The ark contained pieces of decorative green tile that further confirmed its age. Specialists determined that the tiles had been glazed by a method used in the 16th century. "It's quite exciting," said the Israeli ambassador to Portugal, Aaron Ram, who has been involved in efforts to preserve the ark. "You feel part of history when you see it." "It's a very important site," he added. "We all have to remember our history so we can be prepared for the future." Only two other arks from the period have been found in Portugal, and last month the Portuguese Institute of Architectural Heritage authenticated this one as the third. Father Moreira, 64, said he knew that his parish had been an officially designated the Jewish quarter in the 15th and 16th centuries. He also knew that after the Jews here were forced to convert to Catholicism in 1496, many Jews privately kept their faith and worshiped secretly, while publicly following Catholic rituals. "I suspected that false wall was hiding something," he said. The workers solved an enigma that had baffled historians, said Elvira Mea, a University of Porto lecturer who specializes in Jewish history. Immanuel Aboab, a Jewish scholar born in Porto in the mid-16th century, wrote that as a child he had visited a synagogue in the third house on the street counting from the 14th-century Our Lady of Victory church. But he did not specify which side of the street, and archaeological digs turned up nothing. "Everyone assumed Aboab had got his dates mixed up," said Ms. Mea. "But it had been preying on my mind, and as soon as I saw the ark, all the pieces fell into place. I was so happy I could hardly believe it." The secret synagogue dates from a convulsive period in the Jewish history of the Iberian Peninsula. In 1492, neighboring Spain expelled all Jews who would not convert to Catholicism, and 60,000 of them poured across the border into Portugal. They prospered, but were kept at arm's length, forced to live in a Jewish quarter subject to a curfew. Then came harsher action. Portugal's King Manuel I, hoping to seal a royal alliance with Spain's powerful rulers, Ferdinand and Isabella, by marrying their daughter, forced the Jews to convert. Some fled, but those who stayed were subjected to humiliating public baptisms. They were designated "New Christians" or "Marranos," Iberian slang for pigs. Even then, they remained at risk of religious persecution. In 1506, about 3,000 Jews were massacred in Lisbon. Father Moreira said he intended to place a protective glass screen over the ark while authorities decided how it to exhibit it.

2006: Two boys, both 14, were injured about 9 p.m. when a Qassam rocket landed in the street near where they were walking. Both were treated by Magen David Adom paramedics and taken to Barzilai Medical Center in Ashkelon. A total of eight Qassams were fired at Israel during the day, the most in a single day since the cease-fire was declared about a month ago. Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for firing the missiles from the Gaza Strip at the western Negev town. One of the Qassams fired at Israel Tuesday landed in the industrial area in south Ashkelon, close to a strategic infrastructure installation.

2007 (17 Tevet): Yahrtzeit of Rabbi Aaron Zelig Ben Joel Feivush, author of Toldot Aaron and Rabbi Yaakov Wolf Krantz, Maggid of Dubna

2008: Closing session of the Hazon Jewish food conference in Pacific Grove, California.

2008: The New York Times publishes a review of Searching for Schindler by Thomas Keneally

2008: “Waltz With Bashir” opens in selected movie theatres across the United States.

2008: The final decision to launch Operation Cast Lead was made on this morning, when Barak met with Chief of Staff General Gabi Ashkenazi, the head of the Shin Bet Security Service Yuval Diskin and the head of the Military Intelligence Directorate, Amos Yadlin. Barak sat down with Olmert and Livni several hours later for a final meeting, in which the trio gave the air force its orders. Opposition leaders and prominent political figures were informed about the impending strike, including Likud chairman Benjamin Netanyahu, Yisrael Beuiteinu's Avigdor Liebermen, Haim Oron from Meretz and President Shimon Peres, along with Knesset Speaker Dalia Itzik.

2008: In the following article entitled “Author Defends Disputed Memoir,” Dave Itzkoff describes the controversy surrounding the soon to be published Angel at the Fence by Herman Rosenblat.

“A coming memoir about a couple who say they met at a concentration camp during the Holocaust has been defended by its author and publisher after a magazine report questioned its credibility, The Associated Press reported. In the book, “Angel at the Fence,” Herman Rosenblat writes that he met his future wife, Roma Radzicki, at right with Mr. Rosenblat, while he was a prisoner at Schlieben in Germany and she lived nearby, and would sneak him food at the camp’s fence. But in a recent article in The New Republic, several scholars challenged details of the story, noting among other things that the camp’s layout would have made exchanges at the fence impossible. In a statement reported by The A.P., Mr. Rosenblat said: “I was a young child at the time my family was caught up in the Holocaust, and I saw things through a young child’s eyes. But I know and remember what I saw.” Berkley Books said it planned to publish “Angel at the Fence” in February.”

2009: The Gilad Barkan Band, led by Israeli native Gilad Barkan, appears at the Café Vivaldi in New York City. Barkan's band includes Israeli flutist Amir Milstein, co-leader of Bustan Abraham, who bestows the music with a mesmerizing and soulful new dimension.

2009: Itamar Jobani makes his final appearance at the “Open Studios: Artist at Work program hosted by New York’s Museum of Art and Design. Open Studios features special demonstrations by artists exhibiting work in the museum’s galleries. “In his work, Jobani deals with the direct and inescapable connection between man and earth. Jobani’s sculptures are constructed from tens and often hundreds of layers of wood or cardboard in the technique of topographical models. Accordingly, these sculptures function not merely as human figures, but also serve as a metaphor for land-regions or territorial entities. Itamar Jobani has been identified as one of the most promising young artists emerging from Israel today. Since relocating to New York, he has garnered critical acclaim for numerous exhibitions and seen his recognition grow in the international art world.”

2009: The Israeli military killed six Palestinians today, three in the West Bank whom it accused of killing a Jewish settler and three in Gaza who it said were crawling along the border wall planning an attack. It was the deadliest day in the conflict in nearly a year. Maj. Peter Lerner, spokesman for Israel’s Central Command, which controls the West Bank, said that its forces had spent the past two days looking for the killers of the settler, Rabbi Meir Hai, a 45-year-old teacher and father of seven, who was shot dead on Thursday as he drove near his home in the settlement of Shavei Shomron. The information gathered, he said, led them to three men in the city of Nablus early today. Troops in jeeps descended on their homes and in each case, he said, the suspect was asked to give himself up. None did so, and all were shot dead. All three, he added, had been involved in anti-Israel violence in the past through activities in the Aksa Martyrs Brigade, a militia associated with the Fatah movement led by Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president. One of them, Annan Sleiman Moustafa Tsubakh, 36, was hiding with two assault rifles, two handguns and ammunition in a crawl space in his house when the Israeli troops found him. Major Lerner said that the three were the killers of Rabbi Hai and that they acted as an isolated cell rather than as part of some larger organization. Asked if the Israelis had coordinated with the Palestinian security forces that had been patrolling West Bank cities for a year and a half, he said no, that the army’s job was first and foremost to protect Israeli civilians. In the middle of the second Palestinian uprising in 2002 and 2003, drive-by shootings of settlers like the one that killed Rabbi Hai had become almost common in the West Bank, but a combination of an Israeli clampdown and Palestinian security focus — and greatly increased cooperation between the forces — have turned such attacks into a rarity and led to a sense of increased personal security and potential prosperity. The killing of the three Palestinians in Gaza occurred when Israeli soldiers guarding the border from inside Israel saw people crawling along the border barrier near the main civilian crossing point. Israel permits no such movement near its border. The soldiers said they fired warning shots but the three continued to crawl. An Israeli aircraft then shot at the men and killed them, an army spokeswoman said. She added that the army was convinced that the men were planning an attack.

2010: The Gateways Winter retreat at Whippany, NJ came to an end.

2010: Klezcamp is scheduled to open today in the Catskills. Henry Sapoznik, a Ukrainian cantor’s son who founded KlezKamp in 1984, calls it a “Yiddish Brigadoon.”

2010: The Los Angeles Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Letters: Saul Bellow edited by Benjamin Taylor and When They Come for Us, We'll Be Gone: The Epic Struggle to Save Soviet Jewry by Gal Beckerman

2010: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Hero: The Life and Legend of Lawrence of Arabia by Michael Korda

2010: IDF troops, with the help of a helicopter gunship, fired on insurgents who detonated an explosive device against a passing Israeli patrol near the border in the southern Gaza Strip today. The IDF Spokesperson Unit said that "a terrorist cell was attacked in the northern Gaza Strip, and a smuggling tunnel in southern Gaza." "Specific targets were identified, and all planes returned safely to their base," the statement continued. "The attack is in response to a high level of attacks against Israeli targets

2010: Opening day of the Limmud Conference, the British Jewish community’s answer to the Edinburgh Festival, which celebrates its 30th anniversary this week at the University of Warwick in Coventry.

2010: Today, the Supreme Court rejected an appeal filed by Israeli settlers requesting it postpone again a long-awaited order to evict an apartment building they constructed illegally in a predominantly Arab neighborhood of East Jerusalem. The evacuation of the building's Jewish residents has been held up for several years due to pressure from Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat and right-wing groups. The issue came to a head after Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein ordered the city and the police to carry out the eviction order and seal the premises without further delay. Israel stationed border police across the Silwan neighborhood todayand many anticipated that the building would be evacuated this week. The residents of the Beit Yonatan building petitioned the court, however, to hold up the order pending a ruling on an earlier appeal they had submitted over the matter. Although the court rejected this latest appeal, it still gave the state 24 hours tor respond to the request. Israel Police chief David Cohen said earlier today that his forces were indeed preparing to carry out the eviction. "The police will complete all of the necessary preparation and coordinates to carry out the ruling on the proscribed date," said Cohen. "We must take the path of dialogue or legal means and try to prevent any brewing illegal demonstrations." Cohen called on public leaders and religious figures to "show responsibility and influence their supporters" into showing restraint and using only "legitimate" forms of protest. The Border Police stationed forces across the Silwan neighborhood, blocking the entrance to the area. It was not yet clear whether the police was preparing to evacuate Beit Yonatan or an adjacent Palestinian home. It appears that at the same time that Jewish occupants are evicted from Beit Yonatan, police intend also to evict dozens of Palestinians from a nearby building so that it can be turned over to Jews. It is thought that such a move could spark violence in the neighborhood. This second building was constructed in the 19th century. It once housed the Ohel Shlomo synagogue, which served a small congregation of Yemenite Jews who lived in Silwan until the neighborhood came under Jordanian control in the 1948 War of Independence. For the past 50 years, it has been home to members of the extended Abu Nab family. They enlarged the structure, which now contains six apartments. Individuals associated with Ateret Cohanim, which encourages a Jewish presence in and around Jerusalem's Old City, found that it had been registered in the name of a Jewish charitable organization from before 1948. The Custodian General began legal proceedings in 2001 to return the property to the charity. Individuals associated with Ateret Cohanim were appointed to run the charity, making it likely that Jews would move in if the current occupants are evicted. Ahmed Abu Nab, who lives in the complex, said he thought the building was now home to 60 of his relatives. He vowed Saturday not to leave the building. In a statement issued yesterday, Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat said Ateret Cohanim had been pushing for the eviction of the house where the Abu Nab family currently lives and that the municipality had asked the police to carry out the eviction at Beit Yonatan concurrently. The municipality said the law was being uniformly enforced against Arabs and Jews and if Ateret Cohanim was insisting on the eviction of the Abu Nab family, the eviction of Jews would be carried out at Beit Yonatan on the same day. In the past, Barkat opposed the eviction of residents of Beit Yonatan, saying it ran contrary to plans to renovate the neighborhood, which would enable current residents to remain on at least the lower floors of the building.

2011: For the first time ever, Jews in the I-380 corridor will have a chance to light a menorah made from bowling pins at the Chabad-Lubavitch Chanukah Bowl under the direction of Rabbi Avremel & Chaya Blesofsky

2011: The final performance of The Kinsey Sicks in Oy Vey in a Manger is scheduled to take place tonight in Washington, D.C.

2011: Singer, composer, guitarist, and living exponent of Sephardic music Gerard Edery is scheduled to perform at the 6th Street Synagogue Center for Jewish Arts and Literacy as part of Sephardic Music Festival in NYC

2011(30th of Kislev, 5772): Rosh Chodesh Tevet

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