This Day, November 1, In Jewish History

November 1 In Jewish History

1179: Philip II is crowned King of France. In 1180, Phillip would order the arrest of all Jews living in his realm based on charges of ritual murder. It should come as no surprise that two years later, in 1182 Phillip confiscated all of the property belonging to the Jews as he banished them from his kingdom. The Jews would seek refuge in Champagne which was not a part of France at this time.

1210: King John, brother of Richard the Lionhearted, began imprisoning the Jews of England. As the conditions worsened in England, many Jews sought to flee the kingdom. King John had no intention of losing this exploitable economic commodity. So he jailed his Jews rather than lose them. By the end of the century, the English monarchs would have stripped the Jews of their wealth and would send them packing.

1223: Louis VIII of France issued an ordinance that prohibited his officials from recording debts owed to Jews, thus reversing the policies set by his father Philip II Augustus. Usury (lending money with interest) was illegal for Christians to practice. According to Church law it was seen as a vice in which people profited from others' misfortune (like gambling), and was punishable by excommunication, a severe punishment. However since Jews were not Christian, they could not be excommunicated, and thus fell in to a legal grey area which secular rulers would sometimes exploit by allowing (or requesting) Jews to provide usury services, often for personal gain to the secular ruler, and to the discontent of the Church. Louis VIII's prohibition was one attempt at resolving this legal problem which was a constant source of friction in Church and State courts. Twenty-six barons accepted, but Theobald IV (1201–53), the powerful Count of Champagne, did not, since he had an agreement with the Jews that guaranteed him extra income through taxation. Theobald IV would become a major opposition force to Capetian dominance, and his hostility was manifest during the reign of Louis VIII. For example, during the siege of Avignon, he performed only the minimum service of 40 days, and left home amid charges of treachery.
1290: Final expulsion of the Jews from England. On July 18, 1290, Edward I (England) pressured by his barons, the Church, and possibly his mother, announced the expulsion of all the Jews. By November approximately 4000 had fled. The Jews had to pay their own passage, mostly to France. They were allowed to take movables (i.e. clothing). A number of Jews were robbed and cast overboard during the voyage by the ship captains. The Jews did not return to England until 1659. This was the first national expulsion of the Jews. England was one of the only centralized and national monarchies of that time.

1348: The Jews are caught in power struggle among contending Christian factions in Spain when the anti-royalist Union of Valencia attacks the Jews of Murviedro because they are serfs of the King of Valencia and thus "royalists".

1349: Duke of Brabant ordered the execution of all Jews in Brussels. He accused them of poisoning the wells.

1478: The Holy See issued a Papal Bull empowering Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain “to appoint three bishops…with complete jurisdiction over heretics and their accomplices.” This simple statement marked the start of the infamous Spanish Inquisition.

1839: Birthdate of Isidore Loeb the French born scholar and historian who was the editor of Revue des Études Juives, the main literary product of Société des Etudes Juives

1861: General George B McClellan made general in chief of Union armies. McClellan would actually serve two terms as commanding General of the Army of the Potomac. A great organizer, he seemed to have had an aversion to actually waging war. His failure to win victories and his over-inflated sense of self-worth brought him on a collision course with President Lincoln who fired him in 1862. Eventually, McClellan, who was a popular figure made his way to New York where he worked August Belmont, the Jewish financier. Belmont would provide the financial

backing that led to McClellan’s nomination for President on the Democrat Party ticket in 1864.
1864: John Hay, President Lincoln’s private secretary wrote a letter to Myer Isaacs that was a response to his letter of October 26 in which he warned the President that a group of New York Jews with whom he met were not leaders of the Jewish community and could not deliver the Jewish vote. In his letter, Hay assured Isaacs that when Lincoln met with “certain gentlemen of the Hebrew faith” they did not promise to deliver the Jewish vote not did the President offer them any inducement to do so. In other words, Isaacs was either misinformed or worrying without cause.

1872:”A General Conference of the Jews” is taking place in Brussels. A delegation of Romanian Jews has described the conditions under which they are living. The delegation reported that the Romanian Jews had abandoned their idea of moving en masse to the United States and instead were planning on petitioning the Romanian government to grant them full civil and political rights.

1873: A report published today describing the changing state of affairs in the newly united Kingdom of Italy. The Jews have been among the most ardent supporters of the new government which has removed the onerous restrictions under which they been living. For example Jews can now own real estate in areas that were formally under Papal Control. This was a right the Catholic Church had denied them despite repeated petitions for change. Several of the editors of the leading publications are Jewish and they lend their support to the new government. According to some, “the Jews…have grown rich in Italy” because they have not hesitated to take advantage of their new opportunities.

1879: Acting on behalf of the Board of Delegates of American Israelites, Simon Wolf has presented the Secretary of State with a memorandum urging the United States to withhold recognition of Romania’s independence until that country grants the Jews full civil and religious and civil liberty as provided for by The Treaty of Berlin.

1880: Birthdate of novelist and playwright Sholem Asch (pronounced shō'lum ăsh). Born in Poland Asch first wrote in Hebrew but switched to Yiddish. His writings were well received and he was quite popular. He moved to the United States before World War I and his popularity continued to grow. He became a citizen in the 1920’s. However, during the late 1930’s and 1940’s he wrote a trilogy of novels that dealt with Christianity. The works were well received by the general public, but the Yiddish world rejected the works because of the subject matter. The Forward (newspaper) refused to publish any more of his writings. In the 1950's, Asch settled in a suburb of Tel Aviv. After his death in 1957, his home in Israel was turned into a Sholem Asch museum. The following quotes are a sample of his wit and insights into the human condition. “To dream of the person you would like to be is to waste the person you are." “Writing comes more easily if you have something to say.” “The lash may force men to physical labor; it cannot force them to spiritual creativity." “The sword conquered for a while, but the spirit conquers forever!”
1886: Birthdate of author Hermann Broch, writer and refugee from the Nazis. Born in Austria, Broch was imprisoned in a concentration camp by the Nazis in 1938. While in the camp he began writing one of his greatest works The Death of Virgil. The book would be published in 1945. Several prominent authors including James Joyce intervened on Broch’s behalf and he was released by the Nazis. He came to the United States where he continued writing until his death in 1951.

1890: As of this date another 1,982 Russian immigrants had arrived in Philadelphia, PA, which was an increase from 694 during the same period last year.

1894: Nicholas II becomes Czar after the death of Alexander III. Nicholas was the last Czar. He was an incompetent reactionary. He was also an anti-Semite.

1894: The French Army high command announced that it would proceed with a formal court-martial with Dreyfus as the defendant.

1899(28th of Cheshvan, 5660): Moses Bruhl, who has been in the jewelry business for 46 years, passed away today. He came to the United States in 1854 at the age of 18 and became a noted philanthropist as well as a successful businessman.

1904: Max "Kid Twist" Zwerbach, a Jewish gangster, met with Richie Fitzpatick in an attempt to decide which one of them would lead Monk Eastman Gang. During the meeting, Firzpatrick was shot to death by one of Kid Twist’s henchmen.

1907: Birthdate of Elimelekh-Shimon Rimalt, the native of Galicia who served in the Knesset and as the Minister of Postal Services.

1914: Birthdate of Rabbi Moshe (Moses) Teitelbaum Chasidic Rebbe and the world leader of the Satmar Hasidim, which is believed to be the largest Chasidic community in the world, with some 100,000 followers.

1916: The Ottoman Jewish Union was founded with aim of fostering friendly relations between Jews of different countries and the Ottomans, as well as closer association of the Ottoman Jews with the other nationalities in Turkey.

1917: On this date W.T. Massey, British correspondent with the British army fighting in Palestine transmited a dispatch headlined “Beersheba Taken In Night Charge.” According to him Australasian Cavalrymen dismounted to storm defenses held by Germans and Turks. The infantry cleared the way, tearing down wire entanglements with their bare hands. At the same time, over four hundred Turkish soldiers were captured in fighting at Gaza.

1918: Responding to demands for an end to the monarchy, the Kaiser tells an emissary from Prince Max, ‘I wouldn’t dream of abandoning the throne because of a few hundred Jews and a thousand workers.” The German monarch’s anti-Semitism trumped the reality of the thousands of Jews who had fought and died for the fatherland from 1914 until 1918.

1922: The last sultan of the Ottoman Empire, Mehmed VI, abdicates. The Sultan and the empire would be replaced by a secular Turkish Republic led by Attaturk Kemal. Large numbers of Jews fled Turkey during this period as a result of the Greco-Turkish war which was fought at this time. Jews of the new republic also suffered a loss international protection under the terms of the Treaty of Locarno under pressure from the new regime.

1924: Birthdate of Aharon Uzan, the Tunisian born Israeli political leader who held the positions Minister of Immigrant Absorption and Minister of Labor and Social Welfare after Abuhatzira resigned from both posts following his conviction for larceny, breach of trust and fraud from 1982 until 1984.

1930: A new cooperative housing project, spearheaded by Lieutenant Governor Herbert Lehman and Aaron Rabinowitz opened on the site of the old Hoe & Co Printing Plant on Delancey Street. An editorial writer for the New York Times referred to this effort as “the first step toward the rejuvenation of the Lower East Side.

1930: A demonstration was held in Jerusalem to protest the White Paper on British Policy in Palestine.

1930: The British government is making preparations to prevent any demonstrations tomorrow (the anniversary of the Balfour Declaration) by Jews who have been protesting against the White Paper on the British Policy in Palestine.

1931: The New York Times reports the Yasha Heifitz will go to Palestine next Spring to present a series of five concerts. The Times reported approvingly of the growth of the appreciation in Palestine for “good Occidental music” in a land where until only recently “companies of wandering Egyptian musicians were the only artists heard.”

1933: The first issue of Ristow's anti-Semitic Blick in die Zeit (A Look at the Times) is published in Germany.

1935: Birthdate of composer Andre Tchaikowsky whose extra claim to fame is the fact that Royal Shakespeare Company uses his skull as prop, per the terms of his will.

1935: An addition to the Reich Citizenship Law disqualifies Jews from German citizenship.

1936: An exhibition of water-color landscapes of Palestine opened this afternoon at the Jewish Club in New York City. The paintings “are the work of Elias Newman, an American artist who has lived in Palestine for eight year and is affiliated with the Tel Aviv Museum.”

1936: An article entitled "Palestine Arabs Turn to Boycott" published today reported that "As was excepted immediately after the Arab general strike was called off through Palestine, an anti-Jewish boycott movement has taken root." If it continues, it can have a disastrous effect on all those living in Palestine - Arab and Jew alike

1937: The Palestine Post reports the death of Rabbi Henry Pereira Mendes of the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue of New York City. Born in Birmingham, England in 1852, he was one of the two founders in 1886 of the Jewish Theological Seminary. Mendes was rabbi emeritus of Shearith Israel since retiring after 43 years in 1920.

1937: The Palestine Post reported that Raphael Ben-Israel Namda was severely wounded and Ahmed Moussa el-Masri, a Persian, was killed by an Arab terrorist at the corner of Nahlat Shiva and Jaffa Road, in the center of Jerusalem. A day earlier, Jacob Weiss, the manager of the German Bank, was stabbed by an Arab assailant, but was out of danger. Shots were fired at Palestine Quarries workers near Motza.

1938: A British Mandate police report noted that although the Arabs of Palestine had not yedclared 'a complete Jihad,' yet Jihad had been preached in many village mosques in Palestine, Syria and Iraq. If the British government were to announce a poicy 'which is adverse to Arab interest,' the report warned, 'a complete Jihad will be declared by the more prominent religious leaders of Islam.'

1938: Father Bernhard Lichtenberg, a Roman Catholic priest in Berlin, condemns the German assault on Jews. One of the few German Catholics to denounce the immoral behavior of the government, Father Lichtenberg sermonizes: "Outside the synagogue is burning, and that also is a house of God."

1939: Hans Frank, governor-general of Occupied Poland, sets up the first "self-governing" Jewish council (Judenrat) within Jewish ghettos. The council leaders must obey the demands of the Nazis.

1942: The Nazis completed the murder of the Jews of Pinsk, Russia, begun on October 29. As of this date there are reportedly no more Jews left alive in the city.

1942: More than 170,000 Jews are killed within one week at the Belzec, Auschwitz, and Treblinka death camps.

1943: Joseph Stalin, Franklin Roosevelt, and Winston Churchill sign the Moscow Declaration. Because of British suspicions that the Jews and Poles are exaggerating German atrocities, the declaration omits references to gas chambers. Also, while promising postwar justice for murderers, the declaration does not mention Jews.

1943: When Francis Osborne D’Arcy, the British envoy to the Vatican, had an hour-long private audience with Pope Pious XII, the Pontiff insisted that he had no complaints about the Nazi occupation of Rome. This is a recurring theme that reinforces the view that Pious was either totally insensitive, at best, or really an anti-Semite.

1944: Since The Russian army had driven the Germans from eastern Poland and from most of Hungary Jews began to emerge from their hiding places.

1946: In the opening game of the fledgling Basketball Association of America (BAA), Ossie Schectman scored the opening basket for the New York Knickerbockers against the Toronto Huskies. Schectman and his teammates Sonny Hertzberg, Stan Stutz, Hank Rosenstein, Ralph Kaplowitz, Jake Weber, and Leo "Ace" Gottlieb went on to win the opening game 68 – 66 and finish the season with a 33 – 27 record. In 1949, the BAA became the National Basketball Association (NBA), and Schectman’s shot is considered the first basket in the NBA.

1950: Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion formed his second government today with a political coalition that included the United Religious Front.

1950: Private First Class Tibor Rubin, a Hungarian born survivor of the Holocaust, was taken captive in North Korea by the Chinese enemy. With an injured left hand and shrapnel lodged in his chest, he was forced to march the long distance to the Prisoner of War camp. There, for many long months, Rubin stood out among his comrades as a hero, stealing out of the camp each night to obtain food, just as he had done five years earlier, as a Hungarian child in a Nazi concentration camp. For over half a century, the United States Army failed to recognize Rubin’s valor, in part, as one of his fellow GI’s said, because of anit-Semitism. In 2005, President Bush announced that he was bestowing upon this great patriot our nation's highest award for bravery, the Medal of Honor."

1955: Birthdate of Michael “Mike” David Mendoza, the controversial sports radio talk show host who is a cousin of Peter Sellers and a descendant of the legendary boxer Daniel Mendoza.

1956: During the Sinai Campaign, Israeli forces fought a bitter battle with Egyptians in order to take control of Rafa at the entrance to the Gaza Strip which was a base for fedayeen, the name given to the Arab terrorists of the period.

1956(27th of Cheshvan, 5717): A car in which members of Kibbutz Erez were travelling hit a mine laid by fedayeen killing three of the passengers.

1957: Starting today and continuing for almost three weeks, 486 Egyptian Jews were arrested under 'Military Proclamation No. 4.'

1959(30th of Tishrei, 5720): Rosh Chodesh Cheshvan

1959(30th of Tishrei, 5720): Gershon Agron mayor of Jerusalem passed away at the age of 66. Born Gershon Agronksy in the Ukraine in 1894, Agron immigrated to the United States with his parents. During World War I he served with the Jewish Legion in Palestine. In 1932, he started an English language newspaper called the Palestine Post. In 1950, for obvious reasons, he changed the name of the paper to the Jerusalem Post. By publishing in English, Agron provided a voice that could be understood by the British occupiers and the nascent American Zionist movement. His brother was Martin Agronsky, a distinguished American broadcast journalist.

1961: Women Strike For Peace (WSP) was inaugurated with a day-long strike by an estimated 50,000 women in 60 cities, all pressing for nuclear disarmament. The organization was composed primarily of mothers who feared the effects of nuclear proliferation on the short- and long-term health of their children. They were particularly concerned with levels of irradiation in milk and the increase in nuclear testing. WSP had the slogan "End the Arms-Race, Not the Human Race," as well as "Pure Milk, Not Poison." Bella Abzug helped form and run the group, and she became the chairperson of WSP's legislative committee. By 1964 the emphasis of Women Strike for Peace had shifted to focus as much on the Vietnam War as on disarmament, protesting against the draft and the war's effects on Vietnamese children. Abzug remained active in WSP until she was elected to Congress in 1970.

1961: Birthdate of Peggy Orenstein, the author of the New York Times best-selling memoir, “Waiting for Daisy: A Tale of Two Continents, Three Religions, Five Infertility Doctors, An Oscar, an Atomic Bomb, A Romantic Night, and One Woman's Quest to Become a Mother.”

1962: It was reported today that Robert St. John has written two more books about Israel that are due to be published in the near future – “They Came From Everywhere: Twelve Who Helped Mold Modern Israel” and “The Man Who Played God.”

1978: President Jimmy Carter established the President’s Commission on the Holocaust. The purpose of the Commission was to make recommendations on establishing and funding an appropriate memorial to victims of the Holocaust. The Commission suggested the following:
• that a living memorial be established to honor the victims and survivors of the Holocaust and which would ensure that the lessons of the Holocaust be taught in perpetuity;
• that an educational foundation be established to stimulate and support research in the teaching of the Holocaust;
• that a Committee on Conscience be established that would collect information on and alert the national conscience regarding reports of actual or potential outbreaks of genocide throughout the world; and
• that a national Day of Remembrance of victims of the Holocaust be established in perpetuity and be held annually.

1981: In an article entitled “Kvetching About the Human Condition” Wallace Markfield reviewed A Bintel Brief Volume II. Letters to the Jewish Daily Forward 1950-80. Compiled and Edited by Isaac Metzker. (Translated by Bella S. Metzker and Diana Shalet Levy, Under the Supervision of Isaac Metzker) For more than eighty years the Jewish Daily Forward's legendary advice column, "A Bintel Brief" ("a bundle of letters") dispensed shrewd, practical, and fair-minded advice to its readers. Created in 1906 to help bewildered Eastern European immigrants learn about their new country, the column also gave them a forum for seeking advice and support in the face of problems ranging from wrenching spiritual dilemmas to petty family squabbles to the sometimes hilarious predicaments that result when Old World meets New. Issac Metzker, who began writing for the paper in the 1920’s created this compilation column

1984(6th of Cheshvan, 5745): Norman Krasna an American screenwriter, playwright, and film director passed away. He is best known for penning screwball comedies, melodrama, and early films noir. Krasna also directed three films during a forty-year career in Hollywood. He garnered four Academy Award screenwriting nominations, winning once for 1943's Princess O'Rourke, a film he also directed. Later in his career, he also wrote plays, including Time for Elizabeth (1948) cowritten with Groucho Marx, and the popular Kind Sir which he adapted into the movie Indiscreet (1958). He married Al Jolson's widow Erle in 1951, and they remained married until Krasna's death.

1985(17th of Cheshvan, 5746): Famed funny man Phil “Silvers passed away. Born Phillip Silversmith in 1911 in Brooklyn, Silvers was the son of Russian Jewish immigrants. He began his career at the age of 11. He would sing in “movie theatres” when the film would stop due to a broken projector – a common problem in the early days of film. His most famous role came in the 1950’s when he played Sergeant Ernie Bilko on the Phil Silvers Show. The fast talking Bilko was the comedic con artist par excellence always looking for a way to outsmart the military establishment and his dim witted Colonel.

1988: Actor Jeff Goldblum and actress Geena Davis wed in Las Vegas

1988: 2.3 million Israelis voted in today’s elections.

1995: When he met with Yehuda Avner, his long-time English speechwriter and friend today Yitzhak Rabin provided some of the rationale for his negotiations with Yassir Arafat. He said that he considered the likelihood of reaching a peaceful resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with Yasser Arafat to be only “a long shot.” But he attempted it, reluctantly, via the Oslo process, because he recognized that Muslim fundamentalists were gradually winning over the hearts and minds of the Palestinians of the West Bank and Gaza, and that their domination would mean “the certainty of no settlement at all.” “It is either the PLO or nothing,” Rabin said. [This conversation took place three days before Rabin was murdered on November 4.}

1998: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or about topics of Jewish interest including Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human by Harold Bloom, Anne Frank: The Biography by Melissa Müller; Translated by Rita Kimber and Robert Kimber, Principles For A Free Society: Reconciling Individual Liberty With the Common Good
by Richard A. Epstein. and Israel and the Bomb by Avner Cohen

2004: Before returning from injury, Matt Bloom was released from his WWE contract

2005: The U.S. Senate enters a rare closed session to discuss the Plame affair and intelligence in the Iraq disarmament crisis. The Plame in the Plame Affair is Valerie Plame an American CIA agent who discovered her Jewish ancestry as an adult.

2005: In a resolution co-sponsored by 104 Member States, the General Assembly today designated 27 January as Holocaust Remembrance Day, drawing immediate praise from Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who said the United Nations would do its part to keep the memory alive in a bid to prevent future acts of genocide.

2006: At the United Nations Building in New York, Haaretz.com senior editor Bradley Burston received an Eliav -Sartawi Award for Middle East Journalism, an annual prize for Arab, Israeli and international journalists. The winning article was entitled “Let their people go.” Israeli musician David Broza and Palestinian musicians Wisam Murad and Said Murad won an award for their song “In My Heart,” which describes the bond that Israelis and Palestinians share for the same land.

2007: In Washington, D.C., Architect Allan Greenberg presents a lecture, "American Architecture and the Legacy of the Revolution," drawn from his book Architecture of Democracy (his illustrated musing on the link between America's political ideals and architectural traditions), at the Ethics and Public Policy Center.

2007: An exhibition opens at Yad Vashem designed to showcase Muslims who saved Jews from Nazis during the Holocaust. The exhibition focuses on more than a dozen of the scores of Muslim Albanians previously recognized as "Righteous Among the Nations" - the Holocaust center's highest honor - for risking their lives to save Jews during World War II. The exhibit, titled "BESA: A Code of Honor - Muslim Albanians Who Rescued Jews During the Holocaust," is a collection of photographs by the American photographer Norman Gershman of the Albanian Righteous and their families, accompanied by short texts.

2007: Aaron Kintu Moses, director of the Abayudaya Jewish community of Uganda, visited Agudas Achim in Iowa City, IA. The Abayudaya is a group of native Ugandans who have been practicing Judaism since 1919 when their local leader studied the Hebrew Bible and adopted the observances of all of Moses’ commandments including circumcision.

2007: “Sub on Wheels”, the first glatt-kosher food truck which provides a variety of items including hamburger, hot dogs and a variety of other fleshig sandwiches offers its Williamsburg customers a unique item for Thursday – Cholent which can be set aside and served for Shabbat.

2007: The Ant-Defamation League released recent survey results which it says show 15 percent of American adults hold “unquestionably anti-Semitic” views.

2008: In Cedar Rapids, Iowa Temple Judah offers a Saturday Double Header:
• In the Morning, Balfour Shabbat Shacharit Services
• In the Evening, Dinner, a Havdalah Service and Musical Concert with Doug Cotler

2009: Opening of the 31st Annual St. Louis Jewish Book Festival which claims to be the largest Jewish book festival in the United States.

2009: Elisa New discusses and signs her new memoir, "Jacob's Cane: A Jewish Family's Journey from the Four Lands of Lithuania to the Ports of London and Baltimore," at Politics and Prose Bookstore in Washington, D.C.

2009: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or on topics special interest to Jewish readers including Ayn Rand and the World She Made by Anne C. Heller, Look At the Birdie: Unpublished Short Fiction by Kurt Vonnegut and Enemies of the People My Family’s Journey to America by Kati Marton

2009: The Los Angeles Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or on topics special interest to Jewish readers including The Humbling by Phillip Roth.

2009: 75 year old George Hirsch, the founding published of New York Magazine and the man who helped Fred Lewbow plan the first five boorugh NYC Marathon in 1976 is scheduled to be at the starting line of the NYC Marathon today when the runners set off from the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge.

2010: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Finishing the Hat: Collected Lyrics (1954-1981) With Attendant Comments, Principles, Heresies, Grudges, Whines and Anecdotes by Stephen Sondheim and Adam and Eve by Sena Jeter Naslund

2010: YIVO Institute for Jewish Research is scheduled to present a lecture by Dr. Maros Borský who launched the Slovak Jewish Heritage Route. A network linking 24 prominent Jewish heritage sites around Slovakia, it includes synagogue buildings, branches of the Museum of Jewish Culture, and three historic Jewish cemeteries.

2010: Holocaust Education Week begins http://www.holocausteducationweek.com/

2010: Beate Auguste Künzel Klarsfeld visited the Shoah Memorial Mural installed inside the Evangelische Vaterunser Kirche in Berlin. Her host was Pastor Annemarie Werner, the head of the congregation.

2010: The Atlantic Monthly cited Diane Ravitch as a “Brave Thinker” for her changing views on the types of educational reform needed in the United States.
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/11/diane-ravitch/8260/

2011: Today marks the return of Marc Chagall's America Windows to the Art Institute of Chicago. The popular exhibit underwent conservation and research treatment the past five years. The stained- glass windows commemorate the American Bicentennial and first debuted at the Art Institute in 1977. They also appeared in the movie "Ferris Bueller's Day Off.: The windows are now the centerpiece for a presentation of public art in the Rubloff Auditorium.

2011: in commemoration of the 25th anniversary of first broadcast of Pee-wee’s Playhouse starring Paul Ruebens,, a book by Caseen Gaines called Inside “Pee-wee's Playhouse: The Untold, Unauthorized, and Unpredictable Story of a Pop Phenomenon,” is scheduled to be released by ECW Press

2011: The 31st Annual Holocaust Education Week begins
http://holocaustcentre.com/Programs/Holocaust-Education-Week-2011

2011: Professor Avner Cohen, author of “The Worst-Kept Secret: Israel’s Bargain with the Bomb,” and journalist Ron Rosenbaum, author of “How the End Begins: The Road to a Nuclear World War III,” are scheduled to sit down with distinguished journalist and former network correspondent Marvin Kalb to discuss the history and risks of Israel’s nuclear ambiguity and worst-case-scenarios in an age of atomic anxiety at the Jewish Literary Festival in Washington, D.C.

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

This Day, October 31, In Jewish History

OCTOBER 31 In Jewish History

445 BCE: In Jerusalem Ezra, the Scribe reads the Scroll of the Law, the Torah, to the Jews of Judea as described in Nehemiah 9:1.

1345: Birthdate King Fernando I of Portugal. During his reign Jews not only enjoyed a certain amount of self-government through the position of a Chief Rabbi or Ar-Rabbi Mor. The King trusted Jews so much that Don Judah served as his chief treasurer and Don David Negro served as “his confidant and counselor.”

1391: Birthdate of King Duarte of Portugal who during his reign enacted laws prohibiting Jews from employing Christians.

1497: Last date given by King Manuel for Jews to leave Portugal. Four years after the expulsion of Jews from Spain, he had ordered them expelled from Portugal. As his real desire was not to see the Jews leave for financial reasons, he only opened one port forcing most of them to remain behind after the designated date then baptizing them against their will.

1517: Luther posted 95 theses on Wittenberg church starting the Protestant Reformation. From the point of view of Jewish history it is ironic that Luther took his action on Halloween, the holiday known for trick or treat. In his battle with the Pope, Luther sought to gain the support of the Jews. He publicly admitted that Christians had ill-treated the Jews and it was time to change. He believed that once the Jews experienced Christian love, Jews would embrace his version of Christianity en masse. When the Jews refused to convert, Luther turned on them and became a virulent anti-Semite. At the same time, the Jews would become the unwitting victims as the Protestants and Catholics engaged in a variety of religious wars that would consume Europe for the next one hundred years.

1655: As the week long Tishrei festivals come to an end, Manassah Ben Israel prepared to make his voyage where is to meet with Oliver Cromwell whom he hopes will allow the Jews to return to the British Isles.

1655: A “humble address” is sent from Manasseh ben Israel to Oliver Cromwell, The Lord Protector. A fortnight later on 13 November he submitted a petition for the readmission of Jews to England.

1759(10th of Cheshvan, 5520): An earthquake killed several hundred Jews in Safed. Safed is the town most people connect with Jewish mystics and the famous Shabbat Eve hymn, Lecha Dodi. Prior to the earthquake, Safed had been a thriving city. The first printing presses in the Middle East were set up in Safed and the first Hebrew book published in Eretz Israel was produced in Safed in the year before the earthquake. The quake was one of a series of disasters including plagues and Arab attacks that would turn the town into a comparative backwater until the creation of the modern state of Israel.

1835: Birthdate of Johann Friedrich Wilhelm Adolf von Baeyer, known as Adolph von Baeyer, the first Jew to ever receive the Nobel Prize. A native of Berlin, this German chemist was acknowledged in 1905 for synthesizing dye indigo and was awarded the Davie Medal by the Royal Society of London in 1881, for his work with indigo. He passed away in 1917.
1841: In the first Jewish marriage in New Zealand, David Nathan wed Rosetta Aarons in Kororareka.

1842(27th of Cheshvan, 5603): Rabbi Solomon Hirschell passed away. Born in 1761, he was the Chief Rabbi of Great Britain, from 1802 until his death. He is best remembered for his unsuccessful attempt to stop the spread of Reform Judaism in Britain by excommunicating its leaders. His father was a Polish Jew from Galicia Hirschel Levin, Chief Rabbi of London and Berlin and a friend of Moses Mendelssohn. His older brother was Talmudist Saul Berlin.
1849; Mordecai Manuel Noah wrote to Daniel Webster today inviting him to attend the Hebrew Benevolent and German Hebrew Benevolent Society banquet to be held in New York on November 13. In the letter, Noah informs Webster that there are 13,000 Jews living in New York City and that number is continuing to rise daily.

1864: Nevada is admitted as the 36th U.S. state. It was a series of silver strikes, the most famous of which was the Comstock Lode, that attracted large numbers of early settlers to Nevada including Jews as well as Gentiles. For example, when Eureka, Nevada experienced its silver strike the town’s population reached four thousand inlcuding more than one hundred Jews. Among these Jews was Ben C. Levy a native of France who became superintendant of two mines and who, along with his wife, was a leader of the Jewish community. David H. Cohen was typical of these early Jewish settlers. He began as a “49er” in California, moved on to Virginia City, Nevada before “striking it reach” with a liquor business in Austin, Nevada. Adoph Sutro left the most lasting monument to the intrepid Jewish population of Nevada’s early days. This placer panner turned entrepeneur raised the money for the construction of the four mile long Sutro Tunnel designed to drain water from the mines thus making them safer and more protective. The man who made the modern Nevada was Jewish gangster Bugsy Siegel, the man behind Las Vegas. As of 2000, there were an estimated 77,100 Jews living in Nevada, representing an increase of 277% from 1990.

1857: In a letter to the editor published in today's New York Times, "Grace, a farmer's wife" expresses her indignation of having the farmer classed with "the Wall-street gamblers or Chatham-street Jews." In New York, Chatham street was the center of the second-hand clothing business, an industry dominated by immigrant Jews who allegedly took advantage of their Christian costumers.

1860: The News of the Day Column published today reported that “a ball and banquet in aid of the ‘Jews Hospital in New-York’ was given at the City Assembly Rooms last evening, which was largely attended by members of the Jewish faith and others. Donations in aid of the Hospital were received from those present, and from absent persons, by letter, amounting to $14,000. Among the donors was Gov. Morgan, who sent a complimentary letter in closing $100.”

1861: The General News column published today reported that “A murder of a most atrocious nature has been committed in New-Jersey, on the body of a German Jew named Sigismund Felluer. Deceased had only been in this country a few days, and had property in jewels and diamonds to the amount of $50,000. A man with whom Felluer left the Prescott House, and a Jewess in whose company Felluer was seen, are suspected, and the police are diligently searching for them. A reward of $500 for the discovery of the murderer or murderers has been offered by the friends of Felluer.

1875: It was reported today that “eight Jews and Jewesses were recently baptized in London.

1875: It was reported today that in England, a revision of the Book of Isaiah has been completed and work on a revision of the translation of the Book of Jeremiah has reach the midpoint of that book of the Bible.

1875: It was reported today that the Jewish messenger said of Moody and Sankey, “We give the two enterprising gentlemen the credit of being honest in their intentions, earnest in their work and as the past has proved, disinterested in the pecuniary results of their vast undertakings. Would that we could say the same of all our Deacons and Trustees, Pastors and Rabbis” [ Moody is Dwight Moody, the famous evangelist. Sankey is Ira David Sankey, “The Sweet Singer of Methodism” who was known for his composition and singing of gospel music. During a trip to the United Kingdom, the two raised tens of thousands of dollars for the use of missionaries.

1875: Birthdate of Eugene Meyer. A Yale graduate, Meyer established his own very successful banking firm. Starting with World War I, he served actively on numerous government boards and committees. He gained lasting fame when he bought the bankrupt Washington Post at public auction. As published of the Post until 1946 and then as chairman of the board of the Washington Post & Times Herald, Meyer was instrumentally in making the Post a leading American newspaper and creating a media empire that included the Washington outlet of CBS and Newsweek Magazine. He passed away in 1959. His daughter, Katherine Graham would continue his work and take the Post to levels of which he only dreamed.

1879: According to reports published today from Berlin, Romania is seeking to gain formal recognition of her independence in light of her government’s recent action concerning the emancipation of the Jews.

1905(2nd of Cheshvan, 5666): Three hundred Jews were killed in a Pogrom in Odessa, Russia.

1905: Rabbi Moses and Tamara Shorr were married at Königsberg

1911(9th of Cheshvan, 5672): At Constantinople Daoud Effendi Molho, a member of the Ottoman Diplomatic Staff, passed away at the age of 67.

1912: In Lancaster, PA, Laurence B. Myers and Edith Hirsh Myers gave birth to Robert Julius Myers the actuary who helped to create the Social Security program and to set America’s official retirement age at 65

1917: During World War I, the “last successful cavalry charge in history” took place at the Battle of Beersheba. The Battle of Beersheba was part of the British campaign against the Ottoman Turks. In an era dominated by machine guns, barged wire and massed heavy artillery, the Australian 4th Light Horse Brigade charged four miles of Turkish trenches, overran them and captured the wells at Beersheba. The British needed to take Beersheba because its wells would provide the water needed for a successful campaign. On October 30, 2004, the day before the anniversary of this event Jews around the world would read an account from the book of Bereshit of contest between Abraham and Abimelech over the wells at Beersheba. Surely some Rabbi in Sydney or Melbourne would include mention of this battle in his d'var torah on the sedrah. The capture of Beersheba leads to the seizure of Gaza by British troops including the Jewish Soldiers of the 39th Battalion of Royal Fusiliers.

1917: In Great Britain, “the cabinet overrode the opposition of two cabinet members and authorized the Foreign Secretary to issue a much-diluted version of the assurance of support that Weizmann had requested.” This “statement of support” would soon be known as The Balfour Declaration.

1919: An article entitled “The Crucifixion of Jews Must Stop!” written by Marin Henry Glynn, the former of governor of New York appeared in today’s issue of The American Hebrew. Glynn lamented the poor conditions for European Jews after World War I. He “referred to these conditions as a potential ‘holocaust’ and asserted that ‘six million Jewish men and women are starving across the seas’. Because of these coincidences, the article has been exploited by Holocaust-denial groups. Others, while in no way intending to deny the Holocaust, nonetheless acknowledge that the commonly-quoted figure of six million deaths is an estimate, that the actual number may have been less, that not all of the victims were Jewish, and that there is a wide margin of error.”

1924: Birthdate of Yehuda Klien who as Yehuda Amital would become an Orthodox rabbi, the Rosh Yeshiva of Yeshivat Har Etzion and a member of the Israeli cabinet

1925(13th of Cheshvan, 5686): Max Linder, French actor, director and screenwriter, passed away.

1926(23rd of Cheshvan, 5687: Erich Weiss better known as magician Harry Houdini, died in Detroit of gangrene and peritonitis resulting from a ruptured appendix.

1926: Following his recent arrival in the United States Dr. Chaim Weismann, President of the ZOA announced that “he had come to work with his friends on behalf of the Jewish National Home in Palestine. He said that he feld confident that this time, as on earlier occasions, his pleading would find a sympathetic response among the great Jewish Community of America.
1927: Birthdate of Lee Grant, star of “Portnoy’s Complaint.”

1930: Dr. Karl Landsteiner, who was just named as the recipient of the Nobel Prize in Medicine talked today “of his researches that led to the discovery of a serum for infantile paralysis; of his studies of human blood groups, which have opened a new field in the establishment of the paternity of children…and of his work in immunology…” His work in the classification of blood into thirty subdivisions has improved the selection of blood donors transforming transfusions from a “dangerous operation” to “a safe and frequently used procedure.”

1930: Tonight approximately eight thousand “Jews gathered in Tel Aviv to celebrate the fiftieth birthday of Vladimir Jabotinsky” and to protest against the White Paper on the British Policy in Palestine.

1931: Professor Otto Warburg’s explanation of “how respiration takes place in the cell” and proof that “a living cell can breathe only in the presence of the iron carried by a specific enzyme” was published today. This is the work for which Warburg won this year’s Nobel Prize for Physiology and Medicine. Warburg explained that his conclusion had differed from Dr. Heinrich Wieland’s because he had used living cells and Wieland, who had won the Nobel Prize in 1928, used dead cell material.

1936: Birthdate of actor and director Michael Landon. Born Eugene Orowitz, Landon first gained fame playing the part of Little Joe on the hit western Bonanza. Pa Cartwright was played by Jewish actor Lorene Greene. Later he played the father on another television hit, Little House on the Prairie. Once again Jewish artists helped to create the cultural American myth. He died of cancer in 1991.

1939: Psychologist Otto Rank passed away. Born Otto Rosenfeld in Vienna in 1884, Rank was one of Freud’s closest aides and colleagues. He later split with Freud and became one his critics. He extended psychoanalytic theory to the study of legend, myth, art, and other works of creativity. Instead of the Freudian Oedipus-Complex he took the trauma of birth to be more profound. He was living in New York City when he passed away.

1939: In what is now central Israel, Kfar Warburg or Warburg Village was founded by members of the "Menachem" organization. It was named after Felix M. Warburg, one of the leaders of the Jewish community in the United States and a founder of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee

1940: The French authorities in Morocco tried to impose the Vichy racial laws on its own Jewish population of over 150,000.

1940: During World War II, the Nazi air attacks against the British Isles known as the Battle of Britain ended. The good news was that the victory of the RAF (Royal Air Force) meant there would be no invasion of England. The British would live on to fight another day. The bad news was that the end of the Battle of Britain meant that Hitler was working to put his plan to invade the Soviet Union into effect. The invasion of the Soviet Union would lead to the murder of millions of Jews.

1941(10th of Cheshvan, 5702): The Nazis murdered 200 Jews in Kleck (Byelorussia) when its council members tried to make contact with non-Jews from outside the ghetto. Jews had lived in Kleck since 1529. At the start of the war, there were more than 4000 Jews living in the town. After putting most of the Jews in a ghetto, the ghetto was set on fire and most of the Jews perished. The community was not rebuilt after the war.

1942: Local peasants betray six members of the Jewish Fighting Organization near Kraków, Poland, alerting German troops to the Jews' presence.

1942: Three thousand Jews readied for deportation from eastern Poland to the Belzec death camp are stripped naked to prevent resistance.

1943(2nd of Cheshvan, 5704: Max Reinhardt passed while living in New York. Born Max Goldman, Reinhardt was an influential Austrian actor and director.

1944: Birthdate of Kinky Friedman, musician and candidate for governor of the state of Texas in 2006.

1944: The gas chambers at Birkenau were silenced and ceased operating. The Germans began to dismantle them in a futile attempt to hide their evil deeds.

1946: Two bombs exploded at a Jerusalem railway station killing a British constable. Meir Feinstein, a British army veteran, Daniel Azulai, Massoud Bouton and Moshe Horowitz were captured afterwards and charged with the bombing.

1948: The United Nations observers in Jerusalem reported that “Last night the cannons thundered again in most part parts of the city. There have been 108 instances of Arab firing at Jewish positions in the city during the last week.”

1948: Despite their lack of modern equipment, Israeli forces liberated the Galilee panhandle and actually took the land all the way to the Litani River in Lebanon at the end of Operation Hiram.
1948: During the Israel War of Independence a ceasefire was scheduled to go into effect today at eleven o’clock

1950: During the Korean War, Tibor Rubin “manned a .30 caliber machine gun at the south end of the unit's line after three previous gunners became casualties. He continued to man his machine gun until his ammunition was exhausted. His determined stand slowed the pace of the enemy advance in his sector, permitting the remnants of his unit to retreat southward.” (From his Medal of Honor citation)

1954: The Algerian Revolution against the French begins. The French were sure that President of Nasser was a driving force behind the Arab uprising in Algeria. They would join with Israel
and Britain in an ill-fated attempt to unseat him in what became known as the Suez Campaign in 1956. Much to the dismay of France, President Eisenhower would join with the Soviets to keep Nasser in power.

1956: Britain and France begin to bomb Egypt airfields during the Suez Crisis. According the scenario, the bombing was supposed to be part of European intervention designed to save the canal. It would be a week before the Anglo-French military force would show up in Egypt. This meant that the dirty work of the infantry fell to the Israelis. In point of fact the Israelis had moved quicker than planned and the Egyptians had folded like a cheap suit leaving the Anglo-French forces with no fig-leaf to cover their mission.

1956: An Egyptian frigate began shelling Haifa at 3:30 in the morning. A French destroyer, later joined by two Israeli ships, drove off the attacker. As dawn broke, the ship that bombarded Haifa with more than two hundred rounds was attacked by two Israeli warplanes. The damage to the vessel forced the captain to run up the white flag. Later that morning that captured vessel was ignominiously towed into the harbor at Haifa.

1956: In what would be part of a pattern for his career, Sharon disobeyed orders and launched an unnecessary attack into the Mitla Pass. The force was ambushed by the Egyptians and suffered a total loss of 158 killed and wounded. The Pass was taken, but the price was unnecessarily high. .

1956: The Egyptians put up a stubborn defense at Abu Agelia. This would be the start of a two day battle for this key piece of real estate that Israel need to protect and supply its forces on the way to the Suez Canal. Anybody who thinks that Arabs cannot fight need only go to Abu Agelia.

1963: Birthdate of comedic actor Rob Schneider.

1966: Birthdate of entertainer Adam Keefe Horovitz, a.k.a. King Ad-Rock.

1967: Birthdate of Adam Schlesinger, Jewish-American composer, musician, and producer. He has performed on bass guitar in the indie pop band Ivy and the power pop band Fountains of Wayne. In 1997 he also earned an Academy Award nomination for best original song for the title song to That Thing You Do!

1964: Barbra Streisand's album "People," began a five week stint at the top of music charts.
1982: A revival performance of Abraham Goldfaden’s “Shulamith” takes place at the Norman Thomas Theater in New York City.

1984: The Mapleton Park Hebrew Institute, which houses a synagogue and a yeshiva, at 2022 66th Street, Brooklyn, was virtually destroyed in an arson fire.

1991(23rd of Cheshvan, 5752): Joseph Papp, American theatrical producer, passed away.

1993: Galgalatz an Israeli radio station operated by Israel Defense Forces Radio began broadcasting this morning

1995(7th of Cheshvan, 5756): Austrian born violinist, Erika Morini passed away in New York at the age of 91. She had retired in 1976, and passed away soon after the theft of her Stradivari violin.

1995: Drs, Jennifer and Todd Burstain give birth to their second son Jonathan, who like his Biblical namesake, is fine and virtuous young man.

1996(18th of Cheshvan, 5757): William Rosenwald, who gave and raised millions of dollars in a life dominated by philanthropy that saved tens of thousands of lives and bettered countless others through education and the arts, died yesterday at his home at the age of 93. Mr. Rosenwald carried on a commitment to charity established by his father, Julius, a chairman and builder of Sears, Roebuck & Company, and was one of the three signatories to the agreement that founded a nationwide United Jewish Appeal in 1939. A private investor, Mr. Rosenwald had business interests at various times in enterprises that included the American Securities Corporation, an investment bank; Western Union International, and Ametek, a maker of precision instruments and small electric motors, like those used in vacuum cleaners. He was nevertheless best known for his tireless philanthropic dedication. ''I spend half my time in philanthropic work, half at business, half with my family and half at personal affairs,'' he said once with his characteristic good humor. Besides his longtime work with the United Jewish Appeal, Mr. Rosenwald served for four decades on the board of the Tuskegee Institute and for many years on the board of the New York Philharmonic. Long before many others realized the threat posed to European Jews by the Nazis, Mr. Rosenwald was busy working to save as many people as he could from the impending Holocaust. In the mid-1930's, he led a family effort to rescue relatives in Europe, and by 1948, the endeavor had succeeded in bringing 300 of them to the United States and had assumed responsibility for another 300 still in Europe. Not only did the Rosenwalds bring their kin to America; they also provided them with homes and found them jobs. But Mr. Rosenwald's experiences in Europe gave him first-hand exposure to the plight of Jews in Nazi Germany and in other countries where anti-Semitism was flourishing. In a 1935 interview, Mr. Rosenwald said: ''There is the thought in my mind -- and that I would like to get across to the Jews of America -- that to the extent that the Jews as a whole help their suffering brethren, we will fortify the Jews of all countries against anti-Semitic onslaughts.'' As a result, he was unremitting in his efforts to raise money to address the needs of Jews in distress. In 1939, when he became the organizer and first president of the National Refugee Service, later a part of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, he had already been working for three years to resettle refugees in communities outside New York City. And when the state of Israel was founded in 1948, Mr. Rosenwald was in the forefront of efforts to support the immigration of thousands of European refugees to the Jewish homeland. ''The time has come for rededication on a scale that will measure up to the historic moment that our generation has been privileged to witness,'' he said. Mr. Rosenwald served the United Jewish Appeal as one of its three national chairmen from 1942 to 1946, when he began the first campaign that raised more than $100 million; and he headed the organization's campaigns in 1955, 1956 and 1957. He encouraged the combined campaign of the U.J.A.-Federation of Jewish Philanthropies of New York and served as the campaign organization's first president for three years beginning in 1974. For 50 years he was a member of the executive committee of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, and he held various posts with organizations like the Council of Jewish Federations and the American Jewish Committee. Mr. Rosenwald, one of the five children of Julius Rosenwald and the former Augusta Nusbaum, was born in Chicago in 1903. He earned a bachelor of science degree at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1924, studied liberal arts at Harvard University for a year, then attended the London School of Economics. Beginning in 1928, he went to work for Sears, Roebuck in various posts, including as a director from 1934 to 1938. In 1935, he began his career as a private investor. His many awards and honors included doctorates from Hebrew University and Tuskegee Institute. (As reported by Lawrence Van Gelder)

1999: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or on topics of special Jewish interesting including Rebellion by Joseph Roth, translated by Michael Hofmann, Ice Fire Water: A Leib Goldkorn Cocktail by Leslie Epstein and A Flame of Pure Fire: Jack Dempsey and the Roaring '20s by Roger Kahn.

1999 (21st of Cheshvan, 5760): Britain's emeritus chief rabbi, Lord Immanuel Jakobovits, died unexpectedly early this morning at his London home after suffering a cerebral hemorrhage. He was 78. Jakobovits served as chief rabbi of Great Britain, Northern Ireland and the British Commonwealth from 1967 to 1991, when he was replaced by the current chief rabbi, Jonathan Sacks. Jakobovits was the first chief rabbi to be knighted and the first to be elevated to the House of Lords. Sacks called him "the outstanding rabbinic figure of his generation." Rabbi Michael Melchior, the Israeli minister for social and diaspora affairs, said that "the Jewish nation has lost an outstanding leader and a close friend," who bravely expressed his concern for the unity of the Jewish people and their "cohesion." Rabbi Pinchas Lipner, dean of the Hebrew Academy of San Francisco, called Jakobovits "the most eloquent spokesperson for the Jewish people bar none." He was the "father of modern Jewish medical ethics," said Lipner, a friend of the late rabbi for almost three decades. "He was a combination of enormous intellect, class and generosity," he added. Jakobovits came repeatedly to the Bay Area to address the annual Conference on Jewish Medical Ethics, run by the Institute on Jewish Medical Ethics of the Hebrew Academy. Lipner is also the dean of the institute. Jakobovits possessed considerable political foresight and was at the center of controversy in Israel during the 1980s when, at the height of the settlers' movement, he declared that peace is more important than territory and that it would be necessary to make compromises. Lipner noted that Jakobovits was at the forefront of many movements, regardless of prevailing sentiments. "His position on the peace process was not very popular," Lipner recalled. "Most people had a wait-and-see attitude or expressed hostility toward the accords, but Rabbi Jakobovits was one of the first people to really be an advocate for the peace plan." Underlying all of Jakobovits' teachings was his belief in the Torah as the guiding light of Jewish life. "Rabbi Jakobovits believed that the Jewish people had no alternative but to study the Torah and to teach it to their children," Lipner said. As Sir Immanuel and later Lord Jakobovits, he was regarded as "father confessor" to former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and was widely perceived as the spiritual leader of “Thatcherite” Britain. Prime Minister Tony Blair paid tribute to him as "a man deeply respected and widely admired throughout the whole of this country for his faith, his ability and his courage. He will be sorely missed." Opposition Conservative leader William Hague said he was "profoundly sad to hear of his death. He will be long remembered as both leader and teacher, unwavering in his commitment to moral responsibility, to education and to tradition." Jakobovits was born in 1921, in Konigsberg, East Prussia. He moved to Berlin with his family, but fled to Britain after the rise of Hitler and was joined by his family two years later. After attending a Jewish school, he went on to London University and the Jews' College and began work as a rabbi in London's Brondesbury Synagogue. In 1949, at 27, he was appointed chief rabbi of Ireland and in 1958 moved to New York, where he was the founding rabbi of the Fifth Avenue Synagogue. He returned to Britain in 1967 to take up the post of chief rabbi of Great Britain and the Commonwealth, a position he held until 1991. At the time of his retirement, he was awarded the prestigious Templeton Prize -- widely regarded as the "Nobel prize for religion" -- in recognition of his writings and teachings on a number of controversial subjects. These included defending school prayer in the 1960s, railing against the schism between secular and Orthodox Jews in Israel and introducing Hebrew ethics into medical practices. His publications include "The Timely and the Timeless," "Jewish Medical Ethics," "Journal of a Rabbi," "If Only My People: Zionism in My Life," "Harav Halord" and "Dear Chief Rabbi." He also edited the centenary edition of the "Authorized Daily Prayer Book" in 1990.A pre-funeral service took place at London's Hendon Synagogue Sunday afternoon. He was buried this week at Mount of Olives Cemetery in Jerusalem.

2003: As part of the government’s ongoing battle with Mikhail Borisovich Khodorkovsky u Vladimir Putin froze shares of Yukos, his petroleum company, because of tax charges

2003: In Tel Aviv, the first ever Azrieli Circular Tower run-up competition (with 1144 stairs to the top) takes place. Winners of the contest get to participate in the following year's Empire State Building run-up competition.

2003: “Mazel Tov Y'all! The South as a Melting Pot,” Pam Kingsbury’s interview with Roy Hoffman, author of Chicken Dreaming Corn was published today.
http://www.southernscribe.com/zine/authors/Hoffman_Roy.htm

2004: The New York Times features a review of The Story of a Life by Aharon Appelfeld. Translated by Aloma Halter

2004: The Founders and Builders and Charter Members of the Jewish Historical Society were honored at the Double Chai (36th) anniversary banquet held at Etz Chaim Synagogue.

2005: There are numerous signs that Israel is breaking out of its diplomatic and cultural isolation. First, the UN has scheduled a vote on the establishment of an international Holocaust remembrance day. The proposal, which was submitted by Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom, enjoys a solid majority, with at least 100 out of a total of 190 UN members promising to approve it. The motion - which marks the first time Israel has submitted a resolution to the GA - calls for January 27, the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, to be recognized as an international day of Holocaust remembrance. As part of the proposal, all member states will be called upon to develop an educational curriculum meant to instill the memory of the Holocaust in future generations to prevent genocide from occurring again. UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has expressed his support for the measure. The draft resolution reads, in part: "The Holocaust constituted a systematic and barbarous attempt to annihilate an entire people, in a manner and magnitude that have no parallel in human history. Six million Jews, a full third of the Jewish people, together with countless other minorities, were murdered. And yet, while the Holocaust was a unique tragedy for the Jewish people, its lessons are universal. "The United Nations, an organization founded on the ashes of the Holocaust and committed to `save succeeding generations from the scourge of war' and to uphold and protect the `dignity and worth of human beings,' bears a special responsibility to ensure that the Holocaust and its lessons are never forgotten and that this tragedy will forever serve as a warning to all people of the dangers of hatred, bigotry, racism and prejudice." Second, the Jordaninans have agreed to end an anti-Semitic television series based on the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Third, Italian notables plan on taking part in public demonstration later this week protesting Iran’s call for the destruction of the state of Israel.

2006: For the first time ever, one of the largest and most prestigious music festivals in New York, the “Cmj Music Marathon” dedicates an entire evening to Israeli artists who sing in English. The festival which lasts through November 5, invited three Israeli artists to participate in this first time event.

2007: The Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra performs Gershwin’s American in Paris, Hindemith’s Kammermusik No. 6 and Sibelius’s Symphony No. 1 at the Jerusalem Theater in Jerusalem.

2007: At the Israel Museum in Jerusalem an exhibition entitled “Beliefs and Believers: Ancient Art from the Israel Museum” comes to an end. The exhibit includes “some thirty objects of critical and artistic merit, drawn from the permanent collection of the Israel Museum, shed light on the religion and rituals of the Land of Israel's early inhabitants. Featured among the works in the exhibition is a thirteenth-century BCE statue of the storm god, a prehistoric statue dated at approximately 10,000 years, ritual objects of the faithful, and breathtaking stone sculptures portraying Dionysus and Artemis.”

2007: The seventh Alex Rider novel, Snakehead by Anglo-Jewish author Anthony Horowitz was released today.

2007: Halloween - Should Jews participate in holiday celebrations. See, Rabbi Michael Broyde’s “Collecting Candy on Halloween: Harmless Pastime or Halachic Prohibition?” for one view on this topic. http://www.myjewishlearning.com/holidays/About_Jewish_Holidays/Secular_Holidays/HalloweenBroyde.htm.

2008: At the Lincoln Plaza Cinemas, premier of “One Day You’ll Understand.” A meditation on loss, memory, identity and family legacy, directed by acclaimed Israeli director Amos Gitai, “One Day You’ll Understand” takes place in Paris during the Klaus Barbie trial of 1987. As the trial plays out on television, a French businessman finds himself increasingly obsessed with piecing together the truth about his family’s history – especially after discovering an Aryan declaration written by his father during the war. But to his frustration, his mother Rivka has shuttered away her past and refuses to share any memories with him.

2008(2nd of Cheshvan, 5769): Studs Terkel, 96, the preeminent oral historian of 20th-century America who described the major events of his time through the experiences and observations of the ordinary men and women who lived them, died today at his home in Chicago after a fall. As a radio host and Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Terkel used a folksy but probing interviewing style to draw out unfiltered answers from political leaders and common people alike. He illuminated America from the ground up, seeking out stories from bartenders, housewives, businessmen, artists, doctors, social workers, coal miners, farmworkers, bookmakers and convicts. "Who built the pyramids?" he once asked in his inimitable sweet growl. "It wasn't the goddamn pharaohs who build the pyramids. It was the anonymous slaves." Through his daily radio interview show, which was broadcast from 1952 to 1998 and nationally syndicated, Terkel's voice -- slow and mellifluous, with a working-class edge -- became known to millions of people. He always ended his show with a line from an old union song: "Take it easy, but take it." His best-selling books usually were transcribed from tape-recorded interviews with hundreds of people. His prolific use of the recording device led Time magazine to write that "next to Richard Nixon the person whose life has been most dramatically affected by the tape recorder is Studs Terkel." He won the Pulitzer for nonfiction for " 'The Good War': An Oral History of World War II" (1984). Besides two volumes of autobiography, his other major books included "Working" (1974), "Hard Times: An Oral History of the Great Depression" (1970) and "Division Street: America" (1966). These folk histories were told in first-person vignettes and anecdotes taken from interviews with a wide variety of people. Terkel was an artist of conversation who once described his work as "listening to what people tell me." He was unusually skilled at drawing out his subjects, who told him about their dreams and memories, their fears, frustrations and anxieties, the condition of their lives. "The average American has an indigenous intelligence, a native wit," he once said in a speech. "It's only a question of piquing that intelligence." He described this process as "guerrilla journalism," but writer Garry Wills described Terkel's philosophy and politics as "underdog-ism." "Studs is a representative of an all-but extinct American breed," Chicago-born writer and lawyer Scott Turow told London's Guardian newspaper in 2004. "He is a leftist humanist, whose faith in the capacities of every human being has informed both his politics and his literary efforts." Besides his radio, TV and book work, Terkel also had been an actor in radio soap operas and films. He memorably played a newspaper reporter in "Eight Men Out" (1988), the John Sayles film about the 1919 "Black Sox" baseball scandal. He also was a playwright, jazz columnist, disc jockey, lecturer and host of music festivals. Despite his national celebrity status, his presence as an interviewer was barely discernible in most of his books. Like a psychoanalyst, he allowed his subjects to talk freely, with minimal questioning. But when he was interviewed, his eclectic references meandered from opera singer Enrico Caruso to civil rights activist Malcolm X to President Franklin D. Roosevelt. He seemed comfortable dropping in references to Greek mythology as he discussed the closing of steel mills and auto plants. After he took a bad fall in 2004, he described the incident as "choreographed more by Bob Fosse than by George Balanchine." He was so closely identified with Chicago that it might surprise some to learn he was born Louis Terkel in the Bronx, N.Y., on May 16, 1912. "I came up the year the Titanic went down," he often said. He moved to Chicago in the early 1920s with his parents, Polish immigrants Samuel and Anna Terkel. His father, an admirer of Socialist labor leader Eugene V. Debs, was in poor health for much of his life. His mother, whom he described as a "tough little sparrow," operated a boardinghouse that catered to transient workers, railroad firemen, labor organizers and the like. Decades later, Studs Terkel would remember such characters affectionately, particularly the goofs, philosophers and radicals who orated from atop soapboxes in the patch of park known as Bughouse Square. He graduated from the University of Chicago with a degree in philosophy and also from its law school, and came to Washington as a government lawyer in 1934. Bored by the work, he took up stage acting before returning to Chicago to write weekly radio shows for the Federal Writers Project alongside novelists Richard Wright and Nelson Algren. His continued acting, on stage and radio, often featured in gangster roles. During this period, he took his nickname from Studs Lonigan, the Depression-era antihero of the James T. Farrell novels about working-class Irish in Chicago. In 1939, he married a social worker, Ida Goldberg, who died in 1999. Survivors include their son, Dan Terkel. For many years, Terkel depended on his wife's income. "She made a lot more money than I did," he once said, recalling their early times together. "It was like dating a CEO. I borrowed 20 bucks from her for our first date. I never paid her back." In the 1940s, Terkel began hosting radio shows focused on lively and spontaneous interviews. From 1949 to 1952, he had a television interview show, "Studs' Place," which was canceled after the House Un-American Activities Committee raised questions about Terkel's earlier political associations. He told The Washington Post in 1983 that he had never been a communist but that he had "belonged to a left-wing theater group. Basically my name appeared on many petitions. Rent control. Ending Jim Crow. Abolishing the poll tax. You know, as subversive issues as that." He added that being blackballed from TV might have helped his career. "If it weren't for the blacklist I might have been emceeing [today] on these network TV shows and have been literally dead because . . . I'd have said something that would have knocked me off [the air], obviously. But I would never have done these books, I would never have gone on to the little FM station playing classical music. So, long live the blacklist!" His first book was "Giants of Jazz" (1957), a primer aimed at younger readers unfamiliar with such legends as Bessie Smith and Louis Armstrong. His greatest fame in print came from his oral histories. "Division Street: America" consisted of 70 interviews with people in or near Chicago. To Terkel, these conversations reflected the divisiveness and antipathies among rich and poor, black and white, young and old. A New York Times reviewer called the book "a modern morality play, a drama with as many conflicts as life itself." Then came "Hard Times," which he described as a "memory book" of the Great Depression, reflecting the "small triumphs" of those who survived the ordeal. It was a bestseller for five months and was translated into many languages. To produce "Working," Terkel spent three years recording the thoughts and reflections of 133 Americans from almost as many occupations on what they did for a living. Many were frustrated and dissatisfied by the monotony of their jobs and the lack of personal fulfillment. Reviewing the book, Peter S. Prescott of Newsweek wrote, "Terkel understands that what people need -- more than sex, almost as much as food -- and what they perhaps will never find, is a sympathetic ear." For " 'The Good War,' " Terkel talked to World War II privates and generals, civilians and celebrities, including Maxene Andrews, one of the singing Andrews Sisters. The book's title became a shorthand description of the nation's sense of common cause and shared sacrifice during World War II. In later books, including "The Great Divide" (1988) and "Race" (1992), Terkel's interviews reflected the widening abyss between the haves and the have-nots in American life. He was astounded by the high degree of ignorance of U.S. history and later described "The Great Divide" as being about "society's Alzheimer's disease." President Bill Clinton awarded Terkel a 1997 National Humanities Medal for giving ordinary people a national voice. "Through their words, he gives us a portrait of ourselves," the citation said. Terkel, who arrived at the White House ceremony in his customary red checkered shirt and red socks, told an interviewer: "Who do I choose? People who articulate what others feel but can't say."

2009: In Jerusalem the Camery Theater presents "Amadeus," with Itzhak Hezkiah, Itai Tiran, Chani Firstenberg, Ezra Daggan, Eran Mor, Ori Ravitz, Ohad Shahar/Moti Katz/Amir Kriaf, Eran Sarel, and ten dancers. The play tells the incredible story of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, told in flashback mode by Antonio Salieri, the mediocre composer who envies Mozart's natural, outstanding talent. The story takes place in 18th century Vienna

2010: Theodore C. Sorensen, who was a close adviser and counselor to John F. Kennedy for 11 years, writing words and giving voice to ideas that shaped the president’s image and legacy, passed away today at the age of 82. The Nebraska native was the daughter Annis Chaikin, a Russian Jew. However he was raised as a Unitarian. In reality, he was best known as Kennedy’s Ghost Writer and the real author of “Profiles in Courage.”

2010: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Finishing the Hat by Stephen Sondheim and Adam and Eve by Sena Jeter Naslund.

2010: The Ruth Spector Memorial Mah Jongg Tournament is scheduled to take place at the JCC of Northern Virginia

2010: The Israeli film, Intimate Grammar, won the Tokyo Sakura Grand Prize Film Award at the 23rd Tokyo International Film Festival today. The film, directed by Nir Bergman and starring actress Orly Zibershatz, was based on a novel by Israeli author David Grossman. The film follows the story of Aaron, a boy growing from childhood to adolescence in Israel in the early 1960s. Intimate Grammar won the Haggiag Award for Best Full-Length Feature Film at the 27th Jerusalem Film Festival in July. Bergman's first feature Broken Wings also won the Tokyo Sakura Grand Prize Film Award in 2002.

2010: Susan Jacoby reviewed “Simon Wiesenthal: The Life and Legends” by Tom Segev.
Simon Wiesenthal, Nazi-hunter and impassioned loner, is a legendary figure for his role in helping track down hundreds of Nazi war criminals, the most famous among them Adolf Eichmann. Wiesenthal's death in 2005, at age 96, was a coda for an entire generation of Holocaust survivors who are now passing from the Earth. What more could there be to say? Plenty, as it turns out in "Simon Wiesenthal," by Israeli journalist Tom Segev. A columnist for the newspaper Haaretz and the author of numerous books, Segev is one of the world's great investigative reporters, in a class with bloodhounds such as Seymour Hersh and the late David Halberstam. In this biography, the subject is not only Wiesenthal but the shifting relationship since the end of World War II of American, Israeli and European culture to what is now known as the Holocaust but was never called that in the first two decades after the war. Segev places Wiesenthal's life within a context almost unthinkable to Americans under 50 today, for whom Holocaust memorialization is a given. That the singular fate of European Jews under the Nazis was played down for many years after the war and that the U.S. government was none too eager to pursue Nazi war criminals who had taken refuge here are not widely known (even among young Jews). Segev notes that the Holocaust was also "wrapped in silence" in the young state of Israel and that many Israelis who had emigrated to Palestine before the war had denigrated survivors for "remaining in Europe instead and waiting to be slaughtered without doing anything to prevent it." Against this background, Wiesenthal emerges as a man of contradictions: a lone detective with close ties to Israeli and U.S. intelligence; a Zionist who chose to settle in Vienna, not Israel, after the war; a man who fought to extend the statute of limitations for Nazi war crimes in Germany and Austria but befriended Albert Speer - the only defendant in the Nuremberg trials to plead guilty - after his release from prison in 1966. Above all, although no one was more relentless in his pursuit of Nazis who murdered Jews, Wiesenthal was a humanist who rejected the idea of collective guilt and attributed his own survival partly to the help of individual "good Germans." Perhaps the most revealing fact in this biography is that within three weeks of his liberation from the Mauthausen concentration camp, Wiesenthal submitted a list of 150 war criminals - known to him personally - to American authorities. This was the first paper in a file that grew to more than 300,000 documents. A revealing photograph taken in his native town of Buczacz in eastern Galicia, now a part of Ukraine, shows Wiesenthal, the leader of a Zionist youth movement, in an ordinary jacket and tie surrounded by boys in uniforms. Even as a child, he recalled, he hated uniforms. One reason Wiesenthal became controversial in Jewish establishment circles is simply that he exaggerated achievements that needed no exaggeration. Segev, drawing on previously classified Israeli intelligence material, demonstrates convincingly that Wiesenthal told Israeli authorities in 1953 - seven years before the Mossad caught up with Eichmann - that the Nazi criminal was in Argentina. But many Israelis considered Wiesenthal a publicity hound who took credit for bringing Eichmann to justice that should have gone to the government - even though Yad Vashem, in charge of Israel's Holocaust memorialization, congratulated him on his "brilliant achievement." But there is a deeper reason for the ambivalent attitude of many international Jewish leaders toward Wiesenthal. In the long-running debate about whether the Holocaust was a unique crime to which nothing can be compared, he falls on the side of those who, while never denying the particularity of Jewish suffering, take a more universalist position. During the 1970s, when Elie Wiesel headed a council planning what is now the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, he and Wiesenthal were on opposite sides in a debate over whether gypsies - also targeted for extermination - should be represented on the the council. Wiesel opposed such representation. Segev's account of the very personal, often petty nature of the rivalry between the two (the author quotes directly from letters that reflect badly on both men) will give no comfort to those who believe in secular saints. But perhaps it is just as well - and the real achievement of this warts-and-all biography - to accept that truth, justice and memory are the province not of saints but of flawed human beings.

2011: The Hyman S. & Freda Bernstein Jewish Literary Festival is scheduled to present a program based on “Precious Objects: A Story of Diamonds, Family, and a Way of Life” by Alicia Oltuski.

2011: An exhibition on the Mamilla Mall in Jerusalem featuring sculptures of stone, bronze and other materials, depicting Biblical scenes and characters, which were created by some of Israel’s top artists is scheduled to come to an end today.

2011: The David Posnack Jewish Day School in south Florida's Broward County, known as “the Rams” is scheduled to begin its Basketball Season today.

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

This Day, October 30, In Jewish History

OCTOBER 30 In Jewish History

1270: Eighth Crusade comes to an ignominious end. The crusade started under the banner of France’s anti-Semitic King Louis IX. But he died of stomach ailment in August. Effective leadership devolved to Charles, King of Naples. The crusaders got no further than Tunis. The crusaders agreed to lift their siege of the Arab capital in exchange for commercial advantages. The crusaders went home having failed to accomplish any of their own noble aims. Considering the miseries that the Crusaders heaped on the Jews, they were just as glad to finally glad to see them come to an end after almost two centuries.

1340: At the Battle of Río Salado King Afonso IV of Portugal and King Alfonso XI of Castile defeated Muslim ruler Abu al-Hasan 'Ali of Marinid dynasty and Nasrid ruler Yusuf I. A Marinid victory would not have been a good thing for the Jews. In fact, Alfonso was greeted by crowds of cheering Jews when he returned to his capital. The victory was doubly important to the Jews of Spain and Portugal because the successors to both of these monarchs followed policies that were favorable to the Jewish people in their realms.

1348: After two days, the authorities of Amont, in France, had finished arresting all of the local Jews and taking their possession. The arrest of the Jews was tied to the belief that they were responsible for the Black Plague which was working its way across France. The Jews of Amont were lucky to have been just arrested and robs since in most towns the Jews were expelled without their possessions or murdered.

1485: King Henry VII of England is crowned. Henry was quite willing to continue the policy of keeping England free of Jews; a policy that dated back to 1290. When Henry VII was arranging for the marriage of his son to Catherine of Aragon, the daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella “he promised never to allow Jews into his domain. Isabella had made it quite clear, if he refused the oath, the marriage was off.

1491: Gershon Soncino printed the first copy of “Immanuel Romi, Mahberot” (The Notebook of Imamanuel Romi) at Brescia, Italy. (Heinrich Graetz described him as a “Jewish Dante)

1682: Pope Innocent XI issued an edict by which all the money-lending activities carried out by the Roman Jews were to cease. However ultimately convinced that such a measure would cause much misery in destroying livelihoods, the enforcement of the edict was twice delayed

1735: Birthdate of John Adams, Founding Father and Second President of the United States. The correspondence of John Adams reflects the complexity with which Jews and Judaism were viewed in early national America. Most "enlightened" American Christians such as Adams saw Jews as an ancient people who, by enunciating monotheism, laid the groundwork for Christianity. He also saw them as individuals who deserved rights and protection under the law. Like many of his peers, Adams venerated ancient Jews and thought contemporary Jews worthy of respect, but found Judaism, the religion of the Jewish people, an anachronism and the Jewish people candidates for conversion to Christianity. In an 1808 letter criticizing the depiction of Jews by the French Enlightenment philosopher Voltaire, Adams expressed his respect for ancient Jewry. Adams wrote of Voltaire, "How is it possible [that he] should represent the Hebrews in such a contemptible light? They are the most glorious nation that ever inhabited this Earth. The Romans and their Empire were but a Bauble in comparison of the Jews. They have given religion to three quarters of the Globe and have influenced the affairs of Mankind more, and more happily, than any other Nation ancient or modern." Aware of Adams' benign view of Jews, American Jewish newspaper editor, politician, diplomat and playwright Mordecai Manuel Noah (1785-1851) maintained a correspondence with the former president. In 1818, Noah delivered a speech consecrating the new building erected by his own Congregation Shearith Israel, the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue in New York. Noah's "Discourse," a copy of which resides in the archives of the American Jewish Historical Society, focused on the universal history of Jewish persecution at the hands of non-democratic governments and their peoples. An early Zionist, Noah believed that only when the Jewish people were reestablished in their own home, with self-governance, could they live free of oppression. Noah sent a copy of his "Discourse" to Adams. Adams responded encouragingly to Noah, although the former president was evasive regarding Jewish self-governance. Adams expressed to Noah his personal wish that "your Nation may be admitted to all Privileges of Citizens in every Country of the World." Adams continued, This Country has done much. I wish it may do more, and annul every narrow idea in Religion, Government and Commerce. … It has please the Providence of the 'first Cause,' the Universal Cause [phrases by which Adams' defined G-d], that Abraham should give Religion, not only to the Hebrews but to Christians and Mahomitans, the greatest Part of the Modern civilized World." For Adams, Jews had earned their rights by virtue of their historic contributions and by virtue of their citizenship, but he did not respond to the idea of a Jewish homeland. Remarkably, a year later, Adams made the first pro-Zionist declaration by an American head of state, active or retired. In 1819, Noah sent Adams a copy of his recently published travel book, Travels in England, France Spain and the Barbary States. In his letter acknowledging the gift, Adams praised Noah's tome as "a magazine of ancient and modern learning of judicious observations & ingenious reflections." Adams expressed regret that Noah had not extended his travels to "Syria, Judea and Jerusalem" as Adams would have attended "more to [his] remarks than to those of any traveller I have yet read." Adams continued, "Farther I could find it in my heart to wish that you had been at the head of a hundred thousand Israelites . . . & marching with them into Judea & making a conquest of that country & restoring your nation to the dominion of it. For I really wish the Jews were again in Judea an independent nation." What was the source of Adams's Zionist sympathies? What moved him to make his extraordinary statement? A clue can be found in the next sentence of his letter: I believe [that] . . . once restored to an independent government & no longer persecuted they [the Jews] would soon wear away some of the asperities and peculiarities of their character & possibly in time become liberal Unitarian Christians for your Jeh-vah is our Jeh-vah & your G-d of Abraham Isaac and Jacob is our G-d. Alexis de Tocqueville observed, "The Americans combine notions of Christianity and of liberty so intimately in their minds, that it is impossible to conceive the one without the other." Adams was clearly confident that freedom would lead the Jewish people to enlightenment and that enlightenment would lead them to Christianity. For Adams, Jewish self-governance in the Holy Land was a step toward their elevation. Today, our understanding of democracy includes respect for diversity and support for the retention of one's religious faith.

1786: A deadly fire in the Jewish Ghetto of Verona occurred causing a great loss of life.

1821: Birthdate of Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky. The author of such major works as The Brothers Karamazov and Crime and Punishment was an anti-Semite. As he grew older he became convinced that Jews were the cause of all social ills and he was phobic on the idea of letting Jews live outside of the Pale of Settlement.

1856: William Cullen Bryant delivered a speech tonight in favor of the abolition of slavery. He recounted the story of the Israelite encounter with the Amalekites when Moses arms grew weary and Aaron and Hur contrived to keep Moses hands raised until victory was achieved. He urged the attendees to lend their support to the leaders of the fight against slavery so that when their arms grew weary like Moses, the people would lend their hands in support of abolition.
1856: During an anti-Slavery rally held at the Academy of Music in New York the speakers, who were Christian ministers, took issue with the idea that the Bible supported the institution of slavery as practiced in the United States. They contended that "there was no such idea of property in a servant existing among the ancient Jews." [For once somebody had actually read and understood the text of "The Old Testament."]

1860: The biennial banquet and ball in aid of the Jew’s Hospital, well known charitable Institution took place at the City Assembly Rooms this evening. As on former occasions of the same kind, the attendance was large, and the contributions in aid of the Institution were most liberal. Not less than 600 ladies and gentlemen of the Jewish faith sat down to the banquet, and subsequently joined in the dance. Mr. Benjamin Nathan the President of the Hospital, presided at the banquet, and on his right and left, at the head of the tables, sat Rabbi Lyons of the Nineteenth-street Synagogue , Rabbi Isaacs of the Wooster-street Synagogue, Rabbi Cramer, of the Greene-street Synagogue, and other prominent clergymen and laymen of the Jewish faith. The "grace before meal" was said in Hebrew by Rabbi Lyons, and the "grace after" was sung in the same language by Rev. Mr. Cramer. Following the latter, the President of the Institution addressed the audience, giving a brief sketch of the "Jews' Hospital in New-York," and welcoming his hearers to the entertainments of the evening. He said that the Jews' Hospital, since its foundation, in 1855, had accommodated 1,225 inmates, of whom 1,127 had been treated gratuitously. The benefits of the Institution were not confined to any creed or sect, but the sick and unfortunate of all creeds and nations had partaken of its blessings. At the same time it had neither asked nor received any aid from the State or Municipal Governments, but had depended entirely upon the voluntary contributions of its friends for support. In the intervals between the toasts, the Secretary read off a list of the donations received from those present, as well as by letter from absent donors. Among the latter was a letter from Gov. Morgan, speaking in the highest terms of the Jews' Hospital, and inclosing a check for $100. The total amount of donations announced last evening reached the liberal sum of $14,000. At the conclusion of the toasts the party retired to the ball-room adjoining, when the, dancing commenced, and was continued till a late hour of the night.

1864: Helena, Montana's capital, founded. Jews were involved with the Helena from its earliest days. According to local legend Russian born Julius Basinsky arrived in Helena in 1866 with one thousand cigars and not enough pocket change to buy lunch in on of the town’s saloons. Louis Kaufman came to Helena and worked in mining until 1872. He and Louis Stadler formed Stadler and Kaufman Meat Company in 1872. Charles M. Russell, one of America’s premier Western artists managed their ranch for several years. From the 1870’s on banks owned completely or partially be Jews were launched in towns and cities all over the Far West including Lewish Herschfield’s Merchants National Banking Company in Helena.

1872: A two day meeting at Brussels that had been called so that leading European Jews could discuss measures that could be taken to relieve the suffering of their co-religionist in Romania was scheduled to come to an end.

1875: As the debate over the use of public tax dollars to support religious education it was reported that in New York the Catholic Schools receive almost $1,400,000 or 91% of the amount spent while the Jewish schools receive less than $26,000.

1877: Birthdate of Salman Schocken, the German born publisher who became an ardent Zionist. Among other things, he founded Schocken Publishing House and published Haaretz. His life is too rich and textured for this blog and you are urged to study from the many resources that tell his fascinating story.

1879: In New York, the Young Men’s Hebrew Association is scheduled to present its first “down-town entertainment of the season” at the Pythagoras Hall.


1880: Billee Taylor or The Reward of Virtue "a nautical comedy opera" by Edward Solomon, the Anglo-Jewish composer and conductor was first produced today at the Imperial Theatre in London

1890: According to reports in the London Figaro and the New York Times, the key to Baron Hirsch’s close relationship with the Prince of Wales is a combination of his great wealth and, more importantly, his good manners. The Baron is considered remarkable for his philanthropy and his love of England.

1894: Superintendent Stump of the Bureau of Immigration has received a letter from Baron Hirsh, stating that the Jewish Colonization Society, of which Baron Hirsch is the head, is engaged in diverting Jewish immigration from the United States to Argentina; a county that is more open to accepting the Jewish immigrants.

1899: Major Karri Davies was among the Jewish soldiers who fought during the Siege of Ladysmith which began today during the Second Boer War.

1903: During the debate over accepting Uganda as a Jewish homeland, even on a temporary basis, the newspaper Die Welt publishes Menachem Ussishkin's letter and Herzl's answer. Menachem Ussishkin opposed an expedition to Uganda.

1904: Cypriotes in Athens, Greece adopt a resolution, which they plan to send to England to protest against the increasing immigration of Jews to Cyprus.

1905: After a nation-wide strike, Russia’s Czar Nicholas II issued a manifesto granting a constitution and a Duma (parliament) in which the Constitutional Democrats (Cadets) and Social Democrats would participate. These revolutionaries many of whom were Jews, were known as the "Octoberists." The reforms did not work. Conditions worsened, in part because the Czar was a weak ruler and not committed to reform. Seventeen years later, Russia would explode in a revolution that would bring the Communists to power.

1910: A review of three plays by Arthur Schnitzler published today decries the fact that there is no English theatre equivalent to the German theatre as represented by Schnitzler’s work. That Schnitzler was actually an Austrian born Jew did not keep the critic from identifying the noted playwright as being “German.” Of course large numbers of the Jews in Austria and Germany would see themselves in the same way until the they had their rude awakening in the 1930’s.

1910: During a pogrom known as the Shiraz Blood Libel, 12 Jews were killed, 50 more were injured and 6,000 were robbed of all their possession by a mob seeking vengeance for the baseless charge that the Jews had ritually murdered a Muslim girl.

1912: The first phase of the State of New York v Charles Becker came to an end. Becker was a police officer who had been charged with having a group of Jewish gangsters from the Lower East Side murder of Herman Rosenthal, a well known New York gambler.

1912: When the Bulgarians captured the Greek city of Didymoteikhon, the economic conditions of the Jews deteriorated when a great deal of their property including Jewish owned stores were damaged or destroy.

1914: The Ottoman Empire enters the Great War as an ally of Germany and Austro-Hungary.

1915: Birthdate of Fred Friendly. Ferdinand Friendly Wachenheimer the son of Samuel Wachenheimer, a jewelry manufacturer, and Theresa Friendly Wachenheimer began using the name Fred Friendly when he went into radio broadcasting. He gained fame as the courageous, creative producer who worked with Edward Morrow on See It Now. There most famous broadcast was the one exposing Senator McCarthy. George Clooney played the role of Friendly in Good Night and Good Luck which captured the courage of Friendly and Morrow as well as the hostile environment in which they lived.

1915: It was decided today to award the Nobel Prize in Medicine to Dr. Robert Barany of Vienna University for his work in the physiology and pathology of the ear.

1918: The Ottoman Empire signed an armistice signifying the end of hostilities for World War I. The news was greeted with great joy by the Jews of Palestine who believed that a benign British military government would allow them to live under the terms of the Balfour Declaration.

1922: Benito Mussolini became Premier of Italy. Mussolini was no anti-Semite. Several Jews supported him and he had a Jewish mistress. Mussolini would turn on the Jews during the 1930’s. How much of this was a matter of his own doing and how much was merely in response to curry favor with Hitler has become a matter of debate. Any diminution of suffering enjoyed by the Italian Jews was a credit to the people of Italy and not to Mussolini.

1927: With more than 1,000 representatives of American Zionism to hear his challenge at a conference in Cleveland, Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, of New York, today called upon Zionist leaders attending the national conference on Palestine to hold Britain to its pledge to carry out the obligations of the Balfour Declaration of 1917 to facilitate the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine.

1928: Birthdate of Daniel Nathans. Nathans was the son of Russian Jewish immigrants. Despite the fact that his father lost his business during the Great Depression, Nathans took advantage of the American education system graduating from Washington University in St. Louis. A microbiologist, he spent at least some of his time at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovoth. Nathans won the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1978. He won the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1978. He passed away in 1999.

1930: Austrian born bacteriologist and pathologist Dr. Karl Landsteiner won the Nobel Prize for Medicine today. Since 1922, Landsteiner has been doing his research at New York City’s Rockefeller Institute ofr Medical Research.

1932: The Jack Benny Program is broadcast for the first time on CBS Radio.

1935: Birthdate of author and historian Robert Caro.

1938: In an article entitled “A Poignant Record of Palestine,” T.R. Ybarra reviews Going Home by Ernst Harthern. Harthern is a German newspaper correspondent who has been working in Scandinavia which means he has been spared much direct contact with Hitler and his Nazis. In fact Hitler is not mentioned in this book which described Harthern’s first visit to Palestine in which he has the sensation of a true homecoming. As he says at one point, “Almost anywhere on earth ther are more modern buses with better springs, but they are not Jewish buses.”

1938: In an article dateline Haifa, entitled “Fear Colors All Life In The Stricken Holy Land” Madeleine Miller describes the toll that Arab violence which she descriges as a “civil war” has taken on Jews and Arabs.

1939: Heinrich Himmler head of the S.S. was instructed to have about a million people transported from the Generalgouverenment. Half are to be Jews and half are to be Poles.

1939: SS chief Heinrich Himmler designates the next three months as the period during which all Jews must be cleared from the rural areas of western Poland. Hundreds of communities will be affected, and thousands of Jews will be expelled with nothing but what they can carry with them.

1941(9th of Cheshvan, 5702): Four thousand Jews are murdered at Nesvizh, Belorussia.

1941: A 12-year-old boy who escapes the Ninth Fort massacre of October 28 returns to the Kovno Ghetto and reveals what happened.

1942; The New York Times features a review of On Native Grounds: An Interpretation of Modern American Prose Literature by the Jewish author Alfred Kazin.

1943(1st of Cheshvan, 5704): Rosh Chodesh Cheshvan

1943(1st of Cheshvan, 5704): Max Reinhardt, the Austrian-born American who was a director in both live theatre and film passed away today in New York at the age of 70. If you read the New York Times obituary of this (for his time) titan of the theatre and cinema you will find no mention of the fact that he was in New York because after the Anschluss he could not remain in Austria.

1943: Dr. Zelik Levinbok, a Jewish doctor interned at the Koldichevo camp in Belorussia, escapes with his wife and eight-year-old son.

1944: The Martha Graham ballet ''Appalachian Spring,'' with music by Aaron Copland, premiered at the Library of Congress, with Graham in a leading role. Aaron Copland is another example of an American Jew who helped create a uniquely American culture.

1944: The final deportation train from Theresienstadt, Czechoslovakia, to Auschwitz arrives at the camp. Of the 2038 prisoners on board, 1689 are immediately gassed.

1944: The Nazis deported Margot and Anne Frank from Auschwitz to Belsen, where they both died five months later.

1945: Birthdate of actor and director Henry Winkler. For a whole generation of television viewers, Winkler will always be The Fonz of the sitcom Happy Days.

1946: Birthdate of NBC newscaster Andrea Mitchell. When asked if her Judaism has ever been an issue, positive or negative, in the course of her career she responded as follows. “It's certainly not been a negative issue. I think when I was watching the signing of the Camp David Accords in 1979, after the Camp David Summit in 1978; I certainly felt a tremendous emotional connection to the issue and to the chances of a breakthrough between the Israelis and the Arabs. Seeing Sadat and Begin was a very emotional experience. Similarly, in 1993 I was one of many people on the South Lawn who were very excited about prospects for peace, when we finally saw Rabin and Arafat shake hands under the guidance of Bill Clinton. Perhaps it made me more eager to go the West Bank and interview people and learn more about the Palestinian perspective. So I think it's less a religious issue than a cultural connection to the Middle East. One other experience that was important was the controversy over President Reagan's visit to the cemetery in Bitburg where S.S. soldiers were buried. I remember when Elie Weisel came to appeal to the president not to go. That was a very powerful experience for me. I spent a lot of time covering that issue, then we ended up going and visiting Bergen-Belsen with the president. Certainly all of my childhood experiences and my parents' stories about the Holocaust are part of my personal and intellectual history. Our family was not Holocaust survivors, but it was a very important part of the way we were raised. My mother and father talked about it all the time.”
1946: British authorities held groups described as “Zionist extremists” responsible for the death of two British soldiers and one British police sergeant who were killed in separate land mine explosions today.

1947: “A Haganah sourced said today that a number of” its leading members “had been attacked and would by members of…Irgun Zvai Leumi in the Tel Aviv region last night.”

1948: During the War For Independence, Egyptian planes drop supplies to their troops trapped in the Faluja pocket.

1948: During Operation Hiram, the Carmeli Brigade successfully fulfilled it mission of thwarting counter attacks from Syria and Lebanon when it crossed into Lebanon and surged all the way to the Litani River.

1950: During the Korean War, Chinese forces attacked Tibor Rubin’s unit (Company I, 8th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division) at Unsan, North Korea during a massive nighttime assault.” Tibor manned a 30 caliber machine gun at the south end of the unit's line which would mark the start of one-man holding operation that lasted for more than twenty four hours. (Based on Tibor’s Medal of Honor Citation)

1952, The Jerusalem Post reported that the Jewish National Fund had been granted a six million dollar loan by the Bank of America to further settlement activities in draining the Hula region, and for land reclamation and acquisition.

1952: The Jerusalem Post reported that work began on the 165-meter westward extension of Haifa Port's main quay to make it accessible to the largest ship in the Mediterranean. Building a new state took many forms including immigrant absorption, irrigating the Negev and expanding port facilities for future export trade.

1956: During the Sinai Campaign Israel captured the Egyptian military post at El-Thamad

1956: During the Sinai Campaign Israeli paratroops dug in to hold the Mitla Pass and await what would be the successful linkup with IDF armor moving overland. Egyptian aircraft attacked the Israelis for the first time, but the IDF was able to hold its own despite long odds.

1956: President Eisenhower assured Ben-Gurion that the United States would not censure Israel as long as the Sinai attack was not a grab for additional territory. Ben-Gurion responded that all Israel wanted was the end of Egyptian support for the fedayeen (the name for Arab terrorists), the end of Arab economic warfare against Israel and the opening of the Straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping. Ben-Gurion would stick to his goals. Eisenhower would betray his promise.

1958: Birthdate of Kevin Pollak, host of Celebrity Poker.

1961: Birthdate of Emmanuel Finkiel, the French-born producer/director of Voyages, considered by some to be the the best Jewish film of 2000)

1977: The settlement of Mevo Dotan was founded on the West Bank by secular settlers.

1991: Mid East peace conference began in Madrid, Spain.

1995: In a case of Jew versus Jews Ben Kamin, Senior Rabbi, Temple-Tifereth Israel
Beachwood, Ohio, wrote the following letter-to-the editor in response to a column by Thomas L. Friedman.

Thomas L. Friedman's Oct. 29 column on Israel's emerging and opulent culture says a great deal about postmodern Israel, but it ultimately oversimplifies. Israel is a lot more than a cell phone, and Jewish identity has to do with a lot more than a new shopping mall in Kfar Saba. I was born in Kfar Saba, and I share some of Mr. Friedman's amazement at the transition. It's true that the orchards of my childhood are giving way to shopping plazas, condominiums and automatic teller machines. But a lot of the fear and concern that was part of those years has given way to a certain contentment with life that was not part of things a generation ago. Contrary to Mr. Friedman's assertion, a Jew who can have a pizza delivered via a cellular phone is not a Jew with a lost identity. That is a Jew who is free. I remember Kfar Saba very vividly. The dusty, underdeveloped hamlet was a prototype of early Israel. My birth village, tucked next to the Samarian mountains, sat on a tense border with what was then the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. A mile from my grandmother's house, where we lived, the Arab town of Qalqilya brooded with hostility and occasional mortar fire. When I sat with my grandmother on her back porch and recited the words of the Prophets, we could see the minarets of Qalqilya to the east. The Mediterranean Sea was just a few miles to the west. We were living the post-Holocaust predicament of national Jewish life in a land still fighting for its life. There was indeed a strong pioneering spirit in Kfar Saba and throughout the fledgling country. Our teachers came from many other lands and many difficult experiences. They often wept while leading us in Hebrew folk songs and exhorting us to love the Bible. The mailman came on a tall horse. His sinewy arms betrayed the tattoos of Auschwitz. There was something to be learned from every conversation with people who either valued or feared life. The orange groves of the valley sent us a fragrance that none of us shall ever forget. It was the smell of rebirth. Somehow we knew that we were the free children of a dream that the world had disparaged and that even Qalqilya next door was determined to destroy. Now, many groves are gone and the delicious smell is no more. Yes, my birth village of donkeys and orange trees is a successful hub of sports cars and video stores. It's so easy for all who no longer live there, who are not taking the risks of peace, to criticize and lament. How ironic to dispatch a report about the creeping technological dexterity of Israel via electronic mail. All Israel is doing is becoming more like us. This is what we hoped for a generation ago. None of us would begrudge an Israeli youngster the right not to be killed in battle, not to fear the future or not to call his or her mother via a cell phone from any army base in Lebanon. None of us who lived in quaint Kfar Saba back then wanted anything for our descendants but the chance to be free or prosperous enough to draw cash out of a machine or to enjoy a fashionable coffee outdoors in the very same century as Hitler and Eichmann.

1999 (Britain's emeritus chief rabbi, Lord Immanuel Jakobovits attended Shabbat services for the last time. He suffered a cerebral hemorrhage and passed away on the following day.

2003: In Miami, The IsraFest Foundation proudly presents Don Browne COO of Telemundo Communications Group, with the 19th Israel Film Festival 2003 Lifetime Achievement Award; Community Activist and Philanthropist Marcy Lefton with the 2003 IFF Humanitarian Award and Innovative Artist Ilana Lilienthal and Human Potential Researcher Alexander Brodt with the 2003 IFF Visionary Award. The Award Ceremony, hosted by NBC TV columnist Ike Seamans, will be followed by a special screening of the award-winning smash hit Wisdom of the Pretzel to be introduced by writer/director Ilan Heitner and star Benni Avni.

2005: An Islamic Jihad fugitive was shot and killed by Israeli security forces in a gun battle that erupted outside a house in Kabatiyah near Jenin. The man who died, rather than surrender to the Israelis, was being sought in connection with the part he played in the suicide attack on Hadera. The murder killed five Israelis and wounded at least fifty people in the peaceful coastal town of 80,000.

2005: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or on topics of special Jewish interesting including Ahmad’s War, Ahmad’s Peace: Surviving Under Saddam, Dying in the New Iraq by Michael Goldfarb, Women’s Letters: America from the Revolutionary War to the Present, edited by Lisa Grunwald and Stephen J. Adler and Faith for Beginners by Aaron Hamburger

2006 Israeli-born scholar Prof. Jehezkel Shoshani published an article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science identifying the remains of a 27-million-year-old creature unearthed in Eritrea as those of an ancestor of the modern elephant. The article describes an animal which was the size of a cow - about 1.5 meters high and weighing about half a ton - and has been named "Eritreum," for short. According to the fossil evidence, the animal had a long snout and small tusks, and fed mostly on vegetation. Prof. Shoshani, says it is the missing link in elephant evolution. It is customary to name new species after the scientist who discovers them. However, Shoshani chose to name the old-new creature after the farmer who found it and the country in which it was unearthed: Eritreum melekegabrachristos. He said he hoped that this would encourage the citizens of Eritrea to continue to assist scientific research.

2007: Columnist Michael J. Gerson, a former speechwriter for President Bush, discusses and signs Heroic Conservatism: Why Republicans Need to Embrace America's Ideals (And Why They Deserve to Fail If They Don't) in Reston, Virginia

2007: Haaretz reports that a new memorial center opens at Bergen-Belsen camp.

2008: Dor Chadash presents the exclusive New York premiere of “The Debt.” “Twenty years after WWII has ended, three Mossad agents kidnap the infamous "Surgeon of Birkenau" in Berlin. As they await their return to Israel with this monstrous Nazi war criminal, a psychological duel commences between the Nazi and the young Mossad agents.”

2008(1st of Cheshvan, 5769): Rosh Chodesh Cheshvan, 5769

2008: The former manager of Agriprocessors was arrested on charges related to the hiring of illegal workers. Sholom Rubashkin was arrested today by immigration officials and was due to appear in federal court later that day. Documents filed with the court allege that Rubashkin conspired to harbor illegal immigrants at the Agriprocessors meatpacking plant in Postville, Iowa. They further charge that he aided and abetted in the use of fake identification documents and identity theft. Rubashkin is the highest-ranking Agriprocessors official to face criminal charges stemming from the May 12 federal immigration raid at the company's Postville meatpacking plant. More than one-third of the company's workforce was arrested. According to the criminal complaint filed Thursday, Rubashkin provided funds that were used to purchase new identification for workers at Agriprocessors who were found to have bad papers. The complaint further alleges that Rubashkin asked a human resources officer to come in on a Sunday to process the new employment applications of several such workers. Company representatives did not immediately respond to requests for comment. But Nathan Lewin, an attorney who represents Rubashkin's father and the company owner Aaron Rubashkin, dismissed the arrest as unnecessary and motivated by federal law enforcement's desire for good publicity. "The arrest of Mr. Sholom Rubashkin today was a wholly unnecessary and gratuitous act by federal prosecutors apparently engaged in an unseemly competition with State of Iowa officials to capture headlines in a vendetta against Agriprocessors," Lewin said. Rubashkin's arrest comes a day after Iowa Workforce Development announced it would levy nearly $10 million in fines against the company for alleged labor infractions. In response to the action by the state labor agency, Agriprocessors CEO Bernard Feldman told The New York Times that he had "grave doubts as to the appropriateness of the claimed violations, and we also take issue with the intended sanction imposed per claim.”

2008: Haaretz reported that an Israeli archaeologist digging at a hilltop south of Jerusalem believes a ceramic shard found in the ruins of an ancient town bears the oldest Hebrew inscription ever discovered, a find that could provide an important glimpse into the culture and language of the Holy Land at the time of the Bible. The five lines of faded characters written 3,000 years ago, and the ruins of the fortified settlement where they were found, are indications that a powerful Israelite kingdom existed at the time of the Old Testament's King David, says Yossi Garfinkel, the Hebrew University archaeologist in charge of the new dig at Hirbet Qeiyafa.Other scholars are hesitant to embrace Garfinkel's interpretation of the finds, made public on Thursday. The discoveries are already being wielded in a vigorous and ongoing argument over whether the Bible's account of events and geography is meant to be taken literally. Hirbet Qeiyafa sits near the city of Beit Shemesh in the Judean foothills, an area that was once the frontier between the hill-dwelling Israelites and their enemies, the coastal Philistines. The site overlooks the Elah Valley, said to be the scene of the slingshot showdown between David and the Philistine giant Goliath, and lies near the ruins of Goliath's hometown in the Philistine metropolis of Gath. A teenage volunteer found the curved pottery shard, 15 centimeters by 15 centimeters, in July near the stairs and stone washtub of an excavated home. It was later discovered to bear five lines of characters known as proto-Canaanite, a precursor of the Hebrew alphabet.Carbon-14 analysis of burnt olive pits found in the same layer of the site dated them to between 1,000 and 975 B.C., the same time as the Biblical golden age of David's rule in Jerusalem. Scholars have identified other, smaller Hebrew fragments from the 10th century B.C., but the script, which Garfinkel suggests might be part of a letter, predates the next significant Hebrew inscription by between 100 and 200 years. History's best-known Hebrew texts, the Dead Sea scrolls, were penned on parchment beginning 850 years later. The shard is now kept in a university safe while philologists translate it, a task expected to take months. But several words have already been tentatively identified, including ones meaning judge, slave and king. The Israelites were not the only ones using proto-Canaanite characters, and other scholars suggest it is difficult - perhaps impossible - to conclude the text is Hebrew and not a related tongue spoken in the area at the time. Garfinkel bases his identification on a three-letter verb from the inscription meaning to do, a word he said existed only in Hebrew. "That leads us to believe that this is Hebrew, and that this is the oldest Hebrew inscription that has been found," he said. Other prominent Biblical archaeologists warned against jumping to conclusions. Hebrew University archaeologist Amihai Mazar said the inscription was very important, as it is the longest proto-Canaanite text ever found. But he suggested that calling the text Hebrew might be going too far. "It's proto-Canaanite," he said. "The differentiation between the scripts, and between the languages themselves in that period, remains unclear."Some scholars and archeologists argue that the Bible's account of David's time inflates his importance and that of his kingdom, and is essentially myth, perhaps rooted in a shred of fact. But if Garfinkel's claim is borne out, it would bolster the case for the Bible's accuracy by indicating the Israelites could record events as they happened, transmitting the history that was later written down in the Old Testament several hundred years later. It also would mean that the settlement - a fortified town with a 10-meter-wide monumental gate, a central fortress and a wall running 700 meters in circumference - was probably inhabited by Israelites. The finds have not yet established who the residents were, says Aren Maier, a Bar Ilan University archaeologist who is digging at nearby Gath. It will become more clear if, for example, evidence of the local diet is found, he said: "Excavations have shown that Philistines ate dogs and pigs, while Israelites did not." "The nature of the ceramic shards found at the site suggest residents might have been neither Israelites nor Philistines but members of a third, forgotten people," he said. "If the inscription is Hebrew, it would indicate a connection to the Israelites and make the text one of the most important texts, without a doubt, in the corpus of Hebrew inscriptions," Maier said. "But it has great importance whatever the language turns out to be," he added. Saar Ganor, an Israel Antiquities Authority ranger, noticed the unusual scale of the walls while patrolling the area in 2003. Three years later he interested Garfinkel, and after a preliminary dig they began work in earnest this summer. They have excavated only 4 percent of the six-acre settlement so far. Archaeology has turned up only scant finds from David's time in the early 10th century B.C., leading some scholars to suggest his kingdom may have been little more than a small chiefdom or that he might not have existed at all. Garfinkel believes building fortifications like those at Hirbet Qeiyafa could not have been a local initiative: The walls would have required moving 200,000 tons of stone, a task too big for the 500 or so people who lived there. Instead, it would have required an organized kingdom like the one the Bible says David ruled.Zionism has traditionally seen archaeology as a way of strengthening and explaining the Jewish claim to Israel, and regarded David's kingdom as the glorious ancestor of the new Jewish state. So finding evidence of his rule has importance beyond its interest to scholars.The dig is partially funded by Foundation Stone, a Jewish educational organization, which hopes to bring volunteers to work there as a way of teaching them a national and historical lesson."When I stand here, I understand that I'm on the front lines of the battle between the Israelites and the Philistines," said Rabbi Barnea Levi Selavan, the group's director. "I open my Bible and read about David and Goliath, and I understand that I'm in the Biblical context.".While the site could be useful to scholars, archaeologist Israel Finkelstein of Tel Aviv University urged adhering to the strict boundaries of science. Finkelstein, who has not visited the dig but attended a presentation of the findings, warned against what he said was a revival in the belief that what's written in the Bible is accurate like a newspaper. That style of archaeology was favored by 19th century European diggers who trolled the Holy Land for physical traces of Biblical stories, their motivation and methods more romantic than scientific."This can be seen as part of this phenomenon," Finkelstein said.

2008: The "gutter," or water system mentioned in the Bible as the way King David's men conquered Jerusalem may have been found. Dr. Eilat Mazar, an archaeologist excavating the City of David, the most ancient part of Jerusalem, believes it has, and is to present her findings this evening at a seminar at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The excavations, carried out under the auspices of the Hebrew University's Institute of Archaeology, are funded by the Shalem Center and the Elad organization that also purchases buildings in the Silwan neighborhood, where the City of David is located, to populate the area with Jews. Mazar offers a revolutionary interpretation of the "gutter" mentioned in 2 Sam. 5:8. Most scholars believed that David conquered Jebus, which later became known known as the City of David, through the water system. But Mazar believes the water system served to purify David's warriors, first among them his chief of staff, Joab, after the city had already been conquered. She says that purification was necessary because the Bible states they had to fight against the "blind and the lame," and in so doing would have become impure. She notes the use in the relevant verse of the Hebrew root naga (touch) in relation to the "gutter," a word usually involving matters of purity. Archaeologists once believed the "gutter" was the famous water shaft discovered by Charles Warren in the 19th century, but recent finds have disproved this theory. Mazar says the opening of the channel she believes is the "gutter" was uncovered by chance last winter after a snowfall in the excavation area known as Area G, beneath remains from the end of the First Temple period. Since then, "some 50 meters of the tunnel have been measured. The measurements of the channel are suitable for passage by people," she asserts. "It continues north, in the direction of the Temple Mount, as well as south, and is all within the ancient city and connected to the huge building I identify as David's palace." Mazar suggests that when what she views as David's palace was built in the 10th century, the channel was apparently incorporated to bring water to a large nearby pool. At the end of the First Temple period (the beginning of the sixth century), according to Mazar, it was transformed for use by Jerusalemites fleeing the Babylonian siege. Whole oil lamps typical of the end of the First Temple period were found in the channel.

2009: Hundreds of exhibits supporting a scathing report on the Securities and Exchange Commission’s past investigations of Bernard L. Madoff were released today by the author of the report, the agency’s inspector general, H. David Kotz.The exhibits include a full account of an interview with Mr. Madoff, who confessed in March to running the largest Ponzi scheme in history, a fraud whose victims number in the thousands and whose cash losses are now put at more than $21 billion. In short excerpts from that interview, included in the full 477-page report made public last month, Mr. Madoff expressed amazement that regulators failed so many times to detect his fraud, given the numerous credible tips that came into the agency over a 16-year period.The exhibits provide additional details about Mr. Madoff’s comments, including his observation that the agency’s investigators seemed to find it “inconceivable” that he was operating a massive fraud. Indeed, he said the got the impression through all the examinations and investigations over the years that "it never entered the S.E.C.’s mind that it was a Ponzi scheme."Among the exhibits are transcripts or reports on more than 160 other interviews conducted during the extensive internal investigation, including conversations with four former S.E.C. chairmen, a number of former top officials at the agency and dozens of current and former staff members involved in the various botched investigations examined in the original report.E-mails, letters, memoranda, telephone records and other bits of evidence are also included in the Madoff trove, which were posted on the agency’s Web site at Mr. Kotz concluded in his full report that, since 1992, inexperienced and sometimes incompetent staff members had failed to adequately investigate numerous warnings and tips about the enormous Ponzi scheme. While the exhibits add no new charges to Mr. Kotz’s unofficial indictment of the nation’s top market regulators — the worst documented failure in the 75-year history of the S.E.C. — they do provide a vivid sense of the tensions, confusions and petty squabbles that derailed each failed inquiry.Employees described a culture at the agency that allowed investigations to languish for months, even years on end, and that was openly dismissive of anonymous tips like some of the Madoff warnings.Indeed, one former senior agency lawyer acknowledged to Mr. Kotz that he thought investigations of Ponzi schemes were not an appropriate use of S.E.C. resources and should be left to law enforcement agencies. Several staff members said those views had shaped their own decisions in the Madoff inquiries.The paperwork gathered from past investigations also tells a tale of unseasoned people uncertain about what to do and unwilling to ask for help. In numerous instances cited in the exhibits, employees shared their doubts about some of Mr. Madoff’s assertions in notes or e-mails, but then never took steps to resolve their suspicions or press for more information.The report detailed six substantive complaints against Mr. Madoff received by the agency since 1992. While Mr. Kotz found no evidence of any bribery, collusion or deliberate sabotage of those investigations, his investigation exposed dozens of major lapses by staff members — including their remarkable failure to verify Mr. Madoff’s supposed trading with any third parties.An examination of customer records after Mr. Madoff’s arrest in December showed that he had made no trades for those customers for decades. Moreover, credible tips to the agency over the years, more fully detailed in the exhibits, repeatedly warned that market records strongly suggested no trading was going on.But in each examination, agency staff members relied heavily on Mr. Madoff’s own testimony and records, which turned out to be lies and fabrications.The exhibits released todau shows how the people involved in those investigations explained what happened in interviews conducted after Mr. Madoff’s arrest on Dec. 11. Those interviews were matched against the notes and records assembled at the time.The report also documented that Mr. Madoff frequently cited the S.E.C.’s various investigations to reassure investors that he had passed muster with government regulators. The exhibits include numerous reports from investors that they had been lured into the Ponzi scheme by exactly those assurances.The exhibits released today ranged from conversations with unnamed former girlfriends of Eric Swanson, an S.E.C. lawyer who married Mr. Madoff’s niece in 2007, to an interview with a former secretary at the Madoff firm, who described young agency investigators as being awestruck by Mr. Madoff and asserted that some had even left resumes at the office hoping for help in getting Wall Street jobs.

2009(12th of Cheshvan, 5770) Claude Lévi-Strauss the "father of modern anthropology" passed away.

2009: The Tower of David Museum presents: "Peace Making in Jerusalem--a Concert at the Tower of David Museum:" A musical dialogue between Yair Dalal, Israeli singer and musician and Osma Abu-Ali, Arab singer and flautist that will perform vocal and instrumental music both Arab and Jewish. The concert is followed by a guided tour entitled "Four wings to heaven and three religions" which will include panoramic views of Jerusalem from the tops of the towers as well as a guided tour of the permanent exhibition of the Tower of David.

2009: Opening of "Synergy,” the new exhibit on display in Beit Tzarfat, at Hebrew University's Givat Ram campus. The group exhibit displays the drawing, sculpture, and photography of artists Ann Rakover, Gila Robinson, Datia Landau, Yitzhak Shalhevet and Sasson Tiram.

2009: The Los Angeles Times featured a review of Ariel Sabar’s memoir “My Father's Paradise: A Son's Search for His Family's Past," which won a 2009 National Book Critics Circle Award and has just been reissued in paperback.

2010: The 16th Annual R' Shlomo Carlebach Memorial Concert sponsored by The R' Shlomo Carlebach Foundation is scheduled to take place in Jerusalem.

2010: The 15th Memorial Day Rally commemorating the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin is scheduled to be held at 7:30pm in Rabin Square in Tel Aviv.

2010: Brazilian-born violist Myrna Herzog performed this evening at the Blumenthal Center in Tel Aviv.

2011: Sam Kringlen, Temple Judah’s young violin virtuos is scheduled to perform at The Hadassah Donor Dinner in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

2011: The Spertus Institute of Jewish Studies in Chicago, Illinois, is scheduled to show Legado (Legacy) a documentary that tells the story of the Jewish colonization in Argentina. . Rabbi Dr. Victor Mirelman , a native of Argentina who teaches Jewish history at Spertus and is a leading expert in the history of the Jews in Latin America is scheduled to introduce the film and lead a post-screening discussion.

2011: Acclaimed up-and-coming novelists David Bezmozgis, author of The Free World and one of The New Yorker’s “2010 top 20 fiction writers under the age of 40;” Nadia Kalman, author of The Cosmopolitans; and Haley Tanner, author of Vacalev and Lena are scheduled to explore the modern Russian immigrant experience with moderator Faye Moskowitz, author and professor of English and creative writing at George Washington University at the Hyman S & Freda Bernstein Jewish Literary Festival.

2011: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Jerusalem:The Biography the 650 page epic tale by Simon Sebag Montefiore whose great-great uncle was Sir Moses Montefiore a giant of 19th century Jewry whom some only remember because of the windmill in Jerusalem that bears his name – Montefiore’s Windmill.


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