This Day, January 22, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. Levin

January 22 In Jewish History

1167(4927): Ibn-Ezra passed away at the age of 78 in Calahorra which was on the border between Navarre and Aragon. There is no way that any entry could do justice to this Sephardic writer, philosopher, scientist and most important of all, world traveler.

1521: Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, opens the Diet of Worms. The Diet of Worms would vote to declare Luther an outlaw, banning his literature, and requiring his arrest” and require that he be punished as a heretic. Ultimately this would lead to warfare between Charles and the rebellious Germanic princes who supported Luther. This outbreak of fighting would determine who “the real Charles was” when it came to dealing with Jews. Charles wore two hats or should we say, crowns. As King of Spain, he was the grandson of Ferdinand and Isabella, following in the footsteps, the monarchs who brought the inquisition to Spain and expelled the Jews in 1492. But as Holy Roman Emperor “he had issued a letter of protection for Germany’s Jews” and “did not tamper with the privileges extended by previous Emperors to his Jewish subjects. When the fighting broke out, Spanish troops came to Germany to support Charles against the rebellious Protestant princes. When the Jews complained that the Spanish troops were treating them in the “Spanish manner,” the Emperor issued an order to end the molestation of the Jews. So in this instance Charles worse his “German Hat” and ironically it was a better deal for the Jews of that time and place.

1729: Birthdate of Gotthold Lessing, German poet, philosopher and playwright. Although a strong believing Christian, he advocated religious tolerance. His plays, such as “Die Juden” which appeared in 1749, portrayed the Jews as decent, admirable people. Lessing was a close friend of Moses Mendelssohn, who provided the inspiration for the character of Nathan in “Nathan the Wise” a play whose sympathetic portrayal of the Jews earned it the distinction of being banned by 18th century Christians and 20th century Nazis.

1775: Pope Pious VI reinforces all existing anti-Jewish legislation as part of his campaign against liberalism. He passed away in 1781.

1814(1st of Sh'vat, 5574): Rosh Chodesh Sh'vat

1814(1st of Sh'vat, 5574): Raphael Bischoffsheim passed away Mayence. A merchant and prominent philanthropist, he was born at Bischofsheim-on-the-Tauber in 1773. He went to Mayence during the French Revolution, and from a small merchant became a purveyor to the army. Bischoffsheim was well thought of by his co-religionist and served as was president of the Jewish community of Mayence.

1840: British colonists reach New Zealand. According to Maria Weiss, Jewish merchants began arriving in New Zealand in the 1830’s. By 1840, there were approximately 30 Jews living in the colony including David Nathan who helped found the Jewish community in Aukland and Abraham Hort who helped found the Jewish community in Wellington.

1856: Twelve Bavarian, Dutch, and Portuguese Jews, who “had originally organized in 1855 as the United Brethren Society, a benefit society that provided members with medical and burial assistance” met today in Brooklyn to discuss plans for the incorporation of their group as a synagogue. Their efforts would bear fruit in March of 1856 with the founding of Congregation Baith Israel Anshei Emes. (בֵּית יִשְׂרָאֵל אַנְשֵׁי אֱמֶת‎, "House of Israel – People of Truth"), the first synagogue formed on Long Island and “the oldest continuously operating synagogue in Brooklyn.” Today Baith Israel is “commonly known as the Kane Street Synagogue, an egalitarian Conservative synagogue on Kane Street in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn.

1861:
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1863: The January Uprising breaks out in Poland, Lithuania and Belarus. The aim of the national movement was to liberate the Polish-Lithuanian-Ruthenian Commonwealth from Russian occupation. It is estimated that 1,000 to 2,000 Jews participated in the uprising. Approximately 400 of them lost their lives while several hundred more were exiled to Siberia by the Russians when the uprising failed.

1870: Rabbi Lewin conducted the first Shabbat morning service at the newly formed Temple Israel. Services were held in the building owned by the YMCA in Brooklyn. Dr. Samuel Adler of Temple Emanu-El delivered the sermon. The service was conducted in English and the sermon was delivered in German.

1871: Birthdate of composer Leon Jessel. Jessel died at the hands of the Gestapo in 1942

1874: New Jersey authorities took Abraham Levy off of the Hamburg steamer Silesia before it sailed this afternoon. The Jewish businessman has been accused by his partner of stealing $2,200 from their Baltimore, MD business.

1878: A Jew named William Yandaw was held as a material witness after he accused Annie Walker of stealing $35 from him.

1890(1st of Sh'vat, 5650): Rosh Chodesh Sh'vat

1891: Baron Hirsch signed a deed of trust in the presence of the Consul General of the United States in Paris and the Vice Consul that gave control of $2,400,000 to a group of prominent New York Jewish community leaders who would use the funds to aid recent Russian and Romanian immigrants to the United States.

1891: Birthdate of painter Moise Kisling. Born in Poland, he moved to France in 1910. Here he developed his style and gained fame and popularity. Kisling was decorated by the French for heroism during World War I. He passed away in 1973.

1892: Birthdate of Marcel Dassault, French airplane builder

1893: Birthdate of actor Conrad Veidt who is remembered for his role of Major Strasser in the famous World War II film, “Casablanca.”

1895(26th of Tevet, 5655): Edward “Teddy” Solomon passed away today six months before his 40th birthday. An accomplished pianist and conductor, Solomon was a noted composer of comic operas in the manner of Gilbert and Sullivan.

1899: Birthdate of Czech born American historian Guido Kisch who specialized in the history of the Jews during the Middle Ages.

1901: King Edward VII followed his mother Queen Victoria to the British throne. Edward counted several Jews among his friends and “inner circle,” something that did not sit well with much of the British aristocracy. Even more important, was Edward’s willingness to intervene on behalf of the Jews of Russia. In a state visit, he approached his cousin, Czar Nicholas II, about the matter. Cousin Nicky ignored “Bertie.” English political leaders expressed dismay at the King’s behavior. But for the Jews, Edward would become a hero. His all too short reign came to an end in 1910.

1901: Following the death of Queen Victoria, Winston Churchill writes to his mother speculating on what changes will take place in the behavior of the Prince of Wales now that he is king. Churchill wonders if King Edward will “scatter his Jews or will Reuben Sassoon be enshrined among the crown jewels and other regalia?” The King would keep his Jewish friends including “the Baghdadi-born Jew Reuben Sassoon.”

1904: Herzl is received by Rafael Merry del Val the Papal Secretary, who promises to take into consideration the matter of supporting the Zionist aspirations.

1905: The Sunday New York Times Magazine publishes the first three chapters of an unfinished novel by the late Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield.

1909: Birthdate of physicist Lev d Landau who won the Nobel Prize in 1962.

1911: At the annual meeting of the Hebrew Sheltering and Immigrant Aid Society several speakers including Jacob Schiff and Judge Leon Sanders condemned the Gardner Immigration bill, which proposed to add an educational test clause to the exclusion laws and severely criticized the special boards of inquiry on Ellis Island.

1911: Birthdate of Bruno Kreisky, the first Jewish Chancellor of Austria. He died in 1990.

1912: Dr. Benzion Mossinsohn, a representative of the Gymnasium of Jaffa, spoke to a very large audience at Cooper Union tonight on the work of that school, the first strictly Jewish school to be established in Palestine for 2,000 years. Dr. Mossinsohn was given an enthusiastic welcome when he was introduced by Dr. Harry Friedenwald of Baltimore, Honorary President of the Federation of American Zionists. The lecture was in Yiddish.

1913: The new Hebrew Union College buildings were dedicated at Cincinnati, Ohio.

1915: Birthdate of Samuel J. Popeil, inventor of the Veg-O-Matic.

1918: Moishe Zilberfarb completed an 18 month stint as Deputy-Secretary of Jewish Affairs in the General Secretariat of Ukraine, the main executive institution of the Ukrainian People's Republic.

1923: The Golden Jubilee Convention of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations opened at the Hotel Astor in New York City.

1931: Sir Isaac Isaacs, the son of a British tailor, was sworn in as the first Australian-born Governor-General of Australia.

1931: Silent screen star Alma Rubens, whose father was Jewish and whose mother was not, passed away.

1933: Birthdate of basketball star Leonard Robert "Lennie" Rosenbluth, who played forward on the North Carolina team that won the NCAA Championship in 1957 and went on to a pro career with the Philadelphia Warriors.

1934: Birthdate of Emanuel “Manny” Azenburg, the Bronx native who gained fame as a theatrical producer who worked with playwright Neil Simon for over three decades.

1935: Today when the High Commissioner for Palestine, Brig. Gen. Sir Arthur Wauchope, opened a valve that inaugurated the British section of the gigantic enterprise, crude oil that had been pumped 600 mile through the new desert pipe line from the Iraq oil fields flowed into a tanker moored in the Bay of Acre off the coast of Palestine.

1935: Birthdate of American actor Seymour Cassel.

1938: An appeal for continued support of the Jewish colonization movement in Palestine in a time of renewed persecution of Jews in Rumania, Germany and Poland was voiced in Washington tonight by speakers before the National Conference for Palestine, meeting in observance of the completion of twenty years of Jewish settlement in the Holy Land.

1941: Dr. Bernard Joseph, legal adviser to the Jewish Agency for Palestine, the executive body that is cooperating with the British Government asserted that Jews in Palestine “are facing the paradox of supporting Prime Minister Churchill's war effort completely and yet being at odds with British administration” over issues related to the establishment of Jewish homeland including immigration and land ownership.

1941: The British army has renewed its recruiting efforts aimed at Palestinian Arabs and Jews. The new recruits will be used for sentry and other similar guard duties which would release other British infantry regiments for use in active combat roles in North Africa.

1941: In Lublin, Poland; Hans Frank told his fellow Nazis, "We...cannot be asked to have any consideration left for the Jews."

1941: The Iron Guard revolt in Rumania led to the first massacre of Jews there during World War II.

1941: The Law for the Defense of the Nation is imposed by Bulgaria, forcing Jews to give up public posts and forcing Jewish doctors, lawyers, and other professionals to forfeit their jobs. Also, a selective tax is imposed on Bulgaria's Jewish shops and homes.

1943: This was Rivka Libeskind first Shabbat in Auschwitz-Birkenau. The women, who had just recently arrived at the camp, lit candles and sang Shabbat melodies. Women who had lived there for years wept and joined the prayer session

1943: During Operation Tiger in Marseilles, France, Nazis seized more than 4000 Jews for deportation over a four day period. At nearby Les Accates, 29 Jewish children were seized at La Rose Orphanage. Their guardian, Alice Salomon, insisted on remaining with them. Marseilles had had a reputation as being the Jerusalem of the Mediterranean.

1943: The Jewish ghetto at Grodno, Belorussia, is liquidated

1943: A death train that originated in Grodno, Poland, on January 17 erupts in violence at the Treblinka death camp when 1000 Jews armed with boards, knives, and razors attack guards. By morning thousands of Jews who had been on the train are dead, killed by Treblinka SS troops armed with machine guns and grenades

1944: President Roosevelt signs Executive Order 9417, establishing the War Refugee Board. The Board is committed to enforcing the policies of the U.S. government regarding the rescue and relief of victims of persecution.

1945 (8th of Shevat, 5705): Else Lasker-Schüler passed away. Born in 1869, Else Lasker-Schüler came from a well-to-do family in Elberfield, in the Rhineland. From her father Aaron Schüler, who was a banker and builder, she inherited a passion for toys and play. She attributed her poetic inspiration to her mother, who loved literature. In 1894, Else Schüler married the physician Berthold Lasker, and moved with him to Berlin. There they settled into a comfortable middle class existence. For Else, as well as for many other young and aspiring artists, Berlin was a Mecca of artistic exchange and inspiration. She immersed herself in the city's abundant cultural life, attending meetings of artists' groups and societies. She was soon a part of the vibrant and often incestuous Berlin art world. But Lasker-Schüler soon became dissatisfied with her marriage and her bourgeois existence. Divorcing Berthold Lasker in 1899, she embraced the bohemian lifestyle that characterized the rest of her life. After her divorce, she married the talented critic and editor Georg Lewin, who established the famous expressionist art journal, Der Sturm. (She named both the journal and its editor, giving Lewin the name Herworth Walden, which he used for the rest of his professional life). Her first book of poetry, Styx, was published in 1902, and she published prolifically in Der Sturm, as well as the many other avant garde Berlin art journals. She also wrote a play calleds "die Wupper" (completed in 1909), named after the river by that name that runs through her home town. Divorcing again in 1911, Lasker-Schüler's life became increasingly unstable and poverty stricken. She spent much of her time in the cafes, which were a second home to many young Berlin artists and intellectuals, most of them younger than her forty-plus years. It was in the cafes that she wrote the expressionist poems that would be published as My Wonder (Meine Wunder) and met many of the great expressionist artists of the period, including Georg Trakl, Franz Marc, Karl Kraus, Oscar Kokoschka, George Grosz, and Franz Werfel. In 1913, she published Hebrew Ballads (Hebraische Balladen), a collection of poems based on the figures of the Bible. The later years of Lasker Schüler's life were to be characterized by tragedy, loss, and ultimately, a feeling of betrayal and alienation from her fellow Jews. Her beloved son Paul died of tuberculosis in 1927, which led her to intense introspection and reflection upon the Jewish tradition, and especially Jewish mysticism and the Kabbalah. In 1932 she received the prestigious Kleist Prize for literature. Several months later a group of Nazis beat her with an iron rod. Without so much as returning to her room, she left Germany forever. From her refuge in Switzerland, she visited Palestine several times, and eventually moved to Jerusalem. The reality of Palestine's social and political turmoil, however, disillusioned the poet. While she had glorified and romanticized the land in her earlier poetry (and in the utopian prose work called The Land of the Hebrews which she wrote during one of her visits from Switzerland), she was never to feel at home living there. Lasker-Schüler lived the rest of her life a pauper, partially through her own mismanagement of the support given to her by friends and admirers. In Israel, she was viewed mainly as an eccentric, dressed dramatically in long dresses, jewelry and hats, her rooms decorated only with toys and dolls. When Else Lasker Schüer died, she was buried at the foot of the Mount of Olives

1946: Birthdate of Malcolm McLaren, the British born manager of the musical group “The Sex Pistols.”

1946: Following the “blasting of a British installation” the British imposed a stern, tight sunrise-to-sunset curfew on the entire Hadera district of the Palestine coast between Tel Aviv and Haifa.

1947(1st of Sh'vat, 5707): Rosh Chodesh Sh'vat

1947: The British government decided today that it would turn the Palestine Problem over to the United Nations since it could not get the Jews and Arabs to accept a common solution.. However, the British would not make their decision public for another six weeks.

1948: Birthdate of Brooklyn born conductor Sir Gilbert Levine.

1949: During a debate in the House of Commons, Winston Churchill, leader of the Opposition, attacked Foreign Minister Bevin for his “astounding mishandling of the Palestine problem” that could only be described as “gross and glaring.”

1953: The Arthur Miller drama ''The Crucible'' opened on Broadway

1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that East Germany had started probing the 'Jewish descent' of its officials and public figures and that the National Zeitung, an organ of the East German National Democratic Party, warned Jews that they would be punished if they 'ally themselves with American warmongers.' In Moscow the New Times accused Zionists of being the enemies of the Russian people who sought world domination and claimed that the officials of the American Joint Distribution Committee were 'the lackeys of American imperialism.'

1957: Under massive pressure from the United States and the Soviet Union, Israeli forces withdrew from most of Sinai after the Sinai Campaign. The threat of economic sanctions by the United States presented to great a threat for the Israelis not to give ground. President Eisenhower and his Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles, gave new life to President Nassar of Egypt. Nasser repaid their support by tying the cause of the Arabs even more tightly to the Soviet Bloc. The promises that the U.N. gave to effect the withdrawal were not honored. And like all other dishonorable acts of peace, war would again be the result.

1964(8th of Shevat, 5724): Marc Blitzstein, American composer whose works included “Cradle Will Rock,” passed away at the age of 58

1967 (11th of Shevat, 5727): Robert David Quixano Henriques passed away. Born in 1911, he was a British writer, broadcaster and farmer. He gained modest renown for two award-winning novels and two biographies of Jewish business tycoons, published during the middle part of the 20th century. The following year, he wrote 100 Hours to Suez, and it was around this time, in his late forties, that Henriques began to take an active interest and pride in his Jewish identity. He was won over by the Zionist cause, and made frequent trips to Israel where he bought a small property. In the 1960s, Henriques wrote two biographies. The first one charted the life and career of his wife's grandfather Marcus Samuel, the great oil pioneer and leader of the Jewish community, and the second one described the life of Sir Robert Waley-Cohen

1967: Simon & Garfunkel performed live at Philharmonic Hall in the Lincoln Center, New York City. The recording would not be released until July 16, 2002.

1970(15th of Shevat, 5730): Tu B’Shevat

1973: President Lyndon B Johnson President passed way at his ranch in Stonewall, Texas at the age of 64. One of LBJ’s closest advisors was Abe Fortas who considered himself “a nominal Jew.” When LBJ nominated him to serve as a Justice on the Supreme Court, Fortas, who was one of the few people who could speak candidly to the tall Texan, told him that the Jews would not consider this a Jewish nomination. As President, Lyndon Johnson had the courage (both political and personal) and the skill to enact the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act. He also enacted many measures such Head Start and Medicare which had a great deal of support among Jewish voters. At the same time, his support of the Viet Nam War cost him a lot of support among these same Jewish voters. More to the point, he supported Israel in the Six Day War of 1967. Among other things, he kept the Soviets from interfering on behalf of their Arab clients and forced the Russians to quit threatening Israel. Long after he had left the White House, The Associated Press published more information about LBJ’s “personal and often emotional connection to Israel” which is worth reading in its entirety.

Based on newly released tapes of the president’s conversations, the news agency pointed out that during the Johnson presidency (1963-1969) “the United States became Israel's chief diplomatic ally and primary arms supplier.” LBJ is quoted in one conversation, “"I sure as hell want to be careful and not run out on little Israel." Further reports reveal the full extent of Johnson’s actions on behalf of the Jewish people and the State of Israel. Indeed, the title of “Righteous Gentile” is certainly appropriate in the case of the Texan. Most students of the Arab-Israeli conflict can identify Johnson as the president during the 1967 war. But few know about LBJ’s actions to rescue hundreds of endangered Jews 30 years earlier, actions that could have thrown him out of Congress and into jail. The Texas congressman’s district had only 400 Jews, but clearly the Johnson family’s Christian teachings had given him a strong affinity for Jews and their return to the Holy Land. Five days after taking office in 1937, LBJ broke with the “Dixiecrats” and supported an immigration bill that would naturalize illegal aliens, mostly Jews from Lithuania and Poland. In 1938, Johnson was told of a young Austrian Jewish musician who was about to be deported from the United States. With an element of subterfuge, LBJ sent him to the U.S. Consulate in Havana to obtain a residency permit. Erich Leinsdorf, the world famous musician and conductor, credited LBJ for saving his live. That same year, LBJ warned a Jewish friend that European Jews faced annihilation. Somehow, Johnson provided him with a pile of signed immigration papers that were used to get 42 Jews out of Warsaw. But that wasn’t enough. According to historian, James M. Smallwood, Congressman Johnson used legal and sometimes illegal methods to smuggle “hundreds of Jews into Texas, using Galveston as the entry port. Enough money could buy false passports and fake visas in Cuba, Mexico, and other Latin American countries. … Johnson smuggled boatloads and planeloads of Jews into Texas. He hid them in the Texas National Youth Administration…. Johnson saved at least four or five hundred Jews, possibly more.” On June 4, 1945, Johnson visited the Dachau concentration camp. According to historian Smallwood, Lady Bird later recalled that “when her husband returned home, he was still shaken, stunned, terrorized, and ‘bursting with an overpowering revulsion and incredulous horror at what he had seen.’” As President, Johnson met with Israel’s Prime Minister Levi Eshkol and undertook to replace the recalcitrant France as Israel’s principal arms supplier, providing Patton tanks and Skyhawk jets and Phantom jets. Soviet Premier Aleksei Kosygin once asked Johnson why the United States supported Israel when there are 80 million Arabs and only three million Israelis. “Because it is right,” responded the straight-shooting Texan.

1978: The Jerusalem Post reported that Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, who a week earlier instructed his delegation to break off the Israeli-Egyptian peace negotiations held in Jerusalem, had now announced that he was leaving the door open for renewed talks, but on certain conditions. He demanded that, before any concrete peace negotiations may continue, Israel must agree to a total withdrawal to the pre-1967 frontiers and recognize the Palestinian rights to self-determination. The US sought a new format for political negotiations and urged Israel to resume military talks held in Cairo and postponed by Premier Menachem Begin. Foreign Minister Moshe Dayan warned that Sadat's conditions would lead to a dead end and offered no opportunity for progress.

1980(4th of Sh'vat, 5740): Yitzhak Baer passed away. Born in 1888, he was a German-Israeli historian and an expert in medieval Spanish Jewish history.

1984: The New York Times features Paul Johnson’s review of The High Walls of Jerusalem: A History of the Balfour Declaration and the Birth of the British Mandate for Palestine by Ronald Sanders.

1988: The police imposed a curfew tonight on A-Tur, an Arab neighborhood in East Jerusalem, invoking special emergency powers in this city for the first time since East Jerusalem was captured from Jordan in 1967.

1991: El Al Israel Airlines and Tower Air are still flying to Tel Aviv. Sheryl Stein, the manager of public relations for El Al, said it was continuing daily service from John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York to Tel Aviv. She said that the carrier had not reduced its schedule and that it had 17 flights yesterday in and out of Tel Aviv to other parts of the world. In addition, she said the airline was bringing in immigrants daily from Hungary and Romania.

1991: After a Scud slammed into a two-story apartment building in a Tel Aviv suburb today, 260 Israelis were forced to move into hotels. Almost 1,000 Israelis, most of whom live in Tel Aviv have already lost their homes because of attack by Iraqi Scuds.

1994 (10th of Shevat, 5754): Irving B Kahn inventor of the teleprompter passed away at the age of 76

1995: In central Israel, two suicide bombers from the Gaza Strip blew themselves-up at a military transit point killing 19 Israelis. This was just one of the many acts of terrorism that took placed after Rabin and Arafat shook hands on the White House lawn. Despite, them the Israelis would make a variety of territorial concessions. The terror would continue.

1996(1st of Shevat, 5756): Rosh Chodesh Shevat

1996 (1st of Shevat, 5756): Yisrael Eldad, member of the Stern Gang and leader of right wing political groups after the creation of the state of Israel extremist politician, died at the age of 85

1996: When the top awards in children's publishing were announced today, the Margaret A. Edwards Award for Outstanding Literature for Young Adults went to Judy Blume in recognition of lifetime achievement in the field. Blume is the author of Blubber, Then Again Maybe I Won't, and Superfudge. While recognizing Blume's full body of work, the award made special mention of Forever, perhaps Blume's most controversial work. Born in 1938 and raised in New Jersey, Blume published her first book in 1969. The One in the Middle is the Green Kangaroo, a picture book, was soon followed by the books for adolescents that have made Blume famous. In such classics as Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret (1970), Deenie (1973), Starring Sally J. Freedman as Herself (1977), and Just as Long as We're Together (1987), Blume addresses issues such as divorce, friendship, death and loss, and teenage sexual development. Because of the frank way in which Blume deals with sexuality, her books have often been banned from school and public libraries. In 2004, the American Library Association called her the "second-most censored author of the past 15 years." Forever (1975), which Blume says she wrote when her daughter asked for "a story about two nice kids who have sex without either of them having to die," has been a particular target of censors. The book, which features the teenage protagonists' trip to Planned Parenthood, came in eighth on the ALA's list of most-banned books of the 1990s. Four other Blume titles also made the top 100. Despite challenges from would-be book banners, Blume has enjoyed tremendous success as an author. Together, her books have sold 75 million copies worldwide. In addition to her 20 books for children and young adults, Blume is the author of three novels for adults, of which the most recent is Summer Sisters (1998). She is also the founder of The Kids Fund, which encourages parent-child communication through books.

1997 (14th of Shevat, 5757): Irwin Levine, composer of “Tie a Yellow Ribbon” passed away at the age of 58.

2000(15th of Sh'vat, 5760):Tu B'Sh’vat

2001: In talks today Israeli officials unexpectedly revived the idea of some form of joint or international administration for the historic city center of Jerusalem and its holy sites. This trial balloon was simultaneously punctured by the Palestinians, who reiterated their demand for sovereignty over all Arab districts and religious sites in East Jerusalem, and by the Israeli opposition, which objected to any plan for limiting Israeli rule in the city.

2002: A Palestinian gunman carried out a terrorist attack in Jerusalem’s central shopping distrct, raking the area with semiautomatic gunfire that killed two and wounded 20 before being shot dead by the police

2004: Sicor becomes the wholly owned subsidiary of Israel’s Teva Pharmaceutical Industries.

2004: Two Israeli cabinet ministers said today that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon would have to resign if a bribery investigation eventually leads to his indictment.

2005: The Washington Post published an op-ed column by Samuel Pisar entitled “Will We ‘Never Forget’?” An international lawyer and author of Of Blood and Hope, Pisar survived Auschwitz. Pisar expressed his concern that as the survivors reach the autumn of their lives, the world has not learned from the horrors of their experiences nor will they really remember what happened in a meaningful manner.

2006: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Between You and Me: A Memoir by Mike Wallace with Gary Paul, Maimonides by Sherwin Nuland, The Poems of Charles Reanikoff: 1918-1975, edited by Seamus Cooney and Nicholas Miraculous a biography of Nicholas Murray Butler. Regardless of how history views him (and the picture is none too flattering) Butler earns low marks in the American Jewish Experience. As the reviewer says of Butler, “His most creative involvement with the undergraduate college seems to have come in searching for ways to keeps its Jewish enrollment down. He considered having applicants take physicals that would ‘find grounds to eliminate socially unappealing Jews smart enough to have passed the entrance examination,’ and throughout the 1930's he funneled Jewish students into an affiliated two-year college in Brooklyn. Its courses were "taught largely by junior faculty members from Morningside Heights," and the dropout rate was enormous. When it closed after 10 years, Butler at last gave up on ‘the Hebrew problem.’"

2006: The New York Times reported on the “four founding mothers of a large chunk of today’s Ashkenazi Jewish population” in an article entitled “Loy you, K2a2a, Whoever You Are” by Amy Harmon, a “direct descendant” of one of these four “bubbes”

2006: The S. Daniel Abraham Israel Program hosted a career fair at the Renaissance Hotel in Jerusalem to demonstrate how a Yeshiva University education can benefit them.

2007: In an article in The Jerusalem Post, Stephen Arnoff contended that the future of Jewish survival in the United States, depended, in part on older leaders of the Jewish community paying attention to the generation of young Jewish leaders who created projects like Hadar, Storahtelling, Zeek, jewschool, Hazon, Jdub Records and similar Jewish enterprises

2007: Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Defense Minister Amir Peretz agreed to appoint Major General (Res.) Gabi Ashkenazi as the 19th Chief of Staff of the Israel Defense Forces.

2008(15th of Shevat, 5768): Tu B’Shevat

2008 (15th of Shevat, 5768): Miles Lerman, the Nazi Camp survivor who helped found the U.S. Holocaust Museum, passed away.

2009: The International Astronomical Union named a crater on the moon after American physiologist Joseph Erlanger.

2009:.The final five nominees for the Oscar for best documentary are scheduled to be announced today. Among those being considered is, “Blessed Is the Match: The Life and Death of Hannah Senesh”

2009: In Germany the scheduled date for the nationwide release of Adam Resurrected. It follows the story of Adam Stein, a charismatic patient at an asylum for Holocaust survivors in Israel, in 1961. Jeff Goldblum stars as Adam, alongside Willem Dafoe, Derek Jacobi and Ayelet Zurer..

2009: The Centro Primo Levi and the Yeshiva University Museum present a lecture by Eva Forgacs on the life and work of István Farkas. István Farkas (1887-1944), a modernist of the École de Paris, whose elusive landscapes fascinated writers and painters alike, returned in 1932 to his native Hungary where his mysterious works ultimately presaged his own death at Auschwitz.

2010: Mishkenot Sha'ananim is scheduled to present a second round of "A Shortcut In Time," part of series of lectures delivered over the course of seven months by the Weizmann Institute's Professor Illem Gross that place “scientists ranging from Isaac Newton to Stephen Hawking under the microscope.”

2010: The 10th annual Atlanta Jewish Festival is scheduled to present a screening of “Where I Stand: The Hank Greenspun Story,” a “chronicle of the endlessly surprising life of the charismatic newspaperman, Vegas icon and real-life Zelig. Greenspun's epic journey from associate of mobster Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel to maverick founder of the Las Vegas Sun (and its long-running Where I Stand editorial) features a colorful cast of characters including high-rolling businessmen and gangsters, movie stars, politicians, family and wheeler-dealer friends. Following Siegel's murder in 1947, the crusading Greenspun rediscovered his Jewish heritage, and became a prominent guerrilla figure in Israeli politics and gun smuggling. Director Scott Goldstein combines archival stills, illuminating interviews, rare diary entries read by Anthony Hopkins, and atmospheric music to create a spirited, highly-stylized mosaic of Greenspun's legendary escapades.”

2011: The New York Premiere of “Miss You”(Te extraño) is scheduled to take place at The New York Jewish Film Festival. The film depicts the travail of a middle class Jewish Argentinean family and Javier, a 15-year-old boy who left his home because of the political situation in 1970s Argentina.

2011: The Jewish Community Center of Northern Virginia is scheduled to present the Sixth Annual Comedy Night featuring Dan Adhoot

2011(17th of Shevat, 5771): Frank Lieberman passed away. A native of New York, Lieberman moved to Los Angeles as a teenager. He parlayed his work as an entertainment reporter for the Herald-Examiner into a public relations career where he developed a special relationship with Elvis Presley and represented such show business notables as Sammy Davis, Jr., Phyllis Diller and Tony Orlando.

2011: The 2011 Minneapolis Jewish Humor Festival is scheduled to present “In Rehearsal – a one woman show by Alison Vodnoy.”

2011(17th of Shevat, 5771):Tullia Zevi, a pillar of Italy's Jewish community and an ardent anti-fascist who spent the war years in exile in Switzerland, France and the U.S., died today. She was 91. Zevi, the only female president of the Union of Italian Jewish Communities, died in Rome, current union president Renzo Gattegna said. One of four children of a bourgeois Jewish family, Zevi was vacationing with her parents in Switzerland in 1938 when Italy passed its racial laws. The family, known for her father's anti-fascist beliefs, moved to France and later the US as World War II raged. She returned to Italy in 1946 and worked as a journalist as well as with various center-left political parties. In a biographical article she wrote in 1999, Zevi said she returned because she wanted to help Italy and its Jews rebuild after the war. "The horrors of the war had just been discovered; the mass extermination of the Jews, the gypsies and political opponents, the devastation of Jewish communities," she wrote. "It seemed right, having had the fortune of having survived, to return and participate in the reconstruction of this traumatized community in chaos, and also to participate in the rebirth of democracy in Italy following the defeat of fascism." She headed the Union of Italian Jewish Communities from 1983-1998, and even after that remained active in the Jewish community, frequently commenting in the media about Jewish-Vatican relations in particular. In 1992, she was awarded Italy's highest civilian honor, news reports said. "We recall her profound and dignified interventions that she made in defense of the Jews and all minorities," Gattegna said in a statement. Her husband Bruno Zevi, an architect, Jewish leader and member of Italy's clandestine Justice and Liberty movement while fascists held power, died in 2000. They had two children.

2012: Awkward Moment Productions is scheduled to present “Circmference” written and performed by Amy Salloway at the Minneapolis Jewish Humor Festival.

2012: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including the recently released paperback edition of “The Balfour Declaration: the Origins of the Arab-Israeli Conflict” by Jonathan Schneer.

2012: YIVO is scheduled to present the world premiere of “When Our Bubbas and Zeydas Were Young.”

Copyright; January, 2012; Mitchell A. Levin
Cedar Rapids, IA melech3@mchsi.com