This Day, January 23, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. Levin

January 23 In Jewish History

393: Roman Emperor Theodosius I proclaims his nine year old son Honorius co-emperor. “Under the rule of Theodosius and his sons… the Christian church consolidated its position as the sole power in the empire,” became less tolerant and the Jews “suffered in inverse proportion to the strength of the emperor’s personality.”

1002: Otto III, Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire passed away. No, Otto was not Jewish. But his passing offers an instructive note when studying history, especially Jewish history. A thousand years ago, Otto was the “George Bush” of his day, a major political and military leader. Otto lived in the same century as Rashi, a guy who sold wine in a small town in France. We remember Rashi. Rashi still speaks to us today infusing our lives in ways in which we are not aware. Who remembers Otto?

1199: Birthdate of Almohad ruler Abu Yusuf who ordered the Jews of the Maghreb to wear dark blue garments with long sleeves and saddle-like caps. His grandson Abdallah al-Adil made a concession after appeals from the Jews, relaxing the required clothing to yellow garments and turbans.

1235: False accusations of Ritual Murder at Baden, Germany resulted in a massacre of the Jewish population.

1490: At Naples, the first printed edition of the Ramban’s “Sha’ar ha-Gemul,” The Gate of Reward, was published by Joseph ben Jacob Gunzenhauser. Gunzenhauser and his son Azriel had moved from southern Germany to Italy where “they produced various books, including a Hagiographa with rabbinical commentaries, Avicenna's medical Canon, and Abraham ibn Ezra's commentary on the Pentateuch.” Jacob passed away in 1490, the same that they published the Ramban’s seminal work.

1492: At Brescia. Italy, Gershon Soncino produced the first printed Chumash with Megilot.

1571: The Royal Exchange opens in London. The first Jewish broker was admitted to the Royal Exchange in 1657; the same year a piece of land was purchased for a Jewish cemetery in London.

1579: The Union of Utrecht forms a Protestant republic in the Netherlands. The treaty that created the union guaranteed religious peace under article 13. As a consequence this, the persecuted Jews of Spain and Portugal turned toward Holland as a place of refuge.

1634: Trial of the men implicated in the 'Complicidad Grande' (Great Complicity). Seventeen arrests were made by the Inquisition after a man turned another man in for being "unwilling to make a sale on Saturday," and for not wanting to eat bacon. The man’s possessions were confiscated, more people were implicated, and eventually a total of 81 persons would be locked up and their possessions sequestered. These men were prominent businessmen of the Lima(Peru) community, and their arrests and led to a "widespread commercial crisis" and failure of the community bank.

1639 In Lima, Peru, at an Auto Da Fe, more than eighty New Christians were burned, including Francisco Maldonna de Silva (Elia Nazareno), after the Inquisition discovered that they were holding regular Jewish services. De Silva spent 12 years in prison, during which time he managed to write two books using a chicken bone and charcoal. Each book was about 100 pages. He succeeded in putting together a rope out of corn husks but instead of escaping he used it to visit other prisoners urging them to believe in Judaism.

1656: French Philosopher Blaise Pascal published the first of his Lettres provinciales. Pascal did not radiate the anti-Semitism typical of so many European intellectuals. Over 300 years ago, when King Louis XIV of France asked, the great French philosopher, to give him proof of the supernatural. Pascal answered: "Why, the Jews, your Majesty -- the Jews." The best proof of the supernatural that Pascal could think of was: "The Jews."

1789: In Washington, D.C., Georgetown becomes the first Catholic college in the United States. Today approximately 650 of Georgetown’s 6,000 are Jewish and a thousand of its 6,000 graduate students are Jewish. The school offers 35 Jewish studies courses and students can major in Jewish Studies. The university also has an active Hillel Chapter.

1855: In New York City, a complaint was entered today in "The Mayor's Little Black Book" stating that on Chatham Street "a Jewish drummer is stationed in front of his store insulting passengers as they pass along. The latter nuisance is glaring and intolerable...and calls for intervention of the proper authorities." Chatham Street was the heart of the second-hand clothing “industry” and was equated with Jews in a most uncomplimentary way.

1864(15th of Shevat, 5624): Tu B’Shevat

1871(1st of Shevat, 5631): Rosh Chodesh Shevat

1873:, A large crowd braved a snowstorm to hear a lecture at the Beeckman Street Church by Jewish humorist Raphael De Cordova entitled “The New Clergyman.”

1878: Marcus J. Waldheimer, a partner in the firm of Townsend & Waldheimer, denied reports that his father-in-law, Leopold Bamberger, had disappeared. Waldheimer said that Bamberger who has been holding funds in trust that are related to a messy bankruptcy case, has “merely left…temporarily for recreation.”

1879: It was reported today that a revised edition of “Hebrew Men and Times from the Patriarchs to the Messiah” by Joseph Henry Allen will be reissued by Roberts Brothers.

1893: The New York Times featured a review of A Visit to Wazan: The Sacred City of Morocco by Robert Spence Watson. Watson used a letter of introduction from Sir Moses Montifore to the Chief Rabbi of Morocco “as a passport to meeting Jews” wherever he went. Watson reported that Montefiore’s efforts on behalf of the Moroccan Jews had improved their condition including the comment that “the children of the better class of Jews of Tangiers are taught in English” and use English textbooks.

1891: Birthdate of Jonas Bernanke. Born in Boryslav, which was then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, he eventually made his way to Dillon, South Carolina where he owned a drug store and raised a son named Ben who would become Chairman of the Federal Reserve.

1895: In New York, the Young Ladies' and Gentlemen's League of the Montefiore Home sponsored a grand ball to raise funds for the Montifore Home for Chronic Invalids. The successful fund raiser was attended by members of “the best circles of Jewish society.” The dances for the Montefiore Home have replaced the Purim Balls which up until two years ago were the great fund raising and major winter social events of these prosperous Jewish citizens

1898: Birthdate of Sergei Eisenstein. The Russian, film maker worked in the United States before returning to the Soviet Union. One of his most famous films was the “Battleship Potemkin.”

1898 (29th of Tevet, 5658): Yehoshua Yehudah Leib Diskin passed away. Born in 1818, this important rabbi, Talmudist and Biblical commentator was also known as the Maharil Diskin,. He served as a rabbi in Łomża, Mezritch, Kovno, Shklov, Brisk and finally Jerusalem after moving there in 1878, where he became the spiritual leader of a part of the Yishuv haYashan. He was part of a family of rabbis. His father, Binyamin Diskin, served as rabbi in Grodno, Volkovisk and later Łomża. His son was Rabbi Yitzchok Yeruchem Diskin.

1904: Herzl was received by the Italian King, Vittorio Emanuele III. The king showed a serious interest in Zionism. But under the Italian political system, the king reigns but does not rule so it will be to Foreign Minister Tittoni to gain political support in Constantinople.Tittoni asked for a memorandum and promised to write to the Italian ambassador in Constantinople.

1910: The Board of Directors of Mount Sinai Hospital held their annual board meeting today at the hospital on 100th Street and Fifth Avenue. During the reading of the annual report Isaac Stern, the President, announced that the plan to establish a federation of the larger Jewish charitable institutions of the city, a plan for some time in contemplation, had failed. Mr. Stern said that there were certain disadvantages to the creation of such a federation without the guarantee of “any permanent advantages.” Therefore, the directors considered it “in the best interest of the community not give their consent” to such a plan. Mr. Stern announced that the children of the late Mayer Lehman had donated $78,528 which was to used to add two stories to the Dispensary Building as a memorial to their late father. In the past year, almost 89% of the nearly 9,000 patients admitted to the hospital were treated without paying a fee. The hospital’s expenditure of $399,170 exceeded income by almost $15,000. Jacob Schiff, who apparently favored the creation of the federation, gave a speech in which he thanked the board and the medical staff for their efforts in the last year. The board’s decision about joining a federation of charitable institutions doomed the idea at a cost of one million dollars. That was the amount that the late Louis A. Heinsheimer had set aside in his will for such an organization, if and when, it should be created.

1918: Birthdate of Gertrude Belle Elion. Born in New York City to immigrant Jewish parents from Lithuania, Elion graduated from Hunter College and then earned a Master in Science from N.Y.U. in 1941. In a classic case of sex discrimination, she was unable to obtain a graduate research job which meant she could not earn a Ph.D. Thus the 1988 recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine ended up working as a lab assistant and high school teacher.

1918: The Chief Rabbi of Algeria plans a community building which will contain a yeshiva, an assembly hall, a library, shelter for strangers, a mikvah and a bakery for matzah.

1919: General Lyautey, the resident General of Morocco visits the Mellah (Jewish Quarter) and urges the Jews to contribute towards its sanitation and enlargement.

1921: In Shanghai, Rabbi W. Hirsch consecrated The Ohel Rachel Synagogue for worship. This marked the culminating achievement of Shanghai's First Wave of Jewish immigrants and it was built to accommodate the community of Baghdadi Jews which at its peak numbered 700.

1923 (6th of Shevat, 5683): Max Nordau passed away at the age of 73. “Max Nordau was born in Pest, Hungary in 1849, the son of Gabriel Sudfeld, an Orthodox rabbi of Sephardi origin. Although given a good grounding in Jewish tradition, Nordau drifted away from the Jewish community. Initially he worked as a journalist but later decided to study medicine. In 1880 his studies took him to Paris where he opened a practice, even though it was in the literary field that he was to make a name for himself. Nordau was considered a controversial writer with his attacks on contemporary European art, social and political behavior. His Conventional Lies of Society, written in 1883 was an attack on irrationality, egotism and nihilism which he perceived as the evils of his time. By 1898 his works were translated into some 18 languages. Nordau's Zionist conversion was an experience not dissimilar to Herzl's and he admitted that the rising tide of anti-Semitism had brought him back to realize his duties toward the Jewish people. When Herzl met with Nordau, it took little persuasion to convince the latter of the worthiness of the Jewish State idea. Nordau soon became Herzl's partner in the Zionist movement playing a central role in defining the Basle program. At the first Zionist Congress, Nordau gave the opening speech on the condition of the Jewish people, which subsequently became a tradition at later Zionist Congresses. At the Sixth Zionist Congress, Nordau defended Herzl's Uganda plan arguing that they offered a temporary solution to the Jewish people's sufferings. It was he who coined the term nachtasyl (night shelter) to describe the Uganda plan. Following Herzl's death, Nordau was offered the position of President of the World Zionist Organization but he declined preferring instead to serve as advisor to David Wolffsohn. He opposed the growing trend toward practical Zionism remaining faithful to Herzl's political program. Nordau distanced himself from the Zionist movement but not from the idea. He last attended a Zionist Congress in 1911 and although resident in Spain during the First World War tried to maintain contact with the movement throughout that period. Weizmann attempted to bring him back into the organization at the end of the War; however, Nordau rejected the overtures, believing that the movement was a shadow of what Herzl had intended it to be. In 1920 he raised the idea of evacuating half a million Jews from Europe to Eretz-Israel but no one took the idea seriously at that time. By then he had returned to Paris, where despite discussion of his immigration to Eretz-Israel he died after a long illness.

1924: Birthdate of Democrat Frank R Lautenberg. Lautenberg is serving again as a United States Senator from New Jersey. He is also a leader in the Jewish community.

1929: Birthdate of Myron Sidney Kopelman, who, as Myron Cope, would become an American sports journalist, radio personality, and sportscaster best known for being "the voice of the Pittsburgh Steelers."

1932: Chief Judge Benjamin N. Cardozo of the Court of Appeals was formally endorsed for associate justice of the United States Supreme Court to fill the seat recently vacated by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes at tonight’s closing session of the annual meeting of the New York State Bar Association at the Hotel Astor

1933: Birthdate of composer Joel Spiegelman.

1936: Sir Isaac Isaacs, a native born Australian who was the son of Polish Jews, completes his term as the 9th Governor-General of Australia.

1937: In Moscow, 17 leading Communists went on trial. They were accused of participating in a plot led by Leon Trotsky to overthrow Joseph Stalin's regime and assassinate its leaders. Stalin combined Trotsky’s Jewish parentage with traditional Russian anti-Semitism to demonize Trotsky and destroy those opposing his authoritarian rule. Having branded the “Jew, Trostky” as an enemy of the revolution, or the Communist Party and/or the Soviet Union, Stalin would feel to move against the Jews of the U.S.S.R when it fit his needs or his demonic spirit.

1938: The Palestine Post reported that two Arabs, implicated in the murder of J.L. Starkey, a noted archaeologist who was excavating in Palestine, were hanged at Acre. The Motza brick and burnt-tile factory was completely gutted by fire. Arson by Arab terrorists was suspected. Ephraim Brin, 19, and Aziz Jacob, 17, both of Jerusalem, were the first Jews to be sentenced, under the newly created Military Courts, to five years' imprisonment for carrying a pistol and a few rounds of ammunition.

1941: Charles Lindbergh testified before the U.S. Congress and recommended that the United States negotiate a neutrality pact with Adolf Hitler. For those who are perplexed by Roosevelt’s response to the plight of European Jewry, this entry should give you a clue as to the kind of the environment in which he was operating. “The Lone Eagle” was a national monument and, as the leader of the America First Movement, he saw WW II was a European measure. He would only grudgingly give ground on his opposition to war once the bombs were falling on Pearl Harbor. Opposition of this magnitude fashioned all of FDR’s decisions about the war, including how to deal with the Shoah. It is only with the warmth of the myth of America’s Greatest Generation that the United States seems like a ant-fascist monolith in WWII.

1941: “Lady in the Dark” a product of “3 Jewish Musketters” - music by Kurt Weill, lyrics by Ira Gershwin and book and direction by Moss Hart – opened at the Alvin Theatre in New York

1942(5th of Shevat, 5702): In Novi Sad, Hungary, 550 Jews and 292 Serbs were driven onto the ice and then shelled. All drowned. [Ed. Note: Who says Kaddish for these people?]

1942(5th of Shevat, 5702): Paul Levinstein was killed in Hadjerat M'Guil a Nazi concentration camp built in remote part of the Sahara Desert in 1941. Upon hearing of their son's death his parents committed suicide in Britain.

1943: Italian authorities refuse to cooperate with Germans in deportations of French Jews living in zones of France under Italian control

1944: "Ode to Napoleon" by the Jewish composer Arnold Schoenberg premieres in New York City

1945: Birthdate of Bruce Ratner. Appointed by Ed Koch to the position of Commissioner of Consumer Affairs for New York City in 1978, he became a real estate developer in 1982. He is now the owner of the New Jersey Nets basketball team, his net worth now several hundred million dollars. Ratner is the developer charged with building the New York Times Tower. He is a member of the board of the Jewish Heritage Museum.

1949: At the Hollywood Athletic Club the first Emmy Awards are presented. A year later, two Jewish stars would dominate the Emmy Awards. The Texaco Star Theatre starring Milton Berle and The Ed Wynn Show starring Ed Wynn would walk off with top honors while Berle and Wynn would each earn awards in their own right.

1950: The 3rd edition of Famous 1st Facts by Jewish trivia expert Joseph Kane is published

1950: Israeli Knesset resolved that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel

1952: Birthdate of Jeanette Ingberman, the Brooklyn born daughter of Holocaust survivors who became a founder of the New York cultural center Exit Art, a hotbed of avant-garde work by artists from around the world. (As reported by Margalit Fox)

1953: The Jerusalem Post reported from New York that the Soviet Union was about to break diplomatic relations with Israel. The first five tons of the copper ore, excavated from Timna mine in the Negev, were sent for industrial tests to Europe.

1960: Israeli General Yitzhak Rabin sends an aerial reconnaissance across the Suez Canal to ascertain the position of Nasser’s advancing troops. When the troops cannot be found, Rabin correctly assumes they have crossed the Canal. It turned out that the bulk of Egyptian army was almost at the border with Israel where they would only be opposed by force of twenty or thirty tanks.

1963: The latest installment of the memoirs of Ilya Ehrenberg which describe the Soviet response to the invasion of June, 1941, appeared today. Ehrenbeg depicted a hesitant Stalin whose ever—present picture disappeared from view for months and who did not speak to the nation until November of 1941. This installment also describes how Stalin mobilized Soviet Jews including Ehrenberg, sergei Eisenstein and Solomon Mikhoels to make broadcasts abroad to gain support for the Soviets in their fight against the Nazis. [After the war, Stalin, like Pharaoh, would know not the Jewish contribution and murdered many of them included Mikhoels.]

1964: Arthur Miller's "After the Fall" premiered in New York City.

1975: "Barney Miller" starring Hal Linden premiered on ABC TV.

1977(4th of Shevat, 5737): Bernard "Toots" Shor passed away. “Toots Shor, a bulky Jewish street kid from Philadelphia, who made and gambled away several fortunes in the big town, was in a sense the original insult comic—crass, coarse, jesting jibes being the prime ingredient of pal ship among all those heavy hitters.” Shor was the premier Saloonkeeper and his New York restaurant was a thing of legend.

1978: The Jerusalem Post reported that the cabinet decided to postpone the military talks held with Egypt in Cairo, after the Egyptian delegation broke off political negotiations with Israel, held in Jerusalem. It was expected that this step might influence Egypt to moderate its demands, in tone as well as in contents. The US expressed its disappointment with Israel's sharp reaction to President Anwar Sadat's demands for a total withdrawal to the 1967 borders and the recognition of the rights of the Palestinians. Four hundred and twenty-five Israelis flew to the US under the 'Friendly Force' program designed to promote peace through personal contacts.

1978 (15th of Shevat, 5738): A hundred thousand trees were planted on Tu Bishvat by the Jewish National Fund.

1986: "Jerome Kern Goes to Hollywood" opens at Ritz Theater New York City.

1987: Meir Heth, was appointed today as the new chairman of Bank Leumi L'Yisrael, Israel's biggest commercial bank. The former head of the Tel Aviv stock exchange, Heith was criticized over a 1983 collapse of bank shares. A commission of inquiry last year criticized Mr. Heth for failing to prevent the country's four major banks from manipulating their shares. the former head of the Tel Aviv stock exchange, criticized over a 1983 collapse of bank shares.

1988: As the Arab uprising called the Intifada brings an increase in violence The representative of the Arab League and three other Arab diplomats met with a senior State Department official today to complain about what they considered inadequate United States pressure on Israel to halt the violence against Palestinians in Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

1991. At a briefing this morning, Israeli officials appeared to play down the deaths that occurred when an Iraqi Scud missile evaded two American Patriot air-defense missiles and slammed into a Tel Aviv suburb on Tuesday night, leaving 3 people dead and 96 wounded emphasizing that the three victims had suffered heart attacks.

1991: "Seinfeld" debuts on NBC-TV

1997: Madeleine Albright became the first woman to serve as United States Secretary of State. During her term as Secretary of State, Albright found out for the first time that her family was Jewish.

2000: The New York Times includes a review of The House of Rothschild: The World's Banker, 1849-1999 by Niall Ferguson.

2001: This afternoon, two Tel Aviv restaurateurs and an Israeli Arab friend sat down for a late lunch in Tulkarm, a battle-scarred town rarely visited by Israeli Jews since the West Bank erupted in riotous protests nearly four months ago. The three were seized by armed men who later let the Israeli Arab go, but shot the two Israeli Jews at point-blank range, Israeli officials said. Hamas, the militant Gaza-based Islamic movement, took responsibility for what it called an ''execution'' and said the shooting had been videotaped.

2001: The killing of two Israeli civilians by Palestinian militants earlier today interrupted a new round of peace negotiations here, with Prime Minister Ehud Barak condemning the slayings as ''horrendous'' and ordering the three cabinet ministers in the talks to return to Jerusalem.

2001: Today, in a talk with high school students on the campaign trail, Ehud Barak appeared to disavow proposals for relinquishing control of the ancient city core of Jerusalem. ''Under any settlement, the Western Wall, the Jewish Quarter, and the Mount of Olives, and what is called the holy basin, will remain under Israeli sovereignty,'' Mr. Barak said.

2002(10th of Sh'vat, 5762): Bernard Rothman passed away. Cause of death was a stroke. He was better known as Benny Rothman, “a UK political activist, most famous for his leading role in the Mass trespass of Kinder Scout in 1932. He was born in Cheetham Hill, Manchester, in 1911. He is family was so poor that he had tostart work at the earliest opportunity rather than take full advantage of a scholarship that he had won. Working as an errand boy in the motor trade, he studied geography and economics in his spare time while his Aunt Ettie introduced him to The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists and the works of Upton Sinclair. Increasingly committed to the causes of socialism and communism, Rothman lost his job after getting into some trouble with the law while selling copies of the Daily Worker. During a period of unemployment, with the help of a bicycle salvaged from spare parts, he discovered the nearby wilderness regions of the Peak District and North Wales. The combination of his political activism and interest in the outdoors led to his participation in the mass trespass of 1932, an enterprise that resulted in a spell in prison and further employment difficulties. In 1934, Rothman went to work at Avro in Newton Heath and instantly became an officer of the Amalgamated Engineering Union (AEU). At Avro's, he met and married fellow communist Lily Crabtree but his political views became increasingly visible to his employer and he was dismissed. Rothman was active in working with Jewish groups in Manchester to oppose the campaigns of Sir Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists. In 1936, he started work at Metropolitan Vickers at Trafford Park and was again soon an AEU official.”

2002: Daniel Pearl was kidnapped and subsequently murdered in Karachi, Pakistan. Based on the tape of his murder, Pearl was killed because he was a Jew.

2003 (20th of Shevat, 5763): Actress Nell Carter passed away. She had converted from Catholicism to Judaism in 1982.

2003: The 12th annual Jewish Film Festival comes to an end in New York.

2003: As of 10 pm, Rabbi Yitzhak Kaduri, the holy man of unknown but tremendous age, who was scheduled to visit the Hall of Moses synagogue and then a candlelit graveyard in this Tel Aviv suburb tonight for a rally that mixed mystic ritual with all the grit of Chicago ward politics had failed to make an appearance and the police were forced to disperse the disappointed crowd

2004: German born photographer Helmut Newton passed away at the age of 79.

2005: Stanley Fischer, a widely respected American economist and banker, has agreed to leave the United States and a job as a vice chairman of Citigroup to become governor of the Bank of Israel. 2005: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including recently published paperback editions of Horse People: Scenes from the Riding Life by Michael Korda and Unsettled: An Anthropolgy of Jews, Melvin Konner’s sweeping study that follows a roughly historical outline, from the earliest pre-biblical days to the establishment of the state of Israel, and tracks down far-flung Jewish communities in China, India and Afghanistan.

2006: The Andrew Carnegie Medal for best children's video was given to the producers of Mordicai Gerstein's "The Man Who Walked Between the Towers," winner of the Caldecott in 2004. Mordicai Gerstein was born in Los Angeles in 1935. He lives in western Massachusetts with his wife, Susan Yard Harris, who is also an illustrator, and their daughter, Risa. The award winning illustrator, painter and graphics artist has collaborated on numerous books for children including many with a Jewish motif including Queen Esther the Morning Star, Noah and the Great Flood and Jonah and the Two Great Fish

2006(7th of Tevet, 5766): Andrea Bronfman, the wife of Jewish Canadian billionaire Charles Bronfman, was killed in a traffic accident in New York Monday.

2007(4th of Shevat, 5767): Aharon Uzan passed away at the age of 82. Born in Tunisia in 1924, he made Aliyah in 1949 where he became active in a variety of left-wing political parties. He served in the Knesset and held a variety of cabinet posts included Minister of communications and Minister of Agriculture.

2007: "Two Hands” a short documentary on Leon Fleisher by Nathaniel Kahn was nominated for an Academy Award for best short subject today

2007: Israel’s “Sweet Mud” and Holland’s “Black Book,” a movie about a Jewish woman serving in the Resistance against the Nazis are among 61 foreign language films that may be nominated for an Oscar.

2007: Rabbi Andrew Bossov successfully received a kidney from Methodist minister, Reverend Karen Onesti.

2008: The third and final episode of “The Jewish Americans” airs on PBS. The three episode series traces the history of the Jews in America starts with the arrival of the first 23 Sephardic Jews in New Amsterdam in 1654 and “ends with Maisyahu, the Chasidic hip-hop star, one of about six million Jews in America today.” For more information
seehttp://www.jewishtvnetwork.com/jewishamericans/

2008: The New York Jewish Film Festival presents “Labyrinths of Memory, a documentary that draws parallels between two very different women united by a search for identity: Maite Guiteras, Mexican born, adopted at birth, and raised in Cuba; and the film’s director, born in Costa Rica to East European Jewish parents and raised in Mexico. Each defies ethnic and geographic boundaries to travel to her ancestral home to claim a place in the world”; “The Unkosher Truth a short documentary in which the filmmaker must muster the courage to tell her father, an Orthodox rabbi and U.S. Army general, that her boyfriend is German and gentile”; “Film Fanatic, in which Ultra-Orthodox Jew Yehuda Grovais rebels against his religious community, and battles the secular cultural establishment in Israel to make Hollywood-style blockbusters on a budget.”

2008: In a night time attack, two armed Palestinians affiliated with Fatah’s Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades infiltrated a yeshiva at Kfar Etzion wounding three civilians. The two had just been released from an Israeli prison.

2008 (16th of Shevat, 5768): Rami Zuari, a 20 year old Border Police officer was killed during a terrorist attack at an East Jerusalem checkpoint. Border Police officer Shoshana Samendayev sustained moderate to serious injuries in the same attack.

2008: The New York Times featured a review of The Forger: An Extraordinary Story of Survival in Wartime Berlin, the autobiography of Cioma Schonhaus.

2009: “Lansky,” a one-man play about Meyer Lansky starring Mike Burstyn opens in an off-Broadway production. “Acclaimed American/Israeli actor Mike Burstyn stars as Meyer Lansky in the New York premiere of a new play by Richard Krevolin and Joseph Bologna about the life of the “little man,” known as the “brains behind the mob,” and his efforts to become an Israeli citizen.

2009: Final showing of “Zion and His Brother,” a family drama set in Tel Aviv, at the Sundance Film Festival.

2009: Temple Judah in Cedar Rapids hosts another creative Musical Shabbat Service.

2009: In article entitled “The End of a Chicago Tradition: Is absolutely nothing sacred?”, Susan Berger reports on the demise of the Best Kosher Sausage Company while documenting the history of a small slice of Chicago-base Jewish Americana.

My family and the Jewish community in particular, are mourning one fatality of the financial meltdown that for us is unthinkable. By the end of the month, the company that my great-grandfather Isaac Oscherwitz started in 1886 will close. Best's Kosher Sausage Co., was family owned for more than 100 years. In 1993, Sara Lee Corp. acquired Best's Kosher. Mike Cummins, a Sara Lee spokesperson, said of the closing: "It was not because it's not profitable—it's just not where it needs to be."This is a loss not only for my family, but for the millions of Jews who keep kosher and the many millions who don't but learned to love my family's hot dogs.My great-grandfather emigrated from Germany. On his way to Ellis Island, he met Rabbi Dov Behr Manischewitz. Rabbi Manischewitz asked Isaac to go into business with him. But my great-grandfather had five sons and said he needed to go it alone. They both landed in Cincinnati. Isaac started Oscherwitz's (later changed to Best's Kosher and moved to Chicago) and Rabbi Manischewitz started his matzo and wine business. Isaac's five sons—Sam, Max, Israel, Philip and Harry—joined the business in the early 1900s. The business expanded throughout the Midwest. In 1909, the business was renamed I. Oscherwitz & Sons Co. It was my grandfather, Philip, and his brother, Harry, who moved to Chicago in 1925 after their father died. They opened Best's Kosher Sausage Co., a sister company to Oscherwitz's, which successfully survived the Depression. My father, Sheldon Sternberg, ran the company, along with other relatives, over the years. While the guts of the business was hot dogs, Best's later expanded to include luncheon meats not typically kosher, like Polish and Italian sausages. In 1972, it was ahead of its time, introducing the first low-fat, low-salt hot dog. Business was great. Our hot dogs became The Hot Dog at Wrigley Field, Comiskey Park, United Center and Soldier Field. And, in 1990, you could even buy Best's Kosher at Costco in England. My siblings and I all worked at the factory from the time we were 12. My friends all thought I must be a spoiled little rich girl and nicknamed me the Kosher Queen. But we were far from rich. Truth be told, Best Kosher supported a lot of families (we once had a family reunion and more than 200 family members attended).Oh, the memories. There was my summer on the switchboard. I almost got fired for answering the phone, "Best's Kosher, what's your beef?" One of my favorite stories is when there had been a lot of stealing in the factory, detectives were hired and immediately caught the culprit. It was my Grandfather Phil, who apparently left each night with bags of meat. The employees at the factory stayed for years. It was common before a Jewish holiday to hear African-American, Hispanic, Polish or Asian workers greet each other and say, "Hey man, tomorrow's Tu Bishvat!" was like family. In 1983 Best's Kosher merged with a competitor, Sinai Kosher. In 1986 we celebrated Best's 100th anniversary at a party at the Museum of Science and Industry. And in 1993, my dad brokered the sale of Best's Kosher to Sara Lee. We were proud that our company, with annual sales of $93 million, would be in solid hands. Last month, when we got word that Sara Lee would be closing Best's at the end of January, my family was heartsick.Any business going under these days is a tragedy. A business built on the backs of one family for more than 100 years is especially so. There will be fewer choices for those who keep kosher now. And lots more, I am sure, will be missing the Best dog.

2010: The 19th annual New York Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to present the New York premiere of “Eyes Wide Open,” a film whose protagonist is an ultra-orthodox butcher living in Jerusalem.

2010: The 10th annual Atlanta Jewish Festival is scheduled to present a screening of “Protektor,” “a smart, stylish psycho-thriller about a Prague journalist and his part-Jewish wife whose lives are ravaged by the outbreak of WWII.”

2010: Israel is looking into adopting Haitians orphaned by January 12's earthquake, Minister of Welfare and Social Services Isaac Herzog told The Jerusalem Post today. "We see this as part of Israel's humanitarian outreach," Herzog said, referring to the IDF medical operation and the Israeli rescue efforts in the Caribbean nation. "Haiti was one of the countries that supported us on November 29, 1947, [in the UN vote on the establishment of the state], and now it's our turn to support them," he said.

2011: Israeli cellist Amit Peled and pianist Eli Kalman are scheduled to perform this afternoon at the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater.

2011: The 2011 Minneapolis Jewish Humor Festival is scheduled to present “Laughter Yoga Workshop with Molly Dworsky” and “An Adult Evening with Shel Silverstein.”

2011: The Los Angeles Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including J.D. Salinger: A Life by Kenneth Slawenski

2011: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Cinderella Ate My Daughter by Peggy Orenstein and the recently published paperback editions of A Strange Death by Hillel Halkin and Where The God of Loves Hangs Out by Amy Bloom.

2011(18th of Shevat, 5771): Stanley Frazen, a longtime film and television editor who was a member of the Army Air Forces' First Motion Picture Unit during World War II, passed away today at the age of 91.He was a supervising editor for such shows as "The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show" beginning in 1951, "I Married Joan" in 1952-53 and "The Bob Cummings Show" beginning in 1955. His other TV credits included "The Lone Ranger" in 1949, "The Beverly Hillbillies" in 1962-63, "My Favorite Martian" in 1963-65, "The Monkees" in 1966-67, "Get Smart" in 1968 and "Charlie's Angels" in 1979-80. "I liked the anonymity of editing in a room and putting this huge puzzle together," he told Daily Variety in 2001.
Frazen was born Aug. 15, 1919, in Chicago. He moved with his mother to Los Angeles when he was 3, grew up in Boyle Heights and graduated from Roosevelt High School in Los Angeles in 1937. Frazen was 16 when he started working in the mailroom at Warner Brothers. He enlisted in the Army Air Forces and joined the First Motion Picture Unit, which produced training films at the Hal Roach Studios in Culver City. "Most of us realized how lucky we were to be in the unit," he told The Times in 2002. Frazen's film credits included "Young Doctors in Love" in 1982, "The Milagro Beanfield War" in 1988 and "The Amityville Horror" in 1979. He also produced the 1961 film "Man-Trap" and was a commercial director. He received a career achievement award in 2001 from the American Cinema Editors and was a former president of that group and of the Motion Picture Editors Guild.

2011(18th of Shevat, 5771): Rabbi Nachum Zev Dessler, a leader at the Hebrew Academy of Cleveland for more than 60 years and a nationally known leader in Orthodox education passed away today at the age of 89. Dessler, the school's first principal in 1944, pressed the Jewish Federation of Cleveland to back the school, and it became the first federation in the country to subsidize a full-day Jewish school in 1948. At the end of 2010, the school had nearly 800 students on three campuses in Cleveland and its suburbs, and nearly 6,000 alumni. Over the years, the school has accepted children from families with all degrees of observance, children of former Soviet Jews who had moved to Cleveland, as well as those with special needs. “His vision was focused on providing every Jewish child, regardless of religious orientation or ability to pay, a quality Jewish and secular education,” said Ivan Soclof, a past president of the school. "Each child was truly an individual and was treated like he or she was the most important person in the world," wrote Louis Malcmacher, the Hebrew Academy's current president. "As a child of Holocaust survivors, my parents came to this country with literally nothing. And as part of Rabbi Dessler's greatness, the doors to The Hebrew Academy were opened to every Jewish child, no matter what their background was or their ability to pay." Dessler was born in Lithuania, raised in London, and traveled through Siberia and Japan to reach the United States during World War II, a route similar to that traveled by another recently deceased Orthodox rabbi and educator, Menachem Zeev “Wolf” Greenglass. Dessler arrived in Cleveland in 1941 with students and rabbis to re-establish the Telshe Yeshiva of Lithuania. Dessler came from a line of rabbis; His father was Rabbi Eliyahu Dessler. Nachum Zev Dessler also was instrumental in building Torah Umesorah, an organization of nearly 700 Orthodox schools. (As reported by The Eulogizer)

2012: “Follow Me: The Yoni Netanyahu Story” is scheduled to shown this evening at the New York Jewish Film Festival.

2012: Israeli pianist Alon Goldstein and the Jupiter musicians are scheduled to perform Schubert's celebrated Piano Trio in B-flat Major and the Beethoven "Gassenhauer" Trio at Good Shepherd Church in NYC.

2012: On the secular calendar, 10th anniversary of the kidnapping of Danny Pearl.

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