This Day, January 3, In Jewish History

January 3 In Jewish History

106 BCE: Birthdate of Marcus Tullius Cicero. Cicero is remembered as Roman statesman and orator. From the Jewish point of view he was just one more anti-Semitic intellectual. “He denounced Judaism as a ‘barbarous superstition.’” He defended a Roman official who had stolen contributions that we supposed to be shipped to the Temple at Jerusalem. He decried the influence of Jews in Rome cautioning one group to speak quietly lest they be overheard by the Jews. Unfortunately, when I had difficulty translating Cicero in high school, my father would not accept my excuse that Cicero was an anti-Semite so how could he expect to do well in Latin class.

1521: Pope Leo X excommunicates Martin Luther in the papal bull Decet Romanum Pontificem. Leo is portrayed as the epitome of Church corruption – the great seller of indulgences. But Leo also provided protection for the Jews living in the Papal States. On one occasion he defied King Louis of France by not burning Jewish texts and he actually encouraged a Christian printer to publish a complete, uncensored copy of the Talmud. Luther is portrayed as the great reformer and father of the Reformation. Jews certainly benefited from the Protestant Reformation since was in the Protestant Netherlands and protestant England that the Jews found refuge and had a chance to grow and develop. However, Luther’s version of the Protestant Reformation included a large dose of anti-Semitism that would help fuel the fires of what became the Holocaust. History is not always black or white, but can be a whole lot of gray.

1598: In a letter from the Sultan to the Ottoman leaders in Jerusalem, he expressed his approval of the fact that the local Muslims locked the doors of the Nachmanides (Ramban) Synagogue, since, "the noisy ceremonies of the Jews in accordance with their false rites hinder our pious devotion and divine worship." Because of this the door was locked and sealed. The Sultan approved of the closing of the building, and he then ordered the synagogue to be annexed to the Muslims.

1676: Frederick William of Brandenburg issued a decree safeguarding the privileges of the Jews of Berlin.

1690(5450): Famed Lithuanian Rabbi Hillel ben Naphtali Zevi passed away. Born in 1615, he served as a Rabbi in several towns throughout Lithuania. He was an important communal leader since he was a delegate to the Council of Four Lands. He was the author of Bet Hillel which was a major commentary on the code of Jewish law known as the Shulchon Oruch.

1769: Birthdate of Jacob Herzfeld, a native of Dessau, Germany who studied medicine at Liepzig before become an actor and theatrical manager. He passed away in 1826.

1825: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, the first engineering college in the U.S. is opened in Troy, New York. Today its 4,000 undergrad student body includes approximately 500 Jewish students.

1853: “The Affairs in Europe” column published today reported that Parisians are amused at the “Protestant rigors in Germany against the Jews” in reaction to “the event of December 2, 1851…” The “event of December 2, 1851” is a reference to the overthrow of the Second French Republic by Louis Napoleon who had himself crowned Emperor on December 2, 1852.

1858: Judah Touro’s fourth Yahrzeit was observed this afternoon at the Green Street Synagogue in NYC.

1858: As she grew weaker, Rachel Felix completed a final letter to her father around 11 in the morning. At 8 o'clock a dozen Jews arrived from Nice to be with Rachel Felix in her last hours. Sometime after 10 pm, two women and one man approached Rachel's bed and and began chanting prayers for the dying Jewess.

1858 (17th of Tevet, 5618): Elisabeth Rachel Felix, known simply as “Rachel,” the French actress and singer passed away at the age of 36. “Élisabeth Rachel Félix was the second of the six children of Alsatian Jewish peddlers, Jacob (Jacques) and Esther Hayyah (Thérèse) Félix, and a French citizen under the Civic Emancipation, Rachel always remained profoundly in phase with the Jews’ entry into and participation in modernity. Although singular, her career was characteristic of the collective experience of the second generation of Jews born after the Emancipation and who participated fully in French social, economic, political and cultural life. Furthermore, for many French people, Rachel personified the great allegorical figures of Tragedy, History and the Republic. Her example illustrates the extent to which an often passionate but at any rate profound and intimate adhesion to French culture was an essential component in the construction of emancipated French Judaism. In Rachel we find all the cultural and political paradoxes and contradictions of her time. She was a symbol of legitimist and republican virtue in equal measure. Her performance as La Marseillaise had the public in raptures in 1848. But if she exercised such fascination it was also because she personified the social ascension of the lower classes, and was proud of it. Never hiding her humble origins and always asserting the importance of her family ties, she worked furiously at educating and cultivating herself and modeling her image. But despite her aspiration to affluence and respectability, she could never avoid details of her private life fuelling the whiff of scandal that clung to her name. Although never developing a critical awareness of the condition of women in the society of her time, she was loath to espouse the model of the bourgeois, cultivated woman defined by the notables of her time – married, a mother, either discreet or ceasing to appear on stage – and constantly asserted her desire to remain independent in order to devote herself fully to her art. The Rachel phenomenon in many ways transcends that of the successful actress. Many biographies of her were written, and she became one of the most famous women of her century. Other artists, men and women, may also have left their mark on their time, but Rachel forged a new model of the actress and woman.” As one reads this entry, one gets a sense of how “French” French Jews felt themselves which provides understanding to the depth of shock and dismay felt at the time of the Dreyfus Affair.

1871(10th of Tevet, 5631): Asara B’Tevet

1879: It was reported today that a commission appointed at the recent convention of American Hebrew Congregations to consider plans to establish one central college to train Rabbis in the United States is meeting in Philadelphia. The commission includes Rabbis Gottheil and Einhorn from New York and L.M. Demibtz of Louisville, KY. Currently there are at least three such colleges located in New York, Philadelphia and Cincinnati, Ohio.

1883: Birthdate of British political leader Clement Attlee. Atlee was a member of the Labor Party and served as Prime Minister from 1945 to 1951. He replaced Winston Churchill as Prime Minister shortly after VE Day when the Laborites defeated the Conservatives in the first Parliamentary elections since the start of World War II. Talk about ingratitude. In what seemed like unnecessary cruelty, the Atlee Government continued to bar Jews from immigrating to Palestine. The government pursued an active war of suppression against the Zionists and made it clear that the Laborites had no intention in honoring the promise of the Balfour Declaration. Faced with financial bankruptcy and war weariness, Atlee began dismember the British Empire which meant surrendering the Palestine Mandate as well as the colony of India.

1887: In San Francisco, Marcus Schiller and others formally established the Beth Israel congregation with forty male members.

1891: Birthdate of poet and author Osip E Mandelstam. A native of Warsaw, Mandelstam grew up in the comfortable middle class Jewish home that was described as not being very religious. The ups and downs of his career and posthumous honor mirrored the fate of many other intellectuals living in the Soviet Union. He died in the Gulag in 1938.

1895: Herzl personally witnessed Colonel Dreyfus being “drummed out of the army in the courtyard of the Ecole Militaire as huge crowds outside shouted, ‘” ‘Death to the Jews!’”

1906 (6th of Tevet, 5666): Dr. Otto A. Moses passed away at the age of 72. Born in 1846, the South Carolina native “had a worldwide reputation as a geologist and chemist.” He was also the founder of the Hebrew Technical Institute, a New York “institution for the education of poor boys” and was an active supporter of other Jewish charities including the Hebrew Orphan Asylum and the Montefiore Home.

1909(10th of Tevet, 5669): Asara B'Tevet

1915: Birthdate of Jack Levine the Boston born American Social Realist painter and printmaker best known for his satires on modern life, political corruption, and biblical narratives.

1919: Simon Petlyura, "hetman" of Russia and the Ruthenian Republic, a Ukrainian nationalist and commander of the Zaporog Cossacks and Haidamaks, began his attack against the Jews. He accused them of being supporters of the communist regime. In Berdichev, Uma, Zhitomir and other cities about seventy thousand were killed and an equal number wounded. Altogether 372 cities and towns were attacked in 998 major and 349 minor pogroms. This took placed during the Russian Civil War that followed the Bolshevik Revolution. The civil war was loosely described as fight between the Reds (the communists) and the Whites (all of the various groups opposed to the communists). The Jews were caught in the middle and suffered at the hands of both sides.

1919: The Faisal-Weizmann Agreement was signed today, by Emir Faisal (son of the King of Hejaz) and Chaim Weizmann as part of the Paris Peace Conference, 1919 settling disputes stemming from World War I. It was a short-lived agreement for Arab-Jewish cooperation on the development of a Jewish homeland in Palestine and an Arab nation in a large part of the Middle East. Weizmann first met Faisal in June 1918, during the British advance from the South against the Ottoman Empire in World War I. As leader of an impromptu "Zionist Commission", Weizmann traveled to southern Transjordan for the meeting. The intended purpose was to forge an agreement between Faisal and the Zionist movement to support an Arab Kingdom and Jewish settlement in Palestine, respectively. Weizmann and Faisal established an informal agreement under which Faisal would support dense Jewish settlement in Palestine while the Zionist movement would assist in the development of the vast Arab nation that Faisal hoped to establish. Weizmann and Faisal met again later in 1918 in London and soon afterwards at the Paris peace conference. In their first meeting in June 1918 Weizmann had assured Faisal that "the Jews did not propose to set up a government of their own but wished to work under British protection, to colonize and develop Palestine without encroaching on any legitimate interests". The day after they signed the written agreement, which bears their names, Weizmann arrived in Paris to head the Zionist delegation to the Peace Conference. It was a triumphal moment for Weizmann; it was an accord that climaxed years of negotiations and ceaseless shuttles between the Middle East and the capitals of Western Europe and that promised to usher in an era of peace and cooperation between the two principal ethnic groups of Palestine: Arabs and Jews. The maipoints of the agreement were:

The agreement committed both parties to conducting all relations between the groups by the most cordial goodwill and understanding, to work together to encourage immigration of Jews into Palestine on a large scale while protecting the rights of the Arab peasants and tenant farmers, and to safeguard the free practice of religious observances. The Muslim Holy Places were to be under Muslim control.

The Zionist movement undertook to assist the Arab residents of Palestine and the future Arab state to develop their natural resources and establish a growing economy.

The boundaries between an Arab State and Palestine should be determined by a Commission after the Paris Peace Conference.

The parties committed to carrying into effect the Balfour Declaration of 1917, calling for a Jewish national home in Palestine.

Disputes were to be submitted to the British Government for arbitration.

Weizmann signed the agreement on behalf of the Zionist Organization, while Faisal signed on behalf of the short-lived Arab Kingdom of Hedjaz.

Two weeks prior to signing the agreement, Faisal stated:
The two main branches of the Semitic family, Arabs and Jews, understand one another, and I hope that as a result of interchange of ideas at the Peace Conference, which will be guided by ideals of self-determination and nationality, each nation will make definite progress towards the realization of its aspirations. Arabs are not jealous of Zionist Jews, and intend to give them fair play and the Zionist Jews have assured the Nationalist Arabs of their intention to see that they too have fair play in their respective areas. Turkish intrigue in Palestine has raised jealousy between the Jewish colonists and the local peasants, but the mutual understanding of the aims of Arabs and Jews will at once clear away the last trace of this former bitterness, which, indeed, had already practically disappeared before the war by the work of the Arab Secret Revolutionary Committee, which in Syria and elsewhere laid the foundation of the Arab military successes of the past two years.The areas discussed were detailed in a letter to Felix Frankfurter, President of the Zionist Organization of America, on March 3, 1919, when Faisal wrote :
The Arabs, especially the educated among us, look with the deepest sympathy on the Zionist movement. Our deputation here in Paris is fully acquainted with the proposals submitted yesterday by the Zionist Organization to the Peace Conference, and we regard them as moderate and proper."The boundaries of Palestine shall follow the general lines set out below: Starting on the North at a point on the Mediterranean Sea in the vicinity South of Sidon and following the watersheds of the foothills of the Lebanon as far as Jisr el Karaon, thence to El Bire following the dividing line between the two basins of the Wadi El Korn and the Wadi Et Teim thence in a southerly direction following the dividing line between the Eastern and Western slopes of the Hermon, to the vicinity West of Beit Jenn, thence Eastward following the northern watersheds of the Nahr Mughaniye close to and west of the Hedjaz Railway; in the East a line close to and West of the Hedjaz Railway terminating in the Gulf of Akaba; in the South a frontier to be agreed upon with the Egyptian Government; in the West the Mediterranean Sea. The details of the delimitations, or any necessary adjustments of detail, shall be settled by a Special Commission on which there shall be Jewish representation. Faisal conditioned his acceptance on the fulfillment of British wartime promises to the Arabs, who had hoped for independence in a vast part of the Ottoman Empire. He appended to the typed document a hand-written statement:
"Provided the Arabs obtain their independence as demanded in my [forthcoming] Memorandum dated the 4th of January, 1919, to the Foreign Office of the Government of Great Britain, I shall concur in the above articles. But if the slightest modification or departure were to be made [regarding our demands], I shall not be then bound by a single word of the present Agreement which shall be deemed void and of no account or validity, and I shall not be answerable in any way whatsoever." The Faisal-Weizmann agreement survived only a few months. The outcome of the peace conference itself did not provide the vast Arab state that Faisal desired mainly because the British and French had struck their own secret Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916 dividing the Middle East between their own spheres of influence, and soon Faisal began to express doubts about cooperation with the Zionist movement. After Faisal was expelled from Syria and given the Kingdom of Iraq, he contended that the conditions he appended were not fulfilled and the treaty therefore moot. St. John Philby, a British representative in Palestine, later stated that Hussein bin Ali, the Sharif of Mecca and King of Hejaz, on whose behalf Faisal was acting, had refused to recognize the agreement as soon as it was brought to his notice. However, Sharif Hussein formally endorsed the Balfour Declaration in the Treaty of Sèvres of 10 August, 1920, along with the other Allied Powers, as King of Hedjaz. The United Nations Special Committee On Palestine did not regard the agreement as ever being valid while Weizmann continued to maintain that the treaty was still binding. In 1947 Weizmann explained:"A postscript was also included in this treaty. This postscript relates to a reservation by King Feisal that he would carry out all the promises in this treaty if and when he would obtain his demands, namely, independence for the Arab countries. I submit that these requirements of King Feisal have at present been realized. The Arab countries are all independent, and therefore the condition on which depended the fulfillment of this treaty, has come into effect. Therefore, this treaty, to all intents and purposes, should today be a valid document". According to C.D. Smith the Syrian National Congress had forced Faisal to back away from his tentative support of Zionist goals

1920: Viola Flannery married Elie Nadelman, the Polish born American-Jewish sculptor, in New York City.

1923: Birthdate of Haim Gouri, Israeli poet, novelist, journalist, and documentary filmmaker born in Tel Aviv and currently living in Jerusalem. Following a period in Europe, during which he helped Jews immigrate to Palestine after World War II, he fought in the 1948 Israeli War of Independence. The impact of these events on Gouri is evident in his writing. He has been called "Israel's Poet." He was awarded the Bialik Priz for Literature in 1975 and the Israel Prize for Poetry in 1988. The film The 81st Blow, which he wrote, co-produced, and co-directed, was nominated for the 1974 Academy Award for Documentary Feature. The 81st Blow is part of Gouri's comprehensive and powerful Holocaust trilogy, which includes The Last Sea and Flames in the Ashes

1924: Birthdate of Israeli Admiral Mordechai Limon, the man who would mastermind and execute the Cherbourg Project in 1969.

1925: Benito Mussolini, the Italian Fascist, announced that he was taking dictatorial powers over Italy. Mussolini enjoyed support among Italian Jews. According to Alexander Stille, by 1938 one third of adult Italian Jews belonged to Fascist Party. “This amounted to 10,000 Jews out of Italy's small Jewish population of 47,000.” But according to Claretta Petacci, Mussolini's mistress, between 1932 and 1938, the Italian dictator “was a fierce anti-Semite, who proudly said that his hatred for Jews preceded Adolf Hitler's and vowed to ‘destroy them all.’”

1927: At Cooper Union, the United Palestine Appeal held its kickoff event designed to raise $100,000. During the meeting it was announced that $15,000 had already been raised with $2,500 having been donated by Morris Eisenman.

1927: During a meeting of the United Palestine Appeal held at Cooper Union in New York City, tribute was paid to the memory of Asher Ginsberg who was better known by his pen name, Achad Ha’am. Ginsberg who was living in Tel Aviv when he passed away, was described as “one of the most creative forces in world Zionism.”

1929: At the tender age of 27 William S. Paley became President of CBS.

1930(3rd of Tevet, 5690): The first Chanukah to be observed during The Great Depression comes to an end today on the 8th day of the festival.

1936: The Manchester Guardian published an article disproving Hitler’s claims that the Jews had a “stranglehold or monopoly” on German cultural and professional life. The percentages were based on official German statistics.

1937: It was reported today that Mrs. Yetka Levy-Stein the wife of a Berlin Rabbi arrived here last week on the Cunard White Star liner Berengaria to make a three-month tour of the United States on behalf of the Youth Aliyah movement, which is concerned with the settlement of German-Jewish children in the cooperative colonies of Palestine.

1937: California Congresswomen Florence Prag Kahn completed her fifth and final term in office.

1938: The Palestine Post reported that it was no coincidence that most of the arms found on Arab terrorists were of German manufacture. They were smuggled in from Lebanon, Syria and Transjordan. British troops, assisted by police, fought a bloody battle with a band of arms smugglers near the Sahla village in Galilee.

1938: The Palestine Post reported that settlers at Kibbutz Neveh Ya'acov, north of Jerusalem, repelled another heavy Arab attack.

1938: The Palestine Post reported that a forest was planted at the Ma'aleh Hahamisha hill in memory of the five pioneers who were murdered there while preparing land for this new settlement.

1938: New York Supreme Court Justice Salvatore A. Cotillo signed a writ of reasonable doubt today which allowed the release of convicted felons Samuel "Sammy" Weiss and David Goldberg. The two had been convicted by Thomas E. Dewey for filing false tax returns. Weiss was a notorious racketeer and mobster.

1941: During World War II, German bombers dropped some of their payload on Greenville Hall Synagogue. The building was damaged but not destroyed in the raid.

1943: Polish President Wladyslaw Raczkiewicz requested that Pope Pius XII publicly denounce German atrocities against the Jews. Pius remained silent concerning both the German slaughter of the Polish Jews as well as the German attacks against Polish Catholics.

1945: Benjamin Rabin assumes office as member of the U.S. House of Representativesfrom New York's 4th district

1949: Leo Isacson, a member of the American Labor Party, finished his term as a member of the House of Representatives representing New York’s 24th congressional district

1949: As part of Operation Horev, Israeli troops attacked the Egyptians at Rafah in an attempt to encircle the Arab force.

1951: Sydney A. Fine assumes office as member of the U.S. House of Representatives from New York's 23rd district.

1953: Isidore Dollinger assumed office as member of the U.S. House of Representativesfrom New York's 23rd district

1956: More than 600 leaders of Hadassah from all over the United States met at New York’s Plaza Hotel to celebrate the twenty-second anniversary of Youth Aliyah, the worldwide child rescue and rehabilitation organization.

1959: Seymour Halpern assumed office as member of the U.S. House of Representativesfrom New York's 4th district. Unlike most New York Jewish politicians, Halpern was a Republican.

1959: Alaska became the 49th state to join the Union. For more about Alaska, the final Jewish Frontier you may go to http://www.joyfulnoise.net/JoyAlaska5.html, featuring “Alaskan Jewry – An Historical Overview.”

1963: Tel Aviv University opened. Although its antecedents go back to the early 1950's the university became an independent entity on this date. Today it is the largest University in the country with over 100 departments and over 75 research facilities.

1965(29th of Tevet, 5725): Semyon Ariyevich Kosberg passed away. Born in 1903, this Jewish-Soviet engineer developed an expertise in aircraft and rocket engines who won the Lenin Prize in 1960 and was named a Hero of Socialist Labor in 1961.

1965: Richard Ottinger assumed office as member of the U.S. House of Representativesfrom New York's 25th district

1967(21st of Tevet, 5727): Jack Ruby, the man who shot accused presidential assassin Lee Harvey Oswald, died in a Dallas hospital.

1973: Seymour Halpern finishes his career as a member of the House of Representatives representing New York’s 6th congressional district.

1975: Stephen J. Solarz began serving in the United States House of Representatives as the Congressman from New York’s 13th District, a post he would hold until 1993.

1975: President Gerald Ford signed the Trade Reform Act which contained the Jackson-Vanik-Mills Amendment. The Amendment required any nation that wanted “most favored nation status” had to grant its citizens the right immigrate to the country of their choice. The Amendment was intended as a way of forcing the Soviet Union to allow Jews to leave the USSR and was part of the campaign to “Free Russian Jews.”

1977: Ted Weiss assumed office as member of the U.S. House of Representativesfrom New York's 20th district

1977(13th of Tevet, 5737): Avraham Ofer, Minister of Housing the cabinet of Yitzchak Rabin, passed away

1978: The Jerusalem Post reported that the US was seeking to establish a bloc of moderate Arab and Muslim states, like Turkey, that would accept Israel's self-rule proposal for the West Bank and Gaza as a transitional phase, leading eventually to these areas' fuller independence, preferably in close linkage to Jordan. Gush Emunim members settled at Karnei Shomron, on the Kalkilya-Nablus road. The Gush rejected Prime Minister Menachem Begin's assurances that his new peace plan would not affect the safety of the existing Jewish settlements in administered areas.

1981: Lester L. Wolfe finished his career as a member of the House of Representatives representing New York’s 6th congressional district

1984: A revival of David Merrick’s “Hello Dolly” starring femal impersonator Danny La Rue as Dolly opened at the Prince of Wales Theatre.

1985: The government of Israel confirmed the resettlement of 10,000 Ethiopian Jews. In a world where revisionists condemn the Zionist dream or at least pronounce it dead, this rescue operation served as poignant, pressing reminder of one of the reasons the Jewish state must continue to exist.

1988: As part of the war against terrorists, Israel ordered 9 Palestinian "instigators" deported from West Beirut.

1988: The Reagan Administration, through an announcement by its State Department, withheld comment today on the Israeli air strikes into southern Lebanon. A State Department official said Administration officials monitoring weekend developments in the Middle East would assess the information about the air strike Last month, the Administration urged Israel to exercise restraint in retaliating against Palestinian guerrilla forces in Lebanon. Since the group targeted in the Israeli air attacks was believed responsible for the Nov. 25 raid on an Israeli army base, the attacks prompted renewed questions, first raised last month, about whether the Israelis might have postponed the retaliation to avoid complicating the summit meeting in December between President Reagan and Mikhail S. Gorbachev.

1988(13th of Tevet, 5748): Rose Ausländer a Jewish German- and English language poet passed away.

1989: Eliot L. Engel assumed office as member of the U.S. House of Representativesfrom New York's 17th district.

1990: Ezer Weizmann is scheduled to leave today for Moscow, a visit that is a further sign of warming relations between the Soviet Union and Israel. Shimon Peres is planning a Soviet trip at the end of January or beginning of February.

1991: Israel reopened its consulate in the USSR after 23 years. The Soviets had broken off relations with Israel after the Six Day War. The Soviets alternately used its Jewish population as pawns or prisoners depending upon the vagaries of the Cold War. The cry of “Free Soviet Jewry” now seems like something out of the distant past.

1991: Pan American World Airways announced today that it was suspending flights to Tel Aviv and to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, because of surging insurance rates, a result of the crisis in the Middle East.

1992: Yasar Arafat demanded that the United States vote for a U.N. resolution that would “strongly deplore” Israel’s decision to deport a dozen Palestinians described as “inciters to violence.” The Israeli action followed the murder of four Israeli settlers by P.L.O. hit men over the past ten weeks. But today, during a meeting in the State Department office of Assistant Secretary Edward Djerejian, at the instigation of Director of Policy Planning Dennis Ross and with the concurrence of Richard Haass, a national security aide, the Bush Administration decided to punish the Israelis and give Arafat more than he had asked for. The U.S. would not only grant the P.L.O.'s wish to add adverbial strength to its expression of disapproval, it would changed the wording from “strongly deplore” to "strongly condemn” the deportations by Israel. In May 1991, the U.S. had voted to "deplore" (up from a previous "regret") such action by Israel, after deportations helped suppress an outbreak of knifings of Israeli civilians. P.L.O. wanted to offset the U.N.'s recent rescission of the "Zionism is racism" resolution by ratcheting up the disapproval one notch: to “strongly deplore."

1992: In the State Department office of Assistant Secretary Edward Djerejian, at the instigation of Director of Policy Planning Dennis Ross and with the concurrence of Richard Haass, a national security aide, the decision was made to unload on Israel as never before. PLO hit men had murdered four Israeli settlers in the past 10 weeks, provoking Israel to expel a dozen Palestinian inciters to violence. No Yasser Arafat was sending word that Arabs would boycott the peace talks unless the U.S. voted in the U.N. to strongly deplore the deportations.

1993(10th of Tevet, 5753): Asara B'Tevet

1993: Stephen J. Solarz career in the House of Representatives came to an end.

1993: "Catskills on Broadway" closes at Lunt-Fontanne Theatre in New York City after 452 performances

1993(10th of Tevet, 5753):: An agent of the Shin Bet security service was stabbed and bludgeoned to death today, apparently by an Arab assailant, in a rare attack on a member of Israel's secretive internal intelligence agency. The body of Haim Nahmani, 25, was found in the stairwell of an apartment building in a Jewish neighborhood in West Jerusalem. A police statement said Mr. Nahmani had been "on active duty" when an assailant known to the security forces stabbed him repeatedly and battered him with a hammer. No further details were released.

1993: At a building site in Holon, near Tel Aviv, attackers slashed the throat of a Jewish man, seriously wounding him. The police said they were searching for an Arab laborer from the West Bank who had fled the scene.

1993: The Associated Press reported that a pipe bomb exploded in the baggage hold of an Israeli bus outside Tel Aviv today, The police said no one had been injured on the bus, which was taking at least 40 people to Jerusalem from Haifa

1993: Junk bond king Michael Milkin was released from jail after 22 months.

1993: The New York Times describes the Israeli Folk Dancing classes taught by Uri Aqua at the Y.M.-Y.W.H.A. of Mid-Westchester in Scarsdale and at Congregation Kneses in Port Chester, NY. Mr. Aqua, a Sabra, or native Israeli, came to this country in 1983, is a cantor at Beth Israel Synagogue in New Rochelle. But now he says he has a mission: to teach Israeli folk dancing, which he studied in Jerusalem. 1997: Steve Rothman is sworn in to serve his first term in the House of Representatives representing New Jersey’s Ninth Congressional District.

1998(5th of Tevet, 5758): Howard Gilman, the chairman of the Gilman Paper Company, who was a philanthropist and a collector of photographs and other art, died today on an estate near Jacksonville, Fla. Among the beneficiaries of his largess were Tel Aviv University, the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, and the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra.

1999: Israel detains, and later expels, 14 members of Concerned Christians. Concerned Christians is described as apocalyptic Christian cult that believed the Al-Aqsa mosque has to be destroyed to facilitate the Second Coming.

1999: The New York Times features a review of "Life of the Movie: How Entertainment Conquered Reality" by Jewish critic Neal Gabler.

2000: Israeli and Syrian leaders meet today as they resume American-brokered negotiations ambitiously aimed at reaching a peace accord by this summer.

2001(8th of Tevet, 5761: Sports broadcaster and youthful track & field star, Marty Glickman passed away at the age df 83.

2001: Representative Shelley Berkley begins her second term as the 107th Congress holds its first sessions. Berkley is the first Jewish woman to represent Nevada in the U.S. House of Representatives.

2003(29th of Tevet, 5763): College and professional football coaching great Sid Gillman passed away.

2003: Fundtech Ltd., whose software helps banks transfer money electronically, said today that it would cut jobs as it combined units that handle development, professional services and customer services. Fundtech, has headquarters in Ramat Gan, Israel, and Jersey City. Shares of Fundtech, controlled by Clal Industries and Investments, which is based in Tel Aviv, have dropped 19 percent in the last year as reduced demand forced the company to sell its software for less.

2003: Jerry Abramson began serving as the first May of Louisville Metro, a governmental created by the merger of Louisville and Jefferson County, KY.

2004: Four Palestinians were killed by the Israeli Army here today in Nablus which has been a center of militant activity since the current cycle of violence started in September 2000. An army spokesman said the operation, the largest now under way, was intended to dismantle a terrorist network in Nablus, after 18 attempted terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians originated in the city over the last month. Thirteen of the thwarted attacks, including planned suicide bombings and shootings, were against Israelis in Israeli territory, the spokesman said.

2005 (22nd of Tevet, 5765): Will Eisner passed away. Born in 1917, Eisner first knew fame from The Spirit, a weekly comic strip appearing in newspapers from 1940-1945, where he nurtured a young Jules Feiffer. After being drafted in 1945, he created the Joe Dope series of instructional comics for soldiers. He is generally credited with the creation of the graphic novel when he published A Contract with God in 1978. He also wrote Comics & Sequential Art in 1985, a groundbreaking academic overview of those subjects.

2005: High powered GOP lobbyist Jack Abramoff pleaded guilty to three felony charges in a deal with prosecutors that helps clear the way for his testimony about members of Congress in a wide-ranging political corruption investigation.

2006: Jack Abramoff pleaded guilty to three criminal felony counts related to the defrauding of American Indian tribes and corruption of public officials, in a Washington, D.C., federal court.
2008: “Psalm Song: Healing through the Art of Carol Hamoy” opens at the Jewish Museum of Florida.

2008: The Rabbinical Court of Appeals is scheduled to convene for a meeting that will decide whether or not Rabbi Yona Metzgeer resigns as Israel’s Ashkenazi Rabbi in the wake of a recommendation by Justice Minister Daniel Friedman that the chief rabbi be impeached for alleged breach of trust and fraud.

2008: A Katyusha is fired from Gaza at the city of Ashkelon, ten miles away. For the first time this major Israeli city has been attacked by Palestinians using a rocket.

2009: In Cedar Rapids, the traditional Saturday Morning Minyan at Temple Judah enters its eighth year with 19 people in attendance (an amazing turn-out for such a small congregation)!

2009: As the stain of the Madoff financial scandal spreads the New York Times reported that the trustee overseeing the bankruptcy of Madoff’s trading firm has made an urgent request to the court for unusually broad authority to subpoena witnesses and documents because of the “vast scale” of this self-described record Ponzi scheme.

2009: Israeli ground troops entered Gaza tonight, following a week of aerial strikes aimed at ending rocket fire on Israel's southern communities. Despite repeated bombing raids, the rocket fire continued, killing four Israelis over the last week. Initial reports from both Israel and Gaza tonight indicated that IDF troops had killed dozens of Hamas gunmen as they traded heavy fire upon entering the Strip. Once the ground operation got underway at around 8 P.M. Saturday, the IDF Spokesperson's office issued a statement emphasizing that this stage of the operation would further the goals of the eight-day offensive as voiced by the IDF until now: To strike a direct and hard blow against the Hamas while increasing the deterrent strength of the IDF, in order to bring about an improved and more stable security situation for residents of Southern Israel over the long term. "The objective is to destroy the Hamas terror infrastructure in the area of operations," said Israel Defense Forces Major Avital Leibovitch, a military spokeswoman, confirming that incursions were under way. "We are going to take some of the launch areas used by Hamas." The ground operation includes large numbers of infantry, tanks, engineering forces, artillery and intelligence, who are supported by the Israel Air Force, Israel Navy, the Shin Bet security service and other security agencies. The invasion was preceded by hours of artillery fire at the strip from military staging areas dotted along the Gaza-Israel border. One of the aims of the fire was to detonate Hamas explosive devices and mines planted along the border area before troops went in.

2009: Three New York office holders - Police Commissioner Ray Kelly, U.S. Congressman Gary Ackerman (D-NY), Chairman of the House Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia and Mayor Bloomberg - boarded a plane bound for Israel late Saturday night for a trip designed to show support and concern for the citizens of Israel who are under missile attack from Gaza.
2009: An Israeli film, “Waltz with Bashir,” was named the best picture of 2008 by The National Society of Film Critics at its annual meeting in New York.

2009: The Des Moines Register reports on the work of Colorado playwright Don Fried to create a stage drama based on events at Postville, Iowa.

2010: An exhibition styled “Folk Art Judaica by Herman Braginsky” presented by the Yeshiva University Museum comes to a close. Born in 1912, Braginsky was a self-taught craftsman who carved ritual objects made of fine and aged woods, including tzedakah boxes, Torah pointers, mizrach plates, mezuzot, dreidels, Torah arks, spice containers, many of which are on display as part of this exhibit. Braginsky passed away in 1999.

2010: The Washington Post included reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including “Worse Than War: Genocide, Eliminationism, And the Ongoing Assault on Humanity by Daniel Jonah Goldhagen and the recently released paperback edition of Sashenka by Simon Montefiore.

2010: The New York Times included reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including A Literary Bible: An Original Translation by David Rosenberg.

2011: MesorahDC which provides young, single professionals with exciting opportunities in Jewish enrichment is scheduled to present Cafe Nite at the Historic Sixth & I Synagogue in Washington, DC.

2011: A romantic play entitled “Apples from the Desert” is scheduled to be performed tonight at the Jerusalem Theatre at 20 Rehov Marcus.

2011(27th of Tevet, 5771): On the Jewish calendar, Yahrzeit of Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch.

2011: Dozens of English-speaking Bar-Ilan University students demonstrated in front of the university administration building today, demanding rights promised to them as new olim. Wielding signs with slogans like "We left our families, what more do you want?" and "What? I don't understand you," the students rallied after the administration raised the price of translating exams into English to NIS 285, and limited the translations to first-year students alone. According to Rachel Sarafraz, the director of the Bar-Ilan ESC (English Speaking Community), a Student Union-sponsored group, test translations had been given to any student who made aliyah in recent years, and cost only NIS 50 per exam, but the price rose every year over the past four years. "Sometimes students need to translate four or five tests in a semester, and it adds up to a huge amount of money," Sarafaz lamented. "Every year they add a few shekels so that we can't argue over a 'slight' change, but if you look a few years back, the price is over five times as high." "It's not fair that it's just for first year students, either," Sarafaz added. "Even if someone understands Hebrew, the wording of a question could be confusing or misunderstanding one word could change a question's entire meaning. Should students fail just because they're new immigrants?" As she spoke, English-speaking students played guitars, handed out cookies and chanted "What do we want? Translations! How do we want them? Cheap!" When passing Israeli students asked Dina Rappaport, a second-year Sociology and Anthropology student from New York, what the demonstration was about, she had trouble explaining it to them in Hebrew "I'd really like to have my tests translated," Rappaport said, in English. "Even though I'm trying, I still struggle with Hebrew. This rally isn't about the difference between an 80 and a 90 – it's about whether I pass or fail." Daniel Mendelson, who hails from London and studies in Bar-Ilan's pre-college program for new immigrants, said he's debating whether to continue at Bar-Ilan or switch to Herzliya's Inter-Disciplinary Center (IDC), a private college that offers degrees in English. "This definitely affects my choice," he said. "To do this to English speakers just isn't fair. At least at IDC I'd have the option of taking tests in English. At least I won't get highjacked by the university. Here they're just trying to make money off of us!" After rallying for half an hour, Dovid Levine, a second-year Logistics student originally from New Jersey, led the students in storming the administrations building. "We gave you this building, we'll take it back!" he yelled into a megaphone, running through the halls. "More than half of the donation money comes from Anglos. You do not want to make us angry!" When the students reached university CEO Haim Glick's office, security asked the group to leave. "Bar-Ilan is the only university that translates tests for students, and the cost of professional translation is between 500 and 1600 shekels, depending on the type of test," University spokesman Haim Zisovitch explained. "We subsidize a large part of the translation – all the students need to pay is 270 shekels, and it costs the university a lot of money." "The students want the translations to be cheaper or even free, and it just isn't reasonable," he said. "We're a public institution that needs to fund itself." Zisovitch added: "We could have been like Tel Aviv or Hebrew University and said if you take classes in Hebrew, you can take a test in Hebrew. Instead of saying thank you, the students are protesting." Zisovitch said hiring student translators in order to lower prices is not an option, and Student Union spokesman Orel Lahav that "they won't give us the tests for security reasons. Plus, one year they had students studying translation work on the tests, and they were terrible." "The university needs to know that it's responsible for the students, and they can't shake off that responsibility," Lahav said. "They can't tell the student olim that they're giving them an advantage and then cut it off in the middle. They're changing the status quo." Last year, the administration raised the price to NIS 300, and after a similar demonstration, the price was lowered to NIS 270, a price that Sarafaz said is unaffordable for most students.

2011: Despite last-minute efforts by President Shimon Peres, Russian President Dimitri Medvedev canceled his planned visit to Israel in February, Beit Hanassi announced this afternoon. Israel was initially included in Medvedev's upcoming tour of the region, but protracted sanctions imposed by the employees' union at the Foreign Ministry prompted the Russian Embassy to cancel the visit. The Russian Embassy notified Beit Hanassi that unless a solution was found by today to change the status quo at the Foreign Ministry, the embassy would have no option other than to advise Medvedev to cancel his visit.

2011(27th of Tevet, 5771): Israeli actor Yosef Shiloach passed away today at the age of 69 after a long battle with cancer. Shiloach was known for Israeli comedy film classics such as Alex Holeh Ahava, Sapiches, and Hagiga B'Snuker. A year ago, Shiloach was awared a life-time achievement award in at Jerusalem Film Festival. Shiloach was born in Kurdistan in 1941, and moved to Israel at the age of 9. He was one of the first graduates of the Beit Zvi acting school, and in 1964 he appeared in his first film - Mishpachat Simchon. nShiloach went on to star in dozens of films and television shows, mostly portraying comic characters, among them caricatures of a Mizrahi man with a heavy accent. He also participated in a number of American films, including Rambo III and The Mummy Lives. He was considered a left-wing activist, and has called for Arab-Jewish coexistence as well as equal rights for Mizrahi Israelis.

2011(27th of Tevet, 5771): Dorothy Silk, a professional leader of volunteers and a volunteer until her last years, died today in East Lansing, Mich., at 90. In 2008, at age 88, Silk was named one of "Eight Over Eighty," an annual event sponsored by Jewish Senior Life of Metropolitan Detroit recognizing people over 80 whose efforts showed dedication to "tikkun olam," or "repair of the world." In 1996, the Lansing Jewish Federation honored her as a "Driving Force Behind Federation Endeavors." A list of the organizations for which she volunteered included Hadassah, the Greater Lansing Jewish Welfare Federation, Congregation Shaarey Zedek of East Lansing and the Michigan Jewish Conference. Silk was one of three women of different faiths who founded the Lansing Interfaith Council in 1970. The group's annual Interfaith Day attracted hundreds every year. Other activities included the board of directors of Friends of Theatre at Michigan State University; coordinator of MSU Evening College's "Brush up and Brunch"; president of the Liberal Arts Dean's Community Council; Friends of Kresge Art Museum; Inner Circle of the Wharton Center for Performing Arts; Michigan Nonprofit Association; Michigan Historical Museum; W.B. and Candace Thoman Foundation; and the Women's Club of Lansing. Silk was born in South Bend, Ind., graduated from the University of Michigan in 1941 with a degree in economics, and worked as an economist for the War Production Board during World War II. She was married for 59 years to Leonard Silk.

2011: The Jewish community of St. Martin opened its first synagogue since the 18th century. The synagogue, part of a new Chabad Center operated by Rabbi Moshe and Sara Chanowitz, is based in a 1,200-square-foot office space that once housed a church. Opening ceremonies were held today. The Chanowitzes moved to the Dutch-owned Caribbean island in 2009 to serve its 300 Jewish residents. The Jewish population swells to 1,000 or so during the tourist season. Jews first came to the island as refugees from the Spanish Inquisition, and the community grew during the 16th and 17th centuries. The lone synagogue was abandoned in 1781 and later destroyed by a hurricane. A historic Jewish cemetery also was recently discovered, according to chabad.org.

2011: Jerry Abramson completed his term as the Mayor of Louisville Metro, KY.

2012: Grace Hannah is scheduled to appear at the Blaze Bar at 23 Rechov Hillel.

2012: Yair Lehman and Inbal Lori are scheduled to perform “The Slaughter Cow,” a comedic show about all topics from politics to the Torah, at Bet Avi Chai.

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