This Day, January 6, In Jewish History

January 6

548: This was the last year the Church in Jerusalem observed the birth of Jesus on this date. (Celebrating Christmas on December 25th began in the late 300s in the Western Church.)

1449: In an unusual move, Constantine XI is crowned Byzantine Emperor at Mistra instead of at Constantinople. His reign would be a short one. He would lose his throne in 1453 when Constantinople fell to the Ottomans under Mehmed II. Constantine was the last Emperor and the last Christian ruler of what was left of the Roman Empire. The Moslem Ottoman Empire would prove to be a haven for Jews fleeing from persecution in Christian Europe. Also, Mehmed worked to insure that a significant portion of the population of Istanbul (the new name for Constantinople) would be Jewish.

1481: In Spain, during the Inquisition, the priests inaugurated the fist auto-da-fe.

1497: Jews were expelled from Graz, Syria.

1663(5423): Italian rabbi Simeon (Simḥah) ben Isaac Luzzatto passed away in Venice.

1693: Mehmed IV, the Ottoman Sultan passed away. During his reign, Moses Beberi was appointed ambassador to Sweden. After his death in 1674 his son Yehuda was appointed to the position ambassador. When the Jews of the Ukraine were looking for a place of refuge during the Cossack Uprising Mehmet IV, allowed them to settle on the banks of the Danube in Morea, Kavala, Istanbul and Salonica. The second event happens in 1666. Rabbi Sabetay Sevi declares himself messiah and causes turmoil. Mehmed was also the sultan who had to deal with Sabbati Zevi, the famous false messiah.

1706: Birthdate of Benjamin Franklin, printer, publisher, scientist, statesmen and a man who was far greater than his parts. “Franklin knew the Hebrew scriptures (what we call the Bible) very well. He had even suggested that the Great Seal of America depict Moses standing on the shore of the Red Sea, while Pharaoh drowns in his chariot in its midst. The motto at the bottom of the seal would have read: ‘Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.’ You see Franklin was among those Founding Fathers who saw in the American Revolution a replaying of the story of the Jewish Exodus from Egypt. King George III was the Pharaoh. George Washington was Moses. The Atlantic Ocean was the Red Sea. And, it was as if God were saying to King George: ‘Let my American people go!’ It is also important to point out that when the Jewish community in Philadelphia built their synagogue, which they named “Mikveh Israel,” Franklin contributed to the building fund himself. On July 4, 1788, Franklin was too sick and weak to get out of bed, but the Independence Day parade in Philadelphia marched right under his window. And, as Franklin himself had directed, ‘the clergy of different Christian denominations, with the rabbi of the Jews, walked arm in arm. And when he was carried to his grave two years later, his casket was accompanied by all the clergymen of the city, every one of them, of every faith.”

1761: Jacob Henry of New York wrote a letter addressed to Barnard Gratz in which he discussed plans to build a synagogue in Philadelphia.

1785 (24th of Tevet, 5545): Haym Salomon passed away in Philadelphia at the age of 44. Born in Poland in 1740, Salomon came to the United States before the outbreak of the American Revolution. He was a friend of financier Robert Morris and helped several leaders of the American Revolution. Among those whom he lent money to was James Madison, author of the Federalist Papers and President of the United States. Salomon died penniless having bankrupted himself in support of the cause of American independence

1803: Birthdate of pianist and composer Henri Herz.

1813: Wirt und Gast, the second opera by German-Jewish composer Giacomo Meyerbeer was performed for the first time in Stuttgart, Germany. Unlike his first opera, Jephtas Gelübde, which was a Biblical drama, Wirt und Gast is “the colorful Arabian Nights tale of the man who becomes caliph for a day.”

1838: Birthdate of German composer, Max Bruch. Bruch was not Jewish. But he is most famous for his composition Kol Nidrei, written for cello and orchestra. It is based on the traditional chant associated with that most holy of Jewish holidays

1840: Sultan Abdul Mejid, under pressure from the Montefiore delegation, issued a Firman against blood libels. He also unconditionally released nine survivors of the Damascus libels. Four Jews had already died.

1854: The will of Judah Touro dated this day appoints four executors, three of whom are to each receive $10,000. R.D. Shepperd, the fourth legatee is the residuary legatee. The will bequeathed nearly $450,000 to various public institutions for charitable purposes, including the following: $80,000 for the establishment of an Almshouse in New-Orleans; $5,000 to the Hebrew Congregation in Boston.

1854: Judah Touro signed his last will and testament.

1859: Birthdate of Samuel Alexander, the Australian-born British philosopher who was the first Jewish fellow of an “Oxbridge” college.

1859: It was reported today that a journal printed in Hebrew called "Cammagia" (The Orator) has just appeared in Lyk, a city in northern Prussia. It has been well received in Poland as well as in Prussia.

1871: U.S. Vice President Schyler Colfax sent a letter today expressing his regret at not being able to attend an upcoming celebration of the newly unified nation of Italy. Colfax expressed his hope that when Victor Emanuel said that Italy is free and one he meant that the newly united nation would follow the example of the United States of guaranteeing religious freedom to “Jew and Gentile” alike. Colfax saw this guarantee of religious freedom as critical to the current success of the American Republic and as a critical to the future success of the Italian Republic. [Declarations like this are another example of what separates the experience of the Jews in the United States from that in European, Asian or African political entity.]

1878; It was reported today that “a thrilling tale of a brave young Jew” is going to appear in the Number 10 issued of the New York Weekly.

1878: It was reported today that “a Jewish paper” has called for a national meeting to revise Jewish ritual. The papers says that “there is much in the ritual to which many Jews no longer give assent.” Also, there are sections which an even larger number do not understand.

1879(11th of Tevet, 5639) Rabbi Benjamin Artom passed away today at 3 Marine Parade, Brighton.(UK).He was the Haham of the Spanish and Portuguese Jews of Great Britain. Born in 1835 at Asti, Piedmont, Italy, he was the first person to hold the post of rabbi of Naples. In 1866 he accepted a call to become the spiritual leader, or Haham, of the Spanish and Portuguese Jews in Britain, and held the post until his death. He composed a prayer for boys on the occasion of their Bar Mitzvah that was at one time used in most orthodox synagogues in Britain, and is still used in the Spanish and Portuguese ones.

1890: Former Judge Philip J. Joachimsen passed away today at 4 o’clock this afternoon at his home on 54th Street in New York City. The American jurist and communal worker was born in 1817 at Breslaue Germany. He emigrated to New York in 1827, and was admitted to the bar there in 1840. During the Civil war, he organized and commanded the Fifty-ninth New York Volunteer Regiment, and was injured at New Orleans. For his services he was made brigadier-general by brevet. After the war he practiced law until he was elected judge of the New York Marine Court in 1870. In 1877, he returned to private practice. In 1859, he was elected to serve as the first president of the Hebrew Orphan Asylum. In 1879 he organized the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society for Children in New York. (As reported by Adler & Friedenberg and the NYT)

1896: Birthdate of Nathan Pritzker. The highly successful investor and real estate mogul is best known for his ownership of the Hyatt Hotel chain. At one time or another he has also controlled the Hammond Organ Company and Continental Air Lines. According to one estimate his holdings were valued at 700 million dollars during the 1980’s.

1898: Herzl travels to Berlin and convenes a conference of Berlin Jews. He also has two conversations with Ahmed Tewfik, the Turkish ambassador.

1899: “The Honorable Lionel Walter Rothschild has been elected a member of Parliament for the Aylesburgy Division of Buckinghamshire without opposition, succeeding his uncle, the late Baron Ferdinand James De Rothschild, who died December 17, 1898”

1903: Birthdate of composer and conductor Maurice Abravanel. Abravanel was born in Saloniki Greece when it was still part of the Ottoman Empire. A descendant of Isaac Abravanel, he came from an illustrious Sephardic Jewish family, which was expelled from Spain in 1492. Abravanel's ancestors settled in Saloniki in 1517, and his parents were both born there. In 1909, they moved to Switzerland, where his father Edouard de Abravanel was a very successful pharmacist.
In 1934, anti-German sentiment forced Abravanel to leave Europe. After enjoying a triumph in Austraalia, Abravanel came to the United States to conduct at the Metropolitan Opera. He became the long-time conductor of the Utah Symphony Orchestra (1947-1979, building it from a part-time community orchestra into a well-respected, professional ensemble with recording contracts with Vanguard, Vox, Angel, and CBS. He lobbied for years for a permanent home for the orchestra, which then performed in the Mormon Tabernacle on Temple Square. He saw his dream come true when Symphony Hall was built, but not until the season after he retired. It has now been renamed Abravanel Hall in his honour. Only in America could the a major musical venue in the heart of “Mormon Country” be named for a Sephardic Jew from Salonika.
Abravanel passed away at the age of 90 in Salt Lake City.

1903: Herzl begins a trip that would take him to Paris and London.

1908: Birthdate of composer Menahem Avidom. Born in Galicia, Avidom moved to Eretz Israel after World War I. He studied music and graduated from the American University in Beirut. He gained fame in Israel and throughout the world for his musical accomplishments before he died in 1995.

1911: Birthdate of comedian, actor and columnist, Joey Adams

1912: New Mexico becomes the 47th state to enter the Union. The historical record is too limited to do more than speculate on New Mexico Jewish life prior to 1848. The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia suggests that prior to 1850; there may have been isolated conversos in New Mexico. From then until New Mexico's statehood, Jews played an active role in New Mexico's social, economic and political life. The first religious services were held in 1860 Sante Fe and a B'nai B'rith lodge was formed in 1882 in Albuquerque. New Mexico's first synagogue was built in Las Vegas in 1886. Other Jews were active in municiple and territorial/state politics. The experiences of New Mexico's Jewish pioneers speak clearly to their resilience and dedication.
In 1990, the 6,400 Jews living in New Mexico were found mostly in the Albuquerque area.
Between 1750 and 1850, many German Jews came to America to escape economic hardship and religious persecution. In the 1840s and 1850s, the first Jewish immigrants to New Mexico established themselves as merchants, sending for relatives as soon as they were able. They married local women or traveled to Europe or cities in the United States to find Jewish brides. By 1860, half the Jewish population of the territory was related. During the Civil War, Jews served the Union cause as soldiers and suppliers. After the war, they expanded into new occupations - banking, politics, law, mining, and ranching. The railroad arrived in New Mexico in 1879, and a new wave of Jewish immigrants reflected their conservative Eastern European origins. After New Mexico became the 47th state in 1912, most of these families returned to urban centers to educate and marry off their children, and the pioneer era came to a close.

1914: Birthdate of Heinz Berggruen, collector and gallery owner. One of the world’s most important patrons and collectors of 20th century masters, Heinz Berggruen’s life was something of a work of art in itself. He escaped from the Third Reich, studied in France, emigrated to San Francisco, became the lover of the painter Frida Kahlo, amassed an unparalleled collection of the works of Picasso and other modern artists and finally effected an act of reconciliation with the Germany that had persecuted him and his family, bringing home his collection of “degenerate” art to the former capital of the Third Reich once and for all. Heinz Berggruen was born in the prosperous Berlin borough of Wilmersdorf in 1914. Both his father, Ludwig, and his mother, Antonie, née Zadek, were from West Prussia. They had a stationery shop on the Olivaerplatz, just off the Kurförstendamm and Heinz grew up in the world of assimilated Berlin Jewry. He attended the Goethe-Gymnasium in Wilmersdorf and graduated to the Friedrich-Wilhelms (now Humboldt) University in 1932 where he read literature and art history. After 1933 he continued his studies at the universities of Grenoble and Toulouse, returning briefly to Germany to work as a journalist, even if his articles could not appear under his name, which was seen as being too provocative to the National Socialists. He emigrated to the US in 1936 and studied briefly at Ber-keley before becoming an assistant curator at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. He married three years later while he was working as an art critic on the San Francisco Chronicle. It was at this time that he had a brief but stormy affair with the painter Frida Kahlo. In 1940 he bought his first picture for $100. It was a watercolour by Paul Klee. In 1942 he persuaded his parents to come to New York. They had in May 1939 been on the liner Saint Louisfrom Hamburg, which was not allowed to land its Jewish refugees in America. As their names began with “B” they were allowed to disembark in England, on the ship’s return to Europe. Others were not so lucky and perished in the camps in the East. Berggruen returned to Europe in American uniform in 1945 and worked briefly with the novelist Erich Kästner on an American-sponsored paper in Munich. He moved on to Unesco before starting his art gallery in the rue de l’Univer-sité in Paris in 1947. The gallery brought him into contact with Picasso, who became his friend and the core of his collection. It was said that as a gallery owner, Berggruen was his own best customer: he did not like to let the best pieces go. He once swapped Van Gogh’s Le Jardin Publiquefor eight Matisses. In 1980 he gave up the gallery to concentrate on his own collection. The main theme was Picasso, but there was more besides: Matisse, Braque, Klee, Giacometti and Cézanne. He was an early champion of Matisse’s late collages. He was generous to a fault. He sold part of his collection to the National Gallery in London, but the sale contained a large bequest. He made similar donations to the Metropolitan Museum in New York. In 1991 he met Wolf-Dieter Dube, the director of the Berlin museums. Dube persuaded him to make a visit to Berlin. It was the beginning of the process that would bring Berggruen home, together with 113 canvases from his collection which Dube installed in a classical building by Karl Friedrich Schinkel’s pupil August Stöler opposite the royal palace in Charlottenburg. This was to be the Berggruen Museum. In 2000 the collection of 165 works (including 85 Picassos) was sold to the museum at about a quarter of its value. This was Berggruen’s famous “gesture of reconciliation”: the Nazis had impoverished Germany by their attitude to nonfigurative Modern art. Berggruen had decided to reverse the process. Paris, he said, was already rich enough in such works.
He was granted a flat “above the shop” and said he felt entirely at home. He also encouraged his friends to donate to the museum, adding a further five Cézannes and two Van Goghs. He talked his fellow Berliner Helmut Newton into giving his photographic collection to the city. At the end of his life he was proud that Berlin had finally become a place of pilgrimage for 20th-century art lovers. Berggruen’s ability to forgive the Germans came as a surprise to many. He always said that he felt at home in Berlin, although it did not look much like the city he had left 60 years before. He said he was a European and hoped with time that many more people would feel the same. He had two homes: one near the Luxembourg Gardens in Paris and the other above the museum that bore his name in Charlottenburg. He liked to be close to his collection and was happy to show people round. In 2004 he was given the freedom of the city of Berlin.
He married first Lillian Zeller-bach, the daughter of a paper manufacturer in San Francisco, and had a son and a daughter by her. In 1959 he married Betti-na, the daughter of the actor Alexander Moissi and had two further sons. He died in Neuil-ly-sur-Seine in 2007 at the age of 93. At his own wish he is buried in the forest cemetery in Dahlem, in Berlin.

1918(22nd of Tevet, 5678): Georg Cantor passed away. Born in 1845, Georg Ferdinand Ludwig Philipp Cantor was a mathematician was a native of Russia who lived in Germany for most of his life. He is best known as the creator of modern set theory. He is recognized by mathematicians for having extended set theory to the concept of transfinite numbers, including the cardinal and ordinal number classes. Cantor is also known for his work on the set of uniqueness, a generalization of Fourier series. Cantor’s father was a Jewish Dane. His mother was a Protestant. Under Halachah, Cantor would not be considered Jewish. Under the racial laws that would go into in Germany 15 years after his death, he would have been a candidate for the Final Solution.

1919: Theodore Roosevelt 26th President of the United States passed away. While President, Roosevelt intervened with the governments of Rumania and Russia on behalf of their Jewish populations. This was an unusual event for Jews and earned Roosevelt and the Republicans support among Jewish voters. T.R.’s finest moment, from a Jewish point of view, may have come in 1895 when he was serving as New York City Police Commissioner. Pastor Hermann Ahlwardt, a noted German anti-Semite came to New York to give a speech. In an attempt to gain publicity for himself and his cause, he demanded police protection from what he was sure would be hostile demonstration by New York Jews. Roosevelt gave him his police protection. All of his protectors were Jewish policemen.

1919: As 100,000 German Marxists gathered in Berlin, Rosa Luxemberg urged them not to seize power until they had popular support. They did not listen to her. They began their unsuccessful revolt during which Rosa Luxemberg and Karl Liebknecht, the Jewish Communist leaders were killed.

1923: Birthdate of Argentine born writer and social protestor Jacobo Timerman. After his release from an Argentine prison he moved to Israel. He died in 1999.

1925(10th of Tevet, 5685): Asara B'Tevet

1927: A mass meeting is held tonight at Cooper Union to honor the memory of Asher Ginsberg (Ahad Ha’am). Speakers at the event include, Dr. Chaim Weismann, Louis Lipsky (President of the World Zionist Organization), Carl Sherman (President of the Zionist Organization of America), Ambrahm Goldberg (President of the American Hebrew Federdation), Professor Selig Brodetzky and Rabbi Stephen S. Wise.

1929: “Several speakers at the quarterly meeting of the national executive committee of the Zionist Organization of America…expressed disapproval of the actgion of Dr. Stephen S. Wise of the Free Synagogue in opposing participation of non-Zionists in the activities of the Jewish Agency. The Jewish Agency is the term now applied to the World Zionist Organization.” Non-Zionists who will work with the with Zionists in the Jewish Agnecy iknclude Louis Marshall, Felix M. Warburg, Dr. Lee K. Frankel, Herbert H. Lehman and Judge Irving Lehman.

1929: The New York Times featured a review of How Propaganda Works by Edward L. Bernays, “father of modern public relations and nephew of Sigmund Freud.

1931: Birthdate of author E. L. Doctorow.

1932(27th of Tevet, 5692): Julius Rosenwald passed away. Rosenwald is best known for turning Sears and Roebuck into a retail giant. He was also a great philanthropist whose efforts included everything from being the patron of chess champion Samuel Reshevsky to endowing Tuskegee Institute to the creation of the Rosenwald Fund which was established “for the well-being of mankind.” This brief entry cannot do justice to the accomplishments of a man, mighty in his times, who has been forgotten by most.

1932: It was announced today that “an unlimited quota of athletes will be permitted by the Palestine government to enter the country to take part in the Maccabee Games” to be held this spring in Tel Aviv.

1934: Hadassah announced that “the lowest infant mortality rate achieved in a Palestine health district was in Tel Aviv. “The rate was 68.03 among children under 1 year for every 1,000 live births and represented an improvement over 1931 when the rate was 72.52.” Jerusalem “had a rate of 117.30 in 1932 and 104.28 in 1931. Bethlehem…had a rate of 341.91 in 1932, the highest health district rate in the country. The infant death rate for the whole country was 153 in 1932, against 170 in 1931.”

1936: Cartoon character Porky Pig makes his debut. For most of his career the traif animal got his voice from the Jewish Mel Blanc.

1937: The Palestine Post reported that a quarry worker, Haim Katz, 29, and a policeman, Jacob Klinger, 34, were murdered in an ambush at Givat Shaul.

1938: William Dodd, who had resigned as U.S. Ambassador to Germany in December, arrived in New York City where he said that he "doubted if an American envoy who held his ideals of democracy could represent his country successfully among the Germans at the present time." Dodd was the first U.S. Ambassador appointed after the rise of Hitler. In time he came to see the Nazi threat and tried to do what he could to warn America about the danger.

1938(4th of Sh'vat, 5698): Pinchas Friedman one of the earliest Zionist settlers and a founder of Tel Aviv passed away today. Born in Russia, he made Aliyah in 1890.

1939: In an article entitled “Interests of Britain, Jews and Arabs Are in Clash,” Anne O’Hare McCormick describes conditions in Palestine which is currently in the grip of an armed Arab uprising. She describes meetings with two different groups of Arabs. The first group, “composed of fervent nationalists complained” that the Jews of Palestine “prevented Palestinians from attaining an independent status like that granted to Iraq.” They vowed that they “would never cease fighting” and “insisted that they spoke for every Arab in the land.” The second group of Arabs was found “sharing a meal in a communal dining room” on a kibbutz. These Arabs said “they wanted peace and complained that the British neither punished the handful off rebels stirring up their village” nor providing arms to responsible Arab leaders so they could stand against those creating the violence.

1940: Shivering Jews in Warsaw, Poland, are forced to burn Jewish books for fuel.

1941: President Franklin D. Roosevelt gave his State of the Union address which became known as the Four Freedoms Speech because FDR listed them as:

Freedom of speech and expression including the right to dissent
Freedom of every person to worship God in his own way
Freedom from want
Freedom from fear

The first two are recognizable as being part of the Bill of Rights. Freedom #2 spoke directly to the needs and concerns of the Jewish people and would prove strikingly ironic considering the events surrounding the Holocaust.

1942: Jacob Moshe Toledano who was born in Tiberias was installed as Sephardic Chief Rabbi of Tel Aviv and Jaffa. In 1926 Toledano served as the head of the religious court at Tangiers, and later similar posts in Cairo and Alexandria. Toledano was escorted from Tiberias to Tel Aviv by a grand delegation.

1942: Victor Klemper was arrested and interrogated at the Gestapo headquarters in Dresden.

1943: The Jews of Lubaczow, Poland, are killed at the Belzec death camp

1943: Jews hiding in Opoczno, Poland, are murdered by Germans after being coaxed out of hiding with a promise of rail transport to a neutral country. Five hundred "Jews with relatives in Palestine" came out of hiding to register. All 500 were sent to Treblinka and were gassed.

1944: Birthdate of Bonnie Franklin, American actress. She once said that because of her red hair and freckles, fans have a hard time believing that she is Jewish.

1945 (21st of Tevet, 5705): On Shabbat, Roza Robota and three other Jewish women implicated in the smuggling of explosives used in the October 7, 1944, uprising at Auschwitz are hanged in front of the entire women's camp at Birkenau. The three women had been previously tortured in connection with the revolt at Birkenau but gave away no one. Robota’s final words were, "that vengeance would come."

1945: Hungarian authorities accede to Raoul Wallenberg's request that 5000 Jews be transferred to Swiss-sponsored safe homes in Budapest.

1945(21st of Tevet, 5705): Anne Frank's mother, Edith, dies at Auschwitz

1946: In Zanzur, Libya Islamic instigators encouraged the local population to attack the Jewish community. Of the 150 local Jews half were murdered. The rioting spread to a number of small towns near Tripoli leaving a death toll of approximately 180 Jews and 9 synagogues destroyed. The local police and Arab soldiers often joined in the destruction and murder. This outbreak of Arab anti-Semitic violence took place two years before the creation of the state of Israel. This should put an end to claims that only source of friction between Jews and Arabs was the creation of the Jewish state.

1949: During Operation Horev, the Israeli Air Force shot down five RAF Spitfires on patrol in the area, killing two pilots and taking two prisoners. It is not clear if the Spitfires were being flown by Egyptian or British pilots.

1949: The British moved forces into the Jordanian port of Akaba.

1949: After three days of fighting around Rafah in which its forces failed to defeat the IDF, the Egyptian government announced, that it was willing to enter armistice negotiations

1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that according to the new and improved rationing schedule each Israeli was now able to purchase four eggs a week. A mere fifty years ago, the Israelis were living barely above the subsistence level. With no natural resources and faced by enemies on all of its borders, the Jews created a modern, vibrant country. A huge forest, named after Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey, was planted on Mount Carmel. Only five years after the founding of the state of Israel, the Jewish state created a living monument to a Moslem leader who was not afraid to embrace the modern world.

1954: Moshe Sharett succeeded David Ben-Gurion as Prime Minister of Israel. Ben Gurion had been Prime Minister since the creation of the state in 1948. Sharett had been Foreign Minister, a post he kept in the new government. Golda Meir remained as Labor Minister and Pinchas Lavon became Minister of Defense. The change was in leadership; the Labor Zionist still maintained control of the government.

1955: In Boston, publication of the tercentenary issue of the Jewish Advocate.

1956: In Seattle, Washington, a Friday night services is held at the U of W Hillel House attended by 170 people who want to form a Reform congregation that will become Temple Beth Am.

1957: Yeshiva Kol Ya'ackov opened in Moscow Russia.

1967: Jewish pianist Jacob Lateiner, accompanied by the Boston Symphony Orchestra, performed at the premier of Elliot Carter’s piano concerto and the third piano sonata of Roger Sessions.

1967: "Milton Berle Show" aired for the last time on ABC-TV

1968: It was reported today that French President Charles de Gaulle had assured Jacob Kaplan, the Grand Rabbi of France “that it was far from his intention to insult the Jews when he called them an ‘elite people, sure of itself and domineering.’”

1978: The Jerusalem Post reported that Egypt agreed to reduce by one -third its forces in Sinai, once Israel evacuated the whole area. The US Embassy in Tel Aviv asked the Israeli government to clarify its intentions regarding the setting up of new settlements on the West Bank and in Sinai.

1981(1st of Sh'vat, 5741): Rosh Chodesh Sh'vat

1987(5 Tevet 5747): U.S. Federal Court issued a decision in favor of Agudas Chassidei Chabad ("Union of Chabad Chassidim") regarding the ownership of the priceless library of the 6th Rebbe of Chabad-Lubavitch, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn. The ruling was based on the idea that a Rebbe is not a private individual but a communal figure synonymous with the body of Chassidim. The Lubavitcher Rebbe (Rabbi Yoseph Yitzchak's son-in-law and successor) urged that the occasion be marked with time devoted to study from Torah books ("sefarim") as well as the acquisition of new Torah books.

1987: A roadside bomb killed four members of an Israeli-backed militia in southern Lebanon today.

1991: Following a speech today, commemorating the 70th anniversary of the Iraqi Army, in which Sadam Hussein said he was preparing the nation for a great battle to liberate Palestine and defeat American "tyranny" in the Middle East the United States once again rejected efforts to tie the Gulf Crisis to the Palestinian question.

2002: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish author and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including newly released paperback versions of Amy Wilentz’s Martyrs' Crossing, the first novel by a former Israel correspondent for The New Yorker and Bob Woodward’s Maestro: Greenspan's Fed and the American Boom, an admiring portrait of the Federal Reserve chairman, Alan Greenspan.

2002: Sheila Finestone completed her service as Senator for Montarville, Quebec, when she reached the mandatory retirement age of 75.

2003: Police said tonight that that they suspected the suicide bombers who struck in Tel Aviv on Sunday used backpacks containing more than 20kg of explosives instead of suicide belts.

2005: Edgar Ray Killen is arrested as a suspect for the 1964 murders of three Civil Rights workers James Chaney, a 21-year-old black man from Meridian, Mississippi and two Jewish voting rights organizers from New York, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner.

2005: The First World Congress of Imams and Rabbis for Peace begins in Brussels, Belgium. “The Permanent Committee for Jewish-Muslim Dialogue was created after the First World Congress as an institution which would reflect and act in domains and on problematic issues in which Islam and Judaism are implicated. The committee is composed on nine founder members, four international Jewish personalities, four international Muslim personalities and a neutral president.”

2006: “Jackie Hoffman: Chanukah At Joe’s Pub” and “Walking in Memphis: The Life of A Southern Jew,” a semi-autobiographical piece by Jonathan Ross are now playing “Off, Off Broadway” in New York City.

2006: “Fateless” a movie based on the novel by the same name written by Imre Kertesz opens at the Film Forum in New York. Fateless was a biographical novel for which Kertesz won the Nobel Prize in 2002.

2007: As part of its “Jewish Season” The Theater for a New Audience in New York City presents The Merchant of Venice.

2008: An exhibition entitled Morris Louis Now: An American Master Revisited at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C. comes to a close.

2008(28th of Tevet, 5768): Rabbi Shmuel Berenbaum, a Talmudic scholar who for more than 50 years led a major Orthodox yeshiva in Brooklyn, known as the Mir Yeshiva, died today. He was 87. His death followed a long struggle with cancer, said Rabbi Pinchos Hecht, executive director of the yeshiva, also called the Mirrer Yeshiva Central Institute. The Mir Yeshiva is exclusively devoted to the study of the Torah: the Old Testament, commentaries upon it and the oral tradition known as the Talmud. It has 1,200 members. Another branch is in Jerusalem, with an estimated 4,000 students. Rabbi Berenbaum was born in 1920 in Poland and studied in a yeshiva in Mir before World War II. As the Nazis rolled across Eastern Europe, he and other yeshiva students fled to the Soviet Union and resettled in Shanghai. From there, they eventually emigrated to the United States. Steven Bayme, national director of contemporary Jewish life at the American Jewish Committee, said the yeshiva helped preserve “a world that was otherwise lost.” “The rescue of the institution during the Holocaust by going to Shanghai was an act of incredible daring,” Mr. Bayme said. “It took enormous courage and perseverance.” Jonathan Rosenblum, director of Am Echad, an advocacy group in Israel that works to build bridges between ultra-Orthodox Jews and others, said that while Rabbi Berenbaum had no public position in America, “he was the one who was consulted on anything connected to Torah learning in the Torah world,” adding, “He taught Torah for over 50 years, and he never repeated himself.” Leadership of the Brooklyn yeshiva will pass to Rabbi Berenbaum’s nephew, Rabbi Osher Kalmanowitz. (As reported by AP)

2008: The Washington Post featured a review of People of the Book a work of historic fiction by Geraldine Brooks. “The Book” in the title is the famous Sarajevo Haggadah, created in medieval Spain. The Haggadah is “a famous rarity because it was a lavishly illuminated Hebrew manuscript made at a time when Jewish belief was firmly against illustrations of any kind.”

2008: The Sunday New York Times featured a review of, and excerpt from, Jihad and Jew-Hatred: Islamism, Nazism and the Roots of 9/11 by Matthias Küntzel and translated by Colin Meade, a review of, and an excerpt from, Islamophobia: Making Muslims the Enemy by Peter Gottschalk and Gabriel Greenberg and a review of Peace Be Upon You: The Story of Muslim, Christian and Jewish Coexistence by Zacharcy Karabell.

2008 (28 Tevet 5768): Rabbi Shmuel Berenbaum, the Rosh yeshiva of the Mir yeshiva in Brooklyn, New York City which includes an elementary school and a high school, as well as its post-graduate Talmudical Academy passed away. The original Mirrer yeshiva was founded in 1815, in Mir, Belarus, and remained in operation there until 1914. With the outbreak of World War I the yeshiva moved to Poltava, Ukraine, under the leadership of Rabbi Eliezer Yehudah Finkel, son of the legendary Rabbi Nosson Tzvi Finkel (the Alter of Slabodka), and son-in-law of Rabbi Elya Boruch Kamai, his renowned predecessor. In 1921, the yeshiva moved back to its original facilities in Mir, where it remained until Nazi Germany invaded Poland in 1939 marking the beginning of the Holocaust. Although many of the foreign-born students left when the Soviet army invaded from the east, the yeshiva continued to operate, albeit on a reduced scale, until the approaching Nazi armies caused the leaders of the yeshiva to move the entire yeshiva community to Keidan, Lithuania. As the Nazi armies continued to push to the east, the yeshiva as a whole eventually fled across Siberia by train to the Far East, and finally reopened in Kobe, Japan in 1941. Several smaller yeshivos managed to escape alongside the Mir, and, despite the difficulties involved, the overseers of the Mirrer yeshiva undertook full responsibility for their support, distributing funds and securing quarters and food for all the students. A short time later, the yeshiva relocated again, to (Japanese-controlled) Shanghai, China, where they remained until the end of World War II. The heroism of the Japanese consul-general in Lithuania, Chiune Sugihara, who issued several thousand travel visas to Jews, permitting them to flee to the east, has been the subject of several books. Following the end of the war, the majority of the Jewish refugees from Shanghai ghetto left for Palestine and the United States. Among them were the survivors from the Mir yeshiva, who re-established the yeshiva, this time with two campuses, one in Jerusalem, Israel and this one in Brooklyn, New York.

2009: The National Jewish Democratic Council recognizes the Jewish Democratic Members of the 111th Congress at a reception at Rayburn House Office Building in Washington, DC

2009: Fast of the 10th of Tevet and Yahrzeit of Judy Rosenstein (nee Levin).

2009: Today, on the Christian observance known as the Feast of the Epiphany, the Ra'anana Symphonette (RS) conducted by Omer Wellber, will play Irena's Song - a Ray of Light through the Darkness by Kobi Oshrat. The composition and the performance were inspired by Irene Sendler, who along with her intrepid band of helpers from Zegota, the Polish underground, rescued 2,500 children from the Warsaw Ghetto between 1942 and 1943. “Between these dates grows a story no less wonderful than the life, deeds and soul of a Polish Catholic social worker who risked her life that Jewish children might live. "Every child saved with my help, and the help of all the wonderful secret messengers… is the justification of my existence on earth, and not a title to glory," Sendler said to the Polish Senate when it honored her in 2007. In January 2008, RS general director Orit Fogel saw the portrait of a woman (pictured) in a Poznan home "whose goodness radiated, and when I asked 'who is that?', I was told the story of Irena Sendler. I said 'we have to write a work in her honor.'" Sendler died in Warsaw this past May 12 at the age of 98, so she will never get to hear the song that Oshrat calls "more than a professional challenge. It was a kind of mission, the least that I, as a Jew, could do to honor this woman." The 20-minute work is "a sort of collage of her life, ending with seven-year-old Menashe Shalev, who sings like an angel, and symbolizes a better future." "'I entered the room and saw an angel,' were the first words spoken by ten different people who had met her on ten different occasions," says Fogel. She buckled down to the research on Sendler by enlisting the mayor of Ra'anana to get 2,500 junior high school students to write letters to Irena, after they'd been told her story by some of her "children" who now live in Israel. The Israel Philatelic Authority issued a limited edition of two stamps (designed by renowned Polish artist Rafal Olbinski who volunteered his services when he heard it was "for Irena") for the envelopes. And others including artist Ilana Gur, echoed the sentiment of her angelic nature. "The project was a huge privilege for me," says Fogel. "I threw in a stone called Irena Sendler and the ripples spread and spread. People from all over the world are coming to this concert." Sendler and her helpers smuggled the children out of the ghetto in ambulances, coffins, burlap bags, boxes - any way they could. They settled the children in convents, orphanages, private homes, giving each false papers with a new name. Sendler wrote the child's real name, new name, and that of his parents in code on thin sheets of paper that she buried in jars beneath a neighbor's apple trees so she could reunite the children with their parents after the madness was over. In 1943 she was arrested by the Gestapo, horribly tortured and sentenced to death. Zegota bribed a guard, and so rescued her. She resumed her activities under another name until the end of the war. When she was little, her doctor father once said to her "Irena, in this world there is good and evil. Always choose only the good." And so she did.

2009: Barack Obama has nominated Elena Kagan to serve as his solicitor general. If the nomination is confirmed by the United States Senate, Kagan who is the dean of the Harvard Law School and is Jewish would be the first woman to hold this position.

2009 (10 Shevat 5769): St.-Sgt. Alexander Mashevizky, 21, a resident of Beersheba, was killed in a gun battle with Hamas operatives in northern Gaza City. Mashevizky, a member of an elite Engineering Corps unit, led the joint force, which was ambushed by Hamas gunmen while conducting ground sweeps.

2010: The Bronx House Jewish Community Center presents “Klezmer Party” with Matan Chapnizka (Saxophone), Daniel Ori (Bass) and Dan Pugach (Drums) as part of the 2010 Bronx House Concert Series.

2010: At around 1 a.m. this morning the Etz-Hayyim Synagogue in the Greek city of Hania on the island of Crete was set on fire by an unkown arsonist. The fire was started on wooden staircase that led to the second-story women's section of the main sanctuary in the small seaside complex. The Etz-Hayyim Synagogue was restored in the late 1990s after years of neglect in the wake of the Second World War. The nearly 300 members of the Hania Jewish community were shipped out by the Nazi invaders in 1944, and died when their ship was sunk in transit by an Allied torpedo. It serves as a place for prayer, a museum and memorial, and a library recording the long and troubled history of Crete's Jews. The walls of the synagogue's main hall were covered in soot, but the fire did not reach the Torah scrolls or the library.

2010: Israel inched a step closer to deploying a missile defense system along the border with the Gaza Strip today after the Iron Dome successfully intercepted a number of missile barrages in tests held in southern Israel this week. The tests were overseen by the Defense Ministry, the Israeli Air Force and the Rafael Advanced Defense Systems Ltd. which has developed and is manufacturing the Iron Dome, slated to become operational and deployed along the Gaza border in the middle of 2010. The missile barrages that the system succeeded in intercepting included a number of rockets that mimicked Kassam and longer-range Grad-model Katyusha rockets that are known to be in Hamas's arsenal. The Iron Dome is supposed to be capable of intercepting all of the short-range rockets in fired by Hamas in the Gaza Strip and Hizbullah in Southern Lebanon, by using an advanced radar that locates and tracks the rocket that is then intercepted by a kinetic missile interceptor. During the test, the radar succeeded in detecting which rockets were headed towards coordinates that were designated as open fields and therefore did not launch an interceptor to destroy them. The IDF has already established a new battalion that will be part of the IAF's Air Defense Division and will operate the Iron Dome. Prototypes of the Iron Dome have already been supplied to the new battalion which has commenced training with the systems. The IDF has also located positions along the Gaza border that will be used as bases for the system, which includes a launcher and radar system. After it completes the deployment of the system along the Gaza border, the IDF will begin deploying the system along the northern border with Lebanon. MOD Dir.-Gen. Pinhas Buchris said that the system would eventually "transform" security for residents of southern and northern Israel. "The defense establishment continues to be committed to do everything it can to provide all residents of Israel a multi-layered defense against missiles and rockets," he said.

2010: American Jewish youth movement Young Judaea and its long-running sponsor, Hadassah Women's Organization, suffered another blow today following the resignation of key staff member, YJ/FZY Year Course Director Keith Berman. Berman's decision to leave Young Judaea after more than 20 years with the movement closely follows the resignation of its director, Rabbi Ramie Arian, who is scheduled to step down in the coming weeks. It also comes after a slew of staff firings in Israel and cutbacks to key aspects of the Year Course program. Over the past year, Young Judaea has also seen its funding from Hadassah slashed as the woman's organization reports undergoing a process of refocusing its resources and restructuring. While none of the movement's staff members were legally able to comment it was suggested that Berman's decision to leave Young Judaea is based on a growing dissatisfaction over cutbacks imposed on the Year Course program specifically and the general direction the youth movement is headed.

2010: James von Brunn, who shot and killed museum guard Stephen Tyrone Johns on June 10 during an attempted raid on the U.S. Holocaust Museum, died in a prison hospital today. He was 88 and died of natural causes. Von Brunn was awaiting trial on possible death penalty charges in the federal prison in Butner, N.C., after recovering from being shot in the face by another guard. Von Brunn had a long history of white supremacist and anti-Semitic writings. The museum issued a statement memorializing Johns. "The Museum's thoughts and prayers continue to be with Officer Stephen Tyrone Johns' family at this time," the statement said. "Officer Johns died heroically defending the Museum, visitors and staff. This tragedy is a powerful reminder that our cause of fighting hatred remains more urgent than ever."

2011(1st of Shevat, 5771): Rosh Chodesh Shevat.

2011: The 92nd St Y is scheduled to present a program entitled “Democracy, Power Politics and the New Middle East” which will “delve into the shifting tectonic plates of Middle East politics, Iran's embattled regime and its nuclear ambitions, Iraq's fledgling democracy, new realities for Persian Gulf monarchies and the longer-term challenges facing Israelis and Palestinians.

2011: The Red Sea Classical Festival is scheduled to open in Eilat.

2011: Birthday of Brian Cohen, shofar blower par excellence, and a man whose life is worthy of his patronymic.

2011: The High Court of Justice ruled today that public bus companies could continue the practice of gender segregation on dozens of lines serving the ultra-Orthodox sector, as long as there is no coercion or violence involved. "A public transportation operator, like any other person, does not have the right to order, request or tell women where they may sit simply because they are women," Supreme Court Justice Elyakim Rubinstein wrote in his ruling. "They must sit wherever they like." "As I now read over these lines emphasizing this I am astounded that there was even a need to write them in the year 2010," he added. "Have the days of Rosa Parks, the African American woman who collapsed the racist segregation on an Alabama bus in 1955 returned?" In the last hearing on the matter late last year, Rubinstein had indicated that the justices were inclined to accept a recommendation to that effect already adopted by the Transportation Ministry The Transportation Ministry committee had found that while it could not declare the segregation legal, the existing buses on the "Mehadrin" line should be given another chance to continue operating temporarily as long as any segregation was voluntary and women were not being forced to sit in the back of the bus. The Reform movement's Israel Religious Action Center, which initially petitioned against the practice, said following that hearing that adoption of the Transportation Ministry committee findings indicates that the High Court endorses the idea that such segregation is illegal. The ministry must intensify bus monitoring to ensure there is no coercion or violence, said the center. Orly Erez-Likhovski, who represents several women who were also party to the petition, also welcomed Rubinstein's statement. The Mehadrin lines serve mostly ultra-Orthodox communities, but are open for all public commuters. A petition deeming the segregated lines illegal was filed in 2007, after several women complained of being verbally and physically assaulted for failing to sit in the back of the bus. The state had already fully accepted the Transportation Ministry's position that the committee findings allowing the continued segregation should be adopted.

2011: Kenyan runner Stephen Chemlany won the 34th annual Tiberias Marathon today, making it across the finish line after 2:10:02. Frenchman Patrick Tambe Ngoie captured second place, finishing seven seconds behind the leader. Kenya’s Julius Muriuki Wahome finished in third place. Haile Satayin, Israel’s champion marathon runner, defended his title today, becoming the first Israeli to cross the finish line. Satayin, who finished in 19th place overall, completed the course in 2:18:57. While the result put him in first among Israelis, it failed to reach the minimum threshold as determined by the Olympic Committee, meaning Satayin will not represent Israel in London. Zohar Zamiro was the second Israeli to cross the finish line. He ended the race with a time of 2:21:33. Ethiopian runner Abaynesh Sisay Arsi captured the women’s crown. Habtamnesh Gashaw Mencho of Ethiopia came in second place and Megra Woldesemayat Bikila, also of Ethiopia, came in third. The first Israeli woman to complete the race was Yaara Zangi, the Israeli champion whose victory caps a lifelong dream that was initially derailed by a lengthy battle with anorexia and injuries.

2012: In New Orleans, LA, Touro Synagogue is scheduled to host a Shabbat Family Dinner.

2012: Think Different – Original Israeli Rock is scheduled to take place at the Blaze Sports and Rock Bar on Rechov Hillel

2012: Excerpts from works by LeeSaar The Company Lior Shneior (Sea Songs), Michal Samama (Under the Skin), Neta Dance Company and Netta Yerushalmy are scheduled to be performed at the 92nd St Y in Manhattan.

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