This Day, January 7, In Jewish History

January 7 In Jewish History

1256: Berechiah De Nicole, the Chief Rabbi of Lincoln was released after having been imprisoned in London on charges related to the death of “Little Hugh of Lincoln.” The son of Rabbi Moses ben Yom Tov of London, Reb Berechiah was an English Tosafist who was considered an authority on ritual matters. “He decided that the evening prayer might be said an hour and a quarter before the legal time of night…and declared that nuts prepared by Gentiles might not be eaten by Jews.” In August, 1255, the body of gentile boy named Hugh was found in Lincoln (a town called Nicole in Norman-French). This discovery gave rise to charges of ritual murder for which all the Jews of Lincoln were seized and imprisoned in Lincoln. Berechiah reportedly some time during 1256, but the exact date and cause are unknown.

1325: Alfonso IV becomes King of Portugal. During the early 14th century, more than 200,000 Jews lived in Portugal, which was about 20 percent of the total population. This period was part of what is known as “Portugal’s Golden Age of Discovery, in which Jews made a major contribution to Portugal’s success.” During the reign of King Dinis, Alfonso’s father, the clergy invoked the restrictions of the Fourth Lateran Council in an attempt to get the monarch to restrict the role of Jews in Portuguese society. . The clergy, however, invoking the restrictions of the Fourth Council of the Lateran, brought considerable pressure to bear against the Jews during the reign of King Dinis I of Portugal, but the monarch maintained a conciliatory position. Alfonso remained faithful to his father’s policies. The position of the Jews of Portugal did not begin to deteriorate until the last decades of the 14th century as can be seen by the decree of King Joao I forcing Jews to wear special clothing and obey a special curfew.

1502: Birthdate of Pope Gregory VIII, famed for the creation of the Gregorian calendar, a method of tracking time has had a unique impact on Jewish historians trying to match events that occurred before 1752 (5512) on the Jewish calendar with the civil calendar.

1516: Representatives of several towns including Frankfort and Worms attended a Diet at Frankfort to discuss how the Jews might be banished and never allowed to return.

1536: Catherine of Aragon, the wife of King Henry VIII of England, passed away. She was the daughter of the two monarchs who created the Spanish Inquisition and drove the Jews out of Spain. The Spanish monarchs would consent to their daughter’s marriage if Henry’s father would promise that no Jews would ever live in England. Ironically, it was Catherine’s inability to provide a male heir that led to the England’s break with the Catholic Church which would play in an indirect positive role in the return of the Jews to England.

1768: Birthdate of Joseph Bonaparte, brother of Napoleon Bonaparte. As King of Spain, he abolished the Inquisition.

1775: For the second time in two months, Empress Maria Theresa banished all the Jews of Bohemia and Moravia.

1800: Birthdate of President Millard Fillmore. In 1850, the American Minister to Switzerland signed a treaty with the Swiss Confederation establishing the rights of the citizens of each country to travel and sojourn in the other. However, the Swiss wished to limit the privileges to Christians. In a message to the Senate, Fillmore opposed the treaty because the U.S. government could not sanction an agreement that treated its citizens differently based on religion. This episode serves to underscore the difference between the Jewish experience in America and other parts of the world in which they had previously settled. Fillmore is living proof that the least of men can do the greatest of things.

1843: The first Jewish service was held at the Wellington Hebrew Congregation in Wellington, New Zealand. There have been Jewish people in New Zealand from the beginnings of European settlement. In the north, Jewish traders from England, including John Montefiore, Joel Polack and David Nathan, were active from about 1830.
Jews were on the first ships to arrive in Wellington. A Jewish community was founded in 1843 with the arrival from London of Abraham Hort. He held the first organised prayer service on 7 January 1843, only days after he and his family arrived aboard the Prince of Wales.

1858: Birthdate of Eliëzer Ben-Yehuda. Born Eliezer Yitzhak Perelman, in what is now Lithuania, Ben-Yehuda was the father of modern Hebrew. Ben-Yehuda adopted several plans of action to accomplish his goal. The main ones were three-fold, and they can be summarized as “Hebrew in the Home,” “Hebrew in the School,” and “Words, Words, Words.” By the time he died in 1922, Ben-Yehuda had almost singled-handedly transformed a “dead Biblical language” into a modern language that embodied the spirit of Zionism and the modern Jewish world.

1865(9th of Tevet, 5625): Lazarus Simon Magnus Esq the beloved and only son of Simon Magnus of Chatham passed away today at the ago of 40. He was buried at the . Chatham (Kent) Jewish Cemetery

1860: Solomon F. Joseph of the Portuguese Hebrew Society was chosen as one of the Directors of the Board of Deputies of Benevolent and Emigrant Societies at the organizations meeting held tonight at Cooper Institute in New York City.

1868: Birthdate of Abraham M "Mark" Lidzbarski. Born in Russia, he moved to Germany. A linguist and Orientalist, he was also known by the name Avraam-Mordekhay He passed away in 1928.

1873: Birthdate of Adolph Zukor, the American entrepreneur who built the Paramount movie empire.

1876(10th of Tevet, 5636): Asara B'Tevet

1877: It was reported today that Bishop Claughton presided over a meeting of several prominent English clergyman where they discussed the difficulty they were having in converting Jews to Christianity.

1878: It was reported today that the United States Consul at Florence had sent the State Department a report describing the government loan institutions (Monte di Pieta) of Italy first introduced by Bernasdoda Feltried toward the close of the 15th century which led to Jewish money-lenders being banish from Florence.

1896: Herzl's article "Die Lösung der Judenfrage" - "The Solution of the Jewish Question" appears in "The Jewish Chronicle" in London.

1903: In Paris, Herzl discusses the reply to the British government with Nordau, Leopold Greenberg and Alexander Marmorek and to take counsel on subsequent action.

1910: Birthdate of Baron Alain de Rothschild. He was part of the French banking family

1915: During WW I, Alexander Helphand a Ukrainian born Jew who was also known as Israel Lazarevich Gelfand and who had risen to prominence in the Bolshevik movement, approached the German Ambassador in Constantinople. He contended that the Germans and the Bolsheviks should make common cause because they had similar goals, the overthrow of the Czar and the dismemberment of the Russian Empire into smaller entities. This intitial overture would ultimately lead to the Germans shipping Lenin and his supporters back to Russia during the Russian Revolution to ensure that Russia would make a separate peace with the Kaiser.

1916: In an article entitled “Rabbi Silver Will Talk on General Subjects,” The Wheeling Register reports on a series of upcoming Sunday lectures to be delivered at the Eoff Street Temple. "The general subject for the series will be Aspects of American Life. The lectures will touch on topics related to business, home, the stage, politics, school and the press and will be given in Rabbi Silver's characteristic manner."

1917: Birthdate of Alfred Mordecai Freedman, a psychiatrist and social reformer who led the American Psychiatric Association in 1973 when, overturning a century-old policy, it declared that homosexuality was not a mental illness/

1920: Louis Waldman and Charles Solomon were among the five members of the Socialist Party that the New York State Assembly refused to seat as Assemblymen.

1921: Publication of the first edition of the resurrected Yiddish language newspaper Der Emmes (The Truth) published by Yevsektsiya, the Jewish section of the Communist Party. An earlier version of the paper had been published in 1918 in Moscow. The paper would cease publication in 1939 when it fell victim to an anti-Yiddish campaign in the Soviet Union.

1921: A Commission in Jerusalem reports that at present there is no way to secure an appointment of a Hahambashi for Palestine that would satisfy all sections of the community. They recommend the formation of a supreme religious council that will represent both Sephardic and Ashkenazi communities.

1921: Birthdate of Chester Kallman. Kallman was a poet, librettist and translator. From a professional point of view, his greatest claim to fame may rest on his work with Igor Stavinsky. But he may be equally famous for the fact that for thirty-five years he was the companion of poet W.H. Auden with whom he also collaborated professionally. Kallman passed away in 1975.

1922: The partner’s of Edgar Speyer published a letter supporting their business partner and rejected rthe implications of his correspondence with his German relatives, stating that he was "incapable of any act of treachery against the country of his adoption"

1923(19th of Tevet, 5683): Emil Gustav Hirsch “a major Reform movement rabbi in the United States” passed away. Born on May 22, 1852 in Luxembourg, he was “a son of the rabbi and philosopher Samuel Hirsch. He later married the daughter of Rabbi David Einhorn.
For forty-two years (1880-1922), Hirsch served as the rabbi of Chicago Sinai Congregation, one of the oldest synagogues in the midwest. At this post, he became well-known for an emphasis on social justice. From Chicago Sinai's pulpit, he delivered rousing sermons on the social ills of the day and many Chicagoans, Jew and gentile alike, were in attendance. Appointed professor of rabbinical literature and philosophy at the University of Chicago in 1892, Hirsch also served on the Chicago Public Library board from 1885 to 1897. He was an influential exponent of advanced thought and Reform Judaism. He edited Der Zeitgeist (Milwaukee) (1880–82) and the Reform Advocate (1891–1923). He also edited the Department of the Bible of the Jewish Encyclopedia. Hirsch is the namesake of the Emil G. Hirsch Metropolitan High School of Communications (Hirsch Metro), located in the South Shore neighborhood of Chicago. In keeping with his interest in education, Hirsch advised a wealthy congregant, Julius Rosenwald of Sears, Roebuck & Co., to use part of his wealth to help build public schools which black students could attend in the segregated south. The school building program was one of the largest programs, but not the only, administered by the Rosenwald Fund.

1924: George Gershwin completes “Rhapsody in Blue.”

1925: Musical "Big Boy" with Al Jolson premiered in New York City.

1926: George Burns married Gracie Allen. He was Jewish. She wasn’t.

1927: Abe Saperstein’s Harlem Globetrotters play their first game in Hinckley, Illinois.

1927: A memorial service was held for the late Zionist poet Achad Ha’Am at New York’s Cooper Union.

1932: Chaim Arlosoroff, head of the Political Department of the Jewish Agency, wrote a letter to High Commissioner Viscount Ord Plumer proposing that the municipal region of Jerusalem should be divided into two boroughs: West Jerusalem, which was mostly Jewish and the Old City which was largely Arab. A United Municipal Council would oversee these to two sub-entities. The British rejected the proposal lest it anger the Arabs.

1931: Doar Hayom, the newspaper of the Revisionists, published a demand that the election for the Jewish-elected Assembly be declared null and void and that new elections should be held.

1934: The New York Times reported on the recent announcement that 200 Jewish families, drawn from the ranks of jobless needle trade workers in New York, are to be settled in an industrial-agrarian community on a 1,000-acre tract of land bought for the purpose in New Jersey. This move calls attention to the new back-to-the-land movement among the Jews of the United States

1935: Birthdate of Noam Sheriff. He is one of Israel’s most versatile and world renowned musicians. He studied composition and conducting in Tel-Aviv (Paul Ben-Chaim), Berlin (Boris Blacher) and Salzburg (Igor Markevitch) and philosophy at the Jerusalem University. Since the premiere of his work, Festival Prelude, by the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra under Leonard Bernstein at the opening of the Mann Auditorium in Tel-Aviv in 1957, his works are regularly performed in Israel and all over the world. In his music one finds an original solution to the fusion between East and West, between the musical elements of the ancient Mediterranean countries and the musical culture of the West. Among his most significant works are the three vocal big scale works which form a trilogy. Mechaye Hamethim (Revival of the Dead) which was premiered in 1987 in Amsterdam by the IPO and is based on the Jewish East-European traditional music as well as the ancient Jewish oriental themes of the Samaritans. Sephardic Passion which was premiered in 1992 in Toledo, Spain, by the IPO, Zubin Mehta and Placido Domingo is based on the Music of the Sephardic Jewry and Psalms of Jerusalem which was premiered in 1995 in Jerusalem to open the 3000 years celebrations to the City with its four choirs around the hall singing in Hebrew and Latin.His newest vocal work, “Genesis”, was commissioned and premiered by the Israel Philharmonic and Maestro Zubin Mehta at the festive concerts of Israel’s 50th Independence day. His "Mechaye Hamethim" was performed by the IPO under Mehta in a unique concert for Israel's 50th anniversary at “Yad Vashem" Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem. Noam Sheriff conducts regularly his works and other works of the orchestral repertory all over the world. From 1989 until 1995, he was the music director of the Israel Symphony Orchestra Rishon Le-Zion which had, under his leadership, a success unprecedented in Israeli musical history. Since 1963 Noam Sheriff has been teaching composition and conducting. He taught in institutes as the Jerusalem and Tel Aviv Universities as well as the Musikhochschule in Cologne and the Mozarteum in Salzburg. During those years he was directing many music festivals in Israel as well as various television and radio programs. Since 1990 Noam Sheriff has been Professor for composition and conducting at the Tel-Aviv University's Rubin Academy of Music. Since January 2002 he has been the music director of the Israel Chamber Orchestra. The orchestra, under his leadership has won the praise of the critics and audiences in the season 2002-3, his first season as its music director. Since April 2004 he has been nominated as Music Director of the New Haifa Symphony Orchestra. Noam Sheriff is the winner of the prestigious Emet Prize for the year 2003, the highest prize given in Israel for excellence in Sciences and culture.”

1935(3rd of Shevat, 5695): Rabbi Yosef ben Rabbi Menachem Kalisch zt"l, the Amshinover Rebbe, passed away.

1935: Benito Mussolini and French Foreign Minister Pierre Laval sign the Franco–Italian Agreement. The Italians were looking for a free hand in their conquest of Abyssinia (modern day Ethiopia). The French were looking for support in dealing with Hitler. The irony of this is that Pierre Laval would become the Prime Minister of Vichy France a role which enable him to ship thousands of French Jews to Drancy and then on to the death camps in the East. Mussolini, who had support of some Italian Jews and a Jewish mistress, would become Hitler’s ally.

1935: Birthdate of Joe Wizan the head of 20th Century Fox's motion picture division and an independent producer of films such as "Jeremiah Johnson" and "… And Justice for All” (As reported by Dennis McLellan,

1938: The Palestine Post reported that Romania started re-examining the naturalization of all "foreigners" who had settled there since 1913, in order to deprive them of their citizenship. The first victims of the new policy were Jewish doctors who lost their right to practice medicine. Jewish innkeepers were declared to be "dangerous". All Jews were divided into citizens and non-citizens, and the latter became the subject of a compulsory expulsion. A timely British note reminded Romania of her obligations under the Minorities Treaty, signed in Paris in 1910.

1939: Official founding of the Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra.

1940(26th of Tevet, 5700): State Supreme Court Justice Alfred Frankenthaler passed away tonight at the age of 58. Born in 1881, he attended City College, where he developed a life-long friendship with Felix Frankfurter and graduated from Columbia Law School in 1903. Frankenthaler was active in Democratic Party Politics, numerous civic and professional organizations and Jewish charitable activities.

1941: Members of the Woman’s League for Palestine are using tonight performance of “Meet the People,” the new topical, musical revue at the Mansfield Theatre as a benefit for the Overseas Refugee Relief fund. The net proceeds will augment the $25,000 Emergency Refugee Relief Fund for young women refugees sheltered in the two home of the league in Haifa and Tel Aviv.

1942: A major Arctic blast hit the Levant. The thermometer in Alexandria was six degrees below zero, five people were killed because of the snow in Lebanon, Jerusalem suffered damage when buildings in the Old City were cracked from ice buildup, and in Istanbul the city suffered deaths and was stifled with three feet of snow, twelve degrees below zero temperatures and "hungry wolves" in the neighborhood.

1942: Throughout the day at the Chelmno, Poland, death camp, Jewish deportees from nearby villages are systematically gassed in vans; German and Ukrainian workers pull gold teeth and fillings from the corpses' mouths. Germans undertake van gassings of 5000 Gypsies from Lódz, Poland.

1943: British Colonial Secretary Oliver Stanley informs the British War Cabinet that Germany's Eastern European allies have turned to a policy of expulsion of Jews as an alternative to exterminating them. He concludes that this change in policy makes it "all the more necessary" to limit the number of Jewish children accepted into Palestine.

1943: Over the next three weeks, twenty thousand Jews from Germany, Belgium, Holland, and Poland are gassed at Auschwitz.

1944: Word reached those living in New York City that Rabbi Louis Werfel, the 27-year-old chaplain serving with the 12th Air Force Service Command was killed in a plane crash in Algeria on Christmas Eve, 1943. Werfel was the fourth Jewish chaplain be killed in line of duty during World War II. Werfel was known as “the flying rabbi” because of his willingness to use aircraft to reach Jewish soldiers serving in far-flung outposts throughout the Mediterranean Theatre

1948: With Jerusalem under siege, members of the Irgun planted a bomb at the Jaffa Gate in an attempt to get food supplies into the Jewish quarter. The bomb killed fourteen Arabs. Three members of the Irgun were killed by British police in the aftermath of the explosion. Apparently the British were unable to keep the Arabs from trying to starve out the Jews but they were strong enough to kill the Jews where were trying to feed their co-religionists.

1949: During Israel’s War of Independence Operation Horev came to an end.

1949: At two o’clock in the afternoon, Israel accepts a ceasefire on the Egyptian front based on Egypt’s publicly announced willingness to negotiate an armistice. Egypt is left in control of Gaza, but Israel has driven the Egyptians from the Negev.

1949: During the War for Independence Israel shot down 5 British planes that flew over the battlefront with Egypt. The British government was hardly a disinterested party during the war. The Jordanian Army, known as the Arab Legion, drew its leadership from the British Army. The British supplied and trained the force as well. The actions of the RAF at this point, further debunk the notion that the British were neutrals and that the West was responsible for the creation and survival of the infant state of Israel.

1950: The "ten greatest Jews of the last fifty years" were named today by Rabbi Israel Goldstein in a sermon at Congregation B'nai Jeshurun, in New York City.

1951: As it starts its first post-independence tour in the United States, the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra (IPO) has its first performance at Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C.

1953: The eightieth anniversary of American Reform Judaism, founded in Cincinnati by the late Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise "to adapt Judaism to the American way of life," was marked tonight with special ceremonies and a dinner at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. More than 300 American Jewish leaders from various sections of the country attended.

1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that the Knesset debated the proposed State Archives' and Public Accountants' Bills. Israel seized an Egyptian ship with a cargo of 65 tons of arms, bound for Syria. The ship was reported to have run aground in Israel's territorial waters.

1953: President Harry Truman announces that the United States has developed a hydrogen bomb. The bomb had been successfully tested at Eniwetok atoll in 1952. The creation of the H-bomb had pitted Edward Teller against Robert Oppenheimer, the “father of the Atomic Bomb.” The two Jewish physicists became the poles around which the proponents and opponents rallied during this major Cold War debate.

1958: As Israel transitioned from its 7th government to its 8th government, Golda Meir continued to serve as Foreign Minister.

1967(25th of Tevet, 5727): American author and screen writer David Goodis, passed away.

1970: In response to cross canal attacks by Egyptian forces, Israeli planes begin an in-depth bombing campaign against Egyptian military bases.

1971(10th of Tevet, 5731): Asara B'Tevet

1978: The Jerusalem Post reported from Cairo Egyptian President Anwar Sadat's announcement that after the signing of the peace agreement he would not accept the presence of even a single Israeli soldier or civilian who would like to remain on Egyptian soil.

1979: The New York Times book section features the following Walter Kerr’s essay on Anne Frank entitled 'Anne Frank' Shouldn't Be Anne's Play:

I wonder. Is it possible to take the emotional impact out of an otherwise intelligent mounting of "The Diary of Anne Frank" by placing too great an emphasis upon Anne herself? After all, it's Anne's play, isn't it? No. I conclude after an evening spent at Off Broadway's Theater Four, it isn't Anne's play, or shouldn't be. The 10-scene structure that Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett so carefully, so persuasively, constructed out of the unfinished memoir left by a Jewish girl in a Dutch loft has another sort of focus. Its emphasis is not really upon the teen-ager who was recording the currents-- and sometimes the savage cross-currents--of life in a crowded garret, but on the itch and the urge of life itself, the contest for food and space and cigarettes, the snarl in passing and the sweet voice faltering over the opening notes of a song at Hannukah. The shared life of eight ordinary human beings living in hiding and in fear, yet living as greedily and as generously as all people must, is the true substance of the harrowing, funny, altogether honest narrative. Anne is not its ringmaster. She is its observer. Which means that she is as much outside as inside events, and it becomes our task--in a way--to find her. Not "find" in a literal sense, of course. She's too irrepressible a 13-year-old (in the earlier scenes) for that. As Roberta Wallach plays her at Theater Four, the clown in the girl is bumptious as can be: bouncing about in the peaked cap and oversized coat of a boy she hasn't learned to love yet, pacing in lockstep behind a fellow-lodger for the sheer love of badgering him, blowing out her cheeks like a fussed walrus when crossed. This is pestiferous Anne, the girl who could casually jot down a note to say that "mother is unbearable, otherwise things are getting better." If she is very much in evidence, she is in evidence as gadfly, often swatted away. And if we are quickly touched by this girl, who is by no means in control of her burgeoning energies, it is precisely because we know that so much imaginative vitality is to be wantonly destroyed. Yet the emotional grip that asserts itself early (as two families make "rooms" for themselves beneath dirty skylights and cracked plaster) does not, in this revival, grow firmer. Why doesn't it? Why am I not more moved? I kept asking myself as I sat admiring the work of Eli Wallach and Anne Jackson (the child's parents both onstage and in what is called real life) and four or five others. Why, above all, wasn't I becoming more deeply involved with Anne herself? While I struggled for an answer, it occurred to me that this Anne was too patently, too consistently, the resolute center of our attention, sole claimant of our real concern. Instead of being permitted to discover her for ourselves as she slipped in and out and through the maze of conflicting fears, appetites, resentments and kindness of those about her, we were having the girl thrust at us, pressed front and center, urged to command our almost undivided attention. I don't know how or why this should have come about. Certainly Miss Jackson and Mr. Wallach do nothing in performance to press their accomplished fledgling upon us. The normally brilliant Miss Jackson is so self-effacing that her role seems to become skimpy. Mr. Wallach, here at his very best, attends most conscientiously to his own business, making vital decisions for the group with a deceptively soft intelligence, jocularly urging the teen-age boy not to grow any more lest he outstrip the bed allotted him, forever improvising a cheerfulness that will cement a not entirely congenial group together. Conceivably director Martin Fried has seen Anne as the play's absolute spine, carrying over the directness the girl must display when she is alone in a shaft of light reading transitions from her diary into all of her subsequent scenes (she seems always to be addressing us, rarely the older and more authoritative figures who scold, school and sometimes pamper her). When a vigorous command is actually called for--her impatient "Mother, I have some intuitions" or her defiance of a dentist who is intruding upon her private world--she handles that very well; she is even better reading a diary passage on the exhilarating changes that are taking place in her growing body. Still, we are so constantly with her, confronted with her large dark eyes, that we become restive under the insistence and begin looking to see what the others in the next room may be doing. It is also conceivable that Miss Wallach is a bit mature for the role; it's not that she can't be tomboy-playful, it's a matter of inflections. Her line-readings tend to be adult readings, firm, fully phrased, without hesitation, in charge of all situations. And perhaps that's not the way to heartbreak. Would something less accented and more elusive do the job? I thank we are always more touched by what we are allowed to deduce for ourselves. It's difficult to fault an evening so carefully put together--Karl Eigsti's moldy setting has a fine, foreboding chill about it--but the odd and cumulative detachment we come to feel needs accounting for. The materials should be irresistibly affecting; instead, they are merely interesting. A word should be added, though, for Robert Joy's work as the lad who begins by detesting Anne and ends by offering her a most awkward kiss. Mr. Joy's shy sobriety, his furious denial that he has been caught blushing, his curious ability to make the tip of his nose seem to turn frost-bitten red in the cold of a gale-swept New Year are all delightful. A fourth member of the talented Wallach family, Katherine, has been the very small role of Anne's older sister (she is actually younger); she handles it with a supple dignity and--when she is reading the message that comes with a homemade Christmas gift--modest charm.

1984: Birthdate of Ran Danker an Israeli actor, singer, and model who “is the son of Israeli actor Eli Danker. He has sung such songs as "אני אש" ("I am Fire"). He has also starred in the hit Israeli series HaShir Shelanu.”

1990: In article entitled “The Russians Are Coming In Droves,” Barrymore L. Scherer described the “torrent of music that has pouring our way” in a variety of recordings including a live recording Shostakovich's weirdly disturbing Violin Concerto No. 1 (coupled with the Glazunov Concerto), both performed at Tel Aviv's Mann Auditorium in July 1988 by Itzhak Perlman with the Israel Philharmonic under Zubin Mehta (EMI CDC 49814; CD and cassette).

1993: Showing some flexibility in the crisis over 415 deported Palestinians, Israel agreed today to allow two Red Cross officials, including a doctor, to visit the exiles at their tent camp in southern Lebanon.

1995(6th of Sh'vat, 5755): Harry Golombek passed away. Born in 1911, Harry Golombek, was a British chess player and honorary grandmaster.

1995(6th of Sh'vat, 5755): Economist Murray Newton Rothabard passed away at the age of 69. Born in 1926 and educated at Columbia. Rothbard was the co-founder of the Cato Institute.
1996: Debbie Friedman gave a sold out concert at Carnegie Hall, commemorating twenty-five years as one of the world's most well-known contemporary Jewish musicians. “Known for her folksy and "singer-friendly" style, Friedman has recorded twenty albums that have sold over 200,000 copies. Friedman began recording on her own label in 1972, appealing largely to Reform Jews and those interested in Jewish Renewal. Now, her music is sung in synagogues across the United States and has become so widespread that, in many places, it is thought of as "traditional." Since its release in 1993, her "Mi Sheberach" prayer has become the fastest adopted liturgical melody in both the Reform and Conservative movements. The 1999 release of Friedman's first English-language album, "It's You," marked the singer/songwriter's first effort to reach a broader, not-necessarily-Jewish audience. That same year, Hallmark began releasing a series of Jewish holiday cards featuring Friedman's lyrics. A committed Jewish feminist, Friedman also composed all the music for the tremendously popular Maayan Women's Seder. She is famous for her inspiring live concerts, performing and teaching in communities, synagogues, schools and Federations throughout Europe, Israel, Canada, and the U.S.”
2001 (12th of Tevet, 5761): Rabbi Yitzchok Singer, whose leadership of the historic Bialystoker Synagogue on the Lower East Side of Manhattan helped it thrive despite four decades of community change, passed away today at Beth Israel Medical Center. He was 72. He died of a heart attack, a spokesman for the synagogue said. Membership of the congregation now stands at 400, but the synagogue also draws many worshipers who work on Wall Street and elsewhere downtown and who want to pray during the workday. While other Orthodox synagogues of the Lower East Side closed as their members moved to Brooklyn or the suburbs, the Bialystoker Synagogue grew as the newly fashionable neighborhood's Orthodox community also rebounded. Rabbi Singer ''was significantly responsible in bringing about its renaissance,'' said Sheldon Silver, the speaker of the New York State Assembly, in a telephone interview from Tel Aviv yesterday. ''Surprisingly, in his later years, his synagogue was the one where many young people moving into the neighborhood became affiliated,'' said Mr. Silver, a vice president of the synagogue and a lifelong member whose bar mitzvah was held there. Mr. Silver invited Rabbi Singer to deliver the invocation in the State Legislature when he was elected speaker in 1994. Known as a eloquent orator, Torah scholar and philanthropist, Rabbi Singer was a rarity in Orthodox Jewry: a magnet for those from across the spectrum of Orthodox practice from modern to Hasidic. ''Though in practice and ritual, he and the synagogue followed all the tenets of Orthodoxy, he welcomed everyone from the ultrareligious to those who were not at all observant and made them feel they belonged,'' said Norman Dawidowicz, a past president of the congregation, founded in 1878 by immigrants from the Polish city of Bialystok. Heir to a rabbinic tradition, Rabbi Singer was born in Newark in 1928. Two years after his ordination at the Yeshiva Torah Vodaath in Brooklyn, he assumed the pulpit that had been held by his late father, Rabbi Eliahu Singer, at the Austreich Ungarisher Shul in Newark. He was also spiritual leader of the Garden Street Synagogue in Hartford from 1956 to 1960. He married Bluma Halperin, the daughter of a Hasidic leader and a direct descendant of the Baal Shem Tov, the 18th-century founder of Hasidism. She survives him, as do five sons, Boruch Singer, Yosef Singer and Yisroel Singer of Manhattan, Rabbi Eli Hersh Singer of Brooklyn, and Nussie Singer of Queens; two brothers, Yosef Singer of Englewood, N.J., and Jack Singer of Brooklyn; and 12 grandchildren. In 1960, Rabbi Yitzchok Singer moved to New York, where he became leader of the Bialystoker Synagogue, an anchor for Jewish life on the Lower East Side. The synagogue is believed to be the only one in the city that has four services every morning, starting at 6 a.m. for people who are in their offices at 7 a.m. Rabbi Singer raised funds for institutions, schools, yeshivas and hospitals, and sometimes helped strangers who walked in off the street. He was a hospital chaplain at New York University Medical Center, and at his death was president of the United Jewish Council of the Lower East Side and chairman of the Lower East Side Board of Rabbis. ''He was constantly concerned about the future,'' Mr. Davidowicz said. ''Two months ago, he convened a meeting of the executive committee to plan changes in light of changes in the community. After all, the neighborhood has gone from the cradle of immigrant life to the area with the highest per capita ratio of nightclubs in Manhattan. ''He saw that as an opportunity to reach out to a whole group of Jews he had never reached before, including the very young and the unaffiliated.''

2001: Giving its stalled Middle Eastern peace effort one final push, the Clinton administration said today that it would send its top negotiator to the region this week for direct talks with Israeli and Palestinian leaders. Dennis Ross, the State Department's envoy to the Middle East, will try to lay the groundwork for what Israeli and Palestinian officials describe as anything from a joint declaration of general principles for making peace to an ambitious framework accord for a final settlement to the half-century-old conflict.

2001: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The End of Days: Fundamentalism and the Struggle for the Temple Mount by Gershom Gorenberg, To Redeem One Person is to Redeem the World:The Life of Frieda Fromm-Reichmann by Gail A. Hornstein and Future Success by Robert B. Reich.

2001: Among the 28 recipients of the Presidential Citizens Medals were:
Jack Greenberg
In the courtroom and the classroom, Jack Greenberg has been a crusader for freedom and equality for more than half a century. Arguing 40 civil rights cases before the United States Supreme Court, including the historic Brown v. Board of Education, he helped break down the legal underpinnings of desegregation in America, and as a professor of law, an advocate for international human rights, and head of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, he has helped shape a more just society.
Anthony Lewis
Revered by colleagues and readers alike for his Pulitzer prize-winning reporting, profound insight, and broad understanding of constitutional law, Anthony Lewis has set the highest standard of journalistic ethics and excellence. A staunch defender of freedom of speech, individual rights, and the rule of law, he has been a clear and courageous voice for democracy and justice.
Robert Rubin
Leaving a brilliant career on Wall Street to serve as Director of the National Economic Council and Secretary of the Treasury, Robert Rubin played a pivotal role in creating America's longest economic expansion. He forged a new team approach that produced an economic framework based on fiscal discipline, investment in opportunity, and expanded trade, while exhibiting exceptional leadership in ensuring global financial stability. His efforts helped countless Americans share in an era of unprecedented prosperity.
Elizabeth Taylor
A screen legend, Elizabeth Taylor has captured the hearts of audiences around the world, portraying some of the most memorable characters in film history. A dedicated leader in the fight against AIDS, she has focused national attention on this devastating disease. With grace, style, and compassion, she has reminded us of our responsibility to reach out to those in need.
Marion Wiesel
Convinced that our greatest hope for a just society is to teach tolerance and mutual respect, Marion Wiesel has worked with creativity and compassion to combat hatred and injustice. Whether writing a haunting documentary about the children of the Holocaust, translating her husband’s work, or helping young Ethiopians in Israel to thrive and succeed in a new land, she is replacing despair with dignity and overcoming ignorance with understanding
Rabbi Arthur Schneier
A Holocaust survivor, Rabbi Arthur Schneier has devoted a lifetime to overcoming the forces of hatred and intolerance. As an international envoy, Chairman of the Commission for the Preservation of America's Heritage Abroad, and founder and president of the Appeal of Conscience Foundation, he has set an inspiring example of spiritual leadership by encouraging interfaith dialogue and intercultural understanding and promoting the cause of religious freedom around the world.
Eli J. Segal
As founder of AmeriCorps and the first Chief Executive Officer of the Corporation for National and Community Service, Eli Segal has galvanized the American spirit of community and helped us realize the dream of a vital civilian service corps. As President and Chief Executive Officer of the Welfare-to-Work Partnership, he has brought businesses and communities together to create opportunity for welfare recipients, enabling them to experience the power, dignity, and independence of work. Juan Andrade, Jr.

2002(23rd of Tevet, 5762): Actor and comedian Avery Schreiber passed away. Born in 1935 he was half of the comedy team of Burns and Schreiber.

2002: The captain of a ship seized last week by Israel as it smuggled tons of weapons said in jail-house interviews today that he had taken his orders from a weapons agent of Yasir Arafat's Palestinian Authority and that his deadly cargo was meant to arm Palestinians. The Israeli government contends that Mr. Arafat himself was behind the smuggling mission. The captain, Omar Akawi, said that as he sailed north toward the Suez Canal, he was in regular radio contact with Adel Awadallah, who he knew was working for the Palestinian Authority. A senior Israeli military official said tonight that the name was an alias for Adel Mughrabi, a weapons buyer for the Palestinian body.

2003: Rabbi Arnold Resnicoff delivered the benediction for the Bipartisan Congressional Prayer Service that welcomed the members of the 108th congress before the ceremony to swear them in.

2003: Israeli soldiers killed three Palestinian gunmen today in a raid on a Gaza Strip refugee camp. A spokesman for the Israeli Army said soldiers shot the Palestinians during an operation aimed at rooting out weapons factories in Al Muazi refugee camp. The spokesman said the soldiers fired only after they had been fired on.

2004: Israeli and Libyan officials held a secret meeting in December and discussed the possibility of ties between the longstanding enemies, Israeli officials said today. The officials cautioned that the contacts were tentative and played down the chances of any formal relationship. According to the official Libyan news agency, JANA, The Associated Press reported, the Libyan Foreign Ministry denied that any meeting had taken place. Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, the Libyan leader, is trying to end his nation's diplomatic isolation. Last month, he announced that Libya would abandon plans to build unconventional weapons, and he permitted international inspectors into weapons sites. The Israeli-Libyan contacts were widely reported in the Israeli news media today, and some Israeli officials expressed concern that the leaks and publicity would kill any chance for diplomacy.

2007: The Washington Post Sunday book section featured a review of Freud: Inventor of the Modern Mind by Peter D. Kramer.

2007: The Sunday Times (of London) reported that “Israel has drawn up secret plans to destroy Iran’s uranium enrichment facilities with tactical nuclear weapons. Two Israeli air force squadrons are training to blow up an Iranian facility using low-yield nuclear “bunker-busters”, according to several Israeli military sources. The attack would be the first with nuclear weapons since 1945, when the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Israeli weapons would each have a force equivalent to one-fifteenth of the Hiroshima bomb.”

2007: Under the title “Operation Screwball” about 350 Jews staged a noisy protest against Neturei Karta an anti-Israel religious group whose members - among them a Monsey rabbi - attended an Iranian conference that questioned the Holocaust.

2007: Two rabbis, two rabbinic pastors and one cantor were ordained by the Jewish Renewal Movement at the annual Ohalah convention in Boulder, Colorado.

2008: Sidney Blumenthal a former aide to President of the United States Bill Clinton and an advisor to Hillary Clinton during her Presidential campaign was arrested for driving while intoxicated in Nashua, New Hampshire. Later, he would plead guilty to a charge of misdemeanor DWI.

2008: In New York, The 92nd Street Y presents “Protection from Terrorism: What America Can Learn from Israel,” a lecture by Leonard Cole and Irwin Redlener, part of the Y’s Israel at 60 celebration.

2008: In Brooklyn tens of thousands of mourners turned out for the funeral of Rabbi Shmuel Berenbaum the 87 year old head of the Mir Yehsiva who had passed away the day before. Berenbaum's body was to be flown to Israel for burial in Jerusalem.

2009: At the Wise Auditorium on the campus of Hebrew University, The Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance presents the latest in a series of concerts titled “The Titan,” that honors Ludwig van Beethoven with a series aptly titled, The Titan. Five concerts in The Titan series have already taken place with all proving to be an immense success, filling the Academy's 550 seats. The series takes its name from a comment by Wagner who proclaimed that of intensity of Beethoven’s compositions reminded him of "Titan, wrestling with the gods."

2009: In Cedar Rapids, Iowa, members of Temple Judah meet to form an Israel Advocacy Task Force.

2009: Israel suspended fighting today for three hours to permit humanitarian relief goods to reach civilians living at Gaza while Hamas declared that the group would not talk about a cease fire so long as Israel continued its “occupation.” In the Hamas lexicon, “occupation” is synonymous with the existence of the state of Israel.

2009: As the Madoff Scandal widens in scope, The New York Times reported that Sonja Kohn , leaving the firm she founded, Bank Medici, in the hands of Austrian regulators, who took it over last week. Embarrassment from investing heavily with Mr. Madoff could explain wanting to disappear from public view. But another theory widely repeated by those who know Mrs. Kohn is that she may be afraid of some particularly displeased investors: Russian oligarchs whose money made up a chunk of the $2.1 billion that Bank Medici invested with Mr. Madoff. It is a stunning reversal for the 60-year-old Mrs. Kohn. The daughter of Jewish refugees from Eastern Europe who moved to Vienna after World War II, Mrs. Kohn came to New York in the 1980s and was one of the rare women to found and head a small brokerage firm. At that time, she started a decades-long friendship with Mr. Madoff. Once known here as “Austria’s woman on Wall Street,” she became one of Mr. Madoff’s international conduits for securing billions of dollars from the global rich. With her husband, Erwin, a former banker, Mrs. Kohn was able to draw interest from wealthy Russians, Ukrainians and Israelis. And though she migrated from a more traditional Jewish background to ultra-Orthodox practice — which is why she covered her hair with the wig — Mrs. Kohn and her husband even managed to secure meetings with deep-pocketed Arab investors.“He was the door opener, she was the go-getter,” said the Viennese acquaintance of the Kohns who insisted on anonymity because of the publicity surrounding the Madoff case, both in Europe and the United States. “

2010 (21 Tevet, 5770): The Israeli Government marks today a National Hebrew Day in honor of the 152nd birthday of Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, the father of modern Hebrew.

2010: At the 14th Street Y opening night of “Laba’s Guests." LABA is the National Laboratory for New Jewish Culture, an innovative arts and culture initiative of the 14th Street Y. LABA’s Guests will feature a group of distinguished artists exhibiting pieces in different visual mediums. Artists included in the exhibition include Tirtzah Bassel, Aimee Burg, Maria Cabo, Lourdes Correa, Keren Cytter, Karni Dorell, Tamar Ettun, Hadassa Goldvicht, Leor Grady, Tamar Hirschl, Itamar Jobani, Shay Kun, Yael Rechter, Yaniv Segalovich and Rona Yefman. The exhibition is curated by Tzili Charney.

2010: At least 10 mortar shells fired from the Gaza Strip hit southern Israel. The attack this morning caused no damage or injuries. Six shells landed in the northwestern Negev, three near the Kerem Shalom crossing and one landed in Gaza, according to Haaretz. The Popular Resistance Committees claimed responsibility, reportedly saying it was in revenge for the killing of two of its members Tuesday as they prepared to fire rockets on Israel from Gaza. The attacks came a day after the head of the Israeli army's Southern Command, Maj.-Gen. Yoav Galant, warned Negev residents during a tour of the area with the leaders of several regional councils that the quiet in Israel's South along the Gaza border may be temporary. Following today’s attacks, Israel's Air Force reportedly dropped thousands of leaflets in Gaza warning residents to remain further than about 1,000 feet from the Gaza-Israel border fence and not to cooperate with terrorists. Other leaflets included a phone number and e-mail address for Palestinians to report on those building illegal smuggling tunnels. "The terror elements are a regular target for the Israel Defense Forces and they continue to operate nearby in order to take shelter among you," one of the leaflets read, according to Ynet. "The digging of tunnels from inside and nearby your homes and the smuggling of weapons endanger your lives and property. Don’t sit idly in light of your abuse by those terroristic elements, because they will not stand by you when your property is damaged. Take responsibility for your future." The IDF last blanketed Gaza with leaflets in May. The army told Ynet that the operation had been planned and had nothing to do with today's mortar attacks.

2010: A breakthrough in the research of the Hebrew scriptures has shed new light on the period in which the Bible was written, testifying to Hebrew writing abilities as early as the 10th century BCE, the University of Haifa announced today. Prof. Gershon Galil of the Department of Biblical Studies at the University of Haifa recently deciphered an inscription dating from the 10th century BCE, and showed that it was a Hebrew inscription, making it the earliest known Hebrew writing. The significance of this breakthrough relates to the fact that at least some of the biblical scriptures were composed hundreds of years before the dates presented today in research and that the Kingdom of Israel already existed at that time. The inscription itself, which was written in ink on a 15 cm X 16.5 cm trapezoid pottery shard, was discovered a year and a half ago at excavations that were carried out by Prof. Yosef Garfinkel at Khirbet Qeiyafa near the Elah valley. The inscription was dated back to the 10th century BCE, which was the period of King David's reign, but the question of the language used in this inscription remained unanswered, making it impossible to prove whether it was in fact Hebrew or another local language. Prof. Galil's deciphering of the ancient writing testifies to its being Hebrew, based on the use of verbs particular to the Hebrew language, and content specific to Hebrew culture and not adopted by any other cultures in the region. "This text is a social statement, relating to slaves, widows and orphans. It uses verbs that were characteristic of Hebrew, such as asah ("did") and avad ("worked"), which were rarely used in other regional languages. Particular words that appear in the text, such as almanah ("widow") are specific to Hebrew and are written differently in other local languages," Prof. Galil explained.
The deciphered text:
1' you shall not do [it], but worship the [Lord].
2' Judge the sla[ve] and the wid[ow] / Judge the orph[an]
3' [and] the stranger. [Pl]ead for the infant / plead for the po[or and]
4' the widow. Rehabilitate [the poor] at the hands of the king.
5' Protect the po[or and] the slave / [supp]ort the stranger.
Once this deciphering is received, Prof. Galil added, the inscription will become the earliest Hebrew inscription to be found, testifying to Hebrew writing abilities as early as the 10th century BCE. This stands opposed to the dating of the composition of the Bible in current research, which would not have recognized the possibility that the Bible or parts of it could have been written during this ancient period.

2011: Gold Medals are scheduled to be given to Israeli illustrators Asaf Hanuka and Koren Shadmi at The first of the three-part “Annual Exhibition: Illustrators 53,” the Sequential/Series and Uncommissioned Exhibit features works by leading contemporary illustrators worldwide.

2011: Rabbi Shira Stutman and musician Sheldon Low are scheduled to host 6th in The City Shabbat at the Historic 6th & I Synagogue in Washington, DC.

2011: The first Musical Shabbat of 2011 is scheduled to take place at Temple Judah in Cedar Rapids, IA.

2011(2nd of Sh’vat, 5771): Israel Defense Forces soldier Sgt. Nadav Rotenberg, 20, was killed today and four were wounded in a violent encounter with Palestinian militants near the border between Israel and Gaza. The wounded soldiers were treated on the spot and then evacuated by helicopter to Soroka Hospital in Be'er Sheva. An IDF paratroopers patrol noticed a group of people armed and approaching the barrier separating Gaza from Israel, under cover or darkness and fog this evening, close to the Kibbutz Be'eri, according to the IDF. It is presumed that the armed group was planning to lay explosives at the foot of the barrier. IDF soldiers were taken by surprise and four of them were wounded, one of them mortally. The soldiers shot in the direction of the shooters, but it has not yet been ascertained whether the militants were hit by the IDF fire. The family of Rotenberg, 20, of Moshav Ramot Hashavim was informed of his death. One of the soldiers was seriously wounded. The other three soldiers were lightly wounded. A preliminary IDF investigation concluded that friendly-fire was responsible for the death of Sgt. Rotenberg and for the wounding of the other IDF soldiers. The IDF had apparently launched the mortars at the militants who were observed on the border, but for some unknown reason one of the mortars strayed and struck the soldiers.

2011: Israel’s departing intelligence chief said he believes Iran will not be able to build a nuclear weapon before 2015 at the earliest, Israeli news media reported today, in a revised and surprisingly upbeat assessment of Tehran’s nuclear capabilities. The new assessment could reduce international fears of a confrontation over Iran’s nuclear program, at least temporarily. Israel has warned that it might launch airstrikes on Iran’s nuclear enrichment sites, and many fear that Tehran’s retaliation could set off a regional war. The assessment, which pushed back other Israeli estimates by a year or more, was based on the obstacles Iran has faced, including technical difficulties and covert action against its nuclear program by intelligence agencies, the Israeli news reports said. Iran has long maintained that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes, but Israeli, American and European officials believe it is intended to produce nuclear weapons. Last year, the United Nations, the United States and the European Union approved a tough new round of economic sanctions on Iran after diplomatic efforts to contain Iran’s nuclear program failed. Two of Israel’s major newspapers, Yediot Aharonot and Maariv, gave prominent coverage to the retirement of the intelligence chief, Meir Dagan, in their Friday editions, highlighting his achievements on the Iranian front after eight years as director of Mossad, Israel’s intelligence service. Iran’s nuclear program is believed to have suffered numerous setbacks recently, but any Israeli role in those problems is not publicly known. One of Iran’s top nuclear scientists was killed and another wounded in late November when assailants on motorcycles attached bombs to the sides of their cars in Tehran. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad accused Western governments and Israel of being behind the attacks.
Part of the Iranian nuclear program was said to have been corrupted by the Stuxnet computer worm, a damaging computer program believed to have been created by a foreign government. The United States also has a covert program to undermine Iran’s nuclear program. Israeli predictions for Iran’s ability to make a nuclear bomb, which Israel considers an existential threat, have gradually lengthened in recent years. In the early 2000s, Israeli intelligence branches spoke of Iran’s making a bomb before the end of the decade. As recently as 2009, Israel’s defense minister, Ehud Barak, said he thought Iran could do it by 2011. Last month, Moshe Yaalon, Israel’s minister of strategic affairs, said he believed Iran was at least three years away from a nuclear bomb. About a year ago, Mr. Dagan told a parliamentary committee that Iran would not have the ability to fire a nuclear missile until 2014, Yediot Aharonot reported. He is said to have based his latest estimate on an assumption that no further preventive actions are taken. Top American military officials said last April that Iran could produce bomb-grade fuel for at least one nuclear weapon within a year, but would most likely need two to five years to manufacture a workable atomic bomb.

2012 The National Laboratory for New Jewish Culture at the 14th Street Y is scheduled to present the premiere of the musical theater adaptation of the famous Israeli children's book "Hanna's Shabbat Dress," by Itzchak Damiel.

2012: The Impossible Spy is scheduled to be shown at Congregation Kerem Shalom in Concord, MA

2012: Shlomi Koriat is scheduled to perform at the Jerusalem Theatre where he will give a stand-up performance in which he tells about his childhood, his Moroccan family, coming to the big city, marriage, and more.

2012: The Traditional Shabbat Minyan at Temple Judah in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, is scheduled to begin its twelfth consecutive year.

2012(12 of Tevet, 5772): Jews all over the world complete Bereshit – Chazak, Chazak,

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