JUNE 14 In Jewish History
1287: Kublai Khan defeated the force of Nayan and
other traditionalist Borjigin princes in East Mongolia and Manchuria. It is quite possible that there were Jewish
soldiers serving under the great Mongol warrior who became Emperor of
China. According to Marco Polo, Kubla
Kahn celebrated the festivals of the Jews as well as those of the Muslims and
Christians, indicating that a Jewish community existed that could make itself
felt at the highest level of the Empire.
1514:
Azemmour, a city in Morocco, offered privileges to Jews fleeing from Portugal.
1656:
Directors of the Dutch West India Company sent a strong letter to Peter
Stuyvesant in New Amsterdam ordering him to
give "more respect" to the "Jews or Portuguese people" in
his city. A principle shareholder in the company, a Jew named Joseph d'Acosta
had assisted in obtaining this statement.
1796: French forces attacked Frankfurt . An artillery barrage aimed at the Austrian
arsenal next to the ghetto struck the Judengasse instead. The subsequent fired burned so much of the
ghetto that 2,000 of its inhabitants were left homeless. This forced the city’s senate to suspend the
decree forbidding Jews from living elsewhere in the city. The fire effectively marked the end of the
Jewish Ghetto in Frankfurt .
1798(30th
of Sivan, 5558): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz
1799(11th
of Sivan, 5569): The avoidance of massacre when the French forces withdrew gave
rise to the annual observance of Purim Ubrino
1821(14th
of Sivan, 5581): Chaim
Volozhin (Chaim ben Yitzchok of Volozhin), author of Nefesh Ha-Chaim
passed away. Born in 1749, he studied
with the Vilna Gaon before establishing the Volozhin Yeshiva in 1803 in which
he applied the methods of his famous master.
The Yesshiva outlived its creator, remaining open for 90 years.
1868:
Birthdate of Karl Landsteiner, the Austrian born American physician who received
the Nobel Prize for Medicine for his work on differentiating the blood groups
in 1930.
1874:
“The Mystery of Metz: An Old Cause Célèbre” an article published today
described the blood libel which took place at that ancient German city in
1669. According to the author, who
described the event in great detail, this was an example of another groundless
attack that Jews had to suffer during the Middle Ages.
1880: Mortiz Hartman, an official of the Simon Benevolent Association went to the morgue in New York and asked for the body of a young Jewess named Kate Ungerleider who had died of whooping cough. Hartman and Louis Davis took the body of the child that had been given to them and brought it to the Bay Ridge Cemetery where they turned it over to the wife of the cemetery caretaker so that she could wash it and prepare it for burial according to Jewish law. The woman took the body into her house and immediately came back out telling the men that the body was that of a Christian boy. They interred the remains in a temporary grave and returned to the morgue in search of Kate’s body. When no action was taken, Hartman went to the Commissioner of Charities and Corrections who instituted a successful search for the body. This was the third known instances of such errors in the last six weeks. The officials returned to the Bay Ridge Cemetery and interred it there in accordance with Jewish law.
1880(5th
of Tammuz, 5640) A 32 year old tailor named Maurice Moses Heineltrop took his
own life today after Seligman & May refused to pay him for a batch of
waistcoats he had made for them.
Heineltrop’s sense of desperation stemmed from the fact that he employed
16 men and he would not be able to pay them for their work.
1880:
It was reported today that Professor Grazidadio Ascoli,the chairman of comparative philology at the Accademia
Scientifico-Litteraria of Milan is scheduled “to publish his essay on the
Hebrew inscriptions at Venosa, in Calabria.
These seem to be the earliest Hebrew inscriptions found in Europe…”
[This may be reference to the inscriptions in Hebrew, Greek and Latin found in
Jewish catacombs that date from the 4th and 5th centuries
of the Common Era.
1881:
Based on a Reuter’s dispatch from St. Petersburg, it was reported today that
peasants living in a village in the district of Kiev have paid 800 rubles to
the Jews as compensation “for the sufferings they have undergone.
1882: In New Orleans, Miss Jessie Green and Isaac Feitel. Born an Episcopalian, she converted before her marriage. The couple had previously been married in a civil ceremony. Today’s wedding was performed by a local rabbi.
1884: It was reported today that a half shekel coin from the time of Simon Maccabeus was sold for $10.25 at an auction conducted this week to dispose of rare coins held by Thomas Warner, a member of the American Numismatic Society. The price compares favorably when you consider that the rarest coin in the collection sold for 25 dollars. The half shekel had a chalice of manna with a Hebrew inscription on one side and a render of a triple lily or Aaron’s Rod on the other side.
1885(1st
of Tammuz, 5645): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz
1885:
In a demonstration of the impact of Jewish culture on Western civilization Dr.
A.P. Peabody chose the words from Nehemiah “Then I consulted with myself” as
the text for the Baccalaureate sermon at Harvard. “He could not, he said think of any more
appropriate basis for his remarks than these words of the foremost figure in
Hebrew history from the time of Moses to the time of Christ.” [Yes, at Harvard, Jesus was apparently
considered to be Jewish]
1888:
James H. Hoffman and H.M. Leipziger addressed the more than four hundred
attendees at the fourth annual exhibition sponsored by the Hebrew Technical
Institute located on Stuyvesant Street.
The exhibition gave the supporters of the school a chance to examine the
projects and accomplishments of the 78 youngsters attending the school.
1897:
When the British steamship Scot arrived at the Island of Madeira off the
west coast of Morocco, it was announced that Barney Barnato, the South African
“diamond king” had committed suicide by jumping overboard.
1900:
Hawaii was organized as a territory of the United States. There were
approximately four hundred Jews living in Honolulu Hawaii Honolulu
1901(27th
of Sivan, 5661): Frederick Knefler passed away. A native of Hungary, Knefler
settled in Indiana where he worked as a carpenter before becoming a
lawyer. When the Civil War broke out,
Knefler enlisted in the 11th Indiana Infantry under the command of
his friend Lew Wallace. He served with the Union Army in the west fighting in a
series of battles including Stones River, Chickamauga, and Missionary Ridge. He then played a leading role in Sherman’s
Atlanta Campaign where he commanded a brigade.
His finest moment may have come at the Battle of Franklin where is
bravery earned him the rank of Brevet Brigadier General making him one of the
highest ranking Jewish officers to serve during the war. After the war, he
returned to Indianapolis where he practiced law, worked for the government and
devoted his spare time to veterans’ affairs.
1903:
Macedonians attacked the Jewish quarter of Sophia, Bulgaria.
1904(1st
of Tammuz, 5664): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz
1904:
Birthdate of Margaret Bourke-White, whose father was from an Orthodox Jewish
family and whose mother was Irish. For
those who grew up in a world of hand-held video cams, satellite communications
and cable network news, it is hard to appreciate the important role played
photographers and photo-journalists like Bourke-White. Her photos filled the pages of such
publications as Life Magazine, which
brought the world of natural disasters, war and high fashion to Middle America
1905:
Sailors aboard the Russian Warship Potemkin mutiny. These events will provide the material for Battleship Potyomkin, a 1925
silent film classic directed by Sergei Eisenstein
1906:
Start of three days of anti-Jewish violence known as the Bialystok Pogrom. The
violence began when “two Christian processions took place; a Catholic one
through the market square celebrating Corpus Christi and an Orthodox one
through Białystok’s New Town celebrating the founding of a cathedral. The
Orthodox procession was followed by a unit of soldiers. A bomb was thrown at
the Catholic procession and shots were fired at the Orthodox procession. A
watchman of a local school, Stanislaw Milyusski, and three women Anna Demidyuk,
Aleksandra Minkovskaya and Maria Kommisaryuk, were wounded. These incidents
constituted signals for the beginning of the pogrom. Witnesses reported that
simultaneously with the shots someone shouted “Beat the Jews!” Once the shots
were fired, the violence began immediately. Mobs of thugs, including members of
the Black Hundreds, began looting Jewish owned stores and apartments on
Nova-Linsk Street. Policemen and soldiers who had earlier followed the Orthodox
procession either allowed the violence to happen or participated in it
themselves. The first day of the pogrom was chaotic. While units of the Czarist
army, brought to Białystok by Russian authorities, exchanged fire with Jewish
paramilitary groups, thugs armed with knives and crowbars dispersed throughout
the main areas of the city to continue the pogrom.[10] Some Jewish sections of
the city were protected by self-defense units, usually organized by the labor
parties, which moved against the thugs and looters. They were in turn fired
upon by Czarist dragoons. Thanks to the Jewish self-defense units several
working class sections of the city were spared the violence and thousands of
lives were saved.”
1907:
Jacob Weinberger married Blanche Solomon.
Blanche was the daughter of I.E. and Anna Solomon one of the earliest
and most successful Jewish families to settle in the Arizona Territory
1909:
The Order of Brith Abraham held its Golden Jubilee dinner at the New Star
Casino in New York. The dinner was
attended by 2,000 guests including several notables the most important of which
was the District Attorney Jerome who was the featured speaker for the evening.
1909:
Rabbi Judah Magnes addressed the Zionist convention being held at the Terrace
Garden. Pointing to the changes that had come about in the Ottoman Empire due
to the recent Turkish revolution Magnes urged the Jews to “work for an
autonomous state under Turkish suzerainty rather than an independent
government.”
1912:
Educator and advocate for social change, Julia Richman arrives in France
1919: Birthdate of Gene Barry. Born Eugene
Klass in Brooklyn, New York, Barry went on to a long, commercially successful
career in film and television. He often
played suave, sophisticated types whose voices never betrayed even a bit of
Brooklyn. Barry played a starring role
in the 1950’s version of War of the
Worlds.
1920: Birthdate of Dr. Arnall Patzin an ophthalmologist whose research upset
medical convention but ended up saving countless babies from blindness. He was born in rural Elberton, Ga., the youngest of seven children. His
father, an immigrant from Lithuania, was a peddler who insisted on maintaining
Jewish customs in Elberton, where his was the only Jewish family. He passed
away in 2010 at the age of 89.
1921: During a speech in the House of Commons, Winston
Churchill, who had just returned from a visit to the Middle East, praises the
accomplishments of the Zionist settlers and describes how the Arabs have
benefited from their efforts. He
denounced as “disgraceful” any action of the British government that would such
progress to “fanatical attacks” by outsiders.
1921: During a debate
on Palestine, Lord Winterton “warned Churchill that once you begin to buy land
for the purpose of settling Jewish cultivators you will find yourself up
against the hereditary antipathy which exists all over world to the Jewish
race.” It would seem that from the earliest days, there was a direct connection
between being anti-Zionist and anti-Semitic.
1934(1st of Tamuz, 5694): Rosh Chodesh Tamuz
1934:
A Nuremberg court sentenced a non-Jewish wife of a Jew to four months in prison
as a ‘race-defiling female.'
1934:
Hitler met with Mussolini for the first time.
Hitler was the junior partner at this first meeting. As the thirties progressed the roles would be
reversed and Mussolini would shift his policies to satisfy the Nazi dictator.
1934:
With a Star of David on his boxing shorts, Max Baer KO'd Primo Carnera in
11rounds to win the World Heavyweight Championship. However, Baer’s Jewish
persona was considered to be more of a box office thing than a religious
reality. Born in 1909 in Nebraska
1936:
Birthdate of Avraham Shochat, the Tel Aviv native, who helped found the city
Arad and has served as an MK and held several cabinet posts.
1936: The Palestine Post reported that once
more the Jezreel Valley Lower Galilee suffered its stormiest
night ‚ grain and cornfields were set on fire and over 250 old olive trees were
cut down. After all Arab train passengers left a train at Kalkilya, a bomb
thrown inside one of the coaches injured 18 Jews near Tulkarm.
1936: In attacks in and around Jerusalem today Arabs wounded
five Jewish truck and bus drivers as well as an additional number of and workers,
two of whom are in a serious condition. Only recently, in the same vicinity,
Jewish travelers were killed in similar attacks.
1937:
Chaim Weizmann wrote to Winston Churchill thanking him for the support he had
given to Zionist cause by trying to convince Colonial Secretary William
Ormsby-Gore that the Southern part of Palestine Palestine
1938: All Jewish businesses that have not
already been registered and marked must now comply with the Reich requirement
1940:
Auschwitz was opened. Approximately 2.5
million people were killed and another 500,000 died of starvation and disease
there. The first inmates, included teachers, priests, and other non-Jewish
Poles,
1940:
Artist Jan
Komskiwas in the first group of about 750 prisoners assigned to Auschwitz, in
southern Poland, on the day it opened. His number, 564, was tattooed on his
forearm.
1940:
German Forces entered Paris. At the time France Paris
1941:
Etty Hillesum, a student at Amsterdam
University
1941:
As the Final Solution came into full fury, 400 Jews were deported from Estonia.
1941:
In the Netherlands, based on a decree by the German occupiers, today was the
last day on which doctorate degrees could be issued to Jews. Physicist Albert Pais, who had completed his
doctoral work on June 9, was the last Jew to earn a doctorate in the
Netherlands until World War II came to an end.
1942: Anne Frank begins to keep a diary
1942: Two thousand Jews break out of Dzisna , Byelorussia
1944: Two thousand Jews are deported from Corfu , Greece Auschwitz .
1944(23rd of Sivan, 5704): Leon Sakkis was
killed by German machine-gun fire while aiding a wounded comrade in Thessaly,
Greece. Sakkis was part of a group of Jewish resistance fighters, who along
with other partisans were working to keep the Germans from enjoying the
“fruits” of the harvest taking place in Greece.
1945:
In London, Randolph Churchill, Winston Churchill’s son, tells Chaim Weizman
that he ‘had tried to save 115 Jews in Yugoslavia; he has save 112, but 3 had
perished.’ In 1944 Randolph Churchill had parachuted behind German lines to
worth Marshall Tito and his Yugoslav partisans in the fight against the
Nazis. As part of that mission, young Randolph Europe to help
the partisans and to try and rescue the Jews who had not gone to the Death
Camps.
1946:
Bernard Baruch - widely seen by many scientists and some members of Truman's
administration as unqualified for the task - presented his Baruch Plan, a
modified version of the Acheson-Lilienthal plan, to the UNAEC, which proposed
international control of then-new atomic energy. The Soviet Union rejected
Baruch's proposal as unfair given the fact that the U.S. already had nuclear
weapons, instead proposing that the U.S. eliminate its nuclear weapons before a
system of controls and inspections was implemented. A stalemate ensued.
1948(7th
of Sivan, 5708): Second Day of Shavuot
1950:
An Israeli army spokesman denied Jordanian charges that Arabs who had
infiltrated Israel “had been mistreated while being returned across the
frontier” to Jordan. What the Jordanians
have not explained is why the Hashemites allow their Kingdom to be used as base
for those who want to enter Israel with the intention to attack the Jewish
population.
1951: The Jerusalem Post reported that Mapai won eight of
11 seats in Migdal Gad's first municipal council elections. Hapoel Hamizrahi
won two and Mapam one. While there were 1,973 eligible voters, only 1,543
actually voted. Nine additional clothing points and 11 shoe points were
released for the month of July. The Kaiser-Frazer plant in Haifa which was
hailed as a model of American production efficiency assembled the first cars
for sale in Israel.
1952: Birthdate of Leon Wieseltier, editor of The New Republic and the author of “Kaddish” one of the finest
books of its kind which Theodore Bikel did a marvelous job of recording.
1952:
The keel is laid for the nuclear submarine USS Nautilus. This was a major milestone in the creation of
America’s ace-in-the-hole in the Cold War – the fleet of nuclear attack
submarines against which the Soviets never did develop an effective defense.
Admiral Hyman Rickover, who suffered his share of anti-Semitism in the Navy,
was the father of the nuclear Navy and the submarine fleet.
1953(1st
of Tammuz, 5713): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz
1953:
One hundred and eight bachelor’s degrees were awarded during the commencement
ceremony at Brandeis University. It was
the newly created school’s second commencement ceremony. Rabbi Louis Ginzberg, Professor of Talmud and
Rabbinics at JTS and George Alpert, Chairman of the Brandeis Board of Trustees
received honorary degrees during the ceremony.
1954:
U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower
signs a bill into law that places the words “under God" to the United
States’ Pledge of Allegiance. Despite
its apparent invocation of the divinity, this insertion did not evoke a storm
of protest in the name of separation of church and state. Everybody knew that this was a political
statement, not a religious one. At the
height of the Cold War, it was a line in the stand between the West and the
forces of “mindless, godless Communism.
1958:
Birthdate of Wafa Sultan a Syrian born American author and critic of Muslim
society and Islam who trained as a psychiatrist in Syria. Following one of her
critiques of Moslem culture in which she said "no Jew has blown himself up
in a German restaurant" the American Jewish Congress invited her to visit
Jerusalem.
1967(6th
of Sivan, 5727): First Day of Shavuot
1967(6th
of Sivan, 5727): On the First Day of Shavuot an estimated 200,000 gathered in
and around the Wall to celebrate the first major festival following the
reunification of Jerusalem. When Teddy
Kollek appeared at the Wall he was hailed “as the first Mayor of Greater
Jerusalem.”
1967:
A contingent of Mossad agents that had fanned out across the West
Bank to meet with members of the Palestinian elite immediately
following the Six Day War submitted their classified report to the head of
Military Intelligence. It argued that an independent Palestinian state should
be established as quickly as possible in the West Bank
and Gaza Strip, "under the auspices" of the Israel Defense Forces and
"in agreement with the Palestinian leadership." They suggested that
the borders of the Palestinian state be based on the 1949 armistice lines that
had served as the border until earlier that month, with some minor adjustments.
"In order to enable an honorable agreement," the document continued, Israel
1972:
Martin Dies, former member of the House of Representatives from Texas passed
away and Chairman of the House Un-American Activities Committee. A man of considerable influence in his day,
Dies was a red- baiting reactionary who, among other things, was an
anti-Semite.
1976: The Jerusalem Post reported that
Ephraim Katzir became the first president of Israel Windsor Castle England Haifa Haifa
1982:
Israeli tanks cut off Muslim West Beirut, trapping leaders of the PLO,
1985:
TWA Flight 847 is hijacked by
Hezbollah. Long before 9/11, Moslem
fanatics were making war against the West.
Supported by Iran, Hezbollah splits its time between terrorist
activities aimed at Israel, trying to control Lebanon and making war against
Western civilization.
1986(7th
of Sivan, 5746): Composer Alan Jay Lerner passed away. In one of the many
cultural ironies that are so much a part of the American scene, Lerner composed
with fellow Jew to write “Camelot,” a musical about English king that became a
Broadway and cinematic classic that was loved by JFK, the first American
Catholic President.
1986(7th
of Sivan, 5746): Second Day of Shavuot
1987:
The annual
International Israel Festival which began on May 18 is scheduled to come to an
end today.
1997(9th
of Sivan, 5757): Seventy-seven year old
Jay Ziskin, the California psychologist and lawyer who was the father of movie
producer Laura Ziskin passed away
1998: The New York Times
featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to
Jewish readers including “Ghost Country” by Sara Paretsky
2005(7th
of Sivan, 5765): Second Day of Shavuot
2004(25th
of Sivan, 5764): Max
J. Rosenberg, “an American film producer, whose film career stretched across
six decades” passed away in Los Angeles at the age of 89. “He was particularly noted for his horror or
supernatural films, and found much of his success while working in England. Rosenberg
was born in the Bronx, New York. In 1945 he entered the film business by
becoming a foreign film distributor. Although he primarily produced horror or
supernatural films, his first film Rock, Rock, Rock (1956) was a musical. His
partner in this film was Milton Subotsky, and the two would start the British
company Amicus Productions in 1964. During his career he produced more than 50
films, on some of which he was not credited. Among the horror and supernatural
films he produced were such titles as Tales from the Crypt (1972), The Land
That Time Forgot (1975), and its sequel, The People That Time Forgot (1977). In
1957 he produced the first horror film in color, The Curse of Frankenstein. Rosenberg
also produced a children's film, Lad, a Dog (1962), a pair of films based on
the Doctor Who series, and director Richard Lester's first film, It's Trad,
Dad! (1962). He was particularly proud to have produced the 1968 film of Harold
Pinter’s The Birthday Party, starring Robert Shaw and directed by William
Friedkin. He worked well into his 80s; his final film credit was 1997's Perdita
Durango aka Dance With the Devil.
2006:
Leaders of the
largest Orthodox rabbinical organization in the U.S. have reached a compromise
regarding overseas conversions with Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar.
2007(28th
of Sivan, 5767): Shirlee
Mages, whose father owned a thriving Roosevelt Road restaurant in the 1930s and
'40s and whose husband put his name on a sporting goods chain, died today at
the age 88 “in her Gold Coast home of
natural causes, said her daughter, Lili Ann Zisook. Mrs. Mages was the widow of
Morrie Mages, a 1950s Chicago television staple who was often in the company of
the late broadcaster Jack Brickhouse touting his sporting-goods stores through
the sponsorship of a late-night movie called "Mages Playhouse." Morrie
Mages and his family had a chain of 14 stores in the 1960s, but the business
ran into hard times and was sold. That led Mrs. Mages to take a job managing
the Pompian Shop, a ladies boutique on Michigan Avenue, her daughter said. "My
mother was just a woman who did what she had to do," Zisook said. Morrie
Mages subsequently rebounded with a smaller chain, anchored by a store at
LaSalle and Ontario Streets. He died in 1988 at 72. Mrs. Mages, born Shirlee
Gold, grew up in the Lawndale neighborhood. Her father, Meyer, owned Gold's
Restaurant at 810 W. Roosevelt Rd. Gold's had a ballroom where many weddings
were celebrated and future musical star Benny Goodman would sometimes play
clarinet there, Zisook said. After her graduation from Marshall High School,
Mrs. Mages attended Northwestern University before getting married in 1939. Always
strong with numbers, she worked as a stock broker in the 1950s, her daughter
said. In retirement, during which she wintered in Palm Springs, Calif., she was
devoted to the mastery of canasta and mah jongg. Mrs. Mages survived bouts with
breast and colon cancer and quadruple bypass surgery, her daughter said. "She
was such a strong woman, not so much physically, but her mind," Zisook
said. When her husband was alive, the couple organized the Morrie and Shirlee
Mages Foundation, which provided sports equipment to needy youths. After his
death, she led the charge to name a playground in Lincoln Park after her late
husband.
2007:
An exhibition entitled The Other Promised Land: Vacationing, Identity, and the
Jewish-American Dream opens at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York.
2007:
In a press release, Hebrew
University
2008: Haaretz reported on the renewal of efforts by the
state of Israel to bring the Ginzburg Collection from Russia to a permanent
home in the Jewish state.
“The State of Israel plans to renew its efforts to retrieve the world's second-largest collection of ancient Jewish manuscripts from Russia. Various parties have been trying to bring the impressive Ginzburg collection to Israel for years. Now, they are hoping that renewed Russian-Israeli cooperation, primarily Israel's expected transfer of the Sergei building in Jerusalem to Russia, will enable the collection to be brought to Israel. The noble Russian-Jewish Ginzburg family acquired its collection over three generations, beginning in the 1840s. The collection includes 14,000 books, 45 incunabula (books published in the 14th century at the start of the printing era), more than 2,000 Hebrew manuscripts and 1,000 Arabic manuscripts. It is considered the second largest collection of antique Jewish literature in the world, after the Bodleian Library in Oxford.
Baron David Ginzburg, the last of the collectors, died in 1910. After his death, Zionist activists, including Eliezer Ben Yehuda, began trying to bring the collection to the land of Israel. In May 1917, the National Library in Jerusalem signed a contract with parties in Russia to buy the collection for half a million rubles. The acquisition was funded by donations from Russian Zionists, and when the money was delivered, the books and manuscripts were packed into crates to be delivered. But the shipment was delayed by World War I, and when the Bolshevik Revolution broke out, the Soviet authorities seized the books and sent them to the Lenin Library in Moscow. Over the years, prominent Jews, including Albert Einstein, Israel's first president, Chaim Weizmann, and Foreign Ministry officials, tried to bring the Ginzburg collection to Israel, but their efforts were rejected. Now the heads of the Jewish National and University Library (Israel's official national library, which is located in Jerusalem), including director general Shmuel Har Noy and board chairman David Blumberg, are trying to put the matter on the public agenda.
The issue is being revisited mainly because of the advanced talks on the Sergei building, which was built circa 1890 adjacent to the Russian Compound. It was named for Prince Sergei, heir to Czar Nicholas II, who was executed by the Bolshevik revolutionaries. The building served as a hostel for Russian pilgrims to the holy land, and currently houses the offices of the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel and the Agriculture Ministry. The Russian government is demanding ownership of the building, and the negotiations are nearing completion, to the Russians' satisfaction. Meanwhile, Har Noy and Blumberg have demanded of Foreign Ministry Director General Aaron Abramovich that the same principle apply to the Ginzburg collection - that the ministry demand the Ginzburg collection in exchange for the Sergei building. The ministry does not believe Russia will accede to this demand, but intends to try to retrieve the collection in any case. In the 1990s, the Russians photographed a large part of the manuscripts and books in the collection and allowed scholars to study them, apparently in order to quiet the issue. The Lenin Library even built a splendid building in Moscow to preserve the collection. "If the state is returning property to the Russian government, there is no reason that something we have proof that Russian Zionists purchased should not be returned to the state," said Har Noy.
The Foreign Ministry responded, "The ministry received the request concerning Baron Ginzburg's book collection, and the issue is under examination. In the coming days, Foreign Ministry officials will be meeting with representatives of the National Library in order to receive the data and documents on the matter." The Ginzburg collection includes a translation of Dionysius Cato's "Moral Distichs," Yehuda ben Moshe Albotini's 1519 commentary on the Rambam's Mishneh Torah, a 1671 essay written by well-known kabbalist Shmuel ben Hiam Vital in Damascus, and one of the first six books printed in Hebrew, "Answers to Questions" by the Rashba, which was printed in Rome. The National Library heads wish to make the collection a major exhibition at the new National Library building slated for construction in Jerusalem.”
2009: Esther M. Sternberg, a doctor and the author of The
Balance Within: The Science Connecting Health and Emotions, discusses and
signs her new book Healing Spaces: The Science of Place and Well-Being
at Politics and Prose, in Washington, D.C.
2009: The Washington Post featured reviews of books by
Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including
“Rosenfeld’s Lives: Fame, Oblivion, and the Furies of Writing” by Steven J.
Zipperstein and “The American Future: A History” by Simon Schama.
2009: The New York Times featured reviews of books by
Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including 1948:
A History of the First Arab-Israeli War by Benny Morris, Weimar Germany:
Promise and Tragedy by Eric D. Weitz and Atmospheric Disturbances by
Rivka Galchen.
2009: A Kassam rocket fired by Gaza terrorists hit the Ashkelon Beach
region this afternoon. No one was wounded and no damage was reported. The
attack came hours after an explosive device was detonated near IDF troops
patrolling the Gaza border fence. None of the soldiers were wounded in the
Sunday morning incident and no damage was reported. The bomb attack came hours
after the IAF struck two smuggling tunnels in the southern Gaza Strip.
2010: The long history and deep roots of Jews in the Tar Heel state
are coming to life in an ambitious new multimedia project that is scheduled to
begin today with an exhibit at the North Carolina Museum of History in Raleigh.
“Down Home,” which encompasses a slickly produced documentary film and
handsomely illustrated coffee-table book, celebrates Jewish contributions to
North Carolina social, civic and commercial life. But the project also aims to
capture a nearly vanished way of life for Jews in the state’s mill and market
towns, according to Leonard Rogoff, an organizer of the project and historian
at the Jewish Heritage Foundation of North Carolina, which is producing “Down
Home.” “Elderly Jews who lived the rural
small-town experience are an endangered species,” said Rogoff, who also
authored the companion book, “Down Home: Jewish Life in North Carolina”
(University of North Carolina Press, 2010). “Synagogues have shuttered in
cities like Tarboro and Lumberton. Smaller communities are expiring. We need to
document them.” The project “tells an important part of our state’s story,”
wrote Linda A. Carlisle, Secretary of the North Carolina Department of Cultural
Resources, in an e-mail to the Forward. “Jewish culture has helped shape North
Carolina in its rural areas as well as its urban centers for centuries.” North Carolina’s
state legislature kicked in $350,000 toward the project’s $1.25 million budget,
according to Rogoff; the rest came from foundation grants and individual
donations. The investment has paid off with research that “contributes new
insights into Jews in the South,” Rogoff said. “Histories typically focus on
the pre-Civil War era and German-Reform Jews as normative southerners. We’ve
emphasized the East European experience in the New South as well, and it’s
updated to include the Sunbelt.” Rogoff’s team at JHFNC is also creating
classroom material for 4th- and 8th-grade “People of North Carolina” courses in
the state’s public schools with talks about expanding the lessons “across all
grades and disciplines,” he said. According to Rogoff, the “Down Home” project
tells stories of Jews from Joachim Gans, who arrived on Roanoke Island on Sir
Walter Raleigh’s expedition in 1585, to Jacob Henry, who in 1809 delivered a
speech in defense of religious freedom after his right to serve in the state
legislature was challenged. And it spotlights civil-rights era heroes like
Harry Golden, publisher of the esteemed The Carolina Israelite newspaper,
“known nationally for his civil-rights advocacy, delivered in a Lower East Side
accent,” Rogoff said. In a folksier vein, the book, film, and exhibit highlight
experiences of prominent, prosperous families like the clan of Eli Evans, whose
own history provides one narrative thread of the “Down Home” project. Evans’s
paternal grandfather was an immigrant peddler, his mother’s father a shopowner;
his businessman father, Emanuel, became a wildly popular six-term mayor of
Durham in the 1950s, and his mother Sara served on Hadassah’s national board
for 40 years. Now a New Yorker, Evans himself went on to write what many
consider the definitive history of southern Jews, “The Provincials” (University
of North Carolina Press, 1973), which has continuously been in print for nearly
three decades. “The story of the Jews is the untold story of the South,” said
Evans, a onetime speechwriter for President Lyndon Baines Johnson who went on
to run several charitable endowments, including the Carnegie Foundation. “The
region has whatever image it has from whatever violence there was. But that’s
not the story of the Jews. Ours is the story of successful integration and good
relationships.” The Jewish experience in North Carolina was unique in the
South, Evans said, because North Carolina was unique in the South. “We didn’t
have a strong Klan in our state. We had a commitment to public education, a
more moderate political atmosphere, and enlightened political leaders,” he
said. “I’m not saying no antisemitism existed. But there was a philo-Semitism
that manifested itself in many ways.” The exhibit itself, which will travel
across North Carolina over the next year, uses artifacts and photos to recreate
a series of “environments”: A synagogue sanctuary, dry-goods store, family
Sabbath table, and a study based on Harry Golden’s Charlotte home. The
81-minute “Down Home” DVD documentary, (available through the JHFNC’s website),
complements the museum show with a somewhat academic mix of archival footage,
insightful interviews and unfortunately costumed re-enactments. While the
exhibit’s partly intended to educate North Carolinians about their own history,
Rogoff said he hopes “Down Home” might reach other Jews — especially from the
Northeast. “All native southern Jews have humorous stories about meeting New
Yorkers who cannot believe that Jews actually live in the South,” he said.
“They associate a New York accent, not a southern drawl, with being Jewish.
That’s a very old cliché. New Yorkers especially can be terribly parochial, and
the famous Saul Steinberg cartoon of a terra incognita beyond the Hudson aptly
illustrates their provincialism.” While it spends a lot of time looking back,
the “Down Home” project also suggests a Jewish southern future that looks
increasingly suburban and metropolitan. “Jews are finding opportunities in the
hospitals, universities, research laboratories, and financial centers that have
typified the development of the state’s post-industrial economy,” said Rogoff.
“North Carolina is especially inviting for two-career couples where both are
professionals. Newcomers who explore the local Jewish communities generally
report finding warm welcomes, contrasting the neighborliness with what they
found up north. You get a heckuva lot more house for the money, and the climate
is a whole lot better.” But one area where Rogoff admitted the North may have
an edge is bagels. “There isn’t much aside from the ubiquitous Bruegger’s,” he
said. “Cary [near Raleigh] and Chapel Hill have independent bagel makers, but a
really good deli and Jewish-style bakery are opportunities waiting to happen. “
2010: Israeli superstar David Broza is scheduled to perform at
(Le) Poisson Rouge in New York.
2010(2nd of Tamuz, 5770): One of the Israeli police officers,
Yehushua "Shuki" Sofer, who was shot in a terror attack on a patrol
car this morning in the Hebron Hills area has succumbed to his wounds. “Sofer
was rushed to Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital in Jerusalem from the scene of the
attack by Magen David Adom where he died from gunshot wounds to the chest
approximately two hours after the attack. Sofer, 39, was a police veteran
having served 19 years on the Hebron police force and resident of Beersheba His
funeral will be held in the military section of Beersheva's old cemetary at 6
p.m. this evening. Two other police officers were injured in the attack, as
they were driving northwards on Route 60 in the West Bank, south of the of
settlement of Bet Hagai, in the Hebron Hills region. Public Security Minister
Yitzhak Aharonovitch, who is currently in Romania, released a statement
following the attack, saying, "Today we have seen that the relative quiet
is deceitful and we cannot know when it will be broken. I send my condolences
to the family of F.-Sgt. Shuki Sofer, and I hope the injured will recover
swiftly." Ahronovitch added that the police, IDF and Shin Bet would
"do everything to quickly capture those responsible for this terrorist
attack."The shooter was likely a lone terrorist or a local cell operation
on its own, without direction or backing from a larger group, IDF sources
assessed.
2011: Rabbi Bernice K. Weiss, author of “Converting to Judaism -
Choosing to be Chosen: Personal Stories” is scheduled to lead “Basic
Judaism for Jews and Non-Jews Alike” a “7-part series that provides an overview
of the Bible, Shabbat ritual and observances, how to observe kashrut and the
Jewish laws of death and mourning” at the Historic 6th and I
Synagogue in Washington, DC.
2011: The 8th Grade Graduation is scheduled to take
place at the Hillel Day School of Metro Detroit.
2011: Flag Day is celebrated in the United States to mark the
anniversary of the Continental Congress’ adoption an official flag. According to Dr. Gary Zola, the Stars and
Stripes probably made their first appearance in American synagogues during the
period surrounding the assassination of President Lincoln. This coincided with the Union victory that
marked the end of the Civil War and a feeling of patriotism was running at full
flood. Zola thinks, although he can
offer no proof, that American flags appeared on the bima at Jewish houses of
worship during the First World War, another period of patriotic fervor. Dr. Jonathan Sarna believes that the custom of displaying the flag in houses
of worship – Jewish as well as Christian – dates back to the Spanish American
War of 1898. This also was a period of
great patriotic fervor, marking a popular war that enabled those of the North
& South to join together in common cause.
Regardless of when the flags first appeared, by the 1930’s they were a
permanent ornamentation on the bimah, possibly as antidote to the simmering
anti-Semitism that was part and parcel of the Great Depression.
2011: National Infrastructure Minister Uzi Landau instructed Noble
Energy to develop the Noa North gas reserve in the Noa license after concerns
that the field spilled over into Palestinian territory. Sources informed Globes
that the final decision to develop the field came after operator Noble Energy
convinced National Infrastructure Ministry experts that the field did not spill
over into other parts of the reserve, which is partly under the jurisdiction of
the Palestinian Authority in the economic zone of the Gaza Strip. Up to now,
Landau has refrained from ordering development of the Noa field, fearing that
this would lead to diplomatic problems vis-à-vis the Palestinian Authority.
Globes reported in the past that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu discussed
the matter with President of the Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas. A letter sent yesterday by recently appointed
Petroleum Supervisor Michael Gardosh states that the total amount of gas that
will be produced from the field is 1.2 billion cubic meters. This quantity should make up the shortfall in
gas likely to arise if Egypt were to cut off supplies like it had done earlier this
year, or if there is a delay in the supply of gas from the Tamar discovery.
2011: Actress Natalie Portman has given birth to a baby boy
fathered by a choreographer she met while she filmed her Oscar-winning role in
Black Swan, People magazine reported today. The report did not say where or
when the birth took place, and there was no immediate comment from Portman's
publicist. Portman, who turned 30 last weel, announced in December that she was
pregnant and planned to marry her boyfriend, French ballet dancer and
choreographer Benjamin Millepied. The two worked together on Black Swan, in
which Portman played a self-mutilating ballerina. She won the Academy Award for
her performance in February. The Israeli-born, New York-raised actress rose to
fame playing the preteen protegee of a hitman in The Professional, and appeared
in the Star Wars reboots as Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia's mother. She was
most recently in theaters with the romantic comedy No Strings Attached.
2011: Today brought strange weather to both the northern and southern
regions of Israel. Meteorologists confirmed that the ash cloud from an Eritrean
volcano had indeed reached Eilat, but authorities insisted there was no health
danger to civilians and also that flights at both Eilat Airport and Ben-Gurion
International Airport were running on schedule. In the north of the
country, residents of the Golan and Galilee regions were surprised this morning
to awake to rain, an extremely rare occurrence during the summer months. The
precipitation was accompanied by increased winds. The winter weather is not
expected to last for long, however. Tomorrow’s forecast is dry with an increase
in temperatures -- which is back to normal for June.
2011: President Shimon Peres visited the Negev Beduin village of Hura
today, praising the community as a prime example of Negev development. Peres
received a warm welcome, and received the honorary title Sheikh Peres. The
president mentioned the Goldberg report, compiled by retired Supreme Court
Judge Eliezer Goldberg, which called for recognition of the various Beduin
villages scattered throughout Israel's south, saying "the Beduin are not a
problem, rather they are part of the Negev." Speaking about the village,
Peres said "we need to take a successful thing and imitate it [in other
communities]. Whoever is interested in solving the Beduin issue should come
here. On the way here I saw the industrial center, I saw preparations for
agricultural research and development, and the central street of Hura." Peres
commended the great progress the community has made since he last visited six
years earlier. The Hura Coucil head told
the president that "we see your visit here with utmost importance. We,
here, are in the Negev, in the periphery, and the Beduin population is right
now in a transitory period from a simple life of social and economic stability
to a modern life with slightly less stability." The council head added
that the current "ten years are critical," saying that the Beduin, as
a third of the South's population, must be an integral part of development or
efforts will.
2011: Deputy
Mayor of Economic and Housing Development and Brick City Development
Corporation Chair Stefan Pryor, Manischewitz Company Co-CEOs Alain Bankier and
Paul Bensabat, Chief Rabbi of Israel Yona Metzger, and BCDC CEO Lyneir
Richardson, will cut the ribbon to open the new Corporate Headquarters and
Plant for The Manischewitz Company,today, at 11 a.m. The facility is located at
80 Avenue K in the East Ward.
2012: Anouk Markovits, author of I Am Forbidden is scheduled to
have a reading at McNally-Jackson on Prince Street in NYC.
2012: Mahler on the Couch is scheduled to complete it New York
City theatrical run
2012: The Jewish Museum of Australia is scheduled to host the
media preview of its newest permanent exhibition, “Calling Australia Home
Copyright; June, 2012; Mitchell A. Levin melech3@mchsi.com
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