JUNE 21 In Jewish History
356 B.C.E.: Birthdate of Alexander the Great. Alexander traveled
back forth across Judea ; first when he went
down to conquer Egypt Persian Empire . There is a tale
about him coming to Jerusalem
120 (18 Sivan 3881 on the Jewish calendar): This date marked the
passing of Rabbi Gamliel II. Rabbi Gamliel was the successor to Rabbi Johanan
Ben-Zakkai who had set up the Talmudic Academy in Yavneh after the war against Rome Rome
1305: King Wenceslaus II of Bohemia died. During the Rindfleisch
massacres in 1298, King Wenceslaus II had extorted large sums from Bohemian
Jewry for protection.
1498: Citizens of Nuremberg, Bavaria received permission to expel
its Jews from Emperor Maximillian
1689: The Maisel Synagogue burned today when fire swept through
the ghetto in Prague. Built in the early
1590’s it takes its name from Mordechai and Frumel Maisel, who financed its construction. Today a rebuilt version of the synagogue
services a Jewish Museum in Prague.
1749:
Founding Halifax , Nova Scotia Halifax
1787; New Hampshire becomes
the 9th state to ratify the United States Constitution which means
the Constitution has been ratified by enough states to make it the law of the
land. New Hampshire was one of the last states to change its laws so that Jews
could hold office. The final change took
place in 1877. As can be seen from the attached article about the Jewish
community in Bethlehem, NH, life has changed for the better for Jews living in
the Granite State.
1812: Birthdate of Moses Hess. Moses Hess was an early
advocate of a league of nations and a Jewish state in Palestine Rome Jerusalem
1854: An article
entitled "Gleanings from the Mail" published today cites a report
appearing in the Boston Advertiser that "the Jews of the Holy Land
are suffering great distress from destitution."
1873: The committee in
charge of the excursions to be taken by the children who are the responsibility
of the Hebrew Orphan Asylum and Free Schools, most of whom are from poor homes,
announced their plans for the first outing which is scheduled to take place in
two days.
1877: Following
publication of Judge Hilton’s explanation of his decision to ban Mr. Seligman
from the Grand Union Hotel, the New York Times published a series of letters
grouped under the headings of “The
Jewish Side of the Question” and the “The Other Side”. The letters under “The Other Side” described
the undesirability of Jews as a class and as hotel guests which made Hilton’s
decision not only understandable but correct.
The letters under “The Jewish Side of the Question” included derisive
comments on Hilton’s attempt to differentiate between a “Hebrew” and a “Jew” as
well as refutation of his claim that he was willing to admit certain acceptable
Hebrews since the daughter of one of those mentioned had, in fact, been turned
away from the Grand Union.
1878: Today six speakers
took part in an oratorical contest at Yale University in which the contestants
were competing for De Forest Medal. The third speaker was H.C. Coe, a Jew who
spoke on “The Ancient and Modern Jew.”
The sixth and final speaker was Louis Hood of Newark who also spoke on
“The Ancient and Modern Jew.” While all of the speakers were impressive, Hood
walked off with the prize
1881: Birthdate of Dov Ber
Borochov,a Marxist Zionist and one of the founders of the Labor Zionist
movement as well as a pioneer in the study of Yiddish as a language. He passed away in 1917.
1880: “Politics of Europe and
Asia” published today brought news about the conference being held in Madrid
called to deal with the situation in Morocco. Senor Ludolf is schedule to
introduce a resolution supported by the United State, Portugal and Germany that
calls for religious liberty and better treatment of the Jews.
1880: It was reported today that
of the five and half million people living in Belgium only 15,000 are
Protestants and 3,000 are Jews while all the rest are Catholics.
1887: The Jews of London
celebrated the first day of the 51st year of the reign of Queen
Victoria over Great Britain at the Synagogue on St. James Place in
Aldgate. The crowded sanctuary was
decorated for the occasion and the attendees were treated to a choral service.
1888: “Barge Office Prizes”
published today described the commercial activities that surrounded the sale
and purchase of the “unclaimed, abandoned, and seized goods.” Before Ellis
Island, the Barge Office was the point of entry for immigrants arriving in New
York. The majority of the those involved
in the examination and purchase of the goods were reportedly Jews.
1888: It was reported today that
a rescript has been published ordering that a eulogy be read in all churches at
upcoming Sunday services. The offering
of a eulogy by the Jews appears to have been optional. [Given the response of
Rabbis in New York, it is safe to assume that many Jews mourned the passing of
the first modern Kaiser.]
1892: Birthdate of American
theologian Reinhold Niebuhr His views on Jews evolved over time from his early
days as a minister in Detroit. He warned
against the rise of anti-Semitism in Hitler’s Germany and came to the conclusion
that it was wrong to try and convert Jews. He expressed his strong pro-Zionist
sentiments in “Our Stake in the State of Israel”http://www.tnr.com/book/review/our-stake-in-the-state-israel
1903: Birthdate of Al Hirschfeld, Tony Award winning cartoonist
1903(26th of Sivan, 5663): New York Banker Isidor Wormser passed
away tonight in his home on Fifth Avenue.
Born In Germany he came to the U.S. in at the age of 18 with his brother
Simon with whom he sailed around Cape Horn to California where they prospered
selling merchandize in the Gold Fields and later at their store in Sacramento. Isidor
and Simon came to New York in 1870 where they established the banking firm of I
& S Wormser which prospered for over 30 years thanks in part, to the conservative
fiscal practices of brothers and to the probity of their business dealings. A
member of the New York Stock Exchange and a Democratic Presidential elector in
1892, Wormser’s interest in civic affairs could be seen by his membership in
the Metropolitan Museum and his service as a trustee of the Brooklyn Bridge.
1905: Birthdate of philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre. Towards the end of his life Sartre suffered what a critic called a “loss of historical hope.” Ironically, he turned to Judaism and Jewish history to find a source of hope and final philosophic underpinning. “Sartre dealt with his loss of historical hope by painfully acquiring another kind of hope. He replaced both existential dread and Marxist utopianism with a Jewish messianic patience. In the final interview with his friend and associate, the unlikely baal t'shuva, (returnee to Judaism), Benny Levy (formerly Pierre Victor), he reports his discovery that "the messianic idea is the base of the revolutionary idea." For many months before he died, Sartre studied Salo Baron's voluminous, magisterial work on Jewish history and, with Levy, came to a new-old view of the human prospect. As if he had invented Buber and the Bible, Sartre now proclaims, "We belong to a single family." Of course, "the unity of the human enterprise is yet to be created…what I have is yours and what you have is mine. If I need, you give to me. If you need, I give to you. That is the future of morality.” In the end, Sartre became a kind of "Jew." Already in the resistance of 1940-45, he had risked his life against Fascism. In Les Temps Modernes, at the very time of the Six Day War, he published what remains the most balanced and useful collection of essays on Arab Jewish peace and declared his solidarity with
1915: Five day before his term in office was scheduled to end,
John M. Slaton, Governor of Georgia commuted the sentence of Leo Frank from
death to life in prison. The commutation
came a day before Frank was scheduled to be hung. Slaton, who had been a popular governor, left
Georgia with the mob and threat of violence baying at his heels. Tom Watson wrote an article calling for the
lynching of Frank.
1922: Birthdate of comedic
actress Judy Holliday.
1922: During a debate
in Parliament, Lord Sydenham contends that the Arabs would not object to
immigration if it were done by “well selected Jews” instead of by what describes as Zionist settlers who are”
Bolsheviks,” “sinister and “promiscuous people.”
1922: Following a debate in the House of Lords on the
questions of continued British commitment to honor the Balfour Declaration, 60
Lords voted against the declaration and only 29 voted for it.
1922: Major Herbert
Young, “a senior official” in the Colonial Office writes Churchill that the
vote against the Balfour Declaration in the House of Lords will lead to greater
Arab obstinacy and imperil Britain’s previous promises to the Jews
1922: While meeting in London, the Prime Ministers of
Canada, Newfoundland, Australia and New Zealand stated that they shared “Arab
suspicions” of plans to ultimately create a Jewish majority in Palestine.
1926: Abbot Lawrence Lowell, the President of Harvard
University was featured on the cover of Time magazine. Although the cover story
did not mention it, 1926 was a year of triumph for Lowell because he convinced
the Harvard Board of Overseers to adopt new admission requirements that
accomplished his goal of reducing the number of Jews at Harvard. The year before these “non-academic”
standards were added, 27% of the freshman class was Jewish. By the time Lowell in 7 years after the
standards had been put in place Jews made up 10% of the underclassmen
1927: In New York, three Jewish
interns at Kings County Hospital were attacked and tied up.
1928: Birthdate of Judith Raskin, one of
America December 21, 1984 , after a
long struggle with cancer. Services were held at the Stephen Wise Free
Synagogue in New York City
1931: Birthdate of Lawrence
1933: Birthdate of actor Bernie Kopell who played Doc on the ABC
hit television show, The Love Boat
1933: A memorial meeting was held this evening at Beethoven Hall
in New York City honoring Dr.Chaim Arlosoroff who had been murdered last
Friday. It was attended by approximately 1,000 Jews and the leaders of various
branches of the Zionist movement. In his
speech, Morris Rothenberg, President of the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA)
made reference to reports that Revisionists had been connected with the murder
and warned against any “rush to judgment” in determining who was responsible
for the crime.
1934: Dr. Frederick B. Robinson, president of City College, and Dr.
Bernard Revel, president of Yeshiva College, spoke at the third annual
commencement exercises of Yeshiva College, to be held at 4 o'clock this
afternoon in the college auditorium, 186th Street and Amsterdam Avenue.
1936(1st of Tamuz, 5696): Rosh Chodesh Tamuz
1936: The Palestine Post reported from London Palestine
1936: The New York Times published a review of Judaism
in Transition by Mordecai M. Kaplan.
1936: An armed band of approximately 60 Arabs attacked a convoy of
Jewish owned buses on route to Tel Aviv from Haifa. A British sergeant, Henry Sills, of the
Seaforth Highlanders, was killed and three privates of the Royal Scottish
Fusiliers were wounded in subsequent fights between the Arab terrorists and the
British troops assigned to provide protection.
1938: In the
first act of terrorism to take place in Tel Aviv, a bomb was thrown near a
movie theatre seriously injuring a child.
1939: At the World’s Fair in New York, New Jersey Hadassah Day is celebrated with
luncheons at the Café Tel Aviv and Toffenettti’s Restaurant while Dr. Albert
Einstein and Rabbi Stephen Wise are the scheduled speakers at a luncheon for
Rho Pi Phi Fraternity at the Café Tel Aviv.
1940: France Germany Europe who had sought refuge in France
1940: Prime Minister Winston Churchill “received a telegram from
Lord Lothian, the British Ambassador in Washington, stating that the Jews in
the United States ‘want Jews in Palestine to be organized under British command
to defend Palestine from outside attack and to help the Allies.’ If Palestine were overrun (by the Nazis) and
Jews had not been put in a position to defend their country, there would
certainly be a most deplorable effect on American Jews’ opinion.’”
1942:
At Tirzt Zevi , Israel
1943: Himmler ordered the destruction of all ghettos in Russia
1943(18th of Sivan, 5703): In Lvov, The Germans murdered most of
the remaining ghetto population.
1943(18th of Sivan, 5703): All Jewish workers at municipal
factories in Drogobych, Ukraine, are killed.
1943: German Professor August
Hirt chooses 103 Jewish men and women at Auschwitz
to be transported to the Natzweiler-Struthof camp near Strasbourg , France
1944: The British Foreign Office informs Prime Minister Churchill
that ‘Marshall Tito (the Yugoslav Communist leading the partisans) has
consented to facilitate the escape of Jewish refugees through his lines from Hungary Italy Dalmatia .
1948: The Rhodes Conference on the Israeli-Arab war opened. Rhodes is an island in the Mediterranean
off the coast of Greece Israel
1950: “Rabbi Judah L. Maimon, Minister for Religious Affairs”
stormed out of a cabinet meeting today, claiming that he was resigning from Ben
Gurion’s government. Maimon was
protesting the cuts to his department’s budget, the purchase of surplus meat
from the United States that “does not conform to religious dietary laws” and
what he claims are the failure of the government to enforce the strict
observance of the laws of Kashrut in Israeli army kitchens.
1951: The Jerusalem Post reported that Iraq charged that
Jews had stored arms and ammunition in Baghdad and put a stop to Jewish
emigration, pending an investigation. But planes carrying enforce the strict
observance of the laws of Kashrut in Israeli army kitchens.
1951: The Jerusalem Post reported that the Post Office
planned to establish its own bank, under the new Postal Bank Law.
1951: The Jerusalem Post reported that at least 35
political parties put up candidates for the forthcoming Second Knesset
elections. (This number was later reduced to 20.)
1956: Playwright Arthur
Miller appeared before H.U.A.C. and refused to implicate anybody as having
taken part in Communists activities
1964(11th of Tamuz, 5724): Three Civil Rights workers, Andrew
Goodman, James Cheney and Mickey Schwermer were brutally murdered in Neshoba
County, Mississippi by members of the Ku Klux Klan. Goodman and Schwermer were
both Jewish. Cheney was an Afro-American. Goodman and Schwermer had come South
as part of group who were determined to help Blacks register to vote. An
all-white jury acquitted their killers, who included local law enforcement
officials, of murder charges. They were later prosecuted in federal court and
found guilty of having deprived the young trio of their civil rights. Goodman
and Schwermer were part of a whole cadre of Jews who participated in the fight
for equality for Blacks. This reality makes a sad counter-point to the
anti-Semitic speeches of people like Al Sharpton and Louis Farrakhan.
1969: In response to Egyptian artillery attacks and
other hostile acts, Israeli naval commandos attack and destroy the Egyptian
radar facility at Ras El-Adabiya. The destruction of the radar complex left the
Egyptians “blind” when Israeli jets attacked the artillery bases that had been
firing on the Israelis.
1976:
The Jerusalem Post reported
that the American navy evacuated 300 foreigners from Beirut
1976:
The Jerusalem Post reported
that a $15m. annual propaganda program, designed to swing the American public
opinion away from Israel US
1977: Menachem Begin became the sixth Prime Minister of
Israel. This marked a major shift in Israeli politics. The
Labor-Zionists who had dominated the government since the start of the
state were out and the Revisionists had gained power. This reversal in
fortune had many causes including corruption in the Labor Party and shifting
demographics in Israel
1981(19th of Sivan, 5741): Isadore Blumenfeld a
Jewish-American organized crime figure based in Minneapolis, Minnesota known as
Kid Cann, passed away.
1985: Scientists reported that skeletal remains exhumed in Brazil Auschwitz .
Mengele escaped punishment after the war, thanks in no small part to support
from his family in Germany
1987(24th of Sivan, 5747): Abram Chasins “an American
composer, pianist, piano teacher, lecturer, musicologist, music broadcaster,
radio executive and author” passed away.
1998: The New York Times featured reviews of books by
Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Cardozo
by Andrew L. Kaufman
2003: The Martin Beck Theatre in New York was renamed the Al
Hirschfeld Theatre.
2003(21st of Sivan, 5763):
Novelist Leon Uris passed away.
Uris first reached popular and critical acclaim with Battle Cry a
novel about Marines fighting World War II.
Coincidentally, Uris had served with the Marines. He hit the literary and financial jackpot
with Exodus, a novel that depicted the birth of the state of Israel VII ,
The Haj and Mitla Pass.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/2003/jun/25/guardianobituaries.books
2003(21st of Sivan, 5763): Eighty-one
year old screenwriter, playwright, producer and director George Axelrod,
the son of non-Jewish screen star and a
Russian Jew, passed away today. (As reported by Rick Lyman)
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/23/movies/george-axelrod-81-quirky-writer-for-stage-and-film-dies.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm
2004: Wrestler Matt Bloom tore a rotator cuff.
2004: Human rights activist Felice Gaer addressed the United Nations
Conference on Anti-Semitism
2007(5th of Tammuz, 5767): Twenty-five year old Private
First Class Daniel J. Agami, was killed by an improvised explosive device in
Adhamiya, Iraq today. A native of Cleveland who grew up in Coral Springs,
Florida, Agami came from a proud military and Jewish tradition. His grandfather served in the Korean War and
his father had served with the Israeli Army.
He enlisted four years after 9/11. “Agami flew an Israeli flag over his
bunk in Schweinfurt, Germany, his home base, and then in Iraq. His rifle had
“Hebrew Hammer” written across it, and his friends called him the GI Jew.
2007: In Los Angeles
2008: In Washington, D.C. former New York Times reporter Jane
Fletcher Geniesse discusses and signs her new book, American Priestess: The Extraordinary Story
of Anna Spafford and the American Colony in Jerusalem at Politics
and Prose Bookstore.
2009: The New York Times featured reviews of books by
Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Digital
Barbarism: A Writer’s Manifesto by Mark Helprin
2009: The Washington Post featured reviews of books by
Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including In Her
Own Sweet Time by Rachel Lehmann-Haupt
2009: The Sixth Australian Israel Film Festival, sponsored by AICE, the
Australia Israel Cultural Exchange, opens at the Jerusalem Cinematheque with a
screening of “Tackling Peace,” a documentary about a joint Israeli/Palestinian team that
was established to enter the 2008 AFL (Australian Rules) International Cup
soccer competition, which was held in Victoria, Australia, last August. The
team - a collaboration between the Peres Center for Peace and the Al-Quds
Association for Democracy and Dialogue - was coached by Australian legend Kevin
Sheehan. The documentary chronicles this competition, which gave Israelis and
Palestinians a rare chance to break down barriers and work toward a common
goal.
2009: The Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Consulate General of
Israel in New York, the Israel Ministry of Tourism, the Israel Government
Tourist Office in New York, and the Tel Aviv-Yafo Centennial Administration
join together to sponsor The Tel Aviv Beach Party, part of the celebration of
Tel Aviv’s 100th Anniversary. The Tel Aviv Beach Party will feature free
beach games, tanning spots, giveaways, and a rock concert as the Naumberg
Bandshell area in Central Park is transformed into an authentic Mediterranean
beach front complete with, a 1,300 square foot sand section featuring chairs
and parasols will allow sunbathing fans the perfect tanning experience. In
addition to live music and entertainment, visitors will be able to get
information about Tel Aviv's hotspots, tourism attractions and vibrant night
life. El Al, the leading carrier to Israel, will be offering special deals for
reservations made at Central Park.
2010: The Sixth Republic Bank Golf Challenge benefiting Jewish Family
& Career Services and the Jewish Community of Louisville's Jewish Community
Center of Louisville is scheduled to be held today at Chariot Run, a Harrah's
Golf Course.
2010: The Jewish
Agency’s new strategic plan will place the state and land of Israel squarely at
the center of Diaspora consciousness, according to a statement Jewish Agency
chairman Natan Sharansky made tp the Jerusalem Post today. The new plan calls
for shifting the agency’s activities toward identity-forming experiences for
Israeli and Diaspora youth, and has generated some concern among a group of
agency lay leaders and Israeli officials over what they worry could be an
abandonment of the organization’s traditional functions of nation-building and
aliya Sharansky is seeking to dispel these concerns in the runup to the Board
of Governors vote on the new plan late this week in Jerusalem. “Israel remains
the center” of the agency’s programming, he told The Jerusalem Post today.
“It forms the focal point of identity. In fact, the only place specifically
mentioned in the strategic plan,” he added, “is the homeland in Israel.” Rather
than shifting away from aliya or development of Israeli society, the new plan
“will serve the same goals. Only the methods have changed.” According to
Sharansky, “The goals of the founding fathers of the agency – to mobilize the
Jewish people to support the idea of an Israeli state, aliya and to mobilize
physical and material support from the Jewish people – this remains unchanged.”
But, he added, these achievements “come as a result of solidarity, commitment
or connection among Jews.” “We are living today in a global village. On the one
hand there’s a post-identity reality, where a commitment to any group,
community or state has an archaic or negative association. This affects many
Jews who believe they have to choose between universal and national values. Second,
there’s a campaign to delegitimize Israel, one of whose targets is to weaken
Jewish commitment to Israel. There’s also a weakening connection of many Israelis
to the Jewish people.”All these challenges, he believes, “endanger the very
survival of the Jewish people. I believe [Diaspora communities] cannot survive
without a strong connection to Israel. Israel is becoming a more and more
important factor in the individual and collective identity of the Jewish
people.I know from the story of Soviet Jewry how the connection to Israel, the
discovery that we are part of the great story of our people, inspires and gives
you the will to fight.” That is why Israel’s detractors around the world are
targeting the legitimacy of Jewish identification in their assault on Israel. “I
heard a number of times on visits to college campuses young Jews saying, ‘It’s
better for me if the state of Israel would not exist.’ Our enemies want to say,
‘You want to stay Jewish? You have some romantic sympathy to the land where
your ancestors lived? Fine. But why see yourself responsible for a political
system that is involved in many things you don’t like?’” While the land of
Israel has a crucial role to play in Jewish life – “and Jews who visit Israel
are excited to touch the ancient places like Jerusalem or the place where David
fought Goliath” – the state is also a key component of modern Jewish
identity. “We know that hundreds of
thousands of young Jews who come on [trips to Israel, such as] Birthright or
Lapid or Masa, are no less excited to see where the Jewish people finally
founded a state of their own, where we became masters of our own fate.
Experiencing this [statehood] makes their loyalty to their community something
much bigger.” This affirmation of the land and state of Israel at the center of
the new mission is not a political message, he insists. “The Jewish Agency is a
table where people from all parties and all streams can sit. I just sat in a
meeting between cabinet ministers of Israel and leaders of the Conservative and
Reform movements and the federations. The Jewish Agency is a table where they
can meet.” Yet it must reaffirm the centrality of Israel in a Jewish world that
faces “a constant campaign of delegitimization of Israel that’s not about
left-wing or right-wing governments, or this or that policy, but about the very
existence of a Jewish state.” Many challenges await the new strategic plans,
agency officials believe. “Some are saying we are replacing aliya with identity
programs,” Sharansky notes, countering, “What we’re saying is that strengthening
identity will bring aliya.” Others question whether the agency will be able to
fundraise for its dwindling coffers with the new focus. “Will people give money
to help strengthen identity?” Sharansky wonders. “We have to be very attentive
to these remarks and make sure that we can explain that this is the greatest
need of the Jewish community. Today, people feel this need.” Israel, too, has a
large role to play in making itself relevant and inspiring to the Diaspora. “Our
plan discusses how Israel can itself become an ideal society, a society that
inspires and empowers. “We are not abandoning our goals, but the focus is
changing, because,” he concludes, “the world is changing.”
2011: Family in Captivity, a film that “is an intimate
story that follows the day to day efforts of the Shalit family to cope and
bring Gilad home” is scheduled to be shown at The JCC in Manhattan.
2011: The Kaye Innovation Awards
are scheduled to be presented today during the Board Of Governors Meeting of
the Hebrew University. The prizes were
established in 1994 by Isaac Kaye – a prominent industrialist in the British
pharmaceutical industry – to encourage HU faculty, staff and students to
develop innovative methods and inventions with good commercial potential that
will benefit the university and society. The winners are Prof. Haim Rabinowitch,
Prof. Dan Gazit, Dr. Raanan Fattal, Katy Margulis- Goshen and Yftah Tal-Gan, Prof.
Haim Rabinowitch of the university’s Robert H. Smith Faculty of Agriculture,
Food and Environment has been named winner of the first prize. Rabinowitch, a
former rector, is being recognized for his long-term innovations in genetic and
breeding technologies. Over the last 25 years, his team’s novel breeding
results have created a lucrative local seed industry. Indeed, the export of
tomato, onion and shallot seeds Rabinowitch developed brings in about $50
million annually, with additional royalties going to the university. Today, he
is leading the development of a unique garlic-breeding project and plant
improvement technology that allows seed producers to easily adapt any plant
variety to changing situations. Both projects were recently licensed by Yissum,
the HU’s technology transfer company, to start-up companies that were
established on the basis of these technologies. The second-prize winner among
the faculty is Prof. Dan Gazit, head of the Skeletal Biotechnology Laboratory
in Jerusalem’s Ein Kerem, for his team’s nearly 20-year research that has led
to a breakthrough in the field of stem cell-based tissue engineering. TheraCell
Inc., a California-based biotech start-up company, has licensed the bone tissue
regeneration technology from Yissum. Dr. Raanan Fattal of the Benin School of
Computer Science and Engineering, will be receiving the third prize for the
development of second-generation wavelet-based image enhancement, which
enhances sharpness of images. Fattal’s invention was licensed by Adobe and is
already incorporated in the company’s leading software, Photoshop. Meanwhile, a
method for increasing solubility developed by a graduate student at HU’s Casali
Institute of Applied Chemistry has yielded promising commercial benefits for
industry – particularly in pharmaceuticals, cosmetics and agriculture. The
method, created by Katy Margulis- Goshen, a doctoral student of Prof. Shlomo
Magdassi, produces a rapid conversion of oilin- water microemulsions containing
an insoluble substance into a dry powder composed of nanoparticles, which can
easily be dissolved in water or other biological fluids. For her work,
Marguis-Goshen, who immigrated to Israel from the Ukraine 21 years ago, has
been chosen as another Kaye Award winner. The process she developed is of
unique industrial importance, the university said, as it leads to a significant
increase in solubility and dissolution properties of almost any active
ingredient, without a high energy investment. Enhancing solubility is
especially important in pharmaceutics, where nearly half of the newly
discovered drugs can’t be administered, or are very poorly absorbed, due to
their low solubility. Increasing solubility is also important in agriculture,
since most insecticides are highly hydrophobic (resistant to mixing with
water), and their regular application therefore requires the use of organic
solvents, which are harmful to the farmer and the environment. The new process
can also be applied to many other fields, such as nutrition and paint and
printing-ink manufacture. Finally, Yftah Tal-Gan, a student of Prof. Chaim
Gilon and Prof. Alexander Levitzki at the Institute of Chemistry, will receive
a Kaye Award for the inhibition of protein kinase B (PKB, also called Akt). Since
the activation of PKB is associated with tumors, selective inhibition of this
protein becomes a promising strategy for targeted cancer therapy.
2011: Israel runs the risk of losing the battle for public
opinion in Latin America if it doesn’t devote more resources to its advocacy
efforts there, Jewish officials from that part of the world warned at the World
Jewish Congress, which drew to a close today. In a series of informal
discussions on the sidelines of the gathering, delegates from several countries
in the region discussed what can be done to stem the spate of diplomatic
debacles suffered by Israel recently in which countries like Brazil and
Argentina have ignored Israeli requests and recognized Palestinian statehood.
2011: Richard Stone, chairman of the Conference of Presidents
of Major American Jewish Organizations, and conference executive vice president
Malcolm Hoenlein expressed dismay and regret today that Israeli agent Jonathan
Pollard was not allowed to attend the funeral of his father Morris in Indiana
the day before. The statement criticizing the US administration, without
mentioning it by name, was rare for the central coordinating body representing
51 national Jewish organizations on issues of national and international
concern.
2011: Lithuania's parliament passed a long-awaited bill to
compensate the Jewish community for communal property taken during the Nazi and
Soviet occupations of the country. More than 90 percent of Lithuania's
220,000-strong Jewish community were wiped out during the Holocaust
2011(19th of Sivan, 5771): Eighty-three year old Jewish feminist
author E.M. Broner passed away today in New York. (As reported by Maragalit
Fox)
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/23/books/e-m-broner-jewish-feminist-writer-dies-at-83.html
2012: JSSA (Jewish Social Service Agency) is scheduled to host an open
house at the Ina Kay Building in Rockville, MD http://www.jssa.org/
2012: The Weiner Library is scheduled to host a special tour as part of Gypsy
Roma Traveller History Month, which will include a viewing exhibitions,
archives and special collections relating to the 1936 Berlin Olympics and the Gypsy
Roma Traveller experience during the Holocaust.
2012: “Going Up: Jerusalem,” part of the Jerusalem Season of Culture is
scheduled to open today.
2012: Marianne Lubar is scheduled to receive the Spirit Community Award at
a community luncheon at the Jewish Museum of Milwaukee.
2012: Sabra Alon Yavnai and his Big Band are scheduled to perform at Bryant
Park.
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