JUNE 5 In Jewish History
70: Titus and his
Roman legions breach the middle wall of Jerusalem.
1257: Kraków, Poland receives city rights. Jews were
probably among the earliest settlers of Krakow which was settled by traders
from Germany. Jews had been moving to
Poland from Germany since the days of the Crusades. Certainly there was a Jewish population in
the town by the middle of the 14th century since the oldest
synagogue in the town dates from a visit from Casimir the Great.
1305: Raymond Bertrand de Got is elected Pope under the name Clement V.
According to Elizabeth D. Malissa, “Pope Clement V is the first pope to
threaten Jews with an economic boycott in an attempt to force them to stop
charging Christians interest on loans.”
1705(13th of
Sivan): Manuel (Isaac Hayyim) Teixeira de Sampaio, passed away 202
1740(10th of
Sivan)” Rabbi Eliezer Rokeah of Amsterdam, author Maaseh Rokeah passed away
1805: Lisa &
Kahn one of the oldest banking houses in the Netherlands was founded today by
two Polish Jews – Hirschel Eliazer Kahn and Moses Calmus Lissa.
1806: Louis
Napoléon Bonaparte, the brother of Napoleon Bonaparte, began his reign as King
of Holland. Louis was supportive of his Jewish subjects and
sought to make them full-fledged citizens of his Dutch kingdom. He “changed the
market-day in some cities (Utrecht and Rotterdam) from Saturday to Monday” and abolished
the use of the "Oath More Judaico" Henceforth, Jews and Christians
would swear to the same oath when testifying. in the courts of justice, and
administered the same formula to both Christians and Jews. In an attempt to
improve their skills in the art of war, ‘’he formed two battalions of 803 men
and 60 officers, all Jews.” Prior to his reign, the Jews had been until then excluded from military
service. [Editors Note – It may seem strange to westerners living in the 21st
century, but at that time, serving in the military was considered a sign of
full-citizenship. If you will remember the story of Asser Levy and his fight to
serve in the militia in New Amsterdam you will understand the importance of
what Louis did.]
1829: Birthdate of
Marcus Jastrow, the Polish born Talmudist who would become the Rabbi at Rodeph
Shalom in Philadelphia, PA.
1832: Thanks to the
work of the late Ezekiel Hart who had been denied his seat in the legislature
in 1809 and his son Samuel Hart, the Legislative Assembly of Lower Canada,
passed the 1832 Emancipation Act that ultimately guaranteed full rights to
people practicing the Jewish faith.
Canada was a trend setter since it would be 27 years before such a
measure was passed any place in the British Empire.
1837: Houston, Texas is incorporated by the
Republic of Texas. By 1854, there were enough Jews living in Houston for the
establishment of cemetery and by 1859 the Jewish community was large enough to
get a charter for what was the first congregation in Texas in 1859. The
Congregation, Beth Israel, began as an Orthodox synagogue, but became a Reform
congregation some fifteen years later.
1849: In Denmark,
article 84 of the new constitution negated discrimination of "any person
on the basis of religious grounds."
1855: In New York
City, “The Jews’ Hospital” opened for patients today. While the hospital may have been intended to
serve destitute and newly arrived Jews, its mission soon changed. During the Civil War it treated untold number
of Union casualties beginning with those who were wounded during McClellan’s
Peninsular Campaign. It was originally located on West 28th Street in
Manhattan. It changed its name to Mt. Sinai Hospital in 1866.
1860: Emily Jane Mires,
the daughter of Franco-Jewish financier Jules Mires, married Prince Alphonse de
Polignac the second son of President of the Council of Ministers. In 1861 the
couple had a daughter named Jeanne
1861: During the
American Civil War, Frederick Knefler was promoted from the rank of lieutenant
to captain in the 11th Indiana Infantry. Knefler would eventually work his way up to
the chain of command to become a Brigadier General. His commanding officer in the 11th
Indiana was Lew Wallace, author of Ben Hur, the 19th century
classic set in Judea with a Jewish hero.
Wallace and Knefler were friends before the war.
1870: Today's
"Foreign Items" column reported that Warsaw, Poland, has a population
of 254,561 of which 67,584 are Jews.
1870(6th of Sivan,
5630): First Day of Shavuot
1870: During
Shavuot Services, seven young ladies and four young men took part in Temple
Israel’s first ever Confirmation Ceremony.
Services were led by Rabbi Raphael D.C Lewis of Brooklyn, NY. The
service began at ten in the morning with the hymn Adon Olom which was sung to
the accompaniment of organist Morris Abrahams.
1870: Members of
the Temple Israel confirmation class and their parents visited the home of
Rabbi D.C. Lewin this evening where they presented him with a pair of engraved
silver goblets as a token of their appreciation for his work with them.
1870: In New York
City, a meeting is scheduled to be held at Temple Israel, which is led by Rabbi
Raphael D.C. Lewin, to discuss the outbreak of anti-Semitism in Romania.
1870: “The New Persecution
of the Jews” published today described
the persecution of Jews at the hand of Romanian Christians as being “so savage
and so causeless, the civilized world can be one sentiment – that of
immeasurable indignation.” After providing a succinct, sympathetic picture of
Jewish history while drawing a picture of Jewish suffering at the hands of
Christians the article describes the positive nature of the American Jew. “Not one of all the multitude of
nationalities which we have received among us can boast of so large a
proportion of peaceful and law-abiding members.
A Jew in prison is a thing almost unheard of; a Jew soliciting public
charity has yet to be found; a Jew who boast of his caste, grows noisy over his
religion or reviles that of his neighbors, if he exist at all, has become known
to the general community…It is only bigotry which represents a Jew as an object
of hatred or aversion. To that race we
owe much of our civilizations, and all the religion we possess. It has endured persecution through generation
after generation and has never evinced any disposition to retaliate….It is to
be hoped that the United States Government will do all in its power to check
the hideous massacre lately begun in Rumania.”
1876: “A Moor
stabbed eleven Jews” today at Alcassar, a Moroccan city in the Province of
Fez. Among the wounded are Moses
Abecasis.
1877: Reports reaching Bucharest that American Jews have petitioned Secretary of State W.M. Evarts on behalf of their co-religionists in Romania and Turkey “has created considerable ”amount of“ astonishment” among Jews and non-Jews alike.
1877: Jacob and
Therese Schiff gave birth to Mortimer Leo Schiff, banker, philanthropist and
early support of the Boy Scouts of America.
1881: A group of
Polish Jews fought back today on Hester Street when two members of the “border
gang” –John Reilly and Thomas Sinclair – began torment them. Reilly responded to the Jewish resistance by
drawing his revolver and shooting indiscriminately at the Jews. Louis Wolf was
wounded by one of the shots which was heard by two 7th Precinct
Detectives who chased down the fleeing thugs and arrested them.
1881: In “An
Eastern Story,” a reviewer examines the recently published Rabbi Jeshua,
a book that is described as “peculiar” because of the “parallelism which exists
between the history of Rabbi Jeshua and the founder of Christianity.
1882: It was
reported today that an Austrian physician had seen more than 125 “mutilated
Jews” at a hospital in Odessa. He
described the wounds as being “of a very dangerous character.” The attackers showed a spirit of cruelty by
pouring spirits and petroleum into the wounds. One woman had her breast cut off
while her one year old child had its eyes put out with a red hot iron. At this time there are 3,000 homeless orphans
wondering the area. (Editor’s note – You can draw a straight line from these
reports to the meetings being held in the United States on how to cope with the
rising tide of Jews fleeing Russia)
1882: It was reported today that “a colonization society” with a capitalization of a million dollar is to be formed to implement plans to settle Russian Jews in homesteads and other agricultural settlements in the American West.
1882 (18th of
Sivan, 5642): Alexander Abraham de Sola passed away. Born in 1825, he was a
Canadian Rabbi, author, Orientalist, and scientist. Originating from a large
renowned family of Rabbis and scholars, De Sola was recognized there as one of
the most powerful leaders of Orthodox Judaism in the United States during the
latter half of the nineteenth century. Born in London, England, the sixth child
of David Aaron de Sola and Rebecca Meldola, his maternal grandfather was Haham
Raphael Meldola, a prominent English Rabbi. His sister Eliza, married Rabbi
Abraham Pereira Mendes, and was the mother of Dr. Frederick de Sola Mendes.
In 1873, by invitation of President Ulysses S. Grant's
administration, De Sola opened the United States Congress with prayer. This
invitation might have had a double significance at the time. By asking a rabbi to provide the opening
prayer, Grant was once against providing evidence that he was not an
anti-Semite. By asking a British rabbi
to provide an opening prayer, the administration might have been signaling its
desire to improve relations with Great Britain.
1882: The Musée
Grévin, opened today in Paris. Arthur Meyer was the co-founder of what has
become a very popular waxwork museum.
The grandson of a Rabbi, he was born in Le Harve in 1844 and became a
major publisher in the French newspaper business. His role as “press baron” reminds one of that
played by Jews in other countries. Like
other Jewish moguls of journalism, he converted, in his case to Catholicism and
he was a member of the anti-Dreyfus forces.
1883: Birthdate of
English economist John Maynard Keynes, whom most people know as the father of
Keynesian Economics but do not know as “a venomous anti-Semite
who could have given Richard Wagner a run for his money” who said the Jews
“have in them deep-rooted instincts that are antagonistic and
therefore repulsive to the European, and their presence among us is a living
example of the insurmountable difficulties that exist in merging race
characteristics, in making cats love dogs ...It is not agreeable to see
civilization so under the ugly thumbs of its impure Jews who have all the money
and the power and brains.”
1886: On Shabbat
most of the Rabbis in Philadelphia spoke to their congregations about the
unwillingness of the school superintendent to allow the Jewish students to
make-up the final exams which are scheduled to be given on Shavuot. The superintendent has refused to make any
accommodation and failure to take the exams could result in failing for the
school year. The Rabbis “cautioned the
young of their congregations against attending school on the upcoming
festival.”
1887: It was
reported today that rumors are circulating concerning a proposal to make Pope
Leo XIII King of Palestine under a protection of all the Catholic powers. Some see this is a way to compensate the Pope
for having lost his temporal powers in Italy at the time of the
reunification. The proposal does not
take into consideration the fact that the Russians, who are Orthodox, feel they
have a special role to play in the Holy Land as do the Anglican British. The
report concedes that nobody has taken into consideration how the Jews and
Moslems would feel about governance under a Papal monarch.
1889(6th of Sivan, 5649): Shavuot
1892: Founding of
the Jewish community of Oslo, Norway.
1899(27th of Sivan,
5659): German printer, publisher and bookseller, Hirsch Fishl passed away in
Berlin. Sometime after 1860, while living in Halberstadt, Hirsch developed a
specialty of buying and selling Hebrew books and manuscripts. Hirsch provided Joseph Zender with many of
the incunabula and rare books that were part of the first collection of Hebrew
Books created for the British Museum. He
also provided assistance for The Bodleian Library and the Rosenthal
Library at Amsterdam when they sought to acquire Jewish and Hebrew Books. (As reported by Singer and Van Straalen)
1908: In White Plains, NY, Felix and Frieda
Warburg give birth to their fifth and youngest child Edward Mortimer Morris
Warburg
1912: Birthdate of
Arnold Forster, an American Jewish leader, lawyer and writer who became a
longtime executive of the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith.
1916: After a bruising confirmation
process laced with anti-Semitism that lasted for more than four Louis Brandeis
became the first Jewish Justice of the United States Supreme Court when he took the oath of
office in the courtroom of the United States Supreme Court. The chamber was filled to capacity with
family members, well wishers and government officials including Secretary of
War Baker, Attorney General Gregory, Senator Nelson of Colorado and Senator
Martin of Virginia. “The oath was administered to Mr. Brandeis today by virtue
of the action of the Senate in waiving its three-day notification rule
providing that a person confirmed by the Senate shall not assume office until three
days after he is notified of his appointment.”
1917: During World War I, in the
United States registration began under the Selective Draft Act covering all men
between the ages of twenty one and thirty.
According to historian Martin Gilbert, the New York Times declared that
this act gave “’gave a long and sorely needed means of disciplining a certain
insolent foreign element in this nation.’ The reference was to America’s Jews,
whose pacifist elements were no greater, by proportion than those of other Americans. Universal military service, one American
rabbi insisted, was an institution deriving from the time of Moses. In support of this pro-war view there was
also a verse in the Psalms which British Jews had cited two years earlier as a
religious justification for to war: ‘Blessed be the Lord, my Rock, Who teaches
my hands to war and my fingers to fight.’ Within two months of the passage of
the Selective Draft Act, Jews made up 6 per cent of the American armed forces,
though they were only 2 per cent of the population.” The most of those Jews in uniform would be
Irving Berlin.
1921: Funeral services are scheduled
to be held today for Dr. Simon Baruch, father of Bernard Baruch, at the West
End Synagogue in New York City.
1930: Birthdate of Jerome
Howard Abrams who, as Jerry Ames, became a major force in the field of American
Tap Dance. The 2006 recipient of the Flo Bert Award for his lifetime
contribution to tap dance changed his name, like many other performers of his
era, because his “Jewishness” could hinder his career.
1932: Dr. Cyrus Adler announced that
Dr. Morris D. Levine has been appointed to a full professorship at the Jewish
Theological Seminary of America.
1932: Dr. Cyrus Adler was honored
today during the commencement exercises at the Jewish Theological Seminary for
his thirty years of service to this flagship institution of the Jewish
community.
1932: Ten new rabbis will be ordained
today at the 7th annual commencement exercises of the Jewish
Institute of Religion. The chairman of the board of Trustees, Judge Julian W.
Mack will preside at the event being held at Carnegie Hall and Rabbi Stephen S.
Wise, President of the Institute will confer the degrees on the newly minted
clergyman.
1933: Arturo Toscaninii boycotts a German music festival to protest Nazi repression of what the regime classified as “degenerate artists.”
1934: Tensions began to
rise today in Eastern Thrace that would lead to full blown violence during June
and July known as the Thrace Pogroms which was the name given to a series of
violent attacks on the Jews by Moslem Turks in the “cities of Tekirdağ, Edirne,
Kırklareli, and Çanakkale.” The violence began with boycotts of Jewish shops
and products which “was followed by vandalizing of Jewish houses and shops.” There is a dispute as to who caused the
violence. Some attribute it to leaders
who were pro-Nazi while others attribute it to members of Atatürk's Republican
People's Party. Who started the violence
may be a matter of dispute but the effects are a matter of record. “Over 15,000
Jews had to flee from the region.”
1935: The Metropolitan League of
Jewish Community Associations honored The American Jewish Olympic team which
recently competed in the Maccabiah games held in Tel Aviv at a reception held
at the 92nd Street Y.M.H.A. The three hundred attendees included
E.J. Londow, the chairman, Judge Jonah Goldstein and Rabbi Louis I. Newman.
Among the honorees were Jance Lifson, Dores Kelm, William Steiner and Martin
Weintraub.
1937: Birthdate of Benjamin Jerry
Cohen the native of Ossining, New York
who I”s the Louis G. Lancaster Professor of International Political Economy at
the University of California, Santa Barbara.… where he has been a member of the
faculty since 1991” and “teaches undergraduate and graduate courses on
international political economy.”
1940: “With the ever-increasing threat
of war in the Eastern Mediterranean” the New York Times described preparations
being made to defend Palestine from attacks by Axis forces. Palestine is an attractive target because
Haifa is the terminus of the oil pipeline from Iraq and has become one of the
busiest ports in this part of the world. Additionally, Palestine has become
“one of the largest manufacturing centers in the Near East” thanks in large
part to the influx of Jewish settlers from Germany and other parts of Europe
over the last seven years. The Jews of Palestine are committed to the defense
of area and are determined to stay put and deal with any invasion.
1940: Birthdate of David Brudnoy,
Boston talk radio host
1942: In Cracow; Poland, thousands of
Jews were rounded up for deportation.
1942: Eisengruppen report stating
efficiency of Gas vans; "Since 1941, 97,000 have been processed in the
three vehicles in operation without any malfunctions in the vehicles."
1942:
The SS reports that 97,000 persons have been "processed" in mobile
gas vans.
1942: During
a roundup of Jews in Kraków, Poland, SS men brutally torment two men--one who
has just one leg and another who had lost his eyesight while fighting for
Germany in World War I.
1943:
The Nazis deported 1266 Jewish children under the age of 16 from Vught,
Holland to the Sobibór death camp where they are gassed upon arrival.
1943(2nd
of Sivan, 5703): In Minsk Mazowiecki, Poland, more than 100 Jewish workers
at the Rudzki factory are shot.
1943: When the National Headliners' Club included
women in its ranks of prizewinning journalists for the first time in 1943,
Sylvia Porter was one of just two women to receive a Headliners' award. Today
she was honored for "outstanding" work in financial and business
reporting. By then, Porter had been working in journalism for a decade, but the
award was only the first of many Porter would earn over a career that spanned
half a century.
1943:
Etty Hillesum voluntarily returned to Westerbork where she “continued to
provide a bit of support for the people as they were preparing themselves for
transport. It was for this reason that Etty Hillesum consistently turned down
offers to go into hiding. She said that she wished to "share her people's
fate".
1944: The Allies marched into Rome,
1944. Jews emerged from their hiding places and the gate of the great synagogue
was opened. There has been a great deal written about the Pope's failure to
come to the aid of the Jews during the war. But we must not lose sight of
the heroic efforts on the part of many individual Italians many of whom were
priests and nuns who risked their lives to hide the Jews of Italy. The
stories of people being hidden in monasteries, nunneries and in Catholic
cemeteries are tales of courage and daring do that even Tom Clancy or Ian
Fleming could not have invented.
1944:
In the weekly internal report of the War Refugee Board, it states that notice
was recently sent to Algeria about the evacuation of 1,000 refugees now in
southern Italy to be accepted by the United States. Among the countries which
refugees originated from were Bulgaria, Greece, Spain, Turkey and Yugoslavia.
1948: Israeli armed forces captured
Yavneh.
1950: European diamond manger, Jacques
Torczyner, warns that unfair labor practices by the West German diamond
industry will have a negative impact on other diamond cutting centers including
the one at Tel Aviv.
1950: Eliahu Elath flies to London to
begin serving as Israel’s first ambassador to Great Britain “which has recently
accorded Israel full recognition…”
1951(1st of Sivan, 5711): Rosh Chodesh
Sivan
1954: The last new episode of the hit comic variety
program, Your Show of Shows, airs. The show co-starred Sid Caesar and
included Carl Reiner and Howie Morris as “second bananas.” Writers for the show included Mel Brooks,
Woody Allen and Neil Simon.
1956:
It was reported today that the Mizrachi Women’s Organization of American has
$1,165,000 in the past year to support projects in Israel including “several
children’s villages, vocational high schools, nurseries and settlement houses.”
1957(6th
of Sivan, 5717): First Day of Shavuot
1959:
Dr. Bernard Mandelbaum was appointed provost of the Jewish Theological Seminary
of America.
1959:
Ogden Rogers Reid was appointed U.S. Ambassador to Israel.
1967:
Operation Focus (Mivtza Moked) began at 07:45
1967: War broke out between Israel and
the Arab nations. This day marks the first of six of the most
momentous days in Jewish history. In May of 1967, Egypt ordered the U.N.
peacekeeping force out of the Sinai and sent Egyptian forces into the Sinai
Peninsula. Both of these acts were violations of the agreements that had
ended the Suez Crisis of 1956-57. Egypt also closed the Straits of Tiran
to Israeli shipping effectively blockading the port of Elath. Such a
blockade is an act of war under international law. The Egyptians also
formed a joint military command with the Syrians and the Jordanians. For
a month, Israel heeded the voices of caution from the international
community. However, nothing was done to relieve the desperate
situation. So on the morning of June 5, 1967, the Israeli Air Force
struck the Egyptian Air Force, destroying much of it on the ground. This
was an act of real daring since the Israelis had left only 12 fighters to cover
the rest of the country in case of air attack. Following the successful
air action, Israeli troops entered the Sinai and engaged the larger Egyptian
forces. The world waited and held its breath. At the same time, the
Israelis used three different channels to try and convince the Jordanians not
to enter the fight. The Jordanian response was to begin shelling the western section
of Jerusalem and to begin to move troops forward. Reluctantly, Israeli
forces moved into the eastern section of Jerusalem. Two days later, the
city would be united as the capital of the Jewish state and the Western Wall would
once again be open to the Jews from throughout the world. (For more details on
the war you might want to read Six Days of War by Oren, Israel’s Fight
for Survival by Donovan, or Israel by Martin Gilbert. As these accounts, all written in different
eras after the war confirm, Israel had no grand strategy to conquer the Sinai,
the West Bank and the Golan. The attacks aimed at the Egyptians were part of a
grand design, but the fight against the other states was in response to
unfolding events on the ground. For
example, the destruction of the Egyptian Air Force was a strategic move. The destruction of the Jordanian, Syrian and
Iraqi air forces was a tactical move that took place when the planes from these
three Arab nations crossed into Israeli air space in mid-morning of June 5.)
1967(26th
of Iyar, 5727): Arthur Yitzhak Biram, Israeli philosopher, philologist, and
educator, passed away in Haifa. Born in
Bischofswerda in Saxony in 1878, the son of a modest, but successful
businessman Biram attended school in Hirschberg, Silesia. His sister Else
Bodenheimer became a well known art sociologist. He studied languages,
including Arabic, at University of Berlin and at University of Leipzig and
earned a doctorate Dr. phil. at the University of Leipzig in 1902, discussing
the philosophy of Abu-Rasid al-Nisaburi.[1] In 1904 he concluded the rabbi
seminar at the Hochschule für die Wissenschaft des Judentums. Afterwards he
taught languages and literature at the Berlinisches Gymnasium zum Grauen
Kloster. Biram was one of the founders of the Bar-Kochba club, and a member of
the German liberal religious stream 'Ezra', which recognized the importance of
high school education. In 1913, he emigrated to Ottoman Palestine. Dr. Arthur
Biram was appointed the first principal of the Hebrew Reali School in Haifa but
a few months later, World War I broke out, and Dr. Biram was drafted by the
German army and stationed in Afula. In 1919, he returned to school. He married
Hannah Tomeshevsky, and they had two sons. Both sons were killed: Aharon died in
an accident while on reserve duty, and Binyamin, an engineer at the Dead Sea
Works, was killed by a mine. As part of Dr. Biram's philosophy of education, in
1937, he implemented compulsory Hagam
training for girls in the Hebrew Reali School in Haifa, laying the
foundation for recruitment of women in the Haganah, and later the Israel
Defence Forces. In 1948, he resigned his post as principal, and on his 75th
birthday, he authored a collection of essays on the Bible. Altogether, he wrote
about 50 publications in Hebrew, German, English, and Arabic.
1967: The Israeli army captured the
city of Gaza. Gaza had been occupied by the Egyptians since 1948 and was a
base for terrorists.
1967: The town of Latrun, overlooking
the old road to Jerusalem was captured. Latrun dominated the road to
Jerusalem and had been the cite of great deal of hard fighting during the
War For Independence in 1948. The city of Qalqilya was also
captured on the same day.
1967: The U.N. Security Council
unanimously ordered a cease-fire in the Middle East War. This was
the same U.N. that had betrayed the Israelis by removing its forces from the
Sinai and had sat silently while the Arab states tightened the noose around
Israel's neck.
1967: In Cairo, Dr. Fraouk Shabtai and
two of his brothers were taken to Abu Zaabal prison and later transferred to an
internment camp at Tourah where they would spend the next two years. They were part of at least “425 Jewish males
– the vast majority of the Jewish community’s men – who were detained in Egypt
during the Six Day War.”
1967: Avraham
"Avi" Lanir flew his plane the “Black Mirage” in attack on the
Egyptian air base at Fayid. The plane
earned its nickname when it was scorched during Lanir’s dogfight with the
Syrians in April of 1967.
1967: Mob violence broke out in Tunis.
One hundred shops were systematically looted and burnt; cars belonging to Jews
were overturned and set ablaze; forty scrolls of the Law were taken out of the
main synagogue by the pillagers and were desacrated before they were burnt; the
main synagogue was itself set on fire until it lay a smouldering ruin, the
police having stood by and watched. President Bourguiba made an impassioned
plea on radio and television to stop the rioting, apologising to the Jewish
community and promising to punish the perpetrators. The Jews had little
confidence in the government’s ability to protect them. The population went from 105,000 to 23,000 by
the end of 1967 and 9,000 by 1900. In the 21st century, terrorists
would burn an ancient Tunisian synagogue.
1968: Sirhan Sirhan shot Bobby
Kennedy, who died the next day. Kennedy was the Senator from New York and a
candidate for the Democratic nomination for President. At one point, this Arab assassin claimed
that he shot Kennedy because he supported Israel. Regardless of the reason
(mental health problems were also given as a defense), long before 9/11 Arabs
violently intruded their way into the American political scene and had a
defining affect on altering history.
1969: Dr. Shabtai and his wife Laila
were married in Paris two years to the day after Dr. Shabtai had been seized by
Egyptian authorities at the start of the Six Days War.
1969:
The University of Texas at San Antonio was founded. Today there are approximately 150 Jewish students
UTSA. The Hillel House serves students
at UTSA as well those at other colleges and universities in San Antonio.
1975: The Suez Canal opened for the
first time since the Six Day War of 1967.
1982: Israel launched Operation Peace
for Galilee against the PLO and other hostile forces after the assassination
attempt on the life of Shlomo Argov, Israel’s ambassador to the United Kingdom.
1987:
Ted Koppel hosts a "National Town Meeting on AIDS" on a special
four-hour long live broadcast of Nightline.
1988: An exhibition at
the Historical Museum of the City of Vienna that presents a large private
collection illustrating Jewish life in that city is scheduled to come to an
end. The exhibition includes “historic
objects from Jewish homes and houses of worship in Vienna, as well as books,
parchments, charts, artworks and handicrafts, all assembled over the last three
decades by the collector Max Berger.”
1995:
Bose-Einstein condensate is first created for the first time. The collapse of
the atoms into a single quantum state is known as Bose condensation or
Bose-Einstein condensation. This phenomenon was predicted in the 1920s by
Satyendra Nath Bose and Albert Einstein, based on Bose's work on the
statistical mechanics of photons, which was then formalized and generalized by
Einstein. (And you thought he stopped
with the E= MC squared.)
1998:
Author and commentator Alfred Kazin passed away on his 83rd
birthday. His last published work was God and the American Writer which
appeared in 1997.
1999(21st
of Sivan, 5759): Melvin
Howard “Mel” Tormé nicknamed The Velvet Fog, “an American musician, known for
his jazz singing” passed away. “He was
also a jazz composer and arranger, a drummer, an actor in radio, film, and
television, and the author of five books. He co-wrote the classic holiday song
"The Christmas Song" (also known as "Chestnuts Roasting on an
Open Fire") with Bob Wells. [And
you thought that Irving Berlin was the only Jew writing Christmas songs.]
1999:
At Temple Judah in Cedar Rapids, IA, Aufruf for Deb and Mitchell Levin.
2002(25th
of Sivan, 5762): Of
the 17 Israelis who were killed this morning when a stolen car packed with
explosives pulled alongside a public bus and exploded near the northern town of
Megiddo, 13 were soldiers, most of them conscripts. Seven were buried today at
the Hadera military cemetery. At least five of the victims were immigrants from the
former Soviet Union, young people whose parents had brought them out of
Dagestan and Moldova and Ukraine. One of the victims, Violetta Hizgayev, a shy,
19-year-old sergeant in the ordinance corps, had struggled more than most.
Gennadi
Issakov, 20, who also was killed in the attack, had been a sergeant in Jenin
for the District Civil Liaison office, a military unit set up under Oslo peace
accords to staff checkpoints, supervise the delivery of international relief
aid and issue the rare permits for West Bank Palestinians to travel inside
Israel.
2003(5th
of Sivan, 5763): Erev Shavuot
2003(5th of Sivan, 5763): Meir Vilner “an
Israeli communist politician and Jewish leader of the Communist Party of Israel
(Maki), which consisted primarily of Israeli Arabs” passed away. “He was the
youngest and longest surviving signatory of the Israeli Declaration of
Independence in 1948.” He was the cousin of Abba Kovner who certainly did not
share his views.
2005(25th
of Sivan, 5762): Cpl.
Dennis Bleuman was one of 17 Israeli soldiers murdered today by an Arab
terrorist.
2005: The New York Times featured
reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers
including The Luckiest Man: The Life and Death of Lou Gehrig by
Jonathan Eig.
2005: Acclaimed historian Gerda Lerner received an
honorary doctorate from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. In granting the
degree, the president and rector of the Hebrew University Europe , provides a model of what may be accomplished in
the face of adversity." The following day, as part of a conference in her
honor, she gave a keynote address titled, "What Is Women's History and Why
Should We Study It?" Lerner is widely regarded as uniquely positioned to
answer that question, having shaped the field of women's history from its
earliest beginnings.
2007:
In London Israel Jerusalem
2007:
In a court case tied to the Bush Administration’s behavior that led to the war
in Iraq CIA officer named Valery Plame. Both Libby and Plame are Jewish.
2008:
Pinchas Zukerman returns as a soloist playing with the Chicago Symphony
Orchestra under the direction of Leonard Slatkin.
2008(2nd
of Sivan, 5768): Amnon
Rosenberg a 51 year old father
of three from Nirim lost his life during a noontime mortar attack on the Kibbutz
Nir Oz factory where he was working. Two others were seriously wounded and a fourth
suffered light wounds in the noontime attack.
2009:
The Tenth Annual Washington Jewish Music Festival presents “ShirLaLa: Family
Shabbat Service and Dinner” featuring Shira Kline whose “creative songs delight
children, parents and grandparents alike, making Shabbat a fun, interactive
experience.”
2009:
At Temple Judah in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Sophie Shiffman and her family begin her
Bat Mitzvah Shabbat by participating in Friday evening services.
2009:
President Obama toured Buchenwald concentration camp today with Chancellor
Merkel, Nobel laureate and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel and survivor Bertrand
Herz. At 3:10 p.m. local time, the group placed white, long-stemmed roses on a
memorial site. Following remarks by
Merkel, Obama commented on his visit: "I will not forget what I have seen
here today." Thanking "my friend Elie Wiesel," Obama told the
story of President Eisenhower's instruction that soldiers, townspeople,
congressmen tour the camps. Obama lauded Merkel and the German people:
"It's not easy to look into the past in this way and acknowledge it and
make something of it...a determination that they will stand guard against acts
like this happening again.
2010:
During Shabbat services at Temple Judah in Cedar Rapids, IA, Jonathan Kerbis,
son of Esther and Sergio Kerbis, is scheduled to be called to the Torah for his
last Aliyah before making Aliyah and beginning his training with the IDF.
2010:
Scott Ballan,
the son of the lead bond lawyer for the financing of the $1.5 billion new
Yankee stadium is scheduled to celebrate his Bart Mitzvah today.
2010:
After Shabbat had ended, Orthodox boxer Yuri Foreman'sd defended his title in a
bout with former welterweight champion Miguel Cotto (34-2). Foreman lost the fight for the WBA junior
middleweight crown at Yankee Stadium in a TKO in the 9th round ending a streak
of 29 undefeated fights..
2010:
An Egyptian
appeals court today upheld a ruling that orders the country's Interior Ministry
to strip the citizenship from Egyptians married to Israeli women. The case
underlines the deep animosity many Egyptians still hold toward Israelis,
despite a peace treaty signed between the two countries 31 years ago. The
Supreme Administrative Court's decision also scores a point for Egyptian
hard-liners who have long resisted any improvement in ties with Israel since
the signing of the 1979 peace treaty.
In
upholding last year's lower court ruling, the appeals court said today that the
Interior Ministry should present each marriage case to the Cabinet on an
individual basis. The Cabinet will then rule on whether to strip the Egyptian
of his citizenship. The court also said officials should take into
consideration whether a man married an Israeli Arab or a Jew when making its
decision to revoke citizenship. Today's decision, which cannot be appealed,
comes more than year after a lower court ruled that the Interior Ministry,
which deals with citizenship documents, must implement the 1976 article of the
citizenship law. That bill revokes citizenship of Egyptians who married
Israelis who have served in the army or embrace Zionism as an ideology. The
Interior Ministry appealed that ruling. The lawyer who brought the original
suit to court, Nabih el-Wahsh, celebrated Saturday's ruling, saying it "is
aimed at protecting Egyptian youth and Egypt's national security." The
government has not released figures of Egyptians married to Israeli women, but
some estimates put the number around 30,000. Israeli officials said they had no
comment on today's ruling. In 2005, former Grand Mufti Nasr Farid Wasel issued
a religious edict, or fatwa, saying Muslim Egyptians may not marry Israeli
nationals, "whether Arab, Muslim, or Christian." The possibility of a
Jewish spouse was not mentioned. Mohammed Sayyed Tantawi, the late Grand Sheik
of Cairo's Al-Azhar, Sunni Islam's premier institution and oldest university,
has said that while marriage between an Egyptian man and an Israeli woman is
not religiously forbidden, the government has the right to strip the man of his
citizenship for marrying a woman from "an enemy state."
2011:
The Annual Cantor’s Concert is scheduled to take place at Tikvat Israel
featuring Cantor Rochelle Helzner and Rabbi Joshua Maroof
2011:
The Gold Coast Film Festival is scheduled to present “Homecoming” a documentary
about “three teenagers who were born in Israel to foreign workers who came to
Israel in search of a better life.”
2011:
The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish author and/or of
special interest to Jewish readers including “The Ballad of Bob Dylan: A
Portrait” by Daniel Mark Epstein and “Hank Greenberg: The Hero Who Didn’t
Want to Be One” by Mark Kurlansky
2011:
The Los Angeles Times features reviews of books by Jewish author and/or
of special interest to Jewish readers including “The Secret Knowledge: On the
Dismantling of American Culture” by David Mamet.
2011:
An estimated 30,000
people marched up New York's Fifth Avenue in the annual Celebrate Israel Parade
amid a sea of blue-and-white flags. Tens of thousands lined the streets to view
the parade. The marchers were led by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg
accompanied by Israel's minister of information and Diaspora, Yuli Edelstein;
Israel’s ambassador to the United States, Michael Oren; and Israel’s consul
general in New York, Ido Aharoni. Elected officials and politicians from New
York, New Jersey and Connecticut were in attendance, as were congressmen who
made the trip from Washington. The Israel parade, which started in 1964, is
held to mark the founding of the State of Israel. It is regarded as the world's
largest celebration of Israel Independence Day; the event was formerly called
the Salute to Israel Parade.
2011:
Two Palestinian
teenagers were indicted in the murder of five members of the Fogel family from
the West Bank settlement of Itamar. Amjad Awad, 19, who worked as a laborer in
Israel, and Hakim Awad 18, a high school student, were indicted today in a West
Bank military court for the murders of Udi Fogel, 36, Ruth Fogel, 35, and their
children Yoav, 11, Elad, 4, and Hadas, 3 months. The men reportedly confessed
to the March 11 murder, and military prosecuters say there is forensic evidence
linking them to the scene of the crime, including DNA samples and fingerprints,
Haaretz reported. The men were also charged with stealing weapons, breaking and
entering, and conspiracy to commit a crime, according reports. They are
residents of the West Bank town of Hawarta, located near Itamar, and have been
connected to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. "I'm proud of what I did," Ynet quoted
Amjad Awad as saying just minutes before the hearing. "I don't regret what
I did, even if it means I'm sentenced to death." Israel does not have the
death penalty expect for convictions for genocide, war crimes, crimes against
humanity, crimes against the Jewish people, and treason in wartime, though some
politicians have called for the men to be sentenced to death if found guilty. Three
of the Fogel children survived the attack; two were sleeping in a side bedroom
and were not discovered, and a daughter was out of the house at the time of the
killings.
2012:
“Mary Lou”, a cinematic creation of Israeli director Eytan Fox, is scheduled to
be shown at the JCC in Manhattan
2012:
The opening reception for "Equus Ambiguity -The Emergence of Maturity,”
Moshe Givati’s solo exhibition is scheduled to take place at the Jadite
Galleries in New York.
2012:
The Skirball Center for Adult Jewish Learning is scheduled to present the “He
& She” the 10th Annual Exhibition of Works of The Artists’ Beit
Midrash
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