DECEMBER 7 In History
43 BCE: The famous orator Marcus Tullius Cicero
died. Cicero was a Patrician, member of
the Senate and opponent of Julius Caesar.
Following Caesar’s assassination, Mark Anthony and Octavian executed
those whom they viewed as enemies of the state.
Cicero fell into that category.
Based on his public utterances, Cicero had no use for the Jews. "The
Jews belong to a dark and repulsive force. One knows how numerous this clique
is, how they stick together and what power they exercise through their unions.
They are a nation of rascals and deceivers." While serving as defense counsel at the trial
of Flaccus, a Roman pro-consul accused of diverting one hundred pounds of gold
bound for the Temple in Jerusalem, Cicero described the Jews as a people born
to slavery who had become far too intrusive in the affairs of Rome. Was Cicero
an anti-Semite? Or was he merely a
member of the old order who resented the changes in society (sort of a Roman
version of Henry Adams or Gore Vidal); a person who demonized Jews because they
were different? Regardless of the cause,
the statements speak for themselves.
1158: Abraham Ibn Ezra, under the influence of
an inspiration or vision he had on that Shabbat day, decided to defend the
traditional reckoning of the Jewish holidays and Sabbaths against the trend to
begin them only at day break rather than the previous night. Immediately after
the Sabbath he began to write his Iggeret Shabbat ("Shabbat
Letter") in which he used both religious and astronomical sources to
defend his position. He wrote it while visiting England, making it one of the
few Hebrew works composed there prior to the expulsion of the Jews in 1290.
1237(Kislev, 4998): Abraham ben Moses ben
Maimon the son of Maimonides aka the Rambam who followed his father as
the leader of the Egyptian Jewish community passed away.
1254: Pope
Innocent IV passed away. During his papacy, Innocent “denounced the Blood
Libels as unfounded.” In 1247, Innocent
agreed to grant a request from the Jews by issuing a declaration stating “that
the Talmud was an absolute necessity for the Jews, if Judaism were to continue
to exist as a separate religion, and that the burnings of the Talmud were to
cease.” These actions certainly make him stand out from many of those who
served as the Vicar of Christ in Rome.
1279(O.S.): King Boleslaus V of Poland passed away. In 1264, Boleslaus V issued a charter
that allowed for Jewish residence and protection, hoping that Jewish settlement
would contribute to the development of the Polish economy. This charter was
similar to one that had been granted to the Jews of Austria in 1244. While Jews were not granted the same degree of
protection as other citizens and while Jews were excluded from privileges
afforded Christian merchants and burghers, the charter did include recognition of legal testimony of
Jews, fines for harming Jews or Jewish property, prohibition of blood libels,
and equal commercial rights. Even though
the charter was not always followed, it marked a major improvement over
conditions that Jews were living under in other parts of Europe and helped
encourage a major eastward migration of the Children of Israel.
1787:
Delaware becomes the first state to ratify the U.S. Constitution. Delaware abolished religious tests for public
office in 1792. For more about the
history of the Jews of the “first state” see http://www.hsd.org/DHM_exhibit_Half_A_Chance.htm.
1841:
Michael
Solomon Alexander, a convert from Judaism was ordained as Anglican Bishop of
Jerusalem at Lambeth Place. He would
arrive in Jerusalem in the first month of the following year.
1842: The
New York Philharmonic gave its first performance. Numerous Jewish musicians and conductors have
been involved with the Philharmonic in its 163 year history. One of the most famous Jews connected with
the Philharmonic was not a musician. In
1909, Minnie Utermyer, wife of prominent businessman and lawyer Samuel Untermey
led a group of philanthropist in guaranteeing the future financial solvency of
this great American musical institution.
1844:
Ein
Feldlager in Schlesien (a Singspiel in three acts by German-Jewish composer Giacomo
Meyerbeer was first performed today at the Hofoper, in Berlin.
1847: Birthdate of Solomon Schechter. “Solomon Schechter was born in Rumania in to a
Chabad Chassidic family. His Chassidic upbringing did not satisfy him, however,
and, in 1879 he went to study at the Berlin Hochschule fur die Wissenschaft des
Judentums and at the University of Berlin. In 1882 Schechter was invited to be
a tutor in Rabbinics in London. He quickly rose to prominence as a rabbinic
scholar and spokesman for Jewish traditionalism. In 1890 he was appointed
lecturer in Talmudics and in 1892 reader in Rabbinics at Cambridge University.
In 1899 he also became professor of Hebrew at University College, London. He
gained international fame as a scholar when he discovered and brought back to
London more than 100,000 pages of rare manuscripts from the Cairo Geniza.
Beyond sorting and filing the documents, Schechter wrote on the newly-found Ben
Sirach materials, unknown until then. Schechter accepted the invitation to
become president of the Jewish Theological Seminary and succeeded in attracting
an outstanding group of scholars to teach. The Jewish Theological Seminary
became a recognized center of Jewish learning. In 1913 Solomon Schechter was
instrumental in founding the United Synagogue of America, the umbrella
organization of all Conservative congregations. Though a staunch
traditionalist, Schechter admitted that there could be change in modern
Judaism. However, he felt that changes should not be introduced arbitrarily or
deliberately. Rather, ‘the norm as well as the sanction of Judaism is the
practice actually in vogue. Its consecration is the consecration of general
use—or, in other words, of Catholic Israel.’ Although it may be apocryphal, my
favorite quote from Solomon Schechter is, ‘Gentlemen, in order to be a success
in the American rabbinate, you must be able to talk baseball.’"
1852:
Reverend Edward Robinson, DD read a lengthy paper based on his recent visit to
the Holy Land at the regular monthly meeting of the New York Historical
Society. After Reverend Robinson finished his presentation Dr. Adams said that
to some such a detailed report of such a distant place “was not the most
appropriate for the New York State Historical Society. But on reflection every man should feel that
Palestine was not a strange land to us. It was our home, ‘Jerusalem is the
mother of us all.’ …They therefore felt thankful to the Doctor for his laborious
research.” [This is an early
manifestation of philo-Semitism that would be beneficial to the Zionist
movement.]
1860:
A column published today entitled “The Commercial Relations Between the North
and South,” reviews the impact that Southern Secession would have on the
business operations in what has been the United States of America using the
ability of Jews and Christians to engage in commercial activities as its
template:
“How,
then, is New-York to lose its Southern trade? If at all, from political
considerations alone; South Carolina says, "I do not like your political
sentiments, and will have nothing to do with you." She is not as tolerant
as the Jew who would buy and sell with the Christian, but not eat or drink with
him. But will, or can she deliberately persist in any course in violation of
her own interest? No! The thing is impossible. It has not an example in all
history. If there be a law unerring in its action, and firmly engraved upon the
popular mind, it is that "men will sell in the dearest market and buy in
the cheapest," and will always take the shortest and most convenient
method to accomplish their ends. South Carolina can no more stay away from us
than matter can refuse to obey the laws of gravity, which is not a whit stronger
in its way than is the law of self-interest with the individual.”
1871(24th
of Kislev, 5632): Light the first Chanukah candle.
1875:
It was reported today that the bodies of Abram and Aaron Dietz, William Meyers,
Abram Kurtz and William Laser who died in the Brooklyn Theatre Fire which
claimed the lives of 278 people were taken from the City Morgue by
representatives of the Brooklyn Young Men’s Hebrew Benevolent Society and taken
to Temple Israel. The bodies were so
badly charred that identification of the victims has been so slow and difficult
1879: Based on information that originally appeared in an article entitled the “History of Money” by famed numismatist Sir John Lubbock, it was reported today that the ancient shekel is one of the most popular coins among collectors possibly because of its Biblical connection. However, it is the most frequently counterfeited ancient coin and “of so-called shekels found among collectors, over three-fourths of them are forgeries.
1879: “The Prussian Press and Bismarck” published today describes the government’s control of the content of newspapers in Germany which is under the direction of a Privy Councilor named Hahn, who is a convert from Judaism. (This will not be the last time that the Jews are accused of controlling the media in Germany or elsewhere)
1879:
President Abraham Oettinger chaired the 15th annual meeting of the
Hebrew Free School Association. The association operates 5 schools and is
planning to open a sixth. The school
employs twenty teachers, five of whom are women. The association serves 1,129
students. All of the students must attend public school during the day since
the association’s schools are intended to supplement and not supplant public
education offerings. Two of the
association’s schools conduct Saturday morning services which draw
approximately 600 worshippers.
1879: The formal incorporation of Or Chaim takes place in New York
City with the adoption of its constitution and by-laws at its first meeting
attended by two of its first members, Sigmund Arnstein and Marcus J. Cohen.
1880: “Modern Persecution of the Jews” published today described
the outbreak of anti-Semitism sweeping across Germany. It is based on the premise that a million and
half Jews are trying to control the lives of forty million Germans. German
nationalist hate Jews because they do not engage in manual labor while the
Socialists hate them because they are all millionaires. The outbreak of anti-Semitism coincided with
the economic downturn that came after the bubble created the victory over
France came to an end.
1880: It was reported today that German Jews do not serve in the
army because they are prevented from rising above the rank of 2nd
lieutenant.
1880: It was reported that German Jews do not serve in the navy or
the merchant marine because they have no hope of ever serving as captain of a
vessel. This based on “an old German
superstition that a Jewish Captain would sink his vessel.”
1881: It was reported today when Chester A. Arthur sent his
Presidential message to Congress he took note of the fact that the Senate
resolutions expressing condolence at the time of the assassination of Czar
Alexander II had been sent to the Russian government which he hoped would
improve the treatment of American Jews visiting that empire. The Russians, Arthur wrote, had a tendency to
treat American Jews in the same manner they did Jews living under the Czar
1882: During the Tiszaeszlár Affair, a Hungarian blood libel, the
body found in Tisza was exhumed and reexamined by three professors of medicine
from the University of Budapest. They
would conclude that the original autopsy
“had no scientific basis” and showed “grows ignorance” on the part of the
examiners.
1888: In a case of Jew versus Jew, 19 year old Ernestine Nolfen
sued Noach Soenfeld in Minneapolis, MN for “breach of promise.”
1888: It was reported today that Rabbi Wolf Berger of Anshe Chesed
has sued the brothers of the late Mr. Kingsburgh who owned a stationary and
tobacco store near the local post office for twenty five dollars. Berger claims he is owed the money for
teaching the decedent’s sons the appropriate prayers for mourning their father
and for composing the inscription on his tombstone.
1890(25th of Kislev, 5651): Chanukah
1894: Silver Dollar Smith, the Jewish Tammany politician and
saloon keeper is scheduled to appear in court today where he must answer
charges that he assaulted August J. Gloistein, the operator of another nearby
saloon.
1905: Birthdate of Leonard Goldstein who
would become President of the American Broadcasting Companies in 1968.
1907: In
Chicago, Leon Oboler and Clara Oboler, Jewish immigrants from Riga, Latvia,
gave birth to Arch Oboler an American actor, playwright, screenwriter,
novelist, producer, and director who was active in radio, films, theater, and
television.
1907: Birthdate of Fred Rose.
Born Fred Rosenberg in Lithuania, Rose moved to Canada where he gained
fame as a labor organizer and Canadian communist politician.
1907: The Trustees,
Faculty, and students of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America gave a
"surprise party" to Dr. Solomon Schechter, the President of that
institution, in celebration of his sixtieth birthday. Dr. Schechter has only
been in this country five years, having been summoned by the Trustees of the
seminary from his position as Reader in the Rabbinic in Cambridge University,
England, and Professor of Hebrew in the University of London.
1910: Birthdate of Richard Franko Goldman conductor, educator, author,
music critic, and composer who was the son of Edwin Franko Godman. The son followed the father as conductor of
the Goldman Band of New York City.
1914: The
Federation of Oriental Jews organized the Oriental Jewish Community of New
York. They plan to establish and maintain their own institutions, burial
grounds, Talmud-Torahs, etc., and to care for the poor and sick Ladino speaking
community.
1915:
Abraham Shalom Yahuda of Madrid is appointed ordinary professor
"Catedratico numberario" of rabbinic literature at the Central
University. The appointment came despite the fact that there no synagogues in
Spain and that there had not been one in the country since 1492.
1915: Birthdate of actor Eli Wallach. Of all his
roles one of his best was as the Mexican outlaw leader in The Magnificent Seven.
1916: Birthdate of Dr. Mortimer D. Sackler, a
psychiatrist who was a co-owner of the pharmaceutical company Purdue Pharma,
makers of the controversial painkiller OxyContin, and whose lavish gifts to the
Guggenheim Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Columbia University made
him one of New York City’s most prominent benefactors. (As reported by Bruce
Weber
1916: During World War I, David Lloyd George becomes
Prime Minister and forms a new government. Lloyd George re-invigorated
the British War effort and helped ensure the Allied victory over the
Kaiser. Lloyd George was the Prime
Minister when the Balfour Declaration was issued and continued to fight for the
Zionist cause after the World War when other British leaders were determined to
break their war-time commitment to the Jewish people.
1916: Herbert Louis Samuel (the Viscount Samuel)
completed his first term as Home Secretary in the UK.
1917: A delegation of notables including the mayor
of Jerusalem, the chief of police and several imams, rabbis and Christian
clergy met with British forces just north of the city and surrendered the “keys
of the city.”
1918: As Allied troops march into Germany and
establish zones of occupation under the terms of the Armistice signed on
November 11, German born Zionist Arthur Ruppin wrote in his diary, “Never
indeed, in the history of the world has a people been confronted with such
terrible armistice terms and admitted its complete defeat, although no enemy
has yet set foot on its soil and on the contrary, its armies are still deep
within the territories of its enemies.
The simple man in the street cannot understand what has happened so
suddenly and feels completely lost.”
1921: The graduation of the nursing class from Hadassah
hospital, which had been postponed due to Arab attacks in November, took
place. The graduation address was given
by Dr. Eder, a distinguished British Jew and member of the Zionist Executive
who spoke in English. Dr. Eliezer Ben
Yehuda, one of the pioneering fathers’ of Modern Hebrew, walked out in protest.
1922: In Manhattan, Walter and Marion Pollak gave
birth to Louis Heilprin Pollak, “a federal judge and former dean of two
prestigious law schools who played a significant role in major civil rights
cases before the Supreme Court, including the landmark Brown v. Board of
Education desegregation case” (As reported by Dennis Hevesi)
1923: Birthdate of Professor Sir Abraham Goldberg
who became Regius Professor of the Practice of Medicine at the University of
Glasgow
1924: Birthdate of Ernest Martin Fleischmann, the
Frankfort native who fled the Nazis and eventually became “imperious impresario
who ran the Los Angeles Philharmonic for nearly three decades, helping to
elevate its stature to that of an orchestra of the first rank.”
1933: Premier of the cinematic version Elmer Rice's
play 'Counsellor-at-Law”' starring John Barrymore. Rice was Jewish. Barrymore was not.
1928: Birthdate of Noam Chomsky.
1941: A ship from Lisbon arrives at Ellis Island
arrives carrying Wanda Landowska.
1941, Japanese warplanes attacked the home base
of the U.S. Pacific fleet at Pearl Harbor, an act that led to America's entry
into World War II. Approximately 500,000 Jews served during World War
II. This was about ten per cent of the Jewish Population in the United
States, which would have made it higher than the average for other ethnic
groups. The numbers put the lie to the anti-Semitic slur that Jews were
nothing but black market profiteers. Approximately 52,000 of the Jewish
service personnel were decorated during the war.
1941: Time Magazine correspondent Theodore
White dropped slips of paper down twenty-nine floors to the street from Time
offices at Rockefeller Center to inform a bewildered Christmas shoppers below
that Japan had attacked Pearl Harbor. This young Jewish Harvard graduate would
go on to write The Making of the President 1960, a classic which would
change the nature of political literature while helping to create the Kennedy
Legend and the Concept of Camelot.
1941:
SS and Latvian firing squads began a slaughter of the Jews of Riga. Between December 7 and December 9, 1941, 25,000 Riga Jews were put to
death by firing squads. Combined with previous actions by the SS and their
Latvian allies, only 20% of original Jewish population in Riga now remained.
This ghetto was now ready to house German Jew deportees. Among the victims is a
preeminent Jewish historian, 81-year-old Simon Dubnow.
1941: The
attack at Pearl Harbor brings the U.S. into WW II during which approximately
200 Jews from Utah would serve in the various branches of the Armed forces.
1941: The Nazis begin gas-van
extermination operations at the Chelmno, Poland, death camp.
1942( 28th
of Kislev, 5703): Hannah Greenebaum Solomon passed away, Born on January 14, 1858 in
Chicago, Il, she “was the celebrated founder of the National Council of Jewish
Women, the first national association of Jewish women and also an important
force for reform in Chicago around the turn of the twentieth century. A superb
organizer, Solomon emphasized unity, and orchestrated agreements among Jewish,
gentile, and government groups on local, national, and international levels. Solomon
the fourth of ten siblings, to Michael and Sarah Greenebaum. Her father,
Michael Greenebaum, was part of the earliest group of Jews to settle in the
frontier city of Chicago. Solomon’s parents set an example of strong civic
involvement; her mother organized Chicago's first Jewish Ladies Sewing Society,
where they made clothes for the needy, and her father founded the Zion Literary
Society, was a volunteer fireman, and also helped found Chicago's first Reform
synagogue. In 1876, Hannah and her older sister Henriette were the first Jewish
women ever to be elected to the elite Chicago Women's Club. Many of Solomon's
ideas for the National Council of Jewish Women stemmed from her experiences
with the Chicago Woman's Club, which emphasized philanthropy and education. Solomon
became involved in an attempt to build a national association for Jewish women
out of an evident lack of associations for Jewish women and a desire to
propagate change. After years of planning and organizing, the Jewish Women’s
Congress met in 1893, culminating in a vote to form the National Council of
Jewish Women. At that same meeting, Solomon was elected president in a
unanimous show of approval. By the Council's first Triennial convention in
1896, NCJW was an organization of fifty sections and over 3300 members. Solomon
resigned as President in 1905, citing health reasons and the need to rest. Solomon
was indefatigable in her active civic involvement. Her many positions included
serving as President of the Illinois Industrial School for Girls. Solomon also
worked to institute Chicago's first Juvenile Court, and to improve the city's
laws concerning children. Throughout her time as an organizer, Solomon relied
on her family to support her and her efforts. Her husband, Henry Solomon, often
accompanied her on business trips, and the whole family travelled to Berlin for
the International Council of Women Convention in 1904. In her later years, as
well as after her death, Solomon was celebrated again and again for her
trailblazing work. The National Council of Jewish Women still evokes her words
as an inspiration to "improve the quality of life for women, children and
families and... ensure individual rights and freedoms for all." An
elementary school named in her honor was opened on Chicago's North Side in
1957.” (See Jewish Women’s Archives)
1942: German troops enter the
Polish village of Bialka and murder 96 villagers suspected of shielding Jews
fleeing the anti-Jewish Aktion in the nearby Parczew Forest.
1942: United States State
Department official G. Robert Borden Reams, an "expert" on the Jews
in the Division of European Affairs, advises that the United States government
remain silent concerning details of the Holocaust.
1942: British official John Cecil
Sterndale Bennett is upset because Bulgarian Jewish children may be allowed into
Palestine.
1944 (21st of Kislev, 5705): Satmar Rebbe Joel Teitelbaum
rescued. The Satmar Rebbe, Rabbi Joel Teitelbaum (1887-1979), was rescued from
the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, along with 1,368 other Jews, through the
efforts of Rudulf Kastner, head of the Zionist rescue operation in Hungary (an
earlier transport of 1,686 Jews had been rescued on Av 29). The Satmar
community celebrates the 21st of Kislev as a day of thanksgiving.
1945: Irvine
Robbins opened his first ice cream store -- called Snowbird because he couldn't
think of anything else – on the day after his 28th birthday. Robbins
used $2,000 he saved and cashed a $4,000 insurance policy his father had given
him at his bar mitzvah at Seattle's Temple DeHirsch Sinai to finance the
venture. Robbins had 21 flavors then, and his cousin bought $39 of the first
day's $53 total ice cream sales.
1946:
U.S. Secretary of state James “Jimmy” F. Byrnes said endorsed the creation of a
Jewish state when he said that partition was the best solution to the Palestine
Problem.
1947:
During a meeting of the Jewish World Congress, it was charged that anti-Jewish
is taking place in Iran
1947: Sir Alan Cunningham, the British High Commissioner
asked David Ben Gurion to meet with so that he could tell him that the British
"had decided to evacuation Palestine as soon as possible."
1947(24th
of Kislev, 5708): In the evening, kindle the first Chanukah light
1947(24th
of Kislev, 5708): Pessia Lev, a nineteen year old student nurse was killed by
Arab snipers when the eight bus convoy she was riding in was attacked as it
made its way to Jerusalem. Lev was going
home to celebrate Chanukah with her family.
1948:
President Truman announced that he would ask Congress for money for the
Palestinian refugees. This would appear
to be at odds with the British who want to furnish supplies and money for the
refugees from UN working capital funds
1948: The
Transjordan cabinet gives its consent to crowning of King Abdullah as king of
united Palestine and Transjordan. [In
other words, having crossed the Jordan River, seized what is called the West
Bank and the Old City of Jerusalem, the Jordanians were staking their claim to
the land as opposed to turning it over to the Palestinians for a state of their
own.]
1948: On
the third and final day of Operation Assaf, the Egyptians prepared to counter-attack
and drive the Israelis back. “However, Israeli Air Force reconnaissance
revealed the Egyptian preparations in the morning. The Israeli assault
battalion was sent to the Egyptian's north (left) flank and stormed their
forces southwards, then chased the retreating Egyptians westward, eventually
stopping in face of strong anti-tank Egyptian positions.” With the end of
Operation Assaf, the Israelis cleared the area of mine’s and built defensive
lines in case the Egyptians came back, before being withdrawn to take part in
Operation Horev.
1952:
Yigael Yadin resigned today, over disagreements with prime minister and defense
minister David Ben-Gurion about cuts to the military budget, which he argued
should be at least one third of the national budget
1952:
Mordechai
Maklef became the I.D.F.’s Chief of Staff
1953: To
the amazement of the Israeli public, Ben-Gurion resigned as Prime Minister and
retired to the small farming community of Sde Boker in the Negev.
1970(9th
of Kislev, 5731): Cartoonist Rube Goldberg passed away. The winner of the 1948
Pulitzer Prize for cartooning made his name synonymous with complicated ways to
perform simple tasks.
1977(27th
of Kislev, 5738): Peter Goldmark passed away.
Born in Hungary in 1906, Goldmark was an engineer who played a major
role in the development of the long-playing record and the first commercial
color television.
1981: Philip C. Habib, President Reagan's special envoy to the Middle East, is scheduled to meet with Foreign Minister Yitzhak Shamir in Jerusalem today.
1984: In his review of the new four hour made for televison film version of “The Sun Also Rises” John J. O’Connor reminds us that “the anti-Semitism in Hemingway’s work clearly remains a problem” as can be seen by the depiction of the fictional “Robert Cohn.” He is “the New York Jew who is never quite swell enough to be fully accepted into…the special inner circle of” Jake Barnes and who “emerges as an obnoxious whiner with a pronounced streak of nastiness.” (Hemingway is but one of a series of noted American writers whom critics felt dabbled in anti-Semitism, something that was not mentioned when Pappa was busy “fighting fascism” during the Spanish Civil War.)
1986:
Arab and Jew: Wounded
Spirits in a Promised Land by David K. Shipler is among the twelve
books chosen by the New York Times
Book Review as the best books published in the country during the preceding
year.
1987: About
10,000 Israelis held a rally today to demand that the Kremlin open the gates
for Soviet Jews to emigrate. ''We say to the Soviet leader, free my people,''
Foreign Minister Shimon Peres told the crowd. ''We want him to know we will not
forget our brethren in the Soviet Union.'' ''No more gestures, no more
tokens,'' President Chaim Herzog said. ''For us, the outcome of the discussion
of human rights will be the litmus test for the success of this summit.
1988:
President-elect George Bush announced the appointment of Thomas B. Pickering
who has served as U.S. Ambassador to Israel since 1985 to be the next United
States representative to the United Nations. Mr. Pickering has
condemned what he considered violations of human rights, particularly since
widespread unrest by Palestinians began almost a year ago in the occupied
terrritories of the West Bank and Gaza.,A member of the political inner circle of
Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir has called Mr. Pickering ''a hostile ambassador
of a friendly state.'' Mr. Pickering's greatest frustration in Israel has been
the refusal of Mr. Shamir to cooperate in a peace initiative by Secretary of
State George P. Shultz that would involve an international conference on the
Israeli-Arab conflict.
1988: Yasser
Arafat recognizes the right of Israel to exist.
Given what transpired afterwards including the Second Intifada, he must
have had his fingers crossed.
1990: In
a column entitled “Abroad at Home; A Broken Dream” Anthony Lewis described the
anguish of Yuval Neria, a decorated war hero and poet who became a clinical a
psychologist and author the semi-auto-biographical bestselling novel entitled
“Fire.”
http://www.nytimes.com/1990/12/07/opinion/abroad-at-home-a-broken-dream.html?pagewanted=print&src=pm
1992(12th
of Kislev, 5753: Hamas murders three Israeli soldiers and proclaims the
killings to be acts of heroism.
1993(23rd
of Kislev, 5754): Palestinian gunmen killed a Jewish settler and his son today and
wounded three other sons near the West Bank town of Hebron, apparently in
revenge for the weekend killing of an Arab by settlers. The attack was the
latest explosion in steadily increasing violence between Arabs and Jews in
Hebron, and it drew a strong condemnation from Secretary of State Warren
Christopher as he returned to Israel after stops in Syria and Jordan to push
forward Middle East peace efforts. Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin said that
despite the violence, he would press ahead with efforts to carry out an
agreement with the Palestine Liberation Organization on Palestinian self-rule,
starting in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank town of Jericho.
1994:
In
a sign of Washington's mounting frustration with Yasir Arafat and his
Palestinian Authority, Secretary of State Warren Christopher said today that
Israel cannot be expected to withdraw its army from the occupied West Bank
until Palestinian attacks on Israelis come to an end. Attacks on Israeli
soldiers and civilians by members of Palestinian radical groups opposed to Mr.
Arafat have outraged Israelis and fueled dissatisfaction with the Government of
Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. That, in turn, has threatened the core of the
peace agreement signed by Israel and the Palestinians on the White House lawn
14 months ago: the withdrawal of Israel's troops from Arab towns and villages. Until
now, the Clinton Administration had routinely called on both parties to carry
out their agreement as soon as possible. But amid signs that Israel is
rethinking its own commitment to spreading Palestinian self-rule in the
occupied territories, Mr. Christopher made clear today that the United States
would not press Israel to act. Asked at Tel Aviv's Ben-Gurion International
Airport whether Israel should have to withdraw its army from the West Bank, as
scheduled, Mr. Christopher said: "Unless there is security, it is clear that
other commitments cannot be met. It is something that will have to be discussed
between the parties." He called the security pledges by both sides
"absolutely fundamental to the process going forward."
1997:
Inbal
Segev, a world-renowned female cellist who grew up in Israel, made her Carnegie
Hall debut today where she performed the Carnegie Hall premiere of Trois
strophes sur le nom de Sacher for solo cello by Henri Dutilleux
1997: The New York Times list of the Best
Books of 1997 contains the following works about Jewish related subjects or by
Jewish authors including American
Pastoral by Phillip Roth and
The Puttermesser Papers by Cynthia Ozick.
1998(18th
of Kislev, 5759): Dr Martin Rodbell an American biochemist who was awarded the 1994
Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine passed away.
2003: The New York Times book section featured
books by Jewish authors and/or about subjects of Jewish interest including The Complete Lyrics of Frank Loesser
Edited by Robert Kimball and Steve Nelson
2004: In his talk, "The Royal Court Preacher
and the Hebrew Book: Early Enlightenment and Hebrew Publishing in Prussia,
1700-1750," Menachem Schmelzer examined the role of an influential figure
in the Prussian court, the Christian theologian and scholar D.E. Jablonski, who
founded the Hebrew press in Berlin in 1690. Schmelzer discussed Jablonski's
life, work and his activities as the publisher of Hebrew books in order to shed
light on the spread of secular culture and the ideals of Enlightenment and
religious tolerance among the Jews of the time. Menachem
Schmelzer is Senior Distinguished Scholar at the Library's John W. Kluge
Center. Schmelzer has published books, articles and reviews in the fields of
medieval Hebrew literature and Jewish bibliography and was the editor of Aron
Freimann's "Union Catalog of Hebrew Manuscripts and Their Location,"
Alexander Marx's "Bibliographical Studies and Notes on Rare Books and
Manuscripts in the Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America"
and the poems of Isaac ben Abraham Ibn Ezra.
2005: Two
days after the murder of five Israelis at a shopping mall, an IAF helicopter
destroyed the car carrying a PRC leader.
The PRC is part of Hamas. The
attack is part of a targeted response designed to destroy the terrorist infrastructure
in Gaza and the West Bank.
2006: Zachor? Who will remember that today is the
65th anniversary of “The Day that Will Live Infamy”?
2006: The
House of Representatives gave final passage to a bill aimed at forcing the
Palestinians' ruling Hamas government to accept Israel and join negotiations
toward a Palestinian state in formerly Israeli-occupied territory. "This
bipartisan legislation gives incentives to the Palestinian Authority to take
another step toward joining the community of peaceful nations and a step away
from the abyss of supporting terrorism," Sen. Mitch McConnell, Republican
chief sponsor of the bill, said in a statement.
2007(27
Kislev, 5768): Harvey David Luber, 71, son of Nathan and Anne Luber, passed
away today. Born July 20, 1936 in Chicago, IL, he shared 52 years of marriage
with his beloved wife, Elaine Roberta Barg, and was blessed with 4 children, 7
grandchildren and 3 great-grandchildren, son and daughter-in-law, Philip and
Jackie Luber; daughter and son-in-law, Karen and Mark Mackey; daughter and
son-in-law, Gayle and Steve Mink; and son, preceded in death, Sheldon Luber.
While Harvey was justifiably proud of being graduate of Northwestern University
with a double major in Chemistry and Biology with a minor in Humanities and he
was even prouder of having earned MSJS (Master of Science in Judaic Studies)
from Spertus Institute of Jewish Studies in Chicago, Illinois. As a member of
Temple B’Nai Israel and previously Congregation Agudith Achim, Harvey devoted
40 years of his life to educating young people and serving in many board
positions within the community. He also served as Executive Director of the
Jewish Federation of Arkansas for many years. He believed in education as a way
to understand one another, speaking to schools about the Holocaust and church
groups about comparative religion. He shared his love and knowledge of
photography and Judaism by teaching at the Arkansas Art Center and UALR. He was
an outstanding teacher, role model and friend and touched many people’s lives
of all ages. He was my friend, a chever in the truest sense of the term. As long as a camera shutter clicks, his
students open books or one of us chuckles over the memory of unique “Harvey moment”
he will always live amongst us.
2007: As a testament to the strength and creativity
of small town Judaism in the 21st century, in Cedar Rapids, Iowa,
Temple Judah hosts a Shabbat Chanukah potluck complete with latkes and apple
sauce.
2007: On
Friday, the fourth day of Chanukah, four Jewish subway riders were approached
by a group of ten people who offered holiday greetings. When the Jews responded with greetings of
Happy Chanukah, they were pelted with anti-Semitic remarks before being beaten.
2008:
The First Annual Goldstein Lecture in memory of Jonathan Goldstein is presented
by David Schoenbaum on Sunday afternoon at Agudas Achim. Schoenbaum’s topic is
"Fiddlers on the Roof: How They Got Up There, and How They Got Down.”
Professor Jonathan Goldstein was a long time member of Agudas Achim and had a
joint appointment in the UI History Dept and Classics Dept. He was an ordained
rabbi and his research was in Jewish Studies. He was considered the expert on
the Hasmonean period.
2008: Barbara
Streisand is among those honored by the Kennedy Center for her contribution to
Arts in America.
2008: In The Washington Post, critic Jonathan
Yardley’s list of the fifteen best books he reviewed in 2008 include For the
Thrill of It: Leopold, Loeb and the Murder That Shocked Chicago, by Simon
Baatz and The Spies of Warsaw by Jewish author Alan Furst.
2009(22nd
of Kislev, 5770): Roy Solomonoff, a pioneer, in Artificial Intelligence, passed
away today. As a child Ray Solomonoff developed what would become a lifelong
passion for mathematical theorems, and as a teenager he became captivated with
the idea of creating machines that could learn and ultimately think. In 1952 he
met Marvin Minsky, a cognitive scientist who was also exploring the idea of
machine learning, and John McCarthy, a young mathematician. And within four
years, they and seven other scientists, as part of the original Dartmouth
Summer Research Project, had founded a new field and given it a name:
artificial intelligence. The conference proved to be a watershed both for the
field of artificial intelligence (Dr. McCarthy, a Dartmouth College
mathematician at the time, coined the term) and for modern computing. It laid
out a proposal for a program of study, stating, “The study is to proceed on the
basis of the conjecture that every aspect of learning or any other feature of
intelligence can in principle be so precisely described that a machine can be
made to simulate it.” The next summer
Allen Newell, J.C. Shaw and Herbert Simon, researchers at the Carnegie
Institute of Technology (now Carnegie Mellon University), devised a program to
discover proofs of logical theorems. Simulated by hand in 1955, the program,
called “Logic Theorist,” was demonstrated at the Dartmouth conference and is
considered to be the first effort to create an artificial intelligence program.
Mr. Solomonoff, who died today in Boston at the age of 83 but whose death was
not widely reported, plunged further into the field in 1960, when he developed
the idea of algorithmic probability. The notion emerged from his effort to
grapple with a problem of induction: Given a long sequence of symbols
describing real-world events, how can you extrapolate the sequence? The idea
gave rise to a new approach to probability theory. Mr. Solomonoff went on to pioneer the
application of probability theory to solving artificial intelligence problems.
But in the 1960s and 1970s he was ahead of his time, and the approach initially
had little impact on the field. More recently, probability theory has caught on
among artificial intelligence researchers and is now the dominant approach. “Ray
did early work on the theoretical foundations of learning systems, focused on
understanding how to generate and assign probabilities to sequences of symbols,
which could be mapped to the challenge of predicting what comes next, given
what you’ve seen so far,” said Eric Horvitz, a Microsoft computer scientist and
a former president of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial
Intelligence. “Beyond his core technical
work,” Mr. Horvitz, added, Mr. Solomonoff was a “passionate proponent of the
probabilistic approach to A.I., on the promise of building intelligent
computing systems that could learn and reason under uncertainty.” His work in the early 1960s predated the work
of the Russian mathematician Andrei Kolmogorov, who also did pioneering
research in information theory and later acknowledged Mr. Solomonoff’s earlier
contributions. Mr. Solomonoff later turned his attention to the consequences of
artificial intelligence. In 1985 he wrote a paper that speculated on the cost
and the time it would take to develop a machine with many times the
intelligence of a group of humans. He called this the “infinity point.” The idea predated the prediction of the
computer scientist Vernor Vinge, who in 1993 speculated on a similar evolution
in machine intelligence, which he called “the singularity.” Born in Cleveland
on July 25, 1926, Mr. Solomonoff was the son of immigrants from Russia, Julius
and Sarah Solomonoff. He studied physics at the University of Chicago and
graduated with a master’s degree in 1951. Fiercely independent, he would remain
self-employed for much of his life, taking a variety of visiting scholar
positions. In 2001 he was a visiting professor at the Dalle Molle Institute for
Artificial Intelligence in Lugano, Switzerland; more recently he was a visiting
professor at the Computer Learning Research Center at Royal Holloway,
University of London. He is survived by his wife, Grace, who said the cause of
death was a ruptured brain aneurysm. He lived in Cambridge, Mass., and also had
a home in New Ipswich, N.H., which he built himself, heating it with two rows
of light bulbs in the ceiling, a feat made possible by thick insulation and
inserts to cover the windows.(As reported by John Markoff)
2009: Poets and writers
from Israel and all over the world come together in Jerusalem at Beit Avi Chai
and Mishkenot Sha'ananim, for the opening
session of the third annual Kisufim Conference, which aims to "encourages encounters
between Israeli creativity - in Hebrew and other languages - and world Jewish
creativity that is both multilingual and multicultural," according to the
organizers. Some of the issues to be tackled in the meetings include the writer's
identity, the meaning of exile today, the identity of text and place and the
function of translation in a literary work with a Jewish identity. "It is
no coincidence that the Hebrew acronym for this gathering is Kisufim
(yearnings). Jerusalem has been the heart of yearning in Jewish literature for
many generations," the organizers said. This year's participants include
Miriam Anisimov (France), Jonathan Rosen (USA), Dara Horn (USA), Rodger
Kamenetz (USA), Linda Grant (UK), Marcelo Birmajer (Argentina), Ilan Stavans
(Mexico/USA), Emmanuel Moses (France) Robert Schindel (Austria), Esther
Bendahan (Spain), Lucette Lagnado (Egypt/USA), Lisa Ginzburg (Italy), Geza
Rohrig (Hungary/USA), Angel Wagenstein (Bulgaria), Alessandro Piperno (Italy)
and Norman Manea (USA).
2009: The 20th
Washington Jewish Film Festival includes a screening of “Human Failure,” a film
that “documents the bizarre competition that developed between bureaucrats as
to how to organize the robbery of the German Jews before they were ever expelled
or sent to their deaths.”
2009: The 24th Annual New
York Israeli Film Festival includes a screening of “The Voice of Jerusalem,” a
documentary that examines the city’s “glorious feature” and “bleak future.”
2009: Galilee police
arrested two additional suspects in an attempt to extort millions of shekels
from McDonald's Israel. The suspects, both 22-year-old residents of Tira, are
believed to have filmed a short video that they claimed showed extremely poor
food safety standards at a McDonald's chain. The two were brought before the
Tel Aviv Magistrate's Court today, where their remand was extended by three
days. Police said neither man had a criminal record and that they and the
central suspect could face charges of conspiracy and aggravated extortion.
2009: A four day conference entitled "A Century of Yiddish:
1908-2008" opened in Jerusalem
2009. The third
annual Kisufim Conference opened at Beit
Avi Chai and at Mishkenot.
2009: Ambassador Michael Oren addressed a breakfast
session at the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism's biennial convention
during which he "bashed" J Street as being "out of the
mainstream."
2010: Dozens of Israel's
municipal chief rabbis have signed on to a religious ruling that forbids renting
homes to gentiles, and more specifically to Arabs. The ruling, which became public today, comes
less than two months after leading rabbis in the northern Israeli city of Safed
signed on to a letter drafted by the city's chief rabbi calling on Jews not to
rent to non-Jews in the northern Israeli city, as well as a month after rabbis
in the haredi Orthodox Israeli city of Bnei Brak issued a religious ruling
forbidding residents to rent apartments to African refugees, echoing a similar
ruling for southern Tel Aviv. .
2010:
The East Coast Premier of Jews In Space is scheduled to take place at
the 21st Washington Jewish Film Festival. “On the eve of Passover, a
large, somewhat eccentric Jewish family in Buenos Aires tries to overcome years
of separation and fighting to put together the perfect seder, the special
holiday dinner. Cousins Luciana and Santiago, childhood crushes who are still
attracted to each other despite being related, lead the crusade for family
reunification while their battling mothers aren’t so eager to call a truce.
Making this meal happen means juggling a suicidal grandfather, feuding mothers,
the art of Jewish cooking and a drunken family friend”
2010: The Jewish
Study Center is scheduled to present a program entitled The Military Siddur —
and Soldiers’ Prayers in which Michael Bloom will look at the special
prayerbook for Jewish members of the Armed Services and the unique prayer for
and about military personnel and our national security.
2010(30th
Kislev, 5711): Rosh Chodesh Tevet
2010(30th
Kislev, 5711): Eighty-six year old “Arnold Hans Weiss, who fled to the United
States from Nazi Germany as a 13-year-old and returned as an American soldier
during World War II, becoming a principal in the investigation that led to the
discovery of Hitler’s last will and political testament, died today in
Rockville, Md. (As reported by Bruce Weber)
2010: A farewell ceremony
was held at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Jerusalem today for the international
firefighting forces that assisted Israel in putting out the recent fire in the
Carmel Forest region. Deputy Foreign Minister Ayalon spoke at the ceremony and
gave each delegation a certificate that a tree was planted on their behalf by
the Deputy Foreign Minister.
2010: Former European Union Commissioner Frits Bolkenstein said that Jews have no future in the Netherlands and recommended that they emigrate to the US or Israel, Dutch magazine Elsevier reported today. According to a book on Dutch Judaism, released this week, Bolkestein, former leader of the right-wing VVD party, said that due to anti-Semitism amongst young Moroccans Jews who look like Jews - those who wear kippahs or payot - should leave Holland for their own safety.
2011: The Israeli documentary “I Shot My Love” is scheduled to be shown tonight at the 22nd Annual Jewish Film Festival in Washington, DC.
2011: The Northern Virginia Legislative Reception complete with “light kosher buffet” is scheduled to take placed at the JCC of Northern Virginia in Fairfax, VA.
2011: Seventieth Anniversary of the Attack on Pearl Harbor. How many will remember “the day that will live in infamy”?
2011: Israel's Yav Vashem Holocaust memorial said today it has received its largest private donation ever - a $25 million gift from U.S. casino mogul Sheldon Adelson.
2011: Today, a representative body of medical residents voted in favor of a draft deal with the Finance Ministry to end a months-long labor dispute. Representatives said they would respect the rule of the majority, and will "stand as one behind the understandings that were reached" with the Treasury, according to Israel Radio.
2011: Moshe “Katsav arrived at Maasiyahu Prison in Ramla to begin serving his seven-year sentence.”
2012: The JCC of Northern Virginia is scheduled to sponsor “First Friday Book Group.”
2012: In Fairfax, VA, Gesher Jewish Day School is scheduled to sponsor a Sheldon Low Concert
2012: “Human Rights Shabbat” is scheduled to start this evening at Adat Reyim in Springfield, VA.
2012: Jewish Book Month comes to an end.
2012: Roei Fridman, Elyasaf Bashari, Netanel Lesser, Yishai Ben Yaaov and Yishai Tsarfaty are scheduled to perform “Hamshushalym” at the Eden-Tamir Music Center.
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