May 26 In Jewish History
1096(1st of Sivan): The Crusaders massacred the Jews of Neuss, Germany
1135: Alfonso VII of León and Castile was crowned in the Cathedral of Leon as Imperator totius Hispaniae, "Emperor of all of Spain". At the start of his reign he curtailed “the rights and liberties which his father had granted the Jews. He ordered that neither a Jew nor a convert might exercise legal authority over Christians, and he held the Jews responsible for the collection of the royal taxes.” After a few years, he adopted a more positive policy towards his Jewish subject. He restored the rights granted by his father and then granted new ones including the granting of a special fuero (charter) in 1136 that permitted the Jews of Guadalajara to outfit themselves like the Christian Knights of his kingdom. Judah ben Joseph ibn Ezra (Nasi) was one of the King’s most influential advisors. After the conquest of Calatrava in 1147, the king placed Judah in command of the fortress, later making him his court chamberlain. The king held Judah ben Joseph stood in such high esteem that he granted Judah’s request to let the Jews who had fled from the Almohades to settle in Toledo. The reigns of Alfonso and his father are proof that Jews prospered, and suffered, under both Catholic and Moslem rule, depending upon the ruler and the time period.
1171: The first ritual murder accusation in Europe occurred in Blois, France. Fifty-one Jews were burned, seventeen of them women. As they were burning, they chanted the hymn 'Aleinu' (composed in Talmudic times). Rabbenu Tam declared a day of fasting and prayer in
England
,
France
and the
Rhineland
. One of those killed was Pulcinella (Puncelina), a favorite of Count Theobald, who tried to use her position to convince the count to release the Jews. The count decided to expel all the Jews left in his county but "allowed" himself to be persuaded to change his mind by a payment of 2000 pounds.
1566: Birthdate of Sultan Mehmed III. During the reign of Sultan Mehmed III, Gabriel Buonaventura was appointed ambassador and established contacts with
Spain
. Solomon Eskenazi, Doctor Benveniste and Doctor Moshe Korina held positions at the palace. In 1597 Solomon Abenyaes (Marrano Name: Alvaro Mendez) prepared a treaty that was intended to ally the Ottoman Empire with England in the fight against king Philip of Spain.
1615(27th of Iyar): Rabbi Abraham Samuel Bacharach passed away
1648: As the Cossack uprising continued to gain momentum a force of Cossacks and Crimean Tatars attacked and defeated Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth forces at the Battle of Korsun. The defeat of the Polish-Lithuanian forces followed the pattern seen at the battle at Zhovti Vody. The Poles retreated and the Cossacks continued moving westward gaining support as they went The slaughter of the Jews was about to begin in earnest.
1697: The British colony of South Carolina issued naturalization papers to Simon Valentine.
1724: Beginning of the papacy of Benedict XIII, the pope who issued “Emanavit nuper,” a Papal Bull, dealing with “the necessary conditions for imposing Baptism on a Jew.”
1753: In Zhitomir, the castle court under the influence of Bishop Solik of Kiev sentenced 33 Jews to death for the "ritual murder" of a Christian child. The entire evidence was based on the "confessions" of the innkeeper and his wife which had been made after being tortured, although they later retracted their statements. Thirteen of them were released upon converting. Many others, including the local Rabbi, were quartered alive. One couple converted on the spot and was granted a beheading.
1757(7th of Sivan): Rabbi Jacob Daniel of Ferrara author of “Eden Arukh” passed away.
1820: Birthdate of Dr. Samuel Kristeller
1848: As part of its policy to force the Jews to assimilate, the Russian government issued a decree providing for the establishment of a rabbinical committee to be attached to the Ministry of Interior.
1854: Birthdate of Samuel Morais Hyneman a Philadelphia born lawyer who “was a member of the board of managers of Mikve Israel congregation, a member of the board of trustees the Jewish Theological Seminary at New York, and of the board of trustees of Gratz College, Philadelphia. He also served as president of the Young Men's Hebrew Association in Philadelphia, and served as an officer of The Hebrew Education Society in Philadelphia
1865(1st of Sivan, 5625): Rosh Chodesh Sivan
1869: Boston University is chartered by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. BU was founded by three Methodist businessmen who had been active in the abolitionist movement. “From the day of its opening, Boston University has admitted students of both sexes and every race and religion.” According to one source, BU has the second largest enrollment (by percentage) of any private university in the
United States
. According to the Hillel Foundation, which has a chapter on campus, three thousand of the school’s twenty thousand undergrads are Jewish and five hundred of the ten thousand grad students are Jewish. The school offers approximately thirty Jewish studies courses. The school offers both a major and a minor in Jewish Studies.
1871(6th of Sivan, 5631): First Day of Shavuot
1871: An article entitled “The Pentecost Festival” gives an amazingly detailed description of the Jewish festival of Shavuot.
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?_r=1&res=9C02E5DA173AE63BBC4E51DFB366838A669FDE
1871: The New York Timesreported that “the feast of Pentecost, in Jewish parlance,” Shavuot, “or, as the German Jews call it” Shavuos, “began last evening and will be observed in all Jewish houses of prayer today.
1874: Judge P.J. Joachimsen presided over the annual meeting of the Board of Delegates of American Israelites which was being held tonight at New York’s Temple Shaaray Tefillah. The Executive Committee recommended sending funds to aid the Jews of Romania and to support an agricultural school in Jaffa. (The funds for Romania reflected the concern of western Jewry for the worsening conditions of their co-religionists in that newly independent eastern European country. Funding for the school in Jaffa is one of the earliest examples of American Jewish support for what became the Zionist movement).
1876: It was reported today that at a recently adjourned meeting of delegates representing Hebrew congregations from various U.S. cities the possibility was discussed of establishing a seminary that would teach Jewish theology and the Hebrew language while preparing students to become Rabbis.
1881(27th of Iyar, 5641): Jakob Bernays a German philologist and philosophical writer passed away. The native of Hamburg German was born in 1824. His father, Isaac Bernays the first orthodox German rabbi to preach in the vernacular (German) his brother, Michael Bernays, was also a distinguished scholar. “Jakob studied from 1844 to 1848 at the University of Bonn, whose philological school, under Friedrich Gottlieb Welcker and Friedrich Wilhelm Ritschl was the best in Germany. In 1853 he accepted the chair of classical philology at the newly founded Jewish Theological Seminary of Breslau, where he formed a close friendship with Theodor Mommsen. In 1866, when Ritschl left Bonn for Leipzig, Bernays returned to his old university as extraordinary professor and chief librarian. He remained at Bonn until his death.”
1886: Birthdate of Asa Yoelson, better known as Al Jolson. Jolson's father was a cantor at B'nai Israel Synagogue at Fifth and Eye Street in Washington, D.C. Instead of following in his father's footsteps, Jolson ran away to New York where he began his career in show business. His greatest claim to fame was his starring role in The Jazz Singer, the first talking motion picture. Although Jolson never served in the Army (he was turned down when he tried to enlist during the Spanish American War for being too young) Jolson was an active participant in Bond Drives during subsequent wars. He also entertained the troops during World War I and
Korea
. In fact, he died after a trip to
Korea
in 1950.
1890(7th of Sivan, 5650): Second Day of Shavuot
1890(7th of Sivan, 5650): Hirschel Eliazer Kann, one of the co-founders of the Dutch banking house Lissa & Kann passed away today.
1894: Emanuel Lasker became a World Champion chess player. Born in
Germany
, Lasker’s father was a cantor who feared that his son’s love of chess would take him away from his studies. Lasker won the championship when he was 26 which made him the youngest champion of his time.
1895: Birthdate of Professor Salo Wittmayer Baron, the author of a sweeping multivolume history of the Jews who “was undoubtedly the greatest Jewish historian of the 20th century…” (As reported by Peter Steinfels)
1896: Eben Israel Cemetery, the Jewish Cemetery in Cedar Rapids that served both the Orthodox Beth Jacob and Reform Temple Judah congregations opened. Max Oshman was one of the founders of the cemetery which is still in use at the start of the 21st century.
1896: Nicholas II becomes Tsar of Russia. Nicholas was the last of the Tsars. He was a weak man who lacked the skill to rule. He was also totally out of touch with what was going on in his country. The fact that he had three rabbis at his coronation did not mean that his views about Jews were any different from those of his predecessors. There were Pogroms both before and after the first uprising against the Tsar in 1905. The Tsar spent a great deal of money on anti-Semitic literature including mass distribution of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. He also supported the trumped up charges in the Bellis Case, the scandalous trumped charges in one of the last “Ritual Murder” of the 20th century. During his reign, the Tsar declared,” During my reign Jews in Russia will not enjoy equal rights.”
1903: Herzl meets the Portuguese ambassador in Vienna to ask for a territory habitable and cultivable by Europeans.
1905(21st of Iyyar, 5665): French banker Mayer Alphonse de Rothschild passed away. Born in 1827, Alphonse was the son of James, the founder of the French branch of the House of Rothschild. He succeeded his father just before the Franco-Prussian War. After the French were defeated, Alphonse arranged the financing to pay for the indemnity the Germans extracted from the French as part of the peace settlement. The loan was a key to the re-emergence of
France
as a major European power. Rothschild also served as head of the French Jewish Community and was famed for his generous philanthropy. As a patron of the arts, he donated major works of art to over two hundred museums and galleries throughout
France
.
1905: A pogrom broke out in
Minsk
,
Russia
.
1908: At Masjid-al-Salaman in southwest Persia (Iran), the first major commercial oil strike in the Middle East is made. The rights to the resource are quickly acquired by the United Kingdom. The connection between the oil strike the quest to establish a Jewish homeland in Eretz Israel is too obvious to have to explain.
1910: Political trailblazer Belle Moskowitz wins passage of bill regulating New York dance halls
1912: The annual meeting of the Jewish Publication Society of America was held this evening at Keneseth Israel Temple in Philadelphia, PA. Edwin Wolfe, the president of the society, called the meeting to order. Oscar Solomon was the only member from Cedar Rapids, IA.
1914: Anglo-Jewish art dealer said today “that dispatches from New York were his first intimation that a syndicate of dealers heady by Duveens would hold a sale of the Morgan art treasures in London.” He said that in his opinion, “the story is false.”
1916: The Zion Mule Corps was disbanded after the end of the Gallipoli Campaign. The disbanding of this Jewish group did not represent a failure. The British were impressed with the bravery and diligence of the Jews and this led to the formation of a Jewish combat force in the British Army later in World War I. This was one more of the halting steps that would lead to the creation of the modern IDF.
1918: The
Georgian
Republic
declared its independence. With independence came freedom of speech, press, and organization, which improved the economic situation of the Jews of Georgia.
1920: Dr. H. Pereira Mendes resigns as Rabbi of the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue in
New York
after 43 years.
1920: Birthdate of Jan Wiener, a Czech Jew who fought in the British air force during World War II after fleeing Nazis in Germany and Czechoslovakia.
1921(18th of Iyar, 5681)Lag B'Omer
1925: In Bayonne, NJ, Isaac and Lillian Goodman Cohen gave birth to Robert B. Cohen whose chain of Hudson News shops at airports, bus terminals and railroad stations across the country offered untold numbers of people a respite from the tedium of travel…(As reported by Dennis Hevesi)
1926: “Ten students received their degrees tonight at the first graduation exercises of the Jewish Institute of Religion founded four years ago by Rabbi Stephen S. Wise as the only liberal Jewish theological seminary in New York.” Honorary degrees were conferred on Calude G. Montefiore, nephew of Sir Moses Montefiore and Chaim Nachman Bialik.
1926: Shalom Schwarzbard traveled from the
Ukraine
to
Paris
to avenge his parents' death at the hands of S. V. Petlura. He was responsible for the Ukrainian anti-Jewish riots of 1919-1920. After days of stalking, Shalom confronted Petlura, shot him and surrendered to the police. He was acquitted by the court of Assizes on all charges. The court may have been influenced by the fact that S.V. Petlura, and his followers were responsible for 493 pogroms in which 50,000 Jews lost their lives.
1931: Elections began today in forty-five countries in Europe to selected delegates for the World Zionist Congress to be held in June.
1933(1st of Sivan, 5693): Rosh Chodesh Sivan
1934: In Tel Aviv, the third biennial Levant Fair comes to an end.
1935: Egyptian Chief Rabbi Haim Nahum officiated at services in the Ashkenazi Synagogue of Cairo. He was there to lead a memorial service for the Polish Jews of Egypt, who were honoring Marshal Josef Piludski. The respected Russian revolutionist and Polish nationalistic military leader had died
May 12, 19
35
, and was buried in
Lithuania
.
1935: In Tel Aviv a group of Yiddish authors sponsored a lecture in observance of the 70th birthday of Dr. Chaim Zhitlowski, social critic, political activist and author who was a “Yiddishist.” Members of Betarim, “a young military Revisionist-Zionist group” were responded violently to the fact that the lecture was conducted in Yiddish instead of Hebrew. They cut off the electricity, pelted members of the audience with stones and were so disorderly that police had to break up the meeting.
1936: For the first time ever, the Mandatory government in Palestine today mobilized Jewish settlers for self-defense as an open Arab revolt swept the country. Settlers at Rehoboth were armed and prepared to repel further assaults by Arabs after two days' of their marauding had resulted in the destruction of various “agricultural enterprises.”
1936: After a lumber yard was set on fire and nine bombs were tossed by Arab attackers in Nevei Shalom, Jewish settlers fled to Tel Aviv.
1936(5th of Sivan, 5696): Erev Shavuot; in Jerusalem, the British relaxed the curfew in the Jewish section of the city delaying its start from 7 p.m. to 8:15 p.m. so that the Jews could gather to observe the start of the festival.
1936: British women and children were evacuated tonight from the troubled town of Nablus in an atmosphere made increasingly tense by bold Arab terrorists. They were sent to Jerusalem where it was thought they would be safe from Arab attacks.
1937: Birthdate of composer Yehuda Yannay
1938: The House Un-American Activities Committee met for the first time. HUAC would become the tool of right-wing political leaders who would use it attack “the Communist Conspiracy,” something that many of them equated with a Jewish conspiracy.
1939(8th of Sivan, 5699): Rabbi Ya'akov Meir, Sephardi Chief Rabbi of Palestine, passed away. Jacob Meir was born in
Jerusalem
in 1856 when it was part of the
Ottoman Empire
. Born to a notable merchant of the community, Mercad Meir, young Jacob grew to be a merchant who worked in Yaffa. He worked as a merchant for over ten years, then in his thirties wealthy Jew he knew talked him into going into the rabbinate. After becoming a rav he traveled to countries raising funds for those in
Jerusalem
. From the mountains of
Bokhara
to the deserts of
Tunis
and
Algeria
he collected charity funds, and in
Jerusalem
acted as civil assessor to the Bet Din. On the death in 1906 of his friend and advisor Chief Rabbi Saul Eliasher, Rav Jacob Meir, age 50, was unanimously chosen to fill his place. Soon after a dispute arose, and resigned to accept a "call" to the large Jewish community at Salonica. In years later when the Sultan of Turkey visited Salonica, he presented Meir with a gold watch emblazoned with the royal arms as a mark of esteem. In 1920 Meir was appointed by Sir Herbert (later Lord) Samuel to be head of the Spanish Jewish Community of Palestine and soon after received the Commander of the Order of the British Empire award for service to the British. Herbert Samuel was appointed as the first British High Commissioner of Palestine in 1920. He was Jewish and also a Zionist. Under his direction, thousands of Jewish immigrants settled in the land. In each of the years between 1920 and 1923, about 8,000 Jews entered
Palestine
. In 1924 the number jumped to 13,000 and the following year to more than 33,000. Sadly, many Jewish people came to
Palestine
because they could go nowhere else.
America
closed its doors to mass immigration in 1924. After he died, over 10,000 Jewish residents of
Jerusalem
, representing all sections of the population took part in his funeral. The Blue and white colors hung from half mast from the offices of all Sephardic associations and other Jewish public institutions. His body was brought to the large synagogue at the Sephardic orphanage on
Yaffa Road
. Around his coffin which stood on the stage gathered members of the Chief Rabbinical Council, other rabbis, and groups of youths in the uniforms of their organizations, acting as honor guards.
1942: Belgian Jews were required by Nazis to wear a Jewish star.
1943: Jews rioted against
Germany
in
Amsterdam
.
1944: Mordechai and Yehuda Eldar arrived at Auschwitz. Mordechai Adler was slated to die in October but through a fluke received a reprieve when he was one of 50 prisoners chosen to work in “Canada,” the warehouse operation where the Nazis greedily stored the belongings of their Jewish victims. In 1947, Eldar and two of his sisters (the only surviving members of his extended family) sailed to Palestine on the SS Exodus. Sent back to Hamburg by the British, he returned to Tel Aviv in June of 1948. He joined the IDF and served for 30 years before retiring as a colonel in 1978.
1944: Birthdate of Jan Schakowsky, Congresswoman representing the 9th District of Illinois.
1948: At the United Nations, the Arabs “indicated a willingness to stop the fighting on condition that the Jews would regard the proclamation of statehood as null and void and that no further Jewish immigration would be accepted. Abba Eban responds publicly; “If the Arab states want peace with
Israel
, they can have it. If they want war, they have that, too. But whether they want peace or war, they could have only with the sovereign independent state of
Israel
.”
1948: The position of Jewish forces in the Old City was beyond desperate. "There was nothing to eat; nothing to shoot with..." One hundred Haganah troopers had been killed with even more wounded as the Arab Legion pressed its attack on all sides.
1950: The United States, Great Britain and France announced a plan to regulate arms sales in the Middle East which would equalize sales between the Arab states and Israel. The three western powers also promised to see to it that the frontiers or armistice lines dividing the states would not be violated.
1950: The Israeli government announced that Aubrey S. Eban has been appointed as Israel’s Ambassador to the United States. [Yes, Aubrey Eban is the man whom we know as Abba Eban.]
1952: President Harry S. Truman addressed a dinner sponsored by the Jewish National fund.
1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that Dr. Dov Joseph, the Acting Minister of Finance, introduced in the Knesset a Bill on "Income Tax Advances for Relief Works" and described the scheme which was expected to provide 2,650,000 work days for the country's unemployed for the next six months.
1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that the rationing of potatoes came to an end and potatoes were put on the free market sale for the first time in four years. Over 250 immigrants were expected to arrive from
Iran
.
1959(18th of Iyar, 5719): Lag B’Omer
1964: Birthdate of musician Lenny Kravitz
1964: Sylvia Rothschild’s novel “Sunshine and Salt” was released today
1967: As the crisis that would result in the Six Day War intensified, President Nasser of Egypt declared, “the battle will be a general one and our basic objective will be to destroy Israel.” While President Johnson worked to develop an international response that would open the Straits of Tiran, the
Soviet Union
let the members of the Security Council know that
Moscow
would veto any proposal that was not in accord with the wishes of
Syria
and
Egypt
.
1967: As the crisis that will lead to the Six Days War worsens, Military intelligence chief Aharon Yariv tells the Israeli cabinet that “the roots of the current situation are connected to the active Soviet regional initiative” that began “over a year ago.”
1968(28th of Iyar, 5728): Yom Yerushalayim
1969: Abdel el Rahman el Latifi, a 65-year-old Jerusalem Arab who stabbed a soldier outside the Damascus gate last year, was sentenced today to 10 years' imprisonment by the district court here. There was no apparent reason for the act, but the court rejected the defense plea of insanity.
1971: Birthdate of cartoonist Matt Stone co-creator of South Park
1973: The IDF announced a state of emergency today “and reserve troops were called up in response to a movement of Egyptian troops. The state of emergency was cancelled when it became clear that this was only an exercise. This event had a major impact on the General Staff, as it led them to believe that the Egyptian forces were not preparing for war, later that year, on Yom Kippur. After the war however, it became apparent that these frequent maneuvers carried out by the Egyptians were part of an elaborate ruse meant to induce complacency in the Israelis regarding the true intentions of Egyptian troop movements at the time the actual attack took place.”
1976: German philosopher Martin Heidegger passed away. Although considered a major force in the world of philosophy by some, Heidegger was a member of the Nazi Party and remained in Germany during the war. Strangely enough, Heidegger had several extramarital affairs, including two very important ones with Jewish women who were his students, Hannah Arendt and Elisabeth Blochmann. Apparently Arendt knew more about Nazis than she let on when she was writing about “the banality of evil.”
1978: The Jerusalem Post reported how John Henry Weidner, 65, a Dutchman now living in U.S. led so many groups of Jews, allied pilots and other victims of the Nazi persecution across the border of the German-occupied France into Switzerland that he knew the way "blindfolded." He was awarded the Righteous Gentile Medal by the Yad Va'shem Chairman, Gideon Hausner, who told him: "You are a soldier of humanity in the world's darkest years."
1983: Amnon Rubenstein completed his term as Communications Minister in Israel.
1985(6th of Sivan, 5745); Shavuot
1987(27th of Iyar, 5747): Seventy-three year old psychiatrist, entrepreneur and philanthropist Arthur Sackler passed away. (As reported by Grace Glueck)
http://www.nytimes.com/1987/05/27/obituaries/dr-arthur-sackler-dies-at-73-philanthropist-and-art-patron.html
1987: Amnon Rubinstein completed his service as Communications Minister.
1991: In an article entitled “Fund Guides Jobless Soviet Immigrants,” Kathleen Teltsch describes the challenges facing the Baron de Hirsch Fund in helping the latest wave of Jewish immigrants from Russia “make new lives in America.” “The fund was created in 1891 by Baron Maurice De Hirsch, a prosperous German Jewish financier who wanted to help Jewish families fleeing Czarist Russia make a fresh start by becoming farmers. Thousands came to the United States at the turn of the century and became poultry farmers, mainly in southern New Jersey.” This latest influx of refugees from the Soviet Union will be looking for help in fitting into the urban environment including jobs in the health care and construction industries.
1993(6th of Sivan, 5753): First Day of Shavuot
1996(8th of Sivan, 5756): Resistance fighter and politician Halka Grossman passed away at the age of 76.
1998(1st of Sivan, 5758): Rosh Chodesh Sivan
2001:In an article entitled “Latest Disaster Tests Resiliency of Jerusalem's Residents,” Deborah Sontag describes how the residents of Israel’s capital city are coping with the latest wave of Arab terror.
This is a city accustomed to coping with crisis. But as sirens screamed through the night, with ambulances racing to a collapsed wedding hall in which at least two dozen people died, Jerusalemites struggled to deal with what some described as crisis overload. One city resident, Moshe Zilber, said he was drawn to visit the disaster scene by a rescue worker's description of uncovering a family of five, dressed in their finest, still sitting at their banquet table, frozen forever. The five, who had dropped two stories and eerily landed in place, were killed in what is being called the largest civil disaster in Israeli history. More than 300 people were injured, and rescue workers are still searching for at least a dozen partygoers believed to be trapped beneath the rubble. ''It's like we're being tested,'' Mr. Zilber said, standing on the roof of an adjacent building. ''Every day there's shooting here, a mortar attack there. And now a building swallows up a community. We are at our limits, really. What next?'' Shortly before and after Mr. Zilber spoke, two suicide bombers struck -- one attack was near the Netzarim settlement in the Gaza Strip and the other was in the central Israeli city of Hadera. In the first, the bomber, a Hamas militant, died without causing any casualties. In the second, which occurred next to a busy playing field, three dozen Israelis were wounded and two men died, both of them Islamic Jihad militants, according to a statement by the group. Both attacks were dedicated by the Palestinian militants to their colleagues in the Lebanese Hezbollah organization on the first anniversary of Israel's troop withdrawal from South Lebanon. ''And we see that disaster follows disaster, event follows event,'' said an Israeli radio anchorwoman, Carmit Guy, introducing the initial reports of the Hadera bombing. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon visited the ruins of the World of Versailles banquet hall in the Talpiot neighborhood of Jerusalem. He called the collapse of the 15-year-old building ''one of the most difficult events that ever occurred in the State of Israel.'' Mr. Sharon also said that Yasir Arafat, the Palestinian leader, bore responsibility for the bombing attacks. He said he would give Mr. Arafat a few more days to make a public declaration calling for a cease-fire, as Mr. Sharon did earlier this week. After that, he implied, he might once more give the army a free hand to carry out what one analyst here called ''pre-emptive retaliations'' against the Palestinians. ''We won't sit with our hands folded, especially when endangered,'' Mr. Sharon said. ''But right now we need to wait several more days to give the head of the Palestinian Authority an opportunity to declare a cease-fire. And we will do that.'' Palestinian officials say they are relieved that Israel has not conducted any assassinations since Mr. Sharon called for a cease-fire earlier this week. But, Palestinian officials say, they do not take seriously Mr. Sharon's vow of restraint, especially on a day when they are burying two youths in Gaza who were killed by Israeli troops. And many of them think that ''cease-fire'' is diplomatic code for getting the Palestinians to abandon their uprising and submit to Israel's terms of engagement. ''It is true that a cease-fire will help in reducing the sufferings and losses,'' said an editorial in Al-Quds, a Palestinian newspaper. ''But it will not lead to long-term calm unless it is based on Israeli recognition of the national and legitimate rights of the Palestinian people.'' The Palestinian Authority issued a statement expressing sorrow for the wedding hall disaster and offering assistance. The Israeli police said they were detaining eight people, including the hall's owners, a builder and an engineer, for questioning. Jerusalem's mayor, Ehud Olmert, said there appeared to have been serious defects in the construction and maintenance of the building. An Israeli major at the site told reporters that the floor of the third story, which had given way like quicksand under the feet of dancers at a large wedding, was built of a substandard material. News reports today said that four support beams had been removed during a renovation to make the hall more spacious. ''How does such a thing like this happen in our country?'' asked the groom's mother, Aliza Dror, whose father was killed. ''They say it was an engineering failure. This is terrible, terrible, unbelievable.'' Keren and Assaf Dror, the bride and groom, survived with injuries. They occupied side-by-side hospital beds today. In a chilling homemade tape shown on Israeli television, a video cameraman captured their embraces, the guests clapping and singing in a circle around them and the moment when their wedding capsized. In a split second, the packed dance floor collapsed and the dancers plummeted three stories, disappearing from view. The remaining guests sang for another beat, froze dumbfounded at the edge of a crater and then started screaming. Frieda Cohen, one of the injured guests, said: ''I finally convinced my husband to join me on the dance flo