July 11 In Jewish History
1174: Amalric I who had been King of Jerusalem since 1162 passed away. During his reign most of the Jews were expelled from Jerusalem; a ban that would last until 1175.
1346: Charles IV of Luxembourg is elected emperor of the Holy Roman Empire which included the Bohemian city of Prague. According to the descendant of Moses ben Israel Naphtaly Hirsch Porges, “The long reign of Emperor Charles IV brought the Prague Jews new privileges and relative calm even though the Luxembourg rulers - the reigning local dynasty - treated Jewish property as though it were their own. They put it in pawn, sold it, or used it as backing for guarantees. But the king ensured protection and, among others, offered a chance for them to settle inside the walls of the arising New Town. A sign of the status of the Jewish community is a banner that has survived, given to the Jews of Prague by Charles IV in 1375.From that year on the Jews would, over the centuries, come to the gates of the ghetto to welcome the kings of Bohemia in Prague.”
1533: Clement
VII
excommunicated Henry VIII for divorcing Catherine of Aragon, and afterward marrying Anne Boleyn. Henry VIII had relied on the Book of Leviticus when he sought to marry Catherine, the widow of his brother. Nobody was going to hit him with a sandal. When it came time to shed Mary, Henry sought support from Rabbis, hoping that their interpretation of Biblical law would somehow sway the Pope. The Rabbis, who were living in Italy, stayed out of the conflict. They had no reason to trust Henry, who had promised to keep the Jews out of England, when he got married.
1657: Birthdate of King Frederick I of Prussia. Frederick’s greatest claim to fame is the fact that he was the father of King Frederick II also known as Frederick the Great. Father and son quarreled about many things but they did agree on at least one thing. They both abhorred their Jewish subjects, viewing them as aliens in their Germanic kingdom.
1733: A month after the founding of the colony of Georgia by James Oglethorpe, Jewish settlers arrived in Savannah. The group of forty Sephardic Jews was joined within a year by a group of Ashkenazi Jews. The Sephardic Jews had brought a Torah and other religious items with them and quickly founded a congregation called Mikveh Israel (Hope of Israel). One of the reasons given for the lack of European-styled anti-Semitism in America was that the Jews arrived in the New World at the same time everybody else did.
1734: Birthdate of Philip (Uri) Minis, the Jewish infant who was also the first male white child born in Georgia.
1740: Czarina Anne ordered the Jews expelled from Little Russia. Little Russia is another term for an area that includes the Ukraine.
1767: Birthdate John Quincy Adams, Sixth President of the United States. Like his father, John Quincy had a positive attitude towards the Jewish people. In a letter to Major Mordecai Manuel Noah, he wrote, “[I believe in the] rebuilding of Judea as an independent nation.” Of course this could have been one the earliest attempt to secure Jewish political support by espousing the cause of the Jewish homeland. More than likely, it was an expression of popular Protestant belief of the time that Jews returning to the Promised Land was a necessary precursor for the ultimate Second Coming. While many Jews know Noah as the founder of the utopian Jewish community of Ararat, he was a major diplomatic and political figure who was the leader of the Tammany Hall political machine during the 1820’s.
1797: Charles Macklin, the famous Anglo-Irish actor whose greatest claim to fame was his portrayal of Shylock in a completely new manner, passed away.
1797: The gates of the Jewish ghetto in Venice were torn down. This was a direct result of the victories of the French armies led by Napoleon.
1804: Vice President Aaron Burr and Secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton fought a duel. Hamilton fell mortally wounded. Hamilton had been born on the British controlled island of Nevis in the West Indies in 1755. His mother was Jewish. His father was a prominent citizen. Hamilton’s mother was married, but not to Hamilton’s father. Hamilton attended a Jewish school which was housed in a synagogue in the island’s capital city. After finishing his school he made his way to North America where he would eventually become a favorite of George Washington and was one of the authors of the famous Federalist Papers. Hamilton never identified himself as a Jew and lived the life of a prominent Protestant political and financial leader.
1858: Birthdate of Cyrus L. Sulzberger. A native of Philadelphia, he “went to New York in 1877 as bookkeeper for the firm of Erlanger, Blumgart & Co., of which he later became the head. An active participant in movement’s to reform New York City’s corrupt political environment, he was a candidate on the Fusion ticket for president of the borough of Manhattan, New York in 1904. Sulzberger was also active in Jewish communal affairs serving for many years as treasurer of the United Hebrew, vice president of the American Zionist Federation and, in 1905, as president of the Jewish Agricultural and Industrial Aid Society.
1861: Jules Mires, the Franco-Jewish banker, was condemned to five years in prison and order to pay a fine of 3,000 francs by the Correctional Tribunal of Paris.
1865(17th of Tammuz, 5625):Tzom Tammuz
1866: Upon recurrence of blood libel accusations, Sultan Aziz issued a firman taking the Jews under his protection. Thanks to this firman the Greek Orthodox patriarchate had to issue encyclicals to all churches, forbidding such practices.
1877(1st of Av, 5637): Rosh Chodesh Av
1877: An article published today described conditions in eastern Europe as the Russian Army continues its advance against the forces of Romania including the execution of two spies by the Russians. According to the reporter, one stood tall and faced his executioners with a sneer before being shot. The other, a Jew, groveled in front of his captors invoking his forefathers and expressing a willingness to convert if they would spare his life. He was shot where he lay. The reporter also included a description of Galician Jews whom he said were “so disgusting that even their co-religionists in Europe and America would refuse them all sympathy if they could see them.”
1877: The Fourth Council of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations met for a second day in Philadelphia, PA.
1879: Delegates to the Sixth Council of the Union of American and Hebrew Congregations visited various public institutions controlled by the Commissioner of Charities and Corrections followed by visits to various institutions supported by Jewish charities.
1879: Delegates to the Sixth Council of the Union of American and Hebrew attended a banquet at Delmonico’s
1879: Rabbi Isaac Meyer Wise of Cincinnati delivered a lecture at Temple Emanu-el based on the renewal of the covenant at Gilgal in the days of the prophet Samuel
1881: “The Bible and Science” published today provides a detailed review of Hours With the Bible: Volume II by Cunningham Geikie. In this second of what will become a multi-volume work, Geike provides an in depth study of the period from Moses to the Judges.
1881: In Chicago, Dr. Ellinger read a paper tonight on “Ancient and Modern Rabbis” at a meeting of the Rabbinical Literary Society. The society is a national organization that draws it membership from Jewish theologians throughout the United States.
1882: As the Freight Handlers’ strike turned violent, Levi Cossowtich, a Russian-Jewish peddler was assaulted this morning at Henderson and 11th Streets by person or persons unknown. At noon, as he went to dinner, Louise Marble, one of the Jewish freight handlers working at the Erie depot, was assaulted and robbed.
1883: The Hebrew Union Council met for a second day in Cincinnati, Ohio. The Committee on Circuit Preaching reported favorably on a proposal of engaging circuit rabbis to service those areas where the Jewish population is too scattered to support full-time ministers. The Rabbinical Association asked that the Union provided a fund for “the support of enfeebled ministers in their old age.”
1883: Today’s commencement exercises of the Hebrew Union College are scheduled to be held at the Plum Street Temple in Cincinnati, Ohio followed by a banquet at the Highland House and a reception at the Zoological Garden. The high point of the event will be the consecration of seven new rabbis, the first such class to be produced by the school and the first rabbis to be trained solely in the United States.[Note HUC would become the flagship institution for the Reform Movement. While there is a popular misconception of American Jewry being a New York centric culture, in this a city in eastern Ohio, at the entry to the American heartland was the focal point of this significant segment of American Jewry.]
1883: County Coroner A.F Park came to the Oakdale, Connecticut to examine the body of a 24 year old Russian Jew, Moses Sadock. Sadock’s body was found in the woods, lying on his back “with his throat cut from ear to ear.” Sadock was the center of a developing scandal involving accusations that he was a bigamist.
1884: As word reached Albany, New York that Governor Grover Cleveland had been selected as the Presidential nominee of the Democrat Party, the Jewish “banking firm of Wormser & Co in New York sent hearty congratulations…”
1884: It was reported today that in Brooklyn, Beth Elohim has hired William Sparger to serve as its rabbi. The 26 year old Sparger was born in Hungary graduated from Prince Rudolph University of Vienna. A member of the reforming movement, Sparger replaces Rabbi Mosher who left the pulpit 6 months ago due to illness.
1885: In an attempt to put an end to the disputes with Rabbi Kauffman Kohler of Temple Beth-El, Rabbi Alexander of Kohut of Ahavath Chesed said today, “I desire that it should be understood that as far as I am concerned the pulpit controversy that has been carried out between myself and Dr. Kohler… is declared at end. I will make no more responses to any of Dr. Kohler’s sermons and expect a reciprocation from in this matter…In the interest of may religion and for the sake of harmony…I wish to avoid controversy in the pulpit.” This was an attempt to bring an end to the public dispute between these leaders of traditional and liberal Judaism.
1885: In Baltimore, MD, Judge Phelps rendered a decision in the case of the District Grand Lodge of B’nai B’rith v the Jedijah Lodge. The District had revoked the chapter’s charter and was seeking to recover funds that the lodge had collected. The judge decided that under the rules of equity,the District Grand Lodge had no right to the funds.
1886: It was reported today that the lady managers of the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society have accepted the offer of boats from the New York Towing Company to be used for upcoming summer-time excursions.
1889: It was reported today that the Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati, Ohio is in desperate need of funds. The school is $9,000 in debt and needs an additional $15,500 to maintain operations. (More to added next year)
1889: The Trustees of the Harlem Club met this evening to consider the application for membership of New York State Senator Jacob A. Cantor. Robert Bonynge nominated him and David F. Porter seconded the nomination. However, there was enough opposition that it was obvious that the Senator would be “blackballed.” At the end of the meeting the Trustees refused to announce their decision saying that they would send a letter with the information to Cantor within the next ten days
1889: The cornerstone for a new synagogue to be used by New York’s Sephardic Jews was laid today at the corner of 160 East One Hundred and Sixteenth Street. This is the second synagogue in New York designed to meet the needs of the Spanish-Portuguese Community.
1896: Herzl achieves the agreement of Sir Samuel Montagu and Colonel Goldsmid to work with him for a vassal Jewish state under Turkish rule. Goldsmid promises to write a letter to Baron Rothschild.
1894: The New York Times describes the success of the Order of Round Robins a fraternal and welfare organization designed to benefits workers and employers originally conceived by Colonel Jacob Bloom, the manager of the Baron de Hirsch Trade School located in New York City.
1901: Grossherzog Friedrich of Baden informs Herzl that the Czar will not receive him.
1903: Birthdate of Sidney Franklin. Born Sidney Frumkin, Franklin was the first famous bullfighter from north of the Rio Grande.
1911: A strong protest was provided by Moses Gaster when the London Times published an article from Vienna stating that Jews are influencing the Salonica Committee which is bringing harsh measures to bear against the Albanians.
1920: At the first Zionist conference held after World War I, Olga Ginsburg initiated the founding of the Women’s International Zionist Organization (WIZO), together with representatives from organizations in Palestine, England, Germany, Poland, The Netherlands, Russia and South Africa. It was decided to establish the central office in Palestine and to divide the work between the world center and London. (As reported by Esther Carmel-Hakim)
1921: Former US President William Howard Taft was sworn in as 10th Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court, becoming the only person to ever be both President and Chief Justice. Unlike the Associate Justices, the Chief Justice has major administrative responsibility for both the High Court and the Federal judiciary system. It was in this latter arena that both Louis Brandies and Felix Frankfurter reported that Taft excelled.
1923: Albert Einstein delivers his Nobel Lecture in Gothenburg, Sweden
1923: Birthdate of Richard Pipes, the Polish born American historian who specialized in Russian affairs.
1926:The first international conference of representatives of Liberal Judaism will open in London today. Delegates from the reform congregations of the United States and several European countries, ministers and laymen, are expected to participate. The majority of the papers to be read at the conference will deal with the fundamental aspects of Liberal Judaism today.
1927: The Hadassah offices in New York City received a cable from Dr. E.M. Bluestone, director of the Hadassah Medical Organization in Palestine stating that “the earthquake situation ‘is well in hand.’”
1930: Birthdate of literary critic Harold Bloom. Bloom is the Sterling Professor of Humanities at Yale. The Bronx born Bloom is reputed to have learned Yiddish and literary Hebrew before he learned English.
1931: Birthdate of 1950’s teenage heartthrob Tab Hunter. Born Arthur Klein in New York, Hunter’s parents divorced and he moved to California with his mother and two brothers. The blond haired, blue eyed Hunter played in a number of B films. Teen age girls swooned over him, not knowing about his Jewish origins and sexual orientation.
1937: Composer George Gershwin passed away. Born in 1898, Gershwin made musical history during his very short lifetime. Among his most famous productions was "Porgy and Bess" a classic whose music is still sung today.
1938: During an appearance in the House of Commons, Colonial Secretary Malcolm MacDonald refused to respond to an inquiry about whether he would ask the French to expel the Grand Mufti from Syria, the base from which he is directing the on-going campaign of violence gripping Palestine.
1941(16th of Tammuz, 5701): Forty-four year old bond broker, Monroe Mayhoff, retired bond who had risen to the rank of Captain while serving in the New York National Guard passed away today. He was the son of Charles Mayhoff and Ameilia Levy Mayhoff who survived both her husband and son.
1941: Following the murder of most of the Jews at Jedwabne, Poland by the Polish population on the previous days, the Germans reasserted their authority and forbade the Poles from killing any more Jews on their own.
1942: This day was called the "Black Sabbath" in Salonica, Greece. Ten thousand men were assembled for forced labor registration by the Germans. Surrounded by machine gun carrying Germans, 7,000 Jews had to stand erect, and sometimes in a squatting position in the 100 degree sun under threat of death nearly all day. An untold number of Jews died because they were beaten, tortured, and deprived of both food and water. Nine thousand of them are assigned to the Organisation Todt labor battalions.
1943: In the early morning hours, airborne troops drop onto Sicily followed by a seaborne assault by troops under the command of Patton and Montgomery in what was known as Operation Husky. At that time Operation Husky was the largest amphibious assault ever attempted and its success depended on fooling the enemy as to where the landings would take place. Thanks to Operation Mincemeat, which has been described as the Allies’ most successful act of deception during the war, the Axis forces were taken by surprise. Operation Mincemeat was masterminded by Captain Ewen Montagu, a member of a prominent British Jewish family who would serve as President of the United Synagogue and Vice President of the Anglo-Jewish Association. [For more about this fascinating act of deception see a movie called The Man Who Never Was or read Operation Mincemeat.]
1943: Martin Bormann, head of the Nazi Party secretariat, issued a circular on the instructions of Hitler. "Whenever the Jewish question was brought up in public, there may be no discussion of a future overall solution. It may however be mentioned that the Jews are taken in groups for appropriate labor purposes."
1944: Birthdate of Michael Abraham Levy, “a Labour member of the House of Lords, President of Jewish Care and the Jewish Free School, and formerly the chief fundraiser for the Labour Party and several charities.”
1944: The Nazis liquidated the Kovno Ghetto.
1945: The British High Commissioner caves in to Arab pressure and issues a decree ending the Jerusalem municipality. He imposed a system of six British officials to administer the city, a system that ended the democratically elected government of Jerusalem.
1946: A Polish primate, Cardinal August Hlond, blames the Jews of Kielce, Poland, for the murderous pogrom that had taken place on July 4.
1947: The SS Exodus, a dilapidated American coastal steamer, left France filled with Jewish refugees who planning on defying the British ban on Jewish immigration to Palestine. The events surrounding the real SS Exodus would form the nucleus of Exodus by Leon Uris, a novel (and later movie) that provided a sympathetic description of events surrounding the birth of the modern state of Israel.
1948: During “Operation Danny,” Israeli forces captured Lydda.
1950: It was reported today that Crown Publishers will distribute “an American edition of Ari Ibn-Zahav’s second novel, David and Bathsheba in 1951. “The book, on which the author worked nearly seven years covering those places in Israel where the incidents took place was published in Hebrew in Jerusalem in 1929.” Jessica My Daughter was the name of Ibn-Zahav’s first novel.
1950: Two British planes which had landed at Lydda Airport without permission last week have been released by Israeli and are scheduled to leave Lydda Airport today. The two planes had landed in Israel on July 9 carrying more than 100 Iraqi Jews who had fled to Teheran where they had chartered these two British aircraft. The planes had been detained because landing rights had been obtained for only one plane.
1951: The Jerusalem Post reported that Israel had been allocated $23.5m. grant-in-aid under the economic part of the US Mutual Security Program for the Middle East. The size of the no-man's-land in Jerusalem had been reduced by marking of the border houses by the joint Israel-Jordan Mixed Armistice Commission. Syria asked Iraq to withdraw all its troops which had been sent to reinforce the Syrian forces during the Hula conflict with Israel.
1958: In Tunisia, one of the last vestiges of this venerable community, The Jewish Community Council was dissolved. The Jewish Community Council was one of the last vestiges of the venerable Tunisian Jewish Community. The Jewish Community in Tunisia traced its roots to the days of the Second Temple. The community began in Carthage, the rival to Rome that you may remember as the homeland of the great general, Hannibal. Soon after the council was dissolved, the Hara, (Jewish quarter) together with the oldest synagogue was destroyed as part of a slum-clearance project.
1963:Arthur Goldreich, a South African Jew, who helped lead the armed struggle against apartheid in South Africa was among the top 16 ANC leaders who were arrested today at Liliesleaf. This was the farm where Goldreich posed as the manager while Nelson Mandel masqueraded as his houseboy in their fight against the apartheid government of South Africa.
1961: Birthdate of Ophir Pines-Paz, the native of Rishon LeZion who served as an MK and filled several ministerial posts.
1966(23rd of Tamuz, 5726): Poet Delmore Schwartz, the son of Jewish immigrants from Romania passed away.
1966: Birthdate of American television actor Gregory Phillip Grunberg,
1972: Birthdate of actor Michael Rosenbaum. His current claim to fame is his role as Superman's evil opponent - Lex Luthor.
1976: The Jerusalem Post reported that Israel told the UN Security Council that the entire Entebbe hijack affair was one of collusion, from beginning to end, on the part of the Ugandan government and Palestinian terrorists. Israeli envoy Chaim Herzog challenged Uganda to produce Mrs. Dora Bloch, who was both a British and Israeli national and was hospitalized in Entebbe the day before the raid. The British official who visited her a day after the raid reported that she was guarded by two plainclothes men and that he was denied access after he returned to meet her again an hour later. The British Foreign Office recalled its high commissioner from Kampala after he received a "totally unacceptable" reply from Idi Amin on the fate of Mrs. Bloch.
1976: In a pre-recorded interview broadcast today on the CBS news program Face the Nation, “Prime Minister Rabin denounced President Amin. ‘For years he has given refuge, assistance, training, support of all kinds to Palestinian terror organizations that worked against Israel.’” He went on to say “that President Amin was a full partner to the hijacking, if not when it began, then certainly in the later stage.” [Note – Rabin’s comments came in the wake of attacks by Uganda, and other nations of sub-Saharan Africa on Israel and implied, if not stated, support for the hijackers. Thirty years later, some of these same states would get a taste of what Israel was dealing with when they began to deal with Al Qaeda and other Moslem terrorists operating in their countries.]
1983(1st of Av, 5743): Rosh Chodesh Av
1986: As part of the celebrations of the centennial of the Statue of Liberty, Liz Lerman's Still Crossing was performed in Manhattan. The performance, part of a series of dance performances in a show called "Liberty Dances," brought together dancers from both of Lerman's companies: Dancers of the Third Age, a company of elderly dancers, and the younger Dance Exchange. The professional dancers were joined by members of the 92nd Street Y and a YWCA in Brooklyn in a piece that the New York Timesreviewer described as simple but moving, with "dignity and eloquence." Choreographer Liz Lerman was educated at the University of Maryland and at George Washington University, where she earned an M.A. in dance. She established the Dance Exchange in Washington, DC, in 1976, as a school that included classes for senior adults and "special populations." After three years, she also launched a touring Dance Exchange company; the school was later closed so that Lerman and the company could focus on creating new works. From the beginning, Lerman's work has been deeply involved in issues of community building and community-based art. Like Dancers of the Third Age, many of her projects have incorporated performers outside of the mainstream dance world. In addition, she has created site-specific projects, including dances celebrating the 200th anniversary of the Portsmouth, NH, naval shipyard. Similarly, many of her dances take on themes of political or social importance. A 1987 program called "Atomic Priests and Other Dances" included a dance based on an official Department of Energy Report about how people 10,000 years from now might deal with nuclear waste. She has also produced what she calls a docudance entitled "Nine Short Dances About the Defense Budget and Other Military Matters." A reviewer has called Lerman "one of the most articulate and compassionate of social commentators in the arts today." Lerman's work has been widely recognized for excellence. Lincoln Center, the American Dance Festival, BalletMet, and the Kennedy Center have all commissioned works. In 1988, Lerman was named Washingtonian of the Year by Washingtonian magazine. She has also received an American Choreographer Award, an American Jewish Congress "Golda" Award, and, in 2002, a MacArthur Fellowship. Today, the Liz Lerman Dance Exchange operates out of Takoma Park, MD, and performs all over the United States and the world. Dancers of the Third Age, which also performs widely, operates as an adjunct company to the Dance Exchange. Current projects include "Prayer as a Radical Act/Radical Action as Prayer," which will be a dance/theatre piece that draws from ancient and contemporary prayer practices to explore unity and division, and "Ferocious Beauty: Genome," which will be a multi-media work exploring the impact of genetic research on our lives.
1987(14th of Tamuz, 5747): Avi Ran, Israeli goalkeeper for Maccabia Haifa died in a boating accident.
1987(14th of Tammuz, 5747): Rabbi Yaakov Yitzchok Ruderman passed away. Born in 1901 at Daŭhinava he “was a prominent Talmudic scholar… who founded and served as Rosh Yeshiva of Yeshiva Ner Yisroel in Baltimore.
1994: The second round of family tours of Israel sponsored by the American Jewish Congress were scheduled to begin today.
1999: The New York Times reviews books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including recently release paperback editions of Explaining Hitler: The Search for the Origins of His Evil” by Ron Rosenbaum and “Between Dignity and Despair: Jewish Life in Nazi Germany”, by Marion A. Kaplan.
2000; Talks opened at Camp David between Yasser Arafat and Ehud Barak under the auspices of Bill Clinton.
2002: An exhibition entitled “Michael Rovner: The Space Between” opened at the Whitney Museum in New York City. "The exhibition, “Michal Rovner: The Space Between,” in the Whitney's third floor Peter Norton Family Galleries, contains 70 objects, including 55 photographic works, twelve monoprints, and three video installations, one of which will premiere at the Whitney...In Outside, a body of work Rovner made in 1990-91, a Bedouin house in the Israeli desert stands isolated. From image to image, Rovner alters the color, size, and focus of the house. The result is an inquiry into the meaning of house, home, inside, and outside. Also in 1991, Rovner responded to the Persian Gulf War by making art from news coverage of the conflict. She shot directly from the television screen in her New York studio, then changed the color and scale of the images to make pictures that suggest generic rather than specific conflict. In another series, titled One-Person Game Against Nature (1992-93), Rovner made photographs of figures floating in the Dead Sea.
2000: Haim Ramon succeeded Natan Sharansky as Internal Affairs Minister.
2004(22nd of Tammuz, 5764): Eighty-two year old fitness guru Joe Gold, the creator of the ubiquitous Gold’s Gyms, passed away today. (As reported by Wolfgang Saxon)
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/14/us/joe-gold-82-creator-of-mecca-of-bodybuilding.html
2005: Opening ceremonies for the 17th Maccabiah.
2007: In Sydney, Australia, the International Conference of Christian and Jews came to an end.
2008: US Ambassador to Israel Richard Jones leave his post, some three years after taking up the position. He will be replaced by James Cunningham, whose appointment has already been confirmed by the US Senate.
2008: At a conference on the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Orion Center held by the Hebrew University's Mandel Institute of Jewish Studies and the Israel Museum Professor Israel Knohl from the Department of Bible Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem presented a new and surprising interpretation to a text found on a stone tablet that has been called the ''Vision of Gabriel''. According to his interpretation, the word Hayia – or ''will live'' – that appears on the tablet is an old form of the imperative word ''Live!'' and shows that the angel Gabriel resurrected a messianic leader by the name of Sar HaSarin, or ''prince of princes'' three days after his death. The Vision of Gabriel is a text written on stone from the first century B.C.E. that was discovered in Transjordan, and describes an apocalyptic vision that is told by the angel Gabriel. The vision recounts that an evil king will succeed in destroying many of the people of Israel and killing its leader, the ''Prince of Princes''. After three days, this leader will be resurrected by the angel Gabriel. Prof. Knohl, who is the Yehezkel Kauffman Professor of Biblical Studies, suggests reconstructing the words from a fragmented line in the text ''in three days come back to life, angel Gabriel commands you''. Prof. Knohl claims that in this line it is clear that Gabriel is approaching someone and commanding him to come back to life after three days. Prof. Knohl found that development of the tradition regarding the messiah son of Joseph is based on real historic events, and that the belief in the resurrection of the messiah and on his rising up to heaven three days after his death developed before Christ's crucifixion. ''We are able to determine that the period in which the Vision of Gabriel was written was at the end of the first century B.C.E, close in time to the birth of Jesus of Nazareth. The idea that the death of the messiah is an integral part of the salvation process was at the time a commonly held belief among certain circles,'' claims Prof. Knohl. ''Therefore, if there was a Jewish tradition of a messiah who will be resurrected, it is possible to believe that Jesus was the Jewish messiah who goes to his death out of the belief that his spilled blood will cause G-d to bring about the redemption of the Jewish people. This discovery should bring about a renewed appreciation of the parallel development of Jewish and Christian messianism.''
2009: In Tel Aviv, Israel faces Russia in Day 2 of the Davis Cup Quarterfinals.
2009: At the Jerusalem Film Festival, a screening of “Camera Obscura” a film based on a novel by Angélica Gorodisher set at the end of the 19th century, in a colony of Jewish immigrants living in Entre Ríos Province, Argentina.
2010: The final performance of the World Premiere engagement of The Socialization of Ruthie Shapiro is scheduled to take place at Theatre West in Los Angeles.
2010: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewsih readers including The Council of Dads: My Daughters, My Illness, and the Men Who Could Be Meby Bruce Feiler and The Men Who Would Be King by Nicole LaPorte which chronicles how Jewish showbiz veterans Steven Spielberg, David Geffen and Jeffrey Katzenberg banded together to form DreamWorks SKG, their own custom-designed production studio and the first new Hollywood studio in 60 years.
2010: The 70th yahrzeit of Vladimir Ze'ev Jabotinsky was marked today, at Mount Herzl cemetery in Jerusalem, by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Shimon Peres. There was nary a mention of it in the Israeli media—an extraordinary omission given that Jabotinsky was not only a founder of the Haganah and the supreme commander of the Irgun but also a towering Zionist theoretician and leader. Jabotinsky was born and raised in cosmopolitan Odessa, then a vibrant hub of Jewish intellectual and cultural life. Drawn to journalism, he became an accomplished feuilletonist. His life took a fateful turn in 1903, when, fearing the pogroms sweeping Russia would reach his city, he pulled together a Jewish self-defense group. In the same year, he attended the Sixth Zionist Congress in Basle, which rejected an anguished Theodor Herzl’s plea to consider settling for an autonomous Jewish sanctuary in East Africa. During World War I, while the Zionist establishment cautiously maintained its neutrality, Jabotinsky became the driving force behind the formation of a Jewish Legion to fight alongside the Allies. In the early 1920s, as the British mandatory authorities in Palestine capitulated regularly to Arab pressure, he organized defensive measures against Arab rioting, an activity for which he was at first imprisoned by the British and later amnestied and deported. Jabotinsky was unwavering in his insistence that Zionism’s immediate and uncompromising goal had to be Herzl's original vision of an actual Jewish state. A rupture over the establishment's accommodationist approach toward Britain was inevitable. In 1925 he founded the Revisionist Zionist Organization, and ten years later led it out of the Congress. On Tisha b'Av 1938, he delivered a chillingly prophetic speech in Warsaw imploring the Jews of Poland to "see the volcano which will soon begin to spew forth its fires of destruction"—and to escape while they still could. Two years later, at the age of fifty-nine, Jabotinsky died suddenly in upstate New York after inspecting an honor guard of his Betar youth movement. In Tel Aviv, the Labor newspaper Davar, which had opposed his every political move, graciously editorialized: "Jabotinsky has died. That gifted violin has been shattered." The reference was to his formidable powers as a polemicist and spellbinding speaker, capable of holding an audience in Russian, Hebrew, Yiddish, English, French, or German. Jabotinsky's first biographer, Joseph B. Schechtman, described him as a "rebel, statesman, fighter, and prophet." To Shmuel Katz, his definitive biographer, "Jabo" was simply a "lone wolf." His emphasis on ethnic pride and regard for military discipline made liberals uncomfortable and led enemies to slur him as a fascist, an odd charge against a passionate 19th-century liberal and advocate of woman's rights. Like others, Jabotinsky may not have fully fathomed nascent Arab nationalism; but he abhorred the idea that Arab and Jew could not live together peaceably. Jabotinsky's multilingual journalism and literary output are keys, in their own way, to understanding his character and his take on life in general and Jewish life (and the Jewish imagination) in particular. Throughout his hectic political career, he somehow managed to write novels, poems, stories, patriotic songs, essays, and a regular column in New York's Yiddish-language Morning Journal. In reviewing an English translation of one of his novels, Hillel Halkin found a portrait of the author himself in a character inclined by nature to free-spiritedness but committed to a life of duty and self-sacrifice. Do Jabotinsky's uncompromising views, including on the territorial integrity of the Land of Israel, enjoy a 21st-century constituency in the Jewish state? Not in the Likud, which claims his political legacy, and not in the mostly Orthodox-led settlement movement, which has its own heroes. Even in death, it seems, Jabo remains a lone wolf.
2011: Nirvana, a dance show from Korea, based on ancient ritual Buddhist dances, is scheduled to performed at the Performing Arts Center in Herzliya
2011: The "Boycott Bill" was approved in its final reading in the Knesset tonight, after a plenum discussion that lasted nearly six hours and uncertainty throughout the day as to whether a vote would take place. The bill passed with 47 in favor and 38 opposed, despite the fact that most Shas MKs were absent due to MK Nissim Ze'ev's daughter's wedding. In addition, many ministers – including Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu - did not attend the vote and the Independence faction chose not to participate. Netanyahu's spokesman would not comment on why the prime minister did not vote
2011: Argentinean Rabbi Sergio Bergman won a seat on the Buenos Aires municipal legislature today, leading the vote tally with 45 percent of the votes. Bergman garnered triple the number of votes of the candidate who came in second place, Juan Cabandié of the Victory Front Party, who won 14 percent of the vote.
2011: A leading rabbi and halachic authority in Israel has recognized the Chuetas of Palma de Majorca as Jewish, the Shavei Israel organization announced today. The Chuetas are descended from the Jewish inhabitants of the Spanish island of Majorca who suffered extreme oppression in the Middle Ages, until by 1435 all of them had been killed or forcibly converted to Catholicism. Because the Chuetas are related to the previous generations and married among themselves they should be considered Jewish, Shavei Israel Chairman Michael Freund told reporters that Rabbi Nissim Karlewitz, chairman of the Beit Din Tzedek (rabbinical court) in Bnei Brak, wrote in a letter to the organization. “Since it has become clear that it is accepted among them [the Chuetas] that throughout the generations most of them married among themselves, then all those who are related to the former generations are Jews, from our brethren the children of Israel, the nation of God,” Karlewitz wrote. “We, the Jewish people, have a responsibility to the Chuetas,” Freund told The Jerusalem Post. “Their ancestors were kidnapped from us and taken against their will six centuries ago. The Inquisition sought to quash their Jewish identity down through the ages and we are coming here today to say that the Inquisition did not succeed. Jews are still here and the Chuetas are still here, and the best revenge on the Inquisition would be to bring as many of these people as possible back to their roots and back to their people.” Despite having been converted, the Chuetas – whose name comes from the Catalan word for pig – continued to face intense discrimination and oppression, and were not allowed to marry Catholics or adopt certain professions. Because of the ban on intermarriage, the Chuetas almost exclusively married within their own community. “Although there is no actual discrimination any longer against Chuetas, on a societal level many feel ostracized and to a certain extent outsiders,” Freund said. “Acceptance of the Chuetas over the past 40 years has grown, which is positive, but brings with it a greater danger of assimilation, which is why the timing of this announcement is so important.” Karelitz’s decision refers to the Chuetas as a collective, and for anyone wanting to return in full to the Jewish community it will be necessary for a rabbinical court to speak with the individual. According to Freund, many of the Chuetas have documentation attesting to their family lines, often going back 500 years. “There are 15 distinct Chueta family names. Because of the historical circumstances and because of the endogamy practices, it is relatively easy to document and prove their genealogy,” Freund said. In May, the president of the Balearic Islands province of Spain, Francesc Antich, attended a memorial service in the Majorcan capital of Palma commemorating the execution in 1691 of 37 Chuetas for practicing Judaism in secret, including Rabbi Rafael Valls, the secret rabbi of the Chuetas who, along with two others, was burned alive. Antich condemned the “grave injustice” done against the Chuetas, the first time an official from Majorca had condemned such events. “The recognition of their Jewishness was received with great happiness and joy, some people at the announcement burst into tears, because they now know the Jewish people are aware of them and feel a kinship with them,” Freund said of the press conference on Monday. Rabbi Nissan Ben-Avraham, who is of Chuetas origin and works for Shavei Israel in Palma de Majorca, will be joining with the Arachim outreach organization to provide a program of lessons in Hebrew, Jewish history, culture and religion for the Chuetas. “We are not coming here to tell people how to live their lives, we are just presenting them with an option. Those who wish to return to the Jewish people will now have opportunity to do so and will be welcomed back with open arms. Our goal is to help as many as possible to return to their Jewish roots,” Freund said.
2011: A four-alarm fire broke out tonight at an Upper East Side synagogue that was being renovated, spitting flames through stained-glass windows, destroying the roof and heavily damaging the upper floors, the Fire Department said. No one was badly injured in the blaze, which obscured the sky over much of the neighborhood with smoke. Four firefighters received minor injuries battling the blaze, which fire officials said apparently began on the roof. The cause was not known. Hundreds of people crowded around Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun, a modern Orthodox synagogue on 85th Street near Lexington Avenue, after the fire began about 8:30 p.m. About 170 firefighters fought the blaze, which took about an hour to bring under control.Onlookers gaped and snapped pictures with cellphone cameras as flames shot up from the roof. “It went up like that,” said Stephen L. Ruzow, chairman of the FDNY Foundation and a member of the synagogue, who saw the flames engulf the roof. “Flames were 40 feet in the air, and there were large clouds of thick black smoke.” The synagogue, which is 110 years old, was being renovated and no one was inside, according to Rabbi Haskel Lookstein, and the sacred Torah scrolls had been removed when construction began. The renovation was to have been completed in September. “We’re lucky,” Rabbi Lookstein said, “because every Torah scroll is as special as a human life.” After the fire, only a few of the roof beams remained. Some of the long stained-glass windows at the front of the building were blackened and broken. Members of the congregation flocked to the scene from across the city when they learned their synagogue was aflame. Asher Levitsky, 67, a lawyer whose children attended Ramaz, a nearby school affiliated with the synagogue, said he was on his way to a SummerStage musical performance in Central Park when his wife’s cousin called him. He said he immediately turned around and headed for the Kehilath Jeshurun. “It’s tragic,” Mr. Levitsky said. “It’s a terrible loss.”
2012: While it is said that “wine gladdens the hear” the Historic 6th & I Synagogue in Washington, DC turns its attention to another form of fermented refreshment tonight when it is scheduled to host “Summer Brews: A Season Tasting with The Beer Activist.”
2012: The 92ndStreet Y is scheduled to present “Saving America’s Working Class” – a discussion with James Carville and Stan Greenberg.” (Guess which one is not Jewish)
2012: In Jerusalem, Dalik Voloniz is scheduled to moderate “Destruction and Hope,” a pre–Tisha B’Av event that combines discussion, song, and music. Ideas will be discussed about personal and national recovery, about the opportunities latent in loss, and about how memory becomes a driving force. (Note – for more information about events in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv go to www.janglo.net
Copyright; July, 2012; Mitchell A. Levin melech3@mchsi.com
