July 23 In History
501: A violent earth quake hit Eretz Yisrael. The town of Akko was totally destroyed.
636: Following the Battle of Yarmuk Arabs took control of most of Eretz Yisrael from the Byzantine Empire.
1253: The Jews were expelled from Vienne, France by order of Pope Innocent
III
1298(13th of Av): Massacre of the Jews of Wurzburg, Germany.
1312:King Frederick II issued an order today that in Palermo Jews must live outside the city wall in a ghetto; and although they were soon afterward allowed to come into the city, they were still compelled to live in one quarter.
1626: Birthdate (on the secular calendar) of Sabbatai Zevi, the most famous of the Jewish false messiahs. He died in 1676 after converting to Islam and becoming a low-level official in the Turkish government.
1713:Rabbi Tzvi Hirsch ben Yaakov Ashkenazi placed Nehemiah Chiya Chayun under the ban, because the investigating committee appointed by the Sephardic directorate had not yet made its report. In consequence of this measure, both Ashkenazi and Moses Chagiz were subjected to street attacks, more particularly at the hands of the Portuguese, who threatened to kill them. In the midst of the constantly increasing bitterness and animosity, the report of the committee, which had been prepared by Solomon Ayllon, Chacham of the Portuguese congregation, alone, was publicly announced. It was to the effect that the writings of Chayun contained nothing which could be construed as offensive to Judaism. It was publicly announced in the synagogue that Chayun was to be exonerated from every suspicion of heresy.
1768(9th of Av): Rabbi Isaac Spitz, author of Birkat Yizhak passed away.
1787: The Jews of Austria were required to take family names.
1846:Rabbi Isaac Meyer Wise arrives in
New York
from
Europe
.
1847: Prussian Jews were granted equality.
1857:The resignation of Baron Rothschild was announced today and new writ was published in London calling for an election to choose his successor. In London, the electors responded by holding a public meeting in which they pledged to return Rothschild to Parliament as their representative. They also passed a resolution calling the government to do everything in its power to immediately settle the Jewish question
1858: Passage of the Oaths and Jewish Relief Acts in Great Britain. The act allowed each House to decide the wording for the oath of office. It allowed Jewish office holders not to have recited the words, “I make this declaration upon the true Faith of a Christian. For the full text of the oath see: http://books.google.com/books?id=52INAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA531&lpg=PA531&dq=Oaths+and+Jewish+Relief+Acts+in+Great+Britain&source=bl&ots=uqsqgiu8t-&sig=vPWUAn-B9_B3E9pCbleZBi9SdsE&hl=en&ei=qbpITKi2CobmsQOo8_VI&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBIQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false
1860:A review of Life in the Desert; or Recollections of Travel in Asia and Africa by Colonel L. Du Couret, entitled “Asiatic Exploration.; The Journey of Du Couret through the Arabian Desert” reports that “in the heart of Arabia, our traveler found a considerable number of Jews, whose social condition seems to have been even worse than their, political state, which, in itself, is bad enough. More Jews are found at Doan, a populous place, some leagues further on the route to the eastward. "Many of these Jews," says Du Couret,, "are brokers, and some of them make a living by the manufacture of buskins and palm leaf mats. They also lend out money at usurious interest to merchants trading to Sana, the Indian Ocean and the Persian Gulf; but they carefully avoid any display of wealth, to save themselves from the extortion of the Mussulmans, who exact tribute from them. Such, under the rod of the Islam, are the modern descendants of the prophet Isaiah and of King Solomon." There is something unpleasantly suggestive in the following passage from our author's narrative: "Doan, which is, in all probability, the Dan spoken of by Ezekiel, is, at the present day, one of the largest and most important towns in Hadramaut, ranking next after Schibam and Terim.”
1862: Jacob and Amalia Nathansohn Freud gave birth to Pauline Regine (Pauli), a sister of Sigmund Freud who was deported to Treblinka in 1942.
1862:An article entitled "Escape of Mr. W.H. Hurlbert from Richmond" published today described the year-long Southern sojourn of Charleston born author William Hurlbert, a Union sympathizer who claimed that he visited the Richmond at the invitation of Judah P. Benjamin, “the eminent Jew” with whom he found himself in total disagreement. Hurlbert then visited Charleston where he was seized by a mob that refused Secretary Benjamin’s order to set him free. Hurlbert was then imprisoned in Richmond over the objections of Secretary Benjamin where he languished for almost a year before escaping. [Editor’s note - For those trying to figure how much credence to give Hurlbert’s account consider the following. He was in Richmond during the Peninsula Campaign and later reported that the Confederate forces numbered between 80,000 and 90,000 (wildly exaggerated) most of whom were facing Union General Fitz Jon Porter (accurate) which means that had General McClellan pushed forward he would have Richmond virtually unoccupied (accurate)]
1872: W.P. Wood and a "Jew from Baltimore" named Blumenberg are scheduled to arrive in Raleigh, North Carolina tonight. The two men have reportedly been sent to North Carolina by the Liberal Republican Committee in an attempt to carry out a Tammany style ballot box stuffing. Wood has been given $9,000 for his part in the scheme. Blumenberg, who has served two years in the State Prison for Perjury was given $7,000.
1872: E.A. Rosenbluth wrote a letter to the New York Times in which he declared that he “and all my Jewish acquaintances” “will vote for” General Grant.
1874: It was reported today that as soon as $160,000 can be raised for a new Hebrew Theological College will be built in Cincinnati. The late Emanuel Deutsch was the leading candidate to head the school but since his demise, Dr. Wise has renewed his efforts to obtain the services of the best available scholar to lead the effort. The school is to be so amply endowed that students will not have to pay tuition or fees. Henry Mack has been elected to serve as President of the Board of Governors.
1874: Melissa Rogers Pinner and Moritz Pinner gave birth to Rogers Adolphe Pinner, a senior partner of the Mutual Electric Company
1874(9th of Av, 5634):Tish'a B'Av
1876: A reported published today described the scene witnessed by a group of “Cook pilgrims” when they visited the “The Wailing Place of the Jews on the west side of the Temple enclosure” in Jerusalem. The Jews come to the Wall where they can touch the stones (which the writer erroneously believed were from the times of King Solomon) and read from Lamentations and Psalms “in a wailing voice.” The Jews “occasionalyly cry aloud in a chorus of lamentation, weeping. Blowing their longs notes with blue cotton handkerchiefs” while “kissing the stones” worn smooth “owing to centuries of osculation.”
1879:Opinions of Prominent Jews
The pronunciamento of Mr. Corbin naturally created a great deal of excitement among the Jews of this City when it was made public yesterday, and indignation was freely expressed on all sides. The prominent men among the ...
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9805E2DD1F3FE63BBC4B51DFB1668382669FDE
1879:Mr. Austin Corbin told a Times reporter today that he had received numerous letters from "nice people" approving tho course he had taken in relation to the Jews, and urging him to persevere. He refused to permit copies to be taken for publication, on the plea that the matter had had enough notoriety, and he wished to let it die out.
1879: It was reported today that “A Berlin dispatch to the Pall Mall Gazette says: ‘Germany has declined to entertain any proposals from the Roumania for the modification of the provisions of the treaty of Berlin relative to the emancipation of the Jews.’”
1882: “The Jews and Wagner” published today expressed bewilderment at the German composer’s expression of disdain for Jews. According to the author, it was an un-named Jew who gave him his first piano. And Giacomo Meyerbeer, the German-Jewish composer, was the “first men who helped him.” Wagner claims that the Jews of Vienna have conspired to harm his career, but his three most noted critics –Hanslick, Scheel and Speidl- are Viennese Catholics.
1884(1stof Ave, 5644): Rosh Chodesh Av
1884: Robert Pinkerton, whose detectives had arrested Mrs. Fredericka Mandelbaum yesterday, described what he said was her 25 year career as the “most successful…receiver of stolen goods – silks, diamonds” and other “swag” from burglars” that had brought her to the attention of law enforcement officers throughout the United States. (Mandelbaum was Jewish; Pinkerton was not)
1889(24thof Tammuz, 5649): Miss Openheimer, an 18 year old Jewess who was the daughter of well-known Pittsburgh clothing merchant, died today at Harmony, PA when a horse-drawn wagon in which she was riding collided with a train. Miss Oppenheimer was vacationing in Butler Country. Her brothers and father who were in Atlantic City have not heard about the tragedy.
1891: Birthdate of movie mogul Harry Cohn, The son of Russian Jewish tailor, Cohn quit school and found work in vaudeville. He began working in the infant motion picture industry in 1913. He founded Columbia Pictures where, as a producer he won an Academy Award in 1934 for It Happened One Night. Cohn was noted for his vulgarism and bizarre quotes. One of his most famous was, "Give me two years and I will make her an overnight success." Cohn was one of several Jews who dominated the film industry in its early years. The interesting thing is that they did not make Jewish movies or movies about Jews. They gained success by giving the audiences slices of
Americana
. The created, or at least nurtured a vision of
America
that
Middle America
wanted to see. He passed away in 1958.
1906(1st of Av, 5666): Rosh Chodesh Av
1912: Birthdate of Meyer Howard “Mike” Abrams, the son of Jewish immigrants, who became a leading American literary critic.
1913: Arabs attacked the Jewish settlement of Rehovot.
1918: Birthdate of Abraham ('Appie') Bueno de Mesquita, the Amsterdam born comedian who survived the Holocaust.
1920:The Zionist Conference here, probably the most important gathering of Jews ever held, concluded today with the election of United States Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis as honorary President of the Zionist organization; Professor Chaim Weizmann, President, and Nahum Sokolow, Chairman of the Executive Committee.
1923: The New York Times reviewed volume 4 of The Life of Benjamin Disraeli; Earl of Beaconsfield by George Earle Buckle which covers the years 1855 to 1868.
1926: Fox Film buys the patents of the Movietone sound system for recording sound onto film. Sol M. Wurtzel was the producer responsible for Fox moving its operations to
California
and for making this purches. Following the Stock Market Crash of 1929, Fox would be purchased and become part of production giant 20th Century Fox.
1928: Birthdate of famed pianist, teacher and conductor, Leon Fleisher. Fleisher is doubly famous. When at the height of his successful career as a pianist, he lost the ability to use his right hand. Fleisher then discovered a body of music written for the left-hand and gained greater fame for this accomplishment.
1931(9th of Av, 5691):Tish'a B'Av
1933:More than twenty leaders of the extreme wing of the Zionist Revisionist party were arrested today in various parts of the country, including Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and two Jewish villages, Kfarsaba and Kalmania, when the police simultaneously raided houses in connection with the murder of Dr. Chaim Arlosoroff, member of the Jewish Agency Executive of Palestine. Dr Arslosoroff was killed while walking on beach at Tel Aviv with his on June 16. This was no random killing since Arslosoroff’s killer held a flashlight into his face, asked “Are you Dr. Arslosoroff” and only fired the three fatal shots after the doctor had answered in the affirmative.
1936: The Palestine Post reported that a British soldier was killed in an Arab ambush near Tulkarm. Arab attacks were reported from Ein Harod and Kfar Yehezkel. Arabs celebrated the 100th day of their insurrection with demonstrations, calls for prayer and donations. But the Arab Nashashibi Party proposed that the Arab Higher Committee should resign as a protest against the non-fulfillment of their promises and leave the people to decide the fate of their prolonged general strike by themselves.
1936: Arab terrorists threw a bomb at a small religious school (Talmud Torah) in the Yemenite Quarter of Tel Aviv. Nine children were injured. One of the terrorists was later caught by a British constable and arrested.
1936: The British government officially declared that there would be no change of policy in regard to the issue of Jewish immigration into
Palestine
until the Royal Commission was able to visit the country, study the subject and publish its findings.
Britain
expected that all Arab terrorist activities would stop before the commission's arrival in the country. The British were wrong. The violence did not stop.
1938: Jews in
Germany
are ordered to apply for identity cards to be shown to police on demand.
1940: Birthdate of Daniel Saul Goldin who was appointed as the 9th Administrator of NASA by President Bush in 1992 and served under three different Presidents.
1940: Hans Frank issues order revoking the autonomy of all Jewish, Ukrainian and Jewish independent aid organizations in the General Government.
1941: In White Russia an Einsatzkommando unit commander reported that some Jews were able to ‘escape into the surrounding forests and swamps’ because they “had managed to organize a ‘signal service’ between villages” that warned of the approach of the Nazi killing squads.
1942 (9thof Av, 5702): Tisha B’Av
1942 (9thof Av, 5702): Adam Czerniakow took his own life. Born in 1880, Czerniakow was the leader of the Jewish council of
Warsaw
, the Judenrat. Czerniakow had held the position for 3 years and kept a diary of over 1000 pages chronicling the formation of the ghetto up to the beginning of the forced transports. The Germans had ordered him to provide them with a list of names for deportation. His response was a list of his own name written hundreds of times. The day before his suicide, the Nazi officer in charge of the deportation procedure threatened to shoot his wife if he didn’t cooperate. In his suicide note he wrote "I am powerless, my heart trembles in sorrow and compassion. I can no longer bear all this."
1942 SS Senior Colonel General Viktor Brack advises Heinrich Himmler that all healthy Jews should be castrated or sterilized, and the remainder annihilated.
1942: The German Foreign Minister, Von Ribbentrop, warned the Italian Chief of Staff, that
Italy
should not resist efforts to deport the Jews of Croatia.
1942: The Nazis opened the Treblinka Extermination Camp.
1943(20th of Tammuz, 5703): Forty-year-old Mandel Langer, a Jewish French partisan who was active as an anti-Nazi saboteur since the end of 1942, is captured and executed in Toulouse, France.
1943: Colonel Josiah Clement Wedgwood, 1st Baron Wedgwood, passed away. Swimming against the establishment stream, he opposed the British decision to create an Arab state east of the Jordan River, seeing it as a betrayal of promises to the Zionists. He opposed the 1939 White Paper on the same grounds.
1944: Soviet troops liberate the abandoned death camp at Majdanek, where about 500 inmates are alive.
1944: The Nazis deport 1700 Jews from
Rhodes
,
Italy
, to
Auschwitz
.
1948(16th of Tamuz, 5708): In Jerusalem, two more Israeli soldiers were killed by Arab firing from Abu Tor.
1948: Arab shelling from the village of Silwan damages the King David Hotel in Jerusalem.
1948:The possibility loomed today that the Israeli Government might conduct negotiations with Soviet Russia for a supply of crude oil to be refined at Haifa.
1949: The Turkish government authorized an Israeli, Victor Elyachar, to open an office in Istanbul to answer questions about the new state of Israel. In October of the same year, Elyachar was appointed Consul General of Israel at
Turkey
.
1951: Thousands of mourners led the black-draped gun carriage carrying the coffin of King Abdullah of
Jordan
to the royal cemetery in
Amman
. The Jordanian police rounded over 70 suspects in connection with the king's assassination, including two relatives of the former Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin el-Husseini. There were clashes in the
Jordanian-occupied
Old
City
of
Jerusalem
between Arab Legion Bedouin and the local Arabs.
1951: The first immigrant from the U.S.S.R., 73-year-old Tova Lerner from Soviet Bessarabia, arrived in Israel together with 993 newcomers from Romania.
1952: General Neguib overthrew the monarchy and seized power. Some Israelis thought this change presaged a possible improvement in relations with the Egyptians. The last King of Egypt, Farouk, was man known for his personal and political corruption. The Israelis thought the revolutionaries would bring Western style reforms and that they would be more accepting of the Jewish State. Obviously this did not happen. One of the men behind what was known as "The Colonels’ Revolt" was
Nasser
. Nasser would soon seize the reins of power and make the destruction of Israel a cornerstone of his Pan-Arab policy. In a lesson that has still not been learned,
Nasser
said that he did not hate the West because of
Israel
but hated
Israel
because it was Western. In other words, anti-Western philosophy has been a staple of the Arab/Moslem world long before the appearance of Bin Laden.
1950:Based on the wording of the Official Citations, today marked the beginning of a series of heroic acts on the part of Corporal Tibor Ruman during the darkest days of the Korean War that would lead to him being awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor.
1955: Cordell Hull, Tennessee political leader and U.S. Secretary of State passed away. Appointed by FDR, he served in the post until 1944 which made him the longest serving Secretary of State. He won the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1945 for his role in creating the United Nations, which at its inception, played a positive role in the creation of Israel. Hull blocked the admission of Jews fleeing Hitler as can be seen in his role with the SS St. Louis and the SS Quanza. Hull’s wife was reportedly Jewish, a fact they worked to keep from public knowledge lest it impede his public career.
1967: Herb Gray, Canada's first Jewish federal cabinet minister, Gray married lawyer Sharon Sholzberg, with whom he had two children: Jonathan David and Elizabeth Anne.
1968: For the first time, the PLO hijacked an El Al plane. El Al was the first airline to put sky marshals on its flights and the first airline to introduce the security measures that many tried to emulate after 9/11.
1969: Birthdate of Rachel Goslins, the director of “God’s House,” a documentary about Albanian Muslims who save Jews during World War II based on Besa: Muslims Who Save Jews in World War II by Norman Gershman.
1971: Birthdate of journalist Joel Stein.
1973: Birthdate of White House Intern, Monica Lewinsky.
1976: The Jerusalem Post reported that the visiting governor of the Bank of Spain, Luis Coronel del Palma, expressed hope of "a considerable improvement of relations between Spain and Israel." According to American experts the recent events in
Lebanon
and the Syrian intervention there threatened the total dismemberment of the PLO and the demise of Yasser Arafat who had lost control of all his forces. Mossad hit teams were reported to have been waging a concerted assassination program against all Palestinian terrorists who murdered 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympiad.
1978 The Israeli cabinet rejected Sadat's call for return of 2 Sinai areas.
1980(10thof Av, 5740): Eighty-four year old Dr. Max Kadushin, a leading Conservative Rabbi, passed away today.
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=F10C16FC355D11728DDDAD0A94DF405B8084F1D3
1987:Fifty American volunteers pulled out of an archeological excavation site here today after a group of rigorously Orthodox Jews mobilized international pressure to halt digging in the area, which they say is an ancient burial ground. While 100 Israeli policemen, armed with riot sticks and tear gas, separated them from three busloads of angry Orthodox protesters, the American archeological volunteers spent the morning clearing dust off a fifth-century mosaic sidewalk in Caesarea, a historic coastal city 25 miles north of Tel Aviv. But shortly after the volunteers, representing 22 American colleges and universities, finished a midmorning breakfast, the project director, Robert J. Bull, an archeology professor at Drew University in Madison, N.J., received a telegram from his university president. The president, Paul Hardin, had instructed him to withdraw from the site immediately, two weeks before the four-week expedition was scheduled to end. Drew University is a Methodist school. ''I said I would abide by the law of the land, and I have, but now I've been threatened with dismissal from my college post,'' said Dr. Bull, head of the Joint Expedition to Caesarea, endorsed by the American Schools of Oriental Research, as he explained his reasons for leaving the site. He said the telegram from Mr. Hardin had included an implied threat. By the time Dr. Bull had broken the news to the volunteers, three busloads of Orthodox men in long black coats had arrived at the roadblocks erected by policemen two miles away from the site. Some men started walking to the site, but the majority stood and prayed by the barricades, holding posters, one of which read, ''Let the dead rest in peace, not pieces.'' One young Orthodox man ran around in circles screaming, ''Harlot! Harlot!'' for several minutes, until a young woman standing nearby slipped a long-sleeved shirt over her sleeveless top. Meanwhile, the police averted a confrontation by arranging a hasty meeting to inform representatives of Atra Kadisha, the organization dedicated to preserving grave sites in Israel, of Dr. Bull's decision. They also dispatched patrol cars to pick up protesters who were hiking to the excavation site. A Garbage Dump, Some Say No one disputes that some human bones have been found on the site, but there is disagreement whether these bones are part of a Jewish cemetery. Respect for the dead, and reverence for the human body after death, are of great importance in Jewish belief. When bones were first reported at the site, Israel's Antiquities Department, which licenses all excavations, sent out inspectors, who concluded the bones were not part of a Jewish cemetery. ''There are some bones here, but this wasn't a cemetery, it was a garbage dump,'' said Yehuda Neeman, antiquities inspector for the Hadera region, which includes Caesarea. ''The garbage was dumped in the last 100-150 years, on top of what was the market of the Byzantine Christian area of the historic city.'' Dr. Bull notes that Jews were traditionally buried outside the city walls, not inside, where the embattled site lies. And, he says, a Jewish cemetery has been discovered almost a mile away from the site in question. In addition, he said, he has found broken pieces of Arabic tombstones in the area, indicating the bones found may have been Moslem. The Pattern of the Bones Atra Kadisha representatives who examined the site disagree, and say the bones were laid out in a distinctly Jewish pattern, from the distance between the bones to the location of stones around the bodies. ''We have brought experts in who have examined this site, and said it is clearly a Jewish burial site,'' said Rabbi Zeev Berlin, of the Atra Kadisha. He said some professional Israeli archeologists agreed, but did not want their names made public. ''We are very pleased they stopped their work, but we are pained they already succeeded in destroying some of the graves, and we hope the bones will be brought to burial,'' he said. A spokesman for Drew University, interviewed by telephone today, said the college had received requests from both Israeli and American Orthodox rabbis, asking that the digging be halted. ''We have asked for a moratorium on the digging until a compromise can be worked out,'' he said. ''We are trying to be sensitive to religious sensibilities involved here and abroad, being a church-related school ourselves.'' As the volunteers wrapped up their work on the site today, they snapped photographs of the policemen who had stood outside the site for three days, as the guards posed atop a Corinthian capital. For the policemen, the episode was one more chapter in the continuing struggle between Israel's Orthodox minority and secular majority. The Atra Kadisha succeeded in suspending digging at the City of David in Jerusalem in 1981, and more recently interrupted construction of a new road in Tel Aviv because of claims that it ran through an old cemetery. 'The religious won - as always,'' a plainclothes policeman shouted to another officer, as he drove away. ''Where next?
1997: According to a report released today the July 14 collapse of a pedestrian bridge at the Maccabiah Games was caused by a chain of failures involving the bridge's planning and construction. Despite the attempts to shift blame, the commission of inquiry found fault at all levels -- from the engineer, to the contracting company that built the bridge, to the Maccabiah organizing committee. The commission concluded that the engineer, Micha Bar Ilan, had never submitted an engineering plan for the bridge, did not design a bridge to meet the intended needs and did not properly oversee the work. The contracting company, Karagula-Ben Ezra, was faulted for doing shoddy work, using substandard materials and being unauthorized to build such a structure. The commission also said there was no coordination between the engineer and the contractors. In addition, the commission also blamed the Maccabiah organizers for the poor coordination that led up to the tragedy. The commission rejected the suggestion that the collapse was caused by a number of small all-terrain police vehicles that drove over the bridge shortly before the opening ceremony.
2000: In the following article entitled “Jerseyana: A Fading Jewish Haven,” Robert Strauss describes a disappearing slice of Jewish life unknown to most Jews, that centered around rural and small-town New Jersey
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/07/23/nyregion/jerseyana-a-fading-jewish-haven.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm
2001: 16thMaccabiah comes to a close.
2001:Matt Bloom lost the WWF Intercontinental Championship to Alliance member Lance Storm in Buffalo, New York
2002: The IDF bombed the building in which Hamas leader Salah Shehade was sleeping. He was the mastermind behind a series of suicide attacks that claimed the lives of hundreds of Israeli civilians.
2003: Best-selling author Peggy Orenstein and Academy Award winning filmmaker Steven Okazaki gave birth to their daughter Daisy Tomoko.
2003: President Bush presents Edward Teller with the Medal of Freedom, six weeks before Teller’s death.
2005: Pitcher Craig Breslow made his major league debut with the San Diego Padres.
2005: Several explosions rocked the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Shiek in the early morning hours. The attacks were aimed at a number of resort hotels catering to tourists from
Egypt
,
Europe
and
Israel
. Preliminary reports indicate that at least forty five were killed and untold hundreds were wounded. Sharm el-Shiek is located at the southern tip of the
Sinai Peninsula
. It was from this point that the Egyptians were able to close the Straits of Tiran in 1967, blockading the
Gulf of Aqaba
and shutting off shipping to the Israeli
port
of
Eilat
. This was one of the acts that precipitated the Six Days War in 1967.
Israel
seized Sharm el-Sheik during the war and returned it to
Egypt
with the proviso that the Straits would never be closed again. It is both ironic and tragic that a place that has been transformed into a tourist
Mecca
is now the latest battlefield in the terrorist war against Western civilization. It is even more ironic, that the causalities at Sharm in this war are higher than those of the conventional war of 1967.
2005: The Jerusalem Post reported that Ariel Sharon will not change the date of the evacuation from
Gaza
. The evacuation date is August 17.
Sharon
fought attempts in the Knesset by the anti-disengagement forces to postpone the evacuation. He has also dismissed suggestions from those favoring the evacuation, including the Vice Premier and Shimon Peres to advance the date of the evacuation. The evacuation date is a matter of law, having been enacted in legislation passed by the Knesset. It would take three votes to change the law, something
Sharon
does not care to attempt. At the same time, he will not act unilaterally to move the date because it is critical that
Israel
maintain itself as society that accepts and respect the rule of law.
2006: The San Francisco Chronicle reviewed How This Night Is Different by Elisa Albert
2006: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers Fear: Anti-Semitism in Poland After Auschwitz - An Essay in Historical Interpretation by Jan T. Gross and the recently released paperback edition of Freud's Requiem: Mourning, Memory, and the Invisible History of a Summer Walk by Matthew Von Unwerth an “elegantly meandering look at Sigmund Freud's life and the intellectual world he moved in that examines an obscure 1915 essay, ‘On Transience,’ in which Freud records a conversation with the poet Rainer Maria Rilke and the psychoanalyst Lou Andreas-Salomé.”
2006: The following were among a total of 43 Israeli civilians (including four who died of heart attacks during rocket barrages) and 116 IDF soldiers were killed in the Israel-Hizbullah war:Shimon Glickblich, 60, of
Haifa
; Habib Awad, 48, of Ibellin.
2007: In
Krakow
,
Poland
, the Cinema Pod Baranami / Festival of Jewish Culture presents a screening of “Hungry Hearts,” which is “based on the short stories of Anzia Yezierska, the first writer to bring stories of American Jewish women to a mainstream audience.”
2007: The New Republic features reviews of 1967: Israel, the War, and the Year That Transformed The Middle East by Tom Segev and Foxbats over Dimona: The Soviets’ Nuclear Gamble in the Six-Day War by Isabella Ginor and Gideon Remez by Israeli historian and author Benny Morris as well Nathan Glazer’s review of Robert Moses and the Modern City: The Transformation of New York.
2008: At the Karmiel amphitheater Let Us Grow showcases 3,000 children from all over the country in a mosaic of dances choreographed especially for them featuring such singers as Tal Mosseri and Yoav Yitzhak.
2008: Mark Zuckerberg announced Facebook Connect, a version of Facebook Platform for users.
2008: In an example of interfaith at its best, members of
Temple
Judah
load their cars with clothing items shipped to
Cedar Rapids
by Chabad of Des Moines and take them to Community of Christ Church for distribution to victims of the Cedar Rapids Flood of 2008.
2008(25th of Tammuz, 5768:Officer David Chriqui of Rishon Lezion, 19-year-old border policeman who was shot near the Lions' Gate in the Old City of Jerusalem on July 11 died of his wounds today. Officer David Chriqui of Rishon Lezion was shot in the head at close range by a man thought to be a Palestinian.
Jerusalem
police officer Imad Gadir from Kafr Zarzir in the
Western Galilee
has recovered from his wounds.
2008: Senator Barack Obama opened a day of talks with Israeli and Palestinian leaders sharing breakfast with Ehud Barak before traveling to the West Bank to meet ith Mahmoud Abbas.
2009: Closing ceremony of the 18th Maccabiah takes place at Latrun
2009: Chicago’s Millennium Park celebrated its fifth anniversary with a blockbuster event of song and spoken word called SHELebration: A Tribute to Shel Silverstein. This night of song and performance honoring the legendary Chicago poet, author, illustrator and Grammy Award-winning songwriter took place at the Jay Pritzker Pavilion. SHELebration included longtime Silverstein friend Bobby Bare and Bobby Bare Jr., with the Bare Family Band, an all-star band from the worlds of indierock and country music (including the acclaimed Nashville guitarist and producer, Chip Young; drummer Patrick Hallahan of the famed rock group, My Morning Jacket; steel guitarist Chris Scruggs, grandson to Grammy Award-winner, Earl Scruggs; and Richie Kirkpatrick, bassist of the band Ghostfinger). Also performing are friend and Silverstein musical collaborator, Pat Dailey and indie-rock superstar Will Oldham (aka Bonnie Prince Billy), along with Chicagoans Jon Langford and Sally Timms of the Mekons and the “First Lady of Children’s Music,” Ella Jenkins. Additionally, the program featured Steve Edwards of WBEZ, Chicago Public Radio, Miss Lori’s Campus of PBS Kids, legendary spoken word jazz artist, Ken Nordine, storytellers from WNEP Theater’s SKALD Kids program and members of the Annoyance Theater Company, who will read from Silverstein classic books, “Where the Sidewalk Ends,” “A Light in the Attic,” Falling Up”, “Runny Babbit,” “Don’t Bump the Glump!” and “Other Fantasies.” One of the highlights of the evening will be the world debut of a previously unreleased Silverstein poem and illustration, entitled “Birthday” provided by the Shel Silverstein estate to Millennium Park for SHELebration. “Birthday” is one of twelve poems that will be released for the first time in the fall when A Light in the Attic is reissued and will make its print debut in SHELebration’s commemorative program booklet.
2009: In New York City, rooftop premiere of Keren Cytter's feature length film, "The Great Tale." The Tel Aviv native “creates films that appropriate and transform different cinematic genres, such as film noir, melodrama, documentary, and soap opera. Often set in cheap domestic interiors, Cytter's films depict dysfunctional families and alienated friends on the verge of nervous breakdown.”
2009: Several rabbis were arrested as part of a public corruption and international money-laundering investigation in New Jersey. According to reports, among the 44 people arrested this morning by the FBI along with the rabbis were the mayors of three New Jersey towns, a deputy mayor and a state assemblyman. They were to appear in federal court in Newark later in the day. The money-laundering suspects were accused of moving “at least tens of millions of dollars through charitable, nonprofit entities controlled by rabbis in New York and New Jersey,” according to a release by acting U.S. Attorney Ralph Marra. Prosecutors said they worked with an informant who had been charged with bank fraud in May 2006, Bloomberg.com said. Investigators obtained hundreds of hours of audio and video recordings, according to prosecutors. The rabbis arrested were religious leaders from Syrian Jewish neighborhoods in Deal and Elberon, N.J., as well as Brooklyn, N.Y. The Asbury Park Press reported that the investigation involved the Deal Yeshiva, a Sephardic institution that has a boys' division in Ocean Township and a girls' school in West Long Branch. The arrests reportedly are the result of a two-year probe by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Internal Revenue Service that began with an investigation of money transfers by members of the Syrian enclaves in Deal and Brooklyn, two tight-knit and wealthy communities. The Monmouth County Prosecutor's Office and the IRS removed at least three boxes from the Deal Yeshiva as students were arriving at school Thursday, The Star-Ledger reported, as well as several boxes from the Ohel Yaacob synagogue in the same town. The charged rabbis include Rabbi Saul Kassin, 87, of the Sharee Zion synagogue in Brooklyn, N.Y.; Eliahu Ben Haim, 58, the principal rabbi of Congregation Ohel Yaacob in Deal; Edmond Nahum, 56, of the Deal Synagogue; Mordchai Fish, 56, of Congregation Sheves Achim in Brooklyn; and Lavel Schwartz, 57, Fish’s brother. They were charged with money laundering. Kassin is accused of laundering more than $200,000 through the informant from June 2007 through December 2008, according to prosecutors. Fish, Schwartz and two other defendants used a charitable, tax-exempt organization called BCG, which was associated with Fish’s synagogue, to launder money, according to the FBI. The mayors of Hoboken, Ridgefield and Secaucus, the deputy mayor of Jersey City and an assemblyman from Ocean Township were caught in the operation. Also charged is Levy-Izhak Rosenbaum, 58, of Brooklyn, who was accused of conspiring with others to acquire and trade human organs for use in transplantation. In one case noted in the complaint, Rosenbaum said it would cost $150,000 -- half up front. Rosenbaum said some of the money would go to the donor and some to doctors in Israel, according to the complaint. Bloomberg identified the cooperating witness as Solomon Dwek, a real estate developer in Monmouth County, N.J. who was charged in 2006 with scheming to defraud PNC Bank out of $50 million, according to a person familiar with the matter and court records. Dwek was never indicted; he has received 17 extensions to continue the period in which his case had to be presented to a federal grand jury.
2010: As part of “Downtown Shabbat”Robyn Helzner, one of the leading interpreters of world Jewish music, and Cantor Larry Paul are scheduled to lead a Carlebach-inspired service at the Historic Sixth & I Synagogue in Washington, D.C.
2010:An Israeli government decision to shelve a controversial bill on Jewish conversions drew praise today from liberal Jewish groups in Israel and the U.S. who opposed the legislation and waged a vocal campaign to get it thrown out. Government spokesman Nir Hefetz announced an agreement that will see the bill withdrawn for six months as the sides try to hammer out an alternative. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu approved the compromise to "preserve the unity of the Jewish people," Hefetz said in a statement released late yesterday. In return, the liberal Jewish groups opposing the bill withdrew the legal action they had initiated in an Israeli court. The bill, proposed by one of Netanyahu's coalition partners, aimed to provide easier conversion for immigrants from the former Soviet Union, many of whom are not Jewish under Jewish law. It would have liberalized the conversion process inside Israel to some extent while at the same time strengthening the control of Orthodox rabbis. Conversions are a highly sensitive issue for the three main denominations among the world's 13 million Jews - Orthodox, Conservative and Reform. The more liberal Conservative and Reform denominations that make up the majority of American Jews, but which have little political clout inside Israel, feared the bill could undermine their legitimacy and connection to the Jewish state. Though some experts on conversion in Israel suggested those concerns were overblown and the bill was only in the preliminary stages of legislation, the issue nonetheless threatened to drive a wedge between Israel and Jews abroad. The Jewish Federations of North America, an umbrella group, released a statement praising the decision, while the liberal Reform movement said Netanyahu had succeeded in "preventing significant damage to the unity of the Jewish people." The Conservative movement praised him for stopping a bill that "could have divided the Jewish people."
2010: From L.A. to Cedar Rapids and points unknown, family and many friends celebrate the birthday of Charlene Wolfe, a “balabus” par excellence.
2010((12thof Av, 5770): Daniel Schorr, whose aggressive reporting over 70 years as a respected broadcast and print journalist brought him into conflict with censors, the Nixon administration and network superiors, died today at the age of 93. His death was announced by NPR, where he had been a commentator for the last 25 years. A spokeswoman, Anna Christopher, said he died at a Washington hospital after a short illness. He lived in Washington. Mr. Schorr, a protégé of Edward R. Murrow at CBS News, initially made his mark at CBS as a foreign correspondent, notably in the Soviet Union. He opened the network’s Moscow bureau in 1955 and persuaded the Soviet leader Nikita S. Khrushchev to sit for his first television interview, with “Face the Nation.” At the end