August 19 In History
43
BCE
: Octavian later known as Augustus compels the senate to elect him Consul. As the first Emperor of Rome (in fact, if not in name) Augustus would follow the policies of “moderation and accommodation” towards Judea begun by his Uncle, Julius Caesar
14CE: Augustus, Roman Emperor passed away. For the Jews, Augustus was a comparatively benign ruler. He left Judea under a Jewish king (even if it was Herod) and only converted the homeland of the Jews to a province during the turmoil that followed Herod's death. Under Augustus Roman governors were ordered to follow policies that would not antagonize the Jews including. They were not to permit pagan altars to be built in Jerusalem and their troops were not to parade through the city carrying standards with the picture of the Emperor. He followed a similarly benign policy towards the Jews in the Diaspora including allowing them to contributions to support the Temple and exempting Jews from appearing in court on the Sabbath, starting with Friday night.
1099: The armies of the First Crusade defeated the Saracens at the Battle of Ascalon (an historic Palestinian city on the
Mediterranean
), one month after they had captured
Jerusalem
. Neither the Jews nor the Moslems fared well at the hands of the Crusaders. They slaughtered the Jews of Europe as they marched away and slaughtered the Jews of Jerusalem when they took the city. The Crusaders did win the Battle of Ascalon, but they actually did not capture the city of
Ascalon
due to a quarrel between two of the Crusader leaders. The city remained in the hands of the Moslems and would become a base from which Jerusalem would be attacked in subsequent campaigns. This would not be the last time that initial victories by Western armies fighting in the
Middle East
did not result in long term conquests.
1263: King James I of Aragon takes the lead in one of the earliest recorded instances of Christian censorship of Jewish writings.
1274: Coronation of King Edward I of England. Under Edward’s reign things went from bad to worse. For example in “1279 and edict imposed the death penalty on Jews accused of uttering blasphemy about Christianity. In 1280, “Edward ordered Jews to listen to Cominicans preaching conversion.” In one of his “last acts of extortion…he arrested the heads of Jewish families and demanded their communities…raise a 12,000 pound ransom payment.” Finally, in 1290, the King ordered the expulsion of all Jews from his realm. He would be the last ruler of England to officially deal with the Jewish people until the days of Oliver Cromwell.
1338: Host desecration riots destroyed the Jewish community of
Wolfsberg
,
Austria
. The Jews were accused of having stolen the Eucharist, making it bleed, and trying to burn it. Over 70 Jews were burned at the stake and the community destroyed. The community was never revived.
1509: The Battle of the Books took place in Frankfurt (Germany): Johann Pfefferkorn, an apostate Jew, convinced Maximilien I to destroy all Jewish books, especially the Talmud. The books were defended by a gentile, Johann von Reuchlin, a noted humanist, scholar and student of the Zohar. The battle was decided in his favor, and the decree was rescinded. Such challenging of the Church by Christian scholars - on its own ground - helped bring about the Reformation and the revolt against the Church.
1555: First printing of Orech Chaim a section of the Shulchan Aruch in Eretz Yisrael. The Shulchan Aruch (The Set Table in English) is a major compilation of Jewish Law created by Rabbi Joseph Caro. He began writing the work while living in western
Turkey
in 1522. He finished it while living in Safed, the gathering place for scholars and mystics in Eretz
Israel
. The Shulchan Aruch is divided into four sections the first of which is Orech Chaim. Orech Chaim deals with laws concerning prayer, Synagogue, Shabbat and holiday observances. It would take approximately five years for all subsections to be printed.
1662: French philosopher and mathematician Blaise Pascal passed away. Unlike some other French philosophers Pascal thought highly of the Jewish people as the following quote proves, "It is certain that in certain parts of the world we can see a peculiar people, separated from the other peoples of the world and this is called the Jewish people…. This people is not only of remarkable antiquity but has also lasted for a singularly long time… For where as the people of Greece and Italy, of Sparta, Athens and Rome and others who came so much later have perished so long ago, these still exist, despite the efforts of so many powerful kings who have tried a hundred times to wipe them out, as their historians testify, and as can easily be judged by the natural order of things over such a long spell of years. They have always been preserved, however, and their preservation was foretold… My encounter with this people amazes me…."
1835: A Jew Bill (legislation intended to complete the political and civil emancipation of English Jews) passed its first reading in the House of Lords.
1848: The California Gold Rush really gets under way as news of the strike appears in the New York Herald alerting Americans living in the East that “there is gold in them thar hills.” Jews joined the thousands of others who streamed west looking for fortune. According to Pioneer Jews by Harriet and Fred Rochlin, local newspapers provided documentary proof of the Jewish presence: “The Cohen claim at Vallecito made another whopping clean-up.” “Nathan Rhine has one of the best ledges…He expended about $8,000 to develop it.” “A Jew named Heyman and several others have worked for some weeks some claims on the new ledge. These claims were jumped by a man named
Moore
.” Jews and gentiles discovered that there were more ways to make their fortunes than digging and panning. Of course the most famous Jew to strike it rich was Levi Strauss whose pants not only won the West but our now a household brand around the world.
1861: Derogatory stereotypes were part of the American linguistic landscape as can be seen in this report published in the Charleston Courier describing an episode among Union prisoners being held at Richmond. A newsboy who had been in the habit of selling his papers at three, suddenly ran his price up to five cents, and on making his accustomed sale in the morning to one of the prisoners, the latter first refused to "come down." The young vender was equally inexorable, and finally carried his point, and received the amount of his demand. This rise in stocks was reported to the Yankee conclave, whereupon the question was raised whether it was right for the man to jew the boy, or the boy to jew the man. The discussion thus commenced in the social circle was carried into the debating society, and after the usual pros and cons, it was finally decided that the boy, being the sole and undisputed owner of the property, and the said property not being contraband of war, and no concatenation of circumstances having arisen to obstruct the right thereby vested in the original possessor of the aforesaid vehicle of information, the right was undoubtedly inherent in the adolescent merchant to determine for himself the incipient value of his goods, and to charge for the same accordingly, ad valorem duties to the contrary notwithstanding.
1870: Birthdate of Bernard Baruch financier and unofficial adviser to several
U.S.
Presidents. He passed away in 1965. Born in
South Carolina
, Baruch's family moved to
New York City
. He graduated from City College of New York. He began working as an office boy at three dollars a week. However, by the age of 30 he amassed a fortune thanks to successful speculation in the Stock Market. He was an adviser to President Wilson during World War I and accompanied him to the Paris Peace Conference after the war. Thanks to shrewd financial skills, including knowing when to get out of the stock market, Baruch's wealth survived the Crash of 1929. Baruch was a supporter of the New Deal. He served Presidents Roosevelt and Truman. He authored the Baruch Plan, which was an attempt to avoid nuclear war by having an international agency control Atomic Energy. Baruch is credited by some with first using the term "Cold War" to describe the conditions that existed between the Soviets and the
United States
after World War II. Baruch was one of those truly colorful characters in American whose life is better described by a novelist than a historian. more like it was created by novelist than a historian.
1872: “The Bells” opened tonight at Booths Theatre in New York. “The Bells” is a one act play that tells the story of a man named Mathias who murdered secretly murdered a Jew 15 years ago and the consequences of his act.”
1874: The Grand Lodge of the ancient Jewish Order Kesher Shel Barzel met at Albany, NY, today. Of the 5,404 members, 4,934 are men and 530 are women. During the past year, Lodge has paid $23,000 to “the heirs or legal representatives of twenty-three deceased brethren.” The Lodge has $7,000 on hand “to pay the endowment of he next seven deaths.”
1877: Some of the prominent Jews of this City, of the class which is represented by the Jewish Messenger, have been greatly exercised lately by the freedom with which certain rabbis and other Hebrews of importance with their people among the Polish Jews, and the other poorer classes of Israelites in...
1877: It was reported tpdau that there are 15 Jewish newspapers and/or magazines published in the United States. One of them is printed in German and “others have German deptartments.”
1878: As New Orleans was in the grip of a Yellow Fever Epidemic, New York City Alderman Lewis received the following telegram from some of the prominent Jewish resident of New Orleans, LA:
The following telegram from prominent Hebrew residents of New-Orleans was received today by Alderman Lewis: “Sickness, disease and suffering among the poor increasing daily. Our funds are nearly exhausted in this sad calamity. We deem it our melancholy duty to appeal to the sympathies of our brethren throughout the United States for speedy aid.”
1879(30th of Av, 5639): Rosh Chodesh Elul
1879: The Commissioner of Emigration took the three Neumann brothers – Joseph,10; Ignatz,8; Max, 7 – to Justice Flammer to the Police Court in the Tombs. He “committed them to a Hebrew charitable insitutio to be educated and cared for.” Peter Groden of Castle Garden had found the three boys huddled together three weeks ago in Battery Park where they were trying to sleep. They said their mother had died and they had no food and not place to go. Groden took them to the Emigration Commissioners who found out that that the boys’ father “had abandoned them and gone to the West.” Since there were no other friends or relatives, the court system was the only other alternative.
1881:It was reported today that based on figures collected in Germany, there are 6,139,662 Jews living in the world. Of these, over 5 million live in Europe and slightly more than 300,000 live in America. In Europe Russia, with 2,552,594 has the most Jews and Norway with 34 has the fewest.
1882: Two Russian Jewish girls named Mary and Hannah Rabeteck arrived in New York from Hamburg aboard the SS Cimbria. The two girls who are aged 6 and 8 respectively, claim they have an uncle with the same last name living in the city, but do not know his first name so they will have to stay at Castle Garden for the time being.
1882: Burglars stole $250 worth of materials from the workshop of Meyer Norden on Broome Street in New York. Norden is Jewish and his shop is closed on Saturday which appears to be why the thieves chose today to steal the silk and velvet cloth.
1883: “Murderer Disappointed” published today described the failed attempt by Theodore Hoffman to escape from prison. Hoffman is sentenced to die for murdering Zife Marks, a Jewish peddler, who worked the area around Port Chester, NY.
1884(28th of Av, 5644): Seventy-five year old Jacob Strauss passed away. Born in Frankort, he has lived in New Orleans for the last 50 years where he engaged in money-lending. At the time of his death, he lived on Carondolet Street.
1887: A hearse sent by the United Hebrew Charities took the body of Julius Weisbaden from the morgue to the Marble Cemetery in New York where it was interred without flowers or services.
1900: Abe, The Little Hebrew" Attell’s fought his first fight today. He knocked out Kid Lennett in two rounds. His mother, who strongly opposed Attell's idea of being a boxer, later became one of Attell's staunchest supporters, even betting on her son to win. He gained the nickname "The Little Hebrew" in these early fights.
1906: The newly formed Hebrew Congregation of Cuba changed its name to the United Hebrew Congregation (UHC) of Cuba, and Robert Diamond was elected treasurer. The pressing need for a Jewish cemetery was unfortunately highlighted a month later when Diamond passed away suddenly. Joseph Steinberg was appointed the new treasurer.
1910: In
Asia Minor
, Ritual murder charges were raised against Jews in Aiden.
1911: Anti-Jewish riots began in Tredegar, New South Wales, Great Britain. This was the worst outbreak of anti-Semitic violence to take place in the
British Isles
in modern times. The riots came at the end of miners’ strike and were so intense that the Home Secretary invoked the Riot Act and called for the military to control the attackers.
1914: At the beginning of WW I Albert Einstein, the recently appointed director of the
Institute
of
Physics
writes from
Berlin
, “
Europe
, in her insanity, has started something almost unbelievable. In such times one realizes to what a sad species of animal one belongs. I quietly pursue my peaceful studies and contemplations and feel only pit and disgust.
1914: Birthdate of Rose Heilbron who became the first woman judge to sit at the Old Bailey in London.
1917(1st of Elul, 5677): Rosh Chodesh Elul
1918: Birthdate of Sy Gomberg, an Oscar-nominated film screenwriter and producer who taught screenwriting to University of Southern California students for over ten years.
1919: Afghanistan gains full independence from the United Kingdom. Jews have lived in what is now known as
Afghanistan
for more than two thousand years before the last family fled while the Taliban held sway in
Kabul
.
1920: In Manhattan Louis and Martha Peskin Wershba gave birth to “Joseph Wershba, who as a CBS television reporter working with Edward R. Murrow revealed the story of Lt. Milo Radulovich, whose dismissal from the Air Force because of his relatives’ leftist leanings became a symbol of the anti-Communist witch hunts of the 1950’s.” (As reported by Dennis Hevesi)
1926: Birthdate of businessman Arthur Rock, the man who supposedly coined the term “venture capitalism.”
1928: The conference of the Mizrachi World Organization is scheduled to open in Danzig (As reported by JTA)
1929: Following attacks by Arabs on Jews praying at the Western Wall Erev Shabbat and other attacks on Jews in Jerusalem, a meeting was held last night at the home of Professor Joseph Klausner, the chairman of the Pro-Wailing Wall Committee. The committee decided to issue an appeal to the Christian world describing the attacks and asking for intervention on behalf of the Jews. “We ask to be given back what has always been ours, that which saturated with the blood and tears of hundred and thousands of the children of Israel. Christians throughout the world, you know and realize the meaning of religious sanctity, you who know how to respect century-old traditions and painful longing for sacred religious shrines, please intervene and help us recover the Western Wall, so sacred and holy to us.”
1933: In Toronto, Mayor Stewart forbids display of swastika in the city.
1933: In Santiago, Zionist-Socialist party is organized in connection with the campaign for Labor Palestine that has raised 15,000 pesos.
1933: The Jiidische Rundschau, official organ of the German Zionist Federation, is suspended for six months because it replied editorially to an attack on the Zionist Congress by Alfred Rosenberg, Nazi leader.
1934: A plebiscite in
Germany
approved the vesting of sole executive power in Adolf Hitler as Fuhrer.
1935: More than 2,400 delegates from forty-three countries had registered here tonight for the opening of the nineteenth biennial Zionist Congress being held in
Lucerne
,
Switzerland
.
1937: The British government recommended to the Permanent Mandates Commission of the
League of Nations
that if the Royal (Peel) partition plan is accepted, a provisional cantonization of
Palestine
should be imposed during the transitional period, immediately after the termination of the Mandate. If such an arrangement would not be possible, an alternative was suggested, namely that two separate Mandates should be held, one for the Jewish, and one for the Arab state.
1938: Hadassah, the Women's Zionist Organization of America, announced today that
Great Britain
has issued 825 certificates for the immediate transfer to Palestine of Jewish children from
Germany
and
Poland
.
1939: In an impassioned speech frequently interrupted by hecklers, Rabbi Abba Hillel Silver of Cleveland, Ohio, appealed today to the delegates attending the twenty-first session of the World Zionist Congress here to do nothing that might bring the Jews in
Palestine
into conflict with the British Government.
1940: Malvina Parnes, age 11, saw the Statue of Liberty from the deck of the Quanza, a Portuguese cargo ship. Parnes and her family were fleeing from Hitler’s
Europe
and were allowed entry into the
United States
thanks to the personal intervention of Eleanor Roosevelt, wife of the President of the
United States
.
1941: Einsatzkommando8 as well as local collaborators in
Mogilev
,
Belorussia
, kill more than 3000 Jews.
1942: An allied force crosses the
English Channel
in what came to be known as the Dieppe Raid. One thousand troops, mostly Canadian perished in this ill-begotten venture. It proved to the English and the Americans that a cross-channel invasion of
Europe
was going to be a very difficult task that would take massive amounts of man and supplies. More importantly for the Jews of Europe whose only hope of survival lay in liberation, such a landing would be at least a year if not more in the making. In fact almost two years would pass between the disaster at
Dieppe
and the success at
Normandy
. Unfortunately for most of the Jews of Europe this necessary two year hiatus meant death on an unheard of scale.
1942: Nazis murder the children of the Rembertów (
Poland
) Ghetto. The town's adult Jews, more than 1000, are assembled for deportation to the Treblinka death camp. About 300 of the people are ordered eastward along the road to Wesola. Before they walk a mile, the 300 are murdered. The 700 who remain are ordered to march south, and as the group passes the town of
Anin
, one woman melts into a crowd of non-Jewish Polish onlookers and escapes. Forty-five others are machine-gunned at Anin, ostensibly because they attempted escape. Hours later the marchers reach the ghetto at Falenica, where Jews already have been forcibly assembled; those who are discovered in hiding are shot. Inside the ghetto, two Jews resist, using an axe to kill the first German who steps through the doors of their apartment.
1942 At the Belzec extermination camp, 700 to 800 Jews herded into a gas chamber wait in torment for nearly three hours until a balky diesel engine can be started and the chamber filled with deadly exhaust. SS gas/disinfectant expert but anti-Nazi Kurt Gerstein is on hand to observe
1942: For four days 17,000 Jews from
Lutsk
,
Ukraine
, are taken to Polanka Hill and executed.
1942: Esther "Etty" Hillesum went to visit her parents at Deventer for the last time.
1943: The Treblinka death camp receives its final trainload of Jewish deportees. They come from
Bialystok
,
Poland
.
1944: The Liberation of Paris begins as the Resistance in Paris rises against German occupation with the help of Allied troops. The long nightmare for the Jews of France is about to end. Jews played an active part in the Resistance. Contrary to the popular myth, a significant portion of the French population collaborated with the Nazis and the Vichy French worked tirelessly to ship French Jews to the death camps.
1951: A four year agricultural development plan costing $610,000,000 and designed to feed an Israeli population of 2,000,000 was introduced to the World Zionist Congress today by Levi Eshkol, treasurer of Jewish Agency Executive, Israel...
1952: The Knesset voted by 70 to 11 for an increase in the period of compulsory military service to 30 months.
1952: The S.S. Negba brought 112 immigrants from Hungary and 222 from North Africa to Israel. According to the new arrivals there were some 100,000 Jews left in
Hungary
, 80 percent of them in
Budapest
.
1952: Officials in
Washington
agreed with Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion that the solution of Arab-Jewish difficulties would be of great economic benefit to both sides and certainly help toward strengthening peace in the world. The US State Department had made it clear in numerous background announcements that it did not believe the Arabs could be returned to their former homes in
Israel
. It felt, however, that some compensation although not complete for the dispossessed might considerably ease the tension.
1953: The Knesset passed a law establishing the Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Authority known as Yad Vashem (a monument and a memorial) which takes it name from a verse from Isaiah
1953:
Israel
's parliament conferred Israeli citizenship posthumously on all Jews killed by the Nazis during the years of the Holocaust (1933-45) in
Europe
.
1953: An Arab terrorist from
Gaza
killed a restaurant owner in
Ashkelon
severely injured his 25 year old daughter.
1955: Birthdate of actor Peter Gallagher
1956: Birthdate of actor Alan Arkin
1957(22nd of Av, 5717): English born artist David Bomberg passed away.
1959(15th of Av, 5719): Jacob Epstein passed away. He was an American-born sculptor who worked chiefly in
England
, where he pioneered modern sculpture, often producing controversial works that challenged taboos concerning what public artworks appropriately depict.
1960: As the
U.S.
Presidential elections get underway an announcement is made that Senator John F. Kennedy, the Democratic nominee for President will address the upcoming sixty-third annual convention of The Zionist Organization of America.
1960(26th of Av, 5720): Seventy two year old Sir Lewis Bernstein Namier an English historian passed away. http://www.history.ac.uk/makinghistory/historians/namier_lewis.html
1962: Birthdate of Julius Genachowski “an American lawyer and businessman” who became Federal Communications Commission Chairman during the first year of Obama’s presidency.
1963: “Syrian forces murdered two civilians in Almagor,” a moshav north of the Lake Kinneret.
1969: The hippie happening called Woodstock that was held on the farm owned by Jewish dairyman Max B. Yasgur, came to an end. [Among the youthful attendees were a Jewish doctor now living in Texas and a Jewish dentist in Arkansas whose name will not divulged as mark of respect for their positions in their respective communities.]
1975: Hadassah announces that it will increase its youth centers in
Israel
to integrate Jewish children of Middle Eastern and African backgrounds who pose serious social and educational problems in the Jewish state
1977(5th of Elul, 5737): Comedian Groucho Marx passed away. When told that he had been rejected for member ship in a club because he was Jewish, Marx replied,“I don't care to belong to a club that accepts people like me as members.”
1979: Andrew Young, who resigned last week as chief United States delegate to the United Nations, “characterized as ‘kind of foolish’ the United States policy of shunning contacts with the Palestine Liberation Organization…” While being interviewed on Face the Nation, “Young called the Government of Israel ‘stubborn and intransigent’ for their policy concerning negotiations with the PLO.
1980(7th of Elul, 5740): Otto Heinrich Frank passed away. Born in 1889, he gained fame as the father of Anne Frank.
1990: Leonard Bernstein conducted his final concert, the Koussevitzky Memorial concert at Tanglewood. The performance included Britten's Three Sea Interludes, LB's Arias & Barcarolles (Carl St. Clair, conductor) and Beethoven's Symphony No. 7.
1991: Around 8:00 p.m. this evening, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the international leader and Rebbe of the Chabad Lubavitch movement was returning to his home in Crown Heights, Brooklyn after a visit to the Old Montefiore Cemetery in adjacent Queens when there was a fatal accident that resulted in the death of seven-year-old Gavin Cato, the son of Guyanese immigrants. Charles Price and other demagogues harangued the angry crowd touching off several days of what can only be described as a race riot.
1991(9th of Elul, 5751): Three hours after seven year old Gavin Cato was killed in automobile accident involving vehicles driven by Lubavitch Chasidim, Yankel Rosenbaum--a 29-year-old Jewish student from Australia--was killed by a group consisting mostly of neighborhood youth, in what would be interpreted as a retaliatory slaying wrapped in the robes of anti-Semitism.
1991: During the “August Coup,” Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev is placed under house arrest while on holiday in the town of Foros, Crimea. The coup failed and hastened the collapse of the Soviet Union. The collapse of the Soviet Union led to a wave of immigration to Israel. It also made possible the re-vitalization of Jewish Communities throughout most of the republics that had made up the Communist Empire.
2001(30th of Av, 5761): Rosh Chodesh Elul
2001: The New York Times book section featured reviews of The Darkness and the Light by Jewish poet Anthony Hecht and How Charles Shavers Died And Other Poems by Jewish poet Harvey Shapiro
2001: In an article entitled “City Lore; The Little Red Summer Camp,” Ivy Meeropol reminisces about her summers at Kinderland a camp that was founded in 1923 by secular Jews active in the New York City trade union movement, most of whom were Communists or socialists.
2003(21st of Av, 5763): A Hamas planned suicide attack on Jerusalem bus #2 kills 23 Israelis, 7 of them children
2005(14th of Av, 5765): Eighty-seven year old Dutch comedian Abraham ('Appie') Bueno de Mesquita passed away. Born in 1918, he escaped Auschwitz when he was chosen to play the cello by the Nazi camp commander in Mechelen, Belgium. This episode provided the title for his autobiography; Cello met één snaar (Cello with one string).
2005(14th of Av, 5765): David Sky, owner of the Rabbi L. Sky Bookstore passed away. The store was started by his father in Newark in 1904 and was one of the "pioneering Judaica stores in the US where" Jewish New Years cards were sold for the first time. The store moved to Maplewood in 1970. His widow sold the store in 2008.
2005:Pope Benedict XVI, who was drafted into the German Army during World War II, visited a synagogue in Cologne on Friday that had been destroyed by the Nazis and warned of a growing anti-Semitism that he called a "reason for concern and vigilance." [What follows is a detailed description of this historic event]
"Today, sadly, we are witnessing the rise of new signs of anti-Semitism and various forms of a general hostility toward foreigners," the pope said in a reverent hour-long visit to the
Cologne
synagogue on his first trip abroad. "The Catholic Church is committed - and I affirm this again today - to tolerance, respect, friendship and peace between all peoples, cultures and religions."
The visit - punctuated by the ancient call of the Shofar, the ram's horn - was freighted with history, with a German who had taken part unwillingly in the Hitler Youth as a boy becoming only the second pope to visit a synagogue. Unlike his predecessor, John Paul II, who often spoke of his own life in Poland during World War II, Benedict did not mention his own experiences during the war, sticking mostly to his prepared text with a notable exception: He inserted the word "love" in a sentence whose text on paper said Jews and Catholics "need to show respect for each other."
But he was greeted with great warmth by 500 people in the synagogue, which was destroyed during the Kristallnacht pogrom in 1938, after which 11,000 Jews who lived here were killed. It was rebuilt in 1959, and Jews in
Cologne
now number 5,000. "If someone told me 45 years ago, 'You are going to be in
Cologne
, and the pope will visit you in a synagogue,' I wouldn't have believed it," Paul Spiegel, the leader of
Germany
's Jews, told reporters later. "We have come a long way in mutual support and in mutual understanding and, as the pope said, in mutual love."
Mr. Spiegel called the visit "truly historic," words echoed by the pope's spokesman, Joaquín Navarro-Valls, who said Benedict himself had asked for the meeting. He said it was "an event of historic significance: a German pope, who was on his first official trip, himself took the initiative for the visit." The visit was an interreligious detour on Benedict's four-day visit here as part of the 20th World Youth Day, which has attracted hundreds of thousands of young Catholics from around the world. Benedict, 78, who has pledged to make understanding between religions a centerpiece of his papacy, is also scheduled to visit Muslim leaders in
Cologne
on Sunday.
Germany is the home to 3.5 million Muslims, most of them Turkish, and since the
Sept. 11, 2001
attacks, and again after the bombings in London last month, many European Muslims say they are being eyed with increasing suspicion. Although Benedict spoke of "hostility" toward foreigners, he did not elaborate. In his speech at the synagogue, he noted the long history of Jews in
Cologne
, who have lived here since Roman times. The synagogue is the oldest north of the
Alps
. He said that while Jews and Christians had at times lived together peacefully, he noted the expulsion of Jews from
Cologne
in 1424. "And in the 20th century, in the darkest period of German and European history, an insane racist ideology, born of neo-paganism, gave rise to the attempt, planned and systematically carried out by the regime, to exterminate European Jewry," he said. He then spoke of the efforts of John Paul to rebuild relations between Catholics and Jews, many of whom have accused the church of inaction during World War II. Among other steps, John Paul became the first pope to visit a synagogue, in
Rome
in 1986. Partly quoting John Paul, Benedict said, "The terrible events of that time must 'never cease to rouse consciences, to resolve conflicts, to inspire the building of peace.' "And while he said relations had improved much in recent years, he added: "Much still remains to be done. We must come to know one another much more and much better." He called for a "sincere and trustful" dialogue between Catholics and Jews. One issue of contention between Jews and Catholics rose during the visit: Abraham Lehrer, president of the
Cologne
congregation, said it would be "a good thing" for the
Vatican
to open up all its archives from World War II. The Vatican has opened the archives until the year 1939, but many Jewish groups would like to explore the records relating to Pope Pius XII, accused of remaining silent during the Holocaust. There was no mention on either side of a bitter diplomatic spat between
Israel
and the
Vatican
: last month, after the
London
bombings,
Israel
accused Benedict of deliberately omitting a mention of a suicide bombing against Israelis in a list of terror attacks that the pope had recounted in a sermon. The
Vatican
fired back, calling some of
Israel
's retaliatory attacks against Palestinians contrary to international law. Mr. Spiegel said he felt that the problem was a diplomatic one, not important to talk about during the visit.
"This is an issue that has to be settled between the state of
Israel
and the
Vatican
," he told reporters at a news conference. Mr. Navarro-Valls, the pope's spokesman, added at the same news conference that the "issue has been settled, more or less."
2005: Former Russian billionaire and oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky announced that he was on a hunger strike in protest at his friend and associate Platon Lebedev's placement in the punishment cell of the jail. According to Khodorkovsky, Lebedev had Diabetes mellitus and heart conditions, and keeping him in the punishment cell would be equivalent to murder
2006(25th of Av, 5766): Lt. Col. Emanuel A. Moreno of Moshav Tlamim was killed in a daring commando raid designed to stop the shipment of weapons from
Syria
into
Lebanon
for use by Hezbollah.
Moreno
is survived by his wife Maya, their three children, his parents and three brothers.
2007: A retrospective of the works of Frida Kahlo which had been mounted to celebrate the centenary of her birth comes to a close at the Palacio de Bellas Artes in
Mexico City
.
2007: The Sunday Washington Post book section reviewed Amy Bloom’s new novel Away, featuring Lillian Leyb a desperate young Jewish woman, fresh off the boat who has fled the pogroms of Russia, trying to make her way in New York during the mid-1920s and Jews and Power by Ruth R. Wisse the eighth title in a lively and distinguished series, "Jewish Encounters," that has taken a fresh look at such diverse figures in Jewish history as King David, the 12th-century rabbi and physician Maimonides, the 17th-century philosopher Baruch Spinoza and the U.S. boxer and World War II hero Barney Ross.
2007: The Sunday New York Times book section review