September 11 In History
1526: After the Turkish Army had defeated the Austrians and seized the city of Buda, Sultan Suleiman I entered the city. Some of the Jews had remained in the city and before the Sultan arrived, they met with Ibrahim Pasha before whom they humbled themselves and begged to be spared.
1683:
Battle
of
Vienna
began as an army of European Christians led by King Jan III of
Poland
fought to end the Ottoman siege of the Austrian metropolis that had begun in July. The defeat of the Ottomans was the “high water mark” of Moslem conquests in
Europe
. There are those who date the beginning of the slow decay of the Moslem dominated world from this event. There will be those who contend that this event was the impetus for choosing 9/11 as the date to blow up the
Twin
Towers
in 2001. With the exception of
Holland
, Jews were doing better in the land of the Ottomans than they were in Christian Europe. For example, the Ottomans had provided a home the Jews who were expelled from
Spain
. However, as Ottoman power was receding, Jews enjoyed a growing amount of freedom as economic and social reform took hold in different parts of
Western Europe
. Whether or not the shift in power marked by this was “good for the Jews” is up for the debate; the important thing is that it took place and had a profound impact on the general society as well as the Jewish component.
1789: President George Washington appointed Alexander Hamilton as the first Secretary of the Treasury. Hamilton’s parentage is a little murky to say the least. He was born out of wedlock reportedly to a Jewish woman and received his early education from Jews before moving to the North American mainland. He would be the first in a long line of Jews who would play a major role in U.S. government financial policies.
1798(1st of Tishrei, 5559): While Napoleon sought to gain a foothold in Palestine and John Adams and Thomas Jefferson were seeking to be elected President of the United States, Jews celebrated Rosh Hashanah
1803: Birthdate of Léon Gozlan, the native of Marseille who gained fames as a novelist and playwright.
1823: David Ricardo, one of the most influential of the classical economists, passed away. Born in
London
in 1772, Ricardo was the third of seventeen children in a Sephardic Jewish family that immigrated from The Netherlands to
England
just prior to his birth. At age 14 Ricardo's joined his father at the London Stock Exchange. Ricardo rejected the orthodox Jewish beliefs of his family and eloped with Quaker, Priscilla Anne Wilkinson, when he was 21. His father was so unhappy with this that he abandoned Ricardo and never spoke to him again. Around the same time Ricardo became a Unitarian.
1824: Birthdate of Jakob Bernays the “German philologist and philosophical writer” who served as the chairman of classical philology at the newly founded Jewish Theological Seminary of Breslau
1847(1st of Tishrei, 5608): Rosh Hashanah
1852:Reports reached the United States that Marchand Ennery, the Chief Rabbi of Paris, had passed away in August.
1860: The Jewish population of Baltimore must have reached a size where it was noticed by the general public. A report published today describing how George Proctor Kane, the Chief Marshall of Police is strictly enforcing the Sunday closings laws states that "Cigar stores, lager-bier saloons, Hebrew establishments and all such are closed."
1863: It was reported today that a group of 600 women and children who supposedly had husbands and fathers serving in the Confederate Army stormed through Spring Hill, Alabama carrying banners demanding “Bread or Blood.” A Jewish merchant who was attempting to protect his store was arrested by the police and beaten for his efforts.
1869: Harper's Weekly featured a cartoon about a movement to oust August Belmont as chairman of the Democratic National Committee. Belmont was the German born Jewish financier who opened a private bank in the United States before the Civil War. He was a former employee of and a close associate of the Rothschilds. He was also a power in the Democratic Party both before and after the war.
http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/harp/0911.html
1872: Samuel J. Pietrowski, a Polish Jew and the proprietor of a dry-goods store in Key West, Florida, was arraigned at the Tombs in New York City on charges of bigamy. The complaint was filed by Bertha Pietrowski who claimed that Samuel had married her twenty four years ago in Poland. She claimed he moved to Leeds, UK where married and had five children before moving to the United States with his second family. Bertha claimed she had borrowed the money to come to United States where she discovered Samuel’s new life as well as the fact that he was worth “several thousand dollars. [Unfortunately, there were many instances of men coming to America and deserting the wives and families they had left behind.]
1874(29th of Elul, 5634):Erev Rosh Hashanah
1874: “The Hebraic New Year,” a column published today reported that the year 5635 on the Jewish calendar begins tomorrow with the celebration of Rosh Hashanah. The article described the solemnity of the holiday but also highlights the differences in the celebration among the Reform and the Orthodox. The Reform now celebrate the holiday for only one day and their shortened service includes music played by an organ.
1877: An article published today entitled “The Russian Army of Invasion” describes miserable the conditions of Czar’s forces as they move forward to fight the Turks. The Russians are addicted to alcohol which is supplied by people in “long gabardines,” a disparaging term for the Jews who are making a fortune off of their monopoly. The article paints a picture of suffering Russian soldiers being “poisoned by spoiled provisions” supplied Isaac and Jacob whose “Jewish purses can pay their protectors from their ill-gotten gains.”
1878: In Washington, DC, “the Hebrew Committee” has collected $4,608 to aid those in the Deep South suffering during the current Yellow Fever Epidemic.
1879: It was reported today that Prince Gregorie Stourdza has arrived in Bucharest to assume the leadership of all the parties opposed to the Jews receiving full rights of citizenship in Romania. The proposed party is modeled after the American Party also called the “Know-nothings” a nativist political party that enjoyed some success in the 1850’s.
1880: It was reported today that on the day Simon Rosenheim allegedly set fire to the tenement in which he was living the place had received an anonymous letter containing these words: “To get insurance Polish Jew’ll set fire to his place…on Monday or Tuesday.” The police arrested Rosenheim because the fire took place on Tuesday; he was a Polish Jew; and he lived at the tenement house described in the note. (Not exactly CSI material)
1881: In “What Germans Talk Of “ published today, Andrew White the President of Cornell and the former American Ambassador to Germany who has just returned from that country responded to a question about the “anti-Jewish crusade in Germany” by saying that “The worst of the trouble is over. The sober second though has come and the Emperor of Germany has declared himself as opposed to the Jewish proscription.” After talking about the prominent role Jews play in finance and business, White said the Emperor thought “they were the best of his subjects” and that Bismarck has come around to that point of view.
1882: The Chevry Bennei Bachemenim Anschel Schofchatchow, a Jewish charitable and benevolent society was incorporated today in the state of New York.
1882: It was reported that one of the railway lines from the coast of Egypt to Cairo passes by the ruine of Tel-el-Yahoodeh also known as the Mound of the Jews. (This is probably a refrence to Tel el-Yehudiyah -Mound of the Jewess – which is supposed to cover the ruins of the Temple of Onais, a Jewish place of worship located in Helipolois.) For more see http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0015_0_15110.html
1887: Based on information that first appeared in the Times of London, it was reported today that the “persecution of the Jews” has been revived in several parts of the Russian Empire. Besides being subjected to riots and attacks in outlying provinces, Jews in St. Petersburg have been interrogated by the police in an attempt to intimidate them so that they will not conduct business in the capital city.
1891:The Jewish Colonization Association (JCA, in Yiddish ICA) was created today by Baron Maurice de Hirsch. Its aim was to facilitate the mass emigration of Jews from Russia and other Eastern European countries, by settling them in agricultural colonies on lands purchased by the committee, particularly in North and South America (especially Argentina).Colonies were funded within the United States in southern New Jersey, Ellington, Connecticut (Congregation Knesseth Israel), and elsewhere. A Canadian Committee of the JCA was established in November 1906 to assist in the settlement of the thousands of Jewish refugees fleeing Russia, and to oversee the development of all the JCA settlements in the country
1893(1st of Tishrei, 5654): As Americans suffer through the Panic of 1893 (which had begun in January and was the worst economic crisis the country would suffer until 1929), Jews observed the first day of Rosh Hashanah
1897: It was announced from Odessa that the late Baron Hirsch's plant to colonize the Argentine Republic with Jews from Russia has been abandoned in favor of the establishment of Hebrew schools in Russia.
1898: In Chicago, Dr. Isaac M. Wise laid the cornerstone for the building that would The Reform Congregation of Isaiah Temple which was designed by the Jewish architect Dankmar Adler.
1903: Birthdate of Theodor W. Adorno, a German-born international sociologist, philosopher, and musicologist who was “the only child to the wealthy wine merchant Oscar Alexander Wiesengrund who had converted from Judaism to Christianity. Adomo is an example of the many 19th & 20th century people lost to Judaism because a trip to the font made life more attractive.
1903: In
Russia
, during the Homel Pogrom, defense squads organized by the Zionists and Bundists fought back against the looting, murderous mobs. The squads fought off the mobs for three days until Russian authorities intervened to end the violence. The defense squads had been formed in response to the deadly events at
Kishinev
and gave the Jews a sense of pride and short lived self-confidence.
1903: Julia Richman, the Principal of P.S. 77, is nominated by the Board of district Superintendents to be District Superintendent succeeding Charles Haskell. "If appointed, Miss Richman will be the first female District Superintendent in the
Manhattan
." There are two female District Superintendents serving in
New York City
but both of them are in
Brooklyn
.
1911: At the age of 24, Guy Zinn broke into major league baseball playing his first game with the New York Highlanders.
1911: Circuit Judge Rassieur of
St. Louis
,
MO
, denies incorporation to the Jewish Christian Association For Conversion of Jews to Christianity on grounds that it violates the religious liberty clause of the Constitution.
1911: In London, England, The Bethnal Green Board of Guardians rejected bids by Jewish contractors.
1914: In the UK, at the start of WW I, a Royal Proclamation was issued that required “British subjects to have no links with companies doing business with Germany” which forced Sir Edgar Speyer to resign as a partner of the American bank controlled by his family. This move did not quiet the whispering campaign aimed him that would eventually destroy his professional life.
1921: The first Moshav, Nahalal, was found in the
Jezreel
Valley
. Less famous than that other experiment in collective living called the Kibbutz, a moshav was "a village of smallholders in which elements of cooperative and private farming were combined. Nahal was the Biblical name of town in this area connected with the tribe of Zebulin. The Jezreel was an area of abundant water, but the water was often stagnant. The first fifteen years or so of settlement was spent draining the water to put an to the malarial swamps in the region..
1922: The British mandate in
Palestine
officially began.
1923(1st of Tishrei, 5684): Rosh Hashanah
1923: The Lithuanian General Census, which originally was supposed to be taken today, has been postponed because today is Rosh Hashanah.
1923:In his Rosh Hashanah message to the Jews of Britain Chief Rabbi Hertz “paints a gloomy picture of conditions affecting Jewry throughout the world.”
"Nearly five years have passed since the close of the most devastating of wars. The earth is still reeling like a drunken man. The inhabitants thereof are bereft of reason by the poison gas of racial antagonisms in a world that was nearly destroyed by hate, and is seeking to save itself by hate, and Israel is the greatest sufferer in these distracted days."The forces of reaction and race hatred everywhere have joined hands in the unholy work of reviling and slandering the Jew. We are back once more in the Dark Ages. New Jewish massacres and on an unprecedented scale are openly advocated and systematically planned."The Russian monarchists declare that in the event of their regaining power they will slaughter every Jewish man, woman and child in that land. Western Jews do not sufficiently realize the infinite danger that hovers over four million of our brethren in Russia."
1923: Daf Yomi was initiated by Rabbi Meir Shapira of
Lublin
. At the Congress of the Agudath Israel in
Europe
in 1923, Rabbi Meir Shapira of
Lublin
had proposed that Jews all over the world study the same page of the Talmud (Daf Yomi) simultaneously as a sign of a unifying commitment to Judaism and Jewish learning. In this way, observant Jewish males could complete the study of the Talmud every seven and a half years with a formal celebration marking the end of the learning cycle and the beginning of the new one. The proposal was accepted and a special calendar was created. Jews everywhere began to study the Daf. Rabbi Shapira participated in the first completion of the cycle in 1931. Observant Jews then integrated the Daf Yomi program into their lives. Tossed into a stormy sea when his ship was wrecked, the great Talmudic sage Rabbi Akiva was given up for lost. This is how he later described his miraculous rescue to Rabbi Gamaliel: "A daf (plank) from the ship suddenly appeared as a salvation, and I just let the waves pass over me." When Rabbi Meir Shapiro, the rabbi of Lublin between the two World Wars, initiated the program for Jews all over the world to study the same daf yomi (daily page of Talmud), he explained the significance of this undertaking by paraphrasing Rabbi Akiva: "A daf is the instrument of our survival in the stormy seas of today. If we cling to it faithfully all the waves of tribulation will but pass over us." The entire Talmud is covered in seven years by those who keep to the prescribed daily pace. One individual who undertook such a project and help to give it a wider range of fame was the author Herman Wouk.
1923: The census was scheduled to take place today in Lithuania. However, because of the intervention of the Jewish National Council, the government of Lithuania, postponed it for a future, undisclosed date. (As reported by JTA)
1924: Birthdate of Canadian professor of Pharmacology, Rudolf Vrba. Born Walter Rosenberg, Vrba would gain fame as an early escapee from
Auschwitz
who along with fellow escapee Alfred Wetzler told the Allies what was happening at the infamous concentration camp. For more see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudolf_Vrba
1926(3rd of Tishrei, 5687): Shabbat Shuva (no Fast of Gedaliah because it is the Sabbath)
1927: Birthdate of G. David Schine. Schine gained notoriety as the buddy of Roy Cohn when Cohn was riding high as the chief counsel for Joseph McCarthy's Communist hunting Senatorial Committee. Without going into too great detail, this relationship ended up with McCarthy and Cohn accusing the United States Army of being involved in a Communist Conspiracy. These charges helped to break the Republican Senator from
Wisconsin
's grip on national power. As the lives of these two Jews prove, Jews are not all Einsteins and Salks. Some times they are lesser lights who might have done better had they never crawled out from underneath their rock
1929 (6 Elul, 5689): Louis B. Marshall passes away.
Marshall
was a successful lawyer, conservationist, champion of the rights for minorities and a leader of the Jewish community. He was a co-founder of the American Jewish Committee (AJC) who worked to protect the rights of Jews in
Europe
as well as those who wished to create a Jewish home in
Palestine
as can be seen by his support of the Balfour Declaration.
1933: Birthdate of author Susan Sontage.
1938: Shortstop Eddie Feinberg made his major league debut with the Philadelphia Phillies.
1938: Six Jewish constables were ambushed by terrorists as they escorted a group of telephone workers traveling between Jaffa and Gaza. All six died but the workers escaped to the safety ofa nearby Jewish settlement. When the shooting stopped, it was discovered that the attackers had taken the weapons, ammunition and uniforms of the dead Jewish policemen. [Yes, they stripped the bodies of the dead!]
1940: The Jewish refugee ship Quanzastops to refuel at
Norfolk
,
Virginia
, after having been denied entry to the
United States
at
New York
and to
Mexico
at Vera Cruz. One passenger, a German Jew, is returned to the ship by U.S. Army guards after leaping overboard near the
shore
of
Hampton Roads
,
Virginia
. A State Department official granted the refugees visas at the behest of Eleanor Roosevelt enabling them to eventually disembark in the United States.
1940:Late dispatches from Palestine said tonight that at least 150 persons were killed today in the Italian bombing of Tel Aviv, modern Jewish city.
1941: Outfielder Sid Gordon made his major league debut with the New York Giants
1941:Rudolf Schoenheimer, German-American biochemist whose technique of "tagging" molecules with radioactive isotopes made it possible to trace the paths of organic substances through animals and plants and revolutionized metabolic studies, passed away.
1941: Charles Lindbergh made an anti-Semitic speech on radio. The Lone Eagle or Lucky Lindy as he was called was an isolationist and part of the America First Committee. He was impressed with the Nazis. He saw fascism as the wave of the future and believed that "the wave was rolling towards
America
. He saw World War II was being a continuation of centuries old European tribal feuds that had nothing to do with the
United States
. He stood with those who believed that FDR's New Deal was "a Jewish concoction" and that a foreign policy supporting European democracies against the Nazis was the product of "Jewish interventionists." In fact, Lindberg was scheduled to give a speech about why
America
should stay out of the war on the afternoon of
December 7, 19
41
. Of course reality overtook Lindbergh's fantasy. In evaluating
Roosevelt
's reaction to the reports of the murder of European Jewry, one must be aware of the level of anti-Semitism in the
United States
at that time. One must also be aware of the fact that even after
Pearl Harbor
there were plenty of people who believed that American involvement in the war was part of a Jewish plot.
1942: Lucy Mandelstram, who was born in
Vienna
in 1926, her mother, and her sister were deported to Theresienstadt.
1942: As the Nazis wiped out the ghetto in
Stolin
,
Poland
, with the mass murders of 11,000 Jews, Jewish resistance is led by Moses Glazer and Asher Shapira
1942: Meir Berliner, an Argentine Jew deported to the Treblinka death camp from
Warsaw
, stabs an SS officer, Max Bialas, to death with a penknife. In reprisal, Berliner and 150 other Treblinka inmates are executed.
1942: Five thousand Jews are deported from the Warsaw Ghetto to Treblinka. Among the deportees is noted author Hillel Zeitlin, age 71. Born in
Belorussia
in 1871, Zeitlin was raised as Chabad Chasid. He was self-taught in secular subjects and came to question matters of religion and faith. He became disillusioned with the secular world after the pogroms of 1905 and returned to Orthodox Judaism. Zeitlin met death wrapped in his tallit and tefillin.
1942: Ninety thousand Jews were sent to their deaths from the
Warsaw
ghetto. A total of 300,000 Jews were sent to Nazi killing camps during a 53 day period from Erev Tisha b'Av (the eve of the 9th day of Av) until Erev Rosh Hashanah (the evening on which Rosh Hashanah starts) that year.
1943: German troops occupied Kosovo-Metohien.
1943: The Nazis began the liquidation of the
Minsk
and Lida ghettos.
1943: One thousand Jews discovered hiding in
Przemysl
,
Poland
, are murdered.
1943: Starting on this date and ending 3 days later, the Jewish community at
Minsk
,
Belorussia
, is liquidated.
1944: Filming “Der Fuhrer schenkt den Juden eine Statdt” (The Fuher Gives the Jews a Town) comes to an end. This bit of cinematic propaganda describing “the merits and virtues of the ghetto, was made at the command of authorities in Berlin under the immediate supervision of Karl Rahm, the last commandant of Theresienstadt.
1944: The following article entitled “Murder Incorporated” appeared today in Time magazine describing the scene at Majdanek. You would never know from reading it that at least half of the victims were Jewish.
Fortnight ago a Soviet correspondent described the Nazi murder camp near Lublin. Last week TIME'S Moscow Correspondent Richard Lauterbach visited Maidenek with a party of non-Russian newsmen. His report: It was Sunday and the sun was hot. The Polish girls wore their best embroidered dresses to Mass and the men of Lublin chatted on street corners without a furtive, over-the-shoulder look. We drove out along the Chelm road about a mile from town. Dmitri Kudriavtsev, Secretary of the Soviet Atrocities Commission, said: "They called this 'the road of death.' " Kudriavtsev is a short man, with curly hair and a nice face. He has an even, soft way of talking. You could not guess that he has pored over more horrors in the past three years than any living man. Our car halted before a well-guarded gate. "This is Maidenek," Kudriavtsev said. I saw a huge, not unattractive, temporary city. There were about 200 trim, grey green barracks, systematically spaced for maximum light, air and sunshine. There were winding roads and patches of vegetables and flowers. I had to blink twice to take in the jarring realities: the 14 machine-gun turrets jutting into the so-blue sky; the 12-ft.-high double rows of electrically charged barbed wire; the kennels which once housed hundreds of gaunt, man-eating dogs. Gas Chambers. We got out to inspect the bathhouses. Said Kudriavtsev without emotion: "They came here first for a shower. Then the Germans said: 'Now you have had your wash. Go in there.' " He led us into one of four gas chambers. It was a solid grey concrete room, about 20 ft. square and 7 ft. high. A single large steel door sealed the entrance hermetically. There were three apertures, two for the pipes which brought in the gas, one, a thick glass peephole, protected by steel netting. It took about seven minutes for this "Zyklon B" to kill the occupants, as many as 250 at a time. Kudriavtsev was explaining: "The gas affects all parts of the organism. It is quicker when the body is warm, washed and wet." I took notes calmly, feeling little emotion. It was all so cold and bare. I wrote: "There are four chambers fed with these small, innocent, pale blue Zyklon crystals which give off cyanide when exposed to air. Two extra chambers for plain carbon monoxide. Maximum simultaneous capacity: 2,000." Kudriavtsev was still explaining: "On one day, Nov. 3, 1943, they annihilated 18,000 people—Poles, Jews, political prisoners and war prisoners."Death by Fire. We walked back into the sun. There was no horror left in Maidenek. It had evaporated with the Germans. We rode a little distance to some cabbage patches. The big, leafy cabbages were covered with a sooty, grey dust and next to them were high mounds of grey brown stuff. "This," said Kudriavtsev, "is fertilizer. A layer of human bones, a layer of human ashes, a layer of manure. This is German food production. Kill people; fertilize cabbages."The crematorium might have been a big bakeshop or a very small blast furnace. Here the Nazis carted the bodies, straight from the gas chambers. They cut them up scientifically. They put the chunks on iron stretchers, slid them on rollers into the five greedy mouths of the coke-fed ovens. They could disintegrate 1,900 people a day. "There was great economy," said Kudriavtsev. "These furnaces also heated the water for the camp."We heard about a young Polish girl who had refused to undress for a shower. The degenerate, sadistic Mussfelt who ran the crematorium ordered her shoved into the furnace alive. Her hair burned quick and bright. Then she crisped up like bacon on an over-hot skillet.Near the ovens were the remains of a room with a big stone table. Here gold fillings were extracted from the teeth. No corpse or piece of a corpse could be burned without a stamp on the chest: "Inspected for gold fillings."Skulls and Buzzing Flies. Kudriavtsev led us to some large, open graves. Here were buried the bodies of the camp's personnel, hastily shot and buried on July 21 in the last hectic days before the Red Army closed in. The pits stank in the warm sun. There were skulls and a piece of a Red Army cap and a buzzing of large flies. Around the pits, in the grass, poppies were growing. Orange red poppies. Big ones.Back in the camp we saw a room full of passports and documents. Papers of Frenchmen, Russians, Greeks, Czechs, Jews, Italians, Belo-Russians, Serbs, Poles. Records left behind by some of the 1,500,000 of 22 nationalities who were brought to Maidenek.820,000 Pairs of Shoes. We came to a large, unpainted warehouse. Not suspecting, I stepped up and went inside. It was full of shoes. A sea of shoes. I walked across them unsteadily. They were piled, like pieces of coal in a bin, halfway up the walls. Not only shoes. Boots. Rubbers. Leggings. Slippers. Children's shoes, soldiers' shoes, old shoes, new shoes. They were red and grey and black. Some had once been white. High heels, low heels, shoes with open toes. Evening slippers, beach sandals, wooden Dutch shoes, pumps, Oxfords, high-laced old-ladies' shoes. In one corner there was a stock of artificial limbs. I kicked over a pair of tiny white shoes which might have been my youngest daughter's. The sea of shoes was engulfing. In one place the sheer weight had broken the wall. Part of the wall had fallen out, and with it a cascade of shoes. Kudriavtsev said: "There are 820,000 pairs here and 18 carloads of the best were shipped to Germany. You will see the receipts at the Gestapo warehouse." Standing on the sea of shoes, Maidenek suddenly became real. It was no longer a half-remembered sequence from an old movie or a clipping from Pravda or chapters from a book by a German refugee living in Mexico City. The barbed wire had barbs which ripped flesh. The ashes on the big cabbages were the ashes of the brothers of the worn but pretty peasant women who had spoken to us that morning at Mass. "The loudspeakers from the camp kept screeching Strauss waltzes," a Polish woman in Lublin said to me. "The Beautiful Blue Danube can never be beautiful to us again." She paused and repeated the words so many Poles and Russians had said that day: "I hope you Americans will not be soft with the Germans."
1947: Outfielder Mickey Rutner made his major league debut with the Philadelphia Athletics.
1948:Samuel Ralph "Subway Sam" Nahem appeared in his last major league baseball game as a member of the Philadelphia Phillies.
1950 (29th of Elul, 5710): Erev Rosh Hashana
1951: According to reports published today, American actree Yvonne de Carolo will cut short her current tour of Israel and return to the United States so that she can be filming “San Francisco Story” a movie in which she shares top billing with Joel McCrea. [editor’s note: We have no idea why she was touring in Israel.]
1951: David Horowitz, Israel’s director-general of the Ministry of Finance, arrived in New York today. As Israel faces an economic crisis caused by the in-gathering of the exiles and the continued state of war with its Arab neighbors, Mr. Horowitz has the United States to address a number of Jewish organizations sympathetic to the growth of Israel.
1952: The Jerusalem Post reported that in a secret, silent ceremony that lasted 13 minutes, Foreign Minister Moshe Sharett and West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer signed in
Luxembourg
an agreement under which the Bonn Government agreed to pay 3,450 million marks, in various goods, as reparations for the material damage suffered by Jews at the hands of the Nazis. The first goods were expected to arrive in 1953, but the much-needed oil, a part of the reparations deal, would arrive in
Israel
within weeks.
1960: It was reported today that the Library of Congress had purchased a rare piece of Lincoln Memorabilia using funds left by the late Alfred Stern of Chicago. The item, a sales circular advertising the sale of various Lincoln election items such as pins and button, will join Stern’s collection in the Rare Book Room.
1965: Outfield Norm Miller made his major league debut with the Houston Astros.
1970: As part of the Dawson Field Hijackings, when members of the Palestinian terrorists goup PLFP hijacked four jet and had forced them to fly to
Jordan
, the PLFP released over three hundred of the passengers. The PLFP kept the Jews and Israeli citizens as hostages.
1972(3rd of Tishrei, 5733): Tzom Gedaliah
1972(3rd of Tishrei, 5733): Famed animator Max Fleischer passed away.
1973: Israel Police minister Shlomo Hillel spoke to the International Police Association about confronting terrorism (including aviation terrorism). "Surrender to terrorism," said Hillel "results not only in the decline of the value of law but also degrades every international moral authority, encourages the growth of murder, terrorism and global extortionism, and pushes the world into a state of anarchy and chaos." (As reported by Adam Soclof).
1977: The Jerusalem Post reported that
US
President Jimmy Carter's previously submerged anger towards Israeli action in establishing new settlements came into the open when he agreed with reporters that the Israeli government was apparently openly defying the
US
and constituted an obstacle to peace. In
Israel
, however, Agriculture Minister Ariel Sharon, chief proponent of the settlement policy in the cabinet, said that the belt of the settlements he planned to establish would give
Israel
the security to reach "daring solutions" for peace with the Palestinian Arabs.
Sharon
: settlements, peace with the Arabs - how much things change, how much they stay the same.
1978: President Jimmy Carter, President Sadat and Prime Minister met at
Camp David
and agreed on a framework for peace between
Israel
and
Egypt
and a comprehensive peace in the
Middle East
1981: Pitcher Larry Rothschild made his major league debut with the Detroit Tigers.
1982: Detroit pitcher Larry Rothschild played his last major league baseball game. He then went on to a career as major league coach and manager.
1987(17th of Elul, 5747: Actor Lorne Greene passed away. Greene was born in 1914 in
Canada
. He was the son of immigrants from
Russia
. His middle name was Hyman. Greene gained fame as Pa Cartwright on the television western hit, Bonanza. He claimed that his portrayal of this family patriarch was based on his father, Daniel Greene.
1988: Rabbi Arnold E. Resnicoff “was one of 100 religious leaders at” today’s “White House discussion with then President Bill Clinton on the way religion might combat violence in American schools.”
1993(25th of Elul, 5753): Conductor Erich Leinsdorf passed away.
1994(6th of Tishrei, 5755: Shimon Avidan, “an Israeli soldier and officer, the commander of the Givati Brigade during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war,” passed away. Born Shimon Koch in Germany in 1911, he moved to Kibbutz Ayelet HaShahar in 1934 and then Ein Hashofet in Palestine. “He fought with the International Brigades during the Spanish Civil War. Avidan is also known for his activities in the Palmach in World War II. He led the "German Unit" of the Palmach, which was responsible for conducting guerilla operations against the Axis powers.[1] In 1945 he commanded the Saison operation against the Irgun and Stern Gang.[3] During the 1948 war he was the operational commander of Operation Nachshon, Operation Barak, Operation Pleshet and Operation An-Far. His troops also fought at Nitzanim as well as joining Operations Death to the Invader and Yoav. He resigned from the army after, according to Chaim Herzog, 'his extreme left-wing philosophy proved to be irreconcilable with Ben-Gurion's policies'. In 1975, he was appointed as the internal comptroller of the Ministry of Defense by the minister Shimon Peres.
1999(1st of Tishrei, 5760): Rosh Hashanah 5760
1999: On the first day of Rosh Hashanah, The Shanghai government permitted the Jewish community to use Ohel Rachel for 24 hours. This would be the first time a Jewish service was held at the Ohel Rachel Synagogue since 1952. Evening and morning services were held, with approximately 120 Jews in attendance. This was the highest attendance the modern
Shanghai
Jewish community had seen!
2001: Today marked Cpl. Dustin H. Schrage’s first day in the United States Marine Corps. The young Jewish Marine would lose his life while swimming across the Euphrates River in the Al Anbar province in 2004.
2001: The September 11 attacks destroyed the
World
Trade
Center
in
New York City
, part of The Pentagon in
Washington
,
D.C.
, and downed a passenger airliner in
Pennsylvania
. In total, almost 3,000 were killed. In one of the most offensive bits of anti-Semitic propaganda several websites, some of which were sponsored by Arab money, claimed that Jews had been warned to stay away from the WTC and/or that the attack was part of a Mossad conspiracy. The number of dead Jewish Americans and Israelis belied the canard, but truth never bothers an anti-Semite.
2004: Nathan Cooper is called to the Torah as a Bar Mitzvah at
Temple
Judah
in
Cedar Rapids
,
Iowa
.
2005: The funeral for painter and Israel Prize laureate Lea Nikel is held at
Kidron
Cemetery
. She passed away over the weekend at the age of 86. Nikel is the “grande dame of Israeli painting.” She was known as the “queen of abstract painting” and “queen of color and composition. The works of this famous abstract expressionist hang in galleries throughout the world including
London
’s Tate Gallery
2005, United States Senator Jon Corzine, the Democratic candidate for Governor of New Jersey, endorsed Loretta Weinberg for State Senate held by Byron Baer who was retiring. [Weinberg was Jewish; Corzine was not.
2005: Jewish authors continue to add to the richness of the general culture as they write on a variety of subjects. Where God Was Born by Bruce Feiler received less than glowing reviews in the Sunday New York Times. This is the third in Mr. Feiler’s series on the Bible and religion, two things that he apparently did not study at an earlier age. Dvorak: Romantic Music's Most Versatile Genius by David Hurwitz which has now appeared in paperback received favorable reviews in the Sunday Washington Post book section. Hurwitz takes the unconventional stand that the relationship between Brahms and Dvorak was not a one way street. He contends that Brahms benefited from Dvorak’s influence every bit as much did Dvorak benefit from that of Brahms.
2005:Sidney Ferris Rosenberg failed to show up to host the Giants' pre-game show
2006: (Elul 18) Celebration of the birth of
Israel
ben Eliezer, known as the Baal Shem Tov (Master of the Good Name) of simply the Besht. He is the founder of the movement that would eventually come to be known as Chasidism. There is too much to this man’s life and too many sources available to warrant even the most elementary summary.
2006: (Elul 18) Celebration of the birth of Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi, founder of the Chabad Lubavitch branch of Chasidism.
2006: In the Time Magazine edition of this date a report appeared that Leonard Nimoy, the Jewish actor who portrayed Mr. Spock had published a book entitled Shekina, which explores the mythological feminine aspect of God.
2006:Leonard Woolfby Victoria Glendinning was published today by Simon and Schuster
http://www.