2012-09-21

September 22 In History

1499:

Switzerland

gained de factor independence from the
Holy Roman Empire
. Jews began settling in

Switzerland

in the 13th century.  During the first half of the 14th Century, the Jewish community of

Basel

was on the largest in
Europe
.  However, during the last half of the 14th century and on 15thcentury, successive bans drove Jews from the homes in various cities and cantons. The bans were primarily caused charges of well poisoning tied the spread of the Black Death.   By the time

Switzerland

gained her independence only a handful of Jews remained in this mountainous state.  The Jewish population would not begin to grow again until the end of the 18th century.

1521: Selim I, Sultan of the
Ottoman Empire
passed away.  Selim did away with the Law of No Return, the Roman ban on Jews living in Eretz

Israel

.  The ban was in force until the 16thcentury.  Limits on Jewish immigration would reappear with the British White Paper.  Like many other members of Ottoman royalty, Selim employed a Jewish physician.

1526: Sultan Sueliman decreed that all the Jews seized at Buda and elsewhere, more than 2,000 in number, should be distributed among the cities of the Turkish Empire.

1558: In Recanti, Italy, under the protection of Pope Paul IV, Joseph (Paul) Moro, a baptized Jew, entered a synagogue on the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur). Holding a crucifix, he tried to preach a conversion sermon. The congregation evicted him and a near massacre occurred. Eventually the entire Jewish population was expelled.

1759(1stof Tishrei, 5520): Nine days after the British defeated the French at the Battle of the Plains of Abraham, Jews could openly observe Rosh Hashanah in Canada.  The French banned Jews from living in Canada.  The British took the opposite view.

1774: Pope Clement XIV passed away. In 1759, while still known as Cardinal Giovanni Vincenzo Antonio Ganganelli, he had issued a reported condemning blood libel accusation. “In 1758, Pope Benedict XIV ordered an investigation into the matter and charged Lorenzo Ganganelli, councilor of the Holy Office of the Inquisition—and later Pope Clement XIV—to prepare a report on the commission’s work. Ganganelli’s report, presented to the congregation of the Inquisition in March 1758, reviewed the major accusations of Jewish ritual murder since the thirteenth century and concluded that the blood libel was indeed a calumny, of which Jews and Judaism were innocent.”

1789(2ndof Tishrei, 5550): During the first year of the presidency of George Washington, Jews in the United States observe the second day of Rosh Hashanah.

1812: In Glasgow, Scotland, a “hatter” (maker of hats) named Isaac Cohen was admitted as a burgess of the city.

1825(10thof Tishrei, 5586):  Jews observe Yom Kippur in the first year of the Presidency of John Q. Adams, the only American President chosen by the House of Representatives.

1850:  In

Detroit
,
Michigan

, twelve Jewish families came together at the Cozens's home to found the "Bet El Society" (a Michigan Historical Marker now commemorates this site). The congregation engaged the services of Rabbi Samuel Marcus of New York.

1851: The city of Des Moines, Iowa is incorporated as Fort Des Moines. William Krause was one those instrumental in the incorporation effort. He and has his wife had arrived in the area in 1846 when it was known as Raccoon Forks, making them the first Jewish settlers.  The Krause family which had opened the towns first store in 1848 was joined by Joseph and Isaac Kuhn in 1849.  Krause was active in civic affairs and played a key role in having the state capital moved to Des Moines.  By 1870, there were enough Jews in Des Moines to form a congregation called B’nai Jeshurn which built a synagogue in 1878.

1852: The New York Times reported that "The Kohinoor must be a rouser, to allow a company of Hebrew artists to cut away for months upon its sides, and yet be left the largest diamond out of the mines.”  The Kohinoor is one of the largest diamonds in the world.

1855 (10th of Tishrei, 5616): Eleven days after the fall of Sevastopol during the Crimean War, Jews on both sides of the conflict observe Yom Kippur

1855: Adam Mickiewicz arrived in Constantinople. He had journeyed to the capital of the Ottoman Empire from Paris so that he could organize a Jewish legion called the Hussars of Israel made up Jews from Russia and Palestine.  The legion was to part of the forces fighting against the Czar during the Crimean War.

1855: The New York Times reported on the celebration by “the Israelites of the ceremonies marking the start of their New Year including a list of all the synagogues in the city that are holding services on what is described as ‘a fast day…a day of atonement.’”

1857:Daniele Manin an Italian patriot and statesman from Venice who was a hero of Italian unification (Risorgimento) passed away. He was born Daniele Fonseca, the son of a Jew in Ramo Astori, Venice. His name was changed to Manin when he was converted to Catholicism as a child.

1863(9th of Tishrei, 5624): Erev Yom Kippur

1863: Lt. Colonel Samuel Tolles and nine men from the 5th Pennsylvania Cavalry captured a Jew names Falk Odenheimer near the Pasquotank River in North Carolina.  Odenheimer claimed he was a refugee from Goldsboro, NC.  He was carrying $12,000 in gold and “Southern State money” as well as a number of watches when he was captured.  He had spent the night in the woods looking for a place where he could cross into the Union lines without being detected.  Apparently Tolles did not know what to make of the story since he sent Odenheimer back to headquarters under armed guard.

1867: In Lancaster, PA Congregation Shaarai Shomayim dedicated its new synagogue building.

1873(1stof Tishrei, 5634): Rosh Hashanah

1873: In New York City the commercial centers and Wall Street are seemingly depopulated because the city’s Jewish population are crowding their synagogues “to their utmost capacity” for services “that are of the most impressive and solemn nature.”

1877(15th of Tishrei, 5638): In the first year of the Presidency of Ruther B. Hayes, Jews observe Sukkoth

1878(10thof Tishrei, 5548): Yom Kippur

1878: It was reported today that Union of American Hebrew Congregations (Reform) are moving ahead with the plans adopted last year to reorganize.  According to information supplied by the Jewish Messenger, a newly created Board of Delegates on Civil and Religious Rights will replace the old Board of Delegates of American Israelites.

1879: It was reported today that the police in New York do not believe the story of Meyer Friedman, a Polish Jewish shoemaker, and his wife that there home was broken into by thieves who made off with $90 and a gold watch.  The police base their disbelief on the fact that the glass where the break-in was supposed to have occurred was lying on the ground outside the dwelling and not inside on the flooring indicating that it was broken by somebody on the inside.  Nobody doubts the Friedman’s no longer have the money and nobody has commented on the fact that the alleged burglary took place on Rosh Hashanah

1882(9thof Tishrei, 5643): Erev Yom Kippur

1882: In one of the ironies of history, Wilhelm Keitel, a German Field Marshall and senior Nazi military leader who would be hung as war criminal at Nuremberg was born as Jews prepared to hear the haunting tones of Kol Nidre.

1884: “The Connecticut Campaign” published today described the reaction of Dr. Lewis Kleeberg, the rabbi at Mishkahn Israel to the publication of anti-Semitic language used by the current Republican candidate for governor in a jury summation back in 1857.  Kleeberg said that words spoken in haste and hurry of a court room should not be taken as the speaker’s personal opinions.  Furthermore he dislikes “this mingling of religion and politics.  The effort to use the Jews of Connecticut as a sort of a club to wreak political revenge can do no harm to the man it is aimed at.

1884: Sarah Scheuer, the daughter of million merchant Solomon Scheur.eloped tonight with a New York stock broker

1885:  Birthdate of Erich von Stroheim, actor, writer, director.

1889: It was reported today that in their annual report, the managers of House of Refuge on Randall’s Island do not disclose figures on the religious affiliation of any of its inmates except for those who are Jewish.

1889: It was reported today that the new Prince of Monaco has been “betrothed to the Dowager Duchess of Richelieu, a beautiful 31 year old widow who is the daughter of Michel Heine, an orthodox Jew who is a nephew of Heinrich Heine

1889: It was reported today that Amy Levy, the 23 year old Anglo-Jewish author who was thought to be a future “Emma Lazarus” was cremated today, per her own request.  The ashes were then placed in a small oak chest after which they were buried in a Jewish cemetery.

1889: It was reported today that “a few men are taking the offered course in elementary Hebrew” being offered at Wesleyan University in Connecticut. Future U.S. President Woodrow Wilson’s course in American history was the most popular elective being offered during this same fall semester.

1889: Rabbi Aaron Cohen delivered the sermon at today’s dedication of the new synagogue built by Congregation Beth Hamedrash Hagodol in New York.  Coroner Ferdinand Levy delivered an address after the endstone was laid at the building which had cost $44,000.

1889: Rabbi Moses Guedalia led the services this afternoon that marked the consecration of the Congres of Moses Montefiore’s new synagogue on in New York City. He was assisted by several visiting clergymen including Rabbis A.H. Nieto and H. Pereira Mendes.

1891: Russians claim that seven thousand Jews left Berdichefon for

Argentina

today.  This claim would be appear to be bogus since there is no railway facility at Berdichefon capable of handling such a large number of people at one time.

1892(1stof Tishrei, 5653): As Grover Cleveland seeks to defeat Benjamin Harrison in the upcoming U.S. Presidential , Jews celebrate Rosh Hashanah

1895:  Birthdate of Academy Award winning actor, Paul Muni.  Muni got his start in the Yiddish theatre. Unlike other leading men of his day, Muni gained fame as a character actor playing figures as widely different as Mexican revolutionary, a Chinese peasant and a French publisher.

1895: Birthdate of celebrated poet, novelist, critic, and editor, Babette Deutsch. While still a student at

Barnard

College

, Deutsch had her first poems published in magazines, and her first volume of poetry, Banners, was published only two years after she graduated. Many more volumes of poetry followed, including 1928's Honey Out of A Rock, which touched on varied biblical and Jewish themes. Deutsch also wrote a number of novels, including A Brittle Heaven (1926), In Such a Night (1927), and The Mask of Silenus (1933). In addition to her work as a poet and novelist, Deutsch was also a noted critic, as well as a writer of fiction and biographies for children. In 1958 she was elected to the National Academy of Arts and Letters, and in 1969 served as the organization's secretary. Deutsch was on the advisory board of the National Book Committee, chancellor for the

Academy
of
American Poets

, and a consultant for the Library of Congress. Although Deutsch led a busy professional life, she also devoted much of her time to the Jewish community. Deutsch often worked with the Young Men's Hebrew Association, serving as a lecturer in their

Poetry

Center

. Much of her poetry reflected her Jewish heritage, and her last three books of poetry all dealt with her anger at the horrors of the Holocaust and her efforts to make sense of such great tragedy.

1896: Birthdate of Uri Zvi Grinberg the Galacian born Israeli poet and author who uniquely wrote in both Yiddish and Hebrew

1901(9thof Tishrei, 5662): Eight days after Vice President Teddy Roosevelt was sworn in as President following the death of William McKinley, Jews prepare to hear Kol Nidre

1902:  Birthdate of Academy award winning actor John Houseman.  Born Jacques Haussman in

Bucharest

to a Jewish father and English mother, Houseman was known to one generation as the law school professor Charles Kingsfield in “The Paper Chase.” But to an earlier generation he was the producer of Orson Well’s radio masterpiece, War of the Worlds.

1903(1st of Tishrei, 5664): Rosh Hashanah

1906(3rd of Tishrei, 5667): Shabbat Shuvah; the fast is delayed 24 hours

1909: Jews were forced to leave Arabia (Yemen) to avoid being forced to convert to Islam.

1910: Announcement of the death of Lady Louisa de Rothschild widow of Sir Anthony de Rothschild upon whom a barony had been conferred by Sir Robert Peel in 1847. Sir Anthony passed away in 1876. Lady Louisa was known as “Lady Bountiful” because of her charitable works among the less fortunate Jews. Her fame as a gracious hostess is attested to by the fact that the Prince of Wales learned of the death of Napoleon III while visiting her summer home, Aston Clinton, in 1873.

1911: In

New South Wales

, Bertram Jacobs is appointed lecturer on Law at

University

College

.

1911: New laws drafted for the governing of the Jewish community of

Frankfort

include the innovate provision that “women who pay communal tax and the wives of tax-payers are eligible for election to the governing council.”

1911: The German Emperor confers the Order of Red Eagle, Third Class on Dr. Albert Moses, the German legal scholar who helped draft Japan’s Meiji Constitution.

1915: Birthdate of Professor Samuel Edward Finer, the son Romanian Jewish immigrants, who became one the United Kingdom’s leading historians and political scientist.

1916: Rabbis in

Palestine

declare that all Jews should not fast on Yom Kippur, but eat due to the epidemics which were rampant.

1918: The Jewish Legion, which was part of the British Army under General Allenby, dislodged Turkish army units from their entrenched position at Umm esh-Shert Ford on the
Jordan River
.  This is the same ford where Joshua crossed with the Israelites in Biblical times.  As we said when we began our studies last year, Jewish History covers an unbelievably long span of time.  More importantly, when Jews tread the

land
of
Israel

they are truly treading on the land of their ancestors.

1922(29thof Elul, 5682): Erev Rosh Hashanah

1922: In an article entitled “Palestine Land of Promise,” Dr. Maruice Harris, the Rabbi at Temple Israel in NYC, provides an eyewitness account of how the land and people of Palestine have benefited from Zionist programs based on his recent visit to Eretz Israel.

1924: Birthdate of Gerald Schoenfeld who became chairman of the powerful Shubert Organization, the largest and most important theater owner on Broadway and in the United States.

1924: In the
Soviet Union
, Chjekists (secret police) rounded up all known Zionists. Over thirty thousand were arrested and the Zionist organization was forced to move underground. This determined drive to destroy the Zionist was driven by a variety of motives.  One had to do with the Communists' fear of competing political groups and ideologies.  Another had to do with anti-Semitism some of which one might say was endemic to Russians and some of which was a manifestation of self-loathing on the part of Jews who had bought into the Communist ideology.

1928: Today, in Massena, New York,  two days before Yom Kippur, four-year-old Barbara Griffiths went for a walk and did not come back home. After a long search by townspeople and state police, a rumor began to circulate that the girl had been kidnapped and killed by the town's Jews for a religious ritual associated with the impending holiday. This was the opening event in what would be called the Massena Blood Libel.

1929: Today marks the thirtieth day since a group of Jews were killed in Jerusalem by Arabs.  The level of danger felt by the Jewish community is so great that the Jews have “abandoned their age old ritual for the dead” and not publicly taken note of the Shloshim.

1929: In what can only be described as a unique form of British even-handedness, the Mandatory government informed “Jews who protested against the erection of a Moslem religious school at the Wailing Wall that a fully sanctioned permit had been granted to the Arabs by the government.”

1933(2nd of Tishrei, 5694): Second Day of Rosh Hashanah

1933: German Jews are banned from the fields of journalism, art, literature, music, broadcasting, and theater.

1939: Joint victory parade of Wehrmacht and Red Army in Brest-Litovsk at the end of the Invasion of Poland.

1941(1st of Tishrei, 5702): Rosh Hashanah

1941:  This day saw the beginning of a new intensity in the murder of the Jewish people. In

Vinnitsa

, Ukranian militia, trained by the SS, killed an estimated 23,000 Jews. Sweeping through town on horseback, soldiers wielded swords to chop down innocents. The Ukrainians were willing participants in the murder of the Jews.  The Holocaust was possible, in part, because of the willing participation of non-Germans in the Final Solution.  An additional 4,000 Jews in Ejszyszki were slaughtered.

1941: Nearly 500 Jews escaped from Ejszyszki, Lithuania, after being alerted to an impending Nazi sweep

1941: All Jews of Litin,

Ukraine

, are murdered.

1941: Sculptor Louise Nevelson's first one-woman show opened at the Nierendorf Gallery

1942: The Jewish ghetto in

Czestochowa
,
Poland

, is liquidated; 40,000 residents are transported to the Treblinka death camp and killed.

1942: The leading French Protestant, Pastor Marc Boegner, publicly protests the Jewish deportations. He personally attempts to convince

Vichy

France

Premier Pierre Laval to end the roundups of Jewish children. After Boegner offers to have the children adopted,

Laval

tells him that "not one of them must remain in

France

."

1943: The Germans announce through their puppet Greek press that all Jews have only five days to register their names, or face a penalty of death. Christians were told if they hide Jews they would be shot.

1943(22nd of Elul, 5703): Forty Jews hiding in forests near Koniecpol, Poland, are attacked by Poles. Many of the Jews are killed.

1943: Wilhelm Kube, the Generalkommissarof

Belorussia

, is assassinated by a bomb placed beneath his bed by a Soviet partisan who had been assigned to work as his maid.

1944: World War II: the Red Army enters Tallinn, Estonia.  Before the war Tallin had been home to a vibrant Jewish community of about 2,300 people. The liberation of Estonia from the Nazis  by the Soviets meant an end to the Holocaust, it was not much of any improvement for the Jews since the Estonia became a puppet state of the U.S.S.R. implementing the anti-Jewish policies of larger neighbor to the east.

1945(15th of Tishrei, 5706): First day of Sukkoth

1945(15th of Tishrei, 5706): Chief Judge Irving Lehman of the New York State Court of Appeals passed way early this morning at the age of 69.  . He had been a member of the State's judiciary for thirty-seven years. Lehman was the older brother of Herbert Lehman, former Governor of New York who is currently serving as the Director of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration. Judge Lehman was born in New York in 1876, the son of two transplanted Alabama Jews.  He earned a Bachelor’s degree from Columbia in 1896 where he also earned a Master Degree and a Law Degree. He was in private practice until 1908 when he was first elected to the State Supreme Court.  He was elected Chief Judge of the New York State Court of Appeals in 1939. He was respected for his ability to make the law “a living force subject to change and development” as well as his “ability to slash through legal verbiage and get to the heart of complex commercial and financial problems. A philanthropist, Lehman was actively involved with several Jewish organizations including the Young Men’s Hebrew Association an Temple Emanu-El both of which he led as President.

1946(26th of Elul, 5706): One Jew was killed and both sides suffered other casualties when refugees on board the blockade runner Palmach battled a British naval boarding party off the northern coast of Palestine today. Off the coast of

Haifa

, the British boarding party used guns, gas and fire hoses to quell resistance from a boat load of Jewish “displaced persons” seeking to find a home in Eretz

Israel

.

1946:Congregation Beth-El Synagogue was dedicated today at St. Johnsbury, Vermont

1947: Secretary of State George Marshall instructed the American U.N. delegation to refrain from supporting the UNSCOP majority report that included a recommendation for partition.

1951: Reuven Shiloah, special Israeli Government counselor left Paris for Washington where he is scheduled discuss the latest peace proposal and other developments in the Middle East with representatives of the U.S. State Department.

1951: Unidentified authorities at the highest level of the Israeli government reveal that Israel “is willing to compensate Arab refugees for property that they behind when fled, and in addition, is willing to make contributions for the resettlement of Arab refugees.” Until now, the Israeli government has refused to take responsibility for the plight of the refugees because the Arabs caused the problem when they invaded the Jewish state.  At the same time, Israel feels that consideration should be given for the expense born by Israel in re-settling Jewish refugees from Arab countries, especially the 100,000 who had left Iraq.  The Israelis want their bank accounts, which are valued at between 30,000,000 to 40,000,000 pounds, unblocked.

1952: Isser Harel named head of Mossad.

1957:American author and screenwriter Robert Katz, the son of Sidney and Helen Katz, , and married Beverly Gerstel  today. Katz wrote Death in Rome  in “which he blamed Pope Pius XII for the massacre of 335 Romans and 70 Jews at the Ardeatine Caves in 1944.”

1960(1stof Tishrei, 5721): As the race between Nixon and Kennedy for the White House heats up, Jews observe the first day of Rosh Hashanah

1964: "Fiddler on the Roof" opened on Broadway.  It would run for 3,242 performances

1969(10th of Tishrei, 5730): As the war in Viet Nam rages on, Jews observe Yom Kippur

1977(10thof Tishrei, 5738): In the first year of Jimmy Carter’s presidency, Jews observe Yom Kippur

1983(15thof Tishrei, 5744): Sukkoth

1989 (22nd of Elul, 5749): Composer Irving Berlin passed away at the age of 101.

Berlin

had composed a myriad of tunes that defined

America

in its most optimistic, flag-waving form. Only in America could a Russian Jewish immigrant compose two of the most popular Christmas and Easter songs.

1996(9th of Tishrei, 5757): Erev Yom Kippur

1996: Robert Kraft, owner of the New England Patriots, had asked that the kickoff tonight’s game between the Patriots and the Jacksonville Jaguars be changed to avoid a conflict with Yom Kippur, which started at sundown that evening. Kraft requested the change so Jews, including himself and his family, could see the entire game before the start of Kol Nidre services that night.

1997 (20th of Elul, 5757): Nedim Yahya, a committee member of the Quincentennial Foundation passed away. The Quincentennial Foundation was established in 1989 by a group of 113 Turkish citizens, Jews and Moslems alike. Founded  in Istanbul the Quincentennial Foundation planned a three-year (1990 - 1992) cultural and academic program both within Turkey and abroad mainly in the U.S, Canada and Mexico on the American continent; France, United Kingdom and Italy in Europe designed to celebrate “the five hundredth anniversary of the most gracious welcome of Sephardim to Turkish lands” in 1492.

2001 (5th of Tishrei, 5762):  Violinist Isaac Stern passed away.  Born in 1920, Stern is part of a long list of Jewish violin greats.

2002:Many musicals have been written about famous people, but it's rare that a celebrity subject has what amounts to a front-row seat at every performance. That's just what will happen today, though, when

Theater

Garden

, a producer of educational plays for children, presents ''Lady of Copper'' on a barge in the
Hudson River
. The lady is the Statue of Liberty, who will see her alter ego -- actually a lovely actress -- tell the story of the statue's arrival in

New York

Harbor

.

2002: The New York Times included reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or about topics of Jewish interest including Blue Latitudes: Boldly Going Where Captain Cook Has Gone Before by Tony Horwitz, Sloan-Kettering: Poems by Abba Kovner; Translated by Eddie Levenston, The Ideas That Conquered The World: Peace, Democracy, and Free Markets in the Twenty-First Century by Michael Mandelbaum, Bad Boy Ballmer: The Man Who Rules Microsoft by Fredric Alan Maxwell and

The Prints of Roy Lichtenstein: A Catalogue Raisonné 1948-1997 by Mary Lee Corlett and Ruth E. Fine

2005:  At the same time when the world is mourning the death of Nazi-hunter Simon Wiesenthal, the world was given a graphic reminder of the Holocaust. The Jerusalem Post reported that workers at a US Army airfield near

Stuttgart
,
Germany

have uncovered a World War II-era grave believed to contain the bodies of Jewish slave laborers used by the Nazis. Authorities are now trying to determine the identities of the bodies and are looking for possible witnesses as they look into the case. The dead would have worked at Hailfingen. It was one of more than 50 sub-camps in the extensive subsystem of the Natzweiler-Struthof camp where Jewish prisoners were to repair the runway of the old Echterdingen airfield for German aircraft, which were flying night raids. According to information available now, there were approximately 600 Jewish inmates at Hailfingen.  Of these, as many as 400 were reported to have died there.  While the camp did contain a gas chamber, most of the prisoners died from lengthy exposure to the bitter winter as they were literally worked to death.

2005:In a move that sets it apart from most, if not all Catholic colleges and universities, Boston College launched “a program that allows student to minor in Jewish Studies.”  Go Eagles!

2005:  Kalman Feinberg won the Great Shofar Blast Off sponsored by the National Jewish Outreach Program.

2005: The “IDF finished evacuating four settlement in the Northern West Bank

2005: During a meeting in Jerusalem, Rabbi Bretton-Granatoor, along with other Jewish leaders, questioned Rev. Dr. Naim Ateek, Director of the Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center, about his position on Israel's legitimate right to exist, citing quotations from his book, Justice and Only Justice: A Palestinian Theology of Liberation (1989), in which he wrote, "It has taken me years to accept the establishment of the state of Israel and its need – although not its right – to exist. ""We read to him several quotations from his sermons and writings that we believed denied the legitimate right of the Jewish people to live in their land, and echoed medieval anti-Semitic canards," Rabbi Bretton-Granatoor said.  "He affirmed that he continues to support the suggestion

2006(29th of Elul, 5766): Erev Rosh Hashanah

2006: As can be seen from Libby Copeland’s column in the Washington Post, entitled “For Sen. Allen, Questions of More Than Faith,” the issue of who is a Jew and who is not a Jew and how they respond to it is becoming a regular pheomena in American politics.  The issue is often not just whether but when a candidate discovered the Jewish connection.  Jonn Kerry discovered Jewish grandparents.  Howard Dean is married to a Jew, something he always knwed and never hid.  Dennis Kucinich and Hillary Clinton appeared to have stretched the envelope.  He is dating a Jew and she has discovered a Jewish step-grandfather. Wesley Clark discovered his Jewish lineage during his abortive 2004 quest for the Presidency and Madeline Albright, who is not running for anything discovered that her family was Jewish until it fled totaltiarian Europe.  Post columnist Charles Krauthammer puts things in their proper, if tragic perspective.  These public figures were not told about their Jewish heritage because the family members wanted to spare them the pain and suffering that was all too often the reality of being Jewish whether it was Sen. Allen’s grandfather being imprisoned in Algeria or Madeline Albright’s family fleeing the Nazis. The question is not why did Sen. Allen react the way he did; the question is what kind of people made being Jewish such a fearful thing.

2007(10th of Tishrei, 5768): Yom Kippur

2007: Gabe Carmi, a standout offensive guard for the University of Wisconsin football team fasted today even though his Badgers were facing the University of Iowa in their first Big Ten game of the season. Carmi did not break his fast until an hour before the game began. The reward for doing a mitzvah is doing the mitzvah, but in this case it did not hurt the Wisconsin won the game and  kept the Heartland Trophy in Madison.

2007(10th of Tishrei, 5768): While in Atlanta for a concert with Elvis Costello and Amos Lee, Bob Dylan (born Robert Zimmerman) reportedly attend the Chabad-Lubavitch of Georgia’s Yom Kippur services where he was up to the Torah and recited the blessings in Hebrew.

2007(10th of Tishrei, 5768): Marcel Marceau, the famous mime and Holocaust survivor passed away on Yom Kippur at the age of 84.

2007: An exhibition honoring Yiddish theatre legend - and Milk and Honey star - Molly Picon being held in the Vincent Astor Gallery of th New York Library of Performing Arts comes to an end.

2007: As a sign of worsening economic conditions, G

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