OCTOBER 7 In History
3761
BCE
: According to some Jewish traditionalists, this corresponds to the date on which God created the World. This marks the start of the epoch of the Modern Hebrew calendar.
1272: Pope Gregory X condemned the ritual murder libels aimed at the Jewish people. In addition, since Jews could not bear witness against Christians, he refused to accept testimony by a Christian against a Jew unless it was confirmed by another Jew.
1349: The Jewish population of Krems, Germany, was massacred in the Black Death riots.(As reported by Aish)
1555: Hundreds of Jews in Cracow were killed during the Hakafot, the ritual trouping of the Torah connected with Simchat Torah.
1571: The Holy League (Spain and Italy) destroyed the Turkish fleet at The Battle of Lepanto. This was part of a centuries-long battle before European Christians and the forces of Islam, in this case the Ottoman Empire. Often the fighting was more about commercial gain than it was about religion. The battle was significant because it was the first naval defeat the Ottomans had suffered in more than a century. While the Jews were not directly involved, the fighting had an impact on them. At the time of the defeat, Selim II was the Sultan. He opened his kingdom to the Jews settling a colony of them on the Island of Cyprus. The Ottomans accepted the defeat as the will of God, and unlike some Europeans, did not use the Jews as scapegoats for their loss.
1763: George III of Great Britain issues British Royal Proclamation of 1763, closing aboriginal lands in North America north and west of Alleghenies to white settlements. This attempt to control the growth of Colonial America was one of the causes of the American Revolution, with all that that would mean for the Jewish people. More immediately, the closure had a negative impact on the fortunes of Moses Franks, Jacob Franks, Barnard Gratz, Michael Gratz, David Franks, Moses Franks, Jr., Joseph Simon, and Levy Andrew Levy each of whom dabbled in “western” land speculation.
1777:Under the date of John Adams wrote his wife that he was in York, PA, where "I am lodged in the house of General Roberdeau, an Israelite, indeed, I believe, who with his sisters and children and servants does everything to make us happy. We are highly favored. No other delegates are so well off." Fearing capture by the British, the Continental Congress had moved to York where it could meet in comparative safety. [Editor’s Note – Adams may have been in error since according to some there was a General Roberdeau whose father’s name is Isaac Roberdeau and they were Huegenots.]
1777: During the Revolutionary War, The Americans defeated the British in the Second Battle of Saratoga, also known as the Battle of Bemis Heights. This defeat led France to recognize the new United States of America and, more importantly, sign a treaty which brought the Americans much needed supplies, money and the support of the French fleet. It was the turning point in the war that would create the home of the most significant Jewish community outside of Eretz Israel. Col. David Salisbury Franks, the highest ranking Jewish officer serving with the Continental Army served with valor during the Battle. Franks would later be serving as an aide to Benedict Arnold when the general turned traitor. He was cleared of all charges and continued to serve with during the war. He is not to be confused with his uncle David Franks who was a Loyalist.
1791(9thof Tishrei, 5552): Erev Yom Kippur
1814(23rdof Tishrei, 5575): Simchat Torah
1848(10th of Tishrei, 5609): Yom Kippur
1840: Willem II became the King of the Netherlands. He was the son of Willem I the first Dutch monarch who ruled after the defeat of the French. Unlike his Germanic counterparts, Willem did not rescind the rights the Jews had enjoyed and this policy of acceptance was followed by his son who did nothing to abrogate the rights of the Jews.
1851: In New York, a Hungarian Jew named Nathan Levins who has been in the United States for only two weeks filed a complaint at the Sixth Precinct claiming that Israel Steinhardt, another Hungarian Jew had robbed him of 940 pounds in Bank of England notes. The police went to the house on Pell Street where Steinhardt was living, placed him under arrest and took him back to the precinct house where he was to be held until he could be brought before a magistrate.
1853:The ceremony of laying the corner-stone of a Jewish Educational Institute, in Greene-street, adjoining the Synagogue Bnai Jesharun, took place today. The Institute is intended as the beginning of a Hebrew College to be hereafter erected in this City. The religious services on the laying of the Corner-Stone were conducted by Rabbi Raphall.
1854: William Wilkins gave a speech to a large gathering of Democrats in Pittsburgh, PA where he denounced the Know Nothing Party which is known for its opposition to foreigners and Catholics. “He argued that if the Know Nothings succeeded, no religious sect would safe – that next after the Catholic the Hebrew would be proscribed.” Jews feared the Know Nothings because of its views on non-Protestant religions and its animosity towards immigrants since many of the Jews were recent immigrants.
1860: According to a letter written by the President, Congregation Emanu-El in San Francisco has had a net gain of 49 members in the past year raising its numbers to a total of 227. In the past year one adult and eighteen Jewish children passed away in the last year. Monthly expenses have risen from $750 to $800. The sale of seats has grown by $2,000 and total over $5,000 this year. Dr. Elkan Cohn continues to serve as the Rabbi of the congregation that is growing so fast it will need a new sanctuary. In addition to which, the congregation needs to appropriate money for a school for the youngsters, including salaries for the teachers.
1863: A newspaper published in Petersberg, VA, reported that Our readers have already been apprised of the recent extensive sales of gold, paid for in drafts as valueless as the paper on which they were written. The premium "paid" for this gold was $12. Since the withdrawal of this heavy customer the demand for the precious metals has measurably subsided, and, as the Jews are now keeping one of their protracted annual holidays, the transactions for several days past have been very light. The commission brokers are now asking $11 50 for gold. No silver in the market.” The “protracted annual holidays” referred to the Sukkoth cycle with Simchat Torah having ended the day before the article was written.
1864: Birthdate of Louis Ferdinand Gottschalk, the son of a Missouri governor who gained fame as a conductor and composer for musicals and movies.
1867:”Blood Libel charges triggered anti-Jewish riots in Romania.” (As reported by Aish)http://www.aish.com/dijh/Tishrei_17.html
1868: Founding of Cornell University at Ithaca, New York. Today at Cornell, there are approximately 3,500 Jewish undergrads among the 13,500 undergraduate population and another 500 Jewish students among its 5,000 Jewish graduate students. In other words, Jews account for about 25% of the school’s population. The school offers a major and minor in Jewish Studies as well as a full panoply of social and cultural on campus designed to meet the needs of Jewish students.
1870: During the Franco-Prussian War, Leon Gambetta escaped from
Paris
by balloon. This was the only way that Gambetta could reach
Tours
where he was active in organizing further military opposition to the Prussians. Gambetta was instrumental in the formation of the
French
Third
Republic
. His father was Jewish. His mother was not.
1871(22ndof Tishrei, 5632): Shemini Atzeret
1871: It was reported today that “the Hebrew Feast of Tabernacles closes this morning…Offerings of branches of the palm tree, the myrtle, willow and the citron were made” yesterday during services held in the synagogues of New York.
1874: It was reported today the government of Romania is upset by an article published in a Jewish paper that portrays Benjamin Peixoto, the U.S. Consul in Bucharest as “the only protector of the persecuted Jews” of that country. The Romanians claim they have done everything possible to protect the Jews. The government claims that the increase in the number of Jews entering the country from Russia and Austria and the cessation of the exodus of Jews from Romania serves as proof of their contention.
1878(10th of Tishrei, 5639): Yom Kippur
1878: According to reports published today, a new group of people has been discovered in India who are supposed to descendants of Jews sent there by King Solomon to capture elephants and work in the gold mines. Instead of calling themselves Jews, they refer to themselves as Sons Of Israel. They have prayer-books and Bibles written in Hebrew. They observe Shabbat but show no knowledge of Yom Kippur or Pesach. [Editor’s Note – While the connection with Solomon might be hard to prove, referring to themselves as Sons of Israel and not Jews would argue for their antiquity considering how much later the latter term came to be used to describe The Chosen People.]
1878: With the end of Yom Kippur this evening Morris Bloom a peddler living on Orchard Street and Sarah Greenberg of Hester Street can be married in a synagogue. The families of the couple had opposed the marriage and the youngsters had a Judge of the Court of General Sessions perform a civil ceremony. Once the families saw that the two were committed to each other, they relented which is the reason for the religious ceremony.
1879: Germany and Austria-Hungary sign the "Twofold Covenant" and create the Dual Alliance. This alliance had amazing durability. It was this alliance which helped trigger World War I and all the suffering for Jews and non-Jews that has flowed from this seminal event.
1879: Birthdate of Leon Trotsky. Born Lev Davidovich Bronstein to wealthy Jewish farmers in the
Ukraine
, Bronstein became a revolutionary committed to the overthrown of the Czar. After spending time in
Siberia
, he joined forces with Lenin. After the Bolshevik Revolution created the Red Army which defeated both the foreign armies that invaded the Soviet Union and the White Forces during the bloody civil war that followed. Trotsky would lose out to Stalin in the power struggle that followed Lenin’s death. Trotsky would be hacked to death by one of Stalin’s agents in 1940 while living in
Mexico
. Anti-Semites would use Trotsky’s Jewish origins as one source of proof that Communism was part of a Jewish conspiracy to take over the world. The joke among Jews was the Trostkys make the revolutions and the Bronsteins suffer the consequences.
1881: “Current Foreign Topics” published today described the trial of the chief editors and a reporter
for two of Germany’s leading newspapers who had been charged with “insulting a police commissioner” by reporting on his attendance at an “anti-Jewish meeting” last year. The journalists accused him of “neglecting his duty” for not intervening when “a section of the audience attacked the Jews.” The reporter was acquitted but the editors were fined 50 marks.
1883: It was reported today that the Young Men’sHebrew Association plans to offer a series of lectures every Saturday between now and November that will help with the Americanization of immigrants who have come from Germany, Russia and other parts of Eastern Europe. Starting in November, the YMHA will offer classes four nights a week in reading, writing and spelling. Among those leading the effort are M.A. Kuresheedt, M.W. Platzek and Rabbi Aaron Wise.
1885: Birthdate of Neils Bohr. The Danish born physicist is the Father of Quantum Theory and winter of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1922.
1886(8th of Tishrei, 5647):Solomon Goldberg, a 34 year Jew from Poland who had been confined to The Tombs on charges of not supporting his wife, took his own life this afternoon.
1886: Joseph Rosenberg, who had passed away at the age of 102, was buried today in New Orleans, LA.
1888: “New Settlers Destitute” published today while many of the homesteaders living in the
Dakota territories are suffering due to crop failure, the greatest suffering is found among the 300 Russian Jews who settled there two years ago. Some of the families are without food and the rest will need outside financial assistance if they are to survive. (My grandfather and his brother homesteaded in the Dakotas in the 1890’s and experienced hardship. After a winter of living on crackers, as soon as the roads were passable, my grandfather went back to Chicago to seek “fame and fortune.”)
1888: “Old World News By Cable” published today described the many contradictory stories going around Europe about the German scheme to rescue Emin Pasha. Those opposed to the plans point out that he really is a Jew named Isaac Schnitzler. (Emin Pasha had in fact been born a Jew but he converted an became a romantic Muslim leader).
1888: Birthdate of movie director Robert Z. Leonard.
1889: Driven by the effective and fervent lobbying efforts of activist Annie Nathan Meyer, Barnard College opened its doors. Although a number of northern elite women's colleges had opened during the 1870s, numerous cities, including
New York
, had little to offer young women of scholarly inclinations. At age 18, Meyer, who was largely self-educated, organized a reading circle and enrolled in the newly established extension program for women at
Columbia
College
. Meyer married shortly before her 20th birthday in 1887 and soon began working to establish an affiliate women's college to
Columbia
. Meyer published a powerful letter to the Nation magazine and circulated a petition throughout the city to win the college's trustees over to her effort. Meyer achieved funding and support from the trustees on
April 1 18
89
, leased quarters for the school, and began accepting applicants. Barnard became the first women's college in
New York
to offer the rigorous course work equivalent to that of male liberal arts colleges. Annie Nathan Meyer continued her work with Barnard throughout her life, becoming a member of the first board of trustees and remaining active in trustee affairs for the ensuing six decades.
1897: The Bund (Jewish Workers Party) held its first conference in
Russia
. It was the first Jewish Socialist party in
Eastern Europe
. At first decidedly anti-Zionist and pro-Yiddishist, it was organized as a union of Russian Jewish socialist groups. The bund exerted a great influence on Jews in
Europe
and
America
. Interestingly enough, the Bund held its first meeting during the same year in which the Zionists held their first Congress.
1898(21stof Tishrei, 5659): Hoshanah Rabah
1898: Birthdate of Alfred Wallenstein, principle cellist for the Chicago Symphony from 1922 to 1929.
1901: Birthdate of Ralph Reichenthal who gained fame as composer and pianist Ralph Rainger.
1903(16th of Tishrei, 5664): Second Day of Sukkoth
1903(16th of Tishrei, 5664): German Born mathematician Rudolph Otto Sigismund Lispchitz passed away. Born in 1832, Lispschitz was a professor at the University of Bonn for almost forty years and the man who developed the mathematical paradigm known as the Lipschitz Continuity.
1906: The Sinai Temple congregation resolved to have Dr. Leon Messing, a native of Alabama, who was serving a congregation in Bloomington, commute to Champagne-Urbana every Sunday and on the high holidays.
1906: During his quest to get Cuban approval for the creation of a Jewish cemetery Manuel Hadida, Chairman of the United Hebrew Congregation (UHC) of Cuba, met with Rabbi Haim (Henry) Pereira Méndez, the spiritual leader of the Spanish-Portuguese synagogue, Shearith Israel, in New York. Hadida was looking to the United States to use its influence with the newly independent Cuba to move this project forward.
1909(22nd of Tishrei, 5670): Shemini Atzeret
1912: Lionel de Rothschild M.P. married Mlle. Marie Louise Beer in
Paris
this afternoon. Mlle. Beer is the daughter of French banker Edmond Beer and her sister married Baron Robert de Rothschild.
1912: Opening day of the “Becker-Rosenthal Murder Trial.” Herman Rosenthal was a Jewish gambler in New York who was allegedly gunned down by Harry Horowitz’s Lenox Avenue Gang. Becker was Charles Becker, a crooked cop, whom the District Attorney believed had ordered the murder.
1916: Birthdate of economist Walt Whitman Rostow. He and his brother Gene were architects of American policy under the Kennedy and Johnson administrations.
1917(21stof Tishrei, 5678): Hoshanah Rabah
1918:“A call for a final military effort on the battle field was published in the Vossiche Zeitung. Written by the Jewish industrialist Walther Rathenau, its aim was to give
Germany
the strongest possible position from which to negotiate a peace of equality rather than of defeat. ‘It is peace we want, not war --- but not a peace of surrender.’”
1918: Birthdate of Marcus Klingberg. Born in
Poland
, Klingberg took refuge from the Nazis in the
Soviet Union
where he graduated from
Medical
School
. After serving doctor with the Red Army during World War II, he moved to
Israel
in 1948. Eventually he would rise to a ranking position at the Israel Institute for Biological Research. In 1983 he was unmasked as leading agent for the
Soviet Union
.
1919: Birthdate of Sir Zelman Cowen 19th Governor-General of Australia and active leader of the
Melbourne
Jewish Community.
1924(9th of Tishrei, 5685): Erev Yom Kippur
1934(28th of Tishrei, 5695): Dutch painter Isaac Lazarus Israëls passed away. Painting must have been in his blood since he was the son of Jozef Israëls. For examples of his work see
http://www.rijksmuseum.nl/aria/aria_artists/00017044?lang=en
1935: A memorial service for Jacob H. Schiff, Jewish philanthropist, was held today in the original building of Congregation Ohab Zedek at 18 West 116th Street in Manhattan In 1906, Mr. Schiff had laid the cornerstone for this structure. A tribute by Morris Engelman, chairman of the congregation, included a plea for the establishment of a Schiff Memorial Fund that would aid Jewish social, educational and religious institutions throughout the world.
1936(21stof Tishrei, 5697): Hoshanah Rabah
1937: The Jerusalem Post reported that Bronislaw Huberman, the famous Jewish violinist and the founder of the Palestine Symphony Orchestra, was passenger on the Royal Dutch (
KLM
) plane which crashed in
Sumatra
. He escaped without serious injury.
1937: The Jerusalem Post reported that French troops stopped clashes between Arabs and Turks at
Antioch
.
1939: Birthdate of chemist Sir Harold Kroto, who co-discovered fullerene. Born Harold Krotoschiner, Kroto shared in the 1996 Nobel Prize for Chemistry. Kroto’s father was Jewish and he was raised as a Jew.
1938:
Germany
decreed that passports of Jews were to be marked with a J.
1939: Hitler appointed Himmler head of the R.K.F.D.V., an organization responsible for the deportation of Poles and Jews from Polish provinces.
1939: Birthdate of Joseph Shenker who was the only child of George and Isabel Schwartz Shenker. His father, an immigrant from
Russia
, owned a shoulder-pad factory; his mother was a bookkeeper. After graduating from Hunter College in 1962 with a bachelor’s degree in psychology, Dr. Shenker received his master’s degree in economics there in 1963. He received his doctorate in higher education administration from
Columbia
in 1969. By then he was an assistant to Albert H. Bowker, the chancellor of the
City
University
at the time. At the age of 29, Dr. Shenker became the youngest president of a college in the City University of New York system and one of the youngest in the nation, when he was appointed interim president of
Kingsborough
Community College
in
Brooklyn
in 1969. The next year, The New York Times described how he had tried to enter a building at Kingsborough where students were registering for a new term but was stopped by a security guard who thought he was a student trying to cut in line. It took a few phone calls to verify that the young man with sideburns was, in fact, the college’s acting president. Within a year, Dr. Shenker was named president of La Guardia, a newly created two-year college in an old factory in
Long Island
City
,
Queens
. Under his guidance, La Guardia became the only college in the city to require its full-time students to hold jobs that blended with courses in their fields of interest. The policy, which gave students college credit for the jobs, is still in effect. In his 18 years at La Guardia, Dr. Shenker saw the school’s enrollment grow to 16,000 full- and part-time students from 500; started a program for deaf adults; and opened an on-campus high school for students identified as potential dropouts. From 1988 until 1995, Dr. Shenker was president of the Bank Street College of Education in
New York
. In 1995, he became provost of C. W. Post. In his 13 years there, undergraduate enrollment rose to 5,400 from 4,450, spurred in part by an infusion of foreign students. Dr. Shenker oversaw more than $84 million in construction on campus. In August of 2008 La Guardia renamed its main campus building Joseph Shenker Hall. Dr. Shenker passed away in September of 2008.
1940: German troops move into
Romania
bringing with them the horrors of the Holocaust. As can be seen from negotiations surrounding the 19th century Treaty of Berlin, anti-Semitism was an established part of the Romanian landscape. The Romanians, led by the infamous Iron Cross killed tens of thousands of their Jewish neighbors. Estimates as to the actual number killed range from 280,000 to 380,000.
1940: The Vichy Government “swept away the Cremieux Decree of 1870; a law that granted French citizenship to the Jews of Algeria. This act of anti-Semitism would echo in the world of 21stAmerican politics when Virginia Republican Senator George Allen found out for the first time that his was an Algerian Jew; a refugee from the Holocaust who had never told her son of his Jewish ancestry for fear that someday the United States would turn on its Jewish citizens in the same that France had during World War II.
1941: At Rowne, Volhunia, the SS and local militia took over 17,000 Jews taken from their homes, marched them to open pits, and slaughtered them.
1943: German convoys deported Jews from
Morocco
to the concentration camps of
Europe
.
1943: Jewish partisans fighting in Lithuania destroyed fifty telegraph poles.
1943: One thousand Jews are deported from
Paris
to their deaths at
Auschwitz
.
1943: In an official report, the German chief of police in
Poland
recommends that Poles who aid Jews should be dealt with without benefit of trial.
1943: In a Yom Kippur radio message to Jewish service men, Vice President Henry A. Wallace said that "the names of those who have served in this war will be honored whether they belong to the so-called blue-bloods from Boston or Negroes from South Carolina…' We are not Jews or Gentiles, Whites or Blacks,' but people of the United States.”
1944(20thof Tishrei, 5705): Dutch banker Jacobus Henricus Kann who was a partner in Lissa & Kann and a co-founder of the Jewish Colonial Trust died today at Theresienstadt
1944: While the furnaces belched forth Jewish ashes, a group of Jewish members of the Auschwitz Sonderkommando revolted. They killed a number of their masters, destroyed one gas chamber/crematorium complex, damaged another, and - more than any other nation - stopped the slaughter of innocent Jews. One of the key participants in this little-known revolt was Rosa Robota, a young Jewish prisoner, who arranged to obtain the explosives, stored them, and turned them over to the Underground. Young Rosa and three other women prisoners were hanged for their complicity in this revolt a few days before the Germans abandoned the camp. She received the highest award from the Polish government, and is honored with a sculpture in Yad VaShem.
1944(20th of Tishrei, 5705): Today, the Sonderkommandos at Birkenau chose to revolt instead of being selected to be "sent away." Chaim Neuhof was the first to strike an SS guard. Then the rest of the Crematorium IV men surged forward with pick and axes against their guards despite the arrival of multiple machine gun units. After setting fire to the Crematorium, the SS machine-gunned all the men. Despite this Crematorium II Sonderkommandos and Russian prisoners followed their lead and joined in the fight. Many men from Crematorium
III
and V broke out through the fences. Almost all were caught and executed. [Editor’s note- this took place on the 6th of Sukkoth. You have to wonder why this event has been memorialized in the festival liturgy.]
1945: During a press conference in Rome two Republican Senators, Karl E. Mundt of South Dakota and Frances P. Bolton of Ohio expressed their opposition to a reported request from President Truman to the British government 100,000 Jews into Palestine be allowed to move to Palestine immediately.
1946: “The Jewish National Fund made a world-wide appeal today to Jews to contribute $20,000,000” during the upcoming Jewish year. Dr. Abraham Granowsky, chairman of the Board of Directors of the JNF said that funds contributed during the past year had made it possible for new settlements to be built in areas that extended the reach of the Yishuv.
1948: Just months after the state of Israel triumphantly declared its independence the town of Waltham, Mass. welcomed the nation's first non-sectarian, Jewish-sponsored University. Spanning a total of 100 acres, the original campus replaced the former Middlesex College. Prominent members of the American Jewish community, including Albert Einstein, founded the University in tribute to Louis D. Brandeis, who served on the U.S. Supreme Court from 1916 to 1939. The University initially comprised the School of General Studies, the School of Social Studies, the School of Humanities and the School of Science. First-years were to enroll in the School of General Studies and then choose a field of specialty. Heralded by its first president, Abram Sachar, the school’s first president said that the institution would follow those ideals of "academic integrity" and service, exemplified by its namesake.
1948: The Neutral Zone around Government House in Jerusalem was transferred to United Nations Truce Supervision Organization (UNTSO) protection.
1951: Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion presented his new government to the Knesset. The long drawn out process convinces Ben-Gurion that
Israel
needs to move from the multi-party system to a two-party system like the British use. But even Ben-Gurion cannot bring about this change. To this day, Israeli politics continue to chaotic due to its multiplicity of parties and shifting political alliances.
1952: The Jerusalem Post reported that Dov Shilansky tried to sabotage the reparations agreement with
Germany
by an attempt to bomb one of the Foreign Ministry buildings in
Jerusalem
's Hakirya. Emotions on this topic ran high on this topic. Many Jews felt that accepting money would somehow be a sign of forgiving the Germans. Others felt that it was “blood money” and it was tainted. Ultimately, a realistic view would prevail and
Israel
would use the money in a variety of ways designed to help the infant state survive.
1955: Beat poet Allen Ginsberg reads his poem "Howl" for the first time at a poetry reading in San Francisco
1956: The Israeli Cabinet expresses support for Ben Gurion’s decision to exercise restraint and not mount reprisal raids against Arab terrorists.
1966(23rdof Tishrei, 5727): Simchat Torah
1972: Birthdate of American screenwriter and film director Ben Younger who is responsible for a marvelous little film called “Boiler Room.”
1973: On the second day of the Yom Kippur War, 100 tanks arrived on Israel’s border with Syria. General Hofi, the Israeli commander on the Northern Front had requested the tanks before the fighting started. This meant that General Hofi had 170 tanks to use against 1,400 Syrian tanks. To understand the immensity of the threat faced by the Israelis, consider the following, in World War II the Nazis used 1400 tanks to invade the
Soviet Union
along a 1,000 mile front. The Syrians had 1,400 tanks to use along a forty mile front.
1973: Caught by surprise and badly outnumbered, Israeli troops cling to front in the Sinai. In twenty four hours the Israeli force of 290 tanks had been reduced by two thirds. Dayan visited the Sinai front and called for a withdrawal to the Sinai passes, which he thought would be a better line of defense. General Sharon arrived with a reinforcing division and wanted to advance to the east bank of the Canal. As the generals debated, the soldiers on the ground were fighting a series of bloody holding actions. Egyptian hand held missiles were negating the edge that the Air Force and armored units had previously given the IDF.
1973: A discussion took place at the Prime Minister's Office that centered on how to enlist American support at the United Nations and head off a cease-fire that would hurt Israel. Mrs. Meir suggested putting together a list of requests. Mrs. Meir rejected a suggesting that the Israelis should present U.S. secretary of state Henry Kissinger with a partial, distorted picture exaggerating Israel's poor situation to win the Nixon administration's support. Meir rejected the suggestion out of hand. "We should telegraph him the details; he should get the real picture," she said. "We can't play hide and seek with him." Minister Yisrael Galili asked in response, "Do we sell him the fact that we've moved out of the populated areas?" Mrs. Meir replied, "I don't object to us saying, there's also risk to populated areas ... I want to give him the real picture. I'm not under the impression the situation is doomed ... We should tell it to him convincingly. Tonight was a bad night."
1973:Word of the stunning success of the Israeli missile boats brought crowds down to the Haifa breakwater this morning to welcome the returning squadron. Barkai, the commanding officer, had decided that there would be no brooms tied to masts, the traditional symbol of a naval victory. Any flaunting of the victory over the Syrians, he said, "wouldn't be respectful to them or to ourselves."
1973: Gad Smooch landed safely after the Syrians had fired a SAM at his F-4E/
1973: Avikam Lif, Ami Elkelei, Shuki Wolfson, Avi Barber, and Zvi Afik were all taken prisoner when the F-4E Phantom Jets they were flying were shot down by Syrian Surface to Air Missiles (SAM)
1981(9th of Tishrei, 5742): Erev Yom Kippur
1981: As the Jews of Cedar Rapids chant Kol Nidre, Abbie Silber, daughter of Laurie and Dr. Robert Silber arrives in the world. It is an appropriate and auspicious choice of birthdates for a young woman who has gone to become a “Sweet Singer in Israel” and whose parents are pillars of the Jewish Community.
1981(9th of Tishrei, 5742): Novelist Albert Cohen passed away. Cohen is a study in the multi-nationalism of Jewish identity. Born in
Greece
in 1895, Cohen wrote his novels in French, and became a Swiss Citizen in 1919.
1981:
Egypt
's parliament named Vice President Hosni Mubarak to succeed the assassinated Anwar Sadat. Much to the consternation of those who plotted Sadat’s murder, Mubarak continued to honor the peace agreement with
Israel
.
1985(22nd of Tishrei, 5746): Shemini Atzeret
1985: Palestinian gunmen hijacked the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro in the
Mediterranean
with more than 400 people aboard. “Four men representing the Palestine Liberation Front (PLF) took control of the liner off Egypt while she was sailing from Alexandria to Port Said within Egypt. The hijackers had been surprised by a crew member and acted prematurely. Holding the passengers and crew hostage, they directed the vessel to sail to Tartus, Syria, and demanded the release of 50 Palestinians then in Israeli prisons. When refused permission to dock at Tartus, the hijackers shot one wheelchair-bound passenger – an American named Leon Klinghoffer – because he was Jewish, and threw his body overboard. The ship headed back towards Port Said, and after two days of negotiations the hijackers agreed to abandon the liner for safe conduct and were flown towards Tunisia aboard an Egyptian commercial airliner.
1988: Health Ministry officials began vaccinating all people under the age of 40 in Israel and the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip. The vaccination was in response to concerns about a possi