November 15 In History
1215: Pope Innocent III opened the convocation of the Fourth Lateran Council, considered the most important council of the Middle Ages. By its conclusion it issued seventy reformatory decrees. Among other things, it encouraged creating schools and holding clergy to a higher standard than the laity. It also forbade clergymen to participate in the practice of the judicial ordeal, effectively banning its use. At the Fourth Lateran Council, Innocent III and his prelates legislated against subordination of Christians to Jews. Canon 69 forbade "that Jews be given preferment in public office since this offers them the pretext to vent their wrath against the Christians."
1316: Birthdate of King John I of France who lived for only five days. He was the son of Louis X who readmitted the Jews to France. He was succeeded by his uncle Philip V, who according to some may have played a role in the death of the infant monarch. Regardless, Philip followed the policies initiated by Louis that among other things, protected them from the enmity of the clergy.
1380: Charles VI ascends the French throne: He told a mob that he would relieve some of the taxes but not expel the Jews. Screaming "Aux Juifs" they plundered and murdered in the Jewish quarter for four days. Some Jews took refuge in the royal prison. Hughes Abriot, the Provost, obtained an order for restitution of all property and the return of all infants forcibly baptized. Because of this, he was accused of converting to Judaism and sent to jail for a year in penance.
1492: Six Spanish Jews and five Spanish Conversos were accused of using black magic
1515: Thomas Cardinal Wolsey is invested as a Cardinal. A year before getting his “red hat” Wolsey had been named Bishop of Lincoln. This is the same town of Lincoln which had been home to one of the five most important Jewish communities in England, well established before it was officially noted in 1154. In 1190, anti-Semitic riots that started in Lynn, Norfolk, spread to Lincoln; the Jewish community took refuge with royal officials, but their habitations were plundered. The so-called "House of Aaron" has a two-storey street frontage that is essentially 12th century and a nearby "Jew's House" likewise bears witness to the Jewish population. In 1255, the affair called “The Libel of Lincoln” in which prominent Jews of Lincoln accused of the ritual murder of a Christian boy ("Little Saint Hugh of Lincoln" in medieval folklore) were sent to the Tower of London and 18 were executed. The Jews were expelled en masse in 1290.
1658: “Alexander VII., in bull "Ad ea per quæ," orders Roman Jews to pay rent even for unoccupied houses in ghetto, because Jews would not hire houses from which Jews had been evicted” (As reported by the Jewish Encyclopedia)
1660: Asser Levy was licensed as the first kosher butcher in New York City. From such humble beginnings came such great institutions as the Second Avenue Deli of blessed memory
1688 (28th of Cheshvan): Rabbi Zev Wolf, author of Nahlat Binyamin, passed away
1727(2nd of Kislev): The General Assembly of New York passed an act permitting Jews to omit the phrase “upon the faith of a Christian” from the oath of abjuration.
1771: Orders were given to ban auto-de-fe's from taking place in public, and to ban the production of lists of persons who would be sentenced.
1790: The Jews of Hungary organized a celebration marking the coronation of King Leopold II. The celebration was held in anticipation of the expectation that the new king would approve the decision of the Diet to grant them citizens.
1791: Georgetown University, America’s first Catholic college opens its doors. Georgetown has followed the trend at a number Catholic colleges and universities in offering programs in Jewish studies. Today Georgetown offers approximately 35 courses in its Jewish Studies Program and offers a Major in Jewish studies. About 650 of its 6000 undergraduates are Jewish. Approximately 1,000 of the schools 6,000 grad students are Jewish.
1796: At the age of 16, “Daniel Meijer took the lawyer's oath, becoming the first Jewish lawyer and one of the youngest lawyers in the history of the Netherlands”
1802: A delegation of German Jews came to Ratisbon where the German princes were trying to create the government that would replace the now defunct Holy Roman Empire and today presented a petition asking for "passive citizenship." The petition, which probably originated with the Jews of Frankfort, requested freedom to live any place they desired and to pursue a wide variety of occupations and trades. At this time, Jews in many part of the empire had been classified as "serfs" regardless of the economic level.
1816: Birthdate of Isidor Kalisch, the German born Rabbi who became the spiritual lead of the Tifireth Israel congregation in Cleveland, Ohio in 1850.
1817: Birthdate of James Koppel Gutheim, the native of Münster, Germany who came to the United States in 1843 and became a prominent American rabbi. He served in that capacity in several southern towns and cities including Temple Beth El in San Antonio Congregation Shangarai Chasset of New Orleans
.1829: Birthdate of Benjamin Szold, the Hungarian born American scholar who began serving as the Rabbi for Temple Oheb Shalom in Baltimore, Maryland. He was the father of Henrietta Szold, the founder of Hadassah.
1832(22nd of Cheshvan): Hannah Adams, early American author of a book on Jewish history, passed away
1840: Birthdate of Jacob Furth, an Austrian native who became a prominent banker and businessman in Seattle, Washington where he was a member of Ohaveth Sholum, the city’s first synagogue.
1851: Herman Melville’s novel, Moby Dick, was published. Relax; Melville was not Jewish. But this large literary work is another example of the impact that Jewish Civilization has had on Western and/or World Civilization. From “Call me Ishmael,” to Captain Ahab, to the great white whale, there could have been no Moby Dick without the Bible. More to the point, Melville knew that his readers were so conversant in this aspect of Jewish culture that they would understand his references. Just as an aside for those who were forced to read this novel by some English teacher, the book was deemed a flop when it first came out.
1854: Said Pacha, the Viceroy of Egypt gave a French company headed by Ferdinand de Lesseps the concession to dig the Suez Canal, which would link the Mediterranean Sea with the Red Sea. The canal would create a short, all-water route from Great Britain to its most valued possession, India. Defense of the Canal became one of the keystones of British foreign policy for the next hundred. This British obsession would play a key role in the development of the Jewish homeland in Eretz Israel. Sometimes the effect was positive; more often than not, it was negative.
1855: The 34th anniversary of the Hebrew Benevolent Society was celebrated tonight at the Chinese Asssembly Rooms in New York City. The event, which was attended by 250 to 300 people rasied $4,000. During his address, the society’s president reported that they had provided assistance to 1,600 applicants which had depleted the organization’s treasury of its $4,500 in receipts.
1856: “Tonight, a German Jew named Isaac Morris was arrested at West Hoboken by Officer Stephen H. Manly, of Baltimore, and Deputy-Sheriff Robins of Hudson County, on the charge of obtaining goods by false pretences. He was apprehended upon the authority of a requisition from the Governor of Maryland.”
1858: An article published today entitled “The Mortara Casa” reported that Jews of New York are planning on holding a meeting to protest the “recent abduction of the child Mortara and the extraordinary pretensions of the Pope in regard to such cases. It will be remembered that the Catholic nurse of the infant had it baptized without the knowledge of its parents, who were Jews; and that the child was then taken away and committed to the care of priests.” The Pope and local authorities refused to return the child who had “thus ‘miraculously’ snatched from the hands of unbelievers. It is natural that Jews should the lead in demonstrations against such pretensions, inasmuch as they are thus far the principal suffers from them. But all persons not Catholic are, or may be equally interested in” joining the protest. “It is not possible to conceive of any greater outrage upon private rights than is embodied in these extraordinary claims, and unless the whole matter should be hushed up, and the principle on which it rests quietly abandoned, it should receive the attention of the government as well as the people of every country holding relation with the Roman states.
1863(4th of Kislev, 5624): Barnett Abrahams passed away. Born at Warsaw in 1831, he moved to England in 1839.. Following a rigorous education program that included study with Rabbi Nathan Marcus Adler, he started serving as the rabbi at Bevis Marks in 1851 and was serving at the Principal of Jew’s College at the time of his death.
1873: Rabbi Raphael D.C. Lewin delivered a sermon on the subject of “Judaism” in the new synagogue at 63rd & Lexington in New York City.
1874: A service was held to honor the memory of Rabbi Abraham Geiger, of blessed memory, who had passed away in October of 1874.
1879: Rabbi De Sola Menes will deliver the first in a series of lectures on the history of Jewish literature at the Young Men’s Hebrew Association this evening. The lectures which begin at 8:30 are free and open to the public.
1881: One hundred sixty Jewish refugees from Russia arrived in New York today aboard the SS Bohemia. The Alliance Israel Universelle helped pay for their passage
1881: The Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions of the United States and Canada, which would become The American Federation of Labor (
AFL
) was founded in Pittsburgh. Samuel Gompers, a Jewish immigrant from London, was the first President. In fact, with the exception of one year, he served in that capacity until his death in 1924. Unlike more militant leaders of the labor movement, Gompers believed in the capitalist system and rejected the concept of class struggle. As a member of the working class (he was a cigar maker by trade) Gompers was no naïve fool. He and his union fought for the concept of collective bargaining, binding written contracts and a ban on injunctions aimed against working men and women. When asked what the American worker wanted Gompers replied, “More!” During World War I, Gompers showed that the American labor movement could be patriotic when he and the
AFL
supported Wilson in the “word to end all wars.” Gompers philosophy was simple. “Reward your friends and punish your enemies.”
1882: Birthdate of Felix Frankfurter. Born in Vienna, educated at CCNY and Harvard Law School, the young, legally brilliant Frankfurter became the protégé of the very powerful Henry L. Stimson. He began a twenty-five year career as a professor at Harvard Law School in 1914. But Frankfurter was no cloistered Ivy tower egghead. He was a confidant of Woodrow Wilson and, among other things attended the Versailles Peace Conference. As a Zionist, like Brandeis, Frankfurter worked to promote the cause of the Jewish homeland in Palestine. In the 1920’s and 1930’s the liberal Frankfurter was an advisor to and supporter of, Al Smith and FDR. Several of Frankfurter’s former students were part of the FDR’s Brain Trust or held important positions in several regulatory agencies created by the New Deal. FDR appointed Frankfurter to the Supreme Court in 1939, making him the third Jew to hold such a position since 1916. He retired from the court in 1962 after suffering a stroke. Frankfurter’s tenure on the court was a disappointment to many of his political allies and colleagues. They had expected him to be a liberal. However, Frankfurter believed in judicial restraint which meant he gave great credence to federal and/or state legislative actions. He looked to the legislative branch to correct social ills. The pre-court liberal turned into a High Court conservative. He passed away in 1962.
1883: It was reported today that Annie Zeiss is claiming that she was betrothed to Morris Dampsky according to Jewish custom which is the basis for her suit that she has brought against him for breach of contract (marriage). While sitting in jail, Dampsky is wondering if a secular court will accept a religious observance as binding under civil law.
1884: It was reported today that an unnamed Jewish cattle dealer had tried to sell seventeen diseased cows to several farmers between Jamaica and Foster’s Meadow.
1886: In state Supreme Court, Judge Andrews heard a case that will determine whether or not $50,000 that was originally part of the estate of the late Sampson Simpson will go the North American Relief So city for the Indignant Jews of Jerusalem or two his surviving relatives.
1886: It was reported today that Jacob H. Schiff has given $10,000 to a project designed to establish a free library which will be “called the Aguilar Free Library Society” and which will be open to “people of all religions and nationalities.”
1886: It was reported today that Judge M.S. Isaacs and Uriah Herrman addressed a reception given in honor of Mrs. Julius Hammerslough, Mrs. Simon Steinberger, Mrs. Solomon Loeb and Mrs. Louis Levy, members of the Hebrew Free School Association’s Board of Directors who have just returned from a trip to Europe.
1886: It was reported today that the Hebrew Free School Association is currently industrial education to 2,500 youngsters. The service is only available to youngsters who are enrolled in the public system.
1889: Emperor Pedro II is deposed and Brazil is declared a republic. At the time, Brazil had a small community of Sephardic, mostly Moroccan, Jews. One group established a synagogue in Belem in the northern part of the country while another built a synagogue on the banks of the Amazon River. A decade after becoming a republic, experimental agricultural were established that provide a haven for Jews fleeing the violence of Czarist Russia.
1895: Birthdate of Polish poet and writer Antoni Słonimski, a Roman Catholic whose great-grand father was Abraham Sztern the Jewish inventor who “made important contributions to the construction of mechanical calculators.”
1895: Birthdate of Yisrael Idelson, the Ukrainian native who made Aliyah in 1926. As Yisrael Bar-Yedhuda he was an MK, Minister of Internal Affairs and Minister of Transportation
1895: Herzl began a two week visit to Paris and London designed to meet and gain support from the leaders of these two Jewish communities In Paris he conducted negotiations with Narcisse Leven, Chief Rabbi Zadoc Kahn among others. None of these leaders took the assimilated Viennese journalist seriously
1896: The National Council of Jewish Women opens its first national convention at Tuxedo Hall in New York City. Founded at the conclusion of the Jewish Women’s Congress held at Chicago’s World Columbian Exposition in November 1893, the National Council of Jewish Women was the first national open-membership organization for American Jewish women. Addressed by the leaders of the nation’s leading women’s organizations and numerous prominent rabbis, it was clear that the Council was helping to establish the legitimacy of Jewish women’s presence on a public stage. The convention received extensive coverage in the New York Times and other papers. With the NCJW's creation in 1893, local sections around the country began focusing on diverse activities ranging from Bible study to education for children to active philanthropy in the interest of immigrant women and children. Representatives at the first convention summarized these achievements, established a clear institutional structure, and sought to offer guidance to local sections. Conflict emerged during the 1896 convention in relation to the Jewish character of the Council. Hannah Solomon of Chicago presided over the meetings, but some members objected to her advocacy of Sunday as the Jewish Sabbath. Solomon memorably responded “I consecrate every day in the week.” As the New York Times reported, “Pandemonium reigned for five minutes, and then Mrs. Solomon was re-elected.” In its first few decades, NCJW transcended religious divisions by focusing especially on aid to newly arrived Jewish immigrants. In sections across the country, NCJW provided an early training ground for Jewish women leaders and a forum for Jewish women’s concerns within and outside the Jewish community.
1897: Birthdate of Aneurin Bevan the British Foreign Minister in the Labor Government of Clement Atlee. Much to the dismay of Zionist leaders, the Laborite government elected in 1945 opposed the creation of the Jewish state. Displaying that uniquely understated form of British anti-Semitism, when talking about the plight of Jewish Displaced Persons, said that the Jews were always “pushing their way to the head of the cue” instead of patiently waiting their turn.
1898: Section two of the Constitution of the Union of Judæo-German Congregations commits the organization to providing funds for several purposes including training for teachers and cantors, for pensions for “aged officials” and their families and for providing aid to released convicts.
1917(30th of Cheshvan, 5678): Rosh Chodesh Kislev
1917(30th of Cheshvan, 5678): Sociologist Emile Durkheim passed away.
1917: Birthdate of Bernard Bellush, the Bronnx native who became a Professor of History at City College of New York.
1917: As British forces continued their successful campaign in Palestine, ANZAC forces occupied Ramleh and Lydda.
1917: It was officially announced today that British forces under General Allenby had taken the junction point of the Beersheba to Damascus Railway with the Jerusalem line after fighting that resulted in heavy Turkish losses.
1921: Benjamin Schlesinger , the President of the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union laid the cornerstone for the union’s new headquarters building on West 16th Street in NYC.
1925: Birthdate of Russian author Yuli Daniel
1926: The National Broadcasting Company, part of Robert Sarnoff’s “RCA Empire” debuted with a radio network of 24 stations.
1929: Birthdate of actor Ed Asner.
1935: The German Churches begin to collaborate with the Nazis by supplying records to the government indicating who is a Christian and who is not; that is, who is a Jew.
1936: Birthdate of Wolf Biermann, a Jewish communist German singer-songwriter who survived the bombing of Hamburg in 1943. His father had been murdered as a Jew and communist in a concentration camp.
1936: Israel Rokach begins serving as Mayor of Tel Aviv.
1937: The Habima Players of Tel Aviv “who have just ended a successful season at the Paris Exhibition open a season at the Savoy Theater” today in “their second appearance in Britain. They will open with ‘The Dybbuk,’ probably their finest as well as their most popular production. The plays all will be performed in Hebrew, but the realism of their acting surmounts to a large degree the barrier of language.” During the course of the season Habima will also be performing “Uriel Acosta,” “The Wandering Jew,” and “The Goldem’s Dream.”
1937: Birthdate of actor Yaphet Kotto, Both of Yaphet Kotto parents are African Jews from Cameroon.. In an interview he said being fully Black and Jewish gave others even more reason to pick on him growing up in New York City. However, to this day, he remains a devout, practicing Jew. Yaphet Kotto is a regular on TV's, Homicide: Life on the Streets playing the role of Lt. Al Giardello
1937: Haaretz and Davar, two of the leading Jewish dailies in Palestine, “publish strong editorials “condemning recent acts of violence by Jews brought on by the last two years of Arab attacks. The two papers called on “Jews to ‘take revenge’ only through constructive activities.”
1938: Jewish students were barred from German schools
1938: In Saxony, eleven year old Zeev Raphael was expelled from the Hans-Schemm-Schule.
1938: Captain Archibald Henry Maule Ramsay, the British anti-Semitic Nazi sympathizing politician attended a luncheon at the German Embassy in London where he met with other Englishmen who sympathized with Hitler.
1938: In the wake of the bloody pogroms of Kristallnacht, United States President Franklin Delano Roosevelt withdraws the United States ambassador from Germany;
1939: The Nazis began the mass murder of Warsaw Jews. The war had started on September 1, 1939. After only two and a half months, the War Against the Jews was in full swing. This is one more fact that puts the lie to those revisionists who contend that genocide was not an essential part of the Nazi program from its very outset.
1939: The anti-Semitic Fideikommissariat(Estate commission) is established to "Aryanize" Jewish-owned businesses in Occupied Poland.
1940: The Nazis officially declared the Warsaw ghetto to be in existence as workers began to build walls to encircle district
1942: The Soviet-based Jewish Antifascist Committee releases a report, "The Liquidation of the Jews in Warsaw."
1942: In an action led by Mayer List, two Jewish women partisans in Paris place two time bombs at a Nazi barracks window, which will kill several soldiers.
1942: In his diary, Rudolf Rederlin described the scene at Belze after a train was unloaded. The men were stripped naked and sent directly to the gas chambers, the women brought to the barracks to have their head shaven. Then they went to the chambers. The head of the Judenrat was ordered to stay behind and beaten to near death as an orchestra played on. Then the man was shot in the head and pushed into the bundle of gassed Jews.
1942: Birthdate of pianist and conductor Daniel Barenboim.
1942: Birthdate of Devra G. Kleiman, “a conservation biologist who reintroduced into the wild the tiny endangered monkey known as the golden lion tamarin, and who learned so much about the lives of giant pandas that scientists could later help them reproduce in captivity”
1943: In describing Leonard Bernstein's first performance as conductor of the New York Philharmonic which occurred last night, The New York Times editorial remarked, "It's a good American success story. The warm, friendly triumph of it filled Carnegie Hall and spread far over the air waves."
1943: German SS leader Heinrich Himmler orders that Gypsies are to be put "on the same level as Jews and placed in concentration camps".
1943(17th of Cheshvan, 5704): Salo Landau, a Galician born Dutch Chess Champion was probably murdered today at Auschwitz.
1944: The deportations of Hungarian Jews living in Budapest continued In the meantime the authorities establish an ‘international ghetto' consisting of dozens of buildings that housed Jews technically under the protection of the Swiss Legation. This rescue operation was engineered by Carl Lutz, a Swiss official representing Great Britain’s interests in Hungary. Lutz’s rescue work mirrored that of the other, more famous, hero of Hungarian Jewry, Raoul Wallenberg.
1945: Today is a day of prayer and fasting to protest British foreign minister Ernest Bevin's actions.
1945: A complete curfew is declared at noon in Tel Aviv, Palestine by the British government. Any one (this means Jews) carrying a weapon may be punished by execution.
1945: In Haifa, Palestine, Zionist sailors serving in the British navy protest.
1945: Forty people who were part of the staff of the concentration at Dachau go on trial. The trial would last until December 14, 1945 resulted in thirty seven of the accused being sentenced to death.
1947: The British foreign office denies that Britain plans to take over financial surplus in Palestine treasury to pay for costs of evacuation and fighting illegal Jewish immigration.
1948: Moshe Shertok declares that Israel will fight before it gives up Negev.
1948: Israel announces its peace conditions: (1) Jewish control of modern Jerusalem corridor to remainder of Israel; (2) no Arab use of Haifa port or Lydda airport except under Israeli terms; (3) retention of Western Galilee as long as area is needed for Israel's defense; and (4) no readmission of Arab refugees to Israel until peace is established. Israel also requests UN admission.
1948: Salah el-Kuntar, leader of Druse tribesmen's National Army, says Druses want their 4,000-square-mile area shifted from Syria to Israel. Druses helped drive Syrian troops out of Upper Galilee.
1952: The Bugs Bunny Cartoon Rabbit's Kin featuring the voice of Mel Blanc is released in theaters throughout the United States.
1953: The 17th annual meeting of the United Israel Appeal which had been meeting in Chicago for the last two days came to an end. “In response to Prime Minster David Ben-Gurion’s plea for aide, the delegates pledged to carry out a program, apart from fund-raising. Of borrowing a minimum of $75,000,000 for a period of five years ‘in order to refund Israel’s short-term obligations which were incurred as a result of the unprecedented immigration policy.’”
1960: The Israeli Cabinet appointed a planning unit “to examine the possibility of” establishing a “settlement in the northeastern Negev desert and the Arad area.”
1953: Alexander Wiley, the Republican Senator from Wisconsin and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee clashed with Guy Gillette, the Democratic Senator from Iowa and the senior member of the committee over the issue of U.S. support for Israel. Gillette took issue with the Eisenhower administration’s policy in the Middle East which he described as appeasing the Arab states by kicking Israel in public.
1955(30th of Cheshvan, 5716): Rosh Chodesh Kislev
1963(28th of Cheshvan, 5724): Symphony conductor Fritz Reiner passed away. Born in Hungary in 1888, Reiner trained as both a lawyer and a musician. After a successful career in Europe, he moved to the United States in 1922 where he served as conductor for several symphony orchestras. He was the conductor of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at the time of his death at the age of 74
1966(2nd of Kislev, 5727): William Zorach a Jewish Lithuanian-born American sculptor, painter, printmaker, and writer who won the Logan Medal of the arts passed away.
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=FA0915FF355C14738DDDA90A94D9415B868AF1D3
1967: Birthdate of actress Lisa Bonet. The daughter of a Jewish mother and a black father, Lisa Bonet first found fame in the mid-80s on The Cosby Show as Denise, one of the four daughters of Bill Cosby’s character Cliff Huxtable.
1968: Birthdate of Dr. Michael Levin
1973: Egypt and Israel exchange prisoners of war following the Yom Kippur War.
1979: The B'er Chayim Temple (Well of Life, a metaphor in which Torah is likened to water) in Cumberland, Allegany County, Maryland was added to the National Register of Historic Places Properties in Allegany County: Maryland Historical Trust; 2008-10-06. The Temple was built in 1866 for the local Jewish congregation. Originally Orthodox, it is now Reform. It is one of the oldest congregations in Maryland and its 1865 building is one of the oldest synagogue buildings in the United States.
1981: A revival of Lerner and Lowe’s “Camelot" opens at Winter Garden Theater in New York City for 48 performances
1984: After over two decades of building a reputation as a passionate and generous member of the Jewish community through her activism and volunteer work, Baltimorean Shoshana Cardin was elected as the first woman president of the Council of Jewish Federations.
1986: The
SEC
fined Ivan F. Boesky $100 million for insider stock trading. Boesky was, and is, one of many Jews who have been involved in white collar crime stretching from the junk bond debacle to the collapse of Enron. To paraphrase a character in a Faye Kellerman novel, God must have known that Jews were capable of theft. Why else would He have commanded the Jews not to steal?
1987: After 1,761 performances over four years, “La Cage aux Folles” with music and lyrics by Jerry Herman came to a close.
1988: An independent State of Palestine is proclaimed by the Palestinian National Council.
1989: Aaron Sorkin's "Few Good Men," premiered in New York City. Born in 1961, the Scarsdale native wrote this successful court-martial melodrama without ever serving in the military or attending law school. He showed his versatility when he wrote the hit romantic comedy, American President.
1997: William Shatner weds Norine Kidd.
1997(15th of Cheshvan, 5758): Saul Chaplin passed away. Born Saul Kapan in 1912, this leading American composer and musical director lists of hits include the scores for American in Paris, West Side Story and Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. He collaborated with Sammy Cahn on that unique musical creation "Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen” apopular song, the title meaning "to me you are beautiful." According to at least one show biz legend, the original verson of the song was written for a Yiddish musical in 1932. In 1937 Cahn and Chaplin heard two African American singers perform it at the Apollo Theatre in Harlem. Impressed with the audience response, they bought the rights to the song, reworked it, and the rest is musical history.
1998: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or about topics of Jewish interest including The Hidden Book In The Bible Restored, translated and introduced by Richard Elliott Friedman, Truth Comes In Blows: A Memoir by Ted Solotaroff, There Once Was A World: A Nine-Hundred-Year Chronicle of the Shtetl of Eishyshok by Yaffa Eliach, Flora’s Suitcase by Dalia Rabinovich and Seasons of Her Life: A Biography of Madeleine Korbel Albright by Ann Blackman.
1999: Irwin Cotler began serving as a Member of the Canadian Parliament for Mount Royal.
2000: U.S. Senator-elect Hillary Rodham Clinton “delivered an emotional eulogy for Leah Rabin” today in Jerusalem.
2002: In the following letter-to-the editor published in the New York Times, Martin Peretz, Editor in Chief, “The New Republic,” comes to the defense of Daniel Jonah Goldhagen,
In a vast documentation of the culpability of the Roman Catholic Church in the Nazi genocide of the Jews, the archdiocese of Munich has caught Daniel Jonah Goldhagen, the author of ''A Moral Reckoning,'' in one tiny mistake. It has gone to court to get an injunction against the sale of the book, reviving the index of what it does not want people to read. Mr. Goldhagen misidentified a cleric marching at a Nazi rally in a photograph included in his text. Relying on the authority of a responsible scholarly archive, he indicated that the priest was Cardinal Michael Faulhaber. It wasn't. Still, several incidents involving the cardinal, cited in the book and not challenged by anyone, are devastating. They support the author's argument that the church was not a passive witness to the Holocaust but an active collaborator in it. And who was the mysterious father in the photograph? Alas, the papal nuncio, Cesare Orsenigo, the personal diplomatic representative of Pius XI.
2003(20th of Cheshvan, 5764): Laurence Tisch, former
CEO
of CBS passed away.
2003(20th of Cheshvan, 5764): The first day of the 2003 Istanbul Bombings, in which two car bombs, targeting two synagogues, explode, killing 25 people and wounding about 300.
2005: Two years to the day after his brother passed away, Preston Robert Tisch, owner of Lowes Hotel and the New York Giants, passed away.
2005: When an Israir charter flight takes off this morning for Tunis it will be historic not only because it is the maiden trip of an Israeli airline to the North African Arab country. More significantly, it will be carrying Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom a man who left Tunisia, his place of birth, at the age of one and is now returning for the first time as his adopted country’s foreign minister. Shalom is traveling to Tunisia to attend the UN World Summit on the Information.
2006: “The Jewish Eye-World Jewish film Festival” opened at Be’er Sheva. The festival featured the first showing of Director Ramin Farahani’s Jews of Iran.
2006: Jack Abramoff began serving his term in the minimum security prison camp of Federal Correctional Institution, Cumberland, Maryland, as inmate number 27593-112.
2007: A children’s book entitled Germ Stories by the late Dr. Arthur Kornberg appears in bookstores.
2007: In Jerusalem, as part of the International Oud Festival, Muhammad Abu Ajaj presents Bedouin music and songs from the Negev.
2007: The
MFA
in Creative Writing Program at George Washington University hosts an evening with four writers participating in the University of Iowa's International Writing Program including Alex Epstein, a fiction writer from Israel.
2008: In Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Curtis David Litow, son of Kathy and Charlie Litow, is called to the Torah as a Bar Mitzvah.
2008: The Ninth Annual Rutgers New Jersey Jewish Film Festival presents “Jellyfish.”
2009: The Jewish Historical Society of Greater Washington holds its 49thannual meeting.
2009: The groups Adas Reads and Brunch & Learn present a reading and discussion with New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman, author of "From Beirut to Jerusalem" and, most recently, "Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution--and How It Can Renew America," and Washington Post reporter Laura Blumenfeld, author of "Revenge: A Story of Hope," at the Adas Israel Congregation, the only Conservative Synagogue located in the Distric of Columbia. The writers will discuss the influence of revenge on international affairs
2009: The 40th Annual Book Festival sponsored by the JCC of Greater Washington and The 4th annual Jewish Book Festival sponsored by The Jewish Community Center of Northern Virginia come to an end.
2009: AJHS, CJH, and YUM sponsor an International Conference entitled “Genocide and Human Experience: Raphael Lemkin's Thought and Vision.”
2009: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Humbling by Philip Roth and the recently released paperback editions of Reborn: Journals and Notebooks, 1947-1963 by Susan Sontag; edited by David Rieff and My Father’s Paradise: A Son’s Search for His Family’s Past by Ariel Sabar whose “father was the last bar mitzvah boy in a Kurdish town where Jews had lived for nearly 3,000 years. Soon thereafter, most of Kurdistan’s Jews left for Israel, taking with them their ancient language, Aramaic, Jesus’ tongue. The elder Sabar, reduced to manual labor in Israel, spent his time obsessively cataloging his dying language. Sabar’s book is a biography of his father but also ‘part history, linguistics primer and memoir.’”
2009: The Washington Post features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including America’s Prophet: Moses and the American Story by Bruce Feiler and SUPERFREAKONOMICS: Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes and Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner
2009: In Crown Heights Chabad's the 25th annual International Conference of Shluchim comes to a close. The “lamplighters” like the renowned Rabbi Pinchas Ciment of Little Rock, AR, return to the life-long labor of drawing their fellow Jews to warmth of Torah and the love of Ha-shem.
2010: Internationally acclaimed photographer, videographer and filmmaker Shirin Neshat and best-selling author Angella Nazarian are scheduled to present a program entitled The Jewish-Iranian Immigrant Experience: At the Threshold of Two Worlds at the 92nd Street Y.
2011: Julie Salamon, author of “Wendy & the Lost Boys,” Myla Goldberg, author of “The False Friend,” and William Cohan, author of “Money & Power” are scheduled to speak at the St. Louis Jewish Book Festival.
2011: “The Little Traitor” a film based on a novel by Amos Oz is scheduled to be shown at the Jewish Eye World Film Festival.
2011: Recent bouts of violence along Israel's border with the Gaza Strip are leading toward significant and offensive military action in the coastal enclave, Israel Defense Forces chief Benny Gantz said today, adding that there was still a chance for a flare-up of West Bank violence over the Palestinian statehood bid at the United Nations.
2011: About 100 senior doctors submitted their resignation today, in an apparent escalation of the residents' struggle against a National Labor Court decision to cancel their previous collective protest resignation.
2012: “The Art of Spiegelman” which provides a look at the world and studio of Art Spieglman, the creator of Maus, is scheduled to be shown at the UK Jewish Film Festival.
2012: World Music from Poland is scheduled to meet Spanish Flamenco when Kroke Trio and Amir-John Haddad perform at the International Jerusalem Oud Festival.
2012: The Canadian Folk Music Awards is scheduled to open today in New Brunswick. “Songs for the Breathing Walls,” a collection of mainly Jewish liturgical pieces recorded by Lenka Lichtenberg in 12 Czech Synagogues has been nominated for two awards at the festival. (As reported by Renee Ghert-Zand)
2012: Final day for submitting entries to the Agudas Achim Poetry Contest. The poems are each intended to memorialize the congregation’s former home on East Washington Street in Iowa City.
2012(1st of Kislev, 5773): Rosh Chodesh Kislev
2012(1st of Kislev): According to Rabbi Judah, the start of the winter season in Israel
