January 11 In History
347: Birthdate of Theodosius I the last emperor to rule both the western and eastern portion of the Roman Empire. As powerful as Theodosius may appeared to be, he was no match for the rising power of the Christian church leaders. When a bishop had incited a group of his followers to burn down a synagogue, Theodosius ordered the bishop to pay for re-building the Jewish house of worship. But Ambrose, the Bishop of Milan, overruled the Emperor contending, according to one source, that Christian money should not be used to pay for Jewish things.
1313: The Council of Zamora (Spain) made a ruling which was allegedly based on a ruling by Pope Clement V, in which he allowed the Christians to legally deny accruing any interest on loans from Jews.
1755: Birthdate of Alexander Hamilton, aide to General George Washington, ardent Federalist and the 1st United States Secretary of the Treasury. Hamilton was in Charleston, a city on Nevis, an island in the West Indies. He was the son of James A. Hamilton and Rachel Facucett Lavien. Although the facts are a little murky, it would appear that Hamilton’s mother was Jewish. She had left her husband, Johann Michael Lavien, a Jewish planter before she began her affair with Hamilton was a married man. Since Hamilton was born out of wedlock, he could not go to school at the school run by the Church of England. Instead he attended classes at a Jewish private school. If Hamilton’s mother was indeed Jewish and not just a woman married to a Jew, he would be Jewish according to Halachah. Hamilton never identified himself as a Jew and lived his life in New York as a Christian.
1775: Francis Salvador of South Carolina became the first Jew to be elected to a state legislature. An ardent patriot, Salvador lost his life and his hair while fighting the Cherokees who were allies of the British.
1787: William Herschel discovered the Uranian moons Titania and Oberon. Herschel’s ethnic origins are part of an oft told tale among Germans of this period. William Herschel was the son of German Jew named Isaac Herschel. Isaac married a Christian woman and the children, including William, were raised as Christians.
1799: A state of siege was declared in Jerusalem, as Napoleon approached Gaza and Jaffa.
1819: In Bridgetown, Barbados, Esther Hannah (Montefiore) Levi and Isaac gave birth to Jacob Isaac Levi Montefiore. His brothers were Edward Levi Montefiore and George Levi Montefiore. In 1835, he moved to Sydney, Australia, assumed his mother’s name and became a successful merchant and investment banker. He passed away at Norwood, London in 1885.
1849: Birthdate of Dr. Oskar Lassar, famed German dermatologist. He also developed a public bath house system designed to give improve the hygiene of the less fortunate.
1859: Birthdate of Lord George Nathaniel Curzon. Curzon was one of two members of the British Cabinet who were opposed to the Balfour Declaration; the other was a Jew, Edwin Samuel Monatgue. In the end, Curzon did vote to accept the declaration. In the 1920’s Curzon served as Foreign Secretary. He negotiated the agreement that resulted in Egypt gaining her independence. He also oversaw the division of the British Mandate in Palestine which resulted in the creation of the Kingdom of Jordan on the land east of Jordan River. Some Jewish leaders decried this as an illegal act. When partition was later proposed for the land west of the Jordan, many opposed it saying that Curzon’s earlier partition had already given the Arabs their state. For a time, Winston Churchill was one of those who made that argument.
1860: Two factions clashed today at a contentious meeting of the shareholders of the Great Eastern that took place today at the London Tavern in the UK. One faction was led by the Chairman, a man named Campbell. The other was led by Simon Magnus, a English Jew who had made his fortune in the coal industry.
1873: An article published today entitled “The Persecuted Hebrews” described efforts by the government of the United States to ameliorate the suffering of the Jews of Romania. Among other things the U.S. Ambassador in Vienna has enlisted the help of the Austrian government in an attempt to pressure the Prince of Romania to improve the conditions of the Jews living in Moldavia and Wallachia.
1888(27th of Tevet, 5648): Prominent Jewish businessman Jacob Magnus passed away. He was buried in Balls Pond Jewish Cemetery, Islington, Middlesex, England.
1890: It was reported today that during December, the Unite Hebrew Charities provided assistance to 3,578 people who belonged to 778 families in the amount of $3,381.50 while giving $210 to “87 transients.”
1890: It was reported today that Jacob Schiff has given ten thousand dollars “to Harvard University for the establishment of a museum for the study of the literature, history and remains of the Semitic people” (When Harvard decided to change its admission policies because it had too many Jews, it did not return the funds because it had too much Jewish money)
1891: The annual meeting of the patrons and members of the Hebrew Technical Institute will be held this morning at 10:30.
1891: It was reported today that many of the famous 19th century scholars “were very unhappy at school.” This included Heinrich Heine who according the “Reisebilder, “used to pray to a big crucifix ‘O Thou, Poor Deity, if it be possible grant that I may remember the irregular verbs.”
1892: It was reported today that Baron de Hirsch refused to accept payment from the North American Review for an article he had written for the July edition and had instructed the editor, Lloyd S. Price to send the check for $250 to the Hebrew Technical Institute.
1893: A large house and saloon belonging to David Sampson, a Jewish resident of Elizabeth, NJ, burned down today.
1893: Commissioner Adolph L. Sanger “was chosen President of the School Board” in New York today. A native of Baton Rouge, Sanger was a graduate of CCNY and Columbia and had served as President of the Young Men’s Hebrew Association.
1894: It was reported today that Henry Pereira Mendes, the rabbi at Shearith Israel who was shot two years ago by a Jew named Joseph Misrachee has been threatened by an unnamed “mendicant who boasted that he was “one of Mizrachee’s fellows.” The police take the threat so seriously that they have assigned detectives to find the man who made approached the rabbi.
1894: In Baltimore, Rabbi Tobias Schonfarber officiated at the marriage of Mrs. Ida McKenna and Jacob G. Schonfarber, the editor of The Journal of the Knights of Labor.
1895: As part of the Dreyfus Affair, Major Ferdinand Esterhazy faces a court-martial where he is confronted by Colonel Georges Picquart who offers indisputable evidence of Esterhazy’s guilt and Dreyfus’ innocence. As had happened previously when Picquart had presented his evidence to the deputy chief of staff, the court attacks Picquart and disregards his testimony.
1896: It was reported today that “the United Hebrew Trades and Halevy Singing Society” were among the organization who took part at ceremonies memorializing the late champion of Russian freedom Sergey Mikhaylovich Stepnyak-Kravchinsky
1896: Based on information that first appeared in the Philadelphia Ledger, it was reported today that Dr. Paul Haupt, a professor at Johns Hopkins University delivered a lecture “under the auspices of the Gratz College Trustees at Mickve Israel ” on the subject of “The Site of Paradise and the Babylonian Nimrod Epic.”
1897: It was reported today that during the 13 years of its existence the Hebrew Technical Institute in New York “has graduated 239 students” all of whom but five are still alive. Approximately 75% of the graduates are employed in some kind of “mechanical occupation” which consistent with the kind of training offered by the Institute. (More for 2014)
1898: It was reported that the late Rudolph Hertzog was unpopular with German Jews because he refused to employ his co-religionists in his dry goods stores.
1898: After overcoming considerable opposition because of his origins, Herman P. Faust, a converted Jew will be ordained as Presbyterian minister.
1899: It was reported today that in the deposition that had been cabled from Cayenne to Paris by Alfred Dreyfus, the convicted Captain denied that he had ever made a confession “to a Republican Guard or Gendarme’ including Captain Lebrun-Renault and Colonel du Paty de Calm. He has “always declared that his innocence would be proved in two or three years.
1899: It was reported today that “the Dreyfus affair has…entered one of its bitterest chapters” when Jules Quesnay de Beaurepaire, the President of the Court of Cassation (France’s court of final appeals) discredited his colleagues as having conspired with the Dreyfusards in making their upcoming decision on the Captain’s final appeal. He thought they were going to overturn the conviction, a move that he opposed as an “antidreyfusard” who sought to become leader of the French right wing.
1905 (5th of Shevat): Chasdic Rabbi Yehudah Aryeh Leib Alter passed away in Góra Kalwaria, Poland. He was born in Warsaw in 1847. When he was young his father died, so that when it came time to lead the Ger Hasidic dynasty, he was under-age and he refused the mantle of leadership for many years. Eventually his followers succeeded in gaining his assent for him to become their leader as Rebbe. Thus he succeeded his grandfather, Rabbi Yitzchak Meir Alter, as the second Rebbe of the Ger dynasty of Chasidic Judaism. He was a prodigious scholar and his work the Sfas Emes (or Sfat Emet) deals with the legalistic Talmud, the ethics of Midrash, and mysticism of the Zohar. During the Russo-Japanese War many of his young followers were drafted into the Russian Army and sent to the battlefields in Manchuria. Alter was very worried over these devotees and would constantly write to them. It began to be detrimental to his health. He was only 57 when he passed away. He was succeeded by his son Rabbi Avraham Mordechai Alter. Following the Holocaust, the Ger dynasty became a large movement in Israel.
1907: Birthdate of Pierre Mendes France French political leader who was Prime Minister of France during the Fourth Republic
1908: Birthdate of Lionel Jay Stander, the gravely voiced actor who had a career in movies, radio, television and theatre who was a victim of the infamous Blacklist. Younger viewers best remember him as the butler on the television hit “Hart to Hart.”
1912: Morris Hillquit debated fellow Socialist “Big Bill” Haywood at New York City’s Cooper Union. Haywood who had no qualms about violent action, claimed that Hilliquit had a betrayed the “class struggle” by helping the garment workers negotiate a contract with their employers.
1912: The Russian consul in New York City refuses to grant a visa to Jewish journalist Herman Bernstein.
1918: Birthdate of composer Albert Weisser.
1919: Romania’s Jewish population grew today when it annexed Transylvania. Romania promised that it would grant full emancipation to its Jewish population at the time of the annexation. The changes were met with opposition by the National Christian Defense League and riots by right-wing students.
1921: A month before assuming his responsibilities at the Colonial Office, Winston Churchill “was in Paris where he discussed” Middle East policy with French President Alexandre Millerand, “who criticized Britain’s support for a Jewish National Home.”
1921: Birthday of Judith Lieber, luxury handbag doyenne. She “was the first woman to become an apprentice and then master in the Hungarian handbag guild. She survived World War II in hiding and met her husband—an American soldier—on the streets of Budapest. A GI Bride, she moved to the United States and began working as a pattern maker and later foreman at a handbag company before launching her own company in 1963. Lieber's small firm quickly grew, and she soon opened a factory to produce her designs. Today, Lieber's handbags, still made in the United States by skilled artisans, are cherished by celebrities and collectors alike. In 1953, throngs of guests and reporters turned out to see the Judith Lieber bag carried by Maimie Eisenhower at her husband's inauguration; every first lady since Nancy Reagan has carried one. Although she retired from designing handbags in 1998, many of her most famous lines, including the classic beaded Chatelaine, are still in production. Her bags have been featured in numerous art exhibitions and are included in the collections of London's Victoria and Albert Museum, New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., among others.
1922: Insulin was first administered to a human patient with diabetes in Toronto, Canada. The study of the pancreas and the function of insulin took place over many decades and took the efforts of numerous scientists. As you would imagine some of these were Jewish. Two of these were Oscar Minkowski who played a key role in establishing the relationship between the pancreas and diabetes and Rosalyn Sussman Yalow who received the 1977 Nobel Prize in Medicine for the development of the radioimmunoassay for insulin.
1922: Birthdate of Lawrence Garfinkel, an epidemiologist with the American Cancer Society who helped design landmark studies that linked smoking to lung cancer. (As reported by Denise Grady)
1927: Birthdate of Gerald Gold, the Brooklyn native who as an editor for the New York Times “helped supervise the herculean task of combing through a secret 2.5-million-word Defense Department history of the Vietnam War, later known as the Pentagon Papers, to produce articles showing that officials had lied about the war…” (As reported by Douglas Martin)
1928: Birthdate of David Wolper “an award-winning movie and television producer best known for the groundbreaking mini-series Roots.”
1929: Birthdate of Rafael "Raful" Eitan, the native of Afula who became Chief of Staff of the IDF, an MK and Deputy Prime Minister of Israel.
1931: Governor Franklin Roosevelt and Mayor Jimmy Walker were among the dignitaries who expressed their sense of loss when informed that Nathan Straus had passed away today.
1933: In Hamburg, Germany, the Altona Confession was issued by area pastors. In light of the confusing political situation and the developing Nazi influence on the State Church, it offered Scriptural guidelines for those seeking lead a Christian life.
1935: Hakibbutz Hadati, the religious kibbutz movement was founded. Actually, the movement was styled after the moshav, which allowed for ownership of private property. It was affiliated with the HaPoel Ha Mizrachi movement the religious Zionist Labor Organization. Its idea was to combine religious life and labor in a communal agricultural settlement the first being Tirat Tzvi
1941(12th of Tevet, 5701): Seventy-two year old chess champion Emanuel Lasker passed away today in New York City
http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessplayer?pid=19149
http://www.chesscorner.com/worldchamps/lasker/lasker.htm
1942: The Nazis seized 1,500 Jews in Vienna and sent them by train to Riga.
1942: The Los Angeles Times reported that “Charles A. Levine, the ex-junk dealer who claimed the now-obscured fame of being the first trans-Atlantic airplane passenger in 1927, was jailed in New York on a Los Angeles indictment of conspiring to smuggle a German alien into the United States.”
1943: The Höfle Telegram was sent by SS-Sturmbannführer Hermann Höfle to SS-Obersturmbannführer Adolf Eichmann in Berlin listing 1,274,166 total arrivals to the four camps of Aktion Reinhard through the end of 1942, as well as the total arrivals by camp for the last two weeks of 1942.
1943: Birthdate of Steven Neil Posner, the Baltimore native “who with his father, Victor, was caught up in a major corporate raiding case that led to the convictions of Ivan F. Boesky and Michael R. Milken”
1944: “Rabbi Barnett R. Brickner said today that he had been particularly impressed by the good care taken of American soldiers in all the theatres he had visited, including India, the Persian Gulf and the Middle East…Rabbi Brickner is administrative chairman of the Committee examining religious activities on behalf of the military as well a member of the National Jewish Welfare Board.” Brickner shared with his religious counterparts “the task of making a survey of the morale” of America’s fighting men and women.
1944: The Nazis established the Crakow-Plaszow Concentration Camp.
1945: The deportations of Jews from Hungary to Austria have ended. In Budapest, 120,000 Jews await in protected housing for the arrival of the Red Army. Hungarian Fascist Nyilas thugs entered "protected" Jewish houses throughout Budapest, murdering dozens of residents. A gang of eight Nyilas enter one of the houses and kills 15 men, 26 women and one child. Another group surrounds the Jewish hospital, torturing and killing 95 patients.
1948: Maurice Fischer, the Jewish Agency Representative in Paris sent a telegram demanding that the negotiations with the French over allowing them to see secret British documents recently seized by the Haganah be held in Paris and not in Jerusalem.
1957:In Savannah, GA, an expanded structure designed to replace the original Mordecai Sheftall Memorial space was dedicated at Mickve Israel.
1961: The Egoz, a small boat leased by the Mossad to smuggle Jews from Morocco to Gibraltar, capsized. All forty-four of the olim drowned, half were children. After the Egoz disaster, the Jewish Agency and the Mossad worked with threatened Moroccan communities to rescue the children first. In Operation Mural, 530 Moroccan Jewish children were sent by their families on an ostensible holiday in Switzerland—and, from there, flown to Israel. (As reported by Diana Muir Appelbaum)
1965: Birthdate of Mark E. Halperin, American political analyst for Time magazine and Time.com. and the co-author of Game Change
1968(10th of Tevet, 5728): Assara B’Tevet
1968(10th of Tevet, 5728): Moshe Zvi Segal an eminent Israeli rabbi, linguist and Talmudic scholar passed away. Segal was born in Lithuania in 1876. In 1896, he moved with his family to Scotland and subsequently to London. He was ordained as a rabbi in 1902 and later obtained a degree from Oxford University. He emigrated to the then British Mandate of Palestine in 1926. In 1936 (jointly with Raphael Patai) and again in 1950, Segal was awarded the Bialik Prize for Jewish Thought. In 1954, he was awarded the Israel Prize, for Jewish studies.
1971: Israel's population reached 3,000,000.
1972: East Pakistan renames itself Bangladesh. East Pakistan had gained its independence from Pakistan as a result of war between India and Pakistan. “The major general who masterminded and spearheaded India’s offensive, and who accepted Pakistan’s surrender, was Jack Frederick Ralph Jacob, the scion of an old Jewish family from Calcutta.” There are no definite numbers available as to the size of the current Jewish population of Bangladesh due to a fear of persecution.
1977: Bollingen Prize is awarded to David Ignatow. David Ignatow was born in Brooklyn, and has lived most of his life in New York. He has published sixteen volumes of poetry and three prose collections. Included in these are Poems, The Gentle Weightlifter, Say Pardon, Figures of the Human, Earth Hard: Selected Poems, Rescue the Dead, Poems: 1934-1969, Facing the Tree, Selected Poems-1975, Tread the Dark, Whisper to the Earth, Leaving the Door Open, Shadowing the Ground, Despite the Plainness of the Day: Love Poems-1991, Against the Evidence, and I Have a Name. He has taught at Columbia, the New School for Social Research, the University of Kentucky, the University of Kansas, York College of the City University of New York, New York University, and Vassar College. At various times he has worked as an editor for the American Poetry Review and Beloit Poetry Journal. The National Institute of Arts and Letters has presented to Mr. Ignatow an award "for a lifetime of creative effort." His work has been recognized also with the Bollingen Prize, two Guggenheim fellowships, the Wallace Stevens fellowship from Yale University, the Rockefeller Foundation fellowship, the Poetry Society of America's Shelly Memorial Award, and an award from the National Endowment for the Arts. He is president emeritus of the Poetry Society of America and a member of the executive board of the Walt Whitman Birthplace Association. Ignatow passed away in 1997.
1977: France set off an international uproar by releasing Abu Daoud, a Palestinian suspected of involvement in the massacre of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics
1982: The New York Times includes a review of The Dean’s December. It is Saul Bellow’s ninth novel and his first since he won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1976.
1984: Religious women of many backgrounds gathered for a Women of Faith conference sponsored by the American Jewish Committee. (Jewish Women’s Archives)
1984: Birthdate of Oshri Cohen, the Israeli actor who starred in “Beaufort.”
1986: In an article published today famous chef Marian Buros described the delicatessen started by Arnold Reuben as “the quintessential New York restaurant" decorated with "Italian marble, gold-leaf ceiling, lots of walnut paneling and dark red leather seats.”
1987: The complexities of life in Israel will be the focus of a five-part film series starting today entitled ''A Lens on Israel: Society Through Its Cinema'' at the 92d Street Y. Sunday's film is ''Again, Forever'' and deals with political corruption during the 1977 elections. The guest speaker, who will lead a discussion after the who will lead a discussion after the 1984 film, is Yael Dayan, the daughter of Moshe Dayan and the author of ''My Father, His Daughter.''
1988: Israeli television reported tonight that a Palestinian was shot dead in the Khan Yunis refugee district in the Gaza Strip as he tried to grab a soldier's rifle. He was identified by the Palestine Press Service, an Arab-run news agency, as Mustafa Youssef Khadir, 20 years old.
1988(21st of Tevet, 5748): Isidor Isaac Rabi nuclear physicist passed away at the age of 89. He won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1944. According to Rabbi Fred Davidow, The Healer of Shattered Hearts: A Jewish View of God by David Wolpe contains the following story about Rabi. "The renowned physicist I. I. Rabi was once asked to name the most significant intellectual influence in his life. The interviewer expected to hear "Einstein" or perhaps "Newton." "My mother," Rabi replied instantly. For each day, he explained, when he would come home from cheder ..., his pious mother would say to him, 'So Isaac, did you ask any good questions today?' From her, said Rabi, he learned that the key to wisdom is to ask good questions."
1989: The High Court has overturned an Israeli military censor's ban for the first time, allowing the publication of criticism of the head of the Mossad intelligence agency. In its ruling today, the court said the Tel Aviv weekly Ha'ircould print an article questioning the competence of the Mossad chief, whose name is barred from publication.
1990: According to reporter Michael Wines, following the invasion of Panama, U.S. officials are still trying to understand the role Mike Harari, a 62-year-old retired agent of the Israeli intelligence service, Mossad, played under the role of General Noriega. “
1992: Paul Simon opens a tour in South Africa. This was his first appearance in South Africa after the boycott of the formerly white supremacist government had ended. Simon played a key role in bringing certain types of African music to Western audiences.
1993: Howard Stern's radio show begins transmitting to Buffalo NY (WKBW).
1997: On the third day of, the Red Sea International Music Festival, the festival returns to Eilat where the opera chorus performs an “a capella” concert at 11 A.M. At 9 P.M. attendees are treated to an orchestral concert entitled ''Romeo and Juliet in Music'' with the Berlioz symphony and the Prokofiev ballet suite.
1998: The New York Times featured a review of the paperback edition of Don’t Call It Night by Amos Oz; translated by Nicholas de Lange. “Not surprisingly, the author's latest novel is set in his native Israel, but it is not a landscape of political turmoil and terrorism that he surveys, but one of discordant domesticity between two middle-aged lovers.”
2001: As the attempt to control cell phone usage in such places as churches and restaurants heats up Gil Israeli, the chief executive of NetLine, located in Tel Aviv, is quoted as saying that a sign saying ''No Cell Phones'' does not go far enough. Mobile phones have become such a public nuisance, he said, that a technological fix is required. His solution is the C-Guard Cellular Firewall, a cell phone jammer developed by his company about two-and-a-half years ago.
2001: In the following letter-to the editor of the Wall Street Journal the leaders of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs take issue with a column by Ira Stoll that “attacks” Rabbi Yitz Greenberg and U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council.
On behalf of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs (JCPA), which represents 13 national and 123 local Jewish community relations and public affairs organizations throughout the United States, we want to express our dismay over Ira Stoll’s op-ed in the December 29 edition attacking Rabbi Yitz Greenberg. Any reasonable person who has read the full text of Rabbi Greenberg’s speech given last November at the United Jewish Communities’ General Assembly in Chicago -- which provided the selective quotes that formed the basis for Mr. Stoll’s attack -- will conclude that the op-ed is a blatant distortion of reality. Rather than accusing Israeli soldiers and policemen of using excessive force in responding to the recent Palestinian violence, Rabbi Greenberg, Chairman of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council, actually praises them for their restraint under extraordinarily difficult circumstances. He notes that in a small number of cases there may have been an overreaction and that Israeli officials are properly investigating them. Rabbi Greenberg, who has had a long and illustrious career supporting Israel and the Jewish people, was simply doing in this speech what he has been doing for decades -- providing our community with a thoughtful, loving analysis of the dilemmas Israel faces in exercising power in one of the world’s toughest neighborhoods. Mr. Stoll also unfairly attacks the Council that administers the Holocaust Museum. While no institution is beyond criticism, we believe that overall this important institution has done an outstanding job of educating Americans and its many visitors from abroad about the history of the Holocaust and current human rights concerns. We are confident that under Rabbi Greenberg’s inspired leadership the Museum will continue to serve this important function.
Sincerely,
Chairperson Leonard A. Cole,
Executive Vice Chairperson Hannah Rosenthal
2000: On his return from West Virginia, Prime Minister Ehud Barak tonight broke the silence that governed the closed-door negotiations with Syria to say that the peace talks had reached a ''decisive stage'' in which both sides would have to make difficult decisions. Speaking in a television interview, Mr. Barak said it was impossible to predict whether the round of talks that begins next week would be ''conclusive.'' He said that he had witnessed ''certain fissures in the Syrian rigidity'' but that he was not reading much into them.
2002: In an article entitled “When Jews Found a Place Among European Artists,” Grace Glueck provides a fascinating trip through the world of Jewish art as she reviews an exhibition at the New York’s Jewish museum, ''The Emergence of Jewish Artists in 19th-Century Europe''
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/11/arts/art-review-when-jews-found-a-place-among-european-artists.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm
2004: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Battle For Rome The Germans, the Allies, the Partisans, and the Pope, September 1943-June 1944by Robert Katz (author of Black Sabbath, a Holocaust study of the deportation of the Jews of Rome) and The Doctor’s Plague: Germs, Childbed Fever, and the Strange Story of Ignac Semmelweis by Sherwin B. Nuland.
2004: Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of Israel said today that he saw no risk that Palestinians could undermine Israel's Jewish identity by gaining a demographic majority, dismissing a reason pressed by some members of his Likud faction for a swift exit from some of the occupied territories. ''I don't see any demographic danger,'' Mr. Sharon said. Speaking at a news conference with foreign correspondents here, Mr. Sharon also said Israel is willing to resume peace negotiations with Syria, provided that Syria halted all support for terrorism and droppped any conditions of its own for talks
2005:While delivering a speech opposing the disengagement plan from Gaza, Effi Eitam called Prime Minister Sharon a “refuser of democracy.”
2006: The New York Times described the struggle of F Line Bagels to remain open despite attempts by the MTA to stop the owners from selling what has been a traditionally New York Jewish delight in an atmosphere that resembles a sanitized version of a subway station.
2006: Senator Barak Obama visits a remote Israeli town with Chicago ties. Illinois Senator Barack Obama flew to areas along the northern border with Lebanon today. Obama's first Middle East visit took him to a small village that is well-wired to Chicago. Israel may be a Jewish state, but more than a million people who live there are non-Jews, most of them Christian. But the Christian population in Israel is rapidly declining. That exodus has attracted the attention of the Chicago Catholic Archdiocese and the Chicago Jewish Federation. Israel's loss of its Christian minority attracted the attention of Senator Obama. Three hours from Jerusalem, as far north in Israel as possible, just before Lebanon, this is the town of Fassouta, and this is where the village worships. All 3,000 residents of Fassouta are Israeli, Palestinian and Catholic. The Catholic pastor for this entire village in upper Galilee welcomed visiting Illinois Senator Barack Obama, who is traveling with leaders of Chicago's Jewish community. Fassouta is a living example of interfaith good will in action, an overseas extend-a-hand. A computer lab is part of a literacy project funded by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago and the Jewish Federation of Metro Chicago. "This community center had been built not long before that, but it's empty. Ours was the first project that went into it, and it became a draw for the other things that are now functioning in here. Children's ballet classes, chess classes," said Linda Epstein, Chicago Jewish Federation. Senator Obama may be the first member of congress ever in Fassouta, and a grateful mayor and village leaders proudly gave him a look around. A prominent Northwestern and Tel Aviv University professor says his visit sends an important signal. "Israel has a minority of 20 percent non-Jewish Arab minority, And the visit of the senator to this village is an acknowledgment that there is this minority that needs to be acknowledged and seen," said Elie Rekhess, Northwestern University. But the real winners are the young people of Fassouta, who for the first time have new computers and are wired to the world. Many villages along the northern Israel border have a more troubling distinction. They are easy targets of Hezbollah terrorists just over the border in Lebanon. For years Lebanese militant groups perched just north of Israel have opened fire on Israeli border towns. Most recently, on December 22, the village of Kiryat Shmona was hit by Hezbollah rockets. ABC7 news flew with Illinois Senator Barack Obama in an Israeli army Blackhawk helicopter to the border zone. The news crew flew over Israel's most vulnerable border areas,the narrowest part of the country between the West Bank and the Mediterranean Sea, over Arab villages in the Galilee and then on to the Lebanese border region that recently came under attack. It also visited one of the Israeli homes that was hit by Katyusha rockets in the overnight barrage that killed 14. The family that lives in the house was asleep when the terrorist missiles hit. They survived but their home is badly damaged and their lives shaken. "I thought it was a gas tank that had exploded, because it smelled like fire. We couldn't come out of the room because this room was all filled with shrapnel," said Kiryat Shmona, Israeli. Israeli military officials mapped out for Illinois' junior senator how Hezbollah terrorists unsuccessfully tried to kidnap Israeli soldiers during the attack. They offered information to Obama that the militant militia group is going unchallenged by Lebanese leaders and United Nations commanders, hoping Obama and the US will press Lebanon to stop the border assaults. The Palestinian problem has recently received far more attention than the Lebanese border stand-off with Hezbollah. With the country now preoccupied by the recent stroke of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and upcoming elections, military commanders on the ground in northern Israel are concerned that the rocket attacks will get worse.
2006: The Nation published Elizabeth Holtzman's essay calling for the impeachment of U.S. President George W. Bush for authorizing "the wiretapping of hundreds, possibly thousands, of Americans, in violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act."
2007: The free newspaper Israeli which is poised on the brink of closure published its last edition. Israeli is a Hebrew language daily with a press run of 150,000 copies that is handed out free at such locations as bus and train stations, as well as malls and other business centers.
2007: Ruth Dayan was awarded the Partner of Peace Award by the Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam community, a cooperative village of Jews and Arabs mid-way between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv
2007: The Baltimore Jewish community bade farewell to Morton “Sonny” Plant at his funeral held at Chizuk Amuno Congregation.
2008: Today's edition of the Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles published a detailed report about The Spinka Financial Controversy alongside a number of subsidiary articles.
2008: In New York City, the 92nd Street “Y” presents “Desert Soul Music” featuring Matt Turk and Basya Schechter, the founder of the neo-Chasidic world music band Pharaoh’s Daughter..
2009: In Irvine, CA, Volley Ball Team USA trys out as part of the 18th Maccabiah Games.
2009: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Letters of Allen Ginsberg, edited by Bill Morgan, The Selected Letters of Allen Ginsberg and Gary Snyder edited by Bill Morgan and The Journey by H.G. Adler.
2009: The Washington Post featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Sashenka, Simon Montefiore's first novel and With Wings Like Eagles by Michael Korda.
2009: A pro-Israel rally was held at Lincolnwood Jewish Congregation this afternoon to respond to the spate of hate crimes and support Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip. The synagogue's rabbi, Joel Lehrfield, called the perpetrators of the hate crime "cowardly thugs who support Hamas." "We're more worried about Israel than we are about ourselves," Lehrfield said. Jewish United Fund of Metropolitan Chicago executive vice president Michael Kotzin said it was ironic that he was on a solidarity mission in southern Israel when he heard about the attacks back home. "I wouldn't say that we're in the front lines in Chicago like here, but there are people who are hostile to and hate Jews here and there, and we have to address it," Kotzin said. "It's important that law enforcement takes it seriously. But we won't be frightened or intimidated, just like the people of Israel. Their behavior strengthens us."
2009: Israel's "Waltz with Bashir" won the Golden Globe for best foreign language film.The victory solidifies its front-runner status to win Israel's first Oscar at the Academy Awards next month.
2009: Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd delivered a moving eulogy today at the military funeral of a Jewish soldier killed by the Taliban in Afghanistan. At the request of the slain soldier's family, donning a yarmulke, Rudd delivered a euology, telling almost 2,000 mourners at Melbourne's Lyndhurst Jewish Cemetery that Pvt. Gregory Sher's death was not in vain.,"He believed not just in the service of which he was a proud member, but also in the ideals to which Australia was committed in the fight against terrorism," Rudd said. Sher, a 30-year-old South African-born soldier, was killed Jan. 4 in a rocket attack on a military compound southwest of Kabul. Dozens of dignitaries followed Rabbi Philip Heilbrunn from the makeshift marquee to the grave site, including opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull, Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard, Defense Minister Joel Fitzgibbon, members of the military's top brass and Israeli Ambassador Yuval Rotem. They were joined by dozens of soldiers and war veterans. Private Sher's casket, draped in the Australian flag, arrived at the burial site in a gun-carriage escorted by members of Australia's elite forces and an honor guard from his own company. A volley of gun shots was fired before Sher's coffin was buried. The prime minister joined the Sher family and other mourners in shoveling earth into the grave. Sher is the eighth Australian soldier, and the first of the country's reservists, killed in Afghanistan since Australia sent forces to aid the United States-led coalition against the Taliban and al-Qaida in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. He is believed to be Australia's first Jewish military casualty at least since the Vietnam War. Fitzgibbon, the defense minister, told local media that Sher was "an Australian hero.""He understood the risks but willingly did what his country asked of him," Fitzgibbon said. Michael Danby, a Jewish parliamentarian in Rudd's government, told JTA he had never seen a funeral like it before. "There will probably never be a funeral like that ever again, where not just parents but the prime minister, leader of the opposition and three generals helped bury Greg Sher," he said.