January 18 In History
532: In Constantinople the Nika riots come to an end with Justinian still holding the office of Emperor. Senators opposed to Justinian took advantage of these riots, which had grown out of a dispute over chariot competition, to try and bring an end to Justinian’s imperial rule. Justinian was ready to flee the city and effectively give up his power. However, his wife refused to leave and give him the courage to stay and defeat the mob and his enemies. History does not record the views held by Justinian’s opponents concerning the Jewish people and Judaism. But it does not seem possible that the Jews could have been any worse off if they had won given Justinian’s anti-Jewish policies. For example, “Justinian ruled that ‘Jews must never enjoy the furits of office, but only its pains and penalties…They shall enjoy no honors. Their status shall reflect the baseness which in their souls they have elected and desired.’” Justinian firmly established the principle of servitus Jadaeorum (servitude of the Jews) and “the hitherto uneven pattern of persecution was systematized” as Christianity and state power became synonymous.
749: According to Michael the Syrian, several ships were sunk off the coast of Palestine and Lebanon as the result of an earthquake.
1562: The Council of Trent reconvenes after a ten year break. The Council of Trent adopted additional books for inclusion in the Old Testament. This meant that the TaNaCh (the Hebrew Bible, or simply The Bible) and Old Testament of the Christian Bible were no longer the same texts. A discussion of the implications of this change is far beyond the scope of this daily summary.
1606: The Governor of Puerto Rico reported one-fifth of the white population of the island was Portuguese. It was said these "white" Portuguese persons were most likely conversos.
1777 (10th of Shevat, 5537): Rabbi Shalom Sharabi, known by his name's acronym, the RaShaSH, passed away. He was born in
Yemen
, and as a young man immigrated to
Israel
. He was quickly recognized for his piety and scholarship, especially in the area of Jewish mysticism, and was appointed to be dean of the famed Kabalistic learning center in the Old City of Jerusalem, the Yeshivat ha-Mekubbalim. He authored many works, mostly based on the teachings of the great kabbalist, Rabbi Isaac Luria, the Ari. Rabbi Sharabi's most famous work is a commentary on the prayer book, replete with kabalistic meditations. His mystical works are studied by Kabbalists to this very day. He is also considered to be a foremost authority on Yemenite Jewish traditions and customs.
1782: Birthdate of American political leader, statesmen and orator Daniel Webster. In 1850, Webster was Secretary of State under President Fillmore. He and his political opponent Senator Henry Clay joined forces to defeat a treaty with the Swiss that would have discriminated against American Jews. The issue was one of religious freedom, and not an attempt to protect American Jews since the American government was working to remove disabilities faced by Protestant Americans doing business with Catholic countries.
1788: Leading elements of the First Fleet carrying 736 convicts from England to Australia arrives at Botany Bay. According to Dr Raymond Apple, Emeritus Rabbi of The Great Synagogue in Sydney, “When New South Wales was founded as a penal colony in 1788; among the 751 First Fleet convicts were at least 16 Jews.”
1824: In
Cincinnati
,
Ohio
, Congregation B'ne Israel was formally organized; those in attendance were Solomon Buckingham, David I. Johnson, Joseph Jonas, Samuel Jonas, Jonas Levy, Morris Moses, Phineas Moses, Simeon Moses, Solomon Moses, and Morris Symonds.
1851(15th of Se'vat, 5611): Tu B'Shevat
1851: In Cayuga County, NY, Judge Johnson sentenced John Baham to be hung by the neck until dead. Baham was one of three brothers charged with the murder of Nathan Adler, a Jewish peddler from Syracuse.
1851: Alfred Baham, one of three brothers charged with the murder of Nathan Adler entered a plea of guilty to Manslaughter in the Second Degree and was sentenced to serve 5 years and 3 months in state prison. Baham’s plea followed the trials of his two brothers, both of whom were senteneced to death for the same crime.
1854(18th of Tevet, 5614): Judah Touro, the great American Jewish philanthropist passed away. Born in 1775 in
Newport
,
Rhode Island
, Touro moved
New Orleans
at the time of the
Louisiana Purchase
. He became a prosperous merchant and leading citizen. He fought with
Jackson
’s Army in the famed Battle of New Orleans where he was seriously wounded. “Touro contributed to numerous Jewish and non-Jewish charities. Touro helped found congregation Nefuzoth Yehuda in
New Orleans
, which followed the Sephardic rituals of his youth. He subsequently built its synagogue and began to attend services regularly, provided the land and funds for its religious school, bought land for its cemetery and annually made up for any deficits incurred. He also founded the city's Jewish hospital, the Touro Infirmary. In the last year of his life, Touro wrote a will which set the standard of American Jewish philanthropy. After modest bequests to family members and friends, Touro donated the bulk of his fortune to strengthen Jewish life. He left $100,000 to the two leading Jewish congregations and Jewish benevolent organizations in
New Orleans
. Another $150,000 went to Jewish congregations and charitable institutions in 18 other cities around the
United States
. He directed that $60,000 be dispensed to relieve poverty and provide freedom of worship to Jews in
Palestine
. He also left bequests to non-Jewish institutions such as
Massachusetts General
Hospital
, which his brother had helped found.”
http://www.jewish-american-society-for-historic-preservation.org/images/Judah_Touro_-PDF.pdf
1861: Birthdate of German chemist Hans Goldschmidt.
1871: As the Franco-Prussian war comes to an end with the Germans defeating the French, King Wilhelm of Prussia becomes Wilhelm I of Germany as he is proclaimed the first German Emperor in the 'Hall of Mirrors' of the Palace of Versailles. The empire was known as The Second Reich to the Germans. The real power behind the German throne was Otto von Bismarck who engineered the full emancipation of the Jews two years earlier in 1869. Life for Jews in the empire would be a mixed bag with the rise in anti-Semitism paralleling their involvement in all facets of commerce and culture. The creation of the Second Reich is tied directly to the events that led to World War that led to World War II.
1894: An unknown thief stole the book which was the primary source for the upcoming lecture to be delivered by Professor Knapp of Barnard at the Hebrew Institute in New York.
1894: Dr. Joseph Krauskopf , leading rabbi from Philadelphia, is scheduled to deliver a lecture tonight entitled “Only A Jew” at Ahwath Chesed.
1894: The United Hebrew Charities is one of the organizations that will share in the proceeds from a fund raising concert to be held this afternoon at the Metropolitan Opera House.
1895: It was reported today that charitable institutions in New York City, including those supported by the Jews, believe that the new rules for the disbursement of funds are “too restrictive.”
1895: It was reported today that Dr. Michael L. Rodkinson has been soliciting funds and assistance for creating the first English language translation of the Talmud. (Editor’s note – Rodkinson was a Russian born American publisher who lived between 1845 and 1904. He did accomplish his goal of creating an English-Hebrew Talmud as well as the printing other works in English, Hebrew and Yiddish.)
1897(15thof Shevat, 5657): Tu B’Shevat
1898: As anti-Semitic mobs roam the streets of France during the Drefyus Affair, it was reported that “the events of the past few days are beginning to produce a feeling of panic in Jewish circles. Both the business and private houses of the Rothschilds and other wealthy Jews are guarded by special detectives and gendarmes…”
1898: The funeral for Solomon Latz was held at his home on 49th Street in New York City.
1898: It was reported today that a crowd of 3,000 people demonstrated in front of the Army Club in Marseilles expressing their support for the army and denouncing Zola and Dreyfus.
1898: It was reported today that Oscar S. Straus was so overcome with grief during his father's funeral that he fainted as his coffin was being taken from Temple Beth-El for burial at the cemetery.
1899: John T. O’Brien came to the offices of the United Hebrew Charities claiming to be an unemployed veteran. He was sent to the Elite Hotel on 7th Avenue where he was to be employed as a porter.
1899: The sixteenth annual ball of the Hebrew Orphan Asylum Society of Brooklyn took places tonight at the Academy of Music.
1903(19th of Tevet, 5663): Sir Joseph Sebag-Montefiore passed away today in London. Born in 1822 to Solomon Sebag and Sarah, eldest sister of Sir Moses Montefiore he succeeded to the estate of his maternal uncle and he assumed the name of Montefiore by royal license. He was one of the leading members of the London Stock Exchange, on which he amassed a large fortune. He was a justice of the peace for Kent and the Cinque Ports and lieutenant of the city of London; and in 1889 he served as high sheriff for Kent. He was for many years a leading member of the Spanish-Portuguese congregation and was president of the elders of that body. In 1895 he became president of the Board of Deputies, after having been vice-president for many years; and in 1896 he was appointed by the King of Italy Italian consul general in London. He was knighted in 1896
1903: Birthdate of Berthold Goldschmidt. Born in
Germany
, Goldschmidt was enjoying a successful career until the Nazis came to power. At that point, he was forced to flee to
Britain
where he resumed his career. Oddly enough, he is identified as a “German opera composer” even though the Germans would have sent him to a concentration camp if he had stayed in the Fatherland.
1904: Herzl spends the day in Venice before continuing on to Rome via Florence. He described the day as "a blue Monday" which, in the evening found him choosing to dine at Bauer's Austrian Beer House so that he could the Englishmen at the Grand Hotel.
1904(1st of Shevat, 5664): Rosh Chodesh Shevat
1908(15th of Shevat, 5668): Tu B'Shevat
1908: Samuel Clemens whose pen-name is Mark Twin and Supreme Court Justice Greenbaum will address the annual meeting of the Hebrew Technical School for girls this morning at 15th Street and Second Avenue in New York. Clemens only daughter married a Jewish composer and orchestra conductor.
1908: Birthdate of Jacob Bronowsky. The famed mathematician and cultural historian created the widely acclaimed television series “The Ascent of Man” in which he said while standing at
Auschwitz
: “It is said that science will dehumanize people and turn them into numbers. That is false, tragically false. Look for yourself. This is the concentration camp and crematorium at
Auschwitz
. This is where people were turned into numbers. Into this pond were flushed the ashes of some four million people. And that was not done by gas. It was done by arrogance. It was done by dogma. It was done by ignorance."
1909: It was reported today that Dr. D.C. Potter, chief of the Department of Finance in the Charitable Institutions Divisions of NYC, had told supporters of the Hebrew Infant Asylum that there was a pressing need for funds to carry out the work of the institution and to build a new home for the city’s Jewish orphans. Work on this building at 192nd Street and Kingsbridge Road has already begun.
1909: The Executive Board of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations will meet this afternoon at the Mercantile Club in Philadelphia.
1909: Members of the Executive Board of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations and their female invitees will meet for dinner at 6:30 in Philadelphia followed by a resumption of the business meeting begun earlier in the afternoon.
1912: The Jewish Chronicle published a letter from author and Zionist leader Max Nordau in which he condemns President Taft’s role in “the abrogation of the Russo-American Treaty.” Nordau ended his denunciation by writing, “The situation for the Jews in Russia will be worse than before and the anti-Semites in America will make the American Jews pay heavily for their manful stand—that’s all.”
1912: President Taft received a delegation representing the American Association of Foreign Language Newspapers led by Louis N. Hammerling. Mr. Taft said he favored admission of desirable immigrants, but immigration laws should be strictly enforced. The issue of immigration is especially sensitive for American Jews. Attempts to limit immigration from eastern and southern
Europe
were seen, in part, as an attempt to keep Jews from
Russia
,
Romania
and
Poland
from entering the
United States
. The term “desirable immigrants” was often used as a code to describe those coming from
Western Europe
and
Scandinavia
. To add to the complexity of the issue, Jews of Germanic origins were concerned about the influx of Jews from Eastern Europe. They were afraid that this onslaught of what they considered “the great unwashed” would bring on a wave of anti-Semitism in the
United States
.
1913: Birthdate of David Daniel Kaminski. Kaminski became Danny Kay, the Brooklyn born comedian, actor and singer starred in several movies and his own television variety program. But he was proudest of being the driving force behind UNICEF.
1913: Nathan Straus set sail for Palestine accompanied by two Hadassah nurses - Rachel Kaplan and Rose Landy. Hadassah had raised $2,500 to cover the salaries of the nurses for two years. Strauss paid their travel expenses and agreed to fund a new clinic in Jerusalem.
1914: Bernard A. Rosenblatt, the Honorary Secretary of the Federation of American Zionists, issued a reply to the charges of Dr. Paul Nathan of Berlin that some of the Zionists in Palestine were “stirring up discord.” Mr. Rosenblatt issued a statement in which he traced the growth of the Jewish settlement in Palestine over the last three decades; a growth that has been so successful that the Zionist movement has attracted the support of such important as Louis Brandeis and Nathan Strauss. He then reviewed the creation of a Jewish Institute of Technology at Haifa; a project in which Dr. Nathan said he wanted to be an active participant and which has funded by the Jewish National Fund and Zionist throughout the world. Now, seven years after the project had begun, Mr. Rosenblatt claims that Dr. Nathan held a clandestine meeting of the Board of Trustees that was attended only by his German supporters during which the attendees voted to make German and not Hebrew, the language of instruction at the Institute. Mr. Rosenblatt said that American Zionists would support the actions of Jewish students and teachers designed to make Hebrew the language of the school as had been previously agreed. He expressed nothing but scorn for his German counterparts who are determined to put a Germanic stamp on the efforts to develop a home for Jews from all over the world, regardless of their place of national origin.
1914: Joseph Charlack, Secretary of the Poultry Workers’ Union, whose members are now on strike for higher wages and a shorter workday and of the Kosher Butchers’ Union, whose members have gone on strike in sympathy with the poultrymen, announced this evening that the rabbis who kill chickens for kosher consumption have voted to go on strike. He said that this was decided up at a meeting of the representatives of 900 rabbis in the house of Chief Rabbi Margulies on East Broadway.
1916: Herbert Samuel, 1st Viscount Samuel, completed his service as Postmaster-General in the Cabinet of Prime Minister Asquith.
1917: Birthdate of English theatrical and film producer, Oscar Lewenstein. The son of Russian immigrants, Lowenstein passed away at the age of 80. For more about him read his autobiography, Kinking Against the Pricks.
1919: The Paris Peace Conference opened in
Versailles
,
France
. Among other things, negotiations at the conference would result in the creation of a mandatory government for Palestine that incorporated the Balfour Declaration and was controlled by the British. Jews serving in the American delegation pushed for guarantees of full rights of citizenship for their co-religionist living in the new countries that would be established by the Big Four.
1919: Among those present at Paris when the conference began was Joseph Barondess, who was a member of the delegation sent by the American Jewish Congress.
1922: Birthdate of Yehezkiel Braun. “From the age of two Yehezkel Braun was brought up in
Israel
, in close contact with Jewish and East-Mediterranean traditional music. The influence of this background is clearly felt in his compositions. He is a graduate of the Israel Academy of Music and holds a Master's degree in Classical Studies from
Tel
Aviv
University
. In 1975 he studied Gregorian chant with Dom Jean Claire at the Benedictine monastery of Solesmes in
France
. His main academic interests are traditional Jewish melodies and Gregorian chant. He lectured on these and other subjects, at universities and congresses in
England
,
France
, the
United States
and
Germany
. Yehezkel Braun is Professor Emeritus at
Tel
Aviv
University
.”
1925: Birthdate of Solomon Yurick, the Manhattan native was “best-known for the 1965 novel The Warriors (As reported by William Yardley)
1929: Fifty-two year old Sophie Irene Loeb passed away
http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/loeb-sophie-irene-simon
1929:"New York Daily Mirror" columnist Walter Winchell made his radio début.
1929: Stalin proposed to ban Leon Trotsky from the Politburo. Trotsky was the apostate who turned his back on Judaism to worship Marx and serve as Lenin’s Joshua.
1930: A delegation of Americans living in Tel Aviv, headed by Nathan Kaplan, an attorney who had moved to Palestine from Chicago, met with Paul Knabenshue, the American Counsel General, in an attempt to get him to help break the impasse that has turned Tel Aviv into a “meatless city.” The British government has resisted all efforts to establish a facility for the slaughter of animals in Tel Aviv. The British have told butchers in Tel Aviv to return to Jaffa where they can practice their trade. In Jaffa, the Jewish butchers work in an area that is surrounded by Arabs and the Jews were not able to get meat during the Arab riots that began in August of 1929.
1931: Dr. Judah L. Magnes, Dean of the Hebrew University, presided over the memorial service held this evening at the Straus Health Center in honor Nathan Straus, of blessed memory. Meir Dezingoff, Mayor of Tel Aviv and Dr. David Yellin of the Vaad Leumi addressed the large throng praising Straus for his “philanthropic and social contributions to Palestine.” The establishment of the first soup kitchen in Jerusalem and the construction of a health center in Hedera were cited as two examples of his generosity. During the eulogy, Dr. Magnes revealed for the first time, that Straus had purchased land in the Talpioth section of Jerusalem as a site for a university.
1935: Birthdate of Gad Yaacobi, the native of Kfar Vitkin who served as an MK and held several ministerial portfolios.
1941: The Royal Air Force Middle East Command issued a communiqué today reporting that Italian planes had attacked British airfields near Tel Aviv.
1941: Herman Kruk, who had been active in Yiddish cultural activities in
Warsaw
and Vilna, recoiled from efforts to stage cultural activities in the ghetto stating, “You don’t make theatre in a graveyard.”
1942: The Nazis arrested Frans Goedhart and Wiardi Beckman, both of whom were journalists who took part in the resistance movement after the German conquest of the Netherlands. Tragically, in a manner of the fate of Anne Frank, Beckman died of typhus in Dachau, on March 15, 1945 when the war was almost over.
1942: After two weeks of constant burial duty of thousands of gassed Jews at Chelmno, Yakov Grojanowski escapes. His diary tells of cruelty, murders, tragedy and suicides. His two weeks were only 14 days of the last 44 days of continual murder via gas-trucks.
1943: A train from Belgium arrives at Auschwitz; 387 men and 81 women are sent to the barracks while 1,558 people were sent to the gas chamber.
1943: In
Warsaw
, after 4 months of no transports, the Germans enter the ghetto and begin deportation again to Treblinka. In rounding up people, the Germans went through the homes killing people, throwing them out of windows, and looting whatever they could. 5,000 Jews were rounded up, including 150 doctors. One, Dr. Izrael Milejkowski, commits suicide during the train ride.
1943: Jewish deportees from
Belgium
arrive at
Auschwitz
, where 1087 are gassed.
1943: After a four-month break, Germans resume deportations from the Warsaw Ghetto. Warsaw Jews react with their first acts of overt resistance, expressed in brutal street fighting. 1000 Jews are executed in the streets and 6000 are deported to the Treblinka death camp. An elderly, blind Jewish man is shot by an SS man because he is unable to walk without a guide.
1943: The Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto began their armed resistance to the Nazis which would culminate in April of 1943 with the famous Warsaw Ghetto.
1943: Nobel-prize winning Polish émigré poet Czeslaw Milosz--a righteous Christian--condemns anti-Semitism and nationalism as "ills that like cancer were consuming
Poland
." In his poem, "Campo dei Fiori," Milosz laments from
Warsaw
in 1943--and he's being literal, not figurative--that the carousel's carnival tunes and the laughing crowds in the Catholic area of
Warsaw
drown out the sounds of the Germans shooting Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto.
1943: The Second Senate of the Reich Military Tribunal sentenced Lian Berkowitz and Friedrich Rehmer, along with 16 other people from the Red Orchestra, to death today for abetting a conspiracy to commit high treason and furthering the enemy's cause. [For once the Nazis had it right; these were really Germans who had worked against the Third Reich almost from its inception. For more about these true heroes read Red Orchestra by Ann Nelson.
1944: For the first time in its history, The Metropolitan Opera House in New York City hosts a jazz concert. Among the performers are two Jewish pop music legends – Benny Goodman and Artie Shaw.
1944: German armored forces surrounded the forest near
Buczac
,
Poland
. They killed three hundred Jews who had been hiding in the forest for the past nine months. Some of the Jews of Buczaz had taken part in armed resistance against the Nazis. This remnant had taken to the woods after the final roundup of Jews in the town. During their time in hiding, they attacked Nazis as well as members of the local populations who had betrayed the Jews to the Germans.
1945: Kazimierz Smolen left Auschwitz today on the last transport of prisoners evacuated by the Germans, nine days before its liberation. “Smolen was a Polish Catholic involved in the anti-Nazi resistance when the Germans arrested him in April 1941 and took him to Auschwitz.”
1945: A count was made of remaining prisoners in the assorted labor and concentration camps:
Birkenau; 15,058 Jews remained.
Auschwitz
: 16,226 People remained, mostly Poles.
Monowitz; 10,233 Jews, Poles and assorted prisoners remained.
Factories of
Auschwitz
: Another 16,000 Jews, Poles and prisoners.
1945: Acting on orders from
Berlin
, the SS begins a massive, on-foot evacuation of all prisoners and slave laborers at the
Auschwitz
, Birkenau, and Monowitz camps and from the
Auschwitz
region (
Upper Silesia
,
Poland
). Of the thousands of marchers, most die from exposure, exhaustion, and abuse on their way to their destinations. Boys evacuated from Birkenau march toward
Mauthausen
,
Austria
. Many of the boys are on "cart commando" duty; i.e., harnessed to enormous carts in groups of 20.
1947: The Detroit Tigers sold Hank Greenberg to the Pittsburgh Pirates.
1948: After embarking from Marseille, France today, a ship named the Alexandria reached Israel carrying a group of Youth Aliyah children. This group included a young girl listed on rosters as Nuta Bolestet; in Haifa, she was transferred with a few other children to the Youth Aliyah camp in Ra'anana. Moshe Ya'ari, a Youth Aliyah official, recorded the few available details about the girl.
1949: In an attempt to improve relations with new Jewish state, the British ordered the immediate release of the remaining Jews who were detained in Cyprus during those years when His Majesty’s government was determined to keep Jews from settling in Palestine. Within a month all them, many of whom were Holocaust survivors, had reached
Haifa
.
1952(20th of Tevet, 5712): Curly Howard, actor, comedian and member of the Three Stooges passed away.
1961: The Chaplain’s Medal for Heroism was awarded to the family members of Reverend George Fox (Methodist), Jewish Rabbi Alexander Goode, Reverend Clark Poling (Dutch Reformed) and Father John Washington (Roman Catholic). These were the famous Four Chaplains who acted with such grace and courage when the United States Army Transport Dorchester was sunk by a Nazi U-Boat in 1943. Because of the strict requirements for awarding the Congressional Medal of Honor, this award was created to honor their heroism.
1965(15thof Shevat, 5725): Tu B’Shevat
1967(7th of Shevat, 5727): Barney Ross Welterweight Boxing Champ in 1934 passed away at the age of 57. One little known fact about Ross is that he enlisted in Marines during World War II and at the age of 33 won a Silver Star for his actions on
Guadalcanal
.
1974:
Israel
and
Egypt
signed an agreement for the disengagement of forces in the aftermath of the Yom Kippur war.
Israel
agreed to withdraw from the
Suez Canal
.
1976: Terry Bradshaw threw a crucial touchdown pass to Tight End Randy Grossman as the Steelers defeated the Cowboys in Super Bowl X. Grossman was Jewish; Bradshaw wasn’t.
1977: German author Carl Zuckmayer, the grandson of Protestant church councilor who had converted from Judaism passed away. This maternal ancestor was enough for the Nazis to see him as a Jew; a fact that led him to spend World War II in the United States before returning to Europe after the war had ended.
1985: The government of Menachem Begin announced that elections would be held in six months.
1987: Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin, speaking to high school students in Nazareth today, reaffirmed Israel's commitment to keeping control of its ''security zone'' in southern Lebanon. ''It has been 20 months since the Israel Defense Force have been stationed'' in the strip, he said. ''During those 20 months not one Israeli - Jew, Arab or Druze - has been murdered as a result of terrorist action from inside Lebanon,'' he said, referring to an absence of civilian deaths in cross-border attacks. However, he added, ''the price was high,'' in that 12 Israeli soldiers have been killed.
1987: Israeli troops killed four armed guerrillas tonight after the guerrillas infiltrated into the enclave that Israel calls its ''security zone'' in southern Lebanon. The Israeli authorities did not say to what group the guerrillas might have belonged. The incident took place about 8 P.M., the spokesman said, when Israeli forces found the guerrillas near Baraachit, a village about six miles north of the Israeli border, and opened fire.
1990: In article published today, Joel Brinkley reported that “as Soviet Jewish immigrants arrive in Israel at a rate now exceeding 1,000 a week, Israeli officials acknow