January 2 In History
438: Empress Eudocia allowed the Jews to return to Jerusalem
1012: Jewish mourners were attacked at a funeral in Egypt.
1481: An edict was handed down in
Spain
calling for all persons to aid in apprehending and accusing suspects who are guilty of heresy. This was said to be issued because persons of nobility in
Andalusia
were not true to the teachings of the Church.
1481: The officers of the Inquisition issued an edict to the governor of Cadiz and other officials to seize the possessions of the Marranos and to turn these conversos over to them or suffer excommunication, confiscation of their goods and deprivation of public office.
1492: The Reconquista was completed as the emirate of Granada, the last Moorish stronghold in Spain, surrendered to the forces under the command of Ferdinand and Isabella. The fall of
Granada
added even more Jews to Catholic Spain. Under the terms of surrender, the Jewish inhabitants were promised protection by the King and Queen. Within a few months these most Catholic Monarchs would break their word when Ferdinand ordered “the razing of the Jewish quarter. Nine months from the fall of Granada, the Sephardim will be banned from their ancestral homeland.
1554: A mandate promulgated today ordered that the Jews should leave the territory of Lower Austria at the end of six months.
1661(2nd of Shevat): Rabbi Menahem Mendel ben Abraham Krochmal, author of Zemah Zedek passed away
1642: Birthdate of Ottoman Sultan Mehmed IV. As proof of the role that Jews played in his government, we find the Sultan appointing Moses Beben as ambassador to Sweden. When Moses passed away, the Sultan appointed his son Yehuda to serve in his place. At the time, Sweden was a major European power. Mehmed is also the Sultan who dealt with Sabbait Zivi, giving him the choice of conversion or death.
1712: Clement XI issued “Salvatoris nostri vices,” a Papal Bull that transferred the work of catechumens to Pii Operai (Holy Works). [Pii Operai was an offshoot of The College of Neophytes, a Roman Catholic College founded for training Jewish converts]
1745:Maria Theresa threatened Moravian Jewry with expulsion but rescinded her order, permitting them to remain for another ten years.(As reported by the Jewish Virtual Library
1770:The Crown Prince of Brunswick "expressed his admiration" for the "great tact and high degree of humanitarianism" that Moses Mendelssohn had shown in responding to the writings of Charles Bonnett that had been sent to him by Johann Lavater.
1782: The Tolerance Edict (Toleranzpatent) guaranteeing existing rights and obligation of the Jewish population, was enacted by Joseph II of
Austria
, the son of Maria Theresa. Joseph II was influenced by Wilhelm von Dohn, a friend of Mendelssohn's and beginning with this edict, followed a generally enlightened attitude toward the Jews. The Edict (with the final edict less liberal than the original), received mixed reviews by Jewish leaders including Ezekiel Landau and Moss Mendelssohn. They realized that the real intention of the edict was not the emancipation of the Jews but their assimilation. As further proof the new freedoms being granted to the Jews of Austria, Emperor Joseph II "permitted Jewish wholesale merchants, notables and their sons to wear swords" and "insisted that Christians should behave in a friendly matter towards Jews."
1788: Georgia becomes the fourth state to ratify the U.S. Constitution. A year later,
Georgia
became the third state to remove religious discrimination from the political process. According to one reliable source, Jews had “held public office in Georgia even before the revision of the oath which included the words ‘upon the faith of a Christian.’” Jews had been a part of Georgia from the earliest colonial settlement with the first families arriving in July of 1733. Two years before the ratification vote, the Jewish community of Savannah had stabilized enough to re-organize Congregation Mikve Israel, elect officers and rent a house from Ann Morgan to be used as a synagogue.
1801: Birthdate of Jonas Ennery a native of Nancy who was affiliated with the Jewish school at Strasbourg for twenty-six years.
1816: Birthdate of Shmuel Salant, the native of Bialystok, who “served as the Ashkenazic Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem for almost 70 years.”
1822: Birthdate of Bernhard Felsenthal, the German-born American Rabbi who was a leader in the Reform Movement and served as the leader of Zion Congregation in Chicago from 1864 to 1887.
(As reported by Adler & Stolz)
1830:Abraham Geiger preached his first sermon.
1836: Birthdate of Mendele Mocher Sforim (מענדעלע מוכר ספֿרים) "Mendele the bookseller," is the pseudonym of Sholem Yakov Abramovich, Jewish author and one of the founders of modern Yiddish and Modern Hebrew literature. He was born to a poor family in Kopyl near Minsk and lost his father, Chaim Moyshe Broyde, shortly after he was bar mitzvahed. He studied in yeshiva in Slucak and Vilna until he was 17; during this time he was a day-boarder under the system of Teg-Essen, barely scraping by, and often hungry. He next travelled extensively around Belarus, Ukraine and Lithuania at the mercy of an abusive beggar named Avreml Khromoy (Avreml would later become the source for the title character of Fishke der Krumer, Fishke the Lame). In 1854 he settled in Kamenets-Podolskiy, where he got to know writer and poet Avrom Ber Gotlober, who helped him to learn secular culture, philosophy, literature, history, Russian and other languages. His first article, "Letter on Education", appeared in first Hebrew newspaper, Hamagid, in 1857. At Berdichev in the Ukraine, where he lived in 1858-1869, he began to publish fiction both in Hebrew and Yiddish. Having offended the local powers with his satire, he left Berdichev to train as a rabbi at the relatively theologically liberal, government-sponsored rabbinical school in Zhitomir, where he lived in 1869-1881, and became head of traditional school (Talmud Torah) in Odessa in 1881. He lived in Odessa until his death in 1917. He initially wrote in Hebrew, coining many words in that language, but ultimately switched to Yiddish in order to expand his audience. Like Sholom Aleichem, he used a pseudonym because of the perception at the time that as a ghetto vernacular, Yiddish was not suited to serious literary work — an idea he did much to dispel. His writing strongly bore the mark of the Haskalah. He is considered by many to be the "grandfather of Yiddish literature"; his style in both Hebrew and Yiddish has strongly influenced several generations of later writers. While the tradition of journalism in Yiddish had a bit more of a history than in Hebrew, Kol Mevasser, which he supported from the outset and where he published his first Yiddish story "Dos Kleine Menshele" ("The Little Man") in 1863, is generally seen as the first stable and important Yiddish newspaper. Sol Liptzin writes that in his early Yiddish narratives, Mendele "wanted to be useful to his people rather than gain literary laurels". [Liptzin, 1972, 42] "The Little Man" and the unstaged 1869 drama Die Takse ("The Tax") both condemned the corruption by which religious taxes (in the latter case, specifically the tax on kosher meat) were diverted to benefit community leaders rather than the poor. This satiric tendency continued in Die Klatshe (The Dobbin, 1873) about a prince, a stand-in for the Jewish people, who is bewitched and becomes a much put-upon beast of burden, but maintains his moral superiority throughout his sufferings. His later work became more humane and less satiric, starting with Fishke (written 1868-1888) and continuing with the unfinished Masoes Beniamin Hashlishi (The Wanderings of Benjamin
III
, 1878), something of a Jewish Don Quixote. As with Fishke, Mendele worked on and off for decades on his long novel Dos Vinshfingeril (The Wishing Ring, 1889); at least two versions preceded the final one. It is the story of a maskil—that is, a supporter of the Haskalah, like Mendele himself—who escapes a poor town, survives miserable to obtain a secular education much like Mendele's own, but is driven by the pogroms of the 1880sfrom his dreams of universal brotherhood to one of Jewish nationalism. His last major work was his autobiography, Shlome Reb Chaims, completed shortly before his death in 1917.
1854(2nd of Tevet, 5614): 8th Day Chanukah
1856: An article entitled “What the Jews Think of New Year’s” published reported that “in the opinion of our Jewish fellow-citizens New Year’s day and its accompanying custom of giving presents is a blessed institution. “ According to the author, being able to give gifts to their children on New Year’s, makes it possible for Jewish parents to avoid gift giving at Christmas while still being able to bring joy to their youngsters. Oddly enough, the more recently arrived German Jews still cling to the habit they developed in Europe of gift giving on Christmas. “The Jewish families of long standing in” New York “universally” prefer the New Year’s gift giving celebration. The article concludes by reminding readers that ‘our New Year’s, of course, does not correspond with the commencement of the Hebrew year. That falls in the month of Tishrei, which comprises a part of our September and October, and is celebrated, besides religious ceremonies, by magnificent entertainments and a general wish of ‘Happy New Year.’”
1858: Towards midnight, Rachel Felix, who was dying awoke from her sleep and said she wanted to write a letter to her father. Since she did not have the strength to do so, she began dictating the letter "which contained her last wishes."
1861: Wilhelm I became King of Prussia. His repeated clashes “with the liberal Chamber of Deputies” forced legal scholar Ferdinand Lassalle forced “to make public addresses dealing with the nature of the constitution and its relationship to the social forces within society.”
1862: Rabbi Arnold Fischel wrote a letter from Washington, DC to Henry Hart in New York updating him on the progress he was making in having the law changed so that Rabbis could serve as Chaplains in the Union Army. Fischel also asked Hart to send him the smallest sized prayer book and Tehillim for the use of the Jewish soldiers serving in the Union Army. He asked for an immediate shipment of 50, the smaller the better since they have to fit into the packs carried by the soldiers. Fischel said that Joseph Seligman had assured him that the members of Temple Emanu-El would contribute a large sum of money for such a project was would the Jews at the Stanton Street Synagogue. Finally, Fischel asked Hart to apologize on his behalf to Rabbi S.M. Isaacs for having not written but he, Fischel had been dealing with a bout of Cholera.
1863: The Battle of Stones River in which Colonel Frederick Knefler commanded the 79thIndiana Infantry came to an end with the Rebels being forced to withdraw.
1863(11thof Tevet, 5623): Shlomo Zalman, the son of Shalom Charif Ullmann, who had been born in 1792, passed away today.
1873: It was reported today that an Imperial ukase or proclamation of the Czar has been issued today concerning the rules and regulations surrounding the recruiting program for the navy and army. Among other things, in that part of Poland ruled by Russia, Jews who have converted to Christianity will no longer be exempted from military service. These converts, like others who have lost their exemption, can purchase one by 800 silver rubles to the government. [Considering the treatment of Jews in the Russian Army, conversion may have seemed like the lesser of two evils, especially for those who were too poor to be able to leave the country.]
1874(13thof Tevet, 5634): David Stern, husband of Fanny and brother-in-law of Levi Strauss, passes away.
1878: “The Merchant of Venice In 1652” which was published today and which was based on information that first appeared in the London Athenaeum speculated on the possibility that the republication of Shakespeare’s play featuring the infamous Shylock was released as part of the campaign against readmitting Jews to England which championed by Cromwell but opposed by a large segment of the population including the merchants in London, the clergy and such notables as William Prynne.
1879:It was reported today that The Hebrew Book Union has issued a prospectus for a new “Lexcicon to the Talmud, Targum and Midrash” compiled by Dr. F. De Sola Mendes. It will be issued in four parts and will be the first such work published with an English translation.
1886: Alice le Strange, the wife of English philo-semite Laurence Oliphant passed away today after having contracted a fever while traveling along the shores of the Sea of Galilee. Oliphant, who had also contracted the fever, was too sick to attend her funeral. Oliphant was in Palestine to pursue his dream of helping large numbers of Jews to settle in their ancient homeland.
1886: Birthdate of Moyshe-Leyb Halpern one of “the most inovative and ironic of the modernist Yiddish poets.
1887: The Jewish Theological Seminary Association, the educational and spiritual center of Conservative Judaism opened under the leadership of Saba Morais. Morais, a Rabbi of Congregation Mikve
Israel
in
Philadelphia
, sought to train Rabbis who would help preserve Jewish traditions which he felt were being eroded by the “reformers” and their
Pittsburgh
platform. In 1902 Solomon Schechter reorganized the Seminary and changed the name to JTS or the Jewish Theological Seminary. it was at this point that it became the central foundation for the Conservative Movement, a role that it plays to this day.
1890(10th of Tevet, 5650):Asara B'Tevet
1890: It was reported today that the Beth Israel Hospital Association, which was recently formed to build a hospital on the Lower East Side for the burgeoning immigrant population has 180 members who have raised $1,200 in pledges and $500 in cash contriubtions.
1892(2ndof Tevet, 5652): Jacob Goldsmith, a trustee of Temple Emanu-El and director of the Hebrew Orphan Asylum, passed away today. Born in Germany in 1821, he moved to the United States at the age of 15. He successfully operated dry goods stores in Shreveport, Portland and San Francisco. Finally, he sold his interest in a petroleum refining company to Standard Oil and moved to New York where owned a stationary business.
1893: It was reported today that Professor Cyrus Adler of Johns Hopkins University acquired a rare manuscript while in Constantinople that related to Columbus and the New World.
1893: It was reported today that Henry S. Morais is preparing a publication that will cover the history of “the Jews of Philadelphia from the earliest settlements until the present.”
1893: As the outbreak of typhus that began on December 1st continues to work its way through the city, Henry Mazinsky, an eleven year old Jewish boy, who had been under the care of the Ladies’ Deborah Nursery fell victim to typhus today.
1894: Birthdate of Robert Gruntal Nathan an American novelist and poet whose works included The Bishop’s Wife which became a hit movie starring Cary Grant, David Niven and Loretta Young.
1895: Birthdate of Count Folke Bernadotte. Bernadotte was a member of a prominent Swedish family and well-known diplomat. His negotiations with Himmler during World War II saved the lives of thousands of Jews. As a U.N. representative, Bernadotte negotiated the first truce between the Arabs and the Israelis in 1948. During the truce, Bernadotte visited
Israel
where he proposed a peace plan that would have been detrimental to Jewish interests. In one of the most dastardly deeds in Jewish History, members of the Stern Gang assassinated Bernadotte. Most Jews were so revolted by the act that the members of the gang were hunted down by authorities and the Stern Gang was forced to disband. Unfortunately, the leadership of the Stern Gang gained respectability after the war. Yitzchak Shamir, a prominent Sternist, would later serve as Prime Minister of Israel.
1895(6th of Tevet, 5655): A mother and her two children were burned to death at fire in the tenement house on Pitt Street. The dead were, Lena Leiman (24), Sadie Leiman (2) and Henry Leiman (2 months)
1896: It was reported that Hirsh Leavitt, a Russian Jew hired by William Rubin as a night watchman for his building on 19th Bleecker Street had suffered a broken leg which would heal and not require amputation. Leavitt, who speaks no English, had been injured when police mistook him for a burglar.
1897: Jacob A. Riss delivered an address at a dinner hosted by the Reform Club in which he described the tenement system as “an invention of Satan” which had the power to overwhelm the scruples of its tenants including Jews as well as Roman Catholics.
1897: It was reported today that “Morris Goodhart, President of the Hebrew Mutual Benefit Society and…the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society is dangerously ill” as a result of “an abcess in the peritoneal cavity.”
1897: “Good-Will to Men” which was published today and which relies on information that first appeared in The Jewish Messenger, notes that “the trend of thought today among our Christian brethren of any culture and enlightenment is against bigotry and hatred for the greater glory of God.”
1898: It was reported today that “an explosion of accumulated gas wrecked the entire first floor of” Israel Cohen’s bathhouse at 23 Hester Street.
1898: It was reported today that a the two existing “Jewish colleges” – Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati and Jewish Theological Seminary in New York – are about to be joined by a third school located in Philadelphia that will be funded, in part by a legacy created by the late Hyman Gratz which yields $5,000 per year.
1899: The Noah Benevolent Widows and Orphans’ Association is scheduled to “celebrate its golden jubilee” this “afternoon and evening with a banquet and reception at the Terrace Garden.”
1899: Mrs. Bertha Morgenstern told a reporter that she had celebrated her 106thbirthday yesterday drinking “a pint of beer” and eating “three hearty meals” which is how she spends each and every one of her days at the Hebrew Sheltering Home.
1903: Publication of the first edition of The American Hebrew & Jewish Messenger.
1903: British minister Joseph Chamberlain “found” a wonderful piece of land in East Africa for Jewish settlement.
1905: Japanese General Nogi received from Russian General Stoessel at
9 p.m.
a letter formally offering to surrender, ending the Russo-Japanese War. The Russian defeat led to an uprising against the Czar and Pogroms aimed at the Jews. In an attempt to gain support, Czar Nicholas II agreed to popular elections for the Duma (Russian Parliament). The reforms were short lived and produced limited results. Even more significantly, the Russians were unable to reform their military establishment. This meant that the Russians were ill-suited to fight the Germans in World War I which would break out five years later. Jews would suffer during World War I and would suffer even more when the Bolsheviks came to power at the end of World War I. As we have discovered in our studies in Cedar Rapids, Jewish History is entwined with the history of all of the civilizations in which they live and have lived. That is part of the challenge and half of the fun.
1905: Birthdate of Russian mathematician Lev Schnirelmann.
1909(9th of Tevet, 5669): Louis A. Heinsheimer passed away. He died as result as complications from recent operation for appendicitis. Born in 1859 in Cincinnati, Ohio, he worked for sixteen years at the investment banking firm of Kuhn, Loeb & Company before being made a partner in 1894 Heinsheimer was the nephew of one of the firm's founders, Solomon Loeb. He never married and was survived by his mother, brother and two sisters. A renowned philanthropist, Heinsheimer served as the Treasurer for the United Hebrew Charities. Shortly before his death he completed building a summer home called Breezy Point at Far Rockaway, New York. The estate would be used by by the Maimonides Institute for Exceptional Children until it burned down in 1987.
1906: The 9th Duke of Marlborough, a cousin of Winston Churchill, expressed his dissatisfaction with a review of Churchill’s newly published biography about his father Randolph by threatening “to administer a good and sound trouncing to that dirty little Hebrew,” Harry Levy-Lawson, the Jewish manager of the paper in which the review appeared. The two cousins had very different views of Jews and the Jewish people.
1912: Newly-elected Sheriff Julius Harburger announced “that he would appoint a number of women deputies.” Only was it later discovered that such appointments were against the law.
1913: Birthdate of English actress Anna Lee was the seventh wife of poet Robert Gruntal Nathan (He was Jewish. She was not)
1915(16th of Tevet, 5675): Karl Goldmark Austria-Hungarian composer passes away at the age of 84.
1916: Birthdate of Edmund Leopold de Rothschild.
1916: In Camden, NJ, : Rabbi Max Klein of Philadelphia's Adath Jeshurun Synagogue, Rabbi Bernard Levinthal, Philadelphia's renown Orthodox Jewish leader, Dr. Solomon Solis-Cohen, Rabbi Samuel S. Grossman and Rabbi Abraham Nowak of New York City were scheduled to appear at a mass meeting at the North Broadway Theater at Broadway and Kaighn
1916:Birthdate of Zypora Tannenbaumwho gained fame as Zypora Spaisman. Born in Lublin, she was a Polish-American actress and Yiddish theatre empresaria. She emigrated to the United States in 1954 where she helped keep the Folksbiene Yiddish Theatrein NYC alive for 42 years (along with Morris Adler), before helping to found the Yiddish Public Theaterfollowing a dispute with the Folksbiene's new management
1920: Birthdate of Isaac Asimov. Born to middle class Jewish parents, Asimov’s family moved to the
United States
in 1923. Asimov became one of the 20thcentury’s greatest science fiction writers. He also wrote guides to the Bible and Shakespeare.
1920: Rabbis in Jerusalem arranged to have special prayers recited at the Western Wall for the Jews in Damascus who are threatened with violence.
1920: “In a speech in
Sunderland
…Churchill described Bolshevism as a ‘Jewish movement.’”
1922(2nd of Tevet, 5682): 8th Day of Chanukah
1927: According to published reports, two plans are being developed for the electrification of Palestine. One plan “contemplates pumping the waters of the Eastern Mediterranean over a low ridge of mountains between the Palestinian coast and the Jordan Valley, and then through turbines into Lake Tiberius and the Dead Sea.” The other, a more modest plan, calls for using the flow of the Jordan to create mechanical power which could then generate an affordable supply of electricity.
1928: The municipality of Tel Aviv is scheduled to start paying the principle on a 75,000 pound bond issue that was offered in December of 1922.
1932: Maurice J. Karpf was elected President of the American Association of Schools of Social Work.
1933(4th of Tevet, 5693): Belle Moskowitz the political advisor to New York Governor Al Smith who managed his 1928 presidential campaign died unexpectedly as a result of complications from a fall on the steps in front of her house.
1933: The death of Mrs. Henry (Belle) Moskowitz came as a great shock to those gathered in Albany for today’s inauguration ceremony. Both Governor Herbert Lehman and former Governor (1928 Presidential candidate) Al Smith were taken aback by the loss of their friend and political ally.
1933: Birthdate of author Leonard Michaels whose works included Sylvia and The Men’s Club.
1934: New York Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia was among the many prominent civic, academic and religious leaders who attended today’s funeral for Dr. George Alexander Kohut which was held at the deceased’s Park Avenue Home. Rabbi Stephen S. Wise of the Free Synagogue and a life-long friend of the Dr. Kohut conducted the service and delivered the eulogy. Internment followed the service at the Linden Hill Cemetery.
1936: On his 75th birthday, Philadelphian Samuel Bloom announced that he was contributing 3000 pounds for the establishment of a home for “vagrant children” in Tel Aviv.
1938: The Palestine Post reported from
London
that the British Zionist Federation launched a movement, led by Lady Reading, Lord Melchett and Rabbi Perlzweig, for the inclusion of the Jewish National Home in
Palestine
within the
British Empire
. They stressed the common ideals and interests in
Palestine
of both
Great Britain
and the Jewish people. The High Commissioner, Sir Arthur Wauchope, paid an official visit to Tel Aviv and assured Mayor Israel Rokach that the government would approve a £175,000 loan for the building of a new town hall and other essential developments.
1939: Time magazine names Adolf Hitler “Man of the Year, 1938.” (This was not a vote of approval; merely acknowledgement of his importance.)
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,760539,00.html
1939: Solomon Levitan served his final day in office as state treasurer of Wisconsin
1940: In
Poland
, Jews were forbidden to post obituaries by the General Gouvernment
1941(3rd of Tevet, 5701): Forty-two year old pianist Mischa Levitzki died suddenly of a heart attack in Avon-by-the-Sea, New Jersey.
1942: Truckloads of deportees were driven around Chelmo, gassed and then buried. The first of 5,000 Gypsies were brought to Chelmo and gassed.
1945: Abba Eban ended his tour of duty at the Ministry of State.
1945: Abba Eban is betrothed to his future wife Suzy.
1946: Holocaust survivors Ann Gilbert (Chana Zylberstajn) Fred Gilbert (Felek Gebotszrajber) were married in
Scwabisch Hall
,
Germany
.
1946: At a press conference, British General Frederick Morgan, the director general of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) in Europe, disclosed that "thousands of Polish Jews were coming into the U.S. Zone of Occupation assisted by an unknown secret Jewish organization." He further stated that Jewish Holocaust survivors were being forced by that organization to immigrate to
Palestine
. He clarified this accusation, intimating that most of the survivors preferred to emigrate elsewhere. The organization was Bricha. But the claim by the British general must be measured against the fact the British government was still committed to the White Paper which barred Jewish immigrants from entering
Palestine
.
1946: Ruth Seid, writing under the ethnically neutral and gender-ambiguous pen name Jo Sinclair, won the $10,000 Harper Prize for new writers. “
1946: The Women’s League for Palestine holds an open meeting and tea to plan a campaign for raising funds for enlarging and maintain the league’s other homes in Jerusalem and Haifa.
1946: Eleanor Florence Rathbone, a member of the British House of Commons and advocate for the rights of women passed away. In the House of Commons, the courageous Eleanor Rathbone attacked the British government for the defeatist attitudes expressed at the Bermuda Conference and noted that the Allies are responsible for the deaths of any Jews if they refuse to help.
1947(10th of Tevet, 5707): Asara B'Tevet
1948: Birthdate of Tony Robert Judt who went from being an ardent Zionist to one who was so critical of the Jewish state that he might classified as an anti-Zionist.
1949: In the aftermath of the War of Independence, the last Israeli troops left the
Sinai Peninsula
completing a withdrawal that had been worked out between Ben Gurion and
Britain
.
1949: In an example of what difference a year makes, two Israeli Spitfires attacked an Egyptian train traveling in violation of the withdrawal agreement.
1949: An Egyptian plan flew over
Jerusalem
injuring seven people when it dropped its bombs.
1949: As part of Bill Paley’s “great raid” the Jack Benny Program returned to CBS radio where it will remain until its last broadcast in 1955.
1951: The North American tour of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra sponsored by the American Fund for Israeli Institutions began with a concert in Washington, D.C. conducted by Dr./ Serge Koussevitzky,
1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that on the first day on which price control was lifted from poultry, prices rose from IL 2 to IL 6 a kilo. The Norwegian s.s. Rimfort passed through the
Suez Canal
, and arrived with a cargo of 150 tons of meat from
Ethiopia
, assuring the distribution of the monthly meat ration. The Ministry of Commerce started planning further substantial meat purchases from
Brazil
and
Argentina
1953: Birthdate of Egyptian born American author Andre Aciman who wrote the autobiographical Out of
Egypt
.
1954: Herman Wouk’s "Caine Mutiny" premiered in New York City.
1956: Sydney Fine resigned from his position as member of the House of Representatives for New York’s 22nd congressional district so that he could join the New York Supreme Court.
1960: Senator John F. Kennedy of
Massachusetts
announced his candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination. Kennedy was quite popular with a significant segment of Jewish voters. Unlike others, Jews had no problem supporting a Catholic running for President. As President, Kennedy appointed Jews to his Cabinet and to the Supreme Court. He also supported the state of
Israel
when the survival of the Jewish state was still at risk
1961: Birthdate of Representative Rob Wexler, representing
Florida
’s 19th congressional district starting in 1997.
1966: First native Jewish child was born in Spain since the expulsion in 1492
1967: Yisrael Yeshayahu replaced Eliyahu Sasson as Communications Minister.
1967: An exhibition of the works of Gertrude Schaefler began today at the Bodley Gallery in New York City.
1970: In Operation Double Bass 10, The Golani Brigade took part in a retaliatory raid on Kfar Kila in response to the kidnapping of an elderly guard from Metula by Fatah two days earlier.
1971: A team of Israeli scholars announced the discovery in
Jerusalem
of a 2,000-year-old skeleton of a crucified male. Found in a cave-tomb, it was the first direct physical evidence of the well-documented Roman method of execution.
1972: Opening of “
Fun
City
,” the first Broadway play by--and starring--Joan Rivers.
1978: The Jerusalem Post reported that during the current Egyptian-Israeli peace negotiations, Mustafa Amin, a well-known Egyptian journalist, described Prime Minister Menachem Begin as a "Shylock," determined to get his pound of flesh from his people. Residents of the Yamit area were "more disappointed than ever" by the government decision to allow Egyptian sovereignty over the entire Rafiah Approaches.
1987(1stof Tevet, 5747): Rosh Chodesh Tevet
1987:During the Intifada, Israel stopped another Junieh-bound ferry, the Sunny Boat, and turned it back to Larnaca after the Cypriot captain refused an Israeli demand that he hand over Palestinian passengers suspected of being terrorists.
1989:In an article entitled “Israel, Hardly the Monaco of the Middle East,” Abba Eban explained why Israel must negotiate with the Arabs and why her “friends” must not be alarmed at this turn of events. Since Eban may be considered as “the dean of Israeli foreign policy and one of those who got it more right than most, the article is worth reading in its entirety.
http://www.nytimes.com/1989/01/02/opinion/israel-hardly-the-monaco-of-the-middle-east.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm
1990: The Likud and Labor parties averted a breakup of their governing coalition today with a compromise under which Ezer Weizmann, the independent-minded Labor Party Science Minister, would keep his post but be suspended from the Government's decision-making core.
1990: In an article entitled “From Letter Writer to Starting Forward,” Jack Cavanugh described the unique approach followed by Nadav Henefield as he transitioned from being one of the best basketball players in Israel to a scholarship and starting role with the University of Connecticut.
http://www.nytimes.com/1990/01/02/sports/from-letter-writer-to-starting-forward.html?pagewanted=print&src=pm
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