January 23 In History
393: Roman Emperor Theodosius I proclaims his nine year old son Honorius co-emperor. “Under the rule of Theodosius and his sons… the Christian church consolidated its position as the sole power in the empire,” became less tolerant and the Jews “suffered in inverse proportion to the strength of the emperor’s personality.”
1002: Otto III, Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire passed away. No, Otto was not Jewish. But his passing offers an instructive note when studying history, especially Jewish history. A thousand years ago, Otto was the “George Bush” of his day, a major political and military leader. Otto lived in the same century as Rashi, a guy who sold wine in a small town in France. We remember Rashi. Rashi still speaks to us today infusing our lives in ways in which we are not aware. Who remembers Otto?
1199: Birthdate of Almohad ruler Abu Yusuf who ordered the Jews of the Maghreb to wear dark blue garments with long sleeves and saddle-like caps. His grandson Abdallah al-Adil made a concession after appeals from the Jews, relaxing the required clothing to yellow garments and turbans.
1235: False accusations of Ritual Murder at Baden, Germany resulted in a massacre of the Jewish population.
1490: At Naples, the first printed edition of the Ramban’s “Sha’ar ha-Gemul,” The Gate of Reward, was published by Joseph ben Jacob Gunzenhauser. Gunzenhauser and his son Azriel had moved from southern Germany to Italy where “they produced various books, including a Hagiographa with rabbinical commentaries, Avicenna's medical Canon, and Abraham ibn Ezra's commentary on the Pentateuch.” Jacob passed away in 1490, the same that they published the Ramban’s seminal work.
1492: At Brescia. Italy, Gershon Soncino produced the first printed Chumash with Megilot.
1571: The Royal Exchange opens in London. The first Jewish broker was admitted to the Royal Exchange in 1657; the same year a piece of land was purchased for a Jewish cemetery in London.
1579: The Union of Utrecht forms a Protestant republic in the Netherlands. The treaty that created the union guaranteed religious peace under article 13. As a consequence this, the persecuted Jews of Spain and Portugal turned toward Holland as a place of refuge.
1634: Trial of the men implicated in the 'Complicidad Grande' (Great Complicity). Seventeen arrests were made by the Inquisition after a man turned another man in for being "unwilling to make a sale on Saturday," and for not wanting to eat bacon. The man’s possessions were confiscated, more people were implicated, and eventually a total of 81 persons would be locked up and their possessions sequestered. These men were prominent businessmen of the Lima(Peru) community, and their arrests and led to a "widespread commercial crisis" and failure of the community bank.
1639: In Lima, Peru, at an Auto Da Fe, more than eighty New Christians were burned, including Francisco Maldonna de Silva (Elia Nazareno), after the Inquisition discovered that they were holding regular Jewish services. De Silva spent 12 years in prison, during which time he managed to write two books using a chicken bone and charcoal. Each book was about 100 pages. He succeeded in putting together a rope out of corn husks but instead of escaping he used it to visit other prisoners urging them to believe in Judaism.
1656: French Philosopher Blaise Pascal published the first of his Lettres provinciales. Pascal did not radiate the anti-Semitism typical of so many European intellectuals. Over 300 years ago, when King Louis XIV of France asked, the great French philosopher, to give him proof of the supernatural. Pascal answered: "Why, the Jews, your Majesty -- the Jews." The best proof of the supernatural that Pascal could think of was: "The Jews."
1719: Creation of the Principality of Liechtenstein which reportedly provided a refuge for 240 Jews fleeing the Nazis during the Holocaust.
1789: In Washington, D.C., Georgetown becomes the first Catholic college in the United States. Today approximately 650 of Georgetown’s 6,000 are Jewish and a thousand of its 6,000 graduate students are Jewish. The school offers 35 Jewish studies courses and students can major in Jewish Studies. The university also has an active Hillel Chapter.
1793: Prussia and Russia sign a treaty that is known as the Second Partition of Poland. Each of these partitions resulted in Russia acquiring large chunks of Poland, which she wanted, and large numbers of Jews which she did not want.
1854: In London, Louis and Rachel Greenbaum gave birth to Samuel Greenbaum who would serve three years as an Associate Justice of the Appellate Division in New York.
1855: In New York City, a complaint was entered today in "The Mayor's Little Black Book" stating that on Chatham Street "a Jewish drummer is stationed in front of his store insulting passengers as they pass along. The latter nuisance is glaring and intolerable...and calls for intervention of the proper authorities." Chatham Street was the heart of the second-hand clothing “industry” and was equated with Jews in a most uncomplimentary way.
1864(15th of Shevat, 5624): Tu B’Shevat
1871(1st of Shevat, 5631): Rosh Chodesh Shevat
1873:, A large crowd braved a snowstorm to hear a lecture at the Beeckman Street Church by Jewish humorist Raphael De Cordova entitled “The New Clergyman.”
1878: Marcus J. Waldheimer, a partner in the firm of Townsend & Waldheimer, denied reports that his father-in-law, Leopold Bamberger, had disappeared. Waldheimer said that Bamberger who has been holding funds in trust that are related to a messy bankruptcy case, has “merely left…temporarily for recreation.”
1879: It was reported today that a revised edition of “Hebrew Men and Times from the Patriarchs to the Messiah” by Joseph Henry Allen will be reissued by Roberts Brothers
1891: Birthdate of Jonas Bernanke. Born in Boryslav, which was then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, he eventually made his way to Dillon, South Carolina where he owned a drug store and raised a son named Ben who would become Chairman of the Federal Reserve.
1892: It was reported today that the Russian government is taking a variety of measures to avert the repetition another famine including postponing “the enactment of the laws” aimed at the Jews.
1893: The New York Timesfeatured a review of A Visit to Wazan: The Sacred City of Morocco by Robert Spence Watson. Watson used a letter of introduction from Sir Moses Montefiore to the Chief Rabbi of Morocco “as a passport to meeting Jews” wherever he went. Watson reported that Montefiore’s efforts on behalf of the Moroccan Jews had improved their condition including the comment that “the children of the better class of Jews of Tangiers are taught in English” and use English textbooks.
1893: “Heine in his Family Life” published today provides a detailed review of The Family Life of Heinrich Heine written by his nephew, Baron Ludwig von Embden.
1893: It was reported today that while Richard Mansfield’s depiction of Shylock vividly portray “his hatred, his vindictiveness” and “his implacable cruelty in the pursuit of revenge” “he is much more successful than any other actor…in this day, in denoting the affection of the Jew for his kind and the intense mental agony he suffers over Jessica. His portrayal is deemed as “less theatrical and more human than others.” (Over the centuries, the portrayal of Shylock has reflected the skill of the actors and, more to the point, the view of Jews in current society.)
1893: It was reported that Emma Goldman spoke at a meeting of anarchists who call themselves the Pioneers of Liberty
1894: It was reported today that the “stores and fuel yards” that have been provided by Nathan Straus during the current Depression have been “besieged” by the poor and needy.
1895: In New York, the Young Ladies' and Gentlemen's League of the Montefiore Home sponsored a grand ball to raise funds for the Montefiore Home for Chronic Invalids. The successful fund raiser was attended by members of “the best circles of Jewish society.” The dances for the Montefiore Home have replaced the Purim Balls which up until two years ago were the great fund raising and major winter social events of these prosperous Jewish citizens
1895: It was reported today that “Congregation Shearith Israel has abandoned the idea of selling the synagogue property on 19th Street between 5th&; 6th Avenues.
1896: It was reported today that the officers of the Hebrew Orphan Asylum Society are: Moses May, President; Abraham Abraham, Vice President; Herman Newman, Treasurer.
1896: Notorious German anti-Semitic agitator Hermann Ahlwardt addressed a meeting at Proesser’s in Jersey City, NJ.
1897: It was reported today that Scribner’s is ready to publish Professor Charles F. Kent’s second volume of the History of the Hebrew People.
1898: An anti-Dreyfus/anti-Zola demonstration was scheduled to take place on the Place de la Concorde in Paris.
1898: Ant-Semitic riots continued today in Algiers when “the mob invaded the Jews quarter and pillaged the shops in the Rue Babaoum, driving the Jewish merchants into the streets.”
1898: It was reported today that Selah Miller, a Congregationalist Minister from Massachusetts has been reappointed to by the President as U.S. Consul at Jerusalem. He had served in that capacity from 1882 to 1886.
1898: The annual meeting of the Mount Sinai Hospital Society was held today in the Dispensary building on east 67th Street.
1898: “A Man Fasts For Twenty Years” published today describes the regiment followed by Morris Fox, a forty year old Jew from Russia who has been living in London for the last twenty years. During that time he has lived exclusively on a diet of six pints of milk, three pints of beer and half pound of Demerara sugar. Physicians in Konigsberg provided this “fast” which has proven to be the only way to cope with effects of an illness that “entirely destroyed his digestive organs.”
1898: Birthdate of Sergei Eisenstein. The Russian, film maker worked in the United States before returning to the Soviet Union. One of his most famous films was the “Battleship Potemkin.”
1898: It was reported today that the ant-Dreyfus riots at “Nantes, Bordeaux, Marseilles” and other cities outside of Paris “are frankly anti-Semitic…The mobs have a single purpose which is to outrage, plunder and kill in the Jewish quarters.” Their cries against Zola are based on their belief that he is a “hired champion” of the Jews. (More for 2014)
1898: It was reported today that American correspondent does not think that Sarah Bernhardt will enjoy a successful season this winter when she performs in Paris.
1898: It was reported today that Justice J.J. Cohen, Isaac N. Seligman and Jacob Schiff were among those who attended Legal Aid Society’s 22nd annual dinner at Delmonico’s. (More 2014)
1898 (29th of Tevet, 5658): Yehoshua Yehudah Leib Diskin passed away. Born in 1818, this important rabbi, Talmudist and Biblical commentator was also known as the Maharil Diskin,. He served as a rabbi in Łomża, Mezritch, Kovno, Shklov, Brisk and finally Jerusalem after moving there in 1878, where he became the spiritual leader of a part of the Yishuv haYashan. He was part of a family of rabbis. His father, Binyamin Diskin, served as rabbi in Grodno, Volkovisk and later Łomża. His son was Rabbi Yitzchok Yeruchem Diskin.
1899: Henry Herzberg delivered a lecture at Temple Beth-El tonight in New York entitled “The Soul of Judaism.
1899: The Baron de Hirsch Trade Schools are scheduled to move into a new facility on East Sixty Fourth Street. The school had outgrown its old facility on East 9th Street that it had occupied for the last five years
1899: It was reported today that newly created Central Federate Union which has replaced the old Central Labor Union refused to admit delegates from the Federated Hebrew Trades Unions because “they represented a central body and not individual unions.”
1899: In Albany, New York state senator Elsbeg introduced a bill that would the Hebrew Infant Asylum of New York to the list of institutions that are entitled to receive public money.
1902(15thof Shevat, 5662): Tu B’Shevat
1904(6thof Shevat, 5664): Sixty-two year old Flaminio Ephraim Servi who had been serving as chief rabbi at Casale-Monferrato (Italy) since 1872, passed away today.
1904: Herzl was received by the Italian King, Vittorio Emanuele III. The king showed a serious interest in Zionism. But under the Italian political system, the king reigns but does not rule so it will be to Foreign Minister Tittoni to gain political support in Constantinople. Tittoni asked for a memorandum and promised to write to the Italian ambassador in Constantinople.
1909: Birthdate of Simon W. Gerson, a leader of CPUSA and editor for The Daily Worker.
1909: Birthdate of Richard David Barnett, the British academic who was “an authority on archaeology of the ancient world” who also served as President of the Jewish Historical Society of England and Chairman of the Anglo-Israel Archaeological Society.
1910: The Board of Directors of Mount Sinai Hospital held their annual board meeting today at the hospital on 100th Street and Fifth Avenue. During the reading of the annual report Isaac Stern, the President, announced that the plan to establish a federation of the larger Jewish charitable institutions of the city, a plan for some time in contemplation, had failed. Mr. Stern said that there were certain disadvantages to the creation of such a federation without the guarantee of “any permanent advantages.” Therefore, the directors considered it “in the best interest of the community not give their consent” to such a plan. Mr. Stern announced that the children of the late Mayer Lehman had donated $78,528 which was to used to add two stories to the Dispensary Building as a memorial to their late father. In the past year, almost 89% of the nearly 9,000 patients admitted to the hospital were treated without paying a fee. The hospital’s expenditure of $399,170 exceeded income by almost $15,000. Jacob Schiff, who apparently favored the creation of the federation, gave a speech in which he thanked the board and the medical staff for their efforts in the last year. The board’s decision about joining a federation of charitable institutions doomed the idea at a cost of one million dollars. That was the amount that the late Louis A. Heinsheimer had set aside in his will for such an organization, if and when, it should be created.
1913(15thof Shevat, 5673): Tu B’Shevat
1918: Birthdate of Gertrude Belle Elion. Born in New York City to immigrant Jewish parents from Lithuania, Elion graduated from Hunter College and then earned a Master in Science from N.Y.U. in 1941. In a classic case of sex discrimination, she was unable to obtain a graduate research job which meant she could not earn a Ph.D. Thus the 1988 recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine ended up working as a lab assistant and high school teacher.
1918: The Chief Rabbi of Algeria plans a community building which will contain a yeshiva, an assembly hall, a library, shelter for strangers, a mikvah and a bakery for matzah.
1919: General Lyautey, the resident General of Morocco visits the Mellah (Jewish Quarter) and urges the Jews to contribute towards its sanitation and enlargement.
1921: In Shanghai, Rabbi W. Hirsch consecrated The Ohel Rachel Synagogue for worship. This marked the culminating achievement of Shanghai's First Wave of Jewish immigrants and it was built to accommodate the community of Baghdadi Jews which at its peak numbered 700.
1923 (6th of Shevat, 5683): Max Nordau passed away at the age of 73. http://www.herzl.org/english/Article.aspx?Item=531
1924: Birthdate of Democrat Frank R Lautenberg. Lautenberg is serving again as a United States Senator from New Jersey. He is also a leader in the Jewish community.
1929: Birthdate of Myron Sidney Kopelman, who, as Myron Cope, would become an American sports journalist, radio personality, and sportscaster best known for being "the voice of the Pittsburgh Steelers."
1932: Chief Judge Benjamin N. Cardozo of the Court of Appeals was formally endorsed for associate justice of the United States Supreme Court to fill the seat recently vacated by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes at tonight’s closing session of the annual meeting of the New York State Bar Association at the Hotel Astor
1933: Birthdate of composer Joel Spiegelman.
1936: Sir Isaac Isaacs, a native born Australian who was the son of Polish Jews, completes his term as the 9th Governor-General of Australia.
1937: In Moscow, 17 leading Communists went on trial. They were accused of participating in a plot led by Leon Trotsky to overthrow Joseph Stalin's regime and assassinate its leaders. Stalin combined Trotsky’s Jewish parentage with traditional Russian anti-Semitism to demonize Trotsky and destroy those opposing his authoritarian rule. Having branded the “Jew, Trostky” as an enemy of the revolution, or the Communist Party and/or the Soviet Union, Stalin would feel to move against the Jews of the U.S.S.R when it fit his needs or his demonic spirit.
1938: The Palestine Postreported that two Arabs, implicated in the murder of J.L. Starkey, a noted archaeologist who was excavating in Palestine, were hanged at Acre. The Motza brick and burnt-tile factory was completely gutted by fire. Arson by Arab terrorists was suspected. Ephraim Brin, 19, and Aziz Jacob, 17, both of Jerusalem, were the first Jews to be sentenced, under the newly created Military Courts, to five years' imprisonment for carrying a pistol and a few rounds of ammunition.
1941: Charles Lindbergh testified before the U.S. Congress and recommended that the United States negotiate a neutrality pact with Adolf Hitler. For those who are perplexed by Roosevelt’s response to the plight of European Jewry, this entry should give you a clue as to the kind of the environment in which he was operating. “The Lone Eagle” was a national monument and, as the leader of the America First Movement, he saw WW II was a European measure. He would only grudgingly give ground on his opposition to war once the bombs were falling on Pearl Harbor. Opposition of this magnitude fashioned all of FDR’s decisions about the war, including how to deal with the Shoah. It is only with the warmth of the myth of America’s Greatest Generation that the United States seems like an ant-fascist monolith in WWII.
1941: “Lady in the Dark” a product of “3 Jewish Musketters” - music by Kurt Weill, lyrics by Ira Gershwin and book and direction by Moss Hart – opened at the Alvin Theatre in New York
1942(5th of Shevat, 5702): In Novi Sad, Hungary, 550 Jews and 292 Serbs were driven onto the ice and then shelled. All drowned. [Ed. Note: Who says Kaddish for these people?]
http://www1.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/this_month/january/07.asp
1942(5th of Shevat, 5702): Paul Levinstein was killed in Hadjerat M'Guil a Nazi concentration camp built in remote part of the Sahara Desert in 1941. Upon hearing of their son's death his parents committed suicide in Britain.
1943: Italian authorities refuse to cooperate with Germans in deportations of French Jews living in zones of France under Italian control
1944: "Ode to Napoleon" by the Jewish composer Arnold Schoenberg premieres in New York City
1945: Birthdate of Bruce Ratner. Appointed by Ed Koch to the position of Commissioner of Consumer Affairs for New York City in 1978, he became a real estate developer in 1982. He is now the owner of the New Jersey Nets basketball team, his net worth now several hundred million dollars. Ratner is the developer charged with building the New York Times Tower. He is a member of the board of the Jewish Heritage Museum.
1949: At the Hollywood Athletic Club the first Emmy Awards are presented. A year later, two Jewish stars would dominate the Emmy Awards. The Texaco Star Theatre starring Milton Berle and The Ed Wynn Show starring Ed Wynn would walk off with top honors while Berle and Wynn would each earn awards in their own right.
1950: The 3rd edition of Famous 1st Facts by Jewish trivia expert Joseph Kane is published
1950: Israeli Knesset resolved that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel
1952: Birthdate of Jeanette Ingberman, the Brooklyn born daughter of Holocaust survivors who became a founder of the New York cultural center Exit Art, a hotbed of avant-garde work by artists from around the world. (As reported by Margalit Fox)
1953: The Jerusalem Postreported from New York that the Soviet Union was about to break diplomatic relations with Israel. The first five tons of the copper ore, excavated from Timna mine in the Negev, were sent for industrial tests to Europe.
1960: Israeli General Yitzhak Rabin sends an aerial reconnaissance across the Suez Canal to ascertain the position of Nasser’s advancing troops. When the troops cannot be found, Rabin correctly assumes they have crossed the Canal. It turned out that the bulk of Egyptian army was almost at the border with Israel where they would only be opposed by force of twenty or thirty tanks.
1963: The latest installment of the memoirs of Ilya Ehrenberg which describe the Soviet response to the invasion of June, 1941, appeared today. Ehrenbeg depicted a hesitant Stalin whose ever—present picture disappeared from view for months and who did not speak to the nation until November of 1941. This installment also describes how Stalin mobilized Soviet Jews including Ehrenberg, Sergei Eisenstein and Solomon Mikhoels to make broadcasts abroad to gain support for the Soviets in their fight against the Nazis. [After the war, Stalin, like Pharaoh, would know not the Jewish contribution and murdered many of them included Mikhoels.]
1964: Arthur Miller's "After the Fall" premiered in New York City.
1975: "Barney Miller" starring Hal Linden premiered on ABC TV.
1977(4th of Shevat, 5737): Bernard "Toots" Shor passed away. “Toots Shor, a bulky Jewish street kid from Philadelphia, who made and gambled away several fortunes in the big town, was in a sense the original insult comic—crass, coarse, jesting jibes being the prime ingredient of pal ship among all those heavy hitters.” Shor was the premier Saloonkeeper and his New York restaurant was a thing of legend.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/17/movies/17shor.html
1978: The Jerusalem Postreported that the cabinet decided to postpone the military talks held with Egypt in Cairo, after the Egyptian delegation broke off political negotiations with Israel, held in Jerusalem. It was expected that this step might influence Egypt to moderate its demands, in tone as well as in contents. The US expressed its disappointment with Israel's sharp reaction to President Anwar Sadat's demands for a total withdrawal to the 1967 borders and the recognition of the rights of the Palestinians. Four hundred and twenty-five Israelis flew to the US under the 'Friendly Force' program designed to promote peace through personal contacts.
1978 (15th of Shevat, 5738): A hundred thousand trees were planted on Tu Bishvat by the Jewish National Fund.
1986: "Jerome Kern Goes to Hollywood" opens at Ritz Theater New York City.
1987: Meir Heth, was appointed today as the new chairman of Bank Leumi L'Yisrael, Israel's biggest commercial bank. The former head of the Tel Aviv stock exchange, Heith was criticized over a 1983 collapse of bank shares. A commission of inquiry last year criticized Mr. Heth for failing to prevent the country's four major banks from manipulating their shares. the former head of the Tel Aviv stock exchange, criticized over a 1983 collapse of bank shares.
1988: As the Arab uprising called the Intifada brings an increase in violence the representative of the Arab League and three other Arab diplomats met with a senior State Department official today to complain about what they considered inadequate United States pressure on Israel to halt the violence against Palestinians in Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
1991. At a briefing this morning, Israeli officials appeared to play down the deaths that occurred when an Iraqi Scud missile evaded two American Patriot air-defense missiles and slammed into a Tel Aviv suburb on Tuesday night, leaving 3 people dead and 96 wounded emphasizing that the three victims had suffered heart attacks.
1991: "Seinfeld" debuts on NBC-TV
1997: Madeleine Albright became the first woman to serve as United States Secretary of State. During her term as Secretary of State, Albright found out for the first time that her family was Jewish.
2000: The New York Timesincludes a review of The House of Rothschild: The World's Banker, 1849-1999by Niall Ferguson.
2001: This afternoon, two Tel Aviv restaurateurs and an Israeli Arab friend sat down for a late lunch in Tulkarm, a battle-scarred town rarely visited by Israeli Jews since the West Bank erupted in riotous protests nearly four months ago. The three were seized by armed men who later let the Israeli Arab go, but shot the two Israeli Jews at point-blank range, Israeli officials said. Hamas, the militant Gaza-based Islamic movement, took responsibility for what it called an ''execution'' and said the shooting had been videotaped.
2001: The killing of two Israeli civilians by Palestinian militants earlier today interrupted a new round of peace negotiations here, with Prime Minister Ehud Barak condemning the slayings as ''horrendous'' and ordering the three cabinet ministers in the talks to return to Jerusalem.
2001: Today, in a talk with high school students on the campaign trail, Ehud Barak appeared to disavow proposals for relinquishing control of the ancient city core of Jerusalem. ''Under any settlement, the Western Wall, the Jewish Quarter, and the Mount of Olives, and what is called the holy basin, will remain under Israeli sovereignty,'' Mr. Barak said.
2002(10th of Shevat, 5762): Bernard Rothman passed away. Cause of death was a stroke. He was better known as Benny Rothman, “a UK political activist, most famous for his leading role in the Mass trespass of Kinder Scout in 1932. He was born in Cheetham Hill, Manchester, in 1911. He is family was so poor that he had to start work at the earliest opportunity rather than take full advantage of a scholarship that he had won. Working as an errand boy in the motor trade, he studied geography and economics in his spare time while his Aunt Ettie introduced him to The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists and the works of Upton Sinclair. Increasingly committed to the causes of socialism and communism, Rothman lost his job after getting into some trouble with the law while selling copies of the Daily Worker. During a period of unemployment, with the help of a bicycle salvaged from spare parts, he discovered the nearby wilderness regions of the Peak District and North Wales. The combination of his political activism and interest in the outdoors led to his participation in the mass trespass of 1932, an enterprise that resulted in a spell in prison and further employment difficulties. In 1934, Rothman went to work at Avro in Newton Heath and instantly became an officer of the Amalgamated Engineering Union (AEU). At Avro's, he met and married fellow communist Lily Crabtree but his political views became increasingly visible to his employer and he was dismissed. Rothman was active in working with Jewish groups in Manchester to oppose the campaigns of Sir Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists. In 1936, he started work at Metropolitan Vickers at Trafford Park and was again soon an AEU official.”
2002: Daniel Pearl was kidnapped and subsequently murdered in Karachi, Pakistan. Based on the tape of his murder, Pearl was killed because he was a Jew.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/blogpost/post/daniel-pearls-death-10-years-later-an-interview-with-his-father-judea-pearl/2012/02/21/gIQAKChtRR_blog.html
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1014311357552611480.html
2003 (20th of Shevat, 5763): Actress Nell Carter passed away. She had converted from Catholicism to Judaism in 1982.
2003: The 12th annual Jewish Film Festival comes to an end in New York.
2003: As of 10 pm, Rabbi Yitzhak Kaduri, the holy man of unknown but tremendous age, who was scheduled to visit the Hall of Moses synagogue and then a candlelit graveyard in this Tel Aviv suburb tonight for a rally that mixed mystic ritual with all the grit of Chicago ward politics had failed to make an appearance and the police were forced to disperse the disappointed crowd
2004(29thof Tevet, 5764): German born photographer Helmut Newton passed away. (As reported by Suzy Menkes)
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/26/news/26iht-obits_ed3__23.html
http://www.helmutnewton.com/
2005: Stanley Fischer, a widely respected American economist and banker, has agreed to leave the United States and a job as a vice chairman of Citigroup to become governor of the Bank of Israel. 2005: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including recently published paperback editions of Horse People: Scenes from the Riding Life by Michael Korda and Unsettled: An Anthropolgy of Jews, Melvin Konner’s sweeping study that follows a roughly historical outline, from the earliest pre-biblical days to the establishment of the state of Israel, and tracks down far-flung Jewish communities in China, India and Afghanistan.
2006: The Andrew Carnegie Medal for best children's video was given to the producers of Mordicai Gerstein's "The Man Who Walked Between the Towers," winner of the Caldecott in 2004. Mordicai Gerstein was born in Los Angeles in 1935. He lives in western Massachusetts with his wife, Susan Yard Harris, who is also an illustrator, and their daughter, Risa. The award winning illustrator, painter and graphics artist has collaborated on numerous books for children including many with a Jewish motif including Queen Esther the Morning Star, Noah and the Great Flood and Jonah and the Two Great Fish
2006(7th of Tevet, 5766): Andrea Bronfman, the wife of Jewish Canadian billionaire Charles Bronfman, was killed in a traffic accident in New York Monday.
2007(4th of Shevat, 5767): Aharon Uzan passed away at the age of 82. Born in Tunisia in 1924, he made Aliyah in 1949 where he became active in a variety of left-wing political parties. He served in the Knesset and held a variety of cabinet posts included Minister of communications and Minister of Agriculture.
2007: "Two Hands” a short documentary on Leon Fleisher by Nathaniel Kahn was nominated for an Academy Award for best short subject today
2007: Israel’s “Sweet Mud” and Holland’s “Black Book,” a movie about a Jewish woman serving in the Resistance against the Nazis are among 61 foreign language films that may be nominated for an Oscar.
2007: Rabbi Andrew Bossov successfully received a kidney from Methodist minister, Reverend Karen Onesti.
2008: The third and final episode of “The Jewish Americans” airs on PBS. The three episode series traces the history of the Jews in America starts with the arrival of the first 23 Sephardic Jews in New Amsterdam in 1654 and “ends with Maisyahu, the Chasidic hip-hop star, one of about six million Jews in America today.” For more information see http://www.jewishtvnetwork.com/jewishamericans/
2008: The New York Jewish Film Festival presents “Labyrinths of Memory, a documentary that draws parallels between two very different women united by a search for identity: Maite Guiteras, Mexican born, adopted at birth, and raised in Cuba; and the film’s director, born in Costa Rica to East European Jewish parents and raised in Mexico.”
2008: In a night time attack, two armed Palestinians affiliated with Fatah’s Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades infiltrated a yeshiva at Kfar Etzion wounding three civilians. The two had just been released from an Israeli prison.
2008 (16th of Shevat, 5768): Rami Zuari, a 20 year old Border Police officer was killed during a terrorist attack at an East Jerusalem checkpoint. Border Police officer Shoshana Samendayev sustained moderate to serious injuries in the same attack.
2008: The New York Times featured a review of The Forger: An Extraordinary Story of Survival in Wartime Berlin, the autobiography of Cioma Schonhaus.
2009: “Lansky,” a one-man play about Meyer Lansky starring Mike Burstyn opens in an off-Broadway production. “Acclaimed American/Israeli actor Mike Burstyn stars as Meyer Lansky in the New York premiere of a new play by Richard Krevolin and Joseph Bologna about the life of the “little man,” known as the “brains behind the mob,” and his efforts to become an Israeli citizen.
2009: Final showing of “Zion and His Brother,” a family drama set in Tel Aviv, at the Sundance Film Festival.
2009: Temple Judah in Cedar Rapids hosts another creative Musical Shabbat Service.
2009: In article entitled “The End of a Chicago Tradition: Is absolutely nothing sacred?”, Susan Berger reports on the demise of the Best Kosher Sausage Company while documenting the history of a small slice of Chicago-base Jewish Americana.
My family and the Jewish community in particular, are mourning one fatality of the financial meltdown that for us is unthinkable. By the end of the month, the company that my great-grandfather Isaac Oscherwitz started in 1886 will close. Best's Kosher Sausage Co., was family owned for more than 100 years. In 1993, Sara Lee Corp. acquired Best's Kosher. Mike Cummins, a Sara Lee spokesperson, said of the closing: "It was not because it's not profitable—it's just not where it needs to be."This is a loss not only for my family, but for the millions of Jews who keep kosher and the many millions who don't but learned to love my family's hot dogs.My great-grandfather emigrated from Germany. On his way to Ellis Island, he met Rabbi Dov Behr Manischewitz. Rabbi Manischewitz asked Isaac to go into business with him. But my great-grandfather had five sons and said he needed to go it alone. They both landed in Cincinnati. Isaac started Oscherwitz's (later changed to Best's Kosher and moved to Chicago) and Rabbi Manischewitz started his matzo and wine business. Isaac's five sons—Sam, Max, Israel, Philip and Harry