January 5 In Jewish History
1355: Charles I of Bohemia was crowned with the Iron Crown of Lombardy in Milan. Charles I morphed into Charles IV, the Holy Roman Emperor who at the beginning of his reign made an effectual attempt to protect his Jewish subjects by issuing “letter after letter forbidding the person of the His Jews, his ‘servi camerae,’ to be touched.” His Christian subjects in Germany disregarded their Emperor and continued their persecution of the Jews.
1589: Catherine de Medici, Queen of France, the wife of King Henry II passed away. Along with several other French rulers and power brokers including Cardinal Richelieu and Louis XIV, she had a penchant for collecting Hebrew Manuscripts.
1642: King Charles I of England sends soldiers to arrest members of Parliament, commencing England's slide into civil war. The Civil War would bring Oliver Cromwell to power. Cromwell would champion the return of the Jews to England, leading to the creation of the modern Jewish committee in Great Britain, and by extension throughout the British Empire including the United States.
1814:Today Chief Rabbi Lehmans of The Hague organized a special thanksgiving service and implored God's protection for the allied armies.
1826: Maryland put into effect the "Jew Bill", 1826, which allowed Jews to hold public office if they believed in Reward and Punishment in the Hereafter.
Maryland
had an interesting history when it came to questions of religious toleration. Unlike other colonies, it was founded by Catholics and the Act of Toleration was one of its landmark pieces of colonial legislation.
1841: Birthdate of Shlomo Elyashiv, the son of Rabbi Chayim Chaiil Elisahoff and author of Leshem Shevo V’Achlama.
1856: Under the heading “We May Eat Pork Without Fear of the Tape Worm,” the New York Times published a letter to the editor written in response to a previously published article warning about the relationship between pork consumption and tape worm infestation. Citing the statement “that a Jew was never known to have a tape-worm,” the author warns any “hypochondriac” who “should be tempted to turn Jew from this statement and forswear pork” need not do so since it is a “rare occurrence in this country” for anybody to be infested by the worms “notwithstanding we are such universal pork-eaters.”
1863: Lazarus Powell, the U.S. Senator from Kentucky called on Congress to adopt “a resolution condemning…General Order No. 11 as ‘illegal, tyrannical, cruel and unjust.’” (It was not that Powell was an ardent supporter of the Jews. He didn't like Grant and was trying to use the issuance of General Order No !! as excuse to get rid of one of the few Union Generals who knew how to win. More to the point, Grant was already in the process of countermanding this ill-considered order.)
1868(10thof Tevet, 5628): Asara B’Tevet
1874: It was reported today that when the noted author Léon Gozlan passed away he was buried by a Catholic priest. “He had the features of a Jew and lived like a Jew…but it was positively declared that he had been so baptized so the Rabbi gave way” and Gozlan was interred using the rites of the Church.
1874: Birthdate of American physiologist Joseph Erlanger
1875: A meeting of the Executive Committee of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, which includes several Jewish members, was held at their new offices on Broadway and 34th Street.
1876: Birthdate of Konrad Adenauer. Adenauer was the first post-war Chancellor of West Germany. He took office in 1949. Having been imprisoned by the Nazis during World War II, Adenauer sought to return
Germany
to the world community. He sought to make amends with the Jewish community by offering war reparations to the government of
Israel
. Under
Adenauer
,
Germany
recognized
Israel
and provided arms for her defense despite threats from the Arab governments.
1877: The Supreme Court of Massachusetts upheld a lower court decision that Jews must observe the laws of the state regulating the observance of the Sabbath. The case grew out of an attempt to keep a store open on Sunday.
1878(1st of Shevat, 5638): Rosh Chodesh Shevat
1878: It was reported today that “a thrilling tale of a brave young Jew will appear in the New York Weekly on the morning of January 7.
1878: Rabbi Abram S. Isaacs will deliver lecture entitled “The Dance to Death” at tonight’s meeting of the Young Men’s Hebrew Association in New York’s Lyric Hall.
1879: The Board of Directors of the Home for Aged and Infirm Jews met this afternoon. The Board limited itself to routine business and did not take up the matter of accepting or rejecting Judge Hilton’s recent offer to contribute $250 to the Home. Judge Hilton is the New York businessman who banned Jews from his hotel at Saratoga Springs.
1879: An article profiling Otto von Bismarck published today reported that “mixed marriage in Germany” is “a source of horror to the orthodox Christians as well as to orthodox Jews.” Bismarck coarsely described mixed marriage as “the crossing of a Jewish mare with a Christian stallion.”
1885: Ludovic Trarieux, the future Minister of Justice who would become a defender of Alfred Dreyfus, was elected Senator from the Gironde.
1886: Birthdate of Israeli scientist Markus Reiner.
1888(21st of Tevet, 5648): Henri Herz, the Austrian born French pianist and composer passed away. Hertz owned his own piano factory, built a concert hall in Paris and still found time to teach write and perform.
1890: Birthdate of Sarah Aaronsohn, the native of the moshav Zikhron Ya’akov who became a leader of Nili during World War I. After being tortured by the Turks, she took her own life in 1917.
1891” It was reported today that “Solomon J. Solomons has been moved Russia’s persecution of the Jews to” create a painting that is an allegorical representation of the struggle. In the picture, “the Russian Eagle falls with the beak and claw on a Jewish family while a Fury, masquerading as Justice, presented to defend the family from the monster’s attack.”
1892: Captain Strauss of the Seventh Precinct took five children, all Russian Jewish immigrants, from a hotel on 141 Madison Street. They were suffering variously from varioloid, diphtheria and/or scarlet fever.
1892: Birthdate of Louis Waldman, a native of the Ukraine who became an American labor leader and a leader of the Socialist Party.
1892: A review of the MacLean-Prescott company’s production of “The Merchant of Venice” described Marie Prescott’s portrayal of the Jewess Portia as “very bad, cold” and “stilted.” R.D. MacLean’s portrayal of Shylock which appeared to be on par with Cruikshank’s drawing of Fagen was based on “a totally false idea.” (The manner in which Shylock was protrayed often said more about the era in which the play was performed than it did about the playwright's original intent.)
1894: Rabbi Gottheil officiated at a private funeral service for Adolph L. Sanger, the late President of the Board of Education after which a public ceremony was held at Temple Emanu-El followed by burial at Salem Field in Cypress Hills Cemetery.
1894: It was reported that “Marie,” a one act play by Charles D. Levin was performed at the Berkley Lyceum as part of a fundraiser for the Louis Down-Town Sabbath and Daily School.
1894: It was reported today that the United Hebrew Charities had spent over $171,000 in aiding the needy. Due to the economic downturn in 1893, the organization had spent $200,000 through November of 1893.
1895: According to the will of the late multi-millionaire Eugene Kelly which was filed in the Surrogate’s office today, $10,000 should “go to such Hebrew charitable institutions” as may be selected y by the executors.
1895: Colonel David S. Brown is scheduled to set sail today on the SS Normannia for a trip that will take him to Egypt and then to Palestine.
1895: Alfred Dreyfus was publicly degraded and sent to
Devil's Island
. Later, evidence was produced which proved that Major Esterhazy and Colonel Henry, Dreyfus' chief accusers, had forged the evidence. Yet, a new trial was not begun until 1899. The Dreyfus Affair brought on a torrent of anti-Semitism that spawned the modern Zionist movement. It tore at the fabric of French society and for decades later, there was still a political divide between those who supported Dreyfus and those who wanted to believe that he was a traitor.
1896: Julius Harburger, the Excise Commissioner of New York City, addressed a meeting of the Boston chapter of the Independent Order of Free Sons of Israel, of which he is a Grand Master.
1896:Dr. Joseph Silverman delivered his second lecture today entitled “Another Basis on Which Christians and Jews Can Unite” at Temple Emanu-El.
1896: It was reported today that the most recent census of the state of New Jersey shows that there are 16.413 people in the category of “other nationalities” which includes Jews as well as Italians and Hungarians.
1896: “Effect of Hellenism on Judaism” which relied on information that first appeared in The Edingburg Scotsman provided a summary of an address delivered by Claude G. Montefiore in Glasgow entitled “Some Reflections on Hellenistic Judaism.” Montefiore used the term “Hellenic Judaism” to described “that Judaism which was touched an influenced by the Hellenism of the time of Alexander the Great and his immediate successors
1896: It was reported today that Reverend C.H. Parkhurst publicly expressed his appreciation for the support the Jews have given to the City Vigilance League, the successor to the Society for the Prevention of Crime. (This portryal of Jews as supporters of "law and order" stood in stark contrast of the attmept to brand the recently arrived Jewish immigrants from eastern Europe as crooks, thieves and criminals.)
1896: It was reported today that 16 year old Jennie Zellers saved the lives of her five siblings when a fire broke out in a tenement building in Philadelphia. A grocery store owned by Samuel Lipman occupied the first floor of the four-story building that suffered $5,000 in damages.
1897: It was reported today that the Trustees of Columbia tendered their thanks to Benjamin Stern and Charles A. Dana for their donation of Hebrew manuscripts to the school’s library.
1898: In the Supreme Court in Brooklyn, Justice Gaynor is scheduled to hear Mrs. Martha Reubel’s petition for an annulment based on a claim that he is a Christian. Mrs. Reubel is an 18 year old Jewess and contends that her husband Siegfried mis-represented himself as being an Orthodox Jews.
1898: Herzl’s "The New Ghetto" was finally produced in the Carl-Theater in Vienna.
The play was also performed in Berlin and Prague.
1899: According to the will which filed for probate today, the late David Marks left $250 to each of the following – the Hebrew Technical School; the Montefiore Home, the Home for Aged and Infirm Hebrews; Hebrew Benevolent and Orphan Asylum, Mount Sinai Hospital, Educational Alliance, Young Men’s Hebrew Association and $100 each to the Hebrew Free School and the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society. (This represents a panoply of the institutions supported by New York Jewry at the turn of the century.)
1899: It was reported today that a French civil court has fined Comtesse de Martel who writes under the nom de plume of “Gyp” five thousand francs for libeling Senator Ludovic Trarieux, the former Minister of Justice. The libel consisted of an unfounded accusation that the Senator had become a Protestant “in order to contract a rich marriage.
1899: It was reported today that the Comtesse de Martel, who proclaimed herself to be an anti-Semite said the Jews should not only be driven out of Paris but out of the whole country. (Her anti-Semitism was part and parcel of the French right wing's anti-republican, pro-monarchitst views.)
1899: “Alleged Outrages on Jews” published today summarized the “anti-Semitic prejudice existing in “ the United States as described by Brooklyn resident Leopold Cohn, a former rabbi who had converted to Christianity
1904: Birthdate of Austrian violinist Erika Morini who began her studies under the guidance of her father, Oscar Morini, who directed his own school in Vienna.
1908: Adas Israel dedicated its new sanctuary at Sixth and I in Washington, DC
1912: State organization formed in Boston, Mass. to encourage naturalization of Jews living in the
Bay
State
.
1912: The Philadelphia Jewish community requested leniency in the enforcement the Sunday Closing Law of 1794.
1912: The Boston Section withdrew from Council of Jewish Women.
1914:Birthdate of Heinz Berggruen a German art dealer and collector who founded the
Berggruen
Museum
in
Berlin
Germany
. Born in
Berlin
, he immigrated to the
United States
in 1936 and studied at
Berkeley
University
. In 1939 he became an "Assistant director" at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. In preparing an exhibition about the Mexican painter Diego Rivera he met Frida Kahlo, too, and had a short love affair with her. After the Second World War he got acquainted with Pablo Picasso in
Paris
, who spontaneously had confidence in Berggruen and so he became Picasso's art dealer. In 1996, after 60 years in exile, he returned to
Germany
and opened an art museum in front of the
Charlottenburg
Palace
. Berggruen left his precious art collection in a generous gesture of a low price to the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation. For this he was awarded the honorary citizenship of
Berlin
and the Federal Cross of Merit (Grand Cross 2nd Class) of
Germany
(Bundesverdienstkreuz, Großes Verdienstkreuz mit Stern und Schulterband). He died in
Paris
on
February 23, 2007
.
1919: The National Socialist Party (Nazi) formed as German Farmers Party. Hitler was not one of the party founders.
1923: Birthdate of Robert L Bernstein, chief executive of Random House.
1923: Birthdate of Israel Prize-winning author and translator Aharon Amir. Amir, who was born in
Lithuania
, grew up in Tel Aviv and was a member of both the Irgun and the Lehi. He was one of the founders of the Canaanite movement, which saw geographical location rather than religious affiliation as the defining element of Hebrew or Israeli culture. He studied Arabic language and literature at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, but translated works of literature mainly from English and French. Authors whose work he rendered into Hebrew include Ernest Hemingway, Mark Twain, Herman Melville, Lewis Carroll, Albert Camus, and Charles de Gaulle. Amir won the Tchernichovsky Prize for translation in 1951 and the Israel Prize for translation in 2003. He passed away on
February 28, 2008
at the age of 85.
1924: Leon and Henrietta Shershevsky gave birth to George Leon Sherry, a United Nations official who helped calm crises around the world — a role that evolved from his time as the leading rapid-fire translator of speeches by Russian diplomats in the organization’s early days…(As reported by Dennis Hevesi)
1928: Reports of a large number of unemployed workers in the non-agricultural sector of the economy are a cause of major concern for the Government and leaders of the Labor movement. While approximately 21,000 people are employed non-farm jobs, there may be as many as 10,000 unemployed workers. It is hope that the situation will be alleviated, in part, with the construction and operation of a variety of public works projects including the building of the Straus Health Clinic in Jerusalem.
1930: Mapai was founded today “by the merger of the Hapoel Hatzair founded by A. D. Gordon and the original Ahdut HaAvoda (founded in 1919 from the right, more moderate, wing of the Marxist Zionist socialist Poale Zion led by David Ben-Gurion
1931: Elections were held today to choose members for the Asefat Hanivcharim (The Jewish Elected Assembly). Only 35 to 40 per cent of those eligible are expected cast their ballots. The sharpest contest is between the Labor Party and the Revisionists. Labor is expected to win 23 seats and the Revisionists will end up with 18 seats, the same number expected to be won by the Party representing “Oriental Jews.” There are a total of 71 seats at stake. There has been no prediction about how many seats will be won by the United Women’s ticket head by Henrietta Szold.
1936: Birthdate of Steven Cojocaru, Canadian born American television personality and fashion critic.
1937: Israel Rokach, Mayor of Tel Aviv, testified before the Peel Commission. Rokach said that he was not opposed to a certain amount of governmental involvement with municipal affairs but that the real dispute centered around underfunding of the city government. Members of the commission expressed positive interest in Rokach’s proposal to develop a port that would serve both Jaffa and Tel Aviv.
1938: The Palestine Postreported that the British government was about to send to Palestine a new, largely technical commission, essentially a fact-finding body, which would plan how to implement Partition, according to the terms of the agreement reached with the Mandatory Commission of the League of Nations. The government, however, indicated that it was in no way committed to the actual execution of such a plan. Three Arabs out of a band of 40, apparently arms smugglers, were killed close to the Syrian border. Haskiel Joseph and Nathan Yairoff were shot and badly wounded by an Arab terrorist inside the Jaffa Gate of the Old City of Jerusalem.
1939: The gathering of a group of young Jews in Riga is captured in a photograph which will later become the property of Yad Vashem.
http://www1.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/this_month/january/03.asp
1939: Sir Horace Rumbold, a member of the Peel Commission, attempts to explain away his description of the Jews of Palestine as an “alien race” by saying that he merely meant that the Jews were a race with different characteristics from the Arab race.
1939: Germany declared Karaite Jews exempt from enforcement of the Nuremberg Laws.
1939: President Roosevelt nominated Felix Frankfurter to serve as an Associate Justice on the U.S. Supreme Court. He was chosen for the position following the death of Benjamin N. Cardozo. When Frankfurter was confirmed two weeks later, he became the third Jew to serve on the High Court.
1940: Jews were forbidden by the General Gouvernment be in the streets between
9:00PM
and
5:00AM
.
1942: Birthdate of Elzbieta Ficowska, nee Koppel, one of the 2,500 children smuggled out of the Warsaw Ghetto by Irena Sendler and her associate Stanislawa, a widowed Catholic mid-wife. (Shades of the story of the brave mid-wives found in the Book of Exodus.)
1942: The Jewish ghetto at
Kharkov
,
Ukraine
, is liquidated.
1943: The Vught,
Holland
, concentration camp is established
1943: In an orgy of killing that would last for the next two days the Nazis murdered thousands of Jews at
Lvov
,
Ukraine
.
1944: Birthdate of Ed Rendell, Democratic Mayor of Philadelphia in the 1990’s before being elected Governor of the State of
Pennsylvania
in 2002.
1945: In article entitled “American Boy’s Find Tel Aviv Like a Home Town” Anne O’Hare McCormick described conditions in Palestine’s major metropolis. According to her, “40% of the Jewish population of Palestine lives in Tel Aviv.” She describes Tel Aviv “as being one of the world’s youngest cities” and as being “better planned and more modernistic that the Florida boom towns it resembles.” This very cosmopolitan city is suffering from a housing shortage brought on by an influx of refugees from Europe and North Africa.
1946: "Show Boat" the Broadway hit based on the novel by Edna Ferber,opened at Ziegfeld Theater in New York City for the first of 417 performances.
1947:In a broadcast from its secret transmitter, Haganah, the Jewish defense organization denounced Irgun Zvai Leumi and the Stern Gang as extremist organizations and blamed them for the latest outburst of violence in Eretz
Israel
.
1948: Benjamin Rabin begins serving on the New York Supreme Court.
1948: Warner Brothers offered the first color newsreel, covering the Tournament of Roses Parade and the Rose Bowl Game. At that time, the company was still the property of the four brothers name Warner – Harry, Albert, Sam and Jack L. – Polish Jews who came to the United States via Canada.
1948: As the siege of Jerusalem continues, the Haganah launches an attack against Katamon, a suburb from which Arab gunmen have been firing non-stop into adjacent Jewish neighborhoods.
1949: As the War of Independence winds down, Israeli forces struggle to dislodge the Egyptians from
Gaza
. A sandstorm hinders and IDF column attacking the town of
Rafa
. At the same time the storm provides cover for an Egyptian armored column that launched a counter-attack aimed at keeping the Israelis from Rafa.
1950: Birthdate of guitarist Chris Stein, co-founder of “Blondie.”
1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that East Germany had launched a Zionist witch-hunt, accusing two Jewish Communist leaders of being Zionists, American agents, Titoists and Trotskyites.
1959: In his introduction to A Matter of Taste: The Albert D. Lasker Collection: Renoir to Matisse that includes commentaries by Wallace Brockway, Alfred Frankfurter asks, “What was it that made an American business man * * * train his eye and his energies so spectacularly as to produce this extraordinary array of art ?"
1964: Pope Paul VI and President Zalman Shazar of Israel met today at Megiddo, the scene of ancient battles, and both voiced hope for a moral revival and for peace among men
1970(27th of Tevet, 5730): Max Born passed away at the age of 87. A native of
Germany
, the famous physicist was forced to take refuge in
Britain
in 1933 when the Nazis came to power. Max Born won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1954.
1970: Nine Egyptians soldiers crossed the
Suez Canal
and under covering fire from the west bank attacked Israeli positions. All nine were killed.
1978: The Jerusalem Post reported that at
Aswan
US
President Jimmy Carter and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat declared jointly that any
Middle East
peace settlement required the recognition of the "legitimate rights of the Palestinians and their participation in deciding their own future." In Jerusalem Premier Menachem Begin declared his firm opposition to this self-determination principle.
1978: The Jerusalem Post reported that The Jewish National Fund started ground-breaking operations for eight new settlements in Sinai, between Yamit and El Arish.
1981: Yoram Aridor, a member of Likud, began serving as Communications Minister.
1985: Israel temporarily suspended the airlift of Ethiopian Jews, leaving one group stranded in the Sudan. With help from the
CIA
, Israel would organize Operation Sheba, the last of the airlifts which had secretly brought over 14,000 Jews from Ethiopia from 1972 through 1985.
1988: Richard Mathew Stallman starts developing GNU. GNU is a free software operating system.
1988: The New York Times reviews Operation Babylon by Shlomo Hillel (Translated from the Hebrew by Ina Friedman) which relates the fascinating tale of the rescue of the Iraqi Jewish community.
1989: Secretary of State George P. Shultz said today that the reported death threat by Mr. Arafat against other Palestinians ran counter to a P.L.O. pledge to refrain from terrorism and had created a ''real problem'' for the United States. Mr. Arafat was reported to have said in the radio broadcast on Monday that ''any Palestinian leader who proposes an end to the intifada exposes himself to the bullets of his own people.'' Speaking to reporters on his way here for a conference on chemical weapons, Mr. Shultz said that the United States did not have direct information about Mr. Arafat's reported statement. He said: ''What we have is reports of what Arafat is alleged to have said. We have not seen any statement as such.'' But the Secretary then assailed the reported remark. ''It represents a real problem and an equivocation,'' he said.
1993: Israel approved a $380 million grant today to support a major upgrading of the Jerusalem plant of the computer-chip manufacturer Intel Israel. The money, spread over seven years, was approved under a law authorizing state grants covering 38 percent of high-technology business ventures in the city. The cost of upgrading the silicon chip manufacturing plant is estimated at $1 billion. A Treasury spokeswoman said it was now up to Intel, based in Santa Clara, Calif., parent of Intel Israel, to give the plan final approval. Intel Israel, established in 1974, has operations in Haifa, Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.
1996: Yahya Ayyash, chief bomb maker for Hamas, is killed by an Israeli-planted booby-trapped cell phone.
1997: In the Southern Ocean near 52°S 100°E, Tony Bullimore's boat, Exide Challenger capsized and the majority of press and media reports assumed that the 55 year old sailor was lost
1997: A revival production of "Show Boat" the famed musical that owes its music, lyrics and book to three American Jews closed at Gershwin Theater New York City.
1997: The Sunday New York Times book section featured review of books by Jewish authors or of special interest to Jewish readers including My Teacher’s Secret Life by Stephen Krensky, A Journalist's Search for the Heart of His Country by Henry Grunwald which tells the story of how a Jewish refugee from Hitler’s Germany became editor in chief of all publications in the vast Time Inc. empire, before retiring at the end of 1987 and Unfinished People: Eastern European Jews Encounter America by Ruth Gay which “is essentially a memoir of Jewish life in the West Bronx in the 1920's and 30's, including the author's discomfort with her Eastern European immigrant family and her ''ordeal of civility,'' to use John Murray Cuddihy's phrase, in moving from ghetto culture to gentility.”
1998: To commemorate her 30 years on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), Muriel Siebert rang the closing bell to mark the end of the trading day. She was the first woman to own a seat on the NYSE “Known as the "First Woman of Finance," Muriel "Mickie" Siebert was a dentist's daughter from
Cleveland
,
OH
, Siebert never graduated from college. Still, by lying about her education, she was able to get a low-level job at a prominent Wall Street firm where she eventually became partner before striking out on her own. In 1967, after being rejected by nine of the first ten men she asked to sponsor her application, Siebert became the first woman to purchase a seat on the NYSE. A decade later, New York Governor Hugh Carey appointed Siebert the first woman New York State Superintendent of Banking, a post she held for five years. After an unsuccessful 1982 bid for a United States Senate seat, Siebert returned to Wall Street, where she became an outspoken critic of business and financial practices. Throughout her career, Siebert worked on behalf of women in business and politics, donating millions of dollars from her brokerage and securities underwriting business to help other women break into the world of business and high finance. She is a founding member and former president of the Women's Forum, an international women's leadership network, and a member of the Committee of 200, a group of over 445 leading American businesswomen. Siebert was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame in 1994.” (As reported by Jewish Women’s Archive)
2002: In the wake of shoe-bomber Richard Reid’s attempt to blow up a plane last December, airlines and government officials are looking at additional security measures. As food service deliveries and food cars used on planes are coming under scrutiny the stringent procedures followed by El Al, the Israeli airline are considered the gold standard for aviation security. At its catering center, several miles from Tel Aviv's airport, security guards monitor every step of food packaging, from items being ladled onto trays and sealed with plastic wrap, said Isaac Zeffet, a former chief of El Al security who now runs a consulting concern in Cliffside Park, N.J. Mr. Zeffet, the former El Al security chief, said banning food carts would be only a patch on a security system that requires a complete overhaul, including tighter controls on everyone and everything that comes in contact with planes before takeoff.
2003(2nd of Sh'vat, 5763): In the deadliest attack against Israel in 10 months a pair of suicide bombers blew themselves up just seconds apart today in the Neve Sha’anan neighborhood of Tel Aviv, an area crowded with foreign laborers, killing 23 other people and injuring 100 more. The attackers, only 500 feet away from each other, set off their bombs 30 seconds apart. The first attacker stood in front of a bus stop, the second next to a currency exchange kiosk in a pedestrian mall, both sites teeming with Sunday evening shoppers. The blasts blew out windows, burned awnings and scattered limbs and torsos across two wide swaths. A spokesman for Al Aksa Martyrs Brigades, a Palestinian militant organization, claimed responsibility. The death toll kept climbing into the night here, making the tandem bombing the worst attack since a suicide bomber killed 29 people at the Park Hotel in Netanya during the Passover Holiday last March. That assault sent Israeli forces wheeling into the West Bank in a fierce counterattack. In Tel Aviv, Israeli rescue teams rushing to the site tonight encountered a scene of horrific carnage. The injured, clutching wounds, staggered from the scene in search of help, marking their escapes with long trails of blood. One man, calling for help, lifted himself from the ground and ran 50 yards down Neveh Shaanan Street before finally falling down dead. All about the scene hung the grim evidence of the attackers' work -- nails and ball bearings and hunks of metal, evidently planted in the bombs to sharpen their effect. Rescue workers said the two bombs appeared to be unusually large. The evidence, they said, came in the number of body parts they found scattered over so wide a distance and the fact that so many people were killed even though they were in an open area.
2004: The Center Art Gallery at Calvin College presents “Talmud: in the Art of Ben-Zion and Marc Chagall,” an exhibit that brings together the Biblical work of two of the most important Jewish artists of the 20th Century. It features 18 intaglio prints by Ben-Zion and 25 color lithographs by Marc Chagall. The title, Talmud, is appropriate for this exhibit of images that help illustrate the collection of Biblical writings that constitute the Jewish civil and religious law (Talmud, n. {Heb. Talmud, instruction, from lamed, to learn}). Although Talmud traditionally deals with text and not image, these works act as aesthetic and insightful commentaries on the text of Scripture in the best of the Talmudic tradition. Viewed together,
Zion
’s blunt, powerful expressions of Biblical subjects and Chagall’s vibrant and dreamlike interpretations of religious narrative create an artistic dialogue that furthers understanding and enjoyment of their work and the Scripture they interpret.
2004: Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was showered with catcalls on today from his own right-wing party during a speech in which he said he would take down some Jewish settlements and permit the formation of a Palestinian state if the two sides reached a peace agreement. But Mr. Sharon again warned that he was prepared to set a security line unilaterally that would separate Israelis and Palestinians if they could not make progress under the current peace plan, which is stalled.
2005 Eris, the largest known dwarf planet in the solar system, is discovered by the team of 4 that included David L. Rabinowitz.
2005: The 10th Pan American Maccabi Games came to an end in Santiago, Chile.
<a href="http://www.calvin.edu/centerartgallery/images/03_04/