2013-02-27

February 28 In History

1348: At the Cortes of Alcala de Hebares King Alfonso XI issued a "startling" decree which forbad Jews and Moors from lending money “at interet.”

1488:Joshua Solomon Soncino began printing copies of the Bible at Soncino, Italy.

1533:  Birthdate of French writer and philosopher Michael de Montaigne.  His mother, Antoinette de Louppes, came from a rich Spanish Jewish family, but was herself raised as a Protestant.  Should Montaigne be considered Jewish?  It depends upon whose list you look at, so I will leave it up to others to investigate more fully and decide.

1574: The first official Auto da Fe in the
New World
was held in

Mexico

after the establishment of the Inquisition 5 years earlier. The first unofficial Auto da Fe was actually held in 1528 when the conquistador Hernando Alonso was executed.

1592: Clement VIII issued Cum saepe accidere, a Papal Bull that forbade the Jews of Avignon from selling new goods.

1593: Clement VIII issued Cum Haebraeorum militia, a Papal Bull decreeing that the Talmud should be burnt along with cabalistic works and commentaries, which gave the owners of such works 10 days to turn them over to the Universal Inquisition in Rome and subsequently two months to hand them over to local inquisitors.

1675: An agreement was ratified today that would allow 250 Jewish families to return Vienna and occupy 50 places of business.  In return for this privilege, the Jews agreed to make a payment of 300,000 florins and the payment of an annual tax of 10,000 florins.  The government agreed to the return of the Jews because the treasury was empty.

1747: Benedict XIV issued Postremomens, a Papal Bull that confirmed the 250 old ruling of the Roman Curia that a Jewish children baptized without the permission of their parents, in violation of canon law, must still be brought up as a Catholic which means the children were required to be forcibly removed from the home of their Jewish parents.

1787:The state legislature of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania granted Hugh Henry Breckenridge a charter for a school that is now known as the University of Pittsburgh. Today, there are approximately 1,800 Jewish students among the total undergrad population of 16,000 and 500 Jewish students among the 7,000 graduate students. The university offers a major in Jewish studies.  Jewish students can avail themselves of programs offered by Hillel and Chabad as well as find kosher meals at the “Kosher Korner” at the University Center.

1799: Napoleon, the first European leader to meet with Jewish leaders in Palestine, led his army out of Gaza and headed for Ramallah.

1812: Birthdate of German-Jewish author Berthold Auerbach.  Born Moses (Moyses) Baruch, Auerbach published a novel entitled Spinoza: Ein Historischer Roman in 1837.  He passed away in 1882 at the age of 70.

1823: Birthdate of Ernest Renan a French author who specialized in studies of the ancient languages and civilizations of the Middle East. Late in life, Renan wrote a three volume “History of Israel.”  The first volume appeared in 1887 and the final volume appeared in 1897. Some claimed that he was an anti-Semite (anti-Jewish) because of comments about the limitations of the Semitic mind.  But Renan contended that the Jewish people were not a race in the biological and he was an opponent of the nationalism that took hold in Germany in the latter of the 19th century because of its anti-Semitic component.

1829(25thof Adar 1, 5589): Wolf Breidenbach passed away today in Offenbach.  Born at Hesse-Cassel in 1751 he moved to Frankfort where he studied Talmud and other rabbinic literature while secretly acquiring knowledge of a variety of secular subject.  His chess-playing skill caught the attention of a German noble who allow Breidenbach to manage his financial affairs.  Breidenbach used his new found prestige and wealth to champion the cause of emancipation for his people.  One of his major goals was the abolishment of the internal toll that Jews had to pay every time they entered or left a town.  “Breidenbach was the friend and protector of the grammarian and publisher Wolf Heidenheim and is said to have translated several hymns for Heidenheim's German edition of the Maḥzor”

1838: Birthdate of French engineer Maurice Levy.

1838: Birthdate of Dr. Jacob Da Silva Solis-Cohen, the New York born Sephardic Jew, who was “the founder of laryngology in the United States.”

1839(14thof Adar, 5599): Purim

1842: B'ne Yeshurun, a congregation organized by the German Jews living in Cincinnati, Ohio was incorporated under the laws of the state of Ohio.

1842: In Cleveland, Ohio, Anshe Chesed (now Anshe Chesed - Fairmount Temple) which had been founded as a German Orthodox congregation in 1841 was chartered today.  The congregation had 30 members and Asher Lehman served as the Rabbi.

1843: In Bishop-Purnitz, Austria, Mina and Benedict Greenhut gave birth to Joseph B. Greenhut, a decorated Civil War veteran and a successful Chicago, Illinois, businessman

1850: The General Assembly of the provisional State of Deseret established the University Desert which was the forerunner of the University of Utah located at Salt Lake City, Utah. Today the university has approximately 350 Jewish students out of a student population of 15,000.  The school has ten courses in Jewish studies and offers a major degree in Jewish Studies.  Not bad for a school founded deep the heart of the

land
of
Brigham Young

.

1854: The Republican Party of the United States is organized in Ripon, Wisconsin. The party was formed in the wake of the Kansas-Nebraska act and was designed to stop the Democrats’ pro-slavery agenda.  Some of the Jews who were active in the early days of the party were Sabato Morais, rabbi of the Mikveh Israel Congregation, Moritz Pinner who edited a German language abolitionist paper in Kansas

, Kentuckian Lewis Naphtali Dembitz, uncle of the Louis Brandeis and New Yorker Sigsmund Kaufman who was an a member of the electoral college that chose Abraham Lincoln to serve as President in 1860.

1855: In a demonstration of the extent to which Jewish concepts have penetrated the general cultural milieu, while giving a speech in New York on the habits of North American Indians, General Sam Houston tells the audience that until “the spirit of revenge had been conquered by civilization” the law of the Cherokee Nation “was the same as that practiced under the old dispensation by the Jews of an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth and blood for blood.”

1860: Birthdate of Victor L. Berger who would become the first member of the Socialist Party to hold a seat in the U.S. House of Representative.

1862: A column entitled “Affairs In Utah” published today described the drive of those living in that territory to become a state in the Union. “As things go, it does seem apparent that Jews and Gentiles here are, more or less, under the conviction that the particular time ‘in the course of human events’ is at hand when a change is inevitable in the fashion of Government among "this people." Some may be surprised to hear of Jews connected with Utah which is almost synonymous with the Mormon Religion. The first Jews who settled in Utah were probably “dropouts” from the wagon trains heading to California during the California Gold Rush. By 1853, two Jews had established a millenary store in Salt Lake City. The first non-Mormon governor of Utah would be a Jew named Simon Bamberger.  As to the issue of statehood, it would be another 34 years before that goal was reached.  The price of admission would be a formal rejection by the Mormons of the practice of polygamy.  To date, this is the only time that the federal government has “interfered” with the doctrines of a religious organization

1863: The will of the late Commodore Uriah P. Levy, U.S. Navy, which has been admitted to probate, is now before the Supreme Court, at Special Term. Proceedings have been “instituted to break it, in respect to its bequests to the people of the United States, or the State of Virginia, and then to certain Hebrew congregations in New-York, Philadelphia and Richmond, for the purpose of founding an agricultural school at Monticello, in the State of Virginia.”

1877(15thof Adar, 5637): Shushan Purim

1882: It was reported today that the Russian government offered an explanation to the British government for the expulsion of Mr. Lewisohn from the Czar’s empire.  While the British saw Lewisohn as an English citizen, the Russians saw him as being a Jew.  And in Russia, Jews, regardless of the country in which they live, are considered to be Jews which make them a thing without legal standing.

1882: John w. Foster will deliver a lecture on “The Czar and His People” a tonight’s meeting of the Young Men’s Hebrew Association at Chickering Hall in New York City.

1887:

Rumania

excluded Jews from public service and the tobacco trade.

1887: Birthdate of William Zorach, “a Lithuanian-American sculptor, painter, printmaker, and writer” who won the Logan Medal of the arts.

1891: Birthdate of Yaakov Kamenetsky, the Lithuanian born Rosh Yeshiva and Talmudist, who moved to North America in 1937 where he served as a Rabbi in several U.S. and Canadian cities.

1891: Among the charitable institutions that received funds a today’s meeting of the Board of Estimate and Apportionment were: Montefiore Home $1,000, Home for Aged and Infirm Hebrews $350 and Beth Israel Hospital $100.

1892: The New York Times published a “letter to the editor” today from Nation’s Capital, in which the author says “The Times has endeared itself to the hearty of every Jew not only in the United States but also outside thereof” for having published the reported by Weber and Kempster describing the horrors being inflicted on the Jews of Russia. The correspondent expressed the hope that the report, which was prepared at the behest of the U.S. House of Representatives,  will convince the President and the Secretary of State of the dire conditions facing the Jews since they appear to be the only two people who have doubted such reports up until now.

1893: A meeting of the New York Auxiliary to the Jewish Section of the Woman’s Branch of the Parliament of Religions was held this morning at Temple Emanuel in New York City.

1894: Birthdate of playwright and novelist Ben Hecht. His most famous work was “The Front Page” which he co-authored with Charles MacArthur. Hecht also won two Oscars for two of his screen plays.  This comic drama about the newspaper business was a Broadway hit as well as a successful movie in the original and remakes.  Hecht was also an ardent Zionist.

1896(14thof Adar, 5656): Purim

1898: Birthdate of Yiddish actress Molly Picon.

1898: Professor Richard Gottheil presided over a meeting two factions of the Zionist movement which may result in their amalgamation; a move which would increase the strength of those advocating the purchase and settlement of land in Palestine by the Jewish people.

1900: During the Second Boer War the 118 day siege of Ladysmith came to an end.1899: Major Karri Davies was one of the Jewish soldiers who fought in defense of the British position at Ladysmith. There were at least 2,800 Jews fighting for the British and an untold number fighting for the Boers.

1903: Max Nordau meets Leopold Greenberg in Paris and sends a wire to Herzl: "Greenberg had obtained everything that can possibly be conceded in an official agreement."

1905: In New York, the initial meeting of a “Choral Society for Ancient Hebrew Meolodies” was held at the rooms Young Men’s Hebrew Association under the direction of Mr. Rosenblatt.

1906:  Birthdate of mobster Bugsy Siegel

1907(14thof Adar, 5667): Purim

1907(14thof Adar, 5667): Eighty year old Wilhelm Rapp passed away.  Born in Germany in 1827, he moved to the United States in 1852 after having participated in the failed Revolutions of 1848. Rapp edited newspapers in several cities before the Civil War.  An outspoken abolitionist and Unionist he was forced to flee from Baltimore to Washington, DC in 1861. Rapp turned down President Lincoln’s offer to make him postmaster general and moved to Chicago, Illinois where worked as a newspaper editor until his death.

1915(14th of Adar, 5675): Purim

1915: Birthdate of actor Zero Mostel known for his roles in the original version of “The Producers” and “Fiddler on the Roof.”

1916(24th of Adar I, 5676): Morris Lasker, aged 76, millionaire miller, pioneer, Indian fighter and philanthropist died in Galveston, Texas, this afternoon.  Mr. Lasker won wide fame when he led the Jews of the South in a fight for the life and vindication of Leo Frank, who was convicted in Atlanta for the murder of Mary Phagan.  Mr. Lasker came to America from Germany at the age of 16.  He “was in the mercantile business in George for three years, and then came to Texas, settling at Weatherford, where he engaged in many expeditions against the Indians.”  He settled in Galveston in 1867 and married Miss Nettie Davis of Albany, NY, the widow who survives him, along with six children including Albert Lasker of Chicago.

1916: Henry James, one of the literary giants of the 19th century, passed away.  For more about how James viewed Jews including his review of George Eliot's Daniel Deronda see Milton Kerker’s Henry James on the Jewish scene/

http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-112354673.html

1921: Fire destroys 120 homes and a large amount of shops in the Jewish quarter of Kouskoundjouk, Constantinople. Most of these belonged to poor Jews.

1921: Conference of rabbis in

Jerusalem

elects a court of Justice and chooses four Ashkenazi and four Sephardi rabbis with Rabbi Kook (Ashkenazi) & Jacob Meir (Sephardic).

1923: Birthdate of Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka, the Polish-born philosopher and founder of the World Phenomenology Institute who was married to Hendrik Samuel "Hank" Houthakker  a Dutch Jewish-born American economist for 52 years.

1928:  The Soviets decided to set up a Jewish district in Biro-bijanin
Eastern Siberia
. Most of its 14,200 square miles were uninhabitable due to floods. It was to be used as a buffer zone against China.

1928: Birthdate of Pulitzer Prize winning dance critic Alan M. Kriegsman.

http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2012-09-01/local/35495902_1_dance-performance-alan-m-kriegsman-american-ballet-theatre

1929:  Birthdate of Canadian born architect Frank Gehry.

1931: Today President Herbert Hoover wrote to Harry G. Anderson “I will be obliged if you will express to the congregation Baith Israel Anshei Emes my cordial congratulations upon the celebration of the seventy-fifth anniversary of its founding and my best wishes for long continuance of its high service to the spiritual life of the community.”

1935(25th of Adar I, 5695): Jeannette Miriam Goldberg, who organized Texas chapters of the National Council of Jewish Women and the Jewish Chautauqua Society, passed away.

1938: As the latest wave of Arab violence continued, The Palestine Post reported that the "representatives" of armed bands were regularly visiting Arab towns and villages, demanding money for their "activities" and issuing "receipts." A bridge on the Jenin-Afula road was damaged by an explosion and there were numerous shooting incidents throughout the country. A curfew was imposed on a number of villages after armed Arab terrorists stormed isolated police posts and stole arms and ammunition, intimidating the local Arab constables.

1938: The Palestine Post reported that The Union of Romanian Journalists expelled all Jews who became members after December 1919.

1939: The curfew that had been imposed on all of the Arab quarters starting on February 26 following the murder of 3 Jews by Arabs was scheduled to come to an end today at 6 A.M.

1940: The British adopted the MacDonald White Paper that included restriction of sale of Arab land to Jews in Eretz Yisrael. This document nearly voided the Balfour Declaration

1943: George Gershwin's "Porgy & Bess" opened on Broadway with Anne Brown and Todd Duncan.  The musical originally premiered in 1935 and survived for a mere 124 performances.  The musical was revised after Gershwin's death and slowly gained popular and critical acclaim.

1943: In Kovono Ghetto, thousands of Jews attend the funeral of Rabbi Avraham Duber Shapiro, Chief Rabbi of Kovno despite an order from the Nazis forbidding them to do so.

1945:“After a mammoth research effort, the more complex design of the implosion device, known as the "Christy gadget" after Robert Christy, another student of Oppenheimer's, was finalized in a meeting in Robert Oppenheimer's office.”

1947: British naval forces seized 1,398 “illegal” Jewish immigrants today.

1947: Jacob and Niza Gabbai, a husband and wife couple who have just arrived in New York City from Palestine enrolled at Fordham University.  The Gabbais are part of the Young Palestinian League which is working to develop a new cultural environment in their homeland.  They chose Fordham “because it is a complete university and not just a drama or radio school, and also because it located in the world capital of the theatre.”

1948:The famed Golani Brigade was formed today  during the Israeli War for Independence when the Levanoni Brigade in the Galilee split into the 1st Golani Brigade and the 2nd Carmeli Brigade

1950: Foreign Minister Moshe Sharett presented the cabinet with the draft of five year non-aggression pact between Israel and Jordan.  The pact is the product of several months of secret negotiations.  It includes most of the terms of the armistice agreement without setting final boundaries.  Some additional points include the opening of the Israeli held road to Bethlehem to Arab traffic, the opening of the road to Mt. Scopus to Israelis and an Israeli promise to supply electricity to the Arab held sections of Jerusalem.  Israeli opposition to the agreement will be limited to a handful of leftists who oppose King Abdullah because they think he is a puppet of the British imperialists and the rightwing nationalists who believe that all of the land west of the Jordan should be part of a Jewish state.  Jordanian approval is much more problematic since it will face serious opposition from numerous sources including those who want a second war with the Jews so that they can destroy the Zionist entity. [Abdullah would be assassinated in the following year for conducting these negotiations and it would take another four decades before Israel and Jordan finally concluded a peace agreement.]

1953: Birthdate of Paul Krugman, leading U.S. economist, New York Times columnist and Nobel Prize Winner.

1953(13th of Adar, 5713): Israeli archeologist and Hebrew University professor,Eleazar Lipa Sukenik passed away. His life reads like an early history of the Zionist movement. Born in Bialystok in 1889, Sukenik made Aliyah in 1911. He served in the British army in World War I in the 40th Battalion of the Royal Fusiliers which became known as the Jewish Legion. He played a central role in the establishment of the Department of Archaeology of the Hebrew University. He recognized the importance of the Dead Sea Scrolls to Israel and worked for the Israeli state to buy them. In 1948, he published an article tentatively linking the scrolls and their content to a community of Essenes, which became the standard interpretation of the origin of the scrolls, a theory that is still probably the consensus among scholars, but has also been widely questioned. He was the father of soldier, politician and archeologist Yigael Yadin, the actor Yossi Yadin, and Mati Yadin, who was killed in action during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War.

1959: Birthdate of Jack Abramoff

1961: Recently elected President Kennedy named Henry Kissinger as special advisor.  Before being the first Jew to be named Secretary of State, Kissinger followed a path that took him from Kennedy, to Rockefeller, to Nixon.

1970: In San Francisco Sandra and Dean Handler gave birth to Daniel Handler who wrote under the pen name of Lemony Snicket.

1972(13th of Adar, 5732): Fast of Esther

1974: The United States and Egypt renew diplomatic relations.  This was one of the steps from the Yom Kippur War to the Camp David Peace Accords.

1978: The Jerusalem Post reported that the majority of the plenum of the 29th Zionist Congress, held in Jerusalem, approved a resolution calling for a Jewish education program in the Diaspora, based on the principle of equality for all trends in Judaism, and specifically including the Conservative and Reform movements.

1978: The Jerusalem Post reported that the Liberal Faction of the Likud in the Knesset described the recent action taken by Agriculture Minister Ariel Sharon in the settlement of the Yamit (Rafiah) area as injurious to the national interest, "idiotic" and "crazy."

1983(15th of Adar, 5743): Shushan Purim

1986: Laura Z. Hobson who wrote Gentlemen’s Agreement, the novel about anti-Semitism that was turned into a 1947 film classic starring Gregory Peck, passed away.

1991: A twenty-five year old Jewish religious student, Elhanan Atali, was found in an abandoned storeroom in the Muslim Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem.  His throat had been slit and he had been stabbed in the back.

1993: Actor Tony Curtis, born Bernard Schwartz, wed Lisa Deutsch.  She was his fourth wife.

1999: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Amateur: An Independent Life of Letters by Wendy Lesser and Turbo-Capitalism: Winners and Losers in the Global Economy by Edward Luttwak

2000(22nd of Adar I, 5760): Kariel Gardosh, the prominent Israeli political cartoonist known by the pen-name "Dosh," died in his home in Tel Aviv from a cardiac arrest. He was 79 years old. “Gardosh was best known for cartoons featuring his character Srulik. Srulik was a small boy in short, sandals and a traditional Tembel hat. Gardosh's character, always intended by the caricaturist to act a symbol for

Israel

, was a blank slate upon which to reflect the changing national mood and a perfect emblem for the emerging nation's view of itself in the 1960s and 1970s as a small nation surrounded by hostile aggressors. The small boy facing down representative from a hostile Arab world left an indelible impression upon several generations of Israelis allowing the character to remain popular through several changes in the political climate. The character is still a presence in various licensed formats such as posters and stickers.”

2003(26th of Adar I, 5763): “Alfred Bernstein, a New Deal lawyer who led the movement to unionize government workers and later helped desegregate the lunch counters, restaurants, public swimming pools and playgrounds of Jim Crow-era Washington, died today at his home in Washington. He was 92.Mr. Bernstein attended public schools in Manhattan and graduated from Columbia College and Columbia Law School. Inspired by the social ferment of the New Deal, he moved to the capital in 1937 to work as an investigator for the Senate Commerce Committee's inquiry into the monopolistic railroad industry. ''What all of us were interested in was the transformation of the political process -- drafting regulations, establishing Social Security, making regulatory agencies work,'' he once told an interviewer. ''There was a lot of idealism at the time.'' After serving in the Army Air Transport Command in the South Pacific in World War II, Mr. Bernstein returned to Washington where he helped lead the successful effort against Jim Crow laws in the capital.”

2003: Ariel Sharon begins serving as Communications Minister.

2003: Eliezer Sandberg began serving as Science and Technology Minister

2003.Reuven Rivlin completed serving as Communications Minister.

2003: Benjamin Netanyahu completed his service as Minister of Foreign Affairs.

2003:Silvan Shalom begins serving as Minister of Foreign Affairs.

2003: Natan Sharansky completed his service as Minister of Housing and Construction.

2003: Eli Suissa completed his service Jerusalem Affairs Minister

2003: Yosef Paritzky replace Effi Eitam as National Infrastructure Minister

2004(6th of Adar, 5764): Daniel Boorstin passed away at the age of 89. He was one of

America

's most renowned historians and, between 1975 and 1987, the Librarian of Congress in the world's largest library in

Washington

. The son of Russian-Jewish im­migrants, Daniel Joseph Boorstin was born on October 1, 1914, in Atlanta. He was educated at Tulsa Central High School and Harvard, from where he graduated with honors in Law. Boorstin wrote more than 20 books, including a trilogy on the American experience and one on world intellectual history. The Americans: The Democratic Experience, the final book in the first trilogy, received the 1973 Pulitzer Prize in history.

2006(30th of Elul, 5766): Rosh Chodesh Adar (first of a two day Rosh Chodesh).

2006: Johanna van Schagen, a woman who helped Jews escape from the Nazis during the Holocaust and later was honored by Israel died at the age of 91. Johanna van Schagen, who had suffered a series of strokes, died at

Friendship

Village

in nearby Trotwood, where she lived. Van Schagen and her husband, Cornelius, moved to the

United States

from the

Netherlands

in 1956. She told the Dayton Daily News in 1994 that she and her husband sheltered Jews out of anger toward Germans who were taking over their native

Netherlands

. "We were afraid many times ... there were lots of raids and if they had found them in your home, you would be taken to concentration camps, too," she said.

Israel

honored the couple in 1987 and a tree along the Avenue of the Righteous in

Jerusalem

is named for Johanna van Schagen, the newspaper said. Her funeral was scheduled for Friday at Polk Grove United Church of Christ in

Dayton

, which sponsored the van Schagens when they moved to the

United States

, said Jacob van Schagen, a son. She is survived by four sons and a daughter.

2007: The second International Eilat Chamber Music Festival opens.

2008: In

Cedar Rapids
,
Iowa

, Rabbi Lane Steinger, Regional Director of the
Union
for Reform Judaism, teaches an adult education class at

Temple

Judah

on the Reform Movement's New Prayer book, Mishkan Tifillah.

2008: In

New York City

, the

92nd Street

Y presents “Witness to

Nuremberg

” featuring Richard W. Sonnenfeldt the chief interpreter for the American prosecution at the Nuremberg trials who discusses startling new information about the Nazi war criminals and the origins and development of the Holocaust. At age 22, Richard W. Sonnenfeldt became chief American interpreter at the

Nuremberg

trials. He was later a principal developer of color television, computers and the technology for the first moon landing.

2008: “The Diary of Anne Frank: A Song To Life” opens in Madrid, Spain. This musical tells the story of Anne Frank's life in German-occupied Holland and her death in a concentration camp, using songs that sound like a combination of Fiddler On the Roof and Spanish tunes (complete with flamenco guitar).

2008(22 Adar 1, 5768): Israel Prize-winning author and translator Aharon Amir passed away at age 85. 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.

2008: ‘Eyes Wide Open,” a documentary film that chronicles the preconceptions and revelations of American Jews as they visit

Israel

, is held at the Jerusalem Cinematheque.

The film was directed by veteran filmmaker Paula Weiman-Kelman and written by award-winning journalist Stuart Schoffman

2008(22 Adar 1, 5768): Esra Shereshevsky, 92, noted Hebrew-language scholar and educator, died in

Jerusalem

. As founder and former chairman of the Department of Hebrew and Near Eastern Languages and Literature at Temple University, Shereshevsky was one of the first professors to establish Hebrew as a full course of study at an American university. His classes were exciting events. Whether discussing Bible, medieval manuscripts or 20th-century poets, his teaching was seasoned by his love of the Hebrew language.

2009: According to Reform Judaism magazine, Brandeis University, Harvard University and Radcliffe

College, Tufts University, Boston University, and Northeastern University are among the "Top 60

Schools Jews Choose."

2009: In Barbados, Terry Schwarzfeld, who had just started her term as president of Canadian Hadassah WIZO and was executive director of Ottawa's largest synagogue, Agudath Israel, was mortally by an ex-con when he tried to rob her and her daughter-in-law, Lauana Cotsman.

2009: In Chicago, the Harris Theatre presents “Pinchas Zukerman in Recital” along “with his long time collaborator, pianist Mark Neikruug.”

2009: Rabbi Ellen Weomberg Dreyfus is installed in Jerusalem during the CCAR's 120th Annual Convention. She is the second female Rabbi to be elected to this position and the first female leader of a major rabbinic organization to begin her tenure in Israel. She succeeds Rabbi Peter S. Knobel, 66, Rabbi of Beth Emet in Evanston, IL, who will complete his two-year term as CCAR President.

2009: From January 1 through today, there were 64 terrorist attacks that took place in the West Bank or were carried out by terrorists from the West Bank

2009: In an article entitled “His Story Told, Koch Makes His Peace and Dares to Look Ahead,” former New York May Ed Koch ruminates on his concerns as he reaches the twilight years and describes his plans for a funeral that will leave no question as to his profound attachment to his Jewish faith.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/01/nyregion/01koch.html?pagewanted=all

2010(14th of Adar, 5770): Purim

2010: An exhibition at the Center for Jewish History in New York entitled “In the Beginning: Artists Respond to Genesis” is scheduled to come to a close.

2010: Final performance of Rinne Groff’s “Compulsion” is scheduled to take place at the Yale Repertory Theatre.

2010: The Los Angeles Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Ask, a novel by Sam Lipsyte

2010: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Devotion: A Memoir by Dani Shapir.

2010(14th of Adar, 5710): Jose Mindlin,

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