February 8 In History
421: Constantius III becomes co-Emperor of the Western Roman Empire serving as co-Emperor with Honorius. Constantinius only reigned for 7 months, but during his long tenure Honorius was no friend of the Jews as can be seen by his promulgation of “a new law requiring any taxes collected by Jewish leaders from the Jewish community to be sent to the imperial treasury.
1250: During the seventh crusade, King Louis IX of France faces Ayyubid forces at the 3 day Battle of Al Mansurah. The entire crusading period was a debacle for the Jewish people. As to Louis, Fordham University, the Jesuit University of New York says, he “was an ideal medieval king: he was chivalrous, religious, ascetic, and hostile to Jews.”
1291: Birthdate of King Alfonso IV of Portugal who increased the taxes paid by the Jews, load to “reinstituted the dormant requirement that Jews wear an identifying yellow badge, and restricted their freedom to emigrate.”
1693: The College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia is granted a charter by King William III and Queen Mary II. According to recent figures there are approximately 385 Jewish students attending the school with a student population of approximately 7,700. The school offers eight Jewish studies courses and is home to William and Mary Balfour Hillel whose mission is “To inspire every Jewish student to make an enduring commitment to Jewish life and enrich the lives of Jewish undergraduate and graduate students so that they may enrich the Jewish people and the world.”
1725: Peter The Great, Russian Czar, passed away at the age of 52. Peter’s determination to keep the Jews out of his realm and his treatment of Russian Jews was not the picture of “enlightenment.” From the point of Jewish history he certainly was not the “Great.”
1795: Birthdate of Hungarian-born journalist and author, Moritz G [Moses] Saphir. Saphir moved to Bavaria to further his career. In 1832 he was expelled but was permitted to return by the king later that year. Eighteen thirty-two was also the same year that Saphir became a Lutheran.
1831: Louis Philippe of France, successor to Charles X, ratified a motion putting Judaism on a par with Christianity, granting State support to Synagogues and their Minister of Religion. This meant that France extended financial support to Jewish religious institutions on par with Christian institutions.
1833: Birthdate of Baron Horace Günzburg who was “one of the founders of the Society for the Spread of Enlightenment among the Jews of Russia…”
1843: Health officers in Frankfort-on-Main issued an order stating “Israelite citizens and inhabitants, must employ the services of competent persons" when having their sons circumcised.
1858: Birthdate of Pauline Koch, who as Pauline Einstein gave birth to physicist Albert Einstein.
1860(15th of Shevat, 5620): Tu B'Shevat
1860: An article entitled “A Mistaken Philanthropist” published today describes the efforts of "‘Captain’ Moses, a gentleman we presume of Abrahamic stock,” to raise funds and outfit a ship that would provide relief for “the Christian and Jewish refugees, who had been constrained to flee almost naked from Morocco to Gibraltar ‘to escape the knife of the savage Bedouin of the desert.’” Unfortunately for Captain Moses, he misrepresented his credentials when he went to Philadelphia to continue his efforts and ended up being be jailed because authorities saw him as a “swindler” and “imposter” rather than “an indiscreet philanthropist.”
1863: An article published today entitled “Beauregard and the Jews” quoted a letter that the P.G.T. Beauregard had written in 1861 when he was commanding the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia in which he explained why could not grant leave to Jewish soldiers to observe the High Holidays. He is sure that “the Hebrews” serving with the army will understand that military necessity makes it impossible to grant a request that he would otherwise comply with quite willingly.
1866: Birthdate of Moses Gomberg, Russian-born American chemist
1867: The Ausgleichresults in the establishment of the Dual Monarchy of Austria-Hungary. The Ausgleich refers to the compromise document that changed the Austrian Empire into the dual monarchy that put Hungary on level playing field with the previously dominate Germanic (Austrian) element of the Hapsburg Empire. The reform came about as a result of Austria’s defeat at the hands of Prussia. (Yes this gets complicated; but if you want to understand the fate of the Jews of Europe you have to understand European history.) Following the Law of Unintended consequences, The Ausgleich had a profound effect on the Jews living under the rule of the Habsburgs. “With the “Ausgleich” between Austria and Hungary in 1867, Jews finally gained full citizen rights. Vienna was now the city in the Habsburg Empire with the largest Jewish community (40,000 or 6.6 percent). Most of the Viennese Jews were of Bohemian, Moravian and Hungarian origin, while others were from the poor area of Galicia. Jewish communities in other parts of the Empire developed, even in cities that have not had any Jews for a long time, such as Salzburg (part of Austria since 1816).” Today we seem to have forgotten the prominent role that Vienna played in European and Jewish culture. Within a few decades of each other, for example, Vienna was home to Herzl, Freud and Hitler. Imagine what might have happened had Hitler been one of Freud’s patients.
1871: During inquest being held today at Union Hill, NY, to determine the cause of death for Charles Kraft, a Jew named Nathan Berg was identified as one of three men who might have been involved in a fatal beating of the deceased.
1872: Birthdate of Theodor Lessing, the “German Jewish philosopher… known for opposing the rise of Hindenburg as president of the Weimar Republic and for his classic on Jewish self-hatred (Der jüdische Selbsthaß)…in which he tried to explain the phenomenon of Jewish self-hatred - Jewish intellectuals who incited anti-Semitism against the Jewish people, and regarded Judaism as the source of evil in the world. A Zionist, he moved to Czechoslovakia after Hitler came to power. The move did not save him since he “was assassinated by Nazi agents in the summer of 1933.”
1878: Birthdate of Martin Buber. Buber almost defies definition. He gained fame as a theologian, philosopher, teacher and Zionist. His life and teachings are too rich and complicated to be encapsulated in this brief item. Born in Vienna, Buber spent his youth living with his grandfather who was a distinguished rabbinic scholar. Buber returned to Vienna for his secular education. He was attracted to Zionism in its earliest days, but saw the need to add a uniquely Jewish cultural and spiritual component to Herzl’s political ideas. After dabbling with various forms of mysticism, Buber began to study the works of the Chassidic Masters. Eventually he developed a philosophy based on their lives and teaching which has been described as Neo-Chasidism. Buber moved to Jerusalem in 1938 and joined the faculty of Hebrew University. His most famous work I and Thou which described the I-Thou and I-It relationships was published in 1923. Other works available in English include, but are not limited to, Good and Evil, On Judaism and The Legend of the Baal Shem. Buber understood the relationship between Judaism and Christianity but knew the difference between the two as well. His works and philosophy has had an impact on people of many different beliefs. In the words of Buber: “The God of history and the God of nature cannot be separated and the land of Israel is a token of their unity.” “There is no opposition between the truth of God and the salvation of Israel.” "To him who knows how to read the legend, it conveys more truth than the chronicle.” “The Jew carries the burden of an unredeemed world. He cannot concede that redemption is an accomplished fact for he knows it is not.”
1878: In the Pale of Settlement a Hebrew scholar named Ezekiel Baevski and his wife, Koona Dubrusha, née Shur gave birth to Simcha Myer Baevski who would gain fame as Sidney Baevski Myer “the Jewish-Australian businessman and philanthropist, best known for creating Myer, Australia's largest chain of department stores.”
1880: Rabbi De Sola Mendes officiated at the funeral of John D. Phillips which was attended by several prominent Jewish leaders including Albert Cordozo, Jesse Seligman and Emanuel B. Hart.
1882(19thof Shevat, 5642): Twenty days before his 70th birthday, German-Jewish author Berthold Auerbach passed at Cannes, France.
1883(1st of Adar I, 5643): Rosh Chodesh Adar I
1889(7thof Adar, 5649): Eighty-three year old author and social work Anna Maria Goldsmid who was the daughter of Sir Isaac Lyon Goldsmid, passed away today. Born in London in 1805 she first gained fame for her work as the translator of Dr. Gotthold Salomon’s sermons from German into English. She helped from the Jews’ Infant-Schools and took an active role in the Jews’ Deaf and Dumb Home.
1890: Birthdate of Herbert S. Goldstein, a prominent American rabbi and Jewish leader, who passed away in 1970. “He was the only person in history to have been elected president of the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America, the Rabbinical Council of America (first presidium), and the Synagogue Council of America.”
1891: It was reported today that at the request of Baron Maurice de Hirsch and several well-known leaders of the New York Jewish community have undertaken the management of a philanthropic scheme of “great practical utility.” They have consented to act under a deed of trust, by which Baron Hirsch places in their control the sum of $2,400,000 to be used in improving the condition of the poor Hebrew immigrants that are continually coming here from Russia and Romania.
1891: It was reported today that funds provided by Baron Hirsch and his supporters in the United States four new schools have been opened in New York City to help provide training for the newly arrived immigrants from Russia. These include a technical school, an evening school for girls who work during the day and two schools that prepare youngsters for entering the public schools.
1891: It was reported today that Joseph Klein, the President of Hebrew Cemetery Association received a suspended sentence from a court in Union County, New Jersey, after having been convicted of defrauding a co-religionist out of $60.
1891: “Unleavened Bread,” published in today’s Atlanta Constitution reported that “Cincinnati bakers have been busy for three months preparing for Passover.” (Editor’s note – The story is notable on 2 counts – it was published in a paper in Atlanta, GA, hardly a bastion of Jewish settlement and the matzo was being produced by Manischweitz, which continues to supply a wide variety of Jewish products in the 21st century)
1894: Birthdate of Ludwig Marcuse German-born author and philosopher.
1896: At two o’clock, Henry Steinhal, an actor appearing in “The Russian Jew” who had been accidently wounded when a blank pistol misfired, left the Adler Theatre with a limp and with a question – would he get damages from management?
1896: The Berlin monthly "Zion" publishes a friendly review of Herzl's London article.
1896: Herzl discusses his Zionist ideas after a lecture by Chief Rabbi Güdemann in the "Jüdische akademische Lesehalle" with some Jewish students.
1896: The Jewish community in Vienna wants to prevent the publishing of Herzl's "Der Judenstaat”
1897: It was reported today that Rabbi Kaufman Kohler and Rabbi Stephen S. Wise will co-officiate at the upcoming funeral of Morris Goodhart.
1898: It was reported today that firemen who arrived at the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society’s orphanage were not dealing with a serious fire. Four boys had secretly gathered to light a homemade lantern made from a cigar box and a candle. When another boy saw the flame, he told Superintendent Louis Fauerbach and he sounded the fire alarm. The boys involved are awaiting disciplinary action.
1899: During this evening’s meeting of the People’s Club, Reverend Walter Bentley offered to let the group meet at the St. Mark’s Parish House. A young, unnamed Jewish man said that “he was positive that no respectable Jew would belong to a club which met in a building connected with a church.” Several Jews said he was mistaken and Reverend Bentley’s offer was acceptable.
1906: Birthdate of Henry Roth, author of Call It Sleep.
1906: Birthdate of Arthur Balsam, Polish born pianist, who was an accompanist for Yehudi Menhuin.
1907: The Jewish community of Kingston, Jamaica issues an appeal for help in rebuilding three synagogues laid in ruins by an earthquake. Many Jews were killed during the disaster. The Jewish community in England responded with an offer of assistance.
1910: The Hahambashi is formally asked if he has any recommendations for the Turkish authorities over the subject of Ottoman Jews in Persia. At the time the Persian ambassador to Turkey, Prince Mirza Riza Khan utilized the Hahambashi as the final decider of Jewish law.
1920: The Illustrated Sunday Herald, a popular British Sunday newspaper, published an article by Winston Churchill urging the Jews of Russia and beyond to choose Zionism over Bolshevism. In one sense, Churchill saw Zionism as anti-dote for Jews who would otherwise be drawn the Communist cause.
1921: Birthdate of Immanuel Jakobovits, the native of Konigsberg, Germany who became the Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth.
1923: The Völkischer Beobachter ("Völkisch Observer") the newspaper of the National Socialist German Workers' Party or Nazi Party was published as daily for the first time.
1925: Kaufman and Berlin's "Coconuts" premiered in New York City.
1930: "Happy Days Are Here Again" by Benny Mereoff hits #1.
1931: In Cairo, King Faud opened the Museum of Modern Art which was located in a mansion that had been purchased by Elie Mosseri and donated to the government. Mosseri was a leading member of the Egyptian-Jewish community.
1935 (5th of Adar I, 5695): Max Liebermann leading German impressionist painter and graphic artist, passed away at the age of 87. Some of his works are on display at the Jewish Museum in New York. Once you see a Liebermann you want to see more.
1940: The first ghetto was set up by the Nazis in Lodz. The idea was to bring in all Jews from the surrounding areas in order to make it easier to proceed with the "Final Solution." By the first of May, 160,000 Jews would have been herded into the Ghetto.
1940: Birthdate of Ted Koppel, ABC newsman and host of Nightline. Koppel was born in England where his parents had fled to escape Hitler’s Germany. According to one source, Koppel’s proudest possession is a family Torah Scroll.
1941: Lord Moyne, the British leader who would be murdered by Lehi in 1944, began serving as Secretary of State for the Colonies in the cabinet led by his friend Winston Churchill. He also assumed the leadership position in the House of Lords per the appointment of Churchill who as commoner served in the House of Commons.
1942: Herman Barron defeated Henry Picard by two strokes to win the Western Open in Phoenix, AZ. This made him the first Jewish golfer to win a PGA Tour event.
1942: Birthdate of actor and comedian Robert Klein.
1942: Much to the disappointment of the Nazis only 359 Jews (137 women) from the Kovno ghetto arrived in Riga. The German Civil Administration in Lithuania had originally requested 1,000 male Jews.
1944: The Nazis deported 1,000 Jews from Holland to Birkenau, including 268 hospital patients.
1946: In Palestine, Jewish newspapers respond to an attack on a British military installation followed by a British rampage aimed at the Jews of Cholon by publishing editorials calling on the Jewish population to reject the tactics of terrorism in their quest to create a Jewish homeland regardless of British or Arab provocations. An editorial in the Palestine Postcalls on the Jews to “ferret out extremists” and to remember that “lawless violence will generate lawless violence—from which the innocent invariably suffer more than the guilty. In its editorial, Haaretz “declared these incidents had given the Jewish people an ‘opportunity of reminding itself that forces are being let loose that cannot after be controlled…We have to pursue the difficult struggle against British policy and there many ways of doing it. Our fight is against British policy, not against British soldiers.’”
1951: Birthdate of Deborah Lynn Friedman, who as Debbie Friedman would change the face of Jewish music in the last half of the 20th century.
1952(11thof Shevat, 5712): Eighty-four year old Max W. Wallenstein, one of the four children of Esther and Solomon Wallenstein passed away.
1958: Birthdate of actor Barry Miller.
1971: The NASDAQ stock market index, which Bernie Madoff helped to create, makes its debut. According to some, the confidence that Madoff built up in his role with NASDAQ, would become a tool in the creation of the largest Ponzi Scheme in history.
1973(6th of Adar I, 5733): Max Yasgur, the owner of the farm where Woodstock took place, passed away.
1976: The first recorded meeting of what would become the Women's Rabbinic Network took place.
1983(25thof Shevat, 5743): Eighty-four year old “Alfred Wallenstein, the conductor, cellist, classical music pioneer on radio and former music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic” passed away today. (As reported by Allen Hughes)
http://www.nytimes.com/1983/02/10/obituaries/alfred-wallenstein-the-conductor-dies-at-84.html
1983: The Kahan Commission released its report today.
1988: A commission of historians charged by the Austrian Government to look into President Kurt Waldheim's wartime record reported today that he must have been aware of atrocities committed around him and did nothing about them, and that he tried to conceal his military past. But the panel said it had no evidence that Mr. Waldheim himself was guilty of war crimes.
1990: Herb Gray, a member of the Liberal Party, began serving as Leader of the Opposition in the Canadian Parliament today.
1991:Victor Erlich, the grand-son of Henryk Erlich was informed that according to a decree passed under Russian president Boris Yeltsin, Victor Alter, together with Erlich had been "rehabilitated" and the repressions against them had been declared unlawful. Victor Alter had been a Jewish leader of the Bund who was arrested by the NKVD and eventually executed by Stalin as part of his plan to murder any of those who might work for a non-Communist Poland after the end of the War.
1991: Israeli media reported that three soldiers had been wounded when Jordanian gunmen sneaked across the border and threw a hand grenade at a military bus. A few hours later, an Israeli guard in Jerusalem shot and wounded a Palestinian who attacked him with an ax.
1992: Yiddish Art Theatre actor Baruch Lumet passed away at the age of 93. Lumet was the father of Sidney Lumet the filmmaker responsible for such hits as Serpico and Network.
1998: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Commanding Heights: The Battle Between Government and the Marketplace That Is Remaking the Modern World by Daniel Yergin and Joseph Stanislaw and the newly released paperback edition of Hannah Arendt, Martin Heidegger by Elizabeth Ettinger
2001(15thof Shevat, 5761): Tu B’Shevat
2002: In an article entitled “Jewish involvement of Patriots' owner extends to Israel” by Jacob Horowitz, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported that Robert Kraft may or may not have said the Shehechiyanu when his New England Patriots scored the game-winning field goal in Sunday's Super Bowl, but there was no mistaking the elation of this Jewish businessman and philanthropist. .
2004(16th of Shevat, 5764): Julius "Julie" Schwartz American comic book and science fiction editor passed away. He is best known as a longtime editor at DC Comics, where at various times he was primary editor over the company's flagship superheroes, Superman and Batman.
2004: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including An End to Evil: How to Win the War on Terror
by David Frum and Richard Perle and Someone To Run With by David Grossman; translated by Vered Almog and Maya Gurantz
2005: Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas announced a cease-fire at a summit in Egypt.
2006: Haaretz reported that IDF confiscated a stolen seventh-century synagogue mosaic. An archaeologist said the mosaic seized from Palestinian antiquities thieves appears to have been cut from the floor of a previously unknown synagogue that dates back to the 7th century
2006: In Hebron international observers end their decade-long presence following attacks by Palestinians.
2007: The 11th annual New York Sephardic Jewish Film Festival closed after a week long run.
2008: At the Folger Library in Washington, D.C. Daniel Mendelssohn, author of The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million participates in a PEN/Faulkner event entitled "Imagination as Subversion: The Role of Imagination in Memoir & Nonfiction."
2009: The Sunday New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Jerusalem File “Joel Stone’s adamantly anti-heroic novel about a former Israeli security officer who has lost his will to live,”The Samaritan’s Secret,Matt Beynon Rees’ latest thriller which “finds the protagonist Omar Yussef in Nablus, helping his friend Sami Jaffari, a lieutenant with the national police, investigate the theft of a priceless Torah scroll (said to be the oldest book in the world) from a Samaritan sect’s synagogue” and the recently released paperback version of The Conscience of a Liberal by Paul Krugman.
2009: The Washington Post features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Random Acts of Heroic Love by Danny Scheinmann, the English author who is the son of two Jewish immigrants and Is God A Mathematician by Mario Livio a Romanian born Jewish astrophysicists who was educated in Israel, served with IDF and is currently the senior astrophysicist at the Hubble Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore
2009: This evening, Hila Plitmann, the 36-year-old Israeli operatic soprano, won her Grammy for Best Classical Performance as vocalist on a recording of Mr. Tambourine Man: Seven Poems of Bob Dylan (2000), an original composition for full orchestra and amplified soprano by John Corigliano using the lyrics of Dylan and performed by the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by JoAnne Falletta.
2010: The New York premiere of “Salvador: The Ship of Shattered Hopes” is scheduled to take place tonight at the 14th New York Sephardic Film Festival is schedule.
2010:In Washington, the DCJCC is scheduled to present a program entitled “Sanctuary in Israel: The Plight of African Asylum Seekers and Refugees in Israel Today.”
2010:Eleven people were arrested as Israeli Ambassador to the United States Michael Oren was repeatedly interrupted while trying to deliver an address tonight at the University of California, Irvine. Oren was speaking about US-Israeli relations and was interrupted nearly a dozen times.
2010:Unknown assailants torched a building housing a Conservative synagogue in Arad tonight, a year after a failed attempt to burn the shul. No one was hurt in the fire, which scorched the outside of the building but was extinguished before it damaged the synagogue within.
2010: Chancellor Arnodl Eisen and JTS Provost Alan Cooper met with about 100 students, faculty and alumni to discuss the recent announcement that the position of deal of the JTS cantorial school has been eliminated.
2010(25 Shevat, 5770): Ninety-four year old Rabbi Bernard Lander, founder and president of Touro College, passed away today. (As reported by Margalit Fox)
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/15/nyregion/15lander.html?_r=0
2011: Members of Maryland’s Jewish community are scheduled to meet with the Governor, Lt. Governor and state legislators as part of The Maryland Jewish Community 2011 Annapolis Advocacy Day.
2011: Opening night of the Atlanta Jewish Film Festival.
2011: Two Kassam rockets slammed into a field and a parking lot in a kibbutz in the Sha'ar Hanegev regional council at around 11 a.m. A vehicle was damaged in that attack. Two more rockets were fired at the Sha'ar Hanegev Regional Council three hours later, shortly after 2 p.m. The Islamic Jihad terrorist organization said it had fired four projectiles at southern Israel from the Gaza Strip.
2012(15thof Shevat, 5772): Tu B’Shevat
2012: Based on a previous announcement by Ofer Eini, chairman of Histadrut, a general strike in support of contract workers is scheduled to begin today shutting down banks, the Bank of Israel, the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange (TASE), buses, railways, the courts, national parks, local authorities, and government ministries will be shut down.
2012: Lilith Editor in Chief Susan Weidman Schneider and Michelle Brafman, a writer and fiction teacher at GWU and the Johns Hopkins MA in Writing program, are scheduled to facilitate an evening devoted to discussing the influences of naming practices on the identities of Jewish women.
2012: Former Mossad Chief Meir Dagan kicked off a new movement calling for changes in the political system today by warning that the current system could result in faulty decision-making on key issues like Iran.
2012: Gilad Schalit, the IDF soldier held in Hamas captivity for five years before being released in October, was welcomed by French President Nicolas Sarkozy to the Élysée Palace in Paris on today.
2013: “Excellence” a concert featuring the Young Piano Masters of the Aldwell Institute of the Jerusalem Conservatory of Music and Dance is scheduled to take place at the Eden-Tamir Music Center
2013: An IISHJ (International Institute for Secular Humanistic Judaism) Seminar, “Matzah Without Dogma:Four Centuries of Secular and Humanistic Judaism,” featuring Rabbi Adam Chalom is scheduled to begin at Silver Spring, MD.