February 9 In History
474: Zeno was crowned as co-emperor of the Byzantine Empire.“The feeling of Emperor Zeno towards the Jews is illustrated by a remark made at the races of Antioch. After a mob murdered many Jews, threw their corpses into the fire, and burned their synagogue Zeno commented, ‘They should have burned the living ones also.’”
1119: Calixtus II was named Pope. During his twenty five years on the papal throne, Calixtus II “provided a considerable amount of protection for Roman Jews.”
1267: The Synod of Breslau ordered Jews of Silesia to wear special caps.
1517: Isabel Lopez, the daughter of Maria Lopez offered an expanded rebuttal of the charges made against by the Inquisition. “She never observed Shabbat or wore special clothes except in honor of a Church holy day, a baptism or wedding ceremony. She recited the Ave Maria, the Pater Noster, the Creed and the Salve Regina. She had no idea what the sciatic nerve was, but was a clean woman who ate all types of fish and animals. She asked the tribunal to restore her honor and reputation. In August, she stated that the evidence was false and invalid. She was a good Christian; nothing she did was heretical. If she cleaned her meat, it was because she was meticulous; she never dressed up on Friday or Saturday and had no special lamps in her home.” (As reported by Renee Levine Melammed)
1621: Gregory XV was elected Pope. Gregory’s support of the censorship of Jewish books can be seen in the fact that during his brief papacy (1621-1623) at “least three expurgators of Hebrew books were appointed by the Roman Inquisition: Vincentius Matelica, 1622, "auctoritate apostolica"; Isaia di Roma, 1623, "per ordine di Roma"; and Petrus de Trevio, 1623, "deputatus" (officially appointed to revise books).”
1749: Benedict XIV issued a papal bull, “Singulari Nobis consoldtioni” that prohibited marriages between Jews and Christians.
1807: Napoleon convened the French Sanhedrin. The first meeting in
Paris
of the Napoleonic Sanhedrin was under the leadership of The Assembly of Jewish Notables. It opened amid great pomp and celebration under the direction of Abraham Furtado. The Sanhedrin was modeled on the ancient Tribunal in
Jerusalem
and consisted of 71 members - 46 Rabbis and 25 laymen. Rabbi David Sinzheim of Strasburg was its President. They were presented with 12 questions regarding the positions of Jewry regarding polygamy, divorce, usury, other faiths, and most important whether they considered
France
to be their Fatherland. Needless to say, they received "guidance" from the emperor as to the general formulation of the answers.
1808: In Westphalia, a large delegation of Jews visited King Jerome, the brother of Napoleon to express their thanks for his granting them full emancipation. During the audience he told them: Tell your brothers to enjoy the rights that were granted to them. They can depend upon my protection on a par with the rest of my children."
1852: Today’s “News by the Mail” column reported that “Rabbi Raphall is lecturing at Albany on the Poetry of the Hebrews.”
1854: Birthdate of Aletta [Henriëtte] Jacobs, activist for the rights of women and the first Dutch female physician.
1860: “The Temple of the Reformed Jews” on Twelfth street, between Third and Fourth avenues, was among the buildings damaged by a gale described as a "winter tornado" that swept across New York City this evening.
1860: The Philadelphia North Americanreported that it is unlikely that “Captain Moses” will end up in jail. The man who had been previously described as “a Hebrew” had been charged with swindling those wishing to make donations to aid the destitute Jewish and Christian refugees from Morocco who had taken shelter at Gibraltar. There will be no trial because there is no real evidence to substantiate the charge.
1864: In a report published today, the Richmond Examiner highlighted the presence of Jews among those seeking to escape from the Confederacy and find refuge in the North. The Examiner reported that “it is reliably estimated that during the past week over 100 Jews, principals of substitutes and others, have come...to Richmond from the South, put up at the hotels, and disappeared by the various underground routes to the North. How they go is known only to themselves and their agents, but it is true they have gone and are still going. Ten Jews left one of the principal hotels on Sunday morning. They are mostly of the wealthy class, and $10,000 is frequently tendered for a safe passage to the Potomac.” Farmers who have brought goods to the Confederate capital reportedly smuggle the refugees North in their empty wagons. Those caught trying to leave have been imprison in the Castle Thunder Prison. Jews have been able to escape from the prison by pretending to be dead and having their embalmed bodies taken “through the lines, en route to bereaved relatives in the North.”
1864: N.S. Isaacs of New York wrote to Union General Benjamin Butler concerning his use of the term “Jew” in a disparaging manner in his recent dispatches about a group caught trying to smuggle contraband to Confederate forces.
1865: Professor John W. Draper the first in a series of lectures on "The Historical Influence of Natural Causes." In his address tonight on “The Influence of Climate” he said that that “climate does change men” as can be “seen in the Jews, who come of a common stock. In northern Europe they are fair, with blue eyes, while in Palestine they are tawny, and in Malaga, almost black.”
1873(12th of Shevat, 5633): Sixty-seven year old Jewish German orientalist Julius Furst passed away in Leipzig.
1875: In New York, the hat store on Third Avenue that belonged to a Polish Jew named Abraham H. Keinski burned tonight.
1876: Today’s session of P.N. Rubenstein’s trial for the murder of Sara Alexander in Kings County lasted from 10:30 in the morning until 3:30 in the afternoon.
1879: Both sides rested during the trial Abraham D. Freeman and Charles Bernstein who were accused of complicity along with Abraham Perlstein in setting to the house on Ludlow Street. Perslstein has already been convicted and sentenced. In his charge to the jury, Judge Barrett spoke strongly on the matter of prejudice, telling all concerned that it had no place in the decision making process. As of midnight, the jury had not reached a verdict.
1879: It was reported today that modern day London and its suburbs cover an area of 700 square miles with a population that includes more Jews than are found in all of Palestine.
1880: It was reported today that Hebraica, which has been published as a monthly supplement to the Jewish Messengerwill now be published as a weekly featuring articles on Hebrew literature and the science of the Bible.
1881: Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoyevsky passed away. To the world he is the author of Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov. For Jews, he was a skilled author who was also a vocal anti-Semite. He freely disparaged them as “Yids” who “have everything to gain from every cataclysm and coup d’état…and only profit from anything that serves to undermine gentile society.”
1885: Birthdate of Austrian composer, Alban Berg.
1889: The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is established as a Cabinet-level agency. Former Kansas Congressman Dan Glickman who served as USDA Secretary from 1995 to 2001 is the only Jew to head this department of the U.S. Government.
1890: Grand Master J.E. Lowenstein presided over the opening session of the Grand Lodge, No.1 of the Independent Order of Free Sons of Israel at Webster Hall in New York City.
1890: A memorial service in honor of the late Seligman Solomon was held today at the Hebrew Orphan Asylum in New York City.
1890: It was reported today Princeton University Professor Arthur Frothingham presented each of the students in his Hebrew Class with a new Hebrew Lexicon and a volume containing the text of Genesis. The course was an elective. Frothingham was one of the first professors of art history and an archeologist who got in trouble with President of Princeton over his choice of courses. I have not been able to find out why he was teaching a course in Hebrew, except for the face that his academic training had been foreign languages.
1891: A deed of trust signed by Baron Hirsch and those who have been named to oversee the $2,400,000 grant designed to improve the lot of Russian and Romanian immigrants to the United States was filed in the Register’s office in New York
1895: The mid-year examinations in Hebrew are scheduled to be given at Columbia College today.
1895: William G. Morgan invents volleyball at YMCA in Holyoke, MA. Jewish volleyball players include the Brazilian women’s star Adriana Brandão Behar, Aryeh ("Arie") Selinger the Polish born Israeli who coached the Dutch Men's Team to the silver medal at the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona, Spain and Avital Haim Selinger, a 48 year old Sabra, who, before his retirement, played for two different Dutch teams in the Summer Olympics.
1895(15th of Shevat, 5655): Tu B’Shevat
1897: The funeral of Morris Goodhart will take place this morning at Temple Beth El followed by interment at the family plot at the Washington Cemetery.
1898: “Hebrew Charities Building to be Incorporated” published today described New York State Senator Cantor’s introduction of a bill in the state legislature that would allow for the incorporation of the Hebrew Charities Building in New York City. “The object of the corporation is to establish and maintain a building in which Hebrew benevolent institutions can have their headquarters, and at which all applicants for aid may apply.” The building will also include a public library “with a special department of Judaica.”
1899: It was reported today that Ida Silverman was among those chosen to serve on the Executive Committee of the People’s Club in New York City.
1900: Davis Cup competition is established. The most prominent American Jewish player in Davis Cup competitor was Aaron Krickstein. He was a member of the U.S. Davis Cup team from 1985-1987 and also was a member of the 1990 squad. He compiled a 6-4 record in singles play during Davis Cup ties. The highlight of Krickstein's Davis Cup career came in 1990 when he scored two hard fought victories in a World Group Quarterfinal tie against Czechoslovakia leading his team to a 4-1 win. Israel first competed in Davis Cup play in 1949. Shlomo Glickstein and Eleazar Davidman are two of the most prominent members of the Israeli teams over the last half century.
1900: Birthdate of Friedrich Mandl, the Austrian fascist armaments manufacturer whose wives included Jewish actress Hedy Lamar and Monika Brücklmeier, the daughter of one of the men executed for his role in the plot to kill Hitler in July of 1944.
1904: Sir Matthew Nathan completed his term as the 20thGovernor of the Gold Coast, the British colony that became the independent nation of Ghana.
1904: As some Zionist leaders consider temporary alternatives for a Jewish homeland, Leopold Greenberg cables to accept the offer of the territory in Nandi without delay because a governmental change was impending. Under this pressure Herzl writes back the demanded consent. On the next day he cables Greenberg again to undertake nothing until he received Herzl's written instructions.
1910: Birthdate of the influential modern dance choreographer Anna Sokolow.
1917: The 600-year-old synagogue of Congregation Shaari Zedek in
Tunis
was destroyed by fire.
1925(15th of Shevat, 5685) Tu B’Shevat
1925: The Technion opened in Haifa. “As
Israel
's oldest and premier institute of science and technology, the Technion - Israel Institute of Technology has been an active and leading participant in
Israel
's establishment and development. With supreme effort and unyielding dedication, deserts have bloomed, swamps have been transformed into fertile agricultural valleys, and sand has given way to silicon.
Israel
is now recognized as one of the world's most prominent high-tech innovators, and has been called the second
Silicon Valley
.” After some years of intense pioneering activities, with which Prof. Albert Einstein's deep involvement, the Technion opened its doors in the 1920’s becoming
Israel
’s first modern university. The first undergraduate class consisted of 16 students in two areas of instruction; Civil Engineering and Architecture.
After serious debate, the language of instruction was chosen to be Hebrew, as opposed to German. The impact of the first Jewish university in an embryonic Jewish state brought about a vital link between the two. The faculty has had an impact in a variety of fields and has one numerous international honors. In 2004, “Professors Avram Hershko and Aaron Ciechanover of the Faculty of Medicine received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their discovery of the crucial role of ubiquitin in the process of protein breakdown in cells.” The accomplishments are all the more amazing when one considers the political, economic and cultural milieu in which the Technion was developed – limited funding, terrorism, and the constant threat of national annihilation.
1925: The children of Jerusalem planted trees on Tu B’Shevat
1934: The funeral for Abraham Shiplacoff, a veteran labor leader and the first member of the Socialist Party to be elected to the New York State Assembly is scheduled to be held today the Daily Forward Building in New York City.
1938: The Jerusalem Post reported that a British sergeant was killed while pursuing an Arab gang near Tulkarm.
1938: The Jerusalem Post reported that Arab terrorists cut telephone wires, shot at and stopped an Arab bus near Hebron, killed one passenger and took away the uniform of an Arab constable, warning him to leave the force.
1938: The Jerusalem Post reported that in elections to the Jerusalem Communal Council (Va’ad Kehila) out of 9,404 votes cast, Labor won 1,417, Revisionists 877, General Zionists 416, Mizrahi 413, and the rest was divided among 13 small political parties.
1939: Birthdate of South African actress Janet Suzman.
1940: William E. Dodd, the American historian who served as Ambassador to Germany from 1933 to 1937 passed away. Dodd was the first American ambassador who served under the Hitler régime. He tried to warn the State Department and the American people about the danger but his warnings fell on deaf ears. (For more see In the Garden of Beasts by Erik Larson, a history book that reads like a novel.)
1940(30th of Sh'vat, 5700): Rosh Chodesh Adar I
1941: Dutch Nazis sparked the first anti-Jewish riots in Amsterdam. Among other damage, the Nazi collaborators destroyed the pro-Jewish café Alcazar Amsterdam. Alcazar refused to hang "No Entry for Jews" signs in front of café.
1942: Birthdate of Carole King. The famous singer and song writer was born Carol Klein in
Brooklyn
.
1943: Birthdate of Joseph E. Stiglitz, American economist, winner of the Nobel Prize for Economics.
1943, G R Barnes, the director of talks at the BBC “complained about an interview which strayed into forbidden territory by discussing anti- Semitism: 'Personally I don't want to touch the subject, except by implication in talks on other subjects,' he wrote.” His complaint was emblematic of an anti-Semitic mentality at the BBC that “led to a policy which suppressed news about Germany's attempt to exterminate European Jews.”
1944: The Lodz Ghetto received machinery and a factory was set up that helped to secure survival for a while longer for many Jews. Unknown to them, the machinery came from Poniataw, where the Jewish population had been obliterated in November, 1943.
1945: Churchill sends Ibn Saud, the Saudi Monarch, urging him to meet with FDR who is on his way back to the
United States
after the
Yalta
meetings. Churchill mistakenly believes that FDR will provide leverage for the settlement of Jews in
Palestine
after the war.
1948: The Stern Gang blew up two Arab owned building in Jerusalem from which Arab snipers had been shooting at Jews.
1948: During the fight for
Jerusalem
, the Haganah attacked the Arab
village
of
Sur Bahir
from which snipers had been shooting at the residents of Talipot.
1951(3rd of Adar I, 5711): Pianist and society band leader, Eddy Duchin passed away. Born in 1910, in Cambridge, MA, this son of Jewish immigrant parents trained as a Pharmacist before pursing his musical dream. He was a musical genius who began leading his own orchestra in 1931 when he was only 22. He was 41 years old when he died of acute myelogenous leukemia. He was the father the even more famous Peter Duchin. The Eddy Duchin Story, a film with Tryone Power playing the title role and Kim Novak playing his High Society first wife, made no mention of Duchin being Jewish or the challenges that must have presented as he pursued his career among those who if not anti-Semitic certainly were not partial to having Jews around.
1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that by six votes of Mapai and Ha’oved Hatzioni against two of Mapam, and one member of Mapam abstaining, the Histadrut decided to ban Communists from the organization.
1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that three marauders were killed and eight captured along the Jordanian border.
1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that the cabinet had decided on the establishment of the State Bank, agreed to hold the Conquest of the Desert Exhibition and allocated land for the Hebrew University Givat Ram development.
1954: Birthdate of Salah Tarif, a Druze Israeli politician who served in the Knesset for fourteen years. His service in the cabinet of Ariel Sharon made him the first non Jew to serve as a government minister in Israel.
1966 (19th of Shevat, 5726): Sophie Tucker, the last of the Red Hot Mommas, passed away.
1968 (10th of Shevat, 5728): Sydney Silverman, Labour MP, foe of the death penalty and a supporter of Jewish causes passed away today.
1969: Today, over a year after the INS Dakar sank with all hands on board, a Palestinian fisherman found her stern emergency buoy marker washed up on the coast of Khan Yunis, a Palestinian town southwest of Gaza.
1972(24th of Shevat, 5732): Bella Fromm passed away. Born in Bavaria in 1890, she became a successful journalist who sought refuge in the United States in 1938. In 1942, she published an account of her time spent covering the Nazis in a bestseller entitled “Blood and Banquets: A Berlin Social Diary.”
1973(7th of Adar I, 5733): Max B. Yasgur, an American farmer, best known as the owner of the dairy farm in Bethel, New York at which the Woodstock Music and Art Fair was held passed away.
1978: The Jerusalem Post reported that Egyptian President Anwar Sadat succeeded in persuading US President Jimmy Carter to adopt a more active role in peace negotiations. In
New York
, Foreign Minister Moshe Dayan denied that
Israel
had violated pledge given to the
US
on the settlement issue and sharply attacked Sadat¹s negotiating stance. In
Geneva
, meeting Jewish leaders, Prime Minister Menachem Begin warned that the sale of US arms to
Egypt
and other Arab countries endangered peace.
1987:Kidnappers holding four Western hostages reiterated that they would kill their captives at midnight tonight unless 400 Arab prisoners were freed by Israel, then, as the deadline passed, announced that it had been extended ''until further notice.'' Between the kidnappers' statements, a car-bomb explosion killed 17 people and wounded 80 in a densely populated Shiite Moslem suburb of Beirut. A hand-written letter signed by three American hostages had said the kidnappers, Islamic Holy War for the Liberation of Palestine, ''will execute us at midnight because Israel is refusing to release 400 Palestinians from its cells.'' The statement, delivered to a Western news agency in Moslem-controlled West Beirut, was accompanied by a photograph of one hostage, Alann Steen. Three other teachers - Robert Polhill and Jesse Turner, both Americans, and Mithileshwar Singh, an Indian national - were also abducted by gunmen from Beirut University College last month. The Israelis indicated that they might consider the demand for the release of the 400 Palestinians, but they have not taken up an offer by the leader of the Lebanese Shiite militia Amal, Nabih Berri, to exchange an Israeli Air Force navigator being held by Amal for the 400 prisoners in Israel.
1987: Israel's Defense Minister, Yitzhak Rabin, said tonight that Israel would consider any American appeal to swap 400 Arab prisoners for hostages held by kidnappers in Beirut. But he, Prime Minister Shamir and Foreign Minister Peres emphasized that the United States had not asked Israel to get involved. ''If and when the U.S. will turn to us, we'll consider what to do,'' Mr. Rabin said. Mr. Peres said Israel did not know which 400 prisoners the kidnappers wanted released.
1990:Unrepentant, the Israeli peace campaigner Abie Nathan was released from prison today. He vowed to continue the activities for which he was jailed four months ago.
1991:A new Scud missile attack on Israel left 20 people slightly wounded in Tel Aviv, the military said. Iraq fired a single Scud missile armed with a conventional warhead at Israel early this morning, and the authorities said it was hit by a Patriot missile over Tel Aviv. But burning debris struck buildings in a residential area, badly damaging some of them and wounding between 15 and 20 people, the army said.
1992:The "Schwarzkopf March," which was composed by Abraham Sternklar in honor of General Norman Schwarzkopf, is scheduled to have its premiere at the North Shore Jewish Center in Port Jefferson Station. As a 12 year old living in Tel Aviv in 1943, Sternklar had composed a march in honor of British General Bernard Montgomery entitled “Montgomery’s March.”
1994: Israeli minister Shimon Perez signed a peace accord with PLO's Arafat.
1994: Poet Kenneth Koch, professor of English and comparative literature at Columbia, was named winner of the Bollingen Prize in Poetry by Yale University.
1994: In Israel, two portfolio managers, Vladimir Saar and Arye Shafir, have been detained on suspicion of a multimillion-dollar stock market manipulation scheme on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, the police said today.
1994 (28th of Shevat, 5754): Taxi driver, Ilan Sudri was kidnapped and killed while returning home from work. The Islamic Jihad Shekaki group sent a message to the news agencies claiming responsibility for the murder.
1996(19th of Shevat, 5756): Rabbi Albert J. Amateau, founder of the Brotherhood of Rhodes, and the Sephardic Brotherhood, an offshoot of the Salonican Brotherhood, passed away.
1997: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Reichmanns Family, Faith, Fortune, and the Empire of Olympia & York by Anthony Bianco and French Children of the Holocaust: A Memorial by Serge Klarsfeld
1999: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including A Journey to the End of the Millenium by A.B. Yehoshua and Preempting the Holocaust by Lawrence L. Langer.
1999: Journalist Claudia Dreifus highlighted her expertise in a talk on the art of the political interview given at the National Archives in
Washington
, D.C.
2000(3rd of Adar I, 5760): Stephen Robert Furness a member of the Pittsburgh Steelers' famed Steel Curtain defense who earned four Super Bowl rings passed away.
2001(16th of Shevat, 5761): Nobel Prize winning economist Herbert Simon passed away.
2002: In today's broadcast of Verbatim, Rabbi Raymond Apple described his early life in Melbourne (including his early experience of a Catholic kindergarten) from short pants to long 'Bar Mitzvah' trousers and the steady development of his religious vocation. “Since 1972, Rabbi Apple has been the Senior Rabbi at the magnificent Great Synagogue in Elizabeth St, Sydney. Rabbi Apple's distinguished career has and has had many facets, encompassing his interests in such matters as religious education, ecclesiastical law and the history of the Jews in Australia. He has had a long association with the Australian council for Christians and Jews and serves as the Senior Rabbi to the Australian Defense Forces.”
2003: The Times of London featured a review of Charlotte and Lionel by Stanley Weintraub
2003: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Lost In America: A Journey With My Father by Sherwin B. Nuland and Genuine Authentic: The Real Life of Ralph Lauren by Michael Gross.
2006(11thof Shevat, 5766): The Indian film star known as Nadira passed away today in Mumbai after a long illness. There is some confusion as to her age – she was either 73 or 75. That is not the only confusion. According to one source her name was a native of Palestine named Florence Ezekiel who moved to India in the late 1940’s to begin a career in films. Another source said her name was Farhat Ezekiel Nadira and she was the daughter of Baghdadi Jews.
2007: Haaretz reported on a study conducted by the Steinhardt Social Research Institute at Brandeis University that found between 6 million and 6.4 million Jews live in the United States, about 1 million more than was previously thought. “
2008: The 12th Sephardic NY Film Festival continues with “A Tribute to Israel at 60” featuring the North America premiere of “Exodus, Ada’s Dream” which is “based on the true story of Ada Sereni who became a leader of Aliyah Bet helping the underground Jewish Brigade bring survivors to Palestine in 1945” followed by the New York Premier of “Family Heroes” or “Le Heros de Famille.”
2008: In the following article The New York Times reported that Conservative Rabbis plan to vote on a resolution criticizing the Pope’s revision of prayer recited on Good Friday.
“The revision of a contentious Good Friday prayer approved this week by Pope Benedict XVI could set back Jewish-Catholic relations, Conservative Judaism’s international assembly of rabbis says in a resolution to be voted on next week.
The prayer calls for God to enlighten the hearts of Jews “so that they may acknowledge Jesus Christ, the savior of all men.”
The draft resolution states the prayer would “cast a harsh shadow over the spirit of mutual respect and collaboration that has marked these past four decades, making it more difficult for Jews to engage constructively in dialogue with Catholics.”
On Tuesday, the pope released new wording for the prayer, part of the traditional Latin, or Tridentine, Mass.
Before the Second
Vatican
Council, also known as
Vatican
II, the Good Friday Mass in Latin prayed for the conversion of Jews, referring to their “blindness” and calling upon God to “lift a veil from their hearts.”
An unofficial translation of the new prayer reads: “Let us pray for the Jews. May the Lord Our God enlighten their hearts so that they may acknowledge Jesus Christ, the savior of all men.”
Lay Jewish groups this week called the change insufficient.
Rabbi Joel H. Meyers, executive vice president of the Rabbinical Assembly, the Conservative rabbis’ group, said leaders from the Reform and Reconstructionist movements had also been in touch with him about issuing a joint statement on the papal revision.
“We have been very much involved in interfaith activities and dialogue for years, and relationships with the Catholic Church are really quite good,” the rabbi said. “I think it really turns back the clock a bit and reverts to some sense that the church is pulling back from the positions it took in
Vatican
II.”
Most Catholics worship in the vernacular
,
and their prayers will not be affected. But last year, the pope made it easier for traditionalists to celebrate the Latin Mass that was the norm before
Vatican
II.
At a meeting in Washington from Sunday to Thursday, the Rabbinical Assembly will vote on a draft resolution, which, while subject to revision, says the group is “dismayed and deeply disturbed to learn that Pope Benedict XVI has revised the 1962 text of the Latin Mass, retaining the rubric, ‘For the Conversion of The Jews.’ ”
The Rev. James Massa, executive director of the secretariat of ecumenical and interreligious affairs of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, said Friday that the prayer would be heard by “a tiny minority of Catholics and they will hear it in Latin.”
“The publication of the prayer and its interpretation by some of our partners in the Jewish community does lower the temperature a bit,” Father Massa said, “but we have persevered other controversies in the past and at the end of the day we are all at the table of dialogue.”
2008: An article published by The New York Times reporting that the selection of Israel as guest of honor at this spring’s International Book Fair in Turin has set off a furious debate among Italian, Israeli and Arab authors and intellectuals, including calls to boycott the event, Italy’s largest annual gathering of the publishing world provides portrait of the double standard to which Israel and Israelis are subjected.
2009(15thof Shevat, 5769): Tu B’Shevat
2009: At NYU, the Taub Center for Israel Studies cosponsored a briefing and Q&A session with Ambassador Asaf Shariv, Consul General of Israel.
2010: The 14th New York Sephardic Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to present a screening of “Pillar of Salt,” a film “based on the autobiographical novel by sociologist Albert Memmi” which “captures the cultural richness and social complexity of a Jewish boy's life in Tunisia.”
<span s