acheter viagrapurchase viagra onlinebuy CIALIS 20mgbuy cialis online
|
This day in Jewish History |
July 31 In Jewish History
904: Thessaloniki, which is also known as Salonica, is sacked and looted by Saracens (an Arab group). The Jewish population of Thessaloniki dates back at least to the first century of the Common Era. By the time Benjamin of Tudela visited the city in the 11th century the Jewish population numbered a significant "hundred souls." Salonica's Jewish population would grow when the Ottomans made it a refuge for Sephardic Jews following their expulsion in 1492.
1255: An English boy who would become known as Little Saint Hugh of Lincoln disappeared setting the stage for the one of the mores notorious blood libels in English History.
1527: Birthdate of Maximilian II, Holy Roman Emperor. "In his diary entries, Maximilien described the Jews as a quarrelsome and deceitful people who denounced one another, gave usurious loans to miners and artisans and traded in inferior medals. Between 1567 and 1573 the emperor repeatedly issued mandates to expel Jews" from Lower Austria.
1556: Ignatius Loyola, Spanish priest and founder of the Jesuits passed away. When accused of being crypto-Jew or having Jewish ancestry he replied If only I did! What could be more glorious than to be of the same blood as the Apostles, the Blessed Virgin, and our Lord Himself?" Robert Maryks, "an expert on the history of early Jesuits details the significant role of "conversos'' -- Jews and their descendants who were pressured to convert to Catholicism before and during the Spanish Inquisition in his recently published book, The Jesuit Order as a Synagogue of Jews: Jesuits of Jewish Ancestry and Purity-of-Blood Laws in the Early Society of Jesus
1571: The ghetto in Florence, Italy was established.
1743: In Jerusalem, Chaim ben Moses ibn Attar,Talmudist and Kabbalist passed away. He was buried on the Mount of Olives, Jerusalem. Born at Mequenez, Morocco in 1696 he was one of the most prominent rabbis in Morocco. In 1733 he decided to leave his native country and settle in the Land of Israel, then under the Ottoman Empire. En route he was detained in Livorno by the rich members of the Jewish community who established a yeshiva for him. Many of his pupils later became prominent and furnished him with funds to print his "Ohr ha-Chaim" or "The Light of Life," a commentary on the Pentateuch. He was received with great honor wherever he traveled. This was due to his extensive knowledge, keen intellect and extraordinary piety. In the middle of 1742 he arrived in Jerusalem where he presided at the Beit Midrash Knesset Yisrael. One of his disciples there was Rabbi Chaim Joseph David Azulai, who wrote of his master's greatness: "Attar's heart pulsated with Talmud; he uprooted mountains like a resistless torrent; his holiness was that of an angel of the Lord ... having severed all connection with the affairs of this world. A prolific author, two of his other published works were "Hefetz Hashem or "God's Desire," consisting of dissertations on four Talmudic treatises and "Peri Toar" or "Beautiful Fruit," a novella based on the Shulchan Aruch.
1776(15th of Av, 5536): Francis Salvador, one of the most prominent Jews of the American Revolutionary period, , was shot and scalped by Indians after riding 28 miles to raise a militia after attacks occurred on settlers. His father (also named Francis Salvador) was a wealthy London Jew who financed the earliest Jewish settlers of Savannah, Georgia
1840(1st of Av, 5600): Rosh Chodesh Av
1840(1st of Av, 5600): Nachman Kohen Krochmal, one of "the first Jewish historians to treat Jewish history as an integral part of all human history" passed away. A native of Brody, Galicia, one of his most famous works was Moreh Nebuke ha-Zeman (Guide for the Perplexed of the Time).
1845: In Great Britain, Parliament passes the Act for the relief of Persons of the Jewish Religion elected to Municipal Offices.
1856: Christchurch New Zealand is chartered as a city. According to Robert Case, the first Jews settled in Christchurch during the 1850's. By 1860, there were fewer than four hundred Jews living in all of New Zealand. Although the Jewish Community of Christchurch has always been a small one, it built a synagogue in 1890. Today the Christchurch's Canterburgy Hebrew Congregation consists of a synagogue, Temple Beth-El that offers regular Shabbat services as well as cheder classes, Bar and Bat Mitzvah training, conversion support, holiday services and a variety of social activities. It is also home to the South Island chapter of Habonim Dror and the Christchurch Council of Jewish Women. The community also has a Chevra Kedisha and Chabad House.
1878: Birthdate of philanthropist and child-welfare activist Madeleine Borg. Borg, who lived her whole life in New York City, was educated at Columbia University, where she studied the causes of juvenile delinquency. Subsequently, she held leadership positions in more than a dozen major child welfare organizations. Her roles included chair of the executive committee of the Jewish Board of Guardians of New York, director of the Child Welfare League, member of the executive committee of the Girls' Service League of America, and trustee of the Training School for Jewish Social Work. She also served on the executive boards of the American Jewish Committee and the Federation for the Support of Jewish Philanthropic Societies of New York. Borg's largest contribution to child welfare was probably her role in founding the Big Sister movement, beginning in 1912. Modeled on earlier Big Brother programs targeted at troubled boys, Big Sister programs provide young girls with role models and companions. In 1914, Borg was among the founders of the Jewish Big Sisters, which sought to help poor and troubled girls by providing them with role models from a similar ethnic and cultural background. Today, Jewish Big Brothers/Big Sisters programs also match adults with disabilities with non-disabled friends. Always interested in child welfare, Borg was also active in promoting psychiatric clinics as part of the study of child behavior. In 1954, the Jewish Board of Guardians renamed its Child Guidance Institute in Borg's honor. Borg's public roles also extended beyond child welfare and beyond the Jewish community. In 1929, then-Governor Franklin Roosevelt appointed her to the New York State Old Age Pensions Committee; she also served on the executive committee of the New York City Crime Prevention Bureau. In 1939, she became a trustee of the New York World's Fair. Also in 1939, she became president of the New York Federation of Jewish Philanthropies, the first woman to hold that post. Borg died on January 9, 1956.
1882: Rishon Lezion or First For Zion was founded by a group of 10 families in Eretz Israel. The settlement marked the beginning of the first Aliyah (going up) to Eretz- Israel, and the beginning of Rothschild's deep involvement with settlement activities. Later that year, Baron Edmund De Rothschild in response to the Russian pogroms and a plea by Rabbi Samuel Mohilever agreed to help the new Moshava
1898: Samuel Gompers arrived in Springfield, Illinois where he planned to attend the upcoming state convention of the American Federation of Labor. Mr. Gompers spoke out against the condition of workers in the territories recently annexed after the Spanish American War; specifically he demanded that slave labor be stamped out there in and in Hawaii.
1900: Herzl leaves Altaussee and travels to Luzern, Paris and London. The trip will take a toll on his health and he will be ill by the he gets to London on August 7.
1906(9th of Av, 5666):Tish'a B'Av
1912: Birthdate of newspaper and Chicago literary institution Irv Kupcinet.
1912: Birthdate of economist and Federal Reserve Chairman Milton Friedman. Friedman won the Nobel Prize in 1976.
1914: German Jewish industrialist Walter Rathenau published an article in the Berliner Tageblatt protesting Germany's blind loyalty to Austria; a loyalty which he felt was leading to a great European war.
1918: Joseph Schlossberg, General Secretary Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America and Abraham Epstein, President Workmen's Circle were among the leaders of a meeting of a Conference of Trade Unions, Branches of the Workmen's Circle, and other Progressive Labor Organizations of Greater New York scheduled to be held be held in Webster Hall, 119 East 11th Street, for the purpose of organizing the workers into a permanent central body for aiding all persons prosecuted who are in need of help, and of arousing public opinion against the further suppression of constitutional rights and liberties. The Conference will be held under the auspices of the Liberty Defense Union, and has been endorsed by the United Hebrews Trades and the National Executive Committee of the Workmen's Circle.
1919: Birthdate of the Italian-Jewish writer and chemist Primo Levi. Levi spent time fighting with Partisans during the war and survived Auschwitz. These experiences provided much of the material for his writings. He passed away in 1987. (We do not have the space to do his work justice and you are urged to read any of his several works which are available in English.)
1923: A Hebrew version of Verdi's "Traviata" was performed in Jerusalem this evening. The performance was described as "brilliant." The Hebrew version of the opera had previously been performed in Tel Aviv.
1928: When MGM introduces its first "talkie," "White Shadows on the South Seas" the famed Lion Logo makes its first appearance. With so many Jews involved in MGM, including Harry Rapf, Irving Thalberg, Louis B. Mayer and Nicholas Schenck one might wonder if the choice of the Lion was subtle reference to the Lion of Judah.
1928: Bobbie Rosenfeld won gold and silver medals in the 1928 Olympics. "Bobbie Rosenfeld was well known as a star of Canadian track and field. Born Fanny Rosenfeld in Dnepropetrovsk, Russia in 1904, she moved to Canada as an infant; she was later nicknamed "Bobbie" because of her bobbed hair. Growing up in Barrie, Ontario, and then in Toronto, Rosenfeld was an enthusiastic athlete from a young age, playing basketball, softball, hockey and tennis, as well as running. Despite widespread belief that strenuous exercise was damaging to women's bodies, Rosenfeld's family supported her athletic pursuits. In 1923, Rosenfeld burst onto the national scene when she entered the 100-yard dash at a picnic on a dare from a softball teammate. At the time, Rosenfeld was working in a Toronto chocolate factory. Rosenfeld not only won the race but also beat the Canadian national champion, Rosa Grosse. Two years later, Rosenfeld and Grosse would share the world record for the 100-yard dash, at eleven seconds. Later in 1923, she entered her first major race at the Canadian National Exhibition. In the 100-yard dash, she again beat Grosse and also beat American and world-record holder Helen Filkey. The same evening, after the race, Rosenfeld joined her softball team and helped lead them to the city championship. Over the next decade, Rosenfeld came to symbolize Canadian women's sport. She went from success to success, leading ice hockey, basketball, and softball teams to championships and winning the Toronto Ladies Grass Courts tennis tournament in 1924. She claimed victory in so many sports that one author later wrote that "the most efficient way to summarize Bobbie Rosenfeld's career ... is to say that she was not good at swimming." A consummate athlete, she was also applauded for her sportsmanship. Both these qualities would soon be evident on the world stage. In 1928, Rosenfeld was chosen as one of the "matchless six" on the Canadian women's Olympic track and field team. The Olympics of 1928 were the first in which women were allowed to compete in track and field, although only on a trial basis. On July 31, 1928, Rosenfeld won the silver medal in the 100-meter race, though many spectators thought she had actually finished first. A few days later, Rosenfeld competed in the 800-meters, a race in which she had been entered only to encourage teammate Jean Thompson, and for which she had not trained. Coming from the rear, Rosenfeld ran alongside Thompson through most of the race, allowing her teammate to finish fourth while she placed fifth; this was considered a great act of compassion and sportsmanship, as Rosenfeld could easily have pulled ahead and earned a medal in the race. Finally, on the last day of track and field events, Rosenfeld got her gold medal when she led her team to victory in the 400-meter relay. On the team's return to Toronto, 200,000 people lined the streets to cheer a celebratory parade. Rosenfeld had helped to show that women's competition could be a worthy part of the Olympics; after the Games closed, the delegates of the International Amateur Athletic Federation voted 16-6 to continue women's track and field events at future Olympics. The Canadian delegate voted against women's participation. Back at home, though Rosenfeld had received a hero's welcome, she went back to work at the chocolate factory to pay her bills. In 1928, no endorsement contracts or professional sports opportunities were available to women. Rosenfeld continued to play sports, even starring on championship ice hockey and softball teams, but recurrent attacks of severe arthritis ended her athletic career in 1933. She moved to coaching track and softball, and then, in 1937, to writing about sports. For nearly twenty years, she wrote the "Sports Reel" column for the Toronto Globe and Mail. She retired from the Globe and Mail in 1966 and died on November 14, 1969. Rosenfeld's legacy is one of breaking down barriers. First as an athlete, and then as the only woman on the sports staff of the Globe and Mail, she carved new paths for women in sports, making it clear to skeptics that, as she put it in a column, "girls are in sports for good." These contributions were recognized both during Rosenfeld's lifetime and after her death. In 1950, a press poll of sportswriters named her Canada's Female Athlete of the Half Century; in 1955, she was among the earliest inductees to Canada's Sports Hall of Fame. Her portrait recently appeared on a Canadian postage stamp, and every year the Bobbie Rosenfeld trophy is awarded to Canada's Female Athlete of the Year."
1932: National elections are held in Germany and the Nazi Party won 230 seats in the Reichstag.
1933: Approximately 30,000 people are by now interned in Nazi concentration camps.
1936(12th of Av, 5696): Rabbi Moses Simon Sivitz, renowned Jewish historian died in Montefiore Hospital ... He also wrote five books on Moses after years of research.
1936: The Palestine Post reported from London that the newly-appointed Royal Commission was expected to arrive in Palestine in October. Meanwhile a new wave of Arab rioting spread towards Tiberias where many Jews were compelled to leave the Old City. There were assaults, arson, and stone-throwing. The Arab police and the British authorities dealt with the rioters in a diffident and condoning manner.
1939: Isadore Breslau, the Zionist leadership's chief representative in Washington, writes a letter showing that former Associate Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis actively supported Aliyah in defiance of British policy as outlined in the May 1939 White Paper that severely limited the immigration of Jews to then British-run Palestine. The letter reveals that the widely respected jurist, who had just retired after nearly a quarter century on the court, held views on Jewish immigration to the Land of Israel that were in direct opposition to those of the British government, the Roosevelt administration and mainstream American Jewish groups and leaders."Speaking on the question of the immigration he [Brandeis] said that Jews would continue to immigrate regardless of the White Paper," the letter written by Isadore Breslau reads. "When someone suggested that it was illegal, he said that the Jewish people considered it legal in view of the fact that any attempt to curtail immigration was in violation of the terms of the Mandate; that it may be considered illegal by Great Britain, but that we Jews considered it to be legal."
1941: The Nazis officially undertook The Final Solution. Hermann Goring instructs SS Reich Security Service chief Reinhardt Heydrich by letter "to carry out all the necessary preparations with regard to organizational and financial matters for bringing about a complete solution of the Jewish question in the German sphere of influence." - That influence now covered a dozen countries. - "I further charge you with submitting to me promptly an overall plan... for the execution of the intended FINAL SOLUTION of the Jewish question."
1942: Governor Wilhelm Kube reports to Hinrich Lohse, Reichskommissar of the Baltic regions and Belorussia, that "Jewry has been completely eliminated" in the Minsk area. According to Kube '16,000 Jews were liquidated in Lida, 8,000 in Slonim.' In the previous ten weeks, 55,000 Jews have been liquidated.
1942 (17th of Av, 5702): Bluma Rozenfeld, 19, leaps to her death from a fifth-floor window in the Lódz (Poland) Ghetto.
1942: Israel Lichtenstein writes from the Warsaw Ghetto: "At present, together with me, both of us get ready to meet and receive death. I wish my little daughter to be remembered. Margalith, twenty months old today....I don't lament my own life nor that of my wife. I pity only the so little, nice and talented girl. She deserves to be remembered."
1942 (17th of Av, 5702): German SS troops gassed 1,000 Jews in Minsk, Belorussia
1944: Among 1300 Jews deported from Drancy, France (northwest of Paris), to Auschwitz are 258 Jewish orphans seized in and around Paris on July 24. Upon arrival at the camp, all 500 children and 300 adults are gassed. This is the last transport of Jews from the Drancy camp to Auschwitz. In total, 73,853 Jews have been shipped from Drancy to their deaths at Auschwitz and Sobibór.
1944: As Western troops moved forward to Paris, a last train departed with over 300 deported Jewish children.
1944: Three thousand Jews were transported from the labor camp at Blizyn to Birkenau where over 500 are gassed to death upon their arrival
1944: By the end of July, French Jew Maurice Löwenberg, founder of the National Liberation Movement resistance group, is tortured to death by the Gestapo.
1944: By the end of July 46,000 Jewish inmates are gassed and cremated at Auschwitz.
1944: By the end of July SS General Richard Baer had become the new Auschwitz commandant.
1945: French collaborationist politician Pierre Laval is arrested in Austria. Laval was the driving force behind the Vichy Government which was so supportive of the Final Solution that it often delivered Jews "ahead of schedule."
1946: An Anglo-American committee jointly chaired by Henry Grady, an assistant secretary of state and Herbert Morrison, a British Labor Party leader published the Morrison-Grady plan which proposed a British dominated trusteeship that would "supervise separate Jewish and Arab provinces." The British loved it because it kept them in power. The Arabs and the Jews rejected it for the same reason.
1947: In reprisal for the execution of Avshalom Haviv, Yaakov Weisss and Meir Nakar, the Irgun killed two British sergeants whom they were holding captive. "Following the death of the two sergeants and the publicity surrounding it, the British public demanded that the troops be brought home. In Palestine, several Jews were murdered by British soldiers as a counter-reprisal
1951: The Jerusalem Post reported on most orderly elections to the Second Knesset. According to this newspaper's fifth successive edition which appeared at 6 a.m. Mapai won 42.23 per cent of the vote, Mapam 19.18, General Zionists 13.47, Hapoel Hamizrahi 7.37, Progressives 5.33, Herut 4.22, Poalei Aguda 1.49, Communists 1.36, Mizrahi 1.11, Aguda 1.07. The rest was split among smaller parties, which couldn't get even 1 percent of the vote to be eligible for a Knesset seat. [Editor's note: The Israelis use a system of proportional representation which works a strong two-party electoral system. This system encourages all kinds of splintering, factionalism and gives disproportionate power to minor, but cohesive, groups. This concept was so entrenched the Israeli psyche that not even David Ben Gurion could overcome it.]
1954: Mary Clawson, an American living in Jerusalem, watches as Arabs began "shooting over to this (the Jewish) side and after waiting a brief time to investigate to be sure the shooting was not just a trigger-happy Legionnaire, the Jewish side returned the fire."
1961: The one millionth Oleh since the establishment of the Jewish State arrived in Israel.
1970: Norwegian General Odd Bull completes his term as Chief of Staff United Nations Truce Supervision Organization (UNTSO). His thirteen year term included the Six Day War.
1981: The New York Times reported that Israelis were stunned and startled by U.S. anger following an Israeli air attack on Beirut. Government officials in Jerusalem are hoping that their adherence to the Lebanon cease-fire arrangement will be seen in Washington as a gesture of good will to American interests.
1988: Dr. Joanna Lisa Fine, a child psychiatrist, and Stephen Michael Harnik, a lawyer, who graduated together from the Dalton School in 1971 were married today at the Loeb Boathouse in Central Park. Jerome Raik, the president of Ansche Chesed Congregation in Manhattan, officiated.
1992(1st of Av, 5752): Rosh Chodesh Av
2002(22nd of Av, 5762): A bomb exploded inside a cafeteria at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, killing nine people, including five Americans.
2003: The Knesset enacted the Nationality and Entry Into Israel Law, prohibiting any residency or citizenship status to Palestinians who live in the territories and are married to Israeli citizens. The law was initiated in the midst of the second intifada by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon as an anti-terrorist measure. The law would become the subject matter of 2008 documentary "Just Married."
2006: Funeral services are held at Temple B'nai Torah for Pamela Waechter, 58, who was killed in Friday's shooting at the Seattle offices of the Jewish Federation by an American Muslim.
2007: In Jerusalem, the Israeli Wine-Tasting Festival, a celebration of wine tasting from the best vineyards in Israel takes place at the Israel Museum.
2008: At the Boston Public Library, the photographic exhibit, "Kids with Cameras: Beyond the Walls" sponsored by the Zionist House/Israel Cultural Central and the Consulate General of Israel to New England, comes to a close. Kidswithcameras-jerusalem.com
2009: Opening of The National Parks and Nature Authority's fifth annual Outdoor Acoustic Music Festival in Ein Hemed, a beautiful nature reserve just 10 minutes from Jerusalem. Each performer at this year's festival will dedicate at least one song to the Earth, in order to promote environmental awareness.
2009: U.S. President Barack Obama has decided to extend sanctions against Syria, despite positive signs of progress in the relationship between the two nations, a White House statement said today. The decision to maintain current sanctions against the Syrian government, the statement said, comes as a result of continuing attempts to maintain instability in neighboring Lebanon. "In the past six months, the United States has used dialogue with the Syrian government to address concerns and identify areas of mutual interest, including support for Lebanese sovereignty," the statement said. President Obama admitted that there have been "some positive developments in the past year, including the establishment of diplomatic relations and an exchange of ambassadors between Lebanon and Syria." However, the statement continued, ultimately "the actions of certain persons continue to contribute to political and economic instability in Lebanon and the region and constitute a continuing unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States."
2009: Two brothers were arrested early this morning in connection with the shooting attack on disgraced soccer star Felix Halfon, who was seriously wounded when he was shot outside a Tel Aviv night club hours earlier. The older of the two suspects, 33, is believed to have shot Halfon while driving a motorcycle. The other brother, aged 20, is suspected by police of having provided assistance. According to an initial police inquiry, the two perpetrated the attack following a previous quarrel with Halfon. Both suspects are known to police and have prior criminal records, but they denied during their interrogations the charges of their involvement in the shooting. The brothers appeared in court on Friday afternoon for a remand hearing. Magen David Adom paramedics who arrived on the scene found the former soccer player with wounds to the stomach and lower part of his body. He was rushed to Ichalov Hospital in the city, where he underwent surgery. Halfon, who was considered one of the best players for Hapoel Tel Aviv during the nineties, was arrested in 2003 for trying to smuggle drugs. He was sentenced to four and half years in prison, and was released after three. Last year, Halfon returned to the soccer league and played for Hapoel Bat-Yam.
2010: A screening of Jews and Baseball: An American Love Story is scheduled to take place at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival.
Created, Compiled and Edited by Mitchell A. Levin, Cedar Rapids, IA melech3@mchsi.com
|
|
|
תרגום לעברית
