Today in Jewish History

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21 Tishrei

In 1946, following the Nuremberg trials, 10 Nazi war criminals were hanged. The hanging of the 10 Nazis eerily echoed the 10 sons of Haman who were hanged in the Purim story. Incredibly, this day on the Jewish calendar is Hoshana Raba, the traditional day of judgment for the nations of the world.

ps: this should've been for yesterday.

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23 Tishrei

In 67 CE, Roman soldiers captured Gamla, a fortress in Israel's Golan region, and killed all its inhabitants. The ancient historian Josephus Flavius, a leader of the Jewish revolt against Rome, fortified Gamla as a main stronghold in 66 CE. The Romans attempted to take the city by means of a siege ramp, but were turned back by the defenders; only on the second attempt did they succeed in penetrating the fortifications and conquering the city. Thousands of inhabitants were slaughtered, while others chose to jump to their deaths from the top of the cliff. The location of ancient Gamla was discovered in archeological excavations during the 1970s; the remains have been preserved as a national park.

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24 Tishrei

In 336 BCE, the prophets Ezra and Nechemia convened the Jewish community in Jerusalem. There, as recorded in the biblical Book of Nechemia (ch. 9), they recalled the major events of Jewish history, and pledged to uphold the ancient covenant.

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25 Tishrei

Yahrtzeit of Rabbi Levi Yitzhak of Berditchev (1740-1810), a beloved chassidic leader in Poland and the Ukraine. He is famous for always interpreting people's actions in the best possible light, for which he earned the appellation, "defense attorney of the Jewish people." He authored a popular commentary of the Torah, Kedushat Levi. Tishrei 25 also marks the yahrtzeit of Rabbi Moshe Sofer of Pressburg (1762-1839), a leader of European Jewry known as the "Chatam Sofer."

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26 Tishrei

In 1973, a cease-fire resolution was passed by the U.N. Security Council to halt the Yom Kippur War. Shuttle diplomacy by Henry Kissinger compelled Israel and Egypt to accept the cease-fire. Fighting, however, would continue for another four days. In the war, Israel suffered the loss of 2,600 soldiers and 800 tanks. Four years later, Egyptian leader Anwar Sadat would visit Jerusalem and announce his readiness to forge a permanent peace deal.

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27 Tishrei

In 1927, the Israeli city of Netanya was founded on a plot of empty land. Netanya has since grown to become the fourth-largest city in Israel, with a population of 165,000. Netanya has one of the most beautiful stretches of beach in Israel, with white sands and inviting waters. Netanya was named for Nathan Straus (1848-1931), an American merchant and philanthropist. Straus was a co-owner of R.H. Macy & Co., yet he never amassed personal wealth because he was always using his money to help people. For example, in New York's winter of 1893, he gave away more than two million five-cent tickets good for coal, food or lodging. His greatest devotion, however, was to Israel. He gave more than two-thirds of his fortune and devoted the last 15 years of his life to this cause.

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28 Tishrei

In 1930, the British government issued the Passfield White Paper, a formal statement of policy in Palestine. The paper was an attempt to appease the Arabs in the aftermath of the 1929 riots: During six days of Arab rioting in Jerusalem, Gaza, Hebron and Tzfat, 135 Jews were killed and more than 300 wounded. The White Paper criticized the Jewish Agency for promoting Jewish employment opportunities, claiming that it damaged economic development of the Arab population. Further, the paper required that Jews obtain permission from the British authorities to purchase land. The result was that Jewish immigration was greatly curtailed.

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29 Tishrei

Yahrtzeit of Rabbi Don Yitzhak Abravanel (1437-1508), a leader during the Golden Age of Spanish Jewry. After having served as treasurer to the king of Portugal, Abravanel became a minister in the court of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella. In 1492, Isabella signed a decree expelling all Jews who refused to convert to Christianity. In the Inquisition, an estimated 32,000 Jews were burned at the stake and another 200,000 were expelled from Spain. Rabbi Abrabanel reportedly offered Queen Isabella the astronomical sum of 600,000 crowns to revoke the edict. Abrabanel was unable to prevent the expulsion and was exiled along with his people. Most of his rabbinic writings were composed in his later years when he was free of governmental responsibilities.

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30 Tishrei

In 1958, the foundation stone was laid for Israel's Knesset building in Jerusalem. The Knesset is composed of 120 members, the same size as the Great Assembly ("Knesset HaGedola") that served as the rabbinical body during the Second Temple era. (The Great Assembly redacted the biblical books Ezekiel, Daniel and Esther, and composed many prayers such as the Amidah.) Today, the Israeli Knesset is known as a bastion of democracy in the Middle East, with women, Arabs, and other minorities represented.

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1 Cheshvan

In 1985, ground-breaking ceremonies were held for the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington DC. Two milk cans containing soil and ashes from concentration camps were symbolically buried on the site. The museum was dedicated in April 1993, with speeches by President Bill Clinton, Chaim Herzog and Elie Wiesel. The museum cost approximately $168 million to build, funded with more than 200,000 private donations. The museum attracts 2 million visitors annually.

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2 Cheshvan

Yahrtzeit of Rabbi Simcha Wasserman, a 20th century Torah sage and son of the illustrious Rabbi Elchanan Wasserman, who was martyred in the Holocaust. Rabbi Wasserman and his wife had no children, but together they educated tens of thousands of Jews in France, the U.S. and Israel. After Rabbi Wasserman's death, his wife died 10 days later. Rabbi Wasserman had a sixth sense about people; the story is told of him looking to purchase a used car in Los Angeles. He went to check out one particular car, and asked the owner if he could take it for a test drive. "How do I know you're not going to steal it?" the man said. Rabbi Wasserman then asked if he could use the telephone for a minute. He called the police and reported a stolen vehicle at that very address. The police arrived, confirmed that the car was indeed stolen, and arrested the man. "How did you know?" the police asked Rabbi Wasserman. "Simple," he said. "When I asked to take it for a test drive, he suspected that I'd steal it. Only a thief thinks that way!"

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3 Cheshvan

In the year 1290, the last of the 16,000 Jews expelled by King Edward I left England. King Edward had banned usury and forced Jews over the age of seven to wear an identifying badge. Some Jews managed to remain in England by hiding their religious identity, but thousands were forced to leave. (Years earlier, King Henry III had forced Jews to pay half the value of their property in taxes, and ordered Jewish worship in synagogue to be held quietly so that Christians would not have to hear it.) Following the expulsion, Jews would not return to England for 350 years, when the policy was reversed by Oliver Cromwell in 1655.

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4 Cheshvan

In 1483, Tomas de Torquemada was appointed as "Grand Inquisitor of the Spanish Inquisition." Jews of Spain had been forced to convert to Christianity, and the Inquisition was designed to uncover those who were continuing to practice their Judaism in secret (called Conversos or Marranos). Those who never confessed were burned at the stake; those who did confess were strangled first. Torquemada believed that as long as the Jews remained in Spain, they might influence the tens of thousands of Jews who had converted to Christianity. It was on his recommendation that the remainder of the Jewish community -- 200,000 people -- was expelled from Spain in 1492. An estimated 32,000 were burned at the stake, and Torquemada's name became a byword for cruelty and fanaticism in the service of religion. The order of expulsion was not officially voided by the government of Spain until 1968.

[Gail]

I had read somewhere that the Spanish Inquisition was hard on the Jewish people. I wonder why the order stayed valid so long.

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5 Cheshvan

In 1975, Israel signed the Sinai disengagement pact with Egypt. The agreement called for Israel to withdraw from the Sinai passes captured in the 1973 Yom Kippur War, leaving them as a demilitarized zone monitored by American and United Nations observers. Israel had previously withdrawn from the Sinai in 1956, and would eventually withdraw permanently in 1982 following the Camp David agreement between Anwar Sadat and Menachem Begin.

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Yea almost 500 years! They probably forgot about it after a while.

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6 Cheshvan

In 1948, the first census taken by the State of Israel placed the population at 780,000 -- 91% Jewish and 9% Arab. A vigorous influx of Jews would arrive the next few years, when 750,000 Jewish refugees fled from Arab countries. Subsequently, Israel has witnessed the dramatic homecoming of Jews from Ethiopia, the former Soviet Union, and dozens of other lands. The population of Israel currently stands at 6.5 million, of which 18% is Arab.

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7 Cheshvan

Yahrtzeit of Rabbi Meir Shapiro of Lublin (1887-1933), the founder and driving force behind the Daf Yomi, a program of daily Talmud study. Today, tens of thousands of Jews study the "daily daf," and every seven-and-a-half years a "siyum" (completion) of the Talmud is held with large celebrations in Madison Square Garden and other locations worldwide. Rabbi Shapiro represented the Jews in the Polish Senate, and he built the grand Chachmei Lublin Yeshiva in Poland, a building which remains standing till today. Sadly, Rabbi Shapiro passed away at the young age of 46. His remains were later re-interred to a cemetery in Jerusalem.

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8 Cheshvan

Yahrtzeit of Rabbeinu Yona of Gerona (1180-1263). Rabbeinu Yona was an outspoken critic of Maimonides' writings, particularly "Guide for the Perplexed." The governmental authorities later used this as a pretext to burn piles of Maimonides' books and copies of the Talmud. Rabbeinu Yona took this tragedy as a sign of heavenly rebuke against him; as a way to repair the damage, he undertook to write his famous work Shaarei Teshuva (Gates of Repentance), a Jewish system of introspection and self-improvement.

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9 Cheshvan

Yahrtzeit of Rabbi Asher ben Yechiel (1250-1327), one of the greatest Talmudic commentators of all time. He is popularly known as the "Rosh," an acronym of his name. He lived at the time of the medieval Crusades, and in fear of being captured, fled from Germany to Spain. The classic "Shulchan Aruch" (Code of Jewish Law) gives great weight to the Rosh's opinions. He was the father of eight sons, one of whom wrote a groundbreaking work of Jewish law, "The Tur."

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10 Cheshvan

On this date in 2105 BCE (1656 from Creation), Noah and family entered the Ark. It wasn't until seven days later, however, that the intense rains began for 40 days and 40 nights. The delay was to allow a proper mourning period for Methuselah, the righteous grandfather of Noah who had just died at the age of 969 years, history's oldest human being. Noah and his family (and the animals) would remain on the Ark for over a year, until the flood waters had sufficiently subsided.

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11 Cheshvan

Let the praises of God come from the heavens ... let the praises of God come from the earth (Psalms 148:1,7).

The Scriptures have many references to seeing the presence of God in everything in the world. Psalm 104, for example, is a beautiful song of nature, which recounts God's presence in all His works. As we are swept along by the exquisite poetry of the psalm, we can actually sense how this realization culminated in David's declaration, How many are Your works, O God. You have fashioned them all with wisdom (104:24).

Today, more than ever, people have been privileged to see the marvels of Divine wisdom. Thanks to the marvels of electronic technology, we can see the Divine engineering in the structure of a blade of grass, in the function of a cell of protoplasm, in the complex structure of the atom, and in the awesome composition of super galaxies.

It is wrong to live in a world that testifies to the omnipresence of God and not acknowledge it. This is one reason we have not only daily prayers, but also blessings for so many things. Everything with which we come in contact is a testimony to God as Creator.

Today I shall ...

... try to be more aware of the omnipresence of God, and to be attentive to the marvels of nature that testify to His infinite wisdom.

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12 Cheshvan

In 1975, the United Nations passed a resolution declaring that "Zionism is racism." Israel's Ambassador to the UN, Chaim Herzog, noted the irony of the vote coming (on the English calendar) exactly 37 years after Kristallnacht. The UN Secretary General at the time was Kurt Waldheim, later accused of war crimes while serving as a Nazi officer. The "Zionism is racism" canard is easily refuted by Israel's open and democratic character -- with Arabs serving in parliament, as well as Israelis of all skin colors. Upon the airlift of Ethiopian Jews to Israel, William Safire noted: "For the first time in history, thousands of black people are being brought to a country -- not in chains but in dignity, not as slaves but as citizens." The UN General Assembly voted to repeal the resolution in 1991.

Cheshvan 12 is also the yahrtzeit of Yitzhak Rabin, prime minister of Israel, who was assassinated in 1995 after attending a rally promoting the Oslo peace process. Rabin served as Chief of Staff of the Israel Defense Forces, and under his command the IDF achieved an overwhelming victory in the Six Day War. As prime minister, he played a leading role in the signing of the Oslo Accords, which created the Palestinian Authority. Rabin was awarded the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize, along with Shimon Peres and Yassir Arafat.

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13 Cheshvan

In 1938, Hank Greenberg of the Detroit Tigers narrowly missed breaking Babe Ruth's single-season home-run record of 60 home runs. Greenberg hit his 58th homer with two weeks remaining in the season, but several pitchers then intentionally walked him rather than give a Jewish man a chance to break Babe Ruth's record. (He led the league that year with 119 walks.) Though Greenberg disputes this motive, he did acknowledge being subject to the most vicious ethnic taunting seen in the sport since the days of Jackie Robinson in 1947. Greenberg testified: "During my first year in the big leagues, the remarks from the stands and the opposing bench about my Jewish faith made life for me a living hell." Greenberg grew up in an observant Jewish household, and did not play on Yom Kippur. In 1954, he became the first Jewish player to be elected to baseball's Hall of Fame in Cooperstown.

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Cheshvan 14

In 1917, the British government gave final approval for the Balfour Declaration, calling for the establishment of a Jewish homeland in historic Israel. The declaration took the form of a letter from Arthur Balfour, British Foreign Secretary, to Lord Rothschild, who had once been a member of the British Parliament. In 1922, the United States Congress formally endorsed the Balfour Declaration. In the ensuing decades, the British would slowly whittle away at their commitment -- first lopping off 80 percent of the land east of the Jordan River to create the Kingdom of Transjordan (now Jordan), and then restricting Jewish immigration and rights to purchase land to the west of the Jordan River. The volatility of the situation ultimately forced the British to withdraw from the region in 1948.