Today in Jewish History – Cheshvan 20

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Sponsored by Aish.com: Yahrtzeit of Hannah Szenes (1921-1944), a young Israeli woman who volunteered to parachute behind Nazi lines on behalf of the British Army. She spent three months in Yugoslavia working with partisan resistance fighters, but was caught when she attempted to cross the border into Hungary. She was tortured for several months, but refused to divulge any information. Szenes became a symbol of idealism and self-sacrifice, an image strengthened by the stirring set of poems she left behind. She was executed by firing squad in Budapest, and her remains were later brought to Israel.

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Today in Jewish History – Cheshvan 19

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Sponsored by Aish.com: In 1785, the earliest known Yiddish letter from America was sent from Philadelphia to London. Yiddish is a colloquial mixture of German and Hebrew, and came to be the spoken language of much of European Jewry. Following the influx of Jewish immigrants to America, Yiddish was a language increasingly heard on the streets of New York, and in 1925 New York alone had seven daily newspapers printed in Yiddish. According to the U.S. census of 1940, 1.75 million Jews spoke Yiddish at home. Today, Yiddish words like chutzpah, klutz, schmaltz and schlep have crept into mainstream English

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Today in Jewish History – Cheshvan 18

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I was stunned when I first read this, not having heard of the Madagascar Plan prior to this. Sponsored by Aish.com: In 1938, Nazi leader Hermann Goering announced that in order to “solve the problem of the Jews,” the African island of Madagascar was being considered as a giant ghetto for 4 million European Jews. The plan was seriously considered by Hitler in May 1940, in his discussions with Mussolini and Nazi officials. Hitler’s idea was that the Jews would play the role of hostages, as a way to prevent the United States from entering the war. The Madagascar Plan

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Today in Jewish History – Cheshvan 17

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Sponsored by Aish.com: On this date in 1919, a New York Times headline declared “Einstein Theory Triumphs.” Albert Einstein (1879-1955) was a German-born physicist whose theory of relativity revolutionized the scientific approach to time, space, matter, energy and gravity. Einstein claimed that his defining moment came at age five when his father showed him a compass, and young Albert was intrigued by the mysterious, invisible force acting upon it. Einstein succeeded in explaining principles of cosmology and physics that had baffled scientists for decades. From 1914 to 1933, he conducted physics research in Berlin, and it was during this time

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What happened in 1917? Who was Lord Rothschild? What was the Balfour Declaration?

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What happened in 1917? Who was Lord Rothschild? What was the Balfour Declaration? Sponsored by Aish.com: 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

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Today in Jewish History – Cheshvan 13

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Sponsored by Aish.com: In 1938, Hank Greenberg of the Detroit Tigers narrowly missed breaking Babe Ruth’s single-season home-run record of 61 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 prior to the arrival of Jackie Robinson in 1947. Greenberg testified: “During my first year in

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Today in Jewish History – Cheshvan 12

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If Palestinianism has any validity, so then does Zionism. Anti-Zionism is racism. Get it? Sponsored by Aish.com: 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

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Today in Jewish History – Cheshvan 4

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Sponsored by Aish.com: 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

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