Jews, Church & Civilization – Volume 6

continued

from Volume V

1920 CE: HAGANAH!

Palestine: The Haganah, a.k.a. “the Jewish Underground” is formed in Palestine.

It was the forerunner to Palmach (elite Strike Force) later to be established 1941 jointly by the Haganah and British military due to a temporary (approximately one year) convergence of interests. Leading into the War of Liberation, the Palmach was to be pitted against the British.

Ultimately the Palmach is incorporated into backbone of the IDF—the Israel Defense Forces—after the 1948 War of Independence.

1920 CE: WILLIAM SAMUEL PALEY

New York City: Radio and television pioneer. Paley began his career working in his father’s cigar manufacturing plant. In 1920, he bought a failing chain of radio stations and turned it into the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS). Paley was one of the first to forsee the possibilities of television right after WWII.

Paley’s father was a Ukrainian Jewish immigrant.

1921 CE: MAN RAY MOVES TO PARIS

South Philadelphia: Born Emmanuel Radnitzky, he was the eldest child of recent Russian–Jewish immigrants.
(b. Aug. 27, 1890; d. Nov. 18, 1976)

Britannica –
“Photographer, painter, and filmmaker who was the only American to play a major role in both the Dada and Surrealist movements.

The son of an artist and photographer, he grew up in New York City, where he studied architecture, engineering, and art, and became a painter. As early as 1911, he took up the pseudonym of Man Ray…

In 1921 Man Ray moved to Paris and became associated with the Parisian Dada and Surrealist circles of artists and writers. Inspired by the liberation promoted by these groups, he experimented with many media. His experiments with photography included rediscovering how to make “cameraless” pictures, or photograms, which he called rayographs. He made them by placing objects directly on light–sensitive paper, which he exposed to light and developed…

Man Ray also made films. In one short film, Le Retour à la raison (1923; Return to Reason), he applied the rayograph technique to motion–picture film, making patterns with salt, pepper, tacks, and pins. His other films include Anémic cinéma (1926; in collaboration with Duchamp) and L’Étoile de mer (1928–29; “Star of the Sea”), which is considered a Surrealist classic.

In 1940 Man Ray escaped the German occupation of Paris by moving to Los Angeles. Returning to Paris in 1946, he continued to paint and experiment until his death. His autobiography, Self–Portrait, was published in 1963 (reprinted 1999).”

Encyclopaedia Britannica Online. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/492395/Man–Ray (accessed February 12, 2009)

1921 CE: `ABDU’L–BAHÁ MOURNED BY 10,000

Haifa: Nov 29: Over ten thousand people, Jews, Christians and Muslims, gather on Mt. Carmel in the Holy Land to mourn the passing of the son and chosen successor of Bahã U’llãh, founder of the Bahá’í religion.

Britannica –
BAHAI: “Religion founded in Iran in the mid–19th century by Mirza Husayn Ali Nuri, who is known as Bahã Ullãh (Arabic: “Glory of God”). The cornerstone of Bahã’í belief is the conviction that Bahã Ullãh and his forerunner, who was known as the Bãb, were manifestations of God, who in his essence is unknowable. The principal Bahã’í tenets are the essential unity of all religions and the unity of humanity. Bahã is believed that all the founders of the world’s great religions have been manifestations of God and agents of a progressive divine plan for the education of the human race.

Despite their apparent difference, the world’s great religions, according to the Bahã’í is, teach and identical truth. Bahã Ullãh’s peculiar function was to overcome the disunity of religions and establish a universal faith. Bahã’í is believe in the oneness of humanity and devote themselves to the abolition of racial, class, and religious prejudices. The great bulk of Bahã’í teachings is concerned with social ethics; the faith has no priesthood and does not observe ritual forms in its worship.”

Encyclopaedia Britannica Online, http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/48930/Bahai–faith (accessed February 15, 2009)

1922 CE: DEWITT WALLACE, 32

…and his new wife, Lila, 24, co–found Reader’s Digest (New York).

The publication will eventually emerge as one of the most profitable publications of all time.

1922 CE: HEBREW THEOLOGICAL COLLEGE: SKOKIE YESHIVA, ILLINOIS

The Paris Review –

“The Hebrew Theological College, also known as Beit HaMidrash LaTorah, also colloquially known as “Skokie Yeshiva,” is a private university located in Skokie, Illinois. It was chartered in 1922 as one of the first Modern Orthodox Jewish institutions of higher education in America, and is therefore also one of the oldest Jewish institutions in the United States outside of the New York area.

The school was founded in the city of Chicago in 1921 by Rabbi Chaim Tzvi Rubinstein and Rabbi Saul Silber. Rabbi Rubinstein (1872–1944) was an alumnus of Volozhin Yeshiva who arrived in America in 1917. Rabbi Silber (1876–1946) was a pulpit Rabbi in Chicago and served as president of the school for the first twenty–five years….”

The Paris Review, The Art of Poetry No. 1 Online, http://www.parisreview.com/viewinterview.php/prmMID/4738 (accessed July 6, 2009)

1922 CE: SAUL TCHERNICHOVSKY LEAVES UKRAINE

[b. 1875, Mikhaelovka, then, Crimea, now, Ukraine; d. 1943, Jerusalem]

Hebrew Zionist poet and considered one of the fathers of modern Hebrew poetry. He was noted for his secular humanistic tendencies in modern Jewish nationalism. Tchernichowsky, who studied medicine, served as an army surgeon during World War I and later as a medical inspector of schools in Eretz Israel. He added much to the Hebrew terminology in botany and anatomy. He also edited a dictionary of Hebrew medical terms (1931) Sefer ha-Munnahim L’Refu’ah U’Le-Madda’ei ha-Teva (The Book of Medical and Scientific Terms) and settled in Erez Israel. He was fluent in many languages including Latin and Greek and he translated into Hebrew Homer’s Iliad and the Odyssey as well as Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex and Shakespeare’s Twelfth night and Macbeth.

1922 CE: JAMES JOYCE PUBLISHES ULYSSES

Paris: Joyce was an Irish–born (1882). He lived in Paris from 1920 until 1940, a year before his death in 1941. Joyce had fled to Zurich from Paris as the Nazi army advanced into France.

1922 CE: MORRIS COHEN (“TWO GUN COHEN”) HEADS TO CHINA

China: General, marksman, adventurer and gunrunner to the Chinese army. He served in World War I and later, due to his personal friendship with the local Chinese community in Canada, as Sun Yat Sen’s aide-de-camp, saving his life a number of times.

Chaing Kai-Shek appointed him a major general in the Kuomintang Army. He trained the Chinese army against Japan. Cohen was captured by the Japanese and tortured. He was only released after the end of the war. He was one of the few people who tried to reconcile the two Chinese factions (nationalist and communist) yet was always welcomed by both governments.

1922 CE: T. S. ELIOT, 40, WRITES THE WASTE LAND

Born 1888 in US, Eliot moved to the United Kingdom at age 25. He became a British subject at age 39, in 1927.

Eliot was a poet, playwright, and literary critic. He received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1948. Among his most famous writings are the poems The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, The Waste Land, The Hollow Men, Ash Wednesday, and Four Quartets; the plays Murder in the Cathedral and The Cocktail Party; and the essay “Tradition and the Individual Talent.”

Eliot –
“[My poetry] wouldn’t be what it is if I’d been born in England, and it wouldn’t be what it is if I’d stayed in America. It’s a combination of things. But in its sources, in its emotional springs, it comes from America.”

1922 CE: IVY LEAGUE QUOTAS

Cambridge, Massachusetts: As Jewish enrollment at Harvard hit 20% in June, 1922 Harvard president Lowell announced a 10% upper–limit Jewish quota.

86 years later, in 2008, with Harvard quotas gone, Jewish Harvard enrollment bounced–back with a vengeance, and now surpasses 30%….

The university co–op (The COOP) in Harvard Square – and its online outlet – currently has its signature maroon sweatshirts – emblazoned with Harvard’s one word logo “Veritas”– for sale in one of three language characters – English, Hebrew or Chinese.

1923 CE: HENRY LUCE, 25, FOUNDS TIME MAGAZINE

1923 CE: FREUD

Austria: Sigmund Freud publishes “The Ego and the Id.”

Freud had been developing psychoanalysis since the 1890s in Vienna.

The field was impacted by numerous (primarily Jewish) luminaries including:

K. Abraham, N. Abraham, N. Ackerman, A. Adler, F. Alexander, E. Becker, B. Bettelheim, N. Chodrow, D. Cooper, H. Deutsch, E. Erikson, A. Freud, E. Fromm, K. Horney, S. Isaacs, E. Jacobson, E. Jones, C. Jung, H. Hesse, O. Kemberg, R.D. Laing, R. Lowenstein, T. Rank, W. Reich, T. Reik, G. Roheim, R. Schafer and R. Spitz, among others.

1923 CE: HILLEL INTERNATIONAL FOUNDED

Founded in Illinois: Hillel is the largest Jewish campus organization in the world. It encompasses 120 full (campus) Hillel foundations and maintains affiliates at an additional 400 campuses. Originally under the sponsorship of the Chicago Jewish community, Hillel was then under the auspices of B’nai B’rith until 1990. From 1989–2003 it was under the leadership of Richard Joel, who then segued to the presidency of Yeshiva University. As of June 2008, Wayne Firestone is at the helm.

1923 CE: KHALIL GIBRAN WRITES THE PROPHET

Boston: His classic work, written in English, is composed of
26 poetic essays.

Khalil, a Lebanese–American artist, philosopher and writer, was born in 1883 in a Maronite Christian town in what is now northern Lebanon. The family crossed the Atlantic and settled in Boston’s South End in mid–1895.

From his work Sand and Foam (1926):

“Half of what I say is meaningless,
But I say it, so that the other half may reach you.”

1924 CE: SPERTUS COLLEGE FOUNDED

Illinois: The College specializes in providing graduate programs primarily in Jewish studies, for adult learners. It is affiliated with the Asher Library.

1924 CE: “TECHNION”

Technion – Israel Institute of Technology – founded

Located in Haifa; it was originally founded by German–Jewish immigrants.

Funded initially by the German–Jewish fund, Ezra. Originally its classes were taught in German. The school switched to Hebrew post–WWI.

(Note: There are probably more Nobel laureates connected with the Technion, than there are with many continents.)

1924 CE: NATIONAL ORIGINS QUOTA OF 1924

a.k.a. Immigration Act of 1924…a.k.a. Johnson–Reed Act

The US Congressional act radically restricted Jewish immigration into the USA by limiting the number of immigrants from any country to 2% of the number from that country already living in the USA in 1890. Consequently, the act effectively also excluded Asian immigration totally.

1924 CE: ENGLISH NOVELIST E.M. FORSTER WRITES A PASSAGE TO INDIA

1924 CE: KOOK

Jerusalem: Rav Abraham Isaac Kook founds Mercaz HaRav Kook Yeshiva

The yeshiva will be known later simply as Mercaz HaRav.

A. I. Kook born 1865 CE in Griva, Latvia; dies 1935 CE in Jerusalem.

Kook becomes Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Palestine in 1921…

His legacy includes major theological accommodations to/for secular Jews living in Palestine.

Kook authored, among other works (n Hebrew) Ayin Aiyah, Igorot HaRaiyah, Olat Raiyah, Orot, Orot HaKodesh, Orot Ha–teshuvah.

A corpus of translations exists, with many of the translations being by Samson and Fishman.

[Author’s note: Kook was uniquely extraordinary and extraordinarily unique.]

Rav Kook’s writings eventually gave birth to the Hardal Religious Zionist Movement.

His legacy institution, Mercaz HaRav, would tragically be the scene of a massacre in early March 2008 by an East Jerusalem Palestinian gunman, who infiltrated the premises, and then, the library, and gunned down eight students, with many other students wounded, most all in their teens.

*

The compendium work Lights of Penitence, English translation and Introduction by Ben Zion Bokser, presents selections of Kook’s choicest writings.

In The Moral Principles, p. 135 of Lights of Penitence:

“The heart must be filled with love for all. The love of all creation comes first, then comes the love for all mankind, and then follows the love for the Jewish people.”

on p. 137:

“Though our love for people must be all–inclusive, embracing the wicked as well, this in no way blunts our hatred for evil itself; on the contrary it strengthens it. For it is not because of the dimension of evil clinging to a person that we include him in our love, but because of the good in him, which our love tells us is to be found everywhere. And since we detach the dimension of the good to love him for it, our hatred for evil becomes unblunted [sic] and absolute.”

The following lines appear in Lights of Penitence, under
Poems, pp. 379 and 380:

Expanses, expanses,
Expanses divine my soul craves.
Confine me not in cages,
Of substance or of spirit.
My soul soars the expanses of the heavens,
Walls of heart and walls of deed
Will not contain it.
Morality, logic, custom —
My soul soars above these,

I am bound to the world,
All creatures, all people are my friends,
Many parts of my soul
Are intertwined with them,
But how can I share with them my light?

1924 CE: BIALIK

Tel Aviv: Bialik moves his Berlin publishing house, Dvir, from Germany to Tel Aviv. He then devotes himself to cultural activities and public affairs, including delivering the address that marked the opening of Hebrew University.

Hayyim Nahman Bialik (1873–1934) was born in the Ukraine, Russia, He was a Jewish poet who wrote in Ashkenazi Hebrew. To this day he is recognized as “Israel’s National Poet.”

Known for long, nationalistic poems, Bialik leaves a legacy as a poet, journalist, children’s writer, and translator. Every step of the way he was “ahead of his time.”

1925 CE: SAPIRO LAWSUIT

California: Aaron Sapiro, a Jewish labor organizer in California stuns the American Establishment and sues Henry Ford’s anti–Semitic Dearborn Independent (Michigan) for libel against the Jews.

Sapiro “calls Ford’s cards.” Ford folds—and apologizes in print in 1927; the (inflammatory) Dearborn Independent closes that year.

1925 CE: THE SCOPES TRIAL

…a.k.a. “The [Scopes] Monkey Trial”

Dayton, Tennessee: The Theory of Evolution loses in its bid for a “seat at the table.”

Famed civil libertarian lawyer Clarence Darrow, for the defense of the teaching, as well, of Evolution (in Tennessee schools) v. famed statesman–lawyer William Jennings Bryan advocating the exclusive teaching of Creationism (in Tennessee schools)

The famous trial was later made infamous by the play (1955) and film (1960, 1965, 1988, and 1999) Inherit the Wind, which attacked assaults on intellectual freedom, in general.

1925 CE: WERNHER VON BRAUN, AGE 13, RECEIVES A TELESCOPE

–as a graduation gift from his mother

Germany: Later a leading world–expert in rocket technology, von Braun would first play a very leading rocket science role for the Nazis, and then, post–World War II for the USA.

1925 CE: MEIN KAMPF PUBLISHED

Munich, Germany: Begun in prison in 1924, Hitler’s work, “My Struggle” in English, combining autobiography and his National Socialist political ideology, includes his hatred of the Jews, and his intent to mass–murder them.

Included, as well, is Hitler’s basic blueprint for German expansion, and domination of Europe and Russia. All is essentially spelled–out in advance.

Hitler had feasted on anti–Semitic literature for years, and by the time of his writing the work, apparently was consumed with hatred for the Jews.

1925 CE: UNITED CHURCH OF CANADA FORMED

1926 CE: FRANKLIN W. DIXON, 23, WRITES HIS FIRST HARDY BOYS BOOK

–The Tower Treasure

Canada: In his first 52 years of writing (1926–1978), Dixon produces the 58 core Hardy Boys works. (Fortuitously, this coincided with my 1950s childhood).

Over 100 more titles were to follow under Simon & Schuster’s stewardship post–1979.

Note that for the duration of the entire Hardy Boys series, however, protagonists Frank and Joe Hardy remain always18 and 17 years–old respectively.

[Dixon’s given name was Leslie McFarlane.]

1926 CE: COCO CHANEL INTRODUCES HER SIGNATURE “LITTLE BLACK DRESS”

1926 CE: HEMINGWAY, 27, PUBLISHES THE SUN ALSO RISES

1927 CE: TREATY OF JEDDAH

May 20: Arabia: Treaty between United Kingdom and the Kingdom of Nejd and Hejaz signed.

The treaty recognizes the independence of the realm of Abdul Aziz Ibn Saud, (a.k.a. Abdul Aziz Al–Saud) and his sovereignty over it. By proclamation five years later (in 1932), the area was to be known as “Saudi Arabia.”

At age 22, starting in 1902, twenty–five years before the treaty with the British, Abdul Aziz Ibn Saud was on the march. After re–capturing Riyadh, the Al–Saud dynasty’s ancestral capital, Ibn Saud continued his campaign onward.

Further conquests—and ententes—by Ibn Saud post–the Treaty of Jeddah, netted him 80% of the Arabian Peninsula by 1927–1932.

Vast oil reserves were discovered only later in 1938. These would provide Saudi Arabia with very significant leverage in the Middle East and beyond, particularly when combined with Saudi stewardship of Islam’s two holiest sites (those in Mecca and Medina), and combined, as well, with fine–tuned armed forces.

Thus, Saudi Arabia became a political amalgam of an oil power plus financial reservoir plus spiritual Mecca plus military power all under the stewardship of one astute family.

The founder of modern Saudi Arabia was succeeded upon his death by his eldest (surviving) son, King Saud in 1953. (Saud would father 53 sons and 56 daughters.)

King Saud, whose reign was marked by setbacks and issues, was deposed by a younger brother Faisal in 1964. Faisal, the third oldest son, was one of approximately 36 brothers of Saud, who left for exile In Greece after losing the power struggle.

Eleven years later, King Faisal assassinated by his nephew in 1975.

Faisal, in turn, was succeeded by King Khalid (same year in 1975).

Then, Khalid was succeeded in 1982 by King Fahd, the third son of Ibn Saud to become king.

[A 2000 Treaty of Jeddah (same name as this 1927 entry) resolved a Saudi–Yemen border dispute.]

In January 2008, King Abdullah reigns, having succeeded his half–brother King Fahd (who died in 2005).

*

With Iran, Saudi Arabia’s neighbor to the north across the Persian Gulf, newly emboldened by America’s neutering of Iran’s arch–rival and counter–weight Iraq, and with nuclear weaponry apparently within Iran’s grasp by 2011–2014, the politico–military equilibrium of the region is destabilized.

Iran not only looms over Persian Gulf shipping lanes, and not only looms over the territories of Saudi Arabia’s oil–rich allies around the Gulf, but Iran has de facto started to lay claim to regional hegemony, a denouement anathema to the Saudis.

Spring 2008: The astute Abdullah holds political trump cards over the Middle East peace process. And knows it.

Fortunately for all–concerned, his wisdom is not inconsiderable.

1927 CE: HENRY FORD HAS FINISHED PRODUCING HIS 15–MILLIONTH MODEL T

1927 CE: ROBERT MOSES

New York: In 1927, Robert Moses became New York State Secretary of State, among several other simultaneous NY State and NY City titles he collected. At one point, Moses held twelve state and city positions simultaneously, with his main power base being head of the Triboro Bridge Authority.

From the mid–1920s through the 1960s Moses wielded massive political and administrative power over manifold mega–construction projects in New York State. He re–did Long Island with highways and bridges connecting it to Manhattan, the Bronx and Staten Island….

Master builder/visionary/urban planner/megalomaniac, Moses was responsible for, among other major projects:

NYC/ Long Island roadways: Northern State Parkway, Wantagh State Parkway, Southern State Parkway, Belt Parkway, Laurelton Parkway, Cross–Bronx Expressway, Brooklyn–Queens Expressway, Staten Island Expressway, Meadowbrook Parkway

Bridges: Triboro, Throgs Neck, Bronx–Whitestone, Verrazano, Henry Hudson, Marine Parkway (bridge) Niagra Falls, NY area: Robert Moses Hydro–Electric dam, Robert Moses State Parkway

A prime mover behind: Jones Beach State Park, Jacob Riis Park, Lincoln Center, Shea Stadium, Brooklyn Battery Tunnel, the UN Headquarters, Taconic State Parkway (Westchester), moving the NY Aquarium to Coney Island (Brooklyn), as well as for ten gigantic swimming pools for city dwellers.

His Cross–Bronx Expressway project, in particular, had, as one of many consequences, a major “migration” (exodus) of Jewish Bronxites primarily to Queens and Long Island.

Born 1888 to German–Jewish parents in New Haven, CT, Moses was raised secularist, and proceeded to garnish degrees from Yale, Oxford, and Columbia. At his zenith Moses had 80,000 workers under him. He died at age 93, and his funeral services were held at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church. Robert Moses was later the subject of a 1974 epic 1200–page biography The Power Broker by Robert Caro.

A champion of highways over mass transit, Moses himself never learned to drive.

1927 CE: PHILO FARNSWORTH DEVELOPS TELEVISION

Utah: September 7: 202 Garden Street laboratory, San Francisco: Farnsworth’s image dissector camera tube setup (forerunner of the video camera tube and television) transmitted its first image, a simple straight line.

Two years later, he transmitted his first human images,
including a three and a half inch image of his wife, Elma, with her eyes closed, due to the blinding light required for clear transmission.

Farnsworth would later ban his own children from watching TV, believing its content (at the time at least) to be worthless.

1928 CE: TY COBB RETIRES FROM BASEBALL

Georgia: At retirement, Cobb owned most of the contemporary batting records, but more importantly to his family, he owned a lot of Coca Cola stock, which made him a millionaire. This nest egg would serve them well through the Great Depression soon to unfold.

1928 CE: ERICH MARIA REMARQUE WRITES ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT

Germany: December: originally published In German Im Westen nichts Neues (literal translation: Nothing New In the West) in serial form In the German newspaper Vossische Zeitung. The English translation would follow in 1930.

The introduction to the work runs as follows –

This book is to be neither
an accusation nor a confession,
and least of all an adventure,
for death is not an adventure
to those who stand face to face with it.
It will simply try to tell
of a generation of men who,
even though they may have escaped shells,
were destroyed by war

1929 CE: B’NEI AKIVA

Palestine: Founded during the British Mandate of Palestine as the youth wing of the Mizrachi movement.

Bnei Akiva is the largest religious Zionist youth movement in the world: As of June, 2008, it had 125,000 youths enrolled in 37 countries (with 75,000 of those in Israel).

1930 CE: STATS

c. January 1: world Jewry statistics: (Wikipedia Online, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_population (accessed February 2, 2008)

15,000,000 total, pre–Hitler *

Main countries:
USA 4,000,000
Poland 3,500,000 (11% of Polish population)
Soviet Union 2,700,000 (2% of Soviet population)
Romania, 1,000,000 (6% of Romanian population)
Israel 1,036,000 (17% of Palestine population)

Total for the five countries noted: 12.236 million, or 81.5% of the total Jewish world population.

* Thus, the 1930 15,000,000 total figure is essentially the same as the June, 2008 14,800,000 figure, at this book’s cutoff point, 78 years later.

1930 CE passive: GANDHI

India: March 12: Mohandas Gandhi, India, commences twenty–five day, 248 mile “Salt (protest) March.”

He marches to the sea (at Dandi) where he makes salt himself, protesting against the British–imposed tax on salt.

Gandhi’s prime political activity was In the 1930s and early 1940s. In modern times, he re–introduced satyagraha – his blend of non–violent resistance to tyranny through civil disobedience, a variation of Buddhist/Hindu/Jainist “ahimsa,” total non–violent Passive Resistance.

[As noted above, In 33 CE Jewish protesters against Rome employ precisely the same tactics in their march from Jerusalem to Caesaria and subsequent passive/non–violent sit–down protest against Pontius Pilate’s policies (back at the Temple in Jerusalem). Interestingly, the 1900–year–earlier Caesaria march was also a march from inland to the sea. As readers will recall, the Caesaria non–violent sit–down protest succeeded 100% with no blood shed]

Born 1869, a British–educated lawyer, Gandhi fought for Indian rights, first in South Africa, then in India. He fought against oppressive taxation, widespread discrimination, and for an end to “untouchability.” After assuming leadership of the Indian National Congress In 1921, Gandhi initially led nationwide campaigns for the alleviation of poverty and for the liberation of women, among other causes.

His campaigns included the pivotal campaign for Swarai, independence from foreign domination via self–government. His Quit India campaign incorporated, as well, swadeshi policy, the political program to boycott foreign made goods, specifically British ones. Linked to this program was his advocacy that khadi (homespun cloth) be worn by all Indians instead of their wearing British textiles.

Gandhi is credited with compelling/motivating the British to eventually quit India after WWII, after approximately one and a half decades of Indian passive resistance and civil disobedience commenced. Many thousands of Indians were killed/martyred in the ongoing saga.

As noted, the British Empire exited India post–WW II. However, it exited at its own deliberate pace. In India, Gandhi was subsequently recognized as the Father of the Nation, with his victory having a profound effect on civil rights’ aspirations and tactics worldwide. Gandhi’s humanity has impacted all humanity globally to this day. But, he himself was assassinated in 1948 by a Hindu radical after the British had already quit India.

1931 CE: IRGUN FORMED

Palestine: Also known as “Etzel,” the Irgun was a more proactive and militant Jewish liberation force than the “establishment” Haganah from which it splintered. The Irgun was sometimes referred to initially as Haganah Bet or “Defense B” to mask its independent organizational militant objectives.

Ze’ev Jabotinsky, founder of Revisionist Zionism, was the Supreme Leader of the organization until his death in 1940. Under the stewardship of Menachem Begin, the Irgun proclaimed a revolt (which was opposed by the Jewish Agency) against the British Mandate government on February 1, 1944.

The militant organization was the predecessor to Israel’s rightist “Herut” (or “Freedom”) Party, which led to today’s “Likud” Party eventually to secure the premiership in 1977 under Menachem Begin’s historic stewardship.

With Nazi Concentration Camps in Europe and the British White Paper limiting immigration to Palestine as backdrops, the Irgun came under pressure from its own “right wing” to become more militant itself. In turn, the “Lechi” group splinters off from the Irgun in 1940.

“Lechi” (with the hard–to–pronounce open “ch” sound) was derogatively referred to by the British as the “Stern Gang” after the name of its founder–leader Abraham Stern, nemesis of both the British and the Jewish establishments.

Lechi was Hebrew acronym for Lohamei Herut Israel or “Fighters for the Freedom of Israel.” On some level resonant with the supra–aggressive Jewish Zealots of First Roman–Jewish War period c. 60–73 CE, this right–wing splinter off of a right–wing splinter (Irgun), Lechi was not the most popular historical Jewish militant group in Jewish history. The group never had more than a few hundred members but it was the bane of the British—and of the Jewish establishment.

Its founder Avraham “Yair” Stern was himself killed by the British in 1942. After being cornered solo in a Tel Aviv apartment hideout and handcuffed by British detectives, he was shot/murdered. The town Kochav Yair (Star of Yair) was founded in 1961 and named in his honor. In 1978 an Israeli postage stamp was issued in his honor, as well, de facto national absolution.

Future premier Yitzhak Shamir (in office October 1986 – July 1992) was a former member of the triumvirate which ran Lechi after Stern’s assassination.

1931 CE: BRITISH MANDATE GOVERNMENT

– decided that the Western Wall area was part of the Temple Mount and therefore was under the direction of the Moslem Wakf. Therefore Jews would henceforth not be permitted to blow the Shofar as part of prayers services on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.

1931 CE: GERALD WINROD

(1881-1971)

Kansas: A pro-Nazi Protestant preacher, spurred by his belief in Jewish Bolshevism, wrote The Hidden Hand, a book adulatory to the (virulently anti-Semitic) “Protocols.” He followed it with a slew of pamphlets and books as well as a magazine called The Defender, all anti-Semitic. He was dubbed “The American Streicher” by the German press. [The German Strecher was later hanged at Nuremberg.]

1931 CE: JEHOVAH’S WITNESSES FOUNDED

1931 CE: THE QUINTESSENTIAL JEWISH INVENTION

Budapest International Fair: László Bíró, journalist, introduces his invention, the ballpoint pen, developed with his brother Georg, a chemist. Biro then patented the invention in Paris in 1938. The patent, as well as the trademarked name, eventually entered the public domain. However, a ‘biro’ is still the colloquial name for a pen in Britain.

With the expiry of the French patents, László and his brother Georg moved to Argentina in 1943, and filed Argentinean patents.

László died in Buenos Aires in 1985. “Inventor’s Day” in Argentina is commemorated on September 29, his birthday.

– after Wikipedia

1932 CE: ALEXANDER CALDER, 34, INVENTS A NEW TYPE OF SCULPTURE

New York: French artist Marcel Duchamp labels the American’s sculpture a “mobile.” The appellation sticks for the genre.

1932 CE: OTTO RANK WRITES ART AND ARTIST

New York: W. W. Norton & Company publishes Rank’s work with new preface. The book was originally published in Paris, December 1930 (in German as Kunst and Kunstler).