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A highly abridged weekly version of Dust & Stars.
By STEVEN DRUCKER JANUARY 31, 2025 09:37
ILAN RAMON in front of an F16 aircraft.
(photo credit: FLASH90)
Jan. 31, 1923:
Birthday of Norman Mailer, American novelist, journalist, essayist, activist, and actor. In a career spanning over six decades, Mailer had 11 bestsellers, at least one for each of the seven decades he lived after World War II – more than any other postwar American writer. He won the Pulitzer Prize for nonfiction for Armies of the Night and for fiction for The Executioner’s Song.
Feb. 1, 2003:
The Columbia NASA space shuttle, returning from its mission, was destroyed upon re-entering the Earth’s atmosphere, 16 minutes before its scheduled landing. All of its crew perished, including Israel’s first astronaut, Ilan Ramon.
A former combat pilot in the Israeli Air Force, he was decorated for his role in the airstrike against Saddam Hussein’s nuclear reactor. Cognizant of representing the Jewish people, he had taken kosher food with him aboard the shuttle, as well as a Kiddush cup for Shabbat and a Torah scroll that had survived Bergen-Belsen.
Tevet 4, 5570 (1810):
Yahrzeit of Rabbi Avraham of Kalisk, a controversial figure in the third generation of hassidic leaders. In his youth, he was a study partner of the Gaon (“genius”) of Vilna, Rabbi Eliyahu ben Shlomo Zalman, who led the initial opposition against Hassidism.
Later, however, he became a disciple of the Maggid of Mezeritch (the successor to Hassidism’s founder, the Baal Shem Tov, Rabbi Israel ben Eliezer). In 1777, Rabbi Abraham joined the first hassidic aliyah, in which a group of more than 300 hassidim led by Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Vitebsk emigrated to the Holy Land.
Feb. 3, 1809:
Birthday of Felix Mendelssohn, one of the greatest composers of the 19th century. A grandson of the Jewish philosopher and spiritual leader Moses Mendelssohn, Felix was nevertheless baptized as a young boy to further his career options. In his brief lifetime of 38 years, he composed five symphonies and numerous other works, such as the overture to A Midsummer’s Night’s Dream and TheWedding March.
Feb. 4, 1980:
The first cardioverter-defibrillator, invented and developed by Polish-born Israeli-American physician Michel Mirowski, was implanted in a patient at Johns Hopkins Hospital. Since then, the device, which Mirowski further improved and miniaturized, has been inserted in millions of patients worldwide to monitor and help regulate arrhythmia, which can be life-threatening. It continuously checks the heartbeat and, if needed, delivers electric shocks to restore regular heart rhythm.
Feb. 5, 1840:
The Damascus Affair began with the disappearance of Father Thomas, a Franciscan superior. The French consul in Syria accused the Jews of ritual murder (a classic blood libel) and extracted a “confession” under torture, during which one of the Jews died. Others, including 63 children, were arrested and starved to convince their parents to “confess.”
Mob attacks on Jewish communities throughout the Middle East ensued. Thousands of American Jews protested, and by August 1840, a Jewish delegation led by Sir Moses Montefiore, Adolphe Cremieux, and Salomon Munk succeeded in pressuring the Syrians to drop the charges and release the captives.
Shvat 8, 2533 (1228 BCE):
The last of the Elders, Joshua’s contemporaries who outlived him, passed away (Megillat Ta’anit). The Elders were part of the chain of Torah transmission as listed at the beginning of Ethics of the Fathers: “Moses received the Torah from Sinai and gave it to Joshua; Joshua gave it to the Elders; the Elders to the Prophets...” In ancient times, this day was marked as a fast day.
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