FROM OUR ARCHIVES
50 YEARS AGO December 6, 1967
The editor of Houston’s Jewish Herald Voice said leaflets threatening the lives of Jewish residents were being sent through the mail from an organization that called itself “Patriots.” The leaflets showed a rifle target and the words “Jews beware.” Among the threats: “That extra fountain pen in the pocket of the insurance salesman who calls on you might be a cyanide gas gun.”
Smart-stepping police units marched through Jerusalem’s main streets to mark Police Day in the united capital. In addition to six marching units, the parade included a motorized Border Police unit, motorcycle police, a mounted patrol and the police band. Police Day began earlier in the morning when constables fanned out into the various neighborhoods on “goodwill” assignments, helping children and the elderly cross streets, and refraining from issuing summonses for traffic offenses.
25 YEARS AGO December 6, 1992
Blacks and hassidic Jews in New York were once again near the boiling point as a rabbinical student stood accused of helping beat a black man whom Lubavitch hassidim were calling a burglar. Ralph Nimmons told police that a 24-yearold Lubavitch hassid named Moishe Katzman was among the group that caused his broken nose, mild concussion and eight stitches. The District Attorney’s Office said that Nimmons was walking behind Lubavitch headquarters when a man asked what he was doing. The hassidic man called out something in Yiddish and other men came out, shoved Nimmons, used racial slurs, and struck him with several objects, including a rock. Only one month earlier, a jury acquitted a young black man in the stabbing death of a rabbinical student, which was seen as retaliation for the accidental death of a black child caused by a Lubavitcher hassid driver. [Katzman’s assault charge was later dismissed and Nimmons was arrested on two charges of burglary in Crown Heights.]
A seemingly-innocent holiday novelty – Hanukka stockings – was stirring resentment among the congregation of a Reform synagogue in Jupiter, Florida. Some were not amused by the personalized Hanukka stockings decorated with Jewish symbols like menorahs, Jewish stars and dreidels. They complained that the stockings, sold for $16 at the Temple Beth Am’s gift counter and associated more often with Christmas, were an inappropriate way to celebrate Hanukka. Rabbi Jeffrey Ballon said he understood the pain some Jews feel when they see a Jewish holiday influenced by a Christian one. But he said about one-third of the congregation consisted of interfaith couples. These families were trying to make their Jewish-Christian marriages work without destroying either partner’s religious traditions. “We are fighting to find a path for these people to stay in the synagogue,” Ballon said.
10 YEARS AGO December 6, 2002
The White House said it possessed solid evidence that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, and rejected Baghdad’s denials as lacking credibility. The White House declined to say what evidence the administration had, but White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said, “The president of the United States and the secretary of defense would not assert as plainly and bluntly as they have that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction if it was not true, and if they did not have a solid basis for saying it.”