Jan. 3, 1975:
The Trade Act of 1974, including the Jackson-Vanik amendment limiting US trade with countries that restricted freedom of emigration and other human rights, which passed both houses of the US Congress unanimously, was signed into law by then-president Gerald Ford. This law was instrumental in freeing refuseniks from the USSR, eventually leading to an estimated one million Soviet Jews immigrating to Israel and half a million to the US.
Jan. 4, 1940:
Birthday of Brian Josephson, a Welsh theoretical physicist best known for his pioneering work on superconductivity and quantum tunneling. The only Welshman to have received a Nobel Prize in Physics, he won it in 1973 for his prediction of the Josephson Effect.
Jan. 5, 1895:
Captain Alfred Dreyfus, accused, tried, and convicted in France on what turned out to be fabricated evidence, was subjected to public military degradation. Theodor Herzl, a journalist who witnessed the ceremony, was moved to write Der Judenstaat, the book that set Zionism in motion.
Jan. 6, 1921:
Birthday of Wolfgang Lotz, an Israeli spy who posed as a former Nazi officer in Egypt during the 1960s, while providing intelligence on the military and its industries. The Champagne Spy, as he came to be known, was found out and arrested in 1965 but was subsequently repatriated to Israel in a prisoner exchange.
Tevet 7, 4229 (468 CE):
Rabbi Amemar, Rabbi Mesharsheya, and Rabbi Huna, the heads of Babylonian Jewry, were arrested and executed 11 days later after anti-Christian persecutions caught the Jews in its wake. Eventually, the situation improved, and Babylon remained the center of Jewish life for another 500 years.
Tevet 8, 3515 (246 BCE):
The Greek translation of the Torah, known as the Septuagint, initiated by Egyptian King Ptolemy for inclusion in the Library of Alexandria, was completed. According to the Talmud, 72 sages were isolated and wrote separate translations, but when compared, all 72 were identical, including 13 identical changes (each independently felt that a literal translation would corrupt the Torah’s true meaning) [Megilah 9a].
During Talmudic times, this date was observed by some as a fast day, expressing the fear of the detrimental effect of the translation. On the positive side, the Septuagint opened up the Bible to the masses, helping to spread Jewish ideals of monotheism, peace, and justice, which became the basic moral standards of the civilized world.
Tevet 9, 3321 (440 BCE):
Death of Ezra the Scribe, leader of the return to Jerusalem from the Babylonian exile in 457 BCE, author of the books of Ezra and Chronicles, and founder of the Great Assembly, a body in which was vested the authority to interpret the Law.
In addition, he adopted the square Hebrew script, which is still in use today; he instituted the public Torah readings on Monday and Thursday mornings and Saturday afternoons; and, above all, he established the centrality of the synagogue in Jewish life. His passing marked the end of the Era of Prophecy.
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