- Approximately 100,000 out of some 10 million refugees who flooded occupied Germany in search of sanctuary. Soldiers 'housed" the DPs in stables, fields, barns, factories, abandoned military barracks, and former slave labor camps until the refugees could be repatriated to their countries of origin. But most Jews no longer had a country in Europe to call home. Reform rabbis /military chaplains Abraham Klausner and Herbert Friedman were among those who helped change the lives of thousands of these Holocaust survivors.
- Approximately 600,000 Arabs. Vladimir Jabotinsky, a militant Zionist, argued in 1937, before the Peel Commission, that he understood the sense of hurt and outrage felt by the Arabs of Palestine, but the Arabs have large territories and six independent states which represent and safeguard their Arab, essentially Islamic, culture and tradition. In contrast, he said, the Jews are everywhere a minority, threatened by bitter enemies in Europe and not totally secure anywhere. Without a national center of its own, the Jews as a people and tradition are in danger of cultural and religious extinction. To deprive some 600,000 Arabs of control of the land is an injustice, but it pales into insignificance when measured against the larger tragedy that the Jews as a whole might disappear.
- 180 tons of food and necessities. As DPs were not allowed to send mail, thousands of letters had to be re-addressed with Rabbi Lipman's address and military rank. As the volume became overwhelming, he sent the letters in bulk packages to Jewish organizations throughout the world for re-mailing. Finally, in the spring of 1946, the Joint Distribution Committee received military permission to legalize the mail service.
- Eleven Jewish scholars. For some of the scholars already outside the German sphere, the college revived their careers; for a few, HUC saved their lives. In 1938, a plan was formulated and enacted whereby scholars from abroad-especially from the liberal seminary and school for advanced Jewish studies in Berlin--would be provided positions at the Reform seminary, insuring their sanctuary in America. In addition, HUC arranged for a number of rabbinic students enrolled at the liberal seminary in Germany to study at the College, and the National Federation of Temple Sisterhoods helped subsidize the voyage to safety. Among the foreign students were W. Gunther Plaut, Wolli Kaelter, Harman E. Schaalman, Alfred Wolf, Joshua O. Haberman, and Steven S. Schwarzschild; all achieved ordination and went on to make significant contributions to American and Canadian Jewish life.
- None. As author Andree Aelion Brooks writes: "We are among the first groups of Jewish tourists to visit….No Jews have lived in Girona since Jews were expelled from Spain in 1492." But, she says, "this may soon change. Situated in the shadow of the Pyrenees mountains some 90 kilometers north of Barcelona, the municipality of this industrious provincial city is working hard to reestablish Girona-once so renowned for its rabbinic sages that it was called 'The Mother of Israel'-as a center of Jewish culture, spirituality, and learning."
- The Portuguese Israelite Congregation Mikve Israel-Emanuel in Curacao was dedicated on the first day of Passover, 1732. The synagogue is also the oldest congregation in the Americas (1651). On April 22-29, 2001, Jews from around the world will gather in Curacao to celebrate the congregation's 350th anniversary.
- About 50. At its peak, during World War II, some 5000 Jews lived in Calcutta, including British and American servicemen and about a thousand Jewish refugees from Rangoon who had fled Burma during the Japanese invasion in 1942. In the past fifty years, however, most of the Jews have immigrated to Israel or English-speaking countries, or passed away.
- 249. As part of the annual event, congregations invite both affiliated and unaffiliated Jews in their communities to come together for Shabbat dinner and worship, giving the unaffiliated a taste of synagogue life. Last year, many of the congregations that participated attracted new members who had been estranged from Judaism for years.
- 18 local survivors and liberators--some of whom had never before shared their stories-have been recorded, thanks to the synagogue's Kurt and Tessye Simon Fund for Holocaust Remembrance. Produced in conjunction with the University of Notre Dame, the video and supplementary teaching materials have been distributed free of charge to all schools, colleges, libraries, and historical societies within an hour's drive of the synagogue.
- As a result of WRB pressure upon the Hungarian and Romanian governments to resist German demands to deliver more Jews for deportation to death camps, an estimated 200,000 Jews, mostly Hungarians, survived.
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