February
19

197:
Emperor Septimius Severus defeated the usurper Clodius Albinus in the Battle of
Lugdunum, Severus was trying to use syncretism to maintain imperial unity and
authority.  Since Jews, as well as Christian, resisted this conce…

February 18

296: Cassius
Dio, the namesake of the historian who “frequently records the religious zeal
and self-sacrificing spirit of the Jews” and whose account of the Jewish War
against the Roman Empire that resulted in the destruction of the Temple…

  Once again we celebrate a special occasion in the lives of the young and the young at heart. VALENTINES DAY I always enjoy…

February 15

399 BCE: The
philosopher Socrates was sentenced to death today. No, Socrates was not Jewish,
and he did not know about what were the “Israelites” of his day.  However,
Socrates would be one of those Greek philosophers whose teachings …

February 5

517/519:
Alcimus Avitus, the Archbishop of Vienne in Gaul who in 576 on Easter
temporarily succeeded in calming a crowd angered when a recent convert to
Christianity was doused with oil. Four days later local Christians burned down
the syna…

January 31

314: Sylvester
I whose name is “the Israeli term for New Year’s night celebrations” began his
papacy

“The Israeli
term for New Year’s night celebrations, “Sylvester,” was the name of the
“Saint” and Roman Pope who reigned during the Counci…

January 3

106 BCE:
Birthdate of Marcus Tullius, the Roman statesman and orator.  From the Jewish point of view he was just one
more anti-Semitic intellectual.  “He
denounced Judaism as a ‘barbarous superstition.’” He defended a Roman officia…