George Alfred George-Brown, Baron George-Brown,  (; 2 September 1914 – 2 June 1985), was a British Labour Party politician who served as Deputy Leader of the Labour Party from 1960 to 1970 and held several Cabinet roles under Prime Minister Harold Wilson, including Foreign Secretary and First Secretary of State.

After leaving school at the age of 15, Brown began work as a clerk, before joining the Transport and General Workers' Union. He rose quickly through the union ranks as an organiser, and shortly before the 1945 election he was chosen as the Labour Party candidate for the seat of Belper. He defeated the Conservative incumbent and went on to hold the seat until his own defeat at the 1970 election. He briefly served in the Attlee government as Minister of Works in 1951. After Labour lost office he was appointed to the Shadow Cabinet, and came to be regarded as a leader of the trade-union-supporting faction on the right of the Labour Party. Following the sudden death of Aneurin Bevan in 1960, Brown was successful in the election to replace him as Deputy Leader of the Labour Party.

Three years later, following the sudden death of Hugh Gaitskell, Brown became Acting Leader of the Labour Party, and consequently was briefly Leader of the Opposition. He stood in the election to gain the role permanently, but was beaten by Harold Wilson; one factor in his defeat was concern from colleagues about the impact of his well-known alcoholism, an affliction that remained with him through his life. Following Labour's victory at the 1964 election, Wilson appointed Brown as First Secretary of State, making him the next-most senior member of the Cabinet, and appointed him to the new position of Secretary of State for Economic Affairs, in an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to curtail the power of HM Treasury.

Two months after Labour's landslide victory at the snap 1966 election, Wilson moved Brown to the role of Foreign Secretary, a job he had always coveted. Despite this, Brown continued to struggle with his alcoholism, and after several arguments with Wilson in 1968, the two agreed that Brown would resign. Brown lost his seat of Belper in 1970, and shortly thereafter was elevated to the House of Lords; he insisted, having always been known simply as "George Brown", that upon taking his peerage in November 1970 he would combine his first name and surname to create his title, Baron George-Brown, of Jevington in the County of Sussex.

Early life
Brown was the eldest of four children born to George Brown and Rosina Harriett (née Mason), at Flat 22, I Block, Peabody Buildings, Duke Street, Lambeth, in the flat of his maternal grandmother, Ann Martha Mason, widow of a Scottish asphalter; the flat was in a working-class housing estate built by the Peabody Trust, a housing charity. Soon after the birth, his family left and moved to the Peabody Trust block at Peabody Square, Blackfriars Road, Southwark, near Waterloo station. His father, of a family long settled in The Borough, but who believed themselves to have Irish origins, had worked in his earlier years as a grocer's packer, then as a lorry and van driver (for Lyons, later for the Evening Standard), and served in the First World War as a chauffeur to senior British Army officers; he later became a fur salesman. A staunch trade unionist, he eventually served as a member of the executive council of the Transport and General Workers' Union, and was later employed as a full-time official. Aspersions were thus cast on his son's 'working-class credentials' in light of what were perceived to be (however inaccurately given his English, Scottish and Irish forebears) his 'East End commercial middle-class Jewish' roots.

Brown attended Gray Street Elementary School in Blackfriars where he did well enough to pass an entrance examination to the West Square Central School, a junior grammar school and now part of a conservation area. Brown had already adopted his parents' left-wing views and later claimed to have delivered leaflets for the Labour Party in the 1922 general election when he was eight years old.

The school wanted Brown to stay on beyond the age of 15, but he decided to leave to earn his living and help his parents financially. He started work as a junior clerk in the ledger department of a City firm, but was made redundant after pressing his fellow clerks to join a trade union. From 1932, he worked as a fur salesman for the John Lewis Partnership, dropping his Cockney accent to appeal to society customers. Brown earned a great deal on commission. During this time, Brown continued his education through London County Council evening schools and the Workers' Educational Association. The poverty of his upbringing led Brown in later life to resent those who had a more privileged background and a university education.

Trade union organiser
Shortly after his marriage on 27 April 1937 to Sophie Levene, daughter of Solomon Levene, a bookbinder, Brown was employed as a ledger clerk with the Transport and General Workers Union, and appointed District Organiser for Watford the next year. By now Brown was active within the Labour Party and the Labour League of Youth. He ran as a moderate candidate for the Chairmanship but at the 1937 Labour Party conference he was defeated by a left-wing candidate, Ted Willis, later a writer for television. At the 1939 Party conference Brown made his mark by a strong speech demanding the expulsion of Stafford Cripps for his advocacy of a Popular Front. For the rest of Cripps's life he refused to speak to Brown.

After the outbreak of the Second World War in September 1939, Brown volunteered for the Royal Air Force but Ernest Bevin, the Minister of Labour, kept Brown and other trade union officials in their civilian jobs. Bevin was one of the Labour leaders brought into the wartime coalition government. Brown himself served as a temporary civil servant in the Ministry of Agriculture from 1940 onwards.

Member of Parliament
As a TGWU official, Brown was an attractive candidate to Labour constituencies seeking a candidate, as the TGWU would sponsor him and pay election expenses. He was selected for Belper, a mixed constituency near Derby which was one of Labour's principal target seats. In the 1945 general election, Brown gained the seat from the Conservatives with a majority of 8,881. He was invited as one of a dozen 'Young Victors' to a private dinner given by Hugh Dalton on 30 July 1945 who was talent-spotting and networking. Brown was immediately chosen to be a Parliamentary Private Secretary (PPS) by George Isaacs, who had followed the promoted Bevin as Minister of Labour, but his time with Isaacs was brief.

Brown was both adept at understanding political issues and how to communicate them, and convivial and generally popular within the Parliamentary Labour Party (save among the left-wing faction, whom he attacked as 'long-haired intellectuals'). He briefly worked as PPS for Chancellor of the Exchequer Hugh Dalton from April 1947, at a time when the economic situation of Britain had barely improved and the Chancellor needed the maximum political support. Brown launched an unsuccessful plot to have Clement Attlee replaced as Prime Minister by Ernest Bevin, although without consulting Bevin who did not approve.

Ministerial office
Attlee, despite knowing all about Brown's plot to depose him, swiftly appointed Brown as Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries. The Prime Minister had decided that it would be best if Brown were kept busy. At the Ministry of Agriculture, Brown worked to pass the Agriculture Act 1947 which provided price support to farmers and also to provide more arable land and ease shortages of machinery and foodstuffs. Government policy aimed at increasing food production so that rationing in the United Kingdom could be lifted but progress was slow; Attlee grew to appreciate his talent. When his mentor Bevin died in April 1951, Brown was appointed Minister of Works in the Cabinet reshuffle – at the head of a Ministry but not in the Cabinet. Brown inherited a long-running struggle by the Government to have the Tower of London open to tourists on Sunday and managed to solve it by outsmarting the Constable of the Tower in negotiations.

Opposition
Brown ceased to be a minister when Labour lost the 1951 general election at the end of October. Like other Labour ex-ministers, Brown found himself forced to rely on an inadequate parliamentary salary; this led him to consider a return to being a trade union official. However, in 1953 he was hired as a consultant by the Mirror Group newspapers, enabling him to stay in politics.

Brown was a partisan participant in the Labour Party's internecine struggles in the early 1950s, opposing the Bevanite campaign. His natural campaigning ability became well-known, as did his tendency to be rude to those with whom he had disagreements. Shortly after the 1955 general election, Brown was elected to the Shadow cabinet for the first time; from that December, when his friend Hugh Gaitskell became Leader of the Labour Party, Brown found it easier to win promotion. Brown had a private but widely publicised shouting-match with Soviet leaders Nikita Khrushchev and Nikolai Bulganin when he was part of a Labour Party delegation invited to dine with them on their British visit in April 1956. In October that year, he lost the election for Treasurer of the Labour Party to Aneurin Bevan by 3,029,000 to 2,755,000 votes.

Deputy leadership
When Bevan died in July 1960, the Deputy Leadership of the Labour Party became vacant at a time when the Labour Party was severely divided over Clause IV of the party constitution. Brown was encouraged to stand as the candidate of the Gaitskellite right; the other candidates were left-winger Frederick Lee and the moderate but insufficiently senior James Callaghan. Brown was elected, beating Lee by 146 votes to 83 when Callaghan had been eliminated. Gaitskell as Leader and Brown as Deputy Leader were not viewed by most of the Labour left as a balanced ticket, and Brown was challenged for the job in both 1961, by Barbara Castle, and 1962, by Harold Wilson. Part of his job was to improve Labour's by-election campaigning, and he was successful in winning several, such as that at Middlesbrough West.

Gaitskell's sudden death in January 1963 made Brown's  challenge for the party leadership inevitable. However, he mishandled the opening of his campaign. At the first Shadow Cabinet meeting after Gaitskell's death, Brown and his leadership rival Harold Wilson agreed to a clean fight. Wilson, who was accused by the right of undermining party unity, then informed the press that each agreed to serve under the other, which countered his reputation for plotting; Brown repudiated any such agreement, laying himself open to that accusation.

Personal problems

Many on the right of the Labour Party, including Anthony Crosland and Denis Healey, supported James Callaghan for the leadership. They were opposed to Wilson's being elected leader, but they had good reason not to trust Brown. Partly this was because of private knowledge of his excessive drinking, which exacerbated his rude and aggressive style of politics and originated the Private Eye euphemism for intoxication, "tired and emotional". Crosland called the leadership election "A choice between a crook (Wilson) and a drunk (Brown)." Many Labour MPs who were prepared to accept Brown as deputy leader were unhappy with the idea of his being in charge, and Wilson was easily elected. His colleague Roy Jenkins says that he was:
unenthusiastically but firmly for Brown....Brown was certainly not a tepid character. He had great qualities both of intellect and personality, although they were balanced by appalling faults. He drank too much, particularly for his not very strong head....And he confounded the trouble by being also capable of violent switches of mood, even when sober. On the big issues, he was almost invariably right and pursued his conviction with persistent courage.

The mainstream press had not publicised his drinking, but it later became apparent when Brown was invited on Associated-Rediffusion television to pay tribute to John F. Kennedy after his assassination (Brown was probably the closest Labour politician to Kennedy). Brown had come from a dinner in Shoreditch where he had already drunk a great deal, and drank more while preparing to go on air – having a row with actor Eli Wallach which became physical. When Brown went on air, millions of viewers saw him interpret a fair question as an accusation of his having overstated his closeness, then give a morose and slurred tribute from which it was apparent he was intoxicated. Brown had to issue a public apology.

Brown bitterly resented his leadership defeat, which came only weeks after he had defeated Wilson for the deputy leadership. He disappeared for five days after the result was declared, using an assumed name to book a flight to Glasgow; the newspapers were full of stories about the vanishing politician. When he returned he demanded of Wilson that he be appointed Shadow Foreign Secretary, which Wilson refused.

He retained the deputy leadership and despite his personal differences, played an important part in advising Wilson about Labour's campaign strategy in the 1964 general election. It was decided that Wilson would make only a limited number of major campaign speeches outside London, while Brown would tour the country speaking in all the marginal seats (his main theme was predicting an imminent economic crisis). Brown later calculated that he had made 100 speeches. In one he made a gaffe by suggesting that the mortgage interest rate could be cut to 3%; the Conservative Chancellor of the Exchequer Reginald Maudling was quick to capitalise on this and ask how much it would cost.

Department of Economic Affairs
Labour won the election with a small parliamentary majority in 1964. As previously arranged with Wilson, Brown was appointed to the newly created Department of Economic Affairs and Deputy Prime Minister in October 1964 through which they both hoped to institute long-term economic planning and remove some of the power of the Treasury.

Immediately on taking office Brown was told that the budget deficit for the coming year was forecast at £800 million, double what the Labour Party had predicted as the worst possible figure before the election. The leading economic ministers were presented with three options, including devaluation of the pound sterling, to meet the crisis. They decided on a temporary surcharge on imported goods. However, over the next few months Brown was persuaded by his deputy Anthony Crosland that ruling out devaluation had been a mistake. The pound continued to be under pressure in 1965 and Brown struggled over a 12-hour meeting at the Trades Union Congress to persuade the unions to accept a tougher prices and incomes policy, to which he was personally opposed.

The most important function of the DEA was to prepare a 'National Plan' for the economy. Brown became personally identified with the project, which helped increase enthusiasm for it among officials and the Labour Party, while also interesting the press. After nearly a year's work the Plan was unveiled on 16 September 1965, pledging to cover "all aspects of the country's development for the next five years". The Plan called for a 25% growth in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) from 1964 to 1970, which worked out at 3.8% annually. There were 39 specific actions listed, although many were criticised as vague.

July measures
Following the 1966 general election at which Labour won re-election with a parliamentary majority of 96, the government was hit by a severe financial crisis. The question of devaluation was raised again in a more pressing way, with Brown now strongly supporting it, but Harold Wilson was firmly opposed, preferring a set of deflationary measures including spending cuts and interest rate rises. Brown believed that these measures would damage the economy. Chancellor of the Exchequer James Callaghan found himself in the middle, as he opposed devaluation but felt that without prompt action it was inevitable. Wilson tried to keep Brown on board, even offering to make him Chancellor should Callaghan resign, but Brown stood firm. When the Cabinet voted by 17–6 against devaluation, Brown sent a letter of resignation.

Wilson craftily sent the letter back to Brown so that he could deny having received it, and then sent George Wigg to try to talk Brown out of it. This did not prevent the news reaching the public; Wigg then changed his position and told Brown that Wilson would accept his resignation. Bizarrely this convinced Brown to stay and he accepted all of Wilson's terms for staying in the government in a late night meeting before announcing his "un-resignation" to the press in Downing Street.

Foreign Secretary

Brown was reshuffled to become Foreign Secretary in August 1966, a job he coveted. He was considered by some of his Cabinet colleagues not to have 'precisely the right temperament for the Foreign Office'.  This decision had implications for the government's stance on the European Economic Community as Brown had always favoured entry. Wilson had been sceptical, but not opposed outright, to joining but Brown persuaded him and the rest of the Labour Party to support an application. In May 1967 it was announced that Britain had made its second application to join. Like the first, it was vetoed by Charles de Gaulle.

Brown's drinking became more pronounced as he became depressed by his loss of face in July 1966. His reaction to his depression was to launch vituperative attacks, for example at the son of newspaper proprietor Cecil King in October 1967. In 1968, he publicly insulted the wife of the British ambassador to France, Sir Patrick Reilly, at a dinner party at the French embassy in London, and later ended the ambassador's career over personal differences. After Wilson was told of the incident with King, Brown came round and told Wilson that he had just had a terrible row with his wife and could not continue in Government. More and more people were becoming aware of Brown's alcoholism, and Private Eye magazine managed to hint at the scandal with a parody of a memo titled "Brown: F.O. Acts". The memo gave translations into various languages for the words tired, overwrought, expansive, overworked, colourful and emotional, and coined the phrase "tired and emotional" as a euphemism for 'drunk'.

Brown, indeed, once boasted that "Many members of parliament drink and womanise – now, I've never womanised"; which was almost certainly true. There was never a whisper about his sex-life during his career.

Rumoured Archbishop of Lima incident
During his time and subsequently, a story circulated that Brown had embarrassed himself while drunk at an official reception in South America, an anecdote attributed to Lord Chalfont by The Times in early 2020. Brown was said to have lumbered over to a tall, elegant vision in red, and requested the honour of the next dance, to be told, "I will not dance with you for three reasons. The first is that you are drunk. The second is that the band is not playing a waltz, but the Peruvian national anthem. The final reason is that I am the Cardinal Archbishop of Lima."

The story is unsubstantiated as Brown did not visit South America during his term.

Resignation
Despite devaluation in November 1967, the pound came again under severe pressure in March 1968. When Wilson wanted to declare an emergency bank holiday to give breathing space, he attempted to contact his Foreign Secretary. Brown could not be found and his staff reported his condition as "only 'so-so' when last seen", and so Wilson convened a special meeting of the Privy Council without him. Brown was incensed that Wilson had not tried further to contact him, and got together with other ministers who had not been informed to face down Wilson at a meeting in the early hours of the morning. Brown, who appeared very drunk, incoherently shouted at Wilson, who was almost as angry and stood up for himself. At the end of the meeting Brown stormed out.

It was unclear whether he had resigned but Brown did nothing the next day to apologise. At six o'clock that evening he sent a letter which said "I think it better that we should part company" but did not mention "resignation". Wilson decided to reply by accepting Brown's resignation but also sent a message saying that Brown had half an hour to say whether the letter had been misinterpreted. Brown did not act on this and so left the government, but not in the blaze of glory for which he had hoped.

In Cabinet papers released in 1999 it was clear that Wilson was in turmoil over Brown's resignation in 1968: seventeen drafts of his reply were written before finally accepting his resignation.

Defeat

Brown's constituency of Belper had undergone considerable development since he had been elected. Most of the new housing was for middle class areas near Derby and contained mostly Conservative voters. Although a Boundary Commission report in 1969 recommended the abolition of the seat, the Government decided to postpone the changes and Brown was obliged to stand in a seat which was shifting away from his party. Added to this problem, he remained deputy leader of the Labour Party and toured the country making speeches for other Labour candidates during the 1970 general election. His Conservative opponent Geoffrey Stewart-Smith had spent the last four years nursing the Parliamentary constituency. Brown lost his seat by more than 2,000 votes.

In Brown's speech shortly after the result, he said that he would "lend" his constituency to the Conservatives.

Life peerage
Brown swiftly decided not to try to regain his seat and received a life peerage in the Dissolution Honours List. When the award was announced, Brown told the press, "As I understand it, I have to pick a title – but I hope to everybody, I will simply remain George Brown." This foreshadowed a long dispute over the wording of the title. Brown wished to be "Lord George Brown," but Garter King of Arms argued that peerage titles traditionally included only surnames, not forenames. Brown had no sympathy with the objection, and noted that there had been counter-examples such as Lord Ritchie-Calder and Lord Francis-Williams. Also Field Marshal Sir Alan Brooke became Viscount Alanbrooke. Eventually, Garter King of Arms gave way on condition that Brown simultaneously change his surname to George-Brown, so finally his title ended as Baron George-Brown, of Jevington in the County of Sussex. In 1971, he published his memoirs, entitled In My Way. On hearing the title Harold Wilson supposedly commented that it was very appropriate, because that was just where he had always found George Brown over the years. He found work at the textile company Courtaulds, and later worked for Commercial Credit (Holdings) and British Northrop.

On 2 March 1976, George-Brown announced that he was leaving the Labour Party in protest at government legislation which strengthened the closed shop. This announcement was overshadowed when he collapsed and fell into a gutter, having to be helped out by newspaper reporters, which was presumed to be a result of his drinking. The Times the next day printed the opinion that "Lord George-Brown drunk is a better man than the Prime Minister sober."

George-Brown was invited to deliver the 1978 Marlow (Scotland) Lecture to the Institution of Engineers and Shipbuilders in Scotland. He chose the subject "Britain's future: the significance of the European dimension".

George-Brown became the president of the Social Democratic Alliance in January 1981, and was a signatory to an advertisement in The Guardian on 5 February in support of the Limehouse Declaration.  However, he did not announce his membership of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) for another four years. By that point, his reputation had so declined that Bill Rodgers, who had been Brown's Parliamentary Private Secretary at the Department of the Secretary of State for Economic Affairs (DEA) and the Foreign Office, described him as "an embarrassment rather than an asset to his old friends who founded the SDP." His brother Ron, who had been a Labour MP since 1964, had also joined the party.

In 1978, George-Brown hired a young Canadian woman, Kathy Mason, as his personal secretary, and she worked for him until the spring of 1980.  At that time, before returning to Canada, Mason trained the newly hired Maggie Haimes, then aged 31, to fill her position. Two years later, on 24 December 1982, after 45 years of marriage, Brown walked out on his wife and set up home with Haimes. He did not, however, change his 1969 will which gave his estate to Lady George-Brown.

Death
As his health deteriorated, George-Brown converted from his previous Anglo-Catholic religious beliefs to Roman Catholic near his death. Suffering cirrhosis of the liver, he died after a stroke on 2 June 1985 at Duchy Hospital in Truro, Cornwall. He was cremated at Golders Green Crematorium in London, and his ashes buried under a rose bush in the crematorium gardens. He was survived by his wife, Sophie, Lady George-Brown (née Levene) (1911–1990), daughters, Frieda and Pat, and mistress, Margaret "Maggie" Haimes.

References

Bibliography
 The National Plan (Cmnd. 2764). Department of Economic Affairs (HMSO, London, 1965)
 In my way: The political memoirs of Lord George-Brown by Lord George-Brown (Victor Gollancz, London, 1971)
 The Private Eye Story by Patrick Marnham (André Deutsch Ltd, London, 1982)
 Harold Wilson by Ben Pimlott (HarperCollins, London, 1992)
 Tired and Emotional: The life of George Brown by Peter Paterson (Chatto and Windus, London 1993)
 Dictionary of Labour Biography edited by Greg Rosen (Politico's Publishing, London, 2001)

External links

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1985 deaths
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George Brown, Baron George-Brown


Tzvi Hirsch ben Yaakov Ashkenazi (; 1656 – 2 May 1718), known as the Chacham Tzvi after his responsa by the same title, served for some time as rabbi of Amsterdam. He was a resolute opponent of the followers of the self-proclaimed messiah, Sabbatai Zevi. He had a chequered career owing to his independence of character. He visited many lands, including England, where he wielded much influence. His responsa are held in high esteem.

Early life and education
Ashkenazi was born in 1656 in Moravia, most likely in Gross Meseritsch where his father Jacob Wilner was active. He was descended from a well-known family of scholars, a grandson of Ephraim ha-Kohen who in turn was the son-in-law of a grandchild of Elijah Ba'al Shem of Chelm. He spent most his childhood in Alt-Ofen (now Budapest) where his grandfather served as rabbi. Tutored by his father and grandfather, he later went to Salonica where he attended the school of Eliyahu Kovo and devoted himself to an investigation of the Sephardic methods of study. He also witnessed the impact of the Sabbatai Zevi movement on the community, an experience which significantly influenced his career. Upon his return journey he seems to have stayed some time (probably till 1679) at Constantinople where his learning and astuteness made such an impression he became known by the Sephardic title for rabbi, "Chacham", an honorific he retained throughout his life. Shortly after his return to Alt-Ofen he married into a prominent  and wealthy local family.

Germany
In 1686 Alt-Ofen was invaded by the Austrian army, and Ashkenazi's young wife and his daughter were killed by a cannon-shot. He fled, becoming separated from his parents (who were taken captive by the Prussians), and proceeded to Sarajevo, where he received an appointment as rabbi. He remained in that city until 1689, in which year he resigned (probably on account of some contention with certain members of his congregation), and left for Germany. In Berlin he married Sarah (died at Lemberg 23 January 1719), the daughter of Meshullam Zalman Mirels Neumark, chief rabbi of Altona, Hamburg, and Wandsbek.

On the advice of his father-in-law he went in 1690 to Altona, where the leading members of the congregation founded a study-house (Klaus) and installed Ashkenazi as rabbi. His yeshiva became celebrated, and pupils assembled from all parts to hear him; but his income as rabbi of the Klaus was only 60 thalers annually, so that he was compelled to defray his living expenses by engaging in various business pursuits (e.g. dealing in jewelry). After the death of his father-in-law, whom Ashkenazi had latterly aided in his official duties, one party in the Jewish community wished to have Ashkenazi installed as rabbi of the three congregations (the unity known as AH"U), while another party favored the election of Moses ben Alexander Rothenburg. Finally it was decided that both candidates should serve, but alternately, each for a period of six months. Friction and strife over religious questions ensued, and finally became so intense that, in 1709, Ashkenazi deemed it advisable to resign and resume his duties as rabbi of the Klaus.

Amsterdam

Appointment and welcome
Less than a year later, on 10 January 1710, he received a letter of appointment to the chief rabbinate of the Ashkenazi congregation of Amsterdam. In addition to free residence, the office carried with it a yearly salary of 2,500 Dutch guilders (a large sum, in view of the fact that fifty years later 375 guilders was the usual salary of the chief rabbi of Berlin). Unselfish and independent by nature, Ashkenazi renounced the perquisites of his office, such as fees in civil suits, in order to maintain his independence, and accepted the high position only upon the condition that under no circumstances was he to be required to subordinate himself to the congregation, or to be obliged to receive gifts, and that he should be permitted to preserve absolute freedom of action on all occasions.

From the very beginning he encountered in Amsterdam a hostile party, whose principal leader was Aaron Polak Gokkes. Indeed, the difficulties with the directors became so serious that, on 26 May 1712, it was decided to dismiss the chief rabbi at the end of the term (three years) mentioned in his letter of appointment. Ashkenazi announced that he would not under any circumstances accept this dismissal, which he regarded as unjust. Serious difficulties arose. The rabbi's salary does not seem to have been paid, for in the register of the records of the congregation it is stated that on Saturday 4 Nisan 5472 (12 April 1712), the parnasim sent a secretary and two attendants of the congregation to Ashkenazi to inform the latter that upon the return of the letter of appointment he would be paid the money to which he was still entitled. Ashkenazi, however, naturally declined to return this piece of evidence, a copy of which has been preserved among the official documents of the congregation.

The Chayun incident
On 30 June 1713 Nehemiah Chiya Chayun arrived at Amsterdam and requested permission of the Portuguese congregation to circulate his writings, which had been published at Berlin. Ashkenazi thought Chayun was an old enemy of his from Sarajevo and Salonica, and at once requested Solomon Ayllon, Chacham of the Portuguese congregation, not to accord patronage to the stranger, who was unfavorably known to him. Ashkenazi believed himself justified in making this demand, as the Portuguese congregation and its rabbi had, from the beginning, treated him most courteously, and had already, during his term at Altona, repeatedly sent to him from the Sephardim of Hamburg, Amsterdam, and London religio-legal questions for his decision. Chayun thereupon called on Ashkenazi personally and made an explanation; whereupon the rabbi retracted his accusation, stating that it was a case of mistaken identity. Meanwhile, several members of the Portuguese congregation had submitted Chayun's writings to the judgment of Moses Hagiz, a messenger from Jerusalem then sojourning at Amsterdam, who immediately discovered their Sabbatian principles and tendencies and gave the alarm. He also called the attention of Ashkenazi to the dangerous doctrines published in Chayun's book, whereupon the rabbi again warned the directorate of the Sephardim congregation not to support the author. Ashkenazi rejected a proposition to designate the objectionable passages, and declined to act as member of a committee of investigation, because he did not regard Ayllon, the rabbi of the Sephardim, as a competent authority on such questions. Thereupon a fierce contention ensued, during the progress of which Hagiz fought valiantly beside Ashkenazi.

A great number of pamphlets were issued by both sides, in which the contestants indulged in the most vehement abuse of each other. On 23 July 1713, Ashkenazi placed Chayun under the ban, because the investigating committee appointed by the Sephardic directorate had not yet made its report. In consequence of this measure, both Ashkenazi and Chagiz were subjected to street attacks, more particularly at the hands of the Portuguese, who threatened to kill them. In the midst of the constantly increasing bitterness and animosity, the report of the committee, which had been prepared by Ayllon alone, was publicly announced. It was to the effect that the writings of Chayun contained nothing which could be construed as offensive to Judaism. It was publicly announced in the synagogue that Chayun was to be exonerated from every suspicion of heresy, and on the following day a public reception was tendered him at the synagogue, on which occasion unparalleled honor was shown him. Naturally, the Sephardic opponents of Ashkenazi had found excellent support among the rabbi's adversaries in his own German congregation. The controversy was now waged so fiercely that even the family-life of the community became affected, and all peace vanished from the otherwise model congregation of Amsterdam. Ashkenazi was deserted, except for a few friends that remained faithful to him. When, finally, he was summoned by the directors of the Portuguese congregation to appear before their tribunal—which, of course, had no jurisdiction—he refused to do so, as he anticipated that he would be asked to retract and to praise and recommend Chayun.

Placed under ban
Through a Christian advocate the directorate again summoned Ashkenazi to appear, 9 November 1713, and when he again refused, he and Moses Hagiz were formally placed under the ban by the Portuguese community. Ashkenazi was temporarily placed under arrest in his own home (probably to protect his life) by the municipal authorities, who had been influenced against him by Ayllon and the Portuguese leaders; and the whole matter was brought before the magistracy in order to secure Ashkenazi's deposition and banishment from Amsterdam.

The magistrates thereupon sought the opinions of certain professors at Leiden, Utrecht, and Harderwijk, including Willem Surenhuis and Adriaan Reland, on the dispute; but their decision, if given, has not been made known.

London
Ashkenazi forestalled the magisterial action by resigning his office and fleeing, in the beginning of 1714, from Amsterdam, perhaps secretly, with the aid of his friend Solomon Levi Norden Lima. After leaving his wife and children at Emden, he proceeded to London at the invitation of the Sephardic congregation of that city. In 1705 he was invited to pronounce a judicial decision concerning the orthodoxy of the rabbi David Nieto, who, in a certain sermon, had given utterance to allegedly Spinozistic views. In London Ashkenazi found many friends, and received many tributes of regard. Even before this he had been invited to take the rabbinate of the Sephardic congregation, but refused. It seems that his portrait in oil was painted here, after he had refused, on account of religious scruples, to have his bust stamped on a coin. In the following spring he returned to Emden, and proceeded thence to Poland by way of Hanover, Halberstadt, Berlin, and Breslau, stopping at each place for some time. After spending two years in Staszów, Poland, he was called to Hamburg to serve as member of a judicial body convened to settle a complicated legal question.

Upon the death of Simhah Cohen Rapoport, in 1717, Ashkenazi was called as rabbi to Lemberg, where he stood in high repute, both in his congregation and in the community at large. Four months after entering upon this office, he died.

Praised by contemporaries
Of a firm and unselfish but abrupt and passionate disposition, Ashkenazi everywhere aroused the discontent and hatred of the rich and the scholarly. Extensive learning, keen intelligence, and exceptional linguistic attainments, all combined to make him one of the most distinguished men of his day. All his contemporaries, even those who knew him only as the head of the Klaus at Altona, unite in praising his profound learning, his astuteness, his clearness of exposition, which never degenerated into the subtleties of the pilpul, and his absolute disregard for the influence of money. He would suffer serious deprivation rather than accept pecuniary assistance; and this characteristic, interpreted by the wealthy of that day as obstinacy and arrogance, became to him a source of much suffering and enmity.

Of his works, only a part of his responsa have been printed, under the title "Responsa Chacham Tzvi" (Amsterdam, 1712, and since frequently republished). They are distinguished by lucidity of treatment and an undeviating adherence to the subject.

Descendants
His son Jacob served as rabbi in Emden and followed in his father's footsteps in combating inroads of the Sabbattean movement; Jacob Javits, a grandson of Jacob who was named for him, served as a United States Congressman. His daughter Miriam was the wife of Aryeh Leib ben Saul, the rabbi of Amsterdam; the mother of Chief Rabbi Hart Lyon; and the grandmother of the first chief rabbi of the British empire, Solomon Heschel. Ashkenazi's son David was the Av Beit Din of Novyy Yarychev, Ukraine, and an ancestor of the mother of Rabbi Chaim Halberstam (the Divrei Chaim), Miriam. (See Dr. Neil Rosenstein's The Unbroken Chain for details about conflicting opinions as to how Miriam was a descendant of David.) His grandson, Meshullam Solomon, was one of the two opposing chief rabbis of the United Kingdom and the rabbi of the Hambro' Synagogue in London.

Rabbi Yaakov Lorberbaum (Yaakov ben Yaakov Moshe Lorberbaum of Lissa) (1760-1832) (known in English as Jacob ben Jacob Moses of Lissa, Jacob Lorberbaum or Jacob Lisser) was the great-grandson of Tzvi Ashkenazi.

References

External links

Responsa Chacham Tzvi
Yetziv Pisgam - Eulogy from Jacob Emden on the Chacham Tzvi

1656 births
1718 deaths
18th-century English rabbis
17th-century Bohemian rabbis
Czech Orthodox rabbis
Czech expatriates in Hungary
Czech expatriates in the Netherlands
Rabbis from Amsterdam
17th-century German rabbis
Rabbis from London
People from Moravia
People from Velké Meziříčí
Authors of books on Jewish law
17th-century rabbis from the Ottoman Empire
18th-century Dutch rabbis

Tzvi Ashkenazi


Helen Enselmini (), also known as the Blessed Helen of Arcella (1207–1231/1242), was an Italian Franciscan nun who has been beatified by the Catholic Church.

Life
Enselmini was born in Padua, from an impoverished noble family of the region. About 1220, Francis of Assisi, recently returned from the Middle East, went to that city to supervise the opening of a monastery of Poor Clares on land donated in the nearby village of Arcella, to which was attached a small friary of the Friars Minor he had founded. Moved by a sermon she heard him give on the streets of Padua, Enselmini was inspired to become a Poor Clare at the age of 12, according to tradition receiving the religious habit from Francis himself.

Although she was always in frail health, Enselmini spent the rest of her life living the full rigor of the Rule of St. Clare, including frequent fasting, poverty of life and manual labor, without complaint. She was said to have had the gift of inedia, living solely off the Blessed Sacrament for months. Her health declined severely later in life, however, and she became both blind and mute in her last years, which she accepted with patience. She is said to have been advised and comforted during this period by Anthony of Padua. She died on 4 November 1231 (or 1242) of natural causes.

Veneration
After her death, Enselmini was honored as a saint by Franciscan Order as well as by the people of Padua and the surrounding region. Her body was described as still lifelike for a considerable period and miracles were reported by visitors to her tomb. A century later, Giusto de' Menabuoi included her in his mural of the patron saints of the city in the baptistry of the Cathedral of Padua. In the 15th century, the monastery was re-dedicated to her as the Monastery of St. Helen outside the Walls, with an indulgence granted by Pope Eugene IV in 1443 to all those who contributed to its rebuilding.

In 1693 a delegation representing the Order of Friars Minor Conventual, as well as Gregory Barbarigo, the Bishop of Padua, and various other Church authorities, went to Rome to seek Enselmini's beatification. She was beatified on 29 October 1695 by Pope Leo X, later confirmed by Pope Innocent XII.

Today her remains are encased in a glass coffin in the Sanctuary of Arcella, now part of the City of Padua.

References

1207 births
1242 deaths
13th-century venerated Christians
Franciscan beatified people
Incorrupt saints
Inedia practitioners
Italian beatified people
13th-century Italian Roman Catholic religious sisters and nuns
Religious leaders from Padua
Poor Clares
Beatifications by Pope Innocent XII

Helen Enselmini


Space Quest: Chapter I – The Sarien Encounter, commonly known as Space Quest I, is a graphic adventure game released in October 1986 by Sierra On-Line. It is the first game in the Space Quest series. It quickly became a hit, selling in excess of 100,000 copies. Total sales are believed to be around 200,000 to date, not including the many compilations it has been included in.

Space Quest was the brainchild of Sierra programmers Scott Murphy and Mark Crowe, who had worked on prior titles like King's Quest II, but had not designed their own game before. According to Murphy, "at that time (1985), everything at Sierra was so somber and had an almost medieval atmosphere. So we decided 'Why not make a fun, silly game?'" In 1992, Adventure Comics created a three issue comic, based on the game's plot.

Plot
Players of the original game are never told the hero's name, but are instead asked to enter their own. The default name of "Roger Wilco" — a reference to the radio communication, "Roger, Will Comply" — became the de facto name of the hero in the later games of the series.

Roger is a janitor on board the scientific spaceship Arcada within the Earnon galaxy which holds a powerful experimental device called the "Star Generator" (a thinly-veiled reference to the Genesis Device from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan). Roger emerges from an on-duty nap in a broom closet to find that the ship has been boarded and seized by the sinister Sariens. Using a keycard that he finds on the body of a dead crew member, he finds his way to an escape pod and escapes the Arcada.

After crash-landing, he finds himself in the dry and barren wasteland of the planet Kerona, hunted by a spider-droid dispatched by the Sariens. Roger makes his way through the desert and a system of caves and is greeted by a mysterious disembodied head, he is tasked with killing a monstrous creature called Orat in exchange for transportation. After succeeding in this task and in the evasion of the hunter droid, he returns to the alien head with proof of his success in the form of a piece of Orat's flesh. As a reward, he is allowed into an underground complex inhabited by other aliens of the same species, and is provided with a skimmer, a small hovercraft (a direct reference to the landspeeders in Star Wars).

Roger travels to a Ulence Flats (a direct reference to Star Wars' Mos Eisley), a desert town, in order to find a way off the planet. Roger wins enough money to buy a spaceship and a navigation droid by playing slot machines in a cantina.

He overhears from a bar customer the location of the Sariens' spaceship, the Deltaur, and flies to its coordinates. He then infiltrates the ship by, but not limited to, utilizing his jetpack, dodging a droid, climbing inside an air vent, locking himself in a trunk, getting put inside a washing machine, disguising himself as a Sarien by wearing one of the Sarien uniforms, and other tactful, creative methods. He then finds his way to the Star Generator and programs it to self-destruct, escaping the ship just before it explodes.

At the end of the game, Roger's efforts are rewarded when he receives the Golden Mop as a token of eternal gratitude from the people of Xenon (a reference to the planet from Blake's 7).

Gameplay

The game was created using Sierra's AGI engine and featured a pseudo-3D environment, allowing the character to move in front of and behind background objects. The primary means of input in Space Quest, as in many other AGI games, was through the use of a text parser for entering commands and use of the keypad or arrow keys for moving Roger Wilco around the screen. The Amiga, Apple IIGS, Atari ST and Mac versions of the game offered basic mouse support for movement as well. The game had a 160×200 resolution displaying 16 colors. Sound cards were not available in 1986 for the PC, so sound was played through the PC's internal speaker; owners of Tandy 1000, PCjr and Amiga computers would hear a three-voice soundtrack, while Apple IIGS owners were treated to a fifteen-voice soundtrack with notably richer sound.

A precursor of this game is the interactive fiction game Planetfall, created by Infocom, whose player-character is a lowly "Ensign Seventh Class" who does the lowest form of labor aboard a spaceship and who appears on the cover with a mop. Just as King's Quest adapted the text-adventure puzzle games set in a medieval world to a visual display, Space Quest did the same for the space puzzle game.

As a form of copy protection, coordinates in the VGA version of the game while in the escape pod as well as the rocket purchased at Tiny's Used Spaceships are only found in the manual. Also, the code for retrieving the cartridge aboard the Arcada can only be found in the manual. The AGI version had key disk protection where the user was required to insert the original game floppy on startup.

Sierra released three versions of Space Quest: the original 1986 AGI V2 release, the 1987 AGI V3 release, and the 1990 VGA release. Aside from minor sound and graphic differences, the PC, Amiga, Atari ST, and Apple IIGS versions are largely identical. The Mac version is considerably different, however, being monochrome and completely menu-driven. Space Quest I also had an 8-bit Apple II version for the IIe and IIc. This had no pull down menus and displayed all text at the bottom of the screen.

Along with King's Quest III, Space Quest was the first Sierra game to feature pull down menus, be hard disk installable, and not require a specially formatted save disk (except the Apple II version as noted above).

Reception
Compute! praised the Apple IIGS version's sound and graphics, stating that players "may think they're watching a cartoon". It concluded that the game "is one of the better new adventure games to arrive".

The game contains a number of characters which resemble musical acts and other popular characters. The owners of a couple complained that Sierra had used them without permission. Toys R Us complained about a robot shop named "Droids R Us", which Sierra changed to "Droids B Us"; the remake adds a character which resembles the toy company's mascot Geoffrey Giraffe. Rock band ZZ Top complained that a band seen briefly on stage resembled them – despite this, they re-appear in certain versions of the VGA remake.

According to Sierra On-Line, combined sales of the Space Quest series surpassed 1.2 million units by the end of March 1996.

Reviews
Tilt (May, 1987)
Tilt (Apr, 1987)
The Games Machine (Dec, 1987)
Computer and Video Games (Nov, 1987)
Joker Verlag präsentiert: Sonderheft (1993)
ST Format (Mar, 1995)
Commodore User (Sep, 1987)

Remake

Space Quest was eventually remade using Sierra's newer SCI game engine, which, among many other improvements, allowed the game to move from its original 16-color EGA graphics to 256-color VGA. Rebranded Space Quest I: Roger Wilco in the Sarien Encounter to follow the series' new naming convention introduced in Space Quest IV, this version was released on August 20, 1991. In addition to the new VGA graphics, which were drawn in 1950s retrofuturistic B-movie style, it now featured digitized sounds and a new interface, with text-entry being replaced by an icon interface.

When leaving Ulence Flats in the VGA version, the time pod from Space Quest IV appears. Space Quest IV was developed around the same time. However, a continuity error occurs, as the time pod appears in a different place than in Space Quest IV.

Reception

The 1991 remake of the game was reviewed in Dragon, receiving 5 out of 5 stars.

References

External links

1986 video games
1991 video games
Adventure games
Point-and-click adventure games
Amiga games
Apple IIGS games
Atari ST games
DOS games
1980s interactive fiction
Classic Mac OS games
ScummVM-supported games
Sierra Entertainment games
Space Quest
Games commercially released with DOSBox
Video games adapted into comics
Video games developed in the United States

Space Quest I


The buffalo pound was a hunting device constructed by native peoples of the North American plains for the purpose of entrapping and slaughtering American bison, also known as buffalo. It consisted of a circular corral at the terminus of a flared chute through which buffalo were herded and thereby trapped. David Mandelbaum's The Plains Cree contains diagrams and a complete description of the construction and use of such a pound.

In 1758, explorer and fur trader Joseph Smith was the first European to record the use of a buffalo pound while travelling to the Assiniboine River.

The common Cree name "Poundmaker", refers to someone who makes buffalo pounds.

References

See also

 Buffalo Pound Provincial Park, a park in south-eastern Saskatchewan, which takes its name from the above term.

First Nations history
Hunting methods
Bison hunting
Indigenous peoples of the Great Plains

Buffalo pound


In American football, a game manager is a quarterback who, despite pedestrian individual statistics such as passing yards and touchdowns, also maintains low numbers of mistakes, such as interceptions and fumbles. Such a quarterback is seen as a major factor in neither his team's wins nor their losses; his performance is good enough to not negatively affect the performances of other players on his team, even if he himself does not have the skills to be considered an elite player. Game managers often benefit from strong defense and rushing offense on their teams.

Arizona Sports said that "game manager" was "a term that often comes with negative connotations of a non-talented, play-it-safe type of quarterback". The New York Times called it a "backhanded compliment". The San Francisco Chronicle wrote, "As consolation ... Quarterbacks are called game managers only if they're winning." The Associated Press opined, "But like any cliche, [game manager is] oversimplified". Former Indianapolis Colts president Bill Polian laughed, "Every quarterback is a game manager, it's what the job is all about". Nick Saban said, "I don't think you can be a good quarterback unless you're a really good game manager". The Los Angeles Times noted that although Trent Dilfer was not an elite quarterback, the 2000 Baltimore Ravens won the Super Bowl with a dominant defense and Dilfer as a game manager. Peyton Manning, who was a five-time NFL Most Valuable Player, transitioned into a game manager role with a defensive-oriented Denver Broncos squad in his final season in 2015, when he won his second championship and became at the time the oldest quarterback to win a Super Bowl, at age 39.

See also
Journeyman quarterback

References

American football terminology

Game manager


United Space Alliance (USA) was a spaceflight operations company. USA was a joint venture which was established in August 1995 as a Limited Liability Company (LLC), equally owned by Rockwell International and Lockheed Martin. The sale of Rockwell's aerospace and defense assets, including the Rockwell Space Operations Company (RSOC) and the Space Transportation System Operations Contract (STSOC) to Boeing in December 1996 made Boeing the co-owner along with Lockheed for the rest of the company's corporate existence. The company was headquartered in Houston, Texas and in 2008 employed approximately 8,800 people in Texas, Florida, Alabama, and the Washington, D.C. area. In 2014, the company was in the process of dissolving. The company was finally dissolved on 20 December 2019.

History

United Space Alliance was formed as a limited liability company as a joint venture between Rockwell International and Lockheed Martin in response to NASA's desire to consolidate many Space Shuttle program contracts to one prime contractor. USA and NASA signed the Space Flight Operations Contract (SFOC) in September 1996 to become the single prime contractor that NASA was seeking. USA supported the contract for 10 years through September 2006. This led to USA and NASA agreeing on October 2, 2006 to the Space Program Operations Contract (SPOC).

Until 2011, USA's major business was the operation and processing of NASA's Space Shuttle fleet and International Space Station at Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center and John F. Kennedy Space Center. This work was defined by the Space Program Operations Contract (SPOC) between NASA and USA. The contract ran from October 1, 2006 through September 30, 2010, which was to be the end of Space Shuttle operations. The contract included five one-year options that could extend the contract through Fiscal Year 2015. Efforts under the Space Program Operations Contract included work and support for mission design and planning; software development and integration; astronaut and flight controller training; system integration; flight operations; vehicle processing, launch and recovery; vehicle sustaining engineering; flight crew equipment processing; and Space Shuttle and International Space Station-related support to the Constellation Program. It was a cost reimbursement contract, with provisions for award and performance fees.

Search for role in the post-Shuttle era

With the planned end of the Space Shuttle program in 2011, USA sought new business opportunities through new government contracts for other NASA programs. One of those contracts was the 2008 Integrated Mission Operations Contract (IMOC) to provide flight operations support for the Constellation Program and International Space Station Program in Houston through September 30, 2011. Also, USA signed a 2008 subcontract with Alliant Techsystems for support of the Ares I launch vehicle.

The company also changed its corporate logo at this time to de-emphasize the soon-to-be-defunct Space Shuttle program and to rebrand it to be a space operations company, choosing to replace the shuttle in the "A" to be a sun rising over the earth.

In November 2010, United Space Alliance was selected by NASA for consideration for potential contract awards for heavy lift launch vehicle system concepts, and propulsion technologies.

Demise

The efforts of USA's management to identify new post-Shuttle business opportunities were ultimately not successful, and its owners Boeing and Lockheed Martin decided to wind down the joint venture. As of September 30, 2014, USA no longer held active contracts, and said that it would not pursue future contracts. However, USA announced that it would continue to operate in an administrative business capacity to manage government contract close-out requirements. Close-out of government contracts historically takes 5–7 years.

On December 20, 2019, the company was dissolved.

See also
 Top 100 Contractors of the U.S. federal government
 Deep Space Transport LLC
 United Launch Alliance

References

External links
 United Space Alliance LLC

Aerospace companies
Boeing
Space Shuttle program
International Space Station
Lockheed Martin
Companies based in Houston
Brevard County, Florida
Companies established in 1995
Commercial launch service providers
Defunct companies based in Texas
American companies disestablished in 2019

United Space Alliance