A History of "New Year's"-In 46 B.C.E., the Roman Emporer, Julius Caesar, first established January 1st as "New Year's Day". Janus was the Roman god of doors and gates, and had 2 faces, 1 looking forward, and one back. Caesar felt that the month named after this god ("January") would be the appropriate "door" to the year. Caesar celebrated the first January 1st New Year by ordering the violent routing of revolutionary Jewish forces in the Galilee. Eyewitnesses say that blood flowed in the streets. In later years, Roman pagans observed the New Year by engaging in drunken orgies--a ritual they believed constituded a personal re-enacting of the chaotic world that existed before the cosmos was ordered by the gods.

As Christianity spread, pagan holidays were either incorperated into the Christian calendar, or abandoned altogether. By the early Medieval period, most of Christian Europe regarded "Annunciation Day" (March 25th) as the beginning of the year. (According to Catholic tradition, Annunciation Day comemmorates the angel Gabriel's announcement to Mary that she would be impregnated by God and conceive a son to be called Jesus.)

After William the Conquerer (a.k.a. "William the Bastard" and "William of Normandy") became king of England on December 25, 1066, he decreed that the English return to the date established by the Roman pagans, January 1st. This move ensured that the commemoration of Jesus' birthday (December 25th) would align with William's coronation, and the commemoration of Jesus' circumcision (January 1st) would start the new year-thus rooting the English and Christian calendars in his own corronation. William's innovation was eventually rejected, and England rejoined the rest of the Christian world, and returned to celebrating New Year's Day on March 25th.

About 500 years later, in 1582, Pope Gregory XIII (a.k.a. "Ugo Boncompagni", 1502-1585)abandoned the traditional Julian calendar. By the Julian reckoning, the solar year, comprised 365 1/4 days, and the intercalation of a "leap day" every 4 years was intended to maintain correspondence between the calendar and the seasons. Really, however, there was a slight inaccuracy in the Julain measurement (the solar year is actually 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, and 46 seconds. This equals 365.2422 days.) This slight inaccuracy caused the Julian calendar to slip behind the seasons about 1 day per century. Although this regression had amounted to 14 days by Pope Gregory's time, he based his reform on restoration of the vernal equinox, then falling on March 11th, to the date it had 1,257 years earlier, when the Council Of Nicaea was convened (March 21, 325 C.E.). Pope Gregory made the correction by advancing the calendar 10 days. The change was made the day after October 4, 1582, and that following day was established as October 15, 1582. The Gregorian calendar differs from the Julian calendar in 3 ways. 1.-There is no century year that is a leap year unless it was exactly divisible by 400 (i.e.-1600, 2000, Etc.) 2.-Years divisible by 4000 are common (not leap) years, and 3.-once again, the New Year would begin with the date set by the early pagans, the first day of the month of Janus-January 1st.

On New Year's Day 1577, Pope Gregory XIII decreed that all Roman Jews, under pain of death, must listen attentively to the compulsory Catholic conversion sermon given in Roman synagogues after Friday night services. On New Year's Day 1578, Gregory signed into law, a tax forcing Jews to pay for the support of a "House of Conversion" to convert Jews to Christianity. On New Year's 1581, Gregory ordered his troops to confiscate all sacred literature from the Roman Jewish community. Thousands of Jews were murdered in the campaign.

Throughout the Medieval and Post-Medieval periods, January 1st-supposedly the day on which Jesus' circumcision initiated the reign of Christianity and the death of Judaism-was reserved for anti-Jewish activities: synagogue and book burnings, public tortures, and simple murder.

The Israeli term for New Year's night celebrations, "Sylvester", was the name of the "Saint" and Roman Pope, who reigned during the Council of Nicaea (325 C.E.) The year before the Council of Nicaea convened, Sylvester convinced Constantine to prohibit Jews from living in Jerusalem. At the Council of Nicaea, Sylvester arranged for the passage of the host of viciously anti-Semetic legislation. All catholic "Saints" are awarded a day on which Christians celebrate and pay tribute to that Saint's memory. December 31st is "Saint Sylvester Day"-hence, celebrations on the night of December 31st are dedicated to Sylvester's memory.