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This Day, April 18, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. Levin

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April 18



 383: The Roman Emperors ended the exemption Jewish religious leaders enjoyed from compulsory public service. "The order which Jewish men flatter themselves with and and which gives them immunity from the compulsory public services of decurions shall be rescinded. Not even the clergy are free to deal with divine service until they have dealt with municipal service.”



1025: The Coronation of Bolesław Chrobry at Gniezno as King of Poland marks the beginning of Poland as an independent country. Boleslaw’s first contact with Jews may have come when he conquered the town of Przemysl in 1018. According to some records, the town was already home to a group of Jewish traders.  Jews were welcome to settle in Poland at this because the rulers so them as an economic and cultural asset.  Jews would find Poland a welcome refuge from the depredations that began with the Crusades 70 years after coronation of Poland’s first independent monarch.



1165 (4 Iyar, 4925): Maimon ben Maimon and his family leave Fez for Eretz Israel.



1279: Pedro III ordered his bailiffs to take control of the property of Jahuda Cavalleria until "proper heirs can be determined." Though in this case Jahuda's family ended up getting his estate, the Jews essentially owned nothing, and were essentially considered, "simply holding property for the Crown."



1389:  A priest of Prague, hit with a few grains of sand by small Jewish boys playing in the street, insists that the Jewish community purposely plotted against him. Thousands were slaughtered, the synagogue and the cemetery were destroyed, and homes were pillaged. King Wenceslaus insisted that the responsibility rested with the Jews for venturing outside during Holy Week.



1521: At the Diet of Worms, German reformer Martin Luther proclaimed that a biblical foundation supported the theological position of his "Ninety-Five Theses." Luther ended his defense with the famous words: 'Here I stand! I can do nothing else! God help me! Amen.'  Luther had a profound effect on Western history in general and Jewish history in particular.  His inability to convert the Jews led him down the path of virulent anti-Semitism.  At the same, his split with the Catholic Church led to centuries of religious warfare and conflict that found the Jews caught in the middle. Luther is not considered infallible by the church that bears his name.  His attitude toward the Jews is not official doctrine of the Lutheran Church.  In Germany, the Lutheran Church proved to be an early opponent of Hitler.



1577(1st of Iyar): Rabbi Nathan Shapiro of Horadno, author of Mevo Shearim passed away



1590:  Birthdate of Sultan Ahmed I of the Ottoman Empire. During his reign Solomon Eskenaz,i Avraham Levi Migas, and Naftali Ben Mansur all served as physicians at the palace.  When Solomon Eskenazi passed away, his wife, Buha Eskenazi replaced.  When Ahmed contracted small pox, a disease that was often fatal at this time, his regular physicians could not help. So he summoned Buha Eskenzai and she was able to save.  The Sultan passed away in 1617.



1735(26th of Nisan): Rabbi Ephraim Navon of Constantinople, author of “Mahaneh Ephriam” passed away today



1772: Birthdate of English economist David Ricardo.  Along with Malthus and Adam Smith, Ricardo was one of the Big Three of Classical Economists.  He was born and raised as a Sephardic Jew.  However, he fell in love with a Unitarian.  They eloped and he later converted to her religious beliefs.  



1806(30thof Nisan, 5566): Rosh Chodesh Iyar



1806(30thof Nisan 5566): Seventy-year old Doctor Jonas Mischel Jeitteles who was born in Prague and who was buried in the Old Jewish Cemetery in Prague after he passed away today. “He studied medicine in Leipzig and Halle. He became the public health officer of the Jewish community. He was nominated chief supervisor of the guild of Jewish healers in Prague. In 1784 he obtained from the emperor Joseph in Vienna permission that not only he himself but also other Jewish doctors could pursue unrestricted medical practice. He suffered from periodic depressive disorders with several exogenously provoked attacks.”



1825(30th of Nisan, 5585): Rosh Chodesh Iyar



1831: The University of Alabama is founded. The Psi chapter of ZBT founded in 1916 was the first Jewish organization on campus.  A Hillel chapter was founded in 1934. According to recent figures the schools graduate and undergraduate population of 28,000 students includes 450 undergraduates and 75 grad students.



1845(11thof Nisan, 5605): Seventy-eight year old merchant tSimon Von Lämel, the native of Bohemia who was elevated to the hereditary nobility in recognition for his aid in provisioning the Austrian Emperor’s Army and lending him large sums of money, passed away today in Vienna, a city in which he and his family were among the legally limited number of Jewish residents.



1848(15thof Nisan, 5608): As Jews observe the first day of Pesach, U.S. Forces under General Winfield Scott defeat the forces of Santa Anna at the Battle of Cerro Gordo during the Mexican-American War.



1857: Birthdate of famed defense attorney Clarence Darrow.  One of Darrow’s most famous cases involved the Jewish thrill killers Leopold and Loeb.  Anybody who has seen “Inherit the Wind” has a pretty good understanding of Darrow’s view of religion and the Bible.  However, Darrow represented the ACLU and those it supported at a time when the cause of civil liberties was quite unpopular.  This work with the ACLU gave him a shared interest with many Jewish leaders of his day. He was a foe of anti-Semitism as could be seen by his signing of “The Perils of Racial Prejudice” which denounced “The International Jew” which was funded by Henry Ford.



1860: Birthdate of Fernand-Gustave Gaston Labori, the native Rheims, France who courageously defended Emile Zola in 1898 and Alfred Dreyfus at the court martial in Rennes during which he effectively proved his client’s innocence and for which he was wounded by an assassin’s bullet.



1866: Today, in Manhattan, Rabbi Adler laid the cornerstone for a new synagogue that will be the home of Adas Jeshurun.  The building is located on 39thStreet between 7th and 8th Avenues.  A tin box was placed in the cornerstone.  Among the items in the box were the Charter of the Congregation, a copy of the U.S. Constitution, a list of the congregational officers, copies of several papers including the New York World and the New York Times and photo of Moses Montefiore.



1873(21st of Nisan, 5633): The New York Times reported that “the closing holiday of the feast of the Passover commenced yesterday evening.  Today and Saturday will be kept as strict holidays and at sundown tomorrow the festival will terminate.”  [Editors Note: Based on the Times story, the Orthodox observance was considered normative since it is describing the 7th and 8thdays of the festival.]



1875: The New York Timesreported that “To-morrow evening the Israelites throughout the world will commence the celebration of the important festival of "Pesach," or Passover, also known as “Hag Hamatzos," or the Feast of Unleavened Bread. The festival was instituted by divine command to commemorate the miraculous deliverance of the Children of Israel from the captivity which, for hundreds of years, they had endured in the land of Egypt.”



1875: An article entitled “The Feast of Passover: Interesting Religious Ceremonies” describes the celebration of Pesach including the fact that during the Seder “any Jewish servants in the employ of” a Jewish family “have on these occasions the privilege of sitting at the table on a footing of perfect equality with their employers.”



1878(15thof Nisan, 5638): Pesach



1880: It was reported today that the Governor of Morocco has ordered the destruction all houses belong to Jews facing Mosques.



1880: An article published today about the nature of Armenians includes the following quip attributed to Lord Rothschild.  “Shut up all the Jews and all the Armenians of the world together in one exchange and within half an hour the total wealth of the former will have passed into the hands of the latter.”



1881: In Indianapolis, Indiana, an unnamed Jewish citizen sent a basket of flowers to the Second Presbyterian Church with a note saying “that it was ‘a token of respect for the liberal sentiments that Reverend William A. Bartlett had expressed in a talk on “the Jewish question


1881:   Birthdate of renowned painter Max Weber.  Weber was born in Russia and moved to Brooklyn with his family at the age of ten.  His early works were described as "fauvist and then cubist inspired."  From 1917 on he began introducing Jewish subjects into his work.  Starting in the 1920's his work became increasingly abstract and he included contemporary social themes as subjects for his painting.  Weber's can be found in leading galleries throughout the United States including the Whitney Museum and the Jewish Museum in New York City.  He passed away in 1961.



1884: Theodore Hoffman was hung in New York today after having been convicted of murdering Zife Marks, a Jewish peddler whom he had robbed on the road near Port Chester.



1886: In New York City, over 500 women came to Mrs. Rosendorff’s home on Eldridge Street to receive aid for the upcoming holiday of Passover.  Each of the women, many of whom were accompanied by children of all ages, was given a yellow ticket which they could exchange for supplies at local meat market. Mrs. Rosendorf is active in many causes designed to assist the less fortunate including membership in the Downtown Hebrew Ladies’ Benevolent Society and the Passover Relief Society while serving as the Directress of the Home for Aged and Infirm Hebrews.



1886: It was reported today that Lawrence Oliphant has discovered to ruined synagogues on the northeast shores of the Sea of Galilee. 



1887(24thof Nisan, 5647): Hungarian teacher and author Ignaz Reich who taught for forty yeaers at the Jewish communal school for the blind and “a was the first Jew to translate the Bible into Hungarian passed away at Budapest.



1890:  After 35 years of New York State officials overseeing the arrival of more than 8 million immigrants (many of whom were Jews from Eastern Europe) at Castle Garden the United States Government “assumed control of immigration” today “and Congress appropriated $75,000” to build the first facility at Ellis Island which would the entry point for untold numbers of Jewish immigrants.



1892(21st of Nisan, 5652): Seventh day of Pesach



1892(21st of Nisan, 5652): Seventy year old Isaac Hirsch passed away while visiting his daughter Mrs. Selig Meinhold in New York City.  A native of Germany, he had lived in Kingston, NY for the last 43 years where he was a successful paper dealer.  Hirsch had served in the same army company as famed reformer and political leader Carl Schurz.



1892: The newly dedicated home of Temple Israel in Brooklyn was built in the style of “the famous Church of St. Sophia in Constantinople.” The ground on which the building sits cost $20,000 and the building itself cost $75,000. A.H. Geismar is the rabbi of what is considered to be Brooklyn’s leading reform congregation. 



1892: The body of Jacob Marks, a peddler who had last been seen a month ago with Isaac Rosenswig and Harris Blank was found “beneath a pile of rubbish in a deserted barn with two bullets in the head” on Dutch Mountain



1893 (2nd of Iyar, 5653): Abraham Pereira Mendes, a prominent English Rabbi, author and the father of two other Rabbis, Frederick de Sola Mendes and Henry Pereira Mendes, passed away.



1893: Birthdate of Jessaja Granach, the native of Galicia who became the popular German film actor Alexander Granach during the 1920’s and early 1930’s.  Forced to flee with the rise of Hitler he spent the last years of his career playing “German bad guys” in several Hollywood films.



1893: “Converts For Revenue Only” published today described the aggressive efforts by Protestants to gain Jewish converts and the indignant response of the Jewish community which object to the methods as much as it does the effort itself. For example Christian churches bribe “Jewish children to go to their ‘conversion’ schools by gifts of cake and candy…as well as with bribes of shoes and clothing” while workingmen are offered jobs in turn for conversion.



1893(2ndof Iyar): Author Moses Eisman passed away today.



1895: Dr. Maurice H. Harris delivered a lectured on Shylock at a meeting of the Young Men’s Hebrew Association.



1895: As the price of beef continues to rise, it was reported that kosher butchers are charging fourteen cents a pound for chuck steak, a popular cut of meat that had had been selling for five or six cents a pound.  This has forced many of those living on the lower east side to turn to fish and eggs which are more plentiful and less expensive.



1896: The late Leonard Friedman made the following bequests: $2,500 each to the Home for Aged and Infirm Hebrews, the Hebrew Benevolent and Orphan Asylum and Mt. Sinai Hospital; $1,500 to the Montefiore Home for Chronic Invalids; $1,000 each to the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Orphan Asylum and Sanitarium for Hebrew Children.



1897: Israel Zangwill, author of Children of the Ghetto will deliver a lecture today in Jerusalem



1897(16th of Nisan, 5657): Second day of Pesach



1897(16thof Nisan, 5657): Rabbi Rudolph Grossman will officiate at the funeral of August Seligman who died of pneumonia.  Interment will be in Cypress Hills Cemetery



1897: An article “Making Passover Bread” published today reports that three companies in New York “practically monopolize” the manufacture and sale of Matzoth in the United States.  While Matzah is baked in other cities, many Jews rely on the trustworthiness of the New York firms to manufacture a ritually acceptable product.  The demand has gotten to be so great that the firms start baking right after New Year’s in January and do not start until the start of Pesach.



1898: Approximately 5,000 people attended the opening night of a fair at the Grand Central Palace which is being held “for the benefit of the building fund of Congregation Adath Israel of West Harlem.”



1900: In his quest for governmental support for the creation of Jewish home, Herzl met with Grossherzog Friedrich of Baden receives Herzl. The Germans are reluctant to get involved but there is hope that the Austrians will help him get a an audience with the Sultan.



1900: The first public meeting of the Sabbath Observance Association of New York was held this evening at Shearith Israel in New York. The newly formed group already has at 300 members.  It was formed to combat what its leaders view as a growing disregard for the observance of the Sabbath.  According to two of the speakers, Rabbi Stephen S. Wise and Dr. Mark Blumenthal, the observance of the Sabbath “has preserved Judaism though all the centuries of persecution” and has made “the Jewish home and the Jewish woman an emblem of sanctity and purity which has been held up to the admiration of people of every religion.” 



1901: Birthdate of lyricist Al Lewis whose most famous work was “Blueberry Hill.”  Written in 1940, it gained everlasting fame when it was recorded by Fats Domino in 1956.



1902(11th of Nissan, 5662): Birthdate of Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, known as “the Rebbe” who was the seventh Lubavitcher Rebbe. [Editor’s Note: There is no way that any entry here could even begin to do justice to his gifts and accomplishments but readers are encouraged to the innumerable sources available to examine the life of this indomitable figures as well as to read his writings.  His most famous and long lasting impact may be his outreach program.  Anybody who has spent time with one of his “Lamplighters” such as Rabbi Pinchas Ciment will understand the meaning of this statement.]



1902(11th of Nisan, 5562: Seventy-two year old German businessman and politician Marcus Wolf Hinrichsen passed away today in Hamburg.



1903: Apparently “the bread of affliction” has taken on a new cache since The New York Times reports that “Matzo, or Passover bread” can be found in small piles in the city’s “bon-bon shops.”



1905: Today is the last day on which the First American Romanian Congregation is scheduled to distribute Matzoth to the poor Jews living on the Lower East Side.



1906: “San Francisco and the entire Bay Area was struck by an epic earthquake, followed by a fire which lasted almost three days and utterly destroyed most of the city. Consumed in the flames were more than 3500 souls and hundreds of millions of dollars in buildings and other property. The Jewish community lost Emanu-El's great Sutter Street synagogue building, which burned to the ground. In addition, much of Adolph Sutro's collection of Hebraica and documents of the Spanish era in California were destroyed. Among the Jewish institutions that responded to the city-wide emergency was Mount Zion Hospital, which was safely located beyond the perimeter of the fire in the Western Addition. Jewish doctors and nurses worked tirelessly in the days after the conflagration to help injured citizens. In Golden Gate Park, where tens of thousands of homeless citizens were temporarily housed in tents for months following the conflagration, a Jewish couple named Victor and Anna Rosenbaum won a city-wide award for having the tidiest domicile. Jewish merchants played a leading role in getting San Francisco back on its feet, setting up a new commercial district along Van Ness Avenue and making Fillmore Street a substitute for Market Street for several years while the Downtown District was rebuilt. The Chicago architect Daniel Burnham had proposed a progressive new street design for San Francisco, modeled after those of Paris and Washington D.C. But Jewish and other merchants were anxious to get back in business and the Burnham Plan was dropped. San Francisco's rabbis were tireless in their relief efforts, and the Jewish community pledged large sums to the city's reconstruction, figuring prominently in its fulfillment. The reconstruction of the San Francisco was also symbolized by the erection in 1912-1915 of a magnificent new Beaux Art neo-Renaissance City Hall, designed by Arthur Brown, who would later design the new Congregation Emanu-El in 1925. The legendary, long-serving Mayor "Sunny Jim" Rolph would attend and speak at the dedications of both buildings.



1907: In San Francisco Jewish businessmen were among those celebrating this morning when the Ferry Building clock which had stopped at 5:12 a.m. a year earlier was started up again



 1911: Birthdate of Maurice Goldhaber, a physicist who delved into the intricacies of atoms and headed the Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island for more than a decade. (As reported by Kenneth Chang)



1913: “Jacob Furth, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Seattle National Bank” was found guilty today of aiding and abetting in a conspiracy to accept deposits from a banker whose bank he knew to be insolvent.



1915: “To-night’s the Night, a musical comedy composed by Paul Rubens” with two songs composed by Jerome Kern opened at the Gaiety Theatre in London for the first of 460 performances.



1915: In New York, Joseph Davidman and Jeanette Spivack who had married in 1909, gave birth to “child prodigy” poet and author Joy Davidman



1919: In London, Lithuanian refugee Rachel Litvin and her husband gave birth to Natasha Litvin who gained famed as pianist and author Natasha Spender the wife of Sir Stephen Spender.



1921(10th of Nisan, 5681): French author and politician Joseph Reinach passed away. Born in Paris in 1856, he had two famous siblings - Salomon and Theodore – who would become well-known in the field of archaeology. After studying at the Lycée Condorcet he was called to the bar in 1887. He attracted the attention of Léon Gambetta by writing articles on Balkan politics for the Revue bleue, and joined the staff of the Republique française. In Gambetta's grand ministère, Reinach was his secretary, and drew up the case for a partial revision of the US Constitution and for the electoral method known as the Scrutin de Liste. In the République française he waged a steady war against General Boulanger which resulted in three duels, one with Edmond Magnier and two with Paul Déroulède. Between 1889 and 1898 he sat for the Chamber of Deputies for Digne. As a member of the army commission, reporter of the budgets of the ministries of the interior and of agriculture he brought forward bills for the better treatment of the insane, for the establishment of a colonial ministry, for the taxation of alcohol, and for the reparation of judicial errors. He advocated complete freedom of the theatre and the press, the abolition of public executions, and denounced political corruption of all kinds. However, he was indirectly implicated in the Panama scandals through his father-in-law, Baron de Reinach; as soon as he learned that he was benefiting by fraud, he made appropriate restitution. Reinach is best known as the champion of Alfred Dreyfus. At the time of the original trial he attempted to secure a public hearing of the case, and in 1897 he allied himself with Scheurer-Kestner to demand its revision. He denounced in the Siècle the Henry forgery, and Esterhazy's complicity. His articles in the Siècle aroused the fury of the anti-Dreyfus party, especially as Reinach was himself a Jew and accused by some of taking up Dreyfus's defence on racial grounds. He lost his seat in the Chamber of Deputies, and, having refused to fight Henri Rochefort, eventually brought an action for libel against him. Finally, when the "Dreyfus affair" was resolved and Dreyfus was pardoned, he wrote a history of the case, completed in 1905. In 1906 Reinach was re-elected for Digne. In that year he became a member of the commission of the national archives, and the following year a member of the council on prisons. Reinach was a prolific writer on political subjects. On Gambetta he published three volumes in 1884, and he also edited his speeches. For the criticisms of the anti-Dreyfusard press see Henri Dutrait-Croyon, Joseph Reinach, historien (Paris, 1905), a violent criticism in detail of Reinach's history of the "affaire."



1926: Release date of “Madame Mystery” co-starring Theda Bara (born Theodosia Burr Goodman)



1931(1stof Iyar, 5691): Rosh Chodesh Iyar



1933: The Jerusalem YMCA, directly opposite the King David Hotel, was opened by Field Marshall Lord Allenby.



1934: Reverend Dietrich Bonhoeffer appears to recognize the threat posed by the Nazis when he writes to a friend today that National Socialism has “brought an end to the church in Germany.’ 



1935(15thof Nisan, 5695): Pesach



1935: Birthdate of Paul A Rothschild record producer who helped to build the Elektra record label.



1938: Today, Hadassah reported contributions totaling $60000 and pledges amounting to an additional $20000 had been made to the YouthAliyahFund



1938: The Palestine Post reported that 16 Arab terrorists, including their leader, Aref Abdul Razzak, had been killed in a battle and scores were wounded. The fighting between the British soldiers and Arab terrorists lasted more than six hours in the notorious "Triangle of Terror" - the hilly region between Nablus, Tulkarm and Jenin. Four Arab prisoners were taken. Only one British soldier was slightly wounded.



1938: The Palestine Post reported that four young Jews, Joseph Rotblatt, 19, Abraham Danielli, 23, David Ben Gaon, 25, and Ze'ev Anav, 24, died in an Arab terrorists ambush attack, while returning in a taxi from Hanita to Nahariya.



1938: The Palestine Post reported that a bomb was thrown into an Arab cafe in Haifa, one person had been killed and eight wounded.



1938: The Palestine Post reported that Eliahu Dawer, 58, was hurt by a bomb thrown at him while leaving the synagogue in Rehov Mea She'arim in Jerusalem.



1938: The Palestine Post reported that the new high commissioner, Sir Harold MacMichael, paid his first official visit to Tel Aviv.



1938: The Palestine Post reported that the public and the press were highly enthusiastic about the visit and the series of festive concerts conducted by Arthuro Toscanini.



1938: Superman, the creation of two Jews from Cleveland – Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster – appeared for the first time in Action Comics No. 1



1939:  Anti-Jewish legislation in Slovakia defines Jews by religion.



1939(29th of Nisan, 5699): Just four weeks before her 65th birthday, American Yiddish theatre start Bertha Kalich passed away today.
http://jwa.org/thisweek/may/17/1874/bertha-kalich



1939(29th of Nisan, 5699): Seventy-seven year old Sir Matthew Nathan a British soldier and diplomat who  “served as the Governor of Sierra Leone, Gold Coast, Hong Kong, Natal and Queensland” passed away in Somerset, UK.
http://www.easter1916.ie/index.php/people/a-z/sir-matthew-nathan/



http://www.facebook.com/pages/Sir-Matthew-Nathan/228561157166481?sk=wall&rf=113712101972648



1940: Birthdate of Joseph Leonard Goldstein, American molecular geneticist. Born in Sumter, South Carolina, Goldstein received his M.D. from University of Texas at Dallas, 1966. He worked as a biomedical researcher at the National Heart Institute and Washington University before returning to the Southwestern Medical School of the University of Texas at Dallas as professor. Goldstein and colleague Michael S. Brown researched cholesterol metabolism and discovered that human cells have low-density lipoprotein (LDL) receptors that extract cholesterol from the bloodstream. The lack of sufficient LDL receptors is a major cause of cholesterol-related diseases. In 1985, Goldstein and Brown were jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.



1941: During World War II, the first British troops from India arrived at Basra.  They were part of the military force that would remove the recently installed pro-Nazi government in Iraq.  The rise of the pro-Nazi Arab government and the subsequent military action taken by the British would literally have deadly consequences for the ancient Iraqi Jewish community 



1942(1st of Iyar, 5702): In the Warsaw Ghetto, 52 people on a wanted list were dragged from their beds and killed. This will become known as "The Night of Blood."



1942: One thousand Jews who left the Theresienstadt Ghetto in Czechoslovakia, by train for a ghetto at Rejowiec, Poland, were diverted to the death camp at Sobibór



1942(1st of Iyar, 5702): The death camp at Sobibor went into operation. To mark the opening 2,500 Jews from Zamosc were transported there and sent to their deaths. Only one was chosen to work and lived. 



1942(1st of Iyar, 5702): Eighty-three year old Moses Montefiore Kursheedt, the husband of Jennie Kurdsheet and the son of Asher and Abigail Kursheedt passed away today.



1942: Pierre Laval became Prime Minister of the French government of Vichy.  The Vichy Government was really little more than a German puppet state.  Laval like many associated with Vichy was an anti-Semite who was only too willing to turn French Jews over to the Nazis even before they asked for them.  Laval was executed at the end of the war.



1943:  Word leaked into the Warsaw Ghetto of German plans for the ghetto's destruction.  This information enabled the ZOB leadership to marshal their pathetic defense force to meet the oncoming might of the Nazi military machine.



1944:  Leonard Bernstein and Jerome Robbins' ballet "Fancy Free" premiered in New York City



1945: General Eisenhower, Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Forces telephoned Winston Churchill to describe the horrific sights that greeted his troops when they entered a concentration camp at Ohrdruf near Gotha. 



1945: A list of 801 Jews, that came to be known as “Schindler’s List” was typed today. The people whose names were listed on the 13 page document were spared from a trip to the gas chamber.  In 2009, employees at the New South Wales State Library found the list in boxes containing German news clippings and manuscripts by the Australian author Thomas Keneally, who wrote the bestselling novel “Schindler's Ark,” which was the basis of the famous film about Oskar Schindler and his efforts to save Jews during the Holocaust.



1945:Robert Limpert, the leader of the anti-Nazi underground in Ansbach, was hung by the Germans for his attempts to get the garrison to surrender to the advancing Allied armies.



1945:Following their liberation inmates Langenstein-Zwieberge, a sub-camp of the Buchenwald Concentration Camp were taken by ambulance to Halberstadt where barracks had been turned into a hospital.



1946:  The League of Nations dissolved itself.  Its services, mandates, and property were transferred to the newly founded United Nations.  Among the mandates transferred was the British Mandate of Palestine.  Dealing with the issues of Palestine would become one of the first major tests for the newly formed UN.  Within two years, the Mandatory Government of Palestine created by the defunct League of Nations would give way to the State of Israel and Arab zone governed by a variety of nations and groups including Egypt, Jordan and the PA.



1947 (5thof Iyar, 5707): Natan Alterman, Israeli poet, playwright, and future winner of the Biliak and Israel prizes wrote,



“Yes, the death cell soared that night.



 At its sight



 The heads of a conquering nation



Caught y the light, like a mouse were drawn back into their holes



Like a thief caught in the act.”



1947: Birthdate of Karen Lehmann, who as Kathy Acker gained fame as author before her death in 1997. She was the  author of “Blood and Guts In High School”



1947 (5thof Iyar, 5707): Boxer Benny Leonard passed away at the age of 51.  Born in 1896, Leonard was the lightweight boxing champion from 1917 to 1925.  This was the heyday of Jewish pugilism with as many as seven Jews holding the championship of different weight categories.  Leonard lost his fortune in the Stock Market Crash.



1948:  Following a failed attempt by the Arab Liberation Army to isolate the Jewish community in the lower quarter of the town of Tiberius, the Haganah went on the offensive and secured the town for the as yet un-born Jewish state.  Most of the local Arab population left with the assistance of British troops and crossed into Transjordan.  The events in Tiberius are part of a tragedy that has been repeated over the decades in Eretz Israel.  Prior to the appearance of the Arab Liberation Army, the local Jewish and Arab populations had worked out a pattern of peaceful co-existence.  Today, commentators would say that outside militants sabotaged local efforts to maintain communal harmony



1949(19th of Nisan, 5709): Leonard Bloomfield passed away.  Born in 1887, Bloomfield was a graduate of Harvard and the University of Wisconsin.  He began his career as Professor of German.  But he gained his greatest fame as a linguist, a field populated by a disproportionate number of Jews. His most famous work was “Introduction to Language” which was re-titled “Language” in subsequent editions.  For many decades, most linguists considered themselves disciples of Bloomfield even if they had not studied with him.



1949(19th of Nisan): Mizrachi leader Rabbi Meir Bar-Ilan passed away today



1953: Birthdate of Actor Rick Moranis, star of Honey I Shrunk the Kids.



1953: A revival of the Rogers and Hart hit musical "Pal Joey" comes to a close.



1954: Colonel Gamal Abdal Nasser seized power and became head of the government of Egypt.  Nasser had masterminded the coup that overthrown King Farouk.  Up until now Nasser had been content to play the role of the “power behind the throne” in the new government created by the military.  At this point in time, he was ready to complete his plans and make himself supreme ruler of Egypt.  He would never succeed in his ultimate goals of destroying Israel which would be his steppingstone to creating a Pan Arab “nation” that would stretch eastward from Morocco. 



1955: Birthdate of banker Amschel Rothschild.



1955(26th of Nisan, 5715): Albert Einstein passed away. Born in Ulm, Germany in 1879, Einstein received the Nobel Prize in 1921 but not for relativity rather for his 1905 work on the photoelectric effect.  In 1920 Einstein's lectures in Berlin were disrupted by demonstrations which, although officially denied, were almost certainly anti-Jewish. During 1921 Einstein made his first visit to the United States. His main reason was to raise funds for the planned Hebrew University of Jerusalem. However he received the Barnard Medal during his visit and lectured several times on relativity. During 1923 he visited Palestine for the first time.  Einstein had planned to come to Princeton in 1932 as visiting lecturer.  With the rise of Hitler, this became a permanent position.  Einstein sent his famous letter to Roosevelt in 1939 warning of the impact of the German's developing the Atomic Bomb.  The result was the Manhattan Project.  Einstein became a U.S. citizen in 1940.  In 1952, Einstein was offered the Presidency of the state of Israel, an offer he declined, in part due to his failing health. Einstein left his scientific papers to the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, a university which he had raised funds for on his first visit to the USA, served as a governor of the university from 1925 to 1928.  The week before he died, Einstein wrote to Bertrand Russell joining him in call for all nations to give up nuclear weapons.  Einstein saw himself as an advocate for international peace and understanding, not withstanding his support for building the bomb during World War II.



1954(15th of Nisan, 5714): The Levin family observed its first Pesach as residents of Washington, DC



1961: Birthdate of columnist John Podhoretz



1963(24th of Nisan, 5723): Former New York Congressman Meyer Jacobstein passed away.



1964: Sandy Koufax became the first pitcher to strike out the side on 9 pitches



1964(6th of Iyar, 5724): Playwright and author Ben Hecht passed away.  Born in 1893 in New York to Russian Jewish parents, Hecht moved to Wisconsin where he went to high school.  Hecht then moved to Chicago where he worked for several newspapers.  His experiences provided the source material for his most famous work, The Front Page which has been made into a movie on three different occasions.  Hecht's criticism of British policies in Palestine and support of the Jewish resistance movement caused that his credits were removed from all films shown in England for some years. In his honor an illegal immigrant ship was named "Ben Hecht". A passionate believer in an independent Jewish state, Hecht advocated swift action to attain this. Hecht passed away at the age of 71.



1965(16th of Nisan, 5725): Second Day of Pesach; 1st day of Omer



1965: A funeral will be held this morning in New York City for “Mendel Osherowtich, a prolific writer of books in Yiddish and a former city editor of The Jewish Daily Forward.”



1966(28thof Nisan, 5726): Yom HaShoah



1966: A fire was discovered at the Jewish Theological Seminary Library when smoke was seen pouring from one of the small upper windows of the JTS library tower at Broadway and 122nd Street in New York City.



1970: “Spirit in the Sky” written and originally recorded by Norman Greenbaum “reached number three in the U.S. Billboard chart.



1972: Birthdate of film director Eli Roth.



1975:Basic Dresses In Sexy Prints And Washable” published today descried Diane Von Furstenberg latest triumph in the field of fashion.



http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=F20817FC385E157493CAA8178FD85F418785F9



1978(11th of Nisan, 5738): On the Hebrew calendar, birthday of the Rebbe.



1978(11th of Nisan, 5738):Education and Sharing Day was inaugurated today by President Jimmy Carter to honor the efforts of Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson’s “efforts for education and sharing for Jews and non-Jews.



1978:The Jerusalem Post reported that in accordance with the Cabinet's decision, the foreign minister, Moshe Dayan, ordered Israeli envoys to explain that Israel regards the UN Security Council's Resolution 242 as a basis of negotiations with all Arab States, including Jordan.



1978:The Jerusalem Post reported that four soldiers were wounded when an Arab assailant threw a Molotov cocktail into a bus on the northern outskirts of Jerusalem.



1978:The Jerusalem Post reported that “Holocaust,” NBC's new nine-and-half-hour TV drama series was reported to have captured the imagination of the American public.



1982: “Two Decades of a Russian Giant” featured reviews of “Tolstoi in the Sixties” by Boris Eikenbaum and “Tolstoi in the Seventies” by Boris Eikenbaum.



1983(5th of Iyar, 5743): Yom HaAtzma'ut



1983: Hundreds of Polish policemen, gathering around the spot from which 400,000 Jews were sent to Nazi death camps in World War II, today blocked an unofficial march called to mark the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto uprising. But more than 1,000 people gathered anyway at a nearby monument.



1984(16thof Nisan, 5744): Second day of Pesach; 1st day of the Omer’



1984(16thof Nisan, 5744): Seventy-eight year old French Torskyite Pierre Frank passed away.



http://www.marxists.org/archive/mandel/1984/04/frank.htm



1986(9th of Nisan, 5746): Marcel Dassault passed away. Born Marcel Bloch to family of Jews from Alsatia, Bloch was a leader in the French aircraft industry.  During World War II Bloch refused to collaborate with the Germans.  He ans his family end up in German concentration camps.  After the war, the family is reunited.  Bloch changed his name to Dassault after World War II.  It was the nomme de guerre of his brother General Paul Bloch who was a distinguished fighter in the Resistance.  You may not know Dassult's name but you know at least of his planes, the famous Mirage which ironically was the backbone of the Israeli Air Force before 1967.



1987: Annette Greenfield Strauss won a run-off to become the first elected woman mayor of Dallas, Texas.



1987: Eighteen members of the pro-Iranian Shiite Moslem Party of God militia were killed early today when they tried to overrun a position jointly manned by Israel and its ally, the South Lebanon Army, north of Israel's border with Lebanon. Four Israelis were wounded in the incident.



1988:  Barbra Streisand recorded "Warm All Over”



1988: The trial of Ivan Demjanjuk which had begun in the Jerusalem District Court  on November 26, 1986, before a special tribunal comprising Israeli Supreme Court Judge Dov Levin and Jerusalem District Court Judges Zvi Tal and Dalia Dorner came to an end.



1990:Following today’s Niebuhr Lecture at Elmhurst College, Franklin Littell wrote that 



“Niebuhr's style as a churchman was vigorous: esteemed for his intellectual leadership, he also worked with labor leaders and liberal and Socialist politicians on many battlelines. He was the leading — and at some points the sole — American theologian to understand the crisis posed by Nazism and to intervene on behalf of the survival of the Jewish people. His sources in Germany — including strong contact with Dietnch Bonhoeffer, and in Europe — including close relations with Visser't Hooft, as well as his excellent network (in good part through his wife, Ursula) with British political and church leaders kept him well informed and deeply concerned. He interpreted the issues in the German Church Struggle (Kirchenkampf) and the Shoah as no other American of his generation, and did so along theological lines that are exciting participants in seminars and conferences fifty years later. He championed the creation of a Jewish state in 1943, publicly criticized the targeting of Jews for Christian conversion in 1958, and maintained lifelong friendships with Jewish peers such as Abraham Joshua Heschel.”



1992(15thof Nisan, 5752): Pesach



1993:Thousands of Holocaust survivors and their families, many of them sobbing audibly, observed the 50th anniversary of the Warsaw ghetto uprising with a memorial service at Madison Square Garden that also honored the memory of the six million Jews who perished in the Nazi concentration camps.



1994: Roseanne Barr filed for divorce today in Superior Court of Los Angeles County.



1996:  During “Operations Grapes of Wrath” Israeli artillery mistakenly shells a UN position killing 102 Lebanese civilians.  The Israelis expressed regret for the loss of life which occurred during an operation intended to destroy Hezbollah bases from which rocket attacks had been launched against Israeli towns in the northern part of the country.



1999; The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including “The Mercy: Poems”by Philip Levine.



1999: An exhibit styled “Sigmund Freud: Conflict and Culture”opens at the Jewish Museum in New York City.



1999: The statue of Saint George fighting a serpent was re-erected in St. Stephen's Park. Many gathered under a sea of umbrellas for the unveiling, on the rainy Sunday morning. Speakers included Holocaust survivor and poet, Gyorgy Somlyo who was saved by Raoul Wallenberg.



2001: On the eve of Holocaust Remembrance Day, President Bush and his wife Laura toured the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.



2001:At Colgate University Barry Strauss, director of peace studies and a professor of history at Cornell University delivered a talk titled "My Grandfather's First World War, and my search to rediscover it," which focuses on the Jewish experiences in the United States army and raise such issues as memory, identity and military service.



2002: Judy Chicago's monumental sculpture "The Dinner Party" was acquired by the Brooklyn Museum.



2003(16thof Nisan, 5673): Second Day of Pesach – 1st day of the Omer



2003(16thof Nisan, 5673): Sixty-one year old French television executive Jean Drucker passed away at Mollégès, France



2003: A display of Marshmallow Peeps at McCaffrey’s Supermarket in Southampton, PA, help to mark the 50th anniversary of this all-American confectionary concoction. Peeps, which originally were in the form of Easter chicks, are a product of Just Born, a candy company started by Russian Jewish immigrant Sam Born who was followed in the business by his son Bob Born and grandson Ross Born.



2004: The New York Times reviewed books by Jewish authors and/or of interest to Jewish readers including 'Stalin' by Simon Sebag Montefiore.



2004: An exhibition entitled “Gate of Death” opens at the Jewish Museum in New York City.



2006:  Prime Minister Ehud Olmert met with his Cabinet to decide on the response to the previous day suicide bombing in Tel Aviv.  The Israeli government response would have to be measured against the fact that the PA government is now controlled by Hamas, an organization that has publicly approved the attack.



2006:  Six of the nine victims of the Tel Aviv terrorist bomb were laid to rest including:David Shaulov, 29, of Holon,. Philip Balasan, 45,. Benjamin Haputa, 47, of Lod, Victor Erez, a 60-year-old taxi driver from Tel Aviv, Lily Yunes, 42, of Oranit, and 31-year-old Ariel Darhi. The two Romanian victims of the bombing, Rosalia Basanya, 48, and Boda Proshka, 50, will be laid to rest in their native country. Their bodies will be returned to Romania after the Passover holiday. There are as yet no details on funeral arrangements for the ninth victim of the attack, named by Israel Radio as French tourist Marcelle Cohen, 75.



2007: Haaretz reported today that Members of the Reform movement accused the former Sephardic chief rabbi of slander for allegedly stating that the Holocaust happened because of the activity of Reform Jews in Germany.

2007: In Chicago,  WBEZ broadcast a program “billed as a vision of peace” but in which the participants engaged “in one-sided propaganda against Israel.”



2008(13thof Nisan, 5768): William Frankel passed away.  Born in 1917, he was the editor of the “Jewish Chronicle and the author of several books including “Friday Nights’ and “Israel Observed.”



2008: Ben Stein’s pseudo-documentary “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed” attacking Darwin’s Theory of Evolution arrives in movie theatres throughout the United States.  The film is being marketed by Motive Entertainment, the same company that promoted Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of Christ.”



2008: During his first papal trip to the United States, Pope Benedict XVI visited a synagogue led by a rabbi who survived the Holocaust. Benedict made a brief stop at Manhattan's Park East Synagogue, whose leader, Rabbi Arthur Schneier, lived under Nazi occupation in Budapest and immigrated to the US in 1947. The pontiff, 80, is a native of Germany whose father was anti-Nazi. Benedict was enrolled in the Hitler Youth as a teenager against his will and then was drafted into the German army in the last months of the war. He wrote in his memoirs that he deserted in the war's last days. It will be the pope's second visit to a synagogue as pontiff. On his first papal trip abroad in 2005, Benedict visited a synagogue in Cologne, Germany, that had been rebuilt after it was destroyed by the Nazis.



2009; In Maryland as part of the Columbia Jewish Congregation’s (CJC) - Seventeenth Season of Movies a screening of “Jellyfish” a Hebrew language film with English subtitles which was a prize winner at the Cannes Film Festival



2009: The Metro Library Network Author Series presents “a conversation” with famed mystery writer, Sarah Paretsky, a native of Ames, Iowa who has talked about what it was liked to grow up Jewish in Kansas, at the Theatre Cedar Rapids in Lindale Shopping Center.



2009(24th of Nisan, 5769):Louis Lowenstein, an influential business law professor and former corporate executive who for nearly three decades dissected the excesses of Wall Street and warned of the dangers of short-term investing, died at his home today at the age of 83. (As reported by Dennis Hevesi)


http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/26/business/26lowenstein.html



2010: A Broadway revival of Jerry Herman’s “La Cage aux Folles” officially opened at the Longacre Theatre



2010: “Alon Nechustan” (A Way In) a modern dance show, whose text and concept were inspired by the Kabbalistic story of the Orchard featuring members of the Avodah dance company, is scheduled to be performed at The LABA Festival 2010 at the 14th Street.



2010: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Crossing Mandelbaum Gate: Coming of Age Between the Arabs and Israelis, 1956-1978 by Kai Bird



2010(4thof Iyar): M. Edgar Rosenblum, an arts executive who helped steer the Long Wharf Theater in New Haven to prominence in the American theater landscape, developing work that traveled to Broadway and elsewhere and that won Pulitzer Prizes and Tony Awards along the way, passed away today at the age of 78. (As reported by Bruce Weber)



2011: A Kassam rocket fired from the Gaza Strip fell in the Sha'ar Hanegev Regional Council this afternoon. Warning sirens sounded prior to the rocket being landing.  No injuries or damage were reported.



2011(14thof Nisan, 5771): Fast of the First Born; Erev Pesach; in the evening, the first Seder Zissen Pesach - זיססען פסח    Chag Samayach - חג שמח



2011: The Immigrant Absorption Ministry will try to set a Guinness World Record tonight by organizing – together with charity Aviv Hatorah – the world’s largest Pesach Seder for some 1,300 recently arrived Ethiopian immigrants living in Tel Aviv.


2011: Noble Energy has awarded the Expro company a $27 million contract to conduct well-testing and provide sub-sea services and equipment aboard the Transocean Sedco Express oil rig for the Tamar natural gas field – and for a deepwater exploration program for the Pride North America – Expro announced today.



2012: Dr. Daniel Rynhold is scheduled to begin teaching Judaism and the American Legal Tradition at the Skirball Center for Adult Jewish Learning



2012: “Standing Silent” is scheduled to be shown at the Westchester Jewish Film Festival followed by a Q&A with Phil Jacobs, Scott Rosenfelt and Gary Rosenblatt.



2012: Miriam Kelemen Solis, who grew up in Budapest, Hungary during the 1930s, is scheduled to speak at tonight’s Yom HaShoah Service at Temple Judah in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.



2012(26thof Nisan, 5772): Hila Bezaleli, a “20-year-old soldier from the Jerusalem suburb of Mevaseret Zion was killed this afternoon when a light rigging system collapsed onto soldiers rehearsing for the Independence Day celebration at Mount Herzl.



2013: Voca People, the Israel based company, is scheduled to perform at Strathmore Music Hall in Rockville, MD.



2013: Daniel C. Kurtzer, the career diplomat who served as U.S. ambassador to both Egypt and Israel is scheduled to speak at the Northern Virginia Hebrew Congregation.



2013: Adam Burstain, one of the finest young members of the Cedar Rapids Jewish community is scheduled to appear in the opening night performance of “Urinetown”



2013: The IPO is scheduled to begin its “Patron Trip To Poland,” “an extraordinary musical and historical experience commemorating the 70th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.



2013: 75thanniversary of the first appearance of Superman, the man of steel created by two Jews from Cleveland.



2013: Paula “Abdul appeared on the Top 5 results show of season 12 of American Idol to compliment contestant Candice Glover on her performance of Straight Up.”



2013: “U.S. Arms Deal With Israel and 2 Arab Nations Is Near” published today described “a $10 billion arms deal with Israel, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/19/world/middleeast/us-selling-arms-to-israel-saudi-arabia-and-emirates.html?hp&_r=1&



2013(8thof Iyar, 5773): Ninety-six year old “Orville Slutzky, who with his brother founded the Hunter Mountain ski resort in upstate New York, known in the 1960s for its celebrity clientele and in the 1970s and ’80s for its unmatched number of snow-making cannons” passed away today. (As reported by Paul Vitello)
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/02/nyregion/orville-slutzky-an-owner-of-hunter-mountain-ski-resort-dies-at-96.html?hpw&_r=1&



2014: Penultimate day for The International Photography Festival at the Carmel Winery in Rishon Lezion



2014: Etan Morel is scheduled to conduct  “Jerusalem of Gold” a walking tour of Israel’s capital inspired by the song of the same name.



This Day, April 19, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. Levin

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April 19



According to one web-site, April 19th is one of the blackest days on the Jewish calendar. From the 11th century (1014) through the 20th century (1943) this date is remembered for the atrocities which took place. Below are a few: )


1014: During a civil war that had broken out between Arabs and Berbers in 1013, the Jews of Cordoba experienced their first massacre today.


1283: Following an accusation of ritual murder (the blood libel) thirty-six Jews were murdered in Mayence (Mainz), Germany,


1283:  On the second day of Easter which coincided with the penultimate day of Passover, a Christian mob attacked the Jews of Mayence (Germany) killing ten and pillaging their homes.  The mob was responding to the discovery of the body of a Christian child and acting out the consequence of the blood libel.  Archbishop Werner tried to stop the mob before they attacked.  His intervention kept the blood bath from being even worse.  The Holy Roman Emperor, Rudolph, conducted an investigation into the affair, confirmed the judgment the mob had passed on the Jews and acquitted the citizens of Mayence of all blame.


1306(4th of Iyar, 5066): The body of Rabbi Meir Ben Baruch was released by the authorities 13 years after his death so that he could receive a Jewish burial Maharam of Rothenburg


1343: A massacre of the Jews in Wachenheim, Germany which had begun before Easter spread to surrounding communities.


1506: During a service at St. Dominic’s Church in Lisbon, Portugal, some of the people thought they saw a vision on one of the statues. Outside, a newly converted Jew-turned-Christian raises doubts about the "miracle." He was literally torn to pieces and then burnt. The crowd led by two Dominican monks proceeded to ransack Jewish houses and kill any Jews they could find. During the next few days, countrymen hearing about the massacre came to Lisbon to join in. Over two thousand Jews were killed during a period of three days ending on April 21.


1566:  Pius V issued “Romanus Pontifex.  After being in office for three months, Pope Pious rejected the lenience's of his predecessor and reinstated all the restrictions that Paul IV had placed on the Jews. These included being forced to wear a special cap, the prohibitions against owning real estate and practicing medicine on Christians. Communities were not allowed to have more than one synagogue and Jews were confined to a cramped ghetto.


1539: Eighty-year old Catherine Zaleshovska was burned at the stake on the order of Bishop Gamrat and with the approval of Queen Bona Sforza for having denied the basic tenants of Christianity after having converted to Judaism.  She had been held as a prisoner for ten years before being murdered. (As reported by The History of the Jewish People)


1670(29thof Nisan, 5430): Moses Samson Bacharach, the chief rabbi at Worms passed away.


1670(29thof Nisan, 5430): Solomon Ben Isaac Marini, “the only rabbi at Padua who survived the plague of 1631” and who wrote a commentary to Isaiah entitled Tikkun Olam in 1652 and who was the brother of Dr. Shabbethai ben Isaac Marini, passed away today.


1771: Maria Theresa granted two Sovereign Licenses to the Jews of Trieste, licenses that constitute real improvement in their economic conditions.


1772:  Birthdate of economist David Ricardo.  Raised as a Sephardic Jew, Ricardo eloped with a woman who was a Quaker.  He later converted and became a Unitarian.


1775:  The Battles of Lexington and Concord with the “Shot heard round the world” marked the start of the American Revolution. Besides the famous Hyam Solomon, “there were hundreds of Jewish soldiers and sailors who fought in the Revolution and patriots who supported it. There was Phillip Russell, a surgeon at Valley Forge; Col. David Franks an aide to George Washington; a “Jew Company, " which fought in South Carolina; Moses Myers, who fought in Virginia; the Sheftall family, which fought and were captured in Savannah. In Manhattan's Chatham Square cemetery, 22 Revolutionary Jewish soldiers lie. Many had sacrificed their lives for their new country. Just like the approximately 500 Americans who were killed or wounded during the three British assaults at Bunker Hill in 1775. (New evidence has surfaced that a Jewish soldier, Abraham Solomon, participated in the Battle of Bunker Hill as a member of Colonel John Glover's 21st Regiment from Gloucester.)”


1776(30th of Nisan, 5536): Rabbi Jacob Israel Emden [Jacob ben Tswi] passed away.  Born at Altona, Germany in 1697 was a scholar and when it came to technology, a modernist since he owned a printing press which he used to print Jewish texts.  For a while he earned a living by deal in jewelry.  He finally agreed to become Rabbi for the community in Emden.  The town supplied his last name in the secular world.  Emden's real claim to fame has to with an inter-communal conflict that seems quite trivial by modern standards.  He passed away at the age of 78.


1810(15thof Nisan, 5570): Pesach


1819: Birthdate of S.L. Schwabacher, the future Rabbi of Odessa, Russia.


1824: Lord Byron, the English poet, passed away.Byron and Isaac Nathan produced Hebrew Melodies,a both book of songs with lyrics written by Lord Byron set to Jewish tunes by Isaac Nathan as well as a book of poetry containing Byron's lyrics alone. It was published in April 1815 with musical settings; though expensive at a cost of one guinea, over 10,000 copies sold. In the summer of the same year Byron's lyrics were published as a book of poems. The melodies include the famous poems She Walks in Beauty, The Destruction of Sennacherib and Vision of Belshazzar.”


1825(1st of Iyar, 5585): Rosh Chodesh Iyar


1839: The Treaty of London establishes Belgium as a kingdom. Jews reportedly had first come to Belgium with the Roman Legions in the first century of the Common Era.  Written evidence dates backs to the 13th century. The community disappeared in the 14thcentury during the Black Death, only to return again in the 16thcentury when those fleeing from the Spanish Inquisition found refuge there.  Brussels and Antwerp were the main centers of Jewish settlement when Belgium gained its independence.  The guarantee of an independent Belgium was a given among European powers.  It would be the Kaiser’s disregard for Belgium’s independence that would seal British entry into World War I which…well we all know where that led.


1848: Anti-Jewish violence broke out in Budapest, Hungary.


1856(14th of Nisan, 5616): Shabbat HaGadol


1859(15thof Nisan, 5619): Five weeks after the Dred Scott Decision strengthened the stranglehold of slavery in the United States, Jews observed Pesach.


1861: 1861: A week after the Civil War began with the Confederate attack on Fort Sumter, "Joseph Friedenwald, a member of a leading Jewish family in" Baltimore, MD was among the six people arrested for attacking Union troops marching through the city on their way to Washington, DC.  Baltimore was a hot-bead of Southern supporters whose attacks on the troops verged on being a riot.


1861: Colonel Henry K. Craig wrote to Major Alfred Mordecai that he "'thought well' of his request for a transfer."  Mordecai was a prominent Jewish officer serving in the U.S. Army who was born in the South.  He was seeking a way to stay in the Army without having to fight against his family and friends.  Before Craig could act, he fell ill and Mordecai's chance for a transfer would go no further.


1864: Before recessing, the New York Assembly passed a bill “relative to the New-York Hebrew Benevolent Society.”

1865: The Sephardim in New York held a special prayer for President Abraham Lincoln who was assassinated as he watched a play at Ford's Theater in Washington DC just five days earlier.


1865: Rabbi Sabato Morais delivered an address at Mikve Israel in Philadelphia following the death of President Abraham Lincoln. “The stillness of the grave reigns abroad. Where is the joyous throng that enlivened this city of loyalty? Seek it now, my friends, in the shrines of holiness. There, it lies prostrate; there, it tearfully bemoans an irretrievable loss, Oh! tell it not in the country of the Gauls; publish it not in the streets of Albion, lest the children of iniquity rejoice, lest the son of Belial triumph. For the heart which abhorred wickedness has ceased to throb; the hand which had stemmed a flood of unrighteousness, is withered in death.´ (As reported by the Jewish Virtual Library)


1865: Birthdate of Chaim Zhitlowsky, Russian born Jewish nationalist, author, critic and champion of Yiddish language and culture.


1866: Jacob and Amalia Freud give birth to Alexander Gotthold Ephraim Freud, a younger brother of Sigmund Freud.


1866: An article published today entitled “Laying the Corner Stone of a New Jewish Synagogue in Thirty-ninth Street” described the ceremonies that took place at the future home Adas Jeshurun, an 80 member congregation  which will be housed on a lot measuring 99 feet by 75 feet.


1871: In New York, the Assembly passed an appropriations bill tonight designed to assist a variety of charitable organizations throughout the state including allocations of five hundred dollars each to the Hebrew Benevolent Society of Albany and  the Hebrew Benevolent Society of Brooklyn


1872: Birthdate of Alice Salomon, German born pioneer social worker, who was forced to flee her native land because of her “German origins.”


1872(11thof Nisan, 5632): Herman Frenkel, who served in the Galician Diet, passed away today.


1872:Benjamin Franklin Peixotto, the U.S. Counsel wrote to the Secretary of State “tahat all the foreign representatives at Bucharest, except the Russians, had signed an address to the government of Prince Charles” expressing their displeasure with the fact that the several Jews had been severely punished while those “who were charged with the gravest excesses and crimes against the Jewish population of Vilcoon” had been acquitted.  “We see in this double verdict an indication of the dangers to which the Israelites are exposed in Romania”


1873(21stof Nisan, 5633): Seventh day of Pesach – 6th day of the Omer


1873(21stof Nisan, 5633): Forty-seven year old British actor and theatre manager, the father of August Harris passed away today and was buried in Brompton Cemetery, London


1876(25th of Nisan): Rabbi Chaim Halberstam of Zanz, author of “Divrei Chaim” passed away today.


1880: It was reported today that the Rabbi Morias has published a paper in the April edition of Penn Monthly about the Falashas, “a small nation of Jews in Abyssinia who do not speak Hebrew.”


1880: Jacob Ezekiel Hyneman was elected first lieutenant in the Veteran Corps of the First Regiment of the Pennsylvania National Guard was formed, Hyneman.  Three years later he would be promoted to the rank of Captain and serve as the quartermaster.


1881: “His Strange and Great Career” published today traces the life of Benjamin D’Israeli starting with the Inquisition and Expulsion from Spain in the 15thcentury.


1881: Benjamin Disraeli, former Prime Minster, 1st Earl Beaconsfield and famous novelist passed away.  Born Jewish, Disraeli was converted to Christianity by his father.  The elder Disraeli was angry with the Jewish community and marched his children to the baptismal font in protest.  The elder Disraeli did not convert.  Disraeli was proud of his Jewish heritage and certainly suffered many anti-Semitic attacks during his career.  In one exchange, he reminded a political opponent that while his ancestors had been drinking blood out skulls, Disraeli’s ancestors had been singing the Psalms of David in the Temple of Solomon.


1882(30th of Nisan, 5642): Rosh Chodesh Iyar


1882: Sarah Lavanburg, the daughter of Hannah (Seller) Lavanburg and Louis Lavenburg married Oscar Solomon Straus who as Sarah Straus would the life companion of one of the great leaders of pre-War Jewish community.


1882 Rabbi Dr. Henry W. Schneeberger married Sarah Nussbaum in New York City. The couple had six children - Fannie, Sigmund, Charles, Philip, Josephine, and Irvin. Sigmund, Charles, Fannie and Josephine never married and were buried in plots adjoining their parents


1882: In response to a suggestion from the Morning Post, large numbers of English men and women wore Primoses today as a way of marking the anniversary of the death of the Earl of Beaconsfield, better known as Benjamin Disraeli.  The flower was a favorite of the famous author and Prime Minister and it was a fitting way of paying tribute to his many contributions.


1882: A private meeting in Berlin raised 70,000 marks which will provide assistance to Jews seeking to leave Russia.  The attendees were urged to show a sense of moderation in the resolutions they adopted on the subject since it appeared that meetings in New York and London held to support the Russian Jews had done “more harm than good.”


1884: In Leadville, CO, Lottie, Eva and Abe Schloss participated in a production of “Patience” at the Tabor Opera House.


1885: “Afghans and Their Home” published today asks if these Asiatic mountain warriors are descendants of the ancient Israelites.


1886(14th of Nisan, 5646): Fast of the first born


1886 (14th of Nisan, 5646): The City and Suburban News column reports that “the Jewish community throughout the world will this evening begin the celebration of Pesach, or the Feast of the Passover.  This festival is also known as the Feast of Unleavened Bread…”


1890: Immigrants, including thousands of Jews from Eastern Europe, arriving in New York began using the Barge Office as a processing center today


1891: Ira Leo Bamberger defeated Ernst Nathan in an election for the presidency of the Hebrew Orphan Asylum Society of Brooklyn


1891: It was reported today that the Hartford Theological Seminary has issued the new Practical Hebrew Grammar by Professor E.C. Bissell.


1891: It was reported today that the Russian government is planning “a fresh campaign against the Jews.”


1891: Based on material that first appeared in the Fortnightly Review, E.B. Lanin described the crumbling economic conditions in Russia.  In response to claims that Jews are at fault for the usurious rates paid by peasants, he writes “Who are the usurers?  The Jews?  They are not for the misery of the peasants is not with the accursed pale.”  The usurer “is not a Jew; he is as orthodox as the Metropolitan Isidore; as loyal as an official of the secret police.”  (The fact that the Jews were not responsible for the suffering of the peasants did not keep the Czar and his cadres from using them as scapegoats.)


1892: As of today, the city of New York is legally bound to furnish water to the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society free of charge.


1896: Herzl's The Jewish State was published.  This is the seminal piece of literature for the modern Zionist Movement.  Known to many by its more famous German title, Der Judenstaat(The Jewish State)is one of the seminal pieces of literature for the modern Jewish Zionist Movement.  "We are a people — one people."  "Palestine is our unforgettable historic homeland. . . Let me repeat once more my opening words: The Jews who will it shall achieve their State. We shall live at last as free men on our own soil, and in our own homes peacefully die. The world will be liberated by our freedom, enriched by our wealth, magnified by our greatness. And whatever we attempt there for our own benefit will redound mightily and beneficially to the good of all mankind."


1896: As of today most of the tickets for the upcoming concert being held for the benefit of the United Hebrew Charities at the Metropolitan Opera House have been sold.


1896: The Union Hebrew Veterans’ Association met at the Grand Opera House in New York City.


1897: The first of Boston Marathons was run. While many Jews have run in the race, none is more famous than the team from the Jewish Special Education Cooperative. Team JSEC ran in the 108th Boston Marathon.  Runners included Dan Rosen, Amira Rosenberg, Josh Rosenberg, and David Katz.



1897: The Civil Service Commission is scheduled to conduct tests for foreign language interpreters including those fluent in Hebrew.



1898: The new temple that is to be built by Congregation of Adath Israel of West Harlem will used plans drawn by Solomon D. Cohen.



1903(22nd of Nisan, 5663): 8th day of Pesacj



1903: Riots broke out after a Christian child is found murdered in Kishinev (Bessarabia). The mobs were incited by Pavolachi Krusheven, the editor of the anti-Semitic Newspaper Bessarabetz and the vice governor Ustrugov. Vyacheslav Von Plehev, the Minister of Interior supposedly gave orders not to stop the rioters. The Jews were accused of ritual murder. During the three days of rioting, 47 Jews were killed, 92 severely wounded, 500 slightly wounded and over 700 houses destroyed. Despite a world outcry, only two men were sentenced to seven and five years in prison, and twenty-two were sentenced for one or two years. This pogrom was instrumental in convincing tens of thousands of Russian Jews to leave to the West and to Eretz-Israel. The child was later discovered to have been killed by a relative.



1908: The New York Times reported that the observance of Holy Week and Passover had cut into the city’s social season.  Activities had been limited to “affairs for charity, and some private bridges and luncheons.”


1908(18thof Nisan, 5668): Sixty-nine year old Charles Hallgarten, one of the four principle partners at Hallgarten & Company passed away.


1908: Organization of the Sons of Zion fraternal order


1908: An article published today entitled “Ceremonies and Customs of the Easter Season” examines the origins and customs of Easter reminding its readers that “our Easter is a successor to the Jewish Passover.”  The article pointed out that “the two are the same in their root; but the opposition of the Christians to the Jews led to a change”  in the Christian celebrations.


1911: On the day on which the completed portions of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine were consecrated The Board of Jewish Ministers sent a congratulatory telegram to Episcopal Bishop Grier. 


1912: In New York events scheduled for tonight celebrating the fifth anniversary of the Free Synagogue are canceled as a sign of mourning for those who were died when the Titanic sank.


1917: During World War I, as the maneuvering continued to try and gain British support for a Jewish homeland, Sir Ronald Graham wrote to Mark Sykes expressing his concern that the Zionist movement was relying too heavily on the hope that British would be annexing Palestine and making it part of the British Empire after the War. 


1917: Founding of the Jewish Welfare Board which was designed “to meet the religious and cultural needs of Jewish personnel in the U.S. military


1919: On the fifth day of Pesach which was also Shabbat Chol Hamoed, the Polish army occupied Vilna and attacked its Jewish community.


1919: The Hebrew Scouts Movement is founded.


1920: In New York City, Harry and Beatrice Kaplan Reinhardt gave birth to Sheldon Reinhardt and his twin brother, Burton “who as the detail-minded, taciturn television executive behind his more extroverted boss, Ted Turner, played a crucial role in the formative years of CNN and the 24-hour cable news cycle. (As reported by Dennis Hevesi)


1920: Birthdate of Kazimierz Smolen, a Roman Catholic Pole who survived  Auschwitz survivor and who after World War II became director of a memorial museum at the site.


1922: Birthdate of New York born American actress Marian Winters


1924(15thof Nisan, 5684): Pesach


1925(25th of Nisan, 5685):Sir David Lionel Goldsmid-Stern-Salomons passed away.  Born in 1851 he “was a scientific author and barrister.” The son of Philip Salomons of Brighton, and Emma, daughter of Jacob Montefiore of Sydney, he succeeded to the Baronetcy originally granted to his uncle David Salomons in 1873. He married Laura, daughter of Hermann Stern, 1st Baron de Stern and Julia, daughter of Aaron Asher Goldsmid, brother of Sir Isaac Lyon Goldsmid by which he had one son and three daughters. He assumed the additional surnames and arms of Goldsmid and Stern in 1899. He studied at University College, London and at Caius College, Cambridge, gaining a B.A. in 1874. In the same year he was called to the bar at the Middle Temple. He went on to produce several scientific works and pamphlets. He was a J.P., D.L. and High Sheriff of Kent, mayor and alderman of Tunbridge Wells, County Councilor for the Tunbridge division of Kent for 15 years and J.P. for London, Middlesex, Sussex, and Westminster. His home north of Tunbridge Wells, Broomhill, is preserved as the Salomons Museum. It is also a part of Canterbury Christ Church University, and is a center for postgraduate training, research and consultancy”

1928: Birthdate of William Klein, the New York of “an impoverished Jewish family” who gained fame as French photographer and filmmaker.


1930: New York Yankee 2nd baseman Jimmie Reese played in his first major league baseball game.


1933: As an expression of Nazi anger over Churchill’s speech warning that the Jews of Poland could suffer the same fate as the Jews of Germany, “a correspondent of the Birmingham Post reported from Berlin that ‘today newspapers are full with ‘sharp warnings for England’ with one headline referring to ‘Mr. Winston Churchill’s Impudence.’”


1934: According to a report by Morton Rotehnberg, President of the Zionist Organization of America, 11,000 German Jewish refugees had entered Palestine from April 1, 1933 through January 1, 1934.  As co-chair of the United Jewish Appeal, Rothenberg is contributions totaling three million dollars to aid the refugees from Germany.”  At the same time, Dr. Arthur Hantke, director of the Palestine Foundation Fund reported that “there is no unemployment.”  There is an “insistent demand for workers” throughout the country meaning that the influx of immigrants will be a net economic gain.


1936 (27th of Nisan, 5696): As Anti-Jewish riots broke out in Palestine Arabs killed nine Jews in Jaffa. Among the victims was Eliezer Bugitsky who was murdered by Sales Hassan and Abu Aabahi. The riots lasted until 1939.  The end product is the White Paper which was intended to put an end Jewish immigration and new land purchases.


1937: Time magazine publishes an article an article about the origins and growth of Hart, Schaffner and Marx as the clothing firm marks its fiftieth anniversary.


1939(30thof Nisan, 5699): Isaac Carasso passed away today in France.  Born in 1874, in what is now Thessaloniki but was then part of the Ottoman Empire, Carasso was part of a promienent Sephardic family.  He practiced medicine in Spain before beginning his studies of the effects of Yogurt on digestion.  In 1919 he founded the company that many Americans recognize as Danon Yogurt


1939: The Mizrachi Women’s Organization of America raised $20,000 at a luncheon at the Waldorf Astoria


1939: The Women’s League of Palestine raised $30,000 at a luncheon at the Hotel Astor.
 
1940: In Sofia, Bulgaria, the governments of Bulgaria and Romania signed an agreement creating an airline which will operate between Sofia and Bucharest with connecting flights to Tel Aviv.


1941: Robert F. Wagner, Sr. introduced a resolution in the U.S. Senate stating that U.S. policy should favor the "restoration of the Jews in Palestine." The resolution was supported by 68 Senators.



1943: Members of Belgium Jewish underground aided by Christian railroad men derailed a train filled with Jewish deportees bound for the extermination camps. Several hundred Jews were saved.


 1943(14th of Nisan, 5703 ) - PASSOVER, WARSAW Ghetto UPRISING; The Jews were determined not to be moved without giving up a fight. 2,100 Germans, fully armed, enter the Ghetto. The Jews fighting force consisted of about 700 men and women.  They were armed with 17 rifles, 50 pistols and several thousand grenades and Molotov cocktails.  A small group of Jewish fighters open fire on the entering German troops. After an hour of skirmishing, the Germans retreated. The final liquidation of the Warsaw Ghetto began on the Eve of Passover, April 19, 1943. The deportation did not come as a surprise. The Germans had amassed a military force to carry it out, but did not expect to engage in a confrontation that included street battles. Armed German forces ringed the ghetto at 3:00 a.m. The unit that entered the ghetto encountered armed resistance and retreated. The main ghetto, with its population of 30,000 Jews, was deserted. The Jews could not be rounded up for the transport; the railroad cars at the deportation point remained empty. After Germans and rebels fought in the streets for three days, the Germans began to torch the ghetto, street by street, building by building. The entire ghetto became a sizzling, smoke-swathed conflagration. Most of the Jews who emerged from their hideouts, including entire families, were murdered by the Germans on the spot. The ghetto Jews gradually lost the strength to resist. On April 23, Mordecai Anielewicz the ZOB commander wrote the following to Yitzhak Zuckerman, a member of the ZOB command who was stationed on the "Aryan" side: "I cannot describe the conditions in which the Jews are living. Only a special few will hold out; all the others will perish sooner or later. Their fate is sealed. None of the bunkers where our comrades are hiding has enough air to light a candle at night.... Be well, my dear, perhaps we shall yet meet. The dream of my life has risen to become fact. Self - defense in the ghetto will have been a reality. I have been a witness to the magnificent, heroic fighting of Jewish men of battle". The rebels pursued their cause, even though they knew from the outset that they could not win. The Jewish underground would continue to fight the Nazis until the middle of May. The Polish underground only gave minimal help because of anti-Semitism prevalent among many. Although the Allies will neither publicize events nor try to help, even before the war ended, the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising became a symbol of Jewish resistance


1943: The Bermuda Conference of Great Britain and the U.S., held in Hamilton, Bermuda, takes no meaningful action to help Jews in Europe. Before the meeting, representatives of both countries had agreed not to discuss immigration of Jews to their nations nor to ship food to Jewish refugees in German-occupied Europe.


1943(14thof Nisan, 5703): Rabbi Menachem Ziemba conducted a Seder tonight in the Warsaw Ghetto days before he would be gunned down the Wehrmacht.


1943(14thof Nisan, 5703):  Members of the military attended a Seder at the Willard Hotel in Washington, D.C.


1944: Birthdate of Yehuda Weinstein, the Tel Aviv born lawyer who became the Attorney General of Israel.


1945: General Bedell Smith, Ike’s Chief of Staff, telephones Churchill to describe the horror that American troops found when they liberated Buchenwald.  Smith assures Churchill that it was worse than the scenes Ike had described in his telegraph of the previous day.


1945:For a second time, General Eisenhower cabledMarshall, Army Chief of Staff, with a request to bring members of Congress and journalists to the newly liberated camps so that they could bring the horrible truth about Nazi atrocities to the American public.


1945: General Marshall received permission from the Secretary of War, Henry Lewis Stimson, and President Harry S. Truman for these delegations to visit the liberated camps


1945: During an afternoon speech in the House of Commons, Churchill describes the horrors discovered by Allied troops at places like Buchenwald and calls for Parliament to send eight representatives to view the camps as the first step in bringing those responsible for these atrocities to justices.


1945: The Rodgers and Hammerstein musical "Carousel" opened on Broadway.


1945: Dr. Rudolf Kastner crossed the Swiss border today.


1946: Bouquets of gladioluses and other flowers from Palestine were present to wounded American soldiers at Halloran General Hospital in Staten Island as a gift of Palestine war veterans in appreciation of the aid the American military gave in the liberation of Europe’s Jews.  The gift was timed to coincide with the Festival of Passover.” The flowers were grown in Mishmar Hasharon a settlement mid-way between Tel Aviv and Haifa.


1946: New York Yankees Pitcher Herb Karpel appeared in his first major league baseball game.


1947:  This evening, The Shanghai Jewish Youth Community Center opened its Warsaw Ghetto Commemoration week with a Yizkor service. 
 
1948: A Palmach unit used Al-Kafrayn for a training base before blowing it up


1949(20th of Nisan, 5709): Reform Rabbi and Zionist leader Stephen Samuel Wise passed away.


1950: At speech given to the Commerce and Industry Association in New York City, Harry A. Shadmon, director of the export division of the Chamber of Commerce of Tel Aviv and Jaffa said that “Israel stands a good chance this year of doubling the $4,500,000 in exports which it sent to the United States in 1949.” The figure for 1949 is especially impressive considering the military challenges the Jewish state was facing for the first six months of that year.


1952: St. Louis Cardinals outfielder Herb Gorman played in his first major league baseball game.


1952(24th of Nisan): Yiddish poet Moses David Gisser passed away in Santiago, Chile


1953(4th of Iyar, 5713): Yom HaZikaron


1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that torches and ceremonies on Mount Herzl had signaled the start of Israel's sixth year of independence.


1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that Yasha Heifetz, the world-famous violinist, whose countrywide concerts schedule included a Richard Strauss violin sonata, cancelled his next recital, as his right hand, struck by an unknown person who opposed playing Strauss and Wagner in Israel, had become painful. Prime minister, David Ben-Gurion expressed his deep regret over this unfortunate incident.


1953: The Jewish Labor Committee adopted a comprehensive program for this year that included a greater effort to obtain fair employment legislation in states and cities, as well as intensified activity to achieve drastic revisions of the McCarran-Walter Immigration Act.


1961: In Manhattan, Borscht Belt comedian Freddie Roman and his wife gave birth to Alan Kirschenbaum a television producer and comedy writer who worked on such shows as "Raising Hope,""My Name is Earl" and "Yes, Dear" (As reported by the LA Times obit staff)


1962(15thof Nisan, 5722): Pesach


1965: Funeral services for the late Mendel Osherowitch are scheduled to take place this morning at 11 am in Manhattan.


1966(29th of Nisan, 5726): Eighty-year old “prize-winning poet, author, translator, historian, and communal leader Emily Solis-Cohen” passed away.

 
1967:The head of the Zionist Organization of America declared today that Israel's hope for increased Western immigration, particularly a large influx of technically skilled young American Jews, could be realized only if Israel "creates the social and economic conditions" to attract it.


1967: Konrad Adenauer former Chancellor of West Germany passed away.  Born in 1876, Adenauer remained in Germany during the war.  He was imprisoned by the government for his anti-Nazi sentiments.  In 1949, he was named Chancellor of the democratically elected West German Government.  Adenauer worked to reshape the role of Germany which included accepting responsibility for de-Nazfication and the role that Germany had played during the war.  He agreed to a program of reparations for the Jewish people and worked to establish harmonious relations with the state of Israel.  He did this in the face of pressure from Arab governments that had a lot more to offer the struggling German economy.


1972: The late Diane Arbus's photographs were chosen to appear in the Venice Biennale, marking the first time an American photographer was honored at the event.


1973:  Barbra Streisand recorded "Between Yesterday & Tomorrow"



1974(27th of Nisan, 5734): Yom HaShoah



1974(27th of Nisan, 5734): Yigal Stavi was killed today when his F-4E Phantom II was shot down today by the Syrians.



1974: Benny Kiryati was taken prisoner when his F-4E Phantom II was shot down today by the Syrians.



1975(8thof Iyar, 5735): Seventy-six year old French author and historian Robert Aron passed  away on the night before he was scheduled to be formally inducted into Académie Française
http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/2929246?uid=3739640&uid=2129&uid=2&uid=70&uid=4&uid=3739256&sid=21101919359323



1976: Birthdate of Rivka Galchen “a Canadian-American writer and physician. Her first novel, ‘Atmospheric Disturbances, was published in 2008.’” She has served as an adjunct professor in the writing division of Columbia University's School of Art



1978: Yitzhak Navron was elected 5th President of Israel.



1978: Fourth and final episode of “Holocaust” an NBC miniseries was broadcast this evening.



1978: Following the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Lebanon after Operation Litani, the South Lebanon Army (SLA) shelled NIFIL headquarters. 



1978: Birthdate of James Franco “an American actor, director, screenwriter, producer, teacher, author and poet.”



1981(15thof Nisan, 5741): Pesach is observed for the first time under President Ronald Reagan.



1985: In a joint ceremony, President Ronald Reagan presented the Congressional Gold Medal to Elie Wiesel and on signed the Jewish Heritage Week Proclamation.
http://www.pbs.org/eliewiesel/resources/reagan.html



1987: Lieutenant General Levi ended his term as IDF Chief of Staff.  The Tel Aviv native joined the army in 1954 and took part in the parachute drop into the Mitla Pass during the 1956 Sinai Campaign.  He passed away on January 8, 2008 (Shevat 1) at the age of 72.



1993: Fifty years after the start of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, Lillian Lazar describes the fight against the Nazis.
http://www.nytimes.com/1993/04/19/us/memories-live-of-warsaw-ghetto-battle.html?pagewanted=print&src=pm



1994:In Riverside Park, as a small group gathered to remember the 51st anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, Ruth W. Messinger's thoughts turned to what was happening in Gorazde. "Remembering what happened in Warsaw helps us express our outrage at what is now happening in Bosnia," said the Manhattan Borough President, referring to the siege of the Bosnian town. Benjamin Meed, another New Yorker, was living just outside the ghetto walls when the rebellion began on April 19, 1943, a Jew with Aryan papers. "For weeks I saw the ghetto burn," said the man who is now the president of the Warsaw Ghetto Resistance Organization in America. "It was terrible. I remember how I watched my neighbors go about their normal lives. There was a carousel outside the ghetto walls that kept going. I cannot forget the bystanders. Now, I cannot believe that after that the world could allow such a thing today." By the time the handful of ghetto fighters had mounted their valiant but hopeless uprising, there were 40,000 Jews left inside the ghetto facing the fatal deportation that had already carried hundreds of thousands to their deaths. Then, news of what was happening did not make its way easily from Warsaw. Word comes more speedily from Gorazde, where there are reportedly 65,000 people huddling in flight from Serbian forces advancing into the city, and United Nations officials have warned of a potential humanitarian catastrophe.



1994: A Tenement Building at 97 Orchard Street, New York City, NY was designated as a National Historic Landmark. “Built between the years 1863-1864, the tenement building at 97 Orchard Street is representative of the first surge in tenement construction in New York City propelled by the need to accommodate the large influx of immigrants that were settling in the Lower East Side during this period. The late nineteenth century saw a precipitous increase in Jewish immigration from Eastern Europe, many of whom settled in the Lower East Side. The building at 97 Orchard Street housed numerous ethnic groups including Germans, Irish, Greek and Spanish, however, the ethnic make-up of the tenement building between 1890 and well into the 1920s consisted entirely of Eastern European Jews. With its upper four floors remaining virtually untouched for sixty years, the building readily conveys to the present-day observer the harsh and confining living conditions experienced by many immigrants in New York City during the latter part of the nineteenth century, and Eastern European Jews in particular. During its period of highest use, as many as 10,000 people may have inhabited the tenement building at 97 Orchard Street.”



1996: Boļeslavs Maikovskis, the Latvian Nazi collaborator who lived undetected in New York for 36 before fleeing back to Europe died today without ever answering for his crimes.



1997: Amid a ballroom filled with local notables, and political dignitaries, the JewishChautauquaSocietyhonored former U.S. Senator Harris Wofford with its National Champion of Interfaith Award. For the JewishChautauquans, who promote public service and interfaith dialogue, the award was especially relevant. Wofford, a Democrat who represented Pennsylvania in the Senate, is the Clinton administration's standard-bearer for volunteerism, the chief executive officer of the Corporation for National Service.



1998:In an article entitled “The World; 50 Years Ago in Israel: Trying to Imagine the Future,” Marc D. Charney traces the history of the Jewish state.  
http://www.nytimes.com/1998/04/19/weekinreview/the-world-50-years-ago-in-israel-trying-to-imagine-the-future.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm



1998: The New York Timesfeatured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of interest to Jewish readers including“The Spanish Inquisition: A Historical Revision” by Henry Kamen,''The Discipline of Hope,'' by Herbert Kohl, and“Bitch: In Praise of Difficult Women” by Elizabeth Wurtzel.



2001(27th of Nisan, 5761): Ninety-year old Obie award winning playwright Lionel Abel “the son of Alter Abelson, a rabbi and poet, and of Anna Schwartz Abelson, a writer of short stories” passed away today.



2001(27th of Nisan, 5761): Forty-five Ornan Yekutieli, a sixth-generation Israeli on his father's side and a second generation Holocaust survivor on his mother's side who was born in Haifa in 1955 and was head of Jerusalem Now faction in the Jerusalem City Council, passed away in New York while waiting for a liver transplant.



2001: President and Mrs. Bush participated in the “Days of Remembrance” Observance in the U.S. Capitol. The President declared, “We are bound by conscience to remember what happened, and to whom it happened.” Mrs. Bush participated in the lighting of candles with a Holocaust survivor.



2001: At Colgate University’s Saperstein Jewish center Barry Strauss, director of peace studies and a professor of history at Cornell University, delivers a talk entitled “Massacre and Memory," followed by a discussion of the 1914 massacre in a small Russian-Polish village, and its after-effects.


2002:This afternoon 250 Jews and 350 Palestinians shouted at each other across Michigan Avenue in Chicago as the Arab-Israel conflict comes to the Windy City.


2004(28th of Nisan, 5764): Yom HaShoah

 

2004(28th of Nisan, 5764): Samuel Ralph "Subway Sam" Nahem a journey-man pitcher who began his career with Brooklyn in 1938 and finished it with the Phillies in 1948 passed away today at the age of 88.  Nahem came from a Jewish baseball family since his uncle was outfielder Al Silvera.


2004: The Jewish Theological Seminary Board of Overseers organizes a fund raiser that features a rare exhibition of original copies of the United States Constitution and Bill of Rights, owned by Dorothy Tapper Goldman. Proceeds from the event will enable JTS to make new acquisitions.


2006: Haaretz reported that a sixteen-year-old tourist from the United States who sustained critical wounds in Monday's suicide bombing was still in serious condition.The teenager was fighting for his life after doctors operated on him most of the night. His injuries were mostly to his stomach and internal organs and his aorta was torn, she said.The American boy's family did not want any details about him released to the media.



2006(21st of Nisan, 5766): Members of Portugal's Jewish community said prayers in a downtown Lisbon square to mark the 500th anniversary of a massacre of thousands of Jews in the Portuguese capital's streets. Chronicles from the time recount that when Catholic crowds, incited by a small group of priests, ran amok for three days in 1506 at least 2,000 Jews were butchered and burnt alive. The violence was said to have broken out after a local Jew questioned the validity of a supposed miracle. Lisbon at the time was gripped by hunger amid a prolonged drought and was threatened by an outbreak of the plague. Locals, encouraged by the Inquisition, sought divine help. About 50 members of Lisbon's Jewish community, estimated to number around 1,000, gathered at dusk in a square next to the Maria II National Theater, which was built on the site of an old Inquisition court. Participants declined to speak to reporters, citing a religious prohibition. Portugal's King Manuel I forced all Jews in his country to convert to Catholicism in 1496. Some fled, but those who stayed were subjected to humiliating public baptisms. They were designated "New Christians" or "Marranos," Iberian slang for pigs. Even then, they remained at risk from religious persecution and lived in designated Jewish quarters. In 1988, Portugal's then-president Mario Soares formally apologized to Jews for the persecution.



2007: The Israel Opera presents the season’s first performance of Richard Strauss’ “Ariadne auf Naxos.”



2007: A four day long International Conference entitled “Children Hidden in Belgium during the Holocaust meeting in Israel comes to an end.



2007: Rosh Chodesh Iyar, first day of the month of Iyar.



2007: The Jerusalem Post reported that a Bible that a condemned member of the pre-state underground gave to his British prison guard minutes before he and a fellow Zionist fighter killed themselves is to be returned by the guard's son in Jerusalem today, six decades later. The saga dates back to 1947, when Meir Feinstein, 19, and Moshe Barazani, 21, were sentenced to death by the Mandatory authorities. Feinstein, of the Irgun, was condemned for his part in the bombing of the Jerusalem train station, and Barazani, of Lehi (the Stern Gang), was arrested with a grenade in his pocket while attempting to kill the city's British military commander. The two men became friends in the Jerusalem Central Prison and decided to blow themselves up rather than be hanged. Feinstein and Barazani formed a connection with a British police guard at the prison, Thomas Henry Goodwin, whom they dubbed "the good jailer." Right before their deaths, Feinstein presented Goodwin with a personally inscribed illustrated Bible. The Hebrew inscription read: "In the shadow of the gallows, 21.4.47. To the British soldier as you stand guard. Before we go to the gallows, accept this Bible as a memento and remember that we stood in dignity and marched in dignity. It is better to die with a weapon in hand than to live with hands raised. Meir Feinstein" A separate, similar English inscription was written below. Minutes later, after asking the guard for a moment of privacy to say a few prayers - thereby saving his life - the two men killed themselves with two booby-trapped oranges they'd hidden in their cell. Goodwin only realized later that there was an inscription for him in the Bible. "There is no doubt that they did not want to injure the guard. This is unequivocal," said Underground Prisoners Museum director Yoram Tamir in Jerusalem. Goodwin returned to the United Kingdom after Israel gained its independence in 1948 and kept the Bible for the next half century. Before his death, he asked his family to return it to the Feinstein family. Several months ago, Goodwin's son Dennis contacted the Prime Minister's Office in Jerusalem seeking to track down Feinstein's family and return the Bible. The Underground Prisoners Museum was able to locate Meir Feinstein's nephew, Elazar Feinstein. Today, Dennis Goodwin will return the Bible to Feinstein at the museum. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert attends the ceremony, which is conducted in cooperation with the Menachem Begin Heritage Center, and under the auspices of the Jewish Agency and the Prime Minister's Office. The Bible will be put on display at the Underground Prisoners Museum. Feinstein and Barazani are buried on the Mount of Olives.



2008: Diversity of Devotion: Celebrating New York’s Spiritual Harmony, an exhibit of photographs on display at the Brooklyn Public Library celebrating Faith in its many forms comes to a close. The Brooklyn Public Library show includes a photograph of Rabbi Levy and Rabbi Eliyahu of Congregation Beth Elohim in Queens taken by photographer and Forward contributor Julian Voloj. The work was drawn from Voloj’s series of photos on black Jews in America.



2008: Palestinian suicide bombers from Gaza drove three explosives-laden vehicles into the Kerem Shalom goods crossing on the border with Israel early today.



2008(14th of Nisan, 5768): Just as it did 65 years ago, the anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising falls on the same day on both the secular and Jewish calendars.



2008(14th of Nisan, 5768): In the evening, the first Seder marks the start of Pesach.



2008:The last surviving leader of the 1943 Warsaw ghetto uprising paid silent tribute to the young Jews who launched the doomed revolt against Nazi troops 65 years ago. Marek Edelman, 89, handed yellow tulips and daffodils to his grandchildren, Liza and Tomek. He watched as they placed them at the foot of the gray-and-black Monument to the Heroes of the Ghetto, located in a barren square at the heart of the former ghetto. Accompanied by a crowd of a few hundred people in wet weather, Edelman, in a wheelchair, moved on to nearby monuments to leaders of the ghetto revolt, before ending in a square where the Nazis put more than 300,000 Jews on trains to Auschwitz and other death camps. At a separate ceremony, members of the Jewish community read out the names of some of those killed in the uprising and then formed a human chain in front of the ghetto heroes' monument, as sirens wailed and military guards fired three rounds of gunfire as a sign of mourning. The uprising was the first act of large-scale armed civilian resistance against the Germans in occupied Poland during World War II. The Nazis walled off the ghetto in November 1940, cramming 400,000 Jews from across Poland into it, under inhuman conditions. On April 19, 1943, German troops started to liquidate the ghetto by sending tens of thousands of its residents to death camps. In the face of imminent death, several hundred young Jews took up arms in defense of the civilians. They held off German troops for three weeks with homemade explosives and a cache of smuggled weapons. The uprising ended when its main leaders - rounded up by the Nazis - committed suicide on May 8, 1943. The Nazis then razed the ghetto, street by street. Today’s commemorations followed official events held Tuesday, to avoid coinciding with the Jewish Sabbath. President Lech Kaczynski of Poland and President Shimon Peres of Israel led those observances.



2009: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readings including “Shadow and Light” by Jonathan Rabbn, “How Free Is Free? The Long Death of Jim Crow” by Leon F. Litwackand the recently released paperback edition of “Maps and Legends: Reading and Writing Along the Borderlands” byMichael Chabon.



 2009: At NYU’s Bronfman Center for Jewish life people from all over New York City join in “Sing Out Israel,” an event featuring familiar Israeli and Jewish tunes.



2009:A.B. Yehoshua, the award-winning Israeli author, reads from and discusses his most recent novel, “Friendly Fire,” and chats about his life as a writer and his thoughts on Israel in a conversation with Leon Wieseltier, at the Sixth and I Historic Synagogue in Washington, D.C.



2009:The Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center opened today under rainy skies, with several thousand people seated beneath large tents, their enthusiasm shown in a standing ovation for survivors.

2010: As part of its Graduate Seminar Program, The Center for Jewish History is scheduled to present a program entitled “‘Gentleman's Agreement’ and ‘Crossfire’:  Anti-Semitism at the Movies”


2010: Terminal 5 is scheduled to host New York’s community-wide Yom Ha'Atzmaut celebration honoring Israel's fallen and celebrating 62 years of independence at what is described as the largest Yom Ha'Zikaron/Yom Ha'Atzmaut gathering in the world outside of Israel!
 
2010(5th of Iyar, 5770): Yom Hazikaron


2010(5th of Iyar, 5770):Felicia Haberfeld, a native of Poland who fought to reclaim her husband's ancestral home in Auschwitz decades after it was seized by the Nazis, died today at the age of 98 in Los Angeles. http://articles.latimes.com/2010/may/01/local/la-me-felicia-haberfeld-20100501

2010: The State Department summoned the senior Syrian diplomat in Washington to accuse his government of "provocative behavior" in supplying scud ballistic missiles to Hezbollah.


2011(15 Nisan, 5711): Second Day of Pesach


2011: In the evening Second Seder.  Somewhere a person with roots in the Gibraltar Jewish Community will say “Todo el que tenga hambre, venga y coma, todo el que tenga menester, venga y pascue” (Anyone who is hungry come and eat; all who have need, come and celebrate) as they follow that community’s custom of reciting the Haggdah in Ladino for the Second Seder.


2011: In the third such attack in Greece in less than 2 years, arsonists break into Corfu island synagogue and damage at least 30 prayer books.

 

2011: Steve Soboroff was hired by Frank McCourt to be the Vice Chairman of the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball team. (Soboroff was Jewish)


2012(27th of Nisan, 5772): Yom Hashoah


2012: “Spoken Word and Music Performance” a Holocaust Remembrance Day observance co-sponsored by La Maison Francaise is scheduled to take place at the Embassy of France in Washington, D.C.


2012: Holocaust survivor and Director of the ADL, Abraham Foxman is scheduled to appear at the Illinois Holocaust Museum’s Yom Hashoah memorial event.


2012:Yad Vashem will publish thousands of new documents today gleaned from national and KGB archives from the former Soviet Union on this year’s Holocaust Remembrance Day.


2012:” Remembrance” a film that depicts a love story between a German Jew and a

Polish Catholic that blossomed amid the terror of Auschwitz in 1944 is scheduled to be shown at the Westchester Jewish Film Festival.



2012: The world’s most wanted living Nazi collaborator is Laszlo Csatary, the Simon Wiesenthal Center said in its annual report today (As reported by Gil Shefler)


2012:Left-wing extremists defaced three monuments to Israeli terror victims and fallen members of the security services in the Jordan Valley, police discovered today, just one week before Israel honors its war dead.


2012: Irwin M. Jacobs “was named the W. P. Carey School of Business Dean’s Council of 100 Executive of the Year, which honors change-making business leaders who serve as models for today’s business students”


2012: Yad Vashem is scheduled to publish “thousands of new documents gleaned from national and KGB archives from the former Soviet Union on this year’s Holocaust Remembrance Day. The new archival material – totaling approximately one million new documents – is available following several international agreements made in the past four years with national archives and those with the KGB from the former USSR.”


2013: The Maccabeats are scheduled to perform at a Shabbat Event at the University of Illinois sponsored by Chabad.


2013: “No Place on Earth” is scheduled to premiere in Portland, Oregon and Chicago, Illinois.


2013(9th of Iyar, 5773): Ninety-two year old Francois Jacob, the recipient of the 1965 Nobel Prize in Medicine passed away today.


2013(9th of Iyar, 5773): Eighty-year old computer and math wizard Kenneth I. Appel passed away today.

 
2013(9th of Iyar, 5773): Ninety-five year photographer turned actor Allan Arbus best known for his role as the quirky psychiatrist on “M*A*S*H,” passed away today.


 
2013(9th of Iyar, 5773): Eighty-three year old children author and illustration E. L. Konigsburg passed away today.


2013: A dinner to help raise funds for research on treating Glycogen Storage Disease, a rare Ashkenazi Jewish liver disorder is scheduled to be held at the Coral Springs Marriott.


2013: On the secular calendar, 70th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising


2013: A complex $10 billion arms deal in its final stages would strengthen two key Arab allies – the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia - while maintaining Israel's military edge, US defense officials said today.


2013: Following the public outrage over a debt arrangement between Bank Leumi and tycoon Nochi Dankner’s Ganden Holdings Ltd., the bank announced this afternoon that it was backing out of the arrangement.


2014: “The Last Act of Lilka Kadison” is scheduled to have its final performance today at the Falcon Theatre in Burbank


2014: In Poland, observance of Holocaust Remembrance Day which coincides with the anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.


2014: “Paris-Manhattan” is scheduled to be shown at the JCC Rockland International Jewish Film Festival.


 

This Day, April 20, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. Levin

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April 20


121:  Birthdate of Marcus Aurelius 16th Roman emperor.  The “Philosopher” Emperor reigned from 161-180 and he was a cut above those who came before and after him.  But he had a low opinion of the Jews, referring to them as “stinking and tumultuous” as “he rode through Judea.”  He reportedly preferred the company of the barbaric Teutons in the north to that of the Jews.  This attitude may have been shaped by the difficulty the Romans had in defeating the Jews during their successive rebellions against Rome.  Only 25 years before Marcus Aurelius came to power, it had taken the full force of the Roman Empire four years to finally defeat Bar Kochba and Rabbi Akiva.


570: Birthdate of Muhammad or Mohammad, the founder of Islam.


636:  At the Battle of Yarmuk the Arabs took control of Syria and Palestine away from the Byzantine Empire. It is considered by some historians to have been one of the most significant battles in the history of the world, since it marked the first great wave of Muslim conquests outside Arabia, and heralded the rapid advance of Islam into Christian Palestine, Syria and Mesopotamia.  The battle took place only four years after the prophet Muhammad died in 632.  Considering the way the Christians had been treating them, the conquest by the Arabs left the Jews in a comparatively better position.


1096: Approximately 40,000 peasants led by Peter Hermit left Cologne on the start of what was called the “Peasants’ Crusade.”  This populist movement among the poor was the most ill-fated part of the First Crusade.  The peasants had nothing and trusted in God to provide for them. This meant living off of the land which would bode ill for those in their path including the Jews of the Rhineland.


1191: Phillip II, who expelled the Jews from France in 1182 after extorting as much money as he could from them, arrived at Acre to perform his holy Christian obligation to take part in the Crusades.


1192: As the Christians jockey for control over the Holy Land, Richard I of England gives his support to Conrad of Montferrat’s claim to be King of Jerusalem.


1298:  In Rotttingen, a small German town in Franconia, a local noble named Rindfleish, accused the local Jews of profaning the host. He then incited the Burgher and local populace to join in the killing. Twenty one Jews were murdered. The killing soon spread to a hundred and forty communities in Bavaria and Austria. In all tens of thousands of Jews were either killed or wounded.  The killing stopped when the civil war raging through Germany ended.  Albrecht, the newly chosen Emperor, brought an to the end of the violence and even punished some the participants.



1303: Pope Boniface VIII issues the bull creating The University of Rome La Sapienza. Considering the fact that Boniface believed in the concept that “Outside the Church, no Salvation” meaning that the key to salvation required membership in the Catholic Church, it is safe to assume that there were no Jewish students or faculty at the school.  Relations between the Jews and the school have obviously changed as can be seen by the “wide-ranging cooperation agreement” that was signed by Tel Aviv University and Rome's Sapienza University in March of 2010. The agreement, allows for exchanges of students and professors, as well as joint research projects and master's programs. The Italian economist Franco Modigliani and Zionst Ze'ev Jabotinsky were two of the most prominent Jews to attend the University of Rome during the 20th century.



1314: Pope Clement V passed away.  Clement was the first of the “Avignon Popes. In the first year of his reign, 1305, he became the “first pope to threaten Jews with an economic boycott in an attempt to force them to stop charging Christians interest on loans.”



1344(28thof Nisan, 5104): Levi Ben Gershon (the RaLBaG) also known as Gersonides passed away.




1505: Philibert of Luxembourg expelled the Jews from Orange Burgundy. At this time Luxembourg is ruled by Phillip the Fair, King of Spain - where Jews had been expelled in 1492.  Phillip's mother was Marie of Burgundy.  In this case the Jews merely seemed to have gotten caught up in the dynastic swirl that was so much of European History prior to the French Revolution.



1615:  Led by Dr. Chemnitz, the guilds of Worms "non-violently" forced the Jews from the city. Chemnitz was a lawyer and he devised a series of schemes where the Jews were deprived of food and the ability to leave and enter the city.  A deputation came to them on what was the seventh day of Pesach and gave them an hour to leave the city.  As the Jews left, the thousand year old synagogue and the adjacent burial grounds were attacked and desecrated by the "non-violent" citizens of Worms, Germany.



1632(29th of Nisan): “Nicolas Antione, a convert to Judaism, was burned at the stake in Geneva



1657:  After a battle of almost two years Asser Levy one of the original 23 settlers was allowed to serve on guard duty. Levy had been denied the right to serve, having been told to pay a tax instead.  This was the European Way of doing things.  Levy would have none of it.  Serving guard duty marked him as a full-fledged citizen.  It was an early indication that the New World would indeed be a new world for the Jews. Levy who was the ritual slaughterer of the town opened his slaughterhouse on what is now Wall Street. He further petitioned to be allowed the rights as a Burgher or freeperson on the town, which he received albeit reluctantly by the burgomasters of New Amsterdam.



1728:The London Gazette reports that twelve individuals (including four Jews) who had been previously captured by Moroccan pirates are now released under a new peace treaty between England and the Emperor of Morocco. Rachel, David, and Raphael Franco along with Blanco Flora had been captured while en route from London to New York. The Gazettereports that they were returned to England on "His Majesty's Ship Monmouth." Interestingly enough, though the other victims are listed by name and nationality i.e. William Pendergrass/English, Joseph Patroon/Spanish, Alboro Tordaselas/Gibraltar— the four Jews (Rachel, David and Raphael Franco, and Blanco Flora), are listed as "Jews," under nationality. These events of 1728 preceded the era of Jew Bills and the civil and religious liberties of Jewish people were far from secure. They were indeed people without a country. Our research shows the Franco family to be of Portuguese/Sephardic extraction, who generations before undoubtedly fled the Inquisition of Portugal. Raphael Franco became a powerful merchant in the diamond and coral trade operating between India, Brazil and England.



1772(17thof Nisan, 5532): Third day of Pesach



1772(17thof Nisan, 5532): Israel Ben Moses Ha-Levi Zamosz, a Polish born Talmudist who wrote on both religious and secular subjects passed away today at Brody


http://www.yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Zamosc_Yisrael_ben_Mosheh_ha-Levi



 

1777: At Kingston, NY, during the American Revolution the New York Convention voted to guarantee the free exercise of religion



1799(15thof Nisan, 5559): Last Pesach of the 18th century.



1799: In a proclamation, a copy of which is quoted below, Napoleon "promised" the Jews of Eretz Israel the "reestablishment of ancient Jerusalem", coupled with a plea for their support. This was the first promise by a modern government to establish a Jewish state. In 1799, the French armies under Napoleon were camped outside of Acre. Napoleon issued a letter offering Palestine as a homeland to the Jews under French protection. The project was stillborn because Napoleon was defeated and was forced to withdraw from the Near East. The letter is remarkable because it marks the coming of age of enlightenment philosophy, making it respectable at last to integrate Jews as equal citizens in Europe and because it marked the beginning of nineteenth century projects for Jewish autonomy in Palestine under a colonial protectorate. After the defeat of Napoleon, it was largely the British who carried forward these projects, which have in hindsight been given the somewhat misleading name of "British Zionism." Napoleon conquered Jaffa but retreated from Acco (Acre); Napoleon's Proclamation of a Jewish State was stillborn, and his declaration of equal rights for Jews was repealed in part in 1806.



Letter to the Jewish Nation from the French Commander-in-Chief Bonaparte issued at General Headquarters, Jerusalem 1st Floreal, April 20th, 1799, in the year of 7 of the French Republic by BUONAPARTE, COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF OF THE ARMIES OF THE FRENCH REPUBLIC IN AFRICA AND ASIA, TO THE RIGHTFUL HEIRS OF PALESTINE.
 



Israelites, unique nation, whom, in thousands of years, lust of conquest and tyranny have been able to be deprived of their ancestral lands, but not of name and national existence!
Attentive and impartial observers of the destinies of nations, even though not endowed with the gifts of seers like Isaiah and Joel, have long since also felt what these, with beautiful and uplifting faith, have foretold when they saw the approaching destruction of their kingdom and fatherland: And the ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads; they shall obtain joy and gladness and sorrow and sighing shall flee away. (Isaiah 35,10) Arise then, with gladness, ye exiled!  A war unexampled In the annals of history, waged in self-defense by a nation whose hereditary lands were regarded by its enemies as plunder to be divided, arbitrarily and at their convenience, by a stroke of the pen of Cabinets, avenges its own shame and the shame of the remotest nations, long forgotten under the yoke of slavery, and also, the almost two-thousand-year-old ignominy put upon you; and, while time and circumstances would seem to be least favorable to a restatement of your claims or even to their expression ,and indeed to be compelling their complete abandonment, it offers to you at this very time, and contrary to all expectations, Israel's patrimony! The young army with which Providence has sent me hither, let by justice and accompanied by victory, has made Jerusalem my head-quarters and will, within a few days, transfer them to Damascus, a proximity which is no longer terrifying to David's city. Rightful heirs of Palestine! The great nation which does not trade in men and countries as did those which sold your ancestors unto all people (Joel,4,6) herewith calls on you not indeed to conquer your patrimony ;nay, only to take over that which has been conquered and, with that nation's warranty and support, to remain master of it to maintain it against all comers.
Arise! Show that the former overwhelming might of your oppressors has but repressed the courage of the descendants of those heroes who alliance of brothers would have done honor even to Sparta and Rome (Maccabees 12, 15) but that the two thousand years of treatment as slaves have not succeeded in stifling it. Hasten!, Now is the moment, which may not return for thousands of years, to claim the restoration of civic rights among the population of the universe which had been shamefully withheld from you for thousands of years, your political existence as a nation among the nations, and the unlimited natural right to worship Jehovah in accordance with your faith, publicly and most probably forever (JoeI 4,20).



1808: Birthdate of Louis-Napoleon.  A nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte, he became Napoleon III, Emperor of France from 1852 to 1871. On July 19, 1870, Napoleon IIIdeclared war on Prussia in what is known as the Franco-Prussian War. A number of Jews, including Jules Moch and Leopold See, attained high rank in the French army. See later became Secretary General of the Ministry of the Interior. The war also marked the beginning of Rabbis serving as chaplains in the German army. After the War the region of Alsace and part of Lorraine became annexed to Germany. Many Jewish families preferred to emigrate rather than be under German rule.


1814(30thof Nisan, 5574): Rosh Chodesh Iyar


1814(30thof Nisan, 5574): Thirty-four year old “Jewish writer, teacher, translator and publisher” Moses Philippson passed away today at Desau.


1832: Congress established a park at Hot Springs, Arkansas when it designated itsfamous natural springs as a natural resource preserve as people from around the country flocked to the 143 degree water as a medical treatment for arthritis and other bone ailments. Jews were connected with Hot Springs from its earliest day.  Jacob Mitchell, a Jewish immigrant from Galicia, arrived in Arkansas in 1830 along with his two brothers.  Mitchell somehow acquired an old Spanish land grant to a portion of the springs, and he and his heirs spent the next forty years unsuccessfully fighting the federal government in court over their rights to the springs. Regardless of the status of the litigation, Mitchell became an active part of the city’s commercial scene when bought a hotel in Hot Springs in 1846 and opened a bath house.


1837(1th of Nisan, 5597): Jews observe Pesach for the first time with Martin Van Buren as President of the U.S.


1838:Charlotte Beyfus married German banker Abraham Oppenheim.


1851(18thof Nisan, 5611): 4th day of Pesach


1851(18thof Nisan, 5611): Isaac Erter, the native of Galicia who gained fame as a physician and satirist passed away today at Brody.





1856(15th of Nisan, 5616): First Day of Pesach


1861, Joseph *Seligman was vice president of a Union meeting held at Union Square on this date. His firm, J. and J. Seligman & Co., sold federal bonds in the astonishing sum of $200,000,000.


1861: In Baltimore, MD, a pro-Southern mob attacked the printing shops that produced Der Wecker and Sinai, two "abolitionist publications.  Rabbi Einhorn, an out-spoken foe of slavery, felt threatened enough to agree to the request of his congregation that he leave the city.  Einhorn would move to Philadelphia where he would resume publishing the Sinai.


1865: “An estimated 25 million Americans attended memorial services for Abraham Lincoln in Washington and around the country.” In New York several synagogues held well-attended services in memory of the recently assassinated President. At Shearith Israel, after the choir sang a variety of Psalms, Rabbi J.J. Lyons “delivered a short but eloquent address, in which he frequently” referred “to the qualities of the man and the unswerving loyalty and honesty of the statesman, whose loss they were…suddenly called upon to mourn.”  This was followed by a recitation of the Kaddish and “a special prayer for the recovery of Secretary of State Seward who had been wounded on the same night that Lincoln had been killed. The service ended with a prayer for “ the future prosperity of the country” and the chanting of psalms by the choir.  At B'nai Jeshurun, the chanting of Psalms was followed by a Dr. Raphael’s sermon in which he praised the virtues of the slain President.At the Broadway Synagogue, the chanting of opening hymns was followed by a prayer for the government before the opened Ark and a sermon by Rabbi S.W. Isaacs based on Genesis, chap. xv., v. 1: "Fear not, Abraham; I am thy shield. Thy reward shall be exceedingly great.'' Services were also held at several other synagogues including the Norfolk Street Synagogue, the Greene Street Synagogue and Temple Emanu-El. The neat little synagogue of the Congregation Sheary Berochole, in East Ninth-street, was the scene of very impressive ceremonies. At noon, the building was filled to overflowing with a very respectable audience, mostly dressed in deep mourning, to participate in the services commemorative of the death of Mr. Lincoln arranged by the congregation. After reciting Psalms 1, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 10, the Kadish, or prayer for deceased persons, was said, and the Minchah Prayer intoned, at the close of which Rev. H. WASSERMAN delivered the funeral sermon. His text was from Isaiah 44, 7: "For a small moment I have forsaken thee, and all forsook thee." The tenor of his discourse was the necessity of trusting to the goodness of God, however mysterious his providences may seem. He exhorted all to imitate the honesty, charity and good will to all men which had distinguished the life and character of our deceased President. The Hebrew prayer for a deceased father was then said, coupled with an exhortation for the recovery of the Secretary of State and his son was then said, and after the recitation of five psalms, the congregation dispersed.


1866: In a plebiscite, Charles was elected in a near unanimous vote to serve as King of Romania. His government would not prove to be a protector of its Jewish citizens.


1867(15th of Nisan, 5627): Jews living in Alaska celebrate Pesach for the first time as U.S. citizens since the U.S. had purchased Seward’s Folly 30 days ago.


1871(29thof Nisan, 5631): Polish author Jacob Tugenhold who was born near Krakow and who founded a “modern Jewish school” in Warsaw, passed away today.


1874:Di Yidishe Gazeten, first influential Yiddish newspaper in the United States began publication today.


1875(15th of Nisan, 5635): Pesach


1875: Birthdate of Edouard Alexandre de Pomiane, also known as Edouard Pozerski author of the 1929 epic “The Jews of Poland: Recollections and Recipes” who passed away in 1964


1879: According to the report made by Superintendent Louis today, the Brooklyn Hebrew Orphan Asylum was home to 10 children, eight of whom were boys and two of whom were girls, ranging in age from three and half years to ten years.


1882(1st of Iyar, 5642): Rosh Chodesh Iyar


1882:  J. A. Engelbart presided over tonight’s meeting of a committee formed “raise money to feed and shelter Jewish refugees from Russia and to aid them in finding home in” in the United States.  The meeting was held at B’nai Jeshrun.  Among the attendees were Rabbi Henry S. Jacobs and Dr. Simeon N. Leo.


1882: It was reported today that a dispatch from St. Petersburg “states that the persecution of the Jews continues” unabated.  At least 17,000 Jews have been left homeless after villages in Southern Russia were destroyed.


1882: “Current Foreign Topics” published today described a private meeting that had been held in Berlin to provide assistance for Jews who wished to leave Russia.  The attendees pledged seventy thousand marks to assist in the endeavor.


1883(13th of Nisan, 5643): Ninety-one year old Asher American, who had served as the Assistant Reader at congregations on Norfolk, Stanton and Sixth Streets passed away tonight.


1883: It was reported today that The Cleveland Herald has been interviewing the city’s Jewish clergy on the possibility of Jews returning to Palestine.  Rabbi Hahn considers the idea as being impracticable and feels that “the Jewish people…are a great deal better off here than they could possibly be there.”  Rabbi Lane echoes these sentiments and “is most strongly opposed to …immigration schemes.”   The Herald believes “that these gentlemen speak the prevailing sentiment” of the Jewish people.


1884: According to “The Relations of Animal Diseases to the Public Health and Their Prevention” by Frank S. Billings which was reviewed today’s New York Times, the author  “quotes the Hebrew legislator who forbade pork as food for the chosen people of the Lord.  Moses did this with a knowledge of its ‘non- hygienic character.”


1884(25th of Nisan, 5644): Dr. Lyon Berhard, one of the oldest dentists in New York passed away today in Manhattan.  Born in Amsterdam in 1812 and a graduate of the Baltimore College of Dentistry, he came to New York 42 years ago.  He was a founding member of B’Nai  Israel and was an active member of the Hebrew Mutual Benefit Society.


1884: Rabbi Gustav Gottheil, Rabbi Kaufman Kohler and Joseph Blumenthal were among the attendees at a reception given at the new building of the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society.  The building which is located at Avenue A and 87th Street was originally built for the use of the late John Jacob Astor.


1886(15th of Nisan, 5646): First Day of Pesach


1888: It was reported today that in Jacksonville, FL, Rabbi of Levy of Charleston, SC had presided at the marriage of Susie Jacoby of Charleston to Mose J. Ullman of Evansville, Indiana.


1888:  The Jewish Messenger reports that Orach Chaim has contributed support for a New York City Chief Rabbi. "This action is the more significant as it is the first uptown congregation to join the downtown contingent and mostly composed of Germans while the other uptown orthodox congregations are mostly composed of the Polish element."


1888((9th of Iyar): Russian born philanthropist Samuel Poljakoff passed away.


1889: Birthdate of Otto Heinrich Frank, father of Anne Frank. Frank survived the Holocaust and passed away in 1980.


1889: Birthdate of Adolph Hitler


1889: Birthdate of Albert Jean Amateau,rabbi, businessman, lawyer and social activist.
Born a Sephardic Jew in Milas, Turkey, Amateau attended the American International College in Izmir (Smyrna), Turkey. He immigrated to the United States in 1910. In the early 1920s, Amateau began a movement to bring more Jews into the workplace and government. He was also involved largely in the affairs of deaf people. After he returned from the Army (he served in World War I), Amateau was ordained in 1920 at the Jewish Theological Seminary, and he became the first rabbi of a congregation of the deaf. In 1941, Amateau developed the Albert J. Amateau Foreign Language Service, a business providing translators for lipsync dubbing for motion pictures. The business continued in operation until 1989. An ardent supporter of his homeland of Turkey, Amateau began various Turkish-oriented organizations while residing in the United States. In 1992, at the age of 103, he helped found the American Society of Jewish Friends of Turkey and was named as its president. Amateau was also an advocate of peace, and in 1937, he assisted with negotiations between Jews and Arabs of Palestine. Amateau died in 1996 at the age of 106 years, 10 months.


1890(30th of Nisan, 5650): Rosh Chodesh Iyar


1890: It was reported today that strikers in Austria are trying to turn the labor unrest  “into an anti-Jewish crusade.  Many of the mill and mine owners in the region are Jewish and the Rothschilds own the largest iron and steel works at Witkowitz.  The strikers have turned their fury on the local Jewish merchants and their attacks have left several hundred Jewish families “camping in the fields in utter destitution.


1891: A fire broke out in a tenement house at 194 Henry Street which is home to a large number of Russian Jews.

1893(4thof Iyar, 5653): Dr. Wilhelm Lowenthal, “the Jewish scientist who had been invited to Argentina in 1890 to share his technological expertise on agricultural matters” and who “persuaded Baron de Hirsch to fund the Jewish Colonization Association (JCA) to aid Jewish settlers in Argentina” passed away today.


1894(14th of Nisan, 5654): An article entitled “Festival of the Passover” states that “Pesach, the Jewish festival of the Passover, begins the evening and continues for a week.”  Furthermore, “the households of the Orthodox and many of those who have accepted the modern or reformed” customs will host a Seder.


1895(26thof Nisan, 5655): Joseph Heiman Caro, author of Ṭevaḥ ṿe-hakhen (טבח והכן: כל דני שחיטות ובדיקות) passed away today


1895: The Hebrew Orphan Asylum Band performed at the Odd Fellows’ Home Fair which is being held at the Lenox Lyceum.



1896: “A Precious Privilege Retained” published today described a declaration published by the anti-Semitic German “National” Students at the University of Vienna stating that “they would henceforth refust to accept challenges from the Jewish Students’ Corps, as they would think themselves defiled if they fought them.”  The Rector refused to respond to an appeal from the Jewish students asking that this declaration be overturned. According to some observers, the German students’ declaration is rooted in the fact that the Jews have defeated them whenever a challenge was made and accepted.



1899: Testimony continues to be given before the Court of Cassation in the Dreyfus revision inquiry.



1900: Max Nordau introduced Herzl to Alfred Austin who gives him a friendly letter to Lord Salisbury, the British Prime Minister. Herzl sought British support in his attempts to persuade the government at Constantinople to allow the development of a Jewish homeland. . Salisbury did not receive Herzl "on account of the war worries".



1905(15thof Nisan, 5665): As Russia confronted its defeat by the Japanese and the violence of the Russian Revolution, the Jews observe Pesach.



1908: Birthdate of Yisrael Yeshayahu Sharabi, a native of Sa’dah , Yemin, who make aliyah in 1929 and eventually became the fifth Speaker of the Knesset.



1912: Birthdate of David Ginsburg, “a liberal lawyer and longtime Washington insider who helped found the Americans for Democratic Action and led the presidential commission on race relations whose report, in 1968, warned that the United States was ‘moving toward two societies — one black, one white, separate and unequal.’”



1912: In the Bronx, a memorial service is to be held at the Montifore Congregation for the crew and passengers who died when the Titanic sank.



1912: A banquet celebrating the fifth anniversary of the Free Synagogue hosted by Rabbi Stephen Wise was postponed as public mourning for those who lost their lives on the Titanic continues.



1913: A general strike by 4,000 kosher bakers began today when 1,000 of them quit work in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Brownsville.  The strike had originally been scheduled to start on April 29. The early strike date really was of little significance since the bakers would have quite working tomorrow any way do the fact that Passover starts tomorrow evening.



1913: Morris Siegel, known to his friends and family as “Morris the Apple Peddler” attended the the Brit Milah today for three boys – his three sons all of whom were born eight days ago.  The crowd of well-wishers grew even larger when the entire class of his 13 year old son Harry arrived at the event.



1915: Birthdate of South African-born, American psychologist Joseph Wolpe.



1915(6th of Iyar, 5675): Seventy-two year old Nathan Gratz, a well-known New York lawyer passed away today. He was the son of Jonathan and Rebecca Gratz (Moses) Nathan. “Mr. Nathan graduated from Columbia College in 1861. He engaged in practice in 1864 and was well known in Democratic political circles, clubs, and charitable societies. He was a member of New York law Institute, Columbia Alumni, and the New York Genealogical and Biographical Society.”


1915: Birthdate of journalist Israel Epstein


1916: Birthdate of Wiera Vera Gran, the Polish born Jewish singer who first performed under the name Sylvia Green and who became the center of a controversy surrounding her survival of the Holocaust.

1917:  As the Russian military position continued to deteriorate and Russian soldiers demanded immediate peace with the Germans, mutinies broke out.  In one instance an artillery officer named Khaust who had demanded that his fellow Russians lay down their armswas saved from an angry assembly of soldiers by a Jewish soldier known simply as Rom who intervened on their behalf.


1918: “Banquet to Jewish Soldiers” published today described plans for an upcoming banquet being hosted by the Jewish Board of Welfare and the Young Men’s Hebrew Association  under the chairmanship of Benjamin Natal for the benefit the young Jewish men who are about to leave for Fort Dix to begin serving in the U.S. Army.


1919: “The young women who worked as telephone operators at New England Telephone and Telegraph walked off the job. One of the strike leaders was Rose Finkelstein, a young Jewish worker, who had emigrated with her family as a young child from Kiev, Russia.”  (As reported by Jewish Women’s Archives)


1920: “Chaim Weizmann arrived at the Hotel Royal in San Remo, two days after the San Remo conference had convened.”  Still smarting from the failure of the British to stop the riots aimed at the Jews of Jerusalem that had broken out earlier in the month, the usually reserved Weizmann, congratulates Phillip Kerr, Lloyd George’s private secretary, on the “first pogrom ever conducted under the British flag.”  The unusual outburst took place in the hotel lobby, a public denunciation that caught the British leader off guard and led to cooling off period for the Zionist leader.



1920:  In the aftermath of World War I, Palestine ceased to be a part of the defeated Ottoman Empire (now Turkey).  The League of Nations made Palestine a British Mandate which meant recognition of the terms of the Balfour Declaration.



1921: Birthdate of Marcos Moshinsky the Ukrainian born Mexican physicist who won the Prince of Asturias Prize for Scientific and Technical Investigation in 1988 and the UNESCO Science Prize in 1997. He passed away in 2009 at the age of 87.



1922: Philadelphia Athletics 2nd baseman Heinie Scheer appeared in his first major league baseball game.



1924: Birthdate of Morris Edward Chafetz, the son of Jewish immigrants who played an important role in changing the public perception of alcoholism from social crime or personal failing to a disease requiring treatment.´ (As reported by William Grimes)



1926: Warner Brothers, which was owned by the four Warner brothers and Western Electricannounced the creation of Vitaphone, a process to add sound to film. Vitaphone would be the sound system used in the making of “The Jazz Singer,” the first talking motion picture.



1936: Jews repelled an Arab attack in Petach Tikvah. This attack was part of the Arab Uprising that lasted from 1936 until 1939.  The Arabs aim was to put an end to the dream of a Jewish homeland.  While they failed militarily, they were handed victory by a British decision to virtually put an end to Jewish land purchases and immigration.  This effectively slammed the door shut on the Jews of Europe on the eve of the Shoah.   Petach Tikvah or "Gateway of Hope" was originally founded by religious Jewish pioneers who had been living in Jerusalem.  What would eventually become a city, was a collection of mud huts built by 26 families on malaria infested piece of land seven miles east of what would one day become Tel Aviv.  Petach Tikvah took its name from a verse in Hosea "And I will give her...the valley of Achor for a gateway of Hope (2:17)."  The moshav would be abandoned for a brief period and then re-started with support from Baron Rothschild.  Petach Tikvah became a model and inspiration for the moshav movement.  Unfortunately, Petach Tikvah is no stranger to Arab violence.  During the 1920's, the defense of Petach Tikvah had helped to defeat an earlier Arab attempt to destroy the efforts by Jews to resettle and rehabilitate land that had been designated as “the Jewish Home.’ In the latest Arab Uprising, Petach Tikvah has been the scene of a suicide bombing in 2002 and the scene of a thwarted bombing in 2003. 



1936(28th of Nisan, 5696): Zvi Dannenberg died today of wounds suffered on April 15 when he and Israel Khazahn were attacked by Arabs as they traveled from Nablus to Tulkarm.



1936: Bronislaw Huberman, founder and organizer of the Palestine Symphony Orchestra announced that Arturo Toscanini has decided to include music by Mendelssohn on the first program he will conduct with the symphony. There is an element of political protest in this announcement since Mendelssohn has been banned by the Nazis.



1938: Despite bomb throwing which has become a daily occurrence in Jerusalem, an enthusiastic crowd filled Jerusalem’s Edison Hall for Toscanini’s fifth concert Aprof the season with the Palestine Orchestra.



1938: German planes fly over Austria on Hitler’s birthday dropping tiny Swastikas.  This is the “new” Austria after the Anschluss which had taken place in March of 1938.



1938: The Palestine Post reported that for the third night in succession bombs had been thrown in the center of Jerusalem, injuring Edwin Eisler, 18, and Banu Baland, 35. Forty "illegal" Jewish immigrants who had been in Palestine for many years, declared a hunger strike in order to persuade the mandate's authorities to change their status from "illegal" immigrants whom the courts failed to deport, to that of recognized permanent residents, so that they could bring here their families from abroad.


1939:  On Hitler's fiftieth birthday, all Catholic churches in Greater Germany hoisted the swastika in celebration.



1939: The Wirtschafts- und Verwaltungshauptamt (WVHA; Economy and Administration Main Office) was upgraded. It was concerned with SS economic matters, particularly at concentration camps.


1939: At a meeting of the British Cabinet’s Palestine Committee, Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, ever the appeaser, stressed that it of ‘immense importance’ with regard to British strategy ‘to have the Moslem world with us.  If we must offend one side, let us offend the Jews rather than the Arabs.’ This pronouncement was a complete violation of the Balfour Declaration and the terms of the Mandate.  It set the stage for the effective closing of Palestine to Jewish immigration in May of 1939; a policy that bought death for the Jews but failed to win the goodwill of the Arabs.  


1941: German newspapers in Greece come out blaming Jews for ruining Germany after World War I.   During this same period in April, the Greek newspaper New Europe wrote in capital letters “DEATH TO THE JEWS.” The paper reported that the Jews were the cause of economic problems in Germany. Levy stated the Greek paper called for the destruction of the "Jewish race once and for all."


1942: The Battle for Moscow comes to an “end.”  The war in the East will grind on.  But thanks to the gritty, desperate defense of the Soviet capital, the German Army has been stopped and what was to have been a lightning war turns into a war of attrition.  As bad as the Holocaust was, defeat at Moscow would have made it even worse.  The Soviet victory here, along with other Soviet victories later in the war caused General Douglas McArthur (of all people) to declare that the Red Army was the Hope of the World.


1942: At Mauthausen, “forty-eight people were shot at two minute intervals as a present to Hitler on his birthday.”


1942: At a birthday banquet for Hitler in East Prussia, Hermann Göring announced that he was responsible for the Reichstagfire of February 27, 1933, that set off Nazi reprisals against purported Communist subversion.


1943(15thof Nisan, 5703): Pesach


1943: On the second day of the Warsaw uprising the ghetto is bombarded with fire from, mortars and machine guns. Germans kill all the sick in the Czyste hospital. Then they set the hospital on fire. Jewish resistance was stubborn and organized.  The Nazis, who had swept France in a mere six weeks, could not believe that the Jews of all people were providing this kind of a fight.  According to one account, some of the Jews could not believe they were doing it either. 



1945(7thof Iyar, 5705): During the night 20 children and at least 28 adults were hanged at Bullenhuser Damn, one of the satellite camps of Neuengamme. The Bullenhuser Damm Memorial is dedicated to the memory of these children, who were subjected to medical experiments in the Neuengamme concentration camp before being murdered, to the 4 prisoners who cared for them, and to 24 unidentified Soviet prisoners.(Based on information supplied by the Wiener Library)



1945: Jerusalem’s District Commissioner, James Huey Hamilton Pollock, met with Arab leaders in an attempt to reach a solution as to how Jerusalem should be governed.  Jewish leaders had accepted a British proposal that would have the position of Mayor rotate among each of the three main religious groups in the city.  The Arabs had maintained that the mayor must be Muslim.  The compromise would allow for a partition plan. 



1945: Prime Minister Churchill telegraphs his wife who is in the Soviet Union stating that “Here we are all shocked by the most horrible revelations of German cruelty in the concentration camps.”



1946: The Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry completed its report, urging the British to end the land purchase restrictions imposed on the Jews as part  of the 1939 White Paper and to grant 100,000 Palestine certificates immediately.  The British rejected the proposal, reused to allow immigration on anything approaching that scale. 



1946: “Five Yemenite Jews were killed when a three-inch shell exploded…in Nathanya” a town halfway between Tel Aviv and Haifa.



1948: On the eve of Pesach, "the last food convoy after Operation Nachson, made up of some 300 trucks brought provisions to Jerusalem.


1948: A convoy that included Prime Minister David Ben Gurion set out from Tel Aviv to the besieged city of Jerusalem.  Ben Gurion wanted to spend Pesach in Jerusalem with the beleaguered defenders as a way of raising moral.  The trip was extremely dangerous because the Arabs controlled the high ground on both sides of the highway and had successfully beaten back several other such attempts.  While Ben Gurion, who was traveling in one of the lead vehicles, made it through, the rest of the convoy came under heavy attack and was forced to turn back after suffering heavy casualties.  This was only one of the many battles fought to open the road to Jerusalem.  Long after the war was over, travelers on the modern-four lane highway from the coast to Jerusalem could see the burned-out hulks of the Jewish vehicles that serve as constant reminder of the price the Jewish people paid for Jerusalem.


1949: Twenty-five year old outfielder Cal Abrams plays in his first game with the Brooklyn Dodgers.


1950: During a debate in the House of Commons Prime Minister Atlee’s Labor government announced that it would continue to refuse to sell arms to Israel while continuing to sells arms to Egypt, Iraq and Jordan.  According to sources in Tel Aviv, the British have said they would consider sales of weapons to Israel if she reaches a full settlement with the Arab states.  No such pre-condition has been attached to sales to the Arab states.


1953(5th of Iyar, 5713): Yom HaAtzma'ut


1958(30th of Nisan, 5718):Rosh Chodesh Iyar


1967: Birthdate of Mike Portnoy, drummer in the progressive metal band Dream Theatre.


1970(14th of Nisan, 5730):Ta'anit Bechorot; Erev Pesach


1970(14th of Nisan, 5730): Poet and translator Paul Celan passed away.

1970: Bruno Kreisky became the first Socialist and the first Jew to serve as Chancellor of Austria.



1970: Pini Nahmani, an Israeli pilot being held in a Damascus prison, celebrated a Seder made possible by two Haggadot and some Matzah crumbs sent by the Chief Rabbi of Zurich. 


1971: Barbra Streisand recorded "We've Only Just Begun"


1974: South African Jewish professional association footballer Martin Cohen was part of the White XI that played their black counterparts today “in a racially charged match at Rand Stadium. After initially going down 1-0 to the black side (the goal was called off-side by referee Wally Turner), Cohen scored a crucial goal before Neil Roberts put the game away.”


1975: Larry Blyden, a practicing Jew from Houston born Ivan Lawrence Blieden, co-hosted the  telecast of the Tony Awards.


1976: Paula Hyman spoke about the history of Jewish women in America on New York radio station WEVD


1977: Woody Allen's film "Annie Hall" premiered


1978:The Jerusalem Postreported that Yitzhak Navon was elected the fifth president of the State of Israel on his 57th birthday. The minister of defense, Ezer Weizmann, was expected to leave for Cairo in another bid to renew the stalled Israeli-Egyptian peace negotiations. In Washington, efforts were made to set the stage for another, possibly more promising, summit between Prime Minister Menachem Begin and US president, Jimmy Carter.


1982(27thof Nisan, 5742): Yom HaShoah


1986:An Irishwoman arrested in connection with an attempt to blow up a crowded Israeli airliner was freed tonight after two days of questioning with no charges brought against her, the police said. Anne-Marie Murphy, 32 years old, was arrested at London's Heathrow Airport carrying explosives on Thursday as she was about to board an El Al flight to Tel Aviv. She carried a bag containing about 10 pounds of explosives stashed in a false bottom. The police said she may have been duped into taking the bomb onto the plane. Detectives are still questioning her fiancé, Nezar Hindawi, a 35-year-old Jordanian

1986: World famous pianist Vladimir Horowitz performed in his Russian homeland. A non-observant Jew, this performance was one of his last before he went into his final retirement. "It's better to make your own mistakes than to copy someone else's.""My future is in my past and my past is in my present. I must now make the present my future."


1987:Two Israeli soldiers and three Palestinian guerrillas were killed today in a shootout after the Palestinians cut through a Lebanon border fence and crossed into northern Israel, an Israeli Army spokesman said. The Israeli radio said three Palestinian guerrillas who slipped past Israeli troops in southern Lebanon and crossed the border near the Menara kibbutz ''were wiped out,'' but not before they had killed the two Israeli soldiers who had tracked them to their hiding place in an apple orchard 500 yards inside Israel. Al Fatah, Yasir Arafat's faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization, took credit for the operation.


1988(20thof Iyar, 5748) Yom HaZikaron


1989(15thof Nisan, 5749): Pesach


1991(6th of Iyar, 5751: Movie director Don Siegel passed away.  Born in Chicago in 1912 and educated in England, Siegel had a long and storied career. In 1945, two shorts he directed, Hitler Lives? and A Star in the Night, won Academy Awards, which launched his career as a feature director. Among his long list of film credits were a series of Clint Eastwood films including Coogan’s Bluff,Two Mules for Sister Sarah and the classic Dirty Harry.


1993:At a solemn outdoor ceremony tonight at the place where several hundred poorly armed Jews battled the Nazis 50 years ago, the leaders of Poland and Israel hailed the valor of the uprising and called for a new beginning in the often difficult relationship between Jews and Poles.


1997: The New York Times featured reviews of Rabin: Our Life, His Legacyby Leah Rabin and The Boys:The Untold Story of 732 Young Concentration Camp Survivors by Martin Gilbert.


1999(4thof Iyar, 5759): Yom Hazkiaron


1999(4thof Iyar, 5759): Eighty-four year old Baroness Bethsabée de Rothschild passed away in Tel Aviv



2000(15thof Pesach, 5760): Pesach

2000: In Shanghai, 100 Jews attended Pesach services at Ohel Rachel Synagogue.


2002(8th of Iyar, 5762) :Border Policeman St.-Sgt. Uriel Bar-Maimon, 21 of Ashkelon was killed in an exchange of fire near the Erez industrial park in the northern Gaza Strip. Israeli forces pursued the Palestinian gunman and killed him. An explosive belt was found on his body. The Fatah Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades claimed responsibility.


2002(8th of Iyar, 5762): Sgt. Maj. Nir Krichman, 22 of Hadera, was killed in an exchange of gunfire, when IDF forces entered the village of Asira a-Shamaliya, north of Nablus, to arrest known Hamas terrorists.


 

2003: The New York Times included reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including recently released paperback versions of “Sunday Jews, by Hortense Calisher in which she “explores the disparate fortunes of an extended Jewish family living on the Upper West Side after World War II” and “Be My Knife” by David Grossman.


2003(18thof Nisan, 5763): IDF photographer Cpl. Lior Ziv, 19, of Holon, was killed and three other soldiers were wounded during an operation to destroy a Hamas smuggling tunnel in Rafah, in the Gaza Strip.


2003(18th of Nisan, 5763): Biophysicist, Sir Bernard Katz passed away. Sir Bernard Katz was born in Germany in 1911.  He fled to Great Britain when the Nazis came to power.  Katz was noted for his work on nerve biochemistry.  He shared the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine in 1970 with Julius Axelrod and Ulf von Euler. He was knighted in 1970.


2004: The Public Law Department of the Buenos Aires University School of Law and the International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation organized and presented The International Seminar "Diplomacy and the Holocaust.”


2006(22ndof Nisan, 5766): Eighth Day of Pesach including recitation of Yizkor.


2006: “President George W. Bush signed an official document declaring the month of May Jewish American Heritage Month (JAHM)”


2007: Haaretz reported that sixty-six civilians were killed in hostile actions since last Independence Day, mostly during the Second Lebanon War, bringing the number of civilians killed in terror attacks since the state's establishment in 1948 to 1,635, according to National Insurance Institute (NII) Director Dr. Yigal Ben-Shalom.


2007: The Jerusalem Post reported that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert had condemned as "hurtful" and "spurious" comments made by former Sephardi chief rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu that the victims of the Holocaust were made to suffer because of the sins of the Reform Movement. Olmert went on to praise the Reform Movement as an important element in the “House of Israel.”


2008(15thof Nisan, 5768): First Day of Pesach


2008:San Francisco chefs Gayle Pirie and John Cook are  a Slow Food spin on the Passover Seder for the second night of Passover. The Seder, held at Foreign Cinema is sponsored by Heeb and is the magazine’s inaugural "Slow Food Seder.”


2008: The New York Times book section featured a review of “Dictation the most recent work of Jewish author Cynthia Ozick.


2008: The Washington Post book section featured a review of a biography of the Jewish poet Louis Zukofsky entitled  “The Poem of a Life”by Mark Scroggins and an interview with American poet Edward Hirsch whose grandfather was a stringer for a Yiddish newspaper who wrote poems and copied them into the backs of books.


2008: The Sunday Chicago Tribune reported that two Torah scrolls were taken from Kenosha synagogue. Just days before the beginning of Passover, two Torah scrolls each worth an estimated $40,000 to $60,000, were reported stolen from a Jewish temple in Kenosha, officials said. On Tuesday, Rabbi Tzali Wilschanski of the Congregation Bnei Tzedek Chabad realized his laptop, which he had used during a class the night before, was missing. He checked to see whether the Torahs were safe, and discovered they were missing too. He said he last saw them April 5. Several valuable silver ornaments used to adorn the scrolls were not taken, leading Wilschanski to suspect that the robbery was not a garden-variety theft.
"If this was a hate crime, it would explain why they took something that is so dear to us," he said.
"If this was not a hate crime, it was the work of very sophisticated criminals who know that the Torah scrolls are much more valuable than the silver pieces." There were no signs of forced entryinto the temple at 1602 56th St., but a deadbolt lock was open, Kenosha police Sgt. Hugh Rafferty said. While police do not have any suspects in custody, they are following several leads, he said.


2009:In Washington, D.C.,Adina Hoffman, a Jerusalem-based writer, critic and founder of Ibis Editions, discusses and signs “My Happiness Bears No Relation to Happiness: A Poet's Life in the Palestinian Century, “her new biography of Palestinian poet Taha Muhammad Ali.


2009: Opening session of “Durban II Counter at the Fordham University School of Law. The American Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists sponsor this counter-conference organized to address the real issues of "racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and other forms of intolerance." 


2009:Human Rights Watch said in a new report issued today thatHamas security forces killed at least 32 Palestinian political rivals and those suspected of collaborating with Israel during and after the Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip. The report also said “unlawful arrests, torture and killings in detention” were making a mockery of Hamas’s claims to uphold the law in Gaza, which is ruled by Hamas, an Islamic group

2009:TodayPresident Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran used the platform of a United Nations conference in Geneva on combating racism to disparage Israel as a “cruel and repressive racist regime,” prompting delegates from European nations to desert the hall and earning a rare harsh rebuke from Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.


2009: Lord Hoffmann (Leonard Hoffmann) completed his terms as Second Senior Lord of Appeal in Ordinary in South Africa.


2009: Steve Reich was awarded the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for Music, on April 20, 2009, for Double Sextet

2010(6thIyar, 5770): Yom Ha’Atzmaut


2010: The US premier of “I Was There In Color,” is scheduled to take place as part the Yom Ha’Atzmaut celebration at the JCC in Manhattan.


2010:Or Ashual, a 17-year-old student at the Kfar Saba Amana girls’ school, became the 2010 winner of the World Bible Quiz competition today, which took place on Israel’s 62nd Independence Day at the Jerusalem Center for the Performing Arts.

2011(16thof Nisan, 5771): Second Day of Pesach


2011:Beit Avi Chai, in collaboration with Merkaz Hamagshimim Hadassah, is scheduled to hold its second annual English speaking amateur theatre festival: "Stage One".


2011:Two suspects were arrested today in connection with setting fire to a synagogue on the Greek island of Corfu a day earlier, Greek Police said. Arsonists set fire to a synagogue on the island early yesterday, damaging prayer books but causing no injuries, in the third such attack in Greece in less than two years, police said.

2011: A Haggadah Fair sponsored by Kol HaOt and the Inbal Hotel will open today in Jerusalem.


2011: One day after Steve Soboroff was hired to be the Vice Chairman of the LA Dodgers, Major League Baseball seized control of the team from Frank McCourt.


2012: “In Darkness” a film about Polish sewer worker and Jews living in the Lvov Ghetto is scheduled to be shown in Iowa City under the sponsorship of Agudas Achim.


2012: “Joanna” and “Life Is Too Long” are scheduled to be shown at the Westchester Jewish Film Festival


2012: “The Man Behind the Curtain” provides a detailed review of Mr. Broadway: The Inside Story of the Shuberts, the Shows and the Stars by Gerald Schoenfield. 


2013: “No Place on Earth” is scheduled to be shown for the first time in Claremont, CA.


2013: Adam Burstain, the son of Todd and Jennifer Burstain - pillars of the Cedar Rapids Jewish community- is scheduled to appear in the final performance of Urine Town.


2013: “Cabaret-Berlin: The Wild Scene” is scheduled to be shown at the Westchester Jewish Film Festival


2013: “Dorfman in Love” is scheduled to be shown at the Northern Virginia Jewish Film Festival.


2013: Israeli gymnast Alexander Shatilov won the gold medal in the European Men's Artistic Gymnastic individual Championships, held in Moscow today.


2013: U.S Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel will finalize a huge arms deal with Israel during his visit starting today, under which Israel will for the first time be permitted to purchase US aerial refueling planes and other ultra-sophisticated military equipment that could prove vital to any Israel strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities


2014: “Igor and the Crane’s Journey” is scheduled to be shown at the JCC Rockland International Jewish Film Festival


2014:Helen Suzman: Fighter for Human Rights” an exhibition that has been on display at the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center is scheduled to come to a close.


2014: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including No Book But The World by Leah Hager Cohen, Updike by Adam Begley and Plato at the Googleplex: Why Philosophy Won’t Go Away by Rebecca Newberger Goldstein

This Day, April 21, In Jewish History by Mitchell A Levin

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April 21



753 BCE: According to tradition, on this date Romulus and Remus founded Rome.  Considering the impact that Rome would have on the Jewish people this date is worth noting. 


586: Ricard I became King the Visigoth King of Hispania.  “A year later converted from Arianism to Catholicism, which changed the nature of life in Iberia in the same way that Constantine's conversion had changed things in the Roman Empire. Recared approved the Third Council of Toledo's move in 589 to forcibly baptize the children of mixed marriages between Jews and Christians. Toledo III also forbade Jews from holding public office, from having intercourse with Christian women, and from performing circumcisions on slaves or Christians. Still, Recared was not entirely successful in his campaigns: not all Visigoth Arians had converted to Catholicism; the unconverted were true allies of the Jews, oppressed like themselves, and Jews received some protection from Arian bishops and the independent Visigothic nobility.”


629: Emperor Heraclius marched into Jerusalem at the head of his army. Heraclius was head of the Eastern Roman Empire.  During the fifth and sixth centuries the Christian rulers tried to make life for Jews in Palestine as difficult as possible.  Heraclius was defeated by the Persians and the Jews sided with the Persians who were viewed as liberators.  The joy was short lived as the Christians re-took the land from the Persians and punished the Jews severely.  Ultimately all of this matter very little since the Arabs would soon appear in Palestine and Islam would become the dominate force.


1073: Pope Alexander II passed away. In 1063, Pope Alexander II had given his blessing to Iberian Christians in their wars against the Muslims, granting both a papal standard and an indulgence to those who were killed in battle. This was another act in the battle between Moslems and Christians for control of Spain.  The Jews were caught in the middle and their fortunes fluctuated over the centuries.  In hindsight, this was really just one more step in the long path that led to the expulsion in 1492.


1481(13thof Iyar, 5241): Jews of Seville burned at the stake


1499: The New Christians, including those who had been forcibly baptized, are forbidden to leave Portugal.


1506: Three days of anti-Semitic rioting ends in Lisbon, Portugal where two thousand Jews were killed by the mobs.


1509: Henry VII, King of England passed away.  Henry negotiated the marriage between his son, the Catherine of Aragon, daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain (the monarchs who had expelled the Jews from Spain).  One of the terms of the marriage was that the Jews would never be allowed to return to England.  If Henry had not agreed to this term, the marriage would not have taken place. 


1585(22nd of Nisan, 5345): Sixteenth century Salonica born Rabbi Moses ben Joseph di Trani (Mabit) passed away in Safed.




1649: The Toleration Act was passed by the Maryland Assembly. It protected Roman Catholics within the American colony against Protestant harassment, which had been rising as Oliver Cromwell's power in England increased.  Maryland had been founded under the Catholic Calvert family.  They were trying to create a refuge for English Catholics.  The Jews benefited from what was a clash between different branches of Christianity.


1729: Birthdate of Catherine the Great, Tsarina of Russia from 1762 to 1796.   Under Catherine, Russia took part in the three-way partition of Poland which gave Russia its large Jewish population.  At first, her treatment of her new Jewish subjects was fairly tolerant.  She saw them as an economic asset.  But in her later years she succumbed to the demands of Christian merchants and began to tighten the noose around the neck of the Jews.  In the end, she laid the groundwork for the creation of what came to be known as The Pale of Settlement.


1808: The name of Raphael Bischoffsheim was  on a list dated today that “included…the twenty-five foremost Jews” in the city of Mayence. The authorities were to chose the representatives for Napoleon’s Sanhedrin from the names on that list.  Born in 1773, at Bischofsheim-on-the-Tauber, he went to Mayence during the French Revolution, and from a small merchant became a purveyor to the army. Bischoffsheim was president of the Jewish community of Mayence prior to his death in 1814.


1818(15th of Nisan, 5578): Pesach


1822(30th of Nisan, 5582): Rosh Chodesh Iyar


1833: In London James Graham Lewis and his wife gave birth to George Lewis who would become a successful lawyer known to posterity as Sir George Henry Lewis, 1st Baronet


1836: Texans under the command of General Sam Houston defeated the Mexican Army at the Battle of San Jacinto which resulted in Mexican recognition of the Republic of Texas. Among the Jews who served with Houston was Dr. Albert Moses Levy, the Surgeon in Chief for this fledgling force.  Adolphus Sterne was a friend of Houston from their days in Tennessee and he helped raise funds for the Texans.


1843:Prince Augustus Frederick, Duke of Sussex, the sixth son of George III (the one who lost the 13 colonies) who “became a Patron of the Jews' Hospital and Orphan Asylum, later to become the charity known as Norwood” and who supported legislation to remove “the civil liabilities of Jews” passed away today.


1846: Formation of the United Order of True Sisters


1858:As of this date, records show that the Association for the Free Distribution of Matzos to the Poor had spent a grand total of $691.87 to ensure that indigent Jews would have unleavened bread to celebrate the recently completed Passover holiday.


1860: “From Southern Africa” published today reported that “The Jews of the Cape had subscribed £183 for the benefit of their suffering brethren in Morocco. Where is the place in the wide world to which the Jew does not penetrate?”


1860: A letter to the editor published today from a former prizefighter recounts the history of pugilism in England and the United. It included the following positive description of Jewish skill in the ring. ‘”In spite of their muscle, their undoubted courage, and admitted pugnacity, no Irishman has ever long held a distinguished place in the Ring. The Jews, on the other hand, not famous for any of these qualities, have always, from the days of Menodoza and Aby Belasco, had a good position, and like their great countryman, Judas Maccabeus, have "made battles and been renowned in the uttermost part of the earth." [Mendoza is the 18thcentury British fighter Daniel Mendoza.  Belasco was a well known fighter in “the post Mendoza era.”]


1861: It was reported today that in his study of the synchronisms of ancient Assyrian and Egyptian History, Sir Henry Rawlinson has discovered “the first clear account of a conflict between the Egyptians and the Assyrians occurs in the reign of Sargon, (B.C. 721- 702,) who was, as we know from the Bible, the King who carried away the Jews captives from Samaria.”


1864(15th of Nisan, 5624); First day of Pesach


1864: Isaac J. Levy, a Confederate Soldier serving with the 46th Virginia Infantry participated in a Seder at Adams Run South Carolina.  Levy would later admit that he was confused as to the date of the start of the holiday.  (As an example of the confusion that can take place in reporting events, Abraham Bloch described Levy as being a Union soldier)


1864: Birthdate of Max Weber.  Born in Germany, Weber was one of the fathers of modern sociology.  He was also a noted economist and historian. "Weber was among those who believed that modern capitalism was the product of religious notions, variously termed the Protestant work ethic and the Calvinist salvation panic...He also believed that Jewish businessmen, like Calvinist ones, tended to operate most successfully when they had left their traditional religious environment."   Obviously, some of his ideas are open to debate based on historical evidence.  But he was an intellectual giant regardless of whether or not you agree with his theories.  He passed away in 1920.


1865(21stof Nisan, 5625): Twenty-five year old Victorine Kann, the first wife of Sir George Lewis died today shortly after having given birth to their daughter Alice Victorine Lewis.


1880: In New York, Matilde (de Perkiewicz) and Max Liebling gave birth to soprano Estelle Liebling, one of the most influential teachers of singing in America


1880: Benjamin Disraeli completed his second and final term as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.


1881(22nd of Nisan, 5641): 8th day of Pesach


1881(22ndof Nisan, 5641): “Jurist, publicist and scholar, Wolfgang Wessely who had been born in Moravia in 1801 passed away today in Vienna.

1882: Based on information first published in The Allegemeine Zeitung, it was reported today that troops in the Russian city of Balte joined in the plundering of the Jewish population instead of protecting it. Forty Jews were injured in the riots, an unknown number of which later died.  A thousand homes were destroyed and damage is estimated to be in excess of 4,500,000 rubles.


1883(14th of Nisan, 5643): Shabbat HaGadol; Erev Pesach


1884: Three men were arrested tonight in Nashville, TN on charges that they took part in the assault that left a Jewish citizen named Meyer Friedman beaten to death.


1884: The Board of Estimate and Apportionment met today and awarded funds to a variety of charitable institutions including the United Hebrew Charities of the City of New York ($8,500),   Mount Sinai Hospital and Dispensary (4,250) and the Home for Aged and Infirm Hebrews (1,820).


1884: The New York Times reported on the plans being developed by the Jewish community to celebrate the 100th birthday of Sir Moses Montefiore which will take place in October.  Leaders of the community are calling for the establishment of Home for Chronic Invalids named in the philanthropist’s honor.  In addition to raising funds to construct the building, the community will have to raise $20,000 a year to operate the home.


1886: It was reported today that oil tycoon John D. Rockefeller has gone to New York to meet with those holding the mortgage on the University of Chicago.  Rockefeller has taken an interest in creating a course that will lead to solvency for the school provided that Professor H.L. Harper would be named President of the school. Harper’s area of academic expertise is the Hebrew language of which he is a professor.  At this point in America, the only people interested in Hebrew were a handful of Jews and academics teaching Biblical topics at Protestant dominated colleges.


1886(16th of Nisan, 5646): Second Day of Pesach; 1st day of the Omer


1889: A report published today described the transformation of a German Jewish intellectual named Emin Bey into Emin Pasha a Moslem leader ruling over a large swath of central Africa.  Much of the information was supplied by Henry Stanley, the same man who “found” Dr. Livingston.


1890(1st of Iyyar, 5650): Rosh Chodesh Iyar


1890: Lucie Hadamard, married Alfred Dreyfus.


1890: Alfred Dreyfus is accepted at the Ecole Superiore de Guerre (Superior War College), the prestigious French military school designed to train the elite members of the French officer corps.  Dreyfus will graduate 9th in his class but his final evaluation will be marred by the entries of an anti-Semitic French general.


1891: Rosa Gombesky a young Russian Jewish immigrant who jumped from a fires-escape to the street when the tenement at 194 Henry Street caught fire is being treated at Gouverneur Hospital for the serious injuries she has suffered.


1892: “A Moorish Jew, Joseph MIzrachee” was sentenced to 10 years for shooting Henry Pereira Mendes, the rabbi of Congregation Shearith Israel.


1892: “Typhus Among the Russian Jews” published today described efforts by the Germans from preventing infected Russians from crossing the border.


1893: The Austrian Premier has informed the American government that it will not grant diplomatic recognition to Max Judd, the St. Louis Jew, whom President Grover Cleveland appointed as Counsel General for the United States at Vienna.


1893: “Jewish Ministers Aroused” published today described the action being taken by Christian organizations to convert Jews and the response of the Jewish community including that of Temple Beth Israel’s Rabbi Lustiwig who said “The trouble is that we have provided sufficient instruction for our people in the Jewish faith. The introduction of Friday night and Sunday night lectures to take the pace of Saturday services has done no good to Judaism.  While it may be well enough to have lectures at other times than Saturdays, we should above all other things observe Saturday and all of our synagogues should be supplied with minsters who will impress upon the people the importance of Bible subjects.” (Editor’s note – This was from a reform rabbi at a Reform Temple)  


1894(15thof Nisan, 5654): Pesach


1895: Professor Felix Adler delivered a lecture on “The Ten Commandments: at Carnegie Hall” this morning


1895: “The Trustees of the Hebrew Orphan Asylum, which is controlled by the Hebrew Benevolent Society, held their annual meeting” this morning.


1895: “Care of Hebrew Orphans” published today described the origins and growth of Brooklyn Hebrew Orphan Asylum which opened its doors fifteen years ago.


1896(7th of Iyar, 5656): Baron Maurice de Hirsch passed away at his estate in Pressburg, Hungary.  While the name of Baron Hirsch may be unfamiliar to many living in the 21st century, he was one of the great philanthropists his time.  The Baron (and he really was a Baron) was part of an established, extremely wealthy family.  The Baron funded a variety of charities many of which were designed to provide relief for the sufferings Jews of Russia and Eastern Europe.  He donated great sums to establish agricultural communities in North and South America including Argentina, Canada and rural areas of the United States. 

1896: Oscar S. Straus, who had served as U.S. Minister to Turkey told a reporter from the New York Times that “It was my good fortune to enjoy the personal acquaintance of Baron de Hirsch and my recollections of him, while tinged with sorrow at his sudden death, are of the pleasantest kind.


1898: Spanish-American War began.  Fifteen of the sailors who died on the Battleship Maine were Jewish.  Approximately 5,000 Jews served as volunteers in the military during the war.  A sixteen year old Jewish trooper was the first casualty among Teddy Roosevelt’s Rough Riders


1899: “Dreyfus Case Evidence” published today summarized the 24 columns of coverage  The Figaro devoted to the coverage of “testimony offered before the Court of Cassation in the Dreyfus revision inquiry” including the statement by Major Forzinetti who was the Director of the Chereche-Midi Prison in 1894 that “Dreyfus consistently and persistently protested his innocence” and declared “that his only crime was in having been born a Jew.”


1903: Herzl arrived in London as he continued to his quest to get support from leading British political leaders and prominent English Jews for a Jewish homeland.


1905(18th of Nisan, 5665):Meyer Kayserling a German-born rabbi who held pulpits in Switzerland and Hungary passed away in Budapest. Born in 1829, Kayersling was a noted historian and prolific author.


1909(30th of Nisan, 5669): Rosh Chodesh Iyar


1909(30th of Nisan, 5669): Eighty year old Edward Salomon, the 8th governor of the state of Wisconsin passed away today.




 

1912: Rabbi Stephen Wise, assisted by Rabbi Emil Hirsch of Chicago, is scheduled to lead a memorial service at Carnegie Hall this morning honoring those who lost their lives when the Titanic sank.


1912: In speaking about the sinking of the Titanic, Rabbi Joseph Silverman says, “"Not God was responsible for this great disaster but the imperfection of human knowledge and judgment."


1913: Tonight Reverend Thomas M. Chalmers of the Jewish Evangelical Society refused to comment on his application “for a license to preach for the conversion of Jews to Christianity” on street corners in the sections of Manhattan, Brownsville and Brooklyn that have large Jewish populations or on tMayor William J. Gaynor’s letter rejecting his request.  In his letter rejecting the petition Gaynor wrote, “Do you not think the Jews have a good religion?  Have not the Christians appropriated the entire Jewish sacred scriptures?  Was not the New Testament also written entirely written by Jews?  Was not Jesus also born of the Jewish race, if I may speak of it with due reverence?  Did not we Christians get much or the most of what we have from the Jews?  Why should anyone work so hard to proselytize the Jew?  His pure belief in the one true living God …is one of the unbroken lineages and traditions of the world.  I do not think I should give you a license to preach for the conversion of the Jews in the streets in the thickly settled Jewish neighborhoods which you designate.  Would you not annoy them and do more harm than good?” Gaynor had studied in a seminary as a young man.  He was a pillar of the community who surprised everybody by standing up to the corruption of Tammany Hall. 


1913(14th of Nisan, 5673):An article entitled “Feast of Passover Begins This Evening” published in the New York Times reports that at sunset this evening, the celebration of Pesach, the Feast of the Passover, will begin in the Jewish households throughout the world. Pesach is the Spring festival of the Jews, and was specially ordained to commemorate the providential deliverance of the children of Israel from the bondage in which they had been held for many years under the Pharaohs of Egypt.”


1913(14th of Nisan, 5673):The Young Men’s Hebrew Association will be holding a seder tonight beginning at 7 o’clock which will be attended by many of the soldiers and sailors stationed at nearby forts and naval yards.


1913(14th of Nisan, 5673): Sixty-nine year old Isaac Aronwitz was the youngest person and 109 year old Ettel Polansky was the oldest person at the seder held at the Home of the Daughters of Jacob on East Broadway.


1915: Seventy Jews from Palestine arrived in Alexandria. They described the conditions in Jerusalem as terrible, with many people dying from starvation. An eyewitness account from the village of Mea She’arim in Jerusalem tells of the conditions:


"My God…I never imagined that such wretched poverty really exists and that there really are such dark and filthy corners…. old men and women bloated with hunger. Children with an expression of horror, the devastation of hunger written on their faces…" This is an example of how the fate of the Jewish homeland was tied up in the game of international power politics.  Palestine was part of the Turkish Empire.  The Turks were at war with the Allies including the British who sought to take Palestine as a way to defend the Suez Canal; the French who wanted colonies in that part of the Turkish Empire that is now Syria and Lebanon; and the Russians who wanted to take control of the Dardanelles and the Black Sea away from the Turks. A large percentage of the Jewish population in Palestine had Russian origins.  While many of the Jews in Palestine were willing to fight on the side of the Turks, the Turks viewed the Jews as Russians or English sympathizers.  There was more than a little truth to the Turkish view of things.  At any rate, as the war dragged on, the Turks worked to make life miserable for the Jews and the Jews became more sympathetic to the Allied cause.


1917: Birthdate of Emanuel Vardi.  Born in Jerusalem Israel, Vardi became a world-class violist who was featured with the San Diego Symphony from 1978 to 1982.


1918: World War I: German fighter ace Manfred von Richthofen, known as "The Red Baron", is shot down and killed over Vaux-sur-Somme in France. Despite rumors to the contrary, the Red Baron was not Jewish.  According to film based on his life, one of his close friends was a Jewish pilot named Friedrich Sternberg who was shot down and killed during the war.  This would have made Sternberg one of over a hundred pilots who flew for the Kaiser during the Great War. Ironically, Richtofen’s death would result in Herman Goering, the future Nazi Number, taking command of what was left of the famed Flying Circus.


1918: Birthdate of Stephen Theodore Norman, the only grandchild of Theodore Herzl.


1922: Final publication of The American Hebrew & Jewish Messenger.


1924: Birthdate of MGM executive Daniel Melnick, who was producer of the television comedy hit, Get Smart


1925: In Little Rock, AR, Jesse Heiman and his wife gave birth to Max Adolph Heiman, the brother of Rose Heiman and Robert Jesse Heiman.


1927: Birthdate of Robert Brustein, Dean of the Yale School of Drama


1930: Hank Greenberg made his major league baseball debut.


1931: Brooklyn outfielder Max Rosenfeld made his major league baseball debut.


1932: Birthdate of writer, director and comedian Elaine May.


1932: Birthdate of “Daniel Melnick, a producer and studio executive who brought an innovative and often unconventional sensibility to films that included “Straw Dogs,” “All That Jazz” and “Altered States.”


1932(15th of Nisan, 5692): On the first day of Pesach Rabbi Rosenbaum of Temple Israel and Rabbi Katz of Montefiore Hebrew Congregation tied the current economic crisis to the themes of Passover.  Katz said that today, the entire social and economic structure is falling and that a return to the Mosaic system offers a source of salvation.  After gaining their freedom, the Jews were taught that periodically “they must emancipate those elements in the population who, because of lack of foresight or ability lose their status as self-supporting and self-respecting men, who, in other words relinquish their freedom because of economic compulsion.”  We must adopt a modern version of the Mosaic codes which in ancient times called for periodic redistribution of  the land and those who sold themselves because of debt were freed.


1933: The slaughter of animals according to the rules of Kashrut was banned by the Nazis in Germany.  Nazi propaganda portrayed Jewish slaughtering customs as treating animals in an inhumane way.  Yes, the people who would butcher six million of our co-religionists actually hid behind the animal rights’ movement.  There were many Jewish butchers who defied the law as long as possible and continued to supply kosher meat to their observant customers.


1933: King Christian X of Denmark attended the celebration of the 100th anniversary of the Crystal Synagogue in Copenhagen to demonstrate his sympathy for the Jews. This is the same King Christian who is the hero of a famous "urban legend."  According to the story he wore a Yellow Star during the war in support of his Jewish subjects.  While Christian showed great fortitude by staying with his people during the war and while the Danes protected their Jewish fellow citizens, the story of the star is a myth.  In fact, most of the Jews were not required to wear the star.  The important thing is the lengths to which the Danes went to protect the Jews.  If others had done as much, the Shoah would not have happened.


1933:  “According to a cable message received today by The Jewish Morning Journal” in New York, “Baruch Schwartz, noted Jewish educator passed away at the age of 72 in Tel Aviv.  Born in the Ukraine, Schwartz was an early member of the Zionist movement.  His greatest contribution was his work to modernize the Hebrew language and the development of simplified methods of teaching what had been considered to be a “dead language.”  Schwartz made Aliyah in 1923 and had completed three volumes of his memoirs before he passed away. 


1934:  Moe Berg, catcher for the Washington Senators, played his 117th consecutive game without an error, setting a record for his position.  Moe Berg is one of the strangest and most fascinating of all baseball players.  Born to Russian immigrant parents on the Lower East Side in 1902, Berg graduated from Princeton magna cum laude with the ability to speak seven languages.  He also played shortstop for the Tigers.  Berg played for five teams during a fifteen year career.  He was labeled good field, no hit and was considered a good journeyman player.  What made him unique were his intellectual feats and the legends that surrounded them. He bought numerous papers each day which insisted on being the first to read.  If you grabbed a section of one of his papers before he had read it, he cast the paper aside because it was dead.  In the 1930's, Berg joined an All Star baseball team that made a barnstorming trip to Japan.  Berg was a strange choice since he certainly was not a star.  Beg did not join in the carousing and went off to be by himself.  It was only later, during World War II that people found out what Beg had been doing.  He spoke Japanese.  He wondered around taking pictures of Japan and some of these photographs were used by the Doolittle Raiders in 1942 to help them find their targets when America bombed Japan for the first time.  And this is only the tip of the ice berg or should I say Moe Berg.


1935:  Birthdate of actor and talk show host Charles Grodin.


1936: In Tel Aviv and Jaffa, Arabs riot to protest Jewish immigration to Palestine.  This was the beginning of two years of violence that would not end until 1939. Contrary to popular misconception, these riots were not a spontaneous expression of Arab feelings.  Arab leaders called for a general strike and a rebellion against the Mandate and in an effort to prevent Jewish immigration. Initially 80 Jews were murdered and 308 wounded.  By fall of 1939, over one hundred Jews had been killed in Arab attacks. The official Zionist policy at the time was “Havlagah”(self-restraint). In other words, the Jewish forces acted in self-defense.  They did not go out after their attackers nor did they stage attacks on Arab villages or centers of population.  The Arabs would succeed in their efforts.  In 1939, just prior to the start of World War II, the British government violated the terms of the Mandate and the Balfour Declaration by all but putting and end to Jewish immigration to Palestine and ending the purchase of land by Jews.  The British zealously enforced the ban on immigration which played a helpful role in the success of the Final Solution.


1938: Germany issued a decree that effectively eliminated Jews from the nation's economy and provides for the seizure of Jewish assets.


1938: The Palestine Post reported that five Arab terrorists were killed when they attacked the Tel Amal police post and the neighboring Jewish settlement. One Arab constable was killed during the attack.


1938: The Palestine Post reported that Switzerland demanded that all foreign nationals and in particular Austrian refugees leave the country. The acquisition of land, or even a substantial financial investment could not any more serve as a reason to obtain a permit to remain on the Swiss soil. (This was aimed at Jewish refugees who sought safe haven in supposedly neutral Switzerland.  It is only one example of how the Swiss betrayed the much touted moral high ground of neutrality to ingratiate themselves with the Nazis at the expense of the Jews of Europe.)


1941 (24th of Nisan, 5701):  A mentally ill woman was forced by the sentries to dance by the barbed entrance to the Lodz Ghetto. When she was done they shot her dead. This unfortunate soul perished with no record of her name.  By mentioning the episode, she may remain nameless, but not unremembered. 


1945: Robert Limpert who had been brutally hung in the Bavarian town of Ansbach for courageously trying to sabotage the Nazis in the waning days of WW II was buried today.


1946 (20th of Nisan, 5706): On the 6thDay of Pesach, five Jews, each of them a concentration-camp survivor, motoring near Nowy Targ, Poland, were stopped at a mock police checkpoint and shot to death. The oldest victim was 35, one was 25, and the remaining three were 22.


1946: The Palestine civil service strike gained new support when “municipal workers in Nazareth and employees of the Trans-Jordan railways walked out in sympathy with the other strikers.”
1949(22nd of Nisan, 5709): 8th day of Pesach


1951(15th of Nisan, 5711): As UN Forces fight the Chinese and the North Korean forces trying to conquer South Korea, the Jews observe Pesach.



1953: Roy Cohn and G. David Schine, two of Senator Joseph McCarthy's chief aides, recommend the removal of 30,000 books from the libraries of the United States Information Service posts in Europe, including works by Dashiell Hammett, W. E. B. Du Bois, Herman Melville, John Steinbeck and Henry David Thoreau, calling them "pro-Communist.”  Not all Jews, even ones who were New York born lawyers, were liberals.  This also puts the lie to the notion that all Jews were Communists.


1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that on the occasion of Israel's sixth birthday, the President, Yitzhak Ben-Zvi, ordered the release of eight prisoners and reduced the sentences of about a hundred others. Nazareth and Arab villages in Galilee were richly decorated with flags of the State. Arab and Druze notables participated in the Haifa march-past army parade and other celebrations.


1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that diplomatic steps were taken in an urgent effort to improve the deteriorating conditions on Israeli borders, troubled by a continued infiltration, murder, theft and sabotage.


1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that Israel accused Egypt of an act of piracy when three Israeli fishing smacks were stopped and searched, in international waters, by an Egyptian corvette.


1954: Danny Kaye was appointed UNICEF's Ambassador at Large, and made a 40,000 mile good-will trip, which resulted in the short, Assignment Children.


1958(1st of Iyar, 5718):Rosh Chodesh Iyyar



1961: “Israel: The Man in the Cage, an article published” by Time magazine described the events at the Eichmann Trial



1964: Houston Third Baseman Steve Hertz appeared in his first major league baseball game.


1968: Bernard Gersten, a man who served in many theatrical capacities married a dancer named Cora Cahan.


1969: “The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail” co-authored by Jerome Lawrence (born Jerome Lawrence Schwartz) opened today for the first time at Ohio State University.


1977(3rd of Iyar, 5737):Yom HaAtzma'ut


1977(3rd of Iyar, 5737): Eighty-four year old Gummo [Milton] Marx passed away. Gummo was born on October 23, 1892 or 1893 depending upon which record you consult.  He was definitely the fifth son Minnie and Sam Marx.  He is the Marx brother most people do not remember.  Although he and Groucho were the original performers in the family, Gummo left show business join the Army.  He was replaced by Zeppo.  After the war, Gummo sold dresses and cloth.  He came back to show business, but not as a performer.  He was the agent for his famous brothers.  .


1978:The Jerusalem Postreported that the Government and the Histadrut reached a mini-package anti-inflation deal, providing for a six-month freeze on taxes, prices and service charges, with an option to be extended for another six months.


1978:The Jerusalem Postreported that Israeli authorities had recently been looking into the possibility of curbing what was termed as an increased partisan activity by the too inquisitive foreign diplomats in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.


1984(19thof Iyar, 5744): Marcel Janco,Romanian and Israeli visual artist, architect, art theorist and cultural promoter, known as the co-inventor of Dadaism and a leading exponent of Constructivism in Eastern Europe passed away.

1985(30th of Nisan, 5745):  Songwriter and music scout Irving Mills passed away.


1985(30th of Nisan, 5745):  Fashion designer Rudi Gernreich passed away.


1985(30th of Nisan, 5745):  Rosh Chodesh Iyar


1987: In today’s “Postscript” German historian Joachim Fest wrote "In its substance, the dispute was initiated by Ernst Nolte's question whether Hitler's monstrous will to annihilate the Jews, judging from its origin, came from early Viennese impressions or, what is more likely, from later Munich experiences, that is, whether Hitler was an originator or simply being reactive. Despite all the consequences that arouse from his answer, Nolte's question was in fact a purely academic exercise. The conclusions would probably not have caused as much controversy if they had been accompanied by special circumstances"


1988(4thof Iyar, 5748) Yom HaAtzma’ut


1988(4thof Iyar, 5748): Sixty-seven year old I.A.L. Diamond screenwriter whose work included “The Apartment” and “Some Like It Hot” passed away today.

1993:Yiddish theater producer and advocate Dora Wasserman received the Order of Canada, the highest honor bestowed on civilians by the Canadian government.Born in Ukraine in 1920 [some sources say 1919], Wasserman studied at Moscow's Yiddish Art Theatre and acted with the Kiev State Theatre and Kazakhstan State Theatre before Stalinist repression closed down most Yiddish theatres in the Soviet Union. In 1950, she fled the U.S.S.R. with her husband and two young daughters. After stints in Poland and a displaced persons camp in Vienna, Austria, Wasserman and her family arrived in Montreal where she would spend the rest of her life. In Montreal, Wasserman at first taught drama to Jewish schoolchildren, many of them Yiddish-speaking refugees like her, and performed as a singer, pianist, and guitarist. After six years, she formed the Yiddish Drama Group, an adult amateur ensemble that later became the Yiddish Theatre and then was renamed the Dora Wasserman Yiddish Theatre. The Group's first production, The Innkeeper, was staged in 1957. Although her troupe was not made up of professional actors, Wasserman insisted on a high level of both performance and dedication and was rewarded with the loyalty of her actors and the high praise of critics and fans. The more than 70 plays she directed over four decades earned her the title of grande dame of the Yiddish theatre. Among the Yiddish Theatre's productions were classics by well-known Yiddish writers like Sholom Aleichem and Sholem Asch; modern works translated into Yiddish for her company, like Montreal playwright Michel Tremblay's classic Les Belles Soeurs (the Sisters-in-Law); and new works written especially for her troupe. The most successful of these was A Bintel Brief, based on immigrants' letters to the advice column of the Jewish Daily Forward. Tremblay called her production of Les Belles Soeurs the best interpretation in any foreign language. Wasserman's theatre reached an audience beyond the population of native Yiddish-speakers, which grew smaller with each passing decade. She believed that, "if [a play] is good, you will feel it. You don't need to understand the language on the stage." Still by providing supertitles in English and French, the Theatre's works became accessible to a wide audience in Quebec, and on tours in Israel, the United States, Austria, and Russia. In addition, Wasserman traveled frequently to Jewish schools to lead extracurricular programs designed to instill a love of both theatre and Yiddish. These programs reached some 3,000 students each year. In 1973, the troupe moved to the Saidye Bronfman Centre in Montreal, where it is now the only permanent resident Yiddish theatre in North America. It is also one of only four Yiddish theatres in the world – the others are in New York, Warsaw, and Tel Aviv. Wasserman passed leadership of the theatre to her daughter, Bryna Wasserman, in 1996, after a disabling stroke. The elder Wasserman died in 2003. Her headstone in a Montreal cemetery reads, "with love and magic, Dora founded the miracle of Yiddish Theatre in Montreal, a bridge to the Jewish people's continuity."


1994(10thof Iyar, 5754): Officer cadet Shahar Simani , age 20, of Ashkelon, was found stabbed to death near the roadside at the village of Beit Hanina , north of Jerusalem . He had been kidnapped while hitchhiking in the south.


1996: The New York Times published an article entitled “Modern Holocaust Memorial: Thesis of Victim on Internet” that tells the story of Esther Hautzig’s very personal, very innovative efforts to insure that the life of her Uncle Ela-Chaim Cuzner will be remembered

1999(5thof Iyar, 5759): Final Yom HaAtzma’ut celebration of the 20thcentury.


2001(28thof Nisan, 5761):Dr. Mario Goldin, 53, of Kfar Sava, was killed when a terrorist detonated a powerful bomb he was carrying near a group of people waiting at a bus stop on the corner of Weizman and Tchernichovsky streets. About 60 people were injured in the blast. Hamas claimed responsibility.


2002: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including the recently published paperback edition of “Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus” by Rick “The End of Days: Fundamentalism and the Struggle for the Temple Mount” by Gershom Gorenberg in which the “ senior editor and columnist for The Jerusalem Post examines the incendiary mix of religious groups -- Arab, Jewish and fundamentalist Christians -- that view the destiny of the sacred Temple Mount as crucial to their apocalyptic faith.”


2002: Official end of Operation Defensive Shield, the Israeli response to Arab terrorism that culminated with the murder of 30 people during a Seder.


2003: An Israeli intelligence officer identified only as “Colonel K” gave a lecture today predicting that Hezbollah had shore-to-sea missiles in its possession.


2005:Ivri Lider performed in Tel Aviv where he was joined byRita, Berry Sakharof, and Assaf Amdursky. The show was recorded for the Live album.


2005(12th of Nisan, 5765):  Fast of the Firstborn.


2006(23rd of Nisan, 5766): The Brit of Joshua Larry Rosenstein, son of Mr. and Mrs. David Rosenstein and the grandson of Larry and Judy Rosenstein (of blessed memory) takes place in New York City.


2006: President Bush proclaims May as Jewish American Heritage Month.


2007: Sara Paretsky, creator of the V.I. Warshawski novels, takes part in a book reading and book signing in Forest Park, Illinois.  Ms. Paretsky is an outspoken critic of the powers the Patriot Act.  Despite threats from a variety of sources, she reported that she found the courage to speak out because of her Jewish heritage.  Silence had enabled those who made the Holocaust and she was not going to be threatened into silence.


 
2007:  An exhibition entitled “Otot” featuring the works of Yosef Halevi opens at the Meirov Municipal Art Gallery in Holon. Halevi won the then-coveted Diezengoff Prize in 1962.


2008(16th of Nisan, 5768): Second Day of Pesach, First Day of the Omer – 5768.


2009(27th of Nisan, 5769): Yom Hashoah – Holocaust Remembrance Day


2009: In Cedar Rapids, Holocaust Survivor Irene Furst speaks at Mt. Mercy College.Irene Furst, at 87, still travels the country to tell her story because it’s one she doesn’t want to be forgotten. Furst is a Holocaust survivor. She fears that as the survivors die, so, too, will their stories.
 “I don’t know what will happen when all the survivors will be gone,” Furst said. “My children’s generation would still probably remember and talk about it, but I don’t know what will happen after that. The Jewish people will not forget, but I don’t know about everyone else.”   Furst, a native of Poland, spent six years in three locations during the Holocaust. These included the Lodz Ghetto and Auschwitz concentration camp. She celebrated her 18th birthday shortly after being detained in the first ghetto, in 1939, and wasn’t liberated until May 1945. After the war, she met her future husband, who had been imprisoned in Latvia. They came to the United States in 1947. Furst tells her story not only to keep the memories going but to help ensure the event won’t be repeated.
 “It should never happen again,” she said. “Germans wanted a final solution to the number of Jews. They wanted to kill all the Jews. “It’s important to know that one race can hate another so badly that they wanted to kill them,” she said.  Her visit to Cedar Rapids is funded through the Thaler Holocaust Memorial Fund.


2009:  A Holocaust Remembrance Day (Yom Hashoah) ceremony takes place this evening at the Waterloo Center for the Arts. The ceremony involves participants of different faiths and backgrounds, and includes a candle-lighting to pay tribute to the victims, liberators and rescuers of the Holocaust, as well as victims of other genocides. The event was organized in collaboration with the Sons of Jacob Synagogue of Waterloo.


2009:Today, for the first time, Israel Kasztner, the man, who organized a train that saved 1,682 Hungarian Jews from death at the hands of the Nazis will be honored in a ceremony near the scene of the murder. Among those present will be the children and grandchildren of those he saved.

 

2009:Saleh Bahman, a Kuwaiti journalist who will be running for parliament in next month's general election today called on the Gulf state to establish full diplomatic ties with Israel. "Israel is a reality and has international influence... Kuwait would benefit from Israel's influence if we establish relations with them."


2009: In a statement issued in the House of Commons today, Foreign Secretary David Miliband announced that “in light of Operation Cast Lead and in line with” the British governments “obligations after a conflict” there would be “a review of extant export licenses for Israel” 


2009: “The government filed a motion with the Sixth Circuit asking for the stay against deportation to be lifted, arguing that accused war criminal John Demjanjuk had sought the stay in order to provide an opportunity for the BIA to rule upon his motion to reopen the deportation order. Since the BIA denied the motion, the government argued, the basis for the Sixth Circuit's stay was no longer valid, and the stay should accordingly be dismissed


2010:Centro Primo Levi and the Center for Jewish History are scheduled to present a Panel Discussion with Moshe Idel about his Book Old Worlds, New Mirrors: On Jewish Mysticism and 20th-Century Thought


2010: Israeli authors Assaf Gavron and Eshkol Nevo are scheduled to read from their newest novels at Cornell University as part of a program entitled “Israeli Literature Today.”


2010:Whitney Harris, one of the last of the prosecutors who brought high-ranking Nazi war criminals to justice at the Nuremberg trials and who, a half-century later, was a significant voice in the creation of the International Criminal Court, died today at the age of  97. (As reported by Dennis Hevesi)

2011: “Rabies” an Israeli film about a psychotic serial killer, is scheduled to be shown today at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York.


2011:Ten thousand Jewish worshipers gathered at the Western Wall Plaza today take part in the bi-annual Priestly Blessing, which usually occurs on the second intermediate days of Sukkot and Pessah.

2011: Joining the likes of US President Barack Obama, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, UK Prime Minister David Cameron and teen pop sensation Justin Bieber, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was named by Time Magazine today as one of the 100 most influential people of 2011.

 

2011: The Haggadah Fair sponsored by the Kol HaOt organization and the Inbal Hotel featuring “the magnificent Haggadot of such internationally renowned artists as Avner Moriah, Maty Grünberg, David Moss, Eliyahu Sidi, Matt Berkowitz, Ya’akov Daniel and Ilya Gefter” came to an end today.


2012:Former Ambassador Richard Schifter is scheduled to speak about Israel's relations with the international community, the United Nations, the U.S. Congress and the American Rabbinate at Tifereth Israel Congregation in Washington, DC. 


2012: “Jewish Luck” is scheduled to be shown at the Columbia Jewish Congregation’s (CJC) 2012 - Twentieth Season of Movies.


2012: “Retoration” and “Mabul” (The Flood) are scheduled to be shown at the Westchester Jewish Film Festival. 


2012:  “Avigdor Arikha: Works from the Estate” an exhibition at the Marlborough Gallery is scheduled to come to an end.

2013: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Interestings by Meg Wolitzer  and the recently released paperback edition of Exorcising Hitler: The Occupation and Denazification of Germany by Frederick Taylor.


2013: “Microcosms: Ruth Abrams, Abstract Expressionist” which opened in August, 2012 is scheduled to come to an end at Yeshiva University Museum.


2013: Consultation on Conscience, Reform Judaism’s flagship social justice conference, is scheduled to open in Washington, D.C.


2013: International conference “Being witness to the Holocaust. 70th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising” is scheduled to open in Warsaw.


2013: An exhibition of the work of Holocaust survivor Israel Bernbaum at the George Segal Gallery at Montclair State University is scheduled to come to an end.


2013: Tiftereth Israel in Des Moines is scheduled to host a giant Israel Festival called “A Taste of Israel.”

2013: Today the cabinet approved an Open Skies Agreement with the European Union, even as Israeli carriers grounded their fleets and hundreds of airline workers gathered outside the meeting in protest.


2013: U.S. Secretary of Defense of Chuck Hegel arrived in Israel today vowing to provide Israel “with advanced weapons that will enhance its abilities to strike at Israel.


2014(21stof Nisan, 5774): Seventh Day of Pesach

2014: In Marionville, MO, a special meeting of the Board of Alderman is scheduled to be held to accepting the resignation of Jessica Wilson, an alderwoman who is giving up her position  in response to the endorsement of Mayor Daniel Clevenger’s endorsement of the views of Frazier Glen Miller, the anti-Semitic gunman who murdered three people when he attacked a Jewish community center and assisted living facility in Kansas City.


 

This Day, April 22, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. Levin

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April 22

 
404:Emperors Arcadius and Honorius limit the opportunities of Jews to serve the Empire when they issue the following:  "We decree that the Jews and Samaritans who flatter themselves with the privilege of being in the secret service will be deprived of all employment with imperial service."

 
1073: Pope Gregory VII begins his twelve year reign.  While history may remember him for his role as a reformer and for his “battles” with the Henry IV, the Holy Roman Emperor, others may also remember him as “The Jewish Pope” since he was reportedly “descended from an Italian Jew named Baruch” who started a bank in Rome and converted to Christianity in 1030.

 
1213:Pope Innocent III issued the papal bull Quia maior, calling all of Christendom to join what became the Fifth Crusade. The Crusades were a period of intermittent disaster for the Jews of Europe and Palestine.

 
1451: Birthdate of Isabella I of Castile, the queen who played a key role in the destruction of a seven century old civilization when she cruelly expelled the Jews from Spain 

 
1490(1st of Iyar): Leo, Jewish court physician to Grand Duke Ivan II, was executed today.

 
1509: Henry VIII ascended the English throne following the death of his father, Henry VII.  While Jews were officially banned from living in England, evidence exists that a small congregation of Marranos had settled in London by 1540.  Henry’s contact with Jews and Judaism was indirect but somewhat pivotal in the events surrounding his various wives.  Henry’s older brother had married Catherine of Aragon in a state marriage designed to guarantee peaceful relations between England and Spain.  When Henry’s older brother died, the English sought to keep the amicable relations alive by arranging a marriage between Henry and Catherine.  The English got the Pope to approve of the marriage by invoking the Biblical law concerning the Levirate Marriage.  Years later, Henry sought to have the marriage annulled so that he could marry Anne Boleyn.  He claimed that the marriage was a nullity because he had coveted his late brother’s wife and their marriage was a product of sin.  Henry sought support from those most learned in these matters, a group of Italian rabbis.  Regardless of the Halachah involved, the Italian rabbis were loathe to anger the Pope who was their “neighbor” in a clash with a monarch living in a distant land in which Jews were forbidden to live.  

 
1585(23rd of Nisan): Rabbi Moses (Trani) of Safed, author of “Kiryat Sefer” passed away today.

 
1593:  The first group of Marranos led by Jacob Tirado arrived in Amsterdam, Holland. This group was the first Jews to settle in Amsterdam after the Spanish Expulsion. Moses Uri Halevi soon joined them and helped arrange for prayer services.

 
1610: Birthdate Alexander VIII.  During his papacy, Alexander was confronted with an unusual request.  Instead of demanding that Jews be banished from their town, the priors of Perugia appealed to Alexander to overrule Pope Innocent X and allow Jews to return to their city. The absence of Jews from the city’s fairs was a having a negative impact on the area’s economy.

 
1625: Urban VIII issued “Sedes apostolica,” a papal bull concerning “heretical Portuguese Jews.”

 
1724: Birthdate of German philosopherImmanuel Kant.  Kant may have been one of the giants of the Enlightenment, but from a Jewish point of view, he was an intellectual pygmy. As Michael Mack of Hebrew University wrote, “Kant consistently equated Jewish identity with a host of undesirable traits, including superstition, dishonesty, worldliness and even cowardliness.‘Every coward is a liar; Jews for example, not only in business, but also in common life,’ Kant noted in a lecture on practical philosophy… All the positive traits of Kantian philosophy (freedom, autonomy, reason) are formed by being contrasted with a negative image of unenlightened humanity, usually taking the form of an anti-Semitic or some other racist caricature. For Kant, motives could only be good if they were not aimed at any material benefit. He saw Judaism as an inherently materialist religion, based upon a quid pro quo between God and His chosen people .In order to fully define the formal structures of his philosophy (autonomy, reason, morality and freedom), Kant almost unconsciously fantasized about the Jews as it’s opposite. He posited Judaism as an abstract principle that does nothing else but, paradoxically, desire the consumption of material goods."

 
1762: In Prague, Jonas Jeiteles and his wife gave birth to Talmudist Baruch Ben Jacob Benedict Jeitles, the father of Ignaz Jeiteles.

 
1770(17th of Nisan): Israel Ben Moses Zamsoc of Brody, author of “Nezah Yisrael” passed away today.

 
1777(15th of Nisan, 5537): Celebration begins of the first Pesach in the recently declared independent United States of America.

 
1783: The Jews sent a petition to Emperor Joseph II which “expressed their gratitude…for his favors and reminding him of his principle that religion should not be interfered with, asked permission to wear beards.

 
1792: Birthdate of Uriah Phillips Levy, Commodore of the United States Navy. Born in Philadelphia, his mother was a descendant from the Nunez family that arrived in Charleston in 1733.

 
1834: Dr. Albert Moses Levy and his wife moved back to Virginia after he had completed his medical training at the University of Pennsylvania. After his wife’s death. Levy would make his way to Texas where he participate in the rebellion against Mexico and become a leading member of the new republic

 
1842: Birthdate of Alexander Kohut the Hungarian born American rabbi and orientalist.

 
1845(15th of Nisan, 5606): Pesach

 
1850: Birthdate of anatomist and embryologist Gustav Born who was the father of Max Born.

 
1853: In the House of Commons, following a third reading, the bill removing Jewish disabilities was carried by a majority of 58.

 
1860: Dr. George B. Cheever delivered an anti-slavery speech tonight at The Church of the Puritans in which he compared slaveholders to the anti-Semitic King John of England who “who, to extort money from a Jew, pulled a tooth every day from out the Hebrew's head until he complied with his demands.”

 
1863(3rd of Iyar, 5623): Gabriel Riesser the first Jewish judge in Germany and an advocate of the emancipation of the Jews in Germany passed away today.

1863(3rd of Iyyar, 5623: Soro Chano Szatan, the mother of Chanokh Heynekh Lewin (Rebbe Reb Heynekh of Aleksander) passed away.  Born in 1779, her husband was Pinchas Lewin who passed away in 1837.

 
1864(16th of Nisan, 5624): Second day of Pesach; 1st day of the Omer

 
1864: Captain Ezekiel Levy, his brother Isaac J. Levy and other Jews serving with the 46th Virginia Infantry observed Pesach at their camp in Adams Run, South Carolina, outside of Charleston. On the first day of the holiday they feasted on a “fine vegetable soup” which contained “new onions, parsley, carrots turnips and a young cauliflower … a pound and a half of fresh [kosher] beef, the latter article sells for four dollars per pound in Charleston.”

 
1865: In Philadelphia, 16 German boys reportedly beat a Jewish named Bernadotte Glischman.  Following the beating, the boys took Glischman to his room where they stuck him with pins.  Glischman said the boys did this to him because he was Jewish and they said that the Jews had killed Christ.

 
1868: Birthdate of Friedrich Münzer the “German classical scholar” known “for his demonstrations of how family relationships in ancient Rome connected to political struggles.”

 
1870: Birthdate of Vladimir Lenin, who led the Bolshevik Revolution.  Contrary to popular misconception, Lenin was not Jewish. Also, Lenin and the Communists did bring down the Czar.  They overthrew the Kerensky government, the democratic socialists, who had actually ended the three hundred years of Romanov rule. Many people who were born Jews were followers of Lenin.  The most famous was Trotsky.  But Lenin’s impact on the Jewish people far transcended the presence of these individuals. History would prove that Communist Russia was no more hospitable for those who wanted to practice their Judaism than Czarist Russia had been. 

 
1871(1st of Iyar, 5631): Rosh Chodesh Iyar

 
1871: Bavaria grants equal rights to its Jewish citizens completing the process of emancipation in the German Empire.
 
1872(14th of Nisan, 5632): Ta'anit Bechorot; Erev Pesach

 
1872(14th of Nisan, 5632): “The Feast of Passover: Celebration of Israel’s Delivery From Bondage – Jewish Traditions and Observances” published today states that “At sundown today the people of Israel, wheresoever dispersed over the fact of the earth will begin the celebration of the feast of Pesach or the Passover, one of the most important festivals in the Jewish Calendar.”

 
1880: In Leadville, CO, the Bush-Trimble Building collapsed.  The building Kaskel & Co, clothing business co-owned by Caesar J. Kaskel and Jacob Michaelis of New York City and managed by Julius W. Kaskel one of the first Jews to settle in Leadville.

 
1881: It was reported today that an anonymous Jewish donor had sent a basket of flowers to Reverend William A. Barltett of Indianapolis’ Second Presbyterian Church as a token of appreciation for the speech he gave on “the Jewish question.”

 
1881: Birthdate of Alexander Kerensky, the most prominent leader of the Provisional Government that replaced the government of the Czars.  Kerensky was not Jewish but the failure of the democratic forces that he led certainly had a major impact on the Jews of what would become the Soviet Union.  This short guide does not provide the space for further comment on this major episode in Jewish History.

 
1881: Visitors at the Hebrew Cemetery at Cypress Hills on Long Island heard shots emanating from the house of the groundskeeper, Max Blecker.  Further investigation led to the discovery of Blocker’s body which had a large wound on the right side of his head and a revolver grasped tightly in his hand.  Reportedly, he had been in ill health and he “told his friends that he would be better off dead.”
 
1881: It was reported today that Tunisia with a population of about 2 million is of little financial value to the French who seem determined to annex the territory.  The little commercial activity that does exist is primarily in the hands of the 25,000 Jews who make up about a fifth of the population of Tunis.

 
1882: It was reported today, that in Berlin, a committee composed of leading citizens belonging to all religious denominations has raised 100,000 marks to provided assistance for Jews seeking to leave Russia.

 
1882: It was reported today that reports have reached Vienna confirming the attacks on Jews in towns near Odessa.  In Balta, the riots lasted for two days leaving at least 2,000 Jewish families in ruin.  “The riots almost assumed the character of a struggle for the annihilation of the Jews…”

 
1883(15th of Nisan, 5643): On the first day of Pesach an article entitled “The Feast of the Passover” reported that “the morning services at” the Jewish “places of worship…will be peculiarly interesting.”

 
1884: In Nashville, TN, John Schoffner made a full confession to police concerning the murder of Meyer Friedman, a Jew living in Nashville.  According to Schoffner, Meyer Morris organized the killing and that Mrs. Friedman wanted her husband dead because “she did not love him” and he “treated her badly.”

 
1884: Birthdate of Austrian-born psychoanalyst, Otto Rank. He wrote the first psychoanalytic book by a disciple of Freud. Rank moved to the United States in the 1930’s.  He died at the age of 55, one month after Freud passed away.


1884: New York dentist and founding member of B’nai Israel Dr. Lyon Berhard was laid to rest at Cypress Hill this morning.
1885:  Ninety-six year old Reverend Leonard Withington, the oldest Congregational Clergyman in the United States passed away today.  Withington was a scholar well versed in Hebrew who had written a book entitled “Solomon Songs.”  He was a prime example of the reality that in 19th century America some of the people who were the most knowledgeable about Hebrew as a language were Protestant ministers.

 
1886: Jess Seligman presided over tonight’s celebration of the second anniversary of the Hebrew Technical Institute which was held at Temple Emanu-El in New York City.  Among the dignitaries attending the event was Carl Schurz, the famous German-American journalist and social reformer who gave the evening’s main address. (The school would remain open until 1939)

 
1887: It was reported today that two Englishman carrying an American flag recently imprisoned a Jewish merchant from Alcazar Morocco on charges of not paying a debt.  The prisoner was paraded through various towns in chains as hje was taken to Tangier.  The event, which took place during Passover, has been condemned by the leading Jews of Tangier who have sought the aid of  the local British, French and Portuguese Consuls

1889: The Literary Notes column reported that “The Jew in English Fiction” by Rabbi David Philipson will soon be issued by Robert Clarke & Co of Cincinnati, Ohio.  Among the characters discussed are Marlowe’s Jew of Malta, Shakespeare’s Shylock, Cumberland’s Jew, Scott’s Jew in “Ivanhoe”, Dickens’ Jew in “Oliver Twist’ and “Our Mutual Friend”, Disraeli’s in “Coningsby” and “Tancred and George Eliot’s “Daniel Deronda”.  (At the time, Philipson was a young Reform rabbi from Wabash, Indiana)

 
1889: At high noon, thousands rush to claim land in the Land Run of 1889. Within hours the cities of Oklahoma City and Guthrie are formed with populations of at least 10,000.

 
1891(14th of Nisan, 5651): An article entitled “The Festival of Pesach: It will begin at Sunset To-Night and Last For A Week” reports that “all the reform temples and orthodox synagogues  will be open for services this evening…and appropriate sermons will be delivered by the spiritual heads of the communities.

 
1893(6th of Iyar, 5653): Chaim Aronson passed away at the age of 77. Born in Lithuania in 1825 when it was part of Russia, Aaronson was a gifted linguist (Hebrew, German, and Russian) with a penchant for invention who went from being a clockmaker to developing a variety of machines including one for making cigarettes and one that was a prototype for a movie camera.  Aronson was a better scholar and engineer than he was a businessman since none of his work brought him commercial success.  His most long lasting contribution was a literary work entitled A Jewish Life under the Tsars: The Autobiography of Chaim Aronson, 1825-1888 that provides a picture of life in the final century of Czarist Russia.

 
1893: Rabbi Raphael Benjamin delivered a sermon this morning on the subject of the recent blackballing of Theodore Seligman by the Union League.

 
1893: “Max Judd Objected To” published today described the reasons that the government of Austria provided for refusing to recognize the appoint of Max Judd as Consul General for the United States at Vienna.  The Austrians claim that the refusal is based on that fact the Judd had been born in Austria and “is engaged in the emigration business.” The Austrians claim that the objection has nothing to do with Judd’s religion which is just as well because the U.S. government has said that Mr. Judd’s replacement will not be of Austrian descent, but he will be Jewish.

 
1894: Hyman Blumenthal was arrested on charges that he had deliberately tried to burn down the tenement at 28 East Broadway.

 
1894: Birthdate of Max Weinreich, the Russian born American linguist and a founder of the Yiddish Institue (YIVO) and author of  who was “the father of the linguist Uriel Weinreich, who edited the Modern Yiddish-English English-Yiddish Dictionary.”

 
1894: Rabbi Joseph Silverman delivered a lecture at Temple Emanu-El in New York entitled “The Jewish Passover and Its Modern Message to Jews and Christians” in which he described that observing Passover was “the celebration of the anniversary of the Jewish Independence Day.”

1895: It was reported today that the Hebrew Orphan Asylum is providing housing for 700 children at its building at 137thStreet and Amsterdam Avenue.  Trustees Theodore Seligman, Edward Lauterbach and Emanuel Leyman are considering a propels to raise $250,000 to expand the facility to meet increase demand for its services.
 
1896 (9th of Iyar, 5656): Gustave May passed away today in New York City.  Born in Paris in 1845, he served as Quartermaster General with the forces fighting to protect the Commune at the end of the Fanco-Prussian War.  When the Commune forces were defeated he fled  to America with his brother where they started May Brothers, a firm of commission merchants that “was the first to import cigarette papers into the United States. Although born Jewish May saw himself as a “Freethinker” and was active in the French Exile community.  His brother Elie had served as a General in the forces of the Commune.


1896: Herzl began a two day journey to Karlsruhe where he was received in audience by Grossherzog (Grand Duke) Friedrich of Baden.  Herzl was heartened by the meeting saying ("Jedenfalls nahm der Grossherzog meine Staatbildung von Anfang an vollkommen ernst." - "In any case, the Grand Duke took my proposed formation of a state quite seriously from the beginning.")
1897(20th of Nisan, 5657): Sixty-seven year old Simon Alexander passed away today having lost his 9 month long battle with asthma and heart sickness.  He was an editorial writer for The Hebrew Journal and member of Temple Emanu-El


1897:  In New York City, the world's largest Jewish daily newspaper, "The Forward," was first published. Abraham Cahan, 43, one of its founders, became editor of the paper in 1903, remaining until his death in 1951.  The Forward began as a Yiddish paper.  By the 1930's it was one of the nation's leading dailies with a readership of 275,000 supplemented by a radio audience listening to WVED.  One of its most famous features was the Bintel Briefs, a Yiddish Dear Abby.  The paper shifted its formant and became English weekly in the 1980's.  Later it added a Russian language edition for the new wave of Jewish immigrants.  For more information see
http://www.forward.com/.



1898(30th of Nisan, 5658): Rosh Chodesh Iyar


1898(30th of Nisan, 5658): Simon Kayserling passed away. Kayserling was a German born teacher and author.  He was the brother of Meyer Kayserling.  Both brothers were historians.  But Meyer also pursued career in the Rabbinate while Simon followed a more secular career serving on the faculty of the Jewish Free School while writing or translating books about the history of Poland and the history of the Jews living in Spain and Portugal.


1898: N.S. Roenau of the United Hebrew Charities was one of the speakers who addressed a group Yale University students studying Sociology under the direction of Professor William T. Blackman who visited New York City today.


1899: The sixth annual reunion banquet of the Hebrew Technical Institute Alumni Association was held this evening at the Broadway Central Hotel.
 
1899: Minnie Jacobs and her lawyer Joseph Moss appeared before William J. Youngs, Secretary to the Governor of New York to plead for a pardon for her father, Saul Jacobs.

1889: At high noon, thousands rush to claim land in the Land Run of 1889. Within hours the cities of Oklahoma City and Guthrie are formed with populations of at least 10,000. ‘Jewish settlers began coming to Oklahoma and Indian Territory as early as 1875. The Jewish population grew as Oklahoma blossomed into a boom area, after the famous Land Run of 1889 and statehood in 1907. The early settlers came as peddlers and salesmen and later became shopkeepers and retail merchants. According to the American Jewish Year Book, there were 1,000 Jews in Oklahoma Territory in 1901.” (courtesy of the Jewish Federation of Greater Oklahoma City)


1900(23rdof Nisan): Author Louis Bein passed away.


1902(15th of Nisan, 5662): On the first day of Passover The New York Times took exception to a letter that Mayor Seth Low had sent to Police Commissioner John N. Partridge advising him not to enforce “blue laws” on Sunday April 20 because Jews needed to shop and conduct such activities as killing chickens as they prepared for their holiday which would begin on Monday evening, April 21.  The Times said that the Mayor’s ruling “was uncalled for” and “was wrong in principle and conclusion. [Editor’s Note: Those of us living in the 21st century with its 24/7 schedule probably have difficulty that power of Sunday closing laws; laws that were enforced well into the closing decades of the 20th century.”


1903: Herzl meets Lord Rothschild who tells him that Edmond de Rothschild is delighted with his plan.


1904: Birthdate of Robert J. Oppenheimer.  Born in New York, Oppenheimer was the son of a prosperous German-Jewish textile importer and an artistic Baltimore Jewess who died when Oppenheimer was a child.  A renowned physicist, Oppenheimer bordered on the brilliant and enjoyed a wide range of intellectual pursuits.  His claim to fame is the Manhattan Project.  He was the scientific overlord of the American race to develop and build the Atomic Bomb.  After the war, Oppenheimer had reservations about additional military uses of science.  He opposed the building of the Hydrogen Bomb, a project that was brought to a successful conclusion by yet another Jewish scientist, Edward Teller.  Oppenheimer fell victim to the post-War Red Scare and lost his security clearance. Oppenheimer's security clearance was regained during the Kennedy years and his reputation was publicly rehabilitated.  He passed in 1967 at the age of 62.  As to the Jewish influence in his life, consider the following. Prior to the 1930's, Oppenheimer had led the cloistered life of the privileged and the scientist in his ivory tower.  During the 1930's Oppenheimer became involved in liberal and social justice causes.  According to him, the change came about, in part became, "I had had a continuing smoldering fury about the treatment of Jews in Germany,  I had relatives there, and was later to help in extricating them and bringing them to this country...I began to participate more fully in the life of the community." 


1909: In Turin, Italy, Adamo Levi, an engineer, and Adele Montalcini, a painter, both Italian Jews who traced their roots to the Roman Empire gave birth to Rita Levi-Montalcini, winner of the 1986 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine. (As reported by Benedict Carey)


1910: Today Rabbi Haim (Henry) Pereira Méndez, President of the Union of Orthodox Congregations wrote a letter to New York Mayor William Gaynor on behalf of the Orthodox congregations in the United States and Canada thanking him for his letter rejecting the request of Rev. Thomas M Chalmers for a license to “preach for the conversion Jews” on street corners in some of the city’s most heavily “Jewish” communities.  Mendez expressed his appreciation for the tone of the letter which was sympathetic to the Jewish people and said that he would work with the Christian ministers to lift the level of modern society to a level closer to that expressed by Judaism and Christianity.


1912: The Wage Earner's League for Woman Suffrage held a major rally at New York's Cooper Union. Clara Lemlich, Rose Schneiderman, and three others founded the League which sought to encourage working women to join the political process as well as to agitate for the right to vote. Lemlich, a shirtwaist maker, became the League's vice president. Drawing on their background in the Socialist movement, the founders of the Wage Earners' League emphasized the special concerns of working women. They argued in speeches and pamphlets that women needed the vote in order to secure basic human rights like safe working conditions. In doing so, League leaders came into conflict with both Socialist men and middle-class women. The men who counted on female allies in Socialist causes bluntly suggested that suffrage activists return to their kitchens. Middle-class women showed their class bias in suggesting that their wealth and education made them more capable activists than these working women. Wary of having their specific concerns sidestepped, League members agreed that any woman could join their group, but that only workers could vote, ensuring that working women would remain in control of the League's agenda and tactics. Today’s rally at Cooper Union brought together thousands of cheering women to listen to arguments for women's suffrage. The location was symbolic; Cooper Union was the site of the rally that had kicked off the "Uprising of the 20,000," one of the first and most influential strikes of industrial garment workers, just three years before. Despite a large and enthusiastic turnout at the rally, the League dissolved soon afterward. Lacking a full-time organizer and a steady source of funding, the League ceased to be active. Schneiderman went on a speaking tour for another suffrage organization; her colleagues likewise turned their energies to other groups. Ultimately, the fight for suffrage would depend on alliances across class and gender lines.


1913(15thof Nisan, 5673): Pesach


1916:  Birthdate of Yehudi Menuhin famed violin virtuoso and conductor. He passed away in March, 1999 at the age of 83.


1918: Birthdate of Solomon Aaron Berson, the New York born physician who worked with Rosalyn Yallow on “major advances in clinical biochemistry.”


1920: During the San Remo Conference, Chaim Weizmann has a private meeting with Lloyd George and Lord Balfour during which he presses the British leaders “for a civil administration in Palestine, run by the British under a League of Nations mandate.  This stood in stark contrast with the French leaders who did not want the Balfour Declaration to be part of the peace treaty with the Ottomans. 


1922: The national board of Hadassah voted "no confidence" in the leadership of ZOA President Louis Lipsky.


1928:  Birthdate of Aaron Spelling, TV executive producer who gave us “Charlie's Angels.”


1928: Following Hadassah President Irma Levy Lindheim’s recent declaration that the administration of the ZOA was "not an effective instrument for the achievement of world Zionist aims for the up-building of Palestine" today the National Board of Hadassah registered a vote of no confidence in the leadership of ZOA President Louis Lipsky.


1930: Release date for the all-star revue “Paramount on Parade” written by Joseph Mankiewicz and co-produced by Jesse Lasky, Adolph Zucker, Albert S. Kaufman and B.P. Schulberg.


1931:JBI International was founded as the Jewish Braille Institute of America


1933(26th of Nisan, 5693):  A Jewish merchant, Salomon Rosenstrauch was shot dead in Wiesbaden, Germany.


1936(30th of Nisan, 5696): Rosh Chodesh Iyar


1939: Birthdate of Uri Orr, the native of Kfar Haim who rose to the rank of general in the IDF before pursuing a political career that included serving as an MK and Deputy Minister of Defence.


1939: “The Greek cattleboat Assimi which attempted to land 263 illegal Jewish immigrants” in Palestine “twelve days ago was ordered to leave Haifa tonight.”    When the police announced the decision, “the passengers tore off their clothing and screamed that they would rather be killed than be sent back to sea. Some prayed and recited psalms. When the Jewish residents of Haifa heard the screams and prayers aboard the Assimi” they spontaneously proclaimed a strike that took hold throughout the city.  Protesters carried signs reading ‘Open the gates to the Jewish illegals’ and ‘Down with the barbaric attitude toward illegals. The captain had been fined and imprisoned for his role in bringing the Jews to Palestine. To add insult to injury the captain had been fined and imprisoned for his role in bringing the Jews to Palestine.


1940(14th of Nisan, 5700): The Sommer family sits down to their first Seder in Liechtenstein.  How this family of German Jewish refugees from Munich came to be there was chronicled by Susi Pugatsch-Sommer in an article entitled “A Pesach Miracle in Nazi Germany.”
My family - my parents Binyamin and Friedl Sommer, myself (13) my sister Ella (10), my brother Alfred (7), and my grandmother, Rachel - lived in temporary quarters in Munich, after our home had been confiscated by the Nazi daily newspaper, Völkischer Beobachter in 1939. My father had been arrested and incarcerated in the Dachau Camp in 1938 for a short time. Once he was released, he realized that he and the family had to leave Germany as quickly as possible, but he could not find a way to get out. In November 1939, my father left home for a few days, and hid the forest near Munich, since he was informed that the Nazis would arrest all male Jews again and send them to a concentration camp. By chance, he met a man in the forest who identified himself only as an engineer. This man told him that he could arrange an entry permit into neutral Liechtenstein only if he had enough money to open a building materials factory and pay salaries to 100 workers, since unemployment was high in Liechtenstein. My father agreed immediately, since he had no other option to save our lives. Miraculously, we received visas for Liechtenstein in the beginning of April 1940, in the middle of World War II, our passes to relative safety. We had 14 days to leave Germany, and each person was allowed to take one suitcase and 10 reichmarks. We boarded the train in Munich three days before Pessah. We were frisked at the German border and after the Nazis didn't find anything forbidden, were allowed to cross the border to Liechtenstein on foot. We were completely exhausted when we arrived in Vaduz, Liechtenstein, and went to sleep in a simple hotel. We did not know if there were any Jewish families in Liechtenstein, and we had no idea how we would keep Pessah properly and buy matzot. Then our next miracle happened. The following morning, as we wandered around town, a young girl stopped us and asked if we were Jewish and if she could help us. Immediately, she introduced us to her parents and some other Jewish families. The Schönwalder family invited us into their home, to their Seder and we continued to have all our meals and prayers there during the week of Pessah. We continued to reside in Liechtenstein for 10 years. At this time, only 40 to 50 Jews lived there. I met with the Schönwalders' daughter, Edith, almost every day, and she is still a very good friend of mine. Today, we both live in Israel. I'll never forget the miracle that happened to us - my father's chance meeting with the engineer, an emigration visa in the midst of the war, and the wonderful families who helped us celebrate Pessah as religious Jews.


1940:  SS official Odilo Globocnik announced a plan to increase the use of Jewish forced labor and to establish separate work camps for Jewish men and women.


1940: Detroit Tigers Pitcher Dick Conger appeared in his first major league baseball game.


1940: Ten members of the staff of Ben Shemen Youth village, including the director are sentenced to serve prison terms of up to seven years. The British had raided Ben Shemen in January and found weapons belonging to the Haganah. The prison sentences were for their role in hiding the weapons.


1941: Birthdate of Israeli Amir Pnueli an Israeli scientist who developed a “critical technique for verifying the reliability of computers.”


1943: “We Will Never Die” was performed in Philadelphia's Convention Hall, with guest stars Claude Rains and Edward G. Arnold in the lead roles. More than 15,000 people attended--it was the largest Jewish public event in the city in many years — and it received extensive coverage in the local press.(As reported by Jewish Virtual Library)


1943:  The Nazis deported the Jews of Amersfoort, Holland.


1943:  Birthdate of poet Louise Gluck.


1945:  Six hundred of the remaining inmates at Jasenovac Concentration Camp rose up against their Croatian killers.  The Croatians killed over five hundred of them.  This camp was located in a breakaway republic from Yugoslavia called Coratia.  The Croatians ran the camp for their Axis allies and were responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of Jews.  For those of you who remember the fighting in the 1990's in Yugoslavia, you will now understand that genocide is no stranger to the Balkans. Only a thousand Jews and Serbs remained. Tens of thousands of them were killed over the past five years. Six hundred rose in revolt. The Germans killed 520 of them.


1945:  The Soviet Army liberated the Concentration Camp at Sachsenhausen in Germany.  The camp was about 35 kilometers from Berlin and was established in 1938.  Approximately thirty to thirty-five thousands people including Jews perished in the camp.

1945: Birthdate of Donald E. Graham, the grandson of Eugene Meyer and the son of Katherine Graham


1946: Opening of Kibbutz Beitar in Bruna.


1946:  Composer Ezra Laderman was discharged from the U.S. Army today. He then studied composition under Stefan Wolpe of New York and Miriam Gideon of Brooklyn College where he earned his B.A.in 1950. He then went on to study under Otto Luening of Columbia University where he earned his M.A. in 1952.


1947(2nd of Iyyar, 5707): In Jerusalem’s central prison, Moshe Barazani and Meir Feinstein beat the hangman when they used a grenade smuggled into death row to blow themselves up. The two had planned to detonate the device when they were on the scaffold thus taking the British appointed executioner with them.  But when the Rabbi who visited them earlier in the day said he would return to be with them at the moment of execution, the two decide to act earlier so as to kill the Jewish cleric. 


1947: Another 769 illegal Jewish immigrants arriving on board the Galata in Eretz Israel were trans-shipped to Cyprus.


1948: Operation Misparayim (scissors) was launched by the Haganah as part of the Yishuv’s attempt to assume control of Haifa after British withdrawal and attacks had been made by Arab forces to control this port city.  By the end of the day, Haifa was in the hand of the mainline Zionist forces.

 

1949: Writing in Haaretz, Arye Gelblum described immigrants from North Africa as dirty, disease ridden and prone to drunkenness and prostitution.


1949: Hebrew University reopened in temporary quarters in west Jerusalem


1950: Tonight, after the end of Shabbat, Israel began the celebration of her second year of independence.  In his address to the nation, President Weizmann called upon Israelis “to celebrate in joy and happiness the great salvation wrought to our people after centuries of exile and affliction.”  In Jerusalem, Joseph Sprinzak, Speaker of the Knesset, lit a torch on Mt. Herzl which lit from fire provided by veterans of the Masada Battalion which had defended Jerusalem from attacks by Egyptians and Arab Irregulars during the dark days of the siege of the City of David. Similar festivities took place throughout the country including open air performances, torch light parades and the sounding of sirens by ships of many nations docked in Israel’s major ports.


1951: Philadelphia Athletics first baseman Lou Limmer played in his first major league baseball game. 


1952(27th of Nisan, 5712): Yom HaShoah


1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that the "past seven days was the bloodiest week along Israeli borders for a long time." Two Israelis were murdered at Mevuot Betar, the marauders were active in the South, in Galilee and Jerusalem. There was a general outcry when General Bennet L. de Ridder, the U.N. Chairman of the Israel-Jordan Mixed Armistice Commission refused to comply with the Israeli request to call an emergency meeting of the Commission to discuss the latest developments and, in particular, the murder of Zvi Genauer and his niece, Dvora, in Jerusalem. This incomprehensible U.N. decision was taken despite the fact that the tracks of the three marauders, responsible for this murder, were discovered by an U.N. observer and an Israeli officer who noted that they led to the Jordanian-occupied village of Beit Iksa. The General claimed that it was not the duty of his Commission to deal with incidents "of this type."


1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that Israel's three-years-long land survey, conducted by the Ministry of Agriculture, was almost completed.


1953: Birthdate of Steve Bond.  Born in Haifa Israel, the actor gained fame in the soap opera General Hospital.


1954: Leo Lerman, the Jewish editor and writer for such glossy fashion magazines as Vogue, Mademoiselle and Vanity Fairmet famed American author William Faulkner for the first time.


1954:  The so-called Army-McCarthy Hearings began. These hearings, which helped bring an end to McCarthy’s abuse of power was triggered by two of his Jewish supporters.  One was the powerful Roy Cohn, the McCarthy Committee’s chief counsel.  The other was Cohn’s close friend, G. David Schine.  :


1960: In Quebec, Dr. Harry J. Stern led the services dedicating the new home of Temple Emanu-El-Beth Sholom, the oldest Reform or Liberal congregation in Canada.


1961: Lucille Ball collapsed while performing in “Wildcast” the musical with lyrics by Carolyn Leigh and music by Cy Coleman.


1963(28th of Nisan, 5723): Yom HaShoah
 
1971(27th of Nisan, 5731): Yom HaShoah


1973:Birthdate of Ofer Talker, the native of Ashdod who gained fame playing football for several teams the last of which was Hapoel Kfar Saba from which he retired in 2009.


1974: Israeli political leader Amir Peretz was severly injured in accident at the Mitla Pass.


1975:  Barbara Walters signed a five-year $5 million contract with the American Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), becoming the highest paid television newsperson.


1977:  Shimon Peres became premier of Israel.


1978:  In Paris, France, Izhar Cohen &;Alphabeta won the twenty-third Eurovision Song Contest for Israel by singing "A-ba-ni-bi".


1978:  The Jerusalem Post reported that an agreement was reached to end the 18-days-long El Al lockout which had already cost the national airline more than IL100m, and the tourist industry hundreds of millions more.


1978:  The Jerusalem Post reported that Israel won the Eurovision Song Contest for the first time with an entry called "A-Ba-Ni-Bi". Israel scored 157 points, Belgium 121 and France 119.


1979(25th of Nisan, 5739): Shamir Kuntar was part of a cell that raided the northern Israeli town of Nahariya, fatally shooting a civilian, Danny Haran, while his daughter Einat, 4, watched, then smashing the girl’s head, killing her as well. Mr. Haran’s wife, Smadar, hid with their 2-year-old daughter, accidentally suffocating her in an effort to stop her from crying out.


1982(29thof Nisan, 5742): Eighty-two year old Irish film director and actor Harold Goldblatt passed away today.


1984: In Israel Al HaMishmar published the first report of allegations that the hijackers of Bus 300 had been shot after being captured.


1985: According to Israeli businessman Yaacov Nimrodi, today was the day when a chartered merchant ship, the Westline, was scheduled to leave Eilat filled with weaponry for Iran as part of a deal that Americans would come to know as Iran-Contra.


1985: The United States Trade Representative and the Israeli Minister of Industry and Trade signed a Free Trade Agreement today that “eliminated all duties and virtually all other restrictions on trade in goods between” their two respective countries.


1991:  Shalom America (Jewish cable network) was launched in Brooklyn & Queens.


1993:  The Holocaust Memorial Museum was dedicated in Washington, D.C.  There is no way to do this justice.  For more information see http://www.ushmm.org/.


1993: Miles Lerhman served as chairman of the Holocaust Memorial Museum from its opening today until 2000, eight years before his death in 2008 at the age of 88.


1994: Dr. Lewis Barth, Professor of Midrash and Related Literature at HUC-JIR in Los Angeles delivered the 1994 Rabbi Max Nussbaum Memorial Lecture.


1994:  Richard Nixon, 37th President of the United States passed away.  Nixon's relations with Jews and the Jewish community ranged from uneven to stormy.  In his first campaign for the U.S. Senate, Nixon supporters smeared his opponent with the tar brush of anti-Semitism.  Nixon did have Jews working on White House Staff.  He  was frustrated by is inability to gain support among Jewish voters and some of his comments on the White House tapes about Jews are, to be charitable, less than complimentary.  At the same time, in 1973, he came through for Israel.  Thanks to Nixon, the Americans conducted a mammoth airlift of supplies that enabled the IDF to turn the tide after the Arab sneak attack and gain a military victory in the Yom Kippur War.


1995:  Yagil Amir, who had sworn to kill Prime Minister Rabin, unsuccessfully tried to enter a hall in Jerusalem where Rabin was present as the guest of honor.


1995(22ndof Nisan, 5755): 8th Day of Pesach


1995(22ndof Nisan, 5755): Ninety-two year old Sir Horace Kadoorie, scion of the Kdoorie family that migrated from Baghdad to Mumbai to Hong Kong passed away today.


1997(15th of Nisan, 5757): Pesach


1999: In Manhattan, jurors awarded a patient of Dr. Pamela Lipkin, an East Side plastic surgeon $600,000 in damages.


2001: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Country Matters: The Pleasures and Tribulations of Moving From a Big City to an Old Country Farmhouse by Michael Korda, Teacha!: Stories From a Yeshiva by Gerry Albarelli and Resisting Hitler: Mildred Harnack and the Red Orchestraby Shareen Blair Brysac.


2001(29th of Nisan, 5761):Dr. Mario Goldin, 53, of Kfar Sava, was killed when a terrorist detonated a powerful bomb he was carrying near a group of people waiting at a bus stop on the corner of Weizman and Tchernichovsky streets. About 60 people were injured in the blast. Hamas claimed responsibility.


2002:  “Mideast Turmoil: American Jews; Unusually Unified in Solidarity With Israel, but Also Unusually Unnerved” published today describes the feelings an action of the Jewish community in the wake of attacks on Israel and anti-Semitism in the United States.


2002(10th of Iyar, 5762): Ninety-three year old Victor Frederick Weisskopf’ an Austrian-born Jewish American theoretical physicist, passed away today.


2002(10thof Iyar, 5762): Twenty-two year old Sgt. Mag. Nir Kirchmann of Hadera was killed when the IDF entered a village north of Nablus to arrest Hamas terrorists.


2004: In North Korea, a freight train exploded killing technicians from Syria who had come the country to take possession of fissionable material which they were to take home as part of nuclear program that could lead to the creation of warheads for the Assad regime


2005: Jews of Omaha, Nebraska celebrate Israel’s 59th year of Independence as the Jewish Community Center hosts the Jewish Arts Festival and Yom Ha’Atzmaut activities designed for the whole family. This year’s Yom Ha’Atzmaut celebration is a unique and exciting compilation of an Arts Festival with more than 25 vendors, plus the usual exciting assortment of carnival games, first-class entertainment, and delicious foods from a variety of Omaha restaurants.


2006: On Shabbat, thousands of police were positioned around the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in east Jerusalem on Holy Saturday, hoping to prevent confrontations between various groups of worshippers making their way to the church on Saturday afternoon. Holy Saturday is the sacred day between Good Friday and Easter. Easter rites at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher have been marked by violence in the past. Since the Crusades, three major denominations have controlled the church - Greek Orthodox, Armenian Orthodox and (Latin) Roman Catholic - with the rights and privileges of all of the communities protected by the Status Quo of the Holy Places set up in 1852. According to Dep.-Cmdr. Asher Ben- Atrzi, head of the Israel Police Interpol and Foreign Liaison Section, almost every year a dispute erupts between the Armenians and the Greeks over who enters the cave where Jesus is believed to be buried first. The different denominations also argue over prayer times. In the end, it is the police force of the Jewish state that keeps peace between the warring Christian factions.  The next time some Christian politicians wonders how Sunnis and Shiites can fight over religious matters from by-gone centuries, they might want to take a look at the antics of Christian groups in the so-called Holy Land.


2007: At the Yeshiva University Museum the exhibition entitled “Reuben Kadish’s Holocaust Sculpture” comes to an end. “

 

2007: Yom Hazikaron begins tonight in Israel with a special memorial ceremony at Mt. Herzl in Jerusalem.


2007: The Sunday New York Times Book Section featured reviews of The Grand Surprise: The Journals of Leo Lerman, edited by Stephen Pascal, Positively American: Winning Back the Middle-Class Majority One Family at a Time by Chuck Schumer (the Jewish Senator from New York) with Daniel Squadron, Black and White a novel by Jewish author Dani Shapiro and The Lady Upstairs: Dorothy Schiff and The New York Post by Marilyn Nissenson. Schiff was the granddaughter of the German Jewish banking magnate Jacob H. Schiff.


2007: The Sunday Washington Post Book Section featured a review of The Worlds of Lincoln Kirstein by Martin Duberman. This “rich and revelatory biography of one of the crucial cultural figures of the twentieth century” provides another example of an American Jew who has had a major impact on our culture.


2008: Earth Day; Third Day of Pesach – suggested date for Street Seders designed to address the Global Climate Crisis.


2008: The Jerusalem Cinematheque presents “Refusenik” \ רפיוזניק”,  the first retrospective documentary to chronicle the thirty-year movement to free Soviet Jewry between the early 60s and the fall of the Iron Curtain.
 
2009: At YaleHagai El-Ad, Israeli civil rights activist, founding director of Jerusalem Open House and director of the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, delivers a talk entitled “Civil Rights in Israel.”



2009: The Tribeca Film Festival opens with the world premiere of Woody Allen’s “Whatever Works.”


2009: Holocaust Survivor Irene Furst speaks at Cornell College in Mt. Vernon, Iowa and Coe College in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.


2009: In Cedar Falls, Iowa, Holocaust scholar Michael Berenbaum presents “The Holocaust and Contemporary Ethics: Legal, Religious, Political and Medical Ethical Implications of the Holocaust,” the inaugural address for the Norman Cohn Family Holocaust Remembrance and Education Lecture Series at the University of Northern Iowa. Berenbaum is a writer, lecturer and teacher consulting in the conceptual development of museums and the historical development of films. He has written more than a dozen books, scores of scholarly articles and hundreds of journalistic pieces. His most recent books include “A Promise to Remember: The Holocaust in the Words and Voices of Its Survivors” and “After the Passion Has Passed: American Religious Con sequences.” He also has received numerous awards for his work in film and journalism. Berenbaum was the former director of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Research Institute and president of the Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation.


2009: “Author Jared Diamond Sued for Libel” published today described the litigation face by the Pulitzer-Prize winning author.


2009: Five hundred Jews who were making their monthly visit to Joseph’s Tomb in Nablus arrived at the shrine this evening and found that it had been subjected to anti-Semitic vandalism including being painted with swastikas.  According to the Oslo Accords, the tomb is under Israeli control, but that has been rendered as nothing more than a legal fiction since the outbreak of Arab violence in 2000.

2010:Professor Jason Rosenblatt, author of Renaissance England's Chief Rabbi: John Selden is scheduled to speak at the Washington DCJCC as part of the  Distinguished Scholar Series


2010: The Jewish Community Center of Northern Virginia is scheduled to host the reception marking the opening of the Annual NoVa International Jewish Film Festival.


2011:On the 41st annual Earth Day and the first anniversary of the BP oil spill Reform congregations and their rabbis are scheduled to implement “tried-and-true Earth Day ideas, innovative programs in education and advocacy, and ways to continue our service and commitment to the Gulf Coast” some of which had been presented in a workshop that featured Margo Wolfson of Temple Shalom, Aberdeen, NJ (a GreenFaith Pilot Program congregation), Stephen Fox of Temple Isaiah, Los Angeles, CA, Rabbi Andy Koren, Temple Emanuel, Greensboro and Rabbi Daniel Swartz, Temple Hesed, Scranton, PA.”


2011:The Maccabee Queen is scheduled to be performed 12 noon at Beit Avi Chai in Jerusalem. “Written and directed by Lauri Donahue, the play chronicles the rule of the last queen of Judea.”


2011:The Beit Yisrael synagogue in Netanya has been pelted with rocks, allegedly by ultra-Orthodox youths waging a battle to scare the congregants into leaving.


2012: Amy Irving, star of “Crossing Delancey” is scheduled to take part in a Q&A following a showing of this Jewish romantic comedy featuring “Sam, the pickleman” at the Westchester Jewish Film Festival.


2012:The Iowa Jewish Historical Society and the Jewish Federation of Greater Des Moines are scheduled to host a special event to recognize and honor Iowa’s Jewish men and women who serve and have served in all branches of the United States military, during times of both war and peace.


2012: Ambassador Stuart Eizenstat is scheduled to deliver the keynote address at the Northern Virginia’s 2012 Holocaust Observance at Gesher Jewish Day Schoo
2012(30th of Nisan, 5772): Rosh Chodesh Iyar
2013:The American Jewish Historical Society and Yeshiva University Museum are scheduled to present a performance by The Momenta Quartet featuring the music of Stefan Wolpe, Aaron Copland and Darius Milhaud.
2013: “Portrait of Wally” and “A Bottle in the Gaza Sea” are scheduled to be shown at the Northern Virginia Jewish Film Festival.
2013:” Dressing America: Tales from the Garment Center” is scheduled to be shown at the Westchester Jewish Film Fesitval.
2013: Daniel Mendelsohn, author of the international bestseller The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million, is scheduled to join award- winning journalist Leslie Maitland, author of Crossing the Borders of Time: A True Love Story of War, Exile and Love Reclaimed in a discussion of their true stories of lives and loves lost in the Holocaust at the Washington DCJCC.


2013: Twentieth anniversary of the dedication of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum

 
2013: The Histadrut labor federation today threatened to shut down Ben-Gurion International Airport as a show of solidarity with Israeli airline employees, who are striking against Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz's Open Skies agreement with the European Union that was approved by the cabinet yesterday


2013: Jordan has allowed Israel to fly military drones over the country en route to Syria in order to monitor the situation there and, should the need arise, target chemical weapons caches in the civil war-torn country, the French daily Le Figaro reported today.


2014: In New York, Temple Shaaray Tefila is scheduled to host the Yom HaShoah Screening of “No Place On Earth.

2014(22ndof Nisan, 5774): 8th day of Pesach – Yizkor


2014: In Serbia, Holocaust Remembrance Day


2014(22nd of Nisan): Circumcision of Isaac (Rosh Ha-Shannah 10b)

This Day, April 25, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. Levin

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April 25


693: Opening session of the Sixteenth Council of Toledo which, before its close, would add more regulations that would prove oppressive to the Jews living under the Visigoths.  This Visigoth anti-Semitism would provide a major impetus for Jewish support of the Moors when they invaded Spain in the early decades of the next century.


1211: Birthdate of Duke Frederick II the Quarrelsome who granted a privilegium to the Austrian Jews in 1244.


1214: Birthdate of King Louis IX of France. According to one historian Louis “hated the Jews so thoroughly that he would not look at them.”  Considering the fact that Louis that Louis financed his Crusade from the wealth he stole from his Jewish subjects, the fact that he expelled them from his domain and that he burned 12,000 copies of the Talmud and other Jewish texts, one would have to say that there is more than just a little credence to this evaluation.


1221(2ndof Iyar): Baruch ben Samuel, a leading Talmudist and author of religious poems  “who was one of the leading signatories of the Takkanot Shum, a set of decrees designed to deal with the problems facing Rhineland Jews in the wake of the Crusades passed away toay.


1284: Birthdate of King Edward II of England Edward would be the first King of England since the Norman Conquest, to reign over a Kingdom that had no Jewish subjects.


1295: King Sancho IV of Castile passed away. Among the Jews who served Sancho were the Kabbalist Todros Abulafia and the physicians of the Ibn Waqar family who were close enough to the king that they served as witnesses to his last will and testament.


1367:  Poland's Casimir III "The Great" expanded the "privileges" of 1334 to include the Jews in Lesser Poland and Ukraine.


1599:  Birthdate of Oliver Cromwell.  Most people remember Cromwell as one of the leaders in the revolt against Charles I that left the latter a beheaded monarch and the former Lord Protector.  To the Jews, he is the English leader who enabled the Jews to return to England after three and half centuries of exile.  Despite a great deal of opposition, Cromwell held fast to his commitment to the return of the Jews.  Although they came in secret at first, by 1657, one year before the death of Cromwell, the Jews of London felt confident enough in their position to purchase a building to be used as a Synagogue. Cromwell passed away in September, 1658.


1607: During the Eighty Years' War, the Dutch fleet destroys the anchored Spanish fleet at Gibraltar.The Eighty Years' War, or Dutch Revolt, was the war of secession between the Netherlands and the Spanish king that lasted from 1568 to 1648. The war resulted in the Seven United Provinces being recognized as an independent state. The United Provinces of the Netherlands, or the Dutch Republic, became a world power for a time through its merchant shipping and experienced a period of economic, scientific and cultural growth.The region now known as Belgium and Luxembourg also became established as the Southern Netherlands, part of the Seventeen Provinces that remained under royal Habsburg rule.  The Spanish were Catholics.  The Dutch were Protestants.  More importantly, the Protestant Dutch were willing to provide a safe haven for the Jews.  In fact, the early Jewish community in the Netherlands was dominated by Sephardic Jews whose families had been driven out of Catholic Spain.  It was this Dutch victory over the Spanish that would mean that New Amsterdam would be Protestant and would be a haven for the first Jewish community in what would become the United States. 


1792:Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle composed La Marseillaise (French national anthem). One hundred and eighty-one years La Marseillaise would become part of Jewish liturgy. On Shemini Atzeres, 5734/1973, before the fourth hakafa, the Rebbe stood on the edge of the bima and began to sing “Ha’aderes vehaemuna” to the tune of the French national anthem, “La Marseillaise.”Rebbe’s rendition of “Ha’aderes vehaemuna” to “La Marseillaise,” was related to the concept of “Napoleon’s March,” when the Alter Rebbe took the theme of victory from the March.


1803: Wolf Breidenbach, a self-made man who used his wealth and influence in the cause of Jewish emancipation in Germany, succeeded today in having the Jewish "Leibzoll" abolished in Isenburg.  The "Leibzoll" was a tax levied on Jews when they entered a town in which they did not leave or in which the Jews had not been granted special priviliges.


1808: Birthdate of Gustav Weil, the native of Sulzburg who eschewed a career as a rabbi and instead became one of the leading Orientalists of his time which, in those days meant a study of what today we call the Middle East including studies of the world of Islam and their leading prophet.


1845: Today, the Herald of Freedom published an article entitled "The Jews and the Holy Land" in which Nathanial Peabody Rogers, a leading abolitionist from New Hampshire "expressed his views of Mordecai Noah's efforts at Jewish restoration in Palestine." Showing a complete lack of understanding of Jewish feeling for Palestine, Rogers expressed his opposition to "any American Jewish effort to rebuild a Jewish Palestine as a weakening of the struggle for justice and equal rights in the United States."


1846(29th of Nisan): Rabbi Judah ben Joshua Heskiel Bacharach, author of “Nimukei Hagriv and a lineal descendent of Tobias Bacharach, passed away today


1846:The United Order of True Sisters, the first independent national women's organization in America, held its first meeting. Organized at Temple Emanu-El in New York City, the United Order of True Sisters (UOTS) was conceived as a female counterpart to the male Jewish B'nai B'rith organization (founded in 1843), but functioning separately, UOTS claims to be the first independent national women's organization in the United States. Some of the Order's goals resembled those of earlier Jewish women's mutual aid and charitable societies. The Sisters sought "refinement of the heart and mind and moral improvement," and paid regular dues to be used for burial fees and material aid to members struck by illness or sudden poverty. Unlike earlier charitable women's organizations, however, the UOTS also had explicitly political goals. In the words of the group's 1864 constitution, the Order sought "particularly the development of free, independent and well-considered action of its members. The women are to expand their activities, without neglecting their obligations as housekeepers, in such a manner, that if necessary they can participate in public meetings and discussions." The structure of the lodge, with secret passwords, degrees of membership, and closely-guarded rituals, mirrored the organization of men's fraternal organizations like B'nai B'rith, the Masons, and the Odd Fellows.The members of UOTS were mostly middle-class German-Jewish women, as evidenced by the fact that meetings at most lodges were conducted in German until the end of the First World War. Many members were wives of B'nai B'rith members. The UOTS provided these women a place to exercise their leadership abilities and develop a role in the public sphere, without being subject to the authority of men. Although most probably did not fear material want, the system of mutual aid provided an unusual degree of security and independence. Initiated under the leadership of Henriette Bruckman, and founded with just ten other members, the original lodge counted over 100 members by 1851. In the same year, the UOTS established a Grand Lodge as an umbrella organization to connect lodges in different cities and to centralize authority. By the mid-1860s, lodges existed in Philadelphia, New Haven, and Albany as well as New York. Active in public life from the beginning, the UOTS established its own newspaper, Der Vereinsote, in 1884.Today, the UOTS continues to maintain chapters across the country, although its focus has changed and is no longer identified as an exclusively Jewish organization. Since 1947, the main activities of the Order have been raising money for cancer research and providing support to cancer patients. The most recent chapter was formed in Suffolk County, New York, in 1978.


1848:  The new Austrian constitution guaranteed freedom of the Jewish religion.


1850: Paul Julius Reuter used 40 pigeons to carry stock market prices.  Born Israel Beer Josaphat, Reuter had left his uncle's bank just two years before to establish what would become one of the world's greatest news gathering organizations.


1852: Twenty-one Reform Jews formed Washington Hebrew Congregation in Washington D.C.


1859: Construction of the Suez Canal begins. The construction and operation of the canal became entangled in the European power politics and imperial conflicts between the French, who built the canal and the British who wanted to control it.  While serving as Prime Minister, Benjamin Disraeli bought a controlling interest in the company that owned the canal.  This “extra-legal” purchase was made possible by money from the House of Rothschild.


1861: Birthdate of Edwin Robert Anderson Seligman, the influential politicaleconomist who became the head of the faculty of economics and sociology at Columbia University in New York City.


1880(14th of Iyar, 5640): Pesach Sheni


1880(14th of Iyar, 5640): Joseph Seligman, founder of Seligman Brothers passed away today in New Orleans.



1880: In Ostrina, Russia, Mr. and Mrs. Nathan Krensky gave birth to Harry Krensky who came to the United States at age 13 and who would return to Russia to facilitate his parents coming to America.  Krensky eventually settled in Waterloo, Iowa where he became a successful merchant.


1880: “The Falashas –Remnants of Jews in Abyssinia” published today provides a brief history of the Jews of Ethiopia beginning with the generals who divided the empire created by Alexander the Great.


1880:  It was reported today that a correspondent for the Jewish Messenger in Jerusalem has described the attempt to develop a Jewish agricultural movement near Safed has failed.  The farms have been abandoned and the would be-farmers have returned to live in Safed.


1881: “Journeys in Asia Minor” published today includes a review of “The Land of Gilead with Excursions in the Lebanon” by Laurence Oliphant.”  According to the review the book describes Oliphant’s mission to the land ruled by the Ottomans which included what some saw as “nothing less than” an attempt to begin “a restoration of the Jews” in Palestine.


1881:  A petition signed by 250,000 Germans was presented to the government requesting the barring of foreign Jews from admission into Germany. The petition bore no less than two hundred and fifty-five thousand signatures. This petition marked the opening of modern German anti-Semitism.


1881: In what some say marks the start of “modern anti-Semitism” in Germany, “a petition signed by 250,000 Germans was presented to the government requesting the barring of foreign Jews from admission to the country


1882 “The Persecuted Russian Jews” published today described a meeting that was held in Berlin attended by Sir Julian Goldsmid and Dr. Herman Adler from London, Mortiz Ellinger from the United States and several leading German Jews to decide the roles that various Jewish communities should play in aiding their c0-religiionists trying to escape the Czar’s oppression.  The Jews of London and Berlin will take care of raising funds for the efforts.  The Jews in the United States will be in charge of procuring employment for the immigrants as they arrive in America.


1882: Tonight, in the Russian town of Kamentz, shops and houses belonging to the Jews were destroyed by a fire.  Losses are reported to total 500,000 rubles.


1882: It was reported today that four hundred “Jewish mechanics” who had left Warsaw for the United Sates were stopped at the border between Russia and Germany because they did not have passports. Several of them escaped but most of them are being held by authorities and are waiting for a disposition of their cases. (The Russians did not want to keep the Jews but they did not want to let them leave either.)


1884(30th of Nisan, 5644): Rosh Chodesh Iyyar


1886: Sigmund Freud opened his practice at Rathausstrasse 7, Vienna.


1887(1st of Iyyar, 5647): Rosh Chodesh Iyyar


1889: The coroner began an investigation into the death of a Jewish youngster named Tobias Hipper who had reportedly been killed by some other boys in his neighborhood.


1890: It was reported today that Jews in Oregon are expected to support the Democrats because the Republican candidate had worked to unseat Joseph Simon as Chairman of the State Central Committee.  Simon was the law partner of Solomon Hirsch who was appointed as U.S. Minister to Turkey by President Harrison.


1890: The first meeting of the working girls’ section of the Beth-El Society of Personal Service which would be known as the Pansy Club was held today.


1892: It was reported today that D. Appleton & Co will be publishing The Jew at Home by Joseph Pennell based on the author’s first hand observations of life the Jews living in the Austro-Hungarian Empire.


1893: It was reported today that gentiles in Dennisville, NJ are organizing “a law and order society for the purpose of making the Jews from Woodbine, the Baron Hirsch colony, show proper respect for Sunday.” The people of Woodbine “trail their carts and wagons through Dennisville” which reportedly upset the villagers who are all “interested in church and temperance work.”


1894: “The Samaritan Pentateuch” published today described the text from 1232 which is in the possession of the Lenox Library.  It contains thirty chapters of the Book of Genesis which are not found in the copies of the Samaritan Pentateuch in the possession of the British Library or the Vatican Library. The text is written in Hebrew and contains the Samaritan version of the Five Books of Moses.


1895: “Boston's German-Jewish population establishes the Federation of Jewish Charities of Boston to help the Russian-Jewish immigrants adjust to life in America. Member organizations include the United Hebrew Benevolent Society, the Hebrew Ladies Sewing Society, the Leopold Morse Home for the Aged and Infirm Hebrews and Orphanage, the Free Employment Bureau, and the Charitable Burial Association. Boston's Jewish population is estimated at 20,000, including 14,000 new immigrants.”


1896:The Reverend William H. Hechler brought a very nervous Theodor Herzl to a private audience with the Grand Duke, Friedrich I of Baden, the uncle of Kaiser Wilhelm II, It was the first time that Herzl was able to share his vision of Political Zionism and his solution to the “Jewish Problem” with German royalty. The Grand Duke was very taken with Hechler’s eschatological predictions and with Herzl’s pragmatic solution to the Jewish problem through restoration of the Jews to Palestine. The Grand Duke became a lifelong advocate of Herzl and the Zionist cause. He used his office and his relationship with his nephew…to support Herzl and Zionism. Hechler was an English clergyman who fought against anti-Semitism and was an early and ardent supporter of Zionism in general and Herzl in particular.


1896: Gustave May, a French born Jew who had taken refuge in the United States after the Franco-Prussian War was buried today.  May considered himself a “freethinker” and did not want a religious funeral.  His friend Columbia Professor Adolph Cohn delivered a eulogy in French.


1896: Yesterday’s planned dedication of a new synagogue in Lancaster, PA did not take place because of an explosion caused by a gas leak.  Isaac Grootfield, the “shamas” was injured when struck by flying timbers.


1897: Rabbi Silverman of Temple Emanu-El will officiate at the funeral of Simon Alexander Wolf the long-time writer for The Hebrew Journal.


1897: Professor Felix Adler delivered an address on “The Debt of the American People to Ulysses S. Grant” at Carnegie Hall today.


1897: It is estimated that the world’s Jewish population totals 7 million souls.


1897: The annual meeting of the Hebrew Benevolent and Orphan Asylum took placed at the asylum’s building at 136th Street and Amsterdam Avenue.  Emanuel Lehman who had recently donated $100,000 to the asylum was re-elected as President.


1898: The newly elected officers of the Hebrew Benevolent and Orphan Asylum Society are: Emmanuel Lehman, President; Henry Rice, Vice President; Abraham Wolff, Treasurer and Meyer Stern, Secretary.  Dr. Herman Baar continues to serve as the superintendent.


1898(3rd of Iyar, 5658): Michael Wromser, the son of a poor butcher from Lorraine, passed away in Phoenix, Arizona, where he was the sole possessor of an agricultural empire worth a quarter of a million dollars. 


1899: The annual meeting of the Society for the Aid of Jewish Prisoners was held tonight at Temple Emanu-El


1900: Birthdate of Wolfgang Ernst Pauli.  The Austrian born physicist won the Nobel Prize in 1945.  Pauli shows up on lists of Jewish scientists.  In reality, his father was born Jewish and his maternal grandfather was Jewish.  But like so many German and Jewish intellectuals of the time, conversion had taken him out of the House of Israel and only the blood laws of Hitler could have “brought him back.”



1900: A two day crisis began in the Jewish Colonial Bank. Herzl called a meeting of the directors, and had the bank affairs reviewed by an accountant and a bank expert.


1902: The New York Times reported that Rabbi Morris Schreiber died while being taken to Bellevue Hospital after suffering an apparent heart attack when he was leaving the East Tenth Street Ferry House. Rabbi Schreiber whose congregation was located on Bushwick Avenue was on his way to eat a Passover meal with relatives living in Manhattan.


1902: The first step toward the creation of a permanent endowment fund for the United Hebrew Charities was taken today by William Guggenheim, a member of the Board of Directors, when he sent to the President of the organization. Henry Rice, a check for $50,000 for that purpose and a promise of $50,000 more upon the fulfillment of certain specified conditions.


1903: Herzl returns to Paris as he continues to search for support for a Jewish home with the leaders of European government and business.  His approach would stand in stark contrast with the methods of the leaders of the Second Aliyah.


1904: A mass meeting at Carnegie Hall the attendees who were “concerned with the plight of working children overwhelmingly supported the formation of the National Child Labor Committee one of the founding members of which was Felix Adler.


1905: In Providence, Rhode Island, James Edward Ingham and Elizabeth Whelan gave birth to Martha Ingham Dickie who as Martha Sharp acted to save those at risk from Hitler and the Nazis for which she was honored by Israel as one of the righteous among the nations.


1906: Birthdate of Joel Brand who gained fame for his role in negotiations with Adolf Eichmann in an attempt to save the Jews of Hungary. 


1908: Birthdate of Edward R. Murrow.  Most of the world remembers him as Ed Murrow, the voice of CBS News. But before joining CBS, Murrow served as Assistant Secretary of the Emergency Committee in Aid of Displaced Foreign Scholars, which helped prominent German scholars most of whom were Jews deal with the effects of the Nazi rise to power.  When the committee issued its first report in 1934, Murrow compared the conditions with those reminiscent of “the explusion of the Jews from Spain in 1492.”


1908: Joseph Dulberg, a leader of the Manchester Jewish Community, writes to Winston Churchill expressing sympathy for Churchill’s failure to win re-election and reiterating the strong support that Jews showed for him during the election.


1911: Cornerstones were laid for new buildings at Hebrew Union college.


1911:  Birthdate of Jack Ruby, the man who killed presidential assassin Lee Harvey Oswald. Ruby was Jewish.  Oswald was not.


1911: As part of “The Case of Mendel Bellis,” two medical professors from Kiev University issued a second autopsy of the thirteen year old boy who had been killed in March of 1911.  The report “stated the victim had been almost been completely drained of blood…” and intimated that a ritual murder had been committed.  The autopsy was a fraud.  The two medical men had received a 4,000 ruble bribe from the Russian Ministry of Justice.


1915: The Anglo-French invasion of the Gallipoli peninsula began.  Almost 30,000 men landed on the beach to fight the Turks for this strategic position.  Fighting with the British was a Jewish force known as the Zionist Mule Corp. The Zion Mule Corps was a supply unit that carried material from the beach up to the front lines.  The work was not glorious.  The founders of the corps had hoped to have a Jewish fighting force.  That would come later.  In the mean time, this was the first military unit composed of Jews who fought as Jews since the second century of the common ear.  Unbeknownst to the Jews serving with the Allies, the Turkish army had Jews fighting in Gallipoli at the same time.


1918: Lieutenant General Sir John Monash described today’s  recapture of the town of Villers-Bretonneux as the turning point of the Great War. Monash, the son of Jewish immigrants, was the ranking member of the Australian Army serving on the Western Front.


1919: Formation of Ha-Shomer ha-Za’ir


1920: At the San Remo Conference, the Supreme Allied Council assigns mandates for Mesopotamia and Palestine to Britain, and Syria and Lebanon to France. The Zionists scored a triumph since, when awarding the mandate to the British it was stated that “the mandatory would be responsible for putting into effect the declaration originally made on the 8th November 1917 by the British government.”  In other words, “the Blafour Declaration was affirmed in an international treaty. 


1920: As the San Remo Conference comes to an end, “Jewish and Arab delegations dined together in the Hotel Royal, toasting each other as the British looked on benevolently at the next table.”  Enmity between Zionists and Arabs was neither inevitable nor “present at the creation.”


1920: “The Paris Peace conference formally confirmed the allocation of the Middle East’s Arab rectangle to Britain and France. The Allies’ final boundaries for their respective mandates in Palestine and Syria did not produce the viable frontiers the Zionists had anticipated for their National Home.” 


1923: In Toronto Jacob Herman and Kate Weinberg gave birth to Mildred Hayden who gained fame as ballerina Melissa Hayden.


1926: The first regular meeting of the recently created Department of Industrial Economics of the National Civic Federation was held at the Park Avenue Hotel.  Speakers for the evening included Louis D. Brandeis of the National Civic Federation and Samuel Gompers, President of the American Federation of Labor.  As the last speaker of the evening, Gompers “reviewed the blessings which had come to the individual through organized labor and expressed the opinion that the beneficiaries would hardly agree to the proposition that association curtailed their liberty.  He said that labor could not depend upon the courts for protection citing the recent decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in holding the ten-hour day for bakers unconstitutional.  ‘I suppose bakers will have to go back to the eleven and twelve hour and even longer day.  If they do I will urge them to strike.’”


1929(15thof Nisan, 5689): Last Pesach of the Roaring Twenties.


1930:  Birthdate of Paul Mazursky, director of “Down and Out in Beverly Hills.”


1932: Rose Franken's "Another Language", premiered in New York City.


1933:  The Law against the Overcrowding of German Schools and Institutions of Higher Learning set a Jewish quota of 1.5 percent of high-school and university enrollment, and stipulated a limit of 5-percent Jewish enrollment in any single school. Because a compulsory education law was in effect, Jewish enrollment in primary schools was not limited for the time being. However, growing numbers of Jews voluntarily moved to purely Jewish settings by 1938, when they were totally barred from general institutions. In autumn 1941, the Jewish schools were closed by administrative order. Ironically, extra-legal discrimination against Jews seeking admission to colleges and universities existed in the United States at this time.  These quotas would hang on until the later 1960’s.


1933: Birthdate of songwriter Jerry Leiber.  Leiber teamed with another Mike Stoeller, “another Jewish white boy” who also loved Jazz and Boogie Woogie to create some of the greatest songs of the early days of Rock and Roll including Hound Dog, Love Potion #9, On Broadwayand most of the hits recorded by the Coasters.  If you recognize these classics, you are almost as old as the author and if you are scratching your because you never heard them, then you are young, very young and should be home practicing the Four Questions.
 
1935: Birthdate of Edna Shavit the, “Emeritus Professor in the Drama department in the University of Tel Aviv, and Ha'Levi theatre prize winner for the year 2006.”


1938: Associate Justice Louis Brandeis writes the majority opinion in the landmark case Erie Railroad Co. v. Tompkins.  Associate Justice Benjamin Cardozo joins the majority in the 7 to 2 decision.


1938: The Palestine Post reported that Arab terrorist gangs murdered two Arabs who refused to hand over money and valuables in a village near Tulkarm.


1938: The Palestine Post reported that there were isolated shooting incidents in Jerusalem and Haifa.


1938: The Palestine Post reported that Arturo Toscanini, the famous conductor who had just given a series of concerts all over the country, and Bronislav Huberman, the great violinist and the founder of the Palestine Symphonic Orchestra, were granted the freedom of Tel Aviv.


1943: As the Warsaw Uprising raged on, Germans continued their invasion of the ghetto by lighting fires to buildings. Escaping women and children were shot to death and burned.  Thus, the ancient Polish Jewish Community began its final descent from greatness into oblivion. As fires set by Germans consume the Warsaw Ghetto, a German Jew named Hoch desperately leaps from a fourth-floor window, breaking both arms and his spine.


1943:  Composer Ezra Laderman was inducted into the U.S. Army where he served as a radio operator with the 69th Infantry Division during World War II. In describing his wartime experiences Laderman wrote "we were in Caversham, England poised to enter the war. It was here that I learned that my brother Jack had been shot down and killed in Germany. The Battle of the Bulge, crossing the Rhine at Remagen, liberating Leipzig, meeting the Russians at Torgau on the bank of the Elbe were the points in this constellation that was filled with tension and waiting, victory and grief. We became aware of the horror, and what we now call the 'holocaust,' while freeing Leipzig." During the weeks after the war was over, Laderman composed his Leipzig Symphony. This work brought him recognition within the army, and subsequently he was assigned as orchestrator of the GI Symphony Orchestra.


1944: “Religious pioneers from Germany members of the Ezra youth movement and Agudat Israel founded a new kibbutz which was called Chafet Chaim.


1944:  Joel Brand, a member of the Relief and Rescue Committee of Budapest, was summoned to a meeting with Adolf Eichmann, who presented him with an offer that would be known as "Blood for Trucks." Eichmann told Brand that the highest SS authorities had approved the terms, in which Eichmann would barter "a million Jews" for goods obtained outside of Hungary, including 10,000 trucks for civilian use, or, as an alternative, for use on the eastern front. The 1 million Jews would have to leave the country-since Eichmann had promised that Hungary would be Judenrein-and might head for any destination other than Palestine, since he had promised the Mufti of Jerusalem that no Jews would be allowed to emigrate there. To negotiate the effectuation of the deal, Eichmann let Brand leave Hungary. Although Brand was unaware of it at the time, the offer was evidently connected with an attempt by Himmler to drive a wedge between the Western Allies and the Soviet Union, and to conclude a separate peace with the former. Brand did go to Ankara, Jerusalem, and Cairo, and he negotiated with American officials and leaders of the Jewish Agency for Palestine. However, he was arrested and imprisoned in Cairo, and the rescue scheme was never implemented.


1945: Ten months after the Americans landed at Normandy they successfully completed their drive across Europe when they linked up today with Soviet troops on the Elbe River.


1945: In Italy, a partisan uprising began that ended with the execution of Fascist Party dictator Benito Mussolini. Members of the Jewish Infantry Brigade Group, an all Jewish fighting force in the British Army, was part of the Allied forced that helped liberate Italy.


1946: The French ship Champollion brought 880 Jewish refuges with Palestine immigration certificates to Haifa today from Marseille.  Of the group, 500 were children, mostly orphans.”  Many of the immigrants were concentration camp survivors.


1946: A force of Jewish fighters attacked a police station in northern Tel Aviv killing seven British soldiers and policemen while wounding two other Britons and nine Jewish civilians.  The Jewish fighters got away without suffering any casualties and have apparently escaped the security cordon created by the British.


1946: Several thousand Jewish youth marched through the streets of Tel Aviv mourning the death of Braha Fuld who was killed during the attack on the Sarona police mobile force headquarters.  She was referred to as ‘a fighter for immigration’


1948:  A reporter for The Times of London (the voice of the British establishment) described the efforts of the Jewish leaders in Haifa to convince the Arab residents to remain.  “The Jews wish the Arabs to settle down again to normal routine, but evacuation continues.”  While the Haganah was distributing leaflets urging the Arabs to stay, the Arab High Command based in Damascus was urging them to leave supposedly to avoid Arab casualties when Arab planes would bomb Haifa.  The planes never came, but the Arabs took flight and the “refugee problem” was born.


1948:A comedic bit featuring funny man Don Wilson and opera singer Dorothy Kirsten generates what would become the longest laughter pause in the history of the Jack Benny Program.


1950: Following the collapse of a building in Jaffa that killed nineteen and injured thirty mostly recent Jewish immigrants, Mayor Israel Rokah “called for the immediate evacuation of 1,700 people from unsafe houses in Jaffa”


1949: Birthdate of Dominique Gaston André Strauss-Kahn, a French economist, lawyer, politician, and member of the French Socialist Party who became the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).,


1950: Mohammed Pasha Shureiki “formally notified the United Nations today that Jordan had annexed eastern Palestine and the old walled city of Jerusalem.”  This action is in complete violation of the United Nations partition resolution which called for Jerusalem and Bethlehem to be administered by the UN Trusteeship Council.  There was no motion of condemnation of the Jordanian action which was really the “ratification of facts on the ground” created by the invasion of Jerusalem in the winter of 1947/1948. 


1950: Prime Minister David Ben Gurion addressed the Zionist General Council on the sixth day of its meeting in Jerusalem.  Ben Gurion told the leaders from around the world that “their financial and other aid to Israel did not entitle them to a voice in the affairs of Israel.”  While acknowledging the importance of aid and support from the Jewish communities in the Diaspora, Ben Gurion took the classical Zionist line that “only Zionists who came to Israel and assumed the responsibilities of citizenship were entitled to a voice in determining policy.


1957: Birthdate of Bernard Rajzman, the native or Rio de Janeiro who became one of Brazil’s leading volleyball players


1964:  Birthdate of actor Hank Azaria, voice of Moe and Comic Book Guy on “The Simpsons.”


1966(5thof Iyar, 5726): Yom HaAtma’ut


1967(15thof Pesach, 5727): Pesach


1967:  Jules Feiffer's "Little Murders", premiered in New York City.


1969: Birthdate of Israeli yachtsman Nir Shental. Shenatal and his brother Ran won a bronze medal in the 1995 the World 470 Sailing Class Championships.  Nir and Ran also represented Israel in the 1996 Olympics.


1976(25th of Nisan, 5736):Markus Reiner“an Israeli scientist and a major figure in rheology” passed away. Reiner was born in 1886 in Czernowitz, Bukovina, then part of Austria-Hungary, and obtained a degree in Civil Engineering at the Technische Hochschule in Vienna (Vienna University of Technology). After the First World War, he emigrated to Palestine, where he worked as a civil engineer under the British mandate. After the founding of the state of Israel, he became a professor at the Technion (Israel Institute of Technology) in Haifa. In his honour the Technion later instituted the Markus Reiner Chair in Mechanics and Rheology. Reiner was not only a major figure in rheology, (the study of the flow of matter: primarily in the liquid state, but also as 'soft solids' or solids under conditions in which they respond with plastic flow rather than deforming elastically in response to an applied force) he along with Eugene C. Bingham coined the term] and founded a society for its study. As well as the term rheology, and his publications, he is known for the Buckingham-Reiner Equation, the Reiner-Riwlin Equation, (now usually spelled Reiner-Rivlin), the Deborah number and the Teapot effect - an explanation of why tea runs down the outside of the spout of a teapot instead of into the cup


1978:The Jerusalem Post reported that Myron Marcus, an Israeli prisoner in Mozambique, was released in a three-way prisoners exchange swap.



1978:The Jerusalem Post reported that in Washington the White House officials declared that the U.S. President Jimmy Carter, will not consider any compromise with Congress on the all-or-nothing aircraft package sale to Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Israel that would change the number of planes involved. A group of outspoken critics of the Carter Administration published a full-page advertisement in the "New York Times" warning that any weakening of Israel was in effect, a weakening of U.S. in the Middle East.



1979:  Peace treaty between Israel and Egypt went into effect.


1979: In an article entitled “Camp David: Farseeing Diplomacy or Neocolonialism?”Daniel Pipes expresses his concerns about the newly signed peace agreement.


1982:  The Sinai Peninsula was returned by Israel to Egypt, as part of the 1979 Camp David Accord.



1984: “The weekly HaOlam HaZeh (This World), which had appeared with blank spaces the week before, published on its front page a blurred picture of a man being led away.”


1985: Felipe Gonzalez sent a personal letter to the secretary general of the Arab League informing him of Spain’s plans recognize Israel.


1986: Funeral services are scheduled to be held today for composer Harold Arlen at the Frank E. Campbell Funeral Home in Manhattan


1988:  The popular ABC news program "Nightline" went on location to Jerusalem Israel.



1988: In Israel, John Demjanuk is sentenced to death for war crimes committed in World War II.



1993(4th of Iyar, 5753):Yom HaZikaron



1996: In an article published today entitled “Germans, Jews and Blame: New Book, New Pain” Alan Cowell described the German reaction to the recently published"Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust" by Daniel Jonah Goldhagen.  “The book's message is that the Holocaust was a result of a deep strain of specifically German anti-Semitism, growing from the 19th century onward, that sought the elimination of Europe's Jews and drew enthusiastic, willing support from possibly hundreds of thousands of ordinary Germans who physically took part in Hitler's deadly campaign against the Jews. The Holocaust, the book says, was a ‘national project.’ The German response, in a flurry of published articles, has been to condemn the book as lacking in scholarship, one-sided, derivative, downright wrong and willfully provocative.”

1997: Launch of the INS Leviathan, a Dolphin class submarine.



1997:Hagit Zavitzky, 23, of Kfar Adumim and Liat Kastiel, 23, of Holon were found stabbed to death in Wadi Kelt.



1999: PGA golfer Bruce Fleisher won the Home Depot Invitational



1999: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or special interest to Jewish readers including The Lexus and The Oliver Tree by Thomas L. Friedman



2000(20th of Nisan, 5760): Producer David Merrick passed away. Born in 1912 in St. Louis, Merrick's name was originally Margoulis.  He lived in what he described as a mid-western Jewish ghetto.  He had an extremely unhappy childhood.  He found solace and success working in stage production at The Young Means Hebrew Association where his uncle was the director.  Merrick married well, moved to New York where he disassociated himself from his Jewish origins and carved a successful career on Broadway.  Some of his more notable hits were Beckett and Hello Dolly.


2002(2ndof Iyar, 5761): Yom HaZikaron


2003: On the day after Pesach had come to an end it is reported that In a unique partnership between Chabad and the New York-based Manischewitz company, ten tons of Matzah reached Lithuania’s 6,000 Jews in time for Passover. Donated by The donation by Manischewitz was particularly meaningful in a country long part of the Soviet Union, where Matzot were baked clandestinely.


“The largest amount of Matzah received since the independence of Lithuania, this donation literally assured Jews countrywide the ability to have a kosher Pesach,” says Rabbi Sholom Ber Krinsky, Chabad representative to Lithuania.The donation came through a business associate of Manischewitz and an acquaintance of Rabbi Krinsky’s, Mr. Armand Lindenbaum, whose grandfather Rabbi Moshe Avigdor Amiel lived near Vilna in the early 20th century. When Krinsky approached him several months back about the possibility of making a donation to the Jewish community of Lithuania, Lindenbaum, who visited Vilna and was surprised to find a thriving Jewish community there, facilitated the initial contact between Chabad and The B. Manischewitz Company. From its perspective, Manischewitz, the leading manufacturer of kosher processed food products in the U.S., and the top provider of Matzah worldwide, feels the need and is honored to “give back to the Jewish community,” says executive vice president Steven M. Grossman.One thousand people participating at Chabad’s thirteen public Seders in Lithuania, partook of the Matzah, which was distributed in Lithuania’s major cities and remote towns. Even the five lone Jews living in Svencionys—a city whose pre-Holocaust Jewish population numbered 4,000—were not forgotten. “I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for your help in enabling us to conduct the Seders in Svencionys according to Jewish tradition and with kosher Matzah,” said one. According to Grossman, this was Manischewitz's first joint venture with Chabad, and Grossman sees the company’s relationship with Chabad as an “opportunity to make other contributions in the future.” The concerns of the general Jewish community, he says, are concerns of Manischewitz as well, and the company is pleased to contribute wherever it can.


2004: The New York Times reviewed books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Alexander Hamiltonby Ron Chernow and A Chance Meeting: Intertwined Lives of American Writers and Artists, 1854-1967by Rachel Cohen


2004:The Hadassah-Brandeis Institute and the Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies at Brandeis University sponsor a program entitled “Double or Nothing: Jewish Families and Mixed Marriage in the United States.


2005:For the first time since the Expulsion in 1492, a public, rabbi led Passover Seder was celebrated in Piano Battaglia, Palermo by Rabbi Barbara Aiello.


2005(16thof Nisan, 5765): Second Day of Pesach; 1st day of the Omer


2005(16thof Nisan, 5756): Rabbi Shlomo Wolbe passed away in Jerusalem.  Born in Berlin in 1914, he made Aliyah in 1946 and is remembered as the author of  Alie Shur


2006: In “Grits and Gefilte: How did a southern Methodist college become a destination for America's Jews?” author Steve Stein explains the phenomenal growth in the number of Jews attending Atlanta’s Emory University.  Jewish students now compromise almost one third of the student body at a school once known primarily for its connection with Coca Cola.http://www.emorywheel.com/detail.php?n=17852


2006(27th of Nisan, 5766): Observance of Yom Hashoah – Holocaust Remembrance Day.



2007:“Makor Rishon started publishing daily. At the same time, HaTzofe (also owned by Hirsch Media) stopped publishing its daily edition, becoming instead a weekly religious insert in Makor Rishon” Shlomo Ben-Tzvi's Hirsch Media had purchased the newspaper in 2003. His wife is the editor of Segula, a magazine about Jewish history and culture that began publishing in 2012.



2007: At the Leo Baeck InstituteBarbara Hahn, Distinguished Professor of German at Vanderbilt University, previously Professor of German at Princeton University, delivers a lecture entitled, “Kafka´s Wife - the Children of Bruno Schulz - On broken Traditions.”



2008: The Jerusalem Cinematheque features a screening of “The Decalogue” \ עשרת הדיברות.

2009(1st of Iyar, 5769Rosh Chodesh Iyar



2009(1st of Iyar, 5769): Beloved television and theater star Bea Arthur passed away today at her home in Los Angeles after a battle with cancer. The 86-year-old was born Beatrice Frankel to a Jewish family in New York City and became a household name on such TV shows as "Golden Girls" and "Maude". Arthur began her career in the theater, where she won a Tony Award for the musical "Mame" and played "Yente the Matchmaker" in the Broadway premiere of Fiddler on the Roof. Arthur was perhaps most well known for her role as Dorothy Zbornak on the hit series Golden Girls. The show, which centered on the lives of four retired women living together in a house in Miami, Florida, was a hit for six seasons and won 10 Emmys, including one for Arthur in 1988. After Golden Girls ended its run, Arthur appeared in guest spots on TV, including a part as Larry David's mother on Curb Your Enthusiasm. Arthur was inducted into the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Hall of Fame in 2008.



2009:The David Bromberg Quartet at MerleFest



2010: Agudas Achim in Iowa City is scheduled to host its annual “Mitzvah Day.”



2010: The Jewish Historical Society of Greater Washington is scheduled to offer “A Walking Tour of Downtown Jewish Washington” that will enable participants to visit the sites of four former synagogues while learning what it was like to live and worship as a Jew from 1850-1950 in the historic Seventh Street neighborhood, now known as Chinatown.



2010:Wrestler Bill Goldberg and Olympic swimmer Jason Lezak were among seven inductees into the National Jewish Sports Hall of Fame. The five others inducted at the Hall of Fame in Commack, N.Y., were Virginia Tech men’s basketball coach Seth Greenberg; female judo champion Rusty Kanokogi; Penn State women’s volleyball coach Russ Rose; Achilles Track Club founder Dick Traum; and former NFL offensive lineman Alan Veingrad. Goldberg, an all-American defensive end at the University of Georgia, was taken in the 11th round of the 1990 NFL draft by the Los Angeles Rams, but he turned to wrestling and martial arts three years after an injury ended his football career in 1994. During his seven-year career on the World Champion Wrestling circuit, World Wrestling Entertainment twice recognized Goldberg as the world heavyweight champion.In an often humorous and casually self-effacing speech at the Hall of Fame ceremony, Goldberg sought to tie his unconventional career choice in professional wrestling to Judaism."I wanted to try my best to give the Jewish youth something to look up to, someone who's persevered and somehow made a difference," Goldberg said. "What better way to help Jewish youth in dealing with adversity than to parade around the ring on national television in my underwear, demolishing every single person in my path?"Goldberg did not address recent rumors of a return to professional wrestling, instead saying that he wanted to focus on remaining on this season of NBC's reality television show "Celebrity Apprentice."  Lezak, a professional swimmer, came to national prominence as the unassuming hero of the U.S. 4-by-100-meter freestyle relay team that won the gold medal in the 2008 Beijing Olympics and set a world record. His dramatic final lap of the race made international headlines and helped teammate Michael Phelps notch a crucial victory on his way to a record eight gold medals at the Games. Lezak has won numerous Olympic medals, including an individual bronze at the '08 Games, and earned four gold medals at the Maccabiah Games in Israel last summer



2011: “Twilight Becomes Night” is one of two documentary shorts scheduled to shown at Film Form in New York. The documentary examines the widespread closing of independently-owned businesses in New York City, and the significant impact this transformation has on the people who live here. Russ & Daughters, a multi-generational Jewish owned family business known for its quality and genial atmosphere, “is presented in the film along with interview clips with Niki Russ Federman and Russ & Daughters' longtime manager, Herman Vargas.”



2011:Yael Hedaya, “an Israeli novelist, one of the head writers for In Treatment, the acclaimed Israeli TV series adapted for HBO” is one of the writers scheduled to appear at “PEN Speakeasy: Sex; Erotic Readings” on the opening day of the PEN World Voices Festival.


2011(21 Nisan, 5771): Seventh Day of Pesach – holiday ends for Israelis and Reform Jews.


2011:Politicians from left, right and center put aside their political differences this evening to join in the traditional Moroccan celebration of Mimouna marking the end of Pessah and the beginning of spring. During Mimouna, revelers feast on moufleta, an oil-rich crepe that serves as the first hametz to be eaten following the holiday. The Mimouna festival has evolved into an opportunity to acknowledge and honor Israel's Moroccan community, and Moroccan activists mark the event by hosting politicians in their homes. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu attended a Mimouna celebration in Or Akiva. President Shimon Peres was the guest of honor at Jerusalem's main Mimouna festivity, attended by Mayor Nir Barkat and Sephardic Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar. Labor MK Isaac Herzog, who is running for head of the Labor party, said at the World Federation of Moroccan Jewry's Mimouna celebration in Rehovot that "Mimouna must be declared an official, national holiday." Earlier this month, Haaretz published a racist quote attributed to Herzog in a WikiLeaks document, claiming that he called MK Amir Peretz "aggressive, inexperienced and Moroccan," but that Labor's list for the Knesset had Ashkenazim that balanced out the Sephardim


2011: In New York, Russ & Daughters is co-sponsoring a screening of The Vanishing City & Twilight Becomes Night, two documentaries that trace the changing face of the city and the reasons behind the morphing of Manhattan.


2012: “Common Sense Media honored John David Leibowitz, the Chairman of the Federal Trade Commission as a Champion for Kids
2012: Israeli newspapers reported today that Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz has said economic and diplomatic pressures against Iran were beginning to succeed


2012:  Filmmakers Alan Snitow and Deborah Kaufman are scheduled to participate in a Q&A following a screening of “Between Two Worlds” at the Westchester Jewish Film Festival.
2012:The Embassy of Israel, the Washington Jewish Film Festival and The Avalon Theatre are scheduled to sponsor a screening of the Israeli film "Ha'lahaka"
2012:  Ninety-six year old Inge Elsas who gave an untold number of youngsters their first taste of Jewish education as the Kindergarten Teacher at Temple Sinai, passed away today.
2012(3rd of Iyar): Yom Hazikaron –Israel Remembrance Day
 2013: In Columbus, Ohio, Congregation Tifereth Israel is scheduled to host a concert where the winners of the 2012 Justine Hackman Memorial Young Artist Competition will perform.
2013: The Jewish Historical Society of Greater Washington is scheduled to a lunchtime event commemorating the 70th anniversary of the performance of “We Will Never Die” at Constitution Hall.
2013: In London, the Wiener Library is scheduled to present “The Human and the Inhuman: Writing in the Wake of the Holocaust”
2013:Police today finished a probe of Rabbi Avraham Chaim Sherman, a judge on the Great Rabbinical Court of Jerusalem. Officers from the National Fraud Investigative Unit suspect Sherman of breach of trust, obstruction of justice and abuse of power in his ruling in a divorce proceeding. Today Police handed over the case to state prosecutors who will decide whether to pursue an indictment.
2013: A court handed the Women of the Wall a significant legal victory in a decision released today, ruling that the state cannot arrest the women for their activities at the holy site.
 
2014: In New York, the Centro Primo Levi is scheduled to host a presentation by David Meghnagi and Barbara Spadaro on “The Jews of Libya Between the 19th Century and the Colonial Era.” 

This Day, April 26 In Jewish History by Mitchell A. Levin

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April 26



121: Birthdate of Marcus Aurelius the Roman Emperor who described the Jews as being “stinking and tumultuous.”


1478: The Pazzi attack Lorenzo de' Medici and killed his brother Giuliano during High Mass in the Duomo of Florence. The Pazzi were rivals of the Medici family. Lorenzo’s death was a setback for the Jewish community of Florence.  The Pazzi’s big claim to fame was their participation in the First Crusade. On the other hand Lorenzo de’ Medici had defended the Jewish community from expulsions and from the aftermath of the anti-Semitic sermons given by Bernardino da Feltre in which he whipped up the masses into a violent frenzy by demonizing the Jews as the Christ Killers.


1654: The Jews were expelled from Brazil.  The city of Recife had been taken from the Dutch by the Portuguese.  As a Dutch city, Recife had been hospitable to the Jews. But Portugal meant the Inquisition, forced conversion or exile.  It was the Jews fleeing from Recife who ended up in New Amsterdam later in 1654 and thus began what would become the American Jewish Community.Professor Arnold Witzner, author of “Jews In Colonial Brazil” the Jews could have remained in Brazil if they had converted.  They chose not to which meant that “all openly professing Jews left Brazil” prior to this date. “A total of 16 ships transported the Jewish and Dutch colonists from Recife. Some claim as many as 5,000 Jews left Recife at this time. Most of these Jews returned to Holland; some relocated to colonies in the Caribbean. Twenty-three of the Jews aboard one of these ships eventually arrived in New Amsterdam (New Netherland/New York) on September 7, 1654. There are at least two versions of the story of how these Jews came to settle in New Amsterdam. One version is that the original ship was captured by pirates at one point. The Jews were subsequently taken aboard the French ship the St. Charles, and this ship brought them to New Amsterdam. According to Wiznitzer, there was no capture by pirates. Instead, the Jews were driven by adverse winds to Spanish-held Jamaica. From there they boarded the small French frigate, Sainte Catherine, which took them to New Amsterdam.”


1655:  The directors of the Dutch West India Co. refused to grant permission to Governor Peter Stuyvesant to exclude Jews from New Amsterdam. This put an end to official efforts to bar Jews from North America. The Dutch West India Co. also specified that no restriction of trade be imposed upon the Jewish settlers. Thus it guaranteed not only the physical inviolability of the Jews but also their orderly economic development and progress. The only condition contained in the directive provided that "the poor among them shall be supported by their own nation." This gave further impetus to the growth of Jewish philanthropy in the New World.


1721: A massive earthquake devastates Tabriz. There are records of a Jewish community in Tabriz dating back to the 12th century. The community must have been large and culturally diverse since it included bath Rabbanites and Karaites. In 1830, the Jews of Tabriz were massacred during a rise of Islamic fervor that also included the forced conversions of the Jews in Shiraz and Mashhad.


1737:Without any warning, the King of Prussia ordered that the decree limiting the number of Jewish families allowed to live in Berlin be enforced. According to a document entitled “General privilege and regulations to be observed concerning the Jews in his Majesty's dominions,” issued in 1730, the King had granted the Jews the right to settle 120 families in the capital city. By 1737, the number of Jewish families had risen to 180 and the king wanted these additional sixty families to depart even if it meant a loss of tax revenue.


1774(15th of Iyar, 5534): Moses Lindo passed away. Born in England he moved to South Carolina where he became a leading planter and merchant. “He did more than any other individual to encourage and advance the indigo industry of the colony, among the most important industries in South Carolina in prerevolutionary times. His transactions were enormous, and in 1762 he was appointed "Surveyor and Inspector-General of Indigo, Drugs, and Dyes," an office he resigned in 1772.


1796: The Jews of Fossano escaped from a massacre which they commemorated by celebrating the Purim of the Bomb


1792:Joseph ben Meir Teomim, the native of Galicia who served as a rabbi in Lemberg and Frankfurt an der Order and whose works include “Pri Megadim (פרי מגדים), a supercommentary on some of the major commentators on the Shulkhan Aruch passed away today.”


1817: Joseph Freiherr von Sonnenfels the son of Perlin Lipman “who was baptized in his early youth” and went on to become a leading “Austrian and German jurist and novelist.”


1826(19th of Nisan): Chaim (Hermann) Bloch, author of “Mavo ha-Talmud” passed away today


1826: Birthdate of Civil War veteran and early homesteader Daniel Freeman.  Freeman was not Jewish.  He was the successful plaintiff in one of the first landmark cases that declared Bible reading and praying in public schools were unconstitutional.  Most of the landmark cases involving separation of church and state were brought by non-Jews.


1829: French jurist and parliamentarian Pierre-Stanislas Bédard who opposed Ezekiel Hart taking his seat in Legislative Assembly of Lower Canada because he did not think Jew should sit in the legislature, passed away today.


1850(14thof Iyar, 5610): Pesach Sheni

1850(14thof Iyar, 5610): Sixty-nine year old, Leo Wolf, who was one of the founders of the “Temple’ (reform) in Hamburg passed away today.

1853: Following a recent vote by the First Prussian Chamber to exclude Jews from public employment, today, thousands of Prussian citizens including  Alexander Von Humboldt, presented petitions to the Second Chamber urging it to reject the action of the First Chamber and adopt legislation allowing Jews to hold “civil offices” and allowing everybody full freedom of religious opinion.


1854: Albert E. Hertz and Maria S. Solana, daughter of Mathew Solana were married today in St. Augustine, FL.


1856: In Mannheim, Germany, Lazarus and Babette Morgenthau gave birth to Henry Morgenthau, Sr. the American lawyer and businessman who was best known as America’s Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire.


1856: In Philadelphia, sixteen German boys have been charged with savagely beating a boy named Bernadotte Glischman.  After attacking him a barroom, they took the boy to his room where they stuck him with pins and covered his face with a pillow so he could not cry out.  According to the boy,  he was attacked because he was Jewish and the other boys were Catholics who wanted to punish him because the Jews crucified Christ.  The boys were being held with bail being set at $250 for 15 of them and $800 for the remaing defendant.


1859: Odo William Leopold Russell, 1st Baron Ampthill, a British diplomat serving in Italy, wrote to Sir Moses Montefiore describing the progress he has made in attempt to present a petition to the Pope concerning the kidnapping of Edgaro Martoro 


1860: The Queen's Own Rifles of Canada (originally named 2nd Battalion, Volunteer Militia Rifles of Canada) whose most famous Jewish member may have Benjamin “Ben” Dunkelman who led them ashore at Normandy and later turned down the opportunity to command the unit, was formed today.


1860: As of 6 o’clock this evening the body of the unknown man, who was supposed to have committed suicide by shooting himself at Weehawken, NJ, had not been identified. For reasons that have not been disclosed, authorities believe him to be a German Jew from New York.


1861:  The Jewish Messenger publishes the following editorial entitled “Stand by the Flag” which demonstrates the patriotic, pro-Union beliefs held by a majority of Jews living in the United States.


“It is almost a work of supererogation for us to call upon our readers to be loyal to the Union, which protects them. It is needless for us to say anything to induce them to proclaim their devotion to the land in which they live. But we desire our voice, too, to be heard at this time, joining in the hearty and spontaneous shout ascending from the whole American people, to stand by the stars and stripes!


“Already we hear of many of our young friends taking up arms in defense of their country, pledging themselves to assist in maintaining inviolate its integrity, and ready to respond, if need be, with their lives, to the call of the constituted authorities, in the cause of law and order.


The time is past for forbearance and temporizing. We are now to act, and sure we are, that those whom these words may reach, will not be backward in realizing the duty that is incumbent upon them—to rally as one man for the Union and the Constitution. The Union—which binds together, by so many sacred ties, millions of free men—which extends its hearty invitation to the oppressed of all nations, to come and be sheltered beneath its protecting wings—shall it be severed, destroyed, or even impaired? Shall those, whom we once called our brethren, be permitted to overthrow the fabric reared by the noble patriots of the revolution, and cemented with their blood?


And the Constitution—guaranteeing to all, the free exercise of their religious opinions—extending to all, liberty, justice, and equality—the pride of Americans, the admiration of the world—shall that Constitution be subverted, and anarchy usurp the place of a sound, safe and stable government, deriving its authority from the consent of the American People?


“The voice of millions yet unborn, cried out, 'Forbid it, Heaven!' The voice of the American people declares in tones not to be misunderstood: `It shall not be!'


“Then stand by the Flag! What death can be as glorious as that of the patriot, surrendering his life in defense of his country—pouring forth his blood on the battlefield—to live forever in the hearts of a grateful people. Whether native or foreign born, Gentile or Israelite, stand by it, and you are doing your duty, and acting well your part on the side of liberty and justice!


“We know full well that our young men, who have left their homes to respond to the call of their country, will, on their return, render a good account of themselves. We have no fears for their bravery and patriotism. Our prayers are with them. G-d speed them on the work which they have volunteered to perform!


“And if they fall—if, fighting in defense of that flag, they meet a glorious and honorable death, their last moments will be cheered by the consciousness that they have done their duty, and grateful America will not forget her sons, who have yielded up their spirit in her behalf.


And as for us, who do not accompany them on their noble journey, our duty too, is plain. We are to pray to Heaven that He may restore them soon again to our midst, after having assisted in vindicating the honor and integrity of the flag they have sworn to defend; and we are to pledge ourselves to assume for them, should they fall in their country's cause, the obligation of supporting those whom their departure leaves unprotected. Such is our duty. Let them, and all of us, renew our solemn oath that, whatever may betide, we will be true to the Union and the Constitution, and STAND BY THE FLAG.”


1865: Seventeen year old Henry Schneeberger, a student at Columbia was invited to deliver his first sermon at Rodeph Shalom in New York.  His discourse provoked a resounding round of approval from the congregants. (This may be an incorrect date since a source claims that this sermon was delivered on the second day of Pesach which fell on April 12)


1865: Reuters, the news service created by Paul Julius Reuter, brought news of President Abraham Lincoln's assassination in the United States to the European public, making it the first news service to provide the information to those on the eastern side of the Atlantic Ocean.


1865: Edward Storm, a resident of Greenville, MS, was discharged from the Confederate Army having served in Company D of the 28th Mississippi Cavalry.


1868: Today’s European Affairs column reported that “Thirty-one radical members of the Rumanian House have proposed the most Draconic laws against theJews, which, if put into effect, would result in an absolute expulsion of the unfortunate Hebrews.  England, Prussia and other Governments havemade the most energetic protests agains such foolish measures, and the cry of indignation thoughout Europe has already had so much effect as to cause of the signers of the bill to withdraw their signatures from it.”


1869: Public school teachers and “scholars” living in and around New York City have reportedly been swindled by “an individual calling himself a converted Jew” and “a long-time resident of Palestine. He promises to take their photographs, asks that he be paid in advance and promises to return with the pictures “in a day or two”  Needless to say, he has not been returning with the pictures


1871: It was reported today that Jacob Cohen is the publisher of a new Jewish newspaper, The Hebrew News.  The paper will be published weekly in Hebrew and English.


1876: Judge McAdams officiated at the wedding of Marion W. Dibble and Eliza Emma Ottolengui both of whom live in Charleston, SC.


1878(23rd of Nisan): Orthodox Rabbi David Duetsch of Budapest, author of “Goren David” passed away today


1880: A letter from St. Petersburg that was first published in the London Times takes issue with the contention that the Jews dominate the Nihilist and revolutionary movements in Russia.


1881: Pogroms spreading across the Ukraine, reached Kiev.


1882: Rabbi David Levy officiated at the wedding of Louis L. Cohen of Atlanta, GA and Hortense Solomons which took place at the residence of her father, S.S. Solomons.


1882: It was reported that the “poorer Jews” in Odessa, Russia, are marrying at the rate of 150 couples per day.  There is a belief that if they are married, they will be given free land in either the United States or Palestine.


1883(19thof Nisan, 5643): Sixty year old author and philosopher Samuel Alexander Byk passed away today in Leipzig.


1883(19th of Nisan, 5643): Rabbi Solomon Reimann was crushed to death tonight when he attempted to jump from a ferry on to the dock.  The distance was only three feet, but no reason was given as to why he attempted the jump in the first place. He leaves behind a widow and four adult children


1884(1st of Iyar, 5644): Rosh Chodesh Iyar


1884: A motion to grant convicted killer Edward Brice was denied today in Washington, DC.  The motion was based on the grounds “that one of the jurors” who was Jewish took the oath on a Christian Bible instead of on the Five Books of Moses.  The judge said that the objection should have been raised at the time of the swearing in and refused to consider it.


1885: Phoenix, AZ suffers one of its worst fires during Emil Ganz’s first term as the city’s mayor.  Among the buildings burnt was the Bank Exchange Hotel which was owned by native of Germany who come to Phoenix by way of Georgia.


1885:”Archaelogical Frauds In Palestine,” published today recounts the various sales of an inscription written in Greek that had supposedly been found in “an old Arab house near the Mosque of Omar.”  The inscription that read “Let no foreigner pass within the precincts of the temple.  Anyone found so doing will be guilty of his own death.”  Those who sold the relic claimed that it was a sign posted in the precincts of Herod’s Temple.


1888: In Milwaukee, Wisconsin, five Jews from two different synagogues faced a preliminary hearing on charges that they were leading a boycott of a Jewish butcher named Jacob Weisfeld.  Weisfeld claimed that the two congregations were boycotting his business because he refused to pay a tax of one half a cent per pound of meat sold to the rabbis. Weisfeld claimed that his refusal led to a whispering campaign that claimed his meat was not kosher. The defense tried to prove that Weisfeld, was in fact, guilty of not slaughtering his meat in a kosher fashion.


1889: Birthdate of Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein, an Austrian born professor of philosophy at Cambridge University.  Wittgenstein was not Jewish but his family was up until the beginning of the 19th Century when the road to wealth and social acceptability was opened to those who would trade the Magen David for the Sign of the Cross.


1889: The Coroner’s Inquest that is trying to determine the cause of death a young Jewish boy named Tobias Hipper entered into its second day.  Dr. Stern and Deputy Coroner Jenkins have already testified as to the manner of death and two other witnesses have identified a couple of neighborhood boys as the culprits.


1890: Henry Rice, President of the United Hebrew Charities, testified before the sub-committee of the Joint Congressional Committee on Immigration.


1891: “Sir Pertinax Macpsycophant” published today provides a review of Charles Macklin by Edward Abbott Parry, a biography of the 18th century actor whose signature role was his portrayal of Shylock done in such a unique  manner that when “King George II saw the production” he “was so moved he could not fall asleep that night.


1893: Abraham E. Pumpiansky, the rabbi at Riga, passed away today.


1893: It was reported today the Prussian Supreme Court has declared “that to exclude Jews, qua Jews, from a Freemasons’ Lodge would be a violation of the Prussian Constitution. The case stemmed from the decision of a newly formed lodge of Freemasons to admit Jews which had been objected to other lodges that did not admit Jews because the “anti-Semitic members” did not want “to fraternize with Jews.”


1895: Mayor Strong held hearings on the Hebrew Benevolent Home Bill which has already been passed by both branches of the Legislature.


1896: Birthdate of Dr. Jules Stein.  Stein was an ophthalmologist by training. But he was also the founder of MCA which became the leading talent agency in the United States.  Stein joined forces with another Jew name Lou Wasserman to create the Universal entertainment empire.  Stein used his fortune for humanitarian purposes primarily in the field of research and treatment related to the eye.  He passed away in 1981 leaving behind such legacies as the National Eye Institute and the Jules Stein Eye Institute at UCLA.


1896: It was reported today that Great Britain has “a national concern” as a result of the death of Baron de Hirsch’s death. The Baron had large investments in England and the death duties owed on these properties would “yield enough revenue to build three or four new” battleships which would help the UK in its naval race with Germany.  However, the Baron is an Austrian and the will be probated in Vienna. The fear is that this will make it difficult if not impossible for the British to collect any taxes on the estate.


1896: A betrothal reception for Lucien L. Bonheur and Amelia Simon was held today the home of Miss Simon’s parents on East 56th Street.


1896: David Wolffsohn visited Herzl and offers his cooperation. Wolffsohn had been a supporter of groups seeking to establish a Jewish homeland in Eretz Israel.  Wolfffsohn provided Herzl with an entree into the German Hovevei Zion, Lover’s of Zion, organizations.


1896: In the report of the Committee on the Hebrew Technical Institute which was presented at the meeting of Hebrew Benevolent and Orphan Asylum Society the necessity of creating a fund to provide assistance for the boys who were graduating but who had not started working was called to the trustees’ attention.


1897: According to a report by Superintendent Herman Baar published today, the Hebrew Benevolent and Orphan Asylum is caring for 823 children.  Of these, 350 children attend Grammar School No. 43 while the balance attended classes at the asylum.


1898: In Romania, Sara and Israel Freedman gave birth to radio gag writer David Freedman and author whose bestselling biography of Eddie Cantor was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.


1899: The list of the Board of Directors for the Society of Aid of Jewish Prisoners published today included “Jacob H. Schiff, William N. Cohen, Jacob A. Cantor, Samuel B. Hamburger, Dr. Joseph Wiener, A.S. Solomons, E. W. Bloomingdale and the Reverends Davidson and Harris. 


1903: Herzl has a meeting with representatives of the I.A.C. in Paris who had read the report about the expedition to the Sinai Peninsula. The I.A.C. is the Jewish Colonization Association which was funded by Baron de Hirsch. The I.A.C. was established to set up agricultural settlements in places like Argentina, Brazil, Canada and the United States.  The settlements were supposed to provide places of refuge for Romanian and Russian Jews. Herzl sought enlist I.A.C. support for the establishment of agricultural colonies in the Sinai which would be a stepping stone to a Jewish home in Eretz Israel.


1903: According to an article in today’s edition of the New York Daily Tribune,“the gang that would become the Eastman Gang (named for Monk Eastman, the turn-of the-century gangster who was its leader)  “first came on the scene in the early 1890s. They started out in the notorious Corlear's Hook section of the lower east side on Rivington street in the vicinity of Mangin and Goerck streets. Another gang of the era, the Short-Tail Gang, had its headquarters in this same area, making it entirely possible that the Eastmans grew out of the Short-Tails. Originally composed of gentiles from the local slums, the gang quickly became almost exclusively Jewish with the influx of Jewish immigrants into lower Manhattan and nearby Brooklyn. When Monk Eastman himself entered the gang is unknown, but the fact that several newspaper articles refer to him as hailing from Corlear's Hook indicates that it was probably during this early era”.


1913: Mary Phagan comes to the pencil factory where she is given her pay for the week by Leo Frank.  According to the testimony in the trial, Leo Frank was the last person to see Mary Phagan alive.


1914:Liberal Judaism here and abroad is gaining ground, according to Dr. Maurice H. Harris, President of the Eastern Council of Reformed Rabbis, which opened its Fifth Assembly tonight at Temple Emanu-El, Fifth Avenue and Forty-Third Street. He said that an international propaganda for Liberal Judaism had been started and that a conference on the plan and scope of the movement probably would be arranged in Europe in 1916.”


1914: Rabbi Samuel L. Levinson officiated at the dedication of the new synagogue of Temple Beth Emeth, the second such building to be built in Brooklyn.  Dr. Stephen Wise, the rabbi of the Free Synagogue addressed the crowd who had come to the building which cost $40,000.


1914: Birthdate of Lillian Rolfe, a courageous member of the Marquis who was murdered by the Nazis at Ravensburck concentration camp.


1914:  Birthdate of author and Pulitzer Prize winner, Bernard Malamud.  While many think of him as a Jewish writer, one of his biggest hits, which Robert Redford later turned into a hit movie was The Natural - a book about baseball that has no Jewish characters.  Malamud passed away in 1986.


1915:  As a corporal in the 1st Battalion, The Manchester Regiment, Issy Smith was engaged in the Second Battle of Ypres. Today, Smith, on his own initiative, recovered wounded soldiers while exposed to sustained fire and attended to them "with the greatest devotion to duty regardless of personal risk".  In August, 1915, Smith was awarded the Victoria Cross for his brave behavior.


1917: As thousands of Jews fight for the Kaiser, “The Deutschvölkische Blätter, official publication of the anti-Semitic Deutschvölkische Partei (DVP), announced that it's time to declare war on Jews openly because of the Jewish opposition to World War I. Ferdinand Werner, chairman of the Deutschvölkische Partei spoke to the Reichstag and demanded that the government pass laws "against the Jewish race, which agitates for strikes and raises the price of food." (Yes, this 26 years before Hitler came to power)


1918: Birthdate of Miriam Shinezon, the native of Vitebsk, Russia who gained fame as “Miriam Ben-Porat, the first woman to serve as a Justice on Israel’s Supreme Court…” (As reported by Isabel Kershner)


1925:The New York Times featured a review of “My Portion: An Autobiography” by Rebekah Kohut with an Introduction written by Henrietta Szold. According to the review, the book describes “Kohut's Life Story of Social Service” and should appeal to both Jewish and non-Jewish readers alike.


1925: The Pulitzer Prize was awarded to Edna Ferber for So Big.  This Jewish author became famous for her sweeping novels that portrayed American history.  Showboat and Giantare two of her literary hits that went on to become cinematic successes.


1929: In Jerusalem, there was a cornerstone laying ceremony to mark the construction of the building designed to house the Jewish National Fund.  The building was part of a construction project designed to provide space for several national institutions.


1932: Birthdate of Anthony Ray Gubbay, “the former Chief Justice of the Supreme court of Zimbabwe.


1933: In Munich Justine and Karl Penzias gave birth to Arno Allan Penzias, a “kindertransport kid” who won the Nobel Prize for Physics.


1933: Hermann Göring established the Gestapo (Geheime Staatspolizei; Secret State Police).



1933: Hitler met with Bishop Wilhelm Berning of Osnabrück and Monsignor Steinmann, prelates representing the Roman Catholic Church in Germany. Hitler claimed that he is only doing to the Jews what the Catholic Church has already done to them for 1600 years. He reminded the prelates that the Church has regarded the Jews as dangerous and pushed them into ghettos. Hitler suggested that his anti-Jewish actions are "doing Christianity a great service." Bishop Berning and Monsignor Steinmann later described the talks as "cordial and to the point."


1934:  Birthdate of actor Alan Arkin.



1934: The third biennial Levant Fair opens in Tel Aviv.  According to Israel B. Brodie, “the fair is designed to attract trade to Palestine and also to draw attention to the importance of Palestine in reaching many of the Near Eastern markets.”


1936: “As sporadic acts of violence by Arabs continued…a young Jew walking near the Damascus Gate in the Old City of Jerusalem was severly beaten by an Arab who escaped.  Buses in Jewish districts are stone by Arabs and attempts by Arabs to set fire to Jewish owned fields have been thwarted. 


1936: In France, the first of two rounds of elections take place that will bring a Popular Front Government to power with Leon Blum serving as “the first authentically Socialist prime minister in French history.”


1938: Austrian Jews were required to register property above 5,000 Reichsmarks.  This came as part of the Nazification of Austria after the Germans annexed Hitler's homeland.  After the war, the Austrians sought to portray themselves as the first victims of Nazi aggression.  The cheering throngs that greeted Hitler told a different story.



1942: Leopold Müller and his wife Irene were marched on a roundabout route from a Gestapo gathering point in a small park in Würzburg through the city's streets to a train depot. There they left their luggage on the platform and boarded a train to the East and to their deaths.


1944: Release date for “The Hitler Gang,” “a pseudo-documentary…which traces the political rise” of the German dictator.


1945: Prisoner Karl Riemer fled the Dachau concentration camp to get help from American troops


1945: “As the Americans approached Dachau about 7,000 prisoners, most of them Jews, were sent on a death march to Tegernsee.”


1946: “Thousands of British paratroopers made a house by house search through north Tel Aviv today rounding up and question 1,200 suspected terrorists” following the attack on a British police station.  Tel Aviv is placed under a strict curfew.


1947: IN Russia, Bluma and Yechezkel Yadlovker gave birth to David Ben-Shalom Yadlovker who made Aliyah 1960 and passed away when the INS Dakar sank in 1968.


1950: Seventy-nine year old Irish archaeologist Robert Alexander Stewart Macalister who “was responsible for the excavations at Gezer” from 1902 to 1909 where the “Gezer calendar” was found passed away today.


1954: For the first time, NBC broadcast “The Tony Martin Show” which showcased the talent of the San Francisco born singer who was the son of Eastern European Jews.


1959: In “Ambassador at Large for a Nation in the Making” published today Walter Laquer reviewed Chaim Wiezman by Isaiah Berlin.



1960: West German release date for “ I Married a Woman” directed by Hal Kanter with a script by Goodman Ace.


1965:The World Zionist Congress tonight closed a two-day debate on Israel's security crisis after having heard new attacks on United States and Soviet policies


1965:Composer Aaron Avshalomov passed away. Born into a Jewish family in Nikolayevsk-on-Amur, Khabarovsk Krai, then Russian Empire) in 1894, “he was one of highly qualified Jewish musicians (i.e., Alfred Wittenberg, Walter Joachim, Arrigo Foa, etc.), who fled pogroms and revolutions in Russia in the beginning of the 20th century, went to China (first arrived in Harbin, later moved to Shanghai). They entered the world of Shanghai's academia and trained a number of young Chinese musicians in classical music, who in turn became leading musicians in contemporary China. Aaron fled China in when the Japanese invaded in 1931 and moved to live in Portland, Oregon, USA. He was the father of composer Jacob Avshalomov, conductor of the Portland Junior Symphony (now called the Portland Youth Philharmonic Orchestra) from 1953-1994.


1966: Arnold "Red" Auerbach retired as Boston Celtic's coach


1967:  In what would turn out to be part of a diplomatic offensive leading to the Six Day War, the Soviet Ambassador to Israel protested to Prime Minister Levi Eshkol that Israel was planning on starting a war with Syria.  Ehskol denied the claim and offered to take the Soviet diplomat to the border so that he could see that troops were not being massed for attack.  The Russian declined to go, but the Syrians believed the Russian report increasing tension in the area.



1967:"Hallelujah, Baby!" a musical with music by Jule Styne, lyrics by Adolph Green and Betty Comden,opened on Broadway at the Martin Beck Theatre


1969: In Canada, the Bulletin published a list of the demands and goals made by a group of students at Shaar Hashomayim that were designed to show their respect for the synagogue while at the same time calling for “practices necessary for a renaissance in Canadian Jewish life.”


1970(20th of Nisan, 5730): As part of a campaign to gain rights for Russian Jews, tens of thousands of Jews shared in a Passover “Exodus March” that began at the Soviet mission to the United Nations


1976: For a second time, Pierre Goldman went on trial for his role in a robbery in which two pharmacists were killed.  This time he was acquitted.


1978:In a New York Times profile Lillian Vernon was described as "the first lady of mail order catalogues," a designation she had earned through more than two decades of entrepreneurship and steady growth of her eponymous business.Born Lilly Menasche in Leipzig, Germany, in 1927, Lillian Vernon fled with her family first to Amsterdam and then to New York to escape Hitler. In the U.S., her father manufactured leather goods, which would become the base of Vernon's first foray into mail-order.Married and pregnant, Vernon began the business that would become Lillian Vernon, Inc., in 1951. She took $495 of her wedding gift money to place an advertisement for personalized belts and handbags in Seventeen. Her father's company manufactured the belts and bags, and Vernon embossed, packaged, and shipped them. The ad brought in over $32,000 worth of sales, and Vernon's company was born. She mailed her first catalogue two years later.Taking monogramming as its trademark, and catering mainly to women, Lillian Vernon mail-order grew rapidly, generating $200,000 in sales in 1956, the year Vernon opened her first manufacturing plant. By 1990, sales had risen to $238 million, and the mailing list had grown to 17 million names.After pioneering her successful mail-order business, Vernon continued to keep the company at the forefront of commercial changes. She began opening retail outlets in 1985, and went online a decade later. Hers was also the first woman-owned business to be listed on the American Stock Exchange. The company continues to introduce new catalogs regularly, and now produces special lines of items for children, teens, and gardening, as well as its traditional products for the home.Vernon has used her wealth to support over 500 charities, and has been recognized by, among others, Big Brothers/Big Sisters, which awarded her its National Hero Award. She has also received the NAACP Medal of Honor, and has been inducted into the Direct Marketing Association Hall of Fame and the National Women's Hall of Fame. In 1997, she was named one of 50 leading women entrepreneurs by the National Foundation for Women Business Owners. Though she no longer embossed items herself, Vernon was active as the CEO of her company and as its main spokesperson until 2006


1987:At Congregation Rodeph Sholom in New York Margaret Howell Hudesman, an interior designer, was married to Gabriel Levinson, an architect with Nadler, Philopena & Associates in Mount Kisco, N.Y. Rabbi Gunter Hirschberg performed the ceremony.


1987(27th of Nisan, 5747): Yom Hashoah,


1987: Israeli radio quoted sources in Prime Minister Shamir's office as saying Mr. Moshe Arens had succeeded in persuading Secretary of State Shultz to give up the idea of an international conference, a report that was promptly denied by Foreign Minister Shimon Peres's office. Foreign Minister Peres favors such a conference.  Shamir opposes it.


1990: Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, leader of the right-wing Likud bloc, was chosen to form a new government after Labor Party leader Shimon Peres failed in his attempt to form a coalition.


1990(1stof Iyar, 5750): Rosh Chodesh Iyar


1990(1stof Iyar, 5750): Ninety-five year old Irma (Seeman) Goldberg, the widow of Rube Goldberg passed away today.

1992(27th of Nisan, 5747): Yom Hashoah


1992:Appearing before 5,000 men, women and children gathered to mourn the Jews killed by the Nazis, Vice President Dan Quayle pledged the commitment of the Bush Administration to the memory of those who perished in the Holocaust and to Israel, which he said "was built upon the ashes of the Holocaust."
 
1993(5thof Iyar, 5753): Yom HaAtzma’ut


1994: Seventy-one year old Rostam Bastuni, a journalist and politician who was the first Arab citizen to represent a Zionist Party (Mapam) in the Knesset.


1996: According to a report published in the Bulletin, two days before Passover, the leaders of Shaar Hashomayim in Montreal found out the nature of the upcoming student demonstration that would confront the congregation.


1999: Israel charged Avisahi Raviv, “a former undercover agent and right-wing radical today with failing to prevent the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin by a Jewish hard-liner.”

1998: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of interest to Jewish readers including Between Dignity and Despair: Jewish Life in Nazi Germany by Marion A. Kaplan, Killing the Dream: James Earl Ray and the Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. by Gerald Posner and Heading South, Looking North: A Bilingual Journey by Ariel Dorfman.


1998: An exhibit styled “An Expressionist in Paris: The Paintings of Chaim Soutine” opened at the Jewish Museum in New York City. “’Known as a "painter's painter,’ Soutine's work is characterized by his energetic, lively brushwork and bold use of color. This exhibition, the first major presentation of the artist in New York in nearly fifty years, brings together some of Soutine's most extraordinary works.” The exhibition focuses on exploring Soutine's reception by his patrons, supporters, and critics. The space of the exhibition will be organized according to three time periods--the 1920s, the 1930s, and the 1950s--when Soutine was being defined and redefined by his audience as an unschooled tragic genius, as a savior of traditional French painting, and as a progenitor of Abstract Expressionism and the avant-garde in America.


2001(3rdof Iyar, 5761): Yom HaAtzma’ut


2003: Thirteen people were injured during a bombing at the Kfar Saba train station for which the PFLP and Al-Aqsa claimed joint responsibility.


2004: Two Palestinians were killed when suicide bomber coming from Gaza detonated himself “on the way to carry out an attack in Israel.”


2005: Dr. Raul Hilberg, author of the three-volume, 1,273-page The Destruction of the European Jews regarded as the seminal study of the Nazi Final Solution was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences


2006(28thof Nisan, 5766):  Yuval Ne’eman, founder of Israel’s space program and a key figure in Israel’s nuclear program passed away.


2006: The family of real estate magnate and book lover Sami Rohr has created the Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature, an annual $100,000 prize for an "emerging writer whose work has demonstrated a fresh vision and evidence of future potential." The Rohr family said that the award hopefully will "encourage, promote, and support outstanding writing of Jewish interest." Fiction and nonfiction books in English (including translations) will be considered in alternate years—the inaugural prize in 2007 will be for fiction. Short story collections are eligible if 75 percent of the text was not previously published in periodicals or other collections. All nonfiction titles must concern Jewish themes and are limited to history, biography, contemporary Jewish life, Jewish scholarship, and current affairs.


2006:  Haaretzreviewed Betabat Hahenek or In a Stranglehold by Uri Ben-Ari. 

 

2006(28th of Nisan, 5766): Yuval Ne’eman founder of Israel’s space program and a key figure in Israel’s nuclear program passed away.


2006: While delivering the James Fox Memorial Lecture today Robert S. Mueller, III, the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation described a terrorist plot which included plans to blow up a synagogue in Los Angeles on Yom Kippur in 2005. When the would-be terrorists were caught, they also had lists of the addresses of the Jewish houses of worship in Los Angeles and the address of the Israeli consulate in Los Angeles


2008(21st of Nisan, 5768): Seventh Day of Pesach – Reform Jews recite Yizkor


2008(21st of Nisan, 5768): Yossi Harel, who commanded four ships bringing Jews to Israel illegally, died at the age of 90 in Tel Aviv.Harel assisted 24,000 Jews in reaching Israel aboard four ships, including the famed SS Exodus, between 1945 and 1948. Great Britain, which controlled the region at the time, banned Jewish immigration due to Arab pressure. The other three ships were called Knesset Yisrael (Gathering of Israel), Atzma'ut (Independence) and Kibbutz Galuyot (Ingathering of the Exiles).The Exodus was made famous by a film of the same name. Born in 1919, Harel was the sixth generation in his family born in Jerusalem. At the age of 15 he joined the pre-state Haganah defense force. By the age of 28 he oversaw the clandestine immigration operations bringing Jews, many of them survivors of the Holocaust, to the Holy Land. Later on, Harel oversaw the IDF’s Unit 131, an intelligence unit that ran a spy ring in Egypt until the so-called Lavon Affair of 1954.Harel will be buried at the Caesarea-area kibbutz, Sdot Yam.


2009: Final performance of “The Accomplices” at the Center Stage Theatre in Jerusalem.


2009: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Vincente Minnelli: Hollywood’s Dark Dreamer by Emanuel Levy and the recently released paperback edition of The Mayor’s Tongue a novel written by Nathaniel Rich.


2009: First annual Mitzvah Day in Iowa City sponsored by Agudas Achim


2009: Authorities fear a case of swine flu may have made it to Israel after a 26-year-old Israeli who just returned from a trip to Mexico today checked himself into the hospital reporting flu-like symptoms. Also today, the Foreign Ministry urged Israeli nationals in Mexico and certain parts of the United States to exercise caution after the deadly swine flu strain killed up to 81 people in Mexico. .


2009: Temple Judah in Cedar Rapids hosts its annual Big Dinner, one of the congregations oldest and most important fund raiser.
2009(2nd of Iyar, 5769): Eighty­-six year old Salamo Arouch, a Greek-born Jewish boxer who survived the Auschwitz death camp in World War II by winning fight after fight against fellow prisoners, to the delight of Nazi guards who had placed their bets on him, died in Israel today.

2010: The Wedding Song, film about a Jewish girl and a Moslem girl, living in war torn Tunisia, is scheduled to be shown at the 2010 NoVA International Jewish Film Festival


2010:Professor Gil Troy is scheduled to deliver a lecture entitled "The 1975 Zionism is Racism Resolution: American Anger and British Appeasement" in Jerusalem sponsored by the Israel Branch of The Jewish Historical Society of England.


2010: The New York Timesfeatured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including “Get Capone:The Secret Plot That Captured America’s Most Wanted Gangster” by Jonathan Eig and “Ill Fares the Land” by Tony Judt.


2010: The Los Angeles Times included a review of Three Chords For Beauty’s Sake: The Life of Artie Shaw by Tom Nolan that traces the transformation of Avraham Ben-Yitzhak Arshawsky from the son of immigrant Jews to one of the main players in the world of Swing and the Big Band sound.


2011:“The Wizard of Lies: Bernie Madoff and the Death of Trust” by Diana B. Henriques, a book that “analyzes Mr. Madoff’s rise and fall” is scheduled to be published today.


2011(22nd of Nisan, 5771): Eighth day of Pesach – Yizkor


2011: The New York Times published a review of “A Book of Recipes Gathered From Holocaust Survivors” by June Feiss Hersh. Recipe books based on the memories of Holocaust survivors might seem to trivialize the horror. But Dr. Ruth Westheimer, one of the survivors featured in “Recipes Remembered: A Celebration of Survival,” said that food represents identity for these people who did not have a real homeland. June Feiss Hersh interviewed more than 100 survivors and their relatives for the book, and recorded their stories, food memories and recipes, which she also tested. When the dish called for ketchup or canned tomato soup, that’s what the recipe included. This lavishly illustrated book is divided by geographic areas, including Greece, where there was a Jewish community on the island of Rhodes. Though the recipes from Polish survivors tend to represent traditional Jewish cooking (kugel, gefilte fish), there are plenty of new ideas to explore, including an Italian Sunday sauce, potato soup made with a browned roux, a cabbage pie wrapped in puff pastry and a feather-light chocolate roll of exquisite simplicity. The personal stories recount amazing coincidences and moments of luck that led to survival, often after internment at Auschwitz. The immigrant experiences in places like Cuba as well as the United States are also described, and indeed influence the food. Ms. Hersh added recipes from 26 chefs and professional cooks, but these are unnecessary and often irrelevant. The rich collection from the survivors needed no help, especially when you even have people like George Lang among the bona fide contributors.


2011: Peter Shumlin appeared on The Rachel Maddow Show via telephone where he discussed health care reform in his state, his belief in health care for all and that "health care is a right, not a privilege".


2012: “Lea and Darija” about the “Croatian Shirley Temple,” Lea Deutsch ,the Jewish star of a Zagreb song-and-dance troupe, and her gentile dancing partner Darija Gasteiger is scheduled to be shown at the Westchester Jewish Film Festival
2012: Defense Minister Ehud Barak, said today that the chances “appear low” that the Iranian government would bow to international pressure and halt its nuclear program
2012: “In Darkness,” a film set in Nazi occupied Lvov, is scheduled to be shown for the final time as part of the Yom HaShoah commemoration in Iowa City, Iowa..


2012(4thof Iyar, 5772):  Yom Ha’Atzmaut – Israel Independence Day


2013: “No Place Earth” is scheduled to open in several cities across the United States

2013: In New Orleans, Touro Synagogue is scheduled to host its 22nd annual Jazz Fest Shabbat


2013: One hundredth anniversary of the start of events that would become known as “The Leo Frank Case,” the worst single outbreak of anti-Semitism in the United States.


2013: Today, Bulgarian investigators staged a re-enactment of the bus bombing that killed five Israeli tourists, the bus driver and the alleged perpetrator at the Burgas airport in July. The Europol-sponsored experiment, aimed to provide more details about the attack, was done at a police compound near the city of Ihtiman, 40 kilometers (25 miles) east of Sofia. Officials said the results confirmed the facts they had previously established.(As reported by AP & Times of Israel)

2013: Lebanese media outlets reported this afternoon that the Israeli Air Force was conducting mock raids over southern parts of the country, one day after an unmanned aerial vehicle was shot down by the IAF off the coast of Haifa


2014: “The Zig Zag Kid” is scheduled to be shown at the JCC Rockland International Film Festival.

This Day, April 27, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. Levin

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April 27


399 BCE: Socrates drank hemlock as he carried out the death penalty that had been imposed on him by the government. For centuries to come some Jews would study Socrates and other Greeks, in many cases trying to find a harmony between Judaism and Greek philosophy.  Other Jews would view Socrates and the other Greeks as the mortal enemies of Judaism and go so far as to attempt to officially ban the study of their works.


711: Tarik, a Moslem general attacked southern Spain from a place known as Jebel Tarik or Gibraltar. He soon defeated Roderic, last of the Visigoth kings, at the Battle of Xeres. Tarik was helped by both the Jews and the rebel Prince Witiza. After each city was conquered - Cordova, Granada, and Malaga - the Jews were often given positions of safeguarding Moslem interests.


1296: During the First War of Scottish Independence, King Edward I defeated the Scots at the Battle of Dunbar. The first written evidence of their presence dates from the last decade of the 12th century. However, nobody is sure when Jews first arrived in the land of Kilts and Pipes.  King Edward had already issued his edict of expulsion six years before the battle and it is thought that some of the Jews fleeing his realm went north to Scotland.


1495: Birthdate Suleiman the Magnificent, Sultan of the Ottoman Empire one of the most philo-Semitic rulers in history.  He built the walls around Jerusalem that impress tourists to this day.  He intervened with Pope to protect the Jews of Ancona.  He provided a haven for the Sephardim and Marranos fleeing the Inquisition.  He intervened on behalf of Dona Garcia and her nephew Joseph Nassi, bringing them to his capital from a Venetian captivity.  Nassi became a close advisor to the Sultan.  In 1564, the aging Ottoman leader gave Nassi the city of Tiberias so that Jewish refugees from Europe would have a place to settle. And that is just the tip of the iceberg!


1509: As part of what was really a temporal and not a religious dispute with the Doge, Pope Julius II places the Italian state of Venice under interdict. Fortunately for the Jews of his days, Julius was more concerned about art (he was the one who Michelangelo paint the Sistine Chapel) and power politics as can be seen with his on-going political and military confrontation with the Doge of Venice, among others. His lack of theology concerns meant that the Jews enjoyed a period of benign Papal neglect.  Furthermore, Julius II employed a Jew named Samuel Sarfatti as his personal physician. Life for the Jews living in Venice at this time was becoming increasingly precarious. Three years before this, several Jews died in violence brought on by a “blood libel” and seven years at this, the Jews would be confined to Ghetto Nuova an island containing a foundry (geto in Italian) which made it the original Ghetto


1667: The blind and impoverished John Milton sells the copyright of “Paradise Lost” for £10. According to Elliot Rosenberg, “Milton wrote as Puritan in the England of Cromwell’s heritage, and from a Jewish perspective he was a good man.  He respected the Hebrew Bible, read it each morning until his vision failed, and as he aged, turned more and more to the precepts of Mosaic law.  In his more worldly capacity as Cromwell’s’ Latin secretary, he may had had a hand in the negations that led to the return of Jews to England.”


1701(19thof Nisan,5461): Moses Germanus passed away.


1727: Empress Catherine I ordered the expulsion of all Jews from the Ukraine.


1737:  Birthdate of English historian Edward Gibbon, author of the Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire.  In an attempt to blame Jews for anti-Semitism at least one writer has claimed that  Gibbon wrote “ that, while Jews were populous in Rome and suspected and resented by the Romans, Nero’s Jewish wife, the beautiful Poppaea Sabina, probably incited him, as a convert to her Judaism, against a relatively obscure sect, the Christians. Nero’s accusation that they had set the fires that ravaged Rome began centuries of Roman persecution of Christians.”  However, in Chapter XV: Progress Of The Christian Religion. -- Part IIof Gibbon’s classic, the historian seems to paint a picture of a Christianity’s efforts to distance itself from “Mosaic” doctrine when convenient and adopting its own version when it felt it would advance its cause.   


1796(19th of Nisan 5556):The Jewish community of Fossano, Italy was miraculously saved from the hands of a murderous mob by a French bomb which landed just in time to scare away the attackers. This day was established as "Purim Fossano" in commemoration of the miraculous salvation.
For the complete story, see Purim Fossano


1820: Birthdate of Herbert Spencer, the English biologist who coined the term “Survival of the Fittest” which he took from the world of biology and applied it to world of human social development.  This concept stands in stark contrast with the Jewish concept of creating a society that calls for us to protect “the widow, the orphan and the stranger in our midst” i.e. the weakest
1821: When the Greek Patriarch Gregory, head of the Greek Orthodox Church had been publicly executed, the Turkish Grand Vizier Benderli Ali Pasha was reportedly to have said to the Jews present, "Here hangs your enemy and ours."


1821(25thof Nisan, 5581): Hungarian historian and poet Solomon Löwisohn passed away today.


1822:  Birthdate of U.S. Grant, “savior of the Union” and President of the United States.  Grant did issue the infamous Order #10.  But at the same time, he had Jewish political allies and was a voluntary contributor to the building for Adas Israel, the famous Conservative congregation in Washington, D.C. A majority of Jews supported Grant’s election as President and this eulogy by Felix Adler adds additional proof to the fact that Grant’s Jewish contemporaries did not view him as an anti-Semite.


1826(20thof Nisan, 5586): Sixth Day of Pesach


1826(20thof Nisan, 5586): Seventy-one year old Austrian rabbi and author Eleazar ben David Fleckeles, author of “Olat Hodesh” passed away today in his hometown of Prague.


1832: Benjamin Disraeli met his future wife “Mary Anne Wyndham Lewis at a soiree at Bulwer Lytton’s house today;” a meeting which he described : 'I was introduced by particular desire to Mrs Wyndham Lewis, a pretty little woman, a flirt and a rattle, indeed gifted with volubility I should think unequalled and of which I can convey no idea. She told me she liked silent, melancholy men. I answered that I had no doubt of it.'


1835: Founding of the 11th Regiment of the New York State Militia which was commanded by Colonel Joachim Maidhof when it went off to fight in the Civil War
1838: A huge fire destroyed the synagogue in Charleston, S.C. Moses C. Levy, who had been worshipping there for forty years, rushed to synagogue in an attempt to save the Torah scrolls. According to an eyewitness account, he was overcome by inconsolable grief at the sight of the conflagration.


1845(20th of Nisan): Rabbi Ezekiel Panet, author of “Mareh Yehezkel” passed away today


1857:  Establishment of Jewish congregations in Lower Austria prohibited.


1857: It was reported today that Baron Rothschild attended an auction on Rue Druot where he expressed a dismissive view of the items being offered.


1859(23rd of Nisan, 5619): Sir Isaac Lyon Goldsmid, English financier and the first Jewish baronet passed away. “Born in London on Jan. 13, 1778 “he was the son of Asher Goldsmid, and nephew of Benjamin and Abraham Goldsmid, the financiers. Educated at an English school in Finsbury square, he received a sound financial training in the technicalities of his father's business of bullion-broking. At a later period his association with Ricardo made him familiar with the leading questions of political science. He became in due course a partner in the firm of Mocatta & Goldsmid, bullion-brokers to the Bank of England and to the East India Company. His early ventures on the Stock Exchange were unfortunate, and, after losing on one occasion £16,000, he abandoned speculation and contented himself with steady business as a jobber. Goldsmid gradually rose to eminence as a financier, and ultimately amassed a large fortune. His most extensive financial operations were connected with Portugal, Brazil, and Turkey; and for his services in settling an intricate monetary dispute between Portugal and Brazil he was, in 1846, created Baron de Palmeira by the Portuguese government. Goldsmid was one of the founders of the London Docks. The main effort of his life was made in the cause of Jewish emancipation. He was the first English Jew who took up the question, and he enlisted in its advocacy the leading Whig statesmen of the time. Soon after the passing of the Act of 1829, which removed the civil disabilities of the Roman Catholics, he secured the powerful aid of Lord Holland, the Marquis of Lansdowne, the Duke of Sussex, and other eminent members of the Liberal party, and then induced Robert Grant to introduce in the House of Commons a similar measure for the Jews. During more than two years from the time when Jewish emancipation was first debated in Parliament, Goldsmid gave little heed to his ordinary business, devoting himself almost exclusively to the advancement of the cause. He was one of the chief agents in the establishment of University College, London, purchasing at his own risk the site of the university. Goldsmid was a liberal supporter of the Reform synagogue and of all Jewish institutions (As reported by the Jewish Encyclopedia)


1865: The New York State Senate creates Cornell University as the state’s land grant university. According to recent figures, Cornell has 13,800 undergrads, 5000 of whom are a Jewish.  It has 3000 graduate students of whom approximately 500 are Jewish.  The school offers sixteen courses in Jewish Studies.  Students may major or minor in the subject.


1866: As another sign of how it has changed from a medical facility for indigent Jews to a community hospital, Officer Milcahy sent Herman Deutch to the Jews' Hospital after he had been stabbed with a carpenters chisel during a drunken brawl with Rudolph Schriever.


1866: In New York City, Levi Morris was arrested today on charges that he had attempted to leave the store of David Valentine &Co with three pieces of silk, valued at more than sixty dollars, for which he had not paid.


1868: Mlle. Janauschek gave a performance of "Deborah" tonight at the Academy in New York City where "she presented her enthusiastic conception of the ideal Hebrew maiden."


1880: Obituary of Joseph Seligman expressed surprise at his sudden death and recounted his distinguished career.

1881:Pogrom began in Elisabethgrad


1881: Yesterday and todays attacks on the Jews of Kiev “were encouraged by the authorities” and “the promoters of the persecution of the Jews” acted with “impunity.” (As described by the Vienna correspondent for the London Telegraph)


1882: “More Room for Patients” published today described the remodeling project at Mount Sinai Hospital.


1884: Jesse Seligman, the President of the Hebrew Benevolent and Orphan Asylum Society, gave his report at today’s annual meeting.  According to Seligman, the asylum served 361 boys and that the institution had total assets of almost three hundred thousand dollars.


1885: In New York, a jury was chosen to hear the case in which Ferdinand Mayer, a Jewish businessman is charged with having committed perjury and is represented by Albert Cardozo.


1886(22nd of Nisan, 5646): 8th day of Pesach


1887: Certificates of incorporation for a Talmud Torah in Brooklyn were filed in the County Clerk’s office today.

1890: “Mr. Delaney’s Little Scheme” published today described efforts by of one of the incumbent Tax Commissioners to thwart the plans of Mayor Nathan Barnett, the city’s first Jewish mayor, to appoint a new person to the position.


1890: Based on testimony given to the sub-committee of the Joint Congressional Committee on Immigration it was reported today of the 25,000 Jewish immigrants who have come to the United States, 17,000 were Russians and Poles.  There are approximately 500,000 Jews living in the United States of whom 130,000 reside in New York City.


1890: The Hebrew Benevolent and Orphan Asylum Society held its annual meeting today.


1890: Henry Seligman was re-elected President at today’s annual meeting of the Hebrew Benevolent and Orphan Asylum Society.  Seligman delivered the society’s 67th annual report which included the information that the Asylum had cared for 559 youngsters in the past year.


1891(19thof Nisan, 5651): Fifty-eight year old Rabbi Joachim Oppenheim, the husband of Helen Pund and the father of Berthold Oppenheim passed away today in Berlin.


1894: A circular describing the dangers of consumption and providing about ways to avoid contracting is being printed in several different languages, including Hebrew, in an attempt to reach New York’s large immigrant population


1896: “A Large Betrothal Reception” published today described the engagement party held for Lucien Bonehur and Ameila Simon.  Bonehour is the President of the Young Ladies and Gentlemen’s League of the Montefiore Home, Vice President of the Young Men’s Hebrew Association and Manager of the Educational Fair.  He is also the nephew of Rosa Bonheur, the famous painter. Miss Simon is the Secretary of the Young Ladies and Gentlemen’s League of the Montefiore Home.


1897: “Jews Barred from Romania” published today described a reported given to the U.S. State Department “that the government of Romania has prohibited the entry of Jews into that country.”


1901: On Shabbat, Rabbi Henry Pereira Mendes delivered a sermon at Shearith Israel in which he described the work of the Alliance Israelite Universelle.


1902: Henry Rice and other officers of the United Hebrew Charities expressed their confidence that members of the Jewish community would raise the $50,000 necessary to match the $50,000 gift from William Guggenheim.  Guggenheim’s contribution is contingent on the UHC raising a similar amount.

1902: The New York Times reports that macaroons, an Italian delicacy, have become quite popular during the Passover holiday with Jews living on the Lower East Side


1903(1st of Iyar, 5663): Rosh Chodesh Iyar


1904:  Birthdate of Arthur F. Burns, economist and former Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board.


1904: Mr. and Mrs. Rogers Pinner gave birth to Karl Pinner


1908(26th of Nisan, 5668): Fifty-five year old Jacob Voorsanger, the native of the Netherlands who has been serving as the rabbi at San Francisco’s Congregation Emanu-El since 1889 passed away today.


1908: Freud's early followers met together formally for the first time at the Hotel Bristol, Salzburg


1909: Sultan of Turkey Abdul Hamid II is overthrown, and is succeeded by his brother - Mehemed V. Sultan Abdul Hamid II is famous for his refusal to allow Dr. Theodore Herzl, the founder of Political Zionism, to settle Palestine with Jewish colonists.  But this does not mean that he was unsympathetic to his Jewish subjects or that Jews were kept from settling in other parts of Turkey. Abdul Hamid IIwas born in 1842 and died in 1918. During his reign, Turkey was defeated in a war with the Russians.  As a result of the Treaty of Berlin, the Turks lost a substantial amount of their holdings in the Balkans.  This triggered a migration of Turks and Jews into the remaining lands of the Ottoman Empire. Abdul Hamid made plans for an influx200,000 Jewish immigrants from Russia. Jews played an ever more active role in Turkish affairs.  Several Jewish leaders played prominent roles in the Parliament. Turkish Jews participated in special festivities celebrating the 400th anniversary of their arrival from Spain. After the Alfred Dreyfus case, Herzl made three visits to Turkey (1898, 1901 and 1903) in attempt to see the Sultan.  It was on his third voyage that he was finally granted one through the intervention of the Chief Rabbi, Moshe Levy. The Sultan received him and Herzl tried to obtain a Jewish homeland under the protection of the Sultan under the same statutes as the Island of Crete.


1909(6th of Iyar, 5669): Heinrich Conried, the Austrian born theatrical manager who became director of the Metropolitan Opera passed away today.

1909: It was reported today that “The executors of the estate of the late Louis A. Heinsheimer of the banking house of Kuhn, Loeb Co., 52 William Street, will hold a conference in the near future to discuss whether it is possible to make available the $1,000,000 that Mr. Heinsheimer willed to six Jewish benevolent institutions on the condition that those institutions shall form a confederation.”


1913:At 3:00 a.m. the police received a call from the factory's night watchman, Newt Lee, reporting the discovery of a dead girl who was in fact Mary Phagan


1913: In Manhattan, Marcus and Celia Adler, two Jewish immigrants from Poland, gave birth to “Irving Adler, a former New York City teacher who became a prolific writer of books on math and science for young people after being forced from the classroom during the Red Scare of the early 1950s…” (As reported by Dennis Hevesi)


1913:Dr. Samuel Schulman delivered his last lecture for the season today at the Temple Beth-El in New York. It was on the “Song of Songs.” He talked combined the themes of Passover and the ideal woman as presented in this book of the Bible.  “The love of nature, the love of woman, the love country and the love of god – that is what the book, the Songs of songs teach us.  That is every Passover the book Song of Songs is read.”

1914: During the second day of the Fifth Assembly of the Eastern Council of Reformed Rabbis a luncheon was given in honor of Adolph Lewisohn, the founder of the Lewisohn Lectureship.


1915: During the Gallipoli Campaign, the 300 men serving under  Colonel John H .Patterson in the Zion Mule Corps landed off the Dundernoon.  Despite having had only three weeks of training, the Mule Corps served with distinction.


1915: Birthdate of Abraham Judah Klausner the native of Memphis, TN who was one of five children of Rabbi Joseph Klausner and Tillie Binstalk Klausner. After graduating from Hebrew Union College in 1941 he served as “a Jewish chaplain in the United States Army who arrived at the Dachau concentration camp a few days after its liberation in 1945 and a strong voice for thousands of Holocaust survivors who remained in displaced persons camps for years after the war…(As reported by Dennis Hevesi)


1919: Else Lasker-Schüler’s her first and most important play, Die Wupper, was performed for the first time at the Deutsche Theatre in Berlin.


1921: As part of the peace settlement ending World War I, Germany is ordered to pay 132 billion gold marks in reparations.  The economic dislocations that would be caused by these reparation payments are given as one of the underlying causes for the disintegration of the inter-war German economy and society and the rise of Hitler.


1922: Birthdate of Manfred Gans. When he was 16 when his parents sent him to England, fearing for his life as a Jew in Nazi Germany, and when war broke out he clamored to join the British armed forces. Finally he was accepted, his fluency in German earning him a spot with a secret commando unit.”  As a Captain in the British Army, he helped free his hometown, the ancient walled city of Borken His house, on the outskirts of town, had been used as a Nazi headquarters; the wine cellar was a torture chamber. His parents, Moritz and Else Fraenkel Gans, had been taken away. Eventually Ganz was able to trace them Theresienstadt where they were re-united.



1922:  Birthdate of Jack Klugman.  Born in Philadelphia, Klugman had a very successful career on the stage, film and television.  Like all good Jewish boys, he was a doctor - in this case Quincy, the Medical Examiner.  Many of you remember him as Oscar Madison in the Odd Couple.  The oddest thing about this television version The Odd Couple is that Tony Randall (born Leonard Rosenberg) was Jewish giving a whole new dimension to the term popularized by the Jewish playwright Neil Simon.


1931: “The Budapest Rabbinate has proclaimed” today a “fast day in commemoration “ of the shooting earlier this month at the Great Synagogue in the Tabek Gasse during Emil Zatloka shot four Jews -- Tauglich, Ignatz Pinter, Leo Kera, and Eugen Roth (As reported by JTA)


1932: The New Republic published “The Supreme Court and a Balanced Budget” by Felix Frankfurter.

1933: The American Jewish Congress and other organizations continued preparations for a march to be held on May 10 in New York to protest Germany’s treatment of her Jewish population. At the same, the American Jewish Committee and its allies issued a statement opposing the upcoming event as “futile.”  “They serve only as an ineffectual channel for the release of emotion.”


1933:  The German government prohibited the practice of ritual Jewish slaughter of animals for meat.


1933:Denouncing the persecutions and discriminations practiced against Jews in Germany by the Hitler government, the American Jewish committee, acting in conjunction with the B'nai B'rith, Jewish fraternal organization, issued a statement today disapproving boycotts, parades and mass meetings as measures for bringing relief to the sufferers.


1933: Otto Blumenthal, a German mathematician who converted to Christianity as young student,was arrested and detained. He had been denounced as a communist by the Aachen Student Association, certainly a false accusation, and after two weeks he was released but he was suspended from his teaching duties at the university. The official reasons were not racial, but rather cited his involvement with the German League for Human Rights and the Society of Friends of the New Russia.”  In other words he was not arrested because under German racial laws, he was a Jew because his parents were Jews.  
 
1938:  The Palestine Post reported from Warsaw that the Polish Vice-Prime Minister, Professor Kwiatkowski, declared that his Government intends to pursue a vigorous policy of Polonization of cities and trade and will further the emigration of all non-Polish elements. This statement was seen as a call for a further intensification of the economic boycott and a direct threat to the existence of the three-and-a half million strong Jewish Polish community.


1940:  British Foreign Office official H. F. Downie argued that the Jews are "enemies just as the Germans are, but in a more insidious way," and that "our two sets of enemies [Nazis and Jews] are linked together by secret and evil bonds."


1940:  Himmler ordered the establishment of Auschwitz Concentration Camp


1941:  German troops occupied Athens Greece.  This would be the opening act in a tragic drama that would lead to the demise of the very old, Greek Jewish Community, including the Jews of Salonika.



1942:  Jews living in Belgium were forced to wear stars.



1942:  Jews throughout Greater Germany were prohibited from taking public transport.


1942:  One thousand Jews were deported from the Theresienstadt Ghetto to Izbica Lubelska, Poland; only one person survived - a woman who escaped after arrival. Other Theresienstadt deportees were sent to their deaths at the Sobibór and Belzec extermination camps.


1942(10th of Iyar, 5702): The Nazis executed 60 Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto. Among the victims were people suspected of being involved with the ghetto's underground newspaper.




1942: The deportations continued as a thousand Jews were sent from so called show case ghetto of Theresienstadt to Izbica. Eventually these unfortunate souls would up Sobibor or Belzec.



1942: After three days, the liquidation of the Wloclawek Ghetto was completed when the remaining Jews were sent to Chelmno.


1943 (22nd of Nisan, 5703):Cantor Gershon Yitzchak Sirota ”was murdered with his entire family during the destruction of the Warsaw Ghetto on the last day of Passover.” Gershon Sirota was born in Podolia Guberne in 1874. When just a young child, he was already helping his father, a noted cantor, to conduct services in the local synagogue. Soon his parents moved to Odessa and Gershon's wonderful voice began to become well known. Yakovkin, cantor Yankel Seroka's choir director at the Shalashner Shul immediately offered the young Sirota a position in his choir. Shortly afterwards, Sirota was introduced to Baron Kalbos, the director of a Music Conservatory, and admitted on a scholarship. Gershon quickly made great stridges in his musical education and, as a result, was assigned larger solos in Yakovkin's choir. One Shabbat morning Sirota was asked to sing in the Shalashner Shul. After his magnificent performance he was appointed Assistant Cantor, with the salary of 100 rubels a month. It was not long before Yankel Seroka came complaining to Gershon's father that his young son ws trying to take away his position. Sirota resigned and accepted the Cantorial post at the Prikashtchikes Shul in Odessa.
In 1896 Sirota became Cantor of the famous Vilna Shtat Synagogue, where he remained for nine years. There is choir directors were Yitzchak Schlossberg, Nathan Abramson and later Leo Loew. When Leo Loew became choir director, he arranged for a special concert, in which Cantor Sirota sang with the accompaniment of a large, newly founded choir. This concert was a tremendous success and the newspapers wrote enthusiastic reviews. He and Leo Loew began to receive invitations from Bialystok, Grodno, Minsk and other Russian cities to make new concerts. Sirota's appearances were so well received and praised that Svatopolk-Mirsky, the Russian Gubernator General decided to visit the Vilna Shtat Synagogue to hear Sirota. A few days later, the General sent a letter to the Czar's wife, Maria Feodorovna, highly praising the young cantor's talent. She requested that he perform at a concert sponsored for the benefit for the Vilna Institution for the Blind. Shortly arfterwards, Gershon Sirota was called to St. Petersburg to give a series of concerts before Czar Nicholas II. He was then asked to give yearly concerts in St. Petersburg, and Moscow by Imperial Command. The publicity of Sirota's name soon came to the attention of the major recording companies in Europe. In 1903, twelve records of Sirota's liturgical selections were released. This event achieved for him the great honor of being the first Cantor to record his voice of phonograph records. His recordings were distributed throughout Europe and later appeared in America. The medium of these records soon made Sirota's name world famous, even though he had not yet appeared in many of the countries which his records had already reached. Meanwhile, in Warsaw, the directors of the Tlomackie Synagogue were looking for a new Cantor. Gretzhandler, who had held the Cantorial post, was now old and the Synagogue needed a fitting successor to take his place. They offered Sirota the position because of his great popularity and Cantorial ability. He was thirty-one years old when he accepted the position, which he held for nineteen years. In February 1912, Cantor Sirota made the first of what was to be many concert tours of America. He appeared at Carnegie Hall, The Hippodrome, and the Academy of Music in New York before making tours to the other large cities.
During 1913 he returned again on another concert tour, appearing at Kessler's Theatre, The New Star Casino, The Palace Garden, and Carnegie Hall.  His third American visit in 1921 began with an appearance at the Metropolitan Opera House, accompanied by Meyer Machtenberg's hundred voice choir. Arturo Toscanini and the famous Opera Star Joseph Schwartz were among the prominent celebrities who attended the concert. He then conducted services in many famous Synagogues, singing for the High Holy Days at the Kalvariah Shul in Harlem. During the seasons of 1924, 1925, and 1927, he also officiated in New York for the Yamim Noraim. When he returned to Europe (after conducting services at the Bronx Winter Garden for the Benefit of the Beit HaMidrash HaGadol of Harlem in 1927), the Tlomackie Synagogue had already chosen a Cantor to replace him. They took this action, because they were very disturbed about his constantly leaving them to daven elsewhere in America for the High Holy Days.In 1935, Sirota became Cantor of the Norzick Shul. That year, a concert was held in his honor at the Warsaw Coliseum and he also made a trip to Israel. There he conducted services for the High Holy Days at Magrabi Theatre.His last trip to America was made in 1938, when he davened for the Yamim Noraim in Chicago and during Succot in Milwaukee. He then returned to Europe, after receiving a telegram that his wife was critically ill in Warsaw. With the outbreak of the war, Sirota was imprisoned in the Warsaw Ghetto with his family and the other Jews of the city. He conducted High Holy Day Services in the Warsaw Ghetto in 1941


1943: The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising continued into its third week.  This is amazing when you consider that France with a modern Army surrendered to the Nazis after six weeks. By now thousands of Jews were being rounded up and marched away. But the Jews continued their counter attacks from rooftops above, doorways and windows. Jewish women and children huddled in buildings, staying with their armed protectors fleeing only when those structures were set on fire by the advancing Nazis.


1943: Eminent American poet Ezra Pound continued his anti-Semitic broadcasts from Italy. He called the Jews "rats,""bedbugs,""vermin,""worms,""bacilli," and "parasites" who constitute an overwhelming "power of putrefaction."


1943: "The United States Vice Counsel in Casablanca reported that 'it seems indubitable that there is a systematic persecution of the Jews by the Pasha of Beni-Mella.'  Jews had been expelled from their homes and shops for up to a week and 'arbitrary economic measures had been directed against them, including a ban on any Jewish trade in vegetables or poultry.  There had also been random arrests and beatings...David Cohen, who half-blind, was sentenced to six weeks in prison for not saluting a Muslim official." [For more on this see Gilbert's "In Ishmael's House" and Statloff's "Among the Righteous"]


1944: Psychoanalyst Helene Deutsch published the first of two volumes of The Psychology of Women. http://jwa.org/thisweek/apr/27/1944/helene-deutsch


1945:  Mussolini and his mistress were caught while trying to escape outside of Lake Como. They were executed and their bodies were brought to Milan where the next day they were hung up by their heels from lampposts, then cut down, and mutilated.  When Hitler heard of this, supposedly, he made his decision to take his own life and have his body burned.  He was afraid of being captured by the Russians and/or having his corpse savaged by those upon whom he had unleashed so much misery.


1945: The British Parliamentary Delegation organized at the request of Churchill in order that they would have first hand, visual proof German atrocities reached Buchenwald where they saw a “half-naked skeleton tottering painfully along the passage as though on stilts” who “drew himself …smiled and saluted” as the delegates approached.


1945: An original typescript of the Nuremberg Laws signed by Hitler was found today by the 203rd Detachment of the U.S. Army's Counter-Intelligence Corps (CIC), commanded by Martin Dannenberg, in Eichstätt, Bavaria.


1945: 2nd Lt. William Robertson (U.S. Army) and Lt. Alexander Silvashko (Red Army) pose for a formal picture signifying the final link up of the two armies at the Elbe River.

1946: In separate speeches the Premier of Iraq and Ahmed bey Shukairy head of the Arab Office in Palestine threatened unspecified action that “will not be word” should the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry recommend the admission of any additional Jewish immigrants to Palestine. The Iraqi premier promised action, not just on the part of his country, but on the part of the Arab League as well.


1948: The British landed a tank battalion and an artillery regiment at Jaffa.  Ernest Bevin, the British Foreign Minister, informed the British commanders that they must prevent the capture of Jaffa by the Jews ‘at all costs’.”  The British artillery shelled Haganah units and British aircraft attacked Jewish settlements in the area.  This is an example of the “even handed” policy pursued by the British during this period.


1948:  The Arab Legion crossed the Jordan River on the “road bridge” near the town of Gesher, a Jewish settlement.  The Arab Legion was the name given to the army of what is now the Kingdom of Jordan.  It was trained, equipped and officered by the British.  It was the most effective fighting force in the Middle East.  The Jordanians crossed the river with intention of seizing a police fort and the town of Gesher.  The Jewish settlers were told evacuate within an hour and to turn the fort over to the Arab Legion.  The Jews refused to leave and the Legion attacked.  So confident were they of success that the heir to the Jordanian throne had come to watch what was sure to be a victorious battle.  However, when the smoke cleared, the Jews had held on and the Legion retreated back from whence they had come.


1950: The modern state of Israel was officially recognized by the British government.


1950: Britain recognized the annexation by King Abdullah of Jordan of all land west of the Jordan River and the Dead Sea seized by his troops during the fighting that followed the partition vote of November, 1947.


1952:  The Jerusalem Post reported that Jerusalem suffered a severe shortage of water because the Jerusalem Electric Corporation had withdrawn power from the water pumping stations until the municipality settles a debt of IL60,000.


1952:  The Jerusalem Post reported that Israel expressed regret at the resignation of General William D. Riley, as the Chief of Staff of the U.N. Truce Supervisory Organization. A further deterioration of the border situation was expected, as the appointment of General Riley's expected successor, General de Ridder, known for his one-sided decisions, was completely unacceptable.


1953: Maud Gonne, the Irish born actress and revolutionary who was on “good terms with Marcel Habert” a known French anti-Semite, passed away today.
 
1954:  The film White Christmas, starring Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye, premiered.  Once again a signature piece of Americana bears a Jewish imprint.


1954(24th of Nisan): Underground fighter and Yiddish poet Shmerke Katcherginsky died in a plane crash today


1955(5thof Iyar, 5715): Yom HaAtzma’ut


1958: During an interview with Mike Wallach. Dr. Reinhold Niebuhr discussed several topics including anti-Semitism.

1963: Rabbis used the upcoming 15th anniversary of the creation of the state of Israel as a theme for their sermons. At New York’s Temple Emanu-El, Rabbi Julius Mark said that “for a small nation to have achieved and maintained its independence for a decade and a half in these turbulent times is in itself no mean accomplishment…Of one thing we may be certain, Israel is here to stay.  While her constant plea is for peace, she will not shrink from war – may God forefend it – if her sovereignty is threatened.  Her citizens are determined not to be exterminated as were their fellow Jews in Hitler’s hell holes.  If Israel goes down, she will go down fighting.” At Congregation Tifereth Israel, Rabbi Kurt Klappholz said that “The successful experiment of the state of Israel will, in the words of Isaiah, be a ‘light unto the nations.’” He went on to praise Israel for her willingness “to share her scientific and technical edge as her educational know-how with the new emerging republics of the African continents.” 


1963: Ambassador Katriel Katz, Consul General of Israel, spoke at Congregation B’nai Jershurun where he paid tribute to the late Izkhak Ben-Zvi, Israel’s second President and reviewed the accomplishments of the state of Israel over the past fifteen years.


1964: Birthdate of Jennifer Burstain, physician par excellence, mother of four really neat sons and an asset for the Temple Judah Jewish community.


1964: German bornJacob (Yaakov) Birnbaum whose family had escaped the Holocaust convened a meeting today at Columbia University that planned what would become the first public demonstration demanding freedom for the Jews of the Soviet Union.


1965: Birthdate of Dr. Jennifer Burtstain, the wife of Dr. Todd Burstain and the mother of four of the neatest sons who are the pride of the Cedar Rapids Jewish community.


1965:  Famed Broadcast Journalist Edward R Murrow passed away at the age of 57 after fighting a losing battle with lung cancer. Murrow gained fame for his coverage of World War II.  One of his most famous broadcasts came on April 15, 1945 when he described the Liberation of Buchenwald to the American listening public. Murrow was a staunch supporter of Israel.  When Teddy Kollek visited him in 1964, Murrow told him that once he had licked cancer he wanted to be the United States Ambassador to Israel.


1966: After having served as head of the Air Department in the General Staff since 1961, Mordechai "Mottie" Hod became Commander of the IAF.  Hod led the Israeli Air Force through its most brilliant moment, the strikes that opened the Six Day. Hod served as the air commander until 1973, leaving office six months before the Yom Kippur War.


1968: Birthdate of Todd Thalblum who would become the Rabbi of Temple Judah in 2010


1973: An Italian clerk was killed when Palestinian terrorists attacked the El Al office in Rome.


1973: A terrorist plot was foiled today when 3 Arabs carrying explosive were arrested before they could board a plane bounced for Nice, France. (As reported by Jewish Virtual Library)


1978:  The Jerusalem Post reported that two German volunteers were killed when Arab terrorists threw a bomb into a tourist bus, parked in the center of Nablus.


1978:  The Jerusalem Post reported that in Washington, the Israeli Foreign Minister, Moshe Dayan, and the U.S. Secretary of State, Cyrus Vance, were reported to be unable to reach an agreement in their quest for peace in the Middle East, and awaited the arrival of the Prime Minister, Menachem Begin.


1982(4th of Iyar, 5742) Yom HaZikaron


1983(14th of Iyar, 5743): Pesach Sheni


1984: A revival of “Hello Dolly” starring female impersonator Danny La Rue as Dolly came to a close at the Prince of Wales Theatre in London.


1984: The daily Israeli newspaper Hadeshot was “was ordered to stop publishing for four days” for having reported that Minister of Defence Arens had set up a committee of inquiry, headed by Reserve General Meir Zorea to investigate facts surrounding what became known as the Bus 300 Affiar.


1987:  The Justice Department barred Austrian President Kurt Waldheim from entering the United States, saying he aided in the deportation and execution of thousands of Jews and others as a German Army officer during World War II.  Yes, Secretary General of the United Nations was soldier an officer in Hitler's army. 


1993: In a story entitled “Museum Opens With Firm Grip On the Emotions,” Diana Jean Schemo described the opening of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

1995(27thof Nisan, 5755): Yom HaShoah


1996:  Operations Grapes of Wrath, the Israeli military incursion into Lebanon brought on by terrorist attacks and the inability of the Lebanese government to control its own borders, came to an end.


1997: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Irving Berlin:Songs From the Melting Pot: The Formative Years, 1907-1914 by Charles Hamm, Streisand:A Biography by Anne Edwards and Locked in the Cabinet by Robert B. Reich.


1998(1st of Iyar, 5758): Rosh Chodesh Iyar.

2000: Jack Lang completed his second terms as a member of the French National Assembly for Loir-et-Cher.


2002(15th of Iyar, 5762): Ruth Handler passed away at the age of 85, having provided America with a revered icon and piece of popular culture. Born in 1916, Handler was the youngest of 10 children in a Polish-Jewish immigrant family that settled in Denver.  In 1945, Handler's husband and a partner started what would become the Mattel Toy Company.  During the 1950's Handler invented the "Barbie Doll" which took its name if not its anatomy from her daughter, Barbara.  Barbie was joined by the "Ken Doll" named for Handler's son, Kenneth.  

2002(15thof Iyar, 5762):Danielle Shefi, 5; Arik Becker, 22; Katrina (Katya) Greenberg, 45; and Ya'acov Katz, 51, all of Adora, were killed when terrorists dressed in IDF uniforms and combat gear cut through the settlement's defensive perimeter fence and entered Adora, west of Hebron. Seven other people were injured, one seriously. The terrorists entered several homes, firing on people in their bedrooms. Both Hamas and the PFLP claimed responsibility for the attack. (As described by theJewish Virtual Library)


2003: The New York Times included reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including recently released paperback versions of Elvis In Jerusalem: Post-Zionism and the Americanization of Israel by Tom Segev in which “the author maintains that Israel's connection to the United States is driving a transformation in the nation's cultural life, weakening social solidarity while boosting the role of the individual.”


2003: In Champaign-Urbana, The fifth annual Roger Ebert’s Overlooked Film Festival closes.


2004(6thof Iyar, 5764): Yom HaAtzma’ut


2006:Rabbi Yona Metzger filed a petition with the Supreme Court of Israel to protest Mazuz's public declaration alleging that his image had been destroyed without a chance to tell his side of the story, and accusing Menachem Mazuz of engaging in "child-like" tactics.[

2007: Dr. Jonathan Karp and Dr. Jonathan Schorsch present "Blacks and Jews in American Popular Music-The Business of Cultural Mediation" at theCenterfor Jewish History in New York City.


2007:New York Mets star Shawn Green (currently sixth in National League hitting), along with teammates David Newhan, Scott Schoeneweis and Aaron Sele, reportedly paid a visit to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. Green, who called the visit “intense” and “educational,” found himself particularly moved by a display of victims’ shoes. Newhan, whose great-grandmother was killed during the purge of the Warsaw Ghetto, was also deeply moved. “It was pretty heavy,” he told the Journal News, “but something definitely worthwhile.” He said he planned to take his 2-year-old son when the time was right. Newhan, though bar mitzvahed at a Conservative synagogue, today considers himself to be a messianic Jew. Green and Schoeneweis are both Jewish; Sele is not. The Mets’ chief operating officer, Jeff Wilpon, who serves on the museum’s board, arranged the outing.


2008: Eighth Day of Pesach, 5768 – Traditional (Orthodox, Conservative, et al) Jews recite Yizkor
(Here is a suggestion for what do with the all the leftover Matzoth Butterfinger Comedy Network on Yahoo! Video.


2008:TheRamle Conference 'Between Israel and the Nations' takes place.The Ramle Conference which deals with the relationship between the Jewish people and the non-Jewish minorities living in Israel is the first of its kind.


2009(3rd of Iyyar, 5769): Phillip Stein, the musician who created the mural on the back wall of the Village Vanguard, passed away today at the age of 90.


2009: At the JCC in Columbus, Ohio, Israel Memorial Commemoration features a remembrance ceremony with former IDF soldiers and screen the documentary film "A Hero in Heaven" about the life of Michael Levin (Z"L)

2009:The Leo Baeck Institute presents multi-media event featuring a book and film both which are entitled “The Kissinger Saga, Two Brothers from Fürth.” “Evi Kurz, a journalist from Fürth where the Kissingers were born, has forged a family portrait of a Nobel laureate and a successful CEO. Through years of diligent research and respectful encounters, Ms. Kurz was able to earn the trust of both Walter and Henry, who rewarded her with a personal look into the family life of a German-Jewish family. The result is an award winning documentary film and a book.  As we accompany the Kissingers on visits to places of their childhood and youth, it becomes very clear how these formative years provide the context for much that comes later.


2009:Stephen Joel Trachtenberg, the former (now emeritus) president of George Washington University, discusses and signs Big Man on Campus: A University President Speaks Out on Higher Education at Reiter's Scientific & Professional Books in Washington, D.C.
 
2009(3rd of Iyyar, 5769):Yom Hazikaron events begin this afternoon with a ceremony at the Ammunition Hill battlefield in Jerusalem in the presence of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

2009: “The Confession of Eliot Spitzer” is the cover story for Newsweek magazine.


2009: Florida’s Governor Charlie Crist “signed legislation removing the word ‘shylock’ from Florida’s criminal money-lending laws.”


2010:"My Father's Microcosm, Tel Aviv", a photographic installation by Israeli photographer Yossi Guttmann is scheduled to have its final showing at the Williams Club of New York.


2010:Dr. Ori Z. Soltes, Goldman Lecturer in Theology at Georgetown University, is scheduled to discuss “Famous Jewish Trials: From Jesus to Eichmann” at Northern Virginia focusing on the cases of Jesus of Nazareth, the “Blood Libel" cases during the Spanish Inquisition, the early twentieth century trials of Jews in Czarist Russian, the U.S. trial in the 1920's of Leo Frank, the Rosenberg trial in the 1950's, and the1961 Israeli trial of Adolf Eichmann.


2010(13th of Iyar, 5770):Doctor Stanley I. Greenspan, a psychiatrist who invented an influential approach to teaching children with autism and other developmental problems by folding his lanky six-foot frame onto the floor and following their lead in vigorous play, died today at a hospital in Bethesda, MD at the age of 68.


2010: The Jewish Federation communities of the Commonwealth of Virginia “have written a letter to Governor Bob McDonnell asking him him to reconsider this decision that lifted a ban on Virginia State Police troopers referring to Jesus Christ in public prayers.

2011:In preparation of Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day),Detroit’s Congregation Beth Ahm is scheduled to screen “Hidden Poland”, a one-hour documentary film recounting the experiences of four people who were hidden children in Poland during the Shoah.


2011:Fatah and Hamas, the rival Palestinian movements, announced an agreement in principle today to end a years-long internal Palestinian schism.

2011:Moroccan Jews who suffered under the Nazis and their allies during World War II will for the first time ever receive compensation from Germany, a Jewish group announced today.

 

2011(23rd of Nisan, 5771): Sixty-year old Dr. Stanley I. Greenspan, a psychiatrist who documented the developmental milestones of early childhood and developed the widely used "Floor Time" method for teaching children with autism and other developmental disorders, passed away today.


2011: In Mitzvah Tanks Roll Again,” Gabe Johnson and Tamir Elterman describe the reappearance of this unique Chabad invention.

2012: “Love During Wartime,” a film about an Israeli Jewish woman in love with a Palestinian Moslem man, is scheduled to be shown at the Westchester Jewish Film Festival.


2012:Shabbaton Shira v’Kehilah, a Shabbat of Song and Community is scheduled to begin at the Kane Street Synagogue.


2013: Therecently retired chief of Israel’s internal security agency said tonight that he had “no faith” in the ability of the current leadership to handle the Iranian nuclear threat, ratcheting up the criticism of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak from the defense and intelligence communities. (As reported by Jodi Rudoren)


2013: “Dancing In Jaffa” is scheduled to be shown at the Tribeca Film Festival.


2013: In Livonia, Michigan, “Bookstock,” co-sponsored by the Jewish Community Relations Council is scheduled to come to an end


2013: The National Park Service and the United States Military Academy are scheduled to host the official government ceremony commemorating the 191st anniversary of President Grant’s birth. While there are those who would paint Grant as an anti-Semite his Jewish contemporaries did not view him as can be seen by the fact that Jews overwhelming supported him when he ran for President and by this eulogy by Professor Felix Adler http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=F50E15F8355911738DDDAF0A94DC405B8785F0D3


2013: A heat wave hit Israel today and caused several fires across Israel, ahead of Jewish holiday Lag Ba'Omer (bonfire night). Army Radio reported that one man was lightly injured today in a fire started from burning embers left by hikers.

 
2014: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including I Pity the Poor Immigrant, Zachary Lazar’s “novel of spiritual discovery featuring Meyer Lansky, an American journalist and the murder of an Israeli poet,” Mount Terminus, David Grand’s novel about the early days of the movie industry featuring half-brothers Simon Reuben and Bloom Rosenbloom and In Paradise, “Peter Matthiessen’s novel about a Zen retreat at Auschwitz.”


2014: The Jewish Historical Society of Greater Washington is scheduled to host “Downtown Washington,” a “tour of the historic 7th Street, NW neighborhood” that “includes four former synagogues.


2014(27thof Nisan, 5774)): In the evening start of Yom Hashoah.  While the 27th of Iyar is the official date for Yom Hashoah, when the 27th of Nisan falls on a Sunday, the observance takes place on the 28th of Nisan (Monday) “to avoid adjacency with Shabbat.”


2014: “Light and Shadows: The Story of the Iranian Jews” an “exhibition that tell the rich and complex history of one of the world’s oldest Jewish communities” is scheduled to come to an end at Yeshiva University Museum.


2014: “The March of Life” under the title “Remembering, Reconciling and Shaping the Future in Friendship” is scheduled to come to an end in Hungary.

2014: Popes John XXIII and John Paul II are being declared saints of the Roman Catholic Church today, the day that is also the eve of Yom Hashoah

2014: In New Orleans “Philip Bialowitz, one of only seven survivors of the Sobibór  revolt at the Nazi death camp” is scheduled to be the keynote speaker at the Holocaust Memorial Program sponsored by the New Orleans Holocaust Memorial Committee.


2014: “Golda’s Balcony” a one-woman show starring Tova Feldshuh as the Israeli Prime Minister is scheduled to be performed for the last time this evening at the D.C. Jewish Community Center.


2014: In Coralville, Iowa, Rabbi Jeff Portman has organized a memorable and meaningful series of Yom HaShoah events that are scheduled to include the Fourth Annual Music of Commemoration at Agudas Achim and a reading by Professor Lud Gutmann, MD from his book Richard Road: Fleeing the Holocaust and Growing Up In Rural America.


2014: Holocaust Remembrance Week is scheduled to begin today.



This Day, April 28, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. Levin

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April 28


66: After stealing money from the Temple Treasury, the Roman Procurator Gessius Florus allowed his troops to “loot the Upper Market” of Jerusalem. He also unleashed his Cohorts on the crowds of Jews who gathered to protest the theft.  This would prove to be the precipitating event that would start the Great Revolt which would end in disaster for the Jewish people.


70: Following an early repulse of his forces, the Roman Legions commanded by Titus retake and destroy Jerusalem’s middle wall. The Romans followed this victory by quickly building a wall that will surround the city, cutting off all shipments of food and causing increased starvation among the Jewish defenders.


1192: Conrad I, newly crowned King of Jerusalem was assassinated in Tyre only days after ascending the throne.  According to one source, the assassins were Moslems who may have been in the pay of Conrad’s Christian enemies.  The whole affair of Conrad’s selection during the time of the Third Crusade points to the fact that these were not noble religious adventures at all.  This makes the treatment of the Jews during this period all the more despicable.

1560(2nd of Iyar): Rabbi Kalman of Worms passed away.


1758: Birthdate of James Monroe, leader of the American Revolution and fifth President of the United States.  During the Revolutionary War, Monroe was one of the many patriots who accepted “loans” from Haym Salomon.  This money enabled Monroe and the others to live in Philadelphia and carry on the war against the English.


1775: Birthdate of Judah Touro. Born in Newport, Rhode Island Touro, who never married, was a famous merchant and philanthropist who supported many Christian and Jewish charities. He started as a merchant selling soap, candles and codfish, and would eventually become one of the wealthiest men in all of America. Touro's father was of Portuguese Jewish extraction, by way of Jamaica.


1778(1st of Iyar, 5538): Rosh Chodesh Iyar


1778(1st of Iyar, 5538): The eldest son of Rabbi Tzvi Hirsh Horowitz of Chortkiv,  Shmelke of Nikolsburg who was one of the earliest great Chasidic Rebbes from both the The Nikolsburg Hasidic dynasty and the Boston Hasidic dynasty passed away to in Nikolsburg.


1788: Maryland becomes the seventh state to ratify the Constitution of the United States. By the time of the ratification, there are enough Jews living in Baltimore that the community can maintain its own burial site.  Among the families living in Baltimore are the Ettings, headed by the widowed mother Shina and her five children including two sons, Reuben and Solomon. Jews do not enjoy full civil rights at this point in time.  Under the spirit of the “Toleration Act” those are reserved for people who believe in Jesus Christ.  In 1797, Jews and their Gentile supporters make their first attempt to remove the religious test.  It failed along with all subsequent efforts until 1825 when the so-called Jew Bill passed in the Lower House by one vote.  It would not be until 1826 that the religious test for office would modified so that anybody declaring “his belief in a future state of rewards and punishment” could hold a position of public trust.


1801: Birthdate of Anthony Ashley Cooper, 7th Earl of Shaftesbury who was an early supporter of plans to populate “Greater Syria” (the name for the territory part of which became Palestine and finally the state of Israel).  In 1853, when he was President of the London Society for Promoting Christianity Amongst the Jews wrote to Prime Minister Aberdeen that Greater Syria was "a country without a nation" in need of "a nation without a country... Is there such a thing? To be sure there is, the ancient and rightful lords of the soil, the Jews!"


1834(19th of Nisan): In Mantua, philanthropist Samuel Trabotti passed away today.


1838:  Birthdate of Tobias Michael Carel Asser a Dutch jurist, co-winner (with Alfred Fried) of the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1911 for his role in the formation of the Permanent Court of Arbitration at the first Hague peace conference (1899). He also advocated for the creation of an international academy of law, which led to the creation of The Hague Academy of International Law. He passed away in 1913.


1854(30th of Nisan, 5614): Rosh Chodesh Iyar


1854: Rabbi Solomon Jacobs officiated at the wedding of Henry Davis of Charleston, SC and Dinah Joel, the daughter of the late David and Catherine Joel of London, England.


1859: Accompanied by Odo Russell, a British diplomat, Sir Moses Montefiore went to the Vatican where he met with Cardinal Antonelli with whom he discussed the Mortara Case and reasons for returning the boy to his Jewish parents.  The meeting proved to be a fruitless waste of time.


1860: Sixty year old Amsterdam born poet Isaac De Costa whose prose works included Israel en de Volken, a multi-volume survey history of the Jewish people that was translated into English under the title Israel and the Gentiles passed away today. In 1822, De Costa converted to Christianity.


1864(22nd of Nisan, 5624): As Jewish soldiers in the Union Army participate in the Wilderness Campaign in Virginia and follow Sherman on his march to Atlanta, they celebrate the 8th day of Pesach.


1865: Birthdate of Adolph Bluthenthal, the native of Bavaria who settled in Pine Bluff, AR where his daughter Adele was born.


1867: Today’s “Current Literature” column contained a lengthy expert from The Jew’s Revenge.


1874:  Jacob Kraus, a papermaker, and his wife Ernestine, née KantorJacob Kraus, a papermaker, and his wife Ernestine, née Kantor gave birth to Karl Straus, Austrian writer and journalist.  Kraus converted to Catholicism in 1906 but left the church in 1923.  Freud found him so irritating that he referred to him as a “mad, half-wit.” He passed away in 1936.


1875: Nathan Strauss married Lina Gutherz with whom he had six children, among them Sissie Strauss who would become the wife of Chief Judge Irving Lehman.


1881:  In Kherson, Elizabethgrad, a tavern dispute over blood libels spawned massive outbreaks against the Jews (often joined by the soldiers) in Odessa and Kiev. In all, over a hundred and sixty riots occurred in southern Russia. Ignatiev, the Minister of the Interior, insisted that the Jews caused the pogroms. General Drenbien refused to endanger his troops "for a few Jews."

1881: Czar Alexander III suggested to his ministers that outside agitators must have incited the mobs against the Jews, and that reports of policy and military laxity in quashing the pogroms were a disgrace. 


1882: It was reported today that Jewish leaders in Berlin have received word from their co-religionists in Russia that “they will quit the country en masse if” their persecution continues. (This would be a triumph of at least part of the Russian one third policy.  The government  planned on solving its Jewish problem by having one third convert, one third immigrate and one third die.)


1886: Bernhard Liebentahl, a young Jew from Schafenburg, Germany was among the passengers who arrived in New York today aboard the SS Main.


1886:  Birthdate of photographer Erich Salomon.  Born in Berlin, Salomon worked as a carpenter and studied to be a lawyer before he found his true calling. He was a genius in the use of the then newly developed 35 mm camera.  He is considered one of the founders of photojournalism.  His fame as a photographer of the European leaders and celebrities spread beyond Germany.  One French politician joked that no conference could be considered important if Salomon were not there to take pictures.  His artistic skills did not save him and he died at Auschwitz at the age of 58 on July 7, 1944.  In one of those great ironies, the daily blurbs on many websites list him as "a German photographer" and simply give the date of his passing with no mention as to the place or its significance.

1887(4th of Iyar, 5647): Fifty-six year old Isaac Hendricks passed away today at the home of his brother-in-law, H.S. Henry.  A retired businessman and part of a prominent Jewish family, Hendricks was a member of the Hebrew Orphan Asylum Society.
 
1889: As churches and synagogues in New York held services observing the centennial of George Washington’s first inaugural (April 30, 1789) Rabbi Henry S. Jacobs spoke at an assembly of youngsters at B’nai Jershrun.  The students had been greet by a larger banner framing a portrait of Genereneral Washington that hung across the center door of the synagogue. The program included a program of patriotic music and recitations by the children.


1890: It was reported today that the Hebrew Benevolent and Orphan Asylum Society has a rejected a proposal from the Brooklyn Hebrew Orphan Asylum that the two organizations consolidate.  The Brooklyn organization is caring for one hundred children while the New York organization is caring for 559 children. 


1891: In Great Britain, The Pall Mall Gazette describes a plan to settle Jews living in Poland and parts of southeast Europe in uninhabited areas in Brazil and Australia.  Baron Hirsch is so supportive of the plan that he has pledged 15 million dollars to set the resettlement project in motion.  The plan could not come at a better time since the United States, which has been a haven for these Jews, is adopting laws designed to limit immigration.  According to the Gazette,“This decision comes at an opportune moment for England, for the new United Sates legislation against the immigration of destitute aliens might result in converting the United Kingdom into a dumping ground for all the Hebrew refugees of Europe.  They arrive here already at the rate of 18,000 annually.”


1892: One hundred heads of Jewish families from Russia left Montreal for Oxlow in the Canadian Northwest where they plan to start an agriculture colony.  As soon as they have built houses, these farmers will be sending for their family members.  The colonization is part of the efforts of Baron Hirsch, the Baron Hirsch Colonization Alliance and the Young Men's Hebrew Benevolent Society of Montreal.  If this initial settlement is successful, the Jews in Montreal plant to settle as many as 10,000 Russian Jews as farmers in Manitoba.


1893: Dr. H. M. Harris delivered a lecture at Temple Israel in Harlem entitled “The Religious Rights of the Minority, Apropos of the Movement to Convert the Jews.”


1894(22nd of Nisan, 5654): 8th day of Pesach


1894: This evening 30 young Jewish girls will be featured performers at a benefit hosted by the Young Ladies’ Charitable Society at the Lexington Avenue Opera House.


1895: “A Free Art Exhibition” published today described an upcoming fundraiser to be held for the benefit of the University Settlement Society and the Hebrew Educational Alliance as well as providing a brief history of these organizations.


1895: The convention of the B’nai B’rith is scheduled to open in Cincinnati, Ohio today where it is hoped that the members from Atlanta, GA will be able to report that the new building the Hebrew Orphans’ Home in their city has been completed.


1896: German Historian and Reichstag Deputy Heinrich von Treitschke who became a leading anti-Semite starting in 1878 when he began attacking the Jews for failing to assimilate  as well as no longer being useful because the Aryans had learned the money management skills that had been the sole reason for allowing Jews to play a role in the German Empire.


1897: Mr. Goldstein and Mr. Meyer were among those arrested in Brooklyn today for operating an illegal still.


1903: In “The Jewish Massacre Denounced,” The New York Times reported that  "The anti-Jewish riots in Kishinev, Bessarabia, are worse than the censor will permit to publish. There was a well laid-out plain for the general massacre of Jews on the day following the Russian Easter. The mob was led by priests, and the general cry, "Kill the Jews," was taken up all over the city. The Jews were taken wholly unaware and were slaughtered like sheep. The dead number 120 and the injured numbered about 500. The scenes of horror attending this massacre are beyond description. Babes were literally torn to pieces by the frenzied and bloodthirsty mob. The local police made no attempt to check the reign of terror. At sunset the streets were piled with corpses and wounded. Those who could make their escape fled in terror, and the city is now practically deserted of Jews."


1908:  Birthdate of Oskar Schindler, the Schindler of “Schindler’s List” fame.  He passed away in 1974.  While much has been written about how authentic the tale told in the film and book was, the reality is that he saved over 1,200 Jews, which is more than most people can say.


1911: Council of Rabbis of Constantinople decides to establish a yeshiva for the training of rabbis for Sephardic Jewry.


1911: Bedouins set fire to the synagogue at Tschebel (Tripoli, Barbary), entirely destroying the building which contained old and valuable manuscripts and books.



1912: In an article entitled “How A Russian Girl’s Failure Was Turned To Success,” the New York Times describes the work of the successful, important work of the Young Women’s Hebrew Association and its fund raising drive that will enable it to enlarge its facilities.


1918: During World War I, The Jewish Board of Welfare Work and the Young Men’s Hebrew Association of Camden (NJ), will host a dinner this evening for all of the Jewish young men who are about to begin their training at Fort Dix, NJ.


1920: The Azerbaijan Democratic Republic came to an end today when it was replaced by the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic a product of the Red Army’s invasion under the direction of Lenin. The creation of the Soviet puppet state brought an end to Zionist activities in the region and  the banning of Jewish and Hebrew cultural activities. A few hundred Jews were able to leave for Palestine but the rest would remain trapped and would not have the opportunity for Aliyah until the 1970’s


1922: The first edition of The American Hebrew appeared.


1928:  Birthdate of Yves Klein, French artist, who, among other things, was a major figure in school of art known as neo-Dadaism.


1929: Birthdate of Avigdor Arikha, the Israeli artist who learned the power of art as a boy during the Holocaust when he sketched scenes from a concentration camp onto salvaged scraps of paper. Arikha, a painter, draftsman and printmaker, became one of Israel's most important contemporary artists, imbuing his portraits and scenes of daily life — a red umbrella against a wall, an overflowing bookshelf, a jumble of bottles in a cabinet — with enigmatic, disconcerting beauty.The artist, who abandoned abstract art for figurative work in the 1960s, was well-known for portraits of subjects including Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother and his close friend, writer Samuel Beckett. He also produced many probing portraits of himself and his wife, poet Anne Atik. "I paint not to get a copy of nature but to get with the brush what I see while I see it," he told The Times in 1987. "It's an act of observation by means of the brush. The instant cannot be repeated and the brushwork is organic. When you retouch it, you disorganize it. I can't bear to go back." Born in Romania, Arikha turned to drawing to cope when he was sent to a Ukrainian labor camp at age 12. Seventeen sketches survived the war: One showed a pile of corpses in a wagon and a woman's naked body being tossed into a grave. Arikha and his sister were rescued when his drawings came to the attention of the International Red Cross during a camp inspection. Arikha's father died in the Holocaust, and his mother learned that her children were alive in Palestine only after the war. Arikha lived on a kibbutz, studied at the Bezalel School and fought in the war over Israel's creation, during which he was wounded in 1948. Recognizing his talent, supporters in Israel insisted he go to Paris to study and financed him. He arrived in Paris in 1949 and built on the foundations of his Israeli studies at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. Arikha's works are in collections around the world, including the National Portrait Gallery in London, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. He also wrote extensively about art and was named a knight in France's Legion of Honor in 2005. Arikha died at the age of 81 from complications of cancer at his home in Paris, where he spent most of his adult life.


1929:  Birthdate of Carolyn Jones.  Born in Amarillo, Texas, Jones carved out a career on the stage, in films and television.  Her most famous role was as Mortica Addams, in the TV. hit, “The Addams Family.”  A convert to Judaism, Jones died tragically in 1983 at the age of 54, a victim of cancer.


1929: Aaron Rabinowitz and Lieutenant Governor Herbert Lehman take title to the building that had housed the Hoe & Co print plant so that they could convert the property into a cooperative housing project similar to one already created under the aegis of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America on Sedgwick Avenue in the Bronx.


1933: Birthdate of Dr. Allan Rosenfield, who as dean of the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University will become a leading advocate for women’s health during the global H.I.V./AIDS epidemic.


1937: When the seven day sale of the art collection of the House of Lionel Rothschild ended tonight at Sotheby’s Galleries the items auctioned brought in a total of 125,262 pounds.


1938:  The Palestine Post reported on the arrival in Jerusalem of the four members of the new Palestine Commission, which was expected to study the situation and recommend to the British Government how to implement the country's partition. The Palestine Government welcomed the Commission and set it up at the Jerusalem's Government House. The Palestine Arab leadership objected to the Commission's presence and announced a total business strike. But only a fraction of the Arab-owned shops and businesses remained closed for a day.


1943: During World War II, as British forces confronted the Axis Lance-Corporal John Patrick Kenneally single-handedly thwarted a planned attack by the Fascists when he charged down a slope at at Dj Arba, Tunisia, firing his Bren gun into the enemy formations. The enemy was so surprised that they broke and ran. Kenneally was awarded the Victoria Cross (VC).John Patrick Kenneally was an assumed name. He was the illegitimate son of a wealthy Jewish textile manufacturer in Manchester. His mother was an 18-year-old un-married daughter of a Birmingham pharmacist, who was disowned by her family.



1944: “1,500 people suitable for labor were taken from the Kistarcsa internment camp to Osweicim” where “they were compelled to write encouraging notes to their relatives with datelines from “Waldsee” which “were brought by an SS-Courier to Budapest and were distributed by the Jewish Council.



 
1945: Tonight,  “a secretly formed International Prisoners Committee to control of the main camp at Dachau after “Victor Maurer, a representative  of the International Red Cross negotiated an agreement to surrender the camp to U.S. troops.”



1945: Lieutenant Colonel Arkadi Timor entered the heart of Berlin at the head of the Fourteenth Soviet Armored Battalion. At twenty-four he was one of the youngest officers to hold this rank in the Soviet Army. Despite the fact the Timor already knew that the Nazis had wiped out his entire family from his 2 year old sister to his 96 year old grandfather he refused to take revenge on the Berliners.  Instead, “he ordered his soldiers to hand out sop to the starving civilians” and he established the first kindergarten for German orphans.  After rising to the rank of Colonel, Timor whose interest in Judaism had been re-kindled was imprisoned in 1956.  His wife was told that he would never return from the Gulag.  But in 1960, thanks to secret negotiations, he was allowed to move to Israel where he provided invaluable assistance to the Israeli Ordinance forces as well as serving with valor in combat.



1946: “Representative Emanuel Celler of New York declared that” the British “decision to hold all of the 180,000 Jews of Tel Aviv responsible for the killing of seven British soldiers…was ‘Hitler technique.’” “Mr. Celler said that he as well as other responsible and God-fearing Jews deplored the terrorist activities, but to hold the entire city responsible ‘is exactly the same kind of perverted law that the German military brought with when it occupied Europe.’”  Representative Celler assailed the British for taking “a page out of Himmler’s book.”



1947: Birthdate of Robert Magnus who would serve as the 30th Assistant Commandant of the Marine Corps.


1948: Release date for “Letter from an Unknown Woman” based on story by Stefan Zweig and directed by Max Ophüls who also co-authored the script.


1948: Pitcher Saul Rogovin appeared in his first major league baseball game as a member of the Detroit Tigers.


1948: British troops pulled out of the last police fortress in their control in Upper Galilee, at Rosh Pinah in the valley immediately below Mount Canaan.  The fort was then occupied by the Haganah.


1948: Approximately 50 children were evacuated from Kibbutz Gesher in the Jordan Valley.  The Jordanian Legion had attacked the kibbutz which was on the banks of the Jordan River in an attempt to seize the kibbutz’s bridge and an adjacent British police fortress.  Afer a lengthy and bloody battle the kibbutz members decided to transfer the children in the dead of the night to a safe haven.  The children were taken on a dangerous nighttime trek from the Kibbutz to Haifa and housed in an abandoned German monastery in the Bat Galim neighborhood adjacent to what is now the Rambam Medical Center.


1949: Birthdate of Dorothea Miriam Bratu, who as Miriam Hansen, “introduced a new level of sophistication to film studies with her groundbreaking study of American silent film and research on cinema and the human senses.” (As reported by Margalit Fox)


1952: Alfred W. Stern, a resident of Chicago who is a collector of Lincoln memorabilia presented the United States Library of Congress with “a scrapbook in which Lincoln” had “pasted newspaper account of his historic diabetes with Stephen A. Douglas.  The scrapbook was used as a printer’s copy for a book edited by Lincoln” entitled Debates which became a bestseller in 1860 when it reportedly sold 50,000. Thanks to the generosity of the his Jewish American, the library, and therefore the American people, own the only book ever written or edited by The Great Emancipator.


1952:  The Jerusalem Post reported that for the second consecutive day the Jerusalem Labor Exchange closed after only 120 of Jerusalem's 2,000 jobless were willing to accept the offered forestation work. More than 450 were needed for this work daily, but the unemployed were reluctant to accept such jobs since the payment was set up according to production norms.


1952:  The Jerusalem Post reported that Jerusalem was still short of water since the Municipality could not manage to settle the debt of IL60,000 owed to the Jerusalem Electric Corporation.


1957(27th of Nisan, 5717):Yom HaShoah


1963(4th of Iyar, 5723) יום הזכרון Yom HaZikaron Israel Remembrance Day


1966: Simon Gerson sponsored the Herbert Aptheker Testimonial Dinner at the Sutton Ballroom of the New York Hilton. (Pretty spiffy for an event hosted by members of the Communist Party USA)


1968:  Birthdate of Daisy Berkowitz, original guitarist with Marilyn Manson.


1969: Dr. Farouk Shabtai and his two brothers were released after almost two years of imprisonment by Egyptian authorities.  Over four hundred adult Jewish males were seized by the Egyptians at the start of the Six Days War and held in what they claimed was a form of “protective custody.”


1971(3rdof Iyar, 5731): Yom HaZikaron


1971: Release date of Woody Allen’s “Bananas” co-starring Louise Lasser
 
1982(5thof Iyar, 5742): Yom HaAtzma’ut


1983(15thof Iyar, 5743): Eighty year old Hebraist Dr. Harry Blumberg passed away today.

 
1985:  Several thousand people attended a ceremony marking the 40th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi concentration camp Dachau, near Munich.


1987: Rabbi Arnold Resincoff deliver his prayer, “To Keep the Dream Alive,” at the National Civic Holocaust Remembrance Ceremony in the Capitol rotunda.


1987:Today, Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir went to Paris in order, as he put it, to ''undermine European support for an international conference.'' This puts him at loggerheads with Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and threatens to end the Likud-Labor coalition currently governing Israel.


1991: The New York Timesreports that Israeli commemorative coins “appeal more to the heartstrings than to the purse strings.” Some examples of this are “the coins struck for Israel's 1991 Independence Day to commemorate the immigration of Jews from around the world, a process that is continuing with the arrival of Jews from Ethiopia and the Soviet Union. In 1950, the Israeli Parliament passed the Law of Return, which guarantees citizenship to any Jewish immigrant. Since then, millions of Jews have immigrated. Previous surges of such immigration have strained the Israeli Government's resources, and the new surge's proportions are nearly overwhelming. To raise money for the new immigrants, Israel has been selling bonds and seeking donations. The Government Coins and Medals Corporation has minted three new commemoratives. The three coins are similar in design. Each shows immigrants alighting from a Boeing 747. Around the outside of the coin, in English and Hebrew, appears a phrase from the Book of Jeremiah: "I will gather them out of all countries." On the other side is a wide band running through the center of the coin with a large numeral -- the coin's value. The coins are available in one-shekel and two- and 10-sheqalim pieces. The smaller denominations are 92.5 percent silver, while the 10-sheqalim piece is 90 percent gold. The coins will have a limited mintage -- 15,000 of each silver coin and 6,000 gold 10-sheqalim coins. The silver shekel and the gold 10-sheqalim coin both weigh close to half a troy ounce, while the two-Shekalim coin is nearly a troy ounce of silver. The prices are $32 for the large proof silver two-Shekalim coin and $52 for both the brilliant uncirculated one-shekel and the proof two-Shekalim coins. The gold proof 10-sheqalim coin is $399. All are packaged in a presentation case. The coins may be ordered from the American Israel Numismatic Association.”


1999(12th of Iyar, 5759): Arthur Leonard Schawlow, American physicist and Nobel Prize laureate passed away.


2000: “Rabbi at end of 1800’s wasn’t really a rabbi” published today declared that Jacob Voorsanger, a leading 19th century rabbi who led Congregation Emanu-El  in San Francisco  was never ordained according to Visions of Reform: Congregation Emanu-El and the Jews of San Francisco 1849-1999 by Fred Rosenbaum.

2000:  Birthdate of Jacob Levin.  A native of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Mr. Levin is the most wonderful grandson in the world.


2002: An exhibition entitled “New York: Capital of Photography” opens at The Jewish Museum in New York City.


2002: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Master of the Senate by Robert Caro


2003:Ira Herskowitz, the Brooklyn born American geneticist passed away in San Francisco.


2004: Omer Golan made his international debut for the Israel national football team when he came on as a 74th minute substitute for Eyal Berkovich in a friendly against the Moldova national football team” today.


2006(1stof Iyar, 5766): Rosh Chodesh Iyar


2006(1stof Iyar, 5766): Israeli composer Ben-Zion Orgad, the native of Gelsenkirchen, Germany who made Aliyah in 1933, passed away today in Tel Aviv.


2007: The Cedar Rapids Gazette featured an article entitled “Temple Judah Plans for big crowd at Big Dinner.”  The article describes the preparations and purpose for this major event in the Jewish community that is scheduled for Sunday, May 6.  The article includes a large picture of Rugalach “a sweet pastry prepared by members of Temple Judah.”


2008: The Jerusalem Cinematheque presents a screening of:

“We Who Remained Among the Living” and “Pizza At Auschwitz” 

2008:The New York Timesreports thatSchindler’s 100th Birthday Is Private Affair for Survivors.”As he does every year on the birthday of Oskar Schindler, Nahum Manor will make a pilgrimage to the famed factory owner’s grave on Mount Zion. Manor, 85, met his wife while working in Schindler’s factory. “My life changed very dramatically when I started working at Schindler’s factory,” he said. “We moved from hell to a kind of paradise.” April 28 would have been Schindler’s 100th birthday, and around the world there will be scattered, locally inspired memorials to the factory owner who saved 1,100 lives during the Holocaust and was immortalized in Steven Spielberg’s 1993 film “Schindler’s List.” In New Jersey, Sol Urbach, a Schindler survivor, will be at a small ceremony at the Kaplen Jewish Community Center in New Jersey that his daughter helps organize every year. In Krakow, Poland, last month, 30 Schindler survivors joined a march to commemorate the 65th anniversary of the liquidation of the city’s ghetto, winding from the ghetto to the concentration camp to remember the liquidation and honor Schindler. The march ended at the Palace of Art, where more than 500 photos of Schindler and his factory were on display. Many elements of Holocaust memorialization have become ritualized to intense levels of detail and organization. But Schindler has not yet earned any regular form of commemoration. The homegrown ceremonies that have sprung up around his birthday suggest the personal ways in which many Holocaust survivors are still dealing with their experiences of horror and heroism. “What we have seen recently is the routinization of Holocaust commemoration,” said Michal Bodemann, a professor at the University of Toronto who has written about Holocaust remembrance. Bodemann said the individualized commemorations of Schindler hark back to an earlier era. “From 1945 up to 1978, all commemoration was personal, out of the public eye,” Bodemann said. “It is important to see,” Bodemann added, “that the Schindler Jews have their own private way of celebrating Schindler that is very different from what is happening in public.” Schindler was born in 1908 in Svitavy, Austria-Hungary, which is now a part of the Czech Republic. Under his watch, his family’s business dissolved into near bankruptcy. But when the war started, he saw a business opportunity in following the German army into Poland. There, he used his connections to secure a factory in Krakow that made pots and pans and defective munitions for the German forces.Driven by profits, he used the cheapest labor around: Jews. But on March 12, 1943, Schindler changed his life, the life of his workers and history. Addressing his workers, he told them not to go home that night. The Krakow ghetto, he said, would be liquidated the next day. Schindler had witnessed the killings and decided he must protect his laborers. He built his own concentration camp as a satellite to Kraków-Plaszów, and his staff compiled the now famous list of workers he wanted transferred to his camp.Schindler’s dramatic change in character - from a self-absorbed playboy to a caring hero willing to risk his life to save others - attracted Thomas Keneally, the Australian author who wrote “Schindler’s Ark.” The book was later renamed “Schindler’s List,” and used in Spielberg’s movie. “You’d expect Oskar to be a perfect Nazi,” Keneally said from his home in Melbourne, Australia. “He was a good German lad. You’d think he’d be a pushover for the dominant propaganda about race, but he wasn’t. It is a remarkable legacy in that way.” Schindler’s story has become the core of many of the personalized efforts to commemorate the man. Lili Haber, whose father was on Schindler’s list, organized a symposium that will coincide with Schindler’s birthday, to take place in Ariel, Israel, on behalf of the Association of Krakovians in Israel. Haber hopes to fill the 400-seat auditorium with students. The symposium will include a panel discussion featuring a Holocaust scholar and 10 to 20 survivors. “It is important for young people to learn Schindler’s legacy,” Haber, said. “This way, we show young people Schindler’s great accomplishments and what he risked.” In New Jersey, rather than focusing on history, the Schindler admirers have designed a ceremony that will have more of a personal, religious bent. Families and members of the community will gather in the Kaplen JCC. The ceremony will begin with a playing of Itzhak Perlman’s music from “Schindler’s List.” The Kaddish, the Jewish prayer for the deceased, will be recited, as will the “El Maleh Rachamim,” the prayer for the souls of the deceased. A candle lighting will take place, too, and a survivor will address the audience. “Schindler was a very personal hero,” said Barbara Urbach Lissner, Urbach’s 53-year-old daughter. “That is always acknowledged on a personal level, but as a community the focus is on the tremendous loss and the tremendous sadness.” For many survivors, the personal nature of the connection to Schindler means that remembering the man does not require his birthday or a ceremony. “I think of Schindler most of the time. I don’t have to wait for his birthday,” said the youngest member of Schindler’s list, Leon Leyson, who is 78 and lives in Los Angeles. “I could be spreading margarine on my toast,” Leyson said, “and I’ll remember having that little piece of margarine as part of the ration and remember that Schindler had given me bread and, at that time, that was as precious as you can imagine.” In Jerusalem, where Schindler is buried, there are always a number of people who congregate at his grave for his birthday, though not in any organized fashion. Manor said he was considering going to Krakow this year, but he did not need to return to remember. “It wouldn’t be right to say we are going back, because we are always back,” he said. “We never leave Krakow, nor Schindler, nor the war.”


2008:Yossi Harel was be buried at the Caesarea-area kibbutz, Sdot Yam today. Harel, who commanded four ships bringing Jews to Israel illegally, died at the age of 90 in Tel Aviv. Harel assisted 24,000 Jews in reaching Israel aboard four ships, including the famed SS Exodus, between 1945 and 1948. Great Britain, which controlled the region at the time, banned Jewish immigration due to Arab pressure. The other three ships were called Knesset Yisrael (Gathering of Israel), Atzma'ut (Independence) and Kibbutz Galuyot (Ingathering of the Exiles).The Exodus was made famous by a film of the same name. Born in 1919, Harel was the sixth generation in his family born in Jerusalem. At the age of 15 he joined the pre-state Haganah defense force. By the age of 28 he oversaw the clandestine immigration operations bringing Jews, many of them survivors of the Holocaust, to the Holy Land. Later on, Harel oversaw the IDF’s Unit 131, an intelligence unit that ran a spy ring in Egypt until the so-called Lavon Affair of 1954.


2009: “Picturing the Shoah,” a film festival sponsored by YIVO that explores how movies have represented the Holocaust from radical, provocative, and unexpected angles continues with an exhibition of “Lili Marleen.”

2009 (4 Iyar): Yom Hazikaron – Israel Remembrance Day - Israel's National Memorial Day for the Fallen and the Victims of Terrorhttp://www.jafi.org.il/education/festivls/ZKATZ/ZK/index.html


2009(4 Iyar, 5769) Richard J. Pratt passed away. Born Ryszard Przecicki, in 1934 he “was a prominent Australian businessman, chairman of the privately owned company Visy Industries, and a leading figure of Melbourne society. In the year before his death Pratt was Australia's fourth richest person, with a personal fortune was valued at A$5.48 billion dollars. Pratt was appointed an Officer, of the Order of Australia; however he returned his awards in February 2008 after he was fined $36 million for price fixing.”


2009:The National Jewish Democratic Council (NJDC) welcomes Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter to the Democratic Party following the long time Republican Senator’s announcement today that he is “crossing the aisle.”  Specter becomes the 12 Jewish Democratic Senator.  The number will rise to 13 with the seating of Al Frankin from Minnesota


2010: The American Sephardi Federation is scheduled to sponsor “Daughters of Sara, Mothers of Israel: Jewish Women of Medieval Gerona,” the first of two lectures on the Jews of Catalonia. 


2010:Israeli singer songwriter Danny Robas, one of Israel's most unique musicians in the last 20 years is scheduled to perform at Le Poisson Rouge in New York City.


2011: Rabbi Joseph Krakoff is scheduled to lead the discussion at Congregation Shaarey Tzedek’s “Tequila and Talmud” in West Bloomfield, Michigan.


2011: Graveside services will be held today at Zion Memorial Park for Holocaust surivior Gora Hudesa Gora

2011:A bomb killed 15 people including two Jews who were among 10 foreigners in Morocco's bustling tourist destination of Marrakesh, state television said today in an attack that bore the hallmark of Islamist militants. The Jewish woman was reportedly an Israeli citizen and pregnant. The blast ripped through a cafe overlooking Marrakesh's Jamaa el-Fnaa square, a spot that is often packed with foreign tourists. A Reuter’s photographer said he saw rescuers pulling dismembered bodies from the wreckage.


2011: Wisconsin offensive guard Gabe Carimi was drafted in the first round of the 2011 NFL Draft by the Chicago Bears.


2012: Jacob Wertheimer, the son of former Heavyweight Boxing Champion Muhammad Ali's daughter Khaliah Ali Wertheimer and her husband Spencer Wertheimer  had his Bar Mitzvah ceremony in the congregation Rodeph Shalom in Philadelphia


2012: “Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life,” a film that tells “the story of a boy born to Russian-Jewish parents in Nazi-occupied Paris rising to international fame” is scheduled to be shown at the Westchester Jewish Film Festival.


2013(18th of Iyar, 5773):  33rd day of the Omer – Lag B’Omer


2013(18th of Iyar, 5773): Eighty-eight year old world renowned cellist Janos Starker passed away today. (As reported by Margalit Fox)


2013: Rabbi Alfredo Borodowski is scheduled to lead “Finding God: A Workshop” at the Skirball Center


2013: Lubavitch of Iowa City is scheduled to host its annual Lab B’Omer BBQ this afternoon


2013: The Jewish Food Festival is scheduled to be held at the River Market Pavilion in Little Rock, AR.

2013: The New York Timesfeatures reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Flamethrowers by Rachel Kushner and Al Capp: A Life to the Contrary by Michael Schumacher and Denis Kitchen


2013: The Maccabeats are scheduled to perform at the Yom Ha’Atzmaut celebration sponsored by the Jewish Community Association of Greater Phoenix.


2013: “Steal a Pencil for Me,” the opera composed by Gerald Cohen with a libretto by Deborah Brevoorst will debut at Congregation Shaarei Tikvah in Scarsdale, NY.


2013: Friends and family gather to celebrate the birthday of Jacob Levin


2013: The Israel Air Force bombed two sites in the Gaza Strip early this morning in response to a Qassam rocket that was fired from Gaza into southern Israel last night.


2013:While some in Israel are enjoying the first flush of summer of recent days, hitting the beach and packing out the cafes and boulevards, the unseasonably hot weather has brought the usual spate of wildfires and heatstroke cases as people celebrate Lag B’Omer


2013: Israel will not tolerate a "drizzle" of rockets on its territory, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu told the cabinet today, explaining an IAF strike in Gaza hours earlier against a terror facility and weapons storage site in southern Gaza.



2014(28thof Nisan, 5774): Yom HaShoah


2014: Rabbi Sara Luria is scheduled to present the first in a three part lecture series “Jewish Spirituality Through Water: Reclaiming an Ancient Tradition” at the Skirball Center.


2014: Rob Reiner is scheduled to be honored tonight at the 41st Chaplin Award Gala by several notables including James Caan and Billy Crystal.


2014: As part of The William Rosenwald and Ruth Israels Roswenwald Course in Contemporary Jewish History Yitschak Schwartz is scheduled to lecture on “How We Here: Judaism in America, 1654-2014


2014: Lena Gilbert, a leading member of Temple Judah in Cedar Rapids, IA, is scheduled to deliver a lecture tonight at Cornell College in Mt. Vernon on her life as the daughter of Holocaust Survivors.


2014: Friends and family prepare to celebrate the natal of Jacob Levin, whose academic, musical and Hebraic skills mark him as a budding “Renaissance Man” adding to the fact that he has already proven himself to be a Mensch par excellence.

This Day, April 29, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. Levin

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April 29



711: According to some sources the date on which an army led by Tariq ibn Ziyad landed at Gibraltar marking the start of the Moslem conquest of the Iberian Peninsula with all that would come to mean for the Jewish population during the next seven centuries.  


1221: Honorius III issued “Ad nostram Noveritis audientiam” a Papal Bull obligating Jews  to carry a distinctive badge and forbidding them to hold public office.


1280(21st of Iyar, 5040): French rabbi Issac ben Joseph of Corbeil, the son-in-law of Jeheil ben Joseph of Paris, passed away today.

1614(20th of Iyar, 5374): Polish Halakhist and Talmudist Joshua ben Alexander HaCohen Falk, author of commentaries on Arba’ah Turim and Shulkhan Arukh passed away today.


1624:  In France, Richelieu assumes as Prime Minister of Louis XIII. Although Louis had reaffirmed the expulsion of the Jews in a declaration issued in 1615, Richelieu would write a letter (which Louis would sign) in 1632 allowing the Jews of Metz to remain in that city.  There is no evidence that Richelieu was philo-Semitic.  Rather he realized that having just captured Metz, the city would lose some of its commercial value if the Jews were expelled.

1659: In a dispute arising out of the business of trapping and shipping beaver pelts,  Asser Levy as attorney in fact for Abraham Cohen, "Jew at Amsterdam," appeared in the Court of Burgomasters and Schepens (Municipal Court) of New Amsterdam to demand from Cornelis Janss Plavier  the money he had received from Cohen. Plavier admitted the loan. Levy refused to accept a 460 guilder payment, and demanded imprisonment or public sale of Plavier's goods. The Court ordered the defendant to pay any balance due on the loan

 
1679(17thof Iyar, 5439): Joshua da Silva, the Hakham of the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue in London who was followed in office by Jacob Abendana passed away today.

 
1699: In Paris the French Academy of Science holds its first public meeting at the Louvre.  While the Academy includes many Jewish members today, including David Baltimore and Israel Gelfand, this was not always the case.  For example, Madame Curie was denied admittance because she reportedly had at least one Jewish parent.  Poor Madame Curie – she was Polish and not Jewish but then facts never get in the way of bigotry.

 
1769: According to some, the birthdate of Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington. Others use the date of May 1, 1769.  Regardless of which date is used, Wellington comes up short of the mark as far as Jews are concerned because of his opposition to their emancipation when he was Prime Minister. 

 
1774(18th of Iyar, 5534): Jews living in Colonial America celebrate their last Lag B’Omer as subjects of King George III.

 
1793(17th of Iyar, 5553: Rabbi Yechezkel ben Yehuda Landau passed away.He was an influential authority in halachah (Jewish law). He is best known for the work Nodah bi-Yehudah,”by which title he is also known. Landau was born in Opatow, Poland, and attended yeshiva at Vladimir and Brody. In Brody, he was appointed Dayan (rabbinical judge) in 1734, and in 1745 he became rabbi of Jampol. While in Jampol, he attempted to mediate between Jacob Emden and Jonathan Eybeschütz in a debate - "The Emden-Eybeschütz Controversy" - that "had disrupted Jewish communal life for many years". His role in the controversy is described as "tactful" and brought him to the attention of the Prague community where he asappointed rabbi in 1755. He also established a Yeshiva there; Avraham Danzig, author of Chayei Adam,” is amongst his best known students. Landau was highly esteemed not only by the community, but also by others; and he stood high in favor in government circles. Thus, in addition to his rabbinical tasks, he was able to intercede with the government on various occasions when anti-Semitic measures had been introduced. Though not opposed to secular knowledge, he objected to "that culture which came from ", in particular Moses Mendelssohn’s translation of the Pentateuch. His main work entitled “Nodah bi-Yehudah("Known in Judah"), is one of the principal sources of Jewish law of his age. This collection was esteemed by rabbis and scholars, both for its logical discussion and for its independence with regard to the rulings of other Acharonim as well as its simultaneous adherence to the writings of the Rishonim. Other works include Dagul Mervavah on the Shulkhan Arukh and Tziyun le-Nefesh Chayah (abbreviated as Tzelach, named in reference to his mother, whose name was Chayah) on the Talmud.”

 
1805: Eliza Aarons married Simon Levy, a merchant, in Charleston, SC.

 
1819: Birthdate of Moses Angel who succeeded H.A. as Mast of the Talmud Torah Department at Jews’ Free School in 1840 before becoming Headmaster of JFS.

 
1830: Birthdate Adolph Sutro the native of Aachen, Germany, the brother of Otto Sutro, the 24th mayor of San Francisco who was also the city’s first Jewish chief executive.

 
1833: Birthdate of Michael Friedländer, a native of Posen who became principle of Jews’ College In London created one of the most popular English translate of Guide to the Perplexed by Maimonides.

 
1835: In Charleston, SC Charlotte Lazarus, the youngest daughter of Marks Lazarus married Dr. De La Motta.

 
1853: In the House of Lords, the Earol of Aberdeen moved the second reading of the Bill for removal of Jewish Disabilities and strongly  urged the removal of this most  interlating restriction on the civilie liberties of a section of British subjects.  The Earl of Shatesbury opposed the bill and moved it bread that six months.  He trembled at the consequences to Christianity if Jews were admitted on a cvil equality with Christians.  Such measures would expel Christianity from the ear but they might destroy it in Great Britain.  The Earl of Albermarle, the Archbishop of Dublin and the Bishop of St. Davids supported the bill while the Bish of Salisbury, Early of Darnley, Earl of Harrowby and others, opposed it on religious grounds.  The bill was defeated with 115 voting for it and 164 voting against it.The Earl of Aberdeen has addressed the House of Lords telling them that he had changed his mind about the Jewish Disabilities Bill.  Two years ago he had voted against the bill.  Now he was prepared to vote for it because “he reagred the exclusion of the Jews from civil privileges as a remnant of the spirit of persecution which prevailed in former times throughout Christendom.”

 
1861: Major Alfred Mordecai's letter repeating his request for a transfer reached Washington, DC where it is read by his new commanding officer, Lt. Col. Ripley.  Ripley refused the request on two counts.  First, he needed Mordecai, whom he considered one of his ablest subordinates to remain at the arsenal in New York so that he could produce the munitions desperately needed to fight the war.  Second, the army could not maintain the discipline it needed to fight a war if officers were allowed to dictate their term of services based on personal desires.  The U.S. Army's most prominent Jewish officer would have to choose between serving or resigning.

 
1861:Maryland's House of Delegates votes not to secede from the Union. As was the case with their fellow citizens, Jews in Maryland were divided over the issues of slavery and secession.  It would seem that more of the Jews favored Union and opposed slavery than did not.  For example, the Lloyd Street Synagogue was a stop on the Underground Railway. Har Sinai’s Rabbi David Eihnorn was published Sinai, an abolitionist newspaper and Einhorn was forced to leave town by a mob that was threatening to tar and feather him.

 
1861: Birthdate of Lajos Blau, a Hungarian scholar, educated at three different yeshivot, who became a teacher of the Talmud at the Landesrabbinerschule and later a professor of the Bible, the Hebrew and Aramaic languages, and the Talmud. He died in 1936.

 
1861: Newly inaugurated President Abraham Lincoln appointed Abraham Jonas to serve as Postmaster of Quincy, Illinois.

 
1864(23rd of Nisan, 5624): Author and translator of poetry David Samosch passed away.

 
1865: It was reported today that a Jewish shoemaker named Godfrey J. Hyams was the first witness called to testify against William J. McDonald who is on trial in Canada on charges of “ making torpedoes, hand-shells, Greek fire, and other explosive missiles” to be used by Confederate agents against the United States.

 
1865: P. J. Joachimsen delivered a eulogy honoring the late President Lincoln at the Jewish place of worship in New Orleans, LA.

 
1870: The Baltimore Sun reports that the late Dr. George Frick, a resident of Baltimore, bequeathed $100.00 to the Hebrew Society of Baltimore.

 
1871: Birthdate of German born philosopher and psychologist Louis William Stern.

 
1875: In Kensington, London German-born Jewish stockbroker, Victor Rubens, and Jenny Rubens, née WallachPaul Alfred Rubens “an English songwriter and librettist for some of the most popular Edwardian musical comedies” who “suffered from consumptive disease for nearly his entire adult life” which did not keep his from contributing  to the success of dozens of musicals.

 
1880(18th of Iyar, 5640): Lag B’Omer

 
1881(30th of Nisan, 5641): Rosh Chodesh Iyar

 
1881(30th of Nisan, 5641):  Sixty three year old French sculptor and photographer Antoine Samuel Adam-Salomon passed away.

 
1882: Pogroms returned to Ukraine with an outbreak of anti-Semitic violence at Balta in Podolia Province.

 
1883(22nd of Nisan, 5643): 8th day of Pesach

 
1883: The New York Times featured a review of Travels in Palestine: Egypt, Palestine and Phoenicia – A Visit to Sacred Lands by Philip Bovet
 
1885:  Birthdate of Czechoslovakian writer and journalist, Egon Erwin Kisch.  Kisch was born into a German-speaking Jewish family in Prague, which at that time was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.  During World War I, he traded in his pen for a rifle in the Austrian Army.  He continued his writing career after the war including a stint in Berlin.  He was forced to flee the Nazis, first to Republican Spain and finally to Mexico where he spent the war.  He returned to Czechoslovakia after the war where he died in 1948 as the Communists were coming to power.  When the German magazine “Stern” founded a prestigious award for German journalism in 1977, it was named the Egon Erwin Kisch Prize in honor of Egon Kisch.

 
1887: Horace J. Young was arrested on charges of having abandoning his wife Clara, the eldest daughter of Julius Praeger, a prominent New York Jewish businessman

 
1889: The Young Women’s Hebrew Association will host a celebratory event this evening as part of the events marking  the centennial of George Washington taking the oath of office as the first President of the United States.

 
1890: Rabbi David Levy officiated at the wedding of Hannah D. Moses, daughter of J.L. Moses and Thomas Moultrie  Mordecai at the Hasell Street Synagogue in Charleston, SC

 
1891: An article entitled “Greeks Persecutes Jews” published today describes attacks by Greeks at Corfu on the Jewish population.  The body of a dead child had been found in the Jewish Quarters and the Greeks spread a report that that it was a Christian girl who had been murdered by the Jews for their Passover celebration. The dead child was the daughter of Jewish leader whom the Jews claimed was murdered by the Greeks to provide an excuse for their rioting and plundering.  The threat became so severe that the 6,000 Jews had to close their shops and take refuge behind a military cordon surrounding the Jewish Quarter.

 
1891: In Philadelphia, PA The Society Hachnasath Orechim, or Wayfarers' Lodge which was organized in 1890 was chartered today.

 
1892: As attempts are made to limit immigration, especially the immigration of Jews from eastern Europe, the joint committee of the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States on Immigration and Naturalization resumed its investigation at the Post Office Building.

 
1892: As the first group of Russian Jews left Montreal to begin establishing farms in the Canadian Northwest, it was reported that if this group is successful Canadian Jews expect another 10,000 to eventually follow in their footsteps.

 
1892: Among the bequests made by the late Hannah O. Beebe of Yonkers was one of $50 to Jacob Freshman to be used by him for “the relief of Jews as he deems best.”

 
1893: “Bismarck on Anti-Semitism” published today provided a summary of an interview the German leader gave on his views toward the Jews.  Based on his education, he said he “was never a friend of the Jews” which helps to explain why he opposed emancipation in 1847.  His views changed in 1869 when Jewish leaders supported his programs for national development.  The current reappearance of anti-Semitism following the losses suffered during a period of speculation “is natural” because the people confuse “capitalism with Judaism.”

 
1893: “Ahlwardt’s Baseless Charges” published today describe the conclusions of the Reichstag subcommittee that had examined the documents submitted by Hermann Ahlwardt, the leading anti-Semite, which he claimed proved that current and former officials were guilty of corruption. The committee said there was nothing in the documents to prove the accusation.  Ahlwardt’s real contention was that the Jews had corrupted the German political leaders.

 
1894: In Quincy, Illinois, Council No 2 of the National Council of Jewish Women was formed with Mrs. J.H. Lesem as President and Mrs. Jeanie Nelke as Secretary

 
1894: The Board of Directors of Mount Sinai Hospital held a special meeting today adopted a special resolution expressing their sense of loss caused by the recent death of Jesse Seligman.

 
1894: The Hebrew Benevolent and Orphan Asylum adopted a “Tribute to the Memory of its deceased President, Mr. Jesse Seligman” co-authored by Edward Lauterbach, Oscar S. Straus and Sigmund Bach.

 
1895: Plans were published today about an upcoming meeting at Temple Emanu-El where the ladies of the congregation will discuss the upcoming benefit for the Hebrew Technical Institute and Educational Alliance.

 
1895: Samuel Untermyer of Guggenheim, Untermyer and Marshal represented the Wall Paper Company before Justice Lawrence in the Supreme Court who was hearing a case involving injunctive relief by National Wall Paper Company.

 
1898: Ali Ferruh Bey, the Ottoman Ambassador in Washington, "wrote to Istanbul in order to alert the Sultan that the aim of the Zionists was 'to establish an independent government in Palestine.' In his letter, he urged Sultan Abdul Hamid to 'take certain measures to rectify the error committed by his forefathers in allowing non-Muslim communities to settle in Palestine.' The Sultan took heed; measures were instituted to restrict the sale of land in Palestine to foreign Jews, and to oblige all Jewish visitors to leave cash deposits to ensure that they would leave the country after the visit."  [For more on this see Martin Gilbert's interesting work, "In Ishmael's House;"]

 
1897: “New Publications” provided a detailed review of the New American Supplement to the Latest Edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica which includes a section on “the story of Judaism and the history of the Jews” written by Rabbi Emil G. Hirsch.

1901: An anti-Semitic riot broke out in Budapest.

 
1910: The Jewish bank in Salonika authorized the creation of a loan fund for relief of families of Jewish soldiers.

 
1912 In Danzig, Dr. Isaac Landau and Betty née Eisenstädt gave birth to Moshe Landau the fifth President of the Supreme Court of Israel.

1912: A codicil was added to the will of Dr. Arthur Schnitzler required that his funeral be a simple affair without obituaries, guard of honor, funeral orations or the wearing of mourning attire.  The codicil also requires “that a needle be thrust through his heart to remove any doubt of his death.”

 
1913: A strike by 4,000 kosher bakers, members of the Journeymen Bakers’ International Union was scheduled to begin today in New York.

 
1917: During World War I, British forces under General Murray suffer a second defeat at Gaza. This defeat cost Murray his job and led to his replacement by General Allenby who would successfully prosecute the war against the Ottomans.

 
1918: “Jewish Draftees Given Send-Off At Camden” published today described a dinner given for Jews boys who are about to join the Army which included an address by State Treasurer William T. Read who was representing Governor Edge and an address by Camden Mayor Charles E. Ellis who “lauded the patriotism of the Camden boys.”

 
1919: The six-man German delegation headed by Foreign Minister Ulrich Graf von Brockdorff-Rantzau arrived at Versailles to take part in the negotiations that would mark the formal end of World War I.  The treaty would be attacked by the Nazis and tied to the Jews.  None of the negotiators were Jews but the facts never get in the way of anti-Semitism.

 
1920: Birthdate of composer Harold Samuel Shapero.  Born in Lynn, Mass., one of Shapero's most famous works was the 9 Minute Opera. Shapero was an educator as well as composer. In 1951 Brandeis University hired Shapero to start its Music Department, and he was later chairman of the department and founder of its electronic music studio with the day's most advanced synthesizers. He taught at Brandeis until 1988 when he retired

 
1922(1stof Iyar, 5682): Rosh Chodesh

 
1922(1stof Iyar, 5682): Seventy-nine year old David Lindo Alexander, English barrister and a prominent member of the Anglo-Jewish community passed away. He was one of those who expressed “grave reservations” about what would become the Balfour Declaration and later joined “the anti-Zionist League of British Jews.”

 
1923: Birthdate of movie director Irvin Kershner.  Born in Philadelphia, Kershner was a graduate of USC's film school.  Oddly enough, he began his career producing documentaries for the USIA about the Middle East.  Two of his most famous film credits were "Raid on Entebbe" and "Star Wars V - The Empire Strikes Back."

 
1924: David S. Landes, who would become “a distinguished Harvard scholar of economic history” was born today “on the kitchen table of his parents’ home in the Seagate neighborhood of Coney Island in Brooklyn.” (As reported by Douglas Marin)

 
1925: Dr. Florence Rena Sabin the first woman president of the American Association of Anatomists is elected the first woman member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences.

 
1926: Birthdate of Paul Baran, the Polish born American Jewish “engineer who outlined one of the core principles of the Internet in the early 1960s and went on to become an entrepreneurial businessman.

 
1926: Birthdate of Bob Tisch, CEO of Loews and owner of the NY (football) Giants
 
1927: Birthdate of Abraham Jacob Nathan who would gain fame as Abie Nathan a pilot, entrepreneur, peace activist and founder of the groundbreaking "Voice of Peace" radio station, died Wednesday at Tel Aviv's Ichilov hospital, the hospital said in a statement.

 
1927: Birthdate of Gertrude Neumark Rothschild  “whose research helped improve light-emitting and laser diodes now used in many cellphones, flat-screen televisions and Blu-ray disc players, and who waged a successful copyright-infringement battle against some of the world’s biggest electronics companies that yielded tens of millions of dollars in settlements and licensing fees…”
1927(27th of Nisan, 5687): Rachel Sassoon Beer passed away.She was the granddaughter of David Sassoon, editor of The Observer (1891–1904) and owner-editor of The Sunday Times (1893–1904). Rachel was born in Bombay to Sassoon David Sassoon, to the Sassoon family, who made their fortune in trade with the Far East. As a young woman, she volunteered as a nurse in a hospital before marrying Frederick Arthur Beer in 1887. Frederick soon suffered from an illness that changed his personality and led to his early death. Soon after her marriage to Frederick, Rachel began contributing articles to The Observer, which was then owned by the Beer family. In 1891, she took over as editor, becoming the first female editor of a national newspaper in the process.[1] Two years later, she purchased the Sunday Times and became the editor of that newspaper as well. Though "not . . . a brilliant editor], she was known for her "occasional flair and business-like decisions". It was during her time as editor that The Observer achieved one of its greatest exclusives: the admission by Count Esterhazy that he had forged the letters that condemned innocent Jewish officer Captain Dreyfus to Devil's Island. The story provoked an international outcry and led to the release and pardon of Dreyfus and court martial of Esterhazy. Frederick's death in 1903 triggered a breakdown in Rachel, with her erratic behavior culminating in a collapse. The following year she was committed and both newspapers were sold by her trustees. While Rachel subsequently recovered, she required nursing care for the remainder of her life. Rachel spent her final years at Chancellor House in Tunbridge Wells, where she died.She was interred in the Sassoon family mausoleum in Brighton. Among her relatives was the poet Siegfried Sassoon, who was her nephew. In her will she left a generous legacy to Siegfried, enabling him to purchase Heytesbury House in Wiltshire, where he spent the rest of his life. In honour of her request, Siegfried hung an oil portrait of his aunt over the fireplace.

 
1928: The New York Times published a report of a speech by Dr. Chaim Weizmann, the Zionist leader who had just returned to the United States from Palestine, in which he asserted that the effects of the economic depression of the last two years are about to be overcome and that Eretz Israel is about to enjoy “growth and prosperity such as it has not known” before.

 
1929(19th of Nisan, 5689): Otto Jaffe, “a German-born British Jewish businessman who was twice elected Lord Mayor of Belfast passed away.

 

1931: Birthdate of editor and publisher Robert Gottlieb

 
1931: In Berlin,Max Auerbach, a patent lawyer, and Charlotte Nora Burchardt, who had trained as an artist gave birth the painter Frank Helmut Auerbach.  In 1939, Auerbach’s parents made arrangements for him to go to Great Britain as part of the Kindertransport.  They died in a concentration camp in 1942.  Their son became a British citizen in 1947.

 
1934: “The president of the court that is trying three youths in the murder of Dr. Chaim Arlosoroff, Jewish labor leader, visited the scene of the murder at Tel-Aviv accompanied by three associate judges and the prosecution and defense counsel.  The party then went to the vine-yard to which the murderers are supposed to have fled after the crime…The party also visited the grounds of the Jaffa prison and inspected the cell of Abdel Megid whose confession of the murder was produced by the defense in the preliminary investigation and then retracted by Abdel Megid.  The judges sought to ascertain how he could have had lengthy conversations with Abraham Stavsky, one of the three accused.  The prosecution alleges that Stavsky tried to arrange to have Megid take upon himself the guilt for the murder, whereas the defense counsel contends Megid was the murderer and that his confession was retracted under pressure by police.”  [Ed. Note, The murder of Chaim Arosoroff is one of the “stains” on the Zionist movement.  Unknown to many, the episode resurfaced when Prime Minister Rabin was murdered.]

 
1936: Major Tulloch, a former army friend of Churchill’s living in Jericho wrote to the British political leader stressing that ‘the vast majority’ of the poorer Arabs were only too willing to live with the Jews ‘were it not for the way they are terrorized by their ‘leaders’ and told not to in the Arab papers.’”

 
1936: Birthdate of Zubin Mehta.  Born in Bombay India Mehta became a world famous conductor including serving as director of the New York Philharmonic. He has conducted the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra since around 1970 and was named its music director for life in 1981.

1936: Birthdate of Jacob Rothschild.  The official name of this member of the English branch of the House of Rothschild is Nathaniel Charles Jacob Rothschild, 4th Baron Rothschild.

 
1938: The Palestine Post reported that the newly-arrived Palestine Partition Study Commission embarked on an extensive two-weeks-long tour of the country. The Commission had announced that it was offered the good offices of the High Commissioner to reside at the Jerusalem's Government House and that it was ready to receive, at any time, written statements from all persons who desired to place their views before them. Any persons wishing to appear before the Commission were asked to contact the Secretary at the High Commissioner's address.

 
1938: The Palestine Post reported that a unit of Royal Ulster Riflemen found a huge arms store and arrested 31 Arab suspected terrorists at the Gilat ed Bahr village near Nablus. A curfew was imposed on the whole neighborhood.

 
1938: Anti-Jewish riots broke out in Vilna, Poland. The modern state of Poland was created at the end of World War I.  Unfortunately, during the period between the two World Wars, anti-Semitism was part of the Polish political and social landscape.  Apparently anti-Semitism was endemic to the Polish culture since there was a "min-pogrom" there after the Holocaust in 1946.

 
1940: Rudolf Hoess arrived at Auschwitz to set up camp.

 
1942: A German truck that refueled near the Lódz (Poland) Ghetto carried luggage belonging to "resettled" Jews who had already been murdered at the Chelmno death camp.

 
1942: Jews were forced to wear a Jewish Star in Netherlands and Vichy-France.

 
1943(24th of Nisan, 5703): Near Kraków, Poland, Jewish women attacked their male SS guards while being transferred from one prison to another. Two women escaped but most of the others are killed.

 
1943(24th of Nisan, 5703): In Kraków Jewish Resistance fighters incarcerated since December 1942 were trucked to the concentration camp at Plaszów, Poland,. Most are killed after breaking out of the truck.

 
1943:Rabbi Israel Goldstein, a leader of the Synagogue Council of America was quoted in the New York Times today saying of the recently concluded conference that was supposed to provide aid for Jewish refugees and victims of the Holocuast, "The job of the Bermuda Conference was apparently not to rescue victims of Nazi terror but to rescue our State Department and the British Foreign Office. Victims are not being rescued because the democracies don't want them."

 
1944:Rose Warfman (née Gluck) was shipped to Auschwitz as part of Convoy 72. The transport consisted of 1004 Jews - 398 men and 606 women – as well as 174 children under the age of 18.  Among the Jews shipped to the death cap was Itzak Katznelson, the Polish born dramatist and author.

 
1944: Kistarcsa, Hungary, was the site of the first deportation of Jews from Hungary to Birkenau Concentration Camp. 

 
1945:  U.S. Troops entered Dachau, the first of the S.S.-organized camps. It was founded in March 1933. Dachau was infamous for its pseudo-scientific experiments by German doctors and scientists. The liberating troops from Seventh U.S. Army fond fifty train wagons filled with emaciated bodies. Near the crematorium another huge pile of bodies were found. Of the 33,000 survivors found at Dachau, only 2,439 were Jews. Very few Jews were left alive to liberate. In the next few weeks another 27,000 Jews from the hundreds of camps and sub- camps would still die due to illness, exhaustion and the irreversible effects of starvation. The Americans later used it as a prison camp for Nazi war criminals. Rabbi Abraham Klausner was “the father figure” for the more than 30,000 emaciated survivors found at Dachau, 10 miles northwest of Munich, after it was and later for thousands more left in camps as the Allies tried to determine where they should go.

 
1945: Jan Komski was among those who liberated today at Dachau. According to Mr. Komski, “the prisoners were told to remain indoors. It was strangely quiet. Then there was the sound of gunfire. Peering outside, he saw prisoners running through the barbed wire, which had been torn to pieces. ‘Then I see first one American, and then a second and a third. Within half an hour, the whole camp was decorated with flags of all nations, probably sewn together and hidden for a long time…’”

 
1945: Eli A. Bohnen, a chaplain with the 42 Infantry Division entered Dachau today, giving him the dubious distinction of being the first rabbi to enter the German hell-hole.

 
1945: Brigadier General Henning Linden led a group of reporters including Marguerite Higgins and a detachment of the 42nd (Rainbow) Infantry Division as the soldiers received the surrender of the camp commander, generating international headlines by freeing more than 30,000 Jews and political prisoners

 
1945: “The advance scouts of the US Army's 522nd Field Artillery Battalion, a Nisei-manned segregated Japanese-American Allied military unit, liberated the 3,000 prisoners of the "Kaufering IV Hurlach"[54] slave labor camp.”

 
1945: “An Office of Strategic Services (OSS) team (code name LUXE) led Army Intelligence to a "Camp IV" today where "they found the camp afire and a stack of some four hundred bodies burning... American soldiers then went into Landsberg and rounded up all the male civilians they could find and marched them out to the camp. The former commandant was forced to lie amidst a pile of corpses. The male population of Landsberg was then ordered to walk by, and ordered to spit on the commandant as they passed. The commandant was then turned over to a group of liberated camp survivors." (As described by Joseph Perisco)

 
1945: Corporal Henry Senger of the 292nd Field Artillery Observation Battalion captured the commandant of Dachau today.

 
1946: Forty year old Lt. Col. Martin Gottfried Weiss, the commandant at Dachau was hung today following his conviction during the “Dachau Trials.”

 
1948: The Haganah captured the two Arab villages just east of Bat Yam, from which attacks on Jewish road traffic into Tel Aviv had frequently been launched.

 
1948: Following the evacuation by British forces, the Haganah secured the police station at Zemach – a small town at the southern end of the Sea of Galilee, on the Haifa-Damascus road.

 
1948: Haganah troops occupied the policed fortress at Gesher at the Jordan River crossing of the Haifa-Damascus road.  The Arab Legion attacked the fort and the nearby Jewish settlement at Gesher.  They were so confident of victory that Transjordan Crown Prince Talal came to witness the attack.  The Arab Legion failed to dislodge the under-strength, outgunned Jewish defenders and retreated across the Jordan River.

 
1949(30th of Nisan, 5709):Rosh Chodesh Iyyar

 
1950: In the only protest to Jordan’s annexation of what became known as the West Bank, Menachem Begin and two of his former aides called upon Israelis to resist this occupation of Eretz Israel by the Arab army.  [Ed Note: You will not find any mention of a Palestinian State, etc in any of the response at this time.]

 
1951:Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein,an Austrian-British philosopher, passed away.  Although he was raised as a Christian, when “Germany annexed Austria in the Anschluss; Wittgenstein” became “a citizen of the enlarged Germany and a Jew under the 1935 Nuremberg racial laws, because three of his grandparents had been born as Jews. The Nuremberg Laws classified people as Jews (Volljuden) if they had three or four Jewish grandparents and as mixed blood (Mischling) if they had one or two. It meant inter alia that the Wittgensteins were restricted in whom they could marry or have sex with, and where they could work.” The irony of all of this is at Wittgenstein had gone to the Realschule with Adolf Hitler. 

 
1952: At Carnegie Hall in New York, Sarah Churchill, daughter of Winston Churchill, read a message of support from her father at an event celebrating the fourth anniversary of Israeli independence and the first meeting of the American Zionist Council, an amalgamation of eith leading Zionist organizations in the United States.  

 
1952(4th of Iyar, 5712): Yom HaZikaron

 
1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that according to the planned new legislation, just placed before the Knesset, the exclusive jurisdiction of the Rabbinical Courts was to be limited to marriage, divorce and alimony. A new Tenants' Protection Bill, altered in several fundamental respects, was also in preparation.

 
1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that Jerusalem's acute water shortage continued after the Municipality failed to pay to the Jerusalem Electric Corporation the agreed upon immediate payment of IL27,000, on account of an IL80,000 debt.

 
1953(14th of Iyar, 5713): Pesach Sheni


1955: Birthdate of comedian Jerry Seinfeld who gained fame and fortune as the lead in the television series "Seinfeld."


 
1957: Birthdate of English actor Daniel Day-Lewis the son of actress Jill Balcon and the grandson of film producer Sir Michael Elias Bacon who has won three Oscars for Best Actor

 
1957: Jane Evans, executive director of the National Federation of Temple Sisterhoods, spoke about the need to ordain women rabbis in the Reform movement. , at a biennial general assembly meeting of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations (UAHC), the synagogue federation arm of the Reform movement, and of the National Federation of Temple Sisterhoods (NFTS), Jane Evans spoke to 1,000 delegates in favor of ordaining women rabbis.

 
1963 (5th of Iyar, 5723): Yom Ha’Atzmaut, יום העצמאות 15th Anniversary of Israel

 
1965(27th of Nisan, 5725): Yom HaShoah

 
1965(27th of Nisan, 5725): Freda Resnikoff, founder of the Mizrachi Women's Organization (now AMIT) passed away.

 
1971(4thof Iyar, 5731): Yom HaAtzma’ut

 
1975: The American Sephardic Federation and United Jewish Appeal sponsored a two-week visit for Chief Sephardic Rabbi Ovadia Yossef to visit the United States. He came and met with both governmental and Jewish community leaders.

 
1981: Yaacov Scherft successfully ejected from his F-4E Phantom II

 
1983(16thof Iyar, 5743): Eighty-six year old author and Zionist Johan J. Smertenko passed away

 
1984:The lights in Temple Emanu-El were dimmed as 31 survivors of the Holocaust, all women dressed in black, slowly walked to 6 stands and lighted 216 candles in memory of the 6 million Jews who perished at the hands of the Nazis during World War II.

 
1985: “A Gigantic Death Camp” published today described the conditions at Bergen Belsen on the 40th anniversary of the liberation of the camp by Allied troops.

 
1990(4thof Iyar, 5750): Yom HaZikaron

 
1990: Release date for “Voyage of Terror: The Achille Lauro Affair” a made for television movie based on the hijacking of the Achille Lauro and the murder Leon Klinghoffer featuring Rebecca Schaeffer, of  blessed memory, in the role of “Cheryl.”

 
1996: The musical hit “Rent” premiered at the Nederlander Theatre. The original concept for Rent came from Billy Aronson a Jewish-American playwright and writer.

 
1998(3rd of Iyar, 5758):Yom Hazikaron

 
1998: In the evening, Israelis began celebrating the 50th anniversary of the founding of their country (although, according to the Western calendar, the anniversary fell on May 14th).

 
2001: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Was This Man A Genius? Talks With Andy Kaufman
by Julie Hecht, Dazzler
The Life and Times of Moss Hart by Steven Bach and Washington by Meg Greenfield.

 
2001: An exhibition entitled “Marc Chagall: Early Works from Russian Collections” opens at the Jewish Museum in New York City. These early years in Russia provide the key to Chagall’s long and prolific career. They also show how Yehuda Pen, the artist who was Chagall’s earliest teacher and mentor, influenced his art.

 
2001: Hamas claimed responsibility for today’s school bus bombing at Nablus.

 
2002: Cairo columnist Fatma Abduall Mahmoud declared, “With regard to this Holocaust swindle, many French studies have shown that this is nothing more than a fabrication, a lie and a fraud.  But, I personally complain to Hitler, even saying to him from the bottom of my heart, ‘If only you had done it, brother, if only it had really happened, so that the world could sign in relief without their evil and sin.’”

 
2003(27th of Nisan, 5763): Yom Hashoah

 
2004: Just months before his death Tzvi Tzur, the IDF’s 6th Chief of Staff,signed a letter of support in Ariel Sharon's plan to leave Gaza.

 
2006(1st of Iyar, 5766): Rosh Chodesh Iyar

 
2007: Maccabi USA sponsors a Tribute Brunch Honoring Richard Reff atWoodmont Country Club, Rockville, MD. Dr. Reff is a Washington, D.C. area orthopedic surgeon specializing in sports medicine who supports the Richard B. Reff, M.D. Maccabi Youth Games Endowment Fund.

 
2007: An exhibit styled “Ben’s Lens” comes to a close at the Sydney Jewish Museum in Sydney, Australia.  This “Photographic Retrospective by Ben Apfelbaum” follows the Jewish calendar of religious festivals, life-cycle ceremonies, carnivals, demonstrations and commemorations, documenting secular and religious Jewish life and culture in Sydney.

 
2007: The Sunday New York Times book section featured a review of The Worlds of Lincoln Kirstein by Martin Duberman.  According to the review, Martin Duberman shows how Lincoln Kirstein, a "queer Jewish intellectual," became a cultural power.

 
2007: Israeli author David Grossman delivers the Arthur Miller Freed to Write Lecture at PEN’s World Voices Festival.

 
2007(11thof Iyar, 5767): Fifty-eight year Israeli Paralympic champion Eliezer Kalina who a leg while fighting in the Yom Kippur War passed away today.


 
2008: The Jerusalem Cinematheque presents a screening of “The Cellar” \ המרתף.

 
2008:The 92nd Street Y presentsFrom Architecture to Infrastructure: Creating a Palestinian State” with C. Ross Anthony and Doug Suisman.

 
2008(24th of Nisan, 5768): Twenty-four year old Senior Airman Jonathan A.V. Yelner “was killed in Afghanistan when his vehicle was struck by an improvised explosive device.” As reported by Maia Efrem
2009:The YIVO Institute for Jewish Research presents a lecture by Indiana University’s Jolanta Mickute entitled “Emancipation and Its Discontents: Jewish Women in Interwar Poland” that addresses the debate surrounding the emancipation of Jewish women in interwar Poland, and examines how the limits established by Jewish tradition, ethnicity, class, locale and gender shaped the Jewish women’s identities in the Polish host culture.


2009:  As part of the ASF Books and Authors Series, The American Sephardi Federation features a presentation by Pearl Sofar author of “Baghdad to Bombay: In the Kitchens of My Cousins.” Sofaer was born and grew up in Bombay, India.  She is a musician, artist, cantorial soloist, retired mediator and gourmet cook who shares many of the stories and recipes of her beloved family.

 
2009 (5th Iyar, 5769): Yom Ha’Azma’ut – Israel Independence Day

 
2009: As part of the Independence Day Celebration, Israel Prize winners are formally honored including Israeli sculptor Micha Ullman, Professor Emanuel Tov of the Hebrew University, archaeologist Amihai Mazar, medical researcher Professor Zvi Laron, Itamar Procaccia, Reuven Tsur, Israel Levin and the Israel Democracy Institute

 
2009: In the United States, Yom Ha’Azma’ut Celebrations include a concert by Israeli Hip Hop/Funk/Drum & Bass group Coolooloosh at Yale University, a Yom Ha'atzmaut Shukat NYUand a community-wide celebration at Ithaca College complete with live music, food, arts & crafts, games, a hookah circle, and much more.

 
2009:This month's poetry reading evening at the Kensington Row Bookshop includes Michael S. Glaser, the current Maryland Poet Laureate and author of “Being a Father.”

 
2009: Italian officials released Youssef Majed al-Molqi, the convicted of killing Leon Klinghoffer who was sentenced to 30 years for murdering Leon Klinghoffer was released from prison today “for good behavior.”

 
2010: The New York Times reviewed books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Innocent by Scott Turow.


2010:The PEN World Voices Festival, Center for Jewish History and the Consulate General of Israel are scheduled to present Eshkol Nevo, one of Israel's most exciting new voices in a program entitled “Homesick: Eshkol Nevo in Conversation with Michael Orthofer.”


2010(15th of Iyar, 5770):Devra G. Kleiman, “a conservation biologist who reintroduced into the wild the tiny endangered monkey known as the golden lion tamarin, and who learned so much about the lives of giant pandas that scientists could later help them reproduce in captivity, died in Washington” at the age of 67. At her death, Dr. Kleiman was a senior scientist emeritus at the National Zoo in Washington, with which she had been associated for nearly four decades.(As reported by Margalit Fox)


2010(15th of Iyar, 5770): Avigdor Arikha passed away the after his 81st birthday


2010: Reuven Rivlin, Speaker of the Knesset said that he "would rather accept Palestinians as Israeli citizens than divide Israel and the West Bank in a future two-state peace solution"..


2011:Peggy and Murray Schwartz are scheduled to launch their new book, “The Dance Claimed Me: A biography of Pearl Primus” at the 92nd St Y


2012: Filmmaker Dani Menkin is scheduled to participate in a Q&A following a screening of “Dolphin Boy” at the Westchester Jewish Film Festival.


2012: At Kibbutz Yehudah in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Dr. Steve Feller, renowned professor of physics and published author on the subject of coins and money is scheduled to deliver a talk on ancient Jewish coins.


2012: Four members of Adat Reyim are scheduled to lay a wreath “at the Tomb of Unknowns in Arlington Cemetery to honor Jewish service members who gave their lives supporting the war on terrorism.”


2012:Performance Iowais scheduled to present “Music to Commemorate the Passover Season & The Holocaust,” a live 2 p.m. broadcast from the Caspe Terrace in Waukee, IA. Featuring University of Northern Iowa faculty members Hunter Capoccioni, double bass and Dmitri Vorobiev, piano, the program will include music by Ernest Bloch, Hermann Berlinkski, Yehuda Yannay, Maurice Ravel, Tony Osborne and Max Bruch. Cantor Gail Karp will perform traditional Hebrew and Yiddish songs. Three Des Moines-area Rabbi will participate in this special program. Rabbi Yossi Jacobson, Rabbi Leib Bolel and Rabbi David Kaufman all will speak on different topics.

2012:The Jerusalem International Chamber Music Festival is scheduled to come to an end.


2012: The Sunday Edition on CBC Radio One broadcast David Gutnick’s documentary “It wasn’t teatime: Ethel Stark and the Montreal Women’s Symphony Orchestra “ which tells the story of how in 1940 Ethel Stark helped establish the Montreal Women’s Symphony Orchestra, the first all-female Canadian symphony orchestra and one of only a couple in North America. At the time, women were not allowed to play in most symphony orchestras.


2013: Theilluminated manuscript, known as "The Frankfurt Mishneh Torah" is scheduled to be auctioned today at Sotheby’s in New York City(As reported by Ula Ilnytzky)


2013: The 15th annual Felicja Blumental Chamber Music Festival is scheduled to open at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art


2013: The Alexandria Kleztet is scheduled to perform at the United States Holocaust Museum.


2013: Danny Kaye, Frank Loesser and Jule Styne are scheduled to be honored at a New York Pops Concert at Carnegie Hall.


2013: Elderly survivors of the Holocaust and the veterans who helped liberate them joined President Bill Clinton and Elie Wiesel to mark the 20th anniversary of the dedication of the U.S. Holocuast Memorial Museum.


2013: The IDF and the Defense ministry unveiled Israel’s Dolphin-class submarine in a ceremony in Kiel, Germany.


2014: Stuart S. Kurlander is scheduled to receive the Lee G. Rubenstein Outstanding Leadership award this evening at the Washington DCJC Spring Showcase.


2014: “My German Friend” is scheduled to be shown at the JCC Rockland International Jewish Film Festival.


2014: The Center for Jewish History is scheduled to present “Reinventing Jewishness in Post-Communist Hungary: Antisemitism and Jewish Renaissance.”

This Day, April 30, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. Levin

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April 30


313: Licinius defeated Maximinus at the Battle of Tzirallum, thus making him the Emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire.  The Emperor of the Western Roman Empire was his brother-in-law, Constantine. The two in laws would clash repeatedly until Constantine defeated Licinius and eventually killed him despite the pleas of his sister to spare her husband’s life. We know that Constantine made Christianity the state religion of the Roman Empire with all that that would mean for the Jews of Europe.  Would it have been any different if Licinius had triumphed?  Who knows?  Lucinius did subscribe to the policy of tolerance towards Christians but those who were writing history in the fourth and fifth century tended to create an idyllic vision of Constantine which meant painting a less than flattering portrait of Licinius.  Gibbon follows the same path in his history of the Roman Empire.


711: Moorish troops led by Tariq ibn-Ziyad land at Gibraltar to begin their invasion of the Iberian Peninsula (Al-Andalus).  For the Jews living under the Visigoth rulers of Spain, this is good news.  The victory of the Moors will mark the start of what is called the Golden Age.  Ironically, the Golden Age will begin to tarnish not because of Christians, but because of an invasion by another, more religiouslyconservative group of Moslems. (Some sources say this actually happened on April 29) 


1245: Birthdate King Philip III of France, the son Louis IX (St. Louis).  During Phillip’s reign, the Pope turned the attention of the Inquisition from suppressing the heresy of the Albigenses to the Jews of southern France who had converted to Christianity. The popes complained that not only were baptized Jews returning to their former faith, but that Christians also were being converted to Judaism. Pope Gregory X ruled that Jewish converts who had returned to Judaism, as well as Christians who converted to Judaism were to be treated by the Inquisitors as heretics. The instigators of such apostasies, as those who received or defended the guilty ones, were to be punished in the same way as the delinquents. When the Jews of Toulouse buried a Christian convert in their cemetery, they were brought before the Inquisition in for trial, with their rabbi, Isaac Males and having been found guilty were burned at the stake. Needless to say, Phillip did nothing to protect his subjects. 


1349: The Jewish community at Radolszell, Germany, was exterminated.  This appears to have been part of a wave of attacks on Jewish communities that took place during 1348 and 1349.  They were in response to fears about the Black Death and a convenient way for non-Jewish nobles and others to avoid having to re-pay their Jewish creditors. 


1425: Birthdate of William III of Luxembourg who "minted a silver groschen known as the Judenkopf Groschen. Its obverse portrait shows a man with a pointed beard wearing a Jewish hat, which the populace took as depicting a typical Jew.”


1492: The Edict of Expulsion for all the Jews of Spain was passed. Since professing that Jews were not under the jurisdiction of the Inquisition, the Church decided to level a ritual murder accusation against them in Granada and was thus able to call for the expulsion of both Jews and Marranos from Spain. The Marranos themselves were accused of complicity in the case, and both were ordered to leave within four months. Torquemada, the director of the Inquisition (and incidentally of Jewish descent), defended this against Don Isaac Abarbanel. The edict was passed, and over fifteen thousand Jews had to flee, some to the Province of Aragon and others, like Abarbanel, to Naples. Still others found temporary sanctuary in Portugal.


1563 The Jews were expelled from France by order of Charles VI

1556: A community of Marranos at Ancona (Italy) was devastated when Pope Paul IV retracted letters of protection issued by previous Popes' for protection of the Jews, and ordered immediate proceedings to be taken by the Holy Office. The result of the findings came in the spring and early summer, when 24 men and 1 woman were burned alive in successive proceedings. Their deaths are memorialized in that city every Tisha B'av.


1637(6thof Iyar, 5397): Abraham Joseph Jacob Katzenellenbogen a Polish rabbi born in 1549 who “was the grandfather of Ezekiel Katzenellenbogen, author of Keneset Yehezkel” passed away today in Lemberg.


1659:In New Amsterdam, Cornelius Plavier mortgaged his house on Heere Street (later Broadway) at the city wall (Wall Street) the day after judgment was rendered against him in a case brought by Abraham Cohen. It is assumed that the money obtained from the mortgage was intended to satisfy the judgment.  But no documents actually exist to prove that Cohen got either the money or the beaver pelts which were owed to him.


1693(24th of Nisan): Rabbi David Ha-Kohen of Jerusalem, author of “Da’at Kadoshim” passed away.


1722: “The officers of Harvard Corporation vote that Judah Monis be approved as an instructor of the Hebrew language at the College, under the condition that he convert to Christianity. One month before assuming his post at Harvard, Monis converts before a large assembly in College Hall.”


1788: In Philadelphia, the members of Congregation Mikveh Israel appealed to the non-Jews of the City of Brotherly Love.  Founded in the 1740’s the congregation was dealing with unforeseen debt brought on by the economic downturn that followed the American Revolution.  Such prominent citizens as Benjamin Franklin, State Attorney General William Bradford and Thomas McKean one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence helped to provide the congregation with financial assistance


1789: George Washington took the oath of office making him the first elected President of the United States.  As can be seen from his correspondence with various Jewish congregations Washington had a positive view of Jews.  More to the point, his welcoming attitude expressed in that correspondence set the tone for the American Jewish experience and his election helped solidify the creation of the new republic which has been a haven for Jews for the last two centuries.


1793 (18th of Iyar, 5553): Lag B’Omer


1796: Birthdate of Adolphe Crémieux “a French-Jewish lawyer and statesman, and a staunch defender of the human rights of the Jews of France.”


1800 The government of Czar Paul I enacted a decree forbidding Jews from importing books in any language. This was part of series of schemes to help the Russian government control their newly acquired mass of Jews.  This large population had become part of the anti-Semitic Russian Empire as a result of the three-way partition of Poland.


1803: The United States purchased the Louisiana Territory from the French in what is known as the Louisiana Territory.  French law had banned Jews from settling in these lands which means the purchase opened a swath of land stretching from the banks of the Mississippi west to the Rocky Mountains to Jewish settlement including such cities as St. Louis and New Orleans.


1806:The question of the treatment of the Alsace Jews and their debtors raised in the Imperial Council today.


1812: The Territory of Orleans became the 18th U.S. state under the name Louisiana. The first Jews, who were Sephardim, came to Louisiana at the start of the 18th century.  “In New Orleans community life began in the 1820’s with the purchase of a burial plot by a society that called itself Gates of Loving Kindness.  A house of prayer, now known as the Touro Synagogue soon followed and by 1850 still another congregation existed in the city.”  For more about the history of the Jews of Louisiana see “Gefilte Fish in the Land of the Kingfish: Jewish Life in Louisianaat http://www.louisianafolklife.org/LT/Articles_Essays/jewsinla.html



1817(14th of Iyar, 5577): Pesach Sheni



1833: Prussian educator and philanthropist Baruch Auerbach took four orphans into his own house which was the start of the Baruch Auerbach Orphan Asylum that cared for 300 children during his lifetime and which was home to seventy orphans when he passed away.



1837: Birthdate of Dr. Alfred R. Gaul, the English composer and conductor who created the cantata “Israel in the Wilderness.”



1859: Tuscany was incorporated in the kingdom of Sardinia (later the kingdom of Italy) and to the position of the Jewish people improved because “the principle of equal rights without discrimination on religious grounds was introduced there also.” (As described by Virtual Jewish Library)



1863: During the Civil War, today was a day that President Lincoln had designated “as a day of national humiliation, fasting and prayer.”  He requested “all the people to abstain…from their ordinary secular pursuits, and to unite, at their several places of public worship and their respective homes, in keeping the day holy to the Lord, and devoted to the humble discharge of the religious duties proper to that solemn occasion.” The Jews joined their fellow Americans in honoring the proclamation with most synagogues being described as “opened” with the Psalms normally read on religious penitential days being invoked on this national day of penitence. According to published reports, very eloquent address was delivered by Rabbi Raphall, at the Greene-street Synagogue. “He remarked that it was a curious coincidence that on this, a fast day appointed by their own religious observances, they met in compliance with the Proclamation of the President of the United States, to fast and pray. He had been in this country fourteen years. During the first ten years no public proclamation had ever directed their thoughts and feelings to humiliation and fasting. Once in every year the highest functionary in every State proclaimed a day of general thanksgiving, and with that the debt of national gratitude was supposed to be paid. But now the rulers of the nation come year after year and call upon the people to weary Heaven with fruitless professions of a penitence they did not feel, and of a humility they did not practice. These proclamations fast days, on which no one fasts, are but the repetition of those so strongly reproved by the prophet Isaiah; and, though the people dare not put his questions, "Wherefore do we fast and Thou seest it not? Afflict our souls and Thou will not notice it!" -- since in reality the people do neither -- still the answer would stand good. "Because while you profess humiliation, you persist in your arrogance and your extortions do not cease." If ever a people needed to humble itself before God -- if ever fasting and prayer, sack cloth and ashes were to be worn -- it was by the people of these United States. Like our fathers, the Israelites of old, for whom pious Nekeiniah made such fervent supplication, the people of this country are justly amenable to his confession made for Israel: "In their dominions, in all the great prosperity Thou didst bestow upon them, and throughout the large and rich land which Thou gavest unto them, they did not serve Thee, neither turned they from their evil deeds." The preacher then drew a parallel between the sins of the Israelites, which called forth the reproof of the preacher, and the past conduct of this nation, which was equally amenable to the words of the inspired prophet. What were they to say for the citizens of the United States who already and so long possess the two greatest earthly blessings, Education and Freedom, and yet make so bad a use of both? Education should be the guardian of freedom and of virtue, it was the birthright of every American, bestowed on all and withheld from none. But what principles did it actually inculcate -what virtues did it really teach? Did it inculcate respect for free institutions? Answer, ye place-hunters, ye ballot-box stuffers, ye shoulder-hitters, who reduce self-government to a disgusting farce. Did it teach patriotism? Answer, ye spoils-men, ye office-seekers and holders, who cement party lines with the cohesive force of public plunder. Did it teach common honesty? Answer, ye peculators and speculators, who fatten on the blood of the hard-worked masses, and who dignify roguery by the name of smartness. His heart ached as he spoke to them of the effects of perverted education; it would ache still more were he to direct attention to the bitter fruits of abused freedom. He need not remind them that while the best men North and South had long been driven aloof from the affairs of the country, demagogues, fanatics and a party Press had so managed matters that they found themselves in the third year of a destructive but needless sectional war, which has armed brother against brother, consigned hundreds of thousands to an untimely grave, and to ruin and devastation tens of thousands of square miles of flourishing and happy land; and what was worse than all this, while humanity weeps we must suppress our sympathy. However, our hearts may yearn for peace and brotherly love, our reason convinces us that the present is not the time to expect, or even to hope for the cessation of blood. On the contrary, though we may detest the cause and course of events, it is our duty loyally to stand by our section of the country, to maintain her quarrel and defend her rights, while we have the consolation to know that our side did not begin the fray, and that the cause of Union was the worthiest in the field.”  



1863: In article published today entitled “The Rothschilds and the Union” W.W. Murphy takes issue with Harper’s Weekly depiction of the famous banking family and ask that corrections be made.



“In your paper (Harper's Weekly) of Feb. 28, you do a great injustice to the eminent firm of ROTHSCHILDS here, when you hint that they are like a certain Rabbi who held opinions that some men were born to be slaves. I know not what the other firms -- and there are many of the ROTHSCHILDS, all related -- in Europe think of Slavery, but here the firm of M.A. VON ROTHSCHILD & SON are opposed to Slavery and in favor of Union. A converted Jew, ERLANGER, has taken the rebel loan of £3,000,000, and lives in this city; and Baron ROTHSCHILD informed me that all Germany condemned this act of lending money to establish a slaveholding Government, and that so great was public opinion against it that ERLANGER & CO. dare not offer it on the Frankfort Bourse. I further know that the Jews rejoice to think that none of their sect would be guilty of lending money for the purpose above named; but it was left, they say, for apostate Jews to do it”.



1863: The Army of the Potomac (Union) which included Jacob Ezekiel Hyneman and Captain Joseph Greenhut made the openings in a clash with the Army of Northern Virginia (Rebel) under the command of Robert E. Lee which would be known as the Battle of Chancellorsville.



1864: During the Red River Campaign, Union forces including Frederick C. Salomon, scored a tactical victory in the bloody Battle of Jenkin’s Ferry



1866: Birthdate of Leon Levi Bandes, the native of Vilna who as Louis Miller played a pioneering role in the development of a Yiddish language press in the United States capped by the founding of The Forward
http://www.yiddishkayt.org/miller-bandes/



1869: Birthdate of Hungarian painter Philip de Laszlo.



1870:Leopold Karpeles who served as a Sergeant with Company E, Massachusetts Infantry was issued his Congressional Medal of Honor for bravery displayed during the Wilderness Campaign in 1864.



1870: The New York Times published a review of a unique book entitled The Bible In India: Hindoo Origin of Hebrew and Christian Revelation in which the author, Louis Jacolliot, attempts to prove that "the Hebrew and Christian revelations have a common origin in India among the Hindoo mythologies."



1871: The New York Times reported that a magistrate in London found a group of Jews guilty of gambling in a “public house” when they were caught playing chicken hazard and fined them accordingly.  In their defense the Jews had claimed that although they had been caught playing chicken hazard they had really had gathered together to observe Passover.  According to the Jewish defendants, the police must have missed seeing the blood on the doorposts or else they would have passed by and left them undisturbed.  Apparently the Judge and the rest of Christian London are not aware of the custom of playing chicken hazard as part of the Passover celebration.  [Editors note: If you have ever played chicken hazard or can shed some light on this please let me know.  Who knows, maybe a great miscarriage of justice needs to be undone.]



1872(22ndof Nisan, 5632): 8th Day of Pesach



1872: The New York Times reported that over 3,000 barrels of Matzoths...were consumed:” in New York “during the past week and 1,000 barrels were sent throughout the country some going to Canada and” to South America.



1877:  Birthdate of Alice B. Tolkas. Born into a middle class Jewish family in San Francisco, Tolkas was a writer whose claim to fame was her relationship with another Jewish literary light, Gertrude Stein.



1880: It was reported from Vienna that after a fire broke out in Grusbach, Moravia, “some malicious persons incited the mob to attack the Jews. At least one Jew has died of his wounds and another had a hand cut off.



1881: It was reported today that a mob led by a school teacher has been responsible for some of the violence aimed at the Jews living in Argenua, West Prussia.



1881: It was reported today that mobs of peasants have attacked the Jews of Elizabethgrad (Russia).  The mob, which destroyed the local synagogue, was driven by its superstitious beliefs about Jewish Passover practices.



1881(1st of Iyar, 5641): Rosh Chodesh Iyar



1881: “Anti-Jewish Riots In Europe” published today describes attacks on Jews in Germany and Russia.  A wave of violence aimed at the Jews in Argenau, West Prussia included a mob led by a school teacher wrecking the home of the Jews.  In Russia, the violence has been fueled by Christian superstitions surrounding the observance of Passover and was highlighted by the destruction of synagogue in Elizabethgrad.



1882: The New York Times reported today that Rabbi Hirsch of Sinai Congregation in Chicago had offered prayers on behalf of Kaiser Frederick William of Germany, “asking that his life…be spared.”  The only problem with this entry is that the Kaiser had died in March.



1882: President Jesse Seligman presided over today’s annual meeting of the Hebrew Benevolent and Orphan Asylum. Currently the organization is providing service to 327 orphans, 245 of whom were born in New York City.



1882: Based on information supplied by the Times of London, it was reported today that when the American Legation at St. Petersburg intervenes on behalf of the Jews, it will be speaking for several European governments as well as the administration in Washington.



1882: It was reported today that according to The Free Press the Jews of Podolsk and Walkwoich have been subjected to renewed attacks.  Additionally, some of the most notorious leaders have been released from custody despite orders from St. Petersburg calling for their prompt punishment.



1883: It was reported today that the will of the late Dr. Edward Bouverie Pusey prohibited the publication of his English translations of the “Hebrew scriptures” since he no longer felt that the corrections may not have been valid.



1883: Mark Gradginsky and his wife Adelaide were among those being held at police headquarters on charges of receiving and selling stolen goods – specifically $23,000 of lace goods taken from Muser Brothers by one of their employees. The Gradginskys who are well-known members of the Jewish community, denied knowing that the goods were stolen.



1883: It was reported today that “The Jews in Philadelphia Prior to 1800” by H. Polock Rosenbach will be published by Edward Sterne & Co.  It is thought to be the first book published on the subject, but the publisher is planning on printing only 250 copies.



1885: The will of Isaac Vogel, a Jewish clothier, was filed in the Surrogate’s Court today.



1887: This afternoon in Chicago, Leopold Bloom socked William B. Andrews in the cheek causing the latter to fall to the sidewalk in front building housing the Board of Trade where the two were traders.  Bystanders were not sure what caused the altercation except they heard somebody use the word “liar” and somebody use the word “Jew” before the blow was struck.



1888: “A Prayer for the Emperor” published today described the prayers offered by Rabbis in the United States including Rabbi Hirsh of Sinai Congregation of Chicago for the well-being of Emperor Frederick William of German “because of the interest he has shown in the Jews.” (The only problem with this entry is that the Kaiser had died on March 9, 1888)


1889: Rabbi Gustave Gottheil of Temple Emanu-El and Rabbi Henry S. Jacobs were among the clergyman who helped plan today’s service that was part of the centennial commemoration of the inauguration of George Washington.


1890: It was reported today that a four member commission acting on behalf of the Imperial Council is “framing a bill to regulate the position of the Jews in Russia” which will be detrimental to their interest.



1890: The Board of Estimate and Apportionment authorized the School Board to lease the old Hebrew Orphan Asylum building on 77th Street.



1891: Pianist and composer Leopold Godowsky married Frieda Sax.



1892: The Young Men’s Hebrew Association hosted the first annual gymnastic program featuring members of the organization.



1892: Colonel Carl Weber testified before the joint committee of the Senate and House of Representatives on Immigration and Naturalization on the condition of those arriving at Ellis Island.  Included in this was a description of those who arrived aboard the SS Masillia and were later found to be contaminated with typhus. Contrary to earlier reports the immigrants were Turkish Jews and not Russian Jews.  He said that their religion had nothing to do with the illness which was cause by their extended sea voyage which took them to numerous ports before arriving in New York.



1893(14th of Iyar, 5653): Pesach Sheni



1895: Gustav Freytag, author of the immensely popular Soll und Haben (Debit and Credit) “a novel in which a Jewish merchant is presented as a villain and threat to Germany” while proclaiming the virtues of the German people, especially the middle class, passed away today. (Editor’s note – for those who wonder how Hitler could have happened, a look into the history of German anti-Semitism might provide some of the answers.)



1898: The New York Timesreported that “ Tract Pesachim (Passover) the fifth volume of Dr. M.L. Rodkinson’s new English edition of the Babylonian Talmud has just been published…This tract has, so far as is known, never been translated into any modern language, although it is one of the volumes most frequently perused by students of the Talmud.  There are still fifteen more volumes of the Talmu to follow; the next of which is promised with the next three months.



1898: Following the outbreak of the Spanish-American War, Dr. A.P. Madison said that the Russian Jews of Chicago who number about 25,000 people “will organize a regiment of infantry and offer their services to the President to fight Spain and to free Cuba.”



1898: As patriotic fervor sweeps the United States, in New York “special services were held today at Temple Rodolph Sholom at which national hymns were sung and prayers were offered for the President and the army and navy.



1898: The attorney representing Horace J. Young, who is accused of deserting his wife Clara, the daughter of Jewish businessman Julius Praeger will be allowed to examine the witnesses who claim that the couple was never legally married but that Young left her when he found out she was pregnant.



1899: In London, the Times published a letter from Joseph H. Hertz, the Chief Rabbi expressing his opposition the Slaughtering of Animals Bill presented to the House by Sir A. Shirley-Benn, MP which would effectively band Shechita which “would therefore inflict cruel hardship on hundreds of thousands of law-abiding citizens and would in effect constitute a grievous religious persecution.”



1899: Elections for officers were held at today’s annual meeting of the Hebrew Orphan Asylum.



1899: A committee made up of a cross-section of representatives of Jewish charitable organizations in New York City met today to make arrangement for memorial services to be held in honor of the late Baroness Hirsch.



1900: Herzl has a “coincidental meeting” with Bernard Lazare in Paris. Lazare intends to go to Constantinople. Herzl asked him if he would try to win Ambassador Constans over to the Zionist cause



1901: By the end of AprilHerzl had read Moses Hess’ Rome and Jerusalem.



1902: Herzl completes his Palestine Novel Altneuland (Old New Land) which portrays his vision for life in the new Jewish Homeland.


1904: By the end of April Herzl made preparations to proceed to Paris and London in early May in order to arrange the financing of the Uganda expedition. He made contact with the New York financier, Jacob Schiff. Schiff declared himself ready to negotiate a loan for Russia if it proved ready to do something for the Jews.


1904: Herzl had an interview with Austrian Foreign Minister Agenor Goluchowsky, who gave evidence of an earnest interest in Zionism and advised Herzl to work in England for a Parliamentary expression of opinion in favor of Palestine. Immediately after this audience, a consultation of his doctors establishes an alarming change in the condition of his heart muscles. Herzl is ordered to Franzensbad for six weeks.


1905: Over the last 12 months, the Young Men’s Hebrew Association provided services to 166,289 through its various programs including lectures, religious services, and physical education activities. The association had an income of $39,423.21and spent $38,673.32 under the Presidency of Percival S. Menken.


1910: Birthdate of actor Al Lewis who played Grandpa on “The Munsters.”


1910:Dr. Emil Schürer, the German professor of theology who wrote A History of the Jewish People in the Time of Jesus Christ passed away today.


1912: Carl Laemmle of IMP (Independent Moving Pictures Company) joined with several others to form the Universal Motion Picture Manufacturing Company whose Ft. Lee, NJ studios produced many of the early films that helped build the American cinema industry.


1915: Birthdate of Elio Toaff, the native of Livorno who served as a rabbi Venice from 1947 to 1951 when he became Chief Rabbi of Rome.


1915: Turkish authorities prevent Jews of Smyrna from leaving the country.


1918(18th of Iyyar, 5678): Lag B'Omer


1920: In Vienna, Ilona Neumann and Robert Kronstein gave birth to Gerda Hedwig Kronstein who gained fame as Gerda Lerna , the historian who “spearheaded the creation of the first graduate program in women’s history in the United States…” (As reported by William Grimes)


1923(14th of Iyar, 5683): Pesach Sheni


1924(26th of Nisan): Rabbi Joseph Lowenstein, author of “Dor, Dor ve-Dorshav” passed away


1924: Birthdate of Sheldon Harnick “an American lyricist best known for his collaborations with composer Jerry Bock on hit musicals such as Fiddler on the Roof. Harnick began his career writing words and music to comic songs in musical revues. One of these, "The Merry Minuet", was popularized by the Kingston Trio. It is in the caustic style usually associated with Tom Lehrer and is sometimes incorrectly attributed to him.”


1925: The Revisionist party (Brith HaTzionim HaRevisionistim) was founded by Zev (Vladimir) Jabotinsky.in Paris, France. Jabotinsky was an ardent Zionist.  He had already made Aliyah. In 1921 he took up arms to help defend the Jewish community from attacks by armed, Arab mobs.  The British arrested Jabotinsky and imprisoned him.  This experience was one of the factors that led him to demand a more aggressive policy toward the British believing that only worldwide pressure would force the British to abide by the mandate. The revisionist believed that the highest priority of the Zionist movement should be in bringing greatest number of Jews to Eretz –Israel in the shortest possible time.  Jabotinsky would die of a heart attack in 1940.  Menachem Begin would inherit his political and spiritual mantle.  As head of the Irgun, Begin waged war against the British after 1945 when it became obvious that the British were going to continue their pro-Arab, anti-Jewish policies.


1926: Birthdate of Cloris Leachman.  Born in Des Moines, Iowa, Leachman has enjoyed a long and distinguished film and television career.  Two of her most famous films were "The Last Picture Show" and "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid." 


1929: In Tel Aviv, the fourth Palestine and Near East Exhibition comes to a close.


1929: Nathan Straus presided over the opening of the Nathan and Lena Straus Health Care Center in Tel Aviv.   Straus presented this modern health facility to Hadassah which will administer for the benefit of all the inhabitants – Jew, Christian and Moslem – with the only goal being to improve the quality and length of life of all citizenry.


1933:Gian Clemente Bayard, the son Iris Origo who stayed in Italy during WW II where she saved the lives of children and Allied airmen, passed away tragically today at the age of 8.


1935: Jews were no longer allowed to display the German flag. This was quite disturbing to the thousands of Jews who had fought for the Kaiser in World War I


1936: The Flying Camel spreads its wings on the shores of the Mediterranean as the emblem of the Levant Fair opening today in Tel Aviv.


1935: Release date for “The Scoundrel” dramatic film co-starring Lionel Stander for which Ben Hecht served as co-director and for which he co-authored the script.


1936(7th of Iyar, 5696): August Lederer, an Austrian industrialist and patron of the arts who was best known for his connection with Gustav Klimt passed away.


1940: The Lodz Ghetto was officially sealed. The Jews were resettled in the Lodz Ghetto in an action replete with brutality, looting, abuse, and murder. As they were led to the ghetto, snipers on rooftops opened fire on them to frighten them and expedite their departure. They fled to the ghetto in panic. When The Lodz Ghetto approximately 164,000 Jews from Lodz were packed into its four square kilometers, of which only two and a half square kilometers were built. The congestion in the area that comprised the ghetto was seven times greater than it had been before the war. The ghetto area was carved into three sectors by two main streets that linked neighborhoods outside the ghetto. Wretched conditions including congestion, hunger, cold, and poor sanitation led immediately to mass mortality.



1941:  Having installed the Ustasha movement as the government of occupied Croatia, the Nazis watched as on this date their willing puppet enacted a new definition of the term "Jew."  This enabled the Croat government to enact the Nazi inspired plan for the treatment of the Jews.  At the same, this definition caused some dissension in the ranks of the anti-Semites since it created a loophole designed to protect the Jewish wives of some of the non-Jewish Ustasha leaders.


1942: Today the Germans ordered the Jews of Pinsk to move into the ghetto by 4:00 p.m. on May 1. More than 20,000 persons were packed into the ghetto, a cramped area in a slum quarter


1942(13th of Iyyar, 5702):  Twelve hundred Jews were killed in Diatlovo, Belorussia. The Jews offered armed resistance, but it was futile.


1943: During a trip to Palestine, Archbishop Spellman visits Haifa and Tel Aviv where he has lunch with Brig. Gen. R.W. Crawford, head of the United States Service Command.


1943: By the end of the month of April Jewish resistance in the Warsaw Ghetto began to falter as bunkers were broached by German troops. Artillery bombardment of the ghetto had foiled Jewish strategy of engaging Germans in costly hand-to-hand combat.


1943: The German government established Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp for Jews. The camp was located in northwest Germany.  Approximately 40,000 perished there from a variety of forms of inhumane treatment.  Anne Frank died there in March, 1945, a month before the camp was liberated by the allies.



1943: At Dj. Arada, Tunisia, Lance-Corporal John Patrick Kenneally accompanied by a sergeant, charged the enemy forming up for assault, inflicting many casualties. Even when wounded he refused to give up, but hopped from one fire position to another, carrying his gun in one hand and supporting himself on a comrade with the other. He was awarded the VC for bravery for this action. This was a repeat performance for Kenneally who showed similar bravery on April 28.



1943: Birthdate of Ze'ev Boim, a native of Jerusalem who moved from teaching to a career in politics that including servings as the Mayor of Kiryat Gat for 13 years and a member of the Knesset. (As reported by Jonathan Lis)



1943(25th of Nisan, 5703): According to reports, 2,000 Jews being deported to Sobibor attacked their guards.  All of the deportees fell victim to hand grenades and machine gun fire.


1943:A New York Times article published today titled "Hopeful Hint Ends Bermuda Sessions" stated that recommendations which were not capable of being accomplished under war conditions and which would most likely delay the war effort of the United Nations were rejected. [Editor’s Note:The title is a strange one since the conference offered no hope whatsoever to the Jews of Europe.]


1944: Two thousand Jews were deported from Topolya, Hungry to Birkenaus.  This is the second deportation from Hungry to Birkenau.  Once again the Nazis have the Jews write postcards to their family back home telling them not to worry.


1945: In Berlin, Hitler murdered Eva Braun and then committed suicide in his bunker. The bodies are then carried outside and cremated.  Years later, the Soviet government released a report stating that their troops had recovered the charred remains and brought them back for verification.  What finally happened to the bodies is still in dispute although they no longer exist.


1945: The Red Army liberated 23,000 Jews and non-Jews from Ravensbruck. One of the oldest of the camps, it was opened in 1939 just north of Berlin.  It was primarily a camp for women.  In the last two years of its existence 90,000 were killed there.  The camp was noted for its medical experiments in which the inmates were used for experimental purposes.  As the retreating Nazis were forced to shut down the gas chambers in Poland, they built one at Ravenbruck that opened in early 1945.  This puts the lie to the idea that the Final Solution was not an integral part of the Nazi program from start to finish.



1945: Concentration camp München-Allag was liberated.


1945: Soldiers of the 63rd Division (U.S. Army) which was recognized as a liberating unit by the U.S. Army’s Center of Military History and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2000 completed the liberation of seven the eleven Kaufering subcamps.


1946(29th of Nisan, 5706):Seven Jews were murdered by anti-Semitic Poles at Nowy Targ, Poland, very near to where five Jews were killed on April 21


1949(1st of Iyar, 5709): Rosh Chodesh Iyar


1950: A compromise was reached today among competing factions of the trade union movement in Israel that will allow tomorrow’s May Day celebrations to go on as planned.  Histadrut had threatened to cancel the festivities unless the “pro-Soviet minority” agreed to march without banners carrying proclamations that would be offensive to “the western democracies.” 

1952(5th of Iyar, 5712): Yom HaAtzma'ut


1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that in its First of May Day proclamation, the Histadrut Executive will announce that all Palestine Arab workers wishing to do so, will henceforth be admitted to the Histadrut's Trade Unions, as of May 1, 1953.


1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that a gang of Bedouin terrorists mined a bridge on the Nitzana-Beersheba road and opened fire when an army truck was passing by. Nobody was hurt, but the bridge was damaged.


1955: Birthdate of Menachem Mazuz who served as Israeli Attorney General from 2004 to 2010.


1961(14th of Iyar, 5721): Pesach Sheni


1961(14th of Iyar, 5721): Seventy-three year old Israeli political leader Peretz Naftali passed away today.


1963: Founding of Haifa University


1970(24th of Nisan, 5730):Jacques (Jacob) Presser passed away. Born in 1899, he was a Dutch historian, writer and poet best known for his book “Ashes in the wind: The destruction of the Dutch Jews” on the history of the persecution of the Jews in the Netherlands during World War II. Yet he also made a significant contribution to Dutch historical scholarship, as well as to European historical scholarship.


1978: The Jerusalem Post reported that despite Israeli protests and the U.S. Congress pressure, the U.S. President Jimmy Carter reiterated that the joint sale of U.S. jets to Israel, Egypt and Saudi Arabia was in Israel's best interests. He refused, however, to say what his Administration will do if the Congress will veto any part of this three-country package.


1978: The Jerusalem Post reported that Israeli Prime Minister, Menachem Begin, left for Washington on his second successive visit to U.S. and President Carter, in an apparent attempt to resolve the problem of the stalled Israeli-Egyptian peace negotiations.


1978: The Jerusalem Post reported that there were mixed feelings in Israel about the prospects of the third pullback in South Lebanon, moving to the line west, from about six to ten kilometers, from the Israeli border. There was a growing uncertainty whether the UNIFIL, which was filling the gap, would protect Israel from further terrorist activities.


1979: Paul Massing, author of Rehearsal for Destruction: A Study Of Political Anti-Semitism in Imperial Germany  passed away today


1982: An Israeli Cabinet official who received a suspended prison sentence last week for larceny and breach of trust resigned from the Cabinet today. The official, Aharon Abuhazira, Minister of Labor, Welfare and Immigrants Absorption, submitted his letter of resignation to the Prime Minister's office after the Central Committee of his party, Tami, authorized it



1983: “King Hussein of Jordan said today that the United States was partly responsible for the collapse of his talks with the Palestine Liberation Organization on President Reagan's peace plan.”



1985(9th of Iyar, 5745): Mickey Katz passed away.  Born in 1909, Katz was comedian and musician who specialized in Yiddish humor. In his day he was known as what they called "a novelty band leader" i.e. a Jewish Spike Jones.  Katz is also known for being the father of Joel Grey and the grandfather of Jennifer Gray.


1985: Birthdate of Israeli actress and model Gal Gadot who represented Israel in the 2004 Miss Universe Pageant.


1985: A London production of “Follies,” a musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and a book by James Goldman opened at the Forum theatre


1986: The city of Houston declared today Albert Moses Levy Memorial Day, in honor of Jews who participated in the fight for Texas


1986: In Savannah, Georgia, Mary and Ronald S. Agron gave birth to actress Dianna Elise Agron who went to Hebrew School and celebrated her Bat Mitzvah before pursuing her show biz career.


1987: Thomas Friedman reports that an Islamic revival is quickly gaining ground in the most unlikely of places – Israel. “From Israeli Arab villages in the northern Galilee, to the turbulent Palestinian universities in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, to the teeming refugee districts of the Israeli-occupied Gaza Strip, an Islamic revival is taking place among Moslems living under Israeli control. The revival was inspired in part by the Iranian revolution led by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. But it is also a home-grown movement of Palestinian Moslems seeking strength to confront Israel by returning to their classic Islamic identities that once brought them grandeur… What this means for the already intractable Arab-Israeli conflict, said Eli Rekhess, a Tel Aviv University expert on Israeli Arabs, is that future 'coexistence will be that much more difficult and the lines of differences between the two communities that much sharper.’''


1989:Several thousand people, many of them Holocaust survivors and their families, gathered in midtown Manhattan to honor the victims of the Holocaust and to commemorate the anniversary of the Warsaw ghetto uprising in which Polish Jews fought the Nazis in 1943. Speaking in Yiddish to the nearly 5,000 people who were present, Rabbi Israel Lau, the chief rabbi of Tel Aviv, told of his liberation as an 8-year-old boy from the Nazi concentration camp at Buchenwald in Germany.

 
1990(5thof Iyar, 5750): Yom HaAtzma’ut


1996(11th of Iyar, 5756): David Opatoshu passed away. Born in 1918, David Opatoshu began his stage career in New York's Yiddish theatre in the late 1930s. Though he worked extensively in English-language plays, films and TV programs, the scholarly looking Opatoshu never completely severed his ties with his roots. His first film was the all-Yiddish "The Light Ahead” (1939) from 1941 through 1945, he delivered the news in Yiddish on New York radio station WEVD; in the 1970s, he was directing and starring in ethnic stage productions; and in 1985, he narrated a documentary film on the Yiddish theatre in America, "Almonds and Raisins".  Opatoshu appeared in numerous films and television productions frequently playing the part of the Communist or some other vaguely eastern European intellectual villain.  Two of his more memorable performances were in the film Exodusin 1960 and Masada in 1981. 


1996(11th of Iyar, 5756):  President Clinton and Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres signed an accord in Washington extending U.S. help to Israel in countering terrorism



1998(4th of Iyar, 5758): Yom HaAtzma'ut – Fiftieth Anniversary of Israeli Independence. The fifth of Iyyar fell on a Friday in 5758 which precluded celebrating the holiday on the technically correct date.


2000: The New York Times included reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Collaborator: The Trial and Execution of Robert Brasillachby Alice Kaplan and the recently released paperback edition of The Last Kabbalist of Lisbon by Richard Zimler a novel in which a young follower of the mystical Jewish tradition tries to track down his uncle's killer in 16th-century Lisbon.


2001: Cookbook author Joan Nathan received the Who's Who of Food and Beverage in America award for lifetime achievement from the James Beard Foundation. Acclaimed cookbook author Joan Nathan found her way to food writing from a very different, if related, field. Armed with a master's degree in French Literature, she took a job as foreign press officer to Jerusalem mayor Teddy Kolleck. Inspired by his habit of conducting meetings over meals, Nathan wrote and published her first cookbook, The Flavor of Jerusalemin 1975. The success of Nathan's first book was followed by the publication of The Jewish Holiday Kitchen in 1979, An American Folklife Cookbook in 1984, and Jewish Cooking in America in 1994. Jewish Cooking in Americawas an instant hit, winning both the Julia Child Best Cookbook Award and the James Beard Award for Best American Cookbook. In addition to writing cookbooks, Nathan helped found New York City's Ninth Avenue Food Festival. In March, 2001, Nathan published The Foods of Israel Today, which contains recipes from Muslim and Christian as well as Jewish traditions. Nathan is the host of the PBS television show Jewish Cooking in America with Joan Nathan, based on her award-winning book. The show combines recipes, history, and visits to chefs. Nathan contributes articles to Bon Appétit, Food & Wine, Cooking Light, Hadassah Magazine, and the New York Times. Joan Nathan's Jewish Holiday Cookbook (2004) combines and updates the earlier Jewish Holiday Baker (1997) and Jewish Holiday Kitchen (1979). In 2005, Nathan utilized the research for her new book The New American Cooking: An American Folklife Cookbook in her role as guest curator of Food Culture USA at the 2005 Smithsonian Folklife Festival. The New American Cooking won the 2006 International Association of Culinary Professionals Cookbook Award in the American category.


2002: Beginning today, the Batsheva Dance Company from Israel is scheduled to perform the American premiere of ''Naharin's Virus,'' an adaptation of a 1996 play by the German writer Peter Handke. The music for the dance, which had its premiere in Tel Aviv last year, is adapted from traditional Arabic folk music by Habib Alla Jamal, Shama Khader and Karni Postel


2003(28thof Nisan, 5763): Ran Baron, 24; Dominque Caroline Hass, 29 and Yanai Weiss, 46 were murdered and dozens more wounded including Keith Trowbridge, 37 and Avi Tabib, the security guard, when a terrorist working for Fatah Tanzim and Hamas blew himself up at Mike’s Place a popular Tel Aviv Restaurant. The murderer was part of a group of three British Muslims who came to Israel to kill Jews.


2003:The Israeli president, Moshe Katzav and his Polish counterpart, Aleksander Kwasniewski, led 3,000 people from around the world in a ''March of the Living'' through the gate to Auschwitz -- the words ''Arbeit macht frei'' mean ''Work makes you free'' -- and to the nearby twin camp at Birkenau. The march was to mourn Jews killed at the death camp in World War II and commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising. Among the marchers was Norman Frejman, 72, of Florida, who as a child survived the Warsaw Ghetto, deportation to the Majdanek death camp and slave labor in Germany. ''I am getting old,'' he said, ''so I had to come here to see it once again. This is hallowed ground.''


2006: The New York Times featured books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including High Lonesome: New & Selected Stories 1966-2006 by Joyce Carol Oates, Politics Lost: How American Democracy Was Trivialized by People Who Think You're Stupid by Joe Klein and Family and Other Accidents by Shari Goldhagen.


2006(2nd of Iyyar, 5766): Paul Spiegel leader of the Central Council of Jews, Germany’s main Jewish organization, passed away.


2007: At the Jewish Museum of Florida an exhibit styled “Bonim: Jewish Developers Building Florida & Building Community”comes to end. “From swampland to cities, this exhibit highlights the enormous impact of Florida’s Jews on one of the state’s leading industries.” The exhibit demonstrates that starting in 1820 when Moses Levy began purchasing 100,000 acres in north central Florida, Jews have played a major role in transforming Florida from the region’s least populated state into one of the nation’s largest states.  


2007: The Jewish Heritage Center of Western Canada presents a lecture by Dr. Deborah Lipstadt which is based on her experiences during the David Irving Libel Trial.  Her bookHistory on Tiral: My Day In Court with David Irving is the story of her libel trial in London against David Irving who sued her for calling him a Holocaust denier and right wing extremist.


2008: Famed Yiddish actress Esta Saltzman who lived in Manhattan for over 40 years before passing away, will be buried today in a family plot at the Knollwood Park Cemetery.


2008: An exhibition style“Zap, Pow, Bam Super Heroes of the Golden Age of Comics at the Jewish Museum of Florida comes to a close.


2008: The Jerusalem Cinematheque presents a screening of The House on August Street” which depicts the untold story of Beate Berger who founded the “Beith Ahawah Kinderheim” in Berlin in 1922 for needy Jewish children and then saved “her” children from Nazi Germany through a unique rescue operation that ended with her bringing the children to the new “Ahawah” home she built in the Haifa Bay.


2008:As part of the annual Yom Hashoah observance in Iowa City, the University of Iowa Hillel Chapter presentsProfessor Ronald Berger who will speak about "Surviving the Holocaust: One Family's Story".

2008:“Reparations Ethics: The War Continues,” aired on Israeli. The film criticized the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany for misspending funds and for being unresponsive and insensitive to the suffering of aging Holocaust survivors. The Claims Conference, which negotiates and distributes payments to Holocaust survivors, promptly countered that the filmmakers’ attacks were inaccurate. The film, produced by journalists Orly Vilnai-Federbush and Guy Maroz, was the latest salvo in an increasingly heated battle over compensation to Holocaust survivors in Israel.



2009: Goldwin Smith’s Anti-Semitism Fuels Anger by Danielle Davis, exposing the professor’s views on Jews was published today.
http://cornellsun.com/section/news/content/2009/04/30/goldwin-smith%E2%80%99s-anti-semitism-fuels-anger



2009(6th of Iyar, 5769): Mark I. Levy, a fifty-nine year-old lawyer with an Atlanta-based firm who was about to lose his job because of the economy was found dead in his Washington office. Police speculated that the cause was a self-inflicted gunshot wound.  The fate of the Yale law school graduate should serve as warning to all of us in these perils of these uncertain economic times.



2009: The 92ndStreet Y presents “The Borowitz Report: Obama’s First 100 Days” in which Award-winning comedian and satirist Andy Borowitz, and a panel including Hendrick Hertzberg, Jonathan Alter  and Judy Gold take an irreverent look at President Obama's first 100 days in office

2009: Brooklyn College Hillel sponsors an Israel Street Fair celebrating Israel Independence Day.



2009: In Washington, D.C., Pulitzer Prize-winning illustrator Jules Feiffer reads and discusses Which Puppy a children’s picture book he recently co-authored with his daughter Kate.



2009: In Texas, Heroes and Legacies sponsors “The Kinky Friedman Cigar Event” featuring five Kinky Friedman Cigars including The Governor, Kinkycristo, The Willie, Texas Jewboy and the Utopian



2010 President Barack Obama proclaimed the month of May as Jewish American Heritage Month. Below is the full text of his proclamation.



 In 1883, the Jewish American poet Emma Lazarus composed a sonnet, entitled “The New Colossus,” to help raise funds for erecting the Statue of Liberty.  Twenty years later, a plaque was affixed to the completed statue, inscribed with her words:  “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free….”  These poignant words still speak to us today, reminding us of our Nation’s promise as a beacon to all who are denied freedom and opportunity in their native lands. Our Nation has always been both a haven and a home for Jewish Americans.  Countless Jewish immigrants have come to our shores seeking better lives and opportunities, from those who arrived in New Amsterdam long before America’s birth, to those of the past century who sought refuge from the horrors of pogroms and the Holocaust.  As they have immeasurably enriched our national culture, Jewish Americans have also maintained their own unique identity.  During Jewish American Heritage Month we celebrate this proud history and honor the invaluable contributions Jewish Americans have made to our Nation.



The Jewish American story is an essential chapter of the American narrative.  It is one of refuge from persecution; of commitment to service, faith, democracy, and peace; and of tireless work to achieve success.  As leaders in every facet of American life—from athletics, entertainment, and the arts to academia, business, government, and our Armed Forces—Jewish Americans have shaped our Nation and helped steer the course of our history.  We are a stronger and more hopeful country because so many Jews from around the world have made America their home.



Today, Jewish Americans carry on their culture’s tradition of “tikkun olam”—or “to repair the world”—through good deeds and service.  As they honor and maintain their ancient heritage, they set a positive example for all Americans and continue to strengthen our Nation.



NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim May 2010 as Jewish American Heritage Month.  I call upon all Americans to observe this month with appropriate programs, activities, and ceremonies to celebrate the heritage and contributions of Jewish Americans.



IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this thirtieth day of April, in the year two thousand ten, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and thirty-fourth.



 



                                                      The Twist



 



 … President Obama has made a subtle, symbolic gesture that some would say demonstrates uncommon sensitivity to the Jewish community. Thanks to the New Jersey Jewish News for this story, which reports that President Obama removed the standard phrase “in the year of our Lord” from a proclamation welcoming May as Jewish Heritage Month. As the newspaper reports, previous similar proclamations — by Obama, George Bush, and Bill Clinton — all included the standard line affixed at the end, pegging the missive’s date to the birth of Jesus Christ … Obama, in praising Jews for their unique contributions to American culture, took the extra step of taking it out this time. This may not sit well with “the our-country-is-a-Christian-nation crowd” and it may seem like a small thing, but it shows a certain level of sensitivity if not outright political courage. There are those who think that Jewish community should be more outspoken in acknowledging this, and in voicing appreciation.”



2010: The Los Angeles Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including “If You Knew Suzy: ‘A Mother, A Daughter, A Reporter’s Notebook’” by Katherine Rosman.



2010: An exhibit sponsored by the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research styled “One Foot in America: The Jewish Emigrants of the Red Star Line and Eugeen Van Mieghem,” is scheduled to come to a close today. The exhibit  tells the story of the Red Star shipping line, focusing on the lives of emigrants--the reasons they fled, their arrival in Antwerp and their experience with the city's Jewish community, their living conditions onboard the ships, and their hopes and dreams, is scheduled to close at the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research



2011: Today is reported to be the deadline for the Lincoln Square Synagogue to raise an additional $3 million in pledges so that can receive $20 million from an anonymous donor who has offered to give the money to this leading New York Orthodox synagogue so that it can continue construction of its new building which had been halted to due financial problems.



2011: Beth Chaverim Reform Congregation is scheduled to present a Yom Ha'Shoah Music Program featuring Brian Nedvin, tenor and Assistant Professor at Old Dominion University who “will present a combination of lecture, images, and songs to educate and remind us of our obligation to never forget those lost during the Holocaust.”



2011:Naomi Shilyansky is scheduled to be called to the Torah as a Bat Mitzvah at Agudas Achim in Iowa City, IA.



2011(26thof Nisan, 5771):Ben Masel, who campaigned for decades for the legalization of marijuana, among other causes, died today in his hometown of Madison, Wisconsin (As reported by the Eulogizer)



2012: Deidre Berger is scheduled to take part in a Q&A following a screening of “Jealous of the Birds,” a documentary about the 15,000 Holocaust survivors who stayed in Germany, at the Westchester Jewish Film Festival.



2012: It was announced that Raviv Ullman had joined the cast of Alena Smith's new Off-Broadway play “The Bad Guys.”



2012:International Workshop on Holocaust Testimonies: Truth and Witness is scheduled to begin at the Wiener Library in UK.



2012: In Hawaii, "From Zion A Voice to the Nations” is scheduled to host a coffee hour with former Governor Linda Lingle who is running for the U.S. Senate.



2012(8thof Iyar, 5772): Historian Benzion Netanyahu passed away today at the age of 102.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/01/world/middleeast/benzion-netanyahu-dies-at-102.html?hpw



2013: “Steal a Pencil for Me” an opera that chronicles Jack and Ina Polak’s romance as well as life in Westerbork and Begen-Belsen is scheduled to be performed at the Jewish Theological Seminary.



2013: The Historic Sixth & I Synagogue is scheduled to host its noon-time “Food for Thought” with Rabbi Yosef Edelstein helping attendees “to digest” Jewish ethics, Jewish mysticism and Jewish philosophy



2013(20thof Iyar, 5773): Friends and family remembered Evyatar Borowsky as a joker, a hardy settler, and a devoted husband and father Tuesday evening as they gathered to bury the 31-year-old victim of a terror attack at a West Bank junction earlier in the day.



2013: An IAF aircraft on Gaza this morning assassinated a senior Salafist terror activist who was reportedly behind an April 17 rocket attack on Eilat from the Sinai
2013(20thof Iyar, 5773): Eighty-seven year old  French author Viviane Forrester passed away today.



http://forward.com/articles/176721/who-was-afraid-of-viviane-forrester/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Saturday-and-Sunday_Daily_Newsletter%202013-05-18&utm_source=Sailthru&utm_term=The%20Forward%20Today%20%28Monday-Friday%29



2013:Three fires broke out in the Lachish region today, destroying an estimated 20,000 dunams.



2013: Newly installed Pope Francis accepted an invitation from President Shimon Peres to visit Israel, as the two leaders held their first meeting today.



2014(30thof Nisan, 5774): Rosh Chodesh Nisan


2014: The Center for Jewish History is scheduled to a panel discussion entitled “New Perspectives on Jewish Refuges and Migrants after World War II.”


2014: Shaaray Tefila and J Street are scheduled to host an evening with IDF veterans Oded Na’aman and Yoav Litvin.


2014: “Disobedience: The Sousa” is scheduled to be shown at the JCC Rockland International Jewish Film Festival.

This Day, May 1, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. Levin

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May 1


305:  Due to age and ill health and a desire to provide stability for the Roman Empire Diocletian resigned as Emperor of Rome.  Relatively speaking, Diocletian’s reign was a positive period for the Jews.  Diocletian was not overly concerned with his Jewish subjects since he was much concerned about controlling the Christians whom he regarded as a source of major instability in the Empire. From his point of view their contempt for Roman state religion and zealous proselytizing made them enemies of the empire. The Jews posed no such threat.  Therefore, he exempted them from the requirement to include national sacrifices in their services. The decrees of Diocletian are actually recorded in the Talmud.  According to some Diocletian lived in Palestine as a youth and was a swineherd.  As Emperor he visited Palestine at which time enemies of the Jews told him that he was mocked by the Jews for working with pigs.  When confronted with this, the Jewish leaders allegedly told him that while they may have made jokes about swineherds (something they regretted) they never made jokes about an Emperor.  This must have assuaged Diocletian’s anger because no reprisals were taken against the Jews.  It should be noted that Palestine suffered economically during this time, but that was as a result of the general impoverishment of the region and not as a result of anti-Jewish policies.  Diocletian looks especially good when you remember that the reign of Constantine is just over the horizon.



1160: Bishop William of Beziers, France, who was appalled by the custom of beating of Jews during Palm Sunday, issued an order excommunicating Priests who did so. Beziers was the home to many Albigensians and was one of the more liberal, open cities in France. The Albigensians would be labeled heretics by the Roman Catholic Church.  Some times during the Middle Ages, areas that were hospitable to those quarreling with Rome provided some sort of comfort for Jews who might have otherwise been subject to persecution.


1218: Birthdate of King Rudolf I whose subjects included Meir of Rothenburg who was born three years before the monarch and who bring additional persecution to the Jews of his realm.


1338: Louis the Bavarian “informed the council of Worms that the Jews of that city were bound by agreement to pay the sum of 2,000 gulden toward the king's contemplated expedition against France, and that, if necessary, force might be employed in collecting this sum.”


1339: A party that included John of Marignola, who would report on his conversations with Jews in China, stopped in Constantinople before going on to The Middle Kingdom.”


1572: Pius V, the Pope who expelled Talmudist Gedaliah ibn Yahya ben Joseph and the rest of the Jews from Imola, Italy passed away.  The expulsion cost him 10,000 gold pieces but he overcame the hardship to write the Sefer Shalshelet ha-Ḳabbalah before dying in Alexandria in 1587.


1707: The Act of Union joins the Kingdom of England and Kingdom of Scotland to form the Kingdom of Great Britain. While Jews had been expelled from England in 1290 and readmitted under Cromwell in the middle of the 17th century, Jews had been living in Scotland without interruption, possibly since Roman Times, but certainly since the 12th century. According Jewish-Scottish scholar David Daiches ,“there are grounds for saying that Scotland is the only European country which has no history of state persecution of Jews.”  By the time that the Act of Union became law, Jews were attending and teaching at Edinburg University.  Within a decade and a half after the Act of Union, there were 20,000 Jews living in Glassgow.


1769: Birthdate of Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington.  Wellington’s claim to fame is his victory over the French. It was in this role that he found the Jews most helpful since Nathan Rothschild had provided the financial backing for the Iron Duke’s campaign against the French in Spain at a time when nobody else would risk the funds. Few people remember that the Duke, like other war heroes entered politics, serving as Prime Minister in the 1820’s and 1830’s.  It was here that betrayed those Jews who had supported him by defeating the attempts at Jewish emancipation first when he served in the House of Commons and then, even more viciously when he served in the House of Lords. The Duke had been able to support a bill emancipating seven million English Roman Catholics but he could not bring himself to do the same for thirty thousand English Jews.


1732:George Frideric Handel’s “Esther” which was based on the Biblical heroine and was the first English oratorio premiered at King’s Theatre in London.  Handel drew on Biblical tales for many of his oratorios.


1799: In Prussia, Alexander Wolff and his wife gave birth to their second son, Michael, who would become Michael Solomon Alexander, the convert who became the first Anglican Bishop in Jerusalem.


1805: Königsberg merchant, Gerson Jacoby, and his wife, Lea Jonas gave birth to Prussian socialist leader Johann Jacoby.


1808: Birthdate of Sir Henry Francis Goldsmid, who "after receiving careful instruction, was called to the Bar in Hilary term, 1833 making him the first Jew who ever obtained that distinction in Great Britain.”


1817: Birthdate of Karl Isidor Beck the native of Baja, Hungary who became a noted Austrian poet.


1849(9th of Iyar, 5609): Isaac Bernays, Chief Rabbi in Hambrug, passed away.Born in 1792 at Mayence he completed his studies at the University of Würzburg, where he had been also a disciple of the well-known Talmudist R. Abraham Bing. Then he went to Munich as private tutor in the house of Herr von Hirsch, and afterward lived at Mayence as a private scholar. In 1821 he was elected chief rabbi of the German-Jewish community in Hamburg, to fill a position where a man of strictly Orthodox views but of modern education was wanted as head of the congregation. After personal negotiations with Lazarus Riesser (father of Gabriel Riesser), who went to see him in Mayence, Bernays accepted the office on characteristic terms; namely, that all the religious and educational institutions of the community were to be placed under his personal direction; he wanted to be responsible to the government only. Besides this he required a fixed salary, independent of incidental revenues, and wished to be called "clerical functionary" or "ḥakam," as the usual titles, "moreh ẓedeḳ" or "rabbi" did not seem to him highly esteemed at that time. (Based on an article in the Jewish Encyclopedia)


1852: In Great Britain, the Court Exchequer fined Mr. Salomons, the elected Member of Parliament from Greenwich, was fined for voting against the law that excluded the Jews from sitting in the House of Commons.  Apparently he was found guilty of three separate violations since the court imposed three separate fines, of 500 pounds each. 


1853: Birthdate of Jacob Michailovitch Gordin “a Russian-born American playwright active in the early years of Yiddish theater” who was “known for introducing realism and naturalism into Yiddish theater.”


1855: The New York Times reported that the American Hebrew Christian Assoication had issued a public invitation to all converted Jews to attend a meeting at the Asbury Methodist Episcopal Church in Manhattan on the evening of May 10th.


1855: Students at the Union Theological Seminary began taking their final exams today.  One of the subjects in which they will be tested during the next week is the Hebrew Language.


1858: According to reports published today the Jews of Philadelphia have established a Permanent Hebrew Relief Association.


1860: Today’s “City Intelligence” column reported that Giacomo Meyerbeer is a favorite of New York opera goers.  His principal works have been received with enthusiasm, and although inordinately expensive to produce -- when compared with others of the Italian repertoire equally celebrated -- have never failed to pay a handsome dividend to the enterprising manager who produced them.” Meyerbeer was German-Jewish opera composer.


1860: Today’s “City Intelligence” column described the performance of Fromental Halévy’s “La Juive” (The Jewess) at the Winter Garden Theatre. After providing a detailed description of each act the reviewer concluded “It is seldom that a work of such pretension receives fair treatment on a first night, and we do not assert unqualifiedly that even in this instance it did so, but there cannot be a doubt that in all the essentials of good management and liberal desire to praise, there was successful effort, and a most cordial response. If incessant applause means anything, it surely guarantees a long run for the "Jewess." A triumph more complete, in all that makes a triumph pleasing, has never been put on record.”


1863:In common with the rest of their fellow-citizens, the Israelites assembled in their respective places of worship and carried out the precepts of the President's Proclamation. Most of the Synagogues were opened and he Psalms appointed to be read on penitential days, read on the occasion.


A very eloquent address was delivered by Rabbi Morris J. Raphal, at the Greene-street Synagogue. He remarked that it was a curious coincidence that on this, a fast day appointed by their own religious observances, they met in compliance with the Proclamation of the President of the United States, to fast and pray. He had been in this country fourteen years. During the first ten years no public proclamation had ever directed their thoughts and feelings to humiliation and fasting. Once in every year the highest functionary in every State proclaimed a day of general thanksgiving, and with that the debt of national gratitude was supposed to be paid. But now the rulers of the nation come year after year and call upon the people to weary Heaven with fruitless professions of a penitence they did not feel, and of a humility they did not practice. These proclamations fast days, on which no one fasts, are but the repetition of those so strongly reproved by the prophet Isaiah; and, though the people dare not put his questions, "Wherefore do we fast and Thou seest it not? Afflict our souls and Thou will not notice it!" -- since in reality the people do neither -- still the answer would stand good. "Because while you profess humiliation, you persist in your arrogance and your extortions do not cease." If ever a people needed to humble itself before God -- if ever fasting and prayer, sack cloth and ashes were to be worn -- it was by the people of these United States. Like our fathers, the Israelites of old, for whom pious Nekeiniah made such fervent supplication, the people of this country are justly amenable to his confession made for Israel: "In their dominions, in all the great prosperity Thou didst bestow upon them, and throughout the large and rich land which Thou gavest unto them, they did not serve Thee, neither turned they from their evil deeds." The preacher then drew a parallel between the sins of the Israelites, which called forth the reproof of the preacher, and the past conduct of this nation, which was equally amenable to the words of the inspired prophet.


What were they to say for the citizens of the United States who already and so long possess the two greatest earthly blessings, Education and Freedom, and yet make so bad a use of both. Education should be the guardian of freedom and of virtue, it was the birthright of every American, bestowed on all and withheld from none. But what principles did it actually inculcate -what virtues did it really teach? Did it inculcate respect for free institutions? Answer, ye place-hunters, ye ballot-box stuffers, ye shoulder-hitters, who reduce self-government to a disgusting farce. Did it teach patriotism? Answer, ye spoils-men, ye office-teekers and holders, who cement party lines with the cohesive force of public plunder. Did it teach common honesty? Answer, ye peculators and speculators, who fatten on the blood of the hard-worked masses, and who dignify roguery by the name of smartness. His heart ached as he spoke to them of the effects of perverted education; it would ache still more were he to direct attention to the bitter fruits of abused freedom. He need not remind them that while the best men North and South had long been driven aloof from the affairs of the country, demagogues, fanatics and a party Press had so managed matters that they found themselves in the third year of a destructive but needless sectional war, which has armed brother against brother, consigned hundreds of thousands to an untimely grave, and to ruin and devastation tens of thousands of square miles of flourishing and happy land; and what was worse than all this, while humanity weeps we must suppress our sympathy. However, our hearts may yearn for peace and brotherly love, our reason convinces us that the present is not the time to expect, or even to hope for the cessation of blood. On the contrary, though we may detest the cause and course of events, it is our duty loyally to stand by our section of the country, to maintain her quarrel and defend her rights, while we have the consolation to know that our side did not begin the fray, and that the cause of Union was the worthiest in the field.


"The preacher concluded his address with a fervent prayer.


1864: Joseph Seligman and his brothers founded J & W Seligman & Co.


1864: In an article entitled, “The City Cars and General Goods Delivery,” the author’s complaints about the about the crowded, smelly conditions on the city’s public include the statement that “immediate contact with a huge pile of superannuated Hebrew clothing stock is not desirable at any time: it is most undesirable in overheated and overcrowded cars.”  The author then goes on to compare the aroma with that found in packages of partially dried codfish and, strangely enough, joints of half cured pork.


1869: In a classic American success story, J & W Seligman & Co was admitted to the New York Stock Exchange. Joseph Seligman, the founder of the firm had arrived from Bavaria in 1837 “with $100 dollars in the lining of his trousers. By 1860, he and his brothers, who started as itinerant peddlers” had entered the investment banking business.  During the Civil War, they played a leading role in selling United States Government securities to Europeans which helped to finance the Union victory.  By the end of the decade, the Seligman’s had branches in London, Paris, Frankfort, New Orleans and San Francisco.  The brothers would take a leading role in financing the boom in railroads and in supporting Jewish charitable endeavors.


1870: It was reported today that the late Dr. George Frick, a resident of Baltimore, bequeathed $1,000.00 to the Hebrew Society of Baltimore.


1870: According to a report published today, Michael Isaacs and Isaac Goldstein, two Jewish packpeddlers who had been indicted on charges of rape were found guilty and sentenced to ten years in prison by the Suffolk County court in New York.


1873: In Vienna, opening of the World’s Fair where the Illés Relief is a 1:500 scale model of Jerusalem by Stephen Illés “two wooden models of the Temple Mount” built by Conrad Schick were displayed.


1876: Establishment of Children of Israel Synagogue in the eastern part of Des Moines, Iowa.


1876: During the fiscal year that ended today the United Hebrew Charities “gave away 754 tons of coal, 716 pairs of shoes and 1,625 women’s and children’s garments”


1879: Birthdate of David M. Bressler, the son of Julius and Sarah Rothenberg Bressler, who attended City College, JTS and the New York Law School. He was widely known for his activities in Jewish, State and municipal relief and in charity organizations.  His work with the Removal Office was aimed at diverting the flow of Jewish immigrants from eastern cities to areas in the South and the Mid-West and providing them funds and training to acclimate them to their new homes.


1869: Today’s issue of the French Jewish review “Archives Israélites,” published by Isidore Cahen, announced the marriage of Alphonse Hirsch, the painter of chief rabbiLazar Isidor, to Henriette Perugia. The notice adds that Perugia’s sister was married to Arthur Sassoon of the wealthy Sassoon family. (Based on reports from the Forward)


1880(20thof Iyar, 5640): Sixty-three year old French composer Samuel Naumbourg who was the chazzan and reader at Besançon and directed the choir at the synagogue Strasburg before moving to Paris in 1845 where he officiated atthe synagogue of the Rue Notre-Dame de Nazareth at Paris and became professor of liturgical music at the Séminaire Israélite passed away today.


1880: During the fiscal year ending today, the United Hebrew Charities had raised over $58, 00 of which almost $47,000 was spent in meeting the needs of 27,915 applicants for service.


1880: While visiting Freiburg, Germany, Texas banker Morris Lasker and Nettie Davis Lasker gave birth to Albert Davis Lasker who would leave his mark on the world of advertising as a partner of Lord & Thomas.


1880: According to a report from a Berlin correspondent, “all the Jews of foreign birth” have been given six hours to leave St. Petersburg, the Russian capital.


1881: It was reported today that the “Alliance Israelite Universelle” is extending its work among the Jews of the Orient.  In the past six months, Alliance has opened 9 schools in the Ottoman Empire.  All told the Alliance is supporting 33 schools serving a total of 6,300 pupils.  Sixty-eight thousand francs have been raised towards the establishment of primary and professional schools in Palestine.


1881: The funeral of Isaac Hendricks, a member of the prominent Hendricks family, is scheduled to take place today at the New York home of his brother-in-law, H.S. Henry.


1882: “Beaconsfield’s Birthday” published today described British reaction to the anniversary of the birth of Lord Beaconsfield who passed away last year.  Admirers wore the primrose, the favorite flower of the late Benjamin Disraeli.


1882: It was reported today that General Nicholai Ignatief has issued a denial of claims that the anti-Jewish violence is the result of a lack of action by the government.  Furthermore, the violence has been limited to Balta and was started by the Jews who were seeking “revenge for an insult to a Jew by a Christian child.”


1882: Amid reports that Jews are living Vilna en mass, two hundred families are to leave for America today.


1882(12thof Iyar, 5642): Anglo-Jewish architect David Mocatta passed away.  Born in 1806, he designed the Montefiore Synagogue, the Brighton Regency Synagogue and the stations for the London and Brighton Railway.


1883: Israel Lewy who had succeeded David Joël as "Seminarrabbiner" began serving as chair of Talmudic Literature at Jewish Theological Seminary of Breslau


1884: The Hebrew Technical Institute moved from 206 East Broadway to 129 Crosby Street.  The Institute had occupied the Broadway facility since January of 1884 when it opened with 24 pupils.


1885: It was reported today that the late Isaac Vogel had made bequests of $1,000 each to the Young Men’s Hebrew Association, the United Hebrew Charities, the Montefiore Home for Chronic Invalids, Mount Sinai Hospital, the Hebrew Orphan Asylum and the Hebrew Free School Association.


1886:  The Moses Montefiore Congregation bought property at 160 East One Hundred and Sixteenth Street which was the site of a Baptist Church.  Plans to use the structure for a synagogue came to naught when it was determined that the building was unsuitable for that purpose and that it would be too small for the number of congregants who would be using the synagogue.


1886: The American Federation of Labor, led by it’s newly elected President, Samuel Gompers, strikes on a nationwide basis in an attempt to secure an eight hour day.


1887: Birthdate of Felix Rosenblüth, who as Pinchas Rosen was Israel’s first Minister of Justice.


1889(30th of Nisan, 5649): Rosh Chodesh Iyar


1890: The United Hebrew Trades Union is one of several organizations taking part in today’s march sponsored by the American Federation of Labor in support of an 8 hour work day.


1890: Following a fortnight of attacks on Jewish shops in outlying provinces, Austrian authorities fear that there will be a May Day attacks on Jews throughout the empire including Vienna.


1890: An unnamed anarchist has called for May Day attacks in Paris including the assassination of the Rothschilds.


1890: The old Hebrew Orphan Asylum building on 77th street is going to converted into a public school that should accommodate 1,200 children.


1890: Members of the American Federation of Labor, the union organization headed by Samuel Gompers will be taking part in a large demonstration this evening in support of the eight work day.


1891: The International Cloak Makers Union of America was founded today.  Among the delegates attending the meeting was Benjamin Schlesinger, a delegate from Chicago who would become the business manager of Local 5 in Chicago.


1891: Oscar Hammerstein held a reception for newspaper men in which he discussed his plans to build a new opera house in New York.


1891: Approximately 4,000 Jewish who work in the clothing trades held a pro-union parade on the east side of New York.


1891: Alexander Becce, a Russian Jew “a native of the town of Byzlik  received a notice from the government that he must either leave the country within thirty days or be exiled together with his family to Siberia for life on his account of his religion.”
 
1891: As of today, 142 people were residing at the Home for Aged and Infirm Hebrews.


1892(4thof Iyar, 5652): Rabbi Joseph Dov Soloveichik passed away


1892(4thof Iyar, 5652): Abraham L. Grabfelder who was born in Bavaria 53 years ago and was the General Southern Agent of the Manhattan Life Insurance Company for twenty wand who was a Director of the Sanitarium for Hebrew Children passed away today.


1892: “Young Hebrew Gymnasts” published today described a demonstration of physical skills by members of the Young Men’s Hebrew Association and the Young Woman’s Hebrew Association, the latter of whom showed their skills with dumbbells.  The youngsters were coached by Professor Herman Weber.


1892 When the fiscal year of the Home for Aged and Infirm Homes ended today the charity had receipts of $66,113.01 while having made expenditures of $37, 783.80 leaving a balance of $28,329.21.


1892: “Art and Literature Abroad” published today included the note that “the result of Mr. Joseph Pennell’s visit to Russia will be published under the title The Jew At Home: Impression of a Summer and Winter Spent With Him.


1892: “For A New Clubhouse” published today described the plans of the Columbia Club, the lead Jewish social organization in Harlem to build a new facility on 127thStreet and 5th Avenue. The club paid $50,000 for this new location.


1893: “As A German Knows Bismarck” published today verified “Prince Bismarck’s statement that he was never a friend of the Jews” and that as Junker, he was “an enemy of everything that was liberal” which meant that he “disliked Catholics and workmen.”


1893: Among the books that will be published Putnam and Sons is The Jews of Angevin England by Joseph Jacobs


1893: According to “Literary Notes” published today A Study of the Jews in Medieval England compiles by Joseph Jacobs is “among the book on the announcement list of the Putnams.


1893: “A New Rabbi for Baith Israel” published today described the changes at the synagogue at Street and Boerum Place where Rabbi Marcus Friedlander who moved to Oakland to take the pulpit at Temple Sinai has been replaced by Rabbi Joseph Taubenhaus who is the brother of chess champion of Jacob Taubenhaus and the brother of the rabbi at Congregation Beth Elhoim


1894: Council No. 3 of the Council of Jewish Women was formed in Baltimore, MD with a membership of 115 led by Mrs. Bertha Rayner Frank as President and Miss Rose Summerfield as Secretary.


1894: At today’s May Day Parade the contingent of United Hebrew Trades that included “400 young women” led by Dora Levine” were greeted by cheers


1895:  A lease was signed for a building at Mott Avenue and 149th Street which was to the home for the Hebrew Infant Asylum.


1895: The contingent from the United Hebrew Trades marching in today’s Labor Day Parade were life “by fifty members of the Mineral and Soda Water Makers’ Union on horseback wearing white jackets and red sashes.”  (For “2 cents-plain made by Jewish union workers?)


1895: This evening Isidor Bader of 208 Madison Street in New York City received “a letter written Hebrew” saying that the mother of the little mute boy whom an unknown couple had left with Bader earlier in the day, was dead and that his father was unable to provide for him.


1895: “Nathaniel S. Rosnau, Superintendent of the United Hebrew Charities gave a talk on practical philanthropy to the Council of Jewish Women at Temple Emanu-El.”


1897: “Turks Still Advancing” published today described the Ottoman capture of Larissa from the Greeks.  The Jews had remained at Larissa since they expected to be protected by the Turks.


1897: “Home For Working Girls” published today described the establishment of the Clara de Hirsch Home for Working Girls.  The home is the first manifestation of aid for Russian Jews in America by possible by the $2,000,000 bequest from the Hirsch family.


1898: “Rabbi Grossman Approves the War” published described the views on the Spanish-American War of the leader of Temple Rudolph Sholom who “said that if a war was waged for a holy cause it was this one.”


1898: Joseph Baroness, the socialist leader and the Grand Marshall of last night’s proposed parade surprised authorities by agreeing to call of the parade to avoid the threat of violence.  He also said that he never intended to criticize the United States for the war with Spain.  He said that it was “a just war and if there is anyone who sympathizes with Spain we don’t want him in our parade.


1898: “Russian Jews Will Enlist” published today described the Jewish response to the Spanish-American War including  seventy Jewish Russian from the east side of New York who have signed enlistment, the  papers, the carpentry class from the Jewish trade school that has volunteered and the Jewish farmers from the Hirsch Colony of Woodbine, NJ, many of whom served in the Russian Army, who have enlisted.


1899: Myer S. Isaacs, President of the Hirsch Fund has read about the bequest of the late Baroness Hirsch in the newspapers but has received no official communication on this matter.


1899: Dr. Lee K. Frankel of Philadelphia, PA, is scheduled to officially assume his duties as the manager of the United Hebrew Charities in New York. A native of Philadelphia who holds both a B.S. and a Ph. D. from the University of Pennsylvania, Frankel is secretary of Rodef Shalom, Vice President of the Baron de Hirsch Committee and Director of the Jewish Chautauqua Society.


1899: After twenty-three years of service, Dr. Herman Baar will be stepping down as superintendent of the Hebrew Orphan Asylum effective June, 1.


1899: “Hirsch Memorial Services” published today described plans the several New York Jewish charitable institutions are making to honor the memory of the late Baroness Hirsch.


1899(21stof Iyar, 5659): Joel Deutsch who had been principal of school for deaf-mutes established in Nikolsburg and moved to Vienna in 1852 passed away today.


1900: In Konitz, a county in the province of Prussia, Germany, a blood accusation occurred after the death of a local student. Wolf Israelski was accused and arrested, while Count Plucker promoted riots against the Jews. After Israelski was proven innocent, two others, Adolf Levy and Rosenthal, were arrested on the same charge. Rosenthal was acquitted and Lewy sentenced on a perjury charge to four years.


1900: Dutch Zionist leader Jacobus Kann resigns as director of the Bank designed to finance the purchase of land in Eretz Israel and help settlers make Aliyah.


1903: In his poem "Tale of the Slaughter," the famous Jewish poet Chiam Nachman Bialik chastised the Jews for not defending themselves in the Pogrom at Kishinev that had taken place in April, 1903. Herzl was also affected by the massacre and he decided to visit Russia and give consideration to the Uganda Plan. The Ugandaplan would be rejected but it would cause a painful split in the infant Zionist movement. The massacre also provided the impetus in America to lay the groundwork for the American Jewish Committee, casting American Jewry into international prominence. There would be another pogrom in Kishinev in 1905 with more loss of life.


1905:  Birthdate of movie director Henry Koster. A refugee from Nazi Germany, Koster directed numerous famous films.  But he is best remembered as the man who discovered Abbott & Costello.  He saw their comedy act and convinced Universal Studios to sign them to a contract.  He directed their first film in which all of Americaheard the “Who’s On First” routine for the first time.


1908: In Warsaw Poland, Count Jerzy Skarbek, a Catholic, and Stefania née Goldfeder, the daughter of a wealthy assimilated Jewish family gave birth to their second child and first daughter Krystna who served with bravery and distinction as an agent who operated in occupied Europe for the British Special Operations Executive (SOE)


1908: Heinrich Conried “retired from the Metropolitan Opera House due to his poor health.”


1909: “During a worker’s demonstration in Buenos Aires, a Jewish anarchist murdered a local police chief.  Rioters responded by attacking and sacking the city’s predominately Jewish small retail business quarter.”


1909: The Jewish anarchist, Simon Radowitzki, attempted to assassinate Ramon Falcon, the Argentinean chief of police.


1910: Birthdate of Henryk Ross “who was employed as a photographer by the Department of Statistics for the Jewish Council within the Łódź Ghetto,” survived the Holocaust and testified at the Eichman trial before passing away 1991.


1910: The Sunday New York Times published “‘Icy Italy As Seen: by Israel Zangwill’ the fourth in a series of ‘Italian Fantasies’ written by this well-known author.”


1913: Birthdate of comic Louis Nye.  Born Louis Neistat to Yiddish speaking immigrant parents, Nye was one of a stable of comedians who first gained national notice on the “Steve Allen Show.”


1913: Birthdate of Czech born British conductor Jay Walter Susskind.


1913: As the investigation into the death of Mary Phagan continues, E.F. Holloway, the pencil factory’s day watchman saw Jim Conley, the pencil factory’s janitor washing a dirty shirt.  At first Conley tried to hide the shirt and then claimed the stains were rust from the overhead pipe on which he had hung the shirt. Detectives examined it for blood, found none and returned it. [Conley would later testify against Leo Frank. Decades later, Conley would be exposed as the person who had murder Mary Phagan.]


1914: Nissim Mazliach is appointed to the Turkish Chamber for Smyrna.


1914: In Cincinnati, Ohio, founding of the Mizrachi Organization of America


1916: Labor activist Bessie Abramowitz and Amalgamated president Sidney Hillman announced their engagement while marching at the head of the clothing workers' contingent of the Chicago May Day Parade.


1919: The rabbis of Palestine hold a first conference. Rabbi Avraham Yitzhak HaCohen Kook is asked to serve as chief rabbi.


1920: Young anarchist Mollie Steimer began a 15-year prison term for distributing leaflets opposing American intervention in the Russian Revolution. She was later deported.


1921: Not for the first or last time, Arabs resort to violence to try and stop the growth of the Jewish community.  In this case riots began in Jaffe resulting in the death of forty Jews and the wounding two hundred others. The riots soon spread to Tel Aviv, Petah Tikva, Kfar Saba, Hadera and Rehovot. Though casualties were relatively light, the British decided to appease the Arabs and "redefined" the borders of the Balfour Declaration.   This was neither the first time nor the last time that the British would violation the terms of the Mandate.  It was also one of the many examples in which the British sought to curry favor with the Arabs, even if it meant betraying the Jews.


1923: Birthdate of author Joseph Heller who created Catch-22, the literary masterpiece that gained additional fame as a film.


1923: “British Chief Rabbi Defends Schechita In The Times” published today by the Jewish Correspondence Bureau described the strongly expressed opposition of Joseph Hertz, the Chief Rabbi of the United Kingdom proposed legislation that would end “the Jewish method of slaughtering animals for food” which he says “according to the testimony of competent experts including Lord Lister, Sir Michael Foster, Dr. Leonard Hill and Dr. T.H. Openshaw” is “the most human method” for doing this.


1928: A large number of workers in Palestine heeded the call of the Worker’s Councils for a general strike.  In other May Day activities, Arab and Jewish workers held mass meetings in several towns including Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, where police dispersed the gatherings after arresting several demonstrators some of whom would later be labeled as “communists.”


1928(11thof Iyar, 5688): Fifty-eight year old Joseph Solomon Wallenstein, the son of Solomon and Esther Wallenstein, passed away today.


1930: in Siófok, Hungary to József and Ilona Hirsch, both of whom perished in The Holocaust gave birth to  theatre director John Hirsch was brought to Canada “in 1947 through the War Orphans Project of the Canadian Jewish Congress.


1932: According to reports by John Martin published today, famed ballerina Belle Didjah has set sail from New York to begin her European Tour which will include performances in Tel Aviv and other communities in Palestine.  The performances are being sponsored by the Cultural Committee of Histadruth.


1934: Julius Streicher's Nazi periodical, Der Stürmer--one of Germany's most popular periodicals and a favorite of Hitler--reminded its readers that during the Middle Ages, the Jews were accused of committing ritual murder of Christian children and of using their blood for religious ritual purposes


1934: The Rassenpolitisches Amt der NSDAP(Racial Policy Office of the National Socialist German Workers Party) was established by Hitler's friend and secretary, Rudolph Hess


1938: Following the Anschluss, Austrians forced Jewish men and women to scrub the streets with small brushes and with the women's fur coats.


1939: In Hungary, discriminatory laws were passed against Jews engaged in law and medicine. Jewish participation in the economy was restricted to six percent.


1940: Birthdate of Colette Avital, the Bucharest native who made Aliyah in 1950 and developed a career as a diplomat and political leader.


1940: Polish and Baltic-area Jews began to escape across the Soviet Union to Japan, the Dutch East Indies, Australia, Canada, the United Statesand, in a few instances to Eretz Israel. In all, only a few thousand Jews from the region manage to escape.


1940: The Lodz Ghetto is closed.  At the outbreak of the war, Lodz was the second largest Jewish community in Europe, Warsaw being the largest.  When the Ghetto was sealed, it imprisoned over 230,000.  Those who did not die of starvation, pestilence, etc. ended up being transported to the Chelmno death camp.  There were less than 900 Jews left alive when the Soviets liberated the ghetto in January, 1945.


1940(23rd of Nisan, 5700): One hundred forty Palestinian Jews died as German planes bombed their ship


1940: Rudolf Höss, adjutant at the Sachsenhausen, Germany, concentration camp, was ordered to turn the former Polish army barracks at Auschwitz, Poland, into an extermination camp.


1940: From today through December 1940 thousands of Polish Jews are sent eastward as forced laborers to construct fortifications along the new Soviet frontier.


1941: New York City premiere of “Citizen Kane” with a screenplay co-authored by Herman J. Mankiewicz and  a score by Bernard Hermann.


1941: Thousands of Jews who had fought in the French Foreign Legion against Germany in 1940 are deported to slave-labor camps in the Sahara to build railroads.


1941(4th of Iyar, 5701): In Bucharest, Romania 120 Jews are slain in the streets during anti-Semitic violence


1941: Jewish cemeteries, synagogues, and businesses in Zagreb, Yugoslavia, are destroyed


1941: A concentration camp is established at Natzweiler, Alsace, Germany.


1941: Gross-Rosen, formerly a satellite camp of Sachsenhausen, Germany, becomes an independent camp.


1942: From today through the 31st of the month, more than 3600 Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto die of starvation. Nazis force their way into Jewish apartments in Warsaw, shoot and club the residents, and throw the bodies from windows.


1942: During May a slave-labor camp opens near Minsk, Belorussia.


1942: During May small groups of Jewish youths manage to escape into the woods outside Lida and Stolpce, towns in Belorussia.


1942: During May, in the Eastern Galicia region of Poland, Jews aged 14 to 60 are driven to isolated spots and killed by hand grenades and machine guns after being forced to dig their own graves. Other victims of this Aktion include orphans, residents of old-age homes, and women in the streets.


1942: During May inmates at Auschwitz-Birkenau are put to work as slave laborers at the camp itself and at a synthetic-oil and rubber plant at nearby Monowitz.


1942: During May, Jewish women at Auschwitz-Birkenau are selected for medical experiments. A Jewish inmate at a labor camp at Schwenningen, Germany, is buried in earth up to his shoulders as punishment for having an attack of diarrhea outside a barracks; after more than ten hours in the ground, the man dies.


1942: During May, a slave-labor camp opens at Maly Trostinets, Byelorussia


1942: During May in Holland, a collaborationist auxiliary police unit, Vrijwillige Hulp-Politie (Volunteer Auxiliary Police), is established. It is charged with the roundup of Dutch Jews for deportation to the East.


1942: During May, Communist Jews in Parisinitiate organized armed resistance to the Nazi occupiers.


1942: During May, The Bund (Jewish Labor Organization of Poland) appeals to the Polish government-in-exile in Londonto persuade the Allied governments to warn the German government about the consequences of the murder of the Polish Jews. The Bund's appeal contains detailed information concerning the systematic mass murder of Jews. It reports that 700,000 Polish Jews have already been executed.


1942: In early May, 260 Luxembourg Jews, some of whom who had converted to Christianity, are sent to Chelmno.



1942: In early May, Jewish Council members at Bilgoraj, Poland, are executed after refusing to compile a list of candidates for deportation.


1942:  More than 1750 Jews are deported from Tripoli, Libya, to forced-labor sites at the Libyan cities of Benghazi, Homs, and Derna. Hundreds perish from heat and hunger, and others die during Allied bombings after being forbidden to use air-raid shelters


1942: In that part of North Africa occupied by the Axis Powers (Germanyand Italy), 2600 Libyan Jews are deported to a forced-labor camp at Giado, Libya, to build roads for the military.


1942(14th of Iyyar, 5702): Approximately 1000 Jews are murdered at Dvinsk, Latvia. Only about 450 Jews are left in Dvinsk, down from 16,000 from the previous year.


1942: In its daily broadcast, Radio Orange issued a call to defy the order to wear the "Jewish star." During World War II, Radio Orange was the name given to the broadcasts by the Dutch government-in- exile which were carried by the B.B.C.


1942: Trucks began transporting the Jews out of the Dvinsk ghetto. Dvinsk was a town in the Baltic state of Latvia.  Before the war, there were 16,000 Jews living in Dvinks.  At the end of the war, only 500 had survived.


1943: SS-GruppenführerJürgen Stroop completes his official written chronicle of the liquidation of the Warsaw Ghetto which is entitled “The Stroop Report.”


1943: The first of four trains carrying nearly 11,000 Jews arrive at Auschwitz from Salonika, Greece. This would mark the next step in the end of this ancient Jewish community that lives on in their unique music including that which is used in chanting Psalm 118.


1943: The Axis send the first of what would total 5000 Sephardic Jews from Occupied Tunisia to labor camps near North African battle zones.


1943: The Warsaw Ghetto uprising had lasted eleven days.  By now, the Jews knew that the Polish Underground would not come to their aid.  The Jews fought on even as they awaited the inevitable. Among the those who died at this time were Abrasha Blum, an organizer of armed resistance in the Warsaw Ghetto and a member of the Coordinating Committee of Jewish Organizations> He was  shot by Germans after enduring confinement and torture


1943:  German Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels, reacting to the Jewish Warsaw Ghetto revolt, notes in his diary: "Heavy engagements are being fought there which led even to the Jewish Supreme Command's issuing daily communiqués. Of course, this fun won't last very long. But it shows what is to be expected of the Jews when they are in possession of arms."


1943: Jewish writers and artists, inspired by the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, gather in the Vilna (Lithuania) Ghetto for an evening of poetry, with the hopeful theme "Spring in Yiddish Literature."


1943(26th of Nisan, 5703): Many members of the Jewish community in Brody, Ukraine, are killed at the Majdanek death camp.


1944: An internal memo from the United States Government War Refugee Board states that as of late March:  "All registered Jews in Athens are said to have been placed in a concentration camp; registered Jews from the provinces were subsequently added."


1944: An internal memo of this week from the United States Government War Refugee Board states that a small group of Jews in Greece claimed to be Portuguese nationals.


1944: Christian Wirth, SS-Sturmbannführer and commandant of the Belzec, Poland, death camp, is assassinated by partisans in Fiume, Yugoslavia.


1944: Starting today the Nazis begin the liquidation of the Lodz (Poland) Ghetto. 


1994(8thof Iyar, 5704): Itzhak Katzenelson and his son Zvi were murdered at Auschwitz. Born in 1886, he was a teacher, poet and dramatist.  His wife and two of his other sons had already been murdered at Treblinka.  Katznelson participated in the Warsaw Ghetto uprising and was one of the few survivors.  While being held at a detention in Vittel, France, he wrote the Yiddish epic poem “Song of the Murdered Jewish People” which he buried in bottles before being shipped to the death camp.  The Ghetto Fighters' House Holocaust and Jewish Resistance Heritage Museum in Israel, is named in his memory. For more about his epic work see http://motlc.wiesenthal.com/site/pp.asp?c=ivKVLcMVIsG&b=476157


1944(8th of Iyar, 5704): As mass deportations of Jews from Hungary to death camps begin, hundreds of Hungarian Jews at Sátoraljaújhely and Miskolc are shot after refusing to board trains destined for Auschwitz.


1944: Between today and the 31st of May, 33,000 Jews from Munkács, Hungary, are killed at Auschwitz.



1945:  After 68 months of war, just one of every ten of Poland's prewar Jewish population of 3.3 million is alive


1945(18th of Iyar, 5705): Lag B’Omer 


1945(18th of Iyar, 5705):  A Jew in a group of laborers from the camp at Sonneberg, Germany, chants and dances with joy upon word of Hitler's death. A German guard calmly shoots the man dead.


1945: The concentration camp at Stutthof, Poland, is liberated by the Red Army. Just 120 inmates remain alive.


1945: The Death Marches to Mauthausen continued even as the U.S. Army approached, and even though Hitler committed suicide the prior day. The Jews were being marched to Mauthasan in Austriafrom the various death camps and concentration camps that had fallen in the wake of Allied and Soviet advances.  Hundred more Jews would die during the marches from exhaustion. Approximately 200,000 people were imprisoned at Mauthausen.  Not until May 3, would the Nazi guards give up and slip away trying to hide among the general mass of refugees.


1946(30th of Nisan, 5706: Rosh Chodesh Iyar


1946(30th of Nisan, 5706): Former Jewish partisan leader and Red Army officer Eliyahu Lipszowicz is murdered by an anti-Semitic Pole at Legnica, Poland.


1946: In a draft of a letter to British Prime Minster Clement Atlee, Winston Churchill reiterated his belief in Partition as the only realistic was for settling the conflict in Palestine.


1946: The English-American Commission on the Jewish Refugee Problem in Europe recommended the immediate entry of 100,000 Jews into Eretz Israel. The British continued to maintain the blockade keeping the Jews out of Palestine.  It was at this time that Golda "proposed a hunger strike by fifteen Zionist leaders" as means of forcing the British to change their policy.  When the Mrs. Meir asked the head of the British government in Palestine if the hunger strike would make a difference he ask asked her,"...do you think for a moment that His Majesty's government will change its policy because you are not going to.  She replied, "No, I have no such illusions.  If the death of six million didn't change government policy, I don't expect that my not eating will do so.  But it at least it will be a mark of solidarity" with those Jews being turned away by the British military. 


1947: Leonard Bernstein introduces his "Jeremiah" symphony in the Edison Cinema in Jerusalem.


1948: “The Arabs opened a large scale attack on Ramot Naphtali in the northern hills near Lebanon.”  The settlement was the key to a Jewish victory in the Galilee.  If the Arabs could take the settlement, they would be able to keep the Palmach from sending reinforcements Safed.  In the end, the settlers held and Jewish forces were able to take control of Safed after an extremely difficult battle later in the month.


1948: Abba Eban makes his maiden speech in the U.N. General Assembly.


1948: Israeli forces liberate the Qatamon neighborhood of Jerusalem.


1949:An article published inHarefuah”, a medical journal published by the Israel Medical Association, described how Aaron Valero first observed the outbreak of Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever in Palestine.


1950: In Tel Aviv, Israel Eldad and his wife gave birth to Professor Aryeh Eldad  who combined medicine with a career in politics.


1950: Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion’s attempts to form a new government suffered a setback tonight when the executive committee of the General Zionist Party decided not to join the coalition.  The party, which is more conservative than those represented by the labor movement, had been offered the Commerce and Industry ministries as an enticement to join the new government but the leadership felt that Ben Gurion had not made a strong enough commitment to adopt some of their economic and educational reform policies.


1950: “South Pacific,” the famous musical by Rogers and Hammerstein wins the Pulitzer Prize as the best original American Play.


1954: J & W Seligman & Company celebrated two anniversaries today – the 90thanniversary of its founding and the 85th anniversary of its being listed on the New York Stock Exchange.


1955: Birthdate of Julien Mark Wiener “a former Australian cricketer who played in six Tests and seven one-day internationals from 1979 to 1980. A right-handed opening batsman and a very occasional off spin bowler, he is the only known Jewish Australian to represent his country at cricket…Wiener's mother and father, Vella and Sasha, were Polish and Austrian Jews respectively, and both escaped the concentration camps of Nazi Germany during the Holocaust. The surname Wiener came from Vienna, the home of Sasha. His parents married in 1947 in Paris, before coming to Australia as refugees on the famous Dunera ship in 1947. Wiener's father ran a successful textile business, which allowed him to send Wiener to the private Brighton Grammar School. Wiener's father had early sporting success in table tennis, which Wiener applied to his cricket, playing for Prahran in Melbourne grade cricket. He subsequently completed his university education at Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in business management, before moving to England to pursue his cricket career.”


1956: The polio vaccine developed by Jonas Salk is made available to the public.  For all those who like to talk about greedy Jews, considering the following.  Salk refused to take out a patent on his vaccine.  Some things, he said, were more important than making money.


1956: Moshe Dayan, the Chief of Staff of the Israeli Defence Forces, made a speech at the funeral of a young settler, Ro'i Roitberg, killed in a clash with Palestinian infiltrators from the Gaza Strip


1959: Birthdate of Lawrence Seeff  the Johannesburg native  who was a South African First-class cricketer. “He played with Western Province and Transvaal and was one of the South African Cricket Annual's Cricketers of the Year in 1981. He opened the batting for Western Province with his brother Jonathan Seeff.”


1960(4thof Iyar, 5720): Yom HaZikaron


1962:  Birthdate of actress Maia Morgenstern. A native of Bucharest, Morgenstern played the Virgin Mary in Mel Gibson’s The Passion of Christ.


1964: The Center for Jewish History marked today as the beginning of the public movement for freeing Soviet Jewry.


1967:  Birthdate of Yael Arad Israel, an Israeli judoka who won a silver medal at the Barcelona Olympics in 1992.


1967: The Pulitzer Prize was awarded to Bernard Malamud for his novel, The Fixer.  Born in 1914, Malamud wanted to be thought of as great writer, not just a great Jewish writer.  In other words, even though he often used Jewish themes and motifs, he was writing about the human condition.  The success of The Natural, a book about a baseball player was an example of that desire. "Malamud explicated the tragic role of the Jew in many of his stories, including The Fixer (1966), which won the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize, and later was adapted into a motion picture. That novel was based on the true story of Mendel Beilis, victim of the Kiev Blood Libel of 1913."  He passed away in 1986.


1968(3rd of Iyar, 5728): Yom HaZikaron


1979(4thof Iyar, 5739): Yom HaZikaron


1979: Elton John became the first pop star to perform in Israel.


1981(27th of Nisan, 5741): Yom HaShoah


1981: President Ronald Reagan issued a proclamation today declaring the week starting on May 3, 1981 as Jewish Heritage Week. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=43771#axzz1Kxu92zHU


1983: “Past That Stay Present” includes a review of Points of Departure by Israeli Poet and Holocaust Survivor Dan Pagis.

1985: Today, the American Jewish World Service (AJWS) was established in Boston when Larry Phillips and Larry Simon, together with a group of rabbis, Jewish communal leaders, activists, businesspeople, scholars and others came together to create the first American Jewish organization dedicated to alleviating poverty, hunger and disease among people across the globe.


1985: Showtune which was originally titled Tune the Grand Up, and premiered today as a cabaret production at The 1177 Club in the Gramercy Towers on Nob Hill in San Francisco. “Showtune is an internationally popular Off Broadway musical revue celebrating the words and music of Broadway composer Jerry Herman. Its title was inspired by Herman's autobiography of the same name.”


1987: Birthdate of Shahar Pe'er, Israeli female professional tennis player.


1987: Pope John Paul II beatified Sister Teresa Benedicta of the Cross.  Born Edith Stein, she became a Carmelite nun.  She was arrested by the Nazis in Holland when the Germans were rounding up Jews who converted to Catholicism.  She was gassed at Auschwitz.  For those who question the role of the Pope during the Holocaust, the fate of Edith Stein, and others who had converted to Catholicism before World War II, raises an interesting dilemma.  There are those who can understand why the Pope did not move to save the Jews, but wonder why he did not move to save Jews who had become Catholics.  In the end, did he not consider them real Catholics?  This is something for use to ponder at this season of the year which often coincides with Yom Hashoah.


1987: It was reported today that Israel’s governing coalition “was under strain” as deal with proposals for an international peace conference and “the Israeli investigation in the Jonathan Jay Pollard spy case.”


1990: At an Arab summit meeting held in Baghdad, President Saddam Hussein of Iraq threatens to use "weapons of total destruction" in response to an Israeli attack against Arabs. The main item on the summit agenda is immigration of Soviet Jews to Israel, which is denounced as a grave threat to Arab security. Syria and four other Arab states do not attend the meeting.


1990: Greece establishes full diplomatic relations with Israel.


1990: Opening night of the Israel Film Festival attended by two of the most famous mayors in Jewish history - Teddy Kollek and Ed Koch


1994: Israeli and PLO delegates opened a final round of talks in Cairo leading to an agreement on PLO self-rule.  The resulting entity, the Palestine Authority would sink under the weight of Arafat’s corruption and unwillingness to do the things necessary to create a viable, responsible government. 


1996(12th of Iyar, 5756): Asher Wallfish journalist for the Jerusalem Post passed away at the age of 67


1996: In an article entitled “Moises Ville Journal: Sun Has Set on Jewish Gauchos, but Legacy Lives,” Calvin Sims describes the fate of Argentina’s rural Jews.
 
1997:The Jerusalem Post reported that the sentenced American spy, Jonathan Pollard, petitioned the Israeli High Court of Justice to order the Prime Minister to declare that he had been an agent of Israel. Pollard also requested a temporary injunction ordering the Government of Israel to reveal who had been in charge of his case and what steps had been taken to secure his release from the American prison. The petition queried the official Israeli position, according to which Pollard had been part of a rogue operation. It called for a temporary injunction outlining what he was paid for his services. The High Court issued a temporary injunction, apparently at the request of the security services, forbidding the publication of Pollard's petition. This ban was lifted following an appeal by the "Yediot Aharonot" newspaper.


1997:The Jerusalem Post reported that Mr. Norman Spector assumed the post of the President and Publisher of The Jerusalem Post.


1997:The transfer of the ownership of The Chattanooga Times from the four grandchildren of Adolph S. Ochs, who bought the paper in 1878 and remained its publisher until 1935, to his 13 great-grandchildren is scheduled to be completed today.


1997: “The Return of Tobias” oil on canvas by Benjamin Ulmann was sold today. A French Alsatian Jew born in 1829 he was a pupil of Michel Martin Drolling and of François-Édouard Picot.  He passed away in 1884.


2000: Palestinian prisoners being held in Israeli jails begin a hunger strike to draw attention to their poor conditions.


2000:After almost seventeen months in prison, the trial of the 13 Jews opened in the
Revolutionary Court
in Shiraz. Hearings were held every Monday and Wednesday until May 29. The thirteen defendants were brought to the courtroom in shifts over the five-week trial.


2001: Former government intern Chandra Levy disappears.


2002: Yasser Arafat's five-month imprisonment in his Ramallah headquarters draws to an end as the Palestinians hand over six high-profile prisoners to Anglo-American custody.


2004:Noa (Achinoam Nini) and Gil Dor, together with the noted Israeli rhythm and dance troupe Mayumana, gave a joint performance between the two final games of the Euroleague basketball championship, broadcast to thousands of television viewers around the world.


2004: Maccabi Tel Aviv crushes Italy's Skipper Bologna 118-74 to become European champions for the fourth time in the club’s history.


2004: Rabbi Sir Jonathan Henry Sacks begins serving as Rabbi and Spiritual Leader, Western Marble Arch Synagogue London.


200522nd of Nisan, 5765): 8thday of Pesach


200522nd of Nisan, 5765):Rene Rivkin an Australian entrepreneur, investor, investment adviser, and stockbroker passed away. He was a well-known stockbroker in Australia for many years until his conviction for insider trading.


2005: The New York Observer features a review of “The Treehouse: Eccentric Wisdom From My Father on How to Live, Love, and See” by Naomi Wolfe


2005: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or special interest to Jewish readers including Soldiers and Slaves: American POWs Trapped by the Nazis' Final Gamble by Roger Cohen, Given Up For Dead: American GI's in the Nazi Concentration Camp at Berga by Flint Whitlock and the recently released paperback editions of Conspiratorby Michael Andre Bernstein and Madame Secretary by Madeline Albright with Bill Woodward, an “insightful memoir that focuses as much on Albright’s voyage of personal discovery (she belatedly learned of her Jewish heritage) as on her years as President Clinton's secretary of state.”


2006: First episode of “The Perfect Home” a television series based on The Architecture of Happiness by Alain de Botton, the scion of a prominent Egyptian Jewish family that was forced to flee to Switzerland.


2007: Hilary Koprowski was awarded the Albert Sabin Gold Medal by the Sabin Vaccine Institute in Baltimore.  Koprowski was one of three Jews (the others being Salk and Sabin) who played a key role in developing a vaccine against polio.)


2007: “Secretary-General of Labor Party, Minister Eitan Cabel announced today that he was resigning from the government, following the conclusions of the Winograd Commissions.”


2007:  May is celebrated as Jewish Heritage Month by proclamation of the President of the United States.



2008: “Brothers: Rahm Emanuel and His Family” published today looks at the lives and accomplishments of Rahm, Zeke and Ari.

2008: In New York City, PEN World Voices, a festival of international literature presentsConversations Between A. B. Yehoshua and Leon Wieseltier”an event during which “Yehoshua discusses a lifetime in literature, fact in fiction, writing politics and atonement with Leon Wieseltier, Literary Editor of The New Republic and author of Kaddish.”


2008:Local elections are held in Great Britain. Community organizations have come together to encourage the British Jewish community to vote in these local elections being held across the country because of a fear of gains that could be made by for the ultra-nationalist British National Party (BNP). The Board of Deputies of British Jews - working with the London Jewish Forum and Community Security Trust - had launched a new campaign, with the slogan, "Your Voice or Theirs," to raise awareness of the importance of first registering to vote and then voting in the May 1 local elections. The BNP has enjoyed some electoral success which alarms the Jewish community as well as ant-fascists organizations and other minority groups.  BNP literature is described as anti-Semitic and the party is viewed by some as latter day Nazis.


2008 (26 Nisan): Yom Hashoah – Eastern Iowa observes Holocaust Remembrance Day. In Cedar Rapids The Holocaust Memorial Fund (created and endowed by Dr. David and Joan Thaler) and the Jewish-Christian Dialogue are sponsoring Yom Hashoah Service at Westminster Presbyterian Church at .Rabbi Stephanie Alexander will be the speaker. In Iowa City, in recognition of Holocaust Remembrance Day, theTimofeyev Ensemblewill be celebrating the achievements of Eastern European Jewry by putting on a free Klezmer concert at the Art Building West. Nearly lost, the music was rediscovered in the seventies and is now thriving in Europe and America. The UI student band,Kosher Tom, will also be performing.


2009: In Alexandria, Va., Pulitzer Prize-winning illustrator Jules Feifferreads and discusses “Which Puppy” a children’s picture book he recently co-authored with his daughter Kate.



2009:The American Society for Jewish Music and the American Jewish Historical Society present a lecture by Rabbi Jeffrey A. Summit of Tufts University entitled “The Participating Observer: Fieldwork in Jewish Settings.”



2009: In an article entitled “Roosevelt and the Jews: A Debate Rekindled,” Patricia Cohen reviews Refugees and Rescue: The Diaries’ and papers of James G. McDonald, 1935-1945.



2009(12thof Iyar, 5769):Sam Cohn, whose nearly endless client roster of top actors, writers and directors and imaginative engineering of deals for them made him the most powerful talent broker in theater and film during the 1970s and 1980s and a progenitor of the Hollywood superagent passed away today at the age of 79. (As reported by Bruce Weber)
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/07/arts/07cohn.html?_r=0&pagewanted=print



2010: Jewish American Heritage began today as proclaimed by President Barak Obama. The proclamation read as follows:



In 1883, the Jewish American poet Emma Lazarus composed a sonnet, entitled “The New Colossus,” to help raise funds for erecting the Statue of Liberty.  Twenty years later, a plaque was affixed to the completed statue, inscribed with her words:  “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free….”  These poignant words still speak to us today, reminding us of our Nation’s promise as a beacon to all who are denied freedom and opportunity in their native lands. Our Nation has always been both a haven and a home for Jewish Americans.  Countless Jewish immigrants have come to our shores seeking better lives and opportunities, from those who arrived in New Amsterdam long before America’s birth, to those of the past century who sought refuge from the horrors of pogroms and the Holocaust.  As they have immeasurably enriched our national culture, Jewish Americans have also maintained their own unique identity.  During Jewish American Heritage Month we celebrate this proud history and honor the invaluable contributions Jewish Americans have made to our Nation. The Jewish American story is an essential chapter of the American narrative.  It is one of refuge from persecution; of commitment to service, faith, democracy, and peace; and of tireless work to achieve success.  As leaders in every facet of American life—from athletics, entertainment, and the arts to academia, business, government, and our Armed Forces—Jewish Americans have shaped our Nation and helped steer the course of our history.  We are a stronger and more hopeful country because so many Jews from around the world have made America their home. Today, Jewish Americans carry on their culture’s tradition of “tikkun olam”—or “to repair the world”—through good deeds and service.  As they honor and maintain their ancient heritage, they set a positive example for all Americans and continue to strengthen our Nation. NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim May 2010 as Jewish American Heritage Month.  I call upon all Americans to observe this month with appropriate programs, activities, and ceremonies to celebrate the heritage and contributions of Jewish Americans. IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this thirtieth day of April, in the year two thousand ten, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and thirty-fourth.



[Editor’s Note: … President Obama has made a subtle, symbolic gesture that some would say demonstrates uncommon sensitivity to the Jewish community. Thanks to the New Jersey Jewish News for this story, which reports that President Obama removed the standard phrase “in the year of our Lord” from a proclamation welcoming May as Jewish Heritage Month. As the newspaper reports, previous similar proclamations — by Obama, George Bush, and Bill Clinton — all included the standard line affixed at the end, pegging the missive’s date to the birth of Jesus Christ … Obama, in praising Jews for their unique contributions to American culture, took the extra step of taking it out this time. This may not sit well with “the our-country-is-a-Christian-nation crowd” and it may seem like a small thing, but it shows a certain level of sensitivity if not outright political courage. There are those who think that Jewish community should be more outspoken in acknowledging this, and in voicing appreciation.”]



2010: At The Library of Congress an exhibition entitled “Herblock!" highlighting the life and works of the great political cartoonist is scheduled to come to a close.



2010A Secret, a film adapted from the award-winning autobiographical novel by Philippe Grimbert, is scheduled to be shown tonight at the Northern Virginia International Jewish Film Festival.



2010: In article entitled “Death on the Baltic” published today, Jeremy Elias described an eyewitness account of the sinking of the Cape Arcona.


http://www.jpost.com/Magazine/Features/Death-on-the-Baltic



2010:Achinoam Nini, the world famous Israeli performer known as Noa, is scheduled to appear in concert tonight at East Brunswick (NJ) Performing Arts Center.



2011:The Cedar Rapids community is scheduled to mark Yom Hashoah with “”Lest We Forget,” A Service in Memory of the Victims of the Shoah sponsored by  The Jewish Christian Dialogue Group and The Thaler Holocaust Memorial Foundation.(See The Story of Historywhich provides background information on the Thaler Holocaust Memorial Fund which was co-founded by David and Joan Tahler)


2011: Yeshiva University Museum is scheduled to present “Growing Up Jewish in Montreal” a panel discussion during which “four distinguished scholars reflect on their formative years in one of North America's most vibrant Jewish communities.”


2011: “Recipes Remembered: A Celebration of Survival” by June Feiss Hersh  is scheduled to go on sale today at the Museum of Jewish Heritage.


2011: A memorial service for Maj. Gen. Orde Wingate, who trained members of the Haganah, is scheduled to take place today at the Arlington National Cemetery.  The ceremony is being held under the auspices of the Jewish War Veterans Association of the United States of America.


2011:Reform Judaism’s flagship social justice conference, the Religious Action Center’s Consultation on Conscience is scheduled to open in Washington, DC.


2011: Start of Jewish American Heritage Month


2011: The New York Times featured reviews of book by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including “Money and Power: How Goldman Sachs Came to Rule the World”  by William D. Cohan, “Iphigenia in Forest Hills: Anatomy of a Murder Trial” by Janet Malcolm that is set against a backdrop of the “Bukharin Jewish immigrant community in Queens” and  the recently released paperback edition of  “Crossing Mandelbaum Gate Coming of Age Between the Arabs and Israelis, 1956-1978” by Kai Bird


2011:The March of the Living participants are scheduled to visit Auschwitz on Yom Hashoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day, on May 1, to commemorate the Nazi murder of 6 million Jews and to pledge to fight intolerance and prejudice in the future.


2011(27thof Nisan): Yom Hashoah – observance of the holiday will take place in many places tomorrow “to avoid adjacency with Shabbat).


2011(27thof Nisan, 5771):Moshe Landau, the fifth president of the Supreme Court and an Israel Prize laureate, died on today, only two days after his 99th birthday, and 50 years after presiding at the trial of Adolf Eichmann.


 

2011:The 6 million Jews murdered by the Nazis during the Holocaust will be honored at ceremonies held across Israel this evening, the start of Holocaust and Heroism Remembrance Day. President Shimon Peres, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, IDF Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Benny Gantz and other dignitaries will attend the official state ceremony at Yad Vashem. This year, the central theme of the ceremony will be Fragments of Memory: The Faces Behind the Documents, Artifacts and Photographs, a campaign launched by the Holocaust museum aimed at collecting and preserving documents so that future generations may learn about the genocide of the Jewish people by the Nazis from first-hand sources. During the ceremony, six Holocaust survivors will light torches in memory of those who suffered under Nazi persecution before and during World War II. Yona Fuchs, whose nickname is Janek, will be among the honorees at the event. In 1942 he escaped from a concentration camp and found work as a translator for a German company in Kiev. In that capacity he managed to save over a dozen Jews by recruiting them as workers for his employers. Later, he evaded arrest by posing as a German soldier. He arrived in British-controlled Palestine in 1944, fought in the War of Independence and settled in Haifa. He has 14 grandchildren.


2011: After 443 performances a revival of  Jerry Herman’s “La Cage aux Folles” came to a close.


2011:Israel's new Police Commissioner Yohanan Danino was sworn in today, replacing David Cohen, who served in the post for four years.  Danino was formerly the head of the Israel Police investigations and intelligence branch, and comes to the commissioner's chair from his last posting as the commander of the Southern District Police.


2011: Distinguished composer Gilbert Levine, whose grandparents emigrated from Poland and whose mother-in-law was a survivor of Auschwitz, will be among the hundreds of thousands of people converging on the Vatican for the beatification of Pope John Paul II. (As reported by Ruth Ellen Gerber)


2011: Osama Bin Laden was killed by U.S. Navy Seals a compound in the Pakistani city of Abbottabad.


2011: As part of its Yom HaShoah observance,  in Hollywood, Temple Israel’s newly established arts council invited community members to join the jury at a mock trial of Rudolph Kastner (As reported by Johan Lowenfeld.


2012: Israeli photographer Gil Cohen-Magen is scheduled to deliver a lecture entitled “Hassidic Courtyards: A Photographic Study of the Ultra-Orthodox Community in Israel” at the JCC of Northern Virginia.


2012: “Kafka’s Last Story” is scheduled to be shown at the Westchester Jewish Film Festival.


2012:  Rabbi Ed Cohn and Cantor Joel Colman officiated at the graveside services for Inge Elsas, holocaust survivor, Temple Sinai Sunday School teacher and pillar of the New Orleans Jewish community.


2012: Start of Jewish American Heritage Month


2012: Thirty-one year old Daniel Timerman, the son of Jacobo Timerman “was sentenced today to 35 days in jail for refusing to serve with the Israeli Army in Lebanon.”


2013: The 36th International Convention of the World Union for Progressive Judaism is scheduled to open in Jerusalem.


2013: The Center for Jewish History is scheduled to presents “The Quest for Justice in the Postwar Jewish Community - Function and Role of Honor Courts in the Displaced Persons Camps.”


2013: The Center for Jewish History is scheduled to co-host “Guernica – Bravery and Gender in Confessional Writing.


2013: In a case of  “the East” meets the Jews, Iron Man 3, based on a creation of Stan Lee, Don Heck, Larry Lieber and Jack Kirby and co-starring Gwyneth Paltrow opened in China today.


2013: Gravestones and bones from an ancient Turkish Jewish cemetery were unearthed during construction work.The remains in the Turkish city of Izmir were found more than 20 feet below the ground, during construction work on an underground tunnel, the Hurriyet Daily News reported today.


 2013: Israel needs to reach peace with the Palestinians to prevent becoming a bi-national state, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said today, stressing – however – that the core of Israel's conflict with the Palestinians is not territory, but a Palestinian unwillingness to recognize Israel's legitimacy within any boundaries.


2013: Start of Jewish American Heritage Month


2014(1stof Iyar, 5774): Rosh Chodesh Iyar


2014: “The White Rose Exhibit” which commemorates the work of one of the few genuine resistance movements in Nazi Germany is scheduled to open at the College of Public of Health of the University of Iowa.


2014: Washington Hebrew Congregation is scheduled to host Adam Mendelsohn of the College of Charleston, whose book Jews and the Civil War: A Reader (co-edited with Jonathan D. Sarna) was published in 2010 speaking on “Beyond the Battlefield: The Legacy of the Civil War for America’s Jews.”


2014: “The Prime Minister: The Pioneers” is scheduled to be shown at the Lenore Marwil Jewish Film Festival in West Bloomfield, Michigan.


2014: American Jewish Heritage Month opens with a special tribute to the American Joint Distribution Committee that is celebrating its centennial anniversary.

This Day, May 2, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. Levin

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May 2


373: “Bishop Athanasius of Alexandria…aggressive opponent of Arianism and polemicist against Judaism died today.” 


693: The Sixteenth Council of Toledo, which had opened on April 25, met for the last time. Among its other accomplishments, the council took further steps in the on-going, ever more vicious, suppression of the Jews by the Christian Visigoth. The law code, which granted “tax freedom to Jewish conversos” now transferred the tax obligation to Jews who had not converted. Also, the council ruled that “converts were allowed to trade with Christians, but not until” they had proven themselves “by recitation of creeds and eating of non-kosher food. The council also enacted penalties against Christians who entered into business transactions “with unconverted or unproven Jews.”


907: King Boris I of Bulgaria died. At the time of his death, Boris was actually a monk having abdicated his throne in 889.  During his reign, Bulgaria continued to provide a refuge for Jews fleeing from Byzantine persecution.  According to some reports, there was an attempt to convert the pagan Bulgars to Judaism. True or not, Christianity would become the state religion. 


1108 (20th of Iyar, 4868): Solomon Ibn-Farussal was murdered shortly before the forces of Islam defeated the Christians at the battle of Ucles.  Yehuda Halevi composed an elegy upon hearing of Ibn-Farrusal’s murder. Ibn-Farussal reportedly was “in the service of a Christian prince” who had sent him as an emissary to the Spanish city of Murcia. The “Christian prince” may well have been Alfonso VII, the monarch who led the Spaniards to defeat at Ucles.


1160: In the Montpellier region of southern France, an agreement was concluded according to which every priest who stirred up the people against the Jews should be excommunicated.  The Jews in return pledged to pay four pounds of silver every year on Palm Sunday


1194: In one his first acts after returning from his imprisonment in Austria, King Richard I of England gives Portsmouth its first Royal Charter.  The Jews had paid a disproportionate share of that ransom. The 5,000 marks the Jews were compelled to pay was triple that paid by the citizens of London. There is no record of any Jews having lived in Portsmouth during the Middle Ages, though there were a scattered few in nearby Bosham, Chichester and Southampton, and an important community in Winchester. The first Portsmouth Jews, attracted by the opportunity of trading with the fast-growing Royal Navy in its home port and possibly by a sense of kinship with the new German-speaking monarchs of these isles, settled in Oyster Street in the 1730s - Jacob Thulman signed in Hebrew in the Borough Sessions in 1736 - but soon moved out of Old Portsmouth to Portsea, in the heart of the city’s commercial district. The first recorded mention of a Jewish community in Portsmouth is the purchase of the thousand-year lease of a plot of land by Lazy Lane (now Fawcett Road) for use as a Jews’ burial ground in December 1749. The lessees were Benjamin Levi (engraver), Mordechai Samuel (jeweler), Lazarus Moses (chapman) and Mordechai Moses (chapman). Fawcett Road cemetery was still in use until it became full in the early 1990s. [Editor’s Note-The word “chapman” probably meant that these men were merchants or peddlers.]


1293(17th of Iyar, 5053):  Rabbi Meir of Rothenberg passed away. The last of the Tosophists, he was the leading Rabbi in Germany. Convinced that there was no future in Germany, he agreed to lead a large contingent of families to Eretz-Israel. While waiting for the other families, he was seized by the Bishop of Basel. The Emperor ordered him held in prison as a lesson to any of "his Jews" who would try to leave Germany and thus cause him a financial loss. He refused to be ransomed, saying that it would serve as an impetus for further extortion's. He died in a prison near Colmar, and his body was held there until it was ransomed some years later.


1352: In Nuremburg, “Vischlein the son of Masten, Semelin the son of Nathan of Grefenberg, and Jacob the son-in-law of Liebetraut appeared before the council requesting to be received again as citizens, declaring that, in return, they would remit all debts the citizens owed them and would sell all houses held in pawn; they agreed to settle only where the citizens permitted, and asked merely to be protected against the nobility.


1481: The Pope called upon all Christian princes to send back to Spain the Jews who had fled from the Inquisition.


1605: Massacre of the Jewish community of Bisenz, Austria.


1611:King James Bible is published for the first time in London, England, by printer Robert Barker.  For many Jews (as well as non-Jews) the language of the King James Bible is the only version of the TaNaCh they know.


1634(4th of Iyar): Jacob Bassevi of Treuenberg passed away


1670: King Charles II of England grants a permanent charter to the Hudson's Bay Company to open up the fur trade in North America. “The first known Jew to settle in what is now Canada was Ferdinande Jacobs, a fur trader with Hudson's Bay Company who came to Manitoba in 1732.” (Jewish Virtual Library)


1713(6th of Iyar, 5473): Josep Josel Wertheimer, father of Rabbi Samson Wertheimer, passed away today at the age of 87.


1718(1stof Iyar, 5478): Tzvi Hirsch ben Yaakov Ashkenazi, known as the Chacham Tzvi , passed away in Lviv.

1729: Birthdate of Catherine II, also known as Catherine the Great, Czarina of Russia.  Regardless of how history views this German princess who replaced her husband on the throne of Russia, she was responsible for Russia acquiring most of its Jewish population.  Under her reign, Russia acquired much of Poland and its large Jewish population.  Her record of treatment of the Jews, is mixed to negative.  As a follower of Voltaire, she could not help but be swayed by his low opinions of the Jews.  Her policies led to the creation of what would be called the Pale of Settlement.


1791: In Prussia “Daniel Itzig and his family received the first Naturalisationspatent, which granted them full citizenship. A year later the solidarische Haftung (collective responsibility and liability of the Jewish community for non-payment of taxes and crimes of theft) was abolished.”


1810: In London, American born physician, Dr. Joel Hart married Louisa Levien.  The Philadelphia native and only son of Ephriam had gone to England to study at the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons.


1825(14thof Iyar, 5585): Pesach Sheni


1833: Birthdate of Abraham (Adolf) Berliner German Jewish theologian and historian who re-established The Mekitze Nirdamim literally "awakening the slumbering", a society for the publication of old Hebrew books and manuscripts that were either never published or long out of print in 1885.


1836(15thof Iyar, 5596): Eighty one year old Aaron Worms the son of Abraham Aberle, the chief rabbi of Metz and author of "Meore Or" (Flashes of Light) passed away today.


1837: Birthdate of Selah Merrill, the first United States Consul in Jerusalem.  He served three terms over the years 1882 through 1907. Merrill opposed Jewish settlement in Palestine, writing, "Palestine is not ready for the Jews. The Jews are not ready for Palestine."


1844: Birthdate of Aaron Wise, the Hungarian born American rabbi was the son of Rabbi Joseph Hirsch Weiss, and father of Rabbi Stephen Samuel Wise.


1844: Birthdate of Emil Schürer,  “the German Protestant theologian who, for his time had the unusual distinction of studying the history of the Jews at the time of Jesus which led him to write A History of the Jewish People in the Time of Jesus Christ


1853: The Argentine Constitution promised freedom of religion and immigration. Argentina had already shown itself to be a hospitable place for Jewish settlement when it abolished the Inquisition in 1813 which contributed to an influx of Jewish immigrants from Western Europe and North Africa.  The country’s first “Jewish wedding” would take place in 1860 and the Jewish community of Buenos Aires dates its start from 1862.


1856:  The New York Times reported that Lord Derby’s government could not long survive because it was led by “a dilettante Jew whose only stary is self, and who has no care either for the national honor or glory…”  The “dilettante Jew” had to be a reference to Disraeli, who not for the first time would be wrongly identified as a Jew.  And the references were invariably used as a slur.


1860: Birthdate of Theodor Herzl.  Born in Hungary, Herzl's family moved to Vienna.  He was raised in an "enlightened Jewish home" and trained as a lawyer.  Herzl pursued a career as a journalist and writer.  Although he had encountered anti-Semitism, his views on the role of the Jews changed radically when he covered the Dreyfus Trial in 1894.  If anti-Semitism could thrive in enlightened France, then the Jews were not safe any place except in a nation of their own.  He electrified many with his book the Jewish State and he organized the World Zionist Organization.  The six congresses that he chaired set much of the tone and program for the modern Zionist movement.  Herzl died in 1904 at the age of 44.  In 1949, his body was taken to Mt. Herzl in Jerusalem for its final resting place.  Herzl is the embodiment of Hillel's most famous wisdom statements and proof that one person can make a difference. “Herzl coined the phrase ‘If you will, it is no fairytale,’ which became the motto of the Zionist movement.  Although at the time no one could have imagined it, Zionism led, only fifty years later, to the establishment of the independent State of Israel.”


1861: Lieutenant Horace Porter returned to the arsenal at Watervliet, NY, with a letter from Colonel James Ripley rejecting Major Alfred Mordecai’s request for transfer and ordering him to prepare and ship much needed “artillery equipment” to Washington.” This brought to an end Mordecai’s attempt to stay in the U.S. Army without having to fight against family and friends living in the South. 


1862: Joseph Wolff passed away today at Isle Brewers. Born at Weilersbach, Germany in 1795, to David Wolff, the town’s Rabbi, he “was baptized in 1812 by the Benedictine abbot of Emaus, near Prague.” Wolff trained as an Orientalist, traveled throughout the Middle East where he sought to convert Jewish populations and later searched for the Ten Lost Tribes in an areas stretching from modern day Turkey to Afghanistan.


1863: During the Battle of Chancellorsville, Sergeant Henry Heller was one of four soldiers who risked their lives to bring a wounded Confederate officer into the lines of the Union Army. The officer then “provided valuable information concerning the position of the enemy."

 
1863: During the American Civil War, Confederate General Stonewall Jackson is wounded by friendly fire while returning to camp after reconnoitering during the Battle of Chancellorsville. Among the units fighting at Chancellorsville  that tried to stop the advance of Jackson’s troops was a regiment from Illinois under the command of Frederick Hecker that included a company made up of (supplied by) Jews from Chicago.


1864(26th of Nisan, 5624): Giacomo Meyerbeer passed away.

1867: The Weekly Clarion of Jackson reported today: “We are gratified that measures are in progress for the erection of a place of worship in this city by our fellow citizens of the Hebrew descent.” The newspaper item referred to the purchase of property at the corner of South State and South streets on which the Beth Israel Congregation would soon erect a small, wood-frame building which they would use as a school and a house of worship. This was the first building erected in Jackson designed to serve as a house of worship for the Jews living in around the city that was the capital of the state of Mississippi.     


1870: Antoine Maurer, who was charged with killing a Jew named Joachim Feurter, went on trial again in Rockland County, NY.  Maurer had been found guilty and sentenced to death but the conviction was overturned because the accused had not been present when the Judge responded to a request from the jury for clarity on a point of law.


1870:Lothair, the first novel written by Benjamin Disraeli after his first term as Prime Minister was first published today by Longmans, Green and Company in 3 volumes


1871:The second trial of, Antoine Maurer indicted for the murder of Joachim Feurter, “a German of the Hebrew faith” commenced here today, before the Court of Oyer and Terminer for Rockland County. Maurer had been found guilty in the first trial, but the verdict was overturned on a technicality. 


1873: The Jewish Messenger issued an appeal for financial support to send poor Jewish children on summer excursions.  Among those who would benefit from some sea-side recreation are youngsters under the care of the Hebrew Benevolent Society and Free School Association.  If these two groups cannot raise sufficient funds, then the paper will organize a Messenger Excursion Fund.


1877: A delegation of the Board of Delegates of the American Israelites, led by Benjamin F. Peixotto met with President Rutherford B. Hayes to discuss the persecution of the Jews of Romania.  The delegation presented a written account of “the recent barbarities” inflicted on the Jews of Glurgevo, Romania.  The President expressed his sympathy and concern over the treatment of the Jews.  He referred the group to Secretary of State William Evarts whom he requested to take such as this dire situation may require.


1877: On the advice of President Hayes, a delegation of the Board of Delegates of the American Israelites, led by Benjamin F. Peixotto met with U.S. Secretary of State William Evarts to discuss steps that could be taken to relieve the suffering of the Jews of Romania. The delegation “urged the Secretary of State to cable” the U.S. ministers “at Vienna, Constantinople and St. Petersburg asking them to act in conjunction with the representatives of those powers in endeavoring to repress further atrocities.  Mr. Evarts took the subject under consideration” [This was part of an on-going series of attempts to relieve the suffering of the Jews of Romania. The Great Powers thought they had resolved the matter at the Congress of Berlin, but Romanian anti-Semitism would trump their efforts.  The best hope for Romanian Jews would be found in leaving for the United States where they became part of the mass of immigrants who flooded this country in the years leading up to World War I.  This would not be the first or last time that a U.S. President’s sympathy for the plight of the Jews would not be translated into a policy bring about their salvation. Most of us do not recognize the name of Benjamin Peixotto.  In his day, he was one of the most influential Jews in the United States.  He was a successful lawyer and journalist who was active in the affairs of the Republican Party and the Jewish community. Sic Transit Gloria.]


1878(29th of Nisan, 5638): Anglo-Jewish barrister and politician Sir Henry Francis Goldsmid passed away. Born in 1808, the eldest son of Sir Isaac Lyon Goldsmid, was educated privately, and was called to the bar in 1833, becoming Queen’s Counsel in 1858. In 1859 he succeeded to his father's honors, which included a barony of Portugal. He entered Parliament in 1860 as member for Reading, through a by-election, and represented that constituency in the Liberal interest until his death. While still a young man he actively cooperated with his father to secure to the Jews full emancipation from civil and political disabilities. In 1839 he wrote "Remarks on the Civil Disabilities of the Jews," and in 1848 "A Reply to the Arguments Against the Removal of the Remaining Disabilities of the Jews." He was one of the chief supporters of University College, and gave material aid to University College Hospital. He was associated with various Jewish religious and charitable organizations. He was connected with the Reform movement from its commencement, and was elected president of the Council of Founders of the West London Synagogue. He was vice-president of the Anglo-Jewish Association from its establishment in 1871, and was president of the Rumanian Committee which originated in the association. His greatest services to his race were, however, in the direction of improving the social condition of the Jews in those countries in which they were oppressed. The condition of the Poles in 1863 moved him to organize meetings for the purpose of securing some alleviation of their sufferings, and he also forcibly protested on several occasions in Parliament against the oppression of the Jews, notably that in Servia and Rumania. Goldsmid was deputy lieutenant for Berks and a justice of the peace for Berks and Gloucester. Having no children, the baronetcy devolved upon his nephew, Julian Goldsmid. His writings include, besides those already mentioned: "Two Letters in Answer to the Objections Urged Against Mr. Grant's Bill for the Relief of the Jews" (1830); "A Few Words Respecting the Enfranchisement of British Jews Addressed to the New Parliament" (1833); "A Scheme of Peerage Reform, with Reasons for the Scheme" (1835).

(As reported by the Jewish Encyclopedia)



1884: Today’s issued of Hamelitz, a Russian newspaper printed in Hebrew, recorded the events that led to members of the two existing synagogues in Quebec to leave and established what would become Temple Emanuel, a Reform congregation.


1889(1st of Iyar, 5649): Rosh Chodesh Iyar


1890: Mr. Cantor’s bill exempting the New York Sanitarium from local taxation was passed by the New York State Assembly today.


1891: It was reported today that there has been a serious outbreak of anti-Semitic violence at Corfu growing out of reports that the Jews “had murdered a Christian girl for the feast of Passover.”


1891: In Boston, Inspector Cogan arrested Samuel Steinhardt, a Polish Jewish immigrant who is wanted by the authorities in Newark, NJ.


1891: “The Union Square Mass Meeting” published today described Jewish participating in the mass meeting held at Union Square calling for an 8 hour day.  The marchers wore red and blue caps that had been made by striking capmakers. The Jewish protestors were demonstrating for a more just society as could be seen by one of their banners emblazoned with “We Want the Children in Schools and Not In Shops.”  (The Union Movement opposed child labor and supported universal public school education)


1891: “To Build A New Opera House” published today described the plans of Oscar Hammerstein, the owner of the Harlem Opera House and Columbia Theatre to build a new venue on 34th Street, just west of Broadway.  Hammerstein plans to use the new building which is estimated to cost $250,000 will for German grand operas for four months of the year and then use it as a venue for grand theatrical performances during the balance of the year.  This would keep the building in use for all 12 months which is a departure of normal business model.


1891: "Religious Riot in Zante” published today described a religious riot in the capital city of this Greek Island of the same name.  During a procession on Good Friday (according to the Greek Orthodox Calendar) the Christians attacked the Jewish quarter of the town.  Soldiers fired on the mob which refused to disperse and threatened to burn down all of the homes and businesses of the Jews. (This stands in stark contrast to what happened during WW II. Mayor Loukas Career and Bishop Chrysostomos refused to give the Nazis the names of the Jews living there and instead hid them. All of the Jews survived the Holocaust.


1892: Today’s “New Publications” column contained a review of The Early Religion of Israel, as set forth by Biblical Writers and Modern Critical Historiansby James Robertson which is based on the Baird Lectures for 1889.


1893(16th of Iyar, 5653):Johann Schnitzler a Hungarian-Austrian Jewish laryngologist who was a native of Nagy Kanizsa (today part of Hungary) passed away. He was the father of famed playwright Arthur Schnitzler (1862-1931) and Julius Schnitzler. In 1860 he earned his medical doctorate at the University of Vienna, where from 1863 to 1867 he worked as an assistant to Johann von Oppolzer (1808-1871). In 1880 he was appointed associate professor of laryngology at the University of Vienna, and later became director of its policlinic. Schnitzler was a pioneer of modern laryngology, and author of numerous works on diseases of the throat and larynx. His best known written work was Klinischer Atlas der Laryngologie (Clinical Atlas of Laryngology), which was published posthumously in 1895. In 1860 with Philipp Markbreiter (1810-1882), he founded the Wiener Medizinische Presse, a publication of which he remained as editor until 1886Schnitzler is credited with coining the term "spastic dysphonia" for a vocal disorder known today as spasmodic dysphonia


1893: “Jews Attacked by Anti-Semites” published today described an outbreak of violence at Trappau, the capital of Austrian Silesia.  Forty anti-Semites attacked five Jewish officers who fired their revolvers in self-defense, wounding 12 of their attackers.


1894(26thof Nisan, 5654): Seventy-eight year old Rudolph Carl Hertzog, who founded his nationally known department store at 1839 in Berlin, passed away today.


1894: The funeral of Jesse Seligman, who passed away on April 23 in California, took place today at Temple Emanu-El in New York City.


1895: Birthdate of Lorenz Hart.  Born of Jewish-German immigrants, Hart was a highly productive lyricist for Broadway musicals and films.  He is the Hart in the team of Rogers and Hart.  Some of the tunes you might recognize are “Blue Moon,” “The Lady is a Tramp” and “The Most Beautiful Girl in the world.”  He passed away in 1943.


1895: In New York, Isidor Bader took a seven year old “deaf and dumb boy” who had been abandoned by an un-known man and woman to the police station of on Madison Street.


1895: Female members of Temple Emanu-El will meet at four o’clock this afternoon to discuss plans for the fair to be held in December at Madison Square Garden for the benefit of the Hebrew Technical Institute and Education Alliance.


1895: Dr. Henry M. Sanders and Professor Albert S. Bickmore delivered an illustrated lecture describing Jaffa, Hebron and Bethlehem in which they described Jaffa as “a place of 8,000 inhabitants composed mostly of fugitive from all parts of the world;” Hebron as now being “believed to be almost as ancient as Damascus;’ and “Bethlehem as being “noted for its fertility and the beauty of its women.”


1896: Henry Rice, Isaiah Joseph, J.H. Schiff, Simon Borge, Isidor Straus, Louis Stern and Louis Stern are among those bought boxes for tonight’s concert at the Metropolitan Opera House the proceeds of which will go to the United Hebrew Charities.


1896: Harold Frederic reports from London on the financial consequences of the recent demise of Baron Hirsch. Members of the British government are expecting a windfall to the Exchequer from the death duties that will have to be paid.  They are projected to exceed the amount collected from the estate of another prominent Jew, Sir Julian Goldsmid.  On the other hand, the Prince of Wales is quite concerned over how he shall back the considerable sums that he had borrowed from the Baron.  Rumor has it that the future King need not worry since there is a clause in the Baron’s will that absolves the Prince of Wales of his debts.  


1898: “A mass meeting” is scheduled to “be held in the auditorium of the Educational Alliance at 8 o’clock under the auspices of the Hebrew Volunteer Bureau for the purpose of encouraging” Jewish citizens to volunteer for service in the fight against Spain.


1898: “To Encourage Hebrew Volunteering” published today described the intention of “a committee of thirty prominent citizens” to “muster and equip at least two regiments of “ Jewish “volunteers from the down-town section” of New York where several hundred Jews “have already signed the enrollment roster.”


1898: “Predictions About The War” published today described the ease with which most American leaders thought the war with Spain would be won including “‘It will be a war of one encounter,’ cried Mr. Pulitzer of the New York World, that most patriotic of Polish Jews.”


1899: Martin Sigismund Eduard von Simson whose family converted to Protestantism in 1823 who served as the first President of the Reichstag passed away today.


1907: Birthdate of Pinky Lee host of the 1950’s children’s television program, Pinky Lee Show


1908: “Take Me out to the Ballgame”, one of the most popular song’s connected with baseball was copyrighted today.  The music for this American classic were written by a Jew named Albert Von Tilzer.


1911:Dr. Solomon Schechter, the President of the Jewish Theological Institute arrived on the Berlin tonight marking his return from an 11 month long vacations.


1912: Birthdate of Axel Springer German newspaper magnate.  Springer was honored by numerous organizations included the Weizmann Institute, Hebrew University, and The New York Leo Baeck Institute for his work to preserve German Jewish Culture and History and his support of Israel.  It was not just a personal commitment.  His editorial policies stated that the organization was to promote "the reconciliation of Jews and Germans and support for the vital rights of the State of Israel." 


1914: The trial of those accused of murdering Herman Rosenthal resumed in New York City.


1915: In New York, songwriter Fred Fisher and his wife gave birth to singer/songwriter Doris Fisher who performed with Eddie Ducin.


1919(2nd of Iyar, 5679):Gustav Landauer, German anarchist and pacifist, passed away. He was the grandfather of Mike Nichols  the famous American writer, director and producer.


1919: Birthdate of “Jacob Bigeleisen, a chemist who worked on the development of the atomic bomb as part of the Manhattan Project and helped discover new ways of analyzing chemical reactions…”


 1921: Riots in Jaffa, Palestine causes the deaths of 40 Jews and 200 wounded. Martial law was put in effect after Jewish stores were looted.


1922: David Lindo Alexander, the barrister and leader of the Anglo-Jewish community who opposed Zionism was buried today next to his wife at Wilesden Jewish Cemetery.


1922: In Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, Harry Shipiatsky, who changed his name to Rosenthal after emigrating to Canada in the 1890’s and Sarah Dickstein gave birth to their youngest child , Abraham Rosenthal who as A.M. Rosenthal, rose to become  the executive editor of the New York Times.  He later became a columnist for the New York Daily News


1922: In New York City, Samuel Untermyer made a vigorous attack on critics of the Zionist cause at a meeting tonight sponsored by the Washington Heights Congregation. Other speakers were Nahum Sokolow, Colonel J.H. Patterson and Vladimir Jabotinsky, who appealed for contributions to the Palestine Foundation Fund that needs three million dollars to meet its budgetary goals.  Untermyer said the funds were going to aid those seeking to “escape from the hate, persecutions, pogroms and massacres of the crazed, bigoted and Jew-baiting peoples of Eastern and Southeastern Europe.”  Furthermore, the funds would only be used to develop the land including programs to buy land, build houses and finance public works projects.


1924: Birthdate of multi-talented performer, Theodore Bikel.  Born in born in Vienna, Bikel's family took him to Palestine during the 1930's.  Bikel supported himself as a musician and appeared in several stage productions of Habimah, the Israeli theatre.  He honed his stage acting skills in London.  Ironically, one of his first American film roles was as a German naval officer in The African Queen.  It was one of many times he would play German and Russian characters.  In a linguistic tour de force, he played a southern sheriff in the Defiant Ones, a part for which he received an Oscar nomination.  Bikel's most famous role on the American stage was the male lead in the Sounds of Music, playing opposite Mary Martin.  Bikel is multi-lingual and a skilled guitarist.  This has made a favorite among folk music followers.  Bikel has been outspoken labor activist in the film and theatre industries.  And, he is an ardent Zionist.

1927: Louis Zabar, who created Zabar’s the icon of Manhattan’s Upper West Side, married Lillian Teitlebaum.  The future Mrs. Zabar had been living in Philadelphia before she moved to New York where she met Zabar whom she had originally known from the Ukrainian village in which they had both lived. They had three children – Saul, Stanley and Eli.  She passed away in 1995.


1927: In Birthdate of Amos Levine, the Tel Aviv native who as Amos Kenan became an Israeli columnist, painter, sculptor, playwright and novelist. He was known as a critic of Israeli policy.


1928: In San Francisco, Sydney Myer, the creation of the Australian department store that bears his name and Merlyn Myer gave birth to their youngest child  Marigold Merlyn Baillieu Myer.


1929: Tel Aviv celebrated its 20th anniversary today at an afternoon tea party.  One of the highlights of the event was the congratulatory speech by Major J.F. Campbell, District Commissioner of Southern Palestine which was delivered entirely in Hebrew.  “This was the first time in the history of the country since the British occupation that a high British official has delivered a public address entirely in Hebrew.”  The first child born in Tel Aviv, who is now twenty years old, “welcomed the guests in the name of the city’s young people.”


1930: In Tel Aviv, Moshe Kaniuk, the first curator of the Tel Aviv Museum of Art and his wife Sarah gave birth to Israeli author Yoram Kaniuk


1932:  Jack Benny's first radio show premiered on the NBC Blue Network, The color coding was to differentiate the two NBC networks from one another, not a reference to off-color material.  This was one of the milestones in Benny's career which included vaudeville, films and television


1933: The United Committee for the Settlement of German Jews is organized to aid immigrants.


1933: The polarization between the labor Movement (Histadrut and Mapai) and the Revisionists intensify and reach their peak after the assassination of Chaim Arlozoroff.


1934:  Congressman Louis T. McFadden delivers an anti-Semitic speech on the floor of the United States House of Representatives.


1934:The defense in the trial of three revisionist Zionists for the murder of Dr. Chaim Arlosoroff obtained admissions today from men employed by the police to make plaster casts of the footprints of the accused that some of the casts did not fit.  While cross-examining Inspector Riggs of the Palestine Police, defense counsel Horace Samuel attempted to establish the fact that the police had “hushed up the confession of Abdul Megid and his accomplice, Isa that they had murdered” the Zionist leader.


1935: Joseph Budko becomes director of the new Bezalel School of Arts and Crafts in Jerusalem. Born in1888, he left Germany in 1933 and settled in Palestine.  He passed away in 1940.


1935: As Palestine endures a heat wave, temperatures reach 104 degrees “in the shade.” The average temperature for May is 65 degrees.


1935:With Canada Dry Ginger Ale as a sponsor, Jack Benny came to radio on The Canada Dry Program on the NBC Blue Network


1936: Sixty-second running of the Kentucky Derby. “The Kentucky Derby was, in effect, a Jewish "sweep." Bold Venture was the winner, owned by Morton Schwartz, trained by Max Hirsch and ridden by Ira Hanford. All the human beings involved in this horse racing victory were Jews. Sometimes we suspect that Bold Venture was Jewish that day, too”


1936: Birthdate of violinist Michael Rabin.  Rabin is part of long list of distinguished Jewish violinists that runs from A to Z; from Joseph Achron and to Paul Zukofsky. He passed away in 1972.


1938: “The British partition commission began its tour of inquiry this morning, driving from Jerusalem to Jaffa and Tel Aviv.” Tel Aviv Mayor Israel Rokach took the commissioners on a tour of Tel Aviv harbor.  The commissioners expressed a great deal of interest in the harbor facilties in Tel Aviv and nearby Jaffa.  They were surprised to learn that the Jews of Tel Aviv supplied most of that city’s funding for the harbor and that Jewish taxpayers of Tel Aviv paid to support the educational and health services in Jaffa.  Residents of Jaffa made no such contribution to Tel Aviv.


1938: The Palestine Post reported that six Arab constables were killed when a gang of Arab terrorists attacked a police post near Kalkilya. Several casualties were suffered by the attackers who retreated with horses and rifles of their victims. Arab terrorists fired at the Jewish quarter of Safad and at Rosh Pina. They tampered with railway tracks, cut telephone wires and carried other acts of sabotage.



1941: Release date for “My Favorite Wife,” a comedy directed by Garson Kanin.


1941: In Nazi occupied Netherlands Jewish journalists are laid off.


1943(27th of Nisan, 5703): Four thousand Jews from Miedzyrzec Podlaski, Poland are murdered at the Treblinka death camp.


1943(27th of Nisan, 5703): At Luków, Poland, 4000 Jews are killed


1943: Memorial rallies were held today as part of a campaign to raise awareness of the plight of European Jewry and gain support for providing aid. “The memorial rallies …were in many instances jointly led by Reform, Conservative, and Orthodox rabbis--an uncommon display of unity. Equally significant, the Federal Council of Churches (whose Foreign Secretary had addressed the students' inter-seminary conference earlier that year) agreed to organize memorial assemblies at churches in numerous cities on the same day. Many of the assemblies featured speeches by rabbis and Christian clergymen, as well as prominent political figures. The gatherings received significant coverage in the newspapers and on radio. This important Jewish-Christian alliance helped raise American public consciousness about the Nazi slaughter of European Jewry.” (As reported by the David S. Wyman Institute)


1944: Robert Abshagen, was sentenced to death for his work in the anti-Hitler resistance.


1945: In Germany, the SS guards at the Neustadt-Glowen, labor camp near Lübeck fail to report for morning roll call, giving freedom to Jewish women who have been brought from Ravensbrück and Breslau, Germany, to dig defensive trenches and anti-tank ditches.


1945: Berlin surrendered  to the Soviet Army. Out of a pre-war Jewish population of 33,000, only 162 survived


1945: The Central Board of the Charity Institution for Aged Needy People (at Athens) attempted to make the elderly Jews comfortable in their last years. In a letter to the Central Board of Jewish Communities of Greece, they wrote:  "Honorable Sirs, The Central Board of the Charity Institution for Aged Needy People deeply sympathize with the martyrdom of the so terribly persecuted Jewish race by the wild and barbaric conqueror."


1945: “Raising a flag over the Reichstag,” a historic World War II photograph taken during the Battle of Berlin which depicts several Soviet troops raising the flag of the Soviet Union atop the German Reichstag building was taken today by Yevgeny Khaldei in another example of Jewish photographer taking an iconic WW II photograph such as the  Iwo Jima Flag Raising

1945: President Harry S. Truman signed Executive Order 9547 which made possible the Nuremberg Trials.


1946: Birthdate of musician Lesley Gore



1946: A funeral service is held in Kraków, Poland, for seven Jews who were murdered on April 30 by anti-Semitic thugs at Nowy Targ, Poland.


1947(12th of Iyar, 5707): Henry Monsky, international president of B'nai B'rith and chairman of the interim committee of the American Jewish Congress passed away today in the Hotel Biltmore at the age of 57, while attending a meeting of the future organization committee of the conference.


1948: Rusztem Vambery, the son of orientalist Armin Vambery, completed his service as Hungary’s ambassador to the United States.


1948: In response to the illegal attacks by Arab forces that had begun the day after the Partition vote, the Palmach 3rd Battalion, commanded by Moshe Kelman, attacked Ein al-Zeitun with a Davidka, two 3-inch mortars and eight 2-inch mortars


1949: Arthur Miller won the Pulitzer Prize for "Death of a Salesman."  “Death of a Salesman” went on to be a successful film as well.  Born in 1915, Miller's long career has included plays on a variety of topics including “The Crucible,” which used the Salem Witch Trials to challenge the Right Wing reactionaries including the followers of Senator Joe McCarthy during the 1950's.


1950: “A United Nations plane flying southward over Israeli territory was forced down at Lydda Airport today after Israeli Army fighters had fired across its nose. The plane was permitted to continue on to an Arab field at Kallandia, in Jordan after an official check.”


1951: Prime Minister David Ben Gurion left Israel for a private visit in the United States, accompanied by Chaim Herzog. During the trip he will meet with President Truman, as well as with young leaders from both political parties. One of them is Congressman John F. Kennedy. Ben Gurion will also vit Israeli air force students in California and a company manufacturing aircraft parts. The plant belongs to Al Schwimmer, a former American volunteer in the War of Independence.


1951: Syrian forces took positions of Tel Mutilla, in the demilitarized zone between Israel and Syria, and Meir Amit was ordered to dislodge them. Leading his Golani infantry brigade - he had become its commander in 1950 - Amit pressed the attack for four consecutive days, compelling the Syrians to withdraw. But with 40 of his soldiers killed in action and many others wounded, he faced serious criticism from senior officers and was called to defend his actions. The Battle of Tel Motila took place near Almagor, a Moshav north of the Sea of Galilee founded in 1961.


1951: For the only time in major league history, a Jewish batter faced a Jewish pitcher whose battery mate was also Jewish.  Detroit Tiger Pitcher Saul Rogovin was on the mound. Catcher Joe Ginsberg was behind the plate.  Lou Limmer, the Philadelphia Athletics’ first baseman was at bat.  Limmer hit the first pitch into the stands.


1952: Release date for “Belles on Their Toes” the Henry and Phoebe Ephron sequel to “Cheaper by the Dozen.”


1960(5thof Iyar, 5720): Israel marks its 12th year of independence on Yom HaAtzma’ut.


1963: In London, Lucian Freud and Bernadine Coverley gave birth to British novel Esther Freud who is the great-granddaughter of Sigmund Freud and a niece of Clement Freud.


1968(4th of Iyar, 5728): Yom HaAtzma'ut


1968: Israeli television began broadcasting.


1968: Birthdate of Edward Frenkel, the Russian-born, Harvard educated mathematician and filmmaker who won the Hermann Weyl Prize in 2002.


1968: Release date of the cinematic version of Neil Simon’s “The Odd Couple co-starring Walter Matthau and directed by Gene Saks.


1975: Larry Blyden (born Ivan Lawrence Blieden) “reprised his role as “Ensign Pulver” in a tribute for director Joshua Logan at the Imperial Theatre.


1975: The American Jewish Committee announced publication of a guidebook by Gladys Rosen suggesting ways to recognize Jewish contributions to the United States during the Bicentennial celebrations.


1976:  Agudath Achim, the Orthodox congregation in Little Rock, AR, dedicates its newest building.  This is the third home for the congregation; the first one that is not in the downtown section of the city. 


1978: The Jerusalem Post reported that the U.S. President, Jimmy Carter, told the visiting Premier, Menachem Begin, that the U.S. will "never waiver" in its "absolute commitment to the Israeli security," even though "we may, from time to time, have a transient difference with the people of Israel". Some 150 American rabbis participating in the White House reception given to honor the Prime Minister Menachem Begin, presented the U.S. National Security Adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski, with a petition protesting the proposed Middle Eastern arms embargo, which would directly affect Israel.


1978: The Jerusalem Post reported that despite the U.S. State Department's official objections, the Palestine Liberation Organization opened an information office in Washington, under the management of Hatem Husseini, a Palestinian citizen of Jordan.


1979(5thof Iyar, 5739): Yom HaAtzma’ut


1980(16th of Iyyar, 5740): Arab terrorists kill 6 Jews and injure 17 at Hebron. Israeli military authorities order the deportation of the mayors of Hebron and the nearby village of Halhoul for incitement to violence. The mayors appeal to Israeli courts, which affirm the order. In December, they will be deported to southern Lebanon.


1981:Rabbi Joseph P. Weinberg officiated at the wedding of Harolyn Sue Landow and Michael H. Cardozo at Washington Hebrew Congregation. Mr. Cardozo is a cousin the late Supreme Court Justice Benjamin Nathan Cardozo.


1981(28thof Nisan, 5741): Eighty-five year old Dr. David Wechsler, a psychologist who was the author of widely used intelligence tests, passed away today in New York City. (As reported by Wolfgang Saxon)

1981(28thof Nisan, 5741): Eighty-one year old Rabbi Joseph Hager, founder and senior rabbi of the Wall Street Synagogue, passed away today. A native of Rumania, Rabbi Hager founded two schools, the Hebrew Institute of Long Island, in Far Rockaway, and the Yeshiva of Spring Valley, in Rockland County. He was the founding editor and publisher of Synagogue Light, a monthly publication. The Wall Street Synagogue was first situated at Broadway and Duane Street and later move to 47 Beekman Street.


1981: A police sapper was moderately injured by an explosive charge that had been placed in a trash can near Cafe Alno in Jerusalem.


1982: “Talk With George Steiner” published today provides a look at the views of this Jewish philosopher, author and academic.

1982: Mayor Ed Koch is expected to be among the 450 guests attending the dinner tonight celebrating the 75th anniversary of the Hebrew Tabernacle of Washington Heights which has been led by Rabbi Robert L. Lehman for the past twenty-five years.


1982: “Alive And 90 In The Jungles of Brazil” published today provides a detailed review of The Portage To San Cristobal of A.H., George Steiner’s novel about Adolph Hitler.


1987: “P.L.O., Reunited But Isolated” published today described the disarray among those committed to the destruction of Israel.

1989(27thof Nisan, 5749): Yom HaShoah


1990: British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher addressed the Women’s International Zionist Organization at its Centenary Lunch


1991(18th of Iyar, 5751): Lag B’Omer


1991(18th of Iyar, 5751): Eighty-two year old Leib Lensky, an actor who appeared in plays, films and television programs and performed in English, Yiddish and Hebrew, passed away today

 

1992(29th of Nisan, 5752): Dr. Lee Salk passed away.  Born in 1926, Salk gained famed as a “baby doctor" and author on family matters.  He died of cardiac arrest at the age of 65.


1999: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including“Israel and Europe:An Appraisal in History” by Howard M. Sachar and “The Majors: In Pursuit of Golf's Holy Grail” by John Feinstein.


2000: Israeli jet fighters turn back an Egyptian civilian aircraft from the Gaza airport



2001: “Israel Arrests an ex-general as a spy for spilling old secrets” published today described action taken against seventy-five year old  Itzhak Yaakov, a retired IDF general.

2001: A meeting between Secretary of State Colin Powell and Foreign Minister Shimon Peres to discuss the Egyptian-Jordanian peace initiative ends with little advancement.


2004: On the PGA tour, Bruce Fleisher won Bruno’s Memorial Classic.


2004: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including the recently released paperback edition of Gulag: A History by Anne Applebaum, a Pulitzer Prize-winning study that maintains that the Soviet concentration-camp system was equal to the Nazi killing machine, and supports Solzhenitsyn's assertion that the gulag was not a Stalinist aberration but an integral part of Lenin's Socialist dream.


2004(11th of Iyar, 5764) A pregnant mother and her four daughters are shot dead by terrorists as they drive on the Kissufim road in the Gaza Strip.


2004: Vowing to fight for coexistence and mutual respect among mankind around the world, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger lays the cornerstone of Jerusalem's Museum of Tolerance and pays tribute to the six million Jews who perished in the Holocaust. The Governor concludes his speech with the Hebrew saying, "Am Yisrael hai"– (the nation of Israel lives) – gives the crowd a thumbs-up sign, and adds his signature movie line, "I'll be back."


2004: Sixty-five per cent of those participating in an internal Likud referendum voted against Ariel Sharon’s plan to disengage from Gaza.


2004: Natan Sharansky, the Minister for Jerusalem and Diaspora Affairs, and the World Zionist Organization, launch the new "Combating Anti-Semitism" Kit.


2006(4th of Iyar, 5766):  Yom Hazikaron – Israel Remembrance Day. On the day before celebrating its independence, Israel remembers the human cost.  In the past year, 138 members of the security forces have been killed in the line of duty, bringing the total of men and women killed defending the state since 1860 to 22,123.  This does not count the thousands of innocent bystanders who died in everything from terrorist attacks on Jerusalem pizza parlors to the sinking of ships filled with immigrants bound for Palestine in defiance of the infamous British White Paper.


2007: The Jewish Center for History and the Leo Baeck Institute in New York present “Hannah Arendt Rediscovered” a program “featuring the distinguished philosopher Richard Bernstein and author Jerome Kohn.”


2008: As part of the PEN World Voices, Israeli author Yael Hedaya participates in a panel discussion entitled Writing Sex and Sexuality. Yael Hedaya was born in Jerusalem in 1964.
2008: In Cedar Rapids, Iowa Friday evening services Temple Judah are dedicated to bidding Muriel and Fred Rogers a fond farewell.  Fred and Muriel have been mainstays of the Jewish community and while we are all glad that they are enjoying a long, healthy life, we will miss them as they return to their Chicago roots.


2008: “One of a Kind,” a play that Yossi Vassa co-wrote with Shai Ben Attar about his family’s flight from Ethiopia in the mid-1980s opens at The New Victory Theater in New York City. 

2008(27thof Nisan, 5768): Seventy-two year old Uzbekistani musician and poet Ilyas Malayev who fell victim to anti-Semitism in his homeland lost his battle with pancreatic cancer and passed away today in Queens, NY.


2008: “Imaginary Coordinates” featuring the Spertus Institute’s collection of Holy Land maps, which date back to the 16th century as well as contemporary Israeli and Palestinian women artists’ works that take up the question of regional borders opens at the Spertus in Chicago, Il.


2009: The Lincoln Center presents Orient- Occident: A Dialogue of Cultures as part of the Jordi Savall Jerusalem Series.


2009(8thof Iyar, 5769):Alfred Appel Jr., a scholarly expert on Vladimir Nabokov, whose lecture course he attended at Cornell, and the author of wide-ranging interpretive books on modern art and jazz, died today in Wilmette, Illinois at the age of 75. (As reported by William Grimes)

2009:Wayne L. Horvitz, a longtime labor relations mediator and the son of David Lyon Hurwitz, discusses and signs What's the Beef?: Sixty Years of Hard-won Lessons for Today's Leaders in Labor, Management, and Government at Politics and Prose Bookstore in Washington, D.C.


2010(18th of Iyar, 5770):Lag B'Omer


2010(18th of Iyar, 5770):Inna Hecker Grade, the widow and a translator of the great Yiddish novelist and poet Chaim Grade, who earned her own literary niche for her zealous guardianship of her husband’s legacy, died today at the age of 85 in the Bronx, New York City. (As reported by Joseph Berger)

2010:Silvia Planas and Manuel Forcano are scheduled to discuss A History of Jewish Catalonia their book that traces the rich and fertile history of the Jews in Catalonia from the earliest references, that is, from the time of the late Roman Empire and the Early Middle Ages, until the drastic decree of expulsion by the Catholic Monarchs in a program sponsored by The American Sephardi Federation


2010: As part of the third annual program in memory of Dr. Mordkhe Schaechter, Prof. Eugene Orenstein of McGill University is scheduled to speak on the topic, "Ber Borokhov: A Revolutionary of Yiddish Philology" followed by Prof. Joshua (Shikl) Fishman who is scheduled to speak about Dr. Schaechter.


2010(18thIyar, 5770):Eighty-six year oldRabbi Moshe Hirsch, a leader of an ultra-Orthodox Jewish sect that opposes the existence of the Israeli state and a longtime adviser to the Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat, died today at his home in Jerusalem. (As reported by Dennis Hevesi)

2011: As reported by Tom Tugend in “Auschwitz bar mitzvah for 78-year-old Oscar-winner Branko Lustig”:Branko Lustig, 78, two-time Oscar winner for “Schindler’s List” and “Gladiator,” is scheduled to celebrate his bar mitzvah today at Auschwitz, in front of barrack No. 24.

2011: The Consultation on Conscience, Reform Judaism's flagship social justice conference is scheduled to continue with a reception featuring guest host Richard Dreyfus at the National Press Club in Washington, DC.


2011:The 17th Annual Rocky Mountain Jewish Historical Society Heritage Award Dinner is scheduled to take place in Denver. The 2011 Heritage Award Dinner will salute early Colorado Jews in the Arts and will feature the premiere of a film called "Civilizing the West: Early Colorado Jews in the Arts."


2011:This morning at 10 a.m., sirens will wail throughout Israel as people observe a moment of silence in memory of the victims of the Nazi persecution. The closing ceremony of Holocaust and Heroism Remembrance Day will take place at Yad Mordechai, the kibbutz adjacent to Gaza named after Mordechai Anielewicz, the leader of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising who was killed in the fighting.


2011: In the wake of the killing of Osama Bin Laden, Chicago police are taking additional measures to guard against possible retaliatory terrorist attacks.  Police were paying closer attention to many buildings including synagogues, particularly in the Rogers Park and West Rogers Park neighborhoods, areas that have large Jewish communities. Some Chicago synagogues said they're not enhancing security because they're always on high alert. "The reality is that because of Osama bin Laden and other terrorists . . . we have been instituting additional security for a very long time," said Rabbi Leonard Matanky, of Congregation KINS in West Rogers Park. In the wake of 9/11, many synagogues installed cameras and began locking their doors, among other security measures that officials declined to specify.


2011:The Supreme Court delayed the start of former President Moshe Katsav's jail sentence until a ruling is reached on an appeal filed by his lawyers. Katsav, who was convicted on two counts of rape for indecent assault and sexual harassment of female employees, appealed the ruling against him this week.


2011(28thof Nisan, 5771): Yom HaShoah


2011: The trustees of the City University of New York voted to shelve plans to award an honorary degree to Tony Kushner because he “had disparaged the State of Israel in past comments.


2011: The Palestinian Islamist group Hamas condemned the killing by U.S. forces of Osama bin Laden and mourned him as an "Arab holy warrior." (As reported by Jack Khoury)


2012: A limited run of 'Welcome to America' by H. Leivick (the penname of Leivick Haplern) is scheduled to begin in New York.


2012: Dr. Jonathan Sarna is scheduled to discuss his marvelous new book, When General Grant Expelled the Jews at the National Museum of American Jewish History in Philadelphia, PA.


2012: Dr. Edna Nahshon, Professor of Hebrew and Theater at the Jewish Theological Seminary, and editor of Jews and Theater in an Intercultural Context, is scheduled to discuss this new book of essays, including her own research on passion plays in America at the Library of Congress in Washington, DC.


2012: The Westchester Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to come to an end.


2012: The International Workshop on Holocaust Testimonies: Truth and Witness being held at the Wiener Library in the UK is scheduled to come to an end.


2012: The Center for Jewish History is scheduled to present “Jews in Early Modern Europe: A Day-to-Day Perspective.”


2012(10thof Iyar, 5773): Ninety year old violinist Zvi Zeitlin passed away today. (As reported by Margalit Fox)

2013: In Chicago, the Spertus Institute is scheduled to present “Ballot, Babies and Banners of Peace,:” a lecture in which Dr. Melissa  R. Klpaaher  “will discuss how the activism of American Jewish women was grounded in their gender, religious, cultural, and ethnic identities…”


2013: “The key witness in the breach of trust trial against former foreign minister Avigdor Liberman, his former deputy Danny Ayalon took the stand today and gave incriminating testimony, confirming that while serving in the Foreign Ministry, Liberman had acted to promote a man who had done him a favor.” (As reported by Stuart Winer)


2013: The Maccabeats and Sarah Aroeste and Daniel Kahn & the Painted Bird are scheduled to perform at the Washington Jewish Music Festival.


2013: A terrorist opened fire at two people this evening in Wadi Kelt, near Mitzpeh Yericho. The two were attacked as they sat in a car


2013: Terrorists in Gaza fired two rockets at southern Israel tonight. The rockets hit the Eshkol region.


2014: Coralville, Iowa, The House of David Softball Team, sponsored by Agudas Achim is scheduled to take the field.


2014: In Cedar Rapids, Temple Judah is scheduled to host its final Musical Shabbat of the season.


2014: Annalisa Capristo the librarian at the Centro Studi Americani, Rome, Italy whose work focuses on anti-Jewish persecution in Italy under Fascist rule, particularly against Jewish scholars is scheduled to deliver a lecture on “An Overview of the Italian Jewish Immigration in South America” at the Third Regional New Conference sponsored by the Latin American Jewish Studies Association (LAJSA)


 

This Day, May 3, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. Levin

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May 3



1282 BCE: (28 Nissan 2488): Traditional date marking the fall of the walls of Jericho.



443 BCE (7th of Iyar, 3317): Nehemiah dedicated the newly built walls that had been built around Jerusalem



996: Papacy of Gregory V began today making him a contemporary of Hananel Ben Hushiel, Samuel Ibn Nagrela and Jacob ben Yakar each of whom was born in 990.



1096 (8th Iyar): On his way to join the Crusade led by Peter the Hermit, Emico, the Count of Leiningen, attacked the synagogue at Speyers. The Jews defended themselves but were systematically slain. Until this time atrocities in Europe were sporadic. From this point on, they became organized and frequent. Jewish martyrdom began in earnest. It should be remembered that the atrocities committed by the rampaging crusaders were not always supported by the local burghers and bishops. Furthermore, in many countries, especially the Slavic states, the local Christian community suffered from pillages as well. John Bishop of Spires even called out his army after 11 Jews were killed in a riot, but he was an exception rather than the rule. Approximately 5,000 Jews were murdered in Germany in 1096.[Editor’s Note: Maggie Anton, the author of the acclaimed series about Rashsi’s Daughters, offers the following view of events. “Actually, the Crusader attacks on Speyer in 1096 left only 11 Jews dead - those who were still on the streets. Warned of the danger, the Jews prayed early and left the synagogue before the marauders arrived, barricading themselves at home. Bishop John's army routed the mob and cut off the hands of the worst instigators. It was later in the month that the worst massacres occurred in Worms, Mainz & Cologne.”]

 
1235: Pope Gregory issued a Bull that repeated and confirmed the constitution of Pope Innocent III.  The Bull was issued in response to pleas from German Jews that the Church act to stop the marauding mobs that were attacking them.

 
1270: King Béla IV of Hungary passed away.Bela had welcomed Jewish immigrants to his kingdom and in 1251 gave them “legal rights.”

 
1407: Emperor Rupert issued a decree appointing Israel of Krems “chief rabbi of all the German communities ("Hochmeister über alle Rabbinen"), giving him a certificate declaring him to be a great Talmudic scholar and a good man.”

 
1455: As Christian forces advance, groups of Jews fled Spain, some of whom ended up in Kosovo others of whom settled in West African Jewish communities known as Bilad al-Sudan.


1469: Birthdate of Niccolò Machiavelli


 
1481: Mehmed II, Ottoman Sultan passed away. Known as “The Conqueror” (Faith), he reigned from 1444 to 1446 until his father took over on account of war. He came again to throne in 1451. He conquered Constantinople in 1453. The oppressed Jews were relieved to see him occupy the city. He allowed Jews from today's Greek Islands and Crete to settle in Istanbul. Fatih's declaration is as follows: "Listen sons of the Hebrew who live in my country...May all of you who desire come to Constantinople and may the rest of your people find here a shelter". The Bavarian King Ludwig the III, under the influence of the Italian Monk Jean de Capistrano expelled the Jews out and forced them to settle on the banks of the Danube River, Capistrano helped John Hunyadi in 1456 when the Ottomans besieged Belgrade. In 1410 Jean Huss was excommunicated and burned on order of the pope Alexander the V. The pope Nicholas the V, summoned Jean de Capistrano to go to Slovakia and fight the followers of Jean Huss. Of course Capistrano did not forget the Jews and as a result, by order of the Sultan, a regiment called "The sons of Moses" was formed. Since Capistrano also prepared a crusade against the Ottomans, the same regiment participated in the war which ensued. The doctors Isak Pasa Galeon and Ribbi Sonsino were also appointed to that regiment. Before being killed, Ribbi Sonsino chopped away the head of Jean de Capistrano and the church declared the latter a saint. After the war Mehmed II invited the Ashkenazi Jews of Transylvania and Slovakia to the Ottoman Empire. The synagogues Ahrida, Karaferya, Yanbol and Cuhadji which were damaged due to a fire have been repaired on the Sultan’s order. According to a votive foundation document dated 1451-1481, the doctors Moses Hamon, Isak Pas a Galeon, Hekim Yakup, Ephraim Sandji and Hekim Abraham were appointed as palace doctors.

 
1488: In Naples, Joseph Günzenhäuser published the first printed edition of the Pentateuch with a commentary by Abraham ibn Ezra.

 
1579: An auto-de-fe at Seville sentenced 38 people, some accused of Judaizing. In all, only one person was burned.

 
1583(11thof Iyar): Rabbi Isaac Mehling passed away in Prague.

 
1588: Council of Hanover in Germany ordered the severance of all business connections between Jews and Christians.

 
1616(16th of Iyar, 5376): Meir Lublin, the son of Gedaliah, the son-in-law of Isaac ha-Kohen Shapiro and  the author of the Talmudic commentary Meir Einai Chachamim  passed away today in Lublin.

 
1655(26th of Nisan, 5415): Abraham Nunez Bernal was burned at the stake by the Inquisition of Cordova making him yet another Sephardic martyr.

 
1655:Jacob Abendana delivered a famous memorial sermon on the Cordovan martyrs Marranos Nunez and Almeyda Bernal who had been burned at the stake. Abendana was the older of Isaac Abendana who taught at Magdalen College and served as hakam of the Spanish Portuguese Synagogue in London..


1667(9thof Iyar, 5427): Many Jews were killed in anti-Jewish riots in Lemberg.  Lemberg is in the Ukraine.  These killings took place during the wars between the Poles and the Cossacks.  The fate of the Jews of Lemberg would grow even worse in 1668 when most of them would perish in a massacre.


 
1703(17th of Iyar, 5463): Seventy two year old Samuel Oppenheimer the Jewish banker who bankrolled Emperor Leopold I during the Great Turkish War, passed away today.

 
1733(22nd of Iyar,):  Rabbi Zevi of Vilna, author of “Bet Lehem Yehudah” passed away

 
1764: The Maryland Gazettereported "certain" Jews were willing to settle in the American colonies to conduct agriculture and commerce. This was nothing new, as for almost 30 years prior the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue in London had wanted to form a large settlement for Jews in Carolina.

 
1775: David Salisbury Franks, who would become an officer in the American Revolutionary Army, was arrested for speaking in a disrespectful manner about King George III.

 
1791: Poland’s Jews are granted full emancipation under the new Polish Constitution proclaimed by the Sejm

 
1802:  Washington, D.C. is incorporated as a city. Isaac Polock was reported to be D.C.’s first Jewish resident having moved to the area in 1795.  Major Alfred Mordecai came to Washington in 1828 to serve as superintendent of the District of Columbia Arsenal. He is the second known Jewish resident of the nation’s capital.  For more about the history of Jewry in the Washington metropolitan area see the website of the Jewish Historical Society of Greater Washington http://www.jhsgw.org/

 
1844: Birthdate of Édouard Adolphe Drumont “a French journalist and writer” who “founded the Anti-Semitic League of France in 1889, and was the founder and editor of the newspaper La Libre Parole.”


“He was at first in government service, but later became a contributor to the press and was the author of a number of miscellaneous works, of which Mon vieux Paris (1879) was crowned by the Academy.


Drumont's 1886 book ‘La France Juive’ (Jewish France) attacked the role of Jews in France and argued for their exclusion from society. In 1892 Drumont founded the newspaper the La Libre Parole which became a platform for virulent anti-Semitism…He was sued for accusing a parliamentary deputy of having taken a bribe from the prominent Jewish banker Édouard Alphonse de Rothschild to pass a piece of legislation the banker wanted. Drumont attracted many supporters and was one of the primary sources of anti-Semitic ideas that would later be embraced by Nazism. He exploited the Panama Company Scandal and reached the peak of his notoriety during the Dreyfus Affair, in which he was the most strident of Alfred Dreyfus' accusers.” He died in 1917.

 
1847:  Premiere of “Don John of Austria,” the first Australian opera at the Royal Victoria Theatre in Sydney.  Isaac Nathan wrote the opera to a libretto by Jacob Levi Montefiore.

 
1849: The May Uprising in Dresden begins - the last of "the German revolutions of 1848." These revolutions, in which many Jews played an active role, failed.  This resulted in a major migration of liberal Germans, including a large number of German Jews, to the United States.  This migration would have a major impact on the United States and the American Jewish community.

 
1849: At the tenth meeting of the Independent Order of Free Sons of Israel, a petition “asking for a charter for a second lodge of the order to be named Abraham Lodge No. 2” was granted.

 
1853: The New York Times reported that an un-named Jew had been arrested on a charge of receiving stolen goods.  The goods were reportedly $25 dollars worth of women’s shoes that had been stolen by German lad named Herman who was working as an apprentice in a boot & shoe store.

 
1857: Birthdate of August Lederer the Austrian industrialist, art collector and patron of Gustav Klimt.

 
1860: In Ancona, Abramo Volterra, a cloth merchant, and Angelica Almagià gave birth to Samuel Giuseppe Vito Volterra

 
1864(27th of Nisan, 5624):J. J. Benjamin passed away.  Born in 1818 at Fălticeni, Romania he “was a Romanian-Jewish historian and traveler. His pen name was "Benjamin II", in allusion to Benjamin of Tudela. Married young, he engaged in the lumber business, but losing his modest fortune, he gave up commerce. Being of an adventurous disposition, he adopted the name of Benjamin of Tudela, the famous Jewish traveler of the twelfth century, and toward the end of 1844 set out to search for the Lost Ten Tribes. Using the name of Benjamin of Tudela, the famous twelfth century Jewish traveler, he set out in 1844 on a search for the Lost Ten Tribes of Israel. This search took him from Vienna to Constantinople in 1845, with stops at several cities on the Mediterranean. He arrived in Alexandria in June, 1847, and proceeded via Cairo to the Levant. He then traveled through Syria, Babylonia, Kurdistan, Persia, the Indies, Kabul, and Afghanistan, returning June, 1851, to Constantinople, and then back to Vienna where he stayed briefly before heading to Italy. There he embarked for Algeria and Morocco. He made copious notes of his observations of the societies he visited. On arriving in France, after having traveled for eight years, he prepared in Hebrew his impressions of travel, and had the book translated into French. After suffering many tribulations in obtaining subscriptions for his book, he issued it in 1856, under the title ‘Cinq Années en Orient (1846-51).’ The same work, revised and enlarged, was subsequently published in German under the title ‘Acht Jahre in Asien und Afrika’ (Hanover, 1858), with a preface by Meyer Kayserling. An English version has also been published. As the veracity of his accounts and the genuineness of his travels were attacked by some critics, he amply defended himself by producing letters and other tokens proving his journey to the various Oriental countries named. Benjamin relates only what he has seen; and, although some of his remarks show insufficient scholarship and lack of scientific method, his truthful and simple narrative gained the approval of eminent scholars like Humboldt, Petermann, and Richter. In 1859 Benjamin undertook another journey, this time to America, where he stayed three years. The result of his observations there he published on his return, under the title Drei Jahre in Amerika (Hanover, 1863). The kings of Sweden and of Hanover now conferred distinctions upon him. Encouraged by the sympathy of several scientists, who drew up a plan and a series of suggestions for his guidance, he determined to go again to Asia and Africa, and went to London in order to raise funds for this journey — a journey which was not to be undertaken. Worn out by fatigues and privations, which had caused him to grow old before his time and gave him the appearance of age, he died poor in London; and his friends and admirers had to arrange a public subscription in order to save his wife and daughter from misery. In addition to the works mentioned above, Benjamin published Jawan Mezula, Schilderung des Polnisch-Kosakischen Krieges und der Leiden der Juden in Poland Während der Jahre 1648-53, Bericht eines Zeitgenossen nach einer von. L. Lelewel Durchgesehenen Französischen Uebersetzung, Herausgegeben von J. J. Benjamin II., Hanover, 1863, a German edition of Rabbi Nathan Nata Hanover's work on the insurrection of the Cossacks in the seventeenth century, with a preface by Kayserling. Upon his return to London in 1862, he drew another plan to return to Asia and Africa but fell ill and died early in 1863 before being able to undertake his next journey.


During his travels in Persia J. J. Benjamin wrote down some observations on the life of the Jews in Persia:

 
1. Throughout Persia the Jews are obliged to live in a part of the town separated from the other inhabitants; for they are considered as unclean creatures, who bring contamination with their intercourse and presence.


2. They have no right to carry on trade in stuff goods.


3. Even in the streets of their own quarter of the town they are not allowed to keep any open shop. They may only sell there spices and drugs, or carry on the trade of a jeweller, in which they have attained great perfection.


4. Under the pretext of their being unclean, they are treated with the greatest severity, and should they enter a street, inhabited by Mussulmans, they are pelted by the boys and mobs with stones and dirt.


5. For the same reason they are forbidden to go out when it rains; for it is said the rain would wash dirt off them, which would sully the feet of the Mussulmans.


6. If a Jew is recognised as such in the streets, he is subjected to the greatest insults. The passers-by spit in his face, and sometimes beat him so unmercifully, that he falls to the ground, and is obliged to be carried home.


7. If a Persian kills a Jew, and the family of the deceased can bring forward two Mussulmans as witnesses to the fact, the murderer is punished by a fine of 12 tumauns (600 piastres); but if two such witnesses cannot be produced, the crime remains unpunished, even though it has been publicly committed, and is well known.


8. The flesh of the animals slaughtered according to Hebrew custom, but declared as Trefe, must not be sold to any Mussulmans. The slaughterers are compelled to bury the meat, for even the Christians do not venture to buy it, fearing the mockery and insult of the Persians.


9. If a Jew enters a shop to buy anything, he is forbidden to inspect the goods, but must stand at a respectful distance and ask the price. Should his hand incautiously touch the goods, he must take them at any price the seller chooses to ask for them.


10. Sometimes the Persians intrude into the dwellings of the Jews and take possession of whatever pleases them. Should the owner make the least opposition in defence of his property, he incurs the danger of atoning for it with his life.


11. Upon the least dispute between a Jew and a Persian, the former is immediately dragged before the Achund [religious authority], and, if the complainant can bring forward two witnesses, the Jew is condemned to pay a heavy fine. If he is too poor to pay this penalty in money, he must pay it in his person. He is stripped to the waist, bound to a stake, and receives forty blows with a stick. Should the sufferer utter the least cry of pain during this proceeding, the blows already given are not counted, and the punishment is begun afresh.


12. In the same manner the Jewish children, when they get into a quarrel with those of the Mussulmans, are immediately led before the Achund, and punished with blows. (13. A Jew who travels in Persia is taxed in every inn and every caravanserai he enters. If he hesitates to satisfy any demands that may happen to be made on him, they fall upon him, and maltreat him until he yields to their terms.


14.If, as already mentioned, a Jew shows himself in the street during the three days of the Katel (feast of mourning for the death of the Persian founder of the religion of Ali) he is sure to be murdered.


15. Daily and hourly new suspicions are raised against the Jews, in order to obtain excuses for fresh extortions; the desire of gain is always the chief incitement to fanaticism.


 From “The Jews of Islam” by Bernard Lewis)

 
1864: Jacob and Amalia Freud gave birth to Pauline “Pauli” Regine, the sister of Sigmund Freud.

 
1868: The New York Times reports that “many English papers have taken pleasure in describing Mr. Disraeli as an apostate Jew.  In simple truth he is neither one nor the other, in a religious point of view.  His father (Isaac Disraeli) and his mother were Hebrews both of Portuguese parentage.  Benhamin was never instructed in Judaism, because of some quarrel his father had with his synagogue.  When he was about six years old, Rogers, the banker and poset, came to visit Disraeli, the author and finding a bright boy, without religious instruction, too him by permission of his father to own church.  He was therefore brought up in the English Church, and has a least as good a right to the name ‘Christian’ as most of his fellow M.P’s.”

 
1871:  “Murder Will Out” published today described the events surrounding the retrial of Antoine Maurer who is accused of killing a German Jew named Joachim Feurter.  Maurer’s first conviction had been over-turned on appeal.  The motive for the murder may have been tied to money that the killer owed the deceased.

 

1871(12th of Iyar, 5631): Sixty-eight year old philologist Eduard Munk, the cousin of Salomon Munk, who was a disciple of August Böckh passed away today Gross Glogau.

 
1872: “”A War of Sects” published today described a riot that had taken place in Smyrna between Greeks and Jews.  The fighting began after it had been reported that the Jews “had sacrificed an infant” as part of “their religious ceremonies.”  According to these reports several people had been killed and wounded.  While the riot had stopped for the time being, troops had been ordered to the city to prevent a renewal of the violence.

 
1873:  Theodor Herzl’s Bar Mitzvah (No, I do not know who catered the Kiddush)

 
1873: An article entitled “An Appeal for Hebrew Children” published today sought contributions from New Yorkers to provide Jewish orphans and students at the Hebrew free schools with an opportunity “to have a few holidays and enjoy recreation by the sea-side” during the upcoming summer months.

 
1874: Isaac S. Isaacs, Adolph L. Singer and Oscar S. Straus were among those elected to the Board of Directors of the newly formed Young Men’s Hebrew Association.  Lewis May was chosen as the first president.

 
1877: In Bremen, Germany, Ida and Nathan Abraham gave birth to Karl Abraham, the German psychoanalyst who worked with Sigmund Freud.

 
1877: An article published today entitled “The Hebrews in Roumania” described attempts by the Board of Delegates of American Israelites to have the President intercede on behalf of Jews of Bucharest and parts of the realm of Prince Charles who have been subjected to a series of unthinkable “barbarities.”

 
1878(30th of Nisan, 5638) Rosh Chodesh Iyar

 
1882: The Czar gave his approval to series of anti-Semitic regulations proposed by Count Ignatiev known collectively as the “May Laws.

 
1885: Forty-five year Sally Sanford Mordecai passed away.Sally was the daughter of Brigadier General William Murray and Sally "Eveleth" Maynadier. She married General Alfred Mordecai, II. They were the parents of five children. Her father-in-law was a ranking solider in the U.S. Army prior to the Civil War who resigned rather than take up arms against his Southern family members or the country that he had sworn to protect.  Her husband had no such qualms and served with distinction during the Civil War. 

 
1886: The National Rabbinical Convention, an organization of Reform clergyman, is scheduled to meet today in Cincinnati, Ohio.

 
1891: An article entitled “Russian Jews” appearing in today’s New York Times opens with the statement that “Every American will be glad to see the announcement of a scheme to colonize the Jews who are expelled from the Czar’s dominions on an immense tract” of land in Argentina.  The project is being underwritten by Baron Hirsch.  According to the article, the United States already has too many Jewish immigrants from Russia.  The Russian Jews are described as impoverished, ignorant, a burden on society and a mass who will never assimilate into American life. The article ends by stating that “it is noteworthy that all other civilized countries share our dislike to entertaining the victims of the Czar’s cruelty…”

 
1891: It was reported today that Russian Jewish immigrants are arriving in the United Kingdom at the rate of nearly 18.000 per year.

 
1892: The cornerstone for a new facility to house the youngsters in the care of Hebrew Brooklyn Orphan asylum was laid today

 
1894: Council No.5 of the National Council Jewish Women was formed in Newark, NJ, with a membership of 91 led by President Gratta and Secretary Maybaum.
 
1894: “Mourners’ Prayers will be delivered” tonight at the home of the family of Jesse Seligman, the banker, philanthropist and lead of the Jewish community who died unexpectedly and whose funeral was which was attended by over 2,000 people was held yesterday at Temple Emanuel where  Cantor Sparger and Rabbis Silberman and Gottheil officiated  at the service.

 
1895: In New York, Governor Morton gave executive approval to a proposal by Assembly Steinberg “authorizing the sale of certain lands to the Hebrew Orphan Asylum of New York City which the city of New York has heretofore conditionally transferred to that institution.”

 
1895: In Vienna, Lili Mueller and Dr. Herman Carl Mark who converted to Lutheranism when he got married gave birth to Herman Francis Mark “the American chemist known for his contributions to the development of polymer science.

 
1898(11th of Iyar, 5658): Birthdate of Golda Meir.  Her life reads like one of those grand literary sagas of which television mini-series are made.  Born in Kiev, Ukraine, she experienced Pogroms before coming to America with her family.  As an act of teenage rebellion she fled from her home in Milwaukee to join her sister in Denver.  She moved back to Milwaukee to become a school teacher.  After hearing the recruiting pitch for the Jewish Legion, Ms. Meirson (she Hebraized her name to Meir after the creation of the state of Israel in response to pressure from David Ben Gurion) decided to join the settlers in Palestine.  She was an ardent Zionist as well as socialist which, from an ideological point of view, made her an ideal candidate for life on a kibbutz.  Mrs. Meir, whose name was Meyerson at the time, became increasingly active in the leadership of the Yishuv.  She had a leading role in raising funds from American Jews to buy arms for the underground Jewish military units before 1948.  Disguised as Bedouin, she met with the King of Jordan in an attempt to avert hostilities in 1948.  Her story of Simchat Torah in Moscow after the creation of the state of Israel is an inspirational classic.  She was Foreign Minister and finally became the  “fourth Prime Minister of Israel.  She served from 1969 through 1974, a period that included the Yom Kippur War. She passed away in 1978, having lived to see Sadat's historic trip to Jerusalem.  They met, not as former adversaries, but as grandparents.  Golda, as she was known to all, had a gift for Sadat's grandchild. 

 
1898: Following the start of the Spanish-American War, The Cleveland (Ohio) Leader reported that “the Jews of the United States through the active efforts of those in Ohio may contribute a sum sufficient to purchase a warship for the United States Government.

 
1898: “Russian Jews to the Front” published today described efforts to have at least 5,000 mostly recent immigrants enlist in the U.S. Army led by Nathan Straus who “said that heroism and devotion to duty marked the course of Jewish history.”

 
1899: Governor Theodore Roosevelt signed into law a bill “providing for the consolidation of the Educational Alliance and the Hebrew Free School Association of New York City.

 
1900: Herzl has a meeting with Austrian Prime Minister Ernest von Koerber. At the request of the Prime Minister, Herzl drafts Koerber's "Language Bill" speech. Herzl agreed to draft the speech as part of his campaign to get the Austrian Prime Minister to help arrange an audience with the Sultan of Turkey.

 
1900: The week-long convention of the Independent Order of B’nai B’rith which had been meeting at the Auditorium Hotel in Chicago came to a close tonight.  The convention voted to create a new position of Chancellor which “will have supervision of lodges” in Europe and Asia.  The President and the Board of Directors will continue to control the lodges in Canada and the United States.  Leon Levy of New York was elected President and Julius Bien of New York was elected Chancellor. The next convention will take place in New Orleans in 1905.

 
1902: Herzl writes to the Sultan of Turkey appealing for the establishment of a Jewish university in Palestine.  “The idea of a Jewish university, and all that such a university implied, quickly became an integral part of Zionist thinking.

 
1903: Birthdate of “French philosopher and Marxist theoretician” Georges Politzer.

 
1909: Fire destroys part of the Haskoy, the Constantinople Jewish quarter. Five hundred Jews are left homeless.

 
1909: David Woolf Marks, the first Rabbi of London’s Reform Synagogue passed away.

 
1911:Dr. Solomon Schechter, the President of the Jewish Theological Institute, who has just returned from an eleven months' vacation, said tonight that he had been spending most of the time resting. His mind has been active, however, if his pen has not, and he has already thought of a subject for another book which is to deal with the Jew in Northern Africa.

 
1912: Vittoli Effendi Fradji of Constantinople, Ezekiel Effendi Sassoon of Baghdad, Nissim Effendi Mazliach of Smyrna and Emanuel Effendi Karasa of Salonica are all re-elected to the Turkish parliament.

 
1913: In Vienna, Felix and Else Kohut gave birth to Heinz Kohut an Austrian-born American psychoanalyst best known for his development of Self psychology, an influential school of thought within psychodynamic/psychoanalytic theory which helped transform the modern practice of analytic and dynamic treatment approaches. (For more see, Heinz Kohut: The Making of a Psychoanalyst by Charles Strozier)

 
1913: In what might be viewed as an early celebration of his 70thbirthday, Dr. Kaufmann Kohler who served as Rabbi of Temple Beth-El for 24 years and is now Rabbi Emeritus was honored by more than 500 friends and congregants at this morning’s Shabbat services.
 
1916: In a marriage of two labor activists in the garment industry, Bessie Abramowitz married Sidney Hillman. She became Bessie Abramowitz Hillman.

 
1918: In Greece, a newly enacted law which had a negative impact on the owners of property that had been destroyed led to many Jews leaving for the United States, France, Italy and Egypt.  Many of these Jews had lost their property in the great fire of August 17, 1917

 
1923: In Palestine, filming of “Palestine Awakening” written by American Zionist William Topkis (As reported by David Geffen)

 
1924: Aleph Zadik Aleph, popularly known as AZA is formed in Omaha, Nebraska by Sam Beber

 
1925: President Calvin Coolidge helped dedicate the cornerstone of the Washington, D.C. Jewish Community center.

 
1926:  Birthdate of dramatist Herbert Blau

 
1926(13thof Iyar, 5686): Seventy five year old Oscar Solomon Straus who became the first Jewish Cabinet Secretary when he served as Secretary of Commerce and Labor under Teddy Roosevelt, passed away today.

 
1928: “Show Boat,” the Jerome Kern/Oscar Hammerstein II musical based on the novel by Edna Ferber premiered for the first time in London at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane.

 
1928: According to reports published today, the employment picture is improving after an 18 month slowdown.  Among the causes for the improvement are the growth of the orange industry, improving conditions in businesses located in Tel Aviv including textiles, chocolate and box making and the construction work on the Rutenberg hydroelectric concession on the Jordan River near the Sea of Galilee.


1929:Jews praying at the Western Wall are attacked by Arabs.



1933:  Birthdate of Steven Weinberg, recipient of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1979.



1934: In Alexandria, Egypt Sarah and Nessim Mustacchi gave birth to singer/songwriter Georges Moustaki



1934:  “A three-day celebration of the 25th anniversary of the founding of Tel-Aviv…culminated today with a tribute to the veteran 72 year old founder and present Mayor, Meyer Dizengoff.  More than 10,000 school children marched through the streets to the municipal building carrying baskets of flowers, where were presented to the Mayor.  Two new streets were named for him and his late wife, despite his protests that he was unworthy of such an honor.”



1934:The trial of Abba Ahimeir, Abraham Stavsky and Ze'evi Rosenblatt the three men accused of murdering Dr. Chaim Arlosoroff, Jewish Labor party leader, at Tel-Aviv last June, reopened today with the court ruling against the request of Horace Samuel, counsel for the defense, to strike out evidence resulting from police line-ups in which the three accused were identified. Samuel contended that the police had “guided Mrs. Arlosoroff” in identifying the accused.



1935: Birthdate of businessman Ron Popeil who gained fame and fortune with Ginsu knives and “Mr. Microphone.”

 
1935: For the second day in a row, temperatures in Palestine reach 104 degrees “in the shade.”  The coastal settlements and cities, including Tel Aviv were most affected by the unusual heat wave.  Temperatures in Palestine average 65 in May and 74 during July and August.  In modern times, the temperature record belongs to a day in August 1881 when the thermometer reached 112.

 
1936: The New York Times described the work that has gone into building the soon-to-be opened modern water system that will finally give Jerusalem a reliable supply of water.  This is the culmination of a ten year effort, the last two of which have resulted in the construction of four pumping stations at Ra-el Ain, Latrun, Bab El Wad and Romna.  Each of the pumping stations is at a successively higher elevation.  The work was made all the more difficult by the topography of the Judean Hills and the layers of hard work through which the workers had to dig.

 
1938: The Flossenburg Concentration Camp became operational.  The camp was located in Germany and would be liberated by the Americans in April, 1945.  Several of the conspirators who sought to kill Hitler in June, 1944, were executed at Flossenburg.  These included the famous Admiral Canaris whose diary has provided a treasure trove about German activities during this period.

 
1939: Hoping to establish rapprochement with Nazi Germany, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin replaces his Jewish commissar for foreign affairs, Maksim Litvinov, with the less British-oriented Viacheslav Molotov.  The result of all this would be a non-aggression pact between the two dictators in August of 1939 that would shock the world.  At the same time it would give Hitler the green light to invade Poland from the east.  The Soviets later invaded from the west and the two totalitarian butchers shared in the spoils of Poland.

 
1939: Ravensbruck, a concentration camp for women, was established.

 
1939: The Budapest "Jewish Law" prohibits any Hungarian Jew from becoming a judge, a lawyer a schoolteacher or a member of the Hungarian parliament.

 
1941: Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring came to the Jeu de Paume Museum in Paris


1941: Time magazine published an article titled “Germany: Problem in Subtraction” reported that The arithmetic that Hitler has taught to Jews in the Third Reich has been the misery of subtraction. From all of them he has taken something: privileges, property, homes, life. Simplest subtraction has been the decrease of the Reich's Jewish population by emigration, deportation and death.



Currently:



In Germany—500,000 Jews minus 310,000 equals 190,000.



In Austria—180,000 Jews minus 135,000 equals 45,000.



In Czecho-Slovakia—185,000 Jews minus 25,000 equals 160,000.



Within the last fortnight two sardine-packed trains left Vienna, as the Nazis applied themselves again to this problem. Aboard each were more than 1,000 Jews bound for limbo—the new barbed-wire ghetto near Lublin in Poland. Elsewhere sealed trains crossed the border with more Jews (mostly very old and very young) for the starved concentration camps of unoccupied France. From Vienna alone the Nazis promised to dump five to twelve more trainloads a month. Hitler's final solution to his problem in subtraction is zero—to be reached, according to the most sanguine reports from Germany, in just six more weeks.http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,851072,00.html#ixzz1L8yfn3rT



1942: Nazis required Dutch Jews to wear a Jewish star

 
1943(28th of Nisan, 5703): German troops in the "Aryan" section of Warsaw arrest and kill 21 women who are Jewish or suspected of being Jewish.

 
1943(28th of Nisan, 5703): A Jewish man named Rakowski, an underground leader at the Treblinka death camp, is shot when currency intended to bribe Ukrainians to help him and a few others escape is discovered in his barrack.

 
1944: The first of a number of new factories at Auschwitz opened up in preparation to receive laborers from the deportation of Hungarian Jews. New labor camps opened in Myslowice, Bobrek, and Sosnoweic in preparation for the same action.

 
1944: At Gleiwitz, Poland, near Auschwitz, Germans open a slave-labor plant for production of "black smoke" for use in smoke screens.
 
1945: At Mauthausan Concentration Camp, the task of guarding the camp was handed to a police unit from Vienna.

 
1945(20th of Iyar, 5705): Approximately 9400 Jewish prisoners who had been evacuated from Neuengamme and marched to Lübeck, Germany, are loaded by their overseers onto two ships, the Thielbeck and the Cap Arcona, apparently for no other purpose but a Nazi hope that the Jews would die while on board. British planes, unaware that the ships are not hostile, attack. Both ships sink in the Lübeck harbor within 15 minutes. Survivors who attempt to swim to shore are fired upon by waiting members of the Hitler Youth, Volkstrum, and the SS. Of the 9400 prisoners, only about 2400 survive



 


 


                                                                      OR


 


1945(20th of Iyar, 5705): In the worst friendly-fire incident in history - Britain's Royal Air Force killed more than 7,000 survivors of Nazi concentration camps who were crowded onto ships in Lubeck harbor, Germany. The ragged masses that had survived the Holocaust stood no chance against the guns of their liberators. This tragic mistake occurred one day before the British accepted the surrender of all German forces in the region. Reports of the incident were quickly hushed up - as a jubilant world prepared to celebrate the Allied victory in Europe. Despite the bitter irony of dying in hellish fires on sinking ships just hours before liberation, the tragedy was quickly forgotten or resolutely ignored. The anniversary of this dark day will soon pass by again - largely unnoticed or unmentioned. By early May 1945, the rumors of Hitler's suicide had rekindled hope for beleaguered prisoners in Nazi concentration camps. The Red Army had just conquered Berlin; the British held Hamburg and Americans were in Munich and Vienna. After surviving unspeakable horrors and deprivations for years, the battered prisoners could finally dare to hope that their day of deliverance was at hand. In the closing weeks of World War II, thousands of prisoners from the Neuengamme concentration camp near Hamburg, the Mittelbau-Dora camp at Nordhausen and the Stutthof camp near Danzig were marched to the German Baltic coast. Most of the inmates were Jews and Russian POWs, but they also included communist sympathizers, pacifists, Jehovah's Witnesses, homosexuals, prostitutes, Gypsies and other perceived enemies of the Third Reich. At the port of L beck almost 10,000 camp survivors were crowded onto three ships: Cap Arcona, Thielbeckand Athen. No one knew what the Nazis were planning to do, or what plans the Allies had already set into motion. Although the final surrender was imminent, British Operational Order No. 73 for May 3 was to "destroy the concentration of enemy shipping in L beck Bay." While thousands of camp prisoners were being ferried out to the once-elegant Hamburg-Sud Amerika liner Cap Arcona, the RAF's 263rd, 197th, 198th and 184th squadrons were arming their Hawker Typhoon fighter-bombers with ammunition, bombs and rockets. At 2:30 p.m. on May 3, at least 4,500 prisoners were aboard the Cap Arcona as the first attack began. Sixty-four rockets and 15 bombs hit the liner in two separate attacks. As the British strafed the stricken ship from the air, Nazi guards on shore fired on those who made it into the water. Only 350 prisoners survived. The Thielbeck - which had been flying a white flag - and the poorly marked hospital ship Deutschland were attacked next. Although Thielbeck was just a freighter in need of repairs, it was packed with 2,800 prisoners. The overcrowded freighter sank in just 20 minutes, killing all but 50 of the prisoners. In less than two hours, more than 7,000 concentration camp refugees were dead from the friendly fire. Two thousand more would have died if the captain of the Athen had not refused to take on additional prisoners in the morning before the attack. Most who were familiar with the Cap Arcona disaster believed that the Nazis intended to sink the ships at sea to kill everyone on board. Hundreds of prisoners had already been killed on the forced marches from the camps. In this case, however, RAF Fighter Command did their killing for them. In the Cap Arcona/Thielbeck/Athendisaster, the tragic deaths of so many who had suffered so much for so long were quickly forgotten. After years of unprecedented bloodletting and destruction, the nations involved were in shambles, their populations numbed by suffering and death. The unfortunate victims who perished at the close of history's worst conflagration were quickly lost in the fleeting euphoria of peace. In 1945, at the close of the war in Europe, the victorious British and their American allies did not want a media disaster overshadowing their V-E Day celebrations. When the extent of the friendly-fire incident became known at Westminster, the British government and Allied Command effectively prevented most news of the disaster from spreading from Germany. Beyond war-weariness and postwar jubilation, other factors conspired to ensure that the valiant prisoners who died at the threshold of freedom would not be given much attention in the world press. In a war in which the British had paid so high a price to defeat the Nazis, to even criticize their forces was tantamount to siding with the devil. Then postwar Germany quickly became one of the "good guys" as an important frontline ally in the Cold War against communism. As such, most Germans preferred not to draw attention to their own war atrocities. Millions of Jews, Russians, Serbs, Poles and others had already been killed by the Nazis. Tens of millions more were homeless refugees, with many near starvation. The memory of 7,000 or 8,000 concentration camp survivors killed by mistake would soon wash away in the tide of history in a violent age. Britain has never officially apologized for its tragic mistake at L beck Bay, nor has it honored the innocent victims with a proper memorial. The RAF records of the disaster are sealed until 2045, one century after the attack. No British government document has referred to the estimated 7,500 victims of its mistake. In May 1990, Germany opened a two-room museum dedicated to the memory of the victims of the Cap Arcona tragedy in the small port city of Neustadt-in-Holstein. A memorial monument was erected on the beach nearby at Pelzerhaken, where many of the bodies washed ashore and were buried. Other monuments were erected along L beck Bay and at the Neuengamme Camp Memorial southeast of Hamburg. Much has been written in German about the tragedy, but surprisingly little about the Cap Arcona has made it to the English press. On a recent visit to the memorial, a helpful resident of Neustadt said to me: "So your family is German?" I said, "No.""Oh, then you are Jewish?" Again I said, "No." My new acquaintance looked puzzled. Eventually he asked: "Well how could you possibly know about this?" I asked myself: "Why did it take me a half century to find out?" A Jewish dental student, Benjamin Jacobs, gives a firsthand account of the friendly fire attack in The Dentist of Auschwitz (University of Kentucky Press, 1995). Along with Eugene Pool, the Boston dentist also wrote The 100 Year Secret: Britain's Hidden World War II Massacre (Lyons Press, 2004). Documentaries on the subject, such as Lawrence Bond's Typhoons' Last Storm, have had only limited publicity. According to legend, Pheidippides was an Athenian herald who ran from the battlefield at Marathon to Athens 2,500 years ago. After announcing the Greek victory over the Persians, he allegedly died on the spot. The tale has been widely propagated by organizers of modern athletic events. Surviving the horrors of concentration camps - one day at a time - is in many respects like a marathon run. Mere survival under such brutal conditions surely tested the endurance of both body and spirit. And like the mythical runner, thousands of inmates made it all the way to the end of their agonizing journeys only to perish at the finish line. A half-century after the ill-fated air raid, we still know very little about the Jews, the Russians and other prisoners who survived so much before dying on the finish line in May 1945. By the time British records are unsealed in 2045, all children and most grandchildren of the victims will be gone. Historians will pore over the tragic details of the Cap Arcona disaster with the same level of detachment that we now feel for events such as the Franco-Prussian War or the siege of Sevastopol. There is no question that the friendly-fire fiasco was a tragic error made during a routine military operation. Despite the terrible consequences, few reasonable people would condemn the British for their ill-fated raid. Some Hitler apologists have even attempted to use such mistakes to blame the Allies for monstrous crimes committed by the Nazis. Yet the continued avoidance of criticizing friends does not justify shunning all mention of the innocent victims of the attack. Whether embarrassing or not, the 7,500 Cap Arconavictims deserve to be remembered.


1948: The U.S. Supreme Court decides that deed covenants prohibiting the sale of real estate based on race or religion are legally unenforceable. This opened the doorway for Jews to move into many of what had been “restricted” neighborhoods.  In some places, effectively whole towns had been off-limits to Jews.  Realtors and bigots would not go gently into the night and they found other creative ways to try and excluded Jews.  One of the most elegant areas in Washington, D.C. was called Spring Valley, a restricted subdivision that was home to Vice President Richard M. Nixon.


1949: In New York, film executive David Raphel, the grandson of Baron David de Gunzburg and his wife gave birth to American author Monique Raphel High.


1950: The Indian League organized a meeting in memory of the late Harold Laski during which Indian Prime Minister Nehru said: “It is difficult to realize that Professor Harold Laski is no more. Lovers of freedom all over the world pay tribute to the magnificent work that he did. We in India are particularly grateful for his staunch advocacy of India's freedom, and the great part he played in bringing it about. At no time did he falter or compromise on the principles he held dear, and a large number of persons drew splendid inspiration from him. Those who knew him personally counted that association as a rare privilege, and his passing away has come as a great sorrow and a shock.”


1951:Birthdate of Pierre Lellouche, the Tunisian born Jew who has been active in French and European politics including serving as President of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly.


1957:  Walter O'Malley, the owner of the Brooklyn Dodgers, agrees to move the team from Brooklyn, New York, to Los Angeles, California. Because of Brooklyn’s large Jewish population, the team had “tons” of Jewish fans. O’Malley was vilified for moving the team.  Decades later, we found out that the O’Malley wanted to keep the team in Brooklyn.  He was thwarted by Robert Moses who had his priorities for New York that included a baseball park outside of Brooklyn that would become known as Shea Stadium. 


1958: Release date for “Stakeout on Dope Street’ which marked the directorial debut of Irvin Kershner.


1959: Birthdate of Ben Elton, a London born comedian, author, playwright and television director whose father was “of German-Jewish descent” and whose mother was not.


1960: The Anne Frank House, a museum dedicated to Jewish wartime diarist Anne Frank, opened in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.


1960(6th of Iyar, 5720): Seventy-nine year old Alfred Whital Stern retired clothing executive and avid collector of Lincoln memorabilia passed away in Chicago.


1969(15th of Iyar. 5729): Seventy-nine year old cinematographer Karl W. Freund whose work included the 1927 classic Metropolis to the I Love Lucy television series.


1976: Thirty-three passers-by were injured when a booby-trapped motor scooter exploded at the corner of Ben Yehuda and Ben Hillel Streets. Among those injured were the Greek consul in Jerusalem and his wife. The following day, on the eve of Independence Day, the municipality organized an event at the site of the attack, under the slogan: "Nevertheless."


1976: Pulitzer Prize awarded to Saul Bellow for Humboldt's Gift. Born in Canada in 1915, Bellow moved to Chicago as a child in the 1920's.  A graduate of Northwestern University, where he was told to forget about writing since no Jew could appreciate the English language.  Before becoming a successful writer, Bellow taught college, worked for the board of the Encyclopedia Britannica and served in the U.S. Merchant Marine during World War II.  His first novel was the Dangling ManHumboldt's Gift, which appeared in 1975, "was narrated in the first person. The protagonist, Charlie Citrine, is a writer, rich and successful. But in his heart he knows that he is a failure - he is under the thumb of a small-time Chicago gangster, ruined by a divorce and finally abandoned by his mistress. He admires his dead friend, Von Humboldt Fleischer, modeled on the poet Delmore Schwartz (1913-1966). Humboldt, a talent wasted, represents for him all that is important in culture. Citrine continues the series of Bellow's losers, from Herzog to Sammler, but like his other novels, it is not gloomy, and finds a comic side even in its protagonist's tragedy."


1978(26th of Nisan, 5738): Ninety-one year old Pinchas Rosen, Israel’s first Minister of Justice passed away today.


1979: Premiere of “Bent” a play by Martin Sherman that “revolves around the persecution of homosexuals in Nazi Germany.”
 
1981: The New York Timesreported that The Israel Festival has been canceled for this summer. The decision was made in order ''to spread festival events out over a greater period of time, rather than concentrating them within a span of six weeks,'' according to a government spokesman. Instead there will be two smaller festivals, the Spring in Jerusalem Festival and the Proms '81, both of which will take place in Jerusalem.


1981: In New York, light from hundreds of candles flickered on polished mosaic tile as the sounds of the ghetto songs of decades ago echoed in Temple Emanu-El. As they have for 10 years, thousands of Jews and non-Jews gathered to recall the spirit of the Warsaw ghetto uprising of 1943


1981: Beginning of Jewish Heritage Week in the United States as proclaimed by President Ronald Reagan.


1987: Cardinal John O’Conner, Archbishop of New York “watched thousands march down Fifth Avenue protesting the oppression of Soviet Jews” later joining the protesters at a rally near the United Nations where told them, “As I stood on the steps of St. Patrick’s Cathedral this morning and watched you stream by, I could only be proud of those who streamed out of Egypt several thousand years ago, winning freedom for themselves and for all of us. They are your ancestors, and they are mine… I am proud to be this day, with you, a Jew.” (What nobody knew that day, including O’Connor was that his mother Dorothy Gumple O’Connor, was born Jewish” and converted to Catholicism before she met and married his father.)


1987: Her Majesty Queen Beatrix officiated at the opening ceremony of the restored synagogues which house the Jewish Historical Museum


1991(19th of Iyar, 5751): Jerzy Kosinksi author of Being There passed away at the age of 50.


1992: In The Los Angeles Times, Charles Solomon reviewed Blood and Banquets: A Berlin Diary 1930-1938 by Bella Fromm, the”daughter of a prominent Jewish family, who was forced to begin working when her fortune disappeared in the runaway inflation that wracked Germany after World War I. As ‘Frau Bella,’ the society columnist for the highbrow Berlin newspaper Vossische Zeitung, she frequented the most exclusive circles” and it was this work that provided the information for her book which has appeared in a paperback edition.


1995(3rd of Iyar, 5755): Yom HaZikaron


1998: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Gertrude Stein: Writings 1903-1932 and Gertrude Stein: Writings 1932-1946.


1998: In an article entitled “Garment District: Sheets, Towels and Prayers In One Stop”, Edward Levine describes life in and around the Millinery Center Synagogue


2000: When Lillie Steinhorn retired from the Social Security Administration today she was the longest-serving federal employee on record.


2001:President Bush meets with Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres in the Oval Office.


2001: In address to the American Jewish Committee, President Bush said “We will speak up for our principles and we will stand up for our friends in the world. And one of our most important friends is the State of Israel… [Israel] is a small country that has lived under threat throughout its existence. At the first meeting of my National Security Council, I told them a top foreign policy priority is the safety and security of Israel. My Administration will be steadfast in supporting Israel against terrorism and violence, and in seeking the peace for which all Israelis pray.”


2003: Jewish Jazz flautist Herbie Mann performed for the last the time at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival.


2003: “Letters from the Dead” premiered at the Brooklyn International Film Festival where the movie’s creator, Jewish-American filmmaker Ari Taub, was named Best New Director.


2004: Twenty year old Marine Corporal Dustin Schrage disappeared today with his team May 3 while swimming across the Euphrates River in the Al Anbar province with his team in Iraq.  


2006(5th of Iyar, 5766):  Yom Ha’Atzmaut – Israel Independence Day.  In Israel, the celebration of the 58th birthday began in the evening of May 2 with a state torch-lighting ceremony on Jerusalem's Mount Herzl The ceremony also marked the end of Memorial Day.


2006: The Jerusalem Post reported that Israeli Independence Day has become a worldwide celebration. “From Los Angeles to Budapest, Jews all over the world will be celebrating Israel's 58th anniversary. The Zionist Federation of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is proud to present their "From Israel With Love Gala Show," which will include several headline acts. Israel's Eyal Golan and Britain's own Vanessa Feltz will be performing for an expected 5,000 spectators, making it one of the biggest events in the UK Jewish calendar. There will also be two IDF bands, as well as Kidanza, a young dance troupe, the Inter School Choirs and the winners of the Yom Ha'atzmaut song contest. "We're very proud that the British Jewish community comes together in the strongest way for Israel," comments Alan Aziz, executive director of the Zionist Federation. "The Reform, Liberal, Masorti and Orthodox communities all come to celebrate together." In Paris, the Consistoire de France has organized a ceremony at the Grande Synagogue de la Victoire. The evening will include Israeli artists and singers with performances by Phil Barney, Francis Lalanne, Adama and Les Forbans. The event is expected to draw 1,500 participants. This year the Danish Zionist Federation has invited all the Jewish and non-Jewish friendship organizations of Denmark to partake in a big party in Copenhagen. "We outgrew the Jewish community center so now we have it in a Jewish primary school," says Inger Kramarz, spokesperson for the DZF. "Jens Rohde, a representative of the Danish Liberal Party, has been invited to speak on a topic of his choice, implementing our famous freedom of speech laws," she adds humorously. Yom Ha'atzmaut celebrations will be carried out in the three largest Jewish communities in Sweden. In Stockholm, the Israeli embassy will hold an invitation-only reception and afterwards there will be a party organized by the Stockholm Jewish Center. The Gothenburg Jewish community and the Malm Jewish community will also be hosting their own parties. In Budapest, festivities arranged by the Jewish Agency and its many partners will take place on May 21st, in the Millenaris Park in downtown Budapest. Throughout the day there will be programs for children organized by the Youth Movements (Bnei Akiva, Habonim Dror, Hashomer Hatzair), as well as Hora dancing with professional teachers, an Israel information tent, a talk-show about the Middle East and singers in the afternoon for adults. In the evening Hadag Nahash is scheduled to be on stage, preceded by the Klezmer-hip-hop fusion band Haseger. Last year there were 8,000 people in attendance with even more expected this year. Over the ocean in Canada, there will be major festivities held in Montreal and Toronto, among other Canadian cities. The motto for this year's celebration in Montreal is 'for the children by the children'. This year's events will be led by an enthusiastic group of Jewish day school students who have been working in close cooperation with Federation CJA. Their rethink of the annual event aims to get youth involved as much as possible in all aspects of the day. Israeli Consul-General Marc Attali will be speaking, along with Cote St. Luc City Mayor Anthony Housefather. Students from Jewish schools will be making presentations about Israel and many will also be performing. At least 1,500 students and adults are expected at Trudeau Park with high-spirited singing and dancing. A major party will be held in honor of Yom Ha'atzmaut at the Afterlife night club in downtown Toronto. The party, which is the biggest Yom Ha'atzmaut party in Canada, involves all the youth movements and federation groups in the city. The Toronto Jewish community will be having an all-day event behind the Bathurst JCC featuring a kosher BBQ, carnival games and live music including Toronto's own Bais Groove in addition to Israel's Moshav Band. South of the border in the United States, Yom Ha'atzmaut celebrations are taking place in just about every major city. This year the Tampa Jewish Community Center brings Israel to downtown Tampa for the first time. On Sunday May 7th the Independence Day events will officially begin with a solidarity walk for Israel, all-day activities including American, Israeli and Jewish cuisine, Israeli vendors and products and Israeli rock music by the Moshav Band. The United Jewish Community/Jewish Federation of Las Vegas plan to present the biggest and best Yom Ha'atzmaut festival in the city's history. On Sunday, May 21, the free community-wide event will welcome thousands of residents to the Venetian Resort Hotel Casino to celebrate Israel. In Los Angeles, a community-wide celebration for Israel's 58th Independence Day will be kicked off (also on May 7th) by the LA County Sheriff Department Golden Stars Skydiving Team as they skydive into the Woodley Park. Dignitaries participating in this year's official ceremony will include Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, Congressman Howard Berman and Consul General of Israel in Los Angeles Ehud Danoch. Several artists from Israel will perform on the main stage, including Israeli super star Dudu Fisher and the famous rock group Mashina. Other acts slated to perform are Balkan Beat Box, the Sam Glaser Band and Chutzpah, the Jewish hip hop phenomenon. There will also be a continuous fashion show featuring wares from famous LA boutiques. The festival is expected to draw crowds of up to 30,000 people.


2006: Final episode of “The Perfect Home” starring Alain de Botton, a descendant of Abraham de Boton, was shown today


2007:  The Center for Jewish History presents “TheMystery of the Kaddish” in which Presidential advisor and television personality Leon Charney discusses how the Kaddish became the most famous and familiar prayer in Jewish liturgy. He discusses his new book which charts the origins and development of the Mourner's Prayer against the full backdrop of Jewish history.


2007: The Central Committee of the National Religious Party votes on a proposal to open up the modern Orthodox party to Israeli’s who do not necessarily adhere to religious strictures. This represents an attempt to increase the party’s political power by tapping “into the large traditional, but not religious sector, which is described as primarily Sephardim…” 


2008: A screening of “Sonderkommando” \ זונדרקומנדו takes place at the Jerusalem Cinematheque..


2008: London's new mayor, Boris Johnson, a pro-Israel Conservative lawmaker, was sworn in after ousting the left-wing incumbent in a vote that capped the worst local election results for Prime Minister Gordon Brown's party in four decades. Johnson's record in support of Israel is clear. He backs a swift solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict while understanding Israel's security dilemmas. Last year he opposed a call by the University College Union to boycott Israeli academic institutions. Writing on his blog, he said: "Where is the UCU denunciation of the Palestinians who have been detaining a BBC journalist for more than a month? I do not notice UCU voting to sever contacts with Iran, where students have recently been hanged for opposition to the regime. Come to that, I don't see any condemnation of the leftist tyrant Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, who has just taken a hostile TV station off the air. What kind of point is UCU trying to make?" Johnson toured Israel in November 2004 with the Conservative Friends of Israel, and visited the Carmel Market in Tel Aviv hours after a suicide bomber killed three people and seriously wounded 13. He also went on a tour of the West Bank security barrier. Writing in The Spectator magazine, a popular weekly current affairs magazine of which he was editor, he wrote: "And who can deny that the Israeli government has a perfect right, a duty, to use such means to protect its citizens from the insanity of the suicide bombers?" Trying to make sense of the suicide attack, Johnson said: "What made him [the 16-year-old suicide bomber] leave the Askar refugee camp near Nablus, pass through the Hawara checkpoint, and kill himself and three blameless Israelis, including Leah Levine, 67, a Holocaust survivor? How could anyone persuade a child to do something like that?"


2009: Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts presents “Jerusalem City of Heavenly and Earthly Peace” as part of the Jordi Savill Jerusalem series. 


2009: Annual AIPAC Policy Conference opens in Washington, D.C.


2009: The Washington Post featured books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including “A Failure of Capitalism: The Crisis of '08 and the Descent into Depression” by Richard A. Posner.


2009: The New York Times featured books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including the recently released paperback editor of The German Bride by Joanna Hershon’s novel which “is set among the German-born Jewish merchants and traders who settled in the American West in the 19th century” featuring as the protagonist, the daughter of a Berlin banker who travels to Santa Fe to marry a man who owns a dry goods business.


2009:Daniel Mark Epstein discusses and signs Lincoln's Men: The President and His Private Secretaries at the Enoch Pratt Free Library, in Baltimore, Maryland. 

 

2010: Gloria Mound, Director of the Casa Shalom-Institute for Anusim Studies in Israel is scheduled to present a lecture entitled “A Certain Identity: Crypto-Jews around the World” sponsored by the American Sephardi Federation.


2010:In Washington, D.C Liaison Specialist Jason Steinhauer of the Library of Congress Veterans History Project is scheduled to present a lecture and discussion on the contributions, impact and legacy of the more than 550, 000 American Jewish military personnel who served during World War II during which they received 52,000 decorations for gallantry


2011: The Jewish Historical Society of Greater Washington is scheduled to present “Search for Survivors” during which Scott Miller, Director of Curatorial Affairs at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum will describe “how two researchers meticulously traced what happened to the passengers of the St. Louis, a refugee-filled ship denied entry to the United States on the eve of the Holocaust.”


2011: Douglas Feith is scheduled to a lecture entitled “Jabotinsky: Enduring Insights at B’nai Israel Congregation in Rockville, MD.


2011: YIVO Institute for Jewish Research is scheduled to present “In Her Hands: The Education of Jewish Girls in Tsarist Russia.”


2011:The Consultation on Conscience, Reform Judaism's flagship social justice conference is scheduled to hold its closing session today.


2011:In Philadelphia, The Young Friends of the National Museum of American Jewish History is scheduled to present “U.S.-Israel Relations: Truman to Obama,” a program in recognition of Israel's Independence Day and Jewish American Heritage Month.


2012: In “Violin legend Zvi Zeitlin has died” published today Norman Lebrecht described what him “the great violinist and teacher.

 
2012: In London, the Wiener Library is scheduled to host “Death in Prague: Philip on Prague Fatale” part of a series of events tied to the 70thanniversary of the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich.


2012: Dr. Jonathan Sarna is scheduled to discuss his marvelous new book, When General Grant Expelled the Jews, at the William G. McGowan Theater in Washington, DC


2012: Miriam Ungar organized a protest on behalf of her husband Jacob Ostreicher opposite Bolivia’s United Nations mission. (As reported by Ben Sales)


2013: “No Place on Earth” is scheduled to open in several cities including Austin, Texas, Columbus, Ohio and Seattle, Washington.


2013:Rabbi Sunny Schnitzer on guitar, noted Kabbalist Jay McCrensky on accordion, and Karen Cole on bass are scheduled to lead a “gemach Carlebach” service at Bethesda Jewish Congregation  as part of the Washington Jewish Music Festival.


2013: “In an interview with Entertainment Tonight ‘Judge Judy’ Sheindlin stated, "I have my walls full of Daytime Emmy Award nominations."


2013: Noam Schey, Sam Stalkfleet, Elise Goodvin, Molly Lipman and Cameron Braverman are scheduled to lead Confirmation Services which will be held for the first time in the new sanctuary of Agudas Achim located in Coralville, Iowa


2013(23rdof Iyar, 5773): Eighty-seven year old Herbert Blau the engineer turned dramatist passed away today on his birthday. (As reported by Douglas Martin)



2013:IDF Gaza Division commander Brig.-Gen. Micky Edelstein said today that there was "some degree of dialogue" between Israel and parties in Gaza to prevent rocket fire from the coastal territory into southern Israel.


 
2013: The Chinese government says it is willing to set up a meeting between the Israeli prime minister and the Palestinian president when the two leaders visit Beijing next week, if the sides expressed interest in doing so. Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said today at a regular briefing that China would be happy to facilitate a meeting between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas if they were willing to meet.


2014: “Cupcakes” is scheduled to be shown at the Los Angeles Jewish Film Festival.


2014: “Quality Balls: The David Steinberg Story” is scheduled to be shown at the Lenore Marwil Jewish Film Festival.


2014: Phoebe Chapnick-Sorkin is scheduled to Bat Mitzvahed at Agudas Achim in Coralville, Iowa.


2014: “Sturgeon Queens” is scheduled to be shown at the National Center for Jewish Film Festival.

This Day, May 4, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. Levin

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May 4



1008: Birthdate of King Henry I of France who reigned from 1031 until his death in 1060. This means that he was on the throne when a future wine maker, Shlomo Yitzhaki, was born at Troyes in 1040.  [But today, who remembers the French monarch and who remembers Rashi?]


1287: Jews were arrested and accused of "clipping" the coinage in England. Although there was no evidence, the community as a whole was convicted and ordered to be expelled. A ransom of 4,000 (some say 12,000) pounds of silver were paid in ransom.  This was the penultimate act in the story of the medieval English Community.  For a century or more they had been drained of their wealth by Richard the Lionhearted, his brother King John and his son Henry III.  In 1290, having reduced the Jews to a state of semi-poverty, and replaced them with Italian Bankers, King Edward I expelled the Jews from England.  Part of his rational was that if some Jews were guilty of counterfeiting, then the whole community must be guilty.


1415: Jan Hus, who saw himself as a religious reformer was declared a heretic by the Roman Catholics at the Council of Constance.  The followers of Hus were called Hussites. The fight between the Hussites and the Catholic Church turned violent and the Jews of Central Europe would get caught in the crossfire.  After all, if you were busy killing Hussites, why not kill another group of “non-believers” living in your midst?


 

1493: Pope Alexander VI divided the New World including parts of east Asia between Portugal and Spain along the so-called Demarcation Line.  In other words the Western Hemisphere was divided between two Catholic Kingdoms both of which had or would soon expel their Jewish subjects. Alexander VI was one of the so-called Renaissance Popes, a group of papal leaders who left much to be desired in matters related to religion.  Alexander VI was the Borgia pope. And he was the father of the notorious Cesare and Lucretzia Borgia.  Alexander VI presented a mix bag when it came to his dealings with the Jews.  Alexander allowed so many Marranos fleeing Spain’s Inquisition in to Romethat the city’s refugee population doubled his ten year reign.  While he decreased the size of the badge worn by professing Jews, he added an additional five per cent tax to their already heavy tax burden.  In an act of additional depravity, Alexander “extended the distance of the annual race in which humiliated Jews ran naked through the city so that he could view it from his Castel Sant’Angelo residence” 


1515: An edict was issued ordering the expulsion of the Jews from Ragussa.  The expulsion was another instance of economics hiding behind religious doctrine.  There were exceptions to the order including physicians and merchants operating in the country on a temporary basis.


1680: Birthdate of Johann Gerhard Meuschen, the anti- Jesuit Lutheran theologian. In 1736 he “Novum Testamentum ex Talmude et antiquitatibus Hebraeorum illustratum,” which was a collection of studies that examined the relationship between the New Testament and the Talmud and other Jewish writings.


1689: Christian Knorr von Rosenroth passed away.  Born in Silesia in 1636, this Christian scholar became an accomplished Hebraist who became an avid student of the Kabbalah and the Zohar who authored several books on the topic.


1758: Solomon Lipschitz who was born at Furth in 1675 and served as a cantor in Prague and Frankfurt passed away today leaving behind Te'udat Shelomo as a guide for future generations of Jewish musicians.



1789: Birthdate of author Angelo Paggi, the native of Sienna who served as the principal of the Jewish school at Florence from 1836 to 1846 before being forced to retire due to poor health.


1814: Ferdinand VII of Spain ordered all previous proceedings of the Cortes of Cadiz null and void. This voided the 1813 statement saying the Inquisition was not in line with Spain's new liberal views. Only 2 months later Ferdinand announced Inquisitional tribunals were to once again resume, and they did.


1851: A major fire broke out in San Francisco, destroying among other things, the “canvassed roof store” that had been opened up by newly arrived Pomeranian immigrant Abraham Abrahamsohn.  The loss of his “store” after only a month of being in the United States, forced him to head for the gold fields and try his luck as a miner.  Unfortunately, this effort did not pan out. (Sorry for the horrible pun.)


1852(16thof Iyar 5612): Seventy-three year old “Austrian printer, publisher, and lexicographer” Moses Landau who created “a new edition of the "'Aruk" of R. Nathan of Rome, to which he added Benjamin Mussafia's "Mussaf he-'Aruk" passed away today.


1853: Birthdate of British author and philanthropist Leonard Montefiore, the brother of Claude Montefiore


1862: The New York Times reviewed books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Spirit of the Hebrew Poetry by Isaac Taylor in which the author described the “historic personality of God, the reality of Revelation and the…certainty of Man’s Salvation as deduced from the the Hebrew Psalmists and Prophets…”


1872: A Times correspondent writing from Smyrna today described a blood libel that had taken place in that Greek city.  Despite the efforts of local medical authorities and clergy to convince the populace that a Christrian child had died in accidental drowning and not as part of  Jewish plot tied to the Passover ritual, mobs attacked the Jewish quarter converting into a place of “pandemonium, pillage, rape and murder.”


1875: Publisher Michael Levi passed away in Paris.


1878(1st of Iyar, 5638): Rosh Chodesh Iyyar


1878: According to today's Literary Notes column, "Prof. Goldwin Smith who is said to be a cordial Jew-hater is preparing a reply to an article in the April Nineteenth Century in which it is maintained that Jews are good patriots."


1878: “Philip Leon, a well-dressed Hebrew was arraigned in the Court of Special Session on a charge of having stolen a pawn ticket and a dollar from Julia McCloughlin.”  Although he denied the larceny, which was took the form of a swindle, he was found guilty and sentenced to a month in New York’s city jail and ordered to pay a fine of $50.


1878: “Hebrew Benevolent and Orphan Asylum Society”, a column published today provides information about the Hebrew Benevolent and Orphan Asylum Society based on its recently released 55th annual report. Currently the asylum provides service to 301 boys and girls.  The children attend local primary and grammar schools where, according to letters from school officials, they are doing quite well.  The asylum teaches Hebrew and other Jewish studies. The asylum houses an industrial school where boys “are taught to be printers and shoemakers.” 

1879: The New York Times featured a review of "Moses the Lawgiver" by Rev. William M. Taylor in which the author writes favorably about the Jewish leader and the customs and ceremonies of his time.  This is the first in a series of that is to include "Daniel, the Beloved", "David, King of Israel" and “Elijah the Prophet.”

 

1879: “Matacong” an article published today reported on the activities of Nathaniel Isaac, a Jew, who was the only English resident of this island off the coast of Sierra Leone. In 1856, Isaac accompanied  a French merchant named Milon on a visit to the King of Forécariah where he served as an intermediary to assure that the Frenchman could contact his commercial operations on the island. 


1879: Dr. Szold, the Rabbi of the Hanover Street Synagogue in Baltimore delivered a lecture on Abraham Lincoln. The talk was sponsored by the Hebrew Young Men’s Association and included “a number of short anecdotes concerning the great man.  Dr. Szold said that Mr. Lincoln had the most remarkable faculty for solving difficult problems by tell little stories or parables.”  Alexander the Great used a sword to cut the Gordian knot.  Lincoln used his “sharp, keen incisive wit “to unravel the most” difficult and intricate questions.


1882: During the blood libel known as the Tiszaeszlár Affair, the mother of 14 year old Eszter Solymosi appeared before a judge where she accused the Jews of having murdered her daughter.


1884(9th of Iyar, 5644): Baer Ben Alexander Goldberg passed away in Paris. Born at Soludna near Warsaw in 1799 he eventually moved to Berlin where he began a career as an author and translator; a career he continued after moving to London in 1847 and Paris in 1852. One of his first works was "Ḳonṭres mi-Sod Ḥakamim," a commentary on the Jewish calendar, with chronological tables published 1845 was one the first works by this prolific author.  "Ma'aseh Nissim," a translation from the Arabic into Hebrew of Daniel the Babylonian's critical work on Maimonides is an example of the many translations he produced while living in Paris.


1885: Birthdate of Russian born pianist Leo Sirota who taught in Japan for 15 years where his daughter Beate Sirota Gordon was born before settling in the United States.


1887: The funeral of Isaac Henricks, the prominent businessman and member of the Hebrew Orphan Asylum Society, is scheduled to take place at his brother-in-law’s home this morning.


1890(14thof Iyar, 5650): Pesach Sheini


1890: Four new trustees are scheduled to be appointed a meeting of the Hebrew Benevolent and Orphan Asylum.


1890: It was reported today that Russia is preparing to adopt more stringent passport regulations, requiring that the documents of all those entering the country must show their religion.  Anyone who does not show a religion will be registered as a Jew and will only be able to visit “localities where Jews are permitted to reside.”


1892: The funeral of Abraham L. Grabfeelder, the General Southern Agent of Manhattan Life Insurance Company a director of the Sanitarium for Hebrew Children will be held this morning at 9:30


1892: Six Jews and Jewesses were convicted at Vilna of murdering babies that had been left in their care.


1892: It was reported today that David Boody, the Mayor of Brooklyn, Joseph C. Hendrix, President of the Board of Education and Oscar S. Straus, the former minister to Turkey, addressed those attending the cornerstone laying ceremonies of the new building belong to the Brooklyn Hebrew Orphan Asylum.


1893: Simon Goodheart, one of the leaders of the aggressive movement to convert Jews living on the lower east side denied accusations contained in affidavits signed by those whom his group had converted and who have now renounced their conversion that financial inducements are used to gain converts and that most of those who are supposed to be converts have taken the step for financial gain.


1894: Birthdate of Archibald Maul Ramsay, a British army officer, out spoken anti-Semite and the only MP to ever be interred on suspicions that he was a spy for the Axis


1895: A nameless seven year old deaf mute Jewish boy whose mother had passed away and whose father “was unable to provide for him” has been taken to Randall’s


1895: Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Zuckerman of 71 East 109th Street appeared before the justice at the Harlem Police Court and charged their 20 year old son of burglary – specifically of stealing tree silver candlesticks worth $100 and a gold watch worth $75.


1896: The New York Times published an article entitled “Peculiarities of Baron Hirsch” that had first appeared in the London Chronicle. It described a man of great personal wealth who was, at heart, a populist who sided with the working classes in their conflicts with “cosmopolitan financiers” and other power brokers including those inhabiting the British House of Lords.


1900: “B’nai B’rith Convention” an article published today reported on the recently adjourned convention of the Jewish fraternal organization which has been held in Chicago, Illinois.

                
1901: The Books and Authors column included Israel Zangwill’s comments about “Robert Annys, Poor Priest” by Annie Nathan Myer. “Zangwill writes, ‘You are to be heartily congratulated. The book is full of color, spirituality and drama. There is a fine sense of the early commerce of early English history…You score in so many ways. Your pure use of words shows you have the true artist’s joy in them for their own sake.”


1902: Herzl began a three day trip in Berlin. Herzl talked to the director of the Deutsche Bank through which the Zionist movement would like to buy the Deutsche Palästinabank. For the first time Herzl met Franz Oppenheimer.


1902(27thof Nisan, 5662): Fifty-six year old French physician Theodore Klein who served for 18 years as president of the Société de l'Etude Talmudique passed away today.


1903: Birthdate of actor Luther Adler.  Born in New York, Adler was the brother of two other famous thespians, Jay and Stella Adler.  Adler began his career at the age of 13 appearing in his father's Yiddish theater.  Luther Adlerwas born in 1903. His theatre debut began as a 13-year in his father's Yiddish Theatre. In the 1930's he was part of the Group Theatre where he worked with such well-known names as John Garfield, Elia Kazan, Less Strasberg and Howard Da Saliva.  He appeared in over thirty movies and as many television programs.  Some of his film credits include The Last Angry Man; Cast a Giant Shadow and Voyage of the Damned.  He passed away in 1984



1904:  The United States began the construction of the Panama Canal.  The first Panamanian Jewish community, Kol Shearith Israel, was founded in 1876 when Panamawas still part of Columbia.  By 1911, when the Canal was all but completed the Jewish community numbered approximately 500.



1907: Birthdate of Lincoln Edward Kirstein American writer, impresario, art connoisseur, and cultural figure in New York City who was better known for his social influence than for his own artistic achievement. Among other accomplishments he co-founded the New York City Ballet.



1909: Birthdate of Howard Da Silva.  A large man, with a distinctive baritone voice, Da Saliva's birth name was Silverblatt.  He worked in the steel mills to pay his way through Carnegie Institute.  His early stage work includes stints with Orson Wells as well as playing the original Judd in Oklahoma.  In the late 1930's and 1940's he had a successful career in movies playing in such varied films as Sergeant York and The Lost Weekend.  Da Salvia's left wing politics got him in trouble with the House Un-American Activities Committee.  Da Silva was blacklisted for many years.  His fortunes began to rise in the late 1960's and 1970's when he played Ben Franklin 1776 as well as a film about (of all people), J. Edgar Hoover.  He passed away in 1986.



1910: According to some sources this was the date on which Tel Aviv was founded. The confusion stems from the fact that the land company to purchase the acreage for Tel Aviv was formed in 1909.  In 1909 a number of Jewish residents decided to move to a healthier environment, outside the crowded and noisy city of Jaffa. They established a company called Ahuzat-Bayit and with the financial assistance of the Jewish National Fund purchased some twelve acres of sand dunes, north of Jaffa. In 1910, the suburb was named Tel Aviv after Nahum Sokolow's translation of Altneuland, Herzl's fictional depiction of the Jewish State.



1916: Birthdate of sociologist Rose Laub Coser who “made contributions to medical sociology, refined major concepts of role theory, and analyzed contemporary gender issues in the family and in the occupational world.”


1917: At the request of the government of Salonika, the rabbis approve burial of bodies in shrouds made of paper, because linen was scarce and expensive.



1917: Tel Aviv was sacked by Arabs. Djemal Pasha announced that it was the intention of the Turkish government to purge Eretz Yisrael of its Jewish population. Tel Aviv was sacked by the Arabs on the anniversary of the official adoption of the name "Tel Aviv". That same year the British attacked the Turks in Palestine and the Jews reclaimed Tel Aviv which is often called the "New York of Israel."



1917: Djemal Pasha of the Ottoman Army declared that the intention of authorities was to "wipe out Jewish population of Palestine."



1918: “Plan New Hebrew Club” published in today’s Philadelphia Inquirer described plans to build a $20,000 facility that will included an 500 seat auditorium which will a home for the Young Men’s Hebrew Association and the Young Women’s Hebrew Association in Camden, NJ.



1921(26th of Nisan, 5681): Jonas Kuppenheimer, president of the clothing manufacturing company that bears his family name passed away today in Lake Forest, Illinois.  Born at Terre Haute, Indiana in 1854, Kuppenheimer came to Chicago fifty years ago with his father Bernard, and his brothers Louis and Albert where they opened a clothing store that grew into a major producer of menswear.



1925: Birthdate of Maurice “Hank” Greenberg, former CEO of AIG, one of the world’s largest insurance and financial services companies.



1925: In Johannesburg, South Africa Julius First and Matilda Levetan gave birth to anti-Apartheid activist Ruth First.



1926: In Palestine, “all work in Jewish office, factories and institutions…stopped at 1:30 today as thousands of mourners paid tribute to the late Dr. Max Nordau…whose body was brought to Palestine from France.   As the body was being carried to Tel Aviv’s town hall, the procession stopped at the Great Synagogue where special religious services were held.



1930: Birthdate of Roberta Peters, who achieved the longest tenure of any soprano in the history of the Metropolitan Opera.



1937: It was announced today that Arturo Toscanini will again conduct the Palestine Symphony Orchestra in a series of concerts that will include a November 10 in Tel Aviv as well as performances in Jerusalem and Haifa.



1938:In an address to 500 newly married couples at Castel Gandolfo, Pope Pius XI criticizes Adolf Hitler, currently visiting Mussolini in Rome, and the Nazi Party. Pope Pius XI says that these couples deserve a papal benediction because "such sad things are happening, sad things, very sad, both near to us and far away. Certainly among these sad things is that on the feast day of the Holy Cross of Christ, the banners of another cross which certainly is not that of Christ should have been hoisted in Rome. This was out of place and time. We tell you this so that you may understand how necessary it is to pray, pray, and pray for the mercy of the Almighty in all its largeness." (Editor’s Note – this was not the only time that Pius XI would publicly criticize Hitler or speak up in defense of the Jews.  Any discussion of the role of the Catholic Church in events leading up to the Shoah must include an examination of this brave cleric)



1938: A picture was taken of the teachers and students at a Jewish school in Sirvintos, Lithuania.
http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/this_month/may/03.asp



1938: In Los Angeles, Oscar winning screen writer Phillip G. Epstein  and his wife gave birth to American author Leslie Donald Epstein whose novels includes King of the Jews.  Epstein was the nephew of screenwriter Julius Epstein and the father of baseball mogul Theo Epstein.



1938: Carl von Ossietzky, an anti-Nazi German journalist and winner of the 1935 Nobel Peace Prize, dies at age 50 after five years' captivity in concentration camps.


1938: The Palestine Post reported that Arab gangs murdered Hassan Darfil, a prominent Arab notable representing the Wadi Salib quarter of Haifa. Arab gangs continued to abduct and rob villagers and spread terror across the country.


1939: According to the diary of Jay Pierrepont Moffat, a State Department official, President Roosevelt met at the White House with Jewish leaders where the President seemed to be convinced that the warnings given by the U.S. Embassy in Berlin “were sound and not exaggerated.” 


1939: Birthdate of Israeli author Amos Oz.  To understand the works of Oz, you must realize that he is Jewish, but a sabra, a person who never has known the Diaspora.  Born in Jerusalem, Oz was a city boy until he went to live on a kibbutz at the age of 15. "He studied philosophy and literature at the HebrewUniversity in Jerusalem, and was visiting fellow at OxfordUniversity, author-in- residence at the HebrewUniversity and writer-in-residence at ColoradoCollege. He has been named Officer of Arts and Letters of France. An author of prose for children and adults, as well as an essayist, he has been widely translated and is internationally acclaimed. He has been honored with the French Prix Femina and the 1992 Frankfurt Peace Prize. He lives in the southern town Arad and teaches literature at BenGurionUniversity of the Negev." In describing his literary efforts, a reviewer in Newsweek wrote, “Eloquent, humane, even religious in the deepest sense, [Oz] emerges as a kind of Zionist Orwell: a complex man obsessed with simple decency and determined above all to tell the truth, regardless of whom it offends.” Oz is extremely prolific and only some of his works have been translated into English.  These include such recent efforts as My Michael, A Perfect Peace and Don't Call It Night.



1939: In Hungary, Miklos Horthy signs “The Second Jewish Bill” which had been introduced into the Hungarian Parliament in December of 1938 and was laughingly called “the Christmas present for the Jews.”  The bill was the Hungarian version of Hitler’s Nuremberg Laws and proved to almost immediately ruinous for much of Hungary’s Jewish population.



1942: Birthdate of Michael Dray.  His family had moved from Casablanca to Paris.  He was the youngest of the Moroccan-born Jews who would be deported from Paris to Auschwitz - an event that took place when he was twenty months old.


1942: The first day of an eleven day deportation of 10,000 Jews from Lodz ghetto to the Chelmno Death Camp.  They were part of 145,000 people who were gassed between December, 1941 and September 1942.



1942: Starting on this date and lasting until May 8, six Jews in Lódz, Poland, fearing deportation, commit suicide.


1942: Starting on this date and lasting until May 15, more than 10,000 Jews are deported from the Lódz (Poland) Ghetto to Chelmno.


1943: An advertisement condemning the recently completed Bermuda Conference appeared on page 17 of the New York Times under the headline of To 5,000,000 Jews in the Nazi Death-Trap Bermuda was a Cruel Mockery,”


1945: Red Army troops liberate the camp at Oranienburg, Germany, where 5000 inmates remain alive.


1945: The U.S. 82nd Airborne Division liberates the concentration camp at Wöbbelin,Germany.


1945: At Mauthausan the prisoners were not taken out to work and SS men were observed leaving the camp.


1945: The International Red Cross took over the administration of the camp/ghetto at Theresienstadt, Czechoslovakia. The last of the camp's SS men flee.


1947:Today marked the start of the fifth annual nation-wide observance of Religious Book Week, sponsored by The National Conference of Christians and Jews and designed to stimulate the reading of books of spiritual value, is being held this week. The Conference was established in 1928 "to demonstrate that those who differ deeply in religious beliefs may work together in the American way toward mutual goals."


1947: The Irgun Zeva'l Le'umi, known in Hebrew by the abbreviation as Etzel or the Irgun, staged the famous prison break at Acre Prison.  In April, 1947, the British had hung members of the Irgun so Menachem Begin felt it was imperative to try and rescue at least some of those held in the aging fortress.  In a act of daring-do worthy of any adventure novel, the Irgun entered the prison and freed 41 Etzel and Lehi (Stern Gang) prisoners.  They could not free more because of the lack of hiding places.  These escape is one of the climactic scenes in Leon Uris's novel (and movie by the same name) Exodus.



1947: More than 2,000 people filled Temple Emanu-El this afternoon at a special memorial service for Henry Monsky, international president of B'nai B'rith and chairman of the interim committee of the American Jewish Congress. Mr. Monsky died on Friday in the Hotel Biltmore at the age of 57, while attending a meeting of the future organization committee of the conference.



1948: In direct violation of international law the Arab Legion which was the Jordanian army that included a compliment of British officers attacked Kfar Etzion and was driven back the poorly armed Jewish fighters.



1948: With only five days left until the end of the British Mandate, the Jewish forces were working feverishly to develop a military posture that would enable them to avoid annihilation by Arab military forces operating illegally in Palestine.  At the same time they were trying to prepare a defensive posture that would enable them to face the invading armies they would face within the next week.  To that end, the Palmach launched Operation Broom.  Operation Broom was intended to “sweep away” Arab bases so that Jewish settlements in the lower and upper Galileecould be joined together with a wide, safe strip of Jewish territory. Large numbers of Arabs departed the Galilee for safe haven across the Jordan River.  Their departure was a result of rumors of that a large Jewish force was on its way and the belief that once the Arab armies had had their way with the Jews, they could return and reap the spoils of victory.  



1948: Norman Mailer's first novel, The Naked and the Dead, was published.


1952: In an interview given on the eve of his departure for the United States, Abba Khoushy, Mayor of Haifa declared “that this is going to be THE city of the country.”  In outlining the many virtues of this major seaport, the mayor noted that the population has grown from 63,000 in 1949 to 200,000 in 1952.  He has four major projects on the drawing board, which, if funded, will “bring greatness to Haifa.”


1952: Birthdate of Harry Ehrenberg, Jr., a pillar of the Little Rock, Arkansas Jewish Community and a mensch in the truest sense of that term.


1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that the Treasury doubled the exchange rate for leather and textiles to IL2 per dollar. The Histadrut banned all overtime and double jobs in order to ease the current heavy unemployment.


1956:  Birthdate of author David Guterson, the author of the novel Snow Falling on Cedars which won many awards, including the 1995 PEN/Faulkner Award.  The son of Jewish parents, Guterson is a self-described agnostic.


1957: The Anne Frank Foundation was formed in Amsterdam.   This is one of the organizations dedicated to preserving the memory of this tragic Jewish figure whose diary has captured and continues to capture the hearts and imagination of millions around the world.


1965: Israel Bar-Yehuda completes his term as Minister of Transport and Road Safety


1970: In deciding the legal case "Walz v. Tax Commission of New York," the United States Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of a New Yorkstatute exempting church-owned property from taxation. This decision included all religious buildings i.e.Synagogues and Temples


1970(28th of Nisan, 5730): Allison Krause, a student at Kent State University, was one of four students killed by the Ohio National Guard. The Guard fired on a nonviolent demonstration against the Vietnam War. Krause was a committed Jew, the daughter of a Reform Jewish family, who opposed the US war against Vietnam out of a sense of the meaning of Judaism


1972(20th of Iyar, 5732): Ninety year old Hetty Goldman, “one of the first female archaeologists who was a member of the Goldman-Sachs banking family”  passed away today.





1975(23rd of Iyar, 5735): Comedian Moe Howard passed away.  Born Moses Horowitz in 1897, Howard was "Moe" of the famous comedy group called the Three Stooges.  All of the Stooges were Jewish.  Another example of how Jews were successful in the entertainment field by being "All American" as opposed to ethnic.


1975: Terrorists set off a bomb in a Jerusalem apartment building.


1975: The New York Times featured a review of "Jacob Two-Two Meets the Hooded Fang" by Mordecai Richler.


1976(4thof Iyar, 5736): Yom HaZikaron


1977: The first of David Frost’s interviews with Richard Nixon which were produced by Marvin Mintoff, the husband of Bonnie Franklin, was broadcast today.


1978: The Jerusalem Post reported from Lebanon that Arab terrorists murdered four French UNIFIL paratroopers, wounded seven and abducted five. France avoided condemning the P.L.O. responsible for this attack and claimed that the troops were attacked by "irresponsible elements." The Security Council deplored the incident, boosted UNIFIL to the strength of 6,000 men and called on Israel"to complete the withdrawal."


1979: Nigel Lawson, the scion of prominent Anglo-Jewish financial family began serving as Financial Secretary to the Treasury.


1979: Robert Strauss began serving as the first “Special Envoy for the Middle East” a newly created position created during the administration of Jimmy Carter.


1981(30th of Nisan, 5741): Rosh Chodesh Iyar


1982(11th of Iyar, 5742): Just 6 weeks before his 90th birthday, Barnett Janner, who had been made a life peer which meant he was recognized as Baron Janner, passed away today.




1983: Phillip Dougherty reported that “Geers, Gross Advertising has been named agency for Hebrew National Kosher Foods, which has also named Levy, Flaxman & Associates to handle its recently acquired fresh chicken and turkey operation. The main account should be billing $3 million, and fresh fowl, $1 million. The former agency is Scali, McCabe, Sloves, whose account list includes Frank Perdue and all his little chicks. Since Perdue is already in fresh fowl and is eyeing franks made with chicken, it is easy to see why S.M.S. is no longer the Hebrew National agency.”


1985: Michael A. Ledeen, an informal envoy of Robert C. McFarlane, the U.S. national security adviser, met with Shimon Peres in Jerusalem and inquired whether Israel had ideas about how to open contacts with Teheran. This is meeting that the Israelis have always cited as the American request for help that brought Israel into what became known as the Iran-Contra affair.


1991(20th of Iyar, 5751): Eighty-seven year old master wood sculptor Chaim Gross passed away today. (As reported by John T. McQuiston)

1994: In a letter published today entitled Jews Have Reason to Fear Italian Fascism, Susan Zucotti traces the history of Mussolini et al to explain “why Jews and other Italians are wary of Gianfranco Fini’s resurgent neo-Fascist party.

1994: Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO leader Yasser Arafat signed an according that granted the Palestinians the right of self-rule in the Gaza Strip and Jericho.


1995(4thof Iyar, 5755): Yom HaAtzma’ut


1997(27th of Nisan, 5757): Yom Hashoah; Rabbi Erwin Herman told the story of the "Yanov Torah" to 500 people at San Diego's community Yom HaShoah services today causing many of them to cry.

1997: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Gospel According to the Son by Norman Mailer.


1997: Barb Feller, executive director of the Granger House in Marion, Iowa, traveled to England to interview John Granger, last surviving grandson of the home’s original owner.  Mrs. Feller is an active member of the TempleJudah community serving as a Hebrew teacher and co-President of the congregation.


2001: The Mitchell Report (named for Maine Senator George Mitchell)  “that examined the cause of violence that began in 2000 and gave rise to the so-called Al-Aqsa Intifada was submitted today. 

2003: The New York Times featured books by Jewish writers and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including the recently released paperback edition of Master of the Senate: The Years of Lyndon Johnson by Robert A. Caro.


2005: Natan Sharansky completed his term as Minister Without Portfolio.


2006: The American Jewish Committee's centennial events culminates with a gala event attended by US President George W. Bush, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and German Chancellor Angela Merkel The Jerusalem Post reported Author A.B. Yehoshua stirred controversy at the opening panel of the centennial celebration of the American Jewish Committee after saying that only the State of Israel can ensure the survival of the Jewish people. Yehoshua's passionate presentation took other panelists by surprise and became the talk of the conference, which is taking place in Washingtonall week long. "For me, Avraham Yehoshua, there is no alternative... I cannot keep my identity outside Israel. [Being] Israeli is my skin, not my jacket. You are changing jackets... you are changing countries like changing jackets. I have my skin, the territory," the author told the audience, adding that Israeli Jews live a Jewish life in a totality that the American Jews do not know. Yehoshua's statements echoed through the other sessions with many participants expressing their disagreement with the Israeli author's views. On Wednesday, former head of the Mossad, Efraim Halevy, also speaking to the AJC, distanced himself from Yehoshua's arguments and said that the fact that Israel goes to great effort to help Jewish communities around the world proves that Israel sees importance in the Jewish Diaspora. Yehoshua himself told The Jerusalem Post that he was surprised by the uproar over his arguments. "It seems to me obvious that our Jewish life in Israel is more total than anywhere outside Israel," he said, adding, "I think this is common sense. If they were goyim they would understand it right away." An activist in a major Jewish organization who attended the opening panel said Yehoshua's arguments "took us back to the Fifties and Sixties," adding that "we are not used to hearing this kind of approach anymore."


2006(6th of Iyar, 5766):Luba Kadison, the last surviving member of the Vilna Troupe, an influential Yiddish theater company founded in Europe during World War I, passed away at the age of 99. Caraid O'Brien, a scholar of Yiddish theater and a friend of Kadison announced that she had died at her home in Manhattan. Kadison, whose married name was Luba Kaison Buloff, toured extensively in Europe before becoming a leading actress in Yiddish theater during its heyday on New York's Lower East Side. She was part of a golden age of Yiddish theater that saw serious and satirical plays challenge the dominance of popular musicals. "They did experimental things. They were doing stuff in the style of German expressionists before most English-speaking theaters," said O'Brien, who called Kadison an "incredible inspirational artistic figure." Born in Lithuania in 1906, Kadison began performing in Europe as a child. Her father, Leib Kadison, was a founder of the Vilna Troupe, which performed modernist works by Yiddish writers S. Ansky and Sholom Aleichem, and translations of plays by others, including Maxim Gorky and Henrik Ibsen. In 1923 she married another member of the troupe, Joseph Buloff. The couple came to Americain the late 1920s and performed in Lower East Sidetheaters packed with Jewish immigrants. Kadison had roles in Sholem Asch's "God of Vengeance," I.J. Singer's "Brothers Ashkenazi" and Arthur Miller's "Death of a Salesman." The Holocaust devastated Yiddish culture, and declining use of the language worldwide was eventually mirrored in New York's theater scene. Kadison performed around the globe, and later in life became an interpreter, a teacher and a painter. She wrote a memoir with her husband, "On Stage, Off Stage: Memories of a Lifetime in the Yiddish Theater," which was published in 1992.Buloff, who moved on to a successful career on Broadway, died in 1985.


2006: Ehud Olmert went from Interim Prime Minister to Prime Minister after he established his own government in the wake of Ariel Sharon’s second stroke.


2006: Yael "Yuli" Tamir began serving as Minister of Education.


2006:Yaakov Edri began serving as Jerusalem Affairs Minister of Israel.


2006: Meir Sheetrit replaced Ze’ev Boim as Minister of Housing and Construction


2006: Binyamin Ben-Eliezer replaced Roni Bar-On as the Energy and Water Resources Minister of Israel.


2006: Shaul Mofaz was named Minister of Transport


2006: Ariel Atias replaced Avraham Hirschson as Minister of Communications.


2006: Roni Bar-On replaced Ariel Sharon Internal Affairs Minister.

2006: Amir Peretz replaced Shaul Mofaz as Minister of Defense.


2006: Avi Dichter replaced Gideon Ezra as Minister of Public Security.


2006: Ruhama Avraham Balila completed her term as Deputy Internal Affairs Minister.


2007: This year's Jacob's Ladder Festival opened for the first of two days at Nof Ginasar along the Kinneret.  A Cajun dance workshop, fiddle classes and bluegrass gospel music from the Abrams Brothers, a teenage duo from Canada were just a few of the 35 acts featured at this year’s event.


2008: In Chicago, The Spertus Institute of Jewish Studies presented a Yom Hashoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day) Program entitled “Poetry of the Holocaust: New Texts and Enduring Debates.”In this special Yom HaShoah conversation, poet Joy Ladin and DePaul University professor Eric Selinger explored Holocaust poetry, including Ladin’s own remarkable work, The Book of Anna, a collection of narrative poems and diary entries written in the voice of a fictional Czech-German Jewish concentration camp survivor.


2008 The Sunday New York Times book section featured reviews of A Voyage Long and Strange by Tony Horowitz, The Mayor’s Tongue by Nathaniel Rich son of Frank Rich and 1948: A History of the First Arab-Israeli War by Benny Morris.


2009: As part of the PEN World Voices Festival of International Literature the 92nd Street Y presented the second Critics Voice program, “David Grossman on Bruno Schulz” during which Israeli novelist David Grossman, who wrote See Under: Love which stands as a lasting tribute to Schulz discusses the work of this Ukrainian born author who perished in the Holocaust.Born in Drohobycz, Galicia (now Ukraine) in 1892, Bruno Schulz, a drawing teacher by trade, wrote two story collections—Cinnamon Shops(1934) and Sanatorium Under the Sign of Hourglass (1937)—before he was killed by the Gestapo in 1942. His novel-in-progress, The Messiah, has never been found.”


2009:“Spots of Light: To Be a Woman in the Holocaust,”, an exhibition recently opened by Yad Vashem had its last showing at the Royal Palace in Dresden, Germany.


2010: In New York, Manuel Forcano, Professor of Semitic Studies and Vice President of the Catalan Council for the Arts is scheduled to deliver a lecture entitled “Traces of Esther: The Jewish Presence in Contemporary Catalan Literature.”


2010: A screening of “I had a Dream- The Story of Yona Bogale, Leader of Ethiopian Jewry” is scheduled for the opening of the Sheba Film Festival at the JCC in Manhattan. The Sheba Film festival highlights the legacy of Ethiopian Jewry.


2010:Jewish community leaders, Democratic Party officials and others gathered at a dinner in honor of DNC Chairman Governor Tim Kaine, hosted by Ambassador Michael Oren at his Washington home. National Jewish Democratic Council (NJDC) leadership including Chairman Marc Stanley, Executive Committee member and DNC At-Large member Sunita Leeds, CEO Ira Forman, and President David Harris were among those in attendance. Ambassador Oren made strong and candid comments praising President Barack Obama and his administration, as well as the administration’s powerful support for the State of Israel.


2010:The Schechter Institute of Jewish Studies dedicated the first building of its new campus next to the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. The Schechter Institute is a non-profit organization of the Conservative Movement dedicated to the advancement of pluralistic Jewish education in Israel.


2011: Alexandria, VA is scheduled to host its 24thannual Holocaust Yom Ha’Shoah observance which will be attended by the Polish ambassador to the United States and Holocaust Survivor Charlene Schiff who will read an excerpt from her biography, “Don’t Ask For Soap.”


2011: The Tolerance Education Center in Rancho Mirage, CA, is scheduled to present “Fiddlers on MY Roof” featuring Stanley Walden.


2011:The American Jewish Historical Society is scheduled to present the 2011 Emma Lazarus Statue of Liberty Award Dinner honoring Machal and Aliyah Bet, all North American women and men who volunteered in Israel's War of Independence between 1947 and 1949, and Ralph Lowenstein, Ph.D., founder of the Machal/Aliyah Bet Archives; Machalnik; Dean Emeritus, College of Journalism and Communications, University of Florida.


2011: The Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage is scheduled to present “Flight to Freedom – A Tribute Jewish Artists” during which “Joan Chesterton, Art historian and Professor Emerita at Purdue University, offers a fascinating illustrated presentation that pays tribute to the incredible contributions of four European artists who fled the Holocaust and immensely enriched American art—architect Mies van der Rohe, painter Hans Hoffmann, composer Kurt Weill and filmmaker, Billy Wilder.”


2011: Jewish song leader Mark Levy is scheduled to lead a workshop on “Jews 'n' Jazz!” at the Reutlinger Community for Jewish Living.  “The workshop will trace the development of America's notable Jewish jazz artists and composers beginning with their immigration to the U.S.”


2011: The Cutler Plotkin Jewish Heritage Center is scheduled to present “Jewish Identity in Pioneer Arizona: Anna and Lillian Solomon and Suitable Love” As part of the Arizona Jewish Centennial Series, Emily Jacobson, M.A., will speak about the Solomon family of Solomonville in Graham County. Anna Solomon, the family matriarch was a remarkable woman who raised all six of her children to marry Jews in a region where there were barely enough to form a minyan.


2011(30th of Iyar, 5771): Rosh Chodesh Iyar


2011:UK Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks slammed the notion of making peace with Hamas in a speech he gave to the House of Lords today. The chief rabbi said that unless Hamas changes its ways, "there may be a process but there will not be peace.""Peace is more than a resting place on the road to war. I cannot make peace with one who denies my right to exist." The speech came shortly after Fatah and Hamas signed a reconciliation accord in Cairo, with Hamas officials saying they will not recognize Israel.

 

2012: Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel is scheduled to participate in the Holocaust Remembrance Day ceremonies at the Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center in Skokie, Illinois.


2012: As Temple Judah in Cedar Rapids, kicks-off a week-end of events marking its 90th anniversary, David Neuman, the son of former Rabbi Isaac Neuman is scheduled to address the congregation during Shabbat Eve Services.


2013: Friends and family of Harry L. Ehrenberg, Jr. gather to celebrate the natal day of this mensch who is a pillar of the Arkansas Jewish community


2013: "A Kaddish for Bernie Madoff "by Alicia Jo Rabins is scheduled to be performed at the Washington Jewish Music Festival.


2013: The winner of the 2nd Annual Jewish Playwriting Contest is scheduled to be chosen today at New Haven, CT.


2013: The Courier-Journal published “A Memorable Derby.”



 

2013: “Three to Max” a creation of Ohad Naharin, the artistic director of the Batsheva Dance Company is scheduled to be performed at The Joyce Theatre.


2013: The 15th annual Felicja Blumental Chamber Music Festival is scheduled to come to an end.


2013: Israeli tightens defenses long her northern border as the situation in Syria deteriorates.


2013: The airstrike that Israeli warplanes carried out in Syria overnight  was directed at a shipment of advanced surface-to-surface missiles from Iran that Israel believed was intended for Hezbollah, the militant Lebanese organization, American officials said today


2014: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewsh readers including Love and Treasure by Ayelet Waldman and John Qunicy Adams: American Visionary by Fred Kaplan


2014: The Jewish Historical Sociey of Greater Washington is scheduled to conduct a tour of “Jewish Sites in Arlington National Cemetery including the Confederate Memorial by Sir Moses Ezekiel and the Challenger and Columbia Space Shuttle Memorials.


2014: Jewish education is scheduled to come to an end in the corriodor for the year as Agudas Achim and Temple Judah close their religious schools until the fall.


2014: “The Seder: Meanings, Rituals & Sprituality” is scheduled to close at the Oregon Jewish Museum.


2014: In the Netherlands, Nationale Herdenkingsdag (National Memorial Day


2014: The Jewish Genealogy Society of Greater Washington and the JCC of Greater Washington are scheduled to host author, David Laskin, who will talk about the research that went into the writing of his book, "The Family: Three Journeys into the Heart of the Twentieth Century."


2014: As part of Jewish American Heritage Month, Dr. Ted Merwin is scheduled to lecutre on “The Delectable History of the Jewish Deli" at the Jewish Museum in Miami Beach.


 


 


 


This Day, May 5, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. Levin

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May 5



1109: The Moors recaptured Valencia from the Christians. “During the period of Muslim rule…the Jewish quarter was situated on the eastern side of the Rahbat el-qadi and in its vicinity, on the site where the Santa Catalina church stands at present” (Jewish Virtual Library)


1028:  King Alfonso V of Castile passed away. In 1020, Alfonso had presided over the Council of Leon which adopted laws that created a certain amount of equality between Christians and Jews. The legislation was in response to the threat of Moslem forces that were in control of much of the Iberian Peninsula. Alfonso was the King of Castile when Solomon ibn Gabriol was born in 1021.

 

1210: Birthdate of King Alfonso III of Portugal whose reign was a period of comparative benevolence for his Jewish subjects. Jews were “exempt from the canonical decrees which compelled the wearing of a distinctive sign and the payment of tithes to the Church.”  Also, Jews were appointed to positions of governmental responsibility.  These policies were continued by his successor, King Diniz who appointed Judah, the Chief Rabbi of Portugal to serve as finance minister.


1260: Kublai Khan becomes ruler of the Mongol Empire. “Arab and European travelers, including Marco Polo in the 13th century, spoke of meeting Jews or hearing about them during their travels in China (then called the Middle Kingdom). Polo recorded that Kublai Khan himself celebrated the festivals of the Muslims, Christians and Jews alike, indicating a large enough number of Jews in the country to warrant attention by its rulers. Historical sources also describe Jewish communities at various trade ports, including Hangzhou, Guangzhou, Ningbo, and Yangzhou. Only the community in Kaifeng survived."


1435: Jewish residents of Speyer, Germany, were expelled.


1588: The Council of Hanover ordered the severance of all business connections between Jews and Christians.


1624: Elias Lipiner was sentenced to death at an auto-de-fe by the Portuguese Inquisition. He was accused of committing the crime of using Jewish names and writing in Hebrew. On this same day Dr. Antonio Honem was sentenced to death for observing Jewish ceremonies.


1646:  King Charles I surrendered to the Presbyterian forces paving the way for the rise to power of Oliver Cromwell.  Cromwell would play a critical role in the return of the Jewish community to the British Isles.


1731(29thof Nisan, 5491): The grandmother of Moses Sofer, Reizchen, a daughter of the Gaon of Frankfurt Rabbi Shmuel Schotten, known as the Marsheishoch passed away.


1735: Birthdate of Jonas Mischel Jeittles, the native of Prague who studied medicine in Leipzig and Halle, became the public health officer of the Jewish community, was nominated chief supervisor of the guild of Jewish healers in Prague and in 1784 obtained from the emperor Joseph in Vienna permission that not only he himself but also other Jewish doctors could pursue unrestricted medical practice.(U.S. National Library of Medicine)


1764: The "Jews' decree" issued today permitted any Jew to live in Vienna “who could prove that he possessed a certain sum of ready money and "acceptable" papers, or that he had established a factory. According to this decree no Jew could buy a house; a married Jew had to let his beard grow, that he might be readily distinguished; and no synagogue or other place for common worship was permitted.


1767(6th of Iyar): Rabbi Isaac Ha-Levi Horowitz of Brody passed away


1777(28thof Nisan, 5537): Forty-three year old Raphael Hayyim Isaac Carregal passed away today at Barbados. Born in Hebron and ordained at 17, Carregal travels eventually took him to the American Colonies just before the start of the American Revolution.  He struck up a friendship with Edgar Stiles, the future President of Yale University.  Stiles benefited from this chance to improve his Hebrew and study scripture with a Rabbi.


1789:  In France, the Estates General convenes for the first time in 150 years.  This is the first act in what would become the French Revolution; a revolution that would result in Jews being granted full citizenship in any European continental political entity.


1809: Right of citizenship was denied to Jews of the canton of Aargau, Switzerland. Emancipation was delayed until 1879.


1809(19thof Iyar, 5669): “Berek Yoselovich, founder and commander of a Jewish light cavalry regiment, was killed in action in the war between the Duchy of Warsaw and Austria


1813: Birthdate of Søren Kierkegaard




1818: Birthdate of Karl Marx, author of the Communist Manifesto and Das Kapital.  Only the ignorant and the anti-Semitic insist that Marx was a Jew.


1821: Napoleon Bonaparte passed away.  There is not enough space in this brief guide to discuss the impact of Napoleon, both pro and con, on the Jewish people.


1837: A dedication of new synagogue in Surinam took place.


1839: Forty-two year old jurist Eduard Ganz who like so many of his contemporaries found his way to the Baptismal font as he climbed the ladder of German society passed away today.

1839: In the small town of Unsleben, Bavaria, “a group of 19 emigrants led by Moses Alsbacher departed for America, seeking escape from political unrest and economic and personal discrimination. They chose Cleveland as their final destination because a fellow townsman, Simson Thorman, had two years earlier made this thriving village on Lake Erie the base for his fur trading business. Arriving in late 1839, they found their first homes in the Terminal Tower-Central Market area. A Torah scroll was among the belongings of this group of settlers, and soon after they arrived, they formed the Israelitic Society for worship.”


1843:Prince Augustus Frederick, Duke of Sussex, the sixth son of George III (the one who lost the 13 colonies) who “became a Patron of the Jews' Hospital and Orphan Asylum, later to become the charity known as Norwood” and who supported legislation to remove “the civil liabilities of Jews” was buried today at Kensal Green Cemetery without the pomp of state funeral per his request.


1859: Birthdate of lyric poet Mordecai Zebi Mane who was part of the Haskalah movement in Russia.


1859: An article published today entitled “Another Mrtara Case with a More Honorable Termination” tells the story of Alice Levy, a Jewish orphan living in New Orleans.  Before her death, the mother had left instructions that Alice should be “educated in the Jewish faith.” Somehow the child ended up in the custody “of a charitable lady in New Orleans” who was going to raise her as a Catholic.  Alice’s grandmother appealed to the French Consul in New Orleans for help.  After determining that attempts to have the child returned had been thwarted, he interceded on her behalf and the child was tunred over to a Jewish orphanage.  


1860: In his lecture on the "Lost Arts," Wendell Phillips states that the earliest mention of precious stones is in the Bible, and that "the Hebrews borrowed the names of their gems from the Egyptians."


1861: In Washington, DC, Colonel Ripley, the Chief of Ordinance received Major Alfred Mordecai’s letter of resignation and a personal letter from Mordecai in which he thanked Colonel Ripley and assured him that he had no need to doubt the Major’s continued loyalty to the nation.


1862: Mexican forces loyal to Juarez defeat the French Army loyal to the Emperor Maximilian. Because of the heavy hand of the Catholic Church only a handful of Jews were living in Mexico at the start of the 19th century.  The Jewish population actually grew during the rule by the Austrian usurper as he “imported many Jews from Belgium, France, Austria and Alsatia.”  In one of those quirks of history the Jewish population actually benefited when Benito Juarez overthrew Maximilian in 1867. Under Juarez, the Church lost much of its authority and Jews found a secularized Mexico a hospitable place to settle. 


1864: During the U.S. Civil War, start of the Battle of the Wilderness during Sergeant Leopold Karpleles and Private Abraham Cohen served with such distinction that they each earned the Congressional Medal of Honor.


1864: During the Battle of the Wilderness, Private Louis Leon (CSA) was taken prisoner and shipped to Point Lookout.


1864: Baroness Fannie de Worms and Baron Henry de Worms were married in Vienna. The marriage would end in 1886 in notorious divorce case with the Baron proving she had committed adultery with Moritz von Leon.


1865: Major Raphael Moses, “the chief supply officer for General James Longstreet,attended the last meeting of the Confederate government, at the Bank of the State of Georgia (later the Heard House), in Washington in Wilkes County where he was ordered by Confederate president Jefferson Davis to take possession of $40,000 in gold and silver bullion from the Confederate treasury and deliver it to help feed and supply the defeated soldiers straggling home after the war—weary, hungry, often sick, shoeless, and in tattered uniforms. With a small group of determined armed guards, Moses successfully carried out his duty, despite repeated attempts by mobs to take the bullion forcibly.”


1865(9th of Iyar, 5625): French Rabbi Salomon Ulmann passed away. Born at Saverne, Bas-Rhin in 1806 he began his rabbinical studies at Strasburg under Moïse Bloch (better known as Rabbi Mosche Utenheim), and was the first pupil enrolled at the initial competitive examination of candidates for the Ecole Centrale Rabbinique, inaugurated in July, 1830. He was also the first in his class at this institution to receive the diploma of chief rabbi. In 1834 he was appointed rabbi of Lauterbourg, Alsace; in 1844 he became chief rabbi of Nancy, in Lorraine; and in 1853 he succeeded Marchand Ennery as chief rabbi of the Central Consistory of the Israelites of France. Ulmann published a limited number of sermons and pastoral letters, and was the author also of "Catéchisme, ou Eléments d'Instruction Religieuse et Morale à l'Usage des Jeunes Israélites" which is considered a classic.” The most important act in Ulmann's rabbinical career was the organization of the Central Conference of the Chief Rabbis of France, over whose deliberations he presided at Paris in May, 1856. In that year Ulmann addressed a "Pastoral Letter to the Faithful of the Jewish Religion," in which he set forth the result of the deliberations of the conference, which were as follows: (1) revision and abbreviation of the piyyutim; (2) the introduction of a regular system of preaching; (3) the introduction of the organ into synagogues; (4) the organization of religious instruction; (5) the institution of the rite of confirmation for the Jewish youth of both sexes; (6) a resolution for the transfer of the Ecole Centrale Rabbinique from Metz to Paris.


1878: “Murder of an American Lady” published today described how the sister of the American Vice Consul in Bucharest, Dr. Stern, was stabbed by a suitor her family had rejected three years earlier. The young woman was 20 years old and had only been married for four months.


1878: “A Mean Thief Punished” published today described how “Philip Leon, a well-dressed Hebrew” was tried and found guilty of having stolen a pawn ticket and a dollar from Julia McLoughlin.  Leon was sentenced to pay a fine of $50 and to serve a sentence of one month in the New York’s city jail.


1879:  According to the Rochester Express, J.B. Hoyt and J.B. Trevor are donating the funds to endow Chair of Hebrew Language and Literature at the Rochester Theological Seminary.

1881: Anti-Jewish riots broke out in Kiev, Russia. The Russian pogroms of 1881 led to the spread of Zionist ideas in Eastern Europe and the formation, in 1882, of Hovevei Zion, the first organized modern Zionist movement in the world.


1881:Following the assassination a month earlier of Tzar Alexander II of Russia, and the subsequent rumors that the Jews were behind the assassination, anti-Jewish riots broke out today. The riots and pogroms lasted for four years, during which time thousands of Jewish homes and synagogues were destroyed, and countless Jews were injured and impoverished. The unrest started out in Southern Russia, and quickly spread throughout the entire country. Tzar Alexander III actually blamed the riots on the Jews(!) and punished them by enacting new laws which further restricted their freedoms. Among these devastating laws were legislation which restricted Jews from residing in towns with fewer than 10,000 citizens, and limiting their professional employment and education opportunities. These oppressive laws, known as the "May Laws," compelled many Jews to emigrate. They are said to have caused more than two million Jews to leave Russia, many of them opting


1887: In the United Kingdom, several Brethren who were also Secret Monitors met at the home of Dr. Issachar Zacaharie where it was resolved to from the Alfred Meadows Conclave with Dr. Zacharie as its first Supreme Ruler. Secret Monitors refers to The Order of the Secret Monitor and Brethren refers to Freemasons. Zacharie was born in Kent (England) in 1827.  As a small boy he moved to the United States where he became a foot doctor describes variously as an orthopedist or a chiropodist. During the Civil War he became President Lincoln’s foot doctor.  Their relationship transcended that which normally existed between doctor and patient.  Lincoln used him as an unofficial advisor and source of information. At one point he went to New Orleans to assess the situation there for the President .  ‘Due in part to Zacharie's influence, Lincoln became an early proponent of establishing a Jewish state in the Holy Land. ‘I myself have regard for the Jews,’ the president is reported to have once said. ‘My chiropodist is a Jew, and he has so many times 'put me on my feet' that I would have no objection to giving his countrymen 'a leg up.'"  Zacharie returned to England “from America in 1875 and built up a thriving orthopedic practice in Brook Street, London. He became a member of a Bon Accord Mark Lodge in 1882 where he met other Brethren who were also Secret Monitors, having received their degree in various places. These Brethren were also members of Alfred Meadows Lodge named after a distinguished surgeon.”


1891: “Jewish Prisoners” published today described the work of Rabbi Adolph M. Radin with Jewish prisoners in New York jails and prisons.  New York City’s association of rabbis had designated him as “the visiting Chaplain” to fill this need.


1892: William Ambrose Shedd, a Persian received the George S. Green Fellowship in Hebrew at Princeton University. The theology student’s efforts gained him $600. Ivy League schools had an interest in the language of the Jews but no desire to have them on their campuses.


1892: Emanuel Lehman, the Treasurer of Transportation Fund for the Relief of Russian (Jewish) Refugees acknowledged the following contributions: Sigmund Robertson - $2,000; Lazarus Levy - $100; Seligman Solomon Society - $25; Mrs. G.M. Raphael - $10. This brings the total contributions to $97, 545.49.


1892: In Oxford, UK, Sir Archibald Garrod and Laura Elizabeth Smith gave birth to British archaeologist Dorothy Garrod who in 1929 led an all-female team to a dig in Israeli’s Carmel mountain range where they discovered the skeleton of a Neanderthal woman – “the first-ever to be discovered outside of Europe.”


1892: The Hebrew Orphan Asylum Band will supply the music this afternoon at the Actors’ Fund Fair in Madison Square Garden.


1893: “More Affidavits By Jews” published today described the aggressive attempts by some Christian denominations to convert Jews.


1895: Police will begin an investigation into a tale told by Bernard Zuckerman, a self-confessed thief, that he had been led into his life of crime by an unnamed Polish Jewish woman.  She came to the United States about four years ago, and behaving like a female Fagan, teaches young Jewish Polish boys how to steal and then disposes of their goods.


1895: “Art Notes” published today described the paintings with a Jewish Biblical theme that John S. Sargent has done to decorate the New Public Library in Boston. The wall space over the door depicts the delivery of the Israelites from Egyptian bondage. Below this “are a series of panels” that depict the “growth of the Hebrew religion”  “In the center, immediately over the door, is a colored bas-relief of Moses.”  


1895: Robert College in Constantinople which was created with an endowment by Christopher R. Robert of New York currently provides a western style education to a multi-ethnic student body of  200, five of whom are Jews.


1896: In New York, Matilda (Metzger) and Dr. Herman J. Schiff gave birth to Esther Schiff who gained fame as anthropologist Esther Schiff Goldfrank the wife of  Walter S. Goldfrank and the author the 1927 tome The Social and Ceremonial Organization of Cochiti


1898: “A Jewish Warship” published today described plans by Jews in Ohio to raise the money to pay for a warship to be used in the war against giving as their reasons “The Jews all over the world have a grudge against Spain” (remember the expulsion of 1492) and the fact that Jews “have had trials and tribulations in every country in the world except in America.”


1889: Rabbi Henry S. Jacobs is scheduled to deliver an address to the adult members of B’nai Jeshurun on the significant role of George Washington as part of the events celebrating the centennial of his first inauguration which took place in New York City on April 30, 1789.


1899:  Birthdate of Jacob “Gurrah” Shapiro, a partner of Louis “Lepke” Buchalter who helped establish Murder Incorporated.


1900: David Wolffsohn offers to resign his position with the Colonial Bank, also known as the Jewish Colonial Trust.  The Bank was established to buy land for the Jewish people in Eretz Israel.


1900: Birthdate of Nacha Rivkin, the founder of Shulamith School for Girls, the first girl's yeshiva in the U.S.


1901: President Percival S. Menken presided over the annual meeting of the Young Men’s Hebrew Association.  Attendees listened to the group’s 27th annual report, elected a board of directors and listened to a brief speech by the organization’s major benefactor, Jacob Schiff.


1901: President Simon Borg presided over the annual meeting of the Home for Aged and Infirmed Hebrews.  Based on the report of the Finance Committee, the Home’s financial condition was quite solid.  Jacob Schiff, President of the Montefiore Home for Chronicle Invalids addressed the group, congratulating the group for the quality of management at the Home.


1909: Birthdate of Hungarian poet Miklós Radnóti, whose life was shaped by the fact that his mother and his twin brother died during his birth


1910: Birthdate of Josef Karlenboim who made Aliyah in 1930 and gained fame as Yosef Almogi, Israeli military, labor and political leaders.


1910: Birthdate of Leo Lionni who along with David Wiesner was one of the two most “influential children’s book illustrators of the twentieth century.” The Amsterdam native’s father was a Sephardic Jewish who worked in the diamond business.  His mother was a Christian.


1911: Birthdate of “Andor Lilienthal, the last of the original 27 chess grandmasters, who played 10 world champions and beat 6 of them…”


1915: Birthdate of Emanuel Litvinoff, an English-born Jewish poet known for his scathing verse indictment of T. S. Eliot’s anti-Semitism — and for reading it before an audience that happened to include Eliot. (As reported by Margalit Fox)


1919: Birthdate of Samuel Abraham Goldblith , “an American food scientist”  who studied malnutrition during World War II “and later was involved in food research important for space exploration.”  He died in 2001.


1920: Birthdate of Charles Hirsch Schneer, a native of Norfolk, Virginia who gained fame as a film producer most widely known for working with special effects pioneer, Ray Harryhausen. (As reported by Margalit Fox)


1921: Birthdate of Poet and liturgist Ruth Brin


1921:  Birthdate of Arthur Leonard Schawlow winner of the 1981 Nobel Prize for Physics.


1921 (27th of Nisan, 5681):  Alfred Hermann Fried passed away.  Born in Austria in 1864, Fried was a leading pacifist, author and co-founder of the German peace movement.  In 1911, he was one of the recipients of the Nobel Prize for Peace.


1921: Demobilized Jewish soldiers under the command of a Jewish officer were assigned to patrol duty in Tel Aviv as part of today’s efforts by General Deeds and Judge Norman Bentwich to restore order in Palestine.  Arabs, including Arab policemen, began rioting on May 1.  So far 27 Jews have been killed during the violence and another 150 have been wounded.


1926: Funeral rites are held at Temple Beth-El for businessman, philanthropist and diplomat Oscar Straus.


1927: In Manhattan, Anita Gerber and Irwin Rosen gave birth to Charles Welles Rosen “the pianist, polymath and author whose National Book Award-winning volume “The Classical Style” illuminated the enduring language of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven” (As reported by Margalit Fox)

1933: In Budapest, Donald and Ilona Sass gave birth to Evelyn Erika Sass who as Evelyn Handler gained gamed as a cell biologist and the first women to serve as President of Brandeis University. (As reported by Paul Vitello)


1933: Ludwig Kaas, who was in Rome at the behest of Cardinal Pacelli to negotiate a Concordat between Hitler and the Vatican, resigned his post as Chairman of the Centre Party one of the last political institution standing in the way of the Nazi’s complete control of Germany.


1938: The Palestine Post reported that a Jewish farmer, Haim Sober, 40, was attacked by Arabs while on his way home to Karkur and beaten with sticks to death.


1938: The Palestine Post reported that an Arab watchmen employed by the Iraqi Petroleum Company was shot and killed in a Tiberias cafe, apparently because he was to serve as a witness in the court case against the Izza ed Din el Kassam Arab terrorist gang which murdered a Jew at Nahalal.


1939: Sara Kucikowicz, the author of “The Cruel Winter” gave her tutor Shlomo Achituv “a photograph of herself, and on the back inscribed the following: “Shlomka, so you’ll remember me. Sara.” The portrait was made at the M. Glouberman photo studio at 12 Pilsudskiego St.” (As reported by JTA)


1939: The Nuremberg anti-Jewish laws went into effect in Hungary 


1939: Under newly enacted legislation first presented by ex-Prime Minister Bella Imredy two thirds of Hungary's Jews were denaturalized because they became citizens after 1914. Jews had to leave all government-related positions before the end of the year.



1941: Emperor Haile Selassie returns to Addis Ababa, capital of Ethiopia after a five year exile brought about the Italian conquest of his kingdom.  This marked one of the early victories of the Allies over the fascists and thus was a turning point in World War II. The Emperor had spent part of his exile in Palestine where he was greeted warmly by the Jewish population


1942 (18th of Iyar, 5702): Lag B’Omer


1942 (18th of Iyar, 5702): Jewish teachers and educators in the Warsaw Ghetto created a special day for children, during which they were treated to games, plays, and special rations of sweets.


1942 (18th of Iyar, 5702): Prof. Jakob Edmund Speyer, a Jew from Frankfurt, Germany, who invented an important painkiller called Eukodal, died of exhaustion in the ghetto at Lodz, Poland


1943: Himmler visited the Zagreb, Yugoslavia. Soon thereafter 1,400 Jews were deported


1944: Bruce Sundlun whose B-17 had been shot down on its 13th mission entered Switzerland after having made his way across France where he worked with the Maquis and where he would be recruited by spymaster Allen Dulles to work for the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) the forerunner of the CIA.


1944: Jacob Shapiro was sentenced to serve a sentence of 15 years to life after having been convicted of conspiracy and extortion.  He only served three years of the sentence since he died of a heart attack while in prison in 1947.


1944: The Jewish Exponent “was purchased by the Allied Jewish Appeal, a precursor of the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia.

1945: The presiding bishop of the German-Catholic bishops' conference instructs his priests to say a mass in Hitler's memory


1945:  After the commander of the bunker at Ebensee (prison) murdered all prisoners who had worked at the crematorium and the bunker, prisoners transported from Mauthausen, Austria, and Warsaw revolted at the labor camp at Ebensee, Austria. When they were ordered into a tunnel packed with explosives, they refused to budge, confusing the SS and Volksdeutscheguards, all of whom were mindful of the advancing Allies and the likelihood of war-crimes trials. The prisoners' defiance was successful and they were left unharmed. In the face of this defiance and out of fear for what might happen when the Allies arrive the Germans fled. As U.S. troops entered the camp, a brutal German Kapo (foreman) pleaded with inmates not to turn him over to the Americans as a war criminal. He was attacked by three Jewish boys and killed. Other Germans at Ebensee met similar fates.


1945: At 11:30 a.m. two American armored vehicles approached the camp gate Mauthansan and were admitted by the prisoners. The troops were from the U.S. 11th Armored Division the force that had liberated the concentration camp at Mauthausen, Austria. 110,000 survivors were found, including 28,000 Jews. Bodies of 10,000 inmates were discovered in a mass grave. In the days following liberation, more than 3000 inmates will die. The Americans did not have enough supplies to offer a fraction of these numbers. Foods such as candy, chocolate, milk and jams were too rich for the starving who still died as a result of malnutrition. One survivor, Sidney Fahn, weighed 80 pounds.


1945: Hollywood producer George Stevens who was working for the United States Army, filmed the first Jewish service at Dachau which was conducted Rabbi David Max Eichhorn, who was a chaplain with the United States Army.


1945:Private Hershel Wright of the US Army gave oranges to starving survivors of the Wöbbelin concentration camp which had been liberated by the GI’s on May 2nd.

1945: The camp at Gusen, Austria, near Mauthausen, is liberated by the U.S. Army; 2000 inmates remain alive.

 
1945: The U.S. 71st Infantry Division liberates the camp at Gunskirchen, Austria, where 18,000 inmates remain alive. Hungarian author and journalist Geza Havas, force-marched to the camp from Mauthausen, died a few hours before the Americans arrive.


1946: Birthdate of Chicago radio personality Eddie Schwartz.


1947: Members of Kibbutz Yakum (He Shall Rise) met to consider a name change.  They decided to keep the name


1948: A group of Jewish immigrant from Egypt founded Bror Hayil (selection of soldiers) a kibbuz in southern Israel near Sderot.


1952: The Pulitzer Prize was awarded to Herman Wouk for the Caine Mutiny. Herman Wouk was born in New York City in 1915 into a Jewish family that had emigrated from Russia, and received an A.B. from Columbia University. During World War II, then joined the United States Navy and served in the Pacific Theater.  This experience would provide the background material for The Caine Mutiny.  If you ever see the film version of the book, there is a scene at the end where the officers of the U.S.S. Caine are celebrating during which one of the characters gives a speech that show real villain of the piece was an author who spent his time on the ship writing the great American War novel while it is a Jewish lawyer who champions the cause of the unsuspecting dupe who is being court-martialed  From a Jewish perspective, two of his most important works were This is My God: The Jewish Way of Life published in 1959 and The Will to Live on: The Resurgence of Jewish Heritage published in 2000.  According to at least one source Wouk decided that he would be an Observant Jew when he joined the Navy.  Reportedly, while he was in the service, Wouk donned tefillin daily before he davened on a daily basis.  The crew members thought that Mr. Wouk’s little black boxes gave them the edge during enemy attacks.  After the war, Wouk was something of an anomaly among Jewish intellectuals – a successful Jewish author who did not turn his back on being Jewish.


1952: Aba Houshy, Mayor of Haifa, leaves Israel to fly to New York City to makes speeches as part of the annual Israel Bond Drive.


1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that the Treasury expressed satisfaction at the public response to the compulsory property loan which could be converted into a tax. Out of 10,500 property owners, 7,700 choose to pay the tax.


1954: Birthdate of David Azulai, the native of Morocco who made Aliyah in 1963 and developed a career in Israeli politics that climax with service as an MK. Azulai is an “alumnus” Zion Blumenthal Orphanage which founded near the Bukharim Quarter in 1900 by Rabbi Yochanan Blumenthal


1954: Birthdate of Dave Spector.  The Chicago native is one of the more visible foreign personalities (gaijin tarento) in Japan.


1957: “He’s the Dean of Southern Rabbi’s “ by William Hammack published in today’s Atlanta Constitution recounts the life of Rabbi Tobia Geffen, “the Coca Cola Rabbi.” "He's the Dean of Southern Rabbis


1958: Birthdate of “Lieutenant Colonel Ron Arad…an IAF fighter pilot and an Israeli Air Force weapon systems officer (WSO) who is officially classified as missing in action since October 1986, but widely presumed dead. Hezbollah claimed that Arad died during an escape attempt in May 1988. An Israeli secret military commission report claimed that Arad died of illness in 1995, and was buried in the Beqaa Valley.”


1959(27th of Nisan, 5719): Yom HaShoah


1964: In Boulogne-Billancourt, Hauts-de-Seine Professor Roland Copé, a surgeon of Romanian Jewish origin, and Monique Ghanassia, of Algerian Jewish origin gave birth to French political leader Jean-François Copé


1967: In Sweden, Karin Tegmark and mathematician Harold Shaprio gave birth to cosmologist Max Erk Tegmark.


1969: Pulitzer Prize awarded to Norman Mailer for Armies of the Night, a recollection of his own experiences at the Washington peace rallies of 1968, during which he was jailed.


1975: In “Responsa: The Law as Seen by Rabbis for 1,000 years” Israel Shenker describes the role of Rabbi Moshe Feinstein whom he describes as “a court of last resort” for Orthodox Jews.



1976(5th of Iyar, 5736): Yom HaAtzma’ut

 
1978: The Jerusalem Post reported that the Foreign Minister, Moshe Dayan said that Israeli Defense Forces must remain permanently in Judea and Samaria; Israelis should reserve the right to buy land and to settle in these territories, and should reserve the right of an unrestricted movement in the whole area.


1983: Chaim Herzog began serving as President of Israel, a position he would hold until the election of Ezer Weizman in 1993.


1985: Following a visit to the former Nazi concentration camp at Belsen, President Ronald Regan visits the Bitburg cemetery which contains the graves of 49 SS soldiers.  The visit had touch off a storm of controversy and protest.


1985: An additional 2,000-foot section of the ramparts of the Old City of Jerusalem gained modern lighting. The segment may now be walked at night, in a leisurely half-hour, starting at the Zion Gate and ending at the Citadel of David. There, a small amphitheater has been constructed for a sound-and-light display.


1987: Henry Heinz Schwarz, the longtime opponent of apartheid and member of the opposition completed his service Shadow Minister of Finance.


1991(21st of Iyar, 5751): Yuval Glick and Moshe Leshem were killed when their F-4 Phantom Jet crashed into Lake Tiberius.


1991(21st of Iyar, 5751): Eighty-seven year old Chaim Gross an Austrian born American sculptor passed away. (As reported by John T. McQuiston)

1994(24th of Iyar, 5754): Dutch architect Hein Salomonson architect passes away at the age of 83.


1995(5th of Iyar, 5755): Mikhail Moiseyevich Botvinnik passed away.  Born in 1911, this Russian Jew was an International Chess Grandmaster and a long time World Champion.


1999:The National Science Board (NSB) has named Maxine Frank Singer, Ph.D., president of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, D.C. to receive the 1999 Vannevar Bush Award for lifetime contributions to science and engineering. Singer will receive the Bush Award on May 5 in Washington, D.C. at a National Science Board awards ceremony.


2000: The Times of London features a review of Righteous Victims: A history of the Zionist-Arab conflict, 1881-1999by Benny Morris and The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab world since 1948by Avi Shlaim.


2002: The New York Times featured books by Jewish writers and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Collected Stories of Joseph Roth: Funerals for the Old World and the recently released paperback edition of Paradise Park by Allegra Goodman.


2002: Jack Lang completed his service as Education Minister of France.


2004: In “That Old Feeling: Hail, Harvey!” Richard Corliss remembers Harvey Kurtzman of Mad magazine fame who died in 1993.

2005: British Laborite Barbara Maureen Roche lost her seat as a Member of Parliament for Hornsey and Wood Green


2005: David Wright Miliband, the son of Jewish immigrants, is named Minister of State for Communities and Local Government by Prime Minister Tony Blair.


2006: David Wright Miliband, the son of Jewish immigrants, named Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs by Prime Minister Tony Blair.


2006:The New-York Historical Society named Doris Kearns Goodwin its American history laureate and  presented her with its inaugural $50,000 Book Prize for American history for Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln a biography of the 16th president and his cabinet.


2006:  In Cedar Rapids, Temple Judah celebrates the Confirmation of Vanessa Levi, daughter of Elizabeth and Shlomo Levi and Daniel DeClue, son of Carolyn and Rick DeClue.  These two bright, intelligent youngsters are living proof of the resiliency of the Jewish spirit in communities both large and small.  But more important than their intellectual accomplishments is the fact that these two are decent, caring human beings. It is fitting that their ceremony falls on the Shabbat when the Torah portion is Kedoshim since it reminds us that in the world of Jewish values “nice guys finish first.” 


2007: “The Sculpture of Louise Nevelson: Constructing a Legend” opened at the Jewish Museum in New York City.


2007: As part of Jewish Heritage Month, The National Archives in Washington, D.C. presented a screening of An American Tail. The film is the story of the Mousekewitz family’s journey to America and of their young son, Fievel, who gets lost along the way. Landing in a bottle, Fievel washes ashore in New York Harbor where, determined to find his family, he comes face to face with the perils and opportunities of the New World. The film features the voices of Dom DeLuise, Christopher Plummer, and Madeline Kahn and is directed by Don Bluth.


2007: Running of the Kentucky Derby.  While it's not a well known part of our Western mythology, the Jewish Hart brothers of Kentucky formed the Transylvania Company, bartering ten thousand pounds of merchandise with the Cherokee nation, in exchange for 20 million acres of land in Kentucky, according to Howard M. Sachar's "A History of the Jews in America." Yes, the Jews did give America most of Kentucky, with the help of their hired explorers Daniel Boone and his adopted Jewish son, Samuel Sanders. Another oddity is that in 1936 the Kentucky Derby was, in effect, a Jewish "sweep." Bold Venture was the winner, owned by Morton Schwartz, trained by Max Hirsch and ridden by Ira Hanford. All the human beings involved in this horse racing victory were Jews. Sometimes we suspect that Bold Venture was Jewish that day, too


2008(30th of Nisan, 5768): Rosh Chodesh Iyar


2008:“At approximately 2 a.m. Arizona time, the Hersh family’s original documents” which included documentation of the role that Hungarian immigrant and grocery store owner Joseph Abraham Hersh had in the creation of the Kosher Wine Industry, were destroyed and lost forever


2008(30th of Nisan, 5768): Irv Robbins, the co-founder of Baskin-Robbins, passed away. Robbins reportedly cashed in a $6,000 insurance policy given him for his bar Mitzvah in 1945 to start his first ice cream store.

2008: The 92nd Street Y presents “Growing Up Jewish in Baghdad” in which acclaimed novelist, essayist and critic Naim Kattan shares his personal history of growing up Jewish in Baghdad in the 1940s.

2008: Time magazinepublished excerpts from the diary of Rutka Laskier in article entitled “Poland’s Anne Frank.” Rutka Laskier lived in Bedzin, Poland, with her parents, grandmother and brother. Her journal, covering four months in 1943, provides a rare glimpse of the daily life of Jews under Nazi rule. The diary was found after World War II by a friend--who kept it to herself for 60 years before allowing it to be published, initially in Polish, in 2006.  The English language version of the diary is being published under the title Rutka’s Notebook: A Voice from the Holocaust.


2008: Israel's Reform Jews dedicated the first non-Orthodox synagogue to receive state funding , after a long court battle that accented the rift among streams of Judaism in Israel. .


2008: The Jerusalem Center for Ethics hosts a conference on The Limits of the Autonomy of a Patient at Mishkenot Sha'ananim in Jerusalem.


2009: Leora Tanenbaum, author of “Taking Back God: American Women Rising Up for Religious Equality,” takes part in an interfaith dialogue at the D.C. Jewish Community Center.


2009: As part of his first U.S. tour in 15 years, famed Canadian Jewish singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen performs in Chicago.


2009: Just in time for today’s Cinco de Mayo celebrations  Martin Silver, a New York businessman, is launching Agave 99 the new kosher tequila. Silver, president of Long Island-based Star Industries, says he wants to satisfy the craze for high-end tequila with one that observant Jews can drink. Silver says a half million cases of the 99-proof kosher tequila are being produced at a Mexican plant using methods certified by a rabbi. It will retail for $41.95 a bottle. Although the official product launch - with Mexican songs sung in both Yiddish and Spanish - is set for May 5, it was already on sale at Passover time.


2009: The Annual AIPAC Policy Conference comes to an end in Washington, D.C.


2009: Today, the Transportation Ministry sent a letter to British airline BMI’s chief executive officer in Britain demanding an explanation as to why the only reference to Israel on the map is the Arabic word for Haifa. "Israeli travelers complained that erasing Israel hurts their sensitivities and enrages them," the ministry's director-general, Gideon Siterman, wrote in the letter. BMI announced that beginning today it would operate its Tel Aviv-London route with a new aircraft in which electronic maps will display the names and locations of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.

2009: During his visit to the United States, President Peres is scheduled to meet with President Obama at the White House.


2010: Nathan J. Brown, a professor of political science and international affairs at George Washington University is scheduled to deliver a lecture entitled The Impact of the Breakup of the Ottoman Empire and Future Middle East Politics at the Historic 6th& I Synagogue co-sponsored by the United Nations Association of the Capitol Area and Am Kolel Jewish Renewal Center.


2010: A documentary entitled “9 Years Later” is scheduled to be shown at the Sheba Festival at the JCC in Manhattan.

2010: The Limmud FSU Nobel 2010 festival this week honored 26 Jewish scientists and political leaders who originated in Israel, the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union and who were awarded the Nobel Prize.

 

2010: The Schechter Institute of Jewish Studies dedicated its Legacy Heritage Building in south Tel Aviv’s picturesque Neveh Zedek neighborhood. The Schechter Institute is a non-profit organization of the Conservative Movement dedicated to the advancement of pluralistic Jewish education in Israel.
2011: The Leo Baeck Institute and the recently founded Jewish Studies Center at Baruch College are scheduled to present a panel on German-Jewish immigration to New York City.


2011: American actor Liev Schreiber will be honored with the Achievement in Film Award, at the 25th Israel Film Festival (IFF) which begins tonight in New York City


2011: B’nai B’rith will award its first accolade honoring Jews who risked their lives to save their brethren during World War II today. In its inaugural year, the Citation of Jewish Rescue will be awarded to the descendants of the late Yehoshua and Henny Birenbaum, a Jewish couple who took care of dozens of orphans during and after the war. The Birenbaums survived being interned at Bergen-Belsen, where the father of the family was put in charge of looking after 50 young children. After the war the couple made aliya together with their children and orphans they had adopted. The citation will be given to the deceased couple’s family at a joint ceremony with the Jewish National Fund held at Martyrs Forest outside Jerusalem.


2011: Today is the deadline for the world’s first green-certified synagogue, Congregation Beth David in San Luis Obispo, Calif., to raise $1.3 million if it is to avoid foreclosure by the bank to which it owes the money.


2011: Seth Front is scheduled to present “A Culinary History of the Jews in America” a “45-minute interactive presentation that tells the history of the Jewish deli in America, from its origins on the Lower East Side to the turn of the 20th century, its adaptation to American tastes, its assimilation into mainstream American culture and finally to the challenges facing delis for survival in the 21st century’” at the Mayerson JCC in Cincinnati, Ohio.


2011; Editor and author Benjamin Taylor is scheduled to offer a first-hand perspective on "Saul Bellows: Letters" (Viking, 2010), a never-before published collection of letters by the Nobel Prize in Literature winner, that spans eight decades and has been called "magnificent" by the New York Times at the National Museum of American Jewish History in Philadelphia, PA.


2011: As part of the Jewish Perspectives on Social Justice Seminar Dr. Claire Katz is scheduled to facilitate a program entitled "...for they know precisely what they do...": Memory, Forgiveness and the Stranger” at the University of Denver in Denver, CO.



2011(1st of Iyar, 5771): Rosh Chodesh Nisan



2011: The Nazi war crimes trial of a 97-year-old man began in Hungary today. Sandor Kepiro, listed by the Simon Wiesenthal Center as the world's most wanted Nazi, was charged with taking part in raids on the Serbian town of Novi Sad in 1942, in which 1,200 Jews, Serbs and Roma were killed. Kepiro is also suspected of involvement in the deaths of 36 others who were rounded up and shot on the Danube River's banks. Kepiro said he is "completely innocent" and called the trial a "circus" as her arrived at court, BBC reported. The Simon Wiesenthal Center tracked Kepiro down in Budapest in 2006. He had been convicted of Nazi war crimes in Hungary in 1944, but fled to Argentina. The Wiesenthal Center's chief Nazi hunter, Efraim Zuroff, attended the trial.



2011:All flights leaving Ben Gurion Airport were stopped today, due to a problem with the airport's gas supply which was found to be contaminated.

2011(1st of Iyar 5771): Arthur Laurents, the director, playwright and screenwriter who wrote such enduring stage musicals as “West Side Story” and “Gypsy,” as well as the movie classics “Rope” and “The Way We Were,” died today from complications of pneumonia at the age of 93. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/06/arts/arthur-laurents-playwright-and-director-dies-at-93.html?pagewanted=print



2012: Israeli author Etgar Keret is scheduled to appear at the PEN World Voices Festival of International Literature



2012: Temple Judah continues a weekend long celebration of its 90th Anniversary with a congregation-wide gala dinner-dance.



2013:YIVO Institute for Jewish Research and Leo Baeck Institute  is scheduled to present the Sidney Krum Young Artists Concert Series: Spring Concert 2013



2013: Hadassah sponsors “Walks To Defeat Neuromuscular Diseases” in Wheaton, Maryland.



2013: The Jewish Historical Society of Greater Washington is scheduled to host a Walking Tour of Arlington National Cemetery that will include a visit to the new Jewish Chaplains Memorial.



2013: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Vera Gran: The Accused by Agata Tusznska and Beyond War: Reimagining American Influence in a New Middle Eastby David Rohde.



2013: Israel decided this afternoon to close its airspace in the North to civilian air traffic following alleged Israeli air strikes on Syria in the past 48 hours.



2013: Syria has stationed missile batteries aimed at Israel in the aftermath of alleged Israeli air strikes in the country, the website of Lebanon's Al Mayadeen TV, considered close to the regime of President Bashar Assad, quoted a top Syrian official as saying today



2013: Israel is working on joining an anti-Iran defense alliance with a number of moderate Arab states that would involve sharing Jerusalem’s newly developed anti-missile technologies, a British newspaper reported today.



2014(5th of Iyar) Yom HaZikaron (Israeli Memorial Day)



2014 “The Ceremony” and “No Place on Earth” are scheduled to be shown at the 16th annual Lenore Marwil Jewish Film Festival



2014: “The Garden of Eden / Gan Eden” is scheduled to be shown at the 22nd Toronto Jewish Film Festival.



2014: The Jewish Woman’s Archives is scheduled to celebrate its 18th anniversary by honoring Gail Twersky Reimer and other Jewish Troublemakers.



2014: In Rotterdam, “an exhibit called ‘The Second World War in 100 Objects’ which marbles that Anne Frank had given to her friend Toosje Kupers in 1942, is scheduled to come to a close at the Kunsthal Art Gallery.


This Day, May 6, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. Levin

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May 6


1313 BCE (1st of Iyar 2448): According to tradition, this was the date of the first population survey of the Israelite people taken by Moses.


124 CE: A Roman centurion named Valens stationed in the military camp which bordered the date palm groves in En Gedi by the Dead Sea made an emergency short-term loan to a Jew named Judah at an interest rate of twelve per cent per annum.


1255: The Vatican orders all copies of the Talmud to be destroyed by fire. Despite this edict, King Jaime (King James of Aragon) ordered that the Spanish Jews should remain unmolested. Unfortunately, the political pressure over successive years would prove to be too great, and on August 29, 1263 he announced Jews had three weeks to remove all blasphemy from their books.


1501: Birthdate of Pope Marcellus II who expelled the Jews from Rome.


1527: The Spanish-German army of Charles IV entered Rome marking the start of a three week long period of pillage and butchery.  Among the victims was the library of Elijah ben Asher Levita the volumes of which were used as fuels by the invaders.


1574: Birthdate Pope Innocent X, whom Graetz described as the first of the reactionary popes.  Among other things he opposed the Peace of Westphalia which recognized the independence of the Netherlands, the nation which provided a haven for Jews fleeing the Inquisition.


1649:The Massachusetts General Court ruled today that Solomon Franco was to be expelled from the colony, and granted him "six shillings per week out of the Treasury for ten weeks, for sustenance, till he can get his passage to Holland.  Franco, a Sephard, is “the second Jew known to have lived in North America. He settle in Boston where he was an “agent for Immanuel Perada, a Dutch merchant.” After Franco had delivered supplies from Perada “to Edward Gibbons, a major general in the Massachusetts militia” a dispute arose over who should pay the Jew for the merchandize – Gibbons or Parada. The solution of the court was to expel Franco.


1691: In Palma, Majorca, after one hundred and fifty years of freedom from the Inquisition, an investigation led to the conviction of two hundred and nineteen people. All agreed to be reconciled with the church. Thirty-seven were burned to death when they tried to flee the island since it was considered a relapse to heresy.


1747(5507): Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzato (RAMCHA"L), Kabbalist, poet, and author of Mesilat Yesharim passed away. Born in Padua, Italy, in 1707, R. Moshe Chaim had a thorough education in both religious and secular studies.  His interest in the Kabbalah and his influence on the youth of the community led to accusations that he was a Sabbatean.  In its day, this was as harsh an accusation as you could make against a person.  Luzzato left Italy and settled in Amsterdam. At the age of 33 he published Mesillat Yesharim (The Path of the Upright), a book about ethics that describes how Jews can climb the ladder of purification to reach a level of holiness.  In 1743, he moved to Eretz Israel where he died during a plague in 1746.  He is buried at Tiberias.  Throughout his life, Luzzato struggled between his desire to study the Talmud and his need to the Kabbalah.  He is considered one of the fathers of Modern Hebrew literature, with his greatest impact being in Hebrew poetry.  His teachings earned the admiration leaders from a variety of Jewish groups ranging the Vilna Gaon of Vilna to the Maggid of Mezeritch. 


 
1758:  Birthdate of future French Revolutionary Maximilien Robespierre.  During the Reign of Terror in 1793 and 1794, Robespierre did close synagogues and allow Jewish religious property to be vandalized.  However, this was not because he was an anti-Semite.  Robespierre sought to stamp out all religions and the churches were subjected to the same treatment as the shuls.  In the early days of the revolution Robespierre spoke eloquently on behalf of equal rights for the Jews.  If Jews behaved “badly” it was the fault of Christianity and the Christians who had treated them in a based manner for centuries.  The salvation of the Jews (as opposed to Judaism) lay in granting them the full rights of citizenship.


1786: At Frankfurt am Main, Jakob Baruch and his wife gave birth to German author and “rebel” Karl Ludwig Börne who would be immortalized by a group of German revolutionaries who named their new home in the Texas Hill Country “Borne” in his honor


1787: At Prostějov, Moravia, Rabbi Moses Sofer married Sarah, the daughter of the deceased rabbi of Prostějov, Rabbi Moses Jerwitz who had passed away in 1785. Sofer joined the Chevra Kadisha and served as head of the town’s yeshiva. 


1789: Levi Sheftall, leader of the Hebrew Congregation of Savannah, Georgia wrote to the newly elected President of the United States, George Washington expressing the fact that the members of the congregation were grateful for his “unexampled liberality and extensive philanthropy which have expelled that cloud of bigotry and superstition what has long, as a veil shaded religion.”  Furthermore the nation’s new constitution “enfranchised American Jewry with al the privileges and immunities of free citizens and initiated us into the grand mass of legislative mechanism.”  While many know of the famous letter to the Jews of Newport, the Savannahcongregation was actually the first to write to Washington following his election to the Presidency.


1818: Mordecai Manuel Noah sent a copy of the Consecration Address he had delivered at Shearith Israel and a letter in which he described the impact of his having been removed from a diplomatic post because of his religion.http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/loc/noah.html


1825(18th of Iyar, 5585): Lag B'Omer


1830: Birthdate of Abraham Jacobi “a pioneer of pediatrics” who opened “the first children's clinic in the United States and was the first foreign born president of the American Medical Association.


1831: Birthdate of Samuel Isaac Joseph Schereschewsky the Lithuanian born Jew who would eventually become the Anglican Bishop of Shanghai.


1835: James Gordon Bennett, Sr. published the first edition of the New York Heraldwhich became the New York Herald Tribunein 1924. Ruth Gruber who dedicated herself to saving Jews from the Holocaust began her journalism career as a reporter with the Herald-Tribune in 1932. Two days before the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Herald Tribune warned of the dangers of the Nazis, stating “the Jews are merely the first to suffer under Hitlerism.”

1838(11thof Iyar, 5598): Rabbi Samuel Judah Leib ben David Kauder, author of Olat Shmuel passed away today in Prague.

1842(26thof Iyar, 5602): Isaac Spitz who was the son-in-law of Eleazar Fleckeles and grandfather of the poet Moritz Hartmann and had been the rabbi at Jung-Bunzlau since 1824 passed away today.


1848: Birthdate of German Protestant theologian Herman L. Strack  who “was the foremost Christian authority in Germany on Talmudic and rabbinic literature who was a leading champion of the Jews when the modern anti-Semitism began in Germany during the second half of the 19th century.


1852:After a personal plea from Pope Pius IX, Grand Duke of Tuscany Leopold II abolishes his own statute of 1848 eliminating all discrimination against the Jews. At the beginning of his papacy, Pius had shown a positive disposition towards the Jews.  He abolished laws that forbade Jews to practice certain professions and that required Jews to listen to sermons of conversion four times a year. All of that changed following the Revolutions of 1848 when he became frightened by the rising tide of democracy, nationalism and secularism.


1853: In an article published today, The New York Times correspondent in London, wonders if the members of the House of Lords will be affected by the recent passage of the bill removing Jewish disabilities that was passed by the House of Commons. The correspondent thinks that when the bill comes before the Lords for “the dozenth time,” they will not be “converted” to “popular view as to the propriety of admitting Jews to the Legislature.”


1856: Birthdate of Dr. Sigmund Freud, father of psycho-analysis. Born Sigismund Schlomo Freud in Freiberg, in what is now part of the Czech Republic. He abbreviated his name from Sigismund Schlomo Freud to Sigmund Freud in1877.  Little is known about Freud's early life since he reportedly twice destroyed his personal papers.  This brief summary is no place to discuss his treatment of the mentally or the development of psychoanalysis.  In 1938 following the Anschluss of Austria, Freud escaped with his family to England where he died a year later. Freud was a smoker of Churchill-style cigars for most of his life; even after having his cancerous jaw removed, he continued to smoke until his death. It is said that he would smoke an entire box of cigars daily.


1858:According to published reports, the property of the late Rachel Felix, the Jewish actress and mistress of Alexandre Joseph Count Colonna-Walewski, the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, has been put up for public sale.  The Count and Mademoiselle had a son whom the count publicly legitimatized which means that there is “Jewish blood” in the House of Bonaparte. 


1860:Society for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Jews, an organization dedicated to converting Jews held its annual meeting at a Dutch Reform Church in New York City during which the group reported that it had visited 1,382 (presumably Jewish) families.


1860: The New York Times reported today that a “a brisk argument has sprung up over the questions of whether Pious IX is or is not the descendant of a Jew.” The pope is a member of the Mastia family which got its title of nobility from a lady of “high rank” named Ferretti who had married a “baptized Jew named Mastai.  Supposedly “the Marquis Consolina published a genealogical pamphlet proving this” twenty four years ago.  The pamphlet was burned but the claims have never been refuted.


1861: Colonel Ripley, the U.S. Army Chief of Ordinance, forwarded Major Mordecai's letter of resignation to Adjutant General.


1861:Dr.David Camden De Leon known as the "Fighting Doctor," was appointed as first surgeon general of the Confederate Army.  Born in South Carolina in 1822, De Leon received his medical training at the University of Pennsylvania.  Following graduation, he joined the United States Army where he served with distinction during the Mexican War.  In 1861, he resigned his commission and joined the Confederates.  After the war, he moved to Santa Fe, New Mexicowhere he practiced medicine until his death in 1872. His Union counterpart was Dr. Jonathan Horowitz. 


1863: The Battle of Chancellorsville comes to an end.  During the battle, Lt. Col. Edward Solomon led the forces of the 82nd Illinois which contained an all Jewish company from Chicago.  Solomon would become one of the highest ranking Jewish officers to serve with Union Army, ultimately rising to the rank of General. Sergeant Henry Hiller fought with such distinction during the battle that earned the Congressional Medal of Honr.  Jacob Ezekiel Hyneman and Captain Joseph B. Greenhut, who almost lost his arm as a result of wounds sustained at Fort Donelson, were among the Jewish soldiers who fought with distinction on that Virginia battlefield where the bravery of the Union troops was not matched by the brains of the Union generals.


1863: At the Battle of Chancellorsville, the 59thNew York Volunteer Regiment which had recruited by Philip J. Joachimsen who served as a Lt. Colonel, supported General Sedgwick’s line at Mayre’s Hieghts.


1863: Bernhard Henry Gotthelf, the rabbi of Adath Israel Congregation of Louisville, received his appointment as a chaplain.


1864: During the Battle of the Wilderness, Sergeant-Major Abraham Cohn rallied and formed, under heavy fire, disorganized and fleeing troops of different regiments” thus enabling the Union Army to continue its advance.  This was one of the two heroic deeds which would win him the Congressional Medal of Honor.


1864:Leopold Karpeles Karpeles, a flag-bearer serving in the U.S. Army rallied retreating Union troops, inducing them to check the enemy's advance while under heavy during the Battle of the Wilderness. Born in Prague in 1838, Karpeles moved to Texas. When war broke out and Texas seceded, the young Jewish immigrant did not identify with the slave-holding Southerners and he joined the Union Army.  He received a Congressional Medal of Honor for his bravery during the Battle of the Wilderness, which was the first battle in an eleven month campaign which would result in the demise of the Confederacy.


1870: It was reported today that the rumors about the possibility of Pope Pius IX being of Jewish descent have resurfaced. According to the report “many early Christians were themselves Jews and we should hardly supposed that His Holiness would be particularly annoyed if it were proved that he was of the same race as the Founder of Christianity.” A pamphlet published 24 years ago by the Marquis Consolini claims that Matasi family of which the Pope is a member gained its rank through marriage to a baptized Jew of that name.  The pamphlet was burned but it was never refuted.


1871: German born conductor Leopold Damrosch began his career in the United States with an appearance at Steinway Hall where he was both a featured violinist and orchestra conductor.


1875: In a ceremony that some would say was as much a merger as it was a marriage, Jacob Schiff married There Loeb, daughter of Solomon Loeb.  Ten years later, in 1885, Schiff became head of Kuhn, Loeb & Company.


1878: In Hohokus Township, NJ. Anglo-Jewish author Benjamin Farejon and his wife Margaret gave birth to British composer Harry Farjeon


 
1878: An article published today entitled “The Jews of Roumania” describes the plight of the Jews of that country based on information provided by the correspondent for the Pall Mall Gazette. Juries in Roumania “have acquitted the rioters who wrecked Jewish houses, who beats Jews and insulted their wives and daughters.  They have found a Rabbi and other innocent men guilty of stealing a pyx.” (Note – A pyx is a vessel that contains the Eucharist.  In other words, this has to do with charges related to Host Desecration.)  ‘ “The pyx was really stolen by” a man named “Silver, a converted Jew” who was a deserter from the Russian Army.  Silber provided three different versions of the theft.  First he claimed the Jewish tailor he worked for was his accomplice.  Then he claimed the “President of the Jewish Congregation” was his accomplice.  Finally, he exonerated the Jews and claimed that he had done it on his own.  The acquittal of the rioters is sure to provide encouragement to those who would repeat this behavior at the upcoming Passover and Easter seasons, which “have always been dangerous for the Jews in the uncivilized parts of Christendom.”


1884(11thof Iyar, 5644): Seventy-two year old Judah P. Benjamin passed away today.

1888: Birthdate of Representative Emmanuel "Manny" Celler.  In an era when Jews are elected to both houses of Congress from both parties from all over the country, it is hard to remember that there was a time when Jewish Congressmen were a rare breed and a U.S. Senator could refer to one as "a Kike" on the floor of the Senate.  Born in Brooklyn, Celler was an orphan by the time he finished high school and began attending Columbia.  He worked his way through school and graduated from Columbia Law with honors in 1912. A large part of his early legal career was spent dealing with immigration issues, a topic which would become a life-long passion.  He was elected to the House of Representatives where he served for 49 years and ten months, the second longest record of service in history.  Cellar became Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee where he championed equitable immigration laws and the cause of Civil Rights.  He passed away in 1981.


1889(5thof Iyar, 5649): Seventy-four year  Chaim Zebi Lerner, the native of Dubno whose “reputation among Hebrew grammarians was founded on his More ha-Lashon” first published in 1859 passed away today.


1890: It was reported today that the Marquis de Mores, the rabid anti-Semite who blamed his business failures on a Jewish Plot, was one of the few colorful figures to surface in the current round of French elections.


1890(16th of Iyar, 5650): Sixty-nine year old Isidor Binswanger passed away.  A native of Bavaria, he moved to the United States where he enjoyed commercial success in the dry goods business.  He lived in several towns and cities in Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia, including Richmond.  But he is most frequently identified with Philadelphia, where he played a leading role in developing Jewish educational, charitable and cultural institutions.


1894: For the fiscal year ending today, the Home for Aged and Infirm Hebrews had “a clear balance on hand of $22, 675.79 which it is using to care for 163 residents who have an average age of 72.


1894: The Young Men’s Hebrew Association will hold its annual election between 2 and 4 pm at 721 Lexington Avenue.


1894: “Jews and Christians” published today provides a review of A Fair Jewessby B. L. Farjeon


1894: “The Obituary Record” published today described the life of the late Leopold Sacher-Masoch who, among other things was the author of several works including Jews and Russians. “He faithfully described the manners of the Polish Jews, but he feared that his affection for them might the impression that he was an Israelite…”


1895: It was reported today that “Russia’s tender regard for those principles on which rests the concert of civilized nations and her agonized fear lest Japan by violating them should imperil the progress of civilization in the East, almost make one forget …her more recent treatment of the Jews.”


1898(14thof Iyar, 5658): Pesach Sheni


1898(14thof Iyar, 5658): Eighty-year old Swedish businessman and patron of the arts August Abrahamson passed away today.


1898: In Kiev Marie Ettinger and Abraham Horenstein gave birth to conductor Jascha Horenstein who conducted symphony orchestras in Vienna and Berlin before being forced to flee to the United States where he was able to continue his career.


1899: A children’s service is scheduled to be held this afternoon at the Hebrew Institute in memory of the late Baroness Hirsch.


1899: “Notes and News” published today described plans by F. Tennyson Neely to publish Justice to the Jews: The Story of What He Has Done for the Worldby Reverend Madison C. Peters which “is said to be the first instance in modern times that a Christian author has treated the subject in such an elaborate and comprehensive way.”


1899: “Church Notes” published today described plans for the Bloomingdale Church on Broadway to host a series of “three lectures on ‘What Christendom Owes to the Jew.’”


1899: “Plans to Better Jewish Conditions in Tenement Districts” published today described the work of the New York Jewish Union which was formed a year ago by “some influential Jewish people…for the permanent improvement of the Jewish population west of Eighth Avenue and between Thirtieth and Fiftieth Stress, and east of the Bower, below Ninth Street.


1902: Lionel Walter Rothschild, Member of Parliament, and eldest son of Lord Rothschild is reported to be suffering from a serious bout of pneumonia.


1902: Birthdate of journalist and humor writer Harry Golden. In his day, Golden was that anomaly, a southern Jew. Golden was the editor of the “Carolina Israelite,” author of two best sellers, 2¢ Plain and Only in America.


1902: Birthdate of writer and director Max Ophüls.  Born Max Oppenheimer, he changed his last name when he went from being a journalist to a life as an actor and director.  He did not want to embarrass his father with his choice of professions.  Letters From an Unknown Woman” is one of his better known efforts.



1904: In Boston, MA,Sarah (née Klayman), who was born in Russia, and Charles Einstein, a pawnbroker from Austria gave birth to comedian Harry Einstein who was the father to two other comedians – Albert Brooks and Bob Einstein.



1904: Birthdate of the multi-talented Moshe Feldenkrais, founder of the Feldenkrais method. He was an Israeli physicist and judo practitioner of Eastern European descent. Among his many published books was Awareness Through Movement where he presented a view that good health is a matter of positive functioning. Although many don't consider this a radical idea, it is in opposition to the standard medical definition of health that states good health is an absence of illness. Feldenkrais asserted his method of bodywork exploration resulted in better functioning bodies and minds and created healthier people. He was more interested in the goal of holistic functioning rather than merely physical treatmentThe Feldenkrais Method is an educational system intended to give individuals a greater functional awareness of the self. The method uses body movement as the primary vehicle for learning in the human organism. It is perhaps due to this focus on body movements that the Feldenkrais Method is often classified as a complementary and alternative medicine. People interested in the Feldenkrais Method are predominantly individuals who either want to improve their movement repertoire (as dancers, musicians, artists), individuals who want to reduce their pain or limitations in movement, or individuals who want to use the method as a way to improve their well-being and personal development. Advocates claim the Feldenkrais Method is a very successful approach in cases of movement related pain (e.g. pain in backs, knees, hips, shoulders), and learning better functioning in cases of stroke or cerebral palsy. A central tenet of the method is that improving ability to move can improve one's overall well-being; and practitioners of the Method generally refrain from referring to conceptions of illness, diagnosis or therapy.”



1904: Herzl writes to David Wolffsohn. His letter ends with the words: "Don't do anything foolish while I am dead" - "Machet keine Dummheiten, während ich tot bin.""Die Welt" informs the public that Herzl has to take a longer holiday for health reasons.



1905: Birthdate of New York restaurateur and saloon-keeper to the stars, Bernard “Toots” Shor.



1910: Birthdate of Jeremy Noah Morris “a British epidemiologist whose comparison of heart-attack rates among double-decker bus drivers and conductors in London in the late 1940s and early ’50s laid the scientific groundwork for the modern aerobics movement.” He was born in Liverpool into a family of Jewish immigrants who had fled pogroms in eastern Poland. His father, Nathan, was a Hebrew scholar. After arriving in England, the family took the last name of the captain of the ship that had brought them to Liverpool. Jeremy was born within weeks of the arrival. The family then moved to Glasgow.Jeremy began to exercise early in childhood. His father would take him on four-mile walks, then reward him with ice cream.”



1910: George V becomes King of the United Kingdom upon the death of his father, Edward VII. English Jews were probably very sad to hear of the death of Edward since he had made numerous Jewish friends when he was Prince of Wales, including Nathaniel Rothschild.  He maintained these friendships once he came to the throne. King George was the reigning monarch when Lord Balfour sent his famous letter known as the Balfour Declaration. King George Street רחוב המלך ג'ורג) is a street in central Jerusalem, Israel was named for King George V.  The naming was done to mark the anniversary of the issuing of the Balfour Declaration.



1913: Abram Elkus was appointed to serve as a delegate to the convention of the International Association of Factory Inspectors to be held in Chicago, Illinois.



1914: Birthdate of Irving J. Shulman, the Russian Jewish immigrant “who founded the Daffy’s clothing store chain and brought discount fashion to Fifth Avenue through quirky marketing and a promise of “clothing bargains for millionaires..” (As reported by Christine Hauser)


1915: Birthdate of Theodore H. White.  White attended Harvard where he discovered the language and culture of China.  This led to an exciting stint as the Time-Life correspondent in China during World War II.  White lost his job because Henry Luce, the publisher supported the Nationalist forces and White insisted on reporting the facts i.e. the strength of the Communists and the corruption of the Nationalists.  He also risked his life to photograph the famine that racked China – a horror that nobody wanted to come to grips with. White became a best-selling author with the publication of the Pulitzer Prize winning political science tome, Making of the President.   The book provided a unique, behind the scenes look at the Presidential campaign of 1960.  It was the first in a series of these books that White wrote every four years.  It also established a whole new genre of political writing.  "Teddy" White, as he was known, passed away in May, 1986



1917: Pope Benedict XV met with Nahum Soklov “who had come to Rome to gain support for the plan of a Jewish state in Palestine” for 45 minutes which was an unusually lengthy Papal audience.



1918:It was announced today that Felix Warburg had resigned as a member of the Advisory Board of the United States Junior Naval Reserve, an organization which advertises itself as an organization dedicated to the training of American boys for sea service.



1921: In Palestine, riots that began on May 1 come to an end according to official reports. Outbreaks of Arab riots had taken place in Jaffa, Tel Aviv, and various Jewish settlements. Writer Yosef Chaim Brenner was among the victims in Jaffa. A total of 47 Jews (45 alone in a hostel for new immigrants in Jaffa) and 48 Arabs were killed in the disturbances. The wounded numbered 146 Jews and 73 Arabs. The government appointed a commission of inquiry, headed by Chief Justice of Palestine Sir W. Haycraft to investigate the causes of the riots.



1923: In New Canaan, CT, clothing store owner Morris Yudain and the former Berta Jaffa gave birth to Sidney Lawrence Yudain, “who created what he called a community newspaper — Roll Call— for what he called “the most important community in the world, probably” — Congress.” (As reported Bruce Weber)



1926: Birthdate of Heinrich Theodor Hirsch, the native of Berlin who escaped to England in 1938 with the Kindertansport where he developed the talent that made him the actor David Hurst.



1928: The 92nd Street Y.M.H.A. soccer team defeated the Hebrew Americans 4 to 1 in the final game of the third division of the Empire State League at Starlight Park.



1930: Birthdate of Mordechai "Motta" Gur the Jerusalem native who rose to the rank of Lt. General in the IDF and became the 10th Chief of Staff of the IDF



1935: Twelve year old Yehudit Ya’avetz, who had left Germany for Palestine 18 months ago wrote a letter to the British Monarch, King George V.



1936: In France, the second of two rounds of elections produced a solid triumph for the Populist Front which meant that Leon Blum would become France’s first “authentically Socialist prime minister” and the first Jewish Prime Minister as well.  This would lead to the fusing of “anti-Semitism with paramilitary fascism” which would see its final fruits in the quick fall of Franceto the Germans and the rise of Vichy.



1936: Sir Arthur Grenfell Wauchope, the High Commissioner, left for a three day visit to the Sinai which he cut short so that he could return to Jerusalem to deal with the on-going Arab rebellion.



1937(25th of Iyyar, 5697): Mrs. Effie Wise Ochs, widow of Adolph S. Ochs, late publisher of The New York Times, died shortly after this morning at her home, "Hillandale," on
North Street, White Plains
. Her death followed a heart attack.



1938: The Palestine Post reported that the British Army started a widespread search for Arab terrorists, their arms and ammunition in the so-called "Triangle of the Arab Terror," including Kalkilya, Taibe, Tulkarm, Azzun, Umm el Fahm and Jenin.


1938: The Palestine Post reported that n Jerusalem a bomb was thrown at a Jewish bus near Lifta and there was an exchange of fire at Beit Hakerem.


1938: The Palestine Post reported that A wide prominence was given to the proposed alterations in the original Palestine Partition plan, as suggested and accompanied by extensive explanations by James A. Macdonald, British member of the Parliament.


1938: The Palestine Post reported that Charles Weiss, an anti-Nazi journalist, was badly beaten and injured by Nazis in his New York office.


1940: Birthdate of Murray Sidlin.  The Baltimore, Marylandnative was the conductor the National Symphony Orchestra from 1973 to 1977.



1941: "Armed Iraqi rioters attacked one of the main Jewish hospitals in Baghdad, the Meir Elias Hospital.  The building was looted; the pharmacist shot dead, the hospital accountant gravely wounded and the doctors and administrative staff taken to prison.  After the President of the Jewish community, Chief Rabbi Sasson Khedouri, intervened, the Inspector-General of Police ordered the Jews released and the rioters arrested." (In Ishmael's House by Martin Gilbert)



1942: Lieutenant General Jonathan Wainwright surrendered forces under his command at Corregidor in the Philippines. Among those who surrendered was Second Lieutenant Samuel Abraham Goldblith, the MIT graduate who survived the cruelty of Japanese imprisonment and went on to became a famous food scientist.



1942: Six hundred delegates from 18 countries met today at the New York Biltmore Hotel for the opening session of he Biltmore Conference, one of the pivotal meetings in the history Zionism which would produce the Biltmore Program.



1943(1st of Iyar, 5703):Chaim Zhitlowsk, author, socialist, Jewish nationalist and advocate for Yiddish & Yiddish culture, passed away.
http://www.yiddishkayt.org/zhitlosky/



1943:  Ayn Rand’s novel The Fountainhead was published.



1943: Hajj Amin al-Husseini, grand mufti of Jerusalem, suggested to the Bulgarian foreign minister that Bulgarian-Jewish children should be sent to Poland rather than to Palestine. The Grand Mufti spent much of World War II in Berlin as a guest of the Nazis.


1945: A death march from Schwarzheide, Germany, to Theresienstadt, Czechoslovakia, that began on April 18 halts at Leitmeritz, Czechoslovakia.


1945: Nazi leader and Hitler's second-in-command, Hermann Göring, surrendered to Carl Andrew Spaatz who was the commander of the operational United States Air Forces in Europe, along with his wife and daughter at the Germany-Austria border


1945: General Hermann Niehoff, the commandant of Breslau, a 'fortress' city surrounded and besieged for months, surrendered to the Soviets


1945: At the newly liberated Dachau Concentration Camp “several hundred Greek, Serbian and Russian prisoners” celebrated Pascha, Orthodox Easter, as free people.


1947: David Ben-Gurion completes a five week round of meeting with dozens of Jewish military commanders which will later be described as a “systematic investigation” of the Yishuv’s ability to withstand the military onslaught it could expect from the surrounding Arab nations if the British decided to leave.


1947: David Ben Gurion meets with Professor Yochana Ratner of the Technion in an attempt to further evaluate the readiness of the Haganah and the Palmach to fight a conventional war against invading Arab armies.


1947: In New York City Betty Warren and George Craven gave birth to philosopher Martha Nussbaum. Martha Nussbaum is the Ernst Freund Distinguished Service Professor of Law and Ethics. She received her B.A. (1969) from NYU and her M.A. (1971) and Ph.D. (1975) from Harvard. She has taught at Harvard, Brown, and Oxford Universities.



1947:Sixteen year old Alexander Rubowitz, a member of Lehi was arrested by members of the British counter-terrorism unit while he was in the process of distributing Lehi flyers in Jerusalem's Rehavia neighborhood. Roy Farran, a member of the British unit, reportedly beat the Jewish youth to death with a rock as he was being driven towards Jericho. Farran was court-martialed but acquitted and always denied killing the boy.



1948: An emergency meeting was convened to deal with reports of a typhoid epidemic in Acre



1948: The 12th Battalion of the Golani Brigade captured the village of Shajara.



1948: Modi Alon left Sde Dov, the airport that was home to the fledgling IAF, for Czechoslovakia where he learned to fly the Avia, a Czech version of the ME-109, the pride of the Luftwaffe. 



1948: The main Palmach assault to secure the town of Safed began. The Arab Liberation Army responded by bringing up artillery pieces (the Jews had none) with which they shelled the ancient Jewish quarter of the town.  The British offered to negotiate a truce that would have allowed the Jewish women and children to leave and effectively paved the way for Arab victory.  The Jews rejected the offer and the fighting would begin again in four days.



1952: Abba Khoushy, Mayor of Haifa was greeted at New York’s Idlewild Airport by New York City official Grover Whalen.  Khoushy is beginning a five-week long speaking tour designed to raise $500,000,000 in Bonds for Israel. 



1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that the Treasury introduced a new system of granting eighty per cent export premiums for some industries.


1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that the U.S. President Eisenhower's Administration announced that while $194m. were earmarked for the economic help to the Middle East, the aid depended on the peace in the area. Israelwas promised "off the record" to receive a fair share of this allocation.


1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that the North African Immigrants' Association accused the Jewish Agency of preventing over one million and a half of North African Jews from reaching Israel.


1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that Israel and Argentina had raised their missions to the rank of Embassies and exchanged Ambassadors.


1953: At today’s meeting HUAC, Lionel Stander "pretended that he was going to cooperate, but mocked the witch hunters instead."


1954: Birthdate of Russian volleyball player and Olympic medalist Natalia Kushnir


1955: President Eisenhower attends the dedication of the Washington Hebrew Congregation.  (Ike was late for the ceremony.)


1962(2nd of Iyar, 5722): Twenty-three year old Lieutenant Yakir Naveh went missing when the plane he was flying “broke up over the sea of Galilee.”  Although progress has been made, his body has never been recovered. (As reported by Tova Dvorin)


1962(2nd of Iyar, 5722): Two days before Yom HaZikaron IAF cadet Oded Koton died when the plane in which he was flying “broke up over the Sea of Galilee.”


1963: The Pulitzer Prize was awarded to Barbara Tuchman for The Guns of August, a history of the event surrounding the summer of 1914 and the start of World War I.  Briskly written and well-researched, Ms. Tuchman provided an insight into how Europe stumbled into catastrophe.  At the height of the Cold War, President Kennedy insisted that his advisors read this volume.  He saw it as a cautionary tale whose lessons could help Americafrom stumbling into World War III.  Tuchman was born in New Yorkin 1912.  She was the granddaughter of Henry Morgenthau, Sr., Woodrow Wilson's Ambassador to Turkey.  Educated at RadcliffeCollege, Tuchman began writing as a magazine correspondent for the Nation, a publication owned by her father.  Tuchman's skills as a historian led her to a second Pulitzer Prize when she wrote about General Stillwell and the American Experience in China


1965: The Homestead Independent reported that Jewish “financier Arthur Courshon had joined hands with Juanita Castro, Fidel Castro's sister, in the formation of the Marta Abreu Foundation, designed to aid Cuban refugees and particularly Cuban refugee children. Courshon, chairman of the Board of the Washington Federal Savings and Loan Association, will be a director of the Foundation.” Courson is better known as the Jewish developer who conceived the concept of condominium apartments in Florida.


1980(20thof Iyar, 5740): Seventy nine year old Arthur Levitt, passed away. He was the New York State comptroller from 1955 to 1978, whose nonpartisan dedication, thrift with public funds and relentless criticism of fiscal chicanery endeared him to voters, who returned him to office five times with huge majorities; in New York City. A Brooklyn lawyer and nominal Democrat, Levitt served under four Governors, tightening the state's auditing procedures, including "performance audits" of state agencies, and eventually giving his office prestige and power virtually beyond politics. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,924120,00.html#ixzz2SNp5SgKm


1981(2ndof Iyar, 5741): Yom HaZikaron


 
1983: Pitcher Bob Tufts, who had originally been drafted by the San Francisco Giants, played his last major league baseball game as a member of the Kansas Royals. He converted to Judaism while playing baseball.


1983: The Hitler diaries are revealed as a hoax after examination by experts.


1983: “The Sandglass,” based on the story ''The Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass,'' opened at the Thalia in New York City.


1984: In describing Chablis, France, “the land beyond the label,” Frank Lewis and Paul Prial remind us the Jewish connection with this part of France and the making of fine wines. “The well-preserved medieval wine merchants' houses on the Rue des Juifs, just before the towers of the Porte No"el, show how widely spread the Jewish community was in those days. And the 11th-century Talmudic scholar Rashi lived only 20 miles away at Troyes.”


1986(27th of Nisan, 5746): Yom HaShoah


1987: In “Jerusalem Journal: A Reverent Monument or a Monumental Error,” Thomas Friedman described the controversy surrounding a Holocaust memorial that has been built on top of a yeshiva next to the Wailing Wall under the direction of former Chief Rabbi Shlomo Goren.

1990(11thof Iyar, 5750): Ninety-three year old photographer Johanna Alexandra “Lotte” Jacobi passed away in Deering, New Hampshire.




1994(25th of Iyar, 5754): Rabbi Moshe David Rosen Romania's chief rabbi passed away.  Born in 1912, Rosen became a rabbi in 1939 and was named Chief Rabbi in 1948.  He served in the Romanian Parliament and was the undisputed leader of the Jewish community.  He worked diligently to enable the Jews of Romania to immigrate to Israelwhile also making considerable effort to improve their lot under the Communist government.  It should be remember, that Romania was the only Eastern Bloc country that did not break relations with Israel after the Six Day War.  Rabbi Rosen was 81 when he passed away.


2001: Bruce Fleisher won the Home Depot Invitational for the second time in two years.


2001: Dr. Robert Levy calls D.C. police from his home in Modesto, California, to report that his daughter Chandra has not been heard from in five days.


2001: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Staying Tuned: A Life in Journalism by Daniel Schorr and Displaced Persons: Growing Up American After the Holocaust by Joseph Berger


2003:US soldiers from the Army’s Mobile Exploration Team Alpha, along with members of the Iraqi National Congress (INC), descended into the flooded basement of the bombed-out Department of General Intelligence in Baghdad. Although the team’s job was to search for Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, that day the soldiers were acting on a tip provided to the INC by a former Iraqi intelligence official that an old Jewish Talmud lay deep within the building. The Americans decided that finding such a valuable cultural artifact merited diverting the army team from its normal task. Although they did not find the Talmud, they did discover something else: a Torah scroll along with thousands of manuscripts, documents and books dealing with Iraq’s Jewish community. What they had found were the archives of two offices within the General Intelligence Department: the Israel-Palestine and Jewish Sections.The waterlogged documents consisted largely of items that were confiscated from synagogues and libraries after the mass exodus of the Iraqi Jewish community in the 1950s. With the permission of the interim Iraqi Ministry of Culture, the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) had the damaged documents frozen and shipped to Texas, whereupon they were freeze-dried and sent to the National Archives in College Park, Maryland for restoration and preservation. Archivists originally estimated that it would cost between $1,525,000 and $3,000,000 to restore the materials.[16] As they were not official government documents, the National Archives solicited private funds to aid in the process. Donors were hesitant to commit, however, because of the uncertain future of the manuscripts. The future of these religious artifacts thus remains in limbo. Doris Hamburg, the National Archives official who was overseeing their restoration, stated in late 2007 that the American government had taken the documents with “the expectation of the return of the materials to Iraq,”[17] but final arrangements for their repatriation have yet to be made. However legitimate WOJI’s campaign may be, making a public claim to Jewish communal assets is certain to stir up considerable opposition in Iraq. The fact that Israelis play a major role in WOJI will only add fuel to that fire. In fact, the prospect of Jewish property compensation and Jews buying up land in Iraq already has engendered a hostile reaction. Rumors of “foreign Jews” (presumably former Iraqi citizens) seeking to buy land were rife in Iraq in mid-2003. Sunni Muslim clerics in Mosul issued a fatwa in July 2003 forbidding the sale of real estate to non-Iraqis for fear it might end up in Jewish hands.[18] Exiled Shi‘i cleric Ayatollah Kazim al-Husayni al-Ha’iri issued a fatwa in June 2003 from Qom, Iran demanding death for any Jew seeking to buy land in Iraq.[19] And in late 2003 and early 2004, the Iraqi Turkmen Front claimed that Kurdish Jews in Israel were repurchasing their former properties with the help of the Kurdish Credit Bank.[20] The veracity of these reports aside, they indicate the depth of hostility to Jews seeking the restitution of properties abandoned long ago.http://www.merip.org/mer/mer248/fischbach.html


2004: The body of twenty-year old Marine Corporal Dustin Schrage was found todayafter the soldier disappeared with his team May 3 while swimming across the Euphrates River in the Al Anbar province. (As reported by Jane Eisner)


2004(15th of Iyar, 5764): Barney Kessel, be-bop guitarist passed away at the age of 60.


2004: In the following article entitled “Meanwhile: The Jewish Ghosts of Salonika” Ari L. Goldman examines modern Greek attitudes towards Jews and Israel against a backdrop of this once thriving Jewish community that disappeared in the Holocaust.


A century ago this beautiful port city on the Aegean Sea was bristling with Jewish life. There were synagogues, Jewish social clubs, a vibrant Hebrew language press and institutions of Jewish learning. The city was a world center of Sephardic Jewry. Half the city was Jewish and for many years the port was even closed to commerce on Saturdays in observance of the Jewish Sabbath. But that rich Jewish life came to an abrupt end when Nazi Germany rolled into Salonika in 1943 and carried 50,000 Jews away to death camps. Ninety-seven percent were killed. Barely a word of protest was heard from fellow Greek citizens.I thought of the ghosts of that decimated community while visiting Greece on a lecture tour. I came to talk about the subjects I know best — religion and journalism — but the subject of Jews kept coming up. As an American Jewish academic traveling in Europe, I expected that I would get angry questions about U.S. foreign policy, especially the war in Iraq and President George W. Bush's support for the Israeli government of Ariel Sharon. But I didn't expect the anger would be directed toward Jews. "Don't you think that American Jews have too much power?" one well-dressed man challenged me at a university-sponsored dinner in Athens. "They control everything. They control Bush. They control America. It's got to be stopped." The next night I spoke at the University of Athens. One professor grilled me on what he called the "strange" alliance between Jews and Evangelical Christians in support of Israel. The following day here in Salonika, another professor called the Christian Zionists hypocrites for their support of Israeli policies. "How can they profess a religion of love and at the same time support 'targeted killings' of Palestinians?" he asked. "There is also Jewish love," I told the professor. "But this isn't about love or hate, it's about survival." The Jewish Museum of Salonika tells the story of a community that did not survive. It is a small but impressive place. On the first floor there are the remnants of the Jewish cemetery, complete with headstones with Hebrew writing and photographs of Jewish women visiting the graves. On the second level a timeline shows that the community's roots goes back to the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492. Jews found refuge in this city by the sea. Over the next 400 years they thrived here. Most of the museum is dedicated to the glory that was Jewish Salonika. There are photographs and religious artifacts. The humiliation and destruction of the Jews is limited to one room, which includes documents of expulsion, the uniform of the death camp inmates and objects of everyday life taken from the dead: shoes, combs and glasses. At the museum entrance there is an armed guard, a steel gate and a buzzer system. The museum director said the museum gets few visitors these days, especially after the bomb attacks on two synagogues in Istanbul in 2003 in which 20 people were killed. "People are afraid," she said.What a pity. After all the hatred I've heard from European academics, I would love to bring a few here to Salonika to show them what Jews without political power look like.


2005(27th of Nisan, 5765): Yom Hashoah


2006:The body of 20 year old Cpl. Dustin H. Schrage’s was found today.  He had disappeared three days earlier while swimming across the Euphrates River in Iraq’s Al Anbar Provine. “Dustin Schrage was so funny, he could have been a standup comic, his mother told The Associated Press. Schrage, a native of Indian Harbour Beach, Fla., loved to play video games and listen to punk rock music, and was always making everyone laugh. “He was the comedian of the family. He was a ham. He was very well respected and well liked,” Nina Schrage said, describing her son. “Dustin always seems to be able to squeeze laugh out of his teachers and his parents,” Rabbi Zvi Konikov told AP reporters. “His laughter and confidence made him a leader.” Schrage joined the Marines after graduating from Satellite High School, a step toward his ultimate career goal of becoming a police SWAT member. (As reported in Forward)


2006: Israeli pilots and planes participate in The Volcanex 2006 exercise which is held in cooperation with the European Air Group as part of the Italian Air Force exercise Spring Flag begins in Decimomannu, Italy. The EAGwas established to further develop the collaboration between British and French air forces in the first Gulf War. It now has seven member nations.  Sweden had withdrawn from the event to protest the participation of the Israelis.


2007 (18th of Iyyar, 5767): Lag B’Omer


2007: At the Jewish Museum of Maryland in Baltimore, Maryland an exhibition styled The Mikvah Project opens. The Mikvah Project documents the resurgence and expanded practice of the ancient and private Jewish ritual bath. This haunting exhibition creates a multi-faceted picture of contemporary mikvah practice as told by the women themselves. The Mikvah Project is a traveling exhibition created by photographer Janice Rubin and writer Leah Lax. According to the Houston Chronicle,” The clarity of the water, the delicate toning of the photographs, and the crisp (but unrevealing) definition of the feminine bodies conspire to soothe the eye. This show is not to be missed."


2007: “Howard Katz” Patrick Marber’s “tense new drama” about a failed secular Jewish showbiz agent closes its run at the Laura Pels Theatre in New York.


2007: The Sunday Washington Post book section featured a review of The Americanist, a memoir by Harvard professor Daniel Aaron.


2007: The New York Timesfeatured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Dream of the Poem: Hebrew Poetry From Muslim and Christian Spain, 950-1492 translated, edited and introduced by Peter Cole and the recently released paperback edition of Everyman by Philip Roth.


2007:  Temple Judah in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, sponsors the annual Big Dinner, a major fund raising and gastronomic event for the entire community.


2007 (18th of Iyyar, 5767): Theodore Maiman, the physicist who built the first working laser in the United States passed away at the age of 79.


2008(1st of Iyar, 5768: Rosh Chodesh Iyar


2008: In Washington, D.C., Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Tony Horwitz discusses and signs his new book, A Voyage Long and Strange: Rediscovering the New World.



2008: The Lauder School of Government at the Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) Herzliya hosts a special roundtable entitled "The Energy Challenges of the 21st Century." The panel, which will convene on the IDCHerzliya campus, consists of top energy experts from Israel and the United States. The roundtable is followed by a signing ceremony establishing a joint cooperation agreement between the Lauder School of Government and the US Department of Energy's National Energy Technology Laboratory.


2008: Prior to Israel's 60th Independence Day, the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism (ICT) at the Interdisciplinary Center, Herzliya, in cooperation with the Remembering Organization, will conduct a symposium on the subject of "Bereavement, Terrorism and Decision Making in Israel."

2008: Israel pauses tonight to mourn its fallen soldiers, as the nation marks Remembrance Day and honors the memory of those who have lost their lives in defense of the state.  A one-minute air-raid siren wailed across the country at 8 p.m.to night, followed by ceremonies in memory of fallen soldiers and the victims of terror attacks across the country. The official state ceremony marking the start of Israel's Memorial Day were held immediately after the siren at Jerusalem's Western Wall Plaza, in the presence of President Shimon Peres, Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi, and bereaved families. The ceremony was broadcast live on Tuesday night on all Israeli television channels and radio stations. All places of entertainment will be closed night and will remain closed until sunset tomorrow..


2008:The Saul Steinberg: Illuminations travelling exhibition, which displays original Steinberg works at various museum and galleries around the world opens today at the Foundation Cartier-Bresson in Paris. Steinberg was a Romanian born cartoonists best known for his work in the New Yorker magazine.


2009:Heshey Friedman, the president of Montreal-based Polystar Plastics, Daniel Hirsch and Mitch Kirschner incorporated SHF, apparently for the sole purpose of buying Agrprocessors.


2009: In Cedar Rapids, Iowa, the Hadassah Book Club meets to discuss People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks.


2009:The second annual Richard and Elizabeth Dubin Lecture, presented by the Joseph B. and Alma Gildenhorn Institute for Israel Studies features David Ignatius, journalist and Washington Post columnist in a discussion with Philip Merrill of the University of Maryland’s School Of Journalism entitled "The Middle East: Is Peace Imaginable?"


2009:Ayalet Waldman, author of the novel Daughter's Keeper as well as the “Mommy-Track mystery series,” discusses and signs her new memoir, Bad Mother: A Chronicle of Maternal Crimes, Minor Calamities, and Occasional Moments of Grace at Politics and Prose in Washington, D.C.


2009:Tourism Minister Stas Misezhnikov said today thatThe Tourism Ministry will begin marketing the grave site of Rabbi Shimon Bar-Yochai as a tourist attraction to the haredi community.


2009(12 of Iyar, 5769): Seventy-nine year old talent broker Sam Cohn passed away today (As reported by Bruce Weber)

 

2010: Rabbi Ben Mintz is scheduled to teach a course entitled “Women in the Apocrypha” featuring an Esther much different than the Esther we know from the Book of Esther; Hannah, mother of the seven martyred sons; Judith, seducer and slayer of Holofernes, enemy of the Jewish people; and Susanna, object of the gaze of the Elders at the Historic 6th& I Synagogue in Washington, D.C.


2010:Israeli singers, Pini Hadad & Nati Levi, are scheduled to perform at Club Passion in Brooklyn.


2010:Israel Police Inspector-General David Cohen and FBI Director Robert Mueller met today in Jerusalem. The two discussed joint efforts on fighting terrorism and organized crime.

2011:Hazon's 2nd Annual California Bike Ride which raises money for cutting-edge Jewish environmental projects in the U.S. and Israel is scheduled to begin at 2 pm today at Westminster Woods in California.


2011: The Jewish Historical Society is schedule to present “Historic Eastern Market of Detroit with a Jewish Twist” where attendees will learn about the Market’s Jewish past, listen to stories about the Purple Gang and sample some of the foods unique to this Detroit institution.


2011: It was announced today that Filmmaker Ethan Coen, who with his brother Joel is responsible for the films "No Country for Old Men,""Fargo" and "The Big Lebowski," among others, will publish a book of poetry next year with Crown. The poetry collection, according to Publishers Weekly, will be called "The Day the World Ends." It is scheduled for publication in spring 2012. This is Coen's second collection of poetry, after 2009's  "The Drunken Driver Has the Right of Way." He is also the author of "Gates of Eden," a short story collection, and co-author of two Oscar-winning screenplays.


2011: In keeping with Broadway tradition, the lights of the theatres on Broadway were dimmed for one minute tonight in memory of Arthur Laurents who passed away yesterday. The Tony Award winner’s body of work includes “West Side Story,”  “Gypsy,”  La Cage aux Folles” and “Hallelujah, Baby!”


2011: It was not clear when a fuel crisis that has disrupted flights at Ben-Gurion International Airport would end, the airport's chief official said today, adding, however, that takeoffs and landings are resuming thanks to an emergency supply of fuel.

 


2012: The Omri Mor Trio featuring Jerusalem-based jazz pianist Omri Mor is scheduled to perform at the Guggenheim Museum in NYC.


2012: Guitarist, singer and songwriter Bob Rank is scheduled to perform a solo concert exploringcontributions of Jewish performers and songwriters who have influenced the great American musical traditions of blues, folk and rock at the Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage in Beachwood, Ohio.


2012: Tulane Graduate and Brandies University Professor, Dr. Stephen Whitfield is scheduled to deliver a lecture entitled “Coming to America: The Jewish Impact & The Jewish Response” at the Jewish Museum of Florida.


2012: In Olney, Maryland, Shaare Tefilla Congregation is scheduled to sponsor “Plant the Seeds of Song: A Community-Wide Erev Shira in Celebration of Yom Ha’Atzmout.”


2012: The Jewish Historical Society of Greater Washington is scheduled to sponsor a Walking Tour of the Jewish Sites in Arlington National Cemetery that will include visits to memorial by or for Jews and headstones on prominent Jewish leaders buried at the oldest cemetery of its kind in the United States.


2012; Ron Arons is scheduled to address The Genealogy of Society of Greater Washington at Congregation Har Shalom in Potomac, MD


2012: The New York Timesfeatured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Passage of Power: The Years of Lyndon Johnsonby Robert Caro and Memoir of a Debulked Woman: Enduring Ovarian Cancerby Susan Gubar who is part of the Robert A. and Sandra S. Borns Jewish Studies Program at Indiana University.


2013: The American Jewish Historical Society and Yeshiva University Museum are scheduled to present “Jewish Women and the Civil War”


2013: “Defiant Requiem” is scheduled to be shown at the Washington DCJCC.


2013: The Canadian Friends of Hebrew University are scheduled to present the Key of Knowledge to actor Morgan Freemen “for his dedication to combating racism and ‘promoting knowledge and education worldwide.’”


2013: The Israel Defense Forces scaled back a drill in the north and the Northern Command head calmed fears today that the weekend airstrikes against Syria have brought the country to the brink of war.


2013: “Jew Bashing: The New Anti-Semitism,” a new, investigative documentary premieres tonight on Canadian television.



 
2013:Two rockets fired from Syrian territory exploded on the Golan Heights today, without causing casualties or damage, an IDF spokesperson said


2014: (6th of Iyar) Yom HaAtzma’ut (Israeli Independence Day)


2014: “Next Year in Jerusalem” is scheduled to be shown at the 16thannual Lenore Marwil Jewish Film Festival


2014: “The Outrageous Sophie Tucker” is scheduled to premiere at the 22nd Toronto Jewish Film Festival.


2014: “The Wonders” is scheduled to be shown at The National Center for Jewish Film’s 17th annual film festival


2014: “The Life of the Jews in Palestine: 1913/Operation Sunflower” is scheduled to be shown at The Los Angeles Jewish Film Festival


 

This Day, May 7, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. Levin

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May 7


833 BCE (2 Iyar 2928): Traditional date on which King Solomon began building the Temple in Jerusalem.


351: Gallus, who had been appointed “Caesar” of the East by his cousin, the Emperor Constantius II arrived in Antioch. Antioch was the capital of his domain which included Palestine. At the time of his arrival a revolt broke out among the Jews of Sepphoris, a town in Palestine and spread to the Galilee and Lydda.  According to different sources, the revolt was led by Isaac who came from Sepphoris and a little known figure named Patricus.  The revolt was not anti-Christian even though Constantius II had given the Church free reign in a campaign of persecution aimed at the Jews and other non-Christians. The revolt may have been aimed at the corrupt rule by Gallus.  Or it may have been a last gasp effort by the Jews in Palestine to gain freedom from Rome.  This was a period of great instability in the Empire and the Jewish leaders may have been encouraged by reports of Imperial defeats in the western part of the Empire.  They also may have thought that the Persians, who were enemies of the Roman Empire, would come to their aid.  The revolt lasted only a year and was put down by Uriscinnus, one of Gallus’ more seasoned commanders who probably defeated the Jewish forces at a battle near Acco.  The Romans moved south laying waste to Tiberia, Sepphoris and Lydda, each of which was rebuilt after the fighting stopped.  [Editor’s Note: Considering the fact that this revolt took place 280 years after the Great Revolt and 215 years after the Bar Kochba Revolt, it would seem to indicate that there was a sizeable Jewish population still living in Palestine, that the population was made up of a handful of scholars, that the Nasi did not control all aspects of Jewish life, that Jews make lousy subjects and that Jews do not seem to learn from their “mistakes.”]


973: Emperor Otto I passed away. Under Otto Jews “were regarded as possessions of the Emperor.”  In 965, Otto “gave the Bishop of Magdeburg jurisdiction over all merchants and Jews for taxation purposes. In general, the Jews were not expelled or forcibly converted and were considered the personal property of the King. In the individual towns the Jews were offered privileges, usually through a contract whereby they would be protected by the crown in return for financial fealty.” (As reported by The History of the Jewish People)


 
1205: Coronation of King Andrew II of Hungary.At first during his reign of King Andrew II appointed Jews to serve as Chamberlains and mint-, salt-, and tax-officials. The nobles of the country, however, induced the king, in his Golden Bull (1222), to deprive the Jews of these high offices. When Andrew needed money in 1226, he farmed the royal revenues to Jews. This led to an outcry from his Christian subjects.  Pope Honorius III excommunicated him In 1233, he took an oath promising the papal ambassadors that he would enforce the decrees of the Golden Bull directed against the Jews and the Saracens. In addition to which he would enforce the new popes decrees that forced Jews to wear badges of identification and forbid them from buying or keeping Christian slaves.


1342: Clement VI, who is reign took place during the Black Death began his papacy today. When pogroms erupted in Europe in response to the belief that the Jews were responsible for the plague, Clement issued two bulls condemning the belief and the violence and urged the Catholic clergy to take steps to protect the Jews.  (Editor’s note – I can find no reason for this unusual Papal behavior but it does stand out against the anti-Semitism that was so dominant in much of the Continent.)


1348: Charles University in Prague (Universitas Carolina/Univerzita Karlova) is established as the first university in Central Europe. Starting sometime during the last two decades of the 18th century Jews, as well as Protestants, were allowed to attend the University.  In 1911, Einstein was appointed to a full professorship at the school; a position he held until 1914.  Today the CIEE Center at Charles University offers courses in Jewish Though and Jewish History including one styled  “The History of the Jews in Bohemia and Central Europe” and another styled “Torah, Modern Jewish Religious Thought, and Czech Literature.”


1355: Twelve hundred Jews of Toledo Spain were killed by Count Henry of Trastamara.  The Jews were caught between the opposing forces in a fight between King Peter and Count Henry, his half-brother who sought the throne for himself.  The events surrounding this dynastic quarrel marked the beginning of the decline of the Jewish community in Spain.


1634: William Prynne, an opponent Jews settling in England was pilloried for the first time as part of his punishment for opposing the production of plays.


1680: An attempt to keep the Jews of Corfu from practicing law made in 1679 ended today when the Jews were granted that right today.
 
1718: The city of New Orleans is founded by Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville.In 1724, the French adopted The Code Noir which dealt primarily with the issue of slaves but also mandate the expulsion of the Jews from the city. The arrival of Isaac Rodrigues Monsanto in 1757 provides the first recorded evidence of Jewish settlement in the Crescent City.  The real birth of the Jewish community dates from the time of the Louisiana Purchase when the Americans took over and did away with the Black Code.


1727: Two years after the death of Peter Great, Jews were expelled from Ukraine by his widow, Empress Catherine I of Russia.  Catherine was merely following the wishes of her late husband who had stated that he did not want any Jews living in Russia.  Daniil Pavlovich Apostol, the Hetman of the Cossacks, “was the first one to apply to the senate to modify the harsh law.” Eighty years ago, the Cossacks had driven the Jews from their lands.  Since then, they had found out “that they could not get along very well without Jewish merchants” because they were indispensable when it came to facilitating commerce between the Ukraine and the Polish and Lithuanian provinces..


1769(30thof Nisan, 5529): Nathaniel Weil passed away at Rastatt. Born in 1687, this son of Naphtali Zvi Hirsch Weil was a noted Talmudist who served as a rabbi in Karlsruhe and was the author Korban Netan’el


 

1786: “The Russian Senate published a decree defining the economic and civil rights of the Jews of White Russia.” For much of its history, Russia had been almost free of Jews due to the exclusionary and anti-Semitic policies of a succession of Czars. As an example of the law of unintended consequences, Russia acquired a large Jewish population following the partitions of Poland at the end of the 18th century.  This move by the senate was the first in a series of official attempts to deal with this “Jewish problem.”  Throughout the 19thcentury, Russian policy would vacillate regarding its Jews; but in the end anti-Semitism and bigotry would win the day. (As reported by Abraham Bloch) 


1789: The Judenordnung provided for the abolition of discriminatory laws enacted against the Jews of Galicia


1807: Lieutenant-General George FitzRoy, 2nd Baron Southampton and Frances Isabella gave birth to Henry Fitzroy the British politician.  In 1839, he married Hannah, the daughter of Nathan Mayer Rothschild by whom he had two children Arthur Frederic FitzRoy and Blanche FitzRoy.


1811: Seventy-nine year old Richard Cumberland, the British dramatist who wrote “The Jew” passed away today.  “The Jew” which was premiered in May of 1794 is the first play written for the English theatre that portrayed a Jewish moneylender as a heroic figure. 



1812: In London, Sarah Anna (née Wiedemann) and Robert Browning gave birth to Robert Browning the author of “Rabbi ben Ezra” that begins with the immortal lines, “Grow old along with me!  The best is yet to be…” He was a friend of Emma Lazarus and “both his verse and private correspondence show that he kept an interest in the” persecution of the Russian Jews. There are those who contend that Browning was of Jewish descent. His father was a clerk in the employ of the Rothschilds at a time when their bank “employed scarcely any but Jews.”  The name “Bruning” (a Germanic form of Browning) was very common among Jewish families in North Germany.”


1815: Birthdate of Marco Mortara, the Italian rabbi from Viadana who a was disciple of Samuel David Luzzatto.


1847: Birthdate of Archibald Philip Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery, 1st Earl of Midlothian who in 1878 married Hannah, the only child of Baron Mayer de Rothschild.  She was one of the wealthiest women of her time since she was the primary heir of her father who had passed away in 1874.


1865: The Vicar-General of Velletri issued an order permitting Jews to remain in the town for ten days if they are conducting “lawful and honest business.” While in town they must return to their lodgings by one o’clock in the morning.  They are forbidden to approach all monasteries, academies and other “pious places under Episcopal jurisdiction. When having any contact or conversation with Christians, the Jews “are to refrain from familiarity. The violation of any of these regulations will be punished by imprisonment and a fine of five crowns.


1870: Birthdate of theatre owner and film company executive, Marcus Loew.  Born on the Lower East Side of immigrant parents, Loew became involved with films at the turn of the century when he opened his first "penny arcades."  Later he converted a penny arcade in Cincinnati into a movie theatre that drew an unheard of 5,000 customers on its first day.  Loew began converting other penny arcades into movie theaters which became a national chain bearing the owner's name.  In the 1920's, he and Louis B. Mayer joined forces to create the MGM Movie Studio.  Loew needed the studio to fill the public's demand for movies at his theatres.  Loew died of a hear attack at the age of 57, one of the many Jews who revolutionized the American (and the world's) entertainment industry.


1874: Rabbi Sounescheim was one of the speakers at tonight's session of the Unitarian Conference which is being held in St. Louis, MO.


1876: Frank Keenan, the future father-in-law of Ed Wynn “made his debut” today “as a spear carrier at the Tremont Street Opera House.


1876: The French government has ordered part of its Navy to sail to Salonica, a Mediterranean seaport which is part of the Ottoman Empire and which has been the site of recent outbreaks of violence between Christians and Moslems.  This is in keeping with the French government’s view of itself as the protector of Christians throughout the Middle East i.e. those living under Ottoman rule. Salonica is home to 20,000 Jews and their well being is threatened any time there is an outbreak of violence among different groups of non-Jews.  In this case, the Christians are primarily Greeks and the Greeks have attacked the Jewish community in Salonica in the past.  The presence of the French will serve to pacify the situation, thus helping to protect the Jewish population.


1882(18th of Iyar, 5642): Lag B'Omer


1884(12th of Iyar, 5644): Judah P Benjamin passed away.  "Born in the West Indies in 1811 to observant Jewish parents, Benjamin was raised in Charleston, South Carolina. A brilliant child, at age 14 he attended Yale Law School and, on graduation, practiced law in New Orleans. A founder of the Illinois Central Railroad, a state legislator, a planter, Benjamin was elected to the U.S. Senate from Louisiana during the 1850's.  When the South seceded, Benjamin joined the Confederate government serving as Attorney-General, Secretary of War and Secretary of State.  He was called "old brains" by his admirers and an "Israelite in Egyptian clothing" by his detractors.  After the war, Benjamin sought refuge in England where he began life again as a barrister and writer.  His only offspring was a daughter who had him buried in a Parisian cemetery.


1884(12thof Iyar, 5642):Dov Ber Goldberg, the native of Poland who gained fame as the French scholar who “devoted himself to the publication of editions of Jewish manuscripts in European libraries´passed away today in Paris.


1888: Leone Levi passed away.  Born in Italy, as soon as he arrived in Liverpool, he applied for British citizenship and gave up Judaism for membership in the Presbyterian Church.  He may have seen this as the only path to a successful legal career.


1889: In Charleston, SC, William Cecil Cohen married Agnes McKee.


1891: “Jewish Persecution Suspended” published today described the sudden decision of the Russian government to suspend the expulsion of the Jews from Moscow.


1893: “Tales The Rabbis Told” published today provides detailed review of Stories From The Rabbis by Abram S. Isaacs, the Professor of Hebrew at the University of the City of New York


1893: Based on cablegram from Harold Frederic, its London correspondent, the New York Times reported that in February the Russian government had issued an edict of expulsion that will affect each of the 1,500,000 Jews living in Poland.  For two months, the Russians kept the edict of expulsion a secret.  Word only leaked out as the Jews began to approach the borders of various European countries.  Today’s story in The Times was the first report of the expulsion to be published in an American newspaper.  The report has fallen like a “thunderclap among the Jews of New York.” 


1893: “Polish Jews Thrust Out” published today verified that that “a wholesale expulsion of Jews has begun in the Kingdom of Poland.” There are approximately a million and half Jews in Poland, “about four times the number affected by the Passover edicts of 1891 in Russia.”


1894(1stof Iyar, 5654): Rosh Chodesh Iyar


1894(1stof Iyar, 5654): “A Jew-baiting” mob attacked the Jewish section of Grajewo, Poland “looting the shops and houses, beating the men and insulting the women” before setting fire to several stores.


1895: Seth Low and Isidor Straus opened the East Side Free Art Exhibition at the Hebrew Institute on East Broadway and Jefferson.


1895: William Jack of Scotland received $600 as part of the Hebrew Fellowship awarded during the Commencement exercises of the Princeton Theological Seminary in Princeton, NJ


1896: Dr. Walter T. Scheele “who is a fierce and aggressive Jew hater” attacked the Jews at Kruger’s Saloon” and was then “forced to leave the place” and “run for his life.”


1899: Punch and Judy visited the Hebrew Infant Asylum this afternoon and “entertained the youngsters with their antics.”


1899: Dr. Felix Adler is scheduled to “deliver an address on ‘More Light’” this morning in the Music Hall.


1899: “The last Sunday service for this season” is scheduled to be held this morning at Temple Beth-El “when Rabbi Samuel Schulman will preach on the subject of ‘Youth.’”


1899: “The East Side Physician” published today described the desperate conditions of druggists and physicians (some of whom get paid only five cents for patient visit)  who are working on the lower East Side where the population is predominately Jewish.

1899: According to a summary of their April report published today, the United Hebrew Charities received 2,510 applications for aid that impacted 8,637 individuals.


1899:Tonight, the Rev. Dr. Madison C. Peters of the Bloomingdale Reformed Church began a series of  lectures on "What Christendom Owes to the Jew." Dr. Peters took for his subject "The Jew as a Patriot." He said: "One of the gravest charges ever brought against the Jew is that he is not and cannot be a patriot.


1901(18thof Iyar, 5661): Lag B’Omer


1901:  Herzl finally receives an audience with the Sultan.


1906(12thof Iyar, 5666): Fifty four year old Max Judd passed away.  Born in Galicia, he came to the United States in 1862 where he became a successful cloak manufacturer who found the St. Louis Chess Club.  President Cleveland refused to bow to Austrian anti-Semitism and insisted on appointing Judd as U.S. Counsel to that kingdom.


1908: French author and playwright Ludovic Halévy passed away.  His pedigree is not that unusual a tale for European Jewry in the period between Waterloo and Sarajevo.  His father was Jewish.  He converted so that he could marry a Christian woman.


1909: Birthdate of Leo Henryk Sternbach, the Polish chemist who escaped Hitler’s Europe in 1941 and continued his career in the United States where he discovered benzodiazepines.


1909: Birthdate of Edwin H Land.  Born in Bridgeport, Conn., this Harvard dropout contributed to scientific advances in the fields of photography and human optics.  His most famous invention was in the field of instant photography.  In 1947, he unveiled an instant imaging camera.  Within two years, the Polaroid was producing the camera and it became a commercial success.  Land passed away in March of 1991.


1912: Columbia University approved plans for awarding the Pulitzer Prize in several categories. The award was established by Joseph Pulitzer. When he died in 1911, Pulitzer left $2 million for the establishment of a school of journalism at Columbia University and a fund that established annual prizes for literature, drama, music and journalism. Since 1922 Pulitzer Prizes have also been awarded to cartoonists.  Yes, the highest award in "American Letters" was started by a German-Jewish immigrant.


1917: “Rabbi Stephen S. Wise came to Simsbury and delivered an address on “The World War for the Liberation of Humanity” to a standing room only crowd. So many people turned out to hear him that his lecture was delayed as chairs were sent for to accommodate the standing crowd at the rear of the hall. ‘It was the most successful mass meeting held in Simsbury’, wrote Julia E. Pattison, League Secretary. There is a story attributed to Rabbi Wise that upon meeting a rather aloof New England gentleman with ancestors that he wore on his sleeve the man announced that his antecedent had signed the Declaration of Independence. Rabbi Wise paused and replied that his ancestors had signed the Ten Commandments.


1917: In London, the Jewish Chronicle provides further details based on eyewitness accounts of the plight of Jews living in Palestine, which is under the control of the Ottoman Empire.  According to these accounts, the evacuation of the civil population of Jaffa that had been ordered by the Turks as a military measure was aimed against the Jews since all Jews including those of Turkey’s allies – Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire – were forced to leave while Mohammedans and Christians, regardless of nationality, were allowed to stay.  In all, 8,000 Jews were forced from their homes in Jaffa. The homes of the Jews of Jaffa and neighboring Tel Aviv were looted by mobs as the authorities looked on without taking any action.  Two Jews were hanged at the entrance to Tel Aviv as a warning to those who might resist and an ad hoc unit of Jewish guards was arrested and imprisoned. The deportations stretched to the ancient Jewish community in Jerusalem where three hundred Jews were deported “amid circumstances of the utmost cruelty.”


1918: During their convention in Philadelphia, The Mizrachi Zionist Organization adopted the single tax plan of land control “as the best system under which the Jews can return to take possession of Palestine under the protection of the Allies.”  The plan is based on the concept that “the land be assessed and valued at the figures at which it stood before the war in 1914, making allowances for improvements.”

1919: Birthdate of Boris Slutsky, a Russian poet, whose work incorporated Jewish themes, including Jewish tradition, anti-Semitism, anti-Semitic phenomena in the Soviet society and the Holocaust.He translated the works of Kvitko, Verghelis, Galkin, Shvartzman, Y.Sternberg. and others from Yiddish into Russian.


1919: During the peace negotiations at Versailles, “when faced with conditions dictated by the victors, including the “War Guilt Clause” Foreign Minister Ulrich Graf von Brockdorff-Rantzau the head of the German delegation   told the Allied Leaders – Clemenceau, Lloyd George and Woodrow Wilson  - "We know the full brunt of hate that confronts us here. You demand from us to confess we were the only guilty party of war; such a confession in my mouth would be a lie.”  This treatment of the Germans at Versailles, contributed to the lack of support for the treaty and would serve to strengthen the hand of the Hitlerites in their quest to destroy the Weimar Republic


1923: Just days before her death, Mrs. Gussis Goldberg was taken to the Rockaway Beach Hospital with an injured hip.  The 106 year old widow and mother of Joseph Goldberg, was “believed to the oldest resident of Far Rockaway.” (As reported by JTA)


1924: In Upper Sielsia, David Lustiger and his wife gave birth to Arno Lustiger Holocaust survivor, businessman and amateur historian who document “the history of Jewish resistance under Nazi rule.”


1927: In Cologne, Germany Marcus and Eleanora gave birth to Ruth Prawer who gained fame as Ruth Prawer Jhabvala award winning novelist and Academy Award winning screenwriter.  She won Oscars for “Room with a View” and “Howards End.”

1930: Birthdate of Totie Fields.  Born Sophie Feldman, in Hartford Connecticut, Ms. Fields switched from mildly unsuccessful singer to highly successful comedienne.  Her pudgy physique was her comedic “shtick” as made fun of her weight, appearance and the diet industry.  She died from health problems.  “I went on a diet for two weeks and all I lost was fourteen days.”


1933: In Savannah, GA, a large crowd of Jews and Christians attend a ceremony at Congregation Mickve Israel to mark the 200th anniversary of the arrival of Jews in what was then the colony of Georgia.


1934: The district of Birobidzhan in Russia was established as a Jewish Autonomous Region which was to cover an area of 36,000 sq. km. Its official language would be Yiddish. Within two years Stalin had a change of heart and its Jewish socialist leaders were liquidated. Although a library and theater were established, it never reached a population of more than 18,000, less than one-fourth of the total population of the region, partly due to its primitiveness and remoteness.

1936:Despite the High Commissioner's warning Arab leaders at a general conference held in Jerusalem representing all Arab towns unanimously called for a campaign of civil disobedience by all Arabs in Palestine including the refusal to pay taxes and “a boycott of everything Jewish.” Jerusalem Mayor Khalidi has become so active in the Arab cause that he did not attend the meeting of the Jerusalem City Council; an absence which was condemned by the six Jewish councilors.


1937: During the Spanish Civil War, The German Condor Legion, arrived in Spain to provide air cover for the fascist forces of Francisco Franco.  The Germans used the Spanish Civil War as a training ground for its forces which accounted for some of their early successes starting in 1939. The failure of the western liberal regimes to counter the German efforts was one more step on the road to the war that would lead to the Holocaust.  Hitler thought that the Spanish should have become active members of the Axis alliance as payment for his help. 


1938(6th of Iyar, 5698): “Moses Phillip Ginzburg, founder and publisher of the Daily Jewish Courier and a leader of Chicago’s Jewish community for more than half a century passed away today at the age of 75.”  Born in Poland, Ginzburg came to Chicago in 1883.  Five years later he founded the Jewish daily which would play a major role in his and his wife, Feige Rachel Levin’s, lives.  A month before his death, the couple was honored at a dinner attended by 1,500 guests who celebrated their golden wedding anniversary.


1939:  Birthdate of Sidney Altman. The Canadian born Altman is the Sterling Professor of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology and Chemistry at Yale University.  Altman shared in the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1989.


1941: As Arabs continued their violent attacks on the Jews of Iraq, "a number of Arab youths burst into a circumcision ceremony, knives in hand, murdering a young boy and wounding his brother."  (In Ishmael's House by Martin Gilbert)


1942: Nazi decree orders all Jewish pregnant women of Kovno Ghetto executed


1943: During the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, Pawel Burskin led a group of Jewish fighters through the sewers to the "Aryan ‘sector. They were ambushed by German troops, captured and shot.


1943: Sephardic-Jewish homes in Tunisia are ransacked and looted by departing German troops.


1945: Hitler makes the cover of Time Magazine again but this time with a giant X across the cover.

1945: Under the headline “Foreign News: Dachau” published today, Time magazine gave its readers the following description of the German concentration camp.


When all other German prison camps are forgotten the name of Dachau will still be infamous. It was the first concentration camp set up for Hitler, and its mere name was a whispered word of terror through all Germany from the earliest days of Nazi control. It was one of the largest of the camps to which opponents of Naziism were sent. And here, too, was concentrated the flower of Nazi sadists whose business was torture and death. Last week the U.S. Seventh Army entered Dachau and liberated 32,000 of its still living inmates. With them went TIME Correspondent Sidney Olson. His report: Beside the highway into Dachau there runs a spur line off the Munich railroad. Here a soldier stopped us and said: "I think you better take a look at these box-cars." The cars were filled with dead men. Most of them were naked. On their bony, emaciated backs and rumps were whip marks. Most of the cars were open-top cars like American coal cars. I walked along these cars and counted 39 of them which were filled with these dead. The smell was very heavy. I cannot estimate with any reasonable accuracy the number of dead we saw here, but I counted bodies in two cars and there were 53 in one and 64 in another. The main entry road runs past several largish buildings. These had been cleared; and now we began to meet the liberated. Several hundred Russians, French, Yugoslavs, Italians and Poles were here, frantically, hysterically happy. They began to kiss us, and there is nothing you can do when a lot of hysterical, unshaven, lice-bitten, half-drunk, typhus-infected men want to kiss you. Nothing at all. You cannot hit them, and besides, they all kiss you at the same time. It is no good trying to explain that you are only a correspondent. A half-dozen of them were especially happy and it turned out they were very proud: they had killed two German soldiers themselves. Skeleton Stacks. We went on, and the great size of the establishment of Dachau began to open before us. Buildings and barracks spread on and on. Outside one building, half covered by a brown tarpaulin, was a stack about five feet high and about 20 feet wide of naked dead bodies, all of them emaciated. We went on around this building and came to the central crematory. The rooms here, in order, were: 1) the office where the living and the dead were passed through and where all their clothing was stripped from them; 2) the Brausebad (shower) room, where the victims were gassed; and 3) the crematory. In the crematory were two large furnaces. Before the two furnaces were hooks and pulleys on rafters above them. Here, according to a number of Frenchmen, the SS men often hanged prisoners by the necks or by the thumbs or whatever their fancy dictated. From here the victims could watch while being whipped and tortured as their comrades were slid into the furnace. Each of these pitiful, happy, starved, hysterical men wanted to tell us his home country, his home city, and ask us news and beg for cigarets. The eyes of these men defy my powers of description. They are the eyes of men who have lived in a super-hell of horrors for many years, and are now driven half-crazy by the liberation they have prayed so hopelessly for. Again & again, in all languages, they called on God to witness their joy. Heart of Darkness. But though we were tired from the long journey, we were lured on and on and on, from building to building. What lured us was a sound which at first we had thought was the wind in the pines of Dachau. Then after a while we knew it was cheering — the sound of thousands of men cheering and cheering again. At last we came to a high wooden wall and went through the gates'. Before us stretched the great prison compound of Dachau. This must be at least one square mile in extent. In & out of this vast stretch of open compound studded with low barracks were swarming the liberated men of Dachau. I cannot pre tend to estimate the number with any exactness. But there were many thousand. These men, cheering as hard as their feeble strength would permit, tore them selves getting through the barbed wire to touch us, to talk to us. Some of them were nearly mad with joy. Here were the men of all nations whom Hitler's agents had picked out as prime opponents of Naziism; here were the very earliest Hitler haters. Here were German social democrats, Spanish survivors of the Spanish Civil War, a correspondent for the Paris Soir, who cried so hard I could not get his name. Joy in the Inferno. We went into one barracks after another. So many men were sick and possibly dying of starvation and beatings that they merely lay or leaned or sat shoulder to shoulder, too weak to do more than grin glassily. It was here that we even found some Hindus. All this time the cheering went on, and we were being forcibly mobbed by hundreds of men strong as only the half-insane can be, kissed and kissed again by men who stank like the inferno, obviously sick toward death of all kinds of illnesses. One giant Russian held me for at least 30 seconds while he kissed all over the U.S. insignia on my coat. They shouted in all languages but sometimes in American phrases; one little Pole ran beside us until he dropped flat, shouting desperately: "Hello, boys!"

1945: At 02:41 in the morning  at SHAEF headquarters in Reims, France, the Chief-of-Staff of the German Armed Forces High Command, General Alfred Jodl, signed the unconditional surrender documents for all German forces to the Allies. The surrender would go into effect on the following day, May 8, 1945 which would mean the end of the Holocaust. 


1945(24th of Iyar, 5705):  Hungarian novelist Andor Endre Gelleri, age 38, dies at the Mauthausen, Austria, slave-labor camp two days after liberation.


1946: Birthdate of English author Michael Rosen.


1950: This week the Israeli government will be sending its formal reply to the United Nations concerning “the Palestine Conciliations Commission’s proposal for peace negotiations.”  Israel is willing to send delegates to a meeting that is held without pre-conditions while the Arab states have announced that they will only come if the “return of Palestine refugees is the first item on the agenda.”


1952: A cheering crowd of 5,000 greeted Haifa’s Mayor Abba Khoushy and New York’s Mayor Impellitteri at official ceremonies at City Hall. Speakers at City Hall and a luncheon that followed at the Waldorf-Astoria “emphasized Israel’s devotion to democratic concepts and the need to consolidate the nation’s economic position as a bulwark of democracy in the Middle East.”


1958: TodayIsraeli Prime Minister DavidBenGurion rejected a request by B’nai Brith that Ze’ev Jabotinsky be reinterred in Israel explaining in a letter written B’nai Brith Vice President, Joseph Lamm, that"Israel does not need dead Jews, but living Jews, and I see no blessing in multiplying graves in Israel." Could Ben Gurion’s refusal to grant what was a wish contained in Jabotinsky’s last will and testament been nothing more than a measure of revenge exacted against the Revisionist leader whose followers would become the Irgun.  With the approval of Levi Eshkol, Jabotinsky and his wife were finally laid to rest in Jerusalem at Herzl Cemetery in 1964.


1960: Los Angeles Dodger Catcher Norm Sherry hits an 11th inning homerun to give his brother, Pitcher Larry Sherry, a 3 to 2 victory over the Phillies.  At the time, the Sherry brothers were the first and only Jewish battery (pitcher and catcher) in major league baseball.  From 1959 to 1962 the Dodgers had three Jewish players on their roster (the other was Sandy Koufax) which some felt made them the "Jewish" baseball team.


1960(10th of Iyar, 5720): Seventy-six year old Charles Edward Sebag-Montefiore passed away.

1963(13th of Iyar, 5723):Theodore von Kármán, a Hungarian-American engineer and physicist who was active primarily in the fields of aeronautics and astronautics passed away.


1964:Birthdate of Elliot Perlmanan Australianauthorand barrister.


1968: Sixty-seven year old English actress Olga Lindo, the daughter of Jewish actor Frank Lindo and his non-Jewish wife passed away today.


1968: Premiere of “Where It’s At,” a comedy directed by Garson Kanin co-starring Don Rickles.


1973(5thof Iyar, 5733): Yom HaAtzma’ut


1973: Liora Reich became the first woman to win the International Bible Quiz


1973:  Carl Bernstein shares in the Pulitzer Prize for his reporting on the Watergate Scandal.


1973: Maxine Kumin won the Pulitzer Prize for her volume of poetry entitledUp Country: Poems of New England.


1978(30th of Nisan, 5738): Rosh Chodesh Iyar


1978: “Stamps” by Samuel Tower published today described Israel’s philatelic offers in honor of her 30thanniversary including the issuance of five stamps honoring “five heroes of the Israeli Underground Movement including Abraham Stern, Yitzhak Sadeh, David Raziel, Dr. Moshe Sneh and Eliyahu Golomb



1981: Jewish Heritage Week comes to an end.


1981(3rd of Iyar, 5741): Yom HaAtzma’ut


1984(5th of Iyar, 5744): Yom HaAtzma’ut


1984(5th of Iyar, 5744): Painter and art director Marvin Israel passed away today.

1985:”Memory of the Camps,” a documentary dealing with “Dachau and other Nazi concentration camps” was broadcast during season three of “Frontline.”


1986: John Corry reviewed “The Precious Legacy of Czech Jews” a film directed by Dan Wiessman and co-produced by Weissman and Nelson E. Breen.

1986: Jerry Herman and Harvey Fierstein’s “La Cage aux Folles” had its West End premiere at the London Palladium today with the same creative team as the Broadway production.


1992: The Chicago Sun Times reports that Eddie Schwartz is leaving WGN for WLUP.

1994(27th of Iyar, 5754): Seventy-three year old Aharon "Aharale" Rabinovich Yariv passed away. The Moscow native made Aliyah at the age of 15 and then pursued a career in the military and politics that included service in the Knesset.


1994(27th of Iyar, 5754):Clement Greenberg, the most famous American art critic since Bernard Berenson who was born in 1909 to a Yiddish-speaking socialist family and was brought up in Brooklyn and the Bronx passed away today. (As reported by Raymond Hernandez)

 

1994(27th of Iyar, 5754): Haim Bar Lev, the IDF's Chief of General Staff from 1968 to 1971, passed away. Bar Lev played a key role in the Yom Kippur., He came out of retirement and served as the Chief of the Southern Command at the request of Prime Minister Meir.  He provided the steadying influence and keen perception that was necessary to halt the Egyptian advance and snatch victory from the apparent jaws of defeat.(As reported by Joseph Finkleston)

2000: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including“The Human Stain” by Philip Roth and the recently published paperback edition of A Journey to the End of the Millennium: A Novel of the Middle AgesA. B. Yehoshua’s novel about a North African Jewish merchant who travels to Europe with his two wives and his Muslim partner in the year 999 explores the gaps between Jews and Christians, Jews and Muslims and men and women.”


2000: Bruce Fleisher won The Home Depot Invitational.


2001: Dalia Rabin-Pelossof joined “One Israel” which later became Labor Meimad.”


2001: IDF naval commandos captured the Santorini, a fishing boat used for smuggling weapons into Gaza that included Katyusha rocket launchers, surface-to-air (SAM-7) anti-aircraft missiles and rocket-propelled grenade launchers.


2002: Israeli Prime Minister met with President George Bush at the White House.


2002: Psychologist Carol Gilligan published "The Birth of Pleasure"


2002(25thof Iyar, 5762): Hamas claimed responsibility for today’s bombing at Rishon LeZion where 15 people were killed and another 55 were wounded.


2003(5thof Iyar, 5763): Yom HaAtzma’ut


2003: In Tel Aviv, Mike’s Place re-opened after suffering a suicide bombing attack on April 30.


2006: Jacobo Kaufman delivered a major address at the "Colloquium in Memory of Antonio José da Silva (the Jew)", on the occasion of this great Portuguese playwright´s 300th anniversary celebration at Bar Ilan University. The event was supported by both Portugal and Brazil whose ambassadors attended the event.


2006:  Israel disappeared…from the news and opinion sections of the New York Times.  In one of those rare Sundays, the Jewish state was not a subject of any news stories in the Times.


2006: TheNew York Timesfeatured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including “Everyman” by Phillip Roth and “The Accidental Empire:Israel and the Birth of the Settlements, 1967-1977” byGershom Gorenberg.


2006: The World Zionist Organization announce the 2006 winners of the third annual Herzl Award, initiated by the Department for Zionist Activities to commemorate the Centenary of Herzl's passing.  The winners are Owen Kevin Futeran, South Africa, Andrea Uzan, Denmark, Ted Ekeroth, Sweden, Adrian Gluck, Argentina, Moises Mitrani, Mexico, Stanislav Skibinski, Germany, Nathan Feldman, Mexico, Phil Koningham, New Zealand and StephenRosenthal, United Kingdom


2006: In Los Angeles, a community-wide celebration of Israel’s 58th Independence ‘day  is kicked off by the LA County Sheriff Department Golden Stars Skydiving team floating into Woodley Park while the Tampa Jewish Community Center brings Israel to downtown Tampa for the first time with  independence day activities featuring Israeli vendors, an Israeli rock band and Israeli cuisine.


2007: Time Magazine featured an article entitled “The End of a Zionist Idyll.” The article reported on the Israeli reaction Degania’s announcement that it was giving up its socialist ideals and going private.  In the future, members could own homes and earn salaries based on how hard they worked. Degania was the first Kibbutz to be founded during the Second Aliyah.  It was the paradigm for the new Jew and the new Jewish way of life.  This announcement represents the closing of a chapter in Jewish and Israeli history.


2007: Newsweek Magazine featured a review of The Yiddish Policemen’s Union by Michael Chabon.


2007(19th of Iyyar, 5767): Donald Ginsberg a physicist who became a leading expert on the production and functioning of superconductors passed away at the age of 73 in Urbana, Illinois.


2008(2nd of Iyar, 5768): Yom Hazikaron – Israel Remembrance Day. A two-minute memorial siren sounds at 11 a.m. Wednesday, followed by official ceremonies at 43 military cemeteries. The Defense Ministry said that since 1860, when the first Jewish settlers began establishing Jewish neighborhoods outside the Jerusalem city walls, 22,437 men and women have been killed in defense of the Land of Israel. Sixteen Israeli civilians were killed in terrorist attacks in the first four months of the year, bringing the total of civilian terror-related deaths to 1,634 since the creation of the state 60 years ago. Remembrance Day draws to a close Wednesday night at 8 p.m. with the traditional torch-lighting ceremony at Jerusalem's Mount Herzl marking the sudden transition from sadness to joy with the start of Israel's 60th Independence Day.


2008:As Israel celebrates its 60thanniversary, the population nears 7.3 million with 76% of the population being JewishOn the eve of its independence day, Israel's population numbers 7,282,000, 75.5 percent of which is Jewish, and 20.1 percent Arab, Central Bureau of Statistics show. The remaining 4.4 percent is made up largely of immigrants and their children who are not registered as Jews in the Interior Ministry's population rolls. By 2030, the projected population will be some 10,000,000.Over the past year, 156,400 babies were born in Israel. At present, some 69 percent of the Jewish population is made up of native-born Israelis, as opposed to only 35 percent in 1948. About 18,000 people immigrated to Israel over the past year. The figure for total population does not include foreign nationals in Israel, whose number, in 1996, was found to be 186,000.


2008: Elie Wiesel is the guest speaker at a fund raising dinner designed to benefit the new Padres Katz Special Education campus of Aleh, an organization dedicated to helping disabled children in Israel.



2008: Release date for “Waves of Freedom,” a film that “is a reminder of the American Jewish sailors who braved British soldiers and the high seas to transport Holocaust survivors and refugees from Europe to the shores of prestate Palestine.”


2009:Ruth Reichl, a former restaurant critic and now the editor-in-chief of Gourmetmagazine, discusses and signs Not Becoming My Mother: And Other Things She Taught Me Along the Way” at Politics and Prose bookstore in Washington, D.C.


2009: The Jacob’s ladder Spring Festival opens.

2009: After Etan: The Missing Child Case that Held America Captive by Lisa Cohen was published by Grand Central Publishing.  A native of Manitoba, Cohen is a graduate of the University Pennsylvania who has made a career in electronic journalism with stints at ABC and CBS news.


2010: In Tel Aviv, the three-day Good Life Festival is scheduled to come to an end.


2010(23rdof Iyar, 5770):Bernard Schoenbaum, who in hundreds of cartoons in The New Yorker needled the relatively affluent, the media-conscious, the irony-besotted and the socially competitive — in other words, the readers of The New Yorker passed away today at the age of 89.     (As reported by Bruce Weber)

 

2010: In Cedar Rapids, Temple Judah is schedule to host a Potluck Dinner before Friday Night Services where Samuel Horowitz of the Jewish Federation is scheduled to be the guest speaker.


2011: In Potomac, MD, Congregation B’Nai Tzedek is scheduled to hosts its Spring Gala which will feature The “Second City” from Chicago.

2011:Bruce Raynor is scheduled to resign as president of Workers United and as executive vice president of the Service Employees International Union.


2011: “The Matchmaker” is scheduled to be shown at the Israel Film Festival.


2011: The Traditional Egalitarian  Minyan at Temple Judah is scheduled to host its annual “Mother’s Day Shabbat” complete with flowers for the women and a Kiddush prepared and served by the "men of the minyan."

2012:Israeli pianist Roman Rabinovich, Israeli violinist Itamar Zorman and the Jupiter musicians will perform are scheduled to perform at the Good Shepherd Church in New York City.


2012: James Carroll, author of Constantine’s Sword: The Church and the Jews is scheduled to deliver an address entitled “The Church and the Jews: A Personal Journey and Assessment” as part of the Northern Virginia Hebrew Congregation Spring Speaker Series.


2012: Jews and the Left, a two day conference sponsored by theYIVO Institute for Jewish Research with American Jewish Historical Society, is scheduled to come to an end.


2012: Cleveland  Mayor Frank Jackson is scheduled to be among the community leaders attending this evening’s Jewish American Heritage Month Celebration at the Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage.


2013:Pamela Weisberger (President and Research Coordinator, Gesher Galicia) is scheduled to speak on “Unique & Unusual Resources in Galician Genealogy” at the Weiner Library in London.


2013: “Street Labs” an outdoor exhibition featuring Israel’s top Sci-Tech students presenting their award winning inventions is scheduled to play at Union Square Park.


2013: San Jose City Hall is scheduled to celebrate the history of Jewish contributions to American culture and the Jewish American heritage that has helped shape the San Jose community with the raising of the Israeli flag at City Hall followed by a kosher lunch.


2013: According to Image Books, On Heaven and Earth: Pope Francis on Faith, Family and the Church in the 21st Century, will be available today in the United States and Canada. “The book is the transcript of wide-ranging conversations between then-Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio of Argentina and Rabbi Abraham Skorka, the rector of the Latin American Rabbinical Seminary. Topics include God, atheism, abortion, the Holocaust, same-sex marriage, fundamentalism and globalization. Francis previously has published 11 books, all in Spanish. Francis, who was elected pope last week, has referred to Skorka as his “brother and friend.” As the archbishop of Buenos Aires, he attended services at Skorka’s synagogue and also arranged for Skorka to receive an honorary doctorate from the Catholic University of Argentina. The two also shared billing on an Argentinian TV talk show on religious issues.” (As reported by JTA)


2013:Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has ordered a freeze in tenders for West Bank settlement construction amid a US push to renew the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, Army Radio reported today.


2013: Seventy years ago the Jewish people could not protect itself and had to plead for others to “save them.” Today that is no longer the case, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said today, just days after allegations that Israeli war planes attacked weapons depots near Damascus.


2013: Jewish Agency Chairman Natan Sharansky presented his proposal on the Women of the Wall to the Knesset Committee on the Status of Women today


2014: The Center for Jewish History and American Jewish Historical Society is scheduled to present “Native Genius,” “a night of entertainment celebrating the history of the Jewish contributions to American Theatre from 1800-1860.


2014: President Obama “will be honored by Stephen Spielberg as Ambassador for Humanity at the USC Shoah Foundation’s 20th anniversary gala event” which is scheduled to take place in Los Angeles today.


2014: “Over the Ocean,” a film about a Canadian family contemplating Aliyah is scheduled to shown at the Israel Film Festival sponsored by Agudas Achim in Coralville, Iowa.


2014: In honor of Jewish American Heritage Month “A Call to Serve: Florida Jews and the U.S. Military is scheduled to be shown in Ft. Lauderdale, FL.


2014: “Rock the Casbah” is scheduled to be shown at The National Center for Jewish Film’s 17th Annual Film Festival.


2014: The 16th annual Lenore Marwil Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to come to an end in West Bloomfield, Michigan.


2014: Mark Lewis is scheduled to discuss his prizewinning book, The Birth of the New Justice, a history of international criminal courts and new international criminal laws from the end of World War I to the beginning of the Cold War at The Wiener Library for the Study of the Holocaust and Genocide in London.

This Day, May 8, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. Levin

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May 8


336: Emperor Constantine prohibits Jews from negatively interacting with their co-religionists who have converted to Christianity. "Jews are not allowed to disturb any man one has converted from Judaism to Christianity, nor may they assail him with any outrage. Such behavior will punished according to the nature of the act "

 
336: In a further move to secure the primacy of Christianity over Judaism Constantine decreed "If a Jew should purchase and circumcise a Christian slave or a slave of any other sect, he shall not keep that circumcised person in slavery. The slave who endured such treatment will receive the privilege of freedom."

 
589: Reccared summoned the Third Council of Toledo. Reccared or Recared I was Visigoth King of Hispania (think modern day Spain). His reign marked a climactic shift in history, with the king's renunciation of traditional Aryanismin favor of Catholic Christianity in 587. He was a favorite of Pope Gregory for submitting to the papal see and for promulgating an edict of intolerance that included limiting the freedom and daily activities of the Jewish community.  He zealously followed the promulgations of the Council of Toledo which included“restrictions on Jews, and the conversion of the country to orthodox Christianity led to repeated persecutions of Jews.Of the 23 cannons adopted by the Council of Toledo, the fourteenth canon “forbade Jews to have Christian wives, concubines, or slaves, ordered the children of such unions to be baptized, and disqualified Jews from any office in which they might have to punish Christians. Christian slaves whom they had circumcised, or made to share in their rites, were ipso facto freed.”

 
1147: Encouraged by Peter the Hermit, a mob attacked the Jews on the second day of Shavuot in Ramerupt, France. Rabbenu Tam was one of its victims. After being stabbed five times (to match the five wounds of Jesus) he was saved by a passing knight. His house was ransacked, and a Torah scroll was destroyed.

 
1492: The first printed edition of Mishnayotwith commentary by Maimonides was published in Naples. The term Mishnayot is plural form of the word Mishna, which part of the Oral Law. By appearing in printed form, the commentaries of one of Judaism greatest teachers on one of its core text was available to what today we would be called, "the mass market."  This is an event worth nothing since it goes to prove that even in the worst of years, something good can happen.

 
1612 “Dr. Eliua da Luna Montalto, a Marrano who had” returned “to Judaism wrote…to his wife’s sister, Isabella de Fonseca, and her husband, Dr. Pedro Rodrigues, imploring them to return to” the faith of their fathers. He wrote, in part, “There are so many arguments which prove the truth of biblical prophecy…nobody has an excuse for not understanding it…I protest against your following a road which leads to the brink and the undoing of your soul.” Montalto was a distinguished physician whose patients included Queen Marie de Medicis of France.  (As reported by Abraham Bloch)

 
1705: Birthdate of António José da Silva, a Portuguese-Brazilian dramatist, known as "the Jew" (O Judeu). His parents were descended from Portuguese Jews and they became targets of the Inquisition when it turned its attention to Marranos living in Brazil. Eventually he would be found guilty of “judaizing” and would be strangled deather following which his body was burnt as part of “auto de fe.”

 
1737: Birthdate of English historian, Edward Gibbon, author of The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire.  Gibbon wrote authoritatively about the Jewish origins of Christianity. “The history of the church of Jerusalem affords a lively proof …of the deep impression which the Jewish religion had made on the minds of its sectaries. The first fifteen bishops of Jerusalemwere all circumcised Jews; and the congregation over which they presided united the Law of Moses with the doctrine of Christ.”

 
1794: English playwright Richard Cumberland's The Jew; or the Benevolent Hebrew, the first English language play to feature a Jewish moneylender as the benevolent hero of a stage comedy premiered today at the Drury Lane Theatre in London.

 
1794: “Sheva, the Benevolent” an adaptation of English playwright Richard Cumberland's “The Jew; or the Benevolent Hebrew,” the first English language play to feature a Jewish moneylender as the benevolent hero of a stage comedy premiered at the Drury Lane Theatre in London.

 
1800(Iyar 13)): Rabbi Joseph of Piltz, author of “Maaseh Choshev” passed away today.

 
1800: In Hamburg, banker Salomon Heine and his wife gave birth to their third daughter Amalie Friedlander, who was the cousin of poet Heinrich Heine.
 
1806(20thof Iyar): Rabbi Feibus Cohen passed away.

 
1808: Financier Carl Friedrich Buderus, a friend of Wilhelm and Rothschild, was arrested as French officials attempted to establish a connection between plots against French rule and the exiled Landgrave and his Jewish financier. 

 
1829: Birthdate of Louis Moreau Gottschalk an American composer and pianist whose father was Jewish and whose mother was Creole from New Orleans.

 
1841: In New York Rabbi and Mrs. Myer Samuel Isaacs gave birth to Judge Myer S. Isaacs who co-founded the Jewish Messenger and who served as President of the Baron de Hirsch Fund.
 
1847: Birthdate of Oscar Hammerstein, businessman, theater impresario, composer in New York City and the grandfather of lyricist Oscar Hammerstein II.

 
1852: The New York Times reported that following the fining of MP David Salomons for his attempt to take his seat in the House of Commons all the work of “emancipation” that has been done on behalf of the Jews will have to be done over again because given the hereditary nature of the House of Lords and the life expectancy of the members nothing will change for at least 20 years.

 
1864: Major Adolph Proskauer of the 12th Alabama was wounded so severely at Spotsylvania Courthouse that he could no longer serve.  A native of Germany, Proskauer "was among the few Jewish immigrants who became a high-ranking Confederate Officer. ("Jews of the Civil War")

 
1870:The Hebrew Leader, a weekly newspaper; published in New York city by Jonas Bondy, cautioned its readers about the possible success to be enjoyed as a result of the upcoming meeting of the Conference of Evangelical Alliance.

 
1870: According to today's Religious Items column " The Hebrew Leader referring to the coming Conference of the Evangelical Alliance says: 'No fear; what these gentlemen achieved in London, Paris, Berlin, Geneva and Amsterdam they will achieve in New York: Nihil.'"

 
1871: The Omaha Bee was a pioneer newspaper in Omaha, Nebraska founded today, by Edward Rosewater, a Bohemian Jewish immigrant who supported abolition and fought in the Union Army.

 
1873: British philosopher John Stuart Mill whose views on the Jewish people were explored by Professor Edward Alexander in an article entitled “John Stuart Mill and the Jews” passed away. 

 
1874: Special letter of administration were granted with the consent of the Earl of Beaconsfield who is the executor of the of the estate of Mary Anne Disraeli, Viscountess of Beaconsfield, that would allow stocks belonging her to be passed on to the Reverend William Lewis Price when she passed away.

 
1876: It was reported today that a part of the French Mediterranean fleet has received orders to set sail for Salonica, formerly known as Thessalonica.  The fleet is being sent to in response to fighting in the city between Christians and Moslems.  The city’s population includes approximately 20,000 Jews who have lived there for centuries.  Unfortunately, attacks based on the religious differences between Moslems and Christians have a way of spilling over to harm the Jewish population. (The ancient Jewish community of Salonica would be a casualty of the Shoah).

 
1877: “The Jews in Roumania” published today reported that the Turkish Legation in Washington, DC has been told by its government that there are no Turkish troops or inhabitants on the west bank of the Danube River, where the Jews living in Giurgevo (have been attacked. According to the Turks, this area is controlled by the government at Bucharest. Furthermore, “Israelites” have “equal rights in Turkey with all other Ottoman subjects of whatever religion” and the government is determined to protect them.  As “new proof of the …impartiality of his Majesty the Sultan” and Israelite named “David-chon Effendi” has been nominated as a Senator of the Empire.  [Today all of this sounds like meaningless gibberish. The treatment of the Jews of Romania was a grave matter in the second half of the 19th century.  Sometimes it got caught up in the on-going Balkan crises and the slow demise of the Ottoman Empire.  On top of that newspaper reports of the time were not always accurate when it came to names leaving us to guess.  Giurgevo probably refers to Giurgiu which was an ancient fortress town on the Danube.  Effendi may refer to a prominent Turkish Jew of the time who was an admiral in the Sultan’s navy.]

 
1878(5th of Iyar):  Rabbi Meir ben Isaac Auerbach, author of Imre Binah, passed away.

 
1879: An article published today entitled “Revolutionary Papers In Russia” describes discoveries made by government officials regarding “an anonymous revolutionary organ called “Semla i Schwaboda” (Land and Liberty.”  Three days after the police successfully found the printing presses that produced the paper, a Polish Jews was found murdered in a Moscow tavern “with a paper on his breast containing the words ‘Death to Traitors.’” The Polish Jew was reported to be the informer who guided the authorities to the presses. [Once again Jews are bad guys on both sides of the street.  They were portrayed as anti-Czarist revolutionaries and as betrayers of the revolutionaries.  Ah, anti-Semitism!]

 
1882: Edward J. King’s Will which was dated today includes bequests to Mount Sinai Hospital, the Hebrew Benevolent and Orphan Asylum, Congregation B’Nai Jeshrun, the Home for Aged and Infirm Hebrews of New York and the United Hebrew Charities.

1884: Birthdate of Harry S. Truman, the 33rd President of the United States.  If David Ben-Gurion is the "father of the state of Israel" then Truman might be considered the godfather-the one who held the baby at the moment of birth.  Standing up against pressure from the British and his own top advisors, Truman helped garner the votes that led to the U.N. resolution that created Israelin 1947. Standing up to even stronger pressure, Truman gave the new state the aura of legitimacy by being the first to recognize.  At , WashingtonD.C. time, the state of Israel came into existence.  At , the United Statesrecognized the existence of the state of Israel.  Recognition might have come a few minutes sooner, but the representatives of the newly created government had not been sure of the name to use for their new country.  Jewish voters heavily supported Truman for this bold act as well as his progressive social views and his strong stance against the emerging Stalinist menace.

 
1886:  Dr. John S. Pemberton sells the first Coca-Cola at Jacob’s Pharmacy in Atlanta, Georgia.  Jacob’s Pharmacy was owned by Joseph Jacobs, the son of Gabriel and Ernestine Hyman Jacobs.  The Georgianative opened the Athens Pharmaceutical Company in Athens.  He later bought out his competition in the Five Points section of Atlanta.  The first Coke was served at the Five Points location.

 
1890(18th of Iyar, 5650): Lag B’Omer

 
1891: “The Karlsbrucke” published today described the history of Prague’s historic bridge including the fact that the oldest of the figures on its buttresses was “a large stone crucifix..which was built with money wrung from the Jews.”

 
1891: Rabbi Levy officiated at the wedding of Selig Behrman and Sarah Saundinsky at the Hasell Street Synagogue.

 
1892: Dr. G. Stockston Burroughs, the Samuel Green Professor of Biblical History and Interpretation will conduct classes in the Semitic and Hebrew languages at Amherst College.

 
1892: “Johns Hopkins University” published today described activities at the Baltimore school including the decisions of Dr. Cyrus Adler to lead a group that “are organizing an America-Jewish historical association to collect and preserve records and memorials of the Jews of America.”

 
1892: Most of the 3,000 people attending tonight’s lecture at Cooper Union which had been called by various Socialist groups were young Jews from Russian and Poland.

 
1893: An article entitled “Jews Might Be Kept Afloat: Expelled by Russian and Excluded by this Country” describes the plight of the millions of Russian and Polish Jews who are being expelled by the Czar’s government.  The new situation is even more catastrophic than the Passover Edicts of 1891 that resulted in the expulsion of 400,000 Jews.  The changes in American immigration laws and the attitude of various European governments limit the options of where these Jews might settle.  The article goes to describe the efforts – financial, political, and communal – to provide havens for their coreligionists. 

 
1893: The Hartford (CT) Courant provided an account of “documentary evidence that the Russian government has begun a wholesale expulsion of the Jews from Poland” where 1,500,000 of them live.

 
1894:”Anti-Jew Riot In Poland” published today described how troops fired on a mob that was attacking Jews in Grajewo

 
1895: The third East Side Free Art Exhibition sponsored by the University Settlement Society and the Hebrew Educational Alliance will open today at the Hebrew Institute at East Broadway and Jefferson Street.

 
1899: “Jews True Patriots” published today described a speech given by Dr. Madison C. Peters which says that “history does not tell of braver men. After describing the leading role of European Jews in the military including Napoleon’s Marshal Massena and Albert Goldsmid, Sir Jacob Adolphus and Sir David Ximines of the British Army, he described the leading role of the Jews in the American military including Isaac Franks and Benjamin Moses in the Revolutionary War, Moses Albert Levy, Leon Dyer and Henry Seligson in the Mexican War, and a long list in the Civil War including Edward S. Soloon, Leopold Blumberg and Simon Levy and his three sons to name but a few. According to Dr. Peters, four thousand Jews served in the military during the just completed war with Spain including Sergeant Maurice Justh of the First California Jews, a regiment that included 100 Jews and seven Jewish Rough Riders whom Theodore Roosevelt praised for their “most astonishing courage.”


1899: According to a list published today the leadership of the Hebrew Infant Asylum includes President Ester Wallenstein, Solomon Japha, Maurice Untermyer, S.F. Bleyer, Robert J. Gerstler and A.N. Steinhart.


 

1901: The Order of Ancient Maccabeans (also Maccabaeans), an Anglo-Jewish charity which was established in 1894 was registered today under the ‘Friendly Societies’ Act.”

 
1902: In Ainay-le-Château, Allier Marie (Siminovitch), an artist, and Solomon Lwoff, a psychiatrist gave birth to Andre Michael Lwoff, French microbiologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.  He passed away in 1994.


1912: Founding of The Paramount Company.  This giant of the motion picture industry began as a merger of 11 film rental bureaus. Among those involved were Jesse Lasky and Adolph Zukor.  Zukor would go on to become a dominant figure in the direction and production of movies.  He would eventually become the top executive of Paramount, another of the Jews "present at the birth" of the American film industry.  



1913:Dr. Moses Hyamson, Senior Dayan, or Chief Judge, of the Ecclesiastical Court of the United Synagogue of London, has been elected rabbi of the Congregation Orach Chaim, at Lexington Avenue and Ninety-Fifth Street. The new rabbi will receive a salary of $5,000. Hyamson succeeds Dr. Joseph Hertz who was chosen over Dr. Hyamson as the Chief Rabbi of Great Britain.



1914: Birthdate of author Romain Gary



1915: At their convention in Memphis, Tennessee, the National Conference on Jewish Charities adopted a resolution creating a committee to conduct a survey of Oriental Jews in the United States.



1918:Vilmos Vázsonyi, who championed the recognition of the Jewish religion by the state completed his second and final term in office as Minister of Justice for Hungardy.



1919: Birthdate of Aharon Remez, the Tel Aviv native who flew combat missions with the RAF in World War II before becoming  the second commander of Israel’s fledgling Air Force serving from 1948 through 1950.  He went on to a successful career as a “civil servant, politician and diplomat. 



1921(30th of Nisan, 5681): Rosh Chodesh Iyar



1921: High Commissioner Sir Herbert Samuel agrees to the appointment of Haj Amin al Husseini, a leading Arab nationalist, as Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and head of the Supreme Muslim Council. Samuel rejects protests by the Jewish leadership.



1922: Louis Stern, President of Stern Brothers, which became the largest retail store in the United States in 1910, underwent a major operation at Mt. Sinai Hospital just prior to leaving for Paris.



1922: In Blackpool, England, Cyril and Ann Constant Levy gave birth to Reginald Levy, the Sabena pilot who would play a key role in thwarting an Arab attempt to hijack his aircraft.



1926: Birthdate of Don Rickles.  Rickles was born in New York City.  His father was sold clothes and insurance and his mother was a housewife.  After graduating from high school, Rickles served in the United States Navy.  After World War II he began working as a comic in a variety of venues.  Eventually, he turned to the "insult comedic" mode which has become his stock and trade.  His big break came in 1957 when Frank Sinatra caught his act and loved it.  Rickles also has numerous film and television appearances to his credit.  According to his semi-official biography, one of his proudest accomplishments was the construction of a gym named in his honor (he raised the money) at TempleSinaiin Los Angeles.



1928: Birthdate of Theodore “Ted” Sorensen, speech writer for John F. Kennedy who “helped” to write Profiles In Courage.  Sorensen’s mother was a Russian Jew.  His was father was Christian.

 
1933: Birthdate of Alfred “Al” Lerner the New York born son of Russian-Jewish immigrants who became Chairman of the Board of MBNA and the owner of the Cleveland (football) Browns.

 
1934: Eleanor Neyens was born in Dubuque County, Iowa.  As Eleanor Schueller she became the mother of Deb Schueller who as Deb Levin is responsible for the technology and patience that makes these daily offerings possible.

 
1934: Birthdate of Leonard Hubert “Lennie” Hoffman, the South African born British barrister who became a leading Jurist.

 
1935: “The plight of thousands of young women refugees arriving in Palestine from Germany and other countries was outlined today at luncheon of the Women’s League for Palestine” held at the Hotel Astor.  The speakers appealed for additional funds to provide homes for these refugees.  Mrs. Albert Einstein and Mrs. Elisheeva Kaplan, Chairman of the Working Women’s Council of Palestine were guests of honor.

 
1936: Emperor Hailie Selassie of Ethiopia, who has been forced to flee his native land because Italy has conquered it, arrived in Haifa aboard the British cruiser Enterprise. The Emperor whose official title includes the appellation“Lion of Judah and his royal household then took the train to Jerusalem where they were greeted by a cheering crowd. When he heard the crowds chanting “Long Live Ethiopia” and “Long Live Haile Selassie” the exiled monarch broke into tears.  [Editor’s Note:  Ethiopia and the Jewish people each shared the dubious honor of being early victims of the Axis and the world turned a deaf ear and a blind eye to both of them.  Also, the British officer Orde Wingate played a role in the lives of the Jews and the Ethiopians.  Wingate served a tourn in Palestine where he helped the Zionists self-defense forces in their fight against the rioting Arabs.  During World War II, Wingate played a leading role in liberating Ethiopia from its Axis occupiers.]

 
1937: Mrs. Edward Jacobs who had returned from a fact finding tour in Palestine last week said today that Jewish settlers felt that British should be doing a better job of protecting them from Arab attackers since they had entered the country under the terms of the Mandate which included the terms of the Balfour Declaration.  She said that the vast majority of the 400,000 Jewish settlers were neither discouraged nor willing to abandon their efforts. Finally, she said that it might be necessary to divide the country into Jewish and Arab “zones of influence to minimize friction.”

 
1937: Several Jews were beaten today during riots at Grabow.

 
1938: The Jerusalem Postreported that one of the top Arab terrorist leaders in the Hebron area, Issa Battat, was shot and killed by police near Beit Govrin.

 
1939: Admiral Sir Barry Edward Domville the famous British naval officer who was among those who expressed pro-German and anti-Semitic views during the 1930’s wrote an endorsement for The Case For Germany by Dr. Arthur Pillans which praises Hitler and National Socialist while attacking the Jewish people. (Editor’s Note – Seven decades after WW II, many are unaware of the pro-Nazi, anti-Semitic views held among many in the upper-echelon of British society)

 
1940: Birthdate of Canadian political leader Irwin Cotler who has proven to be a proponent of human rights and a staunch foe of “the new anti-Semitism.”

 
1942: Muriel Rukeyser was among the recipients of awards presented by The National Institute of Arts and Letters http://jwa.org/thisweek/may/08/1942/muriel-Rukeyser


 

1943 (3rd of Iyar, 5703): On Shabbat, The Leaders of Warsaw Ghetto Uprising meet death as the flame of resistance flickers out. The massive German forces that had been brought into the former Warsaw Ghetto to fight the Jewish rebels burned the ghetto street by street. Only by torching the buildings could the fighters be flushed out and forced to seek another place to hide and fight. Terror and inferno raged in the improvised underground bunkers as the Germans made the fighters come out in the only way possible-by hurling grenades into the bunkers or by pumping in tear gas. The ZOB command bunker, staffed by Mordechai Anielewicz and other leaders of the resistance, fell on May 8.   Mordecai Anielewiczhad been born in 1919.  He had accomplished the seemingly impossible twice.  First, he united the various factions in the ghetto and then conducted an armed resistance against what had been the world's greatest killing machine.  Anielewicz was an ardent Zionist and his memory lives on at a Kibbutz established by survivors of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. With the destruction of the Great Synagogue on Tlomackie Street, outside the confines of the ghetto the German commander General Juergen Stroop bragged that "there is no longer a Jewish quarter in Warsaw." On May 19, Warsaw was declared Judenrein. But this handful of rabble had actually engaged in armed combat with the Nazis for a longer period of time than some of the professional armies of Europe.

 
1944: An internal memo of this week from the United States Government War Refugee Board states that it would not be wise to transport Jewish refugees to Afghanistan, as it is a "fanatically Moslem country" with a "primitive economy and low standard of living." Though Jews live in Afghanistan, they are "not popular".

 
1945: Birthdate of Bruce Mark Cohen one of three children of Emil Cohen a New York State Supreme Court Justice. Cohen became a rabbi serving Mishkan Israel in New Haven, Connecticut. He worked to promote peace through better understanding of ordinary Jews and Arabs. Along with Farhat Agbaria he found Interns for Peace.

 
1945: V.E. (Victory in Europe) Day; The surrender Germany signed on May 7,1945, goes into effect.  Unfortunately, this did mean an immediate end to the fighting.  Units of the SS continued to resist and German U-Boats, once they got the order to surface, were often scuttled by their crews instead of making for the ports designated by the victorious allies.



1945: “In a pastoral letter”  Conrad Gröber, the archbishop of the Archdiocese of Freiburg “declared that no one should succumb to any extreme anti-Semitism. In his eyes the Holocaust was wrong because it forced the Jews into a defensive position from which they could cause the State greater harm than many a powerful enemy army.”



1945: The U.S. Army competed an investigation into allegations that soldiers under the Command of Colonel Felix L Sparks  had killed Nazi guards at Dachau after they had surrendered came to an end.



1945: With the end of World War II, the question of what do with the refugees at Fort Ontario most of whom were Jewish – repatriation or settlement in the United States – became a pressing matter that had to be resolved.



1946: The Dov Hoz, carrying 675 Ma’apilim and the Eliahu Golomb carrying 339 Ma’apillim left La Spezia bound for Palestine.”



1946: U.N. Assistant Secretary General Benjamin Cohen of Chile was among the speakers who participated at Hunter College’s World Friendship exercises which were designed to mark the first anniversary of the end of WW II in Europe.
 
1947(18th of Iyar, 5707): Lag B’Omer


1947:  Birthdate of H. Robert Horvitz, American biologist on the faculty of M.I.T. who won the 2002 Nobel Prize in in Physiology or Medicine.


1947: Leonard Bernstein has been invited to conduct the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra at the second International Music Festival which is scheduled to begin today in Prague.


1947:As the international community began its deliberations that Jews hoped would lead to the creation of their state,Dr. Abba Hillel Silver, a Reform Rabbi from Cleveland Ohio, “appeared before the United Nations as a spokesman for the Jewish Agency and formally voiced the demands of his people for national recognition and for the right to reestablish a national state in the ancestral home.”  Silver had worked “closely with David Ben-Gurion and Moshe Shertok in preparing the presentation of the Jewish Agency.” Silver , who was head of the American section of the Jewish agency “spoke first because the plane bringing Ben-Gurion from Palestine was delayed. According to David Geffen, Silver concluded his speech with these words. “The Jewish people places great hope upon the outcome of the deliberations of this great body. It has faith in its collective sense of justice and fairness; and in the high ideals which inspire it.“We are an ancient people, and though we have often, on the long, hard road which we have travelled, been disillusioned, we have never been disheartened... The Jewish people belongs in this society of nations. The representatives of the Jewish people of Palestine should sit in your midst – the representatives of the people and of the land which gave to mankind spiritual and ethical values, inspiring human personalities, and sacred texts which are your treasured possessions.”“Twenty-five years ago a similar international organization [League of Nations] recognized the historic claims of the Jewish people, sanctioned our program and set us firmly on the road of realization... The Jewish people was confirmed in its right to rebuild its national life in its historic home. It eagerly seized the long-hoped-for opportunity and proceeded to rebuild that ancient land of Israel in a manner which evoked the admiration of the whole world. It has made the wilderness blossom as a rose.”


1947(18th of Iyar, 5707): “A Jewish settler named Joel Drubin, 21 years old, was shot dead today” when he and two other settlers were attacked by 8 Arabs in an area between Kfar Uriah and Hulda “two Jewish settlements southeast of Tel Aviv.  The Arabs got away and the British were unable to find them.


1950: An announcement was made today at Geneva that “Israel has accepted the proposal of the United Nations Conciliation Commission for Palestine to proceed with direct negotiations with the Arab states while the commission acts as mediator for the settlement of all outstanding issues.”  However, this announcement by Israel may not immediately lead to negotiations since the Arabs have pre-conditioned their participation on the demand that Jewish state must recognize the right of Palestinian refugees to return to Israel.


1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that, the Histadrut Executive unanimously to accept Arab workers into its Trade Unions starting on May 15, 1953.


1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that jobs for 40,000 workers were envisaged following the approval, by the Knesset Finance Committee, of a special IL70m “Development Budget.”


1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that, approximately 800 persons were killed in traffic accidents during the past four years.


1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that, Syria had appealed to all Arab States to tighten the economic blockade of Israel as "the best way to kill Israel peacefully."


1956: Aaron Albert “Al” Silvera played his last game as an outfielder with the Cincinnati Reds.


1959(30th of Nisan, 5719): Rosh Chodesh Iyar


1960: While exploring caves in the Judean desert an archaeological expedition led Yigael Yadin discovers fourteen letters writtenby Simon Bar-Kokhba, leader of the Jewish revolt against the Romans in 132 - 135 CE. One letter is written on wood and the rest are written on papyrus. Bar Kokhba is called Shimon Ben Kossiba in the letters. Once again, archeology helps to establish another of what some had called the “myths of Jewish history.”



1960: Gideon Hausner is appointed attorney general in Israel.



1960(11thof Iyar, 5720): Sixty-two year old Sir Hersch Lauterpacht passed away.
http://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?collection=journals&handle=hein.journals/ajil55&div=12&id=&page=



1962(4th of Iyar, 5722): Yom HaZikaron



1964: Birthdate of Melissa Gilbert, child star on Little House on the Prairie.”



1967(28thof Nisan, 5727): Yom HaShoah



1970: Birthdate of Naomi Klein Canadian journalist, author and activist known for her political analyses and criticism of corporate globalization.



1972 Four Palestinian terrorists from Black September boarded Sabena Flight 571 from Vienna to Tel Aviv. Twenty minutes after taking off from a scheduled stop, the hijackers took control of the flight and instructed the captain to continue as planned to Israel’s Lod Airport (now Ben Gurion International Airport).  Less than 24 hours later, Israeli commandos, among them today’s most prominent Israeli leaders launched a daring operation to rescue the flight’s passengers and retake the plane.


 
1972: Fiftieth birthday of airline pilot Reginald Levy.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/05/world/europe/05levy.html



1978(1st of Iyar, 5738):Rosh Chodesh Iyar



1978: The Jerusalem Post reported that in New York, the Prime Minister, Menachem Begin, appealed to the Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, to "renew the spirit of our talks in Jerusalem"


1978: The Jerusalem Post reported that the New York police estimated that a crowd of 750,000, gathered in and around the Central Park, at an event which marked Israel's 30th anniversary, and listened to a 20 minute address by the Prime Minister.


1978: ABCTV airs "The Stars Salute Israel at 30" in honor of Israel's thirtieth Independence Day
1981(4th of Iyar, 5741): Eighty-three year old Uri Zvi Greenberg, a Hebrew and Yiddish poet, fighter for the independence of Israel and a member of the Knesset passed away today. “A representative of the new wave of 20th-century Jewish poetry, Mr. Greenberg drew on the tradition of biblical prophecy to write poems combining personal experience with an impersonal Jewish messianic destiny. Born in 1898 in Galicia, he served in the Austro-Hungarian Army in World War I and later emigrated to Palestine. He published his first volume of poetry in Yiddish in 1912.  Mr. Greenberg served in the  Irgun Zvai Leumi, a and as a member of Israel’s parliament for one term.

1981: In “Efforts To Rehabilitate Crown Heights Apartment Houses,” Alan Oser described efforts to dealing with the challenge of providing affordable housing in a neighborhood so closely connected with the Chabad movement.


 
1982: Shimon Peres meets with a dozen leaders of the Labor Party to report on a plan conceived by Defense Minister Arik Sharon for a massive military operation in Lebanon aimed eliminating the PLO presence and influence from that country.



1983:Mr. and Mrs. Harry M. Rosenfeld of Albany have announced the engagement of their daughter, Susan Margot Rosenfeld, to Dr. Stuart Wachter, son of Mr. and Mrs. Irving Wachter of Flushing, Queens



1991(25th of Iyar, 5751):Rudolf Serkin, one of the world's great concert pianists passed away at the age of 88. The cause of death was cancer. A lanky man once described as looking "like a benign and slightly befuddled chemistry professor," Mr. Serkin performed for much of the 20th century. He made his concert debut in 1915, at age 12, and had his last major concert in 1988.



1993(17th of Iyar, 5753): Avram Davidson passed away.  Born in 1923, Avram Davidson is considered by some to be "one of the most original, charming, neglected and undervalued writers of our time.” A self-taught, bearded Orthodox Jewish, Davidson's work started with science fiction and then moved into more extreme areas of fantasy.  Readers who like him compare his works to Rudyard Kipling, Isaac B Singer and S.J. Perelman.



1995: According to reports published today stamps portraying the comic strips “Lil’l  Abner” and Rube Goldberg Inventions” were two of the twenty classic strips being issued by the U.S. Postal Service “in commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the American comic strip.”



1996(19th of Iyar, 5756): Ninety-five year old Serge Chermayeff, the only Jew to chair the architecture departments at both Yale and Harvard passed away today.

2001: Chandra Levy’s aunt, Linda Zamsky calls D.C. police Detective Durant and tells him that her niece had been having an affair with Congressman Gary Condit.



2001: Thirteen year old Yaakov “Koby” Mandell and fourteen year old Yosef Ishran were kidnapped while hike near their village.



2002: In a column entitled The Politics of Victimhood,” Todd Gitlin makes the argument that “victimhood has become a default position for Jews and Palestinians alike – with bloody consequences for both peoples.”



2002(26th of Iyar, 5762):A Palestinian terrorist detonated a suitcase packed with explosives in a crowded gambling and billiards club near Tel Aviv, killing at least 15 people and wounding 58. The attack apparently was timed to coincide with Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's visit to the United States, where he met with President George W. Bush and other administration officials to discuss a new proposal for ending the conflict.



2003: The 19thIsrael Film Festival opens in Chicagowith the premiere of A Trumpet in the Wadi



2005: The New York Times included reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including “Salonica, City of Ghosts: Christians, Muslims and Jews, 1430-1950” by Mark Mazower and a 75th anniversary edition of “Civilization and its Discontents by Sigmund Freud.



2006, Pulitzer prize winning author David  Remnick gave an interview on The Daily Show to promote his book “Reporting: Writings from The New Yorker.”



2006: “The Communists Who Saved The Jewish State” published today describes a little known aspect (at least in the West) of the “miracle” that made it possible for the Jewish David to defeat the Arab Goliath.



http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/features/the-communists-who-saved-the-jewish-state-1.187221



2006: Germany's national Holocaust memorial has drawn an estimated 3.5 million visitors in the year since it was inaugurated according to figures made public today. The memorial - a vast field of more than 2,700 gray slabs situated close to the Brandenburg Gate in the heart of Berlin- opened to the public on May 12 last year. Some 3.5 million people are estimated to have wandered through the monument since then, said Uwe Neumaerker, a top official with the foundation that manages it. The memorial is freely accessible around the clock. About 490,000 visitors have been registered at the site's underground information center, at one end of the site, with exhibits on the fate of some of the Nazis' six million Jewish victims. Although the slabs are covered with an anti-graffiti coating, in the first year, five swastikas, four stars of David and one other piece of graffiti had been reported, Neumaerker said. Last year's inauguration of the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe followed 17 years of wrangling among German politicians over the design and message of the monument. Writer Lea Rosh, who proposed the memorial in 1988, said that the reaction "was fifty-fifty, and so it has stayed." She said she hoped the monument could still win over skeptics, some of whom have argued that it is too abstract.



2007: Dr. Tamara Levitz presents "Kurt Weill's Kol Nidre and Jewish Memory" at New York’s Center for Jewish History. Tamara Levitz, associate professor at UCLA, and currently a visiting professor at UNC-Chapel Hill, explores Kurt Weill's use of the Kol Nidre melody in three Jewish works composed in American exile: The Eternal Road; We Will Never Die; and A Flag is Born.



2007: “The J.A.P. Show, Jewish American princesses of Comedy” is performed at Actors Temple Theatre in New York City.



2007: Belgian Prime Minster Guy Verhofstadt publicly apologized for Belgian authorities’ involvement in the deportation of Jews to Nazi extermination camps during World War II.  The apology came on the day that the government-backed report “Submissive Beligium was published.  It lays bare the responsibility of high-ranking officials and municipalities in collaborating with the the Nazi persecution of the Jews.



2007: The Associated Press reported today that researchers claim they’ve found Herod’s tomb, a find that could provide insights into one of the Bible's most reviled figures.

 
“Under a baking sun, pieces of limestone carved with borders of rosettes and geometrical designs lay in three excavated pits Tuesday — a desert site Israeli archaeologists say is the tomb of King Herod, who ruled the Holy Land when Christ was born.The find, which could provide insights into one of the Bible's most reviled yet influential figures, includes hundreds of pieces of an ornate sarcophagus, but no bones and no inscription that would seal the identification.Although the tomb was shattered and empty, leaders of the Israeli team that unearthed it said Tuesday they will dig on in the hope of finding jewelry, other artifacts or even the biblical monarch's remains. Hebrew University archaeologist Ehud Netzer said he has been leading the search for Herod's tomb at the king's winter palace in the Judean desert, in an Israeli-controlled part of the West Bank south of Jerusalem, for 35 years.Last month, his team started unearthing limestone fragments, from which emerged the picture of an ornately carved sarcophagus with decorative urns of a type never before found in the Holy Land."It's a sarcophagus we don't just see anywhere," Netzer told reporters at the university. "It is something very special."The complete sarcophagus would have been about nine feet long, the university said. Herod was the Jewish proxy ruler of the Holy Land under imperial Roman occupation from 37 B.C. His most famous construction project was expanding the Jewish Second Temple in Jerusalem. Remnants of his extensive building work in Jerusalem are still visible in Jerusalem's Old City, and he undertook major construction projects in Caesaria, Jericho, the hilltop fortress of Masada and elsewhere. At the excavation site, on the steep, rocky slopes of a cone-shaped hill 2,230 feet high, Netzer's assistant, Yaakov Kalmar, said that an account of Herod's funeral by the first-century historian Josephus Flavius left little doubt that it took place at Herodium. The newly discovered tomb was regal in its opulence. "We have here all the attributes of a royal funeral," Kalmar said. "We didn't find inscriptions so far... The work is not finished." The site sits halfway up the hill, atop a warren of tunnels and water cisterns built to serve the palace at the summit. Stephen Pfann, an American expert in the Second Temple period at the University of the Holy Land, called the find a "major discovery by all means," but said the lack of an inscription hindered full verification. "We're moving in the right direction. It will be clinched once we have an inscription that bears his name," said Pfann, who did not participate in Netzer's dig. Eric Myers of Duke University, who has excavated in the Holy Land, said initial descriptions of the tomb pointed to its authenticity as belonging to Herod. "We know he was buried at Herodium," he said by telephone. "It's a significant find after a long search. "Myers said that among key clues were that the sarcophagus was placed on a raised platform rather than in the underground tombs used for those of lesser rank, and that in accordance with Jewish religious law, it was not decorated with any human image. "It sounds as if Herod was respectful of his Jewish tradition right up to the end," he said. David Owen, a biblical historian and archaeologist at Cornell University who has done extensive field work in Israel, was not surprised by the find."That's where Josephus says he was buried," said Owen. "He built that entire palatial complex and there are few doubts that his tomb would be there." The Herod of the Bible and of Christian tradition was a bloodthirsty megalomaniac, who flew into a paranoid frenzy when he encountered the three wise men on their way to Bethlehem with gifts for the baby Jesus, and telling of the birth of a new king of Israel. "Then Herod, when he saw that he was mocked of the wise men, was exceedingly wroth, and sent forth, and slew all the children that were in Bethlehem, and in all the coasts thereof, from two years old and under..." (Matthew 2:16). The biblical massacre figures in paintings such as Peter Paul Rubens' 17th-century "Massacre of the Innocents." However the account, does not appear in other Gospels, and experts are not convinced of its accuracy, especially the implications of mass infanticide. Some believe the decree applied only to Bethlehem, a small town at the time, where there may have been as few as 15 toddlers. Historians do agree that toward the end of his reign Herod slaughtered many political rivals and perceived plotters against him, among them one of his 10 wives and three of his sons. Josephus says that as the elderly Herod lay riddled with disease, he ordered the cream of the local Jewish aristocracy to be executed on his demise, so that his passing would bring widespread and genuine mourning. After Herod's death, Herodium became a stronghold for Jewish rebels fighting Roman occupation, and the site suffered significant battle damage before it was conquered and finally destroyed by Roman forces in A.D. 71, a year after they destroyed the Jewish temple in Jerusalem. Kalmar said the sarcophagus could have been destroyed during Roman attacks or smashed by the rebels, who reviled the memory of Herod as a Roman puppet. "We know that Herod had a lot of enemies," he said. Roi Porat, another of Netzer's assistants on the digs, said it was possible that the Jews removed Herod's remains after his tomb was reduced to rubble.

 
2007: Tight-end Michael Andrew "Mike" Seidman signed with Indianapolis Colts after having been cut by the Carolina Panthers.



2008: In an ongoing program designed to share Jewish culinary traditions Hillel offers another cooking class taught by Cordell Braverman of Cooking Cottage

2008:In Rockville, MarylandJoyce Antler, a professor of Jewish history and culture discusses You Never Call! You Never Write!: A History of the Jewish Mother (recently published in paperback) at a luncheon event at the Jewish Community Center of Greater Washington
2008(3rd of Iyar, 5768): Yom Ha”Atzmaut – Israeli Independence Day
2008: On Israel's 60th Independence Day, eight organizations are awarded the Israel Prize for a lifetime contribution to the state and society. The recipients are the Perah work-study mentoring program at universities, the Jewish Agency, the Manufacturers Association of Israel, the Youth Movements Council incorporating 14 movements, Ezer Mizion - Israel's largest paramedic support organization, and the three major women’s organizations that have been active since pre-state days: WIZO, Na'amat, and Emunah.

2008:
Italian President Giorgio Napolitano opened the prestigious Turin book fair in the northern Italian city, despite international Muslim anger over the choice of Israel as the event's guest of honor. "No dialogue is possible if there is a refusal to recognize Israel," Napolitano said at Israel's special stand at the fair. There can be no "rejection of the reasons for its birth [60 years ago] or of its right to exist in peace and security." The state of Israelwas created almost 60 years ago overtop of mostly Palestinian lands recently cleansed of their inhabitants by force, or threat thereof, by Jewish forces. Over 700,000 Palestinian became refugees in the process. Israel's stand was swamped by hundreds of people, many draped in the Israeli flag. One group held a banner reading, "I feel Jewish today." Like its Parisian counterpart in March, the Turinfair is honoring Israelon the 60th anniversary of the Jewish state's creation. Prominent Israeli authors Abraham B. Yehoshua, David Grossman, Amos Oz, Aaron Appelfeld and Meir Shalev will be among those featured at the fair. Turin's chief rabbi, Alberto Moshe Somekh, said that the city had shown "great courage" in deciding to honor Israel. At a special service in the city's main synagogue, he said the tribute marked also marked "4,000 years of our presence on the world stage as 'People of the Book.'"
2009:Pope Benedict XVI began his eight day pilgrimage which will take him to Jordan, Israel and the Palestinian territories.
2010: The Yom HaAtzmaut Spring Marathon 2010, an evening of dancing, ushering in the delights of spring in celebration of Israel’s independence is scheduled to begin tonight at 8:45 this evening at the 92nd St Y.
2010: “Giants of Jazz on Film - Benny Goodman and the Kings of Swing” is scheduled to begin at 8 pm at the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco.
2010:Hamas or another group fired a rocket, which landed in open ground near Ashkelon today. Approximately 50 rockets have landed in Israeli territory since the beginning of 2010.
2010:The fans of a Polish professional soccer team displayed an anti-Semitic banner during a match. Fans of Resovia Rzeszow at a May 8 match put up a large banner showing a caricatured hook-nosed Jew with a blue and white yarmulke -- the colors of the opposing team -- and the phrase “Death to the Crooked Noses.”
2010(24thof Iyar, 5770): Andor Lilienthal, the last of the original 27 chess grandmasters, who played 10 world champions and beat 6 of them, passed away today at his home in Budapest at the age of 99 http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/12/crosswords/chess/12lilienthal.html



2011: Rabbi Kenneth Ehrlich, Dean, Cincinnati campus of the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion is scheduled to facilitate “The People of the Book” a lecture/discussion designed to review the rich and varied experience of the Jewish people in America in words and images created by American Jewish literary artists



2011:Roman Arkadyevich Baranovichi was ranked # 3 on the Sunday Times Rich List 2011 which was published today. Shlomo Moussaieff and his wife and business partner, Alisa, were ranked #315
2011: The Jewish Historical Society of Delaware is scheduled to hold its Annual Meeting, featuring a presentation by the Delaware Art Museum’s Executive Director and noted art historian Dr. Danielle Rice. In her lecture, “The Jewish Contribution to Art in Delaware,” Dr. Rice will highlight the Delaware Art Museum’s holdings by Jewish artists and the worlds from which they come.
2011:In honor of Yom Hazikaron (Israeli Remembrance Day) and Yom Ha'atzmaut (Israeli Independence Day) Yeshiva University Museum and Center for Jewish History with American Jewish Historical Society, American Sephardi Federation, Leo Baeck Institute and YIVO Institute for Jewish Research are scheduled to present: “Remembering 1948 - In Color” featuring “I Was There In Color,” Avishai Kfir’s  documentary that uses recently discovered footage, shot by Fred Monosson, a Jewish-American businessman to show the birth of the Jewish state in living color.
2011: The Los Angeles Timesfeatured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including “Sempre Susan: A Memoir of Susan Sontag” by Sigrid Nunez
2011(4th of Iyar, 5771): On Mother’s Day, 97 year-old Holocaust survivor Rose Linder passed away.  As a young woman she had clerked for Raphael Lemkin, the Polish born attorney credited with coning the term “genocide.”  After fleeing Poland, Mrs. Linder worked as a teacher and employment counselor in the Chicago metropolitan area.

2012: Mr. David McKenzie, Interpretive Programs Manager of the Jewish Historical Society of Greater Washington will discuss, the award winning exhibit “Jewish Washington: Scrapbook of an American Community” an “exhibit created by the Jewish Historical society of Greater Washington that tells stories about the Jewish community in Washington from 1795 to the present.”


2012(16th of Iyar, 5772): Eighty-nine year old “Louis H. Pollak, a federal judge and former dean of two prestigious law schools who played a significant role in major civil rights cases before the Supreme Court, including the landmark Brown v. Board of Education desegregation case” passed away today. (As reported by Dennis Hevesi)
2012: The 18th annual World of Hope Charity Golf Classic for the benefit of The Rabbi Itzhaq M. Klirs Adult Education Fund & Caring Capital is scheduled to take place at the Twin Lakes Golf Course in Centerville, VA
2012(16th of Iyar, 5772): Eighty-three year old “Maurice Sendak, widely considered the most important children’s book artist of the 20th century, who wrenched the picture book out of the safe, sanitized world of the nursery and plunged it into the dark, terrifying and hauntingly beautiful recesses of the human psyche” passed away today (As reported by Margalit Fox
2012: Alon Yavnai Big Band with special guest Dave Liebman is scheduled to perform at Joe’s Pub in New York City.
2013(28th of Iyar, 5773): Yom Yerushalayim – Jerusalem Reunification Day
2013: “Settling In,” an exhibition that “examines the experience and acculturation of immigrants to Oregon through the lens of Jewish experience” is scheduled to open at the Oregon Jewish Museum.
2013: University of Iowa Professor Dr. Robert Cargill, biblical studies scholar, classicist, archeologist, author and digital humanist is scheduled to a lecture entitled "The Five Defenders of Jerusalem: A Study of Cities (not people) that defended Jerusalem from attacks including Hazor, Meggido, Gezer, Lachish and Azekah."
2013(28th of Iyar, 5773): One hundred one year old violin virtuoso Roman Totenberg passed away today.
2013: American Society for Jewish Music and American Jewish Historical Society is scheduled to present “A Living Connection: The Musical Lives and Legacies of Morris Hollender, Sonia Victor, and Marty Levitt.”
2013: Yeshiva University Museum is scheduled to present “It’s a Thin Line: The Eruv and the Jewish Community in New York and Beyond”
2013: Stephen Hawking, the noted British physicist, has reportedly opted to endorse the academic boycott of Israel and withdraw from the fifth annual Presidential Conference in Jerusalem in June, where he was slated to give a talk, the British daily Guardian reported today.
2013: Today the Jordanian Parliament voted unanimously in favor of petitioning the government to expel Israel’s ambassador in Amman and recall Jordan’s ambassador in Tel Aviv in protest of alleged Israeli desecration of holy sites in Jerusalem
2013: Eighty-eight year old “Geza Vermes, a religious scholar who argued that Jesus as a historical figure could be understood only through the Jewish tradition from which he emerged, and who helped expand that understanding through his widely read English translations of the Dead Sea Scrolls” passed away today. (As reported by William Yardley)
2013: President Shimon Peres delivered remarks at the state memorial ceremony for the Jews of Ethiopia who died on their journey to Israel
2014: Observance of “Days of Remembrance of the Victims of the Holocaust”  a memorial day championed by director Steven Spielberg.


2014: “Circus Palestina” is scheduled to be shown at the Israel Film Festival hosted by Agudas Achim under the leadership of Rabbi Jeff Portman.


2014: “Closer to the Moon” is scheduled to be shown at the National Center for Jewish Films 17th annual film festival.


2014: As part of Jewish American Heritage Month, in Philadelphia, PA, the National Museum of American Jewish History is scheduled  to host a presentation by the official Historian of the Major League Baseball, John Thorn on “Jackie Robinson: Outside Hero.”


2014: Closing night of The Los Angeles Jewish Film Festival.

This Day, May 9, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. Levin

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May 9



1457 BCE: In the 15th century BCE, Battle of Megiddo between Thutmose III and a large Canaanite coalition under the King of Kadesh. The victory of Thutmose extended the orbit of Egyptian influence into Canaan and Syria which might help explain some of the events described in the last chapters of Genesis and the opening portion of Exodus.  According to one source, the Exodus took place in 1456 which would not be consistent with the information surrounding the battle. Other sources indicate that Joshua and the Israelites crossed the Jordan around 1200 BCE.  Based on archeological evidence, Megiddo was a site of military importance during the time of King Solomon and he kept a chariot force stationed there.  The Judeans lost a battle with the Egyptians in 609 BCE and the British scored a significant victory over the Turks at the same site in 1918. Fighting at Megiddo would play a significant role during the War of Independence as both sides sought to control the Jezreel Valley.It is the first battle to have been recorded in what is accepted as relatively reliable detail. According to Christian doctrine, there is supposed to be a battle between the forces of good and evil in th end of days.  The battle is known as Armageddon which is Greek form of the Hebrew Har-Megiddo (Mt of Megiddo).

 
1224: Innocent IV issued “Impia Judoerum Perfidia,” a papal bull that ordered the French King to brun the Talmud and forbade Jews from employing Christian nurses.

 
1317: In his will dated today, the infante Don Pedro, ordered that Judah Abravanel be paid: (1) 15,000 maravedis for clothes delivered; (2) 30,000 maravedis as part of a personal debt, at the same time requesting Judah to release him from paying the rest. Judah had been in great favor with King Alfonso the Wise, with whom he once had a conversation regarding Judaism.

1664: In Lemberg and Cracow, Poland, anti-Jewish riots by students and peasants resulted in damages and death in both communities. In Lemberg, the cantor was killed during when the synagogue was attacked.

 
1712: In Berlin, the cornerstone of the first public synagogue was laid in Heiderentergasse.

 
1775: Birthdate of  Moses Philippson the Jewish writer, teacher, translator and publisher who was related to 16th century Rabbi Joshua ben Joseph Hoseschel  and who taught at the Jewish School in Dessau.

 
 1775: David Salisbury Franks was released after having been under arrest for six days on charges of having spoken “disrespectfully” about King George III. Franks, who was living in Montreal at the time, became such an ardent supporter of the American Revolution that he joined the Continental Army.

 
1778(12th of Iyar): Chasidic Rabbi Samuel Shmelke Horowitz, author of Divrei Shmuel, passed away today.

 
1788(2nd of Iyar): Rabbi Menahem Mendel of Vitebsk, autheo of “Peri Ha-Aretz,” passed away

 
1805(10th of Iyar, 5565): Michael Moses Hays, a Boston Merchant, passed away at the age of 64.

 
1800: Birthdate of abolitionist John Brown best known for his seizure of Harper’s Ferry.  However, he had played an active role in the fighting between slave owners and free soilers in Kansas during 1850’s.  When he led the raid on Pottawatomie, Kansas, he was joined by three Jews – August Bondi, Jacob Benjamin and Theodore Weiner. 

1809: Birthdate of Middlesex native Ralph Disraeli.

 
1812: Birthdate of Egyptian-born Indian civil servant, Henry Edward Goldsmid.

 
1852: As a sign of Christian determination to gain Jewish converts, Reverend William Ramsay is scheduled to deliver the annual sermon before the American Society for the Meliorating the Condition of the Jews in New York City.

 
1855: The new building for the Jews Hospital in New York, located on 28thStreet between 7th and 8th Avenues, has been completed.  The building which cost $35,000 is four stories high and has room for 150 patients.  Dedication ceremonies are scheduled for May 17.

 
1856: An “English gossipper” described a meeting with Sir Lionel Goldsmid, Lord Mayor Salomons and Sir Moses Montefiore in an article entitled “Three Great Jews” published today.

 
1864: Joan Engel, a native of Maryland who had been working as a clerk in Mecklenburg County (NC) enlisted in the Confederate Army today.

 
1864: Walter Goodman arrived in Cuba wherehe worked as an artist and painting theatrical sets and journalist writing articles and letters to the New York Herald, using the nom de plume el Caballero Inglese.

 
1865: At Nashville, TN, Union Brigadier General Frederick Knefler led the 79thIndiana Infantry Brigade in final review of the army under the command of General George Thomas. Following the review, Knefler, one of the highest ranking Jewish officers to serve in the U.S. Army during the Civil War, took his troops back to Indianapolis where they were mustered out of service.

 
1868: The city of Reno, Nevada, is founded.Jews have been part of the Reno community since the founding of the city.  According to the history prepared by Temple Emanu-El “One of the first Jewish organizations was the "Reno Hebrew Benevolent Society" established in 1879. The Society's purpose was to secure a piece of land for a cemetery, assist sick members and, in case of death, provide for a decent internment. The initial membership fee was $2.50 with a monthly membership payment of fifty cents.’ For more about the history of the Jews in Reno see Jews in Nevada: A History by John Marschall.

 
1871: Lipman Emanuel “Lip” Pike played in his first major league baseball game as a member of the Troy Haymakers.

 
1872: The American Society for the Promotion of Christianity Among the Jews held its second anniversary meeting this evening at the Union Presbyterian Church in New York City.  While the report of Reverend Abraham C. Tris stated “that the progress of the work have been very encouraging” it never provided any number of Jews who had actually converted as a result of the society’s efforts.

 
1873: Myer Stern, President of the Hebrew and Benevolent and Orphan Asylum Society, a trustee of Temple Emanu-El and a prominent businessman and political figure was one of three people nominated by the Mayor to serve as Commissioners of charities and Correction in New York City.

 
1876(15thof Iyar, 5636): Pesach N. Rubenstein who had been convicted of murdering Sara Alexander starved himself to death before he could be hanged for his crime.

 
1881: Anti-Jewish riots broke out in Shpola and Ananyev, Russia.  This was part of a wave of anti-Semitic violence that would sweep back and forth across Russia until the start of World War I.  It was consistent with the Czars 1/3, 1/3, 1/3 policy for the Jews.  Things would be so bad for the Jews that one third would convert, one third would leave the country and one third would die.  And Russia would be free of its Jewish Problem

 
1885: Rabbi Alexander Kohut of Grosswardein, Hungary delivered his first sermon at Temple Ahavath Chesed in New York City

1886: In New York “500 people met at the Salem Fields Cemetery” today to dedicate a monument honor Jewish philanthropist Seligman Solomon.  Among other things, the 20 foot high granite shaft honored his work with the Hebrew Orphan Asylum calling him “A Father to the Orphan and Humanity’s Nobelest Volunteer.”

 
1890: In the upper house of the Prussian Diet, right-wing politician Count Pfeil moved that the government take measures to limit the educational opportunities of Jewish students.

 
1892: “Bay State Republicans” published today described status of the Massachusetts Republican Party as it prepares for the upcoming national convention in Minneapolis.  This includes the role to played by party secretary Ratchesky, “a very clever, shrewd and cunning Jewish politician who has been useful in in the past in keeping his people in line for the Republican ticket. He is a member of the Boston Common Council, a keen debater and a man of unlimited political resource.” He is one of two men described as exercising “absolute control over the machinery” of the Republican Party. 

 
1893: John B. Weber, the former Commissioner of Immigration expressed his views on reports that the government of Russia has issued edicts expelling the Jews from Poland. He is concerned that this latest wave of immigrants will not benefit the United States and that the Czar and the Europeans are dumping their unwanted Jews on the Americans.

 
1893: The decision of the Presbyterian Board of Home Missions to actively work to convert Jews in the United States was made public today.

 
1893: As of today, Annie Weisberg, the daughter of Polish-Jewish immigrants was the only person reported to have been injured in the fire at the tenement house on Suffolk Street.

 
1893: Based on information that first appeared in the Hartford Courant it was reported today the wholesale expulsion of Jews from Poland began in the middle of February and has continued unabated since then.

 
1894: Esther Ruskay spoke on "The Revival of Judaism" at the founding meeting of the New York section of the National Council of Jewish Women

 
1895: The members of the New York Branch of the Jewish Woman’s Council was held today at Temple Emanu-El

 
1895: “The East Side Art Exhibition” published today praised the selection of the paintings being shown at the East Side Free Art Exhibition taking place at the Hebrew Institute which will continue for the next thirty days.

 
1896: The Young Men’s Hebrew Association will hold its 19th annual strawberry festival at Lenox Lyceum.

 
1896: The palatial mansion of Diamond mogul Barney Barnato located in the Mayfair section of London is reported to be nearing completion. Barnato’s new home is on Park Lane, near the home of another Jewish Diamond Mogul, Alfred Beit.

 
1897: In Little Rock, AR, B'nai Israel, a Reform Congregation, dedicated its new house of worship which was designed by architect Charles Thompson.  Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise, the founder of Reform Judaism gave the keynote address at the ceremony.  The building was used until May, 1975 when the Temple B’nai Israel moved into it current home in western Little Rock.

 
1898: It was reported today that among fifty Jewish families who were at a mass meeting praying for the success of the American Army in the war with Spain were among  200 people left homeless by a fire that swept through Duluth, MN.

 
1900: During the Konitz Affair, a blood libel in West Prussia,  “the Staatsbürgerzeitung, the leading anti-Semitic organ of Berlin, said: ‘No one can help forming the impression that the organs of the government received orders to pursue the investigation in a manner calculated to spare the Jews’” even though the opposite was quite true as could be seen by  the detectives and judges eagerly listened to “the most improbable statements implicating Jews, while Christian witnesses withheld important testimony.”

 
1901 Australia opens its first parliament in Melbourne. Elias Solomon, a native of London who became an auctioneer in Freemantle was among the members of the first parliament having won the Australian House Representative seat of Fremantle for the Free Trade Party

 
1901: Sir Isaac Isaacs began serving as a Member of the Australian Party representing the Division of Indi which is located in north-eastern Victoria. This is but one of many governmental positions that Isaacs held during a long career dedicated to public service. 

 
1901: Together with David Wolffsohn and Oskar Marmorek, Theodor Herzl traveled to Constantinople in his quest to gain support from the Sultan for a Jewish homeland in Eretz Israel. The trip will last until May 23.

 
1904(24thof Iyar, 5664): Hungarian born actress Jenny Gross who made her debut in 1878 in Vienna passed away today in Berlin.

 
1904: Nissan Katzenelson visited Herzl in Franzensbad and reports the results of his trip to London. Jacob Schiff had declared himself ready to negotiate a loan for Russia if it proved to do something for the Jews.

 
1911: The Vatican placed the works of Italian author Gabriele D'Annunzio in the Index of Forbidden Books.The Index Librorum Prohibitorum The List of Prohibited Books or The Index Librorum Prohibitorum, a list of publications prohibited by the Catholic Church was begun in the 16th century under Pope Paul IV.  Pope Paul VI finally discontinued it in 1966.  The lengthy list of forbidden includes some names that are not surprising including Martin Luther, Voltaire and Rabelais. Among the few “Jewish” names are Maimonides, Spinoza and Heine.  Mein Kampf never made the List of Prohibited Books!

 
1915: According to reports received by Provisional Executive Committee for General Zionist Affairs in London, Henry Morgenthau, the United States Ambassador to Turkey, has been successful in his attempts to halt, at least temporarily, actions by the Turkish government which were proving to be inimical to the Zionist settlements and Jewish communities in Palestine.

 
1916: The British and the French finalize the Sykes-Picot Agreement.  This was a secret treaty between the French and the British concerning the dismemberment of Turkey that would take place once World War I would come to a close.  France was to gain control over most of what is now Syria and Lebanon.  Britain would control what is now Jordan, Iraq and effectively Saudi Arabia.  The British were also to control a small enclave around Haifa.  The rest of what is now Israel and the West Bank was to be under some form of international control.  This secret agreement contradicted Allied promises that would be made to the Jews and the Arabs later during the war.  The treaty became public after the Russian Revolution when Lenin released the archives of the former Russian government to public view.  In part, the Middle East is still living with the end product of imperial duplicity as typified by the work of Sykes and Picot.

 
1917: Birthdate of Fay Mitchell who as Fay Kanin the wife of Michael Kanin was “half of the husband-and-wife team that wrote the Clark Gable-Doris Day comedy “Teacher’s Pet” and the writer of television movies including Emmy-winning vehicles for Maureen Stapleton and Carol Burnett…´(As reported by Alean Harmetz)

 
1918: In Brookline, MA, “Zina Wallik, who had come to the United States from a Russian shtetl before the turn of the 20th century” gave birth to Myron Leon Wallace who gained fame as American broadcast journalist Mike Wallace.

 
1920: Birthdate of Philip Klass, the London native who gained fame as American science fiction writer William Tenn.

 
1921(1st of Iyar, 5681): Rosh Chodesh Iyar


1921: Birthdate of Sophie Scholl, a member of the White Rose resistance group whom the Nazis was executed by guillotine. Scholl was a Lutheran, a truly Righteous Gentile who did what she could to stop Hitler
 
1926(25thof Iyar, 5686): Seventy-five year old Oscar Solomon Strauss passed away. A successful businessman he served two tours as U.S. Minister to the Ottoman Empire and was Teddy Roosevelt’s choice to serve as Secretary of Commerce and Labor making him the first Jew to serve as a Cabinet Secretary.

1930: Birthdate of Mordechai “Motta” Gur who commanded the division that reunited Jerusalem in 1967 and served 10th Chief of Staff of the IDF.



1931(22nd of Iyar, 5691): Nobel Prize Winner, Albert Abraham Michelson passed away.  Born in Prussia in 1852, Michelson came to the U.S. two years later.  He grew up in San Francisco graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1873, something highly unusual for a Jewish youth of his day.  After finishing his naval career, Michelson went to enjoy a distinguished career in the United States and Europe as a physicist with a specialty in optics.  He won the Nobel Prize in 1907.  He was 87 at the time of his death.



1931: Birthdate of Tel Aviv native and Israeli politician Amnon Rubinstein.

 
1935:The American Jewish Olympic team arrived in New York today on the Italian liner Conte di Savoia. The United States athletes were returning from the second World Maccabiah staged at Tel-Aviv, Palestine

1936: The world takes another step toward a general war when Italy formally annexed Ethiopia after taking the capital Addis Ababa.  The Western Powers did nothing to stop the Italian dictator and the League of Nations was totally helpless in stopping Mussolini. This lack of will and impotence gave Hitler further proof that he could swallow up much of Europe without firing a shot.  Orde Wingate, the British officer who would play a critical role in the liberation of Ethiopia was serving in Palestine and was one of the few British officers who sympathized with the Jewish settlers and helped train them in self-defense when they came under attack from armed Arab gangs bent on mayhem and murder.

 
1937: For the second day in a row, Jews in Grabow were beaten by a mob angered at reports that Pole had been stabbed in an altercation with a Jew.

 
1938: The Arabs continued their boycott of the Partition Commission and refused to meet personally with the British officials.  But they did submit a memorandum to the commission today rejecting any “scheme” that would result in partition.  They demanded an entity in which the Jews “would remain a minority” with what are called “full guarantees.”

1938: La Acion, the Judeo-Spanish newspaper of Salonica wrote that the community of Salonica had never been richer with the public property have a value totaling 2,000,000 Drachmas.

 
1938: The Palestine Postreported that the 101st Session of the League of Nations opened with a negative balance of unsolved problems like the Italian occupation of Ethiopia, the German occupation of Austria and the Japanese invasion of China. The German and Italian intervention in Spain, where they fought against the democratically-elected government and the steadily growing refuge problem also figured high on the League's distressing agenda.

 
1939: The Rothschild-Hadassah University Hospital and Medical Center was opened on Mt. Scopus. Mt. Scopus would be cut off from the Jewish held section of Jerusalem at the end of the War for Independence.  When the city was re-united, Mt. Scopus again became part of Israel and Jewish institutions were re-built and revitalized.

 
1942: Belgrade becomes the first Axis-conquered city to murder or eliminate its Jewish Population, largely with the help of Serbian collaborators.

 
1942: The first deportation train set out from Eisenach for the Belzyce Ghetto
1942: The Jews of Markuszow, Poland, led by Shlomo Goldwasser, Mordechai Kirshenbaum, and the brothers Yaakov and Yerucham Gothelf, escaped to nearby forests.

 
1942: American poet Ezra Pound, who was working for the Fascist Italian government, broadcasted from Italy: "You would do better to inoculate your children with typhus and syphilis" than allow more Jews into the United States. America, Pound continues, is ruled by Jews and their allies, who are "the dirtiest dirt from the bottom of the Jew's ash can."
 
1943: On the eve of the 10th anniversary of a mass book burning in Nazi Germany, Wendell Willkie, the 1940 Republican nominee for President of the United States, declared that the Nazis, “arrogant with power…burned books which contained the accumulated the truth of centuries.”  However, “those very flames lit horizons of the spirit everywhere and today liberty-loving men are united to wipe out the forces of barbarism and brutality – forces which cannot live where men read books.” (Willkie’s sentiment are a case of war driven revisionism since  Americans did not see the threat of the Nazis until after the attack on Pearl Harbor and even then for many it was a reluctant realization.)

 
1943(4th of Iyar, 5703): The Skalat, Ukraine, Jewish community is destroyed.

 
1945: Friedrich Krüger, an SS-Obergruppenführerresponsible for mass exterminations of Polish Jews, committed suicide.

 
1945: On the day after World War II ended in Europe, Captain Bo Foster flew captured Nazi leader Hermann Goering to the U.S. 7th Army’s headquarters for interrogation.  Foster and a group of officers from the Army's 36th Infantry Division gathered on a tiny airstrip outside Kitzbuhel, Austria, to transport the highly-prized war prisoner back to Germany in an unarmed, two-man reconnaissance plane. Then he took one look at the one-time heir to Adolf Hitler and commander of the fearsome Luftwaffe — all 300-plus pounds (136-plus kilos) of him — and knew he needed a bigger plane. According to Foster, "They wanted to get him back where he could be debriefed. There was a strong rumor that in a mountainside in the Alps right down there in Bavaria there was a concentration of (German) military," Foster said. "He just acted as though it was a nice, friendly trip." Goering, 52, had surrendered to the US Army's 36th Infantry Division the day before. He had fallen out of favor with Hitler and hadn't played an active role at the end of the war, though he remained Reichsmarschall of Nazi Germany. Before his capture, Goering wrote a letter to Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, offering to work with Eisenhower on the conditions of the German army's surrender, according to an account of Goering's capture by Brigadier Gen. Robert Stack kept by the 36th Infantry Division Association. After receiving the letter, Stack and a group of soldiers drove from the division's base near Kitzbuhel across the border into Germany and intercepted a convoy that included Goering, his wife, daughter, sister-in-law, household servants and military aides, according to the account. Goering agreed to surrender unconditionally but asked that his family be cared for, and the Nazi leader was delivered to Foster for transport the next day. The 33 year-old Foster didn't fear getting shot down carrying such precious cargo alone in an unescorted, unarmed plane. He didn't worry about Goering taking advantage of the lack of a guard to wrest control of the aircraft. The main problem was getting the two of them off the ground — the nimble, lightweight Piper L4 that Foster piloted in his artillery spotting missions wouldn't support both him and Goering. But the division only had the small airstrip that was fine for Foster's aircraft, but was problematic for taking off and landing larger planes. They'd have to upgrade to the one L5 in the division's inventory, a slightly larger aircraft Foster hadn't flown in years. Goering stood on the tiny airstrip in a plain, gray uniform that was unadorned but for a pistol at his hip and a medal around his neck. Still wearing the pistol, he stepped toward the plane. A Goering aide emerged from the group that had gathered and relieved Goering of the weapon. The Nazi leader settled into the back seat and tried to fasten his seat belt. It wouldn't stretch across his belly. He held the strap in his hand, looked at Foster and said, "Das goot!"— that's good. The two men spent the 55-minute flight from Kitzbuhel to Augsburg, Germany, conversing in a mix of German and English. Goering asked Foster to avoid any talk of Hitler or the war but appeared to relish pointing out the sites below them. In a letter to his wife, Virginia Lou Foster, written soon after the mission, Foster told her that the Nazi leader was "effeminate" and "gave me the creeps." [Foster returned to Montanan where he became a General in the National Guard and was awarded the French Legion of Honor for his World War II service.  (As reported in the Jerusalem Post)

 
1945: Due to quirk of time zones, in the Soviet the ninth and not the eighth of May is the official end of WW II.

 
1948: Pinchas Ben Porat “was one of ten pilots who left Israel to enroll in Avia S-199 training in Czechoslovakia.”

 
1949: Birthdate of singer, piano player, Billy Joel.

 
1956: Outfielder Cal Abrams played his last major league baseball game with the Chicago White Sox.

 
1957: The Libyan government issued a decree ordering all Libyan Jews with relatives in Israel to register with the Libyan boycott Office, the main pressure group opposed trade with Israel.  Since more than ninety per cent of Libyan Jews had left the country between 1949 and 1952, this decree applies to almost every Jewish family in Libya." (In Ishmael's House by Martin Gilbert)

 
1959(1stof Iyar, 5719): Rosh Chodesh Iyar

 
1959: Hank Greenberg resigned from the Chicago White Sox. Following his successful career as a baseball player, Greenberg became an equally successful executive.  He was the general manager of the 1954 Cleveland Indians that broke the Yankee's pennant winning streak.  He then became a part-owner and executive of the Chicago White Sox who beat the Yanks for the pennant in 1959.  Greenberg left baseball to become a successful investment banker.

 
1961: “Fiorello!” a musical about New York’s most famous mayor who spoke Yiddish when he campaigned for Congress moved from the Broadhurst Theatre to the Broadway Theatre where it continued its first run on Broadway.

 
1962(5thof Iyar, 5722): Yom HaAtma’ut

 
1965: Birthdate of journalist Mark Leibovich who “is the chief national correspondent for the New York Times Magazine.”

 
1972: A day after Sabena Flight 571 was hijacked by four terrorists from Black September demanding the release of 315 convicted Palestinian terrorists in exchange for the passengers, a rescue mission was mounted.  A group of commandos led by Ehud Barak that included Benjamin Netanyahu took back control of the plane, free the passengers with the loss of only one life, not counting the two dead terrorists.


1973(7th of Iyar, 5733:Comedian Jack E Leonard passed away.  Born Leonard Lebitsky in Chicago, Illinois, Leonard was a heavy-set, cigar-smoking practitioner of an aggressive form of humor.  His movie credits included the “Disorderly Orderly,” “The Fat Spy,” and “Target: Harry.”
1975(28th of Iyar, 5735): Yom Yerushalayim


1976: Anne Bernays received the Edward Lewis Wallant Book Award for her novel, "Growing Up Rich,"


1978 -The Jerusalem Post reported that a clear consensus developed in the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee in support of a compromise, proposed by the former Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, which paved the way for the sale of 60 F-15 fighters to Saudi Arabia. The Senate agreed to support this sale, provided that the Administration agreed to increase the number of planes slated for Israel.


1979(12th of Iyar, 5739): Habib Elghanian “ a prominent Iranian Jewish businessman and philanthropist who served as the president of the Tehran Jewish Society and acted as the symbolic head of the Iranian Jewish community in the 1970s” was executed by a firing squad after having been convicted by an Islamist Court.

 
1981: Rabbi David Posner of Temple Emanu-El officiated at the marriage ceremony of Celine Leah Perle and Jeffery Martin Sinaw which was held in his study.


1982: In “Oppenheimer – Examining the Scientist’s Relationship With Society,” Michael Billington reviews ‘Oppenheimer,’ an upcoming television mini-series that provides a portrait of the complex Jewish-American who was known as the father of the atomic bomb and who lost his security clearance during the Red Scare.

1984(7th of Iyar, 5744): Eighty-three year old Israeli writer and poet Miriam Yalan-Shteklis passed away today.

 
1986(30th of Nisan, 5746): Rosh Chodesh Iyar


1986(30th of Nisan, 5746): Herschel Bernardi passed away at the age of 62. Born in New York in 1923, Bernardi came from a long line of Yiddish performers.  According to one legend, it was his mother's portrayal of a character called Yente that moved that term from a proper name to a descriptive term.  As an actor, Bernardi had trouble finding work outside of ethnic productions and because of his political views which led to him being blacklisted in the 1950's.  His career finally took off when played Lt. Jacoby, on the hit detective series "Peter Gunn" a role for which he won an Emmy.  Bernardi's unique voice made him the voice for Charlie the Tuna and the Jolly Green Giant.  He was the second actor to play Tevye in the Broadway hit "Fiddler on the Roof." 

 
1987(10thof Iyar, 57467): American financier and national president of the Boy Scouts of America, John Mortimer Schiff passed away. (As reported by William G. Blair)

 
1989(4thof Iyar, 5749): Yom HaZikaron

 
1992: Final episode of the Golden Girls

 
1993: “2 Views of a Horror” published today described differing views of the Holocaust held by Israelis and Americans.

 
1994(28th of Iyar, 5754): Yom Yerushalayim

 
1996:Pursuant to Article VII of the Interim Agreement on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, dated September 28, 1995, the Israelis and the Palestinians agree to the establishment of a Temporary International Presence in the city of Hebron ("TIPH"). This agreement will remain in force until such time as Israeli forces redeploy from Hebron, whereupon it will be superseded by a new agreement to be negotiated by the two sides and the TIPH established by this Agreement will be replaced by a new TIPH to be established under the new agreement ("the new TIPH").

 
1997: In a story entitled “Saga of Yanov Torah recounted at Yom Hashoah Rites,” the San Diego Jewish Press Heritage recounts Rabbi Erwin Herman’s moving story of the Yanov Torah and how it how survived the Holocaust and found a home in this southern California metropolis

 
1999: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers includingBetty Friedan. And the Making of 'The Feminine Mystique': The American Left, the Cold War, and Modern Feminism by Daniel Horowitz and Betty Friedan: Her Life by Judith Nennessee.  

 
1999: In “Family Politics,” published today, Aaron L. Friedberg examined the Madeline Albright’s reaction to revelation about the Jews in her family tree.

 
2001: The bodies of two Israeli teenagers – Yaakov “Koby Mandell and Yosef Ishran  - who had been kidnapped yesterday were found in a cave in the Judean Desert near their home which was covered with the boy’s blood “reportedly smeared by their killers” who had bound them, stabbed them and beaten them to death with rocks.

 
2002: The 38-day stand-off in the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem came to an end when the Palestinians inside agreed to have 13 suspected terrorists among them deported to several different countries. The terrorists had taken over the Christian shrine as they were pursued by Israeli security forces.  Interestingly there was no complaint by Christian leaders over this desecration of one of their holy places.

 
2003: “Leaders Honor Ghetto Fighters” published today described a joint tribute that the Presidents of Israel and Poland paid to those who fought in the 1943 uprising.


 
2004(18th of Iyar, 5764): Lag B’Omer

 
2004(18th of Iyar, 5764): Comedian Alan King passed away.  “It’s not how long you lived, but how well you lived.” (As reported by Bruce Weber)

 
2004: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Our Mothers' War': The Just-as-Great Generationby Laura Shapiro.

 
2006: At New York’s Congregation B’nai Jeshurun, Rabbi Joseph Telushkin delivers a lecture on his new book A Code of Jewish Ethics followed by a book party and book signing.

 
2006(11th of Iyar, 5766):Ruth Gay, a writer known for her nonfiction books documenting Jewish life in the Old World and the New, died in the Bronx. She was 83 and lived in Manhattan. She had been suffering from leukemia, and died at Calvary Hospital, her family said. Ms. Gay's books include "Safe Among the Germans: Liberated Jews After World War II" (Yale University, 2002), which dealt with a little-studied subject: the more than 250,000 Jews who returned to Allied-occupied Germany in the immediate aftermath of World War II. She also wrote "The Jews of Germany: A Historical Portrait" (Yale University, 1992), which chronicled Jewish life in Germany from the fall of Jerusalem in A.D. 70 to the rise of Hitler in 1933. (As Reported by Margalit Fox)

 

2006:Israeli archaeologists working for Israel's Antiquities Authority announced today that they have uncovered a large concentration of stone utensils on the southeastern rim of the city which were used by prehistoric man hundreds of thousands of years ago.  According to The Jerusalem Post, “antiquities were uncovered during a routine archaeological supervision at a building site near Kibbutz Ramat Rachel. A subsequent excavation carried out at the site in the wake of the find uncovered hundreds of such utensils, which archaeologists date to the Middle Paleolithic Period, some 50,000-200,000 years ago. The reason for the stone-age settlement at the site was apparently its proximity to exposed rock from which the men made their tools, according to Omri Barzilai and Michal Birkenfeld, the two archaeologists heading the dig. "It is logical to assume that man during this period subsisted by hunting animals and by collecting wild plants, and that he did not remain in one permanent place but wandered from place to place in search of important resources such as food and water," the archaeologists said. Although history-rich Jerusalem is immersed in archaeology from the Biblical period onwards, archaeologists have previously found only two other sites in the city - near Mount Scopus and on Emek Refaim Street - that date so far back.”

 
2007: As part of Jewish Heritage Month, the National Archives presentedThe Rape of Europa, a feature documentary that tells of the systematic theft, deliberate destruction, and miraculous survival of Europe’s art treasures during the Second World War. The film skillfully interweaves the history of Nazi art looting with contemporary stories of restitution. Tonight, following a screening of the 117-minute film, a distinguished panel will participate in a discussion and a question-and-answer session with the audience. Panelists include Lynn Nicholas, author of The Rape of Europa,” the award-winning book on which the film is based; Robert M. Edsel, author of Rescuing Da Vinci and a co-producer of the film; and Michael J. Kurtz, Assistant Archivist for Records Services at the National Archives.

 
2007: Students from Beit Hannah participate in the main ceremony on Karl Marx Boulevard in Dnipropetrovsk, Ukraine, commemorating the victory over the Nazis in 1945.

 
2007: “Under Pressure, New Rep Cancels Play” describes the cancellation of “To Pay the Price” about the Raid on Entebbe because it was going to be paired with “My Name Is Rachel Corrie.”  The pressure came from the family of Yoni Netanyahu, the only person killed when Israeli commandos rescued Jewish hostages being held by Arab terrorists.

 
2007: In an article entitled A Life Made Out of Wood, Metal and Determination,” Andreak K. Scott reviews an exhibition styled “The Sculpture of Louise Nevelson: Constructing a Legend,” a compact survey of 66 works organized by Brooke Kamin Rapaport for the Jewish Museum which is her first New York museum show in 27 years and examines the career of this late-blooming artist.“Life isn’t one straight line. Most of us have to be transplanted, like a tree, before we blossom.”

 
2008: The Holocaust memorial in Berlin hosts a classical concert on the third anniversary of its opening.

2008(4th of Iyar, 5768): Two IDF soldiers, residents of Kiryat Arba, were murdered whilst hiking in the Telem Valley. The Israelis, Ahikam Amihai and David Rubin, were shot and killed by Palestinian terrorists who fired from a passing car.



2008(4th of Iyar, 5768): In Tel Aviv, Shmuel Katz, who was a close adviser to Menachem Begin, Israel’s prime minister in the late 1970s and early 1980s, but who later became a vociferous opponent of Begin’s peace efforts with Egypt and the Palestinians, passed away at the age of 93.



2009(15th of Iyar, 5769): Noted editor and author David Marcus, the County Cork native whose work included To Next Year in Jerusalem, Who Ever Heard of an Irish Jew? and Other Short Stories and Oughtobioraphy – Leaves From the Diary of a Hyphenated Jew.
http://www.irishwriters-online.com/marcus-david/


 
2009: Canadian born tennis pro Sharon Fichman who also holds Israeli citizenship was the “runner-u[“ in the Portugal Open, clay court tournament played in Estroril, Portugal.



2009: The Jacob’s Ladder Spring Festival comes to a close.

 
2009: As part of the Shabbat Lecture Series, the 92nd Street Y presents “Jewish Giants of the American Songbook: Rodgers and Hammerstein” which examines the collaboration that produced a series of musicals that began with adaption of “Green Grow the Lilacs” into “Oklahoma” and continued with  Carousel, The King and I, South Pacific and The Sound of Music.

 
2009: “The Man That Got Away: After Ira, George” opens at the 92ndStreet Y in New York.

 
2010: Fradle Freidenreich is scheduled to lead a panel discussion entitled “More Than a Book Launch...Passionate Pioneers: The Story of Yiddish Secular Education in North America, 1910-1960” at the Center for Jewish History.”

 
2010: In honor of Yom Yerushalayim, Young Israel of Southfield (Michigan) is scheduled to show “Alone on the Ramparts,” a film that tells the story of the battle for Jerusalem during the War of Independence.

 
2010: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Trials of the Diaspora:A History of Anti-Semitism in England by Anthony Julius, Heidegger: The Introduction of Nazism Into Philosophy in Light of the Unpublished Seminars of 1933-1935 by Emmanuel Faye, Stranger From Abroad:Hannah Arendt, Martin Heidegger, Friendship and Forgiveness by Daniel Maier-Katkin, The Life of Irene Nemirovsky: 1903-1942 by Olivier Philipponnat and Patrick Lienhardt, Dimanche And Other Stories by Irène Némirovsky and The Crisis of Capitalist Democracy by Richard A. Posner.
 
2010:The Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial institution is scheduled to hold a ceremony marking the 65th anniversary of the Allied victory over Nazi Germany beginning at 5:00 p.m. this evening at the Yad Vashem's Memorial to the Jewish Soldiers and Partisans.
 
2010:The Obama administration announced today that indirect, American-brokered talks had resumed between Israel and the Palestinians, capping a year of efforts by Washington to revive the peace process.

 
2011:The Center for Jewish History, American Society for Jewish Music and Center for Traditional Music and Dance are scheduled to  present: The Weimar Klezmer Republic: Creating a Center for Yiddish Culture in Germany

 
2011(5th of Iyar, 5771): Seventy-two year old television news director Dennis Gralnick passed away. (As reported by Dennis Hevesi)

 
2011(5th of Iyar, 5771): Yom Hazikaron – Israel Remembrance Day

 
2011: At 11 AM today a two-minute siren sounded throughout the country to mark Memorial Day, followed by ceremonies at Israel's 44 military cemeteries.

 
2011:The 2011 Independence Day ceremony is scheduled to take place at Mount Herzl in Jerusalem. Among the torch lighters are Orit Dror, a member of Kibbutz Lavi who, together with her husband, donated her son's organs after he died of a terminal illness, and saved the life of a 13-year-old girl; Zehava Dankner (mother of businessman Nochi Dankner), a philanthropist who supported, among others, residents surrounding Gaza, and who is involved in matters of education, security and health; Barbra Goldstein, a representative of Hadassah, the women's Zionist organization of America, which is marking its 100th anniversary this year; Yovi Tsuma, a social activist who participates in a group of young Ethiopian volunteers who help members of the immigrant community who have encountered difficulties in absorption; and Rabbi Shimon Rosenberg, a member of the Chabad movement, who lost his daughter and son in law in the November 2008 terrorist attack at the Chabad house in Mumbai. This annual ceremony in Jerusalem that marks the transition from the solemn Yom Hazicharon (Memorial Day) to the joyous Yom Ha'atzmaut (Independence Day.)

 
2011:Moshe Cohen, director of Heichal Hatora – an Orthodox Jewish Day School in Buenos Aires - was hit in the head with an iron bar as his assailant shouted "Jew, Jew." Cohen was hospitalized with a serious head injury. The attacker was arrested. Buenos Aires was the scene of one of the most murderous attacks on Jewish civilians outside of Israel.

 
2012(16th of Iyar, 5572): Eight-four year old Vidal Sassoon passed away today (As reported by Bruce Weber)

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/10/fashion/vidal-sassoon-hairdresser-and-trendsetter-dies-at-84.html?pagewanted=print



 

2012: Kadima council chairman Haim Ramon marred the celebrations in the party over its chairman Shaul Mofaz’s joining the cabinet today, when he sent Mofaz a fiercely worded letter announcing that he was quitting his post and leaving the party altogether. (As reported by Gil Hoffman)


2012:A special benefit concert for Woman to Woman - The Jerusalem Shelter for Battered Women is scheduled to take place at the City Winery in New York City.


2012: The Leo Baeck Institute is scheduled to present “Autobiography and Biography: Herzl, Freud, and Stefan Zweig, during which Professor Mark Gelber is scheduled to discuss Stefan Zweig’s brilliant but problematic depictions of Herzl (and Zionism) and Freud (psychoanalysis, anti-Semitism, and Jewish survival) in his late autobiographical work written predominantly during the period of his American exile, The World of Yesterday

2012:Dr. Erica Brown is scheduled to address the annual meeting of The Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington.


2012: “Barbara Bain Remains ‘Love Struck’ When It Comes To Theatre” published today describes the career of the Emmy award winning actress who will be forever remember for her role in “Mission Impossible.


2012:The Jewish Historical Society of New Jersey is scheduled to sponsor a public forum titled "Jews and Jazz" in Whippany, NJ.


2012: The 2nd Annual Cleveland’s Funniest Rabbi Contest and Lag B’omer Celebration is scheduled to take place tonight at the Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage.


2012: The United States-Israel Enhanced Security Cooperation Act of 2012, which was sponsored by House Majority Leader Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.) and House Minority Whip Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), passed today by a vote of 411-2


2013:The National Archives will show the Academy Award-winning HBO documentary of Gerda Weissman’s life, “One Survivor Remembers” and then the celebrated author, 2010 Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient, and Holocaust survivor will discuss the film after the screening.


2013: Shiva minyan for Miles Lane, the brother of Harriet Gasway and the brother-in-law of Bill Gasway as held this evening in Cedar Rapids.


2013: The Skirball Center for Adult Center for Jewish Learning is scheduled to present a lecture by /Dr. Avivah  Gottlieb  Zornberg entitled “To  Be or Not to Be: A Tale of Five Sisters” based on Torah narrative about the five daughters of Zelofchad.


2013: Researchers from Tel Aviv University are tentatively positing that they may have discovered the origin of Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia. Despite immense amounts of research into dementia and other cognitive diseases that affect vast numbers of people around the world, and significant progress in addressing the illnesses, there are no known cures. The Israeli research points at a protein in the brain called tomosyn as a possible key to the diseases, Israel Radio reported today.


2013:Criticism of Finance Minister Yair Lapid’s proposed budget cuts and tax hikes mounted today, with social protest groups announcing two planned demonstrations against perceived violations of Lapid’s pre-election campaign promises.


2013(29thof Iyar, 5773): Eighty-seven year old Alan Abelson the former editor of Barron’s and iconoclastic business columnist passed away today. (As reported by Douglas Martin)


2013(29thof Iyar, 5773): Ninety-three year old Baruch Spiegel, “one of the last surviving” Warsaw Ghetto fighters passed away today in Montreal.


2014: “The Wonders” and “Joe Papp in Five Acts” are scheduled to be shown at the National Center for Jewish Film’s 17th annual Film Festival.


2014: Noah Thalblum and Curtis Litow are scheduled to “share their respective about their experiences in Israel last summer” as Temple Judah in Cedar Rapids celebrates another year of Israeli independence
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