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This Day, May 10, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. Levin

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May 10


70: During the Siege of Jerusalem, Titus, the commander of the Roman legions and the son of Emperor Vespasian, opens a full-scale assault on Jerusalem and attacks the city's Third Wall to the northwest.

1013: After three long years of fighting which destroyed the cities of Jaen, Algecrias, Malaga and Valencia, the Muslim Berber tribesmen from North Africa took over the city of Cordoba, replacing the Umayyad Arabs. This shift in power did not have a negative impact on the Jewish population of Moorish Spain as they continued to play a similar role in the more decentralized world of the Berbers.

1267: A Church synod, meeting in Vienna, ordered Jews to wear distinctive garb.

1427: All Jews were ordered expelled from Berne, Switzerland. Expulsions of Jewish communities continued unabated throughout the 15th century: Treves, 1419; duchy of Austria, 1421; Cologne, 1424; Zurich, 1436; archbishopric of Hildesheim, 1457; Schaffhausen, 1472; Mayence, 1473; Warsaw, 1483; Geneva, 1490; Thurgau, 1491; Spain, Sicily, Sardinia, Lithuania, 1492; Mecklenburg and Arles, 1493; Portugal, 1497; Nuremberg 1499; Provence, 1500. 

1484(15th of Iyar): First auto-da-fe was held in Saragosa, Spain.

1484: The Inquisitor at Saragossa, General Gaspar Juglar was found dead, possibly the victim of a poisoning. This happened shortly after the first auto-de-fe took place in the city.

1529: Suleiman the Magnificent launched his campaign to secure control of Hungary.  The campaign would lead to the unsuccessful siege of Vienna in the fall which would mark the high-water mark of Turkish attempts to take control of Europe with all that that would mean for Christians, Moslems and especially Jews.

1655: The British capture Jamaica from Spanish opening the door for Jews to settle in the island colony.

1682(2ndof Iyar, 5442): The largest auto da fe was held in Lisbon: One hundred and seventeen persons were judged within three days, including a ninety-one year old woman.

1682(2ndof Iyar, 5442): Abraham Lopez Pereira and Isaac da Fonseca were burned at the stake.

1774:Abraham Solomon married Elizabeth Low at Marblehead, Massachusetts.  Solomon was Jewish, a fact reinforced by the fact that he signed his name in Hebrew on the muster roll so that he could receive his pay while serving in the Continental Army. 

1774:  Louis XVI begins his reign as King of France.  Basically, Louis followed the policy of his predecessors when it came to the Jews of France.  “The established, finance ally comfortable Sephardim of Bordeaux, Bayonneand Marseilles” enjoyed the privileges granted by Louis XV.  “These privileges had been purchased with a ll0, 000-livres payment in honor of his coronation.” The Ashkenazi community of Alsacesuffered the abuse and taxation that had been their lot since the days of Louis XIV.  Of course part of this difference in treatment may have been caused by the fact that Alsace was Germanic province that France had taken as a spoil of war.  The French were always suspicious of those living in this border province, Jew and non-Jew alike.

1789: Birthdate of Jared Sparks, the American historian, Unitarian Minister and President of Harvard who “became interested in Haym Solomon’s career and validated the importance of the Jewish businessman to the American revolution when he wrote “that Salomon’s associations with Robert Morris ‘were very close and intimate and that a great part of the success that Mr. Morris attained in his financial schemes was to the skill and ability of Haym Solomon.’”

1799: French troops under Napoleon make one last assault in their futile attempt to conquer Acre.  If the assault had succeeded would history have been changed?  Would Bonaparte have honored the grandiose statements about making Palestine a home for the Jews?  Given his “inconsistency” in other areas, it would probably have depended on his needs at the time.  


 

1801: Birthdate of Paul Tulane the businessman whose endowment paved the way for the renaming of the university which was originally known as the Medical College of Louisiana to Tulane University whose many Jewish graduates include Professor Stephen Whitfield.  As of 2009, Tulane’s Jewish population ranked number 9 in a list of 30 private universities. Tulane is home to a Jewish Studies Department that has been led by the distinguished author and educator Professor Brian Horowitz.

1801: American involvement in the Middle East would begin when the Barbary Pirates of Tripoli (North Africa, not Lebanon) declares war against the United States in what became known as the First Barbary War.  American Jews first became involved in the area when Colonel David Franks negotiated a treaty with Moroccoback in 1786.  Jewish involvement would continue when President Madison sent Mordecai Manuel Noah to negotiate with Tunisia based Barbary Pirates for the release of imprisoned American sailors in 1813.  The appointment of Noah “helped establish a tradition of appointing American Jews to Middle Eastern diplomatic posts.  (For more about this fascinating intersection of American and Jewish history see Power, Faith and Fantasy by Michael B. Oren.)

1808: The Westphalian chief of police, a French official named Savagner, entered “The Green Shield.”  The Green Shield was both the home and the business center for Rothschild in Frankfurt.  Savagner and the troopers, who accompanied him, searched the premises looking for proof that Rothschild was plotting with Whilhelm.

1810(6th of Iyar): Rabbi Joshua Ha-Kohen Perahyah, author of Vayikra Yehoshua passed away today

1816: Birthdate of Joseph Mayer Montefiore, the native of London who was a nephew of Sir Moses Montefiore

1813: Birthdate of Gustav Christian Schwabe a German-born British “merchant and financier who funded companies such as John Bibby & Sons, Harland and Wolff and the White Star Line.”  At the age of six, Schwabe and his family “were forced to convert to Lutheranism.”

1837: As the Panic of 1837 (a 19th century version of the 20thcentury Great Depression) worsens banks in New York fail and unemployment reaches record levels. Some Jews prospered during this period while others struggled. Isaiah Moses, a South Carolina merchant and planter was forced to borrow money from Beth Elohim’s charity fund, Karen Kayemet to help maintain his lifestyle. On the other hand August Belmont, representing the Rothschilds, arrived in New York during the Panic. He used his newly created August Belmont & Company to reform and improve the business interests of the House of Rothschild over the next five years.

1843: Birthdate of Rabbi Kaufmann Kohler, leader of the Reform Movement in the United States.  Born and educated in Germany, Kohler came to the United Statesin 1869 to serve as Rabbi at Congregation Beth El in Detroit.  The following year he married the daughter of Dr. David Einhorn, the Rabbi at Congregation Beth El in New York and the leading Reform rabbi of his day.  Kohler followed his father-in-law in that position and supported his views when he helped write the 1885 Reform Platform.  He was elected President of Hebrew Union College and died in 1926.

1849(18th of Iyar, 5609): Lag B'Omer

1849: Bernard Sondheim served with the Tenth Regiment of New York State Militia when it quelled the Astor Place Riot, also known as the Forrest-Maready Riots, a unique outbreak of public violence caused by competing fans of two different thespians.

1855: A group of Jews who have converted to Christianity are scheduled to meet tonight at the Asbury Methodist Episcopal Church in Manhattan under the auspices of the American Hebrew Christian Association.

1861: Secretary of War Cameron and President Lincoln officially accepted Major Mordecai's resignation thus ending a 38 year military career of what was at that time, the highest ranking Jewish officer in the U.S. Army

1866:  Birthdate of Leon Bakst.  Born Lev Rosenberg in what is now Belarus, Bakst “was a Russian painter and scene- and costume- designer who revolutionized the arts he worked in.” In 1893 he produced a self-portrait that hung in the Sate Russian Museum in, St. Petersburg. He passed away in 1924.

1868: In an article entitled “Mr. Disraeli and Judaism” the New York Timessummarized the view expressed by The Jewish Chronicle that Benjamin Disraeli has been a Christian since he was either five or six years old at which time a friend of Disraeli’s father took young Benjamin to a church in Hackney where he was baptized.

1869: The First Transcontinental Railroad, linking the eastern and western United States, is completed at Promontory Summit, Utah (not Promontory Point, Utah) with the golden spike. When the Union Pacific, one of the two companies building the railroad, entered Utah the Auberach brothers (Fred, Sam and Theodore) opened tent stores in Bryan, Wyoming and Promontory, Utah to meet the needs of the burgeoning population  The Auberachs were so successful that they opened a permanent store in Ogden, Utah in 1869 and Salt Lake City in 1873.
 
1872:  Birthdate of Marcel Mauss,“a French sociologist best known for his role in elaborating on and securing the legacy of his uncle, Émile Durkheim and the Annee Sociologique and the author of The Gift. He passed away in 1950.

1873: Myer Stern the President of the Hebrew Benevolent and Orphan Asylum Society and a trustee of Temple Emanu-El was among the mayor’s nominees for Commissioners of Charities and Correction in New York City. Born in 1824, Stern came to the United States at the age of 16 and has lived in New York since 1847.  “A large, robust vigorous-looking man with a rather pleasant expression,” Stern is a Reform Democrat who had the support of the Republicans when he ran for the State Senate.

1873: Levi Strauss and Jacob Davis received a patent for their unique manner of manufacturing jeans.
1874:Birthdate of Moses Schorr, a Polish Rabbi, Polish historian, politician, Bible scholar, Assyriologist and orientalist who died in Soviet prison camp in 1941.

1877:  Romania declares itself independent from Turkey.  Under the Treaty of Berlin signed in 1878, the Jews of Romania were to receive full citizenship. 

1877: The will of Henry Grass, a New York clothier who died in April, was filed in Surrogate’s Court today.  The estate was valued at $75,000. The will opened with an invocation “In the name of the God of Israel, Amen.”  Grass left $300 to his niece Jetha and a thousand dollars to the daughters of his brother Abraham “on condition that they ‘marry according to the Jewish law.’”  He left $100 bequests  to the Hebrew Benevolent and Orphan Asylum , Mout Sinai Hospital and the Hebrew congregation on 57th street between 1st and 2nd avenues.  He left one third of the residue of the estate to his wife Rebbeca and the remainder was to be divided equally among his six children.

1879: Today’s “Foreign News” column reported that there had been a massacre of Jews in Satschcheri in the Caucuses. At the beginning of April the body of a child was found in the woods. Seven Jews were accused by the Christian villagers of having killed the child and then having hid the body as part of their Easter Sacrifice.  The accused were taken before a local Judge who dismissed the charges after “a medical witness” testified that the child had died of natural causes and that the wounds on the body “were the work of wild animals.  The Jews celebrated their deliverance with a party which was interrupted by a an axe wielding Christian mob.  The mob, which had been incited by an Orthodox Priest broke into the house killing six of the Jews and injuring many more.

1879(17thof Iyar, 5639): Seventy-five year old Russian Hebrew scholar Benzion Berkowitz known for his study of the Targum Onkelos passed away today at Wilna.

1879: Based on information provided by a correspondent for the Neue Zilricher Zeitgung it was reported today that in the first week of April the Jews of Satschcheri had been massacred after the body of a Christian child had been found in the woods. Seven Jews were accused by the Christian villagers of having killed the child and hidden the body to be used in a holiday sacrifice. The district judge dismissed the charges because the medical witness said the child had died of natural causes and the wounds on the body had been inflicted by wild enemies. Ax-wielding Christian villagers attacked the Jews who were celebrating their deliverance, killing at least six and wounding several more.  The correspondent claimed that the local Greek Orthodox priest had incited the attack.


1881: Anti-Jewish riots broke out in Wasilkow and Konotop, Russia.

1882: Alliance, a Jewish agricultural settlement, was founded in New Jersey. Alliance was financed by Alliance Israelite Universelle headquartered in Paris. It was part of a movement to have Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe settle away from major metropolitan areas in the United States and Great Britain. 

1883: Birthdate of Eugen Leviné, the Russian born, German educated communist revolutionary.

1883: Anti-Jewish riots broke out in Craiova, Rumania.

1883: Josephine and 27 year old Henry Morgenthau, Sr. were wed today in New York City

1885(25thof Iyar, 5645): Seventy-three year old composer and conductor Ferdinand Hiller whose star pupil was Max Bruch the non-Jew who composed the cello elegy for Kol Nidrei passed away today.

1885: “Welcoming a New Rabbi” published today described the first service conducted by Rabbi Alexander Kohut at Temple Ahavath Chesed.  The Hungarian native had replaced another Hungarian native, Adolph Huebsch who passed away last October. In his opening sermon, Kohut paid tribute to his new home, promised to be an apostle of peace and spoke so movingly of his predecessors that some of the congregants were moved to tears.

1888(29th of Iyar, 5648): Sixty-five year old Michael Heilprin passed away.
1888: Birthdate of composer Maximilian Raoul Walter Steiner.  Max Steiner was born in Viennaand supposedly studied under Mahler.  He came to the United Statesin the 1930's, another refugee from Hitler's Europe.  He continued the career as a composer for films and produced musical themes for such films as “Casablanca,” “The Caine Mutiny” and “The Summer Place.”  His greatest contribution was the music for “Gone With the Wind.”  “Tara's Theme” is often voted one of the best movie themes of all time. Steiner passed away in 1971.

1890: It was reported today “the upper house of the Prussian Diet has adopted a resolution calling upon the government to remedy the evils arising from the large number of Jews in the public schools”  by excluding “the juvenile Jews while still taxing the adult Jews for the cost of public education.

1890: “Complaining of the Jews” published today described the reaction of Her von Gosler, the Minister of Public Instruction in Prussia to proposals that Jewish children be excluded from public schools.  He said that “such an attempt would force the nation in a position leading to disruption instead of union.”  To him, this is a matter of educational policy and not subject to “political demand.”

1891: “Tories Not So Happy Now” published today described the rising fortunes of the Liberal Party which is due in part to a return of the Jews to this political party.  “Under the glamour of Disraeli’s example it became quite the fashion for” Jews to join the Conservative Party. Now, as Jews are confronted with “outside persecution” they recall the debt they owe to the Liberal Party.  Among those leading the change are Baron de Stern and H.S. Leon, the son of clockmaker who has reportedly amassed a fortune of 15 million dollars and has sought to be a leader of the Anglo-Jewish community.

1891: The increase of this week’s issue of The Hebrew Standard from 16 to 24 pages is reported to be permanent.  The Hebrew Standard “is now the largest Jewish paper published in the United State. “It is intended to be a Jewish family paper” without any congregational affiliation.

1891: Nearly three hundred Jewish children were vaccinated today the Bureau of Contagious Diseases.

1892: “Strikes Turn Into Riots” published today described the violent attacks on the Jews of Lodz by workers who have been on strike since May Day. After attacking the mills where they had worked the strikers turned their wrath on the Jewish community which actively defended itself.  Local authorities could not quell the disturbance, but the military units called in showed their sympathy with the rioters and did not defend the Jews.

1893: Three people escaped being asphyxiated today at a tenement on Eldridge Street which is occupied by Jewish immigrants from Russia.

1893: In can only be described as a “starting” development, it was reported today that the Russian government to hold a meeting of Rabbis in the Autumn to discuss “the Jewish question.” This comes in the wake of the governments announced plan for expelling a million and half Jews living in the Polish part of the Russian Empire. 

1895: “Meeting of Jewish Woman’s Council” published today described the groups plans for holding a fundraising fair in December and a request from London to assist in establishing schools for Russian Jews who have moved to Jerusalem.

1899: Memorial services honoring the late Baroness Hirsch are scheduled to be held at the Hebrew Institute and Temple Emanu-El

1899: Birthdate of composer Dimitri Tiomkin.  Born in Russia, Tiomkin worked in lived in Western Europe before coming to the United States in the 1930's where enjoyed an almost unparalleled career writing scores for film productions. His credits include everything from Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, to Giant, to The High and The Mighty and the Guns of Navaronne.  One of his classic was the theme for the 1952 classic western, High Noon.  He won an Oscar for that one and Tex Ritter gained musical immortality for singing it.  His biggest contribution to television was theme for Rawhide.  He passed away in 1979, yet another Jew who helped create popular American culture.

1900: Austrian Prime Minister Ernest von Koerber delivered his “Language Bill” Speech which was entirely different than the one he had asked Herzl to write for him.  Herzl responded to this apparent slight by asking if the Prime Minister only valued his “secretarial services" or that he thought that Herzl wants “a decoration or something like that?” In fact, Herzl only wrote the speech as way of getting the Prime Minister to help him arrange a meeting with the Sultan of Turkey so that he could make a presentation on the benefits of creating a Jewish home in Palestine

1902: Birthdate of producer David O Selznick.  Born in Pittsburgh, he was the son of silent film director Lewis J. Selznick and later the son-in-law of MGM's Louis B. Mayer.  Selznick worked for MGMfor years before setting up his own production company.  While there are many films with the Selznick name on them, the most famous was the Academy Award winner, Gone With the Wind.  Selznick died in 1965.

1902: Birthdate of Antaole Litvak director of the film Anastasia

1903: Birthdate of philosopher Hans Jonas. Born and educated in Germany, Jonas would move to Eretz Israel 1933, join the British Army, serving as a combat soldier for five years, return to Israel to fight at the age of 45 as soldier in the War for Independence before moving to Canada and the United States where he wrote and taught until his death in 1993.

1906: Birthdate of New York mobster Abe "Kid Twist" Reles

1909: It was reported today that there is still a possibility that the million dollar bequest by the late Louis A. Heinsheimer may be given to six New York City Charities on condition that they form a federation.  Alfred M. Heinsheimer, the residuary legatee under the will, is trying to find a way to accomplish the descendant’s desires desipted the fact that Louis Stern, President of the Hebrew Orphan Asylum has expressed his continued opposition to the creation of such a federation.

1913: Seventieth birthday of Dr. Kaufmann Kohler who for twenty-four years was Rabbi of Temple Beth-El, at Fifth Avenue and Seventy-sixth Street andis now Honorary Rabbi of that congregation.

1914: Benjamin “Benny” Snyder murdered Philip “Pinchy” Paul “at the behest of ‘Joe the Greaser,’ and east side rival of ‘Dopey Benny’ Fein.  (All of these colorfully named characters are Jewish gangsters)

1919: Birthdate of Daniel Bolotsky, who gained fame as  “Daniel Bell,the writer, editor, sociologist and teacher who over seven decades came to epitomize the engaged intellectual as he struggled to reveal the past, comprehend the present and anticipate the future.” (As reported by Michael T. Kaufman)

1922: Birthdate of David Joshua Azrieli, CM, CQ the “Canadian builder, designer, architect, developer and philanthropist.”

1924:Dr. Kaufmann Kohler, President Emeritus of Hebrew Union College at Cincinnati, Honorary President of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, and known as one of the greatest Jewish scholars of America, celebrated his eighty-first birthday at his home at 2 West Eighty-eighth Street among a gathering of relatives, friends and scholarly disciples.

1926: A column entitled “Jew and Gentile” published in today in Time magazine provided the following portrait of the American Jewish Community in the middle of the Roaring 20’s which had come to include a genteel form of anti-Semitism at America’s leading universities

On the upper end of Manhattan Island there are arising some gorgeous, massive buildings in an Americanized Byzantine manner— rigid facades; a squatty dome; ornate yet severe decoration. They represent the first independent stand on education ever taken by Jewry in the 2,000 years of its exile. Out of the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary has grown the Yitzchok Elchanan Yeshivah, in which there will be the first Jewish college ever established in the U. S., equipped to grant "the same academic degrees as other American colleges in a background thoroughly Jewish and thoroughly American in spirit." Such an institution has become more and more inevitable, for a reason implicit in remarks made last week by Gustavus A. Rogers, Manhattan lawyer, who addressed 60 prominent Jews at the Bankers' Club: "We will cater ... to the Jews who have been barred from Christian schools for non-scholastic reasons." There was simple fact in Mr. Rogers' assertion that U. S. universities— he named Columbia, Harvard, Dartmouth, Brown and Princeton — discriminate against Jews in accepting matriculants. Polite evasion by those institutions notwithstanding—except in Columbia's case — Jewish undergraduates form an element in the undergraduate bodies which, if it has not occasioned official discrimination, is a subject for much restless discussion and action among Gentile undergraduates, and this constitutes, for the Jews, discrimination of a most definite sort—exclusion from clubs, preference in athletics, elections, etc. It has seemed to many Gentiles high time that the Jews, with their plentiful resources, relieve themselves of embarrassment by building their own colleges, just as they have their own churches, dwelling colonies (e. g., Long Beach, L. I.), and even hotels (e.g., the Hotel Libby, at Delancey and Chrystie Streets, Manhattan, which opened formally last week for Jews only). Another speaker at the Bankers' Club gathering—met to discuss a music festival to be held this month in Madison Square Garden to raise a fifth of the five millions needed to build the Yeshivah— was Adolph Lewisohn, one of the most intelligent and effective workers on human relationships in the U. S. He referred to the Yeshivah as "the salvation of Judaism," where Jews could acquire a college education in Jewish surroundings and without breaking the Sabbath and other holy days. He said that his own grandsons had been excluded "by one of the East's largest universities." There was a tinge of irony in Mr. Lewisohn's position, whether the grandsons had been excluded for social or for academic reasons. He came to this country from Germany as a lad of 16, in 1865. His brother Leonard was already here and the two built up a big mercantile business, Lewisohn Bros. In 1868 they began specializing in metals, particularly copper, and soon led in world markets. Leonard died in 1902. Adolph, now 77, is one of the world's greatest mining and industrial potentates. He sent his son, Sam Adolph, to Princeton ('04) and to Columbia Law School ('07), then took him into the firm, now Adolph Lewisohn & Sons. As wealth accumulated he entered philanthropy in the educational and artistic fields. He housed the Columbia School of Mines with a gift of $300,000. He assisted the College of the City of New York to form a German library, to build an athletic stadium. He collected paintings—Blakelock, Bellows and other moderns as well as Rembrandt, Titian, Dürer—and put them where they could be enjoyed by the people as well as himself. Now his grandsons, because of the pressure of an affluent Jewish population, are uncomfortable in surroundings to whose peace and prosperity he has contributed much. He hears of requests from the colleges to the heads of preparatory schools to "leave the Jews out" when they fill their quotas of certificate scholars. But Adolph Lewisohn understands the nature of social irony, and instead of berating the Gentiles, he has simply noted their frame of mind and thrown his weight behind a movement to supply the people of his race and creed with an institution which, without in turn discriminating against other creeds, will put the children of Israel on an equal educational footing with their Gentile countrymen.

1926: Large contributions towards the campaign to save the Franc by voluntary subscriptions are being made by French Jews. Louis Dreyfus contributed the amount of 500,000 Francs today. The Union of Presidents of Jewish Societies in Paris has announced its first contribution of 6,335 Francs.

1926: New light upon the life, achievements and opinions of Walter Rathenau, late German Jewish statesman who was killed by anti-Semites, is contained in two volumes of the writings of Rathenau and documents pertaining to his life, released here today. The volumes contain about eight hundred letters of Rathenau and cover a period of forty years. The volumes contain material hitherto unknown in which Rathenau emphasized his loyalty to Germany and Judaism.

1927: In Berlin, Sali and Alex Friedlander gave birth to Rabbi Friedlander.

1928: Birthdate of Alfred Gilbert Aronowitz, an American rock journalist best known for introducing Bob Dylan and The Beatles in 1964.

1929: A joint memorandum to the Mandatory Government by the chief rabbis, the National Council and Agudat Israel demands a halt of all construction work carried out by Muslims near the Western Wall.
1933(14thof Iyar, 5693): Pesach Sheni

1933: Books deemed of "un-German spirit," most of them Jewish, are burned on Unter den Linden, opposite the University of Berlin, and throughout Germany. More than 20,000 volumes are destroyed, including works by John Dos Passos, Thomas Mann, Karl Marx, Ernest Hemingway, Upton Sinclair, Émile Zola, H. G. Wells, André Gide, Sigmund Freud, Maxim Gorky, Helen Keller, Friedrich Forster, Marcel Proust, Jack London, and Erich Maria Remarque. Among those who witnessed the burnings were Sinclair Lewis, Eve Curie and Bella Fromm.

1933: Lion Feuchtwanger and his wife had already moved to Southern France when his works were burned during today’s book burnings in Germany. The famous novelist had been forced to flee because he was Jewish, because he was an out-spoken critic of the Nazis and because he was friend with such decadents as Bertol Brecht.

1933(14thof Iyar, 5693): Seventy-three year old Samuel “Frenchie” Marx the French born tailor who was the husband of Minnie Marx and the father of The Marx Brothers passed away today in Los Angeles, CA.
1938(9th of Iyar): Author and Zionist leader Alter Druyanow passed away today.
1940: During World War II, British forces occupied Reykjavik, the capital of Iceland, as part of Operation Fork.  The British took the action to forestall seizure of the neutral island-nation by the Nazis.  The Anglo-Jewish sailors and marines who were part of the occupation force found that city contained a small Jewish population but no synagogue.  By Yom Kippur the disparate groups of Jews had coalesced into a semblance of a community. About twenty five Jewish soldiers from England, Scotland and Canada gathered with eight Jewish refugees and Hendrik Ottósson to observe the most solemn day on the Jewish calendar.

1940: Birthdate of Parisan Dora Frydenzon (née Skurnik) the daughter of Polish Jews who had fled to France in 1936 and who would survive the war thanks to the efforts of Alfred Le Guellec.

1940: The Germans invaded the Low Countries and France putting an end to the so called Phony War.  The Blitzkrieg would bring the Holocaust to the existing Jewish populations of these nations as well as to the untold thousands of Jews who had sought refuge in the West since the rise of Hitler during the 1930's.

1940: Author and illustrator Hans Rey was at his desk in Avranches touching up a page of “Fifi” as the Nazis were invading France and the Benelux countries.  Unbeknownst to Rey, this major military catastrophe would trigger events that would send him and his wife on race against death that would lead them through southern France and ultimately to the United States.

1941: As Axis forces drive into Egypt, Churchill receives secret word of a new threat to the Jews of Palestine.  Hitler is pressuring Turkey to allow German troops to cross their borders threatening Palestine from the North.  Churchill reminds his new Colonial Secretary, Viscount Cranborne of his previous support of arming the Jews for self-defense and urges him to get done all that he can.  Realizing the danger of a pincer attack, the British now encourage the Jews to build fortifications on the crest of Mount Carmelso that they can respond to attacks from the north and the south.

 

1941 (12th of Iyar, 5701) In Suresnes, France, Aaron Beckermann was the first Jew in France to be shot for resistance.

1941: Raymond Raoul Lambert wrote in his diary: "In view of the persecutions being initiated by the new order in France, against foreigners in general and foreign Jews in particular, in light of what has happened elsewhere, in view of the racist laws and the 'Commission on Jewish Affairs' being run in Vichy from Berlin, I wonder whether this collaboration won't bring about a yet more rigorous Statut [the anti-Jewish laws of October 7, 1940]... There are days when I don't dare listen to official bulletins on the radio; they wound me, because I still feel French and call myself a Frenchman. If I didn't have my wife and my three sons, I should be sorry not to have died honorably in action... or sorry to have survived my mother..." As a staunch supporter of pan-Europeanism, Paul Lambet had repeatedly censured nationalistic writers and opposed the more militant French attitudes toward Germany. He believed that "Germany and France, after having been combatants, have to collaborate or decline," a prophetic thought, but expressed too early. Lambert's strong identification with France and its interests did not prevent him from taking a deep interest in Jewish affairs. A prolific writer for various French and Jewish publications, he had even published a collection of poems on Jewish themes and had assisted in the founding of the French Jewish Literary Review. He strove to bring French Jewish youth to a better understanding of the need to build "a new notion of a universal order." He was pleased to see the Zionist achievements in Palestine, but his very deep sentiment for liberal France prevented him from showing any special interest in the Zionist movement. Lambert's diary offers us a very interesting description of his service in the defeated French army in World War II, the creation of Vichyand the unprecedented rise of French anti-Semitism.

1943: Famous actor Ralph Bellamy read from “They Burned the Books” by Stephen Vincent Benet to a thousand people who gathered in front of the New York Public Library “as part of the nation’s observance of the tenth anniversary of the burning of books in Germany.
1943: This afternoon, in cooperation with the Council on Books in Wartime, New York radio station WQXR will broadcast “Books Never Die” to mark the 10thanniversary of the first mass Nazi book burning. The broadcast will include a message from Republican Presidential candidate Wendell Willkie and addresses by Sinclair Lewis, Eve Curie and Bella Fromm who were in Germany at that time.

1943: Two Jews were successfully smuggled out of Dobele, Latvia, and hidden in a haystack

1945:At Theresienstad, Herman Rosenblat “was scheduled to die in the gas chamber at 10:00 A.M.  But at 8: A.M. he “heard shouts, and saw people running in every which way” because the Russians had liberated the camp.  Rosenblat went to find his brothers who had also survived the last Nazi attempt at genocide.

1945: Theresienstadt was liberated by the Soviet Army.  Located in the Czech town of Terezin (Theresienstadt was its German name), the ghetto gained some measure of fame as a show place where the Nazis brought representatives of the International Red Cross to show how well the Jews were being treated in the Third Reich.  Eventually most of the Jews of Theresienstadt met the same fate as others in the various Death Camps.  Sadly, after the liberation there was an outbreak of typhus which raged until August, claiming even more victims.  There is a collection of children's art and from this strange ghetto entitled I Thought I Never Saw Another Butterfly.

1946: Birthdate of award winning British actress, writer and supporter of Israel, Maureen Diane Lippman.

1948: “In an attempt to see if war with Transjordan could be averted, the Jewish Agency sent one of its most formidable negotiators, Golda Meir, on a second secret mission to King Abdullah of Transjordan.  In a mission that would credit to James Bond, Mrs. Meir traveled at night disguised in the robes of an Arab woman.  Mrs. Meir offered a plan along the lines of the U.N. approved partition plan.  Abdullah wanted the Jews to drop their demand for free immigration and give up their aspirations for a state.  Instead, the Jews could have autonomy under Jordanian rule with Jewish representation in a Jordanian parliament. Considering the lack of democracy in Jordan, this offer was a rather a hollow one in terms of power sharing.  As to the substitution of autonomy instead of sovereignty; this would be consistent with the traditional Moslem view of Arab-Jewish relationships.  The Jews would be accepted as long as they would always accept a second class position.   

1948: Tzfat (Safed) was secured by the Haganah. Located in the northern Galilee, Tzfat is one of the four holiest cities for Jews in Israel.  It has been the home to Jewish mystics for centuries; a center for the study of Kabbalah and the place where Lecha Dodi was created.  Tzfat was the scene of fighting in April and May 1948 as the Arabs sought to destroy the Jewish community before the end of the Mandate.  Tzfat had a small Jewish population and matters were not helped by the departing British commander who turned the keys of the police station (with its arms) which was the local citadel to the Arab insurgents.  The Palmach and the Hagana prevailed despite being outnumbered and outgunned.  Most of the Arab population fled when Jewish victory seemed imminent.  According to the Churchill's biographer Martin Gilbert, "With the invasion of Palestine by regular Arab armies believed to be imminent...many Arabs felt prudence dictated their departure until the Jews had been defeated and they could return to their homes."  And thus began the "Palestinian Refugee Problem" that is with us to this day.

1948: Since she could not reach Ramot Naphtali, Lorna Wingate, the widow of Order Wingate flew over the settlement in a Piper Cub and dropped a Bible into the compound.  The note attached to it read, "This bible accompanied Wingate on all his campaigns and inspired him.  Let represent a covenant between us - in victory or defeat, now and forever

1948: Units of the Moslem Brotherhood were driven back after they had attacked Kefar Darom

1950: The Mediterranean coastal district of Israel is reported to be fighting an outbreak of polio.

1951(4thof Iyar, 5711): Despite being surrounded by enemies on all sides, dealing with the challenge of absorbing tens of thousands refugees and host of other problems, Israel celebrates Yom HaAtzmaut

1951:Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion, escorted by high ranking Israeli officials, journeyed to West Point this morning and placed a wreath on the grave of Col. David (Mickey) Marcus, who was killed in 1948 while serving with the Israeli forces during the war in the Holy Land.

1952: Temple Israel in Akron, Ohio lays the cornerstone for its new addition.

1953(10thof Iyar, 5713): Seventy year old Belfast born, American composer and orchestra leader Harry Rosenthal passed away today in Beverly Hills.

1955: Birthdate of Christopher James "Chris" Berman, “also known by the nickname Boomer, (born May 10, 1955 in Greenwich, Connecticut) is an American sportscaster. He anchors SportsCenter, Monday Night Countdown, Sunday NFL Countdown, Baseball Tonight, U.S. Open golf, the Stanley Cup Finals and other programming on ESPN and ABC Sports.”

1960(13thof Iyar, 5720): Seventy-year old Maurice Schwartz, the Russian born American actor who founded the Yiddish Art Theatre passed away today.
1966: In an example of how the Arab-Israel conflict was entwined in the Cold War, Soviet Prime Minister Kosygin arrives in Cairo where he will convince Nasser “that a mutual defense pact between Cairo and Damascus (guaranteed by Moscow) would be in the best interest of all concerned. Israel enjoyed no such reciprocal relationship with the United States or her western allies which reinforced the Israeli notion that in any crisis, Israel would be facing millions of armed Arabs backed by the military might of the Soviet Union.

1968(12thof Iyar, 5728): Eighty-one year old George Frankenthaler, a former State Supreme Court Justice and New York County Surrogate passed away today.  An accomplished lawyer, Frankenthaler was so highly respected that both President Franklin Roosevelt and Governor Thomas Dewey urged to seek election to the State Supreme Court.   In 1948, Frankenthaler who was a Republican became the first non-Democrat to be elected to the Surrogate’s Court in over half a century. Active in several Jewish charities, he had served as President of the 92nd Street Young Men’s and Young Women’s Hebrew Association.

1968(12thof Iyar, 5728): Ninety-four year old Samuel Bloomingdale, the son of Lyman Bloomingdale and Hattie Collenberger passed away today.

1973: At Ramat Gan, writer and poet Yehonatan Geffen and Nurit Makover gave birth to rock start Aviv Geffen.

1978(3rd of Iyar, 5738): Yom HaZikaron

1981: In “From Genesis to Jesus Christ Superstar, published today, Paul Kresh described the veritable explosion of recent recordings of Biblical literature that have been recorded for the mass market including, Abba Eban reading Psalms and Ecclesiastes, Theodore Bikel reading ''Poetry and Prophecy of the Old Testament''  Claire Bloom’s reading “Ruth,” Claude Rains and Claire Bloom reading “The Song of Songs,”  supply Howard Sackler's clever condensation and direction of the Book of Job, with Herbert Marshall suffering beautifully as the severely tested servant of God, surrounded by a large cast including Martin Balsam as Elihu, Clarence Derwent as Eliphaz (one of Job's non-comforting comforters), and Joseph Holland awesomely cosmic as the Voice Out of the Whirlwind. (Editor’s note –You have to be of a certain age to appreciate the star quality of the performers.  Also in an age of downloading, i-pods, etc., it is difficult to appreciate the technological and social significance of these works.)

1981: Final broadcast of Season 6 of “ One Day At A Time” starring Bonnie Franklin

1981: In “The Final Solution in Argentina,” Anthony Lewis reviews Prisoner Without A Name, Cell Without a Number by Jacobo Timerman

 
1983: Eighty-five year old Herbert Benjamin, Communist Party leader turned small businessman, passed away today in Rockville, MD.
1986(1st of Iyar, 5746): Rosh Chodesh Iyar

1989(5thof Iyar, 5749): Yom HaAtzma’ut

1992(7th of Iyar, 5752): At New York City's Algonquin Hotel, Sylvia Syms finished singing her last song, raised her right arm to acknowledge the audience's standing ovation, and collapsed of a heart attack.  (As reported by Stephen Holden)
1992: In an article entitled “Israel Commemorates Start of the Holocaust,” Jed Stevenson describes the surprising choice for the commemorative medal that the Israelis have made this year.  
1995: Release date for “A Little Princess,” a World War I drama co-produced by Dalisa Cohen and Amy Ephron NSfilmed by cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki at Barry Levinson’s Baltimore Studios.

1998: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Time of Our Time” byNorman Mailer and the recently released paperback edition of The Memory of All That: The Life of George Gershwin” by Joan Peyser.

1999(24th of Iyar, 5759): Sheldon Allan "Shel" Silverstein passed away. Born in Chicago in 1930, Shel Silverstein gained fame as a poet, songwriter and author.  He wrote the lyrics to the Johnny Cash hit, “A Boy Named Sue.” The Grammy Winning song was written in response to a bet that Silverstein couldn’t write a country and western hit during a bus ride back to Los Angeles, or so goes the legend.   He authored several books including “The Missing Piece,”A Light in the Attic,” “Where the Sidewalk Ends” “Falling Up” and“The Giving Tree.”  These works are often referred to as children’s literature, but anybody who has read them knows that they transcend that genre and speak to readers of all ages.

2000(5thof Iyar, 5760): Yom HaAtzmaut

2001: Having obtained a search warrant, D.C. police search Chandra Levy’s Washington apartment looking for clues as to her whereabouts.

2002(28th of Iyar, 5762):Yom Yerushalayim

2003(8th of Iyar, 5763): Dr. Leonard Michaels, author and professor of English at the University of California at Berkley, passed away.


2006(12th of Iyar, 5766):  Eighty-four year old Abraham Michael "A.M." Rosenthal passed away.  The Canadian native began his career with the New York Times in 1943.  He won a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting in 1960 and served as executive editor from 1977 until age requirements forced him to leave the post in 1988.  (As reported by Robert D. McFadden)
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/11/nyregion/11rosenthal.html?_r=0&pagewanted=print


2006: Results show that Elliot Yamin, was among three people who named as the top three finalists for American Idol


2007:“Less than two months before his death, Joel Siegel spoke before the C.E.O. Roundtable on Cancer, an association of corporate executives that was formed when former President George H. W. Bush asked corporate America to do something "bold and venturesome" about cancer. Bush and his wife Barbara were in the audience when Joel spoke at the Essex House in New York City. He began and ended his presentation by saying, "I want to thank you for what you are doing for cancer patients."


2007: An exhibit of works by local artists Paula Christie and A.D. Lane at the Etz Chaim Synagogue. Crete’s only Synagogue, comes to an end. Etz Chaim was rededicated in 1999.


2007: The Film Society of Lincoln Center’s retrospective entitled “The Magic of Paul Mazursky” comes to an end.  He is probably best remembered for directing the 1969 sexual spoof, “Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice.”


2008: Early this morning the IDF confirmed air strikes on Hamas police stations in the Gaza Strip, killing five Hamas operatives hours after a fatal barrage of mortar shells fired by Palestinian gunmen killed one man in a Kibbutz in the western Negev. Jimmy Kedushim, a 48-year-old father of four, was killed when a mortar shell landed in the front yard of his house in Kibbutz Kfar Aza Three others were wounded in the attack, one moderately and two lightly. Magen David Adom teams at the kibbutz treated a number of people for shock, Israel Radio reported. A number of buildings in the kibbutz were damaged in the barrage.


2008: At the Jerusalem Cinematheque, a screening of “FaithfulCity” \ קריה נאמנה.Made in 1952, the film deals with children survivors of the Holocaust who came to Israel on the eve of the war of independence full of fears and problems.


2008: As part of its Israel at 60 Celebration, the
92nd Street
Y hosts a Yom Ha'Atzmaut Spring Dance Marathon.


2008:Egyptian Culture Minister Farouk Hosni said during a parliamentary conference that he "would burn Israeli books myself if found in Egyptian libraries."


2009:Mark Strauss, a Holocaust survivor, signs copies of his new novel, Four Plus Five” at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Bookstore.


2009:  As part of the LABA Festival The 14th Street Y, a Jewish Community Center in the East Village, presents a screening of “Water Marks,” a documentary film by Yaron Zilberman, produced by Yonatan Israel. “’Watermarks’ is the story of the champion women swimmers of the legendary Jewish sports club, Hakoah Vienna. Hakoah (“The Strength" in Hebrew) was founded in 1909 in response to the notorious Aryan Paragraph, which forbade Austrian sports clubs from accepting Jewish athletes.
2009: The Washington Post featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including “The Third Reich at War” by Richard J. Evans and “Power Rules: How Common Sense Can Rescue American Foreign Policy by Leslie H. Gelb


2009: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including “Bad Mother: A Chronicle of Maternal Crimes, Minor Calamities, and Occasional Moments of Grace” by Ayelet Waldman “Conversations with Frank Gehry” by Barbara Isenberg and three books by Amy Krouse Rosenthal – “Little Oink,” “Spoon” and “Yes Day.”


2010:An exhibition entitled “The Works of Mordechai Rosenstein” is scheduled to open at the Fine Family Art Gallery and the Katz Family Mainstreet Gallery of the Marcus Jewish Community Center of Atlanta (MJCCA).


2010: “Forward 50,” a panel discussion featuring recent Forward 50 Honorees is scheduled to take place at the Historic 6th& I Synagogue in Washington, D.C.


2010:President Barack Obama announced at the White House that he is nominating U.S. Solicitor General Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court. If Kagan is confirmed, it would be the first time that the nine-member Supreme Court would have three Jews and three women on the bench.


2010: “The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) invited Israel to become a member of the organization.”


2010:Israel Air Force planes bombed two targets in the southern Gaza in the early hours today warning in retaliation for a rocket attack on Saturday night, the army said. The rocket attack came hours after Israel and the Palestinian Authority agreed to restart peace talks under American mediation.
2011:Jews and Baseball: An American Love Story is scheduled to be shown at the American Jewish Archives in Cincinnati, Ohio.


2011: Professor Brian Horowitz is scheduled to give a talk at a conference entitled, In the Mirror’s Reflection: The Encounter between Jewish and Slavic Cultures in Modernity at U.C.L A.


2011: Rabbi Eliezer Diamond is scheduled to present a lecture “Do We Mean What We Pray, Do We Pray What We Mean?” at Congregation Beth El in Bethesda, MD.


2011: In “An Insider Views China, Past and Future,” Michiko Kakutani reviewed On China by Henry Kissinger, the first Jew to serve as U.S. Secretary of State.


2011(6th of Iyar, 5711): Ninety-one year old broadcast executive Burt Reinhardt, who served as President of CNN in those early years when it was changing the face of television news, passed away today in Marietta, GA. (As reported by Dennis Hevesi)
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/12/business/media/12reinhardt.html?_r=1


2011(6th of Iyar, 5711): Yom Ha’atzmaut, ,יום העצמאות, Israel Independence Day, is observed.  Yom Ha’atzmaut is normally celebrated on the 5th of Iyar, the anniversary of the day on which Israel declared its independence.  Since 2004, if the 5th of Iyar falls on a Monday, which it did in 2011, the festival is postponed until Tuesday.
2011: On Independence Day, the Central Bureau of Statistics reported that Israel had a population of 7,746,000, 75% of which is Jewish.  In the past year 178,000 babies were born and 24,500 immigrants made aliyah


2012: The Jewish American Heritage Parade is scheduled to take place this morning in Albany, NY.
2012: “The Jewish Woman In America: 1654-2012,” a course that will study the vital contributions that Jewish women have made to American Jewish life, from the time of the first Sephardic arrivals to New Amsterdam in 1654, down to the present sponsored by the Board of Jewish Education of Atlantic and Cape May Counties is scheduled to begin tonight in Margate, NJ.

2012: Chabad of Iowa City is scheduled to sponsor a Lag Ba'Omer BBQ in West Branch, Iowa, which is the home of the Herbert Hoover Memorial Library. Jews will remember Hoover as the President who appointed Justice Benjamin Cardozo to the Supreme Court giving the U.S. two Jewish Supreme Court Justices at a time of rising anti-Semitism.
2012: At the Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center Howard Reich, jazz critic for the Chicago Tribune and son of Holocaust survivors, is scheduled to moderate a panel discussion where American and foreign born Jewish GIs reflect on their wartime experiences, and the impact their religious affiliation had on their time in the service

2012: YIVO Institute for Jewish Research is scheduled to present the Sidney Krum Young Artists Concert Series Spring Concert including the great masterpiece of Jewish music, “Shlomo”, a Hebrew rhapsody for cello by Ernest Bloch

2012:Jazzrael - a Festival of Israeli Jazz and World Music featuring the Avi Avital Trio is scheduled to take place at Joe’s Pub in New York City.

2012:New York's kosher law, which regulates the labeling and marketing of kosher food, does not violate the Constitution's First Amendment, a federal appeals court ruled. The three-judge panel of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan ruled today in a constitutional challenge to the New York State Kosher Law Protection Act of 2004. Previously, kosher was defined legally as “according to orthodox Hebrew religious requirements.” Several butchers challenged the law in a 1996 suit. (As reported by JTA)

2013: The Wiener Library for the Study of the Holocaust & Genocide and the Pears Institute for the Study of Anti-Semitism are scheduled to present “Sanctioned Laughter: Humour, War and Dictatorship in Twentieth Century Europe.

2013: “No Place On Earth” is scheduled to open at the Catamount Film and Arts Center in St. Johnsbury, Vermont.

 2013(1st of Sivan, 5733): Rosh Chodesh Sivan

2013(1stof Sivan, 5733): Eighty-eight year old author Morris Renek passed away today. (As reported by Daniel Slotnik)
2013(1stof Sivan, 5773): Sixty-one year social activist Barbara Brenner passed away today. (As reported by Denise Grady)
2013::At more than 100 Jewish day schools in 38 cities around the world, parents and children are gathering across six continents to study Torah together as part of a joint initiative of global Jewish unity, called Generation Sinai.Tens of thousands of parents and children will be studying the same section of the Torah on the same day in their individual schools as part of one integrated international campaign which began in South Africa.
2013: Clashes erupted at Jerusalem’s Western Wall plaza early this morning, as thousands of ultra-Orthodox teenagers attempted to prevent the Women of the Wall from holding their monthly egalitarian prayer session at the site.

2014: Sarah Cohen is scheduled to be called the Torah as a Bat Mitzvah at Agudas Achim in Coralville, Iowa.

2014: “Zeitgeist” is scheduled to be shown at the 22ndannual Toronto Jewish Film Festival.

2014: “Kidon” is scheduled to be shown at the National Center for Jewish Film’s 17th annual Film Festival.

 

2014: In honor of Jewish American Heritage Month, the New World Symphony is scheduled to present an evening of music by celebrated Jewish American composers at Miami Beach, FL.


This Day, May 11, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. Levin

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May 11



330: Roman Emperor Constantine I changes the name of the ancient city of Byzantium to Nova Roma (New Rome) as it becomes the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire.  The city will be known as Constantinople (the city of Constantine). The move is indicative of the growing power of Constantine, the emperor who redefinedrelations between Jews and Christains that exists into modern times.  The name New Rome also helped to the schism between the Western (Catholic) Christians and their Eastern (Orthodox) co-religionists since the Christian leader of New Rome thought his powers should be equal to the Christian leader (the Pope) at old Rome. 


1175: Thirteen assassins were foiled in their attempt to murder Saladin. Thirteen years later Saladin would drive the Crusaders from Jerusalem and allow the Jews to return. Maimonides provided medial services to the great Muslim leader.


1189: Frederick Barbarossa, the Holy Roman Emperor set off on the Third Crusade.  He would drown before he reached the Holy Land.  On balance, Barbarossa’s reign was a positive one for the Jews since he viewed the Jews as his special subjects, which means he afforded them protection because they were a source of financial benefit to the monarch.


1421:  At Styria, Austria, a large number of Jews were burned. Those who were not killed were expelled from the country.


1415:  Edict of Benedict XIII: Benedict XIII was enraged by the lack of voluntary conversions after the Christian "victory" at the Tortosa disputation. As a result, he banned the study of the Talmud in any form, instituted forced Christian sermons, and tried to restrict Jewish life completely.



1572(18th of Iyar, 5332): Moses Isserles, “the Rema” passed away today in Cracow, Poland.Moses Isserles, also spelled Moshe Isserlis, who had been born at Cracow in 1520, “was an eminent Ashkenazic rabbi, Talmudist, and posek, renowned for his fundamental work of Halachah (entitled ha-Mapah (lit., "the tablecloth"), an inline commentary on the Shulkhan Aruch ( "the set table"). His work opened up this Sephardic work to the Ashkenazim. “He is also well known for his Darkhei Moshe commentary on the Tur. Isserles is also referred to as the Rema, (or Remo, Rama) (רמ״א), the Hebrew acronym for Rabbi Moses Isserle.”  [This brief entry cannot do justice to the life and work of this sage.]



http://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/111847/jewish/Rabbi-Moshe-Isserles-The-Remo.htm



 


1610: Fifty-seven year old Father Matteo Ricci, a Jesuit missionary living in China whose manuscripts described the existence of ten or twelve Jewish families in Kaifeng that may have been living there for five or six hundred years, passed away today.



1647: Peter Stuyvesant arrived in New Amsterdam to replace Willem Kieft as Director-General of New Netherland, the Dutch colonial settlement in present-day New York City. Seven years later, Stuyvesant will be the governor of New Amsterdam when the first Jews arrive in 1654. He will do everything in his power to keep the Jews from settling there and enjoying the full rights of citizenship.



1764: A letter written today from Empress Catherine II opened the way for limited settlement of Jews in Riga



1784: Birthdate of G.B. Depping, the German born French historian author of Les Juifs dans le moyen âge, essai historique sur leur état civil, commercial et littéraire  a history of the Jews he wrote in response to a competition sponsored by the Royal Academy in 1821 to write a history describing the life of the Jews living in France during the Middle Ages.



1766: In Enfield, Middlesex, England Benjamin D’Israeli, “a Jewish merchant who had emigrated from Cento in 1784 and his second wife,Sarah Syprut de Gabay Villa Real” gave birth to author and “man of letters” Isaac D’Israeli, the father of the future Prime Minister Benjamin D’Israeli, the Earl of Beaconsfield.



1795(22nd of Iyar, 5555) Seventy-two year old Austrian bankerJoachim Edler von Popper who was “Court Jew” to the Habsburgs and who was the second Jew to be “ennobled” by the Emperor passed away today.

1836: Alexander Levi advertised in today’s issue of the Dubuque Visitor, one of Iowa’s first newspapers. Levi may have been the first Jew to settle Iowa.  He settled in Dubuque, shortly after its founding, and played an active role in its commercial, civic and Jewish life until his death in 1893.



1838: Birthdate of Walter Goodman, British painter, illustrator and author who followed in the footsteps of his mother, Julia (nee Salaman) Goodman, who was a famed painter in her own right.



1847: Adolphus Simeon Solomons received a certificate of discharge from Third Regiment of the Washington Grays, which was part of the New York State Militia. Born in 1826, he had joined the Grays when he was 14 and was promoted to the rank of Sergeant five years later. After leaving the military, he would pursue a successful career in business and politics including playing an active role in the inaugurations of all the Presidents from Lincoln to McKinley. He would also serve in a number of important roles in Jewish communal affairs including serving as acting President of the Jewish Theological Seminary Association.



1852: In the House of Lords, the first reading of a bill designed to remove the disabilities imposed upon persons refusing to take the “oaths of abjuration.” Lord Lyndhurst cited the recent case of David Salomons, the Jew who had refused to take the standard oath and sought to be seated in the House of Commons nonetheless.



1853(Iyar 3): Rabbi Isaac Farhi, author of Marpe la-Ezem, passed away today.



1853: A theatre critic for the New York Times pained the performance of “The Merchant of Venice” at Wallack’s Theatre saying that “there is no delineation of internal passion; no metaphysical reading of the Jew’s revengeful soul…”



1858:  Minnesotais to the Union as the 32nd state in the United States.  The establishment of the Mount Sinai Hebrew Association of St. Paul, in 1857 means that the first synagogue was established before Minnesotaachieved statehood. The founding of Har Tzion (Mt.Zion) marks the start of the Jewish community in Minnesota.



1860: Sir George Jessel, and  Amelia Moses gave birth to British barrister and businessman Sir Charles James Jessel, 1st Baronet, Ladham House.



1863: Otto von Bismarck, Minister President of Prussia, initiated written correspondence with socialist and reform leader Ferdinand Lassalle. (Lassalle was Jewish; Bismarck was not)



1865: General Jeremiah Cutler Sullivan resigned from the Union Army.  In 1862, Sullivan was serving under General Grant in Tennessee.  He “refused to execute Grant’s Order 11 on the grounds that he thought he was an officer of the army and not of a church.” Sarna 20



1867: The independence of Luxembourg which was originally granted in 1839 is finally recognized by all of the European great powers including Prussia and France. The Grand Duchy’s first rabbi had served from 1843 until 1866 when Luxembourg had just one synagogue.  By 1880, there were approximately 140 Jewish families throughout the Grand Duchy and there were three synagogues in Luxembourgby the end of the 19th century.



1869(1st of Sivan, 5629): Rosh Chodesh Sivan



1869: In New York City, Shaaray Tefila (Gates of Prayer) dedicated its new sanctuary located on 44thStreet, between Broadway and 6th Avenue.  During the ceremony Leopold Cohn, chairman of the Building Committee gave the keys for the building to Barnet Solomon, the President of the Congregation.  Rabbi Samuel Isaacs officiated at the impressive ceremony. The building, which cost $125,000 is smaller than Temple Emanu-El but compares favorably to it in terms of richness and architectural quality.



1869: Birthdate of Henrich Lowe, a German born Zionist who was known as a journalist, linguist and student of folklore.



1878: The Young Men’s Hebrew Association met for the first time in their new facility at 110 West 42ndStreet in New York City.  Most of the members were in attendance at this all male affair. Mayor Ely was the guest of honor.  I.S. Isaacs, the association’s president, opening remarks included a brief history of the association.  The association, which was formed in 1874, has almost a thousand members and boasts a healthy back account.  Rabbis Gottheil, Henry Jacobs and H.B. Mendez all addressed the group briefly.



1879: An article published today sub-titled “The Old Pessimists” notes that while there was a strongly pessimistic tone in a few books of the Bible – Job and Ecclesiastes - the “national religion of the Hebrews was optimistic in a high degree.” This stands in stark contrast to the deeply pessimistic religious utterances and literature of the ancient of the Greeks and the Romans While the Jews said “The earth is full of the goodness of the Lord”  they were declaring that “the land and the sea are full of evils”



1879: “Assyrian and Biblical History” published today described unresolved conflicts in the dating used by these two ancient civilizations. While both seem to agree as to the date of the eclipse that took place in the 8th century BCE, there is disagreement for the dates of subsequent events.  For example, the Assyrians say that the invasion of Judea took place in 701 BCE while the Jewish version would have set the date at 713 BCE. Some researches indicate that the discrepancies are the result of a propensity among Assyrian monarchs who had a propensity for not reporting defeats and unsuccessful campaigns.  This was left to their successors.



1879: Samuel Gobat, who had been serving as the Protestant Bishop of Jerusalem since 1846, passed away.  Unlike his predecessor, Gobat refrained from trying to convert Jews and Moslems and worked among Christians.  He and his wife who had also died while living in Jerusalem are buried in Mount Zion Cemetery.



1879(18th of Iyar, 5639): Lag B'Omer



1879(18th of Iyar, 5639): Bernhard Wolff passed away today in Berlin.  Born in 1811, he was editor of the Vossische Zeitung, founder of the National Zeitung and founder of Wolffs Telegraphisches Bureau one of the first press agencies in Europe and one of the three great European telegraph monopolies until the World War II-era, the other two being the English Reuters and the French Havas.  All three of these famous wire-services had a Jewish connection. The second son of a Jewish banker, Wolff lived and died in Berlin, Brandenburg.



1881:Birthdate of Theodore von Kármán the Hungarian-American engineer and physicist who was active primarily in the fields of aeronautics and astronautics. He is responsible for many key advances in aerodynamics, notably his work on supersonic and hypersonic airflow characterization.



1881: Herzl fights his only duel in the fraternity Albia.



1881: As a wave of pogroms race across Russia Czar Alexander III receives a delegation of Jews led by Baron Horace de Gunzburg.  He assures them that the government is opposed to the violence which he blames on socialists and elements following the anti-Christ.



1884: In Bucharest, Zara and Leon Feinsohn gave birth to Reba Fesinsohn who gained fame as the American soprano and recording artist, Alma Gluck.



1886(6 Iyar, 5646): Rabbi Isidor Kalish passed away

1886(6 Iyar, 5646): Rabbi James Koppel Gutheim passed away today in New Orleans.  Born in Westphalia, Germany, he came to the United States in 1843 and became active in the Cincinnati (Ohio) Jewish community, the home of Reform Judaism in the United States.  Guttheim moved to New Orleans where he served as Rabbi at Shangarai Chesed.  He left the Crescent City after a dispute about a memorial to the late Judah Touro and his refusal to take the Oath of Allegiance to the Union during the Civil War.  After serving as rabbi to congregations in Montgomery, Alabama and Columbus, GA, he returned to New Orleans where he served as rabbi at Temple Sinai until his death.


1887: Birthdate of Paul Wittgenstein.  The Austrian-born pianist lost his right arm fighting for Austria during World War I.  After the war he gained fame for arranging and playing numerous pieces with his left hand.  After fleeing the Nazis during the 1930’s he came to the United States where he became a citizen and continued his career.



1888:  Birthdate of Irving Berlin.  Born Isadore Balin in Temum Siberia, Berlin was the composer of a wide variety of All American Music. His White Christmasis reported to be the all-time leader in the holiday music category.


1889:Zadoc Kahn the Chief Rabbi of France who helped to found  Société des Études Juives  in 1879 delivered an address to entitled "La Révolution Française et le Judaïsme" to help mark the centenary of the French Revolution.


1890: It was reported today that former President Grover Cleveland and his wife have accepted an invitation to attend the upcoming Strawberry Festival, a fund-raiser sponsored by the Young Men’s Hebrew Association.


1890: Charles Bernheim was re-elected as President during the annual meeting of the Home for Aged and Infirm Hebrews which began at 10 o’clock this morning.


1890: “Barons Alphonse and Nathaniel Rothschild have warned Emperor Franz Joseph and …the Minister of the Interior, that if oppression of the Jews is continued at Vienna, they will be forced to transfer their business” to Budapest.  They claim that the leadings banks will follow them in moving their business.


1891: A fire, which was allegedly set by a Jewish immigrant from Poland name Solomon Crizar, broke out at 222 Johnson Avenue in Brooklyn.


1891:  Birthdate of Henry Morgenthau Jr.  Morgenthau was a neighbor of FDR.  It was this friendship rather than his financial wizardry that led to his appointment as US Secretary of the Treasury in 1934.   He held that post until 1945, when Harry Truman took office.  Morgenthau was the author of the so-called Morgenthau Plan which, according to critics, sought to turn Germany into one large farm after World War II.  After two world wars in less than fifty years, Morgenthau was not alone in thinking that the only way to avoid another German Reich was to demilitarize and de-industrialize the country.  The realities of the looming Cold War, among other concerns, derailed any such notions.


1892(14thof Iyar, 5652): Pesach Sheini


1892(14thof Iyar, 5652): Yosef Dov Soloveitchik the great-grandson of Rabbi Chaim Volozhin and author of Beis Halevi  passed away today.


1892: Leaders of several congregations met tonight to discuss the possibility of establishing a school that would train men and women to serve as teachers at Jewish Sunday Schools.


1892: “Vaccination Day” published today described the annual springtime program designed to provide vaccination for hundreds of Jewish, Polish and Italian children that takes place at the Health Office on Mulberry Street.


1895: The Young Men’s Hebrew Association hosted a strawberry festival to mark the end of this season’s programs of study and entertainment.


1895: Several Polish Jews were arrested in Kingston, NY on charges of being counterfeiters.


1898: Rabbi Leucht of Newark, NJ, officiated at the wedding of Moses Schloss and Miss Minnie Krieger of Philadelphia.  Schloss is the manager of S. Scheurer & Co of Plainfield, NJ.


1899: “De Hirsch  Memorial Service” published today described the services held at Temple Emanu-El in honor of the late Baroness Clara de-Hirsch-Gereuth, the widow of the late Baron Hirsch. Among those who address the packed sanctuary were Myer S Isaacs, President of the Baron de Hirsch Fund and William Rhinelander Stewart, President of the State Board of Charities. The service began with Mendelssohn’s Funeral March and ended with a recitation of the Kaddish led by Rabbi William Sparger and a benediction by Rabbi De Sola Menes


1901: Birthdate of Rosalie Beatrice Scherzer who gained fame as the poet Rose Auslander.


1902(4thof Iyar, 5662): Asher Isaac Myer, the managing editor of the Jewish Chronicle passed away today.


1903: The El-Arish project fails. Herzl writes in his diary: "I thought the Sinai plan was such a sure thing that I no longer wanted to buy a family vault in the Döbling cemetery, where my father is provisionally laid to rest. Now I consider the affair so wrecked that I have already been to the district court and am acquiring vault No. 28."


1911: Conservative Young Turks blame Zionists for desecration of the Mosque of Omar.


1912:  Birthdate of Phil Silvers.  This Brooklyn born comedian appeared in vaudeville and films.  But his real fame rests on his portrayal of Sgt. Ernie Bilko, the All-American military con artists with the heart of gold, in the popular sit-com called the Phil Silvers Show. 


1914(15thof Iyar, 5674): Sixty-one year old Daniel De Leon, the native of Curacao who became a champion of the rights of the working man and leader of the Socialist Labor Party of America passed away today.

1917: Birthdate of Irving Jay Cohen “who was known as King Cupid of the Catskills for his canny ability to seat just the right nice Jewish boy next to just the right nice Jewish girl during his half-century as the maître d’ of the Concord Hotel…” (As reported by Margalit Fox)


1919: The first Estonian Congress of Jewish congregations held its opening session today.  The organization was going to have deal with the new realities of living in an independent Estonia that was no longer part of the old Czarist Russian Empire or its Bolshevik successor.


1921:  Tel Aviv became the first all-Jewish municipality under the Mandatory Government.


1922: Birthdate of Tawfik Toubi a Christian Arab politician and who was elected to the Knesset in 1949 when Israel held its first parliamentary elections.  Toubi would serve until he retired in 1991.  His death in 2011 marked the end of an era since he was the last surviving member of Israel’s First Knesset.


1924: The first conference of the General Zionist movement begins in Jerusalem. It decides to establish a General Zionist Federation to amalgamate all centrist factions in Palestine.


1924: Birthdate of Leonard Garment who served as White House Counsel during the Watergate Scandal.


1924: Gottlieb Daimler and Karl Benz merge their companies to form Mercedes-Benz.  The “Mercedes” in Mercedes Benz comes from the daughter of Jewish businessman Emil Jellinek who was known as Mercedes.


1925: In Cleveland, Ohio, Betty and Ben Glasser gave birth to William Glasser, the psychiatrist  who was also a successful author on books about mental health.


1926: According to figures released today, 1,650 Jewish immigrants arrived in Palestine during the month of April


1927:  Birthdate of Mort Sahl.  Born in Montréal Canada, Sahl was one of a new bread of comedians that appeared in the late 1950's.  Many of them were more cerebral than slapstick; more likely to have started in coffee houses like the Hungry Eye in San Francisco than burlesque theatres. Sahl would come on stage in his trade mark orange sweater, newspaper under his arm and sitting on a stool, begin to take potshots at the political and social leaders of the day. 


1927: A cross-section of thirty six leaders in the infant movie industry founded the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. The Academy is responsible for honoring the accomplishments of the film industry through the annual Oscar ceremonies.  Many of the original 36 were Jewish including Cecil B. DeMille, Louis Mayer, Joseph Schenk, Jake Lasky, Irving Thalberg, George Cohen, Edwin Loeb, Jack Warner and Harry Warner Yes, do the math.  The Jewish representation is definitely statistically disproportional.


1928: Morris “Moshe” Baran and his family arrived in the United States.  Amongst the three children in the family was Paul Baran, who as an engineer working at RAND Corporation “outlined the basic idea for what has become the Internet.


1928: Birthdate of Joe Schlesinger the Austrian born refugee from Nazi Europe who gained fame as a Canadian television journalist and author.

1928:  Birthdate Yaacov Agam. Israeli-born Yaacov Agam was educated at the Bezalel School of Art in Jerusalem and the Atelier d'Art Abstrait in Paris. Agam has had exhibitions at the TelAvivMuseum, the Musee National d'Art Moderne in Paris, and the StedelijkMuseum in Amsterdam. His work is in the collections of many museums, including the Museum of Modern Artin New Yorkand the Joseph Hirshhorn Collection in Washington, D.C.

1929: Birthdate of Samuel Charles Cohn.  This native of Altoona, PA, would gain fame as Sam Cohn “the powerful talent broker” who founded International Creative Management (ICM) and represented a panoply of top talent including Woody Allen, Robin Williams, Arthur Miller, E.L. Doctorow and Whoopi Goldberg to name but a few.  He died in May of 2009 at the age of 79. (As reported by Bruce Weber)


1930: A Zionist youth group gathered in Berehovo, Carpatho-Russia, Czechoslovakia today.

1932: During today’s session of the annual convention of the Rabbinical Assembly of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, the assembly’s President, Rabbi Israel Levinthal of Brooklyn, delivered his annual address in which he said many members were suffering financially and serious thought needed to be given to establishing a permanent relief fund.  As further proof of the impact of the Great Depression on Jews and Jewish organization, the seminary is expanding its placement service to help its graduates find work.


1932: Professor Louis Finkelstein, President of JTS, Sol M. Stroock, Chairman of the JTS Board of Directors, Professor Louis Ginzberg, and Rabbi Israel Goldstein of Congregation B’nai Jeshurun, were among those who spoke at tonight’s dinner at the Jewish Theological Seminary.


1934(26th of Iyar, 5694): Seventy-five year old Lazăr Şăineanu “a Romanian-born philologist, linguist, folklorist and cultural historian: who was “a specialist in Oriental and Romance studies, as well as a Hebraist and a Germanist, known for his contribution to Yiddish and Romanian philology” passed away today in Paris.


1938:  The Palestine Post reported that Hanita beat off another heavy terrorist attack. Arab terrorist gangs continued to enter Arab villages demanding ransom money and valuables. Those villagers who refused such demands were usually kidnapped and their bodies were later found in the neighboring fields. A forest neighboring the Tiberias Hot Springs was set on fire. The Dutch border was closed to refugees after about 2,000 Austrian and 15,000 German Jews succeeded to get in. Hollandclaimed that despite the fact that it suffered from a heavy unemployment, it had offered residence to over 26,000 refugees.  During the 1930’s the Jews were caught in two pronged anti-Semitic orgy.  In Europethey were condemned because they were permanent outsiders even though they desperately tried to fit into the social fabric of the various nations in which they lived.  In Palestine, the Jews were under attack because they were trying to establish a national home where Jews could live as Jews.  The point of this is that anti-Semitism is irrational and those who hate Jews will grab any excuse and those looking for a scapegoat will grab any Jew.


1939: Jews are prohibited from working in travel agencies by Nazi Germany


1939: Premiere of crime drama “Blind Alley” directed by Charles Vidor.


1941:  In the Warsawghetto, children are seen playing with a corpse in a courtyard. In each of the prior two months, 500 - 600 more Jews died of starvation.



1941: During the Blitz, The Great Synagogue on Dukes Place in London is destroyed in an air raid.


1942:  Alter Dworetsky, a member of the Jewish Council at Diatlovo, Belorussia, escapes to a nearby forest, only to be shot to death by Soviet partisans after refusing to hand over his pistol.



1942: Damon Runyon published “Sam Dreben’s Spirit Marches On” a column that uses the career of this Jewish career soldier who won the Distinguished Service Cross to dispel notions of Jewish cowardliness and lack of patriotism.  The column was written “on the occasion of the posthumous conferring of the DSC on Lt. Henry D. Mark of Los Angeles. (As reported by Abraham Bloch)



1942: The Biltmore Program is adopted in an emergency meeting (at the Biltmore Hotel in New York) of the Conference of American Zionists. The program proposed by Ben Gurion and Abba Hillel Silver totally rejected the British White paper and called for the establishment of a Jewish state. There was opposition to the proposal by the "non- Zionists" and those who believed in a bi-national state (HaShomer HaZair).



1942: “Go Down Moses,” the collection of short stories by William Faulkner is published today.  The title is based on the spiritual that compares the slavery experience of African-Americans in the United States with the enslavement of the Jews by Pharoah.



1944:HMCS Beauharnois, a Canadian corvette, was launched today.  She would be acquired by the Israelis and was renamed Josiah Wedgwood, in honor of Colonel Josiah Wedgwood, the British M.P. who wanted to remove the obstacles to Jewish immigration to Palestine and opposed the British appeasement of Hitler during the 1930’s.



1944: Anne Frank writes in her diary,"I'd like to publish a book called 'The Secret Annex.' It remains to be seen whether I'll succeed, but my diary can serve as the basis



1944: Dr. Salomon Gluck, a French Army veteran who had been honored with the Croix de Guerre for bravery in facing the Nazis on the Maginot Line and a member of the Resistance was deported from Drancy aboard convoy 73.  He was number 21530 and the convoy was unusual in that all of the almost 900 prisoners were men. The men did not know that they would meet an ignominious end.



1944: Allied forces begin their final assault on the German lines at Monte Casino, the seizure of which will open the Road to Rome with the concomitant saving of the lives of Italian Jews hiding in and around the eternal city.



1946: Fifty-eight of the 61 defendants in “The Mauthausen Camp Trials” were found sentenced to death today.



1948:  Haganah took control of the port of Haifa. Haifa is Israel's northern port.  In 1948, it had enough of a Jewish majority to have elected the town's mayor.  But the city also had a considerable Arab population.  The fighting during April to control the city was fierce.  However, the three major Arab leaders left the city when they realized they were not going to any more help from the King of Jordan.  This demoralized the local Arab population.  Despite being urged by the Jews to stay and remain calm, the majority left by sea for Lebanon and by land for Nazareth.  Matters were not helped by the Arab Higher Committee which urged the Arabs to leave, in part, because the committee was sure that Haifawould be bombed by Arab air forces thus ending the Jewish presence in Haifa.


1949:  Israelis admitted as the 59th member of the U.N., this, on the anniversary of Turkey's declaration, in 1917, of its intention to free Eretz Israel of the entire Jewish population.



1950: In a speech given tonight at Madison Square Garden, Governor Dewey declared that Israel must be armed to defend its frontiers against aggression because a strong Israel "is the surest guarantee to peace in the Near East."



1953:  The Jerusalem Post reported that restitution negotiations were expected to begin shortly between the Austrian government and various Jewish Community representatives. The Israeli Cabinet decided to impose a "special unemployment relief tax" after the number of jobless reached 16,000. The Jerusalem Labor Exchange which had been closed for a week, following an attack by a mob of unemployed, reopened and offered forestation jobs to 30 workers. Over 550 workers were already employed in forestation projects carried out by Keren Kayemet, the Jewish National Fun.  In the first decade of the 21st century people see Israel as a place of lush vegetation with a vibrant western style economy.  It is quickly forgotten that in the early days of Israel’s existence the economy was quite shaky with high unemployment, large numbers of immigrants with limited skills and a land that had been denuded and neglected for centuries.



1955:  Israelattacked Gaza.  In 1955, Gaza was under control of Egypt.  It was a base for fedayeen (from Israel's point of view, terrorists) who would cross into Israelplanting roadside bombs and shooting up passing vehicles.  Israel's move into Gaza was temporary, lasting only long enough to destroy the bases from which these people operated.  David Ben-Gurion, Israel's first Prime Minister, was always adamant that Israelshould never want to hold on to Gaza.


1960:  Adolf Eichmann, charged with the implementation of the "final solution", was captured in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Eichmann was in charge of all transportation required for the shipment of Jews to the extermination camps. The height of his career was reached in Hungary in 1944, when he managed to transport 400,000 Jews to the gas chambers in less than five weeks.  Eichmann was found guilty and is the only person who ever executed by the Israeli the government.


1961: President John F. Kennedy appointed Walworth Barbour as U.S. Ambassador to Israel.


1963(17th of Iyar, 5723): Seventy-four year old Dr. Herbert S. Gasser, winner of the 1944 Nobel Prize for Medicine passed away tonight in New York City.

1966(21stof Iyar, 5726): Sixty year old “Monument Man” James Joseph Rorimer, a Jew from Cleveland who was a director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art where he helped create the Cloisters passed away today after suffering a heart attack.  (For more see Survival: The Salvage and Protection of Art in War by James Joseph Rorimer http://www.monumentsmenfoundation.org/the-heroes/the-monuments-men/rorimer-lt.-cdr.-james-j.http://chronicle.augusta.com/life/2014-02-08/look-real-man-portrayed-monuments-men




 
1967: Abba Eban and his wife tour Israel’s northern border area with General David Elazar, commander of the region.


1969: Sir Harry Charles Luke who served as assistant Governor of Jerusalem in 1921 and was a member of the Haycraft Commission that investigated the May riots in Jaffa  and who served as acting High Commissioner to the Government of Palestine for six months during 1928 passed away today


1969: “Singapore officially recognized the State of Israel and diplomatic relations were established between the two countries.” (As reported by JewishVirtualLibrary)


1973:  Citing government misconduct, Daniel Ellsberg has his charges for his involvement in releasing the Pentagon Papers to the New York Times dismissed.  Contrary to a popular misconception, Ellsberg was not Jewish.  His parents had been Jewish but they raised their son as a Christian Scientist.  However, the following list of people involved with the Pentagon Papers reads like a who’s-who of Jews during the 1970’s.  How many of these names ring a bell? “To name just a few, we have Leslie Gelb, the chief author of the Pentagon Papers; Henry Kissinger, Nixon's national security advisor and Ellsberg's former Harvard colleague; Leonard Weinglass and William Kunstler, two of Ellsberg's attorneys; Max Frankel and Arthur O. Sulzberger of The New York Times which first published the secret papers; Sidney Zion, the maverick reporter who named Ellsberg as the leaker; Seymour Hirsh, the investigative journalist and one of Ellsberg's few close friends; Barbra Streisand, who sang to raise money for Ellsberg's legal defense fund; Louis Marx, the toy tycoon and Ellsberg's father-in- law; Bernard Barker, the Watergate burglar; Noam Chomsky, the hard-Left Ellsberg defender; and Ellsberg's countless Jewish colleagues and acquaintances at Harvard, at the RANDCorporation, in the government and in the anti-Vietnam War movement.”


1975: Israel signed an agreement with European Economic Market.  This helped the Israelis to increase their involvement in what was then a new and burgeoning market for its products including fresh flowers and fresh produce.  At a time when Israel was being isolated in the U.N., this agreement served as a tonic for the besieged state.


1975: Saboteurs derailed a freight train near Jerusalem.


1978(4th of Iyar, 5738): Yom HaAtzma'ut


1982(18th of Iyar, 5742): Lag B’Omer


1982: The initial one-hour installment of ‘‘Oppenheimer,'' a seven-part dramatized biography of the American physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer; it stars Sam Waterston as ''the father of the atomic bomb'' will be broadcast tonight as part of the ''American Playhouse'' series. (As reported by Michael Billington)


1983(28th of Iyar, 5743: Yom Yerushalayim



1984: Release date for “The Natural,” the cinematic treatment of Bernard Malamud’s 1952 novel of the same name directed by Berry Levinson.


1985: Amy Eilberg was ordained today by the Jewish Theological Seminary making her the first female rabbi in the Conservative Movement.


1986:Anatoly B. Shcharansky was the featured “speaker at the annual Solidarity Sunday for Soviet Jewry, a rally at Dag Hammarskjold Plaza in Manhattan.”  Sharansky, who has taken the Hebrew name of Natan was released from a Soviet prison in February thanks to a massive, long-term campaign led by his wife Avital.  ''My K.G.B. interrogators, my prison guards, they tried to convince me that I was alone, powerless in their hands,'' Mr. Shcharansky told the crowd, some of whom had marched to the plaza near the United Nations along a parade route that began at Fifth Avenue and 64th Street. The police estimated the audience at 300,000. 'All of You Were With Me'  ''But I knew I was never alone,'' he added. ''I knew my wife, my people and all of you were with me. They tried their best to find a place where I was isolated. But all the resources of a superpower cannot isolate a man who hears the voice of freedom, a voice I heard from the very chamber of my soul.'' (As reported by Jane Gross)


1987:  Klaus Barbie goes on trial in Lyon for war crimes committed during World War II.  In 1941, Barbie was posted to the Bureau of Jewish Affairs and sent to Amsterdam and later, in May 1942, to Lyon - there, he earned the sobriquet "Butcher of Lyon" as head of the local Gestapo. He was accused of a number of crimes, including the capture and deportation of forty-four Jewish children hidden in the village of Izieu and the torturing to death of Jean Moulin, the highest ranking member of the French Resistance ever captured. All told, the deportation of 7,500 people, 4,342 murders, and the arrest and torture of 14,311 resistance fighters were in some way attributed to his actions or commands.  For several years after the war, Barbie was protected by British and American intelligence agencies because they thought he could provide information to help fight the Cold War.  In the end, Barbie would be found guilty and die in prison from cancer of the pancreas.


1987: Timemagazine published “Essay: Was He Normal? Human? Poor Humanity” by Elie Wiesel.

1991: “Amen,” a sitcom created by Ed Weinberger that included  two years of Elsa Raven playing “Inga” was broadcast on NBC for the last time.


1993: Yithak Rabin replaced Aryeh Deri as Minister of Internal Affairs.


1994(1stof Sivan, 5754): Rosh Chodesh Sivan


1994(1stof Sivan, 5754): Violinist Leonard Friedman passed away. Friedman was born in London's East End, the son of Russian Jewish immigrants.  He was the father of another generation of performers, Sonia, Maria and Richard Friedman.  Richard Friedman is the second generation of violinists in the family. 


1997: IBM's Deep Blue chess-playing supercomputer defeats Garry Kasparov in the last game of the rematch, becoming the first computer to beat a world-champion chess player. Kasparov claims to be half Armenian and half Jewish.  Regardless of his chess playing skills, Kasparov literally embodies the victims of the two most famous cases of genocide in the 20th century.



1997: The New York Timesfeatured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interst to Jewish readers including “The American Century” by Norman F. Cantor.



1998:In his column for the Weekly Standard, Charles Krauthammer wrote:



"Israel is the very embodiment of Jewish continuity: It is the only nation on earth that inhabits the same land, bears the same name, speaks the same language, and worships the same God that it did 3,000 years ago. You dig the soil and you find pottery from Davidic times, coins from Bar Kokhba, and 2,000-year-old scrolls written in a script remarkably like the one that today advertises ice cream at the corner candy store."


2001: The Austin Chronicle reviews Silent Heritage: The Sephardim and the Colonization of the Spanish North American Frontier, 1492-1600 by Richard Santos



2002: Robert Kraft’s New England Patriots open their brand new stadium, Gillette Stadium.



2003:The New York Timesfeatured books by Jewish writers and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including “The God of Old: Recovering Theological Imaginings by James Kugel



2004: The Village Voice publishes “The Jesus Landing Pad” in which author Rick Perlstein describes the here-to-for undocumented role of certain Christian groups in forming the Bush Administration’s Middle East Policy. According to Perlstein, the American people “we're not supposed to know the National Security Council's top Middle Eastaide consults with apocalyptic Christians eager to ensure American policy on Israelconforms with their sectarian doomsday scenarios.”



2005: Observance of יום הזכרון לחללי מערכות ישראל - ד'באייר Yom Hazikaron - Israel Remembrance Day or Israel Fallen Soldiers Remembrance Day.  This is a day to remember all those who have fallen in the defense of the Jewish homeland including those who have died at the hand of terrorist.  This national day of remembrance always comes one day before Israel Independence Day, which is the fifth of Iyar.  However, according to Israeli law, when the fifth of Iyar falls on a Friday or Saturday, as is the case in 2005, the observance of Independence Day is always moved to Thursday.  This means that Yom Hazikaron is moved to Wednesday.


2006: At The 92nd Street Y Joseph Telushkin delivers a lecture on his book "A Code of Jewish Ethics", followed by a book signing.



2006: According to “Hevesi's Advice Stirs Questions On the Coast” published in the New York Sun, New York State Comptroller Alan Hevesi “faced a conflict of interest allegation in relation to a private capital fund named ‘Markstone’".


2006(13th of Iyar, 5766): Writer, actor and singer Yossi Banai, one of Israel's most beloved and admired artists passed away at the age of 74 after a serious illness. He is survived by his wife and three children, one of whom is Mashina soloist Yuval Banai. The winner of the 1998 Israel Prize, Banai was celebrated as an extraordinarily talented actor, singer and writer. In addition to performing on stage and screen, Banai wrote and staged numerous performances, including skits for five productions of the Hagashash Hahiver entertainment group, of which his brother, Gavri Banai, was a member. Banai started out his career as an actor at Habima, where he continued to perform for over 50 years. Over time, he performed in every major Israeli theater as well as in numerous other venues. He was also well known for his renditions of French songs by Jacques Brel, Georges Brassens, and other French singers, adapted into Hebrew by Naomi Shemer.  Banai was born in the Mahaneh Yehuda neighborhood of Jerusalem, and grew up in an observant home. Last year, he issued a CD on which he read verses from Psalms, accompanied by music composed by Yonatan Bar-Giora. "At an older age, as an actor and also offstage, I began to realize how much poetry this enchanted text contained," he said in an interview following the release of the CD. "The Hebrew language, as it appears in Psalms, is simply sublime - so that even nonbelievers who do not treat the verses as a love song to divinity can read them as pure poetry."

2007:Jennifer Bleyer is the featured speaker at the Shabbat dinner sponsored by the JCCof Manhattan. “Jennifer is a journalist who founded Heeb Magazine, and became its first editor and publisher. She is currently writing for the City section of The New York Times, and has written about her own personal Jewish journey in Yentl's Revengeand The Modern Jewish Girl's Guide to Guilt.


2007: In Postville, Iowa, 200 workers walked off the job at Agriprocessors, the largest kosher slaughtering operation in the United States.


2007(23rd of Iyar, 5767): Robert Gordon, the blacklisted writer who was the son of Jewish immigrants from Russia passed away.  One of his best known quality screen efforts was 55 Days at Peking. During his “black list” period, Gordon served as one of the writers on “Hellcats of the Navy” starring Ronald Reagan and his future wife, Nancy Davis


2008: Leonard Cohen began his first tour in 15 years at Fredericton, New Brunswick.


2008: As part of Israel Independence Celebrations, The First International Writers Festival opens in Mishkenot Sha'ananim in Jerusalem.

2008: “One of a Kind,” a play that Yossi Vassa co-wrote with Shai Ben Attar about his family’s flight from Ethiopiain the mid-1980s ends its week long run at The New Victory Theater in New York City. 

2008: The Sunday New York Times section features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or on topics of Jewish interest including How I Learned Geography, a children’s book written and illustrated by Uri Shulevitz, Blood Matters: From Inherited Illness to Designer Babies, How the World and I Found Ourselves in the Future of the Gene by Masha Gessen, Nixonland by Rick Perlstein, The Ten Year Nap by Meg Wolitzer, The Red Leather Diary: Reclaiming a Life Through the Pages of a Lost Journalby Lily Koppeland Peace by Richard Bausch of which the reviewer writes, “ One senses some inherited autobiography here. Robert Marson, the novel’s central character is the grandson of German immigrants; his comrade, Asch, is the grandson of a German Jew who fought for the Kaiser in World War I. Bausch has dedicated the book to a father who “served bravely in Africa, Sicily and Italy.”


2008: The Washington Post book section features reviews of Reflections of a Wine Merchant by Neal I. Rosenthal and Audition: A Memoir by Barbara Walters.


2009: Rabbi Denise Eger assumes the leadership of the Board of Rabbis of Southern California.  She is the first woman and the firs lesbian to head this organization.


2009:The Pope arrives in Israel for a four-day stay, which will include visits to the Palestinian Authority and the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem as well as meetings with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Shimon Peres, who will be his official host.


2009: Sports Illustrated reports on the recent death of Salamo Arouch, the Greek born Jewish boxer who survived Auschwitz by winning fights staged by the camp guards.  After the war, he moved to Palestine where he fought in the War of Independence.  He was 86 when he died.


2009: Final performance of “The Man That Got Away: After Ira George” at the 92nd Street Y in New York.


2010: Andy Christie's The Liar Show featuring Ophira Eisenberg, Mark Katz, Michaela Murphy and Andy Christie is scheduled to appear at the DCJCC>



2010:Yom Yerushalayim, “For the sake of Jerusalem I will not be silent,” a night of activism on behalf of Israel is scheduled to take place at the Mt. Kisco Hebrew Congregation.



2010:A Prague court has recognized an artist's right to the image he designed of the Golem. Today the Prague Municipal court recognized the right of the daughter of the late sculptor Jaroslav Horejc, who created an image of a burly clay giant for the Czech film "The Emperor's Baker/The Baker's Emperor," to the image of the character, according to Radio Prague. According to legend, the Prague Golem was created by Rabbi Judah Loew ben Bezalel, the chief rabbi of Prague in the late 16th century, to defend the Prague ghetto from pogroms. Horejc's image was the first time that the Golem was shown as a giant, inhuman figure and not a human figure, according to the report.



2010: David Miliband completed his term of office as Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs under Prime Minster Gordon Brown.



2011:Rachel Gordan is scheduled to lead a conversation, entitled “Post-World War II American Judaism: How Judaism Became an American Religion,” at the Vilna Shul, Boston’s Center for Jewish Culture in Boston, MA.



2011:The Taft Museum of Art in Cincinnati, Ohio, is scheduled to  hold an informal 10-minute conversation on “Jozef Israëls, The Sewing School at Katwijk which provide more information about this masterpiece painted by the Jewish artist dubbed the 19th-century Rembrandt.



2011: Katherine Scharhon is scheduled to lead the first part of a two part series “A Taste of Sephardic Foods” in which participants willlearn to make (and eat) borekas, those divine filled pies and biscochos, the lovely simple cookies that can be sweet or savory and shaped for a variety of occasions in Seattle, Washington, home to the third largest Sephardic community in the United States.



2011:Hundreds of Jewish World War II veterans marched in the streets of Jerusalem today on the 66th anniversary of the Allied victory over Nazi Germany.

2011: Following the attack on Moshe Cohen, director of Heichal Hatora, in Buenos Aires,Dr. Angel Schindel, vice president of the DAIA Jewish political umbrella organization, plans to file a lawsuit today in the federal justice department based on a violation of Argentina’s anti-discrimination law, which penalizes with jail time attacks motivated by racial or religious hatred. (As reported by JTA)



2011(7thof Iyar, 5771): Ninety-four year old Leo Kahn, the founder of Staples, passed away today. (As reported by Douglas Martin
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/13/business/13kahn.html



2011: In “At 100, Still a Teacher and Quite a Character,” Joseph Berger describes the remarkable life of Bel Kaufman, the granddaughter of Shalom Aleichem who gained fame as an author in her own right.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/12/nyregion/bel-kaufman-at-100-still-a-teacher-and-a-jokester.html?ref=books



2011(7thof Iyar, 5771): Centenarian Maurice Goldhaber, the physicist who as Director of the Brookhaven National Laboratory oversaw experiments that led to 3 Nobel Prizes passed away today. (As reported by Kenneth Chang)http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/18/science/18goldhaber.html?_r=1



2012: Amos Kollek’s “Chronicles of a Chrisis” a documentary that includes an examination between the writer/director and his father who was Jerusalem’s most famous mayor finishes its opening week debut at the Quad Cinema in New York City.



2012:In the Western Galilee The Matte Asher and Maale Yosef regional councils are scheduled to host a jeep trip from Lake Monfort to the Tzuriel Crater, Alkosh Forest and Goren Park



 2012: Israeli President Shimon underwent surgery for a hernia at Sheba Medical Center in Tel Hashomer.



2013: Israeli born pianist Shai Wosner is scheduled to perform at the Kenned Center Terrace Theatre as the Washington Jewish Music Festival comes to an end. 



2013: Several thousand people marched around central Tel Aviv tonight to protest the budget plan presented earlier this week by Finance Minister Yair Lapid. (As reported by Ben Hartman)



2013: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faced heavy criticism today after it was revealed he spent $127,000 (over 450,000 shekels) of taxpayers’ money having an El Al plane fitted out with a double-bed in an enclosed bedroom for his five-hour flight to London last month to attend the funeral of British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.



2014: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Exodus: A Memoir by Deborah Feldman and Daughter of the King by Sandra Lansky (daughter of Myer Lansky) and William Stadiem.


2014:  The 22nd annual Toronto Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to come to an end.


2014: The National Center for Jewish Film’s 17th annual film festival is scheduled to come to an end.

This Day, May 12, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. Levin

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May 12


1191: Richard I of England marries Berengaria of Navarre. This was an arranged marriage to the extreme.  Richard was already leading the Third Crusade in the Holy Land when it came to marry Berengaria.  Richard had to break off his fight and come to Cyprus to marry his queen.  Richard spent most of his reign outside of the British Isles which was unfortunate for the Jews because he was not given to the ant-Semitic behavior of his English counterparts.



1267: A large group of church leaders, including a most of the German churchmen, met in Vienna under the leadership of the papal legate Gudeo.  They confirmed every canonical law that Innocent III and his successors had pass for the branding of the Jews.  Jews were not allowed to have any Christian servants, were not admissible to any office of trust, and were not to associate with Christians in ale-houses or bars.  Christians were not permitted to accept any invitation from Jews or to enter into discussion with them. 



1267: A special session of the city council of Vienna decided to force all Jews to wear a cone-shaped headdress in addition to the badge. It was called the Pileum cornutum and was to become distinctive attire which is prevalent in many medieval woodcuts illustrating Jews.



1393: The Jews of Sicily were forbidden to display any funeral decorations in public.



1540: Paul III issued “Licet Judaei,” a papal bull “clearing the Jews Of the charge that they practiced blood rituals.”



1670: Birthdate of Augustus II the Strong for whom Issacher Berend Lehman served as “the Court Jew.”



1700(23rdof Iyar, 5460): Joseph Athias, the native of Cordoba who served as a rabbi in Amsterdam where he published two editions of the Hebrew Bible passed away today.


1728(4thof Sivan, 5488): The brothers Hayyim and Joshua Reizes of Lemberg, famous for their piety and scholarship, were tortured and executed on charges of influencing the apostate Jan Filipowicz to return to Judaism.

1800(17th of Iyar ): Rabbi Moses Hayyim Ephraim of Sadilkov, author of “Degel Mahaneh Ephraim” passed away


1805: Birthdate of German-Jewish orientalist Julius Furst who works included Cultural and Literary History of Jews in Asia.


1807: Rothschild’s “official” balance sheet shows that his assets on this day totaled 1,973,192 gulden. His assets had quadrupled since 1797.


1811: An article published in The Star described the dedication of a new synagogue. "On Friday last a new Synagogue was consecrated at Sheerness, which was very numerously attended, and the service performed by Messers Leos and Phillips, who went from London for that purpose. The music was composed by one of the Mes. Leos, and was perhaps as grand as has been witnessed, as Mr. Leo led the band in a most excellent manner. Several persons of distinction were admitted to see the ceremony performed."


1838: In London, Dinah Levy and Jacob Farjeon gave birth to British writer Benjamin Leopold Farjeon.


1840: In England, the Brighton Railway Station designed by David Mocatta “opened for trains to Shoreham” today.


1842: Birthdate of Amos Kidder Fiske the author of The Great Epic of Israel: The Web of Myth, Legend, History, Law, Oracle, Wisdom and Poetry of the Ancient Hebrews and The Jewish Scriptures: The Books of the Old Testament in Light of their Origin and History


1850: Birthdate of Henry Cabot Lodge, United States Senator from Massachusetts. Lodge led the fight to defeat the Versailles Treaty and to keep the United States out of the League of Nations. The failure of the United Statesto join the League of Nations was one of the root causes of World War II, a war that destroyed European Jewry.  Lodge was more interested in wounding President Wilson than he was creating a new way for nations to solve their disputes peacefully. Lodge was the co-sponsor “of the 1922 joint Congressional resolution (known as the Lodge-Fish resolution) that endorsed the creation a Jewish national home.  The bill commended the ‘building up of new and beneficent life in Palestine’ as an act of ‘historic justice’ and ‘an undertaking which will do honor to Christendom and give to the House of Israel its long-denied opportunity to reestablish a fruitful Jewish life and culture in it ancient land.’”  Elihu D. Stone, the leading Zionist in Boston “persuaded Lodge to present the resolution to Congress on the eve of” Passover in 1922, since in Stone’s word “this too was to an act of freedom for the Jewish people…”  Lest anybody thing the Lodge had become an ardent had become an ardent Zionist at least one historian makes the strong case that the resolution, which was non-binding, was an attempt to mollify Jews who were upset with the Republican supported anti-immigration that had been passed the year before. (As described in The Jews of Boston edited by Jonathan D. Sarna, et al)


1858: Sixty-nine year old Protestant Hebraist J.G.B. Winer passed away today.


1859: In the United Kingdom due to nationwide scare over the possibility of war with France, today the War Office gave sanction for the formatting of volunteer corps out of concern for home defense to which Lazarus Simon Magnus responded. This would lead to the formation of the Kent Voluntary Artillery, a 19thcentury version of the Home Guard that would be formed to face Hitler in 1940.


1860: The Rhode Island Republican described the early development of Newport which benefited from the introduction of the first chandlery factory in America by Jewish immigrants from Portugal. 


1861: Three weeks after Rabbi David Einhorn, a leading abolitionist had escaped to Philadelphia, a delegation from Har Sinai asked him to return to Baltimore.  While they were sympathetic with his views, they said the request was conditional on his promise not to speak out on slavery, secession or the war.


1870:The Manitoba Act was given the Royal Assent, paving the way for Manitoba to become a province of Canada on July 15, 1870. According to a census taken the following year there were only 1,115 Jews living in Canada, most of whom were found in the major metropolitan areas in the provinces of Quebec and Ontario. Jewish settlement in western Canadabegan in earnest under the aegis of the Baron de Hirsch Foundation and the Jewish Colonial Association in 1890. The Association financed a series of agricultural settlements including those at New Hirsch and Narcisse in Manitoba.


1871: The American Christian Society for Promoting Christianity in the city of New York and elsewhere held their first anniversary meeting at Cooper Institute. The society has one branch – in Somerset, Iowa. According to the society there are 65,000 Jews living in New York and 250,000 in the whole United States.


1872: Birthdate of Eleanor Florence Rathbone an independent British Member of Parliament and long-term campaigner for women's rights. She was a member of the noted Rathbone family of Liverpool. In the House of Commons, the courageous Eleanor Rathbone attacked the British government for the defeatist attitudes expressed at the Bermuda Conference and noted that the Allies are responsible for the deaths of any Jews if they refuse to help.


1875:In Philadelphia, The Young Men's Hebrew Association was organized today with Mayer Sulzberger as president. This new organization replaced a predecessor, The Hebrew Association. The object of the association is "to promote a higher culture among young men".  The organization would grow to over 1,000 members, under the presidency of Adolph Eichholz.


1877: According to a column published today titled "Russian Interior" a revolt has broken out in the Crimea and the "Jews of Jassy have been warned that if they continue prayers in their synagogues for the success of the Turks they will be severely punished."


1878: An article published today entitled “Works of the Rabbis: The Talmud and other Jewish Books; A Supposed Dangerous Work and What Was Done to Suppress It – The Great Change it Wrought by Time - How The Talmud Originated and of What It Consists – The Ten Targums or Interpretations of Scripture – The Principal Commentaries on the Bible – The Masora and Cabala” provides a comparative lengthy and detailed history of Jewish writings and the various attempts to suppress or destroy them.


1884: France expanded its colonial empire in North Africa by forcing Tunisia to become a French protectorate.  The Jewish community of Tunisia dated back to Biblical times and by the middle of the 18thcentury, they made up about one sixth of the population and had access to 27 synagogues. (Jewish Virtual Library)


1884(17th of Iyar, 5644): Czechoslovakian composer Bedrich Friedrich Smetana passed away.  The melody for Hatikvah was written by Samuel Cohen who based his composition on a musical theme found in Smetana's "Moldau."  During the Mandate, when the British forbade the playing of Hatikvah, many Jews would play records of the piece by Smetana.  The words for Hatikvah which means Hope were written by Naphatali Herz Imber an English poet born in Bohemia


1885: Birthdate of Paltiel Daykan, a Russian born Israeli Jurist who was awarded the Israel Prize in 1957.


1886: Birthdate of Max Adler.  A native of Elgin, Illinois, this son of German-Jewish immigrants gave up a career as a concert violinist to become a vice president of SearsRoebuck& Co after he married SophieRosenwald, the sister of JuliusRosenwald.  Adlerretired in 1928 to pursue a life of philanthropy that included the creations of the Adler Planetarium, the first planetarium built in the WesternHemisphere.  He passed away in 1952.


1889:  Birthdate of Otto Frank, father of Anne Frank.


1899: “The Shatchen” by Henry Doblin and Charles Dickson featuring the character “Meyer Petowsky” as the marriage broker premiered at the Star Theatre in New York City tonight.


1890: The list of the newly elected officers of the Home for Aged and Infirm Hebrew published today included Charles L. Bernheim, President; Mrs. Henry Gitterman, Vice President; Charles Sternbach, Treasurer.
 
1892: It was reported today that behavior of Polish strikers show “a blind hatred for all Jews and a brutal delight in murdering Jews…”  Anti-Semitism is so endemic to the general population that “if Russia were…under a constitutional Government, there is no reason to believe that the Jews would be any more decently treated than they are under the Government of the Czar.”  (Events in the 20th century would prove these words to be prophetic.)


1892: “Polish Rioters Punished” published today described the ongoing labor violence at Lodz “and the attendant Jew baiting.”


1892: Birthdate of Fritz Kortner. Born Fritz Nathan Kohn, in Vienna, the Austrian stage and film actor gained performing in Germany. He fled Germany in 1933 for the United States where his career.  He returned to Germany in 1949 where he gained additional fame for his directorial skills in the “legitimate theatre.”  He passed away in 1970.


1892: “Better Teachers Wanted” published today described the efforts to improve the quality of the Jewish Sunday Schools in New York.  According to Miss Julia Richmond of the Hebrew Free School Association and a leading public school educator, most of the teachers are “willing and intelligent” but lack the proper training.  Her solution is to create a two year program that would include course in Hebrew, Bible and ancient history mixed with actual classroom experience.  A committee composed of Rabbis Kohler, Kohut, Isaacs, Silverman, Harris and De Sola Mendes and Miss Richmond has been formed to pursue the matter.
 
1893: One thousand immigrants, most of whom were Russian Jews arrived at Ellis Island today aboard the steamship Dania.


1893: There were a dozen Polish Jews aboard the Majestic when it arrived today in England.


 
1894: During a court hearing in Glogua, Count Walter Puckler-Muskau, the “German anti-Semitic agitator declared that the use of such terms “beat the Jews,” “ crack their skulls,”  “kick them out” and “thrash them” were figurative and meant no harm to the Jews”


1895: It was reported today during the last year, the expenses for operating Mt. Sinai Hospital exceeded all sources of income by $6,000.despite several sources of revenue including generous bequests by the late Sarah Burr, the last of which totaled $35,000.  The board headed by President Hyman Blum and Vice President Isaac is working to remedy the situation.


1895: “Through With Their Studies” published today described the season ending activities of the Young Men’s Hebrew Association which “will open it twenty-second season next fall with a membership of over 500.”  In addition to its other activities, the Association will continue to operate a school that offers courses in Jewish history and stenography.


1895: Zene Barkuskie and Vincent Oustra form Jersey City and Mr. and Mrs. Tony Stelitzka of Kingston, NY, all of whom are Polish Jews are waiting on Commissioner Shields to take action following their arrest yesteray on charges of counterfeiting.


1895: “Golden Wedding Tablets in a Temple” published today described the two tablets that Amalie and William S. Rayner donated to Congregation Har Sinai in Baltimore in honor of their golden wedding anniversary.  The two marble tablets which are six feet by 3 feet by 3 feet were created by William A. Gualt.  They are inscribed with two Hebrew statements and their English translations which are “Hear Israel! The Eternal is God; The Eternal is One” and “Thou Shalt Love Thy Neighbor as Thysef.”


1897: Herzl decides to create a Zionist paper. ("Mit allem war ich gleich im reinen, nur mit dem Titel nicht" - "I saw everything clearly right away - except for the name.")


1898: Hammerstein’s Lyric Theatre will host this afternoon benefit performance featuring members of the Professional Woman’s League.


1899: Roswell P. Flower, the Governor of New York who appointed Edward Jacobs, a member of the Buffalo, NY, Jewish community to serve as Loan Commissioner, passed away today.


1900:  Birthdate of German born actress Helene Weigel, wife of Bertholt Brecht. Her father was Jewish; her mother was not.  She died in East Berlin in 1971.


1900: In a letter to the New York Times, Jacob Schiff expresses his opposition to the “project of the Baron and Baroness de Hirsch Monument Association.  A long-time friend of the Baron, Schiff believes that he and his wife would not want a monument built in their honor preferring instead that their good works serve as their memorial.  Schiff did not question the good intentions of those wishing to build the monument but did challenge the project as being totally inappropriate.


1900(13thof Iyar, 5660): Italian author and member of Parliament Attilio Luzzato a member of family from Udine province that traces its origins back to the 17thcentury when two Luzzato brothers came there from Venice passed away today.


1901: Birthdate of the talented musician, Hyam Greenbaum.  Greenbaum lived in Great Britain.  He was an accomplished violinist, film score arranger and conductor for several BBC orchestras.  He passed away in 1942.

1916: Date of death shown on the tombstone of Shalom Aleichem. Actually it said “12a).He died on May 13. But he suffered from triskaidekaphobia, which is a showboating way to say that he had a fear of the number 13. He used 12a in numbering the pages of his manuscripts. (As reported by Clyde Haberman)


1918: Birthdate of Julius Rosenberg.  Rosenberg and his wife would become the center piece in a spy ring that gave Atomic secrets to the Soviets.  The Rosenbergs were executed for treason in 1953.


1919: Thirty-eighth anniversary of the laying of a corner stone at the synagogue in Oran, Algeria. At its peak, the Jewish population was about 2,000.  After Algeria gained its independence in 1962, the Jewish community left for France and Israel.


1920: Charles Edward Sebag-Monteifiore and Muriel Alice Ruth de Pass gave birth to Hugh William Montefiore


1920:Birthdate of Vilém Flusser the Czech born Jewish philosopher and author who was a long time resident of Brazil before finally settling in France.


1922: In the Bronx, cabdriver Irving Gerhenzwit and his wife Ellen gave birth to Morris Gershenwit who would gain fame running “a used record store in Los Angeles” that was really “an international archive of more than 300,000 records.”


1922: Birthdate of Paul Milstein, the prominent businessman and philanthropist  who used profits from the family flooring business to build a real estate empire in New York City, distinguished by major projects begun in uncertain neighborhoods and totaling 50,000 apartments, 8,000 hotel rooms and 20 million square feet of office space.”


1923: In Poland, Jewish physicians issued a protest against the memorandum published by the Medical Faculty of the Krakau University justifying the demand for a percentage norm against the Jewish medical students on the ground that the Jewish physicians have "low moral standards". The Jewish doctors demanded a retrataction. (As reported by JTA)


1923: The Joint Distribution Committee announced that it has decided to continue its support for Hebrew Schools operated by the Tarbut Organization. “Tarbut was a Zionist network of Hebrew-language educational institutions founded in 1922, when the first Tarbut conference was held in Warsaw.



1923:"Kaufman Kohler Sabbath" was observed by Reform Synagogues throughout the United States today in celebration of the eightieth birthday last Thursday of Dr. Kaufman Kohler. The 80 year old Rabbi expressed his concern that “idealism has given way to materialism and opportunism.”  He believes that “the world is passing from a disturbed phase of thought to a higher plane” and that he sees women as playing a vital role in the spread of religious values.


1924: Otto Frank, the future father of Anne Frank turned 35 today.


1925: Edith Hoolander married Otto Frank today at a synagogue in Aachen.
 
1926: JTA reported that in Great Britain many public functions of Jewish bodies and societies will have to be postponed if the general strike does not come to an end this week including the scheduled monthly meeting of the Board Jewish Deputies.


1926: It was reported today that Lord Allenby's unveiling of the Jewish World Memorial at the synagogue in Stepney, has been postponed as result of the General Strike that is gripping the United Kingdom.


1926: The role of Sir Herbert Samuel, former High Commissioner of Palestine and chairman of the British Royal Coal Commission, in the settlement of the general strike, the first event of that nature in western Europe, was disclosed today in the official statement issued by the Trades Union Congress. It appears that Sir Herbert played the main part as the mediator between the strikers and the government. Immediately upon his return to London from a vacation, Sir Herbert made efforts toward mediation, as chairman of the Royal Commission, with a view toward settlement. He obtained the memorandum of the Trade Unions which was accepted by the government. (As reported by JTA)


1926:"No attempt toward the economic reconstruction of European Jewries will succeed unless we stem the anti-Semitic wave," declared Dr. William Filderman, president of the Union of Roumanian Jews, on the eve of his departure for Europe on the Berengaria today. "There is no use educating Jewish artisans if anti-Semitic prejudice deprives them of any market for their products," he explained.


1928: Birthdate of Burt Bacharach Jewish-American pianist and composer.


1930:During this evening’s annual meeting of the American Jewish Physicians' Committee, Dr. Nathan Ratnoff, president of the organization announced, that “$100,000 would be raised this year for an administration building for the proposed medical college at the Hebrew University of Palestine.  The medical school will be erected on land bought by the committee in 1922 located on Mt. Scopus in Jerusalem.


1935: Polish dictator Jozef Pilsudski dies. From here on Jews will experience more anti-Semitism in Poland. The government and most Polish political parties will call for discrimination, economic boycott, expulsion, and physical violence against Jews. The Polish Catholic Church, most priests, the Catholic press, and schools will sanction discrimination and/or violence against the Jews.


1938: The Palestine Post reported the Jewish Labor declaration that the Arab terror will merely strengthen the determination of the Jewish people in their development of uninhabited areas and other up building tasks.


1938: The Palestine Post reported that an armed Arab gang robbed and burned the tents of the Ghazzabiya Bedouin tribe near Beit Shean after its demands failed to be met. Bodies of Arabs kidnapped from the neighboring villages by Arab terrorist gangs were found near Safed.


1940: On this day the German blitzkrieg (lightning war) breached the French defenses. At the time Sousa Mendes was the General Consul of Portugalto Bordeaux, France. Thanks to Mendes' actions it is believed that around 30.000 refugees were saved, among them 10.000 Jews avoided death in the Reich’s death camps. It was said Mendes was descendant from Jewish family.



1942(25th of Iyar, 5702): Four days after the Ghetto at Radun was sealed off, 3,400 Jews were marched to the outskirts of town and shot, row-by-row, into ditches dug by other Jews.



1942(25th of Iyar, 5702): One thousand, five hundred Jews from Sosnowiec are gassed in Auschwitz. Another 2,750 Jews from Turobin, joining several other thousands of Jews were crammed into railway box cars and deported to Sobibor to meet their extermination



1943: The remains of the Warsaw Ghetto go up in flames.



1943: In New York thousands of Jews attended the funeral of Dr. Chaim Zhitlowsky, the Russian born intellectual who had passed away in Calgary (As reported by JTA)



1943 (7th of Iyar, 5703): Seventeen-year-old Frania Beatus, active in the Warsaw Ghetto underground, commits suicide rather than surrender to the Nazis.



1943 (7th of Iyar, 5703): Another round up of Jews who escaped from the Warsaw Ghetto during the uprising were caught and executed.



1943 (7th of Iyar, 5703): In London, Shmuel Zygielbogm committed suicide. He was one of two Jewish representatives of the Polish-Government-In-Exile in London. His final letter was a cry of agony and despair.  He was crushed that the world would do nothing to save the Jews.  His wife and son perished in the Ghetto.  He felt his life had been a failure and hoped that his death might shock the world into action.  At one point he wrote that he could not live ‘when the remnant of the Jewish people in Poland . . . is being steadily annihilated.'



1943: The first Aliyah to the Negev began with the establishment of Kibbutz Gevulot. The first three settlements, Gevulot, Revivim, and Bet Eshel, were experimentally established in 1943 to determine the feasibility of permanent settlements in the Negev. As a result of the information gathered in the experimental stage, eleven new settlements were established in the Negev in 1946, and an additional seven in 1947. These settlements served also as strong-points to defend the Yishuv from attack by an enemy advancing from the south. The Egyptian army suffered its first defeat at Nirim, one of the settlements established in 1946, on the anniversary of the first Aliyah to the Negev.


1945: As mopping up operations continued today, German unites of Army Group Centre surrendered to the Russians.


1948: Bet-Shean was captured by the Haganah; specifically the 13thBattalion of the Golani Brigade.  Bet-Shean is one of the oldest cities in the world having been first built in the fifth century B.C.E.  The bodies of King Saul and Jonathan were hung from its walls after their defeat at Mt. Gilboa.  Bet-Shean is in the eastern portion of Israel, in the JezreelValley.  After the war thousands of Moroccan Jews settled there.  It has been the site of a great deal of archeological discovery. One of the battalions was commanded by Avraham Yoffe


1948: U.S. Secretary George Marshall “appealed to Ben-Gurion to hold off a decision for independence.  Courteously, but firmly the appeal was refused.” Marshalltold Moshe Sharett head of the Jewish agency’s U.N. delegation to ignore the the assurance of Jewish military leaders that they can win out against the Arabs.  He advised him to put off the declaration of independence and accept a UN trusteeship.  This marked the high point in the clash between Marshall and Truman over the recognition of the Jewish state.  Marshallhad even threatened to resign over the matter.  Marshall’s opposition was based on what he considered the realities of the geo-political situation in the Middle East.  Fortunately for all concerned, Marshall remained at his post and the team of Truman and Marshall continued to work together as America dealt with challenges of Soviet Imperialism.


1948:Yigael Yadin, the Haganah's chief of operations, put the odds of the nascent Jewish state surviving the onslaught by the Arab armies at 50-50


1948: David Ben-Gurion convened an emergency meeting of the Provisional Council, the governing body of the unborn Jewish state. The issue at hand was a proposal that there should be a delay in declaring statehood.  According to one report as much as half of the council wanted to postpone the declaration and accept some sort of cease-fire with the Arab forces already fighting the Jews.  The news the council was not good.  Mrs. Meir reported on the failure of the talks with the Jordanians.  She later reported that she was relieved to see that her report did not dissuade Ben-Gurion from deciding that the Jewish state would be born when the British mandate ended in forty-eight hours.  The Council also heard from Yigal Yadin, the military leader who brought the negative reports about the pending destruction of the Etzion Bloc of settlements.  Ben-Gurion closed the debate by outlining all of the risks.  In the end, the Council voted by six to four to reject the offer of a cease fire and push forward with the declaration of statehood. 


1948(3rd of Iyar, 5708): Pianist and composer Isidor Achron passed away. Born in Warsaw in 1892, Achron came from a musical family.  His older brother Joseph was a famed violinist.  Achron's early musical career was interrupted by a three year stint in the Czar's Army during World War I.  After the war, he came to the United States where he served as the principal accompanist for Heifitz for ten years.  During the 1930's and 1940's he created his own compositions while pursuing a career as a soloist at such venues as Carnegie Hall. He passed away suddenly at the age of 55.


1948: Having withstood the onslaught of the Arab Legion during the fight for Mishmar Ha-Emek, Lehi launched a successful operation on five villages directly to the west the Kibbutz.


1950: As of today, doctors in Israel are “exhausting supplies of the drug Aureomycin in an attempt to curb the worst polio epidemic in” the history of the Jewish state.


1950:The Government of Israel said today that farmers in the Hebron area had "extended the cultivation of lands" within Israel, but denied that this had been done under the guns of heavily armed troops.


1953: The Jerusalem Postreported that Israel agreed to review the acute border infiltration problem in high level talks with Jordan.


1953: The Jerusalem Postreported that The Special Commission which studied the problems of the Jerusalem Municipality severely criticized the staff, and recommended that the Mayor should be deprived of all executive and fiscal powers, which should be rendered to an appointed City Manager.


1957(11th of Iyar, 5717): Erich von Stroheim passed away.  As a director, von Stroheim ranks up there with D.W. Griffith and Cecil B. DeMille.  As an actor he was noted for playing Germanic characters.  His most famous role was that of the loyal servant Max von Mayerling, in Billie Wilder’s cinema noir classic Sunset Boulevard.


1958: Birthdate of Yitzhak Vaknin a member of Shas who has been an MK since 1996.


1959: For its time, a celebrity bombshell was dropped as two Jewish entertainers, Liz Taylor and Eddie Fisher were married -she for the fourth time and he for the second time after ending his all-American marriage to Debbie Reynolds.


19594th of Iyar, 5719): Yom HaZikaron


1960:The Yossele Shumacher affair makes headlines when the child's ultra-Orthodox grandfather, Nahman Shtarks, is arrested on suspicion of abducting him from his parents.


1963(18th of Iyar, 5723): Lag B'Omer


1963: Bob Dylan, born Robert Zimmerman, walked off the Ed Sullivan (television variety) Show.


1963: Final broadcast of the “Dinah Shore Chevy Shoe,” starring Dinah Shore (AKA Frances Rose Shore)


1964: Barbra Streisand won the Grammy for Best Female Vocalist for “The Barbra Streisand Album.”


1965:  Israel and West Germany exchange letters beginning diplomatic relations.  For Jews in general, and Holocaust survivors in Israel, this was and is a sensitive topic.  The issue of whether or not to trade with Germany, to enter into arms agreements and/or accept reparation payments for the Holocaust touched off major political debates in Israel


1966: In Seattle, Washington, Temple Beth Am published Statement of Principles that declared “...let our congregation be religious, democratic, creative, relevant and learned...”


1967: Oded Kotler wins the Best Actor Award in the Cannes Film Festival for his leading role in the Israeli film: "Three Days and a Child


1967: In Moscow, an Egyptian parliamentary delegation including Anwar Sadat was told to expect “an Israeli invasion of Syria immediately after Independence Day, with the aim of overthrowing the Damascus regime.”


1975: In Boulder, Colorado, Stephen Schutz and Susan Poli Schutz gave birth to Democratic Congressman Jared Schutz Polis.


1977: The second of the five part “Nixon Interviews” which were a product of Swifty Lazar’s “hustle” and produced by Marvin Intoff were broadcast tonight.


1978: The Jerusalem Post reported that on the occasion of Israel's 30th anniversary, the Chief of Staff, Rafael Eytan, declared that Zahal will be unable to defend Israel without the West Bank, and urged both his soldiers and civilians to "stop being naive about the subject." He was thus countering the Egyptian President Anwar Sadat's declaration made at the same time in New York, which demanded that Israelreturns the Gaza Strip to Egyptand the West Bank to Jordan.


1980: Birthdate of award winning Israeli actress Maya Maron.


1985: In “Garden Where Biblical Plants Come To Life,” Matthew Nesvisky describes Israel's Neot Kedumim Biblical Landscape Reserve.

1985: Amy Eilberg is ordained in New York as the first female Conservative Rabbi.

1987: James Angleton, a senior officer with the CIA from its earliest days in 1947 passed away today at the age of 69.  Angleton was best known for his counter-intelligence work but Angleton also “handled one of the agency's most sensitive relationships with an allied intelligence service, its ties to the Israelis. Mr. Angleton handled ''the Israeli account'' as it was termed in C.I.A. argot, for more than a decade. Indeed, Mr. Colby, the agency director who forced his resignation, earlier insisted that Mr. Angleton relinquish his control over Israeli matters.” (As reported by Stephen Engelberg)


1995: While visiting the Ukraine, President and Mrs. Clinton go to Babi Yar.  Escorted by a Chasidic Rabbi, they pay homage to the 30,000 Jews of Kiev who were massacred by the Nazis with the help of the local populace in 1941.


1995(12th of Iyar, 5755)Movie director Arthur Lubin passed away.  Lubin was an actor during the 1920's, moving behind the camera in the 1930's when he started working with Abbot and Costello.  His re-make of Phantom of the Opera with Claude Raines is considered a classic.  Lubin is credited for two of the most famous talking animals.  He directed the Francis the Talking Mule films and then moved over to television with Mr. Ed.  Lubin passed away at the age of 95.


1999(26th of Iyar, 5759):Saul Steinberg Romanian born cartoonist and illustrator whose work graced numerous issues of The New Yorker passed away at the age of 85. After coming to the United Statesin 1942, he did 85 covers and 642 illustrations for what was, in its day, the nation’s most sophisticated weekly.


2001:“Sing America” which was co-written by Dr. Sherwin Kaufman the son of Sholom Aleichem was played at the Ellis Island Medals of Honor Awards Gala,. As an invited guest at this black-tie event, he “heard the song played at the beginning of festivities and then as a musical background during a video of the ceremony.”


2002: The New York Times featured books by Jewish writers and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including 'Hester Among the Ruins” by Binnie Kirshenbaum and “Somebody'sGotta Tell It'' by Jack Newfeld


2002(1stof Sivan, 5762): Rosh Chodesh Sivan


2002(1stof Sivan, 5762): Forty-three year old Nisan Dolinager of Pe’at Sadeh was shot and killed today by a Palestinian laborer.


2002: “The Golem” “…a new English version of the Yiddish classic” based on the legend surrounding a 17th century Rabbi living in Prague was performed for the last time today.


2003: The body of the second terrorists who had helped to blow up Mike’s Place “washed ashore” on the beach at Tel Aviv.


2005:Observance of Yom Ha'atzma'ut (יום העצמאות yom -‘amā’ū), Israeli Independence Day, which commemorates the declaration of independence of Israel in 1948. Yom Ha'atzma'ut falls on the 5th day of Iyar ( ה'באייר) on the Hebrew calendar. When the 5th of Iyar falls on a Friday or Saturday, as in 2005, the official celebration may be moved to the preceding Thursday. The Gregorian date for the day in which Israel independence was proclaimed is May 14th 1948 when David ben Gurion publicly read the Proclamation of the establishment of the State of Israel.  However, when the fifth of Iyar falls on Friday or Saturday as it does in 2005, Israeli Independence Day is celebrated on the preceding Thursday to avoid any possible violation of the Sabbath.


2006: On the secular calendar, Pesach Sheni, (5766).


2006: In Israel, events begin marking the start of the 15th annual Historic Site Preservation Week, an initiative of the Society for Preservation of Israel Heritage Sites (SPIHS)


2006:Harvey Sheldon launched for the first time in the world, WORLD JEWISH NETWORK on the internet. The format will be 24 hours a day, 7 days a week of nothing but popular Jewish and Israeli music, that you can listen to and dance.


2007: In Detroit, Michigan, Ayal Mendelsohn, son of Mr. and Mrs. David Mendelsohn, is called to the Torah as a Bar Mitzvah.


2007: In an article styled “Women add to Torah Dialogue,” the Cedar Rapids Gazette reports on a Torah commentary written by female rabbis and female Jewish scholars that will be published in the autumn of 2007.


2007: The Cedar Rapids Gazette reports on labor troubles at Agriprocessors in Postville, Iowa.  Agriprocessors is controlled by the Rubashkin family and is the largest kosher slaughtering operation in the United States.


2008: The Spertus Institute of Jewish Studies presents A Short History of Anti-Semitism,” the second of four lunchtime session taught by historian Dr. Dean Bell that covers anti-Judaism in the classical world, the Crusades and expulsions in the Middle Ages, tolerance and restrictions in the early modern period, and racial anti-Semitism in both the nineteenth century and early twentieth century.


2008: In article entitled “Wage the Warrior: David Mamet tackles mixed martial arts,” Sports Illustrated reviews “Redbelt,” Mamet’s latest cinematic effort.  “Redbelt” is set in the world of mixed martial art which seems a far cry from the world of the man who wrote The Wicked Son: Anti-Semitism, Self-hatred and the Jews. On the other hand, the sixty year old man of letters and motion pictures is “a serious jiu-jitsu practitioner.”


2008: The prestigious Turin Book Fair comes to an end. The Turin Fair is honoring Israel on the 60th anniversary of the Jewish state's creation. Prominent Israeli authors Abraham B. Yehoshua, David Grossman, Amos Oz, Aaron Appelfeld and Meir Shalev were 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 despite protests from various pro-Arab and anti-Israel activists. 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.'"


2008:More than 300 people here have already been arrested at Postville, Iowa, in what is being called the largest operation of its kind in Iowa, federal officials said this afternoon. At , Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents entered Agriprocessors, Inc., as part of an ongoing investigation and to execute criminal search warrants for aggravated identify theft, fraudulent use of Social Security numbers and other crimes, as well as a civil search warrant to find people living illegally in the United States.  At a news conference in Cedar Rapids, ICE spokesman Tim Counts said most of the arrests so far are for administrative immigration violations, although more information about the identities and jobs of those arrests are not being released at this time. Agriprocessors is the world’s largest kosher meatpacking plant.


 

 2008: In a front page article entitled “Time To Go” appearing in The Cedar Rapids Gazette Kathy Goldstein, the Musical Voice of Temple Judah and a Clinton supporter expresses her views on Hillary Clinton’s exit strategy. “The race is over, and I think she should go out in grace and style,” said Katherine Goldstein of Cedar Rapids. “If she does it now, she looks like a queen. If she keeps fighting, she’ll look like a fool.” Once she makes that decision, it may take a while for Clinton’s backers to accept her decision, said Goldstein, a retired teacher. “But once they do, they’ll understand this is the only thing she can do.” Goldstein expects Clinton to put the party first and support Obama, and “we’ll all take our cue from her.” Clinton’s partisans are divided as to whether Obama will — or should — offer her the vice presidency. “It would look very nice, even though she represents the old and he represents the new,” Goldstein said. “The fact she is a woman would trump their differences.”


2008(7th of Iyyar, 5768):An elderly woman was killed by a Kassam rocket that scored a direct hit on a western Negev community, hours after Israeli leaders said they were leaning toward accepting an Egyptian cease-fire deal with Hamas. Shlomit Katz, 75 of Kibbutz Gvar'am, was killed while visiting Moshav Yesha in the Eshkol Regional Council. The deadly attack came four days after a mortar shell barrage killed Jimmy Kedoshim, 48, a father of four, as he stood in the yard of his house in Kibbutz Kfar Aza in the Negev.


2008:Irena Sendler - a Polish social worker who helped save some 2,500 Jewish children from the Nazis by smuggling them out of the Warsaw Ghetto and giving them false identities - has died today at the age of  98. (As reported by Dennis Hevesi)


2009 (18 Iyar): Lag B’Omer– 33rd Day of the Omer


2009: As part of its Centennial Celebration, Tel Aviv hosts a special conference on education attended by prominent educators, academics and researchers who will address the key educational and pedagogic issues facing the city's future generations, as well as educational policy and curriculum unique to Tel Aviv-Yafo.


2009:Today the Freie Universitat in Berlin launched a project that will give high school students across Germany access to more than 50,000 video testimonies of Holocaust survivors and witnesses.


2010(28th of Iyar, 5770) Yom Yerushalayim


2010:The story of Russ &; Daughters is scheduled to be featured in the premiere episode of New York Originals, a documentary series profiling “classic one-of-a-kind shops and mom-and-pop businesses that have stood the test of time.”


2011: The YIVO Institute for Jewish Research is scheduled to present The 2011 Spring Concert as part of the Sidney Krum Young Artists Concert Series. “The Spring Concert will highlight the works of two great Jewish composers: Lazar Weiner, the prominent American composer of Jewish art songs, and Joseph Achron, the outstanding Russian-born violinist and composer, student of Arnold Schoenberg and one of the co-founders of Jewish Folk Music.”


2011: The National Museum of American Jewish History is scheduled to present a screening of “Jewish Soldiers in Blue & Gray” “a …documentary that reveals the little-known struggles that faced Jewish-Americans both in battle and on the home front during the Civil War” including the 7,000 who fought for the Union, the 3000 who fought with the Rebels and the “five Union Jewish soldiers received the Congressional Medal of Honor.”


2011(8thof Iyar, 5771): Seventy-nine year old Jay D. Fischer, the attorney “who negotiated a monetary settlement with the Palestine Liberation Organization on behalf of the family of Leon Klinghoffer after his murder during a 1985 hijacking” passed away today.


2011(8thof Iyar, 5771): Seventy-six year old Jack Keil Wolf, an engineer and computer theorist whose mathematical reasoning about how best to transmit and store information helped shape the digital innards of computers and other devices that power modern society passed away today. (As reported by Douglas Martin)


2012: Jan Kasoff is scheduled to deliver a talk based on his 36 years as an NBC cameraman entitled Behind the Scenes at SNL and NBC!! at the JCC of Northern Virginia


2012: Those living in the Washington Metropolitan area have a chance to party to a unique mix of Israeli hip-hop, bhangra, baile funk, radio remixes, 80s freestyle and a live performance by Israeli-American emcee and rapper Kosha Dillz as part of the Washington Jewish Music Festival.


2012:Jazzrael - A Festival of Israeli Jazz & World Music: Israeli Jazz/World Music Concert is scheduled to take place at Temple Israel in NYC.


2012:Mendy Cahan, founder of Yung Yiddish in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv is scheduled to lead an interactive workshop about the craft of presenting Yiddish song for contemporary audiences at the Workman’s Circle in New York City. 


2012: Thousands rallied in Tel Aviv’s Rabin Square this evening, and in cities around the country, in the largest “social justice” protest held since last summer’s wave of cost-of-living demonstrations. (As reported by Ben Hartman and Melanie Lidman)


2013: The Maccabeats are scheduled to perform at the Jewish Federation of Princeton in Princeton, NJ.


2013: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Business of Baby by Jennifer Margulis, Tirza by Arnon Grunberg and the recently released paperback edition of Thinking, Fast And Slow by Daniel Kahneman.


2013: A 1500 year old Byzantine era mosaic floor was discovered under the fields of Kibbutz Beit Kama in the Negev, the Antiquities Authority announced today. The mosaic was discovered by the authority prior to the imminent paving of the southern extension of Highway 6, the Trans-Israel Highway.


2013: A Foreign Ministry economic plan for 2013-2014, to be submitted for cabinet approval this week, revealed that Israel has established a diplomatic mission in an unnamed state in the Persian Gulf, one of 11 new diplomatic missions set up in various states around the world since 2010. The new diplomatic missions include: embassies in New Zealand, Ghana, Albania, Turkmenistan and a general embassy in the Caribbean; consulates in Guangzhou (China), Munich (Germany) and São Paulo (Brazil); a diplomatic mission in the Pacific islands; and the diplomatic office in the Gulf, whose host state was not revealed, Haaretz reported today


2014: The Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center is scheduled to host an evening with Susan Abrams who will lead a discussion on the future of the center and the development of “a truly global human rights culture.


2014:The Fountainheads, an energetic group of young Israeli singers, musicians and dancers, is scheduled to headline the upcoming Yom Ha’atzmaut (Israeli Independence Day) celebration at the Uptown Jewish Community this evening. (As reported by the Crescent City Jewish News, the source for all things Yiddishkeit in Cajun Country)


2014: In honor of American Jewish Heritage Month the Cedar Village Retirement Community in Mason, OH, is schooled to host “Broadway Musicals: The Jewish Legacy.”

This Day, May 13, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. Levin

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May 13



1333:  Birthdate of Reginald III of Guelders, a duchy in the Kingdom of Prussia.  In 1349 the Duke of Guelders, was authorized by the Emperor Louis IV of the Holy Roman Empire of Germany to allow Jews to live in his duchy.  This may have been considered somewhat unusual because Jews were being expelled from other parts of the realm in response to the Black Death.


1497: Pope Alexander VI excommunicates Girolamo Savonarola. Alexander VI was one of the Renaissance popes whose religious qualities might best be summed up by stating that he was the father of Cesare and Lucretzia Borgia.  His lack of concern with Church matters benefited the Jews especially the Jews and Marranos fleeing the Spanish Inquisition.  He admitted so many refugees to Rome, that Ferdinand and Isabella registered major protests to his policy.  Savonarola was a Dominican monk who opposed Alexander on grounds of morality of ethics which is what led to his excommunication.   Savonarola’s enmity for the Pope had led him to “expel the Pope” from the Florentine region under his control.  At the same time, Savonarola banned Jews from this area as well.  So, from a Jewish point of view Alexander trumps Savonarola regardless of the moral stance of the two men.


1534: The first Hebrew printing press in Poland located in Cracow published its first book Sha’arei Duro a code of dietary laws by Rabbi Isaac ben Reuben


1610: Coronation of Marie de Medicis, as Queen consort of France and Navarre. Despite the ban on Jews living in the realm, she employed Elijah Montalto as her personal physician.  He was a Marrano, who had been raised as a Christian in Portugal before settling in Venice after publicly returning to “the faith of his fathers. Born in 1567, he passed away in 1616 and was buried at Amsterdam in Beth Haim of Ouderkerk aan de Amstel, the oldest Jewish cemetery in the Netherlands.


1636(8th of Iyar): Rabbi Menahem Monish Chajes of Vilna passed away today


1665: A statute was enacted in Rhode Island, offering “freemanship” with no specifically Christian requirements, thus effectively enfranchising Jews


1728: Hayyim and Joshua Reizes of Lvov (heads of the Rabbinical court and the yeshiva respectively) were arrested when a Jesuit priest, Zoltowskiki, discovered that Jan Filipowicz (soon tortured and killed), a convert, had reconverted to Judaism. They were accused of complicity. Condemned to death, Joshua committed suicide by cutting his own throat. For three days his brother Hayyim refused to convert to Christianity. His tongue was then torn out, his body quartered and he was finally burnt. Their property was then confiscated.


1779: Birthdate of Jakob Salomon, the Berlin born Jew who converted, took the name Jakob Salomon Bartholdy as he furthered his diplomatic career.


1781: Joseph II, the son and successor of Maria Theresa let Chancellor Count Franz Esterhazy know that he intended to improve the condition of his Hungarian Jewish subjects.


1782: Friedrich Albrecht August, the Jewish born Catholic convert passed away today.

1787: Captain Arthur Phillip of the Royal Navy and his eleven convict laden ships set sail for Botany Bay Australia.  There are reportedly 17 Jews among the 1500 convicts.


1792:  Birthdate of Giovanni Maria Mastai-Ferretti who would become Pope Pius IX. “Pius IX's relations to the Jews remain ambiguous. He repealed laws that forbade Jews to practice certain professions, and that required them to listen to sermons four times per year aimed at their conversion. Judaism and Catholicism were the only religions allowed by law (Protestant worship was allowed to visiting foreigners, but strictly forbidden to Italians). But the testimony of a Jew against a Christian remained inadmissible in courts of law, a tax levied only on Jews supported schools for converts from Judaism to Catholicism, and Jews continued in various other respects to be discriminated against by law. At the beginning of his pontificate, Pius IX opened the Jewish ghetto in Rome, but after his return from exile in 1850 re-instituted it again.In 1858, in a highly publicized case, a six-year-old Jewish boy, Edgardo Mortara, was taken from his parents by the police of the Papal States. It had been reported that he had been baptized by a Christian servant girl of the family while he was ill because she feared he would die and go to Hell, otherwise. At this time, the law did not permit Christians to be raised by Jews, even their own parents. Pius IX steadfastly refused calls from numerous heads of state including Emperor Franz Josef (1848–1916) of Austria-Hungary and Emperor Napoleon III of France (1852–70) to return the child to his parents.


1799(8th of Iyar, 5559):Isaiah Berlin an 18th century German Talmudist passed away. Born at Eisenstadt, Hungary in 1725, “Berlin studied under Ẓevi Hirsch Bialeh (Ḥarif), the rabbi of Halberstadt, at the latter's yeshiva. In 1755 Berlin moved to Breslau where he engaged in business. In 1793, when already advanced in years, he was elected to a rabbinical post, being appointed to succeed Isaac Joseph Te'omim as rabbi of Breslau. His election was marked by a dispute between the members of the community and the local maskilim, who had begun to organize themselves as a body and opposed Berlin, who, despite his love of peace, openly attacked their ideas. Berlin was elected by an overwhelming majority. Berlin was greatly admired, even by persons who differed with him in religious views. According to Hasidic sources, Berlin was sympathetically disposed toward that movement and extended a friendly welcome to one of its emissaries, Jacob Samson of Spitsevka. Further, Joel Brill, Aaron Wolfsohn, Judah Bensew, and many other Maskilim of Breslau often visited him to seek advice on scientific questions. As the Maskilim always carefully avoided wounding Berlin's religious feelings, he on his part met them half-way in many things. On the occasion of the Peace of Basel, for instance, he held a solemn service in the synagogue and exceptionally permitted the use of instrumental music, he himself delivering a discourse which was highly praised by the press ("Schlesische Zeitung", 1795, No. 59). Thus Berlin, conciliated the hostile elements of his congregation, and his death was mourned equally by all. Berlin's had the habit of annotating almost every book he read; mentioning the sources, or noting parallel passages and variant readings. Such glosses by Berlin have been published on the following books: the Bible (Pentateuch, Dyhernfurth, 1775; the other books, ib., 1807); the prayer-book, ed. Tiḳḳun Shelomoh (ib., 1806); Maimonides' Yad ha-Ḥazaḳah (ib., 1809); Alfasi (Presburg, 1836); the "Ḥinnuk", by Aaron ha-Levi of Barcelona (Vienna, 1827); Malachi b. Jacob's methodology, "Yad Malachi" (Berlin, 1825); Elijah b. Moses de Vidas' book of morals, "Reshit Ḥokmah" (Dyhernfurth, 1811). Although the terse yet clear notes contained in these volumes reveal the immense learning and critical insight of their author, yet Berlin's lasting place of honor among the pioneers of Talmudic criticism rests on the following works, which treat principally of the Talmud:  "'Omer ha-Shikḥah" (Forgotten Sheaf), Königsberg, 1860, containing a large number of Halakot on the Talmud not noted by the codifiers;  "Oẓar Balum" (Full Treasure), in the edition of Jacob ibn Ḥabib's "'En Ya'aḳob", published at Wilna in 1899, tracing all the Talmudic passages quoted without sources in the different commentaries on the haggadic elements of the Talmud;  "Haggahot ha-Shas" (Notes to the Talmud), textual corrections and notes on the origin of parallel passages (Dyhernfurth, 1800, and in nearly all the editions of the Talmud);  "Hafla'ah Sheba-'Arakin" (Detached Orders) (part i., Breslau, 1830; part ii., Vienna, 1859), containing, as the title indicates, explanations and glosses on the 'Aruk;  "Ḥiddushe ha-Shas", novellæ on the Talmud (Königsberg, 1860, and in several editions of the Talmud);  "Minè Targuma" (Dessert Dishes), Breslau, 1831, remarks on the Targum Onkelos (the word "Targuma" signifying both "Targum" and "dessert", equivalent to the Greek τράγημα) and on the Palestinian Targum;  "Kashiyot Meyushab" (Difficulties Answered), Königsberg, 1860, treating of the Talmudic passages which end with, and written by Berlin in fourteen days; (8) "Rishon leẒion" (The First for Zion; Dyhernfurth, 1793; Vienna, 1793, and several times reprinted, the title being a play on, "Zion", and, "index"), a collection of indexes and parallel passages in the Midrash; (9) "She'elat Shalom" (Greeting of Peace), Dyhernfurth, 1786, a commentary on Aḥa of Shubḥa's "She'iltot." Berlin's responsa collection and his commentary on the Tosefta deserve especial mention, though nothing is known of their fate.Berlin, was the first—at least among the Germans—who showed an interest in the history of post-Talmudic literature; and it was he, who opened the Kalir question (compare his letter to his brother-in-law, Joseph b. Menaḥem Steinhart, in the latter's "Zikron Yosef", No. 15.


1804: Birthdate Daniele Fonseca, who gained fame as Daniele Manin, the Italian patriot.  Manin was born a Jew, but converted as a child at which time he changed his name out of respect for his patron.


1837: The Jews of Leipzig were given permission to organize as a religious community and establish a synagogue


1839(24th of Iyar, 5699): Rabbi Israel Ashkenazi of Shklov, leader of the Aliya of the followers of the Gaon of Vilna to Eretz Yisrael passed away. The dynamic force of early Hasidism clashed head-on with the dynamic force of Ashkenazic traditionalism generated by the GR"A. The momentum of both movements created the two major aliyot of the pre-Zionist times. Rabbi Israelof Shklov arrived in Eretz Yisrael in 1808. In 1815 he moved to Jerusalem, where he founded the modern Ashkenazic community. The location of his grave was unknown for a long time. It was discovered in 1964, 125 years after his death, in Tiberias.


1843(13th of Iyar, 5603): Dr. Daniel Levy Maduro Peixotto passed away. He was the eldest of son of Moses Levi Maduro Peixotto, a native of Curaco who had brought his family to New York from Amsterdamn. The elder Peixotto was a successful businessman who served as Chazan at Shearith Israel. Daniel who was born in Amsterdam in 1800 graduated from Columbia at the age of sixteen and earned his medical degree in 1819 at the age of 19.After a few years of travel he returned to New York in 1823, where he pursued his profession with success, and gained a place among the foremost practitioners of his day. He was one of the physicians of the city dispensary in 1827, and president of the New York county medical society in 1830-'1832, and took an active part in public charitable work as well as in Jewish educational movements. One of his eight children, Benjamin Franklin, went on to become a prominent newspaper man and politician who served in several diplomatic posts during the post-Civil War period. Dr. Daniel was quite proud of his Jewish heritage as can be seen from a speech he delivered while he was vice president of the Medical Society of the City and County of New York. “The writings of the Hebrews are generally acknowledged to be unequaled for the simplicity and dignity - the strength, conciseness and boldness of their style; the perfect truth to nature of their imagery; their animated eloquence and sublime figures. The conceits and puerile vanities which disgrace much of classical literature are altogether banished from their pages. It may, however, be suggested that these writings were inspired. This assertion is more imposing by its speciousness than forcible by its application. The great truths and sublime doctrines which were inculcated by Moses and the Prophet were undoubtedly derived from immediate communication with the Almighty.” [Moses and Daniel Peixotto by Dr. Yitzchok Levine]


1846: The United Statesdeclares war on Mexicoofficially marking the start of the Mexican-American War.  As has been true in all other wars, Jews were active participants in this fight with Mexico.  Like their gentile neighbors, Jews from Texas were active combatants. These included Adolphus Stern, David Kaufman and Leon Dyer each of whom would be prominent office holders in the early days of the LoneStarState.  Baltimore Jews formed a company of volunteers whose three commanding officers were Jewish.  David Camden de Leon of South Carolina was the most famous and colorful Jew to serve in the fight with Mexico.  A surgeon by trade, de Leon literally swapped his scalpel for a sword at the Battle of Chapultepec where he led a successfully led a cavalry charge after the other officers had been killed or wounded and could not lead the troops.  Fifteen years later, de Leon would be named Surgeon General of the Confederate Army.


1853: An article entitled “The Jewish Disabilities Bill” published today described efforts in the British Parliament to make it possible for Jews to sit in the House of Commons.  “The British House of Commons has again decided in favor of striking out the words ‘on the true faith of a Christian’ from the oath administered to Members of Parliament.” According to the author, the House of Lords will surely reject the attempt to change the in the oath as part of the continued to keep Jews from sitting in Parliament.  While “notorious non-believers” take the oath “without a scruple” the only way a Jew could take the oath would be to convert from the faith of his fathers.


1860: Birthdate of Henry Samuel Morais the son of Rabbi Sabato Morais, a well-known national Jewish leader, Rabbi of Congregation Mikveh Israel of Philadelphia, and founder of the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York.


1864: The jury was unable to reach a decision in the case of Solomon Ullman vs. The Congregation B'Nai Israel.  The unusual case revolved a claim by Ullman, a former congregant, that the synagogue had illegally removed his father’s tombstone from their cemetery.


1866: The Pennsylvania Legislature passed an act today that allowed the children who were attending a school operated under the auspices of the Hebrew Education Society of Philadelphia to attend the Boys' and Girls' High School, Philadelphia.


1871: “American Christian Society for Promoting Christianity Among the Jews” published today described the work of the organization which has an auxiliary branch in Somerset, Iowa in trying to change the religious persuasion of the “65,000 Israelites in New York” and the quarter of million living in the United States.


1872(5thof Iyar, 5632): Fifty year old author and German parliamentarian Mortiz Harmann passed away today outside of Vienna.


1872: Secretary of State Hamilton Fish wrote to Benjamin Franklin Peixotto, the U.S. Counsel in Bucharest, that while it is usually the policy of the government not to interfere in the internal affairs of other country’s an exception is to be made in this case since all else has failed.  The State Department will support whatever measure Peixotto may take in joining with other diplomats “to avert or mitigate further harshness” shown toward the Jews living in Romania. (Peixotto was Jewish and he was purposely chosen by President Grant in an attempt to ameliorate the suffering of the Jews in Romania.  This is yet another proof that Grant was not an anti-Semite)


1877: An article subtitled “Jute” published today describes the origins and modern uses of this plant. The author claims that jute has been used since ancient times citing the story of Samson and Delilah as one of his proofs.  “The seen green withes that had never been dried” which the Philistines had given to Delilah so that she might bind the Israelite prophet were “jute withes.  “The basis for this supposition is the fact that the word translated ‘withes’ is in the Hebrew reading jeter – that means cordage or roping stuff of any kind.” In the 17th century the Jewish connection was so strong that a form of jute called or Tossa jute (Corchorus olitorius), was popularly referred to as ‘Jews mallow.’ [Editor’s note – Apparently the term Jews mallow is one known to many cooks as can be seen from the recipe for a dish called Jews Mallow Soup http://www.food.com/recipe/molukhia-jews-mallow-soup-151132 ]


 
1878: The New York Times featured a review of "Religion of China" by Dr. Richard Edkins.  During Edkins visit to China he found that "the Jewish colony had dwindled to a few hundred members none of whom can read Hebrew."  In what must be a reference to Simchat Torah, Edkins reported that until their synagogue was destroyed by fire the Jews "had an Autumn festival when they walked in procession around the hall taking the scrolls of the law with them."  Until recently, they had twelve copies of the Pentateuch, some of which are now in England.  According to some, the first Jews arrived during the Han Dynasty - 200 BCE to 200 CE while others came later from Persia


1881: Birthdate of Anna Meingast, who worked as Stefan Zweig’s secretary in Salzburg from November 1919 to March 1938.


1884(18th of Iyar, 5644): Lag B'Omer


1886: Birthdate of violinist and composer Joseph Achron. Born in Warsaw, Achron was a child prodigy from a musical family.  He moved to St. Petersburg in 1899 and joined the Society for Jewish Folk Music in 1911.  His first Jewish work called "Hebrew Melody" became famous thanks to the interpretation by Jascha Heifetz.  Achron lived in Berlinand Palestinebefore settling in the United States in the 1920's where he continued performing and composing.  One of his most compositions was "Golem."  When he passed away in 1943, one obituary called him "one of the most underrated modern composers.


1888: Birthdate of Zelig Harry Lefkowitz who gained fame as "Big" Jack Zelig a New York City thug who was one of the last leaders of the Monk Eastman Gang.


1890: The Amusements column published today provided a detailed review of  “The Shatchen” a play written by Henry Doblin and Charles Doblin starring M.B. Curtis in the title role of this comedy about a Jewish marriage broker.


1891: Two Jews were killed today and several more were injured when new violence broke out today in Corfu.


1892: “Jews Ordered From Russia” published today reported that “ten thousand foreign Jews in Odessa have been order to leave” the Czar’s kingdom immediately.


1892: Rector Alhwardt, the notorious anti-Semite went on trial today on charges that he libeled the firm of Loewe & Company when he charged that the company had furnished defective rifles to the army.


1893: “Germany’s Political Crisis” published today described the surprise that has resulted from “the fact that the anti-Semitic electors of Arnswalde have again nominated Rector Ahlwardt, the notorious Jewish Baiter” despite the fact that he is serving a term in prions for having libeled the Jewish firm of Lowe & Company


1893: One Polish Jew arrived aboard the SS New York


1893: Three hundred twenty-seven Polish Jews arrived  aboard the SS Dania, 245 of whom were bound for New York, seven of whom were bound for Boston, two of whom were bound for New Haven, CT, one of whom was bound for Iowa, five of whom were bound for Amsterdam, 13 of whom were bound for Amsterdam, NY 13 of whom were bound for Philadelphia, 13 of whom were bound for Pittsburg, 6 of whom were bound for Buffalo, 29 of whom were bound for Chicago, 5 of whom were bound for Saratoga, NY and one of whom was bound for Milwaukee,


1893: “A press association dispatch sent from Berlin” today “asserts, in contradiction of the recent dispatches from” the New York Times correspondent in London “that there is no movement for the expulsion of Jews from Poland.”


1893: Relying on information that first appeared in the Jewish Messenger, “The Expulsion of the Jews from Poland” published today decried the fact that Russia is allowed to treat her Jewish inhabitants in a manner that is both brutal and laced with bigotry while the Great Powers remain passive in the face of this menace to civilization that smacks of medieval barbarism.


1893: The examination of another 200 of the 1,000 Russian Jews who arrived yesterday at Ellis Island aboard the steamship Dania will resume today.  Immigration officials said that many of those already examined “were absolutely destitute” and that a number of them will be returned to the ship.


1894: It was reported today that “there appears to have been a series of savage popular” attacks on the Jews in a number of towns in Southern Russia at Easter time.  The bloodiest took place at Ekaterinoslav.


1894: It was reported today that in response to new outbreaks of violence a renewed exodus of Jews has begun from Odessa.  In the last week 2,200 have left the port, 800 bound for Argentina; the rest bound for England and the United States.


1894: It was reported today that the official returns from the by-election in Schlochan (Germany) will require a run-off between the Conservative candidate and the first runner-up because the anti-Semitic candidate made “deep inroads in the traditional Conservative majority.


1894(7thof Iyar, 5654): Twenty year old Edwin Bach, the son of Sigmund J. and Rosalie Bach passed away today.


1895: A dramatized version of “Oliver Twist” opened at the Star Theatre with H.G. Carleton playing the part of Fagan, “the awful Jew.”


1896: Solomon Schechter discovered a fragment of the original Hebrew text of “Ecclesiasticus” that had come from the Cairo Genizah.


1897:  Theodor Herzl wrote, "Über Nacht fiel mir der Titel des Blattes ein: Die Welt. Mit dem Mog'n Dovid, in der der Globus hineinzuzeichnen wäre, mit Palästina als Mittelpunkt." -"Overnight the name for the paper occurred to me: Die Welt. [The masthead comes] with a Mogen Dovid [Star of David], inside which a globe should be drawn, with Palestineas the central point."


1898: In Harlem, Temple Israel began celebrating its 25th anniversary and the 10th anniversary of the dedication of its current facility today.


1898: “Hebrew Charities Building” published today described the plans of Solomon Loeb of Kuhn, Loeb & Co to build a new four-story structure at 21stStreet and Second Avenue which will be called The Hebrew Charities Building.  De Lemos & Cordes have been retained for the project that will cost $150,000 on top of the $60,000 that has been paid for the land.


1899: Memorial services for Baroness de Hirsch were held this afternoon in the auditorium of the Educational Alliance at East Broadway and Jefferson Street.


1899: It was reported today that Doubleday & McClure will soon be issuing an abridged version of The Future of War by Jean de Bloch the Polish Jew who began as a peddler in Warsaw and rose to become a financier with a wide variety of interests in railways, banking and science.


1899: “The first anti-Jewish measure was promulgated” by the Russian government “under which the stay of all – even foreign – Jews is prohibited in St. Petersburg; a prohibition that even applies to French Jews.


1899: “Asks Aid of United Hebrew Charities” published today described the decision to reject a request for $125 to pay for a family’s transportation back to German “because the demands upon the treasury…have been so great, the society cannot afforded to expends so large a sum on an individual case.”


1900(14thof Iyar, 5660): Pesach Sheni


1900 (14th of Iyar, 5660): Sixty-year old Hermann Levi, the Jewish maestro who conducted the first performance of Wagner’s “Parsifal” at Bayreuth passed away today.

1900: Herzl made a Zionist speech at the "Israelitische Allianz".


1900: In responding to Jacob Schiff’s criticism of the work of the Baron and Baroness de Hirsch Monument Association, Isador Straus agreed that these two great philanthropists required no monument since their good works spoke for themselves.  Building the monument was an act of gratitude and hopefully, those who would view it would be moved to emulate the generosity of the Baron and Baroness.


1904:Herzl writes to Wenzel von Plehve asking for an audience for Katzenelson.


1905: Birthdate of Israeli graphic designer Franz Kraus.  Born in St. Pölten, Austria he passed away in 1998 in Tel Aviv.


1906: The Bezalel Art School opened in Jerusalem


1912: Birthdate of Rabbi JudahNadich.  As a Lt. Colonel and Army chaplain, Nadich would play a key role in the treatment for the Jews of Europe after W.W. II.  As President of the Rabbinical Assembly, he would play a key role in gaining equality for women in Conservative Judaism.


1916 (10th of Iyar, 5676): Sholem Aleichem passed away.  Born Shalom Rabinowitz in the Ukraine, he grew up in the town of Vornokov which served as the model for the fictitious town of Kasrilevke that appears in his writings.  Shalom Aleichem began writing in Hebrew.  In 1883, he began writing in Yiddish which is when he adopted the pen name of Shalom Aleichem.  He used a pen name because he did not want to offend friends and family (including his father) who thought Jews should be writing in Hebrew.  Following the pogroms of 1905, he now famous author moved to the United States.  He died while living in the Bronx at the age of 59.  Shalom Aleichem employed humor and pathos to create a picture of the Shtetl.  He was called the Jewish Mark Twain.  His most famous character was Tevye who became a worldwide favorite in the hit show and movie, “Fiddler on the Roof.”  [Ed. Note: There is no way this brief guide can do justice to this man or his work.  The best way to “say Kaddish” for him is to read one of his stories]




1918: Birthdate of Edwin S. Shneidman, “a psychologist who gave new direction to the study of suicide and was a founder of the nation’s first comprehensive suicide prevention center..” (As reported by William Dicke)


1919: During the Russian Civil War the Jews of Boguslav, a city in the Kiev district of the Ukraine were attacked by gangs of marauding peasants that killed 20 Jews,


1921:The Palestinians have expressed their dissatisfaction with the reply made by Winston Churchill to the petition of the Moslem-Christian Association, which consisted of thirty-two typewritten pages and contained all their grievances “against the colonization of their country by the Zionist immigrants, who are arriving at the rate of 1,000 a month.”


1922: Birthdate of actress Bea Arthur.  Born Bernice Frankel, gained fame as Maude Findlay, a character first created for the hit series All In the Family, and then spun off for Maude, a hit show in which she was the lead.  She gained further success as Dorthoy Zbornak, one of the lead characters in the television hit, “The Golden Girls.”


1923: President Judge Jacob Caplan of New Haven, First Vice President, Louis Fabrican of New York; Second Vice-President, Bertram M. Aufsesser or Albany; Treasurer, Herman Asher of New York, Secretary, Max Levy were elected as officers of District #1 of the B’nai Brith Lodge today.


1923:Mayor David E. Fitzgerald addressed a meeting of the B’nai Brith lodges in the Eastern United States. 


1924: Birthdate of Harry Heinz Schwartz, a South African lawyer, opponent of apartheid and South African ambassador to the United States. He served as defense lawyer for James Kantor, who was the defense attorney for Nelson Mandela during the infamous Rivonia Trial.


1923: During a meeting held at the Hotel Astor, Dr. Chaim Weizmann, President of the World Zionist Organization addressed members of four congregations located on New York’s West Side. Mr. H. Leonard Simmons announced that the $100,000 quota for the West Side would be forthcoming shortly. Captain Gloster Armstrong, British Consul General in New York assured the attendees that Great Britain intends to fulfill its commitments in Palestine under the terms of League of Nations’ mandate. (As reported by JTA)


1926(29th of Iyar, 5686): Sixty-nine year old Sir Stuart Montagu Samuel, the elder brother of Herbert Samuel, 1sr Viscount Samuel passed away today.  He was elected to the House of Commons in 1900 replacing his uncle Samuel Montagu, 1stBaron Swaything.  He served until 1916.


1926:It was reported today that David M. Bressler, announced that contributions to the United Jewish Campaign in New York reached the sum of $4,835,867. (JTA)


1926: The New York Times reported that during his recent visit to Palestine, Yasha Heifetz performed a concert in the Valley of Jezreel near the site of the “legendary battle of Armageddon.” During the five day tour, Heifetz took part in seven concerts including one attended by 10,000 workers in Tel Aviv.


1927: Birthdate of Herbert David Ross, the Brooklyn native know as an “actor, choreographer, director and producer.”


1927: Forty members of the National Socialist Party, responsible for the recent anti-Semitic riots on Kurfuerstendamm, were arrested by the police today. In a statement issued by the chief of police, he declared that the police will combat terrorism in the streets of Germany's capital. (As reported by JTA)


1928: Officials of the Hebrew National Orphans Home, led by its President, State Supreme Court Justice Aaron J. Levy, launched a drive today for an additional 10,000 members.


1929: In Palestine, The Mandatory Government announces an immigration quota of 2.400 permits for a half-year period, beginning in April.



1929: Marcia Glick, the daughter of Bernard Glick and Alma Gluck and the stepdaughter of Efrem Zimabliest became Marci Davenport today when she married Russell Davenport, the editor of Fortune magazine.



1930: Talks between the heads of the Colonial Office and the Palestinian Arab delegation are concluded. Demands to end the growth of the Yishuv, immigration and land settlement remain unfulfilled.



1934: Birthdate of archaeologist Ehud Netzer who led the excavations at Heriodum for 30 years and who discovered “the Wadi Qielt Synagogue, the oldest synagogue ever found.”



1935: Birthdate of composer Yizhak Sadai.  Born in Bulgaria, Sadai moved to Israel in 1949. Prof. Yizhak Sadai is one of the most regarded and influential music teachers in Israel.


1936: Birthdate of Romanian native Ruth Wisse whose literary works include The Modern Jewish Canon: A Journey Through Literature and Culture, The Best of Sholem Aleichem, If I Am Not for Myself…: The Liberal Betrayal of the Jews, and Jews in Power.


1936(21st of Iyar, 5696):Two Jews are killed in the Old City of Jerusalem during the Arab Uprising.



1938: The Palestine Postreported that an Arab police constable who was expected to offer his testimony in the District Court was shot and killed by an Arab terrorist in a Haifa's market cafe. An Arab woman who came into the line of fire was also severely injured and later died from her wounds.


1938: The Palestine Postreported that at the League of Nations Britain requested "for the sake of peace" that all nations recognize the Italian conquest of Ethiopia.


1938: The Palestine Postreported that Poles became suddenly aware of the rapid Nazification of the local German community.


1939: SS St Louis departs Hamburg for Cuba with 937 Jews on board.  This tragic episode was portrayed in the book and the film, Voyage of the Damned.  Having been denied entrance to Cuba, the ship was turned away from the United States.  Steaming off the shore of Florida, the refugees could see the lights of Miami.  Coast Guard vessels tracked the ship to make sure nobody escaped and to keep the captain from running his ship aground in American waters.  In the end, the ship returned to Europe.  About half of the passengers survived the war.


1939: Birthdate of actor Harvey Keitel


1940: Hans Rey, who is best known for creating Curious George, wrote in his diary today, “Songs English very slowly because of the events.”  “Songs English” refers to a book of French and English rhymes on which he was working.  “The events” refers to the German blitz driving across France.


1941: The Nazis interned 3,600 naturalized Jews of Russian origin.


1942(26th of Iyyar, 5702): Hyam Greenbaum, British violinist, composer and conductor passed away.  He died one day after his 41st birthday.


1943: Hans Frank sent Hitler a list of the "Jewish concealed and stolen goods," that were recovered including 94,000 men's watches, 33,000 women's watches, 25,000 pens and 14,000 scissors. Many of the watches were melted down for their gold or platinum content.


1944: Dr. Samuel Levy, chairman of the board of directors announced that Dr. Samuel Belkin, Talmudist and scholar, will be inducted as second president of the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary, which includes Yeshiva College on May 23.  The 33 year old Belkin is assuming a position left vacant by the death of Dr. Bernard Revel, the founder and first President of Yeshiva College.


1944: Throughout the Nazi camp system, inmate tattoo numbers gain a new series, prefaced with the letter "A." The intention is to conceal the number of prisoners at Auschwitz.


1945: The Soviet Union “halted all offensive operations” in Europe today.


1945: During Winston Churchill's famous broadcast speech "Five years of War", Britain’s wartime Prime Minister remembers the valor of Lance-Corporal John Patrick Kenneally who won the Victoria Cross for his exploits in Tunisia in 1943.



1946: Birthdate of Marv Wolfman former Editor-in-Chief of Marvel Comics


1947: The U.N. General Assembly established the United Nations Special committee on Palestine, also known as UNSCOP.


1948: The “Dov Hoz” with 675 ma’apilim on board and the “Eliahu Golomb” with 339 ma’apilim on board arrive at Haifa today.


1948: As the British began their withdrawal from the Old City, the Haganah awaits the attack by 20,000 Arab soldiers who are determined to capture Jerusalem.


1948: Chaim Weizmann calls Abba Eban out of a meeting at the United Nations seeking reassurance that the proposal to create a trusteeship for all of Palestine (a proposal that would kill the creation of the Jewish state) would not succeed.  Eban assures Weizmann that U.N. Secretary General has said that trusteeship is a non-issue.


1948: The Arab Emergency committee and the Haganah High Command signed the terms for the Arab surrender of the town of Jaffa.  Despite Jews pleas to stay, 67,000 of the city’s 70,000 inhabitants of the city left, many by boat for Lebanon.


1948: In a daring nighttime firefight, Jewish forces seized the fort at the ancient town of Gezer at the southern end of the Tel Aviv – Jerusalem road.  This is the same Gezer that the Pharaoh gave to King Solomon as a wedding gift.


1948: On the day before Israel declares her independence, Arab irregulars perpetrate The Kfar Etzion massacre. Armored cars of the Arab Legion broke through the final defense line of Kfar Etzion.  In the last message sent by the defenders to Jerusalem, the defenders described “a Masada–like battle.”  The handful of Jewish defenders came out under a white flag and surrendered.  Fifteen of the defenders stacked their weapons, and then, lined up to be photographed.  Instead of the click of the camera, the Jews were treated to a burst of machinegun fire that killed all of them.  Was this planned or a freak accident?  To this day, the question has never been answered.  The victorious Arab Legion did kill an Arab family that had remained in Kfar Etzion with their Jewish friends.


1948: A motorbike courier delivers an envelope the Tel Aviv apartment of 32 year old Arieh Handler. The envelope contained an invitation to the ceremonies marking the Israeli Declaration of Independence. The envelope also contained a request that the arrangements be kept secret because of a fear that the British might stop the ceremony or the Arabs might use the ceremony as pretext to attack. 

1948:Maury Atkinwas offered a job as executive officer and agriculture attaché of the first Israeli embassy. The embassy actually would not exist for another 24 hours.


1950: Eliahu Elath, Israel’s Ambassador to the United States, was named Ambassador to Great Britain today.  Abba Eban is expected to succeed Elath.


1952: The first degrees of Doctor of Medicine were awarded to 62 graduates of the Hebrew University - Hadassah Medical School.
 
1953: Tennis player, promoter, and women's advocate Gladys Heldman released the first issue of World Tennis Magazine


1953:The Jerusalem Post reported that a Bill had been introduced in the Knesset by the Minister of Education and Culture, Prof. Benzion Dinur, for the establishment of "Yad Vashem" (an everlasting name), for the memory of the six and a half million Jews who perished in the Holocaust and were granted Israeli honorary citizenship. The Yad Va'Shem archives and museum were to be set up in Jerusalem, "The Heart of the Jewish People


1954: The original Broadway production of Pajama Game featuring features a score by Richard Adler and Jerry Ross opened today and ran for 1,063 performances.


1957(12thof Iyar, 5717): Seventy year old Michael Fekete, the Hungarian born Israeli mathematician who won the Israel Prize of Exact Sciences in 1955 passed away today.


1959: Birthdate of British comedian and author Benjamin Charles “Ben” Elton, the grandson of German Jewish historian Victor Ehrenberg and the son Lewis Elton, a refugee from Hitler’s Europe and Mary Foster, a product of the Church of England.


1959(5th of Iyar, 5719): Yom HaAtzma'ut


1959: Birthdate of Israeli author Zeruya Shalev. A native of Kibbutz Kinneret and an editor at Keshet Publishing house, she survived a suicide bombing in January of 2004.


1962(9th of Iyyar, 5722): Franz Kline abstract expressionist painter passed away at the age of 51.


1965: Germany established diplomatic relations with Israel. (This comes 20 years after its unconditional surrender, at the end of World War II, and 17 years after the establishment of the State of Israel.)


1965: Several Arab nations broke ties with West Germany after it established diplomatic relations with Israel.  This came during the height of the Cold War when Communist East Germany was trying to establish itself as the real German government.  The West Germans knew what it would cost them in them in the international arena if they recognized Israel, but they went ahead and did it any way.


1967: Birthdate of American singer, songwriter, guitarist and musical genre innovator, Charles Michael "Chuck" Schuldiner.


1967: Egyptian troops move into the Sinai, which is a demilitarized zone. Egypt radio sets the tone of propaganda ("Egypt, with all its resources, is ready to plunge into a total war that will be the end of Israel.")



1968: A funeral service for New York jurist George Frankenthaler is scheduled to be held at Temple Emanu-El starting at 2 pm.



1973: Reconstructionist Rabbinical College ordained its first graduate



1969: Boris Kochubievsky goes on trial in Kiev charged with “slander against the Soviet regime.:



1975:"Rodgers & Hart" opens at Helen Hayes Theater in New York City for 108 performances.



1983(1st of Sivan, 5743):Rosh Chodesh Sivan



1983: Philip H. Dougherty reported that the “Israel Ministry of Tourism is more than tripling its advertising budget in the United States from last year, to $2.5 million, and may even add another $3 million to lure more American travelers and make up for the European falloff that followed the Israeli invasion of Lebanon. The advertising, created by Needham, Harper & Steers/Issues and Images, will promote a friendliness and warmth of the Israeli people toward travelers with the new theme line: ''Come to Israel, come stay with friends.''



1986(4th of Iyar, 5746): Yom HaZikaron



1986: Natan Shcharansky is scheduled to meet with President Reagan and Secretary of State George P. Shultz in Washington, where he is to receive the Congressional Gold Medal at a reception in the Capitol Rotunda. (As reported by Jane Gross)



1987: Leonard Bernstein will serve as guest conduct of the Israel Philharmonic as the IPO marks its 50thanniversary.



1988: Jack Lang began serving as Culture Minster of France for the second time.



1988: Vincent Canby reviews “The Lighthoresman,” an Australian made film that depicts the heroism of 800 Australian mounted soldiers who triumphed over thousands of Turks and Germans at Beersheba, in southern Palestine, on Oct. 31, 1917. The battle was a key to the eventual Allied victory over the Turks during World War I which was a critical step in the creation of the modern state of Israel.  As mechanized vehicles and machine guns came to dominate the modern battlefield, the Australians climatic cavalry charge against the Turks proved to be the last great, successful endeavor of this kind.



1998:A souvenir sheet of three illustrations by Kariel Gardosh (Dosh) showing postal activities and featuring the character of "Srulik": a service counter at a post office, philately, and post boxes is issued by the Israeli Postal Authority.1999(27th of Iyar, 5759): Mary Ellen “Meg Greenfield” famed political columnist and editor of the Washington Post Editorial Page,   passed away.



 

1999:On his 32nd birthday, famed musician Chuck Schuldiner was diagnosed with pontine glioma, a type of brain cancer that invades the brain stem, and immediately underwent radiation therapy.


2001: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including “The Holocaust on Trial” by D.D. Guttenplan, “Lying About Hitler: History, Holocaust, and the David Irving Trial” by Richard J. Evans and the recently released paperback edition of “Dazzler: The Life and Times of Moss Hart by Steven Bach“a careful, clear-eyed account of the life of the playwright, director and actor  who collaborated with Broadway's best and pleased many people many times without making large claims for his own significance.”


 

2001: Premiere of “Sobibór, October 14, 1943, 4 p.m.” directed and written by Claude Lanzman and starring Yehuda Lerner.


 

2005: The Bishop of Birmingham, Hugh William Montefiore, passed away.  The great-great-nephew of Sir Moses Montefiore, he converted to Christianity while attending Rugby School – a famous English day and boarding school.


 

2006: Approximately 3,000 people came a to a Toronto bookstore to see Leonard Cohen who was making his first public appearance in 13 years. 


 

2007: The Wolf Prizes are presented at ceremony in the Knesset.  Ada Yonath of the Weizmann Institute and George Feher of U.C. San Diego won the Chemistry Prize.  The Art Prize went to Italian Michelangelo Pistoletto.


2007: After 90 days The Dead Sea Scrolls exhibition, including some original scroll fragments never before displayed in the United States comes to a close at the Union Station in Kansas City. The Dead Sea Scrolls exhibition is a joint production of Union Station Kansas City and the Israel Antiquities Authority.


2007: The Sunday New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers includingThe Yiddish Policemen’s Union by Michael Chabon and Nixon and Kissinger: Partners in Power by Robert Dallek which presents a detailed examination of the relationship between America’s first Jewish Secretary of State and his Presidential patron whose dark sided included a predilection for making anti-Semitic remarks.


2007: The Sunday Washington Postfeatured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers includingThe Yiddish Policemen’s Union by Michael Chabon, Nixon and Kissinger: Partners in Power by Robert Dallek,The Years of Extermination: Nazi Germany and the Jews, 1939-1945 by Saul Friedländer and The Diary of Petr Ginz, 1941-1942 edited by Chava Pressburger. Petr Ginz was a budding writer and artists who died at Auschwitzin 1944.


2007: The New York Times Magazine publishes “Writings in the Dark” by David Grossman in which “an Israeli novelist reflects on what literature can accomplish in a time of permanent political emergency and personal loss.”


2007(25th of Iyyar, 5767): Harvey Weinstein, a formalwear manufacturer and former chairman of Lord West formal Wear, passed away at the age of 82


2008: Houston Astros catch Brad Ausmus got his 1,500thcareer hit making him one of eight catchers in major league history to get 1,500 hits and steal at least 100 bases.


2008: The 92nd Street Y presents “Andy Borowitz, Jonathan Alter, Susie Essman, Calvin Trillin & More: Countdown to the Election” during which award-winning satirist Andy Borowitz of The New Yorker hosts an irreverent look at the upcoming presidential election, featuring Newsweek columnist Jonathan Alter, comedian Susie Essman and humorist and writer, Calvin Trillin.


2008: Rabbi Asher Lopatin of Lakeview's Anshe Sholom B'nai Israel Congregation leads a discussion of Rashi's Daughters Book 1: Johevedby Maggie Anton as part of the Spertus Book Review series. “In 1068, the scholar Salomon ben Isaac — better known as Rashi — returned home to the family winemaking business. He embarked on a path that indelibly influenced the Jewish world, writing the first Talmud commentary and secretly teaching Talmud to his daughters. In the first book of Maggie Anton’s dramatic — and romantic — trilogy, Joheved finds her spirit awakened by religious study, but has to keep her passion hidden. Must she choose between marital happiness and her study of Talmud?


2008:U.S. President George W. Bush, former British Prime MinisterTony Blair and media mogul Rupert Murdoch are among the 13 heads of state and 3,500 guests expected to attend President Shimon Peres' Presidential Conference in Jerusalem, which begins today and is being held in honor of Israel's 60th anniversary.


2008: Best-selling author and Harvard psychology professor Tal Ben-Shahar was the guest speaker at today’s gala for the International Sephardic Education held at the Plaza Hotel, Daniel Roubeni received a Young Leaders Award. ISEF president Nina Weiner received the Lifetime Achievement Award.


2008: Maj.-Gen. Ido Nehushtan assumed his new post as the 16th commander of the Israel Air Force.  Nehushtan took up his new post during a ceremony at the IAF's Ramat David Base in the North and during which he replaced Maj.-Gen. Elazar Shkedy, head of the air force for the past four years. A pilot with thousands of hours on his flight log, Nehushtan, who previously served as head of the IDF Planning Division, holds degrees from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Northwestern University and Harvard University's Advanced Management Program.


2008:At today’s gala for the International Sephardic Education Foundation, held at The Plaza, Iran-born real estate maven Daniel Roubeni, a Young Leaders Award recipient, got teary-eyed as he described leaving Germany (where he had grown up) “to find a Jewish wife in the U.S.”


2009(19th of Iyar, 5769): One-hundred eight year old Wlademar Levy Cardoso, who fought with the Brazilian Expeditionary Force in WW II and was the last living Field Marshall in the Brazilian Army passed away today.

2009: At the National Archives in Washington, D.C.,Michael Lasser, host of National Public Radio's "Fascinatin' Rhythm," presents a lecture on the music of the Great Depression, "Let's Go Slumming, Nose-Thumbing, at Park Avenue." Lasser is co-author of “America's Songs: The Stories Behind the Songs of Broadway, Hollywood, and Tin Pan Alley” so the lecture is followed y a book signing.


2010: Professor David Ruderman is scheduled to deliver a lecture entitled “The People And The Book: The Invention of Printing And The Transformation of Jewish Culture.”


2010: The Wolf Prize Awarding Ceremony is scheduled to take place at 6:30 pm the Knesset Building in Jerusalem. The awards are scheduled to be presented to the recipients by the President of the State of Israel, in the presence of the Chairman of the Knesset, the Minister of Education, the Chairman of the Wolf Foundation Board of Trustees, and members of the Foundation´s Council.


2010: A cross section of rabbis and Jewish leaders met in the White House today with administration leaders in the second of two meetings that are part of a “charm offensive” designed to reassure the American Jewish community of the Obama administration’s positive view of Israel.


2010: Oz Goffman of the Ministry of Agriculture said today that parliament must still approve the proposal to ban fishing on the Sea of Galilee for the next two years before it takes effect.

 

2011: On the secular calendar “Friday the 13th”. Friday the 13th has not always been a lucky day for the Jews.  In Strasbourg, the Jews were arrested by a newly installed town council on Friday 13, 1349 on charges that they were responsible for the Black Plague. The Jews were burned the next day, St. Valentine’s Day. Sholom Aleichem, who died on the 13thof May suffered from triskaidekaphobia – the fear of the number 13. Arnold Schoenberg experienced triskaidekaphobia “which possibly began in 1908 with the composition of the thirteenth song of the song cycle Das Buch der Hängenden Gärten Op. 15 (Stuckenschmidt 1977, 96).”  His fear of the number 13 is especially odd since he was born the 13thof September and died on the 13th of July. In her novel “Paternity” Susan Baruch created a character who was born on the 13th and suffers from triskaidekaphobia. For the most part, the Jewish view of the number “13” runs contrary to the Western concept that associates it with bad luck.  Bar and Bat Mitzvah are associated with the number 13.  The TaNaCh lists 13 attributes of God.  There are six hundred and 13 commandments. Maimonides Creed contains 13 principles of Judaism.  There are 13 months in the year. I know, this is not really history, but every so often you have to have a little fun.


2011:The International Young Israel Movement and the Maimonides Heritage Center are scheduled to present: Shabbaton in the Holy City of Teverya


2011(9th of Iyar): Centenarian Vivian Myerson a political activist in Los Angeles and later a member of the city’s Human Relations Commission passed away today. (As reported by the Eulgizor)


2012: As part of Yom Hashoah events, artist Wendy Weisel is scheduled to speak during the presentation of her painting "Es Brent"– "It is Burning" at Tifereth Israel in Washington, DC.


2012: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Imagine: How Creativity Works by Jonah Lehrer.


2012: The Los Angeles Times features a review of The Crisis of Zionismby Peter Beinart


2012: “Mazel Tov! A Jewish Celebration of Jewish Weddings” an exhibit that explores the mores, symbolic artifacts, and celebration unique to the Jewish wedding is scheduled to open at the Jewish Museum of Milwaukee.


2012: Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu congratulated Kadima leader Shaul Mofaz on his joining the government coalition during his opening remarks at the weekly cabinet meeting today.


2012: Presentation of the Wolf Prizes.


2012: Environmental Protection Minister Gilad Erdan today called on the government to cut off the supply of electricity to the Gaza Strip in order to avoid electricity shortages it is feared could affect Israel this summer. (As reported by the Jerusalem Post)


2013: Fred Lorber, a Holocaust survivor who lives in Des Moines was among the speakers at today’s groundbreaking ceremony for a Holocaust memorial that is being built “alongside the walkways leading up the west terrace of the Iowa Capitol grounds, near the intersection of East Seventh Street and Grand Avenue.”

2013: The 92nd Street Y is scheduled to host “Baseball: Kosher Style” featuring Larry Ruttman, Jeffery Lyons, Bob Tufts and Alan Dershowitz


2013: The Center for Jewish History with the Center for Traditional Music and Dance’s An-sky Institute for Jewish Culture are scheduled to present: “Tsimbl un Fidl – Uncovering the Lost Jewish String Music of Eastern Europe”


2013: In Little Rock, AR, the Chabad Center for Jewish Life under the leadership of Rabbi Pinchas Ciment is scheduled to host an open house that will feature an appearance by an authentically trained and certified Sofer.  This rare event is part of the preparations for Shavuot.


2013: The Leo Baeck Institute is scheduled to present: Berlin Book Evening – “Jews in Berlin” and Essays by Kurt Tucholsky.


2013(4th of Sivan, 5773): Eight –five year old Dr. Joyce Brothers passed away today (As reported by Margalit Fox)

2013:The operating budget for Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s official and private residences jumped some 80 percent from 2009 to 2012, according to figures made public today following a request by the Movement for Freedom of Information.
 
2013: Until now, new immigrant nurses have had to prove they can converse with patients in basic Hebrew, but physicians -- who have less direct contacts with the sick were exempted. Now the Knesset Labor, Social Affairs and Health Committee today approved regulations that would require doctors and two other types of professionals in healthcare to show their Hebrew proficiency as well.

 

2014: The Pears Institute for the study of Antisemitism is scheduled to host a panel discussion on “Nationalities and Parliaments Now. What Can We Learn From the Past?”


 

This Day, May 14, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. Levin

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May 14


1141: As he journeyed towards Jerusalem, Yehuda Halevi set sail for Palestine today from Alexandria, Egypt. According to legend, Halevi was killed by an Arab horseman when as he reached his ultimate destination.


1288: Thirteen Jews in Troyes, France were burned at the stake by the inquisition


1316: Birthdate of Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor. Charles viewed his Jewish subjects as “servi camerae” and issued numerous letters ordering that they not be harmed.  The title of Holy Roman Emperor sounded grand but had very limited power so these letters went unheeded for the most part.  However, when the Jewish community of Breslau was attacked, Charles ordered the killers to be arrested and punished for their crimes.


1483: Coronation of Charles VIII of France ("Charles l'Affable"). In the second year of his reign, following accusations of usury, the inhabitants of Marseilles, the port city of the recently acquired territory of Provence, attacked the Jewish neighborhoods pillaging them and killing numbers of Jews in 1484 and again in the early months of 1485, leading to an exodus of Jews from the city, especially to Sardinia which became home to about 200 Jewish families of Marseilles. However, King Charles VIII was not inclined to conform to the popular demand of expelling the Jews from Provence. He decreed that all Jews wishing to leave should be allowed to leave Marseillesunharmed on condition they had fulfilled all their engagements with the Christians. The city authorities, on the other hand, were not prepared to let the Jews leave Marseilleswith their property and took various measures in order to reduce their emigration, among others they organized an inventory of the Jewish property in Marseilles in 1486. The resulting protests of the Jews assured the royal intervention and a few additional years of protection. The expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492 brought new Jewish inhabitants to Marseilles. In 1492 the Jewish community of Marseillesransomed 118 Jews of Aragon captured by the pirate Bartholemei Janfredi, having paid the sum of 1,500 écus, which it borrowed from a Christian. Renewed anti-Jewish attacks in 1493 eventually led to the general expulsion of the Jews from Marseilles three years after Charles passed away in 1498.


1572: Gregory XIII begins his papacy. “Gregory's policy toward the Jews cannot be distinctly characterized, since it swayed between relative favor and severity. Soon after his election, he protected the Jews in the ghetto of Rome who were in danger of being attacked by the soldiers. Further, an order issued by his notary threatened with hanging any non-Jew found in the ghetto or its vicinity without a valid reason. Gregory authorized once more moneylending with a maximum interest rate of 24%. He guaranteed the safe-conduct of Jews coming into Italy or passing through the country. Although Marranos were also able to benefit from this concession, Gregory nevertheless allowed the Marrano Joseph Saralbo, who had returned to Judaism in Ferrara, to be condemned to the stake in 1583. Gregory was also responsible for organizing regular compulsory missionary sermons, often with the collaboration of apostate preachers The Jewish community was compelled to defray the costs of this institution, as well as the expenses of the House of *Catechumens. The new prohibitions against Jewish physicians treating Christian patients contributed to the decline of medical science among Italian Jews. However, shortly before his death, Gregory intervened with the Knights of Malta to obtain the release of Jewish prisoners in their hands, even though the ransom he offered was lower than the sum demanded.” (As reported by Jewish Virtual Library)


1590: On this date the Sumptuary Laws were enacted aimed at the Jews of Casale (Italy). These were laws regulating what Jews may wear, how they may marry, what they may serve at a wedding, and all manner of what might be called social intercourse. These laws were commonplace in Europe and designed to humiliate and punish the Jews in the name of Christ


1637: The Jews of Venice were denied the right to practice law


1643:  Four-year-old Louis XIV becomes King of France upon the death of his father, Louis XIII. Louis reigned until his death in 1715.  His record of dealing with the Jews was uneven, based primarily on financial needs and attempts by Catholic French merchants to use religion to oust their Jewish competitors.  Five years before his death, he issued a final ban against Jews living in France, a ban that was not fully enforced.


1726(13thof Iyar, 5486):  Rabbi Moshe Darshan, author of Torat Ahsam, passes away.


1803: Birthdate of Salomon Munk, the German-born French Orientalist. In his formative years he was a trained in Torah and Talmud before moving on to Berlin where he became well versed in the classical languages and cultures.  He moved to France, because as a Jew, he could not be hired to work in his chosen profession.  In France, he developed an expertise in the works of Aristotle and Maimonides.


1807: The newly created grand duchy of Baden recognizes “Judaism as an officially tolerated religion” mean they are “emancipated.”  At the same time Jews are still exclude from being employed in the civil service.


1808: Birthdate of Leon Hyneman, a native of Montgomery County, Pennsylvania  who settled in Philadelphia where he was a leading Mason and the father of eight children including Leona Moss who gained fame as an actress using the stage name of Leona Moss and Alice  Hyneman, a noted author.


1824: The Justices of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, meeting in Lancaster, a city that for one day in September, 1777 was capital of the nascent United States of America, "carefully perused and examined" the Constitution of the Jewish congregation known as Kaal Kadosh Mickve Israel (The Holy Congregation Hope of Israel) in Philadelphia which decrees that services in the Philadelphia synagogue shall always be according to the custom of the Portuguese Jews. The finding of Justices Tilghman, Gibson and Duncan was that this, and everything else in their proposed constitution, was lawful. It was a beautiful example of the novus ordo seclorum "the new order of the times" promised on the Great Seal of the United States. Let us strive to remember this in our day when this new order is under constant attack, both at home and abroad.


1832: Birthdate of Rudolf Lipschitz, the German mathematician who gave “his name to the Lipschitz continuity condition.”


1832: The premiere of “L'elisir d'amor” which would later be produced by Max Maretzek took place at the Teatro della Canobbiana, Milan


1847: Composer Fanny Mendelssohn passed away.  She was the granddaughter of Moses Mendelssohn.  Her grandfather was one of the founders of what would become Reform Judaism.  Unfortunately, Fanny was not Jewish.


1853: Word reached the United States today, as reported in the New York Times, that Holy Week had seen outbreaks of violence in Jerusalem. Greeks and Armenians fought with each in front of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher while 24 “missionaries of the London Protestant Association” had “a scuffle with the Jews in the streets of Jerusalem.”
1853:  According to reports published today, J. Lewis Levy Esq., who is Jewish, has been returned as guardian of the Cathedral City of Rochester (U.K.)


1853: The New York Timesreported that the Earl of Aberdeen has told the House of Lords 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.”


1854: The American Society for Meliorating the Conditions of the Jews celebrated its sixth anniversary with a meeting tonight at the Reformed Dutch Church in New York City.  The organization is dedicated to converting Jews to Christianity.  The Society is convinced that the Jews of the United States are ripe for conversion.  However according to its own figures there are more than 40,000 Jews living in the United States and the society has successfully converted 79 of them.
1859: Mr. R. J. de Cordova, a well-known humorist is scheduled to give a lecture this morning at Temple Emanu-El in New York City.  Mr. de Cordova is scheduled to give a lecture every third Saturday for the rest of the year.
1861: A copy of the War Department order announcing Major Mordecai's resignation reached the arsenal at Watervliet, NY which forced Mordecai to relinquish command to his subordinate before his unnamed replacement had arrived.
1864(8th of Iyar, 5624):Baron Salomon de Rothschild died in Paris today at the age of 29, only two years after his marriage and less than a year after the birth of his daughter, Helene. He was buried at Pere Lachaise Cemetery in the family vault. Of his death, the Goncourt brothers wrote "Cabarrus, the Rothschild's doctor, told Saint-Victor that the young Rothschild who died the other day really died of the excitement of gambling on the stock exchange."
1864: Emma Mordecai had a dispute with her sister-in-law Rosina over reports of a victory by the Confederates under General Lee.  Rosina, who was not Jewish, doubted the report.  Emma, who was Jewish and was an ardent Southern patriot, insisted that the report must be true.  Mordecai's outburst was intemperate since she was a refugee staying at her sister-in-law's Virginia farm
1865(18th of Iyar, 5625): Lag B’Omer
1867: Birthdate of Kurt Eisner, author and critic turned politician.  Eisner opposed the Kaiser during World War I and became the first democratically elected leader of Bavaria after the war.  He was assassinated in 1919.
1869(4th of Sivan, 5629): Sixty-five year old “Talmudist and bibliographer” Gabriel Jacob Polak, whose works include “Dibre Kodesh, a Dutch-Hebrew dictionary passed away in Amsterdam today.


1872: In response to a U.S. Senate resolution of March 28, today, President Grant sent to the Senate copies of all correspondence regarding “the persecution and oppression of the Israelites of Romania.” The correspondence consisted of a series of letters from Benjamin F. Peixotto, the American Consul at Bucharest and Hamilton Fish, the U.S. Secretary of State.  In the correspondence, Peixotto described the attacks on the Jews and the failure of the government to punish the attackers.  He also described the efforts made by the representatives of several European governments, except for the Russians, who attempted to intercede with the government of Prince Michael on behalf of the Jews.  For his part, Secretary Fish wrote to Peixotto expressing his support for any action that might “avert or mitigate further harshness toward” toward the Jews living in Romania. [Editor Note – The Grant Administration’s support of the Jews of Romania is but one of several actions that would tend to show that Grant was not an anti-Semite and that the order of expulsion he issued during the Civil War was an aberration and a mistake he regretted rather than a sign of deep character flaw.]
1873(17th of Iyar, 5633): Seventy-six year old Gideon Brach the Austrian physician and surgeon who was the nephew of Moritz Steinschneider passed away today.


1873: The New York Timesreviewed Sketches of Jewish Life and History by Henry Gersoni which was published by the Hebrew Orphan Asylum Printing Establishment.


1875(9th of Iyar, 5635): Seventy-five year old linguist and literary historian Gottfried Bernhardy passed away today.


1879: An article subtitled “Frenchmen of Foreign Origin: Distinguished Instances of Aliens Attaining Position in France” published today provides background information on several non-native Frenchmen who rose to prominence in France and who played key role in the life of the country.  Of the Jews who fit into this category, the article mentions “the ancestor of the bankers Pereire [who] was a Portuguese Jew who introduced into France the teaching of the deaf and dumb; Bisschoffsheim, another banker is a self-made Jew…Bauer a Hungarian convert from Judaism [who] was court preacher to Napoleon III…Salomon Munk, another orientalist was a German Jew. So too was Jules Oppert, whose religion obliged him to seek a professorship in France.” [Editor’s Note – The references to Munk and Oppert are self-explanatory, although the column makes one mistake.  It was Munk, not Oppert, who came to France because his religion precluded him from being hired in his native Germnay.  Bauer probably refers to Abbe Bauer who reportedly trained as a Rabbi before converting to Roman Catholicisim.  Bisschoffsheim is probably Raphael Louis Bischoffsheim, the banker whose philanthropy included the founding of the Nice Observatory. Pierre probably refers to Emile and Isaac Pierre the 19th century bankers of Sephardic origin, who were the sons of Jacob Rodrigues Pereira, who was “one of the inventors of a manual language for the deaf.”


1879: Mary Nolhes swore out a complaint in the Essex Market Police Court today “charging her husband, Joseph, a Polish Jew with abandonment.”  The complaint was dismissed after the court determined that Joseph was “a henpecked husband” who had been abandoned by his wife.  Gustav Diner, a “young and muscular man” who was the complainant’s brother, left the court with the couple.  Once outside of the building, Diner, who apparently thought he could not be seen by anybody from the court “began to pound his brother-in-law unmercifully.” A police officer named Ryan “collared Ryan” and took him back to Court where he was jailed on charges of assault and battery.


1882: In Bloomington, Illinois several members of the Jewish community met at the B’nai B’rith hall to discuss the organization of congregation which would be founded later in the year as Moses Montefiore Congregation with Aaron Livingston as President.


1885: Birthdate of conductor and composer Otto Klemperer.  Born in Breslau, Germany(now Wroclaw, Poland) Klemperer was a child prodigy taking his first music lessons at the age of four.  Like so many of his generation, Klemperer had two lives.  The first was in Germany, the second in the United States.  His musical contributions to his native land were recognized by President Hindenburg who gave him the Goethe Medal "for his contributions to the advancement of German Culture."  A few years later, in 1933, the Nazis confiscated his property and issued a warrant for his arrest.  Klemperer came to the Klemperer came to the United States in 1934 with the reputation as a world-famous conductor.  Over the years he led orchestras in New York, Philadelphia, and Pittsburgh and was director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra for six years.  He also continued his distinguished career as a composer.  He died in 1973 at the age of 88.
1889(13th of Iyar, 5649): Thirty-five year old Sophie Walter, the wife of Mortiz Walter and the daughter of Joseph and Babette Seligman passed away today.


1889(13th of Iyar, 5649):Samuel Hirsch, a major Reform religious philosopher and rabbi, passed away in Chicago, Illinois. Born in 1815 at “Thalfang, (Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany (formerly part of Prussia), he received his training at Metz. He attended the University of Bonn, the University of Berlin, and the University of Leipzig. He first became rabbi at Dessau in 1838 but was forced to resign in 1841 because he promoted a radically liberal form of Judaism, later to become known as classic German Reform Judaism. In 1843 he published his "Die Messias-Lehre der Juden in Kanzelvorträgen" and "Religionsphilosophie der Juden." In 1843 he was appointed chief rabbi of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg by King William II of the Netherlands. During this period he published his "Die Humanität als Religion." He took an active part in the annual rabbinical conferences held at Brunswick (1844), Frankfurt am Main (1845), and Breslau (1846). In 1844 he published his "Reform im Judenthum." Having received a call from the Reform Congregation Keneseth Israel, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1866, he resigned his post in Europe and moved to the United States. There he succeeded Dr. David Einhorn. From his arrival onward he became closely identified with, and an open advocate of, radical Reform. In 1869 he was elected president of the rabbinical conference held in Philadelphia, at which the principles of Reform Judaism were formulated. In that year he engaged also in numerous ritual and doctrinal controversies. Hirsch remained officiating rabbi of the Philadelphia congregation for twenty-two years, resigning in 1888, after having spent fifty years of his life in the ministry. Moving to Chicago, he took up his abode there with his son, Emil G. Hirsch. During his rabbinate in Philadelphia Hirsch organized the Orphans' Guardian Society, and was the founder of the first branch in the United States of the Alliance Israélite Universelle. Hirsch is best known as the author of the "Religionsphilosophie," a work written from the Hegelian point of view, but for the purpose of vindicating the claim of Judaism to the rank denied it by Hegel, the rank of an "absolute religion." In this book he proved himself to be an original thinker (see "Allg. Zeit. des Jud." 1895, pp. 126 et seq.). His "Katechismus der Israelitischen Religion" was also constructed on original lines; he considered the Biblical legends to be psychological and typical allegories, and the ceremonies of Judaism to be symbols of underlying ideas. From this attitude his Reform principles are derived. He denied that Judaism is a law; it is Lehre ("teaching" or "lore") but is expressed in symbolic ceremonies that may be changed in accordance with historic development. He was the first to propose holding Jewish services on Sunday instead of the traditional Jewish Sabbath Shabbat. He contributed to the early volumes of The Jewish Times (1869-1878). His principal works were first issued in Germany, among them What is Judaism? (1838), sermons (1841), and Religious Philosophy of the Jews (1843).”


1891: Claims have were filed by many of the unsecured creditors of Levy Brothers & Co with the Sheriff today


1891: Solomon Crizar, a Polish Jew was still in custody today facing charges for setting fired to a tenement on Johnson Avenue in Brooklyn, NY


1891: A detachment of troops was sent from Athens to Corfu to restore order after an outbreak of violence that has resulted in the death of 2 Jews and all businesses owned by the Jews closed. At the same time the Prefect of Corfu has been summoned to Athens to explain the outbreak of violence


1892: In Germany, the liberal newspapers express the hope that the libel action brought by Loewe & Co against Rector Ahlwardt, the well-known Jew-baiter will put an end to his false claim that this Jewish firm supplied defective rifles to the army.


1892: Mrs. Schloss purchased a picture embroidered by a little girl from the Hebrew Orphan Asylum on the last night Actors’ Fund Fair.


1892(17th of Iyar, 5652): Fifty-two year Asher Simchah  Weissmann, who in 1889 founded  a German periodical, "Monatsschrift für die Litteratur und Wissenschaft des Judenthum," which was issued with a Hebrew supplement passed away today in Vienna.


1892: “Columbia Likely to Get More Books” published today described the successful efforts of Professor Richard Gottheil and E.R.A. Seligman to secure the books in the library of Temple Emnau-El for Columbia College.  The school already has a Professor of Hebrew and Semitic Languages.


1893: Harold Frederic sent a cable from London “announcing that the exodus of Jews from Poland had actually begun and that the refugees were already arriving in America.”


1893: It was learned today that many of the Jews arriving at Ellis Island from Hamburg were not German Jews, but Polish Jews who had spent the winter the German port.


1893: “New Jersey Religious Bodies” published today provides a picture of denominational membership in the Garden State. There are 19 Orthodox congregations with 2,521 members and 5 Reform congregations with 1,755 members scattered through the state.  The total number of Jews in the state is thought to be closer to 15,000 than the published 4,276. The discrepancy is created by the fact that most congregations tend to just count the head of the family instead of all family members.


1894: In Denver, CO, Council No. 6 of the National Council of Jewish Women was organized today with a membership of 98 led by Mrs. C.S. Benjamin as President


1894: The London correspondent of the New York Times reported today that the Jewish immigrants being forced to leave Russia face an additional challenge – an outbreak of Cholera which has spread from southwestern Russia to areas near Hamburg and Riga which are the ports of embarkation used by these emigrants


1895: Based on a review published today, “Oliver Twist” is no longer popular with New York theatre goers. Among other things, “the audience refused to take Fagin seriously” even though H. G. Carleton played the part with great skill.  Apparently, a play featuring an evil Jew no longer has the allure it did when Dickens wrote the novel on which the play is based.


1895: Birthdate of Lew Lehr, the native of Philadelphia, PA comedian and writer in the pioneering days of film and radio whose works included Stop Me If You’ve Heard This One


1897(12th of Iyar, 5657): Seventy-five year old opera impresario Max Maretzek passed away at Pleasant Plains, New York


1898: “Stories of the Ghetto” published today provides a review of The Imported Bridegroom and Other Stories of the New York Ghetto by Abraham Cahan.


1899: Reverend Madison C. Peters of the Bloomingdale Reformed Church gave the second lecture in his series “Justice to the Jew” in which he is trying to correct many of the inaccurate conceptions about this “race that has been maligned.”


1899: In Krefeld, chemist Friedrich Auerbach, the son of Leopold Auerbach and his wife gave birth to zoologist and geneticist Charlotte “Lottie” Auerbach.


1899: “Russian Plans Against Jews” published today described various anti-Semitic policies being pursued by the Czar’s government, the first of which was the prohibition of Jews being in St. Petersburg, the nation’s capital.  The ban applies to foreign Jews including those from France, Russia’s primary military ally.


1902: Italian General Giuesppe Ottolenghi, a native of Lombardy was appointed Minister of War today.


1904: In Bern, Switzerland Albert Einstein and Mileva Marić gave birth to their second child and first son Hans Albert Einstein.


1904: Herzl writes to the Austrian Foreign Ministry. He reports on this audience with Agenor Goluchowsky, the Austrian Foreign Minister.


1908(13th of Iyar, 5668): Max "Kid Twist" Zwerbach, a New York gangster was gunned down.


1910: A pogrom was perpetrated by a nationalist organization against the cultural institutions of the Russian Jews in Buenos Aires.


1912: The Tomb of Samuel Manasseh Ben Israel was restored at the Middleburg Portuguese Cemetery in Holland.


1913; New York Governor William Sulzer approves the charter for the Rockefeller Foundation, which begins operations with a $100 million donation from John D. Rockefeller. Governor Sulzer enjoyed support among the Jewish community of New York City and signed The 1913 New York State Civil Rights Act into law.


1915: During WWI, the Alliance Israelite Universelle announced that it would continue all activities in its institutions in the Ottoman Empire.


1923: A check for $10,000 was handed by Mr. Felix Warburg to Dr. Chaim Weizmann just before the former sailed for Europe


1923: It was reported today that The Committee on Higher Degrees of Columbia University has accepted the dissertation of Dr. Mordecai Saltes entitled “The Yiddish Press As A Force in America.” (JTA)


1923: A radical change in money raising methods for National Jewish philanthropies was proposed at the National Conference of the Jewish Social Service which began its sessions this afternoon here at the Hotel Washington. The proposal, made by Mr. Samuel A. Goldsmith of the Bureau of Jewish Social Research, New York, on behalf of the Committee of Nine appointed last year was that instead of these institutions obtaining their maintenance and other funds by direct, personal solicitation, a national budget be established based on the requirements of these institutions. (As reported by JTA)


1924: The first conference of the General Zionist movement concluded its meeting in Jerusalem. It decided to establish a General Zionist Federation to amalgamate all centrist factions in Palestine.



1924: Establishment of the city of Bnei Brak.  Bnei Brak is mentioned in the Bible as one of the cities of the tribe Dan.  Later it was famous as the site of Rabbi Akiva’s academy.  The city is mentioned in the Haggadah as the place where the all-night Seder of the Rabbinic sages took place.  The modern city was founded by charedi Jews from Polandand is famous for its yeshivot and Chassidic communities. Bnei Brak is northwest of Tel Aviv.



1925:  Birthdate of Yuval Ne’eman founder of Israel’s space program and a key figure in Israel’s nuclear program. http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2006/may/15/obituaries.guardianobituaries



1926: Birthdate of Allen Mandelbaum, whose fluid, sensitive English version of Dante’s “Divine Comedy” stamped his reputation as one of the world’s premier translators of Italian and classical poetry (As reported by William Grimes)



1928(24th of Iyar): Novelist Mordecai David Brandstaetter passed away today



1929: In Winnipeg, Canada, Rebecca and John Weidman gave birth to Barbara Branden “who helped popularize Ayn Rand’s philosophy” but then upset her acolytes with an unauthorized biography of the “queen of self-interest.”



1929: Birthdate of William Jay Adler, Brooklyn born author and editor whose works included What to Name Your Jewish Baby. (As reported by Douglas Martin)



1930: In New York, Ruth and Sol Peterman gave birth to famed opera singer Roberta Peters http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/peters-roberta



1930: Dr. Leon Pazi, who has just returned from Palestine, cheered delegates to the Argentine Zionist Congress which opened here today, with an optimistic report of the work of the Jewish colonies in Palestine. Zionists from all parts of Argentine are in attendance. Assurance of the support and sympathy of the people of Argentine for Zionism was given the congress by Senator Molinari while reports on the work of the Buenos Aires Zionist Federation during the riots in Palestine last Summer and on the aid being given Zionism by Zionists in Argentine were read to the delegates by the president of the Buenos Aires Zionist Federation. (As reported by JTA)


1931(27th of Iyar, 5691): Playwright and stage producer David Belasco passed away.
http://www.broadway.tv/broadway-features-reviews/haunting-broadway-the-ghost-of-david-belasco
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/Belasco.html



1933(18th of Iyar, 5693): Lag B’Omer



1933: Indignation against the Hitler regime in Germany is not confined to British Jewry but is shared by the British public of all classes and opinions, Leonard Montefiore, president of the Anglo-Jewish Association, told members of the Board of Jewish Deputies today
"We also enjoy the sympathy of the British Government, but the Government has other problems like disarmament and the World Economic Conference," he pointed out. "Nevertheless, Dr. Alfred Rosenberg realized the universal condemnation of British opinion."
The Archbishop of Canterbury has promised to speak at a public meeting in London if it is arranged as really representative of the country, Mr. Montefiore announced
He declared the statement that Jewish soldiers in the war and Jews whose sons were killed in battle were exempt from dismissal from their positions in Germany was "pure camouflage. I met men possessing the Iron Cross debarred from the courts by administrative chicanery," he said
The Joint Foreign Committee, which was organized by the Board of Deputies and the Anglo-Jewish Association to conduct foreign affairs, was urged by Simon Marks, who has been prominent in Zionist fund-raising activities, to ask the aid of Dr. Chaim Weizmann, former president of the World Zionist Organization, "in conducting the wider political work ahead." In reply, Nathan Laski declared that the Joint Foreign Committee had consulted Dr. Weizmann several times but that the organization cannot hand him the leadership, which, he said, would be abdication. He said the committee has also been in contact with Lord Reading and Sir Herbert Samuel (As reported by JTA)


1933: Boxer (and future mob boss) Mickey Cohen fought his last bout against Baby Arizmendi in Tijunana.



1934: A natural disaster occurs in Tiberius when cloudbursts cause flooding and rockfalls. Homes are swept into LakeKinneret.



1935: A court in Bern, Switzerland, pronounces the German edition of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion a forgery.


1936:  Viscount Edmund Allenby passed away.  As General Allenby, he led the Allied forces that liberated Eretz Israel, including Jerusalem, from the Ottoman Turks.  Allenby’s victory gave practical meaning to the Balfour Declaration by creating facts on the ground.  Furthermore, a Jewish Legion fought under Allenby’s command and played a central role in some of the fighting with the Turks.


1936: A large Jewish delegation met with the British High Commissioner and discussed the worsening conditions in the country brought on by continued Arab attacks and violence. The Mayor of Tel Aviv questioned the ability of the British to deal with the situations and leaders from Hederah said they could mobilize 150,000 men to protect the Jews and their interests.  The High Commissioner praised the “exemplary Jewish behavior and self-control…He requested the Jews to fortify themselves with more patience.”


1937: The Government today rushed police reinforcements into the Polesia province as anti-Semitic rioting in the town of Brzesc (formerly known as Brest-Litovsk), which caused injuries to 50 Jews and an estimated $400,000 damage, gave signs of spreading to neighboring villages.

 
1937: Jews were forbidden today to give performances of Beethoven, Mozart and Goethe on the ostensible grounds that they must be allowed "to develop their own spiritual and creative genius."Explanation of the ban was offered by Hans Hinkel, Nazi Commissar for Jewish Cultural Affairs, who said: "Jews must be allowed to develop their own spiritual and creative genius. If they are unable to or show themselves so poor in spiritual endowments that they cannot develop their own culture, it is all the more necessary to show the world that we cannot allow them to become the masters of our cultural life." (As reported by JTA)


1938: Jean Martin Freud, Sigmund Freud’s son who was known as “Martin” left Austria for London today.


1940(4th of Iyar, 5700): Anarchist and feminist, Emma Goldman passed away.  Born in Russia in 1869, she fled Russiain 1885 during a period of intense anti-Semitism.  Over the years she became active in anarchist causes.  Her anti-war political activities cost her U.S.citizenship and deportation back to Russia to experience the Communist takeover in that country.  Goldman was anti-Communist and ended up escaping to Britain.  For the rest of her life she devoted herself to trying to save the world through anarchy and feminism.  She died in Toronto but the American government allowed her body to buried in Chicago, the city that had so influenced her life.


1940: As of today, the Kindertransport which had started in December, 1938, brought 7,500 Jewish children to Britain.


1941: The Nazis arrested more than 3,600 Parisian Jews and sent to them concentration camps. This marked the start of the roundup of Jews in the Occupied Zone of France (the area directly controlled by the Nazis as opposed to Vichy France.  The roundup began with Polish Jews who had become naturalized French citizens but it did not stop here.


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1941: Approximately 4000 Jews are deported from Paris, most to a camp at Pithiviers, France. “Pithiviers, near Orleans, was one of the infamous concentration camps where children were separated from their parents and imprisoned, while the adults were processed and departed to camps further away, usually Auschwitz.”  This camp, like the one at Drancy, was operated by the Vichy French and their collaborators.  Contrary to the image that the French have concocted about their behavior during World War II, French fascists, led by Petain and Laval, were active participants in the Nazi New World Order.  As to the Jews, the French were already handing them over even before the Germans asked for them.

1941: The decision was made in Tel Aviv to establish the Palmach (Plugot Mahatz or ‘striking companies’ of the Haganah.  “The Palmach had two primary aims: the defense of the Yishuv against the Arab bands which would inevitably harass the Jewish towns and settlements and engage in local rioting as soon as the British retreated from Palestine; and the defense of the country against the Axis invaders.”  Yitshaq Sadeh, a Jew born in Russia in 1890, was the found and first commander of the Palmach.  He passed away in 1952.


1941: The Nazis interned 3,600 naturalized Jews of Russian origin.


1942(27th of Iyar, 5702): Noted Jewish Viennese pianist Leopold Birkenfeld is murdered at the Chelmno death camp.


1945: The HMS Springer a British submarine that would be sold to the Israeli in 1958 and be renamed the “Tanin” was launched today


1946: The SS Max Nordau, a Haganah ship containing 1,750 men women and children (300 of whom were orphans) was intercepted by the British off the coast of Palestine.  The refugees were shipped off for detention at Atlit while the crew was arrested and the ship confiscated by the British.  The vessel joined other such ships, including the Enzo Sereni, the Tel Hai and the Orde Wingate at a dock in Haifa.  The Palmach responded by simultaneously, blowing up eleven bridges that connected Palestine with surrounding countries.  This spectacular event came at the cost of 14 Palmach lives.


1947: Birthdate of Brandies graduate and music critic Jon Landau.


1948(5th of Iyar, 5708): In one of the most stirring moments in Jewish history David Ben-Gurion led the ceremony establishing the State of Israel.  The British Mandate actually ended on May 15, 1948.  But that was a Saturday and the Jewish State would not be declared on Shabbat, so it was done the afternoon before. Herzl's prediction was off by one year.



1948: Rebecca Affachiner “the Betsy Ross Of Israel” unfurled her homemade flag which she had made from a cut-up bed sheet on which she had sewn a six-pointed blue star and two stripes colored with a blue crayon.” (As reported by the Jewish Women’s Archive)

1948: Three resolutions were defeated at the United Nations by the Arabs and their allies to insure that Jerusalem would be an international city governed by the U.N.  The Arabs insisted that Jerusalem must be an “Arab city” even though it had a Jewish majority.  This lack of will on the part of the U.N. and Arab intransigence are the animating force by the refusal of Israeli governments to ever give up the city.


1948: Egyptian planes bomb Tel Aviv, the first time the city had been bombed since the Italians flew over in 1940


1948: The first broadcasts by Kol Yisrael, Israel's radio station.  Kol Yisrael is Hebrew for the Voice of Israel.


1948: Jordan’s Arab Legion captured the Jewish settlement of Atarot


1948: In violation of the U.N. resolutions, Jordan's Arab Legion captured Atarot, north of Jerusalem.  This was part of the Arab plan to cut off Jerusalem from the rest of the state of Israel.


1948: The United States became the first country to recognize the state of Israel.


1948:  "The Egyptian Prime Minister, al-Nukrashi Pasha, decided to proclaim a state of emergency and arrest all Communists declaring that all Jews were potential Zionists and that all Zionists were in fact Communists." (In Ishmael's House by Martin Gilbert)


1948: Sir Alan Cunningham drove out of Jerusalem, bordered a plane and flew to Haifa.


1948: When the Israeli flag was unfurled outside the Jewish Agency building in New York City, “throngs of Jewish youngster danced the hora outside and traffic on East 68thStreet came to a halt.”


1948: The bitter battle to keep the road between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem took a positive turn for Jewish forces as they occupied Beit Dagan the British police fortress.  At the same time, the Arabs were poised to seize the vital airport at Lydda.


1948: Bechor-Shalom Sheetrit, was appointed Minister of Police, a position he held until a month before his death in January 1967. He served in fourteen governments and making him the country's longest continually serving minister.


1948: David Ben-Gurion begins serving as Israel’s first Minister of Defense.


1948: David Remez was appointed Minister of Transportation in David Ben-Gurion's provisional government.


1948: Yehuda Leib Maimon was appointed at Israel’s first Minister of Religious Services.


1948: Maury Atkin, who had been employed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, opened the first Israeli embassy in the United States at 2210 Massachusetts, Avenue.  Atkin served as executive officer and agricultural consultant to the new Israeli Embassy until April 1950


1948: Following yesterday’s massacre of the Jews at Kfar Etzion, the rest of villages at Gush Etzion surrendered following which the Jews were taken prisoner and their homes “plunder and burned.”


1953: The Jerusalem Post reported on the first visit to Israel of the U.S. Secretary of State, Mr. John Foster Dulles, who arrived, accompanied by a large entourage "for a frank exchange of views." Israeli leaders asked U.S.for a loan to meet their foreign currency debts which reached $70m., while another $40m. were due shortly. Dulles "was happy to be in Israel" and was certain that the talks will be "mutually beneficial."
1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that Israel received from West Germany $75m. on account of reparations.
1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that 102 new immigrants arrived from Iran.
1953: “The first railway line built by the State of Israel – 28 and a half miles of track running parallel to the coast between Hadera and Tel Aviv – was dedicated by Mrs. David Remez, widow of Israel’s first Minister of Communications who conceived the line in 1948.”  The opening of the rail connection will shorten the time it takes to travel between Haifa, Israel’s major port and Tel Aviv.


1955: On the seventh anniversary of Israel’s independence, a public memorial service is held at Carnegie Hall in honor of the late Albert Einstein.


1957(13th of Iyar, 5717): Seventy-two year old Sir Sidney Solomon Abrahams, the older brother of Harold Abrahams (“Chariots of Fire”) and the 26th Chief Justice of Ceylon (Sri Lanka) passed away today.


1958: “I Married A Woman” directed by Hal Kanter and written by Goodman Ace premiered in Los Angeles.


1967(4th of Iyar, 5727): Yom HaZikaron


1967: Alfred Kazan and Nissim Ezekiel of the Bombay University were among the speakers at the six-day celebration of Henry David Thoreau sponsored by the Nassau Community College that came to an end today.


1967: According to statements made by Nasser in justifying the blockade of the Straits of Tiran, this is the day on which he discussed the Soviet report of the Israel’s planned invasion of Syria with the government in Damascus and formulated their military response.


1967: Israeli newspapers carried interviews with General Rabin, IDF chief of staff warning “Damascus” of the consequences that would arise from continued terrorist attacks.


1968(16th of Iyar, 5728): Seventy year old Dr. Theodore Werner, the Viennese born English Zionist was the godson of Theodor Herzl passed away today. (As reported by JTA)?


1969: Today marked the end of Abe Fortas’ tenure as an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court.


1974(22nd of Iyyar, 5734):First Lieutenant Rami Zusman and Sergeant Reuven Brinenberg were killed just two weeks before Henry Kissinger negotiated a separation of forces agreement between the Syrians and Israelis.


1977:The first official images of the Merkava were released to the American periodical Armed Forces Journal


1978: The Jerusalem Post reported on the changed mood in the Cairo media which claimed that the deadlock in the Israeli-Egyptian peace negotiations moved the whole Middle East to the situation which preceded the 1973 Yom Kippur war. The Egyptian press warned that President Sadat's pledge of "no more war" would not be fulfilled, unless Israel dropped its refusal to relinquish all the territories it captured in the 1967 war.


1980(28th of Iyar, 5740): Yom Yerushalayim


1980: The full orchestral version of “Variations for Winds, Strings and Keyboards”  an orchestral piece composed in 1979 by Steve Reich was premiered by the San Francisco Symphony at the War Memorial Auditorium in San Francisco


1982: Richard F. Shepard reviewed Max and Helen by Simon Wiesenthal


1983: It was reported today that Secretary of Defense Caspar W. Weinberger delivered a speech to the American Jewish Committee in which he said the Soviet government was “making a profound and dangerous mistake if it thought it could force the United States to abandon its commitment to Israel’s security.”


1983: A new advertising campaign created by Needham, Harper & Steers/Issues and Images, which will promote a friendliness and warmth of the Israeli people toward travelers with the new theme line: ''Come to Israel, come stay with friends'' premieres today with two new 30-second television and radio commercials.


1984: Birthdate of Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook fame.


1986(5th of Iyar, 5746): Yom HaAtzma'ut


1986: The Institute for War documents published Anne Frank’s complete diary.


1987: As the IPO celebrates its 50th anniversary, Leonard Bernstein conducts the symphony for a second night.


1989: “Chu Chem,” billed as “the 1st Chinese-Jewish Musical” with Molly Picon comes to a close today after 68 performances on Broadway.


1996(25th of Iyar, 5756): Seventeen year old Yeshiva student David Bum was murdered by a terrorist who fired on students “as a hitchhiking post at Beit El.”


1998: Performance of the last episode of Seinfeld on NBC with commercials selling at $2 million for a 30 second slot.


2000: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including “Working Class New York: Life and Labor Since World War II
by
Joshua B. Freeman and the recently released paperback edition of The Lexus and the Olive Tree” by Thomas L. Friedman The New York Times columnist deploys a torrent of anecdotes and vignettes to probe the causes and effects of globalization and the transforming power of technology.


2000:Requiem for a Dream,”  an American psychological drama film directed by Darren Aronofsky premiered at Cannes today.


2000:Karl Jay Shapiro, a native of Baltimore who was appointed the fifth Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 1946 passed away in New York.


2003: Allan Kornblum was appointed as a federal magistrate for the northern district of Florida.


2003:Dorrit Moussaieff an Israeli-born British jewelry designer, editor and businesswoman married the President of Iceland, Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson,


2004:Peace Now led the 'Mate ha-Rov' ("majority camp") demonstration today in Tel Aviv, in order to pressure the Israeli government to adopt the Disengagement Plan


2004:Mayyim Hayyim, a community mikveh [ritual bath] and education center in Newton, Massachusetts, opened its doors. The opening was the culmination of over three years of work by a committed group of Boston-area women led by author Anita Diamant.

In addition to reclaiming and reinventing the mikveh, Mayyim Hayyim seeks to fulfill its mission through a variety of educational programs. By January of 2004, before the building even opened, Mayyim Hayyim estimated that its education programs had reached about 1,000 people. Since the opening of its building, the organization has sponsored art exhibits and public programs to engage the community. To mark its first anniversary, the group staged a performance of "Mikveh Monologues," modeled after Eve Ensler's "The Vagina Monologues," and featuring the stories of mikveh users. The script was written by Diamant and Janet Buchwald. Diamant noted in an interview that despite the seemingly narrow focus of the topic, "all religious rituals use water as a metaphor for change and transformation and purification...there's a potential for universal appeal.""Mikveh Monologues II," presented in March 2006, raised $200,000 for Mayyim Hayyim.


2006(16th of Iyar, 5766): American poet and two time Poet Laureate Stanley Kunitz passed away.


2006: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including “Becoming Eichmann: Rethinking the Life, Crimes, and Trial of a "Desk Murderer" y David Cesaraniand the recently released paperback edition of Omaha Blues: A Memory Loop” by Joseph Lelyveld which is a memoir of his often painful Midwestern childhood” featuring his “warring parents: a literary mother and a political father, who was a Reform rabbi and a committed civil-rights activist.”


2006: On NPR's Weekend Edition, Daniel Schorr mentioned a meeting at the White House that took place with colleague A. M. Rosenthal and president Gerald Ford. Ford mentioned that the Rockefeller Commission had access to various CIA documents, including those referring to political assassinations. Although scolded at first for his television report by former CIA director Richard Helms, Schorr was vindicated by the text of the Pike Committee, which he obtained from an undisclosed source and leaked to The Village Voice. [Editor’s Note – Schorr and Rosenthal were Jewish.  Ford and Helms were not.]


2007: The JCCin Manhattan presents a film screening “Be Fruitful and Multiply: What’s A Mother to Do?” followed by a panel discussion.

2008:As US President George W. Bush lands in Israel for a three-day visit the IDF starts reducing its operations throughout the West Bank. The orders were delivered earlier this week to the IDF's Central Command by the political echelon.


2008:A shopping mall in Ashkelon was hit this afternoon by a long-range rocket fired from the Gaza Strip injuring around 90 people, four of them seriously. Two militant groups, Islamic Jihad and the Popular Resistance Committees, claimed responsibility. Among those seriously hurt are a 24-year-old mother and her infant daughter, both of whom were flown to Sheba Medical Center, Tel Hashomer, for treatment.

2008(9th of Iyar, 5768): Eighty-six year old cartoonist and satirist Will Elder passed away today (As reported by William Grimes)

2009:The Foundation for Jewish Studies presents a free lecture with Dr. Robert Alter speaking on “The Challenge of Translating the Bible” at the Washington DC Jewish Community Center.


2009: The 92nd Street Y presents a lecture by Susanne Vromen entitled “Sanctuary from Hell: Belgian Nuns Who Saved Holocaust Children” in which this Professor Emeritus of Sociology at Bard College author of “Hidden Children of the Holocaust: Belgian Nuns and Their Daring Rescue of Young Jews from the Nazis” shares the “riveting stories” of the Belgian Jewish children who were hidden in Roman Catholic convicts and orphanages starting in 1942. 
2009:Today Jordan's king pressed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to immediately commit to the establishment of a Palestinian state, as the monarch pursued a sweeping resolution of the Muslim world's conflicts with Israel. King Abdullah II made the comments during a meeting in the Red Sea city of Aqaba with Netanyahu, who made an unannounced, lightning visit to neighboring Jordan.

2009(20th of Iyar, 5769):Beatrice Israel Muhlendorf, passed away today at the age 93 in Sheffield, Alabama. Mrs. Muhlendorf was a native of Worcester, Mass., and a member of Temple B'Nai Israel. She attended Florence State Teachers College and graduated from the University of Alabama in 1936.She was the co-founder of the Rho chapter of Sigma Delta Tau sorority at the University of Alabama and served as president in 1935. a lifelong sustaining member of the Muscle Shoals District Service League, past board member of the YMCA of the Shoals and Northwest Alabama Easter Seals Rehabilitation Center, Turtle Point Yacht and Country Club and was past president of the Temple B'Nai Israel Sisterhood. She worked for the Navy department during World War II, where she met her husband, Jack, and married in 1942. She, along with her father and husband, co-founded Paper and Chemical Supply Co. in 1949, where she served as a chairman of the board until her passing. She was preceded in death by her husband, Jack Muhlendorf


2009: Sholom Rubashkin, the man who ran Agriprocessors, has been named in a new 142 count indictment that adds 70 new charges that  include criminal acts related to bank fraud, money laundering and document fraud.


2010(1 Sivan, 5770): Rosh Chodesh Sivan


2010: Forty-six year old Jennifer Gorvotiz was named CEO of the San Francisco based Jewish Community Federation today making her “the first woman to head on the North American’s 20 largest Jewish Federations.” (As reported by Jweekly.com)


2010:Rabbi Shira Stutman and musician Sheldon Low are scheduled to lead a musical and interactive Shabbat at the Historic 6th& I Synagogue in Washington, D.C.


2011:Liliana Schulder is scheduled to be called to the Torah as a Bat Mitzvah at The Temple, Atlanta’s oldest synagogue which was founded in 1867.


2011: The Cincinnati Art Museum is scheduled to present “A Jewish View of Cincinnati” will “explore art from ancient times that relates to Jewish history; paintings of biblical stories and themes, and works by Jewish artists.


2011: Pianist Menahem Pressler is scheduled to appear with the Jupiter Quartet as part of the Peoples’ Symphony Concerts in New York City.


2011: The managing director of the International Monetary Fund, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, was taken off an Air France plane at Kennedy International Airport minutes before it was to depart for Paris on today, in connection with the sexual attack of a maid at a Midtown Manhattan hotel, the authorities said. Mr. Strauss-Kahn, 62, who was widely expected to become the Socialist candidate for the French presidency, was apprehended by detectives of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey in the first-class section of the jetliner, and immediately turned over to detectives from the Midtown South Precinct, officials said.


2011(10th of Iyar, 5771): Ninety-year old Joseph Wershaba, the colleague of Edward R. Murrow who helped to expose Senator McCarthy, passed away today. (As reported by Dennis Hevesi)

2011(10th of Iyar, 5771): Eighty-nine year old Murray Handwerker, the man who turned Brooklyn based Nathan’s hot dog stand into a nationally known institution passed away today. (As reported by Reed Abelsson)

2012: At the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Library in Washington, DC, Dr. Pamela S. Nadell, Chair of the Department of History and Director of the Jewish Studies Program at American University is scheduled to survey 350 years of the American Jewish experience through the prism of National Museum of American Jewish located on Philadelphia's Independence Mall.


2012: The New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music is scheduled to present an evening of performances celebrating its Israeli alumni, students, and international collaborators


2012:Todd Hasak-Lowy author of Here and Now: History, Nationalism, and Realism in Modern Hebrew Fiction is scheduled to participate in A Dalkey Archive Translators Night as the McNally Jackson Bookstore in New York City.


2012: Roberto Rodriguez and the Cuban Jewish All Stars are scheduled to perform at the Washington DCJCC.


2012: Center for Jewish History and Center for Traditional Music and Dance are scheduled to present “Bay mayn mames shtibele: The Women's Art of Yiddish Folksong.”


2012: In London, The Wiener Library is scheduled to hold a workshop for new recruits and experienced veterans of the Wiener Library’s Volunteer Translation Program.  The program began with one translator in 2009.


2012: Offensive lineman Mitchell Schwartz, a second-round draft pick of the Cleveland Browns, signed a four-year, $5.17 million contract with the team. Schwartz, a tackle from the University of California, Berkeley, was selected 37th overall in April’s draft. The Jewish player was among eight draft picks signed by the team today. His older brother Geoff is in his fourth season as an NFL player ( As reported by Mary Oster)


2012(22nd of Iyar, 5772): Nine-four year old “David M. Helpern, the business side of the husband-and-wife apparel design team known as Joan & David, who popularized elegant, comfortable — and non-high-heeled — shoes for working women in the 1960s before expanding their line internationally to include clothing,” passed away today.  (As reported by Paul Vitello)

2012: Jill Abramson, the executive editor of the New York Times did not address the graduating class at Barnard College because she was pre-empted by President Obama.


2013: The refurbished Jerusalem Train Station is scheduled to host its first major event today.


2013: The Riddle of the Labyrinth: The Quest to Crack an Ancient Code by Margalit Fox, the doyenne of New York Times obituary writers goes on sale today.

2013: “Fire In My Heart: The Story of Hannah Senesh” is scheduled to open at the Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center.


2013: Erev Shavuot


2013: As part of the observance of Shavuot, Bentlee Birchansky and Noah Thalblum will celebrate their Confirmation at Temple Judah in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. (Editor’s Note – I had the pleasure of teaching both of these youngsters.  They are two of the brightest, nicest, most diligent students I ever worked with in the last fifty years. They have much to be proud of and even more to look forward to.)


2013: On the secular calendar, 65thanniversary of the establishment of the State of Israel!


2013: The Jerusalem Post ranks Yair Lapid, the founder of Yesh Atid at the top of its list of most influential Jews followed by U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Jack Lew in second place.



2014(14th of Iyar, 5774): Pesach Sheini


2014(14th of Iyar, 5774):




2014: Nick Kotz, whose recent book, The Harness Maker's Dream, tells the story of his Jewish Ukrainian grandfather's journey to the United States and ensuing life in Texas is scheduled to moderate a panel discussion “A Nation of Immigrants: How They Have Shaped America.”


2014: In Danville, CA, the Reutlinger Community for Jewish Living is scheduled to host a special screening “American Jerusalem, “ a “documentary that tells the story of San Francisco Jews became Jews.”

This Day, May 15, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. Levin

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May 15



392: Theodosius I, who had been emperor of the eastern half of the Roman Empire became the last ruler of the entire Roman Empire (east and west) “A general of Spanish origin, and the son of another general, was chosen to replace Valens who had been killed fighting the Visigoths. He refused to condemn Judaism believing that it was a legitimate religion. Theodosius prohibited the destruction of synagogues by zealot Christians.


 756 CE: Abd Al-Rahman won the battle against his co-religionist outside the city walls of Cordoba. He entered the city as victor.   After he set up his Umayyad administration, Abd Al-Rahman mandated all Jews and Christians pay a jizya, a discriminatory mandated tax in accordance with the Koran for their "protected" status as dhimmis.


1248: Odo of Chateaubroux "investigated" the Talmud and then condemned it. This was the second condemnation of the Talmud after an appeal was made by the Jewish community of France.


1252:  Pope Innocent IV issues the papal bull Ad Exstirpanda, which authorizes the torture of heretics as part of the Inquisition. Torture quickly gains widespread usage across Catholic Europe.  There would be several Inquisitions during the Middle Ages and on into the Renaissance. The primary aim was to destroy Christians who did not accept the doctrine as commanded by the Popes at Rome.  Of course if you were going to rack or dunk or flay Christians, certainly there were those who would think that it would be alright to do the same to Jews.  Interestingly, there were some Popes who disagreed saying that it was alright to treat the Jews badly, but not to actually do them physical harm.


1648: The Treaty of Westphalia was signed as part of series of treaties that brought an end to the Thirty Years War and the Eighty Years War between Spain and the Netherlands.  The treaty officially recognized the independence of the Dutch from the Spanish Empire.  This guaranteed the independence of a European nation that had give Jews a place to grow and prosper.  Ironically, many of these were Sephardic descendants of those who had been expelled by the Spanish in 1492 or were Morrano refugees who had grown weary of the ever present Inquisition. The end of the Thirty Years provided a respite to Jews living in Central Europe including the communities of Frankfort, Worms and Jena each of which was the scene of at least one pogroms.


1745: In Prague, after many appeals and petitions, Empress Maria Theresa revoked her decree banishing all Jews in Moravia and Bohemia, allowing Jews to live there for an unlimited time. Only the Jews in Pragueitself who were actually banished 3 years earlier were still under the order, but they were soon permitted to return on a restricted basis.


1755: Villa de San Agustin de Laredo which is now known as Laredo, Texas, was founded by Don Tomás Sánchez while the area was part of the Nuevo Santander region in the Spanish colony of New Spain. According to the Society for Crypto Judaic Studies, Sanchez came from a family with Jewish origins. For about this and other facets of Jewish life in this Texas border town see “Tomas Sanchez, founder of Laredo” by Carlos M. Larralde, PhD and “History of Laredo's Jewish Community” by Stan Green.


 

1756:  The Seven Years War begins when Englanddeclares war on France.  In America, the war is known as the French-Indian War. Officially there were no Jews living in Canada at the start of the war since Canadawas a French colony and Jews were forbidden by law to live there. This changed as a result of the war.  The first Jews entered Canadawith the forces of Lord Jeffrey Amherst, the English military leader who conquered Montreal.  There were several serving in his regiments including four officers.  One of them, Aron Hart, remained, settled at Three Rivers where he became a large landowner and the father of four sons who helped to form the nucleus of the Jewish community in Montreal.  On the other side of the line, some sources contend that a Converso was in the Commissary General for the French forces.


1767:Birthdate of Canadian entrepreneur and politician, Ezekiel Hart Jewish. Contrary to the image of Jews coming to the New World and assimilating, Hart fought to maintain his Jewish identity when he took his seat in the Canadian legislature.  Hart scored a posthumous victory when the wording of the oath was changed.


1773: Birthdate of Klemens Wenzel, Prince von Metternich, known to history simply as Meternich.

 

1792: At Frankfurt-am-Main, Mayer Amschel Rothschild and Guttle Schnapper gave birth to their fifth and youngest son James Rothschild who established the French banking house for the family/


1799: Birthdate of Adolf B. Marx, composer and educator.  Marx was supposed to be a lawyer, but changed his mind after graduation and moved to Berlinto begin his musical studies.  While composing, he also served a lecturer on Music at the famed University of Berlin and started the Stern Music Conservatory which became one of the leading musical schools of its time.  Marx died in 1866, two days after his 67th birthday.


1800: An English Jew named D.M. Dyte saved the life of King George III when he thwarted an assassin’s attempt to shoot the monarch. “George III. attended the Drury Lane Theater to witness a comedy by Colley Cibber; and while the monarch was acknowledging the loyal greetings of the audience, a lunatic named Hadfield fired a horsepistol pointblank at his Majesty. Two slugs passed over the king's head, and lodged in the wainscot of the royal box. The king escaped unhurt; but it was only subsequently realized that Hadfield had missed his aim because some man near him had struck his arm while in the act of pulling the trigger. This individual was Dyte, father of Henry Dyte, at one time honorary secretary to the Blind Society. It is said that Dyte asked as his sole reward the "patent" of selling opera-tickets, then a monopoly at the royal disposal. (As reported by James Picciotto in Sketches of Anglo Jewish History)


1800: A community of Jewish slaves, captured over a period of two centuries and held for ransom by the Knights of St. John on the island of Malta, was officially dissolved.


1808: Birthdate of Irish composer and conductor Michael Balfe who took the unusual step of hiring a Jew, Max Maretzk as his assistant at Her Majesty’s Theatre in London which was a critical step on his road to success as an impresario and musician in Europe and the United States.


1817:Jean Lafitte, moved from Matagorda Bay to Galveston today, after having purchased supplies from João da Porta.  João da Porta (also José da Porta or Joseph de la Porta was a Portuguese Jewish merchant, who along with his older brother, Morin, “played an important in the early settlement of the Texan coast.João was born in Portugal but attended school in Paris, France, before moving to Brazil, the British West Indies, and finally New Orleans, Louisiana. Along with his brother, João provided the financing for the privateer Louis Michel Aury, who established his base at the site of the future Galveston, Texas, in 1816. The same year, Mexican revolutionary general Francisco Javier Mina visited and successfully encouraged Aury to join him in an invasion, which failed. Morim left Galveston and soon died, and João sold Aury's camp and supplies to Jean Lafitte, In 1818, João was appointed supercargo for trade with the Karankawa Indians. João later returned to New Orleans after Lafitte had left Galveston.


1822: Birthdate of Bohemian-Jewish author Leopold Kompert.


1829: Daniel O’Connell whose fight for Catholic Emancipation paralleled the fight of the Jews for the same rights tried to take his seat in the House of Commons “without taking the oath of Supremacy.”


1832: Seventy-three year old German music teacher Carl Friedrich Zelter whose pupils included Giacomo Mayerbeer, Fanny Mendelssohn and Felix Mendelssohn, who was such a favorite of his that he “wrote to Goethe boasting of the 12 year old’s abilities.”


1833: Forty-five year old English actor Edmund Kean whose portrayal of Shylock which first took place in 1824 was described as the personification of a character in “a chapter out of the Book of Genesis” passed away today.


1842(6thof Sivan, 5602) Shavuot


1847: Seventy-one year old Daniel O’Connell whose “Catholic Emancipation campaign served as the precedent and model for the emancipation of British Jews, the subsequent Jews Relief Act 1858 allowing Jewish MPs to omit the words in the Oath of Allegiance "and I make this Declaration upon the true Faith of a Christian" passed away today.


1858(2ndof Sivan, 5618): Marcus Durloch, a member of the Independent Order of Free Sons of Israel passed away today.  His widow was the person to received benefits from the organizations Widows and Orders Fund that had been incorporated earlier in the year.


1861(6thof Sivan, 5621): Shavuot is observed for the first time during the Civil War.


1862: Birthdate of playwright and novelist Arthur Schnitzler. Born in Vienna, Schnitzler began his career as a playwright.  He was a central figure in the Viennese literary community that spanned the last decades of the 19th century and the first three decades of the twentieth century.  Schnitzler was a contemporary of Herzl and used him as a character in one of his novels.  Schnitzler passed away in 1931.   His works were later banned by German and Austrian Nazis.


1864: Moses Jacob Ezekiel fought at the Battle of New Market at as a member of the VMA Cadet Battalion.


1864: Emma Mordecai apologized to her sister-in-law for their quarrel over whether or not reports of General Lee's victory were accurate.  Mordecai's apology pointed up the precarious position of this unmarried Jewess who had sought refuge from the war at her relative's farm in rural Virginia.


1867: In a letter written to his wife today, abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison described his shipboard encounter "with three Jewish former slaveholders.  "Sitting opposite me at the table, are three German Jews, Louisiana planters, who have lost all their slaves, now that they are free, will be unable to take care of themselves!  Of these Israelites it cannot be said that they are without guile; ("Jews of the Civil War: A Reader")


1872: “Jews in Romania” published today described the decision of the Grant Administration, as conveyed Secretary of State Hamilton Fish, to have its representative in Bucharest work with the other powers to alleviate the suffering being inflicted on the Jews living in Romania.


1876: Professor Felix Adler delivered the opening address at the first meeting of the Ethical Culture Society.


1881: Anti-Jewish riots break out in Odessa, Russia.


1882: Alexander III issued the May Laws. They were designed to "cause one-third of the Jews to emigrate, one-third to accept baptism and one-third to starve." Jews were banished from all rural areas and towns of less than ten thousand people, even within the Pale of Settlement. These laws remained in quasi-effect until 1914 and provided the impetus for migration to Americaas well as expanded interest in the settlement of Eretz-Israel.


1887(21stof Iyar, 5647): Seventy-eight year old German philanthropist, Wilhelm Königswarter a native of Furth passed away at Meran.


1889: Birthdate of Bessie Hillman.  Born Bessie Abramowitz, Hillman was active in the labor movement designed to alleviate the sweatshop conditions in the garment industry. She was active in the 1910 strike against Hart-Shaftner and Marx.  The strike paid two dividends - the creation of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America and the first meeting with her future husband, labor leader Sidney Hillman.  An early role model for feminists, Hillman continued her labor work even after giving birth to her two daughters.


1880: In Charleston, Rabbi Levy officiated at the marriage of Adolf Lederberger and Albertine Levy.


1882(NS): The May Laws, a series of anti-Semitic regulations proposed by Minister of Internal Affairs Nikolai Ignatyev were signed into law today by Czar Alexander III.


1890: Birthdate of author Katherine Anne Porter whose novel Ship of Fools portrays the rise of Nazism who described herself as “in direct, legitimate line” of the English language accused Jewish writers of “trying to destroy it and all other living things they touch.”


1891: The will of Nathan Littauer, a benefactor of many Jewish charities, was filed in the Surrogate’s office today.


1891: Birthdate of David Vogel, the native of the Pale of Settlement who used Hebrew in his poetry Lifney Hasha'ar Ha'afel("Before the Dark Gate"), novels and diaries and who died at Auschwitz in 1944 after having been interred at Drancy.


1892: “The Israelite Alliance has sent the Sultan of Turkey an address in commemoration of the admission of the exiled Spanish Jews to the Turkish Empire in 1492.”


1893: “Mission Work Among Jews” published today described a potential conflict between the New York Presbytery and the Presbyterian Home Board.  The New York wants to begin a program to aggressively convert Jews. Up until now the national organization has not endorsed such an effort aimed directly at the Jews.


1893: Birthdate of Harry Rosenthal, the Belfast (Ireland) native who gained fame in London and the United States as an actor, composer and pianist.


1893: It was reported today the Jews have been coming to the United States from Poland every month this year “in gradually increasing numbers.”  Twenty –one came in January, seventeen in February and 316 in March, 306 of whom had less than $30 when they arrived.


1893: “Jews of Poland” published today refutes claims from correspondents in Berlin “that there is no movement for the expulsion of Jews from Poland based on eyewitness accounts of the arrival in London of scores of Jews who have been expelled from Poland.  They carry copies of orders of expulsion some of which show that the movement against the Jews began in January. “Russian officers will say that they are expelling no one but merely moving subjects about inside of the empire.” However, “the ‘moved’ subject stripped of his possessions and deprived of this home, must starve or get out of the country.”


1894: A policeman discovered that crockery store owned by the Rosenblatts on 10thAvenue was on fire.  The officer entered the building which was also home to the Rosneblatts and dragged them to safety.


1894: A picture of the Hebrew Orphan Asylum was found in the studio of Henry Alexander who took his life today.  The picture was one “that he prized dearly.”


1894: Francis Bedford passed away.  Born in 1816, he was a noted artist and photographer who helped to found the Royal Photographic Society in 1853.  He accompanied the Prince of Wales on his tour of the Middle East.  His photographs of Palestine were some of the earliest and best of those taken in the 19th century. They were published in 1865 providing many with their first real look at the Holy Land as it actually was.


1895: Birthdate of Fanny Goldstein, a librarian and the founder of Jewish Book Week


1899(6thof Sivan, 5659): Last Shavuot of the 19th century.


1898: In Harlem, Temple Israel completed its three day celebration of the 25thanniversary of the congregation and the 10th anniversary of occupying its current facility.


1899(6thof Sivan, 5659): Final observance of Shavuot in the 19th century.


1899: The Sanitarium for Hebrew Children of the City of New York which helps “sick and destitute” Jews as well as providing free summer excursions has released its annual report.  It showed that last summer the sanitarium provide nine boat excursions and 24 trains excursions while aiding a total of 15,445 people.


1899: According to an article by Leopold Sanders, Jews are “the most anciently cultured people” since in the Book of Genesis they were the first to give the world various prehistoric legends of Babylonian origin.


 

1902: Jewish housewives on the Lower East Side poured into the streets, breaking windows and throwing meat. The women were protesting a jump in the price of kosher meat from 12 to 18 cents a pound (Jewish Women’s Archives)



1904(29th of Iyar, 5664):Hayyim Selig Slonimski passed away in Warsaw. Born in Poland in 1810 when it was part of the Russian empire, his accomplishments included the invention of a calculating machine for which the Russian Academy of Sciences awarded himthe Demidov Prize in 1844 and the establishment of Ha-Tsefirah, a weekly paper published in Hebrew.


1905: Birthdate of businessman Abraham Zapruder, whose famed home movie documented the assassination of JFK


1905: Founding of Las Vegas, Nevada. According to an article in Hadassah Magazine there is little documented proof concerning the first Jewish families living in Las Vegas.  Names like Bergman and Berman appear in the 1910 census In the 1920’s a family named Goldring served kosher food and proudly announced that they had produced the first Jewish baby born in the town.  Other sources provide a replica of cattle brand found on bovines belonging to a Las Vegas Jew named Charles Field.  The brand consisted of a diagonal “I” with the letter “C” superimposed over it.  Of course the first two Jewish names that come to mind when mentioning Las Vegas are Meyer Lansky and his protégé Ben “Bugsy” Siegel.  Today Las Vegas has one of the fastest growing Jewish communities in the United States.


1909: The cornerstone for a new building to be used by the Hebrew Infant Asylum is scheduled to be laid today.


1911: In Poland, Yiddish theatre personalities Yakov and Ruzha Fuchs gave birth to actor Leo Fuchs who came to the United States and began his career in the Yiddish Theatre. Fuchs appeared in "Broadway Plays" in New York and in London.  He was seen on the television hit Mr. Ed.  His film credits include The Frisco Kid and Avalon.  He passed away in 1994.



1912 Morris Lasker and Nettie Heidenheimer Davis Lasker gave birth to film producer Edward Lasker.


1912: Birthdate of composer Arthur Victor Berger.  Born in the Bronx, Berger was a graduate of NYU and Harvard. Berger was well known in his native America as a composer, teacher and music critic, but was better known in Britain as a writer on music, particularly on the academic, musicological side.  He passed away in 2003 at the age of 91.


1914: Konrad von Preysing, who would become a leading anti-Nazi prelate was made Honorary Chamberlain of His Holiness today.


1914: ArchitectLouis Isadore Kahn, who had been born Itze-Leib Schmuilowsky in Estonia in 1901, became a naturalized citizen of the United States.


1914(19thof Iyar, 5674): Sixty-six year old Yitzhak Isaac Halevy Rabinowitz, a rabbi, Jewish historian, and founder of the Agudath Israel organization whose works included Dorot Harishonim or Dorot Harischonim  passed away today.


1915:  Birthdate of American economist Paul Samuelson.  Samuelson won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1970.   Jews account for 40% of all winners of the Nobel Prize for Economics.  Fifty-four percent of the Americans who have won the award are Jewish.


1916: Shalom Aleicheim was buried today at Old Mount Carmel Cemetery in Queens, NY.

1918: Birthdate of of Saul Laskin, the native of Fort William who was the first mayor of Thunder Bay, Ontario.


1918: Two Jewish journalists – Landau and Goldsky – were among those who had worked for the Bonnet Rouge newspaper who were sentenced to prison today after being convicted of treason in Paris.


1918: Birthdate of Joseph Wiseman, the Canadian actor who played “Dr. No.”


1919: In the Winnipeg General Strike “virtually the entire working population of Winnipeg had walked off the job. 30,000 to 35,000 people were on strike in a city of 200,000. Even essential public employees such as fire fighters went on strike, but returned midway through the strike with the approval of the Strike Committee. The Winnipeg Police were technically on strike but remained on patrol in practice.” Opponents of the strike, especially those in the press including The New York Times demonized the strikers as Bolsheviks and Jews.  Cartoons were produced depicting the strikers as hooked nosed Jews.  In 2005, this historic event would become part of the popular entertainment world through a musical called Strikeby Danny Schur.  The hit play (in Canada) focused on the treatment of the Jewish and Ukrainian workers and carried a message of universal brotherhood. 


1919: Birthdate of Samuel Abraham Goldblith a food scientist who studied malnutrition while after having been taken prisoner by the Japanese at Corregidor and who developed the techniques for preserving food that were critical to the U.S. manned space program.


1922: The German-Polish Convention signed today guaranteed all minorities in Upper Silesia, including the Jews, equal civil and political rights.


1926: Leopold Damrosch Mannes was appointed a Guggenheim Fellow today for creative work in musical composition and a study of musical literature.


1927: Judge Julian W. Mack is scheduled to be the principle speaker at the banquet this evening that will mark the start of Philadelphia’s United Palestine Appeal drive.


1927: Birthdate of Bezalel Rakow “an orthodox rabbi who headed Gateshead’s Jewish community and was the chair of the Council of Torah Sages of Agudas Yisroel of Great Britain.”


1928: Julius Rosenwald admitted today that he has given away so much money that he does not know the dollar value of his philanthropies.


1928(25thof Iyar, 5688): Sixty-six year old Herione May, social worker and founder of the Jewish Women’s Federation passed away.


1928: Samuel Goldwyn hosted a testimonial dinner at Hollywood’s Roosevelt Hotel in honor of Al Lichtman, General Manager of Distribution in the United States and Canada for United Artists Corporation.


1928: Birthdate of a French–born American “novelist and academic, known also for poetry, essays, translations, and criticism who taught at the University at Buffalo, wrote in “the experimental style, that sought to deconstruct traditional prose” and whose books included “Double or Nothing.”  


1929: David Wuntch of Tyler, TX, was elected president of the Texas Zionist Association which concluded its silver anniversary convention today.


1930: It was announced today that “a request for an audience with the Roumanian Regency in connection with continuing attacks on Jews in various parts of the country will be made by the Union of Roumanian Jews” Dr. William Filderman is President of the Union.


1930: “Eliel Loefgren, former foreign minister of Sweden; Charles Barde, a Swiss jurist, and A. Van Kempen, a former Dutch colonial official, were today announced as members of the international Wailing Wall Commission to investigate the Moslem and Jewish claims to the Wailing Wall. The names were submitted to the Council of the League of Nations by Arthur Henderson, British foreign secretary.”


1930: The High Commissioner’s office has announced that, effective today, all immigration into Palestine is suspended pending the completion of a report being compiled by Sir John Simpson dealing with immigration and land settlement problems.


1931: Birthdate Norma Diane Fox who gained fame as award winning author Norma Fox Mazer.


1932: Hitler’s "Voelkischer Beobachter" advised the Jews of Germany to leave the country because “we National Socialists will certainly clear all Jews out of every position they occupy in Germany.


1933: The Secretariat of the League of Nations rejected petitions protesting the treatment of the Jews of Silesia because the treaty guaranteeing them their political and civil rights requires that the citizens of Silesia file the grievance and representatives of member nations.  The League chose to ignore the reality of the claims.


1933: In Germany, “a plan to expel Jewish barbers and tobacconists from their positions was initiated here today.”


1933 (19th of Iyar, 5693): Dr. Alfred Strauss, a Jewish lawyer, was killed in Dachau.


1934(1st of Sivan, 5694): Rosh Chodesh Sivan


1934: Jewish candidates are running in both the Democratic and Republican primaries being held in New Jersey today.  Among the candidates are Samuel Raff, a Republican seeking a seat in the General Assembly and four candidates for the Justice of Peace Passaic County -  David Ehrlich, Democrat, and Benjamin Rosenfelt, Toby Schneider, and Morris Rosenberg, Republicans.


1935: “The Italian Crown Prince Umberto and the Crown Princess Maria, who are now on an official visit to Tripolitana, today visited the Jewish quarter in the town of Tripoli”.


1935: Representatives of several Jewish communities in Poland were considering taking part in a project to plant a forest in Palestine in honor of Marshal Josef Pilsudski


1935:The Gazeta Warszawska, organ of the anti-Semitic National Democratic Party, was expelled today from the Press Association of the Polish Republic for its "tactless attitude" while the nation was mourning the death of Marshal Pilsudski. The Press Association comprises all newspapers in Poland. The expulsion was decided on at a special session called for this purpose (JTA)


1936:The Italian consul denied today in a statement to the press that Italian agents are responsible for disorders in Palestine. London newspapers had charged Italian agents with fomenting the outbreak in an attempt to embarrass Great Britain in the Italo-Ethiopian situation. (JTA)


1936: On the first day of the official Arab campaign of civil disobedience aimed at ending Jewish immigration violence breaks out forcing the British to cordon off Tel Aviv from Jaffa.


1937:  Birthdate of Madeleine Korbel Albright. A native of Czechoslovakia, Albright was raised as a Roman Catholic.  In 1996, Albright discovered that her grandparents had been murdered at Auschwitz and Terezin. Her parents had converted to Roman Catholicism to escape the Holocaust.  Albright has stated that she did not know she had Jewish ancestors until she was an adult. In 1997, she was the first woman to be named Secretary of State.


1938: The Palestine Post reported that while the armed Arab gangs continued to carry out robberies, commit arson, blow up culverts, dig holes in the roads and set up mines throughout the country, at least one such gang suffered heavy casualties when engaged by British forces near Acre. Many arrests were carried out in Tamra and the neighboring villages. Two British officers were wounded in this operation. An Arab mukhtar, village elder, was murdered near Nablusafter he refused to pay ransom


1939 The SS St. Louis leaves Hamburg. Most of the thousand or so passengers are Jewish escapees from Nazi Germany. They have landing passes for Cuba as well as quota numbers that could allow them entry into the United States three years hence;


1939 A women's concentration camp opens at Ravensbrück, 50 miles north of Berlin.


1940: Thousands of refugee Jews from Germany, Austria, and Czechoslovakia are trapped behind German lines as Nazi forces push through Holland.

 

1941(18th of Iyar, 5701): On Lag B’Omer, 12 Polish Jews who have traveled by sealed train from the Biala Podlaska Jewish POW camp to Konskowola are murdered after the train's Nazi overseers discover that four of the POWs have escaped.


1941: Nazi occupiers in Netherlands forbid the playing Jewish music


1943: In Rohatyn, Jewish ghetto police secretly plan to buy weapons and form escape parties to the nearby woods. Three weeks later the plan is foiled and all 1,000 Jews of the ghetto are killed.


1943: The Warsaw ghetto was reduced to ashes and the uprising came to an end after an active resistance of four weeks.


1943(10th of Iyar, 5703):After days of being crammed in a box car,Salamo Arouch, a Greek-born Jewish boxer, his parents, three younger sisters and his brother arrived at Auschwitz at 6 p.m.His mother and sisters were immediately taken to the gas chambers.


1943: The first issue of Liberal Judaism, a new illustrated monthly journal of opinion and letters appeared today.


1944: Nazi deportation of Jews from greater Hungary began with the deportation of 14,000 Jews from Munkacs to Auschwitz. The roundup is directed by Eichman with “the full cooperation of the Hungarian police.”


1944: As part of the Nazi proposal to swap Jews for supplies including ten thousand trucks, Joel Brand is flown from Budapestto Istanbul to meet with two representatives of the Jewish Agency for Palestine.  The two will listen to Brand and take the offer back to Ben-Gurion in Tel Aviv.


1944: On the eve of the Allied invasion of Europe, 878 Jews are deported from Drancy, France, to the Reval, Estonia, slave-labor camp. At the very time when Rommel, the Nazi General who is in charge of preparing to face the Allied onslaught, is bemoaning the lack of men and equipment, the Germans are busy shipping Jews to their death.  This provides further proof that the creation of a Jew-Free Europe was an integral part of the German effort and not some tangential activity.


1944: Dr. Salomon Gluck, the brother of Rose Warfman, was deported on convoy 73 which left Drancy today.  He would reportedly die five days later.


1945: Birthdate of Gail J. Koff, who would be considered the silent partner in the national law firm Jacoby & Meyers after she opened their New York offices six years after the firm, began operations in Los Angeles, California.

1945: In Yugoslavia, fighting between 30,000 Nazi soldiers and a group of Yugoslav partisans known as the Battle of Poljana came to end when the Axis surrendered in what may have been the last formal combat operation in the European Theatre during WW II.


1948: Egypt, Transjordan, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Saudi Arabia invade the state of Israel on its second day of existence.  As soon as the Mandate ended, the Arab armies attacked with the aim of driving the Jews into the sea.


1948: As the first day dawned on the new Jewish state, the Israeli military force had grown from 4.500 to 36,600 in the six months since the partition vote. This seemingly impressive total includes everybody not just combat troops.  And it pales in comparison to the size (not to mention the equipment) of the invading Arab armies. At least 1,200 Jews had fallen in fighting during the same period and this does not count civilian casualties. 


1948: On Cyprus, the British open the gates of the detention camps.  Thousands of Jews who had been imprisoned in their attempt to reach Eretz Israel, would now be free to leave for the new national Jewish home.  Within days, many of those released would be fighting in the front lines against the invading Arab armies. 


1948: Mordechai Ruttenberg took part in one of those small actions, described below, which helped to change history.


In Jerusalem, a young teenager and a member of Gadna (Gedudei Noar--Israeli youth corps offering pre-military training of teenagers) helping to defend Jerusalem“found a crate of Molotov cocktails in the Notre Dame Monastery, got really scared, and hid it. The Jordanians tried every possible way to break into the city, and on that day armored vehicles arrived via Damascus Gate and took up positions below the windows of the monastery. Someone shouted from the street, 'Hey, kid, where are the cocktails?' I didn't know what to do, so he explained to me how to throw them. From the window I threw one of the bottles onto the first armored vehicle, which immediately started to burn, and the Jordanians beat a hasty retreat. Afterward people wrote that the Molotov cocktails saved Jerusalem, because otherwise the Jordanians would have entered the city. I pretty much forgot the whole thing, but one day I heard a tour guide telling about the boy with the bottle, and I came out of the closet and said, 'I am that boy.'"  That boy was the future Professor Mordechai Rotenberg who Hebrew University of Jerusalem, who taught at Hebrew University in the social work school, the criminology institute and the department of psychology.


1948: The American office of Magen David Adom (the Israeli equivalent of the Red Cross) opened a blood bank for Israelin New York Citythat was soon packed with donors.


1948: Voice of Israel (Kol Israel) was born simultaneously with the birth of the State of Israel. Operations for Kol Israel were in the old Palestine Broadcasting Service facilities left behind when the British left Palestine. The first Kol Israel broadcast was made from Tel Aviv as David Ben-Gurion read the Declaration of Independence for the Jewish State.


1948:In a radio Broadcast Menachem Began said today "It is Hebrew arms which decide the boundaries of the Hebrew State; so it now in this battle; so it will be in the future."


1948: On the day after Israel declared its independence Jews in Baghdad "walked liked shadows, terrified about their own destiny and that of their brothers in the Land of Israel."


1948:The Battles of the Kinarot Valley began tonight when Israeli observers reported that “many vehicles with full lights” were “moving along the Golan ridge east of the Sea of Galilee.” The observers were describing the movement of a Syrian infantry brigade accompanied by at least one tank battalion and one artillery battalion that was on its way to attack Kibbutz Ein Gev.  Among the Jewish forces facing the Syrians were elements of the Golani Brigade.  Thanks to an arms embargo, the Israelis had no artillery, tanks or combat aircraft to face this onslaught. 


1948: Moshe Sharett became Israel’s first Foreign Minister.

1948: Etan Liivni who had been freed from Acre Prison in 1947 during the great prison break, returned to Israel today from his hiding place in Europe so he could fight in the War for Independence. 


1948:An Iraqi brigade invaded at Naharayim in an unsuccessful attempt to take the kibbutz and fort but the Arabs were able to occupy and loot the power plant which was the creation of Pinhas Rutenberg.


1949: In Philadelphia, PA, opening of “3rd Sculpture International” which includes the works of Chaim Gross, Jacob Epstein, Jacques Lipschitz and William Zorach.


1949(16thof Iyar): Rabbi Chaim Tchernowita, author of “Toledot haHalakah” passed away


1949: Sixty-seven year old Mary Antin, a champion of immigrant rights and author whose work included The Promised Land, the 1912 autobiographical tome about her “Americanization “ passed away today.



1950: The remains of Oscar Grusenberg, the Russian Jewish lawyer who defended Mendel Beilis against blood-ritual charges were interred in Israel


1951:  Birthdate of Frank Wilczek winner of the 1973 Nobel Prize in Physics for the discovery of asymptotic freedom in the theory of the strong interaction.

1951: Pitcher Saul Rogovin is traded from the Tigers to the White Sox and still compiled a league leading 2.78 Earned Run Average.


1952: Abba Khoushy, Mayor of Haifa, attended the United States Conference of Mayors at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York.


1952: Founding of Sde Boker (Cattle Rancher's Field) in the central Negev hills.  Sde Boker began as a horse-breeding community.  Later sheep were added to the breeding activity.  As the desert was reclaimed orchards were planted by the settlers.  Sde Boker's most famous settler was David Ben-Gurion who first moved there in 1952 when he resigned as Prime Minister in 1952.  Ben Gurion saw Sde Boker as a key to reclaiming the Negev.  In turn Ben Gurion saw reclamation of the Negev - making the desert bloom - as a key to the ultimate success of the new Jewish state.
1953(1st of Sivan, 5713): Rosh Chodesh Sivan


1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that a new railway line linked Hadera with Tel Aviv. The entire new track was constructed out of the French-manufactured material acquired with the aid of French railways. The funds came from the Development Budget.


1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that the Bavarian Cabinet had decided to ban the return to Bavaria of Jewish Displaced Persons who left Germany for Israel after World War II and now decided to return to Germany.


1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that Kfar Saba celebrated its 50th anniversary.


1958: Premiere of the film version of the Lerner and Loewe musical “Gigi’ with arrangements by Andre Previn.


1959(7th of Iyar, 5719): Charlotte Lipsky passed away today at the age eighty.



 
1967: Israel holds the Independence Day parade in Jerusalem without the usual numbers of heavy artillery and tanks. The full parade is not held because of an agreed limitation of tanks in the city, as laid down in the armistice agreement with Jordan. Egypt accuses Israel of having sent the "missing tanks and other weaponry to the north."Egypt names May 17 as the day on which Israelwill invade Syria. A new song is born: "Yerushalayim shel Zahav" - "Jerusalem of Gold" by Naomi Shemer is performed for the first time on Independence Day. It soon becomes a kind of second national anthem.


1967: During a parade in Jerusalemmarking the 19th anniversary of Israeli independence, a messenger brings word to Prime Minister Eshkol that “large Egyptian forces were moving into Sinai and advancing westward.” The message continued that in Cairo rumored reports had Nasser ordering the removal of the UN Emergency Forces from the Sinai and the Straits of Tiran.


1969: Associate Supreme Court Justice Abe Fortas resigned over a controversy concerning past legal fees.


1973: President Richard Nixon awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor to Air Force Sergeant John L. Levitow, the only enlisted airman to be so honored during the Viet Nam War.  The citation reads as follows: “For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in action at the risk of his own life above and beyond the call of duty. Sergeant John L. Levitow (then Airman First Class), U.S. Air Force, distinguished himself by exceptional heroism on 24 February, 1969, while assigned as a loadmaster aboard a AC-47 aircraft flying a night mission. On that date, Sgt. Levitow's aircraft was struck by a hostile mortar round. The resulting explosion ripped a hole through the wing and fragments mad over 3,500 holes in the fuselage. All occupants of the cargo compartment were helplessly slammed against the floor and fuselage. The explosion tore an activated flare from the grasp of a crewmember, who had been launching flares to provide illumination for Army ground troops engaged in combat. Sgt. Levitow, though stunned by the concussion of the blast and suffering from over forty fragment wounds in the back and legs, staggered to his feet and turned to assist the man nearest to him, who had been knocked down and was bleeding heavily. As he was moving his wounded comrade forward and away from the open cargo compartment door, he saw the smoking flare ahead of him in the aisle. Realizing the danger involved and completely disregarding his own wounds, Sgt. Levitow started toward the burning flare. Sgt. Levitow struggled forward despite the loss of blood. Unable to grasp the flare with his hands, he threw himself bodily upon the burning flare. Hugging the deadly devise to his body, he dragged himself back to the rear of the aircraft and hurled the flare through the open cargo door. At that instant, the flare separated and ignited in the air, but clear of the aircraft. Sgt. Levitow, by selfless and heroic actions, saved the aircraft and its entire crew from certain death and destruction. Sgt. Levitow's conspicuous gallantry, his profound concern for his fellowmen and his intrepidity at the risk of his own life above and beyond the call of duty are in keeping with the highest traditions of the United States Air Force and reflect great credit upon himself and the Armed Forces of his country.”  Born in in 1945, Levitow passed away at the age of 55 and is buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

1974(23rd of Iyar, 5734): A cell from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine infiltrated into Israel from Lebanon. They entered an apartment in Ma’a lot, killing the Cohen family including their four year old son. The terrorist then stormed NetivMeirSchool.  “They took 105 students and 10 of their teachers hostage.  They were from a religious high school in Safed and who were staying the school during a class trip.”  The terrorists killed 22 students and three of the teachers before the IDF could mount an effective rescue mission.


1978: The Jerusalem Post reported that the Israeli Embassy in Washington reiterated that "the supply of advanced weapons to Saudi Arabia and Egypt creates a serious threat to the security of Israel." President Sadat of Egypt, in a major policy speech, threatened domestic critics of his policy of negotiating with Israel, and took great pains in explaining why he had deposited one million pounds, received from Katar, in his personal account.


1978: The Jerusalem Post reported that the Israeli Cabinet, by a vote of 14 to three, backed the Chief of Staff, Raphael Eitan's declaration that Israel cannot defend itself without Judea, Samaria, and the Golan.


1981:President Anwar el-Sadat called on Syria and Israel today to adopt a policy of ''hands off Lebanon'' and urged the Palestinians to form a provisional government because ''the day will come when Israel will sit with you.'' Mr. Sadat's remarks came in a two-and-a-half-hour address to Parliament, which was devoted in large measure to a scathing denunciation of Egypt's small opposition Socialist Labor Party. The President dealt only briefly with the Lebanese crisis and did not address himself to a question that has been arising with some frequency here - What would Egypt do if Syria and Israel went to war?


1983: Rabbi Charles Kroloff of Temple Emanu-El in Westfield officiated at the wedding of Lisa Ehrich and Robert Bernstein.  He was assisted by cantorial student Jill Spasser.


1983: In “Psychological and Moral Dilemmas” published today, Robert Alter reviewsEight Great Hebrew Novels edited by Alan Lelchuck and Gershon Shaked.


1986(6th of Iyar, 5746):  Author and journalist Theodore White passed away.  White first gained fame covering Chinaduring World War II for the Time/Life media empire.  His honest reporting got him in trouble with Right Wing Americans and he ended up coming back to the States after the war.  White had been so effective as a reporter because he spoke Chinese, a language he learned quite by accident while studying at Harvard.  A whole new generation of Americans came to know him for his prize winning popular political science treatise, The Making in President which told the story of the Nixon-Kennedy campaign in 1960.  It provided many Americans with their first insight as to how the American electoral system really worked.  Although he was to write several “making of a President” books, none would come close to the original effort which spawned a whole new genre of political reporting.



1988(28thof Iyar, 5748): Yom Yerushalayim


1989: French premiere of “Brenda Starr” a film based on the comic strip reporter with a script by “Jenny Wolkind,” better known as Delia Ephron.


1995: The Chicago Sun Times reports that Eddie Schwartz has left WLUP after having failed to obtain the same success he had enjoyed with WGN.


2000: Israel and Sri Lanka(formerly Ceylon) reestablish diplomatic relations.


2000:By decree of the French Republic President, Israeli diplomat, Dr Meir Rosenne, has been made Commander in the National Order of the Legion of Honour.


2001(22ndof Iyar, 5761): Twenty year old Idit Mizrahi of Rimonim was murdered today when terrorists fired bullets at car carrying her, her father and her brother who were traveling to attend a family wedding.


2001: One Israel, a party formed by Ehud Barak in 1999 ceased to exist today.


2001: In a column entitled “Let the Circle Be Unbroken,” Mimi Sheraton laments the latest assault on “The Bagel” – Pillsbury’s ToasterFilled Bagels.


 Bagel purists have had a lot to swallow as their favorite nosh has come in for its share of creative rethinking. The basic flour-water-salt-yeast-malt dough that should be shaped and then boiled before being baked is now often steamed or not moistened at all, so that it lacks the inimitable yeasty, chewy inner texture. Pizza or pumpernickel doughs are often used now, and the traditional crust that should be plain, with a golden, shiny finish, may be pockmarked with poppy or sesame seeds, garlic or onions, while the correctly neutral, cool interior is adulterated with cinnamon and raisins, nuts and berries. Economic considerations, like high labor costs, have fostered mammoth bagels that fetch mammoth prices even though they resemble inner tubes more than they do the compact, true bagel that ideally measures about 3.5 inches in diameter. It's a wonder we permit these versions to be called bagels at all. But the single characteristic of the bagel that has always been honored, no matter what other attributes go by the board, is its shape. A bagel is ring-shaped -- round with a hole in the center. At least until now;The Pillsbury Company’s''filled bagels'' -- described in the advertising copy as ''highly evolved'' -- are more like Pop-Tarts than bagels. Each 3- by 4-inch rectangle of ''tasty bagel crust'' is filled with cream cheese and, of all things, strawberry jelly. Although sweetness is antithetical to true bagel connoisseurship, the jelly and the cheese suggest the red-and-white color combination (visible through three slashes on the top crust) of cream cheese and smoked salmon. Real fish, of course, would not work, being too perishable for both freezer and toaster. The greatest attribute of these ''filled bagels,'' promises the ad copy, is: ''No gloppy mess. Next breakfast, it's freezer, toaster, done.'' Following Pillsbury's instructions, this highly evolved taster found the crust (neither baked nor steamed, I bet) to have the flavor and texture one might expect from a dampened, heated manila folder enclosing a crowd-pleasing, sweet and creamy filling. But please, Pillsbury Doughboy, go back to your creative copywriters and marketing talents and come up with another name. The new product you so proudly hail may not be totally terrible, but it is totally not a bagel. Where is the circle? Where is the hole?


2002: President Bush welcomes forty-five leaders from the United Jewish Communities to the White House.


2004: After being called up from Triple-A Pawtucket today  Kevin Edmund Youkilis “went 2 for 4 in his major league debut” with the Boston Red Sox.


2005(6th of Iyar, 5765):  Alan B. Gold, Chief Justice of the Quebec Superior Court passed away at the age of 87.


2005: The New York Timesincluded reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including the recently released paperback editions of “After Such Knowledge: Memory, History, and the Legacy of the Holocaust,” Eva Hoffman’s essay that “thoughtfully conveys the conflicted inner lives of a generation of children of Holocaust survivors” and “The Sea House”  Esther Freud’s “intricate English novel, inspired by the letters of Esther Freud's grandfather (Sigmund's son), which is set along the Suffolk coast and tells two stories separated by half a century.”


2006: Over 150,000 people attended the celebrations at the tomb of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai on MountMeron in the Galilee, where a large feast is traditionally held.


2006: Daniel Barenboim was named principal guest conductor of La Scala opera house, in Milan, after Riccardo Muti's resignation


2007: In Washington, D.C. Theater J presents the last of performances of Arnold Wesker's “Shylock,” a landmark re-imagining of the three stories which inspired Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice. Featuring Theodore Bikel in the title role and Edward Gero as Antonio, this staged concert readingis presented in conjunction with the Shakespeare in Washington Festival.


2007: In London, the ZF presents “A Special Commemoration of the 40th Anniversary of the Reunification of Jerusalem” featuring a speech by Moshe Arens, former Israeli Ambassador to the United States who also served as the Israeli Defense Minister and Foreign Minister.


2007: Four people were wounded by a barrage of at last 19 Qassam Rockets fired by Hamas terrorists at the western Negev town of Sderot.  Palestinian leaders said that Hamas was trying to divert attention from internecine fighting in the Gaza Strip by renewing hostilities between Israeland the Palestine Authority.


2007(27th of Iyar, 5767): Ninety-five year old Italian-Jewish architect Giorgio Cavaglieri, passed away today. (As reported by Douglas Martin)

2008: In Mishkenot Sha'ananim in Jerusalem, The First International Writers Festival comes to a close.
 
2008: The Jewish Historical Society of Greater Washington marks the 60th anniversary of the state of Israel with a series of book talks by Laura Cohen Apelbaum on “Jewish Washington: Scrapbook of an American Community” (the companion to the award-winning exhibit of the same name) beginning at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library. It is co-sponsored by the Embassy of Israel and the B'nai B'rith Klutznick National Jewish Museum


2008: President George Bush is schedule to address the Knesset on the second day of his visit to Israel; a visit designed to honor Israelon its sixtieth anniversary as well as to try and advance peace talks with the Palestinians.


2008: A conference is held at the Beit Chail Haavir in Herzlia by the National Road Safety Authority, Or Yarok, and the Institute of Technological Studiesin order to promote new technological advances to improve road safety in Israel.


2008:Google co-founder Sergey Brin lauded Israeli innovations in technology and environmental efforts, saying Israel"takes our climate challenges very seriously." Brin, visiting as a delegate to President Shimon Peres' Presidential Conference, told Haaretz that these challenges have "great geopolitcal ramifications on this country, in addition to environmental ones."


2008:Australian media tycoon Rupert Murdoch told a panel in Jerusalem that promoting technology throughout the Middle East could help advance peace.

2008:"Waltz With Bashir” a daring new animated documentary which follows Israeli director Ari Folman as he tries to piece together memories of the 1982 massacre of Palestinians in Beirut's Sabra and Shatila camps is screened at the Cannes Film Festival.


2009:Michael Pollan, author of “The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals,” discusses his most recent book, In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto, at the Round House Theatre in Bethesda, Md., in an event sponsored by Politics and Prose Bookstore.


2009:Rabbi Shefa Gold, a leader in Aleph, The Alliance for Jewish Renewal leads Friday night services for Congregation Bet Mishpachah at the Jewish Community Center in Washington, D.C.


2009(21stof Iyar): Ninety-one year old Edwin S. Shneidman, a psychologist who gave new direction to the study of suicide and was a founder of the nation’s first comprehensive suicide prevention center, passed away today  at his home in Los Angeles. (As reported by William Dicke)


2010:Before Shabbat morning services start at Temple Emanuel in Denver, Rabbi Steven Foster is scheduled to discuss "Reform Responsa: Applying Jewish Text to Modern Day Questions."


2010(2ndof Sivan, 5770):Moshe Greenberg, one of the most influential Jewish biblical scholars of the 20th century, died today at his home in Jerusalem at the age of 81. As reported by Dennis Hevesi

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/20/arts/20greenberg.html?pagewanted=print



2011:Joel and Ethan Coen, the Oscar award-winning producer-director team that created films like The Big Lebowskiand A Serious Man are expected to attend the ceremony in Israel today at which they will be formally awarded The Dan David Prize “for their contribution in film making.”  The committee that made the selection “called the duo a unique example in cinematic history for their abilities to tell a simple story in a complex manner.”  “The Dan David Prize is named for the businessman and philanthropist and is administered by a board of directors headed by Tel Aviv University President Professor Yoseph Klafter. Ten percent of the recipients' prize money is donated on their behalf to doctorate and post-doctorate student grants.”  Each recipient receives a million dollars. The other million-dollar prize winners for 2011 are University of California at San Francisco Professor Cynthia Kenyon and Harvard Medical School Professor Gary Ruvkun for their work in gerontology, and Stanford University Medical School Professor Marcus Feldman for his work in the evolutionary sciences. President Shimon Peres and 2010 prize winner Italian President Giorgio Napolitano are expected to attend the award ceremony, the tenth year that the prizes will be awarded.


2011: The American Sephardi Federation is scheduled to present a symposium entitled: “2,000 Years of Jewish Life in Morocco: An Epic Journey.”


2011: In what would prove to be a case of “rush to judgment” the New York Police Department arrested Dominique Strauss-Kahn at 2:15 a.m. today “on charges of criminal sexual act, attempted rape, and an unlawful imprisonment in connection with a sexual assault on a 32-year-old chambermaid in the luxury suite of a Midtown Manhattan hotel yesterday” about 1 p.m., Deputy Commissioner Paul J. Browne, the department’s chief spokesman, said.  (As reported by Al Baker and Steven Erlanger)



2011: Young Jewish Professionals are scheduled to take part in The Lox, Stock & Bagel Scavenger Hunter where they will “explore the heart of the Lower East Side that is changing right before your eyes. Highlights include Russ & Daughters, Katz's Deli, the birthplace of B'nai B'rith, Economy Candy, and much more.”



2011: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including “The Wizards of Lies: Bernie Madoff and the Death of Trust” by Diana B. Henriques and the recently released paperback edition of “The Sabbath World:Glimpses of a Different Order of Time” by Judith Shulevitz


2011: The Los Angeles Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including 'Say Her Name' by Francisco Goldman.


2011:Four people were reportedly shot dead by Israel Defense Forces troops today as they opened fire on large numbers of infiltrators trying to breach Syria's southern border with Israel. Another four people were said to have been killed on the Lebanese side of its shared frontier with Israel, as Palestinian protests for the annual Nakba Day, which mourns the creation of the State of Israel, took hold across the region.


2011: Cedar Rapids native, John Lipsky, brother of Temple Judah congregant Ann Lipsky is named as acting managing director of the IMF.


2011:Dozens of Im Tirtzu activists gathered outside the offices of UNRWA in Jerusalem holding signs and chanting, "They expelled, they attacked, they lost.” Im Tirtzu takes its name from the saying of Theodor Herzl "If you will it, it is no dream."


 
2012: The Aleppo Codex: A True Story of Obsession, Faith, and the Pursuit of an Ancient Book by Matti Friedman went on sale today.

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2012: Basya Schecter is scheduled to perform “Songs of Wonder” which sets the Yiddish poetry of the civil rights activist and Jewish philosopher Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel to music at the Washington  DCJCC.

2012: Cellist Yoed NIr is scheduled to join Regina Spektor in tonight’s performance at the United Palace Theatre.


2012:Ellen Cassedy is scheduled to read from and sign her new book, We Are Here: Memories of the Lithuanian Holocaust at the National Museum of American Jewish Military History


2012: Jill Abramson, the executive editor of the New York Times will receive an honorary degree to at Farleigh Dickinson University’s 69thcommencement exercises.


2012:Arab terrorists attacked southern Israel with a Kassam rocket early today and attacked Jews in the Hevron area with two firebombs overnight as “Nakba Day” began


2012: Twenty-four year old Majid Jamali Fashi was hung today by Iran after having been “convicted for Israel and assassinating an Iranian nuclear scientist.”


2012: “Sisters Joined by Tumult, Grown Apart in Time” published today provides a details review of I Am Forbidden, a noble by Anouk Markovits.


2012(23rdof Iyar, 5772): Eighty-eight year old Holocaust survivor and scholar Arno Lustiger passed away today.

2013(6thof Sivan, 5773): First Day of Shavuot


2013: Scheduled opening of the Ein Gev Shavuot Festival


2013:“Pedro Hernandez, Charged With Murder Of Etan Patz, To Face Trial”

2013: For the first time since the outbreak of the Syrian uprising, two mortar shells exploded in the Mount Hermon area this morning. /


2013: Israel will continue to take military action to prevent the transfer of advanced weaponry to Syria, The New York Times quoted a senior Israeli official as saying today, a day after Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu met Russian President Vladimir Putin in Sochi to discuss the troubled situation.
 
2014: The Oregon Jewish Museum is scheduled to host Peter Zisa in a program celebrating the music of two Jewish composers -- Alexandre Tansman and Mario Castlenuovo-Tedesco.

2014: The Israel Action Center at the JCRC is scheduled to present “Israel at 66: Spies and Defenders” with CBS News correspondent Dan Raviv and Israeli journalist Yossi Melman.



2014: The Pears Institute for the study of Antisemitism is scheduled to host a lecture by Professor Maud Mandel of Brown University entitled “Muslims and Jews in France: History of a Conflict.”

This Day, May 16, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. Levin

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May 16


 
0942(21stof Iyar, 4702): Saadia Gaon passed away. Born in 882, Saadia Gaon was the head of the Talmudic Academy of Sura (Babylonia). He was a recognized authority on the Talmud, and a profound student of philosophy and philology. Saadia was forced to deal with the challenge of assimilation of the upper-class Jews of Babylonia who were attractedto the Greek philosophers whose works had been translated intoArabic. Saadia wrote a philosophic work, The Book of Beliefs and Opinions, in magnificent flowing Arabic. In it, he defended the rational underpinnings of Judaism and showed logically that every rational Jew could believe in the Torah as well as Aristotle and Plato. He wrote the first Hebrew grammar book which explained how the holy language worked. He provided a Hebrew dictionary plus a compendium of rhyming words for Hebrew poets. He was the first to write an Arabic translation of the Bible. He included commentaries, explanations, and grammatical notes as well. His translation continues to be the authoritative Bible for Jews in Arab lands. He also led a successful fight against the Kararites, a sect which rejected Rabbinic commentary as law.
 
1165: Maimonidesand his familyarrived at Acre, Palestine.Having been forced to leave Spain because he would not convert to Islam, Maimonides and his family settled in Fez, Morocco. His work with Jews who had been forced to convert to Islam attracted attention of the local authorities and the family moved on to Palestine. Do to the poverty of the land and the uncertain conditions there, Maimonides finally settled in Egypt where he served both as a physician and leader of the Jewish Community.
1474:Minister Pacheco of Spain used an attack he organized against "new Christians" as a diversion in order to enable him to capture the citadel of Segovia (and maybe the King). Although the plot was discovered in time, the Marranos were attacked by the organized mob, and men, women and children were murdered.
1477: Abraham dei Tintori produced the first printed edition of the book of Job with a commentary by Levi ben Gerson was published today in Ferrara, Italy
1487: Joseph Solomon Sonciino produced the first printed edition of Seder Tahanunim at Soncino, Italy
1527: Florentines drove out the Medici for a second time and re-established a republic The recreation of the Republic led to the expulsion of the Jews. This event took place in the Jewish year 5300 (a year with Jewish mystical connotations), fueling messianic hopes helping to layer the ground for the rise of Solomon Molcho.
1573: Today Polish nobles elected Henry, as the first elected monarch of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. However, the Lithuanian nobles boycotted this election, and it was the Lithuanian ducal council who confirmed his election. Poland elected Henry, rather than Habsburg candidates, partly in order to be more agreeable to the Ottoman Empire (a traditional ally of France through the Franco-Ottoman alliance), with which a Polish-Ottoman alliance was also in effect.. He owed his election to Solomon Ashkenazi, a “Rabbi” who was an advisor to the Sultan.  He was in effect the Sultan’s foreign minister.  In an unusually blunt statement, Ashkenazi wrote Henry “I have rendered you majesty most important service in securing your election; I have effected all that was done here.” The last statement refers to his behind the scenes work at the Sultans Palace.  See Volume 4  p 605 0f Graetz
1611: Birthdate of Pope Innocent XI. During his papacy, “Innocent showed a degree of sensitivity in his dealings with the Jews within the Italian States. He compelled the city of Venice to release the Jewish prisoners taken by Francesco Morisini in 1685. He also discouraged compulsory baptisms which accordingly became less frequent under his pontificate; but he could not abolish the old practice altogether. More controversially in 1682 he issued an edict by which all the money-lending activities carried out by the Roman Jews were to cease. However ultimately convinced that such a measure would cause much misery in destroying livelihoods, the enforcement of the edict was twice delayed.”
1648: During the great Cossack uprising which brought death and destruction to hundreds of thousands of Jews, Bohdan Khmelnytsky's forces overwhelmed and defeated Commonwealth forces under the command of Stefan Potocki at the Battle of Zhovti Vody.
1669: Birthdate of “Dutch Christian Hebraist Campegius Vitringa author of a Commentary on Isaiah and  De Synagoga Vetere Libri Tres.
1746(26th of Iyar, 5506): Moshe Chaim Luzzatto passed away. Born in 1707, this Italian rabbi known by the Hebrew acronym RaMChal was noted philosopher and student of kabbalah.
1754: Fire ravaged the Ghetto in Prague.
1775(16th of Iyar, 5535):Veitel-Heine Ephraim who served as “Jeweller to the Prussian Court and Mint Mast under the Prussian Kings Frederick William I and Frederick the Great for whom he played a critical role in financing the Seven Years War passed away today.
1785(7th of Sivan): Rabbi Chaim Abraham ben Moses Israel of Ancona, author of “Bet Avraham” passed away.
1789: Birthdate of Michael Creizenach, the native of Mainz who edited the Hebrew periodical “Zion” with I.M. Jost and who was the father of Theodor Creizenach who followed in his literary footsteps
1790: Anti-Jewish riots broke out in Warsaw
1799: Birthdate of Alexander McCaul the Dublin born Christian missionary who spent a decade in Poland trying to convert the Jews but who was no anti-Semite since he opposed the accusations of the “blood libel.”  He returned to England where “he became professor of Hebrew and rabbinical literature at King’s College.”
1801: Birthdate of William H. Seward who served as Secretary of State under Presidents Lincoln and Johnson (1861-1869).  Shortly after he assumed office, Seward met with Henry I. Hart, President of the Board of Delegates of American Israelites and assured him that he would continue the push to end the discrimination practiced by the Swiss against American Jews. In 1863, Seward instructed American diplomats to do all that they could to stop the attacks on the Jews of Morocco.
1807(8th of Iyar): Joseph Abraham Stelicki, Ger Zedek of Nikolai passed away today
1823: Birthdate of Heymann Steinthal the brother-in-law of Mortiz Lazarus who taught at The Hochschule für die Wissenschaft des Judentums, or Higher Institute for Jewish Studies.
1826: Birthdate of Danish banker and Member of Parliament David Baruch Adler.
1828: In Frankfurt, Baron Carl Mayer von Rothschild of Naples and Adelheid Hertz gave birth to Wilhelm Carl von Rothschild, who would become head of the Frankfurt branch of the Rothschild banking empire.
1845: Birthdate of Ilya Ilyich Mechnikov, also known as Eli Metchnikoff. Born in the Ukraine, he was a Russian microbiologist best remembered for his pioneering research into the immune system. Mechnikov received the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1908, for his work on phagocytosis. He passed away in Paris in 1916.
1853: The New York Times provided more information about outbreaks of violence that had occurred in Jerusalem during Holy Week (Palm Sunday thru Easter). A group of English missionaries were forced to leave the Church of the Holy Sepulcher because “they behaved in an unseemly manner when the Procession of the Host passed on Good Friday.”  One of the missionaries delivered a sermon outside of a synagogue while the Jews were attending services in which he used “invectives” in talking about the Talmud.  One of the Jews reportedly threw a dead cat at the missionary and a fight broke between the rest of the missionaries and the Jews who sought to defend their religious beliefs.   
 
1853: The New York Times reported that the recent defeat of the Jewish Disabilities bill in the House of Lords had bitterly disappointed supporters of the measure since they had anticipated that the Lords would follow their usual path and approve legislation that had been approved by the House of Commons. The action of the Lords, according to the Times, shows the great gulf between the aristocracy and the rest of the citizenry.  Despite the prominence of such families as the Rothschilds, “the Jew in England is no better off than he was in the days of King John.”
1853: The New York Times reported that thousands of Prussians including Alexander Von Humboldt have petitioned the Second Chamber (one of the two houses of their bi-cameral legislature) demanding that Jews be allowed to hold government jobs and allowing for full freedom of religious opinion.  The petitions were in response to vote by the First Chamber to exclude Jews from public employment.
1854(18th of Iyar, 5614): Lag B’Omer
1854: According to an article published today the American Society for Meliorating the Condition of the Jews reported that there are 17 synagogues in New York City that show a membership totaling 25,000. The last census shows that there are 46,000 Jews in the entire United States.  The society believes that the census figure is a case of underreporting because it only records people as being Jewish if they self-report. “It is a well-known fact that one-half or more of the Jews in this country call themselves Frenchman, German, Poles, Hungarians and Englishman and never make themselves known as Jews in governmental connections.”
1859: In London, “the first meeting of the Board of Guardians for the Relief of the Jewish Poor was held at the Great Synagogue Chambers
1863(27th of Iyar, 5623): Jonas Ennery passed away. Born in 1801 at Nancy he became head of the Jewish school at Strasbourg. He served as a Deputy in the French Parliament and compiled a Dictionnaire Général de Géographie Universelle,  He was the brother of Marchand Ennery, the chief rabbi of Paris.
1864: Birthdate of Nathan Birnbaum the Austrian journalist, Jewish philosopher and founder of a Jewish nationalist organization "Kadimah." Kadimah was formed ten years before Theodor Herzl became the leading spokesman of the Zionist movement. Birnbaum is credited for coining the term "Zionism". He died in 1937.
1864: In New York, the "Open Board of Stock-Brokers" adopted its constitution.  Among the signatories was Mendez Nathan, the son of Seixas Nathan.
1868: President Andrew Johnson was acquitted in his impeachment trial in the United States Senate. According to one source, Johnson made several virulent anti-Semitic statements during his political career prior to becoming President. Considering the fact that the “Tarheel Tailor” was illiterate until adulthood, his anti-Semitic statements may be more a case of ignorance than anything else.
1869(6th of Sivan, 5629): Shavuot is celebrated for the first time during the Presidency of U.S. Grant.
1875: The Board of Trustees of B’nai Jeshurun met today in New York City and approved a proposal to allow members of the opposite sex to sit together in the same pews during services.  This put an end to the separate seating that had been the rule at the synagogue since its founding.  The decision would be contested by Israel J. Solomon a member of the congregation who brought a suit in the Court of Common Pleas to over-turn the decision. His suit would fail.
1877: As the constitutional crisis in France came to a head, 363 parliamentary deputies passed a vote of no confidence in the new government championed by Royalist President Patrice MacMahon. The leaders of the opposition would be defended by Raphael Basch a liberal French Jewish political leader and journalist.  Basch was the father of Victor-Guillaume Basch who would be murdered by the Vichy French in 1944.
1880(6th of Sivan, 5640): Shavuot
1881: Birthdate of Amy Loveman, a founding editor of the Saturday Review.
1881: “A comic melodrama entitled “Sam’l of Posen, or The Commercial Drummer” premiered at Haverly’s Fourteenth Street Theatre in New York.
1888(6th of Sivan, 5648): Shavuot
1890: It was reported today that former President Grover Cleveland, Oscar Straus and Joseph Blumenthal will be among those who have purchased boxes for the upcoming Strawberry Festival, a fund raiser sponsored by the Young Men’s Hebrew Association.
1891: It was reported today that among the bequests made by the late Nathan Littauer were$1,500 to Mt. Sinai Hospital for the permanent endowment of a bed in memory of his daughter Louise; $1,000 each to the Hebrew Benevolent and Orphan Asylum Society and the Home for Aged and Infirm Hebrews; $500 to the Board of Relief of the United Hebrew Charities.
1892: Justice George C. Barrett officiated at the wedding of Albert Kohn and Sophie Kupfer. The nuptials which were one of the most fashionable events in the Jewish community, took place at the home of Henry Kupfer on east 78th Street.
1893: George Kennan, the explorer and newspaper man who has become a critic of the Czar and advocate for Russian democracy stated his belief that Polish and Russian Jews will be coming to the United States as a result of the edicts of expulsion issued by the Russian government.


1893: “Myer S. Isaacs, Chairman of the Trustees of the Baron Hirsh Fund for the aid of Russian Jews” in the United States said today that he and his associates “had not considered the question of an influx of Polish Jews” because they did not except any abnormal increase in immigration from that region. (Editor’s note – Based on contemporary reports there was a great deal of disagreement about Russian edicts of expulsion and the potential major influx of Jews from Poland and Russia)


1894: It was reported today that while Herman Rosenblatt stood in the smoldering ruins of his crockery store, a local ruffian pointed at the Jew and shouted “There is the man who set the fire” causing a mob yelling “Lynch him” to chase after Rosenblatt.  Rosenblatt outran the mob and  found sanctuary in the 47th Street Police Station.


1896: In a cable from London, Harold Frederic provided a scoop for the New York Times when he broke the news about Baron Hirsch’s grandchild, who is the daughter of the Baron’s son Lucienne and a French governess. As confirmed by a copy of the Baron’s will, the child will inherit a large portion of the Hirsch millions.

 
1898:The Daughters of Jacob are hosting a Strawberry Festival at Terrace Garden for the benefit of a Home for Aged Hebrews of the down-town east side. They have already sold 3,000 tickets at fifty cents each, and have received presents of large quantities of goods that will be sold at the festival.

 
1898: Joseph J. Corn, the Vice President Temple Culture Society spoke yesterday about the purpose of the society. He said “that in these days of cheap philosophy and what has come to be known as ethical culture there is a need for Jewish culture.  In an effort to combat the notion that religious education ended with confirmation, the society is holding weekly meetings devoted to the study of Jewish history and Jewish philosophy.  Among other things, the programs should help Jews answer the question “Why are you Jews in this Christian world and yet not of it?”

 
1899(7th of Sivan): Jewish historian Jacob Ezekiel passed away

 
1903: At a meeting held under the auspices of the English Zionist Federal a resolution was adopted “declaring that the establishment of a home in Palestine was the only practical solution of the Jewish question.”  Israel Zangwill had given an impassioned speech in support of the motion during which he invoked the bloody images of the atrocities committed against the Jews of Romania and Kishineff.

 
1904: Herzl's diary breaks off with a report to Jacob Schiff. Schiff was a successful banker and financer. He was one of the leaders of the Jewish community in the 19th and early 20th century. He actively intervened on behalf of the Jews suffering in Tsarist Russia. Although he had reservations about Zionism, he was increasingly drawn to Herzl’s concept of a Jewish homeland in Palestine as a practical way of lessening the suffering of Russia’s Jews.
1909: Birthdate of  Yehiel Feiner whom the world would come to know as Yehiel De-Nur or Dinur, a survivor of Auschwitz who used his experience as the basis for several books including “The House of Dolls.”
 
1911: Masliach Effendi of the Turkish government ridicules the idea that Jews could become a menace to Turkey. He suggests appointment of committee to examine the whole question of Zionism.
1912: Birthdate of Rita Kanarek. In her senior year at N.Y.U. she married Alex Hillman founder and President of Hillman Periodicals. Mrs. Hillman became president of the Alex Hillman Family Foundation where she pursued her passions as an art collector and philanthropist. Among the beneficiaries of her largesse was the Phillips Beth Israel School of Nursing in Manhattan. She passed away at the age of 95 in November, 2007.
1912: Birthdate of author, historian and broadcaster, Studs Terkel. “My family was Jewish but not religious. My mother went through the rituals; my father didn't. He was a freethinker.” He passed away at the age of 93.
1914 20th of Iyar): Isaac Halevy (Rabinowitz) author of “Dorot ha-Rishonim” passed away


1916: Birthdate of Ephraim Katzir, former President of Israel. Born Katchalski in Kiev, Katzir came to Palestine in 1925. A biophysicist, Katzir taught at Hebrew University and served as department hair at the Weizmann Institute in Rehovot. One result of his research was the creation of a synthetic fiber for internal surgery that can be dissolved by body enzymes. He served as Israel's fourth President(a largely ceremonial position) from 1973 to 1978
1916: As the French and the British negotiated the post-war disposition of Ottoman Empire, British Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey sent a letter to Paul Cambon, the French Ambassador to the Court of St. James ratifying Cambon’s version of the partition that would eventually be known as the Sykes-Picot Agreement.
1916: The will of Shalom Aleichem was published in the New York Times and read into the Congressional Record of the United States.
1918: Two Jewish French journalists – Landau and Goldsky—expressed their desire to address the court today after having been sentenced to prison on charges of treason yesterday.
1919: Sir Harry Lawson Webster Levy-Lawson “was created 1st Viscount Burnham of Hall Barn in the County of Buckingham.”
1919:The first Estonian Congress of Jewish congregations which had been convened on May 11 to discuss the new circumstances Jewish life was confronting came to a close today. This is where the ideas of cultural autonomy and a Jewish Gymnasium (secondary school) in Tallinn were born. Jewish societies and associations began to grow in numbers. The largest of these new societies was the H. N. Bjalik Literature and Drama Society in Tallinn founded in 1918. Societies and clubs were established in Viljandi, Narva, and elsewhere. In 1920, the Maccabi Sports Society was founded and became well-known for its endeavors to encourage sports among Jews. Jews also took an active part in sporting events in Estonia and abroad. Sara Teitelbaum was a 17-time champion in Estonian athletics and established no less than 28 records. In the 1930s there were about 100 Jews studying at the University of Tartu. In 1934, a chair was established in the School of Philosophy for the study of Judaica. There were five Jewish student societies in Tartu Academic Society, the Women’s Student Society Hazfiro, the Corporation Limuvia, the Society Hasmonea and the Endowment for Jewish Students. All of these had their own libraries and played important roles in Jewish culture and social life. Political organizations such as Hasomer Hazair and Beitar were also established. Many Jewish youth traveled to Palestine to establish the Jewish State. The renowned kibbutzim of Kfar Blum and Ein Gev were set up in part by Jews from Estonia.
1923: Birthdate of economist Merton Miller, winner of the 1990 Nobel Prize for Economics.
1923: Birthdate of Manuel D. Plotkin, the native of Chita, Russia who was appointed Director of the Census Bureau by President Carter in 1977.
1923 In New Canaan, CT, Jewish immigrants Morris Yudain and Berta Jaffe gave birth to their seventh child, Sidney Lawrence Yudain the journalist who created “Roll Call.”
1923: The first aerial display in Palestine took place at Ramleh today, a squadron of 14 aeroplanes of the British Royal Air Force participating. The exhibition program included flying, air races, a baloon hunt, mimic air fighting and a bombing demonstration. The aerial derby was over the circuit of Ramleh, Raselain, Jaffa, Ramle... Lieut. Martyn, flying a Vickers Vimy biplane, won the air race covering a distance of twenty-seven miles.
 
1926: Dr. James Simon will preside over today’s celebration marking the 25th anniversary of the establishment of the Hilfsverein der deutschen Juden,  a “German Jewish organization founded in 1901 to improve social and political conditions of Jews in Eastern Europe and Orient.”
1927: It was reported today that four thousand six hundred and twenty-eight persons are now living in 41 settlements in Palestine created by the Keren Hayesod, according to the latest figures given out by the Department of Agricultural Colonization of the Palestine Zionist Executive. Sixty-five per cent of this population are workers, and the remainder children. (JTA)
1928:Three Jews, who are reported to be Communists, were scheduled to be deported from Palestine.  One of the deportees “was found guilty in Jerusalem of belonging to an illegal organization” while the other two were being deported after having served short jail terms for participating in “May Day riots in Tel Aviv.”


1929: In Baltimore, MD, Arnold Rice Rich and Helen Gravely Jones Rich gave birth to Adrienne Rich, a poet of towering reputation and towering rage, whose work — distinguished by an unswerving progressive vision and a dazzling, empathic ferocity — brought the oppression of women and lesbians to the forefront of poetic discourse and kept it there for nearly a half-century. Her father was Jewish.  Her mother was not. (As reported by Margalit Fox)

1929:The 1st Academy Awards ceremony, presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), honoring the best films of 1927 and 1928 and took place on May 16, 1929, at a private dinner held at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, in Los Angeles, California. The awards, popularly known as Oscars, were created by Jewish movie mogul Louis B. Mayer, founder of Louis B. Mayer Pictures Corporation.
1932: The Nazis are demanding the removal of Bernhard Weiss from his post as the Vice-President of the Berlin Police Force.  Their objections are two-fold: Weiss is Jewish and he ordered the arrest of four Nazis for their role in attacking a former Nazi named Schotz who had left the party.
1935: “A convention of delegates from national Jewish youth organizations will meet tonight in room 327 of the Chanin Building, 122 East Forty-second Street, to consider the syllabi which will be presented to the seminars to be held on June 9 at the Metropolitan Conference of Jewish Youth Organizations. The meeting, under the auspices of the youth division of the American Jewish Congress, will consider such problems as anti-Semitism, boycott of the 1936 Olympics, Zionism, Jewish youth and economic discrimination and Jewish education.” (JTA)
1936(24th of Iyyar, 5696): A bomb thrown by Arabs kills three Jews at the Edison cinema in Jerusalem. The Haganah demands permission to retaliate, but Ben Gurion refuses. The Edison Cinema was not just a movie theatre. It was a “citadel of secular European culture in Jerusalem. It opened in 1932 with a performance of Felix Mendelssohn’s “Elijah” sung in Hebrew. The Edison was the third largest cinema in the city and popular sport for British soldiers and officials.
1936: “Steel helmeted police maintained comparative quiet in the Holy Land today following” demonstrations that had broken out yesterday when the Arab campaign of civil disobedience officially began.


1937(6th of Sivan, 5697): Shavuot


1937: The Polish government launched two investigations into the attacks on Jews that took place last week in Brzesc, which was known as Brest-Litovsk, the site of the peace negotiations between the Germans and the Russians that resulted with the latter surrendering to the former.


1937: Dr. Bernhard Kahn and David J. Schweitzer, European director and vice-president, respectively, of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee issued a report today that described“the role of the cooperative credit system established by the American Jewish Joint Reconstruction Foundation in aiding some 500,000 Jews in eleven European countries by facilitating issuance of $28,000,000 in credits in nine months


1938: The Palestine Post reported on the continued fighting between the police and British army units in the Acre District. At least 23 terrorists were killed there and numerous arrests were made. Jewish settlements repulsed numerous terrorist attacks, but complained that they were supplied with insufficient arms and too small a number of supernumerary constables for a successful defense. The Iraq Petroleum Co. pipeline was again set on fire.



1938: After two and half weeks of touring the country, Britain’s Palestine Partition Commission began its first official session.  Because of the continued Arab violence, the meeting was held “in camera under heavy guard.’  While Arab leaders continued to boycott the commission, Jewish leaders Chaim Weizmann, David Ben Gurion, Moshe Shertok and Dr. Bernard Joseph met with the British to discuss possible implementation of partition proposals.
1943: The famous Tolmatsky Synagogue of Warsaw was dynamited by order of General Jurgen Stroop. It marked the last German "major operation" in the liquidation of the Warsaw ghetto uprising.
1943:SS-Brigadeführer Jürgen Stroop reports the final liquidation of the Jewish ghetto at Warsaw, although some Jews remain in hiding. The Germans reportedly lost 300 troops.Amazingly the Jewish resistance had proved fierce, by comparison than that of the French Army in 1940. The number of Jewish dead does not matter, since they would have perished in the showers and ovens any way. Death was not the question; the manner of death was the matter of choice. There were a few survivors of the Ghetto, one of them being the mother ofMarshaFensin, the former Cantor of Temple Judah
1943(11th of Iyar 11): Yiddish author Chaim Zhitlowsky passed away
1944: The first ofmore than 180,000 Hungarian Jews reached Auschwitz.
1948: In New York City, the American Zionist Emergency Council sponsored a celebration of the creation of the Jewish state at Madison Square Garden that was so well attended 75,000 people had to be turned away.
1948: Based on a telegram from David Ben Gurion and Moshe Sharett, Abba Eban and not Mordechai Elisah, is to be Israel’s chief spokesman at the the United Nations.
1948: Israel issued itsfirst postage stamps.
1948: At the Landsberg DP Camp, survivors of the Holocaust held a celebratory parade in honor the creation of the state of Israel
http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/this_month/may/16.asp


1948: Chaim Weizmann was chosen Chairman of the Provisional State Council of Israel which effectively made him the first president of the State of Israel.
1948: The Egyptian army suffered its first defeat at Nirim, in the Negev.
1948: The Egyptians entered Gaza. They would not “leave’ until 1967.
1948:At approximately one o’clock in the morning Syrian artillery began shelling Kibbutz Ein Gev.  At dawn, Syrian aircraft attacked the Kinarot valley villages.  Later in the day “Syrian aircraft made bombing runs on Masada, Sha'ar HaGolan, Degania Bet and Afikim.” This was the opening round in the Syrian attempt to sweep the Jews from the Galilee. To any one observing events of that day, it would appear that the victory would go to the Syrians with their tanks, artillery and combat aircraft.
1948: Christopher Mayhew, the future Lord Mayhew, an anti-Zionist ally of British Foreign Minister Ernest Bevin, writes in his diary, “I must make a note about Ernest’s anti-Semitism, which has come out increasingly sharply these past few weeks with the appalling crisis in Palestine. There is no doubt to my mind that that Ernest detests Jews. He makes the odd wise-crack about the ‘chosen people’ and declares that the Old Testament is the most immoral book ever written…” This view of Bevin is fascinating when his role in enforcing the White Paper and his opposition to a Jewish homeland is being considered.
1948: An article published today “JEWS IN GRAVE DANGER IN ALL MOSLEM LANDS; Nine Hundred Thousand in Africa and Asia Face Wrath of Their Foes” described the precarious position of the 900,000 Jews living “Arab and Moslem countries stretching from Morocco to India.”  “There is a tendency” in some Moslem states “such as Syria and Lebanon” “to regard all Jews as Zionist agents and fifth columnists.  There are indications that that the stage is being set for a tragedy of incalculable proportions” which the United Nations has done nothing to prevent.  These fears are based in part on Arab League announcements that at some unspecified date, “all Jews except citizens of non-Arab states, would be considered ‘members of the Jewish minority state of Palestine.’ Their bank accounts would be frozen and used to finance resistance to ‘Zionist ambitions in Palestine.’  Jews believed to active Zionists would be interned and their assets confiscated.”  In Syria, “virtually all” Jewish civil servants have already been fired and in Iraq Jews are not allowed to leave the country without posting a $20,000 bond to guarantee their return.  However bad conditions are now, it is predicted that in the event of an all-out war in Palestine, “the repercussions will be grave for Jews all the way from Casablanca to Karachi
1949:  Milton Berle appeared on the cover of Time Magazine.
1950:Out of a large collection of 120 styles of knit fashions brought to this country from Israel, for merchandising, forty were shown this afternoon at the Plaza Hotel to buyers. The presentation, under the auspices of Service for Palestine, Inc., 2 Park Avenue, was its first show to promote Israel-made products in the American market.
1955: Birthdate of actress Debra Winger, the star of Officer and a Gentleman.”
1955: Birthdate of Edgar Bronfman Jr., CEO of Seagram and Warner Music
1960: Theodore Maiman operates the first optical laser at Hughes Research Laboratories in Malibu, California.
1965: In Canada, Dr. Victor Goldbloom was the first guest to appear on “Cross Country Check-up,” a Sunday afternoon radio show whose hosts have included Moses Znaimer.
1967: General Fawzi, the Egyptian chief of staff, sent a message to the commander of the UN Emergency Force, General Rikhye of the Indian Army requesting the withdrawal of the UNEF from Egypt. The Egyptian Foreign Minister sent a cable to U Thant, UN Secretary General tell him that the Egyptian government ad decided to immediately terminate the presence of UNEF in Egypt and the Gaza strip.
1968(18th of Iyar, 5728); Lag B'Omer
1969(28th of Iyar, 5729): Yom Yerushalayim
1969: Barbra Streisand appeared at a Friars Club Tribute
1969: In the Soviet Union, Boris Kochubievesky, a “refusnik” is scheduled to “3 yards hard labor” at the end of sham trial where he was accused of slandering the Soviet regieme.
1973: Birthdate of actress Tori Spelling.
1973(14th of Iyar, 5733): Famed Cubist sculptor Jacques Lipchitz passed away. His body was flown to Jerusalem for burial.
1974: Birthdate of Adam Richman who earned an undergrad degree from Emory and a Master’s from Yale before pursuing a career as an actor and television personality.
1974: Despite a terrorist attack the previous day on a school at Ma’alot, Prime Minister Golda Meir tells Secretary of State Kissinger that talks with the Syrians will continue. After a one day hiatus, she says, “We had all better back to peacemaking.
1974: “Dybbuk,” a ballet based on the Ansky’s play created by Jerome Robbins using the music of Leonard Bernstein debuted at the New York State Theatre, Lincoln Center.
1975(6th of Sivan, 5735): Shavuot
1977: "Boulevard Montmartre, in the Afternoon Rain," by Camille Pissarro the son of Frederick Pissarro, a Sephardic Jew, was sold today, at Christie's in New York for $275,000
1978: The Jerusalem Post reported that in his 28th Annual State Comptroller's Report Dr. Yitzhak Nebenzahl called for a "Ministry of Administration." He said that while there are many links that tie people to its government, in Israel the administration is the weakest link in this chain. "A government," he explained, "is like an automobile. No matter how fine the car is, it will not ride well unless all four wheels are intact." The Report claimed a massive maladministration, and was specifically highly critical of the Treasury.
1982: Final broadcast of the 7th season of “One Day At A Time,” starring Bonnie Franklin.
1984(14th of Iyar, 5744): Comedian Andy Kaufman passed away. Born in 1949, Kaufman is best remembered for his many appearances on ‘Saturday Night Live’ andfor his portrayal of Latka on thetelevision hit “Taxi.” He was diagnosed with a rare form of lung cancer and was 35 at the time of his death.
1984(14th of Iyar, 5744): Irwin Shaw passed away at the age of 71. Born Irwin Gilbert Shamforoff in 1913 in the Bronx, his Jewish immigrants from Russia changed the family to Shaw and moved to Brooklyn. After graduating from Brooklyn College in 1934, Shaw wrote scripts for radio shows including Dick Tracey. After serving in the Army during World War II, Shaw produced his "great American war novel" The Young Lions, which became the basis for a successful film of the same name.Among other works by this highly prolific writer was Rich Man, Poor Man which became a hit t.v. mini-series.
http://www.irwinshaw.org/


1986(7th of Iyar, 5746): Sixty-five year old Yehuda Hellman passed away today.http://www.nytimes.com/1986/05/18/obituaries/yehuda-hellman-dies-headed-jewish-groups.html?pagewanted=print


1987: For the third and final night Leonard Bernstein conducted the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra as part of the IPO’s 50thanniversary celebration
1987: Birthdate of Can Bonomo, the Turkish born Jewish singer who “represented Turkey in the Eurovision Song Contest in 2012 at Baku.
1990(21st of Iyar, 5750):  Multi-talented entertainer Sammy Davis Jr. passed away at the age of 64. Born in Harlem in 1925, began his show business career at the age of four. Davis was the son of a popular vaudeville entertainer. He learned how to dance from the legendary BoJangles. He begandancing with the Will Mastin Trio and moved on to asinging career that included opening for Frank Sinatra. Davis was part of theRat Pack and starred with them in the cult classic “Ocean’sEleven.”During the 1950's Davis was in an automobile accident in which he lost his eye. It was during this period of his life than he converted to Judaism.He will be remembered not just for his talent but for his support of the Civil Rights Movement as well. (As reported by Peter Flin)

1991: The Los Angeles Times featured a review of Wartime Lies,” the first novel written by Louis Begley. "Wartime Lies is the story of a ‘lucky’ little boy. Lucky goes in quotation marks; the child went through terror and degradation. On the other hand, no one in his small family of well-to-do Polish Jews went to a concentration camp. Only two--his grandfather and grandmother--were killed; he, his father and his aunt survived and were able to prosper after the war, even before emigrating.”
1993: A third revival of “3 Men on a Horse” featuring Jewish thespians Tony Randall, Jack Klugman, Jerry Stiller and Ellen Green closed today in New York City
1994(6th of Sivan, 5754) First Day of Shavuot
1994(6th of Sivan, 5754): Shaul Ben-Tzvi, the second commander of the Israeli Navy passed away today.  Born Paul Hamah Schulman in Connecticut in 1922 he graduated from the U.S. Navy Academy and served with the U.S. Navy in the Pacific during WW II.  Following his discharge he worked to bring Jews to Palestine during the mandate and then helped to establish a naval arm for the infant Jewish State.

1999: Angela Warnick Buchdahl was invested as the first Asian American cantor. Two years later, she became the first Asian American rabbi.
1999: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Return of Depression Economics by Paul Krugman and recently released paperback editions Aharon Appelfeld’s “The Iron Tacks,” the “Israseli novelabout a concentration camp survivor who wanders through Austria buying sacred books and other remnants of the Jewish culture that once flourshedthere while searingfor the Nazi officer who murdered his parents” and “Bronstein’sChildrenby Jurek Becker, “anovel about the psychic aftershocks of the Holocaust in which an 18yearold German Jew stumbles onhis father and two other camp survivors as they torture a former Nazi Guard.”
2004(25th of Iyar, 5764): Eight-six year old singer and lyricist June Carroll passed away today.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/23/nyregion/23hurewitz.html?_r=0


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 Part of Our Time: Some Ruin and Monuments of the Thirties” in whichMurray Kempton re-evaluate “the radical movements and personalities of the 1930’s focusingon such ‘ruinsand monuments’ as Paul Robeson, Whittaker Chambers, Algers Hiss and Walter Reuther.”
2006: Australia’s Prime Minister John Howard received the prestigious B'nai B'rith international Presidential Gold Medal for his "outstanding" support of Israel and the Jewish people at a ceremony in Washington.
2006: A French politician and his sister sued France's state-run SNCF railway for transporting their father and three relatives to a wartime transit camp that sent Jews off to Nazi concentration camps. Alain Lipietz, a Greens European Parliament deputy, and his sister Helene accused the SNCF of organizing the transport of French Jews to the Drancy transit camp near Paris and billing the wartime government for its services. Of the 330,000 Jews living in France in 1940, 75,721 were deported to death camps and only about 2,500 returned alive. Alain and Helene Lipietz told the court their father Georges had been sent by train in mid-1944 from Toulouse in southwestern France to Drancy, usually the last stop for French Jews before they were put on trains to the death camps. He was freed from Drancy on August 18, only days before Paris was liberated by Allied forces. The SNCF billed the state for that transport which came two months after Allied forced had landed in Normandy, the two plaintiffs said. "The SNCF charged for third class tickets for people who were crammed 200 at a time in freight cars meant to transport 60 horses," Helene Lipietz said. "These were cars without water, food or toilets and they were able to pass through Allied lines even as French territory was being liberated and someone could have stopped these convoys," Alain Lipietz added. The SNCF's lawyer, Yves Baudelot, said the railway could not be held responsible for the transports because it had no choice but to cooperate with German occupying forces during the war.
2007: Thomas Cole, Rose Dobrof, Marc Kaminsky, Penninah Schram, Mark Weiss, and Steve Zeitlin present “Stories as Equipment for Living: Last Talks and Talesof Barbara Myerhoff” at the Center for Jewish History in New York City.

2007: (28th of Iyar, 5767) Yom Yerushalayim - Jerusalem Reunification Day; Celebrating forty years of the return of Jerusalem to its rightful place as, one, undivided city serving as the capital of the Jewish state. “If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, may my right hand forget its cunning. May my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, if I do not set Jerusalem above my highest joy.”(Psalms 137:5-6)

2007(28th of Iyar, 5767): Rabbi Mordecai Simon, chief administrator of the Chicago Board of Rabbis for thirty two years and host of the Sunday morning television show “What’s Nu?” passed away in Highland Park, Il, at the age of 81.


2007: Richard J. Pratt was awarded the Woodrow Wilson Medal for Corporate Citizenship. This is given to is executives who, “...by their examples and their business practices, have shown a deep concern for the common good beyond the bottom line. They are at the forefront of the idea that private firms should be good citizens in their own neighborhoods and in the world at large”


2008: At the Channel Inn in Washington, D.C., as part of the monthly meeting/luncheon of the Association of the Oldest Inhabitants of the District of Columbia, The Jewish Historical Society of Greater Washington marks the 60th anniversary of the state of Israel with a series of book talks by Laura Cohen Apelbaum on Jewish Washington: Scrapbook of an American Community (the companion to the award-winning exhibit of the same name) co-sponsored by the Embassy of Israel and the B'nai B'rith Klutznick National Jewish Museum.


2008(11th of Iyar, 5768): Ninety-three year Middle East scholar J. C. Hurewitz, passed away today. (As reported by Douglas Martin)


2008: "Furo" is being performed for the first time in Israel, in a special temporary pavilion designed by Giora Porter on the Tel Aviv Port boardwalk.
2009: The New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division  struck down a lawsuit that sought to prevent the state of New York from using eminent domain to seize the property where Bruce Ratner’s Atlantic Yards project is being built.
2009: Ronald Radosh and his wife, Allis Radosh, discuss and sign their new book, “A Safe Haven: Harry S. Truman and the Founding of Israel” at Politics and Prose in Washington, D.C.
2009:At the Dennis and Phillip Ratner Museum in Bethesda, Md. Rabbi Shefa Gold, a leader in Aleph: the Alliance for Jewish Renewal and a composer of six albums of Jewish liturgical music, reads from and discusses her new book, “In the Fever of Love: An Illumination of the Song of Songs” (with illustrations by Phillip Ratner) followed by a Havdalah Service.
2009(22nd of Iyar, 5769): Mordechai Limon, the first commander of the Israel Navy, passed away today at the age of 85. “During World War II, he volunteered for the British Merchant Marine, where he learned the art of naval commanding, and after the war he commanded ships that brought clandestine immigrants to the Land of Israel in defiance of the British mandatory authorities. Limon is best remembered for his role in the Cherbourg Affair, directing the operation that brought five warships from France to Israel that French President Charles de Gaulle sought to prevent Israel from receiving, even though they had been paid for. Limon was subsequently expelled from France and retired from the Navy, becoming a private businessman.”
2009: An Israeli entrepreneur, Shai Reshef, who has started what is believed to be the world's first tuition-free on-line university said today “he hopes the effort will expand education to less fortunate people around the world.
2010:Linda Levi, Director of Global Archives for The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee is scheduled deliver a talk entitled “The JDC Archives: Resources for Genealogists” in New York City.
2010: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Finding Chandra:A True Washington Murder Mystery by Scott Higham and Sari Horwitz and Innocent by Scott Turow.
2011: “2,000 Years of Jewish Life in Morocco: An Epic Journey,” a two day symposium focusing on the Jews of Morocco, sponsored by The American Sephardi Federation is scheduled to come to an end.


2011:Rabbi Matthew Kraus, Director of Undergraduate Studies in the Department of Jewish Studies at the University of Cincinnati is scheduled to deliver a lecture entitled “The Nature of Jewish Life in America” in which he explores “the impact of the move to the suburbs on Jewish spiritual life--how Jews pray, how Jews practice, and how Jews relate to the Almighty”


2011: Rabbi Matthew Kraus, Director of Undergraduate Studies in the Department of Jewish Studies at the University of Cincinnati is scheduled to deliver a lecture entitled “History of the JQC (Jewish Queen City)” which traces the history of Cincinnati’s Jewish community “from its humble origins to the glory days of Plum Street Temple and the Manischewitz Baking Company to the start of the Big Brothers organization at the turn of the century and so much more!”


2011:Tonight, the Great White Way of Broadway will light up as stars, including Dudu Fisher and Tovah Feldshuh, perform in “Broadway Sensation,” a benefit celebrating Israel’s future. The event, which will raise proceeds for the Jewish National Fund, the OR Movement and the America-Israel Cultural Foundation, will be broadcast live in Times Square, and feature over 100 performers from popular shows including Wicked, The Scottsboro Boys and Next to Normal.


2011: Rahm Emanuel took the oath of office today to become Chicago’s 46th mayor and the first mayor of The Windy City.


2011: “Vidal Sassoon Interview” published today.


2012: A screening of “Jewish Soldiers in Blue and Gray” is scheduled to be shown at the Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage in Beachwood, Ohio.


2012: Professor Steven Bowman is scheduled to deliver a lecture entitled Italian Hebrew Renaissance of the 10th-11th Centuries at Cedar Village in Mason, Ohio


2012: Movie critic Carrie Rickey is scheduled to deliver a lecture entitled Untold Stories:The Films of Aviva Kempner Yoo-Hoo Mrs. Goldberg at the National Museum of American Jewish History in Philadelphia, PA.


2012: Chilean singer-songwriter Yael Meyer is scheduled to perform at the Washington DCJCC.


2012: During an interview today, Moshe Kantor, president of the European Jewish Congress said that his organization is urging European governments to quickly adopt measures to tackle anti-Semitism and the threat of right-wing extremist.


2012: David Levin beams with joy as Elizabeth Levin graduates from Columbia Medical School after which this accomplished young woman will begin a vascular surgery residency at UCLA.


2012: Pierre Moscovici began serving as Minister of Finance in France.


2013: The Weiner Library is scheduled to host Ray Farr’s film “A Different World” which “concentrates on the vibrant lives of Polish Jews before their arrival at the Third Reich’s killing centers.”


2013: As part of the Books That Shaped America Series, Professor Pamela Nadell, the recipient of the American Jewish Historical Society’s Lee Max Friedman Award will lead a discussion of Jacob Riis’ How the Other Lives which among other thing presented an accurate picture of the Lower East Side, home to tens of thousands of Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe.


2013: The Poetry Festival at Metulla, Israel’s most northern town is scheduled to come to an end today.


2013: The annual Indigo Festival, a huge dance fest on the shores of the Sea of Galilee is scheduled to begin today.


2013(7thof Sivan, 5730): Second Day of Shavuot/ Yizkor
 
2013: Ademonstration staged by the radical Eda Haredit organization turned violent tonight, with haredi protestors throwing rocks, glass bottles and other objects at police, injuring at least eight officers, two of whom were taken to hospital in moderate condition.


2013: Michelangelo had it right. Most synagogues around the world have it wrong. The two tablets of stone, divinely inscribed with the 10 Commandments and bestowed upon Moses at Mount Sinai, did not have the rounded tops familiar from their depictions in most houses of worship and popular art since the Middle Ages. And the Chabad (Lubavitch) Hassidic movement is encouraging synagogues to correct the misrepresentation. Rabbi Menachem Brod, Chabad’s spokesman in Israel, noted today that the late Lubavitcher rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, accurately depicted the two tablets as perfect squares as early as the 1940s, in writings for Chabad youth, and said many Chabad synagogues now feature the accurate artistic representations of the tablets. He said the image of the tablets had been skewed over the centuries in Christian tradition, and it was time for the Jews to reclaim the true representation of the two stones.


2014: A Shabbat Weekend Retreat in memory of Rabbi Betzalel Jacobson OMB 1stYarhrzeit is scheduled to begin in West Des Moines, Iowa.
 
2014: In London, the Wiener Library is scheduled a talk by John Izbicki, author of Life Between the Lines: A Memoir during which  he will talk about the horrors of Kristallnacht that he experienced at age 8 and his family’s escape to the U.K. in 1939.

This Day, May 17, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. Levin

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May 17



142 BCE: “Simon the Hasmonean captured the citadel of Jerusalem and expelled its Syrian garrison ad the Hellenized Jews” who had fought with them. Simon was the last surviving Hasmonean brother.  His victories completed the fight begun by the more famous Judah who had taken possession of Jerusalem in 165 BCE but had not been able to take control of the citadel.


1012: Benedict VIII began his papacy. During his reign, “a number of Roman Jews were executed on Cecil Roth has called the ‘improbable charge of mocking a crucifix.’  The accuracy of this is open to debate since a contemporary chronicler, Ademar of Chabannes, “this occurred after an earthquake accompanied by a severe storm erupted on Good Friday, prompting a Roman Jews to inform the papal palace that some of his coreligionist had mocked a crucifix in their synagogue. After those found guilty were beheaded the earthquake ceased.


1220: Second coronation of King Henry III in Westminster Abbey which was ordered by Pope Honorius III who did not consider that the first had been carried out in accordance with church rites. In 1253, King Henry established The Domus Conversorum (House of Conversion) which was a building and institution in London for Jews who had converted to Christianity. It provided a communal home and low wages.


1338: The Bishop of Strasbourg formed an alliance for the pursuit of the Armleder assassins who were responsible for the massacring of Jews in Alsace.


1594: Today “The Jew of Malta” was entered in the Stationer's Register, a record book maintained by the Stationers' Company of London which a held monopoly over the printing industry in England.

1617(12thof Iyar, 5377): Rabbi Judah Löb Saraval passed away. He translated Saadia’s commentary on “Canitcles” into Hebrew. [Canticles is another name for the Song of Songs.] “He is quoted in the ritual work "Mashbit Milḥamot," in connection with a question in regard to the ritual bath. Although he was reported to have died in Venice, Filosseno Luzzato found his tombstone in Padua.


1727: Catherine I of Russia passed away. The Catherine was the second wife of Peter the Great. She ruled for two years after Peter’s death. In that time she issued an edict expelling the Jews from the Ukraine and the rest of Russia and denying them the right to ever return.



1779(2ndof Sivan, 5539): Raphael Levi Hannover the native of Franconia who was so skilled in mathematics and astronomy that he served as the secretary for Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz and whose works included "Luḥot ha-'Ibbur,” passed away today. 



1784: The Jewish public school was opened in Hungary


1786(19thof Iyar, 5546): Moses Zarah Eilitz, who taught Talmud without accepting compensation even though he was impoverished himself, passed away today.


1795: Rabbi Isaiah Berlinled a special service in the synagogue at Breslau in honor of the recently signed Peace of Basel that ended the War of the First Coalition.  From a Jewish point of view, the service was unusual because Berlin permitted the use of instrumental music.


1776: During the American revolution the U.S. Congress called on Americans to raise their voices in prayer, and among the verses read by the "anxious" Jews of the Spanish and Portuguese Congregation of New York was, "…And they shall beat their swords into plow-shares."



1786(19thof Iyar): Moses Eidlitz, author of “Melehet Mah-shevet” passed away.


1792: The New York Stock Exchange is founded when the Buttonwood Agreement was signed by 24 stock brokers outside of 68 Wall Street in New York under a buttonwood tree on Wall Street. Benjamin Seixas, brother of Gershom Seixas, was one of the five Jews included in the list of the twenty-four founders of the New York Stock Exchange


1795: Rabbi Isaiah Berlin officiated at service celebrating the Peace of Basel where he allowed instrumental music to be played in the synagogue.


1799(12thof Iyar, 5559): Isaiah Berlin, the native of Eisenstadt who succeeded Isaac Joseph Te’omim as rabbi at Breslau passed away today.


1805(18th of Iyar, 5565):Lag B'Omer


1814: The Constitution of Norway is signed and the Danish Crown Prince Christian Frederik is elected King of Norway by the Constitutional assembly. The first Jews arrived in what is now Norway in the last decade of the 15th century. They were Sephardim escaping the Inquisition and were referred to as “the Portuguese Jews.” This constitution included in its second paragraph a general ban against Jews and Jesuits entering the country. In principle, Portuguese Jews were exempt from this ban, but it appears that few applied for a letter of free passage. When Norway entered into the personal union of Sweden-Norway, the ban against Jews was upheld, though Sweden at that point had several Jewish communities. In 1844, the Norwegian Ministry of Justice declared: "... it is assumed that the so-called Portuguese Jews are, regardless of the Constitution’s §2, entitled to dwell in this country, which is also, to [our] knowledge, what has hitherto been assumed. “After tireless efforts by the poet Henrik Wergeland, the Norwegian parliament lifted the ban against Jews in 1851 and they were awarded religious rights on par with Christian "dissenters." In 1852, the first Jew landed in Norway to settle, but it wasn't until 1892 that there were enough Jews to form a synagogue in Oslo.



1836: Birthdate Wilhelm Steinitz. Born in Prague, which was part of the Austrian Empire, Steinitz was the first official World Champion of Chess holding the title from 1886 to 1894. He suffered from a variety of mental problems after losing his championship. At one point he claimed to have played a game of Chess with God. He passed away in 1900 while living in Brooklyn.



1844: Warder Cresson became the first person commissioned to serve as Consul at Jerusalem by the United States State Department. Cresson would convert to Judaism while serving in Jerusalem and take the name Michael Boaz Israel ben Abraham


1844: Birthdate of Julius Wellhausen, the German biblical scholar who, in his 1878 "History of Israel," first advanced the JEDP Hypothesis, claiming that the Torah was a compilation of four earlier, literary sources.



1849: In St, Louis, The Great Fire occurred when at 10 p.m. a fire broke out on the steamboat "White Cloud". Within 30 minutes, 23 steamboats were engulfed in flames. The fire swept up the levee, destroying tons of freight and 15 blocks of residences, warehouses, and stores. Businesses destroyed that were owned in whole or in part by Jews include: Isaac Jacobs, Abraham Jacobs, Lewis M. Levy, Simon Lewis, Raborg & Shaffner, Helfenstein & Co., Charles Roderman, Weil & Bros., L. Newman, Helfenstein, Gore & Co., Levy & Bros., H. Cohen, and Simon Abeles.



1850(6thof Sivan, 5610): Shavuot


1850: Rabbi Jacobs delivered a sermon at the Shavuot service using the text – Deuteronomy XVI 9.


1852: The New York Times reported that the first reading of a bill designed to remove the disabilities imposed upon persons refusing to take the “oaths of abjuration” (known as the Jews Bill) had taken place in the House of Lords. During the debate, Lord Lyndhurst cited the recent case of David Salomons, the Jew who had refused to take the standard oath and sought to be seated in the House of Commons nonetheless. In what was seen as a turn for the better, Lord Derby had not offered any opposition to the measure.


1855: In New York ceremonies were held today marking the official opening first hospital building in the United States devoted solely to alleviate the suffering of poor Jews.  The ceremonies featured uniquely Jewish liturgical motifs including a display of Torah Scrolls. In addition to all of the modern conveniences one would expect to find in a new hospital, there is a synagogue on the 2nd floor.  John Hart is president of the board of directors and Benjamin Hart is the vice president.


1855: Over five hundred ladies and gentlemen attended a banquet at Niblo’s Saloon that was intended to raise funds for the newly opened Jew’s Hospital.  The Grace before and after dinner were chanted in Hebrew by Rabbi J.J. Lyons and Anthony Leo. 


1860: Alliance Israelite Universelle was launched by a group of French Jews under the direction of Adolphe Cremieux. It was designed to defend Jewish rights and to establish world-wide Jewish educational facilities. Charles Netter was one of the six founders of the organization which had been formed in response to anti-Semitic incidents such as the abduction of Edgardo Mortara and the Damascus affair. The Franco-Prussian War diminished its universality and separate organizations were formed in Germany and England.



1866(3rd of Sivan, 5626):  Composer Adolf Bernhard Marx passed away at the age of 70.



1872: "The Jews in Roumania" published today described a communication sent by the Italian government to the government of Prince Charles of Roumania protesting against the persecution and oppression of the Jews in that country.


1874: In Lemberg, Galicia, “Solomon Klakah, a poor brush manufacturer and amateur violinist” and “Babette Halber Kalakh, a seamstress who often made costumes for local theaters” gave birth to Beylke Kalakh who gained famed as Bertha Kalich, star of American Yiddish theatre


1876(23rdof Iyar ): Aaron Zevi Friedman, the author of “Tuv Ta’am” passed away


1877: Haemet was published for the first time in Vienna.  Aaron Samuel Liebermann was the publisher


1877: An American Jewish couple living in England were parties to litigation surrounding their marriage.  Benjamin Levy sued his wife Deborah Isaacs Levy and her alleged lover on grounds that the two were partners in an adulterous relationship. After a few minutes of deliberation, the jury found that they had been guilty of adultery but also found that Levy “had conduced to his wife’s misconduct.  Therefore, they declined to assess any damages against either the respondent or the co-respondent.


1879: The third annual meeting of Felix Adler’s Society for Ethical Culture had its final meeting in New York City.


1880(7thof Sivan, 5640): Second Day of Shavuot, Yizkor


1885: In New York City, Mr. and Mrs. Daniel Guggenheim gave birth to Meyer Robert Guggenheim, a member of the famous Guggenheim family who served as U.S. Ambassador to Portugal at the beginning of the Eisenhower Administration


1888(7thof Sivan, 5648)Second Day of Shavuot, Yizkor


1890: C.J. Schwab will conduct a 24-piece orchestra today at the 13thannual Strawberry Festival sponsored by the Young Men’s Hebrew Association  at the Lenox Lyceum.  E.B. Levy is in charge of this fundraising event.


1893: A delegation from New York led by Oscar S Straus met with Secretary of State Gresham in Washington, D.C. to discuss the situation of the Jews in Russia.  They asked him to intervene on their behalf with Czar with the hope that he would take action mitigating the “severe edicts and penalties” that have been imposed upon them in the last few years.


1893: According to Dr. Joseph Senner, the Superintendent of Immigration at Ellis Island the SS Didam which arrived today “had brought the worst set of men, women and children he had ever seen” and that “many of them were Russian or Polish Jews.”



1893: Explorer, journalist and advocate for democratic reform in Russia, George Kennan and his wife are sailing for England today.  Before leaving he expressed his firm belief that an influx of Russian Jews will be coming to the United States; forced to do so because of the Czar’s edicts.  In response to a question about aid for these immigrants he said that the Baron de Hirsch Fund has a definite, major role to play in assisting Russian Jewish immigrants.


1893: It was reported today that Myer S. Isaacs, Chairman of the Trustee of the Baron Hirsh Fund expects that the only Jews who will immigrate to the United States from Russia will come of their own volition , will have money to take them to where they desire to settle “or will have friends who can help them.” “They will not be a burden to anybody and…they will make very good citizens. He said that the fund is still experimenting with its trade schools and industrial farm which all the help they can offer for the foreseeable future. (This is neither the first, nor the last time that Jews in America would underestimate the desperation of their European co-religionist)


1893: “A rich Jewish banker, who desired” to remain anonymous “for the present” was reported to have said that if there should be an unusual increase in Jewish immigration from Poland and Russia, he would be interested in meeting with fellow Jews “to devise ways and means of caring for all refugees that might come.


1895: “Rubinstein’s Religion” published today discussed the religious beliefs of the late Anton Rubinstein, the Russian pianist, composer and conductor. Although born a Jew, he “was baptized when a mere infant…and was forced…to follow the prescribed” religious “forms once a year.”  “It is worthy of notice and stands greatly to his credit, that in Russia, where it is better to be born a dog than a Jew, Rubinstein, despite his baptism, never sought to deny his Jewish origin.  In a certain way he was proud of it, and always boldly acknowledged it.”


1895(23rdof Iyar, 5655): Sixty-eight year old Wilhelm von Gutman who founded the largest coal company in the Austro-Hungarian Empire and served as President of the Jewish Community of Vienna passed away today.

1895: “W.W. Wilson Becomes a Convert to Judaism” published today described the decision of Brooklyn lawyer Wayne W. Wilson to join the Jewish faith.  The ceremony took place at Temple Israel in Brooklyn. Wilson said that he “joined Temple Israel because the doctrine of the Reformed Jew my views exactly.”


1895: Birthdate of Saul Adler, the Russian born Israeli who helped find a cure for malaria.


1899: Sixty-one year old “Jewish Christian” Joseph Rabinowitz passed away today.

1900: Birthdate of Herberts Cukurs, the Latvian aviator who was never punished for his crimes during the Holocaust.


1901: Herzl met with the Sultan of Turkey to discuss the establishment of a Jewish state and the obtaining of a charter. He failed in both attempts. However, The Sultan bestows on Herzl the Grand Cordon of the Mejidiye and authorized Hertzl to declare that the ruling Khalif was a friend and protector of the Jewish people. Herzl believed that a Jewish homeland could be created by getting approval of the venture from the political leaders of the day. That is why he sought out the support of the Kaiser. The state of Israel would eventually be a product of changed realities on the ground – the settling of the land by the Zionists – and political support from various political leaders such as Harry Truman in 1948.



1902: “During Shabbat Torah services women interrupted prayers with a call to support the boycott” of kosher butcher shops on the Lower East Side. “Women left their seats in the balcony to persuade men to back their cause and gain communal support.” (As reported by Jewish Women’s Archives)


1908: The Jewish American Historical Society held its 16th annual meeting today at the Hotel Astor.  During the morning session, Leon Huelmer presented a paper on “Jewish Privaterring in the Eighteenth Century.”  During the afternoon session Dr. Herbert Friedenwald presented a paper on “Why This Is Not a Christian Country.” At the evening session, the attendees approved a measure championed by Cyrus Adler, the society’s President to amend the constitution allowing the society to study “Jewish history in general instead of limiting it to” the study of American Jewish history.


1908: Charles Towne and Daniel P. Hays were the principle speakers at tonight’s memorial service sponsored by the Hebrew Union Veteran Association and the Hebrew Veterans of the War with Spain to honor the soldiers and sailors who had died in the service of their country.  The service was held at New York’s Rodeph Shalom and guest included Rear Admiral Joseph B. Coghlan and Grand Marshal Isidore Isaacs of the Grand Army of the Republic and his staff.  The Grand Army of the Republic was large national Civil War veterans association that was a forerunner to the American Legion formed after WW I.


1908(16thof Iyar, 5668): Percival Menken, who was born at Philadelphia, PA in 1865, passed away today.  He was laid to rest at Beth Olom Cemetery in Queens, NY.


1915: The last British government formed by the Liberal Party fell from power. The party of reform, the Liberal Party produced the first openly Jewish Member of Parliament. Lionel Nathan de Rothschild was first elected in 1847. However, Rothschild would not take his seat until 1858 since it took 11 years to pass the Jewish Disabilities Bill that made it possible for Jews to swear an oath that was not Christian. After World War I, the Labour Party would supplant the Liberal Party as the chief opposition to the Conservatives.


1915: Birthdate of Joseph Liegbott who was a Tech Sergeant with the 101stAirborne during WW II.  Although he was the Catholic son of Austrian immigrants many of his comrades assumed he was Jewish because of his name, his appearance and his hatred of Germans.  (What’s worse than being Jewish – not being Jewish but having people think you are)


1918(6thof Sivan, 5678): Last Shavuot of World War I


1921: Birthdate of Judith Coplon, the native of Brooklyn and former Justice Department employee who became a sensation in 1949 when she was accused of being a Soviet spy.


1922919th of Iyar, 5682): Forty-year old motor car pioneer Dorothy Levitt passed away today.

1923: The Wiener Morgenzeitung (The Vienna Morning Newspaper) was highly critical of The London house of Rothschild and the Paris representatives of Kuhn, Loeb & Co. ‘for what the paper regards as excessive cordiality shown towards the representatives of the Horthy regime, who are negotiating a loan in European capitals. Heinrich Margulies edited the paper before he moved to Palestine in 1925 where he became a Director of the Anglo-Palestine Bank.


1923:Sir Wyndham Deedes, who has just resigned as the Civil Secretary of the Palestine Administration, addressed a meeting at the Grand Central Hotel called by the English Zionist Federation. Declaring that he favored Zionism because by enabling Jews to return to Palestine the world was righting a wrong committed by Christians 2,000 years ago, Sir Wyndham said only lack of money was hampering Zionist progress in all directions. (JTA)


1926: David M Bressler announced that nearly $6,000,000 was raised in New York toward the $25,000,000 United Jewish Campaign at a rally of 1,500 workers.


1926: Leading Jews of the East Side were guests at dinner tonight of Max Bernstein, proprietor of Libby's Hotel, the first modern Jewish hotel on the East Side, which was opened to the public yesterday. The hotel is at Delancey and Chrystie Streets. The hotel will serve kosher food. It was elected at a cost of $3,000,000. (JTA)


1930: Today Hadassah announced that a new hospital will be opened in Tiberias on May 25.  The hospital will be named in honor of Peter J. Schweitzer and his widow will be going to Palestine to attend the dedication ceremonies



1933: In Norway, Vidkun Quisling establishes the Norwegian Fascist Party as well as the Hirdmen (King's Men), a collaborationist organization that's modeled on the Nazi Sturmabteilung (SA). When the Nazis invade Norway during World War II Quisling will become the head of the Norwegian government. Quisling was such a notorious traitor that his name has now become a word in the English language that means “traitor.”



1933:  A petition is submitted to the League of Nations by representatives of the Comite des Delegations Juives protesting Germany’s anti-Jewish legislation, called the Bernheim Petition, named for imprisoned Silesian Jew Franz Bernheim.



1934:  At New York's Madison Square Garden, thousands attend a pro-Nazi rally sponsored by the German-American Bund. Critics of Roosevelt’s policy towards Jewish refugees often overlook the reality of anti-Semitism in the United States. The Bund rally was merely the most public venue for this reality of the pre-war American landscape.


1936(25thof Iyar): Seventy-seven year old  Zionist leader Nachum Sokolow passed away

1936:A curfew order, forbidding residents of Jerusalem to leave their homes at night, was issued today by Sir Arthur Grenfell Wauchope, the High Commissioner of Palestine, following the killing of three Jews last night at a motion-picture theatre.


1936: This morning in Jerusalem, more than 30,000 Jews marched in the funeral procession for three Jews murdered the night before at a local move theatre.  Isaac Ben Zvi, President of the National Jewish Council, told the mourners that he held the British government responsible for this because it was the duty of the government to protect its citizens.  An editorial published in today’s Palestine Post said that “ if this is a war of extermination declared y the Arabs on Jews, the Arabs had better know that the shooting down of 400,000 Jews will not alter the course of history and will not shake the Jews’ determination to resettle the land of their fathers…This movement of the Arab Supreme Council seeks tnot only to terrorize the Jews.  It aims to throw the land back to the Dark Ages.”


1937(7th of Sivan, 5697) Second Day of Shavuot, Yizkor


1937: Hundreds of Jews were injured during riots at Brest-Litovsk which is now located in Poland


1938: A. H. Skinner, organizer and manager of the “newly organized American Palestine Securities Company which was registered with the SEC last week” and is designed “to deal in securities originating in the Holy Land” descried “the rapid growth of large-scale undertakings in Palestine in the last five years.  In reporting on the economic conditions in Palestine, Skinner said that there were twelve companies with capital of more than $500,000 and that poplation had grown from 40,000 in 1920 to 400,000 in 1938.


1938:Arthur Sweetser, a director of the secretariat of the League of Nationswrote in his diary, “The President’s proposal took a large place in the League’s refugee deliberations this past week.” By the “President’s proposal” Sweetser was referencing Roosevelt’s plan to “get all the democracies to unite” in an effort to settle all of the Jewish refugees from Europe in their respective territories.”


1938(16th of Iyar, 5698): Sixty-year old Jakob Ehrlich, the Viennese Zionist leader who was deported after the Anschluss passed away today at Dachau.


1939: The British government issues a White Paper (commonly called the MacDonald White Paper) that limits Jewish immigration to 10,000 a year for five years. The White Paper allows 75,000 Jewish immigrants (up to 10,000 per year, plus an additional 25,000 if certain conditions are met) to enter Palestine. The White Paper also restricts Jewish land purchases in Palestine. British government policy will succeed in keeping the actual numbers of Jewish immigrants far below the quotas for settlement in England and Palestine. The White Paper was issued after two years of orchestrated Arab violence. Recognizing the White Paper as a death sentence for a Jewish homeland, the leaders of the Yishuv prepare to bring “illegal immigrants” into Palestine. The White Paper also sealed the fate for Europe’s Jews as it closed the last place of refuge. When World War II broke out Jewish leaders were caught on the horns of a dilemma. In true Jewish fashion when confronted with two choices, the Zionists came up with a third solution. “We will fight the war as if there is no White Paper and we will fight the White Paper as if there is no war.” The Arabs had no such problems as the fact that the Grand Mufti spent the war in Berlin proves.


1939: There were only 679 Jews still living in Magdeburg. Eleven years earlier, there were more than three thousand Jews living in this ancient German city in which Jews had been living since the 10th century.


1939: Fighting broke out in Jerusalem as police sought to disperse 5,000 demonstrators who had gathered to protest the White Paper.


1940: Birthdate of Tama Gottlob, the younger sister of Salomon Gottlob. At age 2 she joined her 7 year old brother on Convoy 25 that left Drancy with 285 children all of whom were going to Auschwitz.



1941(20th of Iyar, 5701): In cooperation with British Army intelligence, David Raziel, the commander of the I.Z.L. (Irgun Zva-i Leumi) led a group to sabotage the oil depots on the outskirts of Baghdad. Raziels car was bombed and both he and the liaison British officer were killed. Yes, this is Menachem Begin’s Irgun, the same Irgun that will attack the British in Palestine after the war is over; the same Irgun that blew up the British headquarters in the King David Hotel in 1947



1942: Two thousand Jews were deported from Theresienstadt to Sobibor, 500 miles away. Also, 2,000 Jews from Pabianice reached the Lodz Ghetto. All children under 10 were torn away from their parents and sent "elsewhere."


1942: Liane Berkowitz, and Otto Gollnow, two members of the anti-Nazi Resistance were given the task of putting up about 100 posters in the Kurfürstendamm-Uhlandstraße section of west-central Berlin which protested against the Nazi "Soviet Paradise" propaganda exhibition being held in the city. Six months later, Berkowitz would be arrested for the act. Despite attempts to gain clemency for her because she was pregnant, Berkowitz would ultimately be executed.


1943: The United States Army contracts with the University of Pennsylvania's Moore School to develop the ENIAC. Herman Heine Goldstine who passed away in 2004 at the age of 90 was one of the orginial developers of ENIAC. Adele Goldstine, his wife, wrote the technical description for ENICA.

1943: The Nazis deport 395 Jews from Berlin to the extermination camp at Auschwitz.

1944: Joel Brand was flown in a German courier plane from Budapest to Istanbul where he met with two representatives from the Jewish “agency for Palestine, Wnja Pomeranz and Menahem Bader. Brand was a Hungarian Jew active in Va’adah (Vadat Ezra Vehatzala), the Jewish Resuce Agency in Hungary who was carrying the terms of Eichman’s offer to trade a million European Jews for 10,000 trucks, 1,000 tons of coffee or tea and 1,000 tons of soap. Eichman assured Brand that the trucks would only be used on the Eastern Front. At the same time, he told Brand that the Jews could go anywhere except Palestine because “the furhrer had promised his friend the Grand Mufti Amin al-Husseini” that he would not permit that. Pomeranz and Bader took the proposal back to Ben Gurion who then informed the British of the proposal. British Foreign Minster Eden and Secretary of State Hull would not persue the offer because they feared that if the Russians go wind of the negotiations, they would become even more suspicious of the western Allies (remember this was before the Second Front had opened) and might still make their own peace with Hitler. To ensure that nobody else heard about the negotiations, the British sent Brand to Syria for “temporary internment.” Of course the Soviets might have already known about the negotiations since Brand had been a Communist agent working in Berlin during the 1930’s.



1948:Egyptian warplanes were strafing and dive-bombing Tel Aviv for the third straight day.  Arab sources were claiming unverified as yet, the surrender of the Jews of Old Jerusalem, with claims and counterclaims flying on both sides on the progress of the invading armies of Egypt, Syria and Transjordan.


1948: During the Battles of the Kanarot Valley, as the Syrians attempted to wipe out Ein Giv, a company attacked the Israeli-held water station with heavy weapons killing all but one of the workers.


1948: At dawn, the Syrians renewed their attack on Tzemah as they attempted to take control of the Jordon River Valley.  In an attempt to limit damage to their tanks, the Syrian infantry without armor to lead them, attacked the village's northern positions. Despite a shortage of ammunition and suffering heavy casualties, the Israelis halted the Syrian advance.



1948: In Tel Aviv, as Battles of the Kinarot Valley rage into their third day.  David Ben Gurion orders Moshe Dayan, the Haganah commander in the area, to ‘Hold the Jordan Valley’ no matter the cost.


1948: Russia recognized Israel. Much to Stalin’s dismay, he lost the recognition race to the United States. Stalin had not fallen in love with the Jews. He saw Israel as a wedge that would lead to the breakup of one his nemesis, the British Empire. With its large population of refugees from Russia, the state of Israel was never in danger of being seduced by Stalin or the Communists.

1948: During the War for Independence, Israeli forces liberated Acre, Nebi Yusha, and Tel el-Kadi, Yes; this is the same Acre where Maimonides and his family landed when they first arrived in Eretz Israel.



1948: A convoy consisting of 12 trucks filled with military supplies arrived in Jerusalem. It would be the last convoy to reach the city. "The siege of Jerusalem was now complete."


1950: The special committee reinvestigating the assassination of Count Bernadotte in 1948 submits its report to the Israeli cabinet today. 


1950: Israeli fighter planes forced down a four-engine Royal Air Force Sunderland that was flying outside ‘the prescribed air corridor.”


1954: Birthdate of American lyricist David Zippel.


1956: Birthdate of comic Bob Saget



1956(7thof Sivan, 5716): Second Day of Shavuot


1956(7thof Sivan, 5716): Poet and author Jacob Fichman passed away.


1956(7thof Sivan, 5716): Dr. Judah David Eisenstein, the self-educated Hebrew scholar, writer, editor and publisher passed away today at the age of 101.  In 1891, he published the first Hebrew and Yiddish translations of the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution.  Born in Poland, he came to the U.S. in 1872 where he became a successful businessman by day and a self-taught scholar by night.  “He was the editor and publisher of ‘Otzar Yisrael,’ a ten volume Hebrew Encyclopedia that was last revised in 1951.


1956(27thof Iyar): Poet and author Jacob Fichman passed away


1959: The Hebrew University-Hadassah Medical School was opened in the western section Jerusalem. The original facility had been on Mt. Scopus. When the Jordanian Army illegally captured the eastern section of Jerusalem, the facility on Mt. Scopus became untenable. The Israelis would return in June, 1967.


1967: In what would be a prelude to the Six Day War, President Abdul Nasser of Egypt demands dismantling of the peace-keeping UN Emergency Force in Egypt. The UN force had been established as part of the peace agreement following the Suez War of 1956. Much to Nasser’s surprise, U Thant, the UN Secretary General immediately gave into Nasser’s demand an removed the peace keeping force. Israelis viewed the UN as the umbrella that closes when it starts to rain. The departure of the UN force gave the Arabs carte blanche to move large forces into the Sinai threatening the survival of Israel.



1970)11thof Iyar, 5730): Seventy-eight year old Nobel Prize winning poet Nelly Sachs passed away today.

1975(7thof Sivan, 5735): Second Day of Shavuot, Yizkor


1975: Terrorist bombings taking place in Ramallah and El Bira.


1976: Birthdate of Jeremiah Luber, the grandson of Harvey and Elaine Luber, pillars of the Little Rock Jewish community


1981: Birthdate of Shiri Maimon, the Sephardic Jewess born at Haifa and raised a Kiryat Haim, who is a popular Israeli singer, actress and television personality.


1981: In “Fiddler Plays at Darien Dinner Theatre,” Haskel Frankel expresses his love for this musical based on the life of Tevye but is less than enthusiastic about the version now on view at the Darien Dinner Theatre in Connecticut.


1983: Representatives of the United States, Lebanon and Israel signed an agreement that was supposed to bring peace to the two warring Middle East nations.  The government of Lebanon was not able to honor the terms of the agreement so the peace was “still born.”



1984: Lia van Leer inaugurated the first Jerusalem Film Festival.


1985(26th of Iyar, 5745): Abe Burrows, songwriter, composer, and writer passed away. Known in his own right for such hits “How to Succeed In Business Without Really Trying” Burrows was the father of James Burrow the director of the hit sitcom “Cheers.



1991: Premier of “What About Bob?” a comedy directed by Frank Oz, produced by Laura Ziskin and co-starring Richard Dreyfus


1994(7th of Sivan, 5754): Second day of Shavuot


1994(7th of Sivan, 5754: Rafael Yairi (Klumfenbert), age 36, of Kiryat Arba and Margalit Ruth Shohat, age 48, of Ma'ale Levona were killed when their car was fired upon by by terrorists in a passing car near Beit Haggai, south of Hebron.


1996(28thof Iyar, 5756): Yom Yerushalyim


1998: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including “Jews: The Essence and Character of a People” by Arthur Hertzberg and Aron Hirt-Manheirmer and “Richard Rodgers” by William G. Hyland


1999: Avigdor Kahalani completed his services as an MK.


1999: Labor Party leader Ehud Barak unseated Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Israeli elections



2002(6thof Sivan, 5762): First Day of Shavuot


2002:Maria Grullich and Alberto Kusnier participated at a Shavuot celebration today in Buenos Aires' Belgrano neighborhood organized by the local Tzedaka social service organization and the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee. Grullich, 63, lost her drugstore last year after it was robbed and she had no money to restock it.Optician Kusnier, 54, was fired a few months ago from another drugstore and hasn't been able to find a new job. This Shavuot event was meant to bring together an Argentine Jewish community that has been devastated by the country's economic crisis. The organizations sponsored packed Shavuot celebrations in 26 Jewish institutions in Buenos Aires and another 14 elsewhere in the country. But the Argentine crisis was a special guest that no one could avoid. Grullich and Kusnier both were invited to attend the Shavuot celebration in Belgrano, where six institutions -- including synagogues, schools and clubs -- were celebrating together.


2002(6thof Sivan, 5762): Shavuot


2002(6thof Sivan, 5762) Dave Berg passed away. Born in 1920, the cartoonist may be best known for his work in Mad Magazine

2003(15thIyar, 5736): “A pregnant Israeli woman and her husband were killed when a suicide bomber detonated himself next to them in a public square in Hebron. Hamas claimed responsibility.”
2004(25thof Iyar, 5764) Tony Randall passed away. Born Leonard Rosenbeg in 1920, this native of Tulsa, Oklahoma enjoyed a successful career in film, theatre and television. Most people know him as Felix Unger in the television version of “The Odd Couple.”

2005: As the Leo Baeck Institute at the Center for Jewish History marked the 50th anniversary, an exhibition entitled “Starting Over: The Experience of German Jews in America, 1830-1945” opened today.  The exhibit includes photos, letters, documents, sketches, paintings, maps, medals and other rare artifacts of German-Jews who settled across the United States, many of which are being viewed by the public for the first time.


2006: Opening of the first Sydney Jewish Writers’ Festival


2006: David Blaine was submerged in an 8 feet (2.4 m) diameter, water-filled sphere (isotonic saline, 0.9% salt) in front of the Lincoln Center in New York City for a planned seven days and seven nights, using tubes for air and nutrition.


2006:Eliot Yamin was eliminated from American Idol” today, after the tightest race; each of the three top contestants received an almost exactly equal percentage of the viewer votes necessary for advancement to the remaining two spots


2007:Bernard Kouchner began serving as French Minister of Foreign and European Affairs.


2007: As part of Jewish Heritage Month, the National Archives presents a lecture entitled “Julius Rosenwald: The Man Who Built Sears, Roebuck and Advanced the Cause of Black Education in the South.” Peter M. Ascoli, grandson of Julius Rosenwald, tells the remarkable story of Rosenwald’s lifelong devotion to hard work and success and of his giving back to the nation in which he prospered. The son of German Jewish immigrants, Julius Rosenwald—president and CEO of Sears, Roebuck & Co.—was an exemplary businessman, pioneering philanthropist, and true humanitarian who played an important part in the history of America at the start of the 20th century. Yet few know the story of this immensely talented figure. His commitment to social justice and equality led him to involvement in a wide range of philanthropic projects—among them the building of more than 5,300 schools for African Americans in the rural South and the issuing of an unprecedented $1 million challenge grant to aid Jewish victims of World War I.



2007: Rabbi Simon Jacobson presents “Mysteries of Sinai: Find Revelations in the Everyday “at The Sixth Street Community Synagogue in New York City.



2007: An exhibition opens at the Museum of Modern Art by photographer Barry Frydlender, the first Israeli to have a solo show at the museum



2008: The Jerusalem Cinematheque presents “A Sacred Duty \
חובהמקודשת” a major documentary on current environmental threats and how Jewish teachings can be applied in responding to these threats.



2008 (12th of Iyar): Anniversary of the Jews of Rome being granted additional privileges by the head of the Catholic Church. On the 12th of Iyar, 1402, the Jews of Rome were granted "privileges" by Pope Boniface IX. They were given legal right to observe their Shabbat, protection from local oppressive officials, their taxes were reduced and orders were given to treat Jews as full-fledged Roman citizens.



2008: At the JCC in Manhattan the international premiere of new episodes from the Israeli comedy series “Arab Labor (Avoda Aravit)” followed by a conversation with writer and creator Sayed Kashua. “Arab Labor” is a satirical look at the Arab status In Israeli society, the controversy surrounding issues of identity and the sensitivities of both populations. Through humor, the series explores the daily conflicts that Arabs face between the desire to integrate and their own values and traditions.


2009: An exhibition at Williams College Museum of Art entitled “The ABCD’s of Sol LeWitt” that features artist’s drawing and sculptures as well as items from his private art collection comes to an end.


2009: Hadassah meets in the Twin Cities where its members celebrate Jewish Women in the Arts and recognize the Charter Member of the Region Chai Society


2009: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including “The Third Reich At War” by Richard J. Evans, “A Failure of Capitalism” by Richard A. Posner and the recently released paperback editions of “Reappraisals: Reflections on the Forgotten Twentieth Century” by Tony Judt and “The Dream: A Memoir” by Harry Bernstein.


2009: The Washington Post featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including “Paul Newman: A Life” by Shawn Levy and “Valkyrie” by Philipp Freiherr von Boeselager  


2009:At least five people were arrested today after a clash between anti-Semitic demonstrators and Jews in Argentina. “The fighting broke out when demonstrators waving anti-Semitic signs crashed a Buenos Aires ceremony held by a Jewish group marking Israel's 61st Independence Day, which was celebrated last month. An anti-discrimination police unit had to escort Israeli Ambassador Daniel Gazit away from the scuffle, AFP reported. Argentina's large Jewish community has been targeted by two deadly terror strikes. In 1994, 85 people were killed and 300 were wounded in a car bombing at the AMIA Jewish center in Buenos Aires, and two years earlier, 22 people were killed and 200 were hurt in an attack on the Israeli embassy.”


2009(23rd of Iyar), 5769:  Daniel Carasso passed away today at the age of 105. The member of a famed Sephardic family, this native of Salonica who was the son of Isaac Carasso created the company that many of us know for one of its most famous products, Dannon Yogurt. (As reported by William Grimes)

2010:Professors Raanan Rein and Jeffrey Lesser are scheduled to deliver a lecture entitled Jewish-Latin American Historiography: The Challenges Ahead Lecture at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.


2010: In “Reading to Recall the Father of Tevye”, Clyde Haberman explores the life Bel Kaufman and her grandfather Shalom Aleichem.

2010:A Facebook group called “Comedy Central – I.S.R.A.E.L. Attack game is offensive. Remove it” had more than 1,500 members as of today. The game, “Drawn Together,” which is currently available on Comedy Central’s website is based on the network’s politically incorrect animated series of the same name, depicts “Jew Producer,” a character that has a speaker for a head and is taken to task for failing to kill certain animated characters. A robot called “the Intelligent Smart Robot Animation Eraser Lady” (I.S.R.A.E.L.) is then sent in to do the job, unleashing destruction and murdering children


2011: Jenna Weissman Joselit, Charles E. Smith Professor of Judaic Studies and Professor of History at The George Washington University is scheduled to deliver a lecture at Beth Sholom in Potomac, MD, entitled “Romancing the Stone: America's Embrace of the Ten Commandments” during which she will explain “The cultural and historical processes by which a covenant with the ancient Israelites became a covenant with America.”


2011: Sam Brylawski and Karen Lund are scheduled to deliver a lecture entitled “Emile Berliner and the Birth of the Recording Industry” under the auspices of The Hebraic Section, African and Middle Eastern during which they will discuss the role of Emile Berliner “an unsung hero of recorded sound …Emile who invented the gramophone.”


2011: The building housing the world’s first green-certified synagogue Congregation Beth David in San Luis Obispo, Calif., is scheduled to be up for auction today to satisfy an unpaid loan of 3.3 million dollars.


2011: A course entitled “Oasis in Time: The Gift of Shabbat in a 24/7 World” is scheduled to be held at the Center for Jewish Life, the Chabad center in Little Rock, AR under the leadership of Rabbi Pinchas Ciment. 


2012: DeLeon, a Sephardich Indie Rock Band is scheduled to appear at the Washington Jewish Music Festival.


2012: Elio Toaff, the former Chief Rabbi of Rome was awarded the Prize Culturae within the Italian National Festival of Cultures in Pisa today.


2012: The Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington, The American Jewish Committee and The American Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists are scheduled to sponsor a lecture by  Irvin B. Nathan entitled “The Challenges of a D.C. Attorney General


2012(25th of Iyar, 5772): Seventy-four year old Israeli politician Gideon Ezra passed away today.


2012(25th of Iyar, 5772): Eighty seven year old publicist and theatrical manager Herbert Breslin passed away today. (As reported by Daniel Wakin)

2013; “No Place On Earth” is scheduled to premiere at theatres in Atlanta, GA and Key West, FL.


2013: The 3rd annual Celebrating India in Israel Festival is scheduled to come to an end.


2013: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged to do whatever it takes to protect Israelis in the unstable Middle East, following a meeting with the German foreign minister in Jerusalem today (As reported by Yoel Goldman)



2013:Multiple clashes broke out across the West Bank today that involved, Palestinians, the IDF, Border Police and settlers.


2014: Chabad is scheduled to host the second of a three-day retreat in West Des Moines, Iowa.


2014: In Springfield, VA, Congregation Adat Reyim is scheduled to host “Adat on the Rocks.”


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

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May 18



323BCE: Alexander dies at the age of 32.  Despite the legend, there is no proof that Alexander ever came to Jerusalem.  He did pass through Judea on his way to conquer Egyptand on his way from the victory.  He left the Jews in peace to practice their religion and to live in a semi-independent status.  This was his standard treatment for all those who did not oppose him.  He and his subordinates encouraged Jews to settle in Egypt and throughout Asia Minor.  The Jews were allowed to live in their own communities where they were governed by their own councils and courts.  Alexander was viewed as an enlightened monarch in much the way that Cyrus the Great had been.


363: The first of a series of earthquakes  rocked the Galilee.


576: Over 500 Jews were forcibly baptized in Clermont-Ferrand, France.


1096(4856): Jews of Worms (Germany) were massacred by Crusaders. The survivors hid in the Bishop's palace for one week, after which they were either murdered or forcibly baptized.


1152: Henry II, King of England marries Eleanor of Aquitaine. This marriage produced two future Kings of England – Richard I (known as the Lionhearted) and King John, the monarch who signed the Magna Charta.  For the Jews, Henry’s reign was an improvement over that of his predecessor, King Stephen.  While Richard was semi-protective of his Jewish subjects, they suffered at the hands of those who wielded power while he was off crusading or fighting to protect his lands in France.  In the first part of his reign, John maintained a positive relationship with his Jewish subjects, but as time went on he turned on them and made unrealistic financial demands on the community.


1268: Following the Battle of Antioch the Principality of Antioch, a crusader state, falls to Baibars I the Mamluk Sultan. During the Mamluk Sultanate, there was an upswing in anti-dhimmī feeling although much of this was really aimed at the Christians who held positions in the government and the Jews were just “tangential beneficiaries” of this attitude. 


1291: A year after the Jews were expelled from England, after a two month siege, the fortress at Acre (Israel) falls to the Fatimid Egyptians, thus bringing about the end of the Crusades. Subsequently, the various crusading armies never succeeded in uniting as a cohesive force. The infighting and separate treaties defeated them as well as the Fatimid armies. “The founder of the Fatimid dynasty was Ubeidullah, known as the Mahdi. He was accused of Jewish ancestry by his adversaries the Abbasids, who declared him the grandson of Abdullah ibn Maymun, by a Jewess.”


1418:Representatives from the Jewish communities of central and northern Italy met to discuss raising funds for self-defense as well as instituting sumptuary regulations so as "not to show off in the presence of Gentiles." It is plausible that the issuing of these sumptuary regulations, influenced Pope Martin V to issue a protective Bull the following year


1530: The Edict of Innsbruck issued today confirmed a charter of protection for the Jews of Germany that Josel of Rosheim had obtained from Charles V shortly after he had “ascended the throne at Accehn in 1520.”


1721: In Madrid, 96 year old Maria Barbara Carillo was burned alive making her the oldest known victim of the Inquisition.


1729(19thof Iyar, 5489): Mordeccai Mokiach, the father of Judah Lob Mokiach and the grandfather of David Berline Mokiach and Isaiah Berlin Mokiach who preached that Sabbatai Zevi, the “False Messiah” would return in three years to finish his work, passed away today in Pressburg.


1792(26thof Iyar): Canadian Jewish leader Levy Solomons passed away


1794: Betty Hart, the first American female convert to Judaism, married Moses Nathans


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


1832:Eliakim Carmoly, a French-born Talmudist and author, was named to serve as a rabbi in Brussels.


1830: In Keszthely, Hungary Chazan Ruben Goldmark and his wife gave birth to violinist and composer Karl Goldmark.


1839: In the Netherlands Jacob Hirschel Kann and Amalie de Jonge gave birth to Henrik Jacob Kann


1847(3rdof Sivan, 5607): Moses Calmus Lissa passed away


1860: In Chicago, Illinois, the Republican Party nominates Abraham Lincoln for President of the United States. Lewis Naphtali Dembitz, a 28 year old lawyer from Louisville, Kentucky,was one of the three delegates who put Lincoln’s name in nomination. Dembitz was the uncle of Louis Dembitz Brandeis, who would emulate his uncle’s legal career and then excel it as the first Jewish Supreme Court Justice.


1865(22nd of Iyar): David ben Moses Frankel, editor of Sulamith, passed away.


1868: As the United States entered into a Presidential election year, The New York Times published excerpts an article from the Jewish Messenger describing the role of “Hebrews” in the political life of Europe and the United States.  In the United States, Jews are not “a compact body for political purposes…In the coming campaign, Hebrews will work, and talk, and vote precisely according to their convictions as citizens and in no respect will their political action be dependent upon their religious character as a body.  There is no national Hebrew vote.”


1870: A column entitled “Mount Sinai Hospital” published today reported that the New York Times was wrong when it said that Mount Sinai Hospital was maintained by Jews for use by Jews.  “The institution is supported by Jewish contribution and its directors” are Jewish “but it has always opened its doors to patients without the slightest regard to creed.”  [In fact the hospital had been started before the Civil War to serve the needs of immigrants and indigent Jews.  During the Civil War that role definitely changed as it became a treatment cite for thousands of Union wounded beginning with McClellan’s Peninsula Campaign in 1862.] 


1872:  Birthdate of Lord Bertrand Russell, British mathematician and philosopher.  Lord Russell was pro-Palestinian describing them as innocent refugees and describing Israel as occupying land‘given’ by a foreign power to the Jewish people for the creation of a new state.


1873: An informal reception was held today the recently opened home for aged and infirmed Hebrews at 63rdstreet and Lexington Avenue. The building, which can accommodate 50 individuals, is currently home to 26 women and 2 men. They range in age from 70 to 95.  Mrs. P.J. Joachimsen is President of the Board of Directors.


1876: Wyatt Earp starts work as a lawman in Dodge City, Kansas. When he died, Earp’s ashes were buried in a Jewish cemeteryin Colma, California.  No, the famous marshal was not Jewish but his wife Josie was and her family had enough power and influence to wriggle around the laws forbidding such burials.


1876: The New York Times featured a review of “Stray Studies From England and Italy” a collection of essays by John Richard Green.  “Mr. Green shows how mistaken the modern conception” is when it comes to understanding the treatment of English Jews during the Middle Ages.  “That conception is accurately represented by Scott’s picture of Isaac of York in “Ivanhoe,” timid, silent crouching under oppression.  The Jew was really…the favorite ‘chattel’ of the king was protected by the crown not only against the people but against the law. Each Hebrew settlement in England was secured from the common taxation, the common justice, the common obligations of Englishman.  The Jewry was a town within a town, with its own language, its peculiar dress, commerce, law and religion.  No bailiff could penetrate it; the Church itself was even powerless against the synagogue which it contained.  In England, at least, the attitude of the Jew was to the end, one of haughty defiance.  His extortion was sheltered from the common law.  His bonds were kept under the royal seal.  Heavy penalties were enforced against outbreaks of popular violence upon the Jews.  Mentioning the story of the Red King’s forbidding the conversion of a Jew, because a valuable property would be lost to him.” [Editor’s note – The Red King may refer to the third son of William the Conqueror, William II who was known as William Rufus.  Green was an English clergyman who turned to writing histories when his health forced him to leave the pulpit.  His description stands in stark contrast to the exploitation that English Jews suffered and makes no mention of their expulsion.


 

1879: "The Family Sentiment in Americans" published today claims that people in the United States are changing their views about family history and genealogy saying that "next to the Jews, we are becoming the genealogical nation on the face of the earth."


1879: A prominent New York banker who is a member of Temple Emanu-El said today that Lewis May, one of the most outspoken advocates for replacing Saturday morning services with Sunday morning serves has just been re-elected as the congregation’s President.  In his acceptance address, Mr. May expressed a personal distaste for the change  but said he recognized it as a necessity since many of the younger men belonging to the Temple could not attend services on Saturday for commercial reasons.


1879: “Some Old Graveyards” published today describes early burial sites in New York City including one on the east side of the New Bowery below Chatham square known as the Olivers Street Burying Ground which was the original cemetery belonging to Shearith Israel, also known as the Nineteenth Street Congregation.  The plot was conveyed to the congregation by Noyes Willey of London who received thirty English Pounds for the land. The Jews had been using the land for burials since the 17th century since there are tombstones there bearing the dates of 1669 and 1684. The congregation formally stopped using this cemetery in 1820 when a city ordinance banned burials in that part of the city. 


1890: Today’s “Amusements” column includes a review of “The Shatchen” which opened at the Star Theatre last week.  M.B. Curtis dominates the comedy with his “droll caricature” of the German Jewish businessman.


1890: “For An Educational Fund” published today described the successful Strawberry Festival sponsored by the Young Men’s Hebrew Association during which three thousand attendees raising $3,500 that will go to the association’s educational department.


1891: “Oriental Records” published today contains a detailed review of Records of the Past, an English translations of the Ancient Monuments of Egypt and Western Asia, edited by A. H. Sayce


1891(10th of Iyar): Rabbi Hillel Lichtenstein, leader of Hungarian Jewry, passed away


1893: “Hardships of Russian Jews” published today described the benefits of efforts by the United States to lessen the suffering Jews living under the Czar.  Doing so would cut down on the number of immigrants coming to the United States and at the same time would lessen the burden on those Americans trying to find jobs and homes for immigrants from Poland and Russia.


1893(3rd of Sivan, 5653): In Pennsylvania, Isaac Rosenwig and Harris Blank “the only people of the Jewish faith ever executed for murder in this country” were hug after being found guilty of murdering eighteen year old Jacob Marks, a peddler whom they had robbed of his goods.


1894: Members of the Board of Trustees of the Hebrew Benevolent and Orphan Asylum Society were those who attended the funeral of Sigmund J. Bach as requested by Myer Stern and the Board of Trustees.


1895: Justice Ingram gave the managers of the Home for Aged and Infirm Hebrews of New York City permission to mortgage its property at 106thStreet and Columbus Avenue to the Bowery Savings Bank for $75, 000.


1896: The United States Supreme Court rules in Plessy v. Ferguson that “separate but equal” is constitutional.  This decision marked the legal nadir in the field of civil rights in general and race relations in particular.  It was from this pit that several organizations, many of them funded by Jews and/or with a statistically disproportionate Jewish involvement, had to climb until the High Court would declare in 1954 that separate but equal was inherently unequal.


1896: Based on information supplied by The London Times, the New York Timesreported today that the work of the Jewish Colonization Association will continue despite the recent death of its founder and benefactor, Baron Hirsch.  Dr. S.H. Goldschmidt of Paris will now service as President of the Association with assistance from Herbert G. Lousade of the Anglo-Jewish Association of London.  Currently, 1,222 families occupy the 225,000 acres in Argentina under the association’s control.


1897: Anti-Semitic violence broke out in Algeria when “the main synagogue of Nestaganem, Algeria was sacked by anti-Jewish rioters.”

 


1899: Randolph Guggenheimer, President of the Municipal Council will the deliver the address at this afternoon’s ceremonies dedicated the new Hebrew Charities Building at 21st Street and Second Avenue.


1899(9thof Sivan, 5659): Fifty year old Julius Hirsch , native of Mannheim, Germany who came to New York In 1870 where he became “a prominent member of the Produce Exchange” passed away today.


1900: In “Topical Study” published today in Die Welt Isaac Rulf warned Jews of the danger presented by an increase in anti-Semitism in Germany, including the possibility of murder by the millions. Ruif died a year later but his children did not escape the Holocaust. One son died at Auschwitz and the other committed suicide before he could be shipped to the camps.


1900 In Pilsen, “journalist and theatre director Julius Hirsch and his wife Camilla gave birth to David Hirsch the actor and director known as Wolfgang Heinz.


1901: Herzl is called to the palace again. He is presented a tie-pin with yellow stones. Herzl hands out the sum of 40.000 francs to Nouri Bey and Crespi for having brought the audience about.


1902: Herzl receives a letter from Constantinoplethat his letter concerning a request for the creation of an IsraeliteUniversityin Jerusalemwas submitted to the Sultan.


1902” “East Side Boycotters Meet and Organize” published in the New York Times described the formation of The Ladies’ Anti-Beef Trust Association which plans to establish co-operative stores if the price of beef being sold on the Lower East Side is not lowered.


1903: The Times of London published a letter from Vyacheslav von Plehve, the Russian Minister of the Interior to the district’s governor, dated 12 days before the riots known as the Kishinev Pogroms, advising the governor not to act against rioters. “The Russian government asserted that it was a forgery and provided a bogus claim that the pogroms had started when a Jewish carousel owner hit a Christian woman. Christians defended themselves and then the Jews attacked them, killing one gentile.”


1903: Arthur Paul Nicholas Cassini, the Russian Ambassador to the United States justified the Pogrom at Kishinev during an interview given today.


There is in Russia, as in Germany and Austria, a feeling against certain of the Jews. The reason for this unfriendly attitude is found in the fact that the Jews will not work in the field or engage in agriculture. They prefer to be money lenders. ... The situation in Russia, so far as the Jews are concerned is just this: It is the peasant against the money lender, and not the Russians against the Jews. There is no feeling against the Jew in Russia because of religion. It is as I have said—the Jew ruins the peasants, with the result that conflicts occur when the latter have lost all their worldly possessions and have nothing to live upon. There are many good Jews in Russia, and they are respected. Jewish genius is appreciated in Russia, and the Jewish artist honored. Jews also appear in the financial world in Russia. The Russian Government affords the same protection to the Jews that it does to any other of its citizens, and when a riot occurs and Jews are attacked the officials immediately take steps to apprehend those who began the riot, and visit severe punishement upon them."


1904: Birthdate of Senator Jacob K Javits.  Born in New York, Javits graduated from NYULawSchool.  He served in the Army during World II.  Following the war he became active in Republican politics in New York.  Before coming to the Senate, Javits served in the House of Representatives and as Attorney-General for the state of New York.  Javits was a leader of the liberal wing of the Republican Party and staunch supporter of the Civil Rights movement.  Javits served until January, 1981.  Having been defeated he resumed his law practice and lectured at Columbia.  He passed away in 1986.


1905: Frederick Kerry arrived in the United States.  Now a Roman Catholic, at birth Kerry was a Jew named Fritz Kohn.  He and his Jewish wife Ida were baptized in 1901 to avoid the stigma associated with being Jewish in Austria.  Frederick Kerry is the grandfather of Senator John Kerry, the Democratic candidate for President of the United States.  At least two of his relatives perished in the Holocaust.


1910: Turkish Minister of Education advocates adoption of Hebrew as national language of Turkish Jews.



1910: Franz Kafka and a few of his friends gathered to observe Halley’s Comet.



1911: Gustav Mahler died at the age of 50.  Born Jewish, Mahler converted to Catholicism, so he could become head of the court opera in Austria.  His conversion did not spare him the contempt of his enemies.


1912: Birthdate of Richard Brooks. Born Richard Sax, to Russian Jewish immigrants, Brooks gained fame as film writer, director and producer. Brooks was received Oscar nominations for the screenplays for Blackboard Jungle, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, In Cold Blood and The Professionals.  He won an Academy Award in 1960 for Elmer Gantry.  


1915: In Worcester, MA, Benjamin and Mary Meltzer gave birth to “Milton Meltzer, a historian and prolific author of nonfiction books for young people who helped start a movement away from the arid textbook style of the past.”  (As reported by Dennis Heveis)


1918(7thof Sivan, 5678): Second Day of Shavuot; Yizkor


1918: Georg Nicolai writes to Albert Einstein telling him that he should not reproach himself for not taking an even more active role in protests against the war.


1921: Ra'anana, an agricultural settlement is founded in the Sharon region.


1921:The Nation included an essay by Lily Winner entitled "American Emigrés."http://jwa.org/thisweek/may/18/1921/lily-winner


1926: In Chicago, Professor James H. Breasted announced that Julius and William Rosenwald have donated $30,000 to be used in building a library near Luxor, Egypt that will be used by the veritable army of visiting scholars and scientist who come to the area each year.  The Rosenwald’s general philanthropy was evident in a variety of secular and Jewish charitable activities.


1927:Mayor Walker and more than 1,000 women welcomed Nathan Straus and Mrs. Straus on their return from a pilgrimage to Palestine at a tea given today at the Hotel Commodore by the Brooklyn Hadassah, the Women's Zionist Organization. During his address to the group, Mr. Straus officially presented Hadassah with the $250,000 health centre which is being built in Jerusalem.


1928: Today a project for a municipal milk supply in Warsaw was defeated in the City Council by the combined vote of the Polish Nationalist and the Jewish middle-class Alderman. The municipal plan was backed by Pilsudski Party and Jewish Socialists.


1930: Birthdate of Senator Warren B Rudman.  Born in Massachusetts, Rudman grew up in New Hampshire. A Korean War Era Veteran, Rudman practiced law in New Hampshire before being elected to the Senate as a Republican in 1980. He served until January 1993, having chosen not to run for re-election.  He is best known for the Graham-Rudman-Hollings Act, also referred to as the Balanced Budget and Deficit Control Act.


1930: Birthdate of Barbara Goldsmith, author of Little Gloria: Happy At Last.”


1931: In New York City, Leon and Ida Bregman gave birth to Martin Bergman who went from entertainment agent to movie producer.


1933:  As part of the New Deal, Franklin Roosevelt signs the law creating the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA).  David Lilienthal, the son Jewish immigrants from Czechoslovakia, was the Director of TVA responsible for its early success and its ability to participate in the Manhattan Project during World War II.


1934: The Academy Award is called Oscar in print for the first time by Sidney Skolsky.  Skolsky was a close friend of Al Jolson and was responsible for the movie biography of the man who made the first “talkie


1934: It was reported today that "Leaping Lena" Levy has been Chicago sportswriter “that King Levinsky, the Windy City Walloper, otherwise known as the Chicago Assassin, the Personality Kid, and as plain Harry Krakow, is reported to be suffering from a nervous breakdown.” Levinsky was one of a veritable army of Jewish pugilists who fought during the 1920’s and 1930’s when the fight game was a Jewish game.


1936: It was announced in the House of Commons that a Royal Commission of Inquiry would be set up to investigate the cause of unrest in Palestine.  The Commission became known as the Peel Commission because its chairman was Lord Peel.



1937: Archbishop George Mundelein speaks out against the Nazi Party and Nazi Germany



1937: In Brooklyn, NY, Dewey and Adeline Weissfeld Albert gave birth to Jerome Lewis Albert “who with his father…created and operated Astroland, the space age-themed amusement park that breathed new life into the Coney Island Boardwalk in the 1960s, a time when it was losing its lure.” As reported by Dennis Hevesi)



1938: As Arab violence continued to escalate,The Palestine Post reported that Arab terrorists killed an Arab constable in Hebron. Arab farmers were robbed by Arab terrorists in villages around Jenin. The Public Works Department property was set on fire in Nablus and Jewish settlers near Hadera found their tractors and other machinery severely damaged.


1939: A gathering of members of the Hashomer Ha’tzair movement took place at Wieliczka, Poland.

1939: As Jews throughout Palestine protested against the White Paper with its limit of 75,000 Jews allowed to enter the country each year and the creation of a state that condemn the Jews to permanent minority status in violation of the Balfour Declaration and the Mandate, a resolution for Palestine Jewry was read aloud at the three hour long demonstration in Tel Aviv that stated in part: “Palestine Jewry declares the betrayal policy will never materialize…Palestine Jewry does not recognize the arbitrary restriction of immigration.  No power in the world can deter the natural right of our people to come home…  Palestine Jewry will not consent to leave the land of the country desolate, but undauntedly will continue reviving it.”


1941: Jewish veterans honor their dead


1942: The New York Times carried a report by a United Press International correspondent who had been trapped in Berlin at the outbreak of the war in December of 1941 and who reached Lisbon after being traded as part of a swap for Axis nationals in Allied hands.  According to the story 100,000 Jews had been slaughtered by the Nazis in the Baltic States, almost that many in Polandand twice as many in western Russia


1942: During a public protest of Nazi anti-Semitism staged in Berlin by Herbert Baum and his followers, portions of "The Soviet Paradise," a government-sponsored anti-Bolshevik exhibition, are set afire. Most members of Baum's group, as well as approximately 500 other Berlin Jews, are arrested.


 
1942: Another 1,420 Jews arrived in the Lodz ghetto from Brzeziny. Like the Jews who arrived the day before, their children were taken away from them. They were sent to Chelmno to be gassed.


1943: Nearly every resident of the Polish farming village of Szarajowka is shot or burned alive by the SS, Wehrmacht troops, and Gestapo agents. After the massacre, the village is razed.What was the crime for which the villagers were being punished? Sheltering Jews


1944 (25th of Iyar, 5704):Jewish partisan leader Aleksander Skotnicki is killed as his unit battles the armored SS Viking Division near the Parczew Forest in Poland.


1944: Deportations from Theresienstadt, Czechoslovakia, to Auschwitz end with the transport of 2500 Jews.


1944: In Hungary deportations of Jews to Auschwitz would begin today with a total of 437,000 being shipped to the death camp through July 7, 1944. 


1945(6thof Sivan, 5705): First observance of Shavuot after VE Day


1948: Moshe Dayan, who had been born in Degania, was given command of all forces in the area, including the settlements in the Kinarot Valley, after having been charged without creating a commando battalion in the 8th Brigade just a day before. A company of reinforcements from the Gadna program was allocated, along with 3 PIATs (a bazooka-like weapon). Other reinforcements came in the form of a company from the Yiftach Brigade and another company of paramilitaries from villages in the Lower Galilee and the Jezreel Valley. The Palmach counterattack on the police station on the night of May 18 gave the Israeli forces an additional day to prepare defense and attack plans


1948: Syrian aircraft bombed the Israeli village Kinneret and the regional school Beit Yerah, on the southwestern shore of the Sea of Galilee.


1948: After two days of fierce fighting a Syrian brigade including tanks overran Zemach, killing all forty-two of the Jewish defenders. 


1948: Poland, Czechoslovakia, Uruguay, and Nicaragua recognized Israel.


1948:  The Arab Legion captured the police fort on Mt. Scopus.  The illegal occupation of Mt.Scopus would end with the June War in 1967. 


1948: Between today and May 20, a unit of the Etzioni Brigade made repeated attempts to fight their way into the Old City at the Jaffa Gate.  Despite taking heavy casualties, the Jewish fighters failed in their effort. The brigade was fighting the Arab Legion, the name given to the Jordanian Army which was trained and led by British officers.


1948: Fighting under Egyptian command Saudi Arabia joined the other Arab armies in their invasion of Israel.


1948: "At midnight, Egyptian police" ransacked the home of Levan Zamir in Helwan.


1948: While at school today in Egypt, Levana Zamir's teacher told her that her uncle had been taken to prison allegedly because he was a Zionist.  The uncle was freed two years later and placed on a ship bound for France. 


1948: “According to Israeli historian Benny Morris” Kibbutz Bror Hayil was founded today. (The founders themselves claim the date should be May 5)


1949: “Miss Mary Antin Wrote Noted Book” published today described the career of the late Jewish author.

1950: As a result of Operation Ezra and Nehemiah, 120,000 Jews fleeing Iraq were brought to Israel over the course of a year's time.


1950: Israel has released the eight crewmen of an RAF flying-boat that had been forced down yesterday by Israeli fighter planes.  According to the pilot, the plan was flying from Bahrain to the Suez Canal when it wandered off course due to a navigational error.


1950: Colonel Harry D. Henshel and Charles L. Orenstein announced that the United States will be represented in the third World Maccabiah Games opening in Tel Aviv on September 27.  Henshel and Orenstein are co-chairman of the national committee for United States participation and Orenstein will chair the committee that will select the athletes.


1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that Abu Eliahu, 40, and Eliahu Ephraim, 45, two watchmen in the Jerusalem "corridor" were murdered by infiltrators.


1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that The Government approved the special unemployment relief tax scale and hoped to collect IL15m compulsory advance payment on account of future taxes.


1962: Two off-duty police detectives, Luke J. Fallon and John P. Finnegan, were killed today in a botched robbery of the Boro Park Tobacco Company.  Jerry Rosenberg, whose jailhouse nickname was Jerry the Jew and Anthony Portelli would be found guilty of the first double homicide of New York City police officers since 1927 and sentenced to death. Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller would later commute their sentences to life in prison.  At the time of his death in 2009, Rosenberg would be the longest serving convict in the New York State prison system.


1965 (16th of Iyar, 5725): Israeli spy Eli Cohen was publicly executed by the Syrians. This execution was aired on national Syrian television. After his execution, a sign with Anti-Zionist messages was placed on his hanging body. His body was left to hang for six hours.Eli was born in Alexandria, Egypt on December 26, 1928. The son of two Syrian Jews, Eli was raised in a strong Jewish and Zionist educational environment. True to their Zionist ideals, the Cohen family moved to Israel in 1949. However, Eli stayed behind to organize Zionist and Jewish activities in Egypt. Eventually, Eli moved to Israeland began training with the Israeli intelligence organization. His preparation was extensive and exhaustive. From weapons to Arab customs to espionage technology, he was trained to know everything about the craft of being a spy. In 1961, the Chief of Military Intelligence, Chaim Herzog, authorized Eli Cohen to be used as a spy for the State of Israel. Soon after, he was escorted to the airport with a ticket for Argentinawhere he would begin to establish his portfolio under his new assumed identity, Kamal Amin Ta'abet. While in Argentina, he established his cover as a Syrian émigré and began to make inroads within the Syrian community of Buenos Aries. In time, he established himself as a successful businessman and began to establish relationships among the Syrian diplomatic corps in Argentina. It was during this time that Eli met Col. Amin al-Hafez. Through his extravagant hosting of his diplomatic contacts, he was eventually invited to visit Syriato set up business operations. Late in 1961, Eli returned to Israel for a short visit with his wife. It was during this visit that he finalized requirements for his mission in Syria. There was no question that Eli was already making impressive progress within the Syrian political and social circuits. Staring in 1961, the Syrian Ba'ath Party was beginning its rise to power within the Syrian government. It was important to Eli that he travel to Syria as the party began to gain power and influence. Eli arrived in Damascusin 1962, acting as an Argentinean entrepreneur returning home to Syria. It was during this time in Syriathat Eli was very careful to develop his relationships with members of the Ba'ath party. True to his style in Argentina, Eli hosted parties and hob-nobbed in the highest social and political circles. As Eli gained the trust of these high officials, they openly discussed matters of military and political importance with him. Between 1962 and 1965, Eli made three secret trips home to be with his wife and children. When the Ba'ath party seized power in 1963, Eli Cohen was well established and entrenched within the social elites of Syria. He became a “trusted friend” of the highest-ranking members of the Ba'ath party, all the while transmitting vital information home to Israel via a transmitter that was hidden in his home. His ability to pierce the highest ranks of the government continued the longer he stayed in Syria. He was invited to discussions regarding Syria's intentions to divert water from the headwaters of the Jordan River. In 1963, Eli transmitted the details regarding the diversion of the waters back to the Israelis. As a result, the IDF Air Force was able to effectively destroy Syrian plans for this project. Cohen exhibited another example of his daring espionage when he visited the Syrian-held Golan Heights, bordering Israel. The Golan was a “strategic asset” for Syria, which allowed them the ability to facilitate acts of aggression against the northern Israeli towns. The Golan was considered a top secret area open only to the top members of the Syrian military. Cohen, skilled in his craft, was able to not only get a tour of the area, but able to get a comprehensive military briefing of the Golan and all its positions. It was during this trip that the “famous” eucalyptus trees were planted. As Eli was being briefed as to the Syrian fortifications of the Golan, he suggested that they plant eucalyptus trees to give the Israelis the impression that the locations were not fortified, and also to offer shade for the Syrian soldiers. As the story goes, his ideas were implemented, and as a result, the Israelis knew where every single fortification was located as a result of the eucalyptus trees. His old contact from Argentina, Col. Amin al-Hafez had risen in the Ba'ath party and eventually became Prime Minster of Syria. After Col. Hafez came to power, he even considered appointing Cohen the Deputy Minister of Defense for Syria. In November, 1964, Eli made another visit back to Israel. During this trip he expressed his desire to end this assignment since changes were taking place in Syriathat were not favorable to his cover. After much debate, Eli agreed to return for one more tour of Syria. The intelligence that Eli had provided was too valuable. During his final stay in Syria, Eli was less careful of his espionage transmissions. Alarmed that information was leaking out of the country, the Syrians, with the help of their Soviet advisors, conducted a comprehensive probe to find the intelligence leak. During January 1961, transmissions were pinpointed to Eli's home. Syrian intelligence caught Eli in the act, transmitting information back to Israel. He was apprehended and tortured, but didn't release any information of real value to the Syrians. Syria staged a public show and Eli Cohen was found guilty of espionage. Attempts were made to save Eli Cohen. World leaders and prominent businessmen, along with the Israeli government and the Pope attempted to arbitrate a solution for Eli, but with no success. Clearly, Eli's espionage contributions toward the security of the State of Israel were unmatched most. He was so skilled at his craft that he was easily able to assimilate into the day-to-day life within Damascus. He was able to achieve the unthinkable and befriended the highest echelons of the Syrian government and military. Not only was he able to gain access where others could not, he was in the position to provide input that allowed him to influence government and military decisions. There is no question that the intelligence that he compiled was highly instrumental in allowing Israel to quickly and effectively defeat the Syrians and gain the Golan Heightsduring the Six Day War. For his heroism and skill, Eli Cohen is known as Israel's greatest spy. But in all actuality, he might be a contender for the greatest secret agent of the 20th century


1973(16th of Iyar, 5733): Israeli poet and editor Avraham Shlonsky passed away. A native of Russia, he was a driving force in the creation of Modern Hebrew literature. Among other accomplishments he won both the Bialk and Israel prizes. 


1977: Menachem Begin became Israel's Prime Minister.  Begin's election marked a major shift in Israeli politics.  Begin was a disciple of Jabotinsky, leader of the Irgun, and the polar opposite of the Labor Zionists who had dominated Israeli politics even before the state had been created.  Begin proved to be more of a pragmatist than had been expected.  He met with Sadat and signed the Camp David Accords which led to the swapping of the Sinai for a peace treaty with Egypt.  Despite international furor, Begin bombed an Iraqi reactor, an action that people came to appreciate after the first Gulf War.  Begin resigned after the death of his wife and went into a state of semi-seclusion. He passed away in 1992.


1977(1st of Sivan, 5737): Rosh Chodesh Sivan


1977: Samuel Lewis, the new U.S. Ambassador to Israel, arrived today to take up his ambassadorial post.


1978: The Jerusalem Post reported the UNIFIL's admission that it had allowed the terrorists to move, together with their arms, into South Lebanon.


1978: The Jerusalem Post reported that the Israeli Government and the Jewish Agency were considering steps how to stop HIAS (the Hebrew Immigrants Aid Society), from helping Russian Jewish emigrants to go to destinations other than Israel. Only 72 out of the 1,086 Jews who left Russiain April, 1978, made their way to Israel.


1978: The Jerusalem Post reported that the Mifal Hapayis designated IL7m. for education and health in the West Bank and Gaza.


1980: In Israel, a stone marker was unveiled in a memorial forest of 3,500 trees which had been created to honor Major Noel S. Jacobs who had commanded the Jewish Company of the Shanghai Volunteer Corps.


1983(6thof Sivan, 5743): Shavuot


1986: Attorney General Yitzhak Zamir “demanded to prosecute Avraham Shalom, head of the GSS” (General Security Service) as part of his investigation into allegations that two terrorists had been murdered by the GSS.


1986: Richard Edelman, President and CEO of Edelman married Rosalind Ann Walrath at the Harvard Club of New York.


1988:Braving a steady rain, 750 supporters of Shimon Peres attended a rally for the Israeli foreign minister at the Stephen Wise Free Synagogue in Manhattan today.


1991: The Associated Press reported that the B. Manischewitz Company was given a $1 million fine by United States District Judge Harold Ackerman for conspiring to fix the price of Passover matzoth. Manischewitz had pleaded no contest to a criminal indictment last month, saying it could not defend charges it conspired to fix prices from 1981 to at least April 1986. The indictment said Manischewitz, based in Jersey City, had conspired to raise the price of $25 million worth of Passover matzoth in cooperation with Horowitz Brothers & Margareten and with Aron Streit Inc., both of New York. Horowitz has since been taken over by Manischewitz. The Government has not said why Horowitz and Aron Striet were not indicted. The merchant banking firm of Kohlberg & Company acquired Manischewitz in January and had nothing to do with the scheme.


1994: Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip in what was supposed to have been one step along the road to peace with the Palestinians.


1995: Simone Veil “born Simone Annie Liline Jacob, the daughter of a Jewish architect” completed her second term as French Minister of Health.


1996(29thof Iyar, 5756): English businessman and racehorse owner Simon Weinstock passes away at the age of 44


1997: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Jacob Two-Two’s First Spy Caseby Mordecai Richler.


2001(25thof Iyar, 5761):Tirza Polonsky, 66, of Moshav Kfar Haim; Miriam Waxman, 51, of Hadera; David Yarkoni, 53, of Netanya; Yulia Tratiakova, 21, of Netanya; and Vladislav Sorokin, 34, of Netanya were killed in a suicide bombing at Hasharon Mall in the seaside city of Netanya, in which over 100 were wounded. Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack (Jewish Virtual Library)


2001(25thof Iyar, 5761):Lt. Yair Nebenzahl, 22, of Neve Tzuf (Halamish), was killed and his mother seriously wounded, in a Palestinian roadside ambush north of Jerusalem.


2002(7thof Sivan, 5762): Second Day of Shavuot


2002(7thof Sivan, 5762): Zypora Spaisman, Polish born American actress and longtime supporter of the Yiddish theatre, passed away at the age of 86.


2003: The New York Times featured books by Jewish writers and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including “Heart, You Bully, You Bully, You Punk” byLeah Hager Cohen.


2003(16thof Iyar, 5763): “Seven people were killed and 20 wounded in a suicide bombing on Egged bus #6 near French Hill in Jerusalem. Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack. Half an hour later, a second suicide bomber was killed when he was intercepted by police at a road block in northern Jerusalem. The victims: Olga Brenner, 52, of Jerusalem; Yitzhak Moyal, 64, of Jerusalem; Nelly Perov, 55, of Jerusalem; Ghalab Tawil, 42, of Shuafat; Marina Tsahivershvili, 44, of Jerusalem; Shimon Ustinsky, 68, of Jerusalem; and Roni Yisraeli, 34, of Jerusalem.”


2003: Steve Averbach “was on a bus heading to work when a Palestinian terrorist dressed as a fervently Orthodox Jew got on board. Averbach realized immediately that he was a suicide bomber. As he reached for his handgun, the terrorist blew himself up, killing seven people and seriously injuring 20, including Averbach. Israel’s internal security ministry later wrote Averbach a letter saying, “An investigation of the incident revealed that you were courageous, brave, and selfless in attempting to prevent a mortal attack.” It said the bomber had planned to blow himself up in the crowded center of town or in the bus station, where the death toll would have been far higher.”


2004: American Jewish Heritage Torah Day as proclaimed by Albany, NY Mayor Kathy Sheehan


2004:The IDF launched Operation Rainbow in response to the deaths of 13 soldiers, the majority of whom were killed after their armored personnel carriers were blown up in the southern Gazan town of Rafah. The goal of the eight-day operation was to uncover weapons-smuggling tunnels along the Philadelphi Corridor, and to prevent the smuggling of Strella shoulder-to-air anti-aircraft missiles from the Sinai into Gaza.


2005: In Belgium, premiere of “Or” (My Treasure) an Israeli-French production that had won five awards at the Cannes Film Festival.


2006:A Sarajevo publisher announced that The Sarajevo Haggadah,a centuries-old Jewish holy book that survived the Spanish inquisition, the Nazi Holocaust and Bosnia's 1992-1995 war has been reprinted in limited editions. The Sarajevo Haggadahwas made into 613 copies on hand-made paper that recreates the appearance of the 14th century original by 95 percent, the head of the Rabic publishing house, Goran Mikulic, told Agence France Presse. The number of copies was chosen to symbolize the number of commandments, or mitzvoth, that Jews are obliged to observe. "The edition was printed in Italy and almost everything was done by hand," Mikulic said. The original handwritten manuscript on bleached calfskin illuminated in copper and gold is the world's oldest Sephardic Haggadah, containing the text recited by Jews on the Passover holiday.


2006: “The White House announced that Donald Kohn had been nominated by President George W. Bush to serve a four year term as the vice chairman of the Federal Reserve System.


2006: Rabbi Ada Zavidov is declared the new chairwoman of the Reform Movement's Rabbinic Council at the opening of the Israel Movement for Progressive Judaism's 18th Biennial Convention.  About 1,000 rabbis and movement members, including Rabbi Elliott Kleinman, vice president of the Unionfor Reform Judaism in Americaattend the conference, which focuses on the Jewish family. Zavidov, granddaughter of Aba Achimeir - one of the founding fathers of the Revisionist Party in pre-state Israel- is the first female Israeli native to chair the rabbinic council.


2007: Rosh Chodesh Sivan, 5767



2007: The fifth season of Kokhav Nolad, the popular Israeli television show, began today.



2007: The five candidates for the leadership of the Labor Party face off in a Labor central committee meeting in Tel Aviv that will decide whether Labor should leave Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's government.



2007: The University of Teramoclosed one of its campuses to prevent a planned lecture by Robert Faurisson, a retired French professor who denies gas chambers were used in Nazi concentration camps.



2008: Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon declared today, "Jewish News of Greater Phoenix Day" in honor of the newspaper's "exemplary service to the community and the Jewish people".



2008: Veteran journalist Jane Eisner was appointed to be the first female editor of the Forward.



2008: The Jewish Historical Society of Greater Washington marks the 60th anniversary of the state of Israel with a series of book talks by Laura Cohen Apelbaum on Jewish Washington: Scrapbook of an American Community (the companion to the award-winning exhibit of the same name) the third of which is held at Barnes & Noble in Rockville, Md.


2008: The New York Times book section featured a review of Common Wealth: Economics for a Crowded Planetby Jeffrey D. Sachs.


2008: The Washington Post book section featured a review of Ellen Feldman’s novel entitled Scottsboro which “painstakingly recreates the infamous Scottsboro case, complete with all the twists and turns and society-exposing foibles.”  Two Jewish lawyers,Samuel Leibowitz and Joseph Brodsky, saved the lives of the defendants in this infamous case.


2008: In Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Temple Judah hosts it’s Temple Wide Picnic marking the close of the Religious School year; farewell until Fall.


2008: The appointment of Jane R. Eisner, former editorial page editor of the Philadelphia Inquirer as editor of The Forward is officially approved at today’s meeting of The Forward Association


2008:  The Quad City Jewish Federation hosts Israeli Yom Ha’Azma’ut Rally in Bettendorf, Iowa featuring Sasha Grishkov, finalist from the Israeli television series A Star is Born (Israeli version of American Idol) who will perform with her Israeli band.


2008: “Pamela's First Musical,” written with Cy Coleman and David Zippel, based on Wendy Wasserstein's children's book, received its world premiere in a concert staging at Town Hall in New York City today.


2009; New York Times columnist Thomas Friedmanaddress the Class of 2009 at Grinnell

College’s commencement exercises where he receives an honorary degree along with


Jodie Levin-Epstein, deputy director of the Center for Law and Social Policy in Washington, D.C.



2009:The Arizona Chapter of the American Jewish Committee presented the Greater Phoenix Jewish News with the RosaLee Shluker Community Service Award in honor of its 60th anniversary.


2009: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meets with President Barak Obama in Washington, D.C.


2009: In an article about The Tribeca/ESPN Sports film festival, Sports Illustrated singles out “A Matter of Size,” an Israeli film about Herzl Musiker, a middle aged fat Israel waiter, who discovers his salvation in the world of Sumo Wrestling.


2009: In a Lecture on Nazi Propaganda at the Library of Congress,Dr. Gabriel Weimann, a Professor of Communication at Haifa University, Israel and at the American University, Washington, D.C., examines the social and psychological mechanisms activated by the sophisticated and powerful Nazi propaganda. The multi-media presentation includes posters, movies, speeches, public events, books, cartoons and other media used by the Nazis.


2009: In the best tradition of genteel British anti-Semitism, movie director Ken Loach called for people to boycott the Edinburgh Film Festival if festival’s sponsors accept a 300 pound grant from the Israeli embassy that will enable “Tel Aviv University graduate Tali Shalom Ezer to travel to Scotland for a screening of her film, ‘Surrogate.’”


2009:Michael Sandel gave the 2009 Reith Lectures on "A New Citizenship" in London


2010(5th of Sivan, 5770): Erev Shavuot


2010:Founding editor of DoubleX Hanna Rosin and Slate editor David Plotz are scheduled to let loose on the Bible while Alyssa Shelasky of Apron Anxiety is scheduled to whip up a dairy dish and Shavuotini for all to taste as part of “The Ten: An Alternative Shavuot Experience” in Washington, D.C.


2011:The YIVO Institute is scheduled to present a special evening with acclaimed novelist Philip Roth during which Roth will read excerpts from his new novel, “Nemesis” which tells the story of a terrifying polio epidemic raging in Newark, New Jersey in the summer of 1944 and its devastating effect on the closely knit, family-oriented community and its children.


2011: Charlotte Dubin, award-winning writer and editor for many publications, including Michigan Jewish History and the Detroit Jewish News is scheduled to receive the Leonard N. Simons History Award at  the Jewish Historical Society of Michigan’s Annual Meeting


2011: Shelomo Alfassá, a writer, author, editor, curator and historian, whose focus has been on Iberian and Ottoman Jewish history, culture and Jewish law, is scheduled to deliver an illustrated lecture that “will give an overview of the history of Sephardic Jews – from Spain and Portugal to New York City” sponsored by the Derfner Judaica Museum at The Hebrew Home at Riverdale, New York City.


2011: David McKenzie is scheduled to deliver a lecture entitled “Jewish Life in Mr. Lincoln's City” sponsored by the Jewish Historical Society of Greater Washington


2011:The "Arbeit Macht Frei” sign stolen from Auschwitz and cut into three pieces has been repaired.  The iron sign was unveiled today in the laboratory of the camp museum. Repairs to the sign, which measures 16 feet across and means "Work makes you free," took several months. It was stolen from the former Nazi concentration camp on Dec. 18, 2009 and recovered elsewhere in the country 72 hours later. It was found cut into three pieces.A copy of the sign has been placed above the entrance gate. The repaired sign will likely become part of a new exhibition, the BBC reported. Five Polish men were convicted of carrying out the theft on behalf of a Swedish citizen, Anders Hogstrom, who acted as a middleman for a neo-Nazi buyer. Hogstrom founded the far-right National Socialist Front party in Sweden in 1994.


2011:Philip Roth, the much-lauded author of "Portnoy's Complaint", won the biennial Man Booker International Prize today, adding to a collection of prizes that includes two National Book Awards.


2012: Facebook, the creation of Mark Zuckerberg is scheduled to have it initial public offering (IPO)


2012:Jewish Primary Day School of the Nation’s Capital, Partnership for Jewish Life and Learning, Temple Micah, Temple Sinai Nursery School and Washington Hebrew Congregation are scheduled to sponsor ShirLaLa Family Shabbat Service and Dinner featuring Shira Klein.


2013: The 721 general assembly commissioners representing the Church of Scotland are scheduled to vote on “The Inheritance of Abraham,” a report which says scripture” provides no basis for Jewish claims to Israel” (As reported by JTA)


2013: The IPO String Trio is scheduled to perform two musicales in the San Francisco Bay area.


2013: In Israel the Indigo Festival on the Sea of Galilee and the Abu Gosh Festival are scheduled to come to an end.


2013: “Bezalel on Tour” will be on view for the first time at G91 Loft in New York City.


2013: Cantor Joel Caplan of Agudath Israel in Caldwell, NJ, will lead Shabbat morning service at Agudas Achim, as the Iowa City congregation dedicates its new facility in suburban Coralville.  Cantor Caplan is the son of Dick and Ellen Caplan, pillars of the Iowa City Jewish community. Cantor Caplan began his Jewish odyssey at Augdas Achim under the guidance of Rabbi Jeff Portman and began his musical odyssey at West High in Iowa City.


2013:The advanced S-300 Russian air defense system, which Moscow has pledged to deliver to Syria, could be transferred to  Hezbollah and beyond, a senior defense official warned today.

2013: There is no chance that Israel could reach a peace agreement with Hamas, Justice Minister Tzipi Livni said this evening in an interview with Army Radio.


2014: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including American Innovations by Rivka Galchen and To Rise at a Decent Hour by University of Iowa graduate Joshua Ferris


2014(18thof Iyar, 5774): Lag B’Omer


2014: “The Sturgeon Queens” is scheduled to be shown at the Rockland County JCC.


2014: In Rockville, MD, as part of the B’nai Israel Distinguished Scholar Series, Mark Smith and Elizabeth Bloch-Smith are scheduled to speak on “Roots of Israelite Monotheism: Evidence from Archaeology & Texts.”


2014: “Jewish reggae star Matisyahu” is scheduled to perform with cantor Jessica Hutchings at Temple Menorah in Redondo Beach, CA.(As reported by Renee Ghert-Zand)


2014: “The “Holocaust Cellar” is scheduled to open today, as part of the Holocaust museum located in Wiesel’s pre-World War II home, which sits in the old Jewish Ghetto of Sighet in Maramures County.

2014: The Jewish Federation of Greater Washington is scheduled to host “Israel@66” celebrating Israel’s 66th birthday

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

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May 19


 
363: For a second day in a row, a series of earthquakes that took place along a fault-line stretching from the Dead Sea to the Gulf of Aqaba shook the region around the Galilee. According to some, this seismic event was part of the reason the Temple in Jerusalem was not rebuilt despite Emperor Julian’s support for the project.

 
1103 (10 Iyar 4063): Isaac Alfasi passed away. Born in Fez in 1013, he is also known as the "RIF". He compiled the first codification of Jewish law, called Sefer Halachot. It still appears today in every volume of the Talmud. Joseph Caro later used it as a basis for his work. Sefer Halachot was the most important codex until Maimonides'Mishna Torah. Alfasi was 25 years old when Hai Gaon died. He was called Gaon by many authorities and his death marked the very end of that (Gaonic) period. His students included Judah Halevi and Josef ibn Migash.

 
1588: The Spanish Armada set sail from Lisbon.  The Armada was the most massive fleet of its day including 130 ships and 30,000 soldiers and sailors.  The Armada was designed to take control of the English Channeland facilitate the invasion of Englandfrom the Netherlands.  The English were at a great a disadvantage in terms of ships and manpower.  The all important question was when would the Armada begin its trip north?  Until the English knew this they would not when or where to make their first move.  Dr. Hector Nunes, a secret Jew living in England provided the information about the Spanish departure.  The Jews may have played a small part in one of the great turning points in history, but it was a small part that made a big difference.

 
1604: The city of Montreal was founded today. Jews would not start arriving in Montreal until the 18th century following the British defeat of the French.  Today Montreal boasts a vibrant Jewish community number approximately 90,000 which some describe as the “most Orthodox” in North America.  However it has lost its position as the leading Jewish community in Canada to Toronto because of the rise of the French separatists and their political party, Parti Quebecois.

 
1707(17thof Iyar, 5647): Chief Rabbi Saul ben Joshua Heschel passed away today in Breslau while on his to Amsterdam.

 
1771: Birthdate of Rahel Levin, the prominent 19th century literary figure who converted when she married and gained fame as Rahel Varnhagen who was the subject of a biography by Hannah Arendt, Rahel Varnhagen: The Life of a Jewess.

 
1762: Birthdate of German philosopher and anti-Semite Johann Gottlieb Fichte who “in his defense of the ideals of the French Revolution in 1793, singled out Jews and Judaism as constituting a ‘state-within-a-state’ that was ‘predicated on the hatred of the entire human race’ and ‘spreading through almost all lands of Europe and terribly oppressing its citizens.’”

 
1769:Giovanni Vincenzo Antonio Ganganelli, who as councilor to the Holy Office had issued a memorandum declaring that the Jews were innocent of the “Blood Libel”, was elected Pope Clement XIV today.

 
1792: The Russian army entered Poland.  Ultimately Poland would be partitioned among its three imperial neighbors.  Much to the dismay of the Russians, the partition brought them a large mass of Jews, something they found quite upsetting to say the least.

 
1802: The Légion d'Honneur is founded by Napoleon Bonaparte. Among the Jewish recipients are Rabbi Langer of New York’s Congregation Orach Chaim, Rabbi David Feuerwerker,a veteran of the French Army who served with the Marquis during World War II, David Saul Marshall, political leader in Singapore and Victor Attias and Henry Smadja who were members of the Jewish Resistance in Tunisia during World War II.

 
1818: Eliza Frances (née Campbell) and Mr. Lionel Prager Goldsmid, an officer in the 19th Dragoons, and a scion of the well-known London family of that name whose maternal grandmother's father was Revolutionary War aide-de-camp David Franks gave birth to Sir John Goldsmid who would rise to the rank of Major General in the British Army

 
1820(6thof Sivan, 5599): Jews in the United States celebrate  Shavuot in tranquility since the nation has just avoided a potential breakup over the issue of slavery with the adoption of the Missouri Compromise

 
1839(6thof Sivan, 5599): As American Jews celebrate Shavuot they are forced to contend with an economic panic that will continue to cause ripples into the next decade.

 
1858(6thof Sivan, 5618): Less than a month before Abraham Lincoln delivered his “House Divided Speech” American Jews celebrate Shavuot

 
1860: The New York Times reviewed The Throne of David by Rev. J.H. Ingraham, which “illustrates the grandeur of the Hebrews at the height of their power and splendor.”

 
1861: In San Francisco, CA, J. P. Davis, the President of  the Hebra Bikur Holim, (Society for Visiting the Sick) presented a new Torah Scroll to Congregation of Sherith Israel.

 
1863(1st of Sivan, 5623): Rosh Chodesh Sivan

 
1863(1st of Sivan, 5623):Jonas Ennery passed away. Born at Nancy, France, in 1801, he worked at the Jewish School of Strasbourg for 26 years.  In 1843 he published “Le Sentier d’Israel” and he helped to edit "Prières d'un Cœur Israélite," (Prayers of a Jewish Heart) which was published in 1848. Despite anti-Jewish rioting in Alsace, Ennery was elected representative to the French National Assembly as a representative for the department of the Lower Rhine. After the coup d'état that brought Louis Napoleon to power Ennery was exiled forced into exile.  He moved to Brussels, where he lived as a teacher until his death. Ennery's brother, Marchand Ennery, was the chief rabbi of Paris.

 
1866(5th of Sivan): Seventy-six year old Solomon Ludwig Steinheim the German philosopher passed away.  The Salomon Ludwig Steinheim Institute was named in his honor.

 
1867: According to reports published today, The Hebrew Educational Society of Baltimore has adopted the Christian plan of Sabbath school instruction.

 
1871(28thof Iyar): Meir Halevi Letteris passed away

 
1873: “The New Home for Aged and Infirmed Hebrews” published today described the opening of this facility in New York City which was first envisioned by Mrs. Henry Leo in 1870.  She enlisted the support of the Bnai Jeshurun Benevolent Society to help her make the home a reality.  Unfortunately, Mrs. Leon did not live to see the her dream come to fruition.

 
1878: According to todays “Home and Foreign Events” column “at the suggestion of the Board of Delegates of American Israelites, the Alliance Israelita Universelle will issue invitations for a conference of representatives of the Jew Jewish organizations of Europe and America.  The conference will be held in Paris and it will be open to the discussion of all subjects affecting the interests of Judaism.”

 
1873: Sixty two year old German psychiatrist  Carl Friedrich Stahl, whose parents had become Lutherans while he a small child, passed away today.

 
1879: An article published today entitled “The Rothschild Family: The Greatest Financiers of the Age,” purports to provide “an authentic history of the Rothschilds in Frankfort, London, Paris and Vienna” including how the founder of the family acquired his wealth and anecdotes about “family peculiarities.

 
1879: Joseph H. De Meza “a young Cuban Jew” was arrested today for stealing clothing from Mrs. Charles A. Lillie in New York City. De Meza came to Mrs. Lillie’s home and asked for “an outfit of her husband’s clothing” claiming that the husband had fallen into the East River at the Fulton Ferry and that he had sent De Meza to get a dry outfit.

 
1879: “Sunday Services for Hebrews” published today described reaction among various Jewish leaders to the recently announced plans by Temple Emanuel to start holding “Sabbath” services on Sunday.

 
1880: Eighteen year old Matthew Nathan, the son of Jonah Nathan joined the Royal Engineers

 
1880: It was reported today that Joseph Seligman’s will names his widow, Babet, as executrix of his estate, and his brothers James and Jesse and his son David as executors. The will provides that they may use $25,000 for contributions to the charities of their choice and sets up the terms for the disbursement of his estate so that it will provide for his wife and his children.

 
1881: In Paris, Adelaide and Baron Edmond de Rothschild gave birth to their second child Maurice.

 
1882(1stof Sivan, 5642): Rosh Chodesh Sivan

 
1882: The Leadville, CO Jewish community suffered a financial loss when a building owned by New Yorkers Caesar J. Kaskel and Jacob Michaels burned.  The building was the home to a clothing store managed by Julius W. Kaskel.

 
1882: As part of a blood libel investigation an entourage of mounted policemen arrived in Tisza-Eszlar, a small Hungarian village. The investigation revolved around the disappearance of a fourteen year old Catholic housemaid named Esther Solymossy. 

 
1882: In Tisza-EszlarJoszef Sharf, custodian of the local synagogue and his wife were arrested in connection with the disappearance of Esther Solymosi, a Christian peasant girl fourteen years old whom the locals claim was the victim of a Jewish blood lust.


 

1886: The future Sir Mathew Nathan was promoted to the rank of Captain in the Royal Engineers

 
1887: Fifty-five year old Otto Stobbe, the gentile German historian who is best known for “a scholarly work on Jews in Germany during the Middle Ages called Die Juden in Deutschland während des Mittelalters

 
1889(18th of Iyar, 5649): Lag B'Omer

 
1890: Samuel Hutch, a Jewish peddler was seen alive for the last time near Wurtsborough, NY.

 
1890: “New Publications” published today includes a review of A Visit of Japheth to Shem and Ham

 
1891: Barney Greenman, a fourteen year old Jewish boy came to the Barge Office in New York and asked the immigration officials to send him back to Rotterdam.

 
1891: The Czar has issued a new proclamation or “ukase” ordering the expulsion of the Jews from the Asiatic provinces of the Russian Empire.

 
1894: “Literary Notes” published today described the upcoming publication of Christopher Columbus and the Participation of the Jews in the Spanish and Portuguese Discoveries by Dr. Meyer Kayserling, the German born rabbi and historian.

 
1895: “Hebrew Home to be Mortgaged” published today described plans by the managers of the Home for Aged and Infirm Hebrews of New York City to build a new facility with funds gained from taking out a mortgage on the property at 106thStreet and Columbus Avenue.

 
1895: Most of the 4,000 “uptown people” who had been invited to a tea at the Hebrew Institute attended this event which gave them a chance to observe the various activities of the educational organization.

 
1895: “In A Wide Labor Field” published today provided a detailed description of the work of the Educational Alliance which was formed in 1892 under the direction of the Hebrew Free School Association, the Young Men’s Hebrew Association and the Aguillar Free Library Society

 
1896: The village of Metula was founded with funds supplied by Baron Rothschild.  Metula was the northern most town in Palestine and would become the northern most town in Israel.  Metula is close to the border with Lebanon

 
1896: In Birmingham, England, Jewish immigrants Laura (nee Greenberg) and Louis Balcon gave birth to movie producer Sir Michael Elias Balcan

 
1896: Herzl is received by Agliardi, the Papal Nuncio in Vienna.

 
1897: Oscar Wilde is released from Reading Gaol.  In The Picture of Dorian Gray,” Wilde created a Jewish theatre manager named Isaacs whom he describes as “A hideous Jew, in the most amazing waistcoat I ever beheld in my life, was standing at the entrance, smoking a vile cigar. He had greasy ringlets, and an enormous diamond blazed in the centre of a soiled shirt…He was such a monster.” This does not mean he was an anti-Semite.  After all, Ada Leverson, the English Jewess, invited Wilde to her Salon after he had been arrested.

 
1898: “Gladstone’s Career” published today contained a summary of the late English political leaders life including his rivalry with Disraeli which began with a battle over the budget when Gladstone was made Chancellor of the Exchequer and continued even after Disraeli took his seats in the House of Lords.

 
1899: The new Hebrew Charities Building that was dedicated yesterday “will provide accommodation for the relief work of the United Hebrew Charities, afford convenient offices and meeting rooms for…various Jewish charitable and philanthropic enterprises” and to provide a meeting place large enough to accommodate gatherings of those supporting various Jewish agencies and institutions.

 
1899: “At Grenoble, a hostile crowd” followed “notorious Jew baiter Max Regis” as he made his way to the railway station following his acquittal “on the charge of inciting murder and incendiarism.”

 
1899: At Grenoble “a mob marched to the Officers’ Club cheering for Dreyfus” which touched off a riot.

 
1899: In Algiers, fifty anti-Semitic rioters were arrested when a mob marched on the Jewish quarter.

 
1901: Herzl sends a letter to the Sultan and asks for a final audience before his departure.

 
1903: Menachem Ussishkin arrives in Viennato prepare for his visit to Palestineto make land purchases for the Geulah Committee and to organize the Yishuv.

 
1906: Birthdate of Gerd Bucerius, the German journalist and lawyer whose Jewish wife took refuge in the United Kingdom when the Nazis came to power.  He remained behind and defended numerous Jewish clients facing charges from the German authorities.

 
1907(6thof Sivan, 5667): Shavuot

 
1908(18th of Iyar, 5668): Lag B'Omer

 
1909:  Birthdate of composer Shlomo Yoffe or Schlomo Joffe. Born in Warsaw he studied piano theory in Samara, Russia from 1918 until 1921 and, in 1924 in Warsaw joined the Zionist movement Hashomer Hatza'ir, playing the mandolin, tuba, baritone and clarinet in its folk orchestras. He graduated from the Teachers' Seminarium in Poznan (Poland) in 1928, and in 1930, following agricultural studies in Brno(Czechoslovakia), moved to Palestine, helping to establish a kibbutz in 1932. Only after 1940 did he begin to be involved with music again, at first teaching and arranging music at the kibbutz Beit Alpha. After a period of concentrated study (1947-53), with Prof. J. Tal and Prof. O. Partos at the New Jerusalem Academy of Music, and privately with A.A. Boskovich, he devoted himself to composition and teaching at the district conservatory for kibbutzim at Beth-She'an Valley, where he was director until 1973. In the 1950s, under Boskovitch's influence, he used elements of Near Eastern Jewish song, maqam, heterophony and a form of chromatic modality, often in the expression of biblical and Israeli dramas, for example in the cantata "Tales of Mount Gilboa" (953), but also in his Prokofiev-like neo-classical symphonic works. These features remained evident in later works, despite the influence of Schoenbrg in the compositions of the 1960s and the influences that followed a visit to Darmstadtin 1962 and meetings with Lutoslawski and Penderecki. His cantata "Rising Night after Night" (1978), for example, exhibits many contemporary aspects, including extended vocal techniques, clusters and a deformed folk melody, but despite these developments, Joffe always remained, through his teaching, association and biblical roots, a 'kibbutz composer'.

 
1909: Birthdate of Sir Nicholas George Winton, MBE a Briton who organized the rescue of 669 mostly Jewish children from German-occupied Czechoslovakia on the eve of the Second World War in an operation later known as the Czech Kindertransport. Winton found homes for them and arranged for their safe passage to Britain. The UK press has dubbed him the "British Schindler".


1911: The Turkish government instructs its Minister at Teheran to protest the Persian government attacks against lives and property of Ottoman Jews at Kermanshah.



1911: The King of Italy confers Knighthood of Order of Crown on Rabbi Abraham Elbgen, Chief Rabbi of Crete.



1911: Jews of Constantinople take a prominent part in the celebrations of the anniversary of the Sultan's accession to the throne.



1911: Plans are made in Cairo to form a Federation of Synagogues.


 
1914:  Birthdate of Max Perutz, Austrian-born British molecular biologist who won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1962.

 
1915(6thof Sivan, 5675): Shavuot observed for the first time during WW I.

 
1918: Birthdate of Louis Sachwald, who was among the brave American soldiers who battled the Japanese during the dark days of WW II at Corregidor and survived a brutal imprisonment to become a successful business man in Maryland

 
1918: Birthdate of Abraham (Bram) Pais a Dutch-born American physicist and science historian.

 
1919: In Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk moves to Samsun from Istanbul with a few followers, to oppose the Ottoman government, which eventually leads to the Turkish War of Independence and the creation of the modern Turkish state. As part of his reform programs Ataturk made religious faith a matter of individual conscience. He created a truly secular system in Turkey, where the vast Moslem majority and the small Christian and Jewish minorities are free to practice their faith. As a result of Atatürk's reforms, Turkey -unlike scores of other countries- has fully secular institutions.

 
1919:The twenty-sixth biennial council of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations begins in Boston.

 
1921: The Emergency Quota Act passes the U.S. Congress establishing national quotas on immigration. Because of the convoluted quota system established by this law, immigration from southern and eastern Europe effectively came to an end.  This had the effect of closing the American Door for the Jews of Eastern Europe and Russia.  The strict enforcement of this law would also mean that European Jews would have no place to go when Hitler came to power.
1926(6th of Sivan, 5686): Shavuot

 
1928: Birthdate of NBA great Adolph "Dolph" Schayes.

 
1930: The world executive of the Mizrachi (Orthodox Zionists) sent a telegram to Dr. Chaim Weizmann today calling for an immediate meeting of Zionist congress that would address the announcement by the British High Commissioner to suspend immigration to Palestine.  The appeal stated that “the new immigration ban reveals a new British government tendency to disregard the principles of the mandate.”  This “tendency endangers the Zionist work.”  Protests against the new British policy are already taking place in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and the Emek Valley. The Jewish Agency and the Vaad Leumi are meeting in a joint session to deal with this issue.

 
1934: In Brooklyn Rabbi Isaac Landman is scheduled to deliver a sermon entitled “Two Sets of Commandments” at Congregation Beth Elohim.

 
1934: Rabbi I. Mortimer Bloom is scheduled to deliver a sermon entitled “The Reign of Law” at Temple Oheb Shalom.

 
1934: Rabbi Louis I. Newman is scheduled to deliver a sermon entitled, "Goebbels' Speech and the Madison Square Garden Meeting-What Do They Conceal?" at Congregation Rodeph Sholom

 
1934:Dr. Samuel H. Goldenson is scheduled to deliver a sermon entitled “Who is Who-With Respect to Life's Values" at New York’s Temple Emanu-El.

 
1934(5th of Sivan, 5694): Erev Shavuot

 
1934:Rabbi Milton Steinberg is scheduled to lead Shavuot Services at Park Avenue Synagogue at 6 p.m. this evening.

 
1935: T. E. Lawrence, known as Lawrence of Arabia, died from injuries suffered in a motorcycle accident. Lawrence is connected in the popular mind with his role in providing British support for the Arab Revolt during World War I.  But Lawrence was not one of those British Arabists who were, at best, disdainful of the Jewish people. As can be seen from the following, Lawrencewelcomed the settlement of the Jewish community in Palestine. “In 1919 Lawrence drafted a letter for Emir Feisal for a meeting with Felix Frankfurter, a leader of American Zionists. In his letter Feisal wished “the Jews a hearty welcome home” and asserted “our two movements complete one another.” “There is room in Syria for both of us” he concluded. The letter was published in the New York Times on March 5, 1919. In “The Changing East,” Lawrencewrote of “the Jewish experiment” as a conscious effort, on the part of the least European people in Europe, to make head against the drift of the aces, and return once more to the Orient from which they came. The colonists will take back with them to the land which they occupied for some centuries before the Christian era samples of all the knowledge and technique of Europe. They propose to settle down amongst the existing Arab-speaking population of the country, a people of kindred origin, but far different social condition. They hope to adjust their mode of life to the climate of Palestine, and by the exercise of their skill and capital to make it as highly organised as a European state. The success of their scheme will involve inevitably the raising of the present Arab population to their own material level, only a little after themselves in point of time, and the consequences might be of the highest importance for the future of the Arab world. It might well prove a source of technical supply rendering them independent of industrial Europe, and in that case the new confederation might become a formidable element of world power. However, such a contingency will not be for the first or even for the second generation, but it must be borne in mind in any laying out of foundations of empire in Western Asia “
1936(27th of Iyar, 5696):“A 43 year old Jew named, Feivil Schnitzer, was shot and killed early this morning by an Arab in the Armenian quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem. It was the twenty- sixth murder of a Jew by Arabs since the present disturbances began, and in every case the assassins are still at large.”
1936: “Tel Aviv celebrated the inauguration of its new port today.  Tens of thousands gathered around a provisional jetty to watch the arrival and unloading of two steamers with cargoes of cement.” Tel Aviv’s aged and ailing Mayor, Meir Dizengoff, left his sick bed to watch the Jewish porters unloading bags of cement. “Now that my eyes have sevenths, I am ready to die.”
1937(9th of Sivan, 5697): Eighty two year old Samuel Sale who had served as Rabbi for Congregation Shaare Emeth in St. Louis from 1887 to 1919 passed away today.
1938: Simon W. Gerson, an aide to Manhattan Borough President Stanley M. Isaacs spent three hours testifying before the Joint Legislative Committee on Law Administration and Enforcement chaired by state senator John J. McNaboe.  The committee spent very little time questioning Gerson about the aleteration of his name on Municipal Court records in the a rent case which was supposed to be the focus of the hearing and a lot of time questioning Gerson about his political views.  Gerson, who was Jewish, was a self-described Communist who, along with his wife, has been very critical of the American political and economic system. His boss, Borough President Isaacs was also Jewish but he was a leading member of the Republican Party. 
1939: In defiance of the White Paper, 309 “illegal Jewish immigrants” landed on the “shores of Southern Palestine.”  Before they were discovered by British troops, the group, including 74 women and 14 children were attacked by an armed mob of Arab villagers.
1940: Today is the last day on which Hans Rey would paint his illustrations on French soil.
1941: Birthdate of Nora Ephron.  Born in New York to parents who were dramatists, Ephron attended Wellesley.  She has been a novelist, screenwriter and director.  Some of her hits include “Sleepless in Seattle,” “Michael” and “Heartburn.”  She was married to Carl Bernstein.


1941: The Palmach ("peluggot mahaz" - "assault companies") commando units were established by Yitzhak Sade as a defense from any Axis (Germany and Italy) attack on Eretz Israel. Later they assisted in planning and executing the dropping of Parachutists in occupied Europe. At its peak (November 1947) it had approximately 5000 members which were mainly responsible for capturing Safed and Tiberias as well helping to open the road to Jerusalem.


1943: Liberal Judaism, a new illustrated monthly journal of opinion and letters, has been issued by The Union of Hebrew Congregations, it was announced today. The cover of the first, or May, issue, published last Saturday, is dedicated to the memory of Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise, founder of Reform Judaism in the United States.


1943: Berlin was declared "Judenrein", Jew Free.


1943: In the House of Commons, the courageous Eleanor Rathbone attacked the British government for the defeatist attitudes expressed at the Bermuda Conference and noted that the Allies are responsible for the deaths of any Jews if they refuse to help.


1943: Ben Hecht’s “We Will Never Die”was performed at the Chicago Stadium, with guest stars John Garfield and Burgess Meredith in the lead roles. An estimated 20,000 people attended as the stadium, “scene of many a hectic convention and gaudy circus, was turned into a house of worship,” as the Chicago Daily News put it.[Jewish Virtual Library]


1944(26th of Iyyar, 5704): Jews deported from Paris to Kovno, Lithuania, are machine-gunned by guards in a fenced enclosure after some of the prisoners attack SS troops.


1944: The Germans transport Hungarian Jew Joel Brand to Turkey so he could deliver a proposal from Adolf Eichmann that would have required the Western Allies to exchange 10,000 trucks for one million Eastern European Jews. Eichmann called it "blood for trucks." Arrested by the British, Brand was sent to Lord Moyne (resident minister of state in the Middle East), who comments: "What shall I do with those million Jews?"


1944:Mel Mermelstein the man who would defeat the Institute for Historical Review in an American court and had the occurrence of gassings in Auschwitz during the Holocaust declared a legally incontestable fact was deported to Auschwitz along with the rest of the Jewish community of Munkacs, which was part of Czechoslovakia at that time.


1945(7thof Sivan, 5705): For the first time since VE Day, Yizkor is recited on the 2ndday of Shavuot.


1948: Israeli forces abandoned Bet ha-Aravah and the potash works on the northern end of the Dead Sea.


1948: The provisional government of Israel declared a state of emergency.


1948: As the undermanned and outgunned Israeli units sought to keep the Syrians and Iraqis from taking the Jordan Valley, a second raid, by a Yiftach company, crossed the Jordan and struck the Syrian camp at the Customs House, near the main Bnot Yaakov Bridge After a short battle, the Syrian defenders (one or two companies) fled. The Palmachniks destroyed the camp and several vehicles, including two armored cars, without losses.”


1948:The Iraqis, who were about to drive west through Nablus toward Tulkarm, “asked the Syrians to make a diversion in the Degania area to protect their right flank. The Syrians complied, their main objective being to seize the bridge across the river north of Degania Alef, thus blocking any Israeli attack from Tiberias against the Iraqi line of communications.”


1948: During the War for Independencetwo civilian leaders from Kibbutz Deganya arrive at Ben Gurion’s offices begging for help in fighting off the attacking Syrian armored column.  Ben Gurion responded candidly “We don’t have enough artillery, enough airplanes. Every front needs reinforcements.  The situation is extremely grave in the Negev, in the Jerusalem area and in the Upper Galilee.”  And if anything, Ben Gurion was understating the desperate situation.  So far the only help he had to send to Deganya was Moshe Dayan who had little more than his eye-patch with which to face the Syrians, Iraqis and Jordanians.  Ben Gurion sent the two leaders to Yigal Yadin, his Chief of Staff.  Yadin listens to the report and then advises them to let the Syrian tanks breach the kibbutz so that the defenders can disable them with Molotov cocktails.  Their angry response shocks Yadin into action.  If Daganya is lost the North is lost.  With the Egyptians advancing from the Negev and the Arab Legion besieging Jerusalem, Yadin’s position seems more like Custer than King David.  Yadin meets with Ben Gurion. In a table-pounding dispute, Yadin attempts to convince the Old Man to send four 65 millimeter artillery pieces that had been intended for Jerusalem north to Deganya.  This is the sum total of the Israeli artillery reserve and the weapons lack sights (you know, the things you aim the gun with).  Ben Gurion agrees to send two of the canon North with Dayan under the condition that they be returned promptly to help with the fighting around Jerusalem. 


1948: The provisional government council of Israel proclaimed a state of emergency.


1948: "A tiny force of the Palmach took Mount Zion and broke through to the Jewish Quarter."  The unit was forced to withdraw several hours later when reinforcements could not come to their aid.


1950(3rdof Sivan, 5710): Eighty year old “German-born rabbi, Jewish theologian, and philosopher of religion” Julius Guttman, the son of Rabbi Jakob Guttman who was serving Professor of Jewish Philosophy at Hebrew University passed away today.


1950(3rd of Sivan, 5710):  The Aliyah of Iraqi Jews began. The first deportation of Eretz Yisrael Jews to Babylonia took place in 597 B.C.E. The bulk of Eretz Yisrael Jewry followed them to Babylonia 11 years later, in 568 B.C.E. The first return of some Babylonian Jews to Eretz Yisrael took place in 539 B.C.E. The majority, however, remained in Babylonia, where they were destined eventually to make a major contribution to Judaism through the creation of the Babylonian Talmud and the Geonic Responsa.” It was not until 1951, 2,548 years after the arrival of the first Jewish deportees in Babylonia, that this ancient Jewish community began its own liquidation through an Aliyahto Israel.


1951(13th of Iyar, 5711): David Remez passed away.  Born David Drabkin in Russia in May of 1886, he made Aliyah in 191.  Trained as a lawyer and teacher, he worked as field hand on several agricultural settlements. A founding member of Mapai and a leader of Histadrut, he was a true founding father as one of the signatories to Israel’s Declaration of Independence.  He was the first Minister of Transportation and was serving as Minister of Education at the time of his death.

 
1951: Menachem Cohen became an MK replacing the deceased David Remez.


1953(5th of Sivan, 5713): Erev Shavuot


1953:A call went to 3,750 Jewish communities throughout the country, to assure the successful financing this summer of the most important agricultural development program to be launched in Israel since the establishment of the state, was issued here today by the United Jewish Appeal on the eve of Shavuos, the Festival of Pentecost, which in the ancient days celebrated the appearance of the first fruits of summer.The appeal was made by Rabbi Jonah B. Wise, a national chairman of the UJA. "There can be no greater observance of this ancient festival commemorating Jewish attachment to the soil than support of the United Jewish Appeals current special effort to help Israel achieve agricultural self-sufficiency and maturity." he said.Rabbi Wise called specific attention to a special emergency drive for $25,000,000 in cash launched by the UJA for a five-week period beginning May 1. The cash fund is being sought for establishment in Israel by the end of June of 36 new agricultural settlements, for the immediate channeling to the new colonies of large, recently-discovered water sources, and for speeding a rise in the productivity both of the soil and those newly placed on it as immigrant farmers.


1954: Nicholas Winton, a Briton who organized the rescue of 669 mostly Jewish children from German-occupied Czechoslovakia on the eve of the Second World War relinquished his commission of “flying officer” in the RAF while retaining the rank of “flight lieutenant.”



1959: As reported in today’s New York Times, Richard Tucker was among those who appeared at the “Puccini Night” open air concert at Lewisohn Stadium in New York City. The stadium was named in honor of Adolph Lewisohn, the German-Jewish banker who donated the money to pay for its construction.



1962: Birthdate of French journalist and musician Ariel Wizman the Sephardic Jew from Casablanca, Morocco.



1966: The emblem for the Israeli town of Arad, a square with a hill and a flame, was adopted today.



1969: Palestinian terrorists from Jordan bombard the Musa Alami School near Jericho.



1972(6th of Sivan, 5732): Shavuot



1972: The Bernard M. Baruch College of the City University of New York scheduled final exams today.  It was the only college in the system to do so.  (The exams would be moved to May 30 after a major protest led by Hillel, the ADL and other major Jewish organizations.)



1974(27th of Iyar, 5734): Sandy Sasso wasordained as the first female Reconstructionist rabbi by the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in Philadelphia


1975: The New Yorker published “The New York Review of Gossip” by Marshall Brickman.


1977:A bi-national foundation, designed to promote joint industrial research and development between the United States and Israel was established in Washington today at a formal ceremony between Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for International Affairs C. Fred Bergsten and Israeli Ambassador Simcha Dinitz. The move to establish the Bi-national Industrial Research and Development Foundation, followed President Carter's signing into law Congressional legislation which stipulated that Israel and the U.S. would each contribute $30 million to create an endowment to promote activities of mutual interest and benefit to both countries. An agreement for the project was signed in Jerusalem March 3, 1976. The Joint Israel-American Committee for Investment and Trade, whose objective is to foster economic ties, initiated the project which is expected to provide direct mutual economic gains such as the development and participation in new external markets and increase the flow of materials and services between the two countries. According to a spokesman for the Government of Israel Investment Authority, which is headquartered in New York, the Foundation "is the first of its kind established between the United States and another country." For a project to be supported by the Foundation it must show promise of tangible direct benefits to the national economies of both countries, according to a statement issued by the U.S. Treasury Department. The Foundation will be governed by a board consisting of three officials of each government (JTA)


1980: Time magazine reported today that “Died: Arthur Levitt, 79, 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.”


1981: Former Finance Minister Yigal Hurvitz joins Moshe Dayan's Telem party.


1983(7thof Sivan, 5743): Second Day of Shavuot, Yizkor


1985(28thof Iyar, 5745): Yom Yerushalayim


1985: Two famous Jewish men of letters are joined together in Harold Bloom’s review of Zuckerman Bound by Philip Roth


1988: Shimon Peres is scheduled to address commencement ceremonies at the Jewish Theological Seminary this afternoon.


1989(14th of Iyar, 5749): Dr. Abel J Herzberg passed away.  Dr. Abel J. Herzberg was a lawyer in Amsterdam when he was arrested in 1943, along with his wife, and taken to the Dutch transit camp at Westerbork. He was sent to Bergen-Belsen in January 1944 and, as a Zionist, he was put on the list of 1300 Jews who were available to be sent to Palestine in exchange for German citizens held as prisoners by the Allies. He was on the list of 272 Jews who were selected in April 1944 to go to Palestine, but at the last minute 50 names were crossed off the list and Dr. Herzberg had to go back into the Star Camp with the other Dutch Jews. Dr. Herzberg survived and after the war, he went back to being a lawyer in Amsterdam. He published the diary that he kept in Bergen-Belsen.  It appeared in English under the title, “Between Two Streams: A Diary From Bergen-Belsen.”


1989: Morton Isaac Abramowitz completed his term as Director of the Bureau of Intelligence and Research which left him free to accept appointment as U.S. Ambassador to Turkey.


1993(28thof Iyar, 5763): Yom Yerushalayim


1996(1st of Sivan, 5756): Rosh Chodesh Sivan


1997: David Blaine's first television special, David Blaine: Street Magic aired on then NBC


1999: Conductor Yakov Kreizberg made his debut appearance with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra.


2000: In U.K., release date for “One Day in September,” a documentary that examined the murder of the Israeli athletes at the 1972 Summer Olympics.


2002: In The Observer Michael Sfard the lawyerrepresenting Israeli conscripts who refuse to serve beyond the 1967 ceasefire lines explains why a growing number of soldiers are disobeying orders, in order to protect the basic values on which Israel was founded.


2002(8thof Sivan, 5762):Yosef Haviv, 70, Victor Tatrinov, 63, and Arkady Vieselman, 40, all of Netanya, were killed and 59 people were injured - 10 seriously - when a suicide bomber, disguised as a soldier, blew himself up in the market in Netanya. Both Hamas and the PFLP took responsibility for the attack. “Viselman, a chef at the Park Hotel had survived the Passover bombing” that had taken place in March.


2003: Forensic experts said today that the second terrorist who had participated in the bombing of Mike’s Place had met death by drowning. Hamas and Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades who had claimed joint responsibility for the murderous attack identified the terrorist and his compatriot as being Muslims from Great Britain.


2004(28th of Iyar, 5764): Yom Yerushalayim - Jerusalem Day - is the anniversary of the liberation and unification of Jerusalem under Jewish sovereignty that occurred during the Six Day War. Yom Yerushalayim is celebrated on the 28th of the month of Iyar(one week before Shavuot). In 2004 Iyar 28 corresponds to May 19 on the secular calendar.


2005(10th of Iyar, 5765): Steven Budeysky, a member of the U.S. Army’s 105th Military Intelligence Battalion was killed today while serving in Iraq.  “Budeysky was born in Moldova in the former Soviet Union and went on to learn English as part of a singing group that toured Europe. When Budeysky was 12 years old, he and his family immigrated to the United States, settling in Chicago, where he attended Ida Crown Jewish Academy. He was also known as Baruch or Boris to his friends. A 2001 graduate of Northwestern University with a degree in economics and history, Budeysky was pursuing a graduate degree in political science from Troy University when he enlisted in the Army in 2002.” (As reported by Forwards)


2006:The Jewish Chroniclerevealed that the Claims Conference highest-paid official, executive vice-president Gideon Taylor was awarded $437,811 (£240,000) in salary and pension (2004 numbers).  An advisor to British survivors in compensation claims in the 1990s, Dr Pinto-Duschinsky, commented: "It is wrong for the executive vice-president to earn annually the same as the compensation for several hundred former slave laborers. The moral authority of the leading Jewish organizations is gravely weakened by excessively high salaries for top officials."


2006: “Long, long ago, when basketball was kosher” an article published in Haaretz today described a gathering of about 125 Yeshiva University (YU) alumni and friends at the school's Jerusalem campus  for a nostalgic evening with "The YU Dream Team of the 1950s" - six former basketball players from New York City who later immigrated to Israel.


2006(21st of Iyar, 5766): Yitzhak Ben-Aharon,the last founding giant of Israel’s left wing, died two months short of his 100th birthday. A controversial figure on the Israeli political scene, he was one of the first to call for the return of all territories occupied by Israel in the June 1967 Arab-Israeli war, and reached the peak of his career as secretary-general of the Histadrut, Israel’s trade union federation.


2007:After a two-month tryout at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, England, a London revival of “Fiddler on the Roof” opened today  at the Savoy Theatre starring Henry Goodman as Tevye, Beverley Klein as Golde, Alexandra Silber as Hodel, Damian Humbley as Perchik and Victor McGuire as Lazar Wolf. The production was directed by Lindsay Posner. Robbins' choreography was recreated by Sammy Dallas Bayes (who did the same for the 1990 Broadway revival), with additional choreography by Kate Flatt.


2007: After 13 performances at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, the Felicja Blumental International Music Festival comes to a close.


2008: At the Israel Museum opening of an exhibition entitled “Swords into Plowshares
The Isaiah Scroll and Its Message of Peace.” On the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the State of Israel, the IsraelMuseum presents the longest, best preserved, and most complete Dead Sea Scroll document ever found, in a special installation in the Shrine of the Book.

 

2008: At the Stephan Wise Free SynagogueStephan Wise Free SynagogueStephan Wise Free SynagogueStephan Wise Free SynagogueStephan Wise Free SynagogueStephan Wise Free SynagogueStephan Wise Free SynagogueStephen Wise Free Synagogue in New York, an evening of Israeli music entitled “The Sharett Sisters in Concert.”


2008 (5768): Pesach Sheini


2009: Time magazine reports on the recent passing of “Jewish boxer Salamo Arouch” at the age of 86.  Arouch survived the Holocaust by winning boxing matches staged by the guards at Auschwitz.  “He was the subject of the film ‘Triumph of the Spirit’ starring Willem Dafoe.”


2009: At Politics and Prose Bookstore in Washington, D.C.,children's author Amy Krouse Rosenthal reads from and discusses her new picture book, “Duck! Rabbit!”


2009:Rivka Galchen discusses her debut novel, “Atmospheric Disturbances,” in conversation with Ron Charles, Book World's deputy editor, as part of the Nextbook series at the D.C. Jewish Community Center.


2009:Today the Edinburgh International Film Festival returned a 300-pound grant from the Israeli embassy, after bowing to pressure from director Ken Loach. The grant was intended to enable Tel Aviv University graduate Tali Shalom Ezer to travel to Scotland for a screening of her film, Surrogate. Ezer's film is a romance set in a sex-therapy clinic, and makes no reference to war or politics. It recently won the award for best film at an international women's film festival in Israel


2009:This evening, Israel Air Force (IAF) jets attacked targets throughout Gaza after a woman was lightly injured from a rocket explosion in Sderot.


2009(15th of Iyar, 5769): Shlomo Shamir whose life reads like something out a James Bond novel, passed away. Born Shlomo Rabinowitch in Russia in 1915, he made aliyah ten years later.  He was an active member of the Haganah from 1929 until 1940 when he joined the RAF and rose to the rank of major before his discharge in 1946. During the War of Independence he played a key role in the fighting around Latrun and the creation of the Burma Road. After the war, he served as the 3rd commander of the Israeli Navy and the 3rd commander of the Israeli Air Force. After leaving the military he graduated from Tel Aviv University and Harvard.  He was an entrepreneur who developed several successful businesses.


2009: Ninety year old Sheikh Jabr Muadi, a Druze Israeli politician who served in the Knesset from 1951 to 1981 passed away today.


2010(6th of Sivan, 5770): First day of Shavuot


2010(6th of Sivan, 5770):At Temple Judah in Cedar Rapids, IA, Melanie Abzug, Miriam Maikon and Sam Sarasin are scheduled to Confirmed during Evening Shavuot Services.


2010(6th of Sivan, 5770): Martin Cohan, 77, who co-created the ABC sitcom "Who's the Boss?" and was a prolific TV writer and producer, died today at his home in Pacific Palisades after a two-year battle with large-cell lymphoma, his family announced. Cohan and his business partner, Blake Hunter, created the sitcom starring Tony Danza and Judith Light, which ran from 1984 to 1992. The two men also served as creative consultants for a British version of the TV show called "The Upper Hand," which debuted in 1990 and ran for seven seasons. Besides his work as executive producer and writer for "Boss," Cohan wrote hundreds of scripts for such popular TV series as "The Bob Newhart Show,""Diff'rent Strokes,"" Mary Tyler Moore" and "Silver Spoons." Born July 4, 1932, in San Francisco, Cohan graduated from Stanford University in 1955 after studying theater arts. He found work as a stage manager and assistant director at ABC Television, his family said. He got his break on "Mary Tyler Moore" as an assistant director in 1971 and won a Writers Guild of America award in 1972 for best comedy episode. He went on to write, direct and produce for "The Bob Newhart Show."


2010: The Washington Postreviewed Jules Feiffer's account of his multifaceted career which will delight that generation of readers for whom his whimsical, sardonic and often politically barbed Village Voice cartoons were a cultural touchstone. Those whose understanding of Feiffer's achievements is not enhanced by the warm glow of nostalgia, however, may have less patience with this shambling, highly episodic book. “Backing Into Forward” starts with the author's account of growing up urban and Jewish, complete with a domineering mother and raging adolescent hormones. This back story has the ill fortune of sounding remarkably similar to that of Feiffer's friend Philip Roth: not a face-off that Feiffer -- or anyone else -- is likely to win. Feiffer is an energetic storyteller, but structurally the book is so haphazard that it's often hard to keep track of where we are in the arc of the artist's career. Feiffer wins points, though, for the acuity of his insights on the craft of cartooning. He's also remarkably modest. He repeatedly speaks of encounters with Marlene Dietrich, Lauren Bacall, George Plimpton and many others with a fan's sense of awe and good fortune


2010: “The Frozen Rabbi” by Steve Stern is among the books briefly reviewed in today’s “Newly Released” Column.


2011:The Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington is scheduled to honor Dennis Berman, The Kramer Family and Esther B. Newman at tonight’s annual fundraising dinner in Potomac, MD.


2011: Ed Goldberg and the Odessa Klezmer Band are scheduled to perform at the Marlboro branch of the Monmouth County (NJ) Library.


2011: The Second Annual Atlanta Jewish Music Festival is scheduled to take place at Eddie’s Attic in Decatur, GA.


2011:A Fine Romance: Jewish Songwriters, American Songs, 1910-65” a “colorful new exhibition that celebrates the many Jewish composers of the American Songbook and their great contribution to American popular culture including Jerome Kern, Irving Berlin, George and Ira Gershwin, Richard Rogers and Oscar Hammerstein is scheduled to open  today at The Bainbridge Library in Chagrin Falls, Ohio.


2011: The Center for Jewish History and Leo Baeck Institute are scheduled to present “Follow the Fugue” a concert featuring the Phoenix Chamber Ensemble.


2011: Prosecutors announced today that a grand jury had indicted Mr. Dominique Strauss-Kahn on charges related to the alleged sexual assault of a hotel housekeeper at the Sofitel New York.


2011: A judge granted Dominique Strauss-Kahn bail today, allowing the former managing director of the International Monetary Fund to be freed from Rikers Island to stay in a Manhattan apartment while his sexual assault case is pending.


2011:Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said today Israel would object to any withdrawal to "indefensible" borders, adding he expected Washington to allow it to keep major settlement blocs in any peace deal.


2011:Lars von Trier was expelled from the Cannes Film Festival today, a day after joking at a news conference that he was a Nazi and expressing sympathy for Hitler. The Danish director’s film “Melancholia” is in competition at the festival and seen as a contender for the top prize.  (As reported by Melena Ryzik)


2011:Swiss producer Arthur Cohn, a six-time Oscar winner, was honored for his body of work by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.Cohn’s grandfather the chief rabbi of Basel. He invited Theodor Herzl to hold the first Zionist Congress there after rabbis elsewhere objected.

2012: In Springfield, VA, Congregation Ada Reyim is scheduled to present “A Night of Magic and More.”


2012: As part of the Ahavat Yisrael Weekend, Moshav is schedule to perform at Adas Israel in Washington, DC.


2012: In Cedar Rapids, Iowa, the family and many friends of Amy Barnum have a chance to celebrate her birthday.  An ayshish chayil she has raised three marvelous daughters, provided leadership for Temple Judah and Hadassah and is the glue for the annual traditional High Holiday services. “Her children (and everybody else) call her blessed.”


2012:Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg updated his status to "married" today.


2013: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker and the recently released paperback edition of The Price of Inequality by Joseph Stiglitz


2013: The Alexandria Kleztet is scheduled to perform for the Jewish Community Association at Riderwood Village in Silver Spring, MD.


2013: David Senesh, the nephew Hannah Senesh is scheduled to Dr. Louis D. Levine in a talk about the brave young Jewish poet and paratrooper and whose life and work are being honored at the Illinois Holocaust Museum in Skokie with an exhibition “Fire In My Heart.”


2013: The Jewish Historical Society of Greater Washington is scheduled to sponsor a walking tour of Downtown Jewish Washington which will give participants a chance to experience the neighborhood along Seventh Street, NW as it was from 1850 to 1950.


2013: In Little Rock, AR, the friends and family of Rabbi PInchus and Estie Ciment are scheduled to gather to celebrate the Bat Mitzvah of their daughter Zissie.  The Ciments are the quintessential “lamplighters” who have brought the light of Chabad Lubavtich to the Arkansas Jewish Community.


2013: Israel will go ahead with its candidacy for an unprecedented seat on the UN Security Council in 2019 despite Germany’s determination to run against it, diplomatic officials told The Jerusalem Post today


2013: Iran’s state radio says authorities have executed two men convicted of spying for Israel’s Mossad and the American CIA spy agency. Today’s report says Mohammad Heidari, who was accused of providing Mossad with classified information in return of money, and Kourosh Ahmadi, who allegedly gave the CIA intelligence on Iran, were hanged.


2013:With Wheelchair and Lively Baton, Levine Commands Carnegie Hall” published today described the return of the famous conductor.


2013: Damascus has put a number of advanced weapons on standby to strike Israel, should Jerusalem hit targets inside Syria again, the UK’s Sunday Timesreported. According to the report, satellite images show Syria has readied its stock of Tishreen missiles for use against Tel Aviv
 
2014: The Center for Jewish History is scheduled to “host a special preview screening of Watchers of the Sky, the Sundance Film Festival award-winning documentary that uncovers the forgotten life of Raphael Lemkin who coined the term “genocide” and campaigned for international laws that would prevent and punish this crime against humanity.”


2014: On the second day of the Jerusalem International Writers Festival Ayelet Waldman and Lihi Lapid are scheduled to participant in discussion entitled “Bad Mother-Good Mother.” (As reported by David B. Green)


2014: “In Honor of Jewish American History Month,” Marvin Kalb is scheduled to moderate a panel discussion with Martin Goldsmith and Dr. Diane Afoumado “Voyage of the St. Louis” marking the 75th anniversary of “of the sailing of the SS St. Louis, ‘the saddest ship afloat.’”


2014: At the Library of Congress, Sanford Sternlicht, Emeritus English Professor at Syracuse University, is scheduled to discuss his book, The Tenement Saga: The Lower East Side and Early Jewish-American Writers.

This Day, May 31, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. Levin

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May 31



1279 BCE: Ramses II (The Great) (19th dynasty) becomes pharaoh of Ancient Egypt. If you accept the contention that Moses lived from 1391–1271 BCE, Ramses would be the Pharaoh who came to power after the Exodus. During his reign he reasserted Egyptian power over the area that would have included Canaan during the period of the Judges. However, the Bible talks about the Canaanite tribes and Philistines as being the Israelites’ enemies and not the Egyptians.



70 C.E.: The Jewish defenders of Jerusalem surrendered the first wall of the city to the Romans.



942 (26th of Iyar 4702): Sa'adia ben Joseph (Rav Saadia Gaon) passed away. Born in Egypt in 882, he moved to Babylon in 928 to head the Academy at Sura. He revived the waning influence of the Academy and wrote on many subjects including grammar, Halachah and philosophy. As one of the foremost opponents of Karaism, he wrote the exposition "Emunot Vedeot", which became very popular. A grave conflict arose between Sa'adia and the Exilarch, David ben Zaccai when he refused to endorse a judgment of the Exilarch's court in which Ben Zaccai was an interested party. The issue was not settled for many years and demonstrated S'aadia's unyielding defense of his principles. He was subsequently expelled and moved to Baghdad. On Purim 937, the opponents were reconciled, and a few years later Sa'adia adopted Ben Zaccai's orphan grandchildren.



1469: Birthdate of Manuel I of Portugal who gave up his positive relationship with his Jewish subjects when agreed to expel them as the price of Infanta Isabella of Aragon, the daughter those implacable anti-Semites Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain.



1492: “Isaac Abrabanel…left Spain for Naples after his unsuccessful intervention with King Ferdinand to revoke the decree of expulsion of the Jews.”http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/Abravanel.html



1593: The Jews were barred from living in Riga and Livonia.



1630: The Puritan leader William Prynne, who would oppose the return of Jews to the British Isles obtained a license to print a book expressing opposition to stage plays, one of the many “pleasures opposed” by his sect.



1665: Sabbeti Zevi proclaimed himself Messiah. The most famous of all the False Messiahs, Sabbeti Zevi enthralled tens of thousands of Jews. His message was accepted across all social and economic classes. His followers were to be found throughout Jewish communities in Europe and the Orient. Turkish authorities became alarmed at his growing popularity and had him arrested. The Sultan gave him the choice of proving his claims or suffering the death penalty. The would-be Messiah gave up the game, accepted a minor governmental position in Turkey and converted to Islam. The whole episode might be written off as a farce if it were not for the fact that so many had believed in him and were disillusioned by the outcome. In addition, charges of being a secret supporter of his beliefs would tear at the fabric of Jewish society for decades to come.



1666: One of the dates given for the death of Jacob Lumbrozo, the Portuguese born physician who became the first Jewish resident of Maryland when he moved there in 1656.



1689: Following today’s invasion of the city of Worms by French forces under Comte de Melac, the synagogue was burned including “the so-called Rashi Chapel” and the ruins were used for a stable and a storehouse.



1740: Frederick William I passed away who was served by Veitel-Heine Ephraim as Jeweler and Mint Master. As a result of his death, recently passed legislation that would have led to the end of the Jewish community in Berlin were not enforced.



1747 (26 Iyar 5507): Moses Hayyim Luzzattopassed away. Born in 1707 at Paua, Italy, this great poet and mystic became an unfortunate victim of the reaction to Shabbetaianism. His writings were burned and he tragically died soon after his arrival to Eretz-Israel. His most lasting achievements were his use of Hebrew in secular poetry and his ethical work, Mesilat Yesharim (Path of Righteous). Luzzatto also wrote two Hebrew dramas, Migdal Oz (tower of Strength) and La-Yisharim (Praise to the Righteous).



1776(13th of Sivan, 5536): At a wedding celebration on an upper floor of a building in the Jewish Ghetto of Venice, 65 people, including the bride, were killed when the building collapsed under the strain of the celebration.



1776(13th of Sivan, 5536): Two weddings were held today in the same building in Mantua, Italy. During the celebration, the building collapsed killing 28 women, including one of the brides, and 3 men. The Jews of Mantua were not allowed to expand their housing beyond the ghetto walls. This forced them to build vertically, resulting in unstable buildings which led to deaths like these.



1789(6thof Sivan, 5549): Shavuot



1800(7th of Sivan, 5560): Second Day of Shavuot



1846(6thof Sivan, 5606): Shavuot



1855: Sixty-three year old Austrian ophthalmologist Anton Von Rosas who was also the author of Anti-Semitic literature that decried Jews “taking over and “jewifying” Austrian culture. (As described by David Aberbach



1862: In today's issue of The Israelite, Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise responded to criticism by Reverend Moncure D. Conway that the Israelite had not spoken out on the importance of preserving the Union. Wise said that "he never preached on politics." He said that this would be "a misapplication of the Sabbath and the pulpit" and that there were plenty of other opportunities for patriotic speeches.



1865(6th of Sivan, 5625): Jews celebrate the first Shavuot since the end of the Civil War.



1872: An article entitled “Turkey” described the bloody anti-Jewish riots that have been taking place in Smyrna. The riots began after reports that a Greek child was lying in the morgue, having been killed by Jews who need its blood for their annual Passover sacrifice.



1870: John Motley, the U.S. Minister to the Court of St. James had dinner with former Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli.



1873: The New York Times published an article appealing for money to be sent to the“Children’s Fund” which would be used to provide summer time excursions for poor Jewish youngsters living in New York City.



1874: According to reports published today a Jew from Chicago named Henry Greenbaum donated five hundred dollars to a Chicago church whose pastor is Professor Swing, the controversial Presbyterian minister who has been labeled as a heretic by his co-religionists



1880: It was reported today that in the last six months, the Board of Relief of the United Hebrew Charities has provided 1,235 pairs of shoes, 407 dresses, 425 pairs of stockings, 252 skirts, 123 coats and almost one thousand, five hundred tons of goals to those in need. In the past year, assistance has been provided to 1,481 families which is a decrease of 162 for the year ending with May, 1879. However, there was increase in the number needing assistance in April which may indicate that there will be an increase in demand.



1882: In Paris, Victor Hugo presided over a rally held to protest Russian persecution of the Jews.



1884(7th of Sivan, 5644): Second Day of Shavuot



1884(7thof Sivan, 5644): Sixty year old “Jewish industrialist and German railway entrepreneur” passe away today.
http://www.docutren.com/archivos/semmering/pdf/05.pdf



1885: The 20thanniversary of the Hebrew Free School Association was celebrated this morning at the Lexington Avenue Opera House in New York City. The event was attended by 2,000 students and 500 adults including the association’s president, M.S. Isaacs and secretary, Henry S. May, and Rabbis, Jacobs, Kohut and Wise.



1889(1stof Sivan, 5649): Rosh Chodesh Sivan



1890: A group of Polish Jews are scheduled to present their claim that a banker William S. Wolf defrauded them out of money that they had given him with a promise that it would be sent back to Europe to the New York District Attorney.  Wolf has disappeared.



1891: Birthdate of Erich Walter Sternberg the Berlin-born Israeli composer who was one of the founders of Israeli art music, Sternberg had a profound impact on the musical life of Palestine and Israel during the 1930s and 1940s. He passed away in 1974.



1891: Breaking with tradition, the Metropolitan Museum of Art opened today despite opposition from those who viewed Sunday as the Sabbath.



1892: In response to misleading claims by German anti-Semites, “the Prussian Minister of War says that the rifles furnished to the army by Ludwig Loewe & Co are perfectly satisfactory.”  Ludwig Loewe the late founder of the company was Jewish as was his brother Isidor who followed him as President.



1892: “Baron Hirsch Very Ill” published today described the deteriorating health of the Jewish philanthropist who “is suffering from an attack of influenza and congestion of the lungs.”



1892: At today’s meeting of the Yale Corporation F.K. Saunders, the instructor in Hebrew at Yale Theological Seminary was named Assistant Professor of Biblical Literature.



1892: “Mercy For Russian Jews” published today immunities that the Czar’s government has decided to grant to Jews who wish to emigrate including not having to serve in the army.



1892: It was reported today that of the 390 children enrolled in the Baron de Hirsch Fund School, 107 had been admitted since May 1st.  The first of the students had arrived in February. All of the children were fluent enough in English to take part in the recent Memorial Day celebrations.



1892(5thof Sivan, 5652) Erev Shavuot



1892: “The Festival of Shebnoth” published today described the importance of the Jewish holiday of Pentecost or Feast of Weeks which begins this evening.



1893: This morning, “agent Louis Steen of the Gerry Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children arrested Herman Engel of the Ladies’ Deborah Nursery” following what he was charged at the Essex Street Police Court of “having brutally assaulted” thirteen year old Israel Schwartz who has been livingat the institution for nine years.



1894: “In Memory of Jesse Seligman” published today described the memorial services that were held for the late Jesse Seligman which were held at the Hebrew Orphan Asylum and addressed by several prominent officials including Oscar S. Straus, General Carl Schurz and Charles Fleischer, “ a graduate of the asylum and rabbi-elect of a prominent congregation in Boston.”



1896: In New York, the highlight of the annual reception of B’nai Jeshurun was “the presentation of a handsome silk flag” by Miss Sophie Arnheim “and a “facsimile of the Liberty Bell to the pupils of the religious school attached to the congregation.”




1896: Today, The New York Times published an excerpt from an article in a British publication, The Quarterly Review, which compared the accomplishments of Disraeli and Gladstone in the field of foreign affairs. The author is cautiously optimistic when describing Disraeli’s policy designed to thwart Russian attempts to expand at the expense of the Ottoman Empire. He gives Disraeli high marks for his performance during the conference held at Berlin and for his purchase of the shares in the Suez Canal. In the end, regardless of how things play out, “this much is certain…Disraeli upheld the traditions of his …country at a time when a foreign critic of our policy uttered the well-known sneer that the only persons left who cared for the honor of England were an old woman and a Jew.” The old woman is Queen Victoria. The Jew is Disraeli proving that the nature of his birth out-weighed the impact of his forced youthful trip to the baptismal font.



1897: Arthur Strauss, an MP for Camborne is among the members of the British team playing a trans-Atlantic chess match with their American counterparts, using the telegraph which was “the real-time of that era.



1898: The Brooklyn Eagle reported that Oscar S. Straus has been named to succeed James B. Angell as United States Minister to Turkey. Among his most ardent supporters are “the boards of all the denominations that have missionaries in Turkey” because when he served in this position under President Cleveland, he “did more to get just treatment for missionaries and all other American citizens than any other man had done before him.”



1901: Herzl travels to Paris to begin the raising of the money, which is to be the first step toward the obtaining of the Charter. The negotiations in Paris are fruitless.



1901: Bella Weretnikow, who became the first Jewish woman lawyer in Washington State, graduated from the University of Washington Law School.



1906(7th of Sivan, 5666): Second Day of Shavuot



1907: Sixty-one year old Moritz Litten the Berlin born physician who was the son-in-law of pathologist Ludwig Traube, the son of a Jewish wine merchant.



1911:Birthdate of multi-talented Ruth Hagy Brod.Born in New York and raised in Chicago, Ruth Hagy Brod had a varied career that took her from the newsroom to Latin America and from the mainstream press to offbeat publishing. As a child, Brod excelled in music, giving public recitals at age six and earning a bachelor's degree in music at age 18. She soon left music behind, however, and turned to journalism, going first to Hollywood, where she worked as an editor for movie and radio magazines. Moving to Philadelphiain 1938, she wrote features for the Philadelphia Ledger. Later, she would write for newspapers in Chicagoand New York Cityas well. During the 1930s, she also worked as a radio reporter and documentary filmmaker. A decade later, she became women's editor of the Philadelphia Bulletin; while at the Bulletinshe developed a program that became the "College News Conference," a weekly show where college students questioned prominent political figures. In the 1960s, she began to travel widely, producing a Peace Corps documentary on Colombia and a television series on Asian women. She worked as a newspaper correspondent in Southeast Asia and a Far East correspondent for NBC Radio, at a time when it was unusual for women to hold such roles. While making the Peace Corps documentary, she also served as an educational television advisor to the Colombian government. Brod first entered public service during World War II, when she served as publicity director for the United War Chest campaigns and as a member of the women's advisory board executive committee for the U.S. Savings Bond division of the U.S. Treasury. Upon returning to New Yorkfrom her overseas travels, she became involved in New York City politics. In the mid-1960s, she was appointed as director of public information for JOIN (Job Orientation in Neighborhoods), which worked with the U.S. Department of Labor to provide job training and placement services to young high school drop-outs. Later that decade, Brod served as a special assistant to Mayor Robert Wagner, and in 1967 she was the founder-director of the Mayor's Coordinating Council under Mayor John Lindsay. The Council functioned as a central volunteer coordinator for the city, recruiting some 6,000 volunteers in its first year. In the 1970s, Brod embarked on yet another career, turning to publishing. She published two books of her own (both co-authored), Ena Twigg, Medium (1972) and The Edgar Cayce Handbook of Health Through Drugless Therapy (1975). She also worked as a literary agent, with clients that included Allard Lowenstein, a civil rights activist who was later assassinated, and James Hoffa, the Teamsters Union leader. Brod died of cancer in 1980.



1912: Birthdate of Senator Henry M "Scoop" Jackson. Jacksonwas not Jewish, but he was a man of character of principle, a liberal in the best sense of the term. A Democrat from the state of Washington, Jackson supported legislation intended to force the Soviets to improve the treatment of their Jewish citizens and to allow them to leave the country if they so desired.



1914(6thof Sivan, 5674 Last observance of Shavuot before "the lights go out all over the world."

1915: Leo Frank, who had been sentenced to hang, appealed to the Georgia State Prison Commission that his sentence be commuted to life imprisonment.



1915: The American Jewish, Central and Peoples' Relief Committees gave $190,282 to Jews living in Palestine, $4,000 to Jews living in Alexandria and $59,500 to Jews living in Greece and Turkey.



1916: Birthdate of Bernard Lewis, the English born American Orientalist. There is no way that this blog can do justice to this intellectual giant.



http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703712504576234601480205330.html



http://www.npr.org/2012/05/15/152764539/at-96-historian-lewis-reflects-on-a-century



1919: The partly decomposed corpse of Rosa Luxemburg was found in oneof the locks of Berlin’s Landwehr Canal.



1921: Churchill explains to the members of the Cabinet that he “had decided to suspend the development of representative institutions in Palestine ‘owing to the fact that any elected body would undoubtedly prohibit further immigration of the Jews.’”



1925: In Washington Heights, Mabel Lucille (née Blum), a teacher, and Irving Beck, a businessman gave birth to “American actor, director, poet, and painter” Julian Beck



1926:The Sesqui-Centennial International Exposition which Victor Rosewater helped to plan opened today in Philadelphia, PA



1926: In Brooklyn Eliah and Sarah Schulman gave birth to Seymour Jerome Schulman a civil engineer who pursued a career in public planning for which he was known as “a straight guy who did things based on their merits” and who served four years as Mayor of White Plains. (As reported by Leslie Kaufman)



1926: The entire Jewish Sejm delegation voted for Josef Pilsudski for President of Poland.



1928: Official birthdate of Jacob Lateiner, “a Cuban/US pianist. He was actually born on March 31, 1928, but his father did not get around to registering his birth until May 31 the same year. He is the brother of violinist Isidor Lateiner.”



1933(6th of Sivan, 5693): Shavuot observed for the first time during the Presidency of FDR

1935 Jews are banned from the German Armed Forces.



1936: The New York Times reported that the proceeds of the upcoming annual “Give or Get Luncheon” sponsored by the Mizrachi Women’s Organization will be used to provide for the needs of young girls in Palestine, including both the native-born and refugees from Europe.



1938: German legislation outlaws "decadent art." All decadent artists weren’t Jewish but all Jewish artists were decadent.



1938: Birthdate of Peter Yarrow, “The Peter” in Peter, Paul and Mary



1939: As violence aimed at Arabs in response to the White Paper, increased, British authorities in Palestine began arresting Revisionists including Dr. Bukshpan, chairman of the Revisionist Palestine Executive Committee. At the same, at least one Jewish newspaper in Palestine published a report from Warsaw, Poland “that Dr. Vladimir Jabotinsky, head of the Revisionist party was openly opposed to any Jewish rebellion on the ground that in the present state of international affairs the Jews must and cannot fight against Britain when all democracies are grouping themselves” for a fight with Nazi Germany.



1939: Even though it placed strict limitations on Jewish immigration, Arab leaders rejected the White Paper today because it allowed for Jewish immigration and for the possibility of a Jewish home in Palestine. The Arab High Committee rejected any role for Jews in Palestine and asserted that the creation of an Arab state is the solution to the problem.



1942: AuschwitzIII opened up. It was a massive labor camp for the construction of synthetic oil and rubber.



1942: In the Warsaw Ghetto, 3,650 Jews had died of starvation since the first of May. The Germans opened a new death camp on the outskirts of Minsk, in the village of Maly Trostenets. Spring brought on soft ground which meant it was easy to dig massive graves again.



1943: At a Meeting of the General Government ministers in Cracow, Lieutenant General Kruger noted that "on the Fuhrer's orders it is necessary for the (slaughter of the Jews) from the standpoint of European interests."



1943 A Nazi prison administrator in Minsk, Byelorussia, reports that 516 German and Russian Jews have been killed in late May, their gold crowns and fillings taken from their mouths before their deaths.



1943(26th of Iyyar, 5703): Today, the Nazis murdered Berta and Munio Kremnitzer, the parents of Rama Reis-Kremnitzer and the grandparents of Brig. Gen. Itai Reis, the commander of Palmahim air force.



1944: In Budapest, German representative, SS General Edmund Veesnmayer reported that 60,000 more Hungarian Jews had been deported in the last six days. The total for the past 16 days stood at 204,312. This day 42 dead bodies were removed from the Berkenau bound trains.



1944 (9th of Sivan, 5704): The Jewish community of Khonia, Crete,which traced its history back toRoman times, came to an end when the ship Danai, into which all the Jews had been herded, was towed out to sea and sunk



1944: A Hungarian deportation train stops near the German border so 42 corpses could be removed.



1944: At the Auschwitz rail junction, German soldiers who encounter a sealed deportation train carrying Hungarian Jews to the Birkenau death camp defy threats of SS guards and give water and food to pleading prisoners. (Could this be a reference to scene in the film “Schinlder’s List” where Schindler provides water for a group of Jews trapped in box cars?)



1944: An SS man and a Jewish girl with whom he has fallen in love are executed. The German has hidden the girl for months, keeping her from the gas chambers.



1944: Having not heard a response from the telegram he had sent on May 27, Joel Brand sent another telegram to his wife telling her the he intended to leave for Budapest on June 4.  Unbeknownst to him, his wife was being held by the Arrow Cross.



1944: The Bielski brothers continued their fight against the Nazis while providing safe haven to over a thousand Jews.
http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/this_month/may/11.asp



1945(19thof Sivan, 5705): Russian born impressionist painter Leonid Pasternak passed away today at Oxford where he had gone to live to escape the Nazis and the Soviets.  He was the father of Boris Pasternak
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Pasternakuoknaosen.jpg



1946(1stof Sivan, 5706): Rosh Chodesh Sivan



1948: Birthdate of Rhea Perlman. The Brooklyn born actress, created the character of Carla on Cheers and Zena in the television comedy “Taxi. “



1948: Representatives of the Protestant and Catholic faiths joined more than 500 Reform Jewish leaders from a score of States at a testimonial dinner at the Netherlands Plaza Hotel in honor or Dr. Julian Morgenstern, who is retiring as president of Hebrew Union College.



1948: “In further moves to relieve pressures on the coastal strip and to ward off disaster two columns of Israeli armored cars were advancing to on Jenin.” One column was advancing from Afula while the other was coming from Megiddo which was the scene of a counter-attack by Trans-Jordan’s Arab Legion. In the south, the Arab Legion was reported to have massed two hundred armored vehicles at Rameleh which will be used in the fight to keep the road from Jerusalem to the Coast Plain from being opened to Jewish convoys. At the same time the Egyptians have amassed 500 armored vehicles twenty miles south of Jaffa as part of  what appears to be another move against Tel Aviv.



1948: An Order of the Day, signed by David Ben Gurion, which included the following statement, was issued.“On the establishment of the State of Israel, the Haganah has emerged from the underground and has become a regular army…Without the Haganah’s experience, plan, skill in operation and command, its devotion and valor, the Yishuv could not have held it ground on the dreadful trial of arms it had to face during these six months and we would not have attained the State of Israel.”



1949: Birthdate of Methodist minister Wallace S. Wade who became Asher Wade when he converted to Judaism and pursued a career as an Orthodox Rabbi and psychotherapist.



1952(7thof Sivan, 5712): Second Day of Shavuot is observed for the last time during the Presidency of Harry Truman, “the godfather of Israeli independence.



1952: Birthdate of Marina Gershman who made Aliyah in 1991 where as Marina Solodkin she fashioned a successful political career including serving in the Knesset.
http://www.timesofisrael.com/former-mk-marina-solodkin-dies-of-stroke-in-latvia/



1957: Playwright Arthur Miller is convicted of contempt of Congress for refusing to denounce writers with alleged Communist views to the House Un-American Activities Committee



1957: Anshe Chesed’s new facility known as Fairmount Temple was dedicated today in Beachwood, Ohio, a suburb of Cleveland. The building was designed by Percival Goodman and cemented the reform congregation’s move to suburbia.



1962: Adolf Eichmann, head of the Jewish department of the Gestapo, the first Nazi to be condemned by the Jewish state, was hanged.



1963: Birthdate of Canadian comedian Jeremy Hotz.



1964: Birthdate of Canadian lawyer and media magnate, Leonard Asper, Brandeis U. alum and son of the late Isadore Asper.



1967: With the announcement of the alliance between Egyptand Jordan,Israelwas faced with the possibility of having to fight a war on three fronts – the Sinai, the Golan and the West Bank – Egypt, Syria and Jordan



1967: Contingents of the Iraqi Army arrived in Egypt with plans to join in the upcoming war with Israel.



1967: The government of Egypt declared that Eilat, Israel’s southern port, had been illegally occupied by Israel. With Egyptian troops stationed a few miles away at Taba, the Israel felt even more threatened.



1967: At Nasser’s insistence, Ahmed Shukeiry, head of the PLO, flew back to Jordan with King Hussein. He then went to Jordanian occupied portion of Jerusalem where he promises the Jews of Israel that after the war they will either have not survived or will be ‘repatriated.’



1974:Harry Meyer Archibald Primrose, 6th Earl of Rosebery the son of Archibald Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery and Hannah Primrose, Countess of Rosebery the only child of Baron Mayer de Rothschild who served as General Allenby’s Military Secretary in Palestine, passed away today.



1974: The involvement of the Golani forces in the war of attrition against Syria came to an end with the signing of the disengagement agreement.



1974: After Henry Kissinger conducted a feverish round of shuttle diplomacy between Damascus and Jerusalem, the separation of forces agreement between Israel and Syria was signed in Geneva. This marked the formal end the hostilities known as the Yom Kippur War.



1975: While driving to Tan-Tan, Morocco, Larry Blyden’s was knocked unconscious and hospitalized after his car went off the road and overturned.



1976: “1600: Anatomy of a Turkey” published today probed the question of a how a musical created by Leonard Bernstein and Alan Jay Lerner could turn out to be such a flop.
http://content.time.com/time/subscriber/printout/0,8816,947691,00.html#



1983: In “200 Singers in Jewish Festival” Edward Rothstein provides a summary of the recently completed American Jewish Choral Festival.



1990(7th of Sivan, 5750): Second Day of Shavuot



1993: Marshall Brickman's "Who's Who in the Cast," a parody of a Playbill cast list, which was published in the July 26, 1976, issue of The New Yorker, drew so much attention that it was republished in today’s special theatre issue.



1994(21st of Sivan, 5754): Trumpeter Emmanuel "Manny" Klein passed away.



1998: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Commissioners: Baseball's Midlife Crisisby Jerome Holtzman and Two Lucky People: Memoirsby Milton Friedman and Rose D. Friedman



1998(6th of Sivan, 5758): First Day of Shavuot



2000: U.S. President Bill Clinton and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak met at Clinton's Lisbon hotel in the latest effort to jump-start the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.



2001: Prime Minister Ariel Sharon comes under increasing pressure to end a unilateral cease-fire with the Palestinians, as violence continues in the Middle East.



2002: Israeli troops enter the West Bank city of Nablus, while the Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat is reported to have signed a law reform package which is a framework for a Palestinian constitution.



2003: While visiting Auschwitz today, President Bush said, ““This site is a sobering reminder that when we find anti-Semitism, whether it be in Europe or anywhere else, mankind must come together to fight such dark impulses. And this site is also a strong reminder that the civilized world must never forget what took place on this site. May God bless the victims and the families of the victims, and may we always remember.”



2004: In “Laugh Fist, Think Later,” published today Marc Abrahams described his improbably successful career.
http://www.theguardian.com/education/2004/jun/01/highereducation.research



2004: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Sontag& amp; Kael by Craig Seligman,Teammates by David Halberstam and Amerika (The Man Who Disappeared), by Franz Kafka; translated by Michael Hofmann, a new translation of Kafka's novel about a young man's humiliations after being banished for his part in a scandal strives to stay close to the author's rough drafts.



2005: Jean-François Copé began serving as the Minister of the Budget in France.



2005: Israeli TV Channel 2 starts broadcasting "Yoman Masa" - "Diary of a Journey" ("Land of the Settlers") filmed by Channel 1 news anchorman Chaim Yavin.



2005: Mikhail Khodorkovsky was found guilty of fraud and sentenced to nine years in prison. The sentence was later reduced to 8 years.



2006: In Jerusalem, closing session of Biomed 2006.



2007: The JCC of Manhattan presents “Tizmoret’s Spring Sing.”Tizmoret is the Queens College Hillel chapter’s Professional A Cappella Choir.



2007: Andrew Speaker, an individual suspected to have XDR-TB under federal quarantine, was moved to the National Jewish Health for treatment today where the Mycobacteriology Laboratory determined that Speaker did not have the Extensive Drug resistant form of TB (XDR-TB), but rather the Multi-Drug Resistant form of TB (MDR-TB).



2008 (5768): Begin Book of Numbers.



2009: In New York City, the annual Salute to Israel Parade swings down famed 5thAvenue. The main theme of this year's parade is "Past, Present, Future – Tel Aviv Celebrates 100 Years."http://salutetoisrael.com/parade/



2009: Ben Stiller received the MTV Generation Award, at the 2009 MTV Movie Awards



2009: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Bottom of the Ninth: Branch Rickey, Casey Stengel, and the Daring Scheme to Save Baseball From Itselfby Michael Shapiro and the recently released paperback edition of Dictation by Cynthia Ozick.



2009: The Washington Post featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Alger Hiss and the Battle For History by Susan Jacoby



2009: A five-day civil defense exercise, simulating an attack on the country, started today. Named Turning Point 3, the drills will be the most extensive ever held and practice new measures to safeguard civilians.



2009(8thof Sivan, 5769): Eighty-three year old Samuel M. Ehrenhalt, the “grand old man”of labor statistics passed away. (As reported by Margalit Fox)
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/03/nyregion/03ehrenhalt.html?_r=1



2010: Israeli Shayetet 13 naval commandos boarded six ships trying to end the blockade of Gaza from speedboats and helicopters in order to force the ships to the Israeli port of Ashdod



2010: An exhibition entitled “One Foot in America: The Jewish Emigrants of the Red Star Line and Eugeen Van Mieghem” at the YIVO Institute is scheduled to come to a close. This 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. The exhibit also features the Flemish artist and Antwerp native Eugeen Van Mieghem (1875-1930), whose work depicts the emigrants and the life of the port.



2011: Final day of Jewish American heritage Month



2011: At a time when some are calling for an artistic boycott of Israel, Marty Friedman, who played guitar with Megadeth is scheduled to perform in Tel Aviv today



2011: The 2011 award ceremony for the Sami Rohr Prize in fiction for Jewish Literature is scheduled to be held in New York City today.



2011: World Policy Journal Editor David A. Andelman is scheduled to moderate a town-meeting style conversation entitled “Beyond the Stage: On Henry Kissinger” at the 92ndStreet Y in New York City.



2011: The Israel Defense Forces will ask the state to increase its defense budget significantly to contend with the growing terror threats in the region, Chief of Staff Benny Gantz said today. "The spectrum of threats in light of the changes in the Middle East is growing," Gantz told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee. "These threats range from knife to nuclear – from the knife used in a single terror attack to a nuclear Iran.""The threats of the past are still in force, but new threats are developing that require the ability to operate in a number of different theaters with strength and determination," Gantz said, adding that this "new spectrum of threats requires a new and broader budget framework for the defense establishment."



2011: The Finance and Health ministries petitioned the Tel Aviv Labor Court today asking for injunctions to be issued against the Israel Medical Association, demanding the end to the doctors' strike which has been ongoing for over two months. .



2011: The Jewish Book Council is scheduled to host its annual award ceremony today in NYC.



2011: Former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert began testifying today at the Jerusalem District Court, opening the defense phase of the ongoing corruption trial against him.



2011(27thof Iyar, 5771): Eighty-nine year old Broadway producer Philip Rose whose works included “A Raisin in the Sun” passed away today. (As produced by Bruce Weber)



http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/02/theater/philip-rose-broadway-producer-dies-at-89.html



2011(27thof Iyar, 5771): Dutch holocaust survivor, author and psychoanalyst Hans Keilson passed away today at the age of 101. (As reported by the Eulogizer/JTA and William Grimes)
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/02/books/hans-keilson-novelist-of-life-in-nazi-run-europe-dies-at-101.html?pagewanted=all
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/culture-obituaries/books-obituaries/8723373/Hans-Keilson.html



2012:“City Sounds,” an exhibit of Jewish musicians and Jewish venues in Columbus Ohio, is scheduled to come to an end at the Bexley Public Library in Bexley, Ohio.



2012: Dr. Nir Cohen is scheduled to lecture on “Love and Surveillance: Politicised Romance in Peter Kosminsky’s The Promise” at the Weiner Library in London.



2012:“The Jewish Woman In America: 1654-2012” a course covering the vital contributions that Jewish women have made to American Jewish life, from the time of the first Sephardic arrivals to New Amsterdam in 1654, down to the present sponsored by the Board of Jewish Education of Atlantic and Cape May (NJ) Counties is scheduled to come to an end.



2012: International Ladino singer Sarah Aroeste and music collaborator and producer Shai Bachar are scheduled to come to Joe’s Pub to celebrate the release of Aroeste’s third album, Gracia.



2013: “Hyam Plutzik: American Poet,” an exhibit of letters, manuscripts, images and objects about the life and career of this three-time Pulitzer Prize finalist at Trinity College Watkinson Library in Hartford, CT is scheduled to come to an end.


2013: The South Cobb Regional Library in Mableton, GA, is scheduled to a special program in celebration of Jewish American Heritage Month.


2013: Temple Judah in Cedar Rapids is scheduled to host the final musical Shabbat Friday Evening Services of this season


2013: Tomer Lev, Berenika Glixman, Daniel Borovitzky, Raviv Leibzirer – Two Pianos, Four Pianists, Twenty to Forty Fingers – are scheduled to perform at two boutique concerts in Jerusalem.


2013: “No Place On Earth” is scheduled to open in Santa Rosa, CA and Wilmington, DE.


2013: Marty Goldberg is scheduled to determine whether or not there will be a new print version of the Canadian Jewish News.


2013: R&B singer Alicia Keys said today that she will go ahead with her planned July performance in Israel, despite calls from other artists and the Boycott, Sanctions and Divestment (BDS) movement for her to cancel the event.


2013:Staff at the Dormition Abbey in Jerusalem reported the spraying of offensive graffiti in Hebrew and the destruction of the church property in a suspected attack by radical Jewish settler sympathizers today. Perpetrators spray-painted “the Christians are apes” and “the Christians are slaves” on two cars parked outside the abbey


2014: The Tel Aviv International Student Film Festival is scheduled to begin today.(As reported by Debra Kamin)


2014: Considering the role of Jews in the world of the Broadway musical, the 92ndStreet Y is scheduled to present “Panning for Gold: Great Songs from Flop Shows.


2014: American Jewish Heritage Month comes to an end.


 

This Day, June 1, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. Levin

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June 1


987: Hugh Capet was elected King of France making him the first of the Capetians.  During this period, power lay with the nobles and the leaders of the Church.  Among other things this meant that the kings were unable to do anything to protect the Jews against the anti-Semitic teachings of the clergy and the resulting hostile actions of the ordinary people against the Jews.  To make matters worse, when Hugh Capet was stricken with a mystery malady a Jewish physician was summoned to treat him.  Unfortunately, the King died and the Jews were accused of killing him.


1204: King Philip Augustus of France conquered Rouen, the historic capital of Normandy which had been operating under a charter that allowed for self-government.  Considering how poorly the French king treated his Jewish subject, his seizure of Rouen could not have been good news for the city’s Jewish population which numbered 6,000 and was strong enough to support its own Yeshiva.During the second half of the twelfth century, whenRouen was governed under the terms of a charter that allowed for self-government, the town was home to 6,000 Jews (approximately 20% of the population) and was the site of yeshiva.  the site of a yeshiva. At that time, about 6,000 Jews lived in the town, comprising about 20% of the population. In addition, there were a large number of Jews scattered about another 100 communities in Normandy. The well-preserved remains of the yeshiva were discovered in the 1970s under the Rouen Law Courts and the community has begun a project to restore them. In 1215, Rouen would be the site of the Fourth Lateran Council which adopted a panoply of ant-Semitic measures.


1252: Alfonso X is elected King of Castile and León. Known as El Sabio (The Learned One) the well-educated Christian monarch  set out to “to create a Christian culture in the north of Spain that as equal in glory to Moorish culture in the South…He ordered both the Koran and the Talmud to be translated into Latin.”  One of the most prominent scientists in his realm was the Jewish astronomer, Yehuda ben Moses Cohen.


1424: Benedict XIII the “antipope” who was zealous in his drive to force Jews to convert in an effort to gain legitimacy passed away today.


1434: King Wladislaus II of Poland passed away. During his reign, persecution of the Jews intensified and Wladislaus did nothing to protect them or reinforce the rights that had been granted to them by his predecessors Instead he actually took steps to limit their business activities by issuing an edict limiting their right to lend money. 


1571: As a result of a command by the Duke of Alba, the Spanish governor, “a commission at Antwerp compiled the first Index Expurgatorius, a list of passages in Hebrew books which were to be expurgated because they were considered heretical by the church.”


1581 Gregory XII issued Antiqua Judaeorum Improbitas, the Papal Bull that gave the Inquisition full jurisdiction over the Jews of Rome in all matters including heresy, possession of forbidden books and the employment of Christian servants or nurses.


1582: The Municipal Council of Pressburg “decreed that no one should harbor Jews, or even transact business with them.”


1656: The Jews of New Amsterdam are allowed to practice their religion, after reminding the Dutch West India Company that Jews "in quietness" were allowed to practice in Holland and other Dutch colonies.


1764:  The Sejm abolished the Council of the Four Lands.  Supposedly this was not an act aimed to harm the Jews.  Rather it was part of a plan to re-organize the tax system.


1778(6thof Sivan, 5538): Shavuot


1775: Abraham Solomon “enlisted in Col. John Glover’s Regiment, known as the Marbleheaders, to take part in the glorious Battle of Bunker Hill. Later he was shifted with his company to Cambridge. When the soldiers received their pay, they had to sign for it on the company’s muster roll. Solomon’s fellow soldiers, many of whom could not write, were allowed to make their Xs. But Solomon could write — just not in English — so he was allowed to sign his name in Hebrew. It is believed that this is the only Revolutionary War muster roll to be signed in Hebrew.”


1789(7thof Sivan, 5549): 2nd day of Shavuot


1790: Birthdate of Rabbi Solomon Judah Löb Rapoport, the native of Lemberg who was one of the founders of the  Wissenschaft des Judentums movement and author of several biographies including one Saadia Gaon.


1792:  Kentucky admitted as the 15th state of the United States. Benjamin Gratz, one of the son’s of the famous Michael Gratz family of Philadelphia, who was a lawyer and veteran of the American Revolution was one of the earliest Jewish settlers of Kentucky,  Louisville, Kentucky would become home to the state’s first congregation, Adath Israel which was incorporated in 1842.  While serving as a delegate from Kentucky at the Republican Convention, Louis Naphtali Dembitz was one three who placed Lincoln’s name in nomination.  He was the uncle of Kentucky’s most famous Jew, Supreme Court Justice Louis Dembitz Brandeis.


1796: Tennessee admitted as the 16th state of the United States. The first Jews settled in upper East Tennessee in the 1770s and to Middle Tennessee by the 1820s. The Nashville Jewish community dates from the 1790’s with enough Jews living there to hold services in the 1840’s and establish a burial society in the decade before the Civil War.


1808(6thof Sivan, 5568): Shavuot


1819:ViolinistJoseph Böhm was appointed to serve as a professor at the Vienna Conservatory.


1828(19th of Sivan, 5588): Raphael Meldola passed away. Born in Leghorn in 1754, he was one of the most prominent members of the Meldola family. He received a thorough university training, both in theological and in secular branches, and displayed such remarkable talents that when only fifteen years old he was permitted to take his seat in the rabbinical college. He was preacher in Leghorn for some years, and in 1803 he obtained the title of rabbi. In 1805 Meldola was elected haham of the Spanish and Portuguese Jews of Great Britain, and proved a worthy successor of Sasportas and Nieto. His name will ever be indissolubly associated with that of Bevis Marks Synagogue. Possessed of a remarkably virile mind, he was a dominant factor in the British Jewry of his generation. He was the author of Korban Minhah, Kuppat Hatanim (1796), and Derekh Emunah, published by his son after his death. He left several other works in manuscript. His scholarship attracted around him a circle in which were many of the most distinguished men of his day, including Benjamin Disraeli and Isaac Disraeli and it is noteworthy that he opposed the policy which produced the famous rupture between the latter and the mahamad. He maintained a literary correspondence with many of the most prominent Christian clergymen and scholars of his time; and his acquaintance with the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Canon of Windsor led to his being received by King George III. Meldola married Stella Bolaffi (Abulafia), by whom he had four sons and four daughters.


1833: The “Jews’ Law” enacted today “conferred citizenship on the wealthy and educated classes” Jews of Posen.


1845: Birthdate of Caroline von Gomperz-Bettelheim “a Hungarian-Austrian court singer and member of the Royal Opera, Vienna” who was the older sister of Anton Bettelheim.


1846(7thof Sivan, 5606): Second Day of Shavuot, Yizkor


1847: At St. Helier, Maurice S. Mawson of Pernambuco married Rose Phillips, the second daughter of Michael Phillips of Jersey (As reported by the Jewish Chronicle.


1853: The New York Times describes an attack by Greek on the Jews of Smyrna during Easter.  Russian agents may have incited the violence which was put down by the Turks.


1853: The New York Times reported that the issue of Jewish Disabilities continues to be a problem in Parliament. In response to a question from Mr. Milner Gibson on this topic, Lord Russell responded that he did not think a measure that dealt only with this and that he would be submitting a measure that would dealt with the general question of Oaths to be taken by Members of Parliament.


1857: Isaac Jackson who was either 17 or 18 years old was shot and killed today by Charles Jones.  Jackson is one of four Jewish brothers who own a stored in Westfield, MA.  Young Jackson was driving a wagon of merchandize on the road between Westfield and Russell when he was attacked.


1865(7th of Sivan, 5625): President Andrew Johnson designated today, the second day of Shavuot when Jews recite Yizkor, as a national day for memorial services to be held in honor of Abraham Lincoln.


1865: Rabbi Sabato Morais delivered a special sermon at Mikve Israel in Philadelphia on “the day appoint appointed for fasting, humiliation and prayer for the untimely death of the late lamented President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln” in which he said :


If the essence of religion is what the great Hillel taught us, then I unhesitatingly say that the breast of our lamented President was ever kindled with that divine spark. "To forbear doing unto others what would displease us" . . . is the maxim he illustrated in the immortal document of emancipation that bears his honorable signature. It is that which he exemplified by his numerous acts of clemency ...We must bear his name with a blessing upon our lips. (As reported by the Jewish Virtual Library)


1869:Isidore Loebwas appointed secretary of the Alliance Israélite Universelle, a position he held until his death.”


1870: As a sign of his improving health, Prime Minister Disraeli was able to visit the Foreign Ministry today.


1873(6th of Sivan, 5633): Shavuot


1873: In an article published today entitled "Whitsuntide: A Hebrew and a Christian Festival - Curious Customs and Interesting Ceremonies," the author compares the Jewish festival of Pentecost with the Christian Whitsuntide. Pentecost, signifying the fiftieth, is the second of the great festivals of the Hebrews, held fifty days after the Passover, or feast of the unleavened bread. The time of the festival is calculated from the second day of the Passover, the 16th of Nisan.


1879:  “Can’t You Wait?” published today reminds the reader of two famous examples of” hasty identification” that turned out be erroneous. First was the case of a papyrus that surfaced at Leyden which contained a “report of a scribe” sent to his superior serving King Ramses II that said “he had ‘distributed the rations among the soldiers and likewise among the Apuirui, or Aperiu, who carry the stones to the great city of King Ramses.’” While most Egyptologists thought this referred to “the Hebrews who built…the City of Ramses” Dr. Heinrich Brugsh, showed “clearly that these Aperiu were not Hebrews but an “Erythraean people…mentioned long before in an inscription of Thutmes III as cavalry in the Kings Service.” The second example took place when a picture found in one of the tombs at Beni-Hassan (an ancient Egyptian cemetery) was first identified as being representional “of the arrival of the children of Israel” until the same Dr. Brugsh set the record straight. [Were these really errors or was this an example of a German Egyptologist who had difficulty acknowledging the antiquity of the Jewish people?]


1881: It was reported today that according to a recent study conducted by the Opthamological Society in Great Britain, “Jew are more color-blid than any other nationality, and their defects are usually of the most pronounced kind.”  Oddly, the Quakers also show the same propensity for this malady.


1881: “Birthday of Old Rome” published today reported that  no Jewish will pass under the Arch of Titus with its depiction of the seven-branched candle labrum being carried in triumph by those who have sacked the Temple because it is a monument of shame.


1882: Birthdate of Jacob Billikopf the native of Vilna who gained fame in the United States for his career in social work, “Jewish philanthropy and labor arbitration.”


1883: It was reported today that an anti-Semitic riot that had begun in Rostov has been quelled. Violence broke out when Jew was accused of killing a Russian.  Fifteen rioters were arrested after they had destroyed 130 homes belonging to the Jews of the town.


1885: It was reported to today that a Hebrew manuscript that appears to be quite old has been found in the Sutro Library in San Francisco CA.  Copies are being sent to scholars in the United States and Europe to ascertain its importance.


1885: Anti-Semitic riots have broken out again in Vienna.  At least forty Jews have been injured in the attacks which have led to the destruction of several Jewish businesses.  The riots appear to have been brought on by the current elections which have seen the defeat of Leopoldstadt Schnieder the anti-Semitic candidate who lost by six thousand votes.


1885: It was reported that Benjamin Hirschberg delivered the opening address at yesterday’s celebration of the 20th anniversary of the Hebrew Free School Association.  Other youthful speakers included Michael Schaap, Annie Nathelson and “ten year old Simon Noot” who “referred to General Grant as the ‘Winner off battles and the savior of civilization.’”


1886: Deadline for Jewish troops who had served in Finland to leave the Grand Duchy, by order of the Czar.


1899: Today marks the end of the 23 year tenure of Dr. Herman Baar as superintendent of the Hebrew Orphan Asylum.  Dr. Baar had  tendered his resignation which was due to “old age” at the May meeting of the officers but had stayed on until the first of June so that a suitable replacement might be found.


1889: It was reported today that the Sanitarium for Hebrew Children has just issued its 11thannual report.  The primary mission of the organization has been to provide summer-time excursions for Jewish children and their parents.  Last year the organization hosted ten outings that served a total of almost seven thousand babies and children as well as over 3,600 mothers.  The society is seeking contributions for the purchase of a barge that will allow it to provide daily trips.


1890: Rabbi Kaufmann Kohler will officiate at the confirmation exercises for the students of the Hebrew Free Schools which will be held this afternoon at Temple Beth El.


1890: The Ladies of the Hebrew Benevolent and Orphan Asylum Society host their second “annual reception” the first one having been held on Decoration Day.


1890: Rabbi Henry S. Jacobs, Morris S. Wise, Joseph Jacobs, and Julius Lipman were among the dignitaries who attended today’s annual reception for the Religious School of Congregation B’nai Jeshurun.


1890: Rabbi Gustav Gottheil presided over today’s closing exercises of the Temple Emanu-El Sabbath School for Religious Instruction


1890: The two Jewish congregations at Rondout, NY, will hold meetings today for the purpose of rasing money to bring to justice the murders of Samuel Hotz, a Jewish peddler whose body was found on the first day of Shavuot in an old mining shaft at Wurtsborough, NY


1891: It was reported today that the in Russia, “the government is about to subject Hebrew elementary and religious schools to more stringent control.”


1891: “Jewish Exodus From Russia” published today described the movement of Jewish immigrants from Russia through Germany to Paris, London and/or the United States.  According to the Jewish Relief Committee in Berlin, about 600 Jews pass through Charlottenburg Station every day.  The Russian Jews are not permitted to enter Berlin and must spend the night in the station before taking the trains to the West.


1891: The Viedmosti reported today that the Jewish Emigration Society has hired four Baltic steamers for the sole purposed of providing transportation for Russian Jews who have been forced to leave the country.  The 60,000 immigrants are primarily Lithuanian and Polish Jews.


1892: “The Festival of ‘Shebnoth’” published today described the celebration of the “festival…also known as Pentecost and the Feast of Weeks, the latter designation having its origin in the fact that the festival is celebrated just seven weeks after the first of the Passover feast.”


1892(6th of Sivan, 5652): Shavuot, “which is also the season chosen for the confirmation of the pupils attending the religious schools attach to the” synagogues and temples of the Jews.


1892: In Clinton, NY, students at Hamilton College will compete for the Clark Prize for original oratory including Gregory Rosenblum from Novgorod, Russia whose topic is “The Jews of Russia.”


1892: A duel was fought today between Monsieur Drumont, the editor of La Libre Parol and Captain Cremieuz Foa, a Jewish officer in the French Army.


1893: Birthdate of Czech architect Otto Eisler who survived both Auschwitz and the “death march to Buchenwald” in 1945.


1893: The U.S. Senate Committee which is investigating the immigrant station on Ellis Island, which seems to be showing a special interest in the arrival of Jewish immigrants from Russia is scheduled to resume its meetings today.


1893: In Superior Court Judge McAdam heard the case of Schwab v Schwab in which the wife of Moritz Schwab, “a prosperous butcher” sought to force her husband who may have been a bigamist but who apparently had wanted to keep his marriage a secret from his family since he was Jewish and she was not, to provide financial for her and their two sons – William and Joseph.


1893: “Mr. Engel Must Explain” published today described charges of excessive force being used to discipline children at the Ladies’ Deborah Nursery.”


1893: “Jews Driven From Poland” published today provides confirmation of reports that the Russian persecution of the Jews has been extended to Poland.  In the Ronda-Gonzowski district 480 families have been expelled in a manner where they were forced to abandon all of their real estate and businesses.


1894: Starting today, Moritz Schwab is scheduled to begin paying the mother of his children $25  a month – payments that will last for four years.


1894: In Rochester, NY, Congregation Berith Kodesh dedicated its new house of worship. The building which cost $130,000 “was designed by Leon Stern, a member of the congregation and was built on the corner of Gibbs and Grove streets


1896: A number of Hebrew manuscripts were presented to Columbia at today’s meeting of the college trustees “which, with those already in its possession makes Columbia’s collection the largest in the country.”


1897(1st of Sivan, 5657): Rosh Chodesh Sivan


1897: Between now and October 1 the Sanitarium for Hebrew Children of the City of New York will proivd 35 excursions for underprivileged Jewish children and their mothers at no charge.


1898: Birthdate of actress Molly Picon.  Two of her more famous roles were in “Milk & Honey” and “Fiddler on the Roof.”


1899: Birthdate of Mary Phagan whose murder in 1913 would lead to the lynching of Leo Frank.


1899: Today is scheduled to Dr. Hermann Barr’s last day as Superintendent of the Hebrew Orphan Asylum, a position he has held for 23 years and is vacating due to his concerns about his health.


1899: Just weeks before his 78th birthday, French poet and political leader who was a founder of Alliance Israelite Universelle  passed away today.

1901(14thof Sivan, 5661):


1903(6th of Sivan, 5663): First Day of Shavuot


1903(6th of Sivan, 5663): Montifore Isaacs, “one of the best known and most popular bachelors in New York Society” and the nephew of Sir Moses Montefiore passed away.


1904: Three French Army Officers are arrested in connection with the Dreyfus Affair.  However, the verdict would not be overturned for two more years when Dreyfus would finally be released from prison.


1905: Carl Jung discharged Sabina Spielrein, who had been his first patient, today.


1905(27th of Iyar): Isaac Hirsch Weiss, author of Dor Dor Ve-Dorshav passed away 


1906: In Trier, Italy, after the Jews were attacked by a mob and threatened with death, Bishop Egelbert offered to save those who were willing to be baptized . Most chose to drown themselves instead.


1906: A pogrom broke out in Bialystok, Russia.


1909: Birthdate of Polish-American violinist and conductor Szymon Goldberg.


1909: Birthdate of Yechezkel Kutscher, the native of Slovaki who made Aliyah in 1931 where he became a philologist and linguist.


1910: During a debate Turkish Minister of Interior Talaat Bey stated, "Some deputies have spoken on behalf of Muslim, Greek and Armenian hospitals, but I note with regret no one has a word for the Jewish hospital, which renders great services. It admits all persons sent to it by the police without distinction of race and religion."


1911: Birthdate of Bernard Rothman better known as Benny Rothman a UK political activist, most famous for his leading role in the Mass trespass of Kinder Scout in 1932.  He passed away in 2002.


1914(7thof Sivan, 5674): 2nd day of Shavuot


1916:The nomination of Louis D. Brandeis of Boston to be an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States was confirmed by the Senate in executive session this afternoon by a vote of 47 to 22. Only one Democrat voted against confirmation.


1917: A memorandum is published describing the distress of the Jews in Belgrade. According to the document, “communities are destroyed, thousands are ruined and compelled to leave their homes.”


1918: The Ninth annual convention of the Kehillah opens at Carnegie Hall in Manhattan.


1920: Birthdate of David Samuilovich Kaufman, “one of the most important Russian poets of the post-World War II era.”


1926:Benny Leonard is the chairman of a committee sponsoring tonight’s scheduled  testimonial dinner being given in honor of the Hakoah Soccer team at the Pennsylvania Hotel, on the eve of the team's departure from the United States. (As reported by JTA)


1926:Bernard Flexner, President of the Palestine Economic Corporation, announced that the organization’s primary activity will be to help provide financing for the hydroelectric station on the Jordan River and the necessary transmission lines to connect the existing Diesel engine power stations at Tel-Aviv, Haifa and Tiberias. The Palestine Economic Corporation was organized in February, 1925.


1926: Bertha Solomon “was admitted to the Johannesburg Bar, becoming one of the first practicing women advocates in South Africa and the first woman to plead a case before the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court in Bloemfontein.”


1926: Birthdate of actress Marilyn Monroe. Born Norma Jean Baker, Monroe converted to Judaism before she married playwright Arthur Miller.


1926(19thof Sivan, 5686):Hungarian political leader and government official Vilmos Vázsonyi died today after being assaulted “notorious anti-Semite Laszlo Vannay.”


1928: Attorney General Albert Ottinger’s investigation of complaints by the Hebrew Religious Protective Association against certain cemeteries was resumed today when Assistant Attorney General Robert S. Conklin questioned Philip Gresner, Superintendent of the Baron Hirsch Cemetery at Port Richmond, Staten Island, about complaints by plot owners that charges were increased without warning and that even “funeral processions had been halted to demand payment in arrears.:


1929(22ndof Iyar, 5689): Seventy-three year old New York political leader and former U.S. Congressman Henry Mayer Goldfogle passed away.

1930: Birthdate of Jo Amar, a Moroccan-born Jewish singer whose melding of Andalusian and Israeli musical influences would make him a star in Israel and a popular performer in Jewish communities around the world.  He passed away in 2009 at the age of 79.


1931: Birthdate of Ira Pastan, the husband of poet Linda Pastan who “was awarded the International Antonio Feltrinelli Prize for Medicine.”


1933(7th of Sivan, 5693): Second Day of Shavuot


1933: The League of Nations approves The Bernheim petition which is a protest aimed at Nazi anti-Jewish legislation in German Upper Silesia.


1933:Germany introduces the Law for Reduction of Unemployment, which provides for marriage loans and other incentives to genetically “fit” Germans. (Jewish Virtual Library)


1933:American modernist writer Gertrude Stein published her autobiography, ironically titled The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas,


1936(11th of Sivan, 5696): As Arab attacks continue, snipers fired on two buses near Jerusalem, killing one Jewish rider and wounding two others.  In the evening, a Jewish constable in Givat Shaoul was shot at by unknown assailants.  This is the same district of Jerusalem where another Jews was killed yesterday.


1936: Leaders of the current Arab uprising reportedly have sent letters to wealthy Arabs “threatening their lives and homes unless they” provide economic support for the uprising.  In response, the targets of the demands are “fleeing to Egypt, Lebanon and Europe.


1937: Birthdate of Muhammed Wattad, “an Israeli Arab politician who served as an MK between 1981 and 1988.


1937: Birthdate of Yisrael Meir Lau, the Polish born rabbi whose father died at Treblinka, who became the Chairman of Yad Vashem and Chief Rabbi of Tel Avi.


1938: Superman created by American writer Jerry Siegel and Canadian artist Joe Shuster made his first appearance in D.C. Comics’ Action Comics Series issue #1 which sold for 10 cents.


1940: It was reported today that the Jewish Institute of Religion plans on conferring an honorary degree of Doctor Hebrew Letters on Rabbi Moses Schorr who is currently being held in a Soviet prison


1941: German mathematician Kurt Hensel, the grandson of Fanny Mendelssohn and therefore a descendant of Moses Mendelssohn passed away.


1941: In Baghdad, Pro Axis Rashid Ali, began his revolution against the British by attacking the Jewish community. Approximately 150 Jews were murdered and 800 injured during two day of rioting. British troops stationed outside the city did not intervene. The pogrom is known as the Farhood.


1941: The Battle of Crete comes to an end with German victory.  There were fewer than four hundred Jews living in Crete at this time. “It was not until June of 1944, and almost as an afterthought, that the Jews of Crete were arrested and sent to Herakleion, where they were put on the ship Tanais, together with some 600 Greek and Italian prisoners. For some years the details of the last hours of the Tanais and the fate of its crew and human cargo was not clear. What was known is that the ship had been sunk and that all had perished. Evidence has now appeared through the Foreign Office in London that in fact the Tanais had been sighted by a British U-Boat and was given two torpedo broadsides and sank within 15 minutes.”


1941: The deportation of Bosnian Jews to regional concentration camps begins.  By November, 14,000 Jews will have been deported to these camps.


1941: Birthdate of Dr. Stanley I. Greenspan, a psychiatrist who invented an influential approach to teaching children with autism and other developmental problems. (As reported by David Corcoran)


1942: The story of a young Jew, Emanuel Ringelblum, (who escaped from the Chelmno death camp after being forced to bury bodies as they were thrown out of the gas vans), was published in the underground Polish Socialist newspaper Liberty Brigade. The West now knew the "bloodcurdling news ... about the slaughter of Jews," and it had a name-Chelmno.


1942: The World Jewish Congress, based in New York, announces at a press conference that Eastern Europe is being turned into "a vast slaughterhouse for Jews."  As with the Sudan and Dafur sixty years later, the world “does not hear.”


1942: Between June 1 and June 30 more than 23,000 Jews are gassed at the Belzec and Sobibór death camps


1942: During June, Auschwitz is ravaged by an epidemic of typhus.


1942(16th of Sivan, 5702): Germans invade Jewish hospitals in Sosnowiec, Poland, murdering newborns and tearing patients from operating tables. Ambulatory patients are sent to Auschwitz and gassed.


1942: A young Sosnowiec Jew named Harry Blumenfrucht is captured and endures two weeks of Nazi torture.  He refuses to name his co-conspirators in a scheme to steal weapons. His suffering ends when he is hanged.


1942 (16th of Sivan, 5702 Jews from Dabrowa Tarnowska, Poland, led by Rabbi Isaac and gathered in a Jewish cemetery, defy their Nazi captors when they hold hands, dance, and drink "to life." The enraged Germans shoot and disembowel the entire group.


1942: At Lutsk, Ukraine, Jewish resistance is led by Joel Szczerbat


1942: Starting in the first week of June, three thousand Jews at Pilica, Poland, are deported to Belzec, but several hundred manage to escape before the journey is complete


1942: In Norway, Jews are given identity cards stamped with the letter "J."


1942(16th of Sivan, 5702): Mordecai Gebirtig, a Kraków carpenter whose songs of freedom are sung throughout Poland, is executed at Belzec.


1942: During the first week in June, Polish Jews are deported from Hrubieszów to the Sobibór death camp. Another 500 will be deported the following week


1942: Starting in June, Warsaw's underground newspaper, Liberty Barricade, published by the Polish Socialist Party, reveals Nazi gassing activity at the Chelmno death camp


1942: I.G. Farben's Buna-Monowitz synthetic-rubber and oil works opens near Auschwitz


1942(16th of Sivan, 5702): Between today and the 7th of June  seven thousand Jews from Kraków, Poland, are murdered at the Belzec extermination camp.


1942: First mention ever in the press, in this case the underground Warsaw newspaper "Liberty", of the ‘bloodcurdling news coming out of Chelmno.' Seven Thousand Jews were sent from Cracow to Belzec. On this day tracks began to be built connecting to a new death camp, Treblinka. Treblinka had been prepared for the Jews of central Poland.


1943(27th of Iyyar, 5703):  Jews of Dalmatia, Serbia, are transferred to the island of Rab, which is off the coast of Croatia.


1943(27th of Iyar, 5703):  Starting today and lasting throughout the first two weeks in June 10,000 Jews from Lvov lose their lives in a combination of street assaults and killings at Janówska, Ukraine,


1943(27th of Iyar, 5703):  During liquidation of the ghetto at Sosnowiec, Poland, which began on June 1 and ended on June 6, a spirited resistance is led by Zvi Dunski. Ill-armed Jews fight back as deportations proceed


1943(27th of Iyar, 5703):  The liquidation of the Jewish ghetto at Buczacz, Ukraine begins. It will end on June 6.  Some Jews resist and escape


1943(27th of Iyar, 5703):  Actor Leslie Howard dies when the civilian plane he is flying on from Lisbon to England is shot down by German fighters.  The reason for the attack remains shrouded in the cloak and dagger world of W.W.II.  Born Leslie Howard Stainer in 1893, Howard’s parents were Hungarian Jews.  He served in WW I and gained fame in both English and American films.  He is best remembered for his portrayal of Ashley Wilkes, the classic cavalier in “Gone With the Wind.”


1943(27thof Iyar: Just five weeks short of his 44th birthday, Wilfried B. Israel, a Berlin born businessman who worked to rescue children from the Nazis, died aboard BOAC Flight 777, the same plane that was carrying Leslie Howard.


1944: An American public opinion poll indicates that 57 percent of Americans anticipate "a widespread campaign in this country" against Jews.


1944: From today through June 30, 13,500 Jews are deported from Miskolc, Hungary, to Auschwitz.


1944:  With 55,000 unused United States quota slots from Occupied Europe, President Franklin Roosevelt agrees to allow only 1000 Jewish refugees into the United States. They will be housed at Fort Ontario in Oswego, New York


1944: After having been arrested on May 27, Mrs. Joel Brand and Rudolf Kastner are released by the Arrow Cross.


1945: Displaced Jews at Buchenwald, Germany establish Kibbutz Buchenwald, an agricultural training center designed to help young Jews succeed at kibbutz(communal) life


1945: Public-opinion polls taken during June indicate that Americans consider Jews a far greater threat to America than they consider German or Japanese Americans.


1945: Kibbutz Nili is established on the former estate of Nazi big-wig Julius Streicher, near Pleikershof, Germany, to train Jewish displaced persons in agriculture and provide schooling for Jewish boys and girls.


1946: Release date of “Somewhere in the Night”  directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz who also co-authored the script.


1946: Following the murder of two Jews in Biala Podlaska, Poland, the town's remaining Jews began leaving the country during June.


1946: Ion Antonescu, the anti-Semitic former dictator of Romania, is executed after being convicted of war crimes.


1948: The Arab states and Israel agreed to a cease-fire. After two weeks of fighting, the Arabs realized that pushing the Jews into the sea would not be such an easy matter after all. 


1953(18th of Sivan, 5713):Rabbi Shmuel Yitzchak Hillman, a native of Kovno who served as Dayan of the London Beth Din for 20 years, passed away today in Jerusalem.


1960(6thof Sivan, 5720): As JFK tries to nail down enough delegates to win the Democratic Party nomination for President, Jews observe Shavuot.


1962: Leo Frederick Rayfiel, who has served on the federal bench for the last 15 years, appeared as witness today in the trial of State Supreme court Justice J. Vincent Keogh and former assistant U.S. attorney Elliot Kahaner who are charged with having attempted to fix a case being heard by Judge Rayfiel.


1964: U.S. release date of “Kapò” an award winning Italian moved about the Holocuast co-starring Susan Strasberg, the American Jewish actress who created the role of Anne Frank on Broadwa.


1964: Estelle Sommers got her start in the dance world when she transformed her first husband's Cincinnati piece-goods retail store into a dancewear specialty shop.


1967: Having seen its plans to organize an international flotilla to break the blockade of the Straits of Tiran come to naught, the United States government shifts its policy.  Previously, President Johnson cautioned Israel not to fire the first shot in even of war.  On this day, when Secretary of State Rusk was asked if the U.S. would restrain Israel from taking precipitate actions, he replied, “ I do not think it is our business to restrain anybody.”  On this same date, Abba Eban realized that diplomacy would not work and that war looked like the only viable option.  However, the months of diplomatic negotiation had earned Israel the support of the U.S. government, support it would need in the coming weeks when the Soviet Union sought to reverse Israel’s military successes.


1967:  In response to the mounting tensions and popular demand, Prime Minister Levi Eshkol forms a government of national unity with membership from the total spectrum of Israeli political.  Moshe Dyan is named Defense Minister and meets with Chief of Staff Rabin who outlines the military’s plans.  Dyan approves that which had already been prepared.


1968:  Simon & Garfunkel's "Mrs. Robinson", theme for the hit movie “The Graduate,” was number one on the charts.


1978: Broadway premier of “Tribute” directed by Arthur Storch and produced by Morton Gottleb.


1979(6th of Sivan, 5739): First Day of Shavuot


1980: Actress and singer Barbra Streisand appeared at an ACLU Benefit in California


1981(28thof Iyar, 5741): As Israelis celebrate Yom Yerushalayim they contemplate what kind of friend the newly inaugurated Ronal Regan will make for Israel.


1984: Susan Weidman Schneider published Jewish and Female: Choices and Changes in Our Lives Today


1987: Meir Rosenne ends his term as Israeli Ambassador to Washington.


1997: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Rothschild Gardens by Miriam Rothschild, Kate Garton and Lionel de Rothschild, and the recently released paperback edition of Hitler’s Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust by Daniel Jonah Goldhagen.


1997: For the second time Jack Lang began representing Loir-et-Cher in the French National Assembly.


1998(7thof Sivan, 5758): Second Day of Shavuot


1999:  Brooksly E. Born, the wife of Jack Landau resigned as chairperson of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.


2001(10thof Sivan, 5761): Twenty-one Israelis were killed and another 132 were injured, most of whom were high school students when a suicide bomber blew himself up in Tel Aviv at the Dolphinarium.


2001: Authors Ayelet Waldman and Michael Chabon to their third child Ida-Rose or “Rosie.”


2005: "Celebrated Piano Instructor Kaplinsky Counts Student as Cliburn Finalist".




2005: United States premier of the Israeli film “Or” (My Treasure) starring Dana Igvy.


2005: Moshe "Bogie" Ya'alon completed his term as Chief of Staff of the IDF.


2005:Dan Halutz “was officially appointed the eighteenth Chief of Staff of the Israel Defense Forces and was awarded the rank of Rav-Aluf (Lieutenant General). It is the second time in the history of the Israel Defense Forces that a former IAF commander became the head of the entire military.”


2005:The Jewish Family Service (JFS) of Los Angeles holds its annual gala. The honorees are CAA agent Rick Kurtzman; his brother, Fox business affairs executive Howard Kurtzman; and their brother-in-law, William Morris Agent David Lonner (married to their sister Janet).


2006:At a commencement address he delivered at Queens College today, Alan “Hevesi told his audience that Senator Charles Schumer was so tough he would "put a bullet between the President's eyes if he could get away with it." Several hours after his remarks, Hevesi apologized for his comments, calling them "beyond dumb,""remarkably stupid," and "incredibly moronic\.”


2006: Archaeologists Ofer Bar-Yosef of Harvard University and Mordechai E. Kislev and Anat Hartmann of Bar-Ilan University report that they have found evidence that ancient people grew fig trees some 11,400 years ago, making the fruit the earliest domesticated crop.Remains of the ancient fruits were found at Gilgal I, a village site in the Jordan Valley north of ancient Jericho,. Gilgal was abandoned more than 11,000 years ago. .''


2006: The International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation, in conjunction with the Instituto Cervantes and the Spanish Consulate in New York paid tribute to Diplomat and Savior of the Holocaust, Eduardo Propper de Callejón at the Instituto Cervantes in New York City. The event had a tremendous turnout with approximately 180 people in attendance. Propper's son, Felipe Propper de Callejón, spoke about how his father used his diplomatic office to administer special visas that would enable Jews and other persecuted people to escape the Nazi regime under the protection of the Spanish flag. Despite his father's heroism, he was stripped of his title and transferred to Consulate of Larache in the Spanish protectorate in Morocco and was never able to regain his title or attain recognition for his heroic acts before his death. Ana Salomon, the Special Ambassador for Relations with Jewish Organizations of the Foreign Ministry of Spain, and Abigail Tenembaum, the Vice President of the International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation also spoke at the event. The tribute featured an exhibition of photos, legal documents, and Propper's own notes and correspondences written while serving as First Secretary.  This was the IRWF's second tribute to Spanish diplomat saviors. The first honored eight saviors in Argentina in 2004. The International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation is a non-profit organization that seeks to promote solidarity and civic courage, which are ethical cornerstones of the saviors of the Holocaust


2007:The Metropoline company joined the Egged Bus Cooperative in providing bus service to Arad.


2007:Hadassah national president June Walker’s appointment to head the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations goes into effect. The Presidents' Conference is the umbrella group that represents 50 American Jewish organizations on issues of national and international concern.


2007:Michel Graber, the magistrate who has been overseeing the investigation into the fire that damaged Geneva’s largest synagogue on May 24 said that it was a criminal act which he described as arson. But he said there had been no indication that it was set by extremists. The May 24 blaze raised fears among Geneva's Jewish community that the fire might have been an anti-Semitic attack.


2007: On the same day when three more Kassam rockets struck Israel, the IAF killed a member of an Islamic Jihad Kassam cell in an air strike.


2008: Washington, D.C,. Manhattan, NYC and Boston all host celebrations honoring Israel at Sixty.


2008: Mrs. Jacob (Betty) Levin gathers with her family and friends for the unveiling of the Matzevah of Dr. Jacob Levin (of blessed memory).  Of course, his real Matzevah is impact he made on the lives of his loving family and devoted friends.


2008: In Chicago, the Spertus sponsors a book signing for  Louis Zukofsky The Modernist Poet as Jew” by Dr. Mark Scroggins.  As the unbelieving child of immigrants, Louis Zukofsky (1904 – 1978) sought to study his way out of his father’s Lower East Side sweatshop and to write his way into Western literary history. He did so by placing himself among the "high modernist" poets, whose conception of culture was often covertly or explicitly anti-Semitic. Dr. Mark Scroggins’ new book explores Zukofsky’s growth into one of his century’s most fascinating and complex poets, growth paralleled by his navigation of poetry and Jewishness, and his discovery of Jewish-inflected modernist poetics, which continue to influence and inspire contemporary poets. Mark Scroggins holds an MFA and PhD from Cornell University and teaches literature and creative writing at Florida Atlantic University. A widely published author of poetry, essays and reviews, he has written on a broad range of writers, including extensive writing on poet Louis Zukofsky.


2008: The Chicago Sun Times features a review of “The Dream” by ninety-eight year old Harry Bernstein.  The Dream”follows “The Invisible Wall” as the second in a trilogy that traces the life of the immigrant son of Yankel and Ada Bernstein.


2008: The Washington Post features a review of “1948: A History of the First Arab-Israeli War” by Benny Morris as well as listings for “Defending Identity: Its Indispensable Role in Protecting Democracy”, by Natan Sharansky, “Golda” by Elinor Burkett,” A History of Palestine: From the Ottoman Conquest to the Founding of the State of Israel by Gudrun Krämer,  Jerusalem: City of Longing” by Simon Goldhill and The Story of Israel: From Theodor Herzl to the Roadmap for Peaceby Martin Gilbert.


2008(27th of Iyar, 5768):Yosef (Tommy) Lapid passed away at the age of 76.  Born in Yugoslavia in 1931, Lapid and his mother (his father died in the Holocaust) made Aliyah in 1948 where he became a successful journalist and political leader.


2008(27th of Iyyar, 5768):In Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Penny Binger a student of Chasidic Judaism and devote of Shlomo Carlbach passed away.


2008: In front page article entitled “Baghdad Jews Have Become a Fearful Few” The New York Times describes the plight of one of  the world’s oldest Jewish communities.

2009: Final showing of Sol LeWitt’s “Wall Drawing #260(1975)” at New York’s Museum of Modern Art.


2009: Sports Illustrated magazine features a review of Bill Russell’s “Red and Me” which focuses on the close, unique relationship between the all-star center and coach and Red Auerbach, Russell’s coach and mentor. Between the two of them, they changed the game and made a unique social statement. “Russell writes that they were drawn together by a mutual hardheadedness, united y the ‘tribulation of our tribes’: Russell was an African American who grew up in the Jim Crow South and the Oakland projects, Auerbach a street-savvy urban Jews.” While everybody knows about the alliance between African-Americans and Jews that helped to make the Civil Rights Revolution, fewer people are aware of this unique Black-Jewish Alliance which created its own revolution.


2009: During “Turning Point 3” the government’s emergency headquarters will discuss coordination measures


2009:Security forces uprooted the outpost of Nahalat Yosef today and arrested several activists who protested the destruction. Among those arrested was MK Michael Ben-Ari.
 
2009:Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak began a round of meetings with top U.S. officials today in a bid to head off an increasingly sharp dispute between the United States and Israel over the expansion of Jewish settlements in Palestinian territory.


2009: The Saul Steinberg: Illuminations travelling exhibition, which displays original Steinberg works comes to a close in Hamburg, Germany.  


2010: Mothers Circle, an education and support group for non-Jewish women raising Jewish children is scheduled to have its first meeting for the summer at the Historic Sixth & I Street Synagogue.


2010: In the wake of naval action off the coast of Gaza, Prime Minister Netanyahu does not meet with President Obama as originally scheduled.


2010:An Islamic militant group in the Gaza Strip said three of its members had been killed in an Israeli airstrike in northern Gaza. The Iranian-backed Islamic Jihad group said its fighters were killed shortly after firing two rockets into southern Israel.

2011: The Masada, Dead Sea and Jerusalem Opera Festival is scheduled to begin.


2011: Final session of Hebrew Literacy: Aleph, Bet, and Beyond is scheduled to take place today at the Historic Sixth & Synagogue in Washington, DC


2011: In Washington, DC, Adas Israel is scheduled to hold its Annual Meeting and honor the 2011 Yad Kakavod recipient, David Bickart.


2011(28thof Iyar, 5771):  Yom Yerushalayim – Jerusalem Reunification Day


2011:President Shimon Peres said today that peace could be achieved in Jerusalem in "our time", declaring that Israel has replaced the divisions that once wracked the holy city by offering freedom to all faiths and creeds.

 


2011: The American Jewish Committee lauded the Obama administration today for its decision not to take part in the upcoming United Nations’ Commemoration of the Durban World Conference Against Racism, set to take place in September in New York.

2011: In Helsinki, Ben Zyskowicz, a member of the National Coalition Party who was recently appointed speaker of the Finnish parliament, was attacked by a middle-aged man shouting a racial epithet against Jews.


2011:Attorneys for Howard Ackerman, an Orthodox Jewish prisoner in Carson City, Nev., filed a lawsuit against the state claiming that the state's corrections department intended to stop serving kosher meals to inmates within a week, thus violating their client’s freedom to practice his religion.

 

2012: Cellist Yoed Nir is scheduled to perform tonight at Town Hall in New York


2012: Larry and Mindy Fogel are scheduled to perform a musical salute to the Carpenters in Kfar Vradim.

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2012: The Kühn Choir of Prague is scheduled to give an a-capella concert at the Henry Crown Concert Hall as part of the Israel Festival being held in Jerusalem.


2012: Jennifer Herren is scheduled to begin her Bat Mitzvah weekend in Cedar Rapids, Iowa by helping to lead Shabbat Eve services which will include a special appearance by singers and musicians of Shir Yehuda.


2012: Early this morning members of the 12th Battalion of the famed Golani Brigade thwarted a border crossing which appears to have been the prelude to a major terrorist infiltration.  Planes from the IAF followed up with targeted attacks on Gaza.


2012(11thof Sivan, 5772): Eighty-one year Marion Sandler, the wife of Herbert Sandler, passed away today. (As reported by Michael J. De La Merced

2012: Andy Samberg’s spokesperson announced that he had left SNL


2012(11thof Sivan, 5772): Twenty-one year old Golani Staff-Sergeant Netanel Moshiashvil, from Ashkelon, was killed today while stopping a terrorist infiltrator attempting to cross into Israel from Gaza.


2013: A children’s adaption of “As You Like It “ is scheduled to be performed as part of the Israel Festival in Jerusalem.


2013: Professor Krzysztof Jasiewicz , a Polish Historian, is scheduled to lose his position as head of the Department of Analysis of Eastern Issues following an interview in which he partly blamed the Jews for the Holocaust. (As reported by JTA and Times of Israel)


2013:For its first pavilion at the prestigious Venice Biennale international art festival which is scheduled to open today, the Vatican is presenting an exhibit inspired by the first book of the Torah, rather than by a New Testament theme. Called “Creation, Un-Creation, Re-Creation,” the three-part show in the Vatican’s pavilion will draw on the first 11 chapters of Genesis, Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, president of the Pontifical Council for Culture, told reporters Tuesday at a news conference presenting the concept.”(As reported by JTA)


2013: Eilat residents were slightly unsettled this afternoon as a mild earthquake shook the southern city’s streets and buildings. There were no reports of injury or serious damage (As reported by Adiv Sterman)


2014: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Delicious by Ruth Reichl and Here Comes the Night The Dark Soul of Bert Berns and the Dirty Business of Rhythm & Blues by Joel Selvin.


 
2014:”The Sturgeon Queens” is scheduled to be shown at the Allentown Jewish Film Festival


2014: A revival of “Driving Miss Daisy” is scheduled to be performed at The Bayou Playhouse in Lockport, LA.


2014: “The 10th Annual Matzohball 5K and 1 Mile Fun Run!” sponsored by Temple Isaiah in Fulton, MD, is scheduled to take place at Centennial Park in Howard County.


2014: “Ahead of Time: The Extraordinary Journey of Ruth Gruber is scheduled to come to an end at the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center.

This Day, June 2, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. Levin

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June 2



876 BCE (28 Iyar 2884): This is the traditional date of death of Samuel, prophet and priest (born 2832).


455:  The Vandals entered Rome and plundered the city.  Among the treasures they took with them were the spoils of the Second Temple that had been brought to Rome by Titus.


1098: During the First Crusade, the first Siege of Antioch ends as Crusader forces take the city marking one more step on their rode to Jerusalem that would mean more death and destruction for the Jewish people


1430: “Moses Arragel, a Hebrew Scholar in Castile, presented his translation of the “Old Testament” into the Castilian language to Don Luis de Guzman, grand master of the Order of Catalrava”


1453: In Breslau, John of Capistrano led a mock trial of alleged desecrations of the host. The Rabbi of the community hanged himself and urged other Jews to commit suicide. Forty-one Jews were burned, their property confiscated, and all children under seven were forcibly baptized.


1476: Printing of the first edition of Tur Orah Cahim in Mantua, Italy


1485: The Jews of Toledo plan an attack designed to kill the Inquisitors and then lock the city gates. The plan did not come to fruition after it was betrayed. The Jews of the city suffered later the following winter at the hands of the Inquisitors.


1495: In Leiria, Abraham d’Ortas completed the printing of Jacob ben Asher’s Tur Or Hayyim.


1780: Seven years before his conversion to Judaism, Lord George Gordon “headed a crowd of around 50,000 people that marches on Parliament marking the start of the “Gordon Riots.”


1786(6thof Sivan, 5546): Shavuot


1808(7thof Sivan, 5568): Second Day of Shavuot


1816: Birthdate of Grace Aguilar, the British author whose Portuguese Marrano forbearers found a safe home in 18th century England.

1821: Birthdate of Frederick A. Johnson the first Jewish child born in Cincinnati. He was the son of David Israel and Eliza Johnson.


1830: Rabbi Isaac Lesser delivered his first sermon in English at Congregation Mikveh Israel in Philadelphia.


1835: Birthdate Pius X, who as Pope granted an audience to Theodore Herzl.  Herzl failed in his attempt to enlist the Pope’s support for a Jewish homeland in Palestine. The Pope was polite but firm in his rejection.


1840: As the furor over the Damascus Affair increases, French Prime Minister Adolphe Thiers defended the behavior of Benoit Laurent-Francois, Count de Ratti-Merion, the French Consul in Damascus during a debate in the Chamber of Deputies.  Thiers attributed the uproar to the Jews whom he described as being “more powerful in the world than they have pretensions to be.”


1840: Birthdate of Thomas Hardy. The rest of the world the world may remember him as a British author, but for Jews he was a supporter of a homeland in Palestine as can be seen by the fact that in February of 1919, “he signed a declaration of sympathy with the Jews in support of a movement for ‘the reconstitution of Palestine as a National Home for the Jewish People.’”


1846: Birthdate of Hubert-Joseph Henry, the French officer who killed himself after being arrested for forging the evidence that helped to convict Alfred Dreyfus.


1854(6thof Sivan, 5614): Shavuot


1857: The body of Isaac Jackson was discovered on a farm near Westfield, MA and Charles Jones was arrested on charges of having murdered him. Jackson was Jewish.  Jones wasn’t.


1863: During the Civil War, Jacob C. Cohen who was serving with the 27th Ohio wrote home describing military life in and around Memphis, TN. The 27tharrived at there after having served at Corinth, MS and fought several skirmishes in northern Alabama.  By being at Memphis, Cohen and his comrades were being spared the hardship of that part of Grant’s army trying to take Vicksburg.  But they would see plenty of action when Sherman began his campaign to take Atlanta.


1863: Establishment of Congregation Emanu-El a synagogue in Victoria, British Columbia, on Vancouver Island


1864: Moroccan Jews and Jews from Gibraltar residing in Haifa requested a written ruling from the British Consul for permission to pray. "The Turkish authorities here made no objection to our thus assembling for prayer till quite lately; when they declared that we cannot meet together without being possessed of a firman from Constantinople."


1870: “Religious Bigotry in Turkey – Massacre of Jews by Christians” published today described “a horrible massacre of Jews by Christians in the Turkish province of Romania.” On Sunday, May 29, the Christians attacked the Jews living in all of the “principle towns” butchering “without mercy” thousands of Jews without regard to age or sex.


1870: “Mr. Disraeli’s Health”, an article published today, reported that the British Prime Minister’s health had improved the extent that he could visit the Foreign Ministry and dine with two American diplomats.


1870: Based on dispatches received today in Washington, the Jews of Louisville, KY have sent telegrams to their co-religionists in cities throughout the West urging them to contact their Congressmen with a request that they do all they can to prevent further attacks on the Jews of Romania which have been described as a massacre.


1870: As American Jews respond to the worsening conditions of their co-religionists in Romania, in Washington, D.C., Simon Wolf receives the following telegram from M.S. Isaacs, Secretary of the Jewish Board of Delegates of the United States “Ask the President to instruct the Minister at Constantinople to help the Jews of Roumania.”


1870: As American Jews respond to the worsening conditions of their co-religionists in Romania, in Washington, D.C., Simon Wolf receives the following telegram from  Henry Greenbaum, a leading Chicago banker “Please ask my personal friends in Congress to cooperate with you in representations to the President or otherwise, that the persecution and butchery of our brethren in Roumania be stopped.”

 
1870: A New York Times writer marvels at the fact that those who have most recently escaped from the effects of religious persecution are the most likely to persecute others for their religious beliefs.  The case in point is the persecution of the Jews by the Christians of Roumania, who have so recently been “released from the fear of oppression” by the Moslems. The atrocities are reminiscent of the Spanish Inquisition and are a reminder that the “problems of the darkest ages” are still found in the 19th century.


1873(7th of Sivan, 5633): Second Day of Shavuot


1877: Samuel Morais Hyneman was admitted to the bar in Philadelphia, PA.  Hyneman played an active role in Jewish communal affairs serving as the President of the Young Men’s Hebrew Association of Philadelphia and serving on the board of trustees of both the Jewish Theological Seminary and Gratz College.


1878: Eliza Miller and Ralph Cohen were the receptients of this year’s “Betty Bruhl Prizes” where where presented during “a gala event” that was held this evening at Hebrew Orphan Asylum. The event also marked the third anniversary of the distribution of the “Betty Bruhl Prizes.”  Four years ago, Moses Bruhl presented the asylum with $2,500.00 with the stipulation that the interest on the amount was to be presented annually to tow orphans – one boy and one girl – not older than 15 years of age.  The money (which now totals $50 per award) is to be invested with the principle and interest being given to the winner when the leave the asylum. The award is named after Mr. Bruhl’s late wife who “was a parton of the…asylum.” 


1879: The New York Times published a review of "The Historical Poetry of the Ancient Hebrews" translated and critically acclaimed by Michael Heilprin.  The reviewer attributed the content and style of the book to the possibility that Heilprin might be Jewish.  In fact Michael Heilprin was a Jewish supporter of Kossuth who came to the United States after the revolt failed. His father Phineas Mendel Heilprin was a noted Jewish scholar who had also supported Kossuth and had moved to the United States.  The younger Heilprin supported the Union and was opposed to slavery.  He was a Jewish scholar and supporter of Jewish causes.


1879: As a result of Russian mistreatment of Jewish American businessmen, the U.S. House of Representatives requested the President to have all international treaties which impair the rights of American citizens because of religion amended to secure equal rights.


1882: The Hebrew Children’s Sanitarium is appealing to the public to send funds which will be used to finance its annual summer excursions which are scheduled to start later this month.  Donations can be sent to the office of the Jewish Messenger on Grand Street.


1886: Rabbis in Philadelphia met today to discuss the refusal of the principal at Central High School to excuse the Jewish students from having to take final exams scheduled for Shavuot.  Principal Taylor was aware of the conflict when preparing the exam schedule and refused to make an allowance for alternative test dates. The Rabbis agreed to deliver a letter to Taylor requesting that he re-consider his decision. 


1888: “Endowed In Heilprin’s Honor” published today described the plans to create a fund in memory of the late biblical scholar Michael Heilprin. These include a challenge by Jacob Schiff in which he said he will contribute $5,000 to the fund if an additional $50,000 can be raised by others during the year.


1888: It was reported today that Empress Victoria has spoken out against anti-Semitic agitation and told listeners that she is expressing the views held by Emperor Frederick.  The Emperor’s defense of his Jewish subjects has met with strong outburst by some including the posting of placards in English reading “The Jew Emperor, Frederick Cohen.”


1889: It was reported today that the Semitic Department at Harvard will be offering three new courses for the upcoming academic year including on covering the history of Israel and one covering the history of the Hebrew religion.  The professors teaching the new classes were not Jewish.


1889: It was reported today that Isaac Benseken has hosted a tea party arranged by the American Consul at Tangiers. Two of the ladies at the party were dressed “in the traditional gala dress of the Hebrew women of Morocco…” Refreshments included green tea garnished with sprigs of mint in the Moroccan manner and “Moorish sweetmeats consisting of a thin shell of sugar filled with sweet almost paste…”


1890: As census takers fanned out across New York City, Jewish women responded with fear when they were asked questions about “whether their husbands and sons had done military service” because of their experience with destructive nature of Jewish service in the Czar’s Army.


1890: Based on information that first appeared in Pall Mall Gazette, it was reported today that “a syndicate of Jews has offered $200,000 for the Vatican’s copy of the Hebrew Bible.” The Vatican has possessed the Bible at least since 1512 when Pope Julius II who needed funding to continue his fight with Louis XII negotiated with a group of Italian Jews to sell them the Bible.  For reasons that are still unknown, the Pope changed his mind and kept the book. (Editor’s Note – This is the Pope who “paid for the paint” that covered the Sistine Chapel.


1892(7th of Sivan, 5652) Second Day of Shavuot


1892: This morning, at Hamilton College, the Clark Prize for speaking was awarded to Gregory Rosenblum, a young Russian immigrant who spoke on “The Jews in Russia.”


1892: “A Woman’s Revenge” published today described a beating that former prize fighter inflicted on Chicago merchant Joseph Fish.  According to Fish, the beating “was prompted by a young attractive-looking widow” whom he was no longer seeing since his engagement to the daughter of a prominent Jewish Chicago citizen.


1893: An out of court settlement was reached in Schwab v Schwab which kept the Judge from having to make a decision that would either render the defendant as a bigamist or the plaintiff’s children as being “illegitimate.”


1893: Myer S. Isaacs, President of the Baron Hirsch Fund testified before the Senate Committee on Immigration at the New Netherland Hotel.  In response to questions, he said that the fund did not provide financing to bring immigrants to the United States.  Rather it worked with immigrants who were already in the United States to help them gaining an education and developing the skills that would allow them to get a job.


1895: French railroad tycoon and philanthropist Baron Moritz de Hirsch meets Theodore Herzl in Paris.  Herzl hopes to convince Hirsch to take the money he had been spending to settle Jews in agricultural communities in places like Argentina and spend it instead on the creation of a Jewish homeland in Eretz Israel.


1895: Eighty-two year old German jurist Heinrich von Friedberg who became a Protestant early in his career passed away today.


1895: The list of the trustees of the newly incorporated Independent Young Pleasure Club, a “landsmanshaftn” published today included Abraham Cohen, Kate Jacobs, Jacob Levine, Meyer Libsohn, Samuel Gussoff, Davis Schroeder and Max Scharlin.


1895: “Hands and Mind Drilled” published today traced the history of the Hebrew Technical Institute, a vocational educational school begun over ten years ago to meet the needs of newly arriving Jewish immigrants from eastern Europe who lacked suitable job skills.


1896: The Neue Freie Presse mentions Herzl's Der Judenstaat for the first time.


1897(2nd of Sivan, 5657): Abraham Cohn, “an American Civil War Union Army Sergeant Major and recipient to the highest military decoration for valor in combat — the Medal of Honor — for having distinguished himself at the Battle of the Wilderness, Virginia passed away in New York.


1899: In Hong Kong, Sir Elly Kadoorie and his wife gave birth to Baron Lawrence Kadoorie, the noted businessman and philanthropist who was part of a clan of Misrahi Jews who had made their way from Baghdad, to Bombay to China.


1899: “A Noble German Jew” published today recounted an 1850 encounter between Bismarck and Dr. Eduard Simson when the latter was serving as President of the Parliament and called the Chancellor to order.  When Bismarck said that members of the “old nobility knew how to conduct themselves” countered the Chancellor invocation of his bloodline with the retort “you say that to me a descendant in the direct line from the high-priest Aaron.  To which Bismarck replied, “Pardon me Mr. Speaker, but I had never looked upon the matter from that point of view.”


1899: “The Situation in France” published today described the view of the anti-Dreyfusites who “are not convinced by the declaration of Monsieur Ballot de Beaupre that Esterhazy is the traitor” and the belief that “the people are so tired of the affair that by the time Dreyfus has returned to France angry passions will problably have subsided.” (Those opposed to Dreyfus never accepted the confession and the passions really never cooled until all involved had died.)


1901: Birthdate of producer Michael Todd producer who gained fame for the cinematic system called Todd A-O and for such film hits as Around the World in 80 Days.


1901: Commencement exercises were held today at the Hebrew Orphan Asylum on Amsterdam Avenue.  Prizes consisting of engraved certificates and $50 in cash were awarded to the outstanding boy and girl at the institution.  The prizes were created by the late Moses Bruhl as a way to honor the memory of his wife, Bettie Bruhl.


1903(7th of Sivan, 5663): Second Day of Shavuot


1904: “Camden Hebrews’ New Synagogue” published today described the decision of the Board of Trustees of Adas Israel “to erect a $25,000 synagogue at the southeast corner of Fifth and Spruces Streets in Camden, NJ.


1909: Alfred Deakin became Prime Minister of Australia for the third time. At one time, Deakin had been a political ally of the Jewish Australian politician Isaac Isaacs who he appointed to the position of Attorney General in 1906.


1909: Birthdate of Benzion Netanyahu an Israeli historian and Zionist activist who is also known for being secretary to the father of the Revisionist Zionism movement Ze'ev Jabotinsky as well as the father of Yonatan Netanyahu, former commander of Sayeret Matkal, who was killed in Operation Entebbe and Israeli politician Benjamin Netanyahu


1911(6th of Sivan, 5671): Shavuot


1911: The Sultan of Turkey conferred the Order of Medjidie, Fourth Class, on Isaac Jessua Bey of Salonica. He was the secretary to the Inspector General of the Gendarmerie of the vilayet.


1919: Birthdate of American painter Nat Mayer Shapiro


1920: Birthdate of Marcel Reich-Ranicki, Polish-born German critic.


1921: Birthdate of Sir Sigmund Sternberg, the Hungarian native who came to the UK in 1939 where he went on to become a “philanthropist, businessman and Labour Party donor.”


1922(6th of Sivan, 5682): Shavuot


1922: New Yorker Bernard A. Rosenblatt who is a member of the Zionists Executive left New York to arrange for the underwriting of the first Jewish municipal bond issue in history.


1922:  In Camden, NJ, Congregation Beth-El held Confirmation Services which were led by Cantor Jacob Mickelman.


1923 Birthdate of mathematician and economist Lloyd Shapely who joined his “Jewish-American colleague Alvin Roth in winning the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science for their work on market design and matching theory.”

1926: In Vienna, Michael Hilberg and his wife gave birth to Dr. “ Raul Hilberg, a Jewish émigré from Nazi-occupied Europe who helped begin the field of Holocaust studies with his long and minutely detailed 1961 study of the massacre of European Jews: (As reported by Douglas Martin)


1930(6th of Sivan, 5690): Jews celebrate Shavuot for the first time during what will become known as The Great Depression.


1932: Ruth Barroway, Miriam Morris, Sidney Kantor, Leona Pinksy, Robert Kaplan and Edward Gallob were confirmed today at Congregation Beth-El in Camden, NJ.


1932(27th of Iyar, 5692): Simcha Gutman a Hebrew poet and novelist who wrote under the pen name Ben Zion passed away at the age of 62


1936: The Tarbut School in Moletai, Lithuania, held its eleventh graduation.

 

1936: During the Arab Riots, the Irgun defied the Jewish Agency’s call for restraint by killing nine Arabs with an explosion at the Jerusalem’s Jaffa Gate.


1936: Forty-three Polish and fourteen Jewish defendants went on trial today in the aftermath of the Przytyk Pogrom.


1937: The Palestine Postreported that the Arab Higher Committee denounced the anticipated Royal (Peel) Commission's proposal for the partition of Palestine.


1937: The Palestine Postreported that the new Central Railway Station opened in Haifa.


1937: The Palestine Postreported that the an Arab who for £10 attempted to smuggle a Baghdadi Jew, Maji Shlomo Jarjana, from Syria to Palestine was sentenced to 10 months imprisonment. Jarjana got a two weeks jail sentence and deportation.


1937: The Palestine Postreported that the in the Polish town of Bransk Jews were beaten and injured, their stalls demolished, windows were smashed in their homes and at the synagogue.


1937: Information published from Venezuela indicated there is an Ashkenazi community of 100 members, most from Romania, and an indigenous Sephardic community between 700 and 800 members, who have "no relations" whatsoever with the Ashkenazim.


1939: The Christian Science Church attacks Jewish refugees as causing their own troubles, a position reportedly taken by many important Protestant journals of the time.


1940: The concentration camp at Neuengamme, Germany, is upgraded to primary-camp status


1940: The Jewish Institute of Religion held its 15th annual commencement this afternoon. Rabbi Stephen S Wise ordained 8 candidates for the rabbinate. Two men were honored with honorary degrees as Doctors of Hebrew Letters. One went to Salmann Schocken, the publisher and businessman who had fled from Germany to Palestine when the Nazis came to power.  The other was award in absentia to Rabbi Moses Schorr,  “the former chief rabbi of Warsaw, who is now languishing in one of Stalin’s prisons. (Editor’s note – This is at a time when the non-aggression pact between the two dictators is in effect and the Soviets have conquered their half of Poland)


1941: Second and final day of the Farhud Pogrom during which approximately 200 Jews were murdered in Baghdad and more than 2,000 were injured.  Property damage exceeded 3 million dollars.


1941: French law called for ‘administrative arrest' for all Jews.


1942: Four hundred volunteers from the Jewish Brigade under the command of Major Liiebmann fought at the Battle of Bir-el Harmat in Libya which began today and lasted until June 11.


1942: Three thousand, four hundred Jews from Hurbieszow were sent to Sobibor, where eventually all but 12 were gassed.


1942: Fred Traum’s parents -- Elias Israel Traum and Gitel Sara Traum -- left Vienna by train and reportedly were murdered by the Nazis three to five days later when the train reached Minsk.


1942: Viennese Jews are deported to the Minsk (Byelorussia) Ghetto. One woman, Elsa Speigel, decides to leave her 51/2-month-old son, Jona, behind. The baby will eventually be sent to the camp/ghetto at Theresienstadt, Czechoslovakia, where he will survive the war.



1942: The BBCreports that 700,000 Jews have been exterminated. Its information comes from a report smuggled out of Poland by the Jewish Bund in Warsaw.


1942:  Birthdate of producer Berry Levinson.


1942(17thof Sivan, 5702): Leo Katzenberger was guillotined at Stadelheim Prison in Munich after having been convicted, in a totally bogus trial, of “race pollution” because he allegedly had sexual relations with his non-Jewish girl friend.


1944: Itzhak Gruenbaum, the chairman of the Rescue Committee of the Jewish Agency, requests the bombing of rail lines that lead to Auschwitz.


1944: The Allies begin a bombing operation (Operation Frantic) in the Balkans, the goal of which is to distract the Germans from upcoming Allied landings in France. Bombing routes overfly the railway lines leading from Hungary to Auschwitz. The operation lasts for four months, during the deportation of tens of thousands of Hungarian Jews to Auschwitz. The railway lines carrying the Jews are never targeted


1944: In the Bronx, Max Hamlisch and his wife gave birth to Marvin Frederick Hamlish “the Pulitzer Prize-winning composer who imbued his movie and Broadway scores with pizazz and panache and often found his songs in the upper reaches of the pop charts.” (As reported by Rob Hoerburger)


1947:Bernard M. Baruch, former United States member of the United Nations Atomic Energy Commission, said today that it would be "sheer suicide and sheer madness if we didn't adopt the compulsory military training plan just recommended by the Advisory Commission on Universal Training."


1947: In Germany, Rachel and Moshe gave birth to Hairm Bar-Zeev(Reichberger) who immigrated to Israel a year later and was lost when the Submarine Dakar went down with all hands in 1968


1947: The United Nations Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP) elected its Chairman, Emil Sandstrom, a Swedish Supreme Court Judge and set sail for Palestine.


1948: Viktor Brack, who was Hitler's supervisor of the installation of gas chambers in Poland, was executed.


1948: An Israeli attack on Egyptian positions at Ashdod marked the turning point in the war between Israel and Egypt.


1948: The Golani and Carmeli brigades attacked Jenin today
 
1948: Birthdate of Roni Bar-On, the Tel Aviv native who served as a Lieutenant Colonel in the IDF before pursuing a political career that included service as an MK and cabinet minister.


1949: The Kingdom of Transjordan was renamed The Kingdome of Jordan.  The kingdom had been named Transjordan because it was across (trans) the Jordan river.  In 1948, Jordan's army crossed the Jordan River and seized the eastern portion of Jerusalem and the territory now called the West Bank.  Since the country was now on both sides of the Jordan River, it was no called Jordan.  This name change proved that the government of Jordan planned to remain permanently on the west bank of the Jordan River and there was no intention to create a Palestinian State.


1949: In Washington, DC, Helen and Frank Hart Rich gave birth to Frank Hart Rich, Jr. who would gain fame and fortune as Frank Rich, one of the finest and wittiest writers to write for the New York Times


1950: Plans to build a village in Israel bearing the name of President Truman to be called Kfar Truman were announced at the White House.


1950: Violinist Jascha Heifetz, who is on a concert tour in Israel, said today that he founded Israeli audiences to be “a little too sophisticated but quite wonderful.” In the 12 performances to date, he has enjoyed enthusiastic audience response.


1952: Birthdate of Elan Steinberg, the native of Rishon LeZion, “who brought what he called a new, “American style” assertiveness to the World Jewish Congress as its top executive, winning more than $1 billion from Swiss banks for Holocaust victims and challenging Kurt Waldheim, the former United Nations secretary general, over his Nazi past…” (As reported by Douglas Martin)


1952: Birthdate of Gary Bruce Bettman, the commissioner of the National Hockey League.


1952: The Jerusalem Postreported that according to Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion, and contrary to persistent rumors, no definite reparation offer had yet been received from Western Germany.


1952: The Jerusalem Postreported that an Israeli mother, who drowned her sick and handicapped five-year-old child in the sea, received a one year prison sentence. The judge pointed out that there was a waiting list of more than 300 handicapped children waiting for proper treatment.


1952: The Jerusalem Postreported that prospective emigrants were ordered to give up their ration books before leaving Israel.


1956: Birthdate of Efi Oshaya, the Israeli political leader who served as an MK for Labor and One Israel.


1959: Allen Ginsberg wrote his poem "Lysergic Acid," in San Francisco.


1960(7th of Sivan, 5720): For the last time during the Presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower, Jews observe the second day of Shavuot


1961(18th of Sivan, 5721):  Famed playwright George S. Kaufman passed away.

 
1961: Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion, “accompanied by his Private Secretary, Yitzhak Navon (later President of Israel) and the Israeli Ambassador to London, Aruthur Lourie” meet with Winston Churchill in London.  During their conversation, Ben-Gurion outlines his views on the situation in Iraq, the stability of the Jordanian monarchy and the threat posed by Egypt which now possessed twenty or more MIG-19 air craft which were better than anything the Israelis possessed.


1962: On Shabbat, during his sermon today, Rabbi Bernard J. Bamberger told congregants at Shaaray Tefila in New York, “that the current discussion of medical care for the aged had been confused by warnings of ‘the danger of socialized medicine.’”


1962: Dr. Kurt Klappholz, the Rabbi at Congregation and Talmud Torah Tifereth Israel, an Orthodox synagogue in Brooklyn delivered a sermon today in which he was highly critical of the Central Conference of American Rabbis for urging the government of Israel to spare Eichmann’s life four hours before he was to be hung.  The Klappholz family was wiped out by the Nazis.


1965:The United Synagogue which was established for charitable purposes by the Jewish United Synagogues Act of 1870 was formally registered as a charity today in the United Kingdom.


1968(6thof Sivan, 5728): As the United States is being torn apart by divisions caused by race and the Viet Nam War, the Jewish people observe Shavuot


1973: Birthdate of David Bezmozgis, Latvian born Canadian author


1974: Abba Eban completes his service Foreign Minister.


 1977: The Jerusalem Post reported from Washington that the US and Israel fundamentally disagreed over the Arab willingness to live in peace with a secure Israel. US officials believed that Arabs were ready to accept Israel within the pre-1967 borders, but Israeli leaders doubted Arab moderation.


1977: The Jerusalem Postreported that Kennan Moss, a new immigrant from South Africa, was held for allegedly crossing into Jordan where he betrayed important Israeli security secrets.


1977: The Jerusalem Postreported that the Shippers’ Council sued the Marine Officers Union for losses caused by the recent, prolonged marine strike.


1979(7th of Sivan, 5739): Second Day of Shavuot


1982: Yad Vashem recognized Jan Karski as Righteous Among the Nations. A tree bearing a memorial plaque in his name was planted at Yad Vashem's Avenue of the Righteous Among the Nations in Jerusalem


1988: The New York Review of Books publishes the letter signed from Natan Zach and Nissim Calderon in which they resign as members of the advisory committee of the International Poetry Festival due to take place in Israel as part of the country’s 40th anniversary celebration.


1989(28th of Iyar, 5749: Yom Yerushalayim


1989: Israeli journalist Eric Silver wrote an article in the London Jewish Chronicle describing life in Jerusalem for Arabs and Jews; a life marred by violence and suspicion.  Responding to Arab claims that “Jews are afraid’ Silver writes, “The Jews say it is not so much fear as prudence. Why risk a knife in the back, a rock through the windscreen? Who needs it?”


1991: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Chutzpah by Alan Dershowitz.


1996(15th of Sivan, 5756): Amos Tversky, Israeli psychologist passed away.


1998: Jacob A. Stein and Plato Cacheris replaced William H. Ginsburg, the attorney who had been representing Monica Lewinsky from the time the scandal first broke.


2000(28th of Iyar, 5760): A month before President Clinton issued the formal invitation to Ehud Barak and Yasar Arafat to come to peace talks at Camp David, Jews observe Yom Yerushalyim


2001(11 of Sivan, 5761): Fifteen year old Yael-Yulia Sklianik of Holon and 20 year old Sergei Panchenko from the Ukraine died today of the wounds sustained when a suicide bomber attacked the Dolphinarium.


2002: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Sunday Jews': Proudly Half and Half by Emily Barton and Firehouse by David Halberstam.


2003:The National Foundation for Jewish Culture, the leading advocate for Jewish cultural creativity and preservation in America, hosts a gala ceremony at the Plaza Hotel in New York where it presents today the honorees for the fourteenth annual Jewish Cultural Achievement Awards. The event is chaired by Morris W. Offit and Merryl H. Tisch, and hosted by Tony Award-winning actor Ron Leibman. The awards seek to recognize artists or cultural institutions who demonstrate a significant body of work or consistent achievement, excellence on the highest standards of the discipline as well as significant contributions to Jewish life and culture in America. This year, the awards are distributed in five categories: Patron of the Arts, Media Arts, Performing Arts, Literary Arts and Visual Arts.  The honorees include:- Lynn Korda Kroll, philanthropist and chairman of the board of the NFJC (Patron of the Arts); David Isay, radio producer (Media Arts); Leonard Nimoy, actor, author and photographer (Performing Arts); Adrienne Rich, author, poet and educator (Literary Arts) and Mierle Laderman Ukeles, conceptual and installation artist (Visual Arts).


2005:  The San Diego Jewish Times, published the following article by Donald H. Harrison entitled “Yossi Harel tells Exodus Story From the Commander's Perspective.”

I was surprised after Yossi Harel finished speaking that the 40-50 people invited by the Tel Aviv Foundation to hear him May 15 at Reina and David Shteremberg’s home in La Jolla didn’t jump to their feet as one to give him a standing ovation. Harel’s stirring story is the kind that makes your heart swell with gratitude that God made you a Jew. Perhaps the more restrained response was because Harel, today an octogenarian, seems so shy, and so modest about himself that people didn’t want to embarrass him by their effusions. The simplicity of the man—measured against his deeds—reminded me of the time I toured the historic home of Paula and David Ben-Gurion in Tel Aviv. To pass between their kitchen table and the cabinets, one practically had to turn sideways.  Such an unassuming home for someone as important to the Jewish people as Ben Gurion!  But he was not a man of large possessions, rather he was a man of big deeds.  So too might it be said about Harel. Harel was a youngster in the pre-Israel Independence Haganah underground forces when he was directed to study coastal navigation—study that led to him being named the post World War II commander of the effort to smuggle immigrants past the British blockade and into Palestine. Most people of my generation know his story very well; as it was fictionalized in the movie Exodus starring Paul Newman. The real Exodus was among the ships under Harel’s command. The captain of that ship, Ike Arianne, coincidentally is coming to San Diego to speak June 5 to the Alpine Jewish Connection and June 8 to Congregation Beth Israel about his experiences.  In describing the journey of the Exodus and other immigrant ships, Harel emphasized three major points: the awesome sense of responsibility he felt trying to ferry people from the camps of Europe, especially for the youth who had survived the Holocaust, and the dangers that the clandestine ships faced along the way. Harel remembers the children the most vividly.  On one ship, he remembers a boy who used to dig tunnels from a nazi-guarded ghetto to the city outside.  His father wanted him to sneak his sister out, but the sister wouldn’t leave the parents.  So the boy’s father told the boy to leave the ghetto on his own, and not to come back.  The father knew the nazis eventually would take them all away.  The boy did as he was told, later telling Harel “I never again saw my father, my mother, my sister; they went to heaven through the chimneys of Auschwitz.” To his La Jolla listeners, Harel reflected; “You listen to this story and you begin to understand what is the command you got.” On that particular ship, there were 4,000 passengers, and “everyone had an equivalent story.”  It gave rise to the determination that while the British might be successful in stopping some ships from disembarking its passengers in Palestine, it couldn’t stop all of them. At one of the Displaced Persons camp from which Exodus passengers were chosen, he remembered a girl who held a little boy’s hand tight.  Was she the older sister, he wondered?  No, he learned from the camp’s Haganah commander. She had been sent by her Jewish parents to a monastery where she posed as a Catholic.  The little boy came later, but was too young to understand what was required of him.  At night, he cried in Yiddish for his mother—dangerous because the Gestapo would yank such children from the monastery and execute them.  The girl hushed him, taught him how to make the sign of the cross and other prayers, and remained his protector to that very day. The immigrant ships navigated waters that under normal circumstances were treacherous; let alone when the ships sat deep in the water because they were overloaded with passengers. They were short on food, fuel and water, often having to cut rations as they neared their destination. On one ship, a Greek captain and senior crew member began making the sign of the cross on their chests as they looked at the rocks of Peloponese.  “When you see the captain and the chief do that, you know something is wrong,” Harel recalled, his understatement prompting laughter from his La Jolla listeners. The strong waves were driving the 50-year-old ship toward the rocks, and the heavy-in-the-water vessel had insufficient power to counteract their force.  Six miles from the rocks, than five miles, then four miles… “I could see that the ship was going to wreck,” he said.  “We didn’t have a single lifeboat, what can we do?  So you sit on the bridge, and you watch, and all of a sudden you see the waves parallel to the coast beginning to change direction.  The winds changed!  Slowly we passed by maybe 200-300 yards offshore.  We had 4,000 people aboard.  Maybe the supplication of the captain helped!” On another occasion, a ship had to be navigated through the Bosporus—but to get to the straits, it needed to first sail through waters that the Russians had mined during World War II.  A Russian pilot refused to sail at night, so a Haganah member was assigned to read the charts and get the ship through.  “It was the longest night of my life,” said Harel.
“Overall,” Harel said, “we brought 100,000 people but this was the bloodiest war we ever had.  In the War for Independence, we had 600,000 Jews, and we lost 6,000 – one percent.”  Running the blockade, he said, “we lost over 3,000 people drowned in the Black Sea—three percent…
“With all these casualties, they kept coming, they didn’t stop,” he marveled. “A nation destroyed was coming back to life.”


2006(6th of Sivan, 5766): First day of Shavuot


2006(6th of Sivan, 5766): Sol W. Cantor, an early proponent of discount retailing featuring warehouse style stores passed away at the age of 95.  He was a major philanthropist who supported the UJA, ADL and the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University.


2006: Pittsburgh's Malacandra Productions staged a nine-character play adapted by John Regis from the classic William Tenn (Philip Klass) science fiction short story, "Winthrop Was Stubborn".


2007: In Cedar Rapids, Melanie Abzug becomes a Bat Mitzvah at Temple Judah.


2007: The Cedar Rapids Gazette features an article entitled “Mitzvahs Swell in Summer” by Molly Rossiter describing the Bar and Bat Mitzvah Ceremonies and the way they are practiced at Temple Judah in Cedar Rapids and Agudas Achim in Iowa City.


2007(16th of Sivan, 5767): Martin Meyerson, former president of the University of Pennsylvania who briefly led the University of California at Berkley during the tumultuous 1960’s passed away at the age of 84. “He was the first Jewish head of a major research university, and he and John Kemeny of Dartmouth College were the first Jewish presidents in the Ivy League. A reporter once called Mr. Meyerson ‘the Jackie Robinson of Jewish academia.’”


2008: AIPAC Policy Conference opens in Washington, D.C.


2008 ((28th of Iyar, 5768): Yom Yerushalayim – Jerusalem Reunification Day.  This marks the celebration of the 41st anniversary of the re-establishment of Jewish control over the entire “City of David.”


2008: At the Spertus in Chicago, the fourth and final session of “A Short History of Anti-Semitism.” Taught by historian Dr. Dean Bell, the course covers anti-Judaism in the classical world, the Crusades and expulsions in the Middle Ages, tolerance and restrictions in the early modern period, and racial anti-Semitism in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

2008: Brian “Horwitz hit his first major league home run on June 2, 2008, off New York Mets starting pitcher Óliver Pérez.”


2008: In an article entitled “Holocaust survivors passing memories to young people,” The Chicago Tribune describes the “Generation to Generation” program sponsored by the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center in Skokie which is designed to enable Holocaust survivors to tell their story with a young recipient to ensure that the personal memories are not lost.

2009:The National Capital Mikvah offered a class on "The Fourth Trimester: Childbirth and Beyond." During an interactive lecture Rebbetzin Sharon Freundel led a discussion on childbirth and post-childbirth issues for Orthodox women including niddah after childbirth and when to return to the mikvah, how to schedule a brit for both term and pre-term boys, and other laws and customs.


2009(10th of Sivan, 5769):A gunman killed one person, seriously wounded a second and said he tried to hit a third in an apparent shooting spree in central Jerusalem early this morning, police said. Yoel Almog Dazhinishvilli shot and killed Amjad Abu Hadar, 33, and seriously wounded a Jewish yeshiva student who passed by moments later. Police say Danishvilli also tried to wound a third man, but failed.

2009:A rising and falling siren sounded this morning at 11 A.M. for a minute and a half as part of this year's Home Front Command national exercise, with all citizens encouraged to practice entering their protected rooms. The exercise was meant to raise the public's preparedness for possible missile attacks on the country. The drill, named Turning Point 3, was run by the Home Front Command and the National Emergency Authority.

2010: The YIVO is scheduled to present a lecture entitled “Empire of Charity: American Jews and the Rebuilding of Polish Lithuania, 1919-1939” which “focuses on the role Jewish émigrés and their philanthropy played in reshaping political, social, and economic life in Brisk and Vilna, the two historic intellectual centers of Lithuanian Jewry.”


2010: In  “A Viennese District Is Reborn” published today, Kimberly Bradley described the rebirth of the Karmeliterviertel, or Carmelite Quarter as a center for Jewish culture. “Over the last decade or so the area has become one of the few places in the world outside of Brooklyn and Tel Aviv where bohemians stroll alongside groups of Orthodox Jews — the former buying chutney from Slow Food Vienna’s booth at the market, the latter munching on matzo and hummus from Kosherland.”


2011: The Masada Opera Festival is scheduled to “kick off with a celebratory opera evening featuring works by Verdi, Puccini and Rossini performed by Svetla Vasileva and the orchestra of Arena di Verona”.


2011: The 92nd Street Y is scheduled to present “Israeli Wines: Talk and Tasting”  a program offering a virtual tour of several vineyards as well as a look at the unique Israeli wine-making process facilitated by Udi Kadim, CEO of Yarden, one of the nation's leading importers of quality wines.


2011:  Israel has deployed an Iron Dome rocket interceptor outside Sderot, a Gaza border town that has borne the brunt of Palestinian shelling attacks, posing a new test for the fledgling system underwritten by Washington.
 
2011:Five people were arrested this afternoon in connection with an incident earlier in the day, in which a Molotov cocktail was thrown at the Binyamin Police commander's car, setting it ablaze. Also, this afternoon, Border Police and Civil Administration authorities demolished the Ga'on Yarden settlement outpost in the Binyamin region of the West Bank, in which several buildings were illegally built. It was the second demolition carried out in one day.


2011: “Footnote” is scheduled to open throughout Israel today.


2011: It was announced today that Jill “that Abramson would become the executive editor of the Times in September 2011…”


2012: In Atlanta, The Temple is scheduled to sponsor a concert featuring The Return which will be both a fundraiser and celebration of the birthday of Rabbi Alvin Sugarman


2012: In Cedar Rapids, IA, Jessica Heeren is scheduled to be called to the Torah as a Bat Mitzvah


2012:Seven historic synagogues in Krakow that are closed for most of the year are scheduled to be open tonight as part of the second annual 7@nite-Synagogues By Night, an evening of exhibitions, music concerts and fashion shows by young artists from Poland and around the world. The free event is sponsored by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, JCC Krakow and the Krakow Jewish community. (As reported by the JTA)


 2012: “Thousands demonstrated for social justice tonight in Israel’s three largest cities in an effort to rejuvenate the movement that swept the country last summer with tent cities and weekly demonstration. Many of the protesters, especially in Tel Aviv and Haifa, were from the Meretz and Hadash parties, as well as from leftist youth movements.” (As reported by Haaretz)


2012: Dianna Agron hosted the GLAAD Media Award in San Francisco.


2013: A grand ceremony to dedicate British Columbia’s first synagogue will be reenacted today exactly 150 years to the day following the establishment of Congregation Emanu-El in downtown Victoria, the picturesque capital of Canada’s western-most province. (As reported by Arthur Wolak)


2013: The American Society for Jewish Music and the American Jewish Historical Society are scheduled to present “Music in Our Time: 2013” an annual concert that features music with Jewish content.


2013: The Israeli National Soccer Team is scheduled to play the Honduran National Team at Citi Field in what will the Israeli team’s first New York appearance in 35 years.


2013: A conference on “Holy War and Sacred Struggle in Judaism, Christianity and Islam” is scheduled to open at Tel Aviv University


2013: A farewell dinner is scheduled to be held in New Orleans for Rabbi Uri Topolosky of Congregation Beth Israel and his wife Dahlia. (For more about the New Orleans Jewish Community see the Crescent City Jewish News edited by Alan Samson)


2013: “Beyond Swastika and Jim Crow: Jewish Refugee Scholars at Black Colleges” is scheduled to have its final showing at the National Museum of American Jewish Museum. (Special thanks to Rabbi Fred Davidow, an “authentic Southern Jew” and a real mensch for making us aware of this)




2013: The New York Timespublished reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Super Boys: The Amazing Adventures of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster – the Creators of Superman by Brad Ricaa, No Joke: Making Jewish Humor by Ruth Wisse and Lady At The O.K. Corral: The True Story of Josephine Marcus Earp by Anna Kirschner.


2013:The Bayit Yehudi party has officially endorsed Rabbi David Stav as its candidate for the position of Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi in a vote that took place during a faction meeting this afternoon.


2014: The JCC in Manhattan is scheduled to host a screening of “An Honest Liar.”


2014: The Center for Jewish History is scheduled to host “Rethinking Jabotinsky,” a book talk with Hillel Halkin in conversation with New York Timescultural critic, Edward Rothstein, Columbia University historian Rebecca Kobrin, and moderator Abe Socher, editor of The Jewish Review of Books.

This Day, June 3, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. Levin

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June 3


350:  Roman usurper Nepotianus, of the Constantinian dynasty, proclaims himself Roman Emperor, entering Rome at the head of a group of gladiators. The Constantinian Dynasty took its name from its most famous member, Constantine I, the Emperor who turned the Roman Empire into a Christian entity; a policy followed by his successors much to the dismay of the Jewish people.


1098: During the First Crusade, Antioch falls to the crusaders after an eight-month siege. This would open the road to Jerusalem, where, after another siege, the Christians would capture the City of David and slaughter its Jewish inhabitants.


1361: In Spain orders are given for the construction of a Juderia (Jewish Quarter) in Tarazona. The Jewish Quarter is to be separated by walls from the Christian community. The Christians living where the Juderia is to be built were given property of the same value and relocated.


1140: French scholar Peter Abelard is found guilty of heresy. Abelard may have been a heretic in the eyes of the Catholic Church, but when it came to the Jews, his views were classically Christian.  He believed that the Jews were wicked and that God’s grace had passed from them to the Gentiles who had accepted Christ. The grace of God would return to the Jews in the end of time when the Jews will be converted to Jesus.  Christ is spoken of as about to be crowned or about to be crucified it is said that He “went forth”; to signify that the Jews, who were guilty of so great wickedness against Him, were given over to reprobation, and that His grace would now pass to the vast extent of the Gentiles, where the salvation of the Cross and His own exaltation by the gain of many peoples, in the place of the one nation of the Jews, has extended itself. Whence, also, to-day we rightly go forth to adore the Cross in the open plain, showing mystically that both glory and salvation had departed from the Jews and had spread themselves among the Gentiles. But in that we afterward returned [in procession] to the place whence we had set forth, we signify that in the end of the world the grace of God will return to the Jews; namely, when, by the preaching of Enoch and Elijah, they shall be converted to Him. Abelard may have been a heretic in the eyes of the Catholic Church, but when it came to the Jews, his views are classically Christian. 


1425: Pope Martin V issued “Sedes apostolica,” a Papal Bull that commanded Jews to wear “a distinctive badge.” [Editor’s note – this may have more to do with Pope Martin’s fight against slavery.  The badge was intended as a way of deterring the sale of Christians as slaves.  For a Pope, his views on the Jews was on the positive side of the scale as  can be seen from his “Declaration on the Protection of the Jews” issued in 1419.]


1621: The Dutch West India Company receives a charter for New Netherlands, which would come to include New Amsterdam. A Jewish merchant named Joseph d’Acosta was one of the company’s shareholders.  The fact that the Dutch West India Company had Jewish shareholders would prove to be of critical importance when Peter Stuyvesant would try to expel the Jews from New Amsterdam which was part of New Netherlands.


1658: Pope Alexander VII appointed François de Laval vicar apostolic in New France. Alexander was the pope who seemed to have a great deal of concern about the rights of tenancy in the ghetto since he issued two bulls – Verbi Aeterni and Ad Ea Per Quae- on the subject.


1678(13thof Sivan): Rabbi Ephraim ben Jacob Katz, author of Sha’ar Ephraim, passed away


1752: During the quarrel between Rabbi Jacob Emden and Rabbi Jonathan Eybeschutz a secular Danish court ruled in favor of Emden, severely censuring the three communities of Altona, Hamburg and Wansbeck and ordering them pay a fine of one hundred thalers. This enabled Emden to return to Altona where he regained possession of his synagogue and his printing press.


1753(1st of Sivan, 5513): Rosh Chodesh Sivan


1768: King William V, the Dutch ruler, visited both the German and Portuguese synagogues today.  This visit and his attendance at the weddings of Jewish subjects was an acknowledgement by the Prince of Orange of the loyalty Jewish community.


1782(21st of Sivan, 5542): Aaron F. Goldsmid, the London merchant who was founder the famous British Goldsmid family passed.  A native of Amsterdam, he “was the son of Benedict Goldsmid, a Hamburg merchant. In 1765 he left Holland with his family to settle in London, where he founded the firm of Aaron Goldsmid & Son, subsequently Goldsmid & Eliason. The firm of Aaron Goldsmid & Son experienced serious reverses through the failure of Clifford & Sayer, one of the principal houses in Holland. Hence only George, the eldest son, entered into partnership with his father. The other sons founded new businesses for themselves in which they amassed large fortunes. Goldsmid left four sons and four daughters. The second son, Asher, was one of the founders of the firm Mocatta & Goldsmid, bullion-brokers to the Bank of England. Benjamin and Abraham were famous as financiers and philanthropists.” (As reported by the Jewish Encyclopedia)


1803: Birthdate of Talmudist Gabriel Jacob Polak whose works included “Dibre Kodesh,” a Dutch-Hebrew dictionary and “Halikot Kedem,”  a collection of Hebrew poems.


1805(6th of Sivan, 5565): Shavuot


1849: In Montgomery, Alabama, the Chevra Mevaker Cholim, with the approval of 30 members, became Congregation Kahl Montgomery which is now known as Temple Beth Or. The congregation built is first sanctuary in 1862.


1850: The traditional founding date of Kansas City, Missouri. Temple B’nai Jehudah, the first Jewish congregation in Kansas City would be formed twenty years later in 1870.The congregation built a temple in 1908. In 1909, United Jewish Social Services opened the Alfred Benjamin Dispensary at 17th and Locust to provide medical treatment to Jewish Immigrants.  This institution evolved into Menorah Hospital by 1931.


1853: In Kent (UK), Anne and Will Petrie gave birth to William Mathew Flinders Petrie , the Egyptologist who discovered the Merneptah Stele and identified the word Israel in the writing.  This became an important non-biblical proof of the existence of the ancient kingdom of Israel.


1853:  “The Last Hartford Convention”  published today described the activities of a convention that began yesterday to discuss the Bible.  In mocking tones the author assumes that by now “the very existence of the Hebrew law-giver has been pronounced a myth; the Creation a counterfeit; the Deluge a fable; the Exodus a forgery.”  The author wonders what “stores of rabbinical learning” including “Talmud, Targums and Commentators” as well as contemporary historians who have corroborated the stories of the Israelites will be discredited by these contemporary philosophers whom he compares to the infidels going back to Roman times who have tried and failed to discredit “the first five books.”


1870: The London Standard denounced the review of Benjamin Disraeli’s Lothairpublished in Blackwood. The Standard did not take issue with Blackwood’s right to make negative comments about the book.  The complaint was that Blackwood made the review “the vehicle for a coarse, violent and outrageously personal attack” on Mr. Disraeli.  “The critic has used the book as opportunity for indulging his spleen against its distinguished author.”


1870: “A petition by Jews living in Indianapolis, Indiana urging the President of the United States to Intervene on behalf of Romanian Jews was referred the Senate’s Committee on Foreign Relations.”



1870: The United States Senate spent an hour this morning discussing the recent massacre of Jews in Romania during which Senator Morton of Indiana presented a request that the President intervene to “save the Jews of” Romania “from further persecutions.”   The Senate passed a motion offered by Senator Sumner of Massachusetts asking the President to provide the Senate with any information in the possession of the State Department concerning the violence.  “Mr. Sumner said that the interests of humanity demanded that the fullest information should be had by the Senate on this subject.”  According to Sumner, “the massacre was a most terrible affair, the whole enormity of which was not yet made public.”  Senator Sprague of Rhode Island said that Jews owned most of the land in Romania and controlled all of the trade in the Principality “while a vast population of Christians” were deprived of the means of support” and that this was the cause of the violence.  He said that these facts “furnished food for profound reflection…to affairs here in our country, where the tendency” is rapidly moving “in the same direction.  Senator Stewart of Nevada “said he hoped Mr. Sprauge did not mean to imply that when a man gets rich he ought…to be killed.”  Senator Sprague “smiled faintly” but made no further reply.  [Editor’s note – The concern for the Jews of Romania was the first expression of support for the plight of foreign Jews in the post-Civil War United States.  Senator Sumner had been a leading Abolitionist and was a major political power in the dominant Republican Party. The President who would show support for the Jews was U.S. Grant.  By the same token the views of Senator Sprague, the son-in-law of Salmon P. Chase, another prominent Republican who served as Sec. of Treasury and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, were the an example of the genteel anti-Semitism which would manifest itself in everything from exclusion at fancy hotels to quotas at the leading ivy league universities.]


1871: “Rome: The Press in the Eternal City” published today reported in the newly united Italy, Jews and Free-thinkers dominate the world of literary opinion.  Among the Jews are: Giacomo Dina ‘the patriarch of Italian journalism” and the editor of Florence Opinione;” Carlo Levi, editor of the Nuova Roma; Edward Arib, “the ablest representative of the liberal press” and editor of Liberta; Alessandro D’Acona of Pisa and Luigi Camerini of Milan, “accomplished critics of belles lettres.  At the same time, the clerical press which is an inferior journalistic product is filled with anti-Semitic comments. For example, Buon Senso referred to Edward Arib as a “shameless Jew…’following the example of the Jews in the days of Nero who were the real instigators of the Roman Emperor’s persecution of the Christians.” [Editor’s Note – Italy, after the reunification, was one of the best places for Jews to live in Europe. At the same time, there was an undercurrent of anti-Semitism tied to the Papal parties that would flower when Mussolini would become Hitler’s partner.]


1873: Birthdate of German born and educated American pharmacologist Otto Loewi recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.  He passed away in 1961.


1877: “The Return of the Jews” published today reports that the long dreamed of “rehabilitation of Judea” by the Jews might be realized in the not too distant future.  While there are only a small number of Jews living in Jerusalem thanks to the advances in modern transportation there has been increasing stream of Jews coming to visit from Poland, Morocco and Russia.  Captain Charles Warren, who is best known for the maps he has made of Jerusalem, thinks that that the Jews of Morocco would be the best candidates for restoring Judea to its former glory.  They are the only significant Jewish population with agricultural skills. Unlike the Jews of Jerusalem whom Warren described as being “incompetent to revive the glories of the past” because of long years of “indolence and degeneracy” the Jews of Morocco  are  “patient…and less fanatical than many of their brethren” as well as having a proven track record of being able to use irrigation to raise crops. [The vision of Captain Warren “the agent of the English exploration fund in Pale tine pre-dates Herzl by thirty years.]


1877: It was reported today that there are 152 synagogues in the United States with 33 in New York, 23 in Maine, 14 in Pennsylvania, 9 in Illinois and 7 each in California, Ohio and Vermont.


1877: The Board of Jewish Delegates reported that 174 out of 341 congregations and 99 other organization have responded to its questionnaire.   According these responses there are 189,576 Jews in the United States.  Based on this admittedly incomplete response, the board estimated that there are 250,000 Jews living in the United States with 60,000 living in New York City.


1879(12th of Sivan, 5639):Lionel Nathan de Rothschild the son of Nathan Mayer Rothschild and Hanna Barent Cohen passed away. Lionel’s was the first Jew to serve as an MP in the House of Commons.  First elected in 1847, he was not able to assume his seat until 1858 following a decade long fight to change the rules about the oath of office.  Queen Victoria refused to appoint him to the House of Lords.  She would later recant and elevate Lionel’s son to the Lords.


1880: As unrest continues to grow in Russia, it was reported that several Jews have been arrested near St. Petersburg on charges that they are connected with the Nihilst (an all-purpose term used by the authorities for revolutionaries seeking to over-thrown the Czar)


1881(6th of Sivan, 5641): Shavuot


1882: As conditions worsen for Jews in the Ukraine, it was reported that Russian Jews who lack passports are being denied the right to immigrate.


1885 (OS May 22): Birthdate of Yakov Mikhaylovich Sverdlov, a leader of the Bolsheviks who also was a leader of the infant Soviet Union.  He passed away in 1919, before the Revolution turned sour and anti-Semitism reared its ugly head.


1885: The Board of Directors of the Sanitarium for Hebrew Children appealed for contributions to support its upcoming summer program of excursions.  Donations should be sent to Nathan Lewis, President of the Board, John J. Davis or any of the other directors. [Editor’s Note – This was the Jewish version of the popular movement to provide trips to the country for children living in the tenements of major cities.]


1885: It was reported today that in Vienna, the Liberals had elected 8 candidates, the Democrats had elected three candidates and the anti-Semites had elected one candidate.  It was their poor showing at the polls that caused the anti-Semites to begin rioting in the Austrian capital.


1887: Witnesses continued to testify in the trial of Adolph Reich who has been charged with murdering his wife last April. A former landlady testified that Reich had hit his wife and pulled her hair out while another testified that Reich thought his wife was having an affair with him.  The witnesses denied the accusations saying he visited her to pick up the coats which made for his shop. Proceedings were delayed because a Hebrew Bible had to be brought to the courtroom for use by some of the witness.


1888: A convention was held today in Philadelphia that incorporated the American Jewish Publication Society.  In a telegram sent to the meeting from Berlin by Jacob H. Schiff, the prominent businessman and philanthropist offered to donate five thousand dollars to an endowment named in honor of Michael Heilprin if the society can raise an additional fifty thousand dollars in the next year.The purpose of JPS was and is to publish in English books of Jewish interest. Among its hundreds of publications are Graetz's, Dubnov's and Baron's History's of the Jews, and Ginsburg's Legends of the Jews. Other important authors included Israel Zangwill, Leo Baeck, Cecil Roth, Jacob R. Marcus, and Louis Finkelstein. Starting in 1899, the JPS has published the American Jewish Yearbook.


1892(8th of Sivan, 5652):Isidore Loeb, a French-Jewish scholar passed away.  Born at Sulzmatt (Soultzmatt), Upper Alsace in 1839, he was “the son of Rabbi Seligmann Loeb of Sulzmatt” and “was educated in Bible and Talmud by his father. After having followed the usual course in the public school of his native town, Loeb studied at the college of Rufach and at the lycée of Colmar, in which city he at the same time attended classes in Hebrew and Talmud at the preparatory rabbinical school founded by Chief Rabbi Solomon Klein. In 1856 he entered the Central Rabbinical School (Ecole Centrale Rabbinique) at Metz, where he soon ranked high through his knowledge of Hebrew, his literary ability, and his proficiency in mathematics. In 1862 he was graduated, and received his rabbinical diploma from the Séminaire Israélite de France at Paris, which had replaced (1859) the Metz Ecole Centrale Rabbinique. Loeb did not immediately enter upon a rabbinical career, but tutored for some years, first at Bayonne, France and then at Paris. In 1865 he was called to the rabbinate of St. Etienne (Loire). His installation sermon, on the duties of the smaller congregations (Les Devoirs des Petites Communautés), is one of the best examples of French pulpit rhetoric. Soon, however, he felt a desire to extend the field of his activity. He went to Paris, where he was appointed secretary of the Alliance Israélite Universelle, which position he held until his death. It was largely due to Loeb's labors that this association became an important factor in the progress of Oriental Judaism; and he created the library of the Alliance, which is one of the most valuable Jewish libraries in existence. Meanwhile he continued his historical and philological researches, and developed an extensive literary activity. The chair of Jewish history in the Rabbinical Seminary of Paris having become vacant through the death of Albert Cohn (1877), Loeb was appointed his successor. He held this position for 12 years. His main activity, however, was devoted to the Société des Etudes Juives, which was organized in Paris in 1880. Beginning with the first number, he successfully edited the Revue des Études Juives, the organ of that society, and was, moreover, a voluminous and brilliant contributor thereto.


1890: “Catechising The People” published today described the challenges census takers faced among New York’s immigrant population.  Once the Jews understood “the purpose of the questions they became quite cheerful and communicative.”


1891: It was reported today that New York’s 25th police precinct under the command of Captain John Gunner is home to many prominent public buildings and institutions including several synagogues and the Mount Sinai Hospital


1892: Comptroller Myers said today “that the discrepancies he had discovered in the accounts of two public institution,” one of which the Ladies’ Deborah Nursery and Child’s Protectory, “arose from a lack of conformity between the commitment papers of the children made out by the police magistrate’s clers and the papers made out by the officials of the homes.”


1892: “Hamilton College Clark Prize” published today described the outcome of the school’s public speaking competition which was won by Gregory Rosenblum who spoke on “The Jews of Russia,”


1893(19th of Sivan, 5653): Sixty-one year old Joshua Hendricks passed away this evening at his home on Fifth Avenue in New York City. Mr. Hendricks was a fourth generation owner of Hendricks Brothers, a firm specializing in metals (specifically copper) which was founded in 1764. 


1893: “Senator Hill Backed Down” published today described a verbal altercation that took place when Senator Hill, a member of the Senate Committee on Immigration asked Colonel John Weber, the former Commissioner of Immigration at the Port of New York (Ellis Island) if he gotten his position as a general agent for the Baron Hirsch Fund “because of the special favors show to Jews on Ellis Island.” Weber, a veteran of the Civil War and a former member of the House of Representatives who had used his experience as an agriculturalist to help the Hirsch Colony at Woodbine, NJ “flushed angrily” at the accusation and told Senator Hill, “You had better put that question again.  I hardly understand it.”  Hill chose not to repeat the question which was indicative of his anti-Jewish bias when it to immigration.


1894: Approximately 2,000 people attended the annual reception at the Montefiore Home for Incurables which was held this afternoon.


1894: “New Publications” published today included a review of Roger Williams: The Pioneer of Religious Liberty by Oscar S. Strauss.


1896: General James R. O’Beirne and Rabbi Rudolph Grossman of Temple Beth-El were among those who gave addresses at exercises held today in the auditorium of the Educational Alliance Building where students enrolled in the Baron de Hirsch English day classes demonstrated the progress they had made since Memorial Day.


1899: “The Court of Cassation” revised “the Dreyfus case and” ordered “a new trial before the court-martial at Rennes.


1900(6th of Sivan, 5660): First Shavuot of the 20th century


1900: The International Ladies’ Garment Workers Union (ILGW) is founded.  In its early days, the union was dominated by Jews who made up a disproportionate number of the workers in an industry known for its sweatshop conditions.  At the close of the 20thcentury, the Union gained renewed famed for its jingle “Look for the Union label in the clothes you are wearing.”


1903: A mass meeting to protest the atrocities inflicted by the Russians on the Jews is scheduled to be held tonight at the Academy of Music in Philadelphia.


1904: Herzl leaves for Edlach, Austria accompanied by his wife and his fellow Zionist Yona Kremenetzky.


1904: Birthdate Jacob Pincus Perelmuth who gained fame as Jan Peerce, the Cantor and a tenor performing at the New York Metropolitan Opera.


1906: In Louisville, Adath Israel Temple dedicated its third congregational home. The building was designed by architects Kenneth McDonald and J.F. Sheblessy and was commonly known as the “Third Street Synagogue.” Following it merger with Brith Sholom in 1976, the congregation took the name Congregation Adath Israel Brith Sholom


1910: In New York, Joseph Russell Levy, “the son of a prosperous Jewish cigar manufacturer from Salt Lake City” and Alta Mae Goddard, an Episcopalian gave birth to Marion Goddard Levy who gained fame as actress of Paulette Goddard.


1911(7th of Sivan, 5671): Second Day of Shavuot


1911: Birthdate of Marion Levy who gained fame as the actress Paulette Goddard known for playing opposite Charlie Chaplin in "The Great Dictator."


1912: Aviation pioneer and Adas Israel congregant, Arthur Welsh prepares for a two-hour test of the Wright military planes.


1913: Birthdate of Yitzhak Berman the native of Berdychiv who made Aliyah in 1920. Following military service he pursued a successful legal career before entering politics where he rose to Speaker of the Knesset.


1913: In Manhattan, Abraham and Ida Krim gave birth to Norman Bernard Krim “an electronics visionary who played a pivotal role in the industry’s transition from the bulky electron vacuum tube, which once lined the innards of radios and televisions, to the tiny, far more powerful transistor…He , did not invent the transistor…but he saw the device’s potential and persuaded his company to begin manufacturing it on a mass scale…” (As reported by Dennis Hevesi)


1916: During World War I, the British and French declare a state of siege in Salonica and remove all Greeks from official posts due to the possibility they were pro-German.


 
1917: Following reports of a German bombing raid conducted for the first time by bombers instead of Zeppelin that killed 95 and injured 192, “Albert Einstein wrote a friend in Holland, ‘The ancient Jehovah is still abroad.  Alas he slays the innocent along with the guilty, whom he strikes so fearsomely blind that they can feel no sense of guilt.’”


1917: The Young Men's and Young Women's Hebrew Association of Camden, New Jersey purchased 572 and 574 Walnut Street from Smith C. Moore and his wife Elizabeth, for the sum of $4,000 as recorded in Camden County's real estate records, Book 418, pages 296 and 297. On the same the Young Men's and Young Women's Hebrew Association of Camden, New Jersey purchased 570 Walnut Street from Joseph F. and Mary C. Marck for $2100, as recorded in Camden County's real estate records, Book 418, pages 297 and 298.


1921: On the King’s Birthday, Sir Herbert Samuel, the High Commissioner for Palestinemade the first official interpretation of the Balfour Declaration, assuring the Arabs that immigration would be controlled according to the "economic absorptive capacity" of the country - and in fact suspended immigration, though only temporarily.  In describing the impact of the speech to Winston Churchill at the end of the month, Samuel said the Jewish population viewed the speech as a “severe set-back” to their aspirations and that it made them feel “very nervous and apprehensive.


1921(26th of Iyar, 5681): German born New York physician Simon Baruch, father of Bernard Baruch, passed away


1922(7th of Sivan, 5682): Second Day of Shavuot


1924(1st of Sivan, 5684):  Rosh Chodesh Sivan


1924(1st of Sivan, 5684):  Franz Kafka, author of The Trial and Metamorphosis, passed away at the age of 40.



1925: In Manhattan, Hungarian Jewish immigrantsHelen (née Klein) and Emanuel Schwartz gave birth to Bernard Schwartz who gained fame as actor Tony Curst whose most famous performance probably was in the film "Some Like It Hot," where he co-starred with Marilyn Monroe and Jack Lemon.
1926: Birthdate of poet and beatnik, Allen Ginsberg.


1928 (14th of Sivan): Samuel Chaim Landau founder of Torah va-Avo-dah, the religious Zionist movement, passed away 


1929: Birthdate of Chuck Barris.  This Philadelphianative created numerous TV game shows including the Newlywed Game and the Gong Show.


1932: Birthdate of Fischel Lebowitz the native of Transylvania, Romania, who survived the Holocaust, and as Fred Lebow became a successful American businessman, an avid distance runner and the founder of the New York City Marathon.


1933: As the Catholic Church sought to establish positive relations with the new Nazi regime, “a joint pastoral letter appeared from the German Bishops' Conference” that “contained a statement that if the State would only respect certain rights and requirements of the Church, the Church would gratefully and happily support the new situation.”


1936: As the Arab uprising continues, David Vardi, a 27 year old owner of an orange packing house near… Rishon Litzion and Israel Arger, a 31 year old workman, were seriously wounded today when two Arabs who were old friends of theirs shot them in the packing house. Both were shot in the head and there is little hope for their recovery. In Haifa, a bomb was thrown at a Jewish owned bus, wounding three riders. 


1937: The Palestine Post reported that the Polish General Consul in Jerusalem told the Va’ad Leumi (The National Council of Palestine Jews) that he was deeply distressed at the recent anti-Jewish disturbances in Poland. He promised to forward, without delay, the Va’ad protest to his government. The Palestinegovernment agreed to compensate, to a certain extent, the victims of the 1936 Arab disturbances, or their dependents


1939(16th of Sivan, 5699): Fifty year old Sir Philip Sassoon, a member of the distinguished Sassoon family passed away today.


 
1940: It was reported today that during his commencement address at the Jewish Institute of Religion, Dr. James G. Heller, vice president of the Central Conference of American Rabbis said “When the world is faced with terror, go back to the past of Israel and believe in your people and in yourself.” (He said this as the Jews of Poland feel under the heel of Nazi and Soviet tyranny)


1941: Author Irving Wallace married writer Sylvia Kahn.


1942: The German military commander of occupied France ordered all Jews to wear a yellow Star of David with the inscription "Juif" on it.


1942(18th of Sivan, 5702): In Warsaw, 110 Jews were shot in the prison on Gesia Street. Ten Jewish policemen are among the victims.


1942: Jews revolt in Breslau, Germany.


1943(29th of Iyar, 5703): German troops in the Warsaw Ghetto destroy a bunker on Walowa Street that conceals 150 Jews.  It was one of the last remaining bunkers in the ghetto. By September, all that were remaining would be flushed out and destroyed.


1943: Near Michalowice, Poland, Germans kill two Polish farmers who have rescued and hidden three Jewish escapees in a barn.


1944: In response to Rudolf Kastner's plea to let some of the Hungarian Jews remain in Budapest, Eichmann said, "I have to clean up the provincial towns of the Jewish garbage. I must take this Jewish muck out of the provinces. I cannot play the role of the savior of the Jews.”


1944: A train from Lyon arrived in Birkenau. One survivor, Freda Silberberg, stated how it was the French that arrested her, not the Germans. Dr. Mengele selected Freda for his experiment pool.


1948: Four Egyptian aircraft flew over Tel Aviv on what would be the 16th bombing raid over the Jewish city. Numerous civilian casualties had been sustained in the previous attacks and the residents expected more of the same.


1948: In a modern version of David versus Goliath, Modi Alon flew Israel’s one serviceable fighter aircraft across the Tel Aviv skies attack four Egyptian aircraft that were set to bomb the city.  Alon shot down the two bombers and forced their fighter escorts to flee.  These were the first aerial combat victories scored by the IAF.  In one of those strange moments of the war, the people of Tel Aviv actually watched the performance of a combat air arm that they had not known even existed.


1948(25th of Iyar, 5708):Avraham Mordechai Alter passed away. He was also known as the Imrei Emes after the works he authored, was the third Rebbe of the Hasidic dynasty of Ger a position he held from 1905 until his death in 1948. He was one of the founders of the Agudas Israel in Poland and was influential in establishing a network of Jewish schools there. It is claimed that at one stage he led over 200,000 Hasidim.


1948: Having survived the Holocaust and the “Communist takeover of Czechoslovakia” wine make Eugen Herzog, his wife Sidonia and their children arrived in New York City clinging to the earthen potato pot on which they had prepared their meals while hiding in Europe. (As reported by Laurie Gwen Shapiro)


1953: Professor Otto Loewi, winner in 1936 of the Noble in medicine for the discovery of the chemical transmission of nervous impulses who is now the Research Professor of Pharmacology in the New York University College of Medicine celebrated his 80thbirthday today.


1957: Howard Cosell's television show appeared for the first time.


1960: Four newly deciphered letters of Bar Kochba describing organizational challenges faced by the leader of the revolt against the Roman Empire (132-135 CE) were presented in a lecture given today by Professor Yigal Yadin today at Hebrew University. The letters revealed that the supply route for Bar  Kochba’s soldiers was via Ein Gedi and Tekoa.  This is the same Tekoa which was home to the prophet Amos.  Yigal Yadin was head of the Israeli military during the War for Independence.  His work helped to establish for those who had doubts, the legitimacy of Jewish history.


1961: The final curtain came down on “Wildcat,” with music by Cy Coleman and lyrics by Carolyn Leigh


1964: Israel played South Korea in the finals of the 1964 AFC Asian Cup football tournament at Ramat Gan Stadium.


1964: After a week of matches, Israel won the 1964 AFC Asian Cup.


1963:  Pope John XXIII passed away. Born Angelo Roncalli, in 1935 he was made Apostolic Delegate to Turkey and Greece. Roncalli used this office to help the Jewish underground in saving thousands of refugees in Europe, leading some to consider him to be a Righteous Gentile


1967: Shabbat was not a day of rest as the Arab vise squeezed around the state Israel.  The people were beginning to feel the psychological pain of being surrounded.  The Israeli economy was unraveling under the pressure of continuous mobilization.  Dyan continued to review the plans of the General Staff.  Israel’s Ambassador to the United States, Avraham Harman landed in Israel and reported to Eshkol, Eban, and the senior military officers that the West would not come to Israel’s assistance.  If the blockade were to be broken, Israelmust do it herself.  As the various leaders left that evening the plan was clear.  Israelwould take action against Egypt, and only Egypt.  Jordan would not be attacked if Jordan stayed out of the fight.  Contrary to revisionist historians, there was no grand military plan to seize the Sinai, the Golan, the West Bank and Jerusalem.  The fact that Israel ended up with these at the end of the war was a result of shifting tactical situations as well as the fear on the part of the Arab states that if they did not fight they would miss out on the spoils that went with the destruction of the Jewish state


1968(7th of Sivan, 5728): As Gene McCarthy and Bobby Kennedy battle out it in California during the Democratic Presidential Primaries, Jews observe the second day of Shavuot, the last Jewish holiday Kennedy will be alive for.


1970(28th of Iyar, 5730) Yom Yerushalyim


1971(10th of Sivan, 5731): Sixty-eight year old civic leader Barbara Ochs Adler, the widow of General Julius Ochs Adler passed away today.

1971: German born mathematician Heinz Hopf passed away.  His father was Jewish but his mother was not.  For the Nazis, this made him Jewish and he sought refuge in Swiss citizenship during the Hitler period.


1972: In Cincinnati, Ohio, Sally J. Priesand, 25, became the first woman in Reform Judaism to be ordained as a Rabbi.


1974: Aharon Uzan completed his term as Communications Minister. 


1974: Yitzhak Rabin, the first native-born Israeli (Sabra) to become prime minister of Israel, assumed office.


1974: Avraham Ofer replaced Yehoshua Rabinovitz as Minister of Housing and Construction.


1974: Yosef Burg completed his term as Interior Minister


1974: Shlomo Hillel replaced Yosef Berg as Interior Minister


1974: Yigal Allon began his term as Foreign Minister


1974: Avraham Ofer, replaced Yehoshua Rabinovitz as Communications Minster


1974: Gad Yaacobi replaced Aharon Yariv as Transportation Minister


1974: Hairm Yosef Zadok replaced Yitzhak Rafael as Minister of Religious Services.


1977: The Jerusalem Post reported that Israel would not take any steps against Syria until more was known about the extent and purpose of their incursion into Lebanon. Meanwhile, Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin reported that Syrian soldiers were clashing with and killing terrorists.


1977: The Jerusalem Post reported that Yigael Yadin, the leader of the new political party, the Democratic Movement for Change, which won 13 seats in the Knesset elections, was offered the deputy premiership in the Menachem Begin's new Likud cabinet.


1977: The Jerusalem Post reported that the Israeli Kfir multi-mission combat aircraft was one of the leading stars at the Le Bourget aircraft mart in Paris.


1977: The Jerusalem Post reported that an annual prize in the field of the coverage of Israel's foreign relations was established in memory of Ted Lurie, the second editor of the Post.


1982: The Israeli ambassador to Britain, Shlomo Argov, was shot on a London street. The failed assassination attempt was under the command of Fatah leader Abu Nidal. Argov survived but was permanently paralyzed.


1982: Israeli planes attack Palestinian camps in Lebanon after Fatah attempted to murder Ambassador Argov in London.


1983(22nd of Sivan, 5743): Harry Lieberman, a primitive-style painter who began his career as an artist in his 70's, died today in North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset, L.I., after suffering a cardiac arrest. Mr. Lieberman was 106 years old and lived in Great Neck, L.I. Throughout his 26 years as a painter, Mr. Lieberman completed hundreds of pieces and his work was shown in museums and galleries in Great Neck, in New York and in the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington. His work has also been on display in Houston, Seattle, Los Angeles, La Jolla, Calif., and Rotterdam, Holland. It was the boredom of his retirement after selling his confectioner business at the age of 74 that prompted Mr. Lieberman to try his hand at sketching at an art class at the Great Neck Golden Age Club. Mr. Lieberman soon moved on to watercolors and oil painting, using the two-dimensional primitive style. As a young man Mr. Lieberman studied the Talmud, and stories from that religious work as well as the Bible served as the subject matter for most of his paintings. He once told an interviewer that a man of his age - he was 100 at the time - needed a reason to get out of bed in the morning and that the older he got the better that reason needed to be. Mr. Lieberman was born Naftulo Hertzke Liebhaber in Gnieveshev, Poland, in November 1876. In 1906 at the age of 29 he emigrated to the United States, sending for his wife two years later. The Liebermans, who worked first as cloth cutters, bought a candy store that soon prospered into a wholesale confectioner business.


1983(22nd of Sivan, 5743): Eight-six year old labor leader Charles S. Zimmerman passed away today (As reported by Joseph B. Treaster)



1992: Jewish barristers Ron Castan and Briean Keon-Cohen represented Eddie Mabo before the High Court in Australia which ruled in the claimant’s favor thus establishing the “concept of native title.”


1995(5th of Sivan, 5755): Erev Shavuot


1995(5th of Sivan, 5755): Seventy-two year old “Arthur K. Shapiro, a psychiatrist whose work at Mount Sinai Medical School advanced the knowledge and treatment of Tourette's Syndrome” passed away today. (As reported by Wolfgang Saxon)

2001: Mel Brook's won a record 12 Tony Awards for the musical comedy "The Producers."


2001: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Heinz Kohut:The Making of a Psychoanalystby Charles B. Strozier and the recently released paperback editions of Ravelstein by Saul Bellow,I Will Bear Witness: A Diary of the Nazi Years, 1942-1945 by Victor Klemperer, The Human Stainby Philip Roth and Bee Season by Myla Goldberg.


2001(12thof Sivan, 5761): Twenty-five year old Jan Bloom from Ramat Gan succumbed to the wounds she sustained when a suicide bomber exploded a bomb two days earlier at the Dolphinarim.


2001(12th of Sivan, 5761): Seventy-seven year old “Harry Zohn, an educator, writer and translator of important works of German literature” passed away today. (As reported by Wolfgang Saxon)

2001: Yitzhak Vaknin began another term as Deputy Minister of Labor and Social Welf


2002: Ariel Sharon completes his term as Interior Minister.


2002:Eli Yishai begins his term as Minister of Internal Affairs.


2002: David Azulai becomes Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs.


2005: The funeral of Israel Epstein, which was attended by numerous Chinese dignitaries, took place this morning at the Babaoshan Cemetery for Revolutionaries, in Shijingshan District, Beijing


2005(25thof Iyar, 5765):Leon Askin passed away today in Vienna at the age of 97.  Born in 1907 as Leo Aschkenasy into a Jewish family in Vienna, Askin already wanted to be an actor as a child. His dream came true, and in the 1930s he worked as a cabaret artist and director at the "ABC Theatre" in Vienna: in this position he also helped the career of the writer Jura Soyfer get off the ground in 1935. Persecuted by the Nazis, Askin escaped to the United States via France, arriving in New York in 1940 with no money and less than a basic knowledge of English. When the U.S. entered the Second World War Askin joined the U.S. Army. While serving in the military he learned that his parents had been killed at Treblinka extermination camp. After the war, Askin went to Hollywood, invariably portraying foreign characters who speak English with a strong accent. He gained wide popularity by appearing as Gen. Albert Burkhalter in the sitcom Hogan's Heroes in the late 1960s.As opposed to other exiled Austrians, Askin never refused to work again in his home country. In 1994 he permanently took up residence in Vienna, where he remained active until his death in cabaret, as well as the Volksoper and Festwochen. He was awarded Vienna's Gold Medal of Honor.


2005: Release date for “Lords of Dogtown” co-starring Emile Hirsh


2005: Irish editor David Marcus, author of Oughtobiography – Leaves from the diary of a hyphenated Jew“was awarded an honorary Degree of Doctor of Literature by the National University of Ireland, University College, Cork”


2006(7th of Sivan, 5766): Second Day of Shavuot


2006: A group of neo-Nazis assaulted Croatia's Chief Rabbi Eliezer Aloni on a Zagreb street in front of his synagogue on Shabbat.


2007: In London, the ZF presents Portraits of Israel “a photographic journey through the history of Israel as seen through the lens of Rudi Weissenstein.  He dedicated his life to documenting Israel’s growth from 1936 until his death in 1992.  He was the official photographer at the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1948.


2007: The Sunday New York Times book section features reviews of two tomes about Jewish comedians,  It’s Good to be the King: The Seriously Funny Life of Mel Brooks by James Parish and Rickles’ Book by Don Rickles with David Ritz; The Big Questionby Jewish game show host Chuck Barris, Summer Reading by Hilma Wolitzer, A Day at the Beach by Helen Schulman, From A Cause to a Style:Modernist Architecture’s Encounter With the American City  by Nathan Glazer,The Ministry of Special Cases by Nathan Englander, Opening Day: The Story of Jackie Robinson’s First Season by Jonathan Eig and Jewish author Joseph Finder’s review of April in Paris by Michael Wallner.


2007: The Sunday Washington Post book section features a review of The Gravediggers Daughter, a novel about a Jewish immigrant who struggles to blot out her past, by Joyce Carol Oates, who discovered late in life her own family's Jewish history. Her grandmother, who immigrated to the United States in the 1890s, kept her religion hidden for fear of persecution


2007: In an article entitled “Lower East Side Is Under a Groove,” the New York Timesreports on the role played by Sion Misrahi, the son of Jewish immigrant from Greece, in the rejuvenation of New York’s Lower East Side.


2008:In Cedar Rapids, at Temple Judah, funeral services are held for Abbott Lipsky followed by the internment at Eben Israel Cemetery. Those who knew Abbott B. Lipsky remembered him t as the kind of person you wanted to befriend. Lipsky, well-known in Cedar Rapids for his work in the community, was described as a role model who had a wry sense of humor and a keen and inquiring mind. Lipsky passed away on Wednesday, May 28 at the age of 94. Lipsky's roles in the community included serving as the first chairman of the Cedar Rapids Civil Rights Commission, and founding the Citizen's Committee for the Cedar RapidsPublic Schools and the Downtown Cedar Rapids Association. He moved to Cedar Rapids in 1945 to join his wife's family business, Smulekoff's Furniture Co., where he has served in management, later rising to president.


2008:As the race of Grand Rabbi of France heats up with weeks of sniping from both sides, the two main Jewish communal organizations in France — the CRIF and the Unified Jewish Social Fund, or FSJU — issued an unusual joint statement urging both sides to calm down.“It appears that a series of verbal, written and visual slips is hurting the dignity of the campaign and risks giving a negative image of our community as a whole. This is why CRIF and FSJU believe it is their duty to exhort the friends and supporters of the candidates to show restraint and keep in mind that beyond the democratic battle, the general interest of the community should prevail over any other considerations.”


2008: the Ville-Marie council unanimously voted to demolish the building that had been home to Bens De Luxe Delicatessen on condition that the developer must commemorate the deli in the new building.


2009: The Brooklyn International Film Festival, which will feature two Israeli movies, hosts a Kick-Off Party at Delancy restaurant.


2010(21st of Sivan, 5770):Steve Averbach, the former Monmouth County resident who was paralyzed in an attempt to thwart a suicide bomber in Jerusalem in 2003, died suddenly today at his home in Tel Aviv


2011(1st of Sivan, 5771): Rosh Chodesh Sivan


2011(1st of Sivan, 5771): One hundred one  year old “Harry Bernstein, whose painfully eloquent memoir about growing up Jewish and poor in a northern English mill town earned him belated literary fame on its publication in 2007, when he was 96” passed away today. (As reported by William Grimes)

2011(1st of Sivan, 5771): Eighty-nine year old Israeli businessman Sammy Ofer passed away this morning in Tel Aviv (As reported by Isabel Kershner)

2011(1st of Sivan, 5771): Fifty-nine year old pop music icon Andrew Gold passed away today. (As reported by Paul Vitello)

2011(1st of Sivan, 5771): Gus Tyler, who had been associated with the Forwards since 1932 passed away today.

2011: The final Musical Shabbat of the year is scheduled to take place at Temple Judah in Cedar Rapids, IA.  This marks the fourth year that the community has participated in this most popular way of experiencing the Joy of Shabbat.


2011: The Historic 6th& I Synagogue plans on meeting a variety of spiritual needs as it hosts two Shabbat services – the laid back, lay led 6th Street Minyan and Friday Night Shabbat Services with MesorahDC followed by a traditional Shabbat dinner.


2011: Labapalooza is scheduled to present “Planet Egg” by Zvi Saharis, an Israeli who studied directing at the University of Haifa, at St. Ann’s Warehouse in Brooklyn, NY.


2012:  JCCNV is scheduled to sponsor the Israel Street Festival in Fairfax, VA


2012: Temple Emanuel in Kensington, MD is scheduled to host “Tango Comes to the Land of Milk & Honey, Kolot Halev’s annual concert with Hazzan Ayelet Piatigorsky and featuring Emmanuel Trifilio on the original tango folk instrument, the bandoneón performing selections that range from Sephardic ballads to Yiddish songs to Moroccan and Mexican melodies.


2012: The National Museum of American Jewish Military is scheduled to host “Family Stories: Sons, Fathers and Zaydes,”  an afternoon long event that will enable participants “to create a lasting tribute to that special male relative or friend through a skit, a scrapbook, a video, a song and dance routine, or whatever the imagination conjures.”


2012: “The Steins Collect: Matisse, Picasso, and the Parisan Avant-Garde,” an exhibit of works collect by Gertrude, Leo, Michael and Sarah Stein is scheduled to come an end at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.


2012: “Celebrate Israel,” complete with an 8 o’clock fun run through Central Park and a five hour parade is scheduled to take place today in the Big Apple.


2012: Early this morning, IAF jets attacked three weapons manufacturing facilities in the central Gaza Strip and two tunnels that the Israel Defense Forces say are used to commit terrorist acts against Israeli military patrols in the area. The IAF flights were in response to an attack on June 1 near the security fence with Gaza in which one Israeli soldier was killed. The sites targeted by the Air Force belong to the Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror organizations, Israeli military sources said


2013: Justice Minister Tzipi Livni is scheduled to address the American Jewish Committee’s Global Forum today.


2013: Just a month before the 150thanniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg, The American Jewish Historical Society and Yeshiva University Museum are scheduled to present “Jewish Soldiers in the Civil War: Jews and the Battle of Gettysburg.”


2013: Syria will not get S-300 missiles from Russia until 2014, Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee today.


2013:Chief Rabbis Shlomo Amar and Yona Metzger received letters today threatening violence if the Women of the Wall activist group is not allowed to pray according to its practices at the Western Wall in its upcoming prayer service.


2013(25th of Sivan, 5773): Ninety year old Arnold Eidus who gave up a successful advertising career to become a concert violinist passed away today. (As reported by Margalit Fox)

2013(25th of Sivan, 5773): Eighty-nine year old New Jersey Senator Frank Lautenberg passed away today.


2014(5th of Sivan, 5774): Erev Shavuot – Temple Judah in Cedar Rapids, Iowa is scheduled to host Confirmation Services led by Alyssa Roach and Lincoln Ginsberg.


2014: The Jewish Historical Society of Greater Washington is scheduled to host “Shavuot After Dark” where members will lead an interactive session, “Exploring Jewish Washington: Another Kind of Jewish Geography.”

This Day, June 4, In Jewish History by Mitchell A Levin

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JUNE 4



1039 Conrad II passed away.  Born in 990, he served Holy Roman Emperor from 1027 until his death. His reign was part of positive period for the Jews of the Rhineland. The first synagogue was built in Worms in 1034 and Rabbi Gershom ben Judah taught at his famous academy in Mainz until his death in 1028.


1391: A riotous mob led by the Queen Mother's confessor, killed many Jews in Seville, Spain. The massive riots were part of Ferran Martinez’s plan to eradicate the Jews. Historian Netanyahu stated the assault upon the Jewish community "resulted in a bloodbath of massive proportions that all but annihilated the Sevillian Juderia."


1672(9th of Sivan): Rabbi Moses Rikves, author of Be’er ha-Golah passed away


1697: Birthdate Rabbi Jacob Israel Emden, the Altona born Talmudic scholar most famous for his fight against those whom he considered to be Sabbateans.  His most famous dispute was the one with Rabbi Jonathan Eybeschutz.



1738: Birthdate of King George III, the British monarch best remembered as the ruler during the American Revolution. During his reign conditions of his Jewish subjects would improve on several fronts as can be seem from the establishment of the London Board of Shechita, establishment of the Jews’ Free School and Jewish Blind Society.


1751(11th of Sivan): Rabbi Abraham Geron of Adrianople, author of Tikkun Soferim passed away


1775(6th of Sivan, 5535): Thirteen days before the Battle of Bunker Hill, while American forces are besieging the British at Boston, observance of Shavuot.


1783:Annibale Francesco Clemente Melchiore Girolamo Nicola Sermattei della Genga, the future Pope Leo XII who would put the Gate back on the Ghetto and pursue other policies inimical to the Jews, was ordained as a priest.


1789: “The Captivity of Judah” by William Crotch was played at Trinity Hall, Cambridge (UK).  Crotch was not Jewish but his pupil Charles Kensington Salaman, the British pianist and composer was.  Crotch’s “most successful composition was the oratorio “Palestine”


1813(6th of Sivan, 5573): As the War of 1812 goes into its second year, observance of Shavuot.


1832(6th of Sivan, 5592): As Andrew Jackson prepares to seek re-election, celebration of Shavuot.


1835(7th of Sivan, 5595): Second day of Shavuot


1835(7th of Sivan, 5595): Seventy year old Seckel Isaac Fränkel who in 1818 was the rabbi for the new Reform Jewish Temple of Hamburg for which he wrote a new prayer book passed away today.


1840: During the Damascus Affair, Adolphe Cremieux, vice president of the Central Consistoire of French Israelites, dispatched an appeal to Sir Moses Montefiore, President of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, to join with him and a delegation from the French Jewish community in a visitation to Mehemet Ali in Alexandria, Egypt. 


1843(6th of Sivan, 5603): Shavuot



1852:Beth Hamedrash Hagadol“a congregation for Russian Jews was formed with the help of former German Jewish immigrants. This traditional congregation opened a school and soon became the center of Orthodoxy in the U.S. Abraham Joseph Ash, an halachic authority, was elected as its rabbi in 1860 and held the position until his death in 1888. So as not to be dependent on a community salary, he also tried his hand in business without much success.” While some like to emphasize the cleavages between the different elements of the New York Jewish community, this synagogue formed for Russian Jews, with support from German Jews, received financial assistance from a Sephardic Jew, a member of Shearith Israel, who provided funds that helped with the congregation’s purchase of its first building.


1857: The Springfield Republican reported that Isaac Jackson a Jewish boy who was either 17 or 18 years old had been robbed and shot to death by Charles Jones while he was driving a wagon on the road between Westfield and Russell, MA in a case of what the paper described as “a dreadful murder.”  Jackson was one of four brothers who owned a store at Westfield and delivered merchandize to the surrounding towns.  The murder appeared to have taken place on the first of June.  The missing wagon and the corpse were discovered on the second of June.  Charles Jones, a violent man with a criminal record has been taken into custody.


1873:According to a report published today, the following New York City institutions received these payments from the Excise Fund New York:


Hebrew Free Schools:  1871 - $3899.00   1872 - $1806.00


Polomes Talmud Torah School: 1871- $420.00


1874: Publication of the first edition of The Morecambe Visitor and General Advertiser, (later just called The Visitor) which came under the sway of Arthur Caunt starting in 1898 who would be sued for libel when “he penned a diatribe against British Jews for not doing more to prevent Zionist killing of British troops in Palestine, describing ‘Jews as a plague on Britain.’


1877: U.S. Secretary of State Seward received a letter from Meyer S. Isaacs, President of the Board of Delegates of American Israelites which requests that American diplomats help to protect Jews of Russian birth living in and around Jerusalem.  The ruling Ottomans were hostile to the Jews because they were Russian and because they were Jews.


1878: The Ottoman Empire ceded control of Cyprus to the British Empire. Ironically, Benjamin Disraeli was the Prime Minister when this happened.  After all for Jews, British control of the island has a negative connotation. They turned the island into a giant prison for Jewish refugees trying to get into Eretz Israel during after World War II.


1880: Sarah Bernhardt signed a contract today for a series of 60 performances to be given this winter at Booth’s Theatre.


1881(7th of Sivan, 5641) Second Day of Shavuot


1882: A conference of delegates representing Jewish organizations from across the United States and Europe opened this morning at the Hebrew Orphan Asylum to discuss how to cope with the increasing stream of Jewish immigrants from Russia.  The Executive Committee of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society had issued the call for the meeting and H.S. Henry, the Society’s President, presided over the opening session. Henry said that since its founding in December of 1881, HIAS has collected over $75,000, all but $7,000 of which it has spent on helping over 3,000 immigrants.  The leaders discussed the seemingly overwhelming task of helping their suffering co-religionists but affirmed their commitment to do so.  One of the practical programs discussed was the settling of refugees in the open tracts of land in Minnesota and the Dakotas. According to figures presented to the conference it would take over a thousand dollars to provide a single agricultural settler with everything from provisions, fuel, seed, livestock, 80 acres of land, materials to build a house, furnishings and provisions until the first harvest is sold.


1882: “A general conference of delegates from the various Jewish societies in the United States” which had been convened to discuss the challenges related to the continuous arrival of refugees from Russia opened this morning in New York at the Hebrew Orphan Asylum. “The meeting was called to order by H.S. Henry, President of the Hebrew Emigrant Aid Society of the United States.


1882: It was reported today that appeal is being circulated in Paris to secure funds to help Jews leave Russia.  Famed author Victor Hugo’s name is at the top of the list of those who signed the appeal.


1882: It was reported today that President Chester A. Arthur and former President U.S. Grant are among the leaders who will be attending the upcoming fundraiser designed to provide aid for Jewish refugees from Russia.


1882: It was reported today that European Jews are debating the direction Russian immigrants should take – west to the United States or east to Palestine.  An un-named Anglo Jewish citizen contends that the United States is the better of the two destinations. The movement to settle Palestine “is a mere hobby of Protestant Christians.”  The Ottoman government would not support the settlement and the Jews would be moving to a country less civilized than the one they are leaving.  Among the advantages offered by the United States are a high state of civilization, large unsettled areas and the 400,000 Jews already living there who would help the newcomers.


1883: In London Benjamin Leopold Farjeon, the son of Orthodox Jews and Maggie (Jefferson) Farjeon gave birth to British author Joseph Jefferson Farjeon


1883: In Altona, Germany, Emilie (née Fischel) and Otto Ehrenberg gave birth to Hans Phillip Ehrenberg a convert who co-founded the Confessing Church but who was forced to flee to England because of Jewish ancestry when the Nazis came to power.


1886(1stof Sivan, 5645): Rosh Chodesh Sivan


1892: Mrs. Davis the long time matron of the Ladies’ Deborah Nursery and Child’s Protectory offered an explanation for the discrepancy between their records and those of the police magistrate’s clerks.  According to Mrs. Davis, the Jewish agency does a more detailed check and often finds that the children are younger than originally reported which leads to a longer a stay at the facility which in turn results in additional charges to the government.


1893: The Shirt Contractors’ Association posted a notice which the Jewish shirtmakers “regard as the beginning of a fight by the Contractors’ Association against the union.”  As if to reinforce their fears, 4 of the contractors lock out their shirtmakers today.


1894: It was reported today that Frederick Nathan was one of the members of the Finance Committee of the Mutual Employment Society which was founded last winter to help applicants find jobs at no cost to employers.


1894(29thof Iyar, 5654): Eighty-eight year old philologist and lexicographer Wilhelm Freund, author of Wörterbuch der Lateinischen Sprache passed away today at Breslau,


1894:”Reception at Montefiore Home” published today described the event which is usually held on Decoration Day but was postponed because of memorial services being held for the late Jesse Seligman.


1895: “Samuell Casten, alias ‘Jew Sam’ was indicted by the Grand Jury” in response to charges of grand larceny brought by Mrs. Helen Maillard


1896: Judge Myer S. Isaacs was among the members of Council of the University sitting on the dignitaries’ platform at the New York University commencement exercises being held in Carnegie Hall.


1897: The first issue of "Die Welt" appears.The English Hovevei Zion officially dissociates itself from the Zionist Congress.


1897: Sixty five year old Louis Blum was sentenced to ten days in prison for violating  the bottling law when broke off the heads of empty siphons and used as them as hooks for a chupah that was building at the synagogue where he was the sexton.


1898: The Human Rights League (Ligue des droits de l'homme or LDH) was founded today by Ludovic Trarieux to defend Captain Alfred Dreyfus who was falsely convicted on charges of treason.


1899: It was reported today that The Hebrew Citizens League of Jersey, whose objectives “will be to induce Hebrews are not naturalized to become citizens at once” and “to protect their legal rights” has filed articles of incorporation with County Clerk John G. Fisher.


1899: It was reported today that “the Dreyfus affair has been instrumental in weakening the bonds of friendship between Russia and France and in destroying the faith with which Russian military men had in the discipline of the French Army” which appears to be leading to a “rapprochement between Russia and Austria-Hungary.”


1899: A riot broke out at the Auteuil race course where the mob expressed its hostility for President Loubet with a variety of verbal assaults including the call of “Down with Traitors, Jews and Dreyfusites.!”


1899: The officers of the newly incorporated Hebrew Citizens’ League of Jersey City are: President – Louis Strang; Vice President – Samuel Lastage; Treasurer – Harris Steirman; Financial Secretary – Henry Weisberg; Counsul – Peter James; Sergeant at Arms – William Steirman.


1899: “Harsh Treatment of the Jews” published today described the “latest outrage against the Russian Jews” which took place at Nikolaev where an anti-Semitic movement started by religious fanatics who “pillaged” every shop owned by the Jews and left over 200 of them wounded, “many of them fatally.”


1899: “The Library of Princeton University” published today described the history of the institution and some of its prized tomes including “Jonathan Edward’s Hebrew Bible, a large folio with the celebrated theologian’s autograph.”


1899: “Science and Industry,” a compilation of activities in Europe published today described the opening of a Spinoza museum “in the house where the famous Hebrew philosopher lived and polished lenses for his bread at Rhynsburg, near Leyden” which “has been restored to its 17th century style.”


1899: The Neue Freie Presse publishes Herzl's editorial about the return of Colonel Dreyfus.


1900: Birthdate of Nelson Glueck, American Jewish archaeologist. Director of the AmericanSchoolof Oriental Research in Jerusalembetween 1932 and 1947, he explored and dated over 1,000 ancient sites in Palestine and the Near East. One of his popular works was Rivers in the Desert.


1902: While inParis, Herzl receives the invitation to appear before the Royal Commission for Alien Immigration in London. The meeting is scheduled to last two days.


1903:Herzl renews his efforts to gain support Great Britain and again submits plans to Constantinople for a Charter for Mesopotamia.


1908: Alfred Dreyfus was wounded by a disgruntled journalist while “attending the ceremony” during which the ashes of Emile Zola were interred in the Pantheon.  Zola was the French journalist and author who led the fight to free Dreyfus during which he exposed the anti-Semitic and corrupt nature of the French officer corps.


1909: The President of the Turkish Chamber of Deputies speaks in favor of Jewish immigrants being admitted to the Ottoman Empire. He sees it a as a necessity for the growth of the country.


1911: The Hahambashi receives several telegrams from Arabia and Syria describing attacks on Jews. Details of the attacks were given to the authorities who could then intervene.



1912: Massachusetts became the first state to pass a minimum wage law. Boston attorney Louis Brandeis, the future Supreme Court Justice, was an ardent advocate for minimum wage laws.


1916: Herman Bernstein, editor of The American Hebrew received a cable from Lord Reading, Chief Justice of England, expressing his approval of Louis Brandeis taking his seat on the Supreme Court.  “Membership in the Supreme Court of the United States,” the English jurist wrote, “is one of the greatest distinctions known to the legal world and I heartily congratulate the new Associate Justice.”


1917:  Birthdate of Howard Metzenbaum.  A Democrat and a liberal, Metzenbaum served in the U.S. Senate representing the state of Ohio.


1917:  The Pulitzer Prizes for journalism, literature and music are awarded for the first time.  America’s premier honor for arts and literature was created under the terms of the will of publisher Joseph Pulitzer, an immigrant from Hungary whose father was Jewish and whose mother was Roman Catholic.


1917: During World War I Jules Cambon, Director-General of the French Foreign Ministry wrote to Nahum Sokolow offering vague words of support for Zionist efforts in Palestine. Much to the chagrin of the French, these vague assurances helped pave the way for the issuance of the Balfour Declaration.


1918: Catcher Bob Berman made his major league debut with the Washington Senators.


1918:Encouraged by the British, “Dr. Chaim Weizmann met the Emir Feisal, the leader of the Arab Revolt, near the port of Akaba, and worked out with him what seemed to be a satisfactory Arab support for a Jewish National Home in Palestine.”


1919(6th of Sivan, 5679): Shavuot


1919:  Birthdate of Robert Merrill.Born Morris (Moishe) Miller in Brooklyn, New York, Merrill was the son of two Jewish immigrants from Warsaw named Milstein who Americanized their name to Miller.  Robert Merrill became one of the greatest operatic baritones of the 20th century.  Lest anyone question his Jewishness please note that when Merrill died in 2004 he was buried in the Sharon Gardens Cemetery, the Jewish section of the Kenisco Cemetery.


1919: By a vote of 56 to 25 the United States passed the 19th Amendment which had the support of many Jews including the National Council of Jewish Women.


1926: Dr. Nathan Ratnoff, Chairman of a Joint Hospital Committee representing Hadassah, the Women’s Zionist Organization of America and the American Physicians’ Committee, announced plans to establish a college of medicine at Hebrew University and to upgrade hospital facilities at the Mt. Scopus institution as part of a program to improve health conditions for those living in Palestine.  The committee plans on raising at least one million dollars to make the plans a reality.


1926: In Kiel, Germany, Rosel (née Zamora) and Rabbi Max Malina gave birth to Judith Malina “an American theater and film actress, writer, and director, who was one of the founders of The Living Theatre.”


1927: Two weeks after Charles Lindbergh landed in Paris, Charles Levine’s plan Columbia took off from New York for what was supposed to be the first flight to Berlin.  Clarence Chamberlin was the pilot, but Levine was planning to lay claim to being the first trans-Atlantic passenger.  The flight ended at Eisleben, 100 miles short of Berlin but was longer than the Lone Eagle’s flight.


1928:  Birthdate of Dr. Ruth Westheimer, self-described sex therapist and author.


1931: It was reported today that Miss Dorothy Duveen, the only daughter of Jewish art dealer Sir Joseph Duveen is engaged to marry the son and heir of Sir William Garthwaite, William F.C. Garthwaite.


1931(19th of Sivan, 5691):Mortimer L. Schiff “an American banker and notable early Boy Scouts of America (BSA) leader” passed away.  “Mortimer Leo Schiff was the only son of the German-Jewish American banker and philanthropist Jacob Schiff and his wife Therese. While he worked as a partner in the financial firm of Kuhn, Loeb & Co. from 1900 until his death in 1931, he also devoted much of his time to the development of scouting in America. He was a member of the World Scout Committee of the World Organization of the Scout Movement and the Theodore Roosevelt Council Executive Board. After a long tenure as vice-president of the BSA beginning in 1910, during which he also appeared on the cover of Time magazine on February 14, 1927, he was elected president of the organization in 1931. However, his untimely death came only one month later. He had also been serving as the BSA's International Commissioner for several years.The property for the Mortimer L. Schiff Scout Reservation was subsequently purchased by his mother, named in his honor, and donated to the BSA for their national training center. His son John Mortimer Schiff was also involved with the BSA.” Schiff was awarded the Bronze Wolf, the only distinction of the World Organization of the Scout Movement, granted by the World Scout Committee for exceptional services to world Scouting. Both Mortimer and his son, John M. Schiff, received Silver Buffalo Awards from the BSA.”


1931: Birthdate of Sir Gustav Victor Joseph Nossal, AC, CBE, FRS, FAA, an Australian research biologist.


1932: As Germany spirals into political chaos In Germany, President Paul von Hindenburg dissolves the Reichstag and sets new elections for next month which are likely to be won by Hitler and his Nazis.


1936: In Poland, the Prime Minister, F. Slawoj-Skladkowski, declared his support for the "economic war" against the Jews.


1936: Leon Blum became the first Jew to be elected premier of France. Blum, a socialist, instituted the 40-hour work week and many important social reforms. His government fell over lack of parliamentary support for his financial program, lasting only one year.


1937(25th of Sivan, 5697):Helmut Hirsch, a German Jew who was executed by decapitation, for his part in a bombing plot intended to destabilize the German Reich. There had been several efforts to intervene to save his life including a 11th hour appeal to Hitler who turned down the request. While details about the actual plan may be sketchy, there is no reason to doubt his courage. 


1937: The Palestine Post reported from London that the Colonial Secretary, Mr. Ormsby-Gore, told the House of Commons that in view of the changed financial and security situation in Palestine, and the uncertainty regarding the country's future, pending the awaited recommendations of the Royal (Peel) Commission, he could not encourage the initiation of any schemes for immediate development in Palestine. He was leaving, however, open options for urgent development projects approved by the Palestine High Commissioner, Sir Arthur Wauchope.


1937: The Palestine Post reported that Kemal Bey, the well-known Arab terrorist who led the attack against Tel Yosef in 1921, was killed in his village in the Huleh area, as a result of a family dispute.


1937: In London, Henri Armand Hugh Selbourne, and Sulamith (Amiel) Selbourne – “a descendant of generations of Jewish thinkers and rabbinical scholars and, in a cognate line, sharing an ancestry with Karl Marx” gave birth to David Selbourne “a British political philosopher, social commentator and historian of ideas.”


1938: Sigmund Freud, his wife Martha, his daughter Anna, left Vienna on the Orient Express bound for Paris, the way station on their final destination – London.


1939: The SS St. Louis, a German passenger liner carrying 900 Jewish refugees was denied permission to dock at any ports in Florida.  The ship steamed off the coast of the United States where the passengers could see the lights of Miami.  The Coast Guard had orders to keep the St. Louis and its Jewish passengers from reaching the United States.  The ship and its wretched cargo returned to the Europewhere many perished in the Holocaust.  This episode became the basis for the film “Voyage of the Damned.”


1940: Under orders from Benito Mussolini, the Italians began building Ferramonti, the largest of 15 concentration camps constructed just before Italy entered World War II.


1941: Eighty-two year old Wilhelm II, the last Kaiser died in exile in the Netherlands. While thousands of German Jews fought and died for the Kaiser, he was an anti-Semite who blamed his defeat and abdication on “the tribe of Judah.”


1941: The republic of Croatiaissued an order depriving all Jews of their property and compelling them to wear a yellow badge with the letter Z.


1942(19th of Sivan, 5702):Mordechai Gebirtig, Yiddish poet and songwriter was murdered by the Nazis in the Krakow Ghetto on what was known as “Bloody Thursday.”

1942: Reinhard Heydrich, chief of the Reich Security Police and SD, dies of blood poisoning caused by injuries suffered in the May 27 attack by Czech partisans.  Heydrich chaired the conference in January of 1942 when the plans for the last phase of the final solution were set in motion.  The Czechs who killed him were working for the British and his killing really had nothing to do with his virulent anti-Semitic attitudes or plans.


1942:  The Battle of Midway begins and will last until June 6, 1942.  The American victory over Japan marked a major turning point on the road to victory for the Allies.  The victory was an audacious gamble pulled off by a comparatively small number of U.S. naval vessels against a major Japanese armada.  If the U.S. had lost, the Pacific coast would have been open to invasion.  The American victory was made possible, in part, by the ability of the Americans to read the Japanese code.  The team that cracked the code was led by Colonel William Friedman.  Friedman was the son of Russian immigrant Jews.  He and his wife were two of the top cryptologists of the 20thcentury.  This was no mean fete in the days before computers were available.


1943(1st of Sivan, 5703): Rosh Chodesh Sivan


1945: Lyndon Johnson visited Dachau. According to Lady Bird, when her husband returned home, "he was still shaken, stunned, terrorized and bursting with an overpowering revulsion and incredulous horror at what he had seen."


1945:  Soldiers of the Jewish Brigade had their first contact with Jews from central or Eastern Europe when four young men who had traveled from Poland, Rumania, Hungary and Czechoslovakia arrived at their camp at Tarvisio, Italy.


1948(26th of Iyar, 5708); Samuel Krauss passed away today in Cambridge.  Born in 1866, he served as professor at the Jewish Teacher’s Seminary in Budapest from 1894 to 1906 and then moved on to the Jewish Theological Seminary in Vienna where he stayed until the Anschluss forced to take refuge in England in 1938.  He was the author of the pioneering work on archaeology, Talmudische Archäologie


1950: In article entitled “Trouble-Shooter Diplomat,” Gertrude Samuels provides a detailed portrait of Israeli Diplomat Eliahu Elath who represented Israel at the San Francisco Conference in 1945, served as Israel’s first Ambassador to the United States and was about to assume a similar position at the Court of St. James.


1951(29th of Iyar, 5711): Russian born American symphony conductor Dr. Sergei Aleksandrovich Koussevitzky passed away.  Born in 1874, Serge, as he was known, was music director of the Boston Symphony for a quarter of a century.


1952: The Jerusalem Post reported from London that West Germany had tentatively offered to negotiate with Israel a reparations offer, totaling approximately $585 million, on the basis of 10 annual payments. The Times warned Germany not to make this restitution offer entirely at the expense of its other contractual creditors, and thus shirk its responsibility for the wrongs done to Jews by Hitler's Germany.


1952: The Jerusalem Post reported that The Knesset approved amendments to the Patents and Designs Ordinances, aimed at fulfilling the requirements of the International Charter of 1934.


1952: The Jerusalem Post reported that restrictions were announced on a gradual reduction of interurban and urban bus services, ordered by the government in order to save fuel and foreign currency. Plans were made, however, for a complete end to the rationing of all textiles.


1953: In the United States, release date for MGM’s “Julius Caesar” directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz and filmed by Joseph Ruttenberg.


1956: New York Mayor Robert Wagner and Israeli Air Force General Shlomo Shamir addressed the annual donor luncheon of the Mizrachi Women’s Organization of America at the Waldorf-Astoria. Mayor Wagner told the 1,200 attendees that “the children in the State of Israel must receive every opportunity to grow up to become leaders and defenders of their country.”


1964:  Dodger pitcher Sandy Koufax threw his third no-hitter beating the Phillies, 3-0.


1967: Meir Amit reported to the cabinet meeting that U.S. Secretary Robert McNamara had said "I read you loud and clear." in response to Amit’s request “All we want is three things: One, that you refill our arsenal after the war. Two, that you will help us in the UN. Three, that you will isolate the Russians from the arena." Amit told the cabinet this was a green light from the United States if Israel launched a pre-emptive strike against its Arab enemies.


1967:  For seven hours Israel’s National Unity Cabinet, chaired by Prime Minister Levi Eshkol met to hear a review of the military options presented by Moshe Dayan as well as an update by intelligence sources on the situation in the Egyptian military command.  Egyptian generals were pressuring Nasser to let them strike the first blow.  The “Arab streets” were demanding action.  Delay was Israel’s enemy.  Each day the Arab forces grew stronger, while Israel’s forces were at their “optimum level.”  The Cabinet agreed that the military option was all that was left.  The Cabinet voted unanimously to let Eshkol and Dayan choose the time and place of attack.  After the Cabinet adjourned, the two Israeli leaders agreed that H-hour was 7:45, Monday, June 5. The report delivered by General Meir Amit was considered critical to the decision. Amit had just returned from Washington where he met with Defense Secretary MacNamara who assured the Israeli General of America’s willingness to re-supply Israel after the war, help the Jewish state at the UN and to keep the Soviets out of the area.


1970(29th of Iyar, 5730): Comedian Menasha Skulni, known as Menasha the Magnificent, passed away at the age of 78.


1971(11th of Sivan, 5731): Eighty-six year old Marxist philosopher György Lukács passed away in Budapest.

 

1972: Joseph Brodsky,Russian born Jewish poet and essayist who would go on to win the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1987 and would serve as Poet Laureate of the United States in 1991 and 1992, was expelled from the Soviet Union.


1976(6th of Sivan): As Reagan and Ford contest for the Republican nomination for President, observance of Shavuot


1981: The New York Times reported that George Balanchine, choreographer and artistic director of the New York City Ballet, has received the Jewish National Fund's first Tarbut Award, given to the choreographer in honor of his ''great achievements in expanding the scope and dimension of dance in America and throughout the world.''


1982:  In attempt to dislodge the PLO from its bases, Israel attacked targets in south Lebanon

1985: In the seemingly endless attempt by some to breach the wall between church and state the U.S. Supreme Court rules in Wallace v Jaffree that an Alabama law mandating a minute of silent mediation or voluntary prayer at the start of the school day is unconstitutional.


1986: Jonathan Pollard pled guilty in US court


1987: The IPO music director, Zubin Mehta, conducts with soloists Itzhak Perlman and Gerry Mulligan in a classical-jazz concert.


1989: Wendy Wasserstein became the first woman to win a Tony Award for Best Play, for The Heidi Chronicles,


1990(11th of Sivan, 5750):  Jack Gilford passed away at the age of 82, a victim of stomach cancer. He gained fame as comedic actor whose "rubber face" was an acting trademark gained additional fame playing a piece of fruit in the Fruit of the Loom commercials.  


1995(6th of Sivan, 5755): Shavuot


1995: Outfielder Brian Kowitz made his major league debut with the Atlanta Braves.


1997(28th of Iyar, 5757): Thirty years after the Six Day Wat, Jews observe Yom Yerushalayim


1998: The Republican controlled U.S. House of Representatives passes “a School Prayer Amendenment that would overturn the Supreme Court decision banning state-written and state-mandated Christians in public schools.:  While the Bill passed by a simple majority it failed to gain the two-thirds majority necessary to move forward the amending process.


2000: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 The Lexus and the Olive Tree by Thomas L. Friedman.


2004: “Shul Life, Circa 1850” published today, Adam Dickter provides a portrait of the “early days of Brooklyn’s Kane Street synagogue.

2006: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including the recently released paperback editions of Perfectly Reasonable Deviations From the Beaten Track: The Letters of Richard P. Feynman, Edited by Michelle Feynman, What We Owe Iraq: War and the Ethics of Nation Buildingby Noah Feldman and Wilt, 1962: The Night of 100 Points and the Dawn of a New Era by Gary Pomerantz.


2006:  In a show of the changing face of Jewish involvement in all facets of life Haaretz reported that Israeli tennis player Shahar Peer advanced to the last sixteen of the French Open, after a resounding 6-4, 7-5 defeat of sixth-seeded Russian Elena Dementieva. Peer, ranked 26 in the world, has won three out of three tournaments this year - Pattaya, Prague and Istanbul - but this is her first win against a top ten player who has also competed in two Grand Slam finals.



2007: In the “Verbatim” section Time magazine featured the following quote by Rutka Laskier, “'If only I could say, It's over, you only die once ... but I can't, because despite all these atrocities, I want to live, and wait for the following day.'” Rutka Laskier has been described as the Polish Anne Frank. Like Frank, she wrote a Holocaust-era diary, at the age of 14. Like Frank, Laskier perished during the Holocaust. Apparently, the Nazis killed her at Auschwitz.


2007: An article about Scholar and Rabbi Jacob Neusner entitled “The Pope’s Favorite Rabbi” appears in Time Magazine. The brief article describes Neusner’s view of Christianity and their impact on Pope Benedict XVI.  The Pope devotes 20 pages of his new book to A Rabbi Talks with Jesus, a 161-page tome published in 1993. In that volume, the professor (now at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, N.Y.) and non-congregational rabbi projected himself back into the Gospel of Matthew to quiz Jesus on the Jewish law. He found the Nazarene's interpretation irredeemably faulty. In his 14-years-delayed response, Benedict not only compliments Neusner as a "great Jewish scholar" but also recapitulates the thesis of A Rabbi Talks and spends a third of one of his 10 chapters answering it.


2008: In Washington, D.C., the AIPAC Policy Conference comes to an end.


2008(1st of Sivan, 5768): Rosh Chodesh Sivan


2008: A judge declared a mistrial in the case of Navee Haq, the man who stormed into a Jewish center two years ago and shot six women, killing one, as he ranted against Israel and the Iraq war.  The jurors appeared to be hopelessly deadlocked over whether or not he was guilty by reason of insanity. 


2008: The Historical Society of Jews from Egypt asked the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) to intervene on its behalf with government in Cairo sincethe Egyptians have refused to release archives connected to the Jewish community. The historical society's members consist of Jews worldwide whose families have been exiled from Egypt since the 1950s. According to the society's president Desire Sakkal nearly half a million Jews originally from Egypt and their descendants live outside the country. In 1948, around 100,000 Jews lived in Egypt, but by 2007 that number had dropped to between 20 and 100. Another organization, the World Congress of the Jews from Egypt, has been working to recover the property of Jews who were exiled in 1948. The Historical Society of Jews from Egypt had requested ownership of or access to the books, birth certificates, "civil paper" and 120 holy books belonging to the community, Sakkal said. "It's our history, everything we own going back hundreds and hundreds of years," he said. However, Egypt has refused to release the documents to the historical society. Sakkal said this was a consequence of the Egyptians' fear of restitution claims. "Very clearly Egypt is trying to deny our existence. They are afraid that if we can claim that we are Egyptians, that we were born there, then our grandchildren could come there one day and claim everything that they confiscated from us," he said. The Egyptian Embassy had no comment.


2009:Elinor Lipman, author of the bestselling novels The Inn at Lake Devine and Isabel's Bed, reads from her new novel, The Family Man, at Sixth and I Historic Synagogue (formerly Adas Israel) in Washington, D.C.


2009:The Israeli government praised U.S. President Barack Obama's speech to the Muslim world today, saying it shared his hopes for Middle East peace, but stressed that Israel's security interests remained paramount.

2010: The “Waiting Room,” the first New York solo exhibition of Be’er Sheva native Maya Bloch is scheduled to open at Thierry Goldberg Projects.


2010: At Temple Judah in Cedar Rapids, IA, Friday night services feature the baby-naming ceremony for Nicole Charley Hurwitz, the second granddaughter of Ivy and Bill Hurwitz.


2010: The Baltimore Zionist District is scheduled to sponsor “A Rally to Stand in Solidarity with Israel” at the corner of Pratt and Light Street in Baltimore, MD.


2010(22nd of Sivan, 5770): Ninety-nine year old Himan Brown who created a series of classic radio dramas including “The Adventures of the Thin Man”, “Dick Tracy,” and “Inner Sanctum” passed away today. (As reported by Joseph Berger)

2011(2nd of Sivan, 5771): Eighty three year old Felix Zandman, the Holocaust survivor who “founded Vishay Intertechnology Inc., a $2 billion electronics firm traded on Wall Street that supplies the computer, aerospace and other industries” passed away today.

2011(2nd of Sivan, 5771): Ninety-one year old Leo Greenland, advertising man par excellence, passed away. (As reported by Maraglit Fox)

2011:The great New Zealand soprano Kiri Te Kanawa is scheduled to give a rare recital tonight at the Jerusalem International Convention Center (Binyanei Hauma )


2011: “Sundaes on Saturday” will be the theme of this month’s traditional Shabbat Minyan at Temple Judah featuring a Kiddush where attendees will make their own ice cream concoctions as everybody gets in the Shavuot Mood.


2011:Thousands visited Krakow's seven historic synagogues in an unprecedented event aimed to foster Jewish identity among Krakow's small Jewish community. The event was also designed to educate non-Jewish Poles about contemporary Jewish culture. Called "Seven at Night," today’s event was sponsored by the Krakow Jewish Community Center, the Joint Distribution Committee and Krakow Jewish communal organization (JTA)

 
2011:Around 5,000 people took part in a march in central Tel Aviv this evening supporting the establishment of a Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders. The march ended with a rally at the Tel Aviv Museum. MKs Dov Khenin (Hadash) and Zahava Galon (Meretz) and playwright Yehoshua Sobol gave speeches.”


2012: Melting Away “the first feature film in the history of Israeli cinema dealing with the parents' perspective on having a transgender child” is scheduled to be shown in Washington, DC.


2012: The 92nd Street Y is scheduled to offer “It’s Magic: Nine Decades of Songs from Warner Brothers” which celebrates the role of music at the studio owned by four Jewish brother starting with “The Jazz Singer.”


2012: In Jerusalem, the Israel Festival is scheduled to host “Theatre ad Infinitum” at the Khan Theatre 


2012(14th of Sivan, 5772): Seventy-four year old Steve Ben Israel passed away.


 

2013: The Alexandria Kleztet is scheduled to perform at Bethesda Blues and Jazz Supper Club in Bethesda, MD.


2013: At Tel Aviv University the conference entitled “Holy War and Sacred Struggle in Judaism, Christianity and Islam” is scheduled to come to an end.


2013: The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and The Center for Jewish History are scheduled to present a panel discussion entitled “Hungary and the Holocaust: Assessing the Past; Preparing for the Future.”


2013: Relations between coalition parties Hatnua and the Bayit Yehudi continued to deteriorate today, with Religious Services Minister Naftali Bennett effectively blocking a bill by MK Elazar Stern (Hatnua) to change the panel that chooses the chief rabbis.(As reportedy Lahav Harkov & Jeremy Sharon)


2013:IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Benny Gantz has ordered a major reduction in the employment of external advisers, and cancelled all non-operational trips of IDF delegations to militaries abroad today. Speaking at the site of an Infantry Corps drill, Gantz said he believes the IDF is up to the "difficult task" of making defense budget cuts. (As reported Yakkov Lapin)


2014 (6th of Sivan, 5774): Shavuot


2014: Starting at 12:30 A.M. the JCC in Manhattan is scheduled to show “Tikkun Leil Shavuot: Supermensch” a film at about Shep Gordon.


2014: As part of the Shavuot celebration Jews in Little Rock are scheduled to gather at the Chabad House under the leadership of Rabbi Pinchas Ciment for a reading of the Ten Commandments followed by a delicious dairy Kiddush complete with cheesecake and ice cream.


2014: At least 46,000 tickets have been sold for the Rolling Stones first ever concert in Israel which is scheduled to take place tonight at Tel Aviv’s Yarkon Park. (Time of Israel)


2014: The Shalom Hartman Institute is scheduled to hold English language study sessions as part of the Shavuot observances led by Suzanne Last Stone, Gil Tory, Menachem Fisch and Menachem Loberbaum.


This Day, June 5, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. Levin

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JUNE 5



70: Titus and his Roman legions breach the middle wall of Jerusalem.


1191 After conquering Cyprus, Richard the Lionheart and his Crusaders set sail for “the Holy Land.” This crusading left England in the control of Prince John who, amongst other things, exploited the Jewish subjects in a way that the King would not have approved of.


1257:  Kraków, Poland receives city rights. Jews were probably among the earliest settlers of Krakow which was settled by traders from Germany.  Jews had been moving to Poland from Germany since the days of the Crusades.  Certainly there was a Jewish population in the town by the middle of the 14th century since the oldest synagogue in the town dates from a visit from Casimir the Great.


1305:Raymond Bertrand de Got is elected Pope under the name Clement V. According to Elizabeth D. Malissa, “Pope Clement V is the first pope to threaten Jews with an economic boycott in an attempt to force them to stop charging Christians interest on loans.”


1443: Ten years before the Jews were expelled from Wroclaw in 1453, the capital city of the province of Lower Silesian in Poland was struck by an earthquake that registered 6 on the Richter Scale. 


1705(13th of Sivan): Manuel (Isaac Hayyim) Teixeira de Sampaio, passed away   202


1740(10th of Sivan)” Rabbi Eliezer Rokeah of Amsterdam, author of Maaseh Rokeah passed away


1788: As the newly formed United States groped for a form of government that would be an improvement over the Articles of Confederation, former Harvard President and leading clergyman “Samuel Langdon addressed the New Hampshire state legislature on the subject of “The Republic of the Israelites an Example to the American States.”  Langdon was one of those who saw the ancient Israelite society as providing the prototype for an American republic.  For example, he saw the Seventy Elders selected by Moses as a “Senate” and proof that the Israelites had a voice in the government, something he desired for the emerging United States of America.


1803(15thof Sivan, 5563): Dr. Abraham Kisch, the native of Prague who tutored Moses Mendelsohn in Latin and was director of the Meisel Hospital passed away today.


1805: Lisa & Kahn one of the oldest banking houses in the Netherlands was founded today by two Polish Jews – Hirschel Eliazer Kahn and Moses Calmus Lissa.


1806: Louis Napoléon Bonaparte, the brother of Napoleon Bonaparte, began his reign as King of Holland.Louis was supportive of his Jewish subjects and sought to make them full-fledged citizens of his Dutch kingdom. He “changed the market-day in some cities (Utrecht and Rotterdam) from Saturday to Monday” and abolished the use of the "Oath More Judaico" Henceforth, Jews and Christians would swear to the same oath when testifying. in the courts of justice, and administered the same formula to both Christians and Jews. In an attempt to improve their skills in the art of war, ‘’he formed two battalions of 803 men and 60 officers, all Jews.” Prior to his reign, the Jews  had been until then excluded from military service. [Editors Note – It may seem strange to westerners living in the 21stcentury, but at that time, serving in the military was considered a sign of full-citizenship. If you will remember the story of Asser Levy and his fight to serve in the militia in New Amsterdam you will understand the importance of what Louis did.]


1818: “Loeb Baruch went to Rödelheim and was baptized by Pastor Bertuch as a convert to the Lutheran Church; assuming the name of "Karl Ludwig Börne.”


1829: Birthdate of Marcus Jastrow, the Polish born Talmudist who would become the Rabbi at Rodeph Shalom in Philadelphia, PA.

1832: Thanks to the work of the late Ezekiel Hart who had been denied his seat in the legislature in 1809 and his son Samuel Hart, the Legislative Assembly of Lower Canada, passed the 1832 Emancipation Act that ultimately guaranteed full rights to people practicing the Jewish faith.  Canada was a trend setter since it would be 27 years before such a measure was passed any place in the British Empire.


1837: Houston, Texas is incorporated by the Republic of Texas. By 1854, there were enough Jews living in Houston for the establishment of cemetery and by 1859 the Jewish community was large enough to get a charter for what was the first congregation in Texas in 1859. The Congregation, Beth Israel, began as an Orthodox synagogue, but became a Reform congregation some fifteen years later.


1835(8th of Sivan, 5595): Rabbi Mattathias di Moses Zacuto and 47 other people including Rabbi Raphael Amar died today when a building collapsed during a wedding celebration in Alessandra, Italy.


1838: Jacob Kann married Amalie de Jonge.


1843(7th of Sivan, 5603): Second Day of Shavuot


1848: In Breslau, Silesia, Rabbi Abraham Geiger and his wife gave birth to author and historian Ludwig Geiger.


1849: In Denmark, article 84 of the new constitution negated discrimination of "any person on the basis of religious grounds." This removed the last restriction on the Jews making them full citizens


1855: In New York City, “The Jews’ Hospital” opened for patients today.  While the hospital may have been intended to serve destitute and newly arrived Jews, its mission soon changed.  During the Civil War it treated untold number of Union casualties beginning with those who were wounded during McClellan’s Peninsular Campaign. It was originally located on West 28th Street in Manhattan. It changed its name to Mt. Sinai Hospital in 1866.


1860:Emily Jane Mires, the daughter of Franco-Jewish financier Jules Mires, married Prince Alphonse de Polignac the second son of President of the Council of Ministers. In 1861 the couple had a daughter named Jeanne


1861: During the American Civil War,Frederick Knefler was promoted from the rank of lieutenant to captain in the 11th Indiana Infantry.  Knefler would eventually work his way up to the chain of command to become a Brigadier General.  His commanding officer in the 11thIndiana was Lew Wallace, author of Ben Hur, the 19th century classic set in Judea with a Jewish hero.  Wallace and Knefler were friends before the war.


1870: Today's "Foreign Items" column reported that Warsaw, Poland, has a population of 254,561 of which 67,584 are Jews.


1870: Birthdate of German born oncologist Ferdinand Blumenthal.


1870(6th of Sivan, 5630): First Day of Shavuot


1870: During Shavuot Services, seven young ladies and four young men took part in Temple Israel’s first ever Confirmation Ceremony.  Services were led by Rabbi Raphael D.C Lewis of Brooklyn, NY. The service began at ten in the morning with the hymn Adon Olom which was sung to the accompaniment of organist Morris Abrahams.


1870: Members of the Temple Israel confirmation class and their parents visited the home of Rabbi D.C. Lewin this evening where they presented him with a pair of engraved silver goblets as a token of their appreciation for his work with them.


1870: In New York City, a meeting is scheduled to be held at Temple Israel, which is led by Rabbi Raphael D.C. Lewin, to discuss the outbreak of anti-Semitism in Romania.


1870: According to reports published today, Temple Emanuel located on New York’s Fifth Avenue had a total income of $97, 627.70 this past fiscal year with expenses of $38,179.52 that included such items as salary for the staff (21,500); choir and organ (5,425.76); school (1,708.44) and insurance (2,301.39).  The income included payments for pews in the amount of 34,425.92 and 17,344.70 from “the charity collection for the year.  As to membership, the Temple “has 3059 pew owners and 61 seat holders.”


1870:The New Persecution of the Jews” published today described the persecution of Jews at the hand of Romanian Christians as being “so savage and so causeless, the civilized world can be one sentiment – that of immeasurable indignation.” After providing a succinct, sympathetic picture of Jewish history while drawing a picture of Jewish suffering at the hands of Christians the article describes the positive nature of the American Jew.   “Not one of all the multitude of nationalities which we have received among us can boast of so large a proportion of peaceful and law-abiding members.  A Jew in prison is a thing almost unheard of; a Jew soliciting public charity has yet to be found; a Jew who boast of his caste, grows noisy over his religion or reviles that of his neighbors, if he exist at all, has become known to the general community…It is only bigotry which represents a Jew as an object of hatred or aversion.  To that race we owe much of our civilizations, and all the religion we possess.  It has endured persecution through generation after generation and has never evinced any disposition to retaliate….It is to be hoped that the United States Government will do all in its power to check the hideous massacre lately begun in Rumania.”


1876: “A Moor stabbed eleven Jews” today at Alcassar, a Moroccan city in the Province of Fez.  Among the wounded are Moses Abecasis.


1877: Reports reaching Bucharest that American Jews have petitioned Secretary of State W.M. Evarts on behalf of their co-religionists in Romania and Turkey “has created considerable ”amount of“ astonishment” among Jews and non-Jews alike.


1877: Jacob and Therese Schiff gave birth to Mortimer Leo Schiff, banker, philanthropist and early support of the Boy Scouts of America.


1881: A group of Polish Jews fought back today on Hester Street when two members of the “border gang” –John Reilly and Thomas Sinclair – began torment them.  Reilly responded to the Jewish resistance by drawing his revolver and shooting indiscriminately at the Jews. Louis Wolf was wounded by one of the shots which was heard by two 7th Precinct Detectives who chased down the fleeing thugs and arrested them.


1881: In “An Eastern Story,” a reviewer examines the recently published Rabbi Jeshua, a book that is described as “peculiar” because of the “parallelism which exists between the history of Rabbi Jeshua and the founder of Christianity.


1882: It was reported today that an Austrian physician had seen more than 125 “mutilated Jews” at a hospital in Odessa.  He described the wounds as being “of a very dangerous character.”  The attackers showed a spirit of cruelty by pouring spirits and petroleum into the wounds. One woman had her breast cut off while her one year old child had its eyes put out with a red hot iron.  At this time there are 3,000 homeless orphans wondering the area. (Editor’s note – You can draw a straight line from these reports to the meetings being held in the United States on how to cope with the rising tide of Jews fleeing Russia)


1882: It was reported today that “a colonization society” with a capitalization of a million dollar is to be formed to implement plans to settle Russian Jews in homesteads and other agricultural settlements in the American West.


1882 (18th of Sivan, 5642): Alexander Abraham de Sola passed away. Born in 1825, he was a Canadian Rabbi, author, Orientalist, and scientist. Originating from a large renowned family of Rabbis and scholars, De Sola was recognized there as one of the most powerful leaders of Orthodox Judaism in the United States during the latter half of the nineteenth century. Born in London, England, the sixth child of David Aaron de Sola and Rebecca Meldola, his maternal grandfather was Haham Raphael Meldola, a prominent English Rabbi. His sister Eliza, married Rabbi Abraham Pereira Mendes, and was the mother of Dr. Frederick de Sola Mendes.In 1873, by invitation of President Ulysses S. Grant's administration, De Sola opened the United States Congress with prayer. This invitation might have had a double significance at the time.  By asking a rabbi to provide the opening prayer, Grant was once against providing evidence that he was not an anti-Semite.  By asking a British rabbi to provide an opening prayer, the administration might have been signaling its desire to improve relations with Great Britain.


1882: The Musée Grévin, opened today in Paris. Arthur Meyer was the co-founder of what has become a very popular waxwork museum.  The grandson of a Rabbi, he was born in Le Harve in 1844 and became a major publisher in the French newspaper business.  His role as “press baron” reminds one of that played by Jews in other countries.  Like other Jewish moguls of journalism, he converted, in his case to Catholicism and he was a member of the anti-Dreyfus forces.


1883: Birthdate of English economist John Maynard Keynes, whom most people know as the father of Keynesian Economics but do not know as “a venomous anti-Semite who could have given Richard Wagner a run for his money” who said the Jews “have in them deep-rooted instincts that are antagonistic and therefore repulsive to the European, and their presence among us is a living example of the insurmountable difficulties that exist in merging race characteristics, in making cats love dogs ...It is not agreeable to see civilization so under the ugly thumbs of its impure Jews who have all the money and the power and brains.”


1885: Birthdate of French journalist and political leader Geroges Mandel who served in the Chamber of Deputies where he warned of the danger presented by the Nazis and Fascists.  He joined the Resistance and was cruelly murdered by the Vichy paramilitary forces.


1886: On Shabbat most of the Rabbis in Philadelphia spoke to their congregations about the unwillingness of the school superintendent to allow the Jewish students to make-up the final exams which are scheduled to be given on Shavuot.  The superintendent has refused to make any accommodation and failure to take the exams could result in failing for the school year.  The Rabbis “cautioned the young of their congregations against attending school on the upcoming festival.”


1886:William Eugene Blackstone, the author of the Blackstone Memorial, married Sarah Lee Smith.  The Blackstone Memorial was a petition signed by many prominent Americans calling for the return of the Jews to Palestine which was sent to President Benjamin Harrison.


1887: It was reported today that rumors are circulating concerning a proposal to make Pope Leo XIII King of Palestine under a protection of all the Catholic powers.  Some see this is a way to compensate the Pope for having lost his temporal powers in Italy at the time of the reunification.  The proposal does not take into consideration the fact that the Russians, who are Orthodox, feel they have a special role to play in the Holy Land as do the Anglican British. The report concedes that nobody has taken into consideration how the Jews and Moslems would feel about governance under a Papal monarch.


1889(6thof Sivan, 5649): Shavuot


1892: Founding of the Jewish community of Oslo, Norway.


1892: Professor Edward North of Hamilton College is scheduled to deliver a lecture “The Inter-Correspondences of Hebrew and Greek.”


1892: Congregation B’nai Jeshurun hosted its annual reception for its religious school this afternoon.


1893: The Jewish shirtmakers expect that five hundred of them will be “locked out” by the Shirt Contractors’ Association today as the association moves to “break” the union.


1895: Samuel Castin is being held by authorities on charges that he sold $4,500 worth of jewelry that did not belong to him and kept the money for himself.  Castin is known as “Jew Sam.” (Everybody was not a Talmud student)


1897: “Books on Many Themes” published today provides a series of brief reviews including one on The Prophets of Israel by Professor C. H. Cornhill who “having studied the history of Assyria, Babylon and Egypt shows the true origins of the religion.”


1898: Approximately “sixty young girls arrayed in white and a quarter of as many boys” from the Hebrew Free Schools took part in the Confirmation ceremonies at the Educational Alliance Building


1898: “Society Notes” published today described plans for an upcoming “patriotic tea in commemoration of Alexander Hamilton” sponsored by St. Luke’s Church which include a performance by the Hebrew Orphan Asylum Band. (Ed. Note – You have to wonder if the people at St. Luke’s Church appreciated the irony of a band made up of Jewish orphans playing in honor of Alexander Hamilton)


1899(27th of Sivan, 5659): German printer, publisher and bookseller, Hirsch Fishl passed away in Berlin. Sometime after 1860, while living in Halberstadt, Hirsch developed a specialty of buying and selling Hebrew books and manuscripts.  Hirsch provided Joseph Zender with many of the incunabula and rare books that were part of the first collection of Hebrew Books created for the British Museum.  He also provided assistance for The Bodleian Library and the Rosenthal Library at Amsterdam when they sought to acquire Jewish and Hebrew Books.  (As reported by Singer and Van Straalen)


1899: In New York City, the Health Board “established a quarantine in the grammar department of the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society” following the discovery of three cases of diathermia.


1899: “A meeting of the members of the Educational Alliance and the Hebrew Free School Association of the City of New York was held” tonight at Temple Emanu-El “to ratify the agreement for the consolidation of the two institutions as provided for by a recent act of the Legislature.”


1900: Birthdate of Victor Kluger who worked with Miep Gies and others to hide eight people including Anne Frank for two years.


1908(6th of Sivan, 5668) Shavuot


1908: In White Plains, NY, Felix and Frieda Warburg give birth to their fifth and youngest child Edward Mortimer Morris Warburg


1909: Birthdate of actor and director Henry Levin.


1912: Birthdate of Arnold Forster, an American Jewish leader, lawyer and writer who became a longtime executive of the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith.


1916: Sixty-five year old Field Marshal Horatio Herbert Kitchener, simply known as Lord Kitchener, the Secretary of State for War (the top military post in the UK) died today when the HMS Hampshire which was taking him to Russia was sunk by a German U-boat. The first major event in his storied career was his participation at the age of 24 in came to known as the Survey of Western Palestine a major mapping expedition that covered what is today Israel, Gaza and Judea/Samaria. The survey had provided the basis for many later archaeological and geographic expeditions and even provided the coordinates that would set the modern border between Lebanon and Israel.


1916: After a bruising confirmation process laced with anti-Semitism that lasted for more than four Louis Brandeis became the first Jewish Justice of the United States Supreme Court when he took the oath of office in the courtroom of the United States Supreme Court.  The chamber was filled to capacity with family members, well-wishers and government officials including Secretary of War Baker, Attorney General Gregory, Senator Nelson of Colorado and Senator Martin of Virginia. “The oath was administered to Mr. Brandeis today by virtue of the action of the Senate in waiving its three-day notification rule providing that a person confirmed by the Senate shall not assume office until three days after he is notified of his appointment.”


1917: During World War I, in the United States registration began under the Selective Draft Act covering all men between the ages of twenty one and thirty.  According to historian Martin Gilbert, the New York Times declared that this act gave “’gave a long and sorely needed means of disciplining a certain insolent foreign element in this nation.’ The reference was to America’s Jews, whose pacifist elements were no greater, by proportion than those of other Americans.  Universal military service, one American rabbi insisted, was an institution deriving from the time of Moses.  In support of this pro-war view there was also a verse in the Psalms which British Jews had cited two years earlier as a religious justification for to war: ‘Blessed be the Lord, my Rock, Who teaches my hands to war and my fingers to fight.’ Within two months of the passage of the Selective Draft Act, Jews made up 6 per cent of the American armed forces, though they were only 2 per cent of the population.”  The most of those Jews in uniform would be Irving Berlin.


1919(7th of Sivan 5679) Second Day of Shavuot


1921: Funeral services are scheduled to be held today for Dr. Simon Baruch, father of Bernard Baruch, at the West End Synagogue in New York City.


1926: In Budapest, “Tivadar Schwartz, a well-connected Jewish lawyer, publisher, investor and former officer in the Austro-Hungarian Army, and the former Erzebet Szucz, the daughter of a well-to-do fabric store owner” gave birth to Paul Schwartz who gained fame as Paul Soros. (As reported by Robert D. Hershey, Jr.)


1930:Birthdate of Jerome Howard Abrams who, as Jerry Ames, became a major force in the field of American Tap Dance. The 2006 recipient of the Flo Bert Award for his lifetime contribution to tap dance changed his name, like many other performers of his era, because his “Jewishness” could hinder his career. 


1931: Eighty-one year old John Lawson Stoddard, the American author whose support for “the restoration of the Jews in Israel” was encapsulated in his statement “You are a people without a country; there is a country without a people. Be united. Fulfill the dreams of your old poets and patriarchs. Go back, go back to the land of Abraham.”


1932: Dr. Cyrus Adler announced that Dr. Morris D. Levine has been appointed to a full professorship at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America.


1932: Dr. Cyrus Adler was honored today during the commencement exercises at the Jewish Theological Seminary for his thirty years of service to this flagship institution of the Jewish community.


1932: Ten new rabbis will be ordained today at the 7th annual commencement exercises of the Jewish Institute of Religion. The chairman of the board of Trustees, Judge Julian W. Mack will preside at the event being held today at Carnegie Hall and Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, President of the Institute will confer the degrees on the newly minted clergyman.


1933: Arturo Toscaninii boycotts a German music festival to protest Nazi repression of what the regime classified as “degenerate artists.”


1934: Tensions began to rise today in Eastern Thrace that would lead to full blown violence during June and July known as the Thrace Pogroms which was the name given to a series of violent attacks on the Jews by Moslem Turks in the “cities of Tekirdağ, Edirne, Kırklareli, and Çanakkale.” The violence began with boycotts of Jewish shops and products which “was followed by vandalizing of Jewish houses and shops.”  There is a dispute as to who caused the violence.  Some attribute it to leaders who were pro-Nazi while others attribute it to members of Atatürk's Republican People's Party.  Who started the violence may be a matter of dispute but the effects are a matter of record. “Over 15,000 Jews had to flee from the region.”


1935: The Metropolitan League of Jewish Community Associations honored The American Jewish Olympic team which recently competed in the Maccabiah games held in Tel Aviv at a reception held at the 92nd Street Y.M.H.A. The three hundred attendees included E.J. Londow, the chairman, Judge Jonah Goldstein and Rabbi Louis I. Newman. Among the honorees were Jance Lifson, Dores Kelm, William Steiner and Martin Weintraub.


1937: Birthdate of Benjamin Jerry Cohen the native of  Ossining, New York who I”s the Louis G. Lancaster Professor of International Political Economy at the University of California, Santa Barbara.… where he has been a member of the faculty since 1991” and “teaches undergraduate and graduate courses on international political economy.”


1937: In Oran, Algeria, Eve(nee Klein) and George Cixous gave birth to Hélène Cixous “a professor, French feminist writer, poet, playwright, philosopher, literary critic and rhetorician.”


1938(6th of Sivan, 5698) Shavuot


1938: Sigmund Freud, his wife Martha and daughter Anna arrived in Paris from Vienna on their way to seek refuge in London.


1940: “With the ever-increasing threat of war in the Eastern Mediterranean” the New York Times described preparations being made to defend Palestine from attacks by Axis forces.  Palestine is an attractive target because Haifa is the terminus of the oil pipeline from Iraq and has become one of the busiest ports in this part of the world. Additionally, Palestine has become “one of the largest manufacturing centers in the Near East” thanks in large part to the influx of Jewish settlers from Germany and other parts of Europe over the last seven years. The Jews of Palestine are committed to the defense of area and are determined to stay put and deal with any invasion.


1940: Birthdate of David Brudnoy, Boston talk radio host


1940: “Deputy Chief Gertrude D.T. Schimmel, the second highest ranking woman ever in the New York City Police Department began her career as a policewoman” today.


1941: Rabbi Zerach Warhaftig and his familyleft Yokohama on the Japanese ocean liner Hikawa Maru bound for Canada having escaped from Lithuania thanks to the super-human efforts of  Japanese Vice-Consul in Kaunas, Lithuania, Chiune Sugihara,


1942: In Cracow; Poland, thousands of Jews were rounded up for deportation.


1942: Eisengruppen report stating efficiency of Gas vans; "Since 1941, 97,000 have been processed in the three vehicles in operation without any malfunctions in the vehicles."


1942: The SS reports that 97,000 persons have been "processed" in mobile gas vans.


1942: During a roundup of Jews in Kraków, Poland, SS men brutally torment two men--one who has just one leg and another who had lost his eyesight while fighting for Germany in World War I.


1943: The Nazis deported 1266 Jewish children under the age of 16 from Vught, Holland to the Sobibór death camp where they are gassed upon arrival.


1943(2nd of Sivan, 5703): In Minsk Mazowiecki, Poland, more than 100 Jewish workers at the Rudzki factory are shot.


1943:  When the National Headliners' Club included women in its ranks of prizewinning journalists for the first time in 1943, Sylvia Porter was one of just two women to receive a Headliners' award. Today she was honored for "outstanding" work in financial and business reporting. By then, Porter had been working in journalism for a decade, but the award was only the first of many Porter would earn over a career that spanned half a century.


1943: Etty Hillesum voluntarily returned to Westerbork where she “continued to provide a bit of support for the people as they were preparing themselves for transport. It was for this reason that Etty Hillesum consistently turned down offers to go into hiding. She said that she wished to "share her people's fate".


1944: Joel Brand was arrested by the British as he tried to get to Palestine during negotiations which he thought would help save the Jews of Hungary from the Final Solution.


1944: The Allies marched into Rome, 1944. Jews emerged from their hiding places and the gate of the great synagogue was opened. There has been a great deal written about the Pope's failure to come to the aid of the Jews during the war.  But we must not lose sight of the heroic efforts on the part of many individual Italians many of whom were priests and nuns who risked their lives to hide the Jews of Italy.  The stories of people being hidden in monasteries, nunneries and in Catholic cemeteries are tales of courage and daring do that even Tom Clancy or Ian Fleming could not have invented.


1944: In the weekly internal report of the War Refugee Board, it states that notice was recently sent to Algeria about the evacuation of 1,000 refugees now in southern Italy to be accepted by the United States. Among the countries which refugees originated from were Bulgaria, Greece, Spain, Turkey and Yugoslavia.


1945: Birthdate of Nechama Rivlin, wife of former Speaker of the Knesset, Reuven Rivlin


1945:Binem Wrzonsk “joined a group of boys and young teenagers, known as the "The Buchenwald Boys" who were brought to France in a special convey under the sponsorship of the O.S.E” Among the boys were Elie Wiesel and Kalman Kaliksztajn.


1945: The Four Allied Powers – US, USSR, UK and France signed the Declaration Regarding the Defeat of Germany and the Assumption of Supreme Authority by Allied Powers


1946: Jews from Palestine visited the ruins of the Warsaw Ghetto

1948: Israeli armed forces captured Yavneh.


1950: European diamond manger, Jacques Torczyner, warns that unfair labor practices by the West German diamond industry will have a negative impact on other diamond cutting centers including the one at Tel Aviv.


1950: Eliahu Elath flies to London to begin serving as Israel’s first ambassador to Great Britain “which has recently accorded Israel full recognition…”


1951(1st of Sivan, 5711): Rosh Chodesh Sivan


1954:  The last new episode of the hit comic variety program, Your Show of Shows, airs. The show co-starred Sid Caesar and included Carl Reiner and Howie Morris as “second bananas.”  Writers for the show included Mel Brooks, Woody Allen and Neil Simon.


1956: It was reported today that the Mizrachi Women’s Organization of American has $1,165,000 in the past year to support projects in Israel including “several children’s villages, vocational high schools, nurseries and settlement houses.”


1957(6th of Sivan, 5717): First Day of Shavuot


1959: Dr. Bernard Mandelbaum was appointed provost of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America.


1959: Ogden Rogers Reid was appointed U.S. Ambassador to Israel.


1963: Release date for Billy Wilder’s “Irma la Douce.”


1965(5thof Sivan, 5725) Erev Shavuot


1965(5thof Sivan, 5725): Eighty four year old English author Eleanor Farjeon, the daughter of author Benjamin Farjeon passed away today.


1967: Moshe Dayan replaced Prime Minister Levi Eshkol as Minister of defense.


1967: Zvi Dinstein completed his term as Deputy Minister of Defense


1967: Operation Focus (Mivtza Moked) began at 07:45


1967: Mordechai “Hod took a calculated risk by committing all but 12 of his combat aircraft to the pre-emptive strike. At 7.10 am, he dispatched a first wave of 183 aircraft and, soon after, a second wave of 164. Flying out to sea, they descended to avoid detection by radar, and made for the Egyptian coast. It took 45 minutes for the first wave to reach its targets. "These were," Hod later recalled, "the longest 45 minutes of my life." At exactly 7.55 am, Hod's pilots struck. The Defense Minister, Moshe Dayan, recalled: "Mottie [Hod] and his senior staff officers sat in the front row facing a glass partition, and I sat just behind them . . . I was watching Mottie drink jugful after jugful of water, as he followed his pilots with deep anxiety."After two hours and 50 minutes the Egyptian Air Force was in ruins, and Hod needed only another hour to finish off the Jordanian and Syrian Air Forces. By midday of June 5, he had total control of the skies. (As reported by the Telegraraph – We have included this detailed description to remind those revisionist historians that in war, the only sure victories are the ones viewed in hindsignt)


1967: War broke out between Israel and the Arab nations.   This day marks the first of six of the most momentous days in Jewish history.  In May of 1967, Egypt ordered the U.N. peacekeeping force out of the Sinai and sent Egyptian forces into the Sinai Peninsula.  Both of these acts were violations of the agreements that had ended the Suez Crisis of 1956-57.  Egypt also closed the Straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping effectively blockading the port of Elath.  Such a blockade is an act of war under international law. The Egyptians also formed a joint military command with the Syrians and the Jordanians.  For a month, Israel heeded the voices of caution from the international community.  However, nothing was done to relieve the desperate situation.  So on the morning of June 5, 1967, the Israeli Air Force struck the Egyptian Air Force, destroying much of it on the ground.  This was an act of real daring since the Israelis had left only 12 fighters to cover the rest of the country in case of air attack.  Following the successful air action, Israeli troops entered the Sinai and engaged the larger Egyptian forces.  The world waited and held its breath. At the same time, the Israelis used three different channels to try and convince the Jordanians not to enter the fight.  The Jordanian response was to begin shelling the western section of Jerusalem and to begin to move troops forward.  Reluctantly, Israeli forces moved into the eastern section of Jerusalem.  Two days later, the city would be united as the capital of the Jewish state and the Western Wall would once again be open to the Jews from throughout the world. (For more details on the war you might want to read Six Days of Warby Oren, Israel’s Fight for Survival by Donovan, or Israel by Martin Gilbert.  As these accounts, all written in different eras after the war confirm, Israel had no grand strategy to conquer the Sinai, the West Bank and the Golan. The attacks aimed at the Egyptians were part of a grand design, but the fight against the other states was in response to unfolding events on the ground.  For example, the destruction of the Egyptian Air Force was a strategic move.  The destruction of the Jordanian, Syrian and Iraqi air forces was a tactical move that took place when the planes from these three Arab nations crossed into Israeli air space in mid-morning of June 5.)


1967(26th of Iyar, 5727): Arthur Yitzhak Biram, Israeli philosopher, philologist, and educator, passed away in Haifa.  Born in Bischofswerda in Saxony in 1878, the son of a modest, but successful businessman Biram attended school in Hirschberg, Silesia. His sister Else Bodenheimer became a well known art sociologist. He studied languages, including Arabic, at University of Berlin and at University of Leipzig and earned a doctorate Dr. phil. at the University of Leipzig in 1902, discussing the philosophy of Abu-Rasid al-Nisaburi.[1] In 1904 he concluded the rabbi seminar at the Hochschule für die Wissenschaft des Judentums. Afterwards he taught languages and literature at the Berlinisches Gymnasium zum Grauen Kloster. Biram was one of the founders of the Bar-Kochba club, and a member of the German liberal religious stream 'Ezra', which recognized the importance of high school education. In 1913, he emigrated to Ottoman Palestine. Dr. Arthur Biram was appointed the first principal of the Hebrew Reali School in Haifa but a few months later, World War I broke out, and Dr. Biram was drafted by the German army and stationed in Afula. In 1919, he returned to school. He married Hannah Tomeshevsky, and they had two sons. Both sons were killed: Aharon died in an accident while on reserve duty, and Binyamin, an engineer at the Dead Sea Works, was killed by a mine. As part of Dr. Biram's philosophy of education, in 1937, he implemented compulsory Hagam  training for girls in the Hebrew Reali School in Haifa, laying the foundation for recruitment of women in the Haganah, and later the Israel Defence Forces. In 1948, he resigned his post as principal, and on his 75th birthday, he authored a collection of essays on the Bible. Altogether, he wrote about 50 publications in Hebrew, German, English, and Arabic.


1967: The Israeli army captured the city of Gaza. Gaza had been occupied by the Egyptians since 1948 and was a base for terrorists.  


1967: The town of Latrun, overlooking the old road to Jerusalem was captured.  Latrun dominated the road to Jerusalem and had been the cite of great deal of hard fighting during the War For Independence in 1948.   The city of Qalqilya was also captured on the same day.


1967: The U.N. Security Council unanimously ordered a cease-fire in the Middle East War.   This was the same U.N. that had betrayed the Israelis by removing its forces from the Sinai and had sat silently while the Arab states tightened the noose around Israel's neck.


1967: In Cairo, Dr. Fraouk Shabtai and two of his brothers were taken to Abu Zaabal prison and later transferred to an internment camp at Tourah where they would spend the next two years.  They were part of at least “425 Jewish males – the vast majority of the Jewish community’s men – who were detained in Egypt during the Six Day War.”


1967:Avraham "Avi" Lanir flew his plane the “Black Mirage” in attack on the Egyptian air base at Fayid.  The plane earned its nickname when it was scorched during Lanir’s dogfight with the Syrians in April of 1967.


1967: Mob violence broke out in Tunis. One hundred shops were systematically looted and burnt; cars belonging to Jews were overturned and set ablaze; forty scrolls of the Law were taken out of the main synagogue by the pillagers and were desacrated before they were burnt; the main synagogue was itself set on fire until it lay a smouldering ruin, the police having stood by and watched. President Bourguiba made an impassioned plea on radio and television to stop the rioting, apologising to the Jewish community and promising to punish the perpetrators. The Jews had little confidence in the government’s ability to protect them.  The population went from 105,000 to 23,000 by the end of 1967 and 9,000 by 1900. In the 21st century, terrorists would burn an ancient Tunisian synagogue.


1967:Today, on the first day of war,Yonatan "Yoni" Netanyahu’s battalion fought the battle of Um Katef in Sinai, then reinforced the Golan Heights. During the battle, Yonatan received a wound to his elbow while helping rescue a fellow soldier who lay wounded deep behind enemy lines.


1968: Sirhan Sirhan shot Bobby Kennedy, who died the next day. Kennedy was the Senator from New York and a candidate for the Democratic nomination for President.   At one point, this Arab assassin claimed that he shot Kennedy because he supported Israel. Regardless of the reason (mental health problems were also given as a defense), long before 9/11 Arabs violently intruded their way into the American political scene and had a defining affect on altering history.


1969: Dr. Shabtai and his wife Laila were married in Paris two years to the day after Dr. Shabtai had been seized by Egyptian authorities at the start of the Six Days War.


1969:  The University of Texas at San Antonio was founded.  Today there are approximately 150 Jewish students UTSA.  The Hillel House serves students at UTSA as well those at other colleges and universities in San Antonio.


1975: The Suez Canal opened for the first time since the Six Day War of 1967.


1975: Terrorist attacked a bus in Jerusalem using grenades.


1975: Terrorist fired rockets at Qiryat Shemona.


1982: Israel launched Operation Peace for Galilee against the PLO and other hostile forces after the assassination attempt on the life of Shlomo Argov, Israel’s ambassador to the United Kingdom.


1983: The funeral for Charles Zimmerman a “former chairman of the civil-rights committee of the A.F.L.-C.I.O. and president of the Jewish Labor Committee” is scheduled to take placed at Riverside Chapel on Amsterdam Avenue.


1984: In Cairo, Egypt, the “security officer of the Israeli Embassy, Zvi Kedar, was wounded in the hand by a shot fired from a moving vehicle” (Jewish Virtual Library)


1987: Ted Koppel hosts a "National Town Meeting on AIDS" on a special four-hour long live broadcast of Nightline.


1988:An exhibition at the Historical Museum of the City of Vienna that presents a large private collection illustrating Jewish life in that city is scheduled to come to an end.  The exhibition includes “historic objects from Jewish homes and houses of worship in Vienna, as well as books, parchments, charts, artworks and handicrafts, all assembled over the last three decades by the collector Max Berger.”


1995(7th of Nisan, 5755) Second Day of Shavuot


1995: Bose-Einstein condensate is first created for the first time. The collapse of the atoms into a single quantum state is known as Bose condensation or Bose-Einstein condensation. This phenomenon was predicted in the 1920s by Satyendra Nath Bose and Albert Einstein, based on Bose's work on the statistical mechanics of photons, which was then formalized and generalized by Einstein.  (And you thought he stopped with the E= MC squared.)


1998: Author and commentator Alfred Kazin passed away on his 83rdbirthday. His last published work was God and the American Writer which appeared in 1997.


1999(21st of Sivan, 5759):Melvin Howard “Mel” Tormé nicknamed The Velvet Fog, “an American musician, known for his jazz singing” passed away.  “He was also a jazz composer and arranger, a drummer, an actor in radio, film, and television, and the author of five books. He co-wrote the classic holiday song "The Christmas Song" (also known as "Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire") with Bob Wells.  [And you thought that Irving Berlin was the only Jew writing Christmas songs.]


1999: At Temple Judah in Cedar Rapids, IA, Aufruf for Deb and Mitchell Levin.


2002(25th of Sivan, 5762):Of the 17 Israelis who were killed this morning when a stolen car packed with explosives pulled alongside a public bus and exploded near the northern town of Megiddo, 13 were soldiers, most of them conscripts. Seven were buried today at the Hadera military cemetery.At least five of the victims were immigrants from the former Soviet Union, young people whose parents had brought them out of Dagestan and Moldova and Ukraine.One of the victims, Violetta Hizgayev, a shy, 19-year-old sergeant in the ordinance corps, had struggled more than most.Gennadi Issakov, 20, who also was killed in the attack, had been a sergeant in Jenin for the District Civil Liaison office, a military unit set up under Oslo peace accords to staff checkpoints, supervise the delivery of international relief aid and issue the rare permits for West Bank Palestinians to travel inside Israel.


2003(5th of Sivan, 5763): Erev Shavuot


2003 - The bodies of David Shambik, 26, and Moran Menachem, 17, both of Jerusalem, were found near Hadassah Ein Karem Hospital in Jerusalem, brutally beaten and stabbed to death.


2003(5th of Sivan, 5763):Meir Vilner “an Israeli communist politician and Jewish leader of the Communist Party of Israel (Maki), which consisted primarily of Israeli Arabs” passed away. “He was the youngest and longest surviving signatory of the Israeli Declaration of Independence in 1948.” He was the cousin of Abba Kovner who certainly did not share his views.


2005(25thof Sivan, 5762):Cpl. Dennis Bleuman was one of 17 Israeli soldiers murdered today by an Arab terrorist.


2005:The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Luckiest Man:The Life and Death of Lou Gehrig by Jonathan Eig.


2005:Acclaimed historian Gerda Lerner received an honorary doctorate from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. In granting the degree, the president and rector of the HebrewUniversitynoted, "For many young people, your remarkable academic career, achieved despite the harrowing experiences suffered during the Nazi era in Europe, provides a model of what may be accomplished in the face of adversity." The following day, as part of a conference in her honor, she gave a keynote address titled, "What Is Women's History and Why Should We Study It?" Lerner is widely regarded as uniquely positioned to answer that question, having shaped the field of women's history from its earliest beginnings.


2006: In “Daniel Handler Interview” published today Caroline Westrbook looks at the author who “has found famed as the man behind Lemony Snickect.”

 

2007: Michael Oren appeared on “Worldview, a daily global affairs program produced by Chicago Public Radio station WBEZ (91.5).”


2007: In London, the Zionist Federation and St. John Wood’s Synagogue present “The Six Day War 40 Years On: Where Next for Israel?” with David Horovitz, Editor-In-Chief of the Jerusalem Post.


2007: In a court case tied to the Bush Administration’s behavior that led to the war in Iraq, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, former chief of staff to Vice President Cheney, was sentenced today to 30 months in prison and fined $250,000 for lying to investigators about his role in leaking the identity of an undercover CIA officer named Valery Plame.  Both Libby and Plame are Jewish.


2008: Pinchas Zukerman returns as a soloist playing with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Leonard Slatkin.


2008(2nd of Sivan, 5768):Amnon Rosenberg a 51 year oldfather of three from Nirim lost his life during a noontime mortar attack on the Kibbutz Nir Oz factory where he was working.   Two others were seriously wounded and a fourth suffered light wounds in the noontime attack.


2009: The Tenth Annual Washington Jewish Music Festival presents “ShirLaLa: Family Shabbat Service and Dinner” featuring Shira Kline whose “creative songs delight children, parents and grandparents alike, making Shabbat a fun, interactive experience.”


2009: At Temple Judah in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Sophie Shiffman and her family begin her Bat Mitzvah Shabbat by participating in Friday evening services.


2009: President Obama toured Buchenwald concentration camp today with Chancellor Merkel, Nobel laureate and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel and survivor Bertrand Herz. At 3:10 p.m. local time, the group placed white, long-stemmed roses on a memorial site.  Following remarks by Merkel, Obama commented on his visit: "I will not forget what I have seen here today." Thanking "my friend Elie Wiesel," Obama told the story of President Eisenhower's instruction that soldiers, townspeople, congressmen tour the camps. Obama lauded Merkel and the German people: "It's not easy to look into the past in this way and acknowledge it and make something of it...a determination that they will stand guard against acts like this happening again.


2010: During Shabbat services at Temple Judah in Cedar Rapids, IA, Jonathan Kerbis, son of Esther and Sergio Kerbis, is scheduled to be called to the Torah for his last Aliyah before making Aliyah and beginning his training with the IDF.


2010:Scott Ballan, the son of the lead bond lawyer for the financing of the $1.5 billion new Yankee stadium is scheduled to celebrate his Bart Mitzvah today.


2010: After Shabbat had ended, Orthodox boxer Yuri Foreman'sd defended his title in a bout with former welterweight champion Miguel Cotto (34-2).  Foreman lost the fight for the WBA junior middleweight crown at Yankee Stadium in a TKO in the 9th round ending a streak of 29 undefeated fights..


2010:An Egyptian appeals court today upheld a ruling that orders the country's Interior Ministry to strip the citizenship from Egyptians married to Israeli women.

2011: The Annual Cantor’s Concert is scheduled to take place at Tikvat Israel featuring Cantor Rochelle Helzner and Rabbi Joshua Maroof


2011: “Uzi Landau spoke at the inauguration of Ketura Sun, Israel's first commercial solar field built by Arava Power Company, located at Kibbutz Ketura.”


2011: The Gold Coast Film Festival is scheduled to present “Homecoming” a documentary about “three teenagers who were born in Israel to foreign workers who came to Israel in search of a better life.”


2011: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish author and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including “The Ballad of Bob Dylan: A Portrait” by Daniel Mark Epstein and “Hank Greenberg:The Hero Who Didn’t Want to Be One” by Mark Kurlansky


2011: The Los Angeles Times features reviews of books by Jewish author and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including “The Secret Knowledge: On the Dismantling of American Culture” by David Mamet.


2011:An estimated 30,000 people marched up New York's Fifth Avenue in the annual Celebrate Israel Parade amid a sea of blue-and-white flags. Tens of thousands lined the streets to view the parade. The marchers were led by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg accompanied by Israel's minister of information and Diaspora, Yuli Edelstein; Israel’s ambassador to the United States, Michael Oren; and Israel’s consul general in New York, Ido Aharoni. Elected officials and politicians from New York, New Jersey and Connecticut were in attendance, as were congressmen who made the trip from Washington. The Israel parade, which started in 1964, is held to mark the founding of the State of Israel. It is regarded as the world's largest celebration of Israel Independence Day; the event was formerly called the Salute to Israel Parade.


2011:Two Palestinian teenagers were indicted in the murder of five members of the Fogel family from the West Bank settlement of Itamar. Amjad Awad, 19, who worked as a laborer in Israel, and Hakim Awad 18, a high school student, were indicted today in a West Bank military court for the murders of Udi Fogel, 36, Ruth Fogel, 35, and their children Yoav, 11, Elad, 4, and Hadas, 3 months. The men reportedly confessed to the March 11 murder, and military prosecuters say there is forensic evidence linking them to the scene of the crime, including DNA samples and fingerprints, Haaretz reported. The men were also charged with stealing weapons, breaking and entering, and conspiracy to commit a crime, according reports. They are residents of the West Bank town of Hawarta, located near Itamar, and have been connected to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.  "I'm proud of what I did," Ynet quoted Amjad Awad as saying just minutes before the hearing. "I don't regret what I did, even if it means I'm sentenced to death." Israel does not have the death penalty expect for convictions for genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, crimes against the Jewish people, and treason in wartime, though some politicians have called for the men to be sentenced to death if found guilty. Three of the Fogel children survived the attack; two were sleeping in a side bedroom and were not discovered, and a daughter was out of the house at the time of the killings.


2012: “Mary Lou”, a cinematic creation of Israeli director Eytan Fox, is scheduled to be shown at the JCC in Manhattan


2012: The opening reception for "Equus Ambiguity -The Emergence of Maturity,” Moshe Givati’s solo exhibition is scheduled to take place at the Jadite Galleries in New York.


2012: The Skirball Center for Adult Jewish Learning is scheduled to present the “He & She” the 10th Annual Exhibition of Works of The Artists’ Beit Midrash


2012: “With his bill to legalize West Bank outposts facing defeat in the Knesset, National Union MK Ya'acov Katz … slammed a government plan to carry out the Supreme Court's orders to evacuate houses in the Ulpana outpost outside of the Beit El settlement, dubbing it "destruction for the sake of destruction." (As reported by Lahav Harkov)


2012(15thof Sivan, 5772): Ninety-one year old “Eugene Ferkauf the founder of the E. J. Korvette chain of discount department stores, whose 1950s strategy of low prices, quick turnover and high volume helped shape today’s retail landscape” passed away today.(As reported by Douglas Martin)



2013: Dr. Sanjay Subrahmayan is scheduled to present a lecture styled Jews And "New Christians" In Portuguese Asia, 1500-1500 at the Library of Congress


2013: Zemer Chai, “DC’s Premier Jewish Choir” is scheduled to present ‘Sing Halleluyah’ at Ohr Kodesh in Chevy Chase, MD.


2013: The Tenement Museum celebrated its 25th anniversary, and the 150th anniversary of the restored building at 97 Orchard Street, which housed over 7,000 people from more than 20 countries from 1863 to 1935. (As reported by Anne Cohen)

2013: In Wisconsin, Tikkun Ha-Ir’s Glean Machine, which collects clothing, household items toiletries, books toys, art supplies and nonperishable food, ends its spring and summer supply drive.


2013: A judge in Tel Aviv sparked outrage today after he reportedly remarked, during an appeals hearing on a rape case several days ago, that some women enjoy rape.


2013: Park Avenue Synagogue in Manhattan was the site of the funeral for New Jersey U.S. Seantor Frank Lautenberg.


2014(7thof Sivan, 5774): 2nd day of Shavuot/ Yizkor


2014: National Hebrew Book Week is scheduled to being at Liberty Bell Park in Jerusalem.


2014: “Paradise Cruise,” a film about a woman who photographs Israeli military funerals and her lover Yossi is scheduled to be shown in Manhattan.


2014: In the UK, the Wiener Library is scheduled to host “Through a Child's Eyes: Holocaust Literature for Young People.”

This Day, June 6, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. Levin

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JUNE 6


1191: As the Christians seek to retake Jerusalem King Richard the Lionhearted arrived at Tyre.


1242: Two dozen wagonloads of Talmudic volumes and 200 other rabbinic manuscripts were burned at Paris.


1247: Pope Innocent IV contacts the king of Navarre. In a dispatch he requested the king compel Christian debtors to pay off their debt to Jewish lenders.


1249: King Louis IX, the French King who made great effort to convert Jews, occupied Damietta Egypt during the 7th Crusade.


1391: Ferrand Martiniz of Seville incited a mob to attack the Jewish quarter. It soon spread to all of Spain except for Granada. Over 10,000 Jews were killed; many others chose conversion and became New Christians. Of these, many continued to practice Judaism in secret, while paying lip service to the Church. This eventually led to the Inquisitions. In Barcelona, the Jewish quarter, located for over 400 years near the castle, was totally destroyed.


1487: In Soncino, Italy, Joshua Solomon Soncino completed the printing of a Pentateuchwith a commentary by Rashi.


1490: After being interrogated by the Vicar-general of the Bishopric of Astorga, Benitor Garicia confessed to having secretly returned to practicing Judaism five years ago and that he had encouraged two other conversos – a man named Franco from Tembleque and Juan Juan de Ocaña, from La Guardia – to return to Judaism.  Eventually all three would be put to death on charges of having participated in ritual murder of one who came to be known as the Holy Child of La Guardia.



1506: Birthdate of King John III of Portugal.  Persecution of Marranos and Conversos intensified during his reign with the arrival of the Inquisition.  On the other hand he met with David Reubeini in 1525 and the two negotiated over the possibility of the King supplying this adventurer with as many as eight ships to use in a fight against the Moslem leader, Selim I.  Since much of the life of Reubeni is shrouded in myth and half truths, we cannot be sure as to the reason the negotiations failed.


1536: The Inquisition was introduced into Mexico.  Convsersos, Sephardic Jews who had been forcibly converted to Catholicism arrived in Mexico with Cortes and the Conquistadores.  Among these first arrivals was Hernando Alonzo who built the boats used by Cortes during his conquest of Mexico.  The most famous of these early arrivals was a Luis de Carvajal, the noble who established the New Kingdom of Leon in what today is part of northern Mexico.  The arrival of the Inquisition had an inimical effect on the Conversos, many of whom secretly practiced Judaism.  The descendants of these people may be found among the crypto-Jews of New Mexico who began trying to reconnect with their Jewish roots in the last decades of the 20th century


1629 (14th of Sivan): Rabbi Joseph ben Benjamin Samegah author of Mikrae Kodeshpassed away


1716: The SS Restoration arrived in Massachusetts carrying several Jewish merchants who would help to form the core of the Jewish community in the Bay Colony.


1775(28th of Iyar): Leib Epsitein, author of Or ha-Shanim passed away


1808: Birthdate of Jacob Raphael De Cordova, Texas land agent and colonizer. A native of Jamaica, he settled in Philadelphia in the 1820’s with his father before moving to Texas in 1839.  Jacob and his brother Phineas De Cordova operated one of the largest land agencies in Texas. Jacob was one of three men who helped lay out Waco in 1848.  He passed away in 1868.


1818: Birthdate of I.M Rabinowitz

http://www.jewishgen.org/yizkor/gorodets/gor094.html



1821(6thof Sivan, 5581): Shavuot


1821: Birthdate of Leone Levi, the native of Ancona, Italy who emigrated to London where he became a successful jurist, statistician and Presbyterian.


1832: English philosopher Jeremy Bentham “who spoke out many times on behalf of the Jews as an oppressed minority who were victims of popular prejudices” passed away For a detailed account of Bentham’s complex view of the Jewish people see “Jerry Bentham: Critical Assessments, Volume 4” starting on page 319.

http://books.google.com/books?id=DKh7r2zkyKUC&pg=PA325&lpg=PA325&dq=Jeremy+Bentham+and+the+Jewish+people&source=bl&ots=fV1N23EByW&sig=6ojynoT6yaRSb7fb0F67G9QquNE&hl=en&ei=e8_qTdiCPeHx0gHIie2qAQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&sqi=2&ved=0CBoQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false




1838(13thof Sivan, 5598): In Vienna, Judah Jeiteles, the son of Jonas Jeiteles, the author of “Mebo Lashon Aramitm” the first Hebrew language grammar of Biblical Aramaic passed away today.


1844: In London, George Williams founded the first YMCA which was the model for the YMHA and in America, the site of the creation of basketball which was for a time “the Jewish sport.”


1846: Birthdate of Colonel Nicolas Jean Robert Conrad Auguste Sandherr who while serving in the Statistical Section (Counterintelligence) gather a secret commission of inquiry to investigate the origin of documents that showed French military secrets were being sold to the Germans which concluded the Captain Dreyfus was the culprit.


1851(6thof Sivan, 5611): Shavuot


1855: Isaac Kaatz, Gottlieb Milhelm and Anton First were arrested today on charges of having been involved in the theft of eight cows from a farm belong to Colonel Lewis Morris.  The three carcasses found in the possession of the accused all bore a mark indicating that they were Kosher.


1859: In Australia, Queensland is established as a separate colony from New South Wales. By 1865, there were enough Jews living in the Queensland city of Brisbane that a congregation was formed that held services in a local Masonic hall until 1886 when a sanctuary with a seating capacity of 400. In 1879, the Jews of Toowoomba, Queensland, built a synagogue which, as the community shrunk in size, was only used on the High Holidays.


1865: Birthdate of Dr. Max Rosenthal, the son of Herman Rosenthal, the gynecologist who served as House surgeon at St. Mark’s Hospital and the Montefiore Home in New York City. His young brother George became the manager of the Edison General Electric Company at St. Louis.


1870(7th of Sivan, 5630): Second Day of Shavuot


1870: A meeting is scheduled to be held a Temple Israel in Brooklyn “to consider the distressed condition” of the Jews in Romania.

 
1872: The New York Times reported that “the Greeks in the Levant have hit on a new mode of converting Jews.”  After hearing the “stale old fable…that a Christian child had been killed…by the Jews so as to mix its blood with their bread at Passover” the Greeks have been “inflamed…with a fine spirit of proselytism” that began with the seizure of Polish Jew whose hair and beard they smeared with tar before setting it on fire.  After enough Jews were tortured in a similar fashion, they sought shelter with the local Moslems.


1873: Today’s Minor Topics column described the progress that Jews of England have made during the 19th century. Thirty years ago a Jew could not sit in Parliament. And now Sir George Jessel, who was appointed Solicitor General last year, is about to named Master of the Rolls, a position so prestigious that is just below the post of Lord High Chancellor.


1875: Birthdate of Novelist Thomas Mann. Mann was not Jewish but in 1905 he married Katia Pringsheim, daughter of prominent family of Jewish intellectuals.  They had six children.  Mann left Nazi German in 1933, four years after having won the Nobel Prize for Literature.  He lived in the United States for many years.  He died in Switzerland in 1955, never having lived in his native land again.


1876: Alois Schicklgruber changes his name to Hiedler which morphs into Hitler.  In this case a name change may have helped to change history because as one comic said, can you imagine people saying Heil Schiclgruber with a straight face?


1877: Anglo-Jewish author Benjamin Leopold Farjeon married Margaret Jane “Maggie” Jefferson, the daughter of Joseph Jefferson, a member of a distinguished American acting family.


1878(5th of Sivan, 5638): Erev Shavuot


1878: In article entitled “The Pentecost Festival” published today, the New York Times reported that “The Festival of Pentecost, which will be celebrated this evening at sunset by all the Jewish congregations in the world, is the second of the three great feasts which mark the calendar of the Hebrew Church. These are the Passover Festival, or Feast of Unleavened Bread; the Pentecost Festival, or Feast of Weeks, and the Tabernacles.” The article traces the history of the holiday from its origins as an agricultural festival to a celebration of the giving of the Decalogue to its modern observance which includes the ceremony of Confirmation. (Not bad for an article in the secular press)

1879: It was reported that problems of the Jews in Romania are not a matter of religion but a matter of money.  Supposedly until 1864 the Jews and the Romanians lived peacefully side by side. The Jews would lend money to the Romanians at exorbitant rates of interest which the Romanians gladly paid since they had no intention of paying off the loan.  Furthermore, the loans were secured by mortgages; mortgages on which the Jews could never collect because they were not classified as citizens and only citizens could own real estate.  That all changed when Napoleon III demanded that the Jews be made citizens.  Reportedly, the Jews began foreclosing on the mortgages, expelling the Romanians from lands their families had held for centuries. This forced the Romanians to begin shooting and hanging the Jews or driving them from the country. The Jews were being persecuted but not for reasons of religion.  At the same time, the Romanian government contended that it was not violating the edict of the Berlin Congress regarding the treatment of Romanian Jews because the Jews living in Romania were “foreigners” and not citizens of the country. [Editor’s note – people may run out of money but they never run out of rationalizations for cheating and killing Jews.]


 
1880: In “Man Before Adam” the reviewer of Preadmites: The Existence of Man Before Adam points that Dr. Alexander Winchell challenges several Biblical based conventions including that creation took place 4,000 before our era, that Adam was created on the 6th, that Eve was from Adam’s Rib, that Adam lived for 930 years, that 1,656 after creation there was a great a flood that destroy everybody except Noah, his family and the animals on the ark and that the origin of the human species took place in Western Central Asia. [Winchell was a Protestant minister.  His book is an example of the challenges to the literal reading of the Bible taking place in the 19th century among many denominations.  For Jews, this was a dominant motif of the Reform movement and many German-Jewish biblical critics.]


1880: It was reported today that The Young Men’s Hebrew Association of Harlem will be hosting a strawberry festival later this month to raise funds for the organization.


1880: It was reported today that the last religious census in France showed that there were almost 36 million Roman Catholics in the country but only 50,000 Jews.


1880: Rabbi Meisner of the Rivington Street Synagogue officiated at the wedding of Miss Essie Pakulski and Louis Mendelson, the son of the synagogue’s president  The ceremony took place at Irving Hall and followed the Reform ritual.


1882: Samuel Obrieght, a young Jewish man who was a partner in his family’s liquor business, suddenly married a Christian woman.  This fact became part of the public record during Obreight’s sanity hearing.


1882: A festival to raise funds for Russian Jewish immigrants is scheduled to be held this afternoon in the 23rd Ward Park in NYC.  Speakers will include Algernon S. Sullivan and Steward L. Woodford. The Philharmonic Society under the direction of Max Maretzek will provide the musical entertainment.


1883: It was reported today that the cornerstone laying ceremony for the Hebrew Orphan Asylum in Brooklyn will take place later this month.


1885(23rdof Sivan, 5645)Bernard L. Jaworower, the agent of the United Hebrew Charities serving at Castle Garden fell overboard while leaving the steamer George Starr at the Castle Garden dock. 


1885: In Wilkes-Barre, PA, a fist fight broke during Shabbat services between two Polish Jews – Abraham Rosenthal and Abraham Zubunsky – after “Rosenthal accused Zubunsky of being more of a Christian than a Jew.”  Both men left the synagogue and went to Justices of the Peace and charged each other with assault and battery.  Not much shalom in their Shabbat.


1887: Testimony resumed today in the trial of Adolph Reich, the Hungarian Jew who has been charged with murdering his wife.


1888: Birthdate of Louis Freeman, the native of Glasgow who gained fame as artist Scottie Wilson.


1888: Albert Levy sent a letter from San Francisco to his wife Katie in New York saying the he had filed for a divorce and was going to Australia.  [This correspondence came to light during an alienation of affection suit that was brought by the Roman Catholic Katie Levy against her Jewish mother-in-law, Pauline Levy.]


1889(7thof Sivan, 5649): Second Day of Shavuot


1889: A group of Jews met at the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue to begin making plans for observing the 400th anniversary of the discovery of America by Columbus and the expulsion of the Jews from Spain.


1890: It was reported today that the managers of the Sanitarium for Hebrew Children has received $3, 688.50 in contributions which will be used to finance outings for underprivileged children and their mothers. 


1892: It was reported today that Rabbi Henry S. Jacobs delivered an historical poem entitled “The Genius of Hebrew History” to those attending graduation of Congregational B’nai Jeshurun’s religious school. The poem recounted the history of the Jewish people which he subdivided into a series of epochs, each with its own set of verses.


1892: A group of prominent Jews met this afternoon at the Jewish Theological Seminary and formed The American Jewish Historical Society.  The meeting was chaired by Dr. Cyrus Adler who “explained that the object was to collect, preserve and publish data having reference to the settlement and history of Jews in America.


1893: The funeral for Joshua Hendricks, the fourth generation head of Hendricks Brothers, is scheduled to be held at his home on Cliff Street followed by interment at Cypress Hill.


1894: Governor Davis H. Waite ordered the Colorado state militia to protect and support the miners engaged in the Cripple Creek miners' strike. Famed financier Bernard Baruch was one of those who got his start in the “strike it rich” world of Cripple Creek.  Arriving from the east, Baruch bought shares of stock in the San Francisco mine.  During the day he worked as a “mucker” and at night he played at the roulette wheel in a local gambling joint where he was so successful that he was barred by the owners.  Baruch took his winnings and headed back to New York where he gained fame and fortune.  Sam Butcher, a Hungarian Jew, was one of the few Jews who actually made money in industrial mining in Cripple Creek.  Because many of his fellow miners were blatant anti-Semites, Butcher “took pains to conceal his identity” until he had gained financial success.   Sam and Bertha Flax were one of the first, if not the first Jewish couple to marry in Cripple Creek.  They tied the knot in 1909.  Sam was not much of a miner but he would prove be a successful restaurant owner in Denver, Colorado.


1896: “Reverend Herman P. Faust of the Forsyth Street Hebrew-Christian Mission called on Mayor Strong to see if something could be done” to help two Jewish peddlers who had been driven from the streets by the police.  The crackdown on street vendors is depriving many Jewish immigrants of their means of livelihood a matter into which Mayor Strong said he would look into.


1897(6th of Sivan, 5657): For the first time during the Presidency of William McKinley, observance of Shavuot.


1897: In Chicago, Jews and Christians prayed together as members of Emmanuel Congregation led by Rabbi Julius Newman joined members of the Belden Avenue Baptist Church led by Pastor Haynes at the latter’s house of worship for a service where both ministers preached to the congregation.


1897: Eleven youngsters participated in the Confirmation Service led by Rabbi Julius Newman of Emanuel Congregation.


1897: “In Williamsburg special services were held in Temple Beth Elohim on Keap Street near Broadway which is the wealthiest congregation in this section of the city” where 19 boys and girls participated in Confirmation services led by Rabbi Greenfield.


1898: “Hebrew Free Schools” published today described the Confirmation Services for the Hebrew Free School during which Esther Krosovitch recited a prayer followed by the singing of “The Heavens Declare” and “My God” by her fellow confirmants.


1898: It was announced today’s meeting of the Trustees Columbia University that Jacob H. Schiff has donated $15,000 “to establish a fellowship in political science.”


1899: “Increase In Death Rate” published today described the efforts of the Board of Health to contain the diphtheria outbreak which has included children from the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society who go to the public grammar school “at the corner of St. Nichols Avenue and 166th Street” forcing quarantines to be put in place at both institutions.


1899: The list of the officers of the newly reformed Educational Alliance published today include Benjamin Altman, Henry Morgenthau and Isidor Straus


1900:  Birthdate of Manfred Joshua Sakel, Polish born neurophysiologist and psychiatrist.  Like so many others of his generation Sakel would leave Europe during the Hitler period.  He died in New York City in 1957.


1901: Bella Weretnikow, who became the first Jewish woman lawyer in Washington State, was admitted to the Bar of Washington State.


1903: Dr. Kaufmann Kohler, for twenty-four years rabbi of Temple Beth-EI, delivered his farewell sermon this morning before going to his new duties as the head of the Hebrew Union College of Cincinnati. At the conclusion of the service the congregation individually bade farewell and Godspeed to the retiring rabbi.


1906: Birthdate of David Kessler, the man who would play the leading role in making the Jewish Chronicle one of the most respected Jewish weeklies in the world.


1907: Dropsie College for Hebrew and Cognate Learning, a graduate school for biblical and rabbinical studies, was chartered in Philadelphia.


1908(7thof Sivan, 5668): Second Day of Shavuot


1909: Birthdate of David Kessler, the man most responsible for making the Jewish Chronicle one of the most respected Jewish weeklies in the world


1912: Julia Richman, superintendent of New York City Public Schools set sail for France where she hoped to rest and improve her French language skills.


1913: The First American Conference on Social Insurance to which Lee K. Frankel was a delegate opened today in Chicago.


1917: Birthdate of Selma Goldstone, who as Selma Goldstone Hirsch would become a noted humanitarian and an author who would enjoy a long association with the American Jewish Committee.


1921: “It was stated tonight on high authority that President Harding” is planning on naming Jewish advertising mogul Albert D. Lakser, President of the Lord and Thomas Advertising Company of Chicago to be Chairman of the Shipping Board.


1922: American actress and singer Lillian Russell who had been married to the Anglo-Jewish composer Edward “Teddy” Solomon passed away.


1925: Birthdate of poet and novelist Maxine Kumin.  Kumin published her first collection of poetry, Halfway in 1961. Influenced by the confessional style of poetry, it was followed in 1965 by The Privilege and in 1970 by The Nightmare Factory, both of which explore her Jewish identity and family. She won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1973.

1926: Second baseman Andy Cohen makes his major league debut with the New York Giants.


1926(24th of Sivan, 5686): Meyer London, one of only two members of the Socialist Party elected to Congress, As he was crossing Second Avenue at 15th Street, he was caught in the middle of heavy automobile traffic passing in both directions. London became confused and when he halted in the middle of the road he was struck by a car, suffering internal injuries.[21] The driver rushed him to Bellevue Hospital, where London’s daughter was an intern. When she saw her father London’s only concern was that the driver not be punished. "It’s not his fault", said London "and he is a poor man."[22] London died at 10 o'clock that night at the age of 56, after physicians had labored for 11 hours to save him.


1927(6thof Sivan, 5687): Shavuot


1932(2nd of Sivan, 5692): Dr. A.S. Waldstein who helped to found Paole Zion in the United States in 1904 passed away in Tel Aviv at the age of 58.


1932(2ndof Sivan, 5692): Fifty-five year old Benjamin Schlesinger, who served two terms as President of the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union who suffered from Hodgkin’s Lymphoma passed away.


1933: The Council of the League of Nations conducted a second day of hearings on “the persecution of the Jews in Germany” in official response to the Bernheim Petition. “Many of the speakers severely censured Germany for the treatment of its Jews and demanded that they be accorded minimum human rights.” At the end of the hearing, the Council took the “bold step” of requesting Germany to provide  “information on further developments.”


1934: President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs the Securities Act of 1933 into law, establishing the Securities and Exchange Commission (S.E.C.) as part of the fabled New Deal.  One of the purposes of the S.E.C. was to create a level playing field for all investors.  The regulatory agency was created to end the kind of stock fraud and manipulation that had been rampant in the 1920’s and helped cause the Great Depression.  Like many other New Deal agencies, the S.E.C. provided employment for the college educated offspring of Jewish immigrants who had come to the United States prior to World War I.  In the case of the S.E.C., it gave several Jewish lawyers a chance to practice securities law, a branch of the law to which they had limited access because of the WASP dominated culture of the financial industry. Among those who worked for the SEC was Joseph B Levin an attorney who rose through the ranks to become Assistant General Counsel.


1936: The British military commander of the Southern District published an order prohibiting all Jewish motor traffic from entering or leaving Tel Aviv.  This “blockade” of Tel Aviv, was in response to the murder of an Arab kerosene vender who was shot while riding on a highway between Tel Aviv and Petach Tikvah.


1937: The Palestine Post military correspondent reported that according to reliable sources, the number of British battalions present in the country depended entirely on the security situation and the attitudes of the various sections of the population. Britain had resolved not to take any more risks by reducing the defense force of the land to a mere police force, as the situation existed before the organized Arab troubles of 1936, which left such a bloody aftermath.


1937: The Palestine Post reported that a mass meeting was held at the Tel Aviv's Mograbi building during which the participants vowed active support for the beleaguered Polish Jewry.


1938: Thanks to the intervention of influential friends Sigmund Freud, his wife and his daughter arrived in London from Vienna via Paris.


1939: The Jewish city of Tel Aviv was virtually cut off from the outside world today when, by order of the British military commander of the Southern District, all Jewish motor traffic into or out of the city was prohibited until tomorrow night. Only medical and milk transportation is permitted.


1940: The New York Times reported that the Nazis had moved “through Amsterdam with ready-made lists of enemies and Jews, rounding them and having them shot en masse.

1942: Following a failed attempt in 1940, the Nazis succeed in ordering Belgian Jews to wear the Yellow Star.


1942: During his sermon today, Rabbi Israel Goldstein told the congregants of New York’s Temple B’Nai Jeshurun that Japan's air raid on Dutch Harbor, Alaska, was the "final shattering blow to the illusion of those who until recently coddled themselves with the thought that oceans can protect us from air attacks."


1942: In his sermon today, Rabbi Jacob Katz of the Montefiore Synagogue “advised parents to have their children trained in mechanical skills as well as in cultural subjects.”


1942: During his sermon today, Rabbi Hyman J. Schachtel urged the congregants of the West End Synagogue to do their part in the war effort by signing up with the civilian protective services.


1942: During his sermon at the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue, Rabbi David de Sola Pool said, “The first great challenge to the fuehrer concept was thrown down by Moses…It is not without reason that the Fuehrer has singled out the people and the religion of Moses for his most venomed hostility.”


1942: In Cracow, Poland, thousands of Jews were rounded up for the second day in a row for deportation. Eichmann, worried about appearances asks that the words ‘deportation to the East’ not be used, but instead, that ‘people are emigrated elsewhere.'


1942:  Adolf Eichmann insists via a telegram sent to Gestapo officials that residents of a mental institution must be included in a planned mass deportation of Jews from Coblenz, Germany, to Lublin, Poland.


1942:  The Jewish ghetto at Kraków, Poland, is liquidated; 6000 Jews from the city are murdered at Belzec.


1942: The Nazis burned the village of Lidice Bohemia, as reprisal for killing Heydrich.


1943: Helga Deen saw 1,300 children leave Vught, a Dutch internment camp, for Sobibor and Auschwitz. In her diary she wrote, “Transport.  It’s too much.  I’m destroyed and tomorrow again.” Deen would later be shipped to Sobibor where she was murdered by the Nazis.


1943:  Jacob Gens, the leader of the Jewish Council in Vilna, argued that Vilna's Jews will have an improved chance of survival if they demonstrate their usefulness as workers.


1943: “We Will Never Die” was performed at the Boston Garden, with guest stars Ralph Bellamy, Lionel Atwill, Howard Da Silva, Berry Kroger, and Jacob Ben-Ami in prominent roles. The Boston Jewish Advocate reported: “This spectacle must have impressed and stirred the imagination of the many who saw it to a degree impossible to achieve through the printed word.” (Jewish Virtual Library)http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/pageant.html


1943(3rd of Sivan, 5703): Germans execute all 1000 Jews still remaining in the Rohatyn (Poland) Ghetto after German authorities discover a plot of local Jewish policemen to purchase weapons.


1944: Allied forces led by the United States land on the beaches of Normandy. While no exact figures exist for the number of Jews who took part in “The Longest Day” the graves marked by Stars of David attest to the fact that Jews were not only present but paid the last full measure.  According to one source 550,000 Jews served in World War II in the U.S. military. Of those, 11,000 were killed, 40,000 were wounded, and 52,000 were decorated for gallantry. Jews made up some 3.5 percent of the U.S. military during the war.


1944: Among the units landing at Normandy today were a contingent of the Ritchie Boys.  The Ritchie Boys was a special U.S. Army intelligence unit of approximately 10,000 German speaking soldiers most of whom were Jewish refugees from Germany and Austria.  Trained at Fort Richie, Maryland, they were able to use their special language skills and intimate knowledge of the culture to infiltrate behind German lines, capture and interrogate prisoners and conduct disinformation campaigns. Among those making the land was Stefan Heym who would confound people by moving back to Europe after the war and taking  up residence in the German Democratic Republic (Communist East Germany)


1944: Robert Capa is part of the first wave of troops to land at Omaha Beach.  He goes in with Company E armed with a Contax camera.  After ninety minutes of shooting, he heads back to London with ten rolls of films that capture the first moments of the invasion.  Due to mistakes made by the lab technician employed by Life Magazine, only 11 of the 106 pictures survive the development process. 


1944: Lt. Bert Katz is among those scrambling across Omaha Beach in what some call “The Longest Day.” This is the same Bert Katz who returned to Cedar Rapids, Iowa where he became a successful businessman, philanthropist and leader of Temple Judah and the Jewish community.


1944: Major Benjamin “Ben” Dunkelman, who had enlisted as private in The Queen’s Own Rifles of Canada in 1939 landed at Juno, the beach assigned to the Canadians during the Normandy Invasion.


1944: Lieutenant Mortimer Caplin (the future Commissioner of the IRS) “was commander of a Naval Beach Master Group on Omaha Beach” who used his wits and imagination to force a reluctant Liberty ship skipper to run his ship aground so that its cargo of ammunition could distributed among the tankers and artillerymen heading inland and was award the French Legion of Honor for being part ‘of the initial landing force.”


1944: Louis Rabinowitz who had been appointed Senior Jewish Chaplain of the British Army followed up his service with Allied forces in the Middle East by taking part in the Normandy invasion.


1944: When German authorities become aware that news of the Allied invasion is circulating through the Jewish ghetto at Lódz, Poland, a search is mounted for illegal radios. Six Jews are arrested. On the same day the Germans rounded up all 1,795 Jews on the Greek Island of Corfu and deported them to Birkenau death camp where 1,500 were murdered by gas upon arrival. The Germans also captured 260 Jews this day on the Island of Crete.


1944(15th of Sivan, 5704): A German deportation ship with approximately 260 Canean Jews aboard is sunk off the coast of Crete. Latter-day accounts conflict as to the details: In one version, the ship carried the corpses of Jews murdered by Nazis, who set the ship afloat and sank it to destroy evidence of the crime. In another, the ship was bound for Auschwitz but was torpedoed and sunk by a British submarine. Besides Jewish people, the ship may have carried 300 Italian POWs and 400 Greek civilians.


1944(15th of Sivan, 5704): In Poland, 150 police, all of whom were Nazi sympathizers ambushed Jacob Allweiss and his two sons Zygie and Sol.  Jacob is murdered.  The two sons escape.


1944: Two more Auschwitz inmates, Arnost Rosin and Czeslaw Mordowicz, arrived in Zilina. They reported that trainloads of Hungarian Jews were being massacred.


1944: In Corfu, Greece, the Germans rounded up 1,795 Jews. One thousand, five hundred of them were then gassed at Birkenau.


1944: Birthdate of Rene Rivkin, Australian entrepreneur, investor, investment adviser, and stockbroker. He was a well-known stockbroker in Australia for many years until his conviction for insider trading.


1944: As Joel Brand sought to help save the Jews of Hungary  Anthony Eden expressed his sympathy regarding the decision to block the negotiations with Eichmann, but said he had to act in unison with the United States and Soviet Union.


1945: Robert Capa meets Ingrid Bergman for the first time.  The meetings marks the beginning of passionate love affair between the Jewish was photographers and the Scandinavian cinema star.  Their relationship will be part of the plot for the Alfred Hitchcock thriller “Rear Window.”


1945: The Fort Ontario Emergency Refugee Shelter also known as "Safe Haven," located in Oswego, New York the first and only refugee center established in the United States during World War II which housed almost 1000 European refugees, most of whom were Jewish was closed today.


1946: Birthdate of Tony Levin, bassist for King Crimson.


1950: Mrs. Martha Sharp left New York tonight by plane to visit “her 20,000 children” in Israel. “These thousands of Israeli boys and girls are Mrs. Sharp’s charges by long-range adoption since she is a founder and national vice chairman of Children to Palestine, Inc., an American organization that is bringing them out of starved and fear-ridden backgrounds to a new life in a new land.” Mrs. Sharp is the wife of a Unitarian minister in Chicago. In the next month she will help some of them move into the only real homes they have ever known and watch others learn to play children's games for the first time.


1952: The Jerusalem Post reported on the ground- breaking ceremony for the projected $10 million Hadassah-Hebrew University Medical School on the bare Judean hills, west of Ein Kerem. Speakers declared that this construction did not mean the abandonment of Hadassah facilities on Mount Scopus which were effectively under Arab control in violation of existing U.N. guarantees


1954: Birthdate of actor Harvey Fierstein


1955: In Flint, Michigan Jeanette and Jerome Bernhard, a procotologist, gave birth to comedienne Sandra Bernhard.


1955(16thof Sivan, 5715): Seventy two year old British author Joseph Jefferson Farjeon, the son of Benjamin Leopold Farjeon passed away.


1956: David Marshall, Singapore's first Chief Minister resigns. David Saul Marshall was born in Singapore in 1908 to a Jewish family that had originally come from Iraq.  He became a lawyer and a leading leader of the left wing.  In later years he would serve in several diplomatic postiions before retiring after a dispute with the Prime Minister of Singapore.


1957(7th of Sivan, 5717): Second Day of Shavuot


1957: The Soviet government informed the Jewish community that it would permit the opening of a yeshiva in Moscow for the training of rabbis. The announcement was made on Shavuot, probably to "impress" world Jewry that the USSR was doing a wonderful thing for Jews and Judaism. It turns out that this was mostly "smoke". The laymen's council of the yeshiva was dissolved in 1961. The bulk of the students had come from Georgia. After Pesach of 1962, these students were denied permits by the local government to return to Moscow. Thus the yeshiva, reduced to a handful of students, could no longer hope to provide rabbis for Russian Jewry.


1961: Carl Jung, the man Freud called "his adopted eldest son, his crown prince and successor" but who later broke with his mentor, passed away today.


1963: Birthdate of Representative Eric Cantor serving from Virginia’s Seventh District


1965(6th of Sivan, 5725): First Day Shavuot


1967: This marked the second day of Israel's Six Day War. Now that the Israelis had control of the skies, their armor and infantry could begin advancing against the numerically larger Arab armies. As accounts of the fighting will attest, this was no cakewalk.  The fighting in Sinai involved some of the largest clashes between tanks since World War II.  And the Jordanians fought tenaciously along the Green Line around east Jerusalem.


1967:  At six o’clock in the morning the Supreme Command of the Arab armed forces began broadcasting on the great lies that is still believed to this day.  Repeating a report that Nasser had made to King Hussein the night before, the Arab military leaders claimed that the Egyptian and Jordanian air forces had been demolished on the first day of the war by U.S. planes attached to the Sixth Fleet and by British warplanes flying from unspecified bases.  This tale had not no basis in fact.  It gave Nasser a chance to save face with the Arab masses and to provide his Soviet patrons with an excuse for intervening.  The Cold War is already becoming a distant memory to those living in the 21st century.  However, the conflict between the U.S. and the Soviet Union was very real in 1967.  The Soviets were actively looking for a way to gain control in the Middle East and the Communist Bloc was Nasser’s patron, a factor that was part of the military and political equation facing the Israelis.


1967: Defense Minister Moshe Dyan still refused to allow any military action to be taken along the Golan Heights.  With fighting raging in the Sinai to the South, he did not need additional military worries.  What did worry Dyan was that the U.N. might impose a cease fire before Israeli forces could seize Sharm el-Sheik, the choke-point held by the Egyptians that made it possible for them to close the Straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping.  Dyan ordered Chief of Staff Rabin to move with all speed to seize Sharm.  Rabin completed planes for a combined assault that was to be carried out the next evening. 


1967:  Egyptian troops are ordered to fall back to the Suez Canal.  In the evening, unbeknownst to the Israelis, Egypt evacuated the strategically important position of Sharm el-Sheik.  


1970: Peggy and Dr. Milton D. Glick, who would eventually become President of the University of Nevada, Reno, gave birth to their son David.


1974: The Syrians returned the body of Avraham “Avi” Lanir.  The Syrians captured him during the Yom Kippur War and tortured him to death in an attempt to extract information from him about Israel’s nuclear program.


1975(27thof Sivan, 5737): Forty-nine year Larry Blyden, a Jewish actor from Houston, TX passed away today.



1982: Israeli troops enter Lebanon to drive out PLO.  The PLO had established itself as a "state within a state."  The government of Lebanon was incapable or unwilling to put an end to this source of terror so the Israelis acted accordingly. The triggering event was the attempted assassination of the Israeli ambassador in London.  The invasion would become a divisive and corrosive event for the Israelis that, to put it mildly, was not one of their shining moments.


1982: Members of the famous Golani Brigade attacked Beaufort Castle which was held by the PLO.


1984(6thof Shavuot, 5744): Shavuot


1985: The grave of "Wolfgang Gerhard" is exhumed in Embu, Brazil; the remains found are later proven to be those of Josef Mengele, Auschwitz'"Angel of Death". Mengele is thought to have drowned while swimming in February 1979.


1986(28thof Iyar, 5746) Yom Yerushalayim


1988: Pitcher Steve Rosenberg makes his debut with the Chicago White Sox.


1991(24thof Sivan, 5751):  Stan Getz passed away. Born Stanley Gayetzky in 1927, Getz was the leading tenor sax player of his time.  Even people who did not like jazz enjoyed listening to the smooth sound of Stan Getz.


1992(5thof Sivan, 5752): Eighty-four year old Marvel comic founder Martin Goodman passed away today.

1994(27thof Tammuz, 5754): Sixty-nine year old Yohai Ben-Nun, the sixth commander of the Israeli navy passed away today.

1999: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including the recently released paperback editions of Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches From the Unfinished Civil War by Tony Horwitz, Damascus Gate by Robert Stone and Tender at the Bone: Growing Up at the Table by Ruth Reichl.


1999: Deb and Mitchell Levin marry at Temple Judah in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.  He moved up in class and she got an adult child to try and housebreak.  For those of you who have not figured it out, she is the one who makes this daily work possible.  On top of being an Ayshish Chayel in the truest sense of the word, she is also is great at everything from creating blogs to making homemade Kosher pizza, to creating memorable siddurim to hosting the visiting chazzan who is a kosher vegetarian. 


2001: An Arab suicide bomber massacred 21 young Jewish teenagers and injured a hundred more outside a Tel Aviv discotheque.


2004: First day of a Birthright trip to Israel - Towards a Sustainable Future for Israel: An Environmental Leadership Seminar for Students and Young Professionals – focused on the environment sponsored as a joint project of COEJL, the Heschel Center for Environmental Leadership and Learning, the Jewish Agency for Israel, and Hillel.


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 “Sloan-Kettering: Poems” the Israeli poet and famed partisan Abba Kovner’s poetic chronicle of his losing battle with cancer which he describes with ruthless honesty, even as he celebrates his tenacious grip on the world he is leaving.


2004: Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s government approved an amended plan for disengagement form Gaza.


2004: Avigdor Lieberman completed his term as Minister of Transport, National Infrastructure and Road Safety


2005: Majdi Halabi was officially listed as M.I.A. (missing in action).


2005 (28th of Iyar): Observance of Yom Yerushalayim (Jerusalem Day). Jerusalem Reunification Day celebrates the reunification of Jerusalem on June 7, 1967 which was the 28th day of the month of Iyar.  The observance follows the Jewish calendar so it seems to “float” on the secular calendar.  On the 28th of Iyar, soldiers of the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) reunited the Old City of Jerusalem which had been illegally occupied by the Jordanian Army since 1948 with what was then referred to as the New City of Jerusalem.  (Please note, there never was a city called “East Jerusalem.” The term east Jerusalem is strictly geographic as in the southeast side of Cedar Rapids.) This was the first time that all of Jerusalem was under Jewish sovereignty since the days of the Second Temple.


2006: The New York Times and The Washington Post reported that “the C.I.A. knew where Eichman was hiding” and made no attempts to inform the government of Israel, which was actively looking for him and other Nazi war criminals.  This revelation came to light as large quantities of government documents describing U.S. relationships with ex-Nazis after World War II were declassified.  While it had been known for some time that the U.S. and later the West German government employed former Nazis in their intelligence agencies, these documents show the depth and the folly of the involvement.  Apparently many of these former Nazis turned out to be double agents who working for the Soviets and who did a great deal of harm to Western intelligence efforts during the Cold War.


2006: British author Naomi Alderman has won the 2006 Orange Award for New Writers with her debut novel Disobedience.  The novel is set in the Orthodox Jewish community of Hendon, London where Alderman grew up.


2007: Professor Norman Finkelstein is a guest on daily global affairs program produced by Chicago Public Radio station WBEZ (91.5) where he presents a “revisionist view of the Six Day War.”


2007: Jack Markell officially launched his candidacy for Governor of Delaware


2007: An exhibition styled “Image of His Soul" Max Liebermann – Works on Paper opens at the Hecht Museum in Haifa.


2007: The Sir Zelman Cowen Prize in medical research is awarded to Prof. Nir Friedman at the Hebrew University's Board of Governors' meeting by fund trustee Michael Dunkel, a member of the Board of Governors.


2008: At the JCC in Washington, D.C. cantor, composer, arranger, choral conductor, and director of the ensemble Vocolot, Linda Hirschhorn will co-lead a musical Erev Shabbat service with Rabbi Robert Saks of Congregation Bet Mishpachah, the event’s co-sponsor. Linda Hirschhorn will play the guitar during the service.


2008: Opening of “You Don’t Mess with the Zohan” starring Adam Sandler playing an Israeli assassin turned hairdresser.


2009: Alysa Stanton the first African-American female rabbi is ordained at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Cincinnati. Stanton, a convert and mother to an adopted 14-year-old daughter, is a trained psychotherapist who specializes in trauma and grief. In August, she will become the spiritual leader of Congregation Bayt Shalom in Greenville.


2009: At Temple Judah, in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Sophie Shiffman, daughter of Howard Shiffman of Toronto, Ontario and Peggy and Don Aungst of Independence, IA is called to the Torah as a Bat Mitzvah.


2009: The Vatican says it has "taken action" to track down Jewish children who were hidden by the Church and Catholic families during the Holocaust and later disappeared.

2010: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Alone With You by Marissa Silver


2010: I wish the American Jews who feel misrepresented by the lobby would stand up by Philip Weiss

2010: Members of the Jewish Historical Society of Greater Washington are scheduled to lead a special tour of Jewish sites in Old Town Alexandria that will include visits to the sites of two former synagogues and several Jewish businesses.


2010: The Washington Jewish Music Festival is scheduled to open with a screening of the Jazz Baroness and a performance by Danny Sanderson.


2010(24th of Sivan, 5770): Rabbi Jacob Milgrom passed away today in Jerusalem at the age of 87. He was “considered by many the worlds’ foremost authority on the biblical Book of Leviticus. Milgrom’s three-volume series on Leviticus, interpreting Jewish dietary and purification rituals and the Bible’s position on homosexuality, concluded that the ban on homosexuality applies only to Jewish men.”


2011: “Music and Healing” a program designed to acquaint attendees with “contemporary, folk and traditional songs that can help them through times of need and comfort is scheduled to take place at Tefereth Israel in Washington, DC.


2011: The Children of Israel Journeyed: Selections from the Chagall Bible Series, an exhibit at the Jewish Museum of Milwaukee, “showcasing twenty-one hand-painted etchings by Marc Chagall” and  The  Haggerty Museum’s massive Chagall Tapestry is scheduled to come to a close.  The Haggerty is part of Marquette University.


2011:Israeli military officials disputed today the casualty figures announced by Syria a day earlier, after Israeli forces fired on protesters who had tried to breach the Syrian frontier with the Israeli-held Golan Heights, the discrepancy in numbers underlining the messages being conveyed by both sides.

2011: Dominique Strauss-Kahn pleaded not guilty today in a New York court appearance.


2011: New York Congressman Anthony Weiner admitted that his twitter account had not been hacked and that he had been sending pictures of himself to at least six female followers.


2011: Eighty-five year old Zev Birger, the concentration camp survivor who reinvigorated the Jerusalem International Book Fair passed away today.(As reported by Isabel Kershner)


2012: A Young Leadership Concert featuring Itamar Zora and the Salome Chamber Orchestra is scheduled to take place at Congregation Shearith Israel (The Spanish & Portuguese Synagogue)


2012: The Los Angeles dance company BODYTRAFFIC is scheduled to perform the world premiere of the latest work by Israeli choreographer Barak Marshall with guest artist Margalit Oved at the Joyce in New York City.


2012: In Chevy Chase, MD, Ohr Kodesh is scheduled to host a concert presented by Zemer Chai.


2012: The Wiener Library in the UK is scheduled to present ‘Target Heydrich: Laurent Binet on HHhH’ in which the author will talk about her historical novel about the two men who killed the man known as “Himmler’s Brain.”


2012: It is lucky 13 for me as we celebrate our anniversary. And it is lucky for anybody who reads this because if it weren’t for Deb none of this would exist!


2012:Israel's Knesset voted down a bill that aimed at legalizing homes on the Ulpana Hill neighborhood in the West Bank settlement of Beit El, which were built on privately owned Palestinian land. (As reported by Jonathan Lis and Oz Rosenberg)


2012:Defense Minister Ehud Barak acknowledged Israel's offensive cyberspace operations for the first time. Speaking during a conference at Tel Aviv University, Barak stressed that in cyber warfare, as opposed to conventional warfare, it is more important to invest in defense than offense, and admitted for the first time that Israel has been developing and working on both tactics. (As reported by Gili Cohen and Oded Yaron)


2012: Opening of National Hebrew Book Week


2012: “Adam Richman's Best Sandwich in America,” an American food reality television series premiered today on the Travel Channel


2013(28thof Sivan, 5773): Ninety four year old Nobel laureate Jerome Karle passed away today.(As reported by Kenneth Chang)

2013:The Associates of AFIPO are scheduled to present “Vintage Thursday,” a winetasting and silent auction evening to benefit the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra,


2013: In London, the Weiner Library is scheduled to present “Film Talk” ‘Kosher Nostra’ – Screening the Memory of the Jewish-American Gangster in ‘The Godfather Part II’”


2013: Israel’s Gesher Theater is scheduled to perform “Enemies, A Love Story” by Isaac Bashevis Singer at New York’s Lincoln Center. 


2013: Syrian opposition and government forces today were engaged in hours of fierce battles at and around the Quneitra border crossing, the only crossing between Israel and Syria.


2013: “Spertus Institute screens Hava Nagila (The Movie), the definitive, glorious, musical story of how a traditional melody from Ukraine became a Jewish staple and worldwide hit.”


2013:US military aircraft and an Israeli passenger plane nearly collided over Eilat today.


2014: The 92nd Street Y is scheduled to host “Edward Henkel's MovementTalks: The Power of Women Minding the Dance with Christine Dakin, Dawn Paap and Catherine Peila”


2014: Rabbi Shira, Rabbi Laurie Green of Bet Mishpachah, and members of GLOE are scheduled to lead an inclusive service celebrating the diversity of our community at the Historic 6th& I Synagogue.


2014: On the 70th anniversary of the Normandy invasion as special homage is paid to the dwindling number of veterans who hit the beach on D-Day, residents of Cedar Rapids in general and members of the Jewish community in particular an honor Bert Katz.  As a young captain, Katz led his unit on to Easy Red sector of Omaha Beach seven minutes after the start of the invasion.  Despite the fact he was wounded and lost 23 of his men to murderous enemy fire, Katz saw to it that his unit performed their vital mission on “The Longest Day” and the many days and months that would follow until the war’s end.


 

This Day, June 7, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. Levin

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JUNE 7



421: Theodosius II, the Emperor whose code sought to reinforce Christianity as the state religion at the expense of Judaism, married Aelia Eudocia Augusta, a pagan who converted so that they could be married by the Church.


1099:  During the First Crusade, the Christians begin the siege of Jerusalem.The armies of the First Crusade (1096-99) reached the walls of Jerusalem. The First Crusade would prove to be the most successful of all of the crusades in terms of meeting the goal of reclaiming the Christian Homeland from the Moslem infidel.  Forgotten in all of this were the true titleholders – the Jews – except when it came to massacring them.  It is ironic that events on this same seventh day of June set matters to right.


1191: As he continues on his quest to gain control of Jerusalem for the Christians, Richard l leaves Tyre and heads for Acre where he will lay siege to the city.

1233: For the first time, Jews were ordered to wear distinctive clothing was mandated in Spain. The following year Pope Gregory IX developed guidelines for this, sent in the form of a letter to the King of Navarra: "Since we desire that Jews be recognizable and distinguished from Christians, we order you to impose upon each and every Jew of both sexes a sign, viz, one round patch of yellow cloth of linen to be worn on the uppermost garment.

1365: Urban V issued “Sicuti judaeis non debet” a Papal Bull that forbade people from molesting Jews or forcing them to be baptized.

1494: Spain and Portugal signed the Treaty of Tordesillas which divided the New World between the two countries. Considering the Inquisition and the Expulsion from Iberia, this division could have meant that Jews would have been banned from the Western hemisphere.  Fortunately for the Jews, Protestant Holland and Anglican England (as well as France) did not recognize the treaty and had other plans for dividing the lands of the New World

1594(18thof Sivan 5354): Roderigo Lopez a Marrano physician was hanged in England. Born in 1525, he supposedly arrived in England as Francis Drake's prisoner of war. He rose in importance to become Queen Elizabeth's physician (1586). Accused by other members of the court of being a Spanish spy who was trying to poison the Queen, he was arrested but the Queen refused to carry out the death sentence. In June 1594 she finally consented and he was hanged. Throughout his trial he was vilified as being a "Jew".   According to some accounts, Lopez was a foolish person who got in way over his head playing politics at the Court of Queen Elizabeth.  In the days of Good Queen Bess, the rule of thumb was "when in doubt, hang 'em."

1651(18thof Sivan, 5411): Polish Talmudist Abraham Rapoporort, the “son of Israel Jelriel Rapoport of Cracow and son-in-law of Mordecai Schrenzel of Lemberg who “was president of the Council of Four Lands, and was administrator of the money collected for the poor in the Holy Land” passed away today.



1654: Louis XIV was= crowned King of France. Louis’ record in dealing with the Jews was, uneven to say the least.  In keeping with the mercantilist policies of his minister Colbert, Louis issued a charter of liberty for Jews under royal authority in 1671.  Among other things, this opened up the port of Marseilles as a harbor where Jews could trade freely, much to the consternation of the local Christian merchants.  When the merchants complained, Louis (in a reply probably written by Colbert) responded: “Commercial envy will always impel the Christian merchants to persecute Jews.  But you should be above such motives that issue from personal interests.  You should take into consideration the benefits the government derives from the industrial activity of the Jews, which comprises all the parts of the world thanks to their association with their coreligionists.” This benign attitude did not last forever.  As Colbert fell from favor and Louis grew more pious as he grew older, he acceded to demands to ban Jews from various parts of his empire.  In 1710, “He ordered Jews ‘to leave the kingdom without any belongings,’ and told local officials to take any and all means to expel Jews ‘because that is our wish.’”

1692:  Port Royal, Jamaica is hit by a catastrophic earthquake; in just three minutes, 1600 people are killed and 3000 are seriously injured. Jew first started arriving in Port Royal in 1663, eight years after the British took the island from the Spanish.Sadly, there is little documentation of Jewish life in Port Royal, but earthquake survivor Edmund Heath's account of the infamous 1692 event, notes the existence of a Jew's street and synagogue which records locate on New Street running parallel to Cannon Street. The Jewish legacy in Port Royal also includes a cemetery at Hunt's Bay. During the 17th century it was not unusual to see Jewish families carrying their loved ones by boat across the harbor to be buried.



1699: “By an agreement dated today, the council of Worms pledged itself to grant the Jews certain concessions, and this arrangement was confirmed by Joseph I.”



1772(6thof Sivan, 5532): Shavuot



1733: George Frideric Handel completed “Athalia,” an oratorio based on a play of the same name by Racine.  Both works depict the life of the widow of the King of Judah whose murderous ways make her “a Jewish Lady MacBeth.”

1737(8thof Sivan, 5497): Levi Ulff whom “the king had appointed his Court and order the royal regiments to secure their ribbons” from his ribbon factory which had been moved to Charlottenburg in 1714 passed away today.

1753:In Great Britain, an Act of Parliament styled “The Jewish Naturalization Act 1753” received royal assent today. The Act gave foreign-born Jews to become naturalized by making application to Parliament.  This meant that foreign born Jews would enjoy the same rights as native born English Jews. While the act enjoyed support in the House of Lords, it was repealed in 1754 due to opposition from the Tories in the House of Commons. [Ed. Note – When the “Jew Bill was introduced in the 19th century, the pros and cons would be just the opposite with the Commons supporting the bill and the Lords opposing it.

1779: Eighty-year old William Warburton, the Bishop of Gloucester passed away.  His major work was The Divine Legation of Moses in which he uses the absence of the mention of the afterlife in the Torah as a proof that Moses received a divine revelation which he then uses to defend Christianity against the beliefs of the deists.

1780: The Army was called out today to quell the “Gordon Riots” and among other things arrested Lord George Gordon, the future convert to Judaism, on charges of high treasons – charges of which he would be found not guilty.

1798(Sivan 23): In Pesaro, Italy Jews were murdered following the retreat of the French Army.  The day became a fast day

1821(7thof Sivan, 5581): Second Day of Shavuot

1837: Birthdate of Alois Schicklgruber, the son of an unwed mother who would change his name to Alois Hitler, the father of Adolph Hitler

1848(6thof Sivan, 5608): As Europe is rocked by revolutions, Jews observe Shavuo

1851(7thof Sivan, 5611): Second Day of Shavuot

1852: Birthdate of David Kaufman, the native of Moravia who became one of the leading scholars in the fields of history and the philosophy of religion.


1854: The New York Times reported that Frederika Bremer has written a warm appeal to the Swedish Parliament on behalf of the Jews.


 

1857: The New York Times reported that the Weekly Gleaner: A Voice of Israel, a Jewish newspaper, is now being published in San Francisco. Rabbi Julius Eckman was the paper's publisher.


 

1858:An article entitled "New York City: The Rogue's Portrait Gallery" published today says that Number 169 is a likeness of an old vagabond called "Jew Mike


1861: Today subscribers across the country opened the Jewish Messenger to read a response by the fledgling Shreveport Jewish community to column entitled "Stand By the flag" written by Rabbi Samuel Isaacs. The resolution, signed by M. Baer, President of the Shreveport community, proclaims: “We solemnly pledge ourselves to stand by, protect, and honor the flag, with its stars and stripes, the Union and Constitution of the Southern Confederacy with our lives, liberty, and all that is dear to us.” In harsh language, Baer identifies Isaacs as “an enemy to our interest and welfare,” and accuses him of raising “hatred and dissatisfaction in our midst, and assisting to start a bloody civil war amongst us.”

1865: Ferdinand James Anselm von Rothschild married his cousin Evelina de Rothschild the daughter of Lionel de Rothschil

1867(4thof Sivan, 5627): Seventy-eight year old “Italian Hebraist” who had been principal of the Jewish school at Florence and who had taught Professor Fausto Lasino, passed away today.

1870: The attorney representing Sigmund, Joseph and Julius Walberg who are “charged with making false revenue returns as brokers” made a motion for discharge.

1870: The news that a congregation in Charlottesville had voted to join the Reform Movement was greeted with applauses at today meeting of the Rabbinical Council being held in Cincinnati, Ohio.

1870: The Rabbinical Council adopted a resolution providing for a “uniform reading” of the Torah over a three year period at Sabbath services.  The selections should omit “antiquated laws.

1871: In Cincinnati, Ohio, a meeting of the Rabbinical Council, the governing body of the Reform Movement, the Prayerbook Committee was authorized to publish their new work as soon as it was ready.

1871: An article entitled “Russian Tyranny and Jewish Resistance” published today reported that Jews in Poland have resisted the government orders to do away with their traditional attire, hair styles and beards.  Since the Jews are not following the news edicts, the police are stepping in to shorten the long coats favored by some Jews and cutting off their “curls.”  Lengthening the short pants of the Jews has been more of  a problem.  But the greatest challenge is getting rid of the beards.  In one rural town, the police grabbed an 80 year old Jew and began cutting his beard.  He cried out and when his co-religionists came to his aid, they were pounced on, forced into chairs, and sheared in “a hurried and rough manner” that was deemed less than “pleasant.”  While the Warsaw Police have avoided such extreme measures up until now, they will adopt them to ensure that the government’s edicts are carried out. 

1872: Birthdate of painter and musicologist Rodolphe d'Erlanger.

1873:An article published today entitled “Hebrew Orphans’ Excursion” reported that the managers of the Hebrew Orphan Asylum and Free schools have made plans to provide the youngsters in their care with excursions this summer starting on June 23..

1875: “Ancient Libraries” published today provides a series of interesting sketches of the great libraries of the world including the following comments about the Jews and their ancient literature.  The author assumes that the Biblical city Kiryat Sefer took its name from the fact that it was a repository for works written by or inspired by Moses as well as “rhapsodies of prophets, the verses of poets, works of historians and dark sayings of proverbial philosophers.  Prominent among these must have the contributions of the great King Solomon who spoke 3,000 proverbs, whose songs were 1,005” who spoke with “scientific method and precision about beasts, fowl creeping things and fishes as well as plants  including the Cedars of Lebanon and hyssop growing out of the walls.  The author assumes that these Jewish libraries were “swept out of existence” and much of the literature was lost except for fragmentary references  which can be found in books which have been preserved for religious purposes.



1876: Alois Schiclgruber is officially recognized as the son of Johann Georg Hiedler and his name is changed to Alois Hitler, a linguistic move that could not have been anything but useful to the future Nazi murderer.

1878(6th of Sivan, 5638): First Day of Shavuot

1878: Rabbi Gustav Gotthel is scheduled to lead Shavuot Services at Temple Emanuel in New York City

1878: Rabbi Adolph Huebsch is scheduled to lead Shavuot Services at Ahavaht Chesed on Lexington Avenue & 55th Street



1878: Rabbi Henry S. Jacobs is scheduled to lead Shavuot Services at B’nai Jeshrun on 34thStreet.

1878: Rabbi Frederick De Sola Mendes is scheduled to Shavuot Services at Shaaray Tefillah on 44thStreet.

1878: A man named Dixon was hung today in Vicksburg, MS, having been convicted of brutally murdering a 45 year old Jewish peddler named Bachman while he was traveling on the steamboat Fair Play in December of 1877.

1880: The New York Times published a review of The Poetry of the Talmud by Simon Seckles.

1881:Oliver Hazard Perry Belmont graduated from the Naval Academy.  His father was August Belmont, the Jewish financer for whom the Belmont Stakes is named.  His mother was the daughter of Oliver Hazard Perry and was not Jewish.

1881: At the Republican State Convention, Louis Seasongood, a Jewish leader from Cincinnati is among those being considered as the party’s nominee for Lieutenant Governor.  Seasongood had been defeated by General Hickenlooper for the position two years ago.



1881: It was reported today from St. Petersburg, that the “excitement against the Jews here has abated but has not entirely disappeared.”  [Editor’s note – what charming euphemisms for anti-Semitic riots; as can be seen from the entries below, there was no abatement. ]



1882: It was reported today that the Mansion House Committee for the Relief of Russian Jews has collected over eighty-two thousand British Pounds of which it has spent all but 25 thousand pounds.  The Committee is going to send representatives to Hamburg to oversee the departure of the Russian Jews from the German seaport.

1882: At today’s session of the Republican State Convention being held in Columbus, the party adopted the following resolution. “We condemn the terrible persecutions inflicted upon the Jews of Russia and other sections of Europe, and while he heartily approve the action of the Government in its efforts to ameliorate the condition of these unfortunate people, we earnestly solicit a continuance of its most energetic efforts to that end.” 

1886: “Indignant Rabbis” published today described the refusal of Mr. Taylor, the principal of Central High School in Philadelphia, PA to excuse the Jewish students for missing the upcoming final exams which have been scheduled on the days of Shavuot.  Despite pleas from the city’s rabbis to reach some kind of accommodation, Taylor has remained adamant which means the Jewish children could fail through no fault of their own.



1889: “To Celebrate Two Anniversaries” published today took note of the fact that the year 1892 “will witness the four hundredth anniversaries of the expulsion of the Hebrews from Spain and the discovery of America and described plans already being made by those meeting at the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue to honor both of these events.

1891: “The committee for the relief of Russian Jews reports” that many of the Jews arriving at Charlottenburg “were wounded while fleeing from the Russian police.” Even more Jews were killed and the exodus is assuming such vast proportion” that the German Government will be forced to intervene “since private charity will soon be powerless to cope with the demands”.

1891: “Friends of the Jews Who Want Them Not” published today described “the indignation of Western Europe” to “Russia’s barbaric expulsion of the Jews” which is beginning to be mixed with a desire “to pass the exiled horde” on to some other nation or nations. “The various organizations and committees which have been formed” in Berlin, Vienna, Paris and London “to look out for the comfort and safety of the Jews after they leave Russia” reportedly spend a large amount of their funds on purchasing “passage tickets to Ameica”

1891: “The Field of Future of Wars” published today described the little known eastern portion of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, a primitive place where “the village inns – low drinking places at best – are generally kept by Jews, who entice by all means in their power, the peasants to come an consume as much ‘wodka’ as possible.”

1891: “High Sheriff Benjamin Disraeli” published today reports that “an Irish antiquarian has just discovered that the ‘Benjamin D’Israeli, Esq.,’ who was High Sheriff of the Count of Carlow in 1810, was an uncle of Lord Beaconsfield.”  He died in 1814 and is buried in St. Peter’s Church in Dublin. [Editor’s Note – If this report is accurate and if this High Sheriff Disraeli was Jewish it makes one wonder what oath he swore when he took the office. 



1892: “Jewish Historical Society” published today described the organizational meeting of the American Jewish Historical Society at JTS which included an acrimonious debate between laymen and rabbis touched off by the fact that the report of the Committee on Organization did not recommend a rabbi for any of the officer positions.  The debate became so heated that Rabbi Kaufman Kohler “jumped up and left the room.”



1896: In New York, “Dr. Isaac M. Haldeman” delivered a sermon at the First Baptist Church in which he said “that the Jews had been persecuted by all the civilized nations of the world, so that they were driven to lying, cheating and other vices.  No tongue could describe the tortures inflicted on them – not by pagans, but by Christians…”

1896: Professor Isaac Franklin Russell of NYU Law School delivered a lecture at the Hebrew Institute on “Tom Paine.

1896: “Mayor Strong Asked to Aid Peddlers” published today described the plight of two Jewish peddlers who have been “driven from the streets by police” because they like so many others have deprived of their livelihood i.e. selling collar buttons and suspenders from various street corners.

1896: The Hebrew Orphan Asylum Band will perform at a strawberry festival this afternoon sponsored by the Lebanon League which is raising funds for the Lebanon Hospital at Westchester and Cauldwell Avenues

1896: “Beginnings of a Prime Minister” published today described the handicaps that Benjamin Disraeli had to overcome in making his way to the top of the English political ladder.  It noted that he did “not have the advantages of wealth or connected enjoyed by so many of his race.  His father was a “renegades” who educated his son at “second class private schools” where he was not able to make the friendships and associations that “wealthy Jews nowadays” make at “public schools and universities.”

1897(7th of Sivan, 5657): Second Day of Shavuot

1897: No Orthodox Jew voted in the judicial elections held in Chicago today since marking the ballot would violate the prohibition against writing on a Jewish festival.

1897: Birthdate of Austrian born composer and conductor, George Szell. He was best known for his long, successful career as musical director of the Cleveland Symphony Orchestra.  He held the position from 1946 until 1970.

1897: “Myer S. Isaacs, President of the Board of Trustees of the Baron de Hirsch Fund, has received a draft for $400,000, from the Baroness de Hirsch, as the first advance on the donation of $1,000,000 recently made by the Baroness to assist the poor of New York City

1899: During ten days of meetings at the Hague that would end on June 17 Herzl met several of the most representative Russian leaders. Baroness Bertha Von Suttner introduced him to Russian State Counselor Ivan von Bloch who is responsible for the calling of the Conference. The meetings result in Herzl's name being brought favorably to the attention of the Czar. Herzl also met with Nouri Bey, General Secretary of the Turkish Foreign Office who promises to get together a group of officials to arrange an audience with the Sultan.

1901: Birthdate of Sam Katzman, an American film producer and director who began working in the industry at the age of 13 when it was centered on the east coast.  He moved west with the industry and enjoyed a successful 40 year career in film.  He passed away in 1973.

1904(24thof Sivan, 5664): Moishe Finkel took his own life after shooting his wife and actor David Levinson who was a romantic rival.  Born in 1850, Finkel was a leading member of the Yiddish theatre in the United States. His tempestuous personal life would have fine material for tragedy or melodrama.  His professional life was intertwined with such greats of the Yiddish theatre as Jacob Adler and Boris Thomashefsky.  And he was the father in law of famed Hollywood actor, Paul Muni.



1908: Founding of Kinneret



1910: Eighty-six year old Goldwin Smith the British born Canadian academic who was a political opponent of Benjamin Disraeli, passed away. “A pathological anti-Semite, Smith disseminated his hatred in dozens of books, articles and letters. Jews, he charged, were "parasites,""dangerous" to their host country and "enemies of civilization." His bilious anti-Jewish tirades helped set the tone of a still unmoulded Canadian society and had a profound impact on such young Canadians as W.L. Mackenzie King, Henri Bourassa and scores of others. Indeed in 1905 in the most vituperative anti-Jewish speech in the history of the House of Commons, borrowing heavily from Smith, Bourassa urged Canada to keep its gates shut to Jewish immigrants.

1912: Evening schools to be opened in New York City for Turkish Jews to learn English during the summer months.

1913: In Chicago, The Frist American Conference on Social Insurance which Lee K. Frankel has attended as a delegate from New York came to an end.

1914: The Federation of Oriental Jews held its second annual meeting today PS 91 in NYC.  The federation is made of representatives of 28 different organizations which have approximately 3,000 members.  The federation estimates that there are between 10,000 and 15,000 Oriental Jews living in New York.  The term refers to Sephardic Jews most of whom are recent immigrants from areas that have been under Ottoman rule including Greece.  Unlike their northern and eastern European co-religionist, they do not speak Yiddish, relying instead on Ladino for much of their colloquial conversation.

1914: Twenty-one men received diplomas and five were ordained as Rabbis at today’s graduation exercises held by the Jewish Theological Seminary at the Aeolian Hall.  Louis Marshall presided over the event and read a speech prepared by Dr. Solomon Schechter who was unable to be present because of ill health.

1914: Simon F. Rothschild delivered the opening address at today’s ceremony dedicating the newly constructed building in Brownsville that will house the Hebrew Educational Society.  Among other speakers were Felix Warburg, Abram Elkus and from the world of New York politics, Controller William A. Pendergast.

1914: Over a thousand people attended today’s opening of a new building to house the Harlem Hebrew School  The school was begun five years and is supported by the Yeishva Torah Chaim of Harlem.  Almost 500 children attend the school which provides courses in Hebrew, the Bible and Jewish history before and/or after public school hours

1916(6thof Sivan, 5676): As the Jews on both sides of the conflict observe Shavuot the Germans take Fort Vaux during the Battle of Verdun, the contest of wills that had begun in February and would last until December.

1919: Conditions of Jews in the Palestine cities of Safed, Tiberias and Kfra Saba are described as bad. The death rate is appalling. Thousands of Jews are starving.

1919: Birthdate of Yohanan Aharoni the Frankfurt born Israeli archeologist who served as chairman of the Department of Near East Studies and chairman of the Institute of Archeology at Tel-Aviv University

1921: President Warren Harding is scheduled to meet with Albert D. Lasker and discuss his appointment to serve as Chairman of the Shipping Board.

1923: In Jerusalem, Yechiel Halperin and his wife gave birth to Uzziel Halperin who gained fame as “linguist and social activist” Uzzi Ornan.

1926: The body of Meyer London, one of only two Socialists to serve in the House of Representatives “was taken to the Forward building, where it lay in state while 25,000 men, women, and children filed past the casket, paying their respects.

1928: In New York, Ethel (née Newman) and Ira Strouse gave birth to composer and lyricist Charles Strouse whose first Broadway show was the 1960 hit “Bye Bye Birdie.

1929: The Lateran Treaty which normalized relations between Italy and the Vatican is ratified.  The agreement gave Mussolini, the Italian Prime Minister, a greater measure of respectability.  The Mussolini Connection would set the tone for the Vatican’s relationship with Hitler when he came to power.  Italy's anti-Jewish laws of 1938 prohibited marriages between Jews and non-Jews, including Catholics. The Vatican viewed this as a violation of the Concordat, which gave the church the sole right to regulate marriage between Catholics. But this was not enough of an issue to disrupt the relationship between Rome and the Vatican.

1935(6thof Sivan, 5695): Shavuot

1936: Leon Blum the first Socialist and the first Jew to serve as Prime Minister of France presented his list of ministerial appointments to the Chamber of Deputies. Blum is attacked in anti-Semitic diatribe by right wing deputy named Xavier Vallet who will later serve as an official with the Vichy Government.

1936:Five Arabs were killed and many were wounded this afternoon in a clash with British troops and policemen after an attack on several Jewish-owned buses outside Jerusalem. A British soldier and a British police corporal were seriously wounded.

1936: “A large Jewish-owned timber depot in the heart of Jerusalem was set afire by Arabs tonight and the flames spread to several nearby stores.  The damage to the timber depot was put at $40,000.00

1936: “Nazi pamphlets printed in Arabic were distributed in Acre blaming the British for “favoring” the Jews

1936: A young American tourist who would come to be known as President John F. Kennedy arrives in Jerusalem during a visit to the Middle East.


1937: The Palestine Post reported that the London Evening Standard protested editorially against the long delay in the publication of the report of the Royal (Peel) Commission on Palestine, while all sectors of the Palestine population "waited for a real peace." The House of Commons was told that no fees were paid to the Commission members, but one of them continued to draw his salary of £4,500 a year, as president of the Industrial Court. The cost of the commission's subsistence allowances, traveling and other expenses amounted to £2,837, 18 shillings and 3 pence.


1937: The Palestine Post reported that refugees from Nazi Germany recalled the circumstances of the secret execution in Berlin of an American Jew, Helmut Hirsch, who was accused of spying.


1939: “Another ship attempting to land 260 illegal (Jewish) immigrants north of Haifa was captured today. 


1939:Palestine was today the scene of further Jewish and Arab terrorism. One life was lost in the retaliation and counter-retaliation, and six Jews and one Arab were injured, in addition to considerable damage to government property. The tension continues to run high. A bomb was exploded today on the main railway line 150 yards from the main station.  There were four other bombing attacks in Tel Aviv during the rest of the day. 


1940: “After the evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force from Dunkirk, David Ben-Gurion, Chairman of the Jewish Agency, wrote to his wife from London about Churchill’s speech following the evacuation. “I know that you cannot stand against Hitler with speeches,  Without planes and tanks and bombs and cannons we will not destroy the ‘Mechanized Attila’…But Churchill’s speech was undoubtedly the steadfast and stubborn persistence of the English nation to stand and fight to the end.”  “The phrase ‘Mechanized Attila’ had been coined by Leon Blum the first Jew to serve as Prime Minister of France.  After quoting Churchill’s speech that included the immortal words “we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender…” Ben Gurion writes his wife that these words ‘were not merely a jest.  This is the spirit of the rebellious England and in it a guarantee for better days – even if not the soonest.


1941: Release date for “Shining Victory” the first film directed by Irving Rapper.


1942(22nd of Sivan, 5702): The Jewish ghetto at Krakow, Poland, is liquidated; 6000 Jews from the city are murdered at Belzec.


1942(22nd of Sivan, 5702): A Jewish woman who has escaped from the Warsaw Ghetto into the city proper is dragged back to the ghetto and shot.


1942: The Jewish Yellow Star is made mandatory in Occupied France


1942(22nd of Sivan, 5702): Alan Blumlein died when his Halifax bomber crashed. The British-born radar and electronics expert was on active duty with the Royal Air Force (RAF).  He was part of an elite group of specialist working on the electronic counter measures and devices that helped to give the Allies an edge over the Axis in the dark days of World War II.  His death was described in The Daily Telegraph as a national loss. Air Chief Marshall Sir Phillip Joubert described it as a catastrophe for the war effort, and Sir Archibald Sinclair, Secretary of State for Air, wrote that ‘it would be impossible to over-rate the importance of the work on which they were engaged’, which had undoubtedly saved thousands of lives.”


1943 Dr. Klaus Clauberg reports from Auschwitz that the apparatus to sterilize 1000 Jewish women a day is being set in place.


1944: The first phase of the deportation and mass murder of the Hungarian Jews is complete. Nearly 290,000 Jews have been killed in 23 days.


1944: At the height of the deportation of Hungarian Jews, Hannah Szenes crossed the border into Hungary.


1944: Joel Brand arrived at Aleppo today where two men, who later were identified as British intelligence, “pushed him into a waiting Jeep with its engine running.”


1945(26thof Sivan, 5705): Eighty-one year old Dr. Charles Isaiah Hoffman, Rabbi Emeritus of Oheb Shalom Synagogue passed away today.  Born in Philadelphia, he graduated from the University of Pennsylvania and practiced law from 1886 until 1900 when he began studying for the Rabbinate at JTS.  Six months after his graduation in 1904, he filled the pulpit of the Newark, NJ congregation while helping to create several Jewish periodicals including “The Jewish Exponent.” [Editor’s note – Dr. Hoffman’s decision to pursue the pulpit as “a second career” was as uncommon in his day as it apparently has become common in our own times.]


1947:The Oujda and Jerada pogrom which took place in northeastern Morocco began today.  


1948: Edvard Beneš resigns as President of Czechoslovakia rather than signing a Constitution making his nation a Communist state. Beneš was one of the most decent and democratic leaders of his time.  As a leader of the Czech government-in-exile during World War II he condemned the treatment of European Jewry and supported a Jewish homeland in Palestine.


1948: Mordechai Weingarten the Jewish community leader who had participated in the negotiations that resulted in the surrender of the Old City to the Arabs was placed under house arrest when he returned to western Jerusalem.


1950: Mrs. Martha Sharp, the wife of a Unitarian minister from Chicago and the vice chairman of Children to Palestine, visited the children’s village of Ben Shemen in Kfar Vitkin, thirty miles north of Tel Aviv. A grant of $25,000 from her organization is being used to build housing for children who escaped from the European Holocaust and have known no real home.  The Village is named after Reverend Samuel A. Eliot, “the organizer of this interfaith rescue movement.


1950: The Mizrahi Women’s Organization of American hosts the second day of a two-day donor luncheon series for 3,000 members of its metropolitan branches to initiate an all-year silver jubilee celebration.  Mizrahi in Israel has grown from a single home for adolescent girls in Jerusalem to a networked of 49 projects including 13 institutions for children. 


1953: Birthdate of Joan Stein, a Tony-winning theater and television producer who helped to launch several long-running L.A. stage productions, including "Love Letters,""Forever Plaid" and Steve Martin's "Picasso at the Lapin Agile."


1954(6thof Sivan, 5714): Shavuot


1956: David Saul Marshall completes his services 1st Chief Minister of Singapore.


1956(28thof Sivan, 5716): Eighty-year old French author Julien Benda whose most famous work was The Betrayal of the Intelletuals.


1961: Holocaust survivors provided shocking testimony at today’s session of the trial of Adolf Eichmann. [Editor’s note – In a time when there a myriad of Holocaust Memorial Museums dotting the landscape and the Shoah was talked of only in hushed tones, the following article by Homer Bigart provides what, for its time was a blinding revelation.


1965:The $64,000 Question premiered on CBS-TV. Louis Cowan who has worked to rescue Jews from Germany before the war, created the show. Hal March, a Jewish comic and actor whose real name was Harold Mendelson was the show’s host.  Charles Revson, the Jewish Canadian Cosmetic King, had his company, Revlon, sponsor the show.


1965(7th of Sivan, 5725): Second Day Shavuot


1965(7th of Sivan, 5725): Comedic actress Judy Holiday passes away at the age of 43.



 

1967 (28 Iyar, 5727): Dorothy Parker passes away.Born Dorothy Rothschild in 1893, Dorothy("Dottie" or "Dot") Parker was an American writer and poet best known for her caustic wit, wisecracks, and sharp eye for 20th century urban foibles.
 
1967: Israel captured the Old City of Jerusalem uniting the city for the first time since the establishment of the state. On June 7, 1967 at 10:15, with the radio confirmation, "The Temple Mount is in our hands," the Israeli flag was raised above the Western wall.


1967 (28 Iyar, 5727): Yom Yerushalayim (Jerusalem Unification day). Prior to the 6-Day War, Israel had sent repeated requests to King Hussein of Jordan appealing to him remain outside the conflict (trying, therefore, to prevent a three-front war). Due to Arab League pressure, Jordan began to shell Jerusalem on June 5. When the Jordanian force crossed the cease-fire line at Government House, Israel retaliated. General Uzi Narkis brought in Colonel Motta Gur to lead the attack in Eastern Jerusalem.


1967:  Israeli forces captured Jericho, Bethlehem, Sharm-el-Sheikh, and lifted the blockade of the Gulf of Eilat. The entire Jordanian bulge on the western bank of the Jordan came under Israeli control. Hostilities between Israel and Jordan came to an end upon their acceptance of the cease-fire demanded by the Security Council of the U.N., 1967.


 
1967: On the third day of fighting, the IAF destroyed hundreds of Egyptian vehicles trying to flee across the Sinai in convoys and trapped thousands more in narrow Sinai passes.


1967: By the end of the third day Jordan's air force of 34 combat aircraft had essentially ceased to exist and the Jordanian military was no longer in the fight.


1967: A successful joint attack by armor units and elements of the Golani led to the capture of Nablus this afternoon.


1971:Singer-songwriter Carole King achieved stardom with the release of her album Tapestry


1972: German Chancellor Willy Brandt visited Israel


1977: The Jerusalem Post reported that according to Aviation Week Israel was having second thoughts about buying the American F-16 fighter, and planned to design its own fighter plane. Egypt started digging a tunnel under the Suez Canal, about 20 km. north of Suez city


1981: The Israeli air force attacks and destroys the Iraq nuclear reactor at Osiriq. Both the United States and leaders in the Israeli opposition condemned Menachem Begin. After Operation Desert storm the American State department belatedly praised his actions, admitting it had saved countless lives.


1984(7th of Sivan, 5744): Second Day of Shavuot


1984: “The Revolt of Job,” “a gently told story of one Jewish couple's attempt to defeat their family's extinction in the Holocaust by adopting a non-Jewish boy, a child who would survive to carry on their line” is scheduled to have its last screening at the Vandam Theatre in New York. (As reported by Seth Mydans)


1987: An article published today entitled “Celebrating the East End’s Jewish Heritages” provides a brief overview of the history of the Jews who settled in London and a schedule of the events for this summer's Jewish East End Celebration.


1992(6th of Sivan, 5752): For the last time Shavuot is celebrated during the Presidency of George Brush.


1993: Yitzhak Rabin completes his term as Interior Minister


1993: Prof. Shimon Shetreet completed his term as Science and Technology Minister of Israel


1993: Shulamit Aloni replaced Moshe Shahal as Minister of Communication.


1993:Aryeh Deri begins his term as Interior Minister.


1993: Moshe Shahal succeeded Amnon Rubenstein as Energy and Water Resources Minister


1995:Uzi Baram completes his term as Minister of Internal Affairs.


1996(20th of Sivan, 5756): Max Factor passed away.  Factor arrived in the United States at the start of the 20th century.  He was a pioneer in the cosmetics industry who parlayed his work with Hollywood movie stars into his own cosmetics company, the name of which survives under the Max Factor Cosmetics label.


1998: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Process:1,100 Days That Changed the Middle East by Uri Savir


1999:Marigold Merlyn Baillieu Myer (Lady Southey AC) the youngest daughter of Sidney Meyer and Margery Merlyn Baillieu Myer “became a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) for her service to the community in the support of health care, medical research and the arts.”


2001: David Wright Miliband assumed office as a Member of Parliament for South Shields.


2002:Seven soldiers were buried today at the Hadera military cemetery today.  They were part of a group of 17 Israelis, including 13 soldiers who were killed when a stolen car packed with explosives pulled alongside a public bus and exploded near the northern town of Megiddo.


2004:The Supreme Court ruled that the 88-year-old niece and heir of an Austrian Jewish art collector can pursue her lawsuit against the Austrian government and its national art gallery for the return of six paintings by Gustav Klimt that belonged to her family before the Nazi takeover. The court did not rule on the merits of the lawsuit, filed in federal court in California by the woman, Maria V. Altmann, and Justice John Paul Stevens indicated in his majority opinion that important defenses remain available to Austria as the case proceeds to the next phase.

2006:  Hebrew Book Week begins.Despite the name, the “week” will last for 10 days. This year's theme is “Developing the Galilee and the Negev.”

2006: The Central Council of Jews, Germany’s main Jewish organization elected Charlotte Knobloch as its leader.  The 73 year old Holocaust survivor from Munich is the first woman to hold this post.


2007: In an article entitled “Rebuilding Jewish Life in New Orleans,” Bruce Noland describes how “financial incentives and other effort are starting to pay off” in a post-Katrina World.



Twenty-three and single, Katie Tutwiler is another of those idealistic young people pouring into post-Katrina New Orleans. Tutwiler moved to New Orleans fresh out of college last summer, tugged by a moral call to join the city's great story of post-hurricane reconstruction. Although she is only nominally Jewish, Tutwiler has been aggressively courted by the area's Jewish community. She received a $1,000 moving grant and was offered a year's free dues to a synagogue and a one-year membership to a Jewish community center. The recruiting effort may be paying off. Tutwiler, a self-described religious "seeker" shopping for a religious identity, has signed up with Birthright Israel for a free trip to Israel this summer, even as her personal exploration also includes attending Catholic Masses. Tutwiler is in play, so to speak, and thus qualifies as a poster child for the New Orleans Jewish community's year-old "newcomers program," which to date has devoted an estimated $180,000 to recruit young Jews to rebuild the city's Jewish community, and the larger city as well. Prominent African American leaders such as the Rev. Jesse Jackson have lobbied for the "full right of return" of all displaced city residents, including poor black people stranded in other cities. But there has not been a specific effort to lure black residents back to New Orleans, where they made up two-thirds of the population before Katrina. The newcomers program is just one of the initiatives in a five-year "strategic plan" New Orleans Jews recently fashioned as part of a $24 million blueprint to revitalize a small but sturdy community that had been shrinking and graying even before Katrina made landfall in 2005. The plan's first goal is to recruit young Jews to New Orleans and nourish them here through the newcomers program. But plans are afoot to fashion incentives to retain at least 50 of the area's 400 to 500 Jewish college students who graduate each year, Michael Weil, executive director of the Jewish Federation of Greater New Orleans, said. Besides recruiting, there are 11 goals in the strategic plan, Weil said, including maintaining ties with an estimated 3,500 permanently dislocated Jewish New Orleanians; building support systems to nourish Jewish families; fostering collaboration among local Jewish institutions; developing Jewish education; and a national fundraising and public relations campaign. "It's ambitious, it's doable and we're going to make it happen," said Weil, an economist and strategic planner who worked in Israel before he was hired by the federation in 2006. The newcomers program that aided Tutwiler so far has distributed incentives to 116 Jewish individuals or families, said Jennifer Samuels, who helps run the program. Weil estimated that the total number of Jewish newcomers, including those who didn't apply for incentives or haven't yet been identified, is closer to 850. The day Katrina made landfall, the area's Jewish community was estimated to be about 9,500 (less than 1 percent of the metro area population), down from an estimated 13,000 nearly 25 years ago. Research by Louisiana State University sociologist Frederick Weil and others estimated that Katrina reduced the area's Jewish population to about 6,000 in the summer of 2006. They believe the number rebounded to 7,000 to 8,000 earlier this year. Tutwiler said her decision to come to New Orleans was born out of a desire to join a wounded but still fascinating community, and was not triggered by financial incentives. As the daughter of an Episcopalian father and a nonobservant Jewish mother, she said she grew up in a home with no strong religious influence. She knows only the opening phrases to a few common Hebrew prayers, and until recently, she did not know there was a synagogue in her hometown of New Iberia, La., about 100 miles west of New Orleans. "I'm Jewish," she said, "but not quite in the fold." Tutwiler heard about the Jewish incentives program from her grandmother, Catherine Kahn, a New Orleans resident and board member at Temple Sinai, who urged Tutwiler to check it out. Now Tutwiler sometimes accompanies her grandmother to temple and has begun to inquire about her Jewish heritage. In that sense she is quite typical, Michael Weil said. "There's a pattern here" among newcomers, Weil said. "They tend to be on the margins of mainstream Jewish life. These are not your regular synagogue-goers. Their Judaism is more virtual than real. They're less actively involved. But they're motivated. They see themselves as pioneers." He said their willingness to help rebuild the city often is part of a deeply Jewish imperative toward public service called "tikkun olam" or "repairing the world.""You'd think that when you're hit with a major disaster it would knock you flat and you wouldn't have the strength to get up again," Weil said. "But what this community has said is, we're not accepting that. We think we're important, and we have a future, and we intend to go to some significant place, and we'll do whatever it takes to get there."



 

2007: In London, Israel Connects presents “Portraits of Israel.”  The exhibition is a collection of the photographs of Rudi Weissenstein taken from 1932 through 1999. Weissenstein was the official photographer at the signing of the Israeli Declaration of Independence in 1948.


2008: In Washington, D.C. The JCC presents David Buchbinder's Odessa/Havana.”An exciting Jewish-Cuban musical fusion, Odessa/Havana is led by award winning trumpeter and composer David Buchbinder and includes some of today’s most accomplished jazz musicians.


2008: As a foretaste of celebrating Shavuot, in Cedar Rapids, at Temple Judah, traditional Shabbat morning services at Temple Judah in Cedar Rapids features a “Sundaes on Saturday” Kiddush.


2008(4th of Sivan, 5768): Ninety-one year old Dr. Montague Ullman passed away today.

 

2008; Sportscaster Jim McKay past away at the age of 86. “His professionalism and sensitivity melded in 1972. During the Munich Olympics, as he left the hotel sauna and was about to go into the swimming pool on his only day off, he received word that Arab terrorists had invaded the Israeli living quarters in the Olympic Village. Mr. McKay hurried to the studio, and for 16 consecutive hours he anchored ABC’s extraordinary news coverage, with field reporting from Peter Jennings, Howard Cosell and others. The episode ended with the murder of 11 Israeli athletes, coaches and trainers. When that word reached Mr. McKay, he said he thought that he would be the person who told the family of David Berger, an Israeli-born weight lifter whose family lived in Shaker Heights, Ohio, “if their son was alive or dead.” He looked at the lens and said, “They’re all gone.” When ABC finally signed off, Mr. McKay, physically and emotionally spent, returned to his hotel room. Only then did he realize he had been wearing a wet swimsuit beneath his trousers. The next day, Mr. McKay received this cable from an old CBS colleague: “Dear Jim, today you honored yourself, your network and your industry. Walter Cronkite.” Mr. McKay’s work at Munich won him an Emmy Award for news coverage, the first for a sportscaster, and the George Polk Award. Through the years, he won 12 more Emmys.”


2009: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Red and Me by Bill Russell, Red Orchestra by Anne Nelson and the recently published paperback edition of Audition: A Memoir by Barbara Walters.


2009: The Washington Post featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including American Passage: The History of Ellis Island by Vincent J. Cannato.


2010: The New Yorker is scheduled to publish its “20 Under 40” list of fiction writers worth watching that included Jewish authors Jonathan Safran Foer, 33;Rivka Galchen, 34;Nicole Krauss, 35;Gary Shteyngart, 37;David Bezmozgis, 37.


2010: Sirius/XM Radio star and Broadway pianist Seth Rudetsky is scheduled to perform at the Washington Jewish Music Festival.


2010(6th of Sivan, 5770):Rabbi Mordecai Eliyahu passed away.


2010(6th of Sivan, 5770): Eighty-seven year old Rabbi Jacob Milgrom considered by many the world’s foremost authority on the biblical Book of Leviticus passed away today in Jerusalem.,

2010:Shahar Pe'er, an Israeli professional tennis player, was ranked Number Fourteen today which was her career-high rating as a single’s player.


2010:Former Agriprocessors executive Sholom Rubashkin has been acquitted of allowing minors to work at the Postville slaughterhouse. Today, Jurors acquitted him of all 67 counts of child labor violations.


2010:The funeral for Steve Averbach, the former Monmouth County resident who was paralyzed in an attempt to thwart a suicide bomber in Jerusalem in 2003 was scheduled to take place today in Israel.


2010:Navy commandoes foiled a major terrorist attack from the Gaza coast shortly before dawn today morning, and the Air Force strafed a rocket launching cell. Four armed terrorists were killed and three others were missing in the Navy counterterrorist maneuver.

 

2010(25th of Sivan, 5770):Rabbi Mordecai Eliyahu former chief rabbi who encouraged Israelis to oppose removal of settlements and blamed Reform Jewry for the Holocaust passed away at the age of 81.


2010: Joe Schlesinger, the Canadian television journalist and author “received an Honorary Doctorate of Laws from Queen's University in Kingston and delivered the convocation speech to a part of the graduating class of 2010 from Queens Faculty of Arts and Sciences. He declared that the students would forget a good part of what they learned but they can find out what they need to know in the realm of facts by ‘googling it’!”


 
2011: Congregation Beth Israel in Glendale, Wisconsin, is scheduled to present a program entitled “The Levite & His Concubine.”


2011(5th of Sivan, 5771): Erev of Shavuot


2011(5th of Sivan, 5771): Ninety-one year old Mietek Pemper, the secretary who actually compiled what became known as “Schindler’s List” passed away today.  (As reported by Douglas Martin)

 

2011(5th of Sivan, 5771): Eighty-eight year old Leonard B. Stern, the man who created “Mad Libs” passed away today in California. (As reported by Margalit Fox)

 

2011: Bradlee Birchansky and Jon Burstain, two outstanding young men, are scheduled to be confirmed this evening during Shavuot services at Temple Judah in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.


2011:Rep. Steve Chabot (R-Ohio) introduced a resolution calling for the withholding of U.N. funding if the General Assembly recognizes a Palestinian state. Chabot said today that he hopes to dissuade any effort by the Palestinians to circumvent peace negotiations by going directly to the United Nations for statehood recognition when the General Assembly convenes in September.

 

2011:U.S. President Barack Obama said today he and German Chancellor Angela Merkel agreed that any Palestinian effort to seek UN recognition for statehood should be avoided.

 

2012: The Carmen at Masada Opera Festival is scheduled to open,


 
2012: The Anat Cohen Quartet is scheduled to perform in Washington, DC.


 
2012:Israel’s Defense Ministry announced today that it will erect between 20,000-25,000 tents for African migrants at various detention centers by the end of the year.


2013: “Fill the Void,” a film about an orthodox Chasidic family from Tel Aviv, is scheduled to open at several theatres across the United States including the Clay in San Francisco, the Bethesda Row Cinema in Bethesda, MD and Shrilington 7 Theatres in Arlington, VA.


2013: Tel Aviv hosted its 15th annual Gay Pride Festival today, with a record-breaking 100,000 spectators and participants attending the celebrations, including droves of tourists from all over the world.


2013: Yediot Aharonot reported today that the US recently conducted a test of its bunker buster bomb, destroy a replica of an underground nuclear facility in an effort to show Israel and other ally states that it is capable of striking Iran’s nuclear plants.


2014: The Tel Aviv International Student Film, which this year has enjoyed the unexpected support of Steve Tisch of the New York Giants is scheduled to come to an end. (As reported by Debra Kamin)


2014: “Paradise Cruise,” a film about an Israeli photographer and her rebellious boyfriend, is scheduled to be shown at Windmill Studios.


2014: The traditional minyan at Temple Judah in Cedar Rapids celebrates the 80th birthday of Murray Wolf, as well as honoring Bert Katz a still active member of the Cedar Rapids Jewish Community who landed at Omaha Beach 7 minutes after H Hour on D Day

This Day, June 8, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. Levin

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JUNE 8


65 CE: Jewish insurgent forces captured the fortress of Antonia in Jerusalem. This battle marked the outbreak of the Jewish revolt against Rome. This revolt would end with the destruction of the SecondTemple in 70 C.E.


68: The Roman Senate accepts Galba as the new Emperor. Galba was the second of men who would claim title of Emperor in the eleven months between June, 68 and July, 69.  The first of the five was Nero and the last of the five was Vespasian.  There are those who contend that there is direct connection between this Imperial anarchy and the destruction of Jerusalem and the Second Temple.  Vespasian was determined to secure the throne and to promote is son Titus as his heir.  He decided to take the unusual step of completely destroying the Jewish capital and its house of worship as a way of demonstrating that he had the power to hold the throne and put an end to the revolving door Emperors. 


570: Religion of Islam founded in Mecca. Like Christianity, Islam is rooted in Judaism.


632: According to tradition, the anniversary of the death of Mohammed, founder of Islam. Mohammed had expected the Jews of Arabia to accept his new faith. When they did not, he turned on them. This is an oft told tale in Jewish history.


1191: Richard I arrives in Acre thus beginning his crusade.


1374: Geoffrey Chaucer is appointed Comptroller of Customs and Subsidy of Wools, a position that pays ten pounds per year.  This steady income gave him the freedom to write The Canterbury Tales which contained the “Prioress Tale” complete with its anti-Semitic featuring an eight year old Christian child who is murdered in the Jewish quarter of the town while singing hymns in praise of his faith.  At the end, the Jewish community is wiped out as punishment for the death of the Christian child.


1662: Asser Levy bought a lot from Barent Gerritsen on Hoogh Straat (
Stone Street
) in New Amsterdam [New York City].  By doing this Levy became the first Jewish landowner in what is now the United States of America.


1664: King John Casimir of Poland denied the Jews of Vilna the right to deal in non-Jewish books


1723(5th of Sivan): Seventy-nine year old Isaac Vita Cantarini, “Italian poet author, physician and rabbi who was the  author of Pahad Yizhak passed away


1753(6th of Sivan, 5513): Shavuot


1796: In Charleston, SC, Rabbi Abraham Azuby officiated at the marriage of London, England native Hannah Abrahams, and local merchant Samuel Levy.


1787: Birthdate of Emanuel Aguilar, father of author Grace Aguilar.


1789:  James Madison introduces a proposed Bill of Rights in the House of Representatives.  Those favoring ratification of the U.S. Constitution promised that a Bill of Rights (what would be the first ten amendments to the Constitution) would be enacted as soon as the new federal government was formed.  The First Amendment is of particular importance to Jews because it guarantees freedom of religion in the nation’s organic document.  This has made the experience of Jews in the United States different from all other Diaspora Communities.


1779: Birthdate of “German Christian cabalist” Joseph Franz Molitor whose work was intended “to show the superiority of cabalistic mysticism over that of the Christian, and that Christianity is Judaism obscured by a false mysticism.”


1809: Thomas Paine, the author of “Common Sense” and other political pamphlets passed away.  Paine relied on the experience of the ancient Israelites when arguing against monarchy. “The quiet and rural lives of the first patriarchs hath a happy something in them, which vanishes away when we come to the history of Jewish royalty. Government by kings was first introduced into the world by the Heathens, from whom the children of Israel copied the custom. It was the most prosperous invention the Devil ever set on foot for the promotion of idolatry.”


1810(6th of Sivan, 5570): Shavuot


1810: Birthdate of German jurist and political leader Moritz Warburg the Altona native who served as a member of the Sleswick-Holstein constituent assembly for 22 years.


1810: Israel Jacobson introduced an organ for the first time at a Reform service in Berlin.


1815: “The Congress of Vienna finally adopted Article 16 of the "Bundesakte," which guaranteed to the Jews in all German states the rights which they had obtained "from" the various states, instead of "in" the various states, as the original text read.”


1815: During negotiations intended to guarantee Jewish rights in the Treaty of Vienna, the Mayor of Bremen inserts language in “Article 16” that will effectively end the rights gained by most German Jews during the military successes of Napoleon.


1815: Birthdate of Rabbi Samuel Hirsch.  Born in Germany, Hirsch was a leading advocate of radical Reform Judaism.  "He was among the first to propose holding Jewish services on Sunday."  He passed away in 1889 in Chicago, Illinois.


1818(4th of Sivan, 5578): Fifty-nine year old Baroness Franziska "Fanny" von Arnstein the daughter of Daniel Itzig and the wife of banker Nathan Adam von Arnstein, a partner in the firm of Arnstein and Eskeles passed away today.


1843: This afternoon Mr. Woolfson laid the foundation stone for the synagogue now being built at Grove Place with the assistance of Mr. Marks, the congregation’s President. (As reported by the Voice of Jacob)


1848(7th of Sivan, 5608): Second Day of Shavuot


1857: An English Jew named Theodore Seymour was arrested in Boston this evening on charges of having stolen an unspecified number of gold bracelets from Tiffany & Co, the famous New York jewelry store.  Mr. Seymour who also used aliases of Leman and Simon had worked there for a year before being recently discharged.  The police recovered the merchandize valued at $500 during the arrest.  Seymour will be sent back to New York City to stand trial.


1859(6th of Sivan, 5619): Shavuot


1862: During the Civil War, the 11th Regiment of the New York State Militia under the command of Colonel Joachim Maidhof began serving in the 2nd Brigade in the Department of the Shenandoah.


1865: Sixty-one year old Sir Joseph Paxton designed Mentmore Towarers, “one of the greatest country houses built during the Victorian Era” for Baron Mayer de Rothschild and Château de Ferrières at Ferrières-en-Brie near Paris for Baron James de Rothschild passed away today.


1867: Birthdate of Frank Lloyd Wright who designed the house of worship used by Beth Sholom Congregation in Elkins Park, PA (suburban Philadelphia). “Construction began in 1953 and was completed in 1959. Wright designed the building to look like a "luminous Mount Sinai," with an extravagant fountain at its entrance, carpet that's meant to look like desert sands, and a mountain-like roof that looks a bit like a Klingon spacecraft. The building,…has been accorded status as a National Historic Landmark. Wright's design surrounds congregants with meaningful symbols, adding a new spiritual dimension to the very act of going to synagogue.”


1869: With her health declining Jewish born feminist and abolitionist Ernestine Louise Rose and her Christian husband William Ella Rose set sail from the United States for a trip to England.


1871:Birthdate of Julius Fleischmann, the son of Charles Louis Fleischmann of Fleischmann’s Yeast, who would become mayor of Cincinnati before dying an untimely death in 1925.


1871: At today’s meeting of the Rabbinical Conference in Cincinnati, Ohio, Dr, Max Lillienthal reported that he had not been able “to effect a reconciliation between the members of the Conference that had met at Philadelphia in 1869, and those who were attending the current Conference.


1871: Today’s meeting of the Rabbinical Conference in Cincinnati, Ohio, adopted the report of the Committee on the Establishment of a Rabbinical Seminary favoring the development of such an institution and instructed the committee to develop a “a more detailed course of study.”  This is one of the steps that led to the creation of Hebrew Union College.


1872: In London, Alice le Strange married Laurence Oliphant. Oliphant was a British journalist and MP who became a devoted advocate of settling Jews in Palestine as can be seen by his fundraising activities, his attempts to gain a lease from the Ottomans on a portion of Eretz Israel for that purpose and his employment of Naftali Herz Imber as his personal secretary.


1872: A special meeting was held tonight at the synagogue on East 57th Street where resolutions were adopted to express the Jewish community’s sense of loss following the recent death of James Gordon Bennett, the fouder, owner and editor of the New York Herald.  Besides describing him as a fearless, honest and upright champion” of the general population, the resolutions said “that in him the Israelites generally had an honest supporter and a true friend and that the New York Herald…always gave firm and true support to our creed.”


1878(7th of Sivan, 5638): Second Day of Shavuot


1879:Rabbi Isaac C. Noot officiated at the corner-stone laying ceremony for the new synagogue being built by Congregation B’Nai Israel.  The building located at 289 East Fourth Street will be the home to this Orthodox congregation which had been founding in 1847.  A copper box was placed in the cornerstone containing a variety of items including copies of New York newspapers and the issue of Frank Leslie’s Monthly that contained a history of the Jews of New York.  Dr. Lyon Berhard, the oldest member of the congregation was given the honor of laying the cornerstone.


1879: The officers and members of B’nai Israel lead the cornerstone for the building that will house their new synagogue on E. 44th Street in New York. The congregation is currently worshipping at its temporary home on Rivington Street which it has been using since it sold its building on Stanton Street so that it could afford to construct the new building.


1881: In Cleveland, Ohio, Louis Seasongood, “a rich Hebrew from Cincinnati” lost his bid for the second time to be nominated as the party’s choice for Lieutenant Governor.


1882: It was reported today that the body of young man thought to be a Jew was taken to the morgue after it had been found hanging in New Jersey’s Glendale Woods. [Editor’s note – it took me a few minutes to figure out why they assumed he was Jewish]


1883: A jury in Westchester Country found Theodore Hoffman guilty of murdering a Jewish peddler named Zife Marks.  The judge sentenced the prisoner to death by hanging.


1885: “Explorations in the Delta” published today describe the recent explorations conducted in the Nile Delta region under the auspices of the Egyptian Exploration Fund Society. As a result of these archeological activities Edouard Naville has produced a memoir about Pithon, the Biblical city built by the Israelite slaves.


1885: In Pennsylvania Reverend D.E. Shaw of Keokuk, Iowa has been elected Professor of Hebrew at Lincoln University. [Since I am from Iowa, I could not resist the entry]


1885: Attendees at a meeting of Baptist Ministers called to examine the new translation of the Old Testament were critical of the liberties taken with translating the Hebrew text into English feeling in several cases that the new translation did not reflect the accurate meaning of the Hebrew.  They suggested that the translators return to their work so that, for instance, in Genesis, the text would reading the and the morning of the first day, rather than the one day.


1889: Harry Marks, the founder of the Financial News was caricatured in Vanity Fair today.

 
1889: The Hebrew Relief Fund made a contribution of $161 to aid those suffering from the effects of the Conemaugh Floods.


1889(30th of Sivan, 5659): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz


 

1890: “Judah” the new play by Henry Arthur Jones which will be performed next winter at Palmer’s Theatre in New York is reported “to have been praised without stint” during its performances in London.  The hero of the play is Judah Llewellyn the son of Welch mother and a Jewish mother who falls in love with a character named Vashti.


1890: Julian Nathan presided over the closing exercises of the Sunday School of the United Hebrew Charities which were held this morning.


1890: “Jewish Annals” published today provided a detailed review of Outlines of Jewish History From B.C. 586 to C.E. 1890 which had been revised by Michael Friedländer



1891: Birthdate of South African cricketer Manfred John Susskind in Johannesburg, Transvaal


1892:  Today, the Tegeblatt confirmed recent rumors that Emin Pasha had died of smallpox in Africa. Born Isaak Eduard Schnitzer, the physician and naturalist was baptized at the age of 7 when his widowed mother married a Lutheran.  (The rumors were just that rumors since he passed away in October of 1892)


1893: The American Israelite published what some considered to be an exposé about Immigration Commissioner Joseph Senner.


1894: In New York, Morris Jacobs testified before the Lexow Committee, a New York State Senate committee investigating police corruption in New York City, “that anybody who has ‘pull’ and $300 can get an appointment to the police force without reference to his qualifications.  In his own case, Jacobs or his political supporters, did not think he could pass ‘the intellectual examination” because the questions were “too technical” so “ex-policeman was induced to impersonate Jacobs” and take the examination for him.


1895: One hundred delegates attended the first meeting tonight of “a new anti-Semitic organization founded by Dr. Boetekel and Rechtor Ahlwardt, the notorious Jew-baiters. Resolutions were unanimously adopted calling for “the exclusion of all Jews and Germans having Jewish wives from all public functions, from the learned professions and from all positions of all authority in the army and navy,” the suppression of Jewish immigration and the prohibition of Jews from acquiring ownership of landed property or from leasing farms.”  (This is 35 years before Hitler came to power)


1896: “Jews To Rule The Earth” published today described the belief of Reverend Isaac M. Haldeman, a Baptist minister “that the Jews had been persecuted by all the civilized nations of the world, so that they were driven to lying, cheating and other vices.  No tongue could describe the tortures inflicted on them not by pagans but Christians…”


1897: “Baptist Worship With Jews” published today described the joint service held at the Belden Avenue Baptist Church in Chicago which was led by Rabbi Julius Newman and Reverend M.W. Haynes.


1897: “Jew Refrain From Voting” published today attributed the light turn out during the recent judicial election in Chicago to the fact that it was held on a Jewish holiday when the Orthodox members of that faith would not be at the polls.


1898: Rabbi Henry Pereira Mendes provide over the opening session of conference of Jews from the United States and Canada meeting today at the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue


1898: The Hebrew Orphan Asylum Band will play at today’s “patriotic tea in honor of Alexander Hamilton sponsored by the Hospital and Charitable Committee of the Parish Guild of St. Luke’s Church


1898: The Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America was organized. Or Chaim was one of the founding congregations. The Orthodox Union has grown to be one of the largest umbrella organizations for Orthodox Judaism in North America.  One of its earliest accomplishments was the establishment of Elchanan Theological Seminary, a modern academic institution designed to train Orthodox Rabbis.  It was the original School of what is now YeshivaUniversity.  The familiar sign of the OU can be found on numerous food products indicating that they are Kosher.

1899: Mr. and Mrs. Isaac Beerman hosted their annual garden party for those living at the Home for Aged and Infirm Hebrews.


1899:German anti-Semitic agitator Count Walter Puckler continued “his jew-baiting crusade” with a lecture in Berline on “The Progessive Judaisation of Germany.”


1913: Eleven students of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America became rabbis this afternoon at the graduating exercises in Aeolian Hall, when Dr. Solomon Schechter, the President of the seminary, conferred the degrees. The services marked the tenth anniversary of the seminary's reorganization.


1917: Birthdate of Stanley Rabinowitz, the Duluth native, raised in Iowa who would serve as the Rabbi at Adas Israel, Washington, DC’s premiere Conservative Congregation.

1918: Birthdate of Esther Vilenska, a native of Poland who made Aliyah where she gained fame as an author and a member of the Communist Party.


1920:Osip Maksimovich Brik, the son of Jewish jeweler and avant garde author, joined the Cheka, the early version of the Soviet secret police. 


1923: Birthdate of Ella Adler, the native of Krakow who survived Auschwitz and eventually made a new life for herself in the United States.

1924: Birthdate of Samuel Karlin, the Polish born, Chicago “raised mathematician who applied his theoretical brilliance to such far-flung areas as economics and population studies, before helping to find ways to analyze DNA swiftly and comprehensively.” (As reported by Douglas Martin)


1924(6th of Sivan, 5684): First Day of Shavuot


1928: Attorney General Albert Ottinger’s investigation into complaints made by the Hebrew Religious Protective Association concerning the practices of certain New York area cemeteries continued today.  Among the complaints was an allegation by Harry Kaplan, President of Adath Israel, that his brother was buried in a grave at the Baron Hirsch Cemetery in Port Richmond on Staten Island that contained four feet of water.


1929: Birthdate of Jerry Stiller. Born in Brooklyn, this comedic actor is best known as part of the team of Stella and Meara.


1930: Birthdate of Robert John Auman the German born Israeli-American mathematician and member of the National Academy of Sciences. Among other things he and Michael Maschler used the Game Theory to analyze sections of the Talmud.


1933: Birthdate of comedian and game show player Joan Rivers.


1934:A death sentence was pronounced today against Abraham Stavsky, who, with Zvi Rosenblatt, was on trial for the murder on June 16, 1933, of Dr. Chaim Arlosoroff, labor leader and member of the Jewish Agency Executive of Palestine. Rosenblatt was acquitted on the ground of insufficient evidence. Notice of appeal has been filed on behalf of Stavsky.


1936: In Jerusalem, the Jewish community joins in the celebration of King George’s birthday. 


1936:As Arab violence mounts two Arabs died and 26 Arabs and Armenians were injured by a bomb which exploded inside the Jaffa Gate today


1937: Chaim Weizmann presented his reasoning for supporting partition at private dinner given by Sir Archibald Sinclair where his fellow diners included Winston Churchill, James de Rothschild and several parliamentary supporters of Zionism.  Weizmann was willing to “settle for a Small state at once” rather than wait for a “Large state” that might come in some distant future. Churchill opposed partition and contended that the Jews should wait for their state in all of Western Palestine as envisaged by the White Paper issued in 1922.


1938: A year before the Nazis invade Poland, anti-Semitic riots begin in Warsaw.


1939: In Palestine, Sir Harold MacMichael, British High Commissioner hosted a garden party in honor of the King’s birthday.  All Jewish leaders had declined the invitations as a way of expressing their displeasure with the recent White Paper that, if enforced, will put an end to Jewish immigration an the hope of a Jewish home in Palestine.


1939: In response to an order by Chief Rabbi Herzog, all synagogues pronounced the usual prayers for the King and his family in honor of the monarch’s birthday.


1941: During World War II, "mixed squads, some made up of Palestinian Jews and Australians, others entirely Jewish" went into operation for the first time in Lebanon and Syria which were controlled by Vichy Government.  It was during this combat that Moshe Dyan lost his eye and began wearing his famous eye-patch.


1942: In Poland, at the urging of the Jewish Council of Pilca, hundreds of Jews flee for the forests.


1943(5th of Sivan, 5703): Erev Shavuot, The Jewish community at Zbaraz, Ukraine, is destroyed.


1943: Dr. Albert Menasche arrived at Auschwitzfrom Greece. He "joined" the camp orchestra. The orchestra would play as the new arrivals entered the camp.  The orchestra came to public notice after the war in the film, "Playing For Time.:  Dr. Menasche was the only one of a family of more than thirty to survive.


1943:A transport arrived in Auschwitz today and after a selection 220 men and 88 women are admitted into the camp. The other 572 deportees are murdered in the gas chambers.


1943: What may have been the last transport of Jews sent from Salonica left for Bergen-Belsen today.  Included in the transport was the Chief Rabbia of Salonica, Rabbi Zvi Koretz and his family. A list of all of the Jews of Salonica with their addresses and ages was given to a Jew named Vital Hasson by the chief rabbi. Hasson was said to have escaped to Albania.


1944: “President Franklin Roosevelt signed a memorandum directing the establishment of an Emergency Refugee Shelter at Fort Ontario, Oswego, NY.”




1944: "The Greek tanker Tanias, commandeered by the Germans was torpedoed by the British submarine HMS Vivid 53 kilometers west of Heraklion, capital of the Greek island of Crete.  On board were all of the 265 Jews of Crete including many children, all of whom perished.


1947:The Oujda and Jerada pogrom came to an leaving 42 Jews dead and approximately 150 injured.  The excuse for this pogrom in northeastern Morocco was the local Muslim reaction to fighting in Palestine.


1948(1st of Sivan, 5708): Rosh Chodesh Sivan


1948: "The Milton Berle Show" premiered on NBC TV. This aging Jewish vaudevillian would come to "own" Tuesday night. He was the first national star of the infant medium.


1948:  During The War of Independence, David Ben-Gurion orders his military leaders to attack the fortress at Latrun for a third time. This is one time that Ben-Gurion will not be able to bully the opposition into doing things his way.  Ben-Gurion is desperate to break the Arab stranglehold on the road to Jerusalemand to ensure that the “City of David” is part of the new Jewish state.  Yigal Allon, the chief of staff and his brigade commanders oppose the attack.  Allon’s position gains additional credibility when Mickey Marcus adds his voice to the opposition.  Marcus is a West Pointgraduate who reached the rank of Colonel in the American Army during World War II.  No longer on active duty, Marcus is serving as “military advisor” to Ben-Gurion.  In fact, under the name Stone, Marcus has been given the responsibility of opening the road to Jerusalem.  The military leaders all oppose the attack for the same reason it will fail just as the first two attacks have with great loss of life.  Besides which, they do not see the capture of Latrun as being the key to opening the road to Jerusalem.  Two Israeli soldiers have discovered an alternative route to Jerusalem.  It is a donkey trail that goes beyond Latrun.  If the Israelis are lucky, the can widen the path, turn it into a passable road and break the siege.  The Jews must work on the project at night and quietly enough that they will not attract attention from the Arab army.  If their presence is discovered, they will be sitting ducks, the road will not be completed and Jerusalem will not be united with the Tel Aviv before the impending cease-fire.


1949: Numerous celebrities including Helen Keller, Dorothy Parker, Danny Kaye, Frederic March, John Garfield and Edward G. Robinson were named in an FBI report as members of the Communist Party.  The disproportionate number of Jews named in what later was proven to be a bogus report, set the stage for claims that the Jews were responsible for the Communist menace.


1949:  Birthdate of Ukrainian born American pianist Emanuel Ax. He first captured public attention in 1974 when, aged 25, he won the first Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Competition in Tel Aviv.


1950: According to reports published in the New York Times,the government of Israel, in response to a request from Secretary State Dean Acheson, is investigating charges of the mistreatment of Arab infiltrators who have crossed into the Jewish state from Jordan. Acheson’s request was triggered by complaints from Arab states, who, it should be noted, still consider themselves to be officially at war with the state of Israel.


1951: Oswald Pohl, chief of the economic office of the SS, Otto Ohlendorf, responsible for the murder of 90,000 Ukrainian Jews, and Colonel Paul Blobel, organizer of the massacre of the Jews of Kiev, were hanged.


1952: Movie producer Sidney Luft, the son of Jewish immigrants, married film star Judy Garland. His marriage to her is his only real claim to fame.


1953: Alexander Korda married Alexandra Boycun.


1954(7th of Sivan, 5714): Second Day of Shavuot


1954: Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel Founded


1962(6th of Sivan, 5722): Shavuot


1966: Birthdate of American actress Julianna Margulies.


1967:  In the one sour note of the Six Day War, Israeli planes accidentally attack the American Naval ship, U.S.S. Liberty.  Despite numerous investigations that proved otherwise, there are anti-Semites, those who are anti-Israel and assorted conspiracy buffs who claim that the attack was deliberate.  American ships had been ordered out of the area. Apparently word did not reach the Liberty.  We know from the episode of the U.S.S. Pueblo the following year, that the American government did have some problems in dealing with electronic listening or spy ships.  Some of the killed and wounded among the Liberty's crew were Jewish.  They were on the vessel because of the knowledge of Hebrew.  Attached please find the most recent article on this event based on the most recently released transcripts of the communication between the pilots and their controllers.


1967: President Nasser of Egypt accepted the cease-fire ordered by the Security Council. This came too late to save the Egyptian military.  In a change of plan, Dyan had already given orders for the Israeli forces to push on to the Suez Canal. The Egyptians continued to fight and in the end would leave 15,000 dead in the Sinai.  There was still no agreement among the Israelis as to how to deal with Syria, whose provocative, bellicose behavior had helped to feed the flames of war.  The settlers living under the guns of the Golan Heights and the general in commanded of the Northern Frontier pressured Prime Minister Eshkol to take action and end the Syrian menace to the Galilee.  Moshe Dyan showed the same reluctance he had when it came to taking Jerusalemand opposed action against the Syrians.  At the end of the meeting, the settlers and the generals drove North, thinking that they had lost and Syriawould continue to menace them after the fighting stopped. 


1970(4th of Sivan, 5730): American psychologist Abraham Maslow, famous for his Hierarchy of Needs, passed away.

1975: Near Beit Lid, soldiers killed terrorists who attacked hitchhikers and soldiers with grenades.


1981(6th of Sivan, 5741): Jews observe Shavuot for the first time during the Presidency of Ronald Reagan.


1986: Former United Nations Secretary-General and veteran of Hitler’s Army, Kurt Waldheim, is elected president of Austria. Before the presidential elections, the Austrian weekly newsmagazine Profil revealed that there had been several omissions about Waldheim's life between 1938 and 1945 in his recently-published autobiography. A short time later, it was revealed that Waldheim had lied about his service as an officer in the SA-Reitercorps(stormtroopers), a paramilitary unit of the NSDAP (Nazi Party) before the war, and his time as an ordinance officer in Saloniki, Greece from 1942 to 1943. It is known and documented that many crimes against civilians were committed during the military occupation of Greece. Instead, Waldheim had incorrectly stated that he was wounded and had spent the last years of the war in Austria. Speculation grew, and Waldheim was accused of being either involved, or complicit, in "war crimes".  During his Presidency Waldheim was not welcome in most capitals of the world.  One of the few exceptions to this treatment was the Vatican which he visited twice during his Presidency.


1987: Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir and Foreign Minister Shimon Peres agreed today to appoint a career diplomat, Moshe Arad, as Israel's next ambassador to Washington.


1991: Outfielder Ruben Amaro, Jr. who has a Jewish mother made his major league debut with the California Angels.


1989: In Pacific Palisades, California, Lee Schwartz, a business consultant to manufacturing companies, and Olivia Goodkin, an attorney gave birth to professional player Mitchell Bryan Schwartz, the brother an another NFL player, Geoff Schwartz.


1997: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Promiscuities: The Secret Struggle for Womanhood  by Naomi Wolfe, Ovitz:The Inside Story of Hollywood's Most Controversial Power Broker by Robert Slaterand the recently released paperback edition of The Temple Bombing by Melissa Fay Greene in which“the author shows the intertwining of racism and anti-Semitism in the South in the 1950's, when Rabbi Jacob Rothschild, a Northerner, came to Atlanta to lead its oldest synagogue. Enraged by Rothschild's support of black civil rights, white supremacists bombed the temple in 1958.”


2000(5th of Sivan, 5760):Joshua Myron, one of the last of the camel-mounted Zionist brigade that fought with Vladimir Jabotinsky against Turkey in Palestine during World War I, passed away today  in Manhattan at the age of 102. With the outbreak of World War I, Mr. Jabotinsky, then a Russian journalist, realized that the Ottoman Empire was likely to lose to the British and that it would pay for the Zionist settlers in Israel to back the winning side. He spread the idea of forming a Jewish Brigade, sometimes called the Jewish Legion, to fight beside the British. The British Army unit, which recruited Jews from both the Middle East and Europe, used camels to move from front to front, and Mr. Myron rose to become company sergeant in charge of transport. The brigade is believed to have contributed significantly to the British war effort, and Mr. Jabotinsky believed its aid was a major factor in winning the Balfour Declaration of 1917, in which Britain announced support for a Jewish national home in Palestine. ''Half the Balfour Declaration belongs to the Legion,'' Mr. Jabotinsky wrote. Among the other members of the brigade was David Ben-Gurion, later the first prime minister of Israel. Mr. Myron was born at Rishon Lezion, the first officially Zionist settlement in Palestine, and devoted his life first to battling for a Jewish homeland, then to supporting Israel after its establishment in 1948. After emigrating to New York and becoming a pharmacist, he remained active in raising arms and money for Israel. Mr. Myron's father, Feivel Miransky, left Russia with a group of pioneers called the Biluim to go to Palestine as one of the founders of Rishon Lezion. Jews already lived in Palestine, but had not banded together in settlements in support of the Zionist ideal. The settlement of Rishon and other Zionist towns was financed by Baron Edmond de Rothschild, who established a large vineyard there. Mr. Miransky set up a carriage service to link Rishon with Jaffa, which became Tel Aviv. At the time, the trip took more than two hours on a sandy, muddy road. Mr. Myron was born on Aug. 17, 1897, into a frontier existence. His grandson Marc Lubin told of the time some of Mr. Myron's father's horses were stolen when he was 16. He reported the theft to the police and was told he was on his own. He ended up crossing the Jordan River and taking his horses back. After the war, Mr. Myron decided to move to the United States. He immediately experienced what he regarded as a stinging insult and a great inconvenience when the British refused to grant him traveling papers, saying he was officially a Turkish subject. So, officially at least, he arrived in America as a Turk. He had intended to study veterinary medicine at Columbia University but the school was not accepting new students at that time. He studied pharmacy at Albany College of Pharmacy. While there, he married Sybil Berkowitz, who died in 1973. In the early 1930's, they returned to Palestine, where their daughter, Naomi Scheurer, was born. She now lives in Manhattan; Mr. Myron is also survived by three grandchildren. Eventually, the Myrons moved to Suffern, N.Y. Mr. Myron commuted to Manhattan, where he owned two Midtown pharmacies. Before the modern state of Israel was created, he sent money and arms to those fighting to create it, his grandson said, and he never lost his pugnacious streak. At his funeral, the rabbi remembered his response to a move in his synagogue, the Congregation of the Sons of Israel, to share more equally the honor of reciting prayers during holy days. It was decided that each member would be limited to just one reading. Mr. Myron said that sounded good. Then he asked, ''Which two things am I doing?''


2001: “Arafat’s Failed Utopia,” Amos Perlmutter’s last column appeared in the Jerusalem Post

2003(8th of Sivan, 5763): Sgt. Maj. (Res.) Assaf Abergil, 23, of Eilat; Sgt. Maj. (Res.) Udi Eilat, 38, of Eilat; Sgt. Maj. Boaz Emete, 24, of Beit She'an; and Sgt. Maj. (Res.) Chen Engel, 32, of Ramat Gan were killed and four reserve soldiers were wounded when Palestinian terrorists wearing IDF uniforms opened fire on an IDF outpost near the Erez checkpoint and industrial zone in the Gaza Strip. Three terrorists were killed by IDF soldiers. The Fatah Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, Hamas and the Islamic Jihad issued a joint statement claiming responsibility for the attack. (Jewish Virtual Library)

2003(8th of Sivan, 5763):St.-Sgt. Matan Gadri, 21, of Moshav Moledet was killed in Hebron while pursuing two Palestinian gunmen who earlier had wounded a Border Policeman on guard at the Tomb of the Patriarchs. The two terrorists were killed.(Jewish Virtual Library)

2006: Nobel Prize-winning author Elie Wiesel has called on Israel to take in refugees from Darfur. Wiesel, a Holocaust survivor, says, "We as Jews are obliged to help not only Jews. I was a refugee and therefore I am in favor of admitting refugees. I thought it was very laudable when Israel became the first country to admit the Vietnamese boat people. History constantly chooses a capital of human suffering, and Darfur is today the capital of human suffering. Israel should absorb refugees from Darfur, even a symbolic number."


2007: Haaretz reported that “despite the increasing tensions with Syria, Israel will not ask to widen the mandate of the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) on the Golan, which is due to be extended at the end of the month, government sources in Jerusalem said.”


2008:In San Francisco the Contemporary Jewish Museumofficially opened the doors to its new building today with a community-wide celebration.


2008: Erev Shavuot 5768


2008: At Temple Judah, in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Erev Shavuot Confirmation Service for  Gabriel Kringlenand Jacob Muesham.


2008: The Sunday New York Times book section features a review of The German Bride, a novel set among the German-born merchants and traders who in the middle of the 19th century left Europe for the raw possibilities of the American West written by Joanna Hershon


2008: Thomas Friedman described the future of Israel. “From outside, Israel looks as if it’s in turmoil, largely because the entire political leadership seems to be under investigation. But Israel is a weak state with a strong civil society. The economy is exploding from the bottom up. Israel’s currency, the shekel, has appreciated nearly 30 percent against the dollar since the start of 2007. The reason? Israel is a country that is hard-wired to compete in a flat world. It has a population drawn from 100 different countries, speaking 100 different languages, with a business culture that strongly encourages individual imagination and adaptation and where being a nonconformist is the norm. While you were sleeping, Israel has gone from oranges to software, or as they say around here, from Jaffa to Java.” For the entire article go to;


2008:An 18-year-old Palestinian was arrested at the Hawara checkpoint near Nablus after military police on duty discovered he was carrying six pipe bombs, an ammunition cartridge and bullets, and a bag of what appeared to be gunpowder.

2009:Center for Jewish History and United States Holocaust Memorial Museum present a program entitled  “A Discussion of Refugees and Rescue: American Diplomat James G. McDonald and the Jewish Refugee Crisis, 1935-1945”The remarkable efforts of James Grover McDonald to call attention to the threat faced by European Jewry and his tireless attempts to relay these concerns to the highest levels of government are explored in the acclaimed new volume Refugees and Rescue: The Diaries and Papers of James G. McDonald, 1935-1945, edited by Richard Breitman, Barbara McDonald Stewart, and Severin Hochberg. As Chairman of the President's Advisory Commission on Political Refugees, McDonald personally interacted with many of the leading figures who shaped the events of World War II and the Holocaust - President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Adolf Hitler, Mussolini, Cardinal Pacelli (the future Pope Pius XII) - and numerous others.

2009:David W. Jourdan, a former submariner in the U.S. Navy and the founder/president of Nauticos, an ocean exploration company, discusses and signs his new book, Never Forgotten: The Search for Israel's Lost Submarine Dakar at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.


2009:Israel Defense Forces soldiers early today killed at least four Palestinian terrorists who were trying to cross into Israel from the Gaza Strip.

2009(16th of Sivan, 5769):Sheila Finestone, who had had a distinguished career as a Canadian Member of Parliament and Senator passed away at the age of 82.


2010:The Naming,” the new multi-disciplinary work by Persian Jewish innovator Galeet Dardashti, the driving force behind the popular band Divahn  is scheduled to be peformed at the Washington Jewish Music Festival.


2010:Russ & Daughters is scheduled to welcome the New Catch Holland Herring with its traditional first taste of “Hollandse Nieuwe”


2010:President Shimon Peres, in South Korea to boost economic ties today, also did his part for Israel's aliyah effort, encouraging a special robot to get "upgraded" in Israel. President Peres' visit aims to boost economic ties between Seoul and Jerusalem and will address the issue of sanctions against Iran.
 
2011: Canadian television journalist Joe Schlesinger received an Honorary Doctorate of Letters from the University of Alberta in Edmonton] for his long and distinguished career.

2011(6thof Sivan, 5711): First Day of Shavuot


2011: Contemporary Israeli Dance Week is scheduled to begin this evening at La MaMa in New York City.


2012(18thof Sivan, 5772): Ninety-five year old Rabbi Stanley Rabinowitz who had led Washington’s Adas Israel for 25 “challenging” years passed away today on his birthday. (On a personal note, my father served on the search committee that brought Rabbi Rabinowitz to Washington from Minneapolis.  My brother was his first Bar Mitzvah.  And he was my teacher in a post-confirmation class where he challenged our conventional views of Judaism and tried to get us to see that being Jewish meant knowing the law but making sure that the observance was consistent with spirit as well as the letter of the law.  One of my regrets is that I only was around him for two years before leaving for college.)


2012: The Gallim Dance Company, which takes its name from the Hebrew word for waves, is scheduled to have its opening night performance at The Joyce in NYC.


2012: Planet Brass is scheduled to perform an evening of music created by Israeli Rafi Malkiel at the David Greer Recital Hall.


2012: In Iowa City, at Agudas Achim, Professor Robert Cargill is scheduled to facilitate  a digital media presentation on "The Coronation of the King: The Importance of the Gihon Spring and the Kidron Valley to the Early Jewish Monarchy and to Later Prophets and Christian Interpretive Traditions."


2012:Thousands of people participated in Tel Aviv's 14th Gay Pride Parade today, including many tourists arrived in Israel to attend the annual gay pride week-long events.


2012(18thof Sivan, 5772):  In a tragic reminder of the high pirce that Israel continues to apy for its vary survival Corporal Dor Gan died tragically today in roll-over accident while patrolling on the Goland Heights.


2013: At Adas Israel in Washington, DC, Judith Hauptman, Professor of Talmud and Rabbinic Culture at The Jewish Theological Seminary, is scheduled to deliver the d’var Torah at the service honoring Rabbi Charles Feinberg’s 40th anniversary in the Rabbinate.


2013(30th of Sivan, 5773): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz


 
2013(30th of Sivan, 5773): Eighty-three year old Yoram Kaniuk the iconoclastic Israeli author of more thirty novels passed away today.

2013: Opposition leader Shelly Yachimovich today urged Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to take steps toward a political peace agreement with the Palestinians, adding that her party would consider joining the coalition if such a step were necessary to achieve that goal. (As reported by Michal Shmulovich)


2013: Police evacuated ten homes in the village of Roglit as brush fires raged near Beith Shemesh today


2014:  The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA, and the U.S. Surveillance State by Glenn Greenwald and My Salinger Year by Joanna Rakoff


2014: In Potomac, MD, the Potomac Community Center is scheduled to host a program of klezmer music interwoven with an engaging narrative on the history of this unique musical form and its impact on Jewish culture with Seth Kibel.


2014: According to Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi, “Israeli President Shimon Peres and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas will join Pope Francis in a prayer for peace at the Vatican today. (As reported by JTA)


2014: In Olney, MD Shaare Tefila Congregation is scheduled to host Dr. Erica Brown speaking on “Why Be Jewish? Personal Commitments to Peoplehood.”


2014: The Illinois Holocaust Museum is scheduled to present an evening with Isaac Levendel, author of Hunting Down the Jews: Vichy, Nazis and Mafia Collaborators in Provence 1942-1944


2014: In Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Temple Judah is scheduled to hold Congregational Annual Meeting preceded by a potluck dinner.

This Day, June 9, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. Levin

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JUNE 9


68: The Emperor Nero died in Rome. Nero had appointed four governors of Judea each of whom was crueler and greedier than his predecessor. The Jewish Revolt in 66 was caused, in part, by this succession of disastrous appointments by Nero. Nero had ordered Vespasian to invade the Galilee and suppress the revolt of the Jews. The political unrest that followed Nero's death as various parties vied for the throne slowed down the final defeat of the Jews. In the end, Vespasian was made Emperor thanks to the support of his legions and he sent his son Titus to conquer Jerusalem.


423:Emperors Honorius and Theodosius II forbid Jews from building any new synagogues


721: At the Battle of Toulouse, Odo of Aquitaine defeated the Moors led by Al-Samh ibn Malik al-Khawlani, the governor of Al-Andalus. Al-Andalus refers to that part of the Iberian Peninsula which was under the control of the Moslems. While the defeat at Toulouse (in modern day France) helped to confine the forces of Islam to territory south of the Pyrenees mountains, it served to reinforce the fact that Spain would not be ruled by Christians. For a limited period of time, this created what some called a Golden Age for the Jews of Spain. The reality is a little more complicated. It would more than seven centuries for the Christians to dislodge the Moslems from the Iberian Peninsula. Depending on the whims and needs of various rulers (both Christian and Moslem), Jewish fortunes waxed and waned. It would all end with the expulsion of 1492.


1171(4th of Tammuz):  A few days after decreeing that the 20th of Sivan should henceforth be a day of fasting and mourning in honor of the 51 Jews burned at the stake Blois, Rabbi Jacob Ben MeirTam, the grandson of Rashi passed away


1595: Birthdate of King Wladislaus IV who was King of Poland at the outbreak of The Khmelnitsky Uprising and failed to check it at its inception. This failure contributed to the worst massacre of Jews until the 20th century and the Holocaust.


1672: Birthdate Tsar Peter I of Russia, known as Peter the Great. He may have been “great” to the worst of the world but not so great as far as the Jews were concerned since he banned Jews from his domain even as he sought to modernize it.


1693(5th of Sivan): Rabbi Gershom Ashkenazi author of Avodat ha-Gershuni passed away.


1732: James Oglethorpe was granted a charter to establish the colony of Georgia. The colony was settled in June of 1733. In July of 1733, “forty Sephardic Jews arrived in Savannah” marking the beginning of the Jewish community in Georgia.


1753(7th of Sivan, 5513): Just a month (July 7)  before royal assent is given to the Jewish Naturalization Act in Great Britain, the  Second Day of Shavuot is observed


1787: Birthdate of Sarah (nee Dias Fernandes) Aguilar the wife of Emanuel Aguilar and the mother of author Grace Aguilar.


1790(27th of Sivan, 5550): Purim of Florence is celebrated by Florentine Jews because on the 27th of Sivan, 1790 they were saved from a mob by the efforts of the bishop. The festival is preceded by a fast on the 26th of Sivan. The details of the occurrence are related in full by Daniel Terni in a Hebrew pamphlet entitled "Ketab ha-DaṬ," published in Florence in 1791.


1794: Birthdate of Julius Rubo, the native of Halberstadat who served as volunteer in the war against Napoleon before pursuing a legal career and serving as leader of the Jewish community in Berlin.


1799(6th of Sivan, 5559): Shavuot


1810(7th of Sivan, 5570): Jews observe the Second Day of Shavuot on the birthdate of Otto Nicolai the German born musician who succeeded Felix Mendelssohn (the grandson of Moses Mendelssohn) as Kapellmeister at the Berlin Cathedral


1815: The Congress of Vienna came to an end. Europe enters into a period of political reaction following the defeat of Napoleon. “After Napoleon's defeat and the Congress of Vienna, the Germans took their revenge on the French and the Jews. The Congress of Vienna had provided for full civil and political rights "to differing parties of the Christian religion," but the "civil betterment" of the Jews was put off for further study. The Congress stated that Jews could retain such rights as they already had, but nearly everywhere in Germany the rights that the Jews had won were disavowed and rescinded. (Prussia was an exception: only some Jewish rights were abolished; most were retained.) A period of reaction set in, in which anti-Semitism was a major component.” Surprisingly enough, Prince Metternich, the reactionary Austrian Foreign Minister played a positive role for Jews living in the German cities of Frankfurt, Lubeck and Bremen while the Congress was in session. When the ruling bodies of those cities attempted to take away rights previously granted to the Jewish communities, the Jews appealed to Metternich for help. Metternich interceded on behalf of the Jews because depriving them of their rights would have been a violation of the guarantees made by the Congress of Vienna. Metternich was not a philo-Semite. Rather he was aware of the economic power of these Jewish leaders and he knew that they would be a force for stability. Also, Metternich based Austria’s foreign policy on the decisions of the Congress and he was opposed to anything that would undermine the agreements reached there. 1843: The Voice of Jacob reported that Mr. Woolfson and Mr. Marks laid the foundation for the new synagogue on St. Helier, Jersey, Channel Islands


1837(6th of Sivan, 5597) Shavuot


1838(16th of Sivan, 5598): Thirty-eight year old Amalie Friedlander (nee Heine) a cousin of the famous poet Heinrich Heine passed away today in Berlin.  Heine fell in love with his cousin but she did not return his affection which he found frustrating. 


 

1854: The New York Times reports that “It is said that there is not a single Jew in the United States engaged in agriculture.”


1856: Birthdate of Aaron David (A.D.) Gordon, the founder of Hapoel Hatzair.


1859(7th of Sivan, 5619): Second Day of Shavuot


1863: During the Civil War, Jacob Ezekiel Hyneman, a native of Richmond, VA serving with the Union Army was wounded at the Battle of Brandy Station, the most important clash of cavalry in the east which help to set the stage for the Battle of Gettysburg.


1865(15th of Sivan, 5625): In the Hague 52 year old Jacob Hirschel Kann, the husband of Amalie de Jonge passed away today.


1867(6th of Sivan, 5627): Shavuot


1869(28th of Iyar, 5629): Solomon ben Judah Aaron Kluger, Polish born rabbi and chief dayyan passed away today at Brody, Galicia



1870: Author Charles Dickens passed away. Dickens was considered an anti-Semite by some because of his character Fagin in Oliver Twist. Dickens defended himself against what he considered a false claim. In a later work, Our Mutual Friend, Dickens created the sympathetic Jewish character Mr. Riah who is the victim of a Christian moneylender. "The Jewish people are a people for whom I have a real regard and to whom I would not willingly have given an offense...for any worldly consideration."


1871: It was reported today that French Banker Jules Mires has passed away.


1871: The three-day long Rabbinical Conference, a meeting of leaders of the Reform Movement, came to an end in Cincinnati, Ohio.  Twenty-three congregations were represented at the meeting.  The Conference agreed to provide “a modern prayer book” which would not contain any references to a return of the Jews to Jerusalem, the offering of sacrifices or a personal messiah. It was also agreed that services would be conducted primarily in English instead of Hebrew. In the field of education, the Conference approved the establishment of seminary to train rabbis and the development of a uniform course of study for congregational Sabbath Schools. 


1875(6th of Sivan, 5635): Shavuot


1875: In New York, a large number of Jews met at Adath Israel to memorialize the passing of the James Gordon Bennett., the founder editor and publisher of the New York Herald.  Those in attendance adopted a series of memorial resolutions that were to be sent to his widow and son which described Bennett as  “an honest supporter and true friend” of the Jewish people who “always gave firm and true support to our creed.”


1876: President U.S. Grant and Thomas Ferry, the President Pro Tempore of the United State attended the consecration services of Adas Israel, the new orthodox synagogue in Washington, DC. The service was bilingual with prayers in Hebrew and an address by Rabbi George Jacobs of Philadelphia in English. Adas Israel has moved twice since this event but still remains located in the District of Columbia; its members under the leadership of Rabbi Stanley Rabinowitz, having made the courageous decision not to move to the suburbs. It is one of the leading Conservative Congregations in the United States.


1880:  In New York City, the Young Men’s Hebrew Association is scheduled to host a strawberry festival and concert at Lyric Hall tonight to raise funds for its library.


1880(30thof Sivan, 5640): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz


1881: It was reported today that the government is conducting a census among the Jews living in Kiev with the goal of expelling those from the city who do not have a right to live their under the restrictive residency laws applied to them.


1882: “Death After Fasting Seven Month” published today described the death of a Polish Jew named Adolph Schomger who stopped eating after having been sentenced to the penitentiary in Nebraska after having been convicted of stealing.  Schmoger was transferred to “an insane asylum” but his starvation tactics continued causing his weight to fall from 150 to 80 pounds to his death.


1886(6th of Sivan, 5646): Shavuot


1886: Final exams are scheduled to be given at Central High School in Philadelphia, PA despite the face that it is Shavuot.  The principal has refused to make any accommodation for the Jewish students despite pleas from the city’s Rabbis.


1887: Dr. Sabato Morais, the rabbi at Mikveh Israel in Philadelphia, became the first Jew recognized by the University of Pennsylvania with an honorary degree of Doctor of Laws.


1887: In New York, Adolph Reich was convicted of murdering his wife and sentenced to death.  Court officials said that it was rare for Jews to be charged with murder since they were “as a rule orderly, law-abiding citizen” and they could not remember one ever being executed.


1889: Rabbi J.L. Kadushin officiated at the marriage of Otto Pierre Siegelstein and Mary Bubis.


1891: I.S. Isaacs of the United Hebrew Charities was among those who will be attending a special meeting of the Board of Estimate and Apportionment where the United Charities Association will present a proposal to establish a “free lodging house” in New York.


1891(3rd of Sivan, 5651): Eighty-one year oldSamuel Adler “a leading German-American Reform rabbi, Talmudist, and author” passed away. He was also the father of Felix Adler, the well-known founder of the Society for Ethical Culture.” Born at Worms in 1809, he came to the United States to serve as Rabbi at Temple Emanu-El in New York; a position he held for seventeen years before accepting the position as Rabbi Emeritus. He was an outspoken opponent of slavery and a staunch supporter of Abraham Lincoln.  One of the happiest moments of his life came when saw Major Anderson, the Union officer who had defended Fort Sumter, in his congregation.  After service “he laid his hands on the soldier’s head and pronounced…the anciently priestly blessing…”


1892: “Emin’s Death Confirmed published today described the demise of Emin Pasha, who had been born Isaak Eduard Schnitzer to a Jewish family in Silesia.  (The only problem is that Emin Pasha did not die until October of 1892)


1893: Birthdate of Samuel Nathaniel Behrman, the Worcester, Massachusetts native, who gained success writing scripts of stage and screen as well as doing profiles for the New Yorker. Among his subjects were Chaim Weizman, George Gershwin, Max Beernbohm, Joseph Duveen and Eddie Cantor. The Worcester Account is an account of his childhood from 1893 to shortly after he moved to New York City in 1917.


1895: The closing exercises of the Louis Downtown Sabbath and Daily Technical Schools took place this afternoon at Temple Emanu-El.


1895: It was reported today that the “anti-Semitic craze” that “has been making such wild headway lately in Vienna” and the rest of Austria is not only not losing strength “in several other great Continental states” but is growing in Germany.  A congress of a newly formed anti-Semitic party that just me in Berlin has adopted a program which regards any family that has one Jewish member during the last three generations is Jewish. Furthermore, all such “Jewish families” must be “excluded from the army, journalism, the legal, medical and educational professons and prohibited from owning land or taking public contracts (Shades of the Nazis)


1895: The Sunday Closing laws were strictly enforced today in New York City as police arrested any Jews or gentiles found in violation of the strictures which included closing all stores by ten in the morning and all barber shops at one in the afternoon.


1895: Practical Benevolence” published today provided a history of the Mt. Sinai Training School for Nurses which is funded by generous New York benefactors but whose student body is only one quarter Jewish while the rest are Christians. The officers who administer the school are: President – Leopold Weil; Vice President – Isaac Stern; Treasurer – Samuel Stiefel; Secretary – George Blumenthal; Directors – Human Blum, Isaac Wallach, David Wile, Julius Ehrman, Myer Lehman and Max Nathan.


1895: “Napoleon’s Times Pictured” provided a review George Duval’s The Romance of the Sword a novel whose plot revolves around a mythic blade that the Count d’Artois sold to Samuel the Jew


1896: Birthdate of Nathaniel Lawrence Goldstein whose service as New York State Attorney General paralleled the gubernatorial of Thomas E. Dewey


1896: Just days before his 38thbirthday the Marquis de Morès, a French anti-Semitic politician, was killed as he journeyed to meet the Mahdi, the Muslim leader responsible for the death of General Charles “Chinese” Gordon.  De Morès was a member of The Antisemitic League of France who challenged Ferdinand-Camille Dreyfus, a Jewish member of the Chamber of Deputies, to a duel after Dreyfus wrote an article about him with which he disagreed.


1898(19thof Sivan 5658): Seventy-four year old Samuel Mohilewer, the son of Judah Loeb and the father of Joseph Mohilewer, a Rabbi and ardent Zionst who supported the program of the first Basel Congress and the creation of the Jewish Colonial Bank passed away today.


1898: A conference of Jews from the United States and Canada meeting at the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue adopted a constitution which “provided that the name” of the new organization “should be the Orthodox Jewish Congregational Union of America.


1898: In New York, at Clark’s the annual meeting of the Judeans, “an organization composed of gentlemen interested in literature, science and the arts” was followed by a reception in honor of Oscar S. Straus who has just been appointed U.S. Minister to Turkey.


1898: Mr. and Mrs. I. Bierman hosted a garden party for the residence of the Home for Aged and Infirm Hebrews.


1899(1st of Tammuz, 5659): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz


1899: Prompt action today avoided a clash between those acting on behalf of Congregation Sheavith Israel of New York and Jews living in Newport each of whom are trying to assert control over the famous Rhode Island synagogue.


1899: “Garden Party for Aged Hebrews” published today described the annual social event held at the Home for Aged and Infirm Hebrews which was attended by 230 residents who ranged in age from 60 to 90.  In addition to enjoying refreshment attendees enjoyed the music of the Hebrew Orphan Asylum Band.


1899: In Albany, NY, a certificate of consolidation was filed with the Secretary of State which join the Educational Alliance and the Hebrew Free School Association under the name of The Educational Alliance.


1899: The French cruiser Sfax arrived at Devil’s Island. The ship’s mission was to bring Dreyfus home after four years and three months of being imprisoned for a crime he did not commit.


1902(4th of Sivan. 5662): Sixty-seven year old Jacob Herzl, Theodore Herzl's father dies in Vienna. Herzl goes back to Vienna for the funeral.


1903: In New York, Bernard Glick and opera singer gave birth to Marcia Glick who gained fame as author and critic Marcia Davenport.


1905(6th of Sivan, 5665): Shavuot


1905: Pogrom began in Lodz, Poland


1911: The Jewish community of St. Thomas, Danish West Indies, publishes a protest against the appeal of the Anglican Church to raise funds designed to “gather Jews into the fold” i.e. create proselytes


1913: Dedication of the Young Men’s Hebrew Association in Washington, DC.


1916: Birthdate of Louis Werfel who gained fame as “The Flying Rabbi” when he served as a chaplain during World War II. Werfel was one of only six Jewish chaplains who died during WW II.  He died while returning from conducting Chanukah services at Casablanca in 1943.


1917: In Alexandria, Egypt,Leopold Percy Hobsbaum and Nelly Hobsbaum (née Grün) gave birth to British Marxist historian Eric John Ernest Hobsbaume.


1921: Birthdate of Rabbi Arthur Hertzberg, leading Jewish author, philosopher and fighter for civil rights of all. He passed away in 2006.


1922: Silent film star Beatrice Carpenter and Herman Axelrod gave birth to George Axelrod. Axelrod’s father was a Russian Jew while his mother was not Jewish. His breakout work was “The Seven Year Itch” which was a successful play and film.


1924(7th of Sivan, 5684): On the same day that Mallory and Irvine reportedly died in their quest to reach the top of Mt. Everest, Jews observe the Second Day of Shavuot


1926: Congressman Meyer London’s funeral was held in New York City with tens of thousands filling the streets in his honor.


1928: Delegates representing 400 organizations are expected to attend today’s’ convention The Hebrew Religious Protective Association at the Broadway Central Hotel


1930: Birthdate newscaster, author and educator, Marvin Kalb. Kalb first gained fame as a correspondent with CBS Television News. Kalb has an equally famous brother, Bernard, with whom he sometimes shares the lecture circuit much to the delight and enlightenment of the attendees.


1931: Birthdate of comedian Jackie Mason.


1935(8th of Sivan): Dr. Shermaryahu Levine passed away


1935: Anti-Jewish riots occur in Grodno, Poland.


1936: John F. Kennedy, future President of the United States left Jerusalem for Lebanon and Syria.


1936: Arabs attempted to attack Kfar Yeheskiel, a Jewish workmen’s settlement in the Jezreel Valley. Jospeh Tavory, a Jewish truck driver was wounded during the unsuccessful attack.


1937: The Palestine Post reported that according to French press reports the British government was expected to propose, at the June 18 session of the Permanent Mandates Commission of the League of Nations in Geneva, the establishment of a Jewish republic and a joint Arab Palestinian-Jordanian state under Emir Abdullah.


1937: Chaim Weizmann gave an account of his dinner of the previous night where he had dined with Winston Churchill and other Zionist supporters in Parliament to a number of leading Zionists then visiting London including David Ben-Gurion


1937: “The Christian Century, a Protestant weekly magazine, publishes an editorial entitled ‘Jewry and Democracy’ which questions the ability of a democracy to include a minority like the Jews.


1938: The Main Synagogue in Munich was burned down. Two thousand Jews throughout Germany were arrested and were sent to concentration camps to do hard labor.


1939: Birthdate of Letty Cottin Pogrebin, who has become one of the most well-known figures in both the Jewish and secular feminist movements.


1939: “Canadian immigration officials hostile to Jewish immigration persuaded Prime Minister” William Lyon Mackenzie King not  to provide sanctuary for the passengers aboard the SS St. Louis.


1941: Abraham Pais obtained his doctoral degree in theoretical physics today, just five days before the deadline. His was the last Ph.D. issued to a Dutch Jew until after the war. Abraham Pais


1942: Lord Wedgwood opened the debate in the British House of Lords by urging that the mandate over Palestine be transferred to the United States, since Britain had reneged on its commitments. He stated with bitterness: "I hope yet to live to see those who sent the Struma cargo back to the Nazis hung as high as Haman cheek by jowl with their prototype and Führer, Adolf Hitler


1942(23rd of Sivan, 5702): When a Jewish mother at Pabianice, Poland, fights fiercely for her baby during a deportation, the baby is taken from her and thrown out a window.


1942: A gassing van is sent to Riga, Latvia, for the execution of Jews.


1942: German criminal police in the Lodz Ghetto reported that 95 Jews ‘have been hung publicly here.


1943(6th of Sivan, 5703): First Day of Shavuot


1944: Jewish-Hungarian poet and Jewish-Palestinian paratrooper Hannah Szenes is arrested in Hungary after completing her mission for the British in Yugoslavia. She was attempting to help the Hungarian Jews who were being transported to Auschwitz. Born in Hungary in 1921, Szenes witnessed the rise of anti-Semitism in pre-World War II Hungary. She became a Zionist and moved to Palestine in 1938. By 1941 she had joined a kibbutz and the Haganah. She was one of many European born Jews living in Palestine who joined the British Army and agreed to be dropped behind enemy lines. There purpose was two-fold - to add anti-Nazi partisan forces and to help the Jews facing extermination. Just before her death at the hands of her Hungarian captors Szenes wrote the following poem: “One-two-three... eight feet long, Two strides across, the rest is dark... Life hangs over me like a question mark. One-two-three... maybe another week, Or next month may still find me here, But death, I feel, is very near. I could have been twenty-three next July; I gambled on what mattered most; The dice were cast. I lost." Most Israelis can recite the following lines, "Blessed is the match consumed in kindling flame. Blessed is the flame that burns in the secret fastness of the heart." Her most famous work is one that is often sung in Hebrew and English.


"Lord, my God,


I pray that these things never end:


The sand and the sea,


The rush of the waters,


The crash of the heavens,


The human prayer


1944: During the trucks for Jews negotiations, Adolf Eichmann (who probably was never serious about saving the Hungarians) said: “If I do not receive a positive reply within three days, I shall operate the mill at Auschwitz.”


1944: Lew Lehr “was heard on the radio show “You Asked for It.”


1945: Prime Minister Winston Churchill rejects a written request by Chaim Weizmann for an end to all restrictions on Jewish entry into Palestine now that the war with Germany is over saying “”There can I fear be no possibility of the question being effectively considered until the victorious Allies are definitely seated at the Peace table.” This statement effectively ended Weizmann’s leadership role. Many Zionists viewed this as a betrayal by the British in general and by the supposedly pro-Zionist Churchill in particular.


1946: In “Wholesale Rescue” published today Julian Meltzer described how “nearly twenty thousand children were spirited away from Hitler’s Europe.”


1947(21st of Sivan, 5707): Jacob Shapiro, one of the organizers of Murder, Inc. died of a heart attack at Sing Sing.


1948: The INS Wedgewood was commissioned today.  A Flower class corvette, it was named after Josiah Wedgewood.


1948:INS HaTikvah (K-22) was commissioned today.


1949(12th of Sivan, 5709): Eighty-six year old Dr. Moses Hyamon, the native of Russia and distinguished scholar who served as Chief Rabbi of the British Empire before World War I and who had been Rabbi of New York’s Orach Chaim passed away

1949: Mira (Miriam) Shefer left Cyprus on the SS Sha’ar Yishuv.  After having survived the Holocaust, she traveled from Poalnd, crossed the Alps into Austria before arriving in Italy where she boarded the SS Kadima.  Although the ship was equipped for 400 passengers, this desperate voyage took 800 Jews through the British blockade to Haifa.  Unfortunately for Mira and the rest of the passengers, the British sent them all to Cyprus where she endured life in an internment camp until the creation of the Jewish state.


1950: Jefferson Caffery, the United States Ambassador to Egypt, said that “last month’s declaration by the United States, Britain and France on the Middle East was not intended to picture the present frontiers between Israel and her Arab neighbors as permanent borders.”


1950: Israel responded to charges of mistreatment of infiltrators from Jordan by telling the Arabs to “keep on your own side of the border.” The Israelis claim that there only responsibility is to “escort the infiltrators to a point near the border and send them on their way.” According to the agreement signed at Rhodes in 1949 that ended hostilities between Israel and Jordan, “neither troops nor civilians could pass into each other’s territory.”


1951: The last group of Nazis convicted of war crimes during World War II is hanged in Nuremberg.


1952: The Jerusalem Post reported that banknotes issued in 1948 by the Anglo-Palestine bank as Israel’s legal tender had to be exchanged for new notes, in different colors, issued by Bank Leumi L’Israel. A 10 percent compulsory deduction for a 15-year loan, at 4%, was to accompany each exchange of the old notes for the new, and a similar deduction was to be carried out automatically on all bank deposits. The loan was expected to bring IL 25 million for the Treasury. Three hundred new immigrants marched in Tel Aviv demanding better housing.


1952: Birthdate of Uzi Hitman, Israeli singer, songwriter, composer and television personality who died of a heart attack in 2004 at the age of 52


1961: Birthdate of Aaron Sorkin producer and writer for television hit, “The West Wing


1962(7th of Sivan, 5722): Second Day of Shavuot


1962: In Tel Aviv, Yossi and Ilana Banai gave birth to Israel pop rock start Yuval Banay.


1962(7th of Sivan, 5722): Madame and bordello owner, Polly Adler, passed away.

1963: Barbra Streisand appeared on "The Ed Sullivan Show."


1964(29th of Sivan, 5724): Just weeks before his 80th birthday, Russian born American pianist and composer Louis Gruenberg passed away

1963: Rabbi Stanley Rabinowitz of Adas Israel attended the ground breaking ceremonies for the Abraham S. Kay Spiritual Life Center, the American University in Washington, D.C.,


1967: In a change of mind and policy, Defense Minister Moshe Dayan told Chief of Staff Yitzchak Rabin that the IDF would take the Golan Heights after all. Rabin began moving forces from the Central Command to the North. The fighting was tough as the IDF advanced against the well-fortified Syrian positions. By nightfall, the IDF seemed to be taking control of the battlefield and there was already talk about advancing on the Syrian capital of Damascus. The Israelis were concerned about the fate of the 15,000 Jews living in Syria. For years the Syrian government had held them under virtual arrest, denying any of them the right to leave the country.


1968: In an article entitled “This Piece of Earth,” Chaim Potok reviewed “Light on Israel” by Maurice Samuel, “The Road to Jerusalem: The Origins of the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 1967” by Walter Laqueur, “Under Fire: Israel’s 20 Year Struggle for Survival”, edited by Donald Robinson, “The Resurrection of Israel” by Ann Latour; translated by Maragaret S. Summers and “The Hand of Mordechai” by Margaret Larkin.


1975: Malcolm Toon is appointed U.S. Ambassador to Israel.


1977: President Gerald Ford received the first annual Yonatan Netanyahu Memorial Award.


1977: The Jerusalem Post reported that, according to US Assistant Secretary of State Alfred Atherton, it would be "perfectly reasonable" for Israel to seek compensation from the Arab states for the property left behind by Jewish refugees who came to Israel after 1948. The Prime Minister designate, Menachem Begin, assured the press that his election wouldn't affect Israeli relations with Germany


1981(7th of Sivan, 5741): Two days after the IAF destroyed the Osirak nuclear reactor Jews celebrate the Second Day of Shavuot


1981: Birthdate of actress Natalie Portman. Born Natalie Hershberg, in Jerusalem, Portman took her grandmother’s maiden name for her stage name. A 2003 graduate of Harvard she has Queen Amidala in “Star Wars” and appeared in other major productions including “Cold Mountain” and “Garden State.”


1982: Units of the Golani Brigade and the Barak Armored Brigade began their attack on Doha and Kafr Sil, two villages on the outskirts of Beirut


1987: Gad Yaacobi began serving as Minister of Communications today


1987:The trial of Klaus Barbie took a new turn today as historians, led by the niece of Charles de Gaulle, began testifying over the objections of Mr. Barbie's attorney. Genevieve de Gaulle, 66 years old, a survivor of the Nazi Ravensbruck camp, told how gypsy girls were sterilized by X-ray and Polish girls were mutilated in experiments. A historian, Leon Poliakov, 76, said the killing of Jews, gypsies and mentally ill Germans was the cornerstone of Hitler's drive to conquer the world. Countering claims that SS officers such as Mr. Barbie were unaware of the fate awaiting Jews in the camps, Mr. Poliakov quoted Heinrich Himmler, the SS leader, as telling officers in 1943: ''The Jews will be exterminated. It is clear. It is part of our program.'' (As reported by Reuters)


1989(6th of Sivan, 5749): Shavuot


1992: On the 25 anniversary of the 1967 Middle East War, an article, entitled “Voices of Israel: To Many, the Fruits of the '67 War Taste Bitter,” The New York Times reported on how some Israelis view the road their country has traveled since that June.

1993(20th of Sivan, 5753): Seventy-seven year old Anglo-Jewish political scientist Samuel Edward Finer passed away today. (As reported by Dennis Kavanagh

1994(30th of Sivan, 5754): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz


1999: Haaretz reported that Israel and the U.S. are both demanding the immediate release of 13 Jews arrested in Iran on charges of espionage, saying the charges are trumped-up and may be motivated by anti-Semitism. The 13 Jews, from Shiran and Isfahan in southern Iran, were arrested on the eve of Passover and accused of spying for the "Zionist regime" and "world arrogance" - references to Israel and the United States respectively. However, the arrests only became public knowledge on Monday. Those arrested include a rabbi, a ritual slaughterer and teachers.


2000(6th of Sivan, 5760): First Day of Shavuot


2002: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including “Back Then” by Anne Bernays and Justin Kaplan and “Nuremberg: The Real Trial of the Century” by William F. Buckley Jr.


2005: Yisrael Meir Lau reinstalled as Chief Rabbi of Tel Aviv


2007: In Cedar Rapids, Jonathan Chadick becomes a Bar Mitzvah at Temple Judah.


2007: In an effort to encourage people to get out of their cars and start riding bikes instead, municipal authority packed Tel Aviv's Rabin Square with bicycles for riders who wish to spend part of their day on an urban bicycle trek.

2007(23rd of Sivan, 5767): Centenarian plus two Rudolf Arnheim, a refugee from Nazi German whose knowledge of psychology, philosophy  and critical skills were the mark of what used to be called an “educated man” and also made him an outstanding professor of the psychology of art at Harvard, passed away today. (As reported by Margalit Fox)
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/14/obituaries/14arnheim.html?_r=1&oref=slogin


2008(6th of Sivan, 5768): First Day Shavuot


2008: U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates nominated General Norton Schwartz a Jewish 35-year-old veteran with a background in Air Force special operations, as the new Air Force chief of staff. Schwartz, a pilot with more than 4,200 flying hours, served as Commander of the Special Operations Command-Pacific, as well as Alaskan Command, Alaskan North American Aerospace Defense Command Region, and the 11th Air Force. Prior to assuming his current position, Schwartz was Director, the Joint Staff, in Washington, DC. He attended the Air Force Academy and the National War College, and he participated as a crew member in the 1975 airlift evacuation of Saigon. In 1991, he served as chief of staff of the Joint Special Operations Task Force for Northern Iraq in operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm. When the Jewish Community Centers Armed Forces and Veteran's Committee presented its Military Leadership Award to Schwartz in 2004, he said he was "Proud to be identified as Jewish as well as an American military leader."


2009: The Foundation for Jewish Studies Northern Virginia Lunch & Learn presents Paul Forbes, teaching “Traditional Biblical Stories: Fact or Fiction?” (The archeological evidence available about the Garden of Eden, Noah’s Ark and Sodom & Gomorrah) at the Jewish Community Center of Northern Virginia


2009: U.S. special Mideast envoy George Mitchell assured Israel today that Washington would remain its close ally despite differences over West Bank settlements and peacemaking with the Palestinians.

 

2009: Jody Wagner won the Democratic nomination for Lt. Governor in Virginia.


2010: The Uri Gurvich Quartet is scheduled to perform at the Washington Jewish Music Festival.


2010: Gilad Hekselman Quartet is scheduled to perform at the Jazz Standard in New York City.


2011(7th of Sivan, 5771): Second Day of Shavuot


2011: The Ivri Lider Electronic Trio, featuring Ivri Lider – “one of Israel’s biggest selling artists of all time” – is scheduled to perform at (Le) Poisson Rouge in New York City.

2011: Carolyn Fine, the valedictorian at a northern California high school is planning to deliver her graduation address via a pre-recorded audio message in order to observe Shavuot. Carolyn Fine worked out the arrangement with Vacaville High School officials, according to The Reporter, Vacaville’s local newspaper. (JTA)


2011: Today was the 135th anniversary of the dedication of the the oldest synagogue in the national capital city. On June 9, 1876, less than a month before the nation's centennial, Adas Israel Congregation dedicated its first synagogue.  Flowers and "festoons of evergreens" decorated the sanctuary and American flags "drooped gracefully" over the Ark. The room was filled to capacity and several latecomers were turned away. President Ulysses S. Grant, the first U.S. president to attend synagogue services, sat at the front of the sanctuary on a sofa rented especially for the occasion. He donated $10 to the synagogue's building fund, the equivalent of $200 today.Grant's attendance reflects the unique relationship between the Washington, D.C, Jewish community and national leaders. His presence also held special meaning because, as a Union Army general during the Civil War, Grant issued General Orders No. 11, expelling Jews "as a class" from the areas under his command.  Grant dodged charges of anti-Semitism throughout his political career and perhaps attending this dedication was an overture to the Jewish community.The three-hour dedication ceremony was covered in several local and national newspapers, including The National Republican, The Jewish Messenger, and the Washington Chronicle. In fine detail, the articles described the decorations, prayers, and sermon given by visiting Rabbi George Jacobs of Philadephia's Congregation Beth El Emeth. [As reported by The Jewish Historical Society of Greater Washington]


2012: Ufruf of Jacob Kline and Alice Baker is scheduled to take place at Aguas Achim in Iowa City, IA.


2012: Ambassador Princeton N. Lyman is scheduled to deliver a talk entitled “Sudan Twenty Seven Years after Operation Moses” which will begin with a reminder of the “evacuation of 9,000 Jewish Ethiopian refugees from Sudan in 1984.”


2012(19th of Sivan, 5772): Eighty-two year old “Israel Shenker, a scholar trapped in a newsman’s body who was known to readers of The New York Times for his vast erudition and sly, subversive wit,” passed away today at Kibbutz Shoval in southern Israel (As reported by Margalit Fox)

2012: Today, Shabbat, approximately 200 people rode buses commissioned by the Meretz Party as part of a campaign calling for public transportation on the Shabbat.


2012: Speaking in Tel Aviv, Israeli political leader Shelly Yechimovich called on the international community impose a complete embargo on Assad’s Syria.


2013: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Slippage by Ben Greenman


2013: The Jewish Federation of Greater Washington is scheduled to host “Israel@65”


2013: The Maccabeats are scheduled to perform at Temple Oheb Shalom in Baltimore, MD


2013: This year’s Dan Prize Awards Ceremony is scheduled to take place at Tel Aviv University. Among the winners is Leon Wieseltier the literary editor of The New Republic who wrote the must readKaddish


2013: The Hillel Milwaukee is scheduled to receive “a Torah scroll owned by the former Beth El Ner Tamid Synagogue before it combined with Congregation Beth Israel to form Congregation Beth Israel Ner Tamid.


2013: When Temple Judah in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, holds its congregational meeting this evening, Laurie Silber will complete her tenure as President of the Congregation which will mark the end of an era.  For decades, Laurie has served the Cedar Rapids Jewish community in ways too numerous to count. These include Sunday School Teacher (second and third grade for 26 years), Sisterhood President and two terms as President of the Congregation.  She was the driving force behind several initiatives that enriched the community including the quarterly Musical Shabbats and the Shabbat Alive appearances by Rick Recht. Laurie joins a group of unique Jewish women that includes Jochebed, Tzipporah and the daughters of Zelophehad all of whom were more concerned about getting things done right instead of getting to stand in the limelight.  We will miss her steady hand, her iron-willed determination, her passion for her people and the joy she brought to Judaism.  Others may follow in her footsteps, but none will be able to fill her shoes.


2013: As he completes 34 years of service Rabbi Harold Berman is honored with a dinner at Congregation Tifereth Israel in Columbus, Ohiol


2013: Despite predictions of ten thousand demonstrators, only several hundred ultra-Orthodox men turned this morning at Jerusalem’s Western Wall to protest the Women of the Wall’s monthly prayer gathering.


2013: Several months before the 1973 Yom Kippur War, then-Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir used West German diplomatic channels to offer Egypt most of the Sinai Peninsula in exchange for peace, according to documents released today by the state archives.


2014: The 92nd Street Y is scheduled to host an evening with Jewish feminist and broadcast journalist Lynn Sheer author of Sally Ride, “the definitive biography of America’s first woman in space.

2014: “President Shimon Peres is scheduled to award Italian President Giorgio Napolitano with the Presidential Medal of Distinction, Israel’s highest civilian honor” today. (As reported Marissa Newman)

 
 

 


 

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