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This Day, June 30, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. Levin

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JUNE 30


713 CE: In Spain, Visigoth nobility which had held out against the invading Moslem forces, throughout the winter of 712 finally surrendered to the Arabs. A majority of the remaining Goths and Hispano-Roman people who lived in the newly acquired areas eventually converted to Islam. The Jews, who had been persecuted by the ruling Goths, proved to be the exception.  They kept their religious identity and flourished under the new rulers.


 1294: The Jewish community of Berne, Switzerland forfeited all financial claims against non-Jews, and then was expelled from the country.


1298: The Jewish community of Morgentheim, Austria was massacred.


1470: Birthdate of Charles VIII, King of France. In 1494, Charles invaded Italy leading to the occupation of the Kingdom of Naples in 1495.  Charles conquest led to increased persecutions of the Jewish population which lead to their expulsion in 1510, two years after his death.


1487: At Faro, Portugal, the printing of a Pentateuch was completed on the printing pressed located in the house of Don Samuel Giacon.  According to Konrad Haebler's Typographie Ibèrique,  “this was the first Hebrew book printed with vowel-points.”


1503: Birthdate of John Frederick I, Elector of Saxony who in August of 1536 “issued a mandate that prohibited Jews from inhabiting, engaging in business in, or passing through his realm.


1522:Johann Reuchlin “a German humanist and a scholar of Greek and Hebrew” who “for much of his life… was the real centre of all Greek and Hebrew teaching in Germany, passed away. “In 1510, Reuchlin was drawn into a bitter controversy with the Jewish-Dominican convert Johannes Pfefferkorn, who had convinced the emperor to confiscate and burn copies of the Talmud and other Jewish books. Asked for his opinion on the issue, Reuchlin urged the preservation of this literature and recommended the establishment of a chair of Hebrew in each of the major universities. As a result of his efforts, the order to destroy the Jewish books was rescinded. However, his enemies persisted, and Reuchlin had to face charges from the Inquisition. He was able to deflect the accusations for a time and returned to teaching …. Reuchlin is considered a hero in the history of European Judaism.”


1651: During the Khmelnytsky Uprising, Polish forces prevailed at the Battle of Beresteczko.  The victory only provided a brief respite.  The Cossack Revolt would continue with thousands of more Jews dying in what would be the worst loss of life until the Holocaust.


1680: In Madrid, an Auto de Fe was held in honor of the marriage of Carlos II to Louis Marie d’Orleans. It took place in the Plaza Mayor and lasted 14 hours. Over 50,000 spectators came to see 118 accused sentenced to prison or burned.  It marked the last time that a "royal" auto was held since Carlos’ successor, Philip V, refused the "honor." took place in the Plaza Mayor


1713:Nehemiah Chiya Chayun arrived at Amsterdam and requested permission of the Portuguese congregation to circulate his writings, which had been published at Berlin.


1762: In New York, 31 year old Uriah Henricks, a native of the Netherlands married Eva Henricks.


1781: In Danbury, CT, Solomon Simson and his wife gave birth to Sampson Simson the first Jewish graduate of Columbia who went on to become a lawyer in New York. (As reported by Dr. Yitzchok Levin)


1782(18thof Tammuz, 5542): Because the 17 fell on Shabbat, observance of Tzom Tammuz


1784: In Charleston, SC, Rabbi Abraham Alexander officiated at the wedding of 16 year old Rachel de la Motta, a native of St. Croix to Abraham de Pass of Jamaica.


1785: James Oglethorpe, the founder of the colony (and later the state) of Georgia passed away.  Georgia had been created by Oglethorpe as an alternative to Debtor’s Prison.  However, when a boatload of Sephardic Jews arrived in the colony a month after its founding, Oglethorpe welcomed them as he did a subsequent arrival of German Jews who came a year later.  Oglethorpe did this despite the opposition of the trustees which surely endeared him to this remnant of the House of Israel.


1821(30th of Sivan, 5581): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz


1821: Birthdate of Sigmund von Henle, a descendant of Löb Berlin, the district rabbi of Bamberg a lawyer who was held in high esteem by King Ludwig II.
 
1838: The Swedish government abolished discrimination against Jews. Unfortunately due to public objections it was repealed. Another 30 years were to pass before Jews were given the right to vote.


1840: Major Alfred Mordecai and Sara Ann “Hays” Mordecai gave birth to Alfred Mordecai, Jr. the West Point Graduate who served with distinction during the Civil War and Rose to the rank of Brigadier General.


1862: At Glendale, VA, seventeen year old Private Benjamin Bennett Levy, a drummer-boy in the Union Army, picked up the “colors” when the color bearers and carried them during the battle.  He saved them from capture by the Rebels and was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for his bravery under fire.   [Nothing was of greater value to a regiment than its colors.  Defeat in battle was one thing; losing the colors to the enemy was a point of great disgrace.  Color bearers were an easy target for enemy soldiers so it was a high risk job.]


1863(13thof Tammuz, 5623): Mordecai Ze'eb Ettinger passed away today at Lemberg.  Born in 1804, he was the father of Rabbi Isaac Aaron Ettinger, the nephew of Rabbi Moses Joshua Heschel and the brother-in-law of Joseph Saul Nathanson witho whom he co-authored "Mefareshe ha-Yam"


1864: During the Civil War at the Battle of Petersburg, Abraham Cohn, a Sergeant Major with the 6th New Hampshire Infantry “bravely and coolly carried orders to the advanced Union line while under severe fire from Confederate troops” behavior for which he earned the Medal of Honor.


1866:Today, in Romania, Jews were attacked maimed and robbed.  The Bucharest Synagogue was desecrated and demolished.  As a result of the violence Article 6 of the 1866 Constitution was replaced by Article 7.  Article 6 declared that "religion is no obstacle to citizenship"; but, "with regard to the Jews, a special law will have to be framed in order to regulate their admission to naturalization and also to civil rights". Article 7 read that "only such aliens as are of the Christian faith may obtain citizenship". All this came to pass when Charles von Hohenzollern took the throne as Carol I and was forced to deal with a riot against the Jews in his capital city.


1870(1st of Tammuz, 5630):  Rosh Chodesh Tammuz


1874: “Partial Destruction of a Town by Fire” published today described the two days of fires in Berditchev, a Ukrainian city in the Russian  “inhabited most by Jews” have destroyed over 600 houses and left thousands homeless. [Berditichev was a major center of Jewish life in the Ukraine, home to Mittnagdim and Chasidim, the famous of which were the Berditchiver Hasidim and their Rebbe, Rabbi Levi Yitzchok of Berditchev


1876: Esther Hellman Wallenstein, the founding president of the Hebrew Infant Asylum and Solomon Wallenstein gave birth to the youngest child Milton H. Wallenstein.


1878: According to today’s Foreign Notes column, before departing for the meeting of heads of state in Berlin, the Earl of Beaconsfield received a letter from Lionel de Rothschild in which he asked Disraeli to do everything he could to get them to endorse measures that would put all religions on an equal footing in each of their countries.  Rothschild made a special point of asking Disraeli to intervene on behalf of the suffering Jews of Romania and Serbia.  Disraeli replied that he would do all that he could in this matter.


1885(17thof Tammuz, 5645): Tzom Tammuz


1889(1st of Tammuz, 5649): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz


1890: It was reported today that the Romsey Abbey “founded more than nine centuries ago” by Benedictine monks included a library “that was celebrated for its collection of Hebrew books.”


1891: “The first of the weekly excursions” sponsored by the “Sanitarium for Hebrew Children took place” today.


1891: During the fiscal year ending today, Russia sent 33,504 immigrants to the United States, “the majority of whom were Jews.”


 1891: “The Nautch Girl,” a two-act comic opera with music by Edward Solomon opened at the Savoy Theatre.


1891: “To The Land Of Midian” published today described the plan of Dr. Paul Friedman, a native of Berlin who lived in London before settling in New York, to settle Russian Jews in “the land of Midian which extends from 26 degrees to 30 degrees north latitude and is situated on the Gulf of Akaba near the head of the Red Sea. Friedman had originally sought to use Somalia for this purpose but after visiting there “he concluded that it was not suitable.


1891: Over four hundred people sailed up the Hudson as far as Yonkers today during the first of the weekly excursions sponsored by the Sanitarium for Hebrew Children.


1892: In an example of the problems with transliteration “The Holy Land Colonies” published today described the activities of “Showey Zion meaning Returners to Zion.” The author probably meant “Shavei Tzion” - שבי ציון (Zion Returneees)


1892: It was reported today that New York layer Adam Rosenberg is the Presdeint of “Returners to Zion” a recently incorpoated society “whose main object” is to send Russian Jews to the Palestine “as colonists.”


1892: Marriage broker or ‘Shatchen” Martin Klein brought suit in a Brooklyn court today in an attempt to collect a $25 commission he claimed cigar maker Mauritz Grauer owed him for having secured a husband for Miss Paulie Grauer.  Klein also claimed that Grauer had promised the groom, liquor dealer Joseph Ritter an additional $500.


1892: An explosion at 26 Willet Street, a tenement that was home to Polish and Russian Jews “wrecked the lower part of the hous and injured half a dozen tenants.”


1893: Birthdate of Harold Joseph Laski “an English political theorist, economist, author, and lecturer, who served as the chairman of the Labour Party during 1945-1946.”


1894: It was announced today that the Hebrew Institute will be hosting a series of lectures by prominent doctors on the “Care and Feeding of Infants during the Warm Weather.”


1894: Representatives of the United Hebrew Trades Association spoke at tonight’s meeting held in Union Square to support the proposed “under-ground rapid transit system.


1894: “Isaac Jacobs, a middle-aged Jew…was arrested” today “on a larceny warrant.” (More to come)


1895: “A troupe of German-speaking peasants are performing a passion play similar to the one presented at Ober-Ammergau” at the “village of Selzach in the Swiss canton of Solothurun.”  A large number of Berliners are expected to attend the performance.


1895: It was reported today that “a recent examination” of the books of the B’nai B’rith Society in San Francisco showed that the shortage was actually $17,000 and not $13,000 as originally alleged.  The discovery of the original shortage led to the suicide of Louis Blanc, the Society’s former treasurer.  He had not been prosecuted for taking the money, but the community obviously failed he was responsible when they failed to re-elect him as treasurer.


1895: Annie Silverman, the wife of Wolf Silverman was buried today at Washington Cemetery in New York.

 
1897: A list of the graduates of the Hebrew Technical School for Girls published today included the names of Mary Wiener, Esther Freed, Celia Levin and Sadie Pearlman.



1900(3rdof Tammuz, 5660): Chaya Chana Ettinger (nee Kluger), the wife of Yonah Ettinger, passed away today.


1902: Herzl began a journey to London seeking support for his plans for a Jewish homeland. The journey lasted until July 17.


1904(17thof Tammuz, 5564): Tzom Tammuz


1904: On a day connected with the loss of the second Jewish commonwealth, Herzl, the man trying to create a modern Jewish commonwealth, suffers a severe bronchial catarrh, which turns into pneumonia. Oskar Marmorek proceeds to Edlac with two doctors.


1905: Albert Einstein publishes the article "On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies" where he introduces special relativity.


1911: A Jew, Abraham Benrubi, former President of the Tribunal of Commerce at Cavalla (Turkey) was appointed Judge of the Court of Appeal in Jerusalem.


1912: A few weeks after serving as valedictorian for her high school graduation, Bertha Alexander who would change her name to Beatrice and gain fame as “Madame Alexander”, married Philip Behrman (Jewish Women’s Archives)


1913: Eighty-three year old Victor Henri Rochefort, the editor of La Patrie who joined with people like Edoouard Drumont and Hubert Joseph Henry to promote the campaign against Dreyfus passed away today.


1915:The convention of the Federation of American Zionists came to a close this evening with the election of national officers. Dr. Harry Friedenwald of Baltimore was elected President. Other officers chosen were Chairman of Executive Committee, Louis Lipsky of New York; Honorary Secretary, Bernard A. Rosenblatt of New York, and Treasurer, Louis Robison of New York. The delegates to the convention received a pleasant surprise at this closing session when it was announced that Nathan Starus, the famed philanthropist had turned over his private yacht, valued at between $35,000 and $50,000, to the Zionists to help them deal with the looming financial shortfall.


1916: Seventy year old French Egyptologist Gaston Camille Charles Maspero passed away. He was the author of The Struggles of the Nations which provided an account of “the first Egyptian mention of the Hebrews ever found on an Egyptian monument.”



1917:  Birthdate of Bernard “Buddy” Rich.  Born in Brooklyn, Rich is best remembered as one of the greatest drummers of all times.  Later in his career he was the leader of his own group – The Buddy Rich Band.  According to one legend, when on his deathbed a nurse asked him if anything was bothering him, Rich replied, “Yes, country music.


1920:Sir Herbert Samuel the first high commissioner for Palestinearrives in Jaffaand is received with a military ceremony.  Samuel served in the position for five years. He was the son of Edwin Louis Samuel, a successful Anglo-Jewish banker.  Samuel had been raised as an Orthodox Jew and although according to at least one source, he ceased to be a practicing Jew but remained active in Jewish affairs.


1921:Jonas and Pauline Bernanke arrived at Ellis Island today. The 30 year old Bernake listed his occupation as “clerk.”  The Bernakes eventually moved to Dillon, South Carolina, where they ran a drug store and raised a son named Ben.


1922: The Central Conference of American Rabbis (CCAR), the Reform movement's professional organization, meeting in Cape May, N.J., voted 56 to 11 to affirm in principle the right ofwomen to become rabbis.


1922: A joint resolution of both Houses of Congress of the United States unanimously endorsed the "Mandate for Palestine," confirming the irrevocable right of Jews to settle in the area of Palestine - anywhere between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea:


    " Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled. That the United States of America favors the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which should prejudice the civil and religious rights of Christian and all other non-Jewish communities in Palestine, and that the holy places and religious buildings and sites in Palestine shall be adequately protected." (As described by Dr. Yitzchok Levine)


1924(28th of Sivan, 5684): Rabbi Yaakov Yisrael De Haan, a Dutch born Jew who was a leader of the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community opposed to Zionism was shot outside of the synagogue moments after finishing his evening prayers.  De Haan was scheduled to lead a delegation of ultra-Orthodox anti-Zionist Jews to Londonwhere he planned to make their case to the British government.  His killer was rumored to be a fellow Jew.  The Jewish community of Jerusalem, regardless of political affiliation was shocked by the killing and 20,000 people turned out for his funeral.  Forty years after the crime took place a 1970 broadcast on Israeli radio revealed that the killer had been a member of Haganah who had killed De Haan because he was viewed as a traitor. 


1925: Viscount Herbert Samuel completed his service as High Commissioner of Palestine.  He was the first person to hold the position.


1925: Birthdate of Samuel M. Ehrenhalt, “a poet of percentages who for 15 years as a regional commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics transformed colorless wage and employment figures into small, brightly lighted windows onto New Yorkers’ daily lives.” (As reported by Margalit Fox)


1926: Birthdate of Paul Berg, co-winner of the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1980.


1926: Governor Moore of New Jersey is scheduled to deliver the welcoming remark at the opening session the annual convention of the Rabbinical Assembly of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America. Professor Louis Ginzberg and Rabbi Max Drob are scheduled to address the meeting of North American rabbis being held at the Scarboro Hotel in Long Branch, NJ.


1927: Henry Ford retracted and apologized for the publication of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.


1934: Night of the Long Knives: Hitler ordered the execution of some of the SA (Sturm Abteilungen) leaders of whose absolute loyalty he questioned including Ernst Roehm. Until then the SS under Himmler was subordinate to the SA. The SS now became independent and was given charge of the concentration camps.


1936:Gretel Bergmann matched a German high jump record today. Two weeks later the young Jewess would be kicked off the German Olympic Team.


1936: Polish Jews strike to protest anti-Semitism


1937: Birthdate of Gideon Ezra, the native of Jerusalem who served as an MK and led several government ministeries.


1937: “A tower and stockade kibbutz was established at Tirat Zevi (Zevi’s Castle) 6 miles south-east of Beisan and less than a mile from the Jordan border.” [As the debate rages about the borders of the state of Israel and settlements on the “West Bank,” please note the location of this kibbutz.  Obviously the Zionist pioneers assumed that all territory west of the Jordan River was open to them.]


1937: Under the auspices of the Bialiki Association, Chiam Nachman Bialik’s house was opened to the public. The public display included:  the archives of Bialik’s manuscripts and that of other writers, Bialik’s private library and a museum with the poet’s personal possessions.  


1939: Tel Aviv attorney M. Seligman was released on bail, pending his appeal of a conviction on charges of conspiring to assist in the illegal immigration of Jews into Palestine which carried a six month term of imprisonment.  “He was acquitted of 18 other charges including brigery and corruption of Palestine Government officials.”


1939: Premiere of “Bachelor Mother” directed by Garson Kanin.


1941: Ninety Jews are murdered at Dobromil, Ukraine.


1941: German troops enter Lvov, Ukraine, and beat hundreds of Jews to death after running them ragged at gunpoint.


1941: Two death trains left Iasi, Romania after a pogrom. One of them stopped in Podu Iloaiei and the 1,194 Jews who died along the way from thirst and heat exhaustion were buried there in a mass grave.


1941 Three hundred young Jews are deported from Amsterdam, Holland, to stone quarries at the Mauthausen, Austria, concentration camp. All will eventually perish.


1941: American radio commentator Father Charles Coughlin celebrates Hitler's invasion of Russia as "the first strike in the holy war on communism" and attacks "the British-Jewish-Roosevelt war on Germany and Italy."


1941: The Germans entered Lvov, Soviet Union, cite of the third largest Jewish Community after Warsaw and Lodz. Thousands of Jews would be tortured and slaughtered at the hands of rampaging mobs.


1941: In Amsterdam, 300 Jews were deported to work camps.


1941: In Denmark, a collaborationist SS organization, Freikorps Danmark (Danish Free Corps), is established.


1941:  In Belorussia, a guerrilla collaborationist organization, Belaruskaya Narodnaya Partizanka(Belorussian National Guerrillas), is established.


1941: In Latvia, Viktor Arajs establishes the Perkonkrusts (Thunder Cross), a collaborationist paramilitary unit.


1941: Heinrich Himmler, head of the SS, tells Rudolf Höss, the commandant of Auschwitz, that Hitler has ordered that the "Jewish question" be solved once and for all and that the SS is to implement that order. Auschwitzis the death camp that is to carry out the greater part of the Jewish extermination. Mass gassings, not shootings, are determined to be the most effective means to exterminate the large numbers of Jews.


1942: A headline in the London Daily Telegraph reads: "MORE THAN1,000,000 JEWS KILLED IN EUROPE." [Sort of puts the “lie” the statement that people did not know what was happening to the Jews in the clutches of Hitler.]


1942: Three-year-old Jewish twins in Sosnowiec, Poland, Ida and Adam Paluch, are spirited away from Gestapo agents by their aunt and sent to live with separate Catholic families


1943: After almost 8 years, the New Deal agency known as The Federal Art Project (FAP) whose artists included Leon Bibel, Adolph Gottlieb, Harry Gottlieb, Isaac Soyer, Moses Soyer. Raphael Soyer and Lee Krasner came to an end


1944: By now, more than 500 Jews are being secretly protected by industrialist Oskar Schindler.


1944: Joel Brand and Rudolf Kasztner working together with the Jewish Agency and the War Refugee board concluded a deal with and Adolph Eichmann. It became known as “Blut fuer Ware” ("Blood for Goods"). This date marked the first of three transports from Hungaryto Switzerland. A total of 3344 Jews were sent on a special transport at a price of $1,000 per head. The deal was the subject of a great amount of controversy and later even resulted in a defamation trial, which reached the Israeli Supreme Court in June of 1955.


1944: One thousand, seven hundred, ninety-five Jews arrived from Corfuarrived at Birkenau.


1944: The crematoria at Auschwitz are working at full capacity when 2044 Jews from Corfu and Athens, Greece, arrive. At day's end, lightning rods on crematoria chimneys are warped from the heat generated by the furnaces.


1944: The 461st Bombardment Group under the command of Frederick E. Glantzberg bombed Blechhammer an area home to a synthetic oil plant whose workers included inmates from Theresienstadt concentration camp who probably lived in fear of the Taschenofen (mobile pocket furnace) located there.


1945:"Lest We Forget," an exhibition of death-camp photography organized by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and the Washington Evening Star began a tour in Boston, Massachusetts, and then on into Midwest.  By tours end nearly 90,000 Americans will have viewed this testament of the Holocaust.


1946: “Irgun Zvai Leumi…issued an ultimatum tonight saying it would kill three British hostages if the British executed two Irgun members condemned to death.”


1946: British soldiers and police officers rushed into the Tel Aviv business district when pamphlet bombs exploded in this predominately Jewish city. They snatched the pamphlets from “the hands of the jeering populace. “The pamphlets, signed by Irgun, said, ‘All this, and what will follow, will not change our dtetermination to take the lives of these three if our two die.’ The pamphlets referred to the three of the five British soldiers kidnapped by Irgun two weeks ago.  Two of the British soldiers have already been released in response to pressure from the Haganah.


1946: “Despite the detention of 2,000 “ Jews “in the largest mass arrest ever made in Palestine, the secreted radio of the Jewish resistance movement announced tonight that its leadership and general staff had not been ‘silenced’ by the campaign that British forces opened against’ Jewish forces “yesterday morning.


1946: As the British continued to wage war against the Jews of Palestine, the city of Haifa was placed under a curfew tonight following a spontaneous demonstration that had taken place earlier in the day.  According to unofficial reports, four people were wounded when the British fired on the demonstrators.


1946: As the British crack down on the Yishuv, there are reports that the Mandatory Government will cease to recognize the Jewish Agency and replace it a variety of local councils.  Moshe Shertok had already expressed the view that withdrawal would not mean the end of the Jewish Agency since it was supported the community in Palestine.


1947: Birthdate of Major General Yedidya Ya’ari, the native of kibbutz Merhavia “who was the commander of the Israeli Navy from 2000-2004.”   Ya’ari is one of at least prominent Israelis from Merhavia the others being Golda Meir and Yaakov Shabtal, the novelist, playwright and translator who is the brother of Aharon Shabtai who is also a poet.


1948: The last British armed forces left Israel.


1948: An Israeli convoy led by commandos arrives at the isolated settlement of Kfar Darom, south of Gaza.  The convoy brought food for the Jews and was supposed to evacuate the wounded and the women.  The Egyptians were able to prevent the convoy from departing which meant that the commandos and the defenders would now be forced to share the meager supplies as they wait for relief from the outside.


1948: Shai was disbanded as part of a reorganization of the Israeli secret service. Shai, “an acronym for Sherut Yediot” was established in 1940 as “the intelligence and counter-espionage arm of the Haganah.”


1948, Meir “Tobianski was taken into custody and interrogated by Isser Be'eri, David Kron, Binyamin Gibli and Avraham Kidron during a drumhead court-martial. Be'eri had already prepared a firing squad consisting of six soldiers from the Palmach Yiftach Brigade, which was in control of the Jerusalem corridor zone. Tobianski was found guilty and executed in Bayt Jiz, where his body was buried. Tobianski had received neither a lawyer nor a right to appeal, and his case was not reviewed by a higher court. Be'eri knew of his innocence, but still ordered his execution. In 1949, Be'eri was tried and found guilty of manslaughter. At the trial the court found that as there was a ceasefire in effect at the time, any information supposedly passed by Tobianski could not have served the Jordanian artillery. Be'eri received one day of prison time due to his extensive service to Israel. He was pardoned on the same day by the president, Chaim Weizmann.”

1949: Birthdate of Alain Finkielkraut the French author and intellectual the son of manufacture of fine leather goods who survived Auschwitz, whose works include “In the Name of the Other: Reflections on the Coming Anti-Semitism.”

1949: “Stand Against Zionism” published today summarized the anti-Zionist views of the late Dr. David Philipson, a leading Reform Rabbi who supported the American Council of Judaism.


1952: Guiding Light, a soap opera created by Irna Phillips, debuted on television on. It is one of the longest-running daily television programs.


1953(17th of Tammuz, 5713): Tzom Tammuz


1953: Between May 15, 1948and June 30, 1953, the Jewish population of Israeldoubled from 640,000 to 1.3 million.


1955: Final broadcast of “Barrie Craig, Confidential Investigator” an NCB radio detective drama directed by Himan “Hi” Brown who began his broadcasting career at the age of 18 reading newspapers with a Yiddish dialect on WEAF.


1956: Between May 15, 1948 and June 30, 1956, the Jewish population of Israel tripled from 640,000 to 2.1 million.


1957: Allied Artists released “Love in the Afternoon” a romantic comedy that owed its existence to two Jews since it was directed and produced by Billy Wilder with a screenplay co-written by Billy Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond.


1959(24th of Sivan, 5719): American composerLazare Saminsky passed away at Port Chester, NY. Born in Russian in 1882hewas a pupil of Lyadov and Rimsky-Korsakov at the St Petersburg and Moscow conservatories from 1906 until 1910. He moved in 1920 to New York, where in 1923 he was a founder of the League of Composers. He was musical director of Temple Emanu-El from 1924 until 1956 and author of several books. Saminsky wrote Jewish liturgical music and drew on Jewish sources for his five symphonies, choral music and songs.


1962: LA Dodger Sandy Koufax pitches another no-hitter. This time he beat the Mets 5-0.


1965: The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 proposed by New York Congressman Emanuel Celler which abolished the National Origins Formula became effective today.


1966: The National Organization for Women (NOW) was founded at a meeting in Betty Friedan's hotel room.


1970: During the War of Attrition Yitzhak Peer was taken prisoner when his F-4E II Phantom was shot down by an Egyptian SAM.


1970: During the War of Attrition, Rami Harpaz and Eyal “Los” Ahikar were taken prisoner when their F-4E II Phantom was shot down by an Egyptian SAM.  (Israel’s existence comes at a very high price.)


1971(7th of Tammuz, 5731): Herbert Biberman, screenwriter, director and part of the Hollywood Ten, passed away


1971: “The Supreme Court ruled in favor of the New York Times voting 6 to 3 allow resumption of the publication of the Pentagon Papers, a project overseen for the Times by Gerald Gold.


1976: Catcher Jeff Newman made his major league debut with the Oakland Athletics.


1984(30th of Sivan, 5744): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz

1984(30thof Sivan, 5744): Seventy-seven year old playwright Lillian Hellman a New Orleans born Jewess passed away.

 
1985: In an article entitled “Yuppies with Fetlocks” Jean Franco reviews “The Centaur in the Garden by Moacyr Scliar.; translated by Margaret A. Neves. “This novel…is reminiscent of the Chagall paintings in which the scenes of everyday Jewish life are tenderly and oddly transmuted into fantasy. ''The Centaur in the Garden'' is set..on a farm in southern Brazil, in one of the colonies of Jewish immigrants established there at the beginning of this century by the German-Jewish philanthropist Baron Maurice de Hirsch…One Jewish family's struggle to make a living in these unfamiliar and lonely surroundings is thwarted by the birth of the youngest child, Guedali, who is a centaur.


1992:Prosecution of East European Nazi collaborators who had gained entry to the country posing as innocent refugees from Communism by Australia's "Special Investigations Unit" met with failure and the prosecution effort for all practical purposes was shut down on this date.


1994: Catcher Mike Lieberthal made his major league debut with the Philadelphia Phillies.


1996: IN “New Museum Traces 2 Paths Into Jewish History in Atlanta” published today, Ronald Smothers provides a snapshot of a Jewish culture captured south of the Mason-Dixon Line.

2003(30th of Sivan, 5763): Comedian Buddy Hackett passes away at the age of 78 (As reported by Richard Severo)

2005: Sir James David Wolfensohn completed his service as the 9thPresident of the World Bank.


2006: In the evening, Jonathan Michael Kerbis participates in Friday Night services as part of becoming a Bar Mitzvah. 


2006: Release date of “The Devil Wore Prada” a cinema treatment of the novel by Lauren Weisberger directed by David Frankel.


2006: Ismar Schorsch, the sixth Chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary, retired.For more information about the life of this famed Jewish scholar and author see the following JTS sponsored website. http://www.jtsa.edu/progs/his/isschorsch/index.shtml


2007: Paul Wolfowitz, President of the World Bank, officially resigns his position.


2008: In New York, the
92nd Street
Y presents “Debra Winger in Conversation with Arliss Howard” during which Arliss Howard interviews his actress wife who was raised as an Orthodox Jew in Cleveland Heights, spent time on a Kibbutz in Israeland was called to the Torah during her son’s Bar Mitzvah in 2000.


2008: James B. Cunningham was appointed U.S. Ambassador to Israel.


2009: In New York, Malcolm Hoenlein, Executive Vice Chairman of Presidents Major American Jewish Organizations delivers the Fourth Annual Gershon Jacobson Memorial Lecture, with an address entitled “The Media and Silencing the Support for Israel.”


2009: In the Czech Republic the Holocaust Era Assets Conference comes to an end.


2009:Phoebus Energy is scheduled to unveil its first hybrid water heating system at the Gilo community center in Jerusalem today.


2009: Israel’s defense minister Ehud Barak is scheduled to meet with George Mitchell, the special envoy to the Middle East, in Washington, D.C. today.


2009: A concert featuring 100 cantors from the world is scheduled to take place in Warsaw at The Grand Opera which is less than a kilometer from Tlomackie Synagogue which the Nazi blew up during World War II.


2009: Al Frankin was declared winner of the U.S. Senate election in Minnesota.  The number of Jewish senators does not change since he defeated Norm Coleman who was also Jewish.


2009:Six weeks after authorities foiled an alleged bomb plot against two Bronx synagogues, the Department of Homeland Security has allocated $1.83 million to boost safety at Jewish institutions in another part of the city. More than two dozen Jewish organizations in Brooklyn, including yeshivot, synagogues and a children's museum, will receive funds as part of the program, an effort to offset security costs at non-profit institutions considered particularly high-risk by officials.


2009: Haim Ramon announced that he was resigning from the Knesset.


2010:Humanity in Action: Resistance and Rescue in Denmark, a powerful photography exhibition that explores the history of the rescue of Danish Jewry in 1943 and provides a striking narrative of individual and collective resistance, has its final showing in Washington, D.C.


2010:Gaza terrorists attacked the Western Negev this morning with a Kassam rocket before workers arrived, but it heavily damaged a packing house that was knocked out of operation.
 
2010:American Eagle Outfitters Inc. has signed a multiyear franchise agreement to open a series of stores in Israel by the spring of 2012. The

2010: “The Agony and the Ecstasy of Phil Spector,” directed by Vikram Jayanti, opens  at Film Forum on West Houston Street.

 
2011: The Galilee Music Festival is scheduled to open.


2011: The New York Times reported that the case  again Dominque Strauss Kahn was on the verge of collapse because of problems with the credibility of the alleged victim, who had, according to sources within the NYPD, repeatedly lied since making her first statement.”


2011:YIVO Institute for Jewish Research is scheduled to present a lecture by Rebecca Margolis entitled “ Yiddish Culture in Montreal:  Yesterday and Today” that “ will examine the origins and development of Yiddish culture in Montreal and discuss the changing place of Yiddish from the era of mass Jewish immigration in the early 1900s through today. The lecture is scheduled to be followed by a book-signing of Margolis' new book, “Jewish Roots, Canadian Soil: Yiddish Culture in Montreal, 1905-1945.”


2011:Tel Aviv “the city that never sleeps,” is scheduled to host its annual White Night (Layla Lavan). “Since 2003, when Tel Aviv was declared the White City by UNESCO, the municipality has been marking the honor by offering a host of special events for the benefit of the residents and visitors of Tel Aviv. Here is a selection of this year’s hottest music, food and cultural events taking place throughout the city.”


2011:Justice Minister Yaakov Ne'eman was attacked while praying at the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron today, apparently by right-wing religious extremists protesting the arrest of Hebron-Kiryat Arba Chief Rabbi Dov Lior. "How dare you come to pray? You are responsible for humiliating Rabbi Dov Lior," shouted the extremists as the justice minister was surrounded by security personnel.

2011:Israel's U.S. ambassador, Michael Oren, outlined for Jewish leaders his country's list of priorities in framing peace talks with the Palestinians.

2011:Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised the United States as a champion of freedom and a great ally of Israel in his address to the annual Fourth of July celebration at the U.S. ambassador's residence in Tel Aviv tonight.  President Shimon Peres, who spoke shortly before Netanyahu at the Fourth of July festivities, shared the prime minister’s sentiments, calling the United States a “powerful nation and generous giver”.

2011: Mark Halperin was suspended from his duties at MSNBC for "slurring" President Barack Obama on the program Morning Joe, saying the President came off as "kind of a dick" during the previous day's press conference


2011(28thof Sivan, 5771): Eighty-four year old songwriter Ruth Roberts, the creator of “Meet The Mets” passed away today. (As reported by Peter Keepnews)

2012: Israeli cellist Yoed Nir is scheduled to perform at the Rock Werchter Festival in Rock Werchter, Belgium.


2012(10thof Tammuz, 5772): Ninety-six year old Yitchak Shamir passed away today.

 
2012: Close associates of the prime minister prompted the cancelation today of a meeting between Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Deputy Prime Minister Shaul Mofaz, government sources said. /


2012:A week after protests resulted in violent clashes with the police, demonstrators were set to return to the streets of Tel Aviv on tonight.
 
2012:Egypt’s newly elected president sent an implicit message of reassurance to Israel in his first major address after taking office, but he also pledged support for the “legitimate rights” of the Palestinians.

2013: As part of the Jewish Plays Project, “Estelle Singerman” is scheduled to be performed at the 14th Street Y.


2013: The mandate  creating the UN peacekeeping force on the border between Israel and Syria which has been renewed every six months for the past thirty-nine years is scheduled to expire  today. (As reported by Mitch Ginsburg)


2013: “It's a Thin Line: The Eruv and Jewish Community in New York and Beyond” is scheduled to come to a close today at the Yeshiva University Museum


2013: Bank of Israel Gov. Stanley Fischer is scheduled to step down as Israel’s central banker today  two years before the end of his second five-year term. (As reported by Niv Elis)


2013: “Shabbat – Inside and Out” is scheduled to come to a close today at the Yeshiva University Museum


2013:The Mexican Suitcase: Rediscovered Spanish Civil War Negatives by Capa, Taro and Chim” is scheduled to close at Musée d'art et d'histoire du Judaïsme

2013: The Ministerial Committee for Legislation is schedule to vote today on a bill that would enable the burial of non-Jewish soldiers alongside their Jewish comrades (As reported by Haviv Rettig Gur)


2013: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers Life including Robert Oppenheimer: A Life  Inside the Center by Ray Monk


2013: The Ministerial Committee on Legislation passed an electoral reform bill proposed by MK Ronen Hoffman today, clearing the way for legislation that will change the electoral system to pass into law by the time the Knesset begins its extended summer recess at the end of the month (As reported by Gil Hoffman)


2013:US Secretary of State John Kerry wound up his whirlwind 72-hours of shuttle diplomacy by announcing at Ben-Gurion airport this afternoon that "real progress" was achieved, and that with a little more work Israeli-Palestinian talks could be re-started. (As reported by Herb Keinon)


2014: “By Dawn’s Early Light: Jewish Contributions to American Culture from the Nation’s Founding to the Civil War” an exhibition presented by the Center for Jewish History and American Jewish Historical Society is scheduled to come to an end.


This Day, July 1, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. Levin

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July 1


 
69: Tiberius Julius Alexander orders his Roman legions in Alexandria to swear allegiance to Vespasian as emperor. This consolidation of Vespasian’s imperial power helped to seal the fate of Jerusalem since the destruction of the Jewish capital was his way of proving that law and order would prevail in the empire.
 
70: Titus set up battering rams to assault the walls of Jerusalem.

 
397: Emperors Arcadius and Honorius decree that Jewish clergy are allowed to keep their own laws and rituals and are exempt from service in municipal senates. This creates the superficial impression that Jewish clergy are on an equal footing with their Christian counter-parts.
 
985:In Barcelona, several Jewish residents were killed by the Moslem leader Al-Mansur. Many of them were land owners who left no heirs. According to the law, all their lands were given over to the Count of Barcelona. In Spain at this time it was not uncommon for Jews to own vineyards and other lands.

 
1187: As the showdown between Crusaders and Saracens gets closer, the forces of Saladin bypass Belvoir, whose defenders fail to come to do battle, and heads for Tiberias.  The Jews are bystanders as these two interlopers fight to protect their “claim” to the Promised Land.

 
1244:Duke Frederick II granted a charter to all Jews under his control whichbecame the model by which the status of the Jews of Bohemia, Moravia, Hungary, Silesia, and Poland was regulated.”


1388: Jews of Lithuania received a Charter of Privilege.



1490: Twenty year old Yucef Franco, a Jewish cobbler from Tembleque and his 80 year old father Ça Franco was arrested by the Inquisition.



1581: Gregory XIII issued “Antiqua judaeorum improbitas,” a Papal Bull that “authorized the Inquisition directly to handle cases involving Jews, especially those concerning blasphemies against Jesus or Mary, incitement to heresy or assistance to heretics, possession of forbidden books, or the employment of Christian wet nurses.” (Jewish Virtual Library shows the date as June 1, 1581)



1569: The Union of Lublin joins The Kingdom of Poland and the Great Duchy of Lithuania into a united country called the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth or the Republic of Both Nations. This had to be an improvement in the situation for the Jews of Lithuania who were governed by statutes that read in part, "The Jews shall not wear costly clothing, nor gold chains, nor shall their wives wear gold or silver ornaments. The Jews shall not have silver mountings on their sabers and daggers; they shall be distinguished by characteristic clothes; they shall wear yellow caps, and their wives kerchiefs of yellow linen, in order that all may be enabled to distinguish Jews from Christians."  During the 15th and 16thcenturies the Jews of Poland enjoyed an increasing amount of political autonomy and economic wellbeing which would come to a crashing end with the Ukrainian uprisings in the 17th centuries.



1589: In Antwerp, Christophe Plantin, a Dutch publisher who printed “a good many Hebrew texts” passed away today.  Plantin printed the “Biblia Poygotta” a Bible containing five languages one of which was Hebrew. “The first four volumes contain the Old Testament. The left page has two columns with the Hebrew original and the Latin translation, the right page has same text in Greek with its own Latin translation. Underneath these columns there is an Aramaic version on the left-hand page and a Latin translation of this on the right-hand side. For printing the Hebrew text Plantin used among others Daniel Bomberg's Hebrew type, which he had received from Bomberg's nephews.Volume 5 contains the New Testament in Greek and Syriac, each with a Latin translation, and a translation of the Syriac into Hebrew. Volume 6 has the complete Bible in the original Hebrew and Greek, as well as an interlinear version that has the Latin translation printed between the lines.”
The last two volumes contain dictionaries (Hebrew-Latin, Greek-Latin, Syriac-Aramaic, grammar rules, list of names, etc.) that were of value to scholars 



http://forward.com/articles/186552/solution-to-antwerp-mystery-leads-to-yet-another-m/



1651: Poland was victorious over the Cossacks. The Jews were allowed to return to their lands but the society that they had built was gone forever. 



1736:Ahmed III, the Sultan who appointed Judah ben Samuel Rosanes to serve a “hakam bashi” (Chief Rabbi of the Ottoman Empire passed away.  Rabbi Judah was a noted scholar who was an ardent opponent of the Shabbethaians (the followers of the “False Messiah”)



1776: “Cherokees attacked settlement along the” South Carolina frontier resulting in a “Paul Revere-like Ride” by Francis Salvador to sound the alarm for those living within a 30 mile radius.



1776: First Jew lost his life in the American Revolution.



1798: In Switzerland, special taxes on the Jews were finally abolished.



1805(4th of Tammuz, 5565):Pinchas Horowitz, a rabbi and Talmudist who was born at Chortkiv in 1731 died today at Frankfort-on-the-Main



1810: The reign of Louis Napoléon Bonaparte, the brother of Napoleon Bonaparte, as King of Holland, came to an end. Bonaparte sought to improve the condition of the Jews.  Among other things he abolished the “Oath More Judaico” and opened military service to Jews by creating two battalions made up exclusively of Jewish soldiers and officers.



1845: David Levy Yulee began serving as the United States from Florida. This was in the days before the direct election of Senators.  After Florida joined the Union, the state legislature chose Yulee to fill the position.  This made him the first Jew to be elected to the United States.  Yulee would desert the Union and join the Confederacy at the start of the Civil War.  Yulee would ‘desert’ the faith of his fathers wen he married a Christian and raised his children in her faith.



1857: According to the New York Times, there are 1,500,000 Jews living in Russia out of a population estimated at 63,000,000.



1858: The House of Lords took up the question of admitting Jews into Parliament.  Lord Derby expressed a willingness to end his opposition to the measure as a way of avoiding a major collision with the House of Commons. [Editor’s note – The issue of Jewish emancipation was not strictly a “Jewish issue.”  It may also be seen as part of a larger power struggle between the Establishment as represented by the Lords and the changing economic and social milieu as represented by the Commons.  The issue of Jewish Emancipation was but one of many issues over which this battle was fought with the Commons ultimately emerging victorious.]



1861(23rdof Tammuz, 5621): Bernhard Beer, a member of the prominent Bondi family, who as a journalist worked for the emancipation of his co-religionists in Saxony and who, although a layman, “was the first to introduce German language sermons a the congregation  in Dresden, passed away today.



1862: Russian Jews were granted permission to print Jewish books



1863: First day of the Battle of Gettysburg. Just as the war pitted brother against brother, so it pitted Jew against Jew. At Gettysburg, Prussian born Major Adolph Proskauer of Mobile led the 12th Alabama against the Army of the Potomac which included Lieutenant Abraham Cohn, a native of East Prussia, who fought with the 6th New Hampshire Volunteers.  Cohn fought in 11 battles and won the Congressional Medal of Honor.  Proskauer did not survive his service with the Rebel Army.



1863: Lieutenant Colonel Israel Moses was among those who arrived with Sickle’s brigade as it tried to stem the Confederate tide on the first day of fighting at Gettysburg.



1863: Jacob Ezekiel Hyneman had sufficiently recovered from the wounds sustained at the Battle of Brandy Station to serve with United States Army Signal Corps at the Battle of Gettysburg.



1867: With the passage of the British North America Act, Great Britain officially recognizes the Dominion of Canada as an independent country.  Jews had been living in Canada since the British took it from France in the 17th century. There were enough Jews living in Montreal to allow for the creation of a synagogue called Shearith Israel. While most members of the small Jewish community lived in various towns in the eastern part of the country enough Jews arrived in British Columbia during the Gold Rush that a synagogue was constructed in Victoria in 1862.  At the time that Britain recognized the independence of Canada there were about 1,000 Jews living in “our neighbor to the North.”  This number would explode shortly thereafter with the beginning of the immigration of Russian Jews.



1873: Prince Edward Island joins the Canadian Confederation. Apparently, Jews did not start settling in Prince Edward Island until the first decade of the 20thcentury with the arrival of Louis, Israel and Abie Block. The three brothers were from Riga and may have been the Jews who were described in 1908 newspaper article as having celebrated Passover in this part of Canada.



1873: The government closed the “rabbinical school of Jitomir” where Chaim Lerner, a native of Dubno had been service as the Hebrew teacher since 1851.



1873: In Detroit, Michigan, founding of Congregation B’nai Israel



1874: “Ivanhoe or, Rebecca, the Jewess,” a “dramatization” of Sir Walter Scott’s famous novel opened tonight at Niblo’s Theatre in New York City.  The play, which presents a sympathetic depiction of Isaac of York and his daughter was well received by the audience.  [Editor’s Note – The positive response of the audience to Jewish characters stands at odds at with the outbreak of genteel anti-Semitism that is soon about to infect polite society in New York and elsewhere.]



1877: It was reported today that people in Bucharest were quite surprised to learn that Jewish citizens in the United States had presented a petition to Secretary of State William Evarts asking him to intervene on behalf of their co-religionists in Romania and Turkey.  According to the reports, the Jews of the region were even more surprised than the gentiles to hear of this request for intervention by the government of President Rutherford B. Hays.



1877: Wilhelm Bacher “was appointed by the Hungarian government to the professorship of the newly created Landesrabbinerschule of Budapest.”



1878: Karl Nobling “shot and wounded Kaiser Wilhelm I in a failed assassination attempt.” It was the second such attempt in less than a month and provided Chancellor Otto von Bismarck with the leverage of implement the Anti-Socialist Law in October which was meant to curb the growth the Marxist Social Democratic Party,



1878: At the insistence of Prussian Prime Minister Otto von Bismarck the Congress of Berlin incorporated into the Treaty of Berlin an article intended to provide the Jews of Romania with the opportunity for full citizenship.  Unfortunately, the Romanians evaded the article and only a hand full of Jews would gain citizenship.



1880: “A Survey of Assyrian Art” published today provided a detailed review of Manual of Oriental Antiques, Ernest Babelon’s tome about the architecture, sculpture and industrial arts of ancient civilizations which includes one chapter devoted to the Jews. The representations of “Jewish art and architecture…supplied from the work of de Vogue and from ‘The Recovery of Jerusalem’ by Wilson and Warren.”



1880: (12th of Tammuz): Birthdate of Rabbi Yosef Yitzchok who would become the Sixth Lubavitcher Rebbe.  The Rebbe would overcome a terrifying imprisonment at the hands of Stalin’s henchmen in the 1920’s.  Later, he would escape the clutches of the Nazis and settle in Brooklyn where he revived the cause of Chabad-Lubavitch.  The Rebbe would launch, what would become under his son-in-law who was the Seventh Lubavitcher Rebbe, one of history’s most successful Jewish outreach programs.



1881: “Scenes in Parisian Life” published today reported that “Fashionable Paris kept its word loyally” by keeping its promise not to leave the city until after the concert which was to raise funds for the Jews of Russian had been held. The Gaulois sponsored a concert that included performances by Faure and Mme. Alder-Devries the proceeds of which were to go to the “evicted and demolished Israelite of Southern Russia.”



1882:  The Memphis (TN) Avalanche reported that during the commencement address delivered by George Cable at the University of Mississippi, the distinguished author call for embracing the future included the challenge -   “Let us search provincialism out the land as the Hebrew housewife purged her house of leaven on the eve of the Passover.” (Apparently this custom of the Jews was so well known that the New Orleans author felt that it would be easily understood by those attending an event in rural Oxford, MS.



1883: It was reported today that ten new rabbis will be ordained later this month at the first graduation ceremony of the Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati, Ohio.



1883: “A Middle Age Trial” published today described the Christian community of Hungary as being dense an dark in light of the trial being conducted Nyreghhaza where Jews are charged with having killed a Christian girl “in order to use her blood in ceremonies of the Passover;” a charge that “reads like a chapter from the history of the Middle Ages…What is taking place in Hungary is what was a common occurrence a few hundred years along.  It only within the present century that the cruel and causeless prejudice against Jews has disappeared in civilized communities…Hungary is only about four hundred years behind the age.”  [Note – The same article contained the oddly prophetic statement “In Germany the cry is raised that a few Jew have, by their talents and industry, made themselves the ruling class.”



1883: Joseph Blumenthal completed his term as President of the Board of Trustees of Shearith Israel in New York City.



1883: Since the Board of Directors were in a deadlock when they voted for a new president for Shearith Israel, Joseph Blumenthal “was made Chairman Pro Tem and authored to act as President until” the board elects a president.



1884: Isaac Jacobs, a middle aged Jew, is being held in Boston, MA on charges that he murdered Mrs. Etta Carlton of Watertown in 1883.  Jacobs had been extradited from New York where he had been arrested on an outstanding larceny warrant.



1884: It was reported today that anti-Semitic riots have broken out in Algiers. Order was restored by troops who put an end to the pillaging of the Jewish the city’s Jewish quarter.



1884: It was reported today that in St. Petersburg, Russia The New Times has declared its opposition to granting Jews equal rights with Christians saying that this “would be a greater misfortune for Russia” than when it had been ruled by the Mongols.  [Statements like this should help readers understand the depth of anti-Semitism in Russia which propelled the massive migration to the West, primarily to the United States.]



1886: The first edition of the Menorah, a monthly magazine published by the B’nai Brith  is scheduled to appear for the first time today.



1886: Birthdate of Ithak Katzenelson, a native of Karleichy who became a teacher, poet and dramatist. Like so many of his generation, he was caught in the web of the Holocaust.  He took part in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising before being murdered in May of 1944.  He wrote Dos lid funem oysgehargetn yidishn folk( "Song of the Murdered Jewish People") which was retrieved from its hiding place after the war and taken to Israel.



1888: A summer term instituted by the trustees of the Jewish Theological Seminary will begin today. Among the instructors will be Dr. Cyrus Adler who will lecture on “Assyriology.”

1889: Manuel of Oriental Antiquities by Enest Babelon which was reviewed today devotes one chapter to the Jews. Information on Jewish art and architecture is based on The Recovery of Jerusalem by Wilson and Warren and the works of Eugène-Melchior, vicomte de Vogüé



1889: The Will of Alexander Bach which left bequests of $1,000 each to Mount Sinai Hospital, Montefiore Home for Incurables, Hebrew Benevolent and Orphan Asylum Society, United Hebrew Charities, Temple Gates of Hope Hebrew Free School Association, Home for Aged and Infirm Hebrews and Temple Israel of Harlem was executed today.



1889: Birthdate of Russian born artists and printmaker who settled in Chicago where he became a leader in the art community and an activist among Yiddish speaking artists.
http://www.chicagomodern.org/artists/todros_geller/
http://blog.chicagohistory.org/index.php/2013/02/my-jewish-chicago-todros-geller/



1891: The Hansa Line Steamship Pichuben left Antwerp today carrying a large number of Jews who have been expelled from Russia.



1891(25thof Sivan, 5651): Forty-four year old Alexander Weisse, a native of Budapest who had been in the United States for six years and was the advertising agent for a German language evening paper, took his own life after attempting to murder the young girl who had been in his companion for several months.



1891: According to today’s “Theatrical Gossip” the comedy company of Jewish producer Charles Frohman “has made a great hit in Chicago” with its performance of ‘Mr. Wilkinson’s Widows.’”



1892: “Jewish Pawnshops Must Go” published today described the government’s order that all Moscow pawnshops owned by Jews will be closed.  The Jews will be given six months to close down their businesses.



1892: Today’s investigation of an explosion at a New York Tenement that was home to Russian and Polish Jews including butcher shop owner Myer Kohn and the family Moses Lefkowitz revealed the fact that the tenants have been complaining about the smell of gas ever since the Consolidated Gas Company began putting a new pipe into the building. Their complaints were ignored.



1894: It was reported today that the Hebrew Institute will be hosting free talks by leading physicians on the “Care and Feeding of Infants and Children During the Warm Weather.”



1894: It was reported today that the 265 students who have stayed at Cypress Hill, a facility for truants, in the past year, 18 of them have been Jewish.



1894: In a comment that would have a rabbi proud, Dr. Jesse W. Brooks told his Christian audience that “of all the ancient nations…the Hebrew was the only survivor because it obeyed God’s injunction to keep holy the Sabbath Day.”



1895: It was reported today that “the notorious Jew-baiter Hermann Ahlwardt” is among those who are about to be prosecuted by the Imperial Treasury “for their flagrant misuse of free passes to canal fetes.”



1895: A group of underprivileged children left today for a two day excursion at the Rockaway Beach Hebrew Sanitarium.



1895: Colonel Nicolas Jean Robert Conrad Auguste Sandherr left his job at the Statistical Section (the counter-espionage service of the French Army) to take command of the 20th Infantry Regiment at Montauban.  In 1894, when the Statistical Section had intercepted a handwritten note that established that French military secrets had been handed over to the Germans, Sandherr convened the secret commission that “hastily” decided Alfred Dreyfus was the spy. Sandherr was replaced by Colonel Georges Picquart who was a key figure in proving Dreyfus’ innocence.



1898: In the Spanish-American War Teddy Roosevelt and his Rough Riders charged up San Juan Hill in Cuba.  The Rough Riders was a cavalry unit recruited by Roosevelt that drew on every strata of American life from Western cowboys to Yankee Bluebloods.  Several Jews served with the unit including Jacob Wilbusky, the first Roughrider killed in action.  The Roughriders were forced to leave their horses back the United States so the famous charge was made on foot.



1899: The Conference of the English Zionist Federation comes to an end.



1900: Herzl turns to Prime Minister Koerber and asks him to use his influence with the Sultan to permit the Rumanian Jews to immigrate into Turkey and to receive him, in order to discuss the question of colonization and settlement.



1901: The month in Morgan City, LA the building housing Shaarey Zedek burned down.



1902: Birthdate of Oscar winning director Billy Wyler.  Wyler directed many classics including the World War II tear-jerker Mrs. Miniver.  Ironically, his greatest hit was The Best Years of Our Lives, a film that described the return of four veterans to civilian life after World War II.  Once again, the Jews played a major role in crafting the cultural myths of Middle American Culture.



1906: In Queens, NY, Rose Schotz Rosenthal, and Max Mentzer gave birth to Josephine Esther Mentzer who became famous as Estée Laude, a woman who took her place in the world of business in a manner that marked her as a trailblazer. She was the co-founder, along with her husband, Joseph Lauder, of Estée Lauder Companies and the mother of Jewish leader Ronald Lauder.



1907: Birthdate of famed sportscaster Bill Stern.



1907: Corresponding Secretary Tobias Schanfarber reported that during the fiscal year that ended today the Central Conference of American Rabbis have issued 89 vouchers amounting to $6,959.73.



1907: The SS Cassel entered the port of Galveston, Texas with 87 Russian Jews aboard, heralding the start of the Galveston Movement - an organized attempt to bring Jews to less populated parts of the US.



1908: Birthdate of Estee Lauder. Lauder was born Josephine Esther Mentzer, the daughter of Hungarian Jewish immigrants. She married Joseph Lauter who changed the family named to Lauder in the late 1930’s. Mrs. Lauder was CEO of Estee Lauder’s Cosmetics. . She was one of several Jewish women who found fame and fortune in the cosmetics business. She was the only woman on Time magazine's 1998 list of the 20 most influential business geniuses of the 20th century. She passed away in 2004 at the age of 97.



1909: Birthdate of Antonina Pirozhkova, the common-law widow of Russian literary giant Isaac Babel who wrote a well-received memoir that provided a rare glimpse of the persecuted writer's final years in the 1930s.



1916:Birthdate of landscape architect Lawrence Halprin who died in October of 2009


1920: Sir Herbert Samuel, a British statesman was appointed High Commissioner of Eretz-Israel. His first official act was to grant amnesty to political prisoners including Jabotinsky. He governed the British Mandate for five years. Sir Herbert governed as a British official, not as a Jew and there were clashes between him and some Zionist leaders.



1920: In an attempt to strengthen the American labor movement, Benjamin “Schlesinger addressed a letter to the Neckwear Workers' Union of New York, the International Journeymen Tailors' Union of America, the International Fur Workers' Union, the United Garment Workers of America, the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, and the United Cloth Hat, Cap Makers and Millinery Workers' Union of America, proposing an alliance of all garment workers unions.”



1921: Dr. Thomas G. Allen, Secretary of the Oriental Institute announced today that the thanks to a $60,000 grant by John D. Rockefeller, Jr. the University of Chicago will excavate the site of Armageddon or Megiddo.



1922: In Syracuse, NY, prominent lawyer Warren Winkelstein and his wife gave birth to Warren Winkelstein, Jr. “a physician and researcher whose groundbreaking studies connected unprotected sex between men to AIDS, smoking to cervical cancer and air pollution to chronic lung disease” (As reported by Denise Grady)



1923: Fast of the 17th of Tammuz



1926: The New York Joint Board called a general strike by the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union (ILGUWU)



1926: Birthdate of Robert William Fogel, “Nobel-winning economist whose number-crunching empiricism upended established thinking, most provocatively about the economics of slavery” (As reported by Robert D. Hershey)



1927: (12thof Tammuz): Rabbi Yosef Yitzchok is liberated from his death sentence and imprisonment in the Soviet Union.  With the outbreak of World War II, the Sixth Lubavitcher Rebbe would make his way to New York where he would establish the headquarters of Chabad-Lubavitch in Crown Heights.  From there, he would launch what would become a highly successful world-wide outreach program designed to educate Jews and heighten their awareness of their heritage.



1929: Opening of Earl Carroll’s Sketchbook with the “book” by Eddie Cantor.



1929: Julian Mack “was reassigned as an additional judge to the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit and the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.:



1929: In Queens, NY, Dr. Edward Edelman and Anna (née Freedman) Edelman gave birth to Gerald Maurice Edelman, “an American biologist who shared the 1972 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.”



1930: At the morning session of the International Wailing Wall Commission, Rabbi Ben Zion Meyer Uziel, Chief Rabbi of Tel Aviv, described Jewish prayer rituals conducted at the Wall declaring that the High Commissioner’s recent ban on the use of the Torah Scroll, Lulav, tefillin and tallit was unacceptable.While questioning Rabbi Uziel, Arab leader Abdul Auni implied that the Zionists were using bogus claims of the right to worship at the Wall as a form of propaganda to recruit Jews to settle in Palestine. At this afternoon's meeting of the International Wailing Wall Commission, the three commissioners watched a movie filmed in 1911 showing Jewish men and women praying at the wall, Jewish worshippers sitting on benches and Jewish women kissing the stones of the Wall.  The commissioners pronounced the film as authentic and thus it became further evidence of the long standing connection of the Jewish people to the Wall.  The International Wailing Wall Commission was established by the League of Nations after Arab rioters violently denied Jews access to the Western Wall



1930: Birthdate of Carol Doris Schatz, the Philadelphia native who would marry Noam Chomsky in 1949 and gain fame in her own right as a linguist and educator.  Mrs. Chomsky passed away at the age of 78 in December of 2008.



1930: Julian Mack was reassigned to serve solely on the Second Circuit.



1932: Over the next 11 months (June 1, 1933), the ZOA will clear the cases of 1,622 people wishing to settle in Palestine.



1932: Release date for the German film Mensch ohne Namen (Man Without a Name) featuring performances by Julius Falekenstein a Jewish actor who died the same year the Nazis came to power and Fritz Grünbaum who would die at Dachau where he performed for the last time for his fellow prisoners on New Year’s Eve, two weeks before his death in January, 1941.



1932: Birthdate of Ze’ev Schiff, the French born Jew who gained fame asan Israeli journalist and military correspondent for Haaretz.



1933:With a message of "cordial greetings and best wishes" from President Roosevelt and a declaration that "the calamity that has overtaken the 600.000 Jews in Germany has cast a shadow over everything else in Jewish life," the Zionist Organization of America opened its convention today in Chicago.  Five thousand delegates and observers attended this meeting which was described as being the largest in the history of the ZOA. At this evening’s opening session at the Palmer House, Moriss Rothenberg, President of the ZOA reported that 20,000 Jews had entered the National Home in the last 18 months and that during 1932 12 million dollars in new investments had been made in Palestine.  While Rothenberg had words of praise for the British High Commissioner, Sir Arthur Grenfeel Wauchope, he was highly critical of the Mandatory Government (the British) for not increasing the allotment of immigration certificates in light of the events in Germany. 



1933 The German government states that "Reich Chancellor Hitler still belongs to the Catholic Church and has no intention of leaving it."



1934: Birthdate of director Sydney Pollack. His hits have included Tootsie and Presumed Innocent.



1934: Erich Gans was murdered in Dachau. It was the last such murder for ten months. The Jewish population at Dachau was almost non-existent at the time since most had been killed or released by end of 1933.



1934: The New York Times reviews From Nebuchadnezzar to Hitler by Danish author Peter Hemmer Gudme. In this sympathetic study of the Zionist movement which the reviewer is sure will be translated in English, the non-Jewish Gudme traces the ancient connection of the Jewish people with their homeland before describing modern efforts beginning with Pinsker, Hess and Herzl to create a modern Jewish home in Palestine. Gudme will die at the hands of the Nazis in Copenhagen in 1945.



1934(18th of Tammuz, 5694):Tzom Tammuz



1935(30th of Sivan, 5695): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz



1935(30th of Sivan, 5695): In London, Sir Francis Abraham Montefiore passed away. Montefiore was the head of the London Portuguese community and was a great philanthropist



1935: In the Nahalat Ahim quarter of Jerusalem,  Rosa and Musa Kraus gave birth to Israeli entertainer Shmuel “Shmulik” Kraus.



1936: The Palestine Post reported from London that the House of Commons discussed the question of the composition of the proposed Royal Commission for Palestine. The Colonial Secretary, Mr. Ormsby-Gore, explained that the appointment of women members to the commission was undesirable, due to the sensitivities of the Moslems and Orthodox Jews.



1936: As Arab violence continued to intensify, The Palestine Post reported that the Christian communities of Beit Jala and Kafr Kana were warned by Arab terrorists that they must deliver 60 young men as volunteers for their ranks, or face the consequences. There were sporadic shootings, bombs thrown and trees uprooted throughout the country. Two British soldiers were hurt by flying debris during the demolition of houses in the old quarter of Jaffa.



1937: The Entartete Kunst (Degenerate Art) exhibition of "unacceptable" artwork by Jews and others opens in Munich. A concurrent event of "approved" art held nearby attracts far fewer people than the Entartete Kunst



1937: Pastor Martin Niemöller's anti-Semitism does not prevent the Nazis from arresting him because of his opposition to Hitler



1938: Birthdate of Diane Silvers Ravitch, a historian of education, an educational policy analyst, and former United States Assistant Secretary of Education who became a research professor at New York University's Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development.



1938: Under a proposal called the Sosua Project, the Dominican Republic offers to accept 100,000 European Jewish refugees, to be settled in an area near Santo Domingo, in return for payment of millions of dollars from the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC). (Under the plan the Dominican Republic actually admitted on only about 500 Jews by 1940 when immigration was halted)



1939: Fourteen year old Rudolf Wessely arrives in London from Prague.  Wessely was the son of Charles Wessely, a successful Czech businessman and civil servant.  The British could find room for the son but not his 43 year old father or 38 year old mother



1939: In Park Ridge, Norman Ziegler and the former Elsie Reif gave birth to Karen Blanche Ziegler who gained fame as actress Karen Black who starred in two 1970’s cult films – “Easy Rider” and “Five  Easy Pieces.”



1940:A war emergency program to aid in the defense of the 500,000 Jews in Palestine was adopted unanimously by the convention of the Zionist Organization of America meeting today in Pittsburgh, PA.



1940: The America First Committee is formed. It is the most significant American isolationist group, and it is also infiltrated by Nazis, who are working to prevent American intervention in Europe. Several prominent Americans speak in support of the committee. Many in Congress attack the Jews of Hollywood as attempting to involve America in opposition to Hitler.



1940: Bloody anti-Jewish riots erupt in cities throughout Romania



1940: In a letter to German Interior Minister Wilhelm Frick, Bishop Theophil Wurm, head of the provincial Lutheran Church at Württemberg, Germany, objects to "euthanasia" killings at the nearby Grafaneck crippled-children's institution; See September 5, 1940.



1940: In Holland, a collaborationist propaganda group, Nederlandse Unie(Netherlands Union), is established.



1940: A Jewish ghetto is established at Bedzin, Poland.



1941 (6th of Tammuz, 5701): The first day of a three day killing spree in Drohobych, during which Ukrainians, assisted by Whermacht soldiers killed three hundred Jews.



1941: A Pogrom in Jassy, the cradle of Rumanian anti-Semitism claimed 5000 Jewish lives.



1941: Birthdate of Dr. Alfred G. Gilman recipient of the 1994 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine



1941: British code breakers monitoring radio traffic coming from German troops in the Soviet Union become aware of Nazi massacres of Soviet Jews.



1941: Two thousand members of Minsk, Belorussia's intelligentsia are executed by German troops in a nearby forest.



1941 (6th of Tammuz, 5701): More than 2500 Jews are slaughtered at Zhitomir, Ukraine.



1941 (6th of Tammuz, 5701): During an EinsatzkommandoAktion (murder operation) at Mielnica, Ukraine, a Jew named Abraham Weintraub hurls himself on a German officer and shatters the officer's teeth. Weintraub is immediately shot.



1941: In the Bialystok region of Poland, Nazis murder 300 members of the Jewish intelligentsia.



1941: German killing squads begin to murder Jews remaining in Kishinev, Romania.



1941: The Hungarian government undertakes a mass roundup of almost 18,000 Jewish refugees for deportation to Kamenets-Podolski, Ukraine.



1941: Twenty-two-year-old Jew Haya Dzienciolski finds a pistol, leaves Novogrudok, Ukraine, and helps to organize a group of young partisans in nearby forests.



1941 (6th of Tammuz, 5701): One hundred Jews are murdered at Lyakhovichi, Belorussia.



1941 (6th of Tammuz, 5701): Hundreds of Jews are killed at Plunge, Lithuania.



1941 In the Ukrainian town of Koritz, Nazi troops begin what would become a three day murder spree.  The Jews are forced to prepare three burial pits, one each for men, women, and children. For sport, a man's corpse is propped atop one of the pits, in which some Jews have been buried alive.



1941: Members of the Einsatzgruppen, the Wehrmacht, and Esalon Special,a Romanian unit, begin murdering the Jews of Bessarabia in eastern Romania.  By August 31st, they will have killed more than 150,000 Jews.



1942: Hundreds of German Jews are deported to the ghetto/camp at Theresienstadt, Czechoslovakia. In Paderborn, Germany, all Jewish orphans are deported to Theresienstadt.



1942: In the Netherlands, the Westerbork “deportation” Camp became operational. The camp had originally been established by the Dutch government as a place to house German Jews fleeing Nazi Germany.  The term deportation camp is a bit mis-leading since it was the last stop before arriving Auschwitz,, Bergen-Belsen or the other death camps.



1942: Seven trains of Jewish deportees leave Westerbork, Holland, for the Auschwitz death camp



1942: At Kleck, Belorussia, a few dozen Jews break out and join partisans.



1942 (16th of Tammuz, 5702): The Jewish community at Gorodenka, Ukraine, is wiped out.



1942: Extermination activities at the Sobibór death camp are temporarily halted for railway construction and enlargement of the camp's gas chambers.



1943: In an American radio broadcast, U.S. Congressman Emanuel Celler excoriates the U.S. government for its continuing silence on Nazi treatment of European Jews. This is the same Congressman Celler whom Senator Bilbo of Mississippi will refer to as a “kike” while giving a speech in the Upper Chamber; a reference that brings no response from those who hear it and who will guide the 1964 Civil Rights Act to a successful in the House of Representatives.



1943: The American Women's International League for Peace and Freedom estimates that millions of Jews have already been murdered by the Germans in Poland, and that the American government and people share in the guilt for these atrocities because they are complacent cowards covered "with a thick layer of prejudice."



1944: During the month of July, Jewish-Soviet partisans from Poland and Lithuania are active behind the lines at Lublin, Poland, and Kovno, Vilna, and Siauliai, Lithuania, as Soviet troops approach from the east.


1944: The Red Army liberates Lvov, Ukraine.


1944: The SS completes the evacuation of the death camp at Majdanek



1944: The SS evacuates the concentration camp at Kovno, Lithuania



1944: Neutral Switzerland ends long-standing, restrictive Jewish-immigration standards and admits all Jewish refugees who wish and are able to enter.



1944: Jewish-American Lieutenant Colonel Murray C. Bernays is assigned by the U.S. Army Civil Affairs Division to collect evidence of war crimes committed against American servicemen. Bernays begins to formulate his concept of Nazism as a criminal conspiracy, which will be central to the Nuremberg Tribunal of 1945-46.


1944: As the war put additional strains on the German labor force, 1,000 Jews were taken from Birkenau and put to work within Germany.



1944:"There were still 185 Jews living in Magdeburg, mainly partners of mixed marriages, who managed to survive the war.”  The Magdeburg Jewish community was one of the oldest in Germany dating back to 965.

1945: Establishment of “The Central Committee of the Liberated Jews”, whose primary offices were located in Munich, close to Leipheim. “The Central Committee represented 175,000 Jews living in the DP camps in the American and British zones in Germany and Austria.” The committee was dissolved in December of 1950. (As reported by Yad Vashem Archives)



1945: In New York, Yiddish-language actors, Pesach Burstein and Lillian Lux gave birth to Michael Burstein, who gained fame as actor Mike Burstyn.



1946: The Haganah officially withdrew from its alliance with Irgun and Lehi.  The Haganah did not renounce its role in defending the Yishuv against the British and Arab attacks. 



1946: It was reported today that "Palestine Jews were considering a campaign of passive resistance" aimed at the British while the Irgun was threatening to kill three British hostages.


1946: As American businessmen, labor leaders, and consumers adjusted to the first day without the existence of the OPA, "Israel Sachs, president of Sachs Quality Stores, announced that" his stores "would raise prices."  "At the same time he "appealed to Congress to enact immediately 'intelligent, workable price legislation.'"  At the same time, "Victor A. Fishcell, vice president and general sales manager of Seagram-Distillers Corporaton announced that Seagram was continuing its shipments at regular OPA ceiling prices."



1946: During an interview given today at the New York office of the United Jewish Appeal, Rabbi Leopold Neuhaus that "Jews returning from concentration camps owned nothing but cast-off army clothing and were living under 'infinitely worse considitons' than the Germans.  Rabbi Neuhuas, the "former Chief Rabbi of Hessen and liaison officer with the American Military Government in Germany" said that "the situation of the Jews in Europe  is growing more critical, with displaced persons embittered by their 'no-man's land' status and the renewal of anti-Semitic outbursts in many countries."



1946: "Dr. Nahum Goldman, a member of the Executive of the Jewish Agency for Palestine, said at a press conference today that Great Britain's latest program was a provocation to war, not only to the Palestinian Jews but to those all over the world.  Dr. Goldman described as a 'breach of faith'...the arrest of 2,000 Jews in Palestine. 'If Britain persists in her present aggressive policy against the Jewish population in Palestine and its officially recognized leaders and bodies, she will create a state of permanent hostility against Britain on the part of Jews everywhere.'  Dr. Goldman denied statements that the" British "government had informed" the United States government of its plans to crack down on the Jews of Palestine, including a massive round-up of Jewish leaders. 



1946: "Three hundred persons attended a funeral service today at the Free Synagogue, 40 West Sixtyeighth Street, for Dr. Emanuel Libman, noted diagnostician, who died on Friday at the age of 73."   During the service, Dr. Stephen S. Wise praised his friend of sixty years, Dr. Libman, for his efforts to train medical professionals and for his work on behalf of Mt. Sinai Hospital and the medical facilities at "the Jewish University of Jerusalem."



1946: In what would prove to be the first act in series of event that would lead to a pogrom in Kielce, Poland , eight-year-old Henryk Blaszcyk of Kielce, Poland, hitched a ride to his old hometown, visiting friends and picking cherries.  Since his parents did not know about this they filed a missing person report with the local police.



1946: The Fair Employment Practices Commission issued a final report as it was forced to close down due to Congress' failure to enact legislation that it would have extended its existence.  The report warned that "Wartime gains of Negro, Mexican-American and Jewish workers are being los through an 'unchecked revival' of discriminatory practices."  The report also said that "a survey of job seeking by Jews since V-J Day conducted in fifteen cities, showed a marked rise of discrimination against all Jewish applicants and that 'Jews who had fought for their country fared no better than those who had not.'"



1946: In a displaced persons camp at Stuttgart, German Jacob and Fanny Silberman gave birth to Rosie Silberman  who as Rosalie Abella became Canada’s first Jewish woman justice.



1946: The Mayor’s Committee on Unity headed by Charles Evans Hughes, Jr. recommended to that the Board of Regents conduct an investigation “into racial and religious discrimination in the admission of students to intuitions of higher learning…”  The committee contended that “there could not long be any reasonable doubt that racial and religious discrimination was practiced by” colleges and universities “in New York and elsewhere” usually through the employment of some kind of quota system.  According to the committee’s findings, this discrimination is directed at “Jewish, Negro, Catholic and Italian students.”  While Medical Schools seem to be the prime practitioners of this discriminatory behavior, “it exists in other graduate and undergraduate schools as well.”

1948: In Jerusalem Yehudith and Yaacov gave birth to Michael (Mickey) Gal (Hepner) who would be among the crewman lost when the Dakar sank in 1968



1949: At the Rockdale Avenue Temple in Cincinnati, Ohio, Dr. Nelson Glueck, the President of Hebrew Union College and Rabbi Victor Reichert officiated at the funeral services for Dr. David Philipson who served as Rabbi of Rockdale Temple for 61 years and who was the last surviving member of the first graduating class of Hebrew Union College.


1950: Dr. Serge Koussevitzky, the 75 year old conduct emeritus conductor of the Boston Symphony is scheduled to conduct at the Tanglewood Music Festival in the Berkshire Hills.


1951: Six Arab terrorists were killed in two engagements with security forces in Emek Hefer, Israel. A number of other infiltrators fled into the Jordanian-occupied territory across the border.



1951: The Jerusalem Post reported that six Arab terrorists were killed in two engagements with security forces in Emek Hefer. A number of other infiltrators fled into the Jordanian-occupied territory across the border.



1951: The Jerusalem Post reported that Israel presented to the US State Department a detailed aide-memoire urging the settlement of Israel's $1.5 billion restitution claim against Germany. The police had so far examined 150 war-crimes cases since the Knesset passed the War Crimes Law, directed at persons who cooperated with the Nazi regime during the Holocaust. The experience of the first few cases had raised some doubts as to the possibility of obtaining convincing evidence against the accused.



1953: Paramount Pictures releases “Stalag 17” directed and produced by Billy Wilder, with a screenplay by Billy Wilder and Edwin Blum, with a score by Franz Waxman and featuring Otto Preminger as the Nazi prison camp commandant. (Editor’s note – this is a great, must-see film)



1958: Birthdate of Brooklynite Nancy Lieberman.



1958: Yosef Burg completed his term as Minister of Communications



1961: Coronet Magazine published “Rudolf Kasztner” Eichman’s Last Victim”
http://www.oldmagazinearticles.com/Rudolf_Kastner_Article_pdf



1967: An Israeli armored infantry company attacked an Egyptian force entrenched at Ras el 'Ish, located 10 miles south of Port Said. The Israeli company drove off the Egyptians but loses 1 dead and 13 wounded.



1971: In one of those ironies of “progress,” while bagel production and consumption soared to new heights, Local 338, the fabled bagel bakers local, ceased to exist and Local 3 acquired a Bagel Division.



1972: After 12 previews and 522 performances “Follies,” a musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and a book by James Goldman completed its original run on Broadway.



1973(1st of Tammuz, 5733): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz



1973(1st of Tammuz, 5733):A few minutes before 1 A.M. Colonel Yosef (Joe ) Alon and his wife Dvora returned to their home in a quiet Washington, D.C., suburb. Alon, the air attaché at the Israeli Embassy in Washington, had been at a farewell party for an Israeli diplomat. They parked the car. Dvora went into the house and then heard five gunshots. She rushed outside, saw her husband lying in a pool of blood, and glimpsed a white car driving away. She and her daughter Dalia, then 17, tried to help him. The other two girls, 14-year-old Yael and 6-year-old Rachel woke up. Joe tried to mumble something. An ambulance rushed him to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead. (The murder remains unsolved. As reported by Yossi Melman)



1976: Terrorists in Entebbe, Uganda, still held 200 hostages from the Air France jet, hijacked four days earlier on a flight from Tel Aviv to Paris. They threatened to kill all remaining hostages and blow up the plane if their ransom demands were not met by two o'clock. A special Air France plane carrying 47 hostages, released earlier, arrived in Paris.



1976: Brigadier General Dan Shomron presented his plan for rescuing the hostage to the Chief of Staff Motta Gura and Defense Minister Shimon Peres.



1984(1st of Tammuz, 5744): Moshe Feldenkrais passed away.  Born in the Ukraine in 1901, Feldenkrais moved to Palestine in 1918 where he continued his education.  After living in France before World War II and serving with the British Navy in World War II he returned to Israel.  He was a renowned physicist and judo expert, who developed a method of education and self-awareness training called The Feldenkrais method.



1987:''Portraits of an Era: Photographs by Irv Kline'' opens Bishopsgate Institute Foyer as part of this summer's Jewish East End Celebration.



1991(19th of Tammuz, 5751): Michael Landon, born Eugene Horowitz, passed away at the age of 54. Landon gained fame for his portrayal of Little Joe on the television western, Bonanza. He gained additional fame for his work in front and behind the camera in another television hit, Little Houseon the Prairie. (As reported by Peter Flint)
http://www.nytimes.com/1991/07/02/obituaries/michael-landon-54-little-joe-on-bonanza-for-14-years-dies.html?pagewanted=print&src=pm



1993:Anne Lapidus Lerner became Vice Chancellor of the Seminary, the first woman to hold that post. As Vice Chancellor, Lerner was one of the highest-ranking women in all of American Jewish institutional life. In that role, she devoted her energy to adult education, working to bring Jewish education to the lay community. After earning bachelor’s, master's, and doctoral degrees from Harvard, Anne Lapidus Lerner joined the faculty of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America (JTS) in 1969, becoming the first American-born woman to hold a full-time position there. JTS trains rabbis and cantors for the Conservative movement and offers a range of masters and doctoral degree programs. Today, Lerner is an assistant professor in the Department of Jewish Literature at JTS, where she teaches courses in Hebrew and American Jewish poetry, modern Jewish literature, and the portrayal of women in Jewish literature. In addition, she is the director of the JTS Jewish Women's Studies Program, which she also founded, and Director of the Jewish Feminist Research Group. In 2001-02, she was a visiting lecturer at the Harvard Divinity School. Lerner has published two books and is at work on a third. In Passing the Love of Women: A Study of Gide's "Saül" and Its Biblical RootsLerner examines how the Biblical book of Samuel inspired a novel by French author André Gide. In Who Has Not Made Me a Man: The Movement for Equal Rights for Women in American Judaism Lerner discusses the interaction between Judaism and the modern American feminist movement. A new book on the image of Eve in Jewish literature is due to be completed soon. In addition, Lerner has published a range of articles, and sits on the editorial boards of the journals Women's League Outlook, Hadassah, Judaism, Nashim, and Lilith.



1993 (12th of Tammuz, 5753): Olga Khaikov a Jewish immigrant from Russia and the mother of an 11 year old daughter was killed when terrorists tried to seize a bus near French Hill in Jerusalem.



1993: Gil Stein’s term as President of the NHL came to an end.the duties of the president were given to the commissioner. Stein then served as advisor to the commissioner for over three months, retiring from the league in October.



1994: PLO chairman Yasser Arafat drove from Egypt into Gaza, returning to Palestinian land after 27 years in exile.



1995: Sir James David Wolfensohn began serving as the 9th President of the World Bank.



1996: Robert Wilentz resigned as Chief Justice of the New Jersey State Supreme Court because of his cancer.



1997(26th of Sivan, 5757): Sir Joshua Abraham Hassan, GBE, KCMG, LVO, QC passed away. Born in 1915, he “was a Gibraltarian politician, and first Mayor and Chief Minister of Gibraltar, serving two terms as Chief Minister for a total of 17 years. He is seen as the key figure in the civil rights movement in Gibraltar, and played a key role in the creation of the territory's institutions of self-government.”



1998:  First Lady Hillary Clinton, her daughter Chelsea and Secretary of State Madeline Albright visited the Ohel Rachel Synagogue in Shanghai, China, accompanied by Rabbi Schneier. In a speech on this date the First Lady commented, "So, for [the Ohel Rachel Synagogue] to be restored, I think, is a very good example of respect for religious differences and an appreciation for the importance of faith in one's life."



1999(17thof Tammuz, 5759): Tzom Tammuz



1999(17thof Tammuz, 5759: Shmuel Yaakov Weinberg, known as Yaakov Weinberg an Orthodox Jewish rabbi, Talmudist, and rosh yeshiva (dean) of Ner Israel Rabbinical College in Baltimore, Maryland passed away today.



2000(28th of Sivan, 5760): Actor Walter Mattheau passed away. Born Walter Matthow in 1920, Mattheau began work at the age of 11 selling candy and playing bit parts in a Yiddish theatre on the Lower East Side. Years later he claimed that his birth name was Matasschanskayasky. According to his son, his father did this as a prank. However, the myth has become accepted as fact by many sources. Mattheau had a long, successful career playing in films some of the best of which paired him with Jack Lemmon. These included, "The Fortune Cookie," a re-make of "Front Page," and that greatest of hits, "The Odd Couple."
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/07/02/nyregion/walter-matthau-79-rumpled-star-and-comic-icon-dies.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm



2000:Publication of Haviva Ner-David's book, Life on the Fringes: A Feminist Journey Toward Traditional Rabbinic Ordination,. The book, which is part memoir and part halakhic commentary, tells the story of Ner-David's integration of feminism and Orthodox Judaism over a lifetime and argues for the ordination of women as Orthodox rabbis.

2000:The judge in the Revolutionary Court in Shiraz announced the verdicts on the 13 Jews on trial for spying for Israel. The harsh verdicts against 10 of the defendants range from 4 to 13 years. The three defendants, who had been out on bail since February, were acquitted. The international community, Jewish groups around the world and human rights groups vocally condemned this verdict and expressed outrage at the lack of due process throughout the trial.



2001: Bruce Fleischer won the U.S. Senior Open.



2001:Caesarea-Pardes Hanna Railway Station was opened today “as a suburban station on the newly inaugurated Tel Aviv – Binyamina Suburban Service. The station was constructed to provide a railway link for the area's growing population as well as encourage rail commuting to the industrial zone in the vicinity.”


2003(1st of Tammuz, 5763): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz



2003(1st of Tammuz, 5763): Seventy three year old Jazz legend Herbie Mann, born Herbert Jay Solomon passed away today.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/03/arts/herbie-mann-73-musician-who-gave-flute-a-jazz-sound.html



2004: Actor Marlon Brando passed away.  No, Brando was not Jewish.  But he did have this to say about Jews. “Marlon Brando…once told an interviewer that, per capita ‘Jews have contributed more to American…culture than any other single group.’ Without them, the actor claimed, ‘we wouldn’t have music,’ ‘we wouldn’t have much theater,’ and we wouldn’t have “all the songs that you love to sing.’”



2005: The New York Times reported that New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg had moved decisively to deal with killing of a African-American man by two white males in Howard Beach.  The Times favorably compared Bloomberg’s swift action with the city’s reaction to a racially inspired killing in the same neighborhood in 1986.



2005: The New York Times reported that Time’seditor-in-chief Norman Pearlstine made the decision to follow a court order and turn over a reporter’s documents to a grand jury investigating a leak of a CIA operative’s identity.  Pearlstine wrestled with the compelling issues – freedom of the press versus the need to submit to the rule of law – and he came down on the side of the latter.  The decision was not an easy one for a man who was a lawyer as well as the head of one of America’s flagship communication corporations.



2005: The New York Times reported that Bank of America had agreed to buy MBNA.  MBNA was founded by Alfred Lerner who passed away in 2002. Learner supported numerous philanthropies including the Jewish Foundation for the Righteous.  The JFR seeks out to fulfill the age old injunction to seek out and recognize righteousness.  In particular, the JFR works to help aged and indigent righteous gentiles who helped save Jews during the Shoah.



2006: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Din In the Head: Essaysby Cynthia Ozick



2006(5th of Tammuz, 5766): Eighty-three year old Philip Rieff the author of a number of books about Sigmund Freud passed away today.(As reported by Robert D. McFadden)
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/04/us/04rieff.html



2006(5th of Tammuz, 5766):Rabbi Dr. Louis Jacobs, who founded the British branch of the Conservative Movement and was voted the greatest Jew in the history of Britain's Jewish community last year, passed away today. (As reported by Ari L. Goldman)
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/09/world/europe/09jacobs.html?_r=0&pagewanted=print



http://louisjacobs.org/



2006: David J. Skorton begins serving as President of Cornell University.



2007: Arnie Eisen assumed the office of Chancellor-elect of the Jewish Theological Seminary



2007:The Opening Day game of the Israel Baseball League is broadcast on a delayed basis on PBS in major US markets.



2007: 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 American Vertigo: Traveling America in the Footsteps of Tocquevilleby Bernard-Henri Lévy and The Defining Moment: FDR’s Hundred Days and the Triumph of Hope by Jonathan Alter.



2007: The Sunday Washington Post book section featured a review of a collection of here-to-for unpublished stories by Primo Levi entitled A Tranquil Star.  According to the review, those who think of Levi only in terms of being a “Holocaust writer” will be pleasantly surprised by the wide ranging topics and unique style displayed in this posthumously published tome.



2007: Avraham Hirschson resigned as Israel’s Minister of Finance following an investigation of an alleged embezzlement in which he was allegedly involved.



2007: Moseh Katzav resigned as President of Israel.



2007: Dalia Itzik, who had been serving as Speaker of the Knesset became action President of the state of Israel.



2007: Marvin Krislov became the 14th President of Oberlin College, in Oberlin, Ohio



2008:  Lauren Weisberger, author of the bestselling novel The Devil Wears Prada, reads from and signs her new book, Chasing Harry Winston, at a Borders Books in suburban Virginia.



2008: Arnie Eisen, who took office as Chancellor-elect of the Jewish Theological Seminary on July 1, 2007 assumed the position full time



2009: In Cedar Rapids, IA, meeting of the Hadassah book club discusses Courtesan, a novel by Dora Levy Mossanen.  



2009:After 29 years of serving as  supporting character alongside Marvel greats like the Incredible Hulk and the X-Men, Sabra, the alias of Ruth-Bat Seprah, mutant superhero and former agent, makes her first headlining print appearance in the Marvel anthology Astonishing Tales #6. Sabra's first solo appearance is the work of Matt Yocum, who by day serves as the US Air Force's representative to the Israeli government and by night writes comic books. Yocum, who is not Jewish, has long been involved with the State of Israel. His first visit to the country was in 1992 with the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, and he spent four weeks living on Kibbutz Beit Ha'emek, close to the coastal city of Nahariya. In 2002 he found himself in Israel again, this time as an exchange officer doing engineering for the Israeli government. Based on his previous experience in the country, Yocum was selected to come for a third time in 2006 to work in the attaché office for the US Air Force. Using three elements unique to his life in Israel, Yocum created a story about a member of the Air Force at a diplomatic reception in Israel, which sums up his existence here. "I wanted to take the experience I had in Israel and bring it to the people who don't live here," he explains. "The vast majority of the people who read the story will not have been to the country, and they will not realize that there are things we take for granted here - one being that everyone has to serve in the army. In the US, less than one percent of the population serves, and here it's part of a natural dialogue with a high-schooler.""At the end of the day, I don't think it's going to change any ideas about Israel," he says. "It shows a piece of what it's like to live in the country and what it's like to serve here."



2009: Today President Shimon Peres invited Saudi King Abdullah to come to Jerusalem, or meet him in Riyadh, to initiate discussions that would enable the implementation of a comprehensive peace between Israel and all the Arab states.

2009:A Chabad-sponsored Women's Empowerment Rally is held at Tel Aviv's Nokia Stadium.



2009: Leonard “Cohen started his marathon European tour, his third in two years.



2009:Romanian Jewish leaders met in Bucharest today to address allegations that medical students have been using the remains of Holocaust victims for research.



2010:Yeshiva University Museum and Metropolitan Museum of Art are scheduled to present “As it is Written: Lectures on the Art of Hebrew Manuscripts and Books” in New York City.



2010:The Wall Street Journalreported today that Tehran has equipped Damascus with a sophisticated radar system to help thwart a surprise Israeli strike against Iran's nuclear facilities.

2011:Cantor Joel Caplan, son of Richard and Ellen Caplan, and father Ilan Caplan is scheduled to lead a Shabbat evening program called “Shabbat Spirit” that includes guitar, keyboard and PowerPoint projections of all the songs that will be sung.



2011: As the case sexual assault case fell apart due to questions of credibility regard  of the alleged victim,  Dominque Strauss-Kahn was released from house arrest today.



2011:At Shabbat Eve Services at Temple Judah a baby naming is to take place for Natanel, the son of Chavah and Stephen Rosenbaum of Jerusalem and the grandson of Kathe  and Gary Goldstein of Cedar Rapids, Iowa.



2011: Abbie Silber, daughter of Laurie and Dr. Bob Silver (pillars of the Cedar Rapids Jewish Community) and Rabbi Feivel Strauss are scheduled to receive a blessing at Shabbat Eve services as they prepare for their upcoming nuptials.



2011: This Day In…In Jewish History makes its first appearance on http://shtetl.ca/ a must read website for anybody interested in the comings and goings of the Canadian Jewish community.



2011:Dominique Strauss-Kahn was released from house arrest today as the sexual assault case against him moved one step closer to dismissal after prosecutors told a Manhattan judge that they had serious problems with the case.



2011:The Greek Ministry of Citizen Protection issued a statement today saying that  the Minister, C. Papoutsis, decided to prohibit the departure of ships flying either Greek or foreign flags "to the maritime area" of Gaza.



2012: A revival of “On Second Avenue,” “a musical journey through Yiddish Theatre” is scheduled to have its final performance at the Segal Centre for Performing Arts. (As reported by Mike Cohen)



2012: The Labor Party is scheduled to hold its convention today in Tel Aviv.



2012(11thof Tammuz, 5772): Eighty-six year old “Evelyn Lear, an American soprano who became a star in Europe in the 1950s and later won acclaim in the United States for singing some of the most difficult roles in contemporary opera” passed away today. (As reported by Margalit Fox)
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/05/arts/music/evelyn-lear-versatile-soprano-dies-at-86.html?hpw



2012(11thof Tammuz, 5772): Ninety-two year old “Estelle Ellis Rubinstein, who as promotion director of the brand-new Seventeen magazine helped American businesses discover what she called “a whole new country” — the untapped market of millions of teenage girls —” passed away today. (As reported by Douglas Martin)
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/15/business/media/estelle-ellis-rubinstein-a-pioneer-at-seventeen-dies-at-92.html



2012: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish authors including the recently released paperback edition of Bloom of Darkness, Aharon Applefeld’s novel about “a Jewish child is hidden in a brothel in a Ukrainian village during the Holocaust.



2012: Mario Balotelli, a black Italian soccer start who was raised by a Jewish Italian foster mother from the age of three is scheduled to lead his team into the final of the Euro 2012 soccer championships. (As reported by the Times of Israel)



2012:Today the cabinet approved doubling the 2013 budget deficit target to 3 percent of gross domestic product, despite strong opposition from central bank and Treasury officials. It also agreed to set a new long-term target of gradually reducing the deficit back to 1.5% by 2019.



2013: The Aleph Kallah –Connecting the Divine Within and Around Us – is scheduled to begin today.


2013: The North American Jewish Data Baml is scheduled to move from the University of Connecticut to the Jewish Federations of North America (JFNA) in New York.


2013:Christopher Ludwig Eisgruber who was raised Catholic but now describes himself as nontheist Jew became the 20th President of Princeton University today. “While helping his son, then in the fourth grade, with a school project, he discovered that his Berlin-born mother, who had arrived in New York as an eight-year-old refugee, was Jewish. In 2009, a Holocaust claims tribunal awarded Eisgruber and his three sisters 162,500 Swiss francs, representing the value of the bank account of their maternal great-grandfather, Salomon Kalisch”



2013: Peter Salovey, a descendant of the Soloveichik rabbinic family, became the 23 President of Yale University.



2013: With Stanley Fischer's eight-year term as Bank of Israel Governor completed as of last night, his deputy Karnit Flug stepped into the role of acting governor today. (As reported by Niv Elis)



2013: As part of the fallout from a reported cover-up of sexual abuse by Yishiva University rabbis, Rabbi Norman Lamm steeped as the chancellor and Rosh yeshiva. (As reported by Uriel Heilman)



2014: Decent people everywhere continue to react with shock and horror to the news concerning the murder of the three kidnapped Israeli teenagers - Naftali Frankel, 16, Gilad Shaar, 16; and Eyal Yifrach, 19 -  who were abducted on their way home from school on June 12 and whose bodies were found near Hebron.


 
2014: Scott S. Cowen is scheduled to step down as President of Tulane University.


2014: In Israel “1.5 million elementary students and over 71,000 teachers are scheduled to begin their summer break.”


2014(3rd of Tammuz): 20th Yarhrzeit Menachem M. Schneerson of blessed memory simply known as “the Rebbe.”




This Day, July 2, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. Levin

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July 2                         


311: Miltiades began serving as Bishop of Rome (Pope) during the reign of Constantine the Great, the Roman Emperor who moved against the Jews in his effort to make the Roman Empire Christian.



419: Birthdate of Valentinian III, the Roman Emperor who issued a decree prohibiting Jews from practicing law and holding public office.



437: Valentinian III began his reign as Emperor of the Western portion of the Roman Empire



936: Otto I began his reign as King of Germany.  During his reign  Rhenish Rabbis received  ”a responsum from the rabbis of Palestine in answer to a question addressed to them…concerning the appearance of the Messiah” (As reported by Rabbi Isaac ben Dorbolo circa 1150)



1029: Birthdate of Caliph Al-Mustansir of Cairo. He was the grandson of the third Fatimid caliph, al-Hakim founder of the *Druze sect who promulgated a variety of ant-Jewish and anti-Christian decrees which he later he rescinded. His grandson ruled in this more liberal environment in which the Jews were able to propser. A Jewish merchant named Abu Sa’ad or in Hebrew Abraham ben Yashar and his brother Abu Nasr Hesed were two leaders of the Jewish community during Mustansir’s reign.



1298:  Albert I of Habsburg defeated Adolf of Nassau-Weilburg at the Battle of Göllheim serving to cement the dominant position of the Habsburgs in the Germanic states of central Europe.  As is the case with so many Christian monarchs, Albert’s treatment of his Jewish subjects was a mixed bag. In 1298 he 1 endeavored to suppress riots based on the blood libel that were sweeping the Rhineland and imposed a fine on the town of St. Poelten.  But in1306, “he punished the Jews in *Korneuburg on a charge of desecration of the Host.”



1389: The Pope issued a bull condemning the attacks on the Jews of Bohemia that had begun on Easter Sunday, April 18, 1389.  The mobs ignored the Pope and Emperor Wensceslaus refused to protect his Jewish subjects claiming that they deserved to suffer since they should not have been out of their houses on Easter Sunday.



1453: Spanish statesman Alvaro de Luna who friendship with the Jews including a thirty year friendship with Abraham Benveniste and Joseph ha-Nassi was beheaded today in the presence of Friar Alfonso de Espina “the fiercest enemy of the Jewish race” after being falsely implicated in the death of Queen Maria.



1490: A Chumash with commentary by the Ramban was published for the first time. This happened 35 years after Gutenberg printed his famous Bible. This Chumash was not the first book to be printed in Hebrew.  That honor probably goes to Tractate Berakhot of the Babylonian Talmud which was printed by Joshua Solomon Soncino in 1483. The Ramban is Rabbi Moshe ben Nachman also known as Nachmanides.  He was a Spanish physician and noted Torah scholar who lived during the 13th century.  He is not to be confused with the Rambam, Moses Maimonides who was also born in Spain and who was an even greater Torah scholar.  The Ramban was born after the Rambam had already passed away.



1494: Spain ratified The Treaty of Tordesillas which divided all new found lands outside of Europe between Portugal and Spain.  This was bad news for the Jews since it meant they would be banned from a wide swath of land including the Americas and the Spice Islands off the coast of Asia.  Fortunately, Protestant countries like England and Holland would not feel bound by this absurd piece of paper and Jews would be able to settle and prosper in the lands that would be “discovered” and colonized over the next two centuries.



1566: Nostradamus passed away.  His grandfather was Jewish but his father converted to Catholicism.  According to one source Nostradamus was thought to have been a descendent of the lost Jewish tribe of Issacher, a tribe that was noted to be knowledgeable in astrology and the mystical arts. 



1567(15th of Tammuz  5327): According to testimony given by Elias ben Nehemiah to the board of rabbis at Safed, the earliest possible date for the death of Meir Ashkenazi, “the envoy of the Tatar Khan in the 16th century killed by pirates.



1776: The Continental Congress resolved "these United Colonies are & of right ought to be Free & Independent States." This marked the actual declaration of independence by the thirteen colonies. While there were some Jews who were Loyalist, most favored the cause of Independence and supported it with the lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor.



1778: Philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau passed away.  Unlike many of his contemporaries, Rousseau took a comparatively view of the Jewish people.  Among other things he wrote, “We shall never know the inner motives of the Jews until the day they have their own free state, schools and universities where they can speak and argue without fear.  Then, and only then, shall we know what they really have to say.”



1816(6th of Tammuz, 5576):Gershom Mendez Seixas passed away.Born at New York City in 1745, he was the son of Isaac Mendez Seixas (1708-80) and Rachel Levy, daughter of Moses Levy, an early New York merchant. Seixas became the minister of Shearith Israel, the Spanish and Portuguese congregation of his native city, in 1766, and occupied the rabbinate for about, half a century. At the outbreak of the American Revolution he at once espoused the Patriot cause, though many of the Christian ministers of the city sympathized with the Tories. It was largely due to his influence that the Jewish congregation closed the doors of its synagogue on the approach of the British, and decided to leave the town rather than continue under British rule. On the appearance of the British fleet in New York Bay (Aug., 1776) Seixas preached a sermon in English in which he feelingly stated that the synagogue services on that occasion might be the last to be held in the historic edifice. On the dispersion of the congregation Seixas left New York for Stratford, Conn., taking with him the scrolls of the Law and other ceremonial paraphernalia belonging to his charge. At Stratford he was joined by several members of his flock. When, in 1780, the Patriots who had fled to Philadelphia were about to establish a permanent congregation, Seixas was requested to officiate, and he at once proceeded thither from Connecticut, taking with him the synagogue property of his former charge. In this way was established the Congregation Mickvé Israel of Philadelphia. On the completion of its newly erected house of worship, Seixas was one of the committee that waited on the governor of Pennsylvania, inviting him to attend the dedication; and in the course of his patriotic address at the ceremony he invoked the blessing of Almighty God on "the Members of these States in Congress assembled and on his Excellency George Washington, Commander-General of these Colonies." During his entire stay at Philadelphia, Seixas showed himself a public-spirited citizen, figuring also as a zealous defender of religious liberty. Thus when Pennsylvania adopted the religious test as an indispensable qualification for office, he and several members of his congregation addressed the Council of Censors on the subject (Dec., 1783), characterizing the test as "unjust to the members of a persuasion that had always been attached to the American cause and given a support to the country, some in the Continental army, some in the militia, and some by cheerfully paying taxes and sustaining the popular cause." Westcott, the historian, expressly calls attention to this protest, stating "that it doubtless had its influence in procuring the subsequent modification of the test clause in the Constitution." After the war Seixas returned to New York and resumed his former position as rabbi of Congregation Shearith Israel. He was one of the first ministers to preach a regular Thanks-giving Day sermon (see "Daily Gazette," Dec. 23, 1789), and was also one of the fourteen clergymen participating in the ceremony of the inauguration of George Washington as first president of the United States. In 1787 he became a trustee of Columbia College in the city of New York, and held that office continuously to 1815, being the only Jew ever so honored. When the college was incorporated, Seixas' name appeared in the charter as one of the incorporators. Seixas was on terms of intimate friendship with the ministers of other denominations, particularly with the Episcopal clergy of New York. The latter, tradition relates, frequently visited the Portuguese synagogue, while the Jewish minister in turn was invited to address Christian congregations. The manuscript of one such discourse delivered by Seixas (Aug., 1800) in historic St. Paul's, New York, is still preserved by his congregation. Public-spirited at all times, he earnestly exhorted his congregation to support the administration during the War of 1812; and an address containing his appeal for the sufferers during that struggle is still extant. He also took the lead in philanthropic work, founding in 1802 the charitable organization known as "Hebra Hased Ve Amet," which is still (1905) in existence. Seixas was twice married, his first wife being Elkalah Cohen (1749-85), to whom he was wedded in 1775, and his second, Hannah Manuel, whom he married in 1789. His descendants are among the prominent Jewish families of New York. His remains lie in the old cemetery on New Bowery, in the city of New York. (Jewish Virtual Library)

1826: Official date on which the Hebrew Mutual Benefit Society, the oldest such organization in New York, was formed today (There are some reports that the society was actually formed six years before this date. The eighteen founding members chose Israel B. Kursheedt as Pesident; Elias Phillips as Treasurer; John Jackson as Secretary.



1828: Birthdate of Joseph Unger, the native of Vienna who became a prominent Austrian jurist who was appointed to the House of Lords by Emperor Franz Joseph.



1834: Birthdate of Jules Quesnay de Beaurepaire the antidreyfusard who resigned as President of the Civil Chamber of the Court Cassation “before the first quashing of the verdict that had convicted Dreyfus.”



1839: Abdülmecid I,succeeded his father Mahmud II as Sultan. During his reign, he promised Albert Cohn that “no improvements should be introduced in the legal conditions of the Christian subjects of Turkey which would not also apply to the Jews”



1853: The Russian Army invades Turkey, beginning the Crimean War. The British and the French both sided with the Turks, assisting them in the defeat of the Russians. The Paris Treaty of 1858, concluding the war, granted Jews and Christians the right to settle in Palestine, forced upon the Ottoman Turks by the British for their assistance in the war effort. This decision opened the doors for Jewish immigration to Palestine.



1854(2ndof Tammuz, 5614): Anglo-Jewish writer Charlotte Montefiore passed away.  Born in London in 1818, “she took an active part in the Jewish Ladies' Benevolent Loan and Visiting Society as well as in the Jewish Emigration Society, of which she was one of the founders. She was the active friend of the Jews' Free School, the Jews' Infant School, the West Metropolitan School, and of many other educational establishments.” Among her works were “A Few Words to the Jews of London” which was published in 1851. (Jewish Encylcopedia)



1854:Jews living in Los Angeles, having recognized the necessity of organizing in order to provide for religious services, a Jewish cemetery and Jewish welfare needs, met today and formed the Hebrew Benevolent Society of Los Angeles, the first charitable group to be founded in the city. Samuel K. Labatt was elected president, not only because he had the language facility of a native-born American, but also because he had similar experience in New Orleans. The following year, the Hebrew Benevolent society established a Jewish cemetery in Chavez Ravine. This society still exists, now over 145 years old under the name of Jewish Family Service of Los Angeles having been active longer than any other such group in Southern California. As the first president, Samuel K. Labatt was responsible for local efforts in defending the fair name of Jewry against the 1855 anti-Semitic attack by William Stow in the California State Assembly.



1855: In a letter written today, Thomas Hugo, Senior Curate of St. Botolph, described “The Thieves Exchange” in London which is populated by 15,000 individuals including “Jews of the lowest grade.”  “But the great majority are nominally Christians.”



1861: Birthdate of Alber Ulmmann, a graduate of CCNY, member of the New York Stock Exchange, author whose works included Tales of Old New York and a founder the Judeans.



1861:Alfred Mordecai, Jr., was commissioned a 2nd Lieutenant in the United States Army.  He was the son of Major Alfred Mordecai, one of the most prominent Jewish soldiers in the U.S. Army at the outbreak of the Civil War.  Major Mordecai, who was a southerner by birth, could not bring himself to fight against those among whom he had grown up.  Yet, unlike others, he was honorable enough not to be able to fight against the Union, so he resigned.  His son had no such qualms and served throughout the war with distinction, eventually rising to the rank of Brigadier General.



1862: Abraham Lincoln signed a re-configured Morrill Act into law creating land-grant colleges or universities.  Iowa was the first state to accept the provisions of the act, subsequently creating Iowa State University. Dr. Alan Singer is one of the distinguished Jewish graduates of Iowa State. The creation of tax-payer supported schools of higher education not tied to any religious denomination would be a boon to the bourgeoning Jewish population.



1863: Captain Joseph B. Greenhut of the 82nd Regiment, Illinois Infantry was selected by its commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel Edward S. Salomon to lead fifty volunteers on a mission to dislodge Confederate sharpshooters who were “picking off” gunners and officers serving on the Union Army’s front line.  Greenhut led a bayonet charge and successfully dislodged the Rebel marksmen from the houses in which they were hiding. Henry L. Stimson would eventually send Greenhut an official letter of commendation for the brave manner in which he behaved.  Greenhut and Salomon were two of the many Jews who fought at Gettysburg.



1863: At Gettysburg, the 59th New York Volunteer Regiment which had been formed by Philip J. Joachimsen, held off an attack by the 48thGeorgia during an assault on Cemetery Ridge.



1863(15th of Tammuz, 5623: Sixty-two year old Isaac ben Jacob Bejacob a Lithuanian born bibliographer, author, published and leader of the Jewish community passed away Vilnius today.



1868: Birthdate of Shmuel Yitchak Hillman the native of Kovno who served as a Dayan of the London Beth Din.



1870: It was reported today that the Jewish Messenger has strongly ridiculed the efforts of the London Society for Promoting Christianity Among the Jews.” The Messengerproudly noted that the Society had spent $200,000 last year and had only been able convert 4 adults and “nine infants.”  With such meager results, the Messenger suggests that the millions that have been over the past 63 years in an attempt to convert Jews would have been spent to improve the lot of the many indigent and needy Christians.  Furthermore, if the Jews have held fast to their faith over the centuries when faced with the threat of fire and sword, why would anybody think that they would convert now that they were living in a society where they enjoyed comparative peace and the rights of citizenship.



1871: It was reported today that the Jewish Times has “severely” denounced pronouncements made at the recent conference of American Rabbis held at Cincinnati, Ohio, as not being “representative of Judaism. The Timestook issue with the presenter who “repudiated” the concept of a personal God, “denied that the belief in a personal God was taught in biblical Judaism and said that the God of the Bible was “implacable,” capable only of meting out punishment and that “the idea of personal and pardoning God had its origin in Christianity.” The Times also took issue with another speaker who agreed that there was no personal God which made an “absurdity” out of the concept of offering a prayer to God.  The Times was alarmed by the fact that nobody took issues with these and other similar speakers and that one of these speakers had been selected to develop a new prayerbook.  The Times wondered if the leaders would ultimate wish to remain “within the pale of Judaism.”



1871: Victor Emmanuel II of Italy entered Rome after its conquest from the Papal States making it the capital of the newly unified nation of Italy.  Jews had played an active role in the various acts that led to the creation of modern Italy.  For once, the Jews were not disappointed at the outcome as Italy became one of the most hospitable places for Jews to live until the 1930’s.



1871: The Anglo-Jewish Association was established in London based on the principles of the French Alliance Israelite. It was soon imitated in Germany in the form of the Lifaverein der Dutchen Juden.



1872:  ON the Lower East Side, Francis and Mary Mundelein gave birth to Cardinal George Mundelein, the Archbishop of Chicago who, in the 1930’s, was an outspoken critic of Hitler and the Nazis.



1872: The cornerstone was laid this afternoon at the corner of Lexington & 63rdfor a new synagogue to house Ansche Chesed which has outgrown its current facility on Norfolk Street near Houston.  When finished, the building, which will cost a quarter of a million dollars will have space for 1,400 congregants as well as classrooms and offices for the staff.  Rabbi Mielziner officiated at the ceremony which included a speech about the history of the congregation by its leader, President Herman who placed an artifact filled box into the cornerstone.  Rabbi Vidaver, of Congregation B’nai Jeshrun gave a sermon in English and ceremonies were closed with the singing of the 150th Psalm.



1873: In what has become an annual summer event, 432 children from the Hebrew Orphan Asylum and the Hebrew Free Schools of New York enjoyed a day-long outing that included a barge trip from Manhattan to Long Island, plenty of fun and fresh air as well as a goodly supply of food and drink including fresh milk. The group left at 8:30 in the morning and arrived home at 7 in the evening.  The committee responsible for the event included Lewis S. Levy, Chairman, Asher T. Meyer, Treasurer and Julius Rosenbaum, Secretary.  More such trips are planned for later in the summer.



1877: “The French Parliament” published today explained the failure of the stock exchange  to fall in response to last month’s political upheaval was a result of Germans and Jews controlling the Bourse. As many as three-fourths the speculators on the exchange are said to Jews or German speaking individuals regardless of their country of origin. [This is an example of the International Zionist Jewish Banker myth that grew right along with the growth of finance capitalism.]



1879: The New York Times published the terms of the will of the late Baron Lionel de Rothschild.  The estate is valued at 2,700,000 pounds.  His sons, Sir Nathaniel and Mr. Alfred were named as executors.



1881: After President James Garfield was shot by Charles J. Guiteau today, Jews in Schenectady, NY held a special prayer service at Gates of Heaven 



1881: Among the speeches to be delivered as during the Commencement Ceremonies at Williams College is “The Ancient and the Modern Jews” by Austin B. Bassett of Albany, NY. [Note – I cannot find a reason for Bassett’s choice of topics.  He must have been a good student since his essay had won a prize when he graduated from public school in Albany.]



1882: As the deadlock between the railroads and the freight handlers continued undelivered materials and goods of all sorts continued to accumulate on the piers of New York and New Jersey as the number of striker breakers, including Russian Jewish immigrants, continued to decrease in number. 



1883: At Benevidas, “a prominent Jewish merchant” by the name of Mias was gunned down by a Mexican named Vela whom Mias had been ejected from a store by Mias because he was drunk.



1883: The trail of the Jews charged with murdering a Christian girl, Esther Solymosi, as part of their Passover observance, continued today at Nyireghyasza, Hungary, with testimony by a raft proprietor testifying that he had seen the Police Magistrate coerce witness to provide the testimony he desired.



1883: In the Land of the Lion and The Sun: Modern Persia by C.J. Willis, M.D. which was reviewed today, the author reported that on his visited to the Shah during “the ceremony of Aid-i No –Ruz or New Year’s Day” “twenty wretched Jews in rags and tatters” stood in the courtyard next toe large tank waiting “to be thrust head over heels in the water.” [Iran is modern day Persia]



1883: Barrow Eskin, a Jewish immigrant from Russia applied for assistance today at  Castle Garden. He had returned from Chicago along with his wife and six children because he could not find work. 

1884: Isaac Jacobs, a Polish Jew who is suspected of murdering Mrs. Etta Carleton of Watertown, NY, was arraigned in Cambridge District Court on charges that he had stolen a watch and chain from Robert Douglass of Cambridge, MA. Jacobs claimed that he was in Boston the night of the murder.



1885: Josef Ahondorowsky, a Russian Jew, his wife and six children arrived at Castle Garden aboard the Steamship State of Indiana.  He claims that their passage was paid for by the Hebrew Aid Society of Paris and he is completely destitute.



1887: “The Parnellites Protest” published today described the quest for Irish Home Rule including the statement that “The English are not amenable to reason at present in matters of Irish politics than was Pharaoh in matters of Hebrew politics.” A century earlier, Americans seeking “home rule” had depicted King George III as Pharaoh and cast themselves in the role of the Children of Israel.  Now it was the turn of the Irish to do the same.  The Jewish story of the Exodus has become a common motif for slavery and liberation. This is yet another example of Jews and Judaism have provided cultural motifs for the general society, even when that society is busy rejecting individual, real-live Jews.



1891: Dr. Richard J. H. Gottheil, who lectures on Syriac languages and literature at Columbia, is scheduled to sail for Europe today aboard the Normannia for Europe.  While in London, he will be meeting with Dr. Paul Friedman, the Berlin native who has been trying to find a place of refuge for Russia’s suffering Jews.



1892: L'Osservatore Romano, the Vatican's official newspaper, runs a front-page story about Jews trying to suppress natural Christian reactions to their evil behavior."Don't play with fire. The people's ire, although at the moment somewhat dampened by sentiments of Christian charity and by the tender influence of the Catholic clergy, may at any moment erupt like a volcano and strike like a thunderbolt." (As reported by Austin Cline)



1893: “A Russian Lutheran, Chased Out of His Native Place Is Supported by Benevolent Jews” published today described the plight of Gottfried Kasier an ethnic German living in Russia who fled after an imperial ukase commanded that he and his comrades convert to Greek Orthodoxy. They hid themselves among Jews leaving the country and currently are living in a Jewish shelter in London.



1893: It was reported today that in the United States there are 1,364 newspapers printed in 27 foreign languages, 14 of which are published by Jews. The Germans lead with 857 such publications.



1894: “Scarabs and their History” published today provided a detailed review of Scarab: The History, Manufacture and Religious Symbolism of the Sacrabaeus by Isaac Myer.



1894: It was reported today that Harris Schneider, a Jewish cloakmaker “living at 119 Forsyth Street died while undergoing an operation in Mount Sinai Hospital eight weeks ago. He is survived by his wife and five children the eldest of which is 12 or 13 years old.



1894: Doctors Landinski, Solotaroff and Brothers spoke to a large group of Jewish mothers today on “the care and feeding of children during the warm weather” and “on the uses of sterilized milk and barley water as introduced by Nathan Straus.”



1895: A group of underprivileged Jewish children returned to New York City from the two day excursion to Rockaway Beach Hebrew Sanitarium.



1896: Theodor Herzl began a trip to England that would last until July 20.



1896: Russian soldiers reportedly wrecked the houses of Jews living at Mizabisch during which they killed and wounded several of them.



1896(2st of Tammuz, 5656): Jules S. Abecasis, the well-known rubber broker and leader of the Sephardic community passed away today as a result of injuries suffered when an express wagon collided with his bicycle.



1897: The will of Mayer Lehman was filed in the Surrogate’s office today.



1899: “The Riots in Belgium” published today attributed the “disorder” in Belgium to “clericalism” which “in France has been allied with Jew-baiting to prolong” the abuse of Dreyfus.



1901: Jacob Saphirstein begins printing The Jewish Morning Journal the first Yiddish daily morning newspaper established in New York. “Its staff of writers includes Jacob Magidoff (city editor), Ḥayyim Malitz, A. M. Sharkansky, M. Seifert, I. Friedman, and Peter Wiernik. While professedly Orthodox and Zionistic, it is the most secular of the Yiddish papers in America, and is an ardent advocate of the Americanization of the Russian immigrants who form the bulk of its readers.”



1903: Birthdate of Thurgood Marshall, the grandson of slaves who fought the long legal battles for civil rights, served as a Supreme Court Justice and was a hero to future Justice Elena Kagan and Senator Al Frankin.



1906: Delegates at today’s session of the Federation of American Zionist meeting responded enthusiastically to a letter from Max Nordau that contained “a strong appeal for support of the Jewish institutions in Palestine.”



1906: Birthdate of Nobel Laureate in Physics Hans Bethe.



1907: The 18thannual convention of the Central Conference of American Rabbis opened at Frankfort, Michigan.



1909: At the end of a successful seven week strike, “triumphant bakers marched though the Lower East of Manhattan carrying a loaf of bread five wide and fifteen feet long” which was emblematic of their hard won victory. Most of the bakers involved in the strike were Jewish.



1911: Birthdate of Victor Rabinowitz, “a leftist lawyer whose causes and clients over nearly three-quarters of a century ranged from labor unions to Black Panthers to Cuba to Dashiell Hammett to Dr. Benjamin Spock to his own daughter…” (As reported by Douglas Martin)
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/20/nyregion/20rabinowitz.html



1912: In Baltimore, MD, the Democratic National Convention which Samuel Untermyer II attended as a delegate from New York, came to a close having nominated Woodrow Wilson for President.  Among his supporters is Louis Brandeis, the noted lawyer and future Supreme Court Justice.



1913: At 21 York House, Fieldway Crescent, Islington Simon and Marie Beloff gave birth to Sir Max Beloff the British historian who would elevated to the Peerage



1918: Pitcher Ed Corey made his major league debut with the Chicago White Sox.



1921(26th of Sivan, 5681): Jacob A. Cantor, a leader of the New York Democratic Party for forty years, passed away.  The son of immigrants from London, Cantor served in numerous positions including President of the Borough of Manhattan, President of the New York State, and member of the United States House of Representatives.
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=990CE1D71739E133A25750C0A9619C946095D6CF



1923: “The first coupons to fall due on the bonds” issued by the municipality of Tel Aviv “are paid at the offices of the Guaranty Trust Company.”  Although the bonds were issued in pounds, they will be redeemed in dollars for the convenience of the American bondholders.  Meyer Dizengoff, the Mayor of Tel Aviv, is present for the redemption ceremony.



1926: The annual convention of the Rabbinical Assembly of the Jewish Theological Seminary in America which is being held at Long Branch, NJ is scheduled to have its final session today.



1927: The Rothschild Hospital in Jerusalem is partially destroyed as an earthquake hits Palestine.



1929: Birthdate of Abraham Avigdorov the native of Moshav Mitzpa whose father Gad was killed in the 1936 Arab Revolt  who received the Hero of Israel Award for destroying two machine gun nests in March of 1948.



1930: Birthdate of Jack Garfein the native of Mukacevo who survived  Auschwitz and come to the U.S. at the end of WW II where he became a successful film and theatre director.



1931: Tempers flared at today’s meeting of the World Zionist Congress as New Yorker Berl Locker, leader of the Paole Tzion likened the Revisionists led by Valdmir Jabotinsky to the “Hitlerites.”  Locker relented and apologized for his remarks.  Jabotinsky responded with an impassioned speech demanding a Jewish state on both sides of the Jordan and assailing the leadership of Chaim Weizmann.  Ben Gurion responded in defense of Weizmann and his efforts to negotiate with the British. He ridiculed the Revisionists as “easy Zionist” who ignored the reality of the situation in Palestine. American Zionist leaders expressed their support for Weizmann.  The conflict between the two wings of the Zionist movement is driven by the restrictions of the Passfield White Paper and the obvious fact that the British government is reneging on the Balfour Declaration.



1933: In Chicago, Mayor Kelly addresses the ZOA at the formal opening of its convention.



1933: Chaim Weismann is the guest of honor at Jewish Day at A Century of Progress Exposition aka, The Chicago World’s Fair.



1933: “The Knight of the Long Knives,” a purge of the Nazi Party that began on June came to an end living Hitler in complete control of the party.



1935: Birthdate of pianist and educator Gilbert Kalish. Kalish has been the pianist for the Boston Symphony Chamber Players since 1969. He is the Leading Professor and Head of Performance Activities at SUNY, Stony Brook. He was also on the faculty at Tangelwood Music Center for 30 years.



1935(30thof Sivan, 5695): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz



1935(30thof Sivan, 5695): Seventy-five year old Sir Francis Montefiore, the grandnephew of Sir Moses Montefiore, passed away today in London.
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=FB081EF6355C167B93C1A9178CD85F418385F9



1936: The Palestine Post reported that Yitzhak Glazer, a local watchman, was shot dead by Arab terrorists in Hadera. Another guard, Jacob Bahar, was severely injured by Arab fire at Motza. Arab terrorists, interned at the detention camp at Sarafand, went on a hunger strike, as a protest against the camp's conditions. Arab "tree-killers" cut down about 40 old, fruit-bearing olive trees in Zichron Ya'acov.


1936: The Palestine Post reported that Dr. Paul Zubek from Vienna was to be deported after police found a large quantity of Nazi literature in his flat in Tel Aviv.


1939(15th of Tammuz, 5699): In Haifa, an unidentified killer murdered Abraham Joseph Cohen, “one of the few surviving members of the tiny Samaritan Jewish community in Nablus.”


1941: First broadcast of “The Adventures of the Thin” a radio series produced by Himan Brown.


1941: Nazi-instigated pogrom claimed many Jewish lives in Lvov.



1941: Following the Nazi occupation, the telephones of all the Jews in Riga, Latvia, were disconnected today.



1941: With the approval of the Nazis, “Latvian armed youths wearing red and white armbands dragged Jews out of their home after which they variously arrested them, beat them, shot them or killed them in some other maner.



1941 (7th of Tammuz, 5701): A German cavalry unit on patrol in Lubieszow, Volhynia, Ukraine, murders Jewish resisters.



1942 (17th of Tammuz, 5702): The Jewish community from Ropczyce, Poland, is murdered at the Belzec death camp.



1942: The Bulgarian government demanded that all Jewish households in Monastir hand over 20 percent of the value of all assets, including property, furniture, cash, and household items.



1942: The New York Times reported on the "slaughter of 700,000 Jews" in German-occupied Poland.



1943(29th of Sivan, 5703):Helena Nordheim, later Helena Kloot- Nordheim, was gassed today. Nordheim was one of five Jewish members of the 1928 Dutch Ladies’ Gymnastic Team that placed first ahead of teams from Italy and Great Britain.


1944: Salomao Nauslausky was among the first five thousand members of the Brazilian Expeditionary Force (BEF) that left Brazil for Europe aboard the USNS General Mann. While serving with the BEF in Italy, Nauslausky served with such distinction that “he was mentioned in dispatches.



1944: As the Red Army closed in on the Lithuanian city of Vilna, the Germans seized 1800 Jews from their work in the factories and took them to Ponar where they were shot.



1944: Responding to Allied threats that he would be held personally responsible for war crimes, Regent Miklos Horthy order “a halt to all further deportations of Jews and Eichmann was advised to return to Germany.”



1946: Birthdate of Ron Silver, Tony-award winning actor and political activist.



1946: President signed the Luce-Celler Act of 1946, a law that had been originally proposed by Representative Emmanuel Celler to deal with immigration matters related to Native Americans and Filipinos



1946: At eight o'clock this evening, radio station WEVD will broadcast the news in Yiddish.


1946:At 8:15 pm radio station WEVD will broadcast a program called "The Jewish Philosopher"


1946: Dr. Nahum Goldman, Rabbi Stephen Wise, Rabbi Abba Hillel Silver and Louis Lipsky are scheduled to meet with President Truman today "to describe the situation in Palestine and to talk over the implementation of the Presidential recommendation for entrance of 100,000 Jews into the territory."


1947: Birthdate of Larry David. This actor, writer and producer is best known for his work on Seinfeld" and his own HBO show.



1948: Birthdate of German born (his parents were really Poles) Canadian cinema actor Saul Rubinek.



1948: Seventy-two year old Milton Wallenstein, the youngest child of Esther Hellman Wallenstein, the founding president of the Hebrew Infant Asylum passed away today.



1950:The Government of Israel came out tonight in full support of the United Nations measures seeking to end the war in Korea. This is stark contrast with stand of several Arab states including Egypt, which have come out in favor of “neutrality” in responding to what the Israeli government recognized as acts of aggression on the Korean Peninsula.



1951:At the Congress of the dissident Romanian Orthodox Church in America held in Chicago today, Valerian Trifa who had belong to the anti-Semitic Iron Guard during World War II  was chosen to seve as the bishop. Thanks to the efforts of Israeli historian Zev Golan, his past was exposed costing him his home in the United States.



1951: The Jerusalem Post reported that China accepted the US bid for peace in Korea.


1951: The Jerusalem Post reported that the first issue of Omer, the vowelized daily newspaper for new immigrants in simple Hebrew, had appeared on newsstands. It included a glossary in Spanish, French, Arabic and Yiddish.


1951: The Jerusalem Post reported that a young man was killed by an Arab Legion sniper in the Musrara quarter of Jerusalem.


1953: Release date of “Houdini,” the film about the Jewish magician starring Tony Curtis, born Bernard Schwartz.


1959: Ogden R. Reid officially presented his credentials as the United States Ambassador to Israel.


1961: American author Ernest Hemingway took his own life.  Hemingway’s first novel, The Sun Also Rises, featured a Jewish character, Robert Cohn. Cohn was a friend of the novel’s protagonist, Jake Barnes.  Cohn is not only insecure, he is an insecure Jew. While attending Princeton, his sense of insecurity is heightened by his brushes with anti-Semitism.  In the best of tradition of Hemingway, Cohn compensates for his Jewishness and insecurity by becoming a boxer.  The Jewish jock, especially the Jew as a boxer may have resonated well with readers of the time, since Jews held a number of boxing titles during the 1920’s and 1930’s.  Although Hemingway was not Jewish, his books were featured at Nazi book burnings where the works of Einstein, Freud, et al were consumed by the flames. 



1962: The first Wal-Mart store opens for business in Rogers, Arkansas. Over the year’s Wal-Mart would prove to be a useful place to shop for Jews living outside of major metropolitan areas who were observing the dietary laws.  Not only did Wal-Mart carry numerous Kosher items, but many of its affordable house-brands carried the Hechser as well.



1964: President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964.  Jewish political leaders played a major role in passing this piece of landmark legislation.  Congressman Cellar, Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, was the driving force in getting the bill through the House of Representative.  Today we take the provisions of this anti-discrimination law for granted.  It is difficult to believe how controversial it was forty years ago and what an act of political courage it took to support this law.  Although thought of as a law to end racial discrimination, the law banned discrimination based on several criteria including religion.



1967: “The Israeli Air Force bombs Egyptian artillery positions that had supported the commandos at Ras Al-'Ish”



1969:  As hostilities heated up along the Suez, Israeli paratroops conducted their second deep penetration of Egyptian territory in less than a week, killing thirteen, taking 3 prisoners and gathering additional intelligence for the IDF.



1976: The Jerusalem Post reported that Israel began proceedings, through the French government, for the release of 98 Israelis held by hijackers in Entebbe, Uganda. The hijackers extended their deadline for three days and released 101 hostages. The remaining hostages included 98 Israelis and other Jews of dual nationality, as well as a crew of 12.



1977: Russian born writer Vladimir Nabokov passed away.  Nabokov was not Jewish but his wife’s family was.  More importantly, his father had a champion of Jewish rights in the days of Czarist Russia.  Nabokov was living in France in 1940.  Because of these aforementioned “Jewish connections” a Jewish welfare organization helped get him out of the country when the Nazis marched into Paris.



1980: The first London production Stephen Sondheim’s “Sweeny Todd” opened at the West End’s Theatre Roayl



1984: Small arms fire directed at an Israeli car in Jerusalem wounded several children.



1990: Efraim Gur was appointed Deputy Minister of Communications



1995(4thof Tammuz, 5755): One hundred four year old author and journalist George Seldes passed away today. (As reported by William Dicke)
http://www.nytimes.com/1995/07/03/obituaries/george-seldes-is-dead-at-104-an-early-fervent-press-critic.html



2000: The New York Times features reviews books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including MacArthur’s War: Korea and the Undoing of an American Hero by Stanley Weintraub and The Unwanted Gaze: The Destruction of Privacy in America by Jeffrey Rosen.



2001:Doctors at Jewish Hospital in Louisville implanted the first AbioCor heart replacement in a seven hour long operation. Unlike earlier artificial hearts such as the Jarvik-7 the AbioCor has no wires or tubes that stick out of the chest and connect to a big compressor. The battery-powered, plastic-and-titanium device is the size of a softball.



2001(11thof Tammuz, 5761):Aharon Obadyan, 41, of Zichron Ya'akov was shot and killed near Baka a-Sharkia, north of the West Bank city of Tulkarem and close to the 1967 Green Line border, after shopping at the local market.



2001: Fifty-one year old Yair Har Sinai of Susiya disappeared today.



2001: The PFLP set off two separate bombs which injured six people in Tel Aviv today.



2005(25th of Sivan, 5765): Eighty-nine year old Oscar winning cinema screenwriter Ernest Lehman    who was responsible for the scripts for such hits as “The Sweet Smell of Success,” “The Sound of Music,” and “North by Northwest” and  gained additional fame as the director of “Portnoy’s Complaint” passed away today. (As reported by Margalit Fox)
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/06/movies/06LEHMAN.html



2006. Rabbis Stephanie Alexander and Aaron Sherman celebrate their wedding anniversary



2006: Rabbi Stephanie Alexander celebrates her birthday in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.



2006: West Magazine published “How Hollywood Really Operates” by Leonard Mlodinow.



2006: Israel continued its military efforts to gain the release of abducted Israel Defense Forces soldier Gilad Shalit. An Israel Air Force attack helicopter launched a missile before dawn striking the office of Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh in Gaza City. Also before dawn, the IAF struck the headquarters of a Palestinian Authority security organization founded by Hamas in Gaza, killing one of the group's operatives and injuring another, Israel Radio reported.



2007: Matan Vilnai began serving as Deputy Minister of Defense.



2007:  The Verbatim section of Time Magazine quotes the words of New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg as he withdraws from the Republican Party. “Real results are more important than partisan battles, [and] good ideas should take precedence over rigid adherence to any particular political ideology.”  According to some, Bloomberg’s switch to Independent presages a run for the Presidency in 2008 which would make him the first viable Jewish candidate to ever seek the top job in America.



2007: In Jerusalem,"Life in Film," a series focusing on the Jewish communities around the world as captured in film, features "Judaism in Iran - Past and Present." The event includes a meeting with Orly Rachmian from Ben Gurion University and Machon Ben-Zvi and selections from a documentary about the lives of Jews in Iran.



2007: President George Bush commuted the sentence of convicted government official “Scooter” Libby.  Mr. Libby was an aide to Vice President Cheney and one of the Jews serving in the Bush administration. 



2007(16th of Tammuz, 5767): Famed soprano Beverly Sills passed away at the age of 78.



2007(16th of Tammuz, 5767): Hy Zaret, one of the last of the Tin Pan Alley lyricists, whose most indelible work was the oft-recorded 1955 hit “Unchained Melody” but whose oeuvre ranged from jingles to songs about science to ballads of love and war passed away at the age of 99.



2008: Samuel Israel III the convicted hedge fund manager surrendered to federal authorities.



2008: In a news conference held today by Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of the terrorist group called Hezbollah, held a news conference during which he stated that his group conducted a detailed investigation into the fate of Ron Arad, the missing Israeli navigator. He declined to reveal the information unearthed during the investigation, claiming that he had turned over the results to the United Station



2008: Majdi Halabi’s family received a telephone call from an inmate in Damon Prison who claimed that Halabi had been abducted and was being held in the vicinity of Nablus in the West Bank



2008: General Robert Magnus completes his tour as the 30th Assistant Commandant of the Marine Corps.



2008: “Leisure Time in Israel” featuring the works of Israeli photographer Orit Siman-Tov opens at the JCC in Manhattan. 



2008: Penny “Pritzker and her husband hosted a $28,500 per plate fundraiser for Mr. Obama's campaign in Chicago with Warren Buffett and his wife, and Obama advisor Valerie Jarrett.”



2008(29th of Sivan, 5768):  Jerusalem residents Bat Sheva Unterman, 33, Elizabeth Goren-Friedman, 54, and Jean Raloy were killed and dozens more wounded when a Palestinian construction worker driving a bulldozer plowed deliberately into a crowded bus and a string of cars in downtown Jerusalem.

2008: The Jerusalem Post reported that a London university made history this week when it appointed the country's first professor of Israeli studies. The University of London's School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) named Dr. Colin Shindler, reader in Israeli and Modern Jewish Studies and chair of the Center for Jewish Studies, as the first professor of Israeli studies in the UK.

2009: Today the fourth annual week devoted to the cooperation of the IDF and the Israel Antiquities Authority in preserving the country's environment and antiquities comes to an end with this last day focusing primarily on current archeological issues.



2009:The Randi & Bruce Pergament Jewish Film Festival features a screening of “Goyband,”  a campy comedy that’s a cross between “Dirty Dancing” and “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” in which a fading teen idol is booked to perform at a kosher Catskills hotel-casino and a romance ensues between the hotel owner’s already engaged daughter and the boy band icon.



2009: The Washington Post featured a review of The Sweet Science and Other Writings:The Sweet Science, The Earl of Louisiana, The Jollity Building, Between Meals, The Pressby A.J. Liebling.



2009: The London Gazette published the official announcement from the Crown Office that the Queen has named David Anthony Freud  Baron Freud, a life peerage.



2010:An exhibit of the paintings of Israeli, award-winning, artist Liron Sissman is scheduled to openat the prestigious National Arts Club in Manhattan.



2010:A southbound lane of traffic on Highway 4 south of Beit Leed was closed to traffic this morning because of the march on behalf of of abducted soldier Gilad Shalit. It's the sixth day of the march to Jerusalem from the Shalit family's home in the westen Galilee.



2010:The Health Ministry removed its warning about bathing at beaches in Bat Yam, south of Tel Aviv, today following checks of water quality. The public was warned at the beginning of the week not to go into the water at a number of the beaches because of the flow of sewage into the sea.



2011(30thof Sivan, 5771): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz



2011: In a rare musical treat, Cantor Joel Caplan, son of Richard and Ellen Caplan, and father of Ilan Caplan is scheduled to lead services at Agudas Achim in Iowa City, Iowa.



2011: Rabbi Raphael Bensimon and Rabbi Feivel Staruss are scheduled to lead services in Cedar Rapids, Iowa during which the congregation will participate in Feivel’s Aufruf.  Rabbi Strauss is the fiancée of Abbie Silber, daughter of Laurie and Dr. Bob Silber, a mensch in the truest sense of the term.



2011: Hani Skutch is scheduled to appear at the Off the Wall Comedy Club in Jerusalem this evening.



2011:Eldad Hadad, one of the Nehariya policemen released from prison earlier this year after serving time for avenging a known criminal was shot tonight near the synagogue he normally prays at. He was taken to the hospital where he was operated on in moderate to serious condition



2011: Today, the Quartet of Middle East peace negotiators said it is concerned about "unsustainable conditions" facing people in Gaza but said additional flotillas should be discouraged.

2011: Former International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn, whose house arrest was lifted following concerns about the credibility of a hotel maid who accused him of sexual assault, left his rented townhouse for a few hours today before returning and darting back inside. Strauss-Kahn has been accused by the maid of trying to rape



2012: Yitzhak Shamir laid to rest at Mount Herzl
http://www.timesofisrael.com/yitzhak-shamir-laid-to-rest-at-mount-herzl/



2012:Officials in Kenya say that two Iranian agents arrested with explosives planned to attack Israeli, American, British or Saudi Arabian targets inside Kenya. The officials said today that the plot appears to fit into a global pattern of attacks or attempted attacks by Iranian agents, mostly against Israeli interests.



2012: Rabbi Rick Jacobs, newly chosen President of the Union for Reform Judaism is scheduled to meet with President Shimon Peres.



2012: Israeli cellist Yoed NIr is scheduled to perform at the Royal Albert Hall in London.



2012: Today the Israel Antiquities Authority announced that an archeological dig found a mosaic floor describing the story of biblical Samson and a Hebrew inscription from an approximately 1,600-year-old synagogue in the lower Galilee.



2013: At Tel Aviv University, Dr. Lev Kapitaikan is scheduled to deliver a lecture entitled "History and Religious Architecture of the Early Islamic Period, ca.650-750: The First Mosques and the Enigma of the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem”


2013(24thof Tammuz, 5773): Eighty-eight year old Auschwitz survivor  Simon Kohn who opened Simon Kohn’s Kosher Deli in 1963 at University City, a suburb of St. Louis, which later moved to Creve Cour, passed away today. (As reported by Joe Bonwich)


2013: A 17th-century German medal that portrays the Jews as responsible for a contemporary famine is one of some 400 Judaica items, ancient coins, medals, Israel memorabilia and documents scheduled to be sold today at a Jerusalem auction sponsored by the Kedem Auction House and antiquities collector L. Alexander Wolfe. (As reported by Ofer Aderet)




2013: A painting by Italian Jewish artist Amedeo Modigliani, projected to be sold for NIS 30 million (some $8.25 million), fetched a disappointing NIS 25.4 million ($7 million) at an auction in Jerusalem today. (As reported by Lazar Berman)

 
2013: A Turkish deputy prime minister linked the "Jewish diaspora" to recent anti-government unrest and the country's Jewish community expressed fears today the comments could make them targets of popular anger


2014: As a part of the Alte Actors (Old Actors) program at Chai Point, are scheduled to be performing at Summerfest


2014: The annual rummage sale at Temple Menorah in Milwaukee is scheduled to come to an end.

2014: As the ‘Whole House of Israel” mourns, the families of for Naftali Frankel, 16, Gilad Shaar, 16; and Eyal Yifrach, 19 sit shiva


This Day, July 3, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. Levin

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July 3


324:  Constantine the Great defeated Licinius at the Battle of Adrianople. Constantine ruled the western half of the Roman Empire.  Licinius ruled the eastern half.  In 313 the two rulers had issued the Edict of Milan which opened the Roman Empire to Christianity.  In 320, Licinius reject the edict.  These led to a clash of political and religious power that was settled at the Battle of Adrianople.  When the war ended, Constantine and Christianity were secure in their respective positions of power and the history of the Jews of Europe would take a turn for the worse.


353: Emperor Constantius II issues a decree to confiscate all of the property anyone who converts from Christianity to Judaism. Christians worked hard to convert Jews, and they absolutely rejected conversion back to Judaism. Being Jewish is apparently something that one should be ashamed of. (As reported by Austin Cline)


987:  Hugh Capet is crowned King of France, the first of the Capetian dynasty. “The Capetian dynasty lasted for more than 300 years. Capetian rule was weak, especially during the first hundred years. Thus each duchy decided for itself how to treat its Jews. The Church gained enormous influence over local affairs and promoted the idea that the Jews were in league with the Devil - declaring them the antichrist".


1187: As the conflict between the Crusaders and Saladin comes closer to a climax, the King of Jerusalem, Guy de Lusignan leads his army on a forced march under the broiling sun of the Galilee


1247:Pope Innocent IV issues the encyclical Lacrimabilem Judaeorum condemning blood libels against Jews.(As reported by Austin Cline)


1431:Queen Violante, the second wife of Juan I of Aragon passed away.Unlike other Catholic monarchs of her time, Violante showed herself to be a friend of the Jews.  When she found out that Christian mobs had attacked the Jewish community of Majorca, killing at least three hundred of them, she order that “inhabitants of the islands to pay a fine of 150,000 florins (or, according to some authorities, 104,000 florins).”


1475: Meshullam Cusi Rafa ben Moses Jacob established the first Hebrew press in Italy at Piove di Sacco near Padua and printed Jacob ben Asher's Arbah Turim. The same year he also printed a Slichot

1608: Quebec City was founded by French explorer Samuel Champlain.  Prior to 1760, when the British took Canada from France, officially there were no Jews living in Quebec or any other part of the French colony.  The King of France had decreed that only Roman Catholics could settle in the colony.  This declaration was aimed at potential Protestant colonists, but it hit Jews as well.  The first known Jew settled in Quebec in 1767.


1749: Seventy-year old Menahem Man ben Aryeh Löb of Visun, who had tortured was executed in Vilna


1785(25thof Tammuz, 5645): Ninety-year old Lithuanian rabbi and Talmudist Aryeh Leib Gunzberg (As reported by Abraham Bloch)

1844: In Stadtlengsfeld, Germany, Rabbi Liebman Adler and his wife gave to Dankmar Adler, American architect and engineer. Adler’sname is first name is a combination of the German word for thanks –‘dank’- and the Hebrew word for bitter – ‘mar’. Adler’s father created the name since Adler’s mother died in childbirth. The Adler family moved to Chicago where young Adler learned his trade as a draftsman. He enlisted in the Union Army during the Civil War fighting his way across Kentucky, Tennessee and Georgia. After the war, Adler designed or helped build a variety of buildings including The Stock Exchange in Chicago and Carnegie Hall in New York. He also built Temples and Synagogues in Chicago. Frank Lloyd Wright, one of America’s most famous architects trained in Adler’s offices. Adler passed away in 1900 after having just completed Temple Isaiah in Chicago



1849: The French entered Rome in order to restore Pope Pius IX to power. After his return to power Pius re-instituted the Ghetto for the Jews of Rome 1850.  In 1858, he would gain greater fame (or infamy) during the Mortara Affair during which Pius refused to return young Edgardo to his Jewish family.



1851: Birthdate of Isaac de Camondo, the French banker who had been born in Constantinople and whose “noteworthy” art collection was bequeathed to the Louve



1852: Birthdate of Hungarian pianist and composer Rafael Joseffy



1855:“Jewing the Jews” published today reported that “Lord John Russell who is notorious for great promises and abundant non-performance” has backed out on his promise to remove the legal obstructions preventing Jews from serving in Parliament.  The article goes on to trace Lord Russell’s history of involvement in the issued beginning in 1847 when he needed the financial support of the Rothschilds to win the election.  While the Rothschilds provided the funds need by Lord Russell, Lord Russell, for some mysterious reason, avoided the easy route that would have it possible for Rothschild to take his seat in the Commons and opted instead for a broader reform that was sure to fail because it needed the support of the House of Lords.  It would seem that Lord Russell really never wanted a Jew to sit in Parliament.




1857: It was reported today that a Jewish boy named Isaac Jackson was robbed and murdered in Russell, MA by a man named Charles Jones from Blanford.  Jones had recently been released from prison and had been arrested for this latest criminal act.



1860: Birthdate of Théodore Reinach “a French archaeologist, mathematician, lawyer, papyrologist, philologist, epigrapher, historian, numismatist, musicologist, professor, and politician.”


1863: In New York City Sophie and Abram J. Dittenhoefer gave birth to Irving Meade Dittenhoefer.  Dittenhoefer was the grandson of Isaac Dittenhoefer a native of Germany who came to the United States in 1834 settling first in Baltimore and then Charleston, SC where he became a successful merchant.  Irving followed his father into the legal arena graduating from Columbia Law School in 1885.  He and his wife Fannie have one son, Newman Erb Dittenhoefer.



1863: Union forces decisively defeated the Rebels on the third and climactic day of the Battle of Gettysburg.  . The war would last for almost two years, but the tide had been turned.  The “last best hope of man” would survive. The United States, with all of its freedom, would become home to one of the largest and most dynamic Jewish communities in the four thousand year history of the Chosen People.  Edward S. Salomon, a German-Jewish immigrant who had settled in Chicago, “became a hero during the Battle of Gettysburg.”  Lt. Colonel Salmon had two horses shot out from under him and assumed command of his regiment when the commanding officer was wounded.  The regiment was the 82nd Illinois which had over a hundred Jewish members in its ranks. Major General Carl Schurz, his corps commander, described him during the battle: "He was the only soldier at Gettysburg who did not dodge when Lee's guns thundered; he stood up, smoked his cigar and faced the cannon balls with the sang froid of a Saladin ...” Apparently the irony of comparing this brave Jewish officer to a Moslem military hero was lost on Schurz.  Such was Salomon’s skill and bravery that he would be promoted to the rank of Brigadier General before the end of the war when the Confederate and Union armies collided and battled at the Battle of Gettysburg July 1–3, 1863. His ability to lead men was quickly recognized and he rapidly rose through the ranks. Salomon received a brevet promotion to brigadier general in March 1865. After the Battle of Atlanta, Colonel John Cleveland Robinson recognized the feats of Colonel Salomon when he wrote: "I consider Colonel Salomon one of the most deserving officers. His regiment is deserving of high praise. In a point of discipline it is second to none in the corps.  Among other Jewish soldiers who fought at this climactic battle were Elias Leon Hyneman who had volunteered to serve in Company C, Fifth Pennsylvania Cavalry at the start of the conflict; Captain Joseph B. Greenhut who had enlisted in the 12rh Illinois Infantry at the start of the war and served with the 82nd Illinois Infantry at Gettysburg;



1863: The 59thNew York which had been organized by Philip J. Joachimsen was one of the regiments that held the line on Cemetery Ridge against Pickett’s charge.



1863: As the Battle of Gettysburg came to a close, Major Rafael Jacob Moses of Columbus, GA, shared the battlefield with his friend, Robert E. Lee



1863: The Tullahoma or Middle Tennessee Campaign a ten-long military action in which Confederate forces were defeated by Union Forces that included 79thIndiana under the command of Frederick Knefler came to an end.



1866: Prussia defeats Austria at the Battle of Königgratz. The victory seals the victory of the Prussians over the Austrians during Austro-Prussian War which lasted as scant six weeks.  This little known battle is one of the most decisive in modern history because of all the major events that flowed from it.  The victory removed Austria as a power among Germanic states.  This opened the way for German unification under Prussian dominance which lead to the Franco-Prussian War, which led to World War I which led to the Shoah.  The defeat of Austria led the Austrians to turn to the rest of the empire  and create the Austro-Hungarian Empire which gave empowered the Hungarian nationalist which led to granting of full rights to the Jews of the empire who gave the world everybody from Freud to Herzl and a whole lot more.  And this only scratches the surface of the impact of this one brief battle.   



1867: In Bar, near Kamenetz Podolsk (modern Ukraine). Rabbi Judah Samuel Baronedess and his wife gave birth to New York political and labor leader Joseph Barondess.



1869: In Germany (Prussia), all restrictions against Jews were lifted. After the war of 1866 Prussia increased its territory to include Hanover, Hesse-Kassel Saxony, and other territory that became part of the North German Confederation. Under the initiative of the Liberal party, full rights were extended to Jews including serving in public positions. By April 16, 1871 it became Imperial Law and was extended to the entire empire. Although later reaction revoked most of this freedom, the discrimination never returned to the level existing in the "Middle Ages" - until the rise of Hitler.



1869: Founding of the Union of Judæo-German Congregations" during a synod that was held at Leipzig.



1870: Members of Beth Jacob consecrated their house of worship in Brooklyn this afternoon.  After a procession from the local Masonic Hall to the new edifice, Rabbi Samuel M. Issacs addressed the congregation, speaking proudly of the advances that had been made recently in religious thought and strongly endorsing reforms that were being adopted by many congregations. He also addressed the wonderful climate of freedom that Jews enjoyed in the United States.  Rabbi Adolph Huebsch of Brooklyn also addressed the crowd after which a total of $1,000 was contributed by the attendees.  The new building had cost $8,000 and was fully paid for without this additional sum.



1872: An English version of La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein a Jacques Offenbach operetta, opened at the Union Square Theatre in New York City.



1874: Starting with this issue The Israelite, an English language weekly founded by Rabbi Isaac Meyer Wise was renamed The American Israelite



1874: Among those who were arriving at Saratoga Springs at the beginning of the Summer Social Season were “Mrs. Joseph Seligman wife of the wealthy banker” and her two daughters, Miss Bella Seligamn and “Mrs. Hellman whose husband is a Director of the Bank of New Orleans.”



1875: The Foreign Notes column reported that “a new invention by Sir David Salomons for preventing railway accidents by an improved system of signaling” has been exhibited to “a large number of engineers and inventors” in London.  The invention “consists of an insulated rail laid beneath the four way, by means of which station-masts can telegraph to a train while in motion.”  Also this makes it possible for people on one train to communicate with people on another train. Salomons is best known for his several attempts to assume political office  to which he had been elected with taking the oath that called for an affirmation of Christian beliefs.



1875: The Foreign Notes column reported that the Russian government is going back to its past practice of persecuting Jews.  Many Jews have moved their homes and businesses to take advantage of new opportunities created by the developing railroad system.  Authorities are now enforcing an old law and forcing the Jews to return to their former homes, leaving behind their new businesses and homes.



1877: Two Jews named David Milstein and Isaac Goldstein were tried today in New York and found guilty of first degree burglary.  They had broken into the home of a butcher named Meyer Freeman, robbing him of money and jewelry.  They were sentenced to 12 years in the state prison.  Milstein has spent 21 of his 28 years in prison while Goldstein has served one term in the state penitentiary.



1879: In London, a formal announcement was made that the three sons of the recently deceased Baron Lionel de Rothschild will carry on their father’s business activities.



1882: As boatloads of Italian and Russian Jewish workers who had replaced the striking freight handlers returned from New Jersey, they were set upon and beaten by gangs of local thugs.  The strikers claimed that they were not involved and that this was merely the work of young toughs. 



1882: A Russian Jew employed on the Pennsylvania pier, No.1 North River tore a piece of his scalp that was two inches in diameter from his forehead when a heavy bale that he was putting on a truck broke free and hit an obstruction. The Russian Jews was one of the strikebreakers who were plentiful in number but inept at doing the work.



1883: Birthdate of author Franz Kafka. The famous Czech born author gained his real fame after his death. After many false starts Kafka earned a Doctorate of Laws and then took a mind-numbing job with an insurance company. Ill health finally enabled him to work shorter hours, which gave him time to pursue his writings. Three of his best known works are the Trial, The Castle and America. Kafka became famous in spite of himself. He had left word that at the time of his death all of his manuscripts were to be destroyed. Fortunately his friend Max Brod disobeyed him and had the works published. Kafka had planned to immigrate to Palestine before his untimely death in 1924 hastened by the effects of tuberculosis. On being Jewish Kafka wrote, "Not one calm second is granted to the Western Jew. Everything has to be earned, not only the present and the future but also the past…",



1884:The attorney for Gustave Jean Jacquet defended the painter from charges by Alexandre Dumas fils that he had defamed him by caricaturing the French author and dramatist as Baghdad Jew by arguing that the author’s features were public property.  In making his argument he cited the precedent of Horace Vernet “who depicted a well-known Jew running away with the cashbox.” Dumas was the illegitimate son of the more famous author of the same name.  He was also the maternal grandfather of Alexander Lippman the French Olympic fencer whose father was Jewish.



1885: “Sending Back French Paupers” published today described the situation of indigent Jewish immigrants who had been sent to the United States  by the Hebrew Aid Society of Paris last season and been returned to their place of origin because of their lack of funds and financial sponsors.



1887: “The Goethe-Zelter Letters” published today provides a detailed review of Goethe’s Letters to Zelter With Extracts From Those Of Zelter To Goethe, selected, translated and annotated by A.D. Coleridge. The book includes a description of the strange relationship between Carl Zeller, who did not like Jews, and his favorite pupil Felix Mendeslohn, whose family was Jewish.



1888: The Sanitarium for Hebrew Children conducted the first of its ten summer excursions for poor Jewish children and their mothers.



1889: In Brooklyn, Dr. Henry M. Leipzieger of the Hebrew Technical School presented a paper entitled “Manual Training in Relation to Public School Work” at a meeting of the New York State Teacher’s Association.



1890: The striking cloakmakers and tailors, most of whom are Polish and Russian Jews, resorted to violence after have peacefully endured the lockout for several weeks. Groups of strikers attacked scabs working at the Mercantile Cloak Company and Meyer Jonason & Co.



1890: Idaho joins the Union becoming the 43rd star on the Star Spangled Banner.  Despite a comparatively small Jewish population, Idaho was the first state to elect a Jew as Governor. On his second try for the top spot Moses Alexander was elected in 1914.  He served from 1915 until 1919.  A  German immigrant, Alexander had previously been elected Mayor of Boise. Alexander was not casual about his Jewish identity.  His wife was a Jew by choice, having converted when she married Alexander.



1891:Reports published today describing the recent death of  Prince Vladimir Andreyevich Dolgorukov, governor-general (mayor) of Moscow include a description of the positive relationship he enjoyed with the Jews of that city which ran contrary to the policy of the Czar. The Czar finally became so upset with him over this that he replaced him with the Grand Duke Sergius and forced him into virtual exile.



1893: In New York, “the Baron Hirsch Fund Schools held their ‘English Day’ exercise today during which the students’ songs and recitation showed their “undying allegiance to the flag of their adopted country.”



1893: “Growth of the Feeling Against the Jews in Germany” published today that by having elected sixteen members to the Reichstag, the anti-Semites have exceeded by one the number need to claim the privileges of a Party including the right to introduce legislation.  Herman Ahlwardt, who has just been released from prison and is the group’s leader, plans on introducing “special taxes on Jew bankers and traders. “Anti-Semitism in Germany has ceased to be a sporadic local phenomenon.” In 1887 one anti-Semite was elected to Reichstag; in 1890, it was five; and now it is 16 who “have almost 500,000 voters behind them. Nor do these figures tell all” since “the Conservative Party…pledged by its platform…to any decent and practicable measures against the Jews.”  (Editor’s Note – I realize this is a long entry but it challenges the notion that anti-Semitism in Germany was the product of the Versailles Treaty, the Great Depression or intimidation by a handful of brown-shirted thugs.)



1893: Today’s London Times is scheduled to publish a “startling photographic glimpse of what Russia is really like” which has been prepared by Sir Julian Goldsmid.



1894: Dr. Adolph Radin, Isidor D. Morrison and Julius Harburger addressed those attending tonight’s exercise hosted  by the Russian American Hebrew Association in honor of the Fourth of July. The program also included music and a benediction by Rabbi Moses of Port Gibson.



1894: Rabbi Levy of New Haven, CT officiated at the wedding of Sadie Bentschner to Isadore  Israel at the home of the bride’s parents in Charleston, SC.



1895: The will of the late Lewis S. Levy was filed for probate in the Surrogate’s office today.



1896:”Gathered About Town” published today provided further indication of the large number of foreign born Jews living in New York.  Notices posted in the main corridor of the General Post Office are printed in Hebrew letters providing “instruction for the many Russian Polish Jews who have business with the postal authorities.” Similar notices have been printed in German and Italian for years.



1896: The body of the man found floating in New York’s Clyde River on June 25 has been identified as 25 year old Simon Mischel, a member of well-to-do family living on Delancey Street.  Apparently he was shoved into the water after having been robbed an strangled by a gang of robbers who have been operating in the area.



1896: In Vienna, the Diet took up the question of extending the franchise.  An amendment, which seems to have great support, was proposed that would exclude Jews and Converts from exercising the franchise. 



1896: According to a report to be published in today’s Daily News, the attacks on the Jews at Mizalbisch were orchestrated by a Russian officer who was seeking “revenge against a Jewish” tavern keeper who had rescued a peasant whom the officer “was thrashing.”



1896: Local administrators arbitrarily reclassified certain “townlets” as  “villages” which caused havoc for Jewish merchants due to the restrictive nature of the May Laws.



1896: “Death of Jules S. Abecasis” published today described the fatal collision between the “well known rubber broker” and active member of the Jewish community who was riding his bicycle when it was struck by an express wagon.



1897: A summary of the acquisitions made by the New York Public Library during May published today show that of the institution had acquired, by various means, 1,600 books and pamphlets written in Hebrew and 360 works in Yiddish. In additions to the Bible and Commentaries, Talmud, Midrash, Cabala and Jewish History books, the library now owns “165 photographs of prominent Jews.”



1897: According to figures released yesterday when his will was filed for probated Mayer Lehman “left an estate valued at $450,000 in real and $500,000 in personal property.  In addition to bequeathing thousands of dollars to a variety of Jewish and Gentile charities, Lehman left $20,000 for the executors to use as they see fit to assist family members and “for such employees of Lehman brothers as may be in need of aid.



1897: “Jewish Pupils Celebrate” published today described the exercises at the Baron de Hirsch English Day School in which children of Jewish immigrants demonstrated their patriotism and fluency in English as they prepare to observe Independence Day.



1897: “Americans in Babylonia” published today provided a review of Nippur or Explorations and Adventures by Dr. John Punnett Peters in which the author describes the Jewish community that originated during the period of “Captivity” which created to great centers – Sura near Babylonia and Nehardea or Nearda which is not far from Anabar.  The latter was a prominent Jewish center, he says for 800 years until it was replaced by Baghdad.




1898: “Jewish Chautauqua Society” published today described plans for the Second Assembly of the society which will be held at Atlantic City later this month with headquarters at Congregation Beth Israel on Pennsylvania Avenue.



1903: Pogrom began in Bialystok.



1904(20th of Tammuz, 5664): Theodor Herzl away at the age of 44. One person can make a difference.  “If you will it, it is no dream!”



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CdfCZa2XOI



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qO88cy4YgHU



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWi3pV8_XQY



1904: In Manhattan Mollie (Isaacs) Lefkowitz and Samuel Lefkowitz gave birth to Louis J. Lefkowitz the Republican lawyer who served the state’s Attorney General for 22 years.



1907: Rabbi Joseph Stotlz delivered the “President’s Message” on the second day of the annual convention of the Central Conference of American Rabbis.



1907: Birthdate of Felix Solomon Cohen, the New Deal lawyer who re-shaped the legal status of  Native Americans.



1918: Sultan Mehmed V of the Ottoman Empire passed away at the age of 73.  He had been the titular head of the empire that sided with the Central Powers during World War I.  Among the Jews who died fighting under the Sultan’s banner were Major Isaac Adjubel, Captain Albert Cohen, Captin Izidor Shalom, Captain Zavarro, Captain Albert Menashe, Captain Pepo Akshiote, Captain Siyaves, Captain Albagli, Captain Asa, Captain David Feder and Captain Pharmacist Behor Alfandar.



1920: In Manhattan, attorney Selig Seligman and his wife, concert pianist Selma Edelman, gave birth to Daniel Edelman, the founder of Edelman, “one of the largest public relations firms in the world” (As reported by Dennis Hevesi)



1921: Birthdate of Levi Yitzchak Horowitz, the second Rebbe of the Boston Hasidic dynasty founded by his father, Rabbi Pinchas Horowitz.
http://www.haaretz.com/the-bostoner-rebbe-the-first-american-born-hasidic-leader-1.2308



1923: In Paris, Béatrice de Camondo and Léon Reinach the son of Théodore Reinach gave birth to their second child, Bertrand.  He would die a t Auschwitz in 1944.



1923: Mayer Dizengoff, the Mayor of Tel Aviv, sails from New York City aboard the Aquitania.



1924: In Syracuse, NY, Bessie and Harry Israel gave birth to Marvin Israel “a painter and editorial art director and a teacher of graphics and photography.”



1925: Birthdate of Tony Curtis. Born Bernard Schwartz in the Bronx, Curtis was sometimes referred to as "a poor man's Cary Grant."  One of his biggest hits came when he played opposite Grant in the film "The Pink Submarine."  Other famous roles were in "Some Like It Hot" with costars Jack Lemmon and that famous Jewess, Marilyn Monroe and as the wisecracking New York born orderly in "Dr. Newman, M.D."



1929: At the opening meeting of the Assembly of the Elected, “the national body which elects the National Council of Palestine Jews, a dispute broke out between Dr. Ton, the presiding officer and revisionist leader Vladimir Jabotinsky.  The dispute revolved around revisionist claims that several of their delegates were attacked by Labor delegates and was so intense the meeting was adjourned.



1933: In Chicago, the convention of the ZOA comes to a close.



1934: Rebbetzin Renee Schick who founded the Schick's Bakery in Boro Park in 1941, and her husband gave birth to Professor Marvin Schick “an expert on Jewish Day Schools who served “as liaison to the Jewish Community” for John Lindsay during his second term as Mayor of NYC.



1935: According to reports published today, the Sir Francis Montefiore, grandnephew of the noted philanthropist, who passed away at the age of 75 had served for several years President of the Board of Elders of the Spanish Portuguese Synagogue in London; a position to which he was first elected in 1904.



1936(13th of Tammuz, 5696): German Jew Stefan Lux kills himself in the assembly room of the League of Nations in Geneva, Switzerland. The suicide is in protest of Germany's persecution of Jews. He was an early supporter of Theodore Herzl and Zionism but curtailed his efforts following the Great War.



1936 The Palestine Postreported from London that the Colonial Secretary, Mr. Ormsby Gore, told the House of Commons that "there were no provisions in the Covenant or Peace Treaties or the Mandate regarding the withdrawal of the Mandate from the Power entrusted with it."



1936: Sir Sidney Abrahams became the 26th Chief Justice of Ceylon, a post he would hold until 1939.



1936 The Palestine Postreported that Hebron was fined a collective fine of £2,000 for ambushing an army patrol. Two British soldiers were hurt in this encounter.



1936: The Palestine Postreported that ten suspected Jewish communists were rounded up by police in Tel Aviv and interned at the army's Sarafand detention camp.



1936 The Palestine Postreported that when questioned about a news item which appeared in an Arab newspaper, the management of the Jerusalem YMCA declared that it offered a platform on which young men, irrespective of their race, creed and religion could cooperate and meet in an atmosphere of congeniality and goodwill.



1937: In Buffalo, NY Esther Miriam (née Sheinberg) and Buffalo society band leader and piano teacher Irving Daniel Shire gave birth to  David Lee Shire the songwriter and composer whose work included the soundtracks for “The Taking of Phelham One Two Three” and “The Conversation.”



1937:Twenty-nine year old Brooklynite Moe Schultz returned today on the President Roosevelt from Palestine, where he said he had driven a truck for three years between the towns of Haifa and Tel-Aviv, a distance of ninety miles, and had many thrilling escapes from Arab snipers.



1939: A sailboat of unknown  nationality arrived in Haifa flying the blue and white colors of the Zionist cause.  British police boarded the boat “where they found 697 Jewish immigrants including 192 women and 37 children.”  The immigrants are classified as “illegal” and their total will be deducted from the pitifully small allotment of Jews allowed to enter Palestine under the White Paper.



1939(16th of Tamuz, 5699): Tonight Arabs attacked Tel Hayim, a settlement near Tel Aviv, killing one Jewish supernumerary.



1941: Associate Justice Harlan Fisk Stone began serving as Chief Just of the U.S Supreme Court. From 1932 until 1937, Stone, the New England Prorestant joined the two Jewish Justices – Cardozo and Brandeis – as the 3 Musketeers, the liberal faction of the Supreme.



1941(8th of Tammuz, 5701): At Nowogrodek, the Nazis sought fifty "volunteers" to be members of the Jewish council there. They are taken away and never seen again. Fifty more were shot in the town square.



1941: In Vilna, all the Jews were required to wear identity badges.



1941(8th of Tammuz, 5701): One hundred Jews are murdered at Bialystok, Poland.



1941(8th of Tammuz, 5701): In the Ukraine, 3500 Jews are killed at Zloczow and hundreds die at Drohobycz.



1941(8th of Tammuz, 5701): Fifty Jews in Novogroduk, Belorussia, who volunteer for a German-organized Jewish council, "disappear." Another 50, selected at random, are shot in the town square to the accompaniment of music played by a German band.



1941: Soviet leader Joseph Stalin orders the establishment of partisan units to harass German troops in occupied Soviet territory. Jews would play an active role in these units. There were also units made up exclusively of Jewish partisans.



1941: Birthdate of Gloria Rachel Bloom, who gained fame as Gloria Alred, the publicity seeking lawyer.



1943: Birthdate of self-promoting television news personality Geraldo Rivera.  Rivera’s father was from Puerto Rico.  After moving to New York he married a Jewish woman named Lily Friedman.  Contrary to popular urban legend, Rivera’s original name was not Gerry Rivers.  And he did not change his name to appeal to Hispanic audiences.



1944: Minsk was liberated from Nazi control by Soviet troops during Operation Bagration



1944: The British War Cabinet agrees to examine Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann's request for the formation of a Jewish Brigade to fight in the British Army, with the white and blue Star of David as its standard.



1945: In Jerusalem, Israeli poet and political activist Yonatan Ratosh and his wife gave birth to award winning mathematician Saharon who splits his time between Hebrew University and Rutgers in New Jersey.



1946: Theodore Levin was nominated by President Harry S. Truman to a seat on the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan vacated by Edward Julien Moinet.



1946:  Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis met for the first time in Atlantic City.  They would become one of the leading comedy teams of their time.  The Italian Crooner played straight man to the Jewish clown.



1946: After having been “missing” for two days, 8 year old Henryk Blaszcyk returned to his family at Kielce having gone to his home town to visit friends which led his father to file a second report with the local police “claiming his son had been kidnapped by the Jews” but had managed to escape.”  This false report would result in a police investigation that would provide the excuse for another round of Poles murdering Jews.



1947: Birthdate of brilliant attorney, Renaissance man and all-around great guy, David Robert Levin- a real Mensh. He is also one heck of a great brother!



1948: Rumors abound in besieged Jerusalem that a new road was being built that would bring supplies to the embattled city.



1949: Birthdate of world traveling computer whiz and pillar of the Cedar Rapids Jewish community, Bill Hurwitz



1949 David Ben-Gurion issued a public exoneration of Meir Tubiansky and restitution of his rank and rights. Four days later his body was re-buried on Mount Herzl. In November 1949, after a trial at which Binyamin Gibli appeared as a witness for the prosecution,Isser Be'eri was found guilty of manslaughter.



1951: The Jerusalem Postreported that the first reading of the Women's Equal Rights Bill was passed by the Knesset. The Knesset had also passed a bill empowering the government to float loans up to IL5m. from financial institutions to be applied to the defense budget. 128,223 new immigrants entered the country during the first six months of 1951. Since the state was established in 1948, 638,597 immigrants arrived.



1956: Release date for “Somebdy Up There Likes Me” starring Paul Newman, with a script by Ernest Lehman and filmed by cinematographer Joseph Ruttenberg.



1959: Birthdate of Julie Burchill, “a defender of Israel, The Jewish Chronicledescribed … in 2008 as "Israel's staunchest supporter in the UK media"; who has two Israeli flags in her home”



http://www.thejc.com/arts/arts-interviews/julie-burchill-brash-outspoken-and-wishing-she-was-jewish



http://www.timesofisrael.com/playing-hatikvah-on-a-desert-island/



1959: Birthdate of David Shore the Canadian lawyer turned writer, who is “best known for his work writing and producing television shows including Family Law, NYPD Blue, Due South and House.



1962: The Algerian War for Independence ends with Algeria gaining its independence from France.  The end of the war with the Algerians marked a shift in French attitudes and policies in the Middle East.  Under De Gaulle’s leadership, the French government sought to develop a power base among the Moslem nations of North Africa and the Near East.  This meant a growing policy of hostility towards Israel that would ultimately lead the French government to attempt to block the delivery of patrol boats to Israel later in the decade.  The naval craft had already been paid for when the French refused to deliver them so Israeli agents seized them and brought them to Haifa.



1967: After two days of fighting in and around Ras el 'Ish, neither Egyptians nor Israeli forces move against the other.



1976:The Israeli cabinet approved Operation Thundberbolt, the rescue mission designed to save the Jewish hostages being held at Entenbbe. It was to be under the command of Major General Yekutiel "Kuti" Adam with Matan Vilnai as the Deputy Commander and Brigadier General Dan Shomron was appointed to command the operation on the ground



1976: Following approval of the rescue plan 13:20 (1:20pm), four IAF Hercules took off and headed for their African destination.



1970: Final episode of “Doctor in the House,” a British sitcom featuring Jonathan Lynn as “Daniel Hooley” who also wrote several of the scripts, was broadcast today.



1979: Thirty-four years after the end of World War II, the West German government voted to continue prosecution of Nazi war criminals by removing the statute of limitations on murder.



1980(19th of Tammuz, 5740):Anatoli (Tankhum) Lvovich Kaplan “a Russian painter, sculptor and printmaker, whose works often reflect his Jewish origins” passed away. One of his most noted works was “The Musicians” painted in 1968.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatoli_Lvovich_Kaplan



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Kaplanmusicians.jpg



1982:Uri Avnery, the Israeli writer and Knesset member who has traveled from the Irgun to the leftist peace movement   met Yasser Arafat on during the "Battle of Beirut"— said to have been the first time an Israeli met personally with Arafat.



1985:Back to the Future: directed by Robert Zemeckis was released today, “and became the most successful film of the year, grossing more than $383 million worldwide and receiving critical acclaim.”



1987:''Furniture Making in East London: 1830 to 1980,'' an exhibition  that is part of this summer's Jewish East End Celebration opened at Geffrye Museum,



1989: Opening of the Thirteenth Maccabiah.



1991(21st of Tammuz, 5751): Seventy-nine Ephraim Elimelech Urbach, the native of Bialystok who made Aliyah in 1937  and was  a Professor of Talmud at Hebrew University passed away today.
http://www.nytimes.com/1991/07/03/obituaries/ephraim-e-urbach-hebrew-scholar-79.html



1997: Poet Adrienne Rich made headlines today by refusing to accept the National Medal for the Arts. “Ms Rich informed Jane Alexander, chair of the National Endowment for the Arts, that she would not accept the National Medal for the Arts. To accept the award, she felt, would be hypocritical in view of the country's widening socio-economic gap. In her typical hard-hitting style, Rich wrote that, "art—in my own case the art of poetry—means nothing if it simply decorates the dinner table of power which holds it hostage." Both the national recognition and Rich's principled refusal were emblematic of the place this poet has come to occupy in American culture.”



 2001(12th of Tammuz, 5761): Mordecai Richler passed away. Born in 1931, Richler was a prolific prize winning author. One of his most famous books was the “Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz,” which was later made into a movie starring Richard Dreyfus.



2004: In “Meanwhile: Theodor Herzl’s Dream 100 Years After His Death,” Geoffrey Wheatcroft, concluded that  “anyone can see by visiting Israel, Montefiore and others who disparaged Zionism were wrong in saying that the Jews could not become a nation. That part of Herzl's dream has come true.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/03/opinion/03iht-edwheat_ed3_.html



2005: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including the recently released paperback editions of The Missing Peace: The Inside Store of the Fight for Middle East Peace by Dennis Ross and Codex by Lev Grossman



2006: In “Entebbe’s Unsung Hero,” Eyal Ben described the fate of 19 year old Jean Jacques Maimoni, one of the hostages who did not survive.”
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3270314,00.html



2006: In the following review of “Up, Up and Oy Vey!” by Simcha Weinstein, Louis Parks describes “the obvious parallels” between the origins of Superman and Biblical depiction of Moses.



A loving parent tries to save the life of a child by placing him in a basket—or space capsule—and sending him floating/blasting to safety. Found and adopted into a new family in his new world, Moses/Superman is still guided by the wisdom and counsel of his parent. He lives a double life with a secret identity. Moses eventually leads people from abuse to freedom. Superman rescues people from disasters and crime. Superman's creators, Jewish immigrant sons Jerry Siegel and Joel Shuster, invented the superhero in 1938 Cleveland, Ohio. They never declared Superman was Jewish and their ambiguity was probably intentional. Though they didn't give their hero a specific ethnicity or religion, there are hints at his Jewishness. In some of his earliest stories, Superman sometimes foiled the plans of thinly disguised German Nazis, whose persecution of Jews already was infamous. Americans may not have noticed, but apparently the Nazis snapped to the implications, quickly blasting the new comic. Weinstein writes that in 1940, Nazi propaganda minister Josef Goebbels denounced Superman as Jewish. Weinstein also "recounts the Jewish influence on superheroes such as Batman, Captain America, the Hulk, the Fantastic Four, Spider-Man and X-Men, most of whom were created by Jewish artists."



2007: Friendship: An Expose by Joseph Epstein goes on sale to the general public today.



2007:  Much to the delight of all who know him, David Levin, a mensch in the truest sense of that word, celebrates his sixtieth birthday.



2007: In Jerusalem, The Israeli Ballet, featuring Yevegenia Oberzatsuba and Vladimir Shaklerov, will perform the famous, romantic ballet, "Giselle," in the Sherover Theater at the Jerusalem Theater.



2008: Rosh Chodesh Tammuz (First Day)



2008: Birthday celebration of David Levin, a grand gabbai and, like his Biblical namesake, a sweet singer of song.



2008: Yehudit Ravitz performed her first Caesarea Amphitheatre show in a decade to a sold-out crowd



2008: A foundation created by Steven Spielberg is giving $1 million to the National Museum of American Jewish History. The money from the Righteous Persons Foundation will go toward a new, five-story museum building being built in Philadelphia.

2008:Today, Saudi Arabia invited Israeli rabbi David Rosen, president of the International Jewish Committee for Interreligious Consultations to attend an interfaith conference to be held in Madrid.

2008: During the ceasefire with Hamas a Kassam rocket fired from Gaza struck near a kibbutz in the Sha'ar Hanegev Regional Council. No casualties or damage was reported.



2009: Bill Hurwitz, world traveling computer whiz pillar of the Cedar Rapids Jewish community, and a Zeda twice over celebrates the BIG Six-O.



2009: Israeli celebrity Dudu Topaz attempted to commit suicide at the Abu Kabir Detention Center in Tel Aviv.



2009: The family and friends celebrate the anniversary of the natal day of David Levin whose accomplishments are so numerous that we would have to start a separate blog just to cover them.יום הולדת שמח   



2010: The United States Holocaust Museum is scheduled to present a special program entitled France Pruitt "Faith, Courage, and Survival in a Time of Trouble"



2010: The joy of Shabbat is doubled as it coincides with the celebration of the birthday of David Levin, a hamesha mensch par excellence and a great brother.



2010: In Cedar Rapids, the traditional Shabbat minyan at Temple Judah celebrated the holiday weekend with a “Red, White and Blue.” 



2010:Palestinian Authority chief negotiator Saeb Erekat categorically denied today a report that the PA told George Mitchell it would allow or accept Israeli sovereignty over the Western Wall in a new Arab state. The London-based Al-Hayat Arabic language daily had reported today that PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas gave U.S. Middle East envoy George Mitchell a signed letter that the PA would surrender its demand that the Jewish Quarter in the Old City of Jerusalem be part of his proposed PA state.



2011: The family and friends of David Levin are glad to be able to share in celebrating the natal day of this hamesha mensch.



2011: The wedding ceremony joining Abbie Silber and Rabbi Feivel Strauss is scheduled to take place in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.  A sweet singer of song joins a budding sage!



2011: The Los Angeles Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including “To End All Wars” by Adam Hochschild.



2011: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including “Manstein:Hitler’s Greatest General” by Mungo Melvin and the recently released paperback editions of  “Necessary Secrets: National Security, the Media, and the Rule of Law” by Gabriel Schoenfeld and “Spies of the Balkans Alan Furst’s that centers around “Costa Zannis, a police official and fixer who has taken to helping Jewish refugees from Berlin complete the difficult route to safety.”


2011(1stof Tammuz, 5771): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz


2011:Terrorists in Hamas-controlled Gaza resumed rocket fire on the western Negev this morning.

 

2011: Hundreds of people demonstrated in Jerusalem today in support of Rabbi Yaakov Yosef, who was arrested that morning for questioning over incitement to racism and violence, and released in less than one hour.

 

2011(1stof Tammuz, 5771: Seventy-six year old Fred Newman whose “influential role in New York life and politics defied easy description” passed away. (As reported by Douglas Martin)

2012: The European Union of Jewish Students is scheduled to sponsor “Sharing Our Common Past: Christian and Jewish students” where young Jews and Catholics come together in Krakow to look for answers to the following questions: What divides us? What do we have in common? How can we work together? What are our roles and niches in contemporary Europe?


2012:  American hard rockers Guns 'N Roses who are heading back to Israel for the first time since 1993 are scheduled to perform at Hayarkon Park along with support acts Ugly Joe Kid and local favorites Hayehudim



2012: In the midst of a record-breaking heat wave, friends and family of David Levin prepare to celebrate the birthday of one “cool dude.”


2012: Kadima party chairman Shaul Mofaz, angered by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s dissolution of a Kadima-led panel tasked with drafting new universal draft legislation yesterday, refused to meet with Netanyahu on today to try to solve a crisis that threatens the stability of the national unity government.


2012: Today the state prosecutor filed an indictment against an ultra-Orthodox man for defacing the Yad Vashem Holocaust museum and two IDF war memorials. At Yad Vashem, the graffiti he allegedly sprayed included: “If Hitler hadn’t existed, the Zionists would have invented him.” Elhanan Ostrowitz, a 31-year-old Jerusalem resident, was charged at the Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court for spraying anti-Zionist hate slogans at the sites and, apparently, has shown no remorse for his actions.


2013: “Amy Winehouse: A Family Portrait” which “was co-curated with Winehouse's brother Alex and sister-in-law Riva” is scheduled to open at the Jewish Museum London.


2013: Friends and family are thrilled to be able to celebrate another birthday of David Levin whose many stellar qualities have outstripped my list of superaltives


2013: In Tel Aviv, the U.S. Embassy is scheduled to host the July 4thCelebration which will include remarks by the U.S. Ambassador, the Israeli President and the Israeli Prime Minister.


2013(25thof Tammuz, 5773): At Camp Tawonga, a Jewish summer camp in Northern California Annais Rosenberg, a counselor, was killed today when a tree fell through the dinning hall. Twenty campers were also injured (As reported by JTA and the Jewish Press)


2013: Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu, a candidate for Sephardi chief rabbi, was due to be summoned today by Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein for a hearing, following a request by MK Eitan Cabel (Labor) earlier this week that the rabbi be disqualified from running due to “racist” comments he’d made about Arab citizens of Israel. (As reported by The Times of Israel)


2013: The Administrator General announced today that a group led by businessman Ori Allon has purchased a 60 percent stake of Hapoel Jerusalem previously owned by Guma Aguiar. Following Aguiar's disappearance at sea off the coast of Florida a year ago, his ownership stake was put up for sale. The Allon group was confirmed today as the winner of the auction held by the Administrator General after promising to invest NIS 15 million in the club over the next three seasons.(As reported by Allon Sinai)


2014: Pears Institute for the study of Antisemitism in partnership with the Department of History, Classics and Archaeology is scheduled to host  Dr Becky Taylor, Dr Matt Cook and Dr Jessica Reinisch speaking on “Histories of Prejudice: Persecuting Others.”
 
2014: As “Arthur” threatens to “rain on the holiday weekend,” nothing can dampen the enthusiasm of those celebrating the birthday of David Levin whose wit and wisdom would lighten even the darkest storm.

 
 

This Day, July 4, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. Levin

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July 4


925:Moslems raided Oria as part of their attacks on Italy. Ten rabbinical leaders were killed and many others were taken into captivity, including 12 year old Shabbetai Donnolo, who later achieved fame as a physician



1187: Guy de Lusignan (King of Jerusalem) force-marched his troops through the dry, hot Galilee against the advice of Raymond III of Tripoli and others. At a site known as the Horns of Hittim near Lake Tiberius, the Moslems defeated him and his Crusader army. The Moslems were led by the legendary Saladin. This defeat lead to a string of Crusader defeats that culminated in the loss of Jerusalem in October. These losses would result in the Third Crusade, led by Richard the Lionhearted, which would fail to restore the gains of the Christians. There would be several more Crusades, none of which would prove any more successful. In the end, the Christians would be forced into retreat as Moslem rulers would extend their rule into the across a large swath of Europe. Those who contend that the today’s clashes between the West and certain groups of Moslems and Arabs are rooted in the creation of the state of Israel would do well to read some history. Obviously, today’s conflicts pre-date modern Zionism. Lest we lose track of the events of the eleventh and twelfth century, the Crusades were not a good period for the Jews



1348: Pope Clement VI confirms the papal bull Sicut Judaeis("and thus to the Jews," better known as the "Constitution for the Jews"), issued in 1120 by Pope Calixtus II. (As reported by Austin Cline)



1349(9thof Tammuz, 5109): Based on “evidence furnished by Judah’s testament and epitaphs” 79 year old German Talmudist Judah Ben Asher, the son of Rabbenu Asher and the brother of Joseph Ben Asher, who served as the rabbi at Toledo, Spain passed away.



1453: Forty-one Jews were burned at the stake in Breslau, Germany. The remainder of the Jewish population was expelled



1546: Birthdate of Murad III, future Sultan of the Ottoman Empire.During his reign “the Jewish community was shaken by a decree ordering the killing of Jews, which resulted from the appearance of men and women in the streets in rich clothing and jewels. As a result of the intervention of the physician Solomon Ashkenazi at court, the decree was mitigated, but Jews were forbidden to wear such apparel. Subsequently, the rabbis of Istanbul and the community leaders reached an agreement that ‘the women and the girls shall not go out in grandiose apparel, golden jewelry, and precious stones.’” (As reported by the Jewish Virtual Library)



1569: The King of Poland and the Grand Duke of Lithuania, Sigismund II Augustus finally sign the document of union between Poland and Lithuania, creating new country known as Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. The Commonwealth was a haven for Jews and the center of Ashkenazi Jewry.  The Jews enjoyed a significant degree of autonomy under the authority of Chief Rabbi of their own selection.  All of this would come to an end with the Cossack uprising in the 17thcentury.



1632: Several secret Jews in Spain were sentenced at an auto-de-fe for holding Jewish services.  They practiced in a house on a street known as Calle de las Infantas.  The house was later destroyed on orders of the Inquistion and a Capuchin monastery was built on the site.  


1632: Isabel Nuñez Alvarez, of Viseu in Portugal, wife of Miguel Rodriguez of Madrid, the owner of a synagogue, situated on the street "de las Infantes" in Madrid died a martyr's death in the flames, July 4, 1632. The Inquisition ordered the synagogue to be torn down, and upon its site a Capuchin monastery was subsequently erected


1636: City of Providence, Rhode Island was created under the leadership of Roger Williams. The first Jew did not settle permanently in the city until 1838 when a Dutch merchant named Solomon Pareira settled there. In 1849, he founded a cemetery which was the city’s first Jewish institution


1642: Marie de Médicis, the Italian born Queen consort of France passed away. Marie ignored the fact that Jews had been banned from France since she employed Elijah Montalto, a Portuguese Marrano who returned to the faith of his fathers, as her personal physician.  His medical care cannot be blamed for her demise since had passed away in 1616. 


1776(17thof Tammuz): Celebration of Independence Day. A copy was sent to Amsterdam via the small Dutch Caribbean Island of St. Eustatius. The Declaration was intercepted by the British at sea. An accompanying letter with the Declaration of Independence was also intercepted and sent to London as being a secret code about the document that needed to be deciphered - the letter was written in Yiddish.  In one of those strange twist of fate, when British Admiral Sir George Rodney conquered the island which was a major source of supply for the Americans in 1871, he singled out the Jews for the kind of harsh treatment associated with anti-Semites.  The treatment was so out of bounds, that when Edmund Burke, no friend of the Jews hear about it he said, "If Britons were so injured, Britons have armies and laws to fly to for the protection and justice. But the Jews have no such power and no such friend to depend upon. Humanity then must become their protector." (As described by Louis Arthur Norton)



The Declaration of Independence in the United States of America provided the basis for religious tolerance in most other countries. During the Revolutionary war there were fewer than 2,500 Jews in total within the colonies. More than six hundred fought in the war including the great grandfather of Supreme Court Justice Cardozo. One company in South Carolina had so many Jews that it was called the Jews’ company. In 1776, July 4 corresponded to the 17thof Tammuz, which is a fast day on the Jewish calendar tied to the events leading up to the destruction of the Temple.



1788: The Jews of Philadelphia celebrate in a Federal Parade after hearing that the Constitution was adopted by a majority of the states. The newspaper read, "The rabbi of the Jews, locked in arms of two ministers of the gospel, was a most delightful sight."



1788: Benjamin Franklin was too sick and weak to get out of bed, but the Independence Day parade in Philadelphia marched right under his window. And, as Franklin himself had directed, ‘the clergy of different Christian denominations, with the rabbi of the Jews, walked arm in arm.’



1794: Catherine II of Russia restricted the area where Jews were permitted to trade.



1802:  The U.S. Military Academy opens its doors at West Point, N.Y.  According to Daniel Isaac Helmer, Cadet Sergeant, United States Military Academy--West Point and the Hillel president at the United States Military Academy the Jewish people have been associated with the Academy since its opening.  The first graduating class consisted of two cadets one of whom was a Jew named Simon Levy.   In the 1980s, the West Point Jewish Chapel, a beautiful $10 million facility, was opened. In 2002, in honor of 200 years of Jewish history at the Military Academy, the Jewish Chapel began building a commemorative wall to record and recognize all of the Jewish graduates of West Point. At that time there were about 70 Jews at the Military Academy out of a student population of approximately 4,000. An increasingly active Jewish population has begun to sponsor numerous Jewish activities. Jewish students from other schools have visited West Point for events including "Weekend of the Jewish Warrior" and a Hanukkah party. The Military Academy also has a West Point Jewish Chapel Choir, which has performed all over the East Coast.



1807:  Birthdate of Giuseppe Garibaldi one of a triumvirate of Italian patriots who freed the peninsula from foreign rule and created the modern nation of Italy.  Garibaldi was a revolutionary and a guerilla fighter in the true sense of the terms.  His belief in equality extended to religion where he made no distinction between the rights of Christians and the rights of Jews.  Numerous Jews served in his military unit known as “the Thousands” which liberated southern Italy and Sicily. 



1835: Birthdate of Moritz Benedikt, the native of Eisenstadt who served with the Austrian Army and became a leading Austro-Hungarian neurologist.



1840:Thirty-four year oldMoritz Moses Jacob von Goldschmidt and Anna Netti von Goldschmidt gave birth to Hermann (Ritter) von Goldschmidt



1842: Birthdate of Hermann Cohen, a German-Jewish philosopher, one of the founders of the Marburg School of Neo-Kantianism, and he is often held to be "probably the most important Jewish philosopher of the nineteenth century"
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/HermannCohen.html
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/cohen/



1845: The Egyptian Revival Hobart Synagogue was consecrated in Hobart a city on the Australian island state of Tasmania.


1857: Birthdate of Joseph Pennell the American artist and photographer who was arrested and deported from Russia because he sketched and photographed the wretched conditions under which the Jews of Kiev were living when he visited  there in 1891 which he described in The Jew At Home: Impressions of a Summer and Autumn Spent With Him.


1863: Birthdate of Solomon Lipschütz who “was chess champion of the United States from 1889 to 1890 and 1891 to 1894.


1863(17thof Tammuz, 5623): Because it is Shabbat the Tzom Tammuz is not observed today since  it is a day of national celebration due to the victories at Gettysburg and Vicksburg.  For some it seem to be a foretaste of the Messianic Era when fast days will become feast days.


1863:"Sarah, the Hebrew; or, the Dream of Destiny," will be one of the attractions at Barnum's Museum during its Independence Day Celebration.


1863: In one of the climactic moments of the Civil War, Confederate forces surrender Vicksburg to Union forces under the command of General U.S. Grant. The victory is both a major tactical and strategic success since it split the Confederacy in half and gave control of the Mississippi River back to the Union. While there were Jewish soldiers fighting on both sides, the real significance is that the victory helped ensure that the United States of America would continue to exist offering Jews a place of refuge from European anti-Semitism.  The victory would also be a major stepping stone in the career of General Grant which would eventually lead him to victory over Lee and the Presidency.  Despite the unfortunate issuing of Order #11, Grant was not an anti-Semite as can be seen from the fact that Jews voted for him for President, his friendship with Joseph Seligman who refused Grant’s request to serve in his cabinet, his meeting with Rabbi Hayim Tzvi Sneersohn, a great-grandson of Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi, the "Alter Rebbe" of Chabad Hasidim and his attendance at the dedication of Adas Israel’s newly built house of worship.


1863: Among the Jews serving at Vicksburg were Private David Orbansky of the 58thOhio Infantry and Colonel Marcus M. Spiegel of the 120th Ohio Infantry.  A native of Lautenburg, Prussia, Orbansky would receive a Congressional Medal of Honor for his bravery at Shiloh and Vicksburg. Spiegel would die before he could be promoted to the rank of Brigadier of General “for his bravery at Vicksburg and Snaggy Point.”


1863: General Frederick Charles Salomon, a native of Prussia who had settled in Wisconsin, led the 1st Brigade of the Army of the Tennessee against the Rebels at the Battle of Helena, Arkansas.


1873: Birthdate of dietician Frances Stern. The Frances Stern Nutrition Center a part of Tufts-New England Medical Center was named in her honor.



1876: In Rovno, Russia, Samuel and Mary Simon gave birth to Sophie Irene Simon who moved to McKeesport, PA, at the age of six.  She gained fame as Sophie Simon Loeb journalist and advocate for social welfare reform.



1880: Rabbi Adolph Huebsch of Temple Ahavath Chesed officiated at the funeral of Joseph I. Stein who had served as Assemblyman of the 12th District.  A crowd of 2,000 spilled out from the home on East 52nd Street and one hundred coaches were needed to carry all of those who went to the cemetery.  Stein was a victim of last month’s Seawanhaka ship disaster.



1880: “The Soldiers of Morocco” published today described the great strides made in turning the Moroccan Army into an effective military unit.  Credit for this accomplishment goes to an English soldier known as Kaid Maclean (Sir Harry Aubrey de MacLean).  Kaid could not have accomplished his mission if it had not been for a unnamed Jew.  Kaid did not speak Arabic and the troops did not understand English so Kaid “had to give his instructions through a Jewish interpreter” who spoke both language but who nothing about military drill.



1881: Birthdate of Dov Ber Borochov the Ukrainian born proponent of the labor Zionist movement who was one of the founders of the Poale Zion.



1881: “Jewish Ladies Whipped” published today described the whippings of Jewish men, women and children, including “ladies of good position” who received 300 strokes, at Smjela, a small town near Kiev.  The attacks, which had been ordered by an unnamed Colonel, ended when the governor of Kiev arrived..



1881: It was reported today that “in some Russian districts, the peasants have offered to pay for the damage done to the property of the Jews” including one district where 800 rubles have been deposited for that purpose.



1882: Patrolman Edgar S. Slauson defended himself against accusations that he had overreacted when dealing with a mob that had attacked workers who working in place of the striking freight handlers. The replacement workers included large numbers of recently arrived Jewish immigrants from Russia who did not know about the strike. He admitted having to use his club on more than one of the attackers but he had little choice since he was facing a throng of more than 2,000.


1882: It was reported today that a mass meeting held to support the strike by the freight handlers in New York cheers greeted the announcement that 150 Russian Jews who had recently arrived in the United States and gone to work at the Erie Railway pier refused to do any more work once they had heard about the strike.



1883: In San Francisco, CA, Max and Hannah (Cohen) gave birth to Pulitzer Prize winning cartoonist Rube Goldberg.  Goldberg entertained several generations with his drawings of simple activities that were turned into multi-step complex functions.  His name became synonymouswith improvised temporary solutions to problems of major and minor magnitude.  



1883: It was reported today that “The Art Magazine for July” published by Cassell & Co features an article about the Russian sculptor, Mark Antokolsky.  Born in Wilno, this poor Jewish boy somehow managed to become a student at the Imperial Academy in St. Petersburg.  His first work “Jew Tailor” was created in wood because Antokolsky could not afford marble.  His career took off in 1870 when the Czar saw his statute “Ivan the Terrible.”



1884: It was reported from Odessa that there has been “rapid increase” in the emigration of Jews from southern Russia, to the United States.



1885: At Temple Beth-El, Rabbi Kaufmann Kohler’s Shabbat sermon included “his last discourse in the series in reference to sustaining the principles of Reform” and the relationship of “Independence Day to the Jews” of the United States.



1885: The congregants of Ahavath Chesed filled the sanctuary to hear the Shabbat sermon Rabbi Alexander Kohut in which he defended the principles of Orthodoxy while calling for unity among the Jewish people.



1885: Birthdate of Louis B. Mayer. Born in Minsk, Russia, Mayer was one of a generation of early movie moguls. In his case, he was the motion-picture executive MGM (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer)



1886: “Jews To Be Dismissed” published today relied on information from the St. Petersburg Dispatch and the London Daily News to described the orders given by the Minister of Justice to dismiss all Jewish secretaries and clerks  employed by the examining magistrates.



1886: David J. Dean delivered an address entitled “The Golden Rule In Political Government” during which he said that “race prejudice” had presented the greatest hurdle for people to overcome in their quest for effective government.  The folly of this attitude could be seen in that “for centuries the Hebrew” had been “an object of infamy and denunciation” but now Beaconsfield governed ‘the empire on which the sun never sets’ i.e. Great Britain. [Despite his conversion, Disraeli/Beaconsfield was regarded as a Jew; although the reference was usually a derogatory one used by his political opponents.]



1887: In his 69th year, Jonas Heller, a long serving member of the Board of Directors of the Home for Aged and Infirm Hebrews passed away today.



1888: Jacob Lissauer is reported to be contesting the will of his late wife, Yetta.  Her estate was worth $5,000. The will makes bequests for the benefit of the Hebrew Home for the Aged and Infirm and the Hebrew Orphan Asylum, but lives nothing to the husband.  He contends that the Yetta’s cousin, who drew up the will never let her read the instrument so she signed it without knowing this.



1889: “A Home For Hebrew Societies” published today described plans for the construction of a building that will be home to the Hebrew Free School Association, the Young Men’s Hebrew Association and the Aquila Free Library located in the Tenth Ward.  The facility will contain classrooms, manual training facilities and “a hall capable of holding 800” people.



1889 Birthdate of Joseph Ruttenberg, the Russian born American photojournalist who became an award winning cinematographer who began in the silent film era and made the successful transition to talkies.



1890: It was reported today that Dr. Clifton Levy will deliver the sermon at Temple Gates of Hope on Shabbat.



1890: Barney Rosenberg, who is among the group of striking tailors and cloakmakers most of whom are Russian and Polish Jews,  was being treated at Gouverneur Hospital for injuries he received from a policeman who broke up an attack that took place on scabs yesterday.



1890: Henry Simon, Welf Heiman, Harris Dienerstadt, Hyman Schmlovitz, Aaron Michael Knovic, Isidor Kaufman, Jospeh Hyman are in police custody for the role in attacking strike breakers at two clothing manufacturers who have locked the immigrant Jewish tailors and cloakmakers.



1891: The SS PIckhuban which had left Antwerp with a large party of Jews who had been expelled from Russia came upon the burning wreck of the Octavia whose crew must have left in lifeboats since they were nowhere to be seen.



1891: A deed was recorded today in Marlborough, Hartford County, CT “transferring a sizable tract of land in that town near Marlborough mills on which buildings are to be erected” for use by “poor Jews who are now being driven out of countries in Europe.”



1892: At their meeting today, the Board of Managers of the Baltimore Congregation “reported that they thought it was inexpedient at present to abolish the old custom of the men wearing their hats during services.”



1892: As part of Independence Day celebrations in New York, American flags flew in all sections of the city including those “streets where all of the signs are written in Hebrew characters.” (The letters my have been “Hebrew” but the language may have been Yiddish”



1892: Hostilities begin between France the African Kingdom of Dahomey in what was called the Second Franco-Dahomean War in which Andre Cremeiu-Foa who had been a victim of attacks by French anti-Semites including Edouard Drumont, served with such distinction that he was cited in the orders for the day.



1893: “Pupils of the Hirsch Schools” published today described the method by which these institutions prepare the children of Jewish immigrants from Russia and Romania for success in public school.  In the past, these children had stayed away from school because they did not speak English and did understand American customs.  In a three-month course that begins almost as soon as the youngsters get off of the boat, the Hirsch Schools teach them English and cultivate their understanding of “freedom of thought and action, together with respect for law” which are the hallmark of the American experience.



1894: As part of their Independence Day Celebration the young men at the Hebrew Orphan Asylum were formed into two companies each with a brass band of 30 pieces so that parade at the facility on Amsterdam Avenue.  Following the parade, all of the youngsters were treated to cake and ice cream followed by a fireworks show.



1894: Because of the Independence Day holiday, the regularly scheduled lecture on the “Care of Feeding of Infants and Children During the Warm Weather” will not take place at the Hebrew Institute.



1895: Governor Levi P. Morton is considering the tenth application for a pardon submitted on behalf of Phillip Kiven who is serving a six year term in Sing Sing Prison after having been convicted, along with is wife of stealing $250 from two Polish Jews who were staying at their resort. In a strange twist of events, Kiven claims that he is the victim of a police persecution.



1895: It was reported that the late Lewis Levy has left his estate in a trust for the benefit of his wife Mary and his sister Julia.  Upon their death the residue will be used for bequests to several charities including the Hebrew Benevolent and Orphan Asylum Society, Mount Sinai Hospital, the Home for Aged and Infirm Hebrews , the Montefiore Home for Chronic Invalids and the Hebrew Technical Institute.



1896: “Doom of the Tombs” published today provided a recap of those hung at the old New York City jail including three men hung for the murder of Abraham Weisberg, a Jewish peddler.



1894: As part of the Independence Day celebration, “the cadets of the Hebrew Institute went into camp near St. George, S.I.  They then conducted a drill in the presence of dignitaries including Isidor Straus and Alfred Hochstader .



1897:  Jews came from all over the state to witness the laying of the cornerstone in Elizabeth, NJ,  of their new Educational Institute and Library at the corner of Fourth and Streets.



1898:The first convention of the Federation of American Zionists opened at the B'nai Zion Club on Henry Street in New York's lower East Side.  One hundred delegates, 20 from outside of New York, attended the convention which elected Rabbi Guvstav Gottheil to serve as President.



1902: Herzl had his first meeting with Nathaniel Mayer Rothschild in London.



1902: The Sultan asks Herzl top come to Constantinople immediately.



1902: Birthdate of mobster Meyer Lansky.



1903(9th of Tammuz, 5663) Albert F. Hochstadyer who had been a member of the firm of Newburger and Hochstadter Brothers of Philadelphia until 1879 passed today at his summer home in Elberon at the age of fifty-six. He was active in numerous New York Jewish organizations including Temple Emanu-El where he was serving as a Trustee and Honorary Secretary at the time of his death.



1903: Following the Pogrom at Kishinev, Leo Napoleon Levi, a lawyer from Texas who was President of the B'nai B'rith, wrote a letter to Czar Nicholas II calling for an end to the mistreatment of the Jews living in Russia.



1903: Maurice Arnold de Forest, one of the adopted sons of Baron Maurice de Hirsch and Baroness Clara de Hirsch,“became a Second Lieutenant in the Staffordshire Imperial Yeomanry (Queen's Own Royal Regiment)” today



1903: Dorothy Levitt (born Dorothy Levi) won her class at the Southport Speed Trials driving a S.F.Edge's 12 hp Gladiator,shocking British society as she was the first woman, a working secretary, to compete in a motor race. She became noted for racing in a dust coat (a loose coverall coat reaching down to the ankles), matching hat and veil.



1905: Birthdate of author and literary critic Lionel Trilling.



1905: Independence Day was commemorated in Jerusalem with a display of American and Swedish flags.
http://www.israeldailypicture.com/2012/06/celebrating-july-4th-in-holy-land-100.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+IsraelsHistory-APictureADaybeta+%28Israel%27s+History+-+a+Picture+a+Day+%28Beta%29%29



1907: At today’s session of the 18th annual convention of the Central Conference of American Rabbis a message from Judge Louis Sloss of San Francisco to Judge Julian W. Mack regarding the rehabilitation of the synagogues destroyed by the earthquake was received and referred to the appropriate committee and Rabbi Isaac Landman read his paper on “Moses Hayyim Luzzato in Honor of His Bicentenary.”



1910: Melville Weston Fuller, the eighth Chief Justice of the United States passed away. While some may remember him for reactionary rulings including Plessy v Ferguson, he was the one of the signatories of the Blackstone Memorial, a petition expressing support for the Jews settling in Palestine that was presented to President Benjamin Harrison in 1891. The memorial was the first expression of support to come from leading non-Jewish Americans.



1911: Birthdate of Mitch Miller. Born in Rochester NY, Miller’s greatest claims to fame are "The Yellow Rose of Texas" and his television show, "Sing Along With Mitch."



1913: Abe Attell the boxer known as “the Little Hebrew”accidentally hit the referee on the face during a win against Willie Beecher.



1913: In Atlantic City, at the Conference of American Rabbis Sabbath eve services were held at Temple Beth Israel under the leadership of Rabbi William Lowenburg of Union Town, PA who served as the Cantor while the sermon was delivered by Rabbi Charles S. Levin of Milwaukee, WI.



1914: Sydney Grundy, the English dramatist whose works included “An Old Jew” a play produced in London in 1894, five years before Israel Zangwill's watershed play, Children of the Ghetto was done. Zangwill. (As reported by Edna Nahsohn) Contemporary accounts said the play was panned by critics in London and New York because it was “a very bad play with a wildly improbable plot.”



1917: The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that the Young Men’s Hebrew Association of Trenton, NJ, has elected new officers including President Harry Greenburg, Vice President Meyer Wessel and Financial Secretary Phillip Wenkes



1916: Birthdate of Martin E. Segal, the native of Vitebsk, Russia, who would become “one of New York’s leading cultural figures” “known as the elder statesman of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts.”  (As reported by Robin Pogrebin)



1917: “Here and There in Camden” published today described listed the newly elected officers of the Young Men’s Hebrew Association in that New Jersey city including Harry Greenburg, President; Meyer Wessel, Vice President; Dr. Philip Wenkos, Financial Secretary and Trustees Abe Fuhurman, Samuel Mackler, Isaac Frisch, Jack Weinberg, Jacob L. Furer and Arnold Weiss.



1918:  At the Battle of Hamel John Monash applied his doctrine of "peaceful penetration", and led Australian Divisions, along with a small detachment of US troops, to win a decisive victory for the Allies. A native of Australia, Monash was the son of Prussian born Jews and had risen to the rank of Major General in 1917.


1918: In Sioux City, Iowa Russian Jewish emigrants Rebecca Friedman (née Rushall) and Abraham B. Friedman gave birth to twin sisters born within 17 minutes of each other -- Esther Pauline Friedman Lederer and Pauline Esther Friedman Phillips. Esther, known as Eppie Lederer became advice columnist Ann Landers.  Pauline, nicknamed Popo became Abigail Van Burn or “Dear Abby.” The fact that the two leading advice columnists of the second half of the 20th century were Jewish was one of the best kept media secrets.


1918: Ottoman sultan Mehmed VI ascends to the throne. Mehmed had the unenviable challenge of salvaging what he could of Ottoman glory as World War I came to the end and the Allies were poised to turn most of the Ottoman Empire into European Colonies.  Jews continued to play an active part in the governing of the Empire and the emerging Republic.  These included the minister of telegraph Yusuf Franko Pasa and Professor Avram Galante who served as “translator of the foreign press news for the Ankara government.”


1918: In Jerusalem, General Edmund Allenby, the British general who had liberated the ancient Jewish capital from the Ottomans was the guest of honor at the American Colony’s Independence Day Celebration



1921: Birthdate of Philip Rosenberg, who gained fame as Philip Rose, “the producer of Broadway shows like “A Raisin in the Sun” and “Purlie Victorious”  who advanced the cause of black playwrights and actors and helped widen the scope of American theater to include stories of blacks and other minorities…’ (As reported by Bruce Weber)


1921: The funeral of Jacob A. Cantor was held at his home in New York City today. Rabbi M. H. Harris of Temple Israel delivered the eulogy. Cantor, an attorney by training, had been active in the New York Democratic Party for several decades holding a variety of positions including U.S. Congressman.  The service was attended by numerous prominent government officials.



1923: A movie made by Delaware native William Topkis at the urging of the Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael-Jewish National Fund “to encourage American tourism and Aliya” which had been filmed in Palestine was shown for the first time at the Zion Cinema in Jerusalem. (As reported by David Geffen)
http://www.jpost.com/Jewish-World/Jewish-Features/The-lifeblood-of-Palestine-Jewish-tourism-309868



1926: Birthdate of Amos Elon, Israeli poet and journalist.



1926: The Nazis inaugurate their youth movement which is known as the Hitler Youth.



1927: Birthdate of playwright Neil Simon. Some of his hits include Odd Couple, Plaza Suite and Biloxi Blues.



1929: When the “Ah-Say-Fah Ha’Nivcharim” (Assembly of the Chosen) resumes its meeting Jaobtinsky loses the vote to ignore the organization’s’ agenda and leads the eleven revisionist delegates out of the meeting after reading a speech attacking the Jewish Agency.



1931: According to a report by the Labor Department of the Jewish Agency made public today by the American Palestine Campaign, “few countries in the world afford women such equality of opportunity as is enjoyed by Jewish women in Palestine.”  Out of work force of 23,830 most of which is located in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Haifa and Petach Tikvah 18,067 are men and 5,754 are women.  While the largest number of women works in agricultural endeavors, they are also represented in manufacturing, the professions and government work.



1932: Birthdate of Martin Cohan, the TV writer and producer who co-created 'Who's the Boss?'



1934: An Inspectorate of Concentration Camps is established, headed by Theodor Eicke.



1934: Rebbetzin Renee Schick, who founded the Schick's Bakery in Boro Park in 1941 and her husband gave birth to political science Professor Allen Shick fifteen minutes after having given birth to Marvin Schick.



1934(21st of Tammuz, 5694): Zionist poet Chaim Nachman Bialik passed away.  Born in Russia in 1873, Bialik had a traditional Talmudic education. However, at an early age he was attracted to Zionism and became a member of the Lovers of Zion. He fell under the influence of the author Achad Ha’am. His Hebrew poetry reflected the idea that Zionism was as much a cultural as it was a political movement. One of his famous early poems was "City of Slaughter" written in response to the pogrom at Kishnev. Bialik made Aliyah in 1924. Such was his influence that during his lifetime, he was called the "national poet," a title that has remained to this day. For those interested in reading his works in translation, consider looking at a copy of “Songs from Bialik: Selected Poems of Hayim Nachman Bialik.”



1934: Leo Szilard, the Hungarian born Jew who would take refuge in the United States and become part of the Manhattan Project, patents the chain-reaction design for the atomic bomb.



1936: In Napoli, Italy Margit and Pasquale Frustaci gave birth to Cesare Frustaci, the Holocaust survivor who now lives at Port Charlotte who has dedicated himself to overcoming the lies told by the Holocaust Deniers.



1938:The Manshieh quarter on the Jaffa-Tel Aviv border was again the scene of violence early this morning as Jews reportedly attacked Arabs apparently in retaliation for the Arab campaign of violence that began in 1937.  Major Hebrew language dailies condemned the attacks, regardless of the reasons for which they launched.



1938: Birthdate of Robert Abrams the New York State Attorney General and Bronx Borough President.



1939: Esther "Etty" Hillesum took the second and final part of master’s exams in Dutch Law.



1941: The Nazis murdered scientists and writers in the captured city of Lvov.



1941(9th of Tamuz, 5701): Lithuanian militiamen murdered 416 Jewish men, 47 Jewish women in Kovno at the Seventh Fort.



1941: Two thousand Jews from Lutsk, Ukraine, are transported to the Lubard Fortress and killed.



1941(9th of Tammuz, 5701): Fifty-four Jews are killed at Vilna, Lithuania.



1941: Between July 4 and July 11 five thousand Jews are killed in Ternopol, Ukraine.



1944(13th of Tammuz, 5704): Corporal David H. Rubenstein was killed in action in France. He was the 19th Milford, Massachusetts man to lose his life in World War II. “Milford’s Fallen Family” of that war would come to total 55.



1944: One thousand Jewish women are sent from Auschwitz to Hamburg, Germany, to pull down the remains of structures damaged during Allied bombing raids.



1944: In one of the tragedies of WW II, 250 inmates, most of them French Jews, from the Alderney camp on the Occupied Channel Islands are killed by fire from British warships while being transported to the mainland.



1944: The Milice, the anti-Semitic French militia working for the Vichy Government and the Nazis captured Jewish journalist and Resistance leader Georges Mandel.



1944: Between July 4 and July 5 2565 Jews from Pápa, Hungary, are sent to Auschwitz just as the Hungarian government is poised to defy Germany and halt the deportation. Only 30 of Pápa's 2800 Jews will survive the war



1945: In Tripoli, Libya and in other Libyan towns, Muslims began anti- Jewish riots.



1946: A Pogrom took place in Kielce, Poland. The date is correct –1946. One year after the end of the World War II and the Holocaust and a Polish mob attacked a house in Kielce in Poland where almost all of the town's surviving Jews were living (200 of the original 25,000). Forty-two Jews were brutally murdered, another 50 injured. This was followed by a chaotic mass exodus of around 150,000 Jews from across Poland to DP camps in Germany



1946: Following todays pogrom in Kielce, Poland “more than 100,000 Jews”  fled to the American Zone of Occupation in Germany putting an unbelievable strain on the DP resources that had been allocated by the U.S. Government.



1946: Birthdate of financier Michael Milken.  A wizard of Wall Street, Milken’s name became synonymous with greed and the Junk Bond Scandal.  He eventually ended up going to prison for his part in the financial fraud that was rampant in the 1980’s.



1947: David Ben-Gurion appeared before the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP).  During his testimony which covered the history of the Jewish people and the reasons for creating a Jewish state in Palestine Ben Gurion tells the UN officials that “What happened to our people in this war is merely a climax to the uninterrupted persecution to which we have been subjected for centuries by almost all the Christian and Moslem peoples in the world.’



1948: Pitcher Marv Rotblatt made his major league debut with the Chicago White Sox.



1949:In describing the progress of the nation's so-called austerity program today Dr. Bernard Joseph, Minister of Supply and Rationing, disclosed that Israeli importers functioning in collateral fields have been requested by the Government to pool their efforts with a view to obtaining the lowest possible prices in world markets.



1951: The Jerusalem Post reported that an accidental blast in a quarry of Even V’Sid Company on Castel Hill killed eight workers and injured six others. The holiday-with-pay principle was legally established in Israel following the final reading of the Annual Leave Bill in the Knesset. Employees were entitled to a minimum of 14 days' paid vacation as of October 1, 1951. The employee must have worked 200 days out of year's contract, or must have worked 240 single days for the same employer in any one 12-month period to be entitled to such paid leave.



1954: In Hutchinson, Kansas, Julius E. and Ruth (Gottfried) Kaplan gave birth to Fred M. Kaplan the Oberlin graduate and Slate contributor who “was a member of a team that won a 1983 Pulitzer Prize for a special Sunday Boston Globe Magazine article, "War and Peace in the Nuclear Age", on the U.S.-Soviet nuclear arms race.



1959: Alaska becomes the 49th state to join the Union. Jewish involvement with Alaska dates back to January, 1868 when the Alaska Commercial Company was formed in by a group of Jewish businessman in San Francisco including Louis Sloss (President), Lewis Gerstle (Vice President), Simon Greenwald, William Kohl and A. Wasserman. Jews were included in those went “North to Alaska” during the Gold Rush of the 1890’s.  There was actually an attempt made before World War II to turn the Alaska Territory into a refuge for Jews fleeing Hitler.  The plan failed.  Ernest Gruening, a Jew from New York, was one of Alaska’s most prominent early political leaders.  A supporter of statehood, he served as territorial governor and then was elected as one of the state’s first two United States Senators.  Gruening joined Wayne Morris as one of only two Senators to vote against the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution.  The vote cost him his seat.  But it made him one of the first to see the folly of the Viet Nam War. 



1960: George Lincoln Rockwell and eight of his American Nazi Party members were arrested at the Washington National Mall when a riot broke out during one his political demonstrations.



1967: In the General Assembly of the UN Chile gave its full support to the resolution of the Latin American Bloc in the aftermath of the Six-Day War.



1967: Just a month after the “Six Day War” a MiG-17 was shot down when Egyptian warplanes attacked Israelis in the Sinai Peninsula.



1968: Birthdate of Ronni Ancona “a Scottish actress, impressionist and author” who “won the Best TV Comedy Actress award at the 2003 British Comedy Awards for her work in Big Impression.”



1970(30th of Sivan, 5730): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz



1970(30th of Sivan, 5730): American painter Barnett Newman passed away.



1975(25th of Tammuz, 5735): In Jerusalem’s Zion Square, members of the PLO detonate a bomb hidden in a refrigerator which killed fourteen and wounded seventy.  Victims included Arabs as well as Jews.



1976: The Jerusalem Post reported that there was extensive violence in the West Bank towns in protest against the fatal shooting of an 18-year-old Arab youth during clashes with security forces during the weekend.



1976: The Jerusalem Post reported that the giant American Bicentennial National Park in the Jerusalem hills was officially opened to the public.



1976:  Antoni Słonimski, Polish poet and author, passed away.  Slonimski spent the war years in exile in Britain.  He returned to Poland in 1951 where he was a staunch anti-Stalinist.



1976(6thof Tammuz, 5736): The Entebbe Rescue – Over 100 Jewish and Israeli hostages from an Air France plane being held prisoner by Palestinian terrorists and Ugandan soldiers who were threatening to murder them if their demands were not met were rescued by Israeli commandos in a brilliant ruse under the command of Yonatan Netanyahu who was shot in the back during the rescue. Netanyahu was the one of four Israeli soldier killed in the rescue mission.  Tragically, 19 year old Jean-Jacues Maimoni, 52 year old Pasco Cohen and 56 year old Ida Borochovitch were killed in the cross fired. . Seventy-five year old Dora Bloch, who was undergoing treatment at Mulago Hospital, was murdered by the Ugandans as revenge for the raid.



1979: Simon Veil completed her term as French Minister of Health.



1981: The American premiere of “Halil” took place at Tanglewood today “with Doriot Anthony Dwyer as the soloist and members of the Boston Symphony Orchestra.” ‘Halil’ is a work for flute and chamber orchestra composed by Leonard Bernstein composed in 1981. The work is sixteen minutes in length. Bernstein composed Halil in honor of a young Israeli flutist Yadin Tanenbaum who was killed at the Suez Canal in during the 1973 Yom Kippur war.”



1986(27th of Sivan, 5746): Russian born, American mathematician Oscar Zariski passed away. 



1987: Nazi Klaus Barbie, "Butcher of Lyon" is convicted by a French court.



1988: The bulk of the Furth family summer estate at Yarrow Point on the east shore of Lake Washington, which traces its origins back to Jacob Furth “was deeded to the towns of Yarrow Point and Hunts Point as the Wetherill Nature Preserve” today.



1988: Fifty-five year old Ben Briscoe followed in the footsteps of his father Robert Briscoe when he became Lord Mayor of Dublin after defeating the incumbent by 6 votes in an election held by members of the city council.



1992(3rd of Tammuz, 5752): Ninety-eight year old painter and printmaker Harry Gottlieb passed away.
http://www.nytimes.com/1992/07/08/arts/harry-gottlieb-is-dead-wpa-artist-was-98.html
http://keithsheridan.com/gottlieb.html



1993: The first round of family tours of Israel sponsored by the American Jewish Congress come to an end.



1998:Sandra Bernhard gave birth to daughter Cicely Yasin Bernhard



1999: The New York Times reviews books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Story Begins: Essays on Literature by Amos Oz and The Elusive Embrace: Desire and the Riddle of Identity by Daniel Mendelsohn.



2001(13thof Tammuz, 5761): Thirty-two year old Eliahu Na’aman was shot today at Sueika.



2002: Jewish National Fund officials announced that retired Tel Aviv District Court Judge Arye Segelson will head the organization's investigation into allegations of misconduct in JNF's 'Plant a Tree With Your Own Hands' program for tourists.

2002 (24th of Tammuz, 5762): A gunman opened fire at Israel's El Al airline ticket counter at Los Angeles International Airport; three people were killed, including the gunman



2002(24thof Tammuz, 5762): Eighty-seven year old French mathematician Laurent Schwartz who won the Fields Medal in 1950 passed away today.
http://www.theguardian.com/news/2002/aug/07/guardianobituaries.obituaries
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1404336/Laurent-Schwartz.html



2004: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Conspiratorsby Michael André Bernstein and Politics: Observations & Arguments by Hendrik Hertzberg



2004: Tzipi Livni began serving as Minister of Construction and Housing



2004(15th of Tammuz, 5764): Victor Kreiderman, 49, was killed by terrorists in Israel.



2007: Meir Sheerit succeeded Roni Bar-On as Minister of the Interior.



2007: Ze’ev Boim  succeded Meir Sheerit as Minister of Construction and Housing



2007: Yaakov Edri began serving as Minister for the Development of the Negev and Galilee.



2007: Inan interview broadcast on Channel 10 Abu Mutfana - a leader in the Army of Islam – said that the kidnappers of Cpl. Gilad Schalit have transferred him to the custody of Hamas,



2008: Rosh Chodesh Tammuz (Second Day); First day of Tammuz, 5768



2008: As part of its 4th of July cookout themed advertising, Wal Mart touts the availability of “100% all kosher Hebrew National Hot Dogs.”  The Red, White and Blue meets OU!



2008: Following two days each punctuated by a rocket attack on Israel,Hamas today announced that it was suspending all negotiations with Israel over the release of captured IDF soldier Gilad Schalit.

2008: Despite the seemingly endless rounds of adversity that would break the spirits of lesser people, the Jews of Tel Aviv showed their true mettle by hosting the fourth annual mass water fight in Rabin Square which drew hundreds of children, teens and adults.

2008: The Washington Post features a review of Undiscovered by Jewish actress, Debra Winger



2001:Julius Shulman's last exhibit at Craig Krull Gallery (his Los Angeles gallery since 1991) opened today.



2008(1stof Tammuz, 5768): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz



2008(1stof Tammuz, 5768):1st Lt. Daniel Farkas was killed today, at Camp Phoenix in Kabul, Afghanistan. He was 42 years old. “Daniel Farkas, a 20-year-veteran of the New York City Police Department and a dedicated athlete, had been a member of the National Guard since 1992. He lived in Brooklyn with his mother, two sisters and two nieces, the New York Daily News reported. Farkas was honored with the Afghanistan Campaign Medal, the Global War on Terrorism Expeditionary Medal, the Armed Forces Reserve Medal and the National Defense Service Medal, among others. (As reported by The Forwards)



2009: In Alexandria, VA, Jews of the Old Dominion celebrate Independence Day with a "Red, White & Blue Tot Shabbat" in the chapel at Beth El Hebrew Congregation.



2009: There is no Independence Day Celebration at the U.S. Embassy in Israel on July 4 because the official celebration took place on July 1. The celebration included remarks by the Ambassador on the 233rd anniversary of U.S. Independence, Shiri Maimon singing the “Star-Spangled Banner” and “Hatikva” and fireworks lighting up the night sky above the cliffs of the Mediterranean.



2009(12thof Tammuz, 5769):Pfc. Aaron E. Fairbairn was killed today, when insurgents attacked his base in eastern Afghanistan. He was 20 years old. “Aaron Fairbairn was born nearly two months premature and had to be fed from a Barbie bottle until he was big enough to move into the regular natal facility. A happy and friendly child, Fairbairn overcame the health problems he faced as a baby and became fiercely devoted to his family. He showed a dedication to hard work at an early age, quitting sports in the seventh grade to work four different newspaper routes to buy his first car by the time he was 14 years old. His family told the Forward there was nothing Fairbairn enjoyed more than working on his cars. He owned seven trucks by the time he was 20. Born Aaron Eli Ben-Neth, Fairbairn took his mother’s surname when he was 18 years old. Grandson and son of Vietnam War veterans, Fairbairn decided early on he wanted to enlist and establish a career for himself in the army. Always a slight man, Fairbairn was only 115 pounds when he went into the army and worked incredibly hard to reach 145 pounds. Fairbairn was so proud that he was serving that he wore his uniform around town in Aberdeen, Wash., when he was home on leave. When news of a kidnapped soldier in Afghanistan coincided with no communication from her son for a week, Shelly Fairbairn told the Forward she envisioned the worst case scenario. “But then he called [and] we breathed a sigh of relief…the next morning when the soldiers showed up at my door I thought maybe they were here because it’s Fourth of July… [I thought,] it can’t be, we just spoke to him yesterday.” (As reported in The Forwards)



2009(12thof Tammuz, 5769): Sixty-two year old Drake Levin, the lead guitarist for Paul Revere & the Raiders passed away today. (As reported by Bruce Weber)
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/10/arts/music/10levin.html?_r=0



2009: Julius Shulman’s last exhibit at Craig Krull Gallery opened today.



2010: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Rough Justice:The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer  by Peter Elkind,  Journal of the Plague Year:An Insider’s Chronicle of Eliot Spitzer’s Short and Tragic Reign by Lloyd Constantine and The Frozen Rabbi by Steve Stern.



2011: Thirty-fifth anniversary of the Raid on Entebbe.  Joy is still tempered by the sadness at the loss of Yonatan "Yoni" Netanyahu, the thirty year old officer who was the only IDF casualty during this act of derring-do.  Herman Wouk, the famous author, offered these words about Netanyahu. "He was a taciturn philosopher-soldier of terrific endurance, a hard-fibered, charismatic young leader, a magnificent fighting man. On the Golan Heights, in the Yom Kippur War, the unit he led was part of the force that held back a sea of Soviet tanks manned by Syrians, in a celebrated stand; and after Entebbe, "Yoni" became in Israel almost a symbol of the nation itself. Today his name is spoken there with somber reverence."



2011: The Association of Americans of Americans and Canadians in Israel (AACI) are scheduled to celebrate 4th of July and Canada Day at Kraft Stadium in Jerusalem



2011: As Americans celebrate Independence, Jews can take pride in their active support of the patriort cause. Besides the famous Hyam Solomon, “there were hundreds of Jewish soldiers and sailors who fought in the Revolution and patriots who supported it. There was Phillip Russell, a surgeon at Valley Forge; Col. David Franks an aide to George Washington; a “Jew Company, " which fought in South Carolina; Moses Myers, who fought in Virginia; the Sheftall family, which fought and were captured in Savannah. In Manhattan's Chatham Square cemetery, 22 Revolutionary Jewish soldiers lie. Many had sacrificed their lives for their new country. Just like the approximately 500 Americans who were killed or wounded during the three British assaults at Bunker Hill in 1775. (New evidence has surfaced that a Jewish soldier, Abraham Solomon, participated in the Battle of Bunker Hill as a member of Colonel John Glover's 21st Regiment from Gloucester.)”



2011:The Canadian ship "Tahrir", participating in the flotilla to Gaza, attempted to depart from the Greek port of Agios Nikolaos today, but was intercepted by the Greek coast guard shortly after departure.

2011: Defense Minister Ehud Barak ordered a stop to the transfer of the bodies of 84 Palestinian terrorists to the Palestinian Authority at the last minute today, despite earlier confirmation from the IDF Spokesperson's Office that the transfer would go through. Barak made his decision to hold off on the transfer after a Haaretz report revealed that two of the bodies to be returned to the PA were the Awadallah brothers, former leaders of the Hamas military wing, who were killed by Israeli soldiers near Hebron in September 1998.

2012: The Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage is scheduled to host an Independence Day Celebration featuring including live Americana music and free flags for the youngsters



2012: In honor of Independence Day, the Jewish Community Alliance of Jacksonville, FL, is scheduled to sponsor a Family Fun Day completed with hot dog, games, prizes and a DJ



2012: In honor Independence Day, the National Museum of American Jewish History, will be open free to the public today.



2012: The Jewish Women’s Archives celebrates Independence Day by sponsoring an contest where readers can honor the FIJW (Fiercely Independent Jewish Woman) in their lives with a brief tribute.



2012: Israeli cellist Yoed Nir is scheduled to perform at The Apollo Theatre in Manchester, UK



2012: 36thAnniversary of the Raid on Entebbe, a moment of great pride for Jews and all who value the best in Western Civilization.  Of course, we will never forget that this gift was paid for with Jewish blood – in this case the life of Yonatan Netanyahu.  If a person’s name defines them, then this is just such a case since the brave Israeli bears the name of the noblest of all biblical characters – the son of Saul and comrade of David.



2012: TodayKadima party chairman Shaul Mofaz asserted that the implementation of the Plesner Report is a condition for his party staying in the government. "The ball is in Prime Minister [Binyamin Netanyahu's] hands and he has a matter of days," Mofaz added, declaring that "the Plesner plan is the only plan."



2012: Yigal Amir, assassin of late prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, is set to leave solitary confinement in the coming days, the Prisons Service confirmed today. Amir has spent 17 years in solitary detention, in line with repeated court extensions of his prison terms.



2013: American superstar Alicia Keys, one of the leading musical artists of the last 10 years, is scheduled to arrive in Israel for the first time today.” (As reported by David Brinn)


2013: Independence Day – Even before the “shot heard around the world” was fired Jews were active in the military units that would eventually fight the British.  In 1769, Captain Richard Lushington formed a volunteer company at Charleston, SC “composed chiefly of Hebrews.  They would later be referred to as “the Jews company” and include Marks Lazarus, Emanuel Abrahams, Jacob Moses Joseph Solomon and Abraham Spidel among its members. Among others who served on the battlefield were Mordecai Sheftall of Georgia who was twice captured by the British; Francis Salvador of South Carolina who was the first Jewish soldier to die during the war; Colonel Isaac Franks, aide de camp to General Washington, Major Benjamin Moses who served on the staffs of George Washington and the Marquis de Lafayette; Colonel David S. Franks the loyal patriot who served as aid de camp to Benedict Arnold; Philip Moses Russell “whom Washington commended for his assiduous attentions to the sick and wounded: and Colonel Jacob De La Motta. While we all know about the contribution of Haym Solomon who bankrupted himself to provide funds for the Revolution we should also take note of Benjamin Levy and Benjamin Jacobs of Philadelphia and Samuel Lyon of New York who signed Bills of Credit for the Continental Congress for which they were never reimbursed. This list is not complete, but it should give a sense of the small Jewish community’s support for the Revolutionary cause.  The most important contribution made by the Jews was intellectual and spiritual. From portraying King George as modern day Pharaoh and themselves as Israelites escaping bondage, to the inscription on the Liberty Bell to the concept that All Men Are Created Equal, the Patriots drew from the well of Jewish tradition and Jewish books.


2014: The U.S. Embassy in Israel is scheduled to host a July 4th Celebration starting at 5:45.



2014: Some celebrate Independence Day, while others remember the Battle of the Horns of Hittin.  If you do not understand their impact on today’s world then to paraphrase Burke and Santayana, those who do not know and learn from history are up the creek without a paddle. "


This Day, July 5, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. Levin

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July 5



1247: Pope Innocent IV, semi-retired by Emperor Frederick II, issued a Bull refuting blood libels and sent it throughout Germany and France.



1345: Pope Clement VI banned forced baptism of Jews. Subsequent Popes overturned this decree in 1597 and 1747.



1247: Today, Innocent IV dispatched a bull from Lyons to the Church dignitaries of France and Germany in which for the first time, the repeated baseless and fiendish imputations against the Jews were officially contradicted.  "Certain of the clergy and princes and nobles and great lords of your dioceses have falsely devised certain godless plans against the Jews, unjustly depriving them by force of their property and appropriating it themselves; they falsely charge them with dividing up among themselves on the Passover the heart of a murdered boy.  Christians believe that the Law of the Jews prescribes this to them, whilst in their Law the very reverse is ordained.  In the face of their malice, they ascribe every murder, wherever it chance to occur, to Jews.  And on the ground of these and other fabrications, they are filled with rage against them, rob them of their possessions, without any formal accusation without confession and without legal trial and conviction.  Contrary  to the privileges  graciously granted to them from the Apostolic chair, and opposed to god and his justice, they oppress the Jews by starvation, imprisonment and by other tortures and sufferings; they afflict them with all kinds of punishments, and sometimes even condemn them to  death, so that the Jews, although living under Christian prices are in a worse plight than were their ancestors in Egypt under the Pharaohs...Since it is our pleasure that they shall not be distressed, we ordain that ye behave towards them in a friendly and kind manner.  Whenever any unjust attacks upon them come under your notice, redress their injuries and do not suffer them to be visited in the future by similar tribulations."  Anti-Semitism and belief and in the blood libel were so much a part of European culture that the Pope's bull was ignored.


1687: Sir Isaac Newton publishes Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica. Newton was also a millenarian and a theologian who thought the world would end in 2060. A treatise he wrote contains a diagram is of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem. The Jewish National and University Library at Hebrew University has an exhibit of these more unusual aspects of Newton's career, and Ha'aretz has a story on the exhibit (http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/871575.html). For more about Newton and the Jewish religion seeJudaism in the Theology of Sir Isaac Newton by Matt Goldish.



1687:Isaac Newton published “Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica,” the ground breaking three volume work that included Newton’s Laws of motions and revolutionized the field of physics.  Based on documents from the Jewish National and University Library first shown to the general public in 2007, we know that we that Newton “found time to write on Jewish law”  and used the Book of Daniel “for clues about the” date for the end of the world. “In one manuscript from the early 1700s, Newton used the cryptic Book of Daniel to calculate the date for the Apocalypse, reaching the conclusion that the world would end no earlier than 2060. ‘It may end later, but I see no reason for its ending sooner,’ Newton wrote. However, he added, ‘This I mention not to assert when the time of the end shall be, but to put a stop to the rash conjectures of fanciful men who are frequently predicting the time of the end, and by doing so bring the sacred prophesies into discredit as often as their predictions fail.’ In another document, Newton interpreted biblical prophecies to mean that the Jews would return to the Holy Land before the world ends. The end of days will see ‘the ruin of the wicked nations, the end of weeping and of all troubles, the return of the Jews captivity and their setting up a flourishing and everlasting Kingdom,’ he posited.” Newton also wrote “treatises on daily practice in the Jewish temple in Jerusalem. In one document, Newton discussed the exact dimensions of the temple — its plans mirrored the arrangement of the cosmos, he believed — and sketched it. Another paper contains words in Hebrew, including a sentence taken from the Jewish prayerbook.  For more about Newton and the Jewish religion seeJudaism in the Theology of Sir Isaac Newton by Matt Goldish For more on the exhibit of his papers see:


1712(1stof Tammuz, 5472): Esther de Castro, the wife of Issac Orbio de Castro, the Portuguese marrano physician and philosopher who reclaimed in his Jewish heritage when he moved to Amsterdam, passed away today.



1719(14thTammuz, 5479): Rabbi Shmuel Schotten known as the Mharsheishoch, passed away. Born at Schotten in 1644, he was appointed Rosh Yeshiva of the yeshiva in Frankfurt am Main and Rabbi of the Grand Duchy of Hesse-Darmstadt in 1685.



1742:During “The War of Jenkins' Ear between Spain and the Kingdom of Great Britain, Spanish troops landed on St. Simons Island as part of their Invasion of Georgia. Most of the Sephardi Jews abandoned Savannah, fearing that if captured they would be treated as apostates and burnt at the stake. The Minis and Sheftall families of Ashkenazi Jews were the only ones to remain”  This quaintly named conflict between the Spain and Great Britain would become part of a larger conflict that engulfed most of Europe – The War of the Austrian Succession – which would come to a close with the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle. This would lead in turn to the French-Indian War which would lead to the American Revolution.



1764: Birthdate of Daniel Mendoza ((often known as Dan Mendoza) an English prizefighter, who was boxing champion of England 1792-95. He is sometimes called the father of scientific boxing. Mendoza's style consisted of more than simply battering opponents into submission; his "scientific style" included much movement. His ability to overcome much heavier adversaries was a consequence of this. In 1789 he published The Art of Boxing. Mendoza was so popular that the London press reported news of one of his bouts ahead of the storming of the Bastille which marked the start of the French Revolution. He transformed the English stereotype of a Jew from a weak, indefensible person into someone deserving of respect. He is said to have been the first Jew to talk to the King, George III. His early boxing career was defined by three bouts with his former mentor Richard Humphries between 1788 and 1790. The first of these was lost due to Humphries’s second (the former Champion, Tom Johnson) blocking a blow. The second two bouts were won by Mendoza. The third bout was the first time spectators were charged an entry payment to a sporting event. The fights were hyped by a series of combative letters in the press between Humphries and Mendoza. Mendoza's "Memoirs" report that he got involved in three fights whilst on his way to watch a boxing match. The reasons were: (a) someone's cart cut in; (b) he felt a shopkeeper was trying to cheat him; (c) he didn't like how a man was looking at him. In 1795 Mendoza fought "Gentleman" John Jackson for the Championship at Hornchurch in Essex. Jackson was five years younger, 4 inches taller, and 42 lbs. heavier. The bigger man won in nine rounds, paving the way to victory by seizing Mendoza by his long hair and holding him with one hand while he pounded his head with the other. Mendoza was pummeled into submission in around ten minutes. Since this date boxers have worn their hair short. After 1795 Mendoza began to seek other sources of income, becoming the landlord of the "Admiral Nelson" pub in Whitechapel. He turned down a number of offers for re-matches and in 1807 wrote a letter to The Times in which he said he was devoting himself chiefly to teaching the art. In 1809 he and some associates were hired by the theatre manager Kemble in an attempt to suppress the OP Riots; the resulting poor publicity probably cost Mendoza much of his popular support, as he was seen to be fighting on the side of the privileged. Mendoza made and spent a fortune. His Memoirs (written in 1808 but not published until 1816) report that he tried a number of ventures, including touring the British Isles giving boxing demonstrations; appeared in a pantomime entitled Robinson Crusoe or Friday Turned Boxer; opening a boxing academy at the Lyceum in the Strand; working as a recruiting sergeant for the army; printing his own paper money; and being a pub landlord. Mendoza made his last public appearance as a boxer in 1820 at Banstead Downs in a grudge match against Tom Owen; he was defeated after 12 rounds. Intelligent, charismatic but chaotic, he died leaving his family in poverty. In 1954 Mendoza was elected to the Boxing Hall of Fame. In 1990 he was inducted into the inaugural class of the International Boxing Hall of Fame. Mendoza, who was Jewish, was inducted into the International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame in 1981. The actor Peter Sellers was a descendant of Dan Mendoza. Prints of the boxer can be seen on Inspector Clouseau’s wall in the Pink Panther films.



1777: During the American Revolution, the Supreme Council of Pennsylvania appoint Solomon Bush ,the son of Matthias Bush, Deputy Adjutant-General of the State Militia



1811: Venezuela declares its independence from Spain. According to the “Virtual Jewish History Tour,” Simon Bolivar, considered Venezuela's liberator, found refuge and material support for his army in the homes of Jews from Curaçao. Jews such as Mordejai Ricardo, Ricardo Meza and his brother Abraham Meza offered hospitality to Bolivar as he fought against the Spanish, thus establishing brotherly relations between Jews and the newly independent Venezuelan republic. Several Jews even fought in the ranks of Bolivar's army during the war.”



1832(7thof Tammuz, 5592): Fifty three year old Ernst Friedrich Ludwig Robert author of “Die Macht der Verhältnisse” the 1819 play that ‘deals with the position of Jews in society.”  Born Liepmann Levin, he was the brother Rahel Varnhagen, one of the most unusual women of her time who was the subject of Hannah Arend’ts biography, Rahel Varnhagen: The Life of a Jewess.



1838: The Jews of the city of Safed came under attack from the Druze, who also had sacked an Ottoman caravan capturing 300 fully loaded camels of the Sultan. "While it was still night, the entire city was suddenly and terrified because unknown men were seen walking around the streets, and there were signs of malice on their faces." The attack on the Jews was by a group men armed with rifles, knives, axes and clubs.



1853: Birthdate of Cecil Rhodes one of the two dates that his Jewish rival Barney Barnato gave as his birthdate – the other being July 5, 1852. His birth certificate showed the date as February 21, 1851. (And you wonder why this is not always easy to do)



1853(29thof Sivan, 5613): Sixty-two year old Isaac Levin Auerbach the German-Jewish education and reformer who was the son of Rabbi Levin Isaac Auerbach and the brother of Baruch Auerbach, the founder of the Jewish Orphan Asylum in Berlin, passed away at Dessau.



1857: In the Russian Empire, Baron Horace Günzburg, the son of Baron Joseph Günzburg, and his wife gave birth to Baron David Günzburg, a Jewish intellectual who had one of the best private libraries in Europe and who was a major leader of the Jewish community.



1861: Armed only with hunting-whip Sir Lawrence Oliphant fought off a Japanese attacker who was trying to kill them. If the attack had succeeded, Oliphant would not have lived to promote his project for colonizing the northern section of Palestine with Jewish settlers; a plan that he did not begin to pursue until the 1870’s



1870: The New York Times published a summary of reviews from English publication of Disraeli’s “Loathair.”



1872: Today’s Foreign News Notes column cited a report by the Jewish Chronicle that the Jews of Smyrna are being persecuted by the Greeks as a way to gain the release of a group of “Greek ruffians now in prison.”  The Greek mob has threatened to burn the city and massacre the Jews if their demands are not met.



1873: “Cosas D’Austria” published provides a potpourris of information about various aspects of life in the Hapsburg Empire including a disparaging portrait of the Jews.  According to the author, “the Jews have not invented anything” but they exploit in the inventions of others to their own advantage.  For example, the Jews did not invent the telegraph, but Reuters profits from it by supplying all the news to British newspapers and the Wolff Agency, founded by Berhnard Wolff does the same by supplying news to the newspapers of Central Europe. The Agence Havas which is not owned by Jews but is indebted to them because they control the money, does the same in France.  The article contend that there are more Jews of Vienna are more numerous in number than the band that crossed the Jordan with Joshua and that there as many Jews in the Austrian Empire today as there Jews in Judea at the time of Titus’ victory.  The Jews own the best of everything.  But their wealth comes not from leading in combat but from being “gleaners who gather the fruits of victory.  [This article demonstrates how anti-Semitism rose at the same time as Jewish Emancipation became more of a reality. ]



1874(20th of Tammuz, 5634): Rabbi Julius Eckman passed away.  Born in Rawicz, which was then part of Prussia, in 1805, he studied at Berlin before moving to the United States where held pulpits in a variety of cities including in New Orleans, Charleston, San Francisco, and Portland, Oregon and then back to San Francisco.  During his first stay in San Francisco Eckman was the first rabbi employed by Temple Emanu-El and the published of a new Jewish weekly, The Gleaner, which merged into the Hebrew Messenger.  When he returned to San Francisco from Portland, Eckman served as the Superintendent of the Sabbath School at Congregation Shearith.



1875: Marcus Jastrow, the Rabbi at Rodef Shalom and Lewis Abrahams addressed the members of B’nai Brith who had gathered in Philadelphia for ground breaking ceremonies that marked the start of the building of a statute to religious liberty.  The statue should be ready for next year’s centennial observance.  Rabbi George Jacobs presided over the ceremonies and Moses Elbrigh of New York assisted him.



1877: Birthdate of Rabbi Judah Leib Magnes. Born in San Francisco and educated at Hebrew Union College, Magnes was a life-long maverick. He was an early and ardent Zionist, which was unusual among the Reform movement since it was largely anti-Zionist at the time. He was named Rabbi at New York’s prestigious Temple Emanu-el in 1906 but left four years later because he found it "too assimilationist", another unusual stance for a Reform Rabbi. He was an outspoken pacifist during World War I. (He would change his views during World War II.) In 1925, he became the first Chancellor of the brand new Hebrew University in Jerusalem. He held the post for ten years. He was ousted as Chancellor as a result of an academic squabble and "kicked upstairs to the Presidency. . Although he was a Zionist, Magnes believed in a binational Arab-Jewish state. While there were other Jews including the famous philosopher Martin Buber who supported Magnes, none of the "Moderate" Arabs would join his efforts. This did not stop Magnes from pursuing what became his Quixotic Quest. He passed away in 1948.



1877: It was reported today that the war between the Turks and the Russian has caused an “appalling” amount of misery as can be seen by the way Jews in Romania have been beaten, stabbed and “outraged in various ways.”



1878: It was reported today that the leaders of the Romanian government are holding secret meetings to determine how they will respond to the Congress of Berlin’s demands that the Romanians improve the treatment of their Jewish countryman.  The Congress wants the Jews to be grant full emancipation making them citizens in the true sense of the word.



1879: Birthdate of Wanda Landowska whose performances, teaching, recordings and writings played a large role in reviving the popularity of the harpsichord in the early 20th century.



1880: It was reported today that “Alfred Simpson, alias ‘Jew Al,’ a German, and a notorious …bank thief…was arrested” in Boston.  [Was Simpson really Jewish or was this a case of a tendency of some journalists and others to deal in catchy stereotypes]



1880: “A Rush to Long Branch” published today described the great popularity enjoyed by the New Jersey resort.  All of the hotels and cottages are filled with a cross section of the nation’s “high society” including W.W.(William Waldorf) Astor and family, the Hartman Kuhn family of Philadelphia and former New Jersey Governor J.D. Bedle and family. The fact that Joseph Seligman occupied one of the private cottages attested to the fact that the innkeepers in Long Branch had not succumbed to the anti-Semitic policies being followed in Saratoga and this fact had not harmed business.



1882: At the Pennsylvania Railroad’s piers No. 35 and 38, Hungarian and Austrian Jewish freight handlers were fired because the company could hire German workers. This took place during the Freight Handler’s Strike which was an example of how companies pitted native-born workers against immigrants and then immigrants against immigrants to keep wages low and working conditions miserable.



1882: “A Spanish Novel” published today provided a review of Gloria, a novel by Perez Galdos that incorporates themes of modern day anti-Jewish attitudes with the harsh reality of the persecution of the Jews completed with auto-de-fes and the Expulsion of 1492. [This was an unusual topic for its time and even more unusual one for a Spanish author to tackle.]



1883(30thof Sivan, 5643): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz



1884: It was reported today that in the matter of the Parisian court found in favor of the author and ordered the painter not display a picture that depicted Dumas as a “Baghdad Jew.” The ruling was based on the fact that the painter had not gotten the consent of the author to use his visage and that portraying him in this manner (as a Jew) was “very uncomplimentary.”



1884: It was reported today that last month in southern Russia, the Cossacks had to intervene in a conflict between the Armenians and Jews in Titlis. [Attacks against Russian Jews were not unusual.  But all too often the Cossacks (part of the government’s “police authority” sat by and let the Jews be brutalized.]



1887: The Board of Directors of the Home for Aged and Infirm Hebrews held a special meeting where they adopted a resolution praising and expressing their condolences at the passing of their colleague Jonas Heller.



1887: Grace (Colbert) Weinschenk, the wife of Albert Weischenk gave birth to a baby boy today in New York.  The father is a young German Jew whose Christian in-laws had originally opposed the marriage.  But they became reconciled to the fact and the couple was living with their in-laws at the time of the birth. [ Why does this matter  You will have to come back and the next installment]



1888: Birthdate of Herbert Spencer Gasser, the Wisconsin born doctor who won the 1944 Noble Prize In Medicine and became the director of the Rockefeller Institue.



1891: The New York Times published a review of Dr. Mendlesonn’s Hebrew Jurisprudence: The Criminal Jurisprudence of the Ancient Hebrews.



1891: A meeting was held in St. Louis, MO to address the needs of the increasing number of Russian Jews arriving in the city.  The attendees decided to establish a school with daytime and night sessions that would make the new immigrants “thorough American citizens.”  They would first be taught the English langue which the key to learning about government, politics and the “social economy” of their new home.  Over one hundred of the attendees signed up to support such an endeavor and each paid three dollars in dues to support the project. 



1893: The 1,800 people who attended the Kra Kauer Charity and Aid Society Summer-night’s festival at Sulzer’s Harlem River Park were entertained by the Hebrew Orphan Asylum Military Band and the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society Drum and Fife Corps.



1894(1stof Tammuz, 5654): Seventy-nine year old Betty Paoli (Barbara Elisabeth Gluck) whose father’s death when she was very young which forced her to turn to writing poetry to earn a living, passed away today.



1896: Herzl met with Claude Montefiore and Frederic Mocotta of the Anglo-Jewish Association who are anti-Zionist.



1897: Birthdate of Israeli composer Paul Ben-Haim. Born Paul Frankenburgerin Munich, “he trained at the Munich Academy of Arts from 1915 to 1920. He was assistant conductor in Walter and Knappersbusch, 1920 to 1924, and then conductor at Augsburg from 1924 until 1931. He then abandoned conducting and devoted himself to teaching and composition. In 1933, he emigrated to Tel Aviv and changed his name to Paul Ben-Haim. Some of his works include the Concerto Grosso (1931), Symphony No. 1 (1940) and Symphony No. 2(1945). In 1953, he won the Israeli State Prize for the composition Sweet Psalmist of Israel, scored for harp, harpsichord and orchestra. According to the critics, Ben-Haim’s music can best be described as late romantic with an Oriental/Mediterranean overtone. He embodies the general tendencies of this group of composers who were trained in the classic late romanticism of the late 19th and early 20th century. Ben-Haim died in 1984.”



1898: The first convention of the FAZ came to a close.



1899: Birthdate of Israel Goldblatt, the native of Manchester who gained famed as cinema and television actor Harold Goldblatt.



1901: The Conference of American Rabbis opened its annual meeting today in Philadelphia.  The major business of the day was resolving the question “Whether or not the religion of Jesus should be taught in the Jewish theological Schools.”  The conference unanimously adopted the conclusions of a report prepared by Rabbis Philipson, Deutsch,  Krauskopf that stated that while some of Jesus’ message contained “beautiful more teachings”  they “cannot form part of, nor be incorporated in any official statement of declaration of Jewish belief.”  This was defining moment for setting boundaries of the Reform Movement.



1905: This morning’s session of the 18th annual convention of the Central Conference of American Rabbis began with a prayer by Rabbi Jacob Mielziner followed by Rabbi Julian Morgenstern’s reading of “History and Functions of Ceremonies in Judaism” by Rabbi Kaufman Kohler



1913: Since today was Shabbat, the Conference of American Rabbis which had begun meeting in Atlantic City yesterday, did not have any business sessions today.



1914: Birthdate of Yitzhak Rafael, a native of Galicia who made Aliyah in 1935 and eventually became an Israeli political leader who served in the Knesset and as Minister of Religion.



1919(7thof Tammuz, 5679): Thirty-six year old Eugen Leviné was executed in Munich after it was retaken by the German Army and the right-wing Freikorps.



1923: Third baseman Joe Bennett made his major league debut with the Philadelphia Phillies.



1932: Birthdate of Victor Saul Navasky “a professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism” who held a variety of positions at the Nation from 1978 to 2005 when “he became the publisher emeritus.”


1933: An agricultural settlement, Kadima, was founded on the initiative of Yehoshua Hankin.  In 2003, it merged with Tzoran to become Tzoran-Kadima



1934: In Vienna, The body of Chaim Nachman Biliak, the great Hebrew poet who died last night of a heart attack lay in state in the ceremonial hall of the Central Jewish Cemetery surrounded by an honor guard of Jewish students from the University of Vienna.



1934: In announcing plans for U.S. memorial services honoring the late Chaim Nachman Bialik, Morris Rothenberg, President of the ZOA, described him “the foremost Hebrew Poet of the last 500 years.



1935: The Bialik Institute invited authors throughout the world to compete for eight prizes with a total value of 900 pounds which will be awarded in January, 1936. The winners will be determined based on their contributions to Hebrew literature.  Submission may include original Hebrew works as well as efforts translated from the original into Hebrew.



1936: A Czechoslovak press photographer, Stephan Lux, shot himself in Geneva, during the League of Nations Assembly meeting, in protest against the treatment of Jews in Germany. He died in hospital the following night.



1936: The Palestine Post reported that in spite of the six-week-long general Arab strike, work was still going on the Jaffa Port improvement. A Czechoslovak press photographer, Stephan Lux, shot himself in Geneva, during the League of Nations Assembly meeting, in protest against the treatment of Jews in Germany. He died in hospital the following night. Four cars belonging to Jews were set on fire in Jerusalem. The shooting, bomb throwing and tree uprooting by Arab terrorists continued throughout the country.



1937: During the Spanish Civil, New Yorker Moe Fishman, a volunteer with the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, was wounded while fighting in a battle west of Madrid.



1937: Birthdate of New York Congresswoman Nita Melnikoff Lowey.



1938: Herb Caen's first column appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle.  Caen’s father was Jewish, but his mother was not.



1941: After 54 Jews were shot the prior day, 93 more were killed in Vilna by members of the Einsatzkommando unit. The Einsatzkommando were the SS killing squads that followed the Nazi Army into eastern Poland, the Baltic States and the Soviet Union. They were to round up the Jews and other undesirables and kill them. But special emphasis was placed on the Jews in this next phase of the Final Solution.



1941: In Lvov, the local Ukrainians continued to take Jews from their homes and murder them. Among the victims were a 49-year-old ophthalmologist, Kornelia Graf-Weisenberg, and her daughter.



1941: The Nuremberg Race Law was extended to include Czech citizens.



1941: In the Ukraine, 3000 Jews are murdered at Chernovtsy; 600 are killed at Skalat.



1942: Margot Frank, the sister of Anne Frank, received a notice to report to a labor camp



1942(20th of Tammuz, 5702): Sixty-eight year old Rabbi Chaim Fishel Epstein who “served as Chief Rabbi in St. Louis, MO for the Vaad Hoeir of the United Orthodox Community for 12 years from 1930 to 1942 passed away today.



1943: Heinrich Himmler orders that Sobibór, a death camp, be made a concentration camp.



1943: Today authorities put an end to the special status granted to personnel at the Westerbork section of the Jewish Council. Half of the personnel had to return to Amsterdam, while the other half became camp internees. Etty Hillesum joined the latter group: she wished to remain with her father, mother and brother Mischa, who had meanwhile been brought to Westerbork.



1945: Great Britain holds its first general election since 1935.  The election pits Churchill and his Conservative Party against Atlee and the Laborites.  Churchill and the Conservatives will go down to defeat.  Unfortunately for the Jews, the new Laborite government will enforce the White Paper and support the Arab cause with even more tenacity than the Churchill government had.



1945: After a ten year absence, Barnett Janner, the future Baron Janner, returned to Parliament when was elected at the 1945 general election as Labour MP for Leicester West.



1950: The Knesset, Israel’s Parliament, passed a law granting every Jew the absolute right to settle in Israel. This is the famous Law of Return.



1951: The Jerusalem Post reported that registration began of all the Israeli-occupied houses in Jerusalem's no-man's-land by the joint subcommittee of the Israel-Jordan Mixed Armistice Commission. It was hoped that the registration would eliminate the neutral areas and all the trouble spots in which many lives were lost during the past three years. Israeli seamen demanded a large share in their foreign currency earnings.



1959: Birthdate of Daniel Gordis, a rabbi ordained at JTS who is the President of the Shalem Foundation and the founding dean of the Ziegler Rabbinical School



1959: In Israel, the 8th government “collapsed when David Ben Gurion resigned after Labor Unit and Mapam had voted against the government on the issue of selling arms to West German and refused to leave the coaltion.



1960: The then 50-year old Jewish community of the Belgian Congo, consisting of 2,500 Jews fled in the wake of riots that followed independence of that former Belgian colony.



1968: In Long Beach, CA, Susan and Mort Stuhlbarg gave birth to American Michael S. Stahlberg who played Arnold Rothstein in “Boardwalk Empire.”



1970: Amos Zamir and Amos Levitov were captured when their FE4 Phantom was shot down by Egyptian SAM’s during the War of Attrition.



1975(25th of Tammuz, 5735): In Jerusalem, a refrigerator that had five kilograms of explosives packed into its sides exploded on Zion Square, a main square leading to Ben Yehuda Street and to Jaffa Street. Fifteen people were killed and 77 were injured. After the attack, Yitzhak Rabin, then prime minister, said: "The murder serves as a warning not to get caught up in illusions about the intentions of the terror organizations ... Therefore we must follow a strict policy of not negotiating with them. We must speak to them only in the language they understand, the language of the sword." Ahmad El-Sukar, the terrorist responsible for placing the bomb, was released from Israeli prison in 2003 as a gesture to Arafat.



1976:The Jerusalem Post reported on the successful completion of the Entebbe rescue operation, the joy at the freeing of hostages who arrived home to a jubilant Israel. Four Israelis - the commander of the rescue team, Yonatan Netanyahu, and three other soldiers - were killed during the operation. A number of wounded Israelis were still under treatment in Nairobi hospital. Idi Amin, Uganda's ruler was working together with Palestinian gunmen, Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin told the Knesset.



1976: The Associated Press published an interview with “Muki” Betser, one of the organizers of the Entebbe Rescue Operation.  According to the interview, the raid was so successful, in part, because of information supplied to the Israelis by the hostages who had been released by the terrorists.



1978: Production of “ Taxi” co-starring Judd Hirsh and Andy Kaufman began on Stage 23 at Paramount Studios in Los Angeles.



1979: Sixty-seven year old Edis De Philippe, who founded the Israel National Opera Company in 1947 passed away today. (As reported by Shabtai Benaroyo
http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/de-philippe-edis



1988: “Ben Briscoe Follows Father to Become Dublin’s 2nd Jewish Mayor” published today described the father-son relationship to the ceremonial position of Lord Mayor.
http://www.apnewsarchive.com/1988/Ben-Briscoe-Follows-Father-to-Become-Dublin-s-2nd-Jewish-Mayor/id-f8628cd5a99251a6eed44d7d963006a5



1989:An exhibition entitled ''Robert Capa: Photographs From Israel, 1948-1950,'' appearing at the Jewish Museum in Manhattan comes to a close. The following review entitled “Slices of Time, Preserved in Deft Images” describes the exhibition and its importance.



A photograph, whether intended to or not, speaks of the time in which it was made. This is obvious in the case of images taken years ago -pictures from the first days of Israel's independence, for example, or from the tumultuous decade of the 1960's. But it is also true of contemporary art photographs of the sort one finds displayed in SoHo galleries. This weekend affords an unusually rich opportunity to look at photographs of the past and present, and to assess how much the world has changed in the last 40 years. Robert Capa's photographs of the first years of the State of Israel were taken at a time - 1948 to 1950 - when photojournalism was in full flower. Not only was this genre the most visible and provocative manifestation of photography, but it was also the primary means by which the events of the world were conveyed. Capa, considered by many the quintessential photojournalist, made a considerable reputation by photographing the Spanish Civil War and World War II. His images of those conflicts have become so well known that they could be considered among the lasting monuments of war. With relatively few exceptions, however, Capa's pictures of Israel did not achieve wide currency during his lifetime (he died, the victim of a land mine in Vietnam, in 1954). Curiously, given the potential interest in their subject matter, they have rarely been published or seen in exhibitions. Thus the show ''Robert Capa: Photographs From Israel, 1948-1950,'' which has opened this week at the Jewish Museum has an unusual fascination. The 107 black-and-white images in the exhibition, which was organized by the Tel Aviv Museum of Art from the archives of the Capa estate, depict an Israel in the throes of self-definition. There are pictures of immigrants in transient camps, of politicians electioneering, of soldiers mobilizing. We see the first meeting of the Knesset (the Israeli parliament) as well as the unloading of mattresses beside rows of tents pitched in the desert. There are pictures of combat as well, but they do not seem as vivid or vital as Capa's earlier war work. Perhaps that is because Capa, a Jew born in Hungary, had his heart elsewhere. The most affecting images in the show are filled with human interest, not action. For a picture called ''Funeral,'' 1949, Capa framed a grieving elderly woman in the foreground, but the camera focuses behind her, on the beautiful and stoic face of a young girl. In his pictures of the transient camps, Capa concentrated on faces that bespeak optimism and pride. Children, especially, seemed to catch his eye. In addition to depicting farmers, construction workers, soldiers and shopkeepers, he photographed a couple dancing to the music of an accordion, a painter, several musicians - with the apparent aim of bearing witness to the perseverance of the nobler aspects of the human spirit. In appreciating these images as historical artifacts, however, one might also wonder why it is that they have lain in such desuetude all these years. Is it that once their news value had faded, they became no more than relics? That doesn't seem likely, since none of Capa's other work has remained unseen for so long. A more reasonable speculation would be that Capa's attempt to put a good face on what was happening in Israel was not sufficiently convincing to the editorial tastes of his day, and that consequently the pictures never acquired the aura of news. One could also wonder whether the photographs' focus on human interest, rather than on combat or other action, made them seem dispensable. But human interest is one of photojournalism's perennial staples, as can be gleaned from ''Life: Through the 60's,'' an exhibition at the International Center of Photography (1130 Fifth Avenue, at 94th Street, through May 21). The show consists of more than 100 photographers' pictures taken between 1956 and 1972 and culled from the archive of Life magazine. ''Life: Through the 60's'' has its fair share of bedrock photojournalism, including such ''hard news'' specimens as a view of James Meredith being shot during a civil-rights march, a frame from the Zapruder film of the Kennedy assassination, and a score of examples of first-rate war photography from Vietnam. But Life's editors, and Doris C. O'Neil, who selected the images in the exhibition, were savvy enough to know that the 60's could not be encapsulated solely by cataclysmic events. So the show also includes pictures of women in mini-skirts, communal-living hippies, sports figures and, of course, movie, television and rock stars like the Beatles. Compared with Capa's view of Israel at the end of the 40's, Life's retrospective of the 60's seems well balanced to a point close to blandness. But the period itself gives the show a flavor that is even more pronounced than the magazine's two previous forays into the past, ''Life: The First Decade'' and ''Life: The Second Decade.'' Any review of the 60's comes complete with a hearty helping of nostalgia to enrich its already complex, confounding texture, and the images here are no exception.



1989: The sitcom “Seinfeld” aired its first episode.  Much to everybody’s surprise, this sitcom built around the life of a New York Jewish comedian becomes a smash hit.



1983: Menachem Begin appointed Sarah Doron Minster without Portfolio.



1998(11th of Tammuz, 5758): Football great Sid Luckman passed away. Luckman gained fame as quarterback with Columbia and then with the Chicago Bear. His success earned him a spot in the NFL Hall of Fame.



1993: Opening of the 14th Maccabiah



1991(23rd of Tammuz, 5751): Seventy-one year old Pulitzer Prize winning, poet laureate of the United States Howard Nemerov passed away today. (As reported by Eric Pace)



http://www.nytimes.com/1991/07/07/obituaries/howard-nemerov-poet-laureate-and-pulitzer-recipient-dies-at-71.html?pagewanted=print&src=pm



1995: Sir Malcolm Leslie Rifkind completed his term as Secretary State for Defense.



1995: With his party in the opposition, Sir Malcolm becomes the Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions in the United Kingdom.



1997(30th of Sivan, 5757): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz



1998: The New York Times featured books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Nineteen to the Dozens: Monologues and Bits and Bobs of Other Things by Sholem Aleichem.



2005: Two undercover police officers in Torrance, California, noticed a car nosing slowly past a Chevron station. Two men wearing ski masks jumped from the car, one brandished a shotgun, and they stole $252 from the night clerk. Police arrested the two men without incident, but a search of their shared apartment yielded jihadist literature and plans to bomb synagogues in Los Angeles.



2007:  The 24th Jerusalem International Film Festival opens.This is one of the world’s premier film festivals, featuring dozens of films from Israel and around the world. The 2007 festival will inaugurate the renovated Jerusalem Cinematheque.



2007:It was announced that Ken Feinberg would work pro bono as the chief administrator to the Hokie Spirit Memorial Fund (HSMF) which was set up by the Virginia Tech Foundation in the aftermath of the massacre of students and faculty by a lone gun man on the Virginia Tech Campus



2007(19th of Tamuz, 5767):Sylvan R. Shemitz, whose lighting designs warmed the facade of Grand Central Terminal and flooded the Jefferson Memorial, passed away at the age of 82.



2008: At the Joyce Theatre in New York City, the Pilobolus Dance Theater, in collaboration with Inbal Pinto Dance Theater, performs “Rushes.” The Inbal Pinto Dance Company was founded by Inbal Pinto and Avshalom Pollak in 1992.
2009(13thof Tammuz, 5769): Anita “Nita” Rabinowitz, who for 65 years was the wife or Rabbi Stanley Rabinowitz, Rabbi Emeritus of Adas Israel Congregation, and a woman of unique style and charm, passed away today. She is survived by two daughters, Dr. Sharon Chard Yaron of San Diego, CA and Judi Argaman of Herzlia, Israel; four grandchildren, Maiya Chard Yaron of San Diego, Omri, Elad and Noa Argaman of Herzlia,Israel  and her brother a brother, Kalman Lifson of Rydal, PA.

Zichrona Livracha - May Her Memory Be A Blessing



2009: The Sixth Australian Israel Film Festival, sponsored by AICE, the Australia Israel Cultural Exchange comes to an end today.


2009: The New York Times featured books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including American Radical:The Life and Times of I. F. Stone by D. D. Guttenplan.


2009: The Washington Post featured books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Sweet Science and Other Writings: The Sweet Science, The Earl of Louisiana, The Jollity Building, Between Meals, The Pressby A.J. Liebling and The Waxman Report: How Congress Really Works by Henry Waxman and Joshua Green.


2010:Beit Avi Chai is scheduled to present "Truly Very Strange People!": The heroes of the Second Aliyah


2010: Firefighters succeeded in bringing a fire in the Yehudiah nature reserve in the Golan Heights under control this afternoon.

2011(3rdof Tammuz): Yahrzeit of Rabbi Bernard (Dov) Illoway, a leader of American Orthodox Judaism, who passed away in Cincinnati on 3rd of Tamuz, 5631 (June 22, 1871).


2011(3rdof Tammuz): Yahrzeit of The Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson who passed away on 3rd of Tammuz, 5754 from creation (June 12,1994)


2011: The Milwaukee Jewish Community Chorale Board of Directors is scheduled to meet at Fox Point, Wisconsin.


2011:Two bills aimed at alleviating the woes of women whose husbands refuse them divorces passed the Knesset Law Committee today, ahead of votes in the plenum.
 
2011:The Israel Air Force targeted a terror cell in Gaza today, after it was identified as attempting to fire projectiles at Israel.

 2012: Israeli cellist Yoed Nir is scheduled to perform at the Trianon in Paris



2012:Funeral services for Lauren Reece Flaum (z"l) conducted by Rabbi Jeff Portman, are scheduled to be held this morning  at Agudas Achim Congregation with the burial at the Agudas Achim Cemetery in Iowa City. Zichrona Livracha - May Her Memory Be A Blessing



 2012:Woody Allen's romantic comedy, "To Rome With Love," is scheduled to open the 29th Jerusalem Film Festival.



2012:Israel will launch a brutal war against Lebanon if provoked by Hezbollah, senior Israel Defense Forces officers warned today.

2012: A Tel Aviv-bound El Al plane was forced to make an emergency landing at Heathrow Airport early today morning after one of its engines caught fire. No injuries were reported



2013: Pope Francis was scheduled to meet today at the Vatican with a delegation of relatives of victims of the 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish community building in Buenos Aires.The meeting between the Argentinean pope and the relatives takes place two weeks before the anniversary of the attack that killed 85 people (As reported by JTA and Jersualem Post)



2013:Israeli ambassador to the United States Michael Oren announced today that he would conclude his term as envoy to Washington in the fall, after four years on the job.  (As reported by JPost)



2014: In Cedar Rapids, the Traditional Minyan is scheduled to celebrate Red, White & Blue Shabbat with a Sundaes On Saturday Kiddush featuring that all-American treat – Kosher Ice Cream.



2014: Clarinetist Alexander Fiterstein, he founder of the Zimor Project a unique ensemble dedicated to incorporating Jewish art music into chamber music programs, is scheduled to perform works by Chausson, Messian, Weinberg, Yedidia and Weber at Bargemuisc, “New York City’s floating concert hall.”


This Day, July 6, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. Levin

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July 6



1189: Henry II, King of England, passed away.  Compared to those who followed him to the throne, Henry’s treatment of his Jewish subjects was comparatively benign. (The emphasis is on “comparatively.”)  Henry levied two special taxes on the Jewish community designed to finance the next Crusade to the Holy Land.  The tax of 1188 included 60,000 pounds on the Jews of London, one fourth the community’s wealth.  All the Christians of England were required to cough up a mere 10,000 pounds. Much to the consternation of some Church leaders, Henry discouraged Jews from converting to Christianity.  The wealth of dead Jews became the property of the crown.  These Jewish estates could be of such value that when Aaron of Lincoln passed away, “Henry found it necessary to set up a special branch of his Exchequer, named the Scaccarium Aaronis, with no function other than processing his immense estate.”



1189:  Richard the Lionheart becomes King of England following the death of his father.  His coronation would not take place until September at which time a delegation of Jews bringing gifts for the monarch would be denied access and be beaten by English officials.  Richard did take action to protect his Jewish subjects when they were threatened.  Unfortunately, Richard spent only the equivalent of one year of his ten year reign in England.  During his absence, the Jews would suffer at the hands of English leaders including Richard’s brother and successor Prince, and later King, John



1253:  Mindaugas is crowned king of Lithuania, reportedly the first ruler to hold this title. There was a Jewish presence in Lithuania at this time, since small numbers of Jewish merchants probably began arriving in Lithuania during the 12th century. They were followed by others of their co-religionists who were fleeing persecution brought on by the Crusades and the Black Death. Large number of Jews would not begin arriving in Lithuania until the frist decades of the 13th centuries when they were invited to settle there by Gediminas.



1348:  Pope Clement VI issued a Papal Bull protecting Jews during the Black Plague. “Clement VI reigned during the Black Death. This pandemic swept through Europe (as well as Asia and the Middle East) between 1347 and 1350. It is believed to have killed between a third and two thirds of Europe's population…Popular opinion blamed the Jews for the plague, and pogroms erupted throughout Europe. Clement issued two papal bulls in 1348 which condemned the violence and said those who blamed the plague on the Jews had been ‘seduced by that liar, the Devil.’ He urged clergy to take action to protect Jews, but the orders appeared to have little effect, and the destruction of whole Jewish communities continued until 1349.”  These events are described in  A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century by the Jewish historian Barbara Tuchman.



1476: Abraham ben Solomon Conat a Jewish printer, Talmudist, and physician, printed Tur Orah Hayyim by Jacob b. Asher at Mantua, Italy. Jacob ben Asher, also known as Ba'al ha-Turim, was born in Cologne, Germany around 1269 and probably died in Toledo, Spain in 1343. He was an influential Medieval rabbinic authority who is often referred to as the Baal ha-Turim' ("Master of the Rows"), after his main work in halachah the Arba'ah Turim ("Four Rows"). The work was divided into 4 sections, each called a "tur," alluding to the rows of jewels on the High Priest's breastplate. He was the third son of Asher ben Jehiel (known as the "Rosh"), a German-born Rabbi who moved to Spain.”


1609: Bohemia is granted freedom of religion in the same year as that in which Rabbi Judah Loew ben Bezalel also known as the Maharal, one of the most famous Jewish scholars and educators from Prague passed away. “Rabbi Loew published more than 50 religious and philosophical books and became the center of legends, as the mystical miracle worker who created the Golem. The Golem is an artificial man made of clay that was brought to life through magic and acted as a guardian over the Jews. The Maharal had positive relations with Rudolph II and was even invited to his castle.



1625: Rabbi Yom-Tov Lipman Heller is placed in prison along with common criminals in a Vienna jail after having been wrongfully convicted of abusing his authority as Chief Rabbi of Prague.



1707(6thof Tammuz, 5467): Rabbi Samuel ben Alexander “a resident of Frankfort-on-the-Oder who wrote Peri Megadim passed away today.



1758: Clement XIII was elected Pope.  During his reign, Clement “proclaimed that the Holy See had examined the grounds on which rested the belief in the use of human blood for the feast of Passover and murder of Christians by Jews, and the Jews must be condemned as criminals in respect of the charge, but that in the case of such occurrences legal forms of proof must be used.” (As reported by Graetz)



1796: Birthdate of Nicholas I, Czar of Russia from 1825 until his death in 1855.  In the case of the Nicholas there was consistency in his behavior as Czar and his treatment of the Jews.  In both instances he was a narrow-minded, reactionary, despot who was so incompetent that he led Russia to disaster in the Crimean War. As a totalitarian dictator, Nicholas was fully responsible for all of his action aimed at his Jewish subjects.  These included but were not limited to  expulsion from a variety of cities including Kiev; the drafting of under-age Jewish boys for twenty-five years of military service; the banning of beards and a sidelocks for men and banning of women shaving their heads at the time of marriage; the banning of Yiddish; censorship and destruction of Jewish books.  And this list does not include the mistreatment of the general populace with such measures as the establishment of a secret police system designed to stamp out any manifestation of democracy or Western values.



1806: The Assembly of Jewish Leaders was scheduled to meet in Paris.



1821: Birthdate of Leone Levi, the Italian born British barrister and author whose works included Work and Pay; Wages and Earnings of the Working Classes; and International Law, with Materials for a Code



1840: Jesse Seligman was one of  the steerage passages who arrived  at Castle Garden


 

1847(22nd of Tammuz, 5607: Baltimore community leader David Israel Cohen passed away at the age of 48.



1849: Birthdate of Julius Sachs, the native of Baltimore who founded Sachs Collegiate Institute in 1872 (now the Dwight School) which he served until 1902 when he became a Professor of Education at Columbia University’s Teachers College.



1853: Bertha Phillips, a 20 year old German Jewess was tried on charges of having stolen two $20 gold pieces from Mrs. Schufeldt, a co-religionist with whom she had been living before the the theft. An additional testimony as to the defendants guilt was provided by another Jew. Before the case went to the jury, one of the jurors who was Jewish asked if both of the witnesses were Jewish.  At first the judge refused to provide the information since he said that the court had no right to pry into their creed or beliefs.  At which point another juror, who was also Jewish, said that he would not believe a word the Jewish witnesses had to say unless they were sworn in again using a copy the Hebrew Bible. The judge accepted the request; rewswore the witnesses who testified again.  The jury found the defendant of guilty of grand larceny without even having to leave the jury box.  Miss Phillips was senteneced to two years in the state penitentiary and was led away in tears.



1854: The Republican Party is officially created in Jackson, Michigan.  Several Jews would play an active an active part in the early days of the Republican Party, including the uncle of Supreme Court Justice Louis Dembitz Brandeis, who placed Lincoln’s name in nomination for President in 1860.  By July of 2009, thanks to the defeat of Senator Norm Coleman and the party switch of Senator Arlen Spector, there are no Jewish Republican U.S. Senators.



1857: The New York Times reported that The House of Commons voted to amend the Oaths Bill so as to prevent from holding any office belonging to the Ecclesiastical Courts or any other office that “wield influence in the affairs of the church.”



1861:English archivist and historian Sir Francis Palgrave passed away.  In July, 1788 Jewish stockbroker Meyer Cohen and his wife Rachel Levien Cohen gave birth to Francis Ephraim Cohen who would convert and change his name as a condition of the marriage.



1863: In issuing orders about the status of the recently conquered city of Vicksburg, General Logan states that the city will be a military outpost and not a trading center.  He complained that when Memphis had been captured and turned into a trading center “the Jews and the rebel citizens of that pestilent city” had turned into “a grand depot of smugglers.” [Editor’s note – This is not the first or the last derogatory comment that Union generals serving in the West made about Jews.  This is strange when one consider the number of Jews who were there comrades in arm including Major General Frederick Knefler and General Edward S. Salomon whom Sherman called “one of the most deserving officers.”



1886: Benjamin Disraeli begins his third term as Chancellor of the Exchequer replacing his nemesis, William Gladstone.



1875: Sir Julius Vogel, the first Jewish Prime Minister of New Zealand completed his first term in office.



1877: James Grady and William Henry were tried today at the Tombs Police Court today on charges that they had assaulted “Jacob Herman, a German Jew who a runs a peanut and fruit stand.”  The two were members of the Battle Alley Gang and Herman had testified against them in a case heard three days ago.  When the two attacked Herman, they referred to him as that swearing Jew.  At the end of the trial, Henry was sentenced to a month in the County Prison while Henry was “acquitted for lack of evidence.”



1879: It was reported today that the Jews of Romania had petitioned the Romanian government for a revisions to the Constitution that would guarantee them their rights as citizens on the same footing as all other Romanians.



1882: The first 14 members of BILU arrived from Russia at the port of Yaffa in what is now the land of Israel. The letters BILU are the initials for the Hebrew expression, "House of Jacob Let Us Rise and Go." BILU was formed by Russian students at the University of Khrakov who called for the active colonization of the land. The students hired themselves out as agricultural laborers at Mikve Yisrael. They believed it was possible to start a worldwide movement to encourage settlement in Eretz Israel.



1882: Several Russian Jews who arrived at Castle Garden aboard the SS Newnham today will apparently not be staying in New York since they have tickets for destinations in the American West.



1882: “Outrages On Jews In Manitoba” published today reported that a group of Jews who had gone to work at Whitemouth were ferociously beaten by a band of men who previously been doing the work.



1883(1stof Tammuz, 5643): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz



1883: “Murder of a Hebrew Merchant” published today reported that a reward of $1,500 has been offered for the man who killed H. Mias, a Jewish merchant living in Benivides.



1884: It was reported today that the police in Vienna had difficulty restoring after a fight broke out between the Social Democrats and a party of anti-Semites.



1884: It was reported today that the anti-Semitic rioters who were arrested at Nijni Novgorod will have to be tried by court-martial because the civil courts refused to convict due to the anti-Semitic feelings prevalent among the Russian peasants.



1886: In Lyons, France, Gustave Bloch and his wife gave fame to Marc Bloch who gained fame as an historian and educator.  He held chairs at both Strasbourg University and the Sorbonne.  His works on French rural and feudal society became classics.  In 1939, despite the fact that he was “overage” he enlisted in the French Army and fought the invading Germans. After the French surrendered to the Germans, he joined the Resistance where his specialty was in working with secret codes.  He was captured by the Nazis and tortured before being shot on June 16, 1944.



1887: The funeral of Jonas Heller, a Trustee of the Home for Aged and Infirm Hebrews is scheduled to be held today.



1887: Albert Weinschenk a young German who his Christian wife had defied her family by marrying him appears to have shot himself this evening after his mother-in-law had accused him of being a bigamist.



1888: A reception committee met at Meyer’s Hotel in Hoboken, NJ, in anticipation of the arrival of Rabbi Jacob Charif whose ship was due to dock on Saturday morning. Charif has been brought from Wilna by members of the United Society to provide leadership based on halachah for the ever growing population of immigrant Jews populating the Lower East Side.



1890: “An Empire’s Young Chief” published today provided a snapshot of conditions in Germany under the new Kaiser, Wilhelm II with a special emphasis on the role of the Jews who “in the New Berlin…occupy a more commanding and dominant position than they ever have had in any other important city the fall of a Jerusalem” – a situation that has given an excuse for the anti-Semites to preach their increasingly popular doctrine.


1891: The fifty doctors assigned by the Board Health “to visit the tenement houses and look after the sick children during the hot weather” met today Sanitary Headquarters where they were given pamphlets written in several languages including Hebrew as tickets “for the free excursions” sponsored by the Sanitarium for Hebrew Children.



1891: It was reported today that “a sizable tract of land” In Marlborough, Connecticut has been purchased by the Baron de Hirsch Fund. Baron de Hirsch “has established…a very large fund that is to be used…for poor Jews who are being driven out of …Europe.”



1891: “The Jewish Immigrants” published today described the organization of efforts to provide a civic education for the Russians arriving in St. Louis.  The effort drew support from non-Jews as well as Jews as can be seen by the fact that Dr. Ingraham of the spiritual leader of Grace Episcopal Church was among those who attended the meeting and contributed the three dollars which the annual dues of the nascent organization.
 
1892: “The opening session of the third annual Central Conference of American Rabbis was held” tonight at Temple Beth-El in New York City.



1893: Birthdate of John Charles Walker the agricultural scientist who won the Wolf Foundation Prize in Agriculture in 1978.



1893: Clothing contractors Solomon Wallach and Jacob Seidman were accused of today of trying to break the United Garment Workers of American by firing union members and replaced them with apprentices from the United Hebrew Charities.


 
1895: In New York, on Shabbat, The Empire Life Insurance company obtained an order from Justice Stover directing the officials of Washington Cemetery to permit the exhumation” of the body Annie Silverman, the widow of Wolf Silverman, as part of their legal campaign to avoid paying the death benefit to the beneficiary.



1895: Theodor Herzl wrote in his diary the following entry describing his conversation with Max Nordeau who would become one of the leaders of the Zionist movement.   “Yesterday with Nordau, over a glass of beer. Also discussed the Jewish question, of course. Never before I had been in such perfect tune with Nordau. Each took the words right out of the other's mouth. I never had such a strong feeling that we belonged together. This has nothing to do with religion. He even said that there was no such thing as a Jewish dogma. But we are of one race. ...
Nordau said: "What is the tragedy of Jewry?" That this most conservative of peoples, which yearns to be rooted in some soil, has had no home for the last two thousand years.
We agreed on every point, so that I already thought that the same ideas had led him to the same plan. But he comes to a different conclusion: "The Jews", he says, "will be compelled by antisemitism to destroy among all peoples the idea of a fatherland." Or, I secretly thought to myself, to create a fatherland of their own.”



1896: In a speech at "The Maccabaeans," Herzl formulates the program of the "Society of Jews": According to Herzl, “The task of the Society of Jews is the acquisition according to international law of a territory for those Jews who cannot assimilate."



1896: The funeral of Jules s. Abecasis  will begin at 11 o’clock at Shearith Israel in New York.



1898: It was reported today that Dr. Richard J.H. Gottheil, Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, Dr. William Cowen, K.H. Sarsohn, Leon Zolollkoff and Dr. I.J. Bluestone have been named to serve as delegates at the upcoming Zionist Congress in Basel.



1898: Birthdate of German born composer Hanns Eisler. Eisler moved to Berlin after World War I where his art flourished as did his involvement in left-wing politics.  He left Germany for the United States in 1933 where he became a leader of anti-Nazi artists and where he pursued his composing career which included two Oscar nominations.  After World War II he was placed on the Black List and ended up returning to East Germany.  Eisler fell afoul of the commissars in Germany.  Five year after being deported from the United States because of his leftist political views, he was hauled before a German Communist tribunal where he was accused of not being loyal to Socialism, a charge from which his career and health did not recover.



1898(16thof Tammuz, 5658): Fifty-two year old Cornelius Herz who was involved in the infamous Panama Scandal passed away today.



1899: As the dispute grew over how to honor the French officer who had been a cruel victim of anti-Semitism, a group of Jews sent a cable to Emile Zola looking for advice: “American Jewish wish to present Captain Drefyus with a golden sword. [Send] answer [to[ Jewish  Forward whether it will not help anti-Semitism.”



1899: Benjamin Blumental, the President of Rodoph Sholem  and the father of Assistant District Attodrney Maruice B. Blumental was sworn in today as a school inspector in the 24th District after having served as School Inspector in the Fourth District for fifteen years.



1899(28th of Tammuz, 5659):David Kaufmann a Jewish-Austrian scholar born at Kojetín, Moravia (now in the Czech Republic) in 1852 passed away.A university professor and librarian, he was a prolific author whose works included studies in Jewish history, studies of synagogue art and polemics in defense of Judaism.

 
1900(9th of Tammuz, 5660):  Gustav Born, the father of Max Born passed away today.



1901: The annual Conference of American Rabbis was scheduled to end today in Philadelphia. Rabbi Harry H. Mayer had presented a paper to the meeting on “Sabbath School Problem.”  The conference will reconvene at New Orleans in April of 1902


 
1904: Samuel Untermeyer was among the delegates attending the Democratic Party National Convention which opened today in St. Louis, MO.



1905: Alfred Deakin becomes Prime Minister of Australia for the second time. As can be seen from his relationship with the Sir Isaac Alfred Isaacs Deakin had no problem with working with Jews



1905: In Australia, Sir Isaac Alfred Isaacs was appointed attorney-general. The son of Russian-Polish immigrants, Isaacs’ successful political and legal career would eventually lead to him being named Governor-General



1907: Birthdate of Mexican painter, feminist and social rebel, Frida Kahlo.
http://www.fridakahlo.com/



1907: At the 18th annual convention of the Central Conference of American Rabbis services are led by Rabbis Leo Mannheimer and Mayer Messing, with a sermon delivered by Rabbi Marcus Salzman followed by the Rabbi Martin Zielonka’s closing prayer and benediction.



1909(17th of Tammuz, 5669): Tzom Tammuz



1909: The Trenton Evening Times reported that Rabbi Morris Goldberg of Camden New Jersey was chosen to succeed Rabbi Elitzer as head of the Brothers of Israel Congregation.



1913(1stof Tammuz, 5673): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz



1913: After attending services at Beth Israel Temple which were led by Rabbi William Lowenburg as part of yesterday’s observance of Shabbat, the Conference of American Rabbis was scheduled to resume its regular meetings this morning at Atlantic City, NJ.


 
1917: Birthdate of Albert Abramson, the Bronx born Washingtonian who  became a successful real estate promoter and “a principal force in the creation of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington.”  (As reported by Douglas Martin)



1918: Thirty-eight year old John P. Mitchell passed away today.  At age 34, the Roman Catholic Mitchell was elected Mayor.  He was part of a Fusion Ticket made up of reformers fighting the Tammany Machine. The reformers were an amalgam of Protestants, Republicans and uptown Republicans.



1921(30th of Sivan, 5681): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz



1921: Dr. Joseph H. Hertz, the Chief Rabbi of the British Empire arrived in Vancouver where he would have visited Schara Tzedeck and the Hadassah chapter founded in 1920.



1925: Werner “Heisenberg gave Max Born a paper entitled Über quantentheoretische Umdeutung kinematischer und mechanischer Beziehungen ("Quantum-Theoretical Re-interpretation of Kinematic and Mechanical Relations") to review, and submit for publication. In the paper, Heisenberg formulated quantum theory, avoiding the concrete, but unobservable, representations of electron orbits by using parameters such as transition probabilities for quantum jumps, which necessitated using two indexes corresponding to the initial and final states´ (I have no idea what this means)



1934: The Turkish government stated the expulsion of the Jews from the Dardanelles had been due to a misinterpretation of a law. The government declared it would punish the officials found to be responsible, and that the Jews would be given redress.



1936: The Palestine Post reported that there were 314 cases of ptomaine poisoning in numerous bomb-throwing and shooting incidents throughout the country. Three Jewish laborers were wounded near Nablus, and a watchman was hurt near Kiryat Anavim. An Arab was killed and three wounded in an encounter with British troops in Hebron.



1937: Birthdate of pianist and conductor Vladimir Ashkenazy.



1938: President Roosevelt called for an international conference to consider the "displaced persons" problem. The negligible results highlight the passive role the Western world in the face of the Nazis. . Roosevelt's aims, some say, are to deflect American Jewish appeals to help the German Jews. Aside from Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic, which want enormous sums of money to allow a small number of Jews to immigrate, the 32 nations attending the conference decide that they will not permit large numbers of Jews to enter their countries.



1938(7th of Tammuz, 5698): Tuvia Dounia, the brother-in-law of Chaim Weizmann is one of the victims of today’s outbreak of Arab violence in Haifa. Police found him slumped over the wheel of the car he was driving with a bullet through his heart. Of the four passengers in the vehicle three escaped harm but one was seriously wounded.



1939: The last remaining Jewish enterprises in Germany were closed.



1941(11th of Tammuz, 5701): Seventy-one year old German born oncologist Ferdinand Blumenthal died in an air raid.  After fleeing Nazi Germany in 1933 Blumenthal went from Austria to Yugoslavia to a variety of other locations before ending up in the Soviet Union where he taught before be interred by the Communists.



1941(11th of Tammuz, 5701): Lithuanian militiamen murdered 2,514 Jews in Kovno.



1941(11th of Tammuz, 5701):Elchonon Wasserman “a prominent rabbi and rosh yeshiva in pre-World War II Europe was murdered today by Lithuanians who were collaborators of the Nazis. Born in 1874, he was one of the Chofetz Chaim's closest disciples and a noted Torah scholar.Before he was taken” by his Lithuanian killers, “ he gave this statement: ‘In Heaven it appears that they deem us to be righteous because our bodies have been chosen to atone for the Jewish people. Therefore, we must repent now, immediately. There is not much time. We must keep in mind that we will be better offerings if we repent. In this way we will save the lives of our brethren overseas. Let no thought enter our minds, God forbid, which is abominable and which renders an offering unfit. We are now fulfilling the greatest mitzvah. With fire she (Jerusalem) was destroyed and with fire she will be rebuilt. The very fire which consumes our bodies will one day rebuild the Jewish people.’”

 
1942: The first issue of Eynikeyt (Unity), a Yiddish-language journal of the Soviet Jewish Antifascist Committee, is published.



1942: One day after her sister Margot received her orders to report to a labor camp, Anne Frank and her families go into hiding in Amsterdam



1942: Bendin (Poland) ghetto uprising, 1942. "The warning cry issued from Jews in Vilna spurred initial thoughts of ghetto revolts for thousands of young Jews, particularly members of the clandestine Zionist-pioneer youth movements. In ghettos such as Bialystok, Krakow, Bendin, Czestochowa, and Tarnow, rebellions and confrontations broke out during the final deportations. These desperate acts of resistance testified to the triumph of the Jewish and human spirit and constituted both a cry for life and a banner of hope for future generations."



1945: Adolf Cardinal Bertram, the archbishop of Breslau whose refusal to speak out against the Nazi boycott of Jewish businesses, whose issuance of statement calling the war with Poland “a holy war and whose sending of birthday greetings to Adolf Hitler while the Germans were winning hardly squares with Time magazine’s description of him as an anti-Nazi, passed away today.



1948: A convoy arrives at Zion Square in Jerusalem carrying food for the starving city.  The arrival seems to validate reports that a new road has been completed by the Jews fighting there from the coastal plain to the Judean hills.



1946: Jews fled Kiecle, Poland after being the victim of a pogrom
http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/this_month/july/15.asp


 
1948: Lucy Mandelstam, who had been born in Vienna in 1926 and survived Theresienstadt and Auschwitz, makes Aliyah arriving in Haifa.



1950: Just after the North attacked the South, Yaacov Shimoni, deputy director of Far Eastern affairs in the Foreign Ministry, wrote a letter to Foreign Minister Moshe Sharett asserting that the South Korean government was corrupt and oppressive whereas the North Korean one seemed cleaner and was more efficient and popular. In August 1960, however, the Foreign Ministry decided to make every effort to establish full diplomatic ties with South Korea. This was after the fall of the dictatorial regime of Syngman Rhee, who resigned his post and went into exile in April 1961.



1950: In Israel, hospital nurses went on strike demanding a 42-hour work week during the summer months at government run hospitals.  Private hospitals and those administered by trade unions have already agreed to the demand and are not affected by the strike.  Skeleton staffs had been left on duty to ensure the health of patients



1951: The Jerusalem Post reported that after all final registration demands were met, 16 political parties became entitled to compete in the Second Knesset elections. Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion was cheered wildly on his pre-election tour by more than 5,000 Migdal Ashkelon residents. He advised all persons between 20 and 40 years of age to learn to bear arms and assured the gathered crowds that their town would become the second port city in the south of the country, after Eilat. Following the discovery of major irregularities in the shoe industry, the authorities froze all stocks held by shoe manufacturers and ordered a strict shoe sales control throughout the country. Three persons were wounded in the Musrara Quarter of Jerusalem by Arab snipers, aiming at Israeli passersby from the walls of the Old City.



1957: Birthdate of Detroit native Dr. Charlie Pruchno, a pillar of the Cedar Rapids Jewish community

1958: Birthdate of Lena Gilbert, the go-to gal when you want something done professionally or in the Jewish Community at Cedar Rapids, Iowa.


 
1962: Eugene Ferkauf, the founder of the E. J. Korvette chain of discount department stores appeared on the cover of Timemagazine.
http://www.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,19620706,00.html


 
1962: Orville Prescott’s review of The Slave by Isaac Bashevis Singer was published today.


 
1969: Pitcher Dave Roberts, whose father is Jewish, made his major league debut with the San Diego Padres.



1973(6th of Tammuz, 5733): Conductor and composer Otto Klemperer passed away



1976: The Jerusalem Post reported that under a new bill presented to the Knesset by Transport Minister Gad Ya'acobi Israel could take "unspecified sanctions" against any airline found negligent in security precautions which could endanger its citizens. The Ministry of Labor announced that universal sick-pay benefits for every worker in Israel would become the law of the land on October 1, 1976.



1976: In Israel, the President, Prime Minister, and most of the cabinet ministers were among the thousands of mourners who attending the funeral of Lt. Col. Yoni Natanyahu, the 30 year old military officer who gave his life to insure the successful rescue at Entebbe.



1976: By order of President Idi Amin, Uganda today marks the first of two days of mourning for the seven Palestinian terrorists killed during the Israeli raid on Entebbe as well the Ugandan soldiers reported to have lost their lives.



1976: While French President Valery Giscard d’Estaing and Prime Minister Jacques Chirac have not made any comment on the raid on Entebbe, Mordechai Ghazith, Israel’s ambassador to France congratulated the French for their “role in the ordeal.”



1977(20th of Tammuz, 5737): One person was killed and twenty-two were wounded when terrorists bombed a market in Petah Tikvah.



1986: Eighty-seven year old Lotah Kreyssig, whose efforts to stop the Nazi euthanasia program almost earned him a trip to the concentration camps but did cost him his job, passed away today.



1987:'World of Yesterday: Jews in England 1870-1920'' which opens today at St. Paul's Cathedral Crypt, is among the many exhibitions included in this summer's Jewish East End Celebration.



1988(21st of Tammuz, 5748): In Israel 14 bus passengers were killed as an Arab terrorist assaulted the bus driver as the bus was driving by the edge of a cliff.



1988(21st of Tammuz, 5748): Ninety-three year old David Theodore Wilentz, the Attorney General of the state of New Jersey from 1934 to 1944 who prosecuted Bruno Hauptmann for kidnapping the Lindbergh Baby passed away today.



1989(3rd of Tammuz, 5749:  A terrorist seized a bus traveling between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.  He forced the bus to crash into a ravine where it burst into flames killing sixteen passengers many of whom burned in their seats.  The attack took place at Telshe Stone, the place where Mickey Marcus was shot during the War for Independence.



1989:  At a concert in Jerusalem, the conductor Zubin Metah asked the audience to stand for two minutes of silence in memory of those killed that day in Telshe Stone.  Metah also asked the audience to refrain from any applause.



1995: Pitcher Brian Bark made his major league debut with the Boston Red Sox.



1997(1st of Tammuz, 5757): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz



1997: The New York Times book section features a review of Passion and Reason Edited by E. Joshua Rosenkranz, a former honoree of the Cornell University Jewish Life Fund and Bernard Schwartz and Ben-Gurion and the Holocaustby Shabtai Teveth in which the historian contradicts contentions that Ben-Gurion was insensitive to the plight of the Jews of Europe and/or that he uncaringly exploited their situation for the benefit of the Yishuv



1999(22ndof Tammuz, 5959): Ninety-three year old singer  and composer Benny Bell passed away today.
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/165717#.UdYOi50o6po



1999: Natan Sharansky succeeds Eli Suissa as Minister of Internal Affairs.



1999: Ehud Barak succeeds Silvan Shaom as Minister of Science, Culture and Sport



1999: Shlomo Ben-Ami succeeds Avigdor Kahalani was Minister of Public Security.



1999:Eli Suissa succeeds Ariel Sharon as Minister of National Infrastructure.



1999: David Levy succeeds Ariel Sharon as Israel’s Foreign Minister



1999: Binyamin Ben-Eliezer succeeds Limor Livant as Minister of Communications.



2000(3rd of Tammuz, 5760):Eighty-eight year old Władysław "Wladek" Szpilman a pianist and classical composer, who is widely known as the protagonist of the 2002 Roman Polanski film The Pianist, which is based on the book "The Pianist" recounting his survival of the German occupation of Warsaw and the Holocaust passed away today.



http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Bio/Szpilman-Wladyslaw.htm


 
http://www.ushmm.org/information/exhibitions/online-features/special-focus/szpilman-warsaw-pianist


 
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/nov/01/wladyslaw-szpilman-pianist-collaboration-claims


 
2002(26th of Tammuz, 5762): Kenneth Koch, Ameircan poet and winner of the 1994 Bollingen Prize, passed away at the age of 77.



2003(6th of Tammuz, 5763): Spc. Jeffrey M. Wershow was killed today when he was shot in Baghdad during military operations. He was 22 years old. “Attending law school and running for president of the United States were Jeffrey Wershow’s plans after finishing his time in the National Guard. He consumed history books, particularly those about the Vietnam War, and developed an interest in politics, even working in the election offices of local politicians in Gainesville, Fla. After spending three years in the Army Reserve, Wershow attended Santa Fe Community College, in New Mexico, prior to enlisting in the National Guard. His father, Jonathan Wershow, said that before being deployed to Iraq, his son attended Sabbath services near Fort Stewart in Georgia and would later celebrate Passover in the desert in Iraq. His father maintains that “the military was very good for Jeffrey. He really grew up; [the military] really helped him a lot. If my son had to die, he felt that he was giving his life for a cause worth dying for.” (As reported by The Forwards)



2003: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Benjamin Franklin: An American Life by Walter Isaacson, After Jihad by Noah Feldman and the recently released paperback edition of Beyond the Last Village: A Journey of Discovery in Asia's Forbidden Wilderness by Alan Rabinowitz



2004(17th of Tammuz, 5764): Tzom Tammuz



2004(17th of Tammuz, 5764): Captain Moran Vardi, 25, was killed by terrorists in Israel.



2006(10th of Tammuz, 5766): First Lieutenant Yehuda Bassel, 21, was killed this afternoon during an IDF operation in the northern Gaza Strip designed to destroy the launching sites for Kassam missiles. The 21 year old from Moshav Yinon was scheduled to be laid to rest tomorrow afternoon in the Kfar Warburg military cemetery in southern Israel.



2006: Judith Kaye, the Chief Judge of the New York Court of appeals “authored a dissent in an omnibus appeal of four same-sex marriage disputes (including Hernandez v. Robles) in which the majority ruled that the state constitution "does not compel recognition of marriages between members of the same sex". Kaye's dissent admonished that while New York State has a tradition of upholding equal rights, "the court today retreats from that proud tradition".



2007: In Jerusalem, "Performances in Nature" presents famous Israeli singer, David Broza, in an acoustic performance at Ein Chemed.



2007(20th of Tammuz, 5767): Advertising executive, author and columnist Lois Wayse, who coined the memorable catchphrase “With a name like Smucker’s it has to be good” passed away at the age of 80.



2007: The Israeli premiere of "We Are Together" (Thina Simunye) will take place at the Jerusalem Film Festival at 10:15 P.M.

2008:  An international conference on Dead Sea Scrolls research opens in Israel.

 
2008 (3rd of Tammuz, 5768): On the Hebrew calendar, the fourteenth anniversary of the passing of the Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory.
 
2008: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including America America by Ethan Canin and City of Thieves by David Benioff, a novel “which follows a character named Lev Beniov, the son of a revered Soviet Jewish poet who was “disappeared” in the Stalinist purges, as Lev and an accomplice carry out an impossible assignment during the Nazi blockade of Leningrad.”

 
2008: The Washington Post features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including A Choice of Enemies:America Confronts the Middle East by Lawrence Freedman
 
2008: The San Francisco Giants shipped Brian Horowitz down to Fresno for more playing time.

 
2008: The chief Nazi hunter of the Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Center, Dr. Efraim Zuroff, headed to South America in a final public campaign to locate the most wanted Nazi in,the world and bring him to justice. The search for Dr. Aribert Heim, 94, the former Austrian doctor also known as "Dr. Death" who tops the Wiesenthal Center's list of "most wanted Nazis," has spanned nearly half a century since his 1962 disappearance in Germany ahead of a planned prosecution for his war crimes.

 
2009:A newly formed Iranian Jewish Federation made up of emigrants from the Iranian city of Mashad is scheduled to meet today in Jerusalem in an effort to promote and preserve their heritage.

 
2009: Rabbi Levi Yitzchok Horowitz was hospitalized in the Sharei Tzedek hospital in Jerusalem after suffering a cardiac arrest.

 
2009: Capt. Ben Sklaver shipped out for Afghanistan after setting a wedding date with his fiancée Beth Segaloff

2009: Ben Horowitz and his partner launched Andreessen Horowitz, “to invest in and advise both early-stage startups and more established growth companies in high technology.”

 
2010: The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum is scheduled to present “First Person With Al Moritz” which is part of the First Person program which is designed provide the general public to hold conversations with Holocaust survivors.

 
2010:Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and US President Barack Obama met in the White House today and discussed direct talks, Gaza, Iran and other issues

 
2010: Simon Wolfson, who was created Baron Wolfson of Aspley Guise, of Aspley Guise in the County of Bedfordshire was introduced in the House of Lords today. Wolfson is the founder of the £250,000 Wolfson Economic Prize.

 
2010: Sir Malcolm Rifkind became Chairman of the Intelligence and Security Committee.

 
2011(4th of Tammuz): Yahrzeit of Rabbi Yaakov ben Meir of Romereau known as "Rabbeinu Tam

 
2011: “Israeli Culture through Hebrew Conversation” an eight week course offered at the Historic 6th& I Synagogue is scheduled to have its opening session this evening.

 
2011: Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu met with his Romanian counterpart Emil Boc in Bucharest, who said that he opposes a Palestinian unilateral declaration of statehood. .

 
2011: President Shimon Peres and Sephardi Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar have issued a call to the public to desist from all forms of extremism and incitement. 

 
2011: The Schalit family traversed the Knesset's hallways today to request that MKs sign a letter calling on the government to release Hamas terrorists in exchange for captive soldier Gilad Schalit.

 
2011: As a sign of social and cultural change in Israel Ethan Bronner describes the debate in Israel over a two day weekend.

 
2012: “Israel: A Home Movie” is scheduled to be shown today the Jerusalem Film Festival

 
2012: Indonesia is to open a consulate in Ramallah, headed by a diplomat with the rank of ambassador, who will also unofficially serve as his country’s point man for contacts with Israel, The Times of Israel learned on today.

 
2012:U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told Palestinian President Mahmoud toiday that the Israel-Palestinian conflict should not be forgotten amid wider upheaval in the Middle East.

 
2012:Israel reiterated today that it would refuse cooperation with a a UN Human Rights Council fact finding mission to probe Israeli West Bank settlement activity and Jewish building in east Jerusalem.

 
2013: Due to lack of a repayment, there will be no “free” bus from the Kotel on Motzei Shabbat; a service that Egged has been operating on the honor system to accommodate the needs of “observant” riders.

 
2013: In Cedar Rapids, Iowa, the traditional minyan celebrates Independence Shabbat, honoring Jewish American heroes of the revolution, followed by a beat the summer heat Kiddush featuring Sundaes on Saturday.

 
2013: “Caught In The Web” is among the films scheduled to be screened at the 30th International Jerusalem Film Festival. 

 
2013(28th of Tammuz, 5773): Ninety-three year old publisher Arthur Rosenthal passed away toay.  (As reported by Paul Vitello)

 
2013(28th of Tammuz, 5773): Eighty-nine year old Nixon adviser Leonard Garment passed away today.(As reported by Eric Lichtblau)

 
2013: US Secretary of State John Kerry’s plan to resume peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority calls for a cessation of settlement construction outside settlement blocs in the West Bank and the release of 103 Palestinian prisoners, the London-based Al-Hayat newspaper reported today (As reported by Khaled Abu Tomeh and Tovah Lazaroff)

 
2013: Omri Casspi, the only Israeli hoopster to ever play in the NBA, will sign a two-year, $2 million (NIS 7.3 million) deal with the Houston Rockets, Yahoo! Sports reported today (As reported by Raphael Gellar)

 
2014: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors -- A Most Imperfect Union: A Contrarian History of the United States by Ilan Stavans -- and of special interest to Jewish readers – The Arsenal of Democracy: FDR, Detroit and an Epic Quest to Arm an America at War by A.J. Baime which tells of the role played by infamous ant-Semite Henry Ford in the creation of the Arsenal of Democracy that defeated the Nazis.


2014: Jerusalem-born conductor Asher Fisch is scheduled to lead “a Romantic program fitting for a mid-summer Berkshires' evening.”


2014: Lynn Chaney, the wife of the former Vice President tells the New York Times that “the last book to make her cry was Shel Silverstein’s The Giving Tree (“I have to steel myself before I read it to my grandchildren.”)

This Day, July 7, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. Levin

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July 7



1274: Pope Gregory X confirmed a bull issued in 1272 banning charges of blood ritual.



1307: King Edward I, the monarch who expelled the Jews from England, died.



1320: In Pastoureaux (Southern France), an unnamed shepherd started a crusade against the Jews. It spread throughout most of southern France and northern Spain destroying one hundred and twenty communities. At Verdun, 500 Jews defended themselves from within a stone tower. When they were about to be overrun they killed themselves.



1358: Hundreds of Jews were murdered in Catalonia



1520: Cortes defeats a force of Aztecs who had chased him out of Mexico City.  It would be more than a year before Cortes would be able to conquer the capital city.  Among those with Cortes was a converso or crypto-Jew named Hernando Alonso who worked as a blacksmith.



1572: King Sigismund II Augustus, one of the monarchs who invited Jews to settle in Poland, passed away.



1690(1st of Av): Rabbi Hillel ben Naphta Zevi of Altona, author Bet Hillel, novella on the code passed away



1733: Forty-one Jews settled in the colony of Georgia. Among them were Spanish, Portuguese, German and English Jews.



1743(23rdof Tammuz): Chaim ben Moses ibn Attar also known as the Ohr ha-Chaim after his popular commentary on the Pentateuch. Born at Meknes, Morocco in 1696, he became a leading rabbi in his native land before leaving for Eretz Israel in 1733. He finally arrived in Jerusalem in 1742 “where he presided at the Beit Midrash Knesset Yisrael.”  He is buried on the Mount of Olives where his gravestone may still be seen.



1753:  The Jewish Naturalization Act of 1753 received royal assent today. It would be repealed a year later.  Jews would not become full citizens with the right to sit in Parliament until the middle of the 19th century.



1754: At Geislautern , Germany, Abraham Aberle and his wife gave birth to Aaron Worms, chief rabbi of Metz



1816: Emanuel Nunes Carvalho, the rabbi at Philadelphia’s Congregation Mikveh Israel delivered a sermon on the “Occasion of the Death of Rabbi Gershom Mendes Seixas.” This “was the first Jewish sermon printed in the United States.” A native of London Carvalho had served as rabbi in Bridgetown, Barbados and Charleston, SC, before coming to Philadelphia where he would die in 1817.



1836: Joseph II of Galicia, in an alleged effort to improve the educational status of Rabbis, decreed that no Rabbis be appointed if they did not attend a University. Little came of his decree.



1857: Pinckney A. Hyams and Pauline Baum were married today in Charleston, SC.



1860: Birthdate of composer Gustav Mahler. Mahler converted to Catholicism to further his career, a move that earned him derision from his critics and no relief from the anti-Semites. Mahler passed away in 1911.



1860:  Birthdate of Abraham Cahan. From 1903 until his death in 1951, Cahan was the editor of the "Jewish Daily Forward", the most popular and most enduring of all Yiddish newspapers.



1862: John Wood, Drummer, of Company A, Thirty-sixth Regiment N.Y.V., died in the Jews' Hospital.  The Jew’s Hospital (later known as Mt. Sinai) had been built in the 1850’s to meet the health needs of New York’s burgeoning Jewish population.  Its role changed during the Civil War as it became a major health care facility for treating the sick and wounded of the Union Army.



1871: Daniel Joseph, the father of Sir Otto Jaffe established the Belfast Hebrew Congregation “which worshipped at the Great Victoria Street synagogue.



1873: Baruch Fränkel and Rosa Eibenschütz gave birth to Sándor Fränkel who gained fame as the Hungarian psychoanalyst and associate of Sigmund Freud, Sándor Ferenczi



1879: The Executive Board of the Council of the Union of American and Hebrew Congregations met this morning with Moritz Loth presiding and Lipman Levy acting as secretary.  The board met to prepare for the upcoming meeting of the Council which was scheduled to begin on the following day.



1881: In Kentucky, Governor Blackburn has declared today to be a day of public fasting and prayer where all business is suspended so that citizens can go to churches “or other places of worship”  to pray for the recovery of President Garfield who has been shot by an assassin. [For Jews, the importance of this is that the governor has acknowledged that there are other houses of worship than those used by Christians.]



1882: As the Freight Handler’s strike in New York continues cargo fails to leave the port despite the availability of large numbers of foreign born workers including Russian Jews to work the docks.  According to critics, they lack the skill and knowledge to work effectively.  As the strikers become more desperate, incidence of violence increase as can be seen by the stone-throwing attack on Jews at the 30th Street Yards.



1882: The current labor strife between the freight handlers and the railroad companies is described as battle between Teutonic and Celtic Races on the one hand and Russian-Semitic and Latin volunteers on the other hand.  In a tactic that would become quite common during labor disputes, the owners and their supporters would try and pit worker against worker; in this case Germans and Irish against Russian Jews and Italians.


 
1882: It was reported today that in Russia, Count Tolstoi, the Minister of the Interior has ordered the authorities at the frontier “to do all this is possible to facilitate the return of the Jews.” 



1882: The newly formed Propaganda Verein, most of whose members were Jewish, met tonight at the Golden Rule Hall on Rivington Street.  The evening’s theme was “The Jewish Question” – the future of the Jewish race and the anomaly of the persecution of Jews.



1883(2ndof Tammuz, 5643): Forty-six year old Joseph Reckendorfer who was a supporter of the United Hebrew Charities and the Hebrew Orphan Asylum as well as a member of Temple Emanu-El passed away today.



1883: “The Alleged Passover Murder” published today described recent event in the trial of Jews accused of ritual murder of a Christian girl, Esther Salomossy, at Nyreghaza, Hungary.  Two of the accused claimed that their confessions had been obtained by force and coercion.  The defense counsel told the court that the people of Tisza-Eglar, where the alleged murder had taken place have “been taught that it was not wrong to testify falsely against the Jews” if the interests of the country required a conviction.



1884: In Boston, Isaac Jacobs, a Polish Jew who is the prime suspect in the murder of Etta G. Carleston, is expected to make his next court appearance on charges of having stolen a watch a chain.



1884: “Case of Pauper Immigrants” published today, described evidence gathered by the Emigration Commissioner that the clerks at Castle Garden were not be vigilant in seeing to it that immigrants who lacked funds or financial sponsors were kept from entering the country.  Among those metntioned were Henry Brolsky, his wife and six children had arrived aboard the SS Assyrian Monarch.  According to Brolsky, the Hebrew Society of London had paid for their passage.  He said he had family in St. Louis, but had no funds to make the trip. Another example was an un-named family from Poland who had arrived on the SS Australia.  Their passage had been paid for by the Hebrew Society of London. The immigrants claimed they had been told that the Commissioners of Emigration would provide them with funds once they had arrived. [The report cited examples of non-Jews as well.  The issue of “pauper immigrants” would bedevil the immigration debate among Jews as well as the general society until World War I staunched the human flood tide.]



1884: Birthdate of Lion Feuchtwanger, German -born dramatist and narrator who escaped to the United States at the outbreak of World War II.  He passed away in his California home in 1958.



1884:A review of the Universal History: The Oldest Historical Group of Nations and the Greeksby Leopold von Ranke includes the famous German historian that the laws of Moses stand in stark contrast to the Egyptians because they involve “an opposition to kingship and claim to be an emanation from the deity.”  Furthermore they represent the first attack on “a national nature worship” and provide the grounds for the creation of monotheism, a principle on which “is built a civil society which is alien to every abuse of power.”


1887: Mrs. Betty Michaelis refused to attend today’s meeting of a committee that had been appointed by Mrs. Henrietta Loeser, the President of the Henrietta Verien to determine if she should be expelled from the society.


1887: The trustees of Gates of Hope suspended Rabbi E.B.M. Browne from his position as leader of the congregation after a special committee of investigation found that guilty of charges of “conduct unbecoming a minister.”



1887: J.E. Phillips presided over tonight’s meeting at the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue where the Jewish citizens discussed plans for a possible celebration of the 400th anniversary of the expulsion from Spain and Columbus’ first voyage to the New World.



1887: Birthdate of artist Marc Chagall. BornMoishe Zakharovich Shagalov(Moishe Segal) in Belarus (then part of the Russian Empire), Chagall‘s life lasted almost one hundred years. He developed his art against a backdrop of World War I, the Russian Revolution and its Stalinist aftermath, Paris during the thirties, the Holocaust and the birth of the state of Israel. One can only appreciate Chagall by seeing Chagall. There are numerous websites where his art may be viewed. The “Praying Jew” is my personal favorite. http://www.wikipaintings.org/en/marc-chagall/the-praying-jew-rabbi-of-vitebsk-1914



http://www.abcgallery.com/C/chagall/chagall81.html



1888: Rabbi Jacob Charif (Jacob Sharp) arrived early this morning at Hoboken aboard the North German Lloyd steamer. Chariff, from Wilna Russia, has been brought to the United states by the United Society to serve the needs of New York’s “orthodox down-town Jews.” Charif refused to leave the boat or meet with the welcoming committee until Saturday evening, after the end of Shabbat.  (Based on contemporary secular press reports)

1888: “On Shabbos Maatos-Maasei, the trans-Atlantic ship Allaire docked at Hoboken, on the New Jersey side of the Hudson River. After Havdalah, at approximately 10 p.m., the chief rabbi was taken to a nearby hotel. The leaders of the appointing congregations and more than 100,000 people crowded the streets for an opportunity to catch a glimpse of him. Hoboken had never before seen such a large crowd.” (Jewish Press)



1888:”The Summer Corps At Work” published today described the work of fifty physicians appointed by the city to provide medical care for those living in the most crowded quarters in the city. Dr. C.W. Wolfretz, who has been assigned to cover “a district from Division to Broom Street and Bowery to Eldridge where the overcrowded tenements are primarily occupied by Polish and Hungarian Jews, has discovered that the people sleep on the roof to get relief from the heat and that the children are susceptible to measles.



1889: It was reported today that some social scientists, many of whom live in Germany, are impatiently awaiting the establishment of Jewish state in Palestine as a way of proving their theories about governance and nationalism. Since there are those who contend that the recent success of Jews has taken place in a Christian society and that Jews would not be nearly as successful living in a society where they were both the governed and the governor.



1889(8th of Tammuz, 5649): Sixty seven year old Rabbi Elias Karpeles passed away in  Vienna.



1889: “Darmesteter, The Linguist” published today notes that “scant notice has been given in the United States to” the passing of Arsene Darmesteter  the Jewish Sorbonne lecturer on Mediaeval French and literature” whose death means that “the world has lost one who was a Columbus in the vast eternal seas of philological discovery.



1890: In Roundout, a case of assault and battery involving Polish Jews was withdrawn from the Recorders Court after the parties agreed to pay court costs



1891: The weekly cruise for underprivileged children sponsored by the Sanitarium for Hebrew Children is scheduled to take place today



1892: The business session of the third annual Central Conference of American Rabbis is scheduled to open at ten o’clock this morning. Reports will be present on conversion and cremation of the dead.



1892: Rabbi Kaufmann Kohler will read a paper entitled “Is Reformed Judaism Destructive or Constructive?” at the evening session of the Conference of American Rabbis.



1893: “Coaxing Immigration published today described the efforts of the Canadian government to recruit people from the western United States to settle in the Northwest Territories and Prairie Provinces. Including Russian Jews from Chicago some of whom the government of Calgary feels are unfit because they “know nothing about agriculture.”



1895: It was reported today that Lord Rosebury has raised Sydney Stern to the Peerage after the “well known Jewish financier contributed £50,000 to the Liberal Party.” According to the Jewish Chronicle Stern has spent a great deal of money on his political ambitions and little on the poor. “This is in striking to contrast of many other millionaires of his faith” like the Rothschilds, Montefiores and Goldsmids “whom the Queen has honored for their many acts of charity.



1895: It was reported today that theatre goers in London have no interest in seeing Samuel B. Curtis’s “Sam’l of Posen.”  They do not have “the faintest interest in the Polish Jews or would dream of trying to understand his Yiddish Jargon.”



1895(15thof Tammuz, 5655): Twenty year old Alma Meyer passed away today in Newark, NJ.



1895: “Heine and the Germans” published today described the controversy between the Heine Memorial Committee and the Park Commissioners in New York City over the erection of a monument to the German author as well as the opposition of some German-Americans  who view him as “a Napoleon worshipper, a purchased scribe of Louis Philippe  and a bitter-hearted and revengeful Jew.”


1898: In Chicago, Rose (Rabinoff) and Isidore Horwitz or Horowitz gave birth to their second son Ralph who as Ralph Horween played and coached football at Harvard  and played and coach for the Chicago Cardinals in the NFL.



1899: “The Straus Milk Depots Open” published today listed the three locations where “modified milk for sick children and pure pasteurized milk in bottles can be had at all times.”  Thanks to the generosity of Nathan Straus a half-pint of milk can be purchased for one cent.  A new formula perfected by Doctor R.G. Freeman at the Nathan Straus Pasteurized Milk Laboratory is especially useful for “very young babies who are ill.”



1899: Birthdate of movie director George Cukor. Cukor had a long and distinguished career that included two Catherine Hepburn – Spencer Tracy classics. But he may be most famous for the movie that he did not direct. Cukor was the first director for "Gone With the Wind" but he was fired before he could complete the project. He passed away in 1983

1901: The Summer Assembly of the Jewish Chautauqua Society began today.



1901:  Birthdate of producer Sam Katzman.  Katzman’s work includes a series of Superman serials and early Elvis Presley films.



1901: The New York Times reports on the popularity of Montefiore Isaacs, the Union Club Member who is a nephew .of Sir Moses Montefiore.  The popular bachelor is known for his skill as magician which he freely shares for charitable events as well as his knowledge of Shakespeare.



1902: Herzl appears before the Royal Commission.



1903: The funeral of Albert F Hochstadter, prominent businessman and a Trustee of Temple Emanu-El is scheduled to take place today at this famous New York Jewish house of worship.



1904: Theodor Herzl is laid to rest at the Döblinger Friedhof. Thousands of Jews took part in the funeral procession. In his will Herzl asked that his body be buried next to his father, "to remain there until the Jewish people will carry my remains to Palestine."



1904: As a sign of the political right’s loss of power in the wake of the Dreyfus Affair, the government banned the religious orders from teaching in France.  When Pope Pius X strenuously objected, the French broke diplomatic relations with the Vatican.



1905: Birthdate of Max Rostal, the Austrian born British violinists and voila player.



1907: Birthdate of Abraham "Abe" Ellstein an American composer who along with Shalom Secunda, Joseph Rumshinsky, and Alexander Olshanetsky, Ellstein was one of the "big four" composers of his era in New York City's Second Avenue Yiddish theatre scene



1907: Papers on “The Religious Influences of Childhood Upon Adolescence” and Judaism in the Nineteenth Century Illustrated by Stereopticon Views – A Lesson in Popularizing the Study of Jewish  History” were presented at today’s session of the 18th Annual Convention of the Central Conference of American Rabbis.



1920: In London, Rebecca Sieff, Dr. Vera Weizmann (wife of Israel's first president, Dr. Chaim Weizmann), Edith Eder, Romana Goodman and Henrietta Irwell founded Women's International Zionist Organization (WIZO)



1920: Arthur Meighen, who was pro-Zionist, begins his first term as Prime Minister of Canada.



1921: Dr. Joseph H. Hertz, the Chief Rabbi of the British Empire finished his visit to Vancouver, Canada.



1922: Hadoar, the first daily Hebrew newspaper published in the United States was converted to a weekly


1933: Mr. and Mrs. Sydney Ginsburg of 21 Bialik Street in Tel Aviv are the proud parents of a newly born son.  Mrs. Ginsberg is the former Ella Bach.



1936(17th of Tammuz, 5696): Tzom Tammuz



1937: The Peel Commission Report describing the investigation of the 1936 Arab Riots was published. The Commission recommended the partition of Mandatory Palestine into two states. The Zionist Congress would, while rejecting the actual borders, agree to consider the proposal. The Arabs rejected it out of hand.



1938: British troops clash with an armed band of Arabs trying to cross in Palestine from Trans-Jordan. This did not stop other Arab infiltrators from joining their brethren in the fight against the British and the Jewish citizens of Palestine.



1940: In an article entitled “Palestine Season Closes,” Dr. Peter Gradenwitz describes the recently ended musical season of the Palestine Symphony Orchestra.  The season included thirteen concert series in Tel Aviv, Haifa and Jerusalem as well as additional performances at various agricultural colonies that brought the total of performances to 80.



1940(1st of Tammuz, 5700): Five thousand Jews of Kovno executed by Nazis.



1940: Admiral Sir Barry Edward Domvile a leading British Pro-German anti-Semite in the years before the Second World War was interned starting day during World War II under Defence Regulation 18B



1941 (12th of Tammuz, 5701): Thirty-two Jews are killed in Mariampole, Lithuania.



1941: In France, a collaborationist military force, Légion des Volontaires Français(French Volunteer Legion), is established.



1941 (12th of Tammuz, 5701): Two thousand Jews are murdered at Khotin, Ukraine



1941: Birthdate of Yisrael “Poli” Poliakov the native of Jerusalem who switched from being an agricultural student to a career in a comedy  which as marked by his role in the creation of HaGashash HaHiver.



1942(22nd of Tammuz, 5702): One thousand Jews from Rzeszów, Poland, are killed at the Rudna Forest. Fourteen thousand are deported to the Belzec death camp.



1942: Himmler held a meeting in Berlin with three high ranking men. It was decided that medical experiments would commence on the Jews. Emphasis would be placed on Jewish women in Auschwitz. Himmler pledged his coconspirators to secrecy.



1943: Birthdate of Joel Siegel who would become a household icon while serving as Entertainment Editor on GMA from 1981 through 2007.



1943(4th of Tammuz, 5703): Saul Kozlowski, an 18 year old Communist was arrested by the Gestapo in Vilna, Lithuania.  The Gestapo wanted to the known the identity of leader of the underground known as “The Lion.”  After hours of torture, Kozlowski identifies Isaac Wittenberg, a Jew living in the ghetto, as being “the Lion.”  As the Germans turned away to discuss their next step, Kozlowski grabbed a knife and slit his own throat.



1944(16thof Tammuz, 5704): Fifty-eight year old photographer Erich Solomon died at Auschwitz today.
http://weimarart.blogspot.com/2010/07/erich-salomon-king-of-indiscreet.html
http://www.comesana.com/english/salomon_gallery.php



1944: Approximately 437,000 have been deported from Hungary to Auschwitz since May 18.



1944(16thof Tammuz, 5704): Fifty-nine year old Georges Mandel (born Louis George Rothschild ) the French journalist and member of the resistance was murdered by the French fascists controlled by Vichy.
http://spartacus-educational.com/FRmandel.htm
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/georges-mandel-french-patriot-is-executed



1944: British Prime Minister Winston Churchill informs Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden that he is in favor of the Royal Air Force bombing Auschwitz. (Churchill never pursued the issue. and  he did nothing to relieve the conditions of the Jews by dropping enforcement of the White Paper even after WW II had come to an end in Europe.)

1944: In Lithuania, partisan forces, including the Jewish Brigade led by Abba Kovner, join the Soviets in the attack on Vilna.



1944: Hungary’s Regent Horthy stopped transport of Jews to Auschwitz.



1945: Chief Judge Irving Lehman of the New York State Court of Appeals “tripped over his pet boxer, Carlo and broke his ankle in two places” while walking around his country estate. (This seemingly minor mishap would be a direct cause of his death in September of 1945.



1947: Harriet Shapiro married Fred Rochlin in a “small living room…packed to capacity with relatives and friends” at the house on Sentinel Avenue in Los Angeles, California.



1947(19thof Tammuz, 5707): Seventy-year old Frank Taffel the native of Krystynopol who settled in Atlanta where founded Fulton Auto Exchange and Congregation Beth Jacob passed away today.



1948:  The settlers who were defending Kfar Darom against Egyptian attacks agreed to be evacuated.  Kfar Darom had been cut off from direct military help since the end of June.  Air drops of supplies failed to reach the embattled settlement because of Egyptian anti-aircraft.  Their stubborn resistance helped to slow the Egyptian advance on Tel Aviv and bought time for the Israelis defending the approaches to the major Jewish population centers. The successful evacuation took place during the night of July 7-8.



1948: Abdullah el-Tell, the Military Governor of Jerusalem “signed the "Mount Scopus Agreement" by which the Israelis agreed that Mount Scopus would be demilitarized and come under United Nations supervision.”



1948: “Givati commander Shimon Avidan issued orders to the 51st Battalion to the Tall al-Safi area.”



1948: During the War for Independence, with the truce period about to expire the Security Council asked each side if they would extend it for ten days.   The Jews accepted the proposal.  The Arabs rejected it. 



1950: MGM released “Crisis” produced by Arthur Freed and Directed by Richard Brooks in his directorial debut.



1956(28th of Tammuz, 5716): Yiddish songstress Isa Kremer passed away
http://www.jmwc.org/pdf/IsaKremer.pdf



1960: United Artists releases “Elmer Gantry” directed by Richard Brooks, with a screenplay by Richard Brooks and music by Andre Previn.



1964: Tens of thousands of Israelis paid honor tonight to Zeev Jabotinsky, whose remains were flown to Tel Aviv from the United States for reburial.



1965(7th of Tammuz, 5725): Moshe Sharett, second Prime Minister of Israel, passed away.  Born Moshe Shertok in Russia in 1894, Sharett grew up in an Arab village near Jerusalem. He graduated from high school in Tel Aviv and then went to Constantinople to study law. At this time Palestine was part of the Turkish Empire and Sharett enlisted in the Turkish Army during World War I. Sharett rose to prominence in the Zionist movement during the 1930’s although he found himself at odds with David Ben Gurion. Sharett was Israel’s first Foreign Minister. When Ben Gurion retired for the first time, Sharett became Prime Minister. Ben Gurion and Sharett continued to clash. When Ben Gurion returned to power in 1955, Sharett returned to the Foreign Ministry. Sharett resigned because he was opposed to the coming Sinai War in 1956. Sharret suffered from "John Adams Disease." Just as John Adams was doomed because he was following George Washington, so Sharrett was doomed because he labored in the shadow of Ben Gurion.



http://www.mfa.gov.il/mfa/aboutisrael/state/pages/moshe%20sharett.aspx
http://www.sharett.org.il/cgi-webaxy/sal/sal.pl?lang=he&ID=366979_sharett&act=show&dbid=articles_eng&dataid=22



1973(7th of Tammuz, 5733):  Seventy-eight year old Max Horkheimer, the German born philosopher and sociologist who sought refuge in the U.S. during the Nazi after his academic credentials were revoked and his institute was closed. 
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=F50E12FB385C1A7A93CBA9178CD85F478785F9



1977: United Artist released “The Spy Who Loved Me,” the James Bond with a score by Marvin Hamlisch and featuring Walter Gotell the German born British actor whose family escaped from Nazi Germany, Barbara Bach whose father was Jewish and Milo Sperber the Polish born Anglo-Jewish actor who fled Nazi Germany in 1939.



1980(23rd of Tammuz, 5740): Famed writer Dore Schary passed away. Born Isadore Schary in 1905, Schary dropped the "Isa" from Isadore to create his first name. Like so many other Jews of his era, Shary helped create the cinematic version of the American Myth. He won an Oscar for the screenplay "Boys Town." He produced the canine classic "Lassie Come Home." But his greatest work came when he returned to Broadway and wrote the script for "Sunrise At Campobello." Shcary did not hide his Judaism. He was active in numerous Jewish organizations and served as the head of the Anti-Defamation League.
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=F00A1FFB385C11728DDDA10894DF405B8084F1D3



1986(30thof Sivan, 5746): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz



1986:The United StatesSupreme Court struck down Gramm-Rudman deficit-reduction law.  Senator Warren Rudman was an apparent anomaly on two counts.  First he was elected from New Hampshire, not exactly a state with a large Jewish population and second he was a conservative Republican.



1992:  The comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 rashes into the planet Jupiter.  According to David Levy, one of the trio who discovered the comet, it was the most widely watched such phenomena in history.  Canadian born David Levy was an English major in college.  His career in astronomy began as an amateur.  He sees a definite connection between his Jewish heritage and astronomy. For example, Pesach always comes at the full moon, the night sky on Yom Kippur is always the same and Shabbat does not end until three stars can be seen in the sky.  His Judaism and his astronomy are so intertwined that he and his bride decided they wanted to be married under the night sky.



1994: “The body of Arye Frankenthal, 20, from Moshav Gimzo near Lod, who had left his base in the south the previous day, was found stabbed and shot near the Arab village of Kafr Akab, near Ramallah." (Jewish Virtual Library)

1994(28th of Tammuz, 5754: Seventeen year old Sarit Prigal,  was shot to death when terrorists opened fire from a passing car near the entrance to Kiryat Arba.


1998: In “Claims for Art Collection Pose a Challenge to Hungary,” Judith Dobrzynski describes the efforts by the Nierenberg family to retrieve a portion of the art collection that was successively seized by the fascists and the communists.



http://www.nytimes.com/1998/07/07/arts/claims-for-art-collection-pose-a-challenge-to-hungary.html?pagewanted=print&src=pm



1999: Eighty-six year old Aaron M. Wise who had served as the rabbi at Adat Ari El Synagogue from 1947 to 1978 was buried today after services his synagogue.



2001: At the Israel Festival in Jerusalem Conductor Daniel Barnboim startled the audience by announcing that he was going to play a piece by Wagner as second encore which sparked a half hour debate following which a few members of the audience left but most stayed to hear the performance of the Tristan and Isolde prelude.



2005: Outfielder Adam Greenberg made his major league debut with the Chicago Cubs.



2005: Outfielder Adam Stern made his major league debut with the Boston Red Sox.



2007: At the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion Museum in New York, an exhibition called “Cinema Judaica: The War Years” comes to an end. This unprecedented exhibition of iconic Hollywood film posters from 1939 to 1949 illustrates how the motion picture industry countered America's isolationism, advocated going to war against the Nazis, influenced post-war perceptions of the Jewish people and the founding of the State of Israel, and shaped the face of contemporary Jewish life.

 


2007: In Jerusalem,a classical music concert entitled "Music in All the Shades" presents "Bel Canto in Ein Kerem," featureing soprano, Maria Yofa, flautist, Antoli Kogan, and pianist, Alexander Sneiderman.



2007: “Beyond The Myth, Art Endures,”  published today described Mexico’s celebration of the centenary of the birth of painter Frida Kahlo, the daughter of a Jewish businessman whose work has been overshadowed by her husband, Diego Rivera.



2008:  U.S. District Court Magistrate Judge Jon Scoles ruled during a detention hearing for Juan Carlos Guerrero-Espinoza, 35, and Martin De La Rosa-Loera, 43 that the two Agriprocessors Inc. supervisors arrested last week for aiding and abetting illegal workers at the Postville meat processing plant to possess and use fraudulent identity documents will remain in federal custody until their trials.



2008: The Washington Post reports on the arrival of Jewish pilgrims in Safi, Morroco.



It's an uncommon sight for an Arab country: hundreds of joyous Jewish pilgrims gathering without fear around a rabbi's tomb, greeted by local Muslim officials who share a prayer with them at a synagogue.  Yet most of the 400 Jews who converged on the Moroccan coastal town of Safi _ some from nearby cities, others from as far as France or Israel _ at a weekend pilgrimage said they felt welcome here. While religious tensions flare in Jerusalem and beyond, in Morocco, Jews and Muslims say they nurture a legacy of tolerance and maintain common sanctuaries where adherents of both religions pray. Decades of emigration to Israel by Morocco's Jews and terrorist bombings in Casablanca that targeted Jewish sites haven't diminished the draw of these annual pilgrimages. During the festival that began Friday, visitors prayed and feasted around the shrine of Abraham Ben Zmirro, a rabbi reputed to have fled persecution in Spain in the 15th century and then lived in Safi, where he is buried with six siblings. A half-Jewish, half-Muslim band played local tunes during a banquet, including a song in French, Arabic and Hebrew with the line: "There is only one God, you worship Him sitting down and I while standing up." The pilgrims were joined Sunday by Aaron Monsenego, the great rabbi of Morocco, who prayed alongside the regional governor and several other Muslim officials at the shrine's synagogue for the good health of Morocco's King Mohammed VI and his family. "It's very important for us to pray altogether," Monsenego told The Associated Press. Regional governor Larbi Hassan Sebbari said, "We're also very proud of it: it gives a lesson to other countries of what we do together without any taboo." While several Arab states refuse to recognize the Jewish state's right to exist, reject Israeli visitors and ignore the remnants of their local Jewish heritage, Moroccans insist it is not the case in this moderate Muslim nation and U.S. ally. Once home to some 300,000 Jews, Morocco hosts the Arab world's only Jewish museum, funds Jewish institutions and frequently holds events to celebrate Judeo-Moroccan heritage. Still, the Jewish population here has dwindled to about 4,000 _ most in Casablanca. Economics, fears of living in an Arab state and sporadic discrimination drove hundreds of thousands of Moroccan Jews to Israel, Europe or America over the past few decades. Many left in 1948 when the state of Israel was created, or in 1956 when Morocco won independence from France. Other waves followed after the Israeli-Arab conflicts of 1967 and 1973 caused riots in some Moroccan towns. Jewish leaders who stayed say they practice their religion freely and that synagogues are well protected by police, especially since the 2003 bombings in Casablanca. And despite the bombings, Casablanca _ Morocco's commercial capital _ still boasts 32 active synagogues. "There was never any racism in Safi," said Haim Ohana, one of only 10 Jewish people remaining in a town where 6,000 Jews once lived. "People left from here because they were poor," said Ohana, who helped organize the pilgrimage and runs several businesses. The pilgrimage rituals are called Moussem in Arabic and Hilloula in Hebrew. Many of the pilgrims, including ultra-Orthodox Jews from Israel and French and Canadian businessmen, are émigrés who say they come to pray in Safi because of their emotional ties to Morocco. Therese Elisha, an Israeli, said she makes the pilgrimage every other year. "This is the town where I grew up, the synagogue where I prayed," she said. "I feel at home.""We're maintaining a bridge over the divide of the exodus," said Simone Merra, a human resources manager in Paris. Some of Morocco's Jews wonder how long their community will remain. Nadia Bensimon, who runs a fashion boutique in a coastal town, said she had no plans to leave. "But that could change if the Islamists become too powerful," she said. Morocco's main Islamist opposition party _ Adl wal Ihsan _ enjoys broad support, but it is banned from politics; secular parties dominate parliament. Though most of his relatives now live abroad, Ohana said his family traces its arrival in Morocco to 2,076 years ago. "As for Safi, we've been here for nine centuries," he said. "It's my town; I'd see no reason to leave."



2009: Starting tonight and continuing on each successive Tuesday night during July the Amphitheatre in Liberty Bell Park offers a different Jerusalem performing artist each week.


2009: The funeral for Anita Rabinowtiz, the wife of Rabbi Stanely Rabinwoitz is scheduled to take place at Adas Israel in Washington, DC followed by interment at the congregation’s cemetery in southeast Washington.



2009: “In Bruges” is the first film shown at the film festival, Summer Movies at the Merkaz. “a unique combination of an absorption center, community center and activism center located in the heart of the German Colony, one of the most beautiful, peaceful and dynamic neighborhoods in Jerusalem.”



2010: The 7th AICE Australian Film Festival is scheduled to show tense political thriller, Balibo, in Tel Aviv.



2010: This evening at Manhattan’s Plaza Hotel, the Israeli prime minister addressed a roomful of more than 300 Jews on the subjects of Iran, his government’s eagerness for direct peace talks with the Palestinians and the swell meeting he had just had with President Obama at the White House.


2011: “Rothschild Fine Art,” an exhibition featuring objects’ des art from Rothschild Fine Art, a premier gallery in the cultural center of Tel Aviv, is scheduled to open today at ARTHamptons Art Fair in Bridgehampton.



2011: D.C. Councilman Tommy Wells is scheduled to take part in the Jewish Community Relations Council’s noontime series at the Lillian and Albert Small Museum.



2011: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was scheduled to fly to Sofia today for meetings with Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borisov and President Georgi Parvanov.


2011: An Israel Defense Forces soldier was wounded lightly by an explosive device planted near his tank in the southern Gaza Strip this morning. The soldier was mildly hurt from shrapnel in the device and the tank was unharmed. This is the first significant incident in the strip after a few months of relative calm in the area, and it appears as though tensions are on the rise. Earlier this week Israel Air Force planes attacked a Palestinian cell that planned to fire rockets from Gaza to Israel. There have been at least three incidents in which militants have shot rockets from Gaza toward the Negev in Israel, and several attempts to shoot at Israeli vehicles near the strip.



2011: The Environmental Protection Ministry ordered the Eilat Ashkelon Pipeline Co. (EAPC) to cease their work in the Nahal Zin and surrounding nature reserve following last week's devastating jet-fuel oil spill after the ministry found that the company was not effectively carrying out the cleanup but rather exacerbating the environmental damage.


2011: In “Setting the record straight: Entebbe was not Auschwitz” published today Yossi Melman marked the 35th anniversary of the mission that rescued Jewish hostages held by Arab terrorists in Uganda.
http://www.haaretz.com/weekend/week-s-end/setting-the-record-straight-entebbe-was-not-auschwitz-1.372131



2012: The egalitarian-traditional minyan at Temple Judah in Cedar Rapids is scheduled to celebrate “Red White and Blue Shabbat” while beating Iowa’s unprecedented heat wave with “Sundaes on Saturday” where congregants will build their own Cool Kosher Concoctions.



2012: One of Israel's top contemporary troupes, Vertigo Dance Company, is scheduled to perform Mana at Jacob’s Pillow in Beckett, Maine.



2012: Israeli cellist Yoed Nir is scheduled to perform at the Super Bock Rock Festival in Lisbon, Portugal



2012:"Tens of thousands of Israelis gathered in central Tel Aviv tonight to voice their demand for mandatory conscription in the army or national service, in the largest protest yet of the summer, and the biggest show of force since the “Camp Suckers” movement began six months ago."



2012:"As the country is embroiled in a debate about turning haredi scholars into soldiers, the Jerusalem Municipality and the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design have launched a different venture: a haredi track at Bezalel’s prestigious art institute."


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2013: “The Dead Man and Being Happy” is among the films scheduled to be shown at the 30thJerusalem Film Festival.



2013: The British Association for Jewish Studies Annual Conference 2013: “Memory, Identity, and Boundaries of Jewishness” is scheduled to begin in Canterbury, UK.



2013: The Pears Institute for the study of Antisemitism is scheduled to host a colloquium featuring Sham Ambiavaga, Frank Chalk, Lorenzo DiTommaso, David Feldman, John Gray, William Lamont, Paul Lay, Dame Jinty Nelson, Sir Michael Pepper, Daniel Pick and Marina Voikhanskaya



2013:Israel Air Force rescue crews have brought to safety the pilot and navigator of an “F-16i” training fighter jet that broke up off the coast of Gaza this afternoon after its engines mysteriously died. (As reported by Tzvi Ben-Gedalyahu


2013: Alfred Le Guelllec, who together with his wife Augustine, was posthumously recognized today as a “righteous gentile” in a ceremony held at his hometown of Douarnenez in the westernmost tip of France. (As reported by Elhanan Miller)


2014: In the UK, the Wiener Library for the Study of the Holocaust & Genocide is scheduled to host Dr Gábor Kádár lecturing on “Hero or War Criminal? Regent Horthy and the Destruction of Hungarian Jews.”

2014: “Igor and the Crane’s Journey” and “The Sturgeon Queens” are scheduled to be shown at the Berkshire Jewish Film Festival.


This Day, July 8, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. Levin

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July 8



1099: In a move reminiscent of Joshua at Jericho, during the First Crusade 15,000 starving Christian soldiers march in religious procession around Jerusalem as the Muslim defenders look on. This seemingly desperate move is part of the preparations for the final successful Crusader assault that will take place on July 15 following which the Moslem and Jewish citizenry would be slaughtered by those who claim to fight in the name of the man who said “love thine enemies.”



1153: Pope Eugene III passed away. In an effort to gain support for the Second Crusade, Eugene had “issued a bull announcing that all those who joined in the holy war were absolved from the payment of interest on debts owed to Jews.” Regardless of the level of participation, it gave Christians a chance to repudiate the legitimate debts owed to Jews. (As reported by Graetz).



1187: Acre surrendered to Saladin



1230: “Pope Honorius III issued from San Rieti an order directing the Archbishop of Mayence to compel the [Jewish] community to pay the sum of 1,620 marks before the following Easter, threatening it with exclusion from all dealings with Christians if it failed to raise the amount.”



1510: A printed edition of Halikhot Olam, Talmudic dissertations by “Rabbi Jeshua ben Joseph Ha-Levi was published at Constantinople



1623: Pope Gregory XV passed away. During his papacy Gregory appointed three expurgators to approve, revise or otherwise deal with Jewish texts.



1654: According to some sources, Jacob Barsimon left Holland aboard the Peartreefor New Amsterdam. He was the first Jewish resident of New Amsterdam (New York). Other sources claim that the Peartree and Barsimon did not set sail until July 17 and did not arrive until August 22, 1654. Regardless of which dating one accepts, the origin of the Jewish Community is dated from September 7, 1653 when 23 Sephardic Jewish refugees from Recife (Brazil) arrived in New Amsterdam aboard the French ship, St. Charles.



1663: Jews were already living in Rhode Island when The British Crown granted a charter the colony founded by Roger Williams, which guarantees freedom of worship. The Jews had arrived in Newport in 1658. Reportedly, these were Sephardic Jews who had fled from Brazil to avoid another round of the Inquisition.



1690(2nd of Av): Rabbi Aaron ben Moses Teomim of Worms, author of Mate Aharon passed away.

1721:  Elihu Yale passed away. While serving as the English governor of Madras Yale had a romantic relationship with a Portuguese Jewess who was the wife Jacques (Jaime) de Paiva (Pavia), a successful Jewish trader and businessman. The wife, Hermonia de Paiva, went to live with him, causing quite a scandal within Madras' colonial society. Hermonia and the son fathered by Yale both later died in South Africa. [The next time you look at the Hebrew Letters in Yale’s seal, you might remember Hermonia.]



1755: This evening during the Emden-Eybeschütz Controversy, Jacob Emden’s house was broken into and his papers seized and turned over to the "Ober-Präsident," Von Kwalen. Six months later Von Kwalen appointed a commission of three scholars, who, after a close examination, found nothing, which could inculpate Emden.



1768: Cossack leader Maksym Zaliznyak and 73 rebels were imprisoned in Kyiv-Pechersk Fortress. Zaliznyak had played a key role in the Massacre at Uman where 20,000 Jews and Poles were killed during the Koliivshchyna rebellion. Zaliznyak was not imprisoned because of Russian government cared about the Jews who had been betrayed by their countrymen.  He was imprisoned because the government feared his rebellion would spread and undermine imperial authority.



1776: The Liberty Bell was rung to summon citizens of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania for the reading of the Declaration of Independence by the Continental Congress. The Liberty Bell takes its name from the inscription taken from Leviticus 25:10 that states, "Proclaim Liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof."



1805: Simon Mussina, merchant, newspaper editor, and attorney, was born to Zachariah and Nancy Mussina in Philadelphia today,



1805: Rothschild writes the Landgrave seeking the status of “Protected Jew” in Kassel so that he could business there while still living in Frankfurt.  The request was rejected.  The need for such a request was symptomatic of the crazy quilt of regulations designed to limit the business opportunities for Jews.



1807: Rothschild wrote to his son Nathan telling him that that Czar Alexander and Napoleon had met at Tilsit.  He expressed the hope that peace would prevail.  In the end, his hopes proved to be unfounded.



1822: Percy Bysshe Shelley, the English poet whose work includes “The Wandering Jews Soliloquy” passed away.
http://www.litgothic.com/Texts/wj_soliloquy.html



1831: Birthdate of Bohemian author Seligmann Heller whose works included the epic poem "Ahasverus.”



1836:  Birthdate of British statesman Joseph Chamberlain.  Regrettably, Joseph Chamberlain’s greatest claim to fame was the fact that he was the father of Neville Chamberlain, the great appeaser of the Hitler period.  Jews should remember him as a British political leader who was sympathetic to Herzl and his cause.  In 1903, Chamberlain was one of those who worked to offer Uganda as a colony which European Jews could settle.



1838: A band of Druze attacked the Jewish community of Tzfat. This incident is a far cry from the relations today between the Druze and the Jews.  Founded in the early 11th century, the Druze faith was initially based on the doctrines of Shi’a Islam. As with other such groups who deviated from Islam, the Druze have been at odds with the dominant Moslem populations in the countries where they live – Lebanon, Syria and Jordan. There is a Druze community in Israel and Druze soldiers have served with honor and distinction in the IDF



1839: Birthdate of John D. Rockefeller whom the world connects with petroleum, Standard Oil and monopoly.  For Jews he was one of those who signed the Blackstone Memorial, a petition favoring “the delivery of Palestine to Jews” that was presented to President Benjamin Harrison.



1847(24th of Tammuz, 5607): Rachel Lindo, the widow of the late David Lindo, and the oldest member of the local congregation passed away at the age of 85 in Bridgetown, Barbados.



1849: Formal installation of Toechter Lodge No. 1 of the Free Sons of Israel.  This lodge was unique because it was made up of women, as can be imagined by the name which is the Yiddish word for daughter.



1850: Birthdate of Frederick de Sola Mendes the native of Montego Bay, Jamaica, West Indies who gained fame as a rabbi, author, and editor. The son of Abraham Pereira Mendes, he was educated at Northwick College and at University College School, London, and at the University of London where he earned a B.A. in 1869. “Subsequently he went to Breslau, Germany, where he entered the university and studied rabbinics at the Jewish Theological Seminary of Breslau. Mendes received the degree of Ph.D. from Jena University in 1871. Returning to England, he was licensed to preach as rabbi by Haham Benjamin Artom, in London, 1873; in the same year he was appointed preacher of the Great St. Helen's Synagogue of that city, but in December removed to New York, where he had accepted a call to the rabbinate of Shaaray Tefillah congregation (now the West End Synagogue); he entered upon his duties there January 1, 1874. Mendes was one of the founders of the American Hebrew. In 1888 he took part in the Field-Ingersoll controversy, writing for the North American Review an article entitled "In Defense of Jehovah." In 1900 Mendes joined the staff of the Jewish Encyclopedia as revising editor and chief of the translation bureau, which positions he resigned in September 1902. Associated with Dr. Marcus Jastrow and Dr. Kaufmann Kohler, he was one of the revisers of the Jewish Publication Society of America Version of the Bible. He also translated Jewish Family Papers: Letters of a Missionary, by "Gustav Meinhardt" (Dr. William Herzberg). Of his publications the following may be mentioned: Child's First Bible; Outlines of Bible History; Defense not Defiance. He contributed also the article on the "Jews" to Johnson's Encyclopedia. In 1903 he became for a time editor of The Menorah, a monthly magazine. In conjunction with his brother Henry Pereira Mendes, and others, he was one of the founders of The American Hebrew (1879), to whose columns, as to those of the general press, he was a frequent contributor. He passed away in 1927.



1852(21stof Tammuz, 5612): Moses Benedict the German banker and artist who was born at Stuttgart  in 1772 and who operated the banking business of Benedict Brothers with his brother Seligman passed away today.



1868: Birthdate of American journalist Thomas Franklin Fairfax Millard, the founder of the China Press, an English language paper that supported the new government of Dr. Sun Yat-sen which he sold to Edward Ezra, a leading Jewish businessman in China in 1918.



1870: In Dublin, Professor Alexander Macalister and his wife gave birth to Robert Alexander Steward Alexander, the only professional archaeologist at the excavation of Gezer which last from 1902 to 1902 and is best known for the “Gezer calendar.”



1871: Isaac Hyman who used to be a City of Marshal in New York City was ordered to pay seven dollars a week in support payments after he had been arrested today on charges of abandoning his wife. 



1872: Birthdate of Aaron Gumbinsky who gained fame as the songwriter Harry Von Tilzer whose tunes included "A Bird in a Gilded Cage", "Cubanola Glide", "Wait 'Til The Sun Shines Nellie", "Old King Tut", "All Alone", "Mariutch", "I Love My Wife, But Oh You Kid!", "They Always Pick On Me", "I Want A Girl Just Like The Girl Who Married Dear Old Dad", And The Green Grass Grew All Around and many others.



1873: Union of American Hebrew Congregations (Reform) was launched in Cincinnati under the leadership of Dr. Isaac Meyer Wise.



 1877: In Warsaw, Feliks Rappaport and Justyna Bauerertz gave birth to Emil Stanisław Rappaport the Jewish lawyer who served as Judge in post-WW I Poland and was the author of several works on international law.



1877: Delegates representing American Hebrew congregations from the principal cities in the United States are scheduled to hold the opening session of their convention at Concordia Hall in Milwaukee.  Approximately 150 delegates are expected to attend.  The primary aims of the meeting are to consolidate all of the Reform congregations under one central body that will, among other things, create a uniform service to be followed by all members.  “The convention will also discuss the feasibility of securing lands in the West and South” for Jews who have not been able to “establish their own homes and businesses.



1877: “Prejudices,” a reprint of an article from Macmillan’s Magazine, published today reported that “The past generation of Englishmen has been so generous to Jews that” it would be “ungrateful” to accuse present day Englishmen “of being consciously repelled by the idea of a poor Jew being worthy of admiration.  But 15 centuries of hatred” are not easily “wiped out” by the passage of legislation. “A deep unconscious undercurrent of prejudice against the Jew” still exists among Englishmen.  This “unconscious Judaeophobia” exists alongside “a tacit of assumption that modern Judaism is a lifeless code of ritual instead of a living body of religious truth.”



1877: According to a paper that Mr. E.G. Ravenstein presented to the Statistical Society of London, the population of Russia has been increasing at the rate of 1.1 per cent per year with “the Jews being the most prolific” group in the Czar’s Empire.



1877: It was reported today that for several years the “American Hebrews” in New York “have united to furnish poor Christian children in Industrial Schools with warm and nourishing food.” 



1877: According to reports published today Judge Hilton’s decision to ban Joseph Seligman (and all Jews) from his hotel in Saratoga Springs, NY has caused quite a stir among Jews and Gentiles in San Francisco, CA.  The Seligmans are quite well known to Californians and are well thought.  A ban like the one adopted in Saratoga Springs would not find any support on the west coast since the Jews are viewed as being patriotic citizens who are always ready to “extend their aid and assistance” whenever it is needed.  The Jews are viewed as being “valuable and…respectable” members of the community, “good neighbors and …businessmen” whom the “hotels are very glad to have” as customers.



1878: William Evarts, the U.S. Secretary of State in  the administration of President Rutherford B. Hayes, has complied with a request made by M.S.  Isaacs of New York, President of the Board of Delegates of the American Israelites and Simon Wolf of Washington, DC, the Vice President of the Board of Delegates of the American Israelites.  He “has instructed” the U.S. “Consul at Tangiers, Morocco to co-operated with the representatives of other governments in using his good offices” on “behalf of the oppressed Israelites in the Empire of Morocco.  The instructions are similar to those given several years to…the Consul at Bucharest which proved so beneficial for the relief and protection of the Jews” in Romania who were being persecuted at that time.



1879: Moritz Loth of Cincinnati presided over the opening session of The Sixth Council of the Union of American and Hebrew Congregations at Standard Hall in New York City. Rabbi Gustav Gottheil of Temple Emanu-El offered the opening prayer followed by Moritz Ellinger’s opening address. 



1879(17th of Tammuz, 5639): Tzom Tammuz



1880: An untitled article published today credited the Jews with developing the first principles of what we now call the insurance industry.  The Babylonian Talmud contained a systemized code that articulates “the principle of sharing among a number the loss of a single individual. 



1882: “A New Socialistic Society” published today provided an insight into the divisions within Jewish socialists when it reported that among the officers elected were a Corresponding Secretary in German and a Corresponding Secretary in Russian.  Added to the mix was the fact that the first speaker of the evening whose topic concerned the future of the Jewish race was named Allen McGregor.



1883: It was reported today that the outbreak of Cholera in Egypt is so serious that the British are considering transferring their troops from the land of Nile to Malta or Cyprus.  If the plague reaches Cairo the Jewish population will find itself at great risk since most of it is confined to a quarter that consists of narrow streets without drainage or proper sanitation of any kind.



1883: “Notes from Cincinnati” published today described “an important (upcoming) event…the ordination of four young Rabbis from the graduating class of the Hebrew Union College.” They are part of the school’s first graduating class.



1883: It was reported today that Rabbi Kaufmann Kohler opened the exams given to the rabbinical students at HUC by declaring that “Cincinnati had become the center and heart of American Judaism” a fact “he attributed to the great and energetic mind of” Rabbi Isaac Meyer Wise.



1885: It was reported today that after the latest conscription deadline had passed nearly 16,000 Jewish draftees had failed to report for military service. This meant that the Jews had missed their quota by more than 50% of the mandated total.  Jews were not the only ones who avoided serving in a military that was meant to brutalize them and in which there was no opportunity to enter the officer corps.  Bashkirs, Tartars and Mennonites were among other groups who sought to avoid service in the Czars army using such tricks as injuring their fingers and lessening the measurement of their chest since a conscript is rejected if his chest does not measure at least half the length of his stature.



1885: Birthdate of Ernst Bloch. Bloch was a German Marxist. He fled Germany during the 1930’s. When he returned he went to live in East (Communist) Germany. He broke with Communists and defected to West Germany in 1960. Bloch had opposed Herzl and Zionism in the 1960’s he became an outspoken advocate of Israel’s right to exist. He passed away in 1977.



1888: The Executive Board of the Union of Hebrew Congregations held its annual meeting today in Cleveland Ohio simultaneously with the annual meetings of the Board of Trustees and Managers of the Jewish Orphan Asylum and the Montefiore Home for Aged and Infirm Israelites. Eight Governors of Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati were elected by the board including Solomon Simon of New York City.



1888: An “informal reception” was held to honor Rabbi Jacob Charif (Sharp) at his home at 179 Henry Street.  Charif has been to New York from Wilna to serve as the leader for the Orthodox synagogues on the Lower East Side



1889: “Hebrew in Convention” published today described plans for the upcoming meeting of the Council of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations which will be held in Detroit, Michigan.  The council is made up of lay and rabbinical delegates representing organizations with an aggregate membership of almost 600,000 members.



1890(20th of Tammuz, 5650): Fifty two year old Ludwig Chronegk, the stage-manager and "Intendanzrath" of the famous Meininger troupe established at Weimar by Duke George of Meiningen” passed away today at Meiningen.



1891: It was reported today that “nine hundred Jews left Lithuania (Russian Poland) last after refusing…to embrace” the Russian Orthodox religion “as ordered.”



1891: It was officially announced today that the Porte (the government of the Ottoman Empire) will only allow Jews to enter Jerusalem as pilgrims and will not allow them to emigrate there as settlers.



1893: Only 120 of the 800 steerage passengers aboard the tramp steamer Red Sea which is due to arrive in New    York tomorrow are Russian Jews.



1893: Asher Weinstein, a New York real estate man was on board the Cunard steamship Umbria when it left today bound for Liverpool.



1893: Birthdate of FritzPerls father of Gestalt therapy.  He developed his therapy during the 1940’s.  It should not be confused with Gestalt psychology developed during the 19th century.



1894: Solomon Schechter worked “in the library at what was known as the Old Schools” sorting fragments of Hebrew manuscripts that had been found in the Cairo Geniza.



1894: Seventy-one year old German biblical scholar August Dillman who was one of the foremost Old Testament exegetes” passed away



1895: It was reported today that the stepped up enforcement of the Sunday Closing Laws has forced various immigrant groups to take added precautions when selling their wares including the Jewish merchants on the lower east side who operate “sidewalk stands” that sell cigars, cigarettes, crullers, pretzels and candy and who on Sunday “will not sell a stranger a soda water unless he speaks Yiddish.”



1895: It was reported today that 20 year old Alma Mayer who passed away yesterday had taken her own life for reasons unknown after visiting her brother-in-law Carl Sternberg, a New York Broker. The young Jewish girl had been the United States for about a year, living most of that time with an aunt in Nyack, NY.



1895: Lazarus Shapiro presided over a mass meeting of Jews living in the Tenth Ward during which the attendees protested “the failure of the Board of Education to appoint a” Jew “as a School Trustee for the Tenth Ward even though nearly 95 percent of the children attending the schools in that ward” are Jewish.



1895: In New York City, during a public meeting in Irving Hall, Jewish residents of the Tenth Ward protested against the failure of the Board of Education to appoint one of their co-religionists as a School Trustee. The demand was based on the fact that 95 per cent of the students in the ward are Jewish.



1896: Seventy-seven year old Isaac Bramfield who lives at the Hebrew Home on West 105thStreet was wounded in thigh by William Johnson who was trying to shoot William H. Sutton.



1899: The will of David Krakauer was filed for probate in the Surrogate’s today.



1899: The Heine Lorelei Fountain, a mounted dedicated to the memory of Heinrich Heine which is located at the entrance to the Grand Concourse and the Boulevard was dedicated today.



1899: Birthdate of lawyer and public servant, David Lilienthal.  A lawyer by profession, Lilienthal's twin passions were improving the human condition and converting natural resources.  He was able to further both of these when he became the first Chairman of the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) in 1933.  This major power producing and flood control project was the most important thing to improve the lot of a mass of Southerners since the end of the Civil War.  Lilienthal later served as the first chair of the Atomic Energy Commission.  He passed away in 1981.



1899: “Nuremberg” published today provides a review of The Story of Nurembergby Cecil Headlam which described the changing fortunes of the city’s Jews for whom “medicine was originally their chief possession.” “When the Christians were no longer allowed to take interest for money” which had been “the business of the monasteries” the Jews stepped in because they were not prohibited by their laws to engage in such a practice.  As their wealth increased, their neighbors persecuted them, destroyed their houses and “burned” themat the stake.  “In 1499 they were driven from the city” and not allowed to return again until 1850.



1902: Herzl visits Lord James in his quest to gain great power support for a Jewish home in Palestine.



1903(13thof Tammuz, 5663): Fifty-seven year old Esther Hellman Wallenstein the native of Bavaria who was the founding president of the Hebrew Infant Asylum passed away today in New York City.



1903: Herzl writes to Polish author Pauline Korvin-Piatrovska and asks her to intervene for him with the Russians. In the meantime, Wenzel von Plehve, the Russian Minister of the Interior and an anti-Semite calls for the suppression of the Zionist Organization in Russia



1904(25th of Tammuz, 5664): In Georgia, 64 year old Charles Wessolowsky passed away today.



1907: Florenz Ziegfeld staged his first Follies on the roof of the New York Theater in New York City.



1907: Rabbi Joseph H. Stotlz offered the opening prayer at the final session of the 18thannual convention of the Central Conference of American Rabbis at Frankfort, Michigan.



1910: The Queen of Holland appoints Joseph Carasso, Inspector of the Bank of Salonica, to be Consul for Netherlands at Salonica.



1912: Birthdate of Moses M. Weinstein “a Queens Democrat who served in the State Assembly, with stints as majority leader and acting speaker in the 1960s, and nearly two decades as a trial and appellate judge of the State Supreme Court.”



1912: The body of Julia Richman, the prominent New York educator who died unexpectedly while in France arrives in New York aboard the S.S. Lapland and is taken to Temple Ahawath Chesed on Lexington Avenue.



1914: Birthdate of Jacques Torczyner the native of Antwerpt who emigrated to the United States in 1940 before the Nazi invasion of the Low Countries who became a leading member of Zionist Organization of America.



1918: Birthdate of economist and Federal Reserver governor Sherman Joseph Maisel, the Buffalo, NY native and Harvard graduate “whose research on housing markets shaped decades of federal policy on mortgages.’



1922: The Directors of the Young Men’s and Young Women’s Hebrew Association of Camden, NJ chose Dr. M. H. Spare to be directors of the two associations.



1922: Edwin Herbert Samuel, 2nd Viscount Samuel and Hadassah Samuel gave birth to David Herbert Samuel, 3rd Viscount Samuel



1923: Birthdate of Fred Kort, who survived Treblinka to become the founder/CEO of Imperial Toy Corporation and a noted philanthropist who “gave millions to dozens of Jewish causes, including Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, Bar-Ilan University, the Anti-Defamation League and Israel Bonds.”



1926: “Alumni Will Assist in $15,000,000 Campaign for National Farm School” published today described plans to raise funds for the school as part of a five year plan outline by Hebert D. Allman, acting president of the institution. (As reported by JTA)



1927: Birthdate of Esther Frances Masserman, who as the author E.M. Bronera “explored the double marginalization of being Jewish and female, producing a body of fiction and nonfiction that placed her in the vanguard of Jewish feminist letters.” (As reported by Maragalit Fox)
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/23/books/e-m-broner-jewish-feminist-writer-dies-at-83.html?ref=deathsobituaries



1933: Birthdate of comedian and actor Marty Feldman. One of his most memorable films was "Young Frankenstein."



1933:Diego von Bergen, the German Ambassador to the Vatican, sends a telegram to Berlin saying that Vice-Chancellor Franz von Papen and Cardinal Secretary of State Eugenio Pacelli, the future Pope Pius XII, have initialed the Concordat between Nazi Germany and the Vatican. The official signing will not come for another 12 days.  (As reported by Austin Cline)



1934: Birthdate of Marvin Levin, the Chicago native who became a successful developer in Sacramento, CA, where he “alerted the FBI to corruption in the California Legislature in the 1980s and played a pivotal role in the ensuing sting operation.”



1934: Birthdate of English comedic figure Martin Alan “Marty” Feldman



1935: Birthdate of Steve Lawrence. Born Sidney Leibowitz, Lawrence teamed with his wife Edyie Gorme as a popular song and dance team. They were regulars on television variety shows in the 1950’s including Steve Allen and The Tonight Show.



1936: The Palestine Post reported that the High Commissioner, Sir Arthur Wauchope, in his personal, special radio broadcast, condemned all recent crime and violence. Eliahu Said was shot dead on his way to his small tile factory on the outskirts of Tel Aviv. A bomb was thrown at the Neveh Shalom police station. One British officer, a soldier and six policemen were injured in an Arab-set ambush between Tulkarm and Nablus.



1936: The second international conference on Jewish Social Work opens in London



1938: Based on a direct order from Hitler the Great Synagogue in Munich was scheduled to be destroyed today which was German Art Day.  “A few hours before the order was carried out, the heads of the Jewish community were officially given notice of the plans. Many members of the Jewish community worked throughout the night in order to remove the Torah scrolls and ritual objects from the synagogue.The municipality only reimbursed the Jewish community for approximately one seventh of the value of the synagogue and the neighboring Jewish community building.” (As recorded by Yad Vashem)
http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/this_month/april/01.asp



1938: British Marines patrol the streets of Haifa where more than a hundred people have been killed in clashes between Arabs and Jews in the central part of the port city.



1938:La Civilta Cattolica, an official Jesuit publication founded by Pope Pius IX and published under the direct control of the papacy, prints a study on the "question of the Jews in Hungary." The author defends Hungary as "the most solid and indestructible fortress of Christianity" but laments how "disastrous" the presence of Jews has been for "the religious, moral, and social life of the Hungarian people." (As reported by Austin Cline)



1940: Lester Baum, a film technician at Technicolor, and his wife, Nelda, a seamstress at Columbia Pictures gave birth to Richard Baum “who confessed to having no inkling as a Jewish American kid growing up in West Los Angeles that he would become a Sinologist.”



1940(2nd of Tammuz, 5700): David Benvenisti, Sephardic representative of the Tel Aviv Municipal Council, passed away the age of 48. Benvenisti was born in Turkey and had made aliyah from Egypt over 20 years prior. Thousands attended the funeral of this modest man who dedicated his life to public service.



1940: Birthdate of Baruch Arnon, the Yugoslav born American pianist and music teach who taught at the Israel Academy of Music before joining the faculty of the Juilliard School.



1941: As the Wehrmacht conquered the town of Lachwa, a Polish town that had been in the Soviet Occupation Zone, many Jews tried to escape with the retreating Red Army.  Those left behind included Zionist leader Dov Lopatyn and Rabbi Hayyim Zalman Osherowitz who was arrested by the Germans.



1941(13th of Tammuz, 5701): Moses Schorr, Rabbi, Polish historian, politician, Bible scholar, Assyriologist and orientalist died at the NKVD's 5th concentration camp in Posty, Uzbekistan. Rabbi Schorr had fled east to the Soviet Zone to avoid capture by the Nazis.  Instead of freedom, he found himself in the clutches of the Soviet security apparatus.  While his life was a testament to scholarship and community service, his death serves as a reminder that the Jews of Europe died because they really had no place to go.



1941(13th of Tammuz, 5701): The Ponary Executions begin. Hundreds of Jews were taken to the resort of Ponary, stripped of all belongings, marched to the edge of a fire pit and then shot into the pit. Ponary was near Vilna, Lithuania. Over 100,000 Jews were murdered there and buried in pits. In 1943, the SS dug up the pits and burned the bodies in an attempt to hide their crime.



1941: Jews in the Baltic States (Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia) are forced to wear a distinguishing Jewish badge. Within months the Germans and local anti-Semites will murder most of the Baltic countries' Jewish population of one-quarter million.



1941(13th of Tammuz, 5701): Hundreds of Jews are killed at Noua Sulita, Romania



1942: Today’s entry in the diary of Adam Czerniakow, the head of the Judenrate in Warsaw, reflected his understanding of the impending doom facing the Jewish People.



1942: Seven thousand Lvov, Ukraine, Jews are murdered at the labor and extermination camp called Janówska (Ukraine)



1942: Jewish partisan Vitka Kempner and two others leave the Jewish ghetto at Vilna, Lithuania, carrying a land mine with which they hope to disable a German military train on tracks five miles to the southeast.



1943: During World War II when the Red Army was doing most of the fighting against the Wehrmacht “the largest pro-Soviet rally ever in the United States was held today at the Polo Grounds, where 50,000 people listened to Solomon Mikhoels, Itzik Fefer, Fiorello La Guardia, Sholem Asch, and Chairman of World Jewish Congress Rabbi Stephen Wise.



1944:  Between July 8 and July 13, Red Army troops and Jewish partisans kill about 8000 German soldiers at Vilna.  The Soviet forces were commanded by Colonel General I.D. Cherniakhovsky, reportedly the youngest of the leading Russian generals.  When “asked if he was a Jew, Cherniakhovsky said, ‘My parents were.’”



1944(17th of Tammuz, 5704): In France, Marianne Cohn was killed along with five non-Jewish resistance fighters who were trying to escort a group of Jewish children to safety.



1944: Liquidation of the Kovno Ghetto



1944: There was a temporary halt to the deportation of the Hungarian Jews. By now some 437,000 Hungarian Jews had been deported. Another 170,000 still remained. Adolph Eichmann had other plans for them



1947: Doctor Chaim Weizmann appeared before the United Nations Special committee on Palestine.  In answering the question as to why the Jewish home had to be in Eretz-Israel, Weizmann.  He attributed the responsibility to Moses, “who acted from divine inspiration.  He might have brought us to the United States, and instead of the Jordan we might have had the Mississippi.  It would have been an easier task.  He chose to stop here.  We are an ancient people with an old history, and you cannot deny your history and begin afresh.



1948: With the reluctant approval of the General Staff, the order was given to abandon Kfar Darom.  The Israelis conducted the evacuation under the cover of darkness carrying their weapons and two Torah Scrolls after having destroyed the supplies and equipment they could not carry



1948: During the War of Independence, the First Truce comes to an end a day earlier than planned when Egyptian forces begin their attacks in the Negev.



1948: Operation Dekel began today with the 7th Armored Brigade under the command of Canadian volunteer Ben Dunkelman in the lead.



1948: Today marks the first day in the Battles of Ten Days during which the Golani Brigade “managed to repel the Arab Liberation Army attack on Sejera from Lubya, and helped capture Nazareth and eventually Lubya in Operation Dekel.”



1948: For the fifth time, Israeli forces attacked the Egyptian-held police fort of Iraq Suwaydan



1950: In Tel Aviv, Jaffa and Haifa, Leftists, including Communists and members of Mapam marched in protest against the government’s policy regarding fighting in Korea.



1951: Journalist Anthony Lewis married dancer Linda J. Rannells.



1951, The Jerusalem Post reported that the Foreign Minister Moshe Sharett made his first official visit to Nazareth. The State of Israel, Sharett told some 5,000 Arabs at an outdoor assembly, first in Hebrew and then in Arabic, considered Nazareth a valuable trust. He blamed the Arab states for failing to negotiate a final peace with Israel.



1954: Birthdate of David Aaronovitch a regular columnist for The Times, and author of Paddling to Jerusalem: An Aquatic Tour of Our Small Countryand Voodoo Histories: the role of Conspiracy Theory in Modern History He won the George Orwell Prize for political journalism in 2001, and the What the Papers Say "Columnist of the Year" award for 2003.



1967: During what became the War of Attrition, “an Egyptian Air Force MiG-21 is shot down by Israeli air defenses while on a reconnaissance mission over el-Qanatra. Two Su-7s equipped with cameras are then sent out to carry out the mission, and manage to complete several turns over Sinai without any opposition. Two other Su-7s are sent for another reconnaissance mission hours later, but are attacked by Israeli Air Force fighter jets. One Su-7 is shot down”



1973(8th of Tammuz, 5733): Ben-Zion Dinur, a Russian born Zionist activist, educator, historian and Israeli politician who had made Aliyah in 1921 passed away.
http://www.knesset.gov.il/mk/eng/mk_eng.asp?mk_individual_id_t=363



1974(18thof Tammuz, 5734): Forty-five year old Mark “Moose” Charlap, the native Philadelphian who composed the music for several Broadway hits, most notably “Peter Pan”, passed away today.



1976: Chaim Herzog, Israel’s chief delegate to the UN met with Secretary Kurt Waldheim today after Waldheim issued a statement calling on the world community “to act urgently against ‘increasingly pervasive and pernicious practice of terrorism.’”  The statement was only issued after Waldheim had been criticized by the United States for describing the raid on Entebbe as a “serious violation of the sovereignty of Uganda” without making reference to the hostages facing death at the hands of their captors who had been welcomed by the Ugandans.



1976: The Jerusalem Post reported that for the sixth successive month this year, Israel's exports exceeded the official target by 20 percent. Israel's foreign currency reserves increased by $11m., reaching $1,034m., a sign of the positive trend in Israel's trade.



1976: The Jerusalem Post reported that a facsimile edition of the Aleppo Codex - the oldest complete manuscript of the Hebrew Bible - was unveiled to the press in Jerusalem. The Aleppo-Codex was written in Palestine in the early tenth century. It is the earliest known Hebrew manuscript comprising the full text of the Tanach. The Codex was taken to Egypt in the eleventh century and then to the Syrian city of Aleppo (hence its name) in the fourteenth century. The Codex was moved to its final, permanent home in Jerusalem in 1958.



1980: The Eldridge Street Synagogue was designated as a New York City Landmark.



1981(6thof Tammuz, 5741): Seventy-nine year old American artist Isaac Soyer, the younger brother of Moses and Raphael Soyer passed away today.
http://www.nytimes.com/1981/07/16/obituaries/isaac-soyer-a-painter-of-the-american-scene.html



1986: Kurt Waldheim was inaugurated as President of Austria despite controversy over his service in the Nazi Army during World War II.  Waldheim had already served as Secretary-General of the U.N.  His Nazi past increased a growing antipathy among some Jews for the international body.



1986(1stof Tammuz, 5746): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz



1996: Ariel Sharon succeeded Yitzhak Levy as Minister of National Infrastructure.



1997: Sivan Shalom began serving as Deputy Minister of Defense.



1999:The Israeli Supreme Court ruled 2-1 that Israeli citizens can choose either secular or religious dates for their tombstones, thus limiting the power of Orthodox rabbis. Chief Justice Aharon Barak writes:"If, in this non-theocratic state, the court fails to set the limits of religious freedom, we will be totally neglecting the feelings of the population"

2001: “Barenboim plays Wagner Some Israeli listeners protest; most applaud” published today described the reaction to conductor Daniel Barneboim’s decision to play music by Wagner at the Israel Festival  for which he received “a standing ovation from most of the audience, but angry shouts from a vocal minority.”



2003: Wikipedia, the informational website, introduced its Hebrew language version.



2004(19th of Tammuz, 5764): Seventy-seven year old Rabbi Albert Hoschander Friedlander passed away. Born in Germany his family escaped to Cuba before finally settling in Vicksburg, MS.  After graduating from the University of Chicago and the Hebrew Union College he carved out a career as a leader of the Reform Movement who championed Civil Rights and inter-faith activities that would improve relations between Christians and Jews.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/2004/jul/13/guardianobituaries.germany



2006: Andy Ram became the first Israeli to win a grand slam tennis title when he partnered Russia's Vera Zvonareva to win the Wimbledon mixed doubles crown.



2007: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including More Sex Is Safer Sex: The Unconventional Wisdom of Economics by Steven E. Landsburg, the Jewish economics professor who also wrote Why Jews Don’t Farm and The Last Novel by David Markson which In rhythm and tonality, if not in content, hints at the incantations of the Kaddish. 



2007:TheMarker newspaper won the Platinum Award for the most effective advertising or marketing campaign at the 2007 Effie Awards in Israel. TheMarkerwon the advertising "Oscar" for its campaign marketing the business daily as the strongest financial brand in Israel. The Effie Awards is an annual competition that recognizes the year's best advertisements and marketing campaigns, and is held in over 34 countries around the world.

2008:  In Israel, an International Conference on the Dead Scrolls comes to an end.



2008: Ryan “Braun hit his 56th home run in his 200th game, the third-highest total ever in a major leaguer's initial 200 games.”



2008: The New York Times describes the release of the DVD version “Hill 24 Doesn’t Answer.”



Among the first features produced in the State of Israel, “Hill 24 Doesn’t Answer” was also the last film to be directed by Thorold Dickinson, a British director best known for the gothic thrillers “Gaslight” (1940) and “The Queen of Spades” (1949). “Hill 24,” released in 1955, has no obvious gothic elements but manages to be just as claustrophobic and doom-laden as Dickinson’s more famous films. Dickinson begins with a series of shots of bodies face down in the dust, suggesting that all will not turn out well. Then he shifts into a complex flashback structure, as three members of a small Israeli unit trying to claim a hill overlooking Jerusalem in the last days of the 1947 conflict recount how they came to be there. A former British officer (Edward Mulhare) is drawn to the Israeli cause by his infatuation with a beautiful student (Haya Harareet); an American tourist (Michael Wager) becomes obsessed with visiting the Old City of Jerusalem; an Israeli officer (Arich Lavi) finds himself face to face with a former German soldier fighting on the Palestinian side. If the film was meant as propaganda, it’s of a particularly perverse kind: there are no calls to glory, no heroic exploits to invite imitation, only the spectacle of a few individuals acting on a sense of personal obligation with little expectation of success. Dickinson stages much of the action at night, and the Israeli raid on the Old City becomes a study in combat noir, exploring all the expressionist possibilities of Jerusalem’s narrow streets and vertiginous drop-offs.



2009: In Jerusalem, The Sala Manca Group presents a program entitled “Köken Ergun : 3 Films, Projects and Talk” in which the Istanbul born video artist shows three of his works “I, Soldier,” "Tanklove,” and "Wedding” and then talks about his research and project at Betselem archives, and how those materials relate to his own work.



2010: Samuel Estreicher is scheduled to discuss an amicus brief he filed on behalf of the American Jewish Committee, et al., in the Christian Legal Society v. Martinez Supreme Court case, involving competing values of non-discrimination and freedom of association and the international law aspects of the Gaza blockade at noon time meeting sponsored by The DC Hadassah Attorneys' Council 



 2010: Brandeis University today named Frederick M. Lawrence, dean of George Washington Law School and a former Boston University law professor, as its eighth president. Lawrence, a prominent civil rights scholar who once headed the national legal affairs committee of the Anti-Defamation League, will succeed long-time president Jehuda Reinharz in January when he steps down after 16 years to lead a Jewish foundation focused on leadership education.



2011: Massada College, which was founded in Adelaide in 1975, and is the only Jewish school in South Australia, is scheduled to cease operating today.



2011: Dan Shapiro was sworn in as U.S. Ambassador to Israel by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton today. (As reported by Jewish Virtual Library)



2011: Jennifer Chaddick and her family are scheduled to participate in Shabbat Eve services at Temple Judah as part of her Bat Mitzvah weekend.



2011: The Israeli trade office in Taiwan said today that it had accepted Taiwan's apology for photos on a government website showing students in Nazi uniforms. "I really appreciate the mature and responsible reactions by the authorities of Taiwan," said Simona Halperin, head of the Israel Economic and Cultural Office.

2011: Police diverted two passenger aircraft that landed at Ben-Gurion International Airport today and detained at least 250 suspected pro-Palestinian activists that landed at the airport for questioning.

2012: The New York Timesfeatures reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Superman, Larry Tye’s definitive work about the comic book creation of Cleveland Jews Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster and  the recently released paperback edition of Reckless Endangerment: How Outsized Ambition, Greed, and Corruption Created the Worst Financial Crisis of Our Time by Gretchen Morgenson and Joshua Rosner



2012: “This History of Invulnerability” by David Bar Katz is scheduled to have its final performance at Theatre J-DCJC.



2012: The Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center and the Chicago Yivo Society are scheduled to co-host the Second Annual Sarah Lazarus Memorial Concert.



2012: The State Attorney’s Office will reportedly close the case against former Military Intelligence chief Eli Zeira, who was accused of revealing the identity of Mossad agent Ashraf Marwan during the Yom Kippur War, Channel 2 reported today.



2012: Hamas continues to believe in armed resistance against Israel, a movement spokesman said today, contradicting a statement by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas over the weekend that the Islamic organization prefers non-violent means to combat Israel.

2013: “Wild West Hebron” is among the films scheduled to be shown today at the 30thJerusalem Film Festival.



2013: The government's haredi enlistment bill will be enacted as early as August, Finance Minister Yair Lapid announced today, but more experienced coalition sources doubted he will be able to keep his promise.



2013:An incident of vandalism carried out by a Muslim student at the University of Duisburg-Essen triggered sharp criticism today over the lack of public and university opprobrium toward the apparent criminal act



2014: The 92ndStreet Y is scheduled to host a lecture by Ruth Feldstein entitled “Black Women Entertainers and the Civil Rights Movement.”



2014: The Historic 6th& I Synagogue is scheduled to host Jewish Meditation Sangha.

This Day, July 9, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. Levin

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July 9



118: Hadrian, Rome's new emperor, made his entry into the Imperial City. Regardless of how history remembers him, for Jews, Hadrian is the Emperor who helped to start the Third Rebellion against Rome. In this case it was the lead by Bar Kochba and supported by Rabbi Akiva. It lasted from 132 until 135. It was the last uprising against Rome and really marked the beginning of the end of a vital Jewish community in Palestine.



425: A decree of the emperors Theodosius II and Valentinian III, addressed to Amatius, prefect of Gaul prohibited Jews and pagans from practising law and from holding public offices ("militandi"), in order that Christians should not be in subjection to them, and thus be incited to change their faith.



491: Anastasius I begins his reign as the Byzantine Emperor. The reign of Anastasius marked the renewal of warfare with the Sassanid Empire.  The Sassanid Empire was the name given to the Persian Empire of the day.  This renewal of warfare would have a negative impact on the Jews who ruled the island of Yotabe also known as Tiran, which is in the straits of Tiran.  The Jews of Yotabe played an instrumental role in the trade along the Red Sea and when the Byzantines sought to move East to take control of this trade and defeat the Sassanids, they would replace the Jewish leaders with their own people.


507: At Daphne (near Antioch in Syria), a sporting event was held in the form of a chariot race between two parties, the Greens and the Whites. For no apparent reason, the supporters of the greens attacked the local synagogue killing those Jews who were inside.



518: Byzantine Emperor Anastasius I, whose war with the Sassanid Empire doomed the Red Sea trading activities of the Jews of Yotabe, passed away today.



721: The Franks defeat the Muslims at the Battle of Toulouse.  This victory checks the spread of Islam in western Europe which will be confined to Spain.  This will not be the last battle between these forces. That will be left to Charles Martel who lead the Franks at the Battle of Tours eleven years later.



1391: Violence in Valencia, Spain that had begun a month earlier under the direction Ferrand Martinez continued unabated. Ferrand Martinez was the Archdeacon of Ecija in the fourteenth century, and one of the most inveterate enemies of the Jewish people. Among Christians he was highly respected for his piety and philanthropy. In his sermons and public discourses he continually fanned the hatred of the Christian population against the Jews, to whom he ascribed all sorts of vices. As vicar-general of Archbishop Barroso of Seville he arrogated to himself the right of jurisdiction over the Jews in his diocese, injuring them wherever he could, and demanding that the magistrates of Alcalá de Guadeyra, Ecija, and other places no longer suffer the Jews among them.The community of Valencia was destroyed and 250 Jews massacred. Many others including the king's physician converted to Christianity while still others found refuge in the houses of their Christian neighbors.



 1391:  A rabbi's personal letter written in Saragossa, Spain on this date is one of the few firsthand accounts of the total chaos in Spain: "If I were to tell you here all the numerous sufferings we have endured you would be dumbfounded at the thought of them…On the day of the New Moon of the fateful month Tammuz in the year 5151, the Lord bent the bow of the enemies against the populous community of Seville where there were between 6,000-7,000 heads of families, and they destroyed the gates by fire and killed in that very place a great number of people; the majority, however, changed their faith.



1667(17thof Tammuz, 5427):Joseph Athias’ father Abraham Athias, a Marrano Jew, was burnt at the stake together with the Marranos Jacob Rodríguez Cáceres and Raquel Nuñez Fernández in Córdoba by the Spanish Inquisition



1713:Lourença Coutinho the mother of Portugese dramatist António José da Silva who was known as “O Judeu” or “The Jew” died today in today’s the auto-da-fé



1730(24h of Tammuz, 5490): Sixty-nine year old Issachar Berend Lehman, one of the leading court Jews of the 16th and 17th century who used the influence he gained with various German princes due to his business acumen to better the lot of his coreligionists.



1733: Abigaill Levy Franks, the most noted of American Jewish colonial letter writers, wrote her son Naphtali, admonishing him to eat nothing but "bread & butter" wherever food preparation was "not done after our Strict Juidacall [kosher] method."



1749(23rdof Tammuz, 5509):Ezekiel Katzenellenbogen ben Abraham passed away. Born in Lithuania was a Polish-German rabbi who served the communities at Kėdainiai (Keidani) and Altona.



1754: During the French and Indian War, the name of Michael Franks, a member of the Jewish family that supplied soldiers in this and the Revolutionary War, appeared as a private in a roster of created today by Captain van Braam.



1765:Samuel Israel, Alexander Solomon, and Joseph Depalacios, three Sephardim who were the first Jews in Alabama bought property today in Mobile County.



1797: Edmund Burke, British philosopher and statesman, passed away.  Burke is the author of the quote “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”  This quote has often been used by commentators and historians in attempts to explain the Holocaust.



1816:  Argentina declares independence from Spain. The first Jews probably came to Argentina as conversos following the Spanish Inquisition.  Bernardino Rivadavia, Argentina’s first president gave support to policies that promoted freedom of immigration and respect for human rights, including the abolishing of the Inquisition. These changes in the social and political climate paved the way for a new wave of Jewish immigration.



1825: Birthdate of Hamburg native, Julius Oppert, who eventually settled in France where he gained fame as an Assyriologist.


1835: The dedicatory date on the tombstone of Mrs. Shoshan Levi in The Penang Jewish Cemetery.



1845: In London, Dr. Nathan Marcus Adler “was inaugurated as Chief Rabbi of the Great Synagogue.”



1846: The chief rabbis of Baghdad announced a curse (Herem) on the Christian missionaries who had come to convert the Jews in their community.



1847: “The Jewish Chronicle” went from being published every two weeks to being published as a weekly.



1850:  President Zachary Taylor dies and Millard Fillmore becomes the 13th President of the United States.  Millard Fillmore is one the lesser known U.S. Presidents.  But he played a major role in furthering the acceptance of Jews as full citizens of the United States.  In 1851, the United States Senate considered a treaty with Switzerland.  The treaty included a clause that would the governments of the individual Swiss Cantons to treat U.S. citizens in the same way they treated their own citizens.  Some of the cantons had laws that discriminated against Jews.  Ratification of the treaty would have meant that American citizens could be treated differently based on their religion.   Fillmore declared that part of the treat to be “a decisive objection.  In leading the successful opposition to the treaty Fillmore declared that “neither by law, nor by treaty, nor by any other official proceeding is it competent for the Government of the United States to establish any distinction between its citizens founded on differences in religious beliefs.”



1850:A major fire struck Philadelphia in which “many Israelites shared in the same calamity, which overwhelmed their neighbors.” Among the dead were two or three members of the Marcus family including the eldest son and daughter. At least one other Israelite was reported as being “severely wounded.”


1856: In Philadelphia, Meyer Guggenheim and his wife gave  birth industrialist and philanthropist Daniel Guggenheim.


1858:  Birthdate of Franz Boas, “the Father of American Anthropology.”



1862: The Jew's Hospital is reported to be one of the places to which those wounded on the battle fields of the Peninsula are being brought.



1871(20thof Tammuz, 5631): Sixty-six year old Lelio Hillel Della Torre, the Italian rabbi who was the sone of Solomon Jehiel Raphael ha-Kohen passed away today in Padua.
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0005_0_05060.html



1873: In Cincinnati, Ohio, a conference of Jewish leaders formed the Union of American Hebrew Congregations and adopted a constitution for the organization.  The Union is committed to establishing a theological college.  Membership in the Union is open to all Jewish congregations in the United States.



1875: In New York, Judge Richard Larremore denied the motion for a permanent injunction sought by Israel J. Solomon in which the plaintiff sought to enjoin the trustees of B’Nai Jeshrun from making “innovations in the mode of worship.”  Specifically, he sought to prevent the congregation from putting an end to separate seating for men and women which would mean that families could sit together.  He claimed that “the proposed mingling of the sexes” would in violation of the charter” of the synagogues “and the ancient custom of Polish and German Jews.”  He also claimed that the change violated “his rights as a pew owner” and was conducive to immorality. Essentially, the Judge ruled that the matter at hand was, as a matter of law, to be decided by the religious authorities and not the civil courts.



1877: Henry Hilton wrote a letter to a friend of his in Chicago defending his decision to ban Jews as guest at the Grand Union Hotel in Saratoga Springs, NY.  Hilton said that he had expected some “adverse criticism” when he made the decision.  The new hotel had been completed at great expense and if he did not ban Jews, he would lose “other and more valuable guests.” He did not fear a boycott of his businesses by the Jews and said that if the reverse were done the Jews would be the ultimate losers.  As far as Hilton knew, the law allowed an owner to ban whomsoever he wished notwithstanding all of the objections from “Moses and all his descendants.”



1879: Delegates to the Sixth Council of the Union of American and Hebrew Congregations enjoy an excursion to Manhattan Beach



1879: The Sixth Council of the Union of American and Hebrew Congregations met this morning at 9 for it second and final day.  After approving committee reports, the council voted to meet again on the second Tuesday of July 1881 in Chicago, Illinois.



1881: “Old Indigo and the New” published today provided a history of this ancient material which “the Jews first introduced into Europe as dye during the Middle Ages.”  The Jews “practiced the art of dyeing with” indigo “and other coloring matters on the shores of the Levant.”



1882: In “A Plea for the Egyptians” published today, Simon Wolf, the American Jew who has been serving as the United States Consul-General in Egypt summaries his view of the current situation in Egypt.  After describing the divisions within the society and presenting a socio-economic snapshot of the country, he reports the desire of the local population to be free of the Ottomans but not at the expense of taking on a European yoke.  He sees the British as the greatest threat to progress and independence and expresses the view that America should support the Egyptians in their attempts to modernize their society. [Note – In tone and in some case in fact, one can see a prequel of descriptions and aspirations tied to the 21st century Arab Spring.]



1882: Birthdate of Samuel Lionel "Roxy" Rothafel, the native of Stillwater, MN, “a showman of the 1920s silent film era and the impresario for many of the great New York movie palaces that he managed such as the Strand, Rialto, Rivoli, Capitol, the eponymous Roxy Theatre in New York City and the Radio City Music Hall.  He passed away in 1936.



1883: The funeral of Joseph Reckendorfer is scheduled to take place at his home in New York City. Reckendorfer was a prominent member of the Jewish community as can be seen by the notices requesting members of Temple Emanu-El, members of the Board of Relief of the United Hebrew Charities and the Directors of the Hebrew Orphan Asylum to attend the funeral.  His success in the world of commerce can be seen by a similar request to members and officers of the Stationer’s Board of Trade. Reckendorfer will be remembered by his associates as the man who bought Hyman Lipman’s patent  for attaching an eraser to the end of pencil in 1862 for $100,000 only to have the Supreme Court declare the patent invalid in a case in 185 involving Faber Castell.



 1884: “Destruction of the Judengasse” published today informed those planning to visit Frankfort this summer that one of the sights described in their guide books – the Judengasse – will have disappeared by the time they arrive in the German city. The Judgengasse (Jew’s Alley) was the ghetto established for the Jews in the 15th century. In 1808 the gates that had locked the Jews in were removed and most of them have moved to other parts of the city.  Only houses on one side of the “alley” are left and they will soon be demolished.



1885: It was reported today that the first excursion the for poor children and their mothers sponsored by the Sanitarium for Hebrew Children has been scheduled for next week.



1885: “Jews of the Northern Caucasus” published today provided an account of Dag Chufut or Mountain Jews who live in several communities “in the provinces of Daghestan, Terek and Kouban.  Numbering about 500 families they claim to be descendants of Persian families who came here in the 15th century because the local princes wished to exploit their commercial skills.  They speak the local dialects but write in Farsi, the language in which their Talmud is written.  Religion is the only thing that they have in common with Jews living in the eastern part of the Russian Empire and they look to their own rabbis for spiritual guidance.

1885: Josef Ahondorowsky, his wife and six children are scheduled to sail back to Russia on board the State of Indiana today.  This Jewish family arrived on July 2 claiming that their passage had been paid for by the Hebrew Aid Society of Paris while admitting that they had no money. 



1887: “Squelching Rabbi Browne” published today described some of the embarrassing antics of Rabbi E.B.M. Browne that included publicly proclaiming himself to be the “Modern Maccabee” and the “Jewish Beecher” and his role in defending convicted wife killer Adolf Reich. He earned further disdain for attempting to play a role in the funeral of the later President Grant.  He insisted that as an Orthodox Jew he would have to walk to the cemetery because the funeral was held on Shabbat.  Apparently he assumed everybody was ignorant of the fact that Jews do not attend funerals on the Sabbath.  The dwindling number of congregants at Gates of Hope was the final blow to his remaining as leader of the congregation.



1888(1st of Av, 5648) Rosh Chodesh Av



1888: It was reported today that a Bet Din consisting of 4 rabbis and led by Rabbi Jacob Charif will meet twice a week to render opinions related to Jewish law. However, Charif, the newly arrived Orthodox Rabbi who was brought to the United States to lead the primarily immigrant community of Jews living on the lower East Side has not made up his mind if he will remain in the United States or return to Vilna.



1889: The Council of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations will assemble in Detroit today and continue in session for three days. Among the many prominent Jewish leaders attending, none will garner more attention than Rabbi Isaac Meyer Wise, the President of the Hebrew Union College whose recent 70thbirthday was the cause for nationwide celebration among his Reform colleagues and other supporters.



1889: Thanks to “the efforts of the Reformed or Liberal branch of the Jewish teachers: the Central Conference of American rabbis was organized today in Detroit Michigan.



1889: Mr. Robert  Bongynge said today that regardless of what the Board of Trustees of the Harlem Club might do, he was sure that if a could be taken among the general membership could be taken Senator Jacob A. Cantor would be admitted as a member regardless of the fact that he was Jewish



1890: Daniel Froman, the manager of the Lyceum Theatre arrived in New York City today and went immediately to his country home in Stamford, CT.



1890)21stof Tammuz, 5650): Sixty-five year old German Rabbi Immanuel Heinrich Ritter passed away today in Bohemia.



1890: “Arthur Dale Chairman of the Joint Board of Cutters, tailors and contractors received a letter from the United Hebrew Charities signed by James H. Hoffman, Hyman Blum and M.W. Platzek, stating that it was their duty to assist in settling the difficulty, and that they would be pleased to meet Mr. Dale or other gentlemen who represent the interest of the working people that are affected and discuss the situation with the view of arriving at a satisfactory understanding.”



1891: “A Home For The Jews” published today described a meeting “held at Lemberg, the capital of Galacia between Arnold White representing Baron Hirsch, Herr Franzos representing the Jews of Berlin, and Dr. Karunda” representing the Jews of Vienna where the trio agreed that it would be best to direct Jews fleeing Europe to settlements in Argentina especially since no plans can be developed for settling Jews in Palestine.



1891: It was reported today that committees have been formed at Odessa and other ports throughout Europe to help Jews reach Argentina.


1891: “The compilation of immigration statistics for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1891 was completed today” showing “that during the period 405, 654 immigrants” landed at New York, 33,504 of whom were from Russia and “the majority of them were Jews.”


1891: Charles Stern, a New York peddler who went to Brazil claiming to be a farmer, wrote a letter complaining that the government had not given him farm but had put him to work on railroad construction “compelling him to work like a slave.”


1892: In New York all of the delegates attending the annual convention of American rabbis went to Sabbath services this morning at Temple Beth-El.


1893: The SS Red Seawhich is scheduled to arrive in New York today with 800 immigrants in steerage including 120 Russian Jews will be met by immigration officials to ensure the passengers meet the financial requirements for coming to the United States.  Officials are trying to discourage the trafficking in indigent immigrants that owners of tramp steamers have been engaging in.


1894: Twice as many mothers are expected to attend today’s lecture on the care and feeding of children during warm weather being held at the Hebrew Institute than attended the first such lecture.


1895: It was reported today that Dr. Max Landsberg is scheduled to deliver the welcoming address at the upcoming annual Central Conference of American Rabbis which will be held at Rochester, NY.


1895: Judge Stover has vacated the order he had issued to allow the District Attorney to exhume the body of the late Mrs. Wolf Silverman because the insurance company thought her death was suspicious.  The judge said that if the insurance company had any proof to back up their allegations about her husband they should submit them to the District Attorney.


1895: “Hebrews Want Representation” published today described efforts of the Jews to have one of their co-religionist appointed as a School Trustee of Tenth Ward where 95% of the students are Jews. Nathan Shevy, a New York lawyer, has proposed that Trustee position held by Charles B. Stover be declared vacant since he has not attended a meeting for  seven months and that he be replaced by a Jew.  The only Jew who had been a Trustee was not reappointed and currently all of the Trustees are Christians.


1896: William Jennings Bryan gave his “Cross of Gold Speech” at the Democratic National Convention.


1896: It was reported today that Lord Rosebery’s marriage to “a wealthy Jewess at time when his finances were at the lowest ebb…was sufficient to spoil his chances with the working classes” which has sealed his political doom.


1896: In the trial of Adolph Herschkopf for the murder of Lizzie Jaeger, the prosecution rested today.



1899:Police made renewed efforts today in Worcester, MA, to enforce the blue laws related to Sunday closings following a demand by Jewish merchants who had been targeted by the police for selling merchandize on “the Sabbath.”


1899: The list of bequests made by the late David Krakauer published today included $1,000 to the Montefiore Home and the Hebrew Sheltering Orphan Asylum; $2,000 for Mount Sinai Hospital; and $500 to the Home for Aged and Infirm Hebrews and the United Hebrew Charities.


1900: Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom gives royal assent to an act creating the Commonwealth of Australia thus uniting separate colonies on the continent under on891: e federal government. The first Jews arrived in Australia, in 1788 when European convicts settled in what was to become the city of Sydney.  Jews played an active role in the growth and development of the various colonies that would make up the CommonHealth of Australia.  Members of Montefiore family, which was part of the clan headed by Sir Moses Montefiore the famed philanthropist and businessman, developed several commercial ventures and held numerous public positions during this time. The township of Montefiore stands as a testament to the family’s active role in the development of Australia and its Jewish community.



1901: According to reports published in the New York Times, Montefiore Isaacs, the nephew of the late Sir Moses Montefiore, is one of the most popular bachelors who belong to the posh Metropolitan Club.  Among other things, Montefiore is famous for his skills as a magician; skills which he has used in “thousands of performances” given for a wide variety of charities.  He is also a well regarded for his knowledge of Shakespeare and his collection of very rare books.



1902: Another interview with Lord Rothschild takes place during which Herzl submits the details of Colonization Company for the development of Sinai, El Arish and Cyprus. Rothschild promises to discuss the plan with the British Minister for the Colonies, Joseph Chamberlain.



1904: The National Democratic Convention which Samuel Untermyer attended as a delegate from New York and nominated Alton B. Parker to run against Socialist Eugene Debs and Republican Theodore Roosevelt came to a close. In the fall, in New York’s 8th Assembly District on the Lower East Side which was dominated by Jewish voters, “Democrat Alton B. Parker crushed Socialist Debs by nearly 3 to 1, but the “all-American” Republican, Theodore Roosevelt, beat them both and easily swept the neighborhood.” (As reported by Michael Medved)



1909: The Jews of Persia take refuge inside the Turkish consulate during a revolt. They appeal to the Hahambashi of Turkey to help them become Ottoman subjects.



1909: In Daruvar,  Rebekka (née Figel) Frankfurter and Rabbi Mavro Frankfurter  gave birth to David Franfkfurter who assassinated German NSDAP leader Wilhelm Gustloff



1913: Birthdate of Rabbi Sándor Scheiber, the director of the Rabbinical Seminary in Budapest.



1915: Charles Edward Sebag-Montefiore and Muriel Alice Ruth de Pass gave birth to Lt.Col. Oliver Robert Marne Sebag-Montefiore who passed away in October, 1993.



1915: Birthdate of American composer David Leo Diamond who for more than five decades figured prominently among mainstream American composers. Born in Rochester, New York, to Yiddish-speaking immigrant parents from the area around Lemberg, Galicia (now Ukraine), he received a typical Jewish religious education in the local afternoon Hebrew school. At the age of seven he displayed musical gifts on the violin, which he learned to play initially on his own, and he began composing small pieces while still a child—also without formal instruction. There followed violin lessons at public grammar school and, briefly, while his family was in temporary residence in Cleveland, Ohio, during the 1920s, some studies at the Cleveland Institute of Music. Later, he was awarded a scholarship at the Eastman School of Music, in Rochester, where he studied with Bernard Rogers. The premiere of his first orchestral work, a one-movement symphony, was conducted by Eastman's resident composer and composition department chairman, Howard Hanson. As a student in Rochester, Diamond was fascinated by the cantorial art he heard in the local synagogue and at concerts given by visiting cantorial celebrities—especially, as he could still recall more than seven decades later, the famous Yossele Rosenblatt (1882–1933). Diamond also developed an intellectual interest in Jewish music history, acquainting himself with much of the available literature. During his studies with Rogers, he began writing short pieces that incorporated Jewish themes and modes. Before completing the course at Eastman, however, Diamond left for New York City, where he became a pupil of Roger Sessions and studied at the Dalcroze Institute. Sessions, like Rogers, had been a student of Ernest Bloch, and Diamond always felt that this provided him an indirect yet significant influence of that acknowledged 20th-century master. Shortly after arriving in New York, Diamond introduced himself to Lazare Saminsky then the music director at Temple Emanu-El, the city's flagship Reform congregation. Saminsky, an established and respected composer in the general music world who was also one of the major personalities on the American Jewish music scene, took an interest in the young composer's gifts and became something of a patron. He invited Diamond to write various liturgical settings for Emanu-El's services, and Diamond continued on his own to add to that repertoire. Saminsky's encouragement proved significant on several levels: "It was really Mr. Saminsky who got me writing more and more," Diamond later acknowledged. In those initial New York years Saminsky also introduced him to the highly regarded and well-established American born composer, the first composition professor at The Juilliard School, Frederick Jacobi (1891–1952), who, like Diamond, included Judaically related works among his overall opera. Jacobi quietly organized some private financial assistance for Diamond to help him continue his studies and pursue his artistic goals.



1915: Having just returned from a tour of the Western Front, Chief Rabbi Joseph Herman Hertz and Rabbi Michael Adler, Senior Chaplin for the Jewish soldiers serving in the field, reported on the conditions of the Jewish troops serving on activity duty.  Based on published figures, of the 200,000 Jews living in the British Isles, 20,000 are serving on active duty and another 5,000 are in training units. Actually, there may be more Jews serving than this tally indicates.  When many Jews were enlisting in the early days of the war, they neglected to indicate their religion, so they were automatically labeled as Church of England.  The two clerics quoted Field Marshall Sir John French as paying the highest possible tribute to the bravery and patriotism of the Jewish soldiers serving in his command. The enthusiastic response of the Jews is attributed to the treatment they have received as citizens of the British Empire.  Rabbis of fighting age are serving in the ranks and the sons of Rabbis who are of military age have almost all enlisted. The sons of the rich and powerful are well-represented as can be seen by the names of Montefiore, Rothschild and Henriques.  In addition to the males serving at the front, hundreds of Jewish women are serving as Red Cross nurses both on the Western Front and on the home front.



1918: By direction of the President, under the provisions of the act of Congress approved today (Bul. No. 43, W.D., 1918), Private Lester Bergman (MCSN: 158340/117036), United States Marine Corps, is cited by the Commanding General, American Expeditionary Forces, for gallantry in action and a silver star may be placed upon the ribbon of the Victory Medals awarded him. Private Bergman distinguished himself by gallantry in action while serving with Company E, 5th Regiment (Marines), 2d Division, American Expeditionary Forces, in action in the Bois de Belleau, France, 13 June 1918, in attacking, with eight comrades, an enemy machine gun nest.



1919: By a vote of 209 to 16 the German National Assembly ratified the Versailles Treaty which the Nazis would use as part of their drive to power.



1920: Birthdate of Zalman Lev Steinberg, the Moscow native who as Leo Steinberg became “one of the most brilliant, influential and controversial art historians of the last half of the 20th century.”



1922: The Philadelphia Inquirer described the career of Dr. M. H. Spare who had “directed the erection of a $35,000 building” to serve the needs of the Jewish community of Chester, PA.



1926: Birthdate of Dr. Mathilde Krim, scientist and AIDS activist. She recognized soon after the first cases of acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) were reported in 1981 that this new disease raised grave scientific and medical questions and that it might have important socio-political consequences. She dedicated herself to increasing the public's awareness of AIDS and to a better understanding of its cause, its modes of transmission, and its epidemiologic pattern. . It was during her doctoral studies that Krim converted to Judaism, inspired in part by learning the truth about the Holocaust and in part by her association with Jews from Israel (then Palestine) who were studying at the University. In 1953, Krim moved with her husband and daughter to Israel, where she found a position at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot. At Weizmann, she contributed to studies that laid the foundation for amniocentesis, became one of the first experts in culturing cells, and studied the viruses thought to cause some forms of cancer. After moving to New York 1958, she joined the research faculty at Cornell Medical College and later at Sloan-Kettering Institute for Cancer Research. For many years, she was deeply involved in the study of interferons, natural substances that were considered promising for the treatment of cancer. Just as the study of interferons was falling out of favor, AIDS was becoming a major public health concern. Krim left full-time research and became involved in AIDS treatment and activism. In 1985, she founded the AIDS Medical Foundation (AMF), the first private organization concerned with fostering and supporting AIDS research. In August, 2000 she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor in the United States.



1928(21stof Tammuz, 5688): Talmudic scholar, Rabbi Shlomo Polachek passed away.  Born in Grodna in 1877 when Jews constituted almost half of the city’s population he served as rosh yeshiva in Lida and Bialystok before moving to the United States in 1922 to serve as Rosh Yeshiva at the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary (RIETS) the Rabbinical School of Yeshiva University and its Yeshiva College, America's first yeshiva.



1929: Writer and sculptor Alfred Dreyfus who was committed to the Manhattan State Hospital in 1928 was transferred to Dr. McDonald’s  house at Central Valley, NY.



1929:  Birthdate of King Hassan II of Morocco.  King Hassan served as a “back channel” during negotiations between Israeli and Arab officials.  He played a critical, if somewhat still undefined role, in the Camp David Negotiations that led to the peace agreement between Israel and Egypt in 1973.



1933: In North London, Dr. Samuel Sacks and Muriel Elsie Landau, one of the first female surgeons in England gave birth to  Oliver Wolf Sacks the neurologist and author who was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 2008.



1936:The Palestine Post reported from London that Mr. Ormsby-Gore, the Colonial Secretary, admitted in the House of Commons that since the Palestine Government's expenditure on Moslem Religious Courts exceeded income, it was inevitable that the Jewish taxpayer had contributed approximately £9,000 to the maintenance of the Moslem Supreme Council, while Jewish religious courts and the Chief Rabbinate received no support from the government. More British troops were transferred from Egypt to Palestine. Ha'aretz and Haboker dailies were suspended for five days for the "publication of false news, likely to create alarm and despondency" (the comment on the failure of the British troops and of the Palestine Police to deal effectively with Arab disturbances).



1937: George Gershwin was rushed back to Cedars of Lebanon hospital after collapsing tonight at the home of lyricist Yip Harburg where they had been working on the score of the “Goldwyn Follies.”



1938(10th of Tammuz, 5698): Famed jurist Benjamin Cardozo passed away. Cardozo was part of Sephardic family that had deep roots in the American experience. One of his ancestors fought in the American Revolution. Born in 1870 in New York, Cardozo had a long, distinguished career as an author on legal matters and a jurist before being named an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court by Herbert Hoover in 1932. Cardozo was the second Jew to reach this height; the first being Louis D. Brandies. At one time, Cardozo was ranked as one of the "ten most foremost judges in American Judicial history." Cardozo was an active member of the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue in New York. During the 1930’s, with the rise of European anti-Semitism and Hitler, Cardozo became a public supporter of Palestine as a homeland for the Jews.



http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/11/02/reviews/971102.02rosent.html



http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/p/polenberg-world.html



1938: Two seventeen year old Jewish hikers were stabbed and seriously wounded this morning “while passing through an Arab village, a mile from Tel Aviv on the main Jaffa-Jerusalem road.  They were stripped and left by the roadside until found by a passing motorist.” The attack marked the end of bloody week in which Arab attackers had killed 12 Jews and wounded another 24.



1940:With the end of the subscription series of the Palestine Symphony Orchestra the musical season has closed. Thirteen series have been presented this year in Tel Aviv, Haifa, and Jerusalem--compared to the ten series of former years. Special programs for the colonies



1940: Between today and the end of August  2,139 Jewish and Gentile Poles received visas from the Japanese.



1941:Birthdate of Bobby Frankel, one of the most successful American thoroughbred trainers, whose horses included the champions Bertrando, Ghostzapper and Empire Maker, the winner of the 2003 Belmont Stakes.



1941: During the invasion of the Soviet Union, Zhitomir, a city in the Ukraine with pre-war Jewish population of 29,503 was seized by the Nazis.



1941: Hungary invaded the eastern Ukraine. Hungary was an ally of Nazi Germany during the war. Hungary's Jews suffered at the hand of homegrown anti-Semites.  But eventually Eichman arrived and the full weight of the Final Solution fell, first in the countryside in places like Sighet and later in the big cities, most notably Budapest.



1942: Anne Frank’s family went into hiding in an attic above her father’s office in an Amsterdam warehouse.



1942: Jewish partisan Vitka Kempner returns to the Vilna Ghetto, having successfully planted a land mine and blown up the engine and ammunition cars of a German military train.



1943: Operation Husky began tonight as Allied troops began landing in Sicily.  The Germans and Italians were not expecting the landings thanks, in large part, to Operation Mincemeat.  Operation Mincemeat was one of the most successful acts of subterfuge carried during World War II.  It was mastermind by Edwin Montagu, a Colonel in the British Army who belonged to of the UK’s most distinguished Jewish families.  Operation Mincemeat convinced the Germans that the invasion would come at Greece or Sardinia and not the island off the toe of the Italian Boot.  For more about this you might want to see “The Man Who Never Was” or read the recently published Operation Mincemeat by Ben Macintyre.



1944: Responding to Allied pressure, especially threats to hold Hungary’s leadership responsible for the shipment of Hungarian Jews to Auschwitz prompted Admiral Miklos Horthy, Hungary's regent, to stop deportations


1944: Raoul Wallenberg arrived in Budapest where he presented visas for 630 Hungarian Jews. Raoul Wallenberg was one of the greatest human beings in history. This Swedish national risked his life over and over again to save the Jews of Hungary. With only Chutzpah, Courage and a fair stash of cash, this man faced down the Nazi murder machine and made it give up some of its Jews. He is living proof that one person can make a difference. I have never been able to find any satisfactory reason why he risked his life for this thankless undertaking. In the end, the Soviets entered Budapest and took him away to a fate that is still unknown. That the world remained silent while Six Million perished is an oft-told tale. That the world (specifically the governments of the Allied powers) did not push for this man’s release is a permanent stain.



1945; Birthdate of Donald Lee “Don” Novick, the native of Cheyenne, Wyoming whose culinary skill and generosity would make him an unsung hero of the Cedar Rapids Jewish community before his untimely death.



1945: Birthdate of Rabbi Gene Levy, the spiritual leader, in the truest sense of that term, of Temple B’Nai Israel in Little Rock, AR.



1948:  During the War of Independence, Egyptian artillery opened fire on Kfar Darom.  This was followed by an attack led by an armored column and infantry.  When the Egyptians entered the settlement they found that the Jews had already decamped. Goliath had beaten David, but it was a pyrrhic victory, since the defenders had upset the Egyptian timetable for taking Tel Aviv. This military action took place during what was supposed to be a four week cease fire between the Arabs and the Israelis.



1948: The four week cease fire between the Israelis and the invading Arab armies was set to end.  The Arabs rejected attempts by Count Bernadotte, the U.N. envoy, to extend the cease fire for another ten days.



1948: Israeli forces launched Operation Danny, an offensive designed “to capture territory east of Tel Aviv” and then open the road to Jerusalem in a bid to break the Arab stranglehold on the city. The offensive was named after Danny Mass, the commander of “Convoy 35” and was under the command of Yigal Allon and Yitzhak Rabin.  The undertrained and poorly armed Jewish forces were up against the Arab Legion, the elite British trained army of Jordan.  The ultimate key to victory would in the need to capture the seemingly impregnable Arab position at Latrun. “Convoy 35” refers to an attempt made by a detachment of Haganah troopers to bring supplies to the Gush Etzion kibbutzim in January of 1948.  Thirty-five died in the attempt and many of their bodies were mutilated beyond recognition.



1948: Israeli forces launched an all-night bombardment as part of an attempt to re-take the Old City.



1948: The fifth Israeli attack on the Egyptian-held police fort of Iraq Suwaydan came to an end with the installation still in the hands of the Arabs.



1948:Mordechai Weingarten “was chosen to meet Abdullah el Tell, now the Jordanian Military Commander of the Old City, to discuss the release of the prisoners taken in the Jewish Quarter, the burial of bodies left in the Quarter, and the rescue of any Scrolls of the Law that had survived.”



1950: In Israel, 100 orderlies joined 2,000 nurses who were already on strike.  Both groups are “demanding better working conditions.”



1951:The Jerusalem Post reported that Jerusalem was assured of a regular supply of ice for domestic purposes from outside of the city and that the government granted a subsidy, due to the cost of the transport of ice from the coast. The Jerusalem Program for Zionism, replacing the Basel Program drawn up at the First Zionist Congress in 1897, was drawn up for the 23rd Zionist Congress to be held in Jerusalem on August 14.



1955: The Russell-Einstein Manifesto was released by Bertrand Russell in London.  The manifesto was an attempt by the “peace advocates” to deescalate the Cold War by calling attention to the dangers of nuclear weapons.  It contained a call for an international conference to deal with issues of nuclear disarmament.  The Einstein in the manifesto was Albert Einstein who died shortly after the manifesto was issued.



1956(1st of Av, 5716): Rosh Chodesh Av



1958: Shayetet 13 operatives infiltrated Beirut harbor in Operation Yovel. They were discovered, and a gunfight and chase ensued. The commandos were able to retreat without any casualties



1961: Israel officially recognized South Korea



1964: Mr. and Mrs. Zeev Jabotinsky are scheduled to be reinterred in a Jerusalem cemetery today.



1967:Mezzo-soprano Jennie Tourel joined Leonard Bernstein for a concert on Jerusalem's Mount Scopus to celebrate the end of the Six-Day War. It was a moment that brought together several of the themes of her life: music, dedication to Israel, and work with prominent composers and conductors. Born in Vitebsk, Belorussia (now Belarus) in 1900, she trained as a singer in Paris, where she debuted at the Opéra Comique in 1933. She won acclaim for her performance of the title role in Bizet's Carmen. For nearly a decade, she was the star of the Opéra Comique, singing the roles of Charlotte in Massenet's Werther and the title role in Thomas's Mignon. Fleeing Paris just a week before the Nazi invasion, Tourel made her way to New York via Portugal, Cuba, and Canada. Though at first she had trouble finding work, she eventually impressed a musical agent who arranged an audition with the conductor Arturo Toscanini. Toscanini, in turn, hired her to sing with the New York Philharmonic, and she soon appeared with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Philadelphia Orchestra as well. Later, Leonard Bernstein wrote the Jeremiah Symphony especially for her voice, and Tourel performed it all over the world. In her late forties, Tourel became well-known as a song recitalist. Though she had received critical and popular acclaim for her work in opera, her performances of French, German, and Russian songs, including Ravel's Shéhérazade, Mussorgsky's Songs and Dances of Death, and works by Schubert and Schumann, gained her an even wider circle of fans. At an age when many singers retire, Tourel continued to give acclaimed performances to eager audiences. She continued to perform until past the age of seventy. In addition to performing all over the world, Tourel taught at New York's Juilliard School, and annually at the Samuel Rubin Academy of Music in Jerusalem. In 1949, she became one of the first internationally-known artists to visit the infant Jewish state. Following that first visit, she remained involved in the musical life of Israel, with frequent visits and master classes. Tourel died on November 23, 1973. Leonard Bernstein paid her tribute in a eulogy at her funeral, saying, ‘when Jennie opened her mouth, God spoke.’”



1967: INS Eilat, a Z Class destroyer commanded by Yitzhak Shushan, set sail due west toward the Sinai coast.



1969:  Egyptian commandos raid an Israeli tank depot, killing 8, wounding nine and taking one prisoner.



1973: The Ninth Maccabiah games open in Tel Aviv, Israel.



1976: The Jerusalem Post reported on the tragic fate of Dora Bloch, who held both British and Israeli citizenship, and who remained at a Ugandan hospital after all the other hijacked Israelis were freed by the Entebbe IDF operation. She ominously disappeared from the hospital after having been visited by a British official, one day after the Israeli raid, and was suspected of having been later murdered. Israel cited this case at the UN as an apparent example of Ugandan complicity in the high jacking of the Air France plane.



1976: In response to the demands of African governments, the UN Security Council is scheduled to meet today “to take up their charge that Israel’s recuse of hijacked hostages at Entebbe airport in Uganda was a case of ‘wanton aggression.’”



1978: After 147 performances a revival of David Merrick’s “Hello Dolly starring Carol Channing came to a close at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre.



1979: A car bomb destroys a Renault owned by famed "Nazi hunters" Serge and Beate Klarsfeld at their home in France. A note purportedly from ODESSA claims responsibility.



1993(20thof Tammuz, 5753): Sixty-seven year old television producer and director Steve Previn, the brother Andre Previn passed away today.



1997: Michael Eitan succeeded Benjamin Netanyahu as Minister of Science and Technology



2000: The New York Times features reviews books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Oberammergau: The Troubling Story of the World's Most Famous Passion Play by James Shapiro and Freud’s Megalomania by Israel Rosenfield.



2001: President George Bush awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom to 11 people including A.M. Rosenthal of the New York Times and Katherine Graham of the Washington Post.



2001: Hamas took credit for today’s bombing at the Kussufim border crossing.



2001 - Capt. Shai Shalom Cohen, 22, of Pardes Hanna, was killed and another soldier was wounded when an explosive charge detonated beneath their jeep after leaving the Aduraim IDF base south of Hebron.



2001: “Playing a Bit of Wagner Sets Off an Uproar in Israel” published today described the reaction to Daniel Barenboim’s decision to use a piece by the German composer at a Jerusalem concert.
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/09/world/playing-a-bit-of-wagner-sets-off-an-uproar-in-israel.html



2002: Moshe "Bogie" Ya'alon was appointed IDF Chief of Staff.



2006(13thof Tammuz.: Alan Senitt, a 27 year old political activist from north London who was being prepped for a glittering career, was stabbed to death in Georgetown.  Police said he was trying to protect his female companion when they were targeted by armed robbers as they walked home in Washington DC. The former chairman of the Union of Jewish Students (UJS), Senitt had moved to the US to work on Democrat Mark Warner's presidential campaign.



2007: “Spielberg on Spielberg’ – a 90 minute documentary about the celebrated film maker – appears on TCM, The Turner Classic Movies Channel.



2007: In a story entitled “Bishop mourns Latin decree, Jews ask for clarity,” The Washington Post reported that “a decree by Pope Benedict allowing priests to say the old Latin Mass more frequently has sparked criticism within both Catholic and Jewish ranks…Some Jewish leaders have sharply criticized the decree, which revives a passage from the old Latin prayer book for Good Friday calling for Jews to be converted. Others, however, took a more measured tone and called for clarification. “I think there are those who have interpreted it in an extremely alarmist fashion,’ Rabbi David Rosen of the American Jewish Committee (AJC) told Reuters.’ That doesn't mean that there aren't things that need clarification but there is no question of Pope Benedict's commitment to respectful relations with the Jewish people.’ The AJC's Rome representative, Lisa Palmieri-Billig, said the text of the decree was ambiguous on the issue. Church officials however had no doubt the prayer could now be said in certain circumstances, even if its use would probably be rare. ‘I find it difficult to believe that the Pope would permit the Good Friday prayer, it could be a communication mistake,’ Palmieri-Billig said. ‘Conversion is a very sensitive issue for Jews and if the prayer is allowed, it would be a step backwards for dialogue.’ French Cardinal Jean-Pierre Ricard, who warned last year against meeting traditionalists' demands for the Latin mass, said on Saturday the prayer could be changed if it caused difficulties with Jews.”



2007: In a night time gathering, some 30,000 people including about 5,000 Negev residents attended the "We are all Sderot" solidarity concert at Rabin Square in Tel Aviv, to show support for the residents of Sderot and other communities bordering the Gaza Strip, who live under the constant threat of Qassam rocket fire.



2007: French-Israeli writer Andre Chouraqui, known for his French-language translation of the Bible and his work in government in Israel, passed away at the age of 89 at his home in Jerusalem.



2008:  In Washington, D.C., Robert Wexler a six-term U.S. congressman from Florida, discusses and signs Fire-Breathing Liberal: How I Learned to Survive (and Thrive) in the Contact Sport of Congress(written with David Fisher) at Borders Books.



2008: Ted Koppel’sfour-part Discovery Channel series, “The People’s Republic of Capitalism,” which illustrates how dramatically China has changed begins with three other installments at the same time on successive nights.



2008:Professor Sarah Stroumsa of the departments of Arabic Language and Literature and of Jewish Thought has been elected by the Senate of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem as the institution’s new rector.



2009: “The House Homeland Security Committee today will consider the Transportation Security Workforce Enhancement Act of 2009, introduced earlier this year by Rep. Nita Lowey (D-N.Y.). The bill gives workers the option to join a union, codifies veterans preference in hiring and whistleblower protections.” (As reported by Ed O’Keefe)



2009: The Jerusalem Film Festival features a screening of “A Matter of Size,” a film about a group of disillusioned dieting Jews from Ramla who, through the efforts of one of their cohorts named Herzl and his Japanese employer, learn about the wonders of Sumo wrestling which liberates them physically and spiritually.



2009(17th of Tammuz, 5769): Tzom Tammuz:



2010: Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi and Defense Minister Ehud Barak announced a round of new appointments within the General Staff. The IDF military attaché in Washington, DC, Maj.-Gen Benny Gantz, will be next deputy chief of general staff, in place of Maj.-Gen Dan Harel. Two other contenders for the top post were OC Northern Command Maj.-Gen. Gadi Eizenkot and OC Southern Command Maj.-Gen. Yoav Galant. They will remain in their positions for another year, although there is a possibility that Galant will be appointed head of Ground Forces Command. Barak and Ashkenazi also decided that Maj.-Gen. Amos Yadlin, head of Military Intelligence, will remain in his post for a fifth year. Defense officials have said that disagreements between Ashkenazi and Barak have been holding up a final decision on the new appointments. Ashkenazi was said to have favored Eizenkot as his deputy. Barak was said to have preferred Gantz.



2010: The 7th AICE Australian Film Festival is scheduled to show “Samson and Delilah” in Tel Aviv.



2010: The Schalits expressed their disappointment when they left their meeting with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu today. "We did not receive any news today, that can calm us," said Noam. He continued, "the prime minister did not tell use anything new. We will not leave the protest tent [outside the prime minister's official residence] without Gilad."
2010(27th of Tammuz, 5770)RabbYehuda Amital, the Rosh Yeshiva of Yeshivat Har Etzion and a former member of the Israeli cabinet passed away today.
2011: Jennifer Chadick is scheduled to be called to the Torah as a Bat Mitzvah at Temple Judah in Cedar Rapids, IA.
2011: William “Bill” Gasway, a pillar of the Cedar Rapids Jewish community and an all around “good guy” and his grandsons Adam & Sam, are each scheduled to be called to the Torah in Door County, Wisconsin as part of a Triple Header Bar Mitzvah. Bill joins the comedian Henny Youngman in proving age is no bar to celebrating a Bar Mitzvah.
2011(7thof Tammuz): Yahrzeit of Rabbi Pinchas Horowitz
2011: In Detroit, Michigan, Isaac Agree Downtown Synagogue is scheduled to combine religious observance with popular culture in an evening of Havdalah and The Difference, a music revue.
2011:A senior Hamas official hinted today that captured IDF soldier Gilad Shalit is still alive, Channel 10 reported.
2012: If Dani Dayan, the head of the settlers’ Yesha Council has his way a vote of confidence will be held today to decide if there is popular support for “his pragmatic strategy.”
2012: A day-long Golf Classic sponsored by B'nai B'rith Great Lakes Region is scheduled to take place at the Wabeek Country Club.
2012: “The Sephardic Divas” and the band Ofir are scheduled to perform at the Inaugural Gibraltar World Music Festival. (As reported by Mordechai Shinefield)
2012: The Israel Air Force fire on two Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip late tonight, according to Ynet.
2012: Non-Orthodox US Jews below the age of 35 are more attached to Israel than those aged 35-44, but are skeptical about Israeli policies concerning the Palestinians, according to a recent survey.
2012: “The Levy Report, officially called Report on the Legal Status of Building in Judea and Samaria  an 89-page report on West Bank settlements authored by a three member committee headed by former Israeli Supreme Court justice Edmund Levy was published today.
 2013: “Sukkah City” is among the films scheduled to be shown today at the 30th Annual Jerusalem Film Festival.
2013: “Claims Conference board members Natan Sharansky, chairman of the Jewish Agency for Israel, and Ronald Lauder, president of the World Jewish Congress, demanded today that, to maintain independence, any such future investigation must be composed mainly of representatives of the State of Israel and of Jewish groups that do not sit on the Claims Conference board.” (As reported by Paul Berger)
2013: The British Association for Jewish Studies Annual Conference is scheduled to come to an end today.
2013: Ravid Kahalani, an Israeli born Yemenite Jew, is scheduled to perform at City Winery in New York City.
2013 Hezbollah blamed Israel for a powerful car bomb blasted the illusive quiet in a Hezbollah area of Beirut t0day, wounding at least 50 people.  No deaths have been reported, despite initial accounts that “one to several” people died in the explosion. (As reported by Tzvi Ben-Gedalyahu)



2013: IDF troops found the remains today of the first rocket to be fired from Egypt since the July 3 overthrow of the Islamist government there, a military official said.



2013: A haredi soldier was attacked by dozens of haredi men tonight in the ultra- Orthodox Jerusalem neighborhood of Mea She’arim.



2014: In Portland, Oregon, Congregation Ahavath Achim is scheduled to show “The Longest Journey,” a cinematic tribute to the lost Jewish community of Rhodes.



2014: The Agudas Achim Sisterhood is scheduled to “provide signs, pompoms and cheers” as part of “Sisterhood Night at the Ball Park.



2014: As part of Hadassah's Defining Zionism in the 21st Century ProgramArnold M. Eisen is scheduled to speak on “Why Zionism is Relevant to Us as American Jews.”



 



 

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

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July 10



48 BCE: In his war with Pompey, Julius Caesar barely avoids defeat at the Battle of Dyrrhachium.  A month later, after regrouping his forces, Caesar defeated Pompey at the Battle of Pharsalus.  While neither of the Roman leaders were candidates for humanitarian of the year, Caesar was the better of the two; certainly from a Jewish point of view.  Pompey had shown his contempt for the Jews when he desecrated the Holy of Holies.  Caesar, on the other hand, took a benevolent attitude towards the Jews and did not mistreat them.



138: The Roman Emperor Hadrian died. From a Jewish perspective, Hadrian would have to rank as one of the worst of the Roman Emperors.  He triggered the Bar Kochbah Revolt with his anti-Jewish decrees that included a ban on circumcision and the announcement that he was going to build a Temple to Jupiter in Jerusalem thus turning the sacred city of the Jews into a pagan shrine. The three year long rebellion was a savage one at the end of which over half a million Jewish rebels were killed.  Furthermore so many towns and villages were laid waste that home of the Jews became a veritable wasteland.  While the Romans may have one the victory must have been a hollow one since, when making his report to the Senate, Hadrian omitted that standard victory statement, “I am my army are well.”  Hadrian took his vengeance on the Jews.  He had a Torah scroll burned on the Temple Mount.  He renamed Jerusalem Aelia Capitolina and changed the name of the country from Judea to Syria Palestina. We are reminded of Hadrian’s evil each year at the High Holiday season when we remember the martyrs who slain by him for continuing to teach the Torah.  Ironically, Hadrian’s handpicked successor would repeal many of Hadrian’s anti-Semitic decrees.  But the damage was one and the fate of the Jews of in Eretz Israel continued on a downward spiral.



988: The City of Dublin is founded on the banks of the river Liffey. Since the earliest mention of Jews dates from 1079, there were no Jews among the founders.  During the first half of the 20thcentury the Portobello section of Dublin was known as Little Jerusalem because it was the center of the Irish Jewish community.  Ironically, the most famous Jewish “citizen” of Little Jerusalem never really lived there because he was “Leopold Bloom, the fictional Jewish character at the heart of the James Joyce novel Ulysses, lived at 52 Clanbrassil Street Upper.”



1290: King Ladislaus IV of Hungary died. His reign was not one of the high points in the history of Hungarian Jewry. The Synod of Buda which was held during his reign decreed that every Jew appearing in public should wear on the left side of his upper garment a piece of red cloth; that any Christian transacting business with a Jew not so marked, or living in a house or on land together with any Jew, should be refused admittance to the Church services; and that a Christian entrusting any office to a Jew should be excommunicated.



1391: As news of the Spanish riots reached Majorca, riots broke out all over the island. Despite the efforts of Francisco Sa Garriga, the local viceroy, in many towns the entire Jewish community was destroyed and its inhabitants either converted or murdered. Over 110 families converted; the remnants fled to North Africa. Although the following year a number Jews were again invited to reside there, a blood libel 40 years later ended the 800-year old Jewish community.



1509: Birthdate of Protestant religious leader and theologian John Calvin.  According to at least one commentator, Calvin “generally had a more benevolent view of the Jews” than did other Protestant reformers such as Martin Luther.  “Although at times his remarks could be acerbic, he nevertheless taught that the Bible indicated a time when Israel would be restored by coming to faith in their Messiah.  In speaking about the Jews, Calvin said,  "I extend the word Israel to all the people of God, according to this meaning, ­When the Gentiles shall come in, the Jews also shall return from their defection to the obedience of faith; and thus shall be completed the salvation of the whole Israel of God, which must be gathered from both; and yet in such a way that the Jews shall obtain the first place, being as it were the first born in God's family.” “As Jews are the firstborn, what the Prophet declares must be fulfilled, especially in them: for that scripture calls all the people of God Israelites, it is to be ascribed to the pre-eminence of that nation, who God had preferred to all other nations...God distinctly claims for himself a certain seed, so that his redemption may be effectual in his elect and peculiar nation...God was not unmindful of the covenant which he had made with their fathers, and by which he testified that according to his eternal purpose he loved that nation: and this he confirms by this remarkable declaration, ­that the grace of the divine calling cannot be made void." One of the issues confronting Christians was the determination of the proper age for Baptism.  Calvin believed in the baptism of infants.  He saw baptism as analogous to circumcision – a rite by which the child is sealed in the faith of his fathers.  Since God had ordained circumcision for Jewish infants, it was obvious that He intended for Christian to undergo their version of the ritual as infants as well.



1548: Eighteen hundred marranos were released from the prisons of the Portuguese Inquisition



1733: George Frederick Handel conducted the premiere performance of “Athalia” at the Sheldonian Theatre in Oxford, UK. This was one of many times that the German born British musical giant used Jewish Biblical tales as the theme for his musical masterpieces. In this case, his work was based on the literary masterpiece by Racine which is fairly accurate depiction of this Jewish Lady Macbeth.



1778: The French King, Louis XVI, allies his nation with the American revolutionaries and declares war on Great Britain. French support of the newly created United States was a decisive factor in the success of the American Revolution which gave birth to a nation that has provided Jews with unparalleled opportunities for success and safety.  At the same time, the king’s support of the American cause helped to bankrupt France; a bankruptcy which was a key element in bringing about the French Revolution which changed France into a land where Jews were able to flourish during the 19thand first half of the 20th century.   



1829: Birthdate of Filosseno (Philoxene) Luzzatto, an Italian scholar, who devoted himself to the study of Sanskrit and Semitic Languages. A native of Trieste, he was the son of Samuel David Luzzatto



1830:Birthdate of Camille Pissarro. Of Sephardic extraction, he became an important Impressionist painter and teacher. He mostly painted the busy streets of Paris and landscapes. He was associated with Monet and Corot. In the last years of his life he achieved recognition, and although suffering from an eye ailment painted 160 works in the last three years of his life.



1837: Thirty-four year old  Moritz Moses Jacob von Goldschmidt and Anna Netti von Goldschmidt gave birth to Theodor von Goldschmidt



1845: John Cuffe, 3rd Earl of Desart, and Lady Elizabeth Lucy Campbell gave birth to William Cuffe, 4th Earl of Desart  who married Ellen Odette Cuffe, Countess of Desart, the daughter of German banker Henri Louis Bischoffsheim who has been described as “the most important Jewish woman in Irish history.”



1849: The United States Department of the Interior is established. Joel D. Wolfsohn who served as Assistant Secretary of the Department from in the final months of the Truman Administration appears to be the highest ranking Jew to have served at the Department of the Interior. He served from July 10, 1952 through February 20, 1953.


1850: Millard Fillmore is inaugurated as the 13th President of the United States upon the death of President Zachary Taylor, 16 months into his term. In 1851, Fillmore expressed his opposition to ratifying a treaty with Switzerland that would allow the Swiss to discriminate against American Jews.  The Senate did not ratify the treaty. In 1852, Fillmore became the first President to try and appoint a Jew to the Supreme Court when he offered the position to Judah P. Benjamin, the U.S. Senator from Louisiana.  Benjamin declined the offer.



1855: Birthdate of Isaac Newton Seligman, the New York born son of Joseph Seligman who was an “American banker and communal worker.” Educated at Columbia Grammar School and Columbia College, from which he graduated in 1876, Seligman was one of the crew which won the university eight-oar college race on Saratoga Lake in 1874. In 1878, after having finished an apprenticeship in the firm of Seligman & Hellman, New Orleans, he joined the New York establishment, of which he became head in 1880, on the death of his father. A trustee of nineteen important commercial, financial, and other institutions and societies, including the Munich Life Assurance Company, St. John's Guild, and the McKinley Memorial Association, and he has also been a member of the Committee of Seventy, of Fifteen, and of Nine, each of which attempted at various times to reform municipal government in New York; of the last-named body he was chairman. He has served as a trustee of Temple Emanu-El, the Hebrew Orphan Asylum and the United Hebrew Charities. (From the Jewish Encyclopedia)



1857: The correspondent for the New York Times writes from London today that the House of Lords will vote tonight on the “Jew Bill” and if it is rejected, Rothschild will resign immediately.



1862: The foundation stone was laid today on Chichester Road for the Bayswater Synagogue.



1864: Carl-Hyman Marcuse and Sophie Lewis, the parents of Wyatt Earp’s mistress Sadie Marcus, gave birth to Henrietta Marcus.



1865: An article published today entitled “Miscellaneous: The Jews In the Papal States” reported that “The Vicar-General of Velletri has issued an order permitting Jews to remain ten days in that town upon lawful and honest business. During that time they must net return to their lodgings later than 1 o'clock in the morning, or leave before dawn. They are forbidden to approach all monasteries, academics and other pious places under episcopal jurisdiction, and in their intercourse and conversation with Christians they are to refrain from familiarity. The violation of any of these dispositions is to be punished by imprisonment and a fine of five crowns, to be applied to pious establishments.”



1865: The party under the command of Captain Charles Wilson that had made the most recent and most accurate survey of Jerusalem arrived in England.



1871: Birthdate of French author Marcel Proust.  The following excerpt from “Marcel Proust”provides an interesting insight into Proust’s Jewish origins and his literary treatment of his ancestors on his mother’s side. “Marcel Proust was the son of a Christian father and a Jewish mother. He himself was baptized (on August 5, 1871, at the church of Saint-Louis d'Antin) and later confirmed as a Catholic, but he never practiced that faith and as an adult could best be described as a mystical atheist, someone imbued with spirituality who nonetheless did not believe in a personal God, much less in a savior. Although Jews trace their religion through their mothers, Proust never considered himself Jewish and even became vexed when a newspaper article listed him as a Jewish author. His father once warned him not to stay in a certain hotel since there were "too many" Jewish guests there, and, to be sure, in Remembrance of Things Past there are unflattering caricatures of the members of one Jewish family, the Blochs. Jews were still considered exotic, even "oriental," in France; in 1872 there were only eighty-six thousand Jews in the whole country. In a typically offensive passage Proust writes that in a French drawing room "a Jew making his entry as though he were emerging from the desert, his body crouching like a hyena's, his neck thrust forward, offering profound `salaams,' completely satisfies a certain taste for the oriental."  Proust never refers to his Jewish origins in his fiction, although in the youthful novel he abandoned, Jean Santeuil(first published only in 1952, thirty years after his death), there is a very striking, if buried, reference to Judaism. The autobiographical hero has quarreled with his parents and in his rage deliberately smashed a piece of delicate Venetian glass his mother had given him. When he and his mother are reconciled, he tells her what he has done: "He expected that she would scold him, and so revive in his mind the memory of their quarrel. But there was no cloud upon her tenderness. She gave him a kiss, and whispered in his ear: `It shall be, as in the Temple, the symbol of an indestructible union.'" This reference to the rite of smashing a glass during the Orthodox Jewish wedding ceremony, in this case sealing the marriage of mother to son, is not only spontaneous but chilling. In an essay about his mother he referred, with characteristic ambiguity, to "the beautiful lines of her Jewish face, completely marked with Christian sweetness and Jansenist resignation, turning her into Esther herself"--a reference, significantly, to the heroine of the Old Testament (and of Racine's play), who concealed her Jewish identity until she had become the wife of King Ahasuerus and was in a position to save her people. The apparently gentile Proust, who had campaigned for Dreyfus and had been baptized Catholic, was a sort of modern Esther.  Despite Proust's silences and lapses on the subject of his mother's religion, it would be unfair, especially in light of the rampant anti-Semitism of turn-of-the-century France, to say that he was unique or even extreme in his prejudice against Jews. And yet his anti-Semitism is more than curious, given his love for his mother and given, after her death, something very much like a religious cult that he developed around her. His mother, out of respect for her parents, had remained faithful to their religion, and Proust revered her and her relatives; after her death he regretted that he was too ill to visit her grave and the graves of her parents and uncle in the Jewish cemetery and to mark each visit with a stone. More important, although he had many friends among the aristocracy whom he had assiduously cultivated, nevertheless when he was forced to take sides during the Dreyfus Affair, which had begun in 1894 and erupted in 1898, he chose to sign a petition prominently printed in a newspaper calling for a retrial. The Dreyfus Affair is worth a short detour, since it split French society for many years and it became a major topic in Proust's life--and in Remembrance of Things Past. Alfred Dreyfus (1859-1935) was a Jew and a captain in the French army. In December 1894 he was condemned by a military court for having sold military secrets to the Germans and was sent for life to Devil's Island. The accusation was based on the evidence of a memorandum stolen from the German embassy in Paris (despite the fact that the writing did not resemble Dreyfus's) and of a dossier (which was kept classified and secret) handed over to the military court by the minister of war. In 1896 another French soldier, Major Georges Picquart, proved that the memorandum had been written not by Dreyfus but by a certain Major Marie Charles Esterhazy. Yet Esterhazy was acquitted and Picquart was imprisoned. Instantly a large part of the population called for a retrial of Dreyfus. On January 13, 1898, the writer Emile Zola published an open letter, "J'accuse," directed against the army's general staff; Zola was tried and found guilty of besmirching the reputation of the army. He was forced to flee to England. Then in September 1898 it was proved that the only piece of evidence against Dreyfus in the secret military dossier had been faked by Joseph Henry, who confessed his misdeed and committed suicide. At last the government ordered a retrial of Dreyfus. Public opinion was bitterly divided between the leftist Dreyfusards, who demanded "justice and truth," and the anti-Dreyfusards, who led an anti-Semitic campaign, defended the honor of the army, and rejected the call for a retrial. The conflict led to a virtual civil war. In 1899 Dreyfus was found guilty again, although this time under extenuating circumstances--and the president pardoned him. Only in 1906 was Dreyfus fully rehabilitated, named an officer once again, and decorated with the Legion of Honor. Interestingly, Theodor Herzl, the Paris correspondent for a Viennese newspaper, was so overwhelmed by the virulent anti-Semitism of the Dreyfus Affair that he was inspired by the prophetic idea of a Jewish state.  In defending Dreyfus, Proust not only angered conservative, Catholic, pro-army aristocrats, but he also alienated his own father. In writing about the 1890s in Remembrance of Things Past, Proust remarks that "the Dreyfus case was shortly to relegate the Jews to the lowest rung of the social ladder." Typically, the ultraconservative Gustave Schlumberger, a great Byzantine scholar, could give in his posthumous memoirs as offensive a description of his old friend Charles Haas (a model for Proust's character Swann) as this: "The delightful Charles Haas, the most likeable and glittering socialite, the best of friends, had nothing Jewish about him except his origins and was not afflicted, as far as I know, with any of the faults of his race, which makes him an exception virtually unique." It would be misleading to suggest that Proust took his controversial, pro-Dreyfus stand simply because he was half-Jewish. No, he was only obeying the dictates of his conscience, even though he lost many highborn Catholic friends by doing so and exposed himself to the snide anti-Semitic accusation of merely automatically siding with his co-religionists.”



1876: The New York Times featured a review of Clarel: A Poem and Pilgrimage in the Holy Land a two volume American epic poem by Herman Melville, “Clarel,” the longest poem in American literature, is divided into four parts – Jerusalem, The Wilderness, Mar Saba, Bethlehem – and epilogue.



1877: According to reports circulating on Wall Street today, Mr. Gabriel Netter “of the Jewish banking house of Netter & Co…had received a letter from Saratoga signed ‘Wilkinson,’ saying that the Grand Union Hotel proprietors would be happy to extend all the accommodations the hotel affords to Mr. Netter and his family.”  Mr. Netter refused to confirm or deny if he had received such a letter.  But, if he had, he had no intention of responding.



1877: The fourth council of the Union of American Hebrew Congregation opened this morning at St. George’s Hall in Philadelphia.  As the first order of business, B.F. Peixotto was elected President.



1878: Approximately 300 people attended a banquet at the Plankinton House given by the Jews of Milwaukee in honor of the delegates of the Hebrew Council meeting here.



1879:Mr. William B. Hackenburg, President of the Sixth Council of the Union of American and Hebrew Congregations, called the morning session of the Council to order at 9:30 A. M. today. Dr. Samuel Hirsch of Philadelphia delivered the opening prayer.  Among other matters of business, the delegates debated whether or not to fund a project that would raise money for the purchase of land so that Jewish immigrants could become farmers.



1879: Delegates to the Sixth Council of the Union of American and Hebrew Congregations hold a banquet at Delmonico’s for which “a competent Jewish caterer has been engaged to supervise the preparation of the dinner.”



1881: The New York Times published an extensive review of Poems and Ballads of Heinrich Heine translated by Emma Lazarus.  The reviewer does not see any irony in the work of the apostate Jew being translated by a leading American Jewish poetess.



1881: It was reported today that Sir Edward Poynter is about to begin another of his larger than life historical paintings which is titled “Visit of the Queen of Sheba to Solomon.” The canvas will be 8 feet by 5 feet depicting the queen ascending the steps to the throne of the Jewish monarch.  [Note – Poynter had already drawn on Jewish themes when he painted “Israel in Egypt” in 1867.



1881: “German Army Volunteers” published today provided a detailed account of the recruiting and service paradigms in the Kaiser’s military including the fact that “the sons of Jews, seldom, if ever compete for commissions because they know they could not get them.”



1881: It was reported today that Tavistock House, the home for many years of Charles Dickens, has been purchased by Jews’ College a twenty-five year old day school in London that was established as a day school for training rabbis.



1882: This morning, 250 Jewish exiles arrived in St. Louis, MO. These European refugees, who have terrible tales to tell about their treatment in the Old World, are destitute so they are being cared for by a local committee of their coreligionists.



1882: It was reported today that the first free excursion-boat trip of the season sponsored by the Sanitarium for Hebrew Children will take place later week.



1883: The SS Lydian Monarch arrived in New York from London.  Among the passengers were five Jewish families from Poland.  According to these passengers, their tickets had been paid for by either the Hebrew Society in London or the Hebrew Ladies’ Society of London.  While the English Jews had provided them with passage, they had not given them any more money which meant that they were destitute. The new arrivals have no one in the United States to sponsor them.



1883: An announcement was made today in Nyreghhaza, Hungary at the trial of the Jews who have been charged with murdering a Christian girl, that a coachman who was an important witness for the defense has committed suicide.



1883: Lipman Levi presided over the opening session of the 10th annual council of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations.  Two hundred and fifty delegates representing approximately 125 congregations filled Eureka Hall in Cincinnati, Ohio where the first order of business was to choose permanent officers to serve the Union in the coming year.



1887(18thof Tammuz, 5647): Fast of Tammuz observed since the 17th fell on Shabbat



1887: It was reported today that the Sanitarium for Hebrew children has raised $1,779 so far this year so it can provide free boating excursions for poor children and their mothers living in the tenements of the Lower East Side.



1888: “Mr. B.F. Peixotto of New York, who delivered the oration at the dedication of the Jewish Orphan Asylum” in Cleveland  “20 years ago, will deliver the oration today at the dedication of the new building just completed at a cost of $200,000.”



1889: A spirited debate took place this morning at the Hebrew Union Convention in Detroit over whether or not there should be a special Jewish celebration of the upcoming 400thanniversary of the discovery of America which is to take place in 1892.  Josiah Cohen of Pittsburgh spoke on behalf of the eastern delegates, most of whom favored a uniquely Jewish celebration.  Israel Cohen of Chicago spoke on behalf of the western delegates, most of whom favored participation in the celebrations planned by the secular society and saw no need for a special Jewish event. In the end, the convention voted to adopt the report of a committee that had been formed to study the matter and had state that a uniquely Jewish celebration was “inexpedient,” “unnecessary” and “would be entirely out of place.”



1889: “The Hebrew Council” published today described a meeting of the Sunday School Union which listened to a report by Dr. Mielziner,  the Professor of Talmudic Literature at Hebrew Union College.



1889: “Need Hebrews Apply?” published todaydescribed the on-going controversy surrounding the nomination of state Senator Jacob A. Cantor for membership in the exclusive Harlem Club. While some expressed the opinion that if the members could vote on the nomination a majority would support Cantor enough of the members supported the sentiment that “in this club we draw the line at Hebrews” that there were more than enough “blackballs” available to defeat Cantor’s nomination.



1889: After registering at the Brunswick Hotel and going to her rooms at the fashionable Brunswick Hotel in Ocean Beach, NJ, Mrs. Joseph Davis was told by the proprietor that he had learned that she was Jewish.  Since it was the policy of the hotel not to rent to Jews, she and her children would have to leave the hotel.  He told her she could stay the night but she left immediately and took shelter at the cottage of leather merchant Moses Strauss.



1890:  Wyoming becomes the 44th state to join the Union.  Wyoming had granted women the right to vote in 1869 while it was still a territory.  When it joined the union, it was the first state to give women the right to vote.  Two of those who took advantage of this political power and the “freer ambiance” were Bertha Frank Myers of Cheyenne and her daughter Elsie.  Bertha Myers was a native New Yorker who came to Cheyenne in 1873 as the bride of a prominent merchant, William Myers.  Bertha was known as an expert horsewoman, bicyclist and the first motorist in Cheyenne.   The mother of four was active in civic and Jewish communal fairs.  She was a driving force in the fundraising for Cheyenne’s first Reform Temple.  She also started the local Sunday School in which she and her daughter served as teachers for twenty years.



1890: “Anxious For Arbitration” published today described the fight between the cloak manufacturers and their employees” which James H. Hoffman, Hyman Blum and M.W. Platzek of the United Hebrew Charities have offered to serve as intermediaries in an attempt to reach a settlement.



1890: Daniel Frohman, the manager of the Lyceum Theatre, who has been in Europe for the last month resting and gathering new material for his productions, spent a few hours at his office for the first time since the end of May.



1890: As of this date, contributions totaling $4,862.25 have been received by the Sanitarium for Hebrew Children to provide free summer excursions



1891: It was reported today that for the fiscal year ending on June 30, 1891, 405,654 immigrants arrived in New York of whom 33,504 were from Russia “most of whom were Jews.”



1892: It was reported today that “Max Margolis of Wilna, Berlin and Columbia College” will present a series of lectures this summer on “Jewish Literature From the Close of the Scripture Canon to the Close of the Talmud” which covers a period from 100 BCE to 600 CE.



1892: The alumni of the Hebrew Union College will have a re-union this afternoon at Temple Beth-El in New York City


1892: The third annual Convention of American Rabbis will end with an evening session at Temple Israel in Harlem.



1892: “L'Osservatore Romano, the Vatican's official newspaper, carries an article supporting the ancient myth that Jews kill Christians for their blood.”



1893: “A Lively Week For Germany” published today described the opening of the new Reichstag in which “the Jew-baiter” Hermann Ahlwardt is sitting next to “Liebermann von Sonnenberg, his Anti-Semitic colleague.



1894: Samuel Gompers expressed his support for the striking Pullman workers.  He said that if Pullman’s claim that the company  could not raise their pay because they were building the railway cars below cost merely to provide work for their laborers were true, Pullman had no reason to fear submitting the issues to arbitration.



1894: Samuel Gompers is leaving on the evening New York Central train for Chicago where he will be attending the meeting of the Executive Council of the American Federation of Labor.



1894: “Lecture To East Side Mothers” published today described a lecture delivered by Dr. Solotaroff at the Hebrew Institute in which he emphasized “the value of sterilized mile and the reasons why it is to be preferred to boiled and plain milk.” At the end of the talk, he supplied the addressed of the milk depots where, thanks



1895: Dr. Max Landsberg and Dr. Gustav Gottheil will be the first speakers at the opening session of the annual Central Conference of American Rabbis which opens tonight in Rochester, NY



1895: The will of Moses Heidelbach was filed for probate in the Surrogate’s office today.



1895: “Schools Before Christ’s Times” published today provided a detailed review of Historical Survey of Pre-Christian Education by S.S. Laure which included the observation that among the Romans and Greeks “there was apparently no conception that education was…a human right” and that it was only for the aristocrat.  But in other places, including Judea, theoretically nothing stood “between the lowest member of the community and the best the State could offer in the way of education except poverty.”



1896: It was reported today that 77 year old Isaac Bramfield will not survive the gunshot wound he sustained when he was accidentally shot by William Johnson.



1897: Well-known attorney and author Daniel Greenleaf Thompson, a non-Jew who was a member of the Jewish Historical Society passed away today.



1898: In Atlantic City, NJ. Rabbi Henry H. Meyer offered the opening prayer at the first session of the second annual summer assembly of the Jewish Chautauqua Society



1899: In Poughkeepsie, NY, five merchants were arraigned before the Recorder on charges of having violated the Sunday Closing Laws. Among them was Aaron Friedman, “a Jew who closes his store on Saturdays.”  Friedman was fined 5 dollars after being convicted; a conviction which his attorney says he will appeal.



1899: “Blue Laws in Worcester” published today described the renewed enforcement in this Massachusetts town “of the old blue laws relating to Sunday business” closures which “grew out of the recent determination…to stop the Jews from doing business on the Sabbath.”



1908: Levie (Louis) Hillesum the father of diarist  Esther (Etty)  Hillesum published his Latin thesis De imperfecti et aoristi usu Thucydidis (On Thucydides' use of the imperfect and the aorist, also awarded cum laude).



1908: In Denver, CO, the Democratic National Convention which Samuel Untermyer had attended as a delegate from New York came to an end to after nominating William Jennings Bryan for President of the United States. This was Bryan’s third and final run.  When he ran for the first time in 1896 he said of the Jews “I do not know of any class of our people who, by reason of their history, can better sympathize with the struggling masses in this campaign than can the Hebrew race." In 1920, Bryan was one of a 100 leading citizens who signed “The Perils of Racial Prejudice, a statement that urged "all those who are molders of public opinion" to "strike at" The International Jew, which it characterized as "un-American, un-Christian agitation." The International Jew was a notorious anti-Semitic work published by automobile make Henry Ford Sr. (As reported by the Virtual Jewish Library



1912: Four hundred public school teachers, educators and New York notables were among those attending funeral services for educator Julia Richman at Temple Ahawath Chesed Shaar Hashomayim, Rabbi Isaac Moses delivered a eulogy in which he praised Ms Richman for her many contributions while that the role of the teacher is both important yet thankless.



1914:  The Government of Greece abolished office of the Chief Rabbi of Salonica and placed the Jews of Salonica under the jurisdiction of the Chief Rabbi of Athens. At this time, the position of Chief Rabbi of Athens was vacant.



1914: Birthdate of Rabbi Aharon Zelig Epstein who served as Rosh Yeshiva of Yeshiva Shaar HaTorah-Grodno in Queens, New York.



1915: Sixty year old Ernst Henrici, the grammar school teacher who became a leading anti-Semitic politician passed away.In 1882 he participated in the first International Anti-Jewish Congress in Dresden. His anti-Semitic diatribes led to the burning of the synagogue at Neustettin.



1915: Birthdate of Saul Bellow. Born in Quebec to Russian-Jewish immigrants, Bellow was educated in the United States. A Nobel Prize winning author (1976) some of Bellow’s more famous works include Herzog, The Adventures of Augie March and Humboldt’s Gift. It was this last work published in 1975 for which he earned the Pulitzer Prize for Literature in 1976.



1919(12th of Tammuz, 5679): Abraham Jacobi passed away. Born in 1830, he was a pioneer of pediatrics, opening the first children's clinic in the United States. To date, he is the only foreign born president of the American Medical Association.



1920: “A Lemberg dispatch reports that Professor Israel Friedlander” and Rabbi Max Cantor of the Free Synagogue, “were killed by bandits” while “distributing funds for the American Joint Distribution Committee.”



1922: Birthdate of Ewald-Heinrich von Kleist who took part in the plot to assassinate Hitler.



1928:  Birthdate of Moshe Greenberg – author, teacher and recognized expert in the field of Biblical Studies.  Greenberg earned his PhD at Penn and did post-doctorial work at the Jewish Theology.  He is on the faculty at Hebrew University and has taught at several American schools including JTS and UC-Berkley.  He is a Guggenheim Fellow and a recipient of the Israel Prize.  He was editor in chief for the Ketuvim (Writings) sections of the new JPS translation of the TaNaCh.  He was also the editor of the Book of Ezekiel in the Anchor Bible series.



1928: The London Daily Telegraph reported that “The Minister of the Interior at Peking thought the Zionist wanted to purchase land in China for the purpose of settling Jews there and promised a special treaty if the Zionists would indicate the site for the proposed homeland and the approximate area required.The Director of Lands had already proceeded with drafting an agreement, when, through the British Minister at Pekin, the delegate managed to explain he only required permission to raise funds among Jews in China for the Palestine upbuilding work. This permission was granted. “ (As reported by JTA)



1928: The New York Times describes the reaction of various Jewish newspapers in Palestine to the recently published report of the Non-partisan Survey Commission. Based on press reaction, readers may wonder how “non-partisan” the Survey Commission really is.  Doar Hayom, a Jerusalem daily, praised the report since it agreed with the conclusions about the need for “private initiatives and private holdings.  Haaretz was critical of the reports lack of support for communal agriculture settlements and the land purchases of the JNF.  Davar, a paper published by the General Jewish Labor Federation was highly critical of the report seeing it as an assault on all of the growth that has been accomplished under adverse conditions including violent opposition from some Arabs.



1931: Birthdate of Jerry Herman “an American composer and lyricist, known for his work in Broadway musical theater” including the “scores…Hello, Dolly!, Mame, and La Cage aux Folles.

1932: The foundation stone of the Oscar Straus School was laid at Nathanyah. The event was attended by several many Jewish and Arab notables. The project is being sponsored by the Naotaiah Colonization Agency (Palestine Settlers Service of NYC.)



1933:German newspapers publish their first stories about the new concordat between Nazi Germany and the Vatican (Reichskonkordat).



1934: The Polish anti-Semitic organization Oboz Narodowo-Radykalny(ONR- NATIONAL Radical Camp) is banned by Polish leader Marshal Jozef Pilsudski, three months after its formation.



1936: The Second International Conference on Jewish Social Work has its final session in London. Among those attending the conference was Professor Maurice Karpf who had written “The Jewish Community Organization” for presentation at the conference.



1936: The Palestine Post reported that Joseph Katz, 16, was killed and four quarry workers seriously injured when their bus was ambushed on a side road off the Castel bends on the Jerusalem-Jaffa road. Senior Arab public servants submitted a memorandum to the high commissioner recommending a total stoppage of Jewish immigration. Four dunams of fruit-bearing trees were destroyed near Hadera.



1936: The Palestine Post reported that the body Yehiel Goldstadt, a young halutz from Poland, who tried to smuggle himself into Palestine on a coal transport ship, and apparently had been killed by sacks of coal falling on him was discovered.



1937: Birthdate of Sandra Galitz who gain fame as American pop singer Sandy Stewart and the wife of Moose Claptrap.



1938:National and State leaders paid tribute to Associate Justice Benjamin Nathan Cardozo of the United States Supreme Court at brief and simple funeral services held at Beth Elohim Cemetery in Brooklyn. Justice Cardozo, who was known for his modesty, had expressly requested that he be buried without eulogy.



1938(11thof Tammuz, 5698): Alexander Zaid, who was born at Zima in 1886 and was “one of the founders of Bar Giora and Hashomer passed away today.



1938: Government soldiers and police shot it out with a band of Arabs near Dabbuyria, killing three of the terrorists. A Jewish policeman serving with the government forces was killed during the action and three British soldiers were wounded.



1939: Unless the British government relents, 16 year old Heinz Bernard will be expelled and forced to return to his native Germany



1940:  The French government was established at Vichy.  The French had surrendered after a mere six weeks of fighting against the Germans.  While the French soldiers had acted with courage and fortitude, the French military establishment behaved in a most craven and inept manner.  The government at Vichy was headed by Pierre Petain, hero of the Battle of Verdun in World War I.  Pierre Laval was the political engine that drove this fascist , collaborationist government.  Vichy was so riven with anti-Semites and wished to become part of the New German World order so badly, that the French government actually began rounding up Jews before the Nazis even for them to do so.  After the war, Laval was executed for his role.  Petain was spared the death sentence because he was an old man whom DeGaulle remembered as a giant from the First World War.



1941(15th of Tammuz, 5701): At Vilna 1,600 Jews are tortured then driven into a barn and burned alive.



1941: The Jewish residents of the Polish town of Jedwabne are accosted by their Polish neighbors and by peasants from outlying areas, and are marched to the central market. In a day-long ordeal, the Jews are tortured and subsequently herded into a barn, which is set ablaze with kerosene. The massacre is not carried out by the Germans, who maintain only a token presence in Jedwabne on this day.  The Polish role in the massacre only recently became common knowledge, much to the shame of those living in Poland today. For more details about this read Neighbors by Jan T. Gross



1941 Birthdate of  Alain Krivine, “a leader of the Trotskyist movement in France.”



1942: The first Medical Experiments take place at Auschwitz. 100 Women are taken from their barracks and sterilized through a series of hideous experiments.



1943(7th of Tamuz, 5703): Thousands of Jews from Lvov, Ukraine, are murdered at Kamenka-Bugskaya



1943: In Warsaw, the search for Jews continued weeks after the Warsaw Ghetto had been destroyed. Thirty men were shot in the Pawiak prison.



1944: In France, U.S. Army Lt. Bert Katz is hit in shoulder and left hand by German shrapnel.  The wound gets him a Purple Heart but not a ticket home which in this case is Cedar Rapids, Iowa.  Katz did return home after the war where he became a successful businessman, a noted philanthropist and a pillar of the Jewish community.



1944: German resistance fighter Robert Abshagen was beheaded today for his role in anti-Nazi activities.



1948: During Operation Dekel, the 7th Armored Brigade, a battalion from the Carmeli Brigade along with some elements from the Golani Brigade captured Kuwaykat,Jiddin and Khirbat.



1948: With the end of the truce, a company of sixteen and seventeen year old boys under the command of twenty-one year Oded Chai set out to take the high ground west of Jerusalem.  Chai, who was a veteran of the Jewish Brigade died almost as soon as the attack had begun, the victim of a sniper’s bullet.  The new commander, Elaihu Lichtenstein rallied the troops with a new battle cry, “For Oded” and reached the summit of the hill.  That hill is now known as Mount Herzel.  [Editors note:  The source for much of the information about the War of Independence comes from Israel by Martin Gilbert.  Events like these remind us that every inch of Israel was watered by the blood of Jewish fighters, many of whom never made it out of their teens.]



1948:  Israeli forces attacked a bridgehead that the Syrians had established on the west bank of the Jordan River.  The Syrians had seized the bridgehead during what was supposed to be the Four Week Cease Fire.  The Syrian air force dominated the sky above the battlefield.  The Syrian artillery outraged the Israeli guns.  Despite ten days of see-saw fighting, the bridgehead would remain in Syrian hands.



1948: An Egyptian Spitfire (yes the same Spitfires that had won the Battle of Britain) “dropped a number of bombs on the Jewish sector of Jerusalem killing three children.”



1948: Two attempts by the Arab Legion to break into the New City (Jerusalem) were thwarted.



1948:Hortense Calisher's award-winning short story "The Middle Drawer" was published in the New Yorker Magazine.



1950: “Israeli authorities released two British planes detained since last week for landing at Lydda Airport without permission.”



1951:The Jerusalem Post reported that the government had decided to subsidize the import of hides in order to keep shoe prices at their present level.



1951:The Jerusalem Post reported that the Ministry of Labor investigating the cause of the Castel quarry disaster in which seven workers lost their lives resolved to issue strict regulations on the handling of explosives and to impose severe penalties to discourage workers from violating specific instructions.



1951:The Jerusalem Post reported that electricity consumption restrictions were eased throughout the country.



1951:The Jerusalem Post reported that one thousand newcomers arrived from Romania.



1952: Joel D. Wolfsohn began serving as Assistant Secretary of the Department of Interior in the final months of the Truman Administration. Up to that time, he appears to be the highest ranking Jew to have served at the Department of the Interior. He served from July 10, 1952 through February 20, 1953.


1957(11th of Tammuz, 5717):Sholem Asch, a Polish-born American Jewish novelist, dramatist, and essayist in the Yiddish language passed away.

1962(8th of Tammuz, 5722): RabbiYehuda Leib Maimon passed away. Born in 1875 in what was then a part of the Russian Empire, he was one of the founders of the Mizrachi movement in 1902.  He would later help develop the movement in the U.S. during WW I after he had been expelled from Palestine by the Turks.  He returned to Palestine in 1919 where he worked to develop the Jewish home during the inter-war years.  The highpoint of his career may have come when he helped draft Israel’s Declaration of Independence, a document of which he was a signatory.


1964: Mortimer Kaplan completed his term as the IRS Commissioner.


1966: The new Israeli Parliament building, the Knesset was inaugurated.



1969: The body of the lone Israeli captured by Egyptian commandos when they raided an Israeli tank depot on June 9, 1969 is found.  From the evidence, he had been summarily executed by his captors.  The attack and the execution set the stage for the subsequent Israeli commando raid on Green Island, an Egyptian fortress in the Gulf of Suez.



1971: Ed Rendell, future Mayor if Philadelphia and Governor of Pennsylvania marries Marjorie Rendell in what is the most common form of inter-marriage – a Jew marrying a Catholic.



1971: Hassan II of Morocco, a moarch who would a vital role in bridging the gap between the Jewish state and the Arab world and who later be described as "a friend to the governments of Israel in their voyage toward peace with the Arab people” survives an attempted coup d'état.



1973: The Commonwealth of the Bahamas gains full independence within the Commonwealth of Nations.There were probably between one hundred and two hundred Jews living in the Bahamas at this time. The Bahamas Jewish Congregation, a modern orthodox congregation is located in Nassau.The Community in Freeport, on Grand Bahama Island, the Freeport Hebrew Congregation, is somewhat lesser in numbers than in Nassau, and is affiliated to the Union for Reform Judaism. Its Synagogue, named the Luis De Torres Synagogue is named for a Luis De Torres, a Marrano who sailed with Columbus and who was the first person of Jewish heritage to reach the Bahamas.


1974: The second part of the Agranat Commission’s three-part report was released today.  The Commission had been established to examine the failures before and during the Yom Kippur War. The report called for the dismissal of some senior officers and resulted in changes in basic military doctrine.


1975: Malcolm Toon presented his credentials as U.S. Ambassador to Israel.



1975: Birthdate of Roi Klein, the native of Raanan Israel, the son of Holocaust survivors who rose to the rank of Major in the Golani Brigade before being killed in the 2006 War with Lebanon.



1976: It was reported today that the Foreign Minister of Uganda has demanded UN condemnation of Israel’s raid on the Entebbe airport.  Israel’s Chief UN delegate responded by telling the Security Council in no uncertain terms that that Preside Amin and others had collaborated with the hijackers. As the clash between the two diplomats came to a head, Herzog raised the issue of Dora Bloch a 75 year old hostage  with dual Israeli and British citizenship who had been taken to a Ugandan hospital before the raid.  The Foreign Minister said she had been returned to the plane before the raid.  Herzog called this “a blatant untruth” because a British official had visited her in the hospital the day after the rescue mission.



1979(15th of Tammuz, 5739): Famed orchestra leader Arthur Fiedler passed away. Fiedler’s name is synonymous with the Boston Pops and the spirit of Americanism that is connected with it every Fourth of July.



1981: PLO units that had occupied southern Lebanon turning into “a state with a state” unleashed a massive rocket attack on northern Israel.



1987(13thof Tammuz, 5747): Sixty-six year old “Alexandre P. Rosenberg, founding president of the Art Dealers Association of America and for many years a prominent art dealer in New York, died of a heart attack in London” today. (As reported by John Russell)
http://www.nytimes.com/1987/07/15/obituaries/alexandre-p-rosenberg-66-art-dealer-and-book-collector.html



1989(7th of Tammuz, 5749): Mel Blanc passed away. Born Melvin Jerome Blanc on May 30, 1908, in San Francisco, where his parents managed a ladies' ready-to-wear apparel business he was known as "The Man of a Thousand Voices." At one point he supplied the voices for 90 per cent of the Warner Brothers cartoon characters. Generations know him as the voice of Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck and Porky Pig. In talking about the Porky Pig role Blanc said they "called me in and asked me if I could do a pig -- a fine thing to ask a Jewish kid.”



1993(21st of Tammuz, 5753):Peretz Miransky, a member of an influential young Yiddish literary group in Poland between World Wars I and II, died today in a hospital in Toronto at the age of 85. “Mr. Miransky won the National Jewish Book Award in the United States in 1980 and twice won the J. I. Segal award of Canada for Yiddish poetry. He wrote fables and poetry as a member of Young Vilna, a group of writers from Vilna who adapted traditional Yiddish to express concerns of their generation. His early manuscripts were lost when he escaped the German invasion in World War II. He later recorded his early writings from memory in his first book, "A Light for a Penny." After resettling in Canada in 1949, he worked as a shipper for a store, then as a Canadian distribution agent for The Yiddish Daily Journal, which had headquarters in New York City. Later he became an agent for other Yiddish papers. After he retired in the mid-1970's, he wrote poetry full time and published three collections.



1998: In an article entitled “Hadera Journal; Jewish Family Heirloom: 15 Square Miles of Death,” Serge Schemann describes how Zypora Frank, Polish born Jew, who survived the Holocaust reacted when she learned that her family owned the land on which the infamous Auschwitz death camp had been built.



2000: “In Paper Seen as Villain in Abuse Accusations Against Rabbi” published today, Felicity Barringer described the impact of an article by Gary Rosenblatt entitled “Stolen Innocence” that described charges made against Rabbi Baruch Lanner concerning the abuse of “teenagers in his charge.
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/07/10/business/media-paper-seen-as-villain-in-abuse-accusations-against-rabbi.html?sec=&spon=&pagewanted=1



2001:Australia's entrants in the Maccabiah Games gathered in Sydney this evening to prepare for a return to Israel, their first since the disastrous bridge collapse killed four of their team members in 1997 and left many more fighting for compensation.



2005: Ben Stiller and his wife Christine Taylor gae birth to their son Quinlin Dempsey.



2005: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Lion of Hollywood: The Life and Legend of Louis B. Mayer by Scott Eyman.



2006:Jews gather in major cities all over the world to show their solidarity for the immediate release of Cpl. Gilad Shalit, who was kidnapped two weeks ago from his army outpost.



2007:Today, the Chabad of Brazos Valley, also known as the Chabad Center of Texas A&M, was founded by Rabbi Yossi Lararoff and his wife Manya



2007: In Jerusalem, a concert at Israel MuseumCelebrate the opening event of the summer at the Israel Museum with a performance by the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra - Israel Broadcasting Authority, conducted by Daniel Kosov. The performance includes pieces by Strauss, Haydn, Bruch, Mendelssohn, Bizet and Britten, performed by the orchestra and outstanding young soloists from Israel and abroad. Concert takes place in the Art Garden at 9pm and is included with museum admission.



2007: The Conference on the Future of the Jewish People opens in Jerusalem.



2008: At the public library in Iowa City, Agudas Achim and Hillel sponsor an exhibit of art by Jack Balch who died in 1980 and who was the father of the late Iowa Economics Professor, Dr. Michael Balch. Father and son were members of Agudas Achim.



2008: Following a week of near-daily Palestinian violations of the Israeli-Hamas cease-fire, two Kassam rockets struck the western Negev.  A faction of Fatah claimed responsibility for the attack while eight Palestinians, members of a cell of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, were arrested on suspicion of throwing Molotov cocktails at cars on the road near Mt. Scopus



2009: "Bruno" debuts in Britain and the United States. The movie is Baron Cohen's follow-up to his 2006 hit "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan," in which he played a clueless journalist on a U.S. tour.



2009:In Tel Aviv, Israel faces a team from Russia in Day 1 of the Davis Cup Quarter-Final matches.



2010: The 7th AICE Australian Film Festival is scheduled come to an end with a screening of “Beautiful Kate” in Tel Aviv.



2010:The Jerusalem Cinematheque, which is currently in the midst of running its annual Jerusalem Film Festival this week in the capital, released a statement this evening saying that comments made last week regarding the possibility of Dustin Hoffman attending the event were infact misleading and incorrect.

2011: “20 Years-Searching for the Answer,” an exhibit that explores questions about the Armenian genocide through art is scheduled to come to an end at the Holocaust Memorial Center in Farmington Hills, Michigan.



2011: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced today Israel's official recognition of South Sudan as an independent state. "

2011: Police are turning a blind eye to ultra-orthodox efforts to block traffic on a central Jerusalem street every Saturday, with hundreds of religious men often resorting to violence in a bid to prevent cars from desecrating Shabbat, secular activists reported today The ultra-orthodox activists have attempted to close off the street using dumpsters, and have been known to attack private cars trying to drive down the usually bustling road.

2011: Nirvana, a hypnotizing dance show from Korea, that is touring Israel for the first time, is scheduled to be performed at the Jerusalem Theatre.



2011: The New York Times featured reviews of books written by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Lee Krasner: A Biographyby Gail Levin and Rene Blum and The Ballets Russes:  In Search of a Lost Life by Judith Chazin-Bennahum



2011: The Galilee Music Festival is scheduled to come to an end.



2011: The Jewish Women's Archive “2011 Institute for Educators” is scheduled to start today.



2011: In Israel, the “Conversion Bill Moratorium” is scheduled to come to an end.



2011: An ancient rock inscription of the word “Shabbat” was uncovered near Lake Kinneret this week – the first and only discovery of a stone Shabbat boundary in Hebrew.The etching in the Lower Galilee community of Timrat appears to date from the Roman or Byzantine period. News of the inscription, discovered by chance today by a visitor strolling the community grounds, quickly reached Mordechai Aviam, head of the Institute for Galilean Archeology at Kinneret College. “

2012: CBS News Middle East correspondent Dan Ravi who co-authored Spies Against Armageddon with Yossi Melman is scheduled to speak tonight at the Historic 6th& I Synagogue in Washington, DC.



2012: Israeli settlements in the West Bank are a danger to Israel and threaten its long-term status as a center of Jewish life, President Shimon Peres said this evening. Speaking at an annual ceremony in memory of Theodor Herzl, Peres warned that Jews who settle in heavily populated Arab areas of the West Bank could lead Israel to a situation in which “it’s doubtful [the country] would remain Jewish.”



2012:Hezbollah arrested three people it suspects of running a spy network for Israel and the United States, pan-Arab news channel Al Arabiya reported today.

2012:Ehud Olmert, a former prime minister of Israel, was acquitted of corruption charges in two major matters by a : court today but was convicted in a third, closing a high-profile prosecution that cut short his term in office and changed the course of Israeli politics and diplomacy.



2012(20thof Tammuz, 5772): Seventy-four year old Dutch Jewish author Berthe Meijer, whose life intersected with Anne Frank’s passed away today (As reported by Toby Sterling)

2012:Rabbi Joel Levenson of Congregation B'nai Jacob, Woodbridge/New Haven, CT, gave the opening prayer at the U.S. House of Representatives.


2013: “Koch” and “Wilt Chamberlain: Borscht Belt Bellhop” are two of the two movies scheduled to be shown today at the 30th Jerusalem Film Festival.


2013: “Israel: A Home Movie” is scheduled to be shown at the Film Forum.


2013: The William Breman Jewish Museum and the Jewish Genealogical Society of Georgia are scheduled to sponsor “Commemorating 280 Years of Jews In Georgia.”


2013:The Alexandria Kleztet is scheduled to perform in Annandale, VA.


2013: The Jewish Historical Society of Greater Washington in partnership Adas Israel Congregation, EntryPoint DC, andThe Foundation for Jewish Studies are scheduled to sponsor a lecture by author “Beth Kanter will share stories she collected while writing the book and guide attendees in producing their own food writing.”


2013: Jewish-Palestinian journalist, politician and Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) member, Ilan Halevi, passed away today in Paris at the age of 70

2013:The first Haredi pre-military academy funded by the Defense Ministry will open this August in the Jordan Valley. News of its establishment today follows heightened tensions surrounding the issue of haredi enlistment in the IDF and an attack against a haredi soldier carried out by by a mob of ultra-Orthodox men in Jerusalem lasr night.  (As reported by Jeremy Sharon)



2014: The 92nd Street Y is scheduled to host a conversation with Patricia Bosworth and Oscar winning Jewish actress Lee Grant who was a victim of the Black List and  author of I Said Yes to Everything

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

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July 11



1174: Amalric I who had been King of Jerusalem since 1162 passed away.  During his reign most of the Jews were expelled from Jerusalem; a ban that would last until 1175.



1244:Khorezmian Turkish horsemen launch an attack on Jerusalem, sacking the city and killing most of the Christians and driving out the Jews. The Khorezmian Turks then move on to Egypt.Khwarezmia is at this time a state located around the Aral Salt Flats near the Caspian Sea. It has allied itself with the Ayyub sultan of Egypt against the Muslims in Damascus.”



1346: Charles IV of Luxembourg is elected emperor of the Holy Roman Empire which included the Bohemian city of Prague. According to the descendant of Moses ben Israel Naphtaly Hirsch Porges, “The long reign of Emperor Charles IV brought the Prague Jews new privileges and relative calm even though the Luxembourg rulers - the reigning local dynasty - treated Jewish property as though it were their own. They put it in pawn, sold it, or used it as backing for guarantees. But the king ensured protection and, among others, offered a chance for them to settle inside the walls of the arising New Town. A sign of the status of the Jewish community is a banner that has survived, given to the Jews of Prague by Charles IV in 1375.From that year on the Jews would, over the centuries, come to the gates of the ghetto to welcome the kings of Bohemia in Prague.”



1533: Clement VII excommunicated Henry VIII for divorcing Catherine of Aragon, and afterward marrying Anne Boleyn. Henry VIII had relied on the Book of Leviticus when he sought to marry Catherine, the widow of his brother.  Nobody was going to hit him with a sandal.  When it came time to shed Mary, Henry sought support from Rabbis, hoping that their interpretation of Biblical law would somehow sway the Pope.  The Rabbis, who were living in Italy, stayed out of the conflict. They had no reason to trust Henry, who had promised to keep the Jews out of England, when he got married. 



1657:  Birthdate of King Frederick I of Prussia.  Frederick’s greatest claim to fame is the fact that he was the father of King Frederick II also known as Frederick the Great.  Father and son quarreled about many things but they did agree on at least one thing.  They both abhorred their Jewish subjects, viewing them as aliens in their Germanic kingdom.



1720(5thof Tammuz, 5480): Ahron Lwow passed away in Vienna.



1733: A month after the founding of the colony of Georgia by James Oglethorpe, Jewish settlers arrived in Savannah. The group of forty Sephardic Jews was joined within a year by a group of Ashkenazi Jews. The Sephardic Jews had brought a Torah and other religious items with them and quickly founded a congregation called Mikveh Israel (Hope of Israel). One of the reasons given for the lack of European-styled anti-Semitism in America was that the Jews arrived in the New World at the same time everybody else did.



1734:Birthdate of Philip (Uri) Minis, the Jewish infant who was also the first male white child born in Georgia.



1740: Czarina Anne ordered the Jews expelled from Little Russia. Little Russia is another term for an area that includes the Ukraine.



1767:  Birthdate John Quincy Adams, Sixth President of the United States. Like his father, John Quincy had a positive attitude towards the Jewish people.  In a letter to Major Mordecai Manuel Noah, he wrote, “[I believe in the] rebuilding of Judea as an independent nation.”  Of course this could have been one the earliest attempt to secure Jewish political support by espousing the cause of the Jewish homeland. More than likely, it was an expression of popular Protestant belief of the time that Jews returning to the Promised Land was a necessary precursor for the ultimate Second Coming.  While many Jews know Noah as the founder of the utopian Jewish community of Ararat, he was a major diplomatic and political figure who was the leader of the Tammany Hall political machine during the 1820’s.



1797: Charles Macklin, the famous Anglo-Irish actor whose greatest claim to fame was his portrayal of Shylock in a completely new manner, passed away.



1797: The gates of the Jewish ghetto in Venice were torn down. This was a direct result of the victories of the French armies led by Napoleon.



1804:  Vice President Aaron Burr and Secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton fought a duel.  Hamilton fell mortally wounded. Hamilton had been born on the British controlled island of Nevis in the West Indies in 1755.  His mother was Jewish.  His father was a prominent citizen.  Hamilton’s mother was married, but not to Hamilton’s father. Hamilton attended a Jewish school which was housed in a synagogue in the island’s capital city.  After finishing his school he made his way to North America where he would eventually become a favorite of George Washington and was one of the authors of the famous Federalist Papers.  Hamilton never identified himself as a Jew and lived the life of a prominent Protestant political and financial leader.



1817: Eight year old Ralph Disraeli, the son of Maria and Isaac Disraeli, and the brother of Benjamin Disraeli was Christened today at St. Andrew’s in a ceremony that would change the history of the United Kingdom.



1827: Rabbi S.C. Peixotto officidated at the wedding of Nathan A. Cohen and Clara Harris, the third daughter of Jacob Harris, Jr. of Charleston, SC.



1824: In Frankfurt, Germany, James de Rothschild married his niece Betty Salomon von Rothschild the daughter of his brother, Salomon Mayer von Rothschild



1858: Birthdate of Cyrus L. Sulzberger: A native of Philadelphia, he “went to New York in 1877 as bookkeeper for the firm of Erlanger, Blumgart & Co., of which he later became the head. An active participant in movement’s to reform New York City’s corrupt political environment, he was a candidate on the Fusion ticket for president of the borough of Manhattan, New York in 1904. Sulzberger was also active in Jewish communal affairs serving for many years as treasurer of the United Hebrew, vice president of the American Zionist Federation and, in 1905, as president of the Jewish Agricultural and Industrial Aid Society.



1859: Birthdate of John Grenfell Maxwell, who as a Lt. Col in his majesty’s army served as commander of the Zion Mule Corps which is considered to be the first “Jewish fighting force” since the end of the Bar Kochba Revolt.



1861: Jules Mires, the Franco-Jewish banker, was condemned to five years in prison and order to pay a fine of 3,000 francs by the Correctional Tribunal of Paris.



1865(17th of Tammuz, 5625):Tzom Tammuz



1865(17th of Tammuz, 5625): Author and historian Elias Chaim Lindo, the native of St. Thomas who settled in London in 1832 where he published several works including History of the Jews of Spain and Portugal passed away today.



1866: Upon recurrence of blood libel accusations, Sultan Aziz issued a firman taking the Jews under his protection. Thanks to this firman the Greek Orthodox patriarchate had to issue encyclicals to all churches, forbidding such practices.



1869: Birthdate of Elyakum Heinrich or in German Heinrich Loewe, the German intellectual who attended the first Zionist Congress in Basel and as an orientalist  was appointed to a professorship at the University of Berlin in 1915.



1877(1st of Av, 5637): Rosh Chodesh Av



1877: An article published today described conditions in eastern Europe as the Russian Army continues its advance against the forces of Romania including the execution of two spies by the Russians.  According to the reporter, one stood tall and faced his executioners with a sneer before being shot.  The other, a Jew, groveled in front of his captors invoking his forefathers and expressing a willingness to convert if they would spare his life.  He was shot where he lay.  The reporter also included a description of Galician Jews whom he said were “so disgusting that even their co-religionists in Europe and America would refuse them all sympathy if they could see them.”



1877: The Fourth Council of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations met for a second day in Philadelphia, PA.



1879: Delegates to the Sixth Council of the Union of American and Hebrew Congregations visited various public institutions controlled by the Commissioner of Charities and Corrections followed by visits to various institutions supported by Jewish charities.



1879: Delegates to the Sixth Council of the Union of American and Hebrew attended a banquet at Delmonico’s



1879: Rabbi Isaac Meyer Wise of Cincinnati delivered a lecture at Temple Emanu-el based on the renewal of the covenant at Gilgal in the days of the prophet Samuel



1881: “The Bible and Science” published today provides a detailed review of Hours With the Bible: Volume II by Cunningham Geikie.  In this second of what will become a multi-volume work, Geike provides an in depth study of the period from Moses to the Judges.



1881: In Chicago, Dr. Ellinger read a paper tonight on “Ancient and Modern Rabbis” at a meeting of the Rabbinical Literary Society.  The society is a national organization that draws it membership from Jewish theologians throughout the United States.



1882: As the Freight Handlers’ strike turned violent, Levi Cossowtich, a Russian-Jewish peddler was assaulted this morning at Henderson and 11th Streets by person or persons unknown. At noon, as he went to dinner, Louise Marble, one of the Jewish freight handlers working at the Erie depot, was assaulted and robbed.



1883: “Current Foreign Topics” published today described events at the trial in Hungary where Jews who were charged with murdering a Christian girl  lost an important witness when a local coachman committed suicide.



1883:  The Hebrew Union Council met for a second day in Cincinnati, Ohio. The Committee on Circuit Preaching reported favorably on a proposal of engaging circuit rabbis to service those areas where the Jewish population is too scattered to support full-time ministers.  The Rabbinical Association asked that the Union provided a fund for “the support of enfeebled ministers in their old age.”



1883: Today’s commencement exercises of the Hebrew Union College are scheduled to be held at the Plum Street Temple in Cincinnati, Ohio followed by a banquet at the Highland House and a reception at the Zoological Garden.  The high point of the event will be the consecration of seven new rabbis, the first such class to be produced by the school and the first rabbis to be trained solely in the United States.[Note HUC would become the flagship institution for the Reform Movement.  While there is a popular misconception of American Jewry being a New York centric culture, in this a city in eastern Ohio, at the entry to the American heartland was the focal point of this significant segment of American Jewry.]



1883: County Coroner A.F Park came to the Oakdale, Connecticut to examine the body of a 24 year old Russian Jew, Moses Sadock.  Sadock’s body was found in the woods, lying on his back “with his throat cut from ear to ear.” Sadock was the center of a developing scandal involving accusations that he was a bigamist.



1884: As word reached Albany, New York that Governor Grover Cleveland had been selected as the Presidential nominee of the Democrat Party, the Jewish “banking firm of Wormser & Co in New York sent hearty congratulations…”



1884: It was reported today that in Brooklyn, Beth Elohim has hired William Sparger to serve as its rabbi.  The 26 year old Sparger was born in Hungary graduated from Prince Rudolph University of Vienna.  A member of the reforming movement, Sparger replaces Rabbi Mosher who left the pulpit 6 months ago due to illness.



1885: In an attempt to put an end to the disputes with Rabbi Kauffman Kohler of Temple Beth-El, Rabbi Alexander of Kohut of Ahavath Chesed said today, “I desire that it should be understood that as far as I am concerned the pulpit controversy that has been carried out between myself and Dr. Kohler… is declared at end.  I will make no more responses to any of Dr. Kohler’s sermons and expect a reciprocation from in this matter…In the interest of may religion and for the sake of harmony…I wish to avoid controversy in the pulpit.”  This was an attempt to bring an end to the public dispute between these leaders of traditional and liberal Judaism.



1885: In Baltimore, MD, Judge Phelps rendered a decision in the case of the District Grand Lodge of B’nai B’rith v the Jedijah Lodge.  The District had revoked the chapter’s charter and was seeking to recover funds that the lodge had collected.  The judge decided that under the rules of equity,the District Grand Lodge had no right to the funds.



1886: It was reported today that the lady managers of the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society have accepted the offer of boats from the New York Towing Company to be used for upcoming summer-time excursions.



1889: It was reported today that the Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati, Ohio is in desperate need of funds.  The school is $9,000 in debt and needs an additional $15,500 to maintain operations. (More to added next year)



1889: The Trustees of the Harlem Club met this evening to consider the application for membership of New York State Senator Jacob A. Cantor.  Robert Bonynge nominated him and David F. Porter seconded the nomination.  However, there was enough opposition that it was obvious that the Senator would be “blackballed.”  At the end of the meeting the Trustees refused to announce their decision saying that they would send a letter with the information  to Cantor within the next ten days



1889: The cornerstone for a new synagogue to be used by New York’s Sephardic Jews was laid today at the corner of 160 East One Hundred and Sixteenth Street.  This is the second synagogue in New York designed to meet the needs of the Spanish-Portuguese Community.



1889: Joseph Davis, “a junior member of…S&J Davis” a catering firm serving Orange and Newark, NJ, rented a summer cottage for his wife and their children at Ocean Beach after they had been forced to leave the Brunswick Hotel because the proprietor found out that they were Jewish.



1890: Theatrical manager Daniel Frohman described some of the plays he acquired on his recent trip to London and Paris that will be produced in the coming season. Among them are two French comedies – “Fen Toupinel” and La Femme Nervevie” – and two English comedies – “The Idler” and “The Solicitor”



1891: “The Expatriated Jews” published today described a letter the Assistant Secretary sent to the Acting Superintendent of Immigration at New York to question Russian Jews arriving at his port to see if any of them “had been diverted from their original destination to this country by foreign officials”, to record any such incidents in detail and send the report to Washington.



1891: Israel Pimkus a sixty year old Russian Jew was among the passengers who arrived at New York’s Barge Office aboard the SS Fürst Bismarck. When asked if he would become a public charge he opened a satchel containing $17,500 which he said he was planning on using to buy land in the “West” before sending for his brothers.



1892: “Close of the Rabbis’ Convention” published today described the final session of “the annual convention of American rabbis that ended last night at a well-attended meeting at Temple Israel on 125th Street and Fifth Avenu.



1892: In Little Rock AR, eighty-two year old Samuel Bloch, a well-known writer who had lived in Cincinnati and Chicago passed away today.



1893(27thof Tammuz, 5653): Israel Joshua, the rabbi at Kutno, passed away today.
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0020_0_20068.html



1894: “Aid For The Workingman” published today describes the success of the Order of Round Robins a fraternal and welfare organization designed to benefits workers and employers originally conceived by Colonel Jacob Bloom, the manager of the Baron de Hirsch Trade School located in New York City.



1894: The representatives of the United Hebrew Trades Union, the Socialist Party and the Knights of Labor met tonight at the Labor Lyceum to finalize plans for the upcoming mass meeting in Union Square.



1894: A list of the amount of annual appropriations of state moneys to be paid to different New York institutions and the year the appropriation was first approved included the Hebrew Benevolent and Orphan Asylum $110 per head by law of 1874, Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society $104 per head by law of 1889 and the Sanitarium for Hebrew Children $5,000 a year by law of



1894: In Albany, during the Constitutional Convention’s Committees on Legislate Powers, Education, Taxation and Charities hearing “on the question of abolishing sectarian appropriations Elbridge T. Gerry expressed his fear that adoption “would cripple the great Hebrew Guardian Society.”



1894: Samuel Gompers will chair the meeting of the Executive Council of the American Federation of Labor in Chicago where they will discuss the possibility of a general strike if the current strike against Pullman fails.



1895:In Rochester, NY, the annual Central Conference of American Rabbis continues to meet for a second day.



1895: A list of the bequests of the late Moses Heidelbach published today included $500 to Mount Sinai Hospital; a one thousand dollar bond to the Hebrew Benevolentand Orphan Asylum of New York City; $500 to Abraham Friedlander which he is to contribute charities in Cincinnati, Ohio.



1895: According to figures published today during the month of June, the Employment Bureau of the United Hebrew Charities of New York found employment for 667 of its 748 applicants



1896: Herzl achieves the agreement of Sir Samuel Montagu and Colonel Goldsmid to work with him for a vassal Jewish state under Turkish rule. Goldsmid promises to write a letter to Baron Rothschild.



1897: Forty Jewish families from Poland who had arrived in New York aboard the steamships Veendam and Scilia were turned over to the Immigration Bureau on the suspicion that they were destitute and therefore not eligible to enter the United States.



1897: It was reported today that “Yemen’s Arabian Jews have Negus Menelek for permission to settle in the towns of Abyssinia on the ground that Menelek is one of the chosen people being descendedfrom King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba”



1898: “Restlessness Among Children: Its Causes; Its Effects; Its Treatment” a presentation by Miss Carrie W. Kearns of New York City will be the feature of today’s session of the Teachers’ Institute which is part of this summer’



1899: In Poughkeepsie, NY, the leaders of the Y.M.C.A. who have been conducting a crusade to enforce the Sunday closing laws, have asked that the fines of the merchants convicted of violating the law, including Louis Grossman and Aaron Friedman be remitted because they only wished to have their stores closed on Sunday and not to have the merchants punished.



1899: The American Jews wishing to present a jeweled sword to Captain Dreyfus to mark his successfully overcoming the charges of treason received a telegram from Emile Zola stating “Dreyfus family consulted.  Thank you, but impossible to accept.”



1901: Grossherzog Friedrich of Baden informs Herzl that the Czar will not receive him.



1903: Birthdate of Sidney Franklin.  Born Sidney Frumkin, Franklin was the first famous bullfighter from north of the Rio Grande.



 1911: A strong protest was provided by Moses Gaster when the London Times published an article from Vienna stating that Jews are influencing the Salonica Committee which is bringing harsh measures to bear against the Albanians.



1912:Sarah Sophia Bensaude Abecassis “married her cousin Salomão Abecassis Seruya in the Great Synagogue, Cape Town, South Africa. He was the son of Mark (Mojluf) Seruya and Esther Conquy Abecassis. Born in Lisbon 1883, she was the daughter of Isaac Conquy Abecassis and Helena Nathan Bensaude



1914(17thof Tammuz,5674): Seventy-three year old Julius Rodenberg, (born Julius Levy) who “wrote the libretto to Anton Rubinstein's opera, “Feramors” and who founded the political journal Deutsche Rundschau in 1874 passed away today.



1914(17thof Tammuz, 5674): Fast not observed because it is Shabbat



1916: Birthdate of Mortimer Caplan the New York attorney who was a founding member of Caplin & Drysdale and who was appointed  IRS Commissioner by President Kennedy



1919: Birthdate of Russian born Israeli artist and author Benjamin Tammuz.



1920: At the first Zionist conference held after World War I, Olga Ginsburg initiated the founding of the Women’s International Zionist Organization (WIZO), together with representatives from organizations in Palestine, England, Germany, Poland, The Netherlands, Russia and South Africa. It was decided to establish the central office in Palestine and to divide the work between the world center and London. (As reported by Esther Carmel-Hakim)



1921: Former US President William Howard Taft was sworn in as 10th Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court, becoming the only person to ever be both President and Chief Justice.  Unlike the Associate Justices, the Chief Justice has major administrative responsibility for both the High Court and the Federal judiciary system.  It was in this latter arena that both Louis Brandies and Felix Frankfurter reported that Taft excelled.



1921: The Irish War of Independence in which Robert “Bob” Briscoe, the second Jewish Lord Mayor of Dublin, served in the Irish Republican Army and Sinn Fein, came to an end. 



1923: Birthdate of Helen Wasser, the native of the Lower East Side who gained fame as the “matriarch” of Kutsher’s Counrty Club, the last of great borscht belt hostelries. (As reported by Joseph Berger)

1923: Albert Einstein delivers his Nobel Lecture in Gothenburg, Sweden



1923: Birthdate of Richard Pipes, the Polish born American historian who specialized in Russian affairs.



1926:The first international conference of representatives of Liberal Judaism will open in London today. Delegates from the reform congregations of the United States and several European countries, ministers and laymen, are expected to participate. The majority of the papers to be read at the conference will deal with the fundamental aspects of Liberal Judaism today.



1927: The Hadassah offices in New York City received a cable from Dr. E.M. Bluestone, director of the Hadassah Medical Organization in Palestine stating that “the earthquake situation ‘is well in hand.’”



1927: In Los Angeles, CA, electrical engineer Abraham “Abe” Maiman and inventor Rose Abramson gave birth to Theodore Harold "Ted" Maiman the “American engineer and physicist credited with the invention of the first working laser.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/11/obituaries/11maiman.html?_r=0



1929: Critic and producer Mark Helleinger and Gladys Glad got married today.



1929: Birthdate of Juergen Corleis whose mother was Jewish which did not keep him from hiding as a student in an elite SS training school. A 1985 film produced by Corleis is a permanent feature at the Bergen-Belsen memorial, where it has been seen by millions of visitors.



1930: Birthdate of literary critic Harold Bloom. Bloom is the Sterling Professor of Humanities at Yale.  The Bronx born Bloom is reputed to have learned Yiddish and literary Hebrew before he learned English.



1931: Birthdate of 1950’s teenage heartthrob Tab Hunter.  Born Arthur Klein in New York, Hunter’s parents divorced and he moved to California with his mother and two brothers.  The blond haired, blue eyed Hunter played in a number of B films.  Teen age girls swooned over him, not knowing about his Jewish origins and sexual orientation. 



1933: In Floral Park, NY, Dr. Abraham and Mrs. Phyllis Neuwirth gave birth to Robert Samuels Neuwirth, “a prominent gynecologist who developed minimally invasive techniques that helped many women avoid hysterectomies.” (As reported by William Yardley.)



1937: Composer George Gershwin passed away. Born in 1898, Gershwin made musical history during his very short lifetime. Among his most famous productions was "Porgy and Bess" a classic whose music is still sung today.
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9805E6D61F3AE23ABC4A52DFB166838C629EDE



1938: During an appearance in the House of Commons, Colonial Secretary Malcolm MacDonald refused to respond to an inquiry about whether he would ask the French to expel the Grand Mufti from Syria, the base from which he is directing the on-going campaign of violence gripping Palestine.



1941(16th of Tammuz, 5701): Forty-four year old  bond broker, Monroe Mayhoff, retired bond who had risen to the rank of Captain while serving in the New York National Guard passed away today. He was the son of Charles Mayhoff and Ameilia Levy Mayhoff who survived both her husband and son.
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=F50C10F834581A738DDDAB0994DF405B8188F1D3



1941:  Following the murder of most of the Jews at Jedwabne, Poland by the Polish population on the previous days, the Germans reasserted their authority and forbade the Poles from killing any more Jews on their own.



1941: The Gestapo officially took control of the prisons in Riga where “Latvian gangs had already killed a number of Jewish inmates.”



1942: This day was called the "Black Sabbath" in Salonica, Greece. Ten thousand men were assembled for forced labor registration by the Germans. Surrounded by machine gun carrying Germans, 7,000 Jews had to stand erect, and sometimes in a squatting position in the 100 degree sun under threat of death nearly all day. An untold number of Jews died because they were beaten, tortured, and deprived of both food and water. Nine thousand of them are assigned to the Organisation Todt labor battalions.
http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/this_month/july/08.asp



1943: In the early morning hours, airborne troops drop onto Sicily followed by a seaborne assault by troops under the command of Patton and Montgomery in what was known as Operation Husky.  At that time Operation Husky was the largest amphibious assault ever attempted and its success depended on fooling the enemy as to where the landings would take place.  Thanks to Operation Mincemeat, which has been described as the Allies’ most successful act of deception during the war, the Axis forces were taken by surprise.  Operation Mincemeat was masterminded by Captain Ewen Montagu, a member of a prominent British Jewish family who would serve as President of the United Synagogue and Vice President of the Anglo-Jewish Association.  [For more about this fascinating act of deception see a movie called The Man Who Never Was or read Operation Mincemeat.]



1943: Martin Bormann, head of the Nazi Party secretariat, issued a circular on the instructions of Hitler. "Whenever the Jewish question was brought up in public, there may be no discussion of a future overall solution. It may however be mentioned that the Jews are taken in groups for appropriate labor purposes."



1944: “Prime Minister Winston Churchill put an end to the proposal to swap Jews for trucks and other goods with a memo that there should be ‘no negotiations of any kind on this subject.’”



1944: Birthdate of Michael Abraham Levy, “a Labour member of the House of Lords, President of Jewish Care and the Jewish Free School, and formerly the chief fundraiser for the Labour Party and several charities.”



1944: The Nazis liquidated the Kovno Ghetto.



1945: The British High Commissioner caves in to Arab pressure and issues a decree ending the Jerusalem municipality.  He imposed a system of six British officials to administer the city, a system that ended the democratically elected government of Jerusalem.



1946: A Polish primate, Cardinal August Hlond, blames the Jews of Kielce, Poland, for the murderous pogrom that had taken place on July 4.



1947: The SS Exodus, a dilapidated American coastal steamer, left France filled with Jewish refugees who planning on defying the British ban on Jewish immigration to Palestine.  The events surrounding the real SS Exodus would form the nucleus of Exodus by Leon Uris, a novel (and later movie) that provided a sympathetic description of events surrounding the birth of the modern state of Israel.



1948: During “Operation Danny,” Israeli forces captured Lydda.



1950: The New York Times reports that Crown Publishers will distribute “an American edition of Ari Ibn-Zahav’s second novel, David and Bathsheba in 1951.  “The book, on which the author worked nearly seven years covering those places in Israel where the incidents took place was published in Hebrew in Jerusalem in 1929.”  Jessica My Daughter was the name of Ibn-Zahav’s first novel.



1950: Two British planes which had landed at Lydda Airport without permission last week have been released by Israeli and are scheduled to leave Lydda Airport today.The two planes had landed in Israel on July 9 carrying more than 100 Iraqi Jews who had fled to Teheran where they had chartered these two British aircraft.  The planes had been detained because landing rights had been obtained for only one plane.



1951: The Jerusalem Post reported that Israel had been allocated $23.5m. grant-in-aid under the economic part of the US Mutual Security Program for the Middle East. The size of the no-man's-land in Jerusalem had been reduced by marking of the border houses by the joint Israel-Jordan Mixed Armistice Commission. Syria asked Iraq to withdraw all its troops which had been sent to reinforce the Syrian forces during the Hula conflict with Israel.



1955: Susan Strasberg, who was nominated for a Tony for her portrayal of Anne Frank, appeared on the cover of Life Magazine.



1958: In Tunisia, one of the last vestiges of this venerable community, The Jewish Community Council in Tunisia was dissolved. The Jewish Community Council was one of the last vestiges of the venerable Tunisian Jewish Community. The Jewish Community in Tunisia traced its roots to the days of the Second Temple. The community began in Carthage, the rival to Rome that you may remember as the homeland of the great general, Hannibal. Soon after the council was dissolved, the Hara, (Jewish quarter) together with the oldest synagogue was destroyed as part of a slum-clearance project.



1963:Arthur Goldreich, a South African Jew, who helped lead the armed struggle against apartheid in South Africa was among the top 16 ANC leaders who were arrested today at Liliesleaf.  This was the farm where Goldreich posed as the manager while Nelson Mandel masqueraded as his houseboy in their fight against the apartheid government of South Africa.



1961: Birthdate of Ophir Pines-Paz, the native of Rishon LeZion who served as an MK and filled several ministerial posts.



1966(23rd of Tammuz, 5726): Poet Delmore Schwartz, the son of Jewish immigrants from Romania passed away.



1966: Birthdate of American television actor Gregory Phillip Grunberg,



1967:The Battle of Rumani a naval engagement that took place tonight between Israeli and Egyptian naval forces, near the vicinity of Rumani. Two Egyptian torpedo boats were sunk in the action for no Israeli losses.
http://web.archive.org/web/20121010141041/http://www.btinternet.com/~david.manley/naval/Bulldogs/israeli.html



1972:  Birthdate of actor Michael Rosenbaum.  His current claim to fame is his role as Superman's evil opponent - Lex Luthor.



1973(11thof Tammuz, 5733): Seventy-eight year old jurist Simon Sobeloff who served as Solicitor General passed away today.
http://www.law.umaryland.edu/marshall/specialcollections/sobeloff/



1976: The Jerusalem Post reported that Israel told the UN Security Council that the entire Entebbe hijack affair was one of collusion, from beginning to end, on the part of the Ugandan government and Palestinian terrorists. Israeli envoy Chaim Herzog challenged Uganda to produce Mrs. Dora Bloch, who was both a British and Israeli national and was hospitalized in Entebbe the day before the raid. The British official who visited her a day after the raid reported that she was guarded by two plainclothes men and that he was denied access after he returned to meet her again an hour later. The British Foreign Office recalled its high commissioner from Kampala after he received a "totally unacceptable" reply from Idi Amin on the fate of Mrs. Bloch.



1976: In a pre-recorded interview broadcast today on the CBS news program Face the Nation, “Prime Minister Rabin denounced President Amin. ‘For years he has given refuge, assistance, training, support of all kinds to Palestinian terror organizations that worked against Israel.’” He went on to say “that President Amin was a full partner to the hijacking, if not when it began, then certainly in the later stage.” [Note – Rabin’s comments came in the wake of attacks by Uganda, and other nations of sub-Saharan Africa on Israel and implied, if not stated, support for the hijackers. Thirty years later, some of these same states would get a taste of what Israel was dealing with when they began to deal with Al Qaeda and other Moslem terrorists operating in their countries.]



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



1986: In Los Angles “Lee Schwartz, a business consultant to manufacturing companies, and Olivia Goodkin, an attorney” gave birth to Offensive Tackle Geoff Schwartz



1986:As part of the celebrations of the centennial of the Statue of Liberty, Liz Lerman's Still Crossing was performed in Manhattan.

1987(14th of Tamuz, 5747): Avi Ran, Israeli goalkeeper for Maccabia Haifa died in a boating accident.



1987(14th of Tammuz, 5747): Rabbi Yaakov Yitzchok Ruderman passed away. Born in 1901 at Daŭhinava he “was a prominent Talmudic scholar… who founded and served as Rosh Yeshiva of Yeshiva Ner Yisroel in Baltimore.



1988:Today, Economics Minister Gad Yaacobi said the 7-month Arab uprising has cost Israel more than $600 million, including losses in tourism, exports and production revenues. Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin said Israel has spent about $160 million to quell the unrest.



1994: The second round of family  tours of Israel sponsored by the American Jewish Congress are scheduled to begin today.



1999:Roman Bronfman and Alexander Tzinker left Yisrael BaAliyah and formed the Democratic Choice faction.



1999: The New York Times reviews books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including recently release paperback editions of Explaining Hitler: The Search for the Origins of His Evil” by Ron Rosenbaum and “Between Dignity and Despair: Jewish Life in Nazi Germany”, by Marion A. Kaplan.



2000; Talks opened at Camp David between Yasser Arafat and Ehud Barak under the auspices of Bill Clinton.



2002: An exhibition entitled “Michael Rovner: The Space Between” opened at the Whitney Museum in New York City.

2000: Yithak Vankin ended his service as Deputy Minister of Communications when Shas resigned from the government today.



2000: Haim Ramon succeeded Natan Sharansky as Internal Affairs Minister.



2000: Eli Suissa completed his service as Minister of Energy and Water Resources



2000: Starting today, President Clinton hosted negotiations between Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Chairman Yassar Arafat aimed at creating “an agreement on permanent status.”



2004(22nd of Tammuz, 5764): Eighty-two year old fitness guru Joe Gold, the creator of the ubiquitous Gold’s Gyms, passed away today. (As reported by Wolfgang Saxon)
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/14/us/joe-gold-82-creator-of-mecca-of-bodybuilding.html



2005: Opening ceremonies for the 17th Maccabiah.



2007: Ninety­-two year old American born Canadian businessman, philanthropist and theatrical impresario Ed Mirvish, the owner of Hones Ed’s discount store passed away today.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/2007/jul/14/guardianobituaries.obituaries
http://www.newspoil.com/pid-1367105271718159872/Canadian-merchant-Ed-Mirvish-Dies-at-92.html



2007: In Sydney, Australia, the International Conference of Christian and Jews comes to an end.



2008: US Ambassador to Israel Richard Jones leave his post, some three years after taking up the position. He will be replaced by James Cunningham, whose appointment has already been confirmed by the US Senate.



2008: At a conference on the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Orion Center held by the Hebrew University's Mandel Institute of Jewish Studies and the Israel Museum Professor Israel Knohl from the Department of Bible Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem presented a new and surprising interpretation to a text found on a stone tablet that has been called the ''Vision of Gabriel''. According to his interpretation, the word Hayia – or ''will live''– that appears on the tablet is an old form of the imperative word ''Live!'' and shows that the angel Gabriel resurrected a messianic leader by the name of Sar HaSarin, or ''prince of princes'' three days after his death. The Vision of Gabriel is a text written on stone from the first century B.C.E. that was discovered in Transjordan, and describes an apocalyptic vision that is told by the angel Gabriel. The vision recounts that an evil king will succeed in destroying many of the people of Israel and killing its leader, the ''Prince of Princes''. After three days, this leader will be resurrected by the angel Gabriel. Prof. Knohl, who is the Yehezkel Kauffman Professor of Biblical Studies, suggests reconstructing the words from a fragmented line in the text ''in three days come back to life, angel Gabriel commands you''. Prof. Knohl claims that in this line it is clear that Gabriel is approaching someone and commanding him to come back to life after three days. Prof. Knohl found that development of the tradition regarding the messiah son of Joseph is based on real historic events, and that the belief in the resurrection of the messiah and on his rising up to heaven three days after his death developed before Christ's crucifixion. ''We are able to determine that the period in which the Vision of Gabriel was written was at the end of the first century B.C.E, close in time to the birth of Jesus of Nazareth. The idea that the death of the messiah is an integral part of the salvation process was at the time a commonly held belief among certain circles,'' claims Prof. Knohl. ''Therefore, if there was a Jewish tradition of a messiah who will be resurrected, it is possible to believe that Jesus was the Jewish messiah who goes to his death out of the belief that his spilled blood will cause G-d to bring about the redemption of the Jewish people. This discovery should bring about a renewed appreciation of the parallel development of Jewish and Christian messianism.''



2009: In Tel Aviv, Israel faces Russia in Day 2 of the Davis Cup Quarterfinals.



2009: At the Jerusalem Film Festival, a screening of “Camera Obscura” a film based on a novel by Angélica Gorodisher set at the end of the 19th century, in a colony of Jewish immigrants living in Entre Ríos Province, Argentina.



2010:The final performance of the World Premiere engagement of The Socialization of Ruthie Shapiro is scheduled to take place at Theatre West in Los Angeles.



2010: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewsih readers including The Council of Dads:My Daughters, My Illness, and the Men Who Could Be Meby Bruce Feiler and The Men Who Would Be King by Nicole LaPorte which chronicles how Jewish showbiz veterans Steven Spielberg, David Geffen and Jeffrey Katzenberg banded together to form DreamWorks SKG, their own custom-­designed production studio and the first new Hollywood studio in 60 years.



2010:The 70th yahrzeit of Vladimir Ze'ev Jabotinsky was marked today, at Mount Herzl cemetery in Jerusalem, by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Shimon Peres. There was nary a mention of it in the Israeli media—an extraordinary omission given that Jabotinsky was not only a founder of the Haganah and the supreme commander of the Irgun but also a towering Zionist theoretician and leader. Jabotinsky was born and raised in cosmopolitan Odessa, then a vibrant hub of Jewish intellectual and cultural life. Drawn to journalism, he became an accomplished feuilletonist. His life took a fateful turn in 1903, when, fearing the pogroms sweeping Russia would reach his city, he pulled together a Jewish self-defense group. In the same year, he attended the Sixth Zionist Congress in Basle, which rejected an anguished Theodor Herzl’s plea to consider settling for an autonomous Jewish sanctuary in East Africa.   During World War I, while the Zionist establishment cautiously maintained its neutrality, Jabotinsky became the driving force behind the formation of a Jewish Legion to fight alongside the Allies. In the early 1920s, as the British mandatory authorities in Palestine capitulated regularly to Arab pressure, he organized defensive measures against Arab rioting, an activity for which he was at first imprisoned by the British and later amnestied and deported. Jabotinsky was unwavering in his insistence that Zionism’s immediate and uncompromising goal had to be Herzl's original vision of an actual Jewish state. A rupture over the establishment's accommodationist approach toward Britain was inevitable. In 1925 he founded the Revisionist Zionist Organization, and ten years later led it out of the Congress. On Tisha b'Av 1938, he delivered a chillingly prophetic speech in Warsaw imploring the Jews of Poland to "see the volcano which will soon begin to spew forth its fires of destruction"—and to escape while they still could. Two years later, at the age of fifty-nine, Jabotinsky died suddenly in upstate New York after inspecting an honor guard of his Betar youth movement. In Tel Aviv, the Labor newspaper Davar, which had opposed his every political move, graciously editorialized:  "Jabotinsky has died. That gifted violin has been shattered."  The reference was to his formidable powers as a polemicist and spellbinding speaker, capable of holding an audience in Russian, Hebrew, Yiddish, English, French, or German. Jabotinsky's first biographer, Joseph B. Schechtman, described him as a "rebel, statesman, fighter, and prophet." To Shmuel Katz, his definitive biographer, "Jabo" was simply a "lone wolf." His emphasis on ethnic pride and regard for military discipline made liberals uncomfortable and led enemies to slur him as a fascist, an odd charge against a passionate 19th-century liberal and advocate of woman's rights. Like others, Jabotinsky may not have fully fathomed nascent Arab nationalism; but he abhorred the idea that Arab and Jew could not live together peaceably. Jabotinsky's multilingual journalism and literary output are keys, in their own way, to understanding his character and his take on life in general and Jewish life (and the Jewish imagination) in particular. Throughout his hectic political career, he somehow managed to write novels, poems, stories, patriotic songs, essays, and a regular column in New York's Yiddish-language Morning Journal. In reviewing an English translation of one of his novels, Hillel Halkin found a portrait of the author himself in a character inclined by nature to free-spiritedness but committed to a life of duty and self-sacrifice. Do Jabotinsky's uncompromising views, including on the territorial integrity of the Land of Israel, enjoy a 21st-century constituency in the Jewish state? Not in the Likud, which claims his political legacy, and not in the mostly Orthodox-led settlement movement, which has its own heroes. Even in death, it seems, Jabo remains a lone wolf.



2011: Nirvana, a dance show from Korea, based on ancient ritual Buddhist dances, is scheduled to performed at the Performing Arts Center in Herzliya



2011:The "Boycott Bill" was approved in its final reading in the Knesset tonight, after a plenum discussion that lasted nearly six hours and uncertainty throughout the day as to whether a vote would take place.

2011: Argentinean Rabbi Sergio Bergman won a seat on the Buenos Aires municipal legislature today, leading the vote tally with 45 percent of the votes.  Bergman garnered triple the number of votes of the candidate who came in second place, Juan Cabandié of the Victory Front Party,  who won 14 percent of the vote.



2011: A leading rabbi and halachic authority in Israel has recognized the Chuetas of Palma de Majorca as Jewish, the Shavei Israel organization announced today. The Chuetas are descended from the Jewish inhabitants of the Spanish island of Majorca who suffered extreme oppression in the Middle Ages, until by 1435 all of them had been killed or forcibly converted to Catholicism. Because the Chuetas are related to the previous generations and married among themselves they should be considered Jewish, Shavei Israel Chairman Michael Freund told reporters that Rabbi Nissim Karlewitz, chairman of the Beit Din Tzedek (rabbinical court) in Bnei Brak, wrote in a letter to the organization. “Since it has become clear that it is accepted among them [the Chuetas] that throughout the generations most of them married among themselves, then all those who are related to the former generations are Jews, from our brethren the children of Israel, the nation of God,” Karlewitz wrote. “We, the Jewish people, have a responsibility to the Chuetas,” Freund told The Jerusalem Post. “Their ancestors were kidnapped from us and taken against their will six centuries ago. The Inquisition sought to quash their Jewish identity down through the ages and we are coming here today to say that the Inquisition did not succeed. Jews are still here and the Chuetas are still here, and the best revenge on the Inquisition would be to bring as many of these people as possible back to their roots and back to their people.” Despite having been converted, the Chuetas – whose name comes from the Catalan word for pig – continued to face intense discrimination and oppression, and were not allowed to marry Catholics or adopt certain professions. Because of the ban on intermarriage, the Chuetas almost exclusively married within their own community. “Although there is no actual discrimination any longer against Chuetas, on a societal level many feel ostracized and to a certain extent outsiders,” Freund said. “Acceptance of the Chuetas over the past 40 years has grown, which is positive, but brings with it a greater danger of assimilation, which is why the timing of this announcement is so important.” Karelitz’s decision refers to the Chuetas as a collective, and for anyone wanting to return in full to the Jewish community it will be necessary for a rabbinical court to speak with the individual. According to Freund, many of the Chuetas have documentation attesting to their family lines, often going back 500 years. “There are 15 distinct Chueta family names. Because of the historical circumstances and because of the endogamy practices, it is relatively easy to document and prove their genealogy,” Freund said. In May, the president of the Balearic Islands province of Spain, Francesc Antich, attended a memorial service in the Majorcan capital of Palma commemorating the execution in 1691 of 37 Chuetas for practicing Judaism in secret, including Rabbi Rafael Valls, the secret rabbi of the Chuetas who, along with two others, was burned alive. Antich condemned the “grave injustice” done against the Chuetas, the first time an official from Majorca had condemned such events. “The recognition of their Jewishness was received with great happiness and joy, some people at the announcement burst into tears, because they now know the Jewish people are aware of them and feel a kinship with them,” Freund said of the press conference on Monday. Rabbi Nissan Ben-Avraham, who is of Chuetas origin and works for Shavei Israel in Palma de Majorca, will be joining with the Arachim outreach organization to provide a program of lessons in Hebrew, Jewish history, culture and religion for the Chuetas. “We are not coming here to tell people how to live their lives, we are just presenting them with an option. Those who wish to return to the Jewish people will now have opportunity to do so and will be welcomed back with open arms. Our goal is to help as many as possible to return to their Jewish roots,” Freund said.



2011: A four-alarm fire broke out tonight at an Upper East Side synagogue that was being renovated, spitting flames through stained-glass windows, destroying the roof and heavily damaging the upper floors, the Fire Department said. No one was badly injured in the blaze, which obscured the sky over much of the neighborhood with smoke. Four firefighters received minor injuries battling the blaze, which fire officials said apparently began on the roof. The cause was not known. Hundreds of people crowded around Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun, a modern Orthodox synagogue on 85th Street near Lexington Avenue, after the fire began about 8:30 p.m. About 170 firefighters fought the blaze, which took about an hour to bring under control.Onlookers gaped and snapped pictures with cellphone cameras as flames shot up from the roof. “It went up like that,” said Stephen L. Ruzow, chairman of the FDNY Foundation and a member of the synagogue, who saw the flames engulf the roof. “Flames were 40 feet in the air, and there were large clouds of thick black smoke.” The synagogue, which is 110 years old, was being renovated and no one was inside, according to Rabbi Haskel Lookstein, and the sacred Torah scrolls had been removed when construction began. The renovation was to have been completed in September. “We’re lucky,” Rabbi Lookstein said, “because every Torah scroll is as special as a human life.” After the fire, only a few of the roof beams remained. Some of the long stained-glass windows at the front of the building were blackened and broken. Members of the congregation flocked to the scene from across the city when they learned their synagogue was aflame.  Asher Levitsky, 67, a lawyer whose children attended Ramaz, a nearby school affiliated with the synagogue, said he was on his way to a SummerStage musical performance in Central Park when his wife’s cousin called him. He said he immediately turned around and headed for the Kehilath Jeshurun. “It’s tragic,” Mr. Levitsky said. “It’s a terrible loss.”



2011: Aaron “Swartz was indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of wire fraud, computer fraud, unlawfully obtaining information from a protected computer and recklessly damaging a protected computer.”



2012: While it is said that “wine gladdens the hear” the Historic 6th& I Synagogue in Washington, DC turns its attention to another form of fermented refreshment tonight when it is scheduled to host “Summer Brews: A Season Tasting with The Beer Activist.”



2012: The 92ndStreet Y is scheduled to present “Saving America’s Working Class” – a discussion with James Carville and Stan Greenberg.”  (Guess which one is not Jewish)



2012: In Jerusalem, Dalik Voloniz is scheduled to moderate “Destruction and Hope,”  a pre–Tisha B’Av event that combines discussion, song, and music. Ideas will be discussed about personal and national recovery, about the opportunities latent in loss, and about how memory becomes a driving force.

2012: Former US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice today confirmed the accuracy of her account of a 2008 meeting with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in which he had told her why he couldn’t accept then-Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert’s terms for a permanent Israeli-Palestinian peace accord. In an interview over the weekend, Abbas had denied that the conversation Rice described and quoted in her memoir had taken place at all.



2012(21stof Tammuz, 5772): Eighty-seven year old author Donald J. Sobol passed away today.(As reported by Denise Grady)
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/17/books/donald-j-sobol-creator-of-encyclopedia-brown-dies-at-87.html?_r=1&hpw



2012: A meeting between Vice Prime Minister Moshe Ya’alon and MK Yohanan Plesner focused on drafting universal conscription legislation ended today with the two sides unable to come together, and with Plesner storming out. The deadlock again threatened the future of the two-month-old Likud-Kadima coalition, which has been strained by disputes over drafting ultra-Orthodox and Arab Israelis.



2012(21stof Tammuz, 5772):Eighty-seven year old ”Marvin S. Traub, the retailing impresario who transformed Bloomingdale’s from a stodgy Upper East Side family department store into a trendsetting international showcase of style and showmanship in the 1970s and ’80s” passed away today. (As reported by Robert D McFadden)

2013: “The Longest Journey – The Last Days of the Jews of Rhodes” is scheduled to be shown at the 30th Jerusalem Film Festival.


2013: In San Francisco, the Contemporary Jewish Museum is scheduled to host an examination of the life of Allen Ginsberg entitled “The Beat Generation with Biographer Bill Morgan and Poet David Meltzer”


2013:The Wiener Library for the Study of the Holocaust & Genocide and the International Study Group for Education and Research on Anti-Semitism are scheduled to sponsor a workshop that seeks to analyze “the University and College Union, Anti-Semitism and the boycotts campaigns against Israel”


2013: The UKJF is scheduled to sponsor a screening of “Salsa Tel Aviv” preceded by a free salsa class.


2013:In the second such attack in two days, this evening a uniformed soldier was assaulted in the capital by fellow haredim opposed to ultra- Orthodox army service. According to Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld, around 6:30 p.m., while the soldier was walking alone on Shmuel Hanavi Street, the assailants drove up and began cursing him and throwing objects at him without provocation. (As reported by Daniel K. Eisenbud and Jeremy Sharon)


2013: Egypt is reported to be prepared to ask Israel for permission, under the terms of their decades long peace treaty, to enter the Sinai with such sufficient forces “to launch a broad campaign to root out Islamic extremists in the largely wild peninsula.” (As reported by Asher Zeiger)


2014:Members of SHINDC (Sephardic Heritage in DC) are scheduled to lead a service spiced with Sephardi traditions, melodies, and practices, followed by a Persian (Iranian) dinner at the Historic 6th& I Synagogue.


2014: John and Susan Nicholson are scheduled to play at the Summer Kaleidoscope Music Series in Milwaukee which begins after Shabbat eve services.
 
2014: On CNN, a Palestinian spokesman takes issue with the IDF claim that it calls and warns people in Gaza that they are about to attack and get out of the building.  He said the IDF is no longer doing this - meaning that even if you accept his version the IDF does make these calls.

2014: A group of anti-Israel hackers who support the Palestinian terrorists are scheduled to launch a large-scale cyber-attack on Israel with a denial of service (DDOS) Attack. (As reported by David Shamah)

 
2014: As of 1 a.m. Israeli time, terrorists continue to fire missiles into Jewish population centers while the IDF reluctantly maybe preparing for an incursion into Gaza. 

This Day, July 12, In Jewish History by MItchell A. Levin

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July 12



1191: The armies of the Third Crusade (1189-92), led by England's King Richard ('The Lionhearted'), captured the Syrian seaport of Acre.  The Third Crusade would end in failure for the Christian forces.  King Richard would be taken prisoner by the Austrians on his way home.  The Jews of England would be called upon to help pay the ransom of their monarch, who had left the kingdom under the control of his brother Prince John.



1216: Pope Innocent III who issued a Letter on the Jews in 1199 which prohibited the forced conversion of Jews passed away today.



http://www.ccjr.us/dialogika-resources/primary-texts-from-the-history-of-the-relationship/263-pope-innocent-iii-on-the-jews-and-forced-baptisms-1199-and-1201



1290: The Jews were expelled from England by order of King Edward I. Edward gets reasonably high marks for setting up the "Model Parliament." American moviegoers know him as "Longshanks" the King who was the villain in the film "Braveheart." The banishment of the Jews from the kingdom was part of slow decline engineered by the English king for a variety of reasons. Before the final edict he found one more way to extract money from his Jewish subjects. In 1287, he arrested several prominent Jewish leaders and demanded the community produce a 12,000-pound ransom for their freedom. The date for the actual order of expulsion is given by some as July 12 and by others as July 18. Regardless, Edward gave the Jews three months to leave. After All-Saints Day, any Jew found in the realm was subject to death. The Jews would not officially return to England until 17th century and the era of Cromwell.



1555: In his Bull Cum Nimis Absurdum, Pope Paul IV renewed all previous anti-Jewish legislation and installed a ghetto in Rome. Jews were forced to wear a given cap and forbidden to own real estate or practice medicine on Christians. Communities weren't allowed to have more than one synagogue and Jews in all the Papal States were forced to lock themselves into the confines of the ghettos each night.



 1536: Desiderius Erasmus, the Dutch writer and philosopher passed away. According to Elliot Rosenberg, Erasmus’ relations with the Jews presented a mixed bag.  Unlike Thomas More, “Erasmus spoke out in defense of the Jews and Judaism. ‘If it is Christian to hate the Jews, all of us are only too Christians.’  On the other hand he also write “Jews are very numerous in Italy; in Spain there are hardly any…I am afraid that when the occasion arises, that pest, formerly suppressed, will raise its head again.  Finally, Erasmus only provided lukewarm support when Johann Reuchlin took on “dogmatic Talmud-burners in Central Europe.”



1567(25thof Tammuz, 5327): Latest date on which Meir Ashkenzai was killed on a voyage from Gava to Dakhel while service as an envoy of the Tartar Kahan.



1630: A Dutch man, Michael Paauw, acquires Gull Island from the Mohegan Indians renames it Oyster Island. At the time of the American Revolution, a New York merchant named Samuel Ellis purchased the island and renames it in honor of his family.  This is how the famous point of entry for millions of immigrants included an untold number of Jews came to be known as Ellis Island.



1753: Birthdate of Moses Dobruška, a cousin of Jacob Frank, who convert to Catholicism and was guillotined in Paris on charges of treason and espionage.



1796: French Revolutionary troops under Jean Baptiste Kléber besieged Frankfurt by shelling the city that including its Judengasse.



1804: Former United States Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton dies a day after being shot in a duel.



1828: Birthdate of Count Iosif Gurko, who as military commander of the districts of Warsaw, Wilna and Kovno would seek royal permission to expel all of the population most of whom were Jews 60 versts or 40 miles from the border.



1840:  Birthdate of merchant Benjamin Altman, founder of B. Altman & Co.  He was the son of Bavarian Jews, who immigrated to America in 1835 and soon opened a small store.  Altman opened his first store in 1865 and, after thirty years of acquisition and growth formed B. Altman & Co.  Altman was one of a whole series of Jewish merchants and department store moguls who were tied to such famous American emporiums as Macy's, Neiman Marcus, Sears & Roebuck and Home Depot.  B. Altman met its corporate demise in 1989.  Altman, like so many other Jewish merchants, both large and small, was noted for his philanthropy. Shortly before his death in 1913, he established the Altman Foundation, of which $20,000,000 represented by his art collection, was given to the Metropolitan Museum, New York.



1841: The London & Brighton Railway began passenger service through the East Croydon Station which was designed by Anglo-Jewish architect David Mocatta.



1845: Thirty seven year old Norwegian author Henrik Wergeland who supported the ban on Jews settling in Norway passed away today.



1859: Today “the cornerstone of the first Ashkenazic synagogue in British North America, Congregation Shaar Hashomayim, was laid at 41 St. Constant (now de Bullion Street), just below de la Gauchetière. It accommodated 150 men and 50 women. The building was 48 by 111 feet. The services were modeled after the Bayswater Synagogue in London, England.



1860: Commodore Uriah P. Levy saluted the Stars and Stripes and walked down the gangplank for the last time. Yet his country had use for him: President Lincoln apparently suggested to Gideon Welles, the Secretary of the Navy, that Levy's unique experience of the military justice system should not be wasted. The old sailor's last assignment has a distinctly Lincolnesque humor: President of the Naval Court-Martial Board.



1862: The Medal of Honor was authorized by the United States Congress. The Medal of Honor is popularly known as the Congressional Medal of Honor.  It is the highest decoration military service personnel can earn.  From the Civil War through the Vietnam War, 18 Jews have won this honor.



1872: Maurice and Johanna Kahn gave birth to Jacobus Henricus Kann the Dutch banker and partner of the banking house Lissa & Kann who was the co-founder of the Jewish Colonial Trust. He died at Theresienstadt in 1944.



1873: Shah Nasr-ed-Din and Adolphe Cremieux met in Persia to discuss the problems of oppressive social and economic discrimination against the Jews. The shah agreed to encourage Jewish schools, and work to improve the Jewish condition. Unfortunately, despite his intentions, the government did little to prevent attacks against the Jewish population or to rescind many of the anti-Jewish regulations.



1876:  Birthdate of Max Jacob, French painter, poet and writer.  Jacob converted to Catholicism before World War I.  Unfortunately for Jacob, the Nazis and Vichy still saw him as a Jew.  His brothers, sister and brother-in-law died at Auschwitz.  Jacob was arrested by the Gestapo in 1944.  However, he died at the French concentration camp called Drancy before he could be shipped east for the Final Solution



1876: At the City Republican Meeting at  Cooper Institute in New York, Judge Abraham Jesse Dittenhoefter read the letters of those regretting that they could not attend


1879: Rabbi David Einhorn gave his final sermon at Congregation Beth-El in New York.  Einhorn proudly recalled his role in speaking out against slavery while serving as a rabbi in Baltimore at the outbreak of the Civil War. He was equally proud of his role in the Reform movement although he said he remained staunchly opposed to replacing Saturday with Sunday as the day for Jews to celebrate the Sabbath.  He also urged Jews to continue using German in their sermons and teachings because this was a key in remaining connected to the best in Jewish learning. 



1879: According to reports published today, Rabbi Gustav Koehler of Chicago will replace Rabbi David Einhorn as the leader of Congregation in Beth-El in New York. These same reports contend that Koehler plans on holding services on Sunday and will be delivering sermons in English.



1880(4th of Av, 5640): French financier Isaac Pereire passed away. Pereire and his brother were rivals of the House of Rothschild.  However, the Pereire brothers were Sephardic Jews while the Rothschilds were Ashkenazim. Born in 1806, Piereire and his brother Emile built the first railroad in France in 1835. For a brief period he owned the Paris daily "La Liberté" and he was named a knight of the Legion of Honor for his many philanthropic efforts.



1880: It was reported today that a memoir written by Professor Daniel Chwolson the Jewish professor at the University of St. Petersburg which contains information about the newly discovered Hebrew eptipahs found in the Crimea is in the hands of the printers.



1881: The 8thannual conference of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations is scheduled to begin today in Chicago, Illinois.



1882: As the Freight Handlers’ Strike continued in New York Polish Jews were working in place of the Italians most of whom had been arrested by the police. 



1882: The attacks on the Jews and Italians who have replaced the striking freight handlers are reported to have become much more frequent.  It is reported that the attacks are the works of ruffians who are robbing the Jews and then blaming it on the strikers.



1883: The first free excursion of the season sponsored by the Sanitarium for Hebrew Children will leave from a pier at the foot of 5th Street at nine o’clock this morning



1883: At the third day’s meeting of the Hebrew Union Council the delegates will vote on the recommendation of the Committee on Agricultural Pursuits the Jewish organization work with the Cincinnati Agricultural Society which has already establish established a successful colony in Kansas.



1884:  Birthdate of Italian painter and sculptor, Amedeo Modigliani.  In 1906, Modigliani went to Paris to study where he was confronted with the anti-Semitism connected with retrial of Captain Alfred Dreyfus.  Modigliani signed his sketches "Modigliani - Jew."  Modigliani lived his life as the typical starving artist.  His paintings began to gain in financial worth in shows starting in 1919.  In November of that year Modigliani's health began to rapidly decline.  According to legend he sang the Kaddish for himself when he began spitting blood. He died two months later.  Since his death his paintings have soared in value.  In 1989 one of his paintings was sold for over eight million dollars.  
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Amedeo_Modigliani_Photo.jpg
http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/modigliani/



1884: Birthdate of movie mogul Louis B. Meyer



1885: It was reported today that the Hebrew Standard has said “The meanest class of Jewish merchants are those who refuse to close half a day on the Jewish Sabbath.”



1886: The children in the care of the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society will leave for an excursion on the East River at 8 o’clock this morning.



1887: The 14thannual council of the Hebrew Congregations holds its opening meeting in Pittsburgh where Josiah Cohen was chosen Chairman of the Council, Adolph Freund of Detroit is chosen Vice President and Levi Lipman of Cincinnati is chosen as Secretary.  Dr. Stephen Wise gave the opening address where he reported on conditions at the Hebrew Union College.



1890: “City and Suburban News” published today provides a list of upcoming events in the New York area including plans for Rabbi Sabito Morais to deliver a talk at the Jewish Theological Seminary.



1891: Israel Pimkus, a sixty year old Russian Jew who has just arrived in the United States announced his intentions “of going West” and sending for his five brothers to join him once he gets settled.  Pimkus had escaped Russia with $17,500 that the Czar’s police had failed to find when they ransacked his family’s home



1891: “To Celebrate a Centennial” published today described upcoming plans to observe the 102nd anniversary of the fall of the Bastille and the 100thanniversary of the emancipation of the Jews of France which will take place in New York’s Lion Park.

1892:  Birthdate of Bruno Schulz, Polish author and painter.  Schulz will be killed by a Gestapo officer in 1942 under unusual circumstances.  A mural that he painted just before his death would become a point of contention between Ukrainian authorities and the officials at Yad Vashem in 2001



1892: An old Jewish peddler named Gustave Berkowitz was clubbed by a group of Italians who had been fighting among themselves on Thompson Street.



1893: Mrs. Sarah Goldstein a widow with six children who lives at 181 Orchard Street “was served with a notice to vacate her apartments” because she had not paid her rent.  She had used her rent money to pay for medicine for five of her children who had contracted measles.



1894: Concerns about a general strike in New York City seem to have been unfounded as could be seen “at the headquarters of the American Federation of Labor on Clinton” where “there was nothing to indicate that there were even rumors of strikes”



1894: In New York, labor leader Patrick Murphy obtained a parade permit that will enable 15,000 union members including those belong to the United Hebrew Trades Union to take part in a parade tomorrow night.



1894: The members of the United Hebrew Trade Unions are scheduled to form up at Rutgers Square before joining up with members of other labor unions for a mass meeting at Union Square.



1894: Abram Cahan is scheduled to be one of the speakers at tonight’s mass meeting at Union Square sponsored by  several labor unions in New York.



1894: In Plymouth, MA, The School of Applied Ethics with Felix Adler as Dean, opened its third annual session today.



1895: Birthdate of lyricist Oscar Hammerstein II. He is the Hammerstein of the team (Richard) Rogers and Hammerstein that produced a string of Broadway Musicals including "Oklahoma" and "Carousal." Hammerstein passed away in 1960.



1895: This evening, Dr. Joseph Adolph Moses of Louisville, KY is scheduled to address the annual Central Conference of American Rabbis meeting in Rochester, NY.



1895: In Rochester the most important subject discussed at this morning’s session of the Rabbinical Conference “was that touch upon by President Wise in his annual address – “What Is Our Relation in All Religious Matters to Our Post Biblical, our Patriotic Literature Including Talmud!”



1896: “About the Ancients” published today described Mr. Maspero’s confirmation of Mr. Flanders Petrie’s discovery of the work “Yisraal” on the Merenptah inscriptionand believes it to be the earliest mention of Israel so far found in Egypt…”



1896: “About the Ancients” published today described the work of Chabas who in 1864 when “studying the records of Ramses found the word ‘Apouriou’ and came to the hasty conclusion that ‘Apouriou’ meant Hebrew.” 



1896(2ndof Av, 5656): Moritz Kirstein, the native of Filehne who earned his M.D. in 1885 and was a member of the Berlin Board of Health, passed away today.



1896: “Art And Utility Linked” published today described The International Art Exhibition in Berlin which includes “Summer Evening In the Ghetto” by Ludwig Knaus  that depicts “a centenary Hebrew…seated in a big armchair…attended by his granddaughter.”
http://www.superstock.com/preview.asp?image=1566-1228818&imagex=5&id=19927421&productType=3&pageStart=0&pageEnd=100&pixperpage=100&hitCount=5&filterForCat=&filterForFotog=



1896: Rabbi Isaac ben Sheshet (Ribash) whose remains had been removed from his grave by orders of the government of Algiers was reinterred today. Sheshet was a Spanish Talmudic authority who had been born in 1326 and who had fled to Algeria in 1391 when the persecution of the Jews increased under the spell of the preaching of Fernandes Martinez. He passed away in 1408.  [For more about this sage see Rabbi Isaac ben Sheshet Perfet and his times by Abraham Moses Hershman]



1896: Herzl attends a mass meeting at the workings-men's Club in the East End of London.  Working men’s clubs were designed to bring education and recreation for the members of Britain’s emerging working class at the end of the 19th century



1896: “An East Sided Romance” published today provides a detailed reviews of Yekl – A Tale of the New York Ghetto by Abraham Cahan.



1896: “New Plans for a Jewish State” published today described the creation of a chartered company to create a “Jewish autonomous state in Palestine” which the Turks “are to look favorably upon.”



1897: Forty Jewish families who arrived from Poland are being deported because it has been determined that “they are in a destitute condition” which means they are likely to become “public charges” which makes them ineligible for entry into the United States under the law.



1899 (5th of Av): Seventy-nine year old German born Rabbi Israel Hildesheimer, the son of Rabbi Löb Glee Hildesheime and one of the founders of Modern Orthodox Judaism passed away.



1899: Maitre Demange, the counsel for Captain Alfred Dreyfus met with the President of the Court Martial regarding setting a date for the hearing and discussing the procedures to be followed.



1899: Attorney Maitre Demange met with Captain Dreyfus for two hours today.



1902: Herzl submits a written outline of his plans and the need for financial support to Rothschild. “Aware of Rothschild’s aversion to settlement in Palestine, Herzl also told Rothschild about the settlement of European Jews in Mesopotamia proposed by the Sultan.



1903(17th of Tammuz, 5663): Tzom Tammuz



1904: Birthdate of Pinchas Lavon, the native of Galicia who made Aliyah in 1929 who is best known for his role in the Lavon Affair that occurred while he was serving as Minister of Defense.



1906:  Colonel Alfred Dreyfus was finally pardoned, restored to his rank and returned to his regiment. The effects of the Dreyfus Affair did not end with the return of Dreyfus to active duty.  The Dreyfus Affair produced the modern Zionist political movement which in turn gave birth to the state of Israel.  The Dreyfus Affair also provided another dividing between the Left and the Right in both the French political and social scene and put another arrow in the quiver of right wing anti-Semites.  This would find full flower in the government at Vichy during World War II.



1908: Birthdate of Milton Berle. Born in the Harlem section of New York City, Berle was a moderately successful vaudeville comedian who gained fame as Uncle Miltie, the first television star.



1908: It was reported that Dr. Moses Gaster has obtained an ancient copy of the Book of Joshua in Samaria.



1913: During the Second Balkan War, DimitriI Auguelov, a wine merchant from Serres, who had been arrested on July 7 and was shut up in the school, escaped with a Jewish prisoner today and was concealed by Jews of the town.



1914(18thof Tammuz, 5674): Tzom Tammuz observed because the 17th fell on Shabbat



1913: Birthdate of Mildred Cohn an American biochemist winner of the Garvan-Olin Medal the National Medal of Science and the first woman to become president of the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.



1915: Opening of the Summer Session The Teacher’s Institute of the Hebrew Union College.



1919: Birthdate of George Weissman, “who helped transform Philip Morris from a midlevel tobacco company to a diversified conglomerate known for contributions to the arts, and who then led Lincoln Center for nearly a decade.”  “Baruch College's Weissman School of Arts and Sciences is named after him, and his wife Mildred.” Weissman had graduated from Baruch when it was the business school of the City College of New York



1920: The Lithuanian Wars of Independence with the signing of the Soviet–Lithuanian Peace Treaty in which the Soviet Union recognized the independence of Lithuania. Over 3,000 Jews fought with the Lithuanian Army during the fight for independence.  Jewish support would be rewarded with a certain amount of autonomy and acceptance which erode with the growth of anti-Semitism in the 1930’s.



1921: “New York banker Joseph L. Seligman, also known as J.L. Seligman reported the theft of his wife's jewels, valued at $25,000, while the couple was sailing from Europe to New York as first class passengers aboard the White Star Line, Olympic.”



1923: The New York Times publishes a letter from Meyer Dizengoff, Mayor of Tel Aviv thanking everybody from the Mayor on down for the hospitality shown to him during his recent trip to New York.  He expressed his hope that the “first Jewish city” would benefit from the things shown him including the city’s public utility system.



1927:  According to reports by the correspondent for the Daily Mail, Palestine is in shambles following the recent earthquake.  He reports riots, failed businesses and the plans for departure by many of the Jewish immigrants.  His description is at odds with those of Jewish leaders and agencies including Hadassah.



1934: Memorial services are held at Carnegie Hall in honor of the late Hebrew poet laureate, Chaim Nachman Bialik whom Mrs. Samuel Halprin, President of Hadassah described as “the embodiment of Jewish life” whose “gifts were the apotheosis of Jewish creative life.”



1935(11th of Tammuz, 5695): Three decades after being exonerated of all charges, Colonel Alfred Dreyfus passed away at the age of 75.
http://www.zionism-israel.com/dic/Dreyfus_Affair.htm



1936: The Palestine Post reported that a Jewish mechanic, Dov Ben-Ammi, 30, was killed and several persons were injured when a bus overturned into a ditch as the result of an Arab ambush near Jenin. Four Arabs were killed in this incident and in an attempt to derail a train in the same neighborhood. Two watchmen, Zvi Lichtenberg and Dov Deitler, were injured in two separate Arab attacks on Jewish settlements



1940(6th of Tammuz, 5700): Sixty-nine year old Victor Rosewater, former editor of the Omaha (Nebraska) Bee and Republican political powerhouse, passed away today.
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=F10B11F7395A11728DDDAA0994DF405B8088F1D3



1941: Relase date for “The Bride Came C.O.D.” a comedy featuring George Tobias with a script co-authored by Julius and Philip G. Epstein and music by Max Steiner.



1942: The SS President Warfield, a ship belonging to the Baltimore Steam Pack Company that had been sailing between Baltimore, MD and Norfolk, VA since 1928 was acquired by the War Shipping Administration today.  The ship was converted into a military transport and was turned over to the British. The irony of this is that the Warfield would morph into the SS Exodus five years later in an attempt to run the British blockade of Palestine.



1944: In New York City, Phoebe and Henry Ephron gave birth to Delia Ephron the multi­-talented writer whose work includes a marvelous off-beat film, “Michael” which gave John Travolta a chance to literally and figuratively spread his comedic wings.



1944: Many of the 8000 Jews remaining in the Kovno (Lithuania) Ghetto are killed, and the ghetto is burned. Nearby, a Lithuanian carpenter named Jan Pauvlavicius shields at least eight Kovno Jews in a hiding place he has constructed in his cellar.



1944: In Baltimore, MD, bartender Joseph Rubin and Annette Rubin gave birth to Arlene Rubin who gained fame as Arlene Raven “a co-founder of numerous feminist art organizations in Los Angeles in the 1970s.”



1948:  During the War of Independence, Israeli forces took Ramle.  With the end of the truce, Israeli forces sought to strengthen their position in the area between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.  The victory at Ramle, which had been preceded by the successfully seizure of the airport at Lod, was part of that plan which forced the Israelis to fight the Arab Legion, the name of the Jordanian Army which was an elite military force.



1948: Israeli forces defeated Iraqi troops at Rosh Ha-Ayin.  This village controlled the headwaters of the Yarkon River, the source of much of Jerusalem’s water supply.  Continued control of the Yarkon would have left Jerusalem at the mercy of the Arabs. 



1948: As part of Operation Danny, the Palmach began an attack on the village of Suba.



1948: As they renewed their drive on Tel Aviv, Egyptian forces attacked the settlement of Negba in the northern Negev. The Egyptians opened the attack with air attacks and artillery barrages.  The battle lasted for over seven hours with at least four thousand shells falling on Negba.  In the end, the 150 defenders hung on and the Egyptians withdrew. 



1950: Syrian forces killed “one Israeli today and wounded another as they went to the aide of an Israeli police patrol boat whose propeller had become enmeshed in submerged nets along the northern shore of the Sea of Galilee.  Israel has lodged a strong complaint with the United Nations…”



1950: The Israeli Government clarified its position today on the proposed establishment of a new oil refinery in Haifa and the allocation of exploratory oil rights to independent American oil companies as recently reported. Bartley Crum is representing the interests of American companies while Finance Minister Kaplan and his Under-Secretary David Horowitz are negotiating on behalf of the Israelis.



1951: The Jerusalem Post reported that seven marauders were killed and several others wounded in an engagement with an Israeli patrol on Jordanian border. Tel Aviv set up ice rationing to a fourth of a block per consumer daily. It was hoped that this ration would be increased to the third of a block on weekends.



1953: The Foreign Ministry of Israel transferred its offices from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.



1967: As the sun rose this morning sailors aboard the INS Eilat and their comrades aboard two torpedo boats savored their victory over the Egyptian off the Rumani coast where they sank two enemy vessels without suffering any casualties.



1969: First broadcast of “Doctor in the House” a British comedy series  featuring Anglo-Jewish actor Jonathan Lynn as “medical student Danny Hooley.”



1974: Confrontation: The Middle East and World Politics by Walter Laqueur, The Jews in Their Land, conceived and edited by David Ben-Gurion, translated by Mordechai Nurock and MIsha Louvish and Kabbalah by Gershom Scholem  were on the “New Books” list published today.



1976: It was reported today that Idi Amin, President of Uganda had called Baruch Bar-Lev, a retired Israeli Lt. Col. who had served in Uganda.  Reportedly Amin asked Bar-Lev to tell Prime Minister Rabin that “he was finished with terrorists” which apparently meant that he would no longer deal with groups like the pro-Palestinian terrorists who had held Jewish hostages at Entebbe.  Amin also asked Bar-Lev if the Israelis would spare parts for his military equipment as it had when the two nations had diplomatic relations.



1976:The Jerusalem Post reported from Washington that Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin said that Israel considered Idi Amin and his Ugandan government responsible for the fate of Mrs. Dora Bloch, the 75-year-old woman of dual British and Israeli citizenship, left behind in a Ugandan hospital, following the rescue of more than 100 hostages at Entebbe airport. The Israeli Embassy in London expressed surprise that Britain sent condolences to Idi Amin on the death of the seven Ugandan soldiers killed during the raid.



1976:The Jerusalem Post reported that while fierce fighting went on in Lebanon between PLO leftist groups and Christians, over 1,700 Lebanese received medical attention at the Israeli army clinics set up on the border.



1977: The 12thMaccabiah opens



1982(21st of Tammuz, 5742): Radical, activist Clara Lemlich Shavelson passed away.
http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/shavelson-clara-lemlich



1985: Thomas R. Pickering appointed U.S. Ambassador to Israel.



1985: Lawrence Kasdan’s western “Silverado” co-starring Kevin Kline and Jeff Goldblum premiered in the United States.



1988: Due to his disappointment with Mapam's policy towards the First Intifada, Muhammed Wattad left Mapam to join Hadash



1989: "When Harry Met Sally," with a screenplay by Nora Ephron, was released for its first run. The screenplay was later nominated for an Academy Award and a Golden Globe.



1989(9thof Tammuz, 5749): Eighty-six year old conservative political philosopher Sidney Hook passed away today. (As reported by Richard Bernstein)
http://www.nytimes.com/1989/07/14/obituaries/sidney-hook-political-philosopher-is-dead-at-86.html



1991(1stof Av, 5751): Rosh Chodesh Av



1991: Release date for “Regarding Henry” directed by Mike Nichols, co-produced by Mike Nichols with a script by J.J. Abrams.



1996:Amschel Rothschild, the man who many people believed was in line to lead the Rothschild family's legendary banking dynasty, committed suicide this week, the company said today. Relatives of the 41-year-old Mr. Rothschild refused to give any details of his death, which was originally reported as having resulted from a heart attack. Amschel's grandfather Charles committed suicide in 1923 while suffering from encephalitis, a brain illness.



1996: Hazel Josephine Cosgrove (Lady Cosgrove) began serving as a Senator of the College of Justice making her the first woman to be appointed as a judge of Scotland’s Supreme Court.



1998: The New York Times featured books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Abraham Joshua Heschel: Prophetic Witness by Edward K. Kaplan and Samuel H. Dresner and Mrs. Einsteinby Anna McGrail.



2001: Daniel C. Kurtzer appointed U.S. Ambassador to Israel



2004(23rd of Tammuz, 5764): Sergeant Maayan Naim, 19, was killed by terrorists in Israel.



2006: Baron Michael Levy was arrested and questioned in connection with the "Cash for Honours" inquiry by the Metropolitan Police today, concerning the allegation that monies were paid to political parties in return for peerages. It would take a year for authorities to decide not to prosecute due to lack of evidence.



2006:Jerusalem's Confederation House, one of the premier venues for ethnic music in Israel, presents the first in a series of three concerts based on bakashot (requests), songs of supplication traditionally sung during the early hours of Shabbat morning in Middle Eastern Jewish communities.

2006: The July War or Second Lebanon War began when Hezbollah forces in southern Lebanon attacked IDF forces in Israel with rockets and mortars.  Besides killing IDF soldiers, Hezbollah kidnapped two Israeli soldiers.  Apparently they planned on using them as bargaining chips in some future action. Amir Peretz was the Defense Minister when the war began.



2006: The following were among a total of 43 Israeli civilians (including four who died of heart attacks during rocket barrages) and 116 IDF soldiers who were killed in the Israel-Hizbullah war: Sgt.-Maj. Shani Turgeman, 24, of Beit She'an; Sgt.-Maj Eyal Benin, 22, of Omer; Wasim Nazal, 27, of Yanuh-Jat; St.-Sgt. Alexei Kushnirski, 21, of Ness Ziona; Sgt. Yaniv Bar-On, 19, of Maccabim; Sgt. Nimrod Cohen, 19, of Kibbutz Mitzpe Shalem; Sgt.-Maj. St.-Sgt. Gadi Musiev, 20; St.-Sgt. Shlomi Yirmiyahu, 20



2007: In Rochester, N.Y., a screening of “The Cantor’s Son” at the Rochester Jewish Film Festival.



2007: In Jerusalem, at a concert"Libi Er," my heart is awake, performs songs, ballads, prayers, and original ethnic music at the Confederation House.



2007: The Conference on the Future of the Jewish People meeting in Jerusalem comes to a close.



2008: Day Two of The 25th annual Jerusalem Film Festival, which offers screenings of 200 local and international films highlighting a wide range of genres within categories such as new features, acclaimed documentaries, avant garde films, shorts, animation, retrospectives and classics.

2008: In Melbourne, opening  of the first Australian production of the Stephen Schwartz musical “Wicked.”



2009: After over a century of being in business, all of the Gottschalks stores were closed for good. Emil Gottschalk, an immigrant Jew from Germany had opened the first of the stores to bear his name in 1904 in Fresno, California.  One of the Gottschalk stores had been located at Wasilla, Alaska, the town that Sarah Pallin would make famous.



2009: In Tel Aviv, Israel faces Russia in Day 3 of the Davis Cup Quarterfinals.



2009: The Washington Post features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Attack on the Liberty: The Untold Story of Israel's Deadly 1967 Assault on a U.S. Spy Ship by James Scott.



2010: Israeli born cellist Yoed Nir is scheduled to perform at Bargemusic in Brooklyn, NY.



2010(1st of Av, 5770): Rosh Chodesh Av



2010: Major General (res) Giora Eiland presented the report of his committee which had examined the preparations for and actual boarding of, the Pro-Palestinian Gaza Flotilla.



2010: The chairperson of the Women of the Wall prayer group Anat Hoffman was released from police custody this afternoon, after being taken in for questioning for allegedly defying the High Court ruling outlawing women from reading from the Torah at the Western Wall. Women of the Wall Public Relations Director Michelle Handelman told The Jerusalem Post that Hoffman was not reading from the Torah, but only holding it, which is not against the law according to the ruling.



2010: Carmen Weinstein, the head of Egypt’s tiny Jewish community, was convicted of fraud by an Egyptian court today and may face time behind bars. Foreign Ministry officials confirmed Weinstein had been tried in court, but refused to provide any further information on the matter.

2010(1st of Av, 5770): Seventy-year old Harvey Pekar, whose autobiographical comic book “American Splendor” attracted a cult following for its unvarnished stories of a depressed, aggrieved Everyman negotiating daily life in Cleveland and became the basis for a critically acclaimed 2003 film, died today  at his home in Cleveland Heights, Ohio. (As reported by William Grimes)
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/13/arts/design/13pekar.html?_r=0



2010(1stof Av, 5770): Rosh Chodesh Av



2010(1st of Av, 5770): Eighty-eight year old Tuli Kupferberg, a poet and singer who went from being a noted Beat to becoming, in his words, “the world’s oldest rock star” when he helped found the Fugs, the bawdy and politically pugnacious rock group, died today in Manhattan. (As reported by Ben Sisario)
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/13/arts/music/13kupferberg.html?_r=0



2010: As of today Israeli professional tennis player Shahar Pe’er is ranked No. 16 in singles and No. 39 in doubles.



2011: Hadassah is scheduled to open its 2011 Business Meeting in Las Vegas.



2011: Israel's most crucial tie to Egypt, an economic one, is deteriorating, National Infrastructures Minister Uzi Landau told Army Radio this morning.



2011: Saboteurs blew up an Egyptian gas pipeline distribution station in northern Sinai that supplies natural gas to Israel, the official MENA news agency reported. The explosion was the fourth attack this year on pipelines in Sinai that supply gas to Israel and Jordan.



2011: Fifth anniversary of the war with Lebanon that began with a Hezbollah attacked that killed Lt. Col. Dov (Berry) Harari.



2011: Days after Berlin announced plans to sell tanks to Saudi Arabia, German Defense Minister Thomas de Maiziere will arrive for his first visit to Israel today, during which he will meet with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak for talks expected to focus on the ongoing upheaval in the Middle East and the Iranian nuclear threat.



2012: The Washington DCJCC is scheduled to present “Meghan McCain with America, You Sexy B**ch”



2012: Catherine Howell of the Victoria and Albert Museum of Childhood is scheduled to lead the interactive workshop “Playing at war: an up-close look at childhood games of battle and conflict” at the Wiener Library on Russell Square in London, UK.



2012: In “The Reading Life: Harvey Pekar's Jewish question” published today David L. Ulin examines the contradictory legacy of the later Jewish author.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/jacketcopy/2012/07/the-reading-life-harvey-pekars-jewish-question.html



2013: “In Bloom” and “Our Nixon” are two of the films scheduled to be shown today at the Jerusalem Film Festival.”



2013: “Fill the Void” a film which “tells the story of an Orthodox Chassidic Family from Tel Aviv” is scheduled to open at the Drexel East 3 in Columbus, Ohio



2013: Ido Akov and Itai Meir, “two outstanding soloists from the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance are schedule to perform at the Eden-Tamir Music Center.



2013: “Der Purimspieler” - a romantic comedy about a drifter who wanders from shtetl to shtetl. He finds brief happiness when he falls in love with a shoemaker’s daughter in a small Galician town. A likeable fantasy about s love triangle and man’s quest for the unobtainable – is scheduled to be shown as the first offering in the July Yiddish Film Festival at Agudas Achim following Shabbat eve services.



2013: In “Echoes From the Roman Ghetto” published today, David Laskin takes readers back to the Portico d’Ottavia which “half a millennium…has been the heart of Rome’s Jewish ghetto” but which 70 years ago became the scene in yet one more act in the Axis plan to create a Jew-Free World.
http://travel.nytimes.com/2013/07/14/travel/echoes-from-the-roman-ghetto.html?hp&pagewanted=print



2014: A Czech film festival that earned the ire of the local Jewish community because it honored Mel Gibson who gained infamy with his “2006 drunken anti-Semitic rant” and created “The Passion of the Christ” “which some critics have called anti-Semitic.” (As reported by JTA)
2014: Illumination Music & Arts Festival, the creation of two Jewish students Dustin Stern and Jaime Rosenberg, is scheduled to come to an end “at a private campground in southwestern Ontario’s Grey County
2014: Israeli’s brace for another round of rocket attacks from terrorists in Gaza.

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

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July 13



100 BCE: Birthdate of Julius Caesar.  When Caesar and Pompey fought for control of the Empire, the Jews supported Caesar because of the evil Pompey had done to the Jewish people including desecrating the Temple and shipping thousands of Judeans to Roman slave markets.  Caesar returned Jaffa to Judean control and allowed the walls of Jerusalem to be rebuilt. The Jews of Rome were allowed to organize as a community and Jews living on the Italian peninsula were able to improve their economic condition.



982: Kalonymos da Lucca, “the second Jew mentioned in the annals of Germanic history” “saved the life of Emperor Otto II” “who rewarded him with a house and citizenship in the city of Main where he could live safely as a Jew under the protection of the Archbishop.” (As described by Leo Sievers)



1105(29th of Tammuz, 4865: On the secular calendar Rabbi Shlomo ben Isaac also known as Rashi passed away. Rashi is a Hebrew acrostic for Rabbi Shlmoh ben Isaac. Born in 1040 he was the leading rabbinic commentator in his day on the TaNaCh and Talmud. His work is so basic to Jewish study, that it is said when we study Torah we must study Rashi. Rashi lived at the time of the Crusades. He passed away five years before the birth of that other great medieval sage, Maimonides. (See the attachment for a fuller treatment of his life.) While there is much to be learned from the teachings of Rashi, there are also lessons that we can learn from his life. While he studied with the greatest teachers in Germany, he lived in a French town with a comparatively small Jewish population. For those living in small towns this should serve as a reminder that living in small town is no reason not to study. Rashi was a Rabbi. He was also a successful businessman. He was a wine merchant who was able to care for his family and support students and yeshivas. In other words, just because most of us have to work for a living, we can still find time for study. Rashi had five daughters and no sons. Unlike the example of the mythical Tevye, Rashi’s daughters were all educated scholars. According to the stories told about them, all five wore tefillin. In other words, for Rashi, women were not to be "barefoot, pregnant and in the kitchen." His example means we should be providing a full Jewish education for all of our community, regardless of sex. (See  Maggie Anton’s books about Rashi’s daughters for more about this)(www.rashisdaughters.com)



1148: Anti-Jewish riots take place in Cordova, Spain.



1391:The richest Jew in Valencia, “the great Don Samuel Abravalla,” was baptized to in the palace of En Gasto.  He is now known as Alfonso Ferrandes de Villanueva.

 
1564: In Brest Litvosk (Lithuania), Abraham, the son of a wealthy and envied Jewish tax collector was accused of killing the family's Christian servant for ritual purposes. He was tortured and executed. King Sigmund Augustus forbade the charge of ritual murder.



1608: Birthdate of Ferdinand III the Holy Roman Emperor who awarded the Jewish community their own banner in recognition for their services in the defense of Prague during the Thirty Years War.



1756: Birthdate of artist and caricaturist Thomas Rowlandson a non-Jew who born in Old Jewry, a street that takes its name from the fact that it was part of a Jewish quarter that had first existed at least as far back as the 13thcentury.



1787:  The Continental Congress enacts the Northwest Ordinance establishing governing rules for the Northwest Territory. It is important to note that there were no religious qualifications to settling in the area, owning land or taking part in political activities.  This openness encouraged Jews to settle the lands west of the Allegheny Mountains.  It also forced some of the east coast states to remove their remaining religious qualifications for participating in state government



1796: When French forces renew their bombardment of Frankfurt this evening, fire breaks out in the city including the area known as the Judengasse.



1798: Birthdate of Warder Cresson, the Quaker born Philadelphian who changed his name to Michoel Boaz Yisroel ben Avraham when he converted to Judaism. After surviving a  sanity hearing, Cresson became an ardent supporter of Jewish settlement in Palestine moving to Jerusalem where he married a Sephardic women, raised a family a eventually passed away.



1816: Birthdate of German novelist Gustav Freytag who was married to a Jew but who authored Debit And Credit the popular anti-Semitic six volume novel that featured he Jewish Ehrenthal family who are money-lenders and speculators and their criminal employee Veitel Itzig and promoted negative stereotypes of Jews.



1815: Future President John Q. Adams wrote in a letter: 'The Hebrews have done more to civilize men than any other nation. If I were an atheist, I should still believe fate had ordained the Jews to be the most essential instrument for civilizing the nations.'



1823: Birthdate of French poet Eugène Manuel, the son of Parisian Jewish doctor.



1841: Birthdate of Austrian architect Otto Wagner. Budapest's Rumbach Synagogue, built in the 1870s, was his first major work. There seems to be some dispute as to whether or not Wagner himself was Jewish.  We post his name because of the synagogue construction since we have not been able to verify whether or not he was Jewish.



1852: In New York, the Board of Alderman approved placing gas lamps in front of the synagogue on Greene Street.



1859: Sir Moses Montefiore was informed that in an interview Mr. Odo Russell, a British diplomat, had with Cardinal Giacomo Antonelli, a senior Vatican official closely associated with the Pope, the latter said that the issue of Edgardo Mortara was “a closed question.”  In other words, Vatican was standing fast on the seizure of the Jewish child and had no intention of returning him. 


 
1861: In Nevada, Israel ben Joseph Benjamin, a German-Jewish traveler who was a passenger on one of the first scheduled daily overland stagecoaches passed through Jacobs Well “a foundling way station for changing horses or mules on the Daily Overland Mail stage.”


 
1863: During the Draft Riots which began today in New York City, mobs came down the street where the Hebrew Orphan Asylum was located but passed the building without attacking.

1865:An article published today entitled "Russia: Extensive Fires" reported that a fire has destroyed 108 houses in Gerdok most of which belonged to Jews. Two children died in the fire.  A fire in the Jewish quarter at Grodno destroyed eighty-two houses. The Synagogue in Borisoff was among the buildings that fell victim to the flames when fire swept the town.



1872: According to reports published today, The Jewish Messenger endorsed the proposal of the New York Times that poor and orphaned children in New York should be able to enjoy at least one excursion during the month of July.  In urging its readers to contribute to this cause the Messenger reminded that among the beneficiaries would be at least four hundred Jewish children.


 
1873: “Cleanliness Versus Godliness” published today took issue with the contention of the historian Eusebus that the Apostle James never took a bath.  “The assertion is most improabable, for not only were all the apostles strict Jews, but St. James, the Bishop or Jerusalem, could least of all have afforded to despise so sacred a Jewish habits as cleanliness”  since James “was held in the highest esteem by the  Judaizing party in the Church.


 
1874: Jewish leaders from all over the United States are gathering in Cleveland, Ohio for tomorrow’s meeting of the Council of the American Union of Hebrew Congregations.

 
1875: Representatives from a group of Jewish congregations from across the United States held their second annual meeting in Buffalo, NY. Joseph Cohn of Pittsburg, PA was elected President; Henry Brock of Buffalo was elected Vice President; Lippman Levy of Cincinnati was elected Secretary; S. J. Lowenstein of Evansville, Indiana was elected Assistant Secretary. 



1876: Judge Abraham Jesse Dittenhoefter described the meeting in which New York Governor Samuel J.  Tilden was told that he had been nominated by the Democratic Party as their candidate for President. He then read a sample of letters from those supporting this candidate of reform. (Tilden is the “Tilden” of the famous Hayes-Tilden electoral stalemate)



1877: The New York Times featured a review of Poet and Merchant by Bethold Auerbach, “a Jewish romance” in which all but a couple of the characters are Jews.


 
1878: At the conclusion of the Congress of Berlin, the European powers sign the Treaty of Berlin designed to officially the end of the Russo-Turkish War.  One of the issues settled by the treaty was the question of independence for Romania.  The Romanians promised that they would improve the treatment of the Jews living in Romania.  Rather than trust the Romanian leaders, the authors of the treaty bowed to pressure from influential European Jews and insisted “that Romania must guarantee Jewish political emancipation before her sovereignty could be recognized.”  The requirement was incorporated into the Treaty of Berlin under Article 62.



1879: A delegation of Rabbis from congregations across the United States, including both Reform and Orthodox came to house of Rabbi David Einhorn and presented him with a resolution enumerating his various accomplishments as his decades long career.  The 72 year old native of Bavaria is retiring as the spiritual leader of Congregation Beth-El with a pension of $3.500.



1879: An article published today based on information from The Saturday Review, a London weekly magazine, examined the life of the late Lionel Rothschild.  Rothschild was held in high esteem for his philanthropies that included an unexpectedly large donation for the relief of those who suffered during the Irish Famine in the 1840’s.  Rothschild was praised for being more than “nominally a Jew” and for taking a leading role in the affairs of the Jewish community.  Rothschild was “too rich too powerful and too socially important to be tempted to seek to rise by a calculated conversion.”  On a personal level, one of Rothschild’s crowning moments came when he won the Epsom Derby in 1879 thanks to the efforts of “Sir Bevys.”   Much of the prejudice that Jews have experienced in England has dissipated due, in part, to the example of the Rothschilds which includes the unique Jewish trait of “setting as much store on the attainment of high education and the development of business faculties in the women as in the men.”



1881: It was reported today that a resolution was introduced at the 8th annual council of the Union of American Hebrew congregations calling upon the Union to the steps that would lead to the abolition of the Religious Department of the Census Bureau.  Those in favor of the proposal felt that the “Church and State were separated by a wide gulf” and that the government did not have any right to ask Americans about their religious beliefs.  Those who were opposed to the proposal felt that the Hebrew Union did not have the right to interfere with the operations of the government.  The latter view prevailed and the motion was withdrawn.


 
1882: President Lotte of Cincinnati presided over a meeting of the Executive Board of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations at Saratoga, NY.  The Board represents 15 congregations.



1883: It was reported today that the expenses of the Hebrew Union College have exceeded income by $18,200. The shortfall was covered by money taken from the Sinking Fund.  In order to avoid further financial problems the Union will collect a head tax of one dollar for each congregant belonging to the congregations across the country.



1885: Marcus Berheimer delivered a welcoming address to the delegates from the United Hebrew Relief Associations from the principle cities in the United States who had gathered in St. Louis to form a union of the Hebrew Charities into a national organization.


 
1887: At 14thannual meeting of the leaders of the Hebrew Congregations of America, leaders of the Reform Movement expressed their disgust with the treatment of Jewish-American citizens doing business with, or visiting, Russia.  The group wants changes made to the Russo-American Treaty that will guarantee American Jews will be treated with same respect as is shown to American Catholics and Protestants.


 
1888: Birthdate of  Isaac Nachman Steinberg, the Russian born lawyer and political leader who served with Lenin but then was forced to flee to the West in the 1920’s when the political winds of the Bolsheviks blew in another directiron.



1889: “Harlem Club and Senator Cantor” published today described attempts to minimize the action of club members.  They claimed that the Jewish political leader had not been blackballed; merely postponed.  While it was thought that a majority of the members would vote in favor of membership, the “blackball system” would keep that from happening.


 
1890: Rabbi Sabato Morais of Philadelphia, PA is giving a lecture this morning entitled “Some Hebrew Grammarians” at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York.



1891:”Russians Facing Famine” published today described the effects of the worst food shortage since the earliest days of the Romanov dynasty including the suffering of the Jews especially those living at Rovnopol where they “are practically dying of hunger.” During a tour of the area, the governor saw the Jews “destitute of bread and corn” and “several families living together in one hut for the sake of warmth generated by propinquity.”



1892: The assailant who attacked Gustave Berkowitz, an old Jewish peddler, escaped from custody today.



1893: Among the people who were killed in today’s train wreck at Newburgh, NY was
“an unknown woman, apparently thirty-four years old, of Hebrew cast of countenance” (In other words she looked like a Jew).  Among the injured were five members of the family of Leopold Michael, a retired diamond merchant on his way to spend the summer in the Catskills.



1893: The decision by the family of Captain Dreyfus not to accept a jewel sword which a group of American Jews plan to purchase in his honor and the decision by Emile Zola not to accept an engraved gold pen from the same group was made public today. The plan to buy these items had split the Jewish community with the editors of the Forwards being most vocal in their opposition.



1893: “Soon To Have A New Temple” published today provides a detailed description of Shaaray Tefilla’s home located on 82nd Street between Columbus and Amsterdam Avenues

1894: Birthdate of Isaak Babel Russian short-story writer and dramatist. He is known by many as the author of "Red Calvary." Babel’s artistic career ended when he was arrested by the Soviet secret police in one of those periodic purges brought on by Stalin’s paranoia. Babel was shot after a secret trial proved he was a traitor.



1894: Even though Eugene Debs said it was his decision, the Knights of Labor blamed Samuel Gompers for calling off the planned strike intended to show support for the Pullman workers. 



1895: On Shabbat, Dr. Samuel Sale of St. Louis, MO will deliver the sermon at the annual Central Conference American Rabbis meeting in Rochester, NY.


 
1895: “A Jewish Confession of Faith” published today listed the ten point formula “for the reception of proselytes being considered by the Reform movement.


 
1895: It was reported today that a new translation of Conventional Lies of Our Civilizationby Max Nordeau is being published in London that will replace the one that appeared in Chicago ten years ago.


 
1896: “Bugs, Worms and Beetles” published today described the history and impact of these critters including the fact that the “Jews of Morocco regard male grasshoppers as unclean” and that they only eat the females “which have peculiar markings on their bodies” which are said to be Hebrew letters that “make it lawful to devour the animals bearing them.” (No shrimp or lobster; but we can eat female grasshoppers in Morocco – such a deal)



1896: Birthdate of Israeli painter Mordecai Ardon.  Born in Poland when it was part of the Russian Empire, Ardon later moved to Germany where he was a student at the "Bauhaus" School from 1920 to 1925.  This was the period in German history known as the Weimar Republic.  Ardon moved to Jerusalem in 1933.  He had his first American exhibition at the Jewish Museum in New York in 1948. There are numerous websites where you can view his works.  He passed away in 1992.One of his most famous is the "Ardon Windows" in the Jewish National and University Library



http://www.arthistoryarchive.com/arthistory/european/Mordechai-Ardon.html



1896: Herzl meets with representatives of Hovevei Zion Britain.



1899: The Knights of Zion, a Jewish fraternal organization, was incorporated today at Albany, NY.



1901: Birthdate of Myrtle Ehrlich, the Brooklyn native who became the successful American businesswoman, Tillie Ehrlich Lewis, “the tomato queen.”
http://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,857087-1,00.html



1904(1st of Av, 5664): Rosh Chodesh Av



1904(1stof Av, 5664): Forty-seven year old English soprano and actress Giulia Warwick (born Julia Ehrenberg) passed away today
http://math.boisestate.edu/gas/whowaswho/W/WarwickGiulia.htm



1905: Sir Reginald Francis Douce Palgrave, the Clerk of the House of Commons passed away.  His father was Sir Francis Palgrave, born Francis Ephraim Cohen, who converted and changed his name so that he could marry Elizabeth Turner.



1909(24th of Tammuz, 5669):Jacob Bettelheim, the Viennese born dramatist and author passed away in Berlin.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jakob_Bettelheim



1910: Fire destroys 21 buildings in the Jewish quarter of Salonica, damage near 600,000 Francs.



1911(17th of Tammuz, 5671): Tzom Tammuz



1911: Birthdate of Hyam Plutzik the Brooklyn born professor and poet whose work was worthy of consideration by the Pulitzer Prize Committee.
http://www.hyamplutzikpoetry.com/



1913: As the wars continue in the Balkans, the Turks capture the Greek city of Didymoteikhon which is ruled by the Bulgarians.  Unfortunately for the Jews, who had suffered property losses when the Bulgarians took the city in 1912, the economy continued to deteriorate under Ottoman rule.



1919: Birthdate of Eliot Asinof whose journalistic re-creation of the 1919 Black Sox scandal, Eight Men Out became a classic of both baseball literature and narrative nonfiction. Eliot Tager Asinof was born in Manhattan and grew up in Manhattan and Cedarhurst, N.Y. His grandfather Morris, a Russian immigrant, was a tailor who eventually opened a men’s store in Manhattan.Eliot’s father, Max, worked there, and when young Eliot went to work there as well, it was a tenet that he had to sew a suit before he would be allowed to sell one. The dexterity he developed served him well. Mr. Asinof was an accomplished amateur pianist and sculptor. He was also a carpenter who in 1985, with his son, built the Ancramdale house he lived in for the rest of his life. He shot his age on a golf course for the first time at 79. After graduating from Swarthmore, Mr. Asinof played baseball briefly in the minor leagues — he was a first baseman in the Philadelphia Phillies organization — before he joined the Army. When he returned, his son said, the Phillies invited him to return, but he pulled a muscle during his first practice, and that was it for his sports career. He turned to writing. He also had a gift for finding the company of other gifted people. A compact man with a gravelly voice and a New York accent, he was gregarious and shrewdly charming.A writer whose shrewdness and insight trumped his style, which was plainspoken and realistic, Mr. Asinof was productive and versatile. He wrote more than a dozen books, including a novel, Final Judgment that is set on a college campus and concerns a protest to keep President Bush from delivering a commencement address, and is to be published in September by Bunim & Bannigan.Weeks before his death, his son said, Mr. Asinof completed a memoir of his World War II service in the Army Corps on Adak Island in the Aleutians. Seven Days to Sunday his 1968 account of a week in the life of the New York Giants football team as it prepared for a game, was an early if not groundbreaking enterprise of journalistic embedding in the world of sports. His first novel, Man on Spikes published in 1955 and based on a longtime friend who spent years in the minor leagues, was a prescient condemnation of baseball’s feudal control over the players. That system was not dissolved until 1975 with the abolition of the so-called reserve clause in standard contracts, which allowed teams to retain in virtual perpetuity the services of players in their employ.Mr. Asinof also wrote for television and the movies, although his published credits were limited, probably because he was among the many writers who were blacklisted in the 1950s. In his case, he once wrote after he got hold of his F.B.I. file, the blacklisting came about because “I had at one time signed a petition outside of Yankee Stadium to encourage the New York Yankees to hire black ballplayers.”But he is best known for “Eight Men Out,” published in 1963, and for the 1988 movie of the same title. The book is an exhaustively reported and slightly fictionalized account of how eight members of the 1919 Chicago White Sox allowed their anger at the parsimonious team owner, Charles Comiskey, to corrupt their integrity, leading them to welcome the overtures of gamblers, who persuaded them to throw the World Series against the Cincinnati Reds. A seminal event in the history of the game, it led to the appointment of the first baseball commissioner, Kenesaw Mountain Landis. Mr. Asinof spent nearly three years researching the book, including interviewing the two members of the team, Joe Jackson and Happy Feltsch, who were still alive. In the end, “Eight Men Out” was a book that made plain the connection between sport and money and between sport and the underworld. “Here is the underbelly of baseball vividly dissected,” said Fay Vincent, the former baseball commissioner.In the Camelot of the Kennedy 1960s, the book also made plain, if only by inference, the unsavory potential in American culture, a theme that ran throughout Mr. Asinof’s work. Twenty-five years later, “Eight Men Out” was made into a popular film directed by John Sayles, with a script by Mr. Sayles and Mr. Asinof.” He passed away at the age of 88 in June, 2008.



1919:London Jewish Hospital opens for out-patients



1921: Birthdate of Ernest Gold, composer of the score from the hit film “Exodus” for which he won an Oscar.



1921: In Ross, CA, Frank Moore Cross, Sr. and his wife gave birth to Frank Moore Cross, Jr. “an influential Harvard biblical scholar who specialized in the ancient cultures and languages that helped shape the Hebrew Bible and who played a central role in interpreting the Dead Sea Scrolls.” (As reported by William Yardley)



1921(7th of Tammuz, 5681):Jonas Ferdinand Gabriel Lippmann a Franco-Luxembourgish physicist and inventor, and Nobel laureate in physics for his method of reproducing colours photographically based on the phenomenon of interference, later known as the Lippmann plate passed away.



1924: Birthdate of Gyorgy Deutsch the native of Hungary and Holocaust survivor who gained fame as “George Lang, a restaurateur and cookbook writer who in the 1970s transformed Café des Artistes into one of New York’s most romantic, beloved dining spots and in the 1990s helped restore the historic Budapest restaurant Gundel to its former glory.” (As reported by William Grimes)



1925:  Flo Ziegfeld and his Ziegfeld Follies begin the creation of what would become an American Icon.  Comedian W.C. Fields went home to attend his mother's funeral.  In a last minute desperate move, a comparatively unknown cowboy from Oklahoma named Will Rogers began his comedic career. 



1926: Birthdate of composer Meyer Kupferman.



1927: Birthdate of Simone Annie Liline Jacob, the daughter of a Nice, France, architect, most of whose family perished in the Shoah which she survived and gained fame a as political Simon Veil.



1928:In Cricklewood, Hertfordshire, Rachel and Hersch Lauterpacht gave birth to Sir Elihu Lauterpacht CBE QC LLD a British academic and lawyer, specializing in International Law,



1930:Robert Sarnoff, head of RCA (Radio Corporation of America) tells the in New York Times "TV would be a theater in every home."  Okay, so it is not Micah or Jeremiah, but it is a Jew providing prophecy in one sense of the term.



1930: Birthdate of Naomi Shemer one of Israel's most important and prolific song writers. During her lifetime, she was hailed as the "First Lady of Israeli Song."  Born Naomi Sapir, Shemer did her own songwriting and composing, as well as setting famous poems to music, such as those of the Israeli poet, Rachel, and adapting well-known songs into Hebrew, such as the Beatles songs "Hey Jude" and "Let it Be" ("Lu Yehi"). Israeli songwriter Naomi Shemer's grave on the shores of the Sea of Galilee (Kinneret)]. The stones were left by visitors, in keeping with an ancient Jewish custom Naomi Shemer was born and raised in Kevutzat Kinneret, a kibbutz that her parents had helped to found, on the shore of the Sea of Galilee. In the 1950s she served in the Israeli Defense Force's Nahal entertainment troupe and studied music at the Rubin Academy in Jerusalem. She married Mordechai Horowitz and had two children, Lali and Ariel.In 1983, Shemer received the Israel Prize for her contribution to Israeli culture. Several of Shemer's songs have the quality of anthems, striking deep national and emotional chords in the hearts of Israelis. Her most famous song is "Yerushalayim shel zahav" ("Jerusalem of Gold"). She wrote it in 1967, before the Six Day War, and added another stanza after Israel captured East Jerusalem and regained access to the Western Wall. In 1968, Uri Avnery, then a member of the Israeli parliament, proposed that "Jerusalem of Gold" become the Israeli anthem. The proposal was rejected, but the nomination itself says something about the power of Shemer's songs.  Shemer continued to write and perform until her death. She died of cancer in 2004 at the age of seventy three.



1933: In Germany, Nazism was declared the sole German party.



1935: On her 34th birthday, Tillie Lewis opened the first Flotill cannery in Stockton, California. By 1951, Flotill Products, later known as Tillie Lewis Foods, Inc., was earning $30 million per year, making it one of the five largest canning companies in the country. In the same year, Lewis was named "businesswoman of the year" by the Associated Press. In 1952, the company introduced a line of diet foods using low-calorie sweeteners and known as Tasti-Diet. Tillie Lewis Foods was eventually bought by the Ogden Corporation, which made Lewis one of its directors. Lewis died in 1977, but the Italian pomodora tomatoes she introduced to the U.S. are still a staple of American agriculture. (As reported by Jewish Women’s Archives0



1936: The Palestine Post reported that two Jews were seriously injured by Arabs in Jerusalem. Figures prepared by this newspaper indicated that 41 Jews had been killed and over 150 seriously injured since the outbreak of the Arab disturbances on April 19. British forces lost five men. The estimated damage to Jewish property was over 100,000 pounds. The Tel Aviv Port jetty had been lengthened to 200 meters.



1936: According to some sources, today marks the start of the Spanish Civil War (I have found at least two other dates)



1937(5thof Av, 5697): Edgard Cattaui, the son of Moise Cattaui and Ida Ross  and the husband of Lia Cattaui passed away today in Cairo.



1938:Declaring that the maintenance of a proper Supreme Court was of paramount concern to the country, Senator Arthur H. Vandenberg urged in a speech here tonight that an extra session of the Senate be called before the Supreme Court convened in October to confirm or reject President Roosevelt's nominee to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Justice Benjamin N. Cardozo



1938:The immediate transfer to Palestine of "tens of thousands of Jewish children now trapped in Germany, Austria and Poland" was urged by Hadassah, the women's Zionist organization of America, in a message sent today to the London executive of the Jewish Agency for Palestine for transmission to the Intergovernmental Refugees Committee, meeting in Evian, France.  The message was signed my Mrs. Moses P. Epstein, president of the organization and sent on behalf of Hadassah’s 70,000 members.



1941: Birthdate of Ehud Manor “an Israeli songwriter, translator, and radio and TV personality.”


1942: French police arrested author Irene Nemirovsky, as “a foreign Jew.”  She was shipped to Auschwitz where she died five weeks later at the age of 39.  She gained famed in the 21st century with posthumous publication of two newly discovered manuscripts, Suite Francaise and Fire in the Blood.



1942: Five thousand Jews of Rovno (Polish Ukraine) were executed by the Nazis.



1942: The Einsatzkommando returned to daily actions of murder. Seven thousand Jews were rounded up in Rowne ghetto. Over the next two days, the SS would slaughter 5,000 of them.



1943: Alexander Schmorell and Kurt Huber, members of the White Rose resistance movement, are beheaded with a guillotine by the Nazi government. (Everybody remembers the killers and those who remained silent.  This is a chance to those made the final sacrifice when the world was plunged into darkness) (As reported by Austin Cline)



1943: Father Marie Benoît traveled to Rome today to seek the help of Pope Pius XII in transferring Jews to northern Italy. A meeting was arranged between Father Benoît and the pope. When Father Benoit explained that the police in Vichy France were acting against the Jews, Pius XII was surprised, saying, "Who could ever expect this from noble France?" He promised to diligently deal with the situation. However, the North African plan was eventually foiled when the Germans occupied northern Italy and the Italian-occupied zone of France



1943: Thirty-five year old Gerda Baier was deported from Prague to Theresienstadt. Eventually she would be shipped to Auschwitz where the Nazi murdered her.
http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/this_month/july/13.asp



1944: The Red Army liberated Vilna, Lithuania.  Eight thousand Nazis and their allies had been killed during the five day fight.  The legions of the Red Army included the Jewish partisans led by Abba Kovner and his two closest associates, Vita Kempner and Ruzka Korczak. On this day, the Jewish partisans first met Ilya Ehrenburg, “a Jew from Russia, a writer and poet whose dispatches from the front had been a tremendous inspiration” for these and other partisans fighting in the woods and marshes of Eastern Europe.  Ehrenburg took pictures of the Jewish brigade and was the first to tell their story to a wide, non-Jewish audience.
http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/this_month/july/14.asp



1945: In Berlin  at the Rykestrasse Synagogue Soviet City Commander Nikolai Berzarin attended the first Shabbat eve service  which was organized by  Erich Nehlhans a Shoah survivor who was the new president of Jüdische Gemeinde zu Berlin



1945:Birthdate of Ilan Shlagi, an Israeli political leader who served in the Knesset and held several cabinet positions including Minister of the Environment and Minister of Science and Technology



1946(14th of Tammuz, 5706): Eighty-two year old Alfred Stieglitz  the first born son of German Jewish immigrant parents who became one of Americas most famous and prominent photographers and who was also instrumental in promoting modernist art to the American mainstream public, passed away.
http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/stgp/hd_stgp.htm

 

 

 
 
1947: Emil Andsrom and two his UNSCOP colleagues held a secret meeting with the leaders of the Haganah in the Jerusalem suburb of Talipot.  They wanted to know if the Haganah had the means and the will to protect the Jewish areas against Arab attack in the event of the establishment of a Jewish state.  The six Haganah representatives, including Yigael Yadin, made a strong case in the affirmative.  Their arguments were based, in part on their zeal, in part on their determination and, in part, their ability to artfully dodge the questions being asked.



1948:  During the War of Independence Abba Eban spoke before the U.N. Security Council.  He questioned why the Arabs had rejected the U.N. request to extend the cease fire between the Arabs and the Israelis for another ten days.  Using the majestic tones of a Cambridge graduate he asked, “What are the ambitions which rest upon so flimsy a moral foundation that they cannot endure tend days and nights of peace?”



1948:  During the War of Independence, Israeli forces continued their efforts to widen the corridor between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.  To that end, they captured the village of Tsora – the birthplace of the Biblical figure Samson – from the Egyptians. This gave the Israelis control over another section of the railway running between the coast and the City of David.



1948: During the War of Independence, an Irgun unit began a night attack on Malah that lasted into the early hours of July 14.  “Seventeen Irgunists were killed including Nathan Cahsman, from London, who had arrived in Israel on the ill-fated Atalena. 



1950: At Boston’s Suffolk Downs, a three year old named Tel Aviv runs in the Fourth Race, a six furlong claiming event.



1950: In discussing the guiding principles of Israel’s foreign policy, Moshe Sharett said “that in the ideological struggle between the democratic and communist social orders Israel had definitely chosen democracy…Israel is most eager to promote friendly relations with all nations, regardless of their internal regimes.  Yet it was impossible to ignore the fact that it only in democratic countries that Jewish communities enjoyed freedom of organization, expression and independent activity.”





1951(9th of Tammuz, 5711):  Seventy-six year old Arnold Schoenberg passed away. Born in Vienna in 1874, Schoenberg enjoyed a brilliant musical career. When the Nazis came to power in 1933, he was dismissed from his post as a director of a school for musical composition at the Prussian Academy of Arts in Berlin. His response was a formal, public return to the Jewish faith, which he had left early in life. America offered a haven and became his home. He wrote numerous works using Jewish themes including the Holocaust and the birth of the state of Israel.


1951: Birthdate of Edith Bernstein who morphed into Didi Conn, an actress who has appeared in film on the stage, and in television.



1951: The Jerusalem Post reported that 128,000 immigrants entered Israel during the first half of 1951 (one every two minutes). Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion presided over the meeting of the government-Jewish Agency's Coordination Board responsible for the newcomers' housing, employment and the state of sanitation in transit camps. "The attainment of freedom and security often takes precedence over personal convenience," David Ben-Gurion told a large audience in Beersheba.



1954: Mexican painter Frida Kahlo who claimed that her father Carol Wilhelm Kahlo was Jewish, a claim which has been challenged by at least one biographer passed away today.
http://www.frida-kahlo-foundation.org/biography.html



1955: The Beaux Arts Trio featuring pianist Menahem Pressler debuted at the Berkshire Music Festival.



1955:Birthdate of Ehud Havazelet an award-winning American novelist and short story writer who was born in Jerusalem. His father, Meir Havazalet, a rabbi and professor at Yeshiva University immigrated to the United States in 1957. He graduated from Columbia University in 1977, and received an M.F.A at the University of Iowa Writers Workshop in 1984. He became a Jones Lecturer at Stanford University, from 1985 to 1989, and a Wallace Stegner Fellow. He taught creative writing at Oregon State University from 1989 to 1999. Since 1999, he has taught creative writing at the University of Oregon.



1960: Forty-five year old Joy Davidman the  “child prodigy” and American author  who converted to Christianly and whose marriage to C..S Lewis was a joining of two intellects  passed away today.
http://www.cslewisinstitute.org/node/31



1963: Israel adopts a law prohibiting the raising of pigs in Jewish settlements.



1969: The New York Times featured a review of The Story of Masada by Yigael Yadin; retold for young readers by Gerald Gottlieb.



1972:  Carroll Rosenbloom, owner of the Baltimore Colts, traded teams with the owner of the Los Angeles Rams. Rosenbloom was now the owner of the Los Angeles Rams, which became the St. Louis Rams.



1976: The Jerusalem Post reported that Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin told the Knesset, at the special festive session marking the US bicentennial, that a strong and confident America was needed to assure freedom, democracy and peace. The Knesset sent a special, congratulatory message to the US Congress.



1976: The Jerusalem Post reported that in London, the British minister of state announced that there was little doubt that Mrs. Dora Bloch was dead and that the Ugandan government must bring those responsible to justice. Britain regarded all Ugandan explanations as "totally unacceptable."



1978:Alexander Ginzburg, Soviet poet and political dissident was sentenced by a Soviet court to 8 years in prison. Although he was a practicing Russian Orthodox Christian, he adopted his mother's Jewish family name as a young man to protest Stalin's anti-Semitic campaigns.



1979:  A 45-hour siege began at the Egyptian Embassy in Ankara, Turkey. Four Palestinian guerrillas killed two security men and seized 20 hostages. Now that Egypt was at peace with Israel, she was fair game for attack by Palestinian terrorists.



1989: Thirteenth Maccabiah comes to an end.



1989: At six o’clock in the evening al public transport in Jerusalem stopped for one minute in memory of a terrorist attack that had taken place on July 6 that targeted bus 405 that ran between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.



1992: David Levy steps down as Israel’s Foreign Minister.



1992: Yithak Rabin replaced Moshe Arens as Minister of Defense.



1992: Ovadia Eli completed his term as Deputy Minister of Defense.



1992: Binyamin Ben-Eliezer “was appointed Minister of Housing and Construction in Yitzhak Rabin's government.



1992:Rafael Pinhasi finished his term as Israel’s Communication Minister. Born in Kabul in 1940, Pinhasi made Aliyah in 1950. A member of Shas, he has held a variety of positions in local and national governmental positions.



1992:Binyamin Ben-Eliezerwas appointed Minister of Housing and Construction in Yitzhak Rabin's government.



1992: Moshe Shahal replaced Roni Milo as Minister of Public Security



1992: Moshe Shahal begins serving as Israel’s Communication Minister. Born in 1934 in Iraq, he made Aliyah in 1950.  After graduating with a law degree from Tel Aviv University, he began a political career that included a variety of governmental positions and membership in the Alignment and Labor Parties.



1992: Yitzhak Shamir completed his second term as Prime Minister of Israel.



1993: “Jews decry 'slap in face' from academy Big alumni event scheduled for Yom Kippur holy day” published today” described the reaction to the Naval Academy celebrating Homecoming on the Day of Atonement.
http://articles.baltimoresun.com/1993-07-13/news/1993194040_1_yom-kippur-jewish-holidays-jewish-alumni



1997: In an article entitled “Israel Games Draw Westchester Athletes,” Chuck Slater provides a graphic portrait of Lorin Ambinder, Nina Zeitlin, Matthew Deutsch and Scott Grayson, the four young athletes from Westchester County who are in Israel to represent the United States in the 15th Maccabiah Games, opening tomorrow.



1997: The Sunday New York Times book section features a review of The Sense of Reality: Studies in Ideas and Their History by Isaiah Berlin and Man Without A Face the autobiography of East Germany’s spymaster Markus Wolf, the German Jew, who while head of Stasi, provided training camps for the PLO in East Germany where they could master the use of guns, explosives and guerilla tactics. Yes, Isaiah Berlin and Markus Wolf are both Jews which raises the question, “what is a typical Jew?”



1998: Silvan Shalom succeeded Michael Etian as Minister of Science and Technology.



1999: Detroit Catcher Bradley David "Brad" Ausmus is one of the reserve players on this American League All Star team which played the National League tonight.



2000:Jan Karski, a liaison officer of the Polish underground who infiltrated both the Warsaw Ghetto and a German concentration camp and then carried the first eyewitness accounts of the Holocaust to a mostly disbelieving “West,” died in Washington.



http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/righteous/stories/karski.asp



http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/karski.html



http://www.jankarski.net/en



2003: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Absolutely American: Culture War at West Pointby David Lipsky and the recently released paperback edition of King of the Jews by Leslie Epstein, a Holocaust novel that focuses on the morally ambiguous politics of survival of a Judenrat, forced to collaborate with the Nazis in a Polish ghetto.



2004: Jacobo Kaufmann, Israeli  acclaimed theatre and opera  director, directs and designs the scenery of the Biblical opera "Nabucco" by Giuseppe Verdi at the Teatro dell'Opera di Roma, opening at the world famous Terme di Caracalla. He is the first Israeli ever to be hired to direct an opera in Italy.  



2004: Yosef Paritzky completed his term as Minister of Energy and Infrastructure.



2005:  The government of Israel sealed the borders with the West Bank and Gaza following a Tuesday night suicide bombing at Netanya.  Netanya is the site of the Maccabiah Games.  No athletes were victims of the attack and all had vowed to stay for the rest of the competition.



2005: Stephen Schwartz’s musical  “Wicked” opened  at Chicago’s  Ford Center-Oriental Theatre.



2006: In a debate broadcast today on the BBC's This Week, Maureen Lipman argued that "human life is not cheap to the Israelis, and human life on the other side is quite cheap actually, because they strap bombs to people and send them to blow themselves up."



2006(17th of Tammuz, 5766): Fast of the 17th of Tammuz.  The solemnity of the day is heightened by reports that Hezbollah terrorists have kidnapped two members of the IDF on the border of Lebanon.  In addition to which, eight members of IDF have fallen during the terrorist attack and/or as part of the military action aimed at rescuing them.



2006: The following were among a total of 43 Israeli civilians (including four who died of heart attacks during rocket barrages) and 116 IDF soldiers were killed in the Israel-Hizbullah war:Monica Lehrer Zeidman, 40, of Nahariya; Nitzo Rubin, 33, of Safed.



2006(17th of Tammuz, 5766): Eighty-seven year old Oscar winning actor Red Buttons (born Aaron Chwatt) passed away. (As reported by Mervyn Rothstein)
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F0CE2D91E30F937A25754C0A9609C8B63


2007: In Jerusalem, "Performances in Nature" presents Yarok Ad (Evergreen) performing Irish music at Ein Chemed



2008: Abbas and Olmert were expected to discuss the status of the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks on the sidelines of a conference hosted by French President Nicolas Sarkozy to boost cooperation between the European Union, Middle Eastern and North African countries.



2008: The 94thHadassah Annual Convention opens in Los Angeles.



2008: The Washington Post features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Prague in Danger:  The Years of German Occupation, 1939-45: Memories and History, Terror and Resistance, Theater and Jazz, Film and Poetry, Politics and War by Peter Demetz whowas a boy living in Prague as a “first degree half-Jew” (his mother was Jewish) during the war, Lady Liberty by Doreen Rapport, a noted author of children’s books including The Secret Sederand In the Promised Land: Lives of Jewish Americans and The Owner of the House: New and Collected Poems 1940-2001 by Louis Simpson who mixes the warmth of memories of his Jewish ancestry with the grim realities that brought it to an end; "In my grandmother's house there was always chicken soup/And talk of the old country -- mud and boards,/Poverty,/The snow falling down the necks of lovers. But the Germans killed them./I know it's in bad taste to say it,/But it's true. The Germans killed them all."



2008: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Rome 1960: The Olympics That Changed the World by David Maraniss, Atmospheric Disturbances by Rivka Glachen, and As Good As Anybody:  Martin Luther King Jr. and Abraham Joshua Heschel’s Amazing March Toward Freedom by Richard Michelson.



2008: Ofira Henig, makes her directorial debut at the Weill Auditorium in Kfar Shmaryahu when the curtain rises on “Yerma” written by Spanish playwright and poet Federico Garcia.



2009:The 18th Maccabiah Games, which draw Jewish athletes from around the world as well as Israeli citizens, both Jewish and Arab, opens today in Israel.  Approximately 5,000 athletes will be participating from outside of Israel, representing a 20% increase from the last Games held in 2005. The Maccabiah Games are one of the five largest athletic events in the world by number of participants and are considered Regional Games by the International Olympic Committee. Competition is held in many different sports at locations around the country.



2009:Kolech, a modern Orthodox women's organization, will hold its sixth international conference entitled "The Woman and Her Judaism."



2009:As part of the Noontime Lecture Series: “Balance of Power in the Persian Gulf” The National Museum of American Jewish Military History presents “Iraq vs. the United States, Gulf War I”  in which Dr. Jeffrey Greenhut will show how the Iraqi seizure of Kuwait was a direct outcome of the Iran-Iraq War, and then how the United States, under the leadership of President George H. W. Bush, formed a vast international coalition that was able to liberate Kuwait in one of the most effective military campaigns since World War II.

2009: It was announced today that Britain's chief rabbi, Dr Jonathan Sacks, has been made a life peer. The House of Lords Appointments Commission recommended the appointment for the community leader to take his place in the House of Lords.  "I am honored by this appointment. I am proud to be following in the footsteps of my predecessor, Lord Jakobovits, who served in the House of Lords," Dr Sacks said. "I will be combining both my rabbinical responsibilities and the opportunities that membership of the Lords offer me to speak on issues that matter."  

2010: Mothers Circle, an education and support group for non-Jewish women raising Jewish children, is scheduled to meet at the Historic 6th& I Synagogue in Washington, D.C.



2010: “A Jewish Girl In Shanghai” is scheduled to be shown at the Jerusalem Film Festival.



2010:The Libyan organizers of an aid ship trying to breach Israel's blockade the Gaza Strip said today that an Israeli military vessel had confronted the ship and ordered it to change course for the Egyptian port of el-Arish.

2010:U.S. President Barack Obama today nominated Deputy Secretary of State Jacob (Jack) Lew, a religious Jew, as his new director of a budget that suffers from a budget deficit approaching $1.3 trillion. The appointment must be confirmed by the Senate, which may question Lew whether he can function while observing the Sabbath. One story making the rounds in the United States is that Lew, when he was director for the Office of Management and Budget for former U.S. President Bill Clinton, refused to answer an urgent phone call from the president on the Sabbath, when using the phone is prohibited except in life-saving situations. The speakerphone was turned on, and Clinton reportedly said, “I know it is the Sabbath, but this is urgent. G-d would understand.” Lew later consulted with his rabbi, who told him that the Jewish concept of “pikuach Nefesh,” or saving  lives, is applicable when the president calls urgently and that he can pick up the phone on the Sabbath without violating the Jewish law.As Clinton's budget director, Lew performed the rare feat of operating three budgets without increasing the national deficit. "If there was a Hall of Fame for budget directors, then Jack Lew surely would have earned a place for his service in that role under President Clinton, when he helped balance the federal budget after years of deficits," President Obama said. Lew left the Clinton administration with a record $236 million budget surplus but now inherits a whopping $1 trillion deficit for the first nine months of 2010, and it may reach $1.3 trillion by the end of the year.. The bloated budget and the troubled American economy have contributed to a drop in President Obama’s popularity that has sent Democrats scurrying to fight against a possible loss of the party's Congressional majority in November’s mid-term legislative elections. Lew’s service as budget director also may place him in a difficult position on the subject of military aid to Israel as well as to Egypt and other Arab countries. He is a graduate of Harvard University and Georgetown Law Schools and ran the budget for New York University before managing financial branches of Citigroup. Despite his political and financial skills, he faces an uphill task, according to Republican Senator Judd Gregg. He told NBC, "I find him to be very thoughtful, very smart, very capable. He’s taking on a job, however, where the numbers don’t match up. This country does not have a policy which is going to lead us out of what is a disastrous financial situation. Lew was born in New York City to a Polish immigrant father. He began involvement in political life at the age of 12, when he volunteered for Democratic presidential candidate Eugene McCarthy’s anti-Vietnam war campaign.



2010:US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called on Jewish organizations TIDAT to assist in securing the release of a Jewish-American government contractor who has been held in Cuba for seven months without charge. Alan P. Gross, a USAID government contractor, was arrested on suspicion of espionage by Cuban authorities while he was on the Caribbean island helping to set up a communications center for the local Jewish community. Clinton, who was speaking at a dinner honoring Hannah Rosenthal, the Obama administration’s special envoy to monitor and combat anti- Semitism, raised the issue at the behest of his family.

2010: Tzachi “Hanegbi was convicted of perjury, and subsequently was fined 10,000 NIS, and moral turpitude was added to the offense.”



2011: In Las Vegas, Nevada, Hadassah is scheduled to hold the second and final day of its  National Business Meeting.



2011: Nirvana, dance show from Korea, which is based on ancient ritual Buddhist dances is scheduled to be performed at the Karmiel Amphitheater.



2011: In Vienna, the 13th European Maccabiah Games are scheduled to come to an end.



2011: An arrest for tax evasion in the Mea Sha’arim neighborhood of Jerusalem degenerated into violence this morning, when hundreds of ultra Orthodox protesters threw rocks, steel bars, and Molotov cocktails at the municipality officials and police. Police were accompanying the officials on their raid of the poultry slaughterhouse belonging to Yoelish Krois, the unofficial 'operations officer' of the Eda Haredit, the small anti-Zionist extreme haredi group. Krois's business has been operating for some ten years without the proper licenses.

2011: The Prime Minister's Office issued a statement saying that Benjamin Netanyahu is categorically opposed to a bill allowing the Knesset to have the authority to vet – and if need be veto - Supreme Court candidates.
 
2012: The Vertigo Dance Company which was founded in Jerusalem in 1992,is scheduled to make its debut performance at the Durham (NC) Performing Arts Center


2012: CNN is scheduled to broadcast the first of its “Green Pioneers” program. “CNN has named Yosef Abramowitz, president and cofounder of the firm responsible for Israel’s first solar field, as one of six global “Green Pioneers.”


2012” ConAgra has until today to officially respond to the complaint filed by 11 plaintiffs who are seeking unspecified damages and restitution for ConAgra’s “deceptively and misleading mislabeling Hebrew National products as strictly 100% kosher, when they are not,”  (As reported by Renee Ghert-Zand)
 
2012: Dr Daniel Wildmann is scheduled to deliver a lecture entitled ‘Desired Bodies': Leni Riefenstahl, the Berlin Olympics 1936 and Aryan Masculinity at the Wiener Library in London.


2012:A bush fire broke out tonight in Park Snir between Kibbutz Maayan Baruch and Kibbutz HaGoshrim in the North. Large forces of fire fighters and police were called to the scene and managed to extinguish the fire after several hours.


2012:In two separate incidents along Israel's southern borders today, IDF forces fired upon Palestinians trying to infiltrate into the country, killing two and wounding one.


2012:IDF troops killed a Palestinian terrorist who opened fire on their patrol, near the Erez crossing, on the Gaza border this afternoon. (As reported by Ron Friedman)


2012(23rdof Tammuz, 5772): Sixty-five year old Shlomo Bentin an Israeli neuropsychologist and recipient of the 2012 Israel Prize in psychology was killed in a traffic accident while riding a bicycle near the University of California, Berkeley. (As reported by Asher Zeiger)


2013: Tatiana Rubina, the Russian pianist, is scheduled to perform today at the Eden-Tamir Music Center.


2013: “Valentine Road” and “A Man Vanishes” are two of the films scheduled to be shown at the 30th Jerusalem Film Festival


2013: The works of Jerusalem native Tamar Ettun are among those to be shown at LMCC’s Open Studios in New York City.


2013: This evening, Temple Judah’s very own Jared Roach is scheduled to throw out the opening pitch as the Cedar Rapids Kernels square off against the Bowling Green Hot Rods


2013: “Social justice protesters blocked the northbound lanes of the Ayalon Freeway from the La Guardia exit to the Shalom exit in Tel Aviv tonight.”


2014: Shir Chadash, the Conservative congregation in Metairie, LA, a New Orleans suburb is scheduled to begin is “Nearly New Sale.”  (Editor’s Note – This Congregation gave me my first teaching job when I was a student a Tulane so I take a personal note of pleasure in seeing how it has grown and prospered.)


2014: The Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center a screening of “A Song for You,” a film about the escape of George and Gisela Karp and their infant daughter from the Nazis that took them across the Pyrenees and the impact of their experiences on the next generation.


2014: Jewish Federation leaders are scheduled to arrive in Israel where they will visit “a number of areas targeted by rockets, including the “Yaelim” absorption center in Beersheba, Kibbutz Or Ha’Ner, a resilient center in Sderot with Talia Levanon, the director of the Israel Trauma Coalition followed by visits to the towns of Ashkelon, Sderot and the Gaza border region.”

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

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July 14


1086: Toirdelbach Ua Briain passed away.  Born in 1009, he was the King of Munster and the High King of Ireland. During his reign, in 1079, Jews reportedly made their first appearance in the Emerald Isle. “The Annals of Inisfallen record ‘Five Jews came from over sea with gifts to Toirdelbach [king of Munster], and they were sent back again over sea’”.



1223:Philip II Augustus, King of France died. Like so many other anti-Semites, King Phillip based his animus towards the Jews on Christian teachings and then used this hate to despoil.  Shortly after his coronation, the King ordered the arrest of all the Jews on a Saturday, when they were easy pickings and then demanded a ransom for their release.  He canceled the loans Christians owed to the Jews, seized their property and then expelled them.  Years later he would readmit the Jews but only after they paid another ransom and submit to a confiscatory scheme of taxation.



1223:  Louis VIII becomes King of France upon the death of his father, Philip II of France.  After his coronation, Louis reversed the policy of his father and ordered his officials to stop recording the debts Christians owed to Jews.  This was part of the on-going struggle that Christians had over the question of usury – charging interest when lending money.  For Christians usury was a sin that led to excommunication.  Since Jews were not Christians they could not be excommunicated so some Christian leaders felt it was acceptable to borrow from them.  The Church frowned on this.  Louis’ ban was an attempt to reach a compromise.  Jew could lend.  Christians could borrow.  But Christians did not necessarily end up having to pay back.  At least one major French noble became a foe of Louis over this since he had taxed his Jews on the profits from their money-lending activities.   This was a fry cry from the days of Louis VI and Louis VII both of whom were protective of Jews to the extent that Jews were a significant part of the populace of Paris.



1391:The jurados of Valencia reported today that Don Samuel Abravalla, “the richest Jew in Valenciea” had been baptized yesterday in the palace of En Gasto.  His Christian name is Alfonso Ferrandes de Villaneuva.”  (According to the Jewish Encyclopedia, this Samuel Abravalla should not be confused with Don Samuel Abravanel, who was also forcfully baptized in 1391, but took the name Juan de Sevilla. Both men returned to Judaism as soon as they had the chance to recant their respective baptisms.)

 
1555: Paul IV issued Cum nimis absurdum, a Papal Bull thatplaced religious and economic restrictions on Jews in the Papal States. The bull renewed anti-Jewish decrees. It forced Jews to wear special clothing, to live in a ghetto in Rome and forbade them to own real estate or practice medicine among Christians. Jews were forbidden to practice any trade except ragpicking, and were restricted to one synagogue per city. Since all property had to be sold, and was inevitably sold at below market value, the Bull, like most such ordinances was theft as well.”


 
1614: The Jews of Worms succeeded in repelling an attack on the Jewish quarter today.



1647: A Jew from the city of Alessandra “who had discovered a new process of refining gunpowder” told the city officials of the plans the Duke of Modena to take control of the city by bribing him to destroy the supply of gunpowder.



1663(9thof Tammuz, 5423): According to Leopold Zunz, Nathan ben Moses Hannover the Jewish historian and Talmudist best known for writing Yeven Mezulah that described the Khmelnytsky Uprising in which an unprecedented number of Jews were murdered, passed away today.  “Some of them [the Jews] had their skins flayed off them and their flesh was flung to the dogs. The hands and feet of others were cut off and they [their bodies] were flung onto the roadway where carts ran over them and they were trodden underfoot by horse ... And many were buried alive. Children were slaughtered at their mother’s bosoms and many children were torn apart like fish. They ripped up the bellies of pregnant women, took out the unborn children, and flung them in their faces. They tore open the bellies of some of them and placed a living cat within the belly and they left them alive thus, first cutting off their hands so that they should not be able to take the living cat out of the belly ... and there was never an unnatural death in the world that they did not inflict upon them.” (from Yeven Mezulah, pp. 31-32)


 
1757: During a dispute surrounding titles used by members of the Bet Din in London, Isaac Nieto “was prohibited from exercising the functions of assessor.” The son of David Nieto, Isaac Nieto had served as spiritual leader of Bevis Marx and had started the first synagogue in Gibraltar.  He had returned to London in 1751 to serve as one of three judges in the city’s Rabbinical Court.  He passed away in 1774.



1785: Birthdate of Mordecai Manuel Noah, the native of Philadelphia, who “was an American playwright, diplomat, journalist, and utopian. Born in a family of Portuguese Sephardic ancestry, he was the most important Jewish lay leader in New York in the pre-Civil War period, and the first Jew born in the United States to reach national prominence.”


 
1796: As the sun rise over Frankfort, the Jews examined the extensive damage done to the Judengrasse by the French shelling.  The damage was so extensive that the Jews were allowed to disperse to other sections of the city leading to the de facto end of the “Jewish Quarter.:



1789: This date marks the fall of the Bastille in France. Although Jews by and large were not allowed to participate in the election of the Estates-General, which became the Constituent National Assembly, they viewed the fall of the Bastille as a triumph. Many of them enlisted in the National Guard. At the same time more than 1000 Jews in Alsace were forced to flee during the Agrarian revolt there.



1798: The Sedition Act, part of the four laws known as the Alien and Sedition Acts become law during the administration of President John Adams. Adams was the leader of the Federalist Party and the opponents of the Democrat Party led by Thomas Jefferson.  According to historian Howard M. Sachar, “the Federalist remained plainspoken opponents of political rights for non-Christians.” The Jews “sensed that the underlying animus” expressed against the French and other “foreigners” in this legislation was aimed at Jews (the quintessential foreigners) as much as anybody else.  This drove most Jews into the welcoming arms of the Democrat Party which a strange admixture of Southern aristocrats and Northern urban leaders as typified by Aaron Burr.



1816(18th of Tammuz, 5576): Since the 17th of Tammuz fell on Shabbat Tzom Tammuz was observed today.



1827: Birthdate of Wilhelm Rapp, the German native who participated in the Revolutions of 1848 before moving to United States in 1852 where he became a newspaper whose anti-slavery views led to a meeting with President Abraham Lincoln.



1828: Today “Dora Wordsworth and her father William Wordsworth and their friend Samuel Taylor Coleridge…came upon a Jewish family while walking along the Rhine near St. Goar.”  Dora recorded the meeting in her journal, while her father, the poet, recorded his feelings in a poem entitled “A Jewish Family” that was published in 1835. According to Judith W. Page, “Dora attempted to humanize the family and to see them as individuals.  William…idealized and distanced his subjects, thus denying them their particular identities and historical grounding. What follows is Wordsworth description of the events that led to the creation of “A Jewish Family.”



Coleridge, my daughter, and I, in 1828, passed a fortnight upon the banks of the Rhine, principally under the hospitable roof of Mr. Aders of Gotesburg, but two days of the time we spent at St. Goar in rambles among the neighbouring valleys. It was at St. Goar that I saw the Jewish family here described. Though exceedingly poor, and in rags, they were not less beautiful than I have endeavoured to make them appear. We had taken a little dinner with us in a basket, and invited them to partake of it, which the mother refused to do, both for herself and children, saying it was with them a fast-day; adding diffidently, that whether such observances were right or wrong, she felt it her duty to keep them strictly. The Jews, who are numerous on this part of the Rhine, greatly surpass the German peasantry in the beauty of their features and in the intelligence of their countenances. But the lower classes of the German peasantry have, here at least, the air of people grieviously opprest. Nursing mothers, at the age of seven or eight and twenty often look haggard and far more decayed and withered than women of Cumberland and Westmoreland twice their age. This comes from being underfed and overworked in their vineyards in a hot and glaring sun.



“A Jewish Family”



GENIUS of Raphael! if thy wings



Might bear thee to this glen,



With faithful memory left of things



To pencil dear and pen,



Thou would'st forego the neighbouring Rhine,



And all his majesty--



A studious forehead to incline



O'er this poor family.



 



The Mother--her thou must have seen,



In spirit, ere she came



To dwell these rifted rocks between,



Or found on earth a name;



An image, too, of that sweet Boy,



Thy inspirations give--



Of playfulness, and love, and joy,



Predestined here to live.



 



Downcast, or shooting glances far,



How beautiful his eyes,



That blend the nature of the star



With that of summer skies!



I speak as if of sense beguiled;



Uncounted months are gone,



Yet am I with the Jewish Child,



That exquisite Saint John.



 



I see the dark-brown curls, the brow,



The smooth transparent skin,



Refined, as with intent to show



The holiness within;



The grace of parting Infancy



By blushes yet untamed;



Age faithful to the mother's knee,



Nor of her arms ashamed.



 



Two lovely Sisters, still and sweet



As flowers, stand side by side;



Their soul-subduing looks might cheat



The Christian of his pride:



Such beauty hath the Eternal poured



Upon them not forlorn,



Though of a lineage once abhorred,



Nor yet redeemed from scorn.



 



Mysterious safeguard, that, in spite



Of poverty and wrong,



Doth here preserve a living light,



From Hebrew fountains sprung;



That gives this ragged group to cast



Around the dell a gleam



Of Palestine, of glory past,



And proud Jerusalem!


 

 
1850: Following a major fire in Philadelphia, the Hebrew ladies of Philadelphia met this morning and afternoon, and made up a large quantity of garments to supply immediate necessities for those who had suffered losses as a result of the blaze.



1850: Sixty-one year old German theologian and historian Johann August Wilhelm Neander who had been born David Mendel, the son of Jewish peddler Emmanuel Mendel, passed away today.



1854: The New York Times published a letter from James Finn, the English Consul at Jerusalem that was critical of a U.S. citizen named Jones who was allegedly selling relics to visitors for 60 pounds sterling.  Finn was a philanthropist as well as diplomat who established a farm for training Jewish agriculture workers and employed Jewish workers to build the first house at Kerem Avraham, a piece of land he had purchased that was outside the walls of the Old City.



1858: An article published today entitled "The First Mormon Settlement--Its Temple" described the Mormon settlement in Ohio including a school that has a classroom for the teaching of Hebrew which is overseen by a Jew named Sexias whom the Reverend Stewart also consults on matters relating to "Hebrew authority."



1863: Jews of Holstein, Germany were granted equality.



1870: In Great Britain, the United Synagogue Act which brought into existence the United Synagogue received Royal Assent.



1874: The newly formed Union of American Hebrew Congregations is scheduled to have its second annual meeting today.

1877: Leopold Ullstein, a Bavrian Jew, purchased the Neue Berliner Tageblatt newspaper, a subsidiary of the liberal Berliner Tageblatt published by Rudolf Mosse who was a leader of the Berlin Jewish community.


1878: While meeting in Milwaukee, the Jewish Council “formally approved the union of all Hebrew congregations under one organization.  The goals of the organization include the creation of institutions “for instruction in Hebrew literature and theology,” the establishment of relations “with other Jewish organizations in different parts of the world” dedicated to improving the conditions of oppressed Jews and the promotion of religious instruction for young people include young Jewish ladies.



1880: A free aquatic excursion for poor Jewish children six years of age and under is scheduled to begin at nine o’clock this morning



1881: In Chicago, Il, the 8th annual meeting of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations came to an end.  Moritz Loth of Cincinnati has served as President and Lipman Levy has servered as the Secretary of the Union.


 
1882: It was reported today that Patrick Auglen has charged a group of Polish Jews living in the same rooming house where he was staying had dragged him into their apartment and beaten him brutally.  The Jews did not deny having fought with him but claimed they were acting in self-defense since Auglen had begun the disturbance by kicking down their door.  The fight was part of the violence that was surrounding the current Freight Handlers Strike.



1882: “Help For The Russian Jews” published today the Executive Board of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations had agreed to issue an appeal to all of its member congregations to solicit aid for Russian refugees and to require every Jewish male over the age of 13 to contribute one dollar to a fund for aiding the poor.



1882: Nearly 300 Russian Jewish refugees arrived in Philadelphia aboard the SS Pennsylvania.  They came from Odessa and Kiev and have left for settlement in the West.


 
1883: It was reported today that “several Jews have been tortured and murdered” in the Russian town of Ostrog.



1884(21st of Tammuz, 5644): Rabbi George Jacobs of Beth El-Emeth in Philadelphia, passed away today in Germantown, PA after an extended illness. A native of Kingston Jamaica, he came to the United States at the age of two and went into business in Richmond Va.  In 1857, he joined the rabbinate in that Southern city and served there until 1869 when he moved to Philadelphia.  Jacobs was the author of numerous works including “Sketches of Abarbanel’s Commentaries” and “Specimens of Hebrew Literature, from the Redaction of the Mishnah to 1800.”


 
1884: It was reported today that the courts have ruled that the French artist Gustave Jean Jacquet may not display his portrait showing Alexander Dumas as a Jew of Baghdad. The son of the great novelist apparently felt to be portrayed as member of this ethnic group was an insult.  The whole matter was moot, since 18 months ago, the son-in-law of Dumas had struck the head in the painting with his cane thus destroying the offending visage. [Another example of the uneven French view of Jews]



1885: The Union of Hebrew Charities met in St. Louis, MO, this morning and voted unanimously to change the name to the Associated Hebrew Charities of the United States.  Delegates from Louisville, Nashville, Baltimore, St. Paul, MN, New Orleans, Wilmington, Delaware and Montgomery, Alabama promised to immediately join the newly re-named organization.



1885: It was reported today that Marcus Bernheimer has been elected of a yet unnamed national union of Hebrew charities.  J.L. Isaacs of New York has been elected Vice President and Albert Arstein of St. Louis has been elected to serve as Secretary.



1885: “A Weakness for Pictures” published today reported that Dr. Felton proposed that $500 be appropriated by the Georgia Legislature to buy pictures of Reverend Mercer and Bishop Pierce in what some saw was an attempt to gain votes in his upcoming run for the governorship. Representative Arnheim drew laughter from the attendees when he moved that an additional $25 be appropriated to buy “a cheap picture of Moses.  [Note -  Louis Arnheim was Jewish and represented Dougherty County in the state legislature. Dr. Felton is a candidate for Governor]



1887: It was reported at Pittsburg, PA, the Committee on Civil Rights recommended that the Board of Delegates should take notice of the recent outbreak of prejudice aimed at the Jews of Louisiana and urged the Jewish delegated to work for legislations that would protect them throughout the United States.


 
1889: It was reported today from Round Lake, NY, that this season’s Round Lake Assembly will feature a new attraction – a replica of the Tabernacle used by the Israelites in the Wilderness.  Built to one third the scale of the original, it will include the a replica of the ark and all of the sacrificial accoutrements used by the priests and Levites. W.H. Groat of Rupert, VT, who furnished the designs and oversaw the actual construction, will deliver lectures about the Tabernacle using the model as a teaching tool.


 
1890: Birthdate of Russian born sculptor Ossip Zadkine.



1891; Joseph Thoron, the President of the French Hospital Board and the French Benevolent Society prepared the program which is being distributed at today’s celebration of Bastille Day and the centennial of the political emancipation of the Jews of France. The pamphlet includes “a sketch of the emancipation of the Jews of France and an outline of the life of Coroner Ferdinand Levy.” Coroner Levy delivered an address on behalf of the Jews.



1891: The weekly excursion for sponsored by the Sanitarium for Hebrew Children for underprivileged Jewish children and their mothers is scheduled to take place today.



1892: Agent Rheinherz of the United Hebrew Charities presented Superintendent of Immigration Weber with “a fine crayon port of himself by the Hebrew, German, Irish, Polish and Italian Societies.”



1893: Russian Jews made up the majority of the 800 refugees aboard the Red Sea, a tramp steamship that arrived today at Ellis Island.  The immigrants were not allowed to land due to concern about their financial situation.



1893(1st of Av, 5653): Rosh Chodesh Av



1893(1st of Av, 5653): While sailing from New York to Liverpool aboard the Cunard Line steamship Umbria, New York realtor Ascher Weinstein who was connected with several Jewish charitable institutions fell overboard today in a tragic accident.



1894: Fifteen hundred members of the United Hebrew Trades Unions led by the International Cloakmakers Union marched up with Bowery behind an array of Red Flags on their way to mass meeting at Union Square where supporters of the Pullman strikers were gathered.



1895: The attendees at the annual Central Conference of American Rabbis including begin leaving Rochester, NY for the homes in Cincinnati, Louisville, and New York City to name but a few of the cities from which the delegates came.



1895: “The Brightside Day Nursery” published today described the function of this institution which, for the payment of 5 cents a day, provides care for children under the age of six whose mother must work during the day.  The organization is led by its President, Mrs. S.R. Guggenheim and a Board of Managers that includes Rabbi Gustav Gottheil, Rabbi Joseph Silverman, Jacob Schiff and Solomon Guggenheim.



1899: According to Andrew Sarris, In New York City Victor and Helen Cukor, immigrant Jews from Hungary gave birth to director George Dewey Cukor
http://www.nytimes.com/1991/12/15/books/the-man-in-the-glass-closet.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm



1899: “Knights of Zion Incorporated” published today described the function of the new Jewish organization that was “formed to promote good fellowship and social intercourse…as well as to inculcate a love for the Jewish faith in the hearts and minds of Jewish children. Directors include Samuel W. Greenbaum, Nathan Greenbaum, Jacob Hamburger and Herman Schapp.” (This should not be confused with the Knights of Zion, a Zionist organization formed in Chicago in 1895)



1899(7th of Av, 5659): Forty six year old pioneer German social worker Jeanette Schwerin passed away.



1899: During proceedings at the County Court House in which Reverend Herman Faust was contesting the judgment obtained by the Sun Printing and Publishing against him, Faust claimed that he was a converted Jew and this litigation was a manifestation of the persecution he was suffering at the hands of Orthodox Jews.  He offered no evidence to support his contention.



1901: Birthdate of George Tobias, one of those marvelous “character actors” whose name you don’t know but whose visage in quickly recognized as when he played “Pusher” in “Sergeant York.”



1902(9th of Tammuz, 5662): Russian sculptor Mark Antokolsky passed away. In an unusual turn of events, this Litvak (Lithuanian Jew) ended ups studying at the Imperial Academy of Art where his impoverished circumstances forced him to do some of his initial work in wood instead of marble. Some of his early works - "Jewish Tailor", "Nathan The Wise", "Inquisition's Attack against Jews", "The Talmudic Debate"– were based on Jewish on themes



1903: Birthdate of author Irving Stone. Born Irving Tenenbaum in San Francisco, one of Stone’s most famous works was Lust For Life, a fictionalized biography of Vincent Van Gogh. The film version provided employment for another Jew, Kirk Douglas who played the starring role.



1904: Birthdate of Yiddish novelist, Isaac Bashevis Singer. Singer, author of many volumes including Enemies and Yentel won the Nobel Prize in 1978. He passed away in 1991.



1904: Birthdate of Rudolf Julius Arnheim, the Berlin native, “a distinguished psychologist, philosopher and critic whose work explored the cognitive basis of art — how we interpret it and, by extension, the world.” (As reported by Maraglit Fox)



1911: Birthdate of Gertrude Scharff Goldhaber, the renowned physicist who fled Germany after she earned her Ph.D in 1935. She eventually came to the United States where she married Maurice Goldhaber.

1912:  Birthdate of Woody Guthrie, famed American folk singer who gave a musical voice to downtrodden masses suffering during the Great Depression and the fight against fascism as can be heard in the famed tune describing the sinking of the Rubin James.  Guthrie was not Jewish but his Brooklyn born mother-in-law, with whom he collaborated was.  For more about Woody’s Jewish connection see http://www.woodyguthrie.org/merchandise/klezmatics.htm.



1914: Leon Zalatkoff, editor of The Jew Daily News will preside over a memorial service marking the 10 anniversary of the death of Theodore Herzl being held in the Bronx at the London Casino.  Rabbi Bernard Wolf will lead a religious service after which Dr. Schmarja Levin of Berlin who was a member of the first Russian Duma will deliver an address.  His remarks will include a response to Jacob Schiff’s criticism of Levin’s role in the debate over the use of Hebrew or German at the Technion in Haifa.



1914: Louis Lipsky, Chairman of The American Federation of Zionists will preside over a memorial service marking the 10 anniversary of the death of Theodore Herzl being held at the National Theatre on Houston Street in New York City. Rabbi Joseph Rosenblatt will lead a religious service after which Dr. Schmarja Levin of Berlin who was a member of the first Russian Duma will deliver an address.  His remarks will include a response to Jacob Schiff’s criticism of Levin’s role in the debate over the use of Hebrew or German at the Technion in Haifa. Bernard Rosenblatt, the Secretary of the American Federation of Zionists will also speak at the memorial service.



1915: During World War I, the New York Times published reports from “the semi-official Wolff Telegraph Bureau” that the French had been the first to used gas in February of 1915 two months before the Germans used at the Second Battle of Yypres. (In one of those many ironies of German history, the Wolff Telegraphy Bureau, which was seen a spokesman for the Kaiser was the creation of Bernhard Wolff, a German-Jewish businessman.)



1915: In Cleveland, Ohio, Sarah and Samuel Schwartz gave birth to Jerome Lawrence Schwartz who gained fame as Jerome Lawrence the co-author of “Inherit the Wind.”



1916: Birthdate of Italian novelist, essayist, translator and playwright Natalia Ginzburg. Born Natalie Levi, her father was Jewish and her mother was Catholic. During the 1930’s her parent’s home was bastion of anti-Mussolini sentiment. She married Leon Ginzburg, a brilliant intellectual of that time. The Ginzburgs endured exile and house arrest for their anti-fascist views. During the war Leon Ginzburg was arrested and murdered for his anti-fascism. Ginzburg returned to Rome after the war where she resumed her career. She died in 1991.



1917: Birthdate of Arthur Laurents, “the playwright, screenwriter and director who wrote and ultimately transformed two of Broadway’s landmark shows, “Gypsy” and “West Side Story,” and created one of Hollywood’s most well-known romances, “The Way We Were.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/06/arts/arthur-laurents-playwright-and-director-dies-at-93.html?pagewanted=all



1920: In Halifax, Nova Scotia, the cornerstone was laid for the Robie Street Shul.



1921: Sacco and Vanzetti were convicted in Dedham Mass, of killing their shoe company's paymaster.  The case of the two Italian immigrants would become a cause célèbre among civil libertarians and their reactionary opponents.  Felix Frankfurter, who would become the third Jewish member of the Supreme Court, was part of the legal team that sought, unsuccessfully, to save their lives.



1928: In, Timisoara, Transylvania Judah Loeb Fleisher and his wife gave birth to Ezra Fleischer the Romanian born Israeli Hebrew-language poet and philologist who served as the director of the Geniza Research Institute for Hebrew Poetry of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities.


1930: Outfielder Harry Rosenberg made his major league debut with the New York Giants.



1931:In Basle, Switzerland, Nahum Sokolow was elected president of the World Zionist Organization today by a vote of 118 to 48, succeeding Dr. Chaim Weizmann, who had been president for ten years.



1933: In Germany, all political parties were outlawed except for the Nazi Party.



1833: Hitler’s cabinet formally approved the Concordat between the Vatican and Germany. The Concordat was one of the earliest expression of “approval” of the new Nazi regime.



1933: In Poland, “Dr. Jacob Wigodsky wrote in a Vilna newspaper: ‘We must continue to fight against the Hitler pogroms…We are fighting for the equal rights of all, everywhere in the world, but first and foremost, equal rights for us.’”



1933: Germany adopts The Law Regarding Revocation of Naturalization and the Annulment of German Citizenship that stripped German citizenship from Eastern European Jews. This will eventually lead to the forced repatriation of Polish Jews living in German – an act of great misery since the Poles did not want to admit the Jews.


1933:It was reported today that Czechoslovak and German Governments have reached agreement under which Czech citizens residing in Germany, who wish to return to Czechoslovakia, will be permitted to take with them all their possessions. The reports do not say if this includes Czech Jews who have been living in Germany.



1934: A Jewish delegation from Adrianople spoke with the Turkish government in an attempt to ensure that police would continue to present to prevent looting.



1934: Birthdate of Lee Friedlander, one of those Jews who used a Leica 35 mm camera and rolls of black and white film to create unforgettable art.
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/2.234/defining-the-jewish-photographer-1.417981
http://www.cleveland.com/arts/index.ssf/2009/03/lee_friedlander_exhibit_at_cle.html



1938(15thof Tammuz, 5698):Isaac Goldberg passed away. Born in 1887, he was an American journalist, author, critic, translator, editor, publisher, and lecturer. Born in Boston he studied at Harvard University and received a BA degree in 1910, a MA degree in 1911 and a PhD in 1912. While he actively covered European culture for the Boston Evening Transcript during World War I, Goldberg never actually traveled abroad. In fact, he turned down a 1932 Guggenheim Fellowship awarded to Goldberg for travel to South America. He wrote biographies of H. L. Mencken, Havelock Ellis, W. S. Gilbert, Arthur Sullivan, and George Gershwin, books on theatrical and musical appreciation, and contributed articles for many magazines. He also founded, published, and edited a monthly news magazine called Panorama. He was fluent in Yiddish, Spanish, French, German, Italian, and Portuguese and translated a variety of literary works into English. He received a fellowship from the Guggenheim Foundation in 1932 to write a history of Spanish and Portuguese literature in America. He was also a lecturer on Hispanic literature at Harvard University from 1931 to 1932.



1938:  Recognizing the intent of the Evian Conference nations in regard to the Jews, a Nazi newspaper headlines: "JEWS FOR SALE AT A BARGAIN PRICE--WHO WANTS THEM? NO ONE."



1938: Birthdate of self-proclaimed political activist Jerry Rubin. He passed away in 1994



1939: On Bastille Day, the 17,000 internees at Gurs Concentration Camp of Spanish origin arranged themselves in military formation in the sports field and sang La Marseillaise, followed by sports presentations and choral and instrumental concerts.



1941(19th of Tammuz, 5701): Six thousand Lithuanian Jews were killed.



1942: Thousands of Dutch Jews are arrested in Amsterdam and deported to Auschwitz, where many are gassed.


1942: The Przemysl, Poland, ghetto is sealed by the Nazis.


1944(23rd of Tammuz, 5704): Hungarian Jews held at the Reval, Estonia, slave-labor camp are shot in a nearby forest.


1944(23rd of Tammuz, 5704): Germans murder hundreds of POWs and Jewish partisans at Vercors, France.


1944(23rd of Tammuz, 5704): Forty-two Jews laboring in workshops at the Pawiak prison in Warsaw are executed by Germans anticipating a Red Army assault.


1944: Approximately 200 Jews were alive today in Grodno when it was liberated by Soviet troops.


1945: A train left Los Alamos carrying several "bomb units" for Little Boy (the major non-nuclear parts of a gun-type bomb) together with a single completed uranium projectile; the uranium target was still incomplete.”  Little Boy was the name given to the first atomic boy which was developed by the Manhattan Project under the command of Robert Oppenheimer.


1945: "Lest We Forget," an exhibition of death-camp photography organized by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and the Washington Evening Star comes to an end. By the end of the tour nearly 90,000 Americans have viewed this testament to the Holocaust.


1947: Birthdate of pitcher and sportscaster Steve Stone. “He was one of the best Jewish pitchers in major league history, 3rd career-wise in wins (107) and strikeout (1,065), behind Ken Holtzman and Sandy Koufax, and 9th in games (320).“


1948: During Operation Dekiel, the Irgun occupied the Arab village of Malha after a fierce battle. Several hours later, the Arabs launched a counterattack, but Israeli reinforcements arrived, and the village was retaken at a cost of 17 dead.


1948:  After failing to capture the northern Negev town of Negba, the Egyptians attacked the settlement of Gal-On.  Gal-On was 15 miles east of Negba and another impediment to the Egyptian advance towards Tel Aviv.  The defenders beat off the Egyptian attackers forcing them to seek another route to the Jewish metropolis.


1948: The Israelis launched their third attack on the Arab fortress of Latrun.  Latrun was held by the crack Arab Legion and blocked the normal road to Jerusalem.  The Arabs, who had modern armored vehicles, beat off the attacking Israelis who had not anti-tank weapons. 


1948:  As part of “Operation Dekel,” an offensive designed to take the city of Nazareth, Israeli forces move southeast from the coast and take the town of Shefaram.


1948: Forces of the Arab Liberation Army which had been staying in the village began their retreat from Ein Kerem.

1948: The Irgun lost 17 men in the battle for the village of Mahla.


1948: Israeli planes bombed the airport at Cairo.



1950: Today, Erev of Shabbat, Moscow radio broadcast charges that “Israel ‘openly sided with the American aggressors’ in approving United Nations intervention in Korea.”  The broadcast repeated published charges “that Prime Minister David Ben Gurion’s speech before the Israeli Parliament was a repetition of recent statements by President Truman and Secretary of State Dean Acheson.



1956(6th of Av, 5716):Isaac Rosenfeld passed away. Born in Chicago in 1918, he was a Jewish-American writer who became a prominent member of the New York literary elite. Rosenfeld wrote one novel Passage from Home which, according to literary critic Marck Shechner, "helped fashion a uniquely American voice by marrying the incisiveness of Mark Twain to the Russian melancholy of Dostoevsky," and many articles for The Nation, Partisan Review, and The New Republic. Some of those articles were posthumously published in a volume titled An Age of Enormity, and his short stories were later published as Alpha and Omega.



1958: In Iraq, Arab nationalists overthrew the monarchy, which had been installed by the British, in a violent, gruesome revolt. As with so much turmoil in the Middle East, this had nothing to do with Israel. The revolt was anti-Western. As the Arab leader Nasser said, the Arabs were not anti-Western because of Israel. They were anti-Israel because Israel was Western.



1958: Birthdate of producer Scott Rudin who is “one of the few people who have won an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony”



1960: Congress authorized a one-time Chaplain’s Medal for Heroism today.  The medal was created to honor The Four Dorchester Chaplains and had to be created because of the strict definition of heroism under fire used for awarding the Congressional Medal of Honor. Rabbi Alexander Goode, of blessed memory, was one of the four recipients of the medal.



1967: Chile voted against the reunification of Jerusalem after the *Six-Day War



1967: As artillery exchanges and aerial duels erupt near the Suez Canal. Israeli forces shot down  7 Egyptian fighter aircraft.



1976: After 4 days of debate, the Security Council of the United Nations failed to adopt a resolution supported by most African states condemning Israel’s raid on Entebbe as violation of Uganda’s sovereignty.  At the same time, a majority could not be mustered to support the Anglo-American resolution condemning the hijacking of airplanes and calling on “all governments to prevent and punish all such terrorist acts.” (Note – Is today’s news nothing more than a recycling of yesterday’s events?) As reported by Kathleen Teltsch



1976: In light of Mexico’s denunciation of the raid on Entebbe, Zionist in the United States l are calling on American Jews to boycott Mexican goods and to avoid travel to Mexici.



1978: Anatoly Sharansky was convicted of anti-Soviet agitation.



1980(1st of Av, 5740): Rosh Chodesh Av



1985: Today, the New York Times described David Cantor’s performance of “Che” in the musical “Evita” as “marvelous…never lapsing into excessive snideness, singing gorgeously and, at times, sailing into the stratosphere with his crystalline 'high-flying, adored' pianissimi."



1989: An Israeli F-16 shot down a Syrian MIG-21. This marks the first time that an Israeli piloted F-16 has shot down an enemy aircraft.



1992: Shimon Peres begins serving as Israel’s Foreign Minister.



1992: Yitzhak Rabin, Israel’s new Prime Minister awaited a response to his offer made the day before to travel to the capitals of any Arab country to further the cause of peace in the Middle East.



1997: The opening of the 15th Maccabiah Games in Tel Aviv was marred by disaster.  As the Australian team walked across a bridge, the bridge collapsed plunging the team into the Yarkon River.  Greg Small Elizabeth Sawicki, Yetty Bennett and Warren Zines lost their lives and 60 others were injured.



2002: In an article entitled “The Shadow of Circumstance,” Daphne Merkin describes her visit to Israel with her daughter to attend a nephew’s wedding; a visit of unbelievable normality except for the fact it was bracketed by two bombings and included a “red alert” in Jerusalem.



2002: A three-week workshop on Jewish History and Culture opens at Nanjing University, Nanjing, China,



2003: Jerry Springer filed papers to run for the U.S. Senate from Ohio.



2006:  While Jews across the world offer recite the lines Sim Shalom at the conclusion with a renewed fervor they also offer up prayers for the safety of the IDF and the citizens of Israel as they deal with attacks from terrorists operating from Gaza and Lebanon.



2006: This morning, “one of the branch heads of naval intelligence, Lieutenant-Colonel Y. briefed the head of naval intelligence, Colonel Ram Rothberg, telling him that "ships enforcing Israel's naval blockade on Hezbollah should take into account the possibility of a C-802 missile being fired on them." The assessment, however, did not result in a warning.”



2006: The INS Hanit, Sa'ar 5-class corvette, was damaged today when it was struck by a C-802 anti-ship missile fired by Hezbollah.



2006: The following were among a total of 43 Israeli civilians (including four who died of heart attacks during rocket barrages) and 116 IDF soldiers were killed in the Israel-Hizbullah war:St.-Sgt. Tal Amgar, 21, of Ashdod; Cpl. Shai Atias, 19, of Rishon Lezion; Sgt. Yaniv Hershkovitz, 21, of Haifa; and St.-Sgt. Dov Shtierenshos, 37, of Karmiel. Yehudit Itzkovich, 58, of Meron, and her grandson Omer Pesahov, seven, of Nahariya.



2007: In Jerusalem, Off the Wall Comedy Empire presents "The Jerusalem Comedy Show," starring David Kilimnick, Boris Melamed and Anat Hoffman, a comedy show about life in Jerusalem.



2007:  The Cedars Rapids Gazette featured an article entitled “N.Y. Mayor Bloomberg’s Jewish faith a non-issue” describes Bloomberg’s upbringing as a Conservative Jew in Medford, Mass. and his philanthropic support of Jewish institutions. The article states that “there’s no evidence Jews will support Bloomberg because of their shared faith.” But the article says nothing about how non-Jews would respond to a serious Jewish candidate for President.



2008: Eli Aflalo succeeded Yaakov Edri was Minister of Immigrant Absorption.  Edri continued to serve as Minister of Negev and Galilee Development.



2008: In Washington, D.C. Ethan Caninreads from and signs his new novel, America America, at Politics and Prose Bookstore.



2008: Barring any rebellion before votes are tallied,Randi Weingarten is expected to be elected to the top position of the 1.4 million-member American Federation of Teachers at its Chicago convention. Weingarten has served for the past decade as head of the 200,000-member New York teachers group, known as the UFT.As the AFT's president, Weingarten will be the only woman leading a major U.S. union—one that has been growing, unlike much of organized labor. Weingarten is not the first Jew to serve as President of AFT.  That distinction goes to the late Albert Shanker.



2009: Arthur Laurents “Broadway’s Last Ferocious Man” celebrates his 92ndbirthday.



2009: At the 18th Maccabiah Games the following basketball games are played: Germany v Canada, Greece v Brazil, Russia v Argentina and Mexico v the United States.



2009:Israel accused Lebanon of violating United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701 today after a Hizbullah arms cache hidden inside a southern Lebanese town accidentally exploded. The blast occurred inside the village of Hirbet Selm, some 20 kilometers north of the Israeli-Lebanese border, south of the Litani River and within the area which falls under the mandate of the UNIFIL multi-national force.

2009:The softball tournament at the Maccabiah Games was brought to an abrupt close on this afternoon when police stormed the field at the Baptist Village without any prior warning. Although the tournament had already been underway for two-and-a-half days, 400 softball players have now been left unsure of the status of their games, seemingly because the Maccabiah coordinators failed to secure a business license for the event's venue at the Yarkon Sports Complex at the Baptist Village in Petah Tikva.

2009:In a new signal to Iran, two Sa'ar 5-class Israeli Navy ships crossed through the Suez Canal from the Mediterranean to the Red Sea today to beef up Israel's naval presence near Eilat. The passage of the ships comes several weeks after a Dolphin-class submarine passed through the international waterway for the first time.

2009:In a move that threatens to strain diplomatic ties, Britain has blocked the sale of spare parts for Israel’s fleet of missile gunships because they were used in the recent campaign in Gaza.

2010:Tovah Feldshuh, star of stage and big and small screen, is scheduled to make a special appearance at the screening of the indie comedy hit Goyband today where she will receive the Jersey Shore Film Festival Award for Artistic Achievement



2010:The Knesset voted today, in a preliminary reading, in favor of a bill that would prevent the transfer of funds to the Palestinian Authority if it continues to encourage and enforce a boycott of goods manufactured in Jewish communities.

2011: Nirvana, a dance show from Korea, which is based on ancient ritual Buddhist dances, is scheduled to appear at TAPAC in Tel Aviv.



2011:Violinist Vadim Gluzman is scheduled to return to Israel to perform Shostakovich’s Violin Concerto No. 1 with the Jerusalem Symphony under the baton of Dmitry Sitkovetsky at the Jerusalem Theater.


2011: A memorial service for Suzanne Rosenbaum Katz, wife of Bert Katz and a long time member of Hadassah, Temple Judah and its Sisterhood, is scheduled to be held at Temple Judah in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. 


2011:Israeli Air Force planes bombed two smuggling tunnels in southern Gaza in retaliation for rocket attacks on southern Israeli communities. A tunnel used to assist in terrorist activity in northern Gaza was also hit in an attack early this morning, according to the IDF.  The attack came after a rocket was fired at a community in southern Israel. Yesterday, Israeli airstrikes hit two weapons manufacturing sites in northern Gaza after rocket launchings toward Israel the previous night. At least two Kassam rockets from those strikes damaged homes in a Negev community, the IDF said. Following the air attack, a rocket fired from Gaza struck southern Israel early yesterday afternoon. At least 11 rockets have been fired at southern Israel since the beginning of the month.
2012: French filmmaker Claude Lanzman received the French Legion of Honor.
2011: The mayor of San Antonio, Texas, Julián Castro, signed agreements with Israel to share knowledge and economic cooperation today as he was wrapping up a five-day trip to Israel focused on economic cooperation.
2012: Jerusalem’s Vertigo Dance Company is scheduled to perform for the last time at the Durham Performing Arts Center in North Carolina.


2012: A man set himself on fire on Tel Aviv’s Kaplan Street during a social justice rally tonight, police said. The Haifa man identified as Moshe Silman, 46 years old, came out of an apartment building, poured flammable material over his clothes and body and lit himself with a burning object (As reported by Yaakov Lappin, Michael Omer-Man and Gil Shefler)
2012: Israeli organizers expect tens of thousands to take part in nationwide demonstrations tonight to mark the first anniversary of last summer’s social justice protests
2012(24th of Tammuz): Yarhrzeit for the Jews of Jerusalem who were murdered by the crusaders on this date in 1099 (5772)
2012(24th of Tammuz, 5772): Sixty five year old “Gustin L. Reichbach who went from the carefree fraternity life to leading student protests at Columbia University in 1968 and then to a career as a fiercely independent lawyer and judge” passed away today. (As reported by Jim Dwyer)

2013: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P. by Adelle Waldman.


2013: Final day of the 30th annual Jerusalem Film Festival.


2013:  Pianist Sagy Segal and Vocalist Gal Klein are scheduled to perform at a special Bastille Day Concert at the Eden-Tamir Music Center.


2013: Observance of Bastille Day which provides an excellent opportunity to consider the uneven history of the Jews of France which, according to the Jewish Encyclopedia dates to the first decades of the common era when Jews were found at Vienna and Lyon.


2013: This morning Economy Minister Naftali Bennett against what he called “incitement” by one of the most senior religious figures of Shas. In a video posted on the Haredi website Kikar Hashabbat, Rabbi Shalom Cohen, a member of Shas’s Council of Torah Sages and the head of the influential Porat Yosef Yeshiva, is seen calling national religious Israelis “Amalek” and suggesting that they aren’t Jews. (As reported by Haviv Rettig Gur)
2013: The police reported that another haredi attack on a religious soldier took place this afternoon in the ultra-Orthodox Jerusalem neighborhood of Beit Yisrael, close to Mea Shearim. According to police spokesman Shmuel Ben-Ruby, two haredi men attacked a uniformed soldier with a knitted yarmulke who was passing by on Sha’arei Shamayim Street. (As rerpoted by Jeremy Sharon)
2013: Today “Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu telephoned Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and said he hoped the two sides could resume peace talks, stalled for three years, Israeli officials said. Netanyahu offered greetings for the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, his office said, adding that he told Abbas: "I hope we will have the opportunity to speak with one another not only during festivals, and will start negotiating. It's important."
2014: In New Orleans, final shivah minyan for Dietician, artist Bettie Florence Stovall Rosenbaum who passed away at the age of 87 is scheduled to take place at the home of Linda and Scott Hart in Lakeview. (As reported by the Crescent City Jewish News)
2014: “The Places You’ll Go” by Israeli playwright Hila Ben Gera, a graduate of Yoram Lowenstein’s Performing Arts Studio in Tel Avi is scheduled to open at @Dixon Place in New York.
2014: “Sukkah City USA” and “Under the Same Sun” are scheduled to be shown at the Berkshire Jewish Film Festival.
2014: “A delegation from the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations is scheduled to arrive today, and meet government and military officials and tour areas susceptible to rocket fire by Hamas.” (As reported by JTA)


 


 


This Day, July 15, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. Levin

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July 15



763 BCE: Forty-one years before their conquest of Israel, the Assyrians observe and record a solar eclipse which is the basis for much of the dating of activities in the Fertile Crescent, including Eretz Israel, prior to the seventh century BCE (As reported by Austin Cline)



1099: Godfrey de Bouillon entered Jerusalem, drove all the Jews into the synagogue, and set them afire while he marched around the synagogue singing, "Christ, we adore thee". This marked the end of Jerusalem as a Jewish center for centuries, although Jews did return in limited numbers after the Moslem reconquest in 1187. It is estimated that between 20,000 and 30,000 Jews were massacred or captured and sold as slaves in Italy.



                                                OR (You pick the version)



1099: The crusaders final assault on Jerusalem was successful and the city was sacked. This was in keeping with the general rule that, if a fortified place did not surrender, it might be sacked and its inhabitants killed or enslaved. Although there was considerable bloodshed in Jerusalem, , recent research has demonstrated that crusade leaders intervened to protect some of the inhabitants, including Muslims and Jews. Among those who took this step was Godfrey of Bouillon. Some Muslims and Jews were slaughtered, but some were escorted to Muslim territory.



1174:Baldwin IV was crowned King of Jerusalem.  Graetz claims that the Leperous King was the one who banned the Jews from Jerusalem.  That honor should go to his father who took the throne in 1162 and the ban began in 1165 and last until 1175. Since Baldwin was only 13 at the time of his coronation credit for lifting the ban probably should go to the Raymond III of Tripoli, the regent who negotiated a treaty with Saladin.


1205: Pope Innocent III laid down the principle that Jews were doomed to perpetual servitude and subjugation because they had crucified Jesus. This classic charge of deicide was officially removed in 1963.



1291: King Rudolf I, who had negated the freedom of Jews of Germany by declaring them servi camerae ("serfs of the treasury") in 1286, passed away today.



1389: Murad I is killed following the Ottoman defeat of the Christians at the Battle of Kosovo also known as the Battle of Blackbird’s Field. Murad had allowed Jews fleeing Hungary to settle in Thrace and Anatolia so his death was a net loss for them. (While it is not a matter of Jewish History, memories of this battle would resurface at the end of the 20th century when Moslems and Christians squared off in the Balkan Wars following the dissolution of Yugoslavia)



1567: Not for the first time, nor for the last time, the Jews were expelled from the entire Republic of Genoa today.



1572 (5332) Isaac Luria passed away.  There is no way this simple guide can do justice to the life of this giant of Judaism.  For those who are interested, here are two places to begin: http://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/111878/jewish/Rabbi-Isaac-Luria-The-Ari-Hakodosh.htm
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/Luria.html



1606:  Birthdate of the Dutch painter Rembrandt van Rijn. Rembrandt lived in a Jewish quarter in Amsterdam. He often depicted Jewish people on his canvases. One of his most famous paintings is styled “Moses Breaking the Tablets of the Law.” There are several special events planned to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Rembrandt’s and many of them highlight his special relationship with the Dutch Jewish community.  For more on this subject, you might want to read the recently published Rembrandt’s Jews by Steven Nadler



1631: Birthdate of Richard Cumberland, the Bishop of Peterborough who was the  author of “An essay towards the recovery of the Jewish measures & weights, comprehending their monies, by help of ancient standards, compared with ours of England useful also to state many of those of the Greeks and Romans, and the eastern nations.”



1694:The Jesuits, who were opposed to the printing efforts of Shabbethai ben Joseph Bass, “sent a letter to the magistrate of Breslau to have the sale of Hebrew books interdicted on the ground that such works contained "blasphemous and irreligious words"



1738(27thof Tammuz, 5498): Baruch Laibov and Alexander Voznitzin were burnt alive in St. Petersburg, Russia, with the consent of Empress Anna Johanova. Voznitzin, a naval captain, was guilty of the crime of converting to Judaism. Laibov was guilty of helping him. http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=346&letter=B



1790: Members of Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim of the Jewish Congregation of Charleston wrote a letter to congratulate the President of the United States George Washington on the occasion of the establishment of a federal government.



1799: The Rosetta Stone is found in the Egyptian village of Rosetta by French Captain Pierre-François Bouchard during Napoleon's Egyptian Campaign. The discovery of the Stone helped to fuel interest in archaeology, including what would become the field of modern Biblical archaeology.



1799: Birthdate of Samuel Bleichröder the Jewish banker who worked with the Rothschilds and who was the father of Gerson von Bleichröder and Julius Bleichröder who followed in their father’s footsteps.



1801: In what might seem like a weakening of the position of French Jews, Napoleon signs a Concordat that recognizes Catholocism as the religion of “the great majority of Frenchmen.”



1815(9thof Av, 5575):  Tisha B’Av



1815(9thof Av, 5575): The Chozen of Lublin (The Seer of Lublin) passed away.  Born Yaakov Yitzchak in 1745, he was a leading Polish Chasidc Rebbe.



1815: Napoleon Bonaparte surrenders for the final from aboard HMS Bellerophon. Having learned their lesson from Napoleon’s escape from captivity following his first surrender, the conquering European powers exile him to St. Helena where he will live out his days.  This final surrender seems to mark the return of the Ancien Regime to Europe in general and France in particular.  The forces of reaction will try and undo the gains in liberty made by the Jews of Europe.



1818: In Savannah, GA, Levy Hart married Abigail Minis Sheftall, the youngest daughter of the last Levy Sheftall.



1818: Mosely (Moshe) Woolf and Hannah Woolf gave birth to Cecilia Woolf who became Cecilia Marks when she married David Marks.



1832: Solomon Etting, a Jewish citizen of Baltimore, MD, wrote a letter to Henry Clay, the U.S. Senator from Kentucky, saying that he other co-religionists “feel both surprised and hurt by the manner in which you introduced the expression ‘the Jew’ in debated in the Senate of the United States, evidently applying it as a reproachful designation of a man whom you considered obnoxious in character and conduct.” Since Ettinger did not know the man in question and since he assumes that Clay has no “antipathy” for the Jewish people, he asked that Clay write to him why he had used this particular expression in this particular manner.



1834: The child-Queen Isabella's mother, Christina, issued an official and final edict abolishing the Inquisition in Spain. The words read, "It is declared that the Tribunal of the Inquisition is definitely suppressed. The Inquisitions had been in place for nearly three and one half centuries.



1838: Ralph Waldo Emerson delivers the Divinity School Address at Harvard Divinity School, discounting Biblical miracles and declaring Jesus a great man, but not God. The Protestant community reacts with outrage. This was not the first or last time that Emerson would express views on religion that were out of step with prevailing Christian views. In describing the Last Supper, Emerson states “Jesus is a Jew sitting with a countrymen celebrating their national feast.”  Jesus’ Jewishness would not become an accepted tenant of many Christian beliefs until the second half of the twentieth century.



1854: The Israelite, the first Jewish newspaper published in Cincinnati, Ohio, was established today. This English language newspaper was founded by Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise, the “founding father” of Reform Judaism in America whose other “firsts” included the creation of the Hebrew Union College.



1854: The New York Times published a letter from E.R. McGregor, the Editor of the Jewish Chronicle in which he takes issue with the Times report that a U.S. citizen named Jones has been guilty of selling pieces of ancient columns and other such items to unsuspecting tourists in Jerusalem  According to McGregor Jones is a “Christian and a gentlemen” who was sent to Palestine by the American Society for Meliorating the Condition of the Jews (A.S.M.C. Jew) to examine the feasibility of establishing “agricultural colonies and schools for the benefit of the Jews and others residing in the country.” James Finn, the British Consul in Jerusalem, is the source of the negative stories about Mr. Jones.  According to McGregor, Finn is responsible for large losses connected with land near Bethlehem that was supposed to be purchased with American funds for the purpose of creating an agricultural colony. (Editor’s note – Other sources describe Finn  as “a  devout Christian, who belonged to the London Society for Promoting Christianity Amongst the Jews, but who did not engage in missionary work during his years” as British Consul in Jerusalem. According to these sources, Finn bought a piece of land outside of the Old City that he turned into an agricultural training facility for Jews. Finally, he bought land, at a place called Artas near Bethlehem where employed otherwise impoverished Jews as laborers.  Further research is obviously necessary.)



1856: Birthdate of Charles Frohman, the native of Sandusky Ohio, one of the three Frohman brothers, who became a noted Broadway impresario who co-founded the Theatrical Syndicate.



1870: In Cleveland, Ohio, Rabbi Max Lienthal of Cincinnati Ohio, presented the following resolutions to a meeting of rabbis from across the nation who adopted them unanimously.



Whereas, In consideration of the religious commotion now agitating the public mind in both hemispheres, in accordance with the principles of Judaism it is unanimously declared:


1.      Because with unshaken faith and firmness we believe in one indivisible and eternal God; we also believe in the common Fatherhood of God and the common brotherhood of men.


2.      We glory in the sublime doctrine of our religion, which teaches that the righteous of all nations, without distinction of creed, will enjoy eternal life and everlasting happiness.


3.      The divine command, the most sublime passage of the Bible “Thou shalt love thy fellow man as thyself,” extends to the entire human family without distinction of either race or creed.


4.      Civil and religious liberty, and hence the separation of Church and State, are the inalienable rights of man, we consider them to be the brightest gems in the Constitutions of the United States.


5.      We love and revere this country as our home and fatherland for us and our children, and therefore consider it our paramount duty to sustain and support the Government, to favor by all means the system of free education leaving religious instruction to the care of the different denominations.


6.      We expect the universal elevation and fraternization of the human family to be achieved by the natural means of science, morality, freedom, justice and truth.
According to the attendees, “ these resolution…clearly express…the religious and political creed of Judaism.”



1870: The Kingdom of Prussia and the Second French Empire commence the Franco-Prussian War.  The outcome of what was a brief European conflict would lead to World War I and World War II which means the Final Solution.



1874(1st of Av, 5634): Rosh Chodesh Av



1877: “Protection for Jews in Palestine” published today included the text of a letter from the Acting Secretary of State to Meyer S. Isaacs, President of the Board of Delegates of American Israelites.  The letter was in response to a request from Mr. Isaacs seeking American protection for Russian Jews living in and around Jerusalem from abuse by the Ottoman authorities.  Mr. Seward explained that normally, the U.S. government only provides protection for its own citizens living abroad.  He conceded that the United States has a reputation for helping oppressed people in foreign countries; but that help can only be provided if all of the parties involved go through proper diplomatic channels. 



1877: The Jewish Messenger reported that Secretary of State Seward had sent a letter to Meyer S. Isaacs, President of the Board of Delegates of Israelites in response to his letter of June 4 asking that the United States help provide protection for Jews from Russia living in and around Jerusalem. Speaking in that unique language of diplomats, Seward told Isaacs that the U.S. usually only extends such protection to its own citizens living abroad.  But he assured him that the United States was sympathetic to “all the oppressed peoples in foreign countries” and would act accordingly within the spirit of “international courtesy and diplomatic usage…The desired protection will be extended if these conditions are complied with.”  [This was one of the first times that American Jews had asked the United States government to intervene on behalf of their co-religionists living in Eretz-Israel.  Seward’s understated reply was more potent than it might appear.  He was a real power in the Republican having served as a U.S. Senator and having been a serious candidate for the Presidency in 1860.  Also, he had actually visited Palestine in the years prior to the Civil War so he had a firsthand knowledge of the area and the Ottomans who ruled it .



1877: Union of Hebrew Congregations completed its meeting in Philadelphia, PA. Several speeches were delivered in favor of having all the Jews in the United States represented by one national organization. The delegates agreed to hold their next meeting in July of 1878 at Milwaukee, Wisconsin.



1877: “The English Jews in Politics,”  published today reprinted the views of Goldwin Smith that originally appeared in the Fort-nightly Review. According to Smith, the Jews supported the Liberal Party until they gained full rights (including the change in oath that made it possible for them to sit in Parliament) and then they “gravitated toward the party of wealth” – the Conservative Party.  Smith went on to describe Judaism as “surviving relic of the primeval world” that was a “tribal religion” inferior to Christianity that belonged to “the ages before humanity.” As such, Jews “cannot be expected to have much sympathy with progress” and since they are now wealthy, they are obviously supporter of the “plutocratic party.” [Editor’s note – What the publishers of the article do not say is that Smith was a member of the Liberal Party and strong opponent of Benjamin Disraeli, the leader of the Conservative Party.  He later became a professor at Cornell University before finally settling in Canada. According to the Canadian Encyclopedia, Goldwin Smith was “a major exponent of anti-Semitism in the 19th century…. 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.”  This should explain much of the content of Smith’s article.)



1880: The second annual convention of the National Rabbinical Association came to a close today in Detroit, Michigan.  About half of the 56 member rabbis were in attendance.  A large number of non-Jews attended the sessions at which papers on several topics related to Judaism were presented.



1880: An unidentified man was buried in a pauper’s grave today in Hoboken, NJ.  The undertaker had initially identified the man as being Jewish and the town’s Jewish community had donated funds to provide him with a Jewish burial.  It is not clear what caused the confusion, but the undertaker is refusing to return the funds to the Jews.



1880: “Notes of Literary News” published today described the upcoming publication of Jewish Life in the East a collection of papers written by Sydney M. Samuel on the condition of Jews living in Palestine and other parts of the Levant including an examination of their  physical and moral condition and their manners and customs.At Jerusalem, in 1879-80, Sydney M. Samuel found 416 heads of families pursuing 29 handicrafts, among whom were tinkers, goldsmiths, watchmakers, smiths, turners, and masons ("Jewish Life in the East," p. 78)



1880: Among the charities designated to receive funds from Excise Fund in New York was the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society in the amount of $1,686.



1881: Four of the five newly elected officers of the Executive Board of the Hebrew Union come from Cincinnati, Ohio, the home of Hebrew Union College. The only exception was A.L. Sanger of New York who was elected to serve as Vice President.



1881: It was reported today that the just concluded meeting of the Council of the Hebrew Union had rejected Rabbi Wise’s proposal to provide stipends for worthy students who lacked the funds to attend Hebrew Union College.  Wise was concerned that “poverty” would keep those with “talent” from serving as Rabbis. The attendees refused to even vote on a proposal requiring that a rabbi must get the consent of his congregation before talking to another congregation about a new position.  The Council felt that they had no business interfering in the relationships that rabbis had with their congregations.

1882: In an attempt to eliminate a source of strikebreakers, it was suggested that the striking freight handlers meet with the Polish Jews and offer to provide them with enough money so that they can buy a stock of small goods and go on the road as peddlers.  The idea was based on reports that the Polish Jews only planned to work on the docks until they had earned enough money to go into business for themselves.




1882: “Russian Refugees Returning Home” published today described the plight of Russian Jewish immigrants who have arrived in Philadelphia in the last few months.  Only a third of the 600 recent arrivals have found jobs and 51 of the families will be shipping out from New York today as they return to their homeland.



1884(22nd of Tammuz, 5644): French painter Alphonse Hirsch passed away.  Born in Paris in 1843, he studied with Meissonier and Bonnat. Among his most famous portrait was one painted in 1877 - “Isidor, the chief Rabbi of France.”



1884: The last remnant of the Judengasse in Frankfort, Germany, is scheduled to be demolished today.



1884: “At the Great Synagogue, Sydney, Henry Emanuel married Sophie Frank the daughter of Leo Frank of Hanover, Germany who had arrived in Sydney some twelve months previously as governess to Sigmond Hoffnung’s children.”



1884: Twenty people from four families arrived in New York today aboard the SS India.  Their passage had been paid for by the Hebrew Relief Committee of Breslau.



1885: In what appears to be a botched murder/suicide brought on by a domestic dispute, Augustus Erwin, a German Jew, shot his wife and Margaret and then turned the gun on himself. 



1885: It was reported today that the newly formed Union of Hebrew Charities will require favorable responses from 12 of the Jewish charitable organizations before it will officially begin its work.



1886: It was reported today the Sanitarium for Hebrew Children will be sponsoring three free excursions this summer for the enjoyment of the poor Jewish children and their mothers.



1886: Today’s outing to the Catskills sponsored by the Five Points Mission was an ecumenical affair since it included children of Italian, German, Irish and Jewish immigrants.  Actually the mixture merely mirrored the multiplicity of immigrant groups that were living in the squalor of the Lower East Side’s worst neighborhood.



1886: In Bloomington, Illinois, Miss Ida Clark who converted to Judaism last week so that she could marry an English Jew named Holland tonight suffered a great embarrassment and disappointment today.  She received word that he had changed his mind and had called off the engagement without any explanation.



1886: “Dog Catchers Defeated” published today described how James Flanagan, Joseph Kelly and James Murphy unsuccessfully tried to capture a spitz owned by Nathan Weissbaum.  Their ineptitude was exacerbated by the interference of “several hundred Polish Jews” bent on mischief who unhitched the dogcatchers horse from its cart leaving the trio afoot on Hester Street.



1887: “Harry the Jew,” a well-known New York crook sent to the county jail Asbury Park, NJ to await charges of having robbed several bathhouses.  Harry’s last name is various listed as Harris, Fell and Luster.



1887(23rd of Tammuz, 5647): One hundred nine year old Hirsh Harris, known as “Rabbi Hirsch” passed away today in Brooklyn.



1891: There was “a large party” of Russian Jews aboard the SS Pickhuben that arrived today at Montreal.



1891: The Democrats nominated Gustavus H. Wald as their candidate for Justice of the State Supreme Court in Ohio.  The Hamilton County Jew had been a Republican until 1884 James Blaine was nominated to run for President.



1891(9thof Tammuz, 5651): Jerome Blumenthal, the fifteen year old son of Mr. and Mrs. Henry Blumenthal drowned today.



1891: For reasons that nobody can explain, it was reported today that few Jews attended the Bastille Day celebration at Lion Park in New York during which the French organizers had planned on marking the 100th anniversary of the emancipation of French Jews.  (This might reflect that there were few French Jews in New York or that a large number of the Jews living in New York were from Germany and like most Germans, had little or not affection for the French who were their continental enemies.)



1891: “Jews Barred From Romania” published today described conditions on the border between Romania and Russia where Romanian troops have been deployed to prevent any Jews from crossing over from the land of the Czars.  In addition to which, policies have been enacted to keep Russian Jews from landing at Romanian ports.



1892: “Russian Synagogue Schools Abolished” published today described a series of measures approved by the Imperia Council that “abolish synagogue schools in the form in which they now exist and to replace them by Government schools where the elements of the Jewish religion, Hebrew and the holy Scriptures shall be taught by men under the constant control of a special board of Orthodox Greek inspectors.” The changes appear to be due “to a desire to improve the Jewish schools” but “really aims at their complete suppression.



1892: “A Jew Enters the Greek Church” published today described the baptism of Nakhim Aphroim Zeldin a 19 year old Jew being held “in the prison of Sergivey Possad.”  As soon as the ceremony was completed the Russian authorities released him from prison.



1892: Birthdate of Walter Benjamin German literary critic and writer.  Benjamin died in 1940 on the border between France and Spain as he tried to escape from the Nazis.  According to some he committed suicide, although this is disputed by others.  Regardless this brilliant man who combined the ideas of Brecht and Scholem died too soon, another victim of the Holocaust.



1893: The SS Umbria arrived in Queenstown town with one less passenger than had been on board when the ship left New York because Asher Weinstein, a New York realtor who “was connected with several Hebrew charitable organizations”, had fallen overboard in what is assumed to have been a tragic accident and not a suicide.



1893: Four hundred of the 800 passengers, most of whom are Russian Jews, who arrived in New York yesterday aboard the SS Red will be “debarred as paupers” and will be sent back to Europe.  Authorities feel the immigrants were victims of a scheme concocted by the ship’s owners to dump unsuspecting foreigners on American soil with the assumption that the U.S. government would pay for their expenses to stay or be returned.  That is why the government is demanding that the ship’s owners post a ten thousand dollar bond to cover the costs. 



1893: An unknown number of “rascals…cut the backs and sets cushions of an early a hundred seats and broke several chairs” at the Thalia Theatre as part of protest trigged by “a boycott declared against Isidor Lindemann…by the United Hebrew Trades.”



1893: “The German Reichstag announced that for first time a Jew has been elected to the Town Council of Rostock.”



1894: Having completed its investigation of the management of charitable institutions in eastern New York, the Committee on Charities of the Constitutional Convention chaired by Edward Lauterbach will turn its attention to the charitable institutions in the western part of the state. (Attorney Lauterbach is Republican leader, defense attorney and longtime supporter of the Hebrew Orphan Asylum.



1894: A portion of the Board of Trade’s annual report showed that aliens living in Whitechapel, most of whom are Russian Jews make up 18 per cent of the population but “contribute less than 1 per cent to its pauperism.” The Russian Jews do not compete in lines of work performed by the English and “the average earnings of Jewish girls” working “in tailoring establishments are higher than those of English girls.”



1895(23rdof Tammuz, 5655): Simon Sternberger, who suffered from Bright’s Disease passed away today in Long Branch, NJ.  Sternberger came to the United States 50 years ago, settling first in Philadelphia before coming to New York where he “amassed a large fortune” and served as a Director of the Hebrew Orphan Asylum.



1895: “The Summer session of the Hebrew Technical Institute opened” today.



1896: While serving as the Rabbi at Temple Israel in Omaha, Nebraska. Rabbi Leo Morris Franklin married Hattie Oberfelder at her parent’s home in Chicago Illinois.  Their first daughter, Ruth, was born in Omaha.



1898(25thof Tammuz, 5658): Fifty year old Charles Lewis, “a well-known wool merchant” and founder of Charles Lewis & Brothers whose activities in the New York Jewish community included serving as Treasurer of the West End Synagogue, passed away this morning.



1899: At tonight’s meeting to discuss the future of the Presbyterian Church in New York City, Revered Alexander J Kerr said that some of the churches on the Upper East Side have given up their mission because “a large Jewish population has settle in that district.” (Editor’s note – This is one denomination that would flee than fight i.e. spend time trying to convert the Jewish population)



1904: Vyacheslav Von Plehve, Russian Minister of Interior was assassinated. Von Plehve was responsible for the Kishinev massacres in which forty-seven Jews were killed, ninety-two severely wounded or crippled, and five hundred slightly wounded. His assassin was a member of the socialist revolutionary movement, which had suffered as well by his policies. Czar Nicholas was frightened into making a few concessions. Unfortunately, he did not make enough to meet public demand.



1905:In Allenhurst, NJ. Lew Fields of the vaudeville team of Weber and Fields and his wife gave birth to Dorothy Field “who wrote lyrics to over 400 songs over a half a century including "I Can't Give You Anything But Love,""On the Sunny Side of the Street,""I'm in the Mood for Love," and "Don't Blame Me," all in 1928. “In a field in which the names of Jewish men from George and Ira Gershwin to Richard Rodgers and Stephen Sondheim are ubiquitous, Fields made her mark with some of the American musical theater's most memorable songs.”



1908: Birthdate of Max M. Fisher who would gain fame as a Detroit oil and real estate magnate known for his philanthropy and for the advice he gave Republican presidents on the Middle East and Jewish issues.


1909: Birthdate of Jean Hamburger “a French physician, surgeon and essayist” who “is particularly known for his contribution to nephrology, and for having performed the first renal transplantation in France in 1952.”  He passed away in 1992.


1912: Pitcher Ed Mensor made his major league debut with the Pittsburgh Pirates.



1913: Birthdate of Avrom Sutzkever. Born in Russia, this Holocaust survivor is variously described as “an acclaimed Yiddish poet,” “one of the great poets of the 20th century” and "the greatest poet of the Holocaust." According to David G. Roskies, Sutzkever was the greatest poet of the Holocaust, who was also a leader of the Vilna ghetto and a partisan fighter. It would have been enough, he tells us, had Sutzkever been only ''a symbol of hope and creative power for the powerless Jews of the ghetto,'' but he was much more. As ''the foremost among Jewish poets'' Sutzkever ''made the memory of the dead the nexus of his artistic expression.'' In his major prose poem, ''Green Aquarium,'' Sutzkever accomplishes the transcendence of the dead by proposing the victory of poetry over death, art over destruction, neo-classical form over chaos, and the beauty of what remains in the universe after barbarism has done its terrible work He passed away in Tel Aviv.  There is no way to do justice to his work, which you can read in English at http://books.google.com/books?id=sj_2zrw2_bMC&pg=PA47&lpg=PA47&dq=%E2%80%9CThere+is+no+God,+no+World+Creator%E2%80%9D+by+Sutzkever&source=bl&ots=JG4u2QKDQN&sig=6vpMQYzJq5SY7Bp9mOOOPsKllJE&hl=en&ei=sdocTqWtMuG60AGMzZDVBw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&sqi=2&ved=0CBUQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false


(Editor’s Note – Special thanks to Murray Wolf, playwright, poet and translator of Yiddish authors who first brought Sutzkever to my attention.)



1915: In St. Louis, MO, Benjamin Landesman, an immigrant Jewish artist from Berlin, and his wife Beatrice, who dealt in antiques, gave birth to Irving Ned Landesman, who gained fame as Jay Landesman, a writer and editor whose journal Neurotica analyzed the anxieties of postwar America and whose Broadway musical, “The Nervous Set,” has been called the first (and only) Beat musical…(As reported by William Grimes)



1918: During World War I, start of the Second Battle of the Marne. The Second Battle of the Marne marked the climactic German offensive on the Western Front during World War I.  With the Russians already out of the war, victory here would have meant that the Kaiser and his forces would have won “The Great War.”  The mind boggles at what that might have meant i.e. no Hitler, no Holocaust?  Who knows?  The fact remains that the Allies would halt the Germans.  The great offensive would collapse and the Germans would surrender in November of 1918. 



1918: During World War I, 500 German and Turkish prisoners of war were marched through the streets of Jerusalem.



1919: Birthdate of Irving Ned Landesman, the St. Louis native, who gained fame as “Jay Landesman, a writer and editor whose journal Neurotica analyzed the anxieties of postwar America and whose Broadway musical, “The Nervous Set,” has been called the first (and only) Beat musical.”



1922:  Birthdate of American physicist and Nobel Prize Winner, Leon Lederman



1927: In Vienna, The July Revolt in which Elias Canetti took part and which ignited his fascination with nature of crowds and their behavior, began today.



1928(27th of Tammuz, 5688): Sir Charles James Jessel, the son of famed English jurist Sir George Jessel, passed away. A successful barrister and magistrate in his own right, he was a member of the Anglo-Jewish aristocracy as can be seen by his marriage to Edith Goldsmid, the daughter of Sir Julian Goldsmid.  The fact that the North Borneo Company named its leading trading post Jesselton in his honor attests to his business acumen. He was also one of several Jews who had served as High Sheriff in Kent.



1929(7th of Tammuz, 5689): Hugo von Hofmannst passed away. Born in 1874, Hewas an Austrian novelist, librettist, poet, dramatist, narrator, and essayist. His great-grandfather, to whom his family owed the noble title "von Hofmannsthal," was a Jewish merchant ennobled by the Austrian emperor.



1930: In El Biar (Algiers) Haïm Aaron Prosper Charles (Aimé) Derrida and Georgette Sultana Esther Safar gave birth to Jackie Élie Derrida who gained fame as philosopher Jacques Derrida.



1930(19th of Tammuz, 5690): Hungarian born violinist Leopold Auer passed away.  Born in 1845, Auer taught many violinists who later became famous, including Efrem Zimbalist, Nathan Milstein, Mischa Elman, and Jascha Heifetz.  Sometime before his death Auer converted to Christianity.



1931: Birthdate of American graphic designer Thomas Geismar who in 1957 joined with Serge Chermayeff, a Russian born Jew, to form Chermayeff & Geismar & Haviv
http://www.cgstudionyc.com/



1932: The New York Times reported that a list of 133 prominent Jews outside of the United States was published in today's issue of The American Hebrew and Jewish Tribune. The journal describes the list as "Our Foreign "Who's Who, being the first roster ever printed of outstanding Jews in lands other than the United States. Among those listed are Sir Isaac Alfred Isaacs, Governor General of Australia…Oscar Straus, Viennese composer; Paul Hyams, Belgian Minister of Justice; Georg Cohn, counselor to the Foreign Ministry of Denmark…”



1934(3rd of Av, 5694): In Germany, Simon Strauss and his son were shot dead by Kurt Baer. The court found that the murdered Jews actually "committed suicide". Baer found guilty only of breaching the peace.



1935: Nazi gangs attacked Berlin Jews as part of a round of Anti-Jewish riots.



1937:  A concentration camp is established at Buchenwald, Germany



1936:The Palestine Post reported that nine Arab terrorists were killed by British troops near Jenin and Safed. One British soldier was killed and several wounded when their lorry overturned during the engagement. There were repeated attempts by Arab terrorists to interfere with railway traffic. Arab merchants expressed considerable dissatisfaction and asked for a speedy end to their prolonged general strike.



1938: At Evian, France, the international conference on refugees came to an end.
http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/this_month/july/02.asp



1938(16th of Tammuz, 5698): At an orange grove near Hadera, Arab attackers shot and killed a Jewish worker while a group of workers leaving a grove near Tulkarm were attacked with one being wounded seriously, but not mortally.



1938: Police found a bomb at Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem two hours before it was set to detonate while a large store of arms and munitions was found near the Mosque of Omar.



1940: As they prepared to leave Lisbon for Rio, Margret and Hans Rey "had their vaccination papers signed and stamped.”  Hans Rey is the creator of Curious George.


1940: Five hundred Jews who had been taken from Szczebrzeszyn, Poland were sent to various work camps. From then on all Jews between the ages of sixteen and fifty had to report daily for selection.



1941: Birthdate of Lawrence G. "Larry" Cohen “an American film producer, director, and screenwriter” who “is best known for directing his own low-budget, satirical, and inventive horror films and thrillers that are laced with scathing social commentary about modern American society.”



1941: (20th Tammuz, 5701): Nazi forces and local Lithuanian sympathizers massacred the male population of Telz, including Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak Bloch and the faculty of the yeshiva.



1942: The first 2,000 deportees left Holland from the Westerbork transit camp for Auschwitz. Most of them were German Jews who found safety there years earlier.



1942(1st of Av, 5702): Rosh Chodesh Av



1942(1st of Av, 5702): One thousand Jews from Moczadz were taken to the woods and shot dead.



1942(1st of Av, 5702): One thousand Jews were murdered in Bereza Kartuska, Belerus in the Soviet Union.



1942: Etty Hillesum “received an appointment to the office on the Lijnbaansgracht” where she worked until she was transferred to Westerbrook.



1942: At the end of the workday, 48 year old Alfred Le Guellec, “who held an important position in the service of foreign national for the Prefecture of Police is upset when he hears a rumor that a mass arrest of Jews is planned for tomorrow. As soon as he was safely away from the building he warned everybody he saw wearing a yellow star about the impending doom and told them to hide. This bravery would save the life of his friend Marcel Skurnik, his wife and their daughter Dora. (More tomorrow)



1943: Brigadier General Leslie R. Groves,   director of the Manhattan Project (the super-secret project to build the Atomic Bomb) verbally ordered that Robert J. Oppenheimer be given security clearance regardless of accusations about his loyalty.



1943: Henry Levin began his Hollywood career as dialogue director for “Appointment in Berlin,” a war move that premiered today.



1944: After 7,176 Jews had been shipped from Lodz to Chelmon, deportations were halted.  They would resume again in August.



1944: The Red Army approached Siauliai, Lithuania, so the Germans cleared the town of its remaining four thousand Jews. More and more Jews were finding freedom in the arms of the advancing Red Army.



1944: The Kovno Ghetto was cleared out of its remaining Jews.



1944: The Chicago Sun reported "1,000,000 Hungarian Jews Face Massacre, Hull Says."  Hull was Cordell Hull the Secretary of State whose wife’s father was a Jewish immigrant from Austria. She was raised as an Episcopalian.  The level of anti-Semitism in the United States was such that, according to biographer Irwin Gellman, Hull hid her Jewish connection to protect his political career. 



1944: Australian Prime Minister John Curtin informed Isaac Steinberg that “the Australian government would not ‘depart from the long-established policy in regard to alien settlement in Australia’ and could not ‘entertain the proposal for a group settlement of the exclusive type contemplated by the Freeland League’” i.e. the settlement of a large number of Jewish refugees in the Kimberly region of Western Australiza.



1948:President Harry Truman was nominated for another term by the Democratic Party.  Truman’s candidacy was pronounced dead on arrival.  The Dixiecrats left the party over the issue of Civil Rights and backed Strom Thurmond for President.  Part of the left wing of the party left to support the candidacy of Henry Wallace, the man who had been Vice President during Roosevelt’s third term.  Truman’s victory over Dewey would be one of the greatest upsets in political history.  Truman garnered a large part of the Jewish vote which was congregated in key states with large electoral votes.  Jewish support was in no small part a reward for Truman’s decision to recognize the Jewish state which was fighting for survival as the man from Missouri fought for his political life.



1948: Still seeking a way to reach Tel Aviv, the Egyptians attacked Be’erot Yitzhak.  In a day long desperate fight, the outnumbered defenders drove off the Egyptians.  As the Egyptians retreated, seventeen of the Israeli fighter lay dead and all of the settlement’s buildings had been destroyed.  Tel Aviv was saved, but the cost was high.



1948: Continuing their drive for Nazareth, Israeli forces take Zippori after fierce fighting.


1948: While the fighting flared, the diplomats dithered.  The United Nations decided that the Arab rejection of the extension of the truce that had been proposed by Count Bernadotte was a “breach of the peace” and ordered a permanent cease-fire.  The Arabs ignored the threat of sanctions and rejected the cease-fire. 



1948: Israeli forces renewed their attempts to retake the Old City by launching attacks on the New Gate, the Jaffa Gate and the Zion Gate, none of which would prove successful.



1948: During Operation Dekel, Israeli planes attacked the village of Saffuriya



1948: Israeli forces began another attack on the Latrun Fortress, the Jordanian held military installation that was blocking the road to Jerusalem.



1948: Yosef “Sprinzak was elected to the position of speaker of the provisional parliament.”



1951: Ted Lurie, The Jerusalem Post reporter and future editor, visited Eilat and described the difficulties facing the new settlers. There was no bakery, the water tasted rusty and caused diarrhea, there was no facility to chill water or bottled drinks. But a large cold-storage plant was being planned to make the import of meat from East Africa possible.



1952: The first production of “The Seven Year Itch” the hit comedy by George Axelrod, the son of Russian Jewish immigrant Herman Axelrod took place at the Fulton Theatre in New York City.



1955: Eighteen Nobel laureates signed the Mainau Declaration against nuclear weapons. The declaration was created by Otto Hahn and Max Born.  Hahn had stayed in Germany after the rise of the Nazis and played a major role in the atomic program.  Born had to leave Germany in 1933.  He had become a Lutheran but his parents were Jewish and as far as the Nazis were concerned Born was still Jewish.



1958: Five thousand U.S. Marines landed in Beirut, Lebanon, to protect the pro-Western government. This landing took place at the same time that the pro-Western government of Iraq was being overthrown. The fighting in Lebanon was part of an on-going struggle between the Christians and the Moslems which had supposedly been settled by a power-sharing agreement set up by the French before they ended their imperial role there. The collapse of this power-sharing agreement would explode in a civil war in the 1970’s, the aftermath of which exists today. Needless to say, this instability in its northern neighbor has added to Israel’s problems.



1959(9th of Tammuz, 5719):Swiss-born American composer Ernest Bloch passed away.  While his works covered a variety of themes, from a Jewish point of view, one of his most interesting works was Schelomo, a composition for cello and orchestra written in 1915 that was completed during Bloch's "Jewish Cycle," which lasted from 1912–1926



1965: Birthdate of David Miliband, leader of the British Labour Party.



1969:Rod Carew ties the record with his 7th steal of home in a season. 

1973: General Shmuel Gonen assumed command of Israel’s Southern Front.  He replaced Ariel Sharon who was leaving the army to go into politics.  Just prior to the change in command, Sharon told Defense Minister Dayan that Gonen lacked the experience to handle the command if war should break out.  Dayan assured Sharon that Gonen had plenty of time to gain the needed experience since there was not going to be a war in 1973.



1973 CIA Director Richard Helms sent a telegram to Henry Kissinger,  Richard Nixon's National Security Advisor, stating that King Hussein of Jordan had told him that Jordanian intelligence had learned of a Syrian attack to recapture the Golan Heights originally  which had been delayed since June could take place at any time; probably sooner than later. One of the Jordanian intelligence sources was the commander of a Syrian armored brigade, and the Jordanians had obtained a copy of the battle plans, which had been coordinated with Egypt and Iraq. Once again, instability in the Middle East is shown not to be “an Israeli problem.”  In fact the Americans would call upon the Israelis to assist in thwarting the planned attacked.



1976: It was reported today that the Labor Party Government is being pressed by a large number of British citizens “to take some firm action” in response to the “presumed death of 73 year old Dora Bloch, an Anglo-Israeli who disappeared after the Israeli raid on Entebbe.



1976: The Jerusalem Post reported that former defense minister Moshe Dayan called for an arrangement whereby Jews and Arabs would live together in the administered territories, with the Arabs remaining Jordanians and the land remaining under Israeli control. He stressed that Israelis were in the territories by right, not as conquerors. Questioned whether Arabs would agree to this, he replied that if we had to do things according to the desires of the Arabs, we could pack our bags and go to Canada. A delegation of Israeli legal and atomic energy experts visited Washington to work out final details of the sale of two US 450-megawatt reactors to Israel.



1986(8th of Tammuz, 5746):  Actor and comedian Benny Rubin passed away at the age of 87.
http://www.nytimes.com/1986/07/17/obituaries/benny-rubin-an-actor-and-vaudeville-comic.html



1991: The Landmarks Preservation commission held a public hearing on the proposed designation as a Landmark of the New York Public Library, Aguilar Branch, and the proposed designation of the related Landmark Site. “The Aguilar Branch of the New York Public Library initially was built for the Aguilar Free Library Society which was founded in 1886 as an independent library to provide circulating books for immigrant Jews.  The society was named after Grace Aguilar a popular 19thcentury British novelist and essayist of Sephardic Jewish descent.” (As reported by the Landmarks Preservation Commission)



1993: Fourteenth Maccabiah comes to an end.



2001: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Supreme Injustice by Alan M. Dershowitz, Vote: Bush, Gore and the Supreme Court edited by Cass R. Sunstein and Richard A. Epstein, to be published by the University of Chicago Press in October and currently available as an e-book on the Web site www.thevotebook.com) and the recently released paperback editions of Scandalmonger by William Safire and Oberammergau: The Troubling Story of the World's Most Famous Passion Play by James Shapiro



2001: A revival of “Do I Hear a Waltz?” a musical with a book by Arthur Laurents, music by Richard Rodgers, and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim opened today at the Pasadena Playhouse.



 2002: Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh and three other suspects were convicted of murdering Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl.



2005: Lily Gasway begins the celebration of her Bat Mitzvah by leading Friday Services at Temple Judah.  In Cedar Rapids, thanks to Lily and the Gasway family "Am Yisroel Chai."



2005(8thof Tammuz, 5765): Ninety-two year old Scottish author and literary critic David Daiches whose works included his 1956 memoir, Two Worlds: An Edinburgh Jewish Childhood passed away today at Edinburgh.



http://www.theguardian.com/news/2005/jul/18/guardianobituaries.obituaries



2006: In “Missile, Not Drone, Hit Israeli Warship” published today, the Guardian described the outcome of an investigation into an attack on an Israeli ship off the coast of Lebanon.
http://www.pressmon.com/cgi-bin/press_view.cgi?id=944806



2006:  In response to orders from The Home Front Command businesses and clubs in Karmiel remained closed as Katyusha alerts rang throughout Karmiel sending residents into bomb shelters. In light of the situation, the Home Front Command has decided to operate a silent radio wave in the following frequencies: FM 102.2, 98.5, 95.7. This enabled those keep the Sabbath to leave the radio turned on and listen to emergency announcements. Hezbollah’s attacks on Israel cannot interfere with those who are “Shomer Shabbos.”



2007: Hadassah opens its 93rd national convention in New York City.



2007: Shimon Peres formally becomes President of Israel, a post that he will hold for a seven year term.



2007: The Rochester Jewish Film Festival presents a screening of “Yippee: A Journey to Jewish Joy.”



2007: The National Art Gallery presents a screening of “Children Must Laugh,”one of the few surviving documentaries about Jewish life in Poland before WWII.



2007: The Sunday New York Times book sections featured reviews of 1967: Israel, the War, and the Year That Transformed the Middle East by Tom Segev, translated by Jessica Cohen and Presence, a collection of stories written by Arthur Miller in the years before his death in 2005.



2008: In Washington, D.C. Professor Alvin S. Felzenberg discusses and signs The Leaders We Deserved (and a Few We Didn't): Rethinking the Presidential Rating Game at the National Press Club.



2008: As part of complicated and controversial prisoner exchange, President Shimon Peres signed the pardon of Samir Kuntar, the terrorists who murdered several Israelis in cold blood in 1982.  Peres said that the pardon in no way should be seen as an act of forgiveness.  Arabs in Lebananon await the release of Kuntar who will be greeted as a hero.



2008: In suburban Washington, D.C.,Ellen Rachlin, author of Until Crazy Catches Meand the forthcoming chapbook Captive to Residue, reads from her work as part of the Joaquin Miller Cabin Poetry Series



2008: The 79thAll Star Game is played at Yankee Stadium in New York City. At least three players of Jewish descent made the lineups of Major League Baseball's All -Star teams. Boston Red Sox first baseman Kevin Youkilis will start for the American League Ian Kinsler, the second baseman from the Texas Rangers, will be a reserve for the American League. Milwaukee Brewers outfielder Ryan Braun will start for the National League. The all-star selections were announced Sunday. Youkilis, whose nickname is "The Greek God of Walks," openly identifies as Jewish. In explaining his charity work, he once told mlb.com, "In my religion, the Jewish religion, that's one of the biggest things that's taught, is giving a mitzvah, forming a mitzvah." He also said, "I was always taught as a kid giving to charity. You're supposed to give a good amount of charity each and every year." Both Braun and Kinsler have Jewish fathers and reportedly identify as half-Jewish.



2009:Once a year the banks of Paris’ Seine River are transformed into a makeshift beach known as “Paris Plages”, complete with parasols, beach chairs, amusement rides and plenty of shirtless Parisians. This year the French capital honors its twin city of Tel Aviv-Yafo with an Israeli beach party on the Seine’s left bank.



2009: At the 18th Maccabiah Games, Israel plays Australia in Cricket.



2009: At the Randi & Bruce Pergament Jewish Film Festival a screening of “Noodle,a touching comic-drama about two human beings, as different as Tel Aviv is from Beijing, on a remarkable journey together to find their way back to a meaningful life.”



2009: TodayJerusalem mayor Nir Barkat ordered his municipality to halt all services to the ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods of Geula and Mea Shearim. The move comes amid violent protests in those neighborhoods following the arrest of an ultra-Orthodox woman suspected of starving her 3-year-old son.

2009(23rd of Tammuz, 5769): Julius Shulman, an American architectural photographer best known for his photograph "Case Study House #22passed away.



2009: Swindler Sam Israel III was sentenced to an additional two years in prison for failing to report to authorities, effectively escaping prison before showing up to be jailed.



2010: In Washington, D.C. Norman Shore is scheduled to lead the final class of “I Kings: May the King Live! A Study of King Solomon and his Heirs.”



2010:Critically acclaimed Israeli choreographer Deganit Shemy, known for her aggressively physical work is scheduled to bring five dancers together for their final performance of the week in the courtyard at John Street United Methodist Church in New York City.



2010:Haim Pearlman, suspected of four counts of murder and seven counts of attempted murder, was remanded in custody until July 22 by the Petah Tikva District Court today. The suspected, who is associated with the outlawed Kach movement, was arrested two nights ago by Jerusalem Police and the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency).

2010:Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman has appointed Meiron Reuven, Israel's ambassador to Colombia, as the new ambassador to the UN today Israel Radio reported.

2011: In a time of communal sorrow, the funeral of Suzanne Katz, the wife of Bert Katz, is scheduled to take place at Eben Israel Cemetery in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.



2011:Firefighters extinguished a fire in the Golan today, after battling the blaze that broke out in the Ein Tina Nature Reserve yesterday. The fire ravaged the north Israel area, destroying 10,000 dunam of land and vegetation.

2011: Five Kassam rockets were fired into southern Israel overnight and an additional mortar shell from Gaza landed in the Negev this morning. No one was hurt in the attacks and no damage was reported. The IAF responded to the rocket attacks with airstrikes on six targets in Gaza.



2011:Defense Forces officials issued a statement  condemning Hamas for not taking action to stop rocket fire from the Gaza Strip into Israel, shortly after Chief of Staff Benny Gantz called an emergency meeting to discuss the increased violence in southern Israel.

2012: Those celebrating the 120th anniversary of the birth of Walter Benjamin today might be reading his essay “On the Concept of History” or Walter Benjamin: A Philosophical Portrait by Professor Eli Friedlander, the head of the Philosophy Department at Tel Aviv University.



2012(25th of Tammuz, 5772): CentenarianJacqueline Piatigorsky (Jacqueline Rebecca Louise de Rothschild) passed away today.
http://main.uschess.org/content/view/11816/141/



http://www.latimes.com/local/obituaries/la-me-jacqueline-piatigorsky-20120722-story.html#page=1



2012: “Spies, Traitors and Saboteurs: Fear and Freedom in America” a creation of the International Spy Museum, is scheduled to open at the Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center.



2012: “Silk Stones,” an exhibition feature the works of Rochelle Rubinstein is scheduled to come to a close at the Yeshiva University Museum.



2012: The final screening of Israeli documentary filmmaker Michal Aviad’s “Invisisble” at the Museum of Modern Art.



 2012: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including the recently released paperback editions of The Memory of All That: George Gershwin, Kay Swift, and My Family’s Legacy of Infidelities by Katharine Weber and Why This World George Gershwin, Kay Swift, and My Family’s Legacy of Infidelities by Katharine Weber 



2012:US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will arrive in Israel this evening in preparation for talks tomorrow for meetings with top Israeli leaders on Iran, Egypt, Syria and the frozen peace process with the Palestinians.



2012:About a hundred protesters clashed with police near the Prime Minister's Residence in Jerusalem today, in a rally summoned following the self-immolation of a Haifa resident during a protest marking one year since the onset of social unrest in Israel.



2012: The battle for universal draft arrived at the Arab public’s doorstep today when nearly 100 right-wing protestors held a demonstration in the Israeli Arab city of Nazareth in the lower Galilee.



2013: The Seventh Biennale of Israeli Ceramcis is scheduled to open at the Eretz Israel Museum in Tel Aviv.


2013: In the evening members of the Fort Belvoir Jewish Congregation and Beth El Hebrew Congregation will join together for a Tisha B’Av observance that will include a study session – “Should Israel Build the  Third Temple?” – followed by the chanting of Eicha, Lamentations.


2013:Israel approved a request by the Egyptian army to increase its forces in Sinai, following a rise in violence in the peninsula in recent weeks.



2013: Attorney-General Yehuda Weinstein barred Safed Chief Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu from running for the position of Sephardi chief rabbi of Israel because of derogatory statements he made in the past regarding the Arab community. (As reported by Jeremy Sharon)



2013:Ian Paul Livingston, the fourth generation son Litvak immigrants to Scotland “became a member of the House of Lords, as a life peer” today.



2013: Hamas has developed the ability to locally manufacture rockets with the range to hit Israel’s heartland including Tel Aviv, IDF Chief of Staff Benny Gantz said today. (As reported by Stuart Winer)
http://www.timesofisrael.com/hamas-manufacturing-rockets-that-threaten-tel-aviv/



2014: Rabbi Shira is scheduled to lead a discussion of “What Does It Mean to Be Jewish?” at the Historic Sixth & I Synagogues.


2014(17thof Tammuz):Shiva Asar Be-Tammuz – As a new round of enemies seek to “breach the walls of Israel” observance of a minor fast day that  commemorates the breaching of the walls of Jerusalem in 586 B.C.E. by the Babylonians and again in 70 C.E. by the Romans

2014:Thirteen Palestinian children, six from Gaza and seven from Judea and Samaria, are expected to arrive today at Wolfson Medical Center in Holon. The children are brought by the Israel- based international charity Save a Child's Heart to undergo life-saving heart treatments at Wolfson.


   

This Day, July 16, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. Levin

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July 16



622: The Prophet Mohammed begins his Hijra from Mecca to Medina. This marks the beginning of the Islamic calendar.  The importance of this to Jewish history should require no explanation.



1099: As the Crusaders sacked Jerusalem, they burned an untold number of Jewish scrolls and books.  According to Matti Friedman, the Christian soldiers spared the some of the texts with the hope that Jews in other communities would ransom them.  Among these books was the Aleppo Codex. [For more on this topic see The Aleppo Codex by Matti Friedman]



1212: In Spain, an Almohades Army was defeated by a coalition of Catholic forces at The Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa,. The Almohades were a puritanical Moslem sect that had taken control of the southern portion of the Iberian Peninsulas. As can be seen by their attack on the Jewish community of Castille during which they seized the Codes Hilleli, a 600 year old Biblical manuscript considered to be the oldest Hebrew copy of the Bible in Spain and the decision of the family of Maimonides to leave Spain rather than live under their rule, the Almohades did not practice the policies of religious acceptance attributed to other Islamic sects at this time.  At the time the Christian victory seemed liked a plus for the Jews of Spain.  However, this proved to be illusory since the victory was a major step in The Reconquista – the uniting of Spain under Christian monarchs which would culminate with the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492.


1216: Pope Innocent III, a prelate who had an inimical effect on the Jewish people died. He presided over the Fourth Lateran Council which among other things which enacted a series of anti-Semitic canons including those that required the Jews to wear a distinctive badge on their clothing and to pay for unfunded Christian tithes. Other banned Jews from holding public office and denied Jews who had converted to Christianity the right to return to the faith of their fathers.  In 1215 the Fourth Lateran Council, called by Pope Innocent III, decreed that, on the basis of Numbers 15:37-41, Jews should wear distinctive dress (a restriction also applied to Saracens and later to heretics, prostitutes and lepers. In addition, a distinctive mark was imposed on their clothing -- centuries before the Nazis' Yellow Star -- the badge of shame, the shape and color of which varied from country to country. The badge of shame made Jews social outcasts, exposing them to both physical and verbal abuse. (Jewish Virtual Library)



1391: Valencia's King Pedro IV ordered that all Jews who had hidden in Christian houses were to be allowed to return to their homes unmolested. Furthermore he decreed that synagogues were not to be turned into churches. This did not prevent him from personably confiscating all the property of those Jews who had either been murdered or fled.



1547: Pope Paul II issued Meditatio Cordis a Bull that brought the Inquisition to Portugal establishing offices in Lisbon, Evora, Coimbra, and even in Goa. (From The History of the Jewish People)



1588: Negotiations between the Spanish and the English broke off and the English fleet at Plymouth prepared to do battle against the Spanish Armada as soon as its location could be ascertained.  Victory for the Spanish would be a disaster for the Jews since it would mean an end to the haven in Protestant Holland and the spread of the Inquisition to the British Isles.



1782: First performance of Mozart's opera The Abduction from the Seraglio. Seventeen eighty-two also marked the beginning of  the relationship between Mozart and Lorenzo da Ponte, the son of a Jewish convert who had trained as a priest. Together, they co-produced such classics as "The Marriage of Figaro", "Don Giovanni" and "Cosi fan tutte".



1790: The District of Columbia is established as the capital of the United States after the signing of the Residence Act. Isaac Pollock, the grandson of one of the founders of the Newport Jewish community, reportedly arrived in D.C. in 1795 making him the city’s first Jewish resident. [For more information about the Washington Jewish Community see Jewish Historical Society of Greater Washington http://www.jhsgw.org/ ]



1825(1stof Av, 5585): Rosh Chodesh Av



1825(1stof Av, 5585): Ephriam Hart, one of the founders of the New York Stock Exchange, passed away today.  Born in Furth, Bavaria, he served as a private in the Continental Army during the American Revolution. While living in Philadelphia, he joined Mickvé Israel in 1782 and married Frances Noah, sister of Manuel Noah in the following year.  By 1787, he hand moved to New York where his success as a businessman led to him being one of the founders of the Board of Stock Brokers in 1792.



1829: Birthdate Graziadio Isaiah Ascoli, a native of Austria who was the “godfather” of all Italian philologists.



1832: Henry Clay, the Senator from Kentucky, wrote a letter to Solomon Etting a Jewish businessman from Baltimore, MD.  Etting had written a letter to Clay complaining about the Senator’s derogatory use of the term “Jew.”  In his letter, Clay apologized since his use of the term Jew was intended to describe one person name either Moses Meyers or Meyer Moses and was not used to cast aspiration on the Jewish people. Clay claimed that he judged people as individuals and he was sure that there were individual Jews, Christians and Moslems who were bad people.  Furthermore, Clay claimed to have many Jewish friends and acquaintances including the Gratz’s of Lexington, KY who are relatives of the Gratz family of Philadelphia, PA.



1836: Birthdate of German physiologist Isidor Rosenthal.



1841(28thof Tammuz):Moshe Teitelbaum, the Rebbe of Ujhely in Hungary passed away today.  Born in 1759 he also was  known as the Yismach Moshe,(Moses Rejoiced)  which was also the name of text containing homilies on the Torah which was first published in 1849. Some of his descendants became leaders of the Satmar Chassidim.



1848:Today, the Hebrew Education Society of Philadelphia was formally organized, with Solomon Solis as its first president.



1855(1st of Av, 5615): Rosh Chodesh Av



1858: An article published today entitled "Progress of Liberal Ideas in England" states that The Jew Bill, which has so often met its fate at the portals of the House of Lords, has at last managed to secure a majority of forty-six on a second reading, and all doubt as to its ultimate triumph may now be considered at an end. No measure, since the Reform bill, has met with so many reverses, and has had so little reason arrayed against it.



1859: Moses and Esther Lazarus gave birth to the their Annie Lazarus who would become Annie Humphrey Jonstone when she married John Henry Johnstone



1863: During the American Civil War, Jacob C. Cohen who was serving with the 27thOhio Infantry wrote to the Jewish Messenger from Memphis, Tennessee.



1874: In Cleveland, Ohio, the Council of American Hebrews heard the report of the Committee on Theological Institute which presented the laws for the organization and governance of an institution of higher learning which will be called the Hebrew Union College which is “to be permanently located in Cincinnati.”



1879(25thof Tammuz, 5639): Italian politician and journalist Giacomo Dina passed away.  Born into poverty in 1824 at Turin, he became a teacher before founding Opinione, a journal that he edited for 30 years and used as a springboard to serving in the Parliament as deputy from Imola, Bologna.



1880: It was reported today that the National Rabbinical Association has elected Dr. Max Lilienthal as its President and chosen Chicago as the location for its meeting in 1881.



1880: “Not A Hebrew After All” published today described the confusion over the ethnic origins of an unidentified body found on the Newark, NJ Turnpike near Hackensack. Since the undertaker reported him to be Jewish, the Jews of Hoboken, NJ took up a collection to provide him with a decent burial.  After finding out that this was not the case, the Jews asked the undertaker to return the money. He refused and told them that they would have to sue him.



1882: “Trouble in a Synagogue” published today described the impact of the addition of some prayers in English at the St. Constant Street Jewish Synagogue in Montreal.  Police were stationed in the synagogue during services after some members who were upset by the change threatened to cause trouble.



1882: As of today, there were 250,000 Jews living in the United States.  Sixty thousand of them live in New York and another 14,000 live in Brooklyn.  San Francisco, with a population of 16,000 and St. Louis with a population of 6,500 are the only two cities found in a list of 20 cities with the largest Jewish populations.  New Orleans, with a population of 5,000 Jews is the only Southern city found in this same list. Cincinnati, the home of Reform Judaism has a Jewish population of 8,000. With a total population of over 80,000, New York State had the largest population while at the other end of the spectrum, the Dakota Territories were home to only 19 Jews.



1882: A young Jewish woman named Rudolpha Leischinsky who had come to New York from Europe several months again was taken to the Castle Garden Hospital today shortly before she had attempted to commit suicide by cutting her throat.



1882: As the Freight Handler’s Strike continues in New York, five hundred dollars will be given to the Jews today who have stopped working and joined the strikers.



1882. The Committee of Persuasion, made up of striking freight handlers sent out representatives to various ethnic groups, including the Jews, to convince them to join the strikers.  The representatives are fluent in the language to the particular group to which they are appealing.



1884: Lazarus Lemisch, his wife and five children arrived in New York aboard the SS Amerique. Their passage had been paid for by the Hebrew Relief Society of Paris.



1884: Russian Jewish Markus Holz, Gerson Selkowitz, Adolph Lazarus and Samuel Rasenzweig and their family members who arrived from Hamburg yesterday are being held Ward’s Island from which they will be shipped back to Europe because they do not meet the requirements to show they will not become public charges.



1884: It was reported today that a young un-named Jew has openly embraced Christianity at the Boston Industrial Home.  This is believed to the first time in the history of Boston that a Jew has responded directly to conversion attempts by Christian missionaries. [The Boston Industrial Home may refer to a rescue mission]



1885: The will of Edward J. King was admitted to probate today.  Among the bequests were $2,000 to Mount Sinai Hospital; $1,000 in cash and $2,000 in bonds to the Hebrew Benevolent and Orphan Asylum; $2,000 to the Home for Aged and Infirm Hebrews of New York; $2,000 to the United Hebrew Charities; $500 to Congregation B’nai Jeshrun; $500 to be held in trust by the congregation, the income of which is used to pay the expenses to maintain the testators cemetery plot.  The bulk of the estate went to King’s wife, sons and son-in-law.



1885: Birthdate of Austrian historian and archaeologist Robert von Heine-Geldern, a grandnephew of Heinrich Heine.



1887: As of today, the Sanitarium for Hebrew Children had raised $1,944 to provide free summer excursions for poor Jewish children and their mothers.



1887: Berthold Riese was being held in the Jefferson Market Police Court on charges of abandoning his wife.  Riese, who is Jewish, claimed that he had never married the woman because she had never divorced her first husband, John T. Kennedy.  The woman in question is a Catholic who claims they were married by a Lutheran minister as an act of religious compromise.



1887: In New York, Simon Kleber and Judah Waser, two Jewish peddlers, have filed a complaint against Frederick Timme, a police officer stationed at the 14thPrecinct.  According to the complaint the two men werea attacked by a bartender when they went into a liquor store to sell their wares.  When they were driven into the street, they called out to the policeman for help.  He responded by clubbing them and driving them away.  This was not the first complaint filed against this police officer. [Note – charges of police brutality by immigrants are something that have survived into the 21stcentury; the only change is in the immigrant group.]



1890: It was reported today that as part of the Russian government’s new “stringent measures against the Jews, the newspaper Novostihas been “suppressed” and the editor has been ordered to leave the country



1891: The large number of Russian Jews who arrived in Montreal yesterday have been found to be “poor people in a sickly condition.”



1892: The School of Applied Ethics under the leadership of Dr. Felix Adler is holding classes today at the Old High School Building on Main Street in Plymouth, MA.



1893: It was reported today that “the story about the Grand Duke Michael personally saving the Jews of the Caucasus from expulsion may be dismissed as apocryphal” since the Grand Duke has little influed with the Czar and this region has been “exempted from the anti-Jewish edicts” enforced in other parts of the empire.



1893: It was reported today that while the number of anti-Semites in the Reichstag has been growing, in a strange twist, a Jew has been elected to the Town Council of Rostock which was one of the last cities in Germany “to abrogate the medieval laws against the Jews.”



1893: Between July 3 and today, “nearly 2,000 mothers and children” have enjoyed “a day’s outing at the Sanitarium for Hebrew Children at Rockaway Park.



1893: At the Essex Market Police Court, Police Justice Ryan “remitted the ten dollar fine he had imposed on 25 year old Morris Goodman’ who had been arrested on charges “obstructing the sidewalk” and assault, after he delivered a talk on his view of Jews whom he feels do not respect the law and the rights of Christians.



1893: The Jew of Yalta “refused to obey the decree to” leave the Crimean city and move to the Pale.



1893: The delegates from the Hebrew Typographical Union complained that Joseph Barondess and Samuel Gompers had tried to get some of their members from an office where they were working as printers.



1894: It was reported today that Herman Ahlwardt has composed a pamphlet while serving time in prison that is “so rabidly anti-Semitic as to suggest the insanity of the author.”



1894: The Baltimore Sun reported today that a Judge Dennis has signed a decree giving Jacob and Henry Herman to the right to remove the bodies of their parents from the cemetery of Shearith Israel so that they could be re-interred at the cemetery of the Baltimore Hebrew Congregation.



1894: “Mr. Straus Has A New Plan” published today described the success of the 14 depots selling low-cost sterilized and modified milk and the benefit that sick children have enjoyed from drinking the sterilized beverage.  Nathan Straus is so pleased with the results that he has commissioned plans for a year-round depot for which construction will begin this fall.



1897: Herzl publishes his article "Protest rabbiner" - "Protest Rabbis" in the German newspaper, “"Die Welt.”  The Protest Rabbis refers to western Rabbis who were opposed to Zionism. 



1897(16th of Tammuz, 5657): Emanuel Rich, co-founder of Rich’s Department Store, passed away.



1897(16thof Tammuz, 5657): Sixty-eight year old German jurist and lawyer Levin Goldschmidt passed away today.

1899: “Slavonic and Semitic Books” published today described the growth of the Jewish Department of the New York Public Library which now contains over 4,000 volumes in modern and ancient languages including Yiddish.”



1899(9th of Av, 5659): Tish'a B'Av



1899: “The Marquise de Mores has addressed an appeal to the Criminal Chamber of the Cour de Cassaction” in which she charges that there were serious errors made in the investigation of the death of her husband Marquis de Mores by the Court in Algiers. Her husband, an officer in the French Army, was a vocal anti-Semite who had befriended those who framed Dreyfus and instigated duels in which he killed at least one Jewish officer.  Ironically, the Marquise’s maiden name was Mendora von Hoffman, the daughter of Louis von Hoffman a prominent Jewish banker.



1899: “Contribution to a Poor Family” published today described the efforts of the United Hebrew Charities of the City of New York to raise $400 settle a family of four in the country because the husband and wife have become “chronic invalids through overwork in the city.”



1899: Birthdate of comedian and movie director Larry Semon.  Semon appeared with Laurel and Hardy.  In the 1920’s he directed the silent screen version of “The Wizard of Oz.”



1903: The British Foreign Office sent a second telegram to Herzl informing him that his idea to establish a Jewish settlement in the Sinai as first step towards establishing a Jewish homeland in Eretz Israel was not practical.



1906: Birthdate of Abraham Orovitz, the native of Vienna, Georgia who gained fame as director and actor Vincent Sherman.



1907: The will of the late Isidor Worsmer was filed with the Surrogate today.  Among the bequests left by the successful banker were $5.000 to Temple Emanu-El; $2,500 to both the Mount Sinai Hospital and the United Hebrew Charities Association; $1,000 to the Roman Catholic Orphan Asylum, the Montefiore Home, the Hebrew Technical Institute, the Educational Alliance and the Tuskegee Institute.  The rest of the sizable estate was left to family members and employees of I & S Wormser.  [Contributions to non-Jewish institutions were par for the course.  The surprise here is the contribution to Tuskegee, the newly established institution for African-Americans headed by Booker T. Washington in rural Alabama.]



1911: Eighty-five Jews from Shiraz, Persia appeal for assistance to go live in Palestine.



1912: Harry Horowitz and three other Jewish gangsters gunned down bookmaker Herman Rosenthal two days after he had complained that that “his illegal casinos had been badly damaged by the greed of New York City Police Lt. Charles Becker and his associates



1914: Dr. Schmarja Levin of Berlin who was a member of the first Russian Duma is scheduled to speak in Brooklyn, NY, tonight.



1916(15th of Tammuz, 5676): Ilya Ilyich Mechnikov Russian microbiologist and winner of the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1908 passed away.



1918: The execution of Czar Nicholas II brought an end to a dynasty guilty of many crimes against Jews. Unfortunately, the regime that replaced it was no better for the Jews.



1922: German born American Jewish inventor and businessman Emil Berliner and his son Henry Berliner demonstrated a working helicopter for the United States Army.  Berliner had moved from Hanover, Germany and settled in Washington, D.C. where he is buried in Rock Creek Cemetery.



1924: Birthdate of Bess Myerson.  Ms Myerson was crowned the first Jewess to be crowned Miss America. When she won the crown in 1945, it demonstrated a certain level of acceptance of Jews in the general American culture. She went on to a successful career that included hosting daytime game shows in the 1950’s.



1926:  Birthdate of chemist and Nobel Prize Winner, Irwin Rose.  When Rose won his Nobel Prize in 2004, five out of the six winners of Nobel Prizes in the sciences were Jewish.



1927: An out of court settlement was announced today in the defamation suit that Aaron Sapiro had brought against Henry Ford, Sr. after The Dearborn Independent had published claims that Sapiro and a group of Jewish bankers and merchants were seeking to control the nation’s wheat farming. Ford would eventually close his anti-Semitic newspaper and apologize for his role in published The International Jew. Those who thought this demonstrated a change in Ford’s hatred of Jews were disabused of that notion when Ford accepted the Grand Cross of the German Eagle from the Nazis in 1938. (As reported by the Jewish Virtual Library)



1929: Victor Luitpold Berger, the first member of the Socialist Party to be elected to the U.S. House of Representatives suffered a fracture skull today when he was hit by streetcar in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The injury would prove to be fatal.



1930: Civilization and its Discontents by Sigmund Freud is published for the first time in the United States.



1933: In an interview with a deputation of representatives of the Jewish Community of Briinn, Czech President Thomas G. Masaryk declares that the waves of anti-Semitism “will not overflow into the country's borders”.



1934: The body of Chaim Nachman Bialik arrived in Tel Aviv today.  Tens of thousands of Jews from all walks of life and from all parts of the political spectrum were on hand to mark this historic moment. It was the largest funeral in the history of the Jewish homeland.  While there was no lack of notables in attendance, at the request of the widow, no speeches were delivered.



1934: Morris Rothenberg, President of the ZOA, presided over the memorial service for Chiam Nachman Bialik held at New York’s Carnegie Hall.  The near capacity crowd heard a wide spectrum of speakers and then listened to Canter David Putterman of the Park Avenue Synagogue chant the Hazkarah and Jewish actress Miriam Elias recite two of Bialik’s poems including “When I am Dead.”



1936: The Palestine Post reported that British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden declared that the British Mandate in Palestine would not be relinquished. Two British officers and a Jewish driver were wounded near Nablus when Arabs opened fire on a military patrol. Shots were fired on a train near Lydda. The High Commissioner, Sir Arthur Wauchope, visited the new Tel Aviv port. He hoped that over a million cases of citrus would be handled there in the next season. The Manchester Guardian wrote that Jewish immigration to Palestine had never been allowed to keep pace with the "absorptive capacity." The Arab population had increased from 500,000 in 1922 to 850,000 in 1936, because Palestine became more attractive by the Jewish influx



1936: At a meeting in the Hotel New Yorker, Rose Schneiderman was elected vice chairman of the New York State Labor Party. The newly formed party declared its support for President Franklin Roosevelt and New York Governor Herbert Lehman, but called on all working people to desert the two established parties and join in a new coalition. The party's platform, developed during the same meeting, supported New Deal legislation and called for the extension of Social Security, further economic reform, and unemployment relief. The platform also defined the party's purpose as "to mobilize the political power of labor and the progressive forces of the people everywhere, in the cities and on the farms, against reaction and for freedom, against economic oppression and for recovery and democracy. "When she was elected to the vice chairmanship of the New York State Labor Party, Schneiderman was already president of the National Women's Trade Union League (WTUL) and an established figure in labor activism. Born in Poland in 1882, Schneiderman left school at thirteen to help support her siblings and widowed mother by taking a job as a salesclerk at a New York City department store. After three years, she found a higher-paying job as a cap maker, and immediately became involved in union politics. In 1903, she organized the workers in her shop, and the following year, she became involved with the New York WTUL. The WTUL was a mostly middle-class organization that hoped to gain credibility with workers by bringing women like Schneiderman on board. For the next two decades, Schneiderman worked alternately for the WTUL and the working-class International Ladies Garment Workers Union (ILGWU), gaining a national reputation as "the Red Rose of Anarchy," and becoming a central figure in both labor and feminist politics. It was through the WTUL that Schneiderman became friends with Eleanor Roosevelt, and when Franklin Roosevelt became President in 1933, he named Schneiderman as the only woman on the National Labor Advisory Board. In that role, Schneiderman had a profound influence on New Deal legislation, writing the labor codes for every industry that had a predominantly female work force. She also helped to shape Social Security and the Fair Labor Standards Act. In 1937, though she had publicly called for laborers to leave the Democratic Party for the new Labor Party, she was named secretary of labor for New York State under the Democratic governor. In that post, she supported unionization efforts and equal pay campaigns. Later, she was active in efforts to rescue and resettle European Jews. Schneiderman retired from public life in 1949. In her later years, she wrote her memoirs and spoke occasionally on the radio and to union groups. She died on August 11, 1972. At the time of her death, large numbers of American women were beginning to take up the fight for equal pay in the workplace and recognition of women's labor in the home, causes in which Schneiderman was a pioneer. While there is still no independent Labor Party in U.S. politics, the workers' protections that Schneiderman helped to create are now an integral part of U.S. law.



1937: The Buchenwald concentration camp opens when the first 300 inmates arrive the installation outside of Weimar.
http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005198



1939: In an article entitled “New Bach Arrangement,” Dr. Peter Gradenwitz describes a performance by the Palestine Symphony Orchestra in Tel Aviv of Bach’s “Art of the Fugue” using a new orchestration by Swiss composer Roger Vuataz.  The orchestra performed under the baton of Dr. Hermann Scherchen the famous German musician who left his native land in protest over the policies of the current régime.



1941: The Final Solution came to Bar, when the Germans occupied the town in the Ukraine.



1942: The first train with Jews from Holland left for a killing camp.



1942: On order from Pierre Laval, the Prime Minister of the Vichy French government, between 13,000 and 20,000 Jews living in Paris were rounded up by the French police for deportation. This was known as “La Grande Rafle” or the Big Sweep. The group of Jews in this round up is primarily German and Austrian born Jews who were living in the French capital.  The first one thousand would be deported three days later on a so-called "Eichmann Train." There were no protests from the Parisians.
http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/this_month/july/01.asp



1942(2nd of Av, 5702): A large number of Jews were killed in Molxzadz.



1943: In Vilna, Lithuanian police raided a meeting of the United Partisan Organization attended by the head of the Jewish Council. Jewish partisans rescued the head of the resistance.



1943: Theophil Wurm, bishop of the Evangelical Church in Württemberg, Germany, sends a letter to Berlin in which he asks that the persecution of "members of other nations and races" be halted immediately.



1943: Birthdate of Stan Gebler Davis, the native of Dublin “who belong to a breed of rake-hell, rumbustious very rumbustious, very Irish journalist of great charm…” (As reported by John Calder)
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-stan-gebler-davies-1424755.html



1944: The first five thousand Brazilian Expeditionary Force (BEF) soldiers, the 6th Regimental Combat team that had left on July 2nd arrived in Italy. Among the members of the Brazilian Expeditionary Force was Salomao Nauslausky who served so courageously that he was “mentioned in dispatches.”



1945: The United States successfully tested an atomic bomb at the Trinity sit near Alamogordo, New Mexico. The Jewish involvement in the decision to build and the actual construction of the bomb is a well-documented fact. Thanks to these Jews, America beat Germany in the race to build the bomb. Regardless of how some may view the decision to use the bomb against Japan, the fact is that a lot of Allied service men lived through the war because there was no invasion of Japan. The estimated casualties for the invasions and pacification were in the million plus category.



1948: After fierce fighting, the Israelis successfully took Nazareth.



1948: The Irgun planned to make one more attempt to re-take the Old City, “a day before the second cease-fire” was set to begin.



1948: The Arab Liberation Army completed its evacuation of Ein Kerem, a village which would be incorporated into the municipal boundaries of Jerusalem.



1948: During Operation Dekel, the Israeli 7th Armored Brigade took the villages of Amqa, al-Damun and Lubya.



1948: Operation Death to the Invader, an Israeli military operation designed “to link Jewish villages in the Negev with the rest of Israel” began this evening.



1948: David Ben Gurion noted in his diary today the arrival of three B-17’s in Israel “and mentioned that they had already been used for several bombing runs in Egypt.  These were the only “heavy bombers” the Israelis had.  Known as 69 Squadron they had been obtained by Charles Winters who was known as “the godfather of the Israeli air force.”



1948: While Israel was waging its War of Independence (and survival) world-renowned violinist Pinchas Zukerman was born in Tel Aviv.



1948 Premiere of Key Largo, the truly dark film noir produced by Jerry Wald, with a script co-authored by Richard Brooks, co-starring Lauren Bacall and Edward G. Robinson.



1950:Foreign Minister Moshe Sharett declined to commit himself today on Israel's answer to the request of United Nations Secretary General Trygve Lie for aid in the Korean War. He said that the matter would be considered by the Cabinet this week, but implied that Israel's defense needs must be considered



1951: The Jerusalem Post reported that thousands of apartment-seeking Israelis registered for the government's popular housing scheme. There were long queues for domestic ice delivery in Jerusalem. Shoe sales increased considerably after 17 new shoe ration points went into effect.



1951: J.D. Salinger's novel The Catcher in the Rye was published. Jerome David Salinger was born in New York in 1919.  His father was Jewish.  His was mother was Irish-Catholic.  This genealogy according to some critics was the source of some of Salinger's inner-conflict that came out in his writings and in his decision to become the most famous literary hermit of the century.



1955: Birthdate of Zohar Argov “a popular Israeli singer” who provided “a distinctive voice in the Mizrahi music scene.”



1956: Birthdate of Anthony Robert Julius the British lawyer whose clients included Diana, Princess of Wales.



1956:  Birthdate of Pulitzer-prize winning playwright Tony Kushner. One of his most notable works was “Angels in America.”



1957(17th of Tammuz, 5717): Tzom Tammuz



1965: Sixty-two year old German born Brazilian pianist composer passed away today.  The non-Jolles left Germany because of the rise of the Nazis.  He was a student of Kurt Weil the German-Jewish composer with whom he wrote at least one composition before 1933.



1967: A young Kibbutznik got out of his jeep at Aalleiqa, an abandoned Syrian Army base on the Golan Heights, and became the first settler in the Golan.  He would be joined by other secular Jews in the next few days and they would form the kibbutz now known as Merom Golan.



1970(12th of Tammuz, 5730): Haim-Moshe Shapira, an Israeli political leader who was one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence in 1948 passed away.  Born in Grodno in 1902, he was a founder of Young Mizrachi who made Aliyah in 1925. He was Israel’s first Minister of Health and Minister of Immigration. 

1970: Avner-Hair Shaki entered the Knesset as a replacement for Haim-Moshe Shapira of blessed memory.



1970: Golda Meir replaced the late Haim Moshe Shapira as Minister of Internal Affairs.



1970: Yosef Goldschmidt completed his first term as Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs.



1971: Birthdate of actor Corey Feldman.



1973: During the Watergate Scandal former White House aide Alexander P. Butterfield informs the United States Senate of the existence of heretofore unknown recording system that taped all conversations that took place in the White House’s Oval Office.  The system had been installed by President Nixon.  The tapes would prove to be Nixon’s undoing and lead to his leaving office.  The tapes all revealed a nasty anti-Semitic streak in President Nixon.  They also revealed anti-Semitic remarks by the Reverend Billy Graham.



1976: The Jerusalem Post reported that Israel and the US were pleased at the outcome of the UN Council's debate in which a resolution censuring Israel for the raid on Entebbe failed to receive the necessary nine votes. It was in effect an acknowledgement of "Israel's right to act in the way it did."



1976: Birthdate of Russian born, Israeli tennis player, Anna Smashnova.



1985: In Seligman, an Arizona named after Jesse Seligman “one of the founders of J.W. Seligman Co. who helped finance railroad line” that made the town economically viable, formation of the Seligman Historical Society.



1994: The Sisters Rosensweig, a play by Wendy Wasserstein that focuses on three Jewish-American sisters and their lives comes to a close after 556 performances at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre.



1994(8th of Av, 5754): Julian Schwinger winner of the 1965 winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics passed away.



1995(18th of Tammuz, 5755): Since the 17th of Tammuz fell on Shabbat today is Tzom Tammuz



1995(18thof Tammuz, 5755): Eighty-six  year old poet and author Stephen Spender was appointed the seventeenth Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the United States Library of Congress in 1965, passed away.(As reported by Eric Pace
http://www.nytimes.com/1995/07/18/obituaries/stephen-spender-poet-of-melancholic-vision-and-social-conscience-dies-at-86.html



1995(18th of Tammuz, 5755): Lt. Gen. Mordechai "Motta" Gur, former Chief of Staff of the IDF passed away.  He is best remembered as the commander of the brigade that liberated the Old City of Jerusalem in June, 1967.(As reported by Joel Greenberg)
http://www.nytimes.com/1995/07/17/obituaries/mordechai-gur-is-dead-at-65-army-chief-and-entebbe-planner.html



1997: Premiere of “George of the Jungle”  the movie version of the television cartoon show featuring a music  by Marc Shairman.



1999:Morocco's King Hassan II passed away.The king's father, Mohammed V, is widely credited with having saved Morocco's Jews from deportation during World War II, and Hassan continued the philo-Semitic policies of his father. Although there was an outbreak of anti-Jewish incidents following the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, the Jewish community was generally safe under the protection of both Mohammed and Hassan, who proudly considered the Jews "Moroccans of Jewish origin."“Hassan was considered a moderate in the Middle East. During his 38-year reign, he at first discreetly, then openly, promoted ties with Israel at a time when most of the rest of the Arab world rejected such contact. His efforts helped pave the way for the 1978 Camp David accord between Israel and Egypt. King Hassan also played a role in preparing for the 1991 Madrid peace conference and welcomed Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in September 1993, making Morocco the first Arab nation outside of Egypt to officially receive an Israeli leader. In 1994, Hassan hosted the first Middle East regional economic conference, which included Israel, in the Moroccan city of Casablanca. After the euphoria of the 1993 Oslo accords between Israel and the Palestinians, Israel was allowed to establish a consular office in Rabat, and an estimated 40,000 Israeli tourists visited Morocco in 1995 and 1996.” “The Moroccan Jewish community in Israel observed a seven-day period of mourning for the late king.”



2000: “Music; Still a Sly Wit, Now Mostly for Himself” published today described the career of Tom Lehrer, the Harvard mathematician who has entertained generations of listeners with his satirical, musical wit.
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/07/16/arts/music-still-a-sly-wit-now-mostly-for-himself.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm



2000: The New York Times features reviews books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including My Love Affair With America: The Cautionary Tale of a Cheerful Conservative by Norman Podhoretz and The Harold Letters,1928-1943: The Making of an American Intellectual by Clement Greenberg



2001: Opening of the 16th Macaabiah



2001(25thof Tammuz, 5761): Twenty-year old Staff Sergeant Avi Ben-Harush and nineteen year old Corporal Hanit Arami both of Zikhron Ya’akov were killed when a suicide bomber struck near the Binyamina  Railway Station.



2002: Simon and Garfunkel released the album "Live In New York City."



2002(7thof Av, 5762): "Nine people, including an eight-month-old infant, were killed and 20 injured in a terrorist attack on Dan bus #189 traveling from Bnei Brak to Emmanuel in Samaria. An explosive charge was detonated next to the bullet-resistant bus. The terrorists waited in ambush, reportedly wearing IDF uniforms, and opened fire on the bus. While four terror organizations claimed responsibility for the attack, it was apparently carried out by the same Hamas cell which carried out the attack in Emmanuel on Dec 12, 2001. The victims: Galila Ades, 42, of Emmanuel; Yonatan Gamliel, 16, of Emmanuel; Keren Kashani, 29, of Emmanuel; Sarah Tiferet Shilon, 8 months, of Emmanuel; Gal Shilon (her father), 32, of Emmanuel; Zilpa Kashi (her grandmother), 65, of Givatayim; Ilana Siton, 35, of Emmanuel. The premature infant delivered after its mother, Yehudit Weinberg, was seriously injured, died of her injuries overnight. Yocheved Ben-Hanan, 21, of Emmanuel, who was critically wounded, died later."

2002: The New York Times reports in an obituary: "The American Sephardi Federation joins with all Sephardim of the world in mourning the loss of the eminent Chief Rabbi David Asseo, the spiritual leader of the vital Jewish community of Turkey. We recall his warmth, his grace and words of wisdom on the many occasions he received our delegations from America.



2004: Premiere of “A Cinderella Story” featuring future “Big Bang” star Simon Heldberg as “Terrence.”



2005: The Cedar Rapids Gazette reported that Professor Chanan Eshel, an archeologist from Tel Aviv’s Bar Ilan University, had announced the discovery of two scroll fragments near the Dead Sea.  “The two small pieces of brown animal skin inscribed I Hebrew with verses from the book of Leviticus, are from the “refugee” caves in Nachal Arugot, a canyon near the Dead Sea where Jews hid from the Romans in the second century…The scrolls are being tested by Israel’s Antiquities Authority” to determine their authenticity and era in which they were written.  In a repeat of history, the fragments were discovered by a Bedouin who may have been looking for artifacts in the area.  If the documents prove to be authentic, they will be the first scrolls discovered in the Judean Desert since the 1960’s.



2006: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Full Swing: Hits, Runs and Errors in a Writer's Life by Ira Berkow and the recently released paperback edition of Salonica, City Of Ghosts: Christians, Muslims and Jews, 1430-1950 by Mark Mazower. “For over half a millennium Salonika, a port city in northern Greece, was a place where Europe met the Middle East. Mazower, a professor of history at Columbia University, sets the history of Salonika and its Orthodox Greeks, Egyptian merchants and Spanish Jews within a "single encompassing historical narrative." He reconstructs this once vibrant city as it thrived under the Ottoman Empire (1430-1912), reverted to Greek control after World War I, and saw its Jewish population deported en masse by the Nazis in 1943



2006: In an article entitled “Marching as to War,” The Washington Post reported on the efforts of Mikey Weinstein, graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy and the father of an academy graduate, to stop the missionary work of Christian ministers at the Air Force Academy.  In particular he is targeting the Officer’s Christian Fellowship who says its goal is a “spiritually transformed military with ambassadors for Christ in in uniform, empowered by the Holy Spirit.”



2006: The following were among a total of 43 Israeli civilians (including four who died of heart attacks during rocket barrages) and 116 IDF soldiers were killed in the Israel-Hizbullah war:Eight railway workers in Haifa: Shmuel Ben-Shimon, 41; Asael Damti, 39; Nissim Elharari, 43; David Feldman, 28; Dennis Lapidus, 24; Rafi Hazan, 30; Reuven Levy, 46; and Shlomo Mansura, 35.



2006: “INS Hanit Suffers Iranian Missile Attack” published today
http://www.defense-update.com/2006/07/ins-hanit-suffers-iranian-missile.html



2007: Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrives in Israel and the Palestinian Authority for her first visit to the region since Hamas seized power in the Gaza Strip.



2007(1st of Av, 5767): Rosh Chodesh Av.



2007:On the first anniversary of the Hezbollah-Israel War a “Free the Soldiers Rally” takes place in New York City. It commemorates the one long year has passed since Israel Defense Forces soldiers Gilad Shalit, Ehud Goldwasser, and Eldad Regev were kidnapped by Hamas and Hezbollah.” 



2007:A group representing thousands of children of Holocaust survivors filed a class-action lawsuit against the German government demanding that Germany pay for their psychiatric care. The Israelis, calling themselves second-generation Holocaust survivors, say the scars of the Nazi genocide on their parents have crossed generations. Many still live with an irrational fear of starvation and incapacitating bouts of depression, the lawsuit claims.

2008: In Los Angeles, Hadassah’s 94th Annual Convention comes to an end.



2008:The John W. Kluge Center at the Library of Congress sponsors a lecture, "The Moral Conscience of the World: The United Nations and Palestine in 1947," by William Roger Louis, a professor of English history and culture at the University of Texas at Austin.



2008:  Dr. Rory Miller, senior lecturer at King’s College in London gave a presentation at the Jerusalem Center For Public Affairs as part of its fourth annual series of lectures on changing Jewish communal policies and attitudes in which he said that “the future of the Jewish community in Ireland is bleak as its committed members age and the young immigrate to other European countries and Israel.” 

2008: At the WorkShop Theatre, as part of the Midtown International Theatre Festival, the world premiere of “Yom Kippur,” Meri Wallace’s new drama based on the 1973 war.


2009: At the 18th Maccabiah Games, in Rugby, South Africa plays Australia, Israel plays Canada and the USA plays Chile.


2010: Taglit-Birthright Israel alumni and young professionals plan to gather at the Historic 6th& I Synagogue for “Shabbat Hoppin’: Summer Style.”



2010: The Boston Museum of Fine Arts Announces Curatorship for Judaica
http://jwa.org/thisweek/jul/16/2010/judaica-curatorship-at-boston-mfa



2010: South African Justice Albie Sachs “was awarded an honorary degree of Doctor of the University of York for his contribution to the construction of post-apartheid South Africa, in particular for his involvement in the creation of the Constitution.”



2011: The work of Tel Aviv native Dana Levy is scheduled to be part of the Art Omni Weekend which is scheduled to open today.



2011: The Jerusalem Film Festival is scheduled to come to an end this evening.



2011: A group of closed to 800 ultra-Orthodox protestors tried to block a central Jerusalem thoroughfare today, in an attempt to prevent what they consider the desecration of Shabbat. In a unique observance of Shabbat as a Day of rest, Orthodox Jews were throwing rocks and other objects at officers

2011:An IDF spokeswoman confirmed that an aerial attack was launched today under cover of darkness against Gaza terrorists preparing to fire a rocket into Israel, from near Gaza City. The IDF said 16 rockets fired from Gaza have struck Israel this month some of which damaged buildings. Israel said it responded to shooting two days ago with aerial strikes on tunnels dug beneath Gaza's border with Egypt. 


2012 Director Dan Cohen is scheduled to discuss “An Article of Hope,” his documentary about Israeli astronaut Illan Ramon after a noon-time showing at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. 


2012: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is scheduled to meet with top Israeli leaders in Jerusalem to discuss panoply of issues.


2012(26thof Tammuz, 5772): Ninety-year old William Asher, a pioneer in creating television sit-coms including “I Love Lucy” and “Bewitched” whose father was Jewish passed away today.


2012: A memorial service will held today for Alex Okrent, the 29 year old Evanston native who has been working for President Obama since his senatorial campaign in 2004, at the Jewish Reconstructionist Congregation in Evanston.


2012:Thousands of ultra-Orthodox children took to the streets of Jerusalem this evening to protest the possible inclusion of yeshiva students in the military draft.


2012: A 43-year-old woman started a fire at a National Insurance Institute branch in today. The woman lit the fire in protest of what she called a lack of financial help from the Institute, Army Radio reported.(As reported by Greg Tepper)


2012: Australian and New Zealand premiere of “The Dark Night Rises” based on story co-authored by David S. Goyer and co-starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt.


2012:A man tried to set himself on fire at the entrance of the Beersheba municipality building today. The man, who is known to the welfare services, was not injured in the incident as a security guard and passersby at the scene prevented him from starting the fire.

 

2012: “Parents of Dead Billionaire Heiress Eva Rausing Want Jewish Burial” published today described the efforts of her parents to have her buried in South Carolina in accordance with Jewish law.

2013(9thof Av, 5773): Tisha B’Av.  Since Jews do not partake of food for the body we may want to partake of food for the mind by reading about the Destruction of the First Temple as described in Chapter 36 of Chronicles II; by reading about the Destruction of the Second Temple in Rome and Jerusalem or The Ruling Class of Judaea both by Martin Goodman; or by reading about the fall of Betar in Bar Kochba: The rediscovery of the legendary hero of the second Jewish Revolt against Rome by Yigael Yadin. 


 
2013: Eighty-five year old Marvin “Marv” Rotblatt  a south-paw with the White Sox for three seasons passed away today.(As reported by Richard Goldstein)

2013: The annual Madridanza festival is scheduled to open at the Suzanne Dellal Center in Tel Aviv.


2013: Mortar fire from inside war-torn Syria hit the Israeli part of the Golan Heights today, an IDF spokeswoman said. "Several mortar rounds fired from Syria exploded in northern Golan without causing any damage or casualties," the spokeswoman told AFP (As reported by Gil Ronen)

 2013: Love, Dishonor, Marry, Die, Cherish, Perish, the late David Rakoff’s, first and only novel, has been released by Doubleday today. (As reported by Renee Ghert-Zand)


2014:Seventieth Anniversary of the Vel' d'Hiv Roundup – a remembrance “marking the mass arrest of over 13,000 Jews in Paris and their shipment to Auschwitz where they met their death.


2014: Eric Rubin, Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs and  Mark Levin, Executive Director of National Coalition Supporting Eurasian Jewry (NCSJ) are scheduled to “discuss the current situation in Ukraine and how it is affecting the Jewish community” at a noon time luncheon in Washington, DC.


2014: The DCJCC is scheduled to host a concert by Flory Altarač Jagoda featuring the Ladino songs of her Bosnian childhood along with stories about their origins and personal significance.


 


 

This Day, July 17, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. Levin

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July 17



1203:  The Knights of the Fourth Crusade capture Constantinople forcing the Byzantine emperor Alexius III Angelus to flee from his capital into exile.  Unlike other Crusades, the focus of the Fourth Crusade was the Byzantine Empire and its capital Constantinople rather than Jerusalem.  The Fourth Crusade was really a clash between two different groups of Christians and a fight over commercial interests.  Unlike the other crusades, the Fourth did not produce any great overt anti-Semitic activities.  But it did keep the crusading spirit alive and subsequent crusades did result in more harm to various Jewish communities.  The most significant lesson of the Fourth Crusade was that it was a classic example of religion being manipulated for reasons that had nothing to do with God or His teachings; something that haunts the Jews of the world down to modern times.



1245: Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II who refuted the concept of Jewish ritual murders was found guilty of sacrilege at the First Council of Lyons.



1272: Pope Gregory X issued a bull prohibiting accusations of blood-ritual killings



1287: Forty Jews - men, women and children - were killed by a mob in Oberwesel (Germany) after a ritual murder accusation. The rioting spread down the Rhineland.



1392: King Pedro I (1357–67) of Portugal ordered the compliance of the bull of Pope Boniface IX protecting Jews from forced baptism. He also extended it to Spanish Jewish Refugees.



1402: Start of the reign of Chinese Ming Emperor Yongle who bestowed “honors on Jewish physician, Y’en Ch’eng."



1414: A new edict was issued by the regent in the name of her infant son Don Ferdinand that offered some slight improvement to the conditions of the Jews of Castile. 



1588: Mimar Sinan, the chief architect and leading civil engineer under Suleiman the Magnificent passed away today. Suleiman had ordered that fortress-like walls be built around Jerusalem, walls that can be seen today when one enters “the Old City.”



1549: All Jews and Marranos were expelled from Ghent, Belgium.



1676: In the village of De Rijip, Holland Johannes Reland, a Protestant minister, and Aagje Prins gave birth to Adriaan Reland one of the first of the modern historic geographers of Palestine whose works included Antiquitates Sacrae veterum Hebraeorum and Palaestina ex monumentis Veteris illustrata



1762: Catherine II becomes Tsarina of Russia upon the murder of Peter III of Russia.  Known to history as Catherine the Great, Russia’s ruler participated in the partition of Poland along with Prussia and Austria.  In acquiring her section of Poland, Catherine acquired a large Jewish population.  Although her first reaction to these new Jewish subjects was restrained but comparatively enlightened, in the last years of her reign, Catherine took the first measures which would lead to what became known as the Pale of Settlement.  



 1763: Birthdate of John Jacob Astor. Born in Germany he parlayed his role in the fur trade into one of America’s early fortunes. There is a great deal of debate surrounding Astor’s ethnic origins. In this case, we will give him the benefit of the doubt.



1786: Birthdate of Henri Castro, a native of Bayonne, France who brought hundreds of families to Texas where they settled in an area of west of San Antonio.  The town of Castroville, Texas and Castro County are named after him which attests to his importance.



 1793: Second of the three partitions of Poland takes place as Russia, Prussia and Austria divide this once proud kingdom home to one of Europe’s largest Jewish communities.  As a result of the partitions, Russia, which had worked to remain Jew-free, would find itself home to millions of Jews.



1806: The last auto-de-fe ordered by the Inquisition of Peru was held today.



1810:Reform Judaism was born in the town of Seesen in central Germany with a stated mission to modernize Judaism and create a bridge between Jewish life and the surrounding culture.



1815: In France, Napoleon surrenders at Rochefort, Charente-Maritime to British forces. Napoleon’s final defeat would lead him to permanent exile on St. Helena.  His final defeat brought a wave of reaction as the remnants of the old régime in France and Europe sought to regain their old power and undo the changes wrought by the French Revolution.  This reactionary wave would have a negative effect on the Jewish people and would be one of the driving forces that led to next wave of Jewish immigration to the United States.



1840(16thof Tammuz, 5600): Isaac Leonini Azulay, author of the Spanish comedy "El Delinquente Honrado," who “married Bella Friedlaender, a cousin of Chief Rabbi Herschell” passed away today.



1841(28th of Tammuz, 5601): On the secular calendar, Rebbe Moshe Teitelbaum of Ujhel, known as the Yismach Moshe, founder of the Satmar sect, passed away.



1854: An excerpt published today from Little’s Living Age described Doctor Wolff as being the real Wandering Jew, who is not the melancholy figure “of the poet and novelist” “but a  “fat, jolly Jew for ‘whom the law having a shadow of good things to come.’”



1859: Samuel Isaac Joseph Schereschewsky, a Lithuanian born Jew was ordained today at St. George’s Church in New York City.



1862: Legislation abolishing discrimination against the service of chaplains in the United States army became a law.  In other words, Rabbis could now serve as Chaplains.



1862: At the request of the Lincoln administration, the chaplain act was amended to provide for the appointment of Catholic, Protestant and Jewish chaplains.



1863(1st of Av, 5623): Rosh Chodesh Av



1868: Birthdate of Henri Nathansen, “a Danish writer and stage director, today best known for the play Inside the Walls (Danish: Indenfor Murene” who passed away in 1944.



1871(28thof Tammuz, 5631): Twenty-nine year old Polish born musical prodigy Carl Tausig passed away today.



1873(22ndof Tammuz, 5633): Fifty two year old Babette Stettheimer, a sister of Joseph Seligman passed away today.



1874: Professor C. H. Brigham of Ann Arbor, Michigan, read a paper on the “Falacha Language of Abyssinia” at a convention of linguists meeting in Hartford, Conn.  According to Professor Brigham, who based his paper on the work of Dr. Joseph Haling, “the Flachas are descendants of a tribe of Jews which settled in Abyssinia…” who have lost their knowledge of Hebrew as both a written and spoken language. Their literature is based on the translation of the book of Jonah and “four short prayers.



1877: During the Russo-Turkish War, the first Battle of the Shipka where Jewish soldiers displayed “dauntless courage began today.



1878: Schedules showing the liabilities and assets of Barnet L. Solomon, Solomon B. Solomon Judah H. Solomon and Simon Solomon, the owners of B.L Solomon’s Sons, the major upholstery dealers who recently filed for bankruptcy, were filed in the Court of Common Pleas.  Their assets totaled $224. 799/31 and their liabilities totaled $1,144,753.88. The firm’s demise was caused by a combination of poor business conditions and a down turn in the real estate market.



1879: Birthdate of Seumas O’Sullivan, the Irish poet and author who married  Estella Francis Solomons, a leading Irish artist who was a member of one of Ireland’s oldest and most renowned Jewish families.



1879: A concert and festival sponsored by the Young Men’s Hebrew Union is scheduled to take place at the Terrace Garden



1879(26th of Tammuz, 5639):Maurycy Gottlieb, Jewish painter who came from a family of Polish-speaking Galician Jews passed away.  Two of his more famous paintings are “Shylock and Jessica” and “Jews Praying in the Synagogue on Yom Kippur.”



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Shylock_e_jessica.jpeg



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Gottlieb-Jews_Praying_in_the_Synagogue_on_Yom_Kippur.jpg



1880: Harper’s Weekly published illustrations depicting scenes from the Seawanhaka tragedy among whose victims was former 12th District Assemblyman Joseph I. Stein.



1881: An English quarterly publication, The Contemporary Review examined the life of the late Ferdinand Lassalle.  Base on the way he lived his life the epitaph etched on his tomb “Ferdinand Lassalle, thinker and fighter” was deemed to be quite appropriate.  Lassalle was a rare combination of philosophical think, political agitator and oddly enough fashion dandy “noted for his dress for dinners and his addiction for pleasures.”



1882(1stof Av, 5642): Rosh Chodesh Av



1882: As the Freight Handler’s Strike entered its fifth week, the workers took steps to keep “scabs” away from the piers and docks. The Russian Jews have gathered at Standard Hall on East Broadway where they are being three meals a day: bread and coffee in the morning; meat and soup at noon; tea and bread in the evening.  The strikers are also providing them with lodging in a tenement to keep these destitute people from being “scabs.”  Similar efforts are being made with other immigrant groups.



1882: A report published today attributed “the incapacity” of Russian Jews to perform manual labor when compared to their “muscular Irish and German” counterparts to diet. “A single piece of black bread soaked in water and a banana or tow constitute a full meal…Occasionally their bill of fare embraces beer and cheese and crackers but it is seldom that any of them eat meat or potatoes.  The effect of this light diet is plainly visible in the shrunken forms, the listless actions and lack of endurance that so plainly distinguish the Russian Jews…from other working men.”



1884: It was reported today that Lazarus Lemisch, his wife and five children who had just arrived in the United States were being sent back to Europe because, by his own admission, he was destitute with no prospects for financial assistance.



1884: Wolf Finkelstein, a Russian Jewish immigrant arrived in New York on the SS Bohemia and was immediately sent to Ward’s Island.



1884: It was reported today that many of the Russian Jews who fled to Cyprus during the recent anti-Semitic violence have returned to Odessa.  They were not able to support themselves on the Mediterranean Island which is a British possession.  This means that the returning Jews are now British subject which means the British Consul General in the Russian port city has to provide them with some sort of assistance.



1885: It was reported today that in Great Britain, a juror was excluded from hearing the case of De Worms versus Hughes because he was Jewish



1886: “Art To Be Seen At Rouen” published today described the “stain glass pottery and relics of old wars” that can be seen at the Museum of Antiquities including a series of five stain glassed windows that depicts the history of the rich Jew who bribes a poor woman to bring him a consecrated wafer which he then stabs with a dagger.”   (The myth of Host Desecration ranked with the Blood Libel as cause for slaughter of Jews during the Middle Ages)



1887: Birthdate of  Beatrice Fox Auerbach, the longtime proprietor of the G. Fox & Company department store in Hartford, Connecticut.[some sources say July 7, 1887]. Auerbach was raised in Hartford, where her father ran the department store originally founded by and named after his father, Gerson Fox. In 1911, Auerbach moved to Salt Lake City to help her new husband run his family's department store there. The couple returned to Connecticut six years later when the G. Fox & Company building burned. Beatrice Auerbach's husband became secretary and treasurer of the rebuilt store, which occupied a twelve-story Art Deco building that dominated Hartford's Main Street. When her husband died in 1927, Auerbach stepped into his business roles. She proved so good at running the business that when her father died in 1938, she became president of G. Fox & Company. Over the next three decades, Auerbach built G. Fox into the largest privately-held department store in the United States. Under Auerbach's leadership, the store was known for excellent service, but it was also remarkable for the benefits extended to employees. Auerbach was among the first employers to introduce paid vacations and sick leave, and also among the first to hire African-Americans in meaningful positions. Auerbach sold G. Fox & Company to the May Company, owner of Macy's, in 1965, although she remained involved in the day-to-day operations of the store. The sale allowed Auerbach to increase the charitable contributions for which she was already well-known in Connecticut. The Service Bureau for Women's Organizations that she had established in 1945 taught leadership skills to members of women's groups. She also collaborated with Connecticut College for Women for over twenty years (1938-1959) in a retailing program that allowed participants to try out theories in the G. Fox store. Among the other beneficiaries of Auerbach's philanthropy were Trinity College, Wesleyan University, the University of Connecticut, and several Hartford-area cultural organizations. Auerbach died on November 29, 1968. G. Fox & Company closed permanently in 1992. The building, still a Hartford landmark, was later converted for use as a community college and retail shops.



1888(9thof Av, 5648): Tish’a B’Av



1888: Birthdate of Israeli novelist, Shmuel Agnon. Author of numerous books, including the Day Before Yesterday, Agnon won the Nobel Prize in 1966.



1889: “Here is Comfort for Cantor” published today offered reassurance to State Senator Jacob Cantor that he should not be bothered by the fact that the Harlem Club is rejecting him because he was Jewish.  “In the face of this foolish and un-Christian prejudice” he should remember that the “Blessed Redeemer would be rejected on the same grounds.”



1890: Almost all of the striking cloak cutters, the vast majority of whom were Jewish, returned to work this morning with only one outstanding point of contention – the strikers demanded that all of the replacement workers or “scabs” must be terminated.



1891: Thirty-one Jewish immigrants from Russia were not allowed to land at the Barge Office in New York “on the ground that they were like to become public charges.



1891: As of today the Sanitarium for Hebrew Children has received $2,777.12 to help fund its summer programs.



1892: “Preparations for the Cholera” published today described the outbreak of the disease which now has foothold in Odessa and Moscow.  The effort to combat Cholera has been hampered because “throughout Russia a large proportion of the capable physicians have been driven away because they were Jewish.”



1892: “Summer Study of Ethics” published today previewed the lectures to be offered The School of Applied Ethics including a series on the religious ideas of the Hebrews: “The Prophets” by George Moore that beings with the religion of Israel before the prophets; “The Religion of Ancient Persia and its Relations to Judaism by Professor A.V. Williams Jacksons; “The Ritual and Law by Professor Morris Jastrow; :The Psalter” by Professor John P. Peters; “The Wisdom Books” by Professor Crawford H. Toy and “The Talmud” by Dr. Emil G. Hirsch.



1892: Arthur Richard of New York arrived in New London, CT on his way to inspect the Jewish colony at Chesterfield which is being supported by contributions by the Baron Hirsch Fund.



1893: Register Levy, a leader of the Jewish community on New York’s Lower East Side, expressed his surprise when asked about the derogatory, stereotypically anti-Semitic remarks attributed to Police Justice John J. Ryan who complained about that the Hebrews flouted the law, had no fear of policemen and would claim that they were the victims of religious persecution when they were charged with crimes.  “I have never known him to bear any malice or prejudice against any co-religionists.”



1893: Police Justice John J. Ryan claimed today that he had been misquoted and that he had “ no desire to denounce Hebrews” and had in fact “always been their friends.”  Ryan said that all he had meant to say, and all that he had really said, was that he enforce the law against all “wrongdoers” including Hebrews regardless of their connections or pressure from local citizenry.  Ryan’s contention that he had been “misquoted” and that the remarks of others were wrongly attributed to him, was supported by Mark Alter, the attorney for the Hebrew Protective Association. [Ed. Note: When taken together, these comments read like modern day “damage control.”  What is fascinating is that as early as the last decade of the 19thcentury, the Jewish population was of a size that New York politicians had to be cognizant of their feelings and views. This must have come as a shock to those who arrived in the last ten years from Romania and Russia where the governments did not even know that Jews had opinions let alone political rights.]



1893: “The Jews Fought Desperately” published today described last week’s attack by an anti-Semitic mob at Yalta during which the Jews fought back even though the mob “dragged”  “dozens of the into the streets” where they were beaten.



1895(25thof Tammuz, 5655): Forty-three year old Simon M. Ehrlich, the Chief Just of the City Court in New York, passed away today after battling typhoid fever for the last three weeks at his summer home in Throgg’s Neck, Long Island. Born in Boston, at the age of five he moved to New York where he graduated from City College and Columbia Law School. After passing the bar in 1872, he was elected to a variety of judicial positions with the support of Tammany Hall.



1897: Alexander Grossman provided over tonight’s meeting of the Russian-American Citizens’ League where the candidacy of Seth Low for Mayor of New York was endorsed by the attendees.



1898: According to a  summary of the tenth annual report of the Jewish Publication Society of America published today  the society has grown from 600 members to 4,790 members 808 of whom live in Pennsylvania and 797 of whom live in New York state.



1902:  Herzl finishes a journey to London where he had been seeking support for his plans for a Jewish homeland.



1903: Birthdate of Hiram "Harry" Bingham IV, a member of distinguished old New England family who saved the lives of thousands of Jews while serving as Vice-Consul in Marseille, France.



1903: The Jewish quarter of Ofran, Morocco was pillaged.



1904: Eight-four year old Wilhelm Marr, one of the leaders of the 19thanti-Semitism of movement passed away today.



1906: Birthdate of Yitzhak Ben Aharon who when he died in 2006 was the last living icon of the left-wing of the Israeli Labor Party.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/2006/jun/05/guardianobituaries.israel



1906: Carlos Pellegrini who was supportive of the idea settling Russian Jews in Argentina while serving as its President passed away today.



1907(7th of Av, 5667): Fifty-four year old geologist, paleontologist and explore Angelo Heilprin passed away
http://www.jstor.org/stable/198438



1910: Smallpox epidemic breaks out in Jerusalem.



1913: Birthdate of American born architect Bertrand Goldberg who is best known for the Marina City complex in Chicago, Illinois, the tallest residential concrete buildings in the world at the time of completion.


1914: In Salonica a campaign against the Jews continued in the newspapers. The dispute was over Greeks and Jews who worked in a Jewish owned tannery. The dispute became a violent political discussion all throughout Macedonia. It originated over Jews wearing the Turkish Fez, which was a symbol of their fondness for the previous Turkish administration.



1915: William Green, an inmate at Milledgeville State Penitentiary, tried to kill Leo Frank by slashing his throat with a butcher knife. 



1916(16thof Tammuz, 5676):  During WW I, Lt. Ernest Emanuel Polack of the 4th Gloucestershire was killed today.



1917: John Henry Patterson was made commander of the 38th Battalion of the Royal Fusiliers, one of three battalions of the Jewish Legion, recruited from British and foreign Jews. Patterson was promoted to full Colonel. In February of 1918, Patterson proudly led soldiers of the 38th Fusiliers Battalion, one of the components of the Legion, in a parade in the Whitechapel Road, before they were shipped off to Palestine. They met a tumultuous and joyous reception among the Jews of London, as well as generating amazement among other bystanders, as related in this article about the parade of the Jewish Legion in London. [Unlike many British officers, not only was Patterson not anti-Semitic, he was philo-Semitic numbering many Jews among his friends throughout the rest of his life and pushing for the creation of the Jewish Brigade during World War II.]



1917:  Birthdate of comic Phyllis Diller. 



1917: Birthdate of all-star shortstop and Cleveland Indian manager, Lou Boudreau.  Boudreau’s mother was Jewish.  But he was adopted by a Roman Catholic family who raised him in their faith.



1917: Birthdate of Morris E. Lasker, who would serve as a federal judge in New York and Massachusetts for four decades



1917: In San Antonio, Texas, David and Riva Rapoport, Jewish immigrants who had fled Russia after participating in an anti-czarist uprising, gave birth to Bernard Rapoport, the Jewish businessman “who built an insurance empire and spent his last decades giving his wealth away to universities, Democratic campaigns and charitable causes in Israel and his adopted hometown of Waco…” (As reported by J.B. Smith)



1918: By order of Lenin, Czar Nicholas II and his family were executed at Yekaterinburg marking the end of the Romanov dynasty and a turning point in the history of Russia, Europe and the World.



1919: During the war with the Russian Bolsheviks, Jewish leaders met with Symon Petlura and pledged their support for him and the creation of an independent country of Ukraine.



1920: Birthdate of Rabbi Louis Jacobs,the first leader of Masorti Judaism (also known as Conservative Judaism) in the United Kingdom.



1921: In Hungary, , journalist and playwright Béla Szenes and his wife gave birth to Hannah Szenes the poet who would be murdered while serving behind enemy lines while serving with the British lines. Her most famous work is probably Eli Eli (My God, My God”) the poem set to music by David Zahavi.



1935:Joseph "Yosky" Toblinsky, a member of the “Yiddish Black Hand,” a Jewish criminal band active in the first decades of the 20th century was taken into custody on charges of hijacking a truck filled with pharmaceutical drugs.



1936: The Palestine Post reported that there was heavy firing on the Hatikva Quarter in Tel Aviv and the Bayit Vegan Quarter of Jerusalem. A bomb was found hidden in a shipment of Norwegian cheese. It was believed that it was inserted while transported from Haifa to Jerusalem. Jacob Gerzon, victim of a sniper's bullet, succumbed to his wounds. He was the 32nd Jewish victim of the Arab disturbances which began on April 19. Three new battalions of British troops arrived in Haifa from Malta. The government ordered the demolition of the old Jaffa slums and for the construction of two new roads for the benefit of that quarter and of the town as a whole.



1936: The Spanish Civil War began as the armed forces, eventually to be led by Francisco Franco rose up against the recently elected Popular Front Government.  Franco’s rebellious army was a fascist force and the received active help from both Mussolini and Hitler. Anti-fascist forces rallied to the support of the French Republicans.  For reasons of their own, the French, British and U.S. governments provided no support to balance that being provided by Germany and Italy.  While thousands of volunteers from these western countries took up the cause of the Republic, the Soviet Union was the only government to provide aide.  And that aide helped to what had begun as a broad left-wing coalition into Communist dominated fighting force.  The Left saw Spain as a place to stop the march of fascism.  The Fascists saw Spain as an easy victory and testing ground for the weapons that they would later employ in World War II.  One of the most famous volunteer groups supporting the Spanish Republicans was the Lincoln Brigade, a fighting force that had a disproportionately large Jewish Population.  For a vivid, yet fictional picture of Jewish involvement in the Lincoln Brigade and left-wing causes in the 1930’s, read Davida’s Harp by Chaim Potok.  The fascist victory in Spain, including the failure of the Western allies to act, emboldened Hitler and Mussolini while frightening Stalin.  All three felt the West would never stand against the Germans and Italians.  For Stalin, this meant signing a non-aggression with Hitler.  For Hitler, this meant he had a green line to do as he pleased in Europe.  For the Jews it meant that the Final Solution was one step closer to reality. Numerous historians consider the Spanish Civil War that broke out in July 1936 a prelude to World War II. Spain, with a population of 28 million, became a bloody battleground of conflicting forces, testing their arsenals in preparation for the battle of the giants that was to emerge shortly. Jews did not sit on the sidelines in this crucial contest. Jewish participation, as a matter of fact, was stunningly extensive. In 1987, at a 50th anniversary commemoration of the Spanish Civil War, Chaim Herzog, then president of Israel, stated: "There were people who realized just what a fascist victory in Spain would mean. Courageous men from many nations volunteered to help the Republicans. Among them were democrats, socialists, communists... Typically there was a relatively high number of Jews among the volunteers - the highest proportion of any other group... I salute them as comrades in arms in the war against the Nazis." Jewish participation in the Spanish Civil War offers a fascinating, relatively unknown, chapter of Jewish resistance to Nazi and fascist tyranny. Up to 25 percent of the fighters in the International Brigades were Jewish, whereas the total global Jewish population at the time did not exceed 4%. It is ironic that Jews even formed their own Jewish Brigade in Spain, which fought heroically in crucial battles 70 years ago for the freedom of the Spanish people that had expelled them from its midst. The Spanish Civil War attracted volunteers from about 55 countries who knew the dangers they were facing in that bloody conflict. Nevertheless, they came in substantial numbers to join the ranks of the Popular Front. Figures of participants differ. Ernest Hemingway claimed that "over 40,000 volunteers from 52 countries flocked to Spain between 1936 and 1939 to take part in the historic struggle between democracy and fascism known as the Spanish Civil War." The lowest estimate speaks of about 32,000, but one estimate is as high as 59,380. The largest contingents came from France (7,000), Poland (5,000), the US (3,000), Britain (between 2,000 and 4,000) and Russia (in the thousands). Despite the conspicuous presence of Jews in International Brigades, Jewish participation in the fighting has generally not been acknowledged. There could be various reasons for that. Firstly, Jews were usually registered under the name of the country they came from. Secondly, in some cases the Jews used aliases, concerned that their being Jewish might expose them to greater than usual dangers in a war against fascist elements. Lastly, Jewish community organizations that would eagerly underwrite research on Jews fighting against fascists and Nazis were hesitant to do so in the instance of the Spanish Civil War, since those joining would be counted as communists and fellow travelers. While it is true that two-thirds of the American Abraham Lincoln Brigade were communists, many Jews were not. One volunteer wrote: "I am as good an anti-fascist as any communist. I have reason to be. I am a Jew and that is the reason I came to Spain. I know what it means to my people if Fascism should win." Hyman Katz from New York did not tell his mother that he was determined to leave for Spain. When wounded, he decided to explain why he enlisted against her wishes. He wrote: "Don't you realize that we Jews will be the first to suffer if fascism comes?" Samuel Levinger from Columbus, Ohio, son of Rabbi Lee J. Levinger, was killed in battle at Brunette. Throughout the war, the father remained a loyal friend of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. In-depth research, especially in the last 10 years, has proven that the extent of Jewish presence in that crucial war was truly impressive. Though Jews were only 10% of the Polish population, 45% of the Polish volunteers - 2,250 out of 5,000 - were Jewish. Jews, 4% of the US population, formed 38% of its volunteers. In France, 0.5% of the population and 15% of the volunteers were Jews. Britain, with a Jewish population of 0.5%, had 11% to 22% Jewish volunteers. Palestine had a Jewish contingent of 500, 498 Jews and two Arabs. For some reason, Jews from Palestine were distributed among diverse national units. There were Palestinian Jews in the Hungarian "Rakosi" Battalion, in the French "Six Fevrier" Battalion and others. The most conspicuous Jewish presence in the Spanish Civil War emerged from a group called the "Naftali Botwin Company." Naftali Botwin, a 24-year-old Jewish radical, was executed in Poland in 1925 for assassinating a Polish Secret Service agent. The special Jewish company was formed in the Palafox Battalion of the Polish Dombrowsky Brigade in December 1937. The company issued a Yiddish newspaper. The orders were written in Yiddish. It had a distinct Jewish banner, and the last stanza of the company's hymn proudly proclaimed "...how Jewish Botwin soldiers drove out the fascist plague!" The Botwin group was the only one in which Jews fought as a distinct group. Hence it became the major symbol of Jewish presence in Spain. In general, the International Brigades were utilized by the Popular Front as shock troops in the most dangerous places that drew the heaviest casualties. The Botwin Company was no exception - 120 of its men were thrown into an assault at the battle of Estramadura, in the defense of Madrid; only 18 survived. The company's courage earned it the "Medalla de Valor" from the Spanish government. Whatever motives brought volunteers of the International Brigades to Spain, with the Jews the ideological motive was dominant. Many of them may have been socialists or communists, but they clearly perceived that simultaneously they were fighting a sworn enemy of the Jewish people. The Jewish-Zionist angle was no less significant than the socialist-communist. It is no coincidence that the first casualty of the International Brigades was Leon Baum from Paris, and the last casualty was Haskel Honigstern, who was given a state funeral in Barcelona. The Spanish poet Jose Herrera wrote of him: "Haskel Honigstern, Polish worker of the Jewish race, son of an obscure land, killed in the light of my homeland." It is also no coincidence that when Juan Negrin, head of the Republican government, announced in September 1938 the unilateral withdrawal of the International Brigades from Spain for diplomatic reasons, the Botwin Company formed the rear guard of the troops as they withdraw across the border into France. Jewish participation in the Spanish Civil War put to a lie the assertion that Jews are by nature "timid and non-combative... that Jews did not resist the Nazi murderers because... submission is in their national character." When the first shots of World War II were fired, in the prologue of that ghastly war, Jews were not only present in overwhelming numbers, but they incontrovertibly proved their heroism.



1938(18th of Tammuz, 5698): Tzom Tammuz



1938(18th of Tammuz, 5698): Three more Jews were killed today – two of them were watchmen at an orange grove and one was a workman from Tel Aviv.  At the same time, “the Jewish owner of watch factory in Acre was seriously wounded” by Arab attackers.



1938: Credible reports are circulating in Palestine that some of the attacks on Arabs are “merely part of Nazi intrigue to gain Arab sympathy and impair British prestige in the Near East.”



1939(1st of Av, 5699): Rosh Chodesh Av



1939(1stof Av, 5699): Seventy-four year old Julius Schnitzler, the Viennese surgeon who was the laryngologist Johann Schnitzler passed away today.



1940(10thof Tammuz, 5700): Hauptscharführer Blank murdered Werner Scholem at Buchenwald.  A Jew and a Communist, he was arrested in 1933 by the Nazis who shipped him to Buchenwald when it was opened in 1938.  He was held there until he was shot by the Nazi officer.  He was the brother of Gerhard Scholem who gained fame as Gershom Scholem first Professor of Jewish Mysticism at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.



1940: The Vichy French government issued orders prohibiting employment of aliens (Jews) not born in France. This is one more example of how eager those at Vichy were to serve their new Nazi comrades.



1941(22nd of Tammuz, 5701): Twelve hundred Jews are murdered at Slonim, Belorussia



1941 Alfred Rosenberg is appointed Reich minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories to administer lands seized from the Soviet Union.


1941(22nd of Tammuz, 5701): This marks the first day of the a fourteen day slaughter of the Jews at Kishinev in the Soviet Union; During those 14 days over 10,000 Jews would be slaughtered by the Nazis and their local collaborators



1942: The 2,000 Jews from Holland reached Auschwitz. All but 449 were given their numbered tattoos. The 449 were gassed.



1942:  A Nazi delegation headed by SS chief Heinrich Himmler tours the death camp at Auschwitz, where Himmler observes a mass gassing of inmates.



1943: Birthdate of Shlomo Ben-Ami, the native of Tangiers who made Aliyah in 1955 and earned a doctorate from Oxford.  After serving as head of the School of History at Tel Aviv University, he served as Israel’s Ambassador to Spain before pursuing a career in politics.



1943: Yitzhak Wittenberg, a partisan leader, surrendered to the Gestapo to prevent the razing of the Vilna (Lithuania) Ghetto.



1944(26thof Tammuz, 5704): Forty-six year old child prodigy William James Sidis passed away today.
http://www.sidis.net/Sperling.htm



1945: Today “Leo Szilard and 69 co-signers at the Manhattan Project "Metallurgical Laboratory" in Chicago petitioned the President of the United States



1945: The Potsdam Conference opens in Potsdam, Germany. The leaders of the Big Three, Harry Truman, Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin with the aim of settling outstanding issues related to the end of World War II in Europe including the fate of conquered German and liberated Poland.  It was the first meeting between the U.S. President and the Soviet leader.  It was the last meeting with Churchill who would be replaced during the conference the new Laborite Prime Minister Clement Atlee. For public consumption, it appeared that the war time Allies were committed to punishing Germany for its Nazi atrocities.  The relations between Truman and Stalin soured from this time forward into what became the Cold War.  An argument can be made that Truman’s decision to recognize Israel was a product of this Cold War environment.



1947:Mordechai (Motke) Eldar and his sister arrived at Haifa today but were forced to return to Hamburg by the British.  A year later he returned aboard the Kedmah and began a thirty year career with the IDF where he reached the rank of Colonel before retiring.



1947: Supposedly Raoul Wallenberg died in a Soviet prison on this date. An air of mystery still surrounds the death of one of the few people who came to the aid of the Jews during the Holocaust. Since nothing was done to establish the fate of Ambassador Wallenberg after he was last seen going to the headquarters of the Red Army in Budapest, nobody really knows if he was shot in Moscow, died in prison, or lived out a long anguished life in the Gulag.



1948: A two-pronged attack by Israeli forces designed to drive Arab Legion forces from the eastern section of Jerusalem failed.  The Old City would remain under Jordanian occupation until 1967.  During this time, Jews were barred from the Old City and no Arabs demanded that the Old City be made the capital of a Palestinian state.



1948: On the second day of Operation Death to the Invader, an Israeli military operation designed to connect settlements in the Negev with the rest of Israel, a series of Israeli assaults failed in their attempt to take their objectives.



1948: During Operation Dekel, Israeli forces took the villages of Hittin and Nimrin.



1950:Valerian Trifa, the Romanian Cleric who hid his role in the fascist, anti-Semitic Iron Guard, took advantage of the Displace Persons Immigration Law to move to the United States today. His lies and his role in the Holocaust would eventually be exposed by Israeli author Zev Goland



1951: The Jerusalem Post reported that the Ministry of Finance denied charges that the Custodian of Enemy Property had transferred valuable land in Tel Aviv to high government officials and Mapai and Histadrut leaders, at prices far below the prevailing market valuations. Minister of Finance Eliezer Kaplan, vigorously denied such charges and intended to take legal actions against the editor of Haboker, the General Zionist daily, and the mayor of Tel Aviv, Israel Rokach, for having spread such allegations. The Knesset Finance Committee asked the State Comptroller to investigate the whole affair.



1956: U.S. premiere of “High Society” produced by Sol C. Siegel.



1956(9th of Av, 5716): Tish'a B'Av



1957: U.S. premiere of “Hatful of Rain” directed by Fred Zinnemann with music by Bernard Herrmann.



1959(11th of Tammuz, 5719):  Eugene Meyer publisher and owner of the Washington Postpassed away.  Meyer is the father of Katherine Graham.  While Graham has earned a reputation for making the Washington Post into one of the nation’s leading papers, the process was actually begun by her father who took over the bankrupt paper and proceeded to vanquish several stout competitors including the now defunct Times Heraldand Evening Star.



1960: Binyamin Mintz, a member of Agudat Israel Workers, was appointed Minister of Postal Services by David Ben-Gurion today, serving until his death the following May.



1969:  Israeli trucks drive through the Sinai heading for the east bank of the Gulf of Suez.  They are carrying the equipment for the commandos who will be attacking the Green Island, the Egyptian for in the middle of the Gulf of Suez.



1972: Avner Shaki left the cabinet today where he had been serving as Deputy Minister of Education and Culture.



1975: Birthdate of Israeli actor and comedian Eli Finish.



1976: In Montreal, opening of the Olympics where Natalia Kushnir led the Soviet Volleyball Team to a Silver Medal.



1979: Birthdate of Nathan B. “Nate” Bruckenthal, the Petty Officer 3rdClass who became the first Coast Guardsman to be killed in action since the Viet Nam war when he was killed by suicide bombers during a waterborne assault on the Khawr Al Amaya oil terminal



1981: In response to a major rocket attack on northern Israel by the PLO from southern Lebanon, the AIF launched a massive attack on PLO headquarters in downtown Beirut.  Civilian casualties were inevitable given the Palestinian military for hiding among non-combatants.  The AIF also attacked PLO positions in southern Lebanon from where the rocket attacks were launched.



1981: Two girls were wounded in Katyusha bombardments on the Galilee.



1982: A six month North American tour of the Stephen Sondheim musical “Sweeny Todd” that began in Wilmington came to an end in Toronto, Canada



1991: The Brown Building, yhe top three floors of which were at one time occupied by the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, which was the site of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire that killed 146 garment workers on March 25, 1911 was placed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places today.



1992: U.S. premiere of “Stranger Among Us” directed by Sidney Lumet and co-produced by Howard Rosenman.



1992: U.S. premiere of “Honey, I Blew Up the Kid” starring Rick Moranis.



1994: Pitcher Andrew Lorraine made his major league debut with the California Angels.



2001(26th of Tammuz, 5761):Yehiel De-Nur, a Polish born Israeli author whose writings often employed themes based on his time at Auschwitz, passed away.



2003(17th of Tammuz, 5763): Tzom Tammuz



2003: New York Review of Books features a review Stalin's Last Crime: The Plot Against the Jewish Doctors, 1948–1953y Jonathan Brent and Vladimir P. Naumov


2005: Haaretz reported that The Federal Bureau of Investigation is probing whether two United States citizens arrested recently planned to carry out an attack on the Israeli consulate in Los Angeles and a synagogue in the area.  The two suspects who had recently converted to Islam had been arrested for taking part in at least ten robberies.  Evidence of their involvement in a possible attack against Jewish institutions came to light after their arrest. 



2006: In accordance with instructions of the Home Front Command, the Carmiel Festival, scheduled to begin on July 18, 2006 will be postponed until October because of the Hezbollah attacks on northern Israel.



2007: An exhibition of manuscripts of scientist Sir Isaac Newton – never before revealed to the public which opened on June 18, 2007, at the Jewish National and University Library at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, at an exhibition opening comes to an end today. The manuscripts include details of Newton's alchemy experiments, his interest in ancient history and apocalyptic prophecies. Furthermore, they reveal his deciphering of what he considered to be ''secret knowledge''– knowledge encoded in the sacred texts of ancient cultures and other historical records – including his attempts to extract scientific information from the biblical and Talmudic descriptions of the Tabernacle and the Temple. Newton's writings on Judeo-Christian prophecy reveal that he thought of himself as a kind of prophet. These manuscripts back up speculations that Sir Isaac Newton was a Grand Master of the Priory of Sion secret society (1691-1727), a post also said to have been held by the likes of Leonardo Da Vinci, Botticelli and Victor Hugo, and which inspired Dan Brown's bestseller, 'The Da Vinci Code. Of special interest in this exhibition are manuscripts and illustrations relating to the Temple as well as a passage copied by Newton from Maimonides' writings; manuscripts containing Newton's comments on Hebrew expressions, and excerpts from the Shema prayer; Newton's calculations of the end of the world, which he estimated to be in 2060; and Newton's rejection of the Trinity.For further details about the exhibition, please visit the following site:
http://jnul.huji.ac.il/dl/mss/newton



2008: In Kensington, Maryland, Robert Wexler, a six-term U.S. congressman from Florida, discusses and signs Fire-Breathing Liberal: How I Learned to Survive (and Thrive) in the Contact Sport of Congress(written with David Fisher) at Borders Books



2008:The military funerals for Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser the two Israeli soldiers abducted in 2006 by Hezbollah, whose bodies were returned yesterday as part of a prisoner swap take place today in their respective hometowns. Ehud Goldwasser is laid to rest at 10 A.M. in the military cemetery in Nahariya and Eldad Regev is buried at 2 P.M. in Haifa



2008:Robert Magnus, who served as the 30th Assistant Commandant of the Marine Corps from September 8, 2005 to July 2, 2008 retired today after more than 39 years of service.



2009: At the18th Maccabiah Games round five in the Chess Competition.



2009: The Jerusalem Film Festival features a screening “Bar Mitzvah” in which Boris Thomashefsky plays Israel, a widower whose wife Leah was lost at sea ten years earlier en route to America. .



2009(25th of Tammuz, 5769): General Meir Amit passed away at the age of 88. A soldier during the War for Independence, Amit was commander of the famed Golani Brigade, a graduate of Columbia and a major general in the IDF.  His greatest claim to fame was his service as head of Mossad during which he managed the activities of Eli Cohen and provided the intelligence estimates that were helpful in during the Six Day War. When word of the death of this popular general reached Israeli President Shimon Peres he said, “Generations of Israelis, entire generations of children, owe Meir Amit a debt of gratitude for his immense contribution - a large part which remains secret - in building the strength and deterrence of Israel...He was a natural leader, whom people trusted, and at the same time he was a visionary for the state.”  Amit’s autobiography, A Life in Israel's Intelligence Service: An Autobiography, was published a month after he died.



http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/military-obituaries/army-obituaries/5888256/Major-General-Meir-Amit.html



2010: Israeli artist Shahar Marcus is scheduled to be the Homecoming Artist as part of The Art Omi International Artists Residency.



2010:Senior Fatah member Mohammed Dahlan announced today that the Palestinian Authority will not hold direct negotiations with Israel at this time. The announcement followed a meeting between PA leaders and United States envoy George Mitchell.



2010: Nir Bergman’s Intimate Grammar won the Haggiag Award for Best Full-Length Feature Film at the 27th Jerusalem Film Festival, which ended tonight.

2011: The first annual NYC Schlep is scheduled to begin today at 9 a.m. in Battery Park.  Organized by the American Friends of Rabin Medical Center, the 5K run/walk seeks to raise funds for breast cancer research in Israel and the United States.

2011: The New York Times includes a review of Lipman Pike:  America’s First Home Run King by Richard Michelson and illustrated by Zachary Pullen, “a short biography of Lip Pike, credited with being the first paid professional as well as the first Jewish ball player (a combination that did not always please fans).”



2011:The IDF denied reports that their planes had struck at Gaza today despite the fact that falling three Qassam rockets had been fired into southern Israel during the night.


2011(15thof Tammuz, 5771):Ninety-four year old Alex Steinweiss passed away. You may not know his name, but if you have ever bought an LP or long-playing record you know his work since he was the designer of the modern LP album cover. (As reported by Steven Heller)

2012:  “The Flat” is scheduled to be shown as part of the Mizel Summer Film Series in Denver, Colorado.


2012:The national unity government formed in Israel two months ago unraveled on today, when the head of the centrist Kadima Party, Shaul Mofaz, announced that he was withdrawing because of intractable differences with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Likud Party over a proposed universal national service law.


2012: The remains of a 2,300-year-old naval pier have been uncovered in Acre, adding to the coastal city’s long and varied history by showing it was a substantial port in the Hellenistic period. The remains, unveiled at the site by the Israel Antiquities Authority today, were uncovered by marine archaeologists this month during restoration work on Acre’s southern seawall.


2013: Layla Lavan, “an epic night of Israeli food, drinks and music” is scheduled to take place at Hudson Station in Manhattan.


2013: In Cedar Rapids, the Hadassah Book Club is scheduled to discuss The Girl in the Green Sweater by Chrystyna Chiger.


2013:State Comptroller Joseph Shapira blasted the absence of criminal investigations into illegal settler building and the loss of millions of shekels in uncollected property fees in the West Bank, in a section of the 63rd annual report he submitted to Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein this morning. (As reported by Tovah Lazaroff


2013: Bulgaria's interior minister said today that his country has received additional evidence implicating Hezbollah in the 2012 bus bombing in Burgas that killed five Israeli tourists and their Bulgarian bus driver, Sofia News Agency reported.


2014:The Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center and AJC Chicago’s Latin American Task Force are scheduled to host “a special program recognizing the 20th Anniversary of the attack on the AMIA Jewish Community Center in Buenos Aires that killed 85 and injured hundreds.”


2014: The Historic 6th& I Synagogue is scheduled to host “Jewish Daughter Diaries – Book Club” facilitated by author Rachel Ament.


2014: U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is scheduled to deliver the Jewish Primary Day School of the Nation’s Capital Yitzhak Rabin Memorial Lecture.


 

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

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July 18



64: During the reign of Emperor Nero, the Great Fire begins in Rome.  After the fire, Nero avoided the initial inclination to blame the blaze on the Jews.  Instead, he targeted the nascent Christian sect which had recently become active in the city.  Possibly Nero who saw himself as a god felt personally threatened by Christianity which also worshipped a Divinity who had come to earth in human form.



392: “Emperors Valentinian II, Theodosius I, and Arcadius order that anyone who disturbs the Catholic faith must be exiled.” This edict is actually not aimed at the Jews but at those Christians who deviate from accepted religious principles.  Of course, this use of state power to protect Catholicism is one more indication of the “second class” status that the Jews are having to do deal with.



1195: The Moslem Almohads (‘Proclaimers of the Unity of Allah’) score a great victory over the Christian Catilian King Alfonso VIII at the Battle of Alacros.  The Almohads were a sect of Moslem fundamentalists who invaded the Iberian Peninsula from North Africa.  They were determined to defeat the Christian forces fighting to take Iberia back from the Moslems.  As part of their agenda, the Almohads also punished the Moslems living in Spain for having become ‘soft’ and moderate in their views on Islam.  They also punished the Jews of Spain who lived among the Moslems for being agents of their corruption. Many Jews would flee Spain as the Almodhades consolidated their power, thus marking the end of the Golden Age.  One of those departing because of the Almodhades was Maimonides and his family.



1216: Honorius III, who in 1230 would issue an ordering the Jews of Mayence to pay 1,620 marks if they wanted to avoid being excluded from business dealings with Christians, began his papacy today.



1290: Edward I (England), pressured by his barons, the Church and possibly by his mother, announced the expulsion of all the Jews. The expulsion came on Tisha B’Av, adding to that days list of Jewish sorrows. By November approximately 4000 had fled. The Jews had to pay their own passage, mostly to France. They were allowed to take movables (i.e. clothing). A number of Jews were robbed and cast overboard during the voyage by the ship captains. The Jews did not return to England until 1659. This was the first national expulsion of the Jews.



1658: Leopold I, who relied on the services of Samuel Oppenheimer to help finance his war against the Turks, began his reign as Holy Roman Emperor and King of Germany.



1716: A decree banishing Jews from Brussels was today; but it was not enforced: a gift to the crown overcame all difficulties. A similar decree issued forty years later had the same result. Several Jews received the right of citizenship in Brussels. Among them was one named Philip Nathan, who, in 1783, requested the government to assign a place for a new cemetery for the Jews; the old one, situated near the Porte de Namur, having disappeared in consequence of the dismantling of the fortress1860: A report of the bankruptcy case of Lord William Godolphin Osborne includes a list of his creditors among whom was a “Jew money lender.” 


 
1775: Birthdate of Karl von Rotteck, the German politician and author who opposed Jewish emancipation saying that “the Jew had to be de-Jewified.”



1784: In New York, the Trustees of Shearith Israel met to discuss the expansion of the Jewish cemetery.  After he was re-elected as Chairman, Myer Myers informed his colleagues  that, “Mr. Hayman Levy and Mr. Solomon Simson had bargained with Mr. Isaac Roosevelt for the ground adjacent to the Burying place for eighty pounds, one half to be paid on delivery of the deed, and the other half in twelve months or sooner."“The board voted to purchase the land.”



1800: Birthdate of Daniel Levy Maduro Peixotto.  Born at Amsterdam, this eldest son of Moses Levy Maduro Peixotto gained fame as an American “physician, scholar, author, and philanthropist.”  . He was educated in Curaçao under the direction of Professor Strebeck. He accompanied his father to New York and graduated from Columbia College at the age of sixteen, receiving the degree of Doctor of Medicine in 1819. He was a member of the old Philolexian Society of the college, the membership of which society still includes the names of his descendants. Prior to taking his degree he had entered the office of Dr. David Hosack, at one time physician to George Washington. Peixotto was one of the editors of the "New York Medical and Physical Journal" and of "Gregory's Practice" (1825-26) and was a frequent contributor to the periodicals and newspapers of the day. Later on he edited "The True American," advocating the election of Gen. Andrew Jackson, and he was also connected with the "New York Mirror." Among the many offices held by him were the following: secretary of the Academy of Medicine (1825); physician to the City Dispensary (1827); and president of the New York Medical Society (1830-32); he was also one of the organizers of the Society for Assisting the Widows and Orphans of Medical Men. The title of Professor of the Theory and Practice of Medicine and Obstetrics was given him in 1836, and in the same year he was elected to honorary membership in the Medical Society of Lower Canada. Having accepted the appointment of president of the Willoughby Medical College, he removed to Cleveland, Ohio, where he was dean of the faculty for a number of years. Returning to New York, he resumed his practice there, and continued it until his death in 1843. He married Rachel M. Seixas, the daughter of Benjamin Seixas, March 19, 1823.



1829: Birthdate of Babette Steinhardt the native of Dresden who will become Babette Seligman following her marriage to Joseph Seligman



1838: “In reaction to various political revolts that have given freedom to Jews, Pope Gregory XVI issues an edict critical of how Catholic measures against Jews have fallen by the wayside in recent years.” The Pope wrote: "The unfortunate political events that recently afflicted the Pontifical dominions have produced among other disorders the failure to observe Apostolic Constitutions and the other Edicts regarding the Jews." (As reported by Austin Cline)



1839: Thirty-two year old Marcus and Theresia Lobl gave birth to David Lobl.



 1862:It was reported today that the will of Isidor Bemlord, which has now been admitted to probate, leaves $500 to the Jews' Hospital in New York City.



1864: A review of The History of Friedrich the Second, Called Friedrich the Great by Thomas Carlyle reports that “a closely printed chapter of twenty-two pages is devoted to M. Voltaire’s ‘powerful Jew law-suit,’ a wretched and obsolete stock-jobbing squabble.”



1870: The First Vatican Council decrees the dogma of papal infallibility. The First Vatican Council had been summoned by Pope Pious IX  who repealed certain laws aimed at limiting occupations open to Roman Jews and opened the doors of the Ghetto and yet was also known as the Pope who refused to return Edgardo Mortara and insisted on him being raised as a Catholic.



1871: Birthdate of German chemist Karl von Hirsch, who despite his nobility would die in the Holocaust at Theresienstadt.



1873(23rd of Tammuz, 5633):Sir David Salomons, 1st Baronet, a leading figure in the 19th century struggle for Jewish emancipation in the United Kingdom passed away. . He was the first Jewish Sheriff of the City of London and Lord Mayor of London, and one of the first two Jewish people to serve in the British House of Commons.



1876: At today’s opening session of the American Philological Society in New York, Dr. George R. Entler read a paper on “The Origin of the Hebrew Article” that disputed “the theory that the Hebrew article ‘ha’ has the same origin as the Arabic ‘al.’” According to Entler, “in Hebrew both the article and the conjunction ‘vav’ are derived from the substantive ‘avah’ and connected with the demonstrative pronoun ‘hu.’”



1877(8th of Av, 5637): Erev Tish'a B'Av



1877: Rabbi H. P. Mendes of Manchester, England, officiated at Tisha B’Av services this evening at the synagogue on West 19th Street in New York City.  The only light in the sanctuary came from “four candles on the reading desk and the little tapers” with which the worshippers were provided.  Rabbi Mendes is the newly appointed assistant for Rabbi J.J. Lyons



1877: Judge Hilton denied reports that he was weakening or wavering in what he termed as his ban on “Seligman Jews” from the Grand Union Hotel in Saratoga Springs, NY.



1877: An article published today described the role of M.A. Shaffenburg  a German Jew who had been serving as U.S. Marshal for the Territory of Colorado, in the election of Jerome B. Caffee to the U.S. Senate from Colorado.



1878: It was reported today that Isaac Schwartz who owned a dry goods store on 3rdAvenue in New York filed for bankruptcy today.  He showed liabilities of $10,029 with no assets.



1880(10th of Av, 5640): Since the 9th of Av fell on Shabbat, Tish'a B'Av is observed today.



1881: Sixty-five year old Anglican churchman Arthur Stanley, author of the History of the Jewish Church a three volume work that appeared in 1863, 1865 and 1881, passed away today.



1882: Samuel Obreight, a young Jew who became the subject of a sanity hearing after he married Mary Myers, a Christian, appeared in court today.  The judge decided to release him in the custody of his wife until he can make a final ruling.



1882: Rudolpha Leischinsky, a young Jewish woman recently arrived from Europe, is scheduled to be transferred to the Emigrant Insane Asylum on Ward’s Island today.  She had originally been taken to Bellevue after a failed suicide attempt.



1882: It was reported that Rebbeca Gold, the wife of a Russian Jew committed suicide last night in Athens, GA. The death remains a mystery but she left a mirror and two knives in a cradle by the side of her young infant.



1882: The striking freight handlers continued their efforts to keep foreign born workers away from the docks.  While Italian workers were fed sandwiches, the Russian Jews were getting three meals including a dinner consisting of boil meat prepared by a Jewish cook.  Both groups will be getting $.25 a day as an additional incentive not to cross the picket line.



1883: In Hungary, the court that is trying several Jews on charges that they murdered a Christian girl, Esther Salomossy, went to Tisza Ezlar today where Moritz Scharf was forced to look through the key-hole in the door of the synagogue through which he claims to have seen the murder committed. It was obvious that the witness could have only seen one person at a time and that it was impossible to have seen a group of people.  [In early reports, Scharf claimed that his testimony came only after he had been abused and threatened.]



1884: Four families of Jewish immigrants who are being held at Castle Garden have sent a request of the Commissioners of Emigration to be allowed to “join their friends’ in New York City who are willing to support them so that they will not become “public charges.”



1885: Rebecca Marcus who owns a grocery store on Broome Street charged Solomon Schulman, a Russian born rabbi with larceny in Essex Market Court.  She claimed he came into her store and stole $31.  He denied the charge and said he was in the store to collect the $8 she owed him for tuition.



1887: It was reported today that the Hebrew Standardhas declared that “a diet of crabs and lobsters is not only un-Jewish” it is also unhealthy.



1888: At the bride’s home in St Kilda, Australia, the future Sir Isaac Alfred Isaacsmarried 18-year-old Deborah (Daisy), daughter of Isaac Jacobs, a tobacco merchant who had been president of the St Kilda Hebrew Congregation and in 1889-90 was to be president of the Chamber of Manufactures.



1889(19thof Tammuz, 5649): Sixty-two year old attorney and member of the Reichstag Wolf  Frankenberg passed away today.



1890: As of today, the Sanitarium for Hebrew Children has received $5,132.25 to be used for summer excursions.



1890: “The Secretary of the United Hebrew Charities has learned that the family of Solomon Rasinkoff” which was mistakenly sent back to Europe by the Hamburg Line several weeks ago is now in Russia.  The steamship company has offered to bring the family back to New York if the Hebrew Charities can raise the funds to get them from Russia to the port of Hamburg.



1891: The twenty-three Jews who arrived from Rotterdam aboard the Massadam will be returned to that port by the ship that brought them to the United States. Five other Jews who had arrived from Glasgow will suffer a similar fate.  (This method is part of the government’s plan to make the trafficking in pauper immigrants a losing business proposition for the shipping lines.)



1891: “A dozen or Russians” attacked a Jewish farming settlement four miles from “Veile” burning fourteen of the residents before the remaining victims armed themselves and chased them away.



1891: In a letter to the Washington Star, Simon Wolf explained decision of the Democratic National Convention at Cleveland to adopt a plank for its platform “regarding the Czar’s treatment of the Jews in Russia.”



1892: The governor of Pennsylvania has issued the papers seeking the extradition from Canada  of two Jewish peddlers named Harris and Charley who are accused of killing another peddler in Wyoming County



1892: In his quest to create an anti-cholera vaccine, Dr. Waldemar Haffkine, a Russian born Jew, risked his own life by testing his vaccine for the first time on himself.



1892: Arthur Richard of New York inspected the Jewish colony at Chesterfield, CT.  The colony which is home to forty families and contains hat factory as well as a creamery plant, is the first such colony funded by Baron Hirsch in New England.



1892: “Russian Cruelty In Politics” published today contained Simon Wolf’s explanation “of the appearance in the Democratic platform adopted at Cleveland of the plank regarding the Czar’s treatment of the Jews in Russia.”



1893: Following numerous incidents of Russian Jews attacking and robbing their co-religionists  Alter Shapiro, the Vice President of the Hebrew Protective Society and Solomon Dore allowed themselves to be robbed by the gang and then signaled the police who were waiting to arrest them.



1893: The manager of the Thalia Theatre at 46 Bowery “has declared vengeance” against those who vandalized his theatre on July 15.  The vandals acted in response to a boycott against Isidor Lindemann and his Windsor Theatre by the Hebrew Trade Unions that had spread to the Thalia.



1894: Birthdate of Isaac Emmanuilovich Babel. Born in Odessa, Babel would survive the Pogroms of 1905 and go to become a journalist and author in the Soviet.  Arrested by Stalin, he died in Siberia in 1940.  He would be exonerated after Stalin’s death.



1894: “Sectarian Appropriations” published today provided a breakdown of the excise money collected that had been collected in 1893 and distributed to different charitable organizations including $178, 275 that went to Protestant and Jewish institutions as compared with $609,748.32 to Catholic institutions.



1895: “Col. Waring’s Little Helpers” published today described the formation of a children’s street clean brigade which was formed during a meeting at the Hebrew Institute.



1896(8thof Av, 5656): Shabbat Chazon; in the evening, Tish’a B’av fast begins



1896(8thof Av, 5656): Despite the fact that he had been sick for several weeks and just come from the hospital, 55 year old Charles Liebhaber insisted on fasting as Tish’a B’av began.



1896: First and only meeting between Herzl and Baron Edmond de Rothschild, whose financial sponsorship the Zionist leader was seeking.



1897: “Women Here and There” published today includes a description of a club named after Louisa Mae Alcott located in Boston that was started by Jewish women to provide educational and cultural programs for young Jewish girls including concerts, workshops and “talks on various subjects…of the most elevating tendencies.



1898: The will of the late Jacob Berk was filed for probate in the Surrogate’s office today.



1898: “For Jewish Publications” published described the work of the JPS which includes the recent publications of Dreamers of the Ghetto by Israel Zangwill and “an index volume of Graetz’s History the Jews  as well as the upcoming publication of Jewish Services in the Synagogue and the Home by L.N. Dembitz.



1902: Mark Matveyevich Antokolski, the Litvak who became a world class sculptor was buried in St. Petersburg today.  The train carrying his body from Paris where died made a special stop in his native Wilno before reaching its final destination.



1903: Wenzel von Plehv is ready to receive Herzl. Von Plehv was the Czar’s Minister of the Interior, and like many of his class and nationality, an active anti-Semite.



1906: “The court, all chambers united, gave its judgment. After a lengthy review of the case it declared unanimously that the whole accusation against Dreyfus had been disproved, and it quashed the judgment of the Rennes court-martial sans renvoi. The explanation of the whole case is that Esterhazy and Henry were the real culprits; that they had made a trade of supplying the German government with military documents; and that once the Bordereau was discovered they availed themselves of the anti-Jewish agitation to throw suspicion on Dreyfus” (As reported by Global Security.org)



1906: Birthdate of Clifford Odets, the son of Jewish immigrants born in Philadelphia. He left school at the age of 17 to become an actor. After a series of small parts working in the theatre and on radio, Odets helped form the Group Theatre in New York. Members held left-wing political views and wanted to produce plays that dealt with important social issues. Odets, who joined the American Communist Party in 1934, had his first play produced, "Waiting for Lefty," in 1935. The play that dealt with trade union corruption was an immediate success. With his next two plays, "Awake and Sing!" and "Till the Day I Die," Odets established himself as a champion of the underprivileged. After the production of "Paradise Lost" Odets accepted a lucrative offer to become a film screenwriter and while in Hollywood met and married the actress, Luise Rainer. However, he continued to write plays and with "Golden Boy" (1937) he had his greatest commercial success.  Unlike many writers and actors who had been members of the party, Odets was not blacklisted and continued to work in Hollywood. This included the screenplay for the acclaimed, "Sweet Smell of Success."

1907: In Harrogate (UK), Rose Samson Hart and Simeon Hart gave birth to Herbert Lionel Adolphus Hart (H.L.A. Hart) who became a Professor of Jurisprudence at Oxford and authored numerous legal tomes including The Concept of Law.



1911(22nd of Tammuz, 5671):Rabbi Dr. Hermann Adler CVO, the Chief Rabbi of the British Empire from 1891 to 1911 passed away. The son (and successor as Chief Rabbi) of Nathan Marcus Adler, the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica writes that he "raised the position [of Chief Rabbi] to one of much dignity and importance. “Born in Hanover, like his father, he had both a rabbinical education and a university education in Germany, and like him he subscribed to a modernized Orthodoxy. He attended University College School in London from 1852-54. He graduated at Leipzig; he later received honorary degrees from Scottish and English universities, including Oxford. He was head of a congregation in Bayswater during his father's lifetime, and his father's assistant from the time his father's health began to deteriorate in 1879, before succeeding him on his death in 1891.In 1909 he was appointed a Commander of the Royal Victorian Order. Adler wrote extensively on topics of Anglo-Jewish History and published two volumes of sermons. He was a vigorous defender of his co-religionists and their faith, as well as their sacred Scriptures.



1912: In Minneapolis, Beatrice Hirshler (née Tuchman) and Isadore Henry Levin gave birth to literary critic Harry Tuchman Levin.



1913(13th of Tammuz, 5673):Edward Selig Salomon “a German immigrant to the United States who served as a Union brigadier general in the American Civil War and later became governor of Washington Territory and a California legislator” passed away. In an unusual twist, Salomon fought with Union Armies in the East and the West. He distinguished himself at the Battle of Gettysburg where he had two horses shot out from under him.  He then led his regiment in Sherman’s victorious campaign that led to the capture of Atlanta.  Salomon was appointed to his post as territorial governor of Washington by President Grant which provides further proof that the latter was not an anti-Semite.


1917: A draft of what would become the Balfour Declaration was submitted to Lord Balfour.



1921: In Brooklyn, Solomon Goldman, a jeweler, and the former Sarah Goldstein, who had immigrated from Russia gave birth to “Jacob E. Goldman, a physicist who as Xerox’s chief scientist founded the company’s vaunted Palo Alto Research Center, which invented the modern personal computer…” (As reported by John Markoff)



1922:  Birthdate of American academic and philosopher, Thomas Samuel Kuhn.



1923: Birthdate of William M. Birenbaum, the product of the Waterloo, Iowa school system who became the nationally known university administrator who helped rescue Antioch College from looming insolvency during his tenure as president there in the 1970s and ’80s. (As reported by Margalit Fox)



1924; Birthdate of Boris Lurie, the Russian born American artist who survived the Holocaust and “cofounded the NO!Art movement.



1925:  Adolf Hitler publishes his personal manifesto Mein Kampf.



1928(1stof Av, 5688): Rosh Chodesh Av



1934: The Jewish National Fund Council for Greater New York is sponsoring this evening’s farewell dinner for Bronx dentist and JNF activist Dr. Solomon Deutsch at the Farm Food Vegetarian Restaurant. Dr. Deutsch and his family are making Aliyah. (As reported by JTA)



1934: In one of several efforts by Zionist leaders to reach a compromise with the Arabs, David Ben-Gurion and Dr. Magnes met with Auni Abdul Hadi, the leader of the movement devoted to Palestinian Arab independence.



1934: A lengthy article in a Nazi newspaper attacked Egyptian Jews. The Germans stated some Jewish boys insulted the Swastika flag on the German Consul's car. The paper stated the boys were arrested.



1937(10thof Av, 5697): Tisha B’Av observed because the 9th of Av fell on Shabbat.



1939: The entire Jewish community of Palestine, regardless of political persuasion, participated in a general strike aimed at protesting Colonial Secretary Malcolm MacDonald’s announcement that Jewish immigration would be banned for the next six month.



1940:Chiune Sugihara “a Japanese diplomat who served as Vice-Consul for the Empire of Japan in Lithuania” began issuing life-saving visas to Polish and Lithuanian Jews in violation of instructions from his superiors.



1940: The Florence Times described plans for the arrival of Dr. Leopold Wallach from Stuttgart, Germany who will become the Rabbi at Temple B’Nai Israel in Sheffield, Alabama



1941: “The first news of the Eastern killings reached England through intercepted German police messages which told of the mass shooting of ‘Jews, Jewish plunderers, Jewish bolshevists’…in numbers ranging from a hundred to several thousand at a time.”



1942: SS Captain Theodor Dannecker inspected Camp Gur, the internment facility in southwestern France and order the inmates to prepare for transportation to Eastern Europe.  Unbeknownst to them, this meant Auschwitz.



1942: Nine hundred Jews fled to the woods near Szarkowszczynzna as the Germans entered the town. Six hundred of them did not make it to safety and were killed



1943(15th of Tammuz, 5703): Two hundred slave laborers are murdered at Miedzyrzec, Poland.



1943: One thousand Jews are deported to Auschwitz from Paris



1944: The Jews living on the island of Rhodes were ordered to assemble for what would become a transport of Hungary. The community dated back to 1492, the time of the expulsion of the Jews from Spain.



1947: The British seized the SS Exodus carrying 4000 "illegal" immigrants. Its defiance of the British navy and its ultimate return to Germany formed one of the most dramatic episodes in post-war Jewish history. This was only one of many ships seized, turned around or actually sunk as the Jews defied the British blockade and tried to make their way to Palestine.  This episode gained additional fame because it provided the core for the famous novel and film Exodus.



1947: Dr. Joshua Cohen was among those on board the SS Exodus when it was seized by the British. “With limited medical equipment, Cohen” had “set up impromptu clinics on every deck to care for more than 4,500 passengers, including 655 children.”  Following the seizure of the ship, After the British had seized the ship, Cohen negotiated with the British doctors to have many of the wounded sent by ambulance to Haifa.  Following his experience on the Exodus, Cohen returned to the UK, only to be recruited by the British Army. He eventually returned to Israel and served for four years in the Israeli Medical Corps. Later, he was director general of the Poriya Hospital outside Tiberias, as well as deputy director of Rambam Hospital in Haifa.



1947: Mordechai (Motke) Eldar who had survived Auschwitz, Sachsenhausen, Mauthausen and Gunskirchen and his sisters were among the passengers on the Exodus whom the British would forcibly ship back to Hamburg.   Eldar returned to Tel Aviv a year later. He joined the IDF where he served for thirty years reaching the rank of Colonel.



1948: The HMCS Norsyd, a flower class corvette was re-commissioned today as the INS Haganah



1948: On the final day of Operation Dekel, Israeli forces take the villages Sh’ab and Al-Birwa.



1948: Benjamin (Ben) Dunkelman, a Jewish veteran of the Canadian Army, commanded the 7th Brigade and its supporting units throughout Operation Dekel that came to an end toda.



1948: As part of Operating Death to the Invander, Israeli continued their  offensive in the Negev attacking Egyptian invaders at Hatta and Karatiyya. After initial Israeli success, the Egyptians counter-attacked with tanks.  An Israeli soldier named Ron Feller risked his life in a successful effort to destroy two of the tanks using a hand held anti-tank weapon for which he had only two rounds. He received the Hero of Israel Citation for his bravery.



1948:  A fourth and final attack by Israelis on the fortress of Latrun failed.  Latrun would remain in the hands of Jordan’s Arab Legion until 1967. 



1948: Israeli forces take Ayin Karem ending the threatened Egyptian invasion of Jerusalem.



1948: During the War of Independence, after ten days of fighting (July 8- July 18), a second truce went into effect.


1948: As of today, the entire lower Galilee from Haifa Bay to the Sea of Galilee was under Israeli control.


1948:  Over the next thirty-six hours, Dr. Stanley Levin, a volunteer surgeon from South Africa “performed 28 successive surgeries” without stopping for a break.



1948: Modi Alon scored his third aerial victory today when he shot down a Royal Egyptian Air Force Spit fired piloted by Wing Commander Said Afifi al-Janzuri.  The Spitfire had been the backbone of the RAF during the Blitz in 1940.  Alon had received served in the RAF during the war but had flown the American made P-51.



1948: Birthdate of Graham Spanier who was forced to resign as President of Penn State University for his role in the school’s sex abuse scandal.



1951:The Jerusalem Post reported that while the Knesset voted for equal rights for women, the word ba'al (the word for husband which literally means also a master) was replaced with ish (man, meaning husband as well). The Women's Equal Rights Bill was unanimously opposed at the annual conference of four Israeli kadis (Moslem religious officials), held in Jerusalem. The kadis, however, eased the divorce laws for separated wives. Henceforth Israel's Arab women whose husbands were abroad would become eligible to remarry, if they wished to press divorce proceedings.



1952(25thof Tammuz, 5712) Sixty-seven year old Ben-Zion Poljakoff passed away in Helsinki, Finland.



1967:Germaine Ribière, a French Catholic member of the Resistance born in 1917 “was recognized as a Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem.
http://www1.yadvashem.org/yv/en/righteous/stories/ribiere.asp



1970: Menahem Eini was taken prisoner when his F-4E Phantom II was shot down during the War of Attrition.



1970(14th of Tammuz, 5730): Shmuel Hetz was killed when his F-4E Phantom II was shot down during the War of Attrition.



1976:The Jerusalem Post reported that during his electoral campaign, Jimmy Carter, the US presidential candidate, announced that he believed strongly that "Israel made enough concessions, and it was time that Arabs made some." In Montreal, an angry walkout by most large African nations scarred the opening of the biggest, costliest and most controversial Olympic Games in history. The African nations pulled out after the International Olympic Committee rejected their demand to bar New Zealand because of its sporting links with South Africa. Taiwan also pulled out from the Olympics after Canada ruled that it could not take part under the name of the "Republic of China." extensive readership survey



1976: Eight Israelis and three Palestinians were injured today when a bomb was exploded aboard a bus in Tel Aviv today.



1978: Egyptian & Israeli officials begin 2 days of talks.



1979:A fifteen-day conference co-sponsored by Sarah Lawrence, the Women's Action Alliance and the Smithsonian Institution, began on this date at Sarah Lawrence College. Intended for female leaders, it was attended by a diverse range of participants representing 43 different women's organizations.The institute was organized by Sarah Lawrence professor Gerda Lerner One of the pioneers of women's history, Lerner hoped to introduce a diverse group of varied backgrounds to the possibilities of women's history. Lerner described the 15-day course as equivalent to a semester-long seminar. In addition to ongoing afternoon workshops and evening cultural events, each morning's program featured one lecture by the seminar instructors. Joining Lerner as the principle instructors were Alice Kessler-Harris and Amy Swerdlow, both pioneering feminists and women's historians.



1982(27th of Tammuz, 5742): Eighty-five year old “Roman Jakobson, an internationally known authority on Slavic languages and literatures” passed away today at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston which was not far from his home  in Cambridge, Mass. 
http://www.nytimes.com/1982/07/23/obituaries/roman-jackson-a-scholar-of-linguistics-is-dead.html?scp=5&sq=Roman+Jakobson&st=nyt&pagewanted=print



1982: The first congress of the European Association for Jewish Studies opened today at Herford College Oxford.



1983(8th of Av, 5743): Erev Tish'a B'Av



1989(15th of Tammuz, 5749): Twenty-one year old model and actress Rebeca Schaeffer was murdered by an “obsessed fan who had been stalking her for three years.”



1994(10th of Av, 5754):In Buenos Aires a car bomb exploded outside the building housing the AMIA, the Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina (Argentine Israelite Mutual Association, or AMIA) building killing 85 people and wounding more than 200 others in what remains the most deadly anti-Semitic incident anywhere since World War II and came two years after 29 people died in a similar attack on the Israeli Embassy in Argentina.



1995: Ehud Barak succeeded David Libai as Interior Minister.



1995: “Three teenagers were crushed to death by a falling gate during a farewell concert by the popular band Mashina” at the Hebrew Music Festival in Arad.



1997(13th of Tammuz, 5757):Sir James Goldsmith, a flamboyant British-French financier who maintained three families, homes in four countries and used his billions to fight the European Union, passed away today at the age of 64 after having battled pancreatic cancer for four years.  His father was Jewish.  His mother was not. Sir James made his fortune as a highly successful corporate raider before turning to politics. He formed his own Referendum Party in Britain with the single mission of combatting further European integration while maintaining a seat from France in the European Parliament in Strasbourg. Although his party polled over 800,000 votes in the British elections in May, it did not win a single seat in the House of Commons. Born into a prosperous banking family, Sir James went on to amass a personal fortune estimated at up to $2.5 billion. Having frequented luxurious hotels in his youth, he briefly flirted with the idea of working in one, but soon turned to finance, excelling in the art of taking over troubled companies. He was a brilliant investor of his profits too and accurately forecast the American stock market crash of 1987, turning his assets into cash just before the market plunged. In the United States, he was best known for his 1986 raid on the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company, which became an issue in Congressional hearings on takeovers.



1999: The New York Times reviews books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including “Spinoza: A Life” by Steven Nadler.



2001: Daniel C. Kurtzer presented his credentials as U.S. Ambassador to Israel.



2002(9thof Av, 5762): Tish’a B’Av



2002(9thof Av, 5762): Twenty-one year old Yocheved Ben-Hanan of Emmanuel died today of wounds she suffered when a terrorist attacked Dan bus #189.



2004: At the Teatro dell'Opera di Roma,  the fifth and final performance of the Biblical opera "Nabucco" by Giuseppe Verdi in which acclaimed Israeli theatre and opera director Jacobo Kaufmann,  directs and designs the scenery. He is the first Israeli ever to be hired to direct an opera in Italy.



2004: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including the recently released paperback edition of “In Praise of Nepotism:: A History of Family Enterprise From King David to George W. Bush” by Adam Bellow, the son of novelist Saul Bellow, who succeeds in canvassing much of Western history (not to mention Confucian and Hindu traditions) to argue that kinship is ''both natural and necessary.''



2004:With President Néstor Kirchner looking on, Argentine Jewish leaders today marked the 10th anniversary of a deadly anti-Semitic attack here by delivering blistering attacks on his predecessors and European institutions they say have blocked efforts to bring the perpetrators to justice. The bombing killed 85 people and wounded about 300 at a Jewish recreation and education center, commonly known as AMIA, its Spanish initials. Though a group of police officers are on trial for having procured the vehicle in which the bomb was placed, Argentina has been thwarted in efforts to prosecute Iranian government officials it says organized the attack.In a sharp speech, Abraham Kaul, the president of the community group, criticized Britain's refusal to allow the extradition of a former Iranian ambassador to Argentina who was indicted here last year, and also complained about a lack of cooperation in Switzerland in determining how the attack was financed. ''They have betrayed us,'' Mr. Kaul said. But the harshest criticisms were reserved for Carlos Saúl Menem, who was president of Argentina at the time of the bombing and has been accused by a defector from Iranian intelligence of having deliberately undermined the official inquiry into the attack. Mr. Menem is now living in self-imposed exile in neighboring Chile rather than submitting to questioning in relation to corruption charges pending against him here.'' Carlos Menem is the culprit and is a criminal fugitive,'' said Marina Degtiar, who spoke on behalf of relatives of the victims. Because of Mr. Menem's efforts to cover up the case, she said, ''so many facts still lie with impunity beneath the ruins.'' There has long been resentment here over the botched investigation, but the anger has grown in recent months as a result of the train bombings that killed 190 people in Madrid in March. Although the Spanish government initially blamed the attack on Basque separatists, its ability to identify and apprehend fairly quickly the people suspected of being Islamic militant organizers has been repeatedly contrasted here with the Argentine government's ineptitude or unwillingness to act. In recent months, there has also been talk here of seeking ''a Lockerbie solution,'' in which Argentina would relinquish some of its legal claims so that the accused Iranians could stand trial in a third country. But Iran, which threatened to ''adopt appropriate measures'' if Argentina did not revoke the indictments, has offered no indication it is interested in such a deal. With the recent release of government documents, ordered by Mr. Kirchner, Jewish community groups are also pushing for a belated investigation into a Syrian link to the attack. Among the questions they have raised is why Mr. Menem, himself of Syrian descent, allowed various Syrian citizens who were then under surveillance to leave Argentina in the wake of the bombing, including one who is said to be a cousin of Hafez al-Assad, who was then the president of Syria. Mr. Kirchner, who took office 14 months ago, is the first Argentine president to attend the annual AMIA ceremonies. In April, he described the unsolved case as such ''a national disgrace'' that it required him to ''find the historical truth,'' and on Sunday he was hugged, kissed and greeted with cries of ''keep on pushing, Mr. President,'' by relatives of many of the victims. But his wife, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, generated criticism last week when in an interview with a local Jewish publication she suggested that some Jewish leaders aided in the cover-up. Mrs. Kirchner, a prominent senator and member of a legislative commission that also investigated the bombing, was understood to be referring to an ally of Mr. Menem who controlled a financially troubled bank that received questionable government support. Mr. Kirchner is scheduled to meet Monday with members of a delegation representing the American Jewish Committee. In an interview, David A. Harris, executive director of the group, said resolving the AMIA case will ''require extraordinary political will and courage'' and urged Mr. Kirchner ''to translate good intentions into concrete results.''''That is going to be a mountain of a challenge,'' Mr. Harris said. ''It's late in the day.''



2005: The second in the three part National Geographic Special based Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond aired tonight on PBS.



2005: Rabbi Aaron Sherman officially assumes the pulpit at Temple Judah in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. 



2006: The following were among a total of 43 Israeli civilians (including four who died of heart attacks during rocket barrages) and 116 IDF soldiers were killed in the Israel-Hizbullah war:Andrei Zelinsky, 36, of Nahariya.



2007: The 93rdannual national Hadassah Convention comes to an end.



2008: In Cedar Rapids, Iowa, weather permitting, Temple Judah is scheduled to celebrate Friday night Shabbat Services in the new Silber Family Outdoor Sanctuary.



2008: Arad police, in a rare incident, shot dead a man threatening to kill his ex-wife with a knife



2008: In an article entitled “The Floods of 2008,” George C. Ford describes the impact of the worst natural disaster in the history of Cedar Rapids on the Siegel family, who has been prominent members of the business community for over six decades and pillars of the Jewish community.



Sixty-eight years after Siegel’s Jewelry & Loan opened in downtown Cedar Rapids, the business was forced to relocate following last month’s flooding. Ken Siegel and his brother, Jary, who operated the store at 105 Third Ave. SE, signed a lease for a vacant store at 3525 First Ave. SE within days after learning the extent of the damage to their business.“When we were finally allowed back into downtown to check our business on June 16, we found the windows were broken and blackened,” Ken Siegel said. “Looking inside the store, we saw the walls were buckled in, display cases had been flipped upside down and torn apart and there was really complete devastation.” Although Jary Siegel and store employees had moved merchandise like plasma televisions and guitars from the basement to the top of the showcases on the first floor, the floodwaters destroyed virtually everything but jewelry stored in two safes. “All of our retail jewelry and diamonds were stored in the safes,” Ken Siegel said. “Unfortunately, the safes had digital locks that were shorted out by the floodwaters and we were stuck for about a week. We looked all over the country for someone to get the safes open until Jeremy at John’s Lock & Key in Cedar Rapids was able to get them open.” Siegel said more than 3,000 envelopes containing diamonds and other jewelry had to be opened by hand.“We had between 10 and 12 people cleaning the jewelry, matching the diamonds with certificates, creating new paperwork and cataloging each item,” he said. “We also had about 3,000 or 4,000 DVDs in our inventory. We were able to recover about 2,000, but we had to throw away the cases because they were submerged. “We literally lost thousands of items. I would estimate that we lost at least $250,000 worth of merchandise.” Cy Christenson, 92, who has repaired watches at Siegel’s since 1976, lost all of his tools as well as “enough parts and crystals for five shops,” according to Siegel. “We’re still recovering customers’ watches left for repair.” Siegel said getting the business up and running was a priority.“We’re in essence like a bank, so if a bank closes, customers get upset when they can’t get their money,” he said. “We’re also a loan institution as well, so we had hundreds of people calling to find out if they could get their merchandise.” Siegel said customers who pawned merchandise other than jewelry likely will not be able to redeem their items.
 “The national pawn contract says that we’re not responsible for catastrophic events like fire and floods,” he said. “We have insurance for everything but flooding.” Siegel said customers who pawned merchandise usually were loaned anywhere from 50 percent to 60 percent of the value when it was pawned.“Most of the customers we have talked with have been very understanding,” he said.Asked if the business will return to the building it bought in 2005 after being a tenant for 65 years, Siegel does not have an answer.“We’re trying to rescue a $500,000 investment,” he said.“We would like to go back downtown. We love the downtown area, but we will have to see what develops over the next few years.”



2009: Fifteenth anniversary of the AMIA bombing attack.  The following was sent to us by an anonymous Argentine Jew whose pain has not been dimmed by the passing of time.



The AMIA Bombing was an attack on the Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina (Argentine Israelite Mutual Association, or AMIA) building in Buenos Aires on July 18, 1994, that killed 85 people. Carried out under Carlos Menem's presidency (1989-1999), it was Argentina's deadliest bombing. Argentina is home to a Jewish community of 200,000, the largest in Latin America. It was one of the Largest Attacks against Jews after the holocaust. I'm an Argentine Jew, not only I've lost people close to my life in this attack but our lives as Jews in Argentina changed forever, we lost everything we had, including our voices. As we continue to hear the silence of the international community and the lack of care of our own community. Now isn’t it sad to read the level of ignorance that the Jewish community worldwide has about this. I have questioned myself every year, why? Why would people care so little about this? They attacked us for not only being Jews but as they see us as a way to attack Israel, so at least for that basic reason, even if you don't care about the Jews in Argentina, don't you care about an attack towards Israel? Even if Israelis didn't die.. We died due to that... As every year not only I ask tons of people if they know about this day, and obviously they are totally ignorant, Do you think you might have a little place in your heart to remind yourselves that we as well represent the Jewish population, that 85 people died and 300 severely injured and put this solemn day of remembrance in your little calendar... I'd say just for respect. Just at least for respect even if you don't care....I'm the daughter of a holocaust survivor... the same way I remember all of my family and all of the victims of the holocaust, I as well make a very special place in my heart to remember the AMIA and the Bombing of the Israeli embassy in Argentina. And we still don't have support, and we still don't have justice, and still the world continues to ignore our cries of help....Shame shame, shame on ignorance... shame that people just don't care.



[Ed. Note; We hope that by publishing this as it was written, we have in some small way atoned for previous failure to note this tragic event in our people’s history.  Zachor – Remember and remember we will.]



2009: The Jerusalem Film Festival features a screening of Harlan-In the Shadow of the Jew Suss.

2009(26th of Tammuz, 5769): Eighty-four year old Anglo-Jewish  actress Jill Balcon passed away today.
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/jul/20/jill-balcon-obituary



2010: In Bethlehem, PA, table games began today at a casino owned by Sheldon Adelson



2010:Controlled Chaos and Brawny Braininess Watcha Clan with Charming Hostess” are scheduled to appear on the final day of the 25th Annual Jewish Music Festival in San Francisco.



2010:  The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including   Where I Live:New and Selected Poems 1990-2010 by Maxine Kumin, the Phildelphia born Jewish poet.



2010:Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu leaves for Egypt today to discuss with President Hosni Mubarak the possibility of launching direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is also due to meet with Mubarak in Cairo.



2010:Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu today said he opposes the conversion bill proposed by Yisrael Beiteinu, which would give sole authority over Israel's conversions to the Chief Rabbinate, saying it will "tear apart the Jewish people."

2011: In an article published today entitled “Roseanne’s New Reality” the aging Jewish born comedian reveals that “every Friday night for Shabbat from sundown until 2 a.m., she gets high, drinks red wine, and does a meditation Rav Berg taught her.”



2011: In an article published today entitled “Egypt’s Rising Power” examined the career of Amr Moussa the leading candidate to be the next President of Egypt. What his “supporters love most “about him “is his long and vocal history of anti-Israel diatribes.” 

2011:A 50-year-old Jewish man from the Beit Zayit suburb of Jerusalem was arrested by police today afternoon on suspicion of being responsible for the forest fire in Jerusalem

2011:The Malaysian government-backed newspaper said in an editorial that foreign Jewish groups will try to use a current push for reform to interfere in the country.

2012: Center for Jewish History and American Jewish Historical Society are scheduled to present screenings of “Hester Street” and “Sweatshop Cinderella.”



2012: The Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center is scheduled to present “A Magical Eve with James Conlon” during which the Music Director of the Ravinia Festival and Executive Director of the OREL Foundation. Maestro Conlon will share insights about his "Breaking the Silence" series featuring music from composers whose work had been silenced by the Nazis. Musical accompaniment will be provided by Janai Brugger and Miah Im



2012: One year from today, on July 18, 2013, the Maccabiah Games are scheduled to open at Teddy Stadium in Jerusalem



2012: In New Orleans, a three week program of continuing education styled “The World of Fiddler on the Roof” is scheduled to begin tonight with “Marc Chagall’s World.”



2012(28thof Tammuz, 5772): One-hundred two year old Rabbi Yosef Shalom Eliashiv passed away today. (As reported by Matti Friedman)
http://www.timesofisrael.com/rabbi-elyashiv-a-relentless-torah-scholar-whose-strict-rulings-sought-to-resist-modernity/



2012(28thof Tammuz, 5772).Seven people were killed and 32 injured when a bomb exploded on an Israeli tourist bus at the airport of the Bulgarian city of Burgas today, the 18th anniversary of the Iran-sponsored attack on the AMIA Jewish center in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Six of the victims died on the spot, and the seventh in the hospital following the attack, Bulgarian officials confirmed. Two of the victims were said to be Bulgarian -- the bus driver and tour guide.(As reported by Yaakov Katz, Herb Keinon, Yaakov Lappin)



2012: Seven people have been killed, and 30 injured — including three critically — by a bomb that exploded on a bus carrying an Israeli tour group from its plane to the terminal inside Bulgaria’s Bourgas airport this evening.



2013: In Waukee, Iowa is scheduled to sponsor “Keeping The Homeland Safe: Israel and Iowa Together” featuring Sheriffs Paul A. Fitzgerald, Ted Kamatchus and Bill McCarthy.



2013: The late André Tchaikowsky's opera The Merchant of Venice is scheduled to be premiered at the Bregenz Festival,[



2013: In New Orleans, “The World of Fiddler on the Roof” a three part program sponsored by Reform Congregation Gates of Prayer and Orthodox Congregation Beth Israel is scheduled to begin this evening with “Marc Chagall’s World.”  For more see Crescent City Jewish News the place to go for news about the Jewish community of Greater New Orleans



2013: A U.S. State Department official said today there are no plans to announce a resumption of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks after the Israeli government denied that it agreed to base new talks on the 1967 lines. (As reported by Lazar Berman)



2013: The Israeli Antiquities Authority issued a press release announcing the “discovery” of archaeological remains identified as King David’s Palace.
http://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/news/king-david%E2%80%99s-palace-at-khirbet-qeiyafa/



2013: The 19th quadrennial Maccabiah Games started in grand fashion at Teddy Kollek Stadium tonight, bolstered by tens of thousands of enthusiastic spectators, and more than 9,000 of the most talented Jewish athletes in the world. (As reported by Daniel K. Eisenbud)



2014: As of this morning, Israeli time, the IDF has begun a limited incursion into Gaza designed to destroy a series of tunnels and other terrorist infrastructure.
 
2014: The Historic 6th& I Synagogue is scheduled to a host the “6th Street Minyan” followed by ice cream, challah and wine.


 

 

 

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

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July 19



64: During the reign of Nero, The Great Fire at Rome comes to end. According to the Jewish Encyclopedia, Jews had been living in Rome since the second century before the Common Era since  “the pretor Hispanus issued a decree expelling all Jews who were not Italian citizens” in 139 BCE. “Under Nero the Jews of Rome had a comparatively peaceful time, owing to the favorable attitude of the empress Poppæa Sabina” a situation that would change the aftermath of the Great Revolt that would begin in two years.



362: The Roman Emperor Julian, known to Christians as Julian the Apostate, left Constantinople and arrived in Antioch to prepare for the invasion of Persia.  While preparing for the invasion he met Jewish leaders to whom he promised he would re-build the Temple.  Julian’s short reign would come to an end in the following year and nothing came of his plans for the Third Temple.



711:  Muslim forces under Tariq ibn Ziyad defeat the Christian Visigoths led by their king Roderic at the Battle of Guadalete.  This decisive Moorish victory was the key to the Moslems establishing their rule over the Iberian Peninsula.  Jews living in Christian Spain had suffered under the Visigoths and helped the Moors.  The Battle of Gaudalete was one of the events that led to the five century period known as the Golden Age of Spain for the Jewish people.



1195: In Spain the Almohades defeat the Christians under Alfonso I of Toledo. The Jews of Toledo had willingly helped to finance the impoverished Alfonso in his fight against the Almohades despite recent anti-Jewish violence that had claimed the life if Abraham Ibn-David among others. 



1385 (10th of Av): Rabbi Menachem ben Aaron ibn Zerah, author of Zeidah la-Derekh passed away.



1490: Yucef Franco, aged 20, a cobbler who had been arrested by the Inquisition, along with his 80 year old father at the beginning of the month, fell ill.  He asked the doctor who was treating him if he would arrange for a Rabbi to visit him.



1510: In Brandenburg, Prussia, Joachim the Elector burned 38 Jews at the stake on a charge of desecrating the host. Another two accepted Christianity and were mercifully beheaded.



1588: The Spanish Armada was spotted off the coast of Cornwall but the English could not do anything about it since their fleet “was trapped in Plymouth Harbor by the incoming tide.” (In an era when people think they have overcome nature in times of war, it is humbling to remember that there was a time when the future of religious freedom was at the mercy of the tides and the winds)



1785: Birthdate of Mordecai Manuel Noah, the native Philadelphian who, according to some “was the most influential Jew in the United States in the early 19th Century.” Educated as a lawyer in Charleston, South Carolina, Noah settled in New York where he was a politician, newspaper editor, diplomat and the visionary who wanted to create a Jewish colony in New York called Ararat.  (Jewish Virtual Library)

1797:While visiting Amsterdam, Moses Levy Maduro Peixotto, a rabbi and merchant born in Curaçao, married Judith Lopez Salzedo.  Eventually Peixotto would settle in the United States where he served as the head of Congregation Shearith Israel



1817: “Romilda e Costanza,” an opera composed by Giacomo Meyerbeer premiered in Padua, Italy



1821: George IV is crowned King of Great Britain and Ireland. King George would actively oppose legislation introduced in the 1830’s designed to grant Jews full rights of civil and political citizenship.



1834: In Williamsport, KY, Abraham Jonas and Louisa Block gave birth to Benjamin Jonas who was served as a U.S. Senator from Louisiana, making him the third Jew to serve in that legislative body. (All three of them came from southern states – 2 from Louisiana and one from Florida.)



1849: In Islington, London, Samuel Meldola and his wife gave birth to their only , Raphael Meldola who served as Professor of Organic Chemistry at the University of London and invented Meldola’s Blue Dye.



1863: Birthdate of Hermann Bahr, the Austrian author and critic who sued the Jewish journalist Karl Kraus because he felt had been unfairly attacked in Die Fackel (The Torch) a newspaper founded and published by Kraus.



1865: Birthdate of Yisroel Aaron Fishel, the native of Meretz (Russia) who came to the United States at the age of 20 where he gained fame and fortune as Harry Fishel, New York businessman and supporter of numerous Jewish causes.  In 1931 he founded The Harry Fischel Institute for Talmudic Research. He passed away in 1948.



http://fischelfoundation.org/about_bio3.htm



1866: In San Francisco, William J. Mack and Rebecca M. (Tandler) Mack, gave birth to Julian Mack the distinguished  jurist who was a leader of the American Jewish community who attended the Peace Conference with Woodrow Wilson and was an advocate for a Jewish state in Palestine.



1870:  The Franco-Prussian War begins when Napoleon III declares war on the Germans.  The two states were each looking to be the dominant power in Europe.  The immediate cause of the conflict was a clash over who would rule Spain.  The war, which ended in May, 1871, was a total disaster for the French.  In addition to the general humiliation of having her capital occupied by the Prussians, the French were force to give up the provinces of Alsace and Lorraine and to pay a large indemnity to the German state.  This loss of territory and the desire to avenge the humiliation of 1870 were part of the causes of World War I. “A number of Jews, including Jules Moch and Leopold See, attained high rank in the French army. See later became Secretary General of the Ministry of the Interior. The war also marked the beginning of Rabbis serving as chaplains in the German army.” After the War, Many Jewish families preferred to emigrate from Alsace and Lorraine rather than be under German rule.



1870: A “Hebrew clothier” from Albany was taken to court today by his maid who claimed he had prevented her from carrying away her clothing despite the fact that he owed her for two years in back wages.



1874: Har Sinai, a Reform Congregation in Baltimore, Maryland, unanimously elected Joseph Meyer of Cleveland to serve as its rabbi.




1877(9th of Av, 5637): Tish'a B'Av;



1877: “The Fast of AAB,” published in today’s New York Times reported that “Today is the ninth day of Aab” the fast marking “the anniversary of the temple and of Jerusalem. The reformed Israelites have abandoned the observance, but it is held in veneration and kept by both orthodox Jews, both in Europe and America with fasting and gloomy services…Today is the 1,825thanniversary of the second destruction of the temple.”



1877: At sunset, with the end of Tisha B’Av the black crepe draperies will be removed from the pulpit and furniture at the synagogue on West 19th Street in New York and the usual lighting will be returned to the structure.



1880: It was reported today that the August edition of the Atlantic Monthly will include “The Preceptor of Moses” in which Francis H. Underwood “reconstructs a chapter of Hebrew History.” [Underwood was an American biographer who founded the Atlantic Monthly as part of the fight against slavery.  In its comments about the article, the Uitca (NY) Gazette, said that it should been included as a work of fiction since “it does not possess any particular value as a historical study.”



1881: Two thousand people attended an “anti-Jewish” meeting in Berlin today.



1882: As the Freight Handler’s Strike continued, today was a bad day for the Russian Jews.  An extra detachment of police had to be called out protect the Jews from the strikers at one of the piers in Jersey City while 35 Jews were fired at the Star Union Pier in New York. 



1883: In Kraków, William Fleischer, a tailor and his wife gave birth to Max Fleischer, pioneer animator and film producer.



1884(26thof Tammuz): Mayer Schutz, passed away today at the Brighton Beach Hotel on Coney Island.  Born in Bavaria in 1814, he came to the United States in 1840 where he “made his fortune” in the wholesale dry goods business.  He retired fifteen years so he could devote himself  “to charitable and benevolent work” including membership in the Hebrew Benevolent Society, serving as a director of the Hebrew Orphan Asylum and the Mount Sinai Hospital and holding the Presidency of Rodef Sholom.  [All glory is fleeting]



1884: Wolf Finkelstein is being held Ward’s Island until arrangements can be made to send him back to Russia. The Jewish immigrant has a brother in Chicago who is a peddler but there is no means of getting him there and thus avoid being “a public charge.”



1885: It was reported today that among the new rules that theatrical director Heinrich Conried has imposed on the performers of the Casino Company is one that states, “Any principle member seen talking with a rival manager will be regarded…as lukewarm to the present management” and “will subject himself to being talked about in Hebrews.” [Note - No explanation is given for this apparently odious use of the language of the Bible.  Conried was no crackpot since he would later serve as director the Metropolitan Opera.  He was from a Jewish family in Silesia, so this may have been his way of saying they would be subject to verbal abuse that they would not understand.]



1885: In Portugal, Maria Angelina Ribeiro de Abranches de Abreu Castelo-Branco and José de Sousa Mendes gave birth to José de Sousa Mendes the Portuguese diplomat who defied his government and issued visas to 30,000 people fleeing the Nazis in 1940 including 12,000 Jews.



1887: A free excursion for underprivileged Jewish children sponsored by the Sanitarium for Hebrew Children and partially underwritten by the staff of the Hebrew Journal will take place today.



1887:Louis Keptlovwitch a Jewish immigrant working as a printer in upstate New York was arrested today after his wife and child arrived  today.  The charge was bigamy.  It seems that Mr. Keptlovwitch had forgotten about his Polish family and had married a Jewish woman from Newburg, NY. 



1888: The third free excursion sponsored by the Sanitarium for Hebrew Children will leave at nine o’clock this morning from a pier at 5th Street and the East River.  [There were usually three such boat trips each summer intended to get poor little children and their mothers out of the tenements on the Lower East Side. These Jewish efforts mirrored the work of Julia Hull.]



1891: “Famine In Russia” published today expressed the fear that Czar may cope with the problem in the traditional manner, starting a war with a nation on one of its borders.  The French are trying to calm the situation by extending credit but they are being hampered by the hostility of “all the great Jewish financial houses in Western Europe” brought by the shameful persecution of the Jews.



1891: “Aid For A Worthy Charity” published today described the excursions that the Sanitarium for Hebrew Children is offering on a weekly bases “to poor Jewish women and children.” Approximately 700 people take part in each outing which includes two “substantial meals” for each of the travelers.



1892: Coroner Lindsay attempted to hold an inquest to determine the cause of death for Berhr Israelson, whom the doctors said died of apoplexy but whom the Jews living in the building said died after being clubbed by a police officer named Clarke.



1895: The Children’s Street Cleaning Brigade is scheduled to have its second meeting tonight at the Hebrew Institute.



1895: Sydney James Stern, the eldest son of Viscount David de Stern “was raised to the peerage as Baron Wandsworth, of Wandsworth in the County of London.”



1895: The funeral of Simon M. Erhlich, the Chief Justice of the City Court, is scheduled to take place at Temple Emanu-El this morning.



1896(9thof Av, 5656): Tish’a B’av



1896(9thof Av, 5656): Fifty-five year old Charles Liebhaber, who had just gotten out of the hospital, passed away today while attending services at Congregation Tifereth Israel on 126 Allen Street in New York.



1897: Birthdate of Theresa Wolfson, professor of economics and labor relations at Brooklyn College. Born in Brooklyn just three years after her parents had emigrated from Russia, she earned her bachelor's degree at Adelphi College (1917). During college, she spent a summer investigating wage standards in the New York garment industry; it was the beginning of a long career in labor relations. After her graduation from Adelphi, Wolfson took a position as a health worker in New York City, then worked for the National Child Labor Committee, investigating child labor across parts of the South and Midwest. Then, from 1920 to 1922, Wolfson served as executive secretary of the New York State Consumers League, where she lobbied for minimum wage and maximum hour legislation. For her M.A. degree (1924) at Columbia University, Wolfson conducted a study of posture, lighting, and fatigue in New York's garment factories. After Columbia, Wolfson became director of education at the Union Health Center of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union. At the same time, she conducted research on the barriers to organizing women workers; this research, published in 1926, brought Wolfson her Ph.D. from the Brookings Institution. Wolfson joined the faculty of the Brooklyn branch of Hunter College in 1928. When this branch became Brooklyn College soon thereafter, Wolfson helped to develop the curricular and organizational design of the new institution. Her scholarly work also took her into public life. She served on the public panel of the War Labor Board (1942 to 1945), was involved in the New York State Board of Mediation (1946-1953) and the Kings Country Council Against Discrimination (1949-1953), and served as president of the New York chapter of the Industrial Relations Research Association. She won the John Dewey Award from the League for Industrial Democracy in 1957 for her work in mediating labor disputes. Throughout her career, Wolfson combined academic expertise with a concrete approach to the workings and status of labor unions and to the dynamics of gender in labor and labor organizing. Combining research and social action, her focus on worker education was designed to break down barriers to the advancement of women in the workplace and gender inequality within trade unions. Wolfson believed that a worker's ability to deal effectively with society depended on a sound education. Thus, in addition to her scholarly teaching and writing, she also taught in non-academic settings, including classes for the International Ladies Garment Workers Union, the Summer School for Office Workers, and, after her retirement, for a continuing education program at Sarah Lawrence College. Theresa Wolfson died on May 14, 1972 at the age of 74. A scholarship in her name allows a Brooklyn College student to pursue graduate studies in labor economics each year.



1897: Sir John Skelton who was appointed by Benjamin Disraeli to serve as secretary of the Scottish Board of Supervision passed away.



1898: "Novelist Emile Zola fled France after being convicted of libel against the French Army in the...Dreyfus affair."  Zola had written a famous letter to the newspaper entitled "J'Accuse" (I Accuse).  The letter exposed the conspiracy at the highest level of the French military establishment to convict Dreyfus and then to cover up the fact that he another officer was guilty of crime of which Dreyfus had been accused. 



1898: A list of bequests by the late Jacob Berk published today including $1,000 each to the Montefiore Home, the Hebrew Orphan Asylum, Mount Sinai Hospital, the Hebrew Technical Institute and the Home of the Independent Order of B’nai B’rith at Yonkers, NY.



1908:  Emma Goldman's personal manifesto, "What I Believe," was published by the New York World. The first paragraph began as follows. "It is too bad that we no longer live in the times when witches were burned at the stake or tortured to drive the evil spirit out of them. For, indeed, Emma Goldman is a witch! True, she does not eat little children, but she does many worse things. She manufactures bombs and gambles in crowned heads. B-r-r-r!" Thus ran the first paragraph of Emma Goldman's personal manifesto, "What I Believe," written in response to "widespread public misconceptions about anarchism," the article systematically combated slanders against Goldman and outlined her anarchist approach to issues of property, government, militarism, free speech, the church, marriage and love, and violence. Born on June 27, 1869, in Lithuania, Goldman experienced the czar's Anti-Semitic policies and economic instability, which forced her family to move from Lithuania to Prussia and then to Russia in search of economic stability. These displacements and her distaste for the role of women in traditional Jewish families led Goldman to immigrate to America when she was sixteen. While working as a garment worker she became involved in the labor movement. Most tellingly, the trial, conviction, and execution, on specious evidence, of a group of anarchists for an 1886 bombing in Haymarket Square in Chicago inspired her to become an anarchist activist. In "What I Believe," Goldman sought to explain and defend her struggle for "freedom in the large sense of the word" through anarchism. The struggle for universal freedom served as the basis for her radical critique of property and capitalism: "It is the private dominion over things that condemns millions of people to be mere nonentities ... who pile up mountains of wealth for others and pay for it with a gray, dull and wretched existence for themselves." Since in her opinion government did nothing to further individual liberty or social harmony, Goldman saw it as nothing more than a protector of property and monopoly, and thus as an obstacle to freedom. Goldman's article also spoke out against the growing tendency of militarism that she viewed as "the most merciless, heartless and brutal [spirit] in existence." She stood particularly opposed to militarism because she believed that the military must necessarily be antidemocratic and antithetical to freedom. In Goldman's view, anarchism advocated for peace by offering a call for universal human brotherhood and solidarity rather than dividing people into economic and political rivals requiring military protection.  Just as she saw the government as an invasive institution based on economic inequality, Goldman saw the institution of marriage in the same way. Making sure to differentiate between marriage and love, Goldman felt that marriage prevented a woman's freedom. She wrote, "marriage, or the training thereto, prepares the woman for the life of a parasite, a dependent, helpless servant, while it furnishes the man the right of a chattel mortgage over a human life." Goldman's radical views on marriage, as well as on religion, which she called "a nightmare that oppresses the human soul and holds the mind in bondage," and on other topics, brought her renewed criticism. In February, a few months before Goldman's manifesto, a Washington Post editorial had called her "a menace" with "enormous powers of hate ... set against law and order and government." Already under constant police harassment for their views, Goldman and her anarchist allies suffered further interference with their public lectures in the following months. At a New York City rally for the unemployed in September, 1908, for example, Goldman's partner Alexander Berkman was arrested; Goldman herself fled the hall just ahead of the police. Ultimately, Goldman's vocal endorsement of anarchism and opposition to World War I would lead to her arrest, denaturalization, and deportation under the 1918 Alien Act, which authorized the expulsion of any alien found to be an anarchist. Sent to Russia in 1919, Goldman soon became disillusioned with the Bolshevik regime. Throughout the rest of an itinerant life, Goldman continued to advocate through speech and writing for the possibility of a more just world. She died in Canada on May 14, 1940, and was buried in Chicago



1909(1st of Av, 5669): Rosh Chodesh Av



1918: Persian Jews in Hamadan wire the Zionist headquarters in Petrograd, asking that representation be made to the Russian government on behalf of 20,000 Jews who were robbed and left homeless by the Bolshevik troops before their departure.  



1919: Lawyer-statesman, Louis Marshall, addressed an overflow crowd of Jews at Carnegie Hall.  They were there to celebrate Marshall’s achievement of having the rights of Polish Jews recognized by the Minorities Treaty.



1921:  Birthdate of Nobel Prize Winner Dr. Rosalyn Sussman Yalow.  When she won the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1977, she was only the second woman to win the prize in the field of Medicine. "Her achievement was the development of RIA, an application of nuclear physics in clinical medicine that makes it possible for scientists to use radio tropic tracers to measure the con- concentration of hundreds of pharmacologic and biologic substances in the blood and other fluids of the human body and in animals and plants. She invented this technique in 1959 to measure the amount of insulin in the blood of adult diabetics."  As can be seen from the following excerpt from the New York Times, Dr.Yalow is proud of being Jewish. “As a Jew, I share a strong commitment to the Jewish intellectual tradition. That tradition places emphasis on learning--learning for the sake of understanding and perfecting our world, and learning for its own sake. Through the ages, we have taken pride in being known as the "People of the Book" and have carried our Torah and our traditions with dignity and affection. Even in the face of persecution and dispersion, and often denied access to centers of learning, the Jewish people, never satisfied with conventional answers, have always valued intellectual inquiry and continued to honor wisdom and learning. Moreover, being Jewish means to me having a deep attachment to family. I grew up in an era of tightly-knit families which shaped our values and world-view. Today, the family, including the Jewish family, is said to be an endangered institution. It is time for us to rededicate ourselves to strengthening Jewish family life. Surely this is our best investment in the Jewish future." Finally, Judaism represents a great synthesis of universal and Jewish values. For me as a Jew, there need be no conflict between science and religion. Moses Maimonides, philosopher and codifier of Halacha (Jewish law), also graced the world of medicine. He is a role model of living in two worlds, Jewish and universal, and of making them one. The greatness of this country is that here we can be fully Jewish and fully American. American Jews are blessed to be living in a country where one need not compromise one's Jewishness to enjoy the opportunities of an open, pluralistic society. In a world which is too often concerned with instant pleasures and self-gratification, Jews have long believed in the importance of scholarship and disciplined learning. Accordingly, let us rededicate ourselves to the traditional values of our people and the service of humanity. "  



1928:Sir Harry Charles Luke, a British colonial official, assumed the position acting Chief Secretary to the Government of Palestine today. In 1929, he would make an unsuccessful attempt to mediate an agreement between Jewish and Arab leaders.



1928: Joseph Lefkowitz is scheduled to be executed today at Sing Song for arranging the drowning of Benjamin Goldstein so that he could collect on an $80,000 insurance policy issued by Metropolitan Life.



1930: Birthdate of Joseph Persico  author of Nuremberg: Infamy on Trial which tells the story of the Nuremberg Trials and was adapted for television as the docudrama “Nuremberg.”



1931(5thof Av, 5691): Seventy-eight year Joseph E. Newburger who had served as a state Supreme Court Justice and President of the Board of Trustees of the Hebrew Orphan Asylum passed away today at Bluff Point, NY.



1934: Birthdate of Larry Zolf, a Canadian journalist and commentator.


1936:The Palestine Post reported that four more Jews were killed by Arabs in various separate murderous assaults throughout the country. This raised the number of Jewish victims of Arab disturbances to 47 since April 19. Guards at Ein Harod and Kfar Saba repulsed Arab attacks. Six Arab terrorists were killed when they bombed a military convoy near Tulkarm. A gaping hole was reported to have been made by Arab terrorists in their first attempt to sabotage the Iraqi Petroleum Co.'s pipeline. Police protection was promised for the traditional visit of religious Jews to Rachel's Tomb on the Bethlehem road, during the month of Av.



1937: Dr. Chaim Weizmann records the details of conversations held with William Ormsby-Gore, the British Colonial Secretary in which the two leaders discussed the recommendations of the recently released report by the Royal Commission.



1937: “Death of Gershwin” published today provides Time’s description of the death and life the composer who died before his time.
http://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,882760,00.html



1940: Dr. Leopold Wallach is scheduled to lead his first Friday Night Service at Temple B’Nai Israel in Sheffield, Alabama. The 30 year old rabbi arrived in the United States 10 months ago from Germany and is “the first full-time Rabbi” employed by the rabbi for many years.



1941: Nazis conquer Vinnesta, a Ukrainian city with a Jewish population of 25,000 of whom approximately 17,500 were able to flee eastward.
http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/this_month/july/07.asp



1942: Himmler sent a directive to SS Lieutenant-General Wilhelm Kruger, head of the German police forces in the General Government. The directive ordered "the resettlement of the entire Jewish population of the General Government be carried out and completed by December 31.The General Government was the term for the Nazi administration in occupied Poland. The order was issued "in the name of the New Order, security and cleanliness of the German Reich."



1941:Vinnitsa, Ukraine was captured by German troops which would eventually lead to the massacre of the town’s 28,000 Jews.



http://iconicphotos.wordpress.com/2009/06/29/last-jew-in-vinnitsa/



http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/this_month/july/07.asp



1942: Deportations to the Auschwitz death camp begin for Parisian Jews who have been held at Drancy, France, since July 16.



1942: The Family Hostage Law is announced in Occupied France. Under its provisions, fugitive "terrorists" who do not surrender to German authorities can expect their male relatives to be killed, female relatives sent to work camps, and children sent to special schools for political reeducation.


 1943: Three thousand, five hundred Jews were taken from the Birkenau camp to the ruins of the Warsaw Ghetto. Their task is to comb the ruins for valuables left by the Jews



1944: “Two SS officers who were sent from the ‘Rosenberg Command’ in Athens…assigned the president of the community” in Rhodes “the task” of informing “the women to join their husbands” on penalty of death. The women were told to bring with all of their belongings including “jewelry, gold sovereigns, banknotes, a few personal items and food.”



1944: Twelve hundred Hungarian Jews from Kistarcsa are trucked to Rákoscsaba, Hungary, and then loaded onto trains bound for Auschwitz.



1944: Relying on information leaked by British intelligence, “BBC Radio broadcast a story that two emissaries of the Hungarian government had appeared in Turkey, proposing that all Jews in Hungary would be allowed to leave if England and America supplied pharmaceuticals and transport to the Germans, with a promise from the Germans that the equipment would not be used on the Western front. The proposal, which the BBC called "humanitarian blackmail," was reported as a crude attempt to set the Allies against each other. The report added that it was not clear whether the plan had the approval of the German and Hungarian authorities.” [This is part of one of the most improbable tales from the Shoah in which Eichmann supposedly was ready to swap a half million Hungarian Jews for equipment that he could only have been used to fight the Soviets]



1944: Angelo Roncalli, the future Pope John XXIII, appeals to Admiral Miklós Horthy on behalf of 5000 Hungarian Jews with Palestinian visas. Roncalli provides baptismal certificates for Jews in hiding.



1945: Starting today, the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff “managed the capture of rocket scientists from the German Army Research Center at Peenemunde under “Operation Overcast” which would be re-named “Operation Paperclip” in 1946.



1947: Birthdate of famed trumpeter and leading conductor, Gerard Schwarz.  In addition to his many professional honors and accomplishments, Schwarz is active in the Jewish community.Schwarz was a founding member of Music of Remembrance, an organization dedicated to remembering Holocaust victim musicians. He is also an active member of Seattle’s Temple De Hirsch Sinai and has lectured on Jewish music there and at various Jewish Federation events, both local and regional.”



1947:The Runnymede Park, Ocean Vigour and Empire Rival, three deportation ships under British control, which were filled with Jewish refugees from the SS Exodus, set sail from Haifa bound for Port-de-Bouc, France.   The British sailed the commandeered ship into Haifa port, where its passengers were transferred to three more seaworthy deportation ships, Runnymede Park, Ocean Vigour and Empire Rival. The event was witnessed by members of UNSCOP. These ships left Haifa harbour on July 19 for Port-de-Bouc. Foreign Secretary Bevin insisted that the French get their ship back as well as its



1948: After ten days of fighting, the road from Haifa to Nazareth was firmly in Israeli hands.



1948: The “Second Truce” goes into effect.  The state of Israel had survived for two months despite two rounds of fighting with invading Arab Armies.  The Jewish state was still not one contiguous unit.  Egyptian forces were still in the Negev.  The Jerusalem corridor was a slender strip of land and some northern settlements were cut-off from the rest of the country by Arab forces. Despite the truce, there would still be more fighting before the armistice documents would be signed in 1949.  Still and all, the Jewish nation, even a precarious state, was a reality.



1948: In Jerusalem, Israeli forces drive off an Arab attack designed to penetrate the new, modern, Jewish section, of the city



1948:The main Cairo store owned by Cicurel family was damaged by a bomb today. The attack was thought to be the work of the Muslim Brothers. The store was part of a chain started by the family of Moreno Cicurel had migrated to Cairo from Izmir in the mid-nineteenth century



1951: Sir Laurence Olivier presided at the opening of the Irving Memorial Garden, built to honor memory of Sir Henry Irving who as an actor was known for his portrayal of Shylock and as a theatre manager for the production of “The Bells”, a version of Erckmann-Chatrian's “Le Juif polonaise” by Leopold Lewis. According to contemporaries, “he invested” his portrayal of Shylock with a “dignity” that was a marked “departure from the traditional interpretation of the role.”



1951:The US, Britain and France were prepared to back Israel's protest to the UN Security Council against the Egyptian blockage of the Suez Canal for shipping destined for Israel. The Egyptian blockade was a violation of international law. It would take the war in 1967 to finally establish Israel’s right to have access to the international waterway.



1951: In New York, John Blandford, the new director of UNWRA, was planning a tour of the Arab countries in order to provide the Palestine Arab refugees with homes and constructive work. This was the beginning of the "Arab Refugee Problem" created, in part, by the unwillingness of Arab states to allow the Palestinians to live in the homelands of their fellow Arabs.



1953:Birthdate of Howard Schultz, founder of Starbucks.



1955: The Yarkon water project was opened. The Yarkon River flows near Tel Aviv.



1969:  Israeli commandos begin a night attack on Green Island, a major military installation in the Gulf of Suez.  The attack is one of the most difficult undertaken by Israel’s special operations forces.  It would be a joint attack included forces from the Army’s Sayeret Matkla unit (a cross between the Green Berets and the Rangers) and the Navy’s Sayetet 13 or Flotilla 13, commonly known as Ha’commando Ha’yami, similar to the U.S. Navy’s SEALS.



1969: For the feats of heroism performed today during Operation Bulmus Ami Ayalon was awarded the Medal of Valor, the IDF’s version of the Congressional Medal of Honor.



1970: Yosef Goldschmidt began his second term as Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs.



1973: Ninth Maccabiah comes to a close.



1976: The Jerusalem Post reported that the Israeli pound was again devalued by 2 percent, to IL 8.12 to the dollar. But the cabinet ended its exclusive linkage to the dollar, and altered the year-old system of creeping devaluations to make their dates harder to guess. The pound was linked to a basket of currencies (including the dollar). The special ministerial committee was empowered to devalue the pound by up to 8 percent within the set four-month period in any way it chose. The Histadrut Executive decided to increase the membership dues and allowed Kupat Holim to charge its members for doctors' prescriptions


1981(17th of Tammuz, 5741): Tzom Tammuz


1981(17th of Tammuz, 5741): A boy of 17 was killed and 15 people were injured as a result of Katyusha bombardments on western Galilee.


1982(28thof Tammuz, 5742): Seventy-three year old David Frankfurter who created an international sensation when he assassinated the Swiss branch leader of the German NSDAP Wilhelm Gustloff in 1936 in Davos, Switzerland passed away today.

1983(9th of Av, 5743): Tish'a B'Av


1985(1st of Av, 5745): Rosh Chodesh Av


1985(1st of Av, 5745): Captain (Hon). Ewen Edward Samuel Montagu, RNR, CBE, QC, DL passed away. Born in 1901, he was a British judge, writer and Naval intelligence officer. Montagu was the second son of the prominent peer Louis Samuel Montagu, 2nd Baron Swaythling. During World War II, Montagu served in the Naval Intelligence Division of the British Admiralty, rising to the rank of Lieutenant Commander RNVR. While Commanding Officer of NID 17M, Squadron Leader Charles Cholmondely, RAFVR and he conceived Operation Mincemeat, on the war’s most successful act’s of deception.  Thanks to Operation Mincemeat, the forces of Operation Husky, the invasion of Sicily, enjoyed the element of surprise that helped to make the invasion a success. For his role in Mincemeat, he was awarded the Military Order of the British Empire. He wrote The Man Who Never Was in 1953 which was an account of Operation Mincemeat that was made into a movie three years later. He was president of the United Synagogue, 1954-62, and vice-president of the Anglo-Jewish Association.


1985: Five children were stabbed and wounded by a terrorist from Dura in the centre of Jerusalem.


1989(16thof Tammuz, 5749): Seventy-year old Israeli author and sculptor Benjamin Tammuz passed away.



1993(1st of Av, 5753): Rosh Chodesh Av



1993(1st of Av, 5753): Eighty-four year old violinist and conduct Szymon Goldberg passed away today.



http://www.nytimes.com/1993/07/20/obituaries/szymon-goldberg-84-violinist-and-teacher.html



http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-szymon-goldberg-1461478.html



 
1994(11th of Av, 5754)Gottfried Reinhardt, the German born film director and producer who was the son of the Austrian theater director Max Reinhardt, passed away in Los Angeles


1998: The New York Times featured books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Stephen Sondheim: A Life by Meryle Secrest, Explaining Hitler: The Search for the Origins of His Evil by Ron Rosenbaum, Summer Sistersby Judy Blume and The Last Kabbalist of Lisbon by Richard Zimler


2002: “In his regular column for the National Catholic Reporter, John L. Allen Jr. quotes unidentified Vatican officials who suggest that Jewish bias against the Roman Catholic Church is partially responsible for the widespread media coverage and bias in the sexual abuse scandal.”


2004(1st of Av, 5764): Rosh Chodesh Av


2004: Eliezer Sanburg swapped ministerial portfolios today. began serving as Minister of Energy and Infrastructure after completing his term as Minister of Science and Technology


2006: “Strike on Israeli Navy Ship” published today that after having been suffered damage from a missle attack off the coast of Lebanon, “ the INS Hanit stayed afloat, got itself out of the line of fire, and made the rest of the journey back to Ashdod port for repairs on its own


2006:  The second in a series of three concerts takes place at Jerusalem’s Confederation House featuring bakashot (prayers of request in the Sephardic fashion).

2006: The following were among the total of 43 Israeli civilians (including four who died of heart attacks during rocket barrages) and 116 IDF soldiers who were killed in the Israel-Hezbollah war:St.-Sgt. Yonatan Hadassi, 21, of Kibbutz Merhavia; St.-Sgt. Yotam Gilboa, of Kibbutz Maoz Haim, Rabiya Abed Taluzi, three, and his brother Mahmoud, 7, of Nazareth.



2007: In Jerusalem, The Zeek Gallery at the Yellow Submarine presents an exhibition entitled "Chance Music."



2008:Police arrested seven IDF soldiers on suspicion of involvement in a quarrel with civilians which took place near Atlit Navy base. The soldiers claimed they tried to prevent the citizens from entering a closed military area; however the civilians, members of two Druze families from Bet Ja'an, claimed that the soldiers had attacked them for racial reasons.

2008:Less than a month after meeting the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff in Israel, IDF Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi left for the United States for a week of talks - with a focus on Iran - with top US defense and diplomatic officials. The visit is Ashkenazi's first to the US as chief of General Staff and comes following two visits Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Michael Mullen has made to Israel in the past seven months.

2009:A stretch of Vienna’s Danube River will be transformed into a sunny beachfront from April through October. Today’s official launch party pays tribute to Tel Aviv’s Centennial with Israeli music, concerts and an upbeat summer party.



2009: At the 18th Maccabiah Games the Israel cricket team plays a team from South Africa and Great Britain plays India as the round robin matches continue.



2009: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Kissinger:1973, the Crucial Yearby Alistair Horne.



2009: The Governor of Kentucky announced that Jerry Abramson would be running of Lt. Gov. on his ticked in 2011.



2010: An advanced screening of “Lebanon,” a film based on Post-screening discussion with director Samuel Maoz’s own experience during the war with Lebanon in 1982, is scheduled to take place at The Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York.



2010: It was announced today that The IDF and Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) have arrested a Hamas terror cell that was operating in the West Bank and was behind a shooting attack last month in the southern Hebron Hills which killed policeman Shuki Sofer.

2010(8th of Av, 5770): Eighty-six year old particle physicist  Gerson Goldhaber, whose accomplishments earned him the title of California Scientist of the Year and the Panofsky Prize of the American Physical Society. (As reported by Jascha Hoffman)
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/26/science/26goldhaber.html



 


2011: In New York City, The Dor Chadash Book Salon series is scheduled to present Dorit Rabinyan, the Israeli author of A Strand of a Thousand Pearls,



2011:IDF Chief of Staff Benny Gantz ordered the Israel Navy to intercept the French yacht Dignite-Al Karame after it had refused to stop heading toward the Gaza shore.

2011:The New Zealand Security Intelligence Service (SIS) suspected that Israeli spies may have been among the Israeli casualties in the powerful 6.3 earthquake which hit New Zealand earlier this year, killing 181 people including three Israelis, New Zealand newspaper The Southland Times reported today. Israel's Ambassador to New Zealand, Shemi Tzur dismissed the charge as "science fiction."

2011(17thof Tammuz, 5771) Fast of the 17th of Tammuz



2012: The Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center is scheduled to present “Seeking Justice,” a lecture by Eli Rosnebam, “the longest-serving prosecutor and investigator of Nazi criminals and other perpetrators of human rights violations.”



2012: “Hava Nagila” (the movie) is scheduled to be shown on the opening night of the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival.



2012: Twenty of those “lightly injured” in yesterday’s terrorist attack in Bulgaria are scheduled to be flown to Israel starting today.



2012: Aairplane carrying 32 Israeli tourists wounded in the attack in Burgas yesterday landed in Ben Gurion Airport this afternoon.Three victims remained in serious condition at a hospital in the Bulgarian capital of Sofia. Military medical staff currently in Bulgaria have yet to determine whether they will be flown to Israel later in the day.



2012: The five Israelis killed in yesterday’s terror attack in Bulgaria arrived in Israel late tonight, as their plane touched down at Ben-Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv shortly after 12:30 a.m. Tourism Minister Stas Misezhnikov oversaw an official ceremony for the victims, whose relatives were present for their arrival. The victims were named this evening as Amir Menashe, 27; Itzik Kolengi, 27; Maor Harush, 26; Elior Priess, 26; and Kochava Shriki, 42.




2012: Israel has raised its military alert on the northern border, and cancelled some weekend furloughs, amid fears that the situation in neighboring Syria is rapidly spiraling out of control.

2013: In Trancoso, “a learning center” devoted to the history of the Jewish community in Portugal is scheduled to open today. (As reported by Cnaan Liphshiz)



2013:The Snowy Day and the Art of Ezra Jack Keats”  the first major exhibition in this country to pay tribute to award-winning author and illustrator Ezra Jack Keats whose beloved children’s books include Whistle for Willie, Peter’s Chair, and The Snowy Day is scheduled to open at the National Museum of American Jewish History.



2013: The Maccabeats are scheduled to perform at the Hampton Synagogue in West Hampton.



2013: “Mamele” is scheduled to be shown this evening as part of the “July Yiddish Film Festival at Agudas Achim” immediately after Shabbat Eve services.



2013: A directive from the “European Union that bars its 28 members from all cooperation withIsraeli entities in the West Bank and East Jerusalem and requires that any contracts between EU member countries and Israel henceforth include a clause stating that East Jerusalem and the West Bank are not part of the State of Israel is scheduled to take affect today. (As reported by Gavriel Fiske)



2013: An army spokesperson has confirmed that the IDF has stationed an Iron Dome missile defense battery near the southern city of Eilat. “The move comes amid the latest bout of unrest in Egypt that has put Israel on edge in part because of an increase of Islamist militancy in the Sinai region.”



2013: Today at the Maccabiah, Israel takes on India in cricket, Canada in softball and the USA in baseball and basketball.



2013: “The 14 pages containing the original Schindler’s List will be auctioned off toay by California collectors Gary Zimet and Eric Gazin, who set the reserve price at $3 million but are hoping to sell it for $5 million.”
http://www.timesofisrael.com/original-schindlers-list-to-be-sold-on-ebay-for-3-million/



2014: As of 1:30 a.m. Israeli time, the IDF continues its mission in Gaza to destroy the capability to launch missiles into Israel and to conduct cross-border raids through tunnels.



2014: The Historic Sixth & I Synagogue is scheduled to host the “Carsie Blanton CD Release Show.”

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