August 29
1255: The body of little boy who had disappeared was found in a well at Lincoln. The boy would become known as Little Saint Hugh of Lincoln (England) was the subject of an infamous ritual murder libel. It was alleged that Jews enticed the boy and while starving him, invited Jews of Lincoln to murder him ritually. (Jews did come to Lincoln at that time to attend a wedding.) His body was cast into a well and a month later, "miracles" followed the discovery of his corpse. On the basis of the alleged "confession" by Jopin (Jacob), the secular authorities (for the first time) and the Church sent 91 Jews to the Tower of London. Eighteen were executed before Richard and the friars stopped the killings. This incident provided Chaucer with the idea for his Prioress Tale and the hero of the popular ballad, "Little Sir Hugh."
1261: Urban IV, who reaffirmed Sicut Judaeis the papal bull first issued by Calixtus II which “was intended to protect the Jews” during the Crusade, began his papacy today.
1263: King Jaime of Spain gave the Jews three weeks to remove all blasphemy from their books (Talmud).
1288: Pope Nicholas IV “wrote to Emperor Rudolph “requesting the release of Meir b. Baruch of Rothenburg from prison
1435: Paul of Burgos passed away. Born in Burgos, he was a Spanish Jew who converted to Christianity, and became an archbishop, Lord Chancellor, and exegete. He was also known as Pablo de Santa Maria or Paul de Santa Maria. His original name was Solomon ha-Levi. Like many converts of his time he took a leading role in the persecution of his former co-religionists.
1477: T'hilimwith Kimchi's commentary was published for the first time in Bologna, Italy by Hayyim Mordecai and Hezekiah de Ventura. T’hilim is the Book of Psalms. Kimchi is David Kimchi also known as RaDAK. He was the third in a line of grammarians, lexicographers and Biblical commentators. RaDAK’s more accurate renderings of the ancient texts helped to fuel the Protestant Reformation.
1484: Pope Innocent VIII, a staunch supporter of the Spanish Inquisition, is elected Pope. The significance to Jewish history of this event is self-evident.
1526:An Ottoman army defeated the Hungarians at the Battle of Mohács following which the Turks pillaged the city. The Christians nobles and the handful of wealthy Jews fled in fear of the Ottomans. While Jews had lived in Hungary since the third century C.E., many of them had fallen on hard times during the 15th and 16th centuries as they dealt with accusations’ of Blood Libels and decrees designed to avoid repayment of just debts. The Ottomans left but returned to stay in 1541 when much of central Hungary became part of the Ottoman Empire and a refuge for Sephardic Jews moving eastward to avoid the clutches of the Inquisition.
1541: The Ottoman Turks capture Buda, the capital of the Hungarian Kingdom. On the anniversary of the battle of Mohács, Sultan Suleiman I again took Buda by a ruse. This event marks the beginning of Turkish rule in many parts of Hungary, which lasted down to the end of the 17th century. The Jews living in these parts were treated far better than those living under the Habsburgs. During this period, beginning with the second half of the sixteenth century, the community of Ofen (Buda) flourished more than at any time before or after. While the Turks held sway in Hungary, the Jews of Transylvania (at that time an independent principality) also fared well. At the instance of Abraham Sassa, a Jewish physician of Constantinople, Prince Gabriel Bethlen of Transylvania granted a letter of privileges (June 18, 1623) to the Spanish Jews from Turkey.
1596: Coronation of Christian IV, the King of Denmark and Norway who lifted the restrictions that had been placed on Sephardic Jews when he took control of the town of Altona.
1632: Birthdate of English philosopher John Locke. Locke influenced the Founding Fathers of the United States. In 1689 he wrote his “Letter Concerning Toleration” in which he stated “Neither Pagan, nor Jew, ought to be excluded from the civil rights of the commonwealth because of his religion.” Locke was asked to right a constitution for the new colony of South Carolina. At the time, Christian merchants were complaining about the active involvement of Jews in the trade between South Carolina and the English Colony of Barbados. Locke saw the problem as bigotry, not “swarming Jewish merchants.” He inserted a line in the colonial charter that called for the protection of “Jews, heathens and other dissenters.”
1643: The oldest existing ketubbah written in the Western Hemisphere was executed in Surinam at the marriage of Yehudit to Hakaham Yizhak Meatob. The Jewish community in Surinam began with the arrival of a party Sephardic Jews in 1630. By the second half of the 17th century, there were at least Sephardic Jewish communities in the colony, numbering several hundred families. As you can see from the attached, this item has been challenged
1655: Warsaw falls without resistance to a small force under the command of Charles X Gustav of Sweden during The Deluge. The Deluge is a general expression for a series of misfortunes that befell the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth starting with the uprising of the Cossacks and including an invasion by the Swedes. When it was all over, Poland was a much diminished entity and much less tolerant of its Jewish population. This defeat was part of the long road that would lead to the partition of Poland in the late 18thcentury, which, among other things, would give Russia its large and unwanted Jewish population.
1703: Following the death of Samuel Oppenheimer Emperor Leopold I named Samson Wertheimer to serve as his successor as “court factor” while extending “ for twenty years his privileges of free religious worship, denizenship, and immunity from taxation
1756: Frederick the Great attacks Saxony, beginning the Seven Years' War. The Seven Years War was one of what seems to be a long list of interminable wars in Europe. Americans know the Seven Years War as the French-Indian War; a fight that led directly to the American Revolution and the creation of the United States, and all that that means for the Jews of the world. Frederick’s mistreatment of his Jewish subjects is too big a subject for this brief entry. After visiting Frederick’s Berlin, the French statesman Mirabeau described the Prussian monarch’s decrees concerning Jews as “worthy of a cannibal.” Frederick characterized Jews “usurious vermin;” “wretches who “multiply infamously.” Saxony was the site of Martin Luther’s famous fight with the Roman Catholic Church. He had the Jews expelled from Saxony in 1537. It would be centuries before they were readmitted and they would not gain full rights of citizenship until the second half of the 19th century.
1770: Twenty-five year old A.M. Rothschild married seventeen year old Guttle Schanpper,
1776(14thof Elul, 5536): Jose Pereira supplied a flotilla which General Washington used to move his army across the East River and escape destruction at the hand of the British. Unfortunately the young Sephard lost his life as helped to provide covering fire for the army as it crossed to temporary safety.
1799: Papacy of Pius VI, who issued the anti-Semitic “Editto sopra gli ebrei” came to an end today.
1826: Birthdate of French portrait painter Emile Levy who passed away in 1890.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89mile_L%C3%A9vy#mediaviewer/File:Barbey.jpg1834: In Bavaria, Jacob and Jeanette Bettmann gave birth to Bernhard Bettman who would become a successful businessman and leader of the Cincinnati, Ohio, Jewish community.
1842: Jews began arriving in Hong Kong after it was ceded to Great Britain by China today. The first synagogue would not come into use until 1870 when a house on Hollywood Street was rented for that purpose.
1843(3rdof Elul, 5603): Sixty year old Ludwig Lewin Jacobson the Danish surgeon who developed several surgical instruments including “the lithoclast for the crushing of stones in the bladder.”
1848: Birthdate of Henry Schneeberger, the "first American-born, ordained rabbi who was the spiritual leader of Chizuk Amuno in Baltimore, MD.
1851: The U.S.S. Mississippi, under the command of Captain Uriah P. Levy, the highest ranking Jewish officer in the U.S. Navy, arrived today in Constantinople. The American warship had been sent to the Ottoman captial for the purpose of providing Louis Kossuth, the exiled Hungarian political leader, with safe passage to France.
1853: Birthdate of Solomon Bibo. Born in Prussia, Bibo would come to the United States where, in the 1880’s he became the first non-Indian governor of the pueblo of Acamo in New Mexico Territory.
1854: Birthdate of Joseph Jacobs an Australian literary and Jewish historian, who was a writer for the Jewish Encyclopedia.
1855(15th of Elul, 5615):Isaac Samuel Reggio passed away at the age of 71. Born in 1784 at Goriza, he was an Austro-Italian scholar and rabbi born at Gorizia. Reggio studied Hebrew and Talmud with his father, Abraham Vita, the Rabbi at Gorizia. At the same time he attended the gymnasium where he acquired knowledge of secular science and languages. Reggio's father, one of the liberal rabbis who supported Hartwig Wessely, paid special attention to the religious instruction of his son, who displayed unusual aptitude in Hebrew, and at the age of fourteen wrote a metrical dirge on the death of Moses Ḥefeẓ, who has served as the Rabbi of Gorizia.
1855:The New York Times reported that "a child of Mr. Louis Levinson of Providence, and of scriptural age, 'eight days old' was circumcised according to the ancient Jewish method at the house of his father...The ceremony was performed by Mr. Wolf of this city."
1858: Birthdate of French archaeologist Salomon Reinach whose “first published work was a translation of Arthur Schopenhauer’s “Essay on Free Will.”
1858:Dr. Joseph Bondi was installed as Rabbi of Anshi Chesed, the synagogue on Norfolk Street between Stanton and Houston Streets.
1859: The Tory (NY) Times reported that there was a quarrel taking place in the Jewish community over the ownership of a Bible. The Hebrew Bible which mysteriously disappeared, and was found only after a search warrant had been issued by a member of the local judiciary.
1863:The five deserters in the Fifth corps, reprieved on Wednesday, will positively be shot to-day, at 3 o'clock, in presence of the corps. Two of them are Catholics, two Protestants, and one a Jew. Spiritual advisers have been with them to-day, a Jewish Rabbi having come expressly at the request of the one of that persuasion. The unfortunate men have finally made up their minds that they must die, though they have made several efforts to have their sentences commuted to hard labor for life. But the President, to his credit be it said, telegraphed yesterday that he could not interfere with the sentence, and the men will die. Their death is necessary to save hundreds of other lives, and to put a stop to the desertion of this class of men. Thirty more are on trial for the same offence in the first corps, and they will probably meet with a like fate.
1864: Democrats nominated Union General George B. McClellan to run against Abraham Lincoln who enjoyed a significant amount of support among the Jewish community in the upcoming Presidential campaign.
1865: In Pomerania, Hedwig and Isaak Lachmann gave birth to poet and translator Hedwig Lachmann. (As reported by Hanna Delf von Wolzogen)
1865:The New York Times reported from Washington D.C. that the court-martial an Army Paymaster named Webb has come to an end. Webb was accused of playing a key role in swindling hundreds of soldiers out a total $400,000. According to the report “a Jew who was dismissed the service for defrauding the government at the beginning of the war” played a key role in the swindle. This unnamed Jew testified against Webb during the trial confessing his own role in the scheme. [Editor’ note – the religion of no other person involved in the scheme was mentioned in the article.
1865(7th of Elul, 5625): Dr. Robert Remak, Polish born German physician, neurologist and embryologist passed away at the age of fifty. While in medical practice, he researched unpaid at university. As a Jew, he was barred from teaching. In 1847 he became the first Jew to officially teach a university and was later promoted to the position of assistant professor. He discovered the fibers of Remak, nonmedullated nerve fibers and named the three germ layers he discovered of the early embryo: the ectoderm, the mesoderm, and the endoderm. In 1844 he discovered the nerve cells in the heart now called Remak's ganglia and provided the first illustration of the 6-layered cortex. He was a pioneer in the use of electrotherapy for the treatment of nervous diseases.
1870(2ndof Elu, 5630): Forty-one year old Lazarus Geiger, the brother of Rabbi Abraham Geiger and the nephew of Rabbi Abraham Geiger, who was “intrigued” by the psychology of color passed away today.
1871: “Sketch of the Prison Rosenzweig, Alias Archer” published today described the activities of a German or Russian Jew named Rosenzweig who has been jailed for posing as medical doctor named Archer – a position for which he lacks both training and credentials.
1872: Among the 400 passengers arriving in New York on board the Packet-ship Charles H. Marshall was a German Jew named Meyer Velt
1873: This morning’s New York newspapers published a copy of a telegram from San Francisco that contains the confession of John T. Irving who claims to have murdered wealthy businessman Benjamin Nathan.
1873: “The Nathan Murder” published today described the confession of John T. Irving to the murder of Benjamin Nathan which included a claim that his son Washington Nathan was the mastermind of the crime. (Nobody would be convicted of this lurid crime which was the first "celebrity murder" involving the Jewish community. With all of the elements, this is the kind of mystery worthy of Faye Kellerman)
1875: As the Shooting Season opens in France, Baron Hirsch entertains several of the “leading shots” on the land he leases in the forests around Saint-Germaine.
1878: After being attacked by a political opponent because of his religion, Raphael J. Moses, a prominent resident of Columbus, GA, responded in the local newspaper by asserting his Jewish pride in an article that was reprinted around the country: “I feel it an honor to be of a race whom persecution cannot crush, whom prejudice has in vain endeavored to subdue.” When he ran for congress, Moses explained, “I wanted to go to congress as a Jew and because I would have liked in a public position to confront and do my part towards breaking down the prejudice.”
1878(30th of Av, 5638): Rosh Chodesh Elul
1878: It was reported today that there are four Jews serving on the newly created 18 man Communal Council at Sarajevo.
1878: It was reported today that a Communal Council has been formed in Sarajevo. The Council, which represents a cross section of Sarajevo’s religious communities, includes four Jews, five Muslims, three Catholics and six Orthodox (Greek or Russian, not Jewish).
1886: A party of forty Russian Jews landed at Castle Garden today and was detained by authorities.
1886: Gretchen Kauffmann Born, the first wife of Gustav Jacob Born and the mother of Nobel Prize winner Max Born, passed away.
1888: Today marks the tenth free excursion of this season sponsored by the Sanitarium for Hebrew Children. As of this date, the Sanitarium for Hebrew Children the ten excursions have provided relief from the summer heat for 6,127 babies, 3,812 children and 3,678 mothers.
1888: “Bloody Days In Morocco” published today described the violence in the North African country that has included Arab leaders calling for a Holy War. This has prompted at least one newspaper in Tangiers to call for the European powers to send ships to protect the Christians and the Jews.
1889(2ndof Elul, 5649): Eighty-one year old Gustav Weil who switched from studying to be a rabbi to become a leading Orientalist and whose Mohammed der Prophet served as resource for Washington Irving when he wrote the Life of Mohammed passed away today.
1891: “Russian Jewish Refugees” published today described the “considerable complaints” being made by people in Detroit because “the Canadian authorities send all the penniless Jews who get into that country” here to be taken care of.
1891: Recorder Albert Hessberg of Albany was among those who greeted Senator Jacob A. Cantor of the Tenth Senatorial District and his wife when they returned from Europe today aboard the Hamburg steamer Columbia today.
1892: “No Way To Stop Immigration” published today discussed the challenges of protecting the United States from the European cholera outbreak including the comment that once the danger from cholera is out of the way, “it is plain that the United States would be better off if ignorant Russian Jews…were denied a refuge here.”
1897: The First Zionist Congress (Basle, Switzerland) was convened by Theodore Herzl. It was represented by one hundred and ninety-seven delegates. This was one of the most important yet unexpected convocation in modern Jewish History. Against all odds, Herzl had Jews from twenty-four different states as varied Palestine, the United States and an array from across Europe. The Congress adopted a document known as the Basile Program that declared, "The task of Zionism is to secure for the Jewish people in a Palestine in a publicly recognized legally secure homeland." The Congress also announced that it would dedicate itself to strengthening Jewish consciousness and national feeling." Writing in his diary on September 3 of the same year Herzl stated,” At Basle I founded the Jewish state. If I said this out loud today, I would be answered by universal laughter. Perhaps in five years, and certainly in fifty, everyone will know it." In 1947, just a few months beyond those fifty years, the UN approved the partition of Palestine that gave birth to the Jewish state.
1897: In Jersey City, NJ, Rabbi Jacob Boer led members of the Society of Teferith Israel in the ceremonies which converted a structure that had housed the German Evangelical Church into a synagogue. Rabbi Moses Wechsler, Rabbi Jacob Goodman and the Mayor of Jersey City were among the dignitaries who addressed the congregation.
1897: “The Snake in the Bible” published today described two appearances of the serpent in the Torah – the first in the Garden of Eden and the second when God calls on Moses to go before Pharaoh – each of which shows a different aspect of Biblical philosophy.
1898: The Zionist Conference chaired by Dr. Herzl continues for a second day in Basel, Switzerland.
1898: The Zionist Conference chaired by Dr. Herzl continues for a second day in Basel, Switzerland.
1898: It was reported today that at age 22, Abram Herschberger is youngest Rabbi to lead a congregation in Chicago, Illinois and he may be the youngest clergy of any denomination serving in the Windy City.
1899: When the court martial of Captain Dreyfus resumed today Colonel Cordier, the Deputy Chief of the Intelligence Department was the first witness to take the stand and he testified based on his examination of the documents in question “he was now convinced Dreyfus was innocent.”
1899:Nouri Bey receives 10,000 Francs to arrange an audience for Herzl with the Sultan.
1900(4thof Elul, 5660): Seventy-nine year old Sir Saul Samuel, 1st Baronet, the Australian merchant, government official and leader of the Jewish community passed away today.
1903: Die Welt publishes the declaration of the British Government on the allocation of a "Jewish territory" in East Africa. Die Welt was the name of publication started by Herzl in 1897 to further the Zionist cause. It should not be confused with the modern German publication of the same name.
1911: In Great Britain the Tredegar District Council adopted a resolution protesting against “disgraceful rioting and looting” attacks against Jews in New South Wales. The riots, which had begun on August 19 following the end of strike, were the worst outbreak of anti-Semitic violence in the British Isles in modern times.
1913: Birthdate of Sylvia Fine, the Brooklyn native who was an “American lyricist, composer, producer and the wife of the comedian Danny Kaye.”
1916: During World War I, Paul von Hindenburg became Chief of the German General Staff. Hindenburg’s supposed brilliance was really the work of his loyal lieutenant Erich Ludendorff. Among other things, Hindenburg helped provide ammunition for the myth that that German Army was stabbed in the back (by the Jews) and actually brought Hitler to power as Chancellor.
1918:Samuel Gompers, President of the American Federation of Labor, who arrived in Great Britain yesterday from the United States at the head of a labor delegation, visited his birthplace in Spitalfields.
1918: “Bennett Charges Forgery” published described complaints of voting irregularities that had been lodged by Ex-Senator William Bennett who was seeking the Republican nomination for Lt. Gov. of New York with Samuel S. Koenig, the chairman of the county Republican Committee – charges which the Jewish political leader dismissed as being groundless.
1919:Sendel and Riva Grynszpan gave birth to Mordechai Grynszpan, the brother of Herschel Grynszpan the man who assassinated Ernst vom Rath which was the excuse for Kristallnacht
1923: Jewish gangsters Samuel "Sammy" Weiss,Jacob "Little Augie" Orgen and Samuel Gepson were arraigned at Essex Market Courthouse today on charges of having violated New York’s Sullivan Law..
1929:The day began with an Arab attempt to massacre the Jewish population of Safed, one of the sacred cities of Palestine and the center of study of the Kaballah. Initially nine Jews were killed and thirty wounded. As day turned into night the attack continued with the Arabs killing twenty-two Jews, wounding scores more and burning the whole town except the government buildings. Fighting proceeded for eight hours before British troops arrived from Tiberias. At least one American was found among the wounded. According to reports circulating in the ancient Jewish settlement 3,000 have been left homeless and some of the wounded were tortured by the Arab raiders.
1929: After six days of Arab attacks, 133 Jews had been killed throughout Palestine. The casualties would have been higher if had not been for the work of the Haganah. Established nine years earlier, members of the Haganah worked to defend settlements through Palestine. At Hulda, twenty-three Haganah members held off more than 1,000 Arab attackers. The success came at a cost - Ephraim Chizik, commander of the unit and one of the earliest members of the Jewish defense force was killed during the action.
1929: After a week of Arab riots that started on August 23, as of today, 113 Jews had been killed and 339 wounded. As a result of the riots, Sir Walter Shaw headed a commission which urged the banning of Jewish immigration and absolved the Arabs and the Mufti of guilt. Another commission led by Sir John Simpson declared that the entire Zionist operation was unsound and undesirable. Both of these commissions were under the auspices of Lord Passfield, the British Colonial Secretary.
1929: In a letter to The Times of London, British Zionist Harry Sacher refuted Arab claims that the Wailing Wall was part of the Mosque of Omar and that the Jews had no right to be there. The Mufti had claimed that the Arab Riots were provoked by Jews marching to the Wailing Wall and violating the law by hosting a Zionist flag. (Please note the similarity of this claim to the one that would be made at the end of the century to justify the violence known as the Second Intifada.)
1931:Robert Szold said in a statement issued on behalf of the administration of the Zionist Organization of America that the great majority of the American delegation to the recent World Zionist Congress at Basle applied itself to averting continued internal dissension in the organization and accomplished that goal.
1933: “The New York Times runs a story about the existence of 65 concentration camps in Germany where at least 45,000 people are being held in inhuman conditions. Most of the prisoners in these camps are political: communists, socialists, and liberals of various sorts.”(As reported by Austin Cline)
1933: In Canada, A spokesman of the Immigration Department publicly announces that the Government does not intend to amend the present restrictive immigration policy, thus responding to the objections of anti-Jewish groups and a section of the press to the proposed admission of German-Jewish refugees.
1933:The conflict within the World Zionist Congress, caused by the presentation during the week-end of charges that the Palestine labor leader, Dr. Chaim Arlosoroff, had been murdered by Zionist Revisionists, overshadowed today’s discussions when the congress met today.
1933: Dr. Chaim Weizmann definitely declines to accept the presidency of the World Zionist Organization, though he agrees to head the campaign for funds to settle German Jews in Palestine.
1935:The delegates to the World Zionist Congress were saddened by the death of Queen Astrid of the Belgians. This was reflected by the decision of the delegates to limit their activities today the holding a series of quiet sectional conferences.
1936: Pravda, the official newspaper of the Soviet Union, “warns that Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party are planning a massive war that will lead to slaughter across Europe.”
1937(22nd of Elul, 5697): In the ongoing violent uprising against the Jews and in an attempt to silence Arab opposition, Abraham Berkowsky, aged 45, a Tel Aviv tailor, was killed on an Egged bus by a terrorist firing from an ambush just above Motza.
1937: At Oxford, Prof. Dr. Herbert Danby, who translated the Mishna into English, severely criticized Alfred Rosenberg, the Nazi scholar and the head of the German Foreign Affairs section, who had just published his book The Immorality of the Talmud. Danby said that the book, published by Friends of Europe, was full of malice and misquotations
1938: Birthdate of Robert Rubin, former United States Secretary of the Treasury.
1938: Birthdate of actor Elliott Gould. Born Elliott Goldstein, Gould was one of the most prominent American film actors in the early '70s, best known for playing Trapper John in the satirical 1970 film M*A*S*H. Time magazine put him on its cover in 1970, when he was at the brief height of his long career, calling him a "star for an uptight age
1938: According to the London Daily Mail, a group of Arabs attacked Jerusalem tonight. The same report included a description of an attack on Mothea, a kibbutz known for its dairy, during which the barns were burned and “a number of the pedigreed cattle” were deliberately burned alive.
1939: On the eve of World War II, Chaim Weizmann informed the prime minister of England that the Jews of Eretz Israel would stand by Great Britain and fight on the side of the democracies.
1939: Birthdate of director William Friedkin. He is best known for his work with The Exorcist and the French Connection for which he won an Oscar.
1939: Birthdate of movie director Joel Schumacher.
1941: The remainder of 11,000 displaced Hungarian Jews (forced laborers), now living in Kamenets Podolsk and whom Hungary did not want to take back were taken out of town to a pit and machine gunned down.
194(16th of Elul, 5702):Rabbi Simcha Oberbaum, Aleksanderer Chassid; a central figure in the Lodz Jewish community; born in Warsaw in 1852, died in the Lodz ghetto.
1942: As can be seen from the attached photograph, more Jews were deported today from Wiesbaden Germany to Auschwitz.
1942: It was reported today that Dominican President Rafael L. Trujillo’s offer to provide a haven for 3,500 Jewish refugee children living in Vichy was been forward, Marshal Petain, the head of the French government. A few years earlier, Trujillo had provided land at Sousa for a Jewish refugee colony.
1942:Twelve Jewish American women were included among the first graduating class of WAAC officers at Fort Des Moines, Iowa. They were Ruth Ginns, Beatrice Berg, Carolyne Casper and Jean Korn from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Kathryne Goldfluss, Rose Ross and Joan Strongin from New York, New York; Bee Rosenberg and Ruth Spivak from Chicago, Illinois; Rita Fink and Isabel Bayley of Buffalo, New York; and Elizabeth Morgenstern of Seattle, Washington.
1942: The Jewish community from Olesko, Ukraine, is deported to the Belzec death camp
1942: Occupation officials in the East inform Berlin that the "Jewish problem" has been "totally solved" in Serbia. Since German occupation, 14,500 of Serbia's 16,000 Jews have been murdered.
1943: The American Jewish Conference “opened at the Waldorf-Astoria hotel in New York City. More than five hundred delegates were present representing sixty-five different national organizations.” Rabbi Abba Hillel Silver gave an “electrifying speech” in which he “convinced his audience to support the Biltmore Declaration.”
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
1943: Six hundred prisoners were sent from Larissa to Athens so they could be held Haidari, a concentration camp that was really a stopping point for the ultimate trip to Auschwitz.
1943: In Denmark, the official chief rabbi, Dr. Max Friediger is detained as a "hostage" of along with some 100 prominent Danes, including a dozen Jews, in a camp near Copenhagen.
1944: More than 800 Jews earmarked for forced labor are transported from Auschwitz to the labor camp at Sachsenhausen, Germany, for assignment to nearby factories. Elsewhere in Germany, about 72 ill or pregnant Jews are taken from a labor camp near Leipzig and transported to gas chambers at Auschwitz.
1944: The last transport left the Lodz Ghetto after two months of final liquidation of the Jewish population. Only 600 Jews remained from 76,000 who were still alive there on June 15, 1944.
1944: Father Giuseppe Girotti was arrested today when he was “caught in the middle of transferring a wounded Jewish partisan” to a safe house –a deed that earned him a one-way ticket to Dachau where he was murdered on Easter Day. (As reported by JTA)
1945: Lt. Colonel Judah Nadich entered the Feldafing D.P. camp. Nadich was a rabbi serving as the senior Jewish chaplain in Europe. Nadich was repelled by the barbaric conditions under which the Jews were living; especially by the fact that they were confined behind barbed wire just as had been the case in the Concentration Camps while “The conquered Germans had complete freedom.”
1945:Lt. Col. Louis Geffen, who had served as a judge advocate in the US Army since January, 1941, set sail from Oakland, CA for Japan.
1951: In Chicago, Edward H. Levi the former President of the University of Chicago and Attorney General and his wife gave birth to David F. Levi who served a federal judge before becoming Dean of the Duke University School of Law.
1955: Birthdate of Jacob “Jack” Lew, whom President Obama chose to serve as the 25thWhite House Chief of Staff.
1957: Premiere of The Pajama Game featuring a score by Richard Adler and Jerry Ross, two more of the Jews who created and nurtured the “Broadway Musical,” one of America’s unique contributions to the world of entertainment.
1958: United States Air Force Academy opens in Colorado Springs, Colorado. According to the latest figures available, there are approximately fifty Jewish cadets attending the Academy.
1960(6thof Elul, 5720): Fifty-two year old Hedwig “Vicki” Baum whose 1929 novel Menschen im Hotel would be made into the Academy Award winning “Grand Hotel” passed away today.
1961: “Bear Meat,” a short story by Primo Levi, was published for the first time in Il Mondo.
1968: In Chicago, the National Democratic Convention which has been held against a backdrop of demonstrations led in part by Lee Weiner, Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin, comes to an end.
1963: At the New York Shakespeare Festival, final performance of “Electra” featuring David Hurst in the role of “Paedagogus”
1969: A deranged Australian tourist who was a Christian fundamentalist set fire to the Al Aksa Mosque claiming that it was “Satan’s Temple.”
1969: Two Palestinians hijacked a TWA plane after it had left Los Angeles and forced it to land at Damascus where 6 Israeli passengers were detained.
1970: Plans for Israel's forthcoming appeal to the world's Jews for $1-billion next year for nondefense needs of the country were outlined at a meeting of the newly reorganized Jewish Agency
1972(19th of Elul, 5732):René Leibowitz, Polish born French composer, conductor, music theorist and teacher passed away.
1974: Just days before his 65th birthday, Biblical scholar and archeologist George Ernest Wright who directed the Drew-McCormick Archaeological Expedition to Shechem and the Hebrew Union College Biblical and Archaeological School Expedition at Tell Gezer passed away today.
1976: The first Conference on Alternatives in Jewish Education began at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. http://jwa.org/thisweek/aug/29/1976/caje
1977: Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Romanian President Nicolae Ceausescu cruised peacefully on Lake Snagov, discussing peace prospects and bilateral relations. They reaffirmed Israeli-Rumanian friendship, but haggled over the wording of the final joint announcement.
1977: In Jerusalem Mayor Teddy Kollek asked whether the ³equalized services² promised for the West Bank and Gaza by the new Likud government would be extended to east Jerusalem, as well as to the new Jewish neighborhoods, deprived so far of adequate religious, educational and communal facilities.
1979: Birthdate of Ehud “Udi” Tenenbaum the native of Ramat HaSharon who was arrested for hacking into a wide variety of computer systems including those at NASA, MIT and the Knesset.
1982:Rabbi Barry Greene of Livingston, N.J., officiated at the marriage of Dr. Sari Lynn Kramer, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Julian S. Kramer of South Orange, N.J., to Samuel L. Margulies, son of Mrs. Emmanuel Margulies of New York and the late Mr. Margulies.
1984(1stof Elul, 5744): Rosh Chodesh Elul
1986:“In an essay entitled "Encumbered Remembrance: The Controversy about the Incomparability of National-Socialist Mass Crimes" first published in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung today, Joachim Clemens Fest claimed that Ernst Nolte's argument that Nazi crimes were not "singular" was correct.”
1986: Birthdate of Canadian actress, Lauren Collins.
1996: The Democratic National Convention comes to an end having nominated Bill Clinton for President comes to an end. His second administration will include Monica Lewinsky, a failed attempt to force a peace agreement at Camp David and the pardon of Marc Rich.
1997(26thof Av, 5757): Seventy-three year old Ilya Gazarkh, a resident of Pisgat Ze’ev who had survived the combat of WW II, died of the wounds he sustained during a terrorist bombing at the Mahane Yehuda Market in July.
1999: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Urban Exodus: Why the Jews Left Boston and the Catholics Stayedby Gerald Gamm, The Sextants of Beijing: Global Currents in Chinese Historyby Joanna Waley-Cohen daughter of Sir Bernard Nathaniel Waley-Cohen, the Jewish businessman who became Lord Mayor of London, Kosovo Crossing by David Fromkin and The Birth of Shylock and the Death of Zero Mostelby Arnold Wesker.
2000(28th of Av, 5760): Ninety-seven year old Gertrude H. Schaefler, the widow of the late Leon Schaefler passed away today.
2003(1st of Elul, 5763): Rosh Chodesh Elul
2003: Eric Edelman began serving as United States Ambassador to Turkey.
2003: Pulitzer-Prize Winning Poet Louise Glück (pronounced “Glick”) was named poet laureate of the United States.http://jwa.org/thisweek/aug/29/2003/louise-gluck
2004: In the following article entitled “In New York Try and Find A Genuine New York Bagel,” Molly O’Neill decries the downward spiral of the genuine bagel while providing a list of places where the aficionado can find this unique hunk of boiled dough.
Beware the billowy bagel. It bears no resemblance to its small, gnarly forebears. The traditional bagel was as tough as New Yorkers imagine themselves to be. It was a workout: the carb count of a handmade bagel was net zero once the chewing was done. This bagel was one of the reasons that the typical New Yorker found it difficult to wake up elsewhere and one reason people came here. Today the typical New York City bagel is no different from the ones served in malls nationwide. The traditional bagel, born of Eastern European shtetls, was made of yeast, malt, flour, water and salt. It was rolled by hand, first boiled and then baked. Today's version is made from yeast and sugar, flour, water and salt, extruded through machines and baked. The result is a big, fat, soft pillow suitable only for naps. Had we not been focused on other issues in recent years, New Yorkers would have taken swift and certain action against the airy and flaccid interlopers that dare to call themselves bagels. Rather than a daily entitlement, the authentic bagel has become a special event. We generally find them behind well-steamed windows -- the secret is in the malt, the baker and the boiling -- in places like these:
BAGEL HOLE -- 400 Seventh Avenue, Brooklyn, (718) 646-2210
BAGEL OASIS -- 183-12 Horace Harding Expressway, Queens, (718) 359-9245
BAGELWORKS INC. -- 1229 First Avenue, (212) 744-6444.
ESS-A-BAGEL -- 359 First Avenue, (212) 260-2252; 831 Third Avenue, (212) 980-1010.
MURRAY'S BAGELS -- 242 Eighth Avenue at 23rd Street; (646) 638-1335
NEPTUNE BAGELS -- 371 Neptune Avenue, Brooklyn; (718) 462-2830
ROCCO'S PASTRY SHOP AND ESPRESSO CAFE -- 243 Bleecker Street between Avenue of the Americas and Seventh Avenue, (212) 242-6031
2004: The Sunday New York Times book section includes a review of Blackbird House by Jewish novelist Alice Hoffman.
2004: The New York Mets held their annual “Jewish Heritage Day” game by playing the Los Angeles Dodgers who roster includes Shawn Green, the 21st century version of Sandy Koufax.
2005: Hurricane Katrina strikes New Orleans causing untold suffering among the Jewish community as well as the secular community. In the coming days, the world will be treated to Tzizth wearing rabbis rescuing Torah Scrolls from flooded buildings as the Crescent City suffers one of the worst disasters in American history.
2005: The issue of Sports Illustrated Magazine of this date contained an article entitled “Stars Of David” about the two Arab Israelis named Abbas Suan and Walid Badir. They are stars on Israel’s World Cup soccer team. They each scored a critical goal in two games that have left Israel undefeated in seven qualifying games and on the verge of reaching its first World Cup in 36 years.
2005: In Little Rock, AR, Rabbi Pinchas Ciment and his wife Estie Ciment announce the arrival of their new son.
2006: In San Franciscoa SUV struck two people in front of the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco on California Street, a few blocks from where the hit and run rampage ended. Blood covered the sidewalk in front of the center’s gift store entrance, and 50 feet farther down the sidewalk lay a mangled bicycle. Security cameras in front of the center captured images of the incident, which happened at 1:12 p.m., according to Aaron Rosenthal, spokesman for the community center
2007: In Eilat, second night of the Red Sea Jazz Festival.
2007:In response to the Larry Craig scandal Al Goldstein declared in his blog that he was bisexual, and said he'll be "the first presidential candidate to admit to sucking cock and the first to turn fully gay mid-campaign."
2007: Boaz Mauda won Kochav Nolad 2007 with 50% of the votes.
2008: The Red Sea Jazz Festival comes to an end.
2008: TheAvishai Cohen Trio performs at the Blue Note in New York City.
2009: Ceremonies commemorating the 65th Anniversary of the Liquidation of the Litzmannstadt Ghetto by German authorities comes to an end.
2009:Palestinian militants fired a Qassam rocket into the western Negev early today.
2009:In the evening, The Cedar Rapids Jewish community gathers for the first Shiva minyan honoring Peggy McHugh beloved mother of Sabrina Thalblum and the mother-in-law of Rabbi Todd Thalblum.
2010:Annual dinner to support Magan David Adom in Israel is scheduled to take place at Adat Shalom Synagogue in Farmington Hills, Michigan
2010: The Stern Senior Art Show is scheduled to come to an end at Yeshiva University Museum.
2010: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Freedomby Jonathan Franzen
2010: With Mideast peace talks due to restart in Washington this week, Defense Minister Ehud Barak met with Jordan' King Abdallah today to offer assurances that Israel is committed to a lasting peace with the Palestinians. "Peace is a strategic objective for Israel," Barak told the king. "We expect the Palestinians to come to the peace talks with openness."
2010: It was reported from Jerusalem today that “recent discoveries of large natural gas reserves off Israel's coast have set in motion a battle between investors and the government over how to divide up the profits. The initial euphoria over the prospect of energy independence for Israel is being overshadowed by the dispute between Israeli officials who want to increase the state's share of the profits and U.S. and Israeli investors who say the government's stance threatens Israel's status as a safe place to invest. Some have estimated the value of recent finds by a consortium led by Texas-based Noble Energy at $300 billion. They could represent only a fraction of the natural gas lying beneath the seafloor in the eastern Mediterranean, which, according to the U.S. Geological Survey, might contain one of the world's largest untapped gas reservoirs.
2011: “Ushpizin” is scheduled to be shown at Movies Under the Stars at the Chabad Community Campus in Fairfax, VA.
2011:Seven people were injured in south Tel Aviv early this morning, when a terrorist from the West Bank carjacked a taxi and rammed it into a police road block protecting a Tel Aviv nightclub, before going on a stabbing spree.Police said the terrorist, a 20-year-old Nablus resident, entered a taxi near the beginning of Salameh Street, and carjacked the driver, stabbing him in the hand. He then drove for approximately a kilometer down Salameh Street towards the Haoman 17 nightclub, which was filled with high school children at an end-of-summer party.
2011:Top Israeli singer and TV personality Margalit "Margol" Tzan'ani and convicted criminal Michael Hazan were indicted this morning on charges of extortion, and conspiracy to commit a crime.
2012: “Advanced Kashrut Seminar for Women” is scheduled to take place at the OU Headquarters in New York City.
2012: A 25 person Israeli team is set to compete at the Paralympic Games which are scheduled to open today in London (As reported by Aaron Kalman)
2012: One hundred fifteenth anniversary of the opening of the First Zionist Congress in Basle.
2012:The office of Rabbi Yitshak Ehrenberg, who has been serving the Berlin Jewish community since 1997, confirmed today in an email that criminal charges had been filed against him. Ehrenberg has received a letter from the prosecutor’s office because of comments he made on a nationwide broadcast television show, an aide confirmed. At this point it is not known who filed the complaint and what exactly the letter states.
2012: In “Peeking through the highrises: famed Jerusalem street's old architectural glories” published today Moshe Gilad provides cultural history of the Jewish state disguised as a tour of Jerusalem's Hanevi'im (Prophets) Street
2013: The Sydney Jewish Writers’ Festival presents “In Conversation with Laurent Binet” whose award winning first novel HHhh “recounts the assassination of Nazi leader Reinhard Heydrich in 1942.”
2013: Denis Kozhutkin is scheduled to play Hindemith’s Piano Sonata no.3 in B flat major at The Jerusalem International Chamber Music Festival.
2013:Félix Lajkó and his band are scheduled to perform at the Dohany Street Synagogue in Budapest.
2013: "Praying for peace is not enough when God’s children are being gassed,” a leading British rabbi, Dr. Jonathan Romain, said in an expression of support for military intervention in Syria, British media reported today.”
2013: “Thousands of Israelis lined up outside gas mask distribution centers today, despite efforts by authorities to calm fears of being on the receiving end of a threatened Syrian retaliation should the US take military action against the Assad regime.” (As reported by Rettig Gurg and Stuart Winer
2014: Valerie Sassyfras is scheduled to perform “a vocal set of original songs” at the Banks Street Bar in New Orleans.
2014: The Tel Aviv International Synagogue is scheduled to host a Carelbach Kabbalat Shabbat Service followed by a Champagne Kiddush.
