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This Day, August 9, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. Levin

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August 9


48 B.C.E.: Julius Caesar defeated Pompey at the battle of Parsalus. This victory helped to cement Caesar’s position and put an end to Pompey. Considering Pompey’s behavior towards the Jews, including his desecration of the Temple, Caesar’s victory was the preferred outcome.


378: Roman Emperor Valens who began his reign in 364, was killed by the Visigoths as he led his large to defeat at the Battle of Adrianople.   During his reign Valens followed the course of his predecessors and issued an edict strengthening the Patriarchate.  He issued an edict that exempted “officers of communities subject to the ‘illustrious Patriarch (Nasi)’ from service on municipal councils.  In 368 he issued an edict forbidding the billeting of troops in Synagogues.  Such minor sounding positive notes, makes him better than his imperial peers when it came to treatment of the Jewish people.


681: Founding of the first Bulgarian Empire. Archaeologists have found traces of Jewish communities in the area that pre-dated the formation of Bulgaria.  The first major movement of Jews into Bulgaria took place early in the 8th century when Jews fled persecution in the Byzantine Empire.


1471: The Papacy of Sixtus IV began.In Italy the reign of Sixtus IV marks a high point of tolerance. The pope used Jewish physicians, and perhaps employed Jews for the collection, copying, and translation of Hebrew works. He refused to canonize Simon of Trent, allegedly a victim of Jewish ritual murder. It is clear, however, that the pope's tolerance was offset, outside his own domains, by local hostility. A generous bull of 1479 concerning the Jews of Avignon was questioned and subsequently withdrawn. In November 1478 the pope issued a bull investing Ferdinand and Isabella with extraordinary powers to appoint inquisitors in all parts of Castile.” (Jewish Virtual Library)  This was the first step in what would lead to the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492.


1506: Prince Yaroslavitch established the community of Pinsk. At the same time, he reconfirmed the rights given to the Jews by King Alexander Jagello, King of Lithuania.


1612: Thirty-five year old Count Philip Ludwig II who invited Jews to settle in Hanau, “permitted them to build a synagogue and gave them legal status” in spite of opposition from the Christian clergy passed away today.


1732(18th of Av, 5492): Rabbi Yaakov Culi the Talmudist and Biblical commentator who was the grandson of Moses ibn Habib, passed away in Constantinople.


1773: Adoption of the "General-Juden-Reglement" which provided the rules used to govern the newly acquired Jewish subjects that Frederick the Great acquired from the partition of Poland.


1807(5th of Av): Rabbi Ze’ev Lesh, author of Kedushat Yisrael, passed away


1819: With the mobs crying “Hep, hep!” an anti-Semitic riot broke out in Frankfort.


1821: Birthdate of Austrian poet Heinrich Landesmann.


1826(6th of Av, 5586): Meir Ben Moses Kurnik, “the German rabbi and calendar maker from Glogau” passed away today at Hamburg.


1827: Birthdate of William Morris Stewart, the Senator from Nevada who defended the Jews of Romania from an attack by Senator Sprague.  Sprague said the Jews were to blame for their suffering because of the economic success. “Mr. Stewart said he hoped Mr. Sprague did not mean to imply that when a man gets rich he ought to be killed.” Senator Sprague gave a faint smile but made no reply.


1828: Birthdate of Joseph Eduard Konrad Bischoff who gained fame as Conrad von Bolanden the author of Judas Makkabaeus, a novella which appeared in Der Gefangene von Kuestrinin 1885


1832: The seconds for James Jones Stark, who refused to apologize for calling Phillip Minis a “damned Jew” and the seconds for Minis met in Savannah to discuss the terms for the duel between the two men.


1850(1st of Elul, 5610): Rosh Chodesh Elul


1850(1st of Elul, 5610): Miss Rachel Myers Cohen of Philadelphia passed away at the age of 70.


1855:As further proof of the existence of a Jewish community from the earliest days of the Lone Star State, The San Antonio Texan reported today on the excitement that has gripped this city during its recent election. "In fact the excitement reached every class of our citizens, old and young, rich and poor, male and female, Protestant, Catholic and Jew..."


1855: Birthdate of author Dorothea Gerard, the native of New Monkland, Scotland near Glasgow whose works include Orthodox, One Year and The Austrian Officer.


1858: It was reported today that the in Great Britain, the House of Lords, has taken action on two of the pressing issues of the day related to religion. Based apparently on its view of Biblical law, the Lords has expressed its opposition to allowing a widower to marry the sister of his deceased spouse. The Lords has agreed to allow Jews to sit in the House of Commons if they are elected to that chamber.  The Lords has opposed this measure for decades, but as in so many other matters including the repeal of the Corn Laws and the Divorce Bill, the “upper house” has given way to the popular will.  This latest capitulation in the matter of the Jews is seen as further evidence of the erosion of the power of the Lords. [This issue of the Jews sitting in Parliament was, in some respects, part of a much larger battle that was fought throughout most of the 19th century, between the landed gentry and the rising trading, industrial and professional classes.]


1860: It wasreported today that Baron Alphonse De Rothschild has been appointed Consul-General of Prussia. He is the first Jew who has exercised such functions for that Kingdom.


1862: Birthdate of David Phillipson, the native of Wabash, Indiana who became one of the leading Reform Rabbis of the late 19th and 20th centuries.


1864: Birthdate of Roman Dmowski the Polish political leader who, during the inter-war years led a political party that was both anti-Semitic and anti- ethnic Germans.  Among other things, he believed the “wealth of the Jews and the Germans” should confiscated and given to Polish Catholics.


1868: In Chicago, a hospital on La Salle Avenue sponsored by the United Hebrew Relief Association opened its doors to patients for the first time.


1871: “France and Algeria” published today described the pitiful conditions of the Jews living in Algeria prior to its colonization by the French.  Among the Moslem “races…hatred of the Jew is a tradition and almost a religious duty.”  During the Moslem “rule in Algeria, the Jews suffered every kind of torment.  They could not walk in the streets after 6 o’clock at night without obtaining a special authorization from the police.  If the night was dark, instead of carrying a lantern, like the Turks and Moors, they had a lighted candle, which the wind blew out continually.  They were obliged to take off their shoes in passing before a Mosque and to kneel before the Kasba.   Jews could only address a” Moslem “with deference and submission.”   The Jews “moved off the pavement to allow” the Moslems “to pass and any infraction of these customs was punished with basonado and fines.”  The Jews “could not ride on horseback and could not ride into town on a donkey.  Any insult toward a “Moslem” was punished by sudden death, inflicted arbitrarily, and often according to the offended Moor’s caprices…” [The idea that all the lands of Islam were hospitable to Jews until the creation of the state of Israel, is obviously not an accurate one.]


1874: It was reported today that the London School Board had appointed “Mr. Levy, a Jew…as head master of a school in Whitechapel, in a district where the majority of the inhabitants are Jews.”

1879: It was reported today that much of Sarajevo, the multi-ethnic capital of the Turkish province of Bosnia has been consumed by fire.  Amongst those who have suffered great loss are those living in the Jewish district the home of many of those who dominate the commercial activities of the region.


1880:Samuel Untermyer married Minnie Carl, daughter of Mairelius Carl of New York City today. “They had three children, Alvin, who served in the 305th Field Artillery in France during the Great War; Irwin, a justice of the Appellate Division of the New York State Supreme Court, and Irene, a philanthropist who married Louis Putnam Myers and, after his death, became the wife of Stanley Richter.”


1883: “Moritz Scharf, the boy who was the principal witness for the prosecution in the recent trial of a number of Jews at Nyireghyhaza, charged with murdering a girl in order to procure her blood for ritual purposes and who swore he saw the murder committed, has confessed…that his testimony was false.”


1885: In Detroit, Louis Grossman, the tenth person to serve as Rabbi at Temple Beth El organized the Emerson Circle, “a society for the promotion of general culture.”


1885: “Strolling Bands” published today described the various wandering musicians found on the Lower East Side and Coney Island.  Membership in the strolling string bands is confined to Polish and Italian Jews.


1886: “The New Books” column described Court Royal: A Story of Cross Currents, the latest novel by S. Baring Gould.  The novel which is “conspicuous” for its “exceeding bad taste, features Emanuel Lazarus, a Plymouth pawnbroker who is a Jew “of the most repulsive type” and misses no opportunity to ridicule the customs of the Jewish religion.


1886(8thof Av, 5646): Rabbi Mendes led the Tish’a B’Av services tonight at the 19thstreet Synagogue. The well attended services began with a reading of the 137thPsalm followed by the chanting of Lamentations.


1886: “Solomon At Long Branch” described various reactions to the large number of Jews who spend their summer at this popular New Jersey resort – ranging from the ugliest ant-Semitism to the most enlightened views of the 19thcentury.


1888: During today’s meeting of the House of Representative’s Committee on Immigration which was holding hearings in New York, Henry Zeltner described the manner in which many Polish Jews reach the United States.  There are several operatives on Canal Street who “sell steamship tickets to Poles in this country on the installment plan.”  “By paying $3 down, they can have a ticket to America sent to a relative in Poland.  “The relative then comes” to the United States and “works out the price of the ticket.”


1890: “City and Suburban News” published today listed upcoming events in the New York Metropolitan area including a lecture by Dr. Cyrus Adler at the Jewish Theological Seminary.


1890: As of today, the leaders of London’s Jewish community have not been able to “discover the exact truth about the…anti-Jewish crusade in Russia.”


1890: In Pittsburg, Mrs. William Schmidt, Mrs. Sarah Vabelinsky and their two children, all of whom are Polish Jews experienced convulsions and fainting spells which might have been caused by food poisoning.


1890: Mendel Feldstein told his landlord this morning at breakfast that he had seen two men hide a bag of jewels last night and that they had threatened him when they realized he was aware that he had seen them.


1890: A list of those charities receiving bequests of a thousand dollars from the late Alexander Bach was published today included: 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.  The Deborah Nursery was on the list but only for $500.


1891: It was reported today that “Steve” Ryan of Atlanta, GA “has vowed vengeance upon the whole Jewish race” after he failed to pay the debts he owed to Schloss Brothers & Co according to the attorneys Horowitz and Hirschfield.


1892: “Extradition proceedings in the case of Harris Blank and Charles Roseneigh,” who have been accused of murdering a Jewish peddler, Jacob Marks came to a close today in Toronto, Canada.


1893: Following claims by Reverend Herman P. Faust of the Hebrew Christian Mission that the United Hebrew Charities “often refuses to give aid where it is plainly needed” as exemplified by the case of the late Joseph Korman whose family was left destitute by the Jewish agency, “a reporter for the New York Times found” the family “living in rooms that are neat.”  The United Hebrew Charities said that it had offered the family $5 in aid, “which was refused.”  It had not given more because the family had three children who were old enough to work and the agency offered, as was its practice, to find each of them jobs.


1896: “East Side Roof Garden” published today described  the recently opened facility atop the Hebrew Institute  as “one of the greates blessing that could been devised to give the overcrowded population on the east side a chance to breathe a little fresher air than they can get in the stifling streets and tenements.” Ice water is provided free of charge to the eight hundred people allowed on the roof which is also the scene of evening concerts three times a week.


1896(30th of Av, 5656): Rosh Chodesh Elul


1896(30th of Av, 5656): Aviation pioneer Otto Lilenthaldied when his glider crashed during a test flight.  Lienthal is referred to some as the Jewish “Wright Brothers” since he is credited by some with making one of the first flights with a heavier than air craft.


1896: Birthdate of Swiss developmental psychologist Jean Piaget who was treated by Sabina Spiielrein, the Jewish pioneer psychoanalyst who served as his analyst for 8 months in 1921.


1896: Birthdate of Russian psychologist, Lev Vygotsky.


1896: Due to the “sever heat” the milk depots funded by Nathan Straus will be kept open all day.


1896: “Free Milk For Sick Children” published today described the easing of restrictions by Nathan Straus to make free milk available to the children to New York as well as instructions for the best ways for children to drink it.


1896: Because of the “severe heat” all of the depots dispensing free milk sponsored by Nathan Straus will remain open all day today.


1899: Israel Zangwill will go to Southampton, Long Island, “as the guest of James Herne, who is “going to state “Children of the Ghetto.”


1902: Edward VII is crowned King of the United Kingdom(Great Britain, Scotlandand Ireland).  When he was Prince of Wales, Edward broke with conventional social notions by including numerous Jews in his “set.”  On ascending the throne, Edward earned a lasting position of endearment among the Jewish people.  He pressed the Russians to improve the treatment of their Jewish subjects.  When he went to Russia, he insisted on raising the issue with Czar Nicholas II even though his advisors pleaded with him not to.  Edward’s intervention did not improve the situation but he gets high mark for having made the effort.


1902(6th of Av, 5662): Sixty-six year old Moritz Szeps the editor-in-chief of the Vienna Morgenpost, passed away today.


1911: It was reported toda that Boston Rabbi Wolf Margolies has agreed to become the Rabbi for United Hebrew Communion also known as Adas Israel.  The congregation has 10,000 members and will reportedly the new rabbi an annual salary of five thousand dollars.


1912: Birthdate of Giora Yoseftal, the native of Nuremburg who made Aliyah in 1938 and became a leader of Mapai.


1915: It was reported today that the committee chaired by Congressman Meyer which will be raising money to help Jews in war-torn Europe is devising a plan whereby “storekeepers” will “display cards in their windows “both asking for contributions and showing that he merchants themselves have already given.”


1918(1st of Elul, 5678): Rosh Chodesh Elul


1918: On the Western Front, three days of fighting during which future Medal of Honor winner William Shemmin was wounded after having “left the cover of his platoon's trench and crossed open space, repeatedly exposing himself to heavy machine gun and rifle fire to rescue the wounded” and then taken command of the platoon “after the officers and senior non-commissioned officers had become casualties.”


1919: Today, Isaac Babel married Yevgenia Gronfein, the parents of Nathalie Babel Brown who became “the editor of her father’s life and work.”


1923: The JTA reported that it would not be publishing the Daily News Bulletin tomorrow in observance of the national day of mourning for the death of President Harding


1924:Samuel Gompers, President of the American Federation of Labor refused to attend the notification ceremony for John W. Davis at Clarksburg, West Virginia. Davis was the compromise candidate for the Democratic Party’s nomination for President, having been chosen on the 103rd ballot.


1924: A statement from Samuel Gompers that he was "willing to forget and forgive acts of omission and commission resulting from differences of opinion during the war" is contained in a letter made public by Mr. Gompers today incidental to the meeting of the Executive Council of the American Federation of Labor at the Hotel Ambassador.


1925: A memorial tablet erected to one of its patients by his fellow patients was unveiled today in the MontefioreHospital for Chronic Diseases, at
Gun Hill Road
and
Bainbridge Avenue
, the Bronx. Although tablets on hospital walls usually represent benefactions to the institution, this one is a tribute from the 600 patients, who were cheered in his lifetime by Max Messinger.
 Confined to his wheel chair for twelve years, Max Messinger was the Good Samaritan of the hospital. His busy brain and fingers, the only parts of his body over which he had control, worked to create amusement for the other patients to whom he brought music, vaudeville, moving pictures, books, magazines and a social club, as well as a monthly paper, which he edited. By establishing contacts with performers and film companies, he was able to present a full performance each week to the hundreds who assembled on crutches and in wheel chairs for relaxation. He received literature which he distributed to the others, and traveled about the wards, especially among the children. With a portable Victrola perched on his wheel chair he played the records that friends had sent. For ten years he was the editor of the monthly paper, The Montefiore Echo, in which he encouraged the others to write. On the walls, with memorials to such noted benefactors as Sir Moses Montefiore, Jacob H. Schiff, Professor Morris Loeb, has been placed a bronze plaque made possible by the small contributions of the patients, a simple expression of gratitude to Max Meninger.


1926: The Third International Conference of the Ort associations opened in Berlin at a building that formerly housed the Prussian House of Lords. (ORT is an organization that was founded in 1880 to provide assistance and educational opportunities for Russian Jews.  The scope has expanded and it currently offers programs for Jews in over a one hundred countries.)


1926: The extent of Jewish participation in the struggle for the independence of Poland, in the early days of the movement, unrecognized by the Great Powers and Polish public opinion at large, was impressed upon the public mind today when Josef Pilsudski, first Marshal of Poland and leader of the Legionnaires, kissed publicly a Jewish invalid who fought in the Legion. A highly dramatic scene was enacted when the twelfth anniversary of the crossing by Pilsudski's Legion of the frontier of Congress Poland was celebrated at the Legionnaire Congress, opened today in Kielce, the first Polish city to be occupied by the Polish Legion under Pilsudski's command in 1914. Many Jewish Legionnaires were present at the celebration. Pilsudski publicly kissed a Jewish Legionnaire who lost both his legs on the battlefield. (JTA)


1927: Birthdate of Marvin Minsky. Marvin Minsky has made many contributions to AI (Artificial Intelligence), cognitive psychology, mathematics, computational linguistics, robotics, and optics. In recent years he has worked chiefly on imparting to machines the human capacity for commonsense reasoning. Minsky is on the faculty of MIT and winner of the ACM Turing Award


1927The Maccabee soccer team of Palestine left New York today aboard the SS Sinaia.


1927:M. Henri Torres, counsel for Sholom Schwartzbard, has addressed a cablegram to Louis D. Brandeis, U. S. Supreme Court Justice, asking him to intervene in favor of Sacco and Vanzetti.


1928: Birthdate of Maximillian Grunfeld the native of Czechoslovakia who gained fame as a American master tailor Martin Greenfield owner of Martin Greenfield Clothiers.


1929: “Friend Sues To Free Sculptor As Sane” published today described the efforts De Hirsch Margules to gain the freedom of Alfred Dreyfus. The painter and sculptor has petitioned Chief Justice Alfred Frankenthaler on behalf of Alfred Dreyfuss, the sculptor and writer to overturn the order issued by Justice Lydon that has committed his friend to a sanitarium for the insane.  Margules contends that Drefyuss’ mother brought the suit after having been unduly influenced by her other son who is seeking to control the family’s financial affairs.


1930: Famed cartoon character “Betty Boop” made her debut in the animated film Dizzy Dishes.  Boop and the film were the creation of an Austrian born Jew named Max Fleischer. Fleischer was producing animated cartoons years before Disney’s Steamboat Willie appeared on the screen.


1933: In Vilna, Chamber of Commerce unanimously votes to proclaim a boycott against German goods in protest against the Nazi treatment of the Jews.


1933:Edgar Ansell Mowrer, president of the Foreign Correspondents Association in Berlin, resigned from his post in order to secure the release of Paul Goldman, 68-year-old Jewish correspondent of the Vienna Neue Freie Presse, who was charged with "high treason." 


1935: “China Seas,” an adventure moved produced by Irving Thalberg was released in the United States today by MGM.


1938: Warner Bros. released “Four Daughters” a musical drama based on a novel by Fannie Hurst directed by Michael Curtiz, produced by Hal B. Wallis with a screenplay co-authored by Jules Epstein, music by Max Steiner


1938:Today Senator Norris of Nebraska made a recommendation that President Roosevelt appoint Felix Frankfurter, Professor of Law at Harvard University and one of the original New Deal advisers, to the United States Supreme Court to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Justice Benjamin Cardozo.


1938: In article entitled “Children Go to Palestine,” the New York Timesreports on the migration of 167 Jewish children from Austria and Germany to Palestine.  The youngsters are part of the Third Aliyah and are being settled at Ain Harod and Kfar Jecheskiel.


1938: The situation in Palestine threatened to grow worse when Moslem ecclesiastical authorities issued a fatwa calling for Iraqi participation in the fighting in Palestine which was labeled a Jihad.  Thousands of young Iraqis responded by rushing to sign up at recruiting stations set up in Baghdad.


1938: Premiere of “Four Daughters,” a musical directed by Michael Curtiz, produced by Hal Wallis, co-starring John Garfield, with a script by Julius Epstein, music by Max Steiner and co-starring John Garfield who was nominated for an Oscar as Best Actor in a Supporting Role.


1940(5th of Av, 5700): Rabbi Chaim Ozer Grodzinski, author of Ahi’ezer passed away


1940: Birthdate of Carl Robert Zelnick, the New York native whose assignments for ABC news included a two year stint as their correspondent in Israel during the 1980’s.


1941: According to reports at the time the Nazis killed 510 Jews Brest-Litovsk and 296 Jews killed in Bialystok


1942: Slovakian and Polish Jews were violently removed from the Rejowiec ghetto as the Nazis shut it down.


1942: Teresa Benedicta of the Cross died in Auschwitz.  Born Edith Stein, Sister Teresa and her sister converted long before World War II.  However, the Catholic Church allowed the Nazis to seize her and thousands of other Jews who had converted to Catholicism and ship them off to the death chambers.  According to Canon Law, Sister Teresa was a Catholic.  But apparently she was not a real Catholic since the Church let her go up in smoke facing the fate of a Jewess named Stein.


1942: In the first mass deportation to the gas chambers 10,000 Jews were sent from the Borislave ghetto to the Belsen death camp.


1942: Two hundred Jews escape into the forests of Mir. During that week, another 6,000 would die in Naliboki, Lubcz and Karelicze.


1942: In Winnipeg, Canada Rabbi Yasha Steinberg and his wife Ruth gave birth to director and comedian David Steinberg.

1942: Birthdate of Richard Michael Suzman, the native of Johannesburg who was an anti-apartheid activist before becoming a leading social psychologist in the United States.

1943: Birthdate of French art historian Michel Melot author of The Impressionist Print.


1944: German jurist Karl Sack was arrested today for his part in the attempt to assassinate Hitler on June 20th.


1945: Birthdate of Avraham Poraz, the native of Bucharest who made Aliyah in 1950 and served in the Knesset and as Minister of the Interior.


1948: The first envoy from the USSR arrived in Israel today,


1948: In Rissani, Morocco, Rabbi Meir and Simcha Abuhatzeira, gave birth Rabbi Elazar Abuhatzeira, known as the “Baba Elazar” the grandson of the Baba Sali, Rabbi Yisrael Abuhatzeira, and the brother of Rabbi David Chai Abuhatzeira of Nahariya who moved to Beersheba in 1966.


1949: Birthdate of mystery writer Jonathan Kellerman. Kellerman is the author of the series featuring Dr. Delaware. He is also the husband of mystery writer Faye Kellerman.


1957: In New York, Jerry and Sally Solomon gave birth Deborah Solomon the New Rochelle raised “art critic, journalist and biographer.”


1952: In Westport, CT, “The Stronger,” an opera by Hugo Weisgall premiered at the White Barn Theatre a venue created by actress Lucille Lortel, the daughter of Anny and Harris Walder and wife of industrialist and philanthropist Louis Schweitzer.


1960:The Religious Torah Front, an alliance of the Ultra-orthodox parties Agudat Yisrael and Poalei Agudat Yisrael that had been formed in 1955, split today with Poalei Agudat taking two of the Front’s six seats in the Knesset.


1960: Larry Sherry came in to relieve starter Johnny Podres and protect the team’s victory over the Milwaukee Braves.


1961: Birthdate of John Phillip Key, the 38th Prime Minister of New Zealand and leader of the New Zealand National Party.


1961: “Come September” a comedy with a script by Stanley Shapiro and music by Hans J. Salter was released today in the United States by Universal Pictures.


1965:  Singapore seceded from Malaysia and gained independence.  The Jewish community in Singapore traces its origins back to the early 18th century. The famous Sassoon family established business operations in the middle of the century. David Marshall, a prominent leader of the Jewish community, was known as the “father of Singapore Independence” for his efforts to gain liberation from Great Britain.  Today, Singapore has a small but vibrant Jewish community that supports two venerated houses of worship Maghain Aboth and Chesed El Synagogues.


1967: Hafez Tahoub, a former Jordanian district judge, and Mussa el-Bitar, an insurance agent, were arrested today by Israeli authorities for instigating a general strike in east Jerusalem that was aimed at crippling the economy in the section of the city that had been occupied by the Jordanians from 1948 until June of 1967.


1969: Birthdate of New York lawyer and politician Andrew Cohen.

1969:  Sharon Tate, wife of director Roman Polanski and four others were murdered in Los Angeles.  It would turn out that they were victims of Charles Manson and his gang of killers.


1973:  At a lecture to the Staff College, Defense Minister Moshe Dayan told the officer “the overall balance of forces is in our favor and this is what decides the question and rules out the immediate renewal of the war.”  These reassuring words would come back to haunt the Israelis when Egypt and Syria would attack two months later in the Yom Kippur War, which almost had disastrous consequences for the survival of the Jewish state. 


1974: In the wake of the Watergate Scandal, Richard Nixon resigned as President of the United States. Nixon turned out to be “a mixed bag” for the Jewish people.  He began his career on the political right as a fellow-traveler the McCarthy Movement which made him an anathema to many Jews who tended to be moderates and liberals.  As President, he appointed the first Jew, Henry Kissinger to the position of Secretary of State.  During the Yom Kippur War, he pulled out all of the stops to aid Israel.  Yet the Watergate Tapes have him uttering some of the vilest anti-Semitic sentiments that one can imagine coming from the lips of U.S. President. 


1978: Morton Abramowitz began serving as U.S. Ambassador to Thailand.


1981(9th of Av, 5741):Tish'a B'Av


1981: At the All Star Baseball Game in Cleveland, Bob Verdi of the Chicago Tribune sat next to Jerome Holtzman, the popular Jewish baseball writer who wrote for the Sun-Times.  Holtzman indicated to Verdi that he was ready to move from the Sun Times to the Tribune.  Verdi contacted George Langford, the Trib’s sports editor, setting in motion Holtzman’s switch from Chicago’s #2 paper, to the WindyCity’s # 1 paper.


1982:Grenade-throwing Palestinians burst into the Jo Goldenberg deli in Paris and sprayed machine-gun fire which killed six, including two Americans, and injuring 21 patrons.


1983(30th of Av, 5743): Rosh Chodesh Elul


1985: Release date for “Pee-wee’s Big Adventure” starring Paul Reubens as Pee-wee Herman


1993: In Belgium, coronation of King Albert II during which Queen Paola wore a yellow coat that was designed by Olivier Strelli, who was born Nissim Israel at Kinshasa in 1946 and developed “a chain of male and female clothing and accessory boutiques in Belgium, Switzerland, France and China.”


1994:Edward P. Djererjian left his post as U.S. Ambassador to Israel.


1998: The New York Times features a review of Benjamin Disraeli Letters Volume 6: 1852-1856
Edited by M. G. Wiebe, Mary S. Millar and Ann P. Robson.  Disraeli is Britain’s most famous Jew who was not Jewish.


2001(20th of Av, 5761):  A suicide bomber struck a busy intersection in Jerusalem, blowing up a Sbarro Pizza Parlor, killing 15, 7 of whom were children  and wounding 130. Hamas and the Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the attack. The dead included Zvika Golombek, 26, from Karmiel; Shoshana Yehudit (Judy) Greenbaum, 31 (5 months pregnant), from Passaic, New Jersey, U.S.;Tehila Maoz, 18, from Jerusalem; Frieda Mendelsohn, 62, from Jerusalem; Michal Raziel, 16, from Jerusalem; Malka Chana (Malki) Roth, 15, from Jerusalem; Mordechai Schijveschuurder, 43, from Neria; Tzira Schijveschuurder, 41, from Neria; Ra'aya Schijveschuurder, 14, from Neria; Avraham Yitzhak Schijveschuurder, 4, from Neria; Hemda Schijveschuurder, 2, from Neria;] Lily Shimashvili, 33, from Jerusalem; Tamara Shimashvili, 8, from Jerusalem; Yocheved Shoshan, 10, from Jerusalem; and Giora Balash, 60, from Brazil


2001(20th of Av, 5761): Seventeen year old Aliza Malka was killed by terrorists “in a drive-by shooting.”


2005: Eric Edelman began serving as Under Secretary of Defense for Policy.


2005:  The Jerusalem Post reported on The Dry Bones Project which is the brainchild of Yaakov Kirschen, creator of the popular Dry Bones Cartoons and is intended to use humor to fight anti-Semitism.  For more info on the project, go to http://www.drybonesproject.com.


2005:  Haaretz reported on the fourteenth meeting of World Jewish Congress of Jewish Studies held this week at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.  One of the sessions featured a theoretical debate on the question of "Teaching Mysticism in Academia."  Discussion of this topic in an academic form highlights renewed interest among the mainstream Jewish community in the topic of mysticism within the framework of Judaism.


2005(4th of Av, 5765): Seventy-year old Judith Rossner, author of Looking for Mr. Goodbar passed away.

2006(15th of Av, 5766):  Eighty-three year old Melissa Hayden, one of the biggest starts in  American ballet passed away.(As reported by Anna Kisselgoff)

2006(15th of Av, 5766):  Fifteen members of the IDF have been killed and another twenty-five wounded in the fight against Hezbollah.


2007: The Jerusalem Post reported that the Saudi Arabian government continues to bar Jews and Christians from bringing items such as Bibles, crucifixes and Stars of David into the country and is threatening to confiscate them on sight.


2007:A 23-year-old Jewish woman was attacked in Noisy-le-Grand, near Paris, by two youths who beat her and shouted anti-Semitic slogans, said the French National Bureau of Vigilance Against Anti-Semitism. The attackers shouted "You dirty Jew" at the woman before stealing the mobile phone she was using and beating her violently about the head and body. Vigilance against anti-Semitism.


2008(8thof Av, 5768): Shabbat Chazon; Begin reading the Book of Devarim (Deuteronomy)


2008: Five of Israel's representatives will be competing in the first day of the Olympic Games today.


2008(8thof Av, 5768): Seventy-four year old Jack Landau “a founder of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press” passed away today.

2008(8thof Av, 5768): In the evening, Fast of Tisha B’Av begins; David Levin chants Chapter Five from the Book of Lamentations  - a sweet voice for a sad occasion.


2008: The Washington Post reportsthat nearly three months after a federal immigration raid uprooted almost 400 employees at a meatpacking plant in northeastern Iowa, dozens of Somali immigrants are slowly but steadily filling the depleted ranks left by the arrested workers.


2009: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Art of Harvey Kurtzman: The Mad Genius of Comics“Denis Kitchen and Paul Buhle’s insightful, entertaining and profusely illustrated biographical monograph, which chronicles almost everything Kurtzman accomplished…”


2009(19th of Av, 5769): Seventy year old Lester Glassner whose penchant for “kitsch” turned him into a major collector of pop culture artifacts, passed away. (As reported by Bruce Weber)

2009: Gaza militants fired mortars at a crossing into Israel just as Palestinian patients were being transferred for treatment, a Palestinian official said.


2009:Fervently Orthodox Jews mobbed Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat and threw stones at his car.


2010: This is scheduled to be the final night of this year’s San Francisco Jewish Film Festival.


2010:Oscilloscope Laboratories said today that it would appeal the rating by the Classification and Rating Administration for "A Film Unfinished," which explores a Nazi propaganda film taken in the Warsaw Ghetto in 1942.


2010(29thof Av, 5770):  Eighty-eight year old New York real estate tycoon Paul Milstein passed away (As reported by Douglas Martin)

2010:A New Zealand judge has allowed the kosher slaughter of animals to resume until the lawsuit filed by the Jewish community against the government comes to trial.


2010:The synagogue of Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak HaCohen Kook, luminary sage and father of modern religious Zionism, was reopened today in southern Tel Aviv 30 years after it closed its doors. The synagogue, Shaarei Torah, is located in the Neveh Shalom neighborhood just north of Yafo (Jaffa). Following the informal re-dedication today amid singing and dancing, the synagogue is now open for daily prayers.


2011(9th of Ave, 5771): Fast of Tisha B’Av


2011:The British Jewish community has expressed its shock over the recent rioting which has shaken the UK over the last few days. The Board of Deputies of British Jews called for unity and said today that the community’s thoughts were with the victims.


2011:Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz, who is a member of the Trajtenberg Committee created to examine the demands of the social-movement protesters, visited the Rothschild Boulevard tent protest on this evening where activists explained to him their discontent with the government, and particularly the minister's, inefficiency


2011(9th of Av, 5771): Eighty-seven year old David Lewis, the British entrepreneur who founded the Isrotel chain of hotels, which is the country’s large hotel chain, passed away today.

2011: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest including The Long Night: William L. Shirer and ‘The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich' by Steve Wick


2012: Jerusalem’s Hazel Hill String Band is scheduled to perform tonight at Petah Tiqva


2012: Dr. Laibl Wolf is scheduled to deliver a lecture on "The 2012 Secret of Successful Relationships" - Intimacy, Commitment & Exploitation!” at the Chabad Center of Rechavia


2012:An American Jewish woman, Debra Ryder, is demanding NIS 50,000 in compensation from El Al Israel Airlines Ltd. (TASE: ELAL) for allegedly switching her seat on a flight from the US, because haredi (ultra-orthodox) men refused to sit next to her. She claims that the flight steward moved her to a seat in the back of the plane, which did not meet her medical needs.


2012:A Brooklyn hardware store clerk pleaded guilty today to charges he abducted and dismembered an 8-year-old boy who lost his way home. The guilty plea, to charges of second-degree murder and kidnapping, guarantees Levi Aron a sentence of 40 years to life in a case that traumatized the victim’s tight-knit Orthodox Jewish community.


2012:Al-Quds also reported that this morning, that Mossad had transferred a list of names to Egyptian Intelligence that contained nine names of terrorists connected to the attack in Rafah.


2012: David Kilimnick, Razorback by birth – Israeli by choice, is scheduled to perform The Aliyah Monologues: Tour of Funny through the Holy Land at the Off The Wall Comedy Club in Jerusalem.


2012: Janet Maslin reviewed two books that might be of special interest to Jewish readers--Double Cross: The True Story of the D-Day Spiesby Ben Macintyre and Agent Garbo:The Brilliant, Eccentric Secret Agent Who Tricked Hitler and Saved D-Day by Stephen Talty


2012(21st of Av, 5772): Forty-seven year old “comic essayist” David Rakoff passed away today. (As reported by Margalit Fox)

2012(21st of Av, 5772): Seventy-seven year old Holocaust survivor turned New York political powerhouse Raymond B. Harding, passed away today. (As reported by Robert McFadden)

2013: “Blumenthal” and “Awake Zion” are scheduled to be shown at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival.


2013: “Fill the Void,” a film that tells the story an Orthodox Chassidic family from Tel Aviv is scheduled to open at Century 16 in Anchorage, Alaska, making it the second theatre in the state to show the film.


2013 “Former Military Intelligence chief Amos Yadlin warned today that the West's one dimensional perception of Iran's nuclear program, focusing solely on the uranium enrichment path to a nuclear weapon, could enable the Islamic Republic to build a plutonium bomb without detection.” (As reported by the Jerusalem Post)


2013:An Israeli Air Force drone reportedly struck a jihadist rocket launcher in the Sinai Peninsula near the Israeli-Egyptian border, killing four suspected terrorists who were planning to launch missiles at Israel, Egyptian security sources told Reuters today.


2014: "Automonuments", a solo exhibition by New York based Israeli artist Niv Rozenberg is scheduled to come to an end today.


2014(13thof Av, 5774); Sixty year old Joseph Raskin, an Orthodox Rabbi from Brooklyn was gunned down this morning as he walked to Shabbat services at Bais Menachem, a Northeast Miami-Dade Synagogue.


2014(13thof Av, 5774): Eighty-four New York real estate developer Arthur G. Cohen passed away today.

2014: In Coralville, Iowa, Agudas Achim is scheduled to show “The Big Dig,” a “comedy lampooning…the madness of everyday life in Israel.”


2014: “Amid efforts to revive stalled talks in Cairo, Israeli forces and Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip traded blows again today, with a volley of rockets fired toward Israel, and the Israeli military striking dozens of targets across the coastal enclave.” (As reported by Laura King and Batsheba Sobelman)


2015: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish writers and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Days of Aweby Lauren Fox and We’re Still Here Ya Bastards:How the People of New Orleans Rebuilt Their City by Roberta Brandes Gratz


2015: The Jewish Museum of Maryland is scheduled to host a screening of Charlie Chaplin’s “The Great Dictator.”


2015: In Amherst, MA, the Yiddish Book Center is scheduled to host a challah baking demonstration and talk on cuisine by Tina Wasserman, author of Entrée to Judaism: A Culinary Exploration of the Jewish Diaspora and Entrée to Judaism for Families: Jewish Cooking and Kitchen Conversations with Children


2015: The Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust is scheduled to host a talk by Betty Cohen the Amsterdam native who “spent two years in hiding” until she and her family “were discovered and sent to concentration camps.”
 
2015:April Slabosheski , the Holocaust Educator at the Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education is scheduled to teach “Holocaust Memorials: Context, Interpretation, Memory,” a class “where participants will learn about concepts that underlie widely known Holocaust memorials throughout the world.”

 

 


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

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August 10


612 BCE: Sinsharishkun, King of the Assyrian Empire was killed and his capital city of Nineveh was destroyed.  This is the same Assyria that destroyed the Northern Kingdom and laid siege to Jerusalem.  This is also the same Nineveh to which God had sent Jonah.


70: According to sources, this is the date on the secular calendar when the Second Temple was destroyed.


117: Start of the reign of Hadrian as Roman Emperor.   At first Hadrian seemed to be a friend of the Jews.  He executed the anti-Jewish governor of Judea and promised to rebuild Jerusalem as a Jewish city.  For some unknown reason, he turned against the Jews banning circumcision throughout the Empire and announcing the decision to build a major temple to Jupiter in Jerusalem.  The Jews responded with what has become known as Bar Kochba's Rebellion.  The fighting was intense on both sides and resulted in the complete desolation of the land by the Romans.  Hadrian banned Jews from Jerusalem and renamed the city Aelia Capitolina.  He even had a copy of the Torah burned on the Temple Mount.  Antonius Pius, Hadrian's successor repealed many of Hadrian's anti-Jewish decrees including the bans on Torah study and circumcision.  But it was too late to save the Jewish community of the Promised Land.


1267: Birthdate of King James II of Aragon. James would prove to show greater toleration towards his Jewish subjects than his grandfather James I had.  . He permitted Jewish refugees from France to settle in Barcelona. In recognition of Jewish financial support for his equipping his fleet, the King released many Jewish communities from paying their taxes for a period of several years.  James also protected the Jews from popular anti-Semitic uprisings. In Barcelona in 1285, Berenguer Oller, announced that he planned to kill the local nobles and the Jews following which he would plunder their homes.  The King intervened to prevent the violence.  Whether he was more concerned about the well-being of the nobility or the Jews is unknown.


1391: The anti-Semitic rioting came to an end with Barcelona with an untold number of Jews converting at the point of the proverbial sword.


 1391: Massacre of the Jews in Gerona, Spain.


1397: Birthdate of Albert II, who as Holy Roman Emperor Agreed to accept 900 gulden from the city of Augsburg in return for allowing them to expel their Jews.


1492: A large group of Jews from Spain, thousands strong, arrived in the Port of Naples. Jews from Sardinia soon joined them. 


1675: The Portuguese-Jewish synagogue opens in Amsterdam.


1762: Birthdate of Joshua Montefiore, an English lawyer, soldier, and journalist who would eventually move to the United States where he “edited Men and Measures, a weekly political journal” before finally settling in St. Albans, Vt.


1778: Gotthold Lessing, while having trouble sleeping, comes up with the inspiration for his play, “Nathan the Wise.”


1794: Birthdate of Leopold Zunz  also known as Yom Tov Lipmann Tzuntz, "the German Reform rabbi and writer who was the founder of what has been termed the "Science of Judaism" (Wissenschaft des Judentums), the critical investigation of Jewish literature, hymnology and ritual.


1807: In Fürth, Marcus and Jeannette Königswarter gave birth to Jonas Königswarter, the husband of Josephine Königswarter who was a leading member of the financial community in Vienna whom Emperor Francis Joseph “decorated with the Order of the Iron Crown of the third class, elevated to the knighthood, and raised to the baronetage.


1810: Birthdate of Count Camillo di Cavour, the Italian statesman who was part of the triumvirate that created the modern Italian state.  Cavour worked with Baron James de Rothschild who secretly provided the funds with which the Piedmont nobleman was able to fight the Austrian.  Cavour enjoyed good working relations with members of the Jewish community, including “Isaac Arton, his confidential secretary and ‘faithful lieutenant’.”


1815: In an attempt to attract non-Hispanic Europeans to Cuba and Puerto Rico, the Spanish government issued the Royal Decree of Graces which allowed non-Spaniards to own land on the islands.  While Jews did settle in the islands, the decree really did not work to their advantage since only Catholics were allowed to own land. 


1818: In Bavaria, Suesel Schloss and his wife gave birth to Moses Schloss who would move to New York and become a successful dry goods merchant.


1819: Anti-Semitic riots continue for a second day in Frankfort.


1819: Birthdate of Julius Landsberger, the native of Upper Silesia who was the rabbi at Darmstadt for thirty year and who with his wife Pauline gave birth to Richard Landsberger, a pioneer in the field “biological desntistry.”


1821: Missouri becomes the 24th state to join the Union.  Jewish immigrants, many from Germany, had settled in the area since its territorial days.  The first known Jew settled in St. Louis in 1807.  The first Jewish lawyer settled in St. Louis in 1817.


 1824: Under Czar Alexander I, all foreign Jews were prohibited from settling in Russia. Alexander I, after an initial period of liberalism, reverted to the anti-Jewish proclamations of his predecessors. It began with forbidding Jews to have Christian servants. After that came the prohibition of settlement. The culmination of his policies came just before when all Jews were banished from the larger villages in the Mohilev and Vitbesk districts.


1843: Sixty-nine year old anti-Semite Jakob Friedrich Fries passed away. “ In 1816 he wrote Über die Gefährdung des Wohlstandes und des Charakters der Deutschen durch die Juden ("On the Danger Posed by the Jews to German Well-Being and Character"), advocating among other things a distinct sign on the dress of Jews to distinguish them from the general population, and encouraging their emigration from German lands. He blamed the Jews for the ascendant role of money in society and called for Judaism to be "extirpated root and branch" from German society.”


1845: Birthdate of German physician Mortiz Litten, the son-in-law of pathologist Ludwig Traube who was the son of a Jewish wine merchant


1851: Eighty-nine year old German theologian Heinrich Eberhard Gottlob Paulus, the anti-Semite who authored "The Jewish National Separation: Its Origin, Consequences, and the Means of its Correction" passed away today.


1854: The Jewish Theological Seminary of Breslau opened today.


1858(30th of Av, 5618): Rosh Chodesh Elul


1859: It was reported today that “there has recently arrived in this City an eminent Jewish traveler, a Mr. Benjamin, the object of whose life hitherto has been to explore the interior of the Asiatic and African continents for the purpose of ascertaining the condition, occupations, hopes,  of his Hebrew brethren.”


1861: Fifty-nine year old Frederick Julius Stahl, the German lawyer and political leader who converted to Christianity when he was baptized as a Lutheran at the age of 17 passed away today.


1861: The New York Times reported that “The past week Mr. J.J. Benjamin, a Moldavian traveler and Jew, has been in this city from California. This gentleman's ruling passion appears to be to find out the "Ten Lost Tribes," to accomplish which purpose, he states that he has already traveled over a great portion of the civilized and the uncivilized world. He thinks he has discovered a clue to those missing tribes in Northern Africa and in Asia. Whether or not any such clue exists in this Great Basin, the world will, perhaps, be informed of in due time.”


[Editor’s Note: Mr. Benjamin and J.J. Benjamin are the same person.  J.J. Benjamin was a Rumanian born Jewish businessman who became historian.  Reportedly he modeled himself as modern day version of Benjamin of Tudela, the famous twelfth century Jewish traveler. He signed many of his writing as Benjamin II.]


1861: Joshua Pickering enlisted in the Cameron Dragoons a “largely Jewish regiment” that was “the first completed regiment of cavalry ever enlisted in the United States during” the Civil War.


1862: In a letter written to President Lincoln today, August Belmont persisted in his advocacy of a negotiated peace with the Confederates.


1868(22nd of Av, 5628): Approximately three months after her last performance, Adah Isaacs Menken passed away while living in Paris. The cause of death was most likely peritonitis, tuberculosis, or the combined ravages of both. She was buried in the Jewish section of the Montparnasse cemetery in Paris.


1868: Birthdate of Paul M Warburg, the scion of a German banking family, who came to  New York and became a partner in Kuhn, Loeb & Company and an advocate of a “central bank” that took form as the Federal Reserve Board.


1873: A group of Jewish teachers met at #142 East 40th Street in New York today and formed a committee to develop an organizational plan for a Jewish Teacher’s Association.  The plan will be submitted at a future meeting the time of which has not been established.


1873:  It was reported today that Anshey Chesed has decided to hire Dr. Isaac M. Wise of Cincinnati to serve as it rabbi.  The congregation has just completed the building of sanctuary on the corner of Lexington and 63rd at cost of $250,000.


1874:  Herbert Hoover, future President of the United States, was born in West Branch, Iowa. Hoover is best remembered by Jews as the President who nominated Benjamin Cardozo to the Supreme Court in 1932.  In his memoirs, Hoover makes only a brief reference to the appointment.  There is no mention about the fact that he was Jewish.  Hoover was concerned that there might be opposition because appointing Cardozo would mean that there would be two New Yorkers sitting on the High Court.  His Congressional supporters advised him that this would not be a problem.  So, thanks to a Quaker from Iowa, the Supreme Court found itself with two Jewish Justices (Frankfurter being the other) at a time when anti-Semitism was on the rise in the United States and Europe.


1874: Queen Victoria allowed Solomon Benedict de Worms to use his Austrian title of Baron in Great Britain.


1874: Sherrif Honscheidt of McClean County, Illinois, wrote a letter today addressed to George Walling, the Superintendent of the Police in New York City containing information about the murder Benjamin Nathan.  According to the Sherriff, a German Jew named Levy came to his house and confessed that he had killed Nathan.  He gave the address of the crime; described the murder weapon; and claimed that the motive was robbery.  Levy says he had an accomplice whose name he will only reveal once he is back in New York.  He claims that he has confessed because “he has had no rest nor peace of mind since he committed the crime.”  The Sheriff is not sure if Levy is telling the truth if he is just some “humbug” looking for a free trip to New York. (Nathan was a prominent Jewish member of the business community.  His shocking murder provided a great deal of scandal, but never produced a perpetrator)


1875(9th of Av, 5635): Tish'a B'Av


1875: it was reported today that “the anniversary of the destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem will be celebrated throughout the world to-day by the conservative Jews, as a day of mourning.”


1877(1stof Elul, 5637): Rosh Chodesh Elul


1878: In Stettin master tailor Max Döblin and his wife Sophie gave birth to prolific author Bruno Alfred Döblin who would convert to Catholicism while living the life of a refugee in Los Angeles during WW II.


1879: According to reports published today, there were eight societies in Great Britain devoted to converting Jews to Christianity and a dozen more in continental Europe devoted to the same purpose.  Together, these organizations have a half million dollars to spend and employ 250 in this work.  The London Society for the Propagation of Christianity Among the Jews is the oldest and most prominent of these groups headquartered in London.  The society has 34 offices encompassing those cities in Europe, along the Mediterranean and in Abyssinia that have large Jewish populations. [These societies had little success.  Based on anecdotal evidence, most conversions took place in Western Europe and Britain for purposes of social and economic progress.]


1879:  It was reported today that the Jews play an activity role in the philanthropic activities in London since the synagogues of that city have given $3,460 to the hospital fund which is supported by donations from all denominations, “except perhaps the Catholics.”


1879: As various hotels and resorts began excluding Jews one merchant published an ad today designed to further their inclusion. “Although the Jews have been excluded from Manhattan Beach, they are not prohibited on account of their religious principles from buying Humphrey’s Parisian Diamonds.  They are for sale only at Humphrey’s Jewelry Store…Price list sent free.”


1881: Over 2,500 people attended the corner-stone laying ceremony for the Home for the Aged and Infirmed in Yonkers.  Joseph E. Newberger gave the opening remarks on behalf of the B’Nai Brith and was followed by Norton Otis, the May of Yonkers.


1883: “The Outrages in Hungary” published today described the violent anti-Semitic reaction to the acquittal of Jews who have been standing trial at Nyireghyhaza on charges of ritual murder i.e. killing a young Christian girl.  Joseph Scharf, the father of Moritz Scharf, has been attacked several times because his son’s testimony during the trial.  There have been several outbreaks of arson aimed at the Jewish population of the town in which the dead girl lived.


1883: August Rholing, notorious slanderer of Jews and the Talmud brought charges of defamation against Rabbi Joseph Samuel Bloch of Vienna


1883: The escape by Theodore Hoffman, who was convicted of murdering Zife Marks, a Jewish peddler, was thwarted today.


1884: It was reported today that Jews in England are seeking to have their government intervene on behalf of their co-religionists in Romania who have been harmed by “the new hawking law.”


1884: It was reported today that Novoje Vremya, “the chief Jew-baiting organ in Russia” has received a warning from the authorities to cease its attacks on Jews.


1884 During today’s Earthquake in New York City, Jews living on Ludlow Street threw their furniture out of their windows and fearfully ran out of their houses carrying trunks, valises and mattresses.


1886(9thof Av, 5646): Tish’a B’Av


1886: “The Fast of AB” published today described “the fast of Ab or ‘black fast,’ as it is it is sometimes called among the Jews”  which “is one of the most solemn occasions in the Hebrew worship and scrupulously observed by orthodox Jews” because “it commemorates the destruction of the two temples of Judea.”


1887: Abe Furst and Dr. Charles H. Rosenthal both of Cincinnati, Ohio, each donated $10 to the Union of American Hebrew Congregations.


1887: The Sanitarium for Hebrew Children are providing another free excursion today for the poor children of the Lower East Side.


1888: The Immigration Committee chaired by Congressman Ford met today at the Westminster Hotel. While Ford and Congressman Guenther tried to paint a picture of an invasion of immigrant paupers, they were stymied by testimony of at least one Jewish witness.  When Ford asked, “Do all the immigrants have the means of subsistence when they reach here?” the response was “If they have not, they are cared for by relatives and friends here.  Certainly they do not become a charge upon the public.  The records of the state Board of Charities will not show that a single Jew has been cared for by public charity.” (This sounds painfully familiar to those who have been listening to the current debate about immigration in the United States)


1890; “Dr. Cyrus Adler” delivered the sixth in a series of lectures sponsored by the Jewish Theological Seminary at Cooper Union entitled “The Bible and Modern Discoveries with Special Reference to the Geography of Egypt and Palestine” which was attended by a large number of people including several ladies.


1890: “Waiting for A,B,C” published today relied on information that first appeared in the Edinburgh to traces the history of written alphabets including a listing of ancient inscriptions, one of which is “the Hebrew text…known as the Siloam inscription” which  “is very clearly of the age of Hezekiah” approximately 700 BCE.


1890: Birthdate of Solomon Rosenthal, the native of Vilnius who became a chess master.


1890 It has been determined that the Polish Jews who fell ill yesterday were not victims of food poisoning.  They had all drank coffee deliberately poisoned by Mrs. Levy, the wife of a second-hand clothing proprietor.  No reason has been given for her action. As to the victims, Jacob Schmidt and Jacob Levenson will recover but two of the mothers and their daughters are still in danger. The mass poisoning was made possible by the fact these Jews cook and eat a communal meal at the Sabbath.


1891: “A Rabbi At Chautauqua” published today described the incredulity of some Christians that Rabbi Gustav Gottheil is scheduled to speak before this organization.


1891: “Caring For Jewish Immigrants” published today described plans that leaders of the Jewish Alliance of America  have to help their co-religionists arriving in this country including helping them to settle in several states, find work for those “who are skilled mechanics or laborers” and “to purchase cheap arable lands for those” who want to farm.


1892: The SS Kehrwider sailed from Hamburg today bound for New York carrying a significant number of passengers who were poor Jews fleeing Poland and Russia.


1893: James O’Mara and William Davison sole the pack of a Jewish peddler went he entered Patrick Devitt’s saloon in Brooklyn.  Two policemen arrived and arrested the thieves.


1893(28th of Av, 5653): Rabbi Naftali Zvi Yehuda Berlin passed away today in Warsaw. Born in Mir, Russia, in 1816, he “was also known as Reb Hirsch Leib Berlin, and commonly known by the acronym Netziv.” Berlin “was…dean of the Volozhin Yeshiva and author of several works of rabbinic literature in Lithuania.”


1895: “A score of charitable” people from Brooklyn who are spending the summer at Tannnersville, NY, hosted a fund raiser for the benefit of the Hebrew Santitarium.


1895: Lucian Sanial spoke first tonight at the mass meeting in Union Square sponsored by several Jewish organizations held “express sympathy with the locked-out hat and cap makers.”


1895: During the mass meeting at Wlhalla Hall on Orchard Street, it was announced that the strike by the tailors, most of whom are Jewish has come to an end.


1896(1st of Elul, 5656): Rosh Chodesh Elul 


1896: “Education in Germany” published today provided a statistical analysis by religion of the Germans “attending the universities and other higher educational institutions.  For every 10,000 Protestants, 50 of them are students; for every 10,000 Roman Catholics, 32 are students: for every 10,000 Jews, 333 are students. “These figures testify to the extreme value set on a university education by Jews in Germany and explain how it is that young Hebrews are pressing into all the learned professions in far greater proportion than their ratio to the entire population of the country would warrant.” (While the Jews may have been elated about this, many Germans thought the progress of the Jews had to be part of some evil plot which, however irrationally, fueled the flames of anti-Semitism)


1897(12thof Av, 5657): Moses Schloss, a native of Bavaria who has been a successful merchant in New York for the past 50 years passed away today which was his 79thbirthday.

1898: In Wellington, Nevada, the sheriff is about to close down the Occidental Colony Company which was organized and operated by Jewish immigrants from Russia.


1900: Birthdate of Philip Levine, the Russian born American pioneer in the research “of serums and antibodies who discovered the Rh factor in human blood.” (As reported by Peter B. Flint)

1902: Birthdate of Canadian Oscar winning actress Norma Shearer who converted to Judaism in 1927 when she married movie mogul Irving Thalberg.


1902: in Podgorze, Kraków's Jewish quarter, Rosa Philippine (née Blum) and Ignatz Siodmak, a devout Hasidic scholar gave birth to Kurt Siodmak who gained fame as “novelist and screenwriter” Curt Siodmak.


1903: The New York Times features a review of a compendium of the writings of Rabbi Kaufmann Kohler entitled Studies in Jewish Literature.


1905:  The Russians and the Japanese begin peace talks at Portsmouth under the watchful eye of President Theodore Roosevelt.  The talks would bring an end to the Russo-Japanese War.  The Russians were humiliated by the defeat.  The Czar did make some half-hearted attempts at democratic reform which was encouraging to the Jews in the emerging Russian middle class.  At the same time, the Slavophiles, extreme Russian nationalists also sought power; trying to convince Nicholas II that Russia would only find greatness when it had rid itself of all Western and foreign (i.e. Jewish) influences.  In the end, nothing changed for the better and the Communists would come to power thirteen years later. Russian anti-Semitism gave the Japanese an edge in fighting the war.  The Russian government had refused to take responsibility for pogrom. It had blocked American attempts to investigate the treatment of the Russian Jews. When war broke between the Russians and the Japanese, several American Jewish financiers were instrumental in insuring that Japanese war underwritten which meant that the Japanese would have money to fight the war. 


1907: At Cowes, Lord Rothschild is one of the notable guests aboard the famed yacht Margaritta one of only two vessels of interest at this fabled nautical event.


1910: The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that two valuable silver cups had been stolen from the Sons of Israel Synagogue in Camden, NJ.


1911: Samuel Gompers, President of the American Federation of Labor, headed a delegation of men interested in labor publications who appeared before the Congressional commission on second-class mail matter to protest against the raise in the rates.


1912: Pitcher Barney Pely “known as ‘the Yiddish Curver’” appeared in his last major league as a member of the Washington Senators of the American League.


1913: The Second Balkan War comes to an end with the signing of the Treaty of Bucharest. As a result of the war, the final boundaries for the modern Greek state were finally established.  This led to an end of the “protected status” many Balkan Jews had enjoyed under Ottoman rule as they became citizens of Greece.


1913: The treaty ending the Second Balkan War signed today gave the town of Monastir, which had been home to a Jewish community since Roman times became part of Serbia and was renamed Bitola although the local Jews continued to refer to it by its Ottoman name.


1914: Samuel Prince, a former Assemblyman from the east side and a labor agitator passes away and includes a bequest of fifty dollars to Samuel Gompers for use in supporting strikers in Colorado.


1916: Chief Rabbi of Salonica received a telegram from the Minister of Interior stating the government has taken steps to ensure tranquility for the Jews on Corfu, after a blood libel accusation arose. 


1917: Dr. Reuben Blank sent a telegram today from Petrograd to Lucien Wolf in London that “in the press and proclamations” the “extreme Russian reactionaries, the extreme revolutionaries and the Black Hundreds” “go so far as to throw upon the Jews the entire responsibility for the war and for the obstacles in the way of a peace with Germany”


1917: The Central Committee of Council of Workmen and Soldiers” having learned “of the revival of anti-Semitic activity in the northwestern and southwestern provinces” dispatched “fifteen delegates to the affect districts to counteract the agitation.”


1919(14th of Av, 5679):The Ukrainian National Army massacres 25 Jews in Podolia Ukraine


1920: The Turkish government renounced its sovereignty over Eretz Yisrael and recognized the British mandate.


1920:  Birthdate of Basketball coach William Red Holzman When he retired, Red Holzman was the second winingnest coach in NBA historywith 696 victories in regular season play, mostly with the New York Knickerbockers. His Knick teams won NBA championships in l970 and l973. Red was elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame as a coach in 1986. Incidentally, the only man ahead of Holzman on the all-time win list was another Jew, Red Auerbach of the Boston Celtics.


1920(26th of Av, 5680): Eighty-four year old pioneer physician Adam Politzer and a founder of otology passed away today.

1923: In Carslbad, Dr. Glickson, a delegate to the Thirteenth Zionist Congress denounced the policy of the British administration in Palestine toward the Jews of the country and toward the Zionist movement. He declared that "the Government hinders the upbuilding of the Jewish national home."


1923: The American delegation to the Thirteenth Zionist Congress cabled the newly installed U.S. President, Calvin Coolidge, “a message of greeting” including wishes for  a “successful administration.  The Zionists…recalled that the President has on various occasions expressed his admiration of the effort to re-establish Palestine as the Jewish homeland.


1923: JTA does not publish its daily news bulletin today because it is the National Day of Mourning in memory of President Warren G. Harding.


1925: More 30,000 members of the ILGWU held a rally today at Yankee Stadium.  The Union was dominated by Jewish members and leaders including Morris Sigman the president from 1923 to 1928 who battled communists and bosses to improve the lot the working men and women of Ameirca.

1926(30th of Av, 5686): Rosh Chodesh Elul


1928: Birthdate of Eddie Fisher.  Fisher’s early fame came as “crooner” and teen-age heartthrob in the 1950’s.  He gained a certain level of infamy when he dumped Debbie to marry Elizabeth Taylor.  Taylor later dumped him after a pubic romp with Richard Burton.  Of such was the news in simpler times.


1929: Two days before his 17th birthday, historian Max Dimont who had sailed to the United States in steerage aboard the SS Berengaria was discharged from the hospital on Ellis Island and begin the trip to his new home in Cleveland, Ohio with the rest of his family.


1930: The fourth world congress of the Zionist Revisionists opened in Prague today under the presidency of Vladimir Jabotinsky. The Revisionists constitute the Opposition in the World Zionist Organization.


1933: In Amsterdam, 225 German-Jewish children, chiefly from the Rhine region, arrived to stay with Dutch Jewish families.


1933: Der Ernes, the Yiddish language newspaper published in the Soviet Unon, reported that a farmer named Leiser Kabakoff, had been expelled from his collective in the Crimea for his efforts to get other farmers to refrain from working on the Sabbath.


1937: At the historic plenary session of the 20th Zionist Congress, held in Zurich under the chairmanship of Dr. Stephen Wise, a last desperate attempt was made by Menahem Ussishkin to prevent the adoption of a resolution that was tantamount to the Jewish acceptance of the Peel Report’s principle of Palestine’s partition. The acceptance of this proposal, said Ussishkin, means the end of our historic hope... it will mean that a great misfortune must befell us. Ussishkin criticized Moshe Shertok.


1937: The Weizmann policy on the partition of Palestine took textual form today in the draft of a resolution submitted to the political resolutions committee of the World Zionist Congress here. This body, elected today, started what promises to be an all-night secret debate on this resolution, particularly on the last two and most crucial points.


1938: A group of Arabs carried out a daring day time robbery of the Barclays Bank at Nablus.  The proceeds of the action are thought to be a source of funding for the on-going wave of Arab terror and violence which claimed more Jewish victims today when a car filled with Jewish workers approaching an orange grove near Hadera struck a land mine and a Jewish cart driver was wounded by sniper fire as he drove along the road from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.


1938: Three Hebrew language dailies, including Davar, published editorials condemning violence that was traced back to the Revisionists wing of the Zionist movement.


1938: Nuremberg Synagogue is burnt down.


1940: The government of Rumania passed anti-Jewish racial laws.


.1942: This was the first of thirteen days when over 40,000 Jews were shipped from Lvov to the death camp at Belzec.  By the end of the month, another 36,000 Jews from Lvov and its surrounding area would be shipped to Belzec where they would meet a similar fate.


1943(9th of Av, 5703): Tish'a B'Av


1943(9th of Av, 5703): Twenty-seven more Jews were found in the ‘Aryan' portion of the ghetto in Warsaw and were shot.


1946: Kitty “Carlisle married playwright and theatrical producer Moss Hart today.


1948: In another example of how a Jew helped to create American pop culture, Allen Funt's "Candid Camera" TV debuted on ABC.  Long before “reality t.v.” hit it big, Funt showed the world how to laugh with ordinary people doing ordinary things while the whole world (which was much smaller then) watched.


1948: A concert was held in Tel Aviv attended by Ben Gurion, Golda Meir and Moshe Sharett.


1950: “Sunset Boulevard” a film noir set in Hollywood directed by Billy Wilder who also co-authored the script, with music by Franz Waxman and co-starring Erich von Stroheim was released in the United States by Paramount Pictures.


1957: “The Rising of the Moon,” an Irish anthology film featuring Harold Golblatt in “A Minute’s Wait” was released in Ireland today by Warner Bros.


1959:  Birthdate of actress Rosanna Arquette.


1962: President Kennedy's Secretary of State Dean Rusk criticized Daniel Schorr's actions in a diplomatic cable today for a checkbook journalism story in which, “Schorr involved himself in a matter which was far beyond his private or journalistic responsibilities and proceeded amateurishly in a matter filled with greatest danger for all concerned.” (This was neither the first time nor the last time that Schorr would draw the ire of a government official including those in Washington and Moscow. 


1965(12th of Av, 5725): Eighty-eight year old “specialist in criminal law and a founder of the doctrine of international criminal law” Emil Stanisław Rappaport passed away today.

1970: “Diary of a Mad Housewife,” the film version of the novel by Sue Kaufman, starring Richard Benjamin was released in the United States today by Universal Pictures.


1972(30th of Av, 5732): Rosh Chodesh Elul


1976: In Toronto, the Paralympic Games in which volleyball player Hagai Zamier earned a Gold Medal, came to a closes.


1981(10th of Av, 5741): Seventy-five year old Yeruham Cohen, an Arabic-speaker of Yemeni origin who was “an early Israeli undercover soldier” passed away today. He was a top aide to the commander of Israel's underground forces during the country's war for independence in 1948 and also belonged to a unit whose members disguised themselves as Arabs to infiltrate enemy lines.  Mr. Cohen is most famous for his acquaintance with Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt, whom he met in 1948 during the Israeli war for independence while Israeli forces encircled Egyptian troops the southern Negev. According to historical accounts, Mr. Cohen saw the future President while watching the Egyptians retreat, shouted and ran toward him, and they shook hands warmly.


1980(28th of Av, 5740): Seventy-four year old Karl Wolf, a native of Austria who was the husband of Margit Wolf passed away today in Haifa.


1981: Pitcher Bob Tufts made his major league debut with the San Francisco Giants.


1983(1stof Elul, 5743): Rosh Chodesh Elul


1989: Birthdate of Ben Sahar, Israeli born football (soccer) star.


1990: “Flaterliners” a sci-fi thriller directed by Joel Schumacher, the son of Swedish Jewess, was released throughout the United States today by Columbia Pictures.


1990: Eighty-two year old Martha Dodd Stern, the daughter of William Dodd, FDR’s first ambassador to Hitler’s Germany, who became an anti-Nazi, passed away today.  (As reported by Glenn Fowler)

1993: Ruth Bader Ginsburg was sworn as an Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme court making her the second woman, and the first Jewish woman, to serve on the Supreme Court.


1997: The New York Times book section featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Secret Channels: The Inside Story of Arab-Israeli Peace Negotiationsby Mohamed Heikal and Faith or Fear: How Jews Can Survive in a Christian America by Elliott Abrams


1997(7th of Av, 5757): Sixty-three year old Professor George Zames “known for his fundamental contributions to the theory of robust control” and who was one of the Jews saved by Japanese Consul Senpo Sugihara passed away today.

2000:At the U.S. Olympic swimming trials in Indianapolis, Indiana, Dara Torres swam the 100-meter butterfly in a time of 57.86


2001: “American Pie 2” a sequel to “American Pie” with a story by David H. Steinberg and Adam Herz who also wrote the screenplay and co-starring Eugene Levy was released in the United States today by Universal Studios.


2002: Thirty-one year old Yafit Herenstein was shot in her home by members of the Al-Aqsa Brigades


2003: The Sunday New York Times book section includes reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including  When the Chickens Went on Strike: A Rosh Hashanah Tale,Erica Silverman’s adaption of a story by Sholom Aleichem illustrated by Matthew Trueman,  Lay Back the Darkness, a collection of poems by Edward Hirscha Midwestern man with a Jewishheritage and  Ronit Matalon's novel Bliss translated by Jessica Cohen that “focuses on Israel's two pains: the kind it suffers and the kind it inflicts”


2003(12thof Av, 5763): Sixteen year old Haviv Dadon was “killed by shrapnel from an anti-aircraft shell fired from Lebanon.”


2005: “In his first speech before the Knesset following his resignation, Netanyahu spoke of the necessity for Knesset members to oppose the proposed disengagement” from Gaza.


2006(16th of Av, 5766): IDF Staff Sergeant Kobi Idan, 26, from Eilat was killed and at least 16 other soldiers were wounded, nine of them seriously, in the clashes with Hezbollah.


2006: Twenty-four year old Angelo Frammartino, from Monte Rotondo, Italy was stabbed to death by an Arab terrorist in Jerusalem.


2006: During the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict, Israeli authors, David Grossman, Amos Oz and A.B. Yehoshua spoke at a press conference calling upon the government to agree to a ceasefire as a basis for talks toward a negotiated solution, describing further military action as "dangerous and counterproductive" and expressing particular concern for the Lebanese government. [Editor’s note - Two days later, Grossman’s 20-year-old son Uri, a staff sergeant in an armored unit, was killed by an anti-tank missile during an IDF operation in southern Lebanon shortly before the ceasefire.]


2007: The Indianapolis Colts placed tight end Mike Seidman on the injured reserve list


2007: Colonel Giora "Hawkeye" Epstein “was the primary subject of the "Desert Aces" episode of The History Channel series Dogfights that aired for the first time tonight.”


2007 (26th of Av): On the secular calendar commemoration of  Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson’s, the third Rebbe of the Chabad dynasty, popularly known as the "Tzemach Tzedek," departure from Petersburg after having successfully prevented the government's disruption of traditional Jewish life.2008(9th of Av, 5768): Tish'a B'Av


2008:The New York Times book section featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or about topics of Jewish interest includingThe Challenge:Hamdan v. Rumsfeld and the Fight Over Presidential Power by Jonathan Mahler, My Sister, My Love by Joyce Carol Oates,American Priestess: The Extraordinary Story of Anna Spafford and the American Colony in Jerusalemby Jane Fletcher Geniesse and Kingmakers:The Invention of the Modern Middle East by Karl E. Meyer and Shareen Blair Brysac.


2008: TheJerusalem Post reported that the Jewish Agency has released a statement that some 200 Jews living near the town Gori, on the South Ossetia border, were advised to evacuate to the Georgian capital after the outbreak of hostilities with Russia two days ago.


2008(9th of Av, 5768): Howard G. Minsky, a former Hollywood talent agent and the producer of the movie “Love Story,” passed away today at the age of 94. Mr. Minsky began his career during the silent-film era and sold reels of film door to door before breaking into the Hollywood scene. He worked as an executive for 20th Century Fox and Paramount Pictures and as a talent agent for the William Morris Agency. In the 1960s he left the agency to produce the romantic drama “Love Story,” written by one of his clients, Erich Segal. Released in 1970, it became a blockbuster, winning five Golden Globes, including best picture, and an Academy Award for music.


2009:The exhibit, Bagels & Barbeque: The Jewish Experience in Tennessee which documents the history of Jewish immigration to Tennessee opened at Chattanooga State, the College on the River.


2009: Opening of the Tzfat [Safed] Klezmer Festival


2009 (20th of Av): On the Jewish calendar, Yahrzeit of Rabbi Levi Yitzchak Schneerson, father of the seventh and last Chabad-Lubavitch Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson. A brave and educated soul, he after being imprisoned by the Soviets for thwarting the Communists attempts to wipe out Jewish civilization.


2009: Israeli aircraft bombed tunnels early today along the Gaza Strip border with Egypt, Hamas officials and witnesses said.


2010(30th of Av, 5770): Rosh Chodesh Elul


2010(30th of Av, 5770): Ninety year old author Nancy Freedman passed away.

2010(30th of Av, 5770): Eighty-two year old David L. Wolper, who changed America’s view of race and slavery with “Roots”, passed away today. (As reported by Richard Severo)

2010: Paul Hunt began serving as Canada’s Ambassador to Israel.


2010: The first public screening of “A Film Unfinished” is scheduled to take place at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York City.


2010: While testifying before the Turkel Committee today, Defense Minister Ehud Barak “placed the blame” for the botched flotilla raid “on the IDF, which he said was responsible for warning the government if ‘the mission cannot be carried out.’ In the case of the flotilla the IDF did not warn, Barak said.


2011: The International Master Course for Violinists which has been taking place amid the scenic mountains of the western Galilee at Kibbutz Eilon is scheduled to come to an end today.


2011: The DC Premiere “Maya” is scheduled to take place at this evening’s WJFF (Washington Jewish Film Festival) Friend-raiser Screener and Party



2011: Philip Levine was named today as the new poet laureate of the United States. Levine has an MFA through the University of Iowa Writer's Workshop. His works include a "continuous examination of his Jewish immigrant inheritance.



2011The Romanian Academy said today that it will change its definition of an anti-Semitic slur in a dictionary to make it clear the word is pejorative.


2011:The International Master Course for Violinists which is taking place at Kibbutz Eilon is scheduled to come to an end.


2012: Rookie right tackle Mitchell Schwartz is scheduled to start in the Detroit Lions’ first exhibition pro-football game.


2012: The Russian Olympic basketball team coached by Israeli-American David Blatt is scheduled to play Spain today in the semifinals.


2012: Victor Lieberman is scheduled to lead Shabbat eve services at B’nai Israel in Grand Forks, ND


2012: Ben Sarasin will help lead Shabbat eve services at Temple Judah in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, as part of his “Bar Mitzvah Weekend.”


2012: Shai Wosner is scheduled to perform at Lincoln Center


2012:New Zealand Jewish sailor Jo Aleh and her partner Polly Powrie won the gold medal in the women’s 470 regatta. Aleh, 26, whose parents are dual Israeli-New Zealand citizens, skippered the pair into the lead from the start of the gold medal race today at the London Olympic Games


2012: Israeli rhythmic gymnast Neta Rivkin leapt to the finals after her ribbon routine in the individual qualifiers today at the London Games.


2012: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak have “almost finally” decided on an Israeli strike at Iran’s nuclear facilities this fall, and a final decision will be taken “soon,” Israel’s main TV news broadcast reported this evening.


2013: “Dancing in Jaffa” and “Gideon’s Army” are scheduled to be shown at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival.


2013: Kol HaOt is scheduled to sponsor “The Sounds of Elul” featuring Yehuda Katz.


2013: An al-Qaeda-linked group active in the Sinai Peninsula said today that its fighters were the target of a reported Israeli drone strike into Egyptian territory, a rare operation that could indicate increased Egyptian-Israeli security cooperation against militants in the lawless border zone. (As reported by Maamoun Youssef)


2013: “Israeli tennis star Shahar Pe'er won her first tournament in four years today, defeating unseeded Zheng Saisai 6:2, 2:6, 6:3 in the final of the Suzhou Ladies Open in Suzhou China.”


2014:  The New York Times featured books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Lena Finkle’s Magic Barrel written and illustrated by Anya Ulinich, Becoming Freud:


The Making of a Psychoanalyst by Adam Phillips, Lucky Us by Amy Bloom and Strange Glory: A Life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer by Charles Marsh.


2014: Congregation HarTzeon – Agudath Achim is scheduled to host a trip to NYC see the off-Broadway musical “Atomic” about the Manhattan Project.


2014: The Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center is scheduled to host a “conversation with Holocaust survivor Steen Metz.”


2014: “Rocket fire from the Gaza Strip continued today, with over nine rockets being shot at Israel throughout the day.” (As reported by Ilana Curiel)


2014:” Air raid sirens sounded in Ashdod at 10 pm, two hours before the start of an Egyptian-brokered temporary truce.”(As reported by Matan Tzuri)


2014: The Miami Herald reported today that “the Jewish community of Miami is offering $50,000 reward for information that leads to the arrest of the two suspects in the death of Rabbi Joseph Raksin” who was murdered while walking to services on Shabbat.


2014: Rabbi Joseph Raskin who was murdered in Florida yesterday as he walked to Shabbat services is scheduled to be buried today.


2014: For King and Country? a major new exhibition exploring the Jewish experience of the First World War is scheduled to come to a close today at the Jewish Museum in London.


2015: YIVO and the Congress for Jewish Culture are scheduled to present “Night of the Murdered Poets” during which Ala Zuskin Perelman, daughter of Soviet Yiddish actor, Benjamin Zuskin will discuss her recent biography, The Travels of Benjamin Zuskin about her father’s tragic life and work as an actor and artistic director of the Moscow State Jewish Theater.


2015: The 2015 AIPAC Iowa Annual Event is scheduled to take place this evening in Des Moines.


 

This Day, August 11, In Jewish History by Mitchell A Levin

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August 11


1492: Alexander VI is elected Pope.  Alexander was one of the Borgia popes.  He had reputation for “moral depravity” and was more politician than prelate.  He defied Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain by allowing large numbers of Marranos who were fleeing the Inquisition to take refuge in Rome.  He did reduce the size of the badge worn by the Jews under his rule but raised their taxes by five per cent.  He also lengthened the course that the Jews of Rome were forced to run each year so that he could view it from the comfort of his castle.  The Jews were forced to run naked much to the amusement of the Christian population of Rome – the home of Catholicism.  Everything is relative and for all of his shortcomings, Alexander VI’s treatment of the Jews was a lot better than that of the other Catholic strongman of the day, The Grand Inquisitor – Torquemada.


1634: Seventeen arrests were made by the Inquisition after a man turned another man in for being "unwilling to make a sale on Saturday," and for not wanting to eat bacon.


1667(21st of Av, 5427): Jonah Abravanel, a Dutch Jewish poet and author, passed away today at Amsterdam.   “He was the son of the physician Joseph Abravanel, and a nephew of Manasseh ben Israel.”


1770: Moses Mendelssohn and his wife the former Fromet (Frumet) Guggenheim gave birth to Joseph Mendelssohn, their oldest son, founder of the bank Mendelssohn & Co. and along with his sister Recha were the only two of the couple’s six children to remain Jewish.


1772: Following the partition of Poland which gave the Russians a large, unwanted population, Catherine II whom the Boyars call “Great,” issued an order that read, “Jewish communities residing in the towns, cities and territories now incorporated in the Russian Empire shall be left in the enjoyment of all those liberties with regard to their religion and property which they at present possess.” 


1786: Captain Francis Light establishes the British colony of Penang in Malaysia. The Penang Jewish Cemetery, established in 1805, is believed to be the oldest single Jewish cemetery in Malaysia.  According to legend, the first Jews may have actually come to Malaysia as far back as the 11thcentury.


1804: Francis II assumed the title of first Emperor of Austria. When it came to his Jewish subjects, Francis and his chief minister, Metternich followed in the footsteps Maria Theresa and not the more liberal Joseph II.  During his reign ghettos were set up in Austria.  Jews were not allowed to settle in the province of Tyrol.  Stringent restrictions were placed on where Jews could live in Bohemia and Moravia. In Vienna, a special tax was placed on all Jews who entered the capital.   While the Emperor “ennobled a few Jews” he “humiliated” the remainder of the population. Jewish marriages were restricted to the eldest son or those who had enough money to pay large bribes to the appropriate officials.


1810: In Oberdöbling near Vienna, banker Joseph von Henikstein and his wife, the former Elisabeth von Sonnenstein gave birth to Alfred von Henikstein who was baptized as a child making him  the highest ranking officer of Jewish parentage in the Austrian army and chief of staff before the battle of Königgrätz in the Austro-Prussian War


1827: Birthdate of Jesse Seligman, the German born American banker and philanthropist whose career began in Alabama and ended in San Francisco, CA.


1828: Birthdate of Edward Salomon a native of Saxony who served as Lieutenant Governor of Wisconsin from 1860 to 1862 at which time he became the state’s 8thGovernor when Louis P Harvey drowned in the Tennessee River.


1830(22nd of Av, 5590): Dr. Philip Moses Russell, a native of England who began serving as a medical officer for various units in the Revolutionary War starting in 1775 passed away today.  In addition to his medical work for which he was commended by George Washington, Russell and six other Jews “volunteered as guides to lead the American forces through the woods and swamps in a surprise attempt to recapture British-held Savannah, GA.”


1833: Birthdate of Robert G. Ingersoll, Civil war soldier, orator and defender of agnosticism.  He was the author of “Some Mistakes Moses Made” which begins “For many years I have regarded the Pentateuch simply as a record of a barbarous people, in which are found a great number of the ceremonies of savagery, many absurd and unjust laws, and thousands of ideas inconsistent with known and demonstrated facts. To me it seemed almost a crime to teach that this record was written by inspired men; that slavery, polygamy, wars of conquest and extermination were right, and that there was a time when men could win the approbation of infinite Intelligence, Justice, and Mercy, by violating maidens and by butchering babes.” Ingersoll was not an anti-Semite.  He had a “low opinion” of other religions as well.


1840: Lord Palmerston the British Foreign Secretary wrote a letter to the ambassador in Constantinople that said, “There exists…among the Jews…a strong notion that the time is approaching when their nation is to return to Palestine…. I instruct you… to strongly recommend that the Turkish Government … encourage the Jews of Europe to return to Palestine.”  Palmerston was not philo-Semite or a proto-Zionist.  Rather he was an English statesmen looking to bring what he considered Western civilization to the Orient.


1844: Birthdate of Wilhelm Stern the son of a rabbi in Posen who became a German physician.


1844: Just days before his death, Rabbi Aron Chorin sent an address to the conference of Hungarian rabbis meeting at Páks.


1848: Establishment of The United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia to which Amy Totenberg would be appointed in 2011 making her the first Jewish woman to serve in such a capacity.


1853: It was reported today that an unnamed Jew owns a house at Table Rock adjacent to the Great Horse Shoe Falls where visitors can buy brandy and cigars and seek protection from the spray of the cataract.


1856:  Isle Dernière (Last Island), a barrier island southwest of New Orleans which has served as a resort was destroyed today by the Last Island Hurricane whose victims included more than one unnamed Jewish resident.


1857:During a debate on India, Benjamin Disraeli reiterated his conviction that the mutiny in India was more than just a military matter and that the government was not taking the correct measures in the matter. He also repudiated the government's faith in European alliances declaring that could not be depended upon.


1858(1st of Elul, 5618): Rosh Chodesh Elul


1860: The Jewish Messenger cautions “the public against an impostor, who calls himself Nelton and Abramowitsch, according to circumstances,” who writes his name with Hebrew letters “which may mean saint or sinner, as far as the knowledge of the common crowd goes. He dresses in priestly attire, so the Messenger says, with a white cravat and black cassock. While asking the Editor for charity, he appropriated an article of silver-ware from the mantelpiece”.


1862: In a letter written today addressed to the Adjutant General of the United States Army, General William Tecumseh Sherman warned that "the country will swarm with dishonest Jews" if continued trade in cotton is encouraged. (In a letter written in 1858, Sherman had described Jews as "…without pity, soul, heart, or bowels of compassion…"  During the Civil War Sherman had numerous Jews serving in the various armies under his command with no whiff of anti-Semitism attached to his decisions.  This included the 82ndIllinois Regiment that included a large contingent of Chicago Jews and was commanded by Edward S. Salomon.  The regiment fought under his command during Sherman’s brilliant Atlanta Campaign and rose to the rank of General as Sherman’s forces bravely marched north from Savannah to help trap the remaining Confederate forces.


1862: Sarah Bernhardt made her acting debut at the Comédie Française in the title role of Racine's Iphigénie.


1864(9th of Av,5624): Tish’a B’Av (Did the Jewish soldiers fighting in the Union’s multi-prong offensive against the Rebels fast as they made their way across Northern Virginia and Georgia.


1865(19th of Av, 5625): Fifty year old Abraham Mordka Alter, the son of Yitzchak Alter and Feigele Lipschitz passed away today in Warszawa, Poland.


1866: Ernest Abraham Hart “was appointed editor of the British Medical Journal” today.


1867:  Birthdate of Joseph Weber, one half of the vaudeville comedy act of Weber and Fields. Playing Jews was not a key to show biz success when this team started out.  Some of their early success came playing Dutch (German characters) and Irishmen, something their audiences really enjoyed.


1879: It was reported today that there are parts of Coney Island, New York’s popular resort, where “Jews are not tolerated.”


1879:A review of Somebody’s Ned a work of romantic fiction combined with a murder mystery by Mrs. A.M. Freeman was published today.  In this case the star crossed lovers are a French Catholic named Danton Roland and French Jewess named Rachel Rosenthal as well David Dudley and Jessica-Rachel.  The plot thickens when Solomon Rosenthal is found dead.


1879: In White Plains, New York, Justice C.W. Cochrane heard a case in which the Osmond C Lyon had filed a complaint against a Jewish merchant – Adolph D. Pollack – for selling cigars and neckties on Sunday in violation of the “blue laws.” The defendant responded that he had not violated the law because he had not “exposed” his goods “for sale” and had only sold them quietly when requested. He also said that as a Jew, he observed the Sabbath on Saturday and the enforcement of the law in this manner was a violation of the New York Constitution which prohibits interference with his religious views.


1879: “A Cool Day At Coney Island” published today shows that prejudice against Jews is now becoming prevalent at the popular resort. “For Coney Island is miniature New York and has its German quarter, its American quarter and its quarter where Jews are not tolerated.”


1881: It was reported today that the new Home for the Aged and Infirmed being built in Yonkers will cost more than $60,000.


1881: During a period of on-going Pogroms,” a dozen of the wealthiest Jews in Tsarist Russi filed into the palatial St. Petersburg home of Baron Horace de Gunzberg”  to discuss their concern that a mass exodus of Jews from Russia would convince the authorities to continue their program of violence as a way of dealing with “the Jewish problem.”


1882: Mr. Lazarus Silverman, a Chicago banker, appeared at the office of the Clerk of Circuit Court with 12 Russians Jews who had arrived in the Windy City with their families.  After following all of the legal requirements, the men took the oath and became citizens of the United States.  Since their knowledge of English was limited, they signed the documents in Hebrew.


1883: Police fired on a mob that had resumed its attacks on the home of Joseph Scharf one of the defendants who had been acquitted of charges of having killed a Christian girl as part of a Jewish ritual murder.


1883: “The Demands on Charity” published today described a change in the assistance that will be rendered to the needy by New York’s charitable organizations. In the future, they will provide assistance to the needy who are trying to establish themselves in gainful occupations and trades. The United Hebrew Charities will help Jewish immigrants establish themselves in almost any occupation with the exception of street peddler, a calling that is now considered to be a public nuisance.


1884: “Persecuted By His Family” published today described the plight of Walter Gerson a young Jew born in 1858 at Bradford England who moved to London, Ontario and then to Chicago  where he converted to Christianity and married a non-Jewish woman, a fact which his family first accepted but now seems to be determined to undue.


1884(20th of Av, 5644): Israel Blatchky, a young Jew who has been working in Des Moines, Iowa for the past three years passed away today. 


1885:Dr.law Alois Eisler and Emilie Eisler gave birth to Otto Eisler.


1888: Oliver Hazard Peary married Josephine Diebitsch who would join Angelo Heilprin , the Hungarian born Jewish explorer on the expedition to Greenland in 1891


1888: “Something More About European Pauper Labor” published today included a summary of the testimony of the Director of the Jewish Emigration Protective Society before the Immigration Committee holding hearings at the Westminster Hotel in which he explained the reason for the impoverishment for Jewish workers coming to American and the tendency of them to settle among their co-religionists who provide them with support.


1889: “The Russian Emancipation” published today described the freeing of the serfs, which took place a quarter of a century ago, as a total failure.  The peasants are in perpetual debt due to their inability to re-pay the government for their land and the failed agricultural system.  This forces them to borrow money from the Jews who seize the land when they are unable to repay the loan.  (Yet another reason for treating the Jews badly – they are the moneylenders despoiling the noble serfs)


1890: “Geographical Palestine” published today provides a detailed review of Palestine by Major C.R. Conder who served in the Corps of Royal Engineers and served two tours with the Palestine Exploration Fund providing him with invaluable first-hand knowledge of the future Jewish homeland.


1890: “Against Jews In Russia” published today provided a summary of the repressive edicts that the Czar has imposed on four million of his subjects which has led to their impoverishment and are intended to force them to leave the country and/or give up being Jewish.


1890: Sixty-four year old philanthropist and social reformer Charles Loring Brace passed away today In his book The Unknown God Or Inspiration Among Pre-Christian Races Brace points out that there is little “evidence of Egyptian found in the Hebrew faith.”  According to him “the thinkers and teachers of the Jews were visited by those higher and purer inspirations which have made them the greatest benefactors of mankind in ancient history…The Jews of modern days ought to be forever honored for such progenitors; a race which could such men deserves the lasting respect of mankind.”


1890: Birthdate of Samuel Bischoff, the native of Hartford, CT and graduate of Boston University who produced movies from 1922 to 1964>


1891: “The seventh free excursion” sponsored by “the Sanitarium for Hebrew Children” takes place today with the boat leaving from the foot of East Third Street at nine o’clock this morning.


1892:  Birthdate of publishing giant Alfred Knopf.


1892: The Third Marquess of Salisbury, Lord Robert Cecil, who as Prime Minister has reassured the House of Lords that regardless of the Czar’s policies “there were no grounds for dreading a wholesale invasion of Great Britain by pauper Jews from Russia” left office today and became the leader of “the loyal opposition.”


1893: In Brooklyn, Justice Walsh sentence William Davison to ten days in jail for his part in robbing a Jewish peddler named Burns.


1895: Five Jews were arrested by the police from the Elizabeth Street Station for violating the Sunday Closing Laws.  One of those arrested, Morris Cohn “pleaded that he was a strict observer of the Hebrew Sabbath” and he was released by the Magistrate.


1895: “Sympathy For Hat And Cap Makers” published today described a mass meeting held at Union Square by several Jewish organizations in support of the workers who have been locked out by the manufacturers.


1895: Based on instructions provided by Meyer Schoenfeld and Herman Robinson the striking tailors, most of whom were Jewish and who were returning to work were not worried that they were being locked out today by the contractors since it was Sunday and the bosses observed the Sunday closing laws. 


1895: During July, it was reported today, the United Hebrew Charities “responded to the applications for relief from 3,304” people on behalf of 11,013 individuals.


1896: Populist leader Mary Elizabeth Lease was quoted today as saying "Redemption money and interest-bearing bonds are the curse of civilization. We are paying tribute to the Rothchilds of England, who are but the agent of the Jews."


1898: “Nevada Colonists Despoiled” published today described how a group of Russian Jews who had been building a new life in Lyon County, Nevada, were swindled by two of their co-religionists Daniel Schwartz who mortgaged the groups crop to get $1,500 from a bank in Carson City and then ran off with money.  The penniless Jews are now faced with the prospect of losing their newly built homes.


1898:  L’Anti-Juif,“a weekly organ of the Anti-Semitic League” was published today for the first time in Paris.


1899: “Joseph Haworth’s New Role” published today described Jacob Litt’s decision to cast Joseph Haworth in the role of Raphael, the leading character in Israel Zangwill’s “The Ghetto.”


1899: The officers presiding over the court marital of Captain Dreyfus announced that the next four sittings of the court would be held behind closed doors.


1899: The great Jewish actor Jacob Adler fell and seriously injured himself today while riding his bicycle at Long Branch, NJ.


1900: Mass meeting of the English Zionist Federation was held in East End.


1903: Herzl meets Jews from all circles in St. Petersburg and a banquet is arranged by the Russian Zionists.


1905: Birthdate of Erwin Chargaff, the Austrian born American biochemist who discovered two rules that led to the discovery of double helical structure of DNA.  He passed away in June of 2002.


1905: The British Aliens Act, which reflected anti-Jewish bias, became a law. The anti-Jewish bias was aimed at the Jews fleeing Rumania and Russia who were seeking a safe haven in England.  This was manifestation of lingering anti-Jewish sentiment in an English society that was increasingly accepting of its Jewish population.


1907: Birthdate of Max Abrams, the native of Glasgow who played drums for several bands in the 1930’s and 1940’s who wrote “50 jazz tutor books.”


1909: The Chief Rabbi of Adrianople was forced to resign by Jews of Demotica for failing to take action and not protesting against the change in market day at Demotica, from Thursday to Saturday.


1910: In Philadelphia, PA, Max Leopold Margolis and his wife, the former Evelyn Kate Aronson gave birth to Catherine A. Margolis.


1911: Birthdate of Giorgio Cavagliere, an American Jewish architect who fled Mussolini’s Italy and became a leader of the urban preservation movement.


1911: Jews suffer the impoverishing effect of fires in Russian communities including Tulishkoff, Mlava and Konskavola.


1911: As the Turks recover from the effects of the fires at Constantinople, the Chief Rabbi forms a Relief Committee and Grand Vizier Hakki Bey sent a telegram to the 10thZionist Congress meeting at Basle, Switzerland thanking the Jewish organization for the contributins to relieve the suffering of fire victims.


1911: In Copenhagen, Denmark, attacks are made on Shechitah at the Animal Protection Congress.


1912: In Westfield, MA, founding of Ahavas Achim synagogue.

1914: Jews are expelled from Mitchenick, Poland


1917: Turkish representative at The Hague, Netherlands denies that negotiations took place between Turkey and former United States ambassador, Henry Morgenthau regarding the sale of Palestine to the Jews


1917: Birthdate of Algerian born, French-Israeli writer Andre Chouraqui, known for his French-language translation of the Bible and his work for the government in Israel. A poet, Chouraqui was best known for translating religious texts, including La Bible hebraique et le Nouveau Testament (The Hebrew Bible and New Testament), published in 26 volumes between 1974 and 1977. Chouraqui studied law in Paris. During World War II, he joined the French Resistance and hid out in the Haute-Loire region of central France. After moving to Israel in 1958, he became an adviser to Israel's first Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion, from 1959 to 1963. He also served as deputy mayor of Jerusalem. He passed away at the age of 89 at his home in Jerusalem in 2007.



1919: The Weimar Republic's first Reichspräsident ("Reich President"), Friedrich Ebert of the SPD, signed the new German constitution into law. The Weimar Republic marked Germany’s first experience with a truly democratic government.  It failed for lack of popular support and would give way to Hitler’s Third Reich.  One of the excuses offered for German support the Holocaust was that Jews were associated with the founding of the Weimar Republic and the Weimar Republic was viewed as a humiliation saddled on the Germans by the Allies at the end of World War I.  The logic is tortured, but it is neither the first time that people would rationalize and justify their anti-Semitism.


1920: Samuel Gompers is one of several labor leaders who attend a dinner honoring T.J. Healy before he departs for Europe where he will represent the American Federation of Labor at an international labor conference.


1923: At a session of the World Zionist Congress meeting in in Carslbad, Czechoslovakia, that continued until this morning, Dr. Chaim Weizmann and Nabum Sokolow, heads of the World Zionist Organization, defended their administration from the attacks to which it has been subjected during the last few days.


1926(1st of Elul, 5686): Rosh Chodesh Elul


1927: Birthdate of Gustav Bermel a member of the Ehrenfield anti-Nazi resistance Group who was murdered at the age of 17.


1927: In Brooklyn, of Sara (née Kaminsky) and David Rosenberg gave birth to Stuart Rosenberg, director of Cool Hand Luke.


1928: “Four Walls” a silent film co-starring Carmel Myers, the San Francisco born daughter of “daughter of an Australian rabbi and Austrian Jewish mother” was released in the United States today by MGM.


1929: The Jewish Agency was created at the 16th Zionist Congress in Zurich. It was intended to include non-Zionists such as Louis Marshall, Leon Blum and Felix Warburg to take a leading role among those working to create a Jewish state. 1929: Florence Wolfson Howlett turned 14 and made her first entry in the diary she received as a birthday present.  The diary would provide the basis for The Red Leather Diary by Lily Koppel


1930: At the second session of the fourth world congress of the Zionist Revisionist, Dr. Robert Lichtheim delivered a speech in which he said that the organization “would conduct its own political activities, particularly in pleading the Zionist cause before governments and statesmen, independently of the Zionist executive and the Jewish agency.


1930: In New York City, an announcement was made at the headquarters of the Allied Jewish Campaign that more than $1,214,000 was spent in the development of the economic  and cultural program of the Jewish Agency in Palestine during the half year” that ended on May 1.


1932: Birthdate of American architect Peter Eisenman


1932: Birthdate of Israel Harold “Izzy” Asper, Canadian tax attorney and media magnate. A native of Minnedosa, Manitoba, Asper “was the founder of CanWest Global Communications Corp and father to Leonard, Gail and David Asper, each of whom served as officers of CanWest.


1933: The Supreme Representative Committee of German Jews established a farm near Rathenow, in Prussia, to train unemployed Jews as agricultural workers.


1933: Nineteen year old actress Heddy Lamar, the daughter of Viennese Jewish parents married Austrian arms dealer and fascist Friedrich Mandl.


1933: In response to what is described as an “epidemic of suicides among German Jews of the Rhineland,” the Jewish community of Cologne has issued an appeal signed by the lay leaders and the Rabbinate, urging Jews not to despair.


1933: The Hamburg Federation of Grain Merchants, which had a large Jewish membership, was dissolved. Its funds and property were turned over to the "Aryanized" All-German Federation of Commerce.


1933: In Warsaw, an edict was issued forbidding Jewish bakers, who observe the Sabbath, to bake bread on Sundays. The edict affected over 50,000 Jewish bakers.


1933: In Cracow, Thirty-one of the forty-two arrested persons, charged with organizing riots against Jews in a nearby town received sentences of imprisonment of from four months to three years.


1935(12th of Av, 5695): Sixty-five year old portrait artist Leo Mielziner passed away today.

1936: Condemning British proposals to partition Palestine as "outrageous," Senator Royal S. Copeland (Dem., NY) introduced in the Senate today a resolution asking the Senate's "forthright indication of unwillingness to accept modification in the mandate without Senate consent." Senator Copeland declared that the territory allotted the Jews in the proposed partition was insufficient to maintain even a small number of Jews and that establishment of a small Jewish state might result in a war between the Jews and the Arabs.  The Jews are having a "terrible time" in Germany, Poland and Rumania.... At the same time he noted a "distinct animosity" on the part of American consuls abroad in granting visas to Jews, which, he said, showed discrimination. (As reported by JTA)


1936: Rabbi M.L. Perlsweig, head of the World Zionist Organization's political information department, addressed the World Jewish Congress which was meeting in Geneva. During his speech tonight, he accused the British authorities in Palestine of "political ineptitude so gross as to be almost unbelievable."


1937: By a vote of 304 to 158, the 20th Zionist Congress, held in Zurich, endorsed Chaim Weizmann¹s proposal and empowered the Zionist Executive to negotiate with the British government the terms of the Royal (Peel) Report, according to which the partition of Palestine would be implemented and the Jewish state was to be established. Dr. Weizmann¹s proposal was denounced by Dr. Stephen Wise, on behalf of American Jewry and many other delegates, including Menachem Ussishkin. A revised version of the partition plan was also supported by David Ben-Gurion.


1937: In Zurich roving bands of Nazis assaulted and molested a number of Zionist delegates.


1939: Laurence Steinhardt begins serving as U.S. Ambassador to the U.S.S.R.


1939(26th of Av, 5699): Having received a summons from the Gestapo and fearing that he would be tortured like others who had received such a summons, 68 year old mathematicians Paul Epstein “took a lethal dose of Veronal.


1941: Birthdate of Brooklyn political figure, Elizabeth Holtzman.  A graduate of Harvard Law School, Holtzman began serving in Congress in 1973 just in time to be part of the Watergate investigation.  After leaving the House, she held various political positions but missed out on her biggest prize, a seat in the U.S. Senate. 


1941: Vichy adopted an ordinance excluding Jews from working as doctors.


1941: Het Parool, “an Amsterdam-based daily newspaper” was published for the first time “as a resistance paper during the Nazi occupation” by a staff that included Jaap Nunes Vaz who would be sent to Sobibor in 1942.


1942(28th of Av, 5702): The Nazis murdered 13,000 Jews at Rostov-On-Don, a deadly total that would be added to a few days later when another two to five thousand Jews were murdered.


1944: Joop Westerweel, Dutch poet and educator was executed by the Nazis, for helping Jews escape. In late February 1944 Joop Westerweel traveled to the foot of the Pyrenees to say farewell to the group about to cross into Spain, which included Joseph Heinrich and thirteen other young people Joop and his underground group had helped to escape from Holland. His memorable speech was later vividly recalled by many who were present. He wished them well and that they should build Palestine into a place where there would be no war, only food and work for everyone. As the young pioneers left for Spain, Joop turned back to Holland. On March 11, he was arrested by border police while helping two young Jewish girls cross illegally from Holland to France. Five months later he was executed in prison in Vught Concentration Camp. The sacrifice of Joop Westerweel and those like him must never be forgotten.  The challenge for the living is to be worthy of the proof of such virtue.


1945: A ‘small pogrom’ took place in Krakow, Poland, three months after the end of World War II in Europe.


1945: Collier’s magazine published “Terror in Palestine” by Frank Gervasi which provides a contemporary look at events following the death of Lord Moyne.

1948(8th of Av, 5708): Elaine Hammerstein, the daughter of opera producer Arthur Hammerstein, who gained fame as an American silent film and stage actress, passed away.


1949: Birthdate of David Rubenstein, the son of a Baltimore postal worker who co-founded the Carlyle Group and whose philanthropies included serving as Chairman of both Kennedy Center and the Duke University board of Trustees.


1951(9th of Av): Yiddish playwright and journalist David Pinsky passed away.


1951(9th of Av, 5711): Rebekah Bettelheim Kohut passed away

1952: The ailing Talal¹s son, Hussein II, was proclaimed the King of Jordan, but a Regency Council was appointed to rule the country, since he was a minor. In 1952 three Middle Eastern monarchs ­ Hussein II of Jordan, Ahmed Fuad of Egypt and Faisal of Iraq ­ were minors. King Hussein had seen his grandfather assassinated by an Arab fanatic who thought he was too friendly with the Jews.  Hussein’s goal was to stay alive and remain king.  He wisely did not take part in the Sinai Campaign of 1956.  He foolishly attacked Israel in 1967 and lost the West Bank and east Jerusalem.  In the end, he signed a peace treaty with Israel but without gaining any territory west of the Jordan River.  Fuad would be ousted by a revolt masterminded by Colonel Nasser, the Pan-Arabist who had a secular version of Osama’s vision.  Faisal would die in a revolt in 1958 that would eventually bring Hussein (the dictator not the king) to power in Iraq.


1955: Leonard Bernstein led premiere of Symphonic Suite from "On the Waterfront", BSO, Tanglewood


1955: “The Divided Heart” featuring Theodore Bikel and John Schlesinger was released in the United States today by Ealing Studios.


1961: Birthdate of columnist David Brooks


1964(3rd of Elul, 5724): Sixty-four year old Leopold Mannes, the creator of Kodachrome, passed away today.

1970(9th of Av, 5730): Tish’a B’Av


1972(1st of Elul, 5732): Rose Schneiderman passed away.  Born in Poland in 1884, Miss Schneiderman was brought to the United States by her father who worked as a tailor on the lower East Side.  She gained first-hand experience on life in the garment industry when she went to work as a cap maker. She earned eight dollars a week.  But she had to buy her own sewing machine with a cash $25 cash down payment and an additional $45 paid in installments.  In addition to this, she had to pay for power and thread.  Miss Schneiderman helped to organize the Women’s Trade Union League, an organization that she served as President for several terms.  In 1909 she took part in a strike of waistmakers that began the unionization of the garment industry. In New York, she served as Secretary of the State Labor Department from 1937 to 1944.  During the Great Depression, she served as an official of the National Recovery Administration and was considered to be a member of F.D.R.’s “brain trust.”

1977: West Bank mayors and notables submitted separate views to US Secretary of State Cyrus Vance. The mayors acknowledged that the PLO was the ³sole² representative of the Palestine Arabs and claimed that no settlement was possible without PLO participation. But other West Bank notables had different ideas. They advocated an immediate mutual recognition of the national rights of Palestinians and Israelis in the area. They claimed that their two homelands must be mutually exclusive and advocated the establishment of a ³peace-promoting force² acceptable to both nations. These West Bank notables advocated the holding of a plebiscite during the interim period so that Palestinians could decide freely whether to join Jordan or establish an independent, democratic state. Unfortunately, these talks led to the same place as those that had come before and after – nowhere.


1977: Jordan and Egypt informed the US that they were prepared to sign formal peace treaties with Israel, but at the conclusion of the Arab-Israeli peace negotiations.


1982: This file picture dated August 11, 1982 shows people standing in front of the Chez Jo Goldenberg restaurant in Paris, two days after it was devastated in an attack by Palestinian gunmen (AFP/ JOEL ROBINE)


1983: Today,Joseph Hochstein wrote an Op-Ed titled "Not goodbye, but l'hitraot," in which he said, "I love newspapering, and I have a special love for this paper, since I helped start it in 1965 with my father. ... What happens each week at The Jewish Week is achieved with greater difficulty than the work done in the newsrooms of great metropolitan dailies, and it is more profoundly needed. Knowing that I played a central role in making this happen helps offset the regret of leaving, as does the joy of realizing a long-held dream of living in Israel." He wrote this just before making Aliyah.


1983: “Phar Lap” a biopic about a racehorse co-starring Ron Leibman was released in Australia today by 20th Century Fox.


1984(13th of Av, 5744): Ninety-one year old American published Alfred Abraham Knopf, Sr. founder of Alfred A Knopf, Inc passed away today. (As reported by Herbert Mitgang)

1987:  Alan Greenspan becomes Chairman of the United States Federal Reserve. Another Jewish economist hits the top spot.


1988: Meir Kahane renounced his US citizenship to stay in the Israeli Parliament.  Kahane and his virulent anti-Arab views have been rejected by the Israeli mainstream.  Kahane himself was gunned down by Arab terrorists.


1991:In The Felix Warburg Mansion; A Window to the Past in the Present,” published today Christopher Gray describes the past, present and future of the building that was home to one of New York’s most influential and famous Jewish families. http://www.nytimes.com/1991/08/11/realestate/streetscapes-the-felix-warburg-mansion-a-window-to-the-past-in-the-present.html?pagewanted=print&src=pm


1991(1st of Elul, 5751): Rosh Chodesh Elul


1995: “A Walk in the Clouds” produced by David and Jerry Zucker, co-starring Debra Messing and filmed by cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki was released in the United States today 20th Century Fox.


1997: Baltimore born Washington lawyer Alfred H. Moses completed his service as U.S. Ambassador to Romania. Five years later the President of Romania awarded him the Marc Cruce Medal.


1997(8thof Av, 5757): Erev Tish’a B’Av


1997(8thof Av, 5757): Forty-nine year old Eli Adourian of Kfar Adumim died of the wounds he sustained when a Hamas suicide bomber struck at the Mahane Yehuda Market on July 30th where the death toll would reach sixteen with an additional 178 injured.


1999:Sheila Finestone began serving as Senator for Montarville, Quebec.


1999: Max Kampelman was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.


1999: Janet Jagan, the Chicago born Jewess completed her service as President of Guyana when Bharrat Jagdeo was sworn as President


1999: Michael Dougall Bell began serving as Canada’s Ambassador to Israel.


2002: The Sunday New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including 'F E G: Ridiculous Poems for Intelligent Children by Robin Hirsch Fireweed: A Political Autobiographyby Gerda Lerner, the Austrian born Jewish American political activist.


2004: Seventy-three year old German historian Wolfgang Mommsen who fought attempts to whitewash the Holocaust made by some other German historians passed away today.

2005:  While the front pages of the paper carried news of Sharon’s attempts to bring peace to the Middle East with the withdrawal from Gaza, the back pages of Haaretzcarried a reminder of Sharon’s warrior past.  According to a story in Haaretz,The bloodstained bandage that wrapped Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's head after he was injured in fighting during the 1973 Yom Kippur War has been offered for sale on e-Bay with the bidding starting at $10,000.”  Sharon sustained the head wound when he was leading Israeli forces across the Suez Canal. 


2006: First day of the New York International Fringe Festival which will include a performance of “The Cheerleader and the Rabbi” featuring Sandy Wolshin.  “A former cheerleader for the Oakland Raiders shelater immersed herself in a mikveh as part of an orthodox conversion.”


2006:  The Jerusalem Post reported that Maj. Nimrod Hallel, 42, from Rosh Ha'ayin, was killed in the town of Leboneh in the western sector of southern Lebanon when an anti-tank missile was fired at his vehicle.


2006:  A reported 120 rockets rained down on northern Israel striking Haifa, Safed and Kiryat Shimona.


2006: Conflicting reports abound concerning the terms of a proposed cease fire intended to stop the fighting in Lebanon.  Some of the major points of contention include the robustness of the mandate of the international force and the willingness of the Lebanese army to confront and disarm Hezbollah fighters.


2007: On the “Jewish Jock Front,” The San Diego Union-Tribunereported that San Diego ChargerIgor Olshanskymay not get to play in an upcoming exhibition game with the Seattle SeaHawks whileJohn Grabow of the Pittsburgh Pirates won a game on just 13 pitches, which was all he needed to complete a one inning relief stint against the San Francisco Giants.


2008: YuliTamir announced plans to remove Ze'ev Jabotinsky's work from the national education curriculum


2008Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Finance Minister Ronnie Bar-On decidedto implement all of the recommendations of the State Commission of Inquiry into the government's handling of Holocaust survivors.


2008: Palestinian terrorists in Gaza violated a truce agreement with Israel, firing a Kassam rocket at the western Negev town of Sderot..


2008: Iowa native, James Hoyt passed away at the age of 83. As one of the first four American soldiers to discover the Buchenwald labor camp in 1945, James Hoyt rarely slept well. “He’s finally getting the rest he’s never had all these years,” his daughter, Theresa Stewart, 51, of Oxford said. When he closed his eyes, he’d see images of the Nazi concentration camp, which he thought was a mannequin factory when he first saw it before its liberation April 11, 1945, Stewart said. His daughters remembered him as a reserved man who put others first and loved reading, rebuilding cars and solving crossword puzzles. “He had time to listen to anyone and would hear everybody’s story,” Stewart said. For years, Hoyt did not share his own story. He later learned from doctors at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Iowa City that he was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. Hoyt of Oxford, Iowa graduated from high school in 1943 and became a private first class after he was drafted in early 1944 to serve in World War II. He was a member of the 6th Armored Division’s 9th Infantry Battalion and fought in the Battle of the Bulge. On April 11, 1945, Hoyt was the radio operator and driver for a four-man reconnaissance team when two Buchenwald escapees flagged them down. The team went to the camp, which was hidden in a forested area. “When the people saw our vehicle with the American markings on it, they really went wild. They tore a part of the fence down. They threw us up in the air,” Hoyt told The Gazette 10 years ago. “It was a very sorry sight all the way. They were skin and bones, the living ones. Of course, there were all kinds of dead ones there.” In all, about 238,500 prisoners were held at the camp. As the years passed, Hoyt became more willing to talk about his experience, helping him to heal, his daughter, Pat Hatcher, said. “We didn’t know what he was fighting,” Hatcher said of the emotional memories. “It helps us understand him better.” After the war in 1949, Hoyt married Doris Hipp. He worked with his brothers in construction before joining the United States Postal Service in Oxford, where he served more than 30 years.


2009(21st of Av, 5769): Robert William LeVine passed away to at the age of 71(As reported by Emma Stickgold)

2009: Three books about Bernie Madoff – Too Good to Be True: The Rise and Fall of Bernie Madoff, Madoff with the Money, Betrayal: The Life and Lies of Bernie Madoff– all hit the bookstores today.


2009: The National Jewish Retreat opens at Greenwich, Connecticut.  Featured presenters and performers for this event that ends on August 16 include Rabbi Manis Friedman, Rabbi Immanuel Schochet, Rabbi Yossi Jacobson, Professor Jonathan Sarna, Mrs. Rivka Slonim and recording star Arvram Fried.


2009: Barnes & Noble announces that Rashi by Elie Weisel and Blindman’s Bluff by Faye Kellerman are available at their stores and on-line.


2009: Releases of “Saints & Tzadiks” a CD on which Irish chanteuse Susan McKeown and Lexatics bandleader Lorin Skalmerg sing Yiddish, Irish and blends of Yiddish and Irish songs that highlight “the traditions and similarities as well as the different ways each tradition tells a musical tale.”


2010(1st of Elul, 5770): Rosh Chodesh Elul:


2010: Anat Hoffman leader of the Women of the Wall Prayer group is scheduled to blow the shofar on behalf of the group as she has done for the past 21 years.


2010: US envoy George Mitchell met with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to discuss advancing direct talks with the Palestinians. “We see eye to eye on the need open up direct talks with the Palestinians," Mitchell said about Netanyahu in comments made before the meeting.


2010: IDF Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi told the Turkel Committee today that the IDF made a crucial mistake when it did not resort to accurate fire against those blocking entry to the Mavi Marmara Turkish aid ship as IDF Shayetet 13 commandos rappelled onto the ship from helicopters


2011: Another session of “Hebrew Literacy: Aleph, Bet, and Beyond” is scheduled to take place at Sixth & I Historic Synagogue.


2011: The Eleventh Memorial for Yiddish Poets is scheduled to take place tonight at the amphitheatre in Tekoa.  The event memorializes “the victims of the ‘Night of the Murdered Poets’ who were thirteen prominent Jewish figures in the USSR who were secretly executed at Stalin's order on the night between August 12th and August 13th 1952. These were the most outstanding and renowned Jewish writers, intellectuals, poets, musicians and actors of their time.”


2011: At the Off the Wall Comedy Club, Jerusalem funny man David Kilimnick whose funny bone was born in Little Rock, Arkansas, is scheduled to performTu BAv Comedy Special 'Jewish Singles' from The ‘Find Me A Wife’ Show.


2011: Israel's interior minister gave final authorization to build 1,600 apartments in disputed east Jerusalem and will approve 2,700 more in days, officials said today.


2011: Eighty-two year old Juergen Corleis passed away.

2011: Interior Minister Eli Yishai (Shas) said today during a meeting with that the “time is ripe for an upheaval in the coalition” in order to solve the ongoing social crisis that has rocked the country over the past month. Yishai has repeatedly stated that his party will leave the government coalition if no solution is to be found. As opposed to Yishai, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman (Yisrael Beiteinu) threw his support behind the government’s policies, calling Israel an “island of stability” in comparison to the ongoing riots occurring across Britain.


2011(11thof Av, 5771): Noach Flug,a Holocaust survivor who dedicated his life to fighting for the rights of other survivors is remembered as "a towering figure" passed away today in Jerusalem at the age of 86.
http://sdjewishjournal.com/site/2516/holocaust-survivor-noach-flug-dies-at-age-86/



2012: Ben Sarsin in scheduled to be called to the Torah as a Bar Mitzvah at Temple Judah in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.



2012: “Avenue Q,” the musical creation of Jeff Marx is scheduled to have its final performance at the Barter Theatre.



2012: The International Arts and Crafts Fair also known as Hutzot Hayozer is scheduled to open one after the end of Shabbat in Jerusalem.



2012: A fire broke out near the town of Kiryat Tivon, near Haifa, this morning, a few days after firefighters battled repeated blazes in the area believed to have been set by arsonists. Eight firefighting crews supported by two aircraft brought the fire under control. No injuries were reported.



2012: Israeli rhythmic gymnast Neta Rivkin performed well in all four routines at the London Games today, to secure a best-ever Israeli finish in the event. Rivkin, 21, finished seventh overall, making her the most successful rhythmic gymnast in Israeli Olympic history. Evgenia Kanaeva of Russia won the gold.



2013: “The Last White Knight” Paul Saltzman’s documentary about his personal encounter with Mississippi Racism is scheduled to be shown at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival.


2013: The San Diego Jewish Film Festival, PJ Library, Shalom Baby, and Jewish Family Service are scheduled to sponsor “Learn About the Jewish New Year with Elmo” an event designed to prepare youngsters for the upcoming holidays.


2013: “Passages through the Fire: Jews and the Civil War,” an exhibit co-presented by the American Historical Society and Yeshiva University is scheduled to come to an end today.


2013: Harriet Rochlin, the leading expert on Western Jewish History recommends that those who can attend this evening’s opening of “American Jerusalem: Jews and the Making of San Francisco” a film that tells the epic story of pioneer Jews in San Francisco, a number of whom played a significant role in the transformation of a tiny village to California’s first metropolis.


2013: In Cedar Rapids, friends and family are scheduled to celebrating the graduation from Nursing School and Pinning of Rebbitzin Sabrina Thalblum.


2013: “Passages through the Fire: Jews and the Civil War,”a new exhibition presented by the American Jewish Historical Society and Yeshiva University Museum is scheduled to come to an end today.

2013: Just three days before Israeli-Palestinian peace talks are set to resume in Jerusalem. “Housing and Construction Minister Uri Ariel (Jewish Home) announced today that 793 new apartments would be built in Jerusalem, and 394 in large settlement blocs in the West Bank.” (As reported by Lazar Berman)


2013: Finance Minister Yair Lapid lashed out today at the decision to build more than one thousand new homes in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, calling it "a double mistake." Lapid's comments came on the heels of similar condemnation by Meretz leader, Zahava Gal-On, who accused the government of trying to stymie the nascent peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians. (As reported by 2014:”Marvin Hamlisch, What He Did for Love” and “The Jewish Cardinal” are scheduled to be shown at the Berkshire Jewish Film Festival.


2014: Israel will send its team of negotiators back to Cairo today if Hamas honors the 72-hour cease-fire that went into effect at midnight, diplomatic officials said yesterday evening. (As reported by Herb Keinon)


2014: “Former Israeli ambassador to the US Michael Oren denied today that he was fired as a CNN analyst, saying that he asked to suspend his contract, which obligates him to interview exclusively to that network, so he could accept more requests from other media as well.” (As reported by Raphael Ahren)


2014(15th of Av, 5774): “Three Israelis were killed when a train collided with their minibus at a level crossing in the canton of Nidwalden in Switzerland this morning.” (As reported by Stuart Winer)


2014(15th of Av, 5774): Celebration of Tu B’Av, a day devoted to love with no particular ritual but with a long tradition dating back, according to some, to the days when Shiloh was the site of religious observance for the 12 tribes

2015: The Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education is scheduled to present “The Car in Contemporary Israeli Cinema”featuring “excerpts from Metallic Blues, Broken Wings and Lost Islands (all of which are Israeli movies from the 2000s) followed by informal discussion with Dr. Moshe Rachmuth, who teaches Modern Hebrew and Israeli cinema at Portland State University. 


2015: Julie Azous is scheduled to provide Maj-Johngg training for players at all levels at the 92nd Street Y.


 

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

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August 12


30 BCE: Cleopatra committed suicide.  According to Josephus, the Egyptian tried to convince her lover and co-ruler, Marc Antony, to give her control over lands to the east including Syria and Palestine.  Herod was so afraid of her that he reportedly built the fortress at Masada as place of refuge should she attack. While Antony did not give into all of her demands, he did give her control over Jericho and several towns surrounding the ancient city.


1099: During the First Crusade, the Crusaders defeated the Saracens at the Battle of Ascalon.  This led to the creation of the Kingdom of Jerusalem under Godfrey of Bouillon.  The Crusader victory led to a period of persecution of the small Jewish population living in Palestine.  The Crusaders attempted to ban the Jews from living in Jerusalem.  Apparently it did not occur to them that such a ban would have meant that Jesus could not live in the Christian kingdom.


1121: At the Battle of Didgori the Georgian army under King David the Builder won a decisive victory over the famous Seljuk commander Ilghazi. Georgian-speaking Jewry is one of the oldest surviving Diaspora Jewish communities. The origin of Georgian Jews, also known as Gurjimor Ebraeli, is debated, but some claim they are descendants of the ten tribes exiled by Shalmaneser. Others say the first Jews made their way to southern Georgia after Nebuchadnezzar conquered Jerusalem in 586 B.C.E. after first fleeing to Babylonia. The first Jews in Western Georgia arrived in the 6th century when the region was ruled by the Byzantine Empire. Approximately 3,000 of these Jews then fled to Eastern Georgia, controlled by the Persians, to escape severe persecution by the Byzantines. The existence of the Jews in these regions during this period is supported by archaeological evidence showing that Jews lived in Mtzheta, the ancient capital of the East Georgian state of Kartli. The Ebraeli spoke Georgian and Jewish traders developed a dialect called Qivruli, or Judeo-Georgian, which included a number of Hebrew words. In the second half of the 7th century, the Muslim Empire conquered extensive Georgian territory, which became an Arab caliph province. Arab emirs ruled the majority of the region until 1122. Under the Arabs, in the late 9th century, Abu-Imran Musa al-Za'farani (later known as Abu-Imran al-Tiflisi) founded a Jewish sect called the Tiflis Sect which lasted for more than 300 years. The sect deviated from halakhah in its marriage and kashrutcustoms.


1281: The fleet of Qubilai Khan, the Chinese emperor who celebrated the festivals of the Muslims, Christians and Jews, indicating that there  really were a significant number of Jews living in China during his reign, is destroyed by a typhoon while approaching Japan.


1317: John XXII, the second of the Avignon Popes, issued “Ex  Parte Vestra” a Bull that dealt with converts who relapse i.e. Jewish converts who wanted to return to the “faith of their Fathers and Mothers.”


1381(14th of Av, 5141): In the Balearic Islands, Sayd ben David was burned at the stake after being charged with “incontinence with a nun”


1452: Birthdate of Abraham Zacuto “a Sephardi Jewish astronomer, astrologer, mathematician and historian who served as Royal Astronomer in the 15th century to King John II of Portugal. The crater Zagut on the Moon is named after him.” The creator of new type of astrolabe that could be used at sea, he was one of the few Jews who was able to flee Portugal despite the edicts of King Manuel I.  He either passed away in Jerusalem in 1515 or Damascus in 1520.


1484: The Papacy of Sixtus IV came to an end.

 1530: A charter was granted to the Jews of Germany despite the protests of Martin Luther. Josel of Rosheim, the famous "shtadlan" (interceder) was instrumental in its passing.


1816: Birthdate of Ion Ghica, the five-time Prime Minister of Romania “a valuable ally for Yiddish theater in Bucharest who on several occasions expressed his favorable view of the quality of acting, and even more of the technical aspects of the Yiddish theater. In 1881, he obtained for the National Theater the costumes that had been used for a Yiddish pageant on the coronation of King Solomon, which had been timed in tribute to the actual coronation of Carol I of Romania.


1817: Birthdate of German Orientalist Max Grünbaum


1819:  Anti-Semitic riots broke out in Darmstadt and Bayreuth, Germany


1828: In Schubin, Prussia, Rabbi Benjamin Mielziner and his wife gave birth Moses Mielziner who would become a leading rabbi in the Reform Movement.


1829(13th of Av, 5589): Mordecai ben Abraham Benet, who was born in 1753 and became the chief rabbi of Moravia passed away.


1833: Founding of Chicago. Jews were present in Chicago from its earliest days. The first Jews in the city were German and Ashkenazim.  By 1847, there were enough Jews in Chicago to establish Kehilath Anshe Maariv — Congregation of the Men of the West — on an upper floor of a commercial building. The congregation was popularly referred to as KAM and found its home in Hyde Park among the South Side German Jewish community. German Jews generally were accepted into mainstream society. In Chicago, they were already being elected to political office in the 1850s. Among the enterprises established by Chicago's German Jews were Florsheim Shoe Co., Hart Schaffner & Marx clothiers, the Brunswick billiard-table empire, Spiegel mail-order Company and Mandel Brothers department store, long a fixture on State Street. The Jews of Chicago: From Shtetl to Suburb by Irving Cutler provides a readable, popular history of the Jews of the Windy City.


1843: Birthdate of American playwright Bartely Campbell, the son of Irish immigrants who wrote “Siberia” a play about the persecution of the Jews in Russia.


1844: Birthdate of Edward Lauterbach, successful defense attorney, leader of the Republican Party and trustee of the Hebrew Orphan Asylum.


1847(30thof Av, 5607): Rosh Chodesh Elul


1848(13thof Av, 5608): Avraham Ullmann, who had been born in 1791 and was the son Shalom Charif Ullman, the chief rabbi of Lackenbach, passed away.


1851: Luis Schlesinger, a Hungarian born Jew who had fled to the United States after the failed revolutions of 1848 was captured by the Spanish at Pinar del Rio when he led an unsuccessful raid on Cuba under the auspices of Cuban General Narciso Lopez. (As reported by Ben G.Frank)


1853: A German Jew, who has used a variety of aliases including J. Meyer, was arrested at the Irving House.  While being taken to court he tried to get rid of a package containing pledge  tickets for a large quantity of valuable goods recently pawned at the shops of Bernstein, Levy, Silver, Smith and Murdock. The items left at the pawn shop were all stolen.


1854: The Moral and Religious column described a new sect that has started in England called The Disciples. They believe that Christ will appear in 1864; that the Russians will triumph over the Turks and the Jews over the Russians-- the latter event to happen in ten years' time when the Jews will become a nation in the Holy Land. Christ is to be their King, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and the rest of the righteous Jews of old, with a few elect among Christians, will rise from the dead and live forever in Palestine; but the heathen and the wicked Jews and Christians will sleep eternally.


1859: Birthdate of Albert Lucas, he native of London who was the husband of Rebecca Nieto and “Secretary of the Union Orthodox Jewish Congregation of America, and Secretary of the Joint Distribution Committee.”


1862: In Springfield, Illinois, “Samuel Rosenwald and his wife Augusta Hammerslough Rosenwald, a Jewish immigrant couple from Germany” gave birth to Julius Rosenwald who turned Sears, Roebuck and Company into a retailing behemoth while using much of his fortune to support education for African-Americans when this was one of the least important social concerns in the United States.

1862: Construction was completed on the first synagogue built on Long Island which came to be known as the Boerum Schule because it was located in Boerum Hill.


1862: In the part of Germany that included the cities of Moisling and Lubeck, The Oath More Judaico or Jewish Oath was modified.  It would remain in force until 1879, when the Germans adopted laws regulating civil procedure which abolished the oath.


1865: Birthdate of a British psychoanalyst, physician, Zionist and writer David Eder whose opposition to the partition of Palestine in the 1920’s was summed up in his statement that  "There can be only one national home in Palestine, and that a Jewish one, and no equality in the partnership between Jews and Arabs.”
1870: A few days into the inquest being held to determine the facts surrounding the death of Benjamin Nathan, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle protested the disparity in treatment being shown to his son’s Washington and Frederick, and the Irish Catholic servants of the Nathan family who had suddenly become the prime suspects.


1877(3rd of Elul, 5637): Rabbi Jaques Judah Lyons passed away today in New York. Judah and Mary Lyons; gave birth to him at Surinam, Dutch Guiana in 1814. “He was educated in Surinam, and was minister of the Spanish & Portuguese congregation there, Neveh Shalom, for five years. He left Surinam in 1837 and went to Richmond, Va., where for two years he was minister of the Congregation Beth Schalom. In 1839 he was elected minister of the Spanish and Portuguese congregation Shearith Israel, New York city, in succession to Isaac Seixas, and served the congregation thirty-eight years, successfully combating every movement to change the form of worship in his congregation. Lyons was among those who founded The Jews' (now Mount Sinai) Hospital; he was actively concerned in founding the Jewish Board of Delegates and Hebrew Free Schools and was superintendent of the Polonies Talmud Torah School…For many years he was president of the Hebra Hased ve-Emet and of the Sampson Simpson Theological Fund. Lyons was an ardent student and collected a library that is now in possession of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America.” In 1857, he joined with Dr. Abraham de Sola of Montreal, in preparing and publishing a Hebrew calendar covering fifty years, together with an essay on the Jewish calendar system


1878: Jewish representatives from the United States, Holland, Germany, England, Belgium, Romania, Palestine, Turkey, Italy Spain, France Austria and Russia met in Paris today to celebrate the anniversary of the Alliance Israelite Universelle of France. During the meeting, the attendees provided reports on the conditions of Jews in various countries and possible ways to improve their conditions.  It was suggested that a medal “commemorating the emancipation of the Jews in the East” should be presented to each member of the Berlin Congress on behalf “of the Jews of the world.”


1878: It was reported today that details have been released regarding the will of the late Michael Reese. His generosity included $650,000 for the State University of California and $25,000 to the Hebrew Orphan Asylum.


1879: It was reported today that Romania might agree “to accept the principle of equal rights for the Jews” if some consideration would be given to how it is applied.  Germany might be willing to agree to such an arrangement.


1879: “A Theory of Noses” published today provides an example of the outlandish 19thcentury that physical characteristics determined people’s behavior, intellect and social standing.  The fact “that the Jewish nation has for ages maintained a high level of civilization and that nevertheless the Jewish nose is not straight but curved” presents a problem for this theory.


1881:  In Ashfield, MA, Henry and Matilda Beatrice DeMille gave birth to movie mogul Cecil B. DeMille.  His father was Episcopalian and his mother was Jewish. Regardless of how you view his religious background, he will forever be connected with Moses and the Jewish people through “The Ten Commandments.”


1881: It was reported today that anti-Semitism is so prevalent Pomerania and West Russia that recent government actions to protect the Jews living there will be totally ineffective.


1882: Today’s Congressional Record contained “a speech by the Honorable S.S. Cox on the persecution of the Jews in Russia.”  It was “an elaborate paper illustrated with poetical extracts, two pages of tables and a neatly engraved map.”


1882: “Russian Jews” published today described the plan of Chicago banker Lazarus Silverman to settle several Jewish immigrant families totaling 150 men, women in children on 300 acres that owns on 300 acres of land on Carp Lake in Michigan. The group includes one tailor, one wagon-maker, one blacksmith, one cooper, one paper-hanger, two tinsmiths, three coppersmiths and most important of all, 3 farmers.


1883(9thof Av, 5643): Tish’a B’Av


1883: “Bread Making” published today which describes the baking of bread in the British Isles begins by declaring that “since the time of the early Jews there has been very little change in the process.”


1883:”Ancient Manuscripts” published today described how Moses Shapira acquired an ancient copy of the Book of Deuteronomy in Palestine and sent it on to London where it can be preserved and studied. It is claimed this codex is 2,700 years old and provides evidence that the ancient Israelites were writing “consecutive narrative” at a time that corresponds to the Greeks Homer and Hesiod.


1884: It was reported today that a note had been found on the body of Israel Blatchky, a young Jew who had been living in Des Moines for three years.  According to the note he was despondent over a failed love affair and bought poison six months ago.


1884: In Telšiai, Lithuania, Isaac Noyk and Esther Chana Ravid gave birth to Michael Noyk who became a solicitor and Irish republican political leader.


1884: Leading Chicago businessman Morris L. Cohn was arraigned today and held for trial in lieu of $10,000 bond on numerous charges of forgery that included his issuance of $15,000 in bogus notes.


1885: Americans living Haifa write today that their “colony” in that city “is well known as an industrious, intelligent and law abiding community and the members of it are justly entitled to the full protection of their government…The time has come when it is absolutely necessary for the United States government to take a firm stand against the aggressive and illegal policy of the Turkish authorities.”  (As reported by Ruth Kark and Seth Frantzman)


1887: Congregation Keneseth Israel of Philadelphia, PA made a payment of $152 to the Union of American Hebrew Congregations.1887: Seymour Bottigheimer the son of Ellis Bottigheimer of Richmond, VA turned celebrated his sixteenth birthday today while waiting to find out if he had been admitted to Hebrew Union College.


1888: It was reported today that the Sanitarium for Hebrew Children will be providing another free excursion for sick children under the age of six later this month.


1890: The Lord Mayor of London announced that “inquiries into the persecution of the Jews of Russia give reason to believe that the Government’s edicts will not be enforced.” (He was wrong)


1890: Birthdate of Al Goodman. Born in Nikopol Russia, he was the orchestra leader for the NBC Comedy Hour, a show that dominated Sunday nights during the early 1950’s.


1891: In Russayn, Meyer Cohen and Rebecca Benyash gave birth to Canadian lawyer and professor Joseph Cohen


1892: In Canada, Judge Dugas ordered the extradition of two Jews - Harris Blank and Charles Rosenweigh - who are accused of murdering a Jewish peddler named Jacob Marks in Towanda, PA.


1892: Davis Rubenstein, a Russian Jew who lives at 183 Clinton Street lodged a complaint against Berman’s butcher shop at 9 Suffolk Street for the sale of “impure food.”


1894(10thof Av, 5654): The 9th of Av fell on Shabbat so Tish’a B’Av is observed today


1895: Felix Fader who was found selling calico from a pushcart on Mulberry Street, Nathan Rablowitz who was caught selling dry goods at his store on Grand Street, Abraham Wolf who was arrested for selling three hats on Bowery and Max Rothman who was arrested for selling underwear from a wheelbarrow on Catherine Street went to court and pleaded that they observed the Jewish Sabbath which meant they should not have been arrested for violating the Sunday Closing Laws.  The court “overruled their plea that they worked on the Christian Sunday they must do so quietly.” This downturn was consistent with the downturn for all immigrant groups.


1897: At Temple Emanuel, Rabbi Gustav Gottheil will officiate at the funeral of the late Moses Schloss the life-long Republican businessman who had served as the Congregation’s Vice President as well as President of the Hebrew Theological Institute.  He was predeceased by his wife of 56 years, Amalia Water, the daughter of I.D. Walter.  He is survived by his bother Philip and his son Israel,


1897: A summary of immigration statistics published today showed that 22,750 Russian Jews had arrived in the United States as of the fiscal year ending June 30, 1897.  This compared with 45,137 Russian Jews who had arrived in the United States for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1896.


1898: An armistice took effect ending the Spanish-American War. “In the Spanish-American War, Jews once again demonstrated that they are willing and ready to fight and serve in defense of our country. When the battleship Main was sunk on February 15, 1898, there were 15 Jewish sailors who went down with the ship. The executive officer of the Maine, and later a vice admiral in the United States Navy, was Adolph Marix, a Jew. Marix was the chairman of a board of inquiry to investigate the mysterious sinking of the Maine. It is interesting to note that his father was an interpreter in the Lincoln Administration and that Abraham Lincoln appointed Adolph Marix to the United States Naval Academy. When the United States declared war against Spain on April 21, 1898, the first volunteer was Colonel Joseph M. Heller, who left a thriving medical practice to become an acting assistant surgeon in the Army. About 5,000 Jews served in this war. When the Jewish High Holy Days were approaching in 1898, there were 4,000 requests for furloughs to attend services. There were indeed 30 Jewish Army officers and 20 more in the Navy in the Spanish-American War. Jewish casualties ran high for the percentage of Jews in the service. Twenty-nine were killed, 47 wounded, and 28 died from disease - for a total of 104. Corporal Ben Prager received the Silver Star Medal for his bravery in the Philippines in 19 skirmishes and engagements. The official citation describes his accomplishments: "When the engagement was fully opened up, Corporal Benjamin Prager and seven other soldiers from Companies A and L, 19th United States Infantry, moved out and charged the enemy ... and after twice charging in the face of heavy fire, succeeded in dislodging the enemy and putting the entire force to rout. With true soldierly spirit, the success was followed up and the enemy was driven out of the city across the river and mountains." Colonel Teddy Roosevelt commanded the Rough Riders, which included a large number of Jews. The first Rough Rider killed was a 16-year-old Jewish boy, Jacob Wilbusky. Colonel Roosevelt promoted five men in his command for their bravery in the field without knowledge of their religion. One of them was a Jew. Sergeant Maurice Joost of the First California Volunteers, a regiment that had more than 100 Jewish soldiers, was the first man to fall in the attack on Manila. There were 280,000 American soldiers in this war, which was four-tenths of I percent of the population. Jewish soldiers were one-half of I percent of the American Jewish population; therefore, Jews served in greater proportion than did the remainder of the nation's citizens.”


1898: Birthdate of actor Oscar Homolka


1899: In Rennes, France, the President of the Court returned Dreyfus’ salute for the first time marking a shift in the tone of the Court Martial which indicates the Jewish Captain will be acquitted.


1899: “Third Zionist Congress” published today identified the “two chief questions” that will be discussed at the upcoming meeting in Basel, Switzerland which relate to the settlement in Palestine and the “financing of trust company” which will further that endeavor.


1899: Five thousand “enthusiastic” Jews gather in London this evening to express their sympathy with Captain Dreyfus.


1899:Herzl travels to Darmstadt and is received by the Grossherzog of Hessen, brother-in-law of the Czar. Herzl asks him to recommend the "Chartered Company" to the Czar.


1899: “Dreyfusites Ask Full Publicity” published today described the demand of Dreyfus’ supporters that that the secret dossier which was used to convict him should be made public so that everybody can see the obvious forgeries and understand that he was framed by the military.


1899: Jacob Adler performed the role of King Lear at the People’s Theatre, a Jewish playhouse located in the Bowery.


1900: A Garden Party was held in Regent's Park during Herzl’s visit to Great Britain.


1900(17th of Av, 5660): The Father of Modern Chess, Wilhelm Steinitz, passed away.  Born in the Jewish Ghetto in Prague, in 1836, Steinitz began his professional career as a journalist.  He won his first major chess tournament in Vienna in 1861.  This marked the beginning of his domination of the game that would continue almost up to the time of his death.


1902(9th of Av, 5662): Tisha’ B’Av


1910: Jews in Serres, Salonica protested against the use of the 200-year-old Jewish cemetery site for the construction of a new hospital. The plan was later abandoned. 


1911(18th of Av, 5671): Eighty-seven year old Dutch painter Jozef Israëls whose works included “David Singing Before Saul” and “Jewish Wedding” painted in 1903  passed away today

1912:Yankee Guy Zinn sets a record by stealing home twice in the same game.


1912: In Worcester, MA, Benjamin Rabinovitch and his wife gave birth to author and screenwriter Samuel Michael Fuller the decorated member of the Army’s famous First Division which he immortalized in “The Big Red One,” the popular name for his WW II unit


1912: Birthdate of Max I Dimont, the native of Helsinki who moved to Cleveland as a teenager and wrote Jews, God and History while spending 35 years working for Edison Brothers.

1912: Birthdate of Whitney Harris, one of the prosecutors who brought high-ranking Nazi war criminals to justice at the Nuremberg trials and who, a half-century later, was a significant voice in the creation of the International Criminal Court.


1913(9th of Av, 5673): Tish’A B’Av


1914: As Europe stumbles its way into what will become World War I with all of its negative consequences for Jews Britain (and therefore the British Empire) declares war on Austria-Hungary.


1914:  “Jewish historian Gustav Mayer…found his father bewailing the collapse of business as his drapery shop in Berlin’s Zehlendorf.  (As reported by Max Hastings)


1915: Sixty year old Eli Pochansky, “an Orthodox Jewish father” who believes that smoking  cigarettes on the Sabbath is a sin deserving of severe punishment” appeared in Tombs Court today “on a charge of assaulting members of his family who conform to his views.”


1918: Birthdate of Sanford Daniel Garelik, the Bronx native whom became the first Jew to serve as Chief Inspector in the New York Police Department (As reported by Matt Flegenheimer)


1918: Birthdate of Sidney “Sid” Bernstein the “impresario whose long career included bringing the Beatles to Carnegie Hall in 1964 and Shea Stadium in 1965.” (As reported by Allan Kozinin)


1918: General John Monash was knighted as a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath on the battlefield by King George V following the successful Battle of Amiens. (Monash was Jewish; King George wasn’t)


1918(4th of Elul, 5678): Anna Held Polish-born, American actress and singer, passed away.  Held is variously described as the mistress and/or common-in-law wife of Flo Ziegfeld.  Reportedly, she collaborated with Ziegfeld on the creation of his famed Follies review. She was 46 when she died of cancer. 


1922: Birthdate of Holocaust survivor and Polish journalist, Leopold Unger.


1924: Moshav Magdi'el (now part of Hod Hasharon) was founded. A Moshav is a form of collective settlement.  Unlike the Kibbutz, the Moshav allowed for more private ownership.  Hod Hashron has grown into a modern city in the Central District of Israel.


1927: Birthdate of cellist Mstislav Rostropovich winner of theJewish National Fund 1987 Man of the Year and the Humanitarian Award from the United Jewish Appeal Federation


1930:  Birthdate of millionaire businessman George Soros.  Soros has had a minimal involvement with Jews and Jewish causes.  In a 1993 speech he essentially blamed Jews for anti-Semitism.  He said that the rise in European anti-Semitism was just the result of Israel’s policies.  He refers to the country as Palestine.  The head of the Anti-Defamation League described his views as obscene.


1931: In Highland Park, Illinois, Marion (née Weil) and Maurice Clarence Goldman gave birth to author


William Goldman, whose works included Marathon Man and Princess Bride.


1931:Louis Lipsky, former president of the Zionist Organization of America, returned today aboard the White Star liner Homeric from Europe where he had attended the World Zionist Congress, held recently at Basle, Switzerland.


1935: Birthdate of Joan Hamburg, “New York Radio’s First Lady” and the first cousin of Arthur Liman.


1936: In Vienna, Ernest and Mimi Hausner gave birth to Evelyn Hausner, the Austrian born refugee who gained fame as Evelyn Lauder, the wife of Leonard Lauder,1937: The British Colonial Secretary, Mr. W.G.A. Ormsby-Gore, declared in Geneva, during the deliberations of the League of Nations Permanent Mandates Commission, that he was told by Dr. Chaim Weizmann that the political resolution adopted by the 20th Zionist Congress opened the door to negotiations for giving effect to the Peel Commission¹s proposals for the partition of Palestine and that talks on this subject would start at the conclusion of the September sessions of the League of Nations Council. Reports from Damascus indicated that Syria had become the center of activity for the training of armed men, the future leaders of the Palestine Arab uprising. The recent attack on Kfar Menahem was a trial measure perpetrated by such roving terrorist bands. The Arab Higher Committee denied that foreign money donations were used to carry out such military and sabotage training, carried out in preparations for future disturbances. 


1937:A proposal to settle 200,000 Jews in Palestine within the next three years, involving an investment of about $175,000,000, was laid before the World Zionist Congress today. The proposal was made by Elieser Kaplal, treasurer of the Zionist executive committee, who said American Jewry was expected to contribute $2,000,000 to the Zionist movement and Palestine fund in the current fiscal year.


1939: In Greenwich, CT, Walter E. Sachs, an investment banker with Benjamin & Sachs married actress Mary Williamson.


1939: “The Spy in Black” produced by Alexander Korda with a screenplay by Emeric Pressburger was released in the United Kingdom today by Columbia Pictures.


1940(8th of Av, 5700): Erev Tish'a B'Av1940 In New York City, Ruth (née Goldberg) Kostner and her husband, Wall Street executive Theodore Kostner, gave birth to Gail Kostner who gained fame as screenwriter and author Gail Parent.


1941: In Vire, France, Abraham Drucker and his wife gave birth to television executive Jean Drucker, the brother television host Michel Rucker and Professor of Medicine Jacques Drucker and the father of journalist Marie Drucker.


1941(19th of Av, 5701): Nazis began the systematic murder of the Jews of Dvinsk, Latvia.


1941: The House of Representative votes to extend the first peace time conscription bill.  Proponents of the bill prevailed by one vote.  This one-vote victory was one of Sam Rayburn’s proudest legislative accomplishments.  If the bill had not passed, the United States would have been in the process of disbanding its newly created military force just at the moment when the Japanese were attacking Pearl Harbor.  One can only imagine of how much longer World War II would have lasted and how many more than six million Jews would have perished in a prolonged Holocaust.


1942: Despite a campaigned under the leadership of Hashomer Hatzair activist Zvi Dunski to stay away, “all the remaining Jews in Bedzin, Sosnowiec and Dabrowa Gornicza, the three neighboring towns located in the Zaglebie district in southwest Poland reported to the soccer field in Sosnowiec, where instead of having their papers revalidated they were subjected to “a large selection resulting in the deportation of 8,000 to Auschwitz.”


1942(29th of Av, 5702): Fifty-six year old pioneering psychoanalyst Sabin Spielrein was murdered by the Nazis at Rostov-on-Don.

1944: Members of the 16th SS-Panzergrenadier Division “Reichsfuehrer SS,” killed more than 500 civilians in the Tuscan Village of Sant’Anna di Stazzema (As reported by David Risi

1944: Birthdate of American actor Bruce Solomon who appropriately played Rabbi David Small in the television series “Lanigan’s Rabbi.”


1944(23rd of Av, 5704): Berl Katznelson “one the intellectual founders of Labor Zionism, instrumental to the establishment of the modern State of Israel, and the editor of Davar, the first daily newspaper of the workers' movement,” passed away today. “He was born in Bobruysk, Russia in 1887, and dreamed of settling in the Jewish homeland from an early age. In Russia, he was a librarian in a Hebrew-Yiddish library and taught Hebrew literature and Jewish history. He made aliyah to Ottoman Palestine in 1909, where he worked in agriculture and took an active role in organizing workers' federations based on the idea of "common work, life and aspirations." With Meir Rothberg, Katznelson founded the consumer co-operative known as Hamashbir Latzarhan. He helped to establish the Kupat Holim Clalit sick fund, a major fixture in Israel's network of socialized medicine. He was the editor of the newspaper, Davar, as well as the founder and first editor-in-chief of the Am Oved publishing house.” Katznelson was buried in the cemetery on the shores of the Sea of Galilee.


1945: From Halkis, Greece it was reported, "The one man capable of teaching Hebrew and Judaism, Rabbi Davidson Matsa and his wife and 6 children have recently left for Janina, where he hopes to function as rabbi. He originally came from Janina. Individual Jews are trying to fill his place by carrying on religious activities in the Synagogue." 


1946: President Harry Truman sends a telegram rejecting the ”Morris-Grady” plan because it would turn the Jewish zone in Palestine into “a ghetto” and “a betrayal” of promises made to the Jews and Jewish aspirations for a homeland.


1948: The first diplomatic envoy of the United States arrived in Israel


1948: The Czech government ordered a halt to arms shipment to Israel.  The new Communist Czech government’s policy was conforming to the increasing anti-Israel policy of their Soviet masters.  


1948(7th of Av, 5708): Three Jewish soldiers, Moshe Eliash, Alfred Rabinowitz and Pinah Solevetchik, were killed when Arab Legion shells fell on Mount Zion.


1948: “Arab Legion forces blew up the Latrun water pumping station” forcing Jewish Jerusalem to rely on private cisterns for its water supply.


1949: In Glasgow, Scotland Erwin Knopfler a Jewish refugee Hungary and Louisa Mary gave birth to rock musician Mark Freuder Knopfler


1949(17th of Av, 5709): Eighty-one year old Al Shean the German born Jewish comedian who was the “Shean” in the vaudeville team of Gallagher and Shean passed away.  (Editor’s note – is comedy genetic; Shean was the brother of Minnie Marx meaning he was the uncle of the Marx brothers)


1950: Riots broke out at Kikar HaShabbat (Sabbath Square) in Jerusalem when members of the Haredi community clashed with youth from Hashomer Hatzair who were upset by the problems they were having delivering milk from their farms.


1951(10th of Av, 5711):  Since the 9th of Av fell on Shabbat, observance of Tish'a B'Av


1951: Joseph B. Levin was designated Assistant Director of Office of Opinion Writing at the Securities and Exchange Commission.


1952: The government withdrew from the Knesset the bill granting the World Zionist Organization a special status, as “the representative of the Jewish people.” The government felt that there were many Jews and Jewish organizations in the world which were not a part of the Zionist movement and who had no intention of joining it, and yet they were interested and working for Israel. The government did not wish to do anything to lessen their goodwill or to interfere with their direct connection with the State. It was, however, prepared to support a corrected version of the WZO status. A new, blue Israeli passport was shown to the press for the first time.


1952(21st of Av, 5712): In what was part of a wave of post-war anti-Semitism, 24 of the foremost Yiddish writers of Russia were executed by the Soviet Government. Among the victims were Peretz Markish, David Bergelson, Itzik Fefer, Leib Kwitko, David Hofstein,Benjamin Zuskin, Solomon Lozovsky and Boris Shimeliovi

1956: William Shatner married Gloria Rand


1961: Dr. Arthur G. King wrote to Dr. Jacob R. Marcus discussing “the origin of the Jewish cemetery located in the Cincinnati, Ohio suburb of Clifton.


1962: Birthdate of David Horovitz, the London born Israeli journalist who made Aliyah in 1983 and founded the newly created The Times of Israel.


1965: In Tel Aviv, “the $150,000 Anna Lazaroff Synagogue of the Lubavitcher Vocational Schools in Kfar Chabad, created with contributions from a number of American Jewish families, was dedicated today.” (JTA)


1971:  Birthdate of actor Michael Ian Black


1972(2nd of Elul, 5732): Sixty-two year old Richard “Dick” Fishel who played halfback for Syracuse in the 1930’s and then turned pro as a linebacker with the Brooklyn Dodgers football team passed away today.


1976: “The Israeli Ministry of Commerce and Industry” announced today that “an agreement had been worked out between the Government and Ted Ashley, the Chairman of the Board of Warner Bros., to produce a film about the” rescue “of more than 100 Israeli hostages” who had been “held last month in a hijacked Air France plane at Entebbe Airport in Uganda.


1976: Daniel P. Moynihan said today “that the United Nations was lax in combating terrorism and pointed to the Istanbul bombing…as proof of the need for the ‘world’s democracies’ to form an ‘international force to do the job.”


1976: First Lady Betty Ford “shook hands with the 160 members” of “the national board of Hadassah” who attended a reception in the Blue Room where they enjoyed “tea, pastries and string ensemble music.”


1976: In Istanbul, the state prosecutor said tonight that “two Palestinian terrorist will face the death penalty in a Turkish court on charges stemming from their attack at Istanbul airport” where they killed four and wounded more than thirty people” in a vain attempt to hijack an Israeli airliner”


1979(19th of Av, 5739): Ernst Boris Chain German-born biochemist and recipient of the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1945 passed away.


1990: Iraq President Saddam Hussein says he is ready to resolve the Gulf crisis if Israel withdraws from occupied territories.  Of course, invading Kuwait had nothing to do with Israel, but Israel is always a good smoke screen when Arab dictators are up to devious deeds.


1991(2nd of Elul, 5751):Yeruham Cohen, an early Israeli undercover soldier, died on today, at the age of  75 years. “Mr. Cohen, an Arabic-speaker of Yemeni origin, died of an unspecified illness. He was a top aide to the commander of Israel's underground forces during the country's war for independence in 1948 and also belonged to a unit whose members disguised themselves as Arabs to infiltrate enemy lines.  Mr. Cohen is most famous for his acquaintance with Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt, whom he met in 1948 during the Israeli war for independence while Israeli forces encircled Egyptian troops the southern Negev. According to historical accounts, Mr. Cohen saw the future President while watching the Egyptians retreat, shouted and ran toward him, and they shook hands warmly.


1992: NBC begins broadcasting season four of “Seinfeld.”


1997(9th of Av, 5757): Tish’a B’Av


1999(30th of Av, 5759): Rosh Chodesh Elul


2001: The New York Timesbook section featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Houdini’s Box: The Art of Escapeby Adam Phillips, a children’s book entitled Sigmund Freud Pioneer of the Mindby Catherine Reef and two books about Nixon’s Jewish born Secretary of State: The Trial of Henry Kissingerby Christopher Hitchens andNo Peace No Honor: Nixon, Kissinger, and Betrayal in Vietnamby Larry Berman.


2001: Palestinian Islamic Jihad took credit for today’s bombing at the Wall Street Café in Kiryat Motzkin that injured 21 people. (According to other sources one person was killed and fifteen were inured.


2003(14th of Av, 5763): Eighteen year old Erez Hershkovitz and twenty-two year old Amatzia Nisanevitch were murdered by a Hamas terrorist bomber.


2003(14th of Av, 5763): Forty-three year old Yehezkel (Hezi) Yekutieli was murder today by terrorist suicide bomber at Rosh HaAyin.


2004(25th of Av, 5764): Thirty year old Capt. Michael Y. Tarlavsky was killed today when his unit was attacked in Najaf, Iraq. (As reported by Maia Efrem)


2005:  A report in the Jerusalem Post concerning absenteeism among workers may come as a surprise to some Americans.  For the first seven months of 2005, the rate of absenteeism was higher among men than women.  There was no explanation for this reverse in the statistical model from past years.  The report also revealed that absenteeism rates rise when economic conditions improve.  During economic slowdowns workers are loathe to be away from work for fear of being replaced. 


2005:  It was announced at Texas Tech University that an article about co-option for which Michael Levin was the lead author was accepted for inclusion to the American Marketing Association's Winter Educators Conference which is the top conference for strategists.


2005: Reuben Greenberg resigned as Chief of Police in Charleston, SC.


2006(18th of Av, 5766):Staff Sgt. Uri Grossman, 20, the son of renowned novelist and peace activist David Grossman was killed in Lebanon, just days after his father made a public call for the government to halt its military operation and enter negotiations.


2007: The Sunday New York Times book section features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including How American Grew From Sea to Shining by Jewish Pulitzer Prize winning author Richard Kluger and The Man In The White Sharkskin Suit by Lucette Lagnado in which she “chronicles her Jewish family’s flight from the rise of Nasser.”


2007: The Chicago Sun Timesbook section featured a Q&A with Gail Carson Levine author of Fairy Haven and the Quest for the Wand and a review of What Goes Up by Eric J. Weiner.


2007: In a story entitled, “A Museum to Get Lost In, And How Israel Is Fixing It” the New York Times describes “an $80 million expansion and renovation that will transform the way a visitor navigates and experiences” the Israel Museum, “


2007(28th of Av, 5767): Dr, Ralph Asher Alpher, author of the Big Bang Theory, passed away.


2007: The City of Toronto “granted a closure of Bloor Street between Bathurst and Markham Streets to accommodate a celebration in honor of Ed Mirvish” the late Canadian “businessman, philanthropist and theatrical impresario.”


2008: In Little Rock, AR at the Chabad House, second session of From Ruins to Glory, a course of study based on a virtual tour of the Temple


2008:Rabbi David Loksen and Rabbi Shmulie Hecht, of the Brooklyn, New York-based Chabad Lubavitch Jewish Community Enrichment Program who are volunteers with Chabad Hawaii, leave Guam. 



2008:Two Israeli physicians were dispatched to Georgia to treat Yedioth Aharonot journalist Zadok Yehezkeli, who was seriously wounded in Gori when shrapnel from an artillery shell, reportedly fired by the Russians, hit him.



2008: General Norton A. Schwartz became the 19th Chief of Staff of the U.S. Air Force and the first Jew to hold that position.



2008: Janet Jagan was selected as editor of the PPP newspaper, Thundertoday.



2009:Tzfat [Safed] Klezmer Festival comes to a close.



2009:Two Israelis were lightly wounded in a shooting attack in the northern West Bank tonight, according to the IDF.



2009:The youth movement Habonim Dror, a driving force behind the popular campaign for Gilad Schalit's return, organized a global prayer for the captured IDF soldier's safe return the focus of which was a communal service held at the Western Wall tonight at time that coincided with the soldier's 23rd birthday according to the Hebrew calendar



2010:YAD Detroit Book Club Cluster is scheduled to discuss The Piano Teacher by Janice Y. K. Lee at the Barnes & Noble Book Store in West Bloomfield, Michigan.



2011:A special performance by Makela, DC’s co-ed Jewish a cappella group, is scheduled to take place at the Sixth &I Historic Synagogue.


2011:Tel Aviv municipal inspectors distributed an eviction notice today to a tent dweller who erected a structure that served as a kitchen and storage room at the Nordau Boulevard tent city in north Tel Aviv. 2011: A hearing to discuss political redistricting in the Baltimore area began this evening at 6:30 p.m.  The hearing was originally scheduled to begin at 7 p.m. but was changed to the earlier time to accommodate Jewish citizens who need to be at home or in their synagogues to mark the start of Shabbat.  Like all other citizens, Jews can e-mail in their testimony.


2011: The New York Daily News published the first interview that Levi Aron, the man charged with killing 8 year old Leib Kletzky, has given to the media.


2012: The New York Timesfeatures reviews of books written by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Patagonian Hare: A Memoir by Claude Lanzmann and the recently released paperback editions of The Night Circusby Erin Morgenstern and Heddy’s Folly:The Life and Breakthrough Inventions of Hedy Lamarr, the Most Beautiful Woman in the World by Richard Rhodes.


2012: The Jewish Community Center of Northern Virginia is scheduled to sponsor a contra-indicated (by the weather) fundraiser – Community Eat-for-Heat featuring a pancake feast and water play.


2012: The Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center is scheduled to present a special screening of “Granito:  How to Nail a Dictator”


2012(24th of Av, 5772): Eighty-five year old comic book artist Joe Kubert passed away today. (As reported Margalit Fox)



2012: The Summer Learning Institute at Hebrew Union College is scheduled to come to an end.   


2012: “Word Games (Mischakei Milim)” is scheduled to be shown at the Abingdon Theatre in NYC


2012: An off-duty female soldier was forced to disembark from a bus before she had completed her journey in order to avoid a verbal assault by ultra-Orthodox passengers who complained about her attire and point of boarding onto the vehicle, Israel Radio reported today


2012: Luiza Nahari, a Yemenite Jew whose husband, Moshe, was murdered in their hometown of Raydah in December 2008, immigrated to Israel this morning with four of her children. Nahari was reunited with her five other children, who had moved to Israel following her husband’s murder.


2012: “More than 1,000 people gathered at Rostov-on-Don, which 70 years ago witnessed the worst Holocaust atrocity in Russia.  Wearing arm bands marked with a Star of David, the crowd today marched to the mass grave of approximately 27,000 people executed by German soldiers near the city in 1942..(As reported by Haaretz)


2013: “The A Word” which tells the story of the Rotenberg clan who live in the Arava desert is scheduled to shown at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival.


2013: Lisa Levine of the Wharton Business School is scheduled to present “Negotiate with Israelis – Like a Pro!” at Talpiyot Jerusalem.


2013: MK Ayelet Shaked (Bayit Yehudi) today called for implementing the death penalty for terrorists. She said the measure was necessary to ensure that terrorist murderers are "never released." (As reported by David Lev and Ari Soffer)


2013:  The recently deployed Iron Dome anti-missile system intercepted a least one of the rockets that was fired towards Eilat tonight. (As reported by Elad Benari)


2013: The Israel Prisons Service published “the list of the first 26 convicted terrorists who will be released as part of Israel’s confidence-building measures to help the restart of peace talks with the Palestinian Authority. (As reported by Haviv Rettig Gur and Aaron Kalman)


2014: In New Orleans Bruce Spizer is scheduled to deliver a lecture at the Uptown JCC on the cause of Beatlemania were the attendees will be able to enjoy a catered kosher lunch.


2014: Tova Birnbaum, Director of the North America Region of the World Zionist Organization, is scheduled to speak on Is Zionism Still Relevant for the Next Generation? with Hadassah’s Lauren Katz.


2014: Prime Minister Netanyahu “summoned senior ministers late tonight to discuss” developments at the Cairo ceasefire talks in what is described as a “preparation talk.” (As reported by Attila Somfalvi)


2014(16thof Av, 5774): Ninety-three year old photographer Lida Moser passed away tod


2014(16thof Av, 5774): A month before her 90th birthday, actress Lauren Bacall, the first cousin of Israeli President Shimon Peres, passed away today.



2014: “Members of the United States Senate are demanding an independent investigation into the role of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency during Israel's most recent war in Gaza with Hamas.” (As reported by Michael Wilner)


2014: New York Governor Mario “Cuomo, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and Senate co-leaders Dean Skelos and Jeff Klein are scheduled to travel to Israel” today for a two-day visit as a “demonstration of solidarity” with that country in the conflict in Gaza. (As reported by David Klepper)


2015: The Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education is scheduled to show “The Love Bug” as part of its “August at Noon – Car Movies” program.


2015: The Thaler Holocaust Programming Committee under the leadership of Dr. Robert Silber is scheduled to meet in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.


2015(28thof Av): Yahrzeit for Larry Rosenstein, of blessed memory, husband of Judy Levin Rosenstein, of blessed memory.  Gone too soon but always remembered!
 
2015: Holocaust survivor Peter Kubicek who “calls himself the luckiest man alive” is scheduled to speak at the National Czech & Slovak Museum and Library in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

 
 

 


 


 

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

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August 13


236: The body of Hippolytus, the author of Contra Judaeous, which blamed the harsh conditions of the Jews on their rejection of Jesus was buried in a cemetery on the Via Tiburtina


339: The Roman Emperor “issued a decree forbidding intermarriage between Jews and Christians with transgressors to be punished by death.” (As reported by Austin Cline)


339: The Roman Emperor “issued a decree imposing the death penalty on Jews who circumcise non-Jewish slaves.” (As reported by Austin Cline)


339: The Roman Emperor issued a decree imposing the death penalty on any Jews who hired women weavers that had been “in imperial service.” (As reported by Austin Cline)


1099: Following a ceremonial that had been instituted by Emperor Otto III, the Jews of Rome “were obliged to attend the entry into” Rome of Paschal II whose papacy began today “singing laudatory hymns.


1311: Birthdate of King Alfonso XI of Castile. During his reign, in 1348, Alfonso issued decrees prohibiting Jews from charging interest when lending money and prohibiting them from collecting unpaid debts.  (The same rules applied to Moslems, but not Christians.) At the same time, Jews were still allowed to own land during his reign.


1315: Louis X of France marries Clemence d'Anjou.In 1315, Louis X also overturned the decree of his predecessor that allowed the Jews to return to France, and accorded them a charter "in answer to the demands of the people."


1391: In Spain, anti-Semitic mobs attacked the Jews of Lerida, reportedly killing 75. Other Jews were forcibly baptized and were forced to see their synagogue turned into a church. 


1453: Seventeen Jews were burned at the stake in Silesia (now Poland and/or Czech Republic).


1516: The Treaty of Noyon between France and Spain is signed. Francis recognized Charles's claim to Naples, and Charles recognized Francis's claim to Milan. Twice, Charles would issue edicts expelling the Jews from Naples.  The second one, issued in 1533, would take effect despite Jewish attempts to dissuade him. 


1551: Jews of Great Poland were granted limited self-government.


1599: In Basel, “Protestant Christian Hebraist” Johannes Buxtorf and his wife gave birth to their son “Johannes Buxtorf the Younger” who completed and edited several of his father’s works on Hebrew or related to Judaism as well as creating works of his own including a Latin translation of the writings of Maimonides. 


1620(4th of Av): Rabbi Menachem Azariah da Fano (Rama), author of Alfasi Zuta, passed away


1624: In France Cardinal Richelieu was named first chief minister of finance by King Louis XIII.  The Cardinal gave new meaning and depth to the term “power behind the throne.”  Many historians contend that any decree issued by King Louis XIII was really the work of Richelieu. This would include a decree issued in 1632 after the French had taken the fortress city of Metz that allowed the Jews to remain in the city.  The decree was necessitated by the fact that the King had issued a decree in 1615 banning all Jews from living in France.  This decree is an oddity in its in own right since when it was issued Jews were supposedly not living in the Gallic realm to start with.


1713: Birthdate of David Franco Mendes, the native of Amsterdam, a successful businessman who used his leisure time to write poetry, study Talmud and play a prominent role in the Spanish-Portuguese community.


1804: Birthdate of Israel Franklin Moses the native of Charleston, South Carolina who became known as Franklin J. Moses, Sr. – prominent planter, politician and jurist.


1816: Birthdate of German jurist and office holder Rudolf von Geneist who courageously helped to found the Association for the Defense against Anti-Semitism “a non-Jewish organization” also known as The Union for Combating Anti-Semitism,


1823: Birthdate of British born historian Goldwin Smith, “a pathological anti-Semite” who spent his last years in Canada.

1831: Birthdate of composer and pianist Salomon Jadassohn whose musical accomplishments are overshadowed by the fact that unlike other German Jews he did not convert even though his being Jewish kept him from many “church jobs such as directors or organists” which went to Christians instead.


1837(12 of Av, 5597): Aryeh Löb ben Joseph Katzenellenbogen: who followed in the footsteps of his grandfather and father by serving as a rabbi at Brest-Litovsk a city that would become infamous in the 20th century as the site of the humiliating peace treaty that the Germans forced on the Russians during WW I passed away today.


1846: Birthdate of Sir Otto Jaffe, the Hamburg native who became a successful British businessman and Lord May of Belfast.


1847(30th of Av, 5634): Rosh Chodesh Elul


1851: Birthdate of Felix Adler. Born in Germany, Adler’s family moved to the United States when he was five.  His father, Rabbi Samuel Adler, was head of Temple Emanu-el, the leading Reform Congregation in New York City.  In 1873, Adler became professor of Hebrew and Oriental Literature at CornellUniversity.  In that same year he delivered a major address at his father’s congregation entitled “the Judaism of the Future.”  He proposed ridding Judaism of its superstitious traditions in order to better focus on the ethics that he felt were central to any human community.  The congregation was receptive to his emphasis on ethics but was loathe to cast aside 3000 years of religious tradition.  Adler soon found himself beyond the pale.  In 1876, he founded the New York Ethical Cultural Society.  He remained a champion of the Ethical Cultural Movement until his death in 1933.


1860:In response to a public call, signed by a number of influential citizens, a meeting was held at the Tract-Society House today afternoon, to consider the subject of the Christian massacre in Syria, and to adopt measures for rendering assistance to the sufferers. About twenty persons were present, among them some of our most prominent clergymen.  During the meeting it was noted that meetings for the same purpose were being held in England and France by Jews as well as Christians.


1861: Birthdate of Dr. Marcus Jastrow, Jr., the Warsaw native who moved to Philadelphia with his father, the famed Talmudist Marcus Jastrow and became a noted Orientalist.


1866(2ndof Elul, 5626): Forty year old Lithuanian born Hebrew scholar Wolf Adelsohn whose students included grammarian Ḥayyim Ẓebi Lerner passed away today in Odessa.


1867: Birthdate of Arthur Eichengrün, the German-Jewish chemist who holds 47 patents but is best known for his claim to really have been the inventor of Aspirin.


1867: Birthdate of Dr. Lee K. Frankel, the Philadelphia native who gained fame for his work with various Jewish philanthropies.


1867: Birthdate of Dr. Charles Foster Kent, the American Biblical scholar who dozens of works on ancient Israel including Outlines Of Hebrew History, A History of the Hebrew People (2 volumes) and A History of the Jewish People during the Babylonian, Persian and Greek Periods.


1871:The Grand Lodge of the Ancient Jewish Order of Kesher Shel Barzel held their annual banquet this evening at the corner of Seventh Avenue and 14th Street in New York City. The lodge has 4,000 members. The dinner was attended by 110 members including thirty delegates from various parts of the United States.


1871: In Chicago, Rabbi Elkan Herzman was physically forced to leave his synagogue on Fifth Avenue. Some of the congregants had complained because Herzman had violated Jewish law by eating ice cream on a day when he should have been fasting.  When Herzman arrived at the synagogue he found another rabbi in his usual place.  Following the altercation, Herzman complained to the police who said that there was nothing they could do about.  Herzman has threatened further political action.  (I have not been able to find any further reference to this Rabbi or a synagogue on Fifth Avenue, so if you have, please let me know.)


1872: Birthdate of German born chemist, Richard Willstätter.  Willstatter won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1915 for his study of the structure of chlorophyll and other plant pigments.  He resigned his position on the faculty at a university in Munichover the issue of anti-Semitism. After Hitler’s rise to power, he fled to Switzerlandwhere he died in 1942. 


1872: Birthdate of Jacob de Haas, an English journalist who was one of Herzl’s earliest supporters. After Herzl’s death, de Haas became a lead of the Zionist movement in Israel.


1874(30thof Av, 5634): Rosh Chodesh Elul


1874: It was reported today that George Walling, the Superintendent of the New York Police Department had written to Henry Honscheidt, the Sheriff of McLean County, Illinois, telling him that in his opinion the man who had confessed to the Sheriff that he had killed Benjamin Nathan was “either  insane or an imposter.”


1875: Birthdate of Arthur Yitzhak Biram, Israeli philosopher, philologist, and educator, who died on the first day of the Six Days War.


1877: Midhat Pasha, the head of the “Young Turkey” Party is in Vienna where he hopes to negotiate a treaty with Austria and England that will protect the Ottoman Empire and avoid a Holy War. Pasha is the son of a Bulgarian Jew who converted to Islam to enhance his commercial opportunities in the lands of the Sultan.


1876: The Anglo-Jewish Association’s description of a Jewish community living in India was published today. According to the reported the community is known as the Beni-Israel (Children of Israel) and has been in existence for a thousand years.  They dress like Hindus and speak the Hindu language.   While they know little Hebrew, they follow the Levitical Code and strictly observe the Sabbath. They are separate from other Jewish communities in the subcontinent.


1881: It was reported today that the government is taking “strong measures” to suppress the anti-Semitic riots in Pomerania including the arrest of 21 rioters at Koslin.


1881: “Comical German Names” published today includes a commentary on the names used by German Jews who were “not more than a century ago, forlorn of family names.”  “He was either known by a ‘front name,’ supplemented by that of his father as in ‘Aaron ben David’ or ‘Solomon ben Israel’ or by some nickname owing its origin to the nature of his occupation or perhaps to a conspicuous physical peculiarity.” Apparently this method of nomenclature made it difficult for the taxman to make his collections so a law was passed requiring Jews to choose a surname, use for the entire lifetime and “transmit it by legal act of registration to his children.”


1882: “Mr. Jenkins’s New Book” published today provides a review of A Paladin of Finance by Edward Jenkins in which the Member of Parliament creates a work of fiction based on the financial crash in France in which “he insists., the Jews rule the finances of the world and there wield all the power.”


1883: The New York Times published a letter to the editor from Raphael Lewin in which the author disputes the account of the Damascus Libel of 1840 published in the Times on August 6 describing it as being slanted and anti-Jewish.


 1884: The Board of Governors of the Hebrew Union College re-elected Bernhard Bettmann as President.  Rabbi Henry Berkowitz of Mobile, Alabama and Rabbi Max Landsberg of Rochester, NY, were chosen to serve as new members on the board.


1884: It was reported today that Russian Jew on his way to his brother’s wedding in Paris was detained for 4 days by authorities because he did not understand French and could not answer their questions.  While in custody, a rope was kept around his neck; he was handcuffed and knocked about by those holding him.  When the mayor heard of the incident he called for an investigation


1884: It was reported today that Mrs. Morris Cohn, the daughter of Michael Englemann (the Salt King of Manistee, Michigan) has gone left her husband and returned after his arrest on charges of numerous counts of forgery.  Cohn, a prominent Jewish businessman had spent the $50.000 wedding gift from Englemann and turned to criminal activity to support their lifestyle.


1886: It was reported today that numerous homes of Jews living in Kiev have been destroyed during anti-Jewish riots in the Russian province.


1887: It was reported today that Israel Lipski’s solicitor has new facts that will prove that he did kill Miriam Angel, the woman he was convicted of killing.  Lipski’s lawyer has met privately with Judge Stephen convinced him of his client’s innocence.


1887: Israel Lipski’s solicitor, who has prepared a pamphlet reviewing the case against Israel Lipski containing “sundry points that could not brought into trial” met privately with Judge Stephen, who tried the case and is said “to have been convinced that there was grave doubt of Lipski’s guilt.”


1887: Henry Mathews, the Home Secretary who has refused to interfere in the case of Israel Lipski who has been sentenced to hang for murdering Miriam Angel “took the prompt step of announcing to the press late” tonight “that “Lipski would certainly be hanged” as scheduled.


1889: It was reported today that Theodore Cohn, the young man who stole $610 from A.H. & King is in the Tombs awaiting trial on a charge of grand larceny.


1890: The expenses of today’s excursion sponsored by the Sanitarium for Hebrew Children will be paid in full by an anonymous female donor who has been paying for one such excursion for each of the last seven years.


1890: In London, “the meeting at the Mansion House to protest against” Russian persecution has been postponed following reassurance by the Lord Mayor offers reassurances that there is no reason to believe that the Czar’s government will enforce the edicts of 1882.


1890: Godfrey Taubenaus has been selected to serve as Rabbi of Mount Sinai Temple on East 72nd Street.


1891: The Russian government prohibited the collection of funds or the publication of appeals for financial assistance to Jewish immigrants today


1892: “A Chicken Too Much for the Police” published today described the uproar at police stations throughout New York caused by Davis Rubenstein bringing a decayed chicken  to each police station in his attempt to have action taken against Berman’s Butcher Shop which is “selling impure food.” The foul fowl was turned over the Sanitary Bureau to use in its investigation.


1893(1st of Elul, 5653): Rosh Chodesh Elul


1893: “Parties in Austria” published today described the political divisions in the polyglot central European kingdom that include “anti-Semites, who conscientiously hold that hell is not hot enough for the Jews, whose torments ought, in strict justice, to begin in this life and be continued in the next.”


1893: Birthdate of Monnet Bain Davis who served as U.S. Ambassador to Israel from 1951 through 1953.


1895: According to Charles Bernstein, the settlement committee of the striking tailors, most of whom were Jewish, will meet for the last time tonight.


1896: Herzl meets with the Turkish ambassador, Mahmud Nedim Bey, in Vienna.


1896:  Since American commanders did not know that an armistice had been signed yesterday they proceeded to capture the Philippine city of Manila, the climactic moment in the Battle of Manila.  Sergeant Maurice Justh of the First California Volunteers, a regiment with 100 Jewish members, was the first soldier “to fall in the attack on Manilla.”


1898: “Hebrew Charities Building” published today described “the new Hebrew Charities Building, just now rising above the ground level on the corner of Second Avenue and Twenty-first Street” next to the Post Graduate Hospital.


1898: An entry in a Swiss hotel log showed that Freud stayed at the hostelry possibly with “a woman who was not his wife” and may have been his sister-in-law Minna Bernays.


1899: As tensions rise in France during the re-trial of Captain Dreyfus, Paul Deroulede, the poet who is also a member of the Chamber of Deputies and 23 of his allies were arrested today.  (The Dreyfus affair was symptomatic of deep divisions in French society that pitted Republican secularists against Royalist Roman Catholics.)


1899: Three duels are scheduled to be fought by journalists cover the court martial of Captain Dreyfus and Rennes, France.


1899: In Paris, demonstrations took place this evening outside of the offices of the Anti-Semite League where the President of the League and Max Regis, “the former Jew-baiting Mayor of Algiers” are hiding.


1899: “London Sympathy With Dreyfus” published today described a rally where a resolution was adopted calling for “a meeting of rejoicing” “in the event of the acquittal of Dreyfus.”


1899: “‘King Lear’ In Hebrew” published today described the emotional response to Jacob Adler’s portrayal of King Lear at the People’s Theatre in Brooklyn.  The Shakespearian drama has been updated to fit the taste of its predominately immigrant Jewish population so it is set in modern day Vilna and the women “dress in the latest New York Fashions.”


1899: It was reported today that the recent rapprochement between France and Germany has led to renewed mistrust and mistreatment of Germans in Russia as well the decision of the government to order German and Polish Jews who have been living in St. Petersburg for years to leave the capital by the end of the month.


1900:The Fourth Zionist Congress convened in London with five hundred delegates in attendance. Max Nordeau gave the opening in address which included an account of the appalling conditions faced by the Jews of Romania and a tribute to the Kaiser for his treatment of the Jews of Pomerania and East Prussia.


1900: In London, an open air meeting for the evangelizing of Jews was held near Queen’s Hall where the Zionists were holding their congress.


1903: In Salt Lake City, Utah President Joseph F. Smith of the LDS (Mormon) Church gave the dedicatory address at the cornerstone laying for Congregation Montefiore.


1907: The first American taxicabs appear on the streets of New York City.  At least two Jews played a major role in the introduction of this type of conveyance in the United States. In 1915, John Hertz, a Hungarian born Jew started the Yellow Cab Company in Chicago, Il. In 1922, a Russian born Jew named Morris Markin formed the Checker Cab Company and in 1929 he bought the Yellow Cab Company from Hertz


1910: Birthdate of Shlomo-Yisrael Rosenberg; the native of Warsaw who moved to the United States where he became a lawyer and a rabbi before making in Aliyah where as Shlomo-Yisrael Ben-Meir he became an MK who held several ministerial portfolios.


1911: At Basel, Switzerland, the 10th Zionist Congress, adopted a resolution to establish a Zionist immigration office in Berlin


1912: Franz Kafka met Felice Bauer in Berlin.  The relationship between these two had a profound effect on Kafka’s literary output as well as his personal life.  One critic recently wrote that Kafka’s correspondence with Bauer “is the most useful key to Kafka’s thoughts and actions during the decisive years of his emergence as a writer.”


1912:  Birthdate of Italian born biologist Salvador Luria. In 1969 he and Max Delbruck shared the Nobel Prize in medicine for the “Luria-Delbruck experiment” which “demonstrates that in bacteria, beneficial mutations arise in the absence of selection, rather than being a response to selection. This reinforces the Darwinian notion of evolution by natural selection acting on random mutations.”


1915: Sixty-year old Eli Pochansky, an Orthodox Jew who attacked his son Samuel for smoking on Shabbat and then struck his wife and daughter who tried to defend them is a free man because when the magistrate hearing the assault complaint learned of Pochansky’s strict view on smoking he “decided not to entertain the charge.


1916: Birthdate of Connie Polan who became Connie Wald when she married Jerry Wald.

1917: The Turkish military leader Djemal Pasha announces the Turkish government has become convinced that the Jewish colonies inside Palestine must be destroyed, so they won't present a danger to the integrity of Turkey.


1918: Birthdate of Judith Iris Martin, the Newark native who created the long-lived children’s theater group, the Paper Bag Players which would become a New York City institution (As reported by Douglas Martin)


1922: Birthdate of Ruby Burman, the native of Columbus, Ohio, who as Ruby Cohn became “a theater scholar who espied the genius of Samuel Beckett early on in Paris and became a leading authority on his work as well as his friend…” (As reported by Bruce Weber)


1922:Samuel Untermeyer, President of the Palestine Foundation Fund made public a letter from Dr. Arthur Ruppin describing the future establishment of Jewish suburbs at Jerusalem and other sites in Palestine which show the likelihood of the development of major municipalities throughout the area.


1925: In the “Free City of Danzig” Eliezer and Dina Sterenberg gave birth to Meir Shamgar who served as President of the Israeli Supreme Court from 1983 until 1995.


1926: “The Third Squadron” a silent German movie starring Fritz Spira and Eugen Burg, both of whom died in concentration camps in WW II, was released in Germany today.


1926: Birthdate of Arthur Ortenburg, the native of Newark who teamed with his wife Liz Claiborne and Leonard Boxer to create fashion line Liz Claiborne, Inc (As reported by Douglas Martin)

1928: Birthdate of Yehuda "Nimrod" Lapidot “an Israeli historian and former professor of biochemistry. Lapidot was a member of the Irgun and an officer in the Israel Defense Forces. In 1980 he was appointed head of Lishkat Hakesher by former Irgun commander and then Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin. Lapidot received a Ph.D. in biochemistry from Hebrew University in 1960 and later became a professor.”


1928(27thof Av, 5688): Eighty-two year old American Jewish author Isaac Markens, the son of Orientalist Elias Markens and the collector of Lincoln memorabilia whose works included  Lincoln and the Jews  passed away today in Newark, NJ.


1928: At the casino in Deauville, Charles A. Levine punched the editor of The Boulevardier after the latter admitted that he was the one who had been taking “dirty cracks” at Levine.  The two were separated and Miss Mabel Boll, who was reportedly Levine’s mistress, took him away.  Levine, a non-observant Jew, claimed to be the first passenger to fly the Atlantic in 1927.


1929: New York State Supreme Court Justice Frankenthaler is scheduled to hear arguments regarding a petition to have the question of the sanity of Alfred Dreyfus be determined by a jury.


1929: Jewish financier Felix Warburg and Lord Melchett, the famous British nobleman whose picture appeared on the cover of Time Magazine on October 29, 1928, each donate five hundred thousand dollars to start a financial concern aimed at helping development in Palestine.


1933:The Jewish Telegraphic Agency published an article that estimated that there were about 660,000 non-Aryans living in Germany of which 500,000 are "official" Jews and 160,000 of Jewish descent.


1933: “So This Is Harris!” – “a short comedy directed by Mark Sandrich” was released in the United States by RKO.


1934: La signora di tutti (Everybody's Woman) the only Italian film directed by Max Ophüls was released in Italy today.


1934: The comic strip “Li’l Abner,” created by Al Capp, made its debut. Born Alfred Gerald Caplan in New Haven, in 1909, Capp was a successful syndicated cartoonist by the age of 19.  He created Li’l Abner and all of his Hillbilly friends during the depths of the Great Depression.  One of the most famous characters in the strip were the Schmoos.  These characters could jump into your pot or skillet and “cook up” to taste like any food you wished for.  To Jewish kids, the Schmoos sounded an awful like the manna in the Bible.1936:Felix M. Warburg, New York banker and philanthropist, today was named chairman of the American division of the executive committee of the Council for German Jewry.


1937:A proposal to settle 200,000 Jews in Palestine within the next three years, involving an investment of about $175,000,000, was laid before the World Zionist Congress today. The proposal was made by Elieser Kaplal, treasurer of the Zionist executive committee, who said American Jewry was expected to contribute $2,000,000 to the Zionist movement and Palestine fund in the current fiscal year.


1938(16th of Av, 5698): As they bicycled from Ramatayim to Petah Tikva Benjamin Babayoff and his wife were shot and killed by gunmen firing from an orange grove and their seven year old daughter who was riding on the handlebars was severely wounded.


1939: Newlyweds Katherine and Walter E. Sachs were sailing across the ocean to Europe today.


1939:  In Brooklyn Julius and Anee Cohen Steinberg gave birth to Saul Phillip Steinberg the Wharton graduate who founded “Leasco” which provided him with the financial bases to acquire 150 year old Reliance Insurance Company.


1940(9th of Av, 5700): Tish'a B'Av


1940: During World War II, the Battle of Britain begins as the Luftwaffe attacks British airfields.  Field Marshall Goering told Hitler that the Luftwaffe could bomb the British into submission making an invasion unnecessary. On the other hand, by destroying the RAF, the Germans would be able to invade the British Isles with complete control of the skies insuring a Nazi victory.  If the British had lost the Battle of Britain, the Final Solution would have been that much closer to being truly “final.”  For more about the role of Jews in actually fighting the Battle of Britain see http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/ww2/sugar4.html.   Failure to win the Battle of Britain soured Hitler on the capabilities of the Luftwaffe and caused him to turn his face eastward towards the Soviet Union.  The invasion of the Soviet Union would result in the millions of Jews coming under the sway of the Final Solution.


1942(30thof Av, 5702): Rosh Chodesh Elul


1942: The Jewish communities at Mir, Belorussia, and Gorodok, Ukraine, are liquidated.


1942: Switzerland forces Jews (mostly French) already safe in Switzerland back across the border. The Swiss government will turn back 10,000 Jews to their deaths during the remainder of the war on the grounds that only political refugees can be admitted into Switzerland, not "racial refugees." The Swiss government does, however, welcome the gold that the Germans extract from the mouths and fingers of the dead Jews.  


1942: For the next fourteen days, 53,750 Jews from Warsaw will be deported to the Treblinka death camp.


1942: United States State Department officials and the British Foreign Office decide that the Riegner Cable outlining details of the Holocaust be kept secret.


1943: “A group of 367 Jews with Spanish citizenship arrived at Bergen Belsen, and in violation of his instructions Spanish diplomat Sebastian de Romero Radigales kept them alive until the Spanish government “changed its position and permitted their transfer to Spanish Morocco.”

1943: Y. Ben Ami wrote a letter to Peter H. Bergson proposing “the creation of a ‘Free Palestine League’ to influence United States policy on the Middle East and to wage a publicity campaign to create public support for an independent Palestine.” (Ben Ami would have a son, Jeremy who became the executive director of “J Street.”)


1944: Following today’s arrest of an SOE agent and a French officer by the Gestapo, Krystyna Skarbek with the SS officer in charge, and using a combination of threats and bribery obtained the release of her comrades.


1945: Thirty-five Jews sacrifice their lives to blow up Nazi rubber plant in Silesia


1946: British authorities open detention camps on the island of Cyprus to hold Jewish refugees who have been prevented from entering Palestine due to British restrictions on immigration.


1946: In Brooklyn Anna Blumenthal and Dr. Julius Yellen gave birth to Janet Louise Yellen the American economist who has a career as an academic and public service including chairing the Council of Economic Advisers and holding senior positions with the Federal Reserve.


1948: Harry Dexter White, the son of Jewish immigrants from Lithuania, who had been accused of being a communist and a traitor denied being a member of the party when testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee today.


1948(8th of Av, 5708): Silent screen star Elaine Hammerstein, daughter of Arthur Hammerstein and granddaughter of Oscar Hammerstein, died in an automobile accident.


1951: “A Nahal group from the Ezra movement” Sha’alvim, “a religious Kibbutz in central Israel…affiliated with Agudat Israel.


1952: In New York Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt welcomed the 50,000th visitor to the
Bond Drive
’s Israeli Industrial Exhibition. The Hebrew lettering on a gleaming, Kaiser-Frazer car, assembled in Israel, made a great impression.


1953(2nd of Elul, 5713): Seventy-three year old history Eugen Täubler who began his career teaching  ath the Higher Institute for Jewish in Berlin and finished it teaching at HUC in Cincinnati, Ohio, passed away today.

1955: Two years after the death of Joseph Stalin, old-line Bolshevik Semyon Dimanstein was rehabilitated by the Communists running the Soviet Union.  Born in 1886, Dimanstein reportedly became a Rabbi after studying at a Chabad Yeshiva before becoming a Russian revolutionary.  He was widely identified with Jewish issues inside the Soviet Union including the Jewish Autonomous Oblast in the Far East and Yidn in FSSR (Jews in the Soviet Union). He was a victim of Stalin’s murderous purges in 1938. Rehabilitation is sort of like the Communist version of Resurrection.


1957: In Philadelphia, PA, “veteran WCAU Philadelphia news anchor Gene Crane and his first wife Joan”


 Gave birth to David Crane, who helped to create one television’s most popular sitcoms – “Friends” which will live on forever in re-runs.


1959(9th of Av, 5719):Tish'a B'Av


1961(1st of Elul, 5721): Rosh Chodesh Elul


1961: Ernst and Karola Bloch were on a lecture tour in the Federal Republic of German when the Berlin Wall “went up” today forcing them to forsake their home Leipzig (East Germany) and settle in Tubingen (West Germany)


1961(1st of Elul, 5721): Seventy-nine year old Sir Ellice Victor Sassoon,  who became a Baron on the death of his father Edward Elias Sassoon and who made much of his fortune in the orient passed away today. 

1965: It was reported today that the auditorium of newly built Anna Lazaroff Synagogue in Kfar Chabad


“was donated by Mr. and Mrs. Eugene Ferkauf, of New York, honoring Mr. and Mrs. Isidore and Rose Silverman.” (JTA)


1973(15th of Av, 5733):Maurice Bisgyer, retired executive vice president of B'nai B'rith, the Jewish service organization, died today at the age of 75.


1973:The body of Sir Moses Montefiore, father of modern Jewish settlement in Eretz Israel, will be returned to Jerusalem a century after his death, the Israeli Government said today. The body will be moved from Ramsgate to Israel in 1975.


1976: It was announced today that “the working title” of the film to be made about the raid on Entebbe “is ‘Operation Jonathan,’ in honor of Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Netanyahu, a 30 year old American born Israeli officer who killed during the rescue operation.”


1976: Having returned to NYC from a campaign trip to Rochester, Daniel P. Moniyhan who is running for a seat in the U.S. Senate was reported today to have “said that the Entebbe raid followed by” the terrorist attack at Istanbul “were indications of the failure of the international community to cooperate to cope with terror.”


1976: The Palestinian terrorists “who killed four persons in an attempt to hijack an Israeli plane at Istanbul were reported today to have “said they had been instructed to kill as many Israelis as we can” and that they were “active warriors of the PLO” which “they had joined six months ago.”


1976: Abraham Hirschfeld, a candidate for the U.S. Senate from New York was reported today to have named “a coordinator for his effort to win support in Hispanic areas of the state.”


1977: President Carter’s administration rejected the Israeli request for the co-production rights of the F-16 fighter-bomber and announced that Israel would not be able to purchase the 250 planes as requested. This number had been reduced to 50 or 75 on grounds that the Israel Air Force no longer needed to maintain its air superiority over the Arabs.


1978(1st of Av, 5738): Rosh Chodesh Av


1982: “White Dog” a cinematic treatment of Romain Gary’s novel of the same name “directed by Samuel Fuller” who co-authored the script was released in the United States by Paramount Pictures today.


1982: “Fast Times at Ridgemont High” directed by Amy Heckerling was released in the United States by Amy Heckerling.


1991:The publisher Robert Maxwell said today that he had reached a private agreement with the publisher and other shareholders of Israel's Ma'ariv-Modin Group to acquire the majority of shares in the company, which owns the Israeli daily Ma'ariv. Ma'ariv is published in Hebrew in Tel Aviv. Financial details were not given. A statement said Mr. Maxwell would be the chairman and publisher and hold more than 70 percent of the shares. Dov Judkowski, who with Mr. Maxwell controls more than 75 percent of the shares, will be editor in chief and deputy chairman. "I shall put at the disposal of Ma'ariv-Modin all the funds necessary for the swift development of the paper, for the benefit of both the group and its staff," said Mr. Maxwell, who recently acquired The Daily News in New York.


1995: Aharon Barak succeeded Meir Shamgar as President of the Supreme Court of Israel.


1999(1st of Elul, 5759): Rosh Chodesh Elul


2000: The New York Times book section featured a review of Half-Jew: A Daughter's Search for Her Family's Buried Pastby Susan Jacoby and Rodinsky’s Room a mystery about David Rodinsky coauthored by Iain Sinclair and Rachel Lichtenstein, granddaughter of Polish Jewish refugee Gedaliah Lichtenstein.


2001: In the fight against West Nile Virus, pesticides are applied at Baron Hirsch Cemetery In New York


2003: “The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously rules to refuse to reconsider a three-judge panel ruling that a Ten Commandments plaque from 1920 can remain on the Chester County courthouse in Pennsylvania. The appeals court was overruling a decision that the plaque with the commandments “violated the separate of church and state.” (As reported by Austin Cline)


2005:The 20th annual Conference on Alternatives in Jewish Education (CAJE) opens at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst


2006: A Woman in Jerusalem by A. B. Yehoshua (translated from the Hebrew by Hillel Halkin) was reviewed in the Book Section of the New York Times. A human resources manager is described as “the nameless main character” of this latest acclaimed novel.  Finally a novel features a Jewish human resources manager – how can one not be excited at the prospect of reading this? 


2006: The Book Section of the Washington Post featured a review of  Peter Hartcher’s Bubble Man: Alan Greenspan and the Missing 7 Trillion Dollars which the reviewer describes as a “flawed jeremiad” that attempts to blame Greenspan for the collapse of the dot com bubble and the losses that may or may not have taken place.


2006(19th of Av, 5766): Mahadi Hiyat, 83, was killed when a rocket crashed directly into his house near the town of Shlomi. Hiyat was the sole Egyptian resident of the northern Jewish community of Ya'arah.


2007: A copy of Faye Kellerman’s latest novel, The Burnt House is contributed to the Temple Judah in Cedar Rapids, thus insuring that its library will have a complete collection of her detective mysteries. With The Burnt House, Kellerman returns to her literary roots with Rina and Peter Decker, the Jewish couple that solves murders.  Besides the fact they are slick yarns, where else can you be on the trail of multiple murderers while one of the characters talks about “hashgacha pratite” and another reassures his spouse that they could enjoy a visit to Santa Fe since “they have a Chabad there.”


2007: Some 75 people from the Jewish community of Rochester, New York, attended a dedication ceremony today to honor a rediscovered burial plot, long unknown to the community, where over 100 Jews from the 19th century were buried.


2008: Forty Reform Jews land in Israel for a first-of-its-kind trip to meet the Israeli Reform movement. The 10-day trip is titled "Reform Family Experience: Move Beyond the Tour Bus," and may be a sign of the times in seeking to connect Reform Jews more powerfully than in the past to an Israel that is more complex and diverse than that seen by most tourists


2008: Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez met with Jewish leaders today, pledging to work together against anti-Semitism and open up channels of communication despite differences on Middle East politics.


2009: Funeral for Robert William Levine, the businessman and philanthropist who worked to aid Russian immigrants is scheduled to take place at Temple Emanuel in Newton, MA followed by burial at Memorial Park in Sharon, MA.


2009: In Jerusalem, the Yiddishpiel Theatre helps prepare people for the High Holidays by presenting a “unique musical event which combines stories about the great cantors and Jewish and cantorial soul songs.


2009: In Jerusalem, Beit Avi Chai,A cultural center that explores concepts of Jewish and Israeli identity and creativity presents a workshop led by Dr. Meir Buzaglo, Department of Philosophy, at Hebrew University entitled Rambam in the 21st Century that asks the questions, “How does the Rambam’s thinking relate to the basic questions of the modern age?”\


2009:The Israel Defense Forces said today that they were investigating reports of a kidnapped soldier. A previously unknown Palestinian group calling itself the "Al-Quds Army" claimed that it had kidnapped an Israeli soldier


2009: Rai Ephraim Simon, co-director of Friends of Lubavitch and a father of nine donated one of his kidneys to Samar Chasid living in Williamsburg who is the father of ten.


2009 Patriot’s rookie Julian Edelman scored his first professional points on today in a pre-season game with the Philadelphia Eagles returning a punt 75 yards for a touchdown


2010(3rd of Elul, 5770):  On the Hebrew calendar today marks the 75th anniversary of the passing of Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak HaCohen Kook. He passed away on the 3rd of Elul, 5695. During the British Mandate, “Rabbi Kook was the first Chief Ashkenazi Rabbi of the Jewish population in the Land of Israel in modern times, and had great love and respect for the secular Zionist movement…”


2010: Temple Judah is scheduled to celebrate the 88th birthday of Marianne Bern at the Oneg following Friday night services.


2010: The man who killed Meir Kahane in 1990 claims he did not carry out the shooting alone, as previously thought, but was part of a three-man terrorist cell with links to al-Qaida. Its original target was future prime minister Ariel Sharon, according to a newly-leaked US government document


2010:The reopening of Shaarei Torah,the synagogue of Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak HaCohen Kook, luminary sage and father of modern religious Zionism, coincided with the 75th anniversary of Rabbi Kook's death.


2011: The Gaga Summer Intensive that included Ohad Naharin's Repertoire is scheduled to come to a close today. Ohad Naharin “is an Israeli contemporary dancer, choreographer, artistic director, and musician.”


2011(13th of Av, 5771): Shabbat Nachamu


2011: The Summer Israeli Folk Dance Mostly Couples Marathon is scheduled to take place at Buttenwieser Hall in New York City.


2011: Social protests took place throughout Israel today, with demonstrators turning out en masse in Haifa, Be’er Sheva and Afula. Sheva is not the periphery.” Roughly 15,000 people demonstrated at Independence Square in Afula


2011:Gunmen abducted an American Jew after breaking into his house in the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore today in an unusually brazen raid that illustrated the threat to foreigners in this militancy-wracked, US-allied country. The US Embassy identified the victim as Warren Weinstein. A man by that name serves as the Pakistan country director for J.E. Austin Associates, a development contractor that works with the aid arm of the American government, according to a profile on the LinkedIn networking website.


2012: Five short films created by Israeli directors - Occupy Rothschild, Wall to Wall, Busted, Word Games, A Wonderful Day – are scheduled to be shown in NYC


2012:The Industry, Trade and Labor Ministry announced today that the price of a price-controlled loaf of bread will rise by 6.53 percent tomorrow.


2012: Hezbollah has rockets that can hit any Israeli city, a leading official of the organization said this afternoon.


2012:Israel may need to destroy parts of Lebanon and Gaza if Hezbollah and Hamas rain missiles upon the country in response to an Israeli attack on Iran, former Mossad head Danny Yatom said today


2013: “Israel: A Home Movie” is scheduled to be shown at the Morris Cafritz Center for the Arts as part of the Year-Round Washington Jewish Film Festival.


2012(25thof Av, 5772): Eighty three year old real estate mogul and philanthropist Zev Wolfson passed away today.

2013: “The High Court of Justice today rejected a petition by the families of terror victims to block the release of 26 Palestinian prisoners who were convicted of terrorism, ruling that it is not for the court to involve itself in what is a diplomatic rather than a legal process.” (As reported by Stuart Winer)


2013: The Israel Defense Forces gained 125 new recruits today as over 300 immigrants from North America landed in Israel, part of a charter flight organized by the Nefesh B’Nefesh organization. (As reported by Joshua Davidovich)


2013: Amir Levy is scheduled to appear in “Bellimi and the Sultan” at the Robert Moss Theatre


2014: The Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center is scheduled to unveil two plaques honoring rescuers from Italy and Poland at the Ferro Fountain of the Righteous


2014: Dr. Mark W. Weisstuch is scheduled to deliver the second in his series of lectures on “The Merchant of Venice: A study of despair and humanity” at the Skirball Center for Jewish Life and Learning.


2014: “Jewish people must be allowed to pray on the Temple Mount during the High Holidays and Sukkot, lawmakers in the Knesset Interior Committee said today.” (As reported by Lahav Harkov)


2014: “Rockets were fired from Gaza tonight two-hours before the midnight deadline to Sunday's 72-hour cease-fire, as the IDF enhanced its troop presence along the border preparing to once again wage war against Hamas in Gaza.” (As reported by Herb Keinon, Hhaled Abu Toameh and Michael Wilner)


2014: “Accompanied by Senate Majority co-leaders Dean Skelon and Jeff Klein together with Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, Andrew M. Cuomo, the Governor of New York, called on President Reuven Rivlin today to affirm the State of New York’s support for the State of Israel in light of the continued threat of attacks by Hamas and other terrorist organizations.” (As reported by Greer Fay Cashman)


2015: “Asif Kapadia’s Amy Winehouse film is” scheduled to be shown in London under the auspices of the UK Jewish Film which “aims to develop a culture where Jewish and Israeli film is recognized and enjoyed by the widest possible audience, and to bring Jewish related film to the heart of British culture.”


2015: Jews On Bikes is scheduled to cosponsor “What It Takes: Havdalah” where attendees will “gain the skills to make Havdalah on their own” at the Historic 6th& I Synagogue.


 


 


 


 

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

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August 14


1385: In what might be called the “Battle of the Johns” The Portuguese forces commanded by King João I (King John I) defeat the Castilian army of King Juan I(King John I) at the Battle of Aljubarrota, leaving King Juan as ruler of Portugal. The victory of King João I guaranteed the existence of an independent Portugal which would provide a haven for Jews fleeing Christian persecution in Spain at the end of the 14th and start of the 15thcenturies.


1433: John I (King João I) of Portugal passed away.  As the following entry shows, King John I provided a haven for at least one Jew seeking to escape persecution in Spain.


In 1391, an anti-Jewish riot inspired and provoked by the church occured in Seville and spread rapidly throughout Spain. Jews were being beaten and killed by religious fanatics and many others who were just taking advantage of the rioting to rob the Jews. The streets were flowing with Jewish blood; synagogues, homes and businesses are being destroyed; Jewish property is being stolen. The rioters were yelling; "Convert or Die!" The church promised peace and safety to the Jews who convert. Don Samuel Abarbanel, an observant Jew and his family were forced to convert. At that time the Abarbanels was one of the most distinguished families in Spain.  Its patriarch is Don Samuel Abarbanel, Treasurer of the State, Courtier, and friend to three kings of Spain. But even somebody as powerful as Don Samuel was not immune from the violence. He took the Christian name of Juan Sanchez de Seville and continued to serve King Henry III as his treasurer. He and his family attended church and mass on Sunday, but at great risk they were secret Jews, trying to eat kosher, observe the Sabbath and holidays and pray to Hashem. It was not an easy thing for them to do but they did so for about six years when it became increasingly more difficult. By 1397 Juan Sanchez de Seville and his family were able to escape to Portugal where they threw off their Christian customs and names and resumed their practice of Judaism.


Don Samuel Abarbanel's reputation as a brilliant financier and statesman preceded him. King John I had his agents approach Don Samuel to ask him to be an advisor to the king. Don Samuel readily agreed, and a long personal friendship and relationship began. The relationship was not only between the king and Don Samuel, it was between their two families, their children, and their grandchildren. Samuel's son Judah followed in his father's footsteps. Don Judah was highly respected by King John I who frequently sought his advice. King John I was called "King John the Great." The title was well justified. During John I's reign Portugal prospered. Portugal was entering the age of exploration and acquiring new territories and becoming rich. Don Judah Abarbanel's advice to the king was invaluable in pursuing this course of action. One of King John's sons was Prince Henry the Navigator who ran a school of navigation and encouraged its Navy to explore, discover and settle new territories and to bring greater wealth and prestige to Portugal.


1447: Following a fire in Posen (Poland) where the original charter granting the Jews "privileges" was written, (by Casimir the Great), Casimir IV renewed all of their rights, making his charter one of the most liberal in Europe. This charter lasted less than a decade before it was revoked.


1591(24thof Av, 1591): Abigdor Eisenstadt, aka Abigdor Sofer ben Moses, “the author of translation of festival prayers and a prayer-book from Polish into German” passed away today.


1688: Birthdate of Frederick William I of Prussia whom Veitel-Heine Ephraim served as court jeweler and mint master.


1716:  Italian Rabbi Isaiah Bassani wrote a poem in honor of Zebulon Conegliano passing his examination in medicine today in Padua.


1725: “The Jewish Law of 14 August 1725” “forbade the settlement by Jews in places where they had not previously been settled” including Reichenberg.


1735: Birthdate of Jacob Meyer mystic and magician who gained fame as Jacob Philadelphia the name he took when he converted to Christianity.


1779: In Prague, Selig Trebitsch, ḥazzan at the Old New Synagogue and his wife gave birth to Rabbi Menahem Nahum Trebitsch whose writings included “Shelom Yerushalayim"


1787(30th of Av, 5547): Rosh Chodesh Elul


1787(30th of Av, 5547):Isaac de Pinto “a Dutch Jew of Portuguese origin, a scholar and one of the main investors in the Dutch East India Company” passed away. He had been born in 1717 in Amsterdam. In1748, Pinto helped stadholder William IV of Orange, sending or lending him money to defeat the French at Bergen op Zoom. In return he asked for uplifting measures against Jewish merchants forbidding them to sell clothes, gherkins or fish on the street. He proposed to send the poorest Jews to Surinam. Pinto was a man of broad learning, but did not begin to write until nearly fifty, when he acquired a reputation by defending his co-religionists against Voltaire. In 1762 he published his Essai sur le Luxe at Amsterdam. In the same year appeared his Apologie pour la Nation Juive, ou Réflexions Critiques. The author sent a manuscript copy of this work to Voltaire, who thanked him. Antoine Guenée reproduced the Apologie at the head of his Lettres de Quelques Juifs Portugais, Allemands et Polonais, à M. de Voltaire. In 1763 De Pinto became bankrupt as a result of speculation; he had to sell his house on Nieuwe Herengracht with five famous fixed wall-paintings by Jan Weenix. De Pinto moved to another fine mansion in The Hague; he and his family were invited to the palace when Mozart and his sister played. In 1768, Pinto sent a letter to Diderot on Du Jeu de Cartes. His Traité de la Circulation et du Crédit appeared in Amsterdam in 1771, and was twice reprinted, besides being translated into English and German. His Précis des Arguments Contre les Matérialistes was published at The Hague in 1774. Pinto's works were published in French (Amsterdam, 1777) and also in German (Leipzig, 1777).


1793: Birthdate of Baruch Auerbach, the “educator and philanthropist” who founded the Jewish Orphan Asylum in Berlin.


1815: Birthdate Rabbi Maier Zipser “one of the leaders of the Conservative (Neolog) movement of the Hungarian Jewry.”

1822: In New York, Thomas Strong gave birth to Dr. James Strong a student of the Hebrew language whose pamphlet on the subject was published before the Civil War.  Strong was a member of the Palestine Exploration Committee and traveled there in 1884. (Strong was part of a group of 19th century Christians whose interest in Palestine laid the groundwork for the archaeological activities that became “Israel’s National Pastime.”)


1829: Birthdate of Jules Moch a graduate of Saint-Cyr who fought served in the Crimean War and was captured at the Battle of Sedan during the Franco-Prussian War.


1840: Birthdate of New York native Manuel Augustus Kursheedt


1840: The U.S. government sent instruction to Mr. Glidon, the American Consul expressing President Van Buren’s concern over the treatment of the Jews of Damascus and his wish that United States work in concert with the governments of Europe to relieve their suffering.


1855(30th of Av, 5615): Rosh Chodesh Elul


1859: Congregation Gemiluth Chassed was founded today in Port Gibson, Mississippi.


1862: Jacob Ezekiel Hyneman, a native of Richmond, VA who had moved to Philadelphia with his father in 1850 enlisted in the U.S. Army during the Civil War.  Unlike some other native Virginians, Hyneman was able to choose fighting for the Union as opposed to defending slavery.


1863: Birthdate of London “communal worker” Felix Arthur Davis.


1863: "Affairs at Vicksburg” published today describes conditions a month after the fall of the Confederate Citadel including the following, "When the news reached the North that Vicksburg had fallen, a few thousand Hebrew patriots immediately made an exodus in this direction, with a view of opening a few hundred clothing stores at once. Greatly to their disgust Gen. Grant refused to allow any trade whatever, and much to their pecuniary grief they found that they had brought their shoddy to the wrong market. Something, however, must be done, and so fifty or sixty opened shops for the repair of watches, an equal number opened establishments for taking pictures, another quantity went to work gathering up the immense amount of old rags left everywhere by the rebels, while the balance stood disconsolately for a time around corners cursing Grant in every dialect originating at Babel, and then returned up the river. Those who went into the rag business had a good thing, for rags are high and the quantity left by Confederates in this place was enormous."


1865: Today's Foreign Items column reports that The Chief of Police in Warsaw has forbidden the Jews to wear their ancient dress and coiffure, (two curls sticking out from a velvet cap.


1865: Officer Thomas Ward who was murdered by a gang of felons in the line of duty, died at the Jew's Hospital. (Jew’s Hospital would later be known as Mt. Sinai.  The hospital took on the role of treating New Yorker’s regardless of religion during the Civil War when it treated large numbers of Union soldiers wounded during McClellan’s ill-fated Peninsula Campaign.)


1872: A letter published today signed simply “A Jew” took issue with the New York Tribune’s characterization of President Grant’s views on, and relationships with,  the Jewish people.  The writer denied the Tribune’s claim that Grant had apologized for General Oder No. 11 by saying “that his chief of staff had issued and that he (Grant) had countermanded it.  When questioned on the subject in 1868, Grant said that “he issued that order under misapprehension, and regretted his action.  He took the responsibility and did not claim credit for countermanding it.”  The Tribune, whose publisher Horace Greely, was running against Grant for the Presidency, was making the same claims against Grant that had failed to dissuade Jews from voting for the Civil War hero in 1868.  The writer concludes by stating that The Tribune does not understand Jews.  Jews think for themselves.  Some will vote Democrat.  Some will vote Republican.  But none of them will be swayed by the Tribune’s re-hash of the claims left over from the 1868 Presidential Campaign.


1873: According to Chief of Police John Malloy, the man who was murdered in Albany is a Brooklynite named John D. Weston.  He was allegedly murdered by Emil Lowenstein, a German-Jewish barber who had been enlisted by Mrs. Weston with enticements of sharing in the decedent’s property and enjoying her company.


1874(1st of Elul, 5634): Rosh Chodesh Elul


1874: It was reported today that the police superintendent of New York had received a telegram from the Sheriff of McLean Country, Illinois, stating that the ”German Jew named Levy” had confessed to murdering New York businessman Benjamin Nathan.  The sheriff doubts that truth of the confession and thinks the man is “a humbug” looking for a free trip back to New York.


1878: It was reported today that the government is doing nothing to alleviate the suffering from the effects of the famine in southern Morocco.  The Jews of the region are receiving some assistance from co-religionists


1879:  Harris Levy, a 28 year old Polish Jew was shot in the arm on Forsyth Street in New York.  Levy was as a night watchman for Louis Solomans, a manufacturing tailor whose businesses occupied three rooms on the building’s 6th floor.


1881: “Bleichroder and Thiers” published today described one Frenchman’s reaction to Barthelemy St. Hilaire recommending that the President of the Republic name Gerson von Bleichröder the German Jewish banker with close ties to Chancellor Bismarck be named a Knight of the Legion of Honor.


1881: In Kiev, Abraham and Dvora Wellcher gave birth to Laibel Welcher gained fame as aviation pioneer Arthur L. Wlesh who was a flight instructor and friend of the Wright Brothers.


1881: It was reported today that donations to help defray the cost of the next excursion sponsored by the Sanitarium for Hebrew Children can be sent to the offices of the Jewish Messenger on Walker Street.


1881: A concert sponsored by several prominent Jews is scheduled to be held today to raise funds for a cemetery at the popular resort town of Long Branch, NJ. The cemetery, “The Strangers’ Cemetery, will be open to all – rich or poor, Jew or Gentile


1882: It was reported today that there are forty Jews living in Hoboken NJ.


1882: It was reported today that yesterday’s account in the Congressional Record of speech given by S.S. Cox in defense of the Jews of Russia could not have happened since Congress had already adjourned. This was an example of the time-honored technique of entering things into the Congressional Record that were not actually said on the floor of the House and/or Senate.


1882: It was reported that a barrel of gunpowder had accidentally exploded at a shop in Grodeno, Russia killing an untold number of Jewish children attending a nearby school


1882:“Old Time Business Ways” reviewed The Growth of English Industry and Commerce by William Cunningham which included a description of how the reality of Jewish money lending in Medieval England.  While it appeared that the Jews had a monopoly on money lending, “the King had indirectly a monopoly on money-lending” because the Jews “were mere chattels of the King” which meant that “all that they had was his.”



1883: “With Hermann Guthe’s publication of his monograph on the scroll fragment completed” today “the Shapira’s manuscript” which was a scroll of Deuteronomy “officially achieved scholarly recognition.”


1884: It was reported today that Rabbi Henry Zindorf of Detroit’s Temple Beth El has been chosen as Professor of History and Hebrew Literature at Hebrew Union College.


1886: On the Lower East Side, Louis and Mary Strauss Frankenthaler gave birth to George Frankenthaler who served as the State Supreme Court Justice and New York County Surrogate.


1887: The members of the jury that convicted Israel Lipski of murder are scheduled to meet with the condemned man’s solicitor today.


1887: It was reported today that Israel Lipski’s solicitor has new facts that will prove that he did kill Miriam Angel, the woman he was convicted of killing.  Lipski’s lawyer has met privately with Judge Stephen and convinced him of his client’s innocence.


1887: It was reported today that that Israel Lipski’s solicitor has “sent a telegram to the Queen” asking her to stay the execution because “he is in possession of facts which will enable him to establish” Lipski’s innocence.


1887: “Old World News By Cable” published today included a description of the excitement gripping London over the upcoming hanging of Israel Lipski, a Polish Jew who was found guilty of murdering Miriam Angel.


1888: An excursion for sick children under the age of six sponsored by the Sanitarium for Hebrew Children will take place this morning at nine.


1889: The seventh free excursion of the summer sponsored by the Sanitarium for Hebrew Children is scheduled to leave from the Fifth Street pier of the East River.  Only children without contagious diseases and six years of age or younger will be allowed on the boat.


1889: One hundred twenty Jewish families arrived in Buenos Aires giving birth to the modern Argentinean Jewish community. In 1889, 824 Russian Jews arrived in Argentina on the S.S. Weser from Podolia in western Russia. Many of them became gauchos (Argentine cowboys). The gauchos bought land and established a colony, which they named Moiseville. Due to lack of funding, the gauchos appealed to Baron Maurice de Hirsch for funds and the Baron subsequently founded the Jewish Colonization Association. During its heyday, the Association owned more than 600,000 hectares of land, populated by more than 200,000 Jews. While many of these cooperative ranches are now owned by non-Jews, Jews continue to run some of the properties.


1890: It was reported today that donations to help defray the costs of the Sanitarium for Hebrew Children can be sent to  Nathan Lewis, President; Dr. H. Gomez, Vice President; Hezekiah Kohn, Treasurer: and Joseph Davis, honorary Secretary.


1891(10thof Av, 5651): Sixty-four year old Emile Frank, the widow of Joseph Frank and passed away at Huguenot, NY. The funeral will be delayed because the body has to be taken back to New York City and tomorrow is Shabbat.


1891:Mr. Rosenbluth, of the Sanitary Aid Society who works with the Trustees of the Baron Hirsch Fund gave one of the Russian Jewish refugees living at Highstown, NJ $5,000 and sent him out to purchase farm lands in an attempt to replicate the success that Jewish refugees have enjoyed farming in Connecticut.


1892: Rabbis Aaron Wise and David Cahn officiated at the wedding of Lottie Naomi Swartwood and Leopold Kahn known as “Admiral Dot.” Kahn and Swartwood were both dwarfs.  He had begun performing with P.T.Barnum until he formed the American Lilliputian Company in 1877 where both of them were stars.


1892: Louis-Norbert Carrière the government commissioner who successfully pled at Rennes for Dreyfus's second conviction was appointed government commissioner to the Dreyfus court martial in Rennes today,


1892: “Decline of the Hat Industry in the Oranges” published today offered numerous reasons for the decline of millinery business in New Jersey including the fact that Polish Jews in Newark and Orange are finishing hats for eight and three quarters of a cent per dozen.  “American workmen have always been paid 25 cents per dozen.”  (In reality, the problem was the tariff)


1893: When representatives of the Board of Health, the Street Cleaning Department, the Fire Department and the Police swept through Hester Street and Mulberry Bend in an attempt to clear out the pushcarts and street vendors, they were forced to deal with “an old Jew” selling pears who had padlocked his cart in place and a Jew selling calico wrappers who claimed he could not move his cart because the wheel was broken.


1893: Birthdate of Samuel Simon Leibowitz, American attorney and jurist who would gain fame as the lawyer who defended the Scottsboro Boys.

1893: Jack O”Mara, the bartender at Patrick Devitt’s saloon in Brooklyn, is scheduled to go before the judge on charges that he handcuffed a Jewish paddled named Bruns and then stole his pack.


1896: Heinrich von Gossler was appointed Prussian Minister of War. During his tenure in office he would defend Jewish manufacturers of rifles of when they were attacked by anti-Semites in the Reichstag. 


1897: In Chicago, Samuel Marlow, a German Jew and his son were arrested today when “officers raided a little frame house on 26thPlace” where they found a still that could produce 52 gallons of moonshine a day.


1898: As the staff at the Hebrew Orphan Asylum works to deal with an epidemic of dysentery “a well-known physician said that there forty to fifty cases in apartments in the same neighborhood which he attributed to polluted water.


1898: “The Arrival of the Immigrant” published today described the arrival of Italians at Ellis Island and the Barge Office who have replaced the wave of Jews “from the Ghettoes, the Judenstrasses and the village streets of Russia, Russian Poland and all of Jewish Western Europe” that filled these offices through-out the 1880’s.


1899: A reporter went to 3,815 Park Avenue which Abraham Reinold, a patient at Georgetown University in Washington, DC gave as his address.  The address given by this mysterious Jews was a vacant lot and no one in the neighborhood knew who he was.


1899: Birthdate of Evelyn Kozak the native New Yorker whose parents had left “Russia to escape anti-Semitic attacks” who would be described as the world’s oldest living Jew when passed away at the age of 113.


1899: In Paris, the police have surrounded the office of the Anti-Semite League where M.M. Guerin , the president of the league and Max Regis, the “noted –Jew baiter” and former Mayor of Algiers have barricaded themselves in attempt to avoid arrest “for political crimes that are punishable with penal servitude.”  A mob of their supporters shouting “Vive l’armee” and Mort aux Juifs’ has gathered outside the building.


1899: “Dreyfus Fight Thickens” published today described the split in French society that centers “around the shadowy and emaciated red-haired Jew, whose uniform of an artillery Captain so ill fits and befits his figure physiognomy.” 


1903: Birthdate of Hezl Rosenblum, the native of Kaunas who was “a signatory of the Israeli declaration of independence, he worked as editor of Yedioth Ahronothfor more than 35 years.”


1904: Rabbi Meir Berlin and his wife gave birth to Judith Lieberman the wife of Rabbi Saul Lieberman.


1904: Lillie Solomon, the daughter of Anna and I.E. Solomon, who was born in Solomonville, Arizona Territory in 1879, married Jewish merchant Max Lantin of Globe.


1905(13th of Av, 5665): English painter Simeon Solomon passed away. For examples of his art and a whole lot more see

1905: Louis M Mayer and his first wife, Margaret Shenberg  gave birth to their eldest daughter Edith “Edie” Mayer who married producer William Goetz.


1910:Birthdate of French-Jewish photographer Willy Ronis


1910: Birthdate of Natan Alterman the Warsaw native who gained fame as an Israeli poet, playwright, journalist, and translator.


1910: Birthdate of Herta Herzog, the author of “The Jews as 'Others': On Communicative Aspects of Anti-Semitism” and the wife of Paul Felix Lazarsfeld.


1910(9th of Av, 5670): Tish’a B’Av


1910(9th of Av, 5670): Moses Frankfurt who had been born in 1828 and was married to Babette Frankfurt passed away today in Norfolk, VA.


1911: In Richmond, Indiana, a meeting of the Society of Friends adopts a resolution protesting the treatment of the Jews of Russia.


1915: Harry H. Schlacht, who is working to form “the American Legion, composed of foreign born Americans who have received military organization” said tonight “these people are loyal Americans” who “are anxious and willing to join the Foreign Legion and are ready to respond to the call for drill just as soon as army officers are appointed to train them.”


1917: In the Bronx, Harry and Molly Glickmann give birth to Martin “Martry” Glickman. A graduate of Syracuse University, where he played football, Glickman was best known for his skills in track & field. In 1936, Glickman was one of two Jews on the U.S. 400 yard relay team at the 1936 Olympics.  The two were replaced just before the event.  According to Glickman, this was in response to pressure Avery Brundage, an anti-Semite and supporter of the Nazi regime. Glickman went on to a very successful career as a sports broadcaster. Glickman’s parents came from Jassy where the Germans and their Romanian allies slaughtered over twenty thousand Jews during the summer of 1941. 


1920: Birthdate of actor Nehemiah Persoff.  Born in Jerusalem, Persoff came to the United States in 1929.  He was trained as an electrician, but developed an interest in acting which led to a very successfully career in theatre and film.


1926: Birthdate of Martin Broszat “a prominent West German historian and a specialist on Nazi crimes against the Jews.” (As reported by Eric Pace)

 

1928: The original production of “The Front Page,” directed by George S. Kaufman, opened at the Times Square Theatre


1929: The Jewish Agency for Palestine was founded.  The Jewish Agency “became the main organization through which Palestinian Jewry maintained its contacts with world Jewry and with the Mandatory authorities and foreign governments.  It was, in fact, the de facto government of the Jews in the Jewish homeland.


1931: In Chicago, Irene Rose (née Mauser) and Cedric Michael Raphael gave birth to Oscar winning screenwriter Frederick Michael Raphael.


1933: While speaking in Prague, Dr. Stephen S. Wise, honorary president of the American Jewish Congress, approves of the boycott against German goods and services.


1933: The Government prohibits the circulation in Germany of all Jewish newspapers printed in foreign countries, irrespective of language, and commands Jewish libraries to remove such periodicals from their quarters.


1934: After buying “the defunct synagogue building formerly run by Rabbi Meyer Isserman,” Rabbi Yaakov Ben Zion HaCohen Mendelsohn opened the Bergen Street Shul today – a “ceremony attended by hundreds of locals along with rabbis from Passaic, West New York, the Bronx, Brooklyn, and Philadelphia.”


1936: Arnold Spencer Leese was put on trial in London on charges of seditious libel against British Jews. In 1935, Leese who was a licensed veterinarian had proposed using gas chambers to murder Jews.  This led to an indictment “on six counts relating to two articles published in the July issue of The Fascist (the IFL newspaper) entitled "Jewish Ritual Murder," which later appeared as a pamphlet.” He would be convicted and served 6 months in prison.  The experience did not chasten him since he would help members of the Wafften SS escape Justice which would lead to another prison term in 1947.  Leese was so extreme that he attacked fellow fascist Oswald Mosley for being soft on the Jews.


1937: In his closing statement to the 20th Zionist Congress, held in Zurich, David Ben-Gurion said that the subject of a passionate debate regarding the proposed Jewish state was not the integrity of Palestine, which no Zionist can forgo, but the methods for securing the quicker achievement of the common aim. He welcomed the decision of the two-thirds majority of the Executive to negotiate the precise contents of the scheme, while this did not imply any assent to the principle of Partition.


1937: Nazis continued to harass the Zionist delegates in Zurich.


1937: While the League of Nations debated the recommendations of the Peel Report, Arab attacks against Jews in Palestine continued. Shots were fired at Motza and other Jewish settlements in a significant number of increased terrorist attacks all over the country.


1938:Hadassah, the Women's Zionist Organization of America, announced today that the Jewish children who were among the Austrian exiles expelled from Burgenland by Nazis and set drift on the Danube four months ago will be cared for by the Youth Aliyah (immigration) of movement and sent to Palestine before Sept. 30.


1938: Arab terrorists conducted a series of early morning attacks including one by 200 armed Arabs at “the tiny Jewish colony of Shimroon” and another at Kfar Yabetz where Arabs “burned an orange pakcing house and uprooted four hundred trees on the grounds of the Kibbutz.”


1939:A resolution expressing "deep regret" that the executive of the Jewish Agency for Palestine did not resign immediately upon publication of the terms of the recent British White Paper was adopted today by the World Mizrachi. Mizrachi announced plans to fight the White Paper and calls on World Zionists to refuse to cooperate with the British in Palestine.


1939:Birthdate of Eric Weissberg the American banjo player, best known for the theme from the movie Deliverance.


1940: While fleeing from Paris which had been conquered by the Germans, Italian banker and philanthropist Angelo Donati stopped in Marseille where he was the best men at the wedding of his cousin Piero Sacredoti  and Marseille Ilse Klein, daughter of Siegmund and Helene Klein.


1941: All residents of the Jewish community of Lesko, Poland, are transported to Zaslaw, Poland, and executed.


1941: Today, a training report described Isidore Newman, who was being trained as a Wireless Officer with SOE as being “self-assured and thinks with precision.”


1941: In Hungary, The Union of the Jewish Communities obtained “the liberation of the rabbis, leaders of communities, and teachers employed in Jewish schools, who had been arrested after the outbreak of war with the U.S.S.R., from the Targu-Jiu concentration camp. (Jewish Virtual Library)


1942(1st of Elul, 5702): Rosh Chodesh Elul


1942(1st of Elul, 5702): The Germans killed 1,850 Jews from the Lenin ghetto including the parents, sisters and younger brother of Fay Shulman.

1942: Esther "Etty" Hillesum returned to Amsterdam from Westerbork


1942: The Archbishop of Lvov provided hiding places for Jewish children and Sifrei Torah.


1942: The entire Jewish community from Gorlice, Poland, is deported to the Belzec extermination camp.


1942: On the evening of 14 August 1942, the first day of the Hebrew month of Ellul, a Friday, the SS surrounded the ghetto in the village of Zagrodski, near Pinsk in Belarus (Belorussia), home to five hundred Jewish families. “The commotion and noise on that night”, recalled Rivka Yosselevska, “was not customary, and we felt something in the air.”

1942: A woman named Rivka Yosselevska is one of just four Jews to survive a bloody burial-pit massacre outside Zagrodski, Poland, near Pinsk.


1943: Premiere of wartime musical comedy “This Is the Army” directed by Michael Curtiz, produced by Hal Wallis and Jack Warner, featuring 19 songs by Irving Berlin, co-starring George Tobias.


1945: From Larissa, Greece it was reported: "One synagogue is completely destroyed, not even the foundation exists, so thorough has been the German destruction. The other synagogue has been almost-completely destroyed, also- It cannot be used in its present condition


1945: Japan surrendered unconditionally to end WW II.  It took two atomic bombs and the invasion of Manchuria by the Soviet Army to finally convince the Japanese that all was lost.  The official surrender ceremony would not take place until September, 1945 on the decks of U.S.S. Missouri which would be anchored in Tokyo Bay.  While there is general agreement as to what the official start dates were for World War II, we have seen that the end dates both the war in Europe and in the Pacific get a little fuzzy. 


1947:  India granted independence within British Commonwealth.  According to some historians, the end of British rule in India had an impact on British policy in Palestine.  The reason the British had wanted to control Palestine, according to them, was to protect the Suez Canal which was part of the route connecting Britain and India.  Once India was independent, the imperative for holding on to Palestine was no longer there and the British were no longer quite so keen to spend blood and bullets on rocks and sands of Palestine.  There other imperial holdings including Transjordan, et al were enough to meet English commercial and political needs.


1947: “The Buchenwald Trial or United States of America vs. Josias Prince of Waldeck et al in which 31 people answered charges of war crimes “related to the Buchenwald concentration camp and its satellite camps” came to an


1947: “Life With Father” a movie version of the novel by the same name directed by Michael Curtiz and music by Max Steiner was released in the United States today Warner Bros.


1948(9th of Av, 5708): Since it is Shabbat, the fast will begin in the evening and be observed on Sunday.  There is an irony in this since it is the first time this day of mourning will be observed in an independent Jewish state.


1948(9thof Av, 5708): Tish’a B’av


1948: A day after testifying before HUAC where he denied being a communist, Harry Dexter White suffered another heart attack as he was arriving at his farm in Fitzwilliam, NH.


1948: Habib Vidal, "the owner of a printing shop and the custoidan of the synagogue at Helwan" was one of the Jews arrested in Egypt.  Vidal was sentenced to 15 months at the Huckstep Prison despite the fact that he had not been formally charged or tried in a court of law.  (In Ishmael's House by Martin Gilbert)


 
1948: The Pan York, a ship filled with Jewish DPs as well as American volunteers for the Israeli army, arrived in Haifa.


1948: Birthdate of Kathi Kamen Goldmark who “had made a lot of friends in the literary world by shepherding authors on book tours when one day inspiration struck: what the very best authors yearn to be, she realized, are rock stars.” (As reported by Douglas Martin)


1951: “A Place in the Sun” starring Shelly Winters and featuring Paul Frees with music by Franz Waxman was released in the United States today by Paramount Pictures.


1951:The Jerusalem Postreported 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.



1952(23rd of Av, 5712): David Zvi Pinkas passed away.  At the time of his death at the age of 57, Pinkas was Minister of Communication in the Israeli government.


1952:Shlomo-Yisrael Ben-Meir became on MK “as a replacement for the late David Pinkas.”


1952: Israel and the representatives of the World Jewry announced that they reserved the right to demand restitution payment for the undeclared and heirless property in Austria.


1952: At this time, life in Israel was very difficult.  The Jewish settlers were pioneers in the truest sense of that term. For example, The Medical Advisory Council told the government that a large section of the Israeli population, mainly those who depended solely on the government’s rationing scheme, did not receive sufficient nutrition.


1963(24th of Av, 5723): A month after his 57th birthday, playwright Clifford Odets succumbed to colon cancer.




1969(30th of Av, 5729): Rosh Chodesh Elul


1969(30th of Av, 5729): Eighty-eight year old author and publisher Leonard Woolf, the husband of Virginia Woolf passed away today.


1972(4th of Elul, 5732):  Actor, composer and musician Oscar Levant passed away.



1973(16th of Av, 5733): Seventy-eight year old Lady Eva Violet Mond Isaacs, née Melchett, Marchioness of Reading passed away today.



1976: It was reported today that “In Morris Township, NJ, the Rabbinical College of America announced that its new President would be Albert Richman” an electrical engineering executive who was a graduate of Cooper Union and “a founding member of the Technion.”


1976: It was reported today that during a White House reception, when Betty Ford, whose husband is running for re-election “was introduced to Bernice Tannenbaum, the board nominee for Hadassah president” she “laughed and said ‘If you’re elected and we’re elected, I’ll see you here again.’”


1977: The new Likud cabinet had announced a policy of equalization of services for the inhabitants of the West Bank and Gaza. Officials claimed that this did not mean annexation or a change in the legal status of these areas, an opinion which was disputed by Arabs, foreign observers and the press.


1977: The American Jewish leadership asked US President Jimmy Carter to clarify his position on his possible recognition of the PLO.


1977: According to Time MagazineIsrael provided Lebanese Christians with $30 million to $35million in direct aid.


1979(21st of Av, 5739): Sixty-seven year old Yehoshua Rabinovitz, who had served a Minster of Housing and Minister of Finance, passed away today.


1980: Jimmy Carter, the man who brokered the Camp David Peace Accords, was nominated by the Democrats for a second term.


1980: Bruce Sundlun who become Rhode Island’s second Jewish Governor was a delegate to the Democratic National Convention which came to an end today.


1981(14th of Av, 5741): Sixty-five year old Morton B. Levin, a native of Philadelphia who worked for the federal government for over 3 decades and who was a member of Adas Israel passed away today.



1981: Warner Bros. released “Arthur’s Theme (Best That You Can Do) the Oscar winning song “written by Burt Bacharach, and Carole Bayer Sager,


1982: Birthdate of Benjamin Cohen who became known for his dot.com enterprises as a teenager and for a dispute with Apple computers over the domain itunes.co.uk. In 2006, he became technology correspondent for Channel 4 News in the UK


1983: Elvira and Mark Kunis gave birth Mila Kunis who plays “Jackie” on the television hit, That 70’s Show.


1986(9th of Av, 5746): Tish'a B'Av


1987: Premiere of “No Way Out” co-produced by Laura Ziskin


1987(19th of Av, 5747): In Little Rock, Arkansas, Sheldon Luber, son of Elaine and Harvey Luber passed away.  He left us too soon, but he will always be remembered.


1989(13th of Av, 5749): Ninety-two year old Rosa Levin Toubin, the daughter of Joe Levin and wife of Sam H. Toubin passed away.  A native of Brenham, TX, this graduate of Rice University demonstrated her skill as a Jewish Texan historian with the publication of  History B’nai Abraham Synagouge.


1989(13th of Av, 5749): Sir Dove-Myer Robinson passed away. Born in 1901, he “was Mayor of Auckland City from 1959 to 1965 and from 1968 to 1980, the longest tenure of any holder of the office. He was a colorful character and became affectionately known across New Zealand as "Robbie". He was one of several Jewish mayors of Auckland, although he rejected Judaism as a teenager and became a lifelong atheist. He has been described as a "slight, bespectacled man whose tiny stature was offset by a booming voice and massive ego.”


1990: Leonard Bernstein conducted Copland's Symphony No. 3, BMCO


1991:Comedian Jackie Mason marries his manager Jyll Rosenfeld.


1993: According to Argentinian prosecutor Alberto Nisman the authorization for the Argentinian prosecutor Alberto Nisman, the authorization for the bombing of the AMIA (Argentine Israelite Mutual Association) was given at today’s meeting of Iran’s National Security Council (As reported by Adiv Sterman)


1994: The fifth congress of the European Association for Jewish Studies opened today in Copenhagen.


1994: Ilich Ramírez Sánchez, the terrorist known as "Carlos the Jackal", is captured. Carlos involvement with Arab Terrorists, specifically the Marxist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) began in 1970. By July 1970 Ramirez was at a training camp in Jordan and after a meeting with Abu-Sharif the PFLP's recruiting officer he became known as Carlos the Jackal. The PFLP gained strength and started to form alliances with other terrorist groups such as the Baader-Meinhof gang and the Italian Red Brigade. Carlos' reputation within the organization grew after "Black September" where he fought against the Jordanian army trying to purge their country of terrorists. In 1972, the PFLP ordered Carlos to kill a respected member of the Jewish community in London, Edward Sieff the president of Marks & Spencer. In December 1973 Carlos went to Sieffs house and shot him, luckily not fatally. Carlos had preceded this by a hand grenade attack on the London headquarters of an Israeli bank and a car bomb in Paris in 1972, which injured 63 people. His international reputation was born. In 1976 he was involved in a skyjacking of an Air France jet to Uganda that lead to the famous raid on Entebbe by Israeli Special Forces


1994(7th of Elul, 5754):  Hamas took credit for the murder of 18 year old Ron Saval today in an ambush near the Kissufim Junction.


1994(7th of Elul, 5754):  Eighty-nine year old Elias Canetti, a novelist, playwright and cultural historian who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1981, passed away today (As reported by William Grimes)




1996(29th of Av, 5756): Eighty-eight  year old Albert Neuberger, the German born physician who was a Professor of Chemical Pathology and a Fellow of the Royal Society, passed away.



1998: “Slums of Beverly Hills” a comedy about “a teenage girl struggling to grow up in the late 1970s in a lower-middle-class nomadic Jewish family that moves every few months” directed and written by Tamara Jenkins, co-starring Alan Arkin and Carl Reiner and featuring David Krumholtz and Carl Reiner was released today in the United States by Fox Searchlight Pictures.


1999(2nd of Elul, 5759):  Phillip Klutznick, U.S. Secretary of Commerce under President Carter, passed away


2002: “In an….interview with American Journalist Amy Goodman Shulamit Aloni described how she believes the charge of antisemitism is used to suppress criticism of Israel.”



2002(6th of Elul, 5762): Seventy-eight year old artist Larry Rivers (Yitzroch Loiza Grossberg) passed away today.



2003(16th of Av, 5763): Moshe Carmel “an Israeli soldier and politician who served as Minister of Transportation for eight years” passed away today.


2005(9th of Av, 5765): Tish'a B'Av: 


2005: Members of the Ukrainian Conservative party demanded that Jews be prevented from teaching the Tanya in Jewish schools and synagogues. While Ukrainian officials denied any anti-Semitic intentions, others saw a link between this policy and those being...


2005:  The Jerusalem Post reported that “members of the Ukrainian Conservative Party and several far right-wing editors demanded that Jews be prevented from teaching the Tanya in Jewish schools and synagogues.”  While Ukrainian officials at the embassy in Tel Aviv offered assurances that their government was opposed to any anti-Semitic behaviors, others saw a similarity between these demands and those being made in other republics of the former Soviet Union.


2005:  The Cedar Rapids Gazette reported that the Library of American will publish an eight volume collection Phillip Roth’s novels and stories beginning later this summer.  Roth joins Saul Bellow and Eudora Welty as the only American to have their complete works preserved by the Library of America during their lifetimes. 


2005: The Sunday New York Times book section included a review of The Last Expedition: Stanley’s Mad Journey Through the Congoby Daniel Liebowitz and Charles Pearsonwhich describesthe quest to find Emin Pasha who was a Silesian born Jew named Isaak Eduard Schnitzer


2006: A U.N. sponsored cease fire takes place along the border between Israel and Lebanon marking an end to five weeks of fighting.


2006:Kohenet’s first Hebrew Priestess Training Institute began today, at the Elat Chayyim Retreat Center in Accord, NY


2006: A Polish humanitarian organization is working to provide humanitarian assistance to hard-hit residents of northern Israel.


2006: Cease fire goes into effect intended to end the “war” between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon.


2007: Haaretz reported that fifty-nine years after they were killed in the War of Independence near the Arab village of Tel Arish, the Israel Defense Forces has identified the bodies of five fighters. The men were soldiers in Battalion 52 of the Givati Brigade, and have been identified as First Lieutenant Yehiel Rosenfeld, Private David Kohavi, Private Itzhak Hamami, Private Yehoshua Lustig and a fifth soldier. The remains of the soldiers, who up until now were considered missing, were identified in unmarked graves in the Nahalat Itzhak cemetery. The five soldiers fell during a battle over "Pillbox Hill" near the Arab village of Tel Arish, near Holon. The battle was fought to gain free access between Jerusalem and Jaffa. The remains of Corporal Amos Danieli and Private Itzhak Kandler, also of Batallion 52, are still missing. The remains of a total of 109 fallen soldiers are currently missing, and the fates of ten soldiers are unknown.


2007: Rosh Chodesh Elul, 5767


2008: In Becket, MA, Gallim Dance appears at the Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival.


2008(13th of Av, 5768):Marvin Pomerantz, 78, a friend and adviser of Republican governors and presidents for four decades who twice served as president of the Iowa Board of Regents, passed away today in Iowa City.



http://okhenderson.com/2008/08/20/in-memoriam-marvin-pomerantz/



http://iowaindependent.com/4086/former-regent-gop-political-adviser-marvin-pomerantz-dies-at-78



2009: In New York, opening performance of “Peace Warrior” by Israeli Professor Doron Ben-Atar of Fordham University. a historian of the early American republic and a playwright.



2009: In New York, Rooftop Films presents a screening of “Bloomfield or a Childhood Memory" by Eran Barak.



2009: Willy Ronis celebrates his 99th birthday. “The sole survivor of a generation of famous French photographers that included Henri Cartier-Bresson and Robert Doisneau, Ronis has become a media darling. Yet, this son of a Ukrainian-Jewish portrait photographer father and a Lithuanian-Jewish pianist mother, both of whom fled pogroms to settle in Paris, still remains a belatedly recognized outsider. 2009(24th of Av, 5769): Erev Shabbat, Leonard Arik Karp, 59, was accosted and murdered by a gang of youths while walking with his wife and daughter along the Tel Aviv beachfront tonight.



2010: The 35th Hutzot Hayotzer International Craft Fair is scheduled to come to an end.



2010(4th of Elul, 5770): Eighty-eight year old Moshe “Misha” Lewin, Polish born Holocaust surviror and noted Russian history professor passed away today.



http://www.upenn.edu/emeritus/memoriam/Lewin.html



http://www.archives.upenn.edu/faids/upt/upt50/lewinm.html



2010: The Daily Mail rates Issac Rosenberg as one of the ten greatest British poets.



http://www.archives.upenn.edu/faids/upt/upt50/lewinm.html



2011: The headstone unveiling for Rose Becker is scheduled to take place today at Eben Israel Cemetery



2011: The 31st IAJGS International Conference on Jewish Genealogy is scheduled to open today in Washington hosted by the Jewish Genealogy Society of Greater Washington.



2011:  The JCC Maccabi Games are scheduled to open in Philadelphia, PA and Springfield, Mass.



2011: The New York Timesfeatured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including My Faraway One: Selected Letters of Georgia O’Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz: Volume I, 1915-1933 edited by Sarah Greenough and recently released paperback editions of Dreyfus: Politics, Emotion, and the Scandal of the Century, by Ruth Harris, Where I Live: New and Selected Poems 1990-2010 by Maxine Kumin and The Cookbook Collectorby Allegra Goodman.



2011:Twenty high-school teachers brought to Israel by the UK-based Holocaust Education Trust will complete a 10-day education training seminar at the International School for Holocaust Studies at Yad Vashem. (As reported by Jerusalem Post)



2011:Israeli NBA star Omri Casspi is returning to Maccabi Tel Aviv, David Federman, one of the club's owners said in an interview with Army Radio today (As reported by Jerusalem Post)



2011: Egypt, in coordination with Israel, has deployed its military in the northern Sinai Peninsula in order to gain control over the anarchy that has taken hold of the region, a senior Israeli defense official said today.



2011(14th of Av, 5771): Seventy-seven year old transplant expert Dr. Fritz Bach passed away. (As reported by Douglas Martin)



http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/18/us/18bach.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print



2012: The Eyal Vilner Big Band, led by Tel Aviv native Eyal Vilner, is scheduled to perform at the Garage Restaurant in NYC.



2012:Sacramento city leaders are scheduled to vote on a resolution making Ashkelon its 10th sister city (As reported by Ari Ben Goldberg)



2012: The price of a price-controlled loaf of will bread is scheduled to rise by 6.53% today. As reported by Jerusalem Post)


2012: Funeral services for Zev Wolfson are scheduled to be at Sh’or Yoshuv Institute followed by interment at Wellwood Cemetery in Farmingdale, NY.


2012:European rabbis said today that they were lobbying Apple Inc. to pull a mobile app version of “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” a notorious anti-Semitic forgery


2012: Some 350 new immigrants from North America — including five sets of twins and two sets of triplets — were welcomed personally by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at Ben Gurion Airport this morning. “I’m proud of you,” the prime minister told the group. “We’re all proud of you. Friends of Israel, Jewish and non-Jewish alike, are all proud of you.”


2013: Noam Kat, the Minister for Public Diplomacy at the Embassy of Israel is scheduled to provide a briefing on The Middle East Process.


2013: Israeli jazz guitarist Assaf Kehati and his trio are scheduled to perform at the Bar Next Door in New York City.


2013: The IDF launched an airstrike on Gaza early this morning in response to rockets fired into southern Israel from the territory, the army said in a statement.


2013: Twenty six convicted Palestinian terrorists were freed by Israel, and welcomed home to the West Bank and Gaza, as part of the US-brokered deal that enabled the resumption of peace talks. (As reported by Asher Zeiger and Michal Shmulovich)


2014: The 92nd Street Y is scheduled to host “Jewish Italy: Food Culture and Travel” during which attendees can “discover Italy’s cucina ebraica (“Hebrew kitchen”) and desserts like sour cherry cheesecake from Rome’s famed Forno del Ghetto.”


2014: “The owners of 21 grocery store branches and kiosks” are scheduled to attend court session in Tel Aviv this morning “where they are expected to be ordered to close on Saturday.” (As reported by Niv Elis)


2014:”The State Department confirmed today that weapons shipments to Israel would be undergoing additional review due to the war in Gaza, but denied reports that the Pentagon had engaged in weapons transfers to Israel behind the back of the White House and State Department.” (As reported by Rebecca Shimoni Stoil)


2014: “Today, the South African Jewish Board of Deputies (SAJBD) initiated both criminal and civil charges against Tony Ehrenreich, provincial secretary of the Western Cape branch of the Congress of South African Trade Unions, for hate speech and incitement to violence against the Jewish community’s leadership” when he wrote “The time has come to say very clearly that if a woman or child is killed in Gaza, then the Jewish board of deputies, who are complicit, will feel the wrath of the People of SA with the age old biblical teaching of an eye for an eye,” he wrote. “The time has come for the conflict to be waged everywhere the Zionist supporters fund and condone the war killing machine of Israel.”


2014(18th of Av, 5774): Eighty-year old Leonard J. Fein the Jewish man of letters who founded and edited Moment Magazine and who was the brother of Rashi Fein passed away today.




2015: Shira Garielov, the Israeli musician who “was kicked off American Idol” and is working on “her second LP for the Israeli market” is scheduled to perform at Arlene’s Grocery.”


2015: An exhibition featuring the work of Haifa born artist Guy Yanai is scheduled to come to an end today.


 

 


 


 


 


 


 

This Day, August 15, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. Levin

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August 15


423: Honorious Flavius, the Western Roman Emperor who confiscated gold and silver which had been collected by the synagogues to be sent to Jerusalem and “defined Judaism as an unworthy superstition  passed away today.


1096: The armies of the First Crusade set out from Europe to deliver Jerusalem from the occupying forces of Islamic Turks. Championed by Peter the Hermit in 1093, Pope Urban II had sanctioned the crusade at the Council of Clermont in 1095.


1286: As what the original and 21st tenants of the city might find as an act of usurpation, during the era of the Crusaders, Henry II was name King of Jerusalem succeeding his brother John I whose death he was rumored to have hastened with the use of poison.


1309: Knights of St. John, complete their conquest of Rhodes. Apparently the Knights treatment of the Jewish population was comparatively benign since many Sicilian conversos would move to the island because “they remembered the Knights’’ liberal policy towards the Jews or Rhodes.”


1461: Trapezunt surrenders to the forces of Sultan Mehmet II marking the real end of the Byzantine Empire. The experience of the Jews of Anatolia had been uneven in the days of the Byzantine (Christian) Empire.  The Jews of Constantinople remained in place after the Islamic forces came to power under Mehmet II.


1534: Ignatius of Loyola and six classmates took initial vows that would lead to the creation of the Society of Jesus in September of 1540. In its early days, the Jesuits accepted Jewish converts and their descendants who were known as New Christians were admitted to the order.  After the death of Loyola, the Jesuits adopted the Spanish attitudes and refused to accept New Christians or their descendants as members.


1769: Birthdate of Napoleon Bonaparte.  Napoleon had profound effect on the Jews of Europe.  But if one asks “Was Napoleon good for the Jews” the best answer might be, “It depends.” 


1776(30th of Av, 5536): Rosh Chodesh Elul


1784: In Gorizia, Rabbi Abraham Vita and his wife gave birth to Isaac Samuel Reggio an Austro-Italian scholar and rabbi.


1796: In what may have been the first attempt for a governmental entity to protect Kashrut in the United States, the Common Coincil suppressed the butcher license of Nicholas Smart, a non-Jew, for affixing Jewish seals to non-kosher meats.  Pg 246


1806: Rabbi Joseph David Sinzheim delivered a sermon in the synagogue of Paris in honor of the emperor's birthday that strengthened Napoleon's favorable opinion of the Jews, who received the imperial promise that their rights as French citizens would not be withdrawn.


1815 (9th of Av): Rabbi Joseph Isaac Horowitz, known as “The Chozeh” of Seer of Lublin author of Divrei Emet, passed away.


1819: Birthdate of Joseph Jacob Goldmark, the Hungarian physician who came to the United States after the failed revolution of 1848 where he discovered red phosphorous and became the father-in-law of Louis Brandeis and Felix Adler.


1830: Birthdate of Henry Aaron Isaacs who became sheriff of London and was knighted in 1887 and was elected Lord Mayor of London two years later.


1838(24th of Av, 5598): German businessman Moses Moser whose business associates included Moses Friedländer and Moritz Robert and who was a close personal friend of Heinrich Heine passed away today in Berlin.


1842: Charles Henry Churchill, the British Consul in Damascus whose area of responsibility included Palestine, delivered his formal proposal to Sir Moses Montefiore concerning the role of Jews in the Middle East.  A Zionist before Zionism existed, Churchill proposed “that the Jews of England conjointly with their brethren on the Continent of Europe should make an application to the British Government through the Earl of Aberdeen to accredit and send out a fit and proper person to reside in Syria for the sole and express purpose of superintending and watching over the interests of the Jews residing in that country.” Charles Churchill was the grandfather of Sir Winston Churchill.


1849: Joseph Seligman and Babette Seligman gave birth to Helene Seligman who became Helene Spiegelberg when she married Emanuel Spiegelberg.


1854: M.H. Bresslau began serving as editor of The Jewish Chronicle (New Series) and Working Man's Friend" an Anglo-Jewish newspaper which he renamed “The Jewish Chronicle and Hebrew Observer."


1854: In Hesse, Levi Hoechster and Betty Hoechster gave birth to Max Hester.


1855(1st of Elul, 5615): Rosh Chodesh Elul


1857: Birthdate of Albert Ballin, the German-born businessman who served a general manager of the Hamburg America (Shipping) Line.


1861: Ralph Disraeli, the brother of Benjamin Disraeli, and Katherine Trevor were married today in Middlesex, England.


1865: It was reported today that "A letter in the Journal de Posen alleges that the official journals, not daring to support the accusations launched by the Moscow Gazette against the Polish nobility, imputing to them the recent fires in Lithuania, and, on the other hand, feeling it necessary to throw the blame upon somebody, represent the Jews as the authors of these disasters. According to the official journals, the Jews, having first insured their houses for a sum superior to their real value, themselves set fire to the buildings to pocket the difference. If this criminal calculation has been made in certain cases, the supposition of its existence cannot give an explanation of all the disasters of this nature that have lately taken place; for, although insurance against fire is much practiced in Lithuania and Ruthenia, it is to be seen only in the more important towns, while a great number of fires have broken out even in the smallest towns.


1868: S.A. Bierfield was lynched by the K.K.K. in Franklin Tenn. According to some, this was the first such incident involving a Jew. “A masked mob of Ku Klux Klansmen broke into the dry goods store of S. A. Bierfield, a Russian Jew, in Franklin, Tennessee, and fatally shot both Bierfield and his Black clerk, Lawrence Bowman. The reason given by the lynchers was a false charge of Bierfield's implication in a murder a few days earlier. But as the New York Times reported about a week later, the real reason for the lynching was that Bierfield was "an intelligent advocate of the present reconstruction policy of Congress and a friend to the freedmen of his neighborhood, among whom--he being a merchant--he commanded quite a trade, and perhaps found it expedient to keep one from among their number in his employ." A Nashville newspaper account stated that Bierfield was "an active and prominent Republican, having considerable influence with the colored people. . . . Our informant says that was his only crime"

http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=26256707



1871: Jacob Levi a German Jew swindled Alois Grieshaber out of $545 today using a form of the “pigeon drop.”  Grieshaber eventually discovered the swindle and went to the police.  Levi, who had become wealthy as a swindler, was tried, convicted and sent to Sing Sing Prison in 1872.


1873: John J. Malloy, Chief of the Brooklyn Police, notified police in several “Western cities” to be on the lookout for Emil Lowenstein, a German Jewish barber who sometimes uses the alias of Livingston.  Lowenstein is wanted in connection with his part in the murder of John Weston.  The governor of New York has offered a $500 reward for his capture.  Police believe that Mrs. Weston was a confederate in the plan and that she planned to run off with Lowenstein once they had murdered Mr. Weston and taken his money.


1873: “England’s New Master of the Rolls,” an article published today reports on the announcement that Sir George Jessel will soon be serving as the new Master of the Rolls. The Master of the Rolls dates back to the 13th century and “is the second most senior judge in England and Wales, after the Lord Chief Justice”. When he assumes the office later this month, Jessel will be the first Jew to serve in this capacity. The Jewish Chronicle noted the irony of Jessel’s appointment.  At one time the Master of the Rolls was officially known as “the Guardian of the Converted Jews” but thanks to a changed in the Judicature Act such is no longer the case. Jessel was the son of a coral merchant named Zadok Aaron who graduated from the University College London because his religion kept him from attending either Oxford or Cambridge.


1877: The funeral of Rabbi J.J. Lyon took place at the 19th Street Synagogue today. Albert Cardozo, father of future Supreme Court Justice Benjamin Cardozo was one of the pallbearers.


1878(1st of Elul, 5547): Rosh Chodesh Elul


1879: In Belarus, Zvi Mileikowsky and Liba Gitl Milikovsky gave birth to Rabbi Nathan Mileikowsky the father of historian Benzion Netanyahu and the grandfather of Yonatan Netanyahu of blessed memory (the Hero of Entebbe) and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.


1879: According to reports published today police still do not feel like they have the true story surrounding the shooting of Harris Levy, a 28 Polish Jew who worked as a night watchman for a workshop owned by Louis Soloman, a manufacturing tailor.  Levy claims he was shot by an unknown assailant.  The police think the wound was self-inflicted.  However, they cannot find any evidence that it was suicide and Soloman believes the story about the burglar since his workshop was robbed 5 or 6 weeks ago.


1879: Justice C.W. Chocrane found Adolph D. Pollack, a Jew from White Plains, NY, guilty of having sold merchandize on Sunday, in violation of the law.  Chochrane suspended the sentence because it was Pollack’s first offense, but warned the defendant not to open his store again on Sunday.


1879: It was reported today that Lord Salisbury, British Foreign Minister, feels that it is time for Romania to fulfill to honor its commitments to improve the situation of its Jews since the autonomy the country enjoys was conditional on these promises.


1880: It was reported today that Silesia has a population of 3,800,000 of which 47,000 are Jewish.


1881: It was reported today that M.J. Butler, the proprietor of the Manson House donated the use of the hotel’s dining room for the concert that had been held to raise funds for a cemetery in Long Branch, NJ, that will be open to all regardless of faith or financial status.


1881: “Jews in Germany” published today described the pervasive anti-Semitism in that country that stands in stark contrast to the theme of the “Nathan the Wise” which is a popular German theatrical production.


1882(30th of Av, 5642): Rosh Chodesh Elul


1882: “Mr. Cox’s Wild Eloquence” published today provided a summary of speech by Representative Samuel S. Cox that he delivered during the last session of Congress in which he “eloquently” reviewed “the atrocities perpetrated on the Jews of Russia” and concluded “with an appeal for help and sympathy from America” to help the Jews overcome their plight.


1883: An unnamed British Jew representing a London business firm was expelled from Russia today even though he was carrying a British Passport.


1883: Among those receiving funds from the Board of Estimate and Apportionment was the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society which got $1,896.85.


1884: “Doom of the Ghetto at Rome” published today described the crumbling condition of the former Jewish quarter.  Paul IV was the first Pope to move the Jews across the river into “somber Tower of Marcellus.  He was the same Pope who used to force the Jews to listen to annual sermons on Holy Cross Day in hopes that they would convert.


1885: In Kalamazoo, Michigan, “Hungarian-born Jewish storekeeper, Jacob Charles Ferber, and his Milwaukee, Wisconsin-born wife, Julia (Neumann) Ferber” gave birth to Pulitzer prize winning author Edna Ferber who works included Show Boat, Giant and Cimarron– big books that treated big topics.

1886: Based on information that first appeared in the Hebrew Standard it was reported today that a young Jewish lady “refused to play at a game of kissing forfeits, giving as her reason the quotation ‘Let the men that sacrifice kiss the calves’ (Hosea, XII, 2)”


1887: It was reported today that Israel Lipski has been granted a reprieve from the hangman’s rope.


1887(25th of Av, 5647): Sixty-seven year old Danish author Meïr Aron Goldschmidt whose works included A Jew, “the first novel to provide an” an insider’s “description of the Copenhagen Jewish milieu” passed away today.


1888: Congressman Ford’s Immigration Committee heard testimony today in New York from Daniel Harris a journeyman cigar maker who testified on the impact of foreigners on his business.  In the past two decades foreigners have gone from being 10 per cent of the cigar makers to being 90 percent.  Wages have gone from fifty dollars a week to twelve dollars a week.  He blames part of this one the arrival of thousands of Russian and Polish Jews many of whom have their tickets to the United States by charitable organizations.


1888: Birthdate of Girsh Yankelovich Brilliant who as Grigori Yakovlovich Sokolnikov became a leading Bolshevik who would be murdered by Stalin during the purges of the 1930’s


1888: In Vienna Leopold Leopoldi (whose name was Kohn before he changed it) and his wife gave birth to Herman Leopoldi the Austrian composer and performer who survived Buchenwald.


1890: Jacob Levy was delivered to the City of London lunatic asylum, Stone, in Kent, as an insane person. Born in 1856, at Aldgate to Joseph and Caroline Levy, he was a butcher who was a suspect in the Jack the Ripper Cases.


1890: The Jewish Messenger reported that Mr. Lippman Levy has left New York and returned to Cincinnati, Ohio.


1890(29thof Av, 5650): Montagu Meyer Gluckstein, the German born husband of Betsey Gluckstein passed away today in London


1890: It was reported today that Mount Sinai Temple has elected Godfrey Taubenhaus as rabbi


1891: Congregants at the House of Miriam in Long Branch, NJ, donated approximately $165 in response to today’s appeal made by Rabbi William H. Karuskopf.


1891: In London, the lead article in the Daily News deals with “the question of the Jews of Russia.”


1891: “Russian Refugees” published today described the difficulties faced by the Jewish immigrants from Russia who had been sent to Hightstown, NJ by the Baron Hirsch Fund.  Wallach & Sons of New York opened a shirt factory there and agreed to hire them as workers.  However, none of them have any experience and do not like the work.  They have complained to Jesse Seligman about conditions, but Seligman has expressed the feeling that those who are complaining are a few malcontents who do not want to work.


1892: “Orthodox or Reform?” published today described main issue that will be dealt with when a “conclave of Rabbis gathers in New York in October.  The Reform have clashed with the Orthodox by adopting a resolution making performance of “the Abrahamic rite” (circumcision) optional for those wanting to convert to Judaism.  The change championed by the Reform movement grew out of the fact that the daughter of Rabbi Wise, their leader, had married her physician, Dr. Maloney, who was Catholic.  Maloney said he would convert but he would not submit to circumcision.  According to the Orthodox, it was at that point that Rabbi Wise decided that the “Abrahamic rite” was optional.


1892: Meyer Reinherz of the of the United Hebrew Charities appeared in the Essex Market Police Court as the complainant in the case again Edward Pollock, an Austro-Hungarian reporter who had written several articles about Ellis Island and the Jewish boarding houses


1892: “A Wedding of Midgets” published today described the courtship and marriage of Leopold Kahn and Lottie Naomi Swartwood.  The 48 inch tall Jewish comedian met the 49 inch tall love of his life in Philadelphia where he was performing with the American Lilliputian Company. They overcame the obstacle of religion when she agreed to convert before they married and took the name Naomi which she incorporated into her secular name.


1892: “Will Not Object to Crosses” published today described the decision of Russian Jews who are the members of the Erie Street Congregation in Cleveland, Ohio to rent a hall from the Young Men’s Christian Association for use during Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.  It was agreed that “inasmuch as the crosses were more than twenty feet above the hall…and there were no crosses in the decoration in the room itself” there was no reason not to rent the room which will provide the needed space for the upcoming High Holiday services.


1893: The police promise to keep Hester and Mulberry Streets clear of all peddlers and vendors, many of whom are Jewish, after having conducting a successful operation to remove all such obstacles.


1895: While stopping at the Union Square Hotel Senor Segundo Alvarez, the Mayor of Havana blamed the troubles in Cuba on American adventures including Carlos Roloff, “a Polish Jew” who has gotten funding from “the cigar-makers of Key West” whom some “say has landed in Cuba with a thousand men, guns and ammunition and dynamite.


1896: In Prague, Martha and Otto Radnitz, the manager of a sugar refinery, gave birth to “Dr. Gerty Theresa Radnitz Cori was the first American woman to receive the Nobel Prize for Medicine and Physiology, in 1947, which was shared with her husband, Dr. Carl F. Cori, and Dr. B.A. Houssay of Argentina.” (As reported by Jewish Virtual Library)


1897: It was reported today that Joseph Barondess has started a new labor organization in opposition to the Hebrew Trades and the Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance.


1897: “The Jewish State Idea” published today described the history of Jewish settlement in Palestine and the challenges facing the Zionists as they meet at Basle.


1897: “The Adaptiveness of the Jew” published today summarizes an article by Professor A.S. Isaacs that first appeared in the August issue of the North American Review in which he said that “critic of Judaism…must familiarize himself with the history of the Jew in every land” in which he has lived.  And then “he must account for that marvelous vitality…which has made the Jew at home whether” on the banks of the Vistula, the Thames or the Euphrates or “amid the orange groves of Sicily or the plains of Arabia.


1898: “Bad Water Kills Orphans” published today described the efforts to care for those at the Hebrew Orphan Asylum who have become ill during the latest outbreak of dysentery in the neighborhood which has been attributed to polluted city water.


1899: In Washington, DC, the Treasurer of the Dewey Home Fund received a letter and a contribution of ten dollars from Mrs. Lizzie A. Cohen, Treasurer of the Woman’s Democratic Club of Salt Lake City which did not surprise him since the Jews have “contributed liberally” to this cause from the beginning.


1898: The fifteenth and final codicil for the will of Clara, Baroness von Hirsch, formerly Bischoffsheim, the widow of Baron Moritz von Hirsch which declares that her estate should be administered in Vienna under the terms of Austrian law is filed and attested to.


1899: As passions flare in France during the second court martial of Captain Dreyfus Bonapartists and Oreleanists held rallies and dinners during which they challenged the very existence of the French Republic. (These divisions are meaningless today.  In a nutshell, these were two right wing groups seeking to bring down the republican government and replace it with a monarch.  Of course, each group wanted their own candidate to fill the job.  The important thing to remember is that while Jews focus on the anti-Semitic aspect of the Dreyfus Affair, it really was part of a larger conflict between republicans and reactionaries.  The last act of this dreadful conflict would be played out at Vichy and Drancy four decades later)


1899:The Third Zionist Congress begins meeting in Basel.


1899: The American delegation at today’s Third Zionist Congress includes Professor Richard Gottheil of Columbia University and his wife, Miss Eva Leon, Rabbi Stephen Wise, Rabbi Marcus Jastrow of Philadelphia, Henrietta Szold of Baltimore and William Schurr of Chicago.


1899:”Would-Be Suicide Shaming” published today described the condition of Abraham Reinold who has been a patient at Georgetown Hospital ever since he tried to shoot himself while visiting Washington, DC. 


1902: Birthdate of Iris Margaret Origo, an Anglo-Irish writer who helped to save Jewish children through the kindertransport including the painter Frank Helmut Auerbach.


1907(5th of Elul, 5667): Seventy-six year old violinist and composer Joseph Joachim passed away.

1911: B’Nai Brith contributes $3,382 to Jews who have suffered during the fires that raged through Constantinople.


1911: The 10th Zionist Congress elects Professor Otto Warburg, Dr. Hantke, Dr. Shmaryahu Levin, Hahum Sokolow and Victor Jacobsohn as successors to David Wolffsohn


1914:  The Panama Canal opened to traffic.  The territory that made up the nation of Panama had been amputated from Columbia in a revolution supported, if not created, by the United States so that a canal could be built.  Panama has a very old Jewish community.  When the Canal opened there were about six hundred Jews, mostly Sephardic, living in Panama.  Panama is the only country, with the exception of Israel, to have elected two Jews as President.


1915(5th of Elul, 5675): Albert Bettelhein, journalist and author, convicted by a Georgia jury of murder, was lynched by an anti-Semitic mob.


1915(5thof Elul, 5675): In Frankfurt am Main 62 year old Karl Ferdinand Moritz Flesch passed away.


1915(5thof Elul, 5675): Ninety year old Sarah Blumenthal, who was living with her Mr. and Mrs. Solomon Shillon, her son-in-law and daughter and her granddaughter Fanny “was killed last night when she accidently “feel from a window of her room on the 5th floor of an apartment house at 34 West 116thStreet.”


1915: Robert Moses married “Mary Louise Sims, of Dodgeville, Wisconsin, the granddaughter of the Reverend George Sims, a Methodist circuit rider.


1915: In Asbury Park, NJ, a crowd of more than 200 people heard several prominent rabbis say that “the very fate of the Jewish race in Continental Europe and Palestine depends in large measure on America’s response to the Old World’s entreaties” for financial aid.


1915: “An Inside View of Russia in War Time” published today provided a review of Russia and the Great War by Gregor Alexinsky including the worsening conditions under which the Jews are living.

1915: “Russia’s Expulsion of Jews” published today described “the horrors wrought by a decree that forced 200,000” Jews to “leave the War Zone” with almost no warning.


1915: The original Broadway production of “The Blue Paradise” with music by Signmund Romberg and Edmund Eysler opened at the Casino Theatre.


1915: “Miss Theresa Dreyfus of New York, who has recently returned from Jerusalem” where she “said thousands of male Jews had allied to the Moslem war colors while their women and children remained at home in poverty and misery.”


1917: It was reported today that labor leader Samuel Gompers was unexpectedly “denounced at a workingmen’s council.”


1918: Birthdate of Sanford Daniel Garelik, the first Jewish chief inspector of the New York Police Department.  Garelik graduated from the Police Academy in 1940 along with Gertrude Schimmel who became the first female and the first Jewish female deputy chief of police.1919: Birthdate of Stanley Frazen, “a longtime film and television editor who was a member of the Army Air Forces' First Motion Picture Unit during World War II.”


1921: Birthdate of August Marian Kowalczyk, the Polish actor and director who “was the last survivor of a breakout from Auschwitz on June 10, 1942.”


1922: Birthdate of sculptor and printmaker Leonard Baskin.


1924: In Brooklyn, Dr Henry and Celia Kresky gave birth to Edward Mordecai Kresky  “an investment banker who was an architect of the debit refinancing plan that saved New York City from bankruptcy in the 1970’s” (As reported by Paul Vitello.


1925: Charlie Chaplin in "The Gold Rush" opens with a gala performance at .


1926: Birthdate of Sami Michael, the left wing native of Baghdad who in 1949 came to Israel where he became an author and the President of The Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI).


1926: The Chevra Kadisha, at its last meeting here, decided to contribute a sum of 5,000 pesos to the Palestine campaign. At the same time, it decided to contribute a sum of 500 pesos to the Jewish Colonization work in Russia. (As reported by JTA)


1928: In Rochester, NY Abraham and Hannah Glazer gave birth to their fifth child Malcolm Irving Glazer the CEO of First Allied Corporation who owned two football teams – Manchester United (soccer) and Tampa Bay Buccaneers (NFL)


1929(9th of Av, 5689): Tish'a B'Av


1929: Several hundred members of Joseph Klausner's Committee for the Western Wall, among them members of Vladimir Jabotinsky's Revisionist Zionism movement Betar youth organisation, under the leadership of Jeremiah Halpern, assembled at the Western Wall. They raised the Jewish national flag and sang the Hatikvah. The authorities had been notified of the march in advance and provided a heavy police escort in a bid to prevent any incidents.


1933: In Prague, the Conference of the Women's International Zionist Organization (Wizo), attended by 103 delegates from 19 countries, came to a close after hearing that its membership is now 50,000; adopts budget of £47,000, and approves resolutions encouraging immigration into Palestine of German-Jewish youth, especially those of the middle classes, urging more certificates for girl immigrants, and equal rights for women.


1933: In New York City Romanian born Adele (née Israel), and Hungarian-born baker, Samuel Milgram gave birth to social psychologist Stanley Milgram.


1933: In Bucharest.—M. Pandrei, Under-Secretary of the Ministry of Education, in an interview with the press, denies that the Government intends to establish a “numerus clauses” in the universities of Romania, and announces that owing to a lack of laboratory facilities, a general limitation of students is contemplated.


1934: Premiere of “Bulldog Drummond Strikes Back,” a comedic murder mystery with a script co-authored by Henry Lehman and music by Alfred Newman.


1935: “Alice Adams” produced by Pandro S. Berman with music by Max Steiner was released in the United States today by RKO.


1935:  Humorist Will Rogers and aviator Wiley Post were killed when their airplane crashed near Point Barrow, Alaska.  Rogers was one of the most popular celebrities of his time.  His radio shows, movies and columns were devoured by millions of Americans.  This son of the American Plains got his first big break when Flo Ziegfield featured him in the famous Zigfield Follies.  According to legend, he took away Will’s horse, left him with a rope and the wit that became his trademarks.


1937: Sha’ar HaNeveg (which was renamed Kfar Szold) a new agricultural village east of Gedera was established. It was the 17th village to be settled in 1937.  Kfar Szold was only two hundred yards from the Syrian border.  In January, 1948, even before the state of Israel had been created, the Syrian army attacked the settlement in a determined effort to destroy it and kill the inhabitants.  Nine hundred Syrian soldiers attacked a settlement manned by fewer than hundred defenders.  After a spirited defense, the British army, for once, intervened on behalf of the Jews and the Syrians withdrew.


1937: Lord Melchett, Prof. L. Namier, H. Sacher, M. Ussishkin, Dr. S. Wise, Berl Katznelson, Dov Hos, Rabbi Berlin, Dr. Glickson, and Franz Bernstein joined the Advisory Commission, formed to assist the new Zionist Executive to negotiate the country’s partition under the Royal (Peel) Commission¹s scheme.


1937(8th of Elul, 5697):Solomon Wander, one of the first Jewish immigrants to form the Jewish community in Albany. New York passed away at the age of 71.


1937: The New York Times describes the growing tension in Palestine on the streets of Jerusalem and Haifa and the British response which includes the recommendation by a Royal Commission for "a surgical operation" on Palestine which will result in the creation of a Jewish State, an Arab State and a new British mandate over Jerusalem with a corridor to the sea.


1938: “The Gladiator” a comedy produced by David L. Loew with a script by Arthur Sheekman and music by Victor Young was released in the United States by Columbia Pictures.


1938: Birthdate of Lewis E. “Lew” Lehrman the founder of Rite Aid Drugstore and the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History who ran for Governor of New York in 1982 on the Republican ticket.


1938:  In San Francisco, CA, Anne A. and Irving G. Breyer gave birth to Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer.


1938: As Arab violence spirals to new levels of intensity, “six Jews were killed and two, both women, were seriously injured near Haifa this afternoon when a bus going to Mount Carmel was ambushed by Arabs while passing through a forest. It is believed several of those killed were Jewish special policemen.” A bomb was detonated on the road running between Herzliah and Raananh wounding some of the 25 workers in a truck bound for a local orange grove.  Several other acts of violence and sabotage took place including a bomb-throwing episode on the streets of Tel Aviv.


1938: Paul Ferdinand Strassmann, the Jewish born German gynecologist who became a Protestant, passed away.


1939: “The Wizard of Oz” the classical musical produced by Mervyn LeRoy with music by Harold Arlen and lyrics by Yip Harburg “both of whom won the Academy Award for Best Orginal Song for ‘Over the Rainbow’”had its Hollywood Premiere at Grauman’s Chinese Theater.


1939(30th of Av, 5699): Rosh Chodesh Elul


1941:  Heinrich Lohse, Reich commissioner for Eastern Territories of the Ostland (Eastern Europe) region, decrees that Jews must wear two yellow badges, one on the chest and one on the back; that Jews cannot own automobiles or radios; and that their presence in public places will be severely proscribed.


1941 A Jewish ghetto is established at Riga, Latvia.


1941: Last of the remaining 25,000 Jews in Kovno were removed to Viampole. Each is allotted three square feet of living space.


1941: Six hundred Jews are taken from Stawiski and shot in nearby woods.


1941: A massacre begins at Rokiskis that leaves 3,200 men, women and children, shot by the next evening.


1942: On Shabbat, “the Germans entered the ghetto in the village of Zagrodski, ordering the Jews to leave their houses for a roll call” and then left to stand outside all day without any food or water.


1942: This evening, “a truck arrived at the ghetto in the village of Zagrodski. “The Jews were ordered on to it, and drove out of the ghetto. Those for whom there had been no room on the truck were ordered to run after it. For the rest of the tale of the ensuring slaughter read http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/einsatz/rytest.html


1942: The Germans open Jawiszowice, a slave-labor camp located near Auschwitz.


1942: One thousand Belgian Jews, including 172 children, are deported to their deaths in the East.


1943: Nearly 1000 French Jews of Polish birth are deported to a slave-labor camp on Alderney, one of the British Channel Islands seized in 1940 by Germany, and are put to work building fortifications. Hundreds of the Jews die due to ill treatment and exhaustion


1944: “Operation Dragoon,” the Allied invasion of southern France in which former B-17 pilot Bruce Sundlin served as a bombardment spotter for the OSS, began today.


1944: “Children standing behind the ghetto fence in Lodz, Poland.”

1945:  V.J. Day – Victory over Japan Day is proclaimed by the Allies after having received official word of that the Japanese had indeed surrendered.


 1947: With the end of the British rule of the Indian subcontinent, two new nations declared the independence.  One was Islamic Pakistan; the other was India which while heavily Hindu retained a large Islamic population.  India’s relations with Israel have been a mixed bag.  In the early days, under Nehru, the Indian government was anti-Israel, taking the lead, for example in denying it admittance to the Bandung Conference.  In more recent times, relations between the two states and their citizens have improved.


1947: Following today’s division of the Indian sub-continent into two states, Indian airlines responded to the Prime Minister Nehru’s request that they fly Hindus living in Pakistan to India.  Among those participating was Abie Nathan who was a co-pilot for one of the Indian airlines. 


1948(10th of Av, 5708): Tish’a B’Av observed since the 9th of Av fell on Shabbat


1948(10th of Av, 5708): As Israel fights for her independence Tish'a B'Av is observed today because the 9th of Av fell on Shabbat.


1948: Mitchell Flint, a WW II naval combat pilot who had planned to celebrate his graduation UC-Berkley by attending the Olympics in London but chose to fly for the IAF “out of concern for the plight of Holocaust survivors” flew his first two missions today – the first involving “a search for a last aircraft” and the second being an “attempted interception” of an enemy aircraft.


1948: In Iraq, a leading Jewish businessman, Shafiq Adas was hanged on trumped up charges of treason.  His body was mutilated by a crowd of on-lookers.


1948: Two Israeli and two Arab soldiers were killed during a second unsuccessful Arab attack on the Mandelbaum House a key defensive point in Jerusalem.


1949(20th of Av, 5709): Fanny Binswanger Hoffman passed away. (As reported by Selma Weintraub, a past national president of the Women’s League for Conservative Judaism)

1950: In Indianapolis, Indiana, Anne and Wolf Rosenblum gave birth to Gail Sue Rosenblum who gained fame as Gaylen Ross “American actress, writer, producer and director” who produced the awarded “Killing Kasztner”(For more see Gaylen Ross’s award winning documentary “Killing Kasztner: The Jew Who Dealt With Nazis” http://www.killingkasztner.com/


1951: Prime Minister David Ben Gurion's plan to take control of the Zionist movement outside of Israel from political parties and transfer it to non-partisan regional organizations was attacked here today by delegates to the twenty-third World Zionist Congress.


1951(13th of Av, 5711): Pianist and composer Artur Schnabel passed away.

1951: The last inmates of Bergen-Belsen left the camp on their way to the United States. Bergen- Belsen was originally set up in 1943. Many of its inmates were Jewish prisoners who had dual citizenship with Latin American countries or entry permits to Palestine. A few hundred were used by the Germans for prisoner exchanges. Though not a death camp per se, over 51,000 people died there including Anne Frank.


1951: In Philadelphia, premiere of “His Kind of Woman” directed by Richard Fleischer


1953: Seventy-seven year old Reinhold Quaatz the German right wing politician “who endorsed anti-Semitic policies” despite the fact that his mother was Jewish and avoided the Holocaust passed away today.


1959(11thof Av, 5719): Shabbat Nachamu


1959: As the Los Angeles Dodgers made a surprising run for the National League pennant ‘Larry Sherry walloped three hits, including his first home run, and pitched eight and two-thirds innings of scoreless relief ball today in leading the second place Los Angeles Dodgers to a 4-3 decision over the Cardinals.”


1960: It was reported today that “some quiet talk in the corridors of the U.N. here and in the Foreign Ministry in Buenos Aires may lead soon to restoration of full diplomatic relations between Israel and Argentina which had soured after “the two countries had clashed bitterly over the abduction of Adolf Eichmann.”


1961: Elections were held today for the fifth Knesset Ben-Gurion’s Mapai came in first with 34.7% of the vote which earned 42 seats.  Herut, led by Menachem Begin and Liberal  led by Peretz Bernstein tied for second with each getting a little more than 13% of the vote which translated into 17 seats for each party.


1961: “The Lawbreakers” with music by Johnny Mandel who wrote the theme for MASH (Suicide is Painless) and featuring Jay Adler as “Abe Hirsch” was released in Germany today.


1968:  In Brooklyn, “Sandra (née Simons), who has worked as a professional singer, banker, travel and real estate agent, and Brian Messing, a sales executive for a costume jewelry packaging manufacturer” gave birth to actress Debra Messing who plays Grace, “the Jewish interior designer” on the television show Will and Grace.


1969(1stof Elul, 5729): Rosh Chodesh Elul


1969(1stof Elul, 5729): Sixty-six year old movie producer William B. “Bill” Goetz, the husband of Edith Mayer,  who was one of the founders of what is now 20th Century Fox and who had a stormy relationship with is father-in-law Louis B. Mayer passed away today



1969: The Woodstock Music and Art Fair, which became the iconoclastic hippie happening simply known as Woodstock, began today in Bethel, NY, at the farm of Jewish dairyman Max B. Yagur.


1971(24thof Av, 5731): Eighty-year old Paul Lukas, the Budapest born Jew Pál Lukács, who won the Oscar for Best Actor for his role in the anti-fascist drama Watch on the Rhine passed away today in Morocco.


1971: A new paperback version of Tillie Olsen's classic short story collection Tell Me a Riddle was issued


1973: Black September, the Palestinian terror group, kills 3 and wounds 55 in Athens


1976: It was reported today that “in preparation for the raid on Entebbe Airport, Israeli intelligence officers allegedly hypnotized several previously-released hostages” one of whom “was able to give helpful physical details of the airport” where the terrorists were holding their captives.


1976: The National Convention of Hadassah is scheduled to open today in Washington, DC.


1977: The Arabs in the administered territories and neighboring countries continued to dismiss the Israeli government’s decision to equalize the standard services on the West Bank and in Gaza as one more step toward annexation. Israeli opposition, the Alignment and the Democratic Movement for a Change, dismissed the plan, claiming that Israel could not afford to give residents of the administered territories services equal to those enjoyed by Israelis. The new prime minister, Menachem Begin called upon the Labor Opposition to support his government if and when Israel would be pressed to accept the PLO as a negotiating peace-talks partner.


1980: “The Girl in the Book” by Primo Levi was published for the first time in La Stampa.


1983(6th of Elul, 5743): Eighty-eight year old Benjamin V. Cohen a member of FDR’s “Brain Trust” who stayed on to work with Harry S. Truman passed away.  (As reported by Marjorie Hunter)


1984: A car bomb was discovered on Ben Yehuda Street in Jerusalem and defused about 10 minutes before it was to have exploded. In the car were about 12 kilograms of explosives and another three kilograms of iron nails.


1984: “Buckaroo Banzai” a sci-fi film co-starring Ellen Barkin and Jeff Goldblum was released in the United States by 20th Century Fox.


1986: “The Fly” a remake of an early version the sci-fi thriller directed by David Cronenberg with music by Howard Shore and starring Jeff Goldblum was released in the United States today 20th Century Fox.


1986: “Manhunter” a “crime thriller” directed by Michael Mann who also wrote the script was released in the United States today by De Laurentiis Entertainment Group.


1986: “Armed and Dangerous” a comedy produced Brian Grazer who co-authored the script along with Harold Ramis and co-starring Eugene Levy was released in the United States by Columbia Pictures.


1992: Giorgio Perlasca, an Italian businessman who saved more than 3,000 Jews from deportation to Nazi concentration camps in World War II, passed away today at his home in Padua, Italy. He was 82 years old. Mr. Perlasca died of a heart attack, The Associated Press reported. Trapped in Budapest late in the war by the fall of the fascist Italian Government, Mr. Perlasca, a livestock trader, joined in a plan conceived by international relief workers and diplomats from neutral countries to save as many Jews as possible from the Nazis. When the Spanish diplomatic representative fled Budapest in November 1944, Mr. Perlasca, who had been a volunteer in Franco's army in the Spanish Civil War, persuaded Hungary to accept him as the Spanish representative, and in two months he issued travel documents to thousands of Jews to save them from deportation. In 1987 Mr. Perlasca, whose achievements had gone largely unnoticed, was made an honorary citizen of Israel and was honored by the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial Museum there. In 1990 he received the Medal of Remembrance of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council. A tall, quiet man, Mr. Perlasca told The Jerusalem Post in 1987 that he had been motivated by neither religion nor politics. "I couldn't ignore it," he said. "I did what I had to do. I was lucky. I had friends among the Jews who were being killed by the Nazis. That gave me courage."


1993: TraveldoctorOnline commemorated “the 55th anniversary of the death of the Berlin gynecologist Prof. Paul Ferdinand Strassmann. In the first half of the 20th century, Strassmann was one of the leading specialists of plastic surgery of the female genital tract. Famous gynecologists and surgeons, e.g. the Mayo brothers, visited the Strassmann clinic in the Schumannstrasse with the aim of learn new surgical techniques. The present paper aims to outline particularly the life of Paul F. Strassmann but also his importance in the creation of modern gynecological surgery.”
1996(30th of Av, 5756): Rosh Chodesh Elul
1997: “Event Horizon” a sci-fi film co-starring Jason Isaacs with music by Michael Kamen was released in the United States today by Paramount Pictures.
1998: The curtain came down tonight on a three month revival of Neil Simon’s “Sweet Charity” at London’s Victoria Palace Theatre.
1999: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Edward Albee: A Singular Journey: A Biographyby Mel Gussow and Inside Picture Booksby Ellen Handler Spitz.


2002(7th of Elul, 5762): Haim Yosef Zadok a native of Galicia who made Aliyah in 1935 and served as Jurist and political leader, passed away.


2003: Stan Lee voiced the character “Frank Elson” in the broadcast of an episode of “Spider Man” titled “mind games.”


2003: “In Doctor Writes ‘Epic Saga’ of Jews in Medicine,” Max Gross reviewed Jews and Medicine: An Epic Saga by Frank Heynick



2004: The Sunday New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish authors including Dark Voyage by Alan Furst andThe Numbers Game: Baseball's Lifelong Fascination With Statistics by Alan Schwarz


2004: In “Past, Prologue and Paris” published today Alice Steinbach visits the world of the Camondo family and reminds us tenuous the fate of even the most powerful Jews can be.


2005: Deadline for Israeli citizens living in Gaza to accept government compensation packages as part of the voluntary evacuation plan.


2005: The evacuation of Gaza “under Major General Dan Harel of the Southern Command” began at 8 a.m. when “a convoy of security forces entered Neve Deakalim.”


2005:  Haaretzreported that the Israeli Defense Forces unit that is responsible for finding the remains of missing soldiers discovered the burial site of eight soldiers who died during the War of Independence.  The missing eight died in fighting on May 13, 1948 near Kibbutz Nahshon. Their remains have been re-interred in cemeteries on Mount Herzl and Rosh Pina.


2006: The Sony BMG Masterworks label released Jay "Bluejay" Greenberg’s first CD. It includes his Symphony no. 5


2006(21st of Av, 5766): Myriam Fefer, a Jewish businesswoman, was brutally murdered in her home in Lima Peru.


2007(1st of Elul, 5767: Rosh Chodesh Elul; First Day of the month of Elul.  Psalm 27 will be recited from this date through Shemini Atzeres.  Shofar is blown daily at Shacharit except on Shabbat through the penultimate day of the month of Elul.


2007: Yad Vashem posthumously honored a Romanian reserve officer who blocked the deportation of Romanian Jews to Nazi death camps during World War II. Theodor Criveanu joined the Righteous Among the Nations group of non-Jews who rescued Jews from the Nazis. His son, Willie Criveanu, accepted the award on his behalf. Yad Vashem said it could not estimate how many Jews he saved. Criveanu married the daughter of one of the Jews he saved. He died in Romania in 1988.


2008: At the Israel Museum an exhibition entitled “Swords into Plowshares: The Isaiah Scroll and Its Message of Peace” comes to an end.


2008:Bais Chana Jewish Women's Weekend Retreat opens in St. Paul, Minnesota


2008:A Kassam rocket was launched into Israel from the Gaza Strip in the afternoon.


2008:In a letter published today in Corriere della Sera, former Italian President Francesco Cossiga described a "secret 'non-belligerence pact' between the Italian state and Palestinian resistance organizations, including terrorist groups" such as the PFLP. The deal, he said, had been devised by Prime Minister Aldo Moro, who in 1978 was kidnapped and assassinated by the Italian terror group the Red Brigades. The former president says his country had allowed Palestinian terror groups to roam free in exchange for not attacking Italian targets.


2008: Jody Wagner announces her candidacy for Lt. Gov. on the Republican ticket in the state of Virginia.


2008(14th of Av, 5768): Ninety-one year record producer Jerry Wexler who coined the term “rhythm and blues” passed away today. (As reported by Patricia Sullivan)

2009: The 92nd Street Y sponsors Israeli Folk Dance: Summer Marathon 2009.


2009: In Jerusalem, Amit Erez hits the stage at Hama'abada, playing an acoustic show which blends folk and indie style music, influenced by musicians such as Nick Drake and Elliot Smith on the one hand, and Shalom Hanoch on the other. Erez performs songs from his new album, including "Last Night When I Tried to Sleep" and "I Felt the Ocean on my Fingertips."


2009: As part of the activities designed to welcome Rabbi Todd Thalblum and his family to Cedar Rapids, Temple Judah celebrates a special outdoor Havdalah service at Woodpecker Lodge.


2009: A revival “How Now Dow Jones” with a book by Max Shulman, music by Elmer Bernstein and lyrics by Carolyn Leigh opens at the New York International Fringe Festival.


2009:According to a report broadcast today on Voice of Israel government radio wealthy foreign Arabs have bought up hundreds of dunams of land in the Galilee, land, which was owned privately and which was zoned for agricultural use, was sold due to economic hardship.


2010: Defense Minister Ehud Barak gave his approval today for the purchase of the fifth-generation F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) by the Israeli Air Force from the US.


2010: The Washington Post featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Denial: A Memoir of Terror By Jessica Stern



2010: The Los Angeles Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Red Hook Road by Ayelet Waldmanand Quantum: Eisenstein, Bohr and the Great Debate About the Nature of Reality by Manjit Kumar.  [Editor’s note – The only person I know who is smart enough to understand this is Dr. Joe Rosen, so if you have questions write to him not to me.]


2011: The 31st International Conference on Jewish Genealogy (sponsored by the Jewish Genealogy Society of Greater Washington) and the Washingtoniana Division of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Library are scheduled to offer a free talk on "What’s Your Story? An Introduction to Genealogy and Family History"


2011:Hutzot Hayotzer, the popular international arts and crafts fair that has become a Jerusalemite ritual, is scheduled to open today.


2011(15th of Av, 5771): Tu B’Av- Jewish Saidie Hawkins Day


2011:A marble statue of Hercules dating back to the second century C.E. has been found in an archeological dig in northern Israel, Israel's Antiquities Authority announced today. The statue, approximately a meter and half tall, was probably part of the decoration of a bathhouse pool


2011:The Israel Medical Association said in a discussion at the High Court today that it would be willing to hold mediated talks on points of contention with the Ministry of Finance, so long as certain conditions are upheld..


2011: A column entitled “No Loss For Words” published in today’s Sports Illustrated provides a portrait of Marv Levy, the coach who took the Bills to four Super Bowl, and a review of his soon to be published first novel, Between the Lines.


2011: The documentary “Gloria: In Her Own Words” about the life and times of Gloria Steinem premiered on HBO. (As reported by Jewish Women’s Archives)http://jwa.org/thisweek/aug/15/2011/gloria-steinem


2012: The brit of “Baby Boy Sann” the son of Debbie and Ron Sann is scheduled to take place at Adas Israel in Washington, DC


2012: In Boston, MA, Congregation Beth Elohim is scheduled to sponsor an evening of “Jewish Meditation.”


2012: Cantor Regina Heit is scheduled to lead the Learn and Lunch at Temple Emanuel in Denver, CO.


2012: Members of Israel’s national soccer team apologized today for laughing during a lecture the day before on the murder of Hungarian Jewry by the Nazis. Some players tittered during a talk in Budapest, one day before the team’s friendly match against Hungary, the Sport Channel reported today


2012:Egg, milk and chicken prices are expected to rise by up to 17 percent by the end of this year, the Agriculture Ministry forecast today.


2012(27th of Av, 5772): Sixty-eight year old “David M. Lederman, who led the team of scientists that developed the first fully implantable artificial heart — which, although it had limited success, prompted further advances in the treatment of late-stage heart disease” passed away today (As reported by Dennis Hevesi)

 

2013: Israeli jazz guitarist Assaf Kehati and his trio are scheduled to perform at the Bar Next Door in New York City.



2013: Oakland A’s first baseman Nate Freiman had four hits today including a homer and a double.



2013: “Soul Doctor,” a musical based on the life of Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach opened tonight at the Circle in the Square in New York City.



2013: “An archeological team headed by Dr. Alexander Fantalkin of Tel Aviv university has announced the discovery of one of the largest construction projects in the entire Mediterranean basin: a system of fortifications from the 8th century BCE, as well as coins, weights and parts of buildings from the Hellenistic period, have all been found in the archeological dig Tel Ashdod Yam – where the harbor of the philistine city of Ashdod used to be. The site is about 3 miles south of today’s thriving Israeli city of Ashdod.’ (As reported by Yori Yanover)



2013: Documents linked to Oskar Schindler, the German industrialist known for his efforts to save Jews from World War Two concentration camps, were sold at auction for more than $122,000, a New Hampshire auction house said today.



2013: Hebrew University is ranked first in Israel and 59th globally, according to the 2013 Academic Ranking of World Universities released today. (As reported by Lahav Harkov)



2014: Mark Ethan Toporek is scheduled to lead a talk on “Gender Benders” following a screening of “Liberace” at the 92nd Street Y.


2014: In London, The Tricyel Theatre and the UK Jewish Film Festival issued a joint statement saying that the Tricycle’s initial decision to refuse to host the festival “because of the event’s Israeli’s government funding “provoked considerable public upset” and that the theater has “invited back the UK Jewish Film Festival on the same terms as in previous years with no restrictions on funding from the Embassy of Israel in London.” (As reported by JTA)


2014:“After nearly two years of campaigning, millions of dollars spent and one tropical storm that delayed voting in this easternmost corner of Hawaii for nearly a week, Senator Brian Schatz won the Democratic nomination for his seat today defeating his challenger, Representative Colleen Hanabusa, by fewer than 1,800 votes — less than 1 percent of the total cast -- bringing one of the longest and most acrimonious primary contests in the state’s history to an apparent end.” (As reported Ian Lovett)


2014: “Israeli-American athlete Donald Sanford, the husband of Israeli basketball player Danielle Deke., made some Israeli history today when he won a bronze medal in the 400 meter dash in the European Athletics Championships in Zurich, Switzerland – the first running medal for Israel in the history of the championships.” (Times Of Israel)


2014: Even as the cease fire seems to be holding for another day, Israel's Davis Cup tie against Argentina originally scheduled for Tel Aviv next month has been moved to Florida, the International Tennis Federation (ITF) said today.


2014: In Zurich, American-Israeli sprinter Donald Sanford won the bronze medal in the 400 metres sprint at the European Athletic Championships which “he dedicated to the IDF.”


2014: Nate Freimans “61-game errorless streak, the seventh-longest first baseman errorless streak in Oakland history” came to an end today.


2015(30thof Av, 5774): Rosh Chodesh Elul


2015: Tenth anniversary of the Israeli evacuation from Gaza. 


2015: The friends, family and fans of Gaylen Ross “American actress, writer, producer and director” who produced the awarded “Killing Kasztner” are scheduled to join in celebrating a “milestone birthday."
(For more see Gaylen Ross’s award winning documentary “Killing Kasztner: The Jew Who Dealt With Nazis” http://www.killingkasztner.com/


2015: One hundred thirtieth anniversary of the birth of Edna Ferber.





2015: The 2015 MoCCA Arts Festival Awards of Excellence Exhibit featuring the works of Israeli illustrator Keren Katz is scheduled to come to an end today.


2015: The Havdalah Bike Ride, a six mile event is scheduled to depart from the park across from the Historic 6th& I Synagogue this evening followed by a community Havdalah service.


2015: At the Concordia Library in Oregon, Jeannie Opdyke Smith is scheduled to speak about her mother, the late Irene Opdyke who was a brave and inspiring figure who received international recognition for her life-saving actions during the Holocaust when working for a high ranking German official.


 

This Day, August 16, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. Levin

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August 16


1027:  The King of Georgia, Giorgi I, passed away. Jews were among the subjects of this monarch who ruled over a country situated in the Caucuses, on the eastern edge of the Black Sea.  Leonti Mroveli, an eleventh century chronicler of Georgian history, offers various dates for the arrival of the Jews including the period after the destruction of the First Temple or after the destruction of the Second Temple.  Other sources claim that the first Jews arrived during the time of Alexander the Great or during the Sixth Century of the Common Era when they were fleeing persecution of the Byzantines.  No matter which source you choose to believe, The Jews were there when King George died and remain there to this day.


1284: A year before he began his reign as King of France, Philip IV, who expelled the Jews from his realm to avoid paying his debts began his reign as King of Navarre and Count of Champagne.


1486: Twenty men and five women were burned after being sentenced at an auto-de-fe in Toledo on the charge of Judaizing. Among them were Dr. Alonso Cota and many other notables of the town. They were marched through town being humiliated wearing the dreadful san benito, with their hands tied to their neck behind their backs.


1648(28thof Av, 5408): Rabbi Joshua Höschel ben Joseph passed away in Cracow.  Born at Vilnius in 1578, he studied both the Kabbalah and the Talmud.  He wrote Maginne Shelomoh and She'elot u-Teshubot Pene Yehoshua'


1532: John Frederick I began his reign as Elector of Saxony during which, four years later in August of 1536, in response to the teaching of Martin Luther “issued a mandate that prohibited Jews from inhabiting, engaging in business in, or passing through his realm.”


1599(25thof Av, 5359): Isaiah Menahem Ben Isaac passed away today while serving in the rabbinate in Cracow.


1664: Sixty-five year old Christian Hebrew language student and author Johannes Buxtorf the Younger who “employed Abraham Braunschweig to purchase Hebrew books for him and for many years corresponded with the scholarly Jacob Roman of Constantinople regarding the acquisition of Hebrew manuscripts and rare printed works” passed away today.


1648(28thof Av, 5408): Rabbi Joshua Höschel ben Joseph, a student of Rabbi Samuel ben Phoebus of Cracow and  Rabbi Joshua Falk whose students included Rav Shabbatai HaKohen, passed away today.


1675: Ukrainian leader Bogdan Chemlnicki (with the blood of over 300,000 Jews on his hands) died.


1724: In London, Bavarian immigrants Yehezkel (Ezekiel) and Judah Hirsh gave birth to their son Aaron Hart. The family changed their name from Hirsh to its English version, Hart.  Hart would go on to become a successful businessman and “is considered the father of Canadian Jewry.”


1776(1stof Elul, 5536): Rosh Chodesh Elul; for the first time the shofar is sounded in the newly independent United States of America


1799: “The Prague Jew Pzřibram bought a house in the village of Hanichen (Hanychov) from Joseph Porsche but was ordered by Count of Clam-Gallasto sell it within a year to a gentile.”


1807: During the “Gunboat Wars” which helped lead to the “complete emancipation of the Danish Jews, the British began the bombardment of Copenhagen.


1834: In Amsterdam, Joseph Barend Stokvis, Jr., a Jewish physician and obstetrician and his wife gave birth to Barend Joseph Stokvis a physician and professor of physiology and pharmacology at the University of Amsterdam who was the husband Julia Elisabeth Wertheim and a leader of the Dutch Jewish community.


1840: During the Damascus Affair, in a move supporting the Jewish prisoners, the British led European powers issued a stern warning to the Egyptian Khedive that he should move his forces away from the Turkish frontier.


1842: Birthdate of Jakob Rosanes, the native of Brody who gained fame as a mathematician and chess master.


1845: In Bonnevoie, Luxembourg, Miriam Rose (Lévy) and Isaïe Lippman, the manager of the family glove-making business gave birth to Gabriel Lippman, French physicist who won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1908.


1845: In what might have been the first mention of potato blight in the British Isles, today Gardeners' Chronicle and Horticultural Gazette reported "a blight of unusual character" in the Isle of Wight the home of the Isle of Wight Jewish Society


1849: Birthdate of Sibylle Riqueti de Mirabeau, the French anti-Semite and “anti-Dreyfusard” who wrote under the pseudonym of GYP.  While testifying in a court case she “gave her profession as ‘anti-Semite’ rather than ‘writer.’”



1851: In Buffalo, VA, Robert and Anna Harvey gave birth to William Hope "Coin" Harvey the populist leader who wrote the anti-Semitic Tale of Two Nations, “the story of a wealthy London banker, Baron Rothe, who engineers a plot to keep the United States from ever using a silver as currency.”


1852: In reporting on the clash between Sir Robert Peel and Benjamin Disraeli over the issue of Free Trade "Items of Foreign News" column published today quotes the following disparaging remarks that appeared in The Morning Chronicle. "When Mr. Disraeli attempts to trade on the policy of Sir Robert Peel, it will be difficult to refrain from challenging him in the words of the Hebrew prophet, 'Hast thou killed and also taken possession.'"  [Editor's Note: the quote is from 1 Kings 21:19]


1859: In London, birthdate of “communal worker” Ernest Louis Franklin


1860: David Wemyss Jobson was found guilty of libeling the character of Sir James Furgurson in the London Central Criminal Court today.  Among the many prominent witnesses to appear was Benjamin Disraeli. When asked by the Defendant “Are you a Jew now or not?”  Mr. Disraeli repIied, “I am what I always was -- a Christian.” This is an interesting answer since Disraeli was actually born a Jew.  Was he being disengenous or was he taking poet license in writing his own biography.


1862: The Chicago Tribune published a tribute to the Jews of Chicago.


1868(28th of Av, 5628): Fifty-five year old Ruben Joseph Wunderbar the author who succeeded Max Lilienthal as principal the Jewish school at Riga passed away today in his hometown of Mitau.


1873: Lipman “Lip” Pike, one of the first Jewish major league baseball players, “raced a fast trotting horse named Clarence in a 100-yard sprint at Baltimore's Newington Park, and won by four yards with a time of 10 seconds flat, earning $250 ($4,570 today).”


1873: It was reported today that the Governor of New York has offered a $500 reward for the apprehension of Emil Lowenstein who allegedly murder John Weston in Albany, NY.  Mrs. Weston has already been arrested for her role in the killing.  Lowenstein, a German Jewish barber’s assistant, is thought to be headed for an unnamed “Western city.”


1875: It was reported today that of the 57,200 children attending primary schools in Algeria, 5,646 “are native Jews.’


1875: In Prague,Moritz Moses Piesen and Rosalia Piesen gave birth to Hugo Peisen the husband of Annie Piesen.


1875: It was reported today that 40 year old Joseph Samuels and 15 year old Sallie Mossheim were arrested in New Jersey. This tangled tale of two Jews includes a married man (Samuels) and the daughter of a successful businessman, who fell in love and ran off together.  The case is complicated by the fact that Sallie’s father reported that $500 was missing from his safe and this same amount was found in his daughter’s possession.


1880: Sir Saul Samuel completed his second term as a Member of the Legislative Council of New South Wales


1880: “Hebrew Poetry” published today provided a detailed review of The Historical Poetry of the Ancient Hebrews, a two volume work by Michael Heilprin.


1880: Based on information that originally appeared the Journal de St. Petersburg it was reported today that Jews account for 0.22 of the illegitimate births in the European portion of the Russian Empire


1881: It was reported today that Count Kutisoff, who is investigating the causes of the anti-Jewish riots met with a deputation of Jews from Kharkoff.  The Jews told him that the causes were not just economic.  The count said that the government was determined to stop the violence.  He said that they needed “to regulate the abnormal conditions” in the Western provinces where “the Jews outnumber the Christians and monopolize trade.”  (The Western provinces included the Pale of Settlement and it is inconceivable that the Russian leader did not know that there were so many Jews there because that is where the government had confined them)


1882(1stof Elul, 5642): Rosh Chodesh Elul


1882: It was reported today that the speech by Congressman Cox on the persecution of Russian Jews that appears in the Congressional Record was in fact never given since Congress had already adjourned. Cox had apparently taken advantage of the time honored practice of entering remarks in the Record that has gone into the 20th century.


1885: Beth Hamedresh Hagadol, an Orthodox congregation formed by Polish Jews 30 years ago, dedicated its new sanctuary on Norfolk Street this afternoon. Rabbi Abraham Ash, the spiritual leader of the congregation, was the driving force behind the project.


1885: The Associate Members’ Literary Society of the Young Men’s Hebrew Association held a Grant-Montefiore Memorial Meeting this evening in New York City. G.A. Ettinger delivered a speech in which compared both of these saying that although one was a man of war and the other a man of peace, “they were alike in one respect, that both labored for the emancipation of the human race.”


1886: Based on information that first appeared in the Warsaw Courier two Polish peasants have been sentenced to six months in prison after having been found of disinterring  two Jewish corpses, cutting off their hands and then grinding them into “little morsels for…medicinal purposes.”


1886: “Last of the Roman Ghetto” published today reported that within the next couple of weeks the Jew’s quarter of Rome, “a picturesque piece of antiquity” will disappear.  The reporter of the Pall Mall Gazette (a British publication) described the ghetto as a place where “the Jews had made themselves…a sort of second fatherland” where they could observe “their habits and traditions…in a little town” they had all to themselves.


1887: Joseph Froehlich of Davenport, Iowa donated $4.00 to the Union of American Hebrew Congregations.


1887: The will of Jonas Heller which was filed for probate today gave $10,000 for the Home for Aged and Infirm Hebrews on the condition that the Directors erect a prominently placed tablet saying “In Memory  of Jonas Heller, Trustee, from______ to ______ Bequeathed Ten Thousand Dollars.”


1888: It was reported today that Levi Davis, a prominent Jewish citizen living in New Brunswick, NJ, has filed a suit seeking $10,000 in damages from Charles Scheede “for ruining his daughter Jennie.” Schweede, who is a partner in the clothing firm of Schweede Brothers denied the charge.


1888: It was reported today that Siegfried Porter, a native of Bohemia who is now an American citizen, testified before Congressman Ford’s Immigration Committee that he was now able to earn seven or eight dollars a week as a cigar maker because of the influx of Russian and Polish Jews.  According to the embittered witness the Jews were willing to work for four or five dollars a week and that they lived in such poor conditions that they were able to save three dollars of that.


1888: Birthdate of T.E. Lawrence, known to history as “Lawrence of Arabia.”  In the popular mind, Lawrence is remembered as a driving force behind Arab nationalism.  However, Lawrence was not anti-Zionist.  In “The Changing East” he wrote of the way in which the Zionist settlers would help improve the economic and social condition of the Arab population.  “In 1919 he drafted a letter for Emir Feisal for a meeting with Felix Frankfurter, a leader of American Zionists. In his letter Feisal wished ‘the Jews a hearty welcome home’ and asserted ‘our two movements complete one another.’ ‘There is room in Syria for both of us’ he concluded.”


1889: Birthdate of Maurice Copisarow, he Russian born Chemist who came to England in 1908 where he received his education and co-authored a paper with fellow chemist Chaim Weizmann.


1890(30thof Av, 5650) Rosh Chodesh Elul


1890: Rabbi Gustave Gottheil is scheduled to deliver a sermon today entitled “Who Needs Converting?”


1890(30thof Av, 5650): On Shabbat, New York attorney Montague L. Marks passed away today.


1891: The funeral for Emilie J. Frank, the widow of Joseph Frank, is scheduled to be held at the home of her daughter Mrs. William Rosenberg at 40 West 95thStreet.


1891: As local merchants expressed their indignation over the high-pressure tactics of sales person working for the “Jewish Times” the publishers said that the agent had sent in the ads but that they “were not aware of his making false representations” to obtain them.


1891: “Russian Jew Question” published today described the impact the articles that George Kenan has written on this subject have had including Prime Minister Gladstone urging Continental  to conduct “a full and fair” investigation of the issue.


1892: “Charges Against Edward Pollock” published today described events surrounding Meyer Reinherz’s an agent of the United Hebrew Charities, decision to file a complaint against Edward Pollock for allegedly attacking him while writing stories for Austro-Hungarian newspapers.”


1893: A circular was disturbed today setting forth the rights of the thousands of unemployed Jewish workers and the wrongs done to them and calling for a mass meeting tomorrow at the Walhalla Hall on Orchard Street.


1895: In Massachusetts, the Worcester Hebrew Benevolent Society which had been founded in 1891 received its charge today.


1895:  Birthdate of novelist Albert Cohen.  A native of Greece, Cohen worked for various international organizations located in Switzerland. He became a Swiss citizen after World War I and based some of his fiction on experiences with the League of Nations.  The Greek native, who was a Swiss citizen, wrote in French.


1896: “Heat and the Babes” published today described various steps being taken to beat the August heat including the decision of the Hebrew Institute to open a free roof garden on the top of its building.


1897: Birthdate of Sir Hersch Lauterpacht the Austro-Hungarian born British Jurist who served as a member of the United Nations Internal Law Commission and a Judge of the International Court of Justice.


1898: Children are being removed from the Hebrew Orphan Asylum at 138thStreet and Amsterdam Avenue because of an epidemic of dysentery.


1898: “For Jewish Worshippers” published today described a letter J.E. Bloom, Assistant Adjutant General, Third Brigade, Second Division, Third Army Corps wrote to the President and Executive Committee of the Young Men’s Hebrew Association in New York suggesting that they raise funds to be used to “provide a large tent for holding religious services for Jewish soldiers” attending the re-union at the Chickamauga Battlefield this Fall.


1898: “Great Charity Enterprise” published today described plans for a fundraiser to be sponsored by the Young Men’s Hebrew Charity Association in Chicago.  Half of the funds will go to Michael Reese Hospital and the other half will go to the United Hebrew Charities.


1899: It was reported today that “the leading Jews of Europe are” planning on holding a meeting “in Switzerland in order to form an international association for their defense against the crusade of the anti-Semites and to protect the Jews in France after the Dreyfus court-martial is ended.”


1899: The New York Federation of Zionists met at Cooper Union tonight. “They adopted resolutions against anti-Semitism and for the rejuvenation of Zion.”


1899: “Jews Aid The Dewey Home Fund” published today described the “considerable interest” that the Jews have shown in raising money to buy a home for the Hero of Manila Bay.  “At least one-fourth of the names making up the list of contributors so far are Jews.”


1899: In South Africa, President Kruger “has issued a brochure supporting his proposal regarding the removal of religious disabilities” which would the discrimination against the Jews by the Protestant dominated government.


1899: Julius P. Witmark, J.W. Bratton, Sager Midgley, J. Leslie Gossing, J.J. Raffael, Miss Alic Magil, Smith O’Brien, Miss Grace L. Weir and Fred Rycroff proved the entertainment tonight at the Arverne Hotel Casino where a fund-raiser was held for the benefit of the Hebrew Infant Asylum.


1899(10th of Elul, 5659): Abraham Cohen Labatt, native of Charleston, SC who founded several Reform Congregations from South Carolina to Louisiana to California to Texas passed away in Galveston.


1900: The Fourth Zionist Congress comes to an end in London.


1902:  Several thousand persons greeted Samuel Gompers, President of the American Federation of Labor, at Mountain Lake Park, Maryland where he delivered an address before the Chautauqua Assembly on "Labor and Capital -- the Workman's Side of the Story."


1903: Herzl stopped in Vilna where a tremendous ovation is awaiting him. Old Reb Shleimele lifted his hands over Herzl and pronounces the Priestly Benediction. After one day of rest in Altaussee, Herzl left for Basle and the Sixth Congress.


1909 (29th Av): Rabbi Samuel “Shmuel” Salant Chief Ashkenazic Rabbi of Jerusalem, who was a leading Talmudist and a friend of Moses Montefiore passed away and was buried on the Mount of Olives.


1913: Birthdate of Menachem Begin, Prime Minister of Israel and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize.  The life of Menachem Begin is too colorful and controversial to be covered in this brief guide.  His life became one of many contradictions.  Consider that this political heir to Jabotinsky, the man who waged violent war against the British in the last years of the Mandate was the man who signed the peace accord with Sadat.


1915: It was reported today that Louis D. Brandeis and Nathan Straus will address the upcoming national meeting of Jews to be held at Cooper Union.


1915: Among those who were reported today to have addressed the mass meeting aimed at raising money for Jews in the war zone were Dr. M.S. Margolies, President of the Union of Orthodox Rabbis of New York, Dr. Moses Hyamson the rabbi of Congregation Orach Cahim in New York and Rabbi Aaron Tietelbaum of Jerusalem.


1915: A lynch mob from Marietta, GA arrived at the prison in Milledgeville.  After cutting the telephone wire emptying the gas from the prison’s automobiles and handcuffing the warden, they seized Leo Frank and drove away from the prison.


1917: In the East New York section of Brooklyn Benjamin and Bertha Taubman gave birth to “Dorothy Taubman, who developed a method to help pianists strengthen their techniques and avoid repetitive strain injuries.” (As reported by Vivien Schweitzer)


1918(8th of Elul, 5678): Sixty-eight year old Dr. Adolf Rosenzweig, the rabbi at the New Synagogue (Neue Synagoge) in Oranienburger Straße, Berlin passed away today and was buried under a gravestone on which was written "The law of truth was in his mouth, and unrighteousness was not found in his lips" (Malachi 2:6).


1919: “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion” is distributed in Germany and the United States.


1922: Birthdate of Herbert Vogel, the New York born postal clerk, who, along with his wife, became “fabled art collectors. (As reported by Douglas Marin)


1922: “Theatrical release of ‘Up and at ‘Em’” a silent film which “marks the first Hollywood screenplay” by Lewis Mileston.”


1923: Birthdate of Shimon Peres, Zionist leader who would hold numerous positions including President of the Jewish state.  There are as many views of Peres as there are candles on his birthday cake.


1925: The Palestine Foundation Fund reported that it had spent $8,646,750 in the economic rebuilding of Palestine during its four years of existence, just concluded. More than 60 per cent of this sum has come from American Jews, according to the statement, the balance being collected from fifty-two other countries. $2,570,785 was expended on farming enterprises and $1,624,695 for Hebrew education. Samuel Untermeyer is President of the American branch of the fund.


1926: Sephardic and Oriental Jews at a Zionist conference in Vienna had their delegates gather for the purpose of furthering Zionist interests among their peoples. 


 1929: Although warned by the Zionist Executive that the Arabs were preparing to attack the Jews of Jerusalem in massive riots, High Commissioner Sir John Chancellor refused to cut his vacation short, declaring that relations between the sides were improving. After Friday prayers on the day after the ninth of Av, two thousand Arabs attacked Jews praying at the Western Wall. One Jewish youth was stabbed in the back. The British Government refused to condemn the attack leading the Arabs again to believe that the British supported their riots.


1930(22ndof Av, 5690): Gustave Frohman who along with his brothers Charles and Daniel worked together as theatrical producers and advanced men passed away.

1933: Following a baseball game in Toronto, six hours of violence broke out between Harbord Playground, which was predominantly Jewish, and St. Peter's, a baseball team sponsored by a church at Bathurst and Bloor that became known as the Christie Pitts Riot.


1933: In New York, more than seventy thousand workers joined a strike called by the ILGWU under the leadership of David Dubinsky


1933: Three hundred Polish Jews including a group of 140 chalutzim leave for Palestine.


1933: Local authorities in East Prussia inform Jews that they must call for their mail because Nazi postmen will be humiliated in delivering mail to Jews.


1934: Birthdate of Dr. Daniel Norman Stern “a psychiatrist who increased the understanding of early human development by scrutinizing the most minute interactions between mothers and babies” (As reported by Douglas Martin)


1936: The 1936 Olympics came to an end in Berlin.  Calls for boycotting the Hitler Olympics fell on deaf ears.

1936: A lengthy review of Jewish Studies in Memory of George A. Kohut, 1874-1933, edited by Salo W. Baron and Alexander Marx was published today


1936(28th of Av, 5696): An eight year old Jewish boy “was killed and nineteen Jews were injured by the explosion of a bomb thrown by an Arab from a train window into one of the principal streets of Tel Aviv today as the train was passing the city en route to Jaffa.” In the last three days ten Jews – 7 adults and 3 children – have been killed in Safed, Haifa and on the highway between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.  Authorities fear that this latest in a series of attacks that began four months ago will finally provoke the Jewish population into acts of violence aimed at their attackers. 


1936: In “Habimah in Emek,” published today Arthur Settel describes a recent performance of “Jew Suss” in Ain Taun a village in the Valley Of Jezrel on the northern plain of Palestine.


1937: “Hammer Icons” published today tells the story of Armand and Victor Hammer, “two of the most startling characters in the U.S. art world.

1937: The 20th World Zionist Congress comes to an end with a resounding vote of support for Dr. Chaim Weizmann who was re-elected as President with only 8 delegates voting against him


1937: Talks are proceeding between Americans of Jewish and of Arab origin with a view to-exploring the possibilities of bringing peace between their peoples in Palestine by applying the American federal principle, it was revealed by Adil Arslan, one of the Arab High Committee's two delegates here.


1938: Andrej Hlinka, a Catholic Priest, a leader of the Slovak National Party and “a symbol of Slovak fascism” passed away.  He opposed the democratic principles of Czechoslovakia and was an admirer of Hitler and Mussolini.  Although he died before the war, he was considered to be the spiritual “godfather” of Slovak nationalism that sent 70,000 Jews to the concentration camps, most of whom perished.


1939: More than 600 Zionists from all parts of the world attend the twenty-first World Zionist Congress, which opens in Geneva today. The congress will last thirteen days.


1939: Birthdate of American banjo player Eric Weissberg best known for “Dueling Banjos” which provided the musical background for “Deliverance.”


1939(1st of Elul, 5699): Rosh Chodesh Elul


1940: The Vichy (France) government prohibited aliens from practicing as physicians, dentists or pharmacists.  This destroyed the livelihood for numerous Jews who had fled to France before the war and/or were not living in Vichy at the time of the French surrender to the Nazis.  The Jews living in Vichy France would learn that anti-Semitism was part and parcel of the Petain government.


1940: Today the building at 770 Eastern Parkway in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn, New York was purchased by Agudas Chassidei Chabad (the Chabad-Lubavitch community) to house the living quarters, study and office, Yeshivah, and synagogue of the sixth Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn who had arrived in New York (following his rescue from Nazi-occupied Warsaw) five months earlier [It would later serve as the headquarters of his son-in-law and successor, the Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, and become the vortex of Chabad-Lubavitch's global network of institutions of Jewish education and outreach.]


1942: In the Warsaw Ghetto at today’s selection only two members of Władysław Szpilman’s family “were passed as fit to work” while “the rest of the family was taken to the Umschlagplatz.


1942: Tonight, all the members of Władysław Szpilman’s family were shipped from Warsaw to Treblinka where they were murdered.


 1943:  Nazi troops enter the Jewish ghetto at Bialystok, Poland and over the next four days destroy the more than 30,000 Jews inside. Hundreds of Resistance fighters, led by Mordechai Tenenbaum-Tamaroff and Daniel Moszkowicz--who battle back with small arms, axes, and bayonets--are annihilated. Those who survive are transported to death camps, where 25,000 are killed


1943: Inmates revolt at the slave-labor camp at Krychów, Poland.


1943: During World War II, the keel for the SS Oscar Strauss was laid today.


1943: Maurice H. Rindskopf was among the officers serving on ehe USS Drum, an American submarine as she left Brisbane on her seventh war patrol


1943: The Spanish government stated that they would allow more repatriated Jews to come to Spain, "only if those in Spain already left." The obvious lack of sentiment on the part of Spain was apparent to the Joint Distribution Committee, which went ahead and placed a "priority" on emigration of "these so-called Sephardics." The Jews who did make it to Spain were not in any way treated like citizens.


 1944: A train arrived at Birkenau from Athens with 1,651 Jews from Rhodes and 94 from Kos. Upon arrival and then separation, Sidney Fahn would see his wife and young child for the last time. Only 151 of these Jews would survive.


1945: Birthdate of director Bob Balaban


1945: Today, “President Truman called…for the free and open settlement of Palestine by Jews to the point consistent with the maintenance of civil peace.”  For the first time he revealed that that U.S. government has informed the British who are attending the Big Three’s Berlin Conference. (The Big Three were the U.S., U.K. and U.S.S.R.)


1945: Former Iowa Senator Guy Gillette who is President of the American League for a Free Palestine expressed his “disappointment at the inconclusive nature of the American position” about Jewish settlement “as outlined by” President Truman today.  According to Gillette, millions of displaced persons have been returned to their homes.  Yet, the Jews, who suffered the most, have been denied a clear solution to their plight.  The League of Nations had already had already designated that Palestine should be a free and independent nation.  According to Gillette, Palestine “is the historic national territory of the Hebrew people and their right to enter it should no longer be challenged.


1945: “Dr. Abba Hillel Silver of Cleveland, Ohio and Rabbi Stephen S. Wise of New York were elected member of the executive board of the Jewish Agency for Palestine by the general council of the World Zion Conference today in London, UK.”


1948: Birthdate of Patrick Balkany, the native of Neuilly-sur-Seine, who is a member of the National Assembly of France


1948(11th of Av, 5708):  Fifty-five year old Harry Dexter White passed away today after having answered accusations before HUAC that he was a communist and a traitor.

1948: Three months after the establishment of the State of Israel, an agreement was signed between the Bank Leumi and the temporary Government. The official charter appointing the Bank as the Government's financial agent was signed by Hoofien and the Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion. On that very day, the official bank notes of the new state, bearing the name of the Anglo-Palestine Bank and the signatures of Hoofien and Barth, were distributed. The Israeli pound becomes legal tender.


1949: Herzl's remains are transferred to Jerusalem and reburied on Mount Herzl.


1949: Netiv HaLamed-Heh ( נְתִיב הַל"ה‎‎,  Path of the 35) a kibbutz in central Israel located in the Valley of Elah, was established today by demobilized members of the Daled Company of the Palmach's Harel Brigade. It was initially named Peled (an acronym for Plugot Daled, lit. Daled Company) It was later renamed after the 35 Haganah soldiers killed in a convoy to resupply the Gush Etzion kibbutzim during the 1947–1948 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine (Lamed-Heh is 35 in Hebrew numerals).


1950: “No Way Out” a film noir directed by Joseph L. Mankeiwicz with music by Alfred Newman was released in the United States today by 20th Century Fox.


1951: “The Guy Who Came Back” featuring Zero Mostel was released in the United States today by 20th Century Fox.


1956(9thof Elul, 5716): A squad of Fedayeen attacked Egged Bus 391 traveling from Tel-Aviv to Eilat murdering three soldiers and a female civilian passenger and wounding an additional three civilian passengers. (Editor’s Note – Fedayeen was the 1950’s name for the terrorists.  The names have changed over the decades but the deadly attacks remain the same.)


1959(12th of Av, 5719): Harpsichordist and composer Wanda Landowska, who was credited with the 20th-century revival of harpsichord music passed away.

1960: Cyprus gains its independence from the United Kingdom (Great Britain).  Jews have lived on the island of Cyprus since the days of the ancient Greeks.  In modern times, Cyprus provided a haven for Jews trying to escape from Hitler’s Europe.  After the war, the British set up internment camps on the island where they detained Jews trying to run the blockade and reach pre-Israel Palestine.  Israel established diplomatic relations with Cyprus and the Israeli embassy served as focal point for the small Cypriot Jewish community. 


1961: Frank Robinson hit a homer off of Larry Sherry as the Jewish pitcher and the Dodgers came out on the short end of game with the Reds losing 6 to 0.


1972: 1972: “Two British girls, unaware that the gramophone given them by 2 Arab acquaintances in Rome was booby trapped” carried it on board an El Al Flight bound for Lod” where it exploded in the luggage compartment causing “slight damage.” (Jewish Virtual Library)


1973(18th of Av, 5733): Selman Waksman, Ukrainian-born American biochemist and recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine passed away.


1976: In Washington, the national convention of Hadassah continued for a second day.


1978: Pitcher Ross Baumgarten makes his major league debut with the White Sox.


1978: In Moscow, the government continued its “anti-Zionist trials” today with Alexander Podrabinek as the prisoner in the dock.


1984: Hadassah leader Bernice S. Tannenbaum brought “a five-member delegation” to the White House where they “met with President Ronald Reagan for 40 minutes over tea, coffee and cookies, to lobby against the resolution linking Zionism and racism.” Reagan agreed “to publicly repudiate” “the United Nations resolution defining Zionism as a ‘form of racism and racial discrimination’” and “that the U.S. delegation would walk out of” the U.N. Conference at Nairobi “if the Zionism-equals-racism resolution was included in the final conference declaration.”


1985: Birthdate of Bensiyon Songavkar, the Indian born Jewish professional cricketer.


1988(3rd of Elul, 5748): Auckland City Councillor Harold Goodman, the husband of Dame Barbara Goodman, passed away.


 1988: Ed Koch, the Jewish Mayor of New York City says he plans to wipe out street-corner windshield washers


1988: The New York Times included reviews of Confessions of a Good Arab by Yoram Kaniuk, translated by Dalya Bilu and The Road to Ein Harod by Amos Kenan, translated by Anselm Hollo. 1993: The two men who kidnapped Harvey Weinstein, a formalwear manufacturer and chairman of Lord West Formal Wear are arrested in New York when the go to pick up the ransom.  Weinstein survives and lives to the ripe old age of 82.


1993(29th of Av, 5753): Eighty-eight year old grand prix driver Rene Dreyfus passed away today.http://www.nytimes.com/1993/08/19/obituaries/rene-dreyfus-auto-racer-88.html


1994: The first ever Papal Nuncio to Israel presented his credentials in Jerusalem


1995(20th Av, 5755): Sixty-six year old newspaper executive Stanley Asimov, the brother of Isaac Asimov passed away today.

1996(1st of Elul, 5756): Rosh Chodesh Elul


1996: “The Fan” a film that takes a dark look at celebrity produced by Wendy Fineman, with music by Hans Zimmer and co-starring Ellen Barkin was released in the United States today by TriStar Pictures.


1998: The New York Timesfeatured a review of The Father of Spin: Edward L. Bernays and the Birth of Public Relations by Larry Tye.  Bernays is the Austrian born Jew who was the nephew of Sigmund Freud.


2000:A documentary film entitled “The Ballad of Rambling Jack Elliot” about the life of Brooklyn native Elliott Adnopoz the son of a middle class Jewish doctor who transformed himself into a musical iconoclast opens at the Film Forum.  The film was written and directed by his daughter Aiyana Elliot.


2002(8th of Elul, 5762): Martin Deutsch the American physicist who studied positronium passed away. Positronium is a temporary state in the decay of the positron which is the antiparticle of the electron (and that is more than I really know about this.)


2003: Idid Amin, the former President of Uganda who had been trained as a paratrooper by the Israelis and who provided a safe haven for the Palestinian hijackers in 1976 passed away today.


2005: The evacuation of Gaza continued for a second day.


2005:  The Jerusalem Post reported that Britain had played a major role in Israel’s development of a nuclear capability in the late 1950’s


2006: As part of the cease-fire agreement, Israeli troops turn control of territory in Lebanon over to UNIFL.  At the same time, in one of those many ironies of history, the army of Lebanon returns to the southern part of the country for the first time since the 1970’s thanks to the attacks of the IDF on Hezbollah strongholds. 


2007: Israel and the United States signed a Memorandum of Understanding on the new American defense package for Israel.


2008: At Temple Judah in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Bar Mitzvah of Daniel Finn.


2008:Today, Itai Magidi will be the first Israeli to take part in the athletics competitions, running the 3000m Steeplechase qualifiers and all seven of Israel's sailors are scheduled to race at the Beijing Olympics.


2008, Martha Nussbaum—University of Chicago professor and Boston Review contributing editor—became a bat mitzvah.


2009: The Washington Post features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Rashiby Elie Wiesel.


2009:The Massachusetts secretary of state’s office has rejected a proposed settlement by an investment firm to repay nearly $6 million to state investors who lost money in Bernard L. Madoff’s fraudulent investment scheme.


2009: “Can Game Theory Predict When Iran Will Get the Bomb” published today describes Bruce Bueno de Mesquita’s answer to this question.

2009: Led by his widow, Betty Levin, a true Ashish Chayil, the family and friends of Dr. Jacob Levin, of blessed memory, gather to dedicate a classroom named in his honor at North Suburban Beth El Synagogue.  Dr. Levin taught in this room for several years and his time as a Religious School teacher was but one example of his contributions to the Jewish community. He will always be missed.  He will always be remembered.


2010:KlezKanada is scheduled to open in Lantier, Quebec.


2010:An IDF soldier was lightly wounded today in clashes with Palestinian terrorists in the Gaza Strip.


2010:A bomb squad checked out two unattended suitcases outside the consulate the Los Angeles Police Department said. Police cordoned off part of Wilshire Boulevard, where the consulate and other Jewish organizations are located, for several hours.


2011: Today is the release date for The Gift of Rest: Rediscovering the Beauty of the Sabbathby Senator Joe Lieberman


2011: The 2ndAvenue Deli reopened at its new location on 1st Avenue and 75th Street in the Upper East Side much to the joy of those who enjoy the best kosher meat knishes and tongue sandwiches imaginable.


2011: Wendy Turman, JHSGW Curator/Archivist is scheduled to deliver “an illustrated lecture tracing the history of the Jewish community in the Washington area from the arrival of the first Jewish Washingtonian in 1795 to today, when the region's Jewish community has grown to more than 215,000 people.


2011:Representatives from the National Union of Israeli Students and leaders of the tent city protest movement met this morning with former chief rabbi of Israel and current Head Rabbi of Tel Aviv Yisrael Lau, where they held a discussion on the ongoing social justice protests.


2011:Israel's parliament interrupted its summer recess today to debate popular protests against high living costs but there seemed to be little sense of urgency among the smattering of lawmakers, some of whom tapped away on mobile phones and iPads


2012: The Knesset is scheduled to convene in a special session during its summer recess to approve Avi Dichter as Home Front Defense Minister (As reported by the Jerusalem Post.)


 2012(28th of Av): Yarhtzeit of Larry Rosenstein – gone to soon but never forgotten


2012: Bulgarian police released a computer-generated image and a fake driver's license photo of a man believed to be an accomplice in the bombing of an Israeli tour bus in Burgas that killed six.  (As reported by JTA)


2012: “Shimon Peres, Israel’s president and elder statesman, spoke out against the prospect of a lone Israeli military strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities, a message that contradicts the hawkish, go-it-alone line emanating from the offices of Israel’s prime minister and defense minister.” (As reported by Isabel Kirshner)


2012: Police resumed searching for the remains of Grad rockets in the desert outside Eilat this morning, hours after two loud blasts rocked the resort town.


2013: In Montgomery, AL, the Capri Community Film Society is scheduled to show “Fill the Void,” a cinematic treatment of the life of a Chasidic family from Tel Aviv.


2013: Amir Levy is scheduled to perform at the New York International Fringe Festival.


2013: In Herndon, VA, Congregation Beth Emeth is scheduled to host a special Shabbat Community BBQ where everybody can meet the new Rabbi – Michelle Goldsmith.


2013: In “Israel Keeps a Wary Eye on Turmoil in Egypt” published today, Isabel Kershner describes the Jewish state’s reaction to the violence going on within its neighbor with which it signed a peace treaty that has held for more than three decades.

2014: In Mandeville, LA, the Northshore Jewish Congregation (NJC) is scheduled to host “Havdalah on the River” to help welcome Rabbi Deborah Zecher who will be leading the congregation’s High Holiday Services.


2014: The Historic 6th& I Synagogue is scheduled to host #NoFilter featuring Grace Helbig, Hannah Hart and Mamrie Hart


2014: “A Hamas official today threatened Israel with a prolonged war of attrition if the group’s terms for a permanent ceasefire agreement, currently being negotiated in indirect talks in Cairo, are not met.” (As reported by Times of Israel)


2014: Following a declaration by Fatah’s military wing to “increase its terror attacks against Israeli citizens” tonight Arab terrorists threw a Molotov cocktail at an Israeli car near Bethlhem inflicting first and second degree burns on the 40 year old driver who was also hit by stones.(As reported byUzi Baruch and Ari Yashar)


2014: “Over ten thousand people assembled in Tel Aviv’s Rabin Square tonight for the largest pro-peace rally the country has seen since the start of the war in Gaza in early July.”


2014: By today, the 101st anniversary of the birth of Menachem Begin, the Israel State Archives will have published “a collection of documents on the life the former Prime Minister best known as the leader of the Irgun and the signatory for the 1973 peace accords with Egypt.

2015: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Patricia Drucker’sSophie and the Sibyl in which “a novelist imagines an incident that inspired George Eliot’s Daniel Derondawhich portrayed the concepts of what would become Zionism in a positive light and Alice Hoffman’s The Marriage of Opposites, “a novel inspired by the painter Camille Pissarro’s parents.”


2015: UK Jewish Film which “aims to develop a culture where Jewish and Israeli film is recognised and enjoyed by the widest possible audience, and to bring Jewish related film to the heart of British culture” is scheduled to host a screening of “She’s Funny That Way.”


2015: In Kiryas Joel, the school year is scheduled to begin for the children whose parents have signed an affidavit stating “We the parents are confirming in writing that our cellphones/smartphones are in accordance to the rules of the community and yeshiva, according to the guidance of our holy grand rabbi and the judge. We also confirm that we do not possess in our home another cellphone/smartphone except for the ones mentioned above.” (A reported by Brian Shaefer)


2015: The Illinois Holocaust & Education Center is scheduled to present “Soviet Composers Discovering A Jewish Sound” featuring violinist David Lisker, pianist Ani Gogovo and cellist Richard Hirschl.


2015: The Jewish Museum of Maryland is scheduled to show “An American Tail,” the classic animation that “follows the story of Fievel a young Russian mouse, who while emigrating to the United States, gets separated from his family and must relocate them while trying to survive in a new country.”

2015(1st of Elul, 5775): Rosh Chodesh Elul


 

 


This Day, August 17, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. Levin

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August 17


986: During the days of the First Bulgarian Empire, the army of Emperor Samuil of Bulgaria and his brother defeat the Byzantines led by Basil II.  The Bulgarian Empire had provided a haven for Jews escaping from the Byzantine Army so the Bulgarian victory was good news for the Jews. 


1236: Pope Gregory IX issued a list of charges against Emperor Frederick II that included a reference to “the matter of Jewish communities of which certain churches were deprived.” (This would appear to be a clash over who “owned the Jews” which would determine who could tax them)


1592: The pope prohibited Jews from admitting Christians into their synagogues.


1655: In a patent dated today, Antonio Fernandez Carvajal, a Portuguese-Jewish merchant, and his two sons were granted citizenship as English subjects.  This made them the first naturalized English Jews.


1655: Portuguese born merchant Antonio Fernandez Carvajal and his sons were officially granted denizhenship as English subjects. (As reported by Joseph Jacobs)   Official granting of citizenship of Jews is one that would be debated in England for the next two centuries


1665: The small colony of Surinam recently occupied by the English gave full rights to the Jews (mostly Spanish and Portuguese refugees) to practice Judaism and run their own affairs. This remarkably liberal charter was transferred over to the Dutch when they conquered the colony. They used it as a means of encouraging the Jews to remain.


1629: Birthdate of King John III of Poland.  King John ruled from 1674 until his death in 1696. He ruled in a period when Poland was disintegrating under rebellions from the Ukraine and attacks from Sweden. Like previous Polish monarchs, King John was reasonably well disposed towards his Jewish subjects since he saw them as a valuable economic asset.  But as Poland drifted into chaos his views were increasingly unpopular among the nobles and the Catholic clergy. Denizenship confirmed a limited amount of English rights on foreign born residence.


1692: Jews were forbidden by law to work as peddlers in Berlin.


1740: Beginning of the Papacy of Benedict XIV who authored “Singulari noblis consoldtioni on the topic Christians and Jews Marrying”, Probe te meminesse which set “down the rules for baptizing Jewish children,” Elapso proxime anno which dealt with Jewish heresy despite the fact that “a heretic had to be a Christian to commit the sin” and Beatus Adreas which gave credence to a three hundred year old blood libel involving Andreas Von Rinn.


1762: The Council of 4 Countries (semi-autonomous congress of Polish Jewry) met for the last time. It functioned for almost 200 years before the Polish government ordered its dissolution.


1786: Frederick II (The Great) died.  Frederick had enough problems with Jews living in Prussia but at least he could exploit them for financial gain. He did keep them at “arm’s length” as can been seen when he overturned the vote that would have admitted Moses Mendelssohn to the Berlin of Academy of Science. After the partition of Poland, he inherited a Jewish population that was too impoverished to offer him gain.  While he found it impractical to expel them from their Polish homes, he would not allow them to move into Prussia, effectively quarantining these “beggar Jews.”  In 1780, he wrote of the Jews that they were “‘usurious vermin who multiply so infamously.’”


Frederick followed in the footsteps by retaining Veitel-Heine Ephraim as court jeweler and mint master. Born in 1703, he was charged by sum of debasing the country’s currency.  Any truth to that charge was covered up when Frederick ordered an end to any investigations into the matter.  He married Elke Fraenkel which made him the brother-in-law of David Frankel, who was elected rabbi of Berlin in 1743.  


1787: The Jews of Budapest, Hungary, received permission from the government to conduct religious services in private homes provided no rabbi officiated.


1790:  President George Washington visits Newport, Rhode Island, where he is given “the address of the ‘Hebrew Congregation of Newport’” that expressed their appreciation for the rights and liberties that the Jews enjoyed in the United States.  It was in response to this document, that Washington wrote his famous reply guaranteeing the Jews religious liberty and promising them that they would be able to sit under their own vine and fig tree and none would make them afraid.


1790: Moses Seixas, the warden of Congregation Kahal Kadosh Yeshuat Israel, better known as the Hebrew Congregation of Newport, Rhode Island, penned an epistle to George Washington, welcoming the newly elected first president of the United States on his visit to that city. Newport had suffered greatly during the Revolutionary War. Invaded and occupied by the British and blockaded by the American navy, hundreds of residents fled, and many of those who remained were Tories. After the British defeat, the Tories fled in turn. Newport’s nineteenth-century economy never recovered from these interruptions and dislocations. Washington’s visit to Newport was largely ceremonial—part of a goodwill tour Washington was making on behalf of the new national government created by the adoption of the Constitution in 1787. Newport had historically been a good home to its Jewish residents, who numbered approximately 300 at the time of Washington’s visit. The Newport Christian community’s acceptance of Jewish worship was exemplary, although individual Jews such as Aaron Lopez and Isaac Elizer were unable to obtain full political equality as citizens of Rhode Island. The Jews of Newport looked to the new national government, and particularly to the enlightened president of the United States, to remove the last of the barriers to religious liberty and civil equality confronting American Jewry. Moses Seixas’s letter on behalf of the congregation – he described them as “the children of the Stock of Abraham” – expressed the Jewish community’s esteem for President Washington and joined “with our fellow citizens in welcoming [him] to New Port.” The congregation expressed its pleasure that the God of Israel, who had protected King David, had also protected General Washington, and that the same spirit which resided in the bosom of Daniel and allowed him to govern over the “Babylonish Empire” now rested upon Washington. While the rest of world Jewry lived under the rule of monarchs, potentates and despots, as American citizens the members of the congregation were part of a great experiment: a government “erected by the Majesty of the People,” to which they could look to ensure their “invaluable rights as free citizens.” Seixas expressed his vision of an American government in words that have become a part of the national lexicon. He beheld in the United States “a Government which to bigotry gives no sanction, to persecution no assistance—but generously affording to All liberty of conscience, and immunities of citizenship: - deeming every one, of whatever nation, tongue or language equal parts of the great Governmental Machine: – This so ample and extensive federal union whose basis is Philanthropy, mutual confidence, and public virtue, we cannot but acknowledge to be the work of the Great God, who ruleth the Armies of Heaven, and among the Inhabitants of the Earth, doing whatsoever seemeth [to Him] good.” Seixas closed his letter to the president by asking God to send the “Angel who conducted our forefathers through the wilderness into the promised land [to] conduct [Washington] through all the difficulties and dangers of this mortal life.” He told Washington of his hope that “when like Joshua full of days, and full of honour, you are gathered to your Fathers, may you be admitted into the Heavenly Paradise to partake of the water of life, and the tree of immortality.”


Not surprisingly, it is Washington’s response, rather than Seixas’s epistle, which is best remembered and most frequently reprinted. Washington began by thanking the congregation for its good wishes and rejoicing that the days of hardship caused by the war were replaced by days of prosperity. Washington’s concluding paragraph perfectly expresses the ideal relationship among the government, its individual citizens and religious groups:


“May the Children of the Stock of Abraham, who dwell in this land, continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other Inhabitants; while everyone shall sit under his own vine and fig tree, and there shall be none to make him afraid. May the father of all mercies scatter light and not darkness in our paths, and make us all in our several vocations useful here, and in his own due time and way everlastingly happy.”


Washington’s letter, a foundation stone of American religious liberty and the principle of separation between church and state, is signed, simply, “G. Washington.” Each year, Newport’s Congregation Kahal Kadosh Yeshuat Israel, now known as the Touro Synagogue, re-reads Washington’s letter in a public ceremony.


1791:Birthdate of Richard Lalor Sheil the Irish politician, writer and orator who spoke out in favor of allowing Jews to sit in Parliament.


1807: Robert Fulton's first American steamboat, the Clermont left New York City for Albany, New York on the Hudson River, inaugurating the first commercial steamboat service in the world. The copper for the boilers in the Clermont, and many of Fulton’s other ships was supplied a Sephardic Jew named Harmon Hendricks.


1863: During the Civil War, Isaac Hyneman, was permanently assigned to the United States Signal Corps.  During the next three years he would see combat in such memorable battles as Chancellorsville, Gettysburg and the Wilderness Campaign before being at Appomattox Court House where the war ended.


1871:  A dispatch datelined Berlin reported that cases of cholera in Suwalki, Poland which has a population of 60,000 half of whom are Jews are decreasing. 


1872: “The Tribune and the Hebrew Voters” published today reported that the New York Tribune, the newspaper owned by Presidential candidate Horace Greeley, is making “frantic”, “clumsy” attempts to overcome the impact of anti-Semitic story told by James Mitchell Ashley, the former governor of Montana at public meeting with Mr. Greely sitting at his elbow.


1875: Baron George de Worms and Louisa de Samuel gave birth to their third child and only daughter Henrietta Emmy Louisa Amelia de Worms.


1878:  A Modern Hebrew Poet: the Life and Writings of Moses Chaim Luzzato by A.S. Isaacs was reviewed today in a column styled “A Jewish Singer.” Luzatto was an Italian Rabbi known as the RaMCHal.


1879: In Warsaw, Aaron David Gelbfisz, a peddler, and his wife, Hannah Reban (née Jarecka) gave birth to Szmuel Gelbfisz (Samuel Goldfish) who gained family as movie mogul Samuel Goldwyn.



1879: It was reported today that all places of business in White Plains, NY, were closed last Sunday as result of the conviction of a Jew named Adolphe D. Pollock for having previously kept his business open on Sunday.  Barber shops were the only business exempted from the closing ordinance.


1879: An editorial that originally appeared in the Jewish Messenger which was reprinted today said there was something wrong with the laws in White Plains if the government could not find a way to punish Jews who violate “their own and the general Sabbath by transacting business.”  The Messenger has “no sympathy for the hypocrite and money grabber who breaks his own Sabbath, yet claims the privilege of selling goods on Sunday because…he is a Jew.”  On the other hand, there should be some kind of allowance made for the Jew who closes his business on Saturday that would allow him to conduct business on Sunday as long as he “is not conspicuous.


1880: “The Turk and the Greek” published today examined the current conditions in the Balkans including French Prime Minister Michael Waddington’s decision to champion the cause of the Rumanian Jews at the Congress of Berlin despite the counsel from “a few intelligent Jewish politicians” for France to abstain from involvement in “matters in no way affecting French interests.”


1881: It was reported today that the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society is planning to host another excursion for the poor children of the Lower East Side.


1882: It was reported today that Samuel Obreight has been declared sane by the state Supreme Court.  Obreight’s family had had him declared insane and institutionalized because he had married a Christian girl. The judge ruled that the family’s “wounded sectarian pride” should not be the basis for such a charge. The judge said that the marriage was one of the outcomes of the religious liberty enjoyed in this country since the Revolution.


1883: Nathan Gottgetren, alias Nicholas Gilbert, a 35 year old Jew was brought back to New York by two detectives from Putnam County. A married man and confidential bookkeeper, he has been arrested on charges of forgery.


1883: This afternoon, the members of Shaarai Berocho (Gates of Blessing) dedicated their new facility located on East 45th Street in New York.  The congregation was founded in 1858 under the leadership of Rabbi Elias Epstein.


1883: It was reported today that the Jewish World of London has announced “that Count Tolstoi, the Russian Minister of the Interior, has ordered the enforcement of the decree forbidding Jewish manufacturers from employing Christian workmen.”


1883: It was reported today that “a British Jew, representing Raphael Tuck & Sons,” a London business firm has been expelled from Russia despite having a “proper British passport.”


1884: It was reported today that a mobbed attacked seven Jews were killed and an untold number injured by a mob at Dombrovitz, Russia.


1885: It was reported today that G.A. Heap, the U.S. Consul General in Constantinople has sent a second, more strongly worded protest to the Turkish government  protesting the expulsion of Americans from Jerusalem because they were Jews.  Heap pointed out that the expulsions are in violation of a treaty between the two nations and that he is referring the matter to Washington.


1885: The Book of Psalms translated from the Hebrew and edited by John G. Lansing is among the tomes appearing on today’s “New Books” list


1885: It was reported today that Rabbi Ash will continue serving as the Rabbi of Beth Hamedrash Hagadol after its move into new facility on Norfolk Street. Ash had urged the congregation to buy the building from the Methodists at a cost of $45,000 and to spend the $10,000 necessary to prepare the inside for use by the Jews.


1885: In a speech given to a Jewish literary society whose members were 16, 17 and 18 year old Jewish boys, it was reported that G.A. Ettinger that the recently deceased Sir Moses Montefiore had sought “to free his people from the shackles of prejudice and the evils of persecution” while the recently deceased General U.S. Grant (and former President of the U.S.) had “labored to free 4,000,000 human beings from the shackles of slavery.” As if to dispel any charges past, present or future that Grant was an anti-Semite, a bevy of speakers including Julius Levy, Eugene N. Levy and William Grossman, echoed Ettinger’s sentiments about the recently deceased Giant of Judaism and the General who had saved the Union.


1886: “The Jews of Italy” using information that has appeared in the Lunario Israelitico of Leghorn and the London Times provides a snapshot of Jewish society in the middle of the 19th century.  There are approximately 45,000 Jews living in the country which means they comprise about 1 per cent of Europe’s Jewish population.  Rome has the largest Jewish population – 5,600.  Mantua now has the leading rabbinical school while Padua is home “to the greatest Hebrew scholar in Italy, Rabbi Ende Lolli…)


1887: It was reported today that Jonas Heller, who passed away in March, bequeathed gifts of $2,500 to Mount Sinai, the Hebrew Orphan Asylum, the United Hebrew Charities, the Montefiore Home for Chronic Invalids and the Hebrew Technical Institute. (The list of recipients provides a snapshot of major Jewish institutions in post-Civil War New York City)


1887: “Julius Weisbaden, a miser and monomaniac, was found dying in his room” today “and was taken to Bellevue Hospital”


1887: Temple Emanuel contributed $264 to the Union of American Hebrew Congregations.


1888: In a case of Jew versus Jew, Samuel Gompers has testified before Congressman Ford’s Immigration Committee.  Gompers, an English born Jew who professed his loyalty to his adopted country said that the “importation” of Polish and Russian Jews had depressed the wages of cigar-makers.  Gompers said that he had no problem with Jews being brought to the United States for humanitarian reasons but he did have a problem with the current process which was designed to depress wages.  Gompers then went on to decry the conditions in the cigar industry where all workers, regardless of their origins, were exploited by the owners. (The latter information was surely not well received by Congressman Ford)


1890: It was reported today that “Michael Gernsheim & Co, the bankers, have made a new move in their fight against an assessment on the stockholders under the reorganization scheme of the Houston and Texas Central Railway Company.”


1890: “King of the British Gypsies” published today included information on the origins of the gypsies who, according to some, were “the mixed multitude” that went out of Egypt during the Exodus. According to Ernst Hengstenberg since there is no mention of them during the wanderings in the wilderness or after the entrance into Canaan they must have left the Israelites shortly after the crossing at the Sea of Reeds.


1890: Dr. Bernard Drachman is scheduled to deliver a lecture on “Judaism and Ethics” at Cooper Union which is the seventh in a series of public lectures sponsored by the Jewish Theological Seminary.


1890: “Precious Stones” published today compared the “frequent and enthusiastic” references to precious stones in Hebrew literature” with the “paucity of allusion to them in…Greek literature” which the author attributed to the Jewish view of these stones as objects to be used in the creation of art while the Greeks saw them, like all other objects, as potential gods.


1890: “Czar and Kaiser To Meet” published today described the upcoming meeting between the two monarchs during which the condition of Russia’s Jews will be discussed.  Baron Max von Oppenheim who has the backing of the “Jewish financial houses in Germany and Austria” has expressed his concerns as have the Rothchilds who have obtained “the assurance…that the existing condition of the Russian Jews would not be made worse.”


1891: “He Swindled Undertakers” published today described the anger that a number of New York undertakers feel toward a young Jewish man who has been soliciting ads from them for the Jewish Times.  First he tells them about complaints in the community about their services and then tells them that advertising in the paper will defuse the anger since most Jews have a very high opinion of the Jewish Times.


1891: The American Hebrew mourns the recent deaths of poet James Russell Lowell and New York Timesman, George Jones.


1891: “Angry Jews In Boston” published today described the disgust the Jews felt when they came to take possession of the Old Church of the Messiah, which they planned to convert into a synagogue.  The Jews were so repelled by the damage that the Episcopalians had done to the building that they were willing to forfeit their $500 deposit.


1891(13th of Av, 5651): Eighty-two year old Louis Goodheim, who had been living at the Hebrew Home since 1884 took his own life.  Goodheim, who had once been a successful merchant in London, left a note thanking the staff for its kindness.  He had told his brother that he was in such agony that if he had had a gun he would have shot himself


1891: “The Russian Refugees” published today described the problems encountered by Jewish colonists who have been settled in New Jersey under the auspices of the Baron Hirsch Fund.


1893: As the unemployment rate reached 12% and continued to rise during the depression brought on by the Panic of 1893, approximately 5,000 unemployed Jews gathered for a peaceful mass meeting at Walhalla Hall turned violent as the worker vented their frustrations when jobs that were advertised turned out to be nonexistent.


1893: “One of the Czar’s Victims” published today described the arrival of Vladimir Korlenko, who had spent six years in Siberian exile and who has two sympathetic novels on “the Jewish question in Russia, in New York where he is staying at the Astor House.


1895: In two days of meetings, Herzl meets Rabbi Moritz Güdemann and Berlin philanthropist Heinrich Meyer-Cohn in München. Güdemann was an Austrian born Rabbi who was sympathetic to the Zionist cause but was concerned about the tendency to downplay the religious component of re-settling the land.  Herzl looked to Gudemann to introduce him to the Rothschilds.


1895: Based on information that first appeared in The London Daily News it was reported today that there are 571, 300 people living in Warsaw of whom 190,300 are Jews.


1896: Birthdate of Lotte Jacobi the Prussian-born photographer whose subjects included Albert Einstein, Marc Chagall and Alfred Stieglitz. She left Germany and settled in New York in September, 1935 “as persecution against Jews increased.”


1896: Birthdate of Johannes Kleiman, the Dutch business associate of Otto Frank who was arrested by the Gestapo for his role in hiding the famous Frank family.


1896: In Clinton Township, NJ. Mrs. Paul Wissen found a body in the barnyard who “had a Hebraic cast to his features” but whom could not be positively identified.


1897: At Rishon Lezion, Reveivel Miransky one of the Bilium who founded Rishon Lezion and his wife gave birth to Joshua Myron. During World War I, Mr. Myron was a Sergeant in “the camel-mounted Zionist brigade that fought with Vladimir Jabotinsky against Turkey in Palestine.”  This unit was part of the Jewish Brigade that was part of the British Army.  When Mr. Myron passed away in 2000, at the age of 102, he was one of the last surviving members of this force that helped lay the groundwork for the creation of the state of Israel and the I.D.F.


1898:The first conference of Russian Zionists is held secretly in Warsaw. Warsaw, like much of Poland was part of the Russian Empire. During the conference, Achad Ha-Am discussed his differences with Theodor Herzl. Achad Ha-Am was the pen name of Asher Hirsch Ginsberg one of the most famous Jewish intellectuals of the second half of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century.  Unlike Herzl who believed in a political, semi-assimilationist solution to the creation of Jewish state, Achad Ha-Am saw the Jewish home as being “a national spiritual center.” Ginsberg was area of the practical challenges that the Jewish people faced.  For example at the time of Kishinev Pogroms, he called for Jews to take arms in their own defense.  While Herzl’s dream of a Jewish state has been realized, the Jewish people are still wrestling with the creation of a Jewish homeland that encompasses Jewish values from tradition to the world of the Haskalah.


1898: As of today 715 of the 865 children staying at the Hebrew Orphan Asylum have been taken from the building at 138th Street and Amsterdam Avenue and moved to the facility at Rockaway as officials deal with the epidemic of dysentery.


1899: Pennsylvania Congressman Marriott Brozzius announced the appointment of Frank Eshelman as a cadet at the U.S. Military Academy following the resignation of Rigmund Albert, a young Jew, from West Point.


1899: The Court Martial of Captain Alfred Dreyfus resumed today with his attorney making General Roget “squirm in his seat” as he cross-examined him about the Esterhazy’s letters.


1899: “Shot Down By Anti-Semite” published today described the shooting of a locksmith named Bonnet in Paris by an unknown assailant who called out “He looks like one of those dirty Jews” before firing his weapon.


1899: “Is A Warm Champion of Dreyfus” published today described Anton Weiss of Pine Bluff, AR admiration for and personal friendship with Captain Dreyfus.  Weis had met Dreyfus one was working for the Transatlantic Steamship Line at Harve France where Dreyfus was serving with an artillery unit. There were only a few Jews in the city and no house of worship.  Dreyfus “who was greatly respected” because “of his extensive knowledge” of Jewish ritual served as “the rabbi’ and led the services.”


1900: During the siege of Peking which ended today and was part of the Boxer Rebellion U.S.M.C. Private William Zion “distinguished himself in the presence of the enemy” with such bravery that he earned the Congressional Medal of Honor.


1903: Birthdate of Abram Chasins “an American composer, pianist, piano teacher, lecturer, musicologist, music broadcaster, radio executive and author.”


1908: Birthdate of Felix Eliezer Bergmann the native of Frankfurt who earned his degrees from the University of Berlin 1933 before he made Aliyah where became Chairman of Pharmacology at the Hebrew University.


1911: Birthdate of Mikhail Moiseyevich Botvinnik Jewish Russian International Grandmaster and long-time World Champion of chess.  He passed away in 1995.


1911: In Russia, arrests continue in Kiev in connection with charges of blood libel.


1903: In Russia, “Isaac Abramovich Piatigorsky, a frustrated violinist” and his wife Basya Maria Amshislavska gave birth to cellist Gregor Piatigorsky a product of the Imperial Conservatory in Moscow who came to the United States in 1929.

1915: In Philadelphia, Jewish academic Max Leopold Margolis and his wife Evelyn Kate Aronson gave birth to Max Leopold Margolis


1915(7th of Elul, 5675): Leo Frank was lynched after having been wrongfully convicted of raping 12 year old in Georgia. “Frank, the manager of a pencil factory in Atlanta, Georgia, was accused of raping and murdering an employee, thirteen-year-old Mary Phagan. Frank was convicted, despite evidence incriminating a janitor at the factory, Jim Conley. The prosecution claimed that Conley only helped Frank dispose of the body, in return for $200. After the trial, further evidence came to light calling Frank's guilt into question. The governor commuted his death sentence to life imprisonment, but Frank was then lynched. Frank's trial was sensationalized in the media, which promoted fantastic stories about orgies and rape at the factory. Populist politician and publisher Tom Watson skillfully manipulated the story in order to inflame public opinion, and succeeded in using it to build support for the creation of a new Ku Klux Klan, the original organization having been dormant since Reconstruction due to federal action; a second Klan was founded in 1915 by a group calling itself the Knights of Mary Phagan. Frank's lynching turned the spotlight on anti-Semitism in the United States and led to the founding of the Anti-Defamation League.”


1915: “Louis Marshall who argued the Frank case before the United States Supreme Court, said tonight that Tom Watson, editor of The Jeffersonian and at one time candidate for President on the Populist ticket was responsible for the lynching of Leo M. Frank.”


1915: Nathan Straus who was raised in Georgia said tonight that “the lynching” of Leo Frank “has brought disgrace to Georgia and the whole country” and that the only way for the state to redeem itself was to bring the killers to justice.


1915: “On the first page of the Jeffersonian, a weekly paper edited by Thomas E. Watson which was issued tonight appears the following” ‘A Vigilance Committee redeems Georgia and carries out the sentence of the law on the Jew who raped and murdered the little Gentile girl, Mary Phagan.’”


1917: A tremendous fire swept through the Jewish quarter of Salonica leaving 50,000 Jews homeless. Thirty-two synagogues and fifty Jewish schools were destroyed. The Jews suffered 90% damage to everything they owned.


1917: Vilmos Vázsonyi completed his term of Minister of Justice of Hungary.


1918: In Moscow, followers of Lenin “proclaim Jews as a danger to the masses.”


1918: In Petrograd, “in a demonstration against the Jews,” “anti-Semites among the revolutionaries” tore “up the banner of the ‘Bund.’”


1918: Bolshevik revolutionary leader Moisei Uritsky was assassinated by fellow Jew Leonid Kanegeiser.  Uritsky, like many Bolsheviks traveled a tortuous path from his early idealism.  At the time of his death, he was head the Petrograd Cheka.  The Cheka were the secret police and over time became much for efficient and showed greater cruelty that did those who had served the Czar.


1920: Birthdate of photographer Lida Moser.

1921: In Tübingen, Germany, Jewish scholars Victor Ehrenberg and Eva Dorothea Sommer gave birth to Sir Geoffrey Rudolph Elton the British historian “who specialized in the Tudor Period.”


1923: In the Bronx Samuel and Sonya Grossberg gave birth to Yitzroch Loiza Grossberg who gained fame as pop-artist Larry Rivers.

1924: In Zholkiew (which was in Poland at that time) Shlomo and Hayyah Gittel Schachter gave birth to Meshullam Zalman Schachter whom some consider to be “the spiritual father of the Jewish Renewal movement.” (As reported by Paul Vitello)

1927: Birthdate of Bernard Cornfield, the Turkish born son of a Romanian-Jewish actor “who became one of the most flamboyant and controversial figures ever to stride through the American mutual fund industry.”  (As reported by Diana B. Henriques)


1929(11th of Av, 5689): Shabbat Nachamu


1929(11th of Av, 5689): Following yesterday’s attack on Jews at the Wailing Wall, Arabs attack Jews in Jerusalem on Shabbat. A young Sephardic Jew named Abraham Mizrachi was mortally wounded when he was stabbed at the Maccabi grounds near Mea Shearim, in the Bukharan Quarter’


1933: In Tel Aviv,The British High Commissioner and other officials participate in the laying of the cornerstone for the Levant Fair which is to be held here in 1934.


1933: “The Private Life of Henry VII” directed and co-produced by Alexander Korda and featuring Binnie Barnes as “Catherine Howard” was released today in the United Kingdom.


1933:In Saarbrucken, a decision by a court in Berlin stating that a Jew doing business in Germany cannot hold the State responsible for negligence in failing to maintain order and to afford him protection is printed in the Freiheit


1936(29th of Av, 5696): Two Jewish nurses were killed today by Arab snipers in Jaffa.


1937: As Japanese troops moved through Shanghai, the Shanghai Volunteer Corps including its Jewish Company under the command of Major Noel S. Jacobs was activated for a three month tour of duty.


1937: In Geneva, Mr. Ormsby-Gore, the British Colonial Secretary, told the Permanent Mandates Commission of the League of Nations that Great Britain definitely considered that she should no longer maintain the Mandate of Palestine, if it has to be applied by violence. He insisted that the whole basis of the Palestine Mandate should be changed. Of course these pious sentiments did not keep the British from holding on to Palestine for another ten years, denying the establishment of a Jewish state and enforcing pro-Arab immigration policies that were a death sentence to the Jews of Europe.


1937: Forty-one congressmen requested that Cordell Hull, the US Secretary of State, advise the British that they were not carrying out the intentions and promises of the Balfour Declaration and of the Palestine Mandate.


1937: While the diplomats debated in Geneva, the Arab terror continued. A long list of sporadic shooting incidents, the wounding of a police agent in Ein Kerem, a bomb explosion in Tiberias and many robberies, all within one week, was announced by the Palestine Police.


1937: At the closing session of the historic, 20th Zionist Congress held in Zurich, Dr. Chaim Weizmann was re-elected the President of the World Zionist Organization.


1937: The New York Times reports that “A remarkable document, purporting to give a confidential report by Dr. Chaim Weizmann, Zionist president, of a conversation he had in London with William G. A. Ormsby-Gore, British Colonial Secretary, on a plan for the partition of Palestine, has been published by The Jewish Chronicle here.”


1938(20th of Av, 5698): Eight-nine year old Adolph Lewisohn, the German-born American banker and philanthropist who was known as a “copper king” because of his mining success, passed away.

1938(20th of Av, 5698): Arab violence continued to spread and grow more virulent. Early this morning, the body of Meyer Gutwird a 21 year old rabbinical student “who used to devote virtually of his time to religious studies and was often seen early in the morning at the Wailing Wall reading a holy” was found in Jerusalem.  Gutwird had been stoned to death and then beaten with an iron rod.  A bomb was thrown at a taxicab in Jaffa and Judah Mosseri, a Yemenite Jew, was wounded in both legs when shots were on the border between Jaffa and Tel Aviv.  Arab terrorist did not limit their activities to attacking Jews.  They attacked eight Arab telephone linemen whom they robbed before they released them.


1939: The 85,000 Jews living in Slovakia were terrified of being robbed and pillaged by the non-Jews, who were encouraged by the Germans.


1939: The New York City premiere of “The Wizard of Oz” produced by Mervyn LeRoy with Oscar winning music by Harold Arlen and Yip Harburg was held at Lowe’s Capitol Theatre


1940: “The Prefecture of Haute-Garonne issued Leon Blum a new identification card, which indicated that his hair and mustache were grey, his nose “straight,” and his complexion “clear.”


1941(24th of Av, 5701): Three men in Khmelnik, Ukraine, were gathered together and shot dead. The deaths were justified by Einsatzkommando as retaliation for Jewish resistance. Considering how the SS death squads worked, it is surprising that they felt the need to offer an excuse for killing more Jews.


1942(24th of Av, 5701): The Nazis gassed 341 French-Jewish children from the ages of two to ten, as well as 323 girls up to the age of 16, at Auschwitz. Two of the victims are Suzanne Perl, seven, and her sister Micheline, three.


1942: Over the next 48 hours the Nazis murdered 2500 Jews from Drogobych, Ukraine, at the Belzec death camp.


1943: “A survivor from Sabinov in Slovakia, who has remained anonymous, wrote a report in which he described his selection in Sobibór, together with approximately one hundred men and fifty women, upon arrival.”


1943: The latest deportation continued at Bialystok; The Nazis selection 1,200 children for transport to Theresienstadt. Four weeks later, those children still alive were sent to Birkenau where all of them met the fate of death. Fifty-three adults volunteered to join them.\
1943: Some 1200 children are taken from the Jewish ghetto at Bialystok, Poland, to Theresienstadt, Czechoslovakia, and later to Auschwitz, where they will be killed.


1944: Nicholas Winton, the Englishman who rescued almost 700 Jewish children from Nazi occupied Czechoslovakia was promoted to the rank of pilot officer in the RAF.


1944: Premiere of “Cry of the Werewolf” directed by Henry Levin.


1944: Birthdate of Larry Ellison, the co-founder and CEO of Oracle.


1944: The last deportation from Drancy, France, leaves for Buchenwald bearing 51 Jews. Once again we have a reminder of how critical the Final Solution was to the Germans and their allies.  This deportation took place as the Allies were liberating Paris.  While the Germans were preparing to pull out and leave the French capital to the liberators, they had to ship one more load of Jews to their death. 


1945: Animal Farm by George Orwell is first published by Fredric Warburg both of whose parents were Jewish.


1945: It was reported today that the meeting between representatives of the World Zionist Conference and British Colonial Secretary George Hall was “the first known official contact between the Zionists and the new Labor Government.”  In the past the Laborites have pledged their support for the creation of a Jewish homeland so “the Zionists are eagerly awaiting the British Governments action on the request for 100,000 more immigration certificates…”


1946: Birthdate of Drake Maxwell Levin, the Chicago native “who played lead guitar for the teen-idol rock band Paul Revere & the Raiders during their biggest hit-making years in the mid-1960s.” (As reported by Bruce Weber)


1948: Mitchell Flint “took up D-108 for an hour of formation flying, part of an exhibition for Prime Minister Ben-Gurion's visit to Netanya.”


1948: “During today's visit by Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion to Netanya, Modi Alon scrambled Syd Cohen and four of his B flight pilots, if only for show in front of the prime minister.”


1948: Mordechai Weingarten, a Jewish civilian leader in Old Jerusalem “appeared before a commission investigating events” that had led up to the surrender of the Old City to the Jordanians.


1949: In New York, Ambassador Eliabu Elath and the chief Israeli delegate to the U.N., Aubrey Eban, “addressed a meeting of officials of the Consulate and of various Israeli missions in the United States” as part of the celebration marking the transfer of the remains of Theodore Herzl to Jerusalem. (As reported by JTA)


1949: In New York Norman Bertram Coleman, Sr., and his wife, Beverly (Behrman) gave birth to Norman Bertram "Norm" Coleman, Jr the future Mayor of St. Paul and U.S. Senator from Minnesota.


1949: Premiere of “Jolson Sings Again” the sequel of “The Jolson Story,” biopics about Al Jolson directed by Henry Levin


1950: Premier of “The Petty Girl” a musical comedy directed by Henry Levin.


1951: U.S. Premiere of “The Lost Continent” a science fiction thriller co-starring Sid Melton, the son of Yiddish comedian Isidor Meltzer.


1951: The conflict in the World Zionist Congress on the aims of Zionism now that Israel has been established as a state remained sharp as the delegates adjourned this afternoon for the Sabbath recess.


1952: John Blanford of UNRWA and the government of Jordan signed an agreement that provided eleven million dollars for the resettling of Arab refugees in Jordan. The Arab governments, including Jordan, did all that they could to keep the Palestinian refugees penned up in camps and keep them out of their respective countries.  


1952: Two Jews were sentenced to death for economic crimes in Poland. It was thought that the Polish Communist regime was exploiting anti-Semitism to distract attention for its own, ever-growing economic difficulties.


1956(10th of Elul, 5716): Sixty-five year old Russian born Yiddish poet Moishe Broderzon passed away today.

1957(20th of Av, 5717): Sixty-six year old English painter and “Whitechapel Boy” David Bomberg passed away.

1960:  Birthdate of actor Sean Penn.  Penn’s father was Jewish.  His mother was not.  Penn’s father was director Leo Penn who was a victim to the infamous Blacklist.


1962: In a rare loss of control, reliever Larry Sherry hit Red’s lead-off batter Gordie Coleman in the seventh inning.  The Dodgers go on to defeat Cincinnati.


1963: Three days after his death, a friend disclosed the fact that Clifford Odets’ “The Flowering Peach” “had been the Pulitzer Prize jury’s 1955 drama choice” but that it had been overruled by Pulitzer Adviosry Board.


1966(1st of Elul, 5726): Rosh Chodesh Elul


1966(1st of Elul, 5726): 1967:Yonatan Netanyahu married Tuti today.


1967: Tuti and Yonatan “Yoni” Netanyahu were married today after which they moved to the U.S. so he could enroll at Harvard.


1969(3rd of Elul, 5729):  German born physicist Otto Stern passed away.  A native of Germany, Stern worked with Einstein before World War I.  He came to the United States in 1933 where he taught and lived until his death.  He won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1943.


1974: Leonard Bernstein conducted the premiere of Dybbuk Variations with NYP in Auckland, New Zealand.


1976: Hadassah continues its national convention for a third day in Washington, DC.


1979: Premiere of “The Seduction of Joe Tynan” a cinematic commentary on the state of American politics directed by Jerry Schatzberg, produced by Bregman co-starring Melvyn Douglas.


1979: “The Concorde ... Airport '79” with a screenplay by Eric Roth, music by Lalo Schifrin and featuring performances by Avery Schreiber and Harry Shearer was released in the United States today by Universal Pictures.


1980(5th of Elul, 5740): In Jaffa, one person was killed and eight were injured during a terrorist car bombing.


1981(17th of Av, 5741): Ninety one year old Jewish historian, author and academic Selma Stern Taebuler passed away.

1982(28th of Av, 5742): Fifty-seven anti-apartheid activist Ruth First, the daughter of Latvian Jews who had moved to South Africa in 1906 and the wife of Joe Slovo passed away today.


1983(8th of Elul, 5743): Lyricist Ira Gershwin, brother of the famous George Gershwin, passed away at the age of 86. (As reported by John S. Wilson)

1986(12th of Av, 5746)Moses Hadas an American teacher, who was one of the leading classical scholars of the twentieth century, and a translator of numerous works, passed away today. 

1987:  Rudolf Hess, the last of Hitler’s inner circle died in a Berlin hospital at the age of 93. He apparently attempted to commit suicide by hanging himself with an electrical cord.  Hess had parachuted into England in 1941 for reasons that to this day are unclear.  Convicted as a war criminal at Nuremberg, he spent the rest of his life at Spandau Prison.


1988:According to an article in the Cedar Rapids Gazette entitled, “A Tale of Two Piggies.” Concrete pigs had replaced pink flamingos as yard ornaments for Temple Judah congregants Terri and Brian Cohen. The 1,100-pound concrete porker showed up in the couple’s front yard at 1290 35th St. NE after a mysterious phone call invited Terri to leave her home. Brian recalled a friend asking what kind of lawn ornament he wanted and when he responded, “no pink flamingos and no Virgin Mary grottoes,” he neglected to mention swine.


1992: Woody Allen admitted to being romantically involved with Soon-Yi Previn, the adopted daughter of Allen’s longtime companion, actress Mia Farrow.


1994: Elias Canetti, a novelist, playwright and cultural historian who had won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1981 was buried today in Zurich next to James Joyce. 


1995(21st of Av, 5755): Ninety-three year old screenwriter Howard Koch, who won an Oscar for his work on “Casablanca”, passed away. (As reported by Mel Gussow)

1997: Guy Hever disappeared after finishing his stint on guard duty while serving with an artillery unit based in the Golan Heights.


1997: In the Gaza Strip a two day celebration was held to celebrate the 25thanniversary of the Gush Katif settlement bloc


1997: 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 Lise Meitner: A Life in


Physics by Ruth Lewin


1998: US President Bill Clinton admits in taped testimony that he had an "improper physical relationship" with White House intern Monica Lewinsky.


2002: “Israeli security forces arrested the Hamas terrorists known as the ‘Silwan Cell’ who were responsible for the attack on the Café Moment coffee shop in Jerusalem that killed 11 Israeli civilians and wounded another 54.”


2002: The end of the two-day dedication ceremony of the Anne Frank Human Rights Memorial in Boise, Idaho.


2003: Ariel Sharon completed his term in office as Communications Minister of Israel.


2003: The Sunday New York Times includes reviews of Einstein’s Clocks, Poincare’s Maps: Empires of Time by Peter Galison,Kate Remembered, a biography of Kathryn Hepburn by the Jewish author A. Scott Bergand What Was She Thinking?:Notes on a Scandal, a novel by Jewish author Zoe Holler.


2004(30th of Av, 5764): Rosh Chodesh Ave


2005: In a tribute to the vitality of the Jewish people Hutzot Hayotzer Jerusalem’s largest summer festival celebrating art and various crafts returns to its original location at the Sultan’s Pool when it opened today.  2005: In Gaza, while others had already left, “16 families were evacuated today by the IDF and police.”


2005: In an example of the demise of another Jewish founded department store chain Coles announced that it would decide the fate of Myer, an Australian retail group founded Sidney Myer a Jewish immigrant from Russia.


2006: IDF Chief of Staff Dan Halutz refused to resign over charges that he had sold off his portfolio because, unlike most Israelis, he knew that his country was faced with the prospect of going to war after two Israelis soldiers had been captured by Hezbollah.


2006: I Was a Child of Holocaust Survivors by Bernice Eisenstein went on sale today.


2006:Israel's Attorney General Menachem Mazuz decided to indict Haim Ramon for indecent assault. Ramon responded by saying: "I am certain of my innocence. The court will prove it."


2007: “Superbad” starring Jonah Hill opens in movie theatres throughout the United States. Jonah Hill, who plays the socially inept teen, says he's really a nice Jewish boy. "I am not a super lecherous guy. I usually enjoy having a girlfriend as opposed to dating a variety of women. I'm a nice Jewish boy."


2008: In St. Paul, Minnesota,Bais Chana Jewish Women's Weekend Retreat comes to a close.


2008: Services are held at Tifereth Israel Synagogue in Des Moines for Marvin Pomerantz, 78, a friend and adviser of Republican governors and presidents for four decades who twice served as president of the Iowa Board of Regents


2008: The Washington Post book section reported that The D.C. Jewish Community Center is seeking submissions for its third annual writing contest -- short essays or stories that illuminate how humor has been helpful in difficult times. The winning entries will be part of "Laughing for God's Sake: Humor in Jewish Literature," the opening event in the upcoming Hyman S. & Freda Bernstein Jewish Literary Festivalto be held in September.


2008:The cabinet voted this morning to release some 200 security prisoners as a goodwill gesture to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.


2008: Anna Gostamelsky shattered Israel’s national swimming record the 100-meter freestyle this evening at the Beijing Olympics.   But after six years, Ms. Gostamelsky, one of thousands of immigrants from the former Soviety Union, has not been able to convince the rabbinate that she is Jewish according to halacha.


2008: Opening of the12th Annual Jewish Arts Fest of Dallasfeaturing the deeply Texan and Jewish story of The Immigrant in a musical concert production by Fort Worth's Stage West.


2009: Time magazine features reviews of three books about Bernie Madoff “who hawked his investment fund to a largely Jewish clientele” including Too Good to be True by Erin Arvedlund, Madoff with Money by Jerry Oppenheimer and Betrayal; The Life and Lies of Bernie Madoff by Andrew Kirtzman.


2009: In Washington, D.C. Community organizer Michael Rosen discusses and signs What Else But Home: Seven Boys and an American Journey Between the Projects and the Penthouseat Politics and Prose Bookstore


2009(27th of Av, 5769):Two more Israelis died on today due to complications from the swine flu, becoming the eighth and ninth people in Israel to succumb to the pandemic.


2009(27th of Av, 5769): Eighty-four year old Israel Adler founder of the National Sound Archives of the National Library of Israel, founder and former director of the Jewish Music Research Centre of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and one of the co-founders of IASA died today after a prolonged illness.

2009: “New Doubts Raised Over Famous War Photo” published today described challenges to the authenticity of one of the iconic combat photographs Robert Capa’s “Falling Soldier.”

2010: The National Jewish Retreat is scheduled to begin at Reston, VA.


2010: Clashes between the IDF and Palestinian terrorists along the Gaza border intensified today, when two IDF soldiers were slightly injured by mortar fire near the security fence in southern Gaza.


2010(7th of Elul, 5770):Harold Shpeen, 87, of Marlton, a longtime dentist and former president of the Jewish Federation of South Jersey, passed away today. 


2010: LAJFF in cooperation with the Anti-Defamation League and Second Generation host an exclusive pre-release screening of “A Film Unfinished” in Encino.



2010: Ryan “Kalish hit his first career grand slam in game against the Angeles in Fenway Park.”



2011: Les Bergen, a JHSGW Board Member, is scheduled to facilitate “a virtual tour of Arlington National Cemetery, where more than 5,200 Jews are buried. 


2011: “Smiley - How about some emotional pornography?” written by Eyal Weiser and directed by Allon Cohen is scheduled to open in New York City.


2011: “The California Supreme Court declined to review the Court of Appeal's decision to affirm Phil Spector’s conviction” for the murder of Lana Clarkson.


2011:  Fighting bad lighting and a spotty internet connection, activists at the Rothschild tent city held a live chat tonight with leaders of the “May 15” anti-government protests that brought hundreds of thousands into the streets across Spain since they began over three months ago.


2011: It was reported today that “The Hebrew University in Jerusalem has been ranked the 57th best university in the world, in a list of the top 500 universities worldwide.


2011: Peter Shumlin became the first sitting governor in the United States to preside over a same-sex wedding ceremony


2012: Among the many choices Washington Metropolitan Areas Jews have for welcoming the Sabbath are the Pre-service wine and cheese social at Beth El Hebrew Congregation in Alexandria and the Shabbat BBQ at Congregation Beth Emeth in Herndon, VA


2012: A final vote is scheduled to take place today when the United Church of Canada's General Council can choose to accept or reject an overall motion that includes recommendations to approve a boycott of products made in Israeli settlements. (As reported by JTA)


2012: The leader of the Lebanese Shiite terrorist Hezbollah said his group will transform the lives of hundreds of thousands of Israelis to “hell” if Israel attacks Lebanon. Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah said today that the group has a list of Israeli targets that it can hit with few rockets.


2012:South Africa’s chief rabbi has called on the country’s deputy minister of international relations to resign, saying he is unfit to hold public office.

2012(29thof Av,5772): Seventy-seven year old “Samuel H. Lindenbaum, who was widely considered New York City’s top zoning lawyer and who was credited with doing as much as any of the powerful developers among his clients to shape the modern skyline of Manhattan” passed away today.  (As reported by David W. Dunlap)

2013: In Monticello, NY, second and final day of the Bagel Festival attendees can participate in the Best Bagels Contest and the Bagel Triathalon  that includes seeing how far you can roll a bagel, how far you can shot put a bagel and how high you can stack bagels without have them fall.


2013: “Arthur Fields: the man on O'Connell bridge” published today described the “career” Irish photographer Arthur Fields, the Dublin native Abraham Feldman who was the son of Jews from Ukraine.

2013(11thof Elul, 5773): Eight-nine year old historian David Landes author of Revolution in Time: Clocks and the Making of the Modern World passed away today. (As reported by Douglas Martin)

2013: The Tamarod ("Rebellion") movement in Egypt has joined a campaign calling to stop US aid to Egypt, and to cancel the 1979 Camp David peace treaty with Israel, Daily News Egypt reported today.


2013:The IDF fired a Tamuz surface-to-surface missile at a Syrian army post today, after several Syrian mortar shells exploded in the Golan Heights. (As reported by Yaakov Lappin)


2014: The New York Times featured books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers includingKill My Mother: A Graphic Novel written and illustrated by Jules Feifer, Timeless: Love, Morgenthau and Meby Lucinda Franks and “Andrew Lewis Conn’s new novel, O, Africa!, which explores the fictional exploits of two Jewish brothers whose commercial partnership propels them to the forefront of the silent film industry in the years between the World Wars.”


2014: This evening, the PBS premiere of “Before The Revolution - The Untold Story of the Israeli Paradise in Iran.”


2014: The Baton Rouge (LA) Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to host a screening of “Fiddler on the Roof” complete with a sing-along.


2014: “Israel will not agree under any circumstances to a ceasefire deal that doesn’t meet the country’s security demands, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said today, as an Israeli delegation landed in Cairo to discuss an Egyptian proposal aimed at ending hostilities in the Gaza Strip and across the Israeli border.” (As reported by Adiv Sterman)


2014: Israeli security forces are preparing to examine “three openings in the ground…inside communities in the Gaza border area” near homes, kindergartens and playing fields” which are thought to be “tunnel entrances dug by Hamas under the border from Gaza into Israel.” (As reported by Stuart Winer)


2014: After yesterday’s violent protests at a Tesco supermarket by pro-Hamas demonstrators and the decisions of the grocery chain which was founded by Jewish businessman Jack Cohen to knuckle under to the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions movement, today another UK grocery chain removed kosher items from their shelves out of fear of violence from pro-Palestinian demonstrators.


2015: The “Seeking Justice: The Leo Frank Case Revisited” exhibit is scheduled to open to the public today at the Southern Museum in Kennesaw, GA.

2015: As part of program sponsored by the Southern Museum, the William Breman Jewish Heritage Museum and the Museum of History and Holocaust Education at Kennesaw State University Congregation Neir Tamid is scheduled to lead a centennial remembrance of Leo Frank’s lynching including the recitation of Kaddish led by Rabbi Tom Liebschutz.


 

 

 


 

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

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August 18


1201: Founding of Riga, capital of modern day Latvia. The first Jews appeared in Riga three centuries later and despite Czars, Nazis and Commissars continue to live in the city to this day.


1227: Genghis Khan dies.  According to Arthur Koestler’s The Thirteenth Tribe, Genghis Khan wiped out the Khazar Empire.


1307: Jaime II (James) of Majorca expelled the Jews from the provinces of Rousillon and Montpellier. Many escaped to Barcelona where they were welcomed.


 1393: King John I, in an effort to prevent "backsliding" by converted Jews, prohibited them from living in the same quarter or even eating together.


1533: The Queen of Poland granted the Jews of Pinsk all the rights already granted to the Jews of Lithuania.


1670: A church called the Leopoldskirche was dedicated today in Vienna.  The church had been a synagogue but it was no longer used as such because the Jews had all been expelled from the Upper and Lower Austria.


1765(1st of Elul, 5525): Rosh Chodesh Elul


1765: Samuel Levy Maduro, son of Moses Levy Maduro married Leah Cohen Peixotto in Curacao


1775: The Spanish established a presidio (fort) and the town came to be called Tucson, Arizona. The first openly Jewish settlers did not arrive in Tucson until the 18th century.  They included Nathan Appel, a noted merchant who served as a delegate to the first Arizona Territorial Legislature in 1863 and Chief of the Tucson Police, William Zeckendorf, the Tucson merchant who was the grandfather of the famous real estate magnate and the brewer Alex Levin, founder of Levin’s Park, the three-acre entertainment center that was the site of every important social and communal event in Tucson during Arizona’s territorial days.  Country Singer Linda Ronstadt is one of Levin’s descendants.


1822(1st of Elul, 5582): Rosh Chodesh Elul


1822(1st of Elul, 5582): Joshua Zeitlin passed away. Born in 1742, he “was a Russian rabbinical scholar and philanthropist. He was a pupil of the Talmudist Rabbi Aryeh Leib ben Asher Gunzberg who was the author of Sha'agat Aryeh; and, being an expert in political economy, he stood in close relations with Prince Potemkin, the favorite of Catherine II. During the Turko-Russian war Zeitlin furnished the Russian army with various supplies, and managed that business so cleverly that he was afterward appointed imperial court councilor. On retiring from business in civil rank of Court Counsellor, Zeitlin resided on his estate Ustzia, where he was consulted by the rabbis with regard to rabbinical questions. He rendered pecuniary assistance to many Talmudists and scholars, and supported a magnificent beit midrash, in which many Jewish scholars were provided with all the necessaries of life, so that they could pursue their vocations without worries of any kind. Among the scholars who benefited by his generosity: Rabbi Nahum, author of Tosafot Bikkurim; Mendel Lepin, author of Cheshbon ha-Nefesh; and the physician Baruch Schick. Zeitlin was the author of annotations to the Sefer Mitzwot Katan, printed with the text (Kopys, 1820), and supplemented by some of his responsa.”


1823: Birthdate of Phoebe Yates Levy Pember. During the Civil War, Pember served as the chief matron of Richmond’s Chimborazo Hospital. After the War, she wrote her memoirs, which were published as A Southern Woman's Story: Life in Confederate Richmond, in 1879. This book, which details her daily life through anecdotes of the war years, remains one of the best sources for understanding the experiences and ideas of upper-class Southern Jewish women before and during the Civil War. Following the War, Pember maintained her elite social status, and traveled extensively through the U.S. and Europe. She died on March 4, 1913, and is buried in Savannah

1826: Birthdate of William Isaac Wolf (Ritter von Gutman) who founded the largest coal company in the Austro-Hungarian empires and served as the President of the Jewish Community of Vienna from 1891 through 1892.


1830: Birthdate of Franz Joseph I, the penultimate Emperor of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. During his long reign, for whatever reason or reason(s), Franz Joseph improved the conditions of his Jewish subjects to the point that “three years after he celebrated his Jubilee the Jewish Chronicles’ Vienna correspondent wrote “the Jews owe a great deal to their Emperor Franz Joseph” and that they do not blame him for any “retrogressive measures” taken against them.  At the same Franz Joseph’s enemies derisively referred to him as the “Judenkaiser.” 


1830: Birthdate of Henry Strauss, the native of Alsac who moved to Jackson, Mississippi before the Civil War.


1834:  Birthdate of department store owner, Marshall Field.  Marshall Field was not Jewish but his partner Levi Ziegler Leiter was.  In 1865 Field and Leiter bought a dry goods store which they named Field and Leiter. They built and re-built the signature State Street Store.  When Leiter retired, the company was renamed Marshall Field and Company.


1835: Birthdate of Amalia Nathansohn Freud, the mother of Sigmund Freud.


1838: Birthdate of Emil Ganz a Civil War veteran who went West and became a successful businessman and three-time mayor of Phoenix, Arizona.


1843: Birthdate of Moritz Brasch, the native of Prussia who gained fame as a philosopher and essayist.


1846: The Jewish Oath, originally established by Charlemagne, was abolished in Austria. Until then, a Jew who took oath in a Christian court against a Christian was forced to stand on the skin of a dead animal or be surrounded by thorns and call down the curses of Korach or Naaman if he were not telling the truth. In Romania it was only repealed in the 20th century.


1846: ‘The Religious Opinions Relief Act removed some of minor disabilities which affected British Jews and dissenters from the Established Church; the only state office which still remained closed to Jews was Parliament.”


1855: It was reported today that Solomon Rothschild who died in Paris in July was buried "with a certain degree of financial pomp.  The hearse was followed by a large number of artistic and literary celebrities by the old men supported at the hospital endowed by the deceased and by 1,200 children educated at his school.  Then, in the procession, was the Grand Rabbi and the Israelite Consistory.  The body was buried in the tomb of the Rothschild family, which is in the Jews' corner of Pere La chaise."


1856: Birthdate of Asher Zvi Hirsch Ginsberg who gained fame using the Hebrew pan name Ahad Ha'am (אחד העם,). A pre-eminent essayist he was the founder of Cultural Zionism with a vision of a Jewish "spiritual center" in Palestine. Ha'am strived for "a Jewish state and not merely a state of Jews." In what would appear to have been a detour from his intellectual pursuits Ahad Ha’am managed the Anglo-Asiatic tea company established by Kaloniumus Wolf Wissotzky, the founder of the Wissotzky Tea Company which prior to the Bolshevik Revolution was the largest tea company in the world.


1860: “Sunday at Newport” published today states that the Jews might teach the current inhabitants “a lesson of reverence; for, although long since departed from Newport, where their social and commercial position was once superior, by ample testamentary provision, their Synagogue and Cemetery are preserved in admirable order -- reproachful to Christian neglect and indifference…It was startling, when the remains of the benevolent Judah Turo were brought here for interment, to hear the Rabbi, who pronounced the funeral discourse -- alluding to his change of abode and the vicissitudes of his life -- say, as a matter of course, "Like his great ancestor, Jacob, he was a pilgrim and sojourner.”


1863: Birthdate of Victor-Guillaume Basch, the native of Budapest who was the son of journalist Raphael Basch and who became a professor at the Sorbonne and a French political leader.


1869: Henry Fileman, the second son of John Fileman married Theresa Clara Leopold, the eldest daughter of Louis Leopold at the Masonic Hall, Bedford Row, Holborn, WC,


1870: The Baltimore American reported that members of the Lloyd Street Synagogue had filed suit against various officers of synagogue in Circuit Court over what they considered violations of the charter as it pertains to matter of ritual and the hiring of a Chazan, among other matters.


1871: It was reported today that a large quantity of diamonds, rubies and other precious stones which had been concealed in the luggage of three French Jews has been seized by Custom House authorities on suspicion that they had been smuggled in to the country aboard the SS Italy.


1878: “The Happy Californians” published today described the surprise expressed by Christians in California that Michael Reese, the recently deceased German-Jewish millionaire had bequeathed “large sums to different institutions irrespective of their denomination.”


1878: During the Yellow Fever epidemic that has gripped New Orleans Rabbi J.K. Gutheim, Edward J. Krsheidt and other officers of the Hebrew Benevolent Assoication made the following appeal, “ Sickness, distressand suffering amont the poor are increasing daily.  Our funds are nearly exhaustaed.  In this sad calamity we deem it our melancholy dutry to appeal to the sympathies of our brethern throughout the United States for speedy aid.”


1879: The Notes of Foreign News column reported the Romanian Minister of Foreign Affairs has issued a circular to its missions abroad concerning the condition of the Jews living in the country.  On the one hand the government claimes that “In the future every foreigner” Jewish or non-Jewish, will be eligible to become naturalized citizens regardless of religion.  At the same time, the government claimes that “the Jews in Roumania at the present moment have never been Romanian citizens.  The government questions how it can make them citizens “in one day” since it will that Moldavia will be over-run by 300,000 Jews who are “uneducated fanatics, having a different language,  a different language, a different  different customs, different sentiments and whom the” Romanians have always considered foreginers.  Granting the Jews currently living in Romanaia would “stirke a terrible blow to the economic interest of the county…and would drive the population to revolt…”  [The treatment of the Jews living in Romania was a cause that had been taken up by the Great Powers.  The Romanians wanted recognition as an independent state while working tenanciously to avoid improving the lot of its Jewish citizens.


1879: It was reported today that The Pall Mall Gazette (an English publication) “says that a Mr. Austin Corbin has ‘gone so far as to exclude Jews from the Manhattan Beach Railway…’” The columnist concludes that this “will be news to Corbin and the Jews.”  (Apparently, the English author did not know that report of Corbin’s ban was quite true.]


1880: A barge filled with children on an excursion sponsored by the Sanitarium for Hebrew Children narrowly avoided colliding with a yawl-boat as it came through the Narrows today. 


1880: Mr. Mendel denied recent reports that the Sharon Hotel at Sharon Springs does not accept Jewish guests is false.  He has been staying there for the last three summer seasons as have been several other guests whom the proprietors know are Jewish.  (This comes on the heels of the Saratoga Springs incident)


1881: The SS Bellevue will leave for an excursion to Hart’s Island today at 11 am sponsored by the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society


1881: “A Pawnbroker Swindled” published today described the victimization of Ellis Silbertsein, a Jewish pawnbroker who owns a shop on North 9th Street in Philadelphia, PA.


1882(3rdof Elul, 5642): Forty-two year Leon Jacob Wetheim the Dutch bank employee turned author who was the brother of A.C. Wertheim and the son of Dina Minden and Carl Wertheim, passed away today.


1883: In Canajoharie (Montgomery County) NY, Judge Thomas W. Bingham officiated at the wedding of New Yorker Joseph P. Joachimsen and Caroline Cohen, “the daughter of the late Marx E. Cohen of Charleston, SC.”


1883: It was reported that “Lord Edmund Fitzmaurice, Under Foreign Secretary stated in the House of Commons…that the government…has asked the Russian government to” explain why a British Jewish businessman who had “a proper British passport” was expelled.


1886: Birthdate of Sholom Schwartzbard a Bessarabian-born Jewish anarchist known primarily for the assassination of the Ukrainian politician Symon Petliura.  Schwartzbard held Petliura responsible for the death of his parents who had been murdered in a pogrom in 1919.


1887(28th of Av, 5647): Julius Weisbaden a miser who has no friends or family in the United States died today Bellevue Hospital


1887: It was reported today that Adolph Stern a commercial traveler who passed away yesterday will be buried by the Hebrew Mutual Benefit Society at the Salem Fields Cemetery.  Stern, who was a member of the society, died alone since his wife and grown daughter still lived in Germany.


1888(11th of Elul, 5648): Prominent New York merchant Marks Laski died suddenly today at his home on West 36th Street.


1888: “Jews in Prussia” published today relied on reports from the London Times to report that in 1880 there were 363,790 Jews living in Prussia which made them 1.33 percent of the population.  Five years later the number of Jews had grown to 366,543 but they were now only 1.29 per cent of the population. 


1889: “Right or Left” published today described Dr. Friedrich Erlenmeyer’s “proof” that “the ancient Hebrews” were “a left-handed people.”


1889: Jacques Damala, the non-Jewish husband of Sarah Bernhardt, passed away.


1889(21stof Av. 5649): Thirty-seven year old Lewis Arnheim, a member of the Georgia State Legislature passed away today.


1890: Rabbi E.M Chapman of Dallas and Samuel Gompers delivered the eulogies at the funeral for Montague L Marks who was buried at Washington Cemetery on Long Island “according to the practice of the Orthodox Jews.”


1890: “Baron Hirsch, the well-known Jewish financier and philanthropist sent the Hebrew Young Men’s Benevolent Society of Montreal a check for $20,000 after it was discovered that the Canadian society could not participate in the benefits of the American trust fund which he had created.”


1890: Birthdate of Solomon Rosenthal, the Lithuanian born chess master.


1890: Fifty-three year old Samuel Cohen was arrested today on charges that he was falsely representing himself as an agent of the Hebrew Aid Society and was collecting money which was intended to help poor Jews.


1890: Sixty-two year old John Cooper Vail, the librarian at Bellevue Hospital and author of the prize winning poem “The Hebrew Gladiator” which was first published in the New York Clipper passed away today.


1891: “City and Suburban News” published today described an appeal that Rabbi William M. Krauskopf made that raised $165 for the Hebrew Sheltering House.


1891: “Brazil Wants Farmers” published today that a large number of Russian Jews have gone to the Brazilian Consul’s office in New York to apply for permission to go that country where they can work as farmers.  Many of those who have already gone there do not know anything about farming and seemed to be more interested in pursuing the profession they know best – peddling.


1892: “The Pope on Jews and Frenchmen” published today provided a summary of Mme. Severine’s interview with the Pope that appeared in Figaro in which he discussed his views about the Jews and anti-Semitism.


1892(25thof Av, 5652): Sixty-one year old German author Elise Henle, the wife of Leopold Levi, passed away today at Frankfurt-on-Main.


1892: Farrer Herschell, 1st Baron Herschell, the son of Ridley Haim Herschell a Jewish convert who founded “the British Society for the Propagation of the Gospel among the Jews” began serving as Lord Chancellor today.


1893: The Park Departments has issued a permit to allow the thousands of unemployed Jewish workers to hold a mass meeting in Union Square.


1893: Emma Goldman the wife of the man who shot Chairman Frick of Carnegie Steel delivered “a violent speech’ at a meeting in Golden Rule Hall on Rivington Street.


1894: Seventy-one year old Eugene Lawrence, the author of The Jews and Their Persecutors, passed away in New York City.


1895: “Kesher Shel Barzel” published today traces the history of the organization from its founding in 1860 as a mutual aid society in New York City to becoming one the largest national Jewish benevolent and protective societies in the United States. Kesher Shel Barzel means “Iron Knot.”


1896: The body of the man with the Hebraic features which was found yesterday in a New Jersey barnyard was identified as Arthur Malke of Newark who has been missing for four days.


1896: In Hamburg, Nina J. Loeb, the daughter of Solomon Loeb and Paul Warburg gave birth to James Paul Warburg, a World War I veteran and banker who was “a financial adviser to FDR.”


1897: A crowd of 15,000 heard Mayor Strong when he delivered an address at the Summer Festival given tonight by District Grand Lodge, No.1 Independent Order Free Sons of Israel at Sulzer’s Harlem River Park. 


1897: J. S. Koenigsberg, a leading member of the Jewish community in Denver  received a letter for Edwin Wallace, the American Counsel at Jerusalem “giving an account of gross misappropriation of money sent by American Jewish societies for the relief of their fellow countrymen” living in that city.


1898: All the children living at the Hebrew Orphan Asylum should have been removed today from the facility at 138th Street and Amsterdam Avenue as officials dealt with an epidemic of dystentery.


1899: When the trial of Captain Alfred Dreyfus resumed this morning at 7:25 AM in Rennes, “Colonel Picquart, former Chief of the Intelligence Department of the War Office, was called to the witness stand and continued his deposition which was interrupted yesterday by the adjournment of the court.”


1899: The meeting of the Third Zionist Congress comes to an end.


1899: It was reported today that Rigmund Albert, a Jewish cadet, had left the Military Academy at West Point because of he had been persecuted because of his religion.


1899: Thirty-one year old Siegfried Wolf and Ida Wolf gave birth to Alfred Emil Wolf.


1900: Birthdate of Berry Pink, the native of Passaic, NJ who attended two Ivy League schools before graduating from the Naval Academy.


1902: Herzl receives a letter from Rothschild, filled with warnings against ambitious and over-hasty plans, and characterizing the idea of Palestine as a myth.


1904: Max Factor, Sr. moved to the United States and opened a small perfume and cosmetics concession at the St. Louis World’s Fair.  Over time, this would grow into Max Factor and Company, one of the leading makers of cosmetics in the world.


1904: Birthdate of Max Factor Jr.  Max Factor, Jr. would follow in his father’s footsteps as CEO of Max Factor Cosmetics.  He passed away in 1996.



1908: The New Jersey convention of the American Federation of Labor adopted a resolution endorsing Samuel Gompers and his policies.  The real issue was Gompers’ support William Jennings Bryan’s bid to be elected President in the race against William Howard Taft.


1910: Ossip Gabrilowitsch and his wife Clara Clemens (the daughter of Mark Twain) gave birth to their daughter Nina who turn out to be the last known lineal descendant the great American humorist and author.


1911: In Great Britain, the University of Birmingham conferred an honoree degree on Professor Dr. Hermann Oppenheim, a leading neurologist.


1911: The Alliance Israelite Universelle sends ten thousands francs to relive the suffering resulting from the fires at Constantinople.


1911: Academie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres awards Captain Raymond Weill a grant of six thousand francs to continue excavations in Egypt. Weill would go on to lead archaeological expeditions in Palestine in 1913-1914 and 1923-1924 that would include exploration of the part of the ancient Jerusalem water system known as the Siloam Channel.


1911: Anti-Semitism took on many faces in Russia as Jewish families were expelled from two more cities that had been part of the Pale of Settlement. The Czar’s government also enforced restrictions on the number of Jewish students attending high schools and confiscated property owned by Jews outside of the Pale.


1911: James Simon, President of Hilfsverein der Deuteshcne Juden, gave one hundred thousand marks to the Technical Institute in Haifa.


1912: In Chicago, Illinois, dedication of Temple Beth Israel.


1914: “In Trachin, an outbreak of fires as Russian troops marched through the town was immediately blamed on the Jews” whose goal, according to the locals, was to let the Germans know where the Russians troops were located.  In this case 14 Jews were arrested and although they were later released their “pillaged goods” were neither returned nor paid for.  (During August and September, the Jews of Poland were subject to numerous pogroms, usually at the hands of the Cossacks forcing them to flee to Warsaw from which they would later be forcibly be deported eastward (263 As reported by Max Hastings)


1915(8thof Elul, 5675): Schumel Itzig Gordon, the son of Salman Yehuda Gordon, passed away today.


1915: A group of Jewish leaders met at the Wave Crest Manor, at Wave Crest, L.I., “to consider plans for the publication of a number of classics.”


1918: “The feeling in Marietta over the (Leo) Frank lynching is illustrated by a jeering, sarcastic telegram sent today by the Chief of Police H.H. Looney to Detective William J. Burns who was employed by Frank’s friends and was run out of Marietta after an attempt to lynch him which read ‘Leo Frank lynched here yesterday.  Come quick and help investigate.’”


1915: “Under the title ‘Finis’ an editorial in this morning’s Macon Daily Telegraph” reads in part, “The Frank case has come to an end – climatic, catastrophical, stunning in is conclusiveness, its absolute finality.”


1916(19thof Av, 5676): Eighteen year old Samuel Salomo Israelsohn passed away.


1916: Rabbinical seminaries in Florence and Leghorn, Italy merged due to lack of funds.


1917: Vilmos Vázsonyi completed his term in office as Minister of Justice of Hungary.


1917: A Great Fire in Thessaloniki, Greece destroys 32% of the city leaving 70,000 individuals homeless. The downfall of the Jewish community in Thessaloniki started with a fire in the Jewish quarter in 1917. Prior to the start of the fire Thessaloniki had been one of the two o most important Jewish communities in pre-World War II Greece. In the 1600s, Thessaloniki, a Sephardi community, became one of the largest Jewish communities in the world and was known as "ir v’em beyisral," metropolis and mother of Israel. By 1900, more than half of the town’s population was Jewish, which was about 80,000 Jews. In 1900-1910 Thessaloniki had more than 50 synagogues, 20 Jewish schools and numerous Jewish institutions and associations. It was a center of Torah learning for all of Europe. Business was generally conducted in the Sephardi language of Ladino and, on Friday afternoons, almost all commercial life stopped since most of the city’s workers were Jewish. A sprawling Jewish cemetery that was destroyed during World War II to make room for a new university lay in the center of the city (. The Jewish population was varied and included both Kararites and followers of the false messiah Shabbatai Zevi. The city had a strong Judaeo-Spanish culture. For all intents and purposes, this all disappeared with the Holocaust. 


1917(30th of Av, 5677): Rosh Chodesh Elul


1918: Due to massive fires in Salonica, 50,000 Jews are homeless.  This represents nearly the entire Jewish population of the city.


1918: Premiere of “Our Mrs. McChesney” a silent film “based on the 1915 play by Edna Ferber.


1918: Thirty-four year old Russian born American lawyer and Democratic Party leader Benjamin Antin married Dora Polsky today.


1919: An appraisal of the estate of Ludwig Dreyfus filed today shows “that the total was worth $1,305, 318.”


1920: The Tennessee State Legislature approved the Nineteenth Amendment providing “the final ratification necessary to add the Amendment” that gave women the right to vote “to the United States Constitution.


1920: In Holyoke, Vincent and Antoinette D’Addario gave birth to Raymond D’Addario, “an Army photographer whose images of Hitler’s top henchmen during the Nuremberg war crimes trials put their faces before the world as it became increasingly aware of Nazi atrocities.” (As reported by Dennis Hevesi)


1920: Alfred Mond was the subject of a cartoon in Punch.

1922: Birthdate of Shelley Winters.  Born Sylvia Schrift, in St Louis Mo, Ms. Winters enjoyed a long and varied career.  Unlike her fellow acting student Marilyn Monroe, Winters was able to make the transition from female leading lady to character actress.  She made over 130 films in career that spanned five decades.


1926:Jewish Telegraphic Agency Mail Service reported that “the number of families to be settled in the Ukraine during the years 1927 and 1928 is not to be less than during the present year, that is, not less than 4,000 families each year, the Ukrainian Government Commission for Jewish Land Settlement decided at its meeting here. Since the number to be settled outside the Ukraine during 1927 will not exceed 1,000 families, and in 1928 will be 3,000 families, it has been decided that sufficient land should be allocated in the Ukraine for the settlement in 1927 of 3,000 families and in 1928 of 1,000 families.”



1926: Jewish Telegraphic Agency Mail Service reported that “The Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America has this year produced a new form of collapsible Succah, which can be erected within an hour. These Succahs give an opportunity to the Jews of America to have their observance not only in the Synagogue, but at their homes. Applications can be made to the office of the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America, 131 West 86th St., New York City.”


1928: In Manhattan, “Abner Millon, a tailor, and the former Mollie Gorkowitz” gave birth to Theodore Millon “a psychologist whose theories helped define how scientists think about personality and its disorders, and who developed a widely used measure to analyze character traits.” (As reported by Benedict Carey)


1929: Arabs, following their attack Friday on the Wailing Wall and on groups of Jews yesterday, today stoned Rabbi Nical of the College of Torah Chaim.


1929(12th of Av, 5689) A young Sephardic Jew named Abraham Mizrachi who was stabbed at the Maccabi grounds near Mea Shearim, in the Bukharan Quarter on Shabbat by Arab rioters died of his wounds today.


1930: Birthdate of Liviu Librescu, Israeli professor, who was killed in the Virginia Tech massacre


1932: In German, premiere of “The Bartered Bride” a film based on the comic opera directed by Max Ophüls who also co-authored the script.


 1933: In Paris, Bula (née Katz-Przedborska) and Ryszard Polański, a painter and manufacturer of sculptures gave birth to Rajmund Roman Thierry Polański who gave fame as Roman Polanski.


1933: According to press reports published in Jerusalem, Mrs. Sarah Levi of Singapore has set aside her fortune of £100,000 to rebuild Safed, which suffered during the 1929 riots.


1933: It was reported from Jerusalem that Aba Achimeir, a Revisionist, has been charged with having conspiring to assassinate Dr. Chaim Arlosoroff.


1933: The British High Commissioner issued an order that in all towns of mixed population a third of the wages spent in public works shall be assigned to Jewish labor.


1933: According to the official count, there are a total of 297 accredited Zionists delegates to the Zionist Congress meeting in Prague: 139 are Laborites, 79 General Zionists, 47 Revisionists and 32 Mizrachi.


1933: The meeting of the International Congress of Mizrachi meeting in Cracow, Poland, comes to an end.  Before adjourning delegates the delegates called for the reorganization of the Jewish Agency, expressed opposition to the leadership of Chaim Weizmann and called for a world Orthodox religious congress to be held in Jerusalem no later than 1935.


1933: In Germany, the Ministry of Propaganda and Enlightenment prohibits the filming of a scenario based on Stefan Zweig's "Amok."


1936: Fifty thousand Jewish residents of Tel Aviv attended the funeral today of two nurses killed by Arab snipers yesterday. “Sir Arthur Grenfell Wauchope, British High Commissioner in Palestine, expressed his ‘deepest sorrow and abhorrence of the recent brutal murders and attacks on a perfectly innocent people.’”1937: In Geneva, the Permanent Mandates Commission had completed its sessions and submitted a secret report on the British partition of Palestine scheme to the Council of the League of Nations. 1937: In Zurich, Dr. Chaim Weizmann opened the fifth session of the Jewish Agency Council and announced that it would support the Zionist Congress policy of negotiating with Britain, in principle, the terms of the establishment of a Jewish state. He was opposed by Dr. Felix Warburg, of the council’s non-Zionist representation.


1938: Birthdate of Marcia Lewis who received an RN from the Jewish Hospital School of Nursing in Cincinnati before gaining fame as a Tony nominated actress and singer. (As reported by Bruce Weber)


1938:A British military column was ambushed this afternoon by a gang of well armed Arabs near Acre. The troops assisted by aircraft fought back and in the battle at least twenty-seven Arabs were killed by the fliers and ten more by the troops.


1938: As Arab violence continued, an eight year old Jewish boy was killed and four others were wounded when a bomb was thrown at a crowd on the border between Tel Aviv and Jaffa while another Arab threw a bomb at truck carrying eleven Jewish workers, wounding nine of them.


1938: As Arab violence continued to escalate in Palestine, hundreds of Moslems took to the streets of London shouting “Down with the ignorant Wells” as they protested the publication of A Short History of the World by H.G. Wells.  At the same time a Moslem delegation complained to the High Commissioner of India that the book “insulted the memory of Mohammed and the Koran.” 


1940: Birthdate of Nelli Abramova the Jewish volleyball player who helped the Soviet Union win a Silver Medal at the Olympics in 1964


1941: The Nazis took over authority of Kovno and sealed off the ghetto. Five hundred Jews were taken from the ghetto to be killed. Looting and killing of the Intelligentsia would soon follow.


 1941: Adolf Hitler ordered the end to the systematic euthanasia of mentally ill and handicapped persons due to protests within Germany.  This change in policy at least raises the question as to what effect similar protests by Church leaders and others might have had in averting the Final Solution.


1942: The Nazis deported 998 Jews, including 287 children, to the East from Belgium.


1942(5thof Elul, 5702): Thirty year old Marianne Baum, the wife of Herbert Baum with whom she helped to organize resistance to the Nazis “was executed in Plötzensee Prison” two months after Herbert was murdered by the Nazis.


1943: Thousands of more Jews were deported from Bialystok to Treblinka. This was last train to ever be sent there. All the Jews were sent to the gas chambers. Afterwards, the camp closed down for good.


 1943: The last transport from Salonika arrived in Auschwitz consisting of 1,800 laborers, the last of 48,533 people to be deported from that town. Almost 38,000 of them would be exterminated on arrival.


 1943: The process of destroying the evidence of mass murder that took place at Babi Yar, a suburb of Kiev in the Soviet Ukraine, began. Jewish and Soviet prisoners were set to work, unearthing thousands of bodies and burning them in huge pyres. The Jewish prisoners attended to the horrible task knowing that they too would be shot and burned at the end they tried an escape. During attempt to hide the evidence of genocide, 311 out of 325 Jewish and Soviet prisoners would be killed in their break-out attempt.


1945: A group of refugees in the “Beriha” movement in Komo, Italy were captured by the camera.



1948: “Hollow Triumph,” a film noir directed by Steve Sekely, with a screenplay by Daniel Fuchs and music by Sol Kaplan premiered in Reading, PA.


1950: First performance of "The Village I Knew," choreographed by Sophie Maslow.


1951: Dr. Nahum Goldmann, chairman of the Jewish Agency Executive's American section, appealed tonight to the delegates to the twenty-third World Zionist Congress to shelve the ideological debate on whether it was the duty of all Zionists to settle in Israel.


1951: In Ramala, Moshe Moshonov a native of Bulgaria and his wife gave birth to “Israeli actor, comedian and director” Shlomo “Moni’ Moshonov.


1952: The US granted Israel over $73 million for the relief and resettlement of immigrants and for technical cooperation.


1952: Birthdate of comedic talent Elayne Boosler


1954: Today “Jerusalem honored Joseph Carlebach's work, among others at the local Lämel-School, by naming a street, Rekhov Carlebach/Karlibakh רחוב קרליבך, after him in the neighborhood of Talpiot.”


1957(21st of Av, 5717): English born film composer Louis Levy passed away


1957(21st of Av, 5717): Rabbi Aharon Rokeach the fourth Rebbe of the Belz Hasidic dynasty passed away. Born in 1877, he led the movement from 1926 until his passing in 1957.


1962: Birthdate of Tel Aviv native Noam Kaniel who “has sold over 8 million records.”


1963: “’55 Pulitzer Jury Chose Odets Play” published today described the decision eight years ago of the Pulitzer Prize Board to over-rule the Pulitzer Prize jury’s choice of “The Flowering Peach,” a play based on the story of Noah by Clifford Odets, as the winner of the drama prize for 1955.


1969: Premiere of Woody Allen’s “Take the Money and Run” with music by Marvin Hamlisch.


1969: The Woodstock Music and Art Fair which was held on the land of Max B. Yasgur came to an end.


1976: In Washington, DC, the National Hadassah Convention came to an end.


1977: The US formally and publicly rebuked Israel’s decision to extend certain new services to the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and to approve, by the Ministerial Committee for Settlement, the three new settlements on the West Bank: south of Tulkarm, at Mevo Horon and between Hebron and Beersheba. The US expressed deep disappointment that Israel ignored President Jimmy Carter¹s appeal to avoid such actions before the reconvening of the Geneva Peace Conference. 1977: The ambassador to the UN, Chaim Herzog, lashed out at UN Secretary General Kurt Waldheim, who had also expressed regret that Israel set up new settlements. Herzog reminded Waldheim that double standard and discrimination had long been a norm at the UN.


1978: In Berkley, CA, Marjorie and Joe Samberg gave birth to American entertainer David A.J. “Andy: Samberg.


1978(15th of Av): One person was killed when a terrorist bomb went off in a Tel Aviv market.


1981: Jerry Lewis appears on "Donahue" to defend Telethons.


1983: The Park East Synagogue building at 163 East 67thStreet (NYC) which had been established as Congregation Zichron Ephriam by Rabbi Bernard Drachman was [laced on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places today.


1983(9th of Elul, 5743): Eight-one year old Sir Nikolaus Pevsner (Bernhard Leon), the German born son of a Jewish furrier who became the  British art historian “best known for his 46-volume series of county-by-county guides, The Buildings of England“ passed away today.



1986: Morton Abramowitz was commissioned as Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence and Research.


1993: In Israel, the Supreme Court “rejected the petitions” challenging the Attorney-General’s decision to release Demjanjuk  “on the grounds that (1) the principle of double jeopardy would be infringed, (2) that new charges would be unreasonable given the seriousness of those of which he had been acquitted, (3) that conviction on the new charges would be unlikely, and (4) that Demjanjuk was extradited from the United States specifically to stand trial for offenses attributed to Ivan the Terrible of Treblinka, and not for other alternative charges.”


1994: In Copenhagen, the fifth congress of the EAJS came to an end.


1994(11th of Elul, 5754): Latvian born Israeli scientist and philosopher Yeshayahu Leibowitz passed away. (As reported by Joel Greenberg)



1996:Devorah Zlochower, Leora Bednarsh, and Laura Steiner were recognized for completing a three-year program of Talmud study at the Drisha Institute for Jewish Education in New York City

 

1996(3rd of Elul, 5756): Sixty-six year old Hugo Gabriel Gryn , a leader in the Reform movemtn, passed away.  A native of Berehovo, he survived Auschwitz, trained in America and served as the Rabbi for West London Synagogue for 32 years


1999(6th of Elul, 5759): Fifty-five year old award winning playwright and author Hanoch Levin passed away today.http://www.jewish-theatre.com/visitor/article_display.aspx?articleID=27&pagenumber=2


1999: The Drisha Institute for Jewish Education graduated its first class.  According to its mission statement the Drisha Institute “provides women with the opportunity to engage in traditional Jewish text study in an environment which encourages seriousness of purpose, free inquiry and respect for classical texts. Drisha offers a wide variety of study options for women of all backgrounds and levels.”


2001: Elisabeth Murdoch married Matthew Freud, head of Freud Communications and the great-grandson of Sigmund Freud.


2002: The Sunday New York Times featured a review of Stone Kiss by Jewish mystery writer Faye Kellerman and a printing of the poem “Like a Seal” by Abba Kovner translated from the Hebrew by Eddie Levenston


2003(20th of Av, 5763): Seventy-eight year old bookseller and former “Timesman” Julius Ochs Adler, Jr. passed away today. (As reported by Robert D. McFadden and Eric Pace)



2004:  Eighty-two year old composer Elmer Bernstein passed away. Born in 1922, the Academy Award winning composer gave us memorable scores for many movies including The Magnificent Seven, To Kill A Mockingbird, The Great Escape, The Man With A Golden Arm. (As reported by Adam Bernstein)



2004(1stof Elul, 5764): Rosh Chodesh Elul


2005: Shirat HaYam was evacuated today as part of Israel’s unilateral disengagement from Gaza.


2005: Kfar Darom was evacuated as part of Israel's unilateral disengagement plan.


2006: Congressman Steve Rothman married Jennifer Beckenstein, the community affairs coordinator at the Center for Food Action in Englewood, New Jersey. The couple met through JDate, an online dating website for Jewish singles. Between them, Rothman and Beckenstein have five teenage children and two dogs, who plan to live in Rothman's home, which is being expanded to accommodate the blended family


2006: Haim Ramon resigned as Justice Minister.


2006: “On Sontag: Essayist as Metaphor and Muse” published today provides Holland Cotter’s description of the photography show at the Metropolitan Museum designed to honor the memory of Susan Sontag.



2007: In Jerusalem, "Music in All the Shades" presents "A Musical Trip in the Balkan Countries," featuring Constantine Kitlin on the clarinet, Olga Dshbeski on the flute, Yulia Sinaibeski on the mandolin, and Yuri Pobolotskion on the accordion.


2007:The Shabbat observance of the San Diego Humanistic Jewish Congregation will celebrate Individualism with an investigation of the Essenes, Jews who settled at Qumran and created the Dead Sea Scrolls.


2008: James B. Cunningham presented his credentials as U.S. Ambassador to Israel.


2008(17th of Av, 5768):Ninety-one year old Manny Farber, a painter whose spiky, impassioned film criticism waged war against sacred cows like Orson Welles and elevated American genre-movie directors like Howard Hawks and Sam Fuller to the Hollywood pantheon, died today at his home in Leucadia, Calif. 2008: Time magazine includes an article about the critical swing vote that begins, “The most important demographic for Barack Obama in November might be old Jews in Florida, and the most important old Jew in Florida is my grandmother” and a review of Neillie Hermann’s novel, The Cure for Greif featuring Ruby Bronstein, her “strong, loving family” including her father a “Holocaust survivor father, whose observance of Jewish customs persists despite his professed loss of faith” with whom she visits the camp where he was interred as a young boy


2008: Tzfat [Safed] Klezmer Festival opens.


2008: In “Under ‘Kafkaesque’ Pressure, Heir to Kafka Papers May Yield Them,” published todayEthan Bronner described the fate Franz Kafka’s personal papers which had been rescued by Max Brod and eventually became the property to Esther Hoffe who has now passed away.


2009: “It was reported today that Paula Abdul was negotiating to return to Idol after not taking part in season nine of Dancing with the Stars


2009(28th of Av, 5769): Ninety-eight year old Rose Friedman, the widow of Milton Friedman with whom she was an intellectual and personal soul-mate, passed away today. (As reported by Bruce Weber)



 2009: Dan Zofi and Jack Germany led and evening of Israeli & International Folk dancing at Beit Shalom Synagogue, the Jewish Congregation of Maui.


2009: Today Israeli novelist David Grossman was named a finalist for the only international literary peace prize awarded in the United States


2010: "A Film Unfinished" directed by Yael Hersonski is scheduled to be shown at the Film Forum in New York.


2010: In Cedar Rapids, IA, the Hadassah Book Club is scheduled to meet at the home of Andrea Liu where Ina Loewenberg  is scheduled to facilitate a program entitled “Reading Aloud: Poems on Jewish Themes.”


2010: With the mid-August heat showing no mercy on the Holy Land, locals broke an all-time single-day record for electricity use this afternoon, the Israel Electric Corporation announced. The corporation said demand topped 11,200 megawatts, following 19 straight days of unprecedented energy usage


2010(8th of Elul, 5770): Ninety-nine year old Benjamin Kaplan who as an U.S. Army officer played a critical role in the Nuremberg trials and then went to become a Harvard Law Professor and jurist passed away. (As reported by Bruce Weber)



2010(8th of Elul, 5770): Ninety-four year old Martin Dannenberg the man who “found the Nuremberg Laws Document” passed away today. (As reported by Douglas Martin)



2011: David McKenzie, JHSGW Interpretive Programs Manager is scheduled to lead a Walking Tour of Jewish Washington in which participants will learn what it was like to live and worship as a Jew in Washington from 1850 to 1950 in the historic Seventh Street, NW, neighborhood, now known as Chinatown but originally settled largely by German Jews.


2011: The Fourth Annual Pickle eating contest is scheduled to take place at the Sixth & I Historic Synagogue.  The pickles are being supplied by Sixth & Rye, a food truck that travels the streets of the Nation’s Capital offering a variety of kosher delights including corned beef on rye. 


2011(18th of Av, 5771): Attackers mounted at least three separate strikes on Israeli civilians and soldiers around the popular Red Sea resort of Eilat today, killing seven and wounding at least 20, in what the country’s defense minister called a “grave terrorist incident.”


2011: The IDF attacked terror targets in Rafah in the Gaza Strip today, in response to a three-stage terrorist attack which killed seven Israelis and wounded dozens in the South earlier in the day.


2011: Social justice protests have been canceled for the coming days following combined terror attacks in the South of Israel that left seven Israelis dead and over two dozen wounded this afternoon.


2011: The New York Times featured a review of Wendy and the Lost Boys: The Uncommon Life of Wendy Wasserstein by Julie Salamon


2011: Members of the Cedar Rapids Jewish community gather at Temple Judah for a Surprise Birthday Party celebrating the birthday of Marianne Bern.


2011(18th of Av, 5771): Eighty-two year old Sally Goodgold, an activist who defied ‘pigeon-holing’ passed away today. (As reported by David W. Dunlap)



2011(18thof Av, 5771): Forty-nine year old “Paskal Avrahami, a member of the YAMAM Counter-terrorism Unit was killed this evening during a firefight with terrorists north of Eilat on the border with Egypt. He was married and had three children.”


2011(18th of Av, 5771): St.-Sgt. Moshe Naftali was killed today while responding to the terrorist attacks near Eilat.


2011(18th of Av, 5771): Fifty-seven Yossef Levy was killed during a terrorist attack and his wife was injured during today’s terrorist attack.


2011(18th of Av, 5771): Ninety-one year old biochemist Maruice M. Rapport passed away today in Durham, NC. (As reported by William Grimes



2012: Nicole Wolf-Camplin is scheduled to celebrate her Bat Mitzvah at Agudas Achim in Iowa City, IA


2012: In Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Temple Judah is scheduled to host an open house in honor of Marianne Bern’s 90th birthday.


2012: Kippah-wearing Jews and non-Jews are expected to march today in Sweden as a sign of solidarity with Malmö’s Jews.


2012(30th of Av, 5772): Rosh Chodesh Elul


2012: Amy Schumer’s “standup comedy special Mostly Sex Stuff premiered on Comedy Central” today.


2012: Three Egyptian policemen and a soldier were injured near the Sinai town of Sheikh Zuwaid today when armed men fired a rocket-propelled grenade at their convoy during an operation against militants following the killing of 16 border guards.


2013: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Center Holds: Obama and His Enemies by Jonathan Alter and the recently release paperback edition of Iron Curtain” The Crushing of Eastern Europe, 1944-1956 by Anne Applebaum 


2013: Starting today the Health Ministry is scheduled to “offer oral polio vaccine to children up to the age of nine-and-a-half years.” (As reported by Judy Siegel-Itzkovich)


2013: In Coralville, Iowa Congregation Agudas Achim under the leadership of Rabbi Jeff Portman is scheduled to host its annual synagogue picnic.


2013: “When Comedy Went to School” is scheduled to shown at the San Diego Jewish Film Festival.


2013: “The campaign to recall Mayor Bob Filner amid accusations of sexual harassment” began gathering signatures today. (As reported by Tony Perry)


2013: “Archaeologists working in Jerusalem have discovered what they say is a 2,700 year-old pottery fragment with an ancient Hebrew inscription possibly containing the name of a Biblical figure.” (As reported by Gavriel Fiske)


2014: Klezkanada, the international festival of Jewish/Yiddish culture and the arts is scheduled to open today.


2014: “Alive Inside, A Story of Music and Memory” and “Alive Inside, A Story of Music and Memory,” a film about “a downed Israeli fighter pilot and a Palestinian boy” are scheduled to be shown at the Berkshire Jewish Film Festival.


2014: The 16th Street Book Club at the Jewish History Center is scheduled to host a discussion of Stations West Allison Amend’s novel about Jewish life in the early days of the Oklahoma Territory.


2014: “British supermarket chain Sainsbury’s apologized today after staff at a central London store removed kosher food from shelves in response to protesters outside demanding a boycott of Israeli goods.” (As reported by JTA)


2014: Egypt confirmed that both Israel and Hamas have agreed to another extension of the current cease-fire.


2015: UK Jewish Film is scheduled to host a showing of “Iris” the “50th and last film of Albert Maysles” in which he pays a wry tribute to Iris Apfel, a quick-witted, highly original 93-year-old New York style icon.”


2015: Docent Training is scheduled to begin at the Breman Jewish Museum in Atlanta, GA.


 

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

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August 19


43 BCE: Octavian later known as Augustus compels the senate to elect him Consul. As the first Emperor of Rome (in fact, if not in name) Augustus would follow the policies of “moderation and accommodation” towards Judea begun by his Uncle, Julius Caesar


14CE: Augustus, Roman Emperor passed away. For the Jews, Augustus was a comparatively benign ruler. He left Judea under a Jewish king (even if it was Herod) and only converted the homeland of the Jews to a province during the turmoil that followed Herod's death.  Under Augustus Roman governors were ordered to follow policies that would not antagonize the Jews including.  They were not to permit pagan altars to be built in Jerusalem and their troops were not to parade through the city carrying standards with the picture of the Emperor. He followed a similarly benign policy towards the Jews in the Diaspora including allowing them to contributions to support the Temple and exempting Jews from appearing in court on the Sabbath, starting with Friday night.


1099: The armies of the First Crusade defeated the Saracens at the Battle of Ascalon (an historic Palestinian city on the Mediterranean), one month after they had captured Jerusalem. Neither the Jews nor the Moslems fared well at the hands of the Crusaders.  They slaughtered the Jews of Europe as they marched away and slaughtered the Jews of Jerusalem when they took the city.  The Crusaders did win the Battle of Ascalon, but they actually did not capture the city of Ascalon due to a quarrel between two of the Crusader leaders.  The city remained in the hands of the Moslems and would become a base from which Jerusalem would be attacked in subsequent campaigns.  This would not be the last time that initial victories by Western armies fighting in the Middle East did not result in long term conquests.


1203: “A fire started by Flemish crusaders burned down the Jewish quarter of Constantinople including the synagogue.” (History of the Jewish People)


1263: King James I of Aragon takes the lead in one of the earliest recorded instances of Christian censorship of Jewish writings.


1274: Coronation of King Edward I of England. Under Edward’s reign things went from bad to worse.  For example in “1279 and edict imposed the death penalty on Jews accused of uttering blasphemy about Christianity.  In 1280, “Edward ordered Jews to listen to Cominicans preaching conversion.”  In one of his “last acts of extortion…he arrested the heads of Jewish families and demanded their communities…raise a 12,000 pound ransom payment.”  Finally, in 1290, the King ordered the expulsion of all Jews from his realm.  He would be the last ruler of England to officially deal with the Jewish people until the days of Oliver Cromwell.


1338: Host desecration riots destroyed the Jewish community of Wolfsberg, Austria. The Jews were accused of having stolen the Eucharist, making it bleed, and trying to burn it. Over 70 Jews were burned at the stake and the community destroyed. The community was never revived.


1439: Frederick III, the Holy Roman Emperor passed away today.  “To his last hour” he “protected those outlawed by all the world,” a reference to the Jewish people.  “He had a Jewish physician” and made Jacob ben Yehicel Loans a knight.  On his deathbed, “Frederick is said to have strongly recommended the Jews to his son, enjoining on him to protect them, and not to listen calumnious accusations, whose falsity he had fathomed. (As reported by Graetz)


 1509: The Battle of the Books took place in Frankfurt (Germany): Johann Pfefferkorn, an apostate Jew, convinced Maximilien I to destroy all Jewish books, especially the Talmud. The books were defended by a gentile, Johann von Reuchlin, a noted humanist, scholar and student of the Zohar. The battle was decided in his favor, and the decree was rescinded. Such challenging of the Church by Christian scholars - on its own ground - helped bring about the Reformation and the revolt against the Church.


1555: First printing of Orech Chaim a section of the Shulchan Aruch in Eretz Yisrael. The Shulchan Aruch(The Set Table in English) is a major compilation of Jewish Law created by Rabbi Joseph Caro.  He began writing the work while living in western Turkeyin 1522.  He finished it while living in Safed, the gathering place for scholars and mystics in Eretz Israel.  The Shulchan Aruch is divided into four sections the first of which is Orech Chaim.  Orech Chaim deals with laws concerning prayer, Synagogue, Shabbat and holiday observances. It would take approximately five years for all subsections to be printed.


1662: French philosopher and mathematician Blaise Pascal passed away.  Unlike some other French philosophers Pascal thought highly of the Jewish people as the following quote proves, "It is certain that in certain parts of the world we can see a peculiar people, separated from the other peoples of the world and this is called the Jewish people…. This people is not only of remarkable antiquity but has also lasted for a singularly long time… For whereas the people of Greece and Italy, of Sparta, Athens and Rome and others who came so much later have perished so long ago, these still exist, despite the efforts of so many powerful kings who have tried a hundred times to wipe them out, as their historians testify, and as can easily be judged by the natural order of things over such a long spell of years. They have always been preserved, however, and their preservation was foretold… My encounter with this people amazes me…."


1629: Rabbi Yom-Tov Lipmann Heller was dismissed from office today and imprisoned at the order of the imperial court of Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II for “insulting Christianity” – a charge which led to a fine of being levied on the rabbi, one fifth of which was paid for byJacob Bassevi von Treuenberg, the financier and “Court Jew” who served three different emperors including Ferdinand II.


1654: Gershon Shaul Yom Tov Lipman Heller, "Tosfot Yom Tov" passed away today. “He served as chief Rabbi of Prague and of Vienna.  His most famous work was a commentary on the Mishnah entitled Tosafot Yom Tov.  The word Tosafot is translated as “additions.”  There are those who contend that the Tosafot are not actually “additions” or commentaries on the Talmud but commentaries on Rashi’s commentary.  Regardless Yom-Tov Lipmann Heller was a great scholar, sage and communal leader.”

1800: Birthdate of “German poet” Michael Beer “brother of Giacomo Meyerbeer, the composer, and of Wilhelm Beer, the astronomer.”


1835: A Jew Bill (legislation intended to complete the political and civil emancipation of English Jews) passed its first reading in the House of Lords.


1840: Today, Israel B. Kursheedt who had “played a key role in the establishment of Hebra Terumath Hakkodesh, which aided the poor of Israel, chaired a gathering of New York’s Jewish community to protest” the arrest of several Jews living in Damascus on charges of having killed a Franciscan friar so that they could use his blood for Passover in what is called the Damascus Affair.’


1843: In Strasbourg, Alsace, France, Louis and Babette Block gave birth to Adolphe Bloch, the husband of Noémie Bloch whose children included Marcel Dassualt, a leader in the French aviation industry.


1845:in the Paris suburb of Boulogne-sur-Seine, Haut-de-Seine, James Mayer Rothschild and Betty von Rothschild gave birth to their youngest child Baron Edmond Benjamin James de Rothschild


1848:  The California Gold Rush really gets under way as news of the strike appears in the New York Herald alerting Americans living in the East that “there is gold in them thar hills.”  Jews joined the thousands of others who streamed west looking for fortune.  According to Pioneer Jews by Harriet and Fred Rochlin, local newspapers provided documentary proof of the Jewish presence: “The Cohen claim at Vallecito made another whopping clean-up.”  “Nathan Rhine has one of the best ledges…He expended about $8,000 to develop it.”  “A Jew named Heyman and several others have worked for some weeks some claims on the new ledge.  These claims were jumped by a man named Moore.”  Jews and gentiles discovered that there were more ways to make their fortunes than digging and panning.  Of course the most famous Jew to strike it rich was Levi Strauss whose pants not only won the West but our now a household brand around the world.


1851: Birthdate of Ferdinand-Camille Dreyfus the French journalist and office holder who was not related to Captain Alfred Dreyfus but who ended up fighting a duel with the notorious anti-Semite, the Marquis de Mores at the same time that the embattled French captain was being railroaded.


1852: In Wilkes-Barre, PA, Abraham Strauss and Emilie Bodenheimer gave birth to Joseph Seligman Strauss, the husband of Miriam Weiss, who took time from his legal practice to serve as a member of the Wilkes-Barre School Board and a member of the Executive Committee of B’nai B’rith.


1856: Birthdate of Harold Frederick, the native of Utica, NY, who wrote The New Exodus: A Study of Israel in Russiawhich displayed a sympathy for the subject – the way in which the Czar’s government treated its Jewish subjects.


1861:Derogatory stereotypes were part of the American linguistic landscape as can be seen in this report published in the Charleston Courier describing an episode among Union prisoners being held at Richmond. A newsboy who had been in the habit of selling his papers at three, suddenly ran his price up to five cents, and on making his accustomed sale in the morning to one of the prisoners, the latter first refused to "come down." The young vender was equally inexorable, and finally carried his point, and received the amount of his demand. This rise in stocks was reported to the Yankee conclave, whereupon the question was raised whether it was right for the man to jew the boy, or the boy to jew the man. The discussion thus commenced in the social circle was carried into the debating society, and after the usual pros and cons, it was finally decided that the boy, being the sole and undisputed owner of the property, and the said property not being contraband of war, and no concatenation of circumstances having arisen to obstruct the right thereby vested in the original possessor of the aforesaid vehicle of information, the right was undoubtedly inherent in the adolescent merchant to determine for himself the incipient value of his goods, and to charge for the same accordingly, ad valorem duties to the contrary notwithstanding.


1862: Birthdate of Auguste-Maurice Barrès, the French author and politician who could not be convinced by Leon Blum that was Dreyfus was innocence because, as he wrote in one of his anti-Semitic pamphlets, "That Dreyfus is guilty, I deduce not from the facts themselves, but from his race."[1870: Birthdate of Bernard Baruch financier and unofficial adviser to several U.S. Presidents.  He passed away in 1965. Born in South Carolina, Baruch's family moved to New York City.  He graduated from City College of New York.  He began working as an office boy at three dollars a week. However, by the age of 30 he amassed a fortune thanks to successful speculation in the Stock Market.  He was an adviser to President Wilson during World War I and accompanied him to the Paris Peace Conference after the war.  Thanks to shrewd financial skills, including knowing when to get out of the stock market, Baruch's wealth survived the Crash of 1929.  Baruch was a supporter of the New Deal.  He served Presidents Roosevelt and Truman.  He authored the Baruch Plan, which was an attempt to avoid nuclear war by having an international agency control Atomic Energy.  Baruch is credited by some with first using the term "Cold War" to describe the conditions that existed between the Soviets and the United States after World War II. Baruch was one of those truly colorful characters in American whose life is better described by a novelist than a historian. 


1870: “A Hebrew Church Schism” published today described a case that is being heard by Judge Pinkney in the Circuit Court which centers around a dispute among the members of the Baltimore Hebrew Congregation on the corner of Lloyd and Watson streets over the introduction of changes in ritual that the plaintiffs claim were not adopted in accord with the charter of the congregation.


1872(15th of Av, 5632): Seventy-three year old Karl Feust, the son of the Chief Rabbi of Bamberg who decided to be a lawyer, despite all of the obstacles facing a Jew in that profession,  and who also served as the secretary of the Jewish community passed away today.


1872:“The Bells,” a “one act play that tells the story of a man named Mathias who secretly murdered a Jew 15 years ago and the consequences of his act” opened tonight at Booths Theatre in New York City.


1874: The Grand Lodge of the ancient Jewish Order Kesher Shel Barzel met at Albany, NY, today.  Of the 5,404 members, 4,934 are men and 530 are women. During the past year, Lodge has paid $23,000 to “the heirs or legal representatives of twenty-three deceased brethren.”  The Lodge has $7,000 on hand “to pay the endowment of the next seven deaths.”


1876: Thirty-six year old George Smith, the translator of the Epic of Gilgamesh whose study of ancient Assyrian texts “threw light” on material contained in the Bible passed away at Aleppo, Syria after having suffered from a bout of severe dysentery.


1877:“The Polish Jews and Where They Worship described the dissatisfaction which “some of the prominent Jews of this City, of the class which is represented by the Jewish Messenger, have” expressed because of “the freedom with which certain rabbis and other Hebrews of importance with their people among the Polish Jews, and the other poorer classes of Israelites “on the lower east side “marry and divorce members of their congregations without regard to the laws of the State of New York.”


1877: It was reported today that many Jewish immigrants from Russia and Poland do not trust the civil courts and look to their rabbis for decisions in legal matters.


1877: It was reported that the Jews in the United States have access to 15 newspapers and magazines devote to Judaism.  One of them is printed in German while others have German departments.


1877: It was reported that there are 15 Jewish newspapers and/or magazines published in the United States.  One of them is printed in German and “others have German departments.”


1878: As New Orleans was in the grip of a Yellow Fever Epidemic, New York City Alderman Lewis received the following telegram from some of the prominent Jewish resident of New Orleans, LA: The following telegram from prominent Hebrew residents of New-Orleans was received today by Alderman Lewis: “Sickness, disease and suffering among the poor increasing daily.  Our funds are nearly exhausted in this sad calamity.  We deem it our melancholy duty to appeal to the sympathies of our brethren throughout the United States for speedy aid.”


1879(30th of Av, 5639): Rosh Chodesh Elul


1879: The Commissioner of Emigration took the three Neumann brothers – Joseph,10; Ignatz,8; Max, 7 – to Justice Flammer to the Police Court in the Tombs.  He “committed them to a Hebrew charitable insitutio to be educated and cared for.”  Peter Groden of Castle Garden had found the three boys huddled together three weeks ago in Battery Park where they were trying to sleep.  They said their mother had died and they had no food and not place to go.  Groden took them to the Emigration Commissioners who found out that that the boys’ father “had abandoned them and gone to the West.” Since there were no other friends or relatives, the court system was the only other alternative.


1879: “Mysteries of the Royal Arch” published today described he connection between the Masons and the ancient Hebrews including the fact that their initiation room “is a representation of the tabernacle erect on the old site of the Temple” built in the time of Haggai, Joshua and Zerubbabel.


1880(12thof Elul, 5640): Fifty-nine year old Herman Bodek, businessman and Hebraist who wrote These Are the Words of Covenant, “a catechism of the ritual signs, allegories, and objects of Freemasonry” passed away today in Leipzig.


1881: It was reported today that based on figures collected in Germany, there are 6,139,662 Jews living in the world.  Of these, over 5 million live in Europe and slightly more than 300,000 live in America.  In Europe Russia, with 2,552,594 has the most Jews and Norway with 34 has the fewest.


1882: Two Russian Jewish girls named Mary and Hannah Rabeteck arrived in New York from Hamburg aboard the SS Cimbria.  The two girls who are aged 6 and 8 respectively, claim they have an uncle with the same last name living in the city, but do not know his first name so they will have to stay at Castle Garden for the time being.


1882: Burglars stole $250 worth of materials from the workshop of Meyer Norden on Broome Street in New York.  Norden is Jewish and his shop is closed on Saturday which appears to be why the thieves chose today to steal the silk and velvet cloth.


1882: “Obreight To Be Released” published today described the travails of Samuel Obreight whose family has had him confined to an asylum because he was “a lunatic” – a contention they based, in part, on “the indignation of his Jewish relatives at his marriage to a Christian woman.”


1883: “Murderer Disappointed” published today described the failed attempt by Theodore Hoffman to escape from prison.  Hoffman is sentenced to die for murdering Zife Marks, a Jewish peddler, who worked the area around Port Chester, NY.


1884(28th of Av, 5644): Seventy-five year old Jacob Strauss passed away.  Born in Frankort, he has lived in New Orleans for the last 50 years where he engaged in money-lending.  At the time of his death, he lived on Carondolet Street.


1887: Gus Katz and Emanuel Sturm of Clinton, Illinois, each contributed $1.00 to the Union of American Hebrew Congregations.


1887: A hearse sent by the United Hebrew Charities took the body of Julius Weisbaden from the morgue to the Marble Cemetery in New York where it was interred without flowers or services.


1888(12th of Elul, 5648: Eighty-year old historian Meyer Isler who earned a doctorate and then began teaching at the school founded by his father Israel Abraham Meyer passed away today in Hamburg.

 
1889: The funeral of Lewis Arnheim, a member of the Georgia State Legislature took place in Atlanta today. He is survived by his wife, the former Ida Mayer, daughter of David Mayer and two children.



1890: Justice Duffy has ordered Samuel Cohen to be held for trial on charges of falsely representing himself at he received five dollars from Morris Beckwitz who thought he was making a contribution to the Hebrew Aid Society.


1891: In Brussels, the International Socialist Workmen’s Congress adopted a resolution “condemning both anti-Semitism and Jewish financial tyranny.”


1891: “Goldwin Smith and the Tribal God of the Jews” published today included J.S. Moore’s expression of dissatisfaction with Goldwin Smith’s contention that the Jews only worship a tribal God and “that there is no hope for the Jews as to their social position as long as they adhere to this tribal God.’ (Smith was a British born anti-Semitic Canadian history professor)


1892: A hearing will be held today in response to a complaint filed by Meyer Reinherz an agent of the United Hebrew Charities against Edward Pollock who allegedly attacked him.


1893: Throughout the Lower East Side, an area occupied by Russian and Polish Jewish thousands of circulars printed in Hebrew calling on “Workingmen!!  Organized and Not Organized!  All Suffering and Wretched Ones!” to bring their wives and children to attend a mass meeting at Union Square to be held this evening.


1893: Charles Wilfred, a self-described “anarchist-communist” who had worked with Jewish tailors during their strike in London addressed a meeting at Thalia Hall which was held to celebrate the release of Emma Goldman from Blackwell’s Island.


1895: Eleven year old Sarah Russell, who had appeared in the Court of Sessions on three charges of pickpocketing, was sent to the Hebrew Juvenile Asylum because she “was not properly cared for at home” and could “receive proper training”


1896: It was reported today that the bands of the Hebrew Orphan Asylum and the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Orphan Asylum will perform at The Summernight’s Festival


1897: Julies Harburger and Raphael Rosenberg of the Independent Order Free Sons of Israel have expressed their support for New York Mayor William Strong to become the first mayor “Greater New York” (what we call New York City).


1897: “Charity Funds Squandered” published today described a letter that “J.S. Koenigsberg, the Secretary of the Jewish Society of Denver” received from Edwin W. Wallace the American Consul at Jerusalem  claiming that funds sent for indigent American Jews who have moved to Palestine “to spend their last days”  are being “squandered by the native Jews who live in luxury.”


1899: “Picquart Gives His Evidence” published today described the five hours of the Colonel’s testimony in which he proved details of the plots against Dreyfus and confronts Generals Roget and Mercier.


1899: Joseph Weiler conducted an action today that raised over $200 to aid the Hebrew Sanitarium of Rockaway, New York.


1899: In Rennes, three witnesses, all “enemies of Dreyfus – Major Cuignet, Gener de Bolsdeffre and General Gonse –“testified from 6:30 until 11 A.M.  Their testimony was mainly a reiteration of the evidence they had given before.”


1900:Abe, The Little Hebrew" Attell’s fought his first fight today. He knocked out Kid Lennett in two rounds. His mother, who strongly opposed Attell's idea of being a boxer, later became one of Attell's staunchest supporters, even betting on her son to win. He gained the nickname "The Little Hebrew" in these early fights.


1902(16th of Av, 5662): Sixty-one year old Abraham Mendes Chumaceiro, the native of Amsterdam who “moved to Curaçao in 1856, studied law, and was admitted to the bar in 1872” passed away today.


1906: The newly formed Hebrew Congregation of Cuba changed its name to the United Hebrew Congregation (UHC) of Cuba, and Robert Diamond was elected treasurer. The pressing need for a Jewish cemetery was unfortunately highlighted a month later when Diamond passed away suddenly. Joseph Steinberg was appointed the new treasurer.


1910: In Asia Minor, Ritual murder charges were raised against Jews in Aiden.


1911:Anti-Jewish riots began in Tredegar, New South Wales, Great Britain.  This was the worst outbreak of anti-Semitic violence to take place in the British Isles in modern times.  The riots came at the end of miners’ strike and were so intense that the Home Secretary invoked the Riot Act and called for the military to control the attackers.


1914: At the beginning of WW I Albert Einstein, the recently appointed director of the Institute of Physics writes from Berlin, “Europe, in her insanity, has started something almost unbelievable.  In such times one realizes to what a sad species of animal one belongs. I quietly pursue my peaceful studies and contemplations and feel only pit and disgust.


1914: Birthdate of Rose Heilbron who became the first woman judge to sit at the Old Bailey in London.


1915: Practically everybody attending the meeting at Cooper Union tonight voted “in favor of the resolution for” “holding a Jewish Congress” that would unite Jews in an effort to abolish Jewish disabilities in Russia and to establish “a Zionist State in Palestine at the close of the war.”


1915: It was reported today that when the leader of the lynch mob asked Leo Frank, “We want to know whether you are guilty or innocent of killing little Mary Phagan,” Frank replied “I think more of my wife and my mother than I do of my own life.”  These were the last words he spoke.


1915: It was reported today that after the mob agreed not to mutilate the body of Leo Frank, they cut him down and then vied to get pieces of the rope for souvenirs.


1916: “Motion Picture Publicity Men Organize” published today described the founding of the Association of Motion Pictures whose original members included Frohman Amusement Company, Paramount Pictures,  Adolph Zukor’s  Famous Players Film Company and Ben Schulberg.


1917(1st of Elul, 5677): Rosh Chodesh Elul


1918: Birthdate of Sy Gomberg, an Oscar-nominated film screenwriter and producer who taught screenwriting to University of Southern California students for over ten years.


1919: According to summary of the bequests of the late Ludwig Dreyfus the United Hebrew Charities will receive $627,000 and the Federation for the Support of Jewish Philanthropic Societies will receive $210,000.


1919: Afghanistan gains full independence from the United Kingdom. Jews have lived in what is now known as Afghanistan for more than two thousand years before the last family fled while the Taliban held sway in Kabul.


1920: In Manhattan Louis and Martha Peskin Wershba gave birth to “Joseph Wershba, who as a CBS television reporter working with Edward R. Murrow revealed the story of Lt. Milo Radulovich, whose dismissal from the Air Force because of his relatives’ leftist leanings became a symbol of the anti-Communist witch hunts of the 1950’s.”  (As reported by Dennis Hevesi)


1921: Birthdate of Gene Rodenberry, the creator of sci-fi cult his “Star Trek” staring those two Jewish spacemen – William Shatner as Captain James T. Kirk and Leonard Nimoy as Mr. Spock.


1925: In Cracow, Hirsch and Mita (Rosenbaum) Karmel to Ilona Karmel, the Holocaust survivor who wrote Stephania and An Estate of Memory


1926:  Birthdate of businessman Arthur Rock, the man who supposedly coined the term “venture capitalism.”


1928: The conference of the Mizrachi World Organization is scheduled to open in Danzig (As reported by JTA)


1929: Following attacks by Arabs on Jews praying at the Western Wall Erev Shabbat and other attacks on Jews in Jerusalem, a meeting was held last night at the home of Professor Joseph Klausner, the chairman of the Pro-Wailing Wall Committee.  The committee decided to issue an appeal to the Christian world describing the attacks and asking for intervention on behalf of the Jews.  “We ask to be given back what has always been ours, that which saturated with the blood and tears of hundreds and thousands of the children of Israel.  Christians throughout the world, you know and realize the meaning of religious sanctity, you who know how to respect century-old traditions and painful longing for sacred religious shrines, please intervene and help us recover the Western Wall, so sacred and holy to us.”


1933: In Toronto, Mayor Stewart forbids display of swastika in the city.


1933: In Santiago, Zionist-Socialist party is organized in connection with the campaign for Labor Palestine that has raised 15,000 pesos.


1933:The Jiidische Rundschau, official organ of the German Zionist Federation, is suspended for six months because it replied editorially to an attack on the Zionist Congress by Alfred Rosenberg, Nazi leader.


1934: A plebiscite in Germany approved the vesting of sole executive power in Adolf Hitler as Fuhrer.


1935:More than 2,400 delegates from forty-three countries had registered here tonight for the opening of the nineteenth biennial Zionist Congress being held in Lucerne, Switzerland.


1937: “Confession” directed by Joe May with a script by Julius J. Epstein was released in the United States today by Warner Brothers.


1937: The British government recommended to the Permanent Mandates Commission of the League of Nations that if the Royal (Peel) partition plan is accepted, a provisional cantonization of Palestine should be imposed during the transitional period, immediately after the termination of the Mandate. If such an arrangement would not be possible, an alternative was suggested, namely that two separate Mandates should be held, one for the Jewish, and one for the Arab state.


1938: Hadassah, the Women's Zionist Organization of America, announced today that Great Britain has issued 825 certificates for the immediate transfer to Palestine of Jewish children from Germany and Poland.


1938: Switzerland closes its borders to Jews fleeing Nazi persecution in Austria.


1939:In an impassioned speech frequently interrupted by hecklers, Rabbi Abba Hillel Silver of Cleveland, Ohio, appealed today to the delegates attending the twenty-first session of the World Zionist Congress here to do nothing that might bring the Jews in Palestine into conflict with the British Government.


1940: Malvina Parnes, age 11, saw the Statue of Liberty from the deck of the Quanza, a Portuguese cargo ship.  Parnes and her family were fleeing from Hitler’s Europe and were allowed entry into the United States thanks to the personal intervention of Eleanor Roosevelt, wife of the President of the United States.


1941: Einsatzkommando 8 as well as local collaborators in Mogilev, Belorussia, kill more than 3000 Jews.


1942: An allied force crosses the English Channel in what came to be known as the Dieppe Raid. One thousand troops, mostly Canadian perished in this ill-begotten venture.  It proved to the English and the Americans that a cross-channel invasion of Europewas going to be a very difficult task that would take massive amounts of man and supplies.  More importantly for the Jews of Europe whose only hope of survival lay in liberation, such a landing would be at least a year if not more in the making.  In fact almost two years would pass between the disaster at Dieppeand the success at Normandy.  Unfortunately for most of the Jews of Europe this necessary two year hiatus meant death on an unheard of scale.


1942: Nazis murder the children of the Rembertów (Poland) Ghetto. The town's adult Jews, more than 1000, are assembled for deportation to the Treblinka death camp. About 300 of the people are ordered eastward along the road to Wesola. Before they walk a mile, the 300 are murdered. The 700 who remain are ordered to march south, and as the group passes the town of Anin, one woman melts into a crowd of non-Jewish Polish onlookers and escapes. Forty-five others are machine-gunned at Anin, ostensibly because they attempted escape. Hours later the marchers reach the ghetto at Falenica, where Jews already have been forcibly assembled; those who are discovered in hiding are shot. Inside the ghetto, two Jews resist, using an axe to kill the first German who steps through the doors of their apartment.


1942 At the Belzec extermination camp, 700 to 800 Jews herded into a gas chamber wait in torment for nearly three hours until a balky diesel engine can be started and the chamber filled with deadly exhaust. SS gas/disinfectant expert but anti-Nazi Kurt Gerstein is on hand to observe


1942: For four days 17,000 Jews from Lutsk, Ukraine, are taken to Polanka Hill and executed.


1942: Esther "Etty" Hillesum went to visit her parents at Deventer for the last time.


1942: In Bar, Ukraine, 3,000 Jews were herded together and held without food or water while in a nearby cemetery the Nazis murdered 1,742 Jews. (Jewish Virtual Library)


1942: Today, “the remaining 43 Jews” living in Laupheim were transported to Theresienstadt, marking the end of 200 years of Jewish habitation in this German town.


1943: The Treblinka death camp receives its final trainload of Jewish deportees. They come from Bialystok, Poland.


1943: Nir Am “was established today by immigrants from Bessarabia who were members of the Gordonia youth movement.


1944: The Liberation of Paris begins as the Resistance in Paris rises against German occupation with the help of Allied troops. The long nightmare for the Jews of France is about to end.  Jews played an active part in the Resistance.  Contrary to the popular myth, a significant portion of the French population collaborated with the Nazis and the Vichy French worked tirelessly to ship French Jews to the death camps.


1951:A four year agricultural development plan costing $610,000,000 and designed to feed an Israeli population of 2,000,000 was introduced to the World Zionist Congress today by Levi Eshkol, treasurer of Jewish Agency Executive, Israel...


1952: The Knesset voted by 70 to 11 for an increase in the period of compulsory military service to 30 months.


1952: The S.S. Negba brought 112 immigrants from Hungary and 222 from North Africa to Israel. According to the new arrivals there were some 100,000 Jews left in Hungary, 80 percent of them in Budapest.


1952: Officials in Washington agreed with Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion that the solution of Arab-Jewish difficulties would be of great economic benefit to both sides and certainly help toward strengthening peace in the world. The US State Department had made it clear in numerous background announcements that it did not believe the Arabs could be returned to their former homes in Israel. It felt, however, that some compensation ­ although not complete ­ for the dispossessed might considerably ease


1953: The Knesset passed a law establishing the Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Authority known as Yad Vashem (a monument and a memorial) which takes its name from a verse from Isaiah


1953: Israel's parliament conferred Israeli citizenship posthumously on all Jews killed by the Nazis during the years of the Holocaust (1933-45) in Europe.


1953: An Arab terrorist from Gaza killed a restaurant owner in Ashkelon severely injured his 25 year old daughter.


1955:  Birthdate of actor Peter Gallagher


1956:  Birthdate of actor Alan Arkin


1957(22nd of Av, 5717):  English born artist David Bomberg passed away.


1959(15th of Av, 5719): Seventy-eight year old Jacob Epstein an American-born sculptor who worked chiefly in England, where he pioneered modern sculpture, often producing controversial works that challenged taboos concerning what public artworks appropriately depict passed away today.1960: As the U.S. Presidential elections get underway an announcement is made that Senator John F. Kennedy, the Democratic nominee for President will address the upcoming sixty-third annual convention of The Zionist Organization of America.


1960(26th of Av, 5720):Seventy two year old Sir Lewis Bernstein Namier an English historian passed away. http://www.history.ac.uk/makinghistory/historians/namier_lewis.html

1962: Birthdate of Julius Genachowski “an American lawyer and businessman” who became Federal Communications Commission Chairman during the first year of Obama’s presidency.


1963: “Syrian forces murdered two civilians in Almagor,” a moshav north of the Lake Kinneret.


1969: The hippie happening called Woodstock that was held on the farm owned by Jewish dairyman Max B. Yasgur, came to an end.  [Among the youthful attendees were a Jewish doctor now living in Texas and a Jewish dentist in Arkansas whose name will not divulged as mark of respect for their positions in their respective communities.]


1975:Hadassah announces that it will increase its youth centers in Israel to integrate Jewish children of Middle Eastern and African backgrounds who pose serious social and educational problems in the Jewish state


1976: “Israel said today that it would ignore the demand by President Idi Amin of Uganda for compensation for the Israeli raid on Entebbe airport last month.”


1977(5th of Elul, 5737):  Eighty-six year old comedian Groucho Marx passed away.  When told that he had been rejected for member ship in a club because he was Jewish, Marx replied,“I don't care to belong to a club that accepts people like me as members.

1979: Andrew Young, who resigned last week as chief United States delegate to the United Nations, “characterized as ‘kind of foolish’ the United States policy of shunning contacts with the Palestine Liberation Organization…”  While being interviewed on Face the Nation, “Young called the Government of Israel ‘stubborn and intransigent’ for their policy concerning negotiations with the PLO.


1980(7th of Elul, 5740): Otto Heinrich Frank passed away.  Born in 1889, he gained fame as the father of Anne Frank.


1990:  Leonard Bernstein conducted his final concert, the Koussevitzky Memorial concert at Tanglewood. The performance included Britten's Three Sea Interludes, LB's Arias & Barcarolles (Carl St. Clair, conductor) and Beethoven's Symphony No. 7.


1991: Around 8:00 p.m. this evening, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the international leader and Rebbe of the Chabad Lubavitch movement was returning to his home in Crown Heights, Brooklyn after a visit to the Old Montefiore Cemetery in adjacent Queens when there was a fatal accident that resulted in the death of seven-year-old Gavin Cato, the son of Guyanese immigrants. Charles Price and other demagogues harangued the angry crowd touching off several days of what can only be described as a race riot.


1991(9th of Elul, 5751): Three hours after seven year old Gavin Cato was killed in automobile accident involving vehicles driven by Lubavitch Chasidim, Yankel Rosenbaum--a 29-year-old Jewish student from Australia--was killed by a group consisting mostly of neighborhood youth, in what would be interpreted as a retaliatory slaying wrapped in the robes of anti-Semitism.


1991: During the “August Coup,” Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev is placed under house arrest while on holiday in the town of Foros, Crimea. The coup failed and hastened the collapse of the Soviet Union.  The collapse of the Soviet Union led to a wave of immigration to Israel.  It also made possible the re-vitalization of Jewish Communities throughout most of the republics that had made up the Communist Empire.


1995(23rdof Av, 5755): Seventy year old Danny Arnold, born Arnold Rothman, the actor turned creator of sitcoms passed away today.

2001(30th of Av, 5761): Rosh Chodesh Elul


2001: Israeli premiere of “The Switch” co-starring Jeff Goldblum with a script by Allan Loeb.


2001: The New York Times book section featured reviews of The Darkness and the Light by Jewish poet Anthony Hecht and How Charles Shavers Died And Other Poems by Jewish poet Harvey Shapiro


2001: In “City Lore; The Little Red Summer Camp,” Ivy Meeropol reminisces about her summers at Kinderland a camp that  was founded in 1923 by secular Jews active in the New York City trade union movement, most of whom were Communists or socialists.  


2001: “U.S. Senator Lieberman's office was advised that the Hiram Bingham IV stamp was (again) "on the agenda" of the Citizen's Stamp Advisory Committee.”


2002(11th of Elul, 5762): Eighty-five year old philosopher and author Irving Marmer passed away today

2003(21st of Av, 5763): A Hamas planned suicide attack on Jerusalem bus #2 kills 23 Israelis, 7 of them children Twenty-three people, including two small children and two infants, were murdered and 134 wounded when a Palestinian suicide bomber detonated himself on a #2 Egged bus in Jerusalem’s Shmuel Hanavi neighborhood. Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack. The victims: Avraham Bar-Or, 12, of Jerusalem; Binyamin Bergman, 15, of Jerusalem; Yaakov Binder, 50, of Jerusalem; Feiga Dushinski, 50, of Jerusalem; Miriam Eisenstein, 20, of Bnei Brak; Lilach Kardi, 22, of Jerusalem; Menachem Leibel, 24, of Jerusalem; Elisheva Meshulami, 16, of Bnei Brak; Tehilla Nathanson, 3, of Zichron Ya’acov; Chava Nechama Rechnitzer, 19, of Bnei Brak; Mordechai Reinitz, 49, and Issachar Reinitz, 9, of Netanya; Maria Antonia Reslas, 39, of the Philippines; Liba Schwartz, 54, of Jerusalem; Hanoch Segal, 65, of Bnei Brak; Goldie Taubenfeld, 43, and Shmuel Taubenfeld, 3 months, of New Square, New York; Rabbi Eliezer Weisfish, 42, of Jerusalem; Shmuel Wilner, 50, of Jerusalem; Shmuel Zargari, 11 months, of Jerusalem. Fruma Rahel Weitz, 73, of Jerusalem died of her wounds on August 23; Mordechai Laufer, 27, died of his on September 5; and Tova Lev, 37, died on September 12.(As reported by TIP – The Israeli Project)


2005(14th of Av, 5765): Eighty-seven year old Dutch comedian Abraham ('Appie') Bueno de Mesquita passed away.  Born in 1918, he escaped Auschwitz when he was chosen to play the cello by the Nazi camp commander in Mechelen, Belgium.  This episode provided the title for his autobiography; Cello met één snaar (Cello with one string).


2005(14th of Av, 5765):David Sky, owner of the Rabbi L. Sky Bookstore passed away.  The store was started by his father in Newark in 1904 and was one of the "pioneering Judaica stores in the US where" Jewish New Year’s cards were sold for the first time.  The store moved to Maplewood in 1970.  His widow sold the store in 2008.


2005:Pope Benedict XVI, who was drafted into the German Army during World War II, visited a synagogue in Cologne on Friday that had been destroyed by the Nazis and warned of a growing anti-Semitism that he called a "reason for concern and vigilance."[What follows is a detailed description of this historic event]


 

"Today, sadly, we are witnessing the rise of new signs of anti-Semitism and various forms of a general hostility toward foreigners," the pope said in a reverent hour-long visit to the Colognesynagogue on his first trip abroad. "The Catholic Church is committed - and I affirm this again today - to tolerance, respect, friendship and peace between all peoples, cultures and religions."


The visit - punctuated by the ancient call of the Shofar, the ram's horn - was freighted with history, with a German who had taken part unwillingly in the Hitler Youth as a boy becoming only the second pope to visit a synagogue. Unlike his predecessor, John Paul II, who often spoke of his own life in Poland during World War II, Benedict did not mention his own experiences during the war, sticking mostly to his prepared text with a notable exception: He inserted the word "love" in a sentence whose text on paper said Jews and Catholics "need to show respect for each other."


But he was greeted with great warmth by 500 people in the synagogue, which was destroyed during the Kristallnacht pogrom in 1938, after which 11,000 Jews who lived here were killed. It was rebuilt in 1959, and Jews in Cologne now number 5,000. "If someone told me 45 years ago, 'You are going to be in Cologne, and the pope will visit you in a synagogue,' I wouldn't have believed it," Paul Spiegel, the leader of Germany's Jews, told reporters later. "We have come a long way in mutual support and in mutual understanding and, as the pope said, in mutual love."


Mr. Spiegel called the visit "truly historic," words echoed by the pope's spokesman, Joaquín Navarro-Valls, who said Benedict himself had asked for the meeting. He said it was "an event of historic significance: a German pope, who was on his first official trip, himself took the initiative for the visit." The visit was an interreligious detour on Benedict's four-day visit here as part of the 20th World Youth Day, which has attracted hundreds of thousands of young Catholics from around the world. Benedict, 78, who has pledged to make understanding between religions a centerpiece of his papacy, is also scheduled to visit Muslim leaders in Cologneon Sunday.


Germany is the home to 3.5 million Muslims, most of them Turkish, and since the Sept. 11, 2001attacks, and again after the bombings in London last month, many European Muslims say they are being eyed with increasing suspicion. Although Benedict spoke of "hostility" toward foreigners, he did not elaborate. In his speech at the synagogue, he noted the long history of Jews in Cologne, who have lived here since Roman times. The synagogue is the oldest north of the Alps. He said that while Jews and Christians had at times lived together peacefully, he noted the expulsion of Jews from Colognein 1424. "And in the 20th century, in the darkest period of German and European history, an insane racist ideology, born of neo-paganism, gave rise to the attempt, planned and systematically carried out by the regime, to exterminate European Jewry," he said. He then spoke of the efforts of John Paul to rebuild relations between Catholics and Jews, many of whom have accused the church of inaction during World War II. Among other steps, John Paul became the first pope to visit a synagogue, in Romein 1986. Partly quoting John Paul, Benedict said, "The terrible events of that time must 'never cease to rouse consciences, to resolve conflicts, to inspire the building of peace.'"And while he said relations had improved much in recent years, he added: "Much still remains to be done. We must come to know one another much more and much better." He called for a "sincere and trustful" dialogue between Catholics and Jews. One issue of contention between Jews and Catholics rose during the visit: Abraham Lehrer, president of the Colognecongregation, said it would be "a good thing" for the Vatican to open up all its archives from World War II. The Vatican has opened the archives until the year 1939, but many Jewish groups would like to explore the records relating to Pope Pius XII, accused of remaining silent during the Holocaust. There was no mention on either side of a bitter diplomatic spat between Israel and the Vatican: last month, after the Londonbombings, Israelaccused Benedict of deliberately omitting a mention of a suicide bombing against Israelis in a list of terror attacks that the pope had recounted in a sermon. The Vaticanfired back, calling some of Israel's retaliatory attacks against Palestinians contrary to international law. Mr. Spiegel said he felt that the problem was a diplomatic one, not important to talk about during the visit.


"This is an issue that has to be settled between the state of Israel and the Vatican," he told reporters at a news conference. Mr. Navarro-Valls, the pope's spokesman, added at the same news conference that the "issue has been settled, more or less."


2005: Former Russian billionaire and oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky announced that he was on a hunger strike in protest at his friend and associate Platon Lebedev's placement in the punishment cell of the jail.


2005: During the evacuation of Israelis from Gaza, the Manchester Guardian reported today “that some settlers had their children leave their homes with their hands up, or wearing a Star of David badge, to associate the actions of Israel with Nazi Germany and the Holocaust.”


2005: “Honoring a ‘Righteous Gentile’: Hiram Bingham IV Commemorative Stamp Planned for Next Year” published today described next year’s honoring of the late Hiram Bingham IV with the issuance of commemorative stamp by the U.S. Postal Service as a celebration of the humanitarian efforts of a so-called righteous gentile who was personally responsible for saving the lives of thousands of Jews during World War II as well as the celebration of an American diplomat who defied U.S. State Department policy in order to do so. (As reported by David Brensilver)


2005: In “Vikings’ Owner Makes a Name for Himself” published today Pat Borzi provides a sketch of NFL owner Zygmunt Wilf, whose parents survived the Holocaust.



2006(25thof Av, 5766): Twenty-one year old Staff Sgt. Ro’I Farjoun was killed when terrorists from the Fatah al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades attacked a checkpoint he was manning for the IDF.


2006(25th of Av, 5766): Lt. Col. Emanuel A. Moreno of Moshav Tlamim was killed in a daring commando raid designed to stop the shipment of weapons from Syria into Lebanon for use by Hezbollah.  Moreno is survived by his wife Maya, their three children, his parents and three brothers. 


2007: A retrospective of the works of Frida Kahlo which had been mounted to celebrate the centenary of her birth comes to a close at the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City.


2007: The Sunday Washington Post book section reviewed Amy Bloom’s new novel Away, featuring Lillian Leyb a desperate young Jewish woman, fresh off the boat who has fled the pogroms of Russia, trying to make her way in New York during the mid-1920s and Jews and Power by Ruth R. Wisse the eighth title in a lively and distinguished series, "Jewish Encounters," that has taken a fresh look at such diverse figures in Jewish history as King David, the 12th-century rabbi and physician Maimonides, the 17th-century philosopher Baruch Spinoza and the U.S. boxer and World War II hero Barney Ross.


2007: The Sunday New York Times book section reviewed The Prince of Darkness by Robert D. Novak, the Washington columnist who was raised Jewish but converted to Catholicism in 1998, Off the Record by Norman Pearlstine and UM by Michael Erard author of “The Geek Guide to Kosher Machines.”


2008: In Little Rock, AR at the Chabad House, third and final session of From Ruins to Glory, a course of study based on a virtual tour of the Holy Temple.


2008: President Obama appointed Dan Shaprio as Senior Policy Advisor and Jewish Outreach Coordinator


2008(19th of Av, 5768): Binyamin Gibli, a sabra born a Petah Tikva in 1919 who served as head of Israeli Military Intelligence passed away.

2008:US Airways announced today plans to operate nonstop service between its Philadelphia hub and Tel Aviv, Israel, as the carrier moves to expand its international service.


2008: The series “Modern Marvels: Jewish Adventures in the Graphic Novel” explores The Rabbi’s Cat by Joan Sfaar “


2009:Amy Schapiro reads from and discusses Millicent Fenwick: Her Way, her biography of the late New Jersey congresswoman, as part of the United States Capitol Historical Society's "August Brown Bag Lecture Series" at the VFW Building.


2009:Knesset speaker Reuven Rivlin is scheduled to convene a special session of the Knesset House Committee to address the recent wave of violence in Israel.


2009(29th of Av, 5769): Eighty-six year old Don Hewitt, the creator of “60 Minutes” passed away today. (As reported by Jacques Steinberg)

2009:In another sign of the strong defense ties between Israel and India, the government-owned Rafael defense company has secured a $1 billion deal to sell advanced surface-to-air missiles to the Indian Armed Forces.  


2010: Tel Aviv native,Paula Valstein, is scheduled to perform at the Highline Ballroom in New York City.


2010:The International Mathematical Union awarded the prestigious Field's Medal to mathematician and Hebrew University professor Elon Lindenstrauss at its quadrennial International Congress of Mathematics in Hyderabad, India..


2010: Funeral services are to held today for Harold Shpeena longtime dentist and former president of the Jewish Federation of South Jersey, died


2010: “The Switch” a romantic comedy co-starring Jeff Goldblum with a script by Allan Loeb was released in Israel and Russia today.


2011: JCC Maccabi Games are scheduled to come to an end in Philadelphia, PA and Springfield, MA.


2011: As her bat mitzvah weekend begins, Gabriella “Gavi” Thalblum is scheduled to help lead Friday night services at Temple Judah in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.


2011: The 31stInternational conference on Jewish Genealogy is scheduled to come to an end.


2011:World-renowned solo performer Yael Rasooly is scheduled to present the U.S. Premiere of her award winning show Paper Cut tonight as part of the New York International Fringe Festival.


2011:Friends and family of those killed in yesterday's terror attacks near Eilat gathered to pay their respects today as funerals took place across the country


2011:The IAF launched an airstrike late tonight against a terrorist cell in the central Gaza Strip after the cell fired a rocket into Israeli territory, the IDF Spokesman's Office said in a statement.


2012: Susan Katzir is scheduled to facilitate a “Make Your Own Tallit workshop” at Temple Shalom in Auburn, Maine


2012: The Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center is scheduled to host a special screening of “Elusive Justice,” a PBS documentary that recounts the decade’s long struggle to apprehend Nazi war criminals and place them on trial for crimes against humanity.


2012: “Soul Doctor,” a musical about Shlomo Carlebach, is scheduled to have its final performance today at the New York Theater Workshop.


2012: The New York Times featured reviews of two books of special interest to Jewish readers – The General, Jonathan Fenby’s biography of de Gaulle, the French leader who stood against the Nazis and redefined the Franco-Israeli relationship after the Six Day War and The Twilight War, David Crist’s history of the conflict with Iran over the last 30 years.


2012(1st of Elul, 5772): Rosh Chodesh Elul – Sound the shofar for the first time


2012: A musical version “The Nutty Professor” with a score by Marvin Hamlish that was produced and directed by Jerry Lewis was performed for the final time at the Tennessee Performing Arts Center in Nashville.


2012:Vice Premier Moshe Ya'alon today described two violent attacks against Arabs ​​over the weekend in Judea and Samaria and Jerusalem as "hate crimes" and "terrorist acts."


2012:Police detained four members of the Women of the Wall organization this morning for wearing tallitot (prayer shawls) at the Western Wall plaza.


2013(13th of Elul, 5773): Wedding anniversary of JewishPress.com Senior Internet Editor Yori Yanover


2013: The Center for Jewish and the American Sephardi Federation are scheduled to co-sponsor a presentation by Lori Sternfeld, “The Jewish Community In Iran from 1914 until the Revolution”


2013: Michael Fruend of Shavei is scheduled to speak about reconnection lost and hidden Jews to the Jewish people and the Land of Israel this evening at Beit Knesset Ma'alot David in Ma'ale Adumim.


2013: The Oxnard Film Society is scheduled to show “Fill the Void” at Oxnard, CA.


2013: Israeli and Jewish targets all over the world are likely to be sought out by terrorist organizations in the coming weeks, the Israeli government’s Counter-Terrorism Bureau warned in strikingly strident tones today, listing dozens of countries where it said it had “concrete” indications of a terrorist threat.  (As reported by Gavriel Fiske)


2013: “Leading up to an end-of-the- week court-set deadline to clamp down on businesses operating on Shabbat, the Tel Aviv Municipality’s legal counsel said today it is still working on formulating the city’s official response. (As reported by Ben Hartman and Yonah Jeremy Bob)


2013: “Justice Minister Tzipi Livni announced late tonight that she had appointed renowned Prof. Ruth Gavison to draft a constitutional provision defining the exact dimensions of what it means for Israel to be a “Jewish and democratic state.” (As reported by Yonah Jeremy Bob)


2013: “The Nazi Hunter: Remarkable story of the Jewish refugee responsible for tracking down the Auschwitz commandant who slaughtered 3million people” published today described the role Hanns Alexander played “in the hunt for Auschwitz commander Rudolph Hoss.”

2014: The Wiener Library for the Study of the Holocaust & Genocide is scheduled to host an Online Resource User-Testing Focus Group as part of its efforts to respond to the digitization of more and more historical archives.


2014: Hamas broke this truce this afternoon with a volley of rockets that “intensified through the nights.” (As reported by Yifa Yaakov and Adiv Sterman)


2014: New Jersey Rabbi David Wax who “pleaded guilty to kidnapping charges as part of a scheme to force an Israeli man to give his wife a get” is scheduled to be sentenced today. (As reported by JTA and The Jewish Daily Forward)


2014:  “The United States views Hamas as responsible for the violation of a renewed temporary truce in the Gaza Strip, and is “very concerned” about the resumption of rocket attacks, a State Department spokeswoman said this afternoon.”


2014: “Israeli police issued a request today for assistance in locating IDF soldier David Menahem Gordon, 21, who was last seen at an army base’s medical facility at the beginning of the week.”


2014(23rdof Av, 5774): Twenty-year old Corporal David Gordon who was reported missing two days ago was found dead not far from the Tzrifin base, east of Rishon Lezion, where he was last seen wearing his uniform and his purple Givati Brigade beret.


2015: The Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education is scheduled to host a noontime showing of “Easy Rider.”


2015: “Why I Killed My Mother” by Dor Zweigenbom is scheduled to open in New York.


2015: In Cedar Rapids, Iowa, the Hadassah Book Club is scheduled to meet this evening to discuss The Marrying of Chani Kaufman by Eve Harris.


 


 


 


 

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

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August 20


430: The Vandals, a Germanic tribe, established a kingdom in North Africa.  The Jews lived there peacefully and flourished until the Almohad conquest in the 11th century.


636: Arab forces defeat the Byzantine Christians at the Battle of Yarmuk.  This battle fought only four years after the death of Mohammed opened the road the road to Damascus.  After seizing Syria, the Arabs under Khalid bin Walid turned south and took Jerusalem and all of the territory that is now Jordan and Israel.  This area had been under control of the Christian Byzantine Empire.  The victory at Yarmuk led to the first great wave of Moslem conquest that would sweep across Egypt, North Africa and across the Mediterranean to Spain. Conditions for the Jews improved compared to life under the Byzantines.  The Golden Age of Spain was the ultimate high point of this change.  But life under Islam was uneven for Jews and they suffered in many different areas depending upon which group of Islamists was in control.


917: Tsar Simeon I of Bulgaria decisively defeated a Byzantine army at the Battle of Acheloos. This was a plus for the Jews since Jews had been moving to the Bulgarian Empire since the 7th century to avoid the persecution they were enduring under the Byzantines.


1000: The foundation of the Hungarian state, Hungary is established as a Christian kingdom by Stephen I of Hungary. Archaeological evidence indicates the existence of Jews in Pannonia and Dacia, who came there in the wake of the Roman legions. Jewish historical tradition, however, only mentions the Jews in Hungary from the second half of the 11th century, when Jews from Germany, Bohemia, and Moravia settled there. In 1092, at the council of Szabolcs, the Church prohibited marriages between Jews and Christians, work on Christian festivals, and the purchase of slaves. King Koloman protected the Jews in his territory at the end of the 11th century.


1100: Using the Venetian fleet, Tancred and Daimbert conquer Haifa during the first crusade.


1153: Bernard of Clairvaux, the monk known as St. Bernard who laid down principles in how to deal with Jews at the time of the Second Crusade passed away today. He believed that Jews should not physically attacked but were to be punished by being forced to wander the world until they were ultimately converted.  At the same time, he followed the party line when it came to “stealing from the Jews” by agreeing that those who went on Crusade did not have to pay their debts.


1559: Coronation of Frederick as King of Denmark and Norway who barred Jews from his realm when in 1569 he “ordered that all foreigners in Denmark had to affirm their commitment to 25 articles of faith central to Lutheranism on pain of deportation, forfeiture of all property, and death.”


1642: The ashes of Ferdiand Francis, a converted Bohemian Jew whose original name was Chaim or Joachim, were cast into the Danuabe at Vienna.  He was alledged to have been the author of “Toldoth Jeshu” for which he was condemned to be hung.  Just before he was to die, Francis renounced his conversion to Christianity for which he was horribly tortured before he finally died. 


1656: Parliamentary diarist Thomas Burton was re-elected to the House of Commons. Burton’s diary which provided a record of Parliamentary proceedings for three years (1656-1659) includes an entry on the relationship between Cromwell and Jewish merchants including Antonio Fernandez Carvajal


“The Jews, those able and general intelligencers whose intercourse with the Continent Cromwell had before turned to profitable account, he now conciliated by a seasonable benefaction to their principal agent [Carvajal] resident in England.”


1671: Leopold I revoked the decree he had issued in April expelling the Jews from the portion Hungary controlled by the Habsburgs.  


1684: A riotous mob attacked the ghetto of Buda (that's the half of Budapest that is on the right bank of the Danube, which was joined with Pest on the left bank in 1873). During the war between Venice and Turkey, the Jews were accused of praying for the Turks in their attack on Budapest. In actuality, it was the 9th of Av and all the Jews were in the synagogue mourning the destruction of the temple. Soon after, the attack on the Jewish ghetto began. When the gates were opened to allow for an emissary to the duke to leave, the crowd of attackers rushed in. As soon as the authorities heard about the disturbances, an order to forcibly curb them was given. That day of the order became a day of thanksgiving. In gratitude to G-d for being spared serious injury, the Jews celebrated Buda Purim on the 10th of Elul. This date became known as Purim Buda – Buda as in Budapest.


1771: Birthdate of Schonche Rothschild, first child of A.M. Rothschild.


1806: The Assembly of Notables presented their collective response to Napoleon’s questions.


1807: Rothschild writes to his son Nathan in England that he has sold all the English goods sent to him at a considerable profit.


1820: Birthdate of Dr. Ferdinand Falkson who “in 1844 was appointed physician to the poor of the Jewish community, a position which he held until his death.


1826: “A new edict from Pope Leo XII forbids Jews from leaving their ghetto in Rome without a written permit from the Criminal Tribunal. While outside the ghetto, Jews are forbidden from speaking in a ‘familiar way’ with Christians.” (As reported by Austin Cline)


1833: Birthdate of Benjamin Harrison, 23rd President of the United States. As President, Harrison had Secretary of State James G. Blaine issue instructions to the American minister to Russia to “exert his influence” to stop Czar Alexander III from implementing his draconian anti-Jewish regulations.  In 1891, a Christian minster from Illinois named William E. Blackstone “presented a Memorial to” President Benjamin and his Secretary of State “which called upon them to exert their influence with the powers of Europe ‘to secure the holding, at any early date, of an international conference to consider the condition of the Israelites and their claims to Palestine as their ancient home.’”


1839 While relaxing at Boulogne, Giacomo Meyerbeer met for the first time with Richard Wagner for the first time at which time Wagner read to Meyerbeer from the libretto of “Rienzi” and Meyerbeer agreed to look through the score which he subsequently recommended for performance at Dresden


1845: Thirty three year old author and editor Rufus Wilmot Griswold married Charlotte Myers, a 45 year old Jewess from Charleston, South Carolina.


1852: It was reported today that "the French counsel is still prosecuting a demand for the satisfaction for the murder of a Roman Catholic priest at Aleppo. It was believed for a long time he was murdered by Jews, but it is now said that the Counsel has evidence that he was murdered by members of the city police for his success in building a Christian church.”  The police were Moslems. The Jews were convenient by-standers. During the notorious Damascus Affair, Isaac de Picciotto, was accused of having offered to sell the priest’s blood to Jews living in Aleppo.  He was the nephew of Elias de Picciotto, a prominent member of the Aleppo Jewish community and the Austrian counsel.  This would be the last involvement of Aleppo with a Blood Libel.  In 1875, an Armenian boy went missing and the charge surfaced again.  Fortunately, he was found in a nearby village.


1852: It is reported that Lionel de Rothschild is planning to resign from the House of Commons since he has not been permitted to take his seat.


1856: In "English Celebrities" a column published today, the author provides a description of Benjamin Disraeli which includes the following, "Nor is his faithfulness to his friendships less remarkable than his devoted attention to his old and silly wife...as Disraeli says 'I owe her everything.  But some men forget these things. Not so Disraeli...at no party is he to be found without fat, middle-age, gray-haired lady, hanging on his arm.  But this domestic love is an essentially Jewish trait."


1860: Birthdate of Raymond Poincaré, the philo-Semitic French political leader who served as President of France during World War I.


1871: It was reported today that Rabbi Raphael D.C. Lewin who has served as spiritual leader for Mikveh Israel in Savannah and Temple Israel in Brooklyn, has expressed his displeasure with some of his colleagues in The New Era magazine.  According to Lewin, there is more to being a rabbi than “sermonizing…performing marriages, burying the dead and receiving large salaries and handsome presents.  Rabbis have a duty to educate their congregants about Jewish literature and beliefs.


1871: According to reports published today the Jewish Times contends that that the Chicago synagogue that fired Rabbi Herzman for eating ice cream had every right to do so.  Herzman had been engaged to lead an Orthodox congregation.  It was obvious from his behavior that he did not respect these views and the synagogue was well within its rights to remove the hypocrite.


1872: A review panning “The Bells” was published today.  “The Bells” is a one act play imported from France that centers around the consequences suffered by the protagonist for having murdered a Polish Jew.


1874: In Indianapolis, Indiana, George C. Harding, editor and proprietor of the Indianapolis Herald fired five shots at Sol Mortiz a prominent Jewish merchant in broad daylight this afternoon. One of the shots shattered his left elbow and another passed through his lung and lodged in his chest.  The shooting took place after Harding found out that Mortiz had taken advantage of his 18 year old daughter.


 1875: Birthdate of Shaul Tchernichovsky a Russian-born Hebrew poet considered one of the great Hebrew poets, identified with nature poetry, and as a poet greatly influenced by the culture of ancient Greece.

1879(1st of Elul, 5639): Rosh Chodesh Elul


1880: It was reported today that there “an ugly rumor” in England that “a now well-known firm of Hebrew jewelers emerged mysteriously from obscurity to importance in the trade within twelve months” of Lady Ellesmere being robbed while she en route visit the Queen at Windsor Castle.  The loss totaled $150,000. (Unsubstantiated claims like this were often more inidicative of ant-Semitism, envy or both)


1882: It was reported today that the Hebrew Union of Raleigh, NC, had contributed five dollars to the fund for the Garfield Memorial Hospital.


1884: Unidentified hooligans tried to burn down a building on Clinton Street that housed the grocery story own by Solomon Ellison.  The five story tenement was home to countless Jewish families. 


1887(30th of Av, 5647): Rosh Chodesh Elul


1887: Abraham Reiter of Greensburg, Indiana and A.B. Frank of San Antonio, TX each contributed $10.00 to the Union of American Hebrew Congregations.


1887: It was reported today that “there was tumult” among those who think they have a claim to Julius Weisbaden, the miser who died in Bellevue and was buried without any service.  The estate was thought to be worth $40,000 but it may be only worth $2,800.


1890: Isadore Loeb, Michel Erlanger, Dr. W. Lowenthal, C.E. Cullen, Colonel Vanivkeroy and Dr. E. Schwarzfeld attended a conference in the Paris residence of Baron de Hirsch to discuss the settlement of Jewish refugees in Argentina at the end of which Cullen, Lowenthall and Vanikeroy were appointed as a commission to visit the country with the expectation that they would submit a report within six months on the feasibility of the project.


1890: The Sanitarium for the Hebrew Children is scheduled to host their next free excursion today.


1890: In Little Rock, AR, Miss Dora Vorminsky, a prominent Jewish socialite beat Louis Englander a Jew who worked as a clerk at Lasker Brothers’ with a cowhide whip because she had been told that he had made statements damaging to her reputation.


1891: Somebody known only as “E.S.W.” has sent $2 to the New York Times “for destitute Jews.”


1891: “The Socialist Congress” published today described the meeting in Brussels where the delegates discussed labor’s attitude toward the “Jewish question” and anti-Semitism.  The Congress was ready to condemn anti-Semitism but it also deplored the fact that several of the oppressors of labor were Jews and Jewish bankers.


1892: Birthdate of Sir Godfrey Rolles Driver, one of a cadre of English Christians who specialized in Semitic languages including Hebrew which led to his taking the lead in translating the “Old Testament for the New English Bible.”


1893: Sh'chita was banned in Switzerland. In those cantons where there is a small Jewish population, “the Swiss Hebrews” have “unanimously” agreed to “abandon eating meat” and have “put themselves on a vegetarian and poultry diet.”(The ban is still in place and the Jewish community gets its meat from several different countries.)


1893: Samuel Gompers, President of the American Federation of Labor opened today’s meeting of delegates from 30 labor organizations who looking for means to “relieve the distress among the unemployed workingmen” of New York who were enduring the Depression of 1893.


1893: Joseph Peel was arrested today on charges that he had poisoned the horses of Max Cooper and G. Feinberg, two Orthodox Jewish peddlers with whom he had been partners.


1893: It was reported that a mass meeting of the unemployed, socialists and anarchist  Joseph Barondees called for “the abolishment of prison labor” and Mayer Schoenfeld said “that the Jews would have to join with the other trade unions if they wanted to accomplish anything.”


1893: Between 1,500 and 1,800 people responded to the call of the Chicago Tailors’ Union for a mass meeting of the unemployed at Metropolitan Hall.  “The majority of the gathering was composed of Jews” with the rest being “Germans, Poles and Italians, with a few Americans.”


1894: It was reported today that Miss Maria V. Lawrence is the sole survivor of the late  Eugene Lawrence, the historian whose work included The Jews and Their Persecutors  and who was unmarried.


1895: The will of the late Joseph Lewis was filled in the Surrogate’s office today. According to the document, the residue of the estate valued at $20,000 is given to his widow for life and that upon her death the residue will go to his nieces including Julia D. Davis and Leontine Hepner and to his nephews including O.A. Lithauer.


1896: Birthdate of Jacob Glatstein, the Polish born American Yiddish poet and literary critic.


1896: The Summernight’s festival hosted by District Grand Lodge No.1, Independent Order Free Sons of Israel will take place today at Harlem River Park.


1897: In New York, Myer S. Isaacs, the Secretary of the Palestine Society said “that he was sure there had been…no misappropriation of funds by Rabbi Salant” in the distribution of funds sent by American Jews to help their co-religionists in Jerusalem because he “is a man of the highest character.”


1899: “The Chuetas of Majorca” published today traced the history of the Chuetas, a 15th century group of persecuted Jewish refugees who had fled to Majorca for protection” and who appeared to embrace Catholicism.  Calling them Chuetas was a term of derision since that word is the diminutive for ’chuya’ the Majorcan word for bacon.  (Reminds one of the term marrano which means pig)


1899: “Zionists’ Congress Votes Down the Proposal of New York Delegates” published today described the decision of the Third Congress of Zionist to  reject a proposal to by two delegates from New York that Island of Cyprus should be the site of colonization by the Jews.


1901: The First Congress of Caucasus Zionists was held in Tbilisi. Rabbi David Baazov led Georgian Zionism during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In 1903, Baazov attended the Sixth Zionist Congress in Basel.


1903: Herzl arrives in Basel


1903: Barney Pelty pitched his first major league game as a member of the St. Louis Brown


1904: Birthdate of Judikje Simons, later Judikje Themans- Simons, one the Jewish members of the Dutch ladies’ gymnastic team which won the Gold at the 1928 Olympics. She and her husband, as well as her two children were murdered at Sobibor in 1943.


1912(7th of Elul, 5672): Seventy-four year old Walter Goodman, British painter, illustrator and author who was the son of portrait painter Julia Salaman and Louis Goodman passed away today.

1915(9th of Elul, 5675): Paul Ehrlich, the man who discovered the treatment for syphilis, passed away. Born in Germany in 1854 Ehrlich gained famed for his work in immunology and chemotherapy.  He won the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1901.  He received numerous honors from the German government.  He was 61 at the time of his death.


1915: It was reported today that at the mass meeting held at Cooper Union to consider the plight of the Jews of Russia and the need for the establishment of Zionist State in Palestine after the war “at the suggestion of Joseph Baroness all in the hall rose to their feet as an expression of sympathy for the family of Leo Frank.


1915: Leo Frank “was buried” today “in the Mount Carmel Cemetery in Glendale, Queens, New York.


1917(2nd of Elul, 5677):Johann Friedrich Wilhelm Adolf von Baeyer, known as Adolph von Baeyer, the first Jew to ever receive the Nobel Prize, passed away today. “Baeyer was a German chemist, acknowledged in 1905 for synthesizing dye indigo. He was also awarded the Davie Medal by the Royal Society of London in 1881, for his work with indigo. Baeyer was born on October 31, 1835, in Berlin, Germany. Initially, at the Berlin University, Baeyer studied mathematics and physics. Nevertheless, he soon discovered his passion for chemistry and transferred to Heidelberg to study with Robert Bunsen in 1856. Bunsen was a famous chemist, who is best known for perfecting the burner. In Heidelberg, Baeyer studied in the laboratory of August Kekule, a famous organic chemist. In 1858, Baeyer received his doctorate in chemistry from Berlin University. In 1871, he became a Professor at Strasbourg and, in 1875, Baeyer became the Chemistry Professor at the University of Munich. In addition to synthesizing dye indigo, some of Baeyer’s other achievements include the discovery of the phthanein dyes, investigation of polyacetylenes, oxonium salts, and uric acid derivatives. Bayer synthesized barbituic acid in 1864. This acid is used in surgery as a sedative or hypnotic. Baeyer is also renowned for his work in theoretical chemistry, developing the ‘strain’ (Spannung) theory of triple bonds and the strain theory in small carbon rings. Baeyer was also the founder of Baeyer Chemical Co”.


1918:Birthdate of Hanna Poznanskia, who as British psychoanalyst Hanna Segal,Hanna Segal, “helped change child psychology in the United States by explaining and popularizing the play therapy techniques developed by her mentor, the seminal psychoanalytic thinker Melanie Klein.:


1919: Birthdate of Walter Bernstein an American screenwriter and film producer who was blacklisted by the Hollywood movie studio bosses in the 1950s.


1919(25th of Av, 5679): Sixteen year old Yechiel Bernhard passed away today.


1919(25th of Av, 5679): Mrs. Lttle Lewenstein passed away today.


1920:  Israel publishes its first medical journal, "Ha-Refuah."


1921:Leo "Lindy" Lindermann and his wife Clara opened “Lindy’s”, the iconoclastic New York restaurant, at1626 Broadway, between 49th and 50th Streets


1922: Birthdate of Bernard Sahlins, “a founder of the Second City, the Chicago nightclub that helped to establish improvisational sketch comedy as a rudiment of American entertainment and created a resident troupe that propelled the careers of myriad funnymen and women.” (As reported by Bruce Weber)


1922: Birthdate of Judith Craner Protas the native of Brooklyn with degrees from Barnard and Yale who became a leading advertising executive with Doyle Dane Bernbach and told the world that you don’t have to be Jewish to enjoy “Levy’s real Jewish rye.” (As reported by Margalit Fox)


1923: Birthdate of Chicago native Sheldon Bernard Keller, an Emmy-winning comedy writer whose work included “Caesar’s Hour,” one of the jewels of 1950s television” (As reported by Margalit Fox)

1927: Birthdate of Stanley Anselm Bosworth a self-described “old wizard” who shaped his own Hogwarts in Brooklyn in the form of Saint Ann’s School, which rapidly gained national prominence for its free-form approach to education and its success in sending graduates to top colleges. Born in Manhattan he was the child of Jewish immigrants from Russia who had changed their name from Boscovitz to better assimilate. (As reported by Douglas Martin)


1927: Birthdate of Shraga Feivel Gruberger, the Brooklyn native who gained fame as Rabbi Philip S. Berg, “dean of the worldwide Kabbalah Centre Origination.”

1927: “Underworld,” “silent crime film directed by Josef von Stemberg, co-produced by B.P. Shulberg with a script co-authored by Ben Hecht was released today in the United States by Paramount Pictures.


1928: State Supreme Court Alfred Frankenthaler officiated at the marriage of Jascha Heiftiz and Florence Vidor.  The private ceremony uniting the 28 year old violinist and the motion picture actress took place the Mayfair House on Park Avenue in Manhattan.  This is his first marriage and her second.


1929: As the Arab riots continued a late-night meeting initiated by the Jewish leadership, at which acting high commissioner Harry Luke, Jamal al-Husayni, and Yitzhak Ben-Zvi were present, failed to produce a call for an end to the violence.


1929: Premiere of Irving Thalberg’s “Hallelujah!”  “one of the first all-black films by a major studio featuring the music of Irving Berlin.


1929:Haganah leaders proposed to provide defense for 600 Jews of the Old Yishuv in Hebron, or to help them evacuate. However, the leaders of the Hebron community declined these offers, insisting that they trusted the A'yan (Arab notables) to protect them.


1930: Dr. Jacob Levitsky, a math teacher in Jerusalem, has won Yale’s annual $2000 prize Sterling Fund. Levitsky is a graduate of Tel Aviv High School and the University of Goettingen


1930: The General Executive Committee of RSFSR accepted the decree that led to the creation of a Jewish administrative territorial unit in the Asiatic portion of the Soviet Union that would come to be known as The Jewish Autonomous Oblast.


1933: Gabriel Terra, President of Uruguay issued a special decree, permitting 500 Jewish families, fleeing from Germany, to enter the country. The Jewish Immigrant Aid Society had petitioned the President on behalf of the country’s Jewish community.


1933: In Montevideo, Vos Hebres (The Hebrew Voice), defended the Jews against attacks which followed permission being given for the immigration of 500 German-Jewish families.


1933:The Jewish National Fund announced that it has reclaimed 300,000 dunams of land (75,000 acres) in the Emek since 1923, and that 10,000 people are settled on it.


1933:The Keren Hayesod (Palestine Foundation Fund) reported that it has collected in the past two years £400,077; of which the United States contributed one-third (£133,545); during the 12 years of its existence, the Fund has raised £4,821,510 of which the United States contributed one-half (£2,409,392).


1933: American Jewish Congress declared a boycott against Nazi Germany


1935: “A conference of ministers was held today to discuss the negative economic effects of Party actions against Jews during which Hitler argued that such effects would cease once the government decided on a firm policy against the Jews.”


.1935: The world Zionist leader, Dr. Nahum Sokolow, with almost the first words of his presidential speech tonight shattered reports that the nineteenth biennial Zionist congress would sidestep the situation of German Jews, out of deference to delegates from the Reich, who were among the representatives from forty-three nations.


1936: Premiere of “Romeo and Juliet’ a cinematic version of Shakespeare’s drama directed by George Cukor, produced by Irving Thalberg and starring Leslie Howard (Leslie Howard Steiner) as Romeo.


1938(23rd of Av, 5698): Communist Party loyalist Semyon Dimanstein fell victim to one of Stalin’s purges today. After six months in prison, he was sentenced to death today and then executed.  He was rehabilitated two years after Stalin died.


1938: Hank Greenberg hits three homers, bringing his total to 41 which puts him ahead of Babe Ruth’s record breaking 1927 pace.


1939: General debate in the twenty-first World Zionist Congress had to be suspended today after an announcement at the morning's meeting of a decision by the court of the congress to reduce the number of mandates allotted to the Palestine delegations from 133 to 127.


1940: Leon Trotsky is attacked by an assassin in Mexico City.  Trotsky is hiding from Stalin who has ordered Trotsky’s execution.  Trotsky will die of his wounds the following day.  According to one version of the story, had moved from a fortress like villa to an unguarded homes because of a dispute over a woman.


1940: “Boomtown” a comedy-adventure film co-starring Hedy Lamar, produced by Sam Zimbalist with music by Franz Waxman was released in the United States today by MGM.


1941:A low-rent United States Housing' Authority development in East St. Louis, Il, has been named in memory of Samuel Gompers, longtime president of the American Federation of Labor.


1941: For the next 48 hours about 4300 Jews are sent from Paris to Drancy, a transit camp in France. These are the first of 70,000 Jews who will be deported to Drancy and then to extermination camps, primarily Auschwitz-Birkenau


1941(26th of Av, 5701): Several Jews were pulled from their homes in Sabac by the Germans, then brought into the street and shot. The Germans made other Jews come carry the dead bodies through the town, and then hang them from electricity poles. This attacked was the beginning of a series of attacks which lasted for 2 months and resulted in several thousands of Jewish murders. 


1942: “The Talk of the Town” a comedy with a screenplay by Irwin Shaw and Sidney Buchman with music by Friedrich Hollaender was released in the United Sates today by Columbia Pictures.1942 The ZOB (Jewish Fighting Organization) attempts to assassinate Joseph Szerynski, commander of the Jewish police in the Warsaw Ghetto. Later in the day, other ZOB members set fire to several Warsaw warehouses.


1942(6th of Elul, 5702): The Jewish community from Falenica, Poland, is liquidated at the Treblinka death camp.


1942: The Nazis began deporting the Jews of Kielce, Poland to Treblinka,


1942: For the next four days, nineteen thousand Jews of Kielce, Poland, are deported to the Treblinka death camp.


1942: For the next four days gas/disinfectant expert Kurt Gerstein observes gas executions at the Treblinka, one day after witnessing similar deaths at Belzec.


1943: Pvt. Ed Koch writes in his diary today complaining “about an inspection he called a huge waste of time. “It took about an hour to get everything ready for display and then the (colonel) merely walked swiftly up and down the aisles and glanced at the tents once in a while,” he wrote. “It was the biggest example of a waste of time that I have ever seen in the Army.” (As reported by Forwards staff)


1943(18th of Av, 5703): Three thousand Jews are executed during a revolt at Glebokie, Belorussia.


1944: During World War II, Soviet forces “made an all-out attack” on Nazi forces in Romania – an attack that would be successful and help to save a significant percentage of the Jewish population.


1944:  The United States Army Air Force bombs Auschwitz III (oil and rubber plant), three miles from Auschwitz I (main camp) and five miles from Birkenau, the Auschwitz death camp. 127 bombers escorted by 100 fighters (who face only 19 German planes) drop more than 1300 500-pound bombs. Only one bomber is shot down. This puts the lie to the claim that allied airpower could not have knocked out the rails leading to the death camps or to the crematorium.  This had been the plea of many Jewish leaders. The facts of the matter are that allied leaders were not willing to risk planes or men to save Jews. On the morning of August 20, 1944, a group 127 US B-17 bombers, called Flying Fortresses, approached Auschwitz. They were escorted by 100 P-51 Mustang fighter planes. Most of the Mustangs were piloted by Tuskegee Airmen of the 332nd Fighter Group. The attacking force dropped more than 1,000 500-pound bombs on German oil factories less than five miles from the gas chambers. Despite German anti-aircraft fire and a squadron of German fighter planes, none of the Mustangs was hit and only one of the US planes was shot down. All of the units reported successfully hitting their targets. On the ground below, Jewish slave laborers, including 15 year-old Elie Wiesel, cheered the bombing. In his best-selling memoir, Night, Wiesel described their reaction: "We were not afraid. And yet, if a bomb had fallen on the blocks [the prisoners' barracks], it alone would have claimed hundreds of victims on the spot. But we were no longer afraid of death; at any rate, not of that death. Every bomb that exploded filled us with joy and gave us new confidence in life. The raid lasted over an hour. If it could only have lasted ten times ten hours!" But it did not. Even though there were additional US bombing raids on German industrial sites in the Auschwitz region in the weeks and month to follow, the gas chambers and crematoria were never targeted. The Roosevelt administration knew about the mass murder going on in Auschwitz, and even possessed diagrams of the camp that were prepared by two escapees. But when Jewish organizations asked the Roosevelt administration to order the bombing of the camp and the railways leading to it, the requests were rejected. US officials claimed such raids were "impracticable" because they would require "considerable diversion" of planes needed for the war effort. But the Tuskegee veterans know that claim was false. They were right there in the skies above Auschwitz. No "diversion" was necessary to drop a few bombs on the mass-murder machinery or the railways leading into the camp. Sadly, those orders were never given. The decision to refrain from bombing Auschwitz was part of a broader policy by the Roosevelt administration to refrain from taking action to rescue Jews from the Nazis or provide havens for them. The US did not want to deal with the burden of caring for large numbers of refugees. And its ally, Great Britain, would not open the doors to Palestine to the Jews, for fear of angering Arab opinion. The result was that the Allies failed to confront one of history's most compelling moral challenges.


1948: “After an hour in D-117 today, Michael Flint, WW II naval pilot serving with the IAF, had to make a wheels-up landing when his gear wouldn't descend.”


1952(28th of Av, 5712): Yitzhak Sadeh, the founder of the Palmach and a hero of the War of Independence passed away at the age of 62. While a name unknown to most non-Israelis. Yitzhak Sadeh was a brave man who played a key role in the founding of the state of Israel.  He was the commander for the Palmach units, a soldier, a writer, an educator, and was one of the founders of Tshal.

1952: Work started on a number of concrete dams, expected to hold back the rainwater accumulating in the Negev wadis during the winter. This was part of the Zionist dream to make the Negev green.


1952: Birthdate of American singer-song writer Doug Fieger, the lead singer and rhythm guitarist of the band the Knack, whose enduring 1979 hit “My Sharona” has become an emblem of the new wave era in rock and a prime example of the brevity of pop fame.”  His father was Jewish.


1960: Larry Sherry pitches the Dodgers past the Cards for his 12th win of the season


1964: President Lyndon Johnson signed an anti-poverty bill that would commit almost one billion dollars to the “War on Poverty.”  The measure had the support of numerous Jewish political leaders and Jewish voters.  This was an era when Jewish voters were drawn to politicians who supported a society that sought to care for the “widow, the orphan and the stranger in your midst.”


1969: After having been released in Italy earlier in the year, “Orgasmo” starring Carroll Baker was released today in New York City.


1971: FBI begins covert investigation of journalist Daniel Schorr.  Schorr would become a member of Richard Nixon’s infamous enemies list.  Earlier in his career, Schoor had been thrown out of the Soviet Union for his news broadcasts.  This makes him one of the few people to be declared an enemy by both the Soviet Communists and right-wing American Anti-Communists.


1971:The Brighton Regency Synagogue was “designated by English Heritage as a Grade II listed building.”


1976: It was reported today that Uganda President Idi Amin has “set a seven day deadline for a personal reply” from Prime Minister Rabin on his demand for compensation from the Israelis for the raid on Entebbe.


1976: Seventy-five year old Sid Silvers whose career spanned vaudeville, Broadway and the silver screen passed away today.

1977: Despite the initial rejection by both Israel and Jordan, US officials were still hopeful that their idea of establishing a joint Israeli-Jordanian temporary trusteeship over the West Bank could yet get off the ground.


1977: The French government appeared to be reconciled to a new period of chilly relations after Israel rejected its contention that the three new settlements in administered areas hampered peace prospects.


1977: The US Central Intelligence Agency told Congressional investigators that enriched uranium, designed to build atomic bombs, was mysteriously diverted from the privately owned American plant to Israel in the middle 1960s


1979: It was reported today that Yigal Yadin, Israel’s Deputy Prime Minister rejected Andrew Young’s characterization his government as “stubborn and intransigent” and “pursuing and expansionist policy” when he appeared on ABC’s “Issue and Answers.”


1980: The UN Security Council condemns (14-0, US abstains) Israeli declaration that all of Jerusalem is its capital.  The UN Security Council never said or did anything about the illegal occupation of the eastern section of Jerusalem by Jordan that lasted for almost twenty years.  During that same time, the UN was equally silent when it came to the fact that Jews were not allowed to enter the Old City or that the Jordanians had systematically dismembered the physical remains of the ancient Jewish Quarter.  This lack of equivalent concern is but one of a long list of reasons by why many Israelis and as well as others have lost respect for the United Nations.


1982:  During the Lebanese Civil War a multinational force lands in Beirut to oversee the PLO withdrawal from Lebanon.  The Lebanese Civil War was conflict between Christian and Moslem Arabs.  It was part of centuries old struggle for power that flared up periodically.  The PLO had come to Lebanon after having been thrown out of Jordan where it had attempted to overthrow the government.  The PLO was a destabilizing force in Lebanon as its fighters took the side of the Moslems and tried to use Lebanon as a base for terrorist attacks against Israel.  The PLO had to go because of its role in destroying the social fabric of Lebanon which had been an oasis of Western progress and civility in among the violent Arab dictatorships of the Middle East.


1983: In Los Angeles, Lynn and Richard Garfield gave birth to actor Andrew Garfield whose “paternal grandparents were from Jewish immigrant families who had moved to London from Eastern Europe (Poland, Russia, and Romania), and whose family surname was originally "Garfinkel".


1985: Israel ships 96 TOWs to Iran on behalf of the US.  The TOW missiles were shipped as part of an arms deal that became known as Iran Contra.


1985: The New York Timesfeatures a review (see below) of Jerusalem: Rebirth of a City by Martin Gilbert, a first rate book by a first rate author and historian. There is no such thing as “a bad” Martin Gilbert book since the works of this author range from very good to great.


No city in the world can have captured more imaginations and stirred more hearts over the centuries than Jerusalem. No city, in the 19th century, was more liable to provoke comments on the dismal contrast between past and present, between the image and the reality. A stream of visitors recorded their impressions of the prevailing torpor, the poverty, the filth, the squalid squabbles between different races and religious communities. In 1838, the year Martin Gilbert chooses to open his chronicle of Jerusalem's reviving fortunes, the American biblical scholar Edward Robinson, one of the earliest archeologists to work in the city, lamented - with good reason - that ''the glory of Jerusalem has indeed departed.'' From its ''ancient high estate'' it had declined into ''the neglected capital of a petty Turkish province,'' with a population of fewer than 16,000 (5,000 Muslim Arabs, 3,000 Christian Arabs, 6,000 Jews, a Turkish garrison, a small colony of European traders and missionaries). At the end of the century, which is where Mr. Gilbert closes his account, guidebooks were still stressing the stagnation and decay, and most travelers were still recording their disappointment or distaste. Theodor Herzl, visiting the city for the first time in 1898, wrote in his diary that ''when I remember thee in days to come, O Jerusalem, it will not be with delight.'' He wished that it were possible to tear down everything except the sacred sites and begin all over again. Yet for over half a century important changes had in fact been taking place in the city, changes that were gradually to draw it back into the mainstream of history. While Mr. Gilbert bases much of his survey on the rich range of literature in which visitors recorded their impressions, his central theme is the slow transformation that was already in progress, but which most visitors underestimated or failed to appreciate. In some ways 1839 would have made a more appropriate starting point. In that year a British vice consul took up residence - the only foreign diplomat in the city, though before long the appointment prompted other powers to show the flag. Russian and French consulates were established in 1841; an Anglican bishopric was created the same year; in due course Germans, Austrians and Italians made their presence felt, the Germans in particular. An American consul was appointed in 1857 and promptly found himself embroiled in a dispute with the local Turkish commander, who refused to arrange a 21-gun salute on the Fourth of July on the grounds that such honors ought to be reserved for monarchies, not mere republics. (The consul eventually carried the day.) The diplomatic campaigns were generally accompanied by an increase in missionary work, which inevitably became a fresh cause of dissension in a city already riven by conflicts - often violent ones - not only between Christian, Moslem and Jew but between a multitude of subgroups and separate denominations. The religious life of the city was both colorful and intense, but it all too often reminds you of Jonathan Swift's remark that we have just enough religion to make us hate, but not to love one another. Of the major religious groupings, it was the Jews who recorded the largest gain in numbers during the period Mr. Gilbert covers. By 1896 Jerusalem had a population of 45,000, of whom 28,000 were Jewish and the rest divided almost equally between Moslems and Christians. Although Sephardi immigrants from many different parts of the world, including Yemen and Bukhara, had settled in the city, the Ashkenazim, who had been in a minority 60 years earlier, now predominated. Most Ashkenazim came from Eastern Europe, most of them were still rigidly orthodox, and heavily dependent on charity from Jews living abroad. But since the days of Sir Moses Montefiore (who had paid his first visit to Palestine in 1827) there had been attempts to introduce social and educational reforms, and by the 1880's change - though it met with bitter resistance - was increasingly in the air. The Alliance Israelite Universelle of Paris played a particularly important part in sponsoring secular education and technical training. Meanwhile modern institutions and inventions had belatedly taken root in the city. The first printing press was established in 1840, the first hotel in 1843, the first bank in 1848. An overland telegraph was opened in 1865 (an Arab who threw his spear at it was sentenced to death for damaging Ottoman property and hanged from one of the posts). In 1892, the railroad finally made its appearance: a narrow-gauge, single-track line that wound its way up from Jaffa. By normal 19th-century standards, none of this progress was exactly spectacular, and contemporaries can surely be forgiven for emphasizing the unchanging, even the apparently moribund aspects of Jerusalem. It is only in retrospect that it is easy to discern in fairly modest developments the shape of major achievements and far-reaching conflicts to come. At the very end of the century, however, two interconnected events should have made it clear, even without the benefit of hindsight that history wasn't standing still. In 1898 Kaiser Wilhelm II visited Jerusalem, riding into the city through a triumphal arch on a black charger, in full ceremonial uniform. Theodor Herzl was there at the same time; he had come specially to meet him. A new and uncertain future was at hand. Mr. Gilbert has written a lively book, full of excellent quotations -roundly outspoken and often eloquent in the 19th-century manner - and providing glimpses of figures as diverse as Herman Melville and the future Emperor Maximilian of Mexico, along with many curious minor characters. It is also a handsome book, decked out with a large number of striking photographs 1988: In Chicago, The pastor of a black church told members of a Jewish congregation Friday night that the common backgrounds of the two groups should be remembered as the two communities reach toward common ground. "We forgot our histories," the Rev. George Riddick, executive vice president of Operation PUSH, told members of Congregation Kol Ami in the first-of-its-kind pulpit exchange.


1991(9th of Elul, 5751): Lenore Strunsky Gershwin widow of Ira Gershwin passed away.  She was 90 years old at the time of her death.


1991:Approximately 500 mostly young blacks returned to the scene” of the accident in Crown Heights where Gavin Cato had died. “Vehicles were set ablaze, a shoe store was ransacked, and reporters and photographers were beaten.


1993: After rounds of secret negotiations in Norway, the Oslo Peace Accords were signed.  A more public signing ceremony would take place in Washington in September of 1993.


1998: Journalist Seymour “Hersh strongly criticized the destruction of the Al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory, the largest pharmaceutical factory in Sudan—providing about half the medicines produced in Sudan—by United States cruise missiles during Bill Clinton's presidency.”


2000: The New York Times book section featured reviews of Touching Peace: From the Oslo Accord to a Final Agreement by Yossi Beilin, Cruel Banquet: The Life and Loves of Frida Strindberg by Monica Strauss and Dream Stuff, a collection of nine short stories by David Malouf, the Australian author with the Lebanese Christian father and the Sephardic Jewish mother.


2001(1st of Elul, 5761): Rosh Chodesh Elul


2002: The Jerusalem Post reported that the Hebrew University archeologist Dr. Eila Mazar's 120-page The Complete Guide to the Temple Mount Excavations has just been translated into English.


2002(12thof Elul, 5762): Nineteen year old Staff Sargent Kevin Cohen of Petah Tikva was murdered by a Palestinian sniper.


2002(12thof Elul, 5762): Eighty-year old philanthropist Lillian Goldman, the widow of Sol Goldman passed away today. (As reported by Paul Lewis)



2004:A Walking tour today styled ''Emma Lazarus and the Jewish Heritage of Washington Square'' passes the former home of Emma Lazarus, the Triangle Shirt Waist Factory and the Hanging Elm of Washington Square Park.


2005(14th of Av, 5765): Abraham S. Goldstein, an influential scholar of criminal law and former dean of the Yale Law School, died of a heart attack at his home in Woodbridge, Connecticut. Goldstein taught at the Law School for almost 50 years and was, at the time of his death, Sterling Professor Emeritus of Law and Professorial Lecturer in Law. He was 80.


2005:  The evacuation of settlers and their supporters from Gaza halted because of the Shabbat.  The evacuations which are part of a bold move by Prime Minister Sharon to bring peace to the region while improving the geo-political position of Israel is slated to end on Tuesday.


2006(26thof Av, 5766): Eighty-four year old labor economist and Holocaust survivor Jacob Mincer passed away today. (As reported by Louis Uchitelle)




2006: The Sunday New York Times book section includes a review of I Feel Bad About My Neck: And Other Thoughts on Being a Woman by Nora Ephron.


2006: The Chicago Tribunereported that Clara Ambrus-Baire, a woman whose family shielded Jews in Budapest hadreceived a “Righteous Among the Nations Award.” 


2006: Kohenet, the Hebrew Priestess Institute launched its first training institute in Accord, NY. (As reported by Jewish Women’s Archives)


2007: “The Facebook Effect” is Newsweek Magazine’s cover story.  The story describes how 23 year old “Mark Zuckerberg has already changed the way millions of us connect.  How he’s facing a challenge; how to turn an online obsession into a fixture of he digital age”  If the pundits and prophets are correct, Zuckerberg will join the likes of Einstein and Freud as one who has brought a sea change in the course of Western, if not world, Civilization.


2007: In an article favorably evaluating the performance of Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke, The New York Timesincluded the following. “But to understand Mr. Bernanke’s worldview, one must go back to his hometown, Dillon, S.C., which sits athwart Interstate 95 about halfway between North Jersey and South Florida. Dillon is known as the home of South of the Border, the Tijuana-themed tourist stop and a Mecca of American roadside kitsch. Mr. Bernanke, 53, grew up in Dillon in the 1950s and ’60s, the son of the local pharmacist and a member of one of the few Jewish families in the largely agricultural region. He says his home was the only kosher household in a 50-mile radius. His mother had meat delivered from a butcher in Charlotte, N.C., where his parents live now. Being a member of a minority taught him about discrimination and prejudice. “There was more than one request to see my horns,” he said years later. He also watched the struggles of small farmers, who drove mule-drawn carts down the main street of town and had trouble paying their bills even in good years. His father granted credit for purchases at the drugstore, keeping records on small cards he kept in a drawer. Many of the debts were never repaid. As Mr. Bernanke grew older, the textile mills that had supported the area closed and moved overseas in search of cheap labor. Mr. Bernanke worked construction jobs and waited on tables at South of the Border during the summer while an undergraduate at Harvard University. “I was impressed by these experiences,” Mr. Bernanke said last fall at a ceremony in his honor on the steps of the neoclassical courthouse in Dillon, “and I think they were an important reason I went into economics, which a great economist once called the study of people in the ordinary business of life.”


2007:A database with millions of documents from more than 50 concentration camps and prisons - which include books recording Jewish deaths, transportation lists and medical reports - was handed over to Yad Vashem Holocaust Martyrs and Heroes Remembrance Authority and Washington's Holocaust Memorial Museum.


2008:After a disappointing run for Israel in the Beijing Olympics, windsurfer Shahar Zubari finally gave Israelis a reason to cheer. Zubari won the bronze medal at today's Neil Pryde finals, Israel's first medal at the 2008 games, after arriving in second place in the final race.


2008: The New York Times included a review of The Grift by Debra Ginsberg.


 2008:About 50 rabbis in charge of supervising the kosher slaughter and processing of meat at the Agriprocessors Inc. plant in Postville walked off the job today to protest recent pay cuts.


2008: A former Agriprocessors Inc. supervisor pleaded guilty today to helping his employer hire illegal immigrants.


2008:The decision by Perth Magistrate Barbara Lane today to allow the extradition of Karoly (Charles) Zentai to Hungary to stand trial for the murder of Jewish teenager Peter Balazs in Budapest on November 8, 1944, paves the way for an unprecedented, historic victory for Holocaust justice in Australia


2009: Rosh Chodesh Elul (First Day)


2009: The final of a 3 part series of security briefings for leaders of Jewish institutions in Northern Virginia sponsored by ADL, JCRC & the Jewish Federation Learn featuring presentations by Local Police District Commanders, FBI Senior Personnel, and national Jewish security experts about the latest threats to Jewish communal security and how to be prepared takes place at Congregation Ahavat Israel (Fairfax Chabad) in Fairfax, VA.


2009:In a video-taped message to be screened today at a rally to be held at Rabbi Reuven Elbaz's Or Hachaim Yeshiva in Jerusalem,  Shas mentor Rabbi Ovadia Yosef lashes out at the Supreme Court for rejecting former minister Shlomo Benizri's appeal to shorten his four-year prison sentence for corruption charges.


2009:Today the High Court of Justice rejected a petition accusing the Company for Location and Restitution of Holocaust Victims Assets of breaking the law by allocating funds to organizations that were not solely dedicated to the welfare of Holocaust survivors.


2009(30th of Av, 5769): Rosh Chodesh Elul


2009(30th of Av, 5769): Controversial Israeli entertainment personality Dudu Topaz took his own life today.


2010: U.S. premiere of “The Switch” a comedy by Allan Loeb and co-starring Jeff Goldblum


2010: "A Film Unfinished" Directed by Yael Harsonski is scheduled to premiere at the Lincoln Plaza Cinema in New York City.


2010: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas have been invited to Washington to begin direct peace talks on Sept. 2, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said during a press conference today..


2010:Harvard University said that it had found a prominent researcher, Marc Hauser, “solely responsible” for eight instances of scientific misconduct. Hauser is the son of French Jew who survived the Holocaust.


2011: Senator Joe Lieberman is scheduled to attend Glen Beck’s Restoring Courage rally in Jerusalem. A self-proclaimed supporter of Israel, Beck has also compared Reform Rabbis to Islamic radicals.


2011(20thof Av, 5771): Eighty-seven year old, Dr. William B. Kannel, the cardiologist was the director of the Framingham Heart Study, passed away today. (As reported by Margalit Fox)



2011(20thof Av, 5771): Eighty-seven year old Rafael Halperin who gained fame as “The Rasslin Rabbi” before founding Optica Halperin, “the largest eyeglass store chain In Israel.”



2011: Gabriella Elizabeth Thalblum (Gavriella Elisheva) was called to the Torah as a Bat Mitzvah at Temple Judah in Cedar Rapids, IA. This very intelligent and poised young Jewess is the daughter of Rabbi Todd and Sabrina Thalblum.  A lover of music and dance, this seventh grader speaks English with that charming drawl she acquired while living in Texas. She did a marvelous job.


2011: A musical Havdalah service followed by a performance by Emilio Estevez is scheduled to take place at the Sixth & I Historic Synagogue in Washington, DC.


2011: Hamas announced early today they were no longer committed to a more than two-year de facto truce with Israel since the end of a war in early 2009.


2011: A Grad rocket directly struck a home in the southern city of Be'er Sheva tonight, killing one person and seriously wounding four.


2011: Around 4,000 demonstrators participated in a silent march in Tel Aviv on tonight to protest the high cost of living in Israel


2011: Egypt's ambassador to Israel will remain in the country, Foreign Ministry officials said this evening, as the diplomatic crisis vis-à-vis Cairo in the wake of  terror attacks appeared to be waning.


2012: The KlezKanada Laurentian Retreat, which this year will be dedicated to the memory of Adrienne Cooper z”l is scheduled to begin today.


2012: The Nazareth Orchestra is scheduled to perform at Hazan Hall this evening.


2012: University heads are seeking the reversal of a July decision in favor of granting university status to Ariel’s academic institute, filing a petition with the High Court of Justice to that effect Monday.


2012: The Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) and IDF, uncovered and indicted a cell of four terrorists belonging to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), the Shin Bet released for publication today.


2013: German Chancellor Angela Merkeil is scheduled to visit Dachau today “making her Berlin’s first leader to travel to the former Nazi concentration camp. (As reported Lazar Berman)


2013: The Kraemer and Ciment clans gather in Little Rock, AR as they prepare to celebrate a simcha that will unite two of their young adults in marriage.


2013: Israeli officials criticized UN Secretary-General Ban Kimoon today for backtracking on his admission last week in Jeruslam that “there was bias and discrimination against Israel at the UN.”


(As reported by Herb Keinon)


2013: The United States said today it "strongly condemns" comments from Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan blaming Israel for the military coup and ensuing crisis gripping Egypt (As reported by Michael Wilner)


2013: Tzipi Livini, Israel’s chief negotiator predicted today that peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians “will result in dramatic Israeli decisions.” (As reported by Herb Keinon and khaled Abu Toameh)


2014: “Young Israeli clarinetist and saxophonist, Anat Cohen, celebrated in Brazil as a virtuoso player of "choro" music is scheduled perform at the New York premiere of her "Choro Aventoroso" band at 54 Below.


2014: Hamas's "military wing" warned foreign airlines today against flying into Tel Aviv, threatening to step up its six-week conflict with Israel after firing more than 100 rockets on Israeli civilians and pulling out of peace talks. 


2014: “As a result of the renewed rocket fire, the Barzilai Medical Center in Ashkelon announced new-borns would be transferred to sheltered areas for their protection.”


2014: Shortly after 11:00 p.m., sirens were heard in the vicinity of Ashdod as well as in Sderot and the Sha'ar Hanegev Regional Council in response to the on-going rocket barrage from Gaza which earlier in the day had included an attack on the Israeli gas installation in the Mediterranean.


2015:  AtThe Temple Emanu-El Skirball Center, Rabbi Lawrence Hoffman, the editor of the multi-volume series “Prayers of Awe” is scheduled to “the fascinating history of Avinu Malkeinu, one of the best known prayers of the High Holiday liturgy.


2015: The Women’s Leadership Committee of the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center is scheduled to host the “Intimate Illusions Summer Benefit” in Chicago, Illinois.


2015: In Cedar Rapids, Iowa, a visitation is scheduled to take place at Temple Judah in memory of Joan Lipsky.



 


 


 

This Day, January 23, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. Levin

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January 23



393: Roman Emperor Theodosius I proclaims his nine year old son Honorius co-emperor. “Under the rule of Theodosius and his sons… the Christian church consolidated its position as the sole power in the empire,” became less tolerant and the Jews “suffered in inverse proportion to the strength of the emperor’s personality.”



1002: Otto III, Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire passed away. No, Otto was not Jewish. But his passing offers an instructive note when studying history, especially Jewish history. A thousand years ago, Otto was the “George Bush” of his day, a major political and military leader. Otto lived in the same century as Rashi, a guy who sold wine in a small town in France. We remember Rashi. Rashi still speaks to us today infusing our lives in ways in which we are not aware. Who remembers Otto?



1199: Birthdate of Almohad ruler Abu Yusuf who ordered the Jews of the Maghreb to wear dark blue garments with long sleeves and saddle-like caps. His grandson Abdallah al-Adil made a concession after appeals from the Jews, relaxing the required clothing to yellow garments and turbans.



1295: Boniface VIII consecrated as Pope.  During his Papacy he will issue “Unam Sanctam” a Bull that “declares there is no salvation outside of the Catholic Church” which means that all Jews are denied a portion in “the world to come.”



1235: False accusations of Ritual Murder at Baden, Germany resulted in a massacre of the Jewish population.



1295: Consecration of Boniface VIII the pope who “objected to the erection of a new synagogue in Trier, Germany,” who in 1297 “praised the queen of Sicily for having expropriated the property of Jewish usurers,” who “in 1300 ordered the expulsion of Jewish and Christian usurers from Avignon” and who made it a matter of Canon Law that “Jews, even minors, once baptized must Christians.”



1350: Birthdate of Vincent Ferrer, the native of Valencia, who was responsible for the conversion of an untold number of Jews by methods that were other than just an appeal to faith and who helped to flame the fires of anti-Semitism in Iberia.



1490: At Naples, the first printed edition of the Ramban’s “Sha’ar ha-Gemul,” The Gate of Reward, was published by Joseph ben Jacob Gunzenhauser. Gunzenhauser and his son Azriel had moved from southern Germany to Italy where “they produced various books, including a Hagiographa with rabbinical commentaries, Avicenna's medical Canon, and Abraham ibn Ezra's commentary on the Pentateuch.” Jacob passed away in 1490, the same that they published the Ramban’s seminal work.



1492: At Brescia. Italy, Gershon Soncino produced the first printed Chumash with Megilot.



1571: The Royal Exchange opens in London. The first Jewish broker was admitted to the Royal Exchange in 1657; the same year a piece of land was purchased for a Jewish cemetery in London.



1579: The Union of Utrecht forms a Protestant republic in the Netherlands. The treaty that created the union guaranteed religious peace under article 13. As a consequence this, the persecuted Jews of Spain and Portugal turned toward Holland as a place of refuge.



1634: Trial of the men implicated in the 'Complicidad Grande' (Great Complicity). Seventeen arrests were made by the Inquisition after a man turned another man in for being "unwilling to make a sale on Saturday," and for not wanting to eat bacon. The man’s possessions were confiscated, more people were implicated, and eventually a total of 81 persons would be locked up and their possessions sequestered. These men were prominent businessmen of the Lima (Peru) community, and their arrests and led to a "widespread commercial crisis" and failure of the community bank.



1639 In Lima, Peru, at an Auto Da Fe, more than eighty New Christians were burned, including Francisco Maldonna de Silva (Elia Nazareno), after the Inquisition discovered that they were holding regular Jewish services. De Silva spent 12 years in prison, during which time he managed to write two books using a chicken bone and charcoal. Each book was about 100 pages. He succeeded in putting together a rope out of corn husks but instead of escaping he used it to visit other prisoners urging them to believe in Judaism.



1656: French Philosopher Blaise Pascal published the first of his Lettres provinciales. Pascal did not radiate the anti-Semitism typical of so many European intellectuals. Over 300 years ago, when King Louis XIV of France asked, the great French philosopher, to give him proof of the supernatural. Pascal answered: "Why, the Jews, your Majesty -- the Jews." The best proof of the supernatural that Pascal could think of was: "The Jews."



1719: Creation of the Principality of Liechtenstein which reportedly provided a refuge for 240 Jews fleeing the Nazis during the Holocaust.



1719(8thof Shevat, 5479): Sarah Ashkenazi, the wife of Zebi Hirsch Ben Jacob Ashkenazi and “the daughter of Meshullam Zalman Mirels Neumark, chief rabbi of Altona, Hamburg, and Wandsbeck” passed away today.



1765: Birthdate of Anton Von Schmid who served as an apprentice to the court printer Joseph Edler von Kurzbeck who provided him with the initial training that enabled him to become a leading printer of Hebrew books.



1770: Joseph Abrahams, the son of Abraham Abrahams “was admitted as an attorney of the King’s Bench” today



1789: In Washington, D.C., Georgetown becomes the first Catholic college in the United States. Today approximately 650 of Georgetown’s 6,000 are Jewish and a thousand of its 6,000 graduate students are Jewish. The school offers 35 Jewish studies courses and students can major in Jewish Studies. The university also has an active Hillel Chapter.



1793: Prussia and Russia sign a treaty that is known as the Second Partition of Poland.  Each of these partitions resulted in Russia acquiring large chunks of Poland, which she wanted, and large numbers of Jews which she did not want.



1805: Walter Nathan married Sophia Friedberg at the Great Synagogue today.



1822: Avigdor ben Benjamin married Frumat bat Abraham today at the Western Synagogue.



1828: Judah Casper married Rachel Michael at the Great Synagogue today.



1833: Leman Levi married Elizabeth Meyers at the Great Synagogue today.



1838: David Judah Alberga married Henrietta Delgado today.



1849: In Albany, NY, Joseph Ehrich and Rebecca Sporborg gave birth to Yale educated art dealer and “hard money advocate” Louis R. Ehrich, the husband of Henriette Minzesheimer and founder of the Ehrich Galleries on New York’s Fifth Avenue.



1854: In London, Louis and Rachel Greenbaum gave birth to Samuel Greenbaum who would serve three years as an Associate Justice of the Appellate Division in New York.



1855: In New York City, a complaint was entered today in "The Mayor's Little Black Book" stating that on Chatham Street "a Jewish drummer is stationed in front of his store insulting passengers as they pass along. The latter nuisance is glaring and intolerable...and calls for intervention of the proper authorities." Chatham Street was the heart of the second-hand clothing “industry” and was equated with Jews in a most uncomplimentary way.



1856: In Philadelphia, Morris Rosenthal and Jeanette Wallerstein Ahrndt gave birth to Henrietta Radzinski, the wife of A. Isaac Radzinski and Chicago social activist who served as a member of the national board of the Council of Jewish Women, President of the Baron Hirsch Ladies’ Aid Society and the director of the Chicago Home for Jewish Orphans.



1864(15th of Shevat, 5624): As the United States entered into its first Presidential election campaign during wartime, Jews observe Tu B’Shevat



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



1871(1stof Shevat, 5631): Fifty two year old Samuel (Isaac) Henry Gluckstein, the husband of Hannah Coenraad Gluckstein and the brother of Henry Gluckstein with whom he began a cigar making business in England which he later turned into a cigar manufacturing jointly run with his son Isidore and Montague passed away today.



1873: A large crowd braved a snowstorm to hear a lecture at the Beeckman Street Church by Jewish humorist Raphael De Cordova entitled “The New Clergyman.”



1878: Marcus J. Waldheimer, a partner in the firm of Townsend & Waldheimer, denied reports that his father-in-law, Leopold Bamberger, had disappeared. Waldheimer said that Bamberger who has been holding funds in trust that are related to a messy bankruptcy case, has “merely left…temporarily for recreation.”



1879: It was reported today that a revised edition of “Hebrew Men and Times from the Patriarchs to the Messiah” by Joseph Henry Allen will be reissued by Roberts Brothers



1882: In St. Paul, MN, the Daily Globe reviewed “Hearts of Oak,” an American melodrama co-authored by David Belasco.



1883: Fifty-one year old French artist Gustave Doré who illustrated “The Wandering Jew” passed away today.



http://www.wikiart.org/en/gustave-dore/the-wandering-jew



http://digital.lib.buffalo.edu/news/2014/03/21/the-legend-of-the-wandering-jew-illustrated-by-gustave-dore/



http://www.amazon.com/Legend-Wandering-Jew-Joseph-Gaer/dp/B0000CKZDK



1884: The first four page edition of the Financial and Mining News founded by Harry Marks which became the Financial News appeared today



1888(10thof Shevat, 5648): Max Hoffheimer, a member of the board of Hebrew Union College passed away today.



1888: In Breslau, Jewish businessman Max Bernstein and his wife Franziska Altmann gave birth to Arnold Bernstein, the German-American shipower who was stripped of his assets and imprisoned by the Nazis before making his way to the United States in 1939.



1889: French painter Alexandre Cabanel, who taught and was the greatest influence on the work of, Jewish painter Solomon Joseph Solomon, passed away.



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



1891: Birthdate of Jonas Bernanke. Born in Boryslav, which was then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, he eventually made his way to Dillon, South Carolina where he owned a drug store and raised a son named Ben who would become Chairman of the Federal Reserve.



1891: In New York Harry Sachs and his wife gave birth to Joseph Howard Sachs, Harvard Grad class of 1911, an investment banker with Goldman, Sachs and the husband of Eleanor Burtis Sachs.



1891: The funeral of Lazarus Rosenfeld who had served as Vice President of Temple Emanu El and as a member of the Board of Trustees of the Hebrew Benevolent and Orphan Asylum are scheduled to be held at his home at 139 Madison Avenue starting at 9:30 a.m,



1892: It was reported today that the Russian government is taking a variety of measures to avert the repetition another famine including postponing “the enactment of the laws” aimed at the Jews.



1892: Birthdate of Moritz Neumann one of the last Jewish inhabitants of Kleinsteinach whom the Nazis shipped to either Izbica or Theresienstadt.



1893: The New York Times featured a review of A Visit to Wazan: The Sacred City of Morocco by Robert Spence Watson. Watson used a letter of introduction from Sir Moses Montefiore to the Chief Rabbi of Morocco “as a passport to meeting Jews” wherever he went. Watson reported that Montefiore’s efforts on behalf of the Moroccan Jews had improved their condition including the comment that “the children of the better class of Jews of Tangiers are taught in English” and use English textbooks.



1893: “Heine in his Family Life” published today provides a detailed review of The Family Life of Heinrich Heine written by his nephew, Baron Ludwig von Embden.



1893: It was reported today that while Richard Mansfield’s depiction of Shylock vividly portray “his hatred, his vindictiveness” and “his implacable cruelty in the pursuit of revenge” “he is much more successful than any other actor…in this day, in denoting the affection of the Jew for his kind and the intense mental agony he suffers over Jessica.  His portrayal is deemed as “less theatrical and more human than others.”  (Over the centuries, the portrayal of Shylock has reflected the skill of the actors and, more to the point, the view of Jews in current society.)



1893: It was reported that Emma Goldman spoke at a meeting of anarchists who call themselves the Pioneers of Liberty



1894: It was reported today that the “stores and fuel yards” that have been provided by Nathan Straus during the current Depression have been “besieged” by the poor and needy.



1895: In Brooklyn, at the Academy of Music Mr. and Mrs. Moses May led the grand march at the charity ball attended by 2,000 people that raise over $10,000 for the Hebrew Orphan Asylum.



1895: In New York, the Young Ladies' and Gentlemen's League of the Montefiore Home sponsored a grand ball to raise funds for the Montefiore Home for Chronic Invalids. The successful fund raiser was attended by members of “the best circles of Jewish society.” The dances for the Montefiore Home have replaced the Purim Balls which up until two years ago were the great fund raising and major winter social events of these prosperous Jewish citizens



1895: It was reported today that “Congregation Shearith Israel has abandoned the idea of selling the synagogue property on 19th Street between 5th& amp; 6th Avenues.



 1896: It was reported today that the officers of the Hebrew Orphan Asylum Society are: Moses May, President; Abraham Abraham, Vice President; Herman Newman, Treasurer. 



1896: Notorious German anti-Semitic agitator Hermann Ahlwardt addressed a meeting at Proesser’s in Jersey City, NJ.



1897: It was reported today that Scribner’s is ready to publish Professor Charles F. Kent’s second volume of the History of the Hebrew People.



1898: An anti-Dreyfus/anti-Zola demonstration was scheduled to take place on the Place de la Concorde in Paris.



1898: Ant-Semitic riots continued today in Algiers when “the mob invaded the Jews quarter and pillaged the shops in the Rue Babaoum, driving the Jewish merchants into the streets.”



1898: It was reported today that Selah Miller, a Congregationalist Minister from Massachusetts has been reappointed to by the President as U.S. Consul at Jerusalem.  He had served in that capacity from 1882 to 1886.



 1898: The annual meeting of the Mount Sinai Hospital Society was held today in the Dispensary building on east 67th Street. 



1898: “A Man Fasts For Twenty Years” published today describes the regiment followed by Morris Fox, a forty year old Jew from Russia who has been living in London for the last twenty years.  During that time he has lived exclusively on a diet of six pints of milk, three pints of beer and half pound of Demerara sugar.  Physicians in Konigsberg provided this “fast” which has proven to be the only way to cope with effects of an illness that “entirely destroyed his digestive organs.”



 1898: Birthdate of Sergei Eisenstein. The Russian, film maker worked in the United States before returning to the Soviet Union. One of his most famous films was the “Battleship Potemkin.”



 1898: It was reported today that the ant-Dreyfus riots at “Nantes, Bordeaux, Marseilles” and other cities outside of Paris “are frankly anti-Semitic…The mobs have a single purpose which is to outrage, plunder and kill in the Jewish quarters.”  Their cries against Zola are based on their belief that he is a “hired champion” of the Jews. (More for 2014)



 1898: It was reported today that American correspondent does not think that Sarah Bernhardt will enjoy a successful season this winter when she performs in Paris. 



1898: It was reported today that Justice J.J. Cohen, Isaac N. Seligman and Jacob Schiff were among those who attended Legal Aid Society’s 22nd annual dinner at Delmonico’s. (More 2014) 



1898 (29th of Tevet, 5658): Yehoshua Yehudah Leib Diskin passed away. Born in 1818, this important rabbi, Talmudist and Biblical commentator was also known as the Maharil Diskin,. He served as a rabbi in Łomża, Mezritch, Kovno, Shklov, Brisk and finally Jerusalem after moving there in 1878, where he became the spiritual leader of a part of the Yishuv haYashan. He was part of a family of rabbis. His father, Binyamin Diskin, served as rabbi in Grodno, Volkovisk and later Łomża. His son was Rabbi Yitzchok Yeruchem Diskin.



 1899: Henry Herzberg delivered a lecture at Temple Beth-El tonight in New York entitled “The Soul of Judaism.



 1899: The Baron de Hirsch Trade Schools are scheduled to move into a new facility on East Sixty Fourth Street.  The school had outgrown its old facility on East 9th Street that it had occupied for the last five years



 1899: It was reported today that newly created Central Federate Union which has replaced the old Central Labor Union refused to admit delegates from the Federated Hebrew Trades Unions because “they represented a central body and not individual unions.”



 1899: In Albany, New York state senator Elsbeg introduced a bill that would the Hebrew Infant Asylum of New York to the list of institutions that are entitled to receive public money.



1900: The Jewish Agricultural and Industrial Aid Society who members include Alfred Jaretzki, Percy S. Straus, Eugene Meyer, Jr. and Solomon G. Rosnebaum was organized today.



1902(15thof Shevat, 5662): Tu B’Shevat



1902: In Grass Valley, CA, Polish-Jewish immigrants Fannie (Meyer) and Zalkin H. Rubinstein gave birth to Cecilia Rubinstein who as Cecelia Ager, the wife of songwriter Milton Agar, “was the first female reporter for Variety, a movie critic for PMand contributor to the New York Times” while raising their two daughters -- Laurel Bentley and Shana Alexander.



1904(6thof Shevat, 5664): Sixty-two year old Flaminio Ephraim Servi who had been serving as chief rabbi at Casale-Monferrato (Italy) since 1872, passed away today.



 1904: Herzl was received by the Italian King, Vittorio Emanuele III. The king showed a serious interest in Zionism. But under the Italian political system, the king reigns but does not rule so it will be to Foreign Minister Tittoni to gain political support in Constantinople. Tittoni asked for a memorandum and promised to write to the Italian ambassador in Constantinople.



1906: It was reported today that a mass meeting held in New York to celebrate the first anniversary of “Red Sunday” when thousands of workingmen were shot down in St. Petersburg when they tried to deliver a petition to the Czar there were cries of “Down with anti-Semitism” followed later by a denunciation of  “the massacre of the Jews.”



 1909: Birthdate of Simon W. Gerson, a leader of CPUSA and editor for The Daily Worker.



1909: In the UK, Blanche Esther Barnett and Lionel D. Barnett, M.A., Ph.D., CB gave birth Richard David Barnett, the British academic, “an authority on archaeology of the ancient world”, President of the Jewish Historical Society of England, Chairman of the Anglo-Israel Archaeological Society and the husband of Barbara Barnett.



1910: The Board of Directors of Mount Sinai Hospital held their annual board meeting today at the hospital on 100th Street and Fifth Avenue. During the reading of the annual report Isaac Stern, the President, announced that the plan to establish a federation of the larger Jewish charitable institutions of the city, a plan for some time in contemplation, had failed. Mr. Stern said that there were certain disadvantages to the creation of such a federation without the guarantee of “any permanent advantages.” Therefore, the directors considered it “in the best interest of the community not give their consent” to such a plan. Mr. Stern announced that the children of the late Mayer Lehman had donated $78,528 which was to be used to add two stories to the Dispensary Building as a memorial to their late father. In the past year, almost 89% of the nearly 9,000 patients admitted to the hospital were treated without paying a fee. The hospital’s expenditure of $399,170 exceeded income by almost $15,000. Jacob Schiff, who apparently favored the creation of the federation, gave a speech in which he thanked the board and the medical staff for their efforts in the last year. The board’s decision about joining a federation of charitable institutions doomed the idea at a cost of one million dollars. That was the amount that the late Louis A. Heinsheimer had set aside in his will for such an organization, if and when, it should be created.



1912: Hugo Doblin and Herwatch Walden served as best men at the wedding Erna Reiss, a medical student and daughter of a wealthy factory owner to Bruno Alfred Döblin whose works including Berlin Alexanderplatz published in 1929



1913(15thof Shevat, 5673): Tu B’Shevat



1913: The annual meeting of the United States Chamber of Commerce in Washington, DC which S.S. Brill of St. Louis attended as a delegate came to an end.



1913: The 3 day ceremonies marking the dedication of new buildings at Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati, Ohio, came to an end today.



1913: At today’s session of the 23rd Biennial Council of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations Simon Wolf of Washington, DC, Chairman of the Board of Civil and Religious Rights delivered a report on his group’s activities which have “dealt with the problems of immigration” and providing clarification for the general public of matters” regarding the unfair discrimination to American citizenship by the Russian authorities in the recent passport legislation.” 



 1914: Sir Johnston Forbes-Robertson will appear for the last time on the New York stage when he plays the starring role in “The Merchant of Venice” at the Manhattan Opera House. 



1915: Among those listed today as contributors to the Red Cross fund of which Jacob H. Schiff is Treasurer is Congregation B’Nai Israel of Natchez, Mississippi. 



1915: “The American Jewish War Relief Committee of which Louis Marshall is President and Felix M. Warburg is a Treasurer issued a statement today showing that since December 13 the committee has sent $200,000 to Europe and Palestine” and that to date “the committee’s relief fund” now totals “more than $378,000.



1916: In New York City, Jewish immigrants Samuel and Bella Price, who would move to San Diego in the 1920’s gave birth to Sol Price, the founder of Price Club which later merged with warehouse giant Cosco.



http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/16/business/16price.html



1916: Birthdate of Irwin Witty who played Center for the 1938 NYU basketball team which he led to their first appearance in a “final four tournament” – The NIT.



1916: It was reported today that the American Jewish Relief Committee has received to date $1,236,846 including a contribution of $328.32 from the Provisional Executive Committee “for the relief of Jews in Palestine” and $250 form “Minneapolis Jews.”



1916: At Carnegie Hall, Dr. Stephen S. Wise, rabbi of the Free Synagogue delivered a sermon today in which he defended Zionism from charges that it was un-patriotic and un-American.



1916: “United States Senator Martin of New Jersey, Mayor Mitchell, Commissioner of Immigration Frederick C. Howe, New York Congressman Walter M. Chandler and Isaac Siegel, Louis D. Brandeis, Adolph Lewisohn, Samuel Untermyer and Judge Leon Sanders” are all reported to be among the speakers who will address tomorrow evening’s meeting at Carnegie Hall hosted by the Jewish Congress Organization Committee.



 1917: It was reported today that Dr. H.G. Enelow, the rabbi at Temple Emanu-El told an audience that included Jews and non-Jews that “Jewish interest in Jesus should be aroused…by the fact that Jesus was a Jew” and that while such writers as Bernard Shaw, H.G. Wells and George Moore were “brilliant” their views on this topic were “inaccurate” because “they did not know enough about Jesus’ relation to the Jews to fit them for the instruction of others.”



1918: In New York Bertha Cohen and Robert Elion, DDS, gave birth to Gertrude Belle Elion. Elion graduated from Hunter College and then earned a Master in Science from N.Y.U. in 1941. In a classic case of sex discrimination, she was unable to obtain a graduate research job which meant she could not earn a Ph.D. Thus the 1988 recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine ended up working as a lab assistant and high school teacher.



1918: The list of the newest members of the Executive Committee of the American Jewish Relief Committee published today including William Fox of New York, Moses A. Gunst of San Francisco, Samuel Lamport of New York City, Joseph Michaels of Rochester, NY, H.B. Rosen from the Harrison National Bank of New York City, Abe Rothstein of New York City, Reuben Sadowsky of New York City, Ben Salling of Portland, OR, Jacob Sperber of New York City and Judge Edward L. Lazansky of Brooklyn.



 1918: The Chief Rabbi of Algeria plans a community building which will contain a yeshiva, an assembly hall, a library, shelter for strangers, a mikvah and a bakery for matzah.



1919: Birthdate of Patterson NJ native and West Virginia football player Millard Lampell the blacklisted television and movie screenwriter whose first brush with social protest appears to have come from songwriting with Pete Seeger and Woody Guthries.



http://www.nytimes.com/1997/10/11/arts/millard-lampell-78-writer-and-supporter-of-causes-dies.html 



1919: In Mannville, Alberta, Max Goffman, and his wife, Ann (née Averbach) gave birth to Frances Goffman who gained fame as character actress Frances Bey who played Fonzi’s grandmother on “Happy Days.”



http://articles.latimes.com/2011/sep/17/local/la-me-frances-bay-20110917



1919: General Lyautey, the resident General of Morocco visits the Mellah (Jewish Quarter) and urges the Jews to contribute towards its sanitation and enlargement.



1921: The members of the directorate are scheduled to talk about the year’s accomplishment today at the annual meeting of the Bronx Hospital at Temple Adath Israel.



1921: In Shanghai, Rabbi W. Hirsch consecrated The Ohel Rachel Synagogue for worship. This marked the culminating achievement of Shanghai's First Wave of Jewish immigrants and it was built to accommodate the community of Baghdadi Jews which at its peak numbered 700.



1921: Approximately three students are scheduled to receive their diplomas when “twelve of the largest Talmud Torahs and Hebrew Schools in Manhattan hold joint graduation exercises” today “at Stuyvesant High School after which Israel Unterberg, Samuel C. Lamport, Joseph Levy and Harry H. Liebowitz will host a dinner at the Jewish Center.



1923: Birthdate of Dina Gottliebova, the native of Brno who gained fame as Dina Babbit who survived Auschwitz by drawing portraits of Dr. Josef Menegle



1923: “The Stone Rider” a silent film starring Lucie Mannheim was released today in Germany.



1923 (6th of Shevat, 5683): Max Nordau passed away at the age of 73. http://www.herzl.org/english/Article.aspx?Item=531



 http://www.zionism-israel.com/bio/Nordau_Biography.htm



1924: Laborite Emmanuel “Manny” Shinwell began his first term as Secretary of Mines under Prime Minister MacDonald.



1924: In Paterson, NJ, Sam and Mollie Lautenberg gave birth to Frank Lautenberg who rose to be a United States, a support of the down-trodden and a leader in the Jewish community



http://www.jta.org/2013/06/03/news-opinion/politics/new-jersey-sen-frank-lautenberg-dies-at-89



 1925: In Rokiskis, Lithuania, Avraham and Devora Harmatz, gave birth to Joseph Harmatz, a Holocaust survivor and comrade of Abba Kovner who plotted to kill German soldiers at WW II passed away today. (As reported by Sam Roberts)



https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/30/world/europe/joseph-harmatz-dead.html?_r=0



1929: Birthdate of Myron Sidney Kopelman, who, as Myron Cope, would become an American sports journalist, radio personality, and sportscaster best known for being "the voice of the Pittsburgh Steelers."



1931: “The Man Who Murdered” a crime film directed by Curtis Bernhardt with a script by Henry Koster and Carl Mayer was released today in Germany.



1931: Sir Isaac Isaacs was sworn in as the first Australian born Governor General.



1931: Ninety-one year old Catholic theologian and author of anti-Semitic polemics August Rohling whose work included Der Talmudjude published in 1871 “which bean a standard work for anti-Semitic authors and journalist” passed away today in Salzburg. 



1932: Chief Judge Benjamin N. Cardozo of the Court of Appeals was formally endorsed for associate justice of the United States Supreme Court to fill the seat recently vacated by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes at tonight’s closing session of the annual meeting of the New York State Bar Association at the Hotel Astor



1932: In Manhattan, Sidne Silverman, the son of Sime Silverman the publisher who founded Variety in New York and Daily Variety in Hollywood and former actress Marie Saxon gave birth to their only son Syd who continued the family publishing business.



https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/31/business/media/syd-silverman-90-who-kept-variety-boffo-for-30-years-is-dead.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well



  1933: Birthdate of composer Joel Spiegelman.



1933: At 7:30 p.m., the NBC Blue Network broadcast the 9th episode of “Flywheel, Shyster, and Flywheel, a situation comedy radio show starring two of the Marx Brothers, Groucho and Chico, and written primarily by Nat Perrin and Arthur Sheekman.”



 1934: “No More Ladies” a comedy produced by Lee Shubert and co-starring Melvyn Douglas opened on Broadway at the Booth Theatre.



1936: Sir Isaac Isaacs, a native born Australian who was the son of Polish Jews, completes his term as the 9th Governor-General of Australia.



1936: Senator William H. King of Utah told that the U.S. Senate today “that 600,000 Jews were” being subjected to “ruthless persecution under decrees of the present German regime” and that “Congress must soon face” the need to liberalize the immigration laws of the United States “to permit the admission of Jewish refugees from Germany.”



1937: Today, the United Palestine Appeal released an economic survey on “How Many Jews Can Palestine Hold?” by Joseph L. Cohen, “a British member of the advisor of the committee on social insurance of the International Labor Organization” which show among other things that the “Jewish population” in Palestine had “increased from 17 to 30 per cent of the total population during the last few years” and that today, “there are forty-seven Jews to every 100 Arabs.”



1937: In Moscow, 17 leading Communists went on trial. They were accused of participating in a plot led by Leon Trotsky to overthrow Joseph Stalin's regime and assassinate its leaders. Stalin combined Trotsky’s Jewish parentage with traditional Russian anti-Semitism to demonize Trotsky and destroy those opposing his authoritarian rule. Having branded the “Jew, Trostky” as an enemy of the revolution, or the Communist Party and/or the Soviet Union, Stalin would feel to move against the Jews of the U.S.S.R when it fit his needs or his demonic spirit.



 1938: The Palestine Post reported that two Arabs, implicated in the murder of J.L. Starkey, a noted



archaeologist who was excavating in Palestine, were hanged at Acre. The Motza brick and burnt-tile factory was completely gutted by fire. Arson by Arab terrorists was suspected. Ephraim Brin, 19, and Aziz Jacob, 17, both of Jerusalem, were the first Jews to be sentenced, under the newly created Military Courts, to five years' imprisonment for carrying a pistol and a few rounds of ammunition.



1940: In Perth Amboy, NJ, Philip Kaplan Cheuse who defected from the Russian Air Force and the former Matilda Diamond gave birth to author and critic Alan Stuart Cheuse.



http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/05/books/alan-cheuse-author-and-npr-book-critic-dies-at-75.html?ribbon-ad-idx=4&rref=obituaries&module=Ribbon&version=origin&region=Header&action=click&contentCollection=Obituaries&pgtype=article



1941: Charles Lindbergh testified before the U.S. Congress and recommended that the United States negotiate a neutrality pact with Adolf Hitler. For those who are perplexed by Roosevelt’s response to the plight of European Jewry, this entry should give you a clue as to the kind of the environment in which he was operating. “The Lone Eagle” was a national monument and, as the leader of the America First Movement, he saw WW II was a European measure. He would only grudgingly give ground on his opposition to war once the bombs were falling on Pearl Harbor. Opposition of this magnitude fashioned all of FDR’s decisions about the war, including how to deal with the Shoah. It is only with the warmth of the myth of America’s Greatest Generation that the United States seems like an ant-fascist monolith in WWII.



1941: “Lady in the Dark” a product of “3 Jewish Musketeers” - music by Kurt Weill, lyrics by Ira Gershwin and book and direction by Moss Hart – opened at the Alvin Theatre in New York



 1942(5th of Shevat, 5702): In Novi Sad, Hungary, 550 Jews and 292 Serbs were driven onto the ice and then shelled. All drowned. [Ed. Note: Who says Kaddish for these people?]



http://www1.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/this_month/january/07.asp



 1942(5th of Shevat, 5702): Paul Levinstein was killed in Hadjerat M'Guil a Nazi concentration camp built in remote part of the Sahara Desert in 1941. Upon hearing of their son's death his parents committed suicide in Britain.



 1942: Hungarian military units began “cleaning up” the region of captured Yugoslavia which included the massacre of the local Jews.



 http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/this_month/january/07.asp



1943: Italian authorities refuse to cooperate with Germans in deportations of French Jews living in zones of France under Italian control



1943: The “father, mother and daughter” of Moshe Hans Jahoda who had escaped to Palestine five months before the start of WWII, “were transferred to Auschwitz concentration camp , where all three were murdered.



1943: The last airfield held by the Nazis fell to the Russian cutting any further supply to the 6th Army which brought victory at Stalingrad ever so much closer



1943: Marcia Davenport, the daughter of Bernard Glick and Alma Gluck was a panelist today on a radio panel show “The People’s Platform: when one of the other panelist had a heart attack and passed away.



 1944: "Ode to Napoleon" by the Jewish composer Arnold Schoenberg premieres in New York City



 1945: Birthdate of Bruce Ratner. Appointed by Ed Koch to the position of Commissioner of Consumer Affairs for New York City in 1978, he became a real estate developer in 1982. He is now the owner of the New Jersey Nets basketball team, his net worth now several hundred million dollars. Ratner is the developer charged with building the New York Times Tower. He is a member of the board of the Jewish Heritage Museum.



1946: The Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry, a joint British and American committee composed of six Americans and six Englishmen that was charged with examining the “political, economic and social conditions in Mandatory Palestine as they bear upon the problem of Jewish immigration and settlement therein and the well-being of the peoples now living therein” which had been meeting in Washington, D.C. began its meetings today in London.



 1947: Diana Dill and Kirk Douglas gave birth to their second son movie producer Joel Douglas.



1947: U.S. premiere of “Johnny O’Clock” directed by Robert Rossen, featuring Lee J. Cob and providing Jeff Chandler (Ira Gorssel) with his appearance in a major motion picture.



1949: At the Hollywood Athletic Club the first Emmy Awards are presented. A year later, two Jewish stars would dominate the Emmy Awards. The Texaco Star Theatre starring Milton Berle and The Ed Wynn Show starring Ed Wynn would walk off with top honors while Berle and Wynn would each earn awards in their own right.



1950: The 3rd edition of Famous 1st Facts by Jewish trivia expert Joseph Kane is published



1950: Israeli Knesset resolved that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel



1952: Birthdate of Jeanette Ingberman, the Brooklyn born daughter of Holocaust survivors who became a founder of the New York cultural center Exit Art, a hotbed of avant-garde work by artists from around the world. (As reported by Margalit Fox)



http://jwa.org/thisweek/jan/23/1952/this-week-in-history-january-23-1952-jeanette-ingberman-founder-of-exit-art-is



 1953(7thof Shevat, 5713): Zlynka native Solomon Bregman the editor-in-chief of The Book About Jews-Heroes of the War against Fascism who was arrested “with other members of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee in 1948” passed away today in jail “after surviving several severe beatings.”



1953: The Jerusalem Post reported from New York that the Soviet Union was about to break diplomatic relations with Israel. The first five tons of the copper ore, excavated from Timna mine in the Negev, were sent for industrial tests to Europe.



1954: “Killers from Space” a sci-fi film directed and produced by W. Lee Wilder was released today in the United States.



1959(14thof Shevat, 5719): Terrorists killed a shepherd from Kibbutz Lehavot HaBashan.



1960: Birthdate of Sheri Miriam Goldhirsch the Brooklyn native who became the “artistic director of Young Playwrights, Inc.



http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/29/theater/sheri-m-goldhirsch-who-nurtured-young-playwrights-dies-at-55.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=0



1960: Israeli General Yitzhak Rabin sends an aerial reconnaissance across the Suez Canal to ascertain the position of Nasser’s advancing troops. When the troops cannot be found, Rabin correctly assumes they have crossed the Canal. It turned out that the bulk of Egyptian army was almost at the border with Israel where they would only be opposed by force of twenty or thirty tanks.



 1963: The latest installment of the memoirs of Ilya Ehrenberg which describe the Soviet response to the invasion of June, 1941, appeared today. Ehrenbeg depicted a hesitant Stalin whose ever—present picture disappeared from view for months and who did not speak to the nation until November of 1941. This installment also describes how Stalin mobilized Soviet Jews including Ehrenberg, Sergei Eisenstein and Solomon Mikhoels to make broadcasts abroad to gain support for the Soviets in their fight against the Nazis. [After the war, Stalin, like Pharaoh, would know not the Jewish contribution and murdered many of them included Mikhoels.]



1963: Recording session began today at Columbia’s Studio A in New York that would lead to “The Barbra Streisand Album.”



1963: Lew Pollack’s “Charmaine” was released today Decca Rcords.



1964: Arthur Miller's "After the Fall" premiered in New York City.



 1968: Mapai, Ahdut HaAvoda and Rafi merged into the Israeli Labor Party and ceased to exist as individual entities. 



1972: In Caen, France Dr. Jacques Drucker and his wife Martine gave birth to French actress Léa Drucker 



1973(20thof Shevat, 5773): A Palestinian terrorist murdered Baruch Cohen in Madrid.



1974: “Professor David Azbel announced his intention to hold a hunger strike in support of Sakharov and Solzhenitsyn.”



1974: “Izak Tsudikovich Hochberg of Kishinev, the well-known mathematics professor and Corresponding Member of Moldavian Academy of Sciences, was dismissed from his post as head of Department in the Institute of Mathematics after applying to emigrate to Israel.” 



1975: "Barney Miller" starring Hal Linden premiered on ABC TV.



 1976: It was reported today that even if the Soviet Union is overhauling its emigration procedures, “emigrants to Israel will continue to pay 500 additional rubles ($665) to renounce their Soviet Citizenship…” (As reported by JTA)



1976: It was reported today that the Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry (SSSJ) “has learned of a new Soviet Jewish “Prisoner of Conscience,” Lydia Abatorovna Nisanova the 32 year old native of Derbent who applied to emigrate in July 1975 and who was sentenced recently to a year-and-a-half for speculation.” (As reported today by JTA)



1977(4th of Shevat, 5737): Bernard "Toots" Shor passed away. “Toots Shor, a bulky Jewish street kid from Philadelphia, who made and gambled away several fortunes in the big town, was in a sense the original insult comic—crass, coarse, jesting jibes being the prime ingredient of pal ship among all those heavy hitters.” Shor was the premier Saloonkeeper and his New York restaurant was a thing of legend.



http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/17/movies/17shor.html 



1978: The Jerusalem Post reported that the cabinet decided to postpone the military talks held with Egypt in Cairo, after the Egyptian delegation broke off political negotiations with Israel, held in Jerusalem. It was expected that this step might influence Egypt to moderate its demands, in tone as well as in contents. The US expressed its disappointment with Israel's sharp reaction to President Anwar Sadat's demands for a total withdrawal to the 1967 borders and the recognition of the rights of the Palestinians. Four hundred and twenty-five Israelis flew to the US under the 'Friendly Force' program designed to promote peace through personal contacts.



 1978 (15th of Shevat, 5738): A hundred thousand trees were planted on Tu Bishvat by the Jewish National Fund.



1981: Birthdate of Long Branch, NJ, native and UCLA gymnast Alyssa Erin Beckerman who earned a Gold Medal for her performance on the Balance Beam at the U.S. National Championship in 2000.



https://web.archive.org/web/20110725154600/http://www.uclabruins.com/sports/w-gym/mtt/beckerman_alyssa00.html



1986: "Jerome Kern Goes to Hollywood" opens at Ritz Theater New York City.



1987: Meir Heth, was appointed today as the new chairman of Bank Leumi L'Yisrael, Israel's biggest commercial bank. The former head of the Tel Aviv stock exchange, Heith was criticized over a 1983 collapse of bank shares. A commission of inquiry last year criticized Mr. Heth for failing to prevent the country's four major banks from manipulating their shares.



1988: As the Arab uprising called the Intifada brings an increase in violence the representative of the Arab League and three other Arab diplomats met with a senior State Department official today to complain about what they considered inadequate United States pressure on Israel to halt the violence against Palestinians in Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.



1990(26thof Tevet, 5750): Eighty-five year old Nathan N. Rosen, a graduate of Yeshiva University and Columbia College who served as an Army Chaplain during World War II before beginning a 25 year career as a chaplain at Brown University where he founded the Hillel chapter, passed away today.



http://www.nytimes.com/1990/01/24/obituaries/nathan-n-rosen-rabbi-85.html?pagewanted=print&src=pm



 1991. At a briefing this morning, Israeli officials appeared to play down the deaths that occurred when an Iraqi Scud missile evaded two American Patriot air-defense missiles and slammed into a Tel Aviv suburb on Tuesday night, leaving 3 people dead and 96 wounded emphasizing that the three victims had suffered heart attacks.



 1991: The first episode of the second season of "Seinfeld" debuts on NBC-TV



1994: Coach Marv Levy led the Buffalo Bills to victory over the Kansas City Chiefs which marked his fourth straight victory in the American Football Conference Championship.



1997(15thof Shevat, 5757): Tu B’Shevat



1998: “The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit” co-starring Side Caesar and Howard Morris is scheduled to be released today in the United States.



1998: “Phantoms” the movie version of the novel by the same name produced by Bob and Harvey Weinstein and starring Live Schreiber was released in the United States today.



 1997: Madeleine Albright became the first woman to serve as United States Secretary of State. During her term as Secretary of State, Albright found out for the first time that her family was Jewish.



2000: The New York Times includes a review of The House of Rothschild: The World's Banker, 1849-1999 by Niall Ferguson.



 2001: This afternoon, two Tel Aviv restaurateurs and an Israeli Arab friend sat down for a late lunch in Tulkarm, a battle-scarred town rarely visited by Israeli Jews since the West Bank erupted in riotous protests nearly four months ago. The three were seized by armed men who later let the Israeli Arab go, but shot the two Israeli Jews at point-blank range, Israeli officials said. Hamas, the militant Gaza-based Islamic movement, took responsibility for what it called an ''execution'' and said the shooting had been videotaped.



 2001: The killing of two Israeli civilians by Palestinian militants earlier today interrupted a new round of peace negotiations here, with Prime Minister Ehud Barak condemning the slayings as ''horrendous'' and ordering the three cabinet ministers in the talks to return to Jerusalem. 



2001: Today, in a talk with high school students on the campaign trail, Ehud Barak appeared to disavow proposals for relinquishing control of the ancient city core of Jerusalem. ''Under any settlement, the Western Wall, the Jewish Quarter, and the Mount of Olives, and what is called the holy basin, will remain under Israeli sovereignty,'' Mr. Barak said.



 2002(10th of Shevat, 5762): Bernard Rothman passed away. Cause of death was a stroke. He was better known as Benny Rothman, “a UK political activist, most famous for his leading role in the Mass trespass of Kinder Scout in 1932. He was born in Cheetham Hill, Manchester, in 1911. He is family was so poor that he had to start work at the earliest opportunity rather than take full advantage of a scholarship that he had won. Working as an errand boy in the motor trade, he studied geography and economics in his spare time while his Aunt Ettie introduced him to The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists and the works of Upton Sinclair. Increasingly committed to the causes of socialism and communism, Rothman lost his job after getting into some trouble with the law while selling copies of the Daily Worker. During a period of unemployment, with the help of a bicycle salvaged from spare parts, he discovered the nearby wilderness regions of the Peak District and North Wales. The combination of his political activism and interest in the outdoors led to his participation in the mass trespass of 1932, an enterprise that resulted in a spell in prison and further employment difficulties. In 1934, Rothman went to work at Avro in Newton Heath and instantly became an officer of the Amalgamated Engineering Union (AEU). At Avro's, he met and married fellow communist Lily Crabtree but his political views became increasingly visible to his employer and he was dismissed. Rothman was active in working with Jewish groups in Manchester to oppose the campaigns of Sir Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists. In 1936, he started work at Metropolitan Vickers at Trafford Park and was again soon an AEU official.” 



2002: Daniel Pearl was kidnapped and subsequently murdered in Karachi, Pakistan. Based on the tape of his murder, Pearl was killed because he was a Jew.



http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/blogpost/post/daniel-pearls-death-10-years-later-an-interview-with-his-father-judea-pearl/2012/02/21/gIQAKChtRR_blog.html



http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1014311357552611480.html



2003 (20th of Shevat, 5763): Actress Nell Carter passed away. She had converted from Catholicism to Judaism in 1982.



2003: The 12th annual Jewish Film Festival comes to an end in New York.



2003: As of 10 pm, Rabbi Yitzhak Kaduri, the holy man of unknown but tremendous age, who was scheduled to visit the Hall of Moses synagogue and then a candlelit graveyard in this Tel Aviv suburb tonight for a rally that mixed mystic ritual with all the grit of Chicago ward politics had failed to make an appearance and the police were forced to disperse the disappointed crowd



2004(29thof Tevet, 5764): German born photographer Helmut Newton passed away. (As reported by Suzy Menkes)



http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/26/news/26iht-obits_ed3__23.html



http://www.helmutnewton.com/



2004: U.S. premiere of “The Butterfly Effect” featuring Logan Lerman which was distributed in Israel by Forum Film.



2005: The Squid and the Whale, an American comedy-drama film written and directed by Noah Baumbach featuring Jesse Eisenberg as “Walt Berkman” premiered at the Sundance Film Festival.



2005: Stanley Fischer, a widely respected American economist and banker, has agreed to leave the United States and a job as a vice chairman of Citigroup to become governor of the Bank of Israel.  



2005: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including recently published paperback editions of Horse People: Scenes from the Riding Life by Michael Korda and Unsettled: An Anthropolgy of Jews, Melvin Konner’s sweeping study that follows a roughly historical outline, from the earliest pre-biblical days to the establishment of the state of Israel, and tracks down far-flung Jewish communities in China, India and Afghanistan.



 2006: The Andrew Carnegie Medal for best children's video was given to the producers of Mordicai Gerstein's "The Man Who Walked Between the Towers," winner of the Caldecott in 2004. Mordicai Gerstein was born in Los Angeles in 1935. He lives in western Massachusetts with his wife, Susan Yard Harris, who is also an illustrator, and their daughter, Risa. The award winning illustrator, painter and graphics artist has collaborated on numerous books for children including many with a Jewish motif including Queen Esther the Morning Star, Noah and the Great Flood and Jonah and the Two Great Fish



2006: In “Attorney's Perseverance Yields a Legal Masterpiece” published today Anne-Marie O’Connor described Randol Schoenberg’s struggle to re-gain art looted by the Nazis.



http://articles.latimes.com/2006/jan/23/local/me-schoenberg23



2006(7th of Tevet, 5766): Andrea Bronfman, the wife of Jewish Canadian billionaire Charles Bronfman, was killed in a traffic accident in New York Monday.



 2007: “Attorney-General Mazuz announced that he would consider charging Katsav with rape, sexual harassment, breach of trust, obstruction of justice, harassment of a witness and fraud.”



2007(4th of Shevat, 5767): Aharon Uzan passed away at the age of 82. Born in Tunisia in 1924, he made Aliyah in 1949 where he became active in a variety of left-wing political parties. He served in the Knesset and held a variety of cabinet posts included Minister of communications and Minister of Agriculture.



2007: "Two Hands” a short documentary on Leon Fleisher by Nathaniel Kahn was nominated for an Academy Award for best short subject today



2007: Israel’s “Sweet Mud” and Holland’s “Black Book,” a movie about a Jewish woman serving in the Resistance against the Nazis are among 61 foreign language films that may be nominated for an Oscar.



2007: Rabbi Andrew Bossov successfully received a kidney from Methodist minister, Reverend Karen Onesti.



2008: “Lasting Legacy: Al Malnik” published to described Malnik’s rise from St. Louis teenage gangster to millionaire and south Florida trend setter.



http://hauteliving.com/2008/01/lasting-legacy/2109/



2008: It was announced today that Randy Lerner had donated £5 million to the National Gallery, the largest single donation that it has ever received, which may accounted for the fact that the ground floor galleries will named “The Lerner Galleries.”



2008: The third and final episode of “The Jewish Americans” airs on PBS. The three episode series traces the history of the Jews in America starts with the arrival of the first 23 Sephardic Jews in New Amsterdam in 1654 and “ends with Maisyahu, the Chasidic hip-hop star, one of about six million Jews in America today.” For more information see http://www.jewishtvnetwork.com/jewishamericans/



2008: The New York Jewish Film Festival presents “Labyrinths of Memory, a documentary that draws parallels between two very different women united by a search for identity: Maite Guiteras, Mexican born, adopted at birth, and raised in Cuba; and the film’s director, born in Costa Rica to East European Jewish parents and raised in Mexico. Each defies ethnic and geographic boundaries to travel to her ancestral home to claim a place in the world”; “The Unkosher Truth a short documentary in which the filmmaker must muster the courage to tell her father, an Orthodox rabbi and U.S. Army general, that her boyfriend is German and gentile”; “Film Fanatic, in which Ultra-Orthodox Jew Yehuda Grovais rebels against his religious community, and battles the secular cultural establishment in Israel to make Hollywood-style blockbusters on a budget.”



2008: In a night time attack, two armed Palestinians affiliated with Fatah’s Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades infiltrated a yeshiva at Kfar Etzion wounding three civilians. The two had just been released from an Israeli prison.



2008 (16th of Shevat, 5768): Rami Zuari, a 20 year old Border Police officer was killed during a terrorist attack at an East Jerusalem checkpoint. Border Police officer Shoshana Samendayev sustained moderate to serious injuries in the same attack. 



2008: The New York Times featured a review of The Forger: An Extraordinary Story of Survival in Wartime Berlin, the autobiography of Cioma Schonhaus.



2009: “Lansky,” a one-man play about Meyer Lansky starring Mike Burstyn opens in an off-Broadway production. “Acclaimed American/Israeli actor Mike Burstyn stars as Meyer Lansky in the New York premiere of a new play by Richard Krevolin and Joseph Bologna about the life of the “little man,” known as the “brains behind the mob,” and his efforts to become an Israeli citizen.



2009: Final showing of “Zion and His Brother,” a family drama set in Tel Aviv, at the Sundance Film Festival. 



2009: Temple Judah in Cedar Rapids hosts another creative Musical Shabbat Service.



2009: In The End of a Chicago Tradition: Is absolutely nothing sacred?”, published today Susan Berger reports on the demise of the Best Kosher Sausage Company while documenting the history of a small slice of Chicago-based Jewish Americana.



http://www.bukisa.com/articles/72013_bests-kosher-franks-a-chicago-institution-closed-after-123-years



 2010: The 19th annual New York Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to present the New York premiere of “Eyes Wide Open,” a film whose protagonist is an ultra-orthodox butcher living in Jerusalem.



2010: The 10th annual Atlanta Jewish Festival is scheduled to present a screening of “Protektor,” “a smart, stylish psycho-thriller about a Prague journalist and his part-Jewish wife whose lives are ravaged by the outbreak of WWII.”



 2010: Israel is looking into adopting Haitians orphaned by January 12's earthquake, Minister of Welfare and Social Services Isaac Herzog told The Jerusalem Post today. "We see this as part of Israel's humanitarian outreach," Herzog said, referring to the IDF medical operation and the Israeli rescue efforts in the Caribbean nation. "Haiti was one of the countries that supported us on November 29, 1947, [in the UN vote on the establishment of the state], and now it's our turn to support them," he said. 



2011: Adam “Richman appeared on Food Network's Iron Chef America as a judge for a battle with Gruyère cheese as the theme ingredient”



 2011: “Another Day” directed by Sam Levinson who also wrote the script and starring Ellen Barkin who also co-produced the film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival today.



2011: Israeli cellist Amit Peled and pianist Eli Kalman are scheduled to perform this afternoon at the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater. 



2011: The 2011 Minneapolis Jewish Humor Festival is scheduled to present “Laughter Yoga Workshop with Molly Dworsky” and “An Adult Evening with Shel Silverstein.” 



2011: The Los Angeles Timesfeatured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including J.D. Salinger: A Life by Kenneth Slawenski



 



2011: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Cinderella Ate My Daughter by Peggy Orenstein and the recently published paperback editions of A Strange Death by Hillel Halkin and Where The God of Loves Hangs Out by Amy Bloom. 



2011(18th of Shevat, 5771): Rabbi Nachum Zev Dessler, a leader at the Hebrew Academy of Cleveland for more than 60 years and a nationally known leader in Orthodox education passed away today at the age of 89. Dessler, the school's first principal in 1944, pressed the Jewish Federation of Cleveland to back the school, and it became the first federation in the country to subsidize a full-day Jewish school in 1948. At the end of 2010, the school had nearly 800 students on three campuses in Cleveland and its suburbs, and nearly 6,000 alumni. Over the years, the school has accepted children from families with all degrees of observance, children of former Soviet Jews who had moved to Cleveland, as well as those with special needs. “His vision was focused on providing every Jewish child, regardless of religious orientation or ability to pay, a quality Jewish and secular education,” said Ivan Soclof, a past president of the school. "Each child was truly an individual and was treated like he or she was the most important person in the world," wrote Louis Malcmacher, the Hebrew Academy's current president. "As a child of Holocaust survivors, my parents came to this country with literally nothing. And as part of Rabbi Dessler's greatness, the doors to The Hebrew Academy were opened to every Jewish child, no matter what their background was or their ability to pay." Dessler was born in Lithuania, raised in London, and traveled through Siberia and Japan to reach the United States during World War II, a route similar to that traveled by another recently deceased Orthodox rabbi and educator, Menachem Zeev “Wolf” Greenglass. Dessler arrived in Cleveland in 1941 with students and rabbis to re-establish the Telshe Yeshiva of Lithuania. Dessler came from a line of rabbis; His father was Rabbi Eliyahu Dessler. Nachum Zev Dessler also was instrumental in building Torah Umesorah, an organization of nearly 700 Orthodox schools. (As reported by The Eulogizer)



2011(18THof Shevat, 5771): Ninety-year old Stanley Frazen “a longtime film and television editor who was a member of the Army Air Forces' First Motion Picture Unit during World War II,” passed away today at his home in Studio City



http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/film-television-editor-stanley-frazen-75597



2012: “Follow Me: The Yoni Netanyahu Story” is scheduled to shown this evening at the New York Jewish Film Festival.



2012: At Wolfson College, Oxford, Penguin Books celebrated the golden jubilee of The Dead Scrolls in English by Géza Vermes



2012: Israeli pianist Alon Goldstein and the Jupiter musicians are scheduled to perform Schubert's celebrated Piano Trio in B-flat Major and the Beethoven "Gassenhauer" Trio at Good Shepherd Church in NYC. 



2012: On the secular calendar, 10th anniversary of the kidnapping of Danny Pearl.



2013(12thof Shevat, 5775): Eighty-eight year old investment banker Edward M. Kresky passed away today. (As reported by Paul Vitello)



http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/31/nyregion/edward-m-kresky-88-calmed-fiscal-panic.html?hpw



2013: L'ayla Women's Initiative is scheduled to present a lecture by “The Shmuz” also known as Rabbi Bentzion Shafier.



2013: The final performance “The Winter’s Tale” sponsored by the Association of Americans and Canadians In Israel is scheduled to take place this evening in Jerusalem.



2013: The Republican Jewish Coalition is scheduled to sponsor an evening with Lela Gilbert and Jennifer Rubin – “The Real Israel: An American Christian’s Perspective” – at the Park East Synagogue.



2013: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu set out his principles for forming a new government Wednesday, issuing a brief statement in which he listed the needs for a more equitable distribution of the national burden, affordable housing and changing the system of government as his would-be coalition’s three top priorities.



2013: Following the Knesset elections, US Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro told Israel Radio today the US government remains committed to preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon. He also said that Washington looks forward to continued cooperation with the next Israeli government.



2014: Artist Dasha Shishkin is scheduled to provide commentary to “Chagall: Love, War and Exile” at the Jewish Museum.



http://www.thejewishmuseum.org/exhibitions/chagall-love-war-exile



2014: As part of the JPS/Skirball Series, Salo Aizenberg is scheduled to introduce his new book, Hatemail: Anti-Semitism on Picture Postcards.



 2014: The United Nations Department of Public Information is scheduled to present “The 70th Anniversary of the Deportation of the Hungarian Jews during the Holocaust” during which “the participants will learn how the German Security Police worked with Hungarian authorities to systematically deport Jews from Hungary in May of 1944.” 



2014: In an appearance that was not listed on the Mayor’s public schedule, Mayor Bill de Blasio gave an unannounced speech at a Manhattan gala of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, assuring its members that “part of my job description is to be a defender of Israel.” 



2014: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu today laid out the dilemma facing his administration when it comes to the Palestinian conflict — the imperative to avoid a binational state encompassing Israel and the Palestinians, but also to prevent a future Palestinian state from becoming an Iranian proxy. “Half of Palestinian society is dominated by Iran’s proxy,” he said in an apparent reference to the Hamas regime in the Gaza Strip. (As reported by Lazar Berman and Adiv Sterman)



2014: The New York Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to come to an end.



2014(22ndof Shevat, 5774): Sixty-three year old Tatyana (Tanya) Edelstein, the wife of Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein, to whom she had had been married for 33 years, passed away tonight.



2015: The Eden-Tamir Music Center is scheduled to present the next in the “Excellence-The Future Generation Series” featuring performances by Hanan Becher, Piano, Netta Karni, Piano, Liel Kaplyushnik, Piano, Daniel Fenings, Violin, Salmon Markman, Violin,Yael Koldobsky, Piano,  Yael Koldobsky, Piano, Lior Greenwald, Violin, Tom Zalmanov, Piano and  Alon Mamo, Piano   



2015: “Judy Berlin” is scheduled to be shown at the 92nd St Y as part of the Women on Top series.



2015: In “For Auschwitz Museum, a Time of Great Change” published today, Rick Lyman described plans for the gathering to mark the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the death camp.



https://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/24/world/europe/for-auschwitz-museum-and-survivors-a-moment-of-passage.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=photo-spot-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0



https://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/24/world/europe/for-auschwitz-museum-and-survivors-a-moment-of-passage.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=photo-spot-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0



2015: In Cedar Rapids, the first Musical Shabbat of 2015 is scheduled to begin this evening.



2016: Shabbat Shira



2016: “Rabin in His Own Words” is scheduled to be shown at the Brooklyn Israel Film Festival2016: “Benya Kirk” and “Hot Sugar’s Cold World” are scheduled to be shown at the New York Jewish Film Festival


2016: “Restoring Tomorrow” which tells the story of the restoration of the Wilshire Boulevard Temple, “one of Los Angeles’s architectural treasures and home to the city’s oldest Jewish congregation” is scheduled to premiere at the Skirball Cultural Center.



 


2017(25th of Tevet, 5777): On the Jewish calendar, Yahrzeit of Moses Levi Ehrenreich the chief rabbi of Rome “who was instrumental in translating part of the TaNaCh into Italian and through whose efforts the Collegio Rabbinico Italiano was reopened in 1887.”


2017: A celebratory Western Wall women’s prayer and Torah reading held by the Original Women of the Wall group this morning tested a recent interim order by the High Court (As reported by Amanda Borschel-Dan)


2017: “Dimona” is scheduled to be shown at the New York Jewish Film Festival.


2017: The annual Jewish Leaders Conference met in Brussels today at which the attendees “called on Israel to help them tackle the rising threat of terrorism and anti-Semitism” by providing “vital security assistance against potential attacks.” (As reported by Raoul Wootliff)



2017: In “German Party Won’t Expel Rightist Who Assailed Holocaust Apology” published today Alison Smale described the decision to discipline Björn Höcke for making a speech that challenged the German atonement for the Holocaust and other Nazi Crimes but to remove him from the Alternative for Germany Party. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/23/world/europe/bjorn-hocke-alternative-for-germany.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=second-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news


2018: The Washington Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to host “An Evening Bernard-Henri Levy” during which the “French philosopher, activist, writer (The Genius of Judaism), and filmmaker Bernard-Henri Lévy offers a special presentation of his two most recent documentaries, Peshmerga and The Battle of Mosul.”


2018: The Oxford University Jewish Society is scheduled to host Rabbi Jonathan Wittenberg of the New North London Masorti Synagogue who “will be speaking on ‘The launch of the Eco-Synagogue.’”


2018: The final session of “The Jewish Workers’ Bund” taught by Jack Jacobs is scheduled to take place at the YIVO Institute.


2018: The Center for Jewish History and Oxford University Press are scheduled to present Professor David N. Myers speaking on “All Jewish History in Less Than An Hour.”


 


 


 

This Day, January 24, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. Levin

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January 24


 41: Roman Emperor Caligula is murdered by the Praetorian Guard. Caligula’s treatment of the Jews does not qualify him as an anti-Semite since he was “a certifiable nut case” who murdered several of his family members, reportedly had incestuous relationships with at least of on his sisters and planned to name his favorite horse as a Counsel of Rome. Caligula believed he was a divinity who was to be publicly worshipped. A delegation of Jews from Alexandria, including the famous Philo, went to Rome to plead the Jewish case before Caligula. At first Caligula was hostile to the Jews, but in the end he reportedly dismissed the delegation saying, the Jews are “just a poor, stupid people unable to believe in my divinity.” The real threat came when Caligula took steps to install a statute of himself in Jerusalem that was to be worshipped. Agrippa, King of Judea and Petronious Publius, the Roman governor of Syria were able to stall the Emperor whose subsequent assassination rendered the point moot.



76: Birthdate of Publius A Hadrianus 14th Roman Emperor. Hadrian reigned from 117 through 138. Hadrian banned Torah study, Synagogue worships and led the Romans in the defeat of the Bar Kochba Revolt.



1076: Holy Roman Emperor IV, who had issued an order prohibiting anybody from following in the footsteps of Godfrey of Bouillon who swore to on crusade “only after avenging the blood of the crucified one by shedding Jewish blood and completely eradicating any trace of those bearing the name 'Jew,' thus assuaging his own burning wrath” wrote a letter today “condemning Pope Gregory VII as a usurper.”



1059: Nicholas II who “condemned the persecution of the Jews and who…expressed” his opposition to “compulsory baptism” began his Papacy.



1436: In Aix-en-Provence, a riot ensued after a crowd felt that a Jew who insulted the Virgin Mary received too light a sentence



1517: Selim I defeated the Mamluks at the Battle of Ridaniya giving the Ottomans control over Egypt leading to “radical changes in the affairs of” Egyptian Jewry including the abolition of the office of nagid, the creation of independent Jewish communities including the one in Cairo head by David ibn Abi Zimra and the appointment of Abraham de Castro as the master of the mint..



1656: Dr. Jacob Lumbrozo, the first Jewish physician in what would be the United States arrived in Maryland



1678(1st of Shevat): Rabbi Solomon Lichtenstein of Bialystok, author of Kokhmat Shelomo, passed away



1704: In Metz, France Abraham Schwab found a yeshivah that became the Seminaire Israelite de France
1712: Birthdate of Frederick II, King of Prussia from 1740 until 86. Known as Frederick the Great, the Prussian king’s treatment of Jews was, to say the least, uneven. He did grant special rights to some, including Mendelssohn. However for the most part, he treated them as an exploitable economic commodity. But what can you expect from a man who wished to be buried with his greyhounds, the only living creatures he really loved.



1729: Frederick William I ordered the elders of the community to appoint Moses Ben Aaron as the chief rabbi of Berlin, a move which upset the Jewish community because they felt he was too young.



1781: Birthdate of Louis-Mathieu Molé who “served as Napoleon’s advisor on Jewish affairs” including the calling of the Grand Sanhedrin in 1807 and “moderated” his original opposition to the Emancipation of the Jews.



1803(1st of Shevat, 5563): Rosh Chodesh Shevat



1804: Presbyterian minister and poet Joseph Fawcett passed away. In 1785, he began a series of Sunday evening lectures at the Old Jewry meeting house the popular meeting house for a Presbyterians that took its name from the fact that the area had been the Jewish quarter or ghetto in the days before Edward expelled them at the end of the 14th century.  There is no record of how these Christians felt about occupying the territory used by the people they had been persecuting and to whom they still denied the full rights of British citizens.



1814: Birthdate of John William Colenso, the native of Cornwall who while serving as Bishop of Natal translated three books of the TaNaCh into Zulu and was convicted of heresy for publicly denying “the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch” and declaring “that Jeremiah was the author of the Book of Deuteronomy.”



1821: Elizabeth Mayers, the daughter of Joseph and Sarah Mayers was married today in the United Kingdom.



1823: In Frankfurt am Main, Zerline Beyfus (Worms) and Meyer (Mayer) Levin Beyfus gave birth to Sigismund Beyfus.



1828: Birthdate of Ferdinand J Cohn, German botanist. He is considered a founder of the science of bacteriology. From his early studies of microscopic life he developed theories of the bacterial causes of infectious disease and recognized bacteria as plants. He aided Robert Koch in preparing Koch's famous work on anthrax. Cohn's writings cover such diverse subjects as fungi, algae, insect epidemics, and plant diseases.



1828(8thof Shevat, 5588): Seventy-three year old Abraham Flesch, “the Rabbi at Rausntiz, Moravia, who was the father of Joseph Flesch passed away today.



1830: Birthdate of Jules Worms, the Paris born physician served the French Army as a surgeon during the Crimean War and was on the staff at Rothschild Hospital from 1865 to 1875>



1844: The Second Annual Benevolent Ball of the Israelites of Philadelphia raised $489.79 today.



 1848: James Marshall finds gold at mill that is being built for John Sutter near San Francisco, CA. According to historian Hubert Howe Bancroft this event brought “a medley of races and nationalities, including the ubiquitous Hebrews." According to Stephen Mark Dobbs there were thirty Jews at a Rosh Hashanah services in San Francisco and the number grew to fifty for Yom Kippur. Jews mined for gold but they mined the commercial opportunities and by 1853 their number had grown to 3,000 in San Francisco alone.
1850: “The House of Rothschild made a fifty million franc loan to Pope Pius IX on condition that” the walls of Rome’s Ghetto would be taken down. Not only did the Pope fail to remove the walls, he “re-imposed restrictions on Jews living in the Papal States…brought pressure against other rulers to revoke Jewish rights granted in 1848” and ruled that the kidnapped Jewish  Edgar Mortara should be raised as a Catholic.



1851: In Cayuga County, NY, Albert Baham was hung for his role in the murder of the Jewish peddler Nathan Adler. After the execution, Albert’s brother John confessed his role which resulted in his death sentence being commuted to life in prison.  In point of fact, he was pardoned by the governor after having served 8 years in prison for his part in the crime.



1855: At Columbia, SC, Jacob M. Wolf of Winnsboro, SC married Ellen Graetz of New York.



1856 (17th of Shevat, 5616): Rabbi Yechezkel of Kuzmir, Polish Hasidic leader passed away. (Ed. Note: This comparatively lengthy note is intended to provide those with limited background an introduction to the richly textured, multi-dimensional world of Chassidic Jewry.) Born in 1755, he was the founder of the) Modzitz or Modzhitz Chassidim. This is the name of a Chassidic group that derives its name from Modzice, one of the boroughs of the town of Dęblin, Poland, located on the Vistula River. Followers of this group are known as Modzitzer Chasidim and they are now based mainly in Bnei Brak and Jerusalem in Israel where their Rebbe lives. They also have a smaller following in Brooklyn, New York. The rabbis who lead them have come from a family by the name of "Taub". Rabbi Yechezkel Taub of Kuzmir established yeshivas and a type of Hasidic teaching that was similar to that of the Seer of Lublin, and distinct from the Hasidism of Ger and Kotzk. Upon his death, his son, Rabbi Eliyahu Taub of Zvolin, Poland succeeded him. He excelled in Torah scholarship and creating Hasidic songs. He was called Menagen mafli pla'os Hebrew for "a wondrous musical talent". His first son Rabbi Moshe Aaron succeeded him as Rabbi of Zvolin. His second son Yisrael went on to found the actual Modzitz Hasidic dynasty. Rabbi Yisrael Taub was born in 1849 and in 1891 founded the Modzitzer Hasidic movement in Modzitz, Poland. He created many melodies that are still sung by Hasidim today. When he passed away on November 24, 1920, he was succeeded by his son Rabbi Shaul Yedidya Elazar Taub. Shaul Yedidya Elazar Taub was born on October 20, 1886. He guided his Hasidim until 1938 when he fled Poland due to Nazi persecution. He made his way to Lithuania, then to Russia, then to China, and then to Japan. Eventually, with the help of some Modzitzer Chassidim, he and some family members reached the shores of San Francisco and then moved to Brooklyn, New York in 1940. It was during his stay in Brooklyn that Rabbi Shaul became popular and helped rebuild Modzitz. He was a gifted songwriter and wrote over 1000 Hasidic melodies. He constantly talked about the coming of the State of Israel. He was unable to see his prediction come true and he passed away on November 29, 1947, the day the UN voted to create the state of Israel. He was succeded by his son Rabbi Samuel Eliyahu Taub. Rabbi Samuel Eliyahu was born in Lublin, Poland on February 9, 1905. Rabbi Shaul and his son Rabbi Samuel were on a trip to the then British Mandate of Palestine in 1935. While they were there Samuel fell in love with Palestine and asked his father if he could stay there. His father agreed and within a year Rabbi Samuel's wife and their child came over to Israel. In 1947 he succeeded his father and became the Modzitzer Rebbe to be known as the Imre Aish ("Words of Fire") as Samuel Eliyahu is called, and continued the traditions of Modzitz both as a composer and Torah scholar. He passed away on May 6, 1984, when he was succeeded by his son Rabbi Dan Israel Taub. Rabbi Israel Dan was born in 1928 in Warsaw, Poland. He came with his mother to Palestine in 1936 to meet up with his father Rabbi Samuel. For a number of years he headed the Modzitz Chasidim in the city of Tel-Aviv where his father had lived. He moved to a new building in Bnei Brak, Israel on Lag Ba'omer 5755 (May 18. 1995). Like his predecessors he also composes Hasidic melodies and many of them have are sung regularly in Hasidic synagogues. His opinion is highly regarded. The Modzitz Hasidim are well-known for their uniquely inspiring melodies and their devotion to serious learning of Torah and Talmud.



1862: In New York City George Frederic Jones and Lucretia Stevens Rhinelander gave birth to Edith Newbold Jones who gained fame as Pulitzer Prize winning author Edith Wharton whose display of anti-Semitism in The House of Mirth which included the depiction Jewish financier name Simon Rosedale has proved to a problem for her at least some of her Jewish fans.”
http://www.tabletmag.com/scroll/222681/what-to-do-about-edith-whartons-anti-semitism?utm_source=tabletmagazinelist&utm_campaign=6c738e3ef2-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2017_01_25&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c308bf8edb-6c738e3ef2-206644398



1862:  Bucharest was proclaimed capital of Romania. The Jewish population of Bucharest had grown from 127 families in 1820 to 5,934 persons in 1860. By the turn of the century, the Jewish population would exceed 40,000 people making them almost 15% of the city’s total population.



1874: Nathan W. Lyman appeared at the Jefferson Market Police Court today and withdrew his complaint that he had been swindled out of $7,000 by a Hungarian born Jew, Dr. Gabor Naphegyi.



1876: Leaders of several New York congregations met at Temple Emanu-El met tonight to discuss the possibility of establishing a college for Jewish students. A committee was established to contact congregations throughout the United States to gain support for the endeavor. Louis May, President of Temple Emanu-El was selected as chairman and Meyer S. Isaacs was selected as Secretary.



1879: Rosa Sonneschein founded "The Pioneers," a Jewish women's literary club in St. Louis, Missouri. “The club, which met in Sonneschein's home, was modeled after similar Christian women's clubs and was devoted to general literary subjects rather than specifically Jewish literature. Perhaps inspired by this literary circle, in the 1880s Sonneschein began publishing stories in Jewish magazines. She also worked as a correspondent for the German-language press in the U.S., a position for which she was prepared by both her German upbringing and her social status as the wife of a prominent St. Louis rabbi. In 1895, after divorcing her husband, Sonneschein moved to Chicago and founded a magazine specifically addressed to American Jewish women, the American Jewess. Though the magazine ran only until 1899, it was the first English periodical specifically addressed to Jewish women. It sought to document and inspire the activism of an emerging network of Jewish women's organizations that expanded upon the model established by the Pioneers.”



1880: Birthdate of New York political leader and Congressman Meyer Jacobstein.



1882: The Hearts of Oak Company featuring David Belasco as “Mr. Ellingham” performed for the thies time at Leubrie’s Theatre in St. Paul, MN.



1887: Birthdate of Alexander Portnoff, the native of the Ukraine who came to America in 1907 where he became a leading painter and sculptor whose models included Sholem Aleichem.



1888: President Moritz Loth chaired a special meeting of the Executive Board at 1:30 p.m. where resolutions were adopted praising Max Hoffheimer, the board member who passed away unexpectedly yesterday.



1888: In Vienna, Mathide (née Donath) and Hermann Baum gave birth to Austrian writer, Hedwig (Vicki) Baum who is considered one of the first modern bestselling authors, and her books are reputed to be among the first examples of contemporary mainstream literature. She attended Vienna Conservatory to study the harp, later playing the harp professionally and teaching music for several years in Darmstadt. After a number of novels in German, a breakthrough novel, Menschen im Hotel, was turned into a play and then at the instigation of producer Irving Thalberg into the highly successful film Grand Hotel directed by Edmund Goulding. The story details one weekend in a posh hotel in minute detail -- Baum had taken a job as maid to yield realism. The film won Best Picture Oscar. Her time in the United States made her realize it was time to leave Germany, emigrating in 1932. From that point Baum wrote many of her novels in English and took citizenship in 1938. Residing in California, she lived in Pacific Palisades, Pasadena, and then Hollywood, where she died of leukemia in 1960. Among two of her most pithy sayings are, "Pity is the deadliest feeling that can be offered to a woman" and "To be a Jew is a destiny.” (Jewish Women’s Archives)



1888: In New York City, over a thousand people attended a benefit performance of "King Solomon" at the Roumania Opera House.  The event was organized by Mrs. M. Rosendorff who will use the funds to buy meat for needy Jews at Passover time.  This is not Mrs. Rosendorff's first foray into fund raising.  In 1887, she hosted a ball at the the Webster Hall that paid for meat Passover time.



1891(15thof Shevat, 5651): Tu B’Shevat



1891: Sarah Bernhardt is scheduled to sail from Harve today so that they can begin performing at the Garden Theatre in New York at the beginning of February.



1891(15thof Shevat, 5651): Dutch born “Belgian engraver and sculptor” Leopold Wiener, the Royal Engraver whose interest in music led to his serving as “vice president of the Conservatoire at Brussels” passed away today.
1892: It was reported today that as the famine worsens in Russia Czar Nicholas II has decided to devote all of his energies to dealing with the crisis which means he has “indefinitely postponed” all of the measures aimed against his Jewish subjects.



1892: It was reported today that the upcoming Hebrew Charity Ball is the last major festivity of the social season in Philadelphia, PA.



1892: It was reported today that in addition to persecuting the Jews, the Czar is now persecuting the Stundists, a Christian sect founded in the 1850’s.



1893(7thof Shevat, 5653): Russian author and Hebraist Isaac Mayer Dick passed away today.
http://www.eilatgordinlevitan.com/vilna/vilna_pages/vilna_stories_mayerdick.html



1895: “A Dance For Charity” published today described the dances sponsored by the Young Ladies’ and Gentlemen’s League of the Montefiore home which have replaced the annual Purim Ball as the leading social event “in Jewish social circles.”  The change took place two years ago but has not had any effect on the ability to raise funds for the charities that benefit from these social events. (more for 2015)



1895: In Portland, Oregon, Ezras Achim which meets on the second Sunday of each month and whose members included Leon Goldenberg and Himan Gertzman was incorporated today.



1895: The officers of the Montefiore Home were today reported to be: President – Jacob H. Schiff; Vice President – Louse Gans; Treasurer – Isidor Straus; and Honorary Secretary – Raphael Ettinger.



1896: It was reported that while giving President Kreuger was giving a sermon during the ceremonies dedicating a synagogue in Johannesburg, he said “And so I consecrate this building to the worship of the Triune God.”  While some Jews minimized this reference to the Trinity,  “others maintain that the building has been desecrated and they have built another synagogue…”



1896: It was reported today that in Jersey City, forty or fifty Jews who were sitting in the audience during a speech being given by Herman Ahlwardt, the German anti-Semite “threatened to kill him and burn the hall” when he “made some particularly bitter references to them.”  The Jews “were ejected by the police and order was restored.”



1897: Berlin Zionists Willy Bambus and Theodor Zlocisti address a letter to Herzl.



1897: Dr. Lyman Abbott delivered a sermon today on the books of Esther, Daniel and Jonah “all of which he said were fictitious although the book of Esther was based on historical facts and was derived from court records.”



1898: It was reported today that for the year ending November 30, 1897, Mt. Sinai Hospital in New York treated 2,996 patients with a mortality rate of 9.04 percent. (More for 2014)



1898: It was reported today that leaders of the Jewish community in Algiers have advised their co-religionists to remain indoors and stay away from their businesses following attacks by anti-Dreyfus/ant-Semitic mobs. 



1898: A mob of approximately 3,000 people surged through the streets of Algiers shouting “Down With the Jews.” 



1898: An anti-Jewish riot took place today in St. Malo, a town in Brittany.



1898: “A dispatch received from Algiers late tonight says that at 11 o’clock perfect tranquility prevailed” with the troops having cleared the street of anti-Semitic rioters including 300 of whom have been arrested.



1899: “The Zionist Movement” published today provided a summary of the report prepared by the U.S. Consul at Beirut that concluded by “saying that the prospects are brighter than ever before for the Jews in Palestine and for the country itself.” 



1899: Sarah Ullmann, the wife of Solomon Ullmann, was buried today at the Edmonton Western Jewish Cemetery



1899: It was reported today that Henry Herzberg believes “that there never was a period in the world’s history when more potent reasons existed why the essential teachings of Judaism should be faithfully observed. Amid the forces of modern civilization…there is vital need for constructive thought which feeds the moral springs of action.”



1899: It was reported today that the population of Palestine is 200,000 of which 40,000 are Jews.  This is an increase of 26,000 Jews in the last twenty years.  There are 22,000 Jews living in Jerusalem “half of whom” have come from Europe.



1899: Birthdate of Robert Leon “Bob” Berman the New York and Fordham University graduate whose major league as a catch and pinch runner consisted of two appearance for the Washington Senators in 1918.



1900(24thof Shevat, 5660): Seventy-year old Isaac Artom “Italian patriot, diplomat, financier and author” passed away today at Rome.”



1900: Harry Greenblatt married Fanny Gottliffe at “New Synagogue, Chapeltown Road, Leeds.”



1901: The Industrial Removal Office was formally created as part of the Jewish Agricultural Society at the Society's Executive Committee meeting. The Society rented a store at 34 Stanton Street in New York and named it "The Industrial Removal Office." The philosophy behind the IRO was to assimilate the immigrants into American Society, both economically and culturally. In 1901, following anti-Semitic decrees by the Romanian government, a large wave of Romanian Jews fled to New York. The Rumanian Committeewas quickly formed in New York to distribute the immigrants to other towns where they might find employment. B'nai B'rith lodges in these towns and cities assisted the refugees upon their arrival. The Romanian Committee rapidly evolved into the Industrial Removal Office, which took over the work on a much larger scale and opened its availability to any unemployed Jewish immigrant, regardless of their origin. The process of procuring work for immigrants was done through traveling agents, who also obtained the cooperation of local Jewish organizations. Local committees, organized primarily by B'nai B'rith, obtained orders for workers and assisted the immigrants on their arrival. The New York bureau noted requests received from the traveling agents and local committees and matched up opportunities from their applicant lists. In the first year of the Industrial Removal Office's existence, nearly 2000 individuals were sent to 250 places throughout the United States.



1902: Birthdate of economist Oskar Morgenstern. Morgenstern enjoyed a successful career in Europe until the coming of the Nazis forced him to flee to the United States, where he pursued his career.  



1903: The New York Times reports on the growth and development of the Jewish Theological Seminary including the securing of a $500,000 endowment and the election of Justice Greenbaum, the New York state jurist, to the Board of Directors. 



1905(18thof Shevat, 5665): Sixty-two year old Edward Einstein, the native of Cincinnati, Ohio who “was elected a Republican from New York’s  7thCongressional District and who ran unsuccessfully for Mayor passed away today.



 1905: Henry S. Morais, journalist, educator and rabbi, writes a letter praising Benjamin Disraeli to the New York Times entitled “Why the People of the United States Should Cherish His Memory” in which he reviews Disraeli’s support for the Union during the Civil War when other English leaders including Gladstone “were known to be in sympathy” with the Confederates and which concludes with the statement that this “scion of the famous Israelis of Jewish history…the offspring of a people as old as the ages, will live in the minds and in the hearts  not alone of his own, but in those of a liberty loving humanity.”



1906: There are reports from Bucharest published today that “massacres of the Jews have taken place in Kishinev and various parts of Bessarabia” and that there are no further details available at this time. 



1907(9thof Shevat, 5667): Ninety year old Moritz Steinschneider passed away in Berlin.
http://www.steinschneider.com/biography/msteinsch.htm



 1908(21stof Shevat, 5668): Leopold Wallach a distinguished New York lawyer who is the father-in-law of Max Morgenthau, Jr. passed away today.



 1908: In Leipzig, Hans von Halban Sr. a professor of physical chemistry and his wife gave birth French physicist Hans Heinrich von Halban.
1911: Founding of Merchaviya the first Jewish settlement in Emek Yizra'el (Jezreel Valley). Ten years after its founding, Merchaviya would be joined by its most famous member, Golda Meir. The future Prime Minister of Israel would tend chickens



1913: Franz Kafka stopped working on "Amerika"; it will never be finished



1914: Dr. Cyrus Adler, president of Dropsie College Isaac Hassler, president of the Young Men’s Hebrew Association and Charles Ellis, the Mayor of Camden, NJ were reported today to be the speakers who address an upcoming meeting designed to launch a fund raising drive to build a communal building for that Camden’s Jewish population.



1915: “Jacob H. Schiff while speaking today at the annual meeting of the Hebrew Free Loan Society to which he and members of his family have been among the largest contributors said he believed there was no other institution who work among Jews was so far reaching and urged that steps be taken to broaden its scope and capital



 1915: A mass meeting sponsored by the Hebrew Sheltering and Immigrant Aid Society to express opposition to the Smith-Burnett Immigration Bill is scheduled to be held this evening at Cooper Union.



 1915: David I. Seiffer will serve as Chairman of the mass meeting scheduled to be held at Adas Jeshurun this afternoon for the purpose of raising funds for the “war suffers in Kalisch, Russian-Polan which has been laid waste and is now in the hands of the Germans.”



1916: A group of “prominent Jewish women” met at the Hotel Astor this afternoon and chose Mrs. Samuel Elkeles, the President of the Federation of the Sisterhoods to serve as the chairwoman of a newly formed organization to raise funds for the relief of Jewish war sufferers whose members also include Mrs. Harry Kraft, Mrs. David Kass and Mrs. L.W. Zwisohn



1916: Chinka Chana Zaid and Yosef Yechiel Zaid, HaKohen gave birth to their daughter Miriam Meir.



1916: “The Jewish Congress Organization Committee is scheduled to hold a mass meeting in Carnegie Hall this evening as a demonstration for the rights of the oppressed Jews in Europe” and which “is intended to emphasize the need of Jewish organization as well as to arouse general public sentiment in favor of the move for the attainments of the rights of Jewish people.”



1916: “Enthusiastic endorsement of the movement for a Jewish Congress to demand equal rights for the Jewish people, particularly in European countries after the war, was expressed” tonight “by more than 3,000 persons who attended a mass meeting in Carnegie Hall under the auspices of the Jewish Congress Organization Committee” an organization that “includes seventeen national Jewish organizations with a membership exceeding 500,000.”



1917(1st of Shevat, 5677): Rosh Chodesh Shevat



1917: Abraham Isaac “Abe” Shiplacoff, the Socialist New York assemblyman “introduced New York's first birth control bill, which would have allowed ‘the dissemination of printed articles describing means of birth control’” today.



1918: The SS Tuscania a luxury liner that had been converted into a troop ship, departed Hoboken, New Jersey, with 384 crew members and 2,013 United States Army personnel aboard of whom at least six were Jewish.



1918: Birthdate of Newark, NJ, native Bernard Morris “Bernie” Weiner who was an offensive lineman for Kansas State University before playing two years of professional football with the Brooklyn Dogers.



1918: The Gregorian calendar introduced in Russia by decree of the Council of People's Commissars effective from February 14(NS). This change is one of the impediments to pinpoint accuracy in dating events in Russian history.  Events are marked in different places by Old Style and New Style dates.  Unfortunately, some sources do not tell which they are which leads to added confusion. (Yes, this is an excuse for some of the inaccuracies in this document.)



 1920 (29th of Tevet, 5680): Amedeo Clemente Modigliani passed away at the age of 35. http://www.isabel.com/gallery/reproduction/m/modiglia/record.html.
1922: Eskimo Pie patented by Christian K Nelson of Iowa. (Nelson was not an Eskimo and he was not Jewish. But those of who live in Iowa don’t get to brag very often, so just laugh and move on. There is a Jewish connection between Iowa and Ice Cream. Many of the products manufactured by Blue Bunny Ice Cream which is located in La Mars, Iowa, are kosher and delicious)



 1922: Professor Louis Ginzberg presented a paper on “The Question of Fermented Wines in Jewish Religious Observances” to members of the Rabbinical Assembly of the Jewish Theological Seminary who meeting in an executive session today.  Following a lengthy and lively discussion the consensus of opinion was that unfermented grape juice may be used for sacramental purposes.  This decision will be forwarded to the American Jewish Committee which is collecting information on the acceptability of using grape juice instead of wine when reciting Kiddush, etc. Ginzberg’s belief that the use of unfermented grape juice could be used put him at odds with the writings of Rabi Abraham Klausner.  Currently, nobody produces grape juice that meets the standards of Kashrut so adoption of Ginzberg’s view would require the start of a new business venture. [For those of you unacquainted with American History, this issue arose with the start of Prohibition and its attempt to ban the sale and consumption of alcohol in the U.S.]



1924: Birthdate of Chaim David ha-Levi, the Sephardi Chief Rabbi of Tel Aviv.
1924: In the Bronx, Jacob Raiffa, who sold wool products, and the former Hilda Kaplan gave birth to Howard Raiffa “an economics professor whose mathematical formulas for decision making were applied to the search for a missing nuclear bomb and the siting of a Mexico City airport, and were even suggested as a way to resolve a strike by professional hockey players.” (As reported by Sam Roberts)



https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/14/business/howard-raiffa-mathematician-who-studied-decision-making-dies-at-92.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=0



1924: Birthdate of character actor Marvin Kaplan.
http://www.marvinkaplan.com/meet-marvin



1924: Max L. Pine, Secretary of the United Hebrew Trades was the opening speaker at meeting attended by representatives of 136 Jewish labor organizations where plans were made to oppose the Johnson Immigration Bill which Congressman Fiorello LaGuardia said was not an “immigration program” but an “immigration pogrom” (JTA)



 1924(18th of Shevat): “Z’ev Jawotz, founder of the Mizrachi movement passed away.



1925(28thof Tevet, 5685): Parashat Vaera



1925(28thof Tevet, 5685): Adele Bloch-Bauer the wife of Ferdinand Bloch Bauer, the subject of Gustav Klimts’ “Woman in Gold” passed away today.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portrait_of_Adele_Bloch-Bauer_I#/media/File:Gustav_Klimt_046.jpg



1926: In New York City, Louis and Rose Tishman gave birth to John Louis Tishman “a master builder of the 20th century whose Tishman Realty and Construction Company transformed the skylines of Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles and New York.” (As reported by David W. Dunlap)
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/07/nyregion/john-l-tishman-builder-who-shaped-american-skylines-dies-at-90.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well



1929: Eighty-four year old Adelaide Brewster Taylor the husband Selah Miller, the American consul in Jerusalem who opposed Jewish settlement in Palestine and was vocal anti-Semite, passed away today.



1931(6thof Shevat, 5691): Parsashat Bo



1931(6thof Shevat, 5691): Ninety-two year old Judith Adler the daughter of of Rav Yitzchak Dov Halevi Bamberger, The Würzburger Rav. and Kela Bamberger, the wife of Rabbi Immanuel Menachem Adler and the mother of PInchas Adler passed away today in Bavaria.



1932(16thof Shevat, 5692):  Sixty-four year old Paul M. Warburg, the brother of Felix Warburg, passed away at 6:30 this evening at his home in Manhattan. At the time of his death he was chairman of the boards of the International Acceptance Bank of New York and the Manhattan Company. A native of Hamburg, and a member of one of the most prominent banking family, he was instrumental in providing many of the ideas that culminated in the creation of the Federal Reserve. He was married to Nina Loeb, the daughter of the late Solomon Loeb of the famed financial firm Kuhn, Loeb & Co. 



1932: Celebration of the 70th anniversary of the birth of author Sigmund Dische in Czernowitz, Romania.



 1932: Dr. Abraham Schwardon’s gift to Hebrew University was described today as being “A Great Collection of Autographs and Portraits Assembled by the Labors of a Galician Chemist.”



1933: In New Haven, CT, Thelma (Wisan) Frankenberger and Bertram Frankenberger, who as a Lt. Colonel in the Army was the commander of Camp Blanding in Florida, gave birth to University of Connecticut graduate and U.S. Air Force veteran Bertam Frankenberger who pursued a career in the financial services the financial services including six years with Deloitte Haskin and Sells.



 1933 Jüdisches Museum zu Berlin (1933–1938, opened on Oranienburger Straße a street in central Berlin that was the in the heart of Berlin’s Jewish community before the rise of the Nazis 



1933(26th of Tevet, 5693):Charles "King" Solomon a Boston racketeer born in 1884 who controlled New England's bootlegging, narcotics and illegal gambling during Prohibition was killed in Boston's Cotton Club by rival gunmen. http://www.onewal.com/w-solomo.html



 1934: Ghazi bin Faisal, the King of Iraq who became pro-Nazi “as the tide of pubic feeling began turning against Iraq’s Jews” “married his first cousin, Princess Aliya bint Ali” today.
1934: A Lutheran minister (name unknown) opposed to the Reich Church is beaten by Nazi thugs.



1935: In Haifa Matilda and Yehuda HaCohen gave birth to Nisim Cohen, a crewman on the ill-fated INS Dakar.



1936: Representatives of all three major faiths including Dr. Samuel H. Goldenson, the rabbi at Temple Emanu-El “issued statements endorsing the aims of Brotherhood Day” which will be observed next month.



1936: Speaking at luncheon today at the Waldorf-Astoria, Ogden L. Mills, the former Secretary of the Treasury “called upon American Jews and Christians to support the one million dollar rehabilitation fund being raised by the Federation of Polish Jews in America” because “we cannot view the starvation of 2,000,000 human beings anywhere on this earth with equanimity.”



1936: Jewish band leader Benny Goodman and his orchestra record "Stompin' at the Savoy" on Victor Records



1937: Dr. Stephen S. Wise “praised Roosevelt’s declaration in his inaugural messages that ‘no group in this county will be regarded as superfluous’” while also telling those at the Free Synagogue service that “the President stands ‘almost alone’ in his rebuke to Poland where it was said recently that 3,000,000 Jews were ‘superfluous’ and must be emigrated.”



1938: Birthdate of author Yoram Taharlev
http://www.taharlev.com/english.asp



1938: The Palestine Post reported that a meeting of the General Council (Va'ad Leumi) of Palestine Jews published a manifesto calling for the immediate opening of the gates of the country to the millions of suffering Diaspora Jews.  



1938: The Palestine Post reported that one Jew was severely wounded when Arabs shot at a group of workers returning from the Givat Shaul quarry to Jerusalem.



 1938: The Palestine Post reported that according to the new Romanian law, all Jews had to appear before the courts in order to prove their citizenship rights.



 1939: Hermann Goring, Hitler’s #2, formally appointed Reinhard Heydrich as head of Reich Central Office for Jewish Emigration and ordered him to speed up the process



 1940: Final day of an Aktion begun on January 18 during which 255 Jews were arrested in Warsaw and then murdered in the Palmiry Forest.



1940: In Brooklyn, Arthur Kaminsky, “a furrier” and May Kaminsky, “a homemaker” gave birth to published Howard Kaminsky.
https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/Obituary/article/74655-obituary-top-exec-at-three-publishers-howard-kaminsky-dead-at-77.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/29/books/howard-kaminsky-publisher-with-a-best-seller-sense-dies-at-77.html



1940: As the Nazi plunder of Poland continues, General Gouvernment ordered registration of all Jewish property.



 1941: Birthdate of Dan Schecthman, the Tel Aviv native who is a professor at the Technion and the winner of the Nobel Prize for Chemistry.



 . 1943: During the past three weeks, fifteen trains reached the Auschwitz from Belgium, Holland, Berlin, Grodno and Bialystok. Of the new arrivals, 4,000 were sent to the barracks and 20,000 were killed before their luggage could be sorted. To accommodate the rate of killing, four new crematoriums were constructed.



1943 One thousand Jews from Jasionowka were rounded up and deported to Treblinka.



 1943: The Nazis incinerated Jewish patients, nurses and doctors at Auschwitz-Birkenau



 1943: Hitler ordered Nazi troops at Stalingrad to fight to death. This militarily stupid command helped seal the fate of the German army and marked the beginning of the end for the Nazi juggernaut.



 1944: The SS Meyer London was launched today.  This “liberty ship” was named for the American Jewish leader who was one of only two Socialist Party members to be elected to the U.S. House of Representatives.  She was sunk by a torpedo off the cost of Lybia.
1944: Birthdate of singer Neil Diamond



1944: Birthdate of David Gerrold [Jerrold David Friedman] author of the World of Star Trek. There has always been a strange affinity between Jewish writers and science fiction. Maybe it comes from those Biblical chariots of Elijah, Ezekiel and Isaiah.



1946: The Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry, a joint British and American committee composed of six Americans and six Englishmen that was charged with examining the “political, economic and social conditions in Mandatory Palestine as they bear upon the problem of Jewish immigration and settlement therein and the well-being of the peoples now living therein” which had been meeting in Washington, D.C. continued its meetings for a second day in London.



1947: Birthdate of Warren William Zevon, the son of a Russian Jewish immigrant and a Scottish/Welsh Mormon who became a noted singer, song writer and musician



1948: Julius Ochs Adler was promoted to Major General in the United States Army.



1948: Birthdate Elliott Abrams, Assistant Secretary of State and foreign policy expert.



 1949: France recognized Israel.



 1951: Birthdate of Soviet-born American comedian Yakov Smirfnoff



 1952: Twenty-three year old Montreal native Larry Zeidel scored “the winning goal as the Indianapolis Capitals defeated Buffalo in the American Hockey League. (As reported by Wechsler)



1956: German born American composer Stefan Wolpe “was appointed to the faculty at the C.W. Post College” today.



1959(15th of Shevat, 5719): Tu B'Shvat



1959: "Party with Comden and Green" closes at John Golden New York City



1962: Brian Epstein signed a contract to manage The Beatles



 1963: Birthdate of Michael Gorlovsky, the native of Dzerzhinsk, who made in ailyah in 1988 following which he joined Likud and was elected to the Knesset from 2003 to 2006.



1964: Bob Hope hosted an hour-long TV version of “The Seven Little Foys” which had been written by Jack Rose and Melville Shavelson.



 1965: In Damascus, Syrian police arrested Kamel Amin Th’abet on charges of being an Israeli spy.  After being tortured he was hung in a pubic execution.  Th’abet was Eli Cohen who successfully penetrated the highest level of the Syrian government and provided intelligence of immeasurable value.
http://www.jpost.com/Features/InThespotlight/Article.aspx?id=205609



 1965: Winston Churchill died in London at age 90. Churchill supported the Balfour Declaration. He led the fight against Hitler. At the same time, he stood by and did virtually nothing to rescue the Jews of Europe. And he continued to enforce the White Paper after there was no military reason to do so. Martin Gilbert, his biographer, is Jewish and has written a slim, fascinating volume entitled Churchill and the Jews.



1971: Ninety year old Martha Grassmann, the woman who risked her life to hide artist Fritz Ascher during WW II passed away today.



1971: Author Susan Brownmiller “helped to organize the New York Radical Feminists Speak-Out on Rape” which took place today.



1973: Hussein Al Bashir, he Fatah representative on Cyprus was killed tonight when a bomb “plant under his bed was remotely detonated.’



 1974(1st of Shevat, 5734): Rosh Chodesh Shevat



 1975: Larry Fine, actor, comedian and member of the Three Stooges passed away



 1976(22ndof Shevat, 5736): Seventy-one year old Pinchas Lavon passed away
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/Lavon.html



1978: The Jerusalem Post reported that Prime Minister Menachem Begin told the Knesset that he might reconsider his previous decision, and would send a delegation to the Cairo-held military talks, but warned that this would not happen if Egypt continued to issue statements offensive to Jewish dignity. Begin explained that Egypt broke off the political talks held in Jerusalem despite the fact that President Anwar Sadat was well aware, in advance, of Israel's stand on the Rafiah Sinai salient and on the future of Palestine's Arab people. In Cairo Egypt confirmed that the political peace talks had been frozen, but not terminated. The US insisted that both Egypt and Israel should embark on a useful process that should resume whenever possible.



1979(25thof Tevet, 5739): Eighty-five old sculptor Bashka Paeff passed away today in Cambridge.
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=9B02E0DA1639E732A25755C2A9679C946890D6CF
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bashka_Paeff#/media/File:Lexington_Minute_Man_relief_(Basha_Paeff)_-_Lexington,_MA.JP



1983(10thof Shevat, 5743): Director George Cukor passed away at the age of 83 after a stroke and a heart attack.
http://www.nytimes.com/1991/12/15/books/the-man-in-the-glass-closet.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm
http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/person/41936%7C58446/George-Cukor/



1984: Birthdate of Tel Aviv native Yotam Halperin, the 6’4” guard for Hapoel Jerusalem of the Israeli Basketball Super League.
1986: In Eilat Laura (née Ehrenkranz), a teacher, and Brian Ullman, a printer gave birth to Ricky Ullman who moved to the United States after his first birthday and became a successful actor and musician.



 1988: After the Israeli Cabinet met today Police Minister Haim Bar-Lev told reporters that reports to contrary, there is no policy to beat Palestinians to stop protests in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.  He said that the using the word beatings “is an unfortunate term.”



1988: Eighty-six year old London born Biblical scholar Hugh Joseph Schonfield whose works included A New Hebrew Typography and host of controversial books about Judaism and early Christianity including The Passover Plot and Jesus: A Biography passed away today.



 1990: An Israeli court jailed for life plus 40 years a Palestinian known as the ''Tel Aviv Strangler,'' who claimed to have killed seven people to prove he was not a collaborator with the Israelis. Four of his victims were Jews and three were Arabs. Mohammed Halabi, 32 years old, was sentenced today for the murders in October of five women and two men. The Tel Aviv District Court jailed him for 40 additional years for two attempted murders. The police said Mr. Halabi confessed to all the charges. 



1991: Israel said it would not carry out an immediate retaliatory strike against Iraq despite the missile attack on Tel Aviv that killed three people. After that decision, another Iraqi missile was destroyed by one of the American Patriot missiles stationed in Israel over the weekend. And it was disclosed that a Patriot had clipped the missile that hit Tel Aviv.



 1991: Mayor David N. Dinkins, who has repeatedly criticized the American effort in the Persian Gulf, said today that he would travel to Israel next week in a symbolic gesture of support for Israelis and for American troops. In the tender world of the city's ethnic politics, the visit could prove awkward. It would appeal to Jewish supporters and strengthen his pro-Israel stance, but it might appear too hawkish to some of his anti-war constituents, including many blacks, who still form the base of his support.



 1991: In the currency market, the dollar's recovery today, which was partly technical, followed comments by Israel's Ambassador to the United States, who said Tel Aviv would be ready to join in regional arms control efforts and possible peace talks with the Palestinians once the Persian Gulf War ended. 



1992: In “A Physical Approach For an Israeli 'Hamlet'” Mel Gussow reviews Rina Yerushalmi's provocative adaptation of "Hamlet" at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.



 1993: A “travel advisory” issued to reported that the American Jewish Congress will be sponsoring 4 “family tours of Israel” this year ‘that include the opportunity to celebrate a bar or bat mitzvah at the Western Wall in Jerusalem and at the Zealot's Synagogue in Masada”



1995: “Following an official state visit to Israel by Austrian President Thomas Klestil in 1994, which included a side tour of Kiryat Mattersdorf, Klestil hosted Rabbi Akiva Ehrenfeld at an official reception at the Hofburg Palace in Vienna” today.



1996(3rdof Shevat, 5756): In the UK, eighty-one year old Bernard Philips, founder of Bernard Phillips and Company, passed away today.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituarybernard-phillips-1317581.html



1996: HBO broadcast the first episode of “Tracey Takes On” starring Tracey Ullman.



1997: After premiering on Christmas Day, “Mother” a comedy directed by Albert Brooks who co-authored the script with music by Marc Shaiman and co-starring Albert Brooks, Rob Morrow and Lisa Kudrow was released today in the United States.



 1999: “Get Bruce!” a documentary that included appearances by Billy Crystal, Bette Midler, Roseanne Barr and Paul Reiser was released in the United States today.



1999: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or topics of special interest to Jewish readers including Primo Levi:Tragedy of an Optimistby Myriam Anissimov, The Conversion by Aharon Appelfeld and Reporting Liveby Leslie Stahl.



 2000: RADWARE Ltd., of Tel Aviv is prepared to make an equity offering 2.5 million shares this week.



2000:  “Urbania” starring Dan Futterman premiered at the Sundance Film Festival.



2001: As the controversy surrounding the pardon of Marc Rich continues to grow, Jack Quinn, former White House counsel under President Clinton, who is now Mr. Rich's lawyer said in an interview today that the president had given every indication in their conversations on January 19th that he had read the petition and piles of testimonials that had been sent the previous month and that he was eager to discuss the case on its merits. Their conversation was strictly about the “legal merits.”  There were no questions about party affiliations or the role of Denis Rich, Mr. Rich's former wife, a prominent Democratic fund-raiser and close friend of the Clintons. But now with the pardon drawing so much criticism, Mr. Quinn acknowledged making mistakes and said that President Clinton had every right to be angry with him. ''He should be upset,'' Mr. Quinn said. ''I'm upset.'' Mr. Quinn faulted himself for failing to go public sooner with the rationale for the pardon. Mr. Clinton has been widely criticized for pardoning Mr. Rich, a financier who lived a wealthy exile life in Switzerland for the last 17 years instead of returning to face charges of tax fraud and trading with Iran in violation of sanctions. ''I didn't anticipate well enough the reaction to this,'' Mr. Quinn said. Beyond his kindling a firestorm of criticism more searing than that surrounding any of Mr. Clinton's other last-minute pardons, Mr. Quinn said he was distressed by the perception that he had used connections gained in the years when he was chief of staff to Al Gore and White House counsel to Mr. Clinton to obliterate much of the case against Mr. Rich.



 2001: Today, Mr. Bush appeared to be directing attention away from the Israeli-Palestinian talks and toward major Arab countries by placing telephone calls to four leaders: King Fahd and Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt and King Abdullah of Jordan.



The White House spokesman, Ari Fleischer, described the calls as an effort to ''underscore the strong relations the United States has with these nations.'' He said they were ''introductory'' in nature and declined to be specific about substance.



 2001: In France, premiere of Origine Contrôlée a French comedy starring Ronit Elkabetz the Israeli actress in her first French film. 



2001: The cabinet decided tonight Israel will return to peace talks with the Palestinians here on Thursday, after a nearly two-day suspension prompted by the killing of two Israeli civilians in the West Bank.



 2001: Peter Mandelson completed his term as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland.



 2002: In New York, the 11th annual New York Jewish Film Festival comes to a close.



2002: Professor Schmuel Noah Eisenstadt of Jerusalem delivered the “2ndSimon Dubnow Lecture” at the Old Exchange in Leipzig.



2002: “An Israeli helicopter assassinated Bakr Hamdan in the Gaza Strip, the leader of the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, which Israeli security official said was responsible for "dozens of terrorist attacks carried out against Israeli civilians and soldiers in the Gaza Strip.”



2003(21stof Shevat, 5763): Seventy-eight year old Auschwitz survivor and French labor leader Henri Krasucki passed away today.
http://articles.latimes.com/2003/jan/26/local/me-passings26.3



2004(1stof Shevat, 5764): Rosh Chodesh Shevat



2004: “A who's who of LA's entertainment world are expected to join Jewish Big Brothers Big Sisters in honoring respected entertainment industry executive and producer Mark Canton with the Sydney J. Rosenberg Lifetime Achievement Award at the 12th Annual Dinner & Auction Gala tonight at the Century Plaza Hotel.”



2004: “Metallica” a documentary co-directed and co-produced by Bruce Sniofsky premiered at the Sundance Film Festival.



2004: An exhibition entitled “What Does It Mean To Be Jewish?” opens at the Jewish Historical Museum in Amsterdam.



 2005: In “A Bright Diaspora Star Fails to Dazzle Israel,” published today Steven Erlanger describes the Israeli reaction to American economist and banker Stanley Fischer becoming Governor of the Bank of Israel. 



 2005: At Columbia University, the Argentine-Israeli conductor Daniel Barenboim “compared Herzl’s ideas to Wagner’s; criticized Palestinian terrorist attacks but also justified them; and said Israeli actions contributed to the rise of international anti-Semitism.” (JTA)



 2005: Daniel Barenboim discusses music as a bridge for peace in the Middle East.
http://calendar.columbia.edu/sundial/webapi/get.php?vt=detail&id=1891&con=embedded&br=ais



 2006: During the Presidency of Robert A. Iger, The Walt Disney Company announced that it would acquire Pixar for $7.4 billion in an all-stock transaction



 2006: The Los Angeles Times published a column by Joel Stein under the headline "Warriors and Wusses" in which he wrote that it is a cop-out to oppose a war and yet claim to support the soldiers fighting it. "I don’t support our troops....When you volunteer for the U.S. military, you pretty much know you’re not going to be fending off invasions from Mexico and Canada. So you’re willingly signing up to be a fighting tool of American imperialism..."



2006: Ehud Olmert, in his first major policy address since becoming Israel's acting prime minister, said at the Herzliya Conference that he backed the creation of a Palestinian state, and that Israel would have to relinquish parts of the West Bank to maintain its Jewish majority. 



2006: The Antiquities Authority recommended the Meggido Prison be transferred to a new location, after the remains of an ancient church were discovered on the facility's grounds four months ago



2007: In what some considered as a major breakthrough in the history of the Holocaust, Haaretzreported that Khaled Abd al-Wahab, a well-to-do Tunisian farmer who died in 1997, was the first Arab to be named as a candidate for a Righteous Gentile award from Yad Vashem. The nomination was based on testimony of Anny Boukris, a 73-year-old Jewish woman from Los Angeles who survived the Axis occupation of North Africa. In a letter sent to the authorities at Yad Vashaem, she described how Abd al-Wahab rescued her and 24 relatives from their hiding place and hid them on his farm until the end of the German occupation. Boukris, who was 11 at the time, related that al-Wahab risked his life when he stopped a German officer from raping her mother.



 2007, Moshe Katsav held a press conference at which he accused journalists of persecuting him and judging him before all the evidence was in.  



2007: In a talk scheduled minutes after Katsav's speech, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert called on him to resign from the presidency.
2007: At the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, GA, an exhibition entitled “Morris Louis Now: An American Master Revisited” comes to a close. By 1966, kingmaker-critics had anointed Morris Louis, the great Washington abstractionist, the greatest painter since Jackson Pollock.



2008: The New York Jewish Film Festival comes to an end with showings of Orthodox Stance a documentary about “Dmitry Salita a twenty-something Russian immigrant equally devoted to the seemingly disparate worlds of professional boxing and Orthodox Judaism”; Villa Jasmin, a film about “Serge, a Tunisian-born Jew living in Paris, who takes his wife to see the country he remembers fondly from his childhood. It is based on a novel by Serge Moati, also explores Serge’s parents’ courtship and his father’s activities with the anti-fascist movement in the 1930s”; The Film Fanatic and The Unkosher Truth a short documentary, in which the filmmaker must muster the courage to tell her father, an Orthodox rabbi and U.S. Army general, that her boyfriend is German and gentile.”



 2008(17thof Shevat, 5768): : Rami Zoari, 20, from Beersheba, a border police officer, was killed and another female officer was seriously wounded after terrorists approached the entrance to Shuafat refugee camp in northern Jerusalem and opened fire on a group of Israelis. The Battalions of Struggle and Return, a previously anonymous offshoot of Fatah's Al Aksa Martyrs' Brigades, claimed responsibility for the attack.



2008:Two terrorists entered the Mekor Hayim High School Yeshiva in Kfar Etzion, south of Jerusalem, and stabbed two students. The terrorists were killed by two of the counselors in the room. The Izaddin al-Kassam's Martyrs Brigades, the Hamas military wing, claimed responsibility for the attack.



2009: The 5th annual Brooklyn Israel Film Festival continues with Noodle, a comic drama about an El Al flight attendant and a 5-year-old Chinese boy left behind when his illegal immigrant mother is deported. Though they have no language in common, the two build a bond as they search for his mother.



2010:Final performance of the The Kosher Cheerleader by Sandy Wolshin at the Paradise Valley Community College in Phoenix, Arizona.



2010: “From Verse to Universe: Reading the People’s Torah” is scheduled to open at the San Francisco Contemporary Jewish Museum. 



2010:An exhibition entitled: “Hyman Bloom: A Spiritual Embrace at the Yeshiva University Museum is scheduled to come a close.”



 2010: The 19thannual New York Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to present the United States premiere of the restored print of Bar Mitzvah, a classic of Yiddish cinema, in which a mother miraculously survives a shipwreck and shocks the family by appearing at her son’s bar mitzvah. The film features “the legendary Boris Thomashefsky in his only film performance.”



 2010: The 10th annual Atlanta Jewish Festival is scheduled to present the East Coast Premiere of “The Yankles,” which tells the story of ex-con who is forced to coach an “upstart Orthodox baseball team” as part of the community service sentence imposed by the Judge for a drunk driving conviction.



 2010: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Listener by Shira Nayman



 2010: 2010: The Los Angeles Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Where the God of Love Hangs Out by Amy Bloom.



2011: The 92ndStreet Y is scheduled to present a program entitled “2011: Challenges and Opportunities for American and World Jewry” during which Malcolm Hoenlein and John Batchelor are scheduled to lead “a candid discussion of the dangers and issues facing the Jewish community in the coming year, from delegitimization to the peace process to Iran globalization.”



 2011: The U.S. Premiere of “Convoys of Shame” / “Les Convois de la honte” is scheduled to take place at the New York Jewish Film Festival. “This incisive documentary examines how the SNCF (the French national rail company) used its trains and its extensive infrastructure to transport tens of thousands of Jews, Roma, and members of the resistance from France to Nazi concentration camps from 1940 to 1944.



 2011: Today, Chief Sephardi Rabbi Shlomo Amar defended his decision to approve the military conversions which are undertaken according to orthodox Jewish law.



 2011: Rahm Emanuel should not appear on the Feb. 22 mayoral ballot because he does not meet the residency standard, according to a ruling issued by a state appellate court today. Emanuel told a news conference he would appeal the decision to the Illinois Supreme Court and would ask for an injunction so his name will appear on the mayoral ballot.



 2011(19thof Shevat, 5771): David Frye, whose wicked send-ups of political figures like Lyndon B. Johnson, Hubert H. Humphrey and, above all, Richard M. Nixon, made him one of the most popular comedians in the United States in the late 1960s and early 1970s, died today in Las Vegas (As reported by William Grimes)
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/29/arts/29frye.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=David%20Frye&st=cse
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jzOQh-LzyE



 2012: “Dressing America: Tales From The Garment Center” – a documentary that explores the post-World War II heyday of the garment district in Manhattan” and “pays tribute to the Jewish immigrant roots of the garment industry” – is scheduled to have its New York Premiere at the New York Jewish Film Festival.



2012: “Footnote” a Hebrew language films about a father, a son, Talmudic studies and the Israel Prize “was nominated” today “for an Academy Awards in the category of Best Foreign Film.”



 2012: YIVO is scheduled to present a lecture by Cur Leviant entitled “The Works of Chaim Grade” one of the 20th century’s leading Yiddish authors.



 2012: In Mt. Vernon, Iowa, Holocaust survivor and education Irving Roth is scheduled to speak at Cornell College as part of “Standing With Israel Event.” 



2012: Israel carried out four airstrikes on the Gaza Strip overnight after Palestinian militants fired about six rockets and mortars over the border over the past week, an Israeli military spokesman said today 



2012: Conflicting reports emerged tonight about an alleged Iranian plot against Israeli and Jewish targets in Azerbaijan 



2013(13thof Shevat, 5773): Eighty-four year old Richard G. Stern, “the best American author of whom you have never heard” passed away today.  (As reported by Bruce Weber)
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/25/books/richard-g-stern-a-writers-writer-is-dead-at-84.html



 2013: Professor Dan Michman is scheduled to deliver a lecture “Jewish ‘Headships’ and Nazi Anti-Jewish Policies” at the Wiener Library for the Study of the Holocaust and Genocide in London.



 2013: Leo Baeck Institute and Center for Jewish History are scheduled to present a screening of  “Kinderbloch 66:  Return to Buchenwald”



 2013: Gerhard Loewenberg, University of Iowa professor emeritus and former dean, is scheduled to read from his new memoir, Moved by Politics, at Prairie Lights Books in downtown Iowa City.



 2013: The Wicked Wit of the West featuring Hank Rosenfield on the subject of Irving Brecher is schedule for performance at the Minneapolis Jewish Humor Festival



 2013: Four former Border Policemen, accused of abusing a petrified Palestinian man who appeared to be mentally challenged, were in court today to hear the legal arguments over whether or not their actions constituted abuse, Channel 2 reported.(As reported by Stuart Winer)



2013: The nationalist Jewish Home party has risen to become the fourth-largest Knesset faction, with 12 seats, after officials finished counting the votes of soldiers and others this afternoon. The party had been predicted to take 11 seats before the last votes were counted.



2014 Harris J. Weingarten Tennis Weekend is scheduled to begin at the Evelyn Rubenstein Jewish Community Center in Houston, TX.



2014: Temple Judah in Cedar Rapids, Iowa is scheduled to host its first Musical Shabbat of 2014.



2014: “Tatiana (Tanya) Edelstein, wife of Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein was brought to rest this afternoon at the Gush Etzion Cemetery.”



2014: Sixty-three year old Tatiana (Tania) Edelstein, wife of Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein who passed away last night was laid to rest this afternoon in the Gush Etzion cemetery



2014(23rdof Shevat, 5774): Eighty-five year old Shulamit Aloni passed away today.
http://www.timesofisrael.com/former-minister-shulamit-aloni-dies-at-85-2/
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/25/world/middleeast/shulamit-aloni-outspoken-israeli-lawmaker-dies-at-86.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&_r=0



 2015(4thof Shevat, 5775): Seventy-four year old historian Robert Herzstein passed away today. (As reported by Sam Roberts)
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/10/world/europe/robert-herzstein-historian-who-linked-a-un-leader-to-nazi-war-crimes-dies-at-75.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=0



2015: “The Naked City” and “A Child of the Ghetto” are scheduled to be shown at the New York Jewish Film Festival.



2015: “Hannah’s Journey” is scheduled to be shown at the Brooklyn Israel Film Festival.



2015: The Eden-Tamir Music Center is scheduled to present “The Essence of Schubert” featuring Eliyahu Schulmann, Shmuel Magen and Shlomi Shem Tov.



2016(14thof Shevat, 5776): Eighty-year old Turing Award winner Marvin Minsky the Princeton Ph.D. who co-founded MIT’s Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and husband of pediatrician Gloria Rudisch passed away today.
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/26/business/marvin-minsky-pioneer-in-artificial-intelligence-dies-at-88.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=0



2016: The Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education is scheduled to host “Yad Day” which will feature an exhibit of the museum’s Torah pointers and chance for children to make their own Yads.



2016: “Sirens sounded in communities in the Sha'ar HaNegev Regional Council, as a rocket was fired from the Gaza Strip”



2016: The Atlanta Opera is scheduled to present “Pure vs. Degenerate: The Nazi War on Music” a concert that “will feature cabaret, popular and folk songs, opera, and concert hall music by Jewish composers whose works were declared '"degenerate" by the Nazi propaganda machine.”



2016: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Operation Thunderbolt: Flight 139 and the Raid on Entebbe Airport, the Most Audacious Hostage Rescue Mission in History by Saul David, Groucho Marx: The Comedy of Existence by Lee Siegel and Ronald Regan by Jacob Weisberg.



2017: The Center for Jewish History and Leo Baeck Institute are scheduled to present a lecture by Esther Wrtschko on “The Viennese Café in New York Exile” where she will explore “the history of Jewish Austrian émigrés who transplanted the music of Viennese cafes to New York City.”



2017(26thof Tevet, 5777): Seventy year old Allan H. Steinfeld who helped to “modernize the New York City” and followed Fred Lebow as head of the Marathon passed away today.



https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/29/sports/allan-steinfeld-dead-new-york-city-marathon.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well



2017: Dr. Steve Feller is scheduled to present a one hour “overview of his upcoming Coe College Thursday forum on the novels of Chaim Potok with special emphasis on The Chosen, The Promise, My Name is Asher Lev and The Gift of Asher Lev.



2017: “Israel approved the construction of approximately 2,500 homes in the West Bank, most of them in existing settlement blocs it hopes to keep in any peace deal, Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman announced” today.



2017: “Marie Curie, The Courage of Knowledge” and “Stefan Zweig, Farewell to Europe” are scheduled to be shown on the final night of the New York Jewish Film Festival.



2018: The Center for Jewish History and the Jewish Book Council are scheduled to host the “series premiere” of “First Person: Jewish Stories, Jewish Lives” featuring Tova Mirvis, the author of The Book of Separation.



2018: JCC Manhattan is scheduled to a live recording of “Unorthodox” Tablet magazines flagship podcast featuring comedian Judy Gold and Father James Martin.

2018: In Little Rock, AR, the Upshernish of Mendel Kramer, the son of Rabbi Yosef and Mushka Kramer and the grandson of Esther Hadassah Ciment, and Rabbi Pinchas Ciment, the leader of  Lubavitch of Arkansas and the personification of the term “Lamplighter.”


 


 

This Day, January 25, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. Levin

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January 25



41: Claudius is accepted as Roman Emperor by the Senate. “Claudius rescinded Caligula’s provocative decrees affecting Judean and reaffirmed Jewish rights throughout the rest of the Roman world.”  Claudius supported the cause of the Jews when they were attacked in separate incidents by the Greeks of Alexandria and the Samaritans.  He maintained a life-long friendship with the Agrippa the last Jewish king in Eretz Israel.



681: The Twelfth Council of Toledo which approved several canons aimed at punishing the Jews including on that prohibited conversos from returning to Judaism and allowed for the confiscation of Jewish owned goods came to a close.



749: Birthdate Leo IV (the Khazar), the Byzantine emperor from 775 through 780 who was known as “the Khazar” because his mother was a Khazar Princess.  If the Khazars were Jewish, does this mean that at least one Byzantine emperor was Jewish?



750: Caliph Marwan II, whose subjects included “self-proclaimed prophet” and Messianic figure known variously as Abu Isa or Isaac ibn Jacob al-Isfahani , passed away today.



1138: Anacletus II passed away. Known as Pietro Pierleone before his elevation to the Papacy in 1130, Anacletus II was referred to as the Jewish anti-pope because he came from a family that had converted from Judaism to Christianity. “One of his great-great grandparents, Benedictus, maybe Baruch in Hebrew, was a Jew who converted into Christianity.” The appellation of anti-pope is one that is hung on several popes who were elected under controversial circumstances.



1327: Edward III who would re-apply the Edict of Expulsion of 1290 because there were reports of “secret Jews” or conversos who had remained in England and were practicing “the faith of their fathers” became King of England today.



1494: Alfonso II became King of Naples. Alfonso continued to rely on the services of Don Isaac Abravanal the refugee from the Spanish expulsion who had acted as an advisor to his predecessor on the throne, King Ferdinand. Alfonso also continued the policy of his predecessor of allowing Jews fleeing the Inquisition to settle in his kingdom.



1515: Coronation of King Francis I of France who strangely enough for a French monarch showed an interest in the Hebrew language. After all, no Jew had legally lived in France for over a century.  But this King invited August Justiniani, the Bishop of Corsica who was reputed to be a serious student of Hebrew literature to move to France.  He also invited Elias Levita, the renowned Hebrew grammarian and poet, to move to France and accept a professorship in the Hebrew language. Levita declined the offer for obvious reasons.



1533: Henry VIII of England secretly marries his second wife Anne Boleyn. Henry had failed in his attempt to enlist the support of Italian rabbis in his futile attempt to get the Pope to annul his first marriage.  His marriage to Anne helped move England into the Protestant camp which proved to be beneficial in the Jews’ attempt to return to the British Isles.



1554: Founding of São Paulo, Brazil.  As was the case in so many other parts of Latin America, the first Jews to inhabit Sao Paulo were New Christians or Conversos. The first openly Jewish residents of the city arrived from Alsace-Lorraine in the 19th century. Today São Paulo is home to the largest Jewish community in Brazil with about 130,000 people,



1569: Phillip II of Spain issued the order to set up an inquisition in the New World. Mexico would be the first five years later.



1648: The Khmelnytsky or Chmielnicki Rebellion against the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania began in earnest when Bohdan Khmelnytsky brought a contingent of 300-500 Cossacks to the Zaporizhian Sich and quickly dispatched the guards assigned by the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth to protect the entrance. His defeat of the counterattacking Commonwealth forces coupled with is oratorical skills brought thousands of rebels including the Ruthenians to join his uprising.  Jews, who served as the middle-man and administrators for the absentee Polish landlords were an easy target for the rebels. The bloody uprising will mark the long, slow disintegration of the Polish state.  The slaughter of the Jews was so great that it would not be surpassed until the time of the Nazis. 



1782(10th of Shevat): Rabbi Shalom Sharabi Kabbalist, author of Emet ve-Shalom passed away today.



1784: Having passed away on Shabbat. Lezer ben Zelig Rachmonus was buried today at the Alderney Road (Globe Road) Jewish Cemetery.



1804: Phineas Moses Samuel married Catherine Jacobs at the Great Synagogue today.



 



1826: In Norfolk, Rabbi Seixas officiated at the wedding of Philip I. Cohen to Augusta Myers, the daughter of Moses Myers.



1841: In Bridgetown, Barbados, the committee governing the Kaal, agreed to place £ 10 sterling “at the disposal of the London Committee led by Sir Moses Montefiore that is working to alleviate “the suffering of the Jews in the east.”



1844: Congregation Shaarai Shomayim u-Maskil el Dol was chartered today in Mobile, Alabama. “Israel I. Jones (1810–1877), a London Jew who arrived early in the 1830s, was president of the congregation for most of his life; one of his daughters married the well-known New Orleans rabbi, James Koppel Gutheim (1817–1886). An auctioneer and tobacco merchant, Jones was active in politics, served as an alderman, was president of the Mobile Musical Association, and introduced streetcars to Mobile”



1847: In Kirvany, Comitat Saros, Hungary, Herman Miller and Rachel Friedman gave birth to Morris Miller, the husband of Annie Rich, who came to the United States in 1865, lived in Cleveland, Ohio, Meadville, PA and Kalamazoo, Michigan before moving to Milwaukee in 1881 where he served as the Director of the Milwaukee Agriculture Association and trustee, treasurer, vice-president and president of the Hebrew Relief Association.



1849: The West End Synagogue of British which had been formed by Jews who left Bevis Marks in 1841 dedicated its new facility in Upper Berkeley Street.



1851(22ndof Shevat, 5611): Sixty nine year old Lewis Wolfe Levy, the son of Martha and Benjamin Wolfe Levy and the husband of Julia Levy passed away today in Rockwood, New South Wales, Australia.



http://oa.anu.edu.au/obituary/levy-lewis-wolfe-4017



1852: Achille Fould resigned as the French Minister of Finance.



1852: French political leader Achille Fould was appointed as a Senator and later rejoined the government as a Minister of State.



1854(25th of Tevet, 5614): Filosseno Luzzatto passed away. Born at Trieste in 1829; he was an Italian Jewish scholar; son of Samuel David Luzzatto. His name is the Italian equivalent of the title of one of his father's principal works, "Oheb Ger," which was written at the time of Filosseno's birth. “He showed from childhood linguistic aptitude, and having mastered several European languages, he devoted himself to the study of Semitic languages and Sanskrit.” At the age of thirteen he deciphered some old inscriptions on the tombstones of Padua which had puzzled older scholars. Two years later, happening to read D'Abbadie's narrative of his travels in Abyssinia, he resolved to write a history of the Falashas. In addition to writing several original works, he “translated into Italian eighteen chapters of the Book of Ezekiel, adding a Hebrew commentary. Luzzatto contributed to many periodicals, mostly on philological or exegetical subjects.”



1854: “The Will of Judah Touro,”published today described the terms of the late philanthropist and businessman’s final testamentary document.  The will was dated January 6, 1854, 7 days before his death.   The will appointed four executors, three of whom were to receive $10,000 and a four, R.D. Shepperd who is the “residuary legatee.  Touro bequeathed approximately $450,000 to different Jewish and non-Jewish institutions and charities.  Among them were  $20,000 left to the Jew’s Hospital Society of New York; $10,000 left to the New York Relief Society for Indigent Jews in Palestine; $50,000 left for the agent of “a society dedicated to ameliorating the condition of the Jews in the Holy Land and the securing the enjoyment of their religion”  as well as bequests left to Jewish congregations throughout the United States including, but not limited to $5,000 to a Jewish congregation in Boston, $5,000 to a Jewish congregation in  Hartford, $5,000 to a Jewish congregation in  New Haven, $5,000 to a Jewish congregation in New York, $5,000 to a Jewish congregation in Charleston and $5,000 to a Jewish congregation in Savannah



1854: Sir Henry Rawlinson wrote to from Baghdad today that “a number of clay cylinders taken from the ruins of what is ‘Ur of the Chaldees’ of Genesis disclosed the fact that a few years” prior “to the fall of Babylon, Nabonnedus had associated his son Bilsharuzur, the ‘Belshazzar’ of Scripture with him in the government” “thus showing the harmony between the Biblical narrative and secular history.”



1858: The Wedding March by Felix Mendelssohn becomes a popular wedding recessional after it is played on this day at the marriage of Queen Victoria's daughter, Victoria, and Friedrich of Prussia. Felix Mendelssohn is the grandson of Moses Mendelssohn.  Felix Mendelssohn was born to Jewish parents in 1809, Felix’s father, Abraham, had the famous composer baptized as a Lutheran in 1816.



1861: Charles Dyte laid the foundation stone for the historic Ballarat Synagogue, the oldest surviving synagogue on the Australian mainland.



 



1861: In a letter that an unidentified resident of New Orleans, LA, wrote to a friend in Boston, he described the voting patterns of various groups in the recent election. If you believe his description, most groups voted for one of the Unionist or Compromise candidates. Only "The Jews voted for secession."



1865: Dr. William H. Thomson read a paper entitled "What we have to learn in the East" at tonight’s



meeting of the American Ethnological Society.  A longtime resident of Syria, who traveled extensively in throughout the Middle East, Dr. Thomson reported on “the importance of extensive investigations among the innumerable mounds” found in the area.  Examination of similar mounds has provided information about early inhabitants including the Hebrews, Phoenicians, Greeks and Romans.  [Ed. Note – What the doctor was describing are the innumerable “tels” that would become the focal point of archaeological interest in modern day Israel.] 



1864: Philadelphian Samuel Rothschild began serving with Company I, Seventy-fourth



1868(1st of Shevat, 5628): Rosh Chodesh Shevat



1870: The New York Times published an editorial defending itself against charges by “a Jewish newspaper” that the paper is paying too much attention to the “Reform party within the ancient sect.” The editorial cites the creation of Temple Israel in Brooklyn as proof of that there is a significant segment of the Jews that “are anxious to make great and fundamental changes in their doctrines and faith.”  The editorial finished by saying that it would publish information about any sect within Judaism that are based on “facts.” [Editor’s note: It is significant that a leading metropolitan daily was publishing stories about Jewish culture and religion that were generally informative at a time when the Jewish population was a rather infinitesimal part of the general population



1870: In Chicago, Cecilie and Alexander Pam gave birth to Hugo Pam who earned his law degree at the University of Michigan in 1892 who served as member of the Superior court “for more than eighteen years” who served as Vice President of the Zionist Organization of American and “headed the Platine Restoration Fund in Chicago.”



https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0015_0_15367.html



1872: The United States confirmed M.A. Shaffenburg as U.S. Marshall for the Territory of Colorado.



1874: “The second constitutional convention of the Independent Order of B’nai B’rith” opened today in Chicago, Illinois at the Kingsbury Music Hall. Simon Wolf of Washington, D.C. was elected President.  During the afternoon session, a massive gold medal was presented in memory of A.E. Frankland, the Memphis, TN, Jew who worked to ameliorate the suffering in that city’s Yellow Fever Epidemic.



1874: Reverend Samuel Alman was installed today as the pastor of the Second Mission Baptist Church. Before converting, Alman had been a member of the Stanton Street Jewish Congregation



1879(1stof Shevat, 5639): Rosh Chodesh Shevat



1879(1stof Shevat, 5639): In Berlin, Harry and Caroline Bresslau gave  gave birth to Hélène Mariane Schweitzer



1879: The Pioneers, a St. Louis literary club for Jewish women, meet for the first time today.



1881: Birthdate of Emil Cohn the native of Breslau who gained fame as journalist and author Emil Ludwig who specialized in writing biographies and who re-identified as a Jew when Walther Rathenau was murdered in 1922.



1882 (5th of Shevat): Bilu was founded at Kharkov



1882: The Hearts of Oak Company featuring David Belasco as “Mr. Ellingham” performed for the last time at Leubrie’s Theatre in St. Paul, MN.



1885: Herman Ahlwardt wrote a letter today in he said, "Antisemitism is illogical; I have always condemned it, and shall continue to condemn religious intolerance until my last breath." (Ahlwardt would change his views when he failed to find political success among the Conservatives and become notorious anti-Semitic pamphleteer, agitator and member of the Reichstag.



1886(19thof Shevat, 5646): Ninety–one year old Elias Mayer, the French born husband of Abby Mayer with whom he had 13 children passed away today in Philadelphia.



1887: Birthdate of Berl Katznelson the Russian native who “ was one the intellectual founders of Labor Zionism, instrumental to the establishment of the modern State of Israel, and the editor of Davar, the first daily newspaper of the workers' movement.”
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/katznelson.html



1891: Rabbi Gustav Gustav Gottheil delivered an address entitled “An Earnest Word To Christians” at Temple Emanu-El in New York.



1891: Based on information that first appeared in the London Daily Telegraph it was reported today that Baron Hirsch has donated £500,000 for education of “indigent Jews” in various parts of Austria, including Lemberg and Czernowitz.  Although intended to provide education for Jewish children, “the Hirsch school will...be open to Christian children” as well.



1891: Birthdate of Lazarus Joseph, the native of the Lower East Side and grandson of Rabbi Jacob Joseph, who served as State Senator and New York City Comptroller.



1891: In Berlin, Albert Mosse, the of Dr. Marcus Mosse and Ulrike Mosse and Caroline (Lina) Mosse gave birth to Eric Peter Mosse



1892: It was reported today that the delegates from the Hebrew Trades Union would join with others in calling for all labor organizations in the United States “to send delegates to an international labor congress” scheduled “to be held in Chicago in 1893.” 



1893:  In Arras (Pas-de-Calais) Protestant mining engineer Paul-Louis Weiss and Jeanne Javal a member of an Alsatian Jewish family gave birth to “Louise Weiss was an influential voice in French and international affairs from the 1920s until her death in 1983.”
http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/weiss-louise



1894: Isaac Bergman, a 30 year old homeless tailor was arrested and imprisoned after he attempted to commit suicide today at the offices of the United Hebrew Charities because he had been told “that there was no work” available for tailors.



1895: The Young Ladies and Gentlemen's League of the Montefiore Home hosted a ball at the Carnegie Music Hall to raise fund for the Montefiore Home for Chronic Invalids. 



1895: The Monte Relief Society, a charitable and social organization founded by a small group of Jewish women under the leadership of Mrs. Sofia Monte-Loebinger two years ago, is scheduled to host a party at the Terrace Garden designed to raise funds to relieve “distress among the Hebrew poor.”



1896: A sub-committee of Board of Alderman in New York met today to discuss whether or not to accept a fountain dedicated to the memory of Heinrich Heine.



1897: Aloe Alfred, began his military today as a Private in the United States Army.



1897: Starting today, and lasting for the rest of the week Civil Service examinations were administered in New York for the position of Court Interpreter.  Hebrew was one of the six languages in which applicants could be tested. (The test for Hebrew would seem to have been a misguided attempt to cope with the large surge of Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe.  In reality, most of these immigrants spoke Yiddish, not Hebrew.)



1898: Birthdate of Polish native Henry Earl J. Wojciechowski, the Chicago mobster whose moniker of Earl “Hymie’ Weiss led people to think that this Catholic whose burial site is topped by a large cross was Jewish.
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/2741



1898: Cleveland, Ohio, liquor dealer Saul Jacobs was convicted of larceny in the first degree for his part in a scheme to swindle Max Bernstein.



1898: It was reported today that troops were called out to help the police respond to anti-Jewish riots in St. Malo. (This was part of the on-going anti-Dreyfus violence sweeping France)



1898: It was reported today that in Algiers, “the Governor General narrowly escaped a chair which was thrown at him” as he tried to disperse anti-Jewish mobs.  The mob now included “a number of natives” whose only interest was looting and pillaging.



1898: At least one hundred people went trial today for their part in the anti-Jewish riots in Algiers, the capital of Algeria which was a French colony. “Eighty of the rioters were condemned to terms of imprisonment varying from three months to year…One who was caught in the act of pillaging was sentenced to five years in prison.”



1899(14thof Shevat, 5659): Eighty-seven year old Adolphe d'Ennery the French dramatist who converted some of his plays into successful novels passed away today in Paris.



1899: Birthdate of Carl Pack, the native of Worcester who graduated from law school in Brooklyn before becoming a state legislator who was active in Jewish communal affairs as can be my by his leadership role in the Federation of Jewish Philanthropies



1899:  Birthdate of Goodman Ace. Born Goodman Aiskowitz, Kansas City, Missouri, he was a writer and comedian who created Easy Aces.  The scripts for this long running radio hit would be the source for television shows in the 1970’s.  He also created the “You Are There,” the pseudo-news show that helped to launch the career of Walter Cronkite.



1900(24thof Shevat, 5660): Seventy-year old Piedmont native, patriot and financer Senator Isaac Artom who took part in the battles of Curtatone and Montanara and served as secretary to Italian leader Count Camillo Cavour, passed away today in Rome.



1901(5thof Shevat, 5661): Seventy-two year old Baron Wilhelm Carl von Rothschild the son of Baron Carl Mayer von Rothschild of Naples and the husband of Mathilde Hannah von Rothschild, the second oldest daughter of Anselm von Rothschild, a chief of the Vienna House of Rothschilds passed away today in Frankfurt where he was head of the Frankfurt House of Rothschild.



1902: Herzl proposes to Franz Oppenheimer the creation of a model cooperative colony in El Arish.



1904: Herzl met Pope Pius X and tried to convince him to support the vision of Zionism without any success. The pope totally rejected the idea that Jerusalem would be in Jewish hands.  (The papacy still clings to this notion.) Herzl is received by Pope Pius X, who declares, he cannot support the return of the infidel Jews to the Holy Land. ("If you come to Palestine and settle your people there, we want to have churches and priests ready to baptize all of you.")



1904: Birthdate of Morris Ploscowe, the native of Libachin, Russia, who came to the United States in  1907 after which he earned a law degree from Harvard and pursued a career that included serving as executive director of the American Bar Association Commission on Organized Crime and an “active member of the American Jewish Commission.



1906: Jews in the United States were absorbing reports coming from Bucharest through Berlin that “massacres of Jews have taken place in Kishinev and various parts of Bessarabia” for which “details are lacking.”



1909(3rdof Shevat, 5669): Idudowitz Schore-Riewe drowned today.



1909: In Sioux City, IA, Kate Sandwina and her husband brith to heavyweight boxer Theodore “Teddy” Sandwina.



1909: German composer Richard Strauss' opera “Elektra” receives its debut performance at the Dresden State Opera. Strauss was born in 1864 and passed away in 1949 which means that his last years as an active composer coincided with the rise and fall of Hitler and the Nazis.  Many have been critical of his close association with the Third Reich.  His defenders claim that Strauss’ behavior was determined by his need to protect his son and daughter-in-law who was Jewish, In fact, the couple was arrested in Vienna during the war and it took all of Strauss’ best efforts to save them.



1910(15thof Shevat, 5670): Tu B’Shevat



1910(15thof Shevat, 5670): Sixty-seven year old Sarah Lazarus, the daughter of Moses and Esther Lazarus passed away today in New York City.



1912: The Savannah Section withdraws from the Council of Jewish Women.



1913: It was reported today that, “in a dispatch from Jerusalem” The London Daily has said “that the Palestine Exploration Fund workers, Mckenzie and McAllister have unearthed Bethe Sehmesh” the town mentioned in the Sixth Chapter of the First Book of Samuel “in the ruins thirty miles from Jerusalem



1913(17thof Shevat, 5673): Parashat Yitro



1913(17thof Shevat, 5673): Wilhelm Bacher, a Hungarian rabbi and scholar passed away in Budapest.  Born in 1850, he was “a major contributor” to the “Jewish Encyclopedia” as well as close friend of many Jewish intellectuals notably Chaim Nachman Bialik



1913: Birthdate of Chicago native Armand Deutsch, the son Adele Deutsch Levy, the grandson of Sears CEO Julius Rosenwald and the stepson of Dr. David M. Levy whose friendship with the Reagans led  to his appointment as a member of the “Presidential Task Force on the Arts and Humanities.”



1913: “Yiddish star Boris Thomashefsky and his all-star company” are scheduled give two performances one of which will be a matinee of the new play “Breach of Promise” at the Haymarket Theatre.



1913: In Camden, NJ, J.F. Kantor, the head of the of Young Men’s Hebrew Association presided over a meeting attended by more than a thousand at the Broadway Theatre where he delivered a speech designed to impress the audience with ‘the importance and necessity of a Jewish communal building”



1913: Birthdate of Harlem native Moe Frankel who played basketball for the Harlem Hebrew Institute, DeWitt Clinton High School and New York University before playing professional for ABL teams from 1936 through 1947.



1914: “More than a thousand persons crowded into the Broadway Theatre” in Camden, NJ, this afternoon and heard Isaac Hassler of Philadelphia tell them of the importance of constructing the “Jewish communal building” which was being championed by the Young Men’s Hebrew Association of Camden.



1915: A list of contributors to the Hebrew Free Loan Society provide President Julius J. Dukas published today included Jacob Schiff, $1,000; Mortimer L. Schiff, $1,000; Felix M. Warburg, $1,500; Adolph Lewisohn, $500 and Maxwell Guggenheim $100.



1915: “Fulton Brylawski, of counsel of Leo M. Frank, under sentence of death for murder in Atlanta, today moved in the Supreme Court of the United States for the advancement of argument in Frank’s appeal for a writ of habeas corpus.”



1915: The trial of Dan H. Leon, the southern representative of the W.J. Burns Detective Agency, C.C. Tedder and Arthur Thurman who have been indicted for subordination of perjury that resulted in false testimony being given in the case of Leo Franks is scheduled to begin in Atlanta, GA.



1916: “The various committees having a hand in the collections of money for the relief of the Jews perfected arrangements” today for the upcoming “observance of he days especially set apart by the Presidential Proclamation when all may assist Jews in distress in war-stricken countries”



1916: Mayor Mitchel did not last night attend last night’s meeting of the American Jewish Congress but was reported today to have a sent a message of regret “in which he said: ‘The Christian peoples of Europe and America ought to be as one in demanding for Jews equality for the law, no more, no less.”



1916: In Boston, Massachusetts Governor McCall issued a proclamation “asking the people of the State to contribute on January 27 to the aid of Jews stricken by the European war in accordance with the recent proclamation by President Wilson?



1917: As Americans debate the wisdom of entering the war (with all that will come to mean for the Jewish people) conflicting reports were published today about the deportation of Belgian civilians by the Germans who have been occupying the country since 1914.



1918: As the day turns into evening and Jews begin to observe Shabbat Bo, ‘in synagogue throughout” the United States” rabbis are scheduled to “devote their sermons to the impending re-establishment of the Jewish State in Palestine to donate the offering to the Palestine Restoration Fund, the first one million dollars of which is now being raised in the United States.



 1918: In New London, Annie Rifkin and Barnett Lubow gave birth to Sylvia Lubow who became Sylvia Lubow Rindskopf when she married future Admiral and decorated war hero Maurice Rindskopf.



1918: Vilmos Vázsonyi, the Hungarian leader who fought to gain “official recognition for the Jewish religion” began serving his second term as Minister of Justice.



1918: In Bendery, Bessarabia, the municipality intervened “in favor Jewish students enrolled by the heads of local Railway Institute where refused admittance by the other students.



1918: In Warsaw, the Jewish Socialist Labor Party (Paole-Zion) held its fifth conference adopted “resolutions respecting Jewish municipal life.”



1919: In New York City, Myron Newman, a credit manager and and Rose (née Parker) Newman gave birth to NBC newsman Edwin Harold “Ed” Newman, the brother of reporter M.W. Newman and the husband of Rigel Grell.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/16/business/media/16newman.html



1919: Awni Abdul Hadi and Ahmad Qadri met with an unnamed Zionist representative at the Hotel Meurice



1919: The League of Nations was founded.  British control over Palestine would take its legal form from a Mandate by the League of Nations.  The failure of the League to halt the aggression of Japan in China, Italy in Abyssinia and the fascists in Spain is listed as one of the causes of World War II and therefore the Shoah.  The League failed as a peace keeper, in part, because the United States refused to join, a mistake it would not repeat at the end of WW II when it joined the United Nations.



1920: In Brooklyn, produce merchant Milton Mollen and Esther Mollen gave birth to Milton Mollen, the WW II veteran and head of the Mollen Commission which investigated charges of police corruption in the 1990’s.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/15/nyregion/milton-mollen-dead-investigated-police-corruption-in-new-york-city.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well



1921: In Brooklyn, Lazarus and Jenny Cohen gave birth to Samuel Theodore Cohen, the Father of the Neutron Bomb.



1922: A committee chaired by Rabbi Louis Feinberg of Cincinnati, Ohio, will deliver a report to Rabbinical Assembly of the Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS) on the acceptability of using unfermented grape juice for sacramental purposes.



1922: Temple Beth El held its 10th Annual Ball at the Elmwood Music Hall in Buffalo, New York.



1924: The Hebrew Standard Review of Israel reported that “the combined sports meeting held at the Love Cove” on January 20th was a “success” which established “the new spirit and ideal of Sydney’s Jewish youth…”



1925: The former Hahambashi of Turkey, Rabbi Haim Nahoum was elected Chief Rabbi of Cairo, Egypt.



1925: Birthdate of John Livingston Weinberg, American banker and businessman.



1926: “Tartuff” a film version of the French play photographed by Karl Freund with a script by Carl Mayer was released in Germany today.



1927(22ndof Shevat, 5687): Forty-three year old, Dr. Julius Lawrence “Mortimer” Mogulesko, a graduate of Columbia University School of Medicine and specialized in the field of Bacteriology passed away today.



1927: Birthdate of Yitzhak Hofi, the native of Tel Aviv who began his career as a member of the Palmach, reached the rank of General in the IDF before serving as the head of Mossad.



 1928: Birthdate of Rabbi Sherwin Wine, founder the Birmingham Temple in suburban Detroit in 1963. He also was the driving force behind the creation of the Society for Humanistic Judaism in 1969.  He died in auto accident at the age of 79 in 2007.



1929: Birthdate of Robert Faurisson who denies the suffering of Elie Weisel, the Diary of Anne Frank and the reality of the Final Solution.



1930: Pinky Silverberg lost a non-title bout to the reigning NBA World Bantamweight Champion in Havana, Cuba.



1931: In Brooklyn, attorney and some-times Broadway producer Emil Katzka and his wife gave birth to Gabriel Katzka whose production included the anti-war and very humorous “Kelly’s Heroes” and the original version of “The Taking of Pelham One Two Three.”
http://www.nytimes.com/1990/02/21/obituaries/gabriel-katzka-59-producer-in-theater-films-and-television.html



1932: “Warburg a Leader in Banking Reform” published today provided a detailed account of the financier’s life and accomplishment including his criticism of “the present orgies of unrestrained speculation” months before the Crash of 1929 and his role as trustee of Tuskegee College, the “all black college” which was an educational beacon of hope to African-Americans in the days of Segregation.



1932: Degrees were awarded to 13 graduates at the first commencement exercises of Hebrew University which was opened in 1925.



1934: In Tarnow, Galicia, Israel Mendel Keller and his wife gave birth to Naphtali Keller the short-lived author who wrote in Hebrew.



1936: “New anti-Jewish rioting broke out today in Krakow, Wilno and Warsaw universities…”



1936: “A plan to get as many Jews out of Germany as possible was outlined publicly” tonight in St. Louis “by Sir Herbert Samuel, the first British High Commissioner for Palestine and Felix M. Warburg, a partner in Kuhn, Loeb and Co.”



1936: Twenty-five year old Ben Kramer, lead LIU to victory today over St. John’s.



1937: In another attack on the economic well-being Jews, “the Reich University of Agriculture issued a decree tonight enable it to revoke the licenses of horse or cattle dealers who are to be ‘personally unfitted’ for their business.



1937: As of today, “no evidence has been discovered of any incident or development to account for the suspension” by the secret police of a majority of  Jewish organizations in Germany including “the Jewish League of World War Veterans, Jewish sport groups, Jewish cultural groups and various occupational schools organized to help Jews prepare for emigration.”



1938:  Conde Nast, the published of Vogue, “announced today that he had accepted the resignation of of Cecil Beaton, British photographer and artist from the staff of the magazine” because he had submitted a drawing for the February 1 issue that Nast said appeared to contain “comments that were critical of the Jews race” and that he “was particularly distressed that these slurring comments should have been printed in Vogue, especially during these days of cruel, vicious and unreasoning persecution of Jews.



1938: In “Miami’s Anti-Semitic Jews” published today Robert Gessner describes a resort where “eighty-percent of all its hotels are owned and operated by Jews” and where “it’s almost impossible for a Jewish boy to get a job.”
http://www.unz.org/Pub/NewMasses-1938jan25-00015?View=PDFPages



1940: Birthdate of Lt. Col. Avraham "Avi" Lanir one of the most accomplished and bravest pilots in the IAF.  On the first day of the Yom Kippur War, Lanir joined with Colonel Oded Marom flew their Mirage jets to the Golan where they engaged four MiGs, shooting down one a piece.  Tragically, Colonel Lanir would be shot down by the Syrians who tortured him to death.



1940: The Nazi decreed the establishment of Jewish ghetto in Lodz, Poland



1942: Hungarian military units under the command of General Feketehalmi-Zeisler, General Bajor-Bayer and Captain Zoldi completed “cleaning up the southern region captured from the Yugoslavs” which included the murder of 1,500 Jews in Novisad.



1944: Hans Frank, governor-general of Occupied Poland, notes in his diary that approximately 100,000 Jews remain in the region under his control, down by 3,400,000 from the end of 1941.



1945: U.S. premiere of “The Thin Man Goes Home” with a story by Harry Kurnitz and Robert Ruskin who also co-authored the screenplay.



1945: U.S. premiere of “I Love A Mystery” directed by Henry Levin.



1945(11thof Shevat, 5705): Eighty-five year old Bert H. Prinz, who came to the United States in 1864 with is parents Abraham and Rose Wohlgemuth Prinz where he owned several clothing stores the mos success of which was Printz Company Men’s Clothing and Furnishing with headquarters in Youngstown Ohio, passed away today.



1945: Labor camp prisoners from Blechhammer began their five day march to Bergen-Belsen during which about 20% of them died.



1945: The Nazis begin the evacuation of the Stutthof concentration camp. In yet another Death March prisoners are sent westward in the middle of driving snow storm. Many would die from freezing. Others were shot or thrown into the icy Baltic Sea.



1946: The Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry, a joint British and American committee composed of six Americans and six Englishmen that was charged with examining the “political, economic and social conditions in Mandatory Palestine as they bear upon the problem of Jewish immigration and settlement therein and the well-being of the peoples now living therein” which had been meeting in Washington, D.C. met for a third day in London.



1946: “My Reputation” a love story directed by Curtis Bernhardt, co-produced by Jack L. Warner and with music by Max Steiner was released in the United States today.



1946: “Whistle Stop” a crime film directed by Léonide Moguy, with a script by Philip Yordan was released in the United States today



1948: Mishmar, a paper first published by Hashomer Hatzair in 1943, changed its named to Al HaMishmar (On Guard) today.



1948: In Vancouver, British Columbia, Congregation Schara Tzedeck which had been founded in 1907 as “Benei Yehuda” dedicated its new facility which had been completed in September of 1947.



1949: Nathan Yellin-Mor and Matityahu Shmuelevitch both of whom were members of Lehi were found guilty of having been leaders of a terrorist organization today.



1949: On the same day that he was found guilty Lehi leader Nathan Yellin-Mor, the founder of the Fighters List, was elected to the first Knesset



1949: Ben-Gurion's Mapai party was the top vote getter in Israel’s first election after the creation of the Jewish state. However, the party only gained 35.7% of the vote which translated into 46 seats in the Knesset leaving Ben-Gurion 15 seats short of the majority he would need in the parliament that has 120 seats.  This would necessitate the formation of a coalition. This would set the stage for a joining of strange bedfellows which some see as detrimental to the long term stability of the Jewish state.



1954: In Jerusalem, Michaella and Yitzhak Grossman gave birth to Israeli author David Grossman whose work included Her Body Knows, a collection of two novellas.



1956: The West End production of “Plain and Fancy” a musical comedy with a book by Joseph Stein opened at the Theatre Royal in London.



1958: In New York City, actress, director, and writer, Lee Grant (née Lyova Rosenthal), and screenwriter Arnold Manoff gave birth to actress Dinah Manoff



1959:  Pope John XXIII proclaims Second Vatican Council. This would lead to the greatest improvement in relations between the Church and the Jewish People since the days of Constantine.



1959: Contributions of $132 were received by the annual appeal of the New York Times Neediest Cases Fund from the Federation of Jewish Philanthropies of New York.



1960: Yitzhak Rabin flew to IDF Southern Headquarters to ascertain the military situation as Egyptian forces stood on the border with Israel.  The crisis would pass since neither side was prepared for war.  But the crisis of 1960 did help to set the stage for Israel’s response to Egypt’s next foray into the Sinai in 1967.



1960: David Susskind produced and Henry Kaplan directed two plays by August Strindberg – “Miss Julie” and “The Stronger” – as part of the Play of the Week.



1961 (8 Shevat 5721):  Bar Mitzvah of Yissachar Dov Rokeach. Born in 1948 he is the fifth and present Rebbe of the Hasidic dynasty of Belz. He has led Belz since 1966.



1962: In London, June Flewett and Sir Clement Freud, the grandson of Sigmund Freud gave birth to UK broadcaster and social commentator Emma Vallency Freud.



1963: The recording sessions that would eventually produce “The Barbra Streisand Album” next month came to an end today.



1965: Sheldon Cohen began serving as Commissioner of Internal Revenue.



1965(22ndof Shevat, 5725): Ninety-one year old Frankfurt born economist Moritz Julius Born, the descendant of a family started in the sixteenth century by Aaron Jacob Bonn, who was distinguished academic as well as an advisor to the Weimar government passed away today.
http://ieg-ego.eu/en/mediainfo/moritz-julius-bonn-187320131965



1966(4thof Shevat, 5726):  Seventy-seven year old Dr. Saul Adler, the expert on parasites who translated Darwin’s The Origin of Species into Hebrew, passed away today in Jerusalem.
http://english.israelphilately.org.il/articles/content/en/000462
http://www.boeliem.com/content/1994/492.html



1966(4thof Shevat, 5726): Sixty-three year old University of California Professor of Physiology Dr. Israel Lyon Chaikoff passed away today in Berkeley, CA.
http://content.cdlib.org/view?docId=hb629006vt;NAAN=13030&doc.view=frames&chunk.id=div00007&toc.depth=1&toc.id=&brand=calisphere
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=9D01E7DC113CEF34BC4F51DFB766838D679EDE



1967: After having premiered in the United Kingdom, “Prehistoric Women” co-starring Steven Berkoff was released in the United States today.



1967: “The Reluctant Astronaut,” a comedy written by Everett Greenbaum premiered in Houston, TX today.



1968: Last transmission is received from the Israeli submarine, Dakar



1971: Idi Amin led a coup deposing Milton Obote and became Uganda's president. In his younger days, Amin was favorably disposed towards the Israelis who trained him as a paratrooper.  However, in 1976, he would prove himself to be a strong supporter of the PLO as he gave refuge to the terrorists who landed their high jacked aircraft at Entebbe.



1974: “KGB stopped Moscow UPI correspondent G.P. Joseloff on a Moscow street after his interview with a group of Jewish activists and seized written replies to questions he posed to them. “



1975: Birthdate of Canadian actress Mia Kirshner, granddaughter of Holocaust survivors and the daughter of a Canadian Jewish journalist.



1976(23rdof Shevat, 5736): Eighty-four year old German-born English historian Victor Ehrenberg, the brother of Hans Ehrenberg and the nephew of Victor Ehrenberg passed away in London.



1977(6thof Shevat, 5737): Eighty five year old motion picture actor, agent and producer Edward Small passed away today.
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0806448/bio?ref_=nm_ov_bio_sm



1978: As part of its “Great Performances series,” PBS broadcast “Verna: USO Girl” co-starring Howard Da Silva and featuring theme music by Jerome Kern and George Gershwin.



1978: Thirty-three year old David Pleat began managing Luton Town.



1981: In New Orleans, LA, Al Davis’ Oakland Raiders defeated the Philadelphia Eagles in Super Bowl XV.



1981: In “Words of a Fallen Soldier,” Hillel Halkin reviewed Self-Portrait of a Hero: The Letters of Jonathan Netanyahu (1963-1976).
http://www.nytimes.com/1981/01/25/books/words-of-a-fallen-soldier.html?scp=1&sq=The%20Letters%20of%20Jonathan%20Netanyahu&st=cse



1983: Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie arrested in Bolivia



1985: Release date for “The Falco and the Snowman” directed by John Schlesinger, the product of a middle-class Anglo-Jewish family.



1986(15thof Shevat, 5746): Parashat Beshalach and Tu B’Shevat



1986(15thof Shevat, 5756): The curtain came down on the fifty year acting career of Lilli Palmer who passed away today at the age of 71.
https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/palmer-lilli
http://www.nytimes.com/1986/01/29/obituaries/lilli-palmer-actress-on-tv-stage-and-screen-for-50-years.html



1987: Neil Diamond sang the national anthem at Super Bowl XXI.



1987: Seventy-four year old composer and conductor Henry Krips whose “father was a Jewish convert to Catholicism” which made him Jewish under Nazi racial laws and thus gave him reason to flee his native Austria after the Anschluss, passed away in Australia his haven from the Holocaust.



1988: As the latest round of Arab terrorism escalates, Yehuda Genyan, a tailor, seems to be expressing the frustration of many Israelis when he said today of the terrorists, “They walk around here like kings, but a Jew goes to pray at the wall and he gets stabbed.'' In the wake of international criticism over Israel’s response to Palestine protesters, Prime Minister Shamir seems to echoing Genyan when he states, ''We are not allowed to kill, we are not allowed to expel, we are not allowed to beat,'' Prime Minister Shamir said. What are Jews allowed to do - Only to be killed, only to be wounded, only to be defeated.''



1992: Singer Ofra Haza and the Amka Oshrat Yeminite Dance Troupe appear in concert as part of “Israel: The Next Generation.”



1993: Robert Rubin began serving as the 1st Director of the National Economic Council under President Clinton.



1993: The New York Times reported that a United States Senator from Hawaii, the Brooklyn-born chief rabbi of an Israeli West Bank community, and an organization of disabled Israeli war veterans will receive the 10th annual Defender of Jerusalem Awards. The $100,000 prize that will be divided among the recipients will be presented by the Jabotinsky Foundation Thursday at the Plaza Hotel. The foundation is named for Vladimir Jabotinsky, a Zionist, philosopher and mentor of many Israeli leaders. Being honored this year are Senator Daniel K. Inouye, Democrat of Hawaii, Rabbi Shlomo Riskin, founder of the settlement of Efrat on the West Bank, where he is described as a peace-keeper and arbitrator between Jews and Palestinians, and the Zahal Disabled Veterans Organization, which operates two sports, rehabilitation and social centers in Tel Aviv and Haifa and is building a facility in Jerusalem. The purpose of the prize, said Eryk Spektor, founder and chairman of the Jabotinsky Foundation, "is to honor people who have stood up in the defense of Jewish rights."



1998: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of interest to Jewish readers including Hitler’s Banker: Hjalmar Horace Greeley Schacht by John Weitz and Shadows on the Hudson by Isaac Bashevis Singer; translated by Joseph Sherman.



1999: Yitzhak Mordechai completed his service as Minister of Defense.



2000: U.S. premiere of “The Songcatcher” a fascinating movie about the Hill people of North Carolina and their music co-starring Emmy Rossum as “Deladis Slocumb.”



2001: Israel's state-owned power utility said today that it planned to buy more than half of its $3 billion supply of natural gas over the next decade from Egypt, after receiving an offer that was 20 to 30 percent lower than domestic prices.



2001: In Toronto, the Al Waxman Fan Club, which had over a thousand members, held a wake for their hero complete with “a New Orleans-style funeral march including a jazz band.



2001: After a 48-hour hiatus, Israelis and Palestinians resumed their peace talks today still hoping for a diplomatic breakthrough, though increasingly dubious about a full-fledged agreement before the Feb. 6 election in Israel.



2002: A Palestinian suicide bomber wounded more than two dozen people when he blew himself up today in a pedestrian mall in a Tel Aviv neighborhood of populated largely by immigrant workers.



2002: In response to today’s terrorist attack in Tel Aviv, “an Israeli F-16 attacked the Palestinian security headquarters in Gaza located near Yasser Arafat's compound.”



2003: On the first day of his trial, an Israeli Arab student denied that he had tried to hijack an El Al jetliner and force it to slam into a skyscraper in Tel Aviv. Tawfiq Foqara, 23, told the court that during the November 17 flight from Tel Aviv to Istanbul he had a dispute with a flight attendant who yelled at him.



2003: The Guardian published an article entitled “Solzhenitsyn breaks last taboo of the revolution; Nobel laureate under fire for new book on the role of Jews in Soviet-era,” in which Nick Paton reviews Two Hundred Years Together by Alexander Solzhenitsyn.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2003/jan/25/russia.books



  [Ed. Note: The article is reproduced in its entirety to provide a sense of what one of the most acclaimed writers of the 20th century had to say about Jews. He seemed to comprehend the fact that Communists like Trotsky had rejected Judaism and to remind us that for Jews, Russia is a good place “to be from” regardless of who is in charge]



 “Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who first exposed the horrors of the Stalinist gulag, is now attempting to tackle one of the most sensitive topics of his writing career - the role of the Jews in the Bolshevik revolution and Soviet purges. In his latest book Solzhenitsyn, 84, deals with one of the last taboos of the communist revolution: that Jews were as much perpetrators of the repression as its victims. Two Hundred Years Together -a reference to the 1772 partial annexation of Poland and Russia which greatly increased the Russian Jewish population - contains three chapters discussing the Jewish role in the revolutionary genocide and secret police purges of Soviet Russia. But Jewish leaders and some historians have reacted furiously to the book, and questioned Solzhenitsyn's motives in writing it, accusing him of factual inaccuracies and of fanning the flames of anti-Semitism in Russia. Solzhenitsyn argues that some Jewish satire of the revolutionary period” consciously or unconsciously descends on the Russians" as being behind the genocide. But he states that all the nation's ethnic groups must share the blame, and that people shy away from speaking the truth about the Jewish experience. In one remark which infuriated Russian Jews, he wrote: "If I would care to generalize, and to say that the life of the Jews in the camps was especially hard, I could, and would not face reproach for an unjust national generalization. But in the camps where I was kept, it was different. The Jews whose experience I saw - their life was softer than that of others.” Yet he added: "But it is impossible to find the answer to the eternal question: who is to be blamed, who led us to our death? To explain the actions of the Kiev cheka [secret police] only by the fact that two thirds were Jews, is certainly incorrect.” Solzhenitsyn, awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1970, spent much of his life in Soviet prison camps, enduring persecution when he wrote about is experiences. He is currently in frail health, but in an interview given last month he said that Russia must come to terms with the Stalinist and evolutionary genocides - and that its Jewish population should be as offended at their own role in the purges as they are at the Soviet power that also persecuted them.” My book was directed to empathize with the thoughts, feelings and the psychology of the Jews - their spiritual component," he said. "I have never made general conclusions about a people. I will always differentiate between layers of Jews. One layer rushed headfirst to the revolution. Another, to the contrary, was trying to stand back. The Jewish subject for a long time was considered prohibited. Zhabotinsky [a Jewish writer] once said that the best service our Russian friends give to us is never to speak aloud about us.” But Solzhenitsyn's book has caused controversy in Russia, where one Jewish leader said it was "not of any merit". "This is a mistake, but even geniuses make mistakes," said Yevgeny Satanovsky, president of the Russian Jewish Congress. "Richard Wagner did not like the Jews, but was a great composer. Dostoyevsky was a great Russian writer, but had a very skeptical attitude towards the Jews. "This is not a book about how the Jews and Russians lived together for 200 years, but one about how they lived apart after finding themselves on the same territory. This book is a weak one professionally. Factually, it is so bad as to be beyond criticism. As literature, it is not of any merit." But DM Thomas, one of Solzhenitsyn's biographers, said that he did not think the book was fuelled by anti-Semitism. "I would not doubt his sincerity. He says that he firmly supports the state of Israel. In his fiction and factual writing there are Jewish characters that he writes about who are bright, decent, anti-Stalinist people." Professor Robert Service of Oxford University, an expert on 20th century Russian history, said that from what he had read about the book, Solzhenitsyn was "absolutely right”. Researching a book on Lenin, Prof Service came across details of how Trotsky, who was of Jewish origin, asked the politburo in 1919 to ensure that Jews were enrolled in the Red army. Trotsky said that Jews were disproportionately represented in the Soviet civil bureaucracy, including the cheka."Trotsky's idea was that the spread of anti-Semitism was [partly down to] objections about their entrance into the civil service. There is something in this; that they were not just passive spectators of the revolution. They were part-victims and part-perpetrators.



"It is not a question that anyone can write about without a huge amount of bravery, and [it] needs doing in Russia because the Jews are quite often written about by fanatics. Mr Solzhenitsyn's book seems much more measured than that." Yet others failed to see the need for Solzhenitsyn's pursuit of this particular subject at present. Vassili Berezhkov, a retired KGB colonel and historian of the secret services and the NKVD (the precursor of the KGB), said: "The question of ethnicity did not have any importance either in the revolution or the story of the NKVD. This was a social revolution and those who served in the NKVD and cheka were serving ideas of social change "If Solzhenitsyn writes that there were many Jews in the NKVD, it will increase the passions of anti-Semitism, which has deep roots in Russian history.”



2004: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Bubble of American Supremacy: Correcting the Misuse of American Power by George Soros,Rape: A Love Story by Joyce Carol Oates, Collect Poems by Paul Auster and a newly released paperback edition of A Saint, More or Lessby Henry Grunwald.



2004: Today Israel's high court suspended for 30 days the state's efforts to expel the Palestinian father of an Israeli soldier, pending a hearing on granting him the right to remain in Israel.



2004: Elyakim Rubinstein completed his service as Israel’s Attorney General.



2005(15th of Shevat, 5765): Tu B'Shevat



2015: A year after premiering at the Sundance Film Festival “Metallica” a documentary co-directed and co-produced by Bruce Sniofsky was re-released in the United States.



2005: As plans are made for a Broadway revival of Neil Simon’s “Sweet Charity” today, “the show went into production at the Historic Orpheum Theatre in Minneapolis.”



2005: In the U.S. of Representatives Congressman Pete Session rose today “to pay tribute to Mr. Joel David Brooks” who is retiring as the Executive Director of the Southwest Region for the American Jewish Congress after forty years of service.



2005: French debut of “To Take a Wife” (VeLakahta Lekha Isha) co-directed by Ronit and Shlomi Elkabetz who also co-authored the script



2006:The Tenafly Jewish community has won a six-year battle with local officials over the right to place symbolic plastic strips on utility poles to create an enclosure that would allow them to perform certain restricted activities on the Sabbath.  



2007(6th of Shevat, 5767): Sydney Simon Shulemson, DFC, died today in Florida. Born in 1915, he “was a Canadian fighter pilot, and Canada's highest decorated Jewish soldier, during World War II .Growing up in Montreal, Shulemson attended McGill University. He enlisted in the Royal Canadian Air Force on September 10, 1939, and graduated from flight school in 1942. He joined RCAF 404 Squadron in Wick in Scotland, flying a Bristol Beaufighter. Shulemson downed a German flying boat on his first sortie. He pioneered techniques for rocket attacks on Axis ships in the North Atlantic. After the war, Shulemson located aircraft and recruited pilots for Israel's growing Israeli Air Force.”



2007: In Derby, UK, Holocaust Memorial Day Service



2007: Speaker of the Knesset Dalia Itzik became acting President of Israel when President Moshe Katzav took a three month long leave of absence.



2008: In Iowa City the funeral is held for orthopedic surgeon Dr. Webster B. Gelman, recipient of the 1985 University of Iowa Alumnae Association’s Distinguished Alumni Award who passed away at the age of 89.



2008: First Musical Shabbat Service at Temple Judah in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.



2008: Rami Zuari, a 20 year old Border Police officer killed during a terrorist attack at an East Jerusalem checkpoint was buried in the military cemetery at Be’er Sheva, his home town.



2008: In Great Britain at Friday Prayers the community of Ahmadi Muslims in the UK say the following prayer in commemoration of Holocaust Memorial Day. "Sunday 27 January is Holocaust Memorial Day in UK. We pray that people learn to recognize, accept and respect their differences. People of all races and faiths are God’s people. May everyone accept this truth so that the world can look forward to a peaceful future. May God enable people to remain close to their Creator, follow His teachings of peace, and avoid repeating the mistakes of the past. Amen."



2009: Politics and Prose Bookstore hosts a reading from Words that Burn Within Me: Faith, Values, Survival, a collection of notebooks by Hilda Stern Cohen containing poetry and recollections of life in 1930s Germany, which was discovered by her husband, Werner Cohen, after her death in 1997.



2009: Canadian Sharon Fichman defeated her American opponent in a clay court match at Lutz, Florida



2009: The 5th annual Brooklyn Israel Film Festival closes this evening with a showing of “Children of the Sun,” written and directed by Ran Tal and the winner of Israel's Academy Award for Best Documentary.



2009: The New York Times includes reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Benjamin Disraeli by Adam Kirsch and Ballet’s Magic: Selected Writings on Dance in Russia, 1911-1925by Akim Volynsky; edited and translated by Stanley J. Rabinowitz. Akim Volynsky was the pen name of Chaim Leib Flekser who was born in 1861 into an Orthodox Jewish family of booksellers in Ukraine.



2009: The New York Times reports that the kosher symbol, intended to show consumers that the contents adhere to Jewish dietary laws, was mistakenly left off 14 million boxes of Thin Mints, the variety that accounts for roughly 25 percent of Girl Scout cookie sales, said Raymond Baxter, president and chief executive of Interbake Foods, the parent company of ABC Bakers of Richmond, Va., one of two approved manufacturers of the cookies. Proofreaders missed the mistake. But a customer noticed in November that the symbol — a circled U accompanied by a D for dairy — was missing, said Brian Crawford, an executive at the Scouts’ New York headquarters. (Some troops sell cookies in the fall, though most sales are held January through March.) ABC Bakers quickly sent letters explaining the oversight (and showing proof of kosher certification from the Orthodox Union) to Scout councils. Rabbi Yisroel Bendelstein of the Orthodox Union, who has fielded perhaps a half-dozen calls about the cookies, said he hoped the letters would “obviate any concerns.” Thin Mints, the rabbi said, are his favorite Girl Scout cookie.



2009 (29 Tevet 5769):Rabbi Leon Klenicki, a pioneer in interfaith relations passed away today according to an announcement from the Anti-Defamation League, where he served as director emeritus of interfaith affairs. A leading figure in efforts to promote Jewish-Christian understanding, Klenicki was made a Papal Knight by Pope Benedict XVI in 2007 in recognition of his historic contributions to improving relations between Catholics and Jews. He worked for the ADL for 28 years before his retirement in 2001. Klenicki, a renowned scholar and theologian, wrote numerous books and articles on Catholic-Jewish issues. A native of Argentina, Klenicki was ordained at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Cincinnati and earned a bachelor's degree from the University of Cincinnati. He was a member of an Argentine government commission to investigate Nazi activities in Argentina from 1933 to 1945.  



2010: The 19thannual New York Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to present the New York premiere “Leap of Faith,” a documentary about the difficulties that four families face when they abandons their traditions and embrace Judaism.



2010: The Brooklyn Israel Film Festival is scheduled to close this evening with a screening of the 2008 Israel Academy Award for Best Documentary, ‘Children of the Sun.”



2010 (10th of Tevet): Yahrzeit of Rabbi Yoseph Yitzchok Schneersohn, sixth Rebbe of the Chabad Lubavitch movement who was also known as the Friediker Rebbe or "Previous Rebbe."



One year later, to the day, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the Rebbe assumed the leadership position of the worldwide Chabad-Lubavitch movement.



2010: At the Sundance Festival the first screening of “A Film Unfinished.”



2010: The week after Miep Gies, passed away, Elie Wiesel wrote the following about her in Time magazine.



 Miep Gies entered history without wanting to. She did what many others were too afraid to do: she risked her freedom, her life, in her determination to save Jews from deportation and death.From 1942 to '44, Gies, who died Jan. 11 at 100, helped shelter and feed Anne Frank and her family in an attic in Amsterdam, where at that time Jews were being branded, humiliated and condemned just because they were Jews. Her life remains a moral example for millions to follow. I met Gies much later and was impressed by her sincerity, the simplicity of her comments and the moving quality of her smile. Calm, soft and reserved, she radiated nobility and strength of character. She talked little and quietly, reflecting on the significance of every word. When speaking of the past, she seemed to relive it. Naturally, I knew much about her life. Anne's immortal diary, which Gies found and gave to Otto Frank after the war, was filled with praise for her devotion and sacrifice.I asked her where she had found the courage to defy the Gestapo during the dark days of the occupation, and she protested. "I did nothing heroic or extraordinary," she said. "Human beings were in peril, and I had to care for them." But for the Franks, she represented all that is good and generous. She was the incarnation of hope.



2011: The New York Premiere of Black Bus, which “tells story of two young women who chose to leave their close-knit Haredi communities in Israel and are, as a consequence, estranged from their families” is scheduled to take place at The New York Jewish Film Festival.



2011:David Makovsky and Ghaith al-Omari with Jane Eisner are scheduled to lead a discussion entitled “Israelis and Palestinians: Poised Between Crisis and Opportunity” at the 92nd Street Y.  



2011:To mark Holocaust Memorial Day 2011, the Wiener Library is scheduled to hold a special lecture by Prof Clare Ungerson on The Kitchener Camp, a largely forgotten camp established in 1939 for 4000 male Jewish refugees situated near Sandwich in East Kent.



2011: Police Commissioner David Cohen said today that he was concerned by the possibility of ideology-based murders against public officials in Israel.


2011: The international department of the prosecution services failed to obtain the extradition from Peru of former judge Dan Cohen, wanted in Israel on charges of bribery, fraud, breach of trust and obstruction of justice, the government informed the department today.


 2011: After a preliminary hearing today determined that the issue should be handled in the courts, the Jerusalem Labor Court will be deciding over the next few months whether rabbinic ordination should be recognized as equivalent to a bachelor’s degree, vis-à-vis the Civil Service Commission’s prerequisites for the position of a supervisor in the haredi educational system.


2011: Nominations for the 83rd annual Academy Awards, announced this morning, were good for the Jews. Shoo-ins Natalie Portman (“Black Swan”) and Jesse Eisenberg (“The Social Network”) got Best Actress and Actor nods, respectively. James Franco, whose mother is Jewish, also scored a Best Actor nod for his role in “127 Hours.” “Black Swan” director Darren Aronofsky earned a Best Director nomination, along with “True Grit” helmers Joel and Ethan Coen. “The Fighter” director David O. Russell, son of a Jewish father and Italian-American mother, also got a Best Director nomination. Jews also ruled the screenwriting categories. Debra Granik scored a nod in the Best Adapted Screenplay category for the brutal “Winter’s Bone,” while Hollywood vet Aaron Sorkin earned his for Facebook docudrama “The Social Network,” as did fellow A-lister Scott Silver for scrappy Boston epic “The Fighter.” In the same category, the Coen Brothers won the Academy’s attention for their highly acclaimed adaptation of Charles Portis’ 1968 novel “True Grit.” British improv-drama icon Mike Leigh was nominated in the Best Original Screenplay category for “Another Year,” his sobering look at happiness — and the lack thereof — among the British chattering classes. And British-born, Long Island-raised David Seidler got his first Oscar nomination — in the Original Screenplay slot — for “The King’s Speech”. Semites didn’t fare as well in the Best Supporting Actor or Actress categories, though 14-year-old Hailee Steinfeld — reportedly the daughter of a Jewish dad and black/Filipino mom — got a nod for her widely lauded turn as vengeful tween Mattie Ross in “True Grit.”


2011: Misaskim reported that Nazi-era RIF soap was handed over to the organization for burial.


2011: Twenty-three year old Jason Bailey, a Jewish hockey player, has sued the National Hockey League's Anaheim Ducks for religious discrimination and harassment based on religion. Jason Bailey, 23, in a lawsuit filed today in California's Orange County Superior Court, accused the coaches of one of the Ducks' affiliate teams of making anti-Semitic remarks and harassment. Bailey said he was subjected to "a barrage of anti-Semitic, offensive and degrading verbal attacks regarding his Jewish faith" by Martin Raymond, head coach of the Bakersfield Condors. The suit says assistant head coach Mark Pederson also made anti-Semitic remarks about Bailey.The suit claims that Bailey was the victim of religious discrimination, harassment based on religion, intentional infliction of emotional distress and retaliation. It asserts that he lost income, benefits and suffered humiliation, according to CNN. Bailey was drafted by the Ducks in 2005, but has not played in the NHL. He was traded last year and now plays right wing for the Binghamton Senators, a farm team for the Ottawa Senators. (As reported by JTA)


2011(20thof Shevat, 5771): Ninety-one year old Daniel Bell, the writer, editor, sociologist and teacher who over seven decades came to epitomize the engaged intellectual as he struggled to reveal the past, comprehend the present and anticipate the future, died today at his home in Cambridge, Mass. He was 91. (As reported by Michael T. Kaufman)
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/26/arts/26bell.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=Daniel%20Bell&st=cse 



2012: The David Harris Comedy and Variety Show with Special Guests, The Chosen Few are scheduled to appear at the Minneapolis Jewish Humor Festival.


2012: At the New York Jewish Film Festival “The Silent Historian” is scheduled to have its U.S. Premiere and “Joann Sfar Draws From Memory” is scheduled to have its World Premiere.


2012(1stof Shevat, 5772): Rosh Chodesh Shevat


2012: Palestinian Authority officials said today that a fifth meeting between Israeli and Palestinian negotiators in Amman scheduled for later in the day would be the final meeting



2012: Hackers attacked the websites of two Israeli hospitals today, managing to bring down the sites for several hours in the latest round of the ongoing cyber war between pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian hackers



2012: Representative “Gabby” Giffords officially resigned from the House of Representatives.



2013: The Walt Disney Studios and Lucasfilm officially announced that Jeffrey Jacob “J.J.”Abrams would be the director and producer of Star Wars Episode VII, the latest entry in the Star Wars film saga



2013: “Yossi,” a sequel to Eytan Fox’s “Yossi and Jagger” is scheduled to open in New York City.



2013: The Alexandria Kleztet is scheduled to perform at Old Town Hall in Fairfax, VA.



2013: As an indication of the vitality of Yiddishkeit in the Heartland, the Cedar Rapids/Iowa City Hadassah Chapter is scheduled to sponsor a Tu B’Shevat Seder and Soup Supper preceding Shabbat Services at Temple Judah



2013(14thof Shevat, 5573): Ninety-two year old American diplomat Max Kampelman passed away today. (As reported by William Yardley)
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/29/world/europe/max-kampelman-who-led-arms-talks-with-soviet-union-dies-at-92.html?hpw&_r=0



2013: Austrian parliamentarians and invited guests gathered today to watch the premiere of an opera depicting how Nazis methodically killed mentally or physically deficient children at a Vienna hospital during World War II.



2013: Rabbis in Winnipeg have criticized a decision by the Jewish community center in the Canadian city to open earlier on Shabbat.



2013: “Jobs” a biopic co-starring Jose Gad as “Steve Wozniak” and featuring Brett Gelman and Lesley Ann Warren premiered at the Sundance Film Festival.



2014: The Evelyn Rubenstein Jewish Community Center of Houston is scheduled to host the Houston Choreographers X6 Concert.



2014: In Rockville, MD, Congregation Tikvat Israel is scheduled to show “Hunting Elephants” as part of its Israeli Film Festival.



2014: Dozens of residents of the city of Lod protested today against the slashing of some 15 car tires in a religious neighborhood in the city over the weekend.



2014: Boxes containing pigs’ heads were sent to the Israeli embassy in Rome and the city’s synagogue, Italian media reported today



2014: “According to two Israeli researchers” – Dr. Eran Elhaik and Professor Dan Grauer – “the first human walked on earth 209,000 years ago; 9,000 years earlier than what scientists previously thought.”
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4480857,00.html



2015: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Ben-Gurion: Father of Modern Israel by Anita Shapira and Mr. Mac and Me by Esther Freud.



2015: “Judy G. Russell, well-known as The Legal Genealogist, is scheduled to speak about the ethical considerations underlying genealogy, from privacy issues-how to handle family secrets, what to say about living people - to the courtesies we should extend to other researchers.”



2015: “The Green Prince” is scheduled to be shown at Brooklyn Israel Film Festival.



2015: “Cry of the City” and “Forbidden Films” are scheduled to be shown at the New York Jewish Film Festival.



2015: “To commemorate the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the camps and Holocaust Memorial Day, the Jewish Museum of London” is scheduled to host Zdenka Fantlova who will speak about her experiences after the Nazis invaded her native Czechoslovakia in 1939.



2015: In Atlanta, GA, the Breman Museum is scheduled to host a workshop that explores “the work and techniques of Maurice Sendak.”



2016: At Tempe Solel, in Cardiff, CA, Dr. Claudia Tornsäufer is scheduled to lecture on “Mendelssohn, Music and the Jews.”



2016: The family and friends of Sir Martin Gilbert, led by Lady Esther Gilbert are scheduled to attend the stone setting at Eretz Hachaim Cemetery, Beit Shemesh which is part of the memorialization of Sir Martin Gilbert, of blessed memory.



2016: Weather permitting Matan Porat is scheduled to perform “Variations on a Theme by Scharlatti” at Butenwieser Hall.



2016(15thof Shevat, 5776): Tu B’Shevat



2016(15thof Shevat, 5776): Ninety-one year old “Howard Kaslow, apainter and illustrator who for more than four decades designed many of the most recognizable stamps issued by the United States Postal Service, including a 1994 series depicting famous blues and jazz musicians and 30 stamps depicting coastal lighthouses” passed away today. (As reported by William Grimes)
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/02/arts/design/howard-koslow-dies-at-91-artist-designed-stamps-for-40-years.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=0
http://www.lighthousekeepers.com/uploads/files/dhannum@sbcglobal.net/HLStampSet.pdfa



2016: Today, “US Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro responded to criticism of his charge last week that Israel appears to institute “two standards of adherence to the rule of law: one for Israelis and another for Palestinians” in the West Bank.”



2017: Today “German authorities carried out dawn raids against far-right suspects accused of plotting attacks on Jews, refugees and police, federal prosecutors said.”



2017(27thof Shevat, 5777): On the Jewish calendar Yahrtzeit of 19th century German Rabbi Samson Rafael Hirsch.



2017(27thof Shevat, 5777): Seventy-one year old Canadian born professor Stephen P. Cohen “who secretly brokered peace talks between Arab and Israeli officials for three decades” passed away today.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/26/world/middleeast/stephen-cohen-dead-mideast-negotiator.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=0



2017: “Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said today that the 2,500 new West Bank settlement homes approved a day earlier were just a “taste” of things to come now that Barack Obama is no longer in the White House, and said he would discuss the issue with US President Donald Trump.”



2017: Following a screening of “Cloudy Sunday” today “film critic Bergson is scheduled to join JKJF Film Programmer Ni Cohen” in a discussion of the film.



2017: “Experience History at its Source” a tour exploring the permanent collection of the High Museum ranging from biblical themes to featured Jewish artists” is scheduled to take place in Atlanta, GA.



2018: The Young Professional Committee of the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center is scheduled to a “live performance by singer/songwriter and actor Tyler Hilton.”



2018: Peter G. Weintraub is scheduled to present another session of “Introduction to Judaism
 at the Temple Emanu-El Streicker Center.



2018: Comedian Judy Gold, best known for “The Judy Gold Show: My Life as a Sitcom” is scheduled to appear at the Buckhill Brewery in Blairstown, NJ.



2018: The Oxford University Jewish Society is scheduled to host “the Gemara shiur which will be on mesechet Megillah.”



2018: Stephanie Halpern is scheduled to teach the final class of “The American Jewish Family Drama” at the YIVO Institute.



 


 


This Day, January 26, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. Levin

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January 26


1531: Three tremors shake Portugal and numerous houses are destroyed in Lisbon by an earthquake which the Pope and others believe confirm the prediction of suffering made by Solomon Molcho who was seeking relief for Jews and Marranos.


1654: MAJOR DATE IN THE HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN JEWISH COMMUNITY.  With the capture of Pernambuco (Recife) from the Dutch, Portugalretook Peru and Brazil. The Jews, (numbering approximately 5,000) having fought on the side of the Dutch, fled for the most part to Amsterdam. Hundreds also escaped to North America, with 23 eventually arriving in New Amsterdam


1664(28th of Tevet): Rabbi Berechiah Berakh ben Isaac Shapiro of Cracow author of Zera Beirakh passed away


1689:Jean Racine's "Esther" premieres in Saint-Cyr.Racine's last plays, “Esther” (1689) and “Athalie” (1691), each of which were based on Biblical figures were commissioned by King Louis XIV's wife.


1724: Abraham and Sarah Pinto gave birth to Jacob Pinto who fathered seven children with his two wives Thankful and Abigail Pinto.


1736: As the Kingdom of Poland continues to unravel, Stanislaus I abdicated his throne during a period of increasing anti-Semitism.  Twenty eight years after the abdication, the Austrians, Prussians and Russians would begin to partition Poland much to the detriment of the Jewish people who had originally been “invited” to settle in Poland.


1755 (14th of Shevat, 5515): Rabbi Yaakov Yehoshua Falk Katz passed away. Born in 1680, he was the author of the Talmudic work "P'nei Yehoshua." He served as rabbi of Lemberg (Lvov) in 1718, Berlinin 1730, Metz in 1734 and Frankfurt in 1740.


1761(21st of Shevat): Rabbi Judah Navon, author of KIryat Melekh Rav passed away.


1788: The British First Fleet arrived at Port Jackson, Australia with the goal of establishing the first permanent English settlement in “the land down under.” According to at least one source there 15 Jews on board including Esther Abrahams.


1799: Birthdate of Samuel Gobat, the native of Crémines, Canton of Bern, Switzerland who became the second “Protestant bishop of Jerusalem who supported many noteworthy projects in Palestine including an “orphanage on Mount Zion” and reversed the policy of his predecessor and devoted his efforts to “proselytizing among Christians” instead of trying to convert Jews.


1804: Birthdate of Eugane "Marie Joseph" Sue France, novelist and author of The Wandering Jew. It is a tale of good and evil. This time the villain was a Jesuit clerk, Rodin, who is after the Wandering Jew's treasure, which has been gathering interest over the centuries. The descendants of a man, who once aided the cursed wanderer, are summoned to Paris to receive the fortune. Rodin represents the oppression of Church, the Jew stands for dispossessed laborers and his female counterpart Herodias for downtrodden womankind.


1808: In Australia, the Rum Rebellion began today when troops under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel George Johnston deposed Governor William Bligh. Esther Abrahams, who had come to the land down under as part of the First Fleet was Johnston’s common-law wife. (Bligh was the captain of the infamous HMS Bounty)


1814: Edmund Kean opened in the role of Shylock at Drury Lane Theatre rousing “the audience to almost uncontrollable enthusiasm.”


1837:  Michigan is admitted as the 26th state in the Union.  By the time Michigan joined the union, Jews had been living there for at least three quarters of a century.  The first known Jewish settler, Ezekiel Solomon arrived in what is now Mackinaw city in 1761. Chapman Abraham arrived in Detroit a year later.  Abraham was a Loyalist who fought on the side of the British during the Revolutionary War.  Other early Jewish residents of what would become the Wolverine state were Louis Benjamin who suffered a loss during Detroit’s great fire in 1805 and Frederick E. Cohen, the portrait painter, who had arrived in Michigan by 1837. In reality there were only a handful of Jews living in Michigan at the time of statehood.  . The real growth of the Michigan Jewish community began in the 1840’s with the arrival of German Jews the most prominent group of which was the forty-eighters. The first synagogue would be formed in 1850, as Congregation Beth El.  For more about the Michigan Jewish community you might consider reading Jews In Michigan by Judith Levin Cantor.


1840: Sixty-eight year old English clergyman Lewis Way, “the founder, in 1808, of the London Society for Promoting Christianity Among the Jews” who was “convinced that the Jewish nation would again arise, return to its ancestral home, embrace Christianity, and convert the Gentiles” passed away today.


1841: British forces occupy Hong Kong.  Hong Kong would not formally become a possession of the crown for another year at which time Jewish merchants including members of the Sassoon and Kadoorie families, opened offices and established a community that would build a Jewish Club and the Ohel Leah Synagogue.


1851(23rd of Shevat, 5611): Trieste native Leon Vita Saraval a bibliophile and author born in 1771 whose “entire library” was purchased for the Breslau seminary in 1853 passed away today.


1855(NS): Birthdate of Vladimir Jochelson, the native of Vilnius, the scion of a wealthy Jewish family and student of the Vilna Rabbinical Seminary who became a socialist and a member of Narodnaya Volya before pursuing a career as an ethnographer.


1856: “Charitable Bequest of the Late Baron Rothschild” an article published today described the fortune of the Rothschild family, paying special attention to the spending habits and will of the late Amschel Mayer Rothschild, the second child and oldest son of Mayer Amschel Rothschild, the founding father of the banking dynasty.  While Rothschild’s personal habits “were extremely simple” he shared his wealth with Jews and Gentiles.  During his life time he distributed at least 50,000 florins per year to 2,600 Christian families.  While his mother was alive, he visited her daily in the original family home on “The Street of the Jews’; a home he was never able to convince her to leave so she could take up residence in a dwelling more fitting with her economic status .  The Baron’s will which was written in 1849, was intended to dispose of a fortune calculated at sixty million florins when he passed away in 1855.  Among other bequests, he left 1,200,000 florins for the establishment of a foundation for the poor of Frankfort intended “to keep up the weekly distribution of alms at the ‘Old Rothschild ‘ house in the Street of the Jews,”  25,000 florins for Jewish hospitals, 5,000 florins for Jewish schools and 20,000 florins “for various Christian charitable institutions.”  Two of his bequests have special meaning for those aware of Jewish laws and customs.  In an apparent attempt to follow the rules of Maimonides on charity he gave 10,000 florins “to the society for encouraging Jewish traders and workmen.  And in an echo of the morning prayer  which says that “participating in making a wedding”  is one of the things to be done while waiting for the World-to-Come,  he bequeathed the interest on 50,000 florins to be used as perpetual fund “to furnish dowers to Jewish maidens.”  Baron Rothschild was not the only member of his family to know financial success.  According to the article, Baron Charles left an estate of 17 million florins and Baron Solomon left an estate of 48 million florins.


1859: The U.S.S. Brooklyn on which Adolph Marix, the first Jewish graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, would serve on starting in 1882, was commissioned today.


1862: An Imperial ukase was published in St. Petersburg, Russia, “permitting Jews to enter every branch of the State service; permitting Jewish merchants to reside anywhere, and granting other concessions to the Jews.”


1863: In Chicago, Joseph and Mary (Hoffman) Foreman gave birth to Lt. Gen. Milton J. Foreman.

1863(6thof Shevat, 5623): A. Robinson, a soldier serving with the 15thGeorgia passed away today. His passing was later commemorated by the Hebrew Ladies Memorial Association of Richmond, VA.


1866(10thof Shevat, 5626): Twenty-two year old Sophie “Rosalie” Waldstein, the daughter of Ephraim and Lea Koppel Waldstein and the sister of Zadok Waldstein passed away today in Bavaria.


1868(2nd of Shevat, 5628): Jacob Raphael De Cordova, Texas land agent and colonizer passed away.

1871: Julia Zachriah who had been born in Portsmouth in 1809 and was the daughter of Levy Zacharia was buried today at the Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.


1873:  In Albany, NY, founding of the Adelphi Club that meets on the “second Wednesday in January, April, July and October” and whose members included Myer Mandelbaum, Norman Mendleson, Milton Stark and Charles M. Friend.


1879: Birthdate of conductor and violinist Hugo Riesenfeld, the native of Vienna who from 1917 to 1925 was the director of music for the Rivoli, Rialto and Criterion Theares and in 1937 “earned an Academy Award nomination for “Make A Wish.”

1881: In Leadville, CO, Morris and Rosa Altman were married.


1884: Birthdate of Edward Sapir, German-born anthropologist and linguist.  He was on the faculty of the University of Chicago and Yale until his death until 1939.


1884” In Cincinnati, OH, Solomon and Caroline Fox gave birth to Edgar Fox


1890: The annual convention of the Grand Lodge of District No. 1, of the Independent Order of B’nai B’rith will open this morning at New York in Vienna Hall


1891: It was reported today that a story persists that the Jews’ desire to buy the Vatican’s copy of the Hebrew Bible goes back to the 16thcentury.  In 1512, the Jews offered to buy the book from Pope Julius for a sum equivalent to $100,000 and may have recently made an offer of $200,000 for the holy book.


1891: Birthdate of Ilya G Ehrenburgprolific Russian writer and journalist.  Born into a middle class Jewish family living in Kiev, Ehrenburg was able to navigate the treacherous waters of the Soviet Union pursuing his career even during the days of Stalin’s anti-Semitic outbursts and dying peacefully in 1967. 


1891: It was reported today that Rabbi Gustav Gottheil had delivered an address in which he noted “the absence of any united effort on the part of Christendom…to prevent…the persecution of the Jews of Russia.”


1892: A charity ball sponsored by the Jews of Philadelphia, PA is scheduled to take place tonight. The ball is the third and final of the city’s annual charity balls and “has for years been marked by the lavish display of feminine finery and jewelry of the most gorgeous description.”


1892: Four thousand people attended the ball sponsored by the Hebrew Orphan Asylum which was held at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.


1892: “To Aid Russian Refugees” published today described efforts by the Jews of Pittsburg to form a branch of the New York Relief Association which is connected to the Baron Hirsch Fund. The Jews in Pittsburgh plan on collecting sums ranging from $10 to $20 which will help to create a fund to help settle Jewish immigrants in “Western cities” away from New York.


1893: The members and patrons of the Hebrew Technical Institute held their annual meeting tonight at Temple Emanu-El.


1894: “The committee appointed by the Trades and Labor Conference to make arrangements for the upcoming mass meeting at Madison Square Garden’ which will be addressed by Samuel Gompers on the subject of find work for the unemployed during the current economic depression” is scheduled to meet today.


1894: Isaac Bergmann, an unemployed tailor, is being held today after tried to slit his own throat


1895: During his speech at the monthly meeting of the Democratic Club of the City of New York, Senator David B. Hill acknowledged the growing importance of Jewish voters when in his call for party unity he included “Hebrew Democrats” among the other ethnic groups making up the party’s coalition including the Irish, the Italians, the Germans and those living in Harlem.


1896: The members of the Hebrew Infantile Asylum Association met today at the synagogue on east 86th Street.


1896: It was reported this week that Sarah Bernhardt who is returning to the New York stage is “still the same great actress.”


1896: It was reported today that Sarah Bernhardt will play the role of Marguerite in an upcoming theatrical production in New York.


1896: Rabbi Gustav Gottheil delivered an address this morning at Temple Emanu-El entitled “The Safe Monroe Doctrine.”


1896: New York University Law School professor Isaac Franklin Russell delivered a lecture to members of the Russian-American Hebrew Association at the Hebrew Institute.


1896: “Another Heine Chapter” published today described the History of the Heine Memorial Fountain which has been rejected by “the cities of Mayence and Dusseldorf…for political reasons” and may now be denied a “home” in New York’s Central Park. At least one opponent, Paul Dana denied that “Heine’s works or religion ever figured” in the opposition.


1897: Aaron H. Appel was promoted from Captain and Assistant Surgeon to the rank of Major and Surgeon in the U.S. Army today.


1897(23rd of Shevat, 5657): Fifty-eight year old Pauline Hirschfeld, the daughter of Simon Ausch and Rachel Ausch and wife of Dr. Jacob Jacques Heinrich Hirschfeld with whom she had four children passed away today.


1898: It was reported today that in Algiers a mob attacked Jews who were riding on an omnibus.


1898: It was reported today that Mrs. Saul Jacobs fainted outside of a New York court room following her husband’s conviction for having been part of scheme to swindle Max Bernstein out of $13,192.75 by passing off a load of painted brass as gold from Siberia.


1899(15th of Shevat, 5659): Final celebration of Tu B’Shevat in the 19th century.


1899: Birthdate of catcher Robert “Bob” Leon Berman whose major league career consisted of appearing in two games for the Washington Senators.


1904(9th of Shevat, 5664): Fifty-five year old Austrian born novelist Karl Emil Franzos passed away.

1904: Theodor Herzl had an audience with Pope Pius X in the Vatican to seek his support for the Zionist effort to establish a Jewish state in Palestine

1905: The New York Times publishes a letter from Henry S. Morias reminding readers of Benjamin Disraeli’s support for the Unionduring the Civil War. Rabbi Morias, the son of Sabato Morais was a well-known Jewish journalist who served in the pulpits of numerous east coast congregations.


1907: A law establishing national quotas in the 515 seat Austrian Parliament would lead to five Jewish deputies (4 Zionist and 1 Jewish Democrat) being chosen in the next national elections.


1908: In Chicago, Aaron Halperin, a Jewish immigrant from Kiev and Julia Halperin gave birth to Robert Sherman “Buck” Halperin who went from playing football for Notre Dame, the University of Wisconsin and the professional Brooklyn Dodger to becoming a medal winning yachtsman after having served gallantly in the U.S. Navy during WW II.


1908: The funeral for Leopold Wallach, who studied law at Harvard, was a “senior member of the law firm of Wallach & Cook and the husband of Theresa Lichtenstadter is scheduled to take place at his resident at 9:30 this morning.


1910(16th of Shevat, 5670): Mrs. Freide Katz and Hirsch Storch passed away today after which both were buried in the cemetery at Liepāja.


1912:Aaron Hahn, a delegate from CuyahogaCounty to Ohio Constitutional Convention, suggests a provision be made in the state constitution for prohibition of sectarian religious instruction. A Rabbi named Aaron Hahn had served as the spiritual leader of Cleveland’s Tifereth Israelbut we can find no verifiable evidence that these are one and the same person.


1913(18th of Shevat, 5673): Seventy-year old Civil War and New Orleans, LA merchant passed away today.


1913: Dr. Emil G. Hirsch is scheduled to deliver a sermon this afternoon at services held by the People’s Synagogue Association at the Ziegfeld Theatre.


1913: In Chicago, Dr. Gerson B. Levi officiated at the wedding of “Louis Levy of Gooding, Idahlo” and Rose Alice Nathan.


1913: In Boston, Anshe Slavita dedicated a new facility.


1913: “Yiddish star Boris Thomashefsky and his all-star company” are scheduled to give a matinee and evening performance of the new play “Breach of Promise” at the Haymarket Theatre.


1913: The New York Times reviews The Romance of the Rothschilds by Ignatius Balla a book which the great bankers whose name adorns its title-page allegedly are endeavoring to suppress in Englandand which shortly will be published in this country by G.P. Putnam's Sons. According to Balla, “A passion for old coins and skill as a chess player formed the basis for the most colossal fortune ever conceived in the brain of a romancer or recorded among the facts of history.”


1914: According to a list published today the members of the Young Men’s Hebrew Association of Camden, NJ, included J.F. Kantor, Dr. William M. Lashman, Benjamin Natal, Max Goldich, Mark Obus Jacob L. Furor, Arnold Weis and Bertrand Schneeburg each of whom was playing a key role in raising funds for a communal building that would include space for a place of prayer a Talmud Torah and “a Sabbath School.


1914: In New York, Louis and Kate (née Lautkin) Wolkind gave birth to Phoebe Wolkind who married Henry Ephron in 1934 and gained game as writer Phoebe Ephron the mother of Nora, Delia, Hallie and Amy Ephron.


1915: The Raid on the Suez Canal, an attempt by a German led Ottoman military force to cross the waterway that was Britain’s lifeline to the East began today.


1916: In Leeds (UK) Lithuanian immigrants Tilly Cohen Newman and Joseph Newman gave birth to Isidore “Izzy” Newman who served with SOE in WW II.

1916: In New York, Mr. and Mrs. Albert Finkelstein gave birth to “Jerry Finkelstein, who made a fortune in business, real estate and newspapers, including The New York Law Journal and The Hill, and for many years was a self-styled Democratic power broker” (As reported by Robert D. McFadden)


1916: Jewish Socialist political leader Morris Hillquit was part of a three person delegation to President Wilson to advocate part of the Socialist Party's peace program, which proposed that "the President of the United States convoke a congress of neutral nations, which shall offer mediation to the belligerents and remain in permanent session until the termination of the war." [Editor’s note: For those of you not acquainted with U.S. history, at this point the United States was not a participant in the Great War and most of her citizens wanted it to stay that way.  In the fall, Wilson would be re-elected on a platform of He Kept Us Out of War.  It was only after America entered the war and during the Red Scare of 1919 that what Hillquit and others like him expounded would come to be consider ‘un-American’ or treasonous.)


1916: The Governor of Massachusetts has reportedly requested “that all contributions” being collected for Jewish Relief Day “be addressed to the American Red Cross in Washington.”


1916: The Women’s Proclamation Day Committee of the Central Committee is scheduled to announce “the list of the 100 women who will work to make Jewish Relief Day a success”


1916: The Business Men’s League of the American Jewish Relief Committee announced that Salt’s Textile Company and the firm of Victor and Achelis have each contributed $1,000 to the funds being raised as part of the upcoming Jewish Relief Day.


1916: The Central Relief Committee of the American Jewish Relief Committee announced today that “Charles L. Huston of Coatesville, PA, Vice President of the Lukens Iron and Steel Company has contributed $1,000” to aid the suffering Jews of war-torn Europe and Palestine.


1916: “San Francisco opened tonight a campaign to raise $250,000 with twenty four hours for destitute Jews in the European war zone with a mass meeting at the new Civic Exposition Auditorium.”


1917: As World War I drags on for a third year it is reported that not one home in the Jewish quarter of Belgrade remains standing undamaged. Large numbers of Jews have immigrated to Greece from various areas in the Balkans. The Americans sent $55,000 to help with relief in Serbia and Greece, after receiving a cablegram for help from the Chief Rabbi of Salonica, Jacob Meir.


1917: Seventy-five years after the opening of the Burton Street Synagogue, The Jewish Chronicle said today that “virtually all the bitterness of the Reform controversy has – Heaven be praised! – passed”, but added a sting in the tail that “Reform has made no important constructive contribution to the religious life of the community”.


1917: The Italian government sent twelve thousand Lire ($2,400) to the Governor of Tripoli for the Jewish poor.


1918: Birthdate of right-hand batsman Louis Collins Jacobson, the native of Dublin who “played twelve times for the Ireland cricket team between 1947 and 1959” and who represented “a British and Irish side at the Maccabean Games.”


1918: President Bernstein of the Hebrew Sheltering and Immigrant Aid Society of New York which “has received the names of person in this country who are sought by friends and relatives in Russia” from the Jewish Relief Committee of Petrograd, said today. That it was important that those sought be found as in many cases the inquirers were in want.”


1918: Birthdate of Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu. Regardless of his other "shortcomings" from a Jewish point of Ceausescu is memorable for his refusal to break diplomatic relations with Israelafter the June, 1967 War.  Romania was the only Eastern European country to defy the Soviets which had ordered all of her client states to break relations with Israel.


1919: In Poland, Jewish parties receive about 10% of the votes during the election for the constituent assembly.  But the under the electoral system in use, they get only 11 out of 394 seats.


1920:Amadeo Modigliani's mistress jumps out of a window.


1920: Birthdate of Albert Abraham Davidoff, the native of the Brownsville section of Brooklyn who gained fame welterweight boxer Al “Bummy” Davis.


1921: Austrian born violinist Erika Morini made her American debut in New York City.


1923: Final session of The Golden Jubilee Convention of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations was held at the Hotel Astor in New York City.


1924: Birthdate of Houston native Annette Strauss who would become the first Jewish female mayor of Dallas, Texas.  She was the second woman elected to the position and the second Jew to serve in that capacity.


1925:  In Shaker Heights, Ohio, Theresa and Arthur Sigmund Newman, the son of Simon Newman and Hannah Cohn who were Jewish immigrants from Hungary and Poland gave birth to actor Paul Newman who “described himself as a Jew, saying ‘it’s more of a challenge.’”

1926: Birthdate of Stuart Etz Hample, a humorist who entertained children (and adults) as an author, playwright, adman, performer and cartoonist


1928: In Trieste, Italy, an insurance executive named Ottocaro Weiss and the former Ortensia Schmitz, a violinist and a niece of the novelist Italo Svevo, gave birth to Piero Weiss. Weiss fled fascist Italy and came to America in 1940 where he gained fame as a concert pianist and recording artist before turning to musicology where he became an author and co-author of books in the field, including a widely used textbook, and founded the music history department at the Peabody Conservatory. (As reported by James R. Oestreich


1929(15thof Shevat, 5689): Final Tu B’Shevat celebration of the “roaring 20’s.” (For the next 15 years the holiday would be observed in a period of Depression and World War)


1929: In the Bronx, David Feiffer and Rhoda (née Davis) Feiffer gave birth to cartoonist and writer Jules Feiffer whose cartoons ran in Playboy and The Village Voice for decades. Feiffer's work appeared often in The New Yorker, Esquire, and The Nation, and was nationally syndicated. In 1986, Feiffer won a Pulitzer Prize for political cartoons, and from 1997-2000 he drew monthly op-ed comics in The New York Times.

1930: Birthdate of A. N. Solomons chairman of Singer & Friedlander.


1933:The Jack Benny Program is broadcast for the last time on CBS Radio.


1934: Germany and Poland sign a ten-year nonaggression pact. This was one of the first steps of acceptance of the Hitler regime by the governments of Europe. Five years later, the Poles would find out that Germans did not really mean it.


1934 Josef Pilsudski signed a ten-year peace pact with Hitler. That same year the Warsaw authorities, observing the impotence of the League of Nations in dealing with the German problem, decided to repudiate the Minorities Treaty signed under duress at Versailles.


1935: In a speech before 3,800 people at the MeccaTemple, Vladimir Jabotinsky, Zionist Revisionist leader urged his listeners to put the development of a Jewish national state in Palestineahead of all other issues related to economic and political development.


1936: “The intermarriage of Jews and persons of other religions is ‘completely indefensible’ and, from the viewpoint of the Jewish people, ‘a dangerous thing,’ Rabbi Milton Steinberg said this morning at the Park Avenue Synagogue” adding that since Judaism is a minority the sanctioning of intermarriage would result in the “complete extinction of Jewish values.”


1936: Dr. Israel Goldstein, Morris Rothenberg and Simon W. Goldsmith were among the speakers who addressed “an all-day meeting at the Astor Hotel” attended by “representatives of 600 Jewish groups” working to increase “reconstruction activity in Palestine to facilitate the absorption of refugees from Germany and other European countries.”


1936: Five hundred leaders “representing sixty-seven local communal agencies from more than fifty cities” meeting at the Chase Hotel in St. Louis “as the National Council of Jewish Federations and Welfare Funds” voted unanimously to adopt “the proposal outline by Sir Herbert Samuel and Felix M. Warburg to finance the emigration of the younger generation of Jews from Germany together with as many of the older generation as might be able to exist elsewhere.” 


1936: “The American Jewish Joint Distribution” with headquarters at 7 Hanover Street in New York City, announced today :that religious schools in 130 cities” through the United States had made contributions in 1934 and 1935 “toward the rehabilitation work” designed to aid Jews in Germany, Poland and other part of Eastern Europe.


1937: “Dr. Jonah B. Wise, the rabbi of the Central Synagogue and co-chairman of the Jewish Joint Distribution Committee campaign issued a special plea today to ‘all men and women who are interested in human rights and saving human life’ to contribute to the immediate assistance of the Jews in Poland in response to their ‘frantic requests for aid.’”


1938: The Palestine Post reported that Mordecai Uhana, the sole Jewish resident of Ramallah, a cobbler who lived had there for 34 years, was shot while at work and badly wounded. The driver and a passenger of a Givat Shaul bus were shot and hit on their way to Jerusalem. Nissim Dorani, a lorry driver, was killed by a bomb, thrown at him at Km. 5 on the Jaffa-Jerusalem Road. Twenty children, eight women and two men, all of them Jewish, were arrested as illegal immigrants at Safed. Three Arab terrorists were executed at Acre.


1938: It was reported today that British photographer and artist had apologized to publisher Conde Nast for sneaking a sketch that contained “comments that were critical of the Jewish race in the February 1st issue of Vogue” saying that it was an “ill-mannered expression of my irritation and annoyance caused by some bad films I had just seen” and he knows that none of his “many Jewish friends will think that” his “silly little joke had any bearing on the standing of their great community.”


1938: A majority of the 2,500 delegates attending the convention of the Federation of Jewish Women’s Organization at the Hotel Astor voted in a favor of adopting the Ludlow Amendment, a proposed amendment to the Constitution of the United States which called for a national referendum on any declaration of war by Congress, except in cases when the United States had been attacked first.” (For those who have made a fetish out criticizing FDR’s response to the Jewish condition in Europe might want to consider the support of a major Jewish organization for this Isolationist Amendment.)


1938: In Rumania, “the Bucharest and Jassy bar associations decided to suspend the activities of all Jews admitted after 1918” which means “that at least 800 Jewish lawyers will be unable to practice during the coming months.”


1939: In light of the news that German scientists in Berlinhad split the uranium nucleus, Leo Szilard wired the British Admiralty, the keeper of his 1935 patent on chain reactions, to disregard his earlier letter telling them to cancel his patent. 


1940: At a prison camp in Siberia, Isaac Babel is found guilty of belonging to an anti-Soviet Trotskyite organization and with spying for France and Austria after a twenty minute trial. He is condemned to death and will be shot tomorrow.


1940: Following today’s raid by British police of the Ben Shemen Youth Village where weapons belong to the Haganah were found, the principal, Dr. Siegfried Lehman “and others were arrested and sentenced to terms from 3 to 7 years.” (As reported by The History of the Jewish People)


1940: Nazis denied Polish Jews the right to travel on trains. One cannot help but see a note of irony in this decree.


1942 (8th of Shevat, 5702):  At Stari Becej, Hungary, 200 Jews and Serbs were slaughtered. At Titel, 35 Jews killed. At Teofipol, 300 Jews marched naked for three miles and then are shot.


1943:230 women of the French Resistance began “began their internment at Birkenau, the main women’s camp at Auschwitz” (For more see A Train In Winter by Caroline Weber)


1944: Birthdate of Denise Eisenberg who gained fame as Denise Rich who played a key role in obtaining the “mid-night” pardon for her ex-husband Marc Rich by donating millions to charities controlled by William Jefferson Clinton.


1944: As the Germans continue to pursue the Final Solution despite reversals on the battlefield “a handwritten from Heinrich Himmler’s speech today in Posen to Generals of fighting troops reads: ‘Largest stabilization in the G.G. since the solution to the Jewish question. Total solution. Not allowing avengers to rise against our children. (G.G. refers to the Poland and Ukraine, areas which had the largest pre-war Jewish population.  “Avenger” is a euphemism for Jews, who if left alive would pose a threat the Aryans.”


1945: In England, Derek and Iris du Pré gave birth to classical cellist Jacqueline Mary du Pré who married Daniel Barenboim at the Western Wall.


1945(12th of Shevat, 5705): Abba Berditchev was murdered by the Nazis. A native of Romania, he was detained by the British when he entered Palestine illegally.  He volunteered for service in the British army and he “parachuted into Yugoslavia with Chana Senesh, Reuven Dafni and Yonah Rosen. Berditchev’s mission was to assist the Jews, gather intelligence and help rescue members of the air forces who were captured or had parachuted into Romania. . After two months of fighting in the mountains, Berditchev was captured by the Germans and transferred in December 1944 to Mauthausen along with other captives, where he was brutally tortured before he was murdered by the Nazis.” (As reported by Yad Vashem)


1945: The Virgin Island Daily News reported that Peter de Hemmer Gudme, journalist, Oriental scholar and author of two philo-semtic tomes “From Nebuchadnezzar to Hitler” and “A Sketch of the History of Zionism” died while in the hands of the Gestapo in Copenhagen.  Born in 1897, he was the brother of Sten Gudme who has been working in London on behalf of the Free Danish government.  [Ed note: The Gudmes were not Jewish; they were just decent human beings.]


1945: One thousand Jewish women interned at the Neusalz, Poland, slave-labor camp are set on a month-and-a-half-long forced march to the concentration camp at Flossenbürg, Germany, about 200 miles to the southwest. Along the way, 800 are beaten and shot.


1946: Birthdate of noted Anglo-Jewish historian Jonathan Irvine Israel.

1946: In Chicago, Russian Jewish immigrants Ida (née Kalis) and Nathan William Siskel gave birth to movie critic, Gene Siskel who was part of the television duo of Siskel and Ebert.

1947: Joseph B. Levin was assigned to the Office of Opinion Writing at the United States Securities and Exchange Commission.  Mr. Levin had joined the SEC in 1942 while it was still located in Washington, DC.  At the time of his appointment, the Commission had not returned to Washington from its wartime headquarters in Philadelphia, PA.


1948(15th of Shevat, 5708): Tu B’Shevat


1948 (15th of Shevat, 5708): Composer, Ignaz Friedman passed away at the age of 65. Born in 1882, Ignaz Friedman (also spelled Ignace or Ignacy) was a Polish pianist and composer famous for his Chopin interpretations

1949: Switzerland recognized Israel.  


1951: Temple Beth Israel of Meridian, Miss.became the first Jewish congregation to allow women to perform the functions of a rabbi.


1952: In Cairo, the main Cicurel Department Store was destroyed by a fire set either by the Muslim Brotherhood or militant nationalists. The store was part of chain started in 1909 by Moreno Cicurel an Egyptian Jew who was both active in Jewish and Egyptian community affairs.


1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that the unexpected delay in the ratification of the Reparations Agreement with West Germany upset the Ministry of Finance budget calculations.


1954: Prime Minister Churchill urges the members of his cabinet to support a policy of open navigation through the Suez Canal, which is another way of saying he was calling on the British government to support all measures to force the Egyptian government to open the waterway to ships traveling to and from Israel. 


1954: David Ben-Gurion steps down as Minister of Defense, a position he had held since the creation of the state of Israel in 1948.


1954: Pinchas Lavon becomes the second person to hold the position of Minister of Defense


1955: Sid Gilman was named coach of the Los Angeles Rams.


1958: ABC broadcast the first episode of “Sid Caesar Invites You” starring Sid Caesar.


1959: “An Evening with Fred Astaire” with music by David Rose and his Orchestra and produced by Bud Yorkin was re-broadcast this evening.


1968: The film version of Up the Junction starring Maureen Lipman was released today in the United Kingdom.


1968 (25th of Tevet, 5728): The British Admiralty reported the Dakar, an Israeli submarine, was missing and gave the last known position as 100 miles (160 km) west of Cyprus


1969: American businessman and music publisher Allen Klein met with John Lennon today who retained “Klein as his financial representative” in attempt to avoid going broke.


1970: “Can You Top This?” “was briefly revived in syndication by Four Star Television” today featuring “Morey Amsterdam as Executive Producer and regular panelist” along with Paul Winchell and Jack Carter.


1972: “The Hot Rock” the movie version of the novel with same name with a screenplay by William Goldman and co-starring George Segal, Ron Leibman and Zero Mostel was released in the United States today.


1973 (23rd of Shevat, 5733): Famed actor Edward G. Robinson, born Emanuel Goldenberg, passed away.



1975: “Day School Funds for Jews Urged” published today described plans laid out by Rabbi Milton H. Polin, a leader of the Rabbinical Council of America to meeting to meet the “absolutely urgent need “for a “massive infusion of funds” to sustain the network of 473 Hebrew day schools maintained by Orthodox Jews in the United States and Canada” in which approximately “82,000 youths are enrolled.”

1976: Israelopened the "Good Fence" to Lebanon. 


1976: David Mamet's "American Buffalo" premiered in New York City.


1976: Birthdate of William “Willie” Adler, guitarist who played with the Lamb of God.


1977: Birthdate of Livingston, NJ, native Justin Jeremy Gimelstob, the Davis Cup tennis player.

1978: In Cairo, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat announced that serious negotiations were going on behind the scenes on the stalled peace talks and that the US officials expressed hope that the current rift with Israel will soon be over.


1980: Israeland Egypt established diplomatic relations


1981:Finance Minister Yigal Hurvitz and two other Likud members of the Knesset broke away from the Likud to form Rafi - National List.


1986: Nine days after Spain and Israel established full diplomatic relations, Jerusalem designated Shmuel Hadas, “its unofficial envoy in Madrid to become its first ambassador to Spain.”  The Madrid government had already designed Pedro Lopez Aguirrebengoa, its former ambassador to Greece “to head the new Spanish Embassy in Tel Aviv.”


1986:''Between the Wars: The Bronx Express, a Portrait of the Jewish Bronx'' comes to a close at the Bronx Museum of the Arts

1988: In “The Day He Caught Walter Johnson” Ira Berkow describes the highlight of 19 year Bob Berman who formed a battery with The Big Train.

1989: This Boy’s Life, a memoir by Tobias Wolff who did not find out that his father was Jewish until he was an adult, was published today.


1991: Flaws are becoming apparent in the Patriot air defense system deployed against Iraqi Scud missiles, with some warheads exploding and wreaking damage even though the missiles themselves are shot down. Those flaws were evident today, after Iraq fired four more Scud missiles at Tel Aviv and Haifa. The Israeli military said that Patriot defense missiles destroyed the four Scuds, but that at least one Scud warhead survived the midair collisions and exploded on the ground, causing some damage and slightly wounding two Israelis.


1992: Final performance of in Rina Yerushalmi's adaptation of "Hamlet" at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.


1995: ABC broadcast the last episode of “My So-Called Life” a television series created by Winnie Holzman and produced by Edward Zwick and Marshall Herskovitz


1996: “Rent” with Idina Menzel in the role of Maureen Johnson, moved from the New York Theatre Workshop (off-Broadway) to Broadway’s Nederlander Theatre “due to its popularity.”


1996(5th of Shevat, 5756): Thirty six year Gold Medal winning wrestler David L. Schultz passed away today.

1997: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Moses Mystery: The African Origins of the Jewish People by Gary Greenberg and The Creation of Dr. B: A Biography of Bruno Bettelheimby Richard Pollak and Girls Onlyby Alex Witchel.


1997: The New York Times published “The Antagonist as Liberator” by Amos Elon

1997: In “The Man He Always Wanted to Be” Susan Boxer provides a detailed review of The Creation of Dr. B: A Biograph of Bruno Bettelheim by Richard Pollak

1997: The Unlikely Spy, the first novel by Daniel Silva which he had begun writing three years ago, “debuted on the New York Times best-seller” today where “it remained for five weeks, rising to number 13.


1998: During what will become known as the Monica Lewinsky ScandalU.S. President Bill Clinton appeared on national and denied having had "sexual relations" with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky.


2001:''Voyages'', Emmanuel Finkiel's film that deals with the Holocaust opens today at the Walter Reade Theater at Lincoln Center.


2001(2nd of Shevat, 5761): Eighty-one year old American political scientist Murray J. Edelman passed away. (As reported by Paul Lewis)

2003: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish author and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Right Man: The Surprise Presidency of George W. Bush by David Frum, AMERIKA (The Man Who Disappeared) by Franz Kafka; translated by Michael Hofmann. An Amazing Adventure: Joe and Hadassah's Personal Notes on the 2000 Campaignby Joe Lieberman and Hadassah Lieberman with Sarah Crichton and newly released inpaperback Einstein’s’ Unfinished Symphony: Listening to the Sounds of Space-Time, by MarciaBartusiak. The author, a freelance science writer with a breezy yet careful style, tells of the efforts by scientists to detect and measure gravitational waves, which Einstein predicted would ripple through the fabric of space-time. Her account is ''informative and easy to read,'' DavidGoodstein wrote here in 2000. ''When a gravity wave is first detected, the reader of this book will feel like a participant in the great event.''


2003: “After 45 performances and 28 previews, the curtain came down on a Broadway revival of “Dinner at Eight,” “a 1932 American play by George S. Kaufman and Edna Ferber.”


2006: As part of events leading up to Holocaust Memorial Day observances in Poland, Holocaust survivors mixed with the young at the memorial to the victims of the Warsaw Ghetto.


2006: The Fifteenth Annual Jewish Film Festival comes to an end in New York.


2006: Hamas, an organization committed to the creation of a Palestinian state in all of the territory stretching from the Jordan to the Mediterraneanwon 76 of the 132 seats in the first parliamentary elections held in the PA in ten years.  The Hamas victory means that the terrorist organization can form a government without any coalition partners.  For many Israelis who had continued to look for an Arab partner for peace, the election results seemed to doom any hopes of peace.


2006:  The board of directors of Hudson’s Bay Co., Canada’s largest chain of department stores, agreed to sell the venerable institution to Jerry Zucker.  Born in Israel, Zucker graduated with a triple major from the University of Florida. He is a resident of Charleston, South Carolinaand ranks #346 on the Forbes Four Hundred List of Richest Americans.


2007: In a sign of growing acceptance of an expanded role for Israelis in international organization, The Jerusalem Post reported that Dr. Margaret Chan, the new director-general of the World Health Organization, has invited Israeli health professionals to contribute their experience and skills to the UN organization. The Chinese born, Canadian educated Chan told the Post that she welcomes from any member country including Israel.


2007:  “A reading” of “Bar Mitzvah Boy” was held at the Chelsea Studios in New York City.


2008: Shabbat Yitro – The Giving of the Ten Commandments


2008: In New York City, the 92nd St Y hosts Israeli Folk Dance: Winter Marathon, an “all-night dancing, guaranteed to chase your winter chills away”   as part of the Israel at 60 Celebration.


2009:The American Jewish Historical Society and the Center for Jewish History present:
 “Stella in the Bois de Boulogne” a dramatic reading of a new play by Jane Wood and Tara Prem that brings alive the historic conflict between Stella Adler of the influential Jewish-American Adler acting dynasty and the controversial artistic director Lee Strasberg, and her subsequent meetings in Paris with Russian director Constantine Stanislavsky in 1934.


2009: Rosh Chodesh Shevat, 5769.


2009: Sports Illustratedreports that Maverick’s owner Mark Cuban was fined $25,000 for what the NBA called “improper interactions with Denver Nuggets players” during and a game on January 13.  Cuban has been fined 14 times by the league for fines totaling almost $1.5 million.


2009: Brad “Ausmus agreed to a 1-year, $1 million deal (plus incentives) to be a back-up catcher for the Los Angeles Dodgers


2009:Faced with a decline in their operating budget and a shrinking endowment, the trustees of Brandeis University voted unanimously today to close the Rose Art Museum and sell its collection to help shore up the university’s finances. The museum, founded in 1961, holds more than 8,000 pieces. It is best known for its collection of modern art, including works by Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns and Roy Lichtenstein. “These are extraordinary times,” Jehuda Reinharz, the president of Brandeis, said in a statement. “We cannot control or fix the nation’s economic problems. We can only do what we have been entrusted to do: act responsibly with the best interests of our students and their futures foremost in mind.” The plan calls for the museum to be closed in late summer and turned into a fine arts teaching center and exhibition gallery. It is unclear how much the collection is worth. The university plans to take all proceeds from the sale and invest them back into the university. Brandeis faces a budget shortfall that could reach $10 million, and the sale of the art is a step to help combat the deficit. The university has already announced a hiring freeze and is considering revamping academic programs to help save money.


2009:Brazilian Jack Terpins was unanimously re-elected president of the Latin American Jewish Congress. A longtime activist in Brazil, Terpins, 61, recently finished his term as president of the Brazilian Israelite Confederation, Brazil's Jewish umbrella organization.


2009: In an Agriprocessor Doubleheader Leah Rubashkin, 36, wife of former Agriprocessors CEO Sholom Rubashkin, testified in a bail appeal hearing Monday that cash found in their home during a search was used for living expenses, not to escape the country while Soglowek Nahariya Ltd an Israeli food company has made a $40 million  offer for the Postville kosher meatpacking company, which became mired in legal and financial troubles after an immigration raid in May snared about one-third of its work force.


2010: “Bad Biology” a horror film that includes an appearance in front of the camera by James Glickenaus  who as a director is usually on the other side of the camera was released in the United States today.


2010: The 92nd Street Y in New York is scheduled to present a program entitled “The Future of Islam” featuring John L. Esposito and Mahmoud Mamdani.


2011: The U.S. Premiere of “Inventory,” a film that tells the story three explorers, who painstakingly deciphered inscriptions on gravestones in the lushly overgrown Jewish cemetery in Warsaw, is scheduled to take place at The New York Jewish Film Festival.


2011: Yona Avrushmi, who was convicted of murder after throwing a grenade into a Peace Now rally killing Emil Grunzweig “was granted parole and released from Rimonim Prison” today.


2011:In Columbus, Ohio the Cultural Arts Committee Meeting of Tifereth Israel is scheduled to meet at the home of Cantor Chomsky.


2011: Historian Lisa Jardin appeared in a BBC documentary investigating her the life of her father Jacob Bronowski the history of science in the 20th century.


2011:Today, the Jerusalem District Police released details regarding its investigation into a cell of Palestinian militants suspected in two murders and 19 other security incidents since 1997. The cell is alleged to be behind the recent stabbing of an American tourist and her friend in the Jerusalem hills five weeks ago; the tourist, Kristine Luken, was killed, while her friend, Kaye Wilson, managed to flee the attackers with serious wounds. Police believe that the same cell carried out the murder of 53-year-old Netta Blatt-Sorek, a resident of Zichron Ya'akov, whose body was found a year ago near the Jerusalem-area monastery of Beit Jamal last year. The militants are suspected in two cases of attempted murder, one count of rape, another of attempted rape, seven incidents of robbery, seven cases of breaking-and-entering, and for shooting at an Israeli military jeep. Jerusalem District Police chief Aharon Franco said that the cell started off as a group of petty criminals and turned into a nationalist threat when it began carrying out attacks to avenge the January 2010 assassination of Hamas official Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai, an incident which has been widely blamed on Israel's Mossad.


2012: “Welcome to Kutsher's: The Last Catskills Resort” is scheduled to have its world premiere on the closing night of the New York Jewish Film Festival.


2012: Comedian Jeff Applebaum and Ari Hoptman are scheduled to appear at the Minneapolis Jewish Humor Festival.


2017: “For A Good Time, Call…” a comedy starring Ari Graynor premiered at the Sundance Film Festival.


2012: Israeli hackers brought down Iran's Press TV website and two websites belonging to the Ministry of Health and Medical Education today.


2013: “My Australia” is scheduled to be shown at the 9th annual Brooklyn Israel Film Festival


2013: Rabbi Sim Glaser is scheduled to entertain audiences at the Minneapolis Jewish Humor Festival with “Material I Can’t Use In Sermons.”


2013(15thof Shevat, 5773): Tu B’Shevat


2013: Six incoming members of the 19th Knesset will have to give up their foreign citizenship before they are sworn in as new MKs on February 5.


2013(15thof Shevat, 5773): Two Ashdod refinery workers were killed this morning after they were exposed to a lethal dose of highly toxic gas.

2014: Meretz chairman and former Education Minister Shulamit Aloni who passed away on January 24 will be laid to rest this morning at the cemetery in Kfar Shamaryahu (As reported by Tova Dvorin)


2014: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Why I Read by Wendy Lesser, My Age of Anxiety by Scott Stossel and Leaving the Sea by Ben Marcus


2014: “The Light Ahead,” a 1939 cinematic version of Fishke der krumer by Mendele Moyker Sforim is scheduled to shown at the Westside Neighborhood School in Los Angeles.


2014: In New York Temple Israel is scheduled to host “The Complete Guide to the Arab Israeli Conflict” presented by Jonathan Cummings.


2014: If her health permits, Clair Moncreif will appear in “Golda’s Balcony” at Le Petit Theatre du Vieux Carré which will be a benefit for the Jewish Foundation of Louisiana. (As reported by the Crescent City Jewish News)


2014: The Center for Jewish History is scheduled to present “America’s Enduring Cantorate” featuring Cantors Jack Mendelsohn and Barbara Ostfeld-Hortowitz.


2014 “Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu does not intend to uproot Jewish settlements anywhere in the West Bank, and will not force any settlers to leave, even under a permanent peace deal with the Palestinians, a well-placed official in the Prime Minister’s Office told The Times of Israel today” (As reported by Raphael Ahren)


2014: An Israeli documentary, “The Green Prince” (directed and written by Nadav Schirman), won the Sundance Film Festival award in the category of Audience Award for World Cinema: Documentary in Park City, Utah today. The film is loosely based on the bestselling memoir “Son of Hamas: A Gripping Account of Terror, Betrayal, Political Intrigue, and Unthinkable Choices” by Mosab Hassan Yousef, the son of senior Hamas member Sheikh Hassan Yousef. (As reported by Marissa Newman)


2015: In “Lone Soldiers’ from Kansas City Serve in Israel’s Army” published today Eric Adler described the life of Jake Fichman who is serving with the IDF.

2016: Matan Porat is scheduled to open 92Y’s Seeing Music festival by providing a live, improvised accompaniment to Buster Keaton’s cinematic masterpiece, The General.


2016(16thof Shevat, 5766): Ninety-four year old character actor Abe Vigoda passed away.

2016: The Hadassah Mission to Jerusalem and the Blooming Desert led by Marlene post is scheduled to being today.


2017:According to IDF data published today, in the 15 months between October 2015 and the end of 2016, 281 terrorist attacks originating in the West Bank were reported throughout the country. Those attacks include 143 stabbing attacks, 89 shooting attacks, 39 vehicular attacks and 9 attacks utilizing explosive devices


2017: The Jerusalem Artichoke Festival which “is being celebrated by more than 50” the capital city’s restaurants is scheduled to come to an end today.


2017: Funeral services are scheduled to be held this morning at Beth Tzedec Synagogue for Hyman Belzberg, one of Canada’s wealthiest citizens who along with his brothers, Samuel and William, had controlled First City Financial Corp. Ltd.,First City Trust Corp. and numerous real estate and development companies across North America.


2017(28th of Tevet, 5777): On the Jewish calendar “Yahrtzeit of David Nieto the Venetian born physician and rabbi, who led the London Sephardic community from the pulpit of Bevis Marks Synagogue.


2017: The Oxford University Jewish Society is scheduled to observe Holocaust Memorial Day today with a screening of “Son of Saul” followed by a short discussion.


2017: The Intown Jewish Academy in partnership with the William Breman Jewish Heritage Museum, Eternal Life-Hemshech and Mt. Scopus, Hadassah Greater Atlanta are scheduled to host “Behind Enemy Lines” during which ninety-six year old Holocaust survivor Marthe Cohn who became a member of the intelligence service of the French First Army and was able to retrieve inside information about Nazi troop movements by slipping behind enemy lines will tell her incredible story of courage, faith and espionage.


2018: OPERATION UNDERSTANDING DC is scheduled to host a virtual luncheon with Aviva Kempner, Director of "Rosenwald"


2018: In Wyoming, The Jackson Hole Jewish Community Center is scheduled to host a “ ‘Tuba’ Shevat Holiday Dinner.”


 


 

This Day, January 27, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. Levin

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January 27



 98: Trajan becomes Roman Emperor after the death of Nerva. The second of the three Jewish revolts against Roman authority took place at the end of Trajan’s reign.  This second revolt took place in the Diaspora.  It started in 115 and lasted until 117.  The revolt began in Egypt and then spread to other parts of North Africa including Libya, Cyrenaica and the Island of Cyprus.  The revolt angered Trajan because it took place while he was campaigning in the East and he saw it as an act of treachery aimed at his rear.  Just as the Jews of the Diaspora remained passive during the two revolts that took place in the land of Israel, so the Jews of Israel took no part in this bloody action which resulted in the destruction of the Cypriot Jewish community and the start of the decline of the Egyptian Jewish community.



661: The Rashidun Caliphate ends with death of Ali, the cousin and son-in-law of Muhammad. Begun in 632, the Caliphate marked a period of conquest that gave Islam control over a large swath of North Africa, the old Persian Empire and the modern Middle East.  It was during this period that the forces of Islam defeated the Byzantines thus giving them control over Jerusalem.



681: The 28 canons adopted by the Twelfth Council of Toledo which contained a series of “diverse measures against the Jews” were read for the fir time in the Church of Santa Maria in Toledo, Spain.



1164(1st of Adar): Poet and philosopher Abraham ibn Ezra passed away



1186: Henry VI, the son and heir of the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick I, married Constance of Sicily. During Henry’s reign Jews would be massacred from the Rhine districts all the way to the Vienna.



1197(6th of Adar): Rabbi Samuel ben Natronai, a tosafist, was broken on the wheel and martyred today.



1343: Pope Clement VI, who had portions of Levi ben Gershon’s (Gersonides) Sefer Milhamot Ha-Shem, ("The Wars of the Lord"), translated into Latin today “issued the Bull Unigenitus Dei filius to justify the power of the pope



1349: The Jews were driven out of Burgundy and escorted as far as Montbozon.



1449: New Christians or Conversos were the targets of a riot in Toledo, Spain. The Conversos especially the wealthy ones, were attacked during a revolt against taxation. Three hundred of them decided to band together and defend themselves. During the attack one Christian were killed. In response, 22 Marranos were murdered and numerous of their houses were destroyed.



1571: Birthdate of Abbas I of Persia, “the 5th Safavid Shah of Iran during whose early reign the “Jews prospered throughout Persia and were encouraged to settle in Isfahan, the new capital.”  As the years wore on, the conditions of the Jews worsened and among other things, they “were forced to wear a distinctive badge on their clothing and headgear.



.1659: Cornelis Janss Plavier and his wife Geertje Andriesz, who were about to leave for New Amsterdam borrowed 1625 guilders, insurance included, from Amsterdam merchant Abraham Cohen Henriquez. The loan was to be repaid with the sale of beaver shipped in the autumn to Amsterdam. Merchandise and bills of lading for the beaver were to be kept by Asser Levy, or in his absence by Joseph d' Acosta, until proper security could be given by the couple for the shipment for which they were obligated. The borrowers were not Jewish; the others involved were.



1695:  Mustafa II becomes the Ottoman sultan in Istanbul on the death of Amhed II. Ahmed II had been born in 1643.  During his reign he imprison Doctor Hayati Zadi in the Yedikule prison where he died. During the reign of Mustafa II, Belgrade was reconqured and the Jews were allowed to return to the city in 1690. Also, Doctor Nuh efendi, Doctor Levi, Doctor Tobias Cohen and Doctor Israel Koenigland were appointed palace doctors. Mustafa ruled until 1703.



1766: In Jamaica, Abigail and Gotchal Levien gave birth to Joicey Levien.



1773: Birthdate of Prince Augustus Frederick, Duke of Sussex, the 6th son of George III who(the one who lost the 13 colonies) who “became a Patron of the Jews' Hospital and Orphan Asylum, later to become the charity known as Norwood” and who supported legislation to remove “the civil liabilities of Jews” passed away today.



1774: Two days after his death at the age of 63, Abram ben Tov was buried at the “Alderney Road (Globe Rd) Jewish Cemetery.



1775: in the town of Leonberg in the Duchy of Württemberg (now Baden-Württemberg), of Joseph Friedrich Schelling and his wife Gottliebin Marie gave birth to German philosopher Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling who was a major influence on Rabbi Sekl Loeb Wormser, Talmudist and Kabbalist who was a follower of Rabbi Nathan Adler.



1780(20thof Shevat, 5540): Amsterdam native Rebecca bat Rab Meir passed away today in the United Kingdom



1781: As the United States garnered allies in its fight for independence, British Admiral Sir George Rodney was informed that Britain was now at war with the United Provinces (Holland) and recommended as "first objects of attack St. Eustatius and St. Martin” attacks that would lead to the worst outbreak of anti-Semitism during the American Revolution



1785: Founding of the University of Georgia. According to the January, 2005 issue of “The Jewish Week,” the University of Georgia is emerging as one of the new “hot campuses” for Jewish students. “In 1993 the state of Georgia began paying full tuition to students with a 3.0 average or better in high school who kept a B average or better in college. So now the University of Georgia, which the Chronicle of Higher Education said had been considered a party school 10 years ago, is now a popular destination for in-state Jewish students. It’s 58th on this year’s U.S. News and World Report ranking of state schools for undergraduates, right below Maryland. Now the University of Georgia Hillel gets as many as 130 students at a Shabbat dinner, according to its director Shawn Laing.”



1788: “The first of England’s flotilla of convict transports dropped anchor at Sydney harbor, New South Wales.”  There were eight Jews among the eight hundred prisoners one of whom was sixteen-year old  Esther Abrahams of London, sentenced to an Australian penal farm for stealing a piece of lace. 



1790: In France, active citizenship was extended to the "well born" Sephardic Jews of Bordeaux, who promptly bowed out of the fight for equal rights. They looked upon their poorer brothers in Alsace-Lorraine with contempt.



1791: The National Assembly grants civil rights to the Jews of Alsace and Lorraine completing the process of emancipation for French Jews.



1806: Birthdate of “German philologist and lexicographer” Wilhelm Freund whose four volume Latin dictionary became “the basis for the standard English-Latin dictionaries in the 19th century” Lewish and Short’s A Latin Dictionary



1808: Jerome Bonaparte granted full civil rights to the Jews of Westphalia



1811: Abraham Lima Lamert married Elizabeth Abrahams at the Great Synagogue.



1813: Birthdate of Heinrich von Friedberg who became a Protestant and enjoyed a successful legal career in Prussia.



1813: Solomon Meyer married Sarah Samuel at the Great Synagogue today.



1814: Seventy-two year old Philip Astley, “the father of the modern circus” who in 1786 hired Jacob de Castro, the son of a Hebrew teacher, to perform in “Amphitheatre and Ambigu-Comique” for several years and a group of whose performers were known as “Astley’s Jews” passed away today.



1814: Fifty-one year old Johann Gottlieb Fichte the German philosopher who in 1793 “singled out Jews and Judaism as constituting a ‘state-within-a-state’ that was ‘predicted on the hatred of the entire human race’ and ‘spreading thought almost all lands of Europe and terribly oppressing its citizens” yet whose Addresses to the German Nation shows “few traces of such Jews-hatred.”



1824: Birthdate of Dutch painter Jozef Israëls. “Descended from a poor Jewish family, Jozef Israëls started taking drawing lessons in 1835 at the Academy Minerva in Groningen….In addition to fishermen scenes and portraits, he expanded his subject matter with peasant scenes, and later in his career he returned to the subject of death and old age, as well as treating Jewish and biblical themes.He traveled extensively and was much honored at home and abroad. Israëls was the most acclaimed Dutch painter in his time, eagerly sought after by collectors in Great Britain, the United States, and other countries. Hailed as a second Rembrandt, he participated in many exhibitions, and his work was disseminated through reproductions.
http://www.nndb.com/people/207/000104892/
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2010/05/22/real-jozef-israels-stand-israeli-curators-crack-mysterious-forgery/
http://www.artrenewal.org/pages/artist.php?artistid=963
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jozef_Isra%C3%ABls



1832: In Alsace, Alexander Aron and his wife, the former Charlotte Ascher Lower, gave birth to Clara Aron.



1836: Benjamin Marks married Abigail Garcia today at the Hambro Synagogue.



1836: Birthdate of Leopold von Sacher-Masoch the Austrian author whose works included Jews and Russians and New Jewish Stories.  “He faithfully described the manners of the Polish Jews but he feared that his affection for them might give the impression that he was an Israelite.”



1842: During the consecration of the first Reform Synagogue in London, Rabbi David Woolf Marks shocked the traditional Anglo-Jewish community by declaring. “We solemnly deny that a belief in the divinity of those traditions written in the Mishnah and the Jerusalem and Babylonian Talmud is of equal obligation to the Israelite with the faith in the divinity of the Laws of Moses… These books are human compositions; and, though we are content to accept with reverence, advice and instruction from our post-biblical ancestors, we cannot unconditionally accept their laws. For Israelites there is but one immutable Law – the sacred volume of the Scriptures commanded by God to be written down for the unerring guidance of His people until the end of time.” Every Hebrew congregation must be authorised to take such measures as shall bring the divine services into consonance with the will of the Almighty, as explained to us in the Law and in the Prophets.”



1843(26thof Shevat, 5603): Sixty-nine year old Levy Salomons, the son of Shiphra Levy Salomons and Solomon Salomons passed away today in the United Kingdom



1847: A ball was held at the Museum Building to raise funds for the establishment of Hebrew school in Philadelphia, PA. Among those in charge of the event were M.H. De Young, Moses Nathans, Isaac Nathans, Benjamin Pincus, S.M. Klossser, and David Van Beil.



1850: Birthdate of Samuel Gompers, first president the American Federation of Labor.  When asked what does the American working man want, Gompers responded, “More!”
http://www.aflcio.org/About/Our-History/Key-People-in-Labor-History/Samuel-Gompers-1850-1924



1859(22nd of Shevat): Rabbi Menahm Mendel of Kotsk passed away



1859: Birthdate of Kaiser Wilhelm II who served as German emperor from 1888 until his abdication in 1918. Wilhelm played many complex roles in the lives of the Jews of Europe.  He missed one opportunity to alter Jewish history by not supporting Herzl when he sought the Kaiser’s help in creating a Jewish state in Eretz Israel. Despite the thousands of Jews who fought and died in his Army, Wilhelm was an anti-Semite who blamed the Jews for Germany’s defeat helping to give rise to the canard about Germany having been defeated by “the stab in the back,” a stab delivered by the Jews.



1860: Birthdate of Sir Charles Solomon Henry, an Australian merchant and businessman who lived mostly in Britain and sat as a Liberal Member of Parliament (MP) in the House of Commons from 1906-1918.



1863: Sixty-eight year Edward Robinson, the American biblical scholar who is considered the “Father of Biblical Geography” passed away.  The American Protestant journeyed to Palestine with Reverend Eli Smith where they identified many of the sites described in the Bible.  Among them was the tunnel dug during the reign of King Hezekiah.  An arch dating back to Herod’s rebuilding of the Second Temple was named Robinson’s Arch in his honor. In 1839, Robinson became the first person to describe Tell el-Hesi., a site later excavated by Flinders Petrie.



1864: During the American Civil War, the Richmond (VA) Examiner published an article today about those who have are deserting the southern Confederacy for the safety of the North with Jews being the only group identified by their religion.  According to the paper, a “great underground route to the North is now open through to Washington, D.C, via the track of the York River Railroad.  This route, so generously left open by the Confederate Government, is patronized daily by scores of the principal of substitutes in search of more healthful localities -- Jews and blockade-runners carrying out gold and running in goods…”



1869: Twelve year old Jacob Bibo, the younger brother of Isaac R. Bibo, who had been placed in the Hebrew Orphan Asylum in March 1867 after his mother died, “left the institution” today “and went to work with a pawnbroker on the Bowery.



1873: In Russia, the recently promulgated Ukase concerning recruiting sailors and soldiers for the Czar’s military went into effect.  Among the change in the new law was the termination of the exemption from service that had been given to Jews who had converted to Christianity. This is one of dozens of exemptions that were terminated.  Now an exemption may be purchased upon payment of 800 silver rubles to the government.



1876(1stof Shevat, 5636): Rosh Chodesh Shevat



1878: President Henry S. Herman presided over the opening session of District Grand Lodge No. 1 of the Independent Order of the B’nai Brit which was being held at the Nilsson Hall in New York City.  District 1 includes New York States, all the states of New England and the Dominion of Canada.



1879: A Commission of Investigation was established to examine charges of immoral contact by Monsignor Thomas John Capel.  Capel’s behavior would lead to his being sent to the United States where he became a popular speaker who delivered an address on patriotism to the Young Men’s Hebrew Association.



1879(3rdof Shevat, 5639): Schiee Jaffe, the native of Gnesen who was the son of Samuel and N.N. Jaffe passed away today in Berlin



1880(14thof Shevat, 5640): Eighty-five year old German born pianist Jacques-Simon Herz passed away today.



1884(29thof Tevet, 5644): Sixty-nine year old Rabbi Gutmann Gumpel Klemperer, the husband of Julie Klemperer, whose intellectual accomplishments included writing “a history of the Prague rabbinate from the death of Yehudah Leib ben Betsal’el (Maharal) through the period ending in 1879” passed away today.



1885: Birthdate of Jerome (David) Kern, one of America's foremost composers of music for the theatre and screen. He is best known as the composer of Broadway musicals like The Cat and the Fiddle (1931) and Roberta (1933). http://www.songwritershalloffame.org/exhibits/C67



1885: Birthdate of musician and composer Harry Ruby.
http://www.songwritershalloffame.org/exhibits/C308



1886: In Atlanta, GA, Joseph L. Loeb of Charleston SC, married Stella Jackson the “youngest daughter of the late J.J. Cohen of Rome, GA” at the “residence of her brother, L.L. Cohen.”



1887: Henry M. Stanley, the leader of the expedition to save Emin Pasha, the apostate Jew turned Christian, turned Moslem, arrived in Cairo.



1888:  Birthdate of mineralogist and petrologist Victor Moritz Goldschmidt



1888: Birthdate of Sacki Gustav one of the many German Jews from Kleinseinach who died while serving in WW I.



1890: In St. Louis, Rabbi Rosentretter presided at the wedding of Fannie Miller, the daughter of A.A. Miller and Morris Elman.



1890: In Albany, NY, Davis S. Mann, a Jewish teller, was denied a promotion to cashier of the Albany County Banks.



1891(NS): Birthdate of Russian and later Soviet author, journalist and activist, Ilya Ehrenburg.



1891: Joseph Kline, the President of a Hebrew Cemetery Society “was put on trial” today “in the Union County charged with larceny and obtaining money under false pretenses from John Leece



1892: Birthdate of Ernst Lubitsch “a German-born Jewish film director” whose “urbane comedies of manners gave him the reputation of being Hollywood's most elegant and sophisticated director” which led critics to say that his films had “the Lubitsch touch".



1892: It was reported today that the recent charity ball hosted at the Brooklyn Academy of Music raised approximately $6,000 for the Hebrew Orphan Asylum.



1893(10thof Shevat, 5653): Russian journalist Nachum Cohen author of “In A Dull Townlet” which “appeared in book form in 1895” passed away today.



1893: It was reported today that the average attendance during 1892 at the Hebrew Technical Institute was 138.  Seventy-five percent of the 32 students who graduated “have obtained desirable positions.



1894: Approximately 200 delegates attended the opening session of the annual meeting of District Lodge No. 1 of B’nai B’rith a the Lexington Avenue Opera House where they heard an address from the retiring President, Judge Goldfogle of the Fifth Judicial District.



1895: It was reported today that the 2,000 people who attended a charity ball in Brooklyn last week raised over $10,000 for the Hebrew Orphan Asylum.



1895: Birthdate of Joseph Rosenstock, the native of Cracow who conducted orchestras in Poland, Japan, Germany and the United States.



1895: “The Navigator Prince Henry” published today provides a detailed review of Prince Henry The Navigator: The Hero of Portugal and of Modern Discovery in which the author C. Raymond Beazly draws on the accounts of Benjamin of Tudela.



1896: It was reported today that Mrs. Wallenstein has been re-elected as President of the Hebrew Infantile Asylum Association.  Mrs. Reiser has been re-elected as Vice President.



1896: Sarah Bernhardt appeared in the role of Marguerite in “La Dame aux Cemelias” at the Abbey Theatre.



1897: Opening session of the Fifth Annual meeting of the American Jewish Historical Society took place in Baltimore, MD.



1897: The Jewish Messenger published a complete report about Henry Herzberg’s speech, “The Soul of Judaism.”



1897(24thof Shevat, 5657): Dr. Solomon Deutsch, a leading philologist, passed away today in New York.  Deutsch was born in Silesia in 1816 and came to the United States in 1857 after completing his education. He served as a rabbi in several cities including Philadelphia and Hartford before retiring to purse an academic career that included the authorship of Hebrew Grammar, Medical Germanand Biblical History.



1897: The Hebrew Union Veteran Association held its annual reception at the Lenox Lyceum in New York City.



1897: “Condition of the Poor” published today included Superintendent N.S. Rosenau’s of the United Hebrew Charities description of the “suffering among the poor Jewish people on the east side” which is made all the worst with the combination of bad weather and economic depression. The Jewish fund is “broke” having provided half a million dollars to the destitute “In the three years from October 1893 to the close of 1896.”



1897: During today’s debate on the proposed Immigration Bill being considered by the House of Representatives, Ohio Congressman Henry Grosvenor said “he would not vote for a measure framed specialty to restrict the Russian Jews” because such a vote would leave him open to charges that he had voted “against a man on account of his religion.”



1898: It was reported today that a lady was wounded by accident when a Spaniard fired at a French non-commissioned officers during today’s anti-Jewish riots in Algiers.



1899: A trial opened in the Assize Court in Paris today  Mme. Henry, has sued Joseph Reinach, a member of the Chamber of Deputies and the editor of the Republic Fracaise for libeling her late husband by calling him “a traitor.”  Mme. Henry is the widow of the late Lt. Col. Henry who committed suicide after having confessed to forging documents used against Alfred Dreyfus.



1899: In Detroit, Leo Franklin “preached his first sermon as Rabbi of Bethel at the Washington Boulevard Temple” today.



1899: Birthdate of football player and manager Béla Guttmann the native of Budapest who “moved to Vienna to escape the anti-Semitism of the Admiral Horthy regime and joined the all-Jewish club SC Hakoah Wien which won the all-league title in 1926.



1900: In Przasnysz, Russian Poland, Abraham Rickover and the former Rachel Unger gave birth to Chaim Godalia Rickover who gained fame as U.S. Naval Academy graduate ,Admiral Hyman G. Rickover, the father of the atomic and later nuclear powered Navy.  He, more than any other single individual, was responsible for the creation of the submarine fleet that gave America its strategic edge over the Soviet Union during the Cold War.
http://www.nytimes.com/1986/07/09/obituaries/rickover-father-of-nuclear-navy-dies-at-86.html?pagewanted=all
https://www.atomicheritage.org/profile/hyman-g-rickover



1901: Birthdate of Abraham Cantarow, the native of Hartford, CT, who served on the faculty of Jefferson Medical College.



1902: Birthdate of Yosef Sapir, the native of Jaffa who served as mayor of Petah Tikva , an MK and a member of the government that guided Israel through the Six Day War.



1902: Birthdate of Alberto Carlos de Liz-Texeira Branquinho, Portugal’s Chargé d'Affaires in Budapest in 1944 who risked his life to save thousands of Hungarian Jews from the Holocaust.
http://vidaspoupadas.idiplomatico.pt/en/



1904: In Mulhouse, Baruch Kahn and Constance Lange gave birth to Edmond Kahn.



1904: Herzl received a telegram from Leopold Greenberg that described a definitive offer from the British Government that would allow for a Jewish homeland in Nandi, a territory in the colony of Kenya. Greenberg advised immediate acceptance and the sending of an expedition. Greenberg was a British Zionist and publisher of the Jewish Chronicle.



1906: “Joseph Hartigan, President of the senior class” presided over “a mass meeting and conference held by the New York University Relief Association” tonight ‘at the Educational Alliance in East Broadway” where “the massacres of the Jews in Russia were denounced and protest was ordered sent to President Roosevelt.”



1907(12thof Shevat, 5667): Ninety-year old Moritz Steinschneider who overcame anti-Semitism to become a noted bibliographer and Orientalist
http://www.yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Steinschneider_Moritz



1908: “Ein Walzertraum (A Waltz Dream),”an operetta by Oscar Straus opened today at the Broadway Theatre in New York City.



1909: Birthdate of boxer Lou Halper.



1910(17thof Shevat, 5670: Mrs. Chaie Schore Schaker passed away today in Liepaja



1911: Birthdate of Blanche Margaret Meagher, who served as the Canadian ambassador to Israel from 1958 to 1961 making her the first woman to serve as a Canadian ambassador.



1912: In New York City, President Taft attended a ball sponsored by the Daughters of Jacob, an organization established in 1895 to fund a home for aged Jewish citizens.



1913: Twenty-four year old Alvah Myer who won a Silver Medal at the 1912 Olympics ran what he thought was “a world-best time in the 100 meters at the Lyceum Games in New York” which the AAU would later disallow. (As reported by Bob Wechsler)



1913(19thof Shevat, 5673): Fifty-three year old City Magistrate Moses J. Harris passed away today in Brooklyn.



1915: During a series of campaigns that would result in the British holding Palestine, one part of the German-led Ottoman troops cut the road between El Arish and Qantra Road while another unit attacked “near Qantara in the northern sector of the Suez Canal and near the town of Suez in the south”



1915: Birthdate of basketball player Edward L. “Ed” Keller who played for Duquesne before turning professional and playing two seasons with the NBL.



1915: Among those listed today as contributors to the American Jewish Relief Committee were the Sewing Circle of Memphis, TN, the B’nai B’rith Lodge of Meridian, Mississippi, the House of Israel, Hot Springs, Arkansas and Temple B’nai Israel, Natchez, Mississippi



1916: Citizens of the United States responded generously today, which President Wilson and several governors had officially proclaimed as Jewish Relief Day as a way of aiding the Central Committee for the Relief of Jews Suffering Through the War reach their 1916 fund raising goal of five million dollars. In response to a Congressional Resolution asking him to do so, President Wilson had issued a proclamation proclaiming January 27 as Jewish Relief Day and urged people to donate to the committee or send contributions to the American Red Cross to aid the Jews in war-torn Europe and Palestine.
http://blogs.yu.edu/library/2016/01/26/president-woodrow-wilson-world-war-i-and-jewish-relief-day-january-27-1916/



1916: As a twenty-four fund raising effort that began last night in San Francisco continued today, Governor Hiram W. Johnson of California urged “Californians to aid in the work.”



1916: In response to the fund raising efforts on Jewish Relief Day, “employees in factories has contributed their dinner money” to the cause including a large number of Italians working on the East Side.



1916: In Richmond, VA, Governor Henry Carter Stuart, Mayor George Ainslie and Right Revered Dennis J. O’Connell, the Catholic Bishop of the Diocese of Richmond were among the speakers at meeting attended by Jews and Christians under the auspices of the Jewish War Relief Committee during which almost $17,000 was raised



1916: Across the United States, “many workmen are giving their day’s pay and many business men are contributing a part of their proceeds on Jewish Relief Day.



1916: As part of Jewish Relief Day, in Cincinnati, $50,000 has been contributed and another $50,000 pledged to the American Jewish Relief Committee.



1916: As part of Jewish Relief Day, the Fruit and Produce Merchants’ Committed raised $8,207 at a fruit auction today.



1916: Nobody was exempt from the thousands of volunteers participating in the Tag Day fundraising event today including President Wilson who bought two tags – one from Dr. David S. Sola Pool and one from Miss Ruth V. Kahn.



1916: Albert Lucas, the Executive Secretary of the Central Committee sent the following telegram to President Wilson: “The Central Committee for the Relief of Jews suffering Through the War respectfully desires to express its grateful appreciation of your action in proclaiming today as Jewish Relief Day.  Entirely apart from the immense sum of money which will doubtless be raised through the efforts of thousands of volunteers of all sects and creeds that are devoting to for the aid of the stricken Jewish people your Excellency has the assurance that we are convinced that day be reckoned as the dawn of another emancipation day.”



1916: The American Jewish Relief Committee announced today that, to date, it has received $1,262,700.78 of which “$1,070,748.56 was in cash and $191,952.22 in pledges.”



1917: As World War I drags on for a third year it is reported that not one home in the Jewish quarter of Belgrade remains standing undamaged. Large numbers of Jews have immigrated to Greece from various areas in the Balkans. The Americans sent $55,000 to help with relief in Serbia and Greece, after receiving a cablegram for help from the Chief Rabbi of Salonica, Jacob Meir.



1917(4thof Shevat, 5677): Eighty year old Rabbi Moses Samuel Zuckermandl, a student of Samson Raphael Hirsch, passed away today in Breslau.



1918: “At the annual meeting of the Federation for the Support of Jewish Philanthropic Societies held tonight at the Manhattan Opera House, officers reported great success during the first year of the federation and the members cheered the announcement of full victory for the two week’s drive to get 50,000 new members, pledged to the maintenance of the 89 welfare bodies embraced in the organization.”



1919: “Oh, Joy!” the English version of the Jerome Kern musical “Oh, Boy!” opened in London at the Kingsway Theatre.



1920: The Palestine Military Railways, the British operator of the Jaffa-Jerusalem Railway began rebuilding the line today, widening to “standard gauge” today.



1924: Birthdate of Harvey Irwin Shapiro, the Chicago born poet who became an editor of the New York Times (As reported by Margalit Fox)
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/08/books/harvey-shapiro-poet-of-new-york-and-beyond-dies-at-88.html?_r=0



1925: London born, American featherweight David “Danny” Frush who fought under the name “Seaman Clarke” lost his bout today in Paris by a Knockout.



1926: Birthdate of journalist, broadcaster and humorist Fritz Spiegl.  Born and educated in Austria, Spiegel and his family fled when the Nazis annexed Austria.  He settled in England where he lived and worked until his death in 2003.



1929: Birthdate of German-born American chess champion Hans Berliner.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/16/business/hans-berliner-master-chess-player-and-programmer-dies-at-87.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=1



1929: “Marquis Preferred” a comedy featuring Mischa Auer was released in the United States today.



1929: Birthdate of Richard Ottinger, a New York Democratic Party leader who served in the House of Representatives and then pursued a career with the Pace University School of Law.



1930: According to reports published today, “there are more than 213,000 volumes in the Hebrew University Library.”  During 1929, 22,000 volumes were added to the library’s collection. The library includes the ‘only medical library of note in the entire region.’” The Library has expanded its locations as well as it collection.  Based on the demand of physicians in Palestine, the library has established a branch medical library at the Nathan Straus Health Center in Jerusalem and another such facility in Tel Aviv.



1931: Birthdate of author Mordecai Richler.  A native of Montréal many Americans know him as the author The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz which was later turned into a film of the same name. His first novel, The Acrobats (1954), is about a young Canadian painter in Spain with a group of expatriates and revolutionaries. Richler was a sharp cultural critic, and his books The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz (1959), St. Urbain's Horsemen (1971), and Joshua Then andNow (1980) all deal with greed and success. He wrote a collection of humorous essays titled Notes on an Endangered Species and Others (1974), and a series of children's books. He said, "Coming from Canada, being a writer and Jewish as well, I have impeccable paranoia credentials."



1934: “Bedside,” drama produced by Samuel Bischoff was released in the United States today.



1936: Supreme Court Justice McCook, who had been hearing a suit brought S.S. & B Live Poultry Corporation to restrain the Kashruth Association of New York from proceeding against it for failing to use leg band, “handed down a decision” today “upholding the right of the association, a semi-official organization of laymen and orthodox rabbis to declare a ban against all poultry not killed under the supervision of the organization and not bearing leg-bands or seals sold by it.”



1936: The National Conference of Jewish Federations and Welfare Fund ended its annual meeting today after having agreed that American and British Jews were committed “to the withdrawal of the younger generation of Jews from Germany” after “it was revealed that” the plans involved “no incidental benefits to Germany such as withdrawal of Jewish property in the form of German goods to be sold and accepted by Jews in abandonment of the boycott” already in place.



1937:  Delegates to the annual convention of the Federation of Jewish Women’s Organizations who represented 125,000 women engaged in a variety of Jewish communal activities “pledge their support to the Child Labor Amendment which was designed to that children are “not called upon to do the work of adults.”



1937: While discussing “the problems facing the Jews of the world” today Rabbi Stephen S. Wise “decried the threat recently made by the government of Poland ‘to compel 3,000,000 Jews to emigrate from that country’” which “he added was in violation of the covenant under which that country” had been created “under the Treaty of Versailles.”



1938: A special issue of the Stuermer, the anti-Semitic newspaper published by Julius Streicher – a favorite of Hitler – on sale today included a demand that Jewish men and Aryan woman “found guilty of having relations” should be subject to the death penalty.



1938: The Palestine Post reported on the plight of the Jews in Romania. Under the new restrictions over 200,000 Jews had lost their trading licenses and one hundred thirty Jewish lawyers at Yassy had been expelled from the bar.



1938: In a greeting to the National Council for Jewish Women meeting in Pittsburgh, Albert Einstein urged the attendees to remember that “Mutual assistance is” the “one weapon” in the “bitter struggle” of the Jews “for existence” and that although “weakened through dispersion in countless factions” the Jews ‘remained united through this fairest of all duties – the duty of selfish mutual aid.”



1938: The Palestine Post reported that Tel Aviv Mayor Israel Rokach opened a picturesque garden on the seven-dunam oval island at Zina Dizengoff Circle.



1939: It was announced from Berlin today that “the negotiations between George Rublee, American chairman of the Intergovernmental Committee on Refugees and Dr. Helmuth Wohlthat of Germany regarding the evacuation of Jews from” Germany “are progressing satisfactory.” (Editor’s Note – These words, have, to say the least, a hollow ring to them as we observe Holocaust Memorial Day.)



1940 (17th of Shevat, 5700): Based on information that became public in the 1990’s, today is the day on which author Isaac Babel was shot to death after being found guilty of belonging to an anti-Soviet Trotskyite organization and with spying for France and Austria during a 20 minute trial that had been held the day before. Babel had been arrested by Stalin’s NKVD in 1939 and shipped off to a Siberian labor camp. Two of Babel’s more famous works were Red Cavalry based on his experiences as a cavalry officer fighting against the Whites and Odessa Tales which describes the richly textured Jewish society of Odessa.  Babel was rehabilitated in the 1950’s by Khrushchev.



1941: The fund raising campaign of the United Talmud Torahs of Montreal is scheduled to come to a close tonight.



1942: Gussie Schwebel and her son Jack delivered three dozen of her knishes to Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt at her house located at 49 East 65th Street in Manhattan.



1943: Simon Attali, “a self-educated person who achieved success in perfumery ("Bib et Bab" shop) in Algiers” and Fernande Abécassis, the parents French economist Jacques Attali nd his sister Fabienne were wed to in the French North African colony.



1943: Members of the 'Amitié Chrétienne’ held an emergency meeting at the home of Swiss Protestant pastor Roland de Pury to try and find a way to warn Jews that the Gestapo was watching the offices of the Union Générale des Israélites de France (UGIF),where they were going to get false documents.  They decided to have Germaine Ribière pose as a cleaning lady, who, while cleaning the stairs would warn the Jews not to end the building. Germaine Ribière was a Catholic member of the French Resistance who was recognized as a Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem for her efforts to save Jews from the Nazis. The 'Amitié Chrétienne’ was founded in Lyon, France, in 1941 with the goal of saving Jews and others from the Nazis and the Vichy Governments



1944: SS Morris Hillquit, a liberty ship named after the Jewish Socialist who opposed the United States entering World War I, was launched today. Like so many other supply vessels that survived the war, it would be sold to a private entity in 1947 and finally be scrapped in 1968.  Not bad for a ship that was built in 34 days.



1945: The Soviet army entered Auschwitz and liberated more than 7,000 remaining prisoners, who were mostly ill and dying. It is estimated that at minimum 1.3 million people were deported to Auschwitz between 1940 and 1945; of these, at least 1.1 million were murdered
http://www.ushmm.org/information/exhibitions/online-features/special-focus/liberation-of-auschwitz
http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/this_month/january/14.asp



1945: The Red Army entered Birkenau and found it almost entirely empty of human inhabitants. One survivor found in the hospital was Anne Frank's father, Otto. Anne had died there months earlier from decease. (Otto would return to Amsterdam to find the famed diary.) Though most of the storage facilities were already destroyed, the Russians discover 836,255 women's dresses, 348,000 sets of men's suits and 38,000 pairs of men's shoes.



1945: After Soviet troops liberated Auschwitz today Salamo Arouch, a Greek-born Jewish boxer who survived the death camp by winning fight after fight against fellow prisoners, began searching other liberated camps for any family members who might have survived. During the search he found Marta Yechiel, a girl from his home in Greece.  The two moved to Palestine, married and raised a family that included four children and 12 children at the time of his death.



1945: Tzipora Shapiro, whose “father, grandfather, brothers, aunts, and uncles all died in the Lodz Ghetto,” and whose mother was gassed at Auschwitz “walked out of the gates” that same death camp today. (As reported by Yardena Schwartz)



1945: “Up in Central Park” a music with a book by Herbert and Dorothy Fields and a score by Sigmund Romberg and Dorothy Fields, choreographed by Helen Tamiris opened on Broadway at the New Century Theatre where it ran for 504 performances.



1946: Four hundred people marched 15 miles in the snow to the town of Celle to attend the wedding of Holocaust survivors Lilly and Ludwig Friedman’s wedding.  Lily wore a wedding gown that had been created from a parachute acquired from a former Nazi pilot by an unknown seamstress.  For Lilly “the dress symbolized the innocent, normal life she and her family had once led before the world descended into madness.”  The dress would eventually go on display at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington.



1947: As part of “Aliya Bet,” the Chaim Arlozoroff set sail from Trelleborg, Sweden, carrying 664 survivors of the European death camps.  Most of those on board, who were labeled illegal immigrants by the British, were women.  When the ship finally arrived in Haifa, a struggle ensued at the end of which the British transferred the former camp inmates to detention camps at Cyprus.
http://www1.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/this_month/february/14.asp



1952: Birthdate of Brian Gottfried, Baltimore born tennis star who won the Wimbledon Doubles in 1976



1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that over 2,000 frightened refugees, including many Jews, escaped the purges in East Germany and crossed over from East to West Berlin. Israel got an urgently needed one-year loan of $16 million from an American group of banks, headed by the Bank of America.



1955: At the Boston Medical Library an exhibit of Jewish medical leaders, including medieval manuscripts and awards presented to Jewish physicians.



1955: “Plain and Fancy,” a musical comedy co-authored by Joseph Stein opened at the Mark Hellinger Theatre for the first of 461 performances.



1956: “The Court Jester,” a musical comedy directed and produced by Melvin Frank who also co-wrote the script and starring Danny Kaye was released in the United States a month after it had premiered in Japan.



1957(25th of Shevat):  Yiddish poet Zishe Weinper passed away



1958: Birthdate of Rabbi Judith Z. Abrams.
http://www.jta.org/2014/10/24/news-opinion/united-states/rabbi-dr-judith-abrams-pioneering-online-talmud-teacher-dies-at-56



1959: Birthdate of Keith Olbermann former TV sportscaster and former MSNBC host.



1961: "Sing Along with Mitch" featuring Mitch Miller premiered on NBC TV



1962: “A Family Affair” a musical about Chicago Jewish wedding with a book by James Goldman and William Goldman, lyrics by James Goldman and John Kander, and music by Kander all of whom share a suburban Chicago Jewish upbringing opened on Broadway today at the Billy Rose Theatre with a cast that included Shelly Berman, Larry Curt, Morris Carnovsky and Linda Lavin



1964: Red Buttons married Alicia Pratt, his third and last wife today.



1964(13th of Shevat, 5724): Lieb Glantz, famed chazzan and composer, passed away at the age of 65



1965(24thof Shevat, 5724): Eighty-six year old Siberian born American Modernist painter Abraham Walkowitz who may be best known for his drawings of Isadora Duncan passed away today.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Walkowitz#/media/File:Brooklyn_Museum_-_Isadora_Duncan_29_-_Abraham_Walkowitz.jpg
http://www.askart.com/artist/Abraham_Walkowitz/30115/Abraham_Walkowitz.aspx
https://americanart.si.edu/artist/abraham-walkowitz-5214



1965: Up the Down Staircase, a best-selling novel written by Bel Kaufman was published today. Writing must be in her blood since she is the granddaughter of Shalom Aleichem, something not mentioned in any of the education classes that I took where this book was mandatory reading. 



1966: “Morgan – A Suitable Case for Treatment” a comedy starring David Warner in the title role was released today in the United Kingdom.



1968: A radio station in Nicosia, Cyprus, received a distress call on the frequency of the INS Dakar's “emergency buoy, apparently from south-east of Cyprus, but no further traces of the submarine were found.”



1968: Congregation Shaar Hashomayim began the dedication of its new chapel with a Sabbath Service.



1969(8th of Shevat, 5729): Nine Jews were publicly executed in Damascus Syria



1969(8thof Shevat, 5729): Seventy-eight year old Leon Pines, the native of Vilna who moved to the United States in 1907 where he pursued a career in manufacturing and who was a member of several Jewish organizations including the American Friends of Hebrew University passed away today in Miami Beach.



1969: A day after Beatle John Lennon retained Allen Klein as his new financial representative in an attempt to stave impending economic ruin, the two met with the other Beatles who opted to remain with their own money managers.



1970(20thof Shevat, 5730): Eighty-three year old Maurice Samuel Calman, the Romanian born American oral surgeon who served on the Board of Alderman passed away today.



1971(1st of Shevat, 5731) Rosh Chodesh Shevat



1972(11thof Shevat, 5732): Eighty four year old mathematician Richard Courant, co-author of What is Mathematics?  who was forced to flee Germany even though he had fought for the Kaiser, passed away today. (As reported by Harry Schwartz)
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=940DE2DC103DEF34BC4151DFB7668389669EDE



1973(24th of Shevat, 5733): Actor John Banner passed away.  Best known for his portrayal of Sgt. Schultz in the television hit “Hogan’s’ Heroes,” Banner was born on this date in 1910.



1974: “Lorelie” a musical with “lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green and music by Jule Styne” which was based on “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes” opened at Broadway at the Palace Theatre.



1975: “The Main in the Glass Booth” a film adaptation of a novel and play that old the story of bringing Adolf Eichmann to justice, directed by Arthur Hiller, produced by Ely Landau and featuring Luther Adler was released today in the United States.



1977: Broadcast of the first episode of “Lanigan’s Rabbi” based on the novels of Harry Kemelman featuring the character of “Rabbi David Small.”



1977:Operation Thunderbolt,” known in Israel as Mivtsa Yonatan, (literally "Operation Jonathan"), a 1977 Israeli film based on an actual event – the hijacking of a flight and the freeing of hostages (Operation Entebbe) at Entebbe Airport in Entebbe, Uganda, on July 4, 1976, directed by Menahem Golan and starring Klaus Kinski, Yehoram Gaon, and Sybil Danning was released in Israel today.



1978: The Jerusalem Post reported that Egypt embarked on a massive diplomatic effort to explain why it had broken off peace talks with Israel.



1978(18thof Shevat, 5738): Seventy-nine year old Viennese actor Oscar Holmoka who, among other things was nominated for an Oscar for his role in “I Remember Mama” which was a reprise of the same part he played in the Broadway version of the play.
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=9A02E1DE1E3EE632A2575AC2A9679C946990D6CF



1978: The Jerusalem Post reported that The Jerusalem Municipality had begun the installation of a sewerage network at the Anatot Refugee Camp, despite UNRWA's objections that this would violate the camp's protected status as a "refugee camp of implicitly temporary nature." UNRWA had previously objected to the installation of such a network, despite the 1970 cholera outbreak. (This should provide a slightly different slant on the "refugee problem" and how these poor souls are being exploited.)



1982:  In an example of “The Bible on Broadway,”  "Joseph and the Amazing Dreamcoat" opened at the Royale in New York City for the first of what would be a total of 747 performances. 



1982(3rdof Shevat, 5742): Seventy-nine year old Alexander Abusch who joined the  Communist Party of Germany in 1918 and survived the Nazi years by living in Mexico and returned to serve as the Minister of Culture of East Germany passed away today



1986(17thof Shevat, 5746): Eighty-one year old American artist Edward Biberman passed away.
http://www.lacma.org/art/installation/edward-biberman



1989: “Parents,” a “black comedy horror film directed by Bob Balaban” was released today in the United States.



1991: In the midst of Iraqi attacks on Israel 74 year old Alexander Goldberg, a retired aeronautical engineer from Hempstead, Long Island,  will join more than 100 other Americans, both Jews and Christians, for a flight tonight to Israel, where they will be put to work at army bases, hospitals and collective settlements, or kibbutzim. Some will pick fruit or help maintain army tanks; others will work in a factory that makes protective gear for chemical warfare.  In the midst of Iraqi attacks on Israel



1992: Singer Ofra Haza and the Amka Oshrat Yemenite Dance Troupe appear in concerted at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.



1993: During the Intifada, Israeli troops killed a Palestinian terrorist.



1994(15th of Shevat, 5754): Tu B'Shevat



1994(15thof Shevat, 5754(: Eighty-one year Ruben Mattus, the Jewish immigrant who along with his wife Rose created “Haagen-Dazs ice cream” passed away today.
http://www.nytimes.com/1994/01/29/obituaries/reuben-mattus-81-the-founder-of-haagen-dazs.html



1994: The second season of “Homicide: Life on the Street” produced by Barry Levinson and co-starring Yaphet Kotto and Richard Belzer came to an end this evening.



1995: U.S. premiere of “Miami Rhapsody” written and directed by David Frankel with a cast that included Sarah Jessica Parker, Paul Mazursky, Jeremy Piven and Ben Stein.



1996(6thof Shevat, 5756): Eighty-six year old Israel Eldad the native of Galicia who became a leading member of the Irgun and winner of the Bialik Prize passed away.



1996:  Germany observed its 1st Holocaust Remembrance Day



1997(19thof Shevat, 5757): Ninety-six year old Saginaw, Michigan born composer Gerald Marks best known the hit “All of Me” passed away today in New York.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-gerald-marks-1278362.html
https://www.allmusic.com/artist/gerald-marks-mn0000653199



1997: FOX broadcast the final episode of “Ned and Stacey” a sitcom starring Debra Messing.



1997: It was revealed today that French museums had nearly 2,000 pieces of art that were stolen by the Nazis.



1999: Moshe Arens begins serving as Defense Minister.



1999: An e-mail sent today that “ultimately reached White House adviser Sidney Blumenthal” detailed “a Dartmouth College Jewish studies professor’s defense of” charges that President Clinton had committed adultery because “According to classical Jewish law, President Clinton did not commit adultery; adultery is defined as a married man having intercourse with a married woman, and Monica Lewinsky is single,” (As reported by Lazar Berman)



2000: An off-Broadway revival of “The Time of the Cuckoo” by Arthur Laruents opened at the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater today.



2001: Survivors of Auschwitz have gone on a poignant march past the gas chambers which claimed their fellow prisoners as Europe marked Holocaust Memorial Day. Today, Shabbat, 700 people, including camp survivors and local Jewish leaders, walked from the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp's Gate of Death to its giant memorial wall, past the remains of the gas chambers and the crematoria. The Nazis killed 1.5 million people in Auschwitz, the highest number at any camp, before hastily retreating from an advancing Soviet army which liberated Auschwitz on January 27, 1945. The Auschwitz-Birkenau camp, regarded as the world's largest Jewish burial ground, now houses a museum and is little changed from the day Red Army troops freed its last inmates. Polish Prime Minister Jerzy Buzek told the participants in a letter that they were the "guardians of this tragic heritage of mankind." Ceremonies from London to Lithuania marked the 56th anniversary of the Auschwitz death camp's liberation. Britain and Italy held their first-ever Holocaust memorial days, while survivors, spiritual leaders and politicians across the continent pledged to remember a grim historical lesson about the consequences of intolerance.



"Not everyone who survived has the strength to share," said Auschwitz survivor Hedi Fried, speaking at a forum in Stockholm, Sweden. "We who can have an extra obligation. We owe it to our murdered parents, the 6 million Jews, 500,000 Gypsies and countless homosexuals, Russians and Poles who died." Britain observed its first national Holocaust Memorial Day with ceremonies across the country and a London service that also honours victims of other 20th-century genocides. The guest list for the memorial at Westminster Central Hall in London included Prince Charles, Prime Minister Tony Blair, the archbishops of Canterbury and Westminster and Britain's chief rabbi, Jonathan Sacks. The ceremony included tributes to survivors of violence in Cambodia, Bosnia and Rwanda. In Germany, where a sharp rise this year in violent attacks on minorities gave the annual Day of Remembrance for Victims of Nazism added resonance, Parliament president Wolfgang Thierse issued a warning about the dangers of neo-Nazism. Germans must show "commitment to democracy and against raging right-wing extremism," he told Deutschland Radio. "This isn't about remembrance without consequences."



Six million Jews and five million others, including communists, homosexuals, gypsies and the mentally retarded, perished under the Nazi regime. Italy also marked Holocaust Memorial Day for the first time, with a ceremony in Milan organised by Italian unions and a moment of silence during evening soccer games. Padua, in northern Italy, was honoring Giorgio Perlasca, a butcher credited with saving more than 5,000 Italian Jews by pretending to be a Spanish diplomat. Italian President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi acknowledged Italy's blame in the Holocaust, calling Benito Mussolini's racial laws a betrayal of the country's founding principles.



"But numerous Italians knew how to further the demands of their conscience against the violence of the dictator," he said. About 7,000 Jews were deported from Italy during the Holocaust, and 5,910 of them died. Lithuanian Jews gathered in Vilnius to mark the anniversary, and in Sweden, Prime Minister Goeran Persson was attending a ceremony at a Stockholm synagogue. The Jewish Museum planned a lecture, music and a reading from Anne Frank's diary.



United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan was to give the keynote speech in Sweden on Monday at an international conference on ethnic and religious intolerance.



2002: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish author and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including What Went Wrong? Western Impact and Middle Eastern Responseby Bernard Lewis and Beyond the Last Village: A Journey of Discovery in Asia's Forbidden Wilderness by Alan Rabinowitz.



2002: In Great Britain, a Holocaust event, organized by the Holocaust Education Trust, takes place in Bridgewater Hall. Extracts of the event will be broadcast by the Granada group of television companies during the week following the event. The second UK Holocaust Memorial Day takes place in Manchester involving the participation of survivors from the Holocaust and victims of contemporary racism and prejudice, young people and a range of community representatives.



2002(14thof Shevat, 5762): Ninety-five year old Nettie Konigsberg, the widow of Martin Konigsberg and mother of Allan Stewart Konigsberg better known as Woody Allen passed away today.



2002(14thof Shevat, 5762: Eighty-one year old Pinhas Tokalti was murdered and more than a hundred were injured today when a female terrorist “worked for he Palestinian Red Crescent in Ramallah” “detonated a 22 pound explosive device at the entrance to a “shoe store located on Jaffa Street in Jerusalem



2003: In the United Kingdom the main Holocaust Memorial Day event took place in Edinburgh with a theme of “Children and the Holocaust.



2003: Polls published today affirmed that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of Israel is likely to retain his post in elections on Tuesday, and then to face the complex challenge of assembling a durable coalition from a fragmented Parliament.



2004: An event establishing January 27 as memory day for Greek Jews and Holocaust victims was held at the Athens Concert Hall's convention center today, under the auspices of the foreign ministry. 



2004:Israel honored 9 Greeks for their efforts to save Jews during WWII. Today, Israel’s ambassador to Athens presented that country’s influential “Righteous Among the Nations” award to nine Greek nationals who saved persecuted Jewish compatriots during the Nazi occupation of Greece (1941-44). Ambassador Ram Aviram presented the awards the same day as the recently enacted Greek Holocaust Memorial Day (Jan. 27), with a relevant event held at the Athens Concert Hall (Megaron) as well. According to a press release by the Israeli embassy in Athens, the “Righteous among the Nations” awards are given by “Yad Vashem”, an institute created by the Israeli state to perpetuate the memory of the six million victims of the Holocaust. They are bestowed to individuals who risked their lives to save Jews during the Second World War. More than 200 Greek citizens have been honored by the Yad Vashem Institute, including the late Archbishop of Greece during the occupation, Damaskinos, the Greek chief of police at the time, Angelos Evert, the Metropolitans of Zakynthos and Dimitrias at the time, Chrysostomos and Loakeim, respectively, the one-time mayor of Zakynthos, Loukas Karrer, and many other unsung Greek heroes of World War II. This year’s awardees are Dimos and Theodora Vevelekos, Michalis and Eleni Mavridis, Smaragda Sarafianou, Ioannis and Tasia Spentzos as well as Ilias and Angeliki Kazantzis. The president of the Central Board of Greek Jewish Communities, Moses Konstantinis, also participated at the ceremony.



2004, Modena Municipality, the Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Modena, the Istituto Storico di Modena and the Jewish Community of Modena and Reggio Emilia organized a Study Convention in memory of Angelo Donati and an exhibition with photos



2005: The Fourteenth Annual New York Jewish Film Festival comes to an end.



2005: Arno Lustiger, the historian who documented “Jewish resistance under Nazi rule” and Wolf Bierman whose father was a member of the resistance who was murdered because he was Jewish spoke before the German Bundestag.



2005: At a ceremony marking the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, the former Foreign Minister of Poland Władysław Bartoszewski delivered a speech in which he paid honor to Jan Karski when he said, "The Polish resistance movement kept informing and alerting the free world to the situation. In the last quarter of 1942, thanks to the Polish emissary Jan Karski and his mission, and also by other means, the Governments of the United Kingdom and of the United States were well informed about what was going on in Auschwitz.” (While his comments about Karski are true, there are those who would say he provided a distorted picture of the Polish Resistance movement’s treatment of the Jews.)



2005: Holocaust Memorial Day in Great Britain. Holocaust Memorial Day is a national event in the United Kingdom dedicated to the remembrance of the victims of the Holocaust. It was first held in January 2001, and has been hold on 27 January every year since. The chosen date is the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz concentration camp by the Soviet Union in 1945. This year’s major event took place in London with a theme of “Survivors, Liberation and Rebuilding Lives.



2006: The following column in the Jerusalem Post explains the importance of the First annual "International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust.



Last November the United Nations General Assembly designated January 27 as an annual "International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust." With 104 co-sponsors, including Israel, the historic UN resolution selected that date as it is the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. During the 1950s the Knesset debated which date to establish as Israel's Holocaust Remembrance Day. The Chief Rabbinate had already designated the 10th of Tevet - an existing fast day marking the beginning of the siege of Jerusalem that culminated in the destruction of the Temple - as the date of "General Kaddish" for Holocaust survivors who did not know the date of death of their fallen family members. The ultra-Orthodox rabbinate suggested adding - as had been done to signify the destruction of Jewish communities by marauding Crusaders - additional piyyutim (liturgical poems) relating to the Holocaust to the lamentations recited on Tisha B'Av itself, the solemn fast day commemorating the destruction of the first and second Temples. While incorporating the Holocaust within existing fast days marking national calamities reflected the traditional view that the Holocaust was yet another chapter in a long story of Jewish suffering through the ages, others argued that the Holocaust needed to be commemorated on its own.After long debate, the Knesset established the 27th day of Nisan as "Yom Hashoah Ve-Hagevura," literally "Holocaust and Heroism Day." The date marks the anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, which in fact began on the 15th day of Nisan (April 19, 1943). Since the actual beginning of the uprising coincided with Pessah, the Knesset, as a compromise, chose a date that falls a week after the end of Pessah and a week before Yom Hazikaron, our Memorial Day for fallen soldiers, and Independence Day - but within the span of the nearly month-long uprising. As a further compromise, the legislation provided that if the 27th day of Nisan impinged upon Shabbat (i.e. fell on a Friday or a Saturday), the commemoration would be moved to the following Sunday. In effect, both sides of the debate in Israel in the 1950s wanted to place the Holocaust within an established context, either the traditional suffering of the Jew or the heroic Zionist model of the "new" Jew. Neither wanted to face the enormity and senselessness of the tragedy, especially in the first decade after World War II.In its infancy, Israel could not bear the image of Jews as victims being "led like sheep to the slaughter" and, accordingly, latched on to the heroic (if doomed) resisters in the Warsaw Ghetto as the proper "Israeli" model on which to base Holocaust remembrance. Moreover, the placement of Holocaust Memorial Day as a prelude to Independence Day conveyed the "Israel-centric" message that the Holocaust was a stepping stone in the founding of the State of Israel, the proverbial "darkness before the light" of national redemption. But this focus on the perceived heroic aspects of the Holocaust to fit our tough (but vulnerable) sabra self-image, together with the implicit message that the Holocaust's true significance lies in its happy ending - Israel's establishment - has had unfortunate repercussions. Sadly, most Israelis don't mark Yom Hashoah in any meaningful way.



For its part, the ultra-Orthodox community has always opposed, on halachic grounds, the imposition of a day of mourning during the joyous month of Nisan, which commemorates the birth of the Jewish nation and its exodus from bondage in Egypt. Sandwiched between Pessah and, to most Israelis, the more significant Remembrance Day for the Fallen of Israel's Wars and Independence Day, Holocaust Memorial Day has traditionally not been given the undivided attention it deserves. The Holocaust deserves to be viewed honestly and in depth as a unique historic event. Adopting January 27 as Israel's Holocaust Memorial Day would:



  signify Israel's appreciation of the unusual step taken by the UN;  ensure that the worldwide Holocaust Memorial Day will not be a passing fad since Israel's annual ceremonies can serve as the focus of global attention and as a model for other national commemorative events;·  indicate that Israel has "grown up" since the 1950s to appreciate that Jewish victimhood in the Holocaust is not something shameful that must be obscured in the celebration of Jewish heroism;·  unite the Jews in Israel, both observant and secular, to commemorate, discuss and ponder in an unhurried and thoughtful manner the manifold aspects of a tragedy that does not easily fit into any previous category of Jewish or world history. The UN has finally acknowledged the global historical significance of the Holocaust. Israel should support this development for its own good as well as that of the world.



2006: In Poland, as part of Holocaust Memorial Day observances a 1940’s tram marked with the Star of David - like the ones that used to travel through the ghetto - is seen again on the streets of Warsaw.  It is empty, with nobody getting on or off. It will be empty. Nobody will get on or off.



2006:Rick Recht takes Cedar Rapids by storm as he leads the Jewish Community in a celebration of “Shabbat Alive.”



2006(27thof Tevet, 5766): Ninety year old solicitor Lord Mischson, the Brixton Rabbi Arnold Mishcon passed away today
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2006/jan/30/guardianobituaries.mainsection
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1509163/Lord-Mishcon.html



2006: “Author Howard Jacobson described his new novel Kalooki Nights as ‘the most Jewish novel that has ever been written by anybody, anywhere.’”



http://www.somethingjewish.co.uk/articles/1730_howard_jacobson_talk.htm



2006: “The New World” a historic drama filmed by cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki and edited by Saar Klein was released today in the United Kingdom.



2007: “Dirty Girl,” a play based on the experiences of Ronnie Koenig, the former editor in chief of Playgirl Magazine, finished its initial run in New York City.



2007: In the UK, the main National Holocaust Memorial Day event is hosted at Newcastle with a theme of “The Dignity of Difference.”



2008: In “The Capa Cache,” published todayRandy Kennedy describes the fate of “the suitcase — actually three flimsy cardboard valises — that contained thousands of negatives of pictures that the Hungarian born Jew Robert Capa, one of the pioneers of modern war photography, took during the Spanish Civil War before he fled Europe for America in 1939, leaving behind the contents of his Paris darkroom. Capa assumed that the work had been lost during the Nazi invasion.” The negatives were in fact hidden for more than half a century until last month… they made what will most likely be their final trip, to the International Center of Photography in Midtown Manhattan, founded by Robert Capa’s brother, Cornell.”  



2008: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Alfred Kazin: A Biographyby Richard Cook



2008: International Holocaust Memorial Day – light a light, kindle a candle – Holocaust Memorial Trust website http://www.hmd.org.uk/



2009: In Manhattan’s East Village, third part of a four part seriesThe Comedy and Kabbalah of Relationships”featuring Rabbi YY Jacobson



2009:As part of Holocaust Remembrance Day, The Centro Primo Levi, the Consulate General of Italy and the Italian academic institutions in NY under the auspices of the United Nations present Giorno della Memoria (Day of Memory) including a reading the names of the Jews deported from Italy and the Italian territories on Park Avenue at 68th Street in front of the Consulate General of Italy and a discussion of the Fascist Racial Laws and the socio-political conditions, the indifference, and collaborationism that allowed their promulgation in 1938.



2009: In his new book We Must Rise From Its Ashes, Avraham Burg advocates commemorating the Holocaust three times during the year. “By observing it on January 27, the international day of Holocaust remembrance, Israelis would never lose sight of the fact that the Shoah was a crime against humanity, not just against the Jews, and that preventing further genocide is the business of the entire world. Commemorating it May 9, the day on which the former Soviet republics — and Israel’s immigrants from those countries — mark the victory over Nazi Germany, would symbolically embrace the many immigrants from the former Soviet Union who are not Jewish under Jewish law. Finally, celebrating it on the Ninth of Av would express the Jewish particularity of the genocide, while incorporating the Shoah into that day’s remembrance of the destruction of the Temples would place it within the historical continuum of Jewish suffering rather than consider it wholly unprecedented.



2009: The Massachusetts attorney general’s office said today that it planned to conduct a detailed review of Brandeis University’s surprise decision to sell off the entire holdings of its Rose Art Museum, one of the most important collections of postwar art in New England. The decision to close the 48-year-old museum in Waltham, Mass., and disperse the collection as a way to shore up the university’s struggling finances was denounced by the museum’s board, its director and a wide range of art experts, who warned that the university was cannibalizing its cultural heritage to pay its bills



2010: Sara Hurwitz was given the title of “rabbah,” (sometimes spelled “rabba”) the feminine form of rabbi
http://jwa.org/thisweek/jan/27/2010/sara-hurwitz



2010: Dorit  “Beinisch was moderately hurt when a 52-year-old man named Pinchas Cohen hurled his sneaker at her during a hearing on medical marijuana, hitting her between the eyes, breaking her glasses and knocking her off her chair.”



2010:The recently discovered 29 blueprints depicting the layout of the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz in chilling detail, with gas chambers, crematoria, delousing facilities and watch towers drawn to scale are scheduled to go on display in Jerusalem today.



2010:Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is scheduled to be at Auschwitz to take part in a ceremony marking the 65th liberation of the death camp by the Soviet Red Army.



2010: In Cedar Rapids, Iowa, the Hadassah Book Club is scheduled to meet at Temple Judah where attendees will discuss Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay. De Rosnay's novel is set against a backdrop of the 1942 Paris roundups and deportations, in which thousands of Jewish families were arrested, held at the Vélodrome d'Hiver outside the city, and then transported to Auschwitz.



2010: International Holocaust Memorial Day.



2010:Bundled tightly against the cold and snow, elderly Auschwitz survivors walked among the barracks and watchtowers of Auschwitz and Birkenau on today, many clad in scarves bearing the gray and blue stripes of their Nazi prison garments decades ago



2010(12 Shevat, 5770):J. D. Salinger, who was thought at one time to be the most important American writer to emerge since World War II but who then turned his back on success and adulation, becoming the Garbo of letters, famous for not wanting to be famous, died today at his home in Cornish, N.H., where he had lived in seclusion for more than 50 years. He was 91.



2010 (12 Shevat, 5770):Howard Zinn, historian and shipyard worker, civil rights activist and World War II bombardier, and author of “A People’s History of the United States,” a best seller that inspired a generation of high school and college students to rethink American history, died today in Santa Monica, Calif. He was 87 and lived in Auburndale, Mass.



2011: The Seventh Annual Brooklyn Israel Film Festival is scheduled to open tonight “with three episodes from Season 2 of Srugim, the very popular Israeli television series about the lives and loves of five young Jewish singles living in the hip Katamon neighborhood of Jerusalem, as they navigate the frequently contradictory worlds of contemporary Israeli romance and traditional observance.”



2011: ASF is scheduled to present “Behind the Scenes: An Intimate Video Visit to Morocco”which is part of the year-long series, "2,000 Years of Jewish Life in Morocco: An Epic Journey", presented Under the High Patronage of His Majesty Mohammed VI, King of Morocco, and made possible through the generous support of the Edmond J. Safra Philanthropic Foundation.



2011: A program entitled The Holocaust and Justice: How Do You Prosecute Unprecedented Crimes is scheduled to be held at the University of Iowa Law School.  The program will included a screening of the film “Night and Fog” followed by a discussion by UI Law Professor Mark Osiel



2011: International Holocaust Memorial Day
http://www.jpost.com/JewishWorld/JewishNews/Article.aspx?id=205541



2011: In Italy, observance of Giorno della Memoria (Day of Memory)



2011: Holocaust Memorial Day (UK)



2011:The memory of the six million Jews murdered by the Nazis during World War II was honored around the world today, the day which marked International Holocaust Remembrance Day. German President Christian Wulff paid his respects on a visit to Auschwitz-Birkenau, the site of the biggest Nazi concentration camp, where about a million Jews were murdered during the war, accompanied by World Jewish Congress President Ron Lauder and his Polish counterpart Bronislaw Komorowski. "On International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the Jewish community and the survivors of the Shoah welcome the fact that President Wulff - who has only been in office for a few months and has already been to Israel - is visibly giving the issue of the Holocaust remembrance such a high political priority,” Lauder declared ahead of the ceremonies in Auschwitz and Birkenau2011: “Copenhagen”a (high) drama with considerable comedy concerning the two Nobel physicists Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg and Bohr's wife Margrethe, opened tonight at Coe College in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.  The play features performances by Steve and Barbara Feller, pillars of the Temple Judah community.



2011:Four hundred rabbis will submit a letter today, demanding Fox News sanction host Glenn Beck for his repeated airing of Nazi and Holocaust imagery, and for putting on his show attacks on WWII survivor George Soros, Reuters reported.



2011:In excerpts of Ehud Olmert’s new memoirs that were published today, the former Jewish leaders says that he and Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, were very close to a peace deal two years ago, but Mr. Abbas’s hesitation killed the deal.  According to Olmert, at their last meeting, Abbas “said that he could not decide and that he needed more time.” (As reported by Ethan Bronner)



2011(22ndof Shevat, 5771): Ninety-year old Joseph Lefkowoitz a native of Patterson, NJ, a World War II veteran who had retired from the Social Security Administration passed away today in Crossville, TN.



2012: “With a French Flavor” featuring the wind and string Ensembles from the Buchmann Mehta Music School at Tel Aviv University is scheduled to begin at noon in the Ein Kerem Music Center.



2012: Jack Lew completed his service as Director of the OMB began serving as the 25thWhite House Chief of Staff



2012: Today, "I Honor Wall" - Online virtual event on Yad Vashem's Facebook page, invites people to honor the Righteous Among the Nations. When particpants agree to attend the online event, their names and Facebook profile pictures will be automatically connected to the name and story of a Righteous Among the Nations.
http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Anti-Semitism+and+the+Holocaust/Documents+and+communiques/Posters_International_Holocaust_Remembrance_Day-Jan_2012.htm



2012: International Holocaust Memorial Day



2012: Today, Malcolm “Glazer and his family hired long-time Rutgers University head coach Greg Schiano” making him the ninth head coach of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers



2012:Defense Minister Ehud Barak said today the world must quickly stop Iran from reaching the point where even a "surgical" military strike could not block it from obtaining nuclear weapons



2012:Israeli officials and academic experts think that Iran’s threats of retaliation to a possible strike against it are a bluff, the New York Times reported today



2012: Today, authorities leveled additional charges against a teenager accused in the fire-bombings of two New Jersey synagogues, saying he had plotted a similar attack on a Jewish community center and had conducted Internet searches for building Molotov cocktails and instructions on blowing up buildings.



Bergen County Prosecutor John Molinelli said investigators found multiple Molotov cocktails this week in a wooded area near the Jewish Community Center of Paramus, and they traced the evidence to a foiled attack they said suspect Anthony Graziano was planning for January 7. Graziano, 19, was charged today with aggravated arson, bias intimidation and other charges for the planned attack on the Paramus Jewish community center.



2013: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Insurgents: David Patraeus and the Plot to Change the American Way of War by Fred Kaplan and the recently released paperback edition of  Shalom Auslander’s first novel, Hope: A Tragedy



2013(16thof Shevat, 5773): Eighty-seven year old Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and historian Stanley Karnow passed away today. (As reported by Robert D. McFadden)



http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/28/arts/television/stanley-karnow-historian-and-journalist-dies-at-87.html



2013: “The Jews of Algeria,” an exhibition that retraces the history of the Algerian Jews since Antiquity, is scheduled to come to a close at the Musée d'art et d'histoire du Judaïsme



2013: The Center for Jewish History is scheduled to sponsor “Superman at 75: Celebrating America’s Most Enduring Hero” who was the creation of Joe Shuster and Jerry Seigel.



2013:In Recognition of the International Day of Holocaust Remembrance, the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center is scheduled to present “I’m Not Leaving: The Power of Presence, Our Most Valuable Weapon.”



2013: Rabbi Sidney Kleiman of Congregation Adereth El in Murray Hill turned 100
http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/legendary-rabbi-turns-100-article-1.1249022



2013: The World Zionist Organization’s Department for Activities in Israel & Countering Anti-Semitism is scheduled to mark the International Day for Countering Anti-Semitism (International Day for Commemorating the Holocaust) with a special conference on countering Anti-Semitism which will take place at the Mediatheque Theater in Holon.



2013: International Holocaust Remembrance Day
http://www.ushmm.org/museum/exhibit/focus/ihrd/comment_post.php



2013: In the UK, observance of Brent Holocaust Memorial Day.
http://www.brent.gov.uk/arts.nsf/Festivals/LBB-21



2013:The IDF confirmed the deployment of Iron Dome missile defense batteries in the North today, amid an escalation in the Syrian civil war and concerns over Syria’s sizeable chemical weapons falling into radical Islamic hands.



2013: Former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi triggered outrage from Italy's political left today with comments defending fascist wartime leader Benito Mussolini at a ceremony commemorating victims of the Nazi Holocaust. Speaking at the margins of the event in Milan, Berlusconi said Mussolini had been wrong to follow Nazi Germany's lead in passing anti-Jewish laws but that he had in other respects been a good leader.



2014: While she celebrates the arrival of her grandchild, the friends and family of Debbie Rosenbloom including her husband David Levin celebrate the natal day of the Director of Programs for Jewish Woman International



2014: As it has every year since 2006, the United Nations is scheduled to remember the Holocaust that affected many people of Jewish origin during World War II on the International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust.



2014: As part of the 2014 observance of the International Day of Commemoration in memory of the victims of the Holocaust” is promoting “The Path to Nazi Genocide” a film “using rare footage that examines the Nazi’s rise and consolidation of power in Germany and explores their ideology, propaganda and persecution of the Jews.



2014: “Documents from the Nuremberg Trials recently found in a flea market in Israel are to go on display at the Chabad Jewish Educational Center in Berlin as part of events marking the International Holocaust Remembrance Day.” (As reported by JTA and Times of Israel)
http://www.timesofisrael.com/berlin-chabad-to-display-newly-discovered-nuremberg-trials-evidence/



2014: “The largest ever delegation of Knesset members will convene overseas, on the grounds of Auschwitz-Birkenau, together with Holocaust survivors, for a historic gathering on combating anti-Semitism and preservation of death camps.



2014: As a way to observe International Holocaust Memorial Day, the Reform Movement recommends visiting The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum to Some Were Neighbors: Collaboration and Complicity in the Holocaust,”



2014: “Hackers attacked Israeli computers, including one used by the Defense Ministry department dealing with civilians in the occupied West Bank, an Israeli data protection expert said today.”



2014: “The UN commemorated the 69th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz Nazi death camp, with honorees such as Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Ron Prosor, and filmmaker Steven Spielberg speaking before the United Nations assembly.” (As reported by Yitzhak Benhorin)



2015(7thof Shevat, 5775): Journalist Maurice David Landau who had been the managing editor of the Jerusalem Post and editor-in-chief of Haaretz passed away today.
http://forward.com/news/israel/213602/david-landau-provocative-israeli-editor-dies-at-67/



2015: As record snow covers her east coast stomping grounds, Debbie Rosenbloom’s friends and family (including her husband David Levin) send her the warmest of best birthday wishes.



2015: “Voices of Auschwitz” is scheduled to air on CNN
http://cnnpressroom.blogs.cnn.com/2015/01/08/cnns-wolf-blitzer-to-host-voices-of-auschwitz-jan-27-at-9pm-et/



2015: The Czech Republic observes Memorial Day for the Victims of the Holocaust and Prevention of Crimes against Humanity



2015: German observes Memorial Day for the Victims of National Socialism



2015: In honor of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum is scheduled to show “Liberation and Return Life” a film that “shows liberation and its immediate aftermath through the eyes of the American soldiers who first entered Nazi concentration camps in the spring of 1945, and amateur footage that shows the rebuilding of the personal, political, and religious lives of Holocaust survivors in displaced persons’ camps."
http://www.ushmm.org/information/exhibitions/online-features/special-focus/liberation-of-auschwitz



 2016: In an example of de ja vu all over again, friends and family (including her husband David Levin) gather to settle the birthday of Debbie Rosenbloom as the east coast digs out from a record snow fall.



2016: Professor Michael Wildt is scheduled to deliver a lecture on “Antisemitism, 'Volksgemeinschaft' and Violence: Inclusion and Exclusion in Nazi Germany” at the Institute of Historical Research in London.



2016: In a Radio 4 program on scheduled to be broadcast cast today BBC journalist Gavin Esler will tell the “story of Albert Goering — the brother of Nazi minister and air force chief Hermann Goering — who is said to have saved hundreds of Jews and political dissidents during World War II.”



2016: President Obama is scheduled to “mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day by attending a ceremony at the Israeli embassy in Washington” where a ceremony will take place recognizing “four Righteous Among the Nations.”



2016: The Tel Aviv Cinematheque is scheduled to host screening of “Into the North,” “a Czech-Israeli co-production” sponsored by the Czech and Danish ambassadors to Israel as part of the observance of International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
http://www.go2films.com/Family-Social-issues/Into-the-North
http://www.timesofisrael.com/chance-discovery-gives-new-life-to-little-known-tale-of-shoah-salvation/



2016: In a quirk of the calendar International Holocaust Remembrance Day falls on the 100thanniversary of Jewish Relief Day – an event where the people of the United States under the leadership of the President raised funds to provide funds to ameliorate the suffering of the Jews of Europe and Palestine. (Editor’s Note – the irony is that some of the Jews saved by this generosity would perish in the Holocaust.)



2017: While others mark the anniversary of the liberation at Auschwitz, the friends and family of Debbie Rosenbloom including her husband David Levin are preparing to celebrate a double portion of nachas – Shabbat and her birthday.



January 27, 2017: Observance of Holocaust Memorial Day which coincides with the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz by the Soviets.  For Jews there is a certain irony in the decision to use this date because what the Soviets actually “liberated” were the ashes of a people that the world had turned its back on. For more see http://thisdayinjewishhistory.blogspot.com/



2017: In a moment of irony Bruhilde Pomsel, “the personal stenographer of Goebbels” and survivor Hitler’s bunker passed away on International Holocaust Memorial Day.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/30/world/europe/brunhilde-pomsel-dies-obituary-goebbels.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well



2017: In London, “Denial” is scheduled to be shown for the first time at JW3.



2017: As part of Interfaith Week, the Oxford University Jewish Society is scheduled to open its Friday night dinner to anybody “who wants to come and experience JSoc.”



2017: “And the Waters Subsided,” an exhibition marking the 50th anniversary of the Arno Flood featuring Jewish books and Judaica objects is scheduled to come to an at the National Library of Florence, Italy.



2017: Observance of Holocaust Memorial Day which coincides with the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz by the Soviets.  For Jews there is a certain irony in the decision to use this date because what the Soviets actually “liberated” were the ashes of a people that the world had turned its back on.
http://hmd.org.uk/page/why-mark-27-january-holocaust-memorial-day



2017: While Holocaust International Holocaust Remembrance Day is being observed right wing anti-Semitism in on the rise in Poland and Germany while left wing anti-Semitism is on the rise from London, England to Knoxville, TN.
http://www.timesofisrael.com/diaspora-ministry-reports-surge-in-anti-semitism-links-it-to-far-right/



2018(11thof Shevat, 5778): “Shabbat Shirah”; for more see http://downhomedavartorah.blogspot.com/


2018: In addition to hearing the Song of the Sea, Debbie Rosenbloom will hear the song “Happy Birthday To You” as offered by her friends and family including most importantly, her husband, David Levin.


2018: “The Testament,” directed by Amicahi Greenberg is scheduled to be shown at the Brooklyn Israel Film Festival today.


2018: International Holocaust Memorial Day – The Power of Words
http://www.yadvashem.org/27th/about_27th.asp



2018: In the UK, Britain’s Channel 4 is scheduled to show “Holocaust: Revenge Plot,” a “documentary featuring long-lost tapes describing how a Jewish group sought to exact revenge for the murder of 6 million.”

 


 

This Day, January 28, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. Levin

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January 28



 814: Charlemagne passed away. The grandson of Charles Martel was one of the greatest European rulers during the Dark Ages.  There was nothing Dark about his treatment of the Jews.  For the most part, he ignored canon law and the wishes of the Pope and treated the Jews of his realm rather decently. 



1077: As a result of an event called the “Walk to Canossa,” Pope Gregory VII lifted he excommunication of Henry IV, Holy Roman Emperor. This was part of the struggle between the Church and the temporal rulers as to who would be the final voice of authority in Europe. Jews could not have taken comfort in this apparent success of Gregory over Henry. Gregory was hostile to Jewish interest.  This can be seen in his letter to King Alfonso forbidding Jews to hold public office or to “have power over Christians.”  Furthermore, he ordered the King to have the Jews pay special “Jew Taxes” throughout his kingdom.  Henry was protective of his Jewish subjects. He issued charters to the Jews of Speyer and Worms allowing them to trade in these cities and to practice their religion according to their laws and practices. Furthermore, during the Crusades, he defied Christian doctrine and the Pope, by supporting the right of Jews who had been forced to convert “to disregard their baptism and return to Judaism.”



1167(4927):Poet and philosopher Abraham Ibn Ezra, hero of the golden age of Spain, passed away. There is some disagreement about when this sage actually passed away.  Some say he passed away in 1164.  Others say that he passed away on January 23.  Although specificity as to the date of his death may not be possible, there is no doubt about his greatness.  This brief blog cannot do him justice so here are two sites where you can at least gain a nodding acquaintance with the life and work of this sage.
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/IbnEzra.html  http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=11&letter=I



1225: Birthdate of Thomas Aquinas, the Catholic Saint who expressed his views on Jews in a “Letter on the Treatment of Jews” written in 1271.
http://thomistica.net/letter-to-margaret-of-flanders/
http://www.ccjr.us/dialogika-resources/primary-texts-from-the-history-of-the-relationship/268-aquinas



For more, see Aquinas and the Jews by John Y.B. Hood and Thomas Aquinas on the Jews Steven C. Boguslawski



1547: King Henry VIII of England passed away.  When seeking to divorce his first wife and marry Anne Boleyn, Henry sought to make use of Biblical law in his fight with Rome. He thought that Rabbis, learned in the matter, might be of some help.  Since Jews were not supposed to be living in England, Henry was forced to seek out Rabbis living in Italy.  While the Rabbis offered some help, they were loathe to give too much assistance to a monarch in faraway England lest they offend and anger the Pope who could make miserable for the Jews of Italy.



1573: Articles of the Warsaw Confederation are signed, sanctioning freedom of religion in Poland. The primary beneficiaries of the document were competing Christian groups – Catholic, Lutheran and Orthodox. Jews continued to enjoy the benefits of The General Charter of Jewish Liberties known as the Statute of Kalisz that had been promulgated at the end of the 13th century.



1594(5354): Seventy-nine year old Elia Levita  who was “also known as Elijah Levita, Elias Levita, Eliahu Bakhur ("Eliahu the Bachelor") and “was a Renaissance-period Hebrew grammarian, poet and one of the first writers in the Yiddish language” passed away today in Venice. He was the author of the Bovo-Bukhthe most popular chivalric romance written in Yiddish, which, according to Sol Liptzin, is ‘generally regarded as the most outstanding poetic work in Old Yiddish.’”



1600: Birthdate of Giulio Rospigliose who as Pope Clemente IX modified the custom of having the Jews run through the streets of Rome as part of the carnival festivities by allowing them to pay heavy fines to avoid the race. This ended two hundred years of humiliation that had been introduced by Pope Paul II in the 15th century.



 1668: Pope Clement IX canceled the humiliating forced races known as the Palio. During the Plaio near naked Jews were forced to run through the streets of Rome during carnival time. In return for the revocation the Jews of Rome had to pay a special cancellation tax of 200 ducats. This tax was paid for almost 200 years.



1717: Birthdate of Mustafa III. During his reign, the Ottoman Empire continued to decline as a world power and became less accepting of non-Moslems. Mustafa personally helped to enforce the decrees regarding clothing that could be worn by his subjects. “In 1758, he was walking incognito in Istanbul and ordered the beheading of a Jew and an Armenian seen dressed in forbidden attire.”



1721: A fire broke out in the Judengasse at Frankfort which destroyed over a hundred homes. Christian looters took advantage of the situation and it took the intervention of Emperor Charles VI for the Jews to be compensated for their losses.  The fire gave Jews a chance to legally live outside of the Ghetto for 8 years.  By 1729, they had all been forced back into their narrow confines.



 1788: In Smyrna, which at that time was part of the Ottoman Empire, Rabbi and kabbalist Jacob Pallache “and Kali Kaden Hazan” gave birth to Haim Palachi, the author of works in Hebrew and Ladino and the Chief Rabbi of Smyrna who married Esther Palacci with whom he had three sons all of whom were Rabbis – Abraham Palacci, Isaac Palacci and Joseph Palacci.



1789: Lieutenant Colonel David Salisbury Franks, one of the highest ranking Jewish officers to serve in the American Army during the revolution was granted four hundred acres in recognition of his military service. Franks was one of the founders of the Society of the Cincinnati, an organization of Revolutionary war veterans.



  1790: The French National Assembly granted full and equal citizenship to the Portuguese and Avignonese Jews. The Jews of Alsace would have to wait until 1791 to be granted these same rights. France was the first European country to pass such liberal legislation.



1790: When Joseph II revoked the decrees protecting the Jews, “the citizens of Pesth, Hungary, took measures to expel the Jews because they were business competitors.



1793: Lord George Gordon, the English nobleman who converted to Judaism and took the name Yisrael bar Avraham Gordon was returned to his prison cell today because would not accept his character witnesses at the hearing where he should have been freed because they were Jewish.



1800 (2nd of Shevat, 5560): Chasidic Master Rabbi Meshulam Zusha of Anipoli passed away.  While there is much to say about this sage, most know him because of the following story or one of its variants. “Reb Zusha was on his deathbed surrounded by his disciples. He was crying and no one could comfort him. One student asked his Rebbe, "Why do you cry? You were almost as wise as Moses and as kind as Abraham."  Reb Zusha answered, "When I pass from this world and appear before the Heavenly Tribunal, they won't ask me, 'Zusha, why weren't you as wise as Moses or as kind as Abraham,' rather, they will ask me, 'Zusha, why weren't you Zusha?'”



1803: In Frankfurt am Main Caroline Stern and Freiherr Salomon Mayer von Rothschild gave birth to Anselm Salomon von Rothschild the founder of the Viennese bank Creditanstalt.



1809: Birthdate of Theodor Benfey, “the son of a Jewish trader from Nörten in Lower Saxony who chose a career as a philologist over being a doctor.



1810: Birthdate of Aron Mendes Chumaceiro, the native of Amsterdam who became Ḥakam of Curaçao, Dutch West Indies and who was the father of four prominent sons -- Abraham Mendes Chumaceiro: Attorney at law; Cantor Benjamin Mendes Chumaceiro; Dayyan Jacob Mendes Chumaceiro and Rabbi Joseph Chayyim Mendes Chumaceiro.



1814(7th of Shevat, 5574): Rabbi Dovid of Lelov passed away. He was the first Grand Rabbi of the Lelover Dynasty.  The Lelovers moved from Poland to Jerusalem in the late 1840’s or early 1850’s.



1842: Today The Jewish Chronical “carried the letter from Sir Moses Montefiore, President of the Board of Deputies, to the wardens of all the London synagogues conveying the resolutions of a meeting of the Board, synagogue wardens and the Chief Rabbi” that “ordered the reading of the cherem promulgated by the Chief Rabbi…”



1848: In New York, Benvenida Solis and Leon Ritterband gave birth their sixth child, Moses Maness Ritterband.



1849: Isaac Noah Mannheimer delivered a speech in the Austrian Reichstag on the abolition of capital punishment.



1851: Emma and Philip Salomons gave birth to Sir David Lionel Goldsmid-Stern-Salomons, who gained fame as an author, scientist and barrister.  



1851: Northwestern University becomes the first chartered university in the state of Illinois. For our family, the two most famous graduates of Northwestern are Dr. Jacob Levin of blessed memory who earned his masters and Ph.d. from the Evanston institution and Betty Levin. 
http://www.jewishstudies.northwestern.edu/



1856: Birthdate of Russian painter Isaac Lvovich Asknazi whose works included “The Poet Jehuda Halevi,” “Sabbath Eve,” “The Bridegroom Examined by the Rabbi” and “Bad News,” “a picture of Jewish life.”



1860: Fifty-year old Joseph Addison Alexander the Princeton University Professor a Hebraist whose works including The Earlier Prophecies of Isaiah (1846), The Later Prophecies of Isaiah (1847), and The Psalms Translated and Explained passed away today.



1860: The community of Kingston, Jamaica, “which is composed chiefly of Jews” have been making contributions for the relief of their suffering brethren of Morocco. They have managed to collect large sums in spite of the prevailing poverty.



1860: “Relief of the Jews in Austria” published today reported that “from Austria, amid the echoes of Hungarian dissatisfaction, and Tyrolese boldness, come the reports of promised reform. It is stated as a certain fact that in a few days the Emperor will issue a decree, relieving the Jews from many disabilities under which they now lie. The law which forbade a Jew to have a Christian servant is already repealed; and the emancipated Israelite can now rejoice in the possession of a cook who hasn't a conscientious objection to getting up and making a fire, of a Saturday morning. The expected decree will abolish the old law, by which no one of the three witnesses required for a Christian's will could be a Jew -- a blind provision, which has been the source of more trouble to Christians than Jews. Then the rule, still on the statute-books in Austria, that a Jew's evidence in a civil case against a Christian should be considered as "doubtful," will be done away; as also the present prohibition, which prevents any but a Christian from filling the office of Notary. This last provision is no older than 1855. Before that year Jews were allowed to be Notaries, and it is said that there is a Jewish Notary in Prague, who was appointed under the old law, and holds his office still. It is proper that the Government should concede these rights to an oppressed class; but one cannot but notice how, through these reforms, it hopes to escape more pressing and important demands from its subjects. Hungary demands her constitutional rights, and the Emperor grants a couple of reforms to Venice. Tyrol desires her ancient and guaranteed privileges, and he emancipates the Jews at Prague! No matter -- the day is coming.”



1862: In New York, Herman S. Bachman and Fanny S. Obermeyer gave birth to Hannah Bachman who married William Einstein and became Hannah Bachman Einstein an activist for child welfare in both Jewish and secular settings. Einstein “was raised in New York City's Temple Emanu-El, a German Reform congregation. As an adult, she remained active in the Temple, and in 1897, she became president of the sisterhood, a position she held for twenty-five years. One of Einstein's activities as sisterhood president was visiting the homes of recent immigrants. She soon became convinced that the private relief provided by the Temple would never be sufficient to alleviate the problems of this group. Only government action, she decided, could address the myriad social problems that immigrants and other impoverished people faced. Joining with other activists, Einstein lobbied the New York State legislature for widowed mothers' pensions, which would enable widowed women to care for their children without working outside the home. In 1913, she was appointed chair of the state committee to investigate the issue. Her committee wrote what became the Child Welfare Law of 1915, which became the national model. By 1920, nearly all the states had passed similar legislation. In the wake of her committee's success, Einstein became president of the New York State Association of Child Welfare Boards, served as the first woman on the board of the United Hebrew Charities, and helped found the National Union of Public Child Welfare Officers. Einstein died in New York City in 1929.



1865(1stof Shevat, 5625): Rosh Chodesh Shevat



1865: Birthdate of Emma Eckstein, the native of Vienna who was a patient of Sigmund Freud and who became the first female psychoanalyst.
http://drvitelli.typepad.com/providentia/2015/11/dr-fliess-patient.html



1867(22ndof Shevat, 5627): Seventy year old Philip Salomons, the eldest son of Levi Salomons passed away today.  A resident of Brighton, he married Emma Montefiore, the daughter of Jacob Montefiore, one of the leaders of the Sydney Jewish community.



1867: Birthdate of Reggio Emilia native Angelo Modena, the decorated Italian officer rose from the rank of second lieutenant of the Alpine troops in 1887 to the rank of general in 1927 after having served as a Colonel during WW I.



1871: Leo Frankel was among those serving as a member of the National Guard when Paris surrendered to the Prussians today…..  This marked the end of the Franco-Prussian War.  From the point of view of history, this was the first of a three act play.  The second act was World War I and the third act was World War II, including the Holocaust. 



1873: Lewis J. Cohen and Henry Lehman, the Jewish proprietors of a store on Chatham Street, were sentenced to a month in the Blackwell’s Island Penitentiary after having been convicted of verbally abusing a visitor to their shop named Robert J. Quinlan.



1873: B’nai B’rith held its annual meeting at Masonic Hall in Manhattan tonight.  According to the treasurer’s report, the society has $58, 961.76 in assets. Founded 14 years ago, the society has 6,096 members.



1874: Rabbi S.M. Isaacs officiated at the wedding of Jacob Schnizter and Cordelia Menken, the daughter of the late Solomon Menken.



1874: In Chicago, Illinois, The B’nai B’rith adjourned the third day of its national convention at 7 o’clock this evening.



1874: In Chicago, Illinois, delegates to the national B’nai B’rith convention attended a banquet at the Sherman House.



1875: Gratz Nathan, a prominent 30 year old New York lawyer who had served as the Assistant Corporation Attorney, attempted to commit suicide in his office tonight.  Nathan gained a certain kind of unwanted notoriety when his uncle, Judge Cardozo, was impeached.



1876: In Cincinnati, OH, Solomon and Caroline Fox gave birth to Jessie Fox who became Jessie Mack when she married San Francisco born jurist Julian William Mack,



1876: Birthdate of Irving Lehman, New York lawyer and jurist.



1877: The New York Times featured a review of John Peter Lange’s “Commentary of the Holy Scriptures” which focuses on the period of Persian rule when the exiles returned from Babylonia.  The commentaries are tied to the books of Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah and Esther.



1878: The annual convention of the District Grand Lodge No.1 of the Independent Order of B’nai B’rit came to a close today after a second day of meetings. The delegates will attend a banquet at Nilsson Hall this evening to mark the end of the event.



1880(15thof Shevat, 5640): Tu B’Shevat



1880: Birthdate of Herbert Max Finlay Freudnlich, the German chemist who served the director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physical Chemistry and Electrochemistry from 1919 until his forced retirement in 1933. His father was Jewish.  His mother was not. He passed away in 1941 in Minneapolis, MN.



1881: Birthdate of Berlin born theatre critic and author Siegfried Jacobsohn.



1884(1stof Shevat, 5644): Rosh Chodesh Shevat



1887: Birthdate of pianist Arthur Rubinstein



1888(15thof Shevat, 5648): Tu B’Shevat



1888: Birthdate of mathematician and recipient of the Royal Society’s Sylvester Medal Louis Joel Mordell, the native of Philadelphia who became a naturalized British citizen after completing his studies at Cambridge,



1890: Rabbi Mendes of Shearith Israel officiated at the wedding of Corinna Friedman, the daughter of Colonel Max Friedman to Leo Strassburger, the son of the former Mayor of Montgomery, Alabama.



1890: Rabbi Gottheil of Temple Emanu-El officiated at the wedding of Belle Strouse, the daughter of Abraham Stouse and Hugo H. Hahlo which took place this evening at Delmonico’s.



1890: Several hundred thousand dollars in deposits, including $180,000 belong to the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company will be withdrawn from the Albany County Bank today in response to the Board of Directors decision to choose a local lumber deal over Davis S. Mann as Cashier of the bank.  Mann has worked for the bank and his supporters attribute his rejection to the fact that he is Jewish.



1890: It was reported today that David Saltzman, a Jew who converted to Christianity, refused to A.A. Miller’s demand that he leave his daughter’s wedding.  The enraged father responded by beating him with his fists and his cane.



1891: In New Jersey, the trial of Joseph Kline, the President of a Jewish cemetery society, who is charged with larceny and obtaining money under false pretenses entered into its second day.



1891: Birthdate of Barney Sedransky, the basketball player who shortened his name to Barney Sedran and was nicknamed “Mighty Mite.”
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/Sedran.html



1893: Birthdate of Abba Hillel Silver, the native of Lithuania, who became a leading Reform Rabbi, Zionist and champion of the rights of the American working man.

1894: The annual meeting of District Lodge No.1 of B’nai B’rith was scheduled to end today.


1894:  It was reported today that the new officers for B’nai Brith are: President – Samuel D. Sewards; First Vice President – Joshua Kantrowitz; Second Vice President – Bernard Metzgar; Treasurer – Solomon Sulzberger.


1894: A musical competition designed to raise money for charities including the United Hebrew Society that will include John Phillips Sousa’s band will take place today at the Madison Square Garden.


1896 “Bernhardt as Marguerite” published today described Sarah Bernhardt’s performance in “La Dame Aux Camelias” as “a veritable triumph….Bernhardt has rarely given a more careful or more inspired portrayal in this great role.”


1896: “New Theatrical Bills” published today described the successful performance of “A Woman’s Reason” produced by Charles Frohman which is now appearing at the Empire Theatre in New York.


1897: It was reported today that Mindel Brown, acting on behalf of the Ladies’ Auxiliary Corps, has presented a set of colors to the Hebrew Union Veteran Association.


1897: It was reported today that the newly elected officers of the Hebrew Mutual Benefit Society are


President – Morris Goodhartz; Vice President – Maurice A. Herts; Treasurer – Isaac K. Cohn;


1897: “Oldest Benefit Society” published today provides a brief history of the early Jewish community in New York and the Hebrew Mutual Benefit Society which was organized in 1826 when there approximately 300 Jewish families living in the city most of whom “lived below Canal Street and east of the Bowery.”


1897 The closing session of the Fifth Annual meeting of the American Jewish Historical Society to place today in Baltimore, MD.


1897: Using information that first appeared in The Hebrew Journal, “Too Much Reform” published today described what is seen as a retreat from “the work of iconoclasm” by the reformers and turn towards “preaching and teaching what they consider good and praiseworthy in rabbinical Judaism.”


1897: Two days after she had passed away, fifty-eight year old Pauline Hirschfeld, the daughter of Simon Ausch and Rachel Ausch and wife of Dr. Jacob Jacques Heinrich Hirschfeld with whom she had four children was laid to rest today in Vienna.


1899: As of today, the entire 6th Virginia Volunteer Infantry had been mustered out of U.S. Service including Matthew N. Levy, Jr. of Norfolk who had been mustered into U.S. Service on August 8, 1898.


1899: Private Ehrenberg, a bandsman with the 2nd Louisiana Volunteer Infantry from New Orleans was discharged today.


1899: Governor Theodore Roosevelt addressed today’s meeting of the University Settlement Society today.  During his speech TR said that “there is nothing better than the way in which the Jew and Gentile…are striving together to accomplish just such things as this society set out to accomplish.”  Roosevelt’s positive view of Jews stands in stark contrast with the European experience (anti-Semitic riots in France and the anti-Jewish policies of the Czar) and are all the more significant since within the next couple of years he would be Vice President and then President of the U.S.


1899: It was reported today that in his recently published Story of France, Thomas Watson includes a description of the Christian massacre of the Jews in response to “the frightful ravages of the bubonic plague in 1348.”


1899: It was reported today that Monsieur Guerin, the President of the Ant-Semite League led a mob that entered the Place Dauphine at the back of the Palace of Justice where the libel trial brought by Mme. Henry was being heard.  The mob roared with shouts of “Death to the Jews!” After being dispersed by the police the mob re-formed on the Place du Chatelet where it howled “Spit on the Jews!” (All of this stemmed from the attempts to reverse the conviction of Dreyfus)


1899: A proposal was made today in the Chamber of Deputies “to have the Dreyfus Cased heard by a Supreme Court of Appeals, with all three chambers sitting jointly.”


1901: Count Ioseif (Joseph) Gurko, who while serving as the military commander of the region around Warsaw in the 1890’s sought permission to expel the Jews from the western zones of Poland, passed away.


1902: Herzl authorized Leopold Kessler’s leadership of the expedition to El Arish where he and others including Dr. Selig Soskin an agricultural expert, Dr. Hillel Joffee and Colonel Albert Goldsmid would consider the possibility of this area of the Sinai Peninsula as a possible site for Jewish colonization


1903: Herzl appoints Leopold Kessler as leader of the commission "for the exploration of the feasibility of settling in the northern half of the Sinai Peninsula.


1904(11thof Shevat, 5664): Fifty-five year old Austrian novelist Karl Emil Franzos, passed away today.

1905: Birthdate of Barnett Newmann, an American artist who is seen as one of the major figures in abstract expressionism and one of the foremost of the color field painters

1906: The protest letter drawn up at conferenced held by the New York University Law School Russian Relief Association which is to be sent to President Roosevelt published today read, “We the undersigned students of law of the New York University, feeling that it is our just privilege and sacred duty to do so, do appeal to and petition you, as the protector of our country, to use your good offices to bring about a cessation of Russia’s policy of prescription and persecution against her defenseless Jewish subjects.”


1906: A full report of the speeches exchanged between the Czar and a deputation of the reactionary League of Russian Men…published today” quoted one speaker as saying “the league’s watchword was orthodoxy, autocracy and nationality” which that “Jews, even converts were rigorously excluded” from the league.


1912: A description of President Taft’s appearance as guest of honor at The Daughter of Jacobs Ball was published today. The President was greeted by a throng of between 12,000 and 15,000 who had come together to raise funds for the Infirmary of the Daughters of Jacob on East Broadway. In his speech, Taft praised the Jewish people for “their perfect system of charitable institutions to look after their poor and infirm.”  The President left the ball as the band played Boola-Boola. 


1912: Birthdate of comedian “Professor” Irwin Corey


1913: In Chicago, “the K.A.M. Auxiliary” is scheduled to “observe ‘photography studio day’ this afternoon at the William Koehne Studio under the leadership of Mrs. Samuel Flitz.


1914(1st of Shevat, 5674): Rosh Chodesh Shevat


1915: Jacob Schiff of New York wrote a letter to Max Warburg today in which he mentioned Bernhard Dernburg, the liberal German politician and banker whose father Friedrich Dernburg had become a Lutheran and who had married Luise Stahl, the daughter of a Lutheran minsters and Bernhard’s motherl


1915: In New York, Florence Worms married Abraham Sachs.


1915: “The Reverend C.B. Ragsdale testified today that he signed a false affidavit in which he swore he overheard the negro “Jim” Conley confess to killing Mary Phagan; that after signing this affidavit $200 was paid to hum through Arthur Thurman and C.C. Tedder and that a voice over the telephone, ‘like the voice’ of Dan S. Lehon promised him $10,000 more ‘if the thing went through.’”


1915: An act of Congress merged the Revenue Cutter Service with the Life-Saving Service creating the United States Coast Guard. Some of the Jews were members of, or associated with this valiant force were: musician and vocalist, Mel Torme,; Arthur Fiedler who “volunteered during the early days of World War II for the Temporary Reserve of the U.S. Coast Guard and was later a member of the Coast Guard Auxiliary” and comedian and television star Sid Caear who joined the Coast Guard in 1939. This proved to be a boon to his carrer. Assigned to play in military shows, he caught the attention of producer Max Liebman, who was impressed by his ability to make other musicians laugh.  Liebman took him out of the orchestra and cast him as a comedian, jump-starting his career upon release from the Coast Guard in 1945. And the rest is show biz history.  When Sid Caesar was celebrating his 80th birthday, The Coast Guard presented him with a public service award that read as follows:


"The Commandant of the United Stated Coast Guard takes great pleasure in wishing a joyous 80th birthday to Coast Guard veteran Sid Caesar and presenting to him this Coast Guard Certificate of Appreciation, in recognition of his public support of the Coast Guard, most notably in the early days of his career as an actor, musician and comedian and more recently as public spokesperson for the U.S. Coast Guard. Mr. Caesar joined the Coast Guard in 1939, after studying saxophone at the Julliard School of Music and playing in a number of prominent big bands. In the Coast Guard, he was assigned to play in military revues and shows, such as "Tars and Spars," but he showed a natural penchant for comedy by entertaining other band members with his improvised routines, prompting show producer Max Liebman to move him from the orchestra and cast him as a stand-up comedian to entertain troops, jump-starting his career upon his release from the Coast Guard in 1945. After leaving the Coast Guard, Mr. Caesar went on to perform his "war routine" in both the stage and movie versions of the revue, and continued under Liebman's guidance after the war, in theatrical performances in the Catskills and Florida, but he never forgot the service that launched his career. Mr. Caesar's performance distinguished the Coast Guard as an honorable and valuable service. Friends and acquaintances say he always kept the Coast Guard close to his heart, especially its hardworking enlisted members. Each and every time the Coast Guard asked Mr. Caesar for a favor, he came through for us, whether it was speaking before the Coast Guard Chief Petty Officers Association or recording audio public service announcements for Coast Guard recruiting campaigns. His respect, admiration and fondness for our service shines bright. Mr. Caesar's years of generosity, concern and dedication to the Coast Guard family are deeply appreciated and are in keeping with the highest traditions of the United States Coast Guard and public service."



1915: The total contributions received by the American Jewish Relief Committee as of today totaled $412,658.66.



1916: President Woodrow Wilson appointed Louis D. Brandeis to the Supreme Court.  Brandeis was the first Jewish member of the court.  Although there was opposition to a Jewish justice in some quarters, Brandeis was followed by two more distinguished Jewish Supremes - Benjamin Cardozo and Felix Frankfurter.  Brandeis was an active member of the American Jewish Community.  He was an early an ardent Zionist.  Unfortunately he did not live to see the creation of the modern state of Israel.



1916: Workers using adding and coin counting machines under the direction Treasurer Harry Fischel, Albert Lucas, Mrs. Samuel Elkeles and Mrs. Harry Kraft are busy tabulating the contributions that were received yesterday, Jewish Relief Day, include $200,000 from San Francisco, $65,000 from Cincinnati and $10,000 from Richmond, VA.



1916: A check was received in the mail today at the headquarters for Jewish Relief Day for $100 from Douglas Robinson, the brother-in-law of Former President Teddy Roosevelt.



1916: During the trial of a Jews in Galicia, the Polish Assistant Public Prosecutor alleged “that the Jewish religion teaches that revenge on non-Jews is justified” which will lead the Zionist organiations protesting to the government against this libel and demanding a inquiry into the matter.



1917: Among the gifts acknowledged by the American Jewish Relief Committee were $10,000 from the Chicago Committee and $1,000 each from committees in Louisville, KY, Indianapolis, Indiana, Des Moines, Iowa and Corsicana, TX.  (Editor’s note: the list of Committees outside of the Northeastern United States should serve as a reminder that there were thriving Jewish communities in a wide variety of locations.)



1917: James Malcom, an Armenian businessman and advocate for an independent Armenian state, introduced Chaim Weitzman to Sir Mark Sykes.  Sykes was a protégé of Lord Kichner and a dominant, if not the dominant, force in forming British policy in the Middle East.  Weitzman was seeking Sykes’ support for the creation of a Jewish national home in Palestine after World War I



1917: Dr. Schmarya Levin is scheduled to “address the Harlem Forum in the Wadleigh High School” this morning.



1917: The Commissioner of Foods and Markets is scheduled to “speak at the Evening Forum of the Free Synagogue” this evening.



1917(5thof Shevat, 5677): Rabbi Avraham Eliezer Alperstein the native of Belarus who was of the teachers at REITS and was one of the founders of Agudath Harabbonim passed away today in New York.
http://www.crcweb.org/rabbis/Alperstein%20Avraham%20Eliezer%201853-1917.pdf



1918(15th of Shevat, 5678):Tu B'Shvat



1918(15thof Shevat, 5678): Seventy-five year old Mrs. Jacob Panken, he mother Jacob Panken, the Socialist-pacifist Judge of the Municipal Court, passed away suddenly tonight after suffering a heart attack which was thought to have been “brought on by the excitement” stemming from upcoming appearance before a draft board in the Bronx where she was going to plead for a military exemption for her 25 year old son Novie.



1918 In Jerusalem, the cornerstone is laid for Hebrew University.



1918: In the United Kingdom, a special conference of the labor movement is scheduled to consider a special memorandum recommending “that Jews in all countries enjoy the common elementary rights of tolerance, freedom of residence and trade and equal citizenship and that Palestine be set free from the oppressive government of the Turk and formed into a free State, under international guarantee, to which such of the Jewish people as desire to do so may return.”



1918: Leon Trotsky (born Lev Davidovich Bronstein) became leader of “the Reds.”



1919: Beatty v. Guggenheim Exploration Co., a US trusts law case, concerning the test for the imposition of a constructive trust best known for a quote from the leading opinion by Justice Cardozo -“The constructive trust is the formula through which the conscience of equity finds expression. When property has been acquired in such circumstances that the holder of the legal title may not in good conscience retain the beneficial interest, equity converts him into a trustee” was decided today.



1922: The Fairfield Shipbuilding and Engineering Company of Govan in Glasgow launched the SS Athenia, the first British passenger vessel sunk by a German U-boat in World War II which counted among the survivors was Kalmen Kaplansky.
http://www.historyofrights.com/bios/kaplansky.html



1923: The First "Reich’s Party" (NSDAP) forms in Munich.  These are the Nazis.



1924: In the Bronx, Charles Ledner, “a furniture salesman” and “the former Beulah Levy gave birth to


Albert Charles Ledner, the WW II veteran and graduate of the Tulane School of Architecture.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/21/obituaries/albert-ledner-architect-with-a-quirky-sense-dies-at-93.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=region&region=region&WT.nav=region



1924: Charley Phil Rosenberg, who had spent part of his childhood in the Hebrew Orphan Asylum, suffered a rare defeat on his way to winning the Bantamweight World Championship in 1925.



1926(13th of Shevat, 5686): Kaufman Kohler, the German born American leader who was one of the great leaders of Reform Judaism, passed away today in New York at the age of 83.
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=F70913FB395D13738DDDA00A94D9405B868EF1D3



1928: Birthdate of Hal Prince, American stage producer and director.



1929: The British government is reportedly planning on building a road to the Megiddo Excavation which is being funded by John D. Rockefeller, Jr.



1930: Today, Albert Einstein sent a letter to Issa El-Issa, the editor of Falastin, “a Palestinian newspaper based in Jaffa founded in 1911” in which he said, in part, “I am convinced that the devotion of the Jewish people to Palestine will benefit all the inhabitants of the country, not only materially, but also culturally and nationally” and “I believe that the Arab renaissance in the vast expanse of territory now occupied by the Arabs stands only to gain from Jewish sympathy.”



1932: In Chicago, Jackie Fields won a ten round decision “to regain the world welterweight title he had lost last year.” (As reported by Bob Wechsler).



1934 (12th of Shevat, 5694): German Chemist Fritz Haber passed away at the age of 65.  Haber won the Nobel Prize in 1918.



1934: In St. Louis Joseph and Zelma Bosse Feldman gave birth to Tulane grad Martin Feldman who began serving as a Judge of the United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court in 2010.



1935: Barney Ross won a ten round decision in Miami today “to retain his world junior welterweight title.” (A reported by Bob Wechsler)



1936(4thof Shevat, 5696): Thirty year old Richard Loeb, of Leopold and Loeb infamy, was murdered today by fellow convict James E. Day at Stateville Penitentiary after having spent the day with fellow killer and prison pal Nathan Leopold.



1936: German mathematician Issai Schur, who had been dismissed from his position because he was Jewish accepted an invitation to lecture in Switzerland.



1936: Fearing an outbreak of rioting that authorities in Prsytyk, Poland, “suspended the holding of market days for four weeks” as a result of the anti-Semitic Enek party’s campaign to boycott Jews.



1936: A reception was held tonight at Temple Emanu-El by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee in honor of Sir Herbert Samuel and Simon Marks where the attendees had pledged “to supply its share of fifteen million dollar fund to be raised throughout the world” as long there are no plans to “aid or facilitate the export of German goods” which some had been pushing as a quid pro quo for improving the conditions for Jews living under the Nazis.



1936: As Poland continues in the grip of a wave of anti-Semitism, almost 100 Jews in Truskolaz were beaten today “following rumors that a Jew had committed a sacrilege in a church.



1937: In Chicago, “Sam Sotonoff, a machinist, and Jessie Berger, a homemaker” gave birth to Bette Lee Sotonoff who gained fame as author Bette Howland whose works included Blue in Chicago
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/17/obituaries/bette-howland-author-and-protege-of-bellows-dies-at-80.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well



1937: In an open letter to Dr. Stephen S. Wise and Dr. Samuel Margoles, editor of The Jewish Day, Felix Poplawski, president and Thomas Jachimiak, secretary of the New York District of the Guild of Polish Newspapermen in America took the two Jewish leaders to task today for their recent criticisms of Poland’s policy toward her Jewish citizens saying that “they considered it unjust to hold the Polish Government responsible for anti-Jewish acts and sentiment.”



1937: “For the first time an Austrian court adopted the Third Reich’s anti-Semitic ‘race’ principles today when Judge Mifka decreed a divorce between two German nationals – a Protestant and a Jewess – both Austrian residents on the husband’s plea that the difference in ‘race’ between a German Protestant and a German Jewess was itself grounds for divorce.”



1937: Jewish students attempting to enter Warsaw University grounds today were turned back Fascist pickets and those “who insisted on entering were pushed out and beaten.”



1938: Collier’s magazine published “The Fall in America 1937” H.G. Wells’ laudatory article about “I’d Rather Be Right “a musical with a book by Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman, lyrics by Lorenz Hart, and music by Richard Rodgers.



1938: In Geneva, Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden and Viscount Cranborne, the Under-Secretary of Foreign Affairs brought pressure to bear on Rumania’s Foreign Minister, Istrate Micescu to improve the condition of the country’s Jews by reminding him of the clauses of the Treaty of 1919 that guaranteed that Jews would be treated as full-fledged citizens.



1938: The Palestine Post published a major study on the extent of the 'Octopus of Nazi Propaganda in Syria.' There were two major German propaganda centers in the Middle East: one in Cairo for Egypt, Sudan, Palestine and Transjordan, and the second in Baghdad, for Iraq, Syria and Lebanon. The Germans proved to be masters in the art of propaganda and anti-Semitic incitement spread by their well-trained agents and maintained a number of exclusive, influential clubs in major cities. Large bribes were handed over for the 'Arab victims of the Jewish aggression in Palestine. 



1939(8thof Shevat, 5699): Parashat Bo



1939: Rabbi Samuel H. Goldenson is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “What Our Synagogue Should Be Today” at Temple Emanu-El.



1939: Rabbi Jonah B. Wise is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “Jesus ben Sirah” at the Central Synagogue.



1939: Rabbi Nathan Stern is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “The Vision of the Beautiful” this morning at the West End Synagogue.



1939: Rabbi Alexander Segel is scheduled to deliver a sermon “Does God Harden Human Hearts?” this morning at the Fort Washington Synagogue.



1939: Rabbi Harold H. Mashioff is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “We Have Not constituted Ourselves the Messiahs” this morning at the Temple of the Covenant.



1939(8th of Shevat, 5699): Louis Cohen a New York mobster who murdered labor racketeer "Kid Dropper" Nathan Kaplan and was an associate of labor racketeer Louis "Lepke" Buchalter was killed today shortly before he was to testify against Buchalter.



1939: U.S. premiere of “They Made Me A Criminal” starring John Garfield, with music by Max Steiner and produced by Benjamin Glazer and Hal Wallis



1939(8thof Shevat, 5699): Irving Friedman, alias Danny Field, a New York mobster, was murdered shortly before he was testify against Louis “Lepke” Buchalter  as part of deal with D.A. Thomas Dewey.



1941: Edward L. Bernays, the nephew of Sigmund Freud and one of the “fathers of modern public relations,” writes a letter to the New York Times opposing a proposal by Dr. Harwood L. Childs of Princeton University that the U.S. should create a national propaganda ministry. 



1941: “Quiet City” a “composition for trumpet, cor anglais, and string orchestra by Aaron Copland” which had its root in “the incidental music” for Irwin Shaw’s “Quiet City” which premiered in 1939, “was premiered” today by “the Saidenberger Little Symphony in New York City.



1942:1942, Gussie Schwebel appeared on the front page of the Forverts the day after she had delivered “three dozen knishes” to Eleanor Roosevelt ‘at her house, 49 East 65th Street.”



1942: In a sign of its increasingly closer ties with the Allies, Brazil severed diplomatic relations with all three Axis powers – a move that would eventually lead to a declaration of war that in turn would result in Lt. Col. Waldemar Levy Cardoza commanding a battalion of Brazilian artillery in the Italian campaign.



1943: Over the next 3 days, ten thousand Jews from Pruzhany, Belorussia, are deported to Auschwitz.



1944: Leonard Bernstein's "Jeremiah" premiered in Pittsburg.



1945: The weekly internal report of the War Refugee Board, states that the United States would permanently close its War Refugee office in Turkey. The outgoing representative stated, "Inadequate sources of information and communication channels render impossible the orderly organization or direction from Turkey of any rescue activities...."



1946: The Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry, a joint British and American committee composed of six Americans and six Englishmen that was charged with examining the “political, economic and social conditions in Mandatory Palestine as they bear upon the problem of Jewish immigration and settlement therein and the well-being of the peoples now living therein” which had been meeting in Washington, D.C. began its second week of meetings today in London.



1947: Arlene Francis and Martin Gabel gave birth to Dr. Peter Gabel the associate editor of Tikkun.



1948: Birthdate of Shimon Ullman the Jerusalem born professor of computer science and co-founder of Orbotech



1948: Birthdate of Laurence Moody, the Cambridge graduate who became an English television director.



1949: Israel was recognized (diplomatically) by Australia, Belgium, Chile, Great Britain, Holland, Luxembourg, and New Zealand.



1949: “Admiral Broadway Revue” “an American live television variety show” created and directed by Max Liebman who wrote for the show along with Mel Brooks and Mel Tolkin and starring Sid Caesar was broadcast for the first stime



1950: Birthdate of Barbara Klein who gain fame as Barbi Benton, friend of Hugh Hefner, Playboy Bunny and regular on the television country comedy hit, “Hee Haw.”



1950 (10th of Shevat, 5710): On the secular calendar the date on which Joseph Isaac Schneersohn (Yosef Yitzchok Schneersohn or Friyerdikker Rebbe ("Previous Rebbe" in Yiddish) or Rayatz) passed away.  There is no way that this blog can do justice to his life of accomplishments.
http://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/425/jewish/The-Rebbe-Rayatz.htm
http://www.whoislog.info/profile/joseph-isaac-schneersohn.html



1952(1st of Shevat, 5712): Rosh Chodesh Shevat



1952: Birthdate of writer and director Richard Glatzer. (As reported by Ashley Southall)
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/12/movies/richard-glatzer-co-director-of-still-alice-dies-at-63.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=1



1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that the Soviet-controlled Hungarian regime was deporting Jews to work camps in a Soviet-inspired anti-Semitic campaign, resembling that of the Nazi era. In a similar manner Czechoslovakia started purging Jewish doctors in order 'to prevent the threat of a repetition of the murder of Soviet leaders.' The Knesset approved vastly increased customs duties on a series of commodities, including the food parcels sent to Israelis by their relatives from abroad. This increase was expected to cover at least a part of the budget deficit, which stood at IL 5.6 million, as claimed by the government, or IL 25m. as claimed by the opposition



1958:Dore Schary's "Sunrise at Campobello" premieres in New York City.



1958(7thof Shevat, 5718): Seventy-year old author Elma Ehrlich Levinger passed away today.
http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/levinger-elma-erlich



1959: Sixty-two year old Johannes Kleiman, “one of the Dutch citizens who helped hide Anne Frank and her family during the Nazi occupation of the Nethrlands” passed away today in Amsterdam.



1959 (19th of Shevat, 5719): Joseph Sprinzak,Speaker of Israel Knesset from 1949 until 1959, passed away. A dedicated Labor Zionist Sprinzak was one of the unsung founders of the early Zionist movement who dedicated their lives to creation of the Jewish homeland.



1960(28thof Tevet, 5720): Eighty-eight year old Orientalist Lionel David Barnett, the son of Baron Barnett and Adelaide Barnett and husband of Blanche Esther Barnett with whom he had two children passed away today.
https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/93E11399C980BEE964D977602A5660FC/S0041977X00151286a.pdf/div-class-title-lionel-david-barnett-div.pdf



1962: David Morgenstern, prominent Hebrew scholar and president of the Herzliah Hebrew Teachers Training Institute, was honored tonight at a dinner in the Pierre Hotel in recognition of his 25 years of “dedicated service to the furtherance of Hebrew education.” (JTA)



1965: Three days after the death of Winston Churchill, “Halina Neuman, a survivor of the Warsaw Ghetto, wrote to The New York Times” expressing her feelings about Britain’s war time leader.  To Neuman, for those trapped in the darkness of Nazi Europe, Churchill’s speeches and the sound of his voice were a light, a beacon of hope and proof “that the world was not coming to an end.”



1967(17thof Shevat, 5727): Bechor-Shalom Sheetrit, the native of Tiberias  who was the only Sabra to sign the Israeli declaration of independence and who has served as the Minister of Police since 1948 passed away today.



1967(17thof Shevat, 5727): Forty-five year old virologist Alick Issacs passed way today



1967: The dedication of the nave windows created by Marc Chagall which were described as “the most successful and beautiful exhibition of his genius in this country” took place today at “Union Church, in the Hudson Valley hamlet of Pocantico Hills.”
http://forward.com/culture/353658/rediscovering-marc-chagalls-least-known-american-windows/



1968: Following yesterday’s Shabbat services, the new chapel at Shaar Hasomayim was formally dedicated today.



1968: Ya’acov Ra’anan, commander of the INS Dakar, had wanted to enter his home port today but was told to stick to the original schedule and dock the boat on January 29 as planned.



1969: In the ever shifting sands of Israeli party politics, the Labor Party and Mapam created a political alliance called the Alignment.



1972: Clifford Irving and his wife Edith confessed that the “biography of Howard Hughes” was a fraud.



1977: “Cross of Iron” a WW II movie set on the Eastern Front with a screenplay by Julius Epstein was released in Germany today.



1983(14thof Shevat, 5743): Forty-eight year old Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan passed away today.http://bible.ort.org/books/help.asp?action=displaytext&type=1&id=2



1984: A month-long show featuring 43 painting by expressionist Chaim Soutine is scheduled to come to an end at the Galleri Bellman in New York City.



1986 (18th of Shevat, 5746): The space shuttle Challenger exploded 73 seconds after liftoff from Cape Canaveral, killing all seven crew members: flight commander Francis R. "Dick" Scobee; pilot Michael J. Smith; Ronald E. McNair; Ellison S. Onizuka; Judith A. Resnik; Gregory B. Jarvis; and schoolteacher Christa McAuliffe. “Among the seven crewmembers killed was Judith Resnik, the first American Jewish astronaut in space. Resnik joined the space program in 1978 after graduating from Carnegie-Mellon with a B.S. in electrical engineering and the University of Maryland with a Ph.D. in electrical engineering. Prior to the 1986 Challenger tragedy, Resnik served as the mission specialist on Discovery's maiden voyage in 1984, logging 144 hours 57 minutes in space. Resnik was the second American woman in space (after Sally Ride) and the fourth worldwide. Before joining the space program, Resnik worked in the radar division of RCA, as a biomedical engineer in neurophysics at the National Institute of Health, and finally for the Xerox corporation. She was accepted into the NASA program, along with five other women, in 1978. An Akron, Ohio, native, Resnik was a classical pianist and a gourmet cook, and also enjoyed running and bicycling. She was active in the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers, the IEEE Committee on Professional Opportunities for Women, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the American Association of University Women.”



 1979(29thof Tevet, 5739): Two were killed and thirty-four more were injured when terrorists set off a bomb in a Netanya market.



1983(14thof Shevat, 5743): Forty-eight year old year old New York native Aryeh Kaplan, the physics researchers who changed his life when he became “a practicing rabbi” in 1965 passed away today.
http://www.nytimes.com/1983/02/02/obituaries/rabbi-aryeh-kaplan-48-dies-wrote-books-on-jewish-topics.html



1987: Valerian Trifa, the Iron Guard leader who later served as archbishop of the Romanian Orthodox Church in America and Canada died today. Trifa was exposed and brought to justice thanks to the efforts of Zev Gola



 1988: The BBC broadcast the final episode of “Yes Minster” a satirical political sitcom co-created and written by Jonathan Lynn.



1991: Iraq fired another missile with a conventional warhead at Tel Aviv tonight, the seventh attack in 12 days. But this time the army said the Scud was defective and disintegrated as it fell back to earth. No one was hurt, and there was no property damage. The missile had fallen apart even before any Patriot air-defense missiles could be fired at it.



1992: As part of “Israel: The Next Generation,” a performance is given of “‘Jabar’s Head,a cabaret show presented in Arabic, Hebrew, and English by the Beit Hagefen Theatre”



1992(23rd of Shevat, 5752): Eighty-six year old Israeli archaeologist Nahman Avigad who led the team that found the Cardo in the Jewish Quarter passed away today.
http://www.nytimes.com/1992/02/14/world/nahman-avigad-an-archeologist-and-biblical-scholar-dies-at-86.html



1992: In New York, Laurie Simmons and Carroll Dunham gave birth to actress and poet Grace Dunham.



1993: At New York’s Plaza Hotel, Senator Daniel K. Inouye, Rabbi Shlomo Riskin and the Zahal Disabled Veterans Organization, which operates two sports rehabilitation and social centers in Tel Aviv and Haifa and is building a facility in Jerusalem, receive the 10th annual Defender of Jerusalem Awards from the Jabotinsky Foundation.



1993(6thof Shevat, 5753): Fifty-two year old Hannah Wilke an American painter, sculptor, photographer, video artist and performance artist passed away today in New York.
http://www.nytimes.com/1994/01/30/arts/art-view-an-artist-s-chronicle-of-a-death-foretold.html



1996 (7th of Shevat, 5756): Jerry Siegel noted cartoonist and creator of Superman passed away at the age of 81. Whether it is highbrow (see next entry) or lowbrow, there always seems to be a Jew somewhere creating American Culture.



1996(7th of Shevat, 5756):  Joseph Brodsky passes away at the age of 55.  Born in Russia in 1940, the famed poet would survive persecution in his native and exile to the United States to win the 1987 Nobel Prize for Literature and become Poet Laureate of the United States in 1991.



1996: A revival of David Merrick’s “Hello Dolly” closed at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre after 116 performances.



2000: “Isn’t She Great” a biopic directed by Andrew Bergman, “with a screenplay by Paul Rudnick based on a 1995 New Yorker profile by Michael Korda” starring Bette Midler, with music by Burt Bacharach was released today in the United States.



2000(21stof Shevat, 5760): Seventy-seven year old London born actress Joy Shelton who converted to Judaism after she married actor Sydney Tafler passed away today in Richmond upon Thames.



2001: In Chicago, “Roman Vishniac: Children of a Vanished World” featuring 50 pictures taken by the photographer “during the years 1935 through 1938” in which he “turned his camera lens on Jewish life in Eastern Europe, in the hope of focusing worldwide attention on its declining condition at the brink of destruction” opened at the Spertus Museum.



2001: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Newest Place in the World by Suzanne Ruta, Rethinking the Holocaust by Yehuda Bauer and the Jewish Confederates by Robert N. Rosen.



2002(15th of Shevat, 5762) Tu B'Shevat



2002(15thof Shevat, 5762): Today Mark Sokolow, who escaped without injury from the second tower of the World Trade Center during the attack on September 11, was walking with his family in the scarred central shopping district here when a Palestinian bomber set off an explosion that resounded throughout Jerusalem, killing herself and an 81-year-old man and wounding 113, most of them slightly. ''I was a lot luckier last time,'' Mr. Sokolow, a 43-year-old lawyer from Woodmere, N.Y., said as he recovered in a hospital here from shrapnel wounds to his face and leg. ''This one involved my whole family.'' After a frantic search for his wife and two of his daughters, he learned at the hospital that most of their wounds were also slight, though one girl, Jamie, 12, had shrapnel in her right eye. She was likely to retain her sight, doctors said. The blast scattered burning body parts across Jaffa Road and sent a cloud of swirling dust and circling pigeons into the air, witnesses said. The attack was steps from where a Palestinian gunman raked the area with semiautomatic gunfire last week, killing two and wounding 20 before being shot dead by the police. If the bomber in the attack today intended to die, she would be the first female suicide bomber to strike in Israel since such attacks began here in 1994, the police said.



2003: Ariel Sharon emerges victorious in Israeli elections today which included the defeat of Amram Mitzna, the leader of the Labor Party. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and his rightist party, Likud, crushed Israel's Labor Party in parliamentary elections, as voters vented their doubts about any prompt, secure end to the bitter conflict with the Palestinians.



2004: Soviet dissident Alexander Podrabinek was summoned by the FSB to come for interrogation today, but refused to answer the questions



2004: In northern Greece, in the presence of US Ambassador to Athens Thomas Miller, Nobel peace prize winner Elie Wiesel and representatives of the city's political and cultural sectors, the memory day for Greek Jews who lost their lives in the Nazi concentration camps of Auschwitz and Birkenau was honored by the Jewish community in Thessalonica.



2005: “Barenboim Comments Sparks Anger As Controversy at Columbia” published today described the behavior of Argentine-Israeli conductor Barenboim and the environment which some Jewish students have to deal with at Columbia University.
http://www.jta.org/2005/01/28/archive/barenboim-comments-spark-anger-as-controversy-at-columbia-builds



2006(28th of Tevet, 5766): Kabbalah sage Rabbi Yitzhak Kedouri passed away at the Bikur Holim hospital in Jerusalem. His precise age was unknown, but estimated to be somewhere between 106 and 113 years old. Rabbi Kedouri was born in Iraq at the turn of the 20th century. He began his studies in Jewish mysticism in his youth, before coming to Israel in 1923. Kaduri, known as "the senior Kabbalist," is the last of a generation of Sephardic Jewish mystics. His close circle of friends and family say he was one of the few known living Kabbalist who used "practical Kabbalah," a type of Jewish magic aimed at affecting a change in the world. More rational schools of Judaism are skeptical about Kaduri's powers. Nevertheless, few doubted Kaduri's righteousness and vast knowledge of both conventional and more esoteric Jewish thought and law. For most of his life Kaduri was unknown to the general public. He led a modest life of study and prayer and worked as a bookbinder. During the past decade and a half he served as the head of Nahalat Yitzhak Yeshiva in Jerusalem's Bukharan quarter.



2006: “Nothing Lasts Forever” a comedy produced by Lorne Michaels in 1984 that was not released to the public, co-starring Mort Sahl, Sam Jaffe and Eddie Fisher with music by Howard Shore was screened today at the Eastman House's Dryden Theatre in Rochester, New York.



2007: Maccabiah U.S.A. (MUSA) held its annual meeting in Newark, New Jersey.



2007: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East, 1776 to the Present by Michael B. Oren.


2007: The Washington Post featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for Godby the late Carl Sagan.


2007: Raleb Majadele was appointed Minister without Portfolio making him Israel’s first Muslim cabinet officer.


2007: The Los Angeles Times book section featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Little Book of Plagiarism byJudge Richard A. Posner.


2007: The Times of London featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including of Imposture by Benjamin Markovits.


2008:An American adaptation of the Israeli television series “BeTipul” or “In Therapy” entitled In Treatment premiered today on the American cable network HBO


2008: In Seattle, Washington, the final performance of “The Westerbork Serenade.” “The Westerbork Serenade” is a one-person play which tells the true story of Jewish cabaret performers held by the Nazis in the Dutch transit camp of Westerbork. From 1942-1944, some of Berlin's greatest stars performed at Westerbork, thereby delaying their transport to death camps. Most, however, were killed before the end of the war. The play contains period songs, sketches and accounts. “The Westerbork Serenade” is the title of an acerbic love song about camp life written by Dutch singing duo, Johnny and Jones, in 1944, just months before their deportation to Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen death camps.



2008: U.S. News & World Report features an article entitled “New Taste for Kosher Food” that begins “Not only Jews look for the kosher symbol on food these days. In a surprising turn of events, "kosher" has become the most popular claim on new food products, trouncing "organic" and "no additives or preservatives," according to a recent report. A noteworthy 4,719 new kosher items were launched in the United States last year—nearly double the number of new "all natural" products, which placed second in the report, issued last month by Mintel, a Chicago-based market research firm. In fact, sales of kosher foods have risen an estimated 15 percent a year for the past decade. Yet Jews, whose religious doctrine mandates the observance of kosher dietary laws, make up only 20 percent of those buying kosher products. What gives? "It's the belief among all consumers that kosher food is safer, a critical thing right now with worries about the integrity of the food supply," says Marcia Mogelonsky, a senior analyst at Mintel a Chicago based market research firm.



2008: Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama saidPalestinian refugees belong in their own state and do not have a "literal" right of return to Israel. "The outlines of any agreement would involve ensuring that Israel remains a Jewish state.” His statements of support for the Israeli position on refugees came on the heels of scurrilous charges that Obama is secretly a Muslim who received a radical Wahabi education.



2008: Israeli officials said today that Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak held talks in Paris last week with Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf even though their countries have no diplomatic relations. The two men first met by chance in the hotel where Barak was staying and spoke briefly, a spokeswoman from his ministry told AFP.



2008 (21 Shevat, 5768): In Iowa City Dr. Michael Balch, Associate Professor Emeritus of Economics at the University of Iowa and a longtime member of the Jewish community passed away. Michael earned a BS in Engineering Science from Pratt Institute in 1960 an MS from New York University in 1962 and a PhD in Mathematics from New York University in1965.  His areas of expertise were Economic behavior under uncertainty and Theories of deterrence, arms control, and war.



2009: Jack Lew began serving as Deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources. 



2009:The YIVO Institute for Jewish Research presents a lecture by Yedid Kanfter entitled: “The Lodz Towers of Babel: Industry and Religious Politics in Lodz Before the First World War” in which the Yale University professor  explores the link between Lodz and religious infrastructure, between industry and Orthodox politics. 



2009: The Jerusalem Conference “the unique annual forum co-sponsored by Arutz Sheva for the discussion of Israel's national priorities, social values, and aspirations” hosts its concluding session.



2009: “Stumbling Stone,” a documentary study of the artist Gunter Demnig and his continuing Holocaust memorial project is shown at the New York Jewish Film Festival.



2009: James Steinberg began serving as the 16th United States Deputy Secretary of State.



2009: “Blessed is the Match: The Life and Death of Hannah Senesh” opens today in Manhattan.



 2009:Israel's chief rabbinate severed ties with the Vatican today to protest a papal decision to reinstate. Bishop Richard Williamson, who told Swedish TV in an interview broadcast last week that evidence "is hugely against 6 million Jews being deliberately gassed." He said 300,000 Jews were killed at most, "but not one of them by gassing in a gas chamber."



2010: In New York City, closing day of "Laba’s Guests" at Laba Gallery, New York 



2010: Walter Isaacson is scheduled to discuss and sign his new book, American Sketches: Great Leaders, Creative Thinkers, and Heroes of a Hurricane, at Barnes and Noble in Bethesda, Md.



2010:  Novelist Myla Goldberg, author of Bee Season and Wickett's Remedy, is scheduled to “chat” about "The Story Behind the Stories" at the D.C. Jewish Community Center. This event, co-sponsored with George Washington University, is the launch of the JCC's new series, "Authors Out Loud."



2010: Elisa New is scheduled to discuss and sign her new memoir, "Jacob's Cane: A Jewish Family's Journey from the Four Lands of Lithuania to the Ports of London and Baltimore," at Barnes & Noble in Rockville, Md.



2010:Israeli drip irrigation giant Netafim opened a new factory in Turkey today despite recent diplomatic tensions between the two countries.



2010(13th of Shevat, 5770)Seymour Bernard Sarason, professor emeritus of psychology at Yale University passed away in New Haven, Connecticut, at the age of 91. (As reported by William Grimes)
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/08/education/08sarason.html



2011: The 92nd St Y is scheduled to host its Shababa Bakery where children of all ages can “squish, roll and braid” their own challah to take home and bake for Shabbat.



2011: Ezra Rosenfeld is scheduled to lead a guided tour of “the amazing mountain palace and fortress of Herodion” that many consider King Herod's "Piece de Resistance."



2011: Rabbi Edward Feld, the senior editor of the new Rabbinical Assembly (Conservative) High Holy Day Mahzor was not able to deliver his lecutre about “Why Words?”—a discussion of how we relate to words in a prayer book at Congregation Olam Tikvah in Fairfax, VA because of a snow storm and power outage.



2011:Paraguay joined a string of South American nations in recognizing an independent Palestinian state.



2011(22ndof Shevat, 5771):Gerry Faier, a longtime gay activist in New York who returned to Jewish practice in her later years, passed away today at 102. http://jwa.org/weremember/faier-gerry



2012: “Ahead of Time: The Extraordinary Journey of Ruth Gruber”  is scheduled to be shown at the Brotherhood Film Festival sponsored by Congregation Rodeph Sholom in New York and the Virginia Peninsula Jewish Film Festival in Williamsburg, Va.


2012:Rachel Feinstein is scheduled perform on the final night of the Minneapolis Jewish Humor Festival.


2012: In Iowa City, IA, Agudas Achim is scheduled to host “Support Mitzvah Day 2012” a fund raiser sponsored by the Tikkun Olam Committee.


2012:Opposition leader and Kadima party head Tzipi Livni called for tougher sanctions against Iran today, saying that it is the responsibility of the entire world to stop Tehran’s quest for the bomb.


2012:Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said today that “Israeli intransigence” was behind the failure of the January Israeli-Palestinian talks in Jordan.



2012(4thof Shevat, 5772): Fifty four year old Steven Leiber, a San Francisco art dealer and collector who became an expert in artists’ ephemera and built an archive that became an important resource for scholars and curators” passed away today. (As reported by Roberta Smith)
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/06/arts/design/steven-leiber-dealer-in-artists-ephemera-dies-at-54.html?_r=0



2013: The YIVO Institute for Jewish Research is scheduled to present “Laughing All the Way to Freedom” featuring Professor Emil Draitser, author of Taking Penguins to the Movies.



2013: This evening “a suspicious object” was found on the road leading to Erfat, which turned out to be “a fake bomb” that “had been planted on the road.



2013: Jerusalem expressed "surprise and astonishment" today at a decision by Iran and Argentina to set up a "truth committee" to investigate the 1994 bombing of a Buenos Aires Jewish community center that killed 85 people.



2014: “When You Listen to a Witness, You Become a Witness,” an exhibition that “documents the experiences of students while visiting the former Nazi concentration camps established in Poland during WW II,  is scheduled to open at the Dag Hammarskjöld Library



2014: “Yitzhak Bergel, the 47 year-old Jerusalem resident who allegedly spied for Iran on behalf of extreme anti-Zionist Neturei Karta sect, was sentenced by the Jerusalem District Court today to 4.5 years in prison.” (As reported by Tova Dvorin)



2014: Twenty-three year old Abur Sara and 30 year old Abu Nagma were indicted today on charges that they “were planning a terror attack on Binyanei Hauma in Jerusalem and the American Embassy in Tel Aviv.” (As reported by Aris Yashar)



2015: Showtime broadcast the last episode of “Web Therapy” starring Lisa Kudrow.



2015: Pears Institute for the study of Antisemitism in collaboration with the Institute for Historical Research, supported by the Department of History, Classics and Archaeology, Birkbeck, University of London are scheduled to present “Remapping Survival: Jewish Refugees and Rescue in Soviet Central Asia, Iran and India.”



2015: The United Nations commemoration of International Holocaust Remembrance Day which had been postponed due to predictions of an unprecedented snow storm which had cause the Mayor to “close down” New York is scheduled to take place today.



2015: A celebration of the release of “Toyznt tamen: A Thousand Flavors, a new recording by Yiddish singer and songwriter Miryem-Khaye Seigel” is scheduled to take place the Museum at Eldridge Street.



2015: A verdict is expected to be rendered today in the case of three defendants who are trial for an arson attack on the Wuppertal Synagogue last July. (As reported by JTA)



2016: In Tel Aviv the five day long “360 degrees music festival” is scheduled to come to an end.



2016: The 92ndStreet Y is scheduled to host an evening with former CBS News anchor Michelle Gielan, the author of Broadcasting Happiness.



January 28, 2017(1st of Shevat, 5777): Rosh Chodesh Shevat; Parashat Va-ayrah;



2017: “Stormy weather washed several dozen explosive fuses up onto beaches in Tel Aviv and Herzliya today, police said warning the public to exercise caution.”



2017: An exhibition “WOMEN: New Portraits Annie Leibovit” is scheduled to continue its ten city tour with an opening in Zurich.



2017: Russ and Daughter’s is scheduled to host its first “Lox Without the Lines” a pre-paid Shabbat brunch at the Jewish Museum that is both kosher and in keeping with Jewish Sabbatical laws.



2017: After years of service to the Jewish Community of Iowa City and the University of Iowa, Agudas Achim is scheduled to host a farewell Kiddush for Jerry Sorkin.



2017: The Oxford University Jewish Society is scheduled to host the Seudah Shlishit featuring a talk by Chaplain Michael Rosenfeld-Schueler



 2018: The Center for Jewish History is scheduled to host “International Ladino Day: A Celebration of Story and Song.”
https://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/3132932



2018: Sara Aharaon is scheduled to lecture on The Jews of Afghanistan: History, Culture and Muslim-Jewish Relations at the Hudson Yards Synagogue.



2018: The Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center is scheduled to co-host a presentation by Murry Sidlin, President and Creative Director of the Defiant Requiem Foundation that provides an overview of about twenty composers who created many works at Terezin, the "model" ghetto/concentration camp established by the Nazis outside of Prague.


2018: The final screening “An Act of Defiance,” the winner of the Dorfman Best Film Award in 2017 is scheduled to take place today at Reel Borehamwood



2018: The curtain is scheduled to come down “A Sick Day for Morris McGee” which Yedioth Ahronoth described as “a work full of charm and ingenuity” at the New Victory Theatre.



2018: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Trumpocracy:The Corruption of the American Republic by David Frum, Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House by Michael Wolff and The Last Man Who Knew Everything:The Life and Times of Enrico Fermi, Father of the Nuclear Age by David N. Schwartz



2018: Final day for registering for Tablet’s January Book Giveaway.
http://www.tabletmag.com/giveaways/january-2018-book-giveaway?lucky=22230



 



 



 


 

This Day, January 29, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. Levin

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January 29



904: Sergius III began his papacy during which Jews first began settling at Mayence, Germany in 906.



1258: “The Mongols under Chinese general Guo Kan laid siege to” Baghdad today as part of a successful invasion Persia which led to the abolishment of “the inequality of dhimmis” which meant that all religions, including that of the Jews “were declared equal.”



1421(17th of Shevat, 5181):The Jews of Sargossa, Spain were spared from slaughter at the hands of King Alfonso V , thanks to the fact that a handful of synagogues beadles had acted on the advice given to them by the Prophet Elijah in a dream  shared by each of them.  The resulting salvation on the 17th of Shevat was celebrated by Saragossan Jews, and dubbed "Purim Saragossa." A Hebrew Megillah (scroll) was penned, describing the details of the miraculous story. To this day, this scroll is read in certain communities on Purim Saragossa.



1478: “The Washington Haggadah,” the creation of Joel Ben Simeon was completed today. “In addition to the full text of the Passover night liturgy, the Washington Haggadah features stunningly intricate illuminated panels and a series of Passover illustrations that include depictions of "The Four Sons,""The Search for Leaven," and "The Messiah Heralded." The enduring popularity of Joel ben Simeon's miniatures is reflected in the many reproductions of his work that have appeared over the years in anthologies of Jewish art and manuscript painting. In 1991, the Library of Congress published a facsimile edition of the Washington Haggadah, accompanied by a companion volume with a detailed scholarly description, analysis, and assessment of the manuscript.”



1482: Pope Sixtus V addresses a “severe letter” to Ferdinand and Isabella censuring the conduct of the Inquisition.  “In this letter the pope admitted that he had issued the bull for the institution of the Inquisition without due consideration.”



1581: Baptism of Sir Rowland Cotton, the English MP who learned Hebrew from Hugh Broughton.



1676(OS): Tsar Alexis I of Russia passed away. “During his reign a considerable number of Jews lived in Moscow and the interior of Russia. In a work of travels, written at that time, but published later, and bearing the title, Reise nach dem Nordenthe author states that, owing to the influence of a certain Stephan von Gaden, the czar's Jewish physician, the number of Jews considerably increased in Moscow. The same information is contained in the work, The Present State of Russia by Samuel Collins, who was also a physician at the court of the czar. From the edicts issued by Alexis Mikhailovich, it appears that the czar often granted the Jews passports with red seals (gosudarevy zhalovannyya gramoty), without which no foreigners could be admitted to the interior; and that they traveled without restriction to Moscow, dealing in cloth and jewelry, and even received from his court commissions to procure various articles of merchandise. Thus, in 1672, the Jewish merchants Samuel Jakovlev and his companions were commissioned at Moscow to go abroad and buy Hungarian wine.” Another edict “instructed a party of Lithuanian Jews to proceed from Kaluga to Nijni-Novgorod, and as a protection they received an escort of twenty sharpshooters.” The Czar’s attitude towards the Jews was a mixed bag as can be seen from his expulsion of “the Jews from the newly acquired Lithuanian and Polish cities” – Mohilev, Wilna, and Kiev. Altogether, taking into consideration the hatred of foreigners among the Russian population of his time, it is evident that Alexis was kindly disposed toward the Jews.”



1689: The Convention Parliament adopted a resolution declaring England to be “a Protestant Kingdom” and that only a Protestant could be King.  This effectively removed James II from the throne and paved the way for William and Mary to come to the throne. The Jews had already returned to the British Isles, but the Protestant monarchs would prove to be sympathetic to their cause which helped with the peaceful growth of the nascent Anglo-Jewish community.



1735: Sixty-eight year old George Granville, the British playwright adapted “The Merchant of Venice” into the “Jew of Venice” in 1701 passed away today.



1790: "The Jews of Paris obtained a certificate, couched in most flattering terms, and testifying to their excellent reputation, from the inhabitants of the district of the Carmelites, where most Jews dwelt at this time.”



1791: During the French Revolution, a Jewish delegation dressed in their uniforms as National Guardsmen and bearing certificates of ‘good behavior’ from the Christian citizens of Paris appeared before the Commune seeking support for their demand to be granted full rights as citizens of France.



1794: Ezekiel Hart, one of the early leaders of the Canadian-Jewish community married Frances Lazarus. She was the niece of Frances Noah and her husband Ephraim Hart, a successful New York merchant.



1800: “In a joint patent issued today in Vienna, the Habsburg Emperor Franz II appoint Rothschild and Amschel his Imperial Crown Agents.”



1803(6th of Shevat, 5563): Jonas Phillips passed away. Born in Germany in 1736, he was the first of the Phillips family to settle in America. A founder of Mikveh Israel in Philadelphia, Phillips was the father of twenty-two children and the grandfather of Uriah Phillips Levy, the first Jewish Commodore in the United States Navy.



1803: In Frankfurt am Main, Germany to Baron Salomon Mayer von Rothschild and his wife Caroline gave birth to Anselm Salomon von Rothschild, an Austrian banker and a member of the Vienna branch of the Rothschild family.



1808:  Ezekiel Hart was elected to the Canadian parliament but was prevented from taking his seat because as a Jew he could not take the oath "on the true faith of a Christian." Though reelected in May 1808, and in April 1809, he was again prevented from being seated. Only in 1832 was legislation passed allowing Jews to hold public office and giving them full civil rights. Born in 1767, Hart passed away in 1843.



1815(18thof Shevat, 5577): Benvenida de Isaac Solis, the daughter of Isaac Henriques Henriques Valentine and Simha Mandil and wife of Solomon da Silva Solis passed away today in London



1817(12thof Shevat, 5577): Sixty year old Abraham Furtado, the President of the Assemblee des Notables and  assistant of the Mayor of Bordeaux passed away in Bordeaux.



1817: Israel Helbert married Adeline Cohen at the Hambro Synagogue.



1819: Sir Stamford Raffles establishes at a post at Singapore. By 1830, there at least 9 Jewish traders living at the British outpost and by 1840, the Sassoon family with all that that meant for the growth of the colony and the Jewish community.



1820: King George III, whose life had been saved by a Jew in 1800 and who had his first conversation with a Jew when he spoke to boxer Daniel Mendoza passed away



1830: The date for the congregation charter for Nidce Israel, in Baltimore which became the Baltimore Hebrew Congregation.



1832: In St. Petersburg, Maria Ivanovna Maltsova and Captain Pavel Nikolayevich Ignatyev gave birth to Count Nikolay Pavlovich Ignatyev who was appointed Minister of the Interior by Alexander III who fomented pogroms and who was the driving force behind the issuance of the infamous May Laws.



1843: In Niles, Ohio, William and Nancy (née Allison) McKinley gave birth to William McKinley, Jr. who appointed Oscar Straus to serve as United States Minister to the Ottoman Empire.



1848: In a speech at the annual Thomas Paine Dinner, suffragist and anti-slavery activist Ernestine Rose declared "superstition keeps women ignorant, dependent, and enslaved beings. Knowledge will make them free."http://jwa.org/thisweek/jan/29/1848/ernestine-rose



1849: Isaac Noah Mannheimer delivered a speech in the Austrian Reichstag where he called for the abolition of capital punishment.



1849: Birthdate of Odessa native Adolph Zederbaum, the Berlin trained physician who served on the Board of Trustees of the Jewish Consumptives’ Relief Society headquartered in Denver, CO.



1851: In Charleston, SC, Leopold Cohen married Elizabeth Cohen, “the eldest daughter of Nathan A. Cohen.’



1852: Birthdate of Frederick Hyman Cohen, the native of Kingston Jamaica, who would gain fame as the Composer, Conductor, and Pianist, Sir Fredrick H. Cowen.



1856: Birthdate of Elisheba (Bathshebabai) Wargharkar, the wife of Moses Shalom Bapuji Israel Wargharkar with whom she had 11 children.



1856:  Queen Victoria institutes the Victoria Cross. Frank de Pass was the first Jew to be awarded Britain’s highest award for valor.  He earned it for action on the Western Front on November 24, 1917.  The award was made posthumously since he was killed the next day.



1859 (24th of Shevat, 5619):Passing of Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Kotzk. Born in 1787, he was renowned Chassidic leader, and forerunner of the "Ger" Chassidic dynasty.



1860: Birthdate of Russian author Anton Chekhov. Unlike other Russian literary lions, Chekhov fully opposed anti-Semitism.  He was a supporter of Dreyfus, publicly declaring his innocence and supporting Zola when he came to the defense of the French Colonel.  When Alexsi Suvorin, his longtime friend and literary colleague, attacked Zola as an agent of the Jews, Chekhov ended their professional and personal relationship.



1861: Kansas became the 34th state of the Union. One of the unique aspects of the history of the Jews of Kansas was the Jewish agricultural colonies that were established on the High Plains during the 1880’s. The Jewish Agriculturists' Aid Society of America seven Jewish agricultural colonies in places with such Biblical and or Jewish names as Beersheba, Montefiore, Lasker, Leeser, and Touro, Gilead and Hebron. For more about this interesting attempt to create what Zionist would come to call The New Jew in America’s heartland see "Jewish Farming Communities Enriched Kansas Cultural Heritage" at http://www.kshs.org/features/feat1201.htm. Today there is a thriving Jewish Community in Kansas, much of it centered in Overland, Kansas, a Kansas City suburb.



1866: Philadelphian Aaron de Haan completed two years of service with Battery A of the 112th Regiment –Second Artillery.



1872(19th of Shevat, 5632) Fifty-four year old Jacob Israel passed away today after which he was buried in the Jewish Cemetery in Natchitoches, LA.



1874: Birthdate of Arthur Lenz who would die in Nazi held Berlin in 1944.



1877(15thof Shevat, 5637): Tu B’Shevat



1877: After studying at the Jewish Theological Seminary at Breslau, David Kaufmann was ordained as a Rabbi.  He had received his Ph.D. from the University of Leipzig 3 years before his ordinated.



1877: It was reported today that according to an unconfirmed rumor, the Ottoman government is so desperate for money that it has offered to sell the Pashaluk of the Holy Land, which is effectively Palestine, to any candidate acceptable to the Jews in return for a loan.  If the Jews are not interested, the Turks might make a similar offer to Brigham Young since agents of the Mormon have been reported making similar inquiries during the past year.



1878: Birthdate of Dr. Alexander Marx, the native of Elberfield, Germany who became the director of libraries and Jacob H. Schiff Professor of History at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America.



1880(16thof Shevat, 5640): Twenty-eight year old Elias Abendana passed away after which he was buried at the New Jewish Cemetery in London.



1882: Seventy-one year old General Alfred von Henikstein, “the youngest son of the Jewish banker Ritter Joseph von Henikstein, who was baptized as a child” and who was” chief of staff before the battle of Königgrätz in the Austro-Prussian War” passed away today.



1890: It was reported today that Professor Felix Adler officiated at the wedding of Gertrude Hiller and Gustave Leve in New York City.



1890: Forty year old Mrs. Basche Gersohnfeld a Russian Jewess and her four children ranging in age from eleven to two arrived at Castle Garden where she was met by her husband Moses who had come to American before her with their son Joseph and was working as butcher.



1890: Commissioner Stephenson denied Basche Gershonfeld and her young children the right to leave Castle Garden because even though her husband Moses was earning $12 a week as a butcher and her son Joseph was earning $9 a week he was not sure that they would not become public charges.



1891: It was reported today that the 200 year old Wells Mansion which is believed to be the oldest house still standing in Boston, MA, has been purchased by a Jewish millionaire named Ratchesky. (This may be Abraham “Cap” Rashesky who founded the A.C. Ratchesky Foundation.



1892(29thof Tevet, 5652): Sixty three year old Benjamin Russak, a partner in Harris& amp; Russak, a “fur-manufacturing house” passed away today.  A native of Posen, he came to the United States in 1848 and opened a retail hat, cap and fur store with his brother-in-law, Henry Harris. The firm prospered and was one of the first to enter into the fur-seal trade.  Russak was active in several organizations including the Hebrew Orphan Asylum, the United Hebrew Charities and the Hebrew Technical Institute.



1892(29thof Tevet, 5652): Eight year old Liebmann Adler, the native of Lengsfeld, Germany who came to the United States in 1854 to lead a congregation in Detroit, MI, before becoming the Rabbi at the Ḳehillath Anshe Ma'arabh ("Congregation of the Men of the West"), of Chicago in 1861 passed away today.



1892: Birthdate of German –born American director Ernst Lubitsch.

1895: It was reported today that the mid-year exams, including tests in Hebrew, will begin this week at Columbia College in New York,



1896: It was reported today that the American Jewish Historical Society will be holding its fourth annual meeting in Philadelphia.



1897: Captain Ferdinand Forzinetti, the commandant of military prison, who was “one of the first to be convinced of the innocent of Dreyfus” received a letter of commendation from the Ministry of War “for having taken part in a panel that reviewed the regulations concerning the serving of military justice.” Later in the year, he would be relieved of duty when his support for Dreyfus became a matter of public record.



1897: “Our Jewish Population” published today included a summary of paper presented by Philadelphian David Sulzberger at the annual meeting of the American Jewish Historical Society which described the growth of Jewish population in the United from 3,000 in 1812 to its present level of 500,000 “of whom 140,000” live in New York City. 



1897: Rabbis Kohler and Kleeberg will co-officiate today at the funeral of Dr. Solomon Deutsch, the author of Essays on the Talmud



1898: Lucien Millevoye delivered an anti-Dreyfus speech tonight in Bordeaux.



1898: “Fortunes in Antiquity” provided a review of The Art of Getting Rich in which Henry Hardwicke uses the story of Cain and Able as evidence that “the first occupations of mankind were sheep industry and tillage.”  Furthermore, as can be seen from the fact that “the wealth of the patriarchs…consisted principally in their flocks” the “pastoral life…seems to have been more…profitable among the Hebrews than tillage.” 



1899: Birthdate of Harold W. Carmely, the native of Wolkowysk, Poland, who came to the United States in 1922 where he served as the Superintendent of the Daughters of Israel Home in New York and Director of Keren Hayesod.



1899: “Homer and Jewish Rites” published today noted the similarity between the Jewish rituals concerning the washing of the hands and the prayer uttered in the Iliad, “Now pray to Jove what Greece demands: Pray in deep silence and with the purest hands.”



1899:The meeting of the Zionist Actions Committee in Vienna came to an end.



1899: Mr. Green introduced a bill in Albany today that would exempt “the real property of the Young Men’s Hebrew Association of New York City from all taxes commonly known as ‘land taxes.’”



1899: It was reported today that Governor Theodore Roosevelt has chosen Jastrow Alexander to serve as State Inspector of Gas Meters.  “In Mr. Alexander, the Governor believed he had found another Maccabee – a Jews who had come to this country from Germany while a young man, had become thoroughly imbued with the American spirit, had enlisted when the civil war broke out, and by reason of conspicuous courage had been advanced to be an Adjutant General.”



1903: Herzl and the Actions Committee in Vienna work out the outline of a Charter which is taken to Cairo by the expedition and delivered to Leopold Greenberg.



1903: In New York, Ike ("Charlie Hoey") and Jennie A. Guerin Croter gave birth to Alvina Croter who gained fame as Viña Delmar “the American playwright and screenwriter” who “was nominated for an Academy Award for 1937 for her screen adaptation of the Arthur Richman play, “The Awful Truth.”



1903: Birthdate of Yeshayahu Leibowitz, the Riga born intellectual who made Aliyah in 1935 and whose career both in depth in breadth is beyond my ability to even begin to describe.
http://www.nytimes.com/1994/08/19/obituaries/yeshayahu-leibowitz-91-iconoclastic-israeli-thinker.html?pagewanted=print&src=pm
http://www.nytimes.com/1994/08/19/obituaries/yeshayahu-leibowitz-91-iconoclastic-israeli-thinker.html?pagewanted=print&src=pm
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/yleib.html



1904: In Warsaw Ludwig Lazarus Zamenhof, the originator of Esperanto and his wife gave birth to their youngest daughter Lidia Zamenhof who died in Treblinka.
http://bahai-library.com/dale_lidia_zamenhof



1905: Carl Jung made an entry in the records of the Burgholzli Hospital in which he described his treatment of Sabina Spielrein whom he described as “oriental” and “voluptuous.”  The young Jewess went from being a patient of Freud and Jung to being a pioneer in the field of psychoanalysis. (As reported by Karen Hall)



1906: It was reported today that when “a deputation of the reactionary League of Russian Men” told the Czar, “We are convinced that the present sedition is the work of the Jews’ hands” and “therefore entreated the sovereign not to grant equality before the laws to the Jews” the Emperor replied “I shall think it over.”



1906: As of today Louis S. Brush is President of the Choral Society for Ancient Hebrew Melodies and Mrs. Solomon Schechter, the wife of the President of the Jewish Theological Seminary and the founder of the society is the vice president.



1906: “A special international congress of Jews” meeting under the auspices of the Zionists which will discuss action to be taken to protect the Jews of Russia is scheduled to open today in Brussels and will be attended by a delegation selected by the Federation of American Zionists.



1913: The British Consul in Jerusalem, P.J.C. McGregor wrote a dispatch assuring his government that he had talked to one of the leading Zionists in Palestine who denied reports in some British papers that the Palestinian Jews were pro Turk and pro German. This un-named leader assured the British diplomat that the Zionist sought the protection of the Union Jack since it was the only force that would support their goal of a Jewish home in Palestine.



1913: Birthdate of Daniel Taradash, the Louisville native and graduate of Harvard Law School before becoming a director and screenwriter who won the 1953 Oscar for writing the script for “From Here to Eternity.”



1913: Birthdate of Nina Zimet Schneider, anative of Antwerp, Belgium, who grew up in the United States where she combined forces with her Husband Herman to write dozens of books for children “that deftly explained the intricacies of stars, plants, the human body and even the networks of pipes and cables below the city streets…” 



1913: In Chicago, Samuel Kadish and his wife gave birth to American sculptor Reuben Kadish. (As reported by Roberta Smith)
http://www.nytimes.com/1992/09/22/obituaries/reuben-kadish-79-a-sculptor-of-works-evoking-the-ancient.html



1913(21stof Shevat, 5673): Ninety-one year old “communal worker” Louis Lewengood passed away in New York City.



1913: Churchill sends a letter to the Reform Club announcing his resignation because Baron de Forest, his Jewish friend and Member of Parliament had been blackballed in his bid for membership.



1914: Leading members of the AZK (the Anti-Zionist Committee which had been established by the Association for Liberal Judaism) including Bernhard Breslau, Hermann Coehn, Eugen Katz, James Simon and Hermann Veit Simon were asked to prepare a declaration “to be published in the most prestigious papers” on the “danger of Zionist activity in German



1915: “With the evidence of the negro Jim Conley, the principle witness against Leo M. Frank when the latter was convicted of the murder of Mary Phagan and that of Herbert Hass, of counsel for Frank, Solicitor Hugh Dorsey, late this afternoon rested the case of the State against Dan S. Lehon, C.C. Fedler, and Attorney Arthur Thurman, representatives of the W.J. Burns Detective Agency, who are accused of subornation of perjury in the effort to get a new trial for Frank.”



1915: Following his death last week, Louis Sulzbach who “was the first continental American appointed as Associate Justice of the newly created Supreme Court of Puerto Rico” was honored by the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico in a Memorial Resolution” today.



1915: In Philadelphia, PA, Arthur Kaufman and Henrietta Berkowitz Stern gave birth to historian and rabbi, Malcolm H. Stern.
http://collections.americanjewisharchives.org/ms/ms0626/ms0626.html



1916: Four years after having originally premiered in the United Kingdom, “The Miracle” a British silent film based on a play by Max Reinhardt premiered in Argentina.



1916: The opposition in the Senate yesterday to the nomination of Louis D. Brandeis of Boston to the Supreme Court of the United States appears to have been softened overnight. One Democratic Senator, who is especially well placed for knowing the drift of sentiment on the subject, said today that twenty-four hours ago he would have estimated that two-thirds of the Senate was against Mr. Brandeis.



1916: In Argentina, premiere of “The Miracle” a British silent film treatment of Max Reinhardt’s play of the same name.



1916: As of today, the Central Committee for the Relief of Jews Suffering Through the War has “received $1,746.588 of which $1,104,966.24 was in cash and $641,621.76 in pledges.



1917: At Temple Emanu-El in New York, Dr. H. G. Enelow is scheduled to deliver a lecture today entitled “The Jewish Heritage of Jesus.”



1917: “A roof garden, built as a memorial to Mrs. Louis Marshall, for the use of children is scheduled to be dedicated this afternoon at the Lenox Hill Settlement.



1917: “Daniel Goldberg, Secretary of the Brooklyn Jewish Volunteer Relief Committee announced today that $5,000, mostly in $5 to $25 contribuitons had been added to the $50,000 subscribed and pledged at the meeting that had been held at the Academy of Music.



1917(6thof Shevat, 5677): Esther Kantrowitz, the mother of Meta Itskowitz, who raised her grandson Eddie Cantor from the time he was two because both of his parents had passed away died today.



1918: Hugo Guttman, a German-Jewish Lieutenant in the Kaiser’s Army began serving as “Adolf Hitler’s direct superior.”



1918: Birthdate of Morton Schindel the Wharton School graduate who turned books into animated films.
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/25/business/media/morton-schindel-dead.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=0



1918: A letter dated November 27, 1917, from David Fenik to Rabbi Jacob Bernstein of Newport, RI, excerpts of which were published today said that “the day before the British entered” one of the Jewish settlements in Palestine, “Turkish troops” armed with knouts “drove out most of the inhabitants and robbed and pillaged the homes of the refugees.”



1918: Two days before his death, Zionist leader Dr. Jechiel Tchlenow wrote a letter to the convention of the English Zionist Federation which was to take place four days later in which he stated that the convention was of the greatest historical importance; that Great Britain is the traditional friend of the small nations and that history would record in letters of gold the English promise to assist in the establishment of the Jewish national homeland in Palestine.



1921: Harold Brand was “appointed second lieutenant in the United States Army” today.



1921: Alexander Berkowitz was “appointed captain in the medical administrative corps of the United States Army” today.



1921: Ralph Eli Fleischer was “appointed lieutenant in the quartermaster corps of the United States Army” today.



1921: Sidney Ginsberg was “appointed a second lieutenant” serving in the infantry of the United States Army today.



1921: Benjamin Lester Jacobson was “appointed major in the finance department of the United States Army” today.



1921: Simon Jacobson was “appointed lieutenant in the quartermaster corps of the United States Army” today.



1921: Robert Scott Israel was appointed to the rank of lieutenant while serving in the infantry of the United States Army today.



1921: Arthur Louis Koch was “appointed captain in the quartermaster corps of the United States Army” today.’



1921: Louis Lehman Korn was appointed major in the Judge Advocate-General’s Department of the United Sates Army” today.



1921: Samuel Marcus was “appointed captain the medical administrative corps of the United States Army” today.



1921: Today, Herbert Block Mayer was appointed to the rank of lieutenant while serving in the infantry of the United States Army.



1921: Alfred Mordecai was “appointed lieutenant in the medical corps of the United States Army” today.



1921: Today, Eustace Maduro Peixotto was appointed to the rank of lieutenant while serving in the infantry of the United States Army.



1921: Today, Harvey Israel Rice was appointed to the rank of second lieutenant while serving in the infantry of the United States Army.



1921: Today, Harry Isaac Rosen was appointed to the rank of second lieutenant while serving in the quartermaster corps of the United States Army.



1921: Today, Frederick Buchanan Rosenbaum was appointed to the rank of second lieutenant while serving in the infantry of the United States Army.



1921: Today, Nathan Rosenberg was appointed to the rank of second lieutenant while serving in the medical corps of the United States Army.



1921: Today, Louis Bernard Saxe was appointed to the rank of second lieutenant while serving in the quartermaster corps of the United States Army.



1921: Today, Philip Schneeberger was appointed to the rank of lieutenant while serving in the air service of the United States Army.



1921: Today, Charles Eugene Schwartz was appointed to the rank of second lieutenant while serving in the quartermaster corps of the United States Army.



1921: Today, Max Weinberg was appointed to the rank of captain while serving in the medical administrative corps of the United States Army.



1921: Today, Arthur Henry Wolf was appointed to the rank of second lieutenant while serving in the infantry of the United States Army.



1921: Today, Samuel Israel Zeidner was appointed to the rank of captain while serving in the quartermaster corps of the United States Army.



1921: Birthdate of Eugene V. Klein the American businessman, supporter of candidates as varied as Pierre Salinger and Richard Nixon whose sport’s endeavors include ownership of the Seattle Supersonics and San Diego Chargers.
http://articles.latimes.com/1990-03-13/sports/sp-260_1_san-diego-chargers



1922: In Newcastle, UK, Henry Morris Cohen and Eva Sussman Cohen gave birth to Gabrielle Cohen who became Gabrielle Blake when she married Leonard Blake.



1923: Birthdate of writer Paddy Chayevsky.  Chayevsky created works both for the big screen and television. Some of his more famous efforts included Marty, Hospital and Network.  “Television is democracy at its worst.”



1924(23rdof Shevat, 5684): Seventy-nine year old Frederick Salomon van Nierop a Dutch lawyer who was Chairman of the Supervisor Board of the Amsterdam Bank, a member of the Amsterdam Main Synagogue and President of the Committee of the General Affairs (a Jewish communal organization) passed away today.



1928: The New York Times reported on improving economic conditions in Palestine.  For example, at Petakh Tikvah, an additional fifty Jewish workers have been hired and “the Arab lessees of local orange groves have promised to take on 200 more Jews within the next few days.”



1929: U.S. premiere of “The Case of Lena Smith” directed by Josef von Sternberg, produced by Jesse L. Lasky, filmed by cinematographer Harold Rosson based on a story by Samuel Ortiz.



1929:Birthdate of Richard Lawrence Ottinger who served as a member of the United States House of Representatives from New York before he went on to pursue a career as a law school professor.



1928: When asked by an interviewer in an article published two days before his 80thbirthday “When should one commence giving?” Nathan Straus replied, “As soon as one has a little more than he actually needs.  At first it is hard.  But afterwards it grows into a pleasure and there is nothing more satisfying, nothing to make one happier than to give in order to relieve the distress of others.” By “others” Mr. Straus means “men women and children of all races and creeds.”  He has “the deep seated feeling that all humanity is one blood whatever the accident of birth or the circumstances of religious faith.  We are all brothers and should help each other to the full extent of the opportunities that the one God of all mankind gives to each of us.



1929: “The Case of Lena Smith” directed by Josef von Sternberg, produced by Jesse L. Lasky, with a story by Samuel Ornitz was released in the United States today.



1931: Birthdate of Brooklyn native Hyman “Hy” Cohen the Chicago Cubs pitcher who was also a coach for the Birmingham Braves.



1932: In New York City, the Julien Levy Gallery owned by Julien Levy hosted “the landmark multi-media Surrealist exhibition of the work of Pablo Picasso, Max Ernst, Joseph Cornell, Marcel Duchamp, and the introduction of Salvador Dalí's The Persistence of Memory owned by Levy who “also championed the surrealist work of Leon Kelly.”



1932: French premiere of “Comradeship” the Franco (La Tragédie de la mine)-German (Kameradschaft) film starring Alexander Granach as “Kasper.”



1932: The American Hebrew appeared for the last time. It would merge with the New York Jewish Tribune and re-appear as American Hebrew and Jewish Tribune



1932: In London, England, celebration of the 80th anniversary of the birth of famed composer, conductor and pianist Sir Frederic H. Cowen.



1933: Paul von Hindenburg, President of Germany appointed Adolf Hitler as Chancellor of Germany.  The Nazis did not come to power through a coup or putsch.  They came to power legally, using the German political and electoral processes.



1936: Today’s decision by the Hungarian Ministry of Justice “refusing permission to Hungarian Jew to marry a German girl in Hungary” was seen as evidence that Hungary is applying the Nuremberg Laws as a sign of friendship for Germany.



1936: Rabbi B. Leon Hurwitz represented the Jewish community at memorial service honoring the late King George V held at the Hotel New Yorker.



1936: When Hans Frank told the German Academy’s economic council “We do not care what the wolrd says about our Jewish legislation” it was Germany’s way of serving “notice that she would continue her unrelenting drive against Jews” in what was part of a “strong restatement of Nazi principles on the third anniversary of Hitler’s assumption of power.



1937: “You Only Live Once,” produced by Walter Wagner, with music by Alfred Newman and starring Sylvia Sidney (Sophia Kosow) was released today in the United States.



1937:  “The Good Earth” the cinematic treatment of the novel of the same name produced by Irving Thalberg and Albert Lewin, filmed by Karl Freund winner of the Oscar for Best Cinematography and starring Paul Muni and Luise Rainer winner of the Oscar for Best Actress was released in the United States today.



1937: In Geneva, Polish Foreign Minister Josef Beck told reported Clarence K. Streit that the pressure from his country to force Jews to emigrate was not based on anti-Semitism but on the changing nature of the Polish economy.



1938(2th of Shevat, 5698) Parashat Mishpatim



1938: Rabbi Benedict Glazer is scheduled to deliver the sermon this morning at Temple Emanu-El



1938: Rabbi Jonah B. Wise is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “The Organized Foreign Born and Democracy” this morning at the Central Synagogue.



1938: Rabbi Nathan Stern is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “What Shall We Teach Our Children?” this morning at the West End Synagogue.



1938: Rabbi William F. Rosenblum is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “The Laws of God and the Ordinances of Man” at Temple Israel.



1938: Rabbi Wendell A. Phillips is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “Slaves to Convention” at Temple Rodeph Sholom.



1938: Rabbi Alexander Segal is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “The Value of Freedom” at Fort Washington where services will be followed by a meeting of the congregations Junior League.



1938(27thof Shevat, 5698): Sixty-seven year old Eugene Hugo Paul, who worked with Kuhn, Loeb & Co. for 48 years and was active in several Jewish organizations including the Young Men’s Hebrew Association passed away today.
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=950DE6D61E3EE03ABC4850DFB7668383629EDE



1938: Speaking at re-union dinner at the Hotel Astor tonight, Morris R. Cohen, the retiring Professor of Philosophy at City College said that there was a real danger in the fact that “the proportion of non-Jews at the college was becoming negligible” because the friendships formed when the student body contained significant numbers of Catholics and Protestants’ would cease to exist and this could lead to a form of “segregation” in New York City.



1939(9thof Shevat, 5699): Sixty-six year old Sir Laurie Hammond, “who was a member of the Peel Royal Commission which in 1937 recommended tri-partition of Palestine as the only solution of the Arab-Jewish conflict” passed away today.



(EDITOR’S  NOTE- THE FOLLOWING LISTINGS SERVE AS A REMINDER OF A TIME WHEN SOME WISHED TO OBSERVE SHABBAT ON SUNDAY)



1939: Rabbi Samuel H. Goldenson is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “How Men Enslave Themselves” at Temple Emanu-El.



1939: Sir Ronald Storrs who began serving as Governor of Jerusalem in 1917 as soon as Allenby had taken the city is scheduled to deliver talk on “The Problem of Palestine: England, Arab, Jew” at the service of the Free Synagogue being held in Carnegie Hall.



1939: The West End Synagogue is scheduled to host a “lecture forum” where Rabbi Hyman Judah Shacthel will deliver “an address on ‘A Way of Life.’”



1939: At Rodeph Sholom, Rabbi Louis I. Newman is scheduled to deliver “an address” on “Hitler’s Six Years: What Have They Cost Jews, Germans and the World?”



1941: Mrs. Tehilla Lichtenstein is scheduled to deliver an address on “A Formula For Courage” at the Jewish Science Society on West 85th Street,



1941(1st of Shevat, 5701): Rosh Chodesh Shevat



1941(1st of Shevat, 5701): At the Lodz Ghetto, Bluma Lichtensztajn committed suicide and painter Maurycy Trebacz died of hunger. (He was one of five thousand Jews who will die of hunger over the next six months.)



1942: This week’s issue of the Sentinel, Chicago’s Jewish Weekly was published today
http://www.idaillinois.org/cdm/compoundobject/collection/p16614coll14/id/68555



1943: Germans execute 15 Poles at the village of Wierzbica for aiding three Jews. One of the victims is a two-year-old girl.



1944: In London, unwed Australian Jewess named Oldham gave birth to Andrew Oldham, the “manager and producer of the Rolling Stones from 1963 to 1967.”




1944: In Trieste, the Nazis conduct a roundup of Jews aimed the old and sick people including those living in facilities for the aged. 



1944: A Nazi court in Kraków, Poland, sentences five Poles to death for aiding Jews. One of the accused, Kazimierz Jozefek, is hanged in the public square.



1944: In Lithuania, Soviet led partisans including Jews from the Kovno and Vilnius ghettos attacked Koniuchy which was later described a pro-Nazi town from which Germans launched attacks against partisans.  According to various reports several civilians were killed in the action which has led to it being described as a “massacre.”



1945(15thof Shevat, 5705): Tu B’Shevat



1945(15thof Shevat, 5705): Seventy year old Olympic Gymnast Gustav Felix Flatow died of starvation today at Theresienstadt.



http://www.jewishsports.net/BioPages/GustavFlatow.htm



1945: Today, President Roosevelt nominated Herman B. Baruch who “had been working with the Foreign Economic Administration in Latin America” and who is the brother of Bernard Baruch to serve as U.S. Ambassador to Portugal.



1945: Birthdate of Paysach J. Krohn, rabbi, mohel and author of the “Maggid” series of books for ArtScroll.



1946: The Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry, a joint British and American committee composed of six Americans and six Englishmen that was charged with examining the “political, economic and social conditions in Mandatory Palestine as they bear upon the problem of Jewish immigration and settlement therein and the well-being of the peoples now living therein” which had been meeting in Washington, D.C. continued its meetings today in London



1947: Arthur Miller's "All My Sons" premiered in New York City



1948: Birthdate of Canadian Gerald Barry Falovtich who gained fame as singer-songwriter Yank Berry, “the philanthropist who along with his friend and partner Muhammad Ali has fed over 954,000,000 documented meals to the needy around the world over the last twenty years.”



1948: The colleagues and friends of Dr. Alexander Marx will hold a reception in the reading room of the JTS Library so that they can celebrate his 70thbirthday and congratulate him on his 45 years of service to the academic institution which is the flagship of Conservative Judaism.



1948: At its annual meeting in the Commodore Hotel, the board of governors of the Hebrew Union College approved an $8,000,000 "Blueprint for the Future."



1948: “A Woman's Vengeance,”  “a 1948 American film noir drama mystery film directed and produced by Zoltán Korda was released in the United States today.



1950: Birthdate of South African native Jody David Scheckter, “the 1979 Formula One World Drivers' Champion.”



1953: “Dreaming Lips” with a script by Paul Czinner and Carl Mayer was released in Germany today.



1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that Mapam, by a vote of 228 to 22, expelled from the party one of its veteran Zionist leaders, Dr. Moshe Sneh. According to the Post's leading article there was no room in Mapam for two groups which justified the new Soviet anti-Semitic policy and this explained why Sneh, and his more extreme "Left Faction," were expelled. They were expected to join the Communists. 



1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that President Juan Peron said that the gates of Argentina stood wide open to any Soviet Jew who wished to find shelter there. The offer was also valid for Jews from other Soviet-dominated countries.



1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that The Ministry of Interior closed the Communist daily Kol Ha'am for 10 days for publishing articles threatening the public peace.



1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that arson damaged the Russian bookshop in Jerusalem.



1954: Dr. Robert Oppenheimer sent a telegram requesting a hearing before the Atomic Energy Commission which had suspended his security clearance in response to charges that he was untrustworthy because of associations with Communists.



1954: After premiering in Los Angeles three weeks ago,“The Great Diamond Robbery” directed by Robert Z. Leonard and filmed by cinematographer Joseph Ruttenberg was released today throughout the United States.



1956: Seventy-five year old Louis Mencken, better known as sharp tongued journalist H.L. Mencken whose diaries revealed a streak of anti-Semitism which did not keep him being “close friends” with Alfred Knopf and Ben Hecht, praising the work of Ayn Rand or that asserted that “books such as Caught Short! A Saga of Wailing Wall Street  by Eddie Cantor (ghost-written by David Freedman) did more to pull America out of the Great Depression than all government measures combined” passed away today.
http://articles.latimes.com/1989-12-05/news/mn-198_1_h-l-mencken



1959: Marian Winters began playing the role of “Myra Solomon” in the stage production of “Tall Story.”



1962:  Violinist Fritz Kreisler passed away.  According to at least one source, Kreisler’s father was Jewish, but he was not.  Reportedly Kreisler’s wife was an Austrian anti-Semite whose reactions to Kreisler’s ethnic origins have helped to cloud the issue.  At least one of Kreisler’s brothers is reported to have said that he was Jewish but the same could not be said of Fritz.



1962: It was reported today that the Herzliah Hebrew Teachers Training Institute will receive $750,000 to “develop an accredited degree-training college for Hebrew studies.” (As reported by JTA)



1964(15th of Shevat, 5724): Tu B'Shevat



1964: Birthdate of Ruhama Avraham, the Sephardi native of Rishon LeZion who was first elected to the Knesset in 2003.



1964: Premiere of Stanley Kubrick's anti-war dark comedy, "Dr. Strangelove"



1966: “Sweet Charity” a musical with a book by Neil Simon opened on Broadway at the Palace Theatre.



1967: The album Casino Royale Soundtrack featuring “The Look of Love” composed by Burt Bacharach and Hal David was released today.



1967 "Let's Sing Yiddish" closed at Brooks Atkinson in New York City NY after 107 performances.



1968: “How to Save a Marriage and Ruin Your Life” a comedy produced and written by Stanley Shapiro and co-starring Eli Wallach was released today in the United States.



1968(28thof Tevet, 5728): Eighty-five year old J. B. S. Hardman, born Jacob Benjamin Salutsky who was a leader of the Jewish Socialist Federation of the Socialist Party passed away today.
http://dlib.nyu.edu/findingaids/html/tamwag/tam_050/



1969: Birthdate of Dov Charney CEO of the garment company American Apparel.



1969(10th of Shevat): Max Weinrich a founder of the Yiddish Institute (YIVO) and author of History of the Yiddish Language passed away
http://www.yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Weinreich_Max



1970(22ndof Shevat, 5730): Areyh Ben-Eliezer, the Deputy Speaker of the Knesset, a member of several pre-state organizations including Hebrew Committee for National Liberation, The American League for a Free Palestine and the Emergency Committee to Save the Jewish People of Europe, passed away



1970: Gideon Patt, a sabra born in Jerusalem during the British Mandate, began serving in the Knesset following the death of Areyh Ben-Eliezer.



1971: It was reported today that “although some Jewish leaders, particularly among the Orthodox, favored some sort of state aid, most Jewish groups opposed any such monetary help saying that it ‘posed a grave threated to the independence of religion and the stability of government.’”



1973(26thof Shevat, 5733): Eighty-nine year old Ludwig Stössel one of many Jewish actors and actresses who were forced to flee Europe when the Nazis came to power in 1933 and who played supporting roles in such famous films as “Kings Row,” “Pride of the Yankees” and “Casablanca” passed away today.



1974: Today, in an interview at his Leningrad apartment, Valery Panov disclosed the “rumors that the authorities plan to jail him to stop his campaign to emigrate to Israel with his wife.



1975: In Israel, Boris Chait, the president of the Israeli Ice Skating Federation and his wife gave birth to Galit Chait, the bronze medal winning ice dancer and head coach of the Israeli figure skating team who is he wife of Francesco Moracci with whom she has had two children – Raffaella and Gabriella.



1975: Alan King hosted the First Annual Comedy Awards of the Year.  Considering the number of Jewish comedians going back to the early days of vaudeville, the choice of the Jewish King is doubly appropriate.



1975: In Santa Monica, CA, Barbara Crane (née Cowan) and Harold Abeles gave birth to Sara Rebeca Abeles who gained fame as Sara Gilbert, the younger sister of Melissa Gilbert who starred in “Little House on the Prairie” and whose career included starring in the sitcom “Roseanne” a twentieth century version of the family unit which provides an interesting counterpoint to the 19th version of the family shown on Little House on the Prairie.



1976(27thof Shevat, 5736): Sixty-nine year old Milton “Milt” Galatzer the Chicago native who played outfield and first base for the Cleveland Indians and the Cincinnati Reds passed away today.



1978: The Jerusalem Post reported that Prime Minister Menachem Begin had reversed his earlier decision and recommended to the cabinet that the Israeli military delegation return to Cairo to resume negotiations. He hoped that the joint Egyptian-Israeli Political Committee would eventually resume its meetings in Jerusalem. Egyptian President Anwar Sadat made a direct appeal to US Jewry and complained "that the behavior of the Israeli government had been negative and disappointing." Egypt, according to its Foreign Ministry statements, would never bargain over its territory and will always defend the rights of the Palestinians.



1978: Eighty-three yea old Harold Lionel Zellerbach, “a topic executive for fifty years at Crown Zellerbach, a paper company started by his grandfather in 1870” and the husband of Doris Zellerbach passed away today.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1978/01/31/110785618.pdf
https://books.google.com/books?id=QUIEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA84&lpg=PA84&dq=harold+zellerbach&source=bl&ots=5gqXDq4G2n&sig=-q54LR5fSjSyiubWBoocpJEJCDw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjSw8vYx_nYAhVI5oMKHRt9AV04ChDoAQhGMAo#v=onepage&q=harold%20zellerbach&f=false



1982: After having been released in Japan and the United Kingdom, “Venom” a horror film produced by Martin Bregman with music by Michael Kamen was released in the United States today.



1983(15thof Shevat, 5743): Tu B’Shevat



1983: Birthdate of Ethiopian born Israeli fashion model Esti Mamo.



1983: Today German-born British jurist and author Sir Michael Robert Emanuel Kerr, “son of German drama critic Alfred Kerr and the brother of author Judith Kerr” married Diana Sneezum with whom he had two children – Lucy and Alexander.



1986(19thof Shevat, 5746): Two soldiers were killed and two more were wounded when a terrorist attacked any Army patrol today.



1989: It was reported today that a Holocaust museum is to be built on the National Mall in Washington, DC has received thousands of artifacts, including letters, diaries, arm bands and secret coded communications between inmates.



1989: It was reported today that a Jewish institute plans to donate $100,000 for training black South African medical workers. The grant will be presented to Archbishop Desmond Tutu.



1990: Yuli M. Vorontsov, the Soviet Deputy Foreign Minister, met with the head of Israel's consular delegation in Moscow, Aryeh Levin. Mr. Vorontsov was quoted as saying, ''We oppose any use of citizens' leaving the Soviet Union, at great risk to them, to push Palestinians off land belonging to them.'' Soviet displeasure over the settlement debate is also threatening an agreement reached between El Al and Aeroflot for direct flights between Moscow and Tel Aviv. The head of the Soviet consular mission in Israel, Georgi Martirosov, told reporters on Monday that ''recent Israeli statements have hindered any possibility of moving this process forward.''



1991: After several days of growing frustration over the slow pace of allied efforts to eliminate Iraq's Scud missile launchers, Israeli officials warned today that Israel may not wait much longer before it attacks. An Israeli television interviewer offered a sentiment common among Israelis when he told Defense Minister Moshe Arens this evening: "The Americans keep bombing launchers but haven't been terribly effective. Meanwhile, Americans are watching the Super Bowl, and Israelis are sitting in shelters and sealed rooms." Mr. Arens responded: "The situation you described isn't going to continue -- not two months, and not a month. I simply estimate that a situation in which we'll be neutral or not active, and their ability to launch missiles against us isn't eliminated, it won't continue for a long time."



1991: In a meeting with a visiting French politician today, Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir is reported to have said that Israel wants to play an active role in the battle against Iraq but is constrained by limits imposed by the United States. Mr. Shamir said he hoped the limits would be lifted soon. Iraq has fired 26 missiles at Haifa or Tel Aviv on seven occasions over the last 12 days, killing four people and wounding nearly 200. More than 2,000 apartments have been seriously damaged or destroyed. Elementary schools remain closed because there are too few teachers to help children put on gas masks quickly when the missile alert sounds. Productivity in business and industry is off. Much of the nation is traumatized. For the first time, Israel is under attack and unable to respond.



1991: Isaac Stern and Itzhak Perlman will share a stage in New York today when they team up to honor Zubin Mehta. The three violinists will appear at the annual lunch that benefits the orchestra. Last week, Mr. Mehta turned around en route to New York from Europe and flew to Tel Aviv on the eve of the war in the Persian Gulf as a show of support for Israel, where he is musical director of the national orchestra.



1992: Gila Almajor, performed a one-woman play entitled “The Summer of Aviya” which she wrote as part of “Israel: The Next Generation.”



1992: The daughter of Abie Nathan the Israeli philanthropist and peace campaigner, Sharona Nathan El Saieh, accepted the Abraham Joshua Heschel Peace Award from the Jewish Peace Fellowship today on behalf of her father because Mr. Nathan is in prison in Israel



1993: Feeling bolstered by a seal of approval from the country's High Court of Justice, Israel renewed its diplomatic offensive today to stave off United Nations sanctions over its deportation of more than 400 Palestinians to Lebanon.



1996: PBS broadcast “The Battle Over Citizen Kane,” a documentary film directed and produced by Michael Epstein and narrated by Richard Ben Cramer who also co-wrote the script.



1999: “Shakespeare In Love” co-produced by Harvey Weinsten and Edward Zwick co-starring Gwyneth Paltrow premiered in the U.K. today.



2000(22nd of Shevat, 5760): Harold H. Greene a federal judge for the United States District Court for the District of Columbia who was nominated by President Jimmy Carter in 1978 passed away.



2001: Eric Edelman completed his service as U.S. Ambassador to Finland.2001: Prime Minister Ehud Barak campaigned inside the Defense Ministry in Tel Aviv, where he spoke to a small group of disabled Israelis and some youth advocates.



2002: In the battered center of Jerusalem, beefed-up police squads guarded sidewalks and street corners today as weary shopkeepers opened for business and workers repaired the stores damaged by a bomb set off yesterday by a Palestinian woman. Along the main street, Jaffa Road, where two terrorist attacks in six days have killed three Israelis and wounded dozens, the routines of daily life became a test of bravery. Shmuel Kapash waited for customers in his empty shoe shop as an employee peered warily out the front door. Going back to work this morning was no easy matter, they said. ''I'm scared, but I have to make a living,'' Mr. Kapash said. ''I can't stay home, but I think twice before going out of the store for some fresh air. I try not to step out.'' After yesterday’s  attack, the Israeli Merchants Association demanded that the government give shopkeepers in urban centers that have been targets of attacks tax breaks similar to those granted to businesses in communities along Israel's borders. In downtown Jerusalem, the disappearance of tourists and many shoppers has drastically cut sales. At the Freiman and Bein shoe store, a Jerusalem institution for more than 50 years, Yoach Freiman stood in the debris left by the bomb, which went off just outside the front door. The store has functioned continuously on Jaffa Road, through war and peace, since 1947, and it was not about to close now, Mr. Freiman asserted. ''We don't have the right to close down or to be frightened by such incidents,'' he said of the latest bombing. ''We owe it to our customers, who have been coming here for four generations. The principle is to continue our normal lives.''



2004(6thof Shevat, 5764): “Eleven people were killed and more than 50 wounded, 13 of them seriously, in a suicide bombing of an Egged bus #19 at the corner of Gaza and Arlozorov streets in Jerusalem. Both the Fatah-related Al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades and Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack, naming the bomber as Ali Yusuf Jaara, a 24-year-old Palestinian policeman from Bethlehem. The victims: Avraham (Albert) Balhasan, 28, of Jerusalem; Rose Boneh, 39, of Jerusalem; Hava Hannah (Anya) Bonder, 38, of Jerusalem; Anat Darom, 23, of Netanya; Viorel Octavian Florescu, 42, of Jerusalem; Natalia Gamril, 53, of Jerusalem; Yechezkel Isser Goldberg, 41, of Betar Illit; Baruch (Roman) Hondiashvili, 38, of Jerusalem; Dana Itach, 24, of Jerusalem; Mehbere Kifile, 35, of Ethiopia; and Eli Zfira, 48, of Jerusalem.”



2004: As she was returning to her home in Rehavia after having left her child at kindergarten, award winning-Israeli author Zeruya Shalev was severely injured when a Palestinian suicide bomber blew up a near-by bus.  Shalev is the daughter-in-law of Israeli playwright Aharon Megged and the cousin of award winning author Meir Shalev. [Meir Shalev’s latest literary effort is “Beginnings,” a must read for anybody interested in the TaNaCh and Jewish philosophy and history]



2004: Israel and the Lebanese guerrilla group Hezbollah carried through with their deal to exchange prisoners and war dead today, in a trade greeted in Israel by a spare ceremony for three fallen soldiers and in Lebanon by a day of national celebration. Besides the soldiers -- Adi Avitan, Benny Avraham and Omar Sawayed -- Hezbollah also freed an Israeli businessman, Elhanan Tannenbaum, kidnapped by Hezbollah in October 2000. Unlike the returning Lebanese, Mr. Tannenbaum, who said he had been treated well in captivity, did not receive a hero's welcome. He was permitted a brief reunion with his family at the airport, and was then taken away for a medical check and questioning by the Israeli authorities about possible illegal activities, Israeli officials said.



2004: The Thirteenth Annual New York Jewish Film Festival comes to an end.



2005(19thof Shevat, 5765): Eighty- year old Ephraim Kishon passed away
http://www.theguardian.com/news/2005/feb/01/guardianobituaries.booksobituaries
http://www.ephraimkishon.com/



2006:  A day after International Holocaust Memorial Day, the new Chancellor of Germany met with the acting Prime Minister of Israel.  In one of those amazing turnabouts in history German Chancellor Angela Merkel said that Germany would have no contact with Hamas until it disavowed terrorism and recognized Israel and all agreements signed with it. This declaration comes in the face of the recent electoral victory by Hamas, an organization dedicated to the destruction of the State of Israel and death to the Jewish people.



2006: Ted Koppel  signed up as an opposite editorial-contributing columnist, effective today, for The New York Times



2006: “An estimated 300,000 people took part in Yitzchak Kaduri’s funeral procession today which started from the Nachalat Yitzchak Yeshivah and wound its way through the streets of Jerusalem to the Givat Shaul cemetery near the entrance to the city of Jerusalem.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yitzhak_Kaduri#mediaviewer/File:Kaduri_funeral.JPG



2006: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including American Vertigo: Traveling America in the Footsteps of Tocquevilleby Bernard-Henri Lévy



2007: Haaretzreported that according to the Global Forum Against Anti-Semitism this past year saw a substantial rise in the number of anti-Semitic incidents in Germany, Austria and the Scandinavian countries. In an annual press conference, the forum explained that 2006 was characterized by escalation in the number and violent nature of attacks on Jews, proliferation of Holocaust denial and increased comparison of Israel to the Nazi regime.



2007(10thof Shevat): A Palestinian from the Gaza Strip blew himself up today inside a bakery in the Israeli resort city of Eilat, killing all three people inside. The two owners of the bakery, Amil Elimelech, 32, and Michael Ben Sa'adon, 27 were killed in the attack as well as one of their employees, Israel Samolia, 26. Elimelech was married with two children while Ben Sa'adon was married with one child. Samolia was an immigrant from Peru. Hamas and Islamic Jihad, each took credit for the bombing.



2008: In New York City, the 92nd St Y hosts “Commando Krva Maga: Israeli Self Defense” where attendees learn defense skills developed by the Israeli military, now popular with civilians.



2008: In Iowa City, the funeral is held for Dr. Michael Balch, Associate Professor Emeritus of Economics at the University of Iowa and a longtime member of the Jewish community. Michael earned a BS in Engineering Science from Pratt Institute in 1960 an MS from New York University in 1962 and a PhD in Mathematics from New York University in1965.  His areas of expertise were Economic behavior under uncertainty and Theories of deterrence, arms control, and war.  He passed away on January 28, 2008 (21 Shevat, 5768).



2008: Barnard College named as its next president Debora L. Spar, a Harvard Business School professor who has written about the economics of the human fertility industry and the evolution of the Internet but has not previously been affiliated with a women’s college. Professor Spar, 44, whose appointment is effective July 1, will succeed Judith R. Shapiro, president since 1994, the college announced on Tuesday morning. “We never expected to have anybody until March or April or May, but she was too good to pass up,” said Helene L. Kaplan, a Barnard trustee and one of two leaders of its presidential search committee. “She’s bright, she’s lively, she’s young and she’s very energetic.”



2009:Stephen Joel Trachtenberg, the former (now emeritus) president of George Washington University, discusses and signs Big Man on Campus: A University President Speaks Out on Higher Education at the Jewish Community Center of Greater Washington in Rockville, Md.



2009: An exhibition, "Erfurt: Jewish Treasures from Medieval Ashkenaz," which had been on display at the Yeshiva University Museum of the Center for Jewish History in New York City since September of 2008 and which drew on “a hoard of coins, goldsmiths' work and jewelry that is assumed to have belonged to Jews who hid them in 1349 at the time of the Black Death pogroms” came to a close today.



2009: An American appeals court today dismissed a lawsuit by Holocaust survivors who alleged the Vatican bank accepted millions of dollars of their valuables stolen by Nazi sympathizers. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco upheld a lower court ruling that said the Vatican bank was immune from such a lawsuit under the 1976 Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, which generally protects foreign countries from being sued in U.S. courts2009: “The Wedding Song,” Karin Albou’s story of a friendship between a Muslim man and a Jewish woman, set in Tunisia during the Nazi occupation is featured tonight at the New York Jewish Film Festival.



2009:James Braidy "Jim" Steinberg began serving as the 16th United States Deputy Secretary of State.



2010: An exhibition entitled Blue Like Me: The Art of Siona Benjamin is scheduled to have its final showing at the JCC in Washington, D.C.  Siona Benjamin is a painter originally from the Bombay Jewish (Bene Israel) community now living in the United States.



2010:The Bloomfield Science Museum in Jerusalem is scheduled to celebrate Tu Bishvat from a bit of a different angle, with parents and children and having a chance to learn about the connection between planting trees and global warming.



2010: The Cedar Rapids/Iowa City Chapter of Hadassah is scheduled to sponsor a Tu B'Shevat Seder and Shabbat Services at Temple Judah.



2010:US President Barack Obama's national security adviser cited a heightened risk that Iran will respond to growing pressure over its nuclear program by stoking violence against Israel. The adviser, retired Marine Gen. James Jones, said today that history shows that when regimes are feeling pressure they can lash out through surrogates. He said that in Iran's case that would mean facilitating attacks on Israel by Hezbollah and Hamas



2010: Pei Xiong provides a description of the academic efforts of Jane Eisner in “Jane Eisner ’77 Teaching a New Generation of Writers.”
http://wesleyanargus.com/2010/01/29/jane-eisner-%E2%80%9977-teaching-a-new-generation-of-writers/



2011: A screening of The Matchmaker directed by Avi Nesher is scheduled to take place at the Seventh Annual Brooklyn Israel Film Festival.



2011:Internationally recognized rising star, Israeli violinist Vadim Gluzman is scheduled to join Orpheus for the first time in a performance of Prokofiev’s hauntingly beautiful second violin concerto at Carnegie Hall.



2011: “A Musical Mitzvah Evening” the Mitzvah Day fundraiser for Agudas Achim is scheduled to take place in Iowa City, IA.



2011: Israel watched fearfully today as anti-government unrest roiled Egypt, one of its most important allies and a bridge to the wider Arab world. The Israeli prime minister ordered government spokesmen to keep silent. Officials speaking anonymously nonethless expressed concern violence could threaten ties with Egypt and spread to the Palestinian Authority. 2011: An official at Cairo International Airport said today that El Al was trying to arrange a special flight Saturday to take roughly 200 Israeli tourists out of Egypt. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak with the media.



2011: At Coe College in Cedar Rapids, the final performance of “Copenhagen” in which Barb Feller played Margrethe Bohr and her husband Steve played Niels Bohr



2011: Mark Zuckerberg made a surprise guest appearance on “Saturday Night Live.”



2012(5thof Shevat, 5772): Eighty-eight year old Savannah, GA native Lee Adler, the grandson of Leopold Adler who, in an oft told tale, “came to Savannah in the 19thCentury and founded Adler’s Department Store” passed away today.
http://www.tributes.com/obituary/show/Leopold-Adler-93202081



2012: “The Religion Thing” is scheduled to have its final performance at Theatre J in Washington, D.C.



2012: A display featuring a selection of 32 Chanukah lamps selected by Maurice Sendak is scheduled to come to a close today at the Jewish Museum in New York.



2012: “Jewish Soldiers in Blue and Gray” is scheduled to be shown at the Boulder JCC in Boulder, CO.



2012: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including “Ida” by Gertrude Stein, “Stanzas in Meditation: The Corrected Edition” by Gertrude Stein, “Jews and Booze: Becoming American in the Age of Prohibition” by Marni Davis, “The Street Sweeper” by Elliot Perlman and “God’s Jury: The Inquisition and the Making of the Modern World.”



2012: An Israel Defense Forces Heron-class drone crashed in central Israel, Army Radio reported today, with no injuries reported.



2012: Anger and despair gripped many residents of the town of Harish today, the day after a local synagogue was found completely gutted by a fire that broke out early yesterday morning on Shabbat. While police said today they are sure the fire was caused by an electrical short, some residents say they believe it was intentionally set by unknown assailants looking to threaten the Breslov hassidic community that worships at the synagogue.



2013: In London, The Wiener Library’s Young Volunteers are scheduled to host a special interactive discussion workshop for 16-25 years during which they will discuss the advantages and disadvantages in using Social Media to raise awareness and promote learning about the Holocaust and Genocide.



2013: “Numbered,” a film directed by Urial Sinai and Doan Doron is scheduled to be shown at the JCC in Manhattan



2013(18thof Shevat, 5773): Ninety-six year old Louis Lesser, chairman of Louis Lesser Enterprises passed away today.



http://www.spokeo.com/Louis+Lesser+1



2013: Bank of Israel Governor Stanley Fischer informed Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu today that he will step down as Israel's central banker on June 30, two years before the end of his second five-year term.



2014: The Of Many Institute for Multifaith Leadership at NYU is scheduled to present its inaugural Fritzi Weitzmann Owens memorial lecture with Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, titled "Dignifying Difference: The Next Generation of Multifaith Leadership."



2014: “The House Foreign Affairs Committee approved a bill that would enhance the already close U.S.-Israel defense relationship. The bill initiated by U.S. Reps. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (D-Fla.) and Ted Deutch (D-Fla.), the top two members on the committee’s Middle East subcommittee, passed unanimously today. (As reported by JTA)



2014(28thof Shevat, 5774): Eighty-nine year old sociologist Lewis Yablonsky passed away today.
http://www.latimes.com/local/obituaries/la-me-lewis-yablonsky-20140219-story.html#axzz2uObFsmt0



2014(28thof Shevat, 5774): Eighty-five year old psychologist Theodore Millon passed away today, (As reported by Benedict Carey)
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/01/us/theodore-millon-a-student-of-personality-dies-at-85.html?rref=obituaries&module=Ribbon&version=origin&region=Header&action=click&contentCollection=Obituaries&pgtype=article&_r=0



2014: “The head of Israel’s most powerful intelligence agency depicted today a changing battlefield in which offensive cyber capabilities will, in the near future, represent the greatest shift in combat doctrine in over 1,000 years.



2015: In Switzerland fifty-nine year old Israel Yinon had a heart attack while conducting the Lucerne University Orchestra and passed away after being taken to a local hospital.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/11379995/Israel-Yinon-composer-obituary.html
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2932877/Israeli-conductor-collapses-Swiss-concert-dies.html



2015: “Felix and Meira” and “The Go-Go Boys: The Inside story of Cannon Films” are scheduled to be shown on the final day of the New York Jewish Film Festival.



2015: In New York City, the 16th Street Book Club is scheduled to discuss Hope: A Tragedy, a novel by Shalom Auslander



2015: The Thaler Holocaust Memorial Programming Committee chaired by Dr. Bob Silber is scheduled to meet today in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.



2015: Today “B'nai Brith Canada announced that it was suspending publication of eleven year old Jewish Tribune’s print edition for 13 weeks, and possibly permanently



2016: “Rabin, The Last Day” is scheduled to open at the Lincoln Plaza Cinema.



2016: The San Diego Center for Jewish Culture is scheduled to host the final session “Art, Stories, and Movements: Jewish Art Through the Ages.”



2016: In Cedar Rapids, just days before the first in the nation Caucuses, Temple Judah is scheduled to host another of its ever popular Musical Shabbats.



2016: “Israel, Mired on Ideological Battles, Fights on Cultural Fronts” published today described internal tensions sparked, to some extent, by Miri Regev, the country’s new minister of culture and sport.
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/30/world/middleeast/israel-mired-in-ideological-battles-fights-on-cultural-fronts.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news



2017(2ndof Shevat, 5777): On the Jewish calendar Yahrzeit of King Alexander Yannai (Jannaeus), a Hasmonian king of Judea from 103 BCE to 76 BCE whose unpopularity led him to, according to at least one source, led him to murder thousands of Jews on more than one occasion. 



2017: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Patriots by Sana Krasikov, The Signal Flame by Andrew Krivak author of “At the New Jewish Cemetery in Prague” and Lara: The Untold Love Story That Inspired Doctor Zhivago by Anna Pasternak.



2017: '21 Rue de la Boetie,' an exhibition on legendary French art dealer Paul Rosenberg (1881-1959) is scheduled to have it last showing today at the Musee de la Boverie in Liege, Belgium.



2017: The Jewish Federation of Greater Des Moines, Iowa is scheduled to host a screening of “Raise the Roof.



2017: The Oxford University Jewish Society is scheduled to play some 5-a-side football with an Oxfordshire-based charity called Streets Revolution, who aim to promote sports and leisure as a tool for engaging adults and young people from marginalized sections of the community, particularly those with mental illnesses.”



2017: The Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center is scheduled to host a screening of “Defiant Requiem” – “Maestro Murry Sidlin's inspiring documentary that spotlights conductor Rafael Schächter, a Theresienstadt prisoner who taught Verdi's Requiem to 150 prisoners in 1942.”



2017: The National Yiddish Theatre Flksbiene co-presented a five hour reading of Nightin the Edmond J. Safra Hall of the Museum of Jewish Heritage in event honoring the memory the late Elie Wiesel.



2018: The Streicker Center is scheduled to host a screening of “The Band’s Visit” followed by a discussion with director Eran Kolirin, actor Tony Salhous, playwright Itamar Moses and theatre reporter Michael Paulson.



2018: “Omer Bartov, John P. Birkelund Distinguished Professor of European History, Brown University, a leading scholar of the Holocaust,” is scheduled to discuss his new book Anatomy of a Genocide: The Life and Death of a Town Called Buczacz at the Jewish Theological Seminary.



2018: The Oxford University Jewish Society is scheduled to host a screening of “The Room.”



2018: “Preserving Iraqi Jewish Heritage” an exhibition of some of the 2,700 Jewish books and tens of thousands of documents discovered by U.S. Army soldiers discovered in the Mukhabarat that provide a “written record of Iraqi Jewish life provides an unexpected opportunity to better understand this community” is scheduled to open to the general public at the Breman Museum in Atlanta.



2018:Moriah Amit, the Center for Jewish History’s Senior Genealogy Reference Librarian, is scheduled to deliver a lecture covering major resources and strategies for locating the living descendants of deceased individuals on your family tree.



2018: University of Western Ontario Professor Alain Goldschlager, who was once president of B’nai Brith Canada’s League for Human Rights, is a recipient of the Chevalier de l’Ordre des Palmes académiques award and has authored many books, the most recent of which is Les témoignages écrits de la Shoah (Written Testimonies of the Shoah), is scheduled to deliver a lecture on Holocaust survivor and author Primo Levi at Congregation Shaarey Zedek in Winnipeg,



 



 



 


 

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

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January 30



1349: The Jews of Freilsburg Germany were massacred.



1592: Clement VIII began his papacy during which he enacted numerous anti-Jews moving including the issuance of Cum Saepe Accidere, a papal bull that “forbade the Jewish community of the Comtat Venaissin of Avignon, a papal enclave, to sell new goods, putting them at an economic disadvantage”  and Caeca et Obdurata, a papal bull that “banned Jews from living in the Papal states outside the cities of Rome, Ancona, and Avignon” which among other things had the effect of expelling the Jews from Umbria and Bologna. Last but not least, he issued Cum Hebraeorum militia a papal bull that “forbade the reading of the Talmud.”



1648: Spain and the United Netherlands sign The Treaty of Münster and Osnabrück marking the end of the eighty yearlong Dutch revolt against Spanish rule.  The treaty guarantees the independence of the Protestant Netherlands from the rule of Catholic Spain and the Holy Roman Empire.  It means that the Jewish community in the Netherlands, which includes many Sephardic refugees and Marranos, will be able to grow and flourish.



1649: King Charles I was beheaded.  One of those who took part in the trial was Isaac Dorislaus, the son of Dutch Reform minister who has been misidentified by some as being Jews. There was a “converso community” living in England but the Jews would not be formally re-admitted until after Oliver Cromwell came to power following the King’s death.



1667: The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth ceded Kiev, Smolensk, and left-bank Ukraine to the Tsardom of Russia in the Treaty of Andrusovo. According “to the treaty...arranged with John the Jews, who then lived in the towns and districts that became Russian territory, were permitted to remain "on the side of the Russian czar," under Russian rule, if they did not choose to remain under Polish rule. Jewish wives of Greek Orthodox Russians were permitted to remain with their husbands without being forced to change their religion.



1770: In England Rabbi David Segal and his wife gave birth to Aaron Levy (Aaron ben David Segal Levi)



1808: In London, Sam Elias, the professional boxer known as Dutch Sam, and his wife gave birth to Young Dutch Sam who followed in his father footsteps and became “a welterweight champion in the 1820’s.”



1805: Emmanuel Isaacs married Maria Magnus at the Great Synagogue today.



1807: Sir Robert Grant was “called to the bar” and began the practice of law. This was but one step on the ladder that led to Grant’s successful career as a member of the House of Commons.  Grant was not Jewish.  Robert Grant was a strenuous advocate for the removal of the disabilities of the Jews, and twice carried bills on the subject through the House of Commons. They were, however, rejected in the Upper House, which did not yield on the question until 1858, twenty years after Grant’s death. 



1817(13th of Shevat): Rabbi Yom Tov Netel, author of Tehor Ra’ayonim passed away
http://thefoundationstone.org/en/bible/161-portion-of-the-week/2650-tehor-raayonim-beshalach.html



1823: Birthdate of Ida Warburg the future wife of Eduard Wolf.



1825: Isaac Barnett married Sarah Joseph today at the Great Synagogue.



1827: “L’artisan” (The Craftsman) “an opéra comique by Fromental Halévy, was staged at the Opéra-Comique, in Paris



1831: In Paris Edmond Rochefort and his wife gave birth to Victor Henri Rochefort allied himself with anti-Semite Edouard Drumont and the infamous Hubert-Joseph Henry during the campaign to convict Dreyfus and then to destroy as much of the Jewish community as possible.



1834: In Elllerstadt, Germany, Salomon Weil, a local merchant and the former Helena Lea Meyer gave birth to Abraham Weil who served “as a royal Bavarian tax collector.”



1839(15thof Shevat, 5599): Tu B’Shevat



1839: In Charleston, SC, Jacob Levin of Columbia, SC married Ann Sampson, “the eldest daughter of the late Samuel Sampson.”



1842: Solomon Nathan married Hannah Abrahams at the Great Synagogue today



1842(19thof Shevat, 5602): Sixty-five year old Branca Brendel Bernisse Hartog Kann the daughter of  Jacob Hirsch Pinto and Levia Leonora Liebe Pinto and the wife of Hirschel Eliazer Kann passed away today in Nederland.



1852: The horribly mutilated body of Jacob Lehman was found today in the Delaware River. Lehman was the son of Aaron Lehman, a German Jewish peddler living in Philadelphia.  When last seen, Jacob had in his possession $200 worth of watches, jewelry and other items that constituted most of his father's inventory. 



1852: A jury in Philadelphia rendered the following verdict: "That the lad Jacob Lehman came to his death at the hand or hands of some person or person to the Jury unknown."  Lehman was the son of a German Jewish peddler whose gruesomely dismembered body had been found floating in the Delaware River



1854(1st of Shevat, 5614): Rosh Chodesh Shevat



1854: Seventy-four year old Anglican clergyman John Oxlee whose studies of rabbinical and Hebrew literature led to “conclusions at odds with both Christianity and Judaism” and who was the author the three volume The Christina Doctrine of the Trinity and Incarnation contended that “the concept of the trinity could be found in the Talmud” passed away today.



1854: In Riga, Eleazar Frommer and his wife gave birth to Jacob Frommer the Rabbi of Congregation Bikur Cholim Bnay Abraham, New Haven, CT.



1855: Henry Fitzroy, the husband of Hannah Rothschild and the son-in-law of Nathan Mayer Rothschild completed his term as Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department.



1857: The will of Marcus Cone was offered for probate today. Included in the will were instructions for establishing Cone's German Human Benevolent Society of New York, Cone's German Human Benevolent Society of Syracuse and Cone's German Human Benevolent Society of Albersweiller, the Germany city in which he was born.  Cone wanted to establish the two societies in the United States because neither of these cities had any organized way to provide aid for their indigent Jewish citizens.



1860: It was reported today that "In England, astonishment is expressed” that Emperor Napoleon has not appointed the Duc de Persigny to the Foreign Ministry. Unbeknown to the public M de Persigny will not join the cabinet because he refuses to serve with Achille Fould, the Minister of State. M Fould is a favorite of the Empress who “absolutely clings” to him “as the only man competent to” serve as “Minister of State and of the Household of the Emperor.” Furthermore, M Fould is Jewish, a millionaire and is connected to “other rich Jews” through his banking connections.(“Nearly all the millionaires of Paris at this moment are Jews.”) The Emperor is reportedly “afraid to offend so important” a component needed to ensure the stability of his government.  “There are people malicious enough to suggest that the Empress' wish in the matter goes for very little, however, and that she is made to bear the blame because that is more convenient in these personal matters than a reason of State.”



1861: In Gollantsch, Germany, Meyer Rosentreter and his wife gave birth to David Rosentreter, the President of the Washington Bank National of St. Louis who was the first treasurer of the St. Louis Jewish Hospital association and the founder of the Jewish Farmers’ Colony in Washington County, MO.



1863(10thof Shevat, 5623): Phineas Mendel Heilprin passed away today in Washington, D.C.  Born at Lublin in 1801, he moved to Hungary in 1842 and then left in 1848 when the revolutionary movement failed.  He arrived in the United States where he gained a reputation as a scholar and author.  His son Michael, who was born in 1823 came to the United States after the failure of the Kossuth led revolution.  On the eve of the Civil War, he refuted Rabbi Raphall’s position on slavery in the United States describing it as being immoral and contrary to the teachings of Judaism. He continued to espouse liberal cause until his death in 1888.



1863: In Philadelphia, PA, Polish born “painter, lithographer, draftsman and etcher” Max Rosenthal and Helene Caroline Rosenthal gave birth to Albert Rosenthal the American artist who was the husband of Henryetta Rosenthal
http://www.artistsandart.org/2010/05/albert-rosenthal-1863-1939-american.html



1863: In Warsaw, Talmud scholar Marcus Jastrow and his wife gave birth to American psychologist Joseph Jastrow.
http://www.wondersandmarvels.com/2012/10/americas-first-pop-psychologist.html



1865: Philadelphian Morris Schlesinger began serving as Adjutant of the 210thRegiment.



1867(24thof Shevat, 5627): In Bristol, UK, Joseph Abraham the London born son of Moses Abraham and the brother of John Abraham with whom he worked as a wine merchant and who served as both the President of the Bristol Hebrew Congregation and Mayor of Bristol passed away today.



1872: Birthdate of Eduard Bloch the native of Frauenberg who “until 1907 was the physician of Adolf Hitler’s family.”



1873(2ndof Shevat, 5633): “French ship-builder and philanthropist Jacques Isaac Altaras, a native of Aleppo who tried to help settle Russian Jews in Algeria and who “founded a school for Jewish children at Marseilles, passed away today.



1875: The London Punch has a cartoon of Disraeli shaking hands with Gladstone and saying: "Sorry to lose you. I began with books; you’re ending with them. Perhaps you're the wiser of the two." Disraeli is Benjamin Disraeli the English Prime Minister who began as an author.  Gladstone was his political opponent who held the post of Prime Minister.]



1876: It was reported today that Jews had joined with Gentiles to raise twelve thousand dollars for the Woman’s Christian Home in St. Louis, MO. 



1876: It was reported today that a Jewish synagogue has been opened in Toronto, Canada.



1877: The Downtown Hebrew Benevolent Society is schedule to host a ball tonight as part of the New York City 1876-1877 Ball Season.



1878: It was reported today Marcuse Woodle has been elected President of the Literary Society of the Young Men’s Hebrew Association and Samson Lachman has been elected Vice President.



1879(6thof Shevat, 5639): Fifty-nine year old Abraham Treunefels the son of Rachel and Gershon Hirsch Treuenfels passed away today.



1880: Birthdate of H. Murray Pakulski, the Boston attorney who served as assistant corporation counsel was active in local Democratic Party politics.



1882: Birthdate of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the 32nd president of the United States.  Roosevelt’s New Deal created a variety of career opportunities for a whole generation of newly college educated generation of Jewish professionals. For several generations of Jews, FDR was a near-saint.  Starting in the 1970’s, questions were raised about Roosevelt’s failure to do more to rescue the Jews of Europe.  The problem with criticizing Roosevelt is the need to come to grips with the level of anti-Semitism that existed before, during and after the war.  This reality played a part in Roosevelt’s dealing with the furor of the Holocaust.



1883: In Lübeck, Esther Adler, the daughter of the former rabbi of Lübeck, Rabbi Alexander Sussmann Adler and Lübeck's then Rabbi Salomon Carlebach gave birth to their eighth child Joseph Hirsch (Tzvi) Carlebach who married “his former pupil Charlotte Preuss” in 1919 and despite his service in the German Army during WW I was murdered at “the Nazi concentration camp Jungfernhof.”



1885: Twenty-one year old pianist Fannie Bloomfield-Zeiser, the Silesian born daughter of Solomon and Bertha Blumenfield and future wife of Sigmund Zeisler made “made her New York debut performing with the New York Orchestra.}”



1889: In Kiel, Germany, Jewish businessman and communal leader Julius Frankenthal and his wife Cäcilie, née Goldmann., gave birth to Käte Frankenthal who gained fame as a psychiatrist and a socialist political leader who served on the Berlin City Council and in the Prussian State Parliament during the days of the Weimar Republic.



1892: The SS Massilia arrived in New York with “250 Russian Jews among her steerage passengers.”  After having been expelled from Russia they sailed to Palestine where the Ottoman authorities issued orders banning them from landing at Jaffa.  A Jewish society then paid for their passage to America.  The Superintendent of immigration said that the refusal of the Turks to let them land would not influence his decision as to whether or not they can enter the United States.



1893: Birthdate of Rabbi Yitzhak-Meir Levin a Haredi, politician, member of the Kensett and one of 37 people to sign the Israeli declaration of independence.



1893: Charles Barton’s production of “The Outsider,” a play whose villain is a Cockney Jew, is scheduled to open at the Park Theatre in New York.



1894: Isidor Straus began serving “as a U.S. Congressman from New York’s 15thcongressional district” today.



1894(23rdof Shevat, 5654): Eighty-six year old mathematician Moritz Abraham Stern, “the first Jewish full professor at a German university” who worked with “Ferdinand Eisenstein in formulating a proof of the quadratic reciprocity theorem” passed away today.



1894: In Pennsylvania, Isadore Engel and Emelia (Molly) Schwartz gave birth to Dorothy Engel, the future wife of Herman Maltz who owned and operated Maltz Furniture Store in Los Angeles.



1894: Samuel Gompers and Henry Weisman are scheduled to address a mass meeting at Madison Square Garden sponsored by the Trades and Labor Conference.



1894: When his father passed away today Yissachar Dov Rokeach became the third Belzer Rebbe,



1894: Members of the Hebrew Typographical Union No. 317 are among those who will join in a march led by the E.H. Wade Post of the GAR (Grand Army of the Republic, whose members were all Civil War veterans) which is scheduled to held this evening in New York City to call attention to the plight of the unemployed during the worst economic depression to hit the United States that started in 1893.



1895: Hermann Gustloff and his wife gave birth to Wilhelm Gustloff, the found of the Swiss Nazi Party whose murder was one of the excuses for Kristallnacht.



1896(15thof Shevat, 5656): Tu B’Shevat



1896: “What’s In A Name” published today described campaign being conducted by the sister of the late Abraham Hayward to disprove “the damnatory suspicion” that the two of them have “some mixture of Jewish blood.”  The efforts which have included a letter writing campaign to the London Athenaeum are proof that there “is the existence of …prejudices in the British Islands.”



1896: In Philadelphia, President Oscar Straus is scheduled to preside over the opening session of the 4th annual meeting of the American Jewish Historical Society



1897: It was reported today that the Municipal Library at Leipzig has a manuscript entitled “The Tree of Life” written by Jacob Ben Judah.  The manuscript is date 1287 and “it contains the liturgy of the Jews in England and their hymns.



1897: Rabbi de Sola Mendes is scheduled to deliver a sermon at West End Synagogue entitled “The Truth About Jonah”



1897: Based on information that first appeared in The American Hebrew, it was reported today that Rodef Shalom has selected Dr. Rudolph Grossman to serve as it next Rabbi, a move “that seems strange for an old conservative congregation” since he was trained at the Hebrew Union College, the Cincinnati based school that trains Reform rabbis.



1898: It was reported today that police had to be called when a riot broke out following an anti-Jewish speech by Lucien Millevoye in Bordeaux.



1898: The Young Ladies’ and Gentlemen’s Circle of the Auxiliary Society of the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Social Orphan Asylum held its regular monthly meeting this afternoon.



1898: The Hebrew Infant Asylum Association held its third annual meeting this afternoon.



1898: It was reported today that next month’s Purim Ball sponsored by the Purim Association will be held at the Waldorf-Astoria



1898: Doctors Richards, Greenfield, Taubenhaus and Singer were among those who addressed a group of Jews in Brooklyn tonight as part of a campaign to gain support for the construction of a Jewish hospital in Brooklyn



1899: Rabbi Gustav Gottheil preached a sermon at Temple Emanu-El this morning in which he praised the value and role of daily newspapers.



1899: “The Jews in Palestine” published today provides a summary of the report submitted in December of 1898 by U.S. Consul General B. Bie Randal in which he said that “960 families, numbering 5,000 souls inhabit 22 Jewish colonies in Palestine which have been founded and subsidized by Baron Edmond de Rothschild, representing the Alliance Israelite Universelle..”  Jacob’s Memorial (Zikhron Ya'akon) is the largest of the colonies with a population of 1,600 people.  The colony includes a synagogue, a school with five teachers and 4,000 acres on which the settles are growing fruit, mostly grapes, honey and mulberry leaves which is part of a plan to raise silkworms. (More 2014)



1899: It was reported today that of the four bills introduced in the New York legislature seeking a exemption from property tax, on was seeking such relief for the Young Men’s Hebrew Association.



1899: Rabbi Isaac C. Noot, principal of the Hebrew Free Schools delivered a lecture today at Temple Beth-El on “Thou shalt not bear false witness against the neighbor.”



1899: In Ilford, Essex, UK, Alexander and Jane Bernstein gave birth to media mogul Sidney Lewis Bernstein who was elevated to the peerage as Baron Bernstein
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-lord-bernstein-1471201.html
http://www.nytimes.com/1993/02/07/obituaries/lord-bernstein-94-of-granada-television.html



1900: Birthdate of Russian composer Isaak Iosifovich Dunayevsky.



1901: Birthdate of Yalowa (Grundow), Russian Poland native Oscar Serlin best known as the producer of Broadway hit “Life With Father”
http://www.nytimes.com/1971/02/28/archives/ocarsbrlin-70-produger-isdead-stage-hit-life-with-father-i-made-him.html



1902: Birthdate of Nikolaus Pevsner, the native of Leipzig who became a noted British expert on art and architecture.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/sep/09/nikolaus-pevsner-life-harries-review



1903: Leopold Greenberg, Herzl's representative in London, left for Cairo to carry on political negotiations.



1904: Herzl finished his visit to Italy.



1906: This evening “the Choral Society for Ancient Hebrew Melodies” whose aims included the restoration of congregational singing in synagogues using “old Hebrew music” and the introduction of it “in the simpler forms in Sunday schools” is scheduled to hold its regular meeting this evening at the Young Men’s Hebrew Association



1906: In New York, the School Board for District Number 39 heard further testimony in the case of Frank F. Harding the Principal of P.S. 144, a school in a Jewish neighborhood, who is charged with having attempted to proselytize the students at last year’s Christmas entertainment.



1907(15thof Shevat, 5667): Tu B’Shevat



1908: Caught up in the dispute between the Territorialists and the Jews who will only settle for a homeland in Palestine, Churchill drafted a letter at the behest of British Zionist, Rabbi Dr. Moses Gaster.  Seeking not to offend either party, Churchill expressed his support for the Zionist dream of settling in Palestine while allowing that a temporary refuge may have to be found if such is the wish of the Jewish people.  The Territoralists were those Jews were willing to accept the British offer of a homeland in Uganda or Kenya as an immediate solution to the suffering of the Jews in Russia.  The Russian Jews were among those who were the strongest opponents of the solution.



1909:  Birthdate of activist and author Saul David Alinsky



1911: Birthdate of right-handed pitcher Robert Clyde “Bob” Katz who appeared in six games for the Cincinnati Reds in 1944.



1912: In response to an appeal by Dr. J. L. Magnes the New York City Jewish community announces subscriptions amounting to over sixty thousand dollars annually for five years for Jewish education in New York City.



 1912: In Brooklyn, N. Y, The Atlantic Union Conference of the Seventh Day Adventist convention adopts resolutions protesting against the recent massacres of Jews in Russia and outbreaks of anti-Jewish feeling in so-called Christian countries as un-Christian and affirming their belief that the Jew is entitled to religious and civil rights.



1912: In New York City investment banker and philanthropist Maurice Wertheim and his wife Alma Morgenthau, the daughter of Henry Morgenthau, Sr. gave birth to Barbara Wetheim whom after she married Dr. Lester R. Tuchman was known as Barbara Tuchman a prolific popular historian who won a Pulitzer Prize for The Guns of August a book that President Kennedy urged people to read so that his generation might avoid the folly which led to World War I.  Ms. Tuchman won a second Pulitzer for Stillwell and the American Experience in China, a very readable tome that uses the experiences of Stillwell's career in Asia to explain the events that would ultimately lead to the victory of the Communist Chinese.  Although she was Jewish, Ms. Tuchman wrote only one book related to Jewish History - Bible and Sword (England and Palestine from the Bronze Age to Balfour).  Ms. Tuchman passed away in 1989 at the age of 77.Born in New York City, New York she is best known for her book The Guns of August (1962), a history of the outbreak of World War I, and Stilwell and the American Experience in China, (1970). She won Pulitzer Prizes for both books. Tuchman's father was a one-time owner and publisher of The Nation, as well as the founder of the Theatre Guild. Her maternal grandfather was the ambassador to Constantinople under President Woodrow Wilson, and her uncle was the Secretary of the Treasury under President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. She said, "The unrecorded past is none other than our old friend, the tree in the primeval forest which fell without being heard." Tuchman never went to graduate school, and never took a single course in writing. In deciding to write, she said, "The single most formative experience, I think, was the stacks at Widener Library where I was allowed to have as my own one of those little cubicles with a table under a window, queerly called, as I have since learned, 'carrels,' a word I never knew when I sat in one. Mine was deep in among the 940's (British History, that is) and I could roam at liberty through the rich stacks, taking whatever I wanted. The experience was marvelous, a word I use in its exact sense meaning full of marvels. It gave me a lifelong affinity for libraries, where I find happiness, refuge, not to mention the material for making books of my own.” Tuchman said, "Nothing sickens me more than the closed door of a library." She also said, "Books are the carriers of civilization. Without books, history is silent, literature dumb, science crippled, thought and speculation at a standstill."



1913(22ndof Shevat, 5673): Eighty-eight year old Joseph Sanson, who had worked as an official court interpreter passed away today in Philadelphia, PA.



1915: The Paris correspondent of the Manchester Guardian sent a dispatch to his paper today that includes a description of the treatment Jews by the Russian Government from The Bund Committee of the Lithuanian, Polish and Russian Jews

1915: Clara Michaelsohn, the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Israel Michaelson of 383 Grand Street became engaged to Mitchell Fligel today.



1915(15thof Shevat, 5675): Tu B’Shevat



1915: In Atlanta, the defense rested this afternoon in the case of Dan S. Lehon, CC. Felder and Arthur Thurman who are on trial subornation of perjury in an effort to secure a new trial for Leo Frank who was convicted of murdering Mary Phagan.



1915: From Berlin, the Overseas News Agency reported that in Russia, “Jews ae being prosecuted officially and demonstrations against them are being organized by the government.”



1916: Miss Amy Schechter and her brother Frank were among the two thousand people who attended a memorial service for their father Dr. Solomon Schechter at the First Rumanian Congregation where Dr. Henry Moscowitz, the President of the Civil Service Commission, delivered the principal address.



1916: Assemblymen Nathan T. Perlman and Meyer Levy and State Senator Irving Joseph were among the hundreds of people who attended the dance sponsored by the Madison Republican Club at the New Harlem Casino which raised hundreds of dollars “for the benefit of war sufferers.”



1916: A report issued today by the American Jewish Committee signed by President Louis Marshall and Executive Committee Chairman Cyrus Adler described the suffering of the Jews in war-torn Eastern Europe, the need to provide them aid and the work that must be done to protect the civil and religious rights of the Jews while alleviating the consequences of persecution.



1916: Rabbi J.L. Magnes is scheduled to speak at a mass meeting in Philadelphia organized by Dr. Cyrus Adler where it is expected that $200,000 will be raised to provide relief for the Jews in war-torn Europe.



1916(25th of Shevat, 5676): Sixty-one year old Sydney native Joseph Jacobs, the “Australian literary and Jewish historian who was a writer for the Jewish Encyclopedia and a notable folklorist, creating several noteworthy collections of fairy tales passed away today.
http://www.mainlesson.com/displayauthor.php?author=jacobs



1916: The list of speakers published today for the upcoming “non-sectarian mass meeting” designed to raise funds “for the relief of Jews in the warring countries of Europe included Jacob H. Schiff, the Rev. Dr. S. Parkes Cadman, Louis Marshall, Rabbi J.L. Magnes, Rabbi Nathan Krass and Joseph Barondes.



1917: It was reported today the Brooklyn Jewish Volunteer Relief Committee is sending out 25,000 letters to Brooklynites as part of the campaign to raise two hundred thousand dollars that will go to the national fund being raised to aid the Jews of Europe.



1917: It was reported that thirteen percent of the money sent to provide relief for the Jews of the Vilna District has to be turned over to the occupying German authorities and that in spite of all the aid American Jews have sent, unless a great deal more is done immediately, it will be increasingly difficult to keep the population “alive through the Winter.”



1918: As celebrations take place for the upcoming 70th birthday of Nathan Straus, it was announced that “in his honor 15 teams will start a special Nathan Straus birthday drive to raise $10,000 each in ten days for the Palestine Restoration Fund” of which he is the chairman.



1918: In New York City, Joseph Opatovsky, who gained fame as Yiddish author Joseph Opatoshu and his wife gave birth to David Opatovsky who gained fame as actor and screenwriter David Opatoshu.



1919(29thof Shevat, 5679): Meyer Benjamin, the husband of Henrietta Cohen Foster with whom he had three children, passed away today at Pittsburgh, PA following a surgical operation.



1919: The Versailles Conference decided that the Arab provinces should be wholly separated from the Ottoman Empire and the newly conceived mandate-system applied to them. This decision clashed with the expectation of Faisal's Arab delegation that his state would include Palestine, and the conditional understandings reached in the Faisal-Weizmann Agreement.



1919: Louis Graftman, one of the first three students from Hebrew Union College “to enlist at the outbreak of” World War I who completed his training as a Marine at Paris Island and served at Guantanamo Bay was “was released from service” today at Galveston, TX.



1920(10thof Shevat, 5680): Henriette Goldschmidt, the wife of Rabbi Abraham Meyer Goldschmidt, who was a social worker, educator and one of the founders of the Women’s Educational Association passed away today in Leipzig.
http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/goldschmidt-henriette



1921: Today’s annual meeting of the National Jewish Hospital for Consumptives at Denver being held at the Cleveland Hotel in Cleveland, Ohio is of special importance because the attendees will elect a new president to replace the late Samuel Grabfelder.



1922(1st of Shevat, 5682): Rosh Chodesh Shevat



1923: In Newark, NJ, Jacob Israel Gersten and Henrietta (Henig) Gersten gave birth to Bernard Gersten, the Executive Producer of Lincoln Center Theater.



1924: Birthdate of Kurt Rübner, the native of Brastislava who emigrated to Palestine in 1941 without his parents, sisters and grandparents all of whom were murdered by the Nazis and gained fame Tuvya Ruebner, the poet, editor, photographer and member of Kibbutz Merhavia.



1926(15thof Shevat, 5686): Tu B’Shevat



1927: Birthdate of Zeev (Heinz) Raphael, a native of Germany who escaped to safety in Sweden three days before the German invasion of Poland.



1927(27thof Shevat, 5687): Rabbi Joseph Israel Deutsch passed away today.
http://www.balassagyarmatizsidosag.hu/en/deutsch-jozsef-izrael



1928: Birthdate of Irwin Michnick who gained fame as Mitch Leigh, “an American musical theatre composer and theatrical producer best known for the musical Man of La Mancha.”



1928: Birthdate of Harold “Hal” Prince, Tony Award winning theatrical producer and director.



1929: Temple Emanu El in Dothan, Alabama was charted today.



1930(1stof Shevat, 5690): Rosh Chodesh Shevat



1930(1stof Shevat, 5690): “Prominent philanthropist in colonial India, Alice Edith Isaacs, Marchioness of Reading GBE, née Alice Edith Cohen the daughter of London merchant Albert Cohen, the first wife of Rufus Isaacs, 1st Marquess of Reading passed away today.



1930: Simcha Hinkas, a Jewish policeman, went on trial in Tel Aviv. He is accused of leading a crowd of Jews who reportedly killed five adults and wounded two children in an Arab family on August 25, 1929 during the Arab Uprising.  According to the government, while Hinkas was on duty at a crossroad on Herzl Street during the Arab riots he saw a truck filled with Jews fired on by Arabs who killed four and wounded five.  Hinkas allegedly went back to his barracks, got his rifle and led a Jewish mob in an attack on an Arab house.  A government witness identified the bullets in the dead Arabs as having come from a government issued rifle, but could not tie them to the gun belonging to Hinkas.  Two Arabs later identified Hinkas from a group of 13 Constables, but other Arabs identified different Constables.  Alfred Riggs, assistant superintendent of the police “declared that Hinkas was one of the mildest and best of the police” but, “for reasons of his own,” the British police official seemed certain that the Jewish policeman was guilty.



1931: Charlie Chaplin's "City Lights" premieres at Los Angeles Theater.



1931: In the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn, Jules Weinberg, who “helped run his family’s newspaper distribution business” and the former Elka Heller gave birth to Linda Natalie Weinberg who gained fame as art historian Linda Nochlin.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/01/obituaries/linda-nochlin-groundbreaking-feminist-art-historian-is-dead-at-86.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=region&region=region&WT.nav=region&_r=0



1933: Author Joseph Roth “left Germany when Adolf Hitler became Reich Chancellor today.
https://web.archive.org/web/20100923110558/http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/jroth.htm



1933: Nazi Machtergreifung or “Nazi seizure of power” took placed to when President Paul von Hindenberg appointed Adolph Hitler to the Chancellorship of Germany and members of the Nazi Party were appointed to “several other high-ranking cabinet posts.”



1933: On the day that Hitler became Chancellor of Germany, Eli Boschwitz, a judicial abriter came home and told his wife, 'We are leaving Germany forever.'"  Boshwitz was the father of 5 year old Rudy Boschwitz the future Republican leader who would eventually serve 12 years as U.S. Senator from Minn. 



1933: Youth Aliyah opens its offices in Berlin. The previous year Recha Freier, a rabbi's wife decided it would be a good idea to send young people from Germany to Kibbutzim. She founded the Juedische Jugendhilfe organization to help facilitate the work. That same year it became a department of the World Zionist Organization under Henrietta Szold.  Five thousand adolescents were rescued before the war and another 15,000 after the war.



1933: “Symphony of Six Million” a film based on the “Night Bell” by Fannie Hurst which “concerns the rise of a Jewish physician from humble roots to the top of his profession and the social costs of losing his connection with his community, his family and with the craft of healing” produced by Pandro S. Berman and David O. Selznick, co-starring Gregory Ratoff with music by Max Steiner was released today in the United States.



1934: Two days before he was scheduled to retire and become rabbi emeritus of Temple Emanu-El, Rabbi Hyman G. Enelow “sailed for the Mediterranean aboard the Empress of Australia.”



1934: Mr. and Mrs. Nathan Chasan of the Bronx announce the engagement of their daughter Shulamith Chasan to Theodore S. Chazin, son of Cantor and Mrs. Hirsch L. Chazin.  Mr. Chazin is a practicing attorney and the secretary of the Jersey City Zionist District.



1934: Moses Mendel Penn, the oldest patient ever cared for at Montefiore Hospital for Chronic Diseases, will observe his 109th birthday there today. He has partly recovered from a stroke that paralyzed one side of his body eight months ago. Mr. Penn entered the hospital on the application of the Bronx Young Men's Hebrew Association, of which he is the oldest living member.



1935: “Three Men on a Horse,” a comedy starring Garson Kanin and Sam Levene opened on Broadway at the Playhouse Theatre where it ran for 835 performances.



1935: Birthdate of Albert “Albie” Louis Sachs, the South African born son of Lithuanian Jews who fought against Apartheid and was appointed a Judge of the Constitutional Court by Nelson Mandela.
http://whoswho.co.za/albert-sachs-5369http://www.constitutionalcourt.org.za/site/judges/justicealbiesachs/index1.html



1936: At today’s session of its 16th annual convention, the Federation of Jewish Women’s Organizations adopted “resolutions approving the boycott of German products, opposing the sending of American athletes to the Olympics in Germany and urging a neutrality law that will keep” the United States out of war.  (Editor’s note – This is a leading national Jewish organization that is in effect supporting the isolationism of the 1930’s  All the critics of FDR, might want to consider this before rendering judgments on his behavior before Pearl Harbor.)



1936: At Long Beach, Long Island, Rabbi Stephen Wise announced plans for a “Boycott Day” to mark the third anniversary of “Hitler’s persecution of the Jews.”



1937: Rabbi Samuel Goldenson is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “Can Any One Be Rich?” at Temple Emanu-El



1937: Rabbi Stephen S. Wise is scheduled to deliver a sermon comparing the four years under Hitler and Roosevelt at the Free Synagogue meeting in Carnegie Hall.



1937: Rabbi Israel Goldstein is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “Hitler’s Anniversary, Roosevelt’s Inaugural and Poland’s ‘Superfluous Citizens’” at B’nai Jeshurun. (Editor’s note – 1937 was the first year that the Inauguration took place in January instead of March.  The Polish government had refused to its Jewish citizens as “superfluous.)



1937: At Rodeph Sholom, a guest speaker from Tel Aviv is scheduled to lecture on “Is there a Solution for the Jewish Problem?”



1937: Rabbi Morris Lichentenstein is scheduled to deliver the sermon at the Jewish Science Society.



1938: The Palestine Post reported that a Jewish constable, Mordechai Schwartz, who was charged with the premeditated murder of Police Constable Mustapha Khoury, was sentenced to death. The court refused to accept evidence that the previous murder by Arabs of two Jews in Karkur had influenced Schwartz to an immediate act of reprisal. Schwartz continued to claim his innocence.



1938: Rabbi Nathan A. Perilman is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “Protection From Our Friends” at Temple Emanu-El.



1938: Rabbi Stephen S. Wise is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “Five Tragic Hitler Years” at the Free Synagogue in Carnegie Hall.



1938: Seven hundred representatives of “many Jewish organizations” attending a meeting of the Council of the Fraternal and Benevolent Organizations heard a speech by I. Edwin Goldwasser who said “this is a time when the Jew, in his personal conduct, should consider himself not only an individual but a representative of his people.”



1938: George Gordon Battle was one of the speakers at tonight’s dinner at the Manhattan Opera House where the 400 attendees celebrated the thirtieth anniversary of the Federation of Polish Jews in America.



1938: While addressing a meeting of the Middle Atlantic States Regional Conference in Atlantic City, David J. Schweitzer, European vice chairman of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, said that while anti-Semitism is being offered as a “cure-all for political and economic ills in many countries” including Poland and Rumania, in the end “when put into effect” these policies intensifies the problems “and causes additional suffering among the general population.”



1938: Rabbi Jonah B. Wise is scheduled to deliver a lecture on “The Discovery of Scripture; We Wrote the Bible” at the Community House on East 62nd Street.



1938: Rabbi Louis L. Newman is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “Can Hitler Last Another Five Years in Germany? Will Cuza and Goga Last in Rumania?” at Temple Rodeph Sholom.



1938: Premier Octavian Goga today echoed King Carol’s assurance to the world that Rumania would stirve to meet is Jewish problem “without inhumanities” but there has not been any “modification of the government’s anti-Semitic program.”



1938: Rabbi Morris Lichtenstein is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “When Nerves Become Restless” at the Jewish Science Society.



 1939: Hitler, in his anniversary speech in Berlin, talked about the event of war, "The result will not be the Bolshevization of the earth, and thus the victory of Jewry, but the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe." Hitler also spoke in warm terms about its friendship with Poland.



1940: The Dominican Republic Settlement Association (DORSA), a special committee created by the Joint Distribution Committee signed a contract with the Trujillo regime that was part of plan to settle Jewish refugees in that Central American country.



 1940: “At a conference today, it was decided that all 30,000 Romani living in Germany proper were to be deported to former Polish territory” which meant they would die alongside the Jews in the gas chambers of Treblinka.



1942: In a speech at the Sports Palace in Berlin, Hitler told of his confidence in victory and his hatred for the Jews. "The hour will come when the most evil universal enemy of all time will be finished, at least for a thousand years." By the spring, four labor camps would be converted to death camps for the purpose of extinguishing the Jews; joining Chelmno were Belzec, Treblinka, Sobibor, and Auschwitz.



1942: Birthdate of Marty Balin of the Jefferson Airplane.



1943 (24th of Shevat, 5703): In Letychiv, Ukraine, German Gestapo commences mass shootings of Jews from Letychiv Ghetto. 200 surviving Jews from Letychiv slave labor camp were ordered to undress and were shot with machine-gun into a ravine. Some 7,000 Jews were murdered in Letychiv.  For those with a sense of irony, this was Shabbat and the Torah reading was Yitro.



1943: The SS Pierre Soule, a liberty ship, was launched today 45 days after its keel was laid. The ship was named after Pierre Soule a Louisiana political leader who was an ally of Judah P. Benjamin, and according to one story in the New York Times, was Jewish. 



1944: Seven hundred Jews are deported from Milan, Italy, to Auschwitz.



1945: Hitler gives his last ever public address; a radio address on the 12th anniversary of his coming to power.



1945: In Kehrson, two Holocaust survivors gave birth to Meir Hubermann, the grandson of Holocaust victim Ber Erlich Sloshny, whom they took to Israel in 1950 where he gained famed Meir Dagan, the Director of Mossad who according to uncredited sources played a key role in derailing the Iranian nuclear program. (As reported by Isabel Kershner
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/18/world/middleeast/meir-dagan-former-mossad-director-dies-at-71.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=0



1946: The Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry, a joint British and American committee composed of six Americans and six Englishmen that was charged with examining the “political, economic and social conditions in Mandatory Palestine as they bear upon the problem of Jewish immigration and settlement therein and the well-being of the peoples now living therein” which had been meeting in Washington, D.C. continued its meetings today in London.



1948: Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated by a Hindu extremist.  While Gandhi was a figure revered by many, some Jews have their reservations about this proponent of civil disobedience and non-violence no matter what the threat.  After Kristallnacht Gandhi wrote, "If the Jewish mind could be prepared for voluntary sacrifice, even the massacre I have imagined by Nazis could be turned into a day of thanksgiving that Jehovah had wrought deliverance of the race even at the hands of a tyrant...the German Jews will score a lasting victory over the German gentiles in the sense that they will have converted the latter to an appreciation of human dignity."  Apparently Ghandi lacked any concept of the evil that was Hitler.  But even after the war when the total horror was known, Gandhi said that the Holocaust was "the greatest crime of our time, but the Jews should have offered themselves to the butcher's knife.  They should have thrown themselves into the sea from the cliffs....It would have aroused the world and the people of Germany." 



1953(14thof Shevat, 5713): Eighty-nine year old geologist and geographer Alfred Philipson who survived 3 years in Theresienstadt, passed away today.
http://findingaids.cjh.org/?pID=475495



1953: The Jerusalem Post reported from Bonn that the West German Chancellor, Konrad Adenauer, assured Israel that his country would pay the first installment of 47 million marks of the German-Israeli Reparation Agreement within the next two months.



1953: The DuMont Television Network broadcast the final episode of “Steve Randall” starring Melvyn Douglas.



1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that IDF patrols had beaten back two attacks by Jordanian marauders at two points along the armistice lines, inflicting heavy casualties. Jordan falsely claimed that a number of Israeli soldiers were killed in both encounters. Both sides complained to the UN Israeli-Jordanian Mixed Armistice Commission.



1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that traces of copper were found near Jenin.



1958: “Sunrise at Campabello” the play written by Dore Schary that provided a dramatic depiction of FDR’s struggle with Polio premiered at the Cort Theatre in New York City.



1964(16thof Shevat, 4724): Writer and theatrical producer Allen A. Adler passed away today in New York City at the age of 47. Adler was part of a famous Jewish theatrical family.  His grandfather was actor and producer Jacob Adler.  His father was theatre manager and owner, Adolph Adler.  His uncle was Luther Adler and his aunt was Stella Adler.
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=FB0A17FB3E5415738DDDA80894DA405B848AF1D3



1966(9thof Shevat, 5726): Eighty-eight year old banker Rudolf Löb, who served as Chairman of Mendelssohn & Co before the Nazi broke up the bank passed away today in Boston, MA.
http://digifindingaids.cjh.org/?pID=480081



1969(11thof Shevat, 5729): Austrian born, American actress and singer Fritzi Massary passed away today.
http://www.wrightmusic.net/pdfs/fritz-massary.pdf



1970(23rdof Shevat, 5730): Marjan (or Maryan) Rawicz one half of the piano duo of Rawicz and Landauer that played together for forty years passed away today.



1971: Carole King's “Tapestry” album is released. This recording by Brooklyn born Jewess Carol Klein would become the longest charting album by a female solo artist and sell 24 million copies worldwide.



1971: “Abbie an' Slats” a comic strip created by Al Capp was published for the last time today.



1973: “Three Arabs were arrested in Italy at the border with Austria” thwarting “a planned attack on a transit camp in Austria for Jewish immigrants from Russia.”



1974: The Mayor and City of West Berlin hosted a reception to mark the 85thbirthday of Dr. Kate Frankenthal. A psychiatrist and socialist political leader during the Weimar Republic she fled Germany in 1933 and settled in the United States in 1936 where she became a consultant to the Jewish Family Service of New York.



1974: PBS broadcast a performance of “June Moon” co-authored by George S. Kaufman.



1975: The final part of the Agranat Commission’s report was published today. The commission had been set up after the Yom Kippur War to find out why the IDF had failed to perform as expected prior to, and during, the hostilities.



1976: NBC broadcast the first episode of “The Practice” co-starring Didi Conn with music by David Shire.



1978: The Jerusalem Post reported that US President Jimmy Carter sent a sharp note to Prime Minister Menachem Begin, complaining over the plan to establish Shilo, a new West Bank settlement. 1978(22nd of Shevat, 5738): Mordechai Yehuel, 27, of Ramat Gan was stabbed and killed in Ramallah.



1979: The civilian government of Iran announced it had decided to allow Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini to return from exile in France. The subsequent Islamist revolution would end the reign of the Shah, a regime which was much friendlier to Israel than the government that would follow. In retrospect, one can draw a straight line between the French decision and the Iranian nuclear threat that the West and Israel face in the 21st century.



1979: Max Moses Heller completed his term in office as the 29th Mayor of Greenville, SC.



1979: “The Triangle Factory Fire Scandal” a film about the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire directed by Mel Stuart and co-starring Stephanie Zimbalist and Tovah Felshuh was released in the United States today.



1980: Birthdate of Albany Law School grad and U.S. Army veteran Lee Zeldin who served in the New York State Senated before being elected as a Republican to the U.S. House of Representatives from New York’s 1s District.



1981: “The Incredible Shrinking Woman” directed by Joel Schumacher and co-starring Charles Grodin was released in the United States today.



1982: U.S. Secretary of State Alexander Haig “filed a report with President Reagan that revealed” his “fear that Israel might, at the slightest provocation, start a war against Lebanon.”1990: The Israeli Government said today that it had no official policy of settling Soviet Jewish immigrants in the West Bank or Gaza Strip, and Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir dismissed the debate over the issue as an ''artificial storm'' created by panicked Arab leaders.



1986(20thof Shevat, 5746): One police officer was killed and two civilians were wounded when terrorists began shooting today in Jersualem.



1990: After having originally premiered at the Tokyo International Film, “Unsettled Land” an “Israeli drama directed by Uri Barbash” was released in France today.



1991(15th of Shevat, 5751): Tu B'Shvat



1991: The New York Times reviews The Smile of the Lamb by David Grossman; translated by Betsy Rosenberg.



1991: In Amman, around 3,000 Jordanians demonstrated in favor of Iraq, burned American and Israeli flags and urged Mr. Hussein to fire chemical weapons at Israel. The demonstration reflected Jordan's tilt toward Baghdad throughout the gulf crisis. "O Saddam, hit, hit Tel Aviv!" some chanted. "With chemical weapons, O Saddam!" others replied. Jordan's population is more than half Palestinian, and many have voiced support for the Iraqi leader as a champion who will lead them to statehood.



1991: The Young Professionals of the American Friends of Tel Aviv University is sponsoring a black-tie cocktail party and dance, at Stringfellows to benefit the Adopt-a-Student Endowment Fund at the Rubin Academy of Music at Tel Aviv University.



1992: Publication date of “Hideous Kinky, an autobiographical novel by Esther Freud, daughter of British painter Lucian Freud and great-granddaughter of Sigmund Freud.



1992: "ROSENCRANTZ AND GUILDENSTERN ARE DEAD," by Tom Stoppard, adapted by Yosef Brodski, staged by Yevgeny Arye and featuring the Gesher Theater Company is scheduled to be performed in Brooklyn, NY.



1992: As Israel presses the United States for loan guarantees to cope with a projected huge influx of immigrants from the former Soviet Union, officials here said today that the immigrant flow this month had sunk to its lowest in almost two years and could dwindle even further



1993  “During fiscal 1992” which ended today, Younkers which had been founded by Lipman, Samuel and Marcus Younker in Keiokuk, IA in 1856 “had net earnings of $17.6 million on net sales of $473.4 million.”



1998: Premier performance of Paul Simon's "The Capeman."



1998: U.S premiere of “Zero Effect” a detective move directed and written by Jake Kasdan.



1998: Evelyn Lieberman, “the first woman to serve as deputy chief of staff to a president” “testified before a special grand jury” today that Monica Lewinsky “had displayed ‘immature and inappropriate behavior,’ was ‘spending too much time around the West Wing,’ and was ‘always someplace she shouldn’t be’” which had led her to decide “to get of her because of the appearance that it was creating” and not be because “she had heard…rumors linking the president and Ms. Lewinsky.”



1999(13thof Shevat, 5659): Ninety-three year old Professor Mirra Komarovksy the Russian born daughter of “Zionists and land owning Jews” who came to the United States where she became a leading authority in the field of Women’s Studies passed away today. (As reported by Eric Pace)
http://www.nytimes.com/1999/02/01/us/mirra-komarovsky-authority-on-women-s-studies-dies-at-93.html



2000: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Einstein’s German World by Fritz Stern and The Greenspan Effect:Words That Move the World's Markets by David B. Sicilia and Jeffrey L. Cruikshank.



2001: Two people were injured during at the Tayibe Bridge bombing for which Palestinian Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility.



2001(6thof Shevat, 5761): Eighty-five year old pioneer neurosurgeon Joseph Ransohoff,  passed away today.
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/12/nyregion/joseph-ransohoff-a-pioneer-in-neurosurgery-dies-at-85.html



2001: Prime Minister Ehud Barak saw 20 immigrants' representatives inside his Jerusalem office and then presided tonight over a modest support rally at the city's convention center as he continued his campaign against Ariel Sharon.



2003: In “A Burst of Light Provides Privacy,” published today Elaine Louie discusses the work of Ayala Sefaty of Tel Aviv who designed her own underwater restaurant in Eilat
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/30/garden/currents-architecture-a-burst-of-light-provides-privacy.html



2003: “The Israeli experiment aboard the space shuttle Columbia has accomplished its goals of studying the effects of dust storms on weather and recording electrical phenomena atop storm clouds, scientists said today. Researchers from Tel Aviv University said their Mediterranean Israeli Dust Experiment had gathered solid information on the plumes of dust and other aerosol particles blown from deserts by storms before being carried worldwide by high winds. The particles affect rain production in clouds, deposit minerals in the ocean and scatter sunlight that affects global warming, the scientists said. ''The experiment has worked without a hitch,'' Dr. Joachim Joseph, a principal investigator, told a briefing at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. ''We have very good data, very unique data.'' A twin-camera multispectral instrument in the payload bay of the shuttle has been scanning desert particles whipped into the atmosphere and, at night, making images of the tops of some of the thousands of thunderstorms that rumble through the atmosphere every hour. The shuttle, nearing the end of a 16-day mission, is to return to the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., on Saturday with its crew of seven, including the first Israeli astronaut, Col. Ilan Ramon, a combat pilot in the Israeli Air Force. The flight, which had been delayed almost two years, finally went into orbit at a time when storms in the Sahara that push dust into the Mediterranean Sea are infrequent. But researchers said luck was with them and they were able to obtain images of dust plumes. The first was made on Sunday, blowing from the western coast of Africa into the Atlantic. The big payoff was on Monday, on the last scheduled pass over the Mideast. ''On the last orbit over the Mediterranean,'' Dr. Joseph said, ''we got a nice dust storm over Israel. ''We just lucked out.'' Israeli scientists said they had clear images of cloud-to-space lightning, called sprites, and the first scientific pictures recorded from space that show an elf, a luminous doughnut-shape electrical glow above a thunderstorm that lasts less than a millisecond. Aside from the successful science, the mission is important to Dr. Joseph because Colonel Ramon is carrying a keepsake, a small Torah scroll used at Dr. Joseph's bar mitzvah almost 60 years ago while he was in a concentration camp in Germany. The elderly rabbi performing the ceremony, who died soon afterward in the camp, gave the Torah to the boy and told him to tell people what had occurred there. Dr. Joseph said Colonel Ramon saw the Torah when visiting his house and was so moved by the history that he asked to take it into space as a tribute. In an interview from space last week with Israeli officials, the astronaut displayed the Torah. ''This represents more than anything the ability of the Jewish people to survive despite everything from horrible periods, black days, to reach periods of hope and belief in the future,'' the colonel said. Because of the gesture from space, Dr. Joseph said, he feels he has finally fulfilled his promise to the rabbi.”



2004: Airing of the 13th episode of “Boston Public” co-starring Fyvush Finkel, Michael David Rapaport, Anthony Heald, Jessalyn Gilsig and Joey Slotnick following which it was announced that the series would be cancelled due to low ratings.



2005: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Lot’s Daughters: Sex, Redemption, and Women's Quest for Authority by Robert M. Polhemus and the newly released paperback editions of Growing Up Fast by Joanna Lipper and Oracle Night by Paul Auster



2005: In “The Observant Reader,” Wendy Shalit provides a prescient synopsis of the varying ways in which Orthodoxy is portrayed in contemporary literature.
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F01E0DA1038F933A05752C0A9639C8B63



2005: A Broadway revival of Stephen Sondheim’s “Pacific Overtures” which had opened at Studio 54 in 2004 closed today



2005: In “The Nation; One Clear Conscience, 60 Years After Auschwitz,” published today Roger Cohen tells the story of Miecyslaw Kasprzyk, an unsung hero of the Holocaust.
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A0CE0D7143BF933A05752C0A9639C8B63



2006(1st of Shevat, 5766): Playwright Wendy Wasserstein, author of the Heidi Chroniclesand The Sisters Rosensweig passed away at the age of 55.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/31/theater/31wasserstein.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0



2007: It was announced today that Michael Abraham Levy who had been named Baron Levy, had been “arrested by police on suspicion of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice regarding the cash for peerages investigation and immediately released on bail” Six months later he would be cleared of charges related to a scandal regarding charges of granting life peerages in exchange for political contributions.



2007: “Farce of the Penguins,” an American direct-to-video parody of the 2005 French documentary film March of the Penguins with the two main characters voiced by Bob Saget (who also wrote and directed the film) and Lewis Black” was released today in the United States.



2007(11thof Shevat, 5767): Eighty-nine year old former supermarket executive Benjamin Saget, the father of Bob Saget, passed away today.



2007(11thof Shevat, 5767): Eighty-nine year old novelist Sidney Shelton passed away today in Ranch Mirage, CA.
http://web.archive.org/web/20061231180647/http://www.hachettebookgroupusa.com/features/sidneysheldon/meet_ss.html



2007: The House of Love and Prayer, a new multi-lingual musical based on the life of Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach, had its final performance at the JCC in Manhattan



2007: In Derby, UK, as part of Holocaust Memorial Day observances a screening of 'Into the Arms of Strangers,” for students from the Millennium Centre, with a Q&A session to follow with Steven Mendelsson who traveled on the “Kindertransports.”



2008: In Manhattan, the 92nd St Y presents Christopher Hitchens and Rabbi Shmuley Boteach in debating “Does God Exist?” Two of today’s most provocative voices as debate the ultimate religious question: Is there a God? Best-selling authors Christopher Hitchens and Shmuley Boteach pull no punches as they discuss organized religion and its place in American life.



2009: Maira Kalman started a new illustrated blog in the New York Times called “And the Pursuit of Happiness” about American democracy today



2009: Lillian Hellman’s “Scoundrel Time” opens at the City Lit Theatre in Chicago.



2009:Batsheva Dance Company, one of the most inspirational and sought-after companies in the dance world, presents its acclaimed production, ‘Three’ at the Performing Arts Center in Purchase, New York. 



2009: A swastika was discovered today at Congregation Shaarey Tphilohan Orthodox synagogue in Portland, Maine which claims to be Portland's oldest Jewish congregation.



2009 (5thof Shevat 5769: Milton Parker, who brought long lines and renown to the Carnegie Deli in Manhattan with towering pastrami sandwiches and a voluble partner who kibitzed with common folk and celebrities alike, passed away today at the age of 90. (As reported by Dennis Hevesi)
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/05/nyregion/05parker.html?_r=0



2010: The Museum of Modern Art is scheduled to present a musical event featuring Israeli pianist Menahem Pressler with the New York Chamber Soloists.



2010: The JCC on the Palisades in Tenafly, NJ, is scheduled to observe Tu B’Shevat with a program  of stories and songs led by Miki Rahav, of Kibbutz Yagur entitled “Celebrating 100 years of Kibbutz Life with Stories and Songs.”



2010(15thof Shevat, 5770): Tu B’Shevat



2010(15thof Shevat, 5770): Eighty-seven year old British historian Jack Richon Pole, the son of Ukrainian Jews who had found refuge in the UK, whose most famous work was Political Representation in Britain and the Origins of the American Republic passed away today.



2010(15thof Shevat, 5770): Aaron Ruben, who was a producer, writer and director for some of the most popular television comedies of the 1960s and ’70s, notably “The Andy Griffith Show,” “Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C.” and “Sanford and Son,” passed away today at his home in Beverly Hills, at the age of 95. (As reported by William Grimes)
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/obituaries/articles/2010/02/04/aaron_ruben_tv_producer_for_andy_griffith/



2010: Joëlle Alexis won the World Cinema Documentary prize for Editing tonight at Sundance for her work on Yael Hersonski's “A Film Unfinished.”  The movie examines an unfinished Nazi propaganda film about life in the Warsaw ghetto.



2011: Blood Relation, a documentary film by Noa Ben Hagai is scheduled to shown on the final day of the Seventh Annual Brooklyn Israel Film Festival.



2011:  At the 92nd Street Y Drawing on a compendium of more than 600 New York Times articles on the Civil War, Harold Holzer and Craig L. Symonds are scheduled to discuss revelations about America’s great conflict that are still affecting Americans today.



2011: Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Detroit is scheduled to sponsor Super Sunday, the community wide telethon to benefit the Federation's 2011 Campaign.2011: “Return to Haifa” is scheduled to have its last performance at the Aaron & Cecile Goldman Theater, Washington DCJCC



2011: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Neoconservative Persuasion: Selected Essays, 1942-2009 by Irving Kristol, Panorama by H.G. Adler and Zero-Sum Future: American Power in an Age of Anxiety by Gideon Rachman



2011:Cyprus has recognized a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders, the official Palestinian news agency WAFA said on today, following similar recent declarations coming mostly from South American states.



2011(25thof Shevat, 5771): Eugene Lubin, whose men and boys clothing store in suburban New York provided bar mitzvah suits for decades, and who was a longtime leader in Jewish organizations, passed away today at the age of 88. The store, Lubin's Men's World, has operated in several locations throughout Westchester County, just north of New York City. In 2010 it opened an operation within Rothman’s, an upscale men’s clothier in Scarsdale. “What happens when upscale specialty men’s clothier Rothman’s invites Lubin’s, the 56-year-old young men’s clothing institution (it has dressed generations of bar mitzvah boys), to move into his Scarsdale shop? Y-chromosome clothing kismet. From boys to men, all are suitably attired here at this brilliant -- and stylish -- pairing of retail roomies,” a Westchester magazine raved. Eric Schoen, who is active with the Jewish Council of Yonkers, said that “Gene Lubin was a man who cared greatly about the city of Yonkers and was involved in its business, civic, religious and philanthropic community." But, like others, Schoen also returned to Lubin’s bar mitzvah suits. "He also cared that bar mitzvah boys and anyone celebrating a special occasion looked perfect," Schoen said. "People traveled far and wide to get that perfect fit." Lubin was a former president of the Westchester Jewish Council and was a member of the Yonkers citizen budget commission in 1993. (As reported by the Eulogizer)



2011(25thof Shevat, 5771): Meyer O'hayon Tapiero, a Morocco native who was among the founders of the new Jewish community of Marbella in Andalusia, Spain, passed away at the age of 94. Tapiero and and his wife came to the resort town of Marbella in 1955 on a holiday from their home in Casablanca, where they had a successful men’s clothing business, and decided to set up their home and family in the Spanish region because he “felt the political change coming in Morocco and decided to look at new prospects beyond its borders.” His wife had come to Morocco from Berlin, which she fled in 1942. Tapiero convinced two brothers to join him in Spain, and they and other family members from Morocco built a synagogue and helped redevelop the community, which had been devoid of Jews since the Inquisition. The community is now a popular destination for Jewish tourism and has a Chabad house and other Jewish services (As reported by the Eulogizer)



2012: The 92ndStreet Y is scheduled to host “Terezin Between Celebration and Investigation” a frank and challenging discussion about the dual function of the art of Terezín led by Hanna Arie-Faifman and Michael Beckerman.



2012: The Israel Prisons Service parole board decided today to reduce the sentence of former minister Shlomo Benizri, a member of the Shas party who was recently sentenced to four years in prison for bribery and other offenses. The parole board decided to cut Benizri's sentence down by a year and four months, so the former minister is due to be released in April.



2012: The Jewish Federation of Arkansas announced today that President Bill Clinton will receive the Tikkun Olam Lifetime Achievement Award of the Jewish Federation of Arkansas a February 4 ceremony in Little Rock marking its 100th anniversary celebration dinner.



2013: The Library of Congress is scheduled to host a presentation on the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design featuring Professor Ezri Tabari, the founder and former chair of the Bezalel MA degree program in industrial design



2013: Jori Slodki is scheduled to teach a two hour class “Oy Vay! A History of Yiddish” at (of all places) Kirkwood Community College in Iowa City, Iowa.



2013: The ORT Braude Academic College of Engineering in Karmiel is scheduled to host the opening session of “From There to Here,” a month long event that will give 15 Oleh artists living in northern Israel showcase their works.



2013: Yeshiva University Museum with YIVO Institute for Jewish Research and Jewish Theological Seminary are scheduled to present a panel discussion featuring David G. Roskeis and Naomi Diament, the co-authors of the newly published Holocaust Literature: A History & Guide



2013: Former Representative Gabby Giffords gave a brief emotiaonal opening statement before the Senate Judiciary Committee that was holding hearings on gun violence.



2013: Israeli forces attacked a convoy on the Syrian-Lebanese border today, sources told Reuters, after Israelis warned their Lebanese enemy Hezbollah against using chaos in Syria to acquire anti-aircraft missiles or chemical weapons.



2013: Beitar Jerusalem soccer club welcomed Muslim Chechen players Zaur Sadayev and Gabriel Kadiev to the team in a press conference today attended by Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat and dozens of foreign reporters.



2014: “Nazi-looted paintings recovered by the Allies platoon known as the Monuments Men are scheduled to be sold at auction in New York” today. The four lots will go on the block at Sotheby’s in New as part of a sale of Old Master paintings and sculpture. Some of the works were owned by the Rothschild family. Two of the family’s paintings to be auctioned were placed in the private collection of Nazi leader Hermann Goering, Reuters reported.” (As reported by JTA)



2014: Joan Dodek (Past President, Washington Committee for Soviet Jewry) and Marcia Weinberg (Former Chair, Soviet Jewry Committee of Jewish Community Council) are scheduled to discuss their daring trips to visit refuseniks in the Soviet Union and involvement in the struggle to free Soviet Jewry at Washington Hebrew Congregation.



2014: In New York, the Jewish Museum is scheduled to host an evening of entertainment “featuring a live performance by Mirah” to mark the upcoming closing of “Chagall: Love, War and Exile.



2014: Rocket launched from the Gaza Strip hit in an open area in the Sdot Negev Regional Council. No injuries or damage were reported.



2014: Oxfam accepted actress Scarlett Johansson’s resignation as a global ambassador, calling the role “incompatible” with her work for the Israeli company SodaStream.“Oxfam has accepted Scarlett Johansson’s decision to step down after eight years as a Global Ambassador and we are grateful for her many contributions,” the global anti-poverty charity said in a statement issued today. “While Oxfam respects the independence of our ambassadors, Ms. Johansson’s role promoting the company SodaStream is incompatible with her role as an Oxfam Global Ambassador.” (As reported by JTA)



2014: The editors of an ultra-Orthodox daily newspaper today accused the State of Israel of encouraging anti-Semitism throughout the world, claiming that lax religious adherence in the nation and “harassment” of the Haredi community were to blame.



2015: Today, “after a week of intense political pressure and dwindling support, Sheldon Silver submitted his resignation as Speaker, effective February 2, while retaining his position as Assembly Memberand vowing to fight the charges against him.”



2015: Ernst Lutisch’s “Angel” is scheduled to be shown at the Jerusalem Cinematheque



2015: “Born Yesterday” is scheduled to be shown at the 92nd St Y as part of the Women on Top series.



2015: The Eden-Tamir Music Center is scheduled to present “Piano Games” featuring Ariel Halevi, Dror Semmel and Michaek Serzekel.



2016: “Over 3500 selflessly committed and highly talented women including 4 from Arkansas are scheduled to spend Shabbat in New York, as part of the annual Chabad-Lubavitch International Kinus Hashluchos (conference of Chabad women representatives and their guests) which is held each year, at this time on the calendar, in conjunction with the yahrzeit of Rebbetzin Chaya Mushka Schneerson, wife of the Rebbe whose yahrzeit is the 22nd of Shevat.”



2016: The Eden-Tamir Music Center is scheduled to present “The Best of Chamber Music - Essence of Piano Trios” featuring the Alexander Trio.



2016: The first of the two-part annual exhibition Illustrators 58 being held at the Museum of American Illustration at the Society of Illustrators featuring the work of Merav Salomon is scheduled to come to an end today.



2016: Shabbat Yitro – reading of the Ten Commandments



2017(3rdof Shevat, 5777): Eighty-eight year old “art historian and critic” Dorea Ashston, the daughter of Dr. Ralph Shapiro and Newark News reporter Sylvia Smith, passed away today.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/03/arts/design/dore-ashton-art-critic-who-embraced-and-inhabited-modernism-dies-at-88.html
http://www.artnews.com/2017/02/02/in-memorian-dore-ashton-1928-2017/



2017(3rdof Shevat, 5777): Ninety-five year old Holocaust surviving pianist Walter Hautzig passed away today.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/04/arts/music/walter-hautzig-dead-flee-nazis.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=0



2017(3rdof Shevat, 5777): Ninety year old Tulane Graduate Harold Rosen, the engineer responsible for what has become our modern communication network passed away today.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/02/business/harold-rosen-dead-engineer-satellite.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=0



2017: In Boca Raton, FL, supporters of US Holocaust Memorial Museum from South Florida are scheduled to hold their annual luncheon where “Wendy Holden, author of Born Survivors: Three Young Mothers and their Extraordinary Story of Courage, Defiance, and Hope, will interview Eva Clarke, one of the infant survivors whose mothers are featured in the book.”



2018: As part of the observance of Holocaust Memorial Day, the Oxford University Jewish Society is scheduled to “Women in the Holocaust, “a talk by Holocaust historian Dr. Zoe Waxman, the author of Writing the Holocaust: memory, testimony, representation (2006), Anne Frank (2015), and Women in the Holocaust: A Feminist History of the Holocaust (2017), as well as numerous articles relating to the Holocaust and genocide who teaches in the Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies, University of Oxford.



2018: The Oxford University Jewish Society is scheduled to host a Tu B’Shevat Seder this evening.



2018: Professor Deborah Lipstadt of Emory University is scheduled to lecture on “Anti-Semitism Past and Present” as part of the History Matters “a new lecture series at the Center for Jewish History.”



2018: Leonard Stein is scheduled to deliver a lecture on “Jewish Spain in American Tongue: The Sephardic Return of Emma Lazarus” at the Center for Jewish History.



2018: As part of the International Holocaust Remembrance Day commemoration “Father Sam Argenziano of Winnipeg’s Holy Rosary Parish Church is scheduled to speak on the role the Catholic Church played during the Holocaust."



 



 



 



 



 



 



 



 



 


 

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