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This Day, March 31, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. Levin

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March 31

1084: Henry IV, who had been embroiled in a conflict with the Papacy, was crowned Emperor by Clement III, called by some an anti-Pope. Within six years after this second coronation, Henry granted the Jewish community of Worms , the privileges of free commerce and exemption from taxation” and “designating the Jews as ‘subjects of his treasury,’”  placing  “them under his immediate protection, so that neither royal nor episcopal functionaries could exercise any jurisdiction over them” including the power of taxation.


1146: Bernard of Clairvaux preaches his famous sermon in a field at Vézelay, urging the necessity of a Second Crusade. Louis VII is present, and joins the Crusade. Unlike the First Crusade, the Second Crusade is led by two monarchs - Louis VII of France and Conrad III of Germany. The “German connection” led to more suffering for the Jews of the Rhineland. Thanks to the incitement by one monk, the town of Wurburg was demolished during the massacres of Jews living along the Rhine River. As had happened during the First Crusade, the Christian warriors decided to slaughter the Infidels in their midst as they moved to free the Holy Land from the Infidels. The growing class of Christian merchants benefited from the violence since the destruction of the Jewish community destroyed their Jewish competitors. All Christians did not engage in this anti-Semitic behavior. Bernard himself tried to protect the Jewish population. His message of Crusade was heard. His message concerning the Jews was not.


1283: Massacre of the Jews of Mayence in Germany.


1310: At the auto da fé held at Paris today, a converted Jew who had returned to Judaism also died at the stake.


1324: In his 53rd year, Henry II, “the last ruling and first titular King of Jerusalem” (part of the Christian fiction of control dating from the Crusades) passed away today.


1381: During a popular uprising in France known as The Revolt of the Maillotins, Jews in France were murdered and their property plundered for next three or four days. The regent exercising royal power for the youthful Charles VI was unable to save the Jews or gain them indemnification for their loss.


1492: Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon issued the Alhambra Decree or Edict of Expulsion, ordering her 150,000 Jewish subjects to convert to Christianity or face expulsion. Jews, unlike conversos and Marranos, were not subject to the Inquisition. So, the Church leveled a ritual murder accusation against them in Granada and was thus was able to call for the expulsion of both Jews as well as Marranos from Spain. The Marranos themselves were accused of complicity in the case so both groups were ordered to leave within four months. Torquemada, the director of the Inquisition (and incidentally of Jewish descent), defended this against Don Isaac Abarbanel. The edict was passed, and over fifteen thousand Jews had to flee - some to the Province of Aragon and others, like Abarbanel, to Naples. Still others found temporary sanctuary in Portugal.


1499: In Milan, Bernardino de' Medici and Clelia Serbelloni gave birth to Giovanni Angelo Medici, who as Pope Pius IV issued a bull that improved the conditions of the Jews passed because it allowed them to stop wearing their yellow cap, buy land up to the value of 1,500 ducats and to trade in things other than old clothes. While they could speak with Christians, they could not have Christian servants. He also allowed the Jews to publish the Talmud as long as they did not use that word in the publication.


1547: Francis I, for whom Agostino Giustiniani, the first person to occupy a chair of Hebrew and Arabic at the University of Paris, became a pensioner passed away today.


1547: Henry II succeeded his father as King of France on his 28th birthday. Obadiah ben Jacob Sforno, the Italian Rabbi dedicated his commentaries on “The Song of Songs” and “Ecclesiastes” to the French monarch.


1596: Birthdate of Rene Descartes, the French mathematician and philosopher who was one of the two main sources from which Spinoza derived his view of the world.


1647: Ralph Cudworth who had been Professor of Hebrew at Cambridge since 1645 and who “maintained an extensive correspondence” with Isaac Abenda the hakam of the Spanish Portuguese Synagogue in London preached a sermon in the House of Commons that advocated “principles of religious toleration and charity.”


1648: In an attempt to explain the drop off in the production of vanilla, Commander Beekman of Essequibo and Pomeroon wrote the following letter to his superiors in Amsterdam today


“The Jew Salomon de la Roche having died some 8 to 9 months ago, the trade in vanilla has come to an end, since no one here knows how to prepare it, so as to develop proper aroma and keep it from spoiling. I have not heard of any this whole year. Little is found here. Most of it is found in Pomeroon, whither this Jew frequently traveled, and he sometimes used to make me a present of a little. In navigating along the river, I have sometimes seen some on the trees and picked with my own hands, and it was prepared by the Jew....I shall do my best to obtain for the company as much as shall be feasible, but I am afraid it will spoil, since I do not know how to prepare it.” [The letter is illustrative of the vital role Jews played in the production of vanilla.]


1688: The German Jews received permission to participate in the tobacco industry “but only on condition that they would build houses in Christianshavn, a suburb of Copenhagen on the island of Amager.


1722: Fifty –two year old Campegius Vitringa, the Elder, “a Dutch Christian Hebraist” whose works included a dissertation on the Synagogue and a “Commentary on Isaiah” passed away today at Franeker.


1745: The Jews of Prague were exiled.


1779(14thof Nisan, 5539) As the American Revolution dragged on for its fourth year, Jews observed the Fast of the First Born and prepared to sit down to a Seder this evening.


1781: Today “the Hungarian government issued a decree known as the Systematica gentis Judaicae regulatio, which wiped out at one stroke the decrees that had oppressed the Jews for centuries. The royal free towns, except the mining-towns, were opened to the Jews, who were allowed to settle at leisure throughout the country. The regulatio decreed that the legal documents of the Jews should no longer be composed in Hebrew, or in Yiddish, but in Latin, German, and Hungarian, the languages used in the country at the time, and which the young Jews were required to learn within two years.”
 1783: Emperor Joseph II issued a proclamation allowing the Jews to live in so-called "Royal Cities" including Pest, which would later be the “Pest” in Budapest. By 1787 81,000 Jews would be living in Hungary. The Hungarian Jewish community would grow large and prosper but would all but perish in the Holocaust. Tragically, it was the Holocaust that produced Hungary’s most famous post-War Jew, Elie Weisel.



1796: Birthdate of Hermann Hupfeld, the German Biblical commentator who specialized on ‘the Old Testament” and whose writings “included a treatise on the early history of Hebrew grammar among the Jews” published in 1846.


1797: : Benvenida de Isaac Solis, the daughter of Isaac Henriques Henriques Valentine and Simha Mandil and Solomon da Solis gave birth to Samuel Solis.


1799(24th of Adar II, 5559): Lorenzo Bertran was subjected to an auto-da-fe ("act of faith," in reality the public ceremony when the sentence of the Inquisition was read and carried out) in Seville. Supposedly he was the last person to be punished for attempting to lead others to Judaism in Spain. It was not the end of the auto-da-fe; a ceremony that was reported to have taken place in Mexico in isolated instance in the early 19th century.


1808: In Westphalia, which was ruled by Jerome Bonaparte a Jewish consistory “was introduced by decree.”


1808: Jacob Lazarus and Elizabeth Lazarus were married at the Great Synagogue.


1808: The French created Kingdom of Westphalia ordered Jews to adopt family names


1810: Birthdate of Hayyim Selig Slonimski a native of Byelostok, who was “a Hebrew publisher, astronomer, inventor” and a pioneer in providing Jews of Eastern Europe with a scientific education.


1817(14th of Nisan, 5577): Ta'anit Bechorot


1821: Abolition of the Portuguese Inquisition. The Inquisition was established in 1531 meaning it lasted for 290 years.


1825(12th of Nisan, 5585): Ta'anit Bechorot


1843: Birthdate of anti-Semitic political leader Bernhard Forster, the brother-in-law of Friedrich Nietzsche.


1851: Birthdate of Sir Francis Henry Dillon Bell, the first native of New Zealand and the first Jew to serve as Prime Minister of the land of the Kiwis.


1854: Birthdate of Joseph Schulen, the Munich banker who went into the brewery business in 1895, when he took over Munich’s bankrupt Unionsbrauerei and in 1904 “acquired Münchner Kindl, another failing brewery in Munich.” (As described by Yardena Schwartz)


1853: In Hungary Michael Heilprin and his wife gave birth to Angelo Heilprin “an American geologist, paleontologist, naturalist, and explorer.


1856: 40 Harmonia, a large main-belt asteroid was discovered today by German-French astronomer Hermann Goldschmidt


1856: The Jews of Belarus or White Russia were denied the right to wear any distinctive garments that would mark them as different from the rest of the citizenry. At the time White Russia was part of the Czar's Russia with Poland and Lithuania to the west, Ukraine to the South, and Russia to the east. Minsk, home to a large Jewish population is today the capital of an independent Belarus.





1857: In San Francisco, Jesse (Isaias) Seligman and Henriette Seligman gave birth to Henry Max Seligman the husband of Adeliade (Addie) Seligman.


1863(11thof Nisan, 5623): Abraham Abraham, a native of Bath and an “optician and scientific instrument maker” who was the son of optician Jacob Abraham, and who served as President of the Liverpool Jewry’s Philanthropic Institute and Warden of “the Old Hebrew Congregation” passed away today.


.1863: “The Will of Commodore Levy--The Bequest of the Monticello Estate to the People of the United States Void” published today described the litigation surrounding attempts to “break” the late Jewish naval hero’s will. “This was an action to obtain a construction of the will of Commodore Levy, in respect to the bequest of the People of the United States of a farm owned by him, and 200 acres adjoining it, at Monticello, Virginia, and also in respect to a bequest of $1,000 to the Jews' Hospital in this City. The Court now rendered the following judgment, declaring the devise and bequest of the Monticello estate, and the 200 acres adjoining, to the people of the United States void, and that said portions of the estate descended to and vested in the heirs at law and next of kin of the testator; also that the Jews' Hospital of New-York are entitled to have their bequest." Such was the endorsement upon the papers.”


1865: During the American Civil War, Philadelphian Morris Schlesinger, the First Sergeant of the Twelfth Regiment, USA was mortally wounded at the Gravelly Run, Virginia today.


1865(4th of Nisan): Rabbi Jacob Zevi ben Gamaliel Konigsberg author of Ha-Ketav ve-ha-Kabbalah passed away


1865: The new Synagogue of the Congregation Shaar Hashomayim, (Gate of Heaven), in Rivington-street, between Ludlow and Orchard, was formally consecrated this afternoon. The building, which was erected in 1835, was occupied by a Presbyterian congregation until last November, when it was sold to its present occupants.


1866(15thof Nisan, 5626): Second Day of Pesach and Shabbath


1867: “The Insurance Companies and ‘Jew Risks’”published today reported on a meeting where members of the community including the mayor or Richmond expressed their anger over the decision of insurance companies to no longer accept ‘Jew Risks.’ The mayor, who had been in the insurance business for years, told the crowd that he had numerous dealings with Jews over the years and found them to be honest. No reason was given for the decision of the insurance companies.


1875: Henry Moss married Matilda Leopold today.


1876: Birthdate of William Henry Dieterich, the anti-Semitic and “somewhat pro-German” Senator from Illinois who lost his bid for re-election in 1938 thanks in part to the efforts of Henry Horner, the states Jewish governor.


1878: It was reported today that “foreign Jews trading in Russia” are now have the same legal standing as native Russian merchants.


1871: A poem in Hebrew about the Western Wall by Henry Vidaver, who served as a rabbi at Rodeph Shalom in Philadelphia, United Hebrew Congregation in St. Louis, B’nai Jeshrun in New York and Sherith Israel in San Francisco, appeared in the newspaper Havatzelet.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Henry_Vidaver_poem_1871.jpg



1878: “The Order of B’Nai Brit” published today traces the history of the history of the Jewish fraternal organization which was founded 35 years ago in New York City.


1878: It was reported today that “foreign Jews trading in Russia” are now have the same legal standing as native Russian merchants.


1880(19thof Nisan, 5640): Fifth Day of Pesach


1880(19thof Nisan, 5640): Forty-four year old Polish violinist and composer Henryk Wieniawski the son of Tadeusz Wieniawski, who converted to Catholicism before he earned his medical degree and Regina Wolf, “the daughter of a noted Jewish physician from Warsaw” passed away today.


1880: Alexander II of Russia was assassinated, and with him his half-hearted liberalism. He was succeeded by Alexander III who, devoted to medievalism, urged the return to Russian civilization. The most influential person during his reign was Pobestonostov, his financier and procurator of the Holy Synod, who earned the title "the Second Torquemada."


1882: One of two birthdates (the other being March 21) of Friederike Massaryk, the native of Austria, who converted to Protestantism in 1903 and gained game as actress and soprano Fritzi Massary.


https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/massary-fritzi


1885(15THof Nisan, 5645): Pesach


1885: The New York Times reported that “the Jewish festival of Pesach, or Passover, instituted to commemorate the exodus of the children of Israel from Egypt, commenced last evening and its celebration will be continued among the orthodox Hebrews throughout the world for the next eight days. This festival is also known as Hag Ha’Matzos, or the fest of the unleavened bread.”


1889: The Eiffel Tower is inaugurated. One of Chagall’s most famous paintings was “Eiffel Tower, Serenade.”


1890: It was reported today that “the diary of Sir Moses Montefiore and Lady Montefiore which the Belforde Clark Company published in two octave volumes covers the period from 1812 to 1883. The papers of Sir Moses were left to his Secretary, Dr. Lowe, for arrangement and publication, but Dr. Lowe died upon completing the work and son of Sir Moses, now a resident of this country, then carried it forward.”


1891: In Bilgoraj, Pinchas Mendl Zinger, a rabbi and author of rabbinic commentaries, and Basheva Zylberman gave birth to Hinde Ester Singer Kreytman, the sister of Joshua and Isaac Bashevis Singer who gained fame as Yiddish author Esther Kreitman.


1892(1stof Nisan, 5652); Rosh Chodesh Nisan


1892: It was reported today that 69 nine year old Mark Samuel, a former resident of Toronto, has passed away in London. He had found M & L Samuel in 1855 and helped found the Toronto branch of the Anglo-Jewish Association.  He was a supporter of efforts to settle Russian Jews in the Northwest Terriotories.


1892: The SS Massilia, the steamship which had previously brought several Jews from Russia who were infected with typhus is scheduled to arrive in New York today.  Health authorities will be paying close attention to the passengers since they are similar to the ones brought here before.


1893(14th of Nisan, 5653): Ta'anit Bechorot


1893(14th of Nisan, 5653): Alexander Levi one of the earliest settlers and earliest Jewish settlers of Dubuque, Iowa, passed away today.


1893: A group of Boston Jews belonging to Adath Israel petitioned Judge Ely for the return of wine and brandy which the Judge had previously ruled had been wrongfully seized by the police. Passover begins tonight and the Jews need the wine for the Seder. While the Judge said he would do all that he could to help with the return, “he could find no authority to order the wines returned before May.”


1893: The New York Times reported that “the celebration of the feast of Pesach, or the Passover, will be begun by Jewish people throughout the world at sunset this evening and will be continued for eight days by the Orthodox Jews. Those who have accepted the reform ritual, among them a large number of the Jews in America, continue the celebration only seven days, the first and last days of that period being alone regarded as of special significance and celebrated as holy days.”


1894: It was reported today that Russia is changing its rules about naturalizations and that “foreign Jews will be excluded” from applying for citizenship in the Czarist Empire.


1894: “For the Jews in Palestine” published today described the appeal made by Abraham Neurmak, the rabbi at New York’s Orach Chaim to provide aid for those living in Eretz Israel.  “The North American Relief Society” under the presidency of Myer Isaacs has already responded with a donation of one hundred dollars.


1894: As of today there are about 4,000 Polish Jews living in Zarephath, Hebron, Tiberias and Jerusalem. They came to Palestine to seek refuge from Russian persecution.


1895: “A Charity For Children” published today described “the good work of the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society.”


1895: “Cider in Etymology” published today traces the origins of the English word “cider” which according to Sir George Birdwood has its origins in the Hebrew word “Shekar.”


1896: In New York, the Herald Square Theatre is schedulued to host a special performance of “The Heart of Maryland” that is a fundraiser for the Hebrew Infants’ Asylum.


1896: “More than 1,000 pushcart vendors” attending a meeting tonight at the Hebrew Institute which was held under the auspices of the City Vigilance League and presided over by New York May Strong.


1896: In New York, Palmer’s Theatre was the site of fundraiser for the benefit of the A.C. Sisterhood, a Jewish organization headed by Rebecca Kohut, the wife of the late Dr. Alexander Kohut that “supports a kindergarten, day nursery, relief bureau and employment bureau.”


1897: The improbably named “Jack the Jew” that went off at odds of 9 to 10 won the first race on a sloppy track in New Orleans.


1897: Funeral services for the late Louis Israel, the owner of one of the largest livery stables in Brooklyn, will take place at Temple Beth Elohim today.





1897: Massachusetts Congressman introduced the following resolution in the House of Representatives:


“Resolved, That the Secretary of State be requested to demand from the Russian Government that the same rights be given to Hebrew –American citizens in the matter of passports as now are accorded to all other classes of American citizens and also to inform the House of Representatives whether any American citizens have been ordered to be expelled from Russian or forbidden the exercise of ordinary privileges enjoyed by the inhabitants because of their religion.”  (Editor’s Note – This champion of Jewish rights is John F. “Honey Fitz” Fitzgerald who provided the name for his famous grandson, John Fitzgerald Kennedy)


1898: Dr. Kaufmann Kohler, the rabbi at Temple Beth-El will officiate at the funeral of the late Rabbi Emanuel Schwab. Cantor Hass of Adas Israel will preside over the internment in the Machpel Plot at Cypress Hills Cemetery


1899: Rumania barred Jews from professional and agricultural schools/


1899: Birthdate of Alexander Solomon, the native of Toronto and member of the Jewish Legion who served in Palestine before returning to Canada where he practiced law for 27 years.


1904(15thof Nisan, 5664): First Day of Passover


1904(15thof Nisan, 5664): Sophia Karp, born Sara Segal in Romania, who became a leading performer in the New York Yiddish Theatre working with such giants as Abraham Goldfaden, Israel Grodner and Sokher Goldstein passed away today at the age of 42 or 43


1904: The New York Times reported that “at sunset last evening the Jewish people throughout the world began the celebration of the festival of "Pesach," or the Passover. This festival was instituted to celebrate the deliverance of the children of Israel from their long bondage in the land of Egypt, and, lasting for eight days, is a season of peculiar observances.”


1905: Dorothy Levitt, the first English woman ever to compete in a motor race drove from the Adelpi Hotel in Liverpool, to Coventry and then on to the De-Dion showroom in Great Marlborough Street in London, retracing the 205 mile trip she had made the day before.


1910: Sidney Sonnino, whose father Issacco Saul Sonniono was an Italian Jew who converted Anglicanism, completed his service as Prime Minster of Italy.


1910: Luigi Luzzatti began serving as Italy’s 31st Prime Minister making him the second Jewish person to hold the position; the first being Alessandro Fortis.


1912: It was reported that “Interesting archaeological discoveries, showing the observance as far back as 430 B.C. of the Jewish Passover, the festival commemorative of the exodus from Egypt, which Jews throughout the world will celebrate for a week beginning the evening of April 1, are described in the current issue of The American Hebrew.”


1912: The Patriotic League of America, an organization dedicated to helping Jewish young men pursue careers in the army and navy has invited 200 service men stationed in and near New York City to be its guests at Seders for the first two nights of Passover at the Tuxedo Hall in New York. Adjutant General A.F. Ladd of the War Department has responded positively to the League’s lobbying efforts on behalf of the Jewish servicemen and has directed commanding officers to allow the Jewish soldiers to have furloughs so that they can observe the holiday which begins on the evening of April 1.


1912: It was reported that Leopold Plaut, President of the United Hebrew Charities has issued a circular asking that the families of deceased Jews donate the money normally spent for flowers at a funeral to his organization. The organization will send acknowledgements to the donor and the family of the deceased, acknowledging the gift without mentioning the amount.


1915(16thof Nisan, 5675): Second Day of Pesach


1915: Lord Oxford and Asquith wrote in his diary “I think I have already referred to Herbert Samuel’s dithyrambic memorandum, urging that in the carving up of the Turk’s Asiatic dominion we should take Palestine, into which the scattered Jews would in time swarm back from all the quarters of the globe and in due course obtain Home Rule.” “Curiously the only other partisan of this proposal is Lloyd George, who, I need not say does not care a damn for the Jews or their past or their future, but thinks it will be an outrage to let the Holy Places pass into the possession or under the protectorate of agnostic, atheistic France” (As reported by JTA)








1915(16thof Nisan, 5675): Seventy-four year old Nathan Mayer Rothschild, 1st Baron Rothschild, Baron de Rothschild, the eldest son of Baron Lionel de Rothschild and the grandson of Nathan Mayer Rothschild, the founder of the English branch of the famous banking family passed away today.


1915: In Egypt,  Colonel John Henry Patterson swore in the new volunteers for the Zion Mule Corps and invited them to ‘Pray with me that I should not only, as Moses, behold Canaan from afar, but be divinely permitted to lead you into the Promised Land’


1916(26thof Adar II, 5676): Fifty year old Maurice Rothschild, a member of the New York Exchange passed away today.


1916: The Jewish War Sufferer’s Bazar which is being held in the Grand Central Palace closed at six o’clock this evening because of Shabbat and will reopen tomorrow evening at six o’clock when a record breaking crowd is expected to attend the fair.


1917: “The latest official cablegram” received tonight at the United States State department “regard the torpedoing of the British steam Crispin stated that out of the sixty-nine Americans on board two appear to have been killed by an explosion and eighteen…more are still missing. (This is the latest report of the what those who wanted the United States to enter the war on the side of the Allies called “unrestricted submarine warfare” which would in fact lead to the U.S. going to war in April with all that that would mean for Americans in general and American Jews in particular.)


1918(18thof Nisan, 5678): Fourth Day of Pesach


1918: “Jews in Newark, NJ,” are scheduled to hold a parade “this afternoon to celebrate the arrival in Palestine of the Jewish Administrative Commission”


1918: The members of Young Judea, “who have organized to help in the collecting the fund of one million dollars for the restoration of the Jewish homeland in Palestine” are scheduled to meet in cities across the United States “where plan for the restoration of a Jewish republic in Palestine will be discussed.”


1918: Members of the British Expeditionary Force were forced to cross back to the west bank of the Jordan River after having been defeated by Ottomans during the first Battle of Amman, the first leg of a British offensive following the capture of Jerusalem which was designed to eventually end with the capture of Damascus thus ensuring Britain’s post-war control of the region.


1918: Today, Dr. H.G. Enelow reviewed Jewish Theology Systematically and Historically Considered by Dr. Kaufman Kohler, the distinguished New York Rabbi and President of the Hebrew Union College.


1919: The Alumni Association the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary is scheduled to meet in New York today and “discuss the future of Judaism in America and special religious work in Palestine.”


1919: It was reported today that “Dr. David Levine has been chosen” to serve as the rabbi for “newly-formed Progressive Synagogue of Brooklyn”


1919: It was reported today that “Edmond A Guggenheim…has been appointed a special deputy police commissioner” who “will have charge of police affairs in the Bronx.


1920: According to the Treaty of Versailles as of today the Reichswehr (German Army) was to have army no more than 100,000 men in a maximum of seven infantry and three cavalry divisions which the Allies thoughts would make it impossible for the Germans ever to threaten the peace of Europe with an offensive action.


1921: Albert Einstein lectured in New York on his new theory of relativity.


1922: In Detroit, Michigan, “Sarah (née Applebaum) and David T. "D.T." Nederlander” gave birth to James M. Nederlander, the brother of Harry, Robert, Fred, Joseph; and Frances Nederlander who founded Nederlander Organization “one of the largest operators of legitimate theatres and music venues in the United States.”


https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/27/theater/james-nederlander-theater-magnate-dies-at-94.html?_r=1


1922: In Berlin, American-born German movie producer Seymour Nebenzal and his wife Lisbeth Mary Else Nebenzal gave birth to producer and novelist Harold Nebenzal who “was in charge of foreign film production for many years for MGM, and also worked on many of the films of Billy Wilder.


1922: Birthdate of Lionel Davidson


1923(14th of Nisan, 5683): Shabbat HaGadol and Erev Pesach


1923: “Paganini” a silent bio-pic directed by Heinz Goldberg and featuring child actor Martin Herzberg was released today in Germany.


1923: Birthdate of Shoshana Damari
http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/damari-shoshana
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oaL7mllWVG4



1925: The town of Afula was founded in the Jezreel Valley. Afula means The Town of Jezreel and it was started with the support of the American Zion Commonwealth. Unfortunately, the town never lived up to the original expectations with the settlers in the Jezreel Valley preferring to go to Haifa for rest and relaxation. The hospital at Afula did prove to be of lasting importance. Afula is a friendly crossroads town with numerous small stores selling what the locals claim to be the "best pistachio nuts in the world."


1926(16thof Nisan, 5686): Second Day of Pesach


1926: Jacob Adler, who had suffered a stroke in 1920 and had been in declining health ever since, suddenly collapsed today.


1926: Despite Arab threats of a general strike, the French High Commissioner visited Jerusalem today where all of the stories owned by “Arabs and Christians” were closed “in sympathy with the Syrian rebels” and the Jewish shops were closed because of Passover.


19927: While deliver an address today on “The Jew in Industry and Finance” President Frederick B. Robinson of City College said that “the alleged Jewish conspiracy in international industry and finanace is a figment of ill-informed persons.”


1928: Real birthdate of Jacob Lateiner, Cuban born American pianist. His father would not get around to registering his birth until May of 1928 which has led to confusion about when he was really born.


1928: Today Jewish and Gentile business men in Jerusalem and Haifa told a reporter today “that while the Government remained in the hands of the British they did not fear trouble with the Arabs or Bedouins who were more afraid of Lord Plumber than they had been of Hebert Samuel,” his civilian and Jewish predecessor as British High Commissioner.


1929: Birthdate of Ilya Piastetski-Shapiro, famed math theorist who clashed with Soviet authorities. He passed away at the age of 79 on February 21, 2009 in Tel Aviv.


1932: At Tel Aviv, on the final day of the first Jewish Olympics, Americans captured the lion’s share of the victories Sybil Koff of New York “won the women’s triathlon and the high jumps. Gus Hemann … won the men’s 100 meter dash…Leslie Flaksman won the 500 meter race…and Harry Schneider won the javelin, shooting, discus-throwing and men’s triathlon contests.” Victories by European teams included an Austrian first place finish in the 400 – meter race and first place finish by the a team from the Middlesex Regiment in the relay race that earned it the High Commissioner’s Cup.


1933: Adolf Bertraim, archbishop of Breslau rejected the request of Oskar Wasserman for aid in protesting against the boycott of Jewish business organized by the Nazis but this was refused as he regarded it as purely an economic matter”
1934(15th of Nisan, 5694): Pesach



1935: German mathematician Felix Hausdorff who would later commit suicide when ordered to report to a concentration camp, was granted emeritus status today.
1935: Hebrew novelist Samuel I. Agnon was awarded the Bialik Prize in Hebrew Literature. The Bialik Prize was established in memory of the dean of Hebrew literature, Chaim Nachman Bialik and is considered the equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize. S.I. Agnon is considered by sum to be a worthy candidate for the Nobel Prize.



1935: The Italian liner Roma arrived in Haifa carrying 1,650 passengers, which is believed to the largest number of people ever brought to Palestine on one ship. Most of the passengers are believed to be headed for Tel Aviv, site of the upcoming Maccabiad.


1935: In the Bronx, “Joseph Perelman, a textile official and Dorothy Shapiro Perelman, a public schoolteacher” gave birth to Judith Louise Perelman who gained fame as novelist Judith Rossner, the author of Looking for Mr. Goodbar.


https://www.theguardian.com/news/2005/aug/13/guardianobituaries.books


1935: The Palestine police (an instrument of the British mandatory government) “issued an order today prohibiting a parade of athletes participating in the Maccabiah, the world Jewish athletic games.” The parade was scheduled to be held in Tel Aviv on April 1. The police reportedly were responding to threats of violent outbursts by the Arab populace.


1936: Birthdate of poet, playwright and novelist Marge Piercy who grew up in the racially divided city of Detroit, where her Jewishness made her the target of bullies. One grandparent was Yiddish-speaking and Orthodox; another was a union organizer murdered for his activism. These influences, together with grief over relatives murdered in the Holocaust, aroused Piercy's political activism. They also strengthened her commitment to remaining involved with issues and matters of Jewish importance.


1936: In New York, The Friends of the New Germany, whose members are “supporters in the United States of Nazi philosophy, announced the organization would now be known as the German-American League or “Amerikadeutscher Bund” which is dedicated to combating “the Moscow-direct madness of the Red world mean and its Jewish bacillus carriers.” 


1936: Mrs. Judah Dresner presided over the closing session of the 14thconvention of the New York State Conference of the National Council of Jewish Women at the Jamaica Jewish Center in Queens where Mrs. Maxwell Ehrlich of Staten Island was elected president.


1937: “The anti-Jewish demonstrations begun before Easter continued” in the Free City of Danzig where “Jewish shops were picketed today.


1937: The Palestine Post reported from Glasgow that the International Labor Party conference deplored the bloodshed in Palestine by terrorists and called upon Jews to resist all attempts by Arab reactionary elements, sometimes supported by the British authorities. The first regulation made by the High Commissioner under the New Palestine Orders allowed the authorities to seize and retain accommodation and food, as they thought fit for the execution of their duty.


1938: As of today, “an eight month limit of 8,000 Jewish immigrants being allowed to enter Palestine will have expired.


1938: According to reports published in the New York Times, Dr. Sigmund Freud cannot leave Vienna and move to The Hague because “the authoritieis have refused to give him a passport.” In other words, the Nazi Austrian government has madet the prominent Jewish psychiatrist a prisoner.


1938: Birthdate of Brooklyn native Arthur B. Rubenstein, the composer of countless scores to television and movies including “Whose Life Is It Anyway” and “Lost in America.”


1939: The Campbell Playhouse broadcast a non-musical version “Showboat” based on the novel by Edna Ferber on CBS Radio.


1940: Nuri Said was replaced as Prime Minister of Iraq by Rsahid Ali who a year later would lead an anti-British pro-Nazi coup that would lead to the Farhud, a pogrom that was the beginning of the end for the ancient Jewish community of Iraq.


1940: Birthdate of Massachusetts Congressman Barney Frank.


1940: Benjamin V. Cohen met with Franklin Roosevelt in the White house from 5:10 pm to 6:45 pm.


1941: After 7,500 Jews arrived from Vienna, a decree was issued to establish a ghetto at Kielce


1941: With encouragement from the Axis powers (Italy and Germany) Rashid Ali al-Gaylani led an anti-British revolt in Iraq much to the detriment of the Jewish population.


1941: After 7,500 Jews arrived from Vienna, a decree was issued to establish a ghetto at Kielce


1942(12th of Nisan, 5702): Eighty-three year old Washingtonian, Aline Esther Solomons, the daughter of Rachel Phillips and Adolphus Solomons passed away today.


1942: The Gestapo “disbanded” the Neu-Isenburg orphanage and deported the girls living there to Theresienstadt.


1942: 1939 Naval Academy graduate Nathan “Fred” Asher married Selma Straus with whom he had three children – “Dennis, Karen and Jeffrey.”


1942: In the western Ukraine, the Gestapo organized the first deportation of 5,000 Jews from Stanislawow ghetto to Belzac death camp.It was one of the biggest transports to Belzec in the first phase of the camp.


1942: Birthdate of radio personality Michael Savage


1942: Six thousand Jews from Eastern Galicia were deported to Belzec and gassed to death.


1943: This was the deadline the Germans gave Spain to repatriate any Spanish nationals of the Jewish "race."


1943: Broadway premier of the Rodgers and Hammerstein’s hit musical “Oklahoma.” Yes, it took a team of Jews to create this most famous of all American musical comedies. This is yet another example of how it was Jews who helped to create what some call "the American myth." It was this ability and not some Jewish plot that explains, in part, the success of Jews in various parts of the American entertainment industry.


1943: Crematorium II at Auschwitz begins operation.


1944(7thof Nisan, 5704): Sixty-seven year old Lothar Stark the German born movie producer who took refuge in Copenhagen in 1933 when his Jewish heritage was discovered  died in Sweden today after having been rescued along with most of the Danish Jewish population in 1943.


1944: It was announced that every Jew in Hungary would be required to wear a yellow badge as of April 5th


1945: Mother Maria of Paris, a Russian nun who had saved many French Jews by hiding them, was killed by the Nazis.


1945: The deportation of Jews from Slovakia comes to an end. In all, German and Slovak authorities deported about 70,000 Jews from Slovakia; about 65,000 of them were murdered or died in concentration camps. The overall figures are inexact, partly because many Jews did not identify themselves, but one 2006 estimate is that approximately 105,000 Slovak Jews, or 77% of their prewar population, died during the war.


1946: Birthdate of Gabe Kaplan in Brooklyn, New York. The comedian and actor gained famed as the teacher in “Welcome Back Kotter,” a television show that launched the career of John Travolta.


1946: Hungarian born American layer and Nazi war crime prosecutor Benjamin B. Ferencz married his wife Gertrude today in New Yor.


1946(28th of Adar): Yiddish author and translator Leon Kobrin passed away
http://books.google.com/books/about/Fun_Deitmerish_Tzu_Yiddish_In_Amerike.html?id=Z8bNPgAACAAJ



1947: Birthdate Israeli archaeologist Ronny Reich who shifted his focus from the Iron Age to the Early Roman period in the late 1970’s/


http://archlgy.haifa.ac.il/staff/reich.htm


1948:In Brooklyn, New York Philip Perlman “a Polish immigrant who was a manager at a doll parts factory and Adele Perlman, “a bookkeeper” gave birth to Comedic Actress Rhea Jo Perlam who gained fame for her roles in the television comedies “Taxi” and “Cheers” where she worked with her sister, producer and scriptwriter Heide Perlman.


1948: as part of Operation Balak, “the airlift to Israel of fighter planes and military supplies” a Skymaster “flew directly from Prague to an airstrip near Be’er Tuivah, landing there today” with equipment immediately used in Operation Nahshon.


1948(20thof Adar II, 5708): Sixty-two year old journalist, rebel and communist Egon Erwin Kisch died today two years after returning to his native Czechoslovakia.


http://spartacus-educational.com/Egon_Erwin_Kisch.htm


http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/kisch-egon-erwin-10755


1949: The Dominion of Newfoundland joins the Canadian Confederation and becomes the 10th Province of Canada. There were somewhere between 215 and 360 Jews living in Newfoundland at this time. “The real history of the Newfoundland Jewish community began with the arrival in St. John's of Israel Perlin from the United States. He was instrumental in founding the first synagogue in Newfoundland, the Hebrew Congregation of Newfoundland, in 1909. The census of 1935 reported 215 Jews living in Newfoundland. The census of 1971 showed that that number had grown to 360.


1953(15th of Nisan, 5713): First Day of Pesach


1952: The Jerusalem Post reported that Israel had become the ninth nation to ratify the agreement to eliminate trade barriers on the import of educational, scientific or cultural materials, sponsored by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. Forty tons of Jerusalem stone, hewn from the Castel quarry, went into the building of the UN headquarters in New York as Israel's contribution to the project. The stone was sufficient for 300 sq.m. of flooring. Israel purchased 40,000 tons of wheat from South Africa.


1953: Birthdate of New York native and author Harold Augenbraum, “the former Executive Director of the National Book Foundation, and former member of the Board of Trustees of the Asian American Writers Workshop, and former vice chair of the New York Council for the Humanities.”


1953: Birthdate of Ehud Banai, an Israeli singer and songwriter


1953: The number of Israeli unemployed as of this date was 16,350.


1954: As tensions grew between Jordan and Israel due to the attacks by terrorists based in Jordan, the British cabinet discussed military options for responding to a possible strike by Israel into Jordan.


1956: In Boston, Albert Sinofsky and his wife gave birth to Bruce Jeffrey Sinofsky who grew up in Newton, Mass and pursued a career as documentary film maker.


http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/25/movies/bruce-sinofsky-documentary-filmmaker-dies-at-58.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=1


1958: The US Navy formed an atomic submarine division. Admiral Hyman Rickover is considered the “father of the atomic Navy.” Thanks to his efforts, America developed a fleet of nuclear submarines that provided the United States with its strongest strategic edge during the Cold War with the Soviet Union.





1959: In one of those uniquely American cross-cultural experience Don Devlin (Bronx born Jew Donald R. Siegel) “appeared as an Indian, Dixon White Eagle” in an episode of “Sugarfoot.”


1960: “Please Don’t Eat the Daisies” a movie version of a book by the same name produced by Joe Pasternak was released today in the United States.


1961(14thof Nisan, 5721): Ta’anit Bechorot; Erev Pesach and erev Shabbat


1961: “Just two months after Arthur Goldberg’s appoint as Secretary of Labor” Arthur and Dorothy Goldberg hosted a Seder to which the President, Speaker of the House, Chief Justice, the President of the AFL-CIO and both senators from the state of Illinois were invited.


1963(4thof Nisan, 5723): Eighty-seven year old Samuel Paley, the native of Kiev who came to the United States in 1888, founded the United Cigar Company in 1896 and financed the purchase of what today is CBS by his son William, passed away today in Miami Beach.


1966: It was reported that Harold L. Rosnebaum, the grandson of Rabbi Moses A. Poleyeff, a professor of Talmud at Yehisva’s Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary will be married this summer to Naomi AvRutick, the daughter of Rabbi Abraham N. AvRutick, a past president of the Rabbinical Counsel of America.


1975: Boris Tsitlionok and Mark Nashpits were the defendants in the Soviet anti-Zionist trials that began today.


1976: U.S. premiere of “W.C. Fields and Me” directed by Arthur Hiller, produced by Jay Weston, written by Bob Merrill, featuring Allan Arbus and Milton Kamen.


1977: The Jerusalem Post reported that West Germany protested to Israel that it had not been told for more than a year of the arrest of two young West Germans, Brigitte Schultz and Thomas Reuter, who planned, on January 18, 1976, to shoot down an El Al plane in Nairobi. Five terrorists were arrested by Kenya: two Germans and three Arabs. Israel announced that they would soon be tried in camera, by a military court.


1978: In New York City, Joseph Cross and his wife gave birth to actor turned businessman Harley who went from making such cult films “The Believers” to co-founding Hint Mint, a breath mint candy company.


1979: In Jerusalem, Israel, Gali Atari &; Milk and Honey win the twenty-fourth Eurovision Song Contest for Israel singing "Hallelujah.


1981: “The Yellow Star - The Persecution of the Jews in Europe 1933-45” lost out for an Oscar tonight as Best Documentary Feature.


1983: NBC broadcast the final episode of the first season the hit sitcom “Cheers” co-starring Rhea Perlman as an Italian waitress supporting a multiplicity of offspring as a single mom.


1985: After 122 performances the curtain came down the Off Broadway production of “Diamonds” a musical revue directed by Harold Prince with lyrics and/or music by Howard Ashman, Cy Coleman and Comden and Green


1989: Six months after premiering in ItalyHeathers” a comedy starring Winona Ryder (Winona Laura Horowwitz) who also served as narrator was released in the United States today.


1991: The 1960 television version of “Peter Pan,” with music by Mark Charlap and Jule Styne and lyrics by Carolyn Leigh, Betty Comden and Adolph Green which had become a classic was re-broadcast today.


1993:  “Family Prayers” a dramatic film starring Paul Reiser and featuring Tzvi Ratner-Stauber and Allen Garfield was released in the United States today.


1993: The “first season” of “Homicide: Life on the Streets” a television adaptation of Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets by David Simon whose creators included Barry Levinson came to an end.


1993: With Israel reeling from its worst wave of Arab violence in years, including the shooting deaths of two policemen this morning, the Government indefinitely closed the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip today.


1994: Yosef Zandani, age 28, of Bnei Ayish, was found killed in his apartment near Gedera. Near the body was a leaflet of the DFLP "Red Star", explaining that the murder was carried out in revenge for the shooting of one of its members by an Israeli citizen. The Israeli acted in self-defense


1995: Al HaMishmar, a “paper owned by and affiliated with Hashomer Hatzair as well as the Hashomer Hatzair Workers Party of Palestine and Mapam” which was first published in 1943 ceased publication today.


1996: “Who Owns The Dreyfus Affair?” published today provides an advance look at the opera based on the life of the famous French Captain.


http://www.nytimes.com/1996/03/31/arts/classical-music-who-owns-the-dreyfus-affair.html?pagewanted=print








1997: The Union of Orthodox Rabbis issued “A Historic Declaration” which stated Reform and Conservative are not Judaism at all. Their adherents are Jews, according to the Jewish Law, but their religion is not Judaism...we appeal to our fellow Jew, members of the Reform and Conservative movements: Having been falsely led by heretical leaders that Reform and Conservative are legitimate branches and denominations of Judaism, we urge you to be guided by this declaration, and withdraw from your affiliation with Reform and Conservative temples and their clergy. Do not hesitate to attend an Orthodox synagogue due to your inadequate observance of Judaism. On the contrary, it is because of that inadequacy that you need to attend an Orthodox synagogue where you will be warmly welcomed


1998(4th of Nisan, 5758): Former New York Congresswoman Bella Abzug passed away at the age 77 (As reported by Laura Mansnerus)


http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/bday/0724.html


1999(14thof Nisan, 5759): Ta-anit Bchorot; Erev Pesach; Deb Levin hosts her first Seder in what will become a tradition that will eventually be highlighted in the Cedar Rapids Gazette.


1999: Did you ever wonder how Jews celebrate Pesach, the holiday of “Spring,” in the Southern Hemisphere where it is really Autumn? In “An Argentine Passover, Then and Now,” Joan Nathan gives us some sense of the celebration.


http://www.nytimes.com/1999/03/31/dining/an-argentine-passover-then-and-now.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm


2000: “Whatever It Takes,” a comedy co-starring Marla Sokoloff and James Franco and produced by Paul Schiff was released today.


2000: “High Fidelity” a movie version of the novel directed Stephen Fears and co-starring Jack Black, Lisa Bonet and Sara Gilbert was released today in the United States.


2000: “Rules of Engagement” a combination war and legal movie directed by William Friedkin, produced by Scott Rudin and featuring Mark Feuerstein was released in the United States today.
2001: Uzi Landau replaced Binyamin Ben-Eliezer as Energy and Water Resources Minister of Israel



2002: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of interest to Jewish readers including the recently released paperback editions of "Constantine’s Sword: The Church and the Jews: A History" by James Carroll and "Walking the Bible: A Journey by Land Through the Five Books of Moses" by Bruce Feller.


2002(18thof Nisan, 5762): 4th day of Pesach and 3rd day of the Omer.
2002(18th of Nisan, 5762): Fourteen “people were killed and over 40 injured in a suicide bombing in Haifa, in the Matza restaurant of the gas station near the Grand Canyon shopping mall. Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack. The victims: Suheil Adawi, 32, of Turan; Dov Chernevroda, 67, of Haifa; Shimon Koren, 55; his sons Ran, 18, and Gal, 15, of Haifa; Moshe Levin, 52, of Haifa; Danielle Manchell, 22, of Haifa; Orly Ofir, 16, of Haifa; Aviel Ron, 54; his son Ofer, 18, and daughter Anat, 21, of Haifa; Ya'akov Shani, 53, of Haifa; Adi Shiran, 17, of Haifa; Daniel Carlos Wegman, 50, of Haifa. Carlos Yerushalmi, 52, of Karkur, died the next day of wounds sustained in the attack.” (Jewish Virtual Library)



2002(18thof Nisan, 5767): Hamas took credit for today’s attack at the Erfat Medical center where four people were injured.
2003: Michael Chabon and Ayelet Waldman gave birth to their youngest child, Abraham “Abie” Wolf Waldman



2003(27th of Adar II 5763):Eighty-five year old Sidney Greenberg, one of the Conservative movement’s leading rabbis, passed away.


http://forward.com/articles/8526/rabbi-sidney-greenberg--wrote-on-prayers-holi/


2003: National Security Advisor Dr. Condoleezza Rice addressed the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee’s Policy Conference.


2004: An updated version of “Baby” the David Shire musical opened at “the Paper Mill Playhouse, Millburn, New Jersey today.


2005: While Lewis Wolff may be the head of the group buying the Oakland Athletics, reports published today claim that John J. Fisher son of GAP founder Donald Fisher, is he one putting up most of the money for the purchase.


2005: As of today Hans “Berliner still had by far the highest International Correspondence Chess Federation (ICCF) rating of any player in the United States, at 2726, 84 points above the second-highest rated player.”


2005: ABC News reported that Ted Koppel will leave that organization when his contract expires in December of 2005. Mr. Koppel has been with the network for 42 years and has hosted the popular late night news program “Nightline” for the past twenty-five years. Nightline provided a hard-news late night alternative to the talk shows hosted by the two other networks. Nightline’s audience would always grow during periods of crisis such as the seizure of the American embassy in Teheran and the prolonged hostage seizure that followed.


2005: At the Jewish Museum in New York, a distinguished panel of speakers, including exhibition co-curators Emily Bilski and Emily Braun, as well as Whitney Museum curator Elizabeth Sussman and Union College professor Brenda Wineapple, consider the contributions of women such as Gertrude Stein, Margherita Sarfatti, and Florine Stettheimer to literature and the visual arts from the late 18th century through the 1930s.


2007: Shabbat Ha Gadol.


2007: In Cedar Rapids, the show “Remnants of Memories” Interpretations of the collage by artists Tom Lee and Elizabeth Levi sponsored by Ginsberg’s Jewelry comes to a close.


2008: Hillel receives a $10.7 million grant, from the Jim Joseph Foundation which the college oriented organization says is the largest in its history. The grant will be disbursed over five years and enable Hillel to engage an additional 30,000 students, according to a news release. Hillel intends to use the funds to place Jewish educators on 10 new campuses as part of its Experiential Educator Exemplar program. The grant also will go to support the Campus Entrepreneurs Initiative, which employs college students to engage their peers in Jewish life.


2008: In New York, The Center for Jewish History presents a lecture by Dr. Atina Grossman entitled “Close Encounters: Jews and Germans in Occupied Germany during which she will discuss the story of the "close encounters" in Allied occupied Germany between Jewish survivors of the Nazi Final Solution who found themselves on "cursed German soil" after the German surrender, and the defeated Germans with whom they continually interacted.


2008: End of Women’s History Month.


2008: In Vancouver, B.C., the Vancouver Jewish Film Festival presents a screening of “Samuel Bak: Painter of Questions.”


2008: “New Jerusalem: The Interrogation of Baruch de Spinoza at Talmud Torah Congregation: Amsterdam, July 27, 1656” was among the nominees for the 23rd annual Lucille Lortel Awards, celebrating excellence in Off-Broadway theatre,


2008(24thof Adar II, 5678): Ninety-six year old movie director Jules Dassin the son of Russian immigrants who began his career as a Yiddish actor and was a victim of the infamous Hollywood Blacklist, passed away today.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/01/movies/01dassin.html?_r=0
http://www.legacy.com/ns/obituary.aspx?n=jules-dassin&pid=106710732
2008(24th of Adar II, 5768): Rabbi Herbert A. Friedman, a dominant figure in American Jewish philanthropy during Israel’s formative years, passed away at his New York home at the age of 89. (As reported by Dennis Hevesi)



http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/04/nyregion/04friedman.html?_r=0


2009(6th of Nisan, 5769): Ruth Fredman Cernea, 74, a cultural anthropologist who wrote on topics that included the Jews of Myanmar and the annual mock debate at the University of Chicago on the respective merits of Jewish holiday foods such as latkes and hamantaschen, died today of pancreatic cancer.


http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2009-04-07/news/36922526_1_jewish-humor-sephardic-jews-jewish-community


2009: Danny Ayalon began serving as Deputy Foreign Minister.


2009: Moshe Kahlon replaced Ariel Atias as Communications Minister.


2009: Gideon Sa'ar was appointed Minister of Education


2009: Yeshiva University hosts the second day the Israel and India International Conference which features the theme "A Relationship Comes of Age." Presenters include Nathan Katz (Florida International University), Amit Kapoor (Management Development Institute, India), Efraim Inbar (Bar-Ilan University), Shlomo Mor-Yosef (Hadassah Medical Organization), Maina Chawla Sing (University of Delhi), P R Kumaraswamy (Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi), Gadi Ariav (Tel Aviv University).


2009: Gottschalks, a chain of department stores that was founded by German Jewish immigrant Emil Gottschalk in 1904, “announced it would liquidate its remaining stores.”


2009: Silvan Shalom replaced Yaakov Edri as Minister for the Development of the Negev and the Galilee


2009: Ayoob Karab began serving as Deputy Minister for the Development of the Negev and the Galilee.


2009: Ariel Atias replaced Ze'ev Boim as Minister of Housing and Construction


2009: Ya'akov Margi replaced Yitzhak Cohen as Minister of Religious Services


2009: Eli Yishai replaced Meeir Sheetrit as Minister of Internal Affairs


2009: Uzi Landau replaced Binyamin Ben-Eliezer as Minister of Energy and Water Resources.


2009: Daniel Hershkowitz replaced Raleb Majadele as Minister of Science and Technology.


2010(16th of Nisan, 5770): First Day of the Omer; Second Day of Pesach


2010: “Rethinking the Holocaust and Genocide with Michael Thaler”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPMJyjbz_nE



2010: An exhibition presented by the American Jewish Historical Society entitled “Pages from a Performing Life: The Scrapbooks of Molly Picon” featuring the 22 scrapbooks keep by Molly Picon and her husband Jacob Kalish chronicling their extraordinary 50-year career, is scheduled to come to an end.


2010(16th of Nisan, 5770): Steven Zilberman died while serving his country. “Miroslav Zilberman, a Navy pilot known to his friends as Steven, moved with his parents from Ukraine to Columbus, Ohio, in the early 1990s. His parents, Anna and Boris, did not want their son to be forced into military service in their native land. AP reports describe Zilberman as grandson of Gregory Sokolov, a major in the Soviet Army in World War II. Zilberman decided to follow his grandfather’s footsteps and joined the Navy after graduating from Bexley High School in 1997. He went on to graduate from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y., where he majored in computer science. Zilberman’s plane, an E-2C Hawkeye, was returning to the carrier Dwight D. Eisenhower following a mission supporting operations in Afghanistan when the plane experienced a malfunction. Zilberman ordered his crew mates to eject before going down with the plane into the North Arabian Sea.”


2011(25th of Adar II, 5771): Eighty-three year old Henry Taub, found of ADP, passed away. (As reported by Duff Wilson)


http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/05/business/05taub.html


2011: Yosef Begun a former Soviet Prisoner of Conscience is scheduled to speak at noon today in Washington, DC.


2011: Performance of “Steve Reich’s masterpiece Tehillim” today.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjnVN6-Wx08


2011: The 14th annual Main Jewish Festival opens in Portland, Maine.


2011: “The Army of Crime” and “Hidden Children” are two of the films scheduled to be shown at the Westchester Jewish Film Festival.


2011: “The Human Resources Manager” is one of the films scheduled to be shown at the Hartford Jewish Film Festival


2011: In Jerusalem, the Old City Flavors Festival comes do an end.


2011:  David “Deutsch’s second book, The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations that Transform the World, was published” today further enhancing the reputation of the Haifa born British physicist who atteneded both Cambridge and Oxford.
2011: “How Israel Won the Six-Day War” published today described Operation Yated and the role an Egyptian agent “turned” played in the miracle of June, 1967.
2012(8th of Nisan, 5772: Parashat  Tzav and Shabbat Hagadol - 81st anniversary of the Bar Mitzvah of Joseph B. Levin, of blessed memory who was Bar Mitzvahed on Shabbat Hagadol



2012: This evening Emily Bount married Michael Signer, the son of Robert and Marjorie Singer, who as Mayor of Charlottesville worked on plans to remove Confederate statues from his cities which led to violent protests from white supremacists and Nazi.


2012: “Footnote” and “Salmon Fishing in Yemen” are scheduled to be shown at the Hartford Jewish Film Festival.


2013: Jeremy Piven stars in “Mr. Selfridge” a Masterpiece Classics min-series that is scheduled to aire for the first time tonight on PBS.


2013: The Eliyahu Hanavi Synagogue, also known as the Jobar Synagogue was erroneously reported to have been destroyed by Syrian forces operating in Damascus today when in fact it was only seriously damaged by mortar fire from either government or rebel forces.


2013: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Retrospective by A.B. Yehosuha and Karl Marx: A Nineteenth-Century Lifeby Jonathan Sperber 


2013: President Shimon Peres today congratulated Yitzhak Tshuva, the controlling shareholder of the Tamar natural gas field which was first put into use Saturday, for pumping the gas into Israel four years after the deposit was first discovered — adding, however, that the pumping should not have begun on the Sabbath, the Jewish day of rest.


http://www.timesofisrael.com/peres-gas-pumping-shouldnt-have-begun-on-sabbath/


2013: Pope Francis and Rome’s Chief Rabbi Riccardo Di Segni exchanged greetings to mark Passover and Easter.


2014: In Little Rock, Lubavitch of Arkansas under the leadership of Rabbi Pinchas Ciment is scheduled to host an evening with “author, comedian, journalist and musician David Nesenoff.”


2014:Former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was convicted today of receiving bribes to facilitate the construction of the Holyland housing project in Jerusalem a decade ago.


2014: In their never-ending quest to get something for nothing “The Palestinians today gave US Secretary of State John Kerry 24 hours to resolve a dispute with Israel over prisoners after which they will resume moves to seek international recognition.


2015: The Jewish Community Center of Northern Virginia is scheduled to lead Passover shopping expedition to Moti’s Market in Rockville, MD.


2015: In Philadelphia, The National Museum of Jewish History is scheduled to host the VIP Opening Reception for “Richard Avedon: Family Affairs” which “features more than 70 portraits by the famed photographer.


2015: The first part of “The Dovekeepers” a dramatization of events at Masada is scheduled to be shown on CBS.


2016: Steven Gimbel, the professor of philosophy at Gettysburg College and author of Einstein: The Man is scheduled to lecture at Johns Hopkins University’s Baltimore campus.


2016(21st of Adar II, 5776): Eighty-six year old Hungarian Holocaust survivor, author and Nobel Laureate Imre Kertesz passed away today.




2016: Northern Virginia Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to host a screening of “Raise the Roof"– a documentary about the building of a replica of the “mural covered wooden synagogues of the 18th century” that were destroyed by the Nazis.


2017: Bidding for the mineral rights on five blocks in the Mediterranean ‘including areas that lie in waters disputed by Israel” is scheduled to come to an end today in Beirut.


2017: ABC broadcast the final episode of “Last Man Standing” a sit-come co-starring Molly Ephriam as the ditzy daughter Amanda “Mandy” Baxter.


2017: “Norman Lear,” a film about “the life, trailblazing shows, and political activism of famous TV writer/producer Norman Lear: is scheduled to be shown this afternoon at the Seattle Jewish Film Festival.


2017: Release of “The Zookeeper’s Wife.”




2018: France J. Pruitt is scheduled to talk about her book Faith and Courage in a Time of Trouble “a memoir of a Belgian-Jewish girl and her family who were saved during the Nazi occupation of France through the compassion and heroism of French peasants from the southern part of the country” this afternoon at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC.


2018(15thof Nisan, 5778): Pesach; for more see http://downhomedavartorah.blogspot.com/


15th of Nisan, 5650 (1890): An untold number of poor New Yorkers enjoyed eating meat at their Seder tonight thanks to the generosity of Mrs. Paulina Rosendorff who had provided the funding that enabled butchers to distribute their product free of charge.


15thof Nisan, 5675(1915):The 300 Jewish soldiers and sailors who attended last night’s Seder sponsored by the Army and Navy Y.M.H.A. which also provided a night’s lodging at the Hotel Roland are scheduled to worship at Temple Beth Israel at Lexington and 72ndStreet today while the Secretary of War, the Governor of New York and the Mayor of New York City have been invited to attend tonight’s Seder sponsored by the Army and Navy Young Men’s Hebrew Association for the benefit of 300 of the 8,000 Jews serving in the military which is being held at Vienna Hall on Lexington and 58th Street.


15thof Nisan, 5677 (1917): One day after U.S. declared War on Germany, Jews gather in the synagogue to observe Pesach and Shabbat


15th of Nisan, 5705(1945):At least 58 Jews were murdered in a forest near the Austrian village of Deutsch Shuetzen, in what would come to be called the Deutsch Shuetzen Massacre while in the evening, members of the Jewish Infantry Brigade of the British 8thArmy serving in Italy took part in a Seder at Faenza.


15th of Nisan, 5725(1965):  While Jews in the Soviet struggled to deal with a shortage of Matzah created by the government refusal to let state bakeries prepare adequate supplies of unleavened bread Rabbis in America were encouraged to deliver sermons that related the themes of Pesach with fight for Civil Rights complete with references to the recent voting rights march in Selma.


15th of Nisan, 5728(1968):For the first time, Pesach is observed in a unified Jerusalem







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

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April 1

 
515 BCE:  The Second Temple was inaugurated in Jerusalem (As reported by Jona Lendering)



527: Byzantine Emperor Justin I names his nephew Justinian I as co-ruler and successor to the throne. This was a “lose-lose” proposition for the Jewish people. When Justin I assumed the throne he adopted a policy of rigorously enforcing the anti-Jewish laws promulgated by Theodosius including excluding Jews from “all posts of honor” and banning the construction of new synagogues. “Justinian began persecuting the Jews immediately after his accession” as can be seen from the adoption of anti-Jewish legislation in the very first year of his reign.


1205: Amalrik II King of Cyprus/Jerusalem, died. This was the period of the Crusades when followers of Islam and Christians from Europe jockeyed for control of Eretz Israel and Jerusalem.


1315: Louis V “suspended the collection of the debts owed to” the Jews “which were still outstanding from their expulsion in 1306 as part of his plan to eventually allow the Jews to France.


1548: Sigismund II Augustus, the Polish King who allowed “Jews to settle in Vilna without restriction” and who issued “the ‘Magna Cara of Jewish Self-Government’’ “which permitted Jews to elect their own chief rabbi and judges” began his reign as King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania.


1557(1st of Iyar):  Iggeret Ba’alei Hayyim, a book on zoology translated by Kalonymus was printed for the first time in Mantua, Italy.


1662(12thof Nisan, 5422):Isaac ben Abraham Uziel a Spanish physician, poet and grammarian, born at Fez” who became rabbi of Neveh Shalom in Amsterdam in 1610 when Judah Vega passed away died to in Amsterdam who left behind several literary works including “a Hebrew grammar, Ma’aneh Leshon.”


1779(15thof Nisan, 5539): First Day of Pesach


1782: The certificate authorizing Solomon Etting of Lancaster, PA to serve as a shochet was issued today making him the first native born American to receive this distinction


1798(15thof Nisan, 5558): As Washington’s Ary continues to “winter in Middlebrook” Jews observe the first day of Pesach.


1815: Birthdate of Otto Von Bismarck. A Prussian, he served as Chancellor from 1866 to 1890 making Germany into a united modern nation. His record concerning the Jews was mixed, He was Chancellor in 1869 when emancipation legislation was enacted removing limitations on civil rights based on religion. His personal physician was Jewish and there were Jewish department heads in the government. In his earlier years, Bismarck had been opposed to Jews as government ministers. Once again, as his career drew to a close and it fit his political needs Bismarck distanced himself from the Jews but did not adopt the rabid anti-Semitism that appeared in Germany during the 1880's.


1817(15th of Nisan, 5577): First Day of Pesach


1823: In Alsace, Charlotte Aron (Loew) and Alexandre Aron gave birth to Achille Aron


1828: In Cassel, Germany, Moses Mordecai Büdinger gave birth to Austrian historian Max Büdinger who served as chair of the history department at the University of Vienna from 1872 until 1902.


1829: Jacob ben Naphtali HaCohen married Beila bat Solomon HaCohen at the Western Synagogue.


1835: Samuel Samuels married Esther Benjamin today at the Great Synagogue.


1840: Lazarus Walter married Hannah Aaron at the Great Synagogue today.


1845: In Trieste, Elisa Morpurgo and Giuseppe / Joseph Baron von Morpurgo gave birth to Louise Cahen d'Anvers (de Morpurgo)


1852: Fire broke out in San Francisco destroying a boarding house owned by Abraham Abrahamsohn that boasted a “French cook, three waiters and a dishwashers.” Abrahamsohn would have tried his hand unsuccessfully in the gold fields and as tailor in Sacramento had made the money for the boarding house by working as a mohel. One can only assume that there was a good sized and prolific Jewish population in San Francisco for him to have earned enough capital from performing ritual circumcisions. This latest setback forced Abrahamsohn to head to Australia where he again failed as gold miner, but met with modest economic success when he returned to his original profession – baker – and began providing food for the hungry miners.


1853: When an apprentice named Herman who was working for a boot and shoe shop was arrested on charges of theft that covered the last 9 months, he claimed that he was regular selling eighty dollars’ worth of merchandize of an un-named Jew for twenty-five dollars.


1857: Joseph Abrahams married Betsie Mesner today at the Great Synagogue.


1858(17thof Nisan, 5618): Third Day of Pesach.


1858: The New York Times reported that one of the reasons for a drop in business at the local cattle markets this week was the absence of Jewish butchers who were observing Passover.


1861: An English play entitled “Babes in the Wood” opened at the Winter Garden Theatre.  According to the reviewer, the play is based on the all too common practice of the impecunious English gentleman who borrows money from “a friendly Hebrew” for which he pays “a liberal interest” so that he may pursue a life style that includes “a generous supply of wine,” cigars and a marriage which all too often does not turn out to be solution to his problems. [It would appear that 3 centuries after the creation of Shylock, the English still are writing about the poor gentile victimized by the Jewish moneylender.]


1862(1st of Nisan, 5622): Rosh Chodesh Nisan


1864: In Cincinnati, the Ladies’ Hebrew Benevolent Society which was the ladies’ auxiliary of the Congregation Adath Israel was founded today.


1865(5thof Nisan, 5625): In the waning days of the American Civil War, Sergeant Morris Schlesinger of Philadelphia who had been wounded yesterday at Gravelly Run, VA, died today.


1865: Union forces defeat the Confederates at the Battle of Five Forks which effectively sealed the fate of Robert E. Lee’s Army and therefore the Confederacy.  The rebels were forced to abandon Richmond which would lead to the involvement of Raphael Moses, the native of Columbus, GA who had been with Lee at Gettysburg in the bizarre episode concerning the disposal of the Southern government’s bullion supply.


1865: Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, later known as Leslie’s Weekly published a picture of the annual Purim Ball held in New York in March.



1866(16thof Nisan, 5626): Second Day of Pesach; first day of the Omer


1866: In a column entitled "Southern Jottings" published today described conditions in Charleston, South Carolina, including the observation that "the Hebrew element is largely represented here and speculators are as abundant as tea stores on Vesey Street."


1866: Under the simple heading of “Nathan Meyer Rothschild of London” the New York Times published a lengthy article tracing the history of the family from its earliest beginning to its present prominent role in the world of finance as well as the role of other Jews in the financial growth that has occurred in Great Britain since “the days of the South Sea bubble.”


1870: “April Fool” published today traces the origins of April Fool’s Day in which the author claims that the prophet Haggai “makes allusion to it in the third chapter of his book.” He also contends that Solomon recognized “the fool” in his writings and even references a specific day for fools in the 29th verse of the 17th chapter of Proverbs, “The fool has his day and the simple man his season…”


1870(10th of Nisan, 5631): Shabbat HaGadol


1870: Sixty-two year old physician and author Moses Philippson passed away today in Breitenfeld.



1871: "Green Street Synagogue” was founded today by a small group of Jews in Baltimore, Maryland.


1872: Birthdate of Conrad Gröber, the Catholic cleric whose eventual opposition to the Nazi regime did not include opposition to the Holocaust.


1872: Today, the United States Postal Department authored the establishment of a post office in the community which would eventually be known as Seligman, MO.


1874(14th of Nisan, 5634): The New York Times reported that “this evening the Jewish festival of ‘Pesach’ or the Passover will be inaugurated with the observances and ceremonies incident to its celebration. This festival is one of the most important in the Hewish calendar, and was instituted to commemorate the miraculous deliverance of the children of Israel from the vile system of slaver imposed upon them during their sojourn in the land of Egypt. The festival begins at sundown this evening and continues for eight days…and is distinguished from all festivals by the banishment of all leavened bread from the houses of the pious Israelites…”  


1875:  Actress “Polly” Richards gave birth to , Richard Horatio Edgar Wallace whose works would banned by in Germany “because of rumors that the writer was of Jewish extraction” – a charge vehemently denied by his daughter Mrs. Frere Reeves.


1876: It was reported today that I.S. Nathans, a Jew who has become an Episcopalian has been authorized by his church to led a mission to convert the Jews of New York which the church number at 110,000.


1876: Sigmund Dringer, an Austrian born Jew, had acquired 4,000 tons of scrap iron and 1,700 tons of car wheels said to be worth one hundred thousand dollars.  This made Dringer the largest scrap medal dealer in the United States supplying foundries and rolling mills from Boston to Cincinnati.


1880: This morning, Shearith Israel, located at West19th Street near 5thAvenue in New York City, celebrated the 150th anniversary of its consecration with special services led by Rabbis Nieto, Lyon and Pereia-Mendes.


1881: Anti-Jewish riots broke out in Jerusalem.


1881: Today marked the beginning of a three month exodus of Jews from Russia that would include “not less than 225,000 Jewish families” or “over a million souls.”


1881: “Le tribut de Zamora, an opera in four acts” with a libretto by Adolphe d’Ennery premiered today “at the Opéra's Palais Garnier.”


1882: A blood libel in Tisza Eszlar, Hungary began. “A week and a half before Easter, a fourteen year old Catholic housemaid, Esther Solymossy, left her employer’s home to buy paint. She did not return.” When a week long search failed to turn up any evidence of the missing girl, two prominent Hungarian anti-Semites named Onody and Istoczy began making claims about “ritual murder” forcing the local sheriff to pursue this blatantly false line of accusation. Fifteen Jews were ultimately charged and tried for "murder" for which there was no real evidence. After a year of futile effort, the fifteen were acquitted.


1883: In New York, David Holtz and Pauline Moses, whom he had known for a brief time, were engaged to be married.


1887: Birthdate of Leonard Bloomfield an American linguist whose influence dominated the development of structural linguistics in America between the 1930s and the 1950s. He is especially known for his book Language published in 1933 that described the state of the art of linguistics at its time. Bloomfield was the main founder of the Linguistic Society of America.


1888: Three days after his death composer and pianist Charles-Valntin Alkan was buried today in the “Jewish section of Montmartre Cemetery, Paris,” in a tomb which would later be the burial site for his sister Celeste and which was “not far from the tomb of his contemporary Fromental Halévy.”


1888: At Temple Beth-El in New York, Rabbi Kaugman Kohler delivered a lecture entitled “The Wandering Jews.”


1889: Caroline and Edwin Robert Anderson Seligman gave birth to Eustace Seligman.


1890: Three Russian Jewish immigrants – Ed Myers, Isadore Lowenstein and Ike Edeliman – have been charged with arson and are locked up the Central Police Station in Louisville, KY.


1890: Nathan Birnbaum leader of Kadima and the publisher of the journal Selbst-Emanzipation created the term Zionism. Birnbaum was actually a Zionist before Herzl popularized the concept. Unfortunately, Birnbaum was not able to find a "home" in the movement as it grew. In a total role reversal he advocated the development of the Jewish community in the Diaspora, Yiddish instead of Hebrew and orthodoxy over secularism.


1890: Fifty women formed The Beth El Society of Personal Services was formed with the intent of lessening the burden being placed on the United Hebrew Charities.


1892: Grover Cleveland addressed a large crowd of Russian Jews in New York City.


1892: In Great Britain, Mr. Balfour told the House of Commons that the British Ambassador in St. Petersburg had based his expectation that a large number of Jews would be coming to the UK because he believed that the United States was about to put an end to the immigration of Jews from Russa.


1892: In Brooklyn, the Republican faction opposed to Ernst Nathan sent out a call for meeting.


1893(15th of Nisan, 5653): First Day of Pesach


1893: According to “the books of the Jewish shelter on Leman, Street, White Chapel,” London, today marked the start of the expulsion of Polish Jews that would totally 38 by the end of the month.


1893: Meyer Lyask received an order warning “him to quit his lodgings in the village of Gmina (Poland) within seven days.


1893: Nathan Straus, Isidor Straus and Simon F. Rothschild bought out Joseph Wechsler’s interest in Wechsler and Abraham and renamed the store Abraham and Straus which at that time had 2,000 employees.


1893: German’s celebrate the 78th anniversary of the birth of Otto Von Bismarck, the Iron Chancellor who changed the face of Europe in ways too numerous to mention here.



1894: Professor Felix Adler delivered a lecture on “The Influence of Woman” at the Music Hall in New York City.


1894: “Over In Camden” published today described the purchase by the Sons of Israel of “a portion of the New Camden Cemetery for use as a cemetery for Jews in the New Jersey city.


1894: It was reported today that there may have been a period of time when the Queen Insurance Company of New York did not insure Jews


 1894: “All Fool’s Day” published today attributed to the origins of April Fool’s Day as being tied to the fact that Noah made the mistake of “sending the dove out of the ark before the water had abated on the first day of the month” on the Jewish calendar which correlates “our 1st of April.”  Since then people would be sent on “fool’s errands” on this date in the foolish manner of Noah sending out the dove.”


1894: “Godfathers and Godmothers” published today described the origins of this popular custom among Christians but for which “doubtless” began with the Jews.


1895: Interview with Alphonse Daudet, French anti-Semitic writer, for whom Herzl translated an article. Herzl unfolds his views on the Jewish question, which produce a deep impression on Daudet. Daudet feels that Herzl should write a novel about his ideas.


1895: First appearance of The "American Jewess," the first English-language publication published by and for American Jewish women.


1895: In Columbia, “George Henry Issacs, an English Jew originally from Jamaica” and his wife gave birth to Jorge Isaacs Ferrer whom Isaac Goldberg described as “a half-Jew” who is “Spanish America’s most famous novelist.”


1896: It was reported today that the recent benefit production of “The Heart of Maryland” raised about two thousand dollars for the Hebrew Orphan Asylum who had just celebrated 21 years of service to the Congregation.


1896: The funeral for Rabbi Aaron Wise is scheduled to be held this morning at Rodeph Sholom, at Lexington and 63rd Street in Manhattan


1896: “Promises For Peddlers” published today described a meeting between 1,000 pushcart vendors led by Abraham Benowitz, President of the Fish Peddlers’ Association  and New York leaders including Mayor Strong and President Teddy Roosevelt of the Police Board to discuss plans for how their business would be conducted on Hester Street on the Lower East Side.


1897: Birthdate of Harry Joseph Passon, the brother of Herman and Nathan Pass and who “long with friends Eddie Gottlieb and Hughie Black organized a basketball team sponsored by the South Philadelphia Young Men’s Hebrew Association which became known by the acronym SPHAS.”



1897: “Rights of Hebrew Americans” published today described the efforts of Congressman Fitzgerald of Massachusetts to have the Secretary State ensure that American Jews are not discriminated by the Czar’s government when they are doing business in Russia. (Congressman Fitzgerald is the grandfather of JFK)


1898: In New York, Boris Sidis, Ph.D., M.D. and Sarah Mandelbaum Sidis, M.D. gave birth to child-prodigy and math wizard, William James Sidis


1898: Birthdate of Joseph A. “Joe” Alexander the Syracuse native and three-time All-American guard on the Syracuse University football team who “was the first player signed by the original New York Giants” and who went on to a successful medical career when his playing days were over.


1898: Louis and Clara Asia Parnes gave birth to Paul Parnes the husband of Fay Parnes and the father of William and Arlene Parnes.


1898: Moses Samuel Zuckermandl who was the rabbi at Pleschen, Prussia “was appointed lecturer at the Mora-Leipziger Foundation at Breslau” today.


1898(9thof Nisan, 5658): Sixty-eight year old German lawyer Hermann Makower who also served as President of the Board of the Jewish Community of Berlin passed away today.


1899(21stof Nisan, 5659): 4th day of Pesach and Shabbat


1899(21stof Nisan, 5659): Three weeks short of the third anniversary of the death of her husband, Baron Maurice de Hirsch; sixty-five year old Clara Hirsch, the Baroness de Hirsch passed away today in Paris. The daughter of Belgian banking family, she knew the personal tragedy of loss when her daughter died in infancy and her son died at the age of 31.  She threw herself into a variety of charitable efforts and after her husband’s used the family fortune to provide for a myriad of causes including settle Russian Jews in agricultural communities and establishing training schools for young girls so that they could learn a trade and be self-supporting.


1899: Philip Michael Ritter von Newlinski, a Polish nobleman whom Herzl wanted to use his contacts with the Ottomans to promote the Zionist cause, dies in Constantinople.


1899: In “Closing of the Schools” published today, “Vox Populi” defends the decision of the school board closing the schools at this time of the year since it coincides with Easter and Passover which means that Christian and Jewish students would not be in school.  Such a decision is not an unwarranted intrusion of religion in public education but an acknowledgement that in the United States we enjoy religious freedom that enables to honor the customs of Christians and Jews.


1899: Despite a total lack of evidence, Leopold Hilsner was sentenced death today in Polna, Bohemia in another case of a Blood Libel. His sentence was later commuted and in 1916, Hilsner received a full pardon. It should be noted that his life was saved thanks to the activities of T.J. Masark, Czech patriot and the first president of an independent Czechoslovakia.


1899: Austrian author Karl Kraus an advocate of Jewish assimilation and a critic of Theodor Herzl renounced the “faith of his fathers” today.


1900: The executors of the estate of Abraham Wolf, a partner in the banking firm of Kun, Loeb & Co turned the estate over to the trustees Mrs. Addie Kahn and her son Gilbert W. Kahn


1902(23rdof Adar II, 5662): Sixty-five year old David Oppenheimer, the German born son of Lob and Bina Oppenheimer and the husband of Johanna Oppenheimer passed away today in New York City.


1902:“Leo Fresh, the well-known auctioneer, called at the police barracks tonight and stated that a fine hen, which he had been fattening for the Jewish Passover, had been stolen by a woman who lives at 83 Jenkins Street.”


1903: Birthdate of Chess Champion Salo (Salomon) Landau, the Galician native who will die in Auschwitz.


1903: Herzl meets McIlwraithe, the legal adviser of the Khedive. Herzl presents the Zionist proposal. McIlwraithe promises that the government will make a counter-proposal.


1904(16thof Nisan, 5664): Second Day of Pesach; first day of the Omer


1904(16thof Nisan, 5664): Eighty year old Gustav Freund, the husband of Rosa Fruend passed away today in Vienna.


1905: Tonight over a thousand Jews watched as two Torah scrolls were carried to the First Zolyner Congregation Anshe Sefard from the home of Sigmund Yokel, the President of the Congregation. After a brief ceremony during which the scrolls were placed in the Holy Ark, “the marchers celebrated at a big banquet.”


1905: The New York Times reported that the third edition of “The Seder Service,” a Haggadah prepared by Mrs. Phillip Cowen and published by her husband is now in available.


1906: Birthdate of Nusyn Glass the Polish born actor who gained fame as Ned Glass known for his portrayal of Uncle Moe in “Bridgette Loves Bernie.”


1906: Professor Ivan Michaelovitch Zanchevsky , the Rector of the university in Odessa, who has been “charged with organizing the student militia which defended the Jews during the massacres last November” is scheduled to “be place on trial before the Senate.


1908: Birthdate of Abraham H Maslow, renowned psychologist and Brooklyn native who was the oldest of seven children of Russian Jewish immigrants. In a manner typical of this immigrant generation, Maslow's parents pushed him to succeed academically. Maslow studied law at CCNY and Cornell. He then married his cousin Bertha and enrolled at the University of Wisconsin where he began his study of psychology earning his doctorate in 1931. Maslow is most famous for developing his Hierarchy of Needs. Maslow was a professor at Brandeis from 1951 until 1969. He died in 1970. In examining Maslow's life and work, one commentator found a connection between Maslow's Jewish background and his scientific work. Just as Judaism tries to bring order of a chaotic world, so Maslow sought to develop a unifying structure that would enable people to bring order to their chaotic lives.


"Human nature is not nearly as bad as it has been thought to be." Abraham Maslow.


1909: Birthdate of Abner Biberman. Born in Milwaukee, Biberman gained fame as an actor and movie director. His films included “Gunga Din,” “Bridge At Saint Luis Rey,” “Winchester 73” and “Viva Zapata.” His oriental appearance made him a natural for the role of the Japanese officer in several war movies made during WW II, the most famous of which was “Back to Bataan.” He passed away in June, 1977.


1912(14thof Nisan, 5672): Ta’anit Bechorot observed for the last time during the Presidency of William Howard Taft.


1912(14th of Nisan, 5672): For the first time, the Patriotic League of America sponsored a Seder tonight at Tuxedo Hall for Jewish soldiers and sailors stationed in the New York metropolitan area.


 


1912(14th of Nisan, 5672): In what appeared to be a classic SNAFU, 17 Jewish soldiers on Governor’s Island were assigned to guard duty tonight meaning that they could not attend the Seder at the Tuxedo. This was in direct violation of The Secretary of War’s had order that all soldiers in the New York area would receive a furlough to celebrate the holiday. When authorities found out about the mistake they corrected it so the soldiers could attend the Seder.


1913: Mrs. Moses L. Purvin was elected President and Mrs. Benjamin Auerbach was elected Vice Presidents at the annual business meeting of The Chicago Woman’s Aid which will “continue its policy of having paintings of Chicago artists on view in the Library of the Sinai Centers


1913: “The regular meeting Ladies Society of B’nai Sholom Temple Israel” took place this evening where the attendees he a program on “Our Holidays” that included a presentation on Passover by Mrs. Carrie H. Geil.


1913: “New York fruit merchant” Joseph Kozinsky and his wife gave birth to Frank Kozinksky who would change his name to Frank King and along with his brothers Maury and Herman King Productions, the film company that had the courage to hire blacklisted writers during the McCarthy Era.


1914: Birthdate of Philip Yordan, the native of Chicago and law school graduate who an Academy Award for Best Writing, Motion Picture Story for Broken Lance and who worked to thwart the effects of the infamous Hollywood Blacklist system.




1915: Sam Lazarus and Annie Stein Lazarus gave birth to Jacob Mendel Lazarus who would be buried, for a Jew, in the unlikely location of Valdosta when passed away more than nine decades later.


1915: Based on a resolution adopted today in Chicago, Orthodox Jews will be able to exercise their franchise in the upcoming elections scheduled for April 6, the last day of Passover. Since the Orthodox cannot write on the holiday, the resolution empowered judges and clerks of the election to mark the ballots for the observant Jews.


1915: In Berlin an anti-war protest was held led by Rosa Luxemburg, an act for which she was imprisoned.


1915: As “The Mule Corps swears allegiance to the British army” Jabotinsky refuses to serve “because its duties only involve transportation” and does not fulfill his demand for the establishment of a fighting legion.


1916: The Federation of Rumanian Jews dedicates the new Jewish Home for Convalescents, which formally opens today at Grandview, Rockland County as a permanent memorial to the work of Dr. Solomon Schechter. Schechter was the noted Hebrew scholar and head of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, who died on November 20, 1915.


1917: Professor Richard Gottheil of Columbia University introduced Major General Leonard Wood to the members of Zeta Beta Tau fraternity tonight “on preparedness and the obligations of alien-born citizens to their adopted country with regard to service in the army in war or peace.”


1917: In Bavaria, Elsa Haas, the daughter of Joseph and Ida Schulein and her husband Dr. Alfred Haas gave birth to


1917: “A declaration signed by sixty-eight Jewish citizens issued in support of the letter which Oscar S. Straus recently wrote to the British and French Ambassadors at Washington in which Mr. Straus contended that a majority of the Jews of the United States sympathize with the cause of Allies was issued” today “under the caption,” ‘A Declaration by American Jews.’”


1917: Birthdate of Melville “Mel” Shavelson who gained fame a writer, director and producer of dozens of films featuring such stars as Lucille Ball, Jimmy Cagney and Frank Sinatra. He was nominated for two Oscars and created two Emmy Award-winning television series, "Make Room for Daddy" and "My World and Welcome to It."



1917: Baron Alexander Gunzberg sent a cable from Petrograd to Louis Marshall in New York in which he wrote that the new Government be publishing  “a decree canceling all laws and paragraphs adversely affecting Jews” and that the “Russian Jewry, liberated from the yoke, in grateful appreciation of never-failing helpfulness stretch out their hand to their free-born American bretheren.”


1917: As leaders work on the plans for the calling of “The American Jewish Congress” a special meeting of the Executive Committee was held today in New York where the a resolution was adopted setting the rules for calling a meeting the Congress on September 2, 1917.


1918(19thof Nisan, 5678): Fifth Day of Pesch


1918: In New York, one hundred thousand people are expected to participate in the celebration of the establishment of the Provisional Jewish government in Palestine which will include parades and a mass meeting in Carnegie Hall that will include a speech by Dr. Stephen S. Wise.


1918: Chaim Weizmann, the head of the Zionist Commission, arrived in Palestine. The Commission had been established by the British to help carry out the promises of the Balfour Declaration. The Commission actually arrived before the war had ended and the Mandate had been established. The British had intended that the Commission be its official contact with the Jewish community (Yishuv) and help in setting policies concerning post-war settlement and development including immigration. Unfortunately this positive start did not pre-sage a continuation of British support during the inter-war period.


1918: Following the capture of Jerusalem in December of 1917, the 7thIndian Division relieved the 52nd Division which had been transferred to the Western Front.


1918(19th of Nisan, 5678): Isaac Rosenberg, a leading Anglo-Jewish poet, is killed on April Fool’s Day while fighting on the Western Front.


1919: In Grodno, Yitahak and Dvora Livni gave birth to ham "Eitan" Livni who made Aliyah in 1925, served with the Irgun and became a Likud MK.


1919: Birthdate of Jabr Muadi, the Israeli Druze politician who served in the Knesset for three decades from 1951 to 1981


1920: The emergence of the Nazi Party. (This happened on the anniversary of the day that Haman published his decree of extermination of the Jews.)


1920: Jewish merchant Henry Dix wrote to Mrs. Israel Unterberf, the President of the Young Women’s Hebrew Association about a gift he proposed giving to the association of a property he owned at Mt. Kisco as well as the establishment of trust fund for maintain the property.


1921: In the United Kingdom, Alfred Moritz Mond, 1st Baron Melchett, completed his service as First Commissioner of Works and began serving as Minister of Health in a cabinet headed by David Lloyd George.


1921: Beth El Hebrew School, “the second of a series of Hebrew schools to be established in the Bronx under the auspices of the New York committee of School Extension of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations” which has a capacity for five hundred students and is led by principal Louis E. Goldstein opened today.


1921:  Marius Ranson who has been serving as assistant to Dr. Schulman at Temple Beth-El is scheduled to become the Rabbi at Temple Beth Emes in Albany, NY today  filling a pulpit at the congregation that has been vacant since the death of Rabbi Eli Mayer.


1921: The United Relief Organization of Brownsville and East New York’s campaign to raise fifty thousand dollars “for war relief work” is scheduled to come to an end today.


1921: In “Upholds Palestine Plan; Churchill Tells Arabs that Balfour Declaration Must Stand,” published today described“further details of Winston Churchill’s visit to Jerusalem.” Churchill met with a delegation of Arab Congress which had been held much earlier in Haifa and which “asked for the withdrawal of the Balfour declaration. Churchill declared…that the government was determined to keep to the Balfour declaration in both of its parts, namely, the establishment of the Jewish national home and the protection of the non-Jewish population.” Later, when he met with a Jewish delegation, Churchill concluded his remarks “by saying that the British taxpayers could not bear the expense of the establishment of the Jewish national home and that Jews must therefore make greater efforts to obtain the necessary funds.”


1921: Lightweight Leach Cross (Louis Charles Wallach) fought his 140thbout in Los Angeles.


1922: Sir Edgar Speyer “and his remaining partner in the London bank dissolved Speyer Brothers.


1923(15th of Nisan, 5683): Pesach I


1924: Otto Preminger’s theatrical career began today when he “appeared as a furniture mover in Reinhardt's comedia staging of Carlo Goldoni's ‘The Servant of Two Masters.’1925: Amid much pomp and circumstance, Hebrew University was opened in Jerusalem on Mount Scopus. Chaim Weizman beamed with pride as he saw his 25 year old dream come to life. Lord Arthur Balfour, of Balfour Declaration Fame, represented the British government. Much of the funding came from the American philanthropist Felix Warburg. The first chancellor of what this first class educational institution was Dr. Judah Magnes, a native of San Francisco. The cornerstones had originally been laid in 1918 when fighting was still going on between the British and Turkish forces in Palestine. Talk about Jewish optimism and dedication to learning.


1925: Chanina Karchevsky, “The Tel Aviv Nightingale,” conducted the Gymnasisa Herzliya Choir in what has been termed an “unforgettable performance” on Mt. Scopus at the ceremony marking the dedication of Hebrew University.


1926(17th of Nisan, 5686):Acting giant Jacob Pavlovich Adler passed away in New York City.  Born in Russia in 1855, he was a dominate figure in the Yiddish Theatre in Odessa, London and New York City. A name unknown to most, he is remembered as the father of the actor Luther Adler and Stella Adler who coached Marlon Brando.


1926: Hebrew Book Day is mounted in Tel Aviv.


1927: The HaShomer HaZair kibbutzim and training groups establish a national organization in Haifa called "HaKibbutz Artzi" - "National Kibbutz". The Kibbutz Artzi is a federation comprising 85 kibbutzim founded by the Hashomer Hatzair youth movement. In 1998 it numbered around 20,000 members and its entire population (including children, candidates, parents of members etc.) totaled approximately 35,000.


1928: Birthdate of Herbert G. Klein newscaster and President Richard Nixon’s press secretary.


1928: Konrad von Preysing, a Catholic prelate who would play a key role as an anti-Nazi activist during World War II was made a canon today.


1929: In Chicago, Morton David Chan and Julia Elizabeth Cahn gave birth to Mary Elizabeth Cahn who became Mary Elizabeth Wolf when she married Stephen Louis Wolf.


1930: “Blue Angel” a movie that was
filmed simultaneously in English and German versions” directed by Josef von Sternberg, with a script co-authored by Robert Liebman


1930: In Melbourne, Australia, a group of Jews interested in forming a “Liberal Community” met for the first time.


1931: Birthdate of Rolf Hochhuth. This non-Jewish German playwright wrote The Deputy which portrayed the role of the Pope during the Holocaust.


1932: Adolph Eichman joined the Nazi Party


1932: The New York Times described the closing day activities at the Maccabiad. “An emotional crowd of 25,000 watched the conclusion of the first Jewish Olympics…The Palestine High Commissioner participated in the ceremonies as did other officials and representatives of foreign governments. There were tears in the eyes of many as the exhibits reached their close. Among the Maccabee displays were those of scouting, gymnastics, motorcycling, bicycle riding and horseback riding led by Abraham Shapiro, the hero of Petch Tikva…A procession of 5,000 Maccabeans led the way to the graves of Achad Ha’Am , Maz Nodeau and the victims of Arab riots, where wreaths were placed. …The procession marched through the main streets of Tel-Aviv” before dispersing at the “Herzlia Gymnasium where the march of the Maccabeans had begun.”


1933: In Brooklyn, Philip Weinstein, a garment industry work, and “the former Shirley Bisnoff, a homemaker and jazz pianist” gave birth to Stanley Alan Weinstein who gained fame as Sam Weston, “the father of G.I. Joe” action figure.



1933: German violinist (and non-Jew) Adolf Busch repudiated Germany altogether and in 1938 he boycotted Italy. 


1933: Nazi Germany began its persecution of Jews by boycotting Jewish businesses. Less than a month after coming to power, the War Against the Jews began in earnest. This puts the lie to those who portray Hitler's policies against the Jews as only being an incidental part of his plans and programs.




1933: At Lauphehim, members of the SA enforced the Nazi boycott of Jewish businesses “positioned themselves in front of Jewish shops in order to intimidate potential customers and prevent them from entering” while the windows were broken in at least one shop.


1933: As part of the Nazi boycott against Jewish businesses, uniformed men “placed themselves in front of Jewish shops in Cologne” to prevent customers from entering.


1933: In response to the Nazi boycott, in Cologne Jewish merchant Richard Stern, who had fought in the First World War, distributed a leaflet against the boycott and placed himself wearing his Iron Cross near the SA-poster in front of his shop.


1933: In Berlin “SA paramilitaries” carrying signs that read “Germans! Defends yourselves! Don’t buy from Jews!” “blocked the entrance to a Jewish owned shop.”



1933: In Constantine, Algeria, Abraham Cohen-Tannoudji and Sarah Sebbah tp French physicist, Claude Cohen-Tannoudji, winner of the 1997 Nobel Prize.


1934: Chevrolet ended its sponsorship of the Jack Benny Program. Benny continued the show with General Tire as the sponsor.


1934: In Mishnietz, Poland Nechama Laska and Hiam Yehuda Giladi gave birth to Israel Giladi


1935: The New York Times reported that “the American team is favored to retain the track and field title in the Jewish world games which open tomorrow…The strongest challenge for the Americans is expected to come from the German, French, Czech and Austrian teams.


1935: “Storm Over the Andes” an adventure film co-authored by Dore Schary was released in the United States today.


1935: Democratic leader General Hugh S. Johnson denounced “Father Charles Coughlin, comparing the Catholic priest to Adolf Hitler” because of the anti-Semitic pronouncements on his radio show


1935: Anti-Jewish legislation in the Saar region was passed.


1935:Israelitisches Familienblatt (Israelite Family Paper) began appearing in Berlin and became the organ of the Reichsvertretung


1936: French conservatives condemned French Socialist leader Léon Blum because of his Jewish ancestry and his strongly anti-Nazi orientation. A popular slogan at the time condemned the future French premier: "Better Hitler than Blum."


1936: “An injunction suit against Cantor David Katzman was filed in the Supreme Court” today “ by the First American Rumanian Congregation” that seeks to restrain the can from breaking a contract to officiate during the Passover holidays in the plaintiff’s synagogue…and going the Laurel-in-the-Pines Hotel at Lakewood, NJ.”


1936: One hundred ninety Jewish exiles from German who had boarded the Cunard White Star line Berengaria at Cherbourg and Southampton arrived in New York today.


1937: Birthdate of Sylvia Rafael, the Pretoria native who made Aliyah in 1963 and became an agent for Mossad.



1937: The Palestine Post reported on the festive opening of a new road connecting Hadar Hacarmel and Mount Carmel in Haifa. The new road was 3,100 meters long and 10 to 15 meters wide - the asphalt width was six meters. It was expected that this new road would help to develop Mount Carmel.


1937: The Palestine Post reported that according to the Palestine Review Jews contributed financially at least four times as much to the Arab economy as Arabs returned to the Jews.


1937: The Palestine Post reported that a provision was made in the Pension Ordinance for officials in the Civil Service to retire, under special circumstances, on attaining the age of 50.


1938: Fritz Löhner-Beda, the Bohemian born librettist, lyricist and writer was arrested and deported to Dachau Concentration Camp.


1938: “Number 111” a thriller directed by Steve Sekely was released in Hungary today.


1939: The Spanish Civil War came to an end marking another victory for fascism. Oddly enough, despite the support Franco got from Hitler and Mussolini he remained neutral during WW II, which proved quite advantageous to the Allies. As far as Franco’s treatment of the Jews, the record appears too mixed but consider the following as one piece of the puzzle.



 1939: At the age of 13, Raul Hilberg who would gain fame as Dr. Raul Hilber a world renowned Holocaust scholar fled Austria with his family a year after the Anschluss, for France, where they embarked on a ship to Cuba. From Cuba the family would make their way to the United States, where Hilberg, after serving with the U.S. Army in Europe would come home and build his academic career.


1939: U.S. premiere of “Dodge City,” a western directed by Michael Curtiz, produced by Hal Wallis with music by Max Steiner.


1940: The Institut für deutsche Ostarbeit (Institute for German Work in the East) was founded to study Polish Jewry.


1940: Shanghai, China, accepted thousands of Jewish refugees.


1941: A ghetto was established at Kielce, Poland. German overseers of the ghetto renamed some of the streets. New names were Zion Street, Palestine Street, Jerusalem Street, Moses Street, Non-Kosher Street, and Grynszpan Street.


1941: In Iraq, Rashid Al led a successful anti-British, pro-Nazi coup that would lead to the pogrom known as the Farhud in June that was the beginning of the end for the ancient Jewish community in that Arab country.


1941(4th of Nisan, 5701): German troops executed 250 members of a Jewish youth group in Subotica, Yugoslavia, who have been carrying out acts of sabotage.


1941: A men's annex was established at the Ravensbrück concentration camp located in Germany,


1941: Seven Warsaw Jews smuggled themselves into Bratislava, Slovakia, and from there to safety in Palestine.


1941: A pro-Axis officer clique headed by Rashid Ali al-Gaylani seized power in Iraq, and prepared airfields for German use.


1941: The Farhud, a pogrom aim at the Jews of Baghdad “inspired by both the Nazis and the Grand Mufti of Jersualem, Haj-Amin Al Husseini, began today.


1941: The first Croatian concentration camp began operation, at Danica. Four more Croat camps were opened, at Loborgrad, Jadovno, Gradiska, and Djakovo.


1941: Lillian Hellman's "Watch on the Rhine", premiered in New York City. A native of New Orleans, Hellman's father was "of German Jewish ancestry." Hellman was a staunch supporter of the Communists. Many right-wingers mistakenly took her ancestry and her political beliefs, tied them together and used Hellman as an example of the Jewish/Communist Conspiracy to overthrow America.


1941 Bess and Rubin “Honest Joe” Goldestein gave birth to Eddie Goldstein whom Dallas knew as swap shop owner “little Honest Joe King Edward.”


1941: Birthdate of Bonnie Sherr Klein, the Philadelphia native and Stanford graduate who went to Canada with her husband Michael Klein as part of an anti-war protest where she developed into a filmmaker and social activists.


1942: Sobibór death camp was nearly operational; gassings would begin in May.


1942: At the beginning of the first week in April, more than 4400 Jews died of starvation in the Warsaw Ghetto


1942: At the beginning of April, the first transports of Jews arrive at the camp at Majdanek, Poland, which will begin gassing Jews later in the year.


1942: During the first week of April, Sunday Times of London published, but did not highlight news items about the Nazi executions of 120,000 Romanian Jews..


1942: During the first week of April, Jews were mocked and hanged at Mlawa, Poland.


1942: The Nazis deported 965 Slovakian Jews to Auschwitz.


1942: In occupied Poland the Nazis created the Łachwa Ghetto when the town's Jews were forcibly moved into a new ghetto consisting of two streets and 45 houses, and surrounded by a barbed wire fence. The ghetto housed roughly 2,350 people, which amounted to approximately 1 square meter for every resident


1943: By the beginning of April, Nazi killing squads had murdered almost two million Jews in Eastern Europe.


1943: Starting in the first week of April, the Germans forced Jewish prisoners to burn the bodies of 600,000 Jews exterminated at Belzec.


1943: During the first week of April, the Germans launched an offensive against Jewish partisans active in the Parczew Forest, Poland.


1943: During the first week of April, Resistance members derailed a death train in Belgium.


1943: Pope Pius XII complained that Jews are demanding and ungrateful.


1943: Dr. Julian Chorazycki, a former captain in the Polish Army and a leader of inmate resistance at the Treblinka death camp, took poison when the camp's deputy commandant discovered the stash of currency Chorazycki had planned to use to buy small arms.


1945: On Easter, Jan M. Komski, who was not Jewish, was among the 20,000 prisoners marched from Hersbruck to Dachau


1945(18thof Nisan, 5705): Fourth Day of Pesach


1945(18thof Nisan, 5705): Twenty-seven year old Karel Švenk, the Czech entertainer who :was one of the first artists to be deported to Terezin in 1941 died today en route to Mauthausan.



1945(18thof Nisan, 5706: Ninety-six year German immigrant Isaac Wolfe Bernheim, the founder of I.W. Harper, the premium bourbon whiskey passed away today.



1945: Father Giuseppe Girotti, a Catholic theology professor at the Saint Maria della Rose Dominican Seminary of Turin, who acted to save many Jews by arranging safe hideouts and escape routes from the country died at Dachau. He had been arrested and sent to the camp after having been betrayed by an informer and caught in the midst of helping a wounded Jewish person. It is reported that while in Dachau, he continued to write his unfinished commentary on the biblical book of Jeremiah.


1946: It was reported today that Ian Morris Heilbron was to be “the first non-American to honored with the Priestly Medal.



1946: Sholom J. Kahn reviewed Star of the Unborn by Franz Werfel.



1947: The first Jewish immigrants disembark at the port of Eilat. Eilat is a port the southern end of Israel on the Gulf of Aqaba. Ben-Gurion was determined to make this part of the new state of Israel. The tale of the race for Eliat in 1948 is a tale of daring-do that would worthy of Rambo or James Bond. Ben Gurion realized how important this southern port would be to the development of trade, among other things. The reality has exceeded his vision.


1948: As the military situation for the Yishuv reaches a crisis status, Ben Gurion holds an urgent meeting with his senior Jewish Agency colleagues and forces them to adopt “a single blow offensive.”


1948: Arabs attacked Beit Alpha, a kibbutz near the Gilboa Ridge, with mortars.


1948: The first major report of Ralph Asher Alpher’s work describing the Big Bang Theory appeared in the periodical Nature.


1948: During Operation Nachshon, three large convoys broke through the blockade of Jerusalem bringing food and arms to the beleaguered Jewish population.


1949: Mordechai Maklef wаѕ appointed Head οf one of tһе General Command Departments in the IDF.


1950(14th of Nisan, 5710): Shabbat Hagadol


1950: At sundown, Israelis sit down to celebrate the second Pesach since the creation of the state of Israel. A Seder is being held on Mt. Scopus for the 118 Israelis taking care of the Hadassah Hospital and Hebrew University campus that have been cut off from the rest of Jewish Jerusalem. The climaxing word of the Seder “Next Year in Jerusalem” take on special meaning for the 80,000 newly arrived immigrants who will be eating their Matzah and Maror in transit camps.


1951: Following the issuance of an order by David Ben Gurion, the “Central Institute for Coordination” or Mossad became operation under directorship of Reuven Shiloah.



1952: The Jerusalem Post   reported that an acceptable formula had been reached at the London External Debts Conference on the eventual Israel-German reparations agreements. At The Hague, however, the German reparations delegation announced that it had no authority to assume any commitments towards Israel or World Jewry's representation. A woman who refused to accept a $10,000 inheritance from her sister, who died abroad, was charged with infringing Israel's financial regulations.


1952: “Aaron Slick from Punkin Crick” produced by William Perlberg and co-starring Dinah Shore was released in the United States today.


1952:  The Jerusalem Post reported that the deepest well in Israel, 565 m., was dug at Karkur and had produced 360 cu.m. of excellent water per hour.


1952(6th of Nisan, 5712): Hungarian born dramatist and novelist Ferenc Molnár passed away today in New York.



1953(16th of Nisan, 5713): Second Day of Pesach; First Day of the Omer


1953: In New York City Irene “Kelly” Kellerman, “an art teacher” and “Sonny Sonnenfeld, a lighting salesman, educator, and architectural lighting designer” gave birh Barry Sonnenfeld director of the comedies “Men In Black” and “When Harry Met Sally.”


1957: Birthdate of Representative Peter Deutsch, from Florida’s 20th Congressional District.


1957: First Jewish immigrants to arrive by ship disembarked at Eilat.


1958: U.S. premiere of “Teacher’s Pet” a romantic comedy produced by William Perlberg with a script by Fay and Michael Kanin.


1959: An IDF drill for calling up the reserves turned into a fiasco that became known as The Night of the Ducks.


1961(16thof Nisan, 5721) Second Day of Pesach


1961(16thof Nisan, 5721): In Cincinnati, Ohio, seventy-six year old Julian A. Pollak, the president of the Pollak Steel Company from 1944 to 1957 and Chairman of the Board from 1957 until today who had been a member of the Cornell University football team from 1905 to 1957 and major philanthropist in his hometown passed away today.


1965: The London Borough of Tower Hamlets which is the home of Field Street Great Synagogue founded in 1899, was created today.


1965(28th of Adar II, 5725): Helena Rubinstein US cosmetic manufacturer passed away. Her age was not accurately determined, but she was reported to be 89 at the time of her death.



1968(3rd of Nisan, 5728): Russian physicist Lev D Landau passed away at the age of 59. He won the Nobel Prize in Physics for the year 1962 for his pioneering theories of condensed matter, especially liquid helium He is also admired for a prolific series of textbooks on theoretical physics, co-authored with E. M. Lifshitz.


1969: Holocaust survivor Fred Kort opened Imperial Toy Corp. on Seventh Street in downtown Los Angeles. His inaugural product: the hi-bounce ball. Kort's sons from his first marriage, Jordan, Steve and David, all joined their father's business.


1973: In Castro Valley, CA, Elaine Maddow (née Gosse) and Robert B. “Bob” Maddow gave birth to MSNBC anchor and news personality Rachel Maddow whose paternal grandfather was from an Eastern European Jewish family named Medwedof but who is herself not Jewish.


1973: In Rabbi Soloveitchik’s Talmud shiur at Yeshiva University we completed learning the first chapter of Talmud Bavli Tractate Hullin. The Rav gave a dvar Torah at the Siyyum. He explained the meaning of the recitation of the hadran alakh, the prayer that promised upon the completion of learning a Talmud chapter or Tractate that we would return to study you – speaking to the text – again


1974: The Interim Report of the Agranat Commission published today “called for the dismissal of a number of senior officers in the IDF and caused such controversy that Prime Minister Golda Meir was forced to resign.”


1976(1stof Nisan, 5766): Rosh Chodesh Nisan


1976(1st of Nisan, 5736): Eighty-four year old Max Ernst “the self-taught German-painter who formed a Dada group in Cologne, Germany, with other avant-garde artists and pioneered a method called frottage, in which a sheet of paper is placed on the surface of an object and then penciled over until the texture of the surface is transferred” passed away today.




1976: “Looking at the Law” featuring attorney Neil Lewis Chayet debuted today on WBZ.


1977:  The Jerusalem Post reported that the visit to Israel of the French foreign minister, Louis de Guiringaud, ended with "normalization," if not an improvement of strained relations.


1977: The Jerusalem Post reported that while visiting Washington King Hussein of Jordan declared that he was ready for a "full peace" with Israel, but would never give up East Jerusalem.


1977: The Jerusalem Post reported that the ambitious Netivei Ayalon highway system in Tel Aviv had been revised owing to enormous expenses.


1977:Raggedy Ann & Andy: A Musical Adventure” an animated feature film with the voices of Didi Conn as “Raggedy Ann,” Arnold Stang as “Queasy and Sheldon Harnick as “Barney Beanbag” was released today in the United States.


1977: U.S. premiere of “Hot Tomorrows” directed and produced by Martin Brest and starring Ken Lerner


1978: Rafael Eitan was promoted to the rank of General and was appointed by Ezer Weizman to be the Chief of Staff of the Israel Defense Forces.


1978: CBS broadcast the final episode of “The Bob Newhart Show,” a sitcom co-starring Suzanne Pleshette, the daughter of Jewish immigrants.


1980(15thof Nisan, 5740): Jews observe Pesach as Ronald Reagan sought to unseat Jimmy Carter.


1981: An Israeli communique said today that one Israeli soldier had been wounded in the fighting in southern Lebanon.


1982: “Efim Goldberg, of Riga, was warned to stop teaching Hebrew.”


1982(8thof Nisan, 5742): Eighty-two year old Jack I. Poses the “president and founder of Parfums D'Orsay Company, a founder of Brandeis University and a sponsor of the Poses School of Fine Arts at Brandeis” passed away today.


1982: It was reported today that “289 Jews had left the Soviet Union in March.”


1982: In trucks and vans loaded with furniture and farm equipment, most Jewish settlers completed their departure from northern Sinai yesterday, leaving behind a hard core of several hundred militants who vowed to defy the deadline imposed by the army for leaving the area.


1984: The long-term efforts of Arnold Resincoff, a Conservative Rabbi and former military chaplain, to convince the United States Department of Defense to participate in the national annual program for the Days of Remembrance of the Victims of the Holocaust took a significant step forward today when “Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger signed a memorandum to the military services, urging the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and other military commanders to participate in the annual program for the first time”


1987: Opening of the New York Antiquarian Book Fair whose offereings have included The ''Twenty Four Books of the Holy Scriptures,'' the first edition in English of what was for generations the standard Jewish-American Bible, translated and annotated by Rabbi Isaac Leeser and published in Philadelphia in 1853 ($1,750) and the first complete, corrected, printed film script of ''The Wizard of Oz,'' dated May 4, 1938, in its original blue wrappers from the files of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer ($7,500).


1988: “Beetlejuice” with music by Denny Elfaman and co-starring Winona Ryder, which opened theatrically in the United States today earned $8,030,897 in its opening weekend.


1991: Ehud Barak began serving as Chief of the General Staff of the IDF during a time when the first Oslo Accords were being implemented and the negotiations were going forward that would lead to a peace treaty with Jordan.


1992: Daniel Goldin begins serving as the Administrator of NASA making him the first Jew to serve as head of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.



1993: Five months after premiering in the United States, “Toys” a “fantasy comedy directed by Barry Levinson” who co-produced and co-wrote the script, filmed by cinematographer Adam Greenberg and with music by Hans Zimmer was released today in Australia.



1996: In an article published today entitled “Challenging a View of the Holocaust,” Danita Smith discusses the new information provided by Daniel Jonah Goldhagen in "Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust."



1997: “--Lancit Media Entertainment, Ltd. (Nasdaq: LNCT), a leading creator and producer of high quality children's and family programming, today announced that Susan L. Solomon has been named Chairman of the Board of Directors and Chief Executive Officer of the Company, effective immediately.”



http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Susan+L.+Solomon+named+chairman+and+chief+executive+officer+of...-a019260508



1998: “Israel today formally accepted a 20-year-old United Nations Security Council resolution calling on it to withdraw from Lebanese territory. But the Israelis said any pullback would be made only on the condition that Lebanon assume control over the region and prevent its use for attacks on Israel.”



1999(15thof Nisan, 5759): Final Pesach of the 20th century.



1999: Publication of “A Spiritual Life: A Jewish Feminist Journey” by Merle Feld.


1999: In Denmark, premiere of “The One and Only,” a Danish romantic comedy directed by Susanne Bier.


2000: Marvin Miller is inducted into The National Jewish Sports Hall of Fame and Museum.


2001: The New York Times featured books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including “Stet: A Memoir” by Diana Athill.


2001: Six days after she was killed by Palestinian gunfire, 10 month old Shalhevet Pass was buried today.


2001(8thof Nisan, 5761): Forty-two year old Dina Guetta was stabbed to death by a terrorist today on Ha’atzmaut Street.


2002: In response to the increasing violence or Arab terrorists that climaxed with the suicide bomber murdering 30 people at a Seder in the Park Hotel, the IDF made preparation for Operation Defensive Shield.


2002 (19th of Nisan, 5762) Fifth day of Pesach


2002(19thof Nisan, 5762) Tomer Mordechai, 19, of Tel-Aviv, a policeman, was killed in Jerusalem, when a Palestinian suicide bomber driving toward the city center blew himself after being stopped at a roadblock. The Fatah al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades claimed responsibility for the attack.


2002: “Using doctored pictures purportedly from the Hubble telescope, NASA ‘proved’ that the Moon was made of green cheese an expression that came from a fable that Reb Meir,Rashi, the Iraqi Rabbi Hai Gaoan and the Petrose Alponsi an apostate Spanish Jew helped to popularize.


2003: “A rumor that” Chilean television personality Mario Luis Kreutzberger Blumenfeld known to his public as “Don Francisco had died surfaced around the New York and New Jersey area. The rumor proved false, but sent many of his fans into a panic until it was revealed as an April Fool's joke.”


2003(28th of Adar II, 5763): Late in the evening, sixty-two year old  Robert M. Levine, Gabelli Senior Scholar in the Arts and Sciences, Director of Latin American Studies, and professor of history at the University of Miami, died after a determined and ever-optimistic fight against cancer.


2003(28thof Adar II, 5673): Eighty-eight year old Edward L. “Ed” Kweller who played college basketball for Duquesne before playing two years as professional in the pre-war National Basketball League passed away today.


2004(10thof Nisan, 5764): One-hundred-one year old Colonel Aaron Bank, a veteran of the OSS and founder of the “Green Berets” passed a way today(As reported by Richard Goldstein)



2004: A revival of “Sly Fox” a comedy by Larry Gelbart featuring Richard Dreyfus opened at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre today.


2005(21stof Adar, 5765): Sixty-eight year old composer and song writer Jack Keller, the Brooklyn born son of Mal and Reva Keller who worked with fellow Jewish artists Carole King, Neil Sedaka and Howard Greenfield and whose musical skills ranged from writing the theme music for television hits like “Bewitched” to writing country and western music for Ernest Tubb and Loretta Lynn passed away today in Nashville, TN.


2005: Lewis Wolff was among those purchasing the Oakland Athletics baseball team today


2005:A sign was dedicated today in Deadwood, South Dakota by the Deadwood Historic Preservation Commission in conjunction with the Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation which records information about the purchase of Hebrew Hill and some of those buried there.


2006(3rdof Nisan, 5766): In an interesting calendar coincidence, April Fool’s Day coincides with the reading of the first portion from the Book Vayikra (There’s a sermon topic in there some place)


2007: The Sunday Washington Post reviewed two books designed to “untangle Biblical tales” that have just appeared in paperback: “David and Solomon In Search of the Bible's Sacred Kings And the Roots of the Western Tradition” by Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman and “Jesus and “Yahweh: The Names Divine” by Harold Bloom.


2007:The New York Times reviewed books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including the recently released paperback edition of “Jesus and Yahweh: The Divine Name” by Harold Bloom.


2007: Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House of the US Representatives addresses the Knesset in what is her first address to a foreign government legislature. She is the highest ranking American woman to speak before the Knesset.


2007: Based on stories in the secular press, the world of Kashrut is alive and well. The Washington Post featured an article entitled “A Doughnut Shop's Change Leaves a Hole” that tells about the consequences of four Dunkin Donut stores in the Washington area to give up their kosher certification. The Chicago Tribune featured an article entitled “China Firms Clamor To Go Kosher: Businesses covet certification that lets them tap $150 billion market.”


2007: “Gefilte Fish Chronicles” airs at 7 p.m. on New York’s Channel 13. The DVD has its own website


2007(13th of Nisan, 5767): Eighty-two year old Abraham Louis Limmer who gained fame as Lou “Boomie” Limmer the major league first baseman who overcame the effects of having broken his neck and suffered temporary blindness “while sliding into third base in the Western League” to play for the Philadelphia Athletics in 1951 and 1954 passed away today.


2007(13thof Nisan, 5767): Ninety-four year old Rabbi Josef Hirsch Dunner passed away today.



2007: German Chancellor Angela Merkel received an honorary doctor of philosophy degree from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem "in recognition of her lifelong dedication to the principles of democracy and in appreciation of her warm and constant friendship for the people and State of Israel."


2008: The 92nd Street Y presents “The Year of Living Biblically,” featuring author A.J. Jacobs who discusses his most recent book, The Year of Living Biblically, in which he recounts his fascinating, enlightening and delightfully strange year trying to follow all 613 commandments in the Bible.


2008: In Washington, D.C., Sidney Blumenthal, a former advisor in the Clinton White House, discusses and signs “The Strange Death of Republican America: Chronicles of a Collapsing Party” at a Barnes and; Noble book store.


2008: Idina Menzel “kicked off her 2008-2009 "I Stand Tour" in support of her new album performing 4 sold out legs.”


2008: Shlomo “Benizri was convicted of accepting bribes, breach of faith, obstructing justice, and conspiracy to commit a crime for accepting favors worth millions of shekels from his friend, contractor Moshe Sela, in exchange for inside information regarding foreign workers scheduled to arrive in Israel.”


2008(25th of Adar II, 5768): Radio broadcaster and actress and Shosh Atari passed away at the age of 58 after suffering a serious illness. Atari was born in Rehovot, and grew up in the central town. She spent her military service in Army Radio, and after her discharge from the Israel Defense Forces worked at Channel 1 television. In the 1970s Atari joined Israel Radio as a presenter. In the 1980s, she became one of the stars of Reshet Gimmel radio, where she hosted popular music chart shows, and other programs with Tony Fine as her editor. Atari was also famous as the moderator on the "Pitzuhim" game show on the Israel's educational TV channel. At the end of the 1990s the broadcaster joined Lev Hamedina Radio. A few years ago Atari underwent a kidney transplant operation after suffering from a kidney illness. Following the operation she moved again to Reshet Gimmel, but then returned to broadcast a daily program on Lev Hamedina radio. The broadcaster also performed on the stage at the Be'er Sheva theatre. In 2004, Atari's book "Secrets and Lies" was published. In 2007 she returned to television, starring in the "It's all honey" drama series on Channel 2.


2008(25th of Adar II, 5768): Actor Mosko Alkalai, 77, died of respiratory failure. Alkalai was hospitalized and underwent surgery in Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center several weeks ago, but was unable to recover. Winner of the Israeli Film Academy's 2003 Lifetime Achievement Awards, Alkalai graced the stage and silver screen in a career spanning 21 years, appearing in dozens of theater plays and motion pictures. He also took part in various public activities and was the chairman of the Israeli Union of Performing Arts a member of the Israeli Arts Council and a member of the Israeli Film Academy.


2009:Avigdor Lieberman replaced Tzipi Livni as Minister of Foreign Affairs.


2009: Yitzhak Aharonovich replaced Avi Dichter as Minister of Internal Affiars.


2009: The Center for Jewish History, PEN, Office of Cultural Affairs, Consulate General of Israel in New York and Blue Metropolis International Literary Festival co-sponsor a PEN World Voices entitled “Evolution/Revolution: Meir Shalev in Conversation with Daniel Menaker” featuring Israeli writer Meir Shalev the author of more than 16 highly praised works, spanning fiction, non-fiction and children's books and Daniel Menaker, the former Random House Editor-in-Chief.


2009: In Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Temple Judah hosts a congregational meeting as it begins a search for its next Rabbi.


2009: The Centennial Conference for Urban Sustainability opens at the Tel Aviv Performing Arts Center.


2009: A new exhibition by the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw that has brought together photos and documents depicting the rich history of 1,000 years of Jewish life in Poland goes on display today at the European Parliament in Brussels and will run nearly a week.


2009(7thof Nisan, 5769):Marcos Moshinsky “a Mexican physicist of Ukrainian and Jewish origin whose work in the field of elementary particles won him the Prince of Asturias Prize for Scientific and Technical Investigation in 1988 and the UNESCO Science Prize in 1997” passed away today.


2009: “Picturing the Shoah,” a film festival sponsored by YIVO that explores how movies have represented the Holocaust from radical, provocative, and unexpected angles opens with a showing of “Schindler’s List.”


2010: An exhibition entitled “From Dream to Reality: Zionism and the Birth of Israel” presented by the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research is scheduled to come to an end today.


2010: An exhibition entitled “Folk Art Judaica by Herman Braginsky” presented by Yeshiva University Museum featuring carved ritual objects made of fine and aged woods, including tzedakah boxes, Torah pointers, mezuzot, dreidels, Torah arks, spice containers, and other works created by self-taught craftsman Herman Braginsky who was born in 1912 and passed away in 1999 is scheduled to come to an end today


2010:A ceremony officially classifying the Machpelah Cave in Hevron as a National Heritage Site is scheduled to be held today, as tens of thousands visit the city for a Hol Hamo'ed celebration



2010: The New York Times features a review of “Jenniemae & James: A Memoir in Black & White” in which Brooke Newman writes about her father, the famous mathematician James Newman,”the son of Jewish immigrants “who “had an I.Q. of 175.”



2010:During a visit to Damascus, Democratic Sen. John Kerry, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, reiterated US misgivings about the flow of weapons through Syria to Hizbullah and told reporters the US view is that this is "something that must stop" for there to be peace.



2011: Eatliz, one of Israel’s leading alternative rock bands, is scheduled to perform at the City Winery in New York City.



2011: The Arizona Diamondback hired former basketball front office maven Jerry Krause as a scout today.



2011: “Nora’s Will” and “Anita” are two of the films scheduled to be shown at the Westchester Jewish Film Festival.



2011:A loud explosion was heard outside the house of opposition leader Tzipi Livni today. The blast was apparently a result of a firecracker thrown at the security stand outside Livni's Tel Aviv home. Livni was not at her house when the explosion occurred.



2011:Residents from all over Israel reported that they felt an earthquake this afternoon.Israel's Geophysical Institute said the earthquake, which occurred over 800km from Israel, was mostly felt in the north of Israel, including the towns of Safed and Nahariya. At the same time as residents in Israel reported buildings shaking, a deep 5.9 magnitude earthquake struck in the sea 76 miles (120 km) east-northeast of Iraklio, a town on the Greek island of Crete, on Friday, the US Geological Survey said.



2011:Britain's first Jewish ambassador to Israel, Matthew Gould and his wife Celia had their first sabra baby girl today. Baby Rachel Elizabeth was born early this morning at the Lis Maternity Hospital in the Tel Aviv Medical Center.We are both incredibly happy and proud new parents," Gould said. "We are very grateful for the fabulous care we've received and all the mazel tovs we've been sent."



2011:“Lillian Bassman: Lingerie,” is scheduled to be published by Abrams today.



2012: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including ‘Enemies: A History of the FBI’  by Tim Weiner and ‘Mudwoman’ by Joyce Carol Oates.



2012: Aluf Ram Rothberg, commander of the Israeli Navy reportedly “ordered senior commanders to prepare for a complex, 10-day exercise in Italy with the US and Italian navies” as part of an April Fool’s Day prank that got out of hand.



2012: Anthony Russell, “an exciting new talent in the world of Yiddish music” is scheduled to perform at Temple Beth Emeth in Brooklyn.


2012: “Footnote” and “Salmon Fishing in the Yemen” are two of the films scheduled to be shown at Hartford Jewish Film Festival.


2012(9th of Nisan, 5772): Eighty-year old “Edmund L. Epstein the literary scholar who saved Lord of the Flies” passed away today. (As reported by Bruch Weber)



2012: “Spinozium” is scheduled to take place today at Theatre J in Washington, DC.



2013(21stof Nisan, 5773): Seventh Day of Pesach; Reform Jews recite Yizkor


2013(21stof Nisan, 5773): Seventy-year old William H. Ginsburg, the California civil lawyer who was thrust into the national spotlight when he represented Monica Lewinsky, passed away today.



2013: Those visiting the symphony bar are scheduled to have a chance to “experience Leopold Bloom's passage through Dublin in a dramatic episode from James Joyce’s masterwork Ulysses.”


2013: In New York, Larry Schwartz and Beth Sandweiss are scheduled to offer a course in Jewish mindfulness which is designed to integrate the knowledge and practice of Judaism with mindfulness practice and key ideas that support that practice.


2013: Beginning this morning, Israel “was hit by strong winds and dust” which led to “high levels of air pollution causing breathing complications.” (As reported by Yoel Goldman


2013: In Ancient Fear Rises Anew Lisa Abend describes the resurgence of anti-Semitism in Hungary.



2014: The Hebrew Language Table at the Library of Congress is scheduled to co-sponsor a presentation by Professor Gabriel Weimann entitled “Terrorism in Cyberspace: The Next Generation.”


2014: Episodes 3, 4 and 5 of “The Story of the Jews with Simon Schama,”are scheduled to be shown this evening.




2015: The Jewish Community Center of Northern Virginia is scheduled to host “Its Yiddish Time” with Alex Lieberman.


2015: “Woman in Gold” is scheduled to open today in U.S. theatres.



2015: “Joy of Life: Paintings by Dolorosa Rubens Margulis” is scheduled to open at the Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education.


2015: “Jewish Oklahomans” by Phil Goldfarb, Ed Harris and Katherine Frame was filed today.



2015: Anna Sapir Abulafia, the wife of historian David Afulafia, was appointed the Professor of the Study of the Abrahamic Religions in the faculty of theology and religion at Lady Margaret Hall, University of Oxford tday


2015: In recognition of the 50th anniversary of the establishment of New York City’s Landmarks Law, architectural historian and preservationist Samuel D. Gruber is scheduled to lecture on “Synagogues of New York: History, Architecture, and Community” at the Center for Jewish History.


2015: Ninety-three year old “James Venture, one of the last survivors of the infamous Train de Loos, which carried French resistance fighters, Communists and Jews from a prison in the northern French village of Loos to concentration camps in Germany in September 1944” passed away today.



2015: The second and final episode of “The Dovekeepers” a fictional account of the final days at Masada is scheduled to be shown on CBS.



2016: Kate Hinz, daughter of Stephanie and Daniel Hinz and Ben Binder, son of Janice Binder, begin their B’Nei Mitzvah weekend by helping to lead Friday night services at Temple Judah in Cedar Rapids, IA.


2016: “Beyond the Balcony: the Works of Michal Nachmany is scheduled to open today in New York City.


2016: In Fairfax, VA, the “First Friday Boaok Group” is scheduled to discuss Honeydew by Edith Pearlman.


2017(5thof Nisan, 5777): Parashat Vayikra


2017: For the second time this week Arab terrorists struck in Jerusalem today when two teenaged boys were stabbed in the Old City.


2017: In Buenos Aires, 91 year old Holocaust survivor Eugenia Unger, who usually displays the number tattooed on her arm by the Nazis, covered it with her Shabbat clothes and her talit when she celebrated her bat mitzvah today. (JTA/TOI)


2017: Bob Dylan finally received “his Nobel Literature diploma medal…during a small gathering this afternoon in a hotel” in Stockholm, Sweden. (As reported by David Keyton)


2017: In New Orleans the Jewish Children Regional Services is scheduled to host its annual gala “Jews Roots of Past, Present and Future, honoring the former and current leadership of JCRS.


2017: The Seattle Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to host a showing of “Past Life,” “a suspenseful, twisty, true tale from Israeli master Avi Nesher.”


2017: Sixty-eight year old Rabbi David Saperstein, who “for the law two years served as the US ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom” is scheduled to “return to the Union of Reform Judaism’s senior staff” today.


2018: The New York Times published books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Return of Marco Polo’s World: War, Strategy and American Interests in the Twenty-First Century by Robert D. Kaplan and (((SEMITISM))):Being Jewish in America in the Age of Trump
by Jonathan Weisman


2018(16thof Nisan, 5778): Pesach; for more see http://downhomedavartorah.blogspot.com/


2018(16th of Nisan, 5778): First Day of the Omer


2018: In Jerusalem, the Tower of David is scheduled to host a performance of “Jerusalem in My Heart” which tells “the story of Nissim, a Jew who is coming to Israel from Spain on his way to the Western Wall.”


 

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

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April 2


742: Birthdate of Charlemagne. Charlemagne was both King of the Franks and the first Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. Despite pressure from the Catholic Church and the mighty Pope Gregory, Charlemagne treated his Jewish subjects and they played a prominent part in his realm. Unfortunately, after his death in 814, his successors were unable to continue to his policies towards the Jews of Christian Europe.
1118: Baldwin I, who arrogantly styled himself King of Jerusalem.  For Jews nothing more be said then that he was a brother of Godfrey of Bouillon and a leader of the bloody First Crusade.
1279(Nisan, 5039): A number of London Jews were martyred following ritual charges. You will note that during the Easter Season there is a significant increase in these reports for several centuries in different parts of Europe.
1453: Mehmed II began his siege of Constantinople. The siege would lead to the downfall of the Byzantine capitol which would improve the lot of the Jews living in the city as well as opening it up to settlement by Jews living Crete, Transylvania and Slovakia.
1473: Matthias Corvinus, King of Hungary, under whose reign the condition of the Jews improved, and his mistress, Barbara Edelpöck gave birth to John Corvinus
1550: The Jews were expelled from of Genoa.
1678(10th of Nisan): Rabbi Judah Ashael ben David del Bene author of Kisot le-Bet David passed away
1738(12thof Nisan, 5498):  Joseph Oppenheimer was hanged. Oppenheimer, the finance minister, was arrested after the sudden death of Prince Karl of Wurttemberg. He was offered a pardon on condition of agreeing to be baptized. Although not a practicing Jew, he refused and was placed in a cage in the center of Stuttgart declaring "I will die as a Jew; I am suffering violence and injustice." He died while shouting Shema Yisrael.


1756: Benjamin D’Israeli, the Anglo-Jewish merchant who was grandfather of the British Prime Minister married his first wife, Rebecca Mendez Furtado.


1755(21st of Nisan, 5515):Aryeh Leib ben Saul Lowenstam passed away in Amsterdam. Born in Cracow this Polish rabbi was a member of long line of Jewish sages including his grandfather Rabbi Hoeschl of Cracow and his father Saul who served as rabbi of Cracow from 1700 to 1704,
1770(7th of Nisan): Rabbi PInchas Zelig of Lask, author of Ateret Paz passed away
1779(16th of Nisan, 5539): During the American Revolution France, the ally of the United States, was ten days away from signing “a secret treaty with Spain to wage war against Great Britain” Jews observed the Second Day of Pesach; first day of the Omer
1787: Ephraim Hart “he was registered as an elector of the Shearith Israel congregation” in New York City.
1791: Forty-two year old Honoré Gabriel Riqueti, comte de Mirabeau (known simply as Count Mirabeau) a leader of the French Revolution who was an admirer of Moses Mendelssohn and whose support of Jewish emancipation can be seen in his statement “Confer upon” the Jews “the enjoyment of civil rights and they will enter the ranks of peaceful citizens, passed away today.
1806: Birthdate of Gabriel Riesser, youngest son of Lazarus Jacob Riesser and an advocate for the emancipation of the Jews of Germany.
1817(16th of Nisan, 5577): Second Day of Pesach; 1st day of the Omer
1825(14th of Nisan, 5585): Shabbat HaGadol; Erev Pesach
1825: “The special privileges granted to the Portuguese Jewish citizens of Suriname were terminated by order of the Dutch crown. Thenceforth, Jews in the Dutch colonies were accorded the same rights as the other inhabitants, and all privileges, concessions and exceptions of whatever nature were abolished.” (As reported by the Suriname-Jewish Community)
1826: In Ancona, Italy, “Anna Costantini, a young girl, was torn from her family and forced into baptism.”
1827: Birthdate of English painter William Holman Hunt who moved to Palestine in the 1850’s to find inspirations for his painting and whose house at No. 64 Street of the Prophets in Jerusalem would be the future home of Hebrew language poet Rachel Bluwstein.
1840: Birthdate of Émile Zola. This non-Jewish French author would become a leading player in the Dreyfus Affair. His J”Accuse would be an indictment of the French military establishment and the anti-Semitic forces that swirled around this entire act of injustice.
1844:"The building” housing the Great Synagogue in Sidney “was consecrated today with the music for the ceremony in the hands of Isaac Nathan, father of Australian music, who was also associated with the music at St Mary's Cathedral. For the occasion Nathan composed settings for Baruch Habba ("Blessed be he that cometh") and Halleluyah.
1846: The last letter in the correspondence between Grace Aguilar and “the philanthropist Miriam Moses Cohen who acted as an agent for her publications in America” was sent today.
1862: Abraham Crawcour married Catherine Rebecca Hart today.


1863: During the Civil War, food shortages cause hundreds of angry women to riot in Richmond, Virginia and demand that the Confederate government release emergency supplies, in what became known as the Richmond Bread Riots. In her honor’s thesis entitled The Richmond Bread Riot of 1863: Class, Race, and Gender in the Urban Confederacy, MIDN 1/C Katherine R. Titus wrote that while the rioters targeted speculators and government offices “Richmond citizens also targeted foreigners and Jews. The city had a tradition of blatant anti-Semitism. Once the War erupted, many Richmond citizens openly blamed the Jews and foreigners in the city for speculation and charged them with disloyalty. Sallie A. Putnam, for instance, believed that the Jews in Richmond profited from the war. She exhorted, “They were not found, as the more interested of the people, without the means to purchase food when the Confederate money became useless to us from the failure of our cause.” Major John W. Daniel contended that local stereotypes allowed the rioters to target Richmond Jews. After the War, he reminisced, “certain people down there were credited with great wealth. It was said that they had made barrels of money out of the Confederacy, and the female Communists went at them without a qualm of conscience.”
1865:Twenty Jewish men signed a constitution that became the framework that would guide the future of Reform Jews in Akron, Ohio.
1865: Founding of the Akron Hebrew Congregation which holds services on holidays and Friday evenings.
1865: In Montgomery, Alabama, “Abraham J. Schiff, the best Hebrew scholar in Wolosin” who served as rabbi in Montgomery until moving to New York where he became rabbi at Beth Hamedresh Hagodl  and Sheve Kapaln gave birth to I.O. Schiff who “opened his first dry goods store at 105 Essex Street” and married Stella Newmark with whom he had three children.
1866(17thof Nisan, 5626) Third Day of Pesach; second day of the Omer
1867: Birthdate of Mrs. Henry Gottdiener
1869: Michael Henry became editor of The Jewish Chronicle– a position he would hold until his death in 1875.
1870(1st of Nisan, 5630): Rosh Chodesh Nisan/Shabbat HaChodesh


1871 In Baltimore, MD founding of Congregation Chizuk Amunah whose members included by M.S. Levy, Joseph Levi, and Milton Fleischer and has been served by Rabbi Henry W. Schneeberger and Canto Herman Glass.

1874(15thof Nisan, 5634): Pesach


1877(19th of Nisan): Rabbi Chaim Bezalel of Bielitz, Poland, author of “Derekh Yivhar” passed away.


1878: In New York City, Austrian Jewish immigrants Fanny Ritterman and Bernard Kasner gave birth to their sixth child mathematician Edward Kasner.

1881: It was reported today that the population of Thessaly, which is moving from Turk to Greek rule includes 50,000 Jews and Muslims as well as 300,000 who are classified as Greeks.


1882:The New York Times reported that “the feast of Passover will commence tomorrow evening at sundown in accordance with the rabbinical ordinance which lays it down that it shall be celebrated from the evening of the 14thof Nisan and continues for eight days. It is regarded strictly as a feast of rejoicing and it’s a pleasant illustration of the liberalizing tendency of the age that many Jews make it a custom to send small presents of unleavened bread to the Christian friends”


1882: The New York Times publishes an excerpt from “Domestic and Artistic Life of Copely” by Martha Babcock Amory in which the author describes a dinner with Baroness Lionel Rothschild in 1857.


1883: After telling him that it was customary for newly engaged couple to announce their intention to become man and wife before an official at City Hall, the relatives of Pauline Moses to David Holtz to City Hall where an alderman performed a marriage ceremony; a fact not understood by Holtz because of his limited knowledge of the English language.


1886(26th of Adar): Rabbi Aryeh Leib Yellin, author of Yefeh Einayim passed away today


1887(8th of Nisan, 5647): Shabbat HaGadol


1887(8th of Nisan, 5647): Sixty-one year old Austrian mathematician Simon Spitzer who became a professor of analytic mechanics at the Vienna “Handelsschule” in 1870 passed away today.


1890: The Passover Association distributed free matzoth to over four thousand poor Jews this evening at the Goodfellow’s Hall on Essex Street in New York.


1890: The New York Times reported that the American Hebrew will be publishing a special Passover edition this Friday.


1890: It was suggested at today’s meeting of the New York Board of Estimate and Apportionment that the old Hebrew Orphan and Asylum on 77th Street could be used for the proposed new offices of the city’s Board of Education.


1891: Birthdate of Max Ernst founder of surrealism who with his Jewish wife Luise Straus gave birth to painter Jimmy Straus and who was briefly married to Peggy Guggenheim at the end of 1941.


1892: Simon Schafer, M.H. Moses, Judge M.S. Isaacs and A.L. spoke at tonight’s meeting of the Purim Association which was held at the Hoffman House tonight.


1892: “Want To Hear Cleveland” published today described the ex-President’s popularity in New York as can be seen by warm reception his supporters receive when they address rallies of Russian Jews.  The Russians barely understand English, but the sound of Cleveland’s name is enough to bring out shouts of approval..


1893(16th of Nisan, 5653): Second Day of Pesach; first day of the Omer


1893: At Temple Emanu-El, Dr. Silverman is scheduled to deliver a lecture on “The Crucifixition.”


1893: It was reported today that in German “the Conservatives have definitely thrown over Rector Hermann Ahlwardt the Jew baiter and libeler.”  However, their rejection has not stopped him from making public speeches and holding anti-Semitic rallies.


1893: “Fine British Weather” published today described the social and political events taking place in the UK including plans by “an organization of progressive young Jews…to propose at all annual meetings of the synagogue throughout England, most of which are held next week, a resolution that it is not desirable to elect a man engaged in money lending as President of the congregation.”


1893: Dr. Silverman is scheduled to give an address at Temple Emanu-El on “The Crucifixion.”


1893: The New York Times reported that “an organization of progressive young Jews has arranged to propose at all annual meetings of the synagogues throughout England, most of which are held next week, a resolution that it is not desirable to elect a man engaged in money lending as President of the congregation.”


1894: It was reported today that approximately 50 Jews, many of them women attended the evangelistic service at the Thalia Theatre Auditorium although there was no report of any of them coming forward to convert.  (These services were part of a concerted effort by some Christians to convert Jewish immigrants at the turn of the century)


1896: The will of the late Charles S. Friedlander was filed with the Surrogate today for probate.


1896: The funeral for Dr. Aaron Wise was held this morning at Temple Rodolph Shalom, the New York congregation he had served as Rabbi for several years.


1896(19thof Nisan, 5656): Leonard Friedman, who is approximately 52 years old, passed away today at Lakewood, NU.  A native of Germany, he came to the United States and after fighting his way out of poverty established Leonard Friedman & Co which over the last twenty years has become one of the leading tobacco houses in the United States.


1896: Funeral services were held for Dr. Aaron Wise, who had been rabbi at New York’s Temple Rudolph Shalom at the time of his death. The services at the Lexington Avenue Temple were attended by so many mourners that “not one half could gain entrance to the synagogue.” Several of New York’s leading clergy took part in the ceremony including Dr. Rudolph Grossman of Temple Beth-El, Dr. Kaufmann Kohler also of Temple Beth-El who delivered an address in German and Dr. Gustav Gottheil of Temple Emanuel who delivered a eulogy in English in which he said of Wise, “The spirit of his words cannot die. The influence of the teacher has not limits as to time or space.” Burial followed the service in Union Field, Cypress Hills Cemetery.


1897: Reverend John Hall delivered a lecture on “Judaism and Christianity” in which he said “There is a distinction between Judaism as described in the Bible and the Judaism of the present generation.”


1897: A school designed to teach students how to cook food according to the laws of Kashrut opened today in Brooklyn in a neighborhood with a large Jewish population.


1897: In New York, Governor Frank Black appointed Jewish philanthropist and Republican Party activist Edward Lauterbach to serve as a member of the State Board of Charities.


1897: In Austria, Count Casimir Badeni resigned during a government crisis that was precipitated, in part, by his clash with the anti-Semitic parties.


1897: Julius Goldschmidt who had been Consul General in Vienna under President Harrison began serving as Consul General to Berlin


1898(10thof Nisan, 5658): Shabbat Hagadol


1898(10thof Nisan, 5658):Austrian pathologist and histologist Salomon Stricker passed away.


1899” In Richmond, VA, founding of the Hebrew Sheltering Aid Society which “furnishes shelter and means of transportation to strangers and whose members included E.C. Meyer, Philip Hirshberg, S.I. Hirshberg and D.S. Sharove.


1899: At the Hebrews Sheltering Guardian Society Orphan Asylum, Chaplain Joseph Kauffman officiated at service were a “bronze tablet in memory of Samuel Lewisohn” was unveiled.


1899: “Disraeli and the Suez Canal” published today provided a summary an article by Arnold White that appeared in Harper’s Weekly describing the British leader’s role in facilitating the purchase of this vital waterway from which he gained no financial advantage.


1902: “Controversy Over Hen Fattened For Passover” published in today’s Atlanta Constitution described a complaint filed by Leo Fresh with police to retrieve the chicken that he was preparing to take to a “shocket” which had mysteriously ended up in the yard of a neighbor lady who planned to have it killed in a manner not consistent with the laws of Kashrut.


1903: The High Court of Australia sits for the first time. In 1930, Isaacs Isaacs would become the third person to fill this position and the first Jew to serve as Chief Justice of Australia.


1903: Herzl meets McIlwraithe, the legal adviser of the Khedive where he finds out that an immediate counter-proposal is out of question. The size of the land and the duration of the contract are discussed.


1904(17thof Nisan, 5664): Shabbat shel Pesach


1905: The Executive Committee presented “the policy with regard to the granting of the degree of Doctor of Divinity and the degree of Doctor of Hebrew Literature as well as the formal requirement for the granting of these degrees was presented today to the meeting of the Board of Directors of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America.


1905: President N. Taylor Phillips presided over “the second annual meeting of the New York Branch of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America where the nominating committee composed of Dr. Cyrus Adler, Julius Dukas and Simon was formed and the following were chosen to service as officers – Edgar J. Nathan, President; Isaac J. Danziger, Vice President; Daniel Guggenheim, Treasurer; and Joseph B. Abrahams, Secretary.   


1906: During the conference at Algeciras, Morocco, “Mr. White, the chief of the American delegation and the Duke of Almodovar raised the question of “the unfavorable situation of the Jews in Morocco.”     


1906: Tonight, in Clinton Hall, “at the installation of the newly elected officers of the Zionist Council of Greater New York, Dr. J. L. Magnes, the Secretary of the American Federation of Zionists read…a copy of a proclamation issued against the Jews in Russia” which he said practically meant that there would be another Pogrom in Ekaterinoslov.


1907: In Brooklyn, movie producer Louis B. Meyer “and his first wife Margaret Shenberg gave birth Irene Mayer Selznick famed as the producer of Street Car Named Desire and the younger sister of Edith Selznick who was born in 1905


1909: Ahmed Riza Bey, President of Turkish Parliament, offered Russian and Romanian Jews who were suffering tremendous persecution and attacks a chance to come settle in Turkey.


1911: The newly formed Grand Council of the Jewish Community of Constantinople expresses loyalty of all Jews of all parties to the Ottoman Empire.


1911:Rose Schneiderman, a prominent socialist and union activist, gave a speech at the memorial meeting held in the Metropolitan Opera House today to an audience largely made up of the members of the Women's Trade Union League in which she used the Triangle Fire as an argument for factory workers to organize:


1912(15thof Nisan, 5672): As TR and Taft battled for control of the Republican Party, observance of Pesach observed the first day of Pesach.


1912: Today “two wagons left the corner of Lilienblum and Herzl Streets in Tel Aviv carrying 4 "Ahuza" members, 3 laborers and 2 armed watchmen. After a 5 hour journey, they unloaded their baggage at the place destined to become Ra'anana which has grown to become a city of almost 70,000 people living in Israel’s Central District.


1912(15th of Nisan, 5672): Fifty women attended a Seder tonight at the Young Women’s Hebrew Association building on Lexington Avenue. The attendance was limited by the size of the building underscoring the need to build a new facility.


1913: Isador H. Weinstock, the Cantor of the Plum Street Synagogue in Cincinnati, presented a program on “The Music of the Synagogue” at “the seventh regular meeting” of the Isaiah Woman’s Club.


1913: Funeral services were held today for Bernard Wolf, the husband of Amalia Wolf and “father of Mrs. Numa Lachman and Mrs. Isador Brown” at K.A.M. Temple in Chicago followed by burial at Mount Maariv.


1913:Today, Jews living in New York City brought copies of letters from family members living in Anatolia describing persecution by Greeks living in that part of the Ottoman Empire to the attention of the American Jewish Committee. They called upon the committee to intervene on the behalf of their co-religionists and to organize a protest against these outrages.


1914: The officers of the Jewish Soldiers and Sailors Passover Committee met at the Broadway Central Hotel in New York. After the meeting, Henry Berlin, Chairman of the Arrangements Committee, reported that Secretary of War Garrison and Secretary of the Navy Daniels had sent letters announcing that Jewish soldiers and sailors would receive furloughs to celebrate Passover this year.


1914(6th of Nisan, 5674): Paul Heyes, the first Jew to win the Nobel Prize for Literature, passed away today at the age of 84. A native of Bonn, “he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1910 ‘as a tribute to the consummate artistry, permeated with idealism, which he has demonstrated during his long productive career as a lyric poet, dramatist, novelist and writer of world-renowned short stories.’ One of the Nobel judges, said that ‘Germany has not had a greater literary genius since Goethe.’" [Considering what would happen to the Jews of German two decades after his death, this praise has a strange ring to it. Also, Heyes is living proof that winning a Nobel Prize is no guarantee to lasting fame, even among his co-religionists.]


1914: In New York, Mr. and Mrs. Percy Salomon gave birth to William Roger Salomon who would become a long time managing partner of the bond trading house Salomon Bros.

1915: Today “Henry Fischel, the Treasurer of the Central Committee for the Relief of Jews Suffering through the War” “received a donation of five dollars from Leo Frank” who faces the death penalty in Georgia” and who compared “his own suffering with that now being borne by Jews in the war zones.”


1916: At ninth anniversary services of the Free Synagogue led by Dr. Stephen S. Wise, Ambassador Henry Morgenthau talked about plans to move the congregation from its home in Carnegie Hall to a temple building to be built in the center of Manhattan that will be better suited to the religious mission.


1916: Grand Master Samuel Goldstein presided over the convention of the Independent Order of the Free Sons of Judah in the Bronx today which was attended by approximately “450 delegates representing 18,237 member of the Jewish fraternal organization” who heard Rabbi Joseph Rosenblatt lead a memorial service for Jews who have been killed during the war in Europe.


1916: “Joseph H. Cohen, President of the Beth Israel, today announced a plan to build a West Side Jewish Community Center” on 88th Street between Columbus and Amsterdam avenues which “contain a synagogue, a library, a gymnasium, kindergarten, public hall, roof garden and class rooms for educational work.”


1917(NS): Today “the Provisional Government—in power until a Constituent Assembly could be called to determine the character of the successor Russian state—abolished all the legal restrictions on ethnic and religious communities, including Jews” which meant that “for the first time since they had been admitted to the Russian Empire, Jews gained full equality with all other citizens” which stood in mark contrast to the era of the “tsarist regime which had confined Jews to the Pale of Settlement and had severely restricted their opportunities in agriculture, the professions, military service, education” and governmental or civil unless Jews agreed to convert to Christianity.


1917: According to a cable message received today by Louis Marshall, Chairman of the American Jewish Relief Committee from Baron Alexander Gunzburg in Petrograd, “all laws of Russia which are adverse to the Jews there are to be repealed by a decree of the provisional Government.”


1917: President Wilson asked the United States Congress for a declaration of war against Germany. This was the first official step towards America’s entry into World War I as a combatant on the side of the Allies. While American Jews supported the war effort and served in all branches of the armed forces, there was an unintended downside for the Jews living in Central and Eastern Europe. It was easier for American Jews to get aid to their suffering co-religionists when the United States was a “neutral.” Once it joined the Allied side, the Central Powers (Germany and Austria) it would be much more difficult to get help to those living in the war torn areas under the control of these nations.


1918: In Bohemia, the Emperor pardoned Leopold Hilsner a shoemaker who was serving a life term after having been convicted “on the charge of ritual murder” in 1900.


1918: At Vienna “in an address to a deputation of the City Council…the Minister of Foreign Affairs said that in the peace negotiations between the Central Powers and Romania, the Jewish question will be solved with equal rights being guaranteed to the Jews of Roumania.


1918: One day after his death on the Western Front, a letter written by poet and painter Isaac Rosenberg which had been written three days earlier arrives in London. In the letter he describes life in the trenches.


1919: Dr. Rudolph I Coffee delivered a speech on “Peace Treaty” at the Teachers Institute of Boone County “under the auspices of the Illinois Branch of the League to Enforce Peace.”


1919: In Chicago, Lillian Mitnick and Abe Diaman of Kansas City, MO were married at the Ashland Clubhouse.


1919: In Chicago, Blanche Mosbach, the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Isaac Mosbach married Maxwell Glassner at the family’s home on Michigan Avenue.


1921: Professor Albert Einstein held a press conference aboard the steamship Rotterdam today in New York Harbor. During the conference Einstein talked about his Theory of Relativity and his support for the creation of a Jewish homeland in Palestine.


1921:Rufus Daniel Isaacs, 1st Marquess of Reading, began serving as Viceroy and Governor-General of India.


1923(16th of Nisan, 5653): Second Day of Pesach; 1st day of the Omer


1922: “Two wagons left the corner of Lilienblum and Herzl Streets in Tel Aviv carrying 4 "Ahuza" members, 3 laborers and 2 armed watchmen. After a 5 hour journey, they unloaded their baggage at the place destined to become Ra'anana, a city in the heart of the southern Sharon Plain of the Central District of Israel with a population of 68,300, as of 2009.”


1923(16thof Nisan, 5683): Second day of Pesach


1925: According to a cable message that was made public today by Judge Jacob S. Stahl, President of the American Palestine Line steamship company, the SS President Arthur has arrived in Haifa. The liner with 500 prominent American Jews from all parts of the United States sailed on March 12 on her maiden voyage to inaugurate a regular service between New York and the Holy Land.


1925: At “the groundbreaking ceremony of the Hebrew University on April 2, 1925 Edmund Landau lectured in Hebrew on the topic Solved and unsolved problems in elementary number theory.


1925: The Vatucan’s Holy Office published a decree saying that the Catholic Church, whatever its other views on Jew maybe, “condemns hatred against the people elected by God, a hatred that today is vulgarly called anti-Semitism.” (For more see Under His Very Windows by Susan Zucotti)


1926: “Gdal Saleski, the Russian violoncellist” “who is a graduate of the Petrograd Conservatory of Music” “gave a recital” this “evening at Steinway Hall” accompanied by violinist Yasha Fishberg and pianist Lazare Weiner.


1926: It was reported today that according to the census taken by The Christian Herald “numbers the members of Jewish congregations at 357,135” but notes “that these are chiefly heads of families.


1926: “The twentieth anniversary of the Palestine Maccabee Sport was celebrated in Tel Aviv” today where Lord Plumer distributed the prizes.


1927: Samuel Untermyer arrived in Jerusalem after a “rough” flight from Cairo that included “a detour of thirty miles over the Mediterranean to avoid a sand storm.”


1927: It was reported today that Aaron Sapiro who has been testifying in the libel suit he brought against Henry Ford will spend the weekend in Chicago on personal business before returning to the stand on Monday to continue answering questions from James A. Reed, the Senator from Missouri who is representing Henry Ford, the anti-Semitic car maker.


1927: “Service for Jewish Patients” published today described the services available “to Jewish patients in all of the city hospitals on Welfare Island” including the presence of Jewish social workers who can help the Jewish patients “in a non-Jewish institution.”


1928: Birthdate of actress Rita Gam who was the wife of director Sidney Lumet and publisher Thomas Guinzberg (not at the same time) and the mother of producer Kate Guinzburg


1928: In Paris Olga (nee Bessman) and Joseph Ginsburg gave birth to Lucien Ginsburg who gained fame as Serge Gainsbourg, a poet, singer, songwriter, actor, director and finally controversial guest on French television talks shows.


1929: The rabbinical commencement exercises of the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary and Yeshiva College, the first in three years and the first in the new building of the institution, were held today. Dr. Bernard Revel delivered an address in which he warned of the dangers of “religious illiteracy and urged that synagogues become centers of faith. Among those receiving diplomas were forty-one newly minted rabbis and 45 teachers.”


1930: Isaac Isaacs completes his service as Puisine Justice of the High Court of Australia and begins serving as the as Chief Justice of Australia.


1930: Haile Selassie is proclaimed emperor of Ethiopia. Part of his title included the honorific “Conquering Lion of the Tribe of Judah” which is tied to the contention that the Ethiopian rulers traced their origin to a relationship between King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. During World War II, Orde Wingate would aid the king in his fight against the Italians. This is the same Orde Wingate who was stationed in Palestine before World War II. He was one of the few British officers who was supportive of the efforts of the Jews to defend themselves against the Arab who were attacking them. Wingate reportedly provided training for the Zionists in basic military tactics and weapons usage.


1931(15thof Nisan, 5691): Pesach


1931: “The Street Song,” “a musical crime film” directed and produced by Lupu Pick was released in Germany today.


1931: “The Cleveland Indians picked” Moe Berg up today when “Chicago put him on waivers.”


1931: U.S. premiere of “Skippy” directed by Norman Taurog who won an Academy Award, with a script co-authored by Joseph L. Mankiewicz and Sam Mintz.


1931: As Jews gathered to observe the second Passover of the Great Depression Rabbis focused their holiday talks on the worsening economic conditions of the day and the need for reform. Sermons mixed holiday motifs and symbolism with the rise in unemployment and deteriorating social conditions. Using the Ten Plagues as his point of departure Rabbi Rosenblum of Temple Israel “declared that the unsettled economic condition of the world was the greatest plague of our era and that the leaders of government and business were responsible for the chaos and misery. Capitalism seems to be a Pharaoh…If Pharaoh listens he will not suffer ten plagues. If he does not, the very first plague will yet come to pass. It will be a revolution and blood.” At Temple Rodeph Shalom, Rabbi Newman “said that Passover, the Jewish festival of freedom, commemorated the release of the Israelites not only from political bondage but economic enslavement as well.” Rabbi Samuel Schulman broadened the scope a bit by pointing out the “power of religion to free or enslave man and emphasizing that real freedom required economic freedom which would allow for just and equal opportunity for every individual to use his powers in accordance with his ability and to receive just rewards.” (Sounds a bit like Marx and Moses meeting on New York’s fashionable east side.) But it was left to Rabbi Jonah Wise preaching at New York’s Central Synagogue to pull all elements of religion including Christianity together with the great crisis facing the nation. “Men are trained by loyalties to country, church and self to refuse to share life with foreigners, non-conformists and competitors. We shall never have security and morality until we learn to live at peace. We are making occasional breaches in the Chinese wall of creeds, tariffs and prejudices. Passover and Easter are supposed to be feasts of freedom and salvation. They are farces in the face of humanity starved in the presence of plenty and condemned to hatreds in fact while applauding love in theory.”


1933: “The Nazis Begin To Dodge Anti-Semitic Boomerang” published today examine the effects of the government’s boycott of Jewish stores in Germany.

1934:Birthdate of Paul Joseph Cohen famed mathematician who developed a technique he called “forcing.” He won the Fields Medal in 1966.

1935: In Tel Aviv, the second Maccabiah Games opened “before 40,000 spectators at the Maccabiah Stadium. The German contingent marched flagless amid the fluttering colors of the other teams entering the venue. The American team including Janice Lifson, Doris Kelm and Lillian Copeland, placed “fourth in the “Tel Aviv Prepares Its Greatest Fair” published today Joseph M. Levy describes plan for the upcoming Levant Fair slated to open at the end of this month.


1936(10thof Nisan, 5696): Eighty year old Mrs. Ethel “Etta” Yaroshev Cutler, the native of Ukraine and wife of Isaac Cutler who was the mother of Colonel Harry Cutler, the Chairman of the Jewish Welfare Board who had passed away in 1920, passed away today after which she was buried in the Sons of David and Israel Cemetery in Providence, R.I.


1936: Birthdate of Shaul Paul Ladany, the Professor of Industrial Engineering and Management at Ben Gurion University and two-time Olympian who survived Bergen-Belson and the 1972 Munich Massacre.

1936: The “formal presentation of the 1935 American Hebrew Medal for the Promotion of Better Understanding between Christian and Jews in America” is scheduled to “be made to Roger Williams Straus” the co-chairman of the National Conference of Jews and Christians at ceremonies being held “in the auditorium of the College of the City of New York.”


1936: The list of ten true or false questions that was created by a professor at the Rhode Island State College for a test that will demonstrate “the amount of scientific thinking done by the person taking the test included: “The Christian faith is the only true one” and “Any nation that persecutes the Jews, as Germany has done recently be totally uncivilized.”


1936: “Edwin Goodman, president of Bergdorf-Goodman was named” tonight “as chairman of the dress division of the Greater New York Campaign of the Joint Distribution committee for the Aid of Jews in German, Central and Eastern” at a dinner at the Harmonie Club.


1936: Rabbi Jonah B. Wise spoke to a dinner at the Metropolis Club, where “a group of members reported that they had raised $30,000” which will go toward meeting the $75,000 quota set by the Joint Distribution Committee.


1937(21st of Nisan, 5697): Seventh day of Pesach


1937(21st of Nisan, 5697): Nathan Birnbaum passed away. Born in Vienna in 1864, Birnbaum coined the terms Zionists and Zionism in 1890. He was active with Herzl in the First Zionist Congress. However, he later drifted away from the movement becoming more concerned with a renaissance in Jewish culture and traditional Judaism. He left Germany after Hitler came to power and moved to the Netherlands where he continued his writings.


1937: In Warsaw, “the Minister of Education issued a decree today dissolving the militant ant-Semitic Nationalist students’ organizations in” universities in Warsaw and Vilna.


1937: On the outskirts of Warsaw at Sokolow and Lukow, “all the Jewish market stands were smashed and many Jews were injured and driven from the marketplaces today by a stone-hurling mob.”


1973: Twenty-five year old New York City native Edward Isaac Lending arrived in Spain where he would fight with the Lincoln Brigade against the fascist forces of Franco.


1937: In Albania, the Jewish community was granted official recognition by the government. The largest Jewish populations were located in Kavaje and Vlora. Approximately, 600 Jews were living in Albania prior to World War II, 400 of who were refugees. At the beginning of World War II, hundreds of Jews arrived in Albania seeking refuge from Nazi persecution in other regions of Europe.


1938(1stof Nisan, 5698): Rosh Chodesh Nisan and Shabbat HaChodesh


1938(1stof Nisan, 5698): Moise Micha Sapir the fourth commander of the Botwin Company (named for Naftali Botwin, the Polish Jewish radical executed in 1924) was killed at Lerida today during the Spanish Civil War.


1941: In what would prove to be a prelude to the Farhud in June, today “Rashid 'Ali al-Kailani, an anti-British nationalist politician from one of the leading families in Baghdad, carried out a military coup against the pro-British government in Iraq” which “was supported by four high-ranking army officers nicknamed the “Golden Square,” and by the former Mufti of Jerusalem, Hajj Amin al-Husayni.


1941: Hungarian Premier Count Pál Telecki committed suicide rather than collaborate with Germany. This is only one small chapter in the complex story of Hungary’s involvement in World War II. For much of the war, Hungary’s Jewish population would remain comparatively untouched by the raging Holocaust. Only in the final year of the war would the final solution come to this eastern European state.


1942: Birthdate of Larry Selman whose life would captured in documentary “The Collector of Bedford Street.” (As reported by Paul Vitello)

1943:At the Thirty-eighth Council of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, which opened its three-day meeting in the Hotel New Yorker today,speakers declared that only through the creation of an international structure of mutual responsibility will the world obtain a lasting post-war peace period.


1943: “Flight for Freedom” based loosely on the disappearance of Amelia Earhart, directed by Lothar Mendes, one of the many refugees from Nazi Germany, was released today in the United States.


1944: Today, 90 Jews who were captured by the Nazis at Chalcis, a port on the Greek island of Euboea are shipped to Auschwitz.


1944: In Haifa, British police discovered a cache of arms belonging to the Stern Gang following a bombing which caused the death of a Jewish constable and wounded a British policeman.


1944: At night, British authorities arrested more than sixty individuals many of whom were reported to be “members of the Jewish revisionist party known as the New Zionist Organization.”


1945: In a letter to Chaim Weizmann, president of the Jewish Agency for Palestine, Peter Bergson provides a description of the efforts of the Hebrew Committee of National Liberation (H.C.N.L.) to save the Jews of Europe and create a Jewish state.


1945: After more than three years of service, Laurence A. Steinhardt left his post as Ambassador to Turkey.


1946: In Cleveland, Ohio, Mrs. Henry Gottdiener celebrated her 79thbirthday today.


1948: U.S. premiere of “B.F.’s Daughter” produced by Edwin H. Knopf and filmed by cinematographer Joseph Ruttenberg.


1948: British Forces arrive at the air field south of Beit Darass looking for arms that had been delivered to the Jews. They found nothing since the Jews had hidden the weapons in the surrounding collective settlements.


1948: In response to Soviet order to restrict shipments of goods to Berlin by the Allies General Lucius Clay ordered that all supplies be sent by air marking the actual start of the Berlin Airlift. (Editor’s note – this entry serves as a reminder that the events surrounding the creation of Israel took place at the same time that Russia was pursuing a ruthless policy of imperialism across Europe.)


1950(15th of Nisan, 5710): First Day of Pesach


1952:The Jerusalem Post reported that the Knesset passed the Nationality Act which was expected to confer automatic Israeli citizenship on all Jewish residents, and some of the non-Jews, on July 14, 1952. The vote was 43 to 17. The Knesset defeated, by a vote of 25 to 16, a proposal made by Herut which would require all persons holding dual citizenship to give up one nationality within two years after becoming Israeli citizens.


1952:The Jerusalem Post reported that a report from The Hague stated that the German delegation to the reparations talks left for Germany for further consultations. The Israeli delegation denied that there was any "crisis" in the talks and explained that the preliminary, informative stage of deliberations drew to a close, and a formula for further talks had been agreed upon. The delegation hoped that this would allow for good progress in the further discussions and actual negotiations. A small letter bomb, containing 40 grams of modern explosives, was sent to the leader of the German reparations delegation at The Hague. It failed to explode when opened in the mail room of the German Embassy.


1952:The Jerusalem Post reported that the IDF had completed "Operation Ma’barot," the winter-long assistance extended by various army units to new immigrants in their camps.


1954: In Hong Kong, a Centenary Dinner was held celebrating the 100 anniversary of the founding of the Shanghai Volunteer Corps which from 1932 through 1942 included Company H or “The Jewish Company.”

1955: Today, “six weeks after being sacked from a managerial position at AC Mila,” Hungarian born Jewish “soccer legend” Bela Guttman “lost control of a car he was driving, killing one teenager and seriously injuring another.”


1958: Release date for “The Young Lions,” the cinematic treatment of Irwin Shaw’s novel of the same named produced by Al Lichtman one of the main protagonist of which is “Noah Ackerman”


1961(16thof Nisan, 5721): Second Day of Pesach


1961: ABC broadcast the first episode of “The Asphalt Jungle” created and produced by Mel Epstein.


1961: It was reported today that Cincinnati industrialist Julian A. Pollack is survived by his second wife, Gertrude, “a daughter, Mrs. Morton A. Rauh of Yellow Springs, Ohio and two sons, David Pollack of Cincinnati and Julian Jr. Pollack of Arlington, VA.


1962:Frieda Caplan opened her specialty produce company, Frieda's Inc., which has introduced a wide array of exotic produce to the American market.


1965(29thof Adar II, 5725): Eighty-three year old Hebrew Union College graduate Dr. Abraham Cronbach, the son of Marcus and Hanna Itzig and husband of Rose Hentil who began his rabbinical career at the Reform congregation of Temple Beth Elin South Bend, Indiana” passed away today.

1965: Birthdate of Rachel Freier, the daughter of Chasidic Jews from Borough Park and the wife of David Frier who when she “was elected as a Civil Court judge for the Kings County 5th judicial district in New York State” became the first Hasidic Jewish woman to be elected as a civil court judge in New York State and the “first Hasidic woman to hold public officein United States history.”


1965: Hochhuth’s play "Stellvertreter" was banned in Italy. In English, the play is called "The Deputy." It was a sensation at the time for its dramatic portrayal of the negative role Pope Pious XII played during the Holocaust in terms of saving the Jews from the Holocaust and resisting the Nazis.


1970: An Israeli Phantom jet piloted by Pini Nahmani was shot down over a Damascus suburb. Nahmani was imprisoned in the al-Mazza Prison in Damascus.


1972(18thof Nisan, 5732): Fourth Day of Pesach


1972(18thof Nisan, 5732): Sixty-two year old Chemistry Professor and patent holder Dr. David Perlman passed away today.

1972: Actor Charlie Chaplin returned to the United States for the first time since being labeled a communist in the early 1950s during the Red Scare.


1973(29thof Adar II, 5733): Seventy-four year old Jascha Horenstein, a native of Kiev who became a leading American conductor passed away today.

1974: Tonight, at the 46th annual Academy Awards, Marvin Hamlisch won three Oscars “including Best Song and Best Dramatic Score for The Way We Were along with the award for Best Song Score and/or Adaptation for The Sting.”


1977: “The Ascent” a Russian film set in WW II with music by Alfred Schnittke, the son of Frankfurt born journalist Harry Viktorovich Schnittke and grandson of “philologist and translator” Tea Abramovna Katz was released in the Soviet Union today.


1978: CBS broadcast the first episode of “Dallas” a five-part mini-series created by David Jacobs that proved so popular it became a regular weekly show that lasted until May of 1991.


1978: Birthdate of Nicholas Evan “Nick” Berg “the American freelance repairman” who was beheaded by Islamist terrorists in Iraq who were so proud of the act that they put the video on the internet.

1979: Menachem Begin visited Cairo, Egypt. The historic visit followed the historic peace treaty that Begin and Sadat had signed. Begin was the first Israeli Prime Minister to visit Egypt.


1981: “Seventy-five British academics signed a letter to Soviet Minister of Culture Petr Demichev protesting the repeated harassment of Hebrew teachers and students in the Soviet Union.”


1981: “Anatoly Shcharansky, the Jewish Prisoner of Zion, who is serving a sentence in a Urals labor camp, informed his mother that in January 1981 he was sentenced to six months’ solitary confinement, and deprived of family visits in 1981.”


1982: “Ivan Kovalev, 28, one of the last active members of the Helsinki Group of dissidents monitoring Soviet abuses of human rights, was sentenced by the Moscow City Court to five years in a labor camp followed by five years’ internal exile.”


1982:Jewish militants opposing Israel's withdrawal from Sinai tried to reach the area by boat today after the army closed it to unauthorized civilians and set up roadblocks


1987(3rd of Nisan, 5747): Famed drummer and orchestra leader Buddy Rich passed away at the age of 69. According to some sources, only Rich’s father was Jewish. However, on the official Buddy Rich Website, Rich’s religion is listed as Jewish

1987:Theater of the Riverside Church offered a rare look at Israeli Experimentalist Theater and dance when it presented Tmu-Na today. The Tel-Aviv group, founded in 1982 by Nava Zukerman, takes its name from the Hebrew word for moving pictures.


1988(15 of Nisan, 5748): Pesach


1989(26th of Adar II, 5749): Jack Ruby Lindo whose tombstone in the Anglican cemetery in Ocho Rio has a “large six-pointed Star of David” passed away today.

1992: Bernard Kouchner began serving as Minister of Health of France.


1992: Jack Lang completed his second term as Culture Minister of France.


1993: “The Crush” directed and written by Alan Shapiro and starring Alicia Silverstone was released in the United States today.


1993: “Jack The Bear” a film based on the novel of the same name directed by Marshall Herskovitz was released today in the United States.


1993: “Cop and a Half” a comedy directed by Henry Winkler was released in the United States today.


1993: CBS broadcast the first episode of “Good Advice” a sitcom with scripts co-authored by Max Mutchnick.


1995: Two members of Hamas blew themselves up in Gaza City while preparing for an attack on Israel.


1995: In “Central Synagogue; A $500,000 Restoration of an 1872 Masterwork,” published today Christopher Gray traces the history of Central Synagogue, one of the most spectacular houses of worship in New York City, is a rare surviving example of early Victorian religious architecture. Construction sheds are now going up for a $500,000 restoration of the building's 1872 stone exterior. Central Synagogue, which was originally called Ahawath Chesed, was founded in 1846 by immigrants from Prague and the nearby regions of what was then Bohemia.


1996: “The Dreyfus Affair” is scheduled to have its American premiere at the New York City Opera this evening.


1997(24thof Adar II, 5757): Forty-nine year old Hedi Kravis, the Brooklyn born daughter of psychiatrist Bernard Shulman, the first wife Henry Kravis, passed away today. (As reported by Lawrence Van Gelder)

1998:”Israel Offers Pullout if Lebanon Bars Raids” published today described the conditions under which Israel will leave its neighbor to the north.

2000:The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or special interest to Jewish readers including “I Will Bear Witness:A Diary of the Nazi Years, 1942-1945by Victor Klemperer; translated by Martin Chalmers and the recently released paperback edition of “Playing for Keeps:Michael Jordan and the World He Made”by David Halberstam


2000:Columbia University and the Jewish Campus Life Fund celebrates the dedication and cornerstone-laying, of the Robert K. Kraft Family Center for Jewish Student Life, a new $11.5 million building that fulfills the long-held goal of creating a permanent home for Columbia's vibrant and diverse Jewish student community. The building is named for the family of Robert K. Kraft, a 1963 graduate of Columbia College and University Trustee since 1991. His lead gift in 1993 launched the building campaign for the Center.


2001: Scott Schoeneweis was awarded the honor of being the Angels' opening day starter today (his first such assignment) and he pitched effectively, yielding 3 runs and 8 hits in 7 innings; but Anaheim lost to Texas, 3-2.


2001: Pitcher Tony Cogan played in his first major league game as a player with the Kansas City Royals.


2002: As part of Operation Defensive Shield, the IDF entered the booby-trapped camp at Jenin and ”surrounded the headquarters of the Preventive Security Force in nearby Beitunia.”


2002: Israeli forces surrounded the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem after 200 Palestinian terrorists took refuge inside. Instead of storming the church, the IDF surrounded the building a laid siege to the armed killers.


2002: Frieda Caplan's specialty produce company, Frieda's Inc., which has introduced a wide array of exotic produce to the American market, celebrated forty years in business.


2003: Milwaukee Brewers Pitcher Matt Ford appears in his first major league baseball game.


2004: “Home on the Range” an animated musical western featuring the voice or Roseanne Barr was released in the United States today.


2005: Pope John Paul II, “the Polish Pope” whose efforts to improve relations with the Jewish people included the first Papal visits to Auschwitz, a synagogue and Yad Vashem as well as his decision to recognize  the state of Israel and serving as host of “The Papal Concert to Commemorate the Holocasut” passed away today.


2005: The Cedar Rapids Gazette reported that “the search for a new rabbi for Temple Judah has ended with the hiring of Rabbi Aaron Sherman.” Rabbi Sherman and his wife Stephanie Alexander recently purchased a home in Cedar Rapids. A graduate of Brown University, Rabbi Sherman has a Masters in Hebrew Letters and was ordained at the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in 2000.


2006: At about 1 am today “a man at a party in Hollywood, a man argued with Paula Abdul grabbed by the arm and threw her against the wall” resulting “in a concussion and spinal injuries.”


2006: Jaclyn Leibson Mintz, daughter of Dale Mintz, the national director of women’s health and advocacy for Hadassah and editor of “The Hadassah Jewish Family Book of Health and Wellness” and Stephen A. Mintz were married in a ceremony officiated at by Rabbi A. Rothman.


2006: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including “Fair Trade For All: How Trade Can Promote Development” by Joseph E. Stiglitz and Andrew Charlton and the recently released paperback edition of “Incompleteness: The Proof and Paradox of Kurt Gödel by Rebecca Goldstein.”


2007: “Nightrise” the third book in The Power of Five series, by Anthony Horowitz was released in the United Kingdom today.


2007(14thof Nisan): Anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising on the Jewish calendar


2007 (14th of Nisan): In the evening, Pesach begins with the first Seder.


2007: The New Republic Magazine featured a review of George Konrad’s autobiography, “A Guest In My Own Country: A Hungarian Life.” Konrad, like the more famous Elie Weisel, survived the Holocaust in Hungary, but spent his adult life in the land where he had faced almost certain death.


2007: Erev Pesach, Newsweek Magazine featured an article entitled “American Jews: The List—Choosing the Chosen” in which three American Jewish multi-millionaires list the top fifty rabbis in the United States. Following the criteria used by this trio, the Rabbis we read about Bnei Berak in the Haggadah would not have made the list.


2007: Chicago real estate billionaire Sam Zell “has won the auction for the Tribune Co.” The 65 year old native of Highland Park, Illinois has bought the company whose holdings include the Chicago Tribune.


2008: In Vancouver, B.C., the Vancouver Jewish Film Festival presents a screening of “Jewish Luck.” which was among the first Soviet Yiddish films to be released in the US during the 1920s. “Based on Sholem Aleichem's series of stories featuring the character Menakhem Mendl, “Jewish Luck” revolves around the daydreaming entrepreneur Menakhem Mendl who specializes in doomed strike-it-rich schemes.


2008: The Hallmark Channel “Son of the Dragon” with a teleplay written by David Seidler “which helped to launch the cable channel.”


2008: The Rosenbach Museum and Library received an official State Historical Marker by the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission in recognition of the lasting contributions of museum co-founder, Dr. A.S.W. Rosenbach.


2009: Television financial personality and Harvard Law School graduate Jim Cramer has license to practice law suspended today “for failure to pay the registration fee” for the New York Bar.


2009: Professor Amy-Jill Levine, of Vanderbilt University, delivers an address at Coe College in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, entitled “Misunderstanding Judaism/Misunderstanding Jesus.”


2009: “The Teddy Bear was born in Bedford Stuyvesant” published today described the role of “Rose and Morris Michtom, two Russian Jewish immigrants who lived in Brooklyn” in creating this iconic American stuffed animal.

2009(8th of Nisan, 5769): A terrorist infiltrated Bat Ayin in the Gush Etzion region of the West Bank and killed Shlomo Nativ, a 13-year-old Israeli boy, by striking him in the head with an axe. The terrorist also attacked a 7-year-old boy with the axe, hitting and wounding him in the head. He was taken to Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem and is in moderate condition. Iran-backed Palestinian Islamic Jihad and an organization calling itself the Imad Mughniyeh Group claimed responsibility for the attack, although this has not been confirmed.


2009: Today in an interview to the Radio Liberty Vitaly Lazarevich Ginzburg denounced the FSB as an institution harmful to Russia and the ongoing expansion of its authority as a return to Stalinism


2010: Krista Tippe, host of American Public Media's Speaking of Faith and author of , Einstein's God: Conversations About Science and the Human Spirit, is scheduled to appear with Michel Martin, host of NPR's Tell Me More are scheduled , to get together for a dialogue about the role of faith in their lives at the Shakespeare Theatre Company's Sidney Harman Hall in Washington.


2010: “Musical Shabbat” is scheduled to return to Friday Night Services at Temple Judah in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.


2011:Professor Yosef Shiloh, of Tel Aviv University's Sackler Medical School, the first Israeli to receive the prestigious Clowes Award presented by the American Association for Cancer Research is scheduled to be honored at the AACR Annual Meeting that opens today in Orlando, Florida. The prize includes a $10,000 grant, a commemorative plaque, and funding to attend this prestigious event.


2011:Former Israel Olympian, Shaul Landry, a surviving member of the 1972 Munich delegation, is scheduled to celebrate his 75th birthday today by walking his age in kilometers.

2011(27th of Adar II, 5771): Ninety-two year old Morris Parloff, a member of the "Ritchie Boys," a German-speaking unit of the U.S. Army that did intelligence work and psychological warfare in World War II, and who later became a psychotherapist, researcher and an administrator at the National Institute of Mental Health, passed away today. Parloff was among the surviving members of the Ritchie Boys featured in a 2004 documentary.

2011(27thof Adar II, 5771): In Cedar Rapids, Iowa, the Traditional Saturday Morning Minyan celebrated Shabbat Ha-Chodesh.


2011(27thof Adar): Yahrzeit of Zedekiah “the last king of the royal house of David to reign in the Holy Land. He ascended the throne in 434 BCE, after King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylonia (to whom the kingdom of Judah was then subject) exiled King Jeconiah (Zedekiah's nephew) to Babylonia.In 425 BCE Zedekiah rebelled against Babylonian rule, and Nebuchadnezzar laid siege to Jerusalem (in Tevet 10 of that year); in the summer of 423 BCE the walls of Jerusalem were penetrated, the city conquered, the (first) Holy Temple destroyed, and the people of Judah exiled to Babylonia. Zedekiah tried escaping through a tunnel leading out of the city, but was captured; his sons were killed before his eyes, and then he was blinded. Zedekiah languished in the royal dungeon in Babylonia until Nebuchadnezzar's death in 397 BCE; Evil Meroduch -- Nebuchadnezzar's son and successor -- freed him (and his nephew Jeconiah)” today. Ironically, Zedikiah died on the same day on which he was freed.


2011: “The Matchmaker” is scheduled to be shown at the West Chester Jewish Film Festival.


2011:Early this morning, in the southern town of Khan Yunis, IAF aircraft bombed a car carrying four senior Hamas operatives who, according to Israel, were on their way to Sinai with plans to kidnap or attack Israelis vacationing on the peninsula.


2011: The Israeli Counter-Terror Bureau urged Israelis today to leave the Sinai Peninsula immediately, after revealing that Israeli intelligence agencies had obtained concrete information of plans by terrorists to kidnap or attack Israeli nationals vacationing there over the upcoming Pesach holiday. The bureau said that some terrorists were already in the Sinai.Israel is also concerned about reports of the Egyptian police abandoning Sinai in the face of growing Beduin violence and the territory turning into a breeding ground for Global Jihad. The Counter-Terror Bureau noted today that the terror cell planning the attacks against Israelis in Sinai was using local Beduin to help carry out the attacks.


2011:Naama Shafir, a Sabbath-observing Israeli, scored a career-high 40 points to power the University of Toledo women's basketball team to the school's first national postseason championship in any sport. Shafir hit 13 of 27 shots as the host Rockets defeated the University of Southern California, 76-68 today for the Women's NIT title. The victory also marked the first women's national championship for a Mid-American Conference team in any sport. Shafir, a 5-7 junior guard from the small northern Israeli town of Hoshaya, also sank 13 of 18 free throws in the game. Following the victory on Saturday afternoon, Shafir walked home and held off interviews until long after the conclusion of Shabbat. Shafir is believed to be the first female Orthodox Jew to be awarded a Division I athletic scholarship. She led the Rockets this season with averages of 15.3 points and 5 assists per game. She had been courted by Boston University and Seton Hall before enrolling at Toledo. Getting the OK to play in the United States was no easy layup: Shafir obtained permission from an Orthodox rabbi in Israel to play games that coincided with the Jewish Sabbath, but not to practice, according to The Associated Press. Other special measures have been enacted to accommodate Shafir’s Sabbath observance: For road games, she checks into a hotel within walking distance of the host arena with a coaching staff assistant, bringing with her frozen kosher meals from Detroit. (As reported by JTA)


2012(11th of Nisan, 5772): Ninety-seven year old “Mauricio Lasansky, an Argentine-born master printmaker who was equally well known for a series of drawings depicting the horrors of Nazism” passed away today at his home in Iowa City, Iowa. (As reported by Margalit Fox)

2012(11th of Nisan, 5772): Ninety-year old Borscht Belt tumbler Lou Goldstein passed away today. (As reported by Joseph Berger)

2012:Hillel C. Neuer and Bari Weiss are scheduled to discuss “From Eleanor Roosevelt to Qaddafi: An Insider's Account of Human Rights at the UN” at the 92nd Street Y.


2012: “Kosher deli in England a Titanic survivor’s legacy” published today tells the story of restaurant started almost a century ago by a Jewish survivor of the aquatic disaster.

2013(22nd of Nisan, 5773): Final Day of Pesach


2013: Elem, a non-profit organization for runaway homeless and neglected Israeli and Arab youth in distress is scheduled to host an evening of dinner and drinks to support Israeli Jewish and Arab Youth at Risk prepared by some of New York’s finest chefs.


2013: Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon toured the Golan Heights this afternoon, and vowed that Israel would prevent the proliferation of weapons "that could threaten us in the future" to radical elements in Syria


2013:Israel launched its first airstrike on the Gaza Strip today since the Egyptian-mediated truce ended November’s eight-day bout of fighting. The airstrike came in response to the firing of a projectile from Gaza, which had exploded in an open area of southern Israel’s Eshkol region.  Israel had not responded to a previous attack that came while President Obama was visiting the region in March.


2013: As of today Supercentenarian Evelyn Kozak became “the seventh oldest person living in the world” an honor she held until her death in June of 2013.

2014: The Jewish Theological Seminary is scheduled to present “Mah Nishtanah: Posing New Questions, Telling New Stories – An evening of inspiring Passover learning.”


2014: The Oregon Jewish Museum is scheduled to host “Chai Fantasy” – a panel discussion about fantasy literature and Judaism.


2014(2ndof Nisan, 5774) Ninety-four year old David Werdyger, the Chasidic Chazan and Holocaust survivor passed away today.

2014(2ndof Nisan, 5774): Seventy eight year old pianist and critic Harris Goldsmith passed away today. (As reported by Vivien Schweitzer)

2014(2ndof Nisan, 5774): Seventy-eight year old Sandy “Grossman, who won eight Emmys, directed broadcasts of 10 Super Bowls, 18 N.B.A. finals, 5 Stanley Cup finals and Olympic hockey” passed away today.

2014: Pierre Moscovici completed his service as Minister of Finance for France.


2015: Alex Schiffman Shilo is scheduled to speak today the “First Person 2015 Series” sponsored by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.


2015: WQXR is scheduled to broadcast “A Musical Fest for Passover with Itzhak Perlman.


2015: “At a White House news conference today, President Barack Obama said that the United States and the five other world powers negotiating in Switzerland had reached a “historic understanding with Iran” on a deal that, if fully implemented, would prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.” (As reported by JTA)


2016(23rdof Adar II, 5776): Shabbat Parah


2016: At Temple Judah in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, celebration of the B'nei Mitzvah of Kate Hinz and Ben Binder is scheduled to take place this morning.


2016: “Firebirds” is scheduled to be shown at the Israeli Film Festival in Philadelphia, PA.


2016: The new Nadav Remez Quintet is scheduled to perform for the first time at Rockwood Music Hall


2017: “On the Map” a film about “the Maccabi Tel Aviv basketball team's historic win” is scheduled to be shown on the final day of the Seattle Jewish Film Festival.


2017: “A new Israeli system designed to intercept medium-range missiles became operational today after it was unveiled at a ceremony attended by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US defense officials.” (As reported by Tama Pileggi and Stuart Winer)


2017: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Casey Stengel: Baseball’s Greatest Character by Marty Appel and Blitzed:Drugs in the Third Reich by Norman Ohler


2017: As part of Spring Break, the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center is scheduled to let “kids and students” enter without an admission charge.


2018(17th of Nisan, 5778): Third Day of Pesach, first day of Chol Hamoed; second day of the Omer


2018: In Jerusalem, the Tower of David is scheduled to host a performance of “The Riddle of the Queen of Sheba.”


2018: In Jerusalem, the Begin Center is scheduled to host “Map and Matza”


 


 

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

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April 3


309 B.C.E.: Traditional date for the start of the Seleucid Dynasty. The Seleucid dynasty was one of the dynasties founded after the death of Alexander the Great. Its territory included Syria and Babylonia. In 198 B.C.E. the Seleucids took control of Palestine from the Egyptian based Ptolemy dynasty. This change in dynastic role would lead to the uprising thirty years later that we celebrate as part of the Chanukah Story.


33: According to some scholars, the actual date when a Jewish carpenter was crucified by the Romans for inciting rebellion. 


1287: Honorius IV, the Pope who played a key role in the expulsion of the Jews from England passed away. “In November 1286 Pope Honorius wrote to the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, reaffirming the decision of the Lateran Councils. He enlarged on the evils of relations between Christians and Jews and warned of the pernicious consequences of the study of the Jews' Talmud. The King joined in the dialogue and condemnation by reviving the crimes of ritual murder. Jewish writers use the word "allegation" with regard to ritual murder with boring regularity.”


1473: Sixty-three year Italian noble man Alessandro Sforza, the patron of “Jewish Italian dancer and dancing master Guglielmo Ebreo da Pesaro” who converted to Roman Catholicism under his influence passed away today.


1544: Charles V, Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire confirmed the privileges of Austrian Jews. The Emperor was anti-Jewish and a persecutor of the Marranos. But he was convinced by Josel of Rosheim to condemn the accusations of ritual murder. The fate of Jews under Charles appeared to have been a matter of geography. In 1541 he expelled the Jews from Naples and Flanders he instituted the Inquisition in Portugal in 1543. But in his Germanic holdings, Charles found the Jews to be useful and confirmed their rights in Augsburg, Speyer and Regensburg as well as Austria. As we will see when we study the Reformation and the Counter-Reformation, Charles treatment of the Jews must be viewed in terms of the clash between the Catholics and the Protestants and not just in terms of Jews versus Christians.


1546(21st of Nisan, 5306): “Rabbi Jacob Berab, leader of a movement to restore the ancient rite of semichah died today at the age of seventy-two.” (As reported by Abraham Bloch)



1637(9th of Nisan): Rabbi Joseph ben Phinnehas Haan of Cracow author of Yosef Ometz passed away today.


1637(9th of Nisan): Rabbi Yosef Hahn, author of “Yosef Ometz”, passed away.


1673(17th of Nisan): Rabbi Reuben Hoeshke Katz of Prague passed away



1681(15th of Nisan): Rabbi Abraham Kalmansk of Lemberg, author of “Eshel Avraham” passed away


1714: Italian rabbi David ben Solomon Altaras the author of a Hebrew grammar and editor of daily prayer book passed away today in Venice.


1722: In New York City, Abraham Pinto and his wife gave birth to Rachel Pinto “one of the chief benefactors of Polonies Talmud Torah at Congregation Shearith Israel.”


1751: Twenty-seven year old Hannah Levy, the daughter of Moses Raphael Levy and Grace Mears passed away today.


1764: Meyer Hard, one of the founders of Easton, PA took the oath of allegiance to the colonial government today


1787: In Portsmouth, UK, Bohemia native Solomon Lyon and Rachel Hart gave birth to Isaac Leo Lyon today.


1790(19th of Nisan, 5550): Ephraim Moses Kuh, the nephew of Veitel Ephraim, Frederick the Great’s jeweler, whose poetry “vividly expresses his patriotism and his reverence for Frederick the Great; but also expresses his resentment at the bad treatment of Jews in Germany and scorn at his own and others' failures and weaknesses” passed away today in his hometown of Breslau.


1818: In Silesia, Schiee Jaffé and his wife gave birth to Samuel Jaffé


1823: Birthdate of Galicia native Solomon Rubin, the rabbi whose attraction for the Haskalah movement led him to become a school principle and tutor as well as “a prolific author ‘ who produced more than twenty-five works including “a Hebrew translation of Spinoza’s ‘Ethics’” which is considered to be his “most important contribution to Neo-Hebrew literature.”  


1825(16th of Nisan, 5585): Second Day of Pesach; first day of the Omer


1834: Nathan Baeck, a Rabbi in Kromau, Moravia and his wife gave birth to Rabbi Samuel Baeck the father of Leo Baeck.


1844: A newspaper report states that a census was conducted at Constantinople and there were 900,000 people living in the city including 100,000 Jews.


1847(17th of Nisan, 5607): Shabbat Shel Pesach; Third Day of Pesach


1847(17th of Nisan, 5607): Sixty-four year old Tobias Asser died in his native Amsterdam today.


1857: Löw Schwab, the rabbi at Budapest passed away today and would ultimately be replaced by Dr. W. Alois Meisel.


1863(14th of Nisan, 5623): Fast of the First Born and Erev Pesach


1866(18th of Nisan, 5626): Fourth Day of Pesach


1870:Fifty-one year old Philipp Jaffé, “one of the most important German medievalists of the 19th century” who “was appointed assistant professor of history at Humboldt University of Berlin” in 1862 and who converted to Christianity in 1868 passed away today.


1870: “Reformed Judaism: Advanced ideas in the Ancient Religion--Doctrines and Tenets of the Reformers--The New Temples in Brooklyn” published today reports on the growth of the Reform movement. It describes the activities of New York’s well-established Temple Emanuel including its purchase of the cemetery at Cypress Hill as well as the birth of Temple Israel, Brooklyn’s first Reform congregation. The Temple is led by Raphael Lewin who had served as Rabbi for the Reform Temple in Savannah, Georgia. The article also discusses the doctrines of Reform Judaism based on Lewin’s book, “What is Judaism; Or a Few Words to the Jews.


1871: The New York Times reported that “the Jewish people of Newark are preparing for the celebration of the Feast of Passover, which begins on the 6th of April and last eight days It is calculated that during the feast more than 15,000 pounds of unleavened bread will be consumed.”


1873(6th of Nisan, 5633): Lewin Aron (`Libesch') Pinner passed away today.


1878: Irish-American playwright James A. Herne whose first successful play, “Hearts of Oaks” was written with and produced by David Belasco married Katherine Corcoran today.


1880(22nd of Nisan, 5640: 8th day of Pesach


1880: Birthdate of Austrian philosopher and author Otto Weininger


1882(14th of Nisan, 5642): The New York Times reported that “the Jewish festival of ‘Pesach,’ or the Passover, commences at sundown this evening and will continue for eight days…The festival was instituted to commemorate the miraculous deliverance of the Children of Israel from the bondage to which they had been subjected in Egypt.”


1884(8th of Nisan, 5644): Less than a month before his 72nd birthday Ignaz Karunda, the son and grandson of Czech second-hand book dealers who became a successful writer and Austrian parliamentarian passed away today in Vienna.


1884: German painter Gustave Karl Ludwig Richter whose works included a portrait of his wife Cornelie Meyerbeer, daughter of composer Giacomo Meyerbeer and their son passed away.


1890: It was reported today that “Count Dleianoff, Minister of Public Instruction, has refused to receive the petition recently prepared by” university students “asking for…the unrestricted admission of Jews.”


1890(13th of Nisan): Aron Arnaud, chief rabbi of Strasbourg, Alsace, author of “Prieres d’un Coeur Israelite passed away”


1890: In Bavaria Karoline and Leopold (Lehmann) Schloss gave birth to Isidor Schloss


1890(13th of Nisan, 5650): Eighty-thee year Arnaud Aron, the Grand Rabbi of Strasbourg, passed away today. (According to some sources he was born in March and not May which means he would have been 82.  I have not been able to resolve the dispute)



1890(13th of Nisan, 5650): On the day before Jews are scheduled sit down to their Seders on the first night of Passover, hundreds of people received free meat today thanks to the generosity of Mrs. Paulina Rosendorff. While most of the recipients were poor Polish Jews, several poor gentiles also lined up to get the free meat. Mrs. Rosendorff said she did not care because poverty knows no religious boundaries.


1892: Birthdate of Frantisek Klein who was transported from Prague in 1942 to Ujazdow where he was murdered.


1892: It was reported today that while Jewish refugees have been prevented from crossing the border between Russia and German, 5,000 Russian Christians have been allowed to cross into Germany in the last two weeks.


1892: It was reported today that there “there is a growing belief that” Russian Jewish exiles are not “desirable as immigrants” to United States because “many of the immigrants have been shown to accept a permanent state of dependence and pauperism as a consequence of the immediate relief and help that were…extended to them.” (Editor’s Note – For those following the immigration debate in the United States, these comments have an eerily familiar ring; the only change is in the name of the immigrant group)


1892: It was reported today that “the opinion of Baron Hirsch that the proportion of the Hebrew population of the United States was already as great as was desirable will be shared by most thoughtful Americans, Hebrews or otherwise.  In truth the only solution of the problem raised by the persecution of the Russian Jews is that of Baron Hirsch of a Hebrew colony which might ultimately become a Hebrew state.


1893(17th of Nisan, 5653): Third Day of Pesach


1893: In Forest Hill, London, Lilian Blumberg and Ferdinand Steiner gave birth to Leslie Howard Steiner, who gained fame as actor Leslie Howard. Yes, the blue-eyed blond who played the quintessential Southern gentlemen Ashley Wilkes in Gone With the Wind was Jewish. Lelies Steinner was born in England, the son of a Hungarian Jewish father, Ferdinand Steiner, and Lilian Blumberg daughter of a barrister named Charles Blumberg. The middle class Blumbergs did not approve of the marriage. However, they mellowed after the birth of young Leslie who was an officer in the cavalry during World War I. After the war, Steiner, now Howard built a career on the stage and later in films. He changed his name to avoid ant-Semitism, a not uncommon need among theatrical people of the time. Howard's death in June of 1943 is still shrouded in mystery. German fighters shot down the civilian plane, which was carrying him from neutral Portugal back to England. According to some, Howard was a British spy and the target of the attack. The mystery may be solved until 2025 when papers concerning the matter will finally be declassified


1895: In Albany, state Senator Wolf introduced a bill “empowering the Hebrew Benevolent Orphan Asylum Society of the City of New York to convey certain property transferred to the society by the city.”


1896: Among the institutions named to receive bequests from the late Charles S. Friedlander are Home for Aged and Infirm Hebrews, $1,600; Society of Shevet Juda, $600; Hospital of Beth Israel, $600; Mount Sinai Hospital, $600; Hebrew Technical Institute, $600; Ladies Deborah Nursery Sanitarium for Hebrew Children, $600; Montefiore Home for Chronic Invalids, $600 and the Hebrew Benevolent and Orphan Asylum, $600.


1896: In describing the virtues of Rabbi Aaron Wise who was buried yesterday, Rabbi Gustav Gottheil said “The spirit of his words cannot die.  The influence of the teacher has no limits as to time or space.”


1897: It was said today that Jewish philanthropist and Republican politician Edward Lauterbach “would have been pleased if Colonel George Bliss had been selected by the Governor” to serve as a member of the State Board of Charities.


1897: Rabbi Rudolph Grossman of Temple Beth-El delivered an address on ‘The Talmud’ “at a meeting of the Alumni Association of the Hebrew Technical Institute.”


1898: Birthdate of George Jessel, the self- proclaimed toastmaster general. Jessel gained early fame as the star in the Broadway production of the Jazz Singer. The movie version was the first talking motion picture but it starred Al Jolson. As he aged and survived his contemporaries, Jessel became famous for his eulogies. During the Viet Nam War, he "wrapped himself in the flag" going so far as to equate the New York Times with Pravda and provoking the normally mild-mannered Ed Neuman to literally pull the plug on an interview on a live broadcast. Jessel died in 1981.


1898: Birthdate of Harry Ferman, the native of Ukraine who came to Canada in 1912 where he worked as a farmer and retail trader before joining the Jewish Legion in 1918.


1898: The New York Times published a lengthy, laudatory article about Rabbi Isaac Meyer Wise on the 90th anniversary of his birth.


1899: It was reported today that Jesse Lewisohn had presented a check for one thousand dollars to the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society Asylum in memory of his late brother Samuel.


1899: “Judaism and Christianity” published today contain the views of Dr. John Hall on the relationship of these two faiths including that “it would be almost impossible for us to understand” the Epistle to the Hebrews” unless we had the books of Leviticus to refer to.”


1899: “The third of the series of model lessons conducted by Isaac C. Noot, Principal of the Hebrew Schools of New York will be held this afternoon in the vestry of Temple Beth-El.”


1900: Birthdate of Shelomo Dov Goitein, “a German-Jewish ethnographer, historian and Arabist known for his research on Jewish life in the Islamic Middle Ages.


1903: Seventy-five year old Hebrew grammarian Moses Ha-koen Reicherson who came to the United States from Wilna in the 1890’s passed away today.


1903(6th of Nisan, 5663): Seventy-five year old Moses Ha-Kohen Reicherson, the Polish born Hebrew grammarian and teacher who moved to New York in 1890 passed away today leaving behind a number of unpublished works including commentaries on the Pentateuch, on the books of Samuel, Kings, Isaiah, Ezekiel, the Twelve Prophets, Psalms, Job, and Proverbs; and a prayer-book, "Tefillah le-Mosheh."


1904(18th of Nisan, 5664): Fourth Day of Pesach


1904: A thirteen-year-old Jewish girl and her mother arrived at the White House with a supply of Matzoth. While her mother waited in anteroom, the young girl went into the President’s office and presented the unleavened bread to a thankful Theodore Roosevelt. The President thanked the girl for the gift and complimented her on her tact and courtesy.


1905(27th of Adar II, 5665): Seventy-four year old Levi Spiegelberg, the native of Prussia and husband of Bertha Spiegelberg passed away today in New York City.


1906: Today, in the House of Lords, “Lord Northbourne asked the Government if would lay on the table any consular or other reports concerning the anti-Jewish outrages in Russia” because “he said that the publication of such reports might indirectly have some effect inducing the Russian Government to do its best to remedy conditions that outraged the civilization of the 20thcentury.


1906: Today, in the House of Lords, Lord Fitzmaurice, speaking on behalf of the Foreign Office said the Government could not grant Lord Northbourne’s request to make reports of anti-Semitic activities in Russia public “without committing a grave impropriety” and besides which “Great Britain could not interfere in the internal affairs of Russia.


1906: At Algeciras, at the Conference on Moroccan Reforms, unanimous support was obtained for the resolution that U.S. Ambassador White had introduced “on behalf of the Jews in Morocco.”


1907: Today,,Alois Grossman, the chairman of the Committee on Synagogue Music of the Central Conference of American Rabbis addressed a letter to the individual members of the committee – Rudoph Grossman, I.L. Leucht, I.S. Moses, J.L. Magnes, William Loewenberg, A.M. Radin and Nathan Stern – on the issue of the role of traditional music in Reform services which elicited responses all of which were favorable to “the employment of more traditional music in the reform service” with one respondent going so far as to say “I hate church music in the synagogue” while another said that “I am heartily in favor of traditional music…”


1907: Birthdate of Isaac Deutscher, the native of Galicia who left Poland in 1939 to work as newspaper in London and who wrote biographies of Trotsky and Stalin.




1910: The Ninth Quinquennial Convention of the Independent Order of B’nai B’rith took place at Washington, D.C.


1912: Birthdate of Willie Rubenstein, who in 1934 led the undefeated NYU Violets to victory over the undefeated CCNY Lavenders.




1914: Henry Berlin, Chairman of the Arrangements Committee for the Passover celebrations to be held in this city under the auspices of the Jewish Soldiers and Sailors Passover Committee, reported today that with Capt. Lewis Landes of the committee he had called on Commander Moses of the United States battleship Texas and Commander Jackson of the United States battleship North Dakota. They extended invitations to attend the Passover dinner at Tuexedo Hall on April following the regular Passover services. The commanders of the two battleships promised to lend their aid in making the celebrations a success.


1915(19th of Nisan, 5675): Shabbat Shel Pesach; Fifth Day of Passover


1915(19th of Nisan, 5675): Sixty-two year old I.L. Peretz the failed whiskey distiller who became a leading poet, playwright and author passed away today in Warsaw.




1915: Birthdate of Paul Claude Marie Touvier the French collaborator whose crimes included murdering seven Jewish hostages near Lyon.



1916: The bazaar and fair sponsored by the People’s Relief Committee for the Jews suffering in the war zone which is being held at the Grand Central Palace is scheduled to come to an end today.


1916: Birthdate of Ralph Glasser the Scottish psychologist, economist, advisor to developing countries and author of an autobiographical trilogy



1917: Louis Marshall was reported to have said that the cable message from Baron Gunzburg confirmed that all of the restrictions that have been placed on the Jews “are to be repealed with the result that full, equal rights will be guaranteed to the Jews of Russia.”


1918(21st of Nisan, 5678): Seventh Day of Pesach; Final Day of the holiday for Reform Jews


1918: “In view of the Government’s suspension of wheatless regulations in is relation to the consumption of matzoths during the Passover season, Rabbi Isaac Landman of Temple Israel of Far Rockaway suggested that the Jews” of the United States “make up for the amount of wheat which they consumed in their matzoth during the festival season by imposing a ‘wheatless week’ upon themselves.”


1920(15th of Nisan, 5680): First Pesach of “the roaring twenties”


1921: Birthdate of David Arguete, the native of Aydin, Turkey who gained fame as Turkish “composer, lyricist and guitarist” Dario Moreno who was buried in Holon, Israel when he died suddenly in December, 1968.


1922: Joseph Stalin became the first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Stalin’s anti-Semitism would prove to be stronger than his sense of brotherhood for his fellow Socialist brethren. From his attacks on Trotsky to the Doctors’ Plot that came at the end of his life, Stalin displayed an attitude towards the Jewish people that would have made the Czars proud.


1924: Birthdate of Marlon Brando. See below for Louis Kemp’s account of attending a Seder with the great American method actor.



1925: In Nuremberg, a member of a minor German political group, Julius Streicher, gave a speech calling for the annihilation of the Jews. Eight years leader he would join his mentor Adolf Hitler in making this seeming empty threat a reality.


1926:Rufus Daniel Isaacs, 1st Marquess of Reading, completed his service as the Viceroy and Governor-General of India.


1927: At the Free Synagogue meeting today in Carnegie Hall, Dr. Stephen S. Wise delivered a sermon on “The Jew In American Colleges in which he declared that “few institutions in existence today are more hostile toward the spirit of true American democracy than Greek letter fraternities and sororities” and that “no one thing has been so damaging to the morale of the young Jews as the mere raising of the quota system question at Harvard.”


1927: “Plans for a conference of a representatives of the two million Orthodox Jews in the United States for form an organization to prevent reform Jewry from deciding Jewish religious matters…were discussed” today “by representatives of more than 200 0rthodox Congregations of Greater New York at the Central Jewish Institute.”


1927: The new home for Temple of Israel of Washington Heights, a neo-Georgian synagogue at 560-66 West 185th Street, designed by Sommerfeld & Steckler that cost $400,000 was dedicated today.


1927: “The Carousel of Death” a silent drama produced by Lothar Stark was released today in Germany.


1932: Birthdate of Chicago native and noted American Architect Norman Jaffe.



1930: Birthdate of Max Frankel the native of Gera, Germany who came to the United States in 1940 and became “one of America’s preeminent journalists. He worked for The New York Times for fifty years, rising from college correspondent to reporter, Washington bureau chief, editorial page editor, and ultimately executive editor 1986—1994. He won the Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of President Nixon’s trip to China in 1972 and is the author of a nationally bestselling memoir, “The Times of My Life and My Life with the Times.” He lives in New York City.



1933: In the wake of the Reichstag Fire, Time published “Germany: Hitler Enabled.”


Before Berlin's Kroll Opera House swarmed a crowd of young Nazis last week. "Give us the Enabling Act!" they chanted, "give us the Enabling Act or there will be another fire!" The Reichstag was meeting in the Opera House because the central hall of the Reichstag building had been gutted by incendiary fire, a fire that despite popular murmurings the Nazis have persistently blamed on Communists. Because of the fire every Communist deputy was in jail. So the young Nazis' cry was easily answered : The Reichstag passed the Enabling Act 441-94. Adolf Hitler became Dictator of Germany for four years to come. Socialists did not let the bill go through without one word of protest. Cried Deputy Otto Wels: "Take our liberty, take our lives, but leave us our honor! If you really want social reconstruction you would need no such law as this." In full Nazi uniform Chancellor Hitler popped from his seat, his little mustache twitching with excitement. "You're too late!" he roared. "We don't need you any longer in molding the fate of the nation!" Not a few U. S. editors, rapidly scanning the Enabling Act for early editions, headlined their stories END OF THE REPUBLIC. Well they might, for the Enabling Act contained the following provisions


1) Emergency decrees no longer need be signed by President von Hindenburg. Chancellor Hitler will proclaim them on the authority of his own Cabinet.


2) Emergency laws need the approval of neither the Reichstag nor the Reichsrat (Federal Council of States). The right of popular referendum on them, expressed in the Weimar Constitution, is specifically set aside.


3) Treaties with foreign powers no longer need Reichstag or Reichsrat approval.


4) The Cabinet can decree the annual budget and borrow money on its own authority.


5) Any law proclaimed by the Chancellor may deviate from the Constitution, becomes effective 24 hours after its publication in the Federal Gazette.


Since the rights of free speech, public assembly and inviolability of the home have long been suppressed, here was more power in the Chancellery than even Bismarck dreamed of, but careful investigation showed that canny old Paul von Hindenburg still held two aces up his detachable cuffs: The President still has power to dismiss any or all members of the Cabinet including Handsome Adolf himself. He still remains Commander-in-Chief of the Reichswehr, with sole power to proclaim martial law. The Reichswehr is not yet a Nazi organization. If told to turn Adolf Hitler out of office it could theoretically do so. Observers agreed that these two cards had been shoved up the President's sleeve by Vice Chancellor von Papen. At the week's end lean-jawed Lieut.-Colonel von Papen was fighting hard for yet another check on the Nazis: the vital post of Prussian Premier. He was holding his own at the week's end. Chancellor Hitler let it be known that the Premiership would not be definitely awarded for some time yet; possibly until after May 1. Before the vote on the Enabling Act, Chancellor Hitler read a declaration of policy to the Reichstag that was mild as buttermilk compared with his former utterances. There was the old insistence on "rooting out Communism to the last vestige" but on the other hand "the Government regards the question of monarchistic restoration as indiscussible at present." Germany was pledged to refrain from arming if other nations disarmed radically. Hitler welcomed the Mussolini-MacDonald peace projects. To the general surprise he announced that Germany "looks forward to friendly relations with Soviet Russia." Despite world protests over anti-Semitic outrages in Germany and boycott murmurings that offer grave threats to German commerce and industry (see below), German business seemed to approve the Nazi dictatorship last week. In Berlin tycoons of the Reichs Federation of Industry signed a manifesto promising the Government their fullest support. Led by chemical and brewing stocks, the Berlin Bourse continued a boom that had been three weeks under way carrying some stocks 300% to 400%, above their crisis lows.


1933: Time magazine published “Prayers & Atrocities” which includes a description of the British reaction to the rise to power of the Nazis in Germany



1934: In the Bronx, Benjamin and Esther Hanft gave birth to actress Helen Hanft, "the Ethel Merman of off-off Broadway"


1935: At the Maccabiah in Tel Aviv, American Syd Koff finished first in the 60 meter dash and second in the broad jump. New York prize fighter Solly Hornstein won his first round test while A. Horowitz of South Africa won the 10,000 meter race.


1936: “Support to the Greater New York campaign of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee was pledged by representatives of 200 Jewish women’s organizations have a membership of 100,000 in the five boroughs” of New York City “and Westchester at a breakfast meeting” today “at the home of Mrs. Roger W. Straus” where attendees heard from several speakers including Mrs. Milton Wyle, Mrs. David Goldfarb and Carl J. Austrian..


1936: After almost a year of being on the air, the Blue Network and NBC broadcast the last of Al Pearce’s radio shows sponsored by Pepsodent Toothpaste.


1936: Dr. Hjalmar Schact, the German Minister of Economics advanced the argument that “whether Germany devalues” its currency “or not, she would still have to maintain rigid control of capital movements because of the ’12,000,000,000 to 20,000,000,000 marks of Jewish capital that would otherwise strive to leave the country.”


1937: According to a report received in New York today by Dr. Stephen S. Wise from the Jewish Agency for Palestine, “a total of 34,500 German Jews settled in Palestine during the four year period since” Hitler came to power.


1937(22nd of Nisan): Author and folklorist Judah Loeb Cahan passed away.



1938: Birthdate of Brooklyn native Joel Adelberg who as Jeff Barry wrote such “immortal” hits as "Do Wah Diddy Diddy", "Da Doo Ron Ron", "Then He Kissed Me", "Be My Baby", "Chapel of Love",  "River Deep - Mountain High", "Leader of the Pack" and "Sugar, Sugar"



 


1939: Dr. Chaim Weizmann and David Ben Gurion were greeted by cheering crowds when they returned to Tel Aviv from the Palestine Conference that had been held in London. Of the negotiations, Weizmann told the crowd, “We did not return victors, but neither were we vanquished.”


1939: In Brooklyn, Abraham and Mildred Gralnick gave birth to Jeffrey Charles Gralnick “a blunt, gravel-voiced television news executive who got his start in the days of the 15-minute, black-and-white evening newscast and went on to play leading roles in the news divisions of three major broadcast networks.” (As reported by Dennis Heveisi)


1939:Rosie Goldschmidt Waldeck author of Prelude To The Past became a naturalized U.S. Citizen today.


1940: Ernst Heilmann, German jurist and political leader was murdered at Buchenwald


1942: This day's deportations from Augsburg, Germany, emptied the town of Jews, ending a Jewish presence that was established in 1212. They were deported to the Belzec death camp.


1942(16th of Nisan, 5702): The Final Solution came to Tlumacz also called Tlumach on the second day of Pesach. Tlumach was a town of about seven or eight thousand people, about a third of whom were Jewish. It was one of those places that changed hands several times including being part of the Soviet Union and Hungary. The Germans took control in 1941 and immediately killed off the leading Jews of the area. On April 3, twelve hundred Jews are taken to Belzac Extermination Camp and the remaining three thousand were placed in a ghetto. Later in the war another two thousand Jews were sent to Belzac. The Jewish community was not reconfigured after the war and is now only a page in the book of Jewish memory. Sad as this event is, it would be sadder still if we did not note their fate and remember (Yizkor) them.


1943: Maria Różanski, Wiktoria Paduch and several others were sentenced to death today by the German Sondergericht special court for helping two Jewish women Elsa Szwarcman and Sala Rubinowicz escape from the Radom Ghetto


1943(27th of Adar II, 5703): Actor Conrad Veidt who played Major Strasser in Casablanca passed away at the age of 50.



1943: Birthdate of British director Jonathan Lynn, a nephew of Abba Eban.


1944: As an indication that “the backbone of Jewish extremist gangs” may have been broken, British authorities suddenly lifted the rigid curfew in Palestine today.


1944: Moshe Shertok reported to Jerusalem that his negotiations with Oliver Stanley, the British Colonial Secretary had succeeded in creating a breakthrough in the search for a safe haven for Romanian Jews fleeing the Nazis. Henceforth, for an all too brief period of time, “any Jews who reached Istanbul could continue on to Palestine irrespective of Palestine Certificates and quotas in effect because of the 1939 White Paper.


1944: An internal memo of this week from the United States Government War Refugee Board states that it did understand the "attitude" of the Turkish government. On one hand it was "professing a desire to cooperate with the refugee program," while on the other it would not let the United States nor other countries use its ships to transport refugees from Romania to Turkey without formal contracts in place.


1945(20th of Nisan 5705): On the 6th day of Pesach the Fourth Armored Division and the 355th Infantry Regiment of the 89th Infantry Division, part of General George Patton's famed Third U.S. Army, liberated the first death camp, Ohrdruf or North Stalag III, a sub camp of Buchenwald, located near Weimar.


1945: Würzburg, which had had a population that included 2,000 Jews in 1930 most of which was shipped to the death camps between November 1941 and June 1943, was occupied by the U.S. 12th Armored Division and U.S. 42nd Infantry Division in a series of frontal assaults masked by smokescreens


1946: In the United States, premiere of “Deadline At Dawn” directed Harold Cluman, with a script by Clifford Odets and music by Hanns Eislter.


1947: The HMT Ocean Vigour was damaged by a bomb planted by the Haganah’s Palyam forces while docked at the port of Famagusta. She was a British freighter which had been converted into a caged prison ship used to deport illegal Jewish immigrants who had attempted to enter the Mandate Palestine back to Europe and to prison camps in Cyprus. “The Ocean Vigour was one of 3 ships used by the British authorities in “Operation Oasis” to deport the refugees from the Exodus 1947, most of whom were Holocaust survivors, to Germany. The Haganah commander on the Ocean Vigour was Meier Schwarz. The ship carried 1,464 deportees to Port-de-Bouc near Marseilles and, when they refused to disembark there, on to Hamburg, Germany, where they were forced off by club-wielding British troops.”


1948: In another act of daring, a ship from Yugoslavia docked at Tel Aviv. Hidden in the ship’s cargo of potatoes and onions, were 500 rifles, 200 machine guns and a large quantity of ammunition. Jewish dock workers unloaded the vital supply of munitions and shipped them to the Haganah without being caught by the British.


1949: Israel and Jordan signed an armistice agreement. This agreement was part of the negotiations held on the island of Rhodes under the auspices of the U.N. and Nobel Peace Prize Winner, Dr. Ralph Bunche. The agreement left the Jordanians in control of the eastern part of Jerusalem and the West Bank. When people speak today of Arab East Jerusalem, they are speaking of a result caused by the Arab Armies forcibly removing the ancient Jewish community from that section of the city; a condition that was in violation of the U.N. resolutions but which were made a reality by this armistice agreement. The Jordanians never honored the agreements for free, unfettered access to the Hadassah Hospital and Hebrew University Campus on Mt. Scopus.



1950(16th of Nisan, 5710): Second Day of Pesach; 1st day of the Omer


1950(16th of Nisan, 5710): Kurt Julian Weill, German born composer and socialist passed away in New York City.



1952: The Jerusalem Postreported on satisfactory economic talks held in Great Britain where Israel sought, in addition to the Haifa Oil Refineries¹ deliveries agreement, more trade and credits, and genuinely modern military equipment.


1952: The Jerusalem Postreported that 5 members of the family of Yehoshua Arya, a Tel Aviv municipal employee, slept on the pavement outside the Jewish Agency building after they had been evicted from their one-room apartment in the Hatikvah quarter.


1952: The Jerusalem Post reported that owing to last-minute red tape, only 324 immigrants arrived aboard the S.S. Transylvania from Romania, instead of the expected 1,000. In Hamburg police arrested a neo-Nazi who mailed a letter-bomb to the head of the German reparations team at The Hague.


1954: Aristides de Sousa Mendes, the Portuguese diplomat who risked his life and career to help Jews escape from Hitler’s Europe, passed away



1955: The American Civil Liberties Union announces it will defend Jewish author Allen Ginsberg's book Howl against obscenity charges.


1958(13th of Nisan, 5718): Sixty one year old Theodor Kramer whom Thomas Mann called “one of the greatest poets of the young generation” but whose career in Austria was short-circuited by the Anschluss and an escape to the United Kingdom passed away today.


1958: U.S. premiere of “The Long Hot Summer” produced by Jerry Wald and starring Paul Newman.


1960: George Lincoln Rockwell, the leader of the newly formed American Nazi Party held his first public rally on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.


1961(17th of Nisan, 5721): Third Day of Pesach


1961(17th of Nisan, 5721): Forty six year old Maurice Howard “Babe” Patt, the Carnegie Tech line who played five seasons in the NFL and served in the U.S. Navy during WW II passed away today.



1961: “The Happiest Girl in the World” a musical with E.Y. Harburg opened today at the Martin Beck Theatre.


1967: The original version of “I’ve Got a Secret” a popular panel game show co-produced by Mark Goods and created by Allan Sherman was broadcast for the last time today.


1973(1st of Nisan, 5733): Aaron Rabinowitz, a pioneer in public and private house as well as real estate development passed away at the age of 93. The son of Jewish immigrants from Russia, Rabinowitz’s work in the field of public housing began in 1926 when he began serving on the New York State Board of Housing created by Governor Al Smith. He then worked closely with Lieutenant Governor (and later Governor) Herbert Lehman.


1975: Bobby Fischer refuses to play in a chess match against Anatoly Karpov, giving Karpov the title of World Champion by default.


1977(15th of Nisan, 5737): Pesach


1977: The Jerusalem Postreported that HIAS (the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society) urged Soviet immigrants to bring their relatives from the Soviet Union directly to the US in order to "reduce the growing phenomenon of dropouts in Vienna." Max Fisher, chairman of the Jewish Agency¹s Board of Governors, did not think that this would be at the expense of Jews who wished to come on Aliyah. He believed that if more Jews could be got out from Russia, more will come to Israel


1977: The Jerusalem Post reported that US experts hailed the new Israeli tank, the Chariot.


1978: CBS broadcast the final show for the third season of “One Day At A Time” starring Bonnie Franklin.


1979(6th of Nisan, 5739): Seventy-eight year leader of the Arkansas Jewish community Adele Bluthenthal Heiman passed away today.



1980: In one of those moments when you would think that “the theatre” could not exist without Jews Neil Simon’s “I Ought To Be In Pictures” starring Ron Liebman as “Herb” and Dinah Manoff as “Libby” which had first been produced by Emanuel Azenberg in Los Angeles with Tony Curtis as “Herb” opened tonight at the Eugene O’Neil Theatre. (Eugene O’Neil is the only non-Jew in this list)


1981(28th of Adar II, 5741): Seventy-nine year old film critic Cecilia Ager, the wife the composer of “Happy Days Are Here Again,” Milton Ager passed away today.



1982(10th of Nisan, 5742): Parashat Tzav; Shabbat HaGadol


1982(10th of Nisan, 5742): Eighty-six year old Tillie Klausner, the Polish born daughter of Miriam and Aaron Wolf Bienenstock and wife of Josef Klausner passed away today in Denver, CO.


1986: Birthdate of actress Amada Bynes.


1986(23rd of Adar II, 5746): Israeli mathematician Elisha Netanyahu passed away.




1987: Bob McAdoo, former National Basketball Association scoring champion, scored 15 of his 21 points in the second half today as Tracer Milan won the European Champions Cup by edging Maccabi Tel Aviv of Israel, 71-69, in the final.


1987: The New York Antiquarian Book Fair comes to a close. Among the items offered at the fair was The ''Twenty Four Books of the Holy Scriptures,'' the first edition in English of what was for generations the standard Jewish-American Bible, translated and annotated by Rabbi Isaac Leeser and published in Philadelphia in 1853 which was valued at $1,750.


1990:Gilbert and Sullivan Yield To Gershwin and Ryskind



1991(20th of Nisan, 5751): Charles Henry Goren, the son of Russian-Jewish immigrants who became “a world champion American bridge player and bestselling author who contributed significantly to the development and popularization of the game” passed away.




 


1992: Richard Schifter completed his term as Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs.


1992(29th of Adar II, 5752): Eighty-four year old painter Aaron Bohrod passed away today.



1992: “The Player” a satirical film featuring appearances by Sydney Pollack, Peter Falk, Jeff Goldblum and Gina Gershon premiered in Cleveland, Ohio today.


1992: Jack Lang began serving as Education Minister of France for the first time.


1992: “Beethoven,” the first in a series of dog comedy films co-produced by Ivan Reitman, starring Charles Grodin and with music by Randy Edelman was released today in the United States.


1993(12th of Nisan, 5753): Parashat Tzav; Shabbat HaGadol


1993(12th of Nisan, 5753): Eighty-two year old philanthropist Ludwig Jesselson passed away today in Jerusalem. (As reported by Eric Pace)



1993(12th of Nisan, 5753): Pinky Lee kiddy host (Pinky Lee Show), died of a heart attack at 85. Born Pincus Leff, in 1916, Lee was a big star in the early days of television. His signature line was "Ha Ha Hee Hee." He was well known as a host of children's shows including the Pinky Lee Show. Lee ran into trouble with the Black List. One of his last programs was the Gumby Show in 1957. (Yes, there was Gumby before SNL.)



1994(22nd of Nisan, 5754): Seventy-five year old Maj. Gen. Aharon Remez, the first commander of the Israeli Air Force, passed away today at the age of 75. General Remez had also served as a Labor Party Member of Parliament, Transport Minister and Israeli Ambassador to Britain. He was buried with full military honors on Monday in Jerusalem's military cemetery. Born in Tel Aviv in British-ruled Palestine, General Remez joined the Haganah underground in 1936. The Jewish Agency, then the governing body of Jewish settlement in what later became Israel, sent him to New Jersey in 1939 to learn how to fly. He flew a Spitfire for Britain in combat against the Germans. In 1947 he helped establish Haganah’s flying service, the predecessor to the Israeli Air Force, and Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion appointed him commander shortly after Israel's statehood was declared in 1948. General Remez stepped down three years later in a dispute over attempts to incorporate the Israeli Air Force into the general command. The air force is under separate command today. He served as Ambassador to Britain in the late 1960's.


1997: A revival of Lillian Hellman’s “The Little Foxes” which uses a verse from Chapter 2, Verse 15 of the Song of Solomon which reads, "Take us the foxes, the little foxes, that spoil the vines: for our vines have tender grapes" as the inspiration for its title opens today at the Vivian Beaumont.


1997: “Dogtown” a drama co-starring Jon Favreau and filmed by cinematographer Kramer Morgenthau was released today at the Los Angeles International Film Festival.


1997(25th of Adar II, 5757): Seventy-five year old Los Angeles Judge Jerry Pacht “died of a cerebral hemorrhage today.”



 


2002(21st of Nisan, 5762): Seventh day of Pesach and 6thday of the Omer


2002: During Operation Defensive Shield, IDF troops secured Jenin but the fight for the terrorists’ stronghold still loomed ahead.


2002(21st of Nisan, 5762) IDF reservist Maj. Moshe Gerstner, 29, of Rishon Lezion was killed in Jenin during anti-terrorist action (Operation Defensive Shield).


2003: Release date for the Hebrew Language Israeli film “Bonjour Monsieur Shlomi.”


2004: At the Rainbow Room in NYC, Rabbi Mark S. Golub officiated at the wedding of Anna Chloe Hoffman, a daughter of Dale and Stephen Hoffman and David Russ Steinhardt, a son of Judy and Michael Steinhardt, founder of “Makor, a cultural center which is part of the 92nd Street Y.


2005: Official induction Pretoian born Warren Goldstein, as Chief Rabbi of South Africa making him the first native of South Africa and the youngest person to hold the post.


2005: The New York Timesfeatured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including “Omaha Blues: A Memory Loop” by Joseph Lelyveld, “Inside the List by Rachel Donadio” and “Return to Greatness: How America Lost Its Sense of Purpose and What It Needs to Do to Recover It” by Alan Wolfe as well as the following monograph about ''Runny Babbit,'' Shel Silverstein's silly tale of a rabbit with a penchant for inverting his consonants that just made its debut at No. 1 on the children's picture book best-seller list. Silverstein, the much loved poet and author of idiosyncratic and often bittersweet books like ''The Giving Tree,''''Where the Sidewalk Ends'' and other children's classics of the past four decades, worked on ''Runny Babbit'' on and off for 20 years, before his death in 1999. Silverstein was a constant reviser. ''He had mountains of poems and stories, in bits and pieces, and in different versions, written on stray pieces of paper,'' his friend and former editor, Joan Robins, told Publishers Weekly. Robins and Toni Markiet, the executive editor of HarperCollins Children's Books, both helped shepherd ''Runny Babbit'' into print. Written in jolly inverse verse, the book recounts the adventures of a kindhearted, rather hapless rabbit, from restaurant to bath to library (''A bience scook? A boetry pook? / Oh, no -- a bomic cook!''). HarperCollins has done a first printing of 500,000 copies, betting that deprived Silverstein fans will be eager to snap it up. A good bet: The Times Magazine reported after his death that Silverstein -- who in the course of his career was a playwright, a regular cartoonist for Playboy and a country-western songwriter -- left an estate worth $20 million, so he clearly knew a thing or two about what people want.


2006: Israeli Attorney General Menachem Mazuz announced that he was closing the Yona Metzger investigation and would not seek an indictment against him, citing a lack of sufficient evidence. He added, however, that in light of various "disturbing" information that came to light during the investigation, including contradictory statements given to the police that the Chief Rabbi should resign


2007(15th of Nissan, 5767): First Day of Pesach


2007: In “For Shtetl by the Sea, Only a Few Fading Signs Remain” published today Abby Goodnough provides a portrait of the changing face of “Jewish Miami Beach.”


The synagogue at 1415 Euclid Avenue had only a few members left when Daniel Davidson, a New Yorker seeking a standout South Beach retreat, bought it in 2003. “I thought the space magical,” he said of the spare, white 16,000-square-foot building — now back on the market for $9,950,000 — “irrespective of religion. And so the Orthodox synagogue, Kneseth Israel, became Temple House, where Mr. Davidson has not only lived but also allowed Budweiser to film a commercial, Senator Bill Nelson of Florida and Al Gore to hold a Democratic fund-raising event and Jennifer Lopez to stage a listening party for her latest album, belting out love songs near where the Torah ark used to be. Like so many buildings that served a thriving Jewish population here for decades — synagogues, delicatessens, kosher markets and hotels, even Yiddish theaters — Temple House’s history is all but imperceptible now. The community that earned Miami Beach nicknames like Little Jerusalem and Shtetl by the Sea is largely gone, and many of today’s residents know nothing of it. Miami Beach had roughly 60,000 people in Jewish households, 62 percent of the total population, in 1982, but only 16,500, or 19 percent of the population, in 2004, said Ira Sheskin, a demographer at the University of Miami who conducts surveys once a decade. The decline — due mostly to elderly Jews dying or getting priced out after the city’s Art Deco revival, but also to the migration of others to Broward and Palm Beach Counties as greater Miami became more Hispanic — has forced old-timers to scour for hints of their past. A few remain, like the Hebrew-inscribed doors of a deserted Orthodox shul being converted to condominiums and the old entryway to Wolfie’s, a beloved coffee shop demolished for a condo building that will keep the faded front as a relic. But Miami Beach’s last kosher resort hotel, the Saxony, closed in 2005 to make way for condominiums. Its oldest synagogue, Beth Jacob, also closed that year after membership dropped to 22, from 1,200 in the 1950s. Its domed building is now the Jewish Museum of Florida, housing memorabilia like mah-jongg boards and anti-Semitic real estate ads promising “always a view, never a Jew.” (Residents with “Hebrew or Syrian blood” generally could not rent or buy north of Fifth Street until the 1950s.) On Lincoln Road, the pedestrian thoroughfare at the heart of South Beach, Temple King Solomon has given way to Touch, a restaurant and lounge with occasional belly dancers and flame throwers. On Washington Avenue, the Cinema Theater, home to one of the longest-running Yiddish vaudeville shows in the world, is now Mansion, a club favored by Paris Hilton types. Farther north, in Sunny Isles Beach, Wolfie Cohen’s Rascal House — Miami’s version of Katz’s Deli in New York, famous for “mile-high” corned beef sandwiches — will soon be demolished and replaced with yet another condo tower. This is not to say all Yiddishkeit is lost here: Talmudic University, which opened in Miami Beach in 1974, remains on Alton Road, along with a Lubavitch center that runs a day school and a rabbinical college. A few miles north of blingy South Beach, beachfront resorts like the Fontainebleau and the Eden Roc still fill up at Passover, and an Orthodox Jewish community is flourishing around 41st Street. But in South Beach alone, the number of people in Jewish households dropped by 53 percent between 1994 and 2004, to 4,171 from 8,775. Charlotte Cooper, who came to Miami Beach from New York to perform Yiddish theater in the 1960s and stayed until she was priced out in 1999, said she could hardly stand to return these days.“It’s an entirely different story now,” said Mrs. Cooper, a Holocaust survivor who moved to a condominium in Pembroke Pines but still performs here now and then. “People from Hollywood, movie stars, come to stay in those hotels now. It has nothing to do with the Jewish people anymore.” At Temple Emanu-El in South Beach, Rabbi Kliel Rose is striving to attract young Jews while keeping older, second- and third-generation members. The cavernous stone synagogue drew 1,200 families in the 1980s; it claims about 260 now. Rabbi Rose’s tactics include regular outings to South Beach bars and clubs, lectures on Kabbalah and a recent Havdalah ceremony, marking the end of Sabbath at sundown Saturday, with cocktails at Temple House. Rabbi Rose has added drums, guitar and an element of mysticism to Shabbat services. Still, to ensure the requisite 10 people for morning minyans, or prayer sessions, Temple Emanu-El teams up with the Cuban Hebrew Congregation, one of the neighborhood’s only other surviving synagogues. “We are truly experimenting,” said Rabbi Rose, 36, who wears an earring and was recruited from Congregation B’Nai Jeshurun, a booming conservative synagogue on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. “We are trying to think outside the box.” When his congregants started shifting in their seats toward the end of Shabbat services one recent Friday night, Rabbi Rose asked them not to leave just yet, admonishing, “Lincoln Road can wait.” David Weintraub, who directed “Where Neon Goes to Die,” a film about the Jewish retirees who flocked to Miami Beach from the 1920s through the 1980s, said his research was frustrated by an astonishing lack of documentation. “This legacy went on for over 60 years, and yet there is almost no memory that it even happened,” Mr. Weintraub said. “At the Miami Beach archives, I went through their file drawers for two weeks. There were drawers and drawers of cheesecake on the beach but not one photograph of Yiddish culture.” Now, Mr. Weintraub is thinking of organizing “ghost tours” of Jewish Miami Beach. But he does not want a tourist clientele. “We would target the folks who already live in Miami in the hopes that if people get a better sense of who and what came before,” he said, “they might be more pro-active when city planners destroy another piece of Miami’s past.” Marcia Zerivitz, founding executive director of the Jewish Museum of Florida, said that while the decline of the Jewish population is an old story here, the rest of the country is surprisingly unaware. Filmmakers and writers still call her to say they want to document Jewish culture in Miami Beach, Ms. Zerivitz said. “I get calls like that all the time, especially from California and up east,” she said. “I say: ‘Sorry, you’re many, many years too late. There’s nothing left.’ ”


2008: Don Hewitt was honored with Washington State University's Edward R. Murrow Award for Lifetime Achievement in Broadcast Journalism.


2008: As part of the Israel at 60 Celebration the 92nd Street Y hosts Israeli “Culture: Past and Present: Examining Pre-1948 Israeli Culture: Art and Literature.” Professor Uri Cohen examines the formation of Israeli culture from its inception to the creation of the state. His presentation includes readings from the works of Agnon, Gutman and Rubin.Uri Cohen is an assistant professor at Columbia University specializing in Modern Hebrew Literature and Israeli culture. His interests include the role of poetic language in political discourse and questions of cultural representation of conflict


2008: Israeli-European economic ties are growing as the parties seek to speedily integrate the strong and expanding Israeli economy into the huge European market, according to statement made by EU officials today.


2009: Richard Stoltzman presents “A Salute to Benny Goodman” at the Englert Theatre in Iowa City. Originally scheduled for Hancher Auditorium, the program was shifted to the smaller venue because of the Floods of 2008.


2009: At Coe College in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Vanderbilt University Professor Amy-Jill Levine delivers a lecture entitled “Hearing the Parables in their Jewish Contexts.”


2009: “Fast and Furious” featuring Gal Gadot as “Gisele Yashar” was released in North America today.


2010: Violinist Joseph Lin is scheduled to perform at the Sixth & I Synagogue in Washington, D.C.


2010: On Shabbat Chol Hamoed Pesach, Temple Judah holds its monthly traditional Saturday morning service complete with a Kosher for Passover Kiddush, a one of a kind event in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.


2010: Nili Shamrat “was sentenced to 300 hours of community service and given a five-year suspended sentence for possession of stolen property” for his role in the 1983 burglary of the L.A. Mayer Institute for Islamic Art.


2011(27th of Adar II, 5771): Moshe V. Goldblum, rabbi of Pittsburgh’s Beth Shalom Congregation for 24 years, passed away today in Israel. “Goldblum was a 1949 graduate of the Jewish Theological Seminary and came to Pittsburgh from Jacksonville, Fla. He also served congregations in Columbus and Mansfield, Ohio, New York and Baltimore. He was a U.S. Army chaplain from 1945 to 1947.”


2011(27th of Adar II, 5771): Twenty three year old Yale hockey player Mandi Schwartz passed away today. (As reported by Thomas Kaplan)



2011: The Annual Used Book Sale is scheduled to begin at Gesher Jewish Day School in Fairfax, VA.


2011: The Center for Jewish History in conjunction with the Jewish Book Council, the Skirball Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies at New York University and the Columbia University Institute for Israel and Jewish Studies are scheduled to present a program entitled “The Jewish Book: Past, Present, Future” which deals with the questions of What makes a Jewish book?, Who are the People of the Book? How have Jewish books changed with changes in technology?


2011: “Jews and Baseball: An American Love Story” is scheduled to be shown at The Westchester Jewish Film Festival.


2011: Agudas Achim Synagogue is scheduled to host the Iowa City Jewish Community’s 3rd Annual Mitzvah Day - A Day of Community Service.


2011: The New York Timesfeatures books by Jewish writers and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including ‘All the Time in the World’ by E.L. Doctorow and ‘The Free World’, David Bezmozgis’s first novel, set in Rome in 1978, which “follows three generations of Soviet Jews as they wait for visas to North America.”


2011: President Shimon Peres is scheduled to leave for Washington, DC where he will meet with several US leaders including President Obama.


2011: The Ministry of Public Diplomacy and Diaspora Affairs announced the names of people chosen to light beacons at this year's Independence Day ceremony. The ministry pointed out that each of the chosen beacon lighters represent the central theme of this year's ceremony, "Looking after one another – the year of mutual care," which was chosen by the cabinet. The 2011 Independence Day ceremony will take place on May 9, at Mount Herzl in Jerusalem. Among the torch lighters are Orit Dror, a member of Kibbutz Lavi who, together with her husband, donated her son's organs after he died of a terminal illness, and saved the life of a 13-year-old girl; Zehava Dankner (mother of businessman Nochi Dankner), a philanthropist who supported, among others, residents surrounding Gaza, and who is involved in matters of education, security and health; Barbra Goldstein, a representative of Hadassah, the women's Zionist organization of America, which is marking its 100th anniversary this year; Yovi Tsuma, a social activist who participates in a group of young Ethipian volunteers who help members of the immigrant community who have encountered difficulties in absorption; and Rabbi Shimon Rosenberg, a member of the Chabad movement, who lost his daughter and son in law in the November 2008 terrorist attack at the Chabad house in Mumbai.


2012: “The Kid With a Bike” and “The Mill and the Cross” are scheduled to be shown at the Westchester Jewish Film Festival


2012: A Concert of Russian and Jewish Music featuring Metropolitan Klezmer is scheduled to take place in New York City.


2013: “The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York said a lower court had erred in dismissing fraud-based claims by” Steven A. Cohen’s “former spouse” Patricia Cohen and revived the lawsuit” while also reviving “claims of racketeering and breach of fiduciary duty, while upholding the dismissal of an unjust enrichment claim.”



2012: The Jewish Community Center of Greater Kansas City, with the endorsement of the Greater Kansas City Interfaith Council, is scheduled to present a performance by the Yuval Ron Ensemble.


2013: “Numbered,” a film that explores the relationship some Auschwitz survivors have with their tattoos, is scheduled to be shown at the Museum of Jewish Heritage at Battery Place in New York City.


2013: Today “it was announced that Lorne Michaels will be taking over as the executive producer for The Tonight Show.”


2013(23rd of Nisan, 5773): Ninety-five year old, Dorothy Taubman, the developer of the Taubman Technique for rehabilitating musicians passed away today. (As reported by Vivian Schweitzer)




2013(23rd of Nisan, 5773): Eighty-six year old cartoonist Ed Fisher passed away today.




2013: Palestinian terrorists fired two rockets at the southern Israeli city of Sderot this morning. The intermittent rocket attacks began while President Obama was touring the region before Pesach.


2013: Today,A three-judge panel of the Tel Aviv District Court ordered Bank Hapoalim and three pension funds to pay around NIS 2.1 million to the estate of an elderly Holocaust survivor for liability in allowing the illegal withdrawal of her money by her home caregiver.


2013: First baseman Nate Freiman made his major league debut with the Oakland A’s


2014: The Jewish Historical Society of Greater Washington is scheduled to host Jews and Baseball: D.C. and Beyond with Phil Hochberg, Jean Leavy and Aviva Kempler


2014: A French court fines a 28-year-old Moroccan man $4,130 for posting photos online of himself giving the quenelle salute in front of Grand Synagogue in Bordeaux


2014: “The Sturgeon Queens” is scheduled to be shown at the Austin Jewish Film Festival.


2014: The Oregon Jewish Museum is scheduled to host the opening reception for an exhibit styled “The Seder: Meanings, Ritual & Spirituality” featuring the work of Samuel Eisen-Meyers.


2014: Friends and family gather to celebrate the birthday of Elizabeth Levin, “daughter extraordinaire” of David Levin.


2015: “President Obama issued Passover greetings” today “to those celebrating Passover in the United States, in the state of Israel and throughout the world.


2015: President Obama and his hosted their seventh White House Seder where the menu included, “Moroccan charoset balls, savory holiday brisket and carrot soufflé.”


2015: Francis J. Pruitt, the author of Faith and Courage in a Time of Trouble, “a memoir of a Belgian-Jewish girl and her family who were saved during the Nazi occupation of France through the compassion and heroism of French peasants from the southern part of the country” is scheduled to appear at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.


2015: A year after having been shown at the Tribeca Film Festival “5 to 7” directed and written by Victor Levin was released in the United States today.


2015: The friends and family of Elizabeth Levin will have to get her that birthday cake today before the last crumbs of Chametz are swept away.


2015(14thof Nisan, 5775): Ninety-two year old English actor Robert Rietti, born Lucio Herbert Rietti, passed away today.



2015(14th of Nisan, 5775): Fast of the First Born


2016: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Don’t Let My Baby Do Rodeo by Boris Fishman and Spain in our Hearts: American in the Spanish Civil War, 1936-1939 by Adam Hochschild


2016: In Fairfax, VA, Temple Beth El is scheduled to host a “sneak preview of Sabena Hijacking” one of the films to be shown later at the JCCNV’s Annual Film Festival.


2016: The Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center is scheduled to host a panel discussion on “The Forgotten Genocide: The Destruction of Cultural Heritage in Armenia, Bosnia and Syria.”


2016: HaZamir: The International Jewish High School Choir is scheduled to perform at Carnegie Hall.


2016: “Wedding Doll” is scheduled to be shown on the final night of the Israeli Film Festival in Philadelphia, PA.


2016: Radio Kol Hamusica is scheduled to broadcast the works of Israeli composer Emanuel Vahl.


2016: The Breman Museum, the Center for Civil and Human Rights and the Atlanta Jewish Film Festival, are scheduled to offer a free screening of the award winning film, “50 Children: The Rescue Mission of Mr.& Mrs. Kraus”


2016:Leo Baeck Institute and Center for Jewish History are scheduled to host “Burning Words: A History Play by Peter Wortsman”


2016: Unlike last year, Elizabeth Levin gets a break and she and her friends a family can enjoy plenty of cake as they celebrate her natal day.


2017: The JTA Centennial Gala featuring Bernard-Henri Levy as the keynote speak and honoring Brian Sterling, Mark Wilf and Jane Weitzman is scheduled to take place this evening at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York.


2017: Michael Cohen, Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, “was appointed a National Deputy Finance Chairman of the Republican National Committee” today.


2017: In Cedar Rapids, a sad moment as the  community gathers for the funeral of Amy Barnum, wife of Joel Barnum, mother of Emma (Sam), Sasha (Lance), Gail and grandmother of Dean and Henry. A friend to so many – positive, upbeat woman of valor whose optimism was so contagious.


2018(18thof Nisan, 5778): Fourth Day of Pesach


2018: A real simcha for friends and family of Dr. Elizabeth Levin as they celebrate her natal day and acceptance into a prestigious fellowship program.


2018: In New Orleans, Temple Sinai and the Jewish Federation of Greater New Orleans are scheduled to cost a LGBTQ Interfaith Seder this evening.


2018: In Jerusalem, The Tower of David is scheduled to host a performance “A Lion of the Streets of Jerusalem”—a “story about Rabbi Aryeh.”


2018: The Swann Auction Galleries is scheduled to a screening of selections from the feature documentary Rosenwald, followed by a conversation with director Aviva Kempner, hosted by Nigel Freeman.


 


 

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

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April 4



188: Birthdate of Cracalla, the Roman Emperor who allowed all free Jews within the empire to become full Roman citizens.



397:Aurelius Ambrosius, (Saint Ambrose) a bishop of Milan who became one of the most influential ecclesiastical figures of the fourth century passed away. He lived during a period when the Christian Church was still trying to establish its identity. He was no stranger to Jews as we can see from the following three examples. In “De Abrahamo” Ambrose warned Christians against intermarrying with Jews.  His strong opposition can be seen in the following conflict he had with the Roman Emperor, Theodosius over the rebuilding of synagogue. “It appears that in 388 a mob, led by the local bishop and many monks, destroyed the synagogue at Callinicum. The emperor Theodosius the Great ordered the rebuilding of the synagogue at the expense of the rioters, including the bishop. Ambrose immediately issued a fiery protest to the emperor. He wrote to Theodosius that "the glory of God" is concerned in this matter, and that therefore he cannot be silent. "Shall the bishop be compelled to re-erect a synagogue? Can he religiously do this thing? If he obey the emperor, he will become a traitor to his faith; if he disobey him, a martyr. What real wrong is there, after all, in destroying a synagogue, a 'home of perfidy, a home of impiety,' in which Christ is daily blasphemed? Indeed, he must consider himself no less guilty than this poor bishop; at least to the extent that he made no concealment of his wish that all synagogues should be destroyed, that no such places of blasphemy be further allowed to exist." At the end, he succeeded in obtaining from Theodosius a promise that the sentence should be completely revoked, with the very natural consequence that thereafter the prospect of immunity thus afforded occasioned spoliations of synagogues all over the empire. That Ambrose could nevertheless occasionally say a good word for the Jews is shown by a passage in his "Enarratio in Psalmos" in which he remarks, "Some Jews exhibit purity of life and much diligence and love of study."



1081: Alexios I Komnenos is crowned Byzantine emperor at Constantinople, beginning the Komnenian dynasty. Most Byzantine Emperors of this period “expressed little interest in combating…religious pluralism.  Alexios was the exception to the rule.  He took “an unusual interest in presenting himself as a defender” of the dominant Christian Orthodox faith. During his reign, St. Nikon agreed to go to Sparta if the Jews were expelled from the community. The town was enduring a wave of unusual illness and Nikon said that cause was the contaminating effect of “abominable” Jewish customs and the polluting effect of their worship.



1284: The reign of Alfonso X as King of Castile and Leon who “employed Jewish, Christian and Muslim Scholars…primarily for the purposed of translating books from Arabic and Hebrew into Latin and Castilian” and who relied on Yehuda ben Moshe to translate selected works of magic, came to an end today.



1284: Sancho IV of Castile, who treated the story of the affair between Rahel la Fermosa, a Jewish woman from Toledo, and King Alfonso VIII as fact and not fable, began his reign today.



1285: Philip the Fair, King of France, began his policy of using Jews solely for his financial benefit.  He was called the Fair because of his complexion, not his behavior.  The Jews were caught up in the conflict called the Albigensians Heresy, a conflict within the Catholic Church.  Philip was always looking for ways to enrich himself.  Ultimately he expelled the Jews from his kingdom, abrogating the debts he owed them and confiscating all personal and communal property.



1292: Pope Nicholas IV who had issued “Orat Mater Ecclesla,” a bull designed “to protect the Roman Jews from oppression, passed away today.



1588: Christian IV, “the first Danish king to establish connections with Jews” which became a reality when he appointed Albert Dionis, a Sephardi Jew “to run the mint in the newly planned town of Gluckstadt on the Elbe.”



1609: English navigator Henry Hudson set sail from Amsterdam harbor under direction from his “employer,” the Duct East India Company to sail east in the quest for a shorter water passage to the Indies.  Fortunately for the Jewish people, Hudson ignored these instructions and sailed west seeking the fabled Northwest Passage to the Orient.  As part of this quest, Hudson sailed past what is now New York on his way up what we know as the Hudson River claiming all of the surrounding for the Dutch.  This meant that the 23 Jews who arrived in New Amsterdam landed in a territory controlled by the religiously tolerant Dutch as opposed to a colony controlled Catholic Spain or Catholic France neither of whom would have allowed the Jews to settle.



1660: King Charles II of England publishes the terms under which he will return to the throne in a document known as the Declaration of Breda. The restoration under Charles II bodes well for the Jews of England since it was Charles II who was the first to declare that the Jewish community could remain in England without suffering harassment.   



1687: King James II issued The Declaration of Indulgence, one of the major steps towards the granting of full religious liberty in Great Britain.  Jews had returned to in 1655 and the next major step in the fight for full religious rights would come with the passage of the short-lived Jewish Naturalization Act of 1753.



1693(27th of Adar II, 5453):Eighty-eight year oldRabbi Isaac Aboab da Fonseca, a kabbalist, scholar and leader of the Dutch Jewish community passed away.



http://www.dutchjewry.org/drieluik/isack_aboab_da_fonseca/isack_aboab_da_fonseca.htm



1718: Birthdate of Benjamin Kennicott, English churchman and Hebrew scholar who spent most of his life exploring and collating various Hebrew texts.  Unfortunately, the final printing of his work rendered much of it nearly useless.  One of the most positive outcomes was the recognition of the antiquity and common origins of the text of the Hebrew Bible.



1733: Today in Saxony, “August II revived the decrees of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, ordering in addition that the body-tax be paid thenceforth by all Jews, regardless of sex or age, though Elijah Behrend succeeded in securing the exemption of children under ten years of age. Behrend furthermore obtained permission for all Bohemian, Moravian, and Hungarian Jews to travel on any road through Saxony and secured the repeal of the edict forbidding them to remain in any place longer than one day.”



1739: “Israel in Egypt,” “an oratorio by George Frideric Handel that “it is composed entirely of selected passages from the Hebrew Bible, mainly from Exodus and the Psalms premiered at London's King's Theatre in the Haymarket”



1754(12th of Nisan, 5514): Fast of the First Born held on Thursday because Pesach begins on Saturday night.



1762(11th of Nisan, 5522): David Frankel, the chief rabbi of Berlin whose students included Moses Mendelssohn, passed away today.



1772(1st of Nisan, 5532): Rosh Chodesh Nisan



1772(1st of Nisan, 5532): In Medzhybizh,Simcha, the son of Rabbi Nachman of Horodenka and his wife Feiga gave birth to Rabbi Nachman of Breslov, a great-grandson of the Baal Shem Tov who was “the founder of the Breslov Hasidic Movement.



1775: Birthdate of Samuel Elias, the native of Whitechapel, London who gained fame as the boxer Dutch Sam, a name that might be attributed to the fact that his parents had come to England from Holland.



1776: Celebration of the first Pesach after the firing of the Shot Heard Round the World.



1795(15th of Nisan, 5555): Pesach



1795: Birthdate of violinist Joseph Böhm, the native of Pest who became a director of the Vienna Conservatory.



1799: Birthdate of Mordecai ben Shumel, the grocer known as Marcus Samuel who passed away in 1870.



1801: Twenty-year old Carel Asser married eighteen year old Rosa Levin Amsterdam.



1818: Birthdate of Moritz Kohner, the native of Neuern, Bohemia, the merchants who was “elected president of the Leipzig Jewish community in 1868 and founded the Deutsch-Israelitische Gemeindebund in 1869.



1830: Birthdate of Albert (Aaron) Siegfried Bettelheim, Hungarian born Rabbi and Hebraist.



1838: Birthdate of Lawrence Barrett the Shakespearian actor who “portrays the character” of Shylock “with force, sincerity and at times with splendid effect”



1838: Albert Moses Levy married Claudinia Olivia Gervais.  Levy was a Virginia born doctor who moved to Texas where he played a prominent role in the revolt against Mexico.  Levy’s father, a Dutch born Jew married an Episcopalian after coming to the United States.  Levy was raised in the faith of his mother and his wife, with whom he had five children, was also an Episcopalian. While stories like this were not uncommon among 18th and 19thAmerican Jewry, it is amazing that there were not more such cases given the fluidity of the American frontier.



1841: In Augusta, GA, Gustavus V. Anker of Richmond, VA married Abigail Rebecca Sampson, the daughter of the late Joseph Sampson, who had lived in Charleston, SC.



1841: Birthdate of Ancona (Italy) native Frederico Consolo, the violinist who “composed the arrangement for the national anthem of San Marino, based on a 10th-century chorale” which “was adopted in 1894.”



1850:  Los Angeles is incorporated as a city. Jews were active in Los Angeles from its earliest days as an American city. Jacob Frankfort is reported to the first Jew to live in Los Angeles.  He arrived in the city in December, 1841, when it was still part of Mexico.  In the early 1850’s seven prominent, unmarried Jewish merchants occupied space at the Corner of Aliso and Los Angeles streets on what was called Bell’s row.  Two were from Poland and five were from Germany.  They ranged in age from 19 to 28.  For the trivia buffs, their names were Abraham Jacobi, Morris Michaels, Morris Goodman, Phillip Sichel, Augustine Waserman, Felix Bachan and Joseph Plumer



1859:Dinorah, originally Le pardon de Ploërmel ("The Pilgrimage of Ploërmel"), a French opéra comique in three acts with music by Giacomo Meyerbeer was first performed at the Opéra-Comique (Salle Favart), in Paris.



1859: It was reported today that “the number of Jews in Oregon, most of whom are engaged in commercial pursuits, is quite large. In Portland, they have a synagogue recently incorporated by the legislature under the name of ‘Congregation Beth Israel’ where religious worship is conducted after the manner of German Israelites.  A large portion of them are, however, free-thinkers.”



1861: It was reported today that M. Guranda, the Viennese Jewish editor of the Ost Deutsche Post was elected to serve in the Provincial Diet.



1862: Birthdate of Leonid Pasternak, the native of Odessa who became a noted post-impressionist painter and was the father of Boris Pasternak.



http://pasternak-trust.org/leonid/biography/



1863(15thof Nisan, 5623): Pesach



1865: Private Henry Strauss was discharged from the 10th Mississippi Infantry today.



1866(19thof Nisan, 5626): Sixth Day of Pesach



1866(19thof Nisan, 5626): Twenty-two year old Heinrich Oppenheimer, the son of Marx and Sarah Oppenheimer, passed away today.



1866: Birthdate of Adolph Joachim Sabath, the native of Zabori who came to the United States at the age of 15 and served in the U.S. House of  Representatives from 1907 to 1952.



http://specialcollections.tulane.edu/archon/?p=collections/findingaid&id=499



1871: “Matzoth Again: The Feast of Passover Unleavened Bread How They Make Passover Cakes,” published today describes the process of making Matzah. [Ed. Note: Given the comparatively small Jewish population, this article is remarkable for several reasons.] http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9D0CE5DC103EEE34BC4C53DFB266838A669FDE



1872: Johann Jacoby joined the Social Democrat Party in Prussia today.



1872: The Grand Lodge of the Sons of Israel received a report today that 2,176 names were on the rolls of the Endowment Fund which had been established to provide for widows and orphans and that the fund was now capitalized at $69,604.40.



1877(21stof Nisan, 5637): Seventh Day of Pesach



1877: The third of the annual special services for the Jews “held in Christ Church Spitafields” which were part of the on-going attempts to convert Jews and which in the past had provoked demonstrations by Jews of the area was led by Reverend A.I. McCaul an included a sermon by Reverend Samuel Bardsley



1877: Birthdate of Yiddish poet and songwriter Mordechai Gebirtig.



1878: In Chicago, Adolph Loeb, the son of Jakob and Ester Loeb, and his wife Johanna Loeb gave birth to Ludwig Mannheimer Loeb



1878: In Singapore, the new Maghain Aboth Synagogue on Waterloo Street which had been financed in part by Menasseh Meyer, “supposedly the richest Jew in Asia,” was consecrated today.



1879: Birthdate of Ignacz Trebitsh the son of Paks, Hungary merchant, who left his native land in 1896, converted to Christianity and led a life as Lincoln Trebitsch whose remarkable life included serving three years in a British jail for being a German spy and as an MP from Darlington.



http://www.amazon.com/The-Secret-Lives-Trebitsch-Lincoln/dp/0300040768



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


1879: A correspondent for the Neue Zilricher Zeitgung described a massacre of Jews that had taken place in Satschcheri, a town in the Caucasus region.  The massacre was the result of a blood libel based on claims by Christian villagers that seven Jews had killed a child whose body was found in the woods.



1880: In Marienpol, Poland, Nathan and Sarah Lamport gave birth to Samuel Charles Lamport, a graduate of high school in Burlington, VT, City College and Brown University, who is the owner of Lamport Manufacturing and Supply Company and a leader of the Jewish community as can be seen by his service as a trustee of the Jewish Publication Society and a director of the JTS and the Home of the Daughters of Jacob.



1882(15th of Nisan, 5642): First Day of Pesach



1882: As the Jews of Tisza-Eszlar, Hungary, observe Pesach rumors are circulating that Esther Solymosi, a 14 year old Christian peasant girl who disappeared on the first of the month has been killed by the Jews so her blood could be used in baking matzah.



1883(26thof Adar II):Menahem Cattawi Bey, known as the "Egyptian Rothschild” passed away today



1884: In Pest, The Supreme Tribunal has confirmed the acquittal of all the Jews who were charged with murdering Esther Salomossy. It was alleged that they had killed her to obtain blood to mix with “Passover Bread”



1885: In Mantua, Lodovico Mortara and his wife gave birth to “economist, demographer and statistician” Giorgio Mortara, the grandson of Rabbi Marco Mortara.


1886(28thof Adar II, 5646): Moritz Warburg, who was born in 1810 who represented his native Altona in the Reichstag passed away today.  He was survived by his first son Albert who was born in 1843 but was pre-deceased by his second son Jacob who was born in 1848 and was killed during the Franco-Prussian War.


1887(10thof Nisan, 5647): Isais Morgenstern passed away.


1889: Clarence Charles Minzesheimer, “who had entered the banking and brokerage business of his father Charles Minzesheimer became a member of the New York Stock Exchange today.


1890(14thof Nisan, 5650): Ta’anit Bechorot; Erev Pesach and Erev Shabbat


1890: “The Jewish Feast of Pesach” published today continues a tradition of the New York Times of writing about the holiday stretching back to the earliest days of the paper’s founding before the Civil War.


1890: “Meat Given To The Poor” published today descried the distribution Passover provisions the needy.  While most of those in line were Polish Jews, “there was also a number of poor Gentiles.”  They were given coupons to take to local butchers since those distributing the food felt that there should be no distinction to helping the poor regardless of religion.


1890(14th of Nisan, 5650): As Jews begin the celebration of Passover this evening, the less fortunate Jews living in New York will enjoy a happier holiday thanks to the efforts of the Passover Relief Association which distributed 9,830 pounds of Matzah, 1,000 pounds of sugar, 480 pounds of coffee and 50 pounds of tea at Goodfellow Hall prior to the start of the holiday.


1890(14th of Nisan, 5650):Felix Albert Bettelheim passed away in Baltimore, Maryland. Born in Hungary in 1861 he was the son of the rabbi Aaron Siegfried Bettelheim. He immigrated to the United States in the sixties. In his seventeenth year he was graduated from the University of California with high honors, and three years later from the Medical College in San Francisco. From 1880 to 1881 he was resident physician of the San Quentin state prison; from 1881 to 1883, ship's surgeon of the Pacific Mail steamship "Colima"; 1883-89, surgeon-general of the Panama Railroad and CanalCompany. Through his efforts the first hospital in Panama was built; and he became one of its staff of physicians. He held several high offices and received a number of medals and testimonials from the government in recognition of his services. Bettelheim was the discoverer of a new germ peculiar to tropical countries, an account of which is given in medical records. In 1889 he studied clinical methods in the great European cities. On his return to America he died from a tropical liver complaint which was held by American authorities to be unique and was described by Professor Osler, of Johns Hopkins University, in a London medical journal. He was a frequent contributor to the "Lancet" and other periodicals, and left a posthumous work, "On the Contagious Diseases of Tropical Countries," still unpublished. A text-book by Dr. Thorington of Philadelphia, on the diseases of the eye, is dedicated to Bettelheim's memory.


1890 (14th of Nisan, 5650): The Jewish Messenger reports that “despite the undeniable tendency to change in every direction, the festival of Passover, which begins this evening survives with all its old time strength and picturesqueness.  Our Passover “is over three thousand years old and likely to survive three thousand more.”


1890: Erev Pesach, the American Hebrewpublishes a special Passover edition including an article entitled “Prejudice Against the Jews; its Causes and Remedies.”


1892: It was reported today that newly elected officers of the Purim Association are M.H. Moses, President; Simon Schafer, Vice President; and Sol E. Solomon, Treasurer.   The $16,000 that the association raised at its last charity ball has been donated to the United Hebrew Charities.


1892: It was reported today that “fever and diphtheria” are ravaging Jewish communities on “both sides of the Russian-German border.”


1894(27thof Adar II, 5654): Sixty-eight year old Rabbi Abraham Pereira Mendes passed away in New York.  A native of Kingston, he was educated in England where he served congregations in Birmingham and London and served as the Dayan for the Sephardic community.  He came to the United States in 1883 to serve as Rabbi at the historic Touro Synagogue in Newport, RI.  He and his wife Eliza who was the daughter of Rabbi D.A. de Sola had two sons Frederick de Sola Mendes and Henry Pereira Mendes each of whom became rabbis.


1894: The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that in Camden, NJ, “the Hebrew Independent Political Club has endorsed Isaac H. Weaver for Council and Harry Wolfe for Freeholder in the Fifth Ward.”


1895: In Galicia, Sarah and Abraham Teichman gave birth to Moses Teichman who came to the United States with his mother in 1897 aboard the S.S. Friesland who gained fames as Arthur Murray the man who danced his way into a financial empire of the Arthur Murray Dance Studios.  He began teaching dance while attending Georgia Tech as a way to pay for his college expenses. 



1895: The will of Bernhard Bernhard who had passed away last week we filed for probate today.


1896:  Birthdate of poet Tristan Tzara [Samuel or Sami Rosenfeld].  Born in Romania, he began publishing in 1912.  In 1916 he moved to Switzerland where he a founder of Dadaism.  Tzara named this nihilistic movement by opening the dictionary and choosing the first meaningless word.  Tzara moved to Paris and was a member of the Communist wing of the Resistance.  He died in 1963.


1896: Birthdate of Wolfgang Fürstner, the Wehrmacht officer who was in charge of the Olympic Village in 1936 and who committed suicide after he was reclassified as non-Aryan when it was discovered that his grandfather was a Jew who had converted to Christianity.



1897: “Dr. Grossman on the Talmud” published today included the view Dr. Rudolph Grossman of Temple Beth-El “that while there were many who knew what the Talmud was they failed to thoroughly comprehend the many and interesting truths contained in the book.”


1897: “A new Sefer Torah will be dedicated this afternoon Congregation Adath Israel of West Harlem.”


1897: “Kosher Cooking School” published today described the opening of “school for instruction in the art of kosher cooking;” kosher meaning prepared “in accordance with the Jewish dietary laws.”


1897: It was reported today that Ancient History of the Peoples of the East by the French Egyptologist Gaston Maspero has been translated into Hebrew by a publisher in Warsaw.


1897: “In The Public Eye” published today described the phenomena of Hebrew “spring up again as  living literary language in Eastern Europe” as can be seen by, among other things, the publication of monthly Hebrew language review now being published in Berlin.


1897: It was reported today that Israel Zangwill, author of Children of the Ghettowill be speaking in Jerusalem later this month.


1897: Birthdate of Sir Francis Edward Evans, the Belfast native who served as the United Kingdom’s Ambassador to Israel from 1951 to 1954.


1899: Rabbi B. A. Elzas officiated at the wedding of Israel D. Hart of Beaufort, SC and Rosalie Cecile Levy at the Charleston home of her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Charles F. Levy


1899: In Berlin, sociologist and economist Franz Oppenheimer and his wife gave birth to Hillel Oppenheimer, the Israeli botany professor who helped to found the “Faculties of Natural Science and Agriculture” at Hebrew University and passed away in 1971.


1899: In Albany, NY, the state Assembly passed a bill “exempting the real estate of the Young Men’s Hebrew Association of New York City from taxation.”


1899: In New York City, the trustees of the United Hebrew Charities offered Dr. Lee K. Frankel of Philadelphia the position of manager of the organization.


1899: Birthdate of Carmel Myers, the San Francisco native whose Australian rabbi father used his connections with D.W. Griffith, to help her launch a movie career that began with “Intolerance” in 1916.


1900: Birthdate of St. Louis native Ernest E. Ellman.


1901(15th of Nisan, 5661): At Temple Israel in New York City,  more than $100 was raised after Rabbi Harris delivered a Passover sermon in which he called for funds to be raised to alleviate those suffering through the horrific famine in Bessarabia.


1901(15thof Nisan, 5661): Pesach


1901(15th of Nisan, 5661): R. J. de Cordova passed away in London today at the age of 79.   De Cordova, whose parents were English, was born in the West Indies. He came to the United States in 1849 where he enjoyed a successful business career until the Panic of 1857.  At that time he began a career as humorist, author and journalist who wrote for the New York Express and the New York Times.  Mr. de Cordova was a regular speaker at Temple Emanu-El where he had a contract at one time to give a lecture on every third Saturday of the month.  He moved to London in 1885.


1904(19thof Nisan, 5664): Fifth Day of Pesach


1905: In a speech delivered at a Zionist banquet in London, “Israel Zangwill declared that in the whole history of the world the Jews never had a better friend than President Theodore Roosevelt.”  In the same speech, Zangwill rejected Britain’s offer of territory in East Africa (often referred to as the Uganda Plan) saying that the land might be useful “for rearing goats” but that it “was doubtful if a settlement 500 miles from the sea offered sufficient bais for a prosperous Jewish colony.”


1906: It was reported today that the police authorities in Berlin are “conferring with the local Jewish Auxiliary Society” as to how to deal with the 7,000 impoverished Russian refugees most of whom are alleged to be their co-religionists.


1908: In Great Britain, the conflict between those who believe in a literal interpretation of the Bible and those who believe in a more liberal interpretation heated up today when Sir Samuel Montagu, head of the banking firm of Samuel Montague & Co threatened to withdraw his financial support from the Jewish Religious Education Board unless it severed any further relationship with two of its more “liberal members” – Calude Joseph Goldsmid-Montefiore and Israel Abrahams. Montefiore and Abrahams are noted scholars.  The former is the author of The Origin and Development of the Religon of the Ancient Hebrews and the latter is a reader at Cambridge who is also editor of The Jewish Quarterly Review. Montague, who is officially known as Lord Swaythling, is an active leader and famed philanthropist in the Jewish community.  He is referred to as King of the East End because of his generous support of the less fortunate and is second only Lord Rothschild as its benefactor.  The Jewish Religious Education Board is a major communal organization that “looks after the material welfare and religious education of more than 10,000 Jewish children in the great East End of London.  According to some accounts, the whole matter reached a boiling point over whether or not one really believes that Balaam’s ass actually spoke to its master as described in the book of Numbers.  Montefiore accepts the text literally.  The two biblical scholars apparently think there is room for interpretation.  


1909: Hashomer, the first Jewish self-defense organization was founded to protect Jewish settlements in what was Palestine, a part of the Ottoman Empire.  Until then, local Arab militias had been paid to protect farmers and others from marauding bands.  The early Zionists had already begun providing their own farm labor.  Now they decided to provide their own protection as well.  Needless to say, this did not sit well with the local population.  This is one more example of how the Zionists were resented not for being Jewish, but for failing to conform to the behavior acceptable to the local power structure.  From the Jewish perspective, Hashomer represented yet another break with the European experience.  Jews would no longer be at the mercy of others.  They would provide their own protection.  Having just experienced of wave of Pogroms in Russia, this had an extra special meaning for the early members of Hashomer, many of whose members were recent arrivals from Russia who had organized self-defense organizations in Russia during the pogroms five years earlier. Its founders included Itzhak ben Zvi, Israel Giladi, Israel Shohat and Alexander Zeid. It was eventually absorbed into the Hagannah the Jewish defense force formed in the 1920's that became the foundation for the modern IDF.


1911: Marriage of Mr. and Mrs. Edward Schwartz, members of the Euclid Avenue Temple in Cleveland, Ohio.


1913: Hannah Roth, “widow of the late Samuel Roth” was lead to rest today at the Waldheim Cemetery.


1913: Sixty-nine year old Edward Dowden, the Irish author who claimed that “in the original Persian” version of the Shylock story, “the Jew is not impelled to cruelty because the money is not returned to him but for the reason that he in love with his debtor’s wife” and whose daughter Hester “claimed to communicate via various spirit guides including ‘Johannes,’ an ancient Jewish Neo-Platonist who lived 200 years before Jesus, passed away today.


1913:  Birthdate of Jerome Weidman“revered New York novelist and playwright who first made a splash with his novel I Can Get It for You Wholesale and later won a Pulitzer Prize with George Abbott for their Broadway collaboration Fiorello!  He died in 1998 at the age of 85.



1913(26th of Adar II, 5673): Sixty-five year old Frankfort banker “B. Oppenheimer” passed away today.


1915(20thof Nisan, 5675): Sixth Day of Pesach


1915: “Twenty thousand Jewish children held simultaneous Passover celebrations” this “morning in nine theatres in New York under the auspices of Young Judea.”


1916: A bazar and fair designed to raise funds for “the Jewish war sufferers” which had begun on March came to an end at the Grand Central Palace in New York.


1917: The Russian revolutionary government headed by Kerensky granted equality to all Russian Jews for the first time in Russian history. Since about 18 percent of the world's Jews were living in areas controlled by the Russian government, this decree would appear to have had a major impact on the fate of the world's Jews.  Unfortunately, such was not the case.  Within the year, the democratic Kerensky government was replaced by Lenin and the Bolsheviks.  That regime spelled the end of real freedom for everybody although Stalin would later have some special twists of evil for the Jewish population.


1917: Dr. Avram Coralnik, who has been in the United States since last October representing “an influential publication at Petrograd said today it “is well known all over the world, the Jews were the most persecuted people in Russia.”


1918(22ndof Nisan, 5678): 8th Day of Pesach


1918(22 Nisan, 5678): Seventy-five year old German Jewish-philosopher Hermann Cohen, whose works included Religion of Reason out of the Sources of Judaism passed away in Berlin.



1920(16th of Nisan, 5680): Second Day of Pesach


1920: Arab orators in Palestine roused crowds into a fiery mob which attacked and killed Jews in three days of violent rioting that began today. At least five Jews were killed and hundreds more were injured during the Arab riots in Jerusalem.  The riots were fomented to protest Jewish immigration.  In a portent of the future, the British arrested the Jewish leaders, including Vladimir Jabotinsky and others for organizing a self-defense league.  The origins of the Arab rioting stemmed from intra-Arab conflicts – those who favored and opposed Feisal’s rule in Palestine.  Chaim Weizmann, who witnessed the riots, wrote to British Prime Minister Lloyd George that British authorities had done little to protect the Jews, a view that was supported by a later commission of investigation.


1921: A Jewish battalion and an Arab battalion are founded by the British.


1922:  Birthdate of composer Elmer Bernstein.  He wrote the theme songs or other music for more than 200 films and TV shows, including The Magnificent Seven, The Great Escape, The Ten Commandments, The Man with the Golden Arm, To Kill a Mockingbird, and the fanfare used in the National Geographic television specials. He received 14 Academy Award nominations, but his only win was for Thoroughly Modern Millie. Along with many in Hollywood, Bernstein faced censure during the McCarthy era of the 1950s. He was "gray-listed"—not banned, but kept off major projects—due to sympathy with left-wing causes, and had to work on a series of low budget films.


1922: The Jewish industrial chemist and Liberal politician, Sir Alfred Mond, who was then Minister of Health, wrote to Sir Herbert Samuel warning him that the Arab delegation currently visiting London to express its opposition to the principles of the Balfour Declaration had become ‘a focus and a tool of the general anti-Semitic movement.’


1923(18th of Nisan, 5683): Forty-nine year old Yuily Osipovch Martov, the Russian Revolutionary who led the Mensheviks – one of the many parties to be outlawed by Lenin and his Bolsheviks – passed away as an exile living in Germany.


1923: Today “1923, following the success of the studio's film “The Gold Diggers,” Warner Brothers Pictures, Inc. was officially established, with. Harry Warner as president, Albert Warner as treasurer and Jack Warner and Sam Warner as co-heads of production.


1924: The British and French end their dispute over the northern border of Palestine. Metula and its environs are included in the territory of the British Mandate.
1924: The first issue of the periodical "Kiryat Sefer" appears. It is published by the National Library in Jerusalem.


1924: In Hajdunanas, Hungary, Abraham Ornstein, an accountant, and the former Frieda Sziment gave birth to Holocaust survivor and psychoanalyst Paul Hermann Ornstein. (As reported by Sam Roberts)



1926: Louis Lipsky, the Chairman of the Zionist Organization of America announced today “the beginning of a nation-wide movement for the promotion of Jewish education” that will be designed in cooperation with the “more than 2,000 Jewish schools in the United States.


1926: In Berlin, real estate investor Oskar Rohr and Perla Gelbard Rohr gave birth to Sami Rohr who would survive the Holocaust to become a real estate mogul and philanthropist.


1927: William H. Gallagher, the attorney representing Aaron Shapiro in his suit against Henry Ford “served notice that he will call Mr. as the next witness” to which Ford’s attorney responded that the anti-Semitic automaker would not be available because of medical reasons.


1927: Samuel Untermyer is scheduled to return to Cairo from Jerusalem this morning.


1927: Birthdate of Sam Adams, the native of Chicago who became a leading literary and Hollywood agent.



1928(14thof Nisan, 5688): Ta’anit Bechorot; Erev Pesach


1928: In London’s East End, Annie Berlin and Abraham Noserovitch gave birth to Monty Noserovitch, who gained fame as composer Monty Norman, the creator of “The James Bond Theme.”


1928: “Eve’s Daughters” a drama starring Wolfgang Zilzer and filmed by cinematographer Otto Keller was released today in Germany and Czechoslovakia


1931: U.S. premiere the action film “Dirigible” produced by Harry Cohn with a script co-authored by Jo Swerling.


1931: U.S. premiere of “Front Page” for which director Lewis Milestone received an Oscar nomination.


1931: In New York City, premiere of “Cracked Nuts” with music by Max Steiner.


1932: In Brooklyn Herman and Florence Davies gave birth to Clive Davis.



1932: “Zion, Ten Years Later” published today described the fundraising efforts of the Jewish Agency to raise $2,500,000 “of which hone million is to be raised in New York City” to go toward rebuilding the Jewish National Home in Palestine.



1933: In Germany, a Civil Service Law prohibiting Jews from holding public service jobs was adopted.


1933: A front-page article in the German-Jewish newspaper Jüdische Rundschau exhorted Jews to wear the identifying Yellow Star with the headline, Tragt ihn mit Stolz, den Gelben Fleck!(Wear it with Pride, the Yellow Badge!). The article was one of a series written a German Jew, Robert Weltsch, all of which were based on the same theme:"Say 'yes' to our Jewishness." The original article was written in response to the to the April 1, 1933 Nazi-led boycott of Jewish shops, which was the first meaningful anti-Jewish action of the newly-empowered Nazis,


1935: Sixty-eight year old Bettino Levi, “an intimate friend of Theodor Herzl” who has working to provide relief for Jewish refugees from Germany passed away today.  (As reported by JTA)


1935: American competitors at the 2nd Maccabiah in Tel Aviv came in first in their respective events.  Sybil Koff continued her winning ways in the 400 yard hurdles while “Abe Rosenkrantz captured the 1,500-meter run.”  Julius Finkelstein took the top spot in the shot put and James Sandler tied the Maccabiah record as he claimed first place in the high jump.  Lilian Copeland, who had done so well at the 1932 Olympics, won “both the javelin and discuss throws in the women’s division.”


1936(12thof Nisan, 5695): Shabbat HaGadol


1936(12thof Nisan, 5695): Forty-three year old Budapest born American “violinist, conductor and composer, best known for his song "Bluebird of Happiness" written in 1934 for Jan Peerce” passed away in Flemington, NJ toda.



1936: “The United Palestine Appeal issued a statistical analysis showing that 36,372 Jews from Germany entered Palestine from January, 1933 to December, 1935.”


1936: “The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee announced” today “that $10,000 had been sent to Jews in Poland and Germany for Passover relief and the purchase of kosher meat.”


1936: “At a dinner given his honor by a committee head by Stephen S. Wise and attended by 900 persons” “Eddie Cantor announced tonight at the Hotel Astor that he intended to go ‘from one end of the country to the other’ in an effort to raise funds to take as many German Jewish children out of Germany as possible.”


1936: One of the letters meant to reply to a political whispering campaign aimed at Secretary of Labor Perkins released tonight said that “there were no Jews in her ancestry” and that “If I were a Jew I would not secret of it” and “would be proud to acknowledge it.”


1936: It was reported today that “even under present restrictions the flight of Jewish capital is so serious a factor that any Jewish capitalist wishing to emigrate from Germany now is being visited by the Gestapo.” (Talk about gross rationalization for anti-Semitism)


1937(23rdof Nisan, 5697): Seventy-nine year old Henry Goldman the only member of Goldman-Sachs to support Germany during World War I and who moved to Germany in the early 1930’s only to barely escape back to the U.S. in 1936, passed away today.


1937: Twelve organizations participated in a meeting organized by the American Ort Federation to honor the memory New York civic leader Henry Moskowitz during which Mayor La Guardia testified to “his public service and intellectual honesty” and Governor Lehman said that “his sympathies knew no limits of race, color, creed or nationality.”


1937: The Palestine Post commented on the text of the 300-page memorandum submitted by the Jewish Agency to the Royal (Peel) Commission on Palestine. The agency pointed out that the duty of the Mandatory government was to establish the Jewish National Home in Palestine, to encourage Jews to immigrate, to help them to settle down and to develop self-governing institutions. The Crown Colonist, published in London, advocated Jewish settlement in Transjordan, as a means of getting that country out of its economic plight.


1938:Todayduring a heated House of Commons debate in which he had been criticizing the government's foreign policy, Manny Shinwell slapped the face of the Conservative MP Commander Robert Tatton Bower after Bower told him to "go back to Poland" because “Shinwell said he had taken this to be an anti-Semitic remark.”


1938: Arthur Sweetser, a director of the secretariat of the League of Nations met with President Roosevelt to discuss the fate of the Jews of Europe and proposal for a “rescue plan.  According to Mr. Sweetser, during the meeting, Roosevelt took credit for this latest proposal to deal with the problem. “Then Roosevelt turned more expansive and said ‘Suddenly it struck me: why not get all the democracies to unite to share the burden? After all, they own most of the free land of the world, and there only…what would you say, 14, 16, million Jews in the whole world of whom about half are already in the United States.  If we could divide up the remainder in groups of 8 or 10, there wouldn’t be any Jewish problem in three or four generations.’”


1939: Four year old Faisal II becomes King of Iraq. Faisal is the King of Iraq during the Israel War for Independence.  Iraq was the largest Arab state without a border with Israel that sent a major contingent “to drive the Jews into the sea.”  More importantly, Faisal was the last king of Iraq.  He was overthrown and murdered in a brutal revolt in 1958 when the Ba’ath Party (the party that would give us Saddam Hussein) came to power. 


1939: The Institut zur Erforschung des jüdischen Einflusses auf das deutsche kirchliche Leben(Institute for the Study of Jewish Influence on German Church Life) was founded.


1940: FDR met in the White House today Michigan Senator Prentis M. Brown, the future senior partner of Brown, Lund and Levin.


1940: “I Love a Mystery” sponsored by Fleischmann’s Yeast and featuring Tony Randall (Aryeh Leonard Rosenberg) expanded to a 30 minute broadcast format today on NBC.


1942: Birthdate of New York native Elizabeth Levy, the author of over “eighty children’s books.”




1943: In the Bronx, Jack Espstein, a Toronto born salesman and his wife Evelyn gave birth to Michael Peter Epstein, the product of Fairfax High in Los Angeles and U.C., Berkeley who gained game as Major Leaguer first baseman Mike “SuperJew” Epstein.


1944: An Allied spy plane flying over Poland happened to photograph Auschwitz while documenting construction of a synthetic-fuels plant providing photographic proof of the existence of the death camp.


1944: German Holocaust victim Anne Frank, 14, wrote in her diary: 'I want to go on living even after my death! And therefore I am grateful to God for giving me this gift...of expressing all that is in me.'


1944(11th of Nisan, 5704): “Miss Irene Lewisohn, founder and co-director of the Neighborhood Playhouse School” passed away tonight.


1945:The 4th Armored Division and the 89th Infantry Division liberated Ohrdruf concentration camp.  It was the first Nazi concentration camp liberated by the U.S. Army. General George S. Patton, Old Blood and Guts, described it as "one of the most appalling sights that I have ever seen."


1945: Birthdate of Daniel Marc Cohn-Bendit who gained famed as student protester in France known as "Danny the Red". Like many other radicals, this son of refugees from Hitler’s Germany later sought political respectability.  In his case, he became a lead of the European Greens and a member of the European Parliament.


1946: As international postal service is begun after a six year hiatus, large numbers of letters and postcards are sent to numerous locations including Tel Aviv.


1946: Eitan Livini was arrested today on charges that he had participated in the “Night of the Trains,” an Irgun led sabotage operation aimed bringing the British transportation infrastructure to a halt.


1947: After premiering in Miami, “The Sin of Harold Diddlebock,” a comedy featuring Lionel Stander and Julius Tannen was released in the United States today.


1948: Birthdate of Michael Kleiner, the native of Munich who made Aliyah in 1951 and whose career in politics led him to be elected President of the Supreme Court of Likud, “the party's highest judicial body in all matters pertaining to its constitution, and party members and divisions are subject to its decisions.”


1948: Following an attack in the Northern Negev,a Palmach Unit destroyed "nine Bedouin lay-bys and one mud hut."


1948: The Arab Liberation Army opened an attack on kibbutz Mishmar HaEmek with a barrage from 7 artillery pieces supplied by the Syrian Army which elicited a successful counter-attack by the Haganah.


1948: “As National Commander of the Jewish War Veterans, Julius Klein organized an enormous show of strength for the establishment of the State of Israel in the form of a JWV parade down New York's Fifth Avenue.”


1949: “Gabriel Haritos, as the Mayor of Rhodes, was the local partner for the proceedings for the initial talks between Israel, Egypt and Jordan, under the auspices of United Nations, at the Grande Albergo delle Rose (Hotel of Roses) in Rhodes” which had begun in January and came to an end today.


1949:French Labor Leader Leon Jouhaux, who is visiting Israel as a guest of the General Federation of Jewish Labor, was pelted with tomatoes and oranges by Communist hecklers tonight when he made a public address in Tel Aviv Museum.


1949: Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion addressed the Knesset on the impact of the armistice signed yesterday with Trans-Jordan.


1950: Birthdate of “American poet, essayist, editor and literary scholar Charles Bernstein who is the husband of artist Susan Bee.




1951: U.S. premiere “I Can Get It for You Wholesale” a film adaptation of Jerome Weidman’s 1937 novel directed by Michael Gordon, produced by Sol C. Siegel, with a script by Abraham Polonsky and Vera Caspary and music by Sol Kaplan.


1951: In what was the first outbreak of anti-Semitism in postwar Austria, 26 Jews were wounded in Salzburg.  The first outbreaks of anti-Semitism in postwar Europe actually began in Poland.  This episode reinforces the notion that the Nazis were so successful because they had willing help from the local populations.


1951: Seven soldering were killed today in what is known as the “el-Hamma incident.”


1952: The Jerusalem Post reported from The Hague that a critical stage had been reached in the reparations talks held there, after the German delegation, upon its return from Bonn, claimed that it had been denied any authority by the West German Federal Government.


1952: The Jerusalem Post reported that four Israeli passengers aboard a Cyprus Airways ended up in the Beirut airport. They were flying from Nicosia when heavy fog forced the emergency landing. The four Jewish passengers were allowed to proceed to Lod unharmed.


1952: The Jerusalem Post reported that on the eve of rather frugal Pesach holidays, Dr. Dov Joseph, minister of commerce and industry, promised a richer menu, better organization and more supplies for the forthcoming summer.


1953: Birthdate of Simcha Jacobovici the Israeli born “Canadian film director, producer, free-lance journalist, and writer.”


1953: Birthdate of Laurie Hope Beecham the Philadelphia native whose short career on Broadway included appearances in “Annie” and “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.”



1953: Eleanor Roosevelt, the widow of FDR, met with Lazarus Joseph “to advocate for the preservation of social welfare projects.”


1954: Paddy Chayefsky’s teleplay “Mother” was broadcast by The Philco Televison Playhouse.


1960: Seventy-six year old German historian Wilhelm Herzog the author of Die Affäre Dreyfus (The Dreyfus Affair) which “was adapted as the British film “Dreyfus” in 1931 and as the 1937 play “I Accuse!” passed away today.


1960: “A Palm Tree in a Rose Guardian produced by David Susskind was broadcast as “The Play of the Week”


1960: Actress Shelley Winters (Shirley Schrift) won her first Academy Award for her performance as Mrs. Van Daan in the film version of “The Diary of Anne Frank.”


1962: “A Thousand Clowns” featuring Gene Sakes as “Leo Harman” had a “preview” Broadway performance today.


1964: Anyone Can Whistle, a musical with a book by Arthur Laurents and music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim” opened on Broadway today at the Majestic Theatre.


1966 (14th of Nisan, 5726): Rabbi Alan Greenspan, a Chaplain in the United States Army, leads a Seder for 135 Americans in Saigon.  This simple statement does not do justice to the efforts of Rabbi Greenspan who overcame a wide-range of obstacles to pull off this fete.


1966 (14th of Nisan, 5726): General William Westmorland issued a Passover greeting to Jewish soldiers in which he compared the Freedom theme of the holiday with the American effort to provide freedom and security for the people of Viet Nam.


1967(23rd of Adar II, 5727): Mischa Elman passed away at the age of 76.  Another in a long list of world-class violinists who were Jewish, Elman was born in Kiev.  The child prodigy eventually made his way to the United States where he spent the bulk of his adult life.


1967(23rd of Adar II, 5727): Lyricist Al Lewis whose most famous work was “Blueberry Hill” passed away. Written in 1940, it gained everlasting fame when it was recorded by Fats Domino in 1956.


1967: Dr. Martin Luther King opened his “Beyond Vietnam” speech at Riverside Church in New York City by welcoming Rabbi Abraham Heschel.



1968: Larry Rosen, the owner of Smith’s Pharmacy at 14th and Clifton Streets, N.W. in Washington spent his last day at his business which would be burned down in the rioting that began tonight after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.


1968: The riots that erupted in several cities today led to the writing of Making the Second Ghetto: Race and Housing in Chicago, 1940-1960 in which historian Arnold R. Hirsch analyzed the impact of “institutional forces during World War II and the decades that followed, when millions of African Americans migrated to cities outside of the South, high-rise towers sprouted up in predominantly black neighborhoods and policymakers announced a cheery-sounding doctrine known as “urban renewal” — what writer James Baldwin would later dub “Negro removal.”


1971(9thof Nisan, 5731): Seventy year old Shlomo Yisrael Ben-Meir the native of Warsaw who arrived in Israel in 1950 after having worked as a lawyer in the United States and then served as an MK from 1952 until his death, passed away today.


1971: “Follies” “a musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim,a book by James Goldman” and scenic designs by Boris Aronson opened on Broadway at the Winter Garden Theater


1972(20th of Nisan, 5732): Sixty-nine year old German born, American composer Stefan Wolpe, passed away.

1972: Le Mondedescribed Charles Bettelheim as "the most visible Marxists… in France as well as in Spain, Italy, Latin America, and India.”


1973: Attacks by four Arabs “on the Israeli Ambassador’s residence in Nicosia” and an Arkia plane at the Nicosia airport was thwarted today.


1973:  Birthdate of Magician David Blaine “the son of Patrice White, who may or may not have been a gypsy, but was certainly a Russian Jew living in Brooklyn” and is sometimes called a modern day Harry Houdini. 



1976(4th of Nisan, 5736): Sixty-seven year old Chicago native Louis James “Lou” Gordon who played tackle for Illinois from 1927 through 1929 so well that “football historian Dr. L.H. Baker to the All-Time Illini Team” and whose nine year NFL career including playing for the Green Bay Packers when they defeated the Boston Redskins for the Championship, passed away today.



1977: CBS broadcast the final episode of season five of “Maude” starring Bea Arthur in the title role



1977:The Jerusalem Post reported that Egyptian President Anwar Sadat ended talks with French and German leaders by saying that he saw encouraging signs for the reconvening of the Geneva Peace Conference and the establishment of a permanent peace in the Middle East.


1977:The Jerusalem Post reported that El Al planes took off for overseas flights without cabin crews who had absented themselves to protest against El Al's refusal to compensate them for duty on holidays.


1978:Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim Synagogue was added to the National Register of Historic Places


1979: Birthdate of actress Natasha Lyonne who appeared in Slums of Beverly Hills and FreewayII



1979: Joseph Stephen Stanford began serving as Canada’s Ambassador to Israel.



1980(18thof Nisan, 5740): Fourth Day of Pesach



1980(18thof Nisan, 5740): Seventy-one year old movie director Aleksander Ford who was born Mosze Lifszyc in Kiev, passed away today.



http://www.yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Ford_Aleksander



1981(29th of Adar II, 5741):Icko Wakmann, retired president of the Relide Clock Company in Manhattan and founder of the Wakmann Watch Company and father of Tel Aviv resident Margalit Zwiebel passed away at the age of 86.



1982: The New York Times publishes a review of “Kibbutz Makom Report From an Israeli Kibbutz” by Amia Lieblich.



1982: In recognition of the Lubavitcher Rebbe's 80th birthday, the Senate and the House of Representatives of the United States in Congress assembled have issued House Joint Resolution 447 to set aside today as a "National Day of Reflection."



1983:Responding to Iraqi charges that Israel was guilty of ''mass poisoning'' of Palestinian schoolgirls in the West Bank, the Security Council tonight called on Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar to investigate ''the causes and effects of the serious problem of the reported cases of poisoning.'' The ambiguous language, necessary to win the approval of all 15 Council members, left open the question of whether the schoolgirls had actually been poisoned and left up to the Secretary General to decide whether the outside medical teams summoned by Israel meet the demand for ''independent inquiries.'' The Council issued its statement through this month's president, Jeane J. Kirkpatrick of the United States. A presidential statement has less political force than a resolution, but the arrangement spared the Council an open meeting. Some Arab diplomats said they would not welcome inflammatory speeches, particularly if the inquiries disclose no poisoning has taken place. Mrs. Kirkpatrick had arranged the outlines of this solution in meetings last Friday with Riyadh al-Qaysi of Iraq, chairman of the Arab group, and Abdullah el-Salah of Jordan, the Council's Arab member. In his letter convoking the Council, Mr. Qaysi charged that ''mass poisoning'' had struck ''more than 1,000 Palestinian schoolgirls.'' He said the poisoning was ''caused by a yellow substance containing sulfur concentrates which emitted poisonous gases with dangerous physical and psychological consequences.'' Yehuda Z. Blum, the Israeli delegate, who termed the charges ''irresponsible and unfounded,'' rejected the Council statement and said references in it to poisoning were ''completely unwarranted.''



1984: NBC broadcast the first episode of “Double Trouble” a sitcom starring Jean and Liz Sagal whose executive producers including Saul Turteltaub.



1985:Birthdate of Israeli tennis player Dudi Sela



1987(5th of Nisan, 5747): Michael Redstone, the media mogul whose companies included CBS and Viacom, passed away.



1987: Annette Greenfield Strauss won a plurality of the vote for Mayor of Dallas. Winning a run-off election on April 18, she became the city's first elected woman mayor.



1988: Publication of “Chasing a Chameleon - Trebitsch Lincoln” in the 38thVolume of History Today.



http://www.historytoday.com/bernard-wasserstein/chasing-chameleon-trebitsch-lincoln



1992(1st of Nisan, 5752): Rosh Chodesh Nisan/Shabbat Ha-Chodesh



1992(1st of Nisan, 5752):Samuel "Sammy" Herman Reshevsky, a chess prodigy and grand chess master passed away.  Reshevsky was an Orthodox Jew who did not play on Shabbat.



1993: Israeli tennis star Amos Mansdorf was the runner-up at today’s tournament in Osaka, Japan.



1996(15thof Nisan, 5756): Pesach



1997: Today’s edition of The Jewish Press “quoted from ‘A Historic Declaration’, issued by the Union of Orthodox Rabbis on March 31” which began “Reform and Conservative are not Judaism at all.”



1998: Shabbat Hagadol



1999: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or special interest to Jewish readers including “Uncovering Clinton:A Reporter's Story” by Michael Isikoff and “The Rise and Fall of the House of Barneys: A Family Tale of Chutzpah, Glory and Greed” by Joshua Levine.



1999: In an article by Bill Kent published today,John Mulloy, president of Ginsburg's bread bakery laments the fate of his company’s sales during Pesach.



'What happens to our bread business during Passover?'' sighed John Mulloy, president of Ginsburg's bread bakery here. ''It dies!'' During the eight days of Passover, Jews refrain from eating all foods made from grains except matzah, a flat, cracker-like wheat bread that Mr. Mulloy does not make. ''In the old days the Ginsburgs would just close up and take a vacation when Passover came around,'' Mr. Mulloy went on. ''We never close.'' What started as a family-run business on Atlantic Avenue in 1903 that made bread and cakes for Boardwalk hotels now employs 120 and occupies an entire city block at Mediterranean and New York Avenues. All of the casino hotels use Ginsburg's baked goods. The bread is also sold in six supermarket chains in the area. And eight regional distributors put the bread on grocery shelves as far away as Flordia and California. In the 20 years Mr. Mulloy has owned the bakery, Ginsburg's three Israeli-made, natural gas-fired Thermatron ovens have never grown cold. ''There were some bad years when the business went up and down,'' said Mr. Mulloy, who owned a delicatessen in Philadelphia and ''raised four sons on corned beef specials.'' He bought the bakery from the Ginsburgs with a partner in 1979 partly because of its Jewish rye bread. ''Even in Philadelphia, where you could get all the good Jewish rye you wanted, my customers would rave about the Ginsburg rye. For some of them, before the casinos opened up, it was the only reason to go to Atlantic City.'' Two years later, after moving to the area, Mr. Mulloy bought out his partner and turned over the management of the bakery to his sons -- John, 33; Michael, 32; Dan, 30; and Chris, 29 -- who learned the peculiar difficulties of doing business with a casino industry whose buyers can be notoriously fickle and take four months to pay their bills. An attempt to sell the bread through a retail storefront failed, he said, when ''tourists just couldn't find us.''''There were other times when we didn't think we'd make it,'' Mr. Mulloy said. ''But, as locations go, this one has been very good to us.'' The plant uses no milk ingredients in its dough and is inspected yearly by a panel of local rabbis who assure that its preparation techniques and products are in accordance with Jewish dietary laws. Beyond saying that his plant uses about 75 tons of flour each week, Mr. Mulloy would not disclose how much bread his bakery produces, or how much sales decrease during Passover. ''But there is enough of a downturn for us to use the holiday to make improvements to the plant,'' he said. Ginsburg's has just begun a $1.5 million renovation ''that will just make us a little bit more efficient'' -- in time for September, when the demand for chalah peaks at Rosh Hashanah.



2000: Rabbi Ismar Schorsch, chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary delivered the first public lecture sponsored by the John Cardinal O'Connor Distinguished Chair in Hebrew and Sacred Scripture at St. Joseph's Seminary.


2002(22ndof Nisan, 5762): 8th day of Pesach and 7th day of the Omer


2002(22ndof Nisan, 5762): During Operation Defensive Shield a member of the Israel Border Police was killed by terrorists when they went to arrest a member of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade at Hebron.


2002(22ndof Nisan, 5762): “Rachel Charhi, 36, of Bat-Yam, critically injured in a suicide bombing in a cafe on the corner of Allenby and Bialik streets in Tel-Aviv on March 30, died of her wounds. Some 30 others were injured in the attack. The Fatah Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades claimed responsibility.”


2002(22ndof Nisan, 5762): During Operation Defensive Shield Border Police Supt. Patrick Pereg, 30, of Rosh Ha'ayin, head of operations in an undercover unit, was killed Thursday while attempting to arrest a wanted member of Fatah's al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade.


2002(22ndof Nisan, 5762): During Operation Defensive Shield Sgt.-Maj.(res.) Einan Sharabi, 32, of Rehovot; Lt. Nissim Ben-David, 22, of Ashdod; and St.-Sgt. Gad Ezra, 23, of Bat-Yam were killed today.


2003: After premiering at the Toronto International Film Festival six months ago “Phone Booth” an urban terror film directed by Joel Schumacher, produced by David Zucker and written by Larry Cohen was released in the United States today.


2005(24th of Adar II, 5765):  Edward Bronfman, Canadian financier and philanthropist passed away at the age of 77.  Part of “the other Bronfmans” to distinguish him and his brother from the more famous Edgar Bronfman family, Edward Bronfman amassed business holdings valued at $80 million.  His generosity and in recognition of his other contributions to the civic good earned Bronfman  the Order of Canada, the nation’s highest civilian honor.


2006: Eightieth birthday of Sami Rohr.


2006: “While turning the pages of The Miami Herald” Sami Rohr “was surprised by a large advertisement announcing a new literary award” – The Sami Rohr Prize – that his three children had created without his knowledge to honor him. “It’s the largest prize of its kind in North America, in terms of the amount,” and gives “authors an opportunity to take time off to pursue their craft’” which furthered Rohr’s desire “to make sure that Jewish literature would thrive for generations.”


2006: Paula Abdul filed a report at a Hollywood police station claiming she had been a victim of battery at a private party…"According to Abdul, the man at the party argued with her, grabbed her by the arm and threw her against a wall," L.A.P.D. Lt. Paul Vernon said. "She said she had sustained a concussion and spinal injuries


2006:The Justice Ministry confirmed that Yona Metzger would not be able to continue as chief rabbi if the dayanim Appointment Committee disqualifies him from serving as a judge in the High Rabbinic Court


2006: In “With Yoga, Comedy and Parties, Synagogues Entice Newcomers,”  published today Michel Luo reports on the development of Jewish outreach programs



2007: New Mexico’s Bosque Redondo State Monument, a site commemorating “The Long Walk” hosts the traveling exhibition “Anne Frank: A History for Today.”


2007: “A little over three weeks after Robert “Bob” Levinson was arrested, an article today by Iranian state-run PressTV stated that he "has been in the hands of Iranian security forces since the early hours of March 9" and "authorities are well on the way to finishing the procedural arrangements that could see him freed in a matter of days". The same article explained that it was established that Levinson's trip to Kish "was purely that of a private businessman looking to make contact with persons who could help him make representations to official Iranian bodies responsible for suppressing trade in pirated products which is a major concern of his company.”


2007: An exhibition styled “Landmarks” presented by students of the Jewelry and Fashion department at the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design comes to a close.


2007916thof Nisan, 5767): Second Day of Pesach.


2007: Florida Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehinten, the ranking Republican on the House (of Representatives) Foreign Affairs Committee “stated at a Congressional Hearing” that “‘Jews who were born in Arab countries have lost their resources, their homes, their heritage, and their heritage sites.’” During these same hearings, Irwin Cotler, a member of the Canadian Parliament and a former Justice minister argued that “’the rights for Jewish refugees from Arab countries have to a party of any peace process if tht peace process is to have any integrity.’”


2007: Today “a little over three weeks after Robert Levinson was arrested, an article by Iranian state-run PressTV stated that he "has been in the hands of Iranian security forces since the early hours of March 9" and "authorities are well on the way to finishing the procedural arrangements that could see him freed in a matter of days


2008: The Youth Department of Congregation Beth Judea holds a special Friday Evening Shabbat Service led by the Kadinkers, the Kadima and the members of USY.  The service is preceded by a traditional kosher dinner.  Founded in 1969, the synagogue is in Long Grove, Il and serves families located in nearby Wheeling and Buffalo Grove.  Its website provides an on-line entry into the world of synagogue music.http://www.bethjudea.org/


2008: Army radio reported that Palestinian militants had opened fire on farmers working in the fields of Kibbutz Ein Hashlosha, near Gaza. Thirty of the fieldworkers being shot at were volunteers from kibbutzim from different parts of Israel who had come to aid their counterparts at Ein Hashlosha, which has been the target of repeated sniper attacks


2008: Hamas spokesman Abu Obeida announced today that sniper fire from Hamas' military wing, which wounded Public Security Minister Avi Dichter's bureau chief near Gaza, was in fact aimed at the minister himself. Dichter's senior aide Mati Gil sustained moderate wounds in the attack, but the minister himself was not hurt.


2008: The city of Montreal stated it planned to allow demolition of the building that housed Bens De Luxe Delicatessen and Restaurant originally opened by Ben and Fanny Kravitz in 1908.


2009(10thof Nisan, 5769): In Cedar Rapids, Iowa, at Temple Judah, the Traditional Saturday morning minyan celebrates Shabbat Hagadol


2009:Rabin Square in central Tel Aviv hosts the city's Centennial Opening Gala. A showcase for top Israeli and International artists, the event includes an impressive 360-degree audiovisual display and performances by the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra and Israeli Opera.


2009: Retired American soccer play Daniel Jacob "Dan" Calichman “was honored by the Galaxy in a pre-game match ceremony.”


2009:Several hours after IDF soldiers killed two Palestinian terrorists who were trying to plant a bomb along the Gaza border fence, Border Police forces killed a terrorist who tried to carry out a shooting attack at their base in the Negev this afternoon.


2010: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including the recently published paperback edition of One State, Two States: Resolving the Israel/Palestine Conflict by Benny Morris, “the father of Israel’s ‘new historians’” who “was convinced by the failed 2000 Camp David summit that Israel could do nothing to make Arab Muslims agree to its existence as a Jewish state” and “ now sees the two-state solution as a fantasy” while rejecting  “the so-called one-state solution as a call for Israel’s elimination.”


2010: “Tulane University President Scott Cowen received the Times-Picayune Loving.”

2011: Larry Page “officially became chief executive of Google.”


2011: A revival production of “The House of Blue Leaves” starring Ben Stiller began its preview performances at the Walter Kerr Theatre.


2011: YIVO Institute for Jewish Research and Leo Baeck Institute are scheduled to present a rare interview with Nobel Laureate Elfriede Jelinek as part of a program entitled “Rechnitz: Austria's Dirty Little Secret.”


2011:SheshBesh - The Arab-Jewish Ensemble of the IPO – is scheduled to perform in New York City.


2011:La Rafle,” a film described as “a European Schindler’s List” is scheduled to be shown at the Westchester Jewish Film Festival.


2011(29thof Adar II, 5711): Actor Juliano Mer-Kham was gunned down in Jenin.

2011(29thof Adar II, 5711): Fifty-one year old John Adler who “was a U.S. Representative for New Jersey's 3rd congressional district, serving from 2009 until 2011” passed away today.


2011(29thof Adar II, 5711): Ninety year old William Prussoff  “a pharmacologist at the Yale School of Medicine who, with a colleague, developed an effective component in the first generation of drug cocktails used to treat AIDS” passed away today. (As reported by William Grimes)

2011(29thof Adar II): Anniversary of the giving of the first commandment to the Jewish people. “Shortly before sundown on the 29th of Adar, G-d commanded Moses regarding the mitzvah of sanctifying the crescent new moon and establishing a lunar calendar. This is the first mitzvah the Jews were given as a nation.”


2011:Dirar Abu Sisi was Hamas's leading missile developer according to an indictment filed today at the Beersheba District Court. Abu Sisi was reportedly abducted by Israel over a month ago as he was traveling on a train in Ukraine and brought to Israel for interrogation. According to the indictment, Abu Sisi received his doctorate in engineering in Ukraine in the 1990s and studied with some of the leading Ukrainian military engineers. After returning to the Gaza Strip, he was recruited into Hamas by the military commander of the terrorist organization at the time, Salah Shehada, and began working as one of their leading engineers for short- and long-range missiles.


2011:The Lehi considered killing Winston Churchill, The Telegraph reported today, citing declassified MI5 files. Eliyahu Bet-Zuri, a member of the underground group during the time of the British mandate, reportedly suggested in November 1944 that Lehi, or Stern Gang, members fly to London to kill the prime minister and force the British out of Mandatory Palestine, sparking concern in MI5 that Jewish extremists might try to assassinate foreign secretary Ernest Bevin, as well. "As soon as [Bet-Zuri] returned to Stern Group headquarters, he proposed to suggest a plan for the assassination of highly placed British political personalities, including Mr. Churchill, for which purpose emissaries should be sent to London," a sources within the Lehi told Major James Robertson from MI5's Middle East section. Four months later, Bet-Zuri was executed in Cairo for assassinating Lord Moyne, the British Minister in the Middle East.


2011:Requests from charities around the country for food aid packages to help feed the country’s growing needy population have nearly doubled this year compared to last year, Israel’s largest food bank, Leket, reported today. (As reported by Ruth Eglash)


2012: “The Kid With a Bike” is one of the films scheduled to be shown at the Westchester Jewish Film Festival.


2012: The Yuval Ron Ensemble is scheduled to present a program thatexplores music of the ancient biblical Hebrew, Yemenite and Babylonian musical traditions, in Manhattan, Kansas.


2012(12th of Nisan, 5772):On the 12th of Nissan, 3412, Ezra departed from the river of Ahava, for Eretz Israel. This was part of the return from the Babylonian Exile that would lead to the building of the Second Temple and the regular, public reading of the Torah.


2012: Ruth Goodman and Gabi Gabay are scheduled to lead a program of Israeli Dancing at the 92nd Street Y.


2013: A renewal contract for the “Judge Judy” television show with Judith Sheindlin in the title role extended the show through the 2016-2017 season.


2013: The Center for Jewish History is scheduled to present “At the Edge of the Jewish World: Central Asia’s Bukharan Jews.


2013: As part of the lecture series 'FilmTalk: The Jewish Villian', the Wiener Library is scheduled to present “Reviewing Fagin, 1948-2005”


 2013: The Jewish Theological Seminary is scheduled to host “a concert starring the Juilliard Jazz Ensemble” that “will feature the music of prominent Jewish and African American jazz composers” and “will explore the singular connections between the compositions and the cultures.”


2013: The White House will not hold a Jewish History Month event this year because of the sequester. The White House will not hold a Jewish History Month event this year because of the sequester. A White House official confirmed to JTA that the reception, which usually takes place toward the end of May, would not take place this year because of the congressionally mandated across-the-board budget cuts that kicked in last month.


2013: More than 100 U.S. Jewish leaders urged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to make clear "Israel’s readiness to make painful territorial sacrifices for the sake of peace."


2013: Women who recite the Mourner's Kaddish at the Western Wall will not be arrested, Jewish Agency Chairman Natan Sharansky said he has been assured, despite a police vow to enforce a ban.


2014: Congregants at Temple Judah in Cedar Rapids, Iowa are scheduled to take a trip down memory lane with “Retro-Reform” Shabbat Evening Services featuring Gates of Prayer, the prayerbook which was considered ground-breaking when introduced just a few decades ago.


2014: The 12thannual Austin Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to come to an end today.


2014: “The Prime Ministers: The Pioneers” and “Aya with Wherever You Go” are scheduled to be shown at the Westchester Jewish Film Festival.


2014: The Cedar Rapids Gazette is scheduled to publish a feature story about Cesare Frustaci the survivor of the Nazi ghetto in Budapest who will be the featured speaker at the upcoming Yom Hashoah Service sponsored by The Thaler Holocaust Remembrance Fund.


2014: In Spain, a Family Reunion, Centuries Later

2014: “A Legendary Mossad Commander Steps from the Shadows” published today explores the life and times of Mike Harari.

2015: Francis J. Pruitt, the author of Faith and Courage in a Time of Trouble, “a memoir of a Belgian-Jewish girl and her family who were saved during the Nazi occupation of France through the compassion and heroism of French peasants from the southern part of the country” is scheduled to appear at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.


2015(15thof Nisan, 5775): Eighty-two year old actor and playwright Ira Lewis passed away today.



2015(15th of Nisan, 5775):First day of Pesach coincides with observance of Shabbat.


2016: “In Search of Israeli Cuisine” and “Are You Joking?/ The Plagues” are scheduled to be shown at the Hartford, CT, Jewish Film Fest.


2016: Today, Jerry Reinsdorf, the owner of the Chicago Bulls “was elected to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame as a contributor.


2016: “Aliyah Dada” and “The Prime Ministers II: Soldiers and Peacemakers” are scheduled to be shown today at the Westchester Jewish Film Festival.


2017: Publication of Survivor: A Portrait of the Survivors of the Holocaust by Harry Borden


2017: In Des Moines, The Iowa Jewish Historical Society is scheduled to host a luncheon featuring three Israelis – Sandee Illouz, the founder and director of EREZ College Shlomi; Noa Kali of the Kadar Center for Innovative Learning Approches and Yoram Poslinsky, the director of the community Center Network in Akko and the found of the Rosh Pinnna Music School and Orchestra.


2018(19thof Nisan, 5778): Fifth Day of Pesach


2018: In Memphis, TN, Rabbi Feivel Strauss is scheduled to focus on Jesus as part of the Great Jewish Renegades series.


2018: In Jerusalem, The Tower of David is scheduled to host a public reading of “Young David and the Pitcher.


2018: The American Jewish Historical Society is scheduled to host the NYC premiere screen of “GI Jews: Jewish Americans in World War II,” a documentary ‘Directed by Lisa Ades, Produced by Amanda Bonavita, and Written by Maia Harris” that tells the story of the more than half a million Jewish Americans “who served in WW II.”


2018: “Remember Baghdad,” “an exploration of the rich Jewish life and culture that had flourished in Iraq before the events of the 20th and early 21st centuries dramatically changed the course of the country – and the fate of its Jews” and “The Outer Circle,” “a portrait of four generations of the Fattals as they gather for their annual feast in Mama’s house on Rosh Hashanah” are scheduled to be shown at the CCA Glasgow, in Glasgow, Scotland.


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 

 

This Day, April 5, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. Levin

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April 5



1291: Muslim forces began the siege of Acre, the last Crusader stronghold.  Today, this site, Akko, is back in the control of the true titleholders, the people of People of Israel who were more often than not victims during the centuries dominated by the Crusades.



1419: Sixty-nine year old Vincent Ferrer, the Dominican Friar who used dubious means to force Jews to convert to Catholicism and helped to sow the seeds of anti-Semitism in Spain passed away today. Among the leaders who sought to provide the Jews with the intellectual support to fight this period of darkness was Isaac ben Jacob Canapton, the Spanish rabbi who lived from 1360 to 1463 and wrote A Methodology of the Talmud. (The Catholic Church saw fit to canonize the priest)



1464: Anti-Jewish riots broke out in Seville, Spain.



1533: In an effort to stop the Inquisition, Pope Clement VII issued the Bulla de Perdao which was essentially a pardon for all past offenses. This was supposed to help the News Christians living in Portugal. Unfortunately the pope died a few years later and the Inquisition was officially established.



1558: Birthdate of Philosopher Thomas Hobbes who discussed the nature and source of the canonized Biblical texts in Chapter 33 of his seminal work, The Leviathan.


1566:  Two hundred Netherlands noblemen, led by Hendrik van Brederode, force their way into the presence of Margaret of Parma and present the Petition of Compromise which denounces the Inquisition in the Netherlands. The Inquisition was suspended and a delegation was sent to Spain to petition Philip II.(Ed note:  This should provide further explanation of the reasons for the rise of the Jewish community in the Netherlands and ultimately in the United States)


1568: Batpism of Maffeo Barberini who has Pope Urban VIII “ended the custom according to which a Jew, upon enter the pontiff’s presence was expected to kiss the Holy Father’s foot.”  All that he required was that the Jew kiss the spot on the floor where the Pope’s foot had stood. (As reported in The Sword of Constantine, page 384)


1649: Birthdate of Elihu Yale who took a Jewish wife while serving in India and fathered a child with her.  [And you thought the only Jewish connection was the group of Hebrew letters on the crest of Yale University.]


1697: King Charles XI of Sweden, in whose presence Israel Mandel, Moses Jacobs and the 28 members of their families were baptized in Stockholm as a pre-condition for being able to do business in Sweden, passed away today.


1721(8th of Nisan): Rabbi Benjamin Zev, author Ir Binyamin, passed away today


1760(19thof Nisan, 5520): Centenarian Isaac Ḥayyim de Brito Abendana:Ḥakam of the Portuguese community in Amsterdam, who “published "Sermão Exhortatoria," in 1753 passed away today.


1775: Pope Pious VI issued the “Editto sopra gli ebrei,” a proclamation that reinstituted all former anti-Jewish legislation. The proclamation included forty-four clauses prohibiting the possession of Talmudic writings, erection of gravestones, forbidding Jews from passing the night outside the ghetto, under pain of death, and more. The regulations were in effect until the arrival of Napoleon army 25 years later.


1795(16thof Nisan, 5555): 2nd day of Pesach


1795(16thof Nisan, 5555): After having been arrested as an Austrian spy, accused of corruption and bribery” Moses Dobruschka was sent to the guillotine.



1804: Birthdate of German botanist Matthias Jakob Schleiden



1812: In Stuttgart, Germany, Sheinle Ephraim and Isaac Samuel Wormser gave to Lewis Wormser Harris the successful Irish financier who served as Lord Mayor of Dublin and President of the Dublin Hebrew Congregation.


1822(14th of Nisan, 5582):Ta'anit Bechorot


1822(14th of Nisan, 5582): Rabbi Benjamin Zev of Zabrocz , Poland, passed away in Tiberias. (As reported by Abraham P. Bloch)


1824: The brit of Lewis Levy, the son of Joseph Levy and the former Hanna Isaacs took place on Holywell Street which may have been the same street described as “19th-century London’s epicentre of erotica and smut.”



1830, “In his maiden speech to the House of Commons, Thomas Macaulay spoke eloquently in favor of Robert Grant's bill for the Removal of Jewish Disabilities. Alluding to but not actually naming, Nathan Rothschild (who had financed the Allied armies ranged against Napoleon), Macaulay noted that "as things now stand, a Jew may be the richest man in England.... The influence of a Jew may be of the first consequences in a war which shakes Europe to the centre," and yet the Jews have no legal right to vote or to sit in Parliament. "Three hundred years ago they had no legal right to the teeth in their heads." If some members of the House thought it indecent of Macaulay to dredge up this nasty old business about King John extracting gold teeth from Jewish heads, certain opponents of Jewish Emancipation found it still much the best policy. According to J. A. Froude, his biographer, Thomas Carlyle, standing in front of Rothschild's great house at Hyde Park Corner, exclaimed: "I do not mean that I want King John back again, but if you ask me which mode of treating these people to have been nearest to the will of the Almighty about them--to build them palaces like that, or to take the pincers for them, I declare for the pincers." Carlyle even fancied himself in the role of a Victorian King John, with Baron Rothschild at his mercy: "Now, Sir, the State requires some of these millions you have heaped together with your financing work. 'You won't? Very well'--and the speaker gave a twist with his wrist--'Now will you?'--and then another twist till the millions were yielded." Although Macaulay was a liberal, he did not speak for all liberals, some of whom stood much closer to Carlyle on the Jewish question. One of these was Thomas Arnold, the famous headmaster of Rugby and intellectual leader of the liberal or Broad Church branch of the Church of England. Arnold set himself against conservatism as the most dangerously revolutionary of principles: "there is nothing so unnatural and so convulsive to society as the strain to keep things fixed, when all the world is by the very law of its creation in eternal progress." (4) When John Henry Newman, leader of the Anglo-Catholic (or "High") branch of the Church of England, declared that liberalism was "the enemy," and that by liberalism he meant "the Anti-dogmatic Principle," Arnold was among the principal culprits he had in mind, particularly "some free views of Arnold about the Old Testament."


But Arnold's preference of improvement to preservation and of free views to dogma drew up short where the Jews were concerned. He might excoriate the High Church party for having, throughout English history, opposed improving measures of any kind; but he shared with his Anglo-Catholic adversaries the conviction that Christianity must be the law of the land. In 1834 (a year after the Jewish Emancipation Bill had been passed by the Commons but rejected by the Lords) Arnold insisted that he "must petition against the Jew Bill" because it is based on "that low Jacobinical notion of citizenship, that a man acquires a right to it by the accident of his being littered inter quatuor maria [on the nation's soil] or because he pays taxes." That indelicate word "littered" suggests that Arnold's opposition to Jewish emancipation was not purely doctrinal, but had a strong admixture of compulsive nastiness (or worse).


1832: Ellis Abrahams married Rachel Hyams today at the New Synagogue.


1849: The Sons of Israel held its fifth meeting today where it is decided to buy a seal which will not cost more than five dollars.


1850: The Danish King implemented a law that allowed foreign Jews to settle in Denmark



1859: In England, John and Alice Watchorn gave birth to Robert Watchorn, the Immigration Commissioner who in 1907attended a Seder at Ellis Island in 1907 where he gave “a speech dealing with the right of every man in this country to worship God according to his own conviction and pointing out that a man who served God was sure to make a good citizen.


1860: According to reports published today Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise, “editor of the Cincinnati Israelite, has written to several Senators to caution them against the repetition of any clause in the Chinese treaty similar to that in the treaty with Switzerland, which debars the Jews from enjoying the privileges of other American citizens.”


1860: In New York, the Assembly passed a bill “to amend the charter of the Hebrew Benevolent Society”.


1860: In New York, the Assembly passed a bill “to amend the charter of the Cemetery Association of” B’nai Jeshurun.


 


1861: An article published today entitled “What Made Him Sick” described the desperate financial condition of the Ottomans whose creditors include Jews who left the government undisclosed amounts of money.  [During its last century of existence, Westerners referred to the Ottoman Empire as “the sick man of Europe.’]


1862: In Beerfelden, Germany, Simon Buttenwieser and Bella Saalheimer gave birth to Moses Buttenweiser, the holder of a Ph.D. from Heidelberg University and husband of Ellen Clune  who after teaching and writing in his native land became “Professor of Exegesis at Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati, Ohio.


1863(16thof Nisan, 5623): Second Day of Pesach


1866(20thof Nisan, 5626): Sixth Day of Pesach


1870(14th of Nisan, 5631):Ta'anit Bechorot


1870: Today the Sultan Abdul Aziz issued a firman that allocated the "Alliance Israelite Universelle" 2600 dunams of land east of Jaffa for the establishment of a school of agriculture and also granted permission for importing all kinds of tools and machinery free of taxes and customs. As Ben Gurion, said: "I doubt that the Israeli dream would have been realized if the farm school of Mikveh Israel had not existed."


1871(14th of Nisan, 5631): As the Jews of Newark, New Jersey, begin the celebration of Passover this evening, it is estimated that they will consume 10,000 to 15,000 pounds of matzoth during the eight days of the holiday.


1872: Birthdate of Mogilev native David Pinski, the Yiddish playwright who pursued his career in Warsaw, Berlin and New York before making Aliyah in 1949 after the creation of the State of Israel.



1882(16th of Nisan, 5642): Second Day of Pesach; First Day of the Omer


1882(16th of Nisan, 5642): German born rabbi and educator Max Lilienthal passed away in Cincinnati, Ohio. After a successful career in Europe, “Lilienthal left Russia suddenly in 1844 and went to the United States. Settling in New York, he became rabbi of the Congregation Anshe Chesed, Norfolk street and, later, rabbi of Shaar ha-Shomayim,. His somewhat advanced views led to considerable friction. He resigned his position in 1850 and established an educational institute with which he attained considerable success. In 1854 he became correspondent of the "American Israelite," and in the following year removed to Cincinnati and became associate editor of that journal and rabbi of the Congregation Bene Israel. His activity in Cincinnati extended over a period of twenty-seven years. He organized the Rabbinical Literary Association, serving as its president, and was at first instructor and later professor of Jewish history and literature at Hebrew Union College. He was prominent, also, in the Jewish press as the founder and editor of the "Hebrew Review," a quarterly, and the "Sabbath-School Visitor," a weekly, and as a frequent contributor to the "Israelite," the "Occident,""Deborah" (founded by him), the "Asmonean,""Volksblatt," and "Volksfreund." He published a volume of poems entitled "Freiheit, Frühling und Liebe" (1857), several volumes of addresses and sermons, and left three dramas in manuscript—"Die Strelitzen Mutter,""Rudolf von Habsburg," and "Der Einwanderer."Lilienthal took an active interest in the affairs of the municipality. As member of the Cincinnati board of education, and as director of the Relief Union and of the university board, he contributed much to the welfare of his adopted city. He was a reformer by nature; he was instrumental in introducing reforms in his own congregation in Cincinnati, constantly preached tolerance, and urged a more liberal interpretation of Jewish law.”


1890(15th of Nisan, 5650): First Day of Pesach


1891: In Paris, Alfred Dreyfus, the most famous Jew to serve in the French Army and Lucie Eugénie Hadamard gave birth to Pierre Léon Dreyfus, the husband of Marie Apllonie Dreyfus.


1895: “Bequests by Bernhard Bernhard” published today included a partial list of those benefiting from his generosity including the Hebrew Benevolent Association, Mount Sinai Hospital, the Home for the Aged and Infirm Hebrews and the Montefiore Home for Chronic Invalids each of which received $150 and the Home for Aged and Infirm Hebrews which received $100. 


1896(22ndof Nisan, 5656): Eighth and final day of Pesach with ceremonies that include Yizkor.


1896(22ndof Nisan 5656): Seventy-three year old Leopold Pick, the husband of Sofie Sara Pick passed away today in Vienna.


1896: Rabbis Gottheil, Silverman and Sparger will officiate at the funeral of Leonard Friedman who died last week in New Jersey. Edward Lauterbach will deliver the graveside address.


1896: Dr. Joseph Silverman spoke today at Temple Emanu El on “Passover and Easter; a Comparative Study.”


1896: “Solomon’ Song” published today contains a detailed review of Elbert Hubbard’s study of the biblical book entitled  The Song of Songs, Which Is Solomon’s


1896: Using information that first appeared in The American Hebrew, “Error in the Jewish Calendar” published today described a lecture “delivered under the auspices of the Graetz College in Philadelphia on ‘The Jewish Calendar’ in which Dr. Cyrus Adler called attention to an error in the calendar” which was first “promulgated by Hillel II” in or around 350 C.E.


1897: Reverend Lyman Abbott of Plymouth Church addressed an event hosted by the Jewish Alliance in the Assembly Hall of Temple Emanu El


1899: Dr. Lee K. Frankel of Philadelphia accepted the offer to serve as the manager of United Hebrew Charities of New York City succeeding N.S. Rosenau who had resigned from the position last February due to poor health.


1899: “Real Estate Exemption” published today described Assemblyman Green’s efforts to gain a property tax exemption for the Young Men’s Hebrew Association of New York City.


1901: Birthdate of actor Melvyn Douglas.  Born Melvyn Hesselberg in Macon,Georgia, Douglas enjoyed a long and distinguished career in films.  One of his most memorable roles was in Hud, in which he played the craggy old Texas father committed to the virtues of the frontier.  This is another example of the Jew portraying the quintessential American.  Douglas gained a different kind of fame when his wife Helen Gagahan Douglas ran against Richard Nixon for U.S. Senator in 1950.  Nixon and his allies combined her liberal politics with his Judaism to create the specter of the Jewish/Communist Conspiracy.  The fact that Douglas had changed his name was considered evidence of the conspiracy. "Californians can do one thing very soon to further the ideals of Christian nationalism, and this is not to send to the Senate the wife of a Jew."  Douglas died at the age of 80 in 1981 just before the appearance of his final film, Ghost Story.


1901: In Detroit, a site was chosen at the corner of Woodward Avenue and Eliot Street was purchased on which would be built a new Temple for Congregation Beth El.


1903: In Maciejowice, Poland, Rabbi Mendel of the Warka Hasidic dynasty and his wife gave birth to Ita Kalish.



1904(20th of Nisan, 5664): Sixth Day of Pesach


1904: Birthdate of Bronx native Pincus “Pinky” Silverberg who gained fame Flyweight Champion “Young Silverberg.”


1905: The announcement of the engagement of journalist and former cigar worker Rose Pastor to prominent Protestant philanthropist James Graham Phelps Stokes caused a media sensation.


1905: Birthdate of Elias Pichney, the native of Fostov, Ukraine, the field secretary of the National Jewish Welfare Board and “the co-founder of Social Workers for a Sane Nuclear Policy.”



1906: In Cologne, a congregation introduced the use of an organ which led to the departure of its Orthodox members who formed a new congregation.


1908: Henry Asquith became Prime Minister of Great Britain today and appointed two rising stars to his cabinet and future Prime Ministers to his cabinet – David Lloyd George and Winston Churchill.  Lloyd George would be the Prime Minister whose government issued the Balfour Declaration; a document he would continue to champion during the 1920’s when such support ceased to be “fashionable.”  Churchill enjoyed the support of friendship of members of the Jewish community, supported the Balfour Declaration and was a personal friend of Chaim Weizmann.  This personal friendship did not keep Churchill from turning his back on the Zionists in the waning days of WW II.


1909: Birthdate of Art Cohn, the New York native who became a successful sports writer of the Oakland Tribune (CA) and screenwriter who died in a plane crash with his friend movie producer Mike Todd whose biography he was in the process of writing


1909(14thof Nisan, 5669): As Jews in Atlanta, GA sat down to their Seders, for the first time they had a choice of which matzoth to use – they could either continue with the Manischewitz or use that offered for the first time in this southern city produced by A. Goodman & Son, of New York which also offered  “Berliner Tea Matzoths, Matzoth Meal, and Imported Potato Flour”  


1909(14th of Nisan, 5669): The New York Times reported that “The celebration of the Jewish festival of Pesach, or the Passover, will commence at sunset this evening and will continue among the orthodox members of the Hebrew community for eight days. The first two days and the last two days of this period are held as strict holidays on which no business should be transacted or servile work entered upon, except such as may be considered works of necessity or charity.”


1910:  Birthdate of Chaim Grade, poet, novelist and short story writer.  Born in Vilna, Lithuania (which at that time was part of Russia), Grade gained prominence in the 1930's as a Yiddish author.  He survived the Holocaust and came to the United States after the war where he continued to write.  Two of his more famous novels are The Agunah and The Yeshiva.  In My Mother's Sabbath, Grade created a memoir praising his mother, "a pious woman, who raised her son alone and worked herself to the bone...but never forgot the holiness of the Sabbath."  Elie Wiesel described Grade as "one of the greatest, if not the greatest of contemporary Yiddish novelists."  Grade passed away on June 26, 1982.


1911:Eight hearses carried the caskets of seven unknown victims of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire to the Cemetery of the Evergreens in Brooklyn.


1912: Today, Dr. Heinrich Harburger, the Professor at the University of Munich and the Councilor at the Court of Appeals was appointed President of the Senate of the Supreme Court.


1913: Maimonides Kosher Hospital founded in Chicago


1913: It was reported today that there were at least five Jews, including three from Warsaw “in the deputation which presented the Czar with a million rubles in commemoration of the three hundredth anniversary of the Romanoff dynasty.”


1913: The celebration of the 25th anniversary of the founding the Jewish Publication Society is scheduled to begin this evening after Shabbat with an “Authors Evening” “to which all the living authors who have written books for the society will be invited.”


1914:Preparations were made today for the free distribution of thousands of pounds of unleavened bread or Matzoth to needy Jewish families, for use duruing the week of the Passover, which begins on Friday night.


1914: The 24th annual convention of the Independent Order of Free Sons of Judah opened today at the Murray Hill Lyceum


1914: The New York Times Magazine features on articledescribing “the almost unrivaled collection of Jewish manuscripts found at the Jewish Theological Seminary, which, thanks to Dr. Solomon Schechter and others is surpassed only by those found at the British and Bodleian Museums.”


1915(21stof Nisan, 5675): Seventh Day of Pesach


1917: Harry Hirschfeld of Ossining received permission today from the warden at Sing Sing to provide food for a seder to be attended by Alexander Shuster who is in the deathhouse and other Jewish prisoners which will be paid for by Jacob Schiff and others.


1917: The Evening Telegram published what Samuel Untermyer later said was a “fabricated” interview in which it was claimed he said he “was opposed to the United States sending young men to fight for England which has injured” the United States ‘as much as Germany has.”


1917: “The tenth annual report of the American Jewish Committee made public” today contained “a census of the Jews in the army and navy of the United States showing that there 2,953 enlisted or commissioned Jews in the regular army and navy and more than 1,000 in the National Guard at a time when the peace-time army had approximately 100,000 members.


1917: Birthdate of Robert Albert Blochwhowrote hundreds of short stories and over twenty novels, usually crime fiction, science fiction, and, perhaps most influentially, horror fiction. He was a contributor to pulp magazines like Weird Tales in his early career, and was also a prolific screenwriter. He was the recipient of the Hugo Award, the Bram Stoker Award, and the World Fantasy Award. He served a term as president of the Mystery Writers of America. Robert Bloch was also a major contributor to science fiction fanzines and fandom in general. In the 1940s, he created the humorous character Lefty Feep in a story for Fantastic Adventures. He passed away in 1994.


1917: “Professor Israel Friedlaender of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, an authority on Russian Jewry gave a statement to the press in which he expressed his disagreement with the belief of “Rabbi David Philipson of Cincinnati that the Russian Revolution will put an end to Zionism by removing the necessity for Jews to seek refuge in a State of their own to escape persecution.”


1918: In an interview given in Berlin to a representative of the Judische Rundschau, the Bulgarian Minister stated “that his government intended to press for the grant of full rights to Jews in Romania at the peace congress and promised that steps will be taken to end the mistreatment of the Bessarabian Jews.”


1918: Premier Radoslavoff of Bulgaria praises the patriotism of Jews, and pledges his


 Government will be an ally of the Jewish cause in the negotiations with Romania.


1918: The Duetschvolkische Blutter wrote “that the time has arrived to declare war on Jews openly because of their opposition to German war aims” while deputies in the Reichstag were “demanding the adoption of measures against the Jewish race which agitates for strikes and raises the price of food.”


1918: It was reported today Kiev continues to the scene of “anti-Semitic agitation” as can be by the fact that “when the city was captured by the Ukrainians most of the inhabitants they shot were Jewish.”


1918: It was reported today “that anti-Jewish riots have occurred in Turkestan” including the city of Kokand where 300 Jews have been killed and great deal of property has been destroyed.


1919: Rabbi Joseph H. Margolies conducted services at the South Side Hebrew Congregation on Michigan Avenue in Chicago.
1919(5th of Nisan, 5679): The Polish army executed 35 young Jews who had helped in the distribution of packages sent by the Joint to the Jewish community of Pinsk. They were taken from a legitimate business meeting of the Jewish Cooperative and accused of being Jewish Bolshevists. Others also arrested were told to dig their own graves and but were released.  Ironically, the relief activities of the Joint Distribution Committee were used by Russians, in the declining years of Stalin, as a pretext for their anti-Semitic charges of disloyalty against Soviet Jews.


1920(17thof Nisan, 5680): Third Day of Pesach


1920: As Arab violence in Jerusalem grew worse, “the Old City was sealed off and martial law was declared which did not put an end to the “looting, burglar, rape and murder” which makes the decision to withdraw the soldiers that night all the more inexplicable or as the Palin Report would call it “an error in judgment.


1923: Birthdate of Belgian born philosopher and economist Ernest Mandel


1922: “The House Without Laughter,” a silent drama produced by Lupu Pick was released in Germany today.


1925: Celebration of the 40th anniversary of the founding ofMontefiore Hospital for Chronic Diseases a leading medical intuition named to honor the memory of Sir Moses Montefiore. During the observance, President Rosenbaum reviewed the history of the hospital and Dr George E. Vincent, President of the Rockefeller Foundation, delivered an address on "The Hospital and the Community."


1926: At Footgaurd Hall in Hartford, CT, flyweight Pincus “Pinky” lost his only fight by a knockout when he was “ko’d” in the third round.


1926:Newspaper correspondent T. Walter Williams reported that the American Zionist Commonwealth and the Palestine Securities Corporation are paying $20 a dunam (quarter of an acre) to the Arabs for land in Palestine and selling it to Jewish settlers for $100 per dunam.


1927: It was reported today that Joseph A. Koffend, a product of the Presbyterian Church’s aggressive conversation activities “wishes to go to Africa as a missionary.


1927: Municipal elections are held in Jerusalem. The election ordinance allocates four seats for Jews and eight for Arabs. Ragheb al Nashashibi is elected mayor. Deputy Mayors are Chaim Salomon and Ya'akuv Faraj (a Christian).


1930: U.S. premiere of “Ladies of Leisure” written by Jo Swerling and produced by Harry Cohn.


1931(18th of Nisan, 5691): 4thday of Pesach


1931(18th of Nisan, 5691): Twenty year old Lewis Warner, the son of Harry Warner, who had been appointed “as head of Warner Bros.” passed away today “when an infected, impacted wisdom tooth was extracted, which led to septicemia and then double pneumonia.”


1931(18th of Nisan, 5691): Seventy-nine year old Nathan Frank, passed away today.



1931: “Skippy,” a comedy directed by Norman Taurog, produced by Adolph Zukor, Jesse Lasky and B.P. Schulberg with a script by Joseph L. Mankiewicz and Sam Mintz was released today in the United States.


1933: In Washington, “William Venezky and the former Millie Ruth Bronstein, Jewish immigrants from Russia” gave birth to Melva Jane Venezky who gained fame as Melva Bucksbaum, the wife of Des Moines shopping center developer Martin Bucksbaum, who went from being president of the Des Moines Art Center board to being a nationally known art collector and curator.



 1934: Birthdate of “Dr. Fritz H. Bach, a physician and medical researcher who helped develop techniques to improve people’s chances of surviving organ and bone marrow transplants.” As reported by Douglas Martin)


1934: Birthdate of Moise Yacoub Safra, the scion of affluent Syrian and Lebanese bankers who moved to Brazil where he “co-founded Banco Safra” with his brothers.



1935: In Jerusalem, at the final session of the Actions Committee, the Supreme Council of the World Zionist Organization voted to approve the largest budget ever in its history which will include funds for settling an “agricultural colony named in honor of the late Baron Edmond de Rothschild of Paris.”


1936: Based on an analysis of figures “sent from Jerusalem by Dr. Werner Senator, director of the immigrant department of the Jewish Agency for Palestine” published today “134,500 people from all countries arrived in Palestine” from January of 1933 to December of 1935, of whom 36,372 came from German including “24,499classified as permanent settler and 11,873 classified as tourists most of whom are rapidly indicating their intention of staying permanently.”


1936: Plans were published today describing the upcoming viewing of “important works of the Dutch masters of the seventeenth century” that will take place at the Manhattan home of Mr. and Mrs. Joseph L. Buttenweiser which will serve as fundraiser for the women’s division of the United Palestine Appeal.


1936: “Dr. Ludwig Lewisohn’s list of ‘the ten greatest living Jews’ was criticized for including the names of ‘Jews who are great men but not great in an address delivered this morning at the Free Synagogue by Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, who “was one of the listed by Dr. Lewisohn.”


1936: In Pittsburgh, Pa, “the executive board of District 5 of the United Mine Workers of America asked its 40,000 members today to enforce a boycott on all German-made goods.”


1936: “Slogan calling for a boycott of Jewish businesses were plastered in the shape of swastikas over the windows of Jewish stores” tonight which “was the newest phase of a Jew-baiting campaign among the 35,000 Jewish citizens of Leeds, UK.


1936: The Fraenkische Tageszeitug reported today that a Nuremberg court sentenced a Jewish cattle dealer to six weeks’ imprisonment for wearing brown trousers.”


1936: “The conference of Jewish youth organizations meeting” in New York “at the Hotel Pennsylvania adopted a resolution today favoring the inclusion of Jewish history and Hebrew in school curriculums.”


1936: “A plan for settling 12,000 German Jews a year in countries other than Palestine at an annual cost $1,000,000 was completed by the Hilfsverein der Juden in Deutschland, the Jewish relief organization and forwarded to the Council for German Jewry in London.”


1937: “Elephant Boy” a Kiplingesque film directed by Zoltan Korda and produced by Alexander Korda was released in the United States today.


1937: The Palestine Post reported in a leading article that the Mandatory government’s delay in granting certificates to workers, apparently for political reasons, had caused a severe shortage of Jewish labor.


1937: The Palestine Post reported that Jews living Safed were forced to remain in their own quarter since those who dared to go into the Arab parts of the city were stoned.


1937: The Palestine Post reported that a royal palace was been unearthed at Megiddo by the archaeological expedition, organized by the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago.


1937: The Palestine Post reported in Poland Menachem Begin and members of his Betar Revisionist youth group were sentenced to various terms of imprisonment for having demanded free immigration to Palestine, during a demonstration held outside the British Embassy in Warsaw. The Polish government expressed its regrets to the British Embassy.


1937:  In New York City, “while fifty men and women who said they represented more than 100 Jewish organizations picked the Polish Consulate…at noon today, a delegation of seven presented a petition to a consulate attaché demanding that the Polish Government take immediate action to stop attacks” on Jews in Poland.


1937: Birthdate of Aryeh “Arie” Selinger who “served as the head coach of the USA Women's Team in the years 1975-1984.”


1937: Rabbi Arthur J. Lelyveld and the former Toby Bookholtz gave birth to Pulitzer Prize winning author and New York Timesexecutive editor Joseph Lelyveld.



1938: Anti-Jewish riots break out in Dabrowa and spread across Poland.


1938: Lazar Kaganovich began serving his second term as People’s Commissar for Transport.


1939(16th of Nisan, 5699): Second Day of Pesach; 1st day of the Omer


1939(16th of Nisan, 5699): Dr. Moses Gaster passed away today.


http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=F60E15FA3858127A93C4A91788D85F4D8385F91940: Birthdate of Aliza Kashi, Israeli, actress and singer.  She gained some of her popularity as a regular on the Merv Griffin Show.


1942: The Lutheran Church of Norway issued "Kirken grunn" ("Foundations of the Church"), a letter condemning Nazism and racism and protesting efforts of Vidkun Quisling, Norway's German puppet, to "Nazify" Norway's churches.



1943: In Aleppo, Syria, Jacob Safra and his wife gave birth to Brazilian businessman and co-founder of the Bano Safra Moise Safra.



1943(29th of Adar II, 5703): Three hundred Jews from Soly and Smorgon, Byelorussia, were transported by rail westward to Vilna, Lithuania. En route, the captives shattered the railcars' wire-reinforced glass and attempted to flee, but were shot to death by guards. The survivors were later shot at Ponary, southwest of Vilna, by German and Lithuanian SS troops. About 4000 Jews from in and around Vilna were trucked to Ponary, slaughtered, and dumped into mass graves. Jews arriving at the Ponary station by rail from Oszmiana and Swieciany, Lithuania, resisted with revolvers, knives, and their bare hands; a few dozen escaped to Vilna and the rest were shot. During the massacre, a Lithuanian policeman was wounded by Jews and an SS sergeant was hospitalized after being stabbed in the back and in the head.



1943(29th of Adar II, 5703): The final trainload of Jews from Macedonia arrived at Treblinka. All aboard were gassed immediately.



1943: Three Tunisian Jews, Joseph, Gilbert and Freddy Scemla, were flown from North Africa to Germany where they would be imprisoned in Dachau and eventually be beheaded.  The three men had been betrayed by an Arab when they were attempting to hide from the Nazis in the days before Tunisia was liberated by the Allies. 



1943: Hans vonDohnányi a German jurist who was part of the Resistance and really did rescue Jews, was arrested at his office by the Gestapo] on charges of alleged breach of foreign currency violations: he had transferred funds to a Swiss bank on behalf of the Jews he had saved



1944: Deadline arrives for all Jews of Hungary to wear a Gold Star on their clothing.



1944: At today’s meeting of the Cairo Forces Parliament which when it met for the first time in February included Welsh attorney and future MP Leo Abse, “an officer gave notification that the assembly was contrary to King’s Regulations” the more than 500 attendees voted for a bill call for then nationalizing banking system” and then dissolved.



1944: Violette Szabo, who would eventually be murdered at Ravensbruck  began her first mission as a covert agent today when she was flown from RAF Tempsford in Bedfordshire in a US B-24 Liberator bomber and parachuted into German-occupied France, near Cherbourg


1944: A prisoner escaped from Auschwitz to warn Czech Jews about the death camp.


1945: Forty-seven year old Karl Otto Koch, the Nazi commander of Buchenwald, Majdanek and Sachsenhausen was executed today after having been found guilty by “the Supreme Court of the SS and Police”


1945: Today “units from the American Fourth Armored Division of the Third Army were the first Americans to discover a concentration camp with prisoners and corpses.”



1946: It was reported today that “the New York State Legislature is considering a bill introduced by Bernard Austin to establish in Brooklyn a $2,000,000 college to train Hebrew teachers and grand degrees in Hebrew literature.”


1946: It was reported today that 27 “Protestant churches in Massachusetts have organized a campaign to build a synagogue for Jewish families in Athol area” who “have been worshipping in a loft above a store.”


1947(15th of Nisan, 5707): In China, a Seder was held at The Shanghai Jewish Young Community Center


1948: While Jerusalem was under siege and the United States was wrestling with question of the creation of the Jewish state, the Soviets were using all tactics to strangle the West in Berlin including the harassment of Allied civilian aircraft by Russian fighters as can be seen by today’s collision of a Yak-3 with British airliner.


1949: Birthdate of Dr. Judith Arlene Resnik.  Born in Akron, Ohio, Resnik was a design engineer, electrical engineer and biochemical engineer for Xerox, RCA and NIH.  She was a mission specialist on the Challenger where she died in 1986.


1951: “Teresa” directed by Fred Zinnemann, produced by Arthur Loew, Jr., with a script by Stewart Stern and music by Louis Appelbaum was released today in the United States.


1951: The Rosenbergs and David Greenglass were convicted of spying.  Prosecuted by Jewish lawyers, the Rosenbergs were sentenced to death by a Jewish judge.


1953(20thof Nisan, 5713): Sixth Day of Pesach


1953(20thof Nisan, 5713): Twenty-seven year old Herb Gorman, who had been taken out of game while playing left field for the PCL San Diego Padres today after complaining of pain passed away at a local hospital.



1953: Birthdate of Ghaleb Majadele, an Israeli-Arab member of the Labor Party who has served as an MK and cabinet minister.


1955: Having been named Prime Minister for a second time in 1953, Winston Churchill retried from the post today. For more about Churchill and the Jewish people see Churchill and the Jews by Sir Martin Gilbert.



1956: Birthdate of “English author and screenwriter” Anthony Horowitz.


1956: In a case of Jew versus “Abraham Telvi, a mobster and hit man, attacked journalist Victor Riesel with acid, blinding him as he left” Lindy’s Restaurant in New York.  Riesel was a crusading journalist who exposed the connection between mobsters and certain elements of the American labor movement.


1956: Egyptian artillery in the Gaza Strip bombarded settlements in the Negev.  Four civilians and two Israeli soldiers were wounded.  At mid-day Egyptian terrorists were spotted trying to infiltrate from Gaza.  The failed attempt was accompanied by a renewed barrage from the Egyptians which killed three Israeli soldiers.  The Israelis returned fire, killing 63 civilians in the process.  The Foreign Ministry expressed regret at the loss of civilian life but reminded the Egyptians that it was “their folly” which had brought on the exchange in the first place.  Attacks like these from Gaza were one of the causes of the war between Egypt and Israel that took place later in 1956. [Yes, this is the same Gaza from which the Kassam Rockets are being launched during the 21st century.


1958(15th of Nisan, 5718): First Day of Pesach


1958(15thNisan, 5718): Terrorists lying in an ambush shot and killed two people near Tel Lakhish


1961: Barbra Streisand made her first performance on national television tonight when she appeared on the Jack Paar Show singing Harold Arlen’s “A Sleepin’ Bee.” (Of the three mentioned Paar is the one who was not Jewish.)


1962: “A Thousand Clowns” featuring Gene Sakes as “Leo Harman” officially opened on Broadway today


1965:Jack Benny, whose weekly television show will not continue after this season, said today he would star on two special hour-long shows next season on the National Broadcasting Company network. The 71-year-old comedian will thus continue the uninterrupted association with broadcasting that began in 1932.


1966(15thof Nisan, 5726): Pesach1967: “Double Trouble” an Elvis Presley musical directed by Norman Taurog  and produced by Irwin Winkler and Judd Bernard was released in the United States today.


1967(24thof Adar II, 5727): Seventy-six year old Nobel laureate Herman Joseph Muller passed away today.



1967(24th of Adar II, 5727): Violinist Mischa Elman passed away.




1971: The Supreme Court rendered a decision in INVESTMENT COMPANY INSTITUTE et al., Petitioners, v. William B. CAMP, Comptroller of the Currency, et al. in which Joseph B. Levin represented the petitioner, National Association of Securities Dealers, Inc.


1972(21st of Nisan, 5732): Pesach VII


1972(21st of Nisan, 5732): Sixty-five year old MK Reuven Barkat passed away today.


1973(3rd of Nisan, 5733): Five days before his 70th birthday, “Austrian-American opera producer” Herbert Graf, the Little Hans discussed in Freud's 1909 study Analysis of a Phobia in a Five-year-old Boy” passed away today.



1973: Funeral services are held at Temple Emanu-El in New York for Aaron Rabinowitz, a pioneer in the field of affordable housing and other forms of real estate innovation.


1974: “132 Soviet Jews from 13 towns appealed to the U.S. Senators in behalf of Alexander Feldman, who was confined to a punishment cell and whose detention was repeatedly extended despite serious illness.”


1977:The Jerusalem Postreported that US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger warned that his country and Israel must not paralyze ourselves by suspiciousness that deprives our relationship of dignity and our cooperation of significance. He reassured, “We’ll never abandon Israel.”


1977:The Jerusalem Postreported that President Sadat of Egypt, who was in Paris on an arms-purchasing mission, assured his hosts that he had withdrawn the Soviet Union’s right to use Egyptian port naval facilities.


1977: Birthdate of Israeli tennis player Jonathan Erlich.


1982(12th of Nisan, 5742): Abe Fortas Supreme former Supreme Court Justice and advisor to Lyndon Johnson died at the age of 71. (As reported by Linda Greenhouse)



1985(14thof Nisan, 5745): Ta’anit Bechorot and Erev Pesach


1987: Broadcast of the first episode of “The Tracey Ullman Show” which was created and produced by James L. Brooks


1990: Eighty-one year old Rabbi S. Gershon Levi, a former president of the Rabbinical Assembly and a former editor of the quarterly publication Conservative Judaism, died of heart failure at his home in Jerusalem.



1991: U.S. premiere “The Marrying Man” with a script by Neil Simon and featuring Paul Reiser as “Phil.”


1992(2nd of Nisan, 5752): Actress Molly Picon, the star of the Yiddish theatre who played Yente the Matchmaker in the film version of “Fiddler on the Roof” passed away today



1993(14th of Nisan, 5733): Ta’anit Bechorot; erev Pesach


1994: "Jackie Mason Politically Incorrect" opened in New York City for the first of 347 performances.


1995: Alisa Flatow, a Brandeis University Junior from New Jersey, was riding a bus in the Gaza Strip when a van loaded with explosives was driven into the bus. Shrapnel from the bomb went through her skull and she never regained consciousness. Stephen Flatow, her father, flew to Israel to confirm that the brain-dead young woman was his daughter. Staff at Sororkin Hospital in Beersheva asked him if he would be willing to donate his daughter’s viable organs. After consulting with his wife and making a conference call to his rabbis, Alvin Marcus and Rabbi Moshe D. Tendler of Yeshiva University, Alisa’s parents decided to follow the positive mitzvah of Pikuach Nefesh, the "Saving a Life." Alisa’s organs changed the lives of six people on the transplant waiting list. "People have called it a brave decision, a righteous decision, a courageous decision. To us it was simply the right thing to do at the time," said Flatow. The Flatow family decision had an emotional impact on a grieving Israel. Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin told American Jews in May 1995 that "Alisa Flatow’s heart beats in Jerusalem." Even more, the Flatow’s decision made public a painful issue — Jewish views about organ donation.


Alisa Flatow, 20, was riding a bus in the Gaza Strip when an Islamic Jihad militant drove a van loaded with explosives into the bus. Shrapnel from the bomb went through her skull, and she never regained consciousness. Her heart was successfully transplanted to a 56-year-old man who had been waiting more than a year for one; her liver was donated to a 23-year-old man, and her lungs, pancreas and kidneys to four different patients. Her corneas were donated to an eye bank. Miss Flatow, a Brandeis University junior from West Orange, N.J., had taken a semester off to study at a Jerusalem seminary. She loved Israel and had considered settling there; it was fitting that she could help others in Israel. Alisa was a young Jewish woman of sterling character who came to Israel to study her Jewish heritage; an unusually thoughtful person -- bright, modest, and delightful. Her loss is felt by her family, her community, her classmates and her many friends in the United States, Israel, and throughout the world.


1993: The keel of INS Hanit, the corvette built Northrop Grumman, was laid down today.


1996: Marlon Brando made anti-Semitic remarks about Hollywood on The Larry King Show.


1997(27th of Adar II, 5757): Beat poet Allen Ginsberg passed away.



1998: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including “Confederates in the Attic” by Tony Horwitz,Good Spirits: The Making of a Businessman” by Edgar M. Bronfman and “Jewish Roots in Poland: Pages from the Past and Archival Inventories” by Miriam Weiner.


2000: Joseph Gutnick was among three men who resigned as directors of Great Central Mining following the exposure of financial irregularities.


2000: “Keeping the Faith” a romantic comedy about boyhood friends who become respectfully a rabbi and a priest and as adults deal with loving the same woman – a gentile doctor who converts to Judaism – written by Stuart Blumberg with a cast filled with Jews including Lisa Edestein, Ben Stiller and Eli Wallach was released in the United States today.


2001(12thof Nisan, 5761): Ta’anit Bechorot


2001(12th of Nisan, 5761): German born entertainer, Theodore Gottlieb, known as Brother Theodore, passed away.



2002: Operation Defensive Shield continued today with Israeli forces fighting terrorists in a number of towns including Jenin, Hebron, Nablus and Bethlehem where their mission was made that much more difficult because the terrorists hid among the Arab civilians.


2002(23rdof Nisan, 5762):Sgt. Merom Fisher, 19, of Moshav Avigdor; Sgt. Ro'i Tal, 21, of Ma'alot; and Sgt. Oded Kornfein, 20, of Kibbutz Ha'on - were killed in exchanges of fire between IDF troops and Palestinian gunmen in Jenin during Operation Defensive Shield.


2002: “Big Trouble” the movie version of the book by the same name directed and produced by Barry Sonnenfeld was released today in the United States.


2002: Qeis Adwan, head of the suicide bombing network responsible for the Passover Massacre at the Park Hotel in Netanya was killed by IDF forces today during Operation Defensive Shield, after the IDF and the Yamam caught him in Tubas, some 70 kilometers north of Jerusalem.


2004(14th of Nisan, 5764): On the Jewish calendar, 61st anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.


 2005(25th of Adar II, 5765):  Pulitzer Prize winning author Saul Bellow passed away at the age of 89.



http://www.theguardian.com/news/2005/apr/07/guardianobituaries.booksobituaries2006:  In a story that resonates with special meaning as Jews prepare to remember another Anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, the Jerusalem Post reported on the reuniting of two cousins, Holocaust survivors, who had been separated for 66 years. For 66 years, Ella Friedvald, 82, and her 79-year-old sister Lila were sure that their cousin Krystyna had been killed in the Holocaust, just as she was convinced they were long dead. After all, the three women were barely teenagers when the Germans invaded Poland and their families were separated, their paths seemingly forever split as their world shattered before them. After the war, Ella and Lila settled in Israel, while Krystyna, 79, made her home in the US, all having failed to find traces of their respective parents. But, as fate willed it, a faded postcard sent from a German labor camp 60 years ago and the determination of a very persistent octogenarian to claim her family's pre-war life insurance benefits led to their reunification here this week. The Friedvald girls grew up in Warsaw in the 1930s. After the Nazis invaded Poland, their families fled to Lvov, at the time still part of Poland, but under Soviet control. Although they escaped the Germans, Ella, Lila and their parents were forcibly taken by the Soviets to a closed labor camp, while Krystyna and her parents eventually made their way back to Warsaw once the Germans entered Lvov. Krystyna's last childhood memory of her two cousins was that of her father racing to the train station in Lvov in the hopes of bribing the Russian soldiers to free the two girls, only to come back home empty-handed having failed to find the family at the station. Her last piece of information about her cousins for the next six and half decades was a letter that Lila wrote her from the Soviet camp in which she said that her parents and older sister were dying of hunger. The two sisters were indeed soon orphaned, but they managed to survive the war, and eventually made their way to Israel where they married and had families. Their cousin's parents fared no better than their own, as both were killed by the Nazis in Warsaw. But young Krystyna, who was living on the Aryan side of the city and who took part in the Warsaw uprising, managed to survive the war against all odds, largely since the Germans had no clue that the Polish-speaking teen was Jewish. After the Nazis crushed the Polish rebellion, she was taken, together with a group of Poles, to a labor camp in Germany, where she remained until the war ended with the Red Army liberating the camp. While she was still at the camp, Krystyna sent out postcards to various places in Poland in search of family members and friends, but they were returned to the camp with no such persons found. "I was positive they were dead," Krystyna told The Jerusalem Post, "and they were sure I was killed with the rest of the Jews of Poland." After the war, Krystyna's uncle brought her to England, where she would meet her future husband. After the young couple married, they decided to move to the US since they did not want to start a family in war-ravaged Europe. For the next 50 years, Krystyna, of Eastchester, NY, was unaware that her two cousins were alive and well in Israel. Then, five years ago, her cousin Ella began to make inquires about possible remuneration from the Generali Company for life insurance taken out by her family members before the war. The Polish offices of the company did not find any policies for her parents or grandparents but they did find one for her cousin's father. Ella Friedvald then contacted a Polish organization of authors and composers, where he had worked, to see if they had any record of him. The organization wrote back that their cousin had informed them in a letter in 1947 that her father had been killed in 1942. That letter opened up a whole new world for them. "At that moment we knew that she had survived the war," Ella said. The next thing to do was to see if she were still alive. Coincidentally, around the same time that Ella began to make inquiries, her cousin had answered an advertisement put out by the Polish Consulate in New York in search of survivors of the Warsaw uprising. A representative of the consulate then visited Krystyna in her home, and when he asked her if she had any memento for a museum to mark the uprising, she gave him a postcard she had written from the German labor camp 60 years earlier that had been stamped "return to sender." The Polish official was very happy with the postcard, and the museum subsequently put it on its Internet site, which would prove critical in her cousins' search for her, which they carried out with the help of two Polish friends. Last month, Krystyna Friedvald got a call from the Polish museum. "Someone is looking for you," the voice on the other line said in Polish. "Who?" she asked. The museum staffer asked her if she had any cousins, using their married names. Krystyna said she did not know of any such people. "How about Ella and Lila?" the voice - like a dream out of the past - asked. "Where are they?" Krystyna cried, thinking her cousins were in Poland. "They are in Israel," came the reply. The next morning at 5 a.m. Krystyna's phone rang. It was her long-lost cousin calling from Israel. "We talked and we talked and we talked," she said. The following week Krystyna was on a plane to Israel to reunite with her cousins. After 66 years, the three, who look remarkably alike and who communicate with each other in Polish, were clearly trying to squeeze a lifetime into Krystyna's one-week visit, her first ever to Israel. "It's these two stubborn ladies, they decided to find me," she concluded with a smile.


2007: An exhibition opens at the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles entitled “The Art of Vintage Israeli Travel Posters”


2008: The 92nd Street Y presents a piano recital by Peter Serkin, son of the famous Rudolf Serkin


2008: Shabbat Ha-Chodesh


2008(29th of Adar II, 5768): Eugene Ehrlich, a self-educated lexicographer who wrote 40 dictionaries, thesauruses and phrase books for the "extraordinarily literate," not to mention people just hoping to sound that way, died at his home in Mamaroneck, New York at the age of 85



2008: The New York Times reported that Sederot, a long neglected immigrant town a mile from Gaza, pounded by Palestinian rockets for the past seven years, is taking on a new identity, edging into the center of Zionist consciousness as a symbol of the nation’s unofficial motto: “Never Again.” Like the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem, Sderot is now a must-see stop for those who support Israel or are being urged to do so.


2009: “Picturing the Shoah,” a film festival sponsored by YIVO that explores how movies have represented the Holocaust from radical, provocative, and unexpected angles continues with a presentation of the works of director Jean-Luc Godard including– In Praise of Loveand Our Music.


2009: The New York Times featured books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including “Mainly On Directing: Gypsy, West Side Story, and Other Musicals”by Arthur Laurents


2009: The Washington Post featured books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Spartacus War by Barry Strauss.


2009:Israeli archaeologists continued their inspection today of the Western Wall stone by stone in a new conservation effort at the Jewish holy site. The oldest stones were laid 2,000 years ago as part of the retaining wall of the Jewish Temple, and the newest by the Ottomans - who ruled the area until 1917. Israeli Antiquities Authority archaeologist Jon Seligman says the work aims to make sure stones don't collapse on those praying below. Today workers on a platform cleaned stones near the top of the 20-meter high wall, which is a religious flash point. The authority says work will likely continue for two months.


2010(21st of Nisan, 5770): In Jerusalem, Isralight is scheduled to host the Seudat Mashiach this evening.


2010:Edom; featuring Israeli guitaristEyal Maoz is scheduled to appear at The Local 269 in New York City.


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


20122(1stof Nisan, 5771): Eighty-seven year old Charles Laufer, the creator of magazines aimed at teenage girls passed away today. (As reported by Douglas Martin)



2011(1stof Nisan, 5771): Nobel Prize-winning biochemist Baruch Blumberg passed away today.



2011: In New York City, the Guggenheim Museum is scheduled to present “Omer Fast: Art Talk.”Omer Fast is a native of Jerusalem who “works with film, video, and television footage to examine the complex interplay between personal and public histories.”


2011: Irwin and Ginny Edlavitch are scheduled to be honored at the Washington DCJCC Annual Spring Gala.


2011: Jewish Historical Society of Greater Washington is scheduled to kick off the 150th anniversary month of the Civil War with t a Lunch and Learn entitled “The Jewish Civil War.”


2011: President Peres joined President Obama for a working lunch at the White House where they will discuss Israeli peace proposals.


2011:A leading US Congressman blasted demonization of Israel and anti-Semitism in the Arab world today, and stressed that action against incitement must be part of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. “If this is a new era of openness in the Middle East, then the work of defending Israel from ideological attacks becomes even more pressing,” House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer told the Anti-Defamation League’s leadership conference. “That’s because, if this is a new era of openness, it matters more than ever that the Arab people have a view of Israel unclouded by bigotry.


2011:Doctors around the country began a two-day warning strike in the public health and hospital system today after a meeting between representatives from the Finance Ministry and the Israel Medical Association (IMA) ended with no agreement yesterday. The public health sector and hospitals around the country will operate on a reduced Shabbat schedule.


2012: The Timofeyev Ensemble is scheduled to present the NYC premiere of "Shloyme: a Musical Biography of an Imaginary Hero."


2012: The Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center is scheduled to present “All the Missing Souls: A Personal History of the War Crimes Tribunal.”


2012(13thof Nisan, 5772): Eighty-seven year old University of Oxford Professor Siegbert Salomon Prawer whose family had fled Nazi Germany in 1939 passed away today.



2012(13thof Nisan, 5772): Ninety-four year old Bernard Rapoport, the Texas insurance tycoon who became the financial angel for numerous liberal candidates and causes passed away in Waco, TX. (As http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/23/us/politics/bernard-rapoport-liberal-donor-in-texas-dies-at-94.html



2012: “Fake ‘eviction notices’ scare Jewish Students” published today described efforts by Students for Justice in Palestine to terrorize Jewish students attending Florida Atlantic University.


2013: The Eden-Tamir Music Center is scheduled to host a celebration of Verdi’s 200thBirthday in the form of a performance by The Israeli Opera’s Meitar Studio.


2013:  In Coralville, IA, Agudas Achim is scheduled to host its annual Sisterhood Shabbat Service.


2013: “No Place on Earth” a documentary about the Sterner and Wexler families surviving in Ukrainian caves for 17 months is scheduled to premiere in New York City.


2013:Hundreds of demonstrators marched in Tel Aviv this afternoon for the second consecutive year in protest of violence against women in the now world-famous Mitzad Sharmuta (SlutWalk).


2013: Royal Dutch Shell declined to comment on reports that it will divest its stake in an Australian energy firm because of that firm’s investment in Israel’s gas fields. (As reported by Times of Israel)


2014: Yaala Ballin and her Quintent are scheduled to “celebrate the outstanding female vocalists of Jazz history” at their performance at the Brooklyn Conservatory of Music.


2014: Yoni Rechter is scheduled to perform at the Stephen Wise Free Synagogue.


2014: “Friends From France” is scheduled to be shown at the Westchester Jewish Film Festival.


2014: “Cupcakes” is scheduled to be shown at 11th JCC Rockland International Jewish Film Festival


2014: The European Weightlifting Championships are scheduled to begin today in Tel Aviv.


2014: “An original chamber opera, also titled ‘Regina’" based on the life of Regina Jones, the Berlin born rabbi “written by composer Elisha Denburg and librettist Maya Rabinovitch, premiere in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.”


2014: In Waterloo, Iowa, Sons of Jacob Synagogue is scheduled to host Harry Brod, author of Superman is Jewish?: How Comic Book Superheroes Came to Serve Truth, Justice and the Jewish-American Way


2014: The Shachar Club, a kosher nightclub, is scheduled to open in Moscow.


2015(16thof Nisan, 5775): Second Day of Pesach


2015: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including ISIS: State of Terror by Jessica Stern and J.M.Berger, ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror by Michael Weiss and Hassan Hassan, Act of Godby Jill Ciment and Eleanor Marx: A Life by Rachel Holmes.


2015: “Nearly 100,000 people came to B’nei Brak early this morning for the funeral procession for Rabbi Shmuel Halevi Wosner.”


2015(16thof Nisan, 5775): Ninety-three year old New York labor leader Victor Gotbaum passed away today.



2015(16thof Nisan, 5775): Eighty-seven year old emeritus Professor Barbara Bergman, a trail-blazing academic, passed away today in Bethesda, MD.



2016(26thof Adar II, 5776): Eighty-eight year old author Erwin Nathanson whose The Dirty Dozen was the inspiration for one of the most popular WW II movies ever made.



2016(26thof Adar II, 5776): Seventy-nine year old “Emmy-nominated screenwriter” Barbara Turner who was also the mother of actress Jennifer Jason Leigh passed away today.




2016: Center for Jewish History and The Edgar M. Bronfman Center for Jewish Student Life at NYU are scheduled to present Rabbi Jonathan Sacks lecturing on “The People and the Book – The World We Make with Words.”


2016: The Rosh Hashanah tractate, the first completed volume of the first Italian translation of the Babylonian Talmud is scheduled to “be ceremonially presented to Italy’s president today five years from the start of the state-funded project.”


2016: “Imber’s Left Hand” is scheduled to be shown at the Hartford Jewish Film Festival.


2016: “The Heartbreak Kid” is scheduled to be shown at the Westchester Jewish Film Festival.


2016: The UJA Federation of New York is scheduled to host the opening reception for Beyond The Balcony: The Works of Michal Nachmany


2017: “Fanny’s Journey” and “Atomic Falafel” are scheduled to be shown on the last day of the 14th annual International Jewish Film festival at the JCC in Rockland, NY


2017: Trezos” The Lost Jews of Kastoria” and “The Queen of Rebetiko” are scheduled to be shown at the 20th annual New York Sephardic Jewish Film Festival.


2018(20thof Nisan, 5778): Sixth Day of Pesach


2018: At the Begin Center, “Map and Matza”—“a festival happening for the whole family that includes tours of the museum creative workshops” is scheduled to come to an end today.


2018: In Coralville, IA, Agudas Achim is scheduled to host Erev Pesach services this evening.


2018: The 92nd Street Y is scheduled to present “Perfect is Boring: 10 Things My Crazy, Fierce Mama Taught Me About Beauty, Booty and Being a Boss.”


 

This Day, April 6, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. Levin

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April 6


1199: King Richard I of England dies from an infection following the removal of an arrow from his shoulder. Richard spent most of his reign fighting to protect his lands in France or on the Third Crusade. While he was in England, he did protect his Jewish subjects.  Jews did suffer during his Kingship.  Among other things, they were forced to contribute a disproportionate amount towards the ransom collected to free Richard from the clutches of an Austrian duke.  Richard’s death put King John on the throne.  John openly exploited Jewish subjects.  His tyranny brought on the Magna Charta which included a special section on treatment of the Jews.


1233: Pope Gregory IX, who was criticized by some for being too protective of the Jews wrote "Mandate, if facts are established, to the archbishops and bishops of France to induce the Christians in their dioceses to stop persecuting the Jews, who had complained to the pope that they were being maltreated and tortured by certain lords, imprisoned and left to die. The Jews are willing to forsake usury. They are to be set free and are not to be injured in person or in property."  A year later, in Decretals, he invested the doctrine of perpetua servitus iudaeorum – perpetual servitude of the Jews – with the force of canonical law. According to this, Jews would have to remain in a condition of political servitude and abject humiliation until Judgment Day. The doctrine then found its way into the doctrine of servitus camerae imperialis, or servitude immediately subject to the Emperor's authority, promulgated by Frederick II.


 The second-class status of Jews thereby established would last until well into the 19th century.


1397: Boniface IX issued a papal bull confirming the “grant of Roman citizenship on Manuele” a Jewish physician “and his son Angelo.


1443:  In a document from King John of Castile on economic conditions, he mentions Jews are prohibited from exercising certain high offices among Christians, and from being employed as judges, farmers, collectors, directors, or stewards of revenue (taxes).


1453: Mehmed II began his siege of Constantinople (Istanbul).  His ultimate conquest of the city would be a positive thing for the Jews since, among other things, he opened the city to their settlement


1490: Matthias Corvinus also known as Matthias I King of Hungary and Croatia who “created the office of Jewish prefect in Hungary” passed away today marking the start of an immediate downturn in the fortunes of the Jewish people which included the confiscation of their property, refusal by gentiles to pay their debts and the start of a “generalized period of persecution.”


1568:”Elvira del Campo, a young Marranon woman, was subjected to her first torture session by the Inquisition of Toledo, Spain.” (As reported by Abraham Bloch)


1667: The “Old Synagogue” is among the buildings damaged when an earthquake struck Dubrovnik today. The synagogue dates back to the 14th century and is reportedly the oldest Sephardic synagogue in use today.


1754(14thof Nisan, 5514: Parashat Tzav; Shabbat HaGadol; erev Pesach. 


1766: Birthdate of Israel B. Kursheedt, the native of Sing-hafen Germany who when he arrived in Boston in 1796 became the first rabbi to come to the city.


1720: Manuel San Vicente, a Spanish mercenary turned himself in to the Inquisitional Tribunal after living among the Spanish Jews in Constantinople and Salonica as a Jew for a month. He sought pardon for his sin, and/or to avoid being turned in by another party. While he was in the Ottoman Empire he was circumcised, and learned Jewish prayers.


1785: Joseph Hart Myers married Jane Diamantschleifer today


1790(22ndof Nisan, 5550): 8th day of Pesach


1790: According to some sources, birthdate of Rachel Luzzatto, the native of Trieste, who was “called ‘the Queen of the Hebrew Versifiers.”




1792(14thof Nisan, 5552): Ta’anit Bechorot; erev Pesach


1808: John Jacob Astor incorporated the American Fur Company.


1809: Jews fled Pressburg (Bratislava) when Napoleon attacked the city


1810: German Jewish author Saul Ascher was arrested on Berlin.


1810: Birthdate of Philip Henry Gosse, the native of Worcester, UK who wrote The History of the Jews from the Christian Era to the Dawn of the Reformation


1812: Birthdate of Aaron David Bernsterin whose works included a “translation of the ‘Song of Songs’ published in 1834.


1814: Louis XVIII, during whose reign the emancipation the came about under the Revolution and Napoleon, was left unchanged much to many Bourbons, began his service as King of France.


1819: Birthdate of Elizabeth Magnus the daughter of Sarah Moses and Lazarus Magnus, who was born at Chatham, Kent, England.


1822(15th of Nisan, 5582): Pesach


1841(15th of Nisan, 5601): Pesach


1845: After a year and a half of meeting for worship services a group of Jews whose number grown to 33 voted to establish a congregation called Emanu-El which “then engaged Dr. Ludwig Merzbacher as rabbi and lecture and G.M. Cohn as reader” each of whom was paid $200 per year while Mr. Renau was hired “as secretary and sexton with an annual salary of $150” and a room was rented in house at the corner of Grand and Clinton Streets to be used as a synagogue. (The room was fitted so that the front seats for men and the front seats for women – a configuration that would change as Emanu-El became Temple Emanu-El, the leading Reform congregation in NYC.)


1848: "In every part of Germany excluding Bavaria, Jews were granted civil rights. As a result, Gabriel Riesser (a Jew, and an advocate for Jewish emancipation) was elected vice-president of the Frankfurt Parliament, and became a member of the National Assembly.” It must be noted that for the most part these freedoms existed only on paper and were not enforced."  This paper emancipation was part of the revolutionary ferment sweeping Europe at this time. The revolts failed in Germany.  The result was a migration of German liberals, including many Jews, to the United States.


1853: In Leipzig Rosalie Bettelheim and Dr. Adolf Jellinek, a leading Rabbi in the Austrian Empire gave birth to Emil Jellink who sat on the board of Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft ('DMG') and was responsible for the naming of Mercedes in Mercedes-Benz.


1856:“After a background check” the Board of Congregation Baith Israel Anshei Emes (the Kane Street Synagogue)“decided by a 10–9 vote” that M. Gershon, its newly hired Cantor, “had never held the position of cantor in any other congregation, and was therefore not ‘sufficiently acquainted with the actual requirements to fill said office’, and was furthermore not ‘a competent reader enough to read the Sefer Torah’. As a result, services were led by laymen,[ except during the Jewish holidays, when a professional cantor would be brought in from Manhattan.”


1858(22ndof Nisan, 5618): Eighth and final day of Pesach


1861: According to the “Our Charleston Correspondence” column published today, Benjamin Mordecai was among those who lent the government of South Carolina funds it needed immediately after its declaration of secession.  Mordecai’s “free will offering” was in the amount of $10,000.  Another un-named “Hebrew gentlemen” from Charleston was pressured by his co-religionists into donating five hundred dollars to the cause.  He had just returned from New York where he had made $50,000 speculating as a “Bear” in the stock market.


1862: During the American Civil War, The Battle of Shiloh begins in Tennessee when Confederate forces under Albert Sidney Johnston attack forces under Union General Ulysses S. Grant.  The Confederate attack surprised the Union troops who literally ended the day with their backs to the river.  On the following day, the Union forces would go over to the attack and drive the Confederates back into Mississippi. The 16th Regiment from Iowa was one of the units engaged in the fight.  Among the “Hebrew Hawkeyes” engaged in the fight were Jacob Jacobs and Charles Weissman of Company B and Abraham Meyers and Jacob Lehman of Company D.  Both Jacobs and Meyers were wounded in the battle.


1862: First Lieutenant Charles A. Appel was promoted to the rank of Captain in Company F of the 99nd Regiment/Ninth Cavalry


1863(17thof Nisan, 5623): Third Day of Pesach


1864(29thof Adar II): Hebrew author Zebi Hirsch Mecklenberg, passed away at Konigsberg


1864: Leopold Schloss married Anna Horatia Montefiore today.


1866(21stof Nisan, 5626): Seventh Day of Pesach


1866: The Grand Army of the Republic, an American patriotic organization composed of Union veterans of the American Civil War, was founded today.  Among other things, the GAR worked to establish appropriate burial sites for Union veterans. When the five Grand Army of the Republic posts in Seattle established a cemetery in 1895, Huldah and David Kaufman donated the land.  The Kaufmans were two of the first Jews to settle in Seattle having settled there in 1869.


1866: In New York Israel Ullman and Julia Bluemthal gave birth to Selina Greenbaum the wife of Samuel Greenbaum who was President of of the Young Women’s Hebrew Association and a member of the Board of Directors of the Council of Jewish Women.


1869(25thof Nisan, 5629): Seventy-nine year old Richmond, VA born Baltimore business man Jacob I. Cohen, Jr. who supported the “Jew Bill” that removed the religious requirement for holding public office in Maryland




1870(15th of Nisan, 5631): Pesach


1871(15th of Nisan, 5631): In New York, on the first day of Passover, The Forty-fourth Street Synagogue, the Thirty-fourth Street Synagogue and the Clinton Street Synagogue are the only Jewish houses of worship where rabbis will preach sermons in English. All of the others, with the exception of the Sephardic congregations, will hear sermons preached in German including Temple Emanuel on Fifth Avenue.


1872: In Turin, Giacomo Serge and his wife gave birth to “General Roberto Segre who commanded artillery formations at the start of” World War I and was cited for bravery at the Battle of Gorizia” being promoted to chief of staff of the Fifth Army Corps before becoming  head of the Italian-Austrian Armistice Commission.


1874:  Birthdate of Harry Houdini.  Houdini was the stage name of Ehrich Weiss one of the premier magicians and escape artists of all times.  Born in Hungary, the Weiss family settled in Appleton, Wisconsin. Harry’s “father, Mayer Samuel Weiss, served as rabbi of the Zion Reform Jewish Congregation. After losing his tenure, Mayer moved to New York City with Ehrich in 1887, where they lived in a boarding-house on East Seventy-Ninth Street. Mr. Weiss later called for the rest of his family to join him once he found more permanent housing. The name "Harry" came from a family pet name for Ehrich, Ehrie(rhymes with and sounds like 'Harry').”


1875(1st of Nisan, 5635): Rosh Chodesh Nisan


1875(1st of Nisan, 5635): Moses Hess passed away.




1876(12th of Nisan, 5636):Ta'anit Bechorot


1878: Birthdate of Erich Mühsam. Mühsam was a German-Jewish anarchist, writer, poet, dramatist and cabaret performer.  The Nazis imprisoned him in a series of concentration camps following the Reichstag Fire.  After months of beatings and torture guards at the Orianberg Concentration camp murdered him in July of 1934.


1879: “A Festival of Thankfulness” published today states rthat “To-morrow evening the Jewish feast of Peach, or the Passover, will commence, and will continue for seven days. This festival, which was instituted to celebrate the deliverance of the children of Israel from the land of Egypt and out of the house of bondage, is also called Hag Hamatzoth.”


1879: Future Dreyfusard Ludovic Trarieux was elected to the Chamber of Deputies


1881: “The administrators of the Tunis Railway have seized a case of cartridges sent to the Khoumis by Tunisian Jews.” (The Khoumis were a tribe living on the frontier who had rebelled against Mohammed Bey. So far, I have not been able to find a reason for the Jews to be sending them aid since Mohammed Bey had made amends for executing a Jew named Batto Sfoz on charges of blasphemy.)


1882: Birthdate of Rose Schneiderman, the labor organizer who taught Eleanor Roosevelt everything she "knew about trade unionism." Born in Russian Poland, her Orthodox Jewish family was close but exceedingly poor, despite both her parents' employment as tailors. Her mother insisted that Rachel (who would later change her name to Rose) attend school and enrolled her in a traditional Hebrew school and, when she turned six, in a Russian public school. The family immigrated to the United States in 1890 and made the Lower East Side of New York City their home. Two years later, Samuel Schneiderman died of meningitis, leaving his family in a dire economic condition. Deborah, his widow, took in borders and sewed for neighbors; despite her efforts, however, the family descended into poverty and was forced to rely on charity to help pay the rent and grocery bill. A thirteen-year-old Rose dropped out of school after the ninth grade to help support the family by working as a department store sales clerk. Three years later, despite her mother's objections, Rose left sales for a better paying (but more dangerous) job in the garment industry. By 1903, she organized her first union shop, the Jewish Socialist United Cloth Hat and Cap Makers' Union, where she quickly developed a reputation as an effective leader after she organized a successful strike opposing an open-shop policy. By 1907, Schneiderman devoted most of her time to the Women's Trade Union League, which she later called "the most important influence on my life." Within a year, she was elected vice-president of the New York chapter, and thanks to a stipend provided by a member, she was able to work full-time organizing for the WTUL. After the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire, she helped established the International Ladies Garment Workers Union and led its 1913 strike. Determined to outlaw sweatshop labor, she told New Yorkers, "I would be a traitor to those poor burned bodies if I came here to talk good fellowship. . . . Every year thousands of us are maimed. The life of men and women is so cheap and property is so sacred." Although she was a committed trade unionist, Schneiderman grew increasingly frustrated trying to get male union members to address women's labor issues. By the late nineteen teens, the WTUL was her major focus. As president of both the New York and national WTUL, she concentrated her efforts to lobby for minimum wage and eight-hour-day legislation. In 1921, she helped organize the Bryn Mawr Summer School for Women Workers. In 1922, Eleanor Roosevelt joined the WTUL and the two women began a lifelong friendship. Schneiderman tutored ER on the issues confronting women workers, the challenges facing the trade union movement, and the problems inherent in labor-management relations. ER responded to Schneiderman's tutorial by chairing the WTUL finance committee, donating the proceeds from her 1932-1933 radio broadcasts to the WTUL, and promoting WTUL in her columns and speeches. As Schneiderman recalled in her autobiography, ER overcame the trappings of privilege to become "a born trade unionist."President and Mrs. Roosevelt enjoyed Schneiderman's company and often invited her to their homes in New York City, Hyde Park, and, after FDR became governor, Albany. In 1933, FDR named Schneiderman to the advisory board of the National Recovery Administration, a position she held until the Supreme Court declared the NRA unconstitutional in 1935. For those two years, she represented labor's voice on the board, working to see that wage and hour provisions of the NRA codes treated workers fairly. In 1935, she returned to both the New York and the national WTULs, whose presidencies she held until the New York WTUL ceased operations in 1950 and the national WTUL disbanded in 1955. From 1937 to 1943, Schneiderman, balancing her WTUL work with state politics, served as secretary to the New York State Department of Labor. Ninety-year old Schneiderman died in New York in 1972 at the Jewish Home and Hospital for the Aged.


1882(17th of Nisan, 5642): Third Day of Pesach


1882(17th of Nisan, 5642): Sixty-nine year old Austrian Rabbi Ephraim Israel Blucher passed away today in Budapest after having served “at Osviecin, Galicia, and Kosten, Moravia.”


1883: In Bloomington, Illinois, “at a meeting held today, Maik Livingston offered a donation of $100 toward the building of the temple, providing the congregation was named after Sir Moses Montefiore, the great English philanthropist.”


1885: In Archachon, France, Isaac Gaston Salzedo and Thérèse Judith Anna Salzedo-Silva gave birth to Charles Moïse Léon Salzedo who was born prematurely and gained fame as Carlos Salzedo, “French harpist, pianist, composer and conductor.”


1886: David Oppenheimer, “the fourth son of Salomon Oppenheimer” one of the two brothers who “opened the first wholesale grocery house in Vancouver in July, 1887, was among those who successfully petitioned for the incorporation of Vancouver which became a reality today.


1886:  Vancouver was incorporated as a Canadian City. Jewish people have been on the Vancouver scene since the city's earliest days. The first to take up residence was Polish born Louis Gold who arrived in 1872. His wife Emma was a businesswoman, and by 1882 she had established the West End Grocery and Royal City Boot and Shoe stores. David Oppenheimer, a German native, was undoubtedly the outstanding citizen in Vancouver's formative period. He promoted incorporation of the city. In June of 1886, Oppenheimer Bros.--today Vancouver's oldest business--built the first wholesale grocery in the city's first brick building, still extant in present-day Gastown. The Great Fire passed over its foundation, then under construction. Upon completion, the building was used as Vancouver's first "city hall." Both David and his brother Isaac were members of the 1887 city council, David being chairman of the finance committee. From 1888 to 1891 David served four terms as mayor, among the most constructive in Vancouver's history.


1886(1st of Nisan, 5646): Rosh Chodesh Nisan


 


1886(1st of Nisan, 5646): Rabbi Mordechai Aby Serour of Morocco, who was best known for his work as a geographer and explore passed away.


1889: Baltimore Hebrew Congregation which had been variously known as "Stadt-Schul" or "Fell's Point Hebrew Friendship Congregation" erected its new synagogue at Madison Avenue and Robert Street.


1890(16th of Nisan, 5650): Second Day of Pesach; first day of the Omer


1890: “Aid For Immigrants” published today described the finalization of “the plans for the fund which Baron de Hirsch…has established to the amelioration of the conditions” of Jews living in Russian, Romania “and those other countries in Europe where the Jew is persecuted to martyrdom” to find refuge in more civilized places.


1892: “Rabbi Browne on the ‘Talmud’” published today described the speech delivered on this topic at the Central Musical Hall.  The lecture entitled "Talmud - Its Ethics and Its Literary Beauties" including his assertion that "What the Congressional Record is to the loyal American citizen, the 'Talmud' is to the Jew - an embodiment of the laws and history of his race. And yet the books of the 'Talmud' so dear to every Hebrew heart have gone through a most trying ordeal. At times they have been banished and burned, plundered and torn, and yet their glory lives.”


1895: Three revenue collectors raided a basement at 119 Division Street where they found 200 gallons of wine that was supposed to be “Kosher.”  The illegal still is operated by a Russian Jew known as “Gordon” who was not on the premises when the raid was being made. 


1895: The Tidings, a weekly Jewish newspaper published in Rochester, NY has been merged with The American Hebrew published in New York City.


1896: The German anti-Semitic agitator Herman Ahlwardt was accompanied by A.M. Woeller, President of the Anti-Semitic Society and Jacob Hoefnagel, the society’s secretary as he made his way to deliver a speech at Germania Hall in Hoboken, NJ.


1897(4th of Nisan, 5657):


1897: Birthdate of Otto Marz who was transported from Uhersky Brod from Terezin in 1943 before being transported from Terezin in 1944 to Auschwitz where he was murdered.


1897: Rabbi Joseph Silverman of Temple Emanu El and Cantor William Sparger officiated at today’s funeral for the late Julius Ehrmann.


1897: President Lewis Parmer of the Hebrew School on Stone Avenue said that the Long Island Water Supply Company is refusing to continue to service because “the supply lines are worn out”


1897: Frances Danzig, the widow of Louis Danzig, a resident of New York City, passed away today while visiting Atlantic City, NJ.


1898(14th of Nisan, 5658): Ta’anit Bechorot; erev Pesach


1898(14th of Nisan, 5658): “The Feast of Passover” published today states that “The Jewish Passover, or the Feast of Unleavened Bread, will be ushered in at sundown to-day. It will be universally observed by orthodox Jews for eight days and by their reformed and Palestinian brethren for seven days. With the former, however, only the first and last two days are actual holidays, and with the latter only the first and last, the intervening days being only semi-festivals, on which all manner of work may be performed.”


1899: Mrs. Samuel Hirsch will sing at today’s musicale and tea sponsored by the Women’s Committee of the Hebrew Technical Institute being held at Sherry’s.


1899: Adolf von Sonnenthal received a standing ovation when he returned to the Irving Place Theatre as Nathan in Lessing’s “Nathan Der Weise.”


1899: In Paris, L’Figaro published “the evidence given by Examining Magistrate Bertulus before the Court of Cassation hearing the Dreyfus Case.


1903(9th of Nisan, 5663):  The Kishinev pogrom began. “The Kishinev pogrom was an anti-Jewish riot that took place in Kishinev, which was back then part of the Bessarabia province of Imperial Russia (currently Chişinău is the capital of independent Moldova).  It started on April 6 and lasted until April 7, 1903.The riot started after a Christian Russian boy, Michael Ribalenko, had been found murdered in the town of Dubossary, about 25 miles north of Kishinev. Although it was clear that the boy had been killed by a relative (who was later found), the government chose to call it a ritual murder plot by the Jews.The mobs were incited by Pavolachi Krushevan, the editor of the Anti-Semitic Newspaper "Bessarabetz", and the vice-governor Ustrugov. They used the ages-old blood libel against the Jews (that the boy had been killed to use his blood in preparation of matzo). Viacheslav Plehve, the Minister of Interior, supposedly gave orders not to stop the rioters. During three days of rioting, the Kishinev Pogrom against the Jews took place. Forty-seven (some put the figure as high as 49) Jews were killed, 92 severely wounded, 500 slightly wounded and over 700 houses looted and destroyed.This pogrom is considered the first state-inspired action against Jews of the 20th century. Despite a world outcry, only two men were sentenced to seven and five years and twenty-two were sentenced for one or two years. This pogrom was instrumental in convincing tens of thousands of Russian Jews to leave to the West and to Israel.”


1904(21st of Nisan, 5665): Seventh Day of Pesach


1904(21st of Nisan, 5664): Fifty three year old literary critic Elazar Atlas, the son of David Atlas passed away today in Bialystok.


1906: The Jewish Chronicle reported that Pope Pius X “cordially” received “Cav. Grassini, the Vice President of the Jewish Congregation of Venice.


1907: In Brooklyn, “Russian Jewish immigrants Ernestine (nee Miriamson) and Leopold Lewis who was an optometrist gave birth to movie producer Joseph H. Lewis.



1907(22nd of Nisan, 5667): Eighth Day of Pesach and Shabbat


1907(22nd of Nisan, 5667): Seventy-six year old Hungarian native Adolf Neubauer who served “at the Austrian Consulate in Jerusalem and studied in Paris before moving to the United Kingdom where he “was sublibrarian at the Bodleian Library and reader in Rabbinic Hebrew at Oxford University” passed away today.


1909(15th of Nisan, 5669): Pesach


1909(15th of Nisan, 5669): Abraham Bengrihan, Chief Rabbi of Marrakech, Morocco, passed away.


1909: Birthdate of Estella Agsterribe, later Estella Blits- Agsterribe, the Dutch Olympic Gold Medal winner who would die at Auschwitz with her children and her husband.


1910: Commanding officers in Constantinople granted Jewish soldiers nine days off for Passover, even though official leave is stipulated only for the first two and last two days. 


1910: In Constantinople in response to a request from the Hambashi The Minister of Justice, ordered all Jews in prison for trivial offenses be liberated in preparation for the celebration of Pesach.


1912: In Chicago,  more than 15,000 thousand Jews found out today that the Orthodox among them will not be able to participate in the primary election being held on Tuesday, April 9, the last day of Passover.  A plan to allow somebody to accompany Orthodox Jewish voters into the booth and mark the ballot for them was rejected “because of the chances of fraud.”


1912(19th of Nisan, 5672): Shabbat Chol HaMoed Pesach


1912(19th of Nisan, 5672): Sxity-three year old California educator William Lissner passed away today in San Francisco.


1913: Sons of Israel Synagogue founded in Lawrence, MA.


1913: The Alliance of Jewish Women was founded in Washington, D.C. today.


1913: In Philadelphia, as part of the second day of the celebration of the 25th anniversary of the Jewish Publication Judge Simon W. Rosendale of Albany who “presided over the Convention at which the Publication Society was organized” is scheduled to preside over the afternoon session.


1914:A committee met at the hotel Astor tonight to make final arrangements for the Passover celebration for the Jewish soldiers and sailors whose release on furlough was obtained a few days ago.


1915: In discussing the United States reaction to losses at the hands of German submarines the Frankfurter Zeitung, denigrated the possibility of a U.S. military response saying that “if now a war should break out the hosts of Russian Jews and their children…would increase the obstacle which would be met by a people that goes to war only half-heartedly.” (Editor’s note – two years later, the Germans would find out how badly they had misunderstood the patriotism of the vast number of American Jews.)


1916: Albert Lucas, Chairman of the Central Jewish Relief Committee of New York City address a meeting at Memorial Hall in Dayton, Ohio where “$6,700 was raised for the relief of Jews in the war-stricken countries of Europe.”


1917(14th of Nisan, 5677): Erev Pesach - As Jews sat down to their Seders tonight, they had no idea how much their world was about to change!


1917: “The celebration of Passover which began” this evening “was made especially notable by the rejoicing of the new freedom of the Jews in Russia.


1917: “At Temple Emanu-El a public announcement was made to the effect that a Russian decree had emancipated the Jews of that country” based on a message that Jacob H. Schiff had sent to Louis Marshall who was at the Temple.


1917: “Special services” marking the celebration of Passover were held at the Hebrew National Orphan Home followed by a dinner for 200 orphan boys and girls who were accompanied by “forty well-known men and women who took the part of foster parents.”


1917: "The United States declared war on Germany. Approximately 250,000 Jewish soldiers (20% of whom were volunteers) served in the U.S. army - roughly 5.7% of the servicemen, while 7of Eastern and Central Europe.  The aftermath, Communism and Fascism, would prove to be even worse.  For American Jews, the aftermath of the war included immigration restrictions and the Red Scare.


1917: German soldiers and a military band marched through the streets of Jerusalem which was controlled by their Turkish ally, apparently unaware of the fact that the United States was preparing to declare war on the Kaiser’s kingdom.



 


 


1917: “A movement was started” today “by a group of Austro-Hungarian Jews to enlist citizens of foreign birth who are loyal to the American flag in the in the army and navy.”


 


1917: One of the British Undersecretaries for Middle Eastern Affairs, Mark Sykes informed his French counterpart Georges-Picot that Britain’s military efforts in Palestine would have to be “taken into account” at the peace conference.  This was a polite way of saying that new realities had changed the British view of the Sykes-Picot Agreement and that the British would be pushing for a Jewish homeland in Palestine.


1918: A “a choir of boys from various synagogues sang ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ Governor Charles addressed the annual convention of the Rumanian Jews of America tonight at the Hebrew Technical School for Girls.


1918: The Jewish Administration Commission for Palestine arrives at Tel Aviv.  “Dr. Chaim Weizmann, head of the commission, evokes great enthusiasm when he replied in Hebrew to the address of welcome.  The British Military Governor of Jaffa, who participated in the reception, expresses his sympathy with the Zionist aims.”


1919: In Moscow, Miron Kovarsky, a piano student at the St. Petersburg conservatory and the former Zinaida Eisenstadt gave birth to New Yorker cartoonist and artist Anatoly Mironovich Kovarsky.



1919: In Cincinnati, Ohio, former president William Howard Taft delivered an address on “A League of Nations” at the 30th convention of the Central Conference of American Rabbis


1919: Ernst Toller began servings as President of the short-lived Bavarian Soviet Republic.


1920(18thof Nisan, 5680): Fourth Day of Pesach


1919: Sol Witkewitz, the Instructor at the Art School of Chicago Hebrew Institute is scheduled to take his classes to the Chicago Artists Exhibition at the Art Institute this afternoon.


1920: Despite the declaration of martial law, Arab attacks continue on the Jews of Jerusalem for a third day.


1920:  Birthdate of Dr. Edmond H. Fischer. The son of a Jewish father, Fischer shared in the 1992 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine.


1923: Birthdate of Shoshana Shenburg who moved to Eretz Israel a year later where she would marry Professor Elisha Netanyahu and gain fame as attorney and jurist Shoshana Netanyahu who served as a justice on the Supreme Court of Israel.


1925: Birthdate of Helga Deen, a young Jewish girl who kept a diary that “described her stay in the Dutch prison camp “Kamp Vught” which was only recently discovered.



1925: During his triumphal tour of Palestine, Lord Balfour, of Balfour Declaration fame, spent tonight at the hotel on top of the historic Mount Carmel, from which he had a superb view of Haifa, on the northeastern slope, and of the bay below.


1926(22ndof Nisan, 5686) Eighth Day of Pesach


1926: At Temple B’nai Jershurun, Rabbi Israel Goldstein paid tribute during the Pesach Services to the late Jacob P. Adler, the Jewish actor who “he characterized…as the Nestor of the Yiddish drama who never cheapened his origin or discarded his people during his long stage career.”


1927: Birthdate of Jules Hirsch, the physician who was a pioneer in the scientific study of obesity.



1927: In Hudson County, New Jersey, District Court Judge Myron C. Ernst said today that if the date proposed for voting on constitutional amendments is not changed from September 27, the date on which Rosh Hashanah is observed “every Jewish voter in this State will be disenfranchised.”


1929: In Berlin, Charlotte (née Epstein) and Jack Previn, who was a lawyer, judge, and music teacher gave birth to pianist and conductor Andre Previn



1930: Today, “during an exhibition baseball game against the Little Rock Travelers,” Moe Berg’s “spikes caught in the soil as he tried to change directions and he a knee ligament.


1930: The Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported that according to a report submitted by the Zionist Education Council to the Action Committee, “there are 21,031 pupils in the schools maintained in Palestine by the Zionist Organization. The annual budget for the schools is $637,250 which includes…a $37,975 subsidy from the Palestine Colonization Association and $60,000 from the municipality of Tel Aviv.


1930: René Dreyfus won the 1930 Monaco Grand Prix today in a privateer Bugatti..


1930: In an interview on this date “Ittamar Benavi, one of Palestine’s leading journalists” reiterates his support for the creation of a series of Cantons along the Swiss model as a way to govern Palestine.


1931: The first episode of “Little Orphan Annie” Radio Show aired today with a ten-year-old Jewish girl named Shirley Bell playing the lead role.


1931: Birthdate of Deborah Meier “an American educator often considered the founder of the modern small schools movement.”


1934: In Brooklyn, Henry and Shirley Guttenplan gave birth to Howard Herman Guttenplan, “who took what began as an antipoverty program on the Lower East Side of Manhattan and transformed it into a leading workshop and showcase for experimental filmmakers.”



1935: It was reported today that Actions Committee of the Supreme Council of the World Zionist Organization has adopted a budget of £329,000 for the coming year at its meeting in Jeruslaem.


1936(14th of Nisan, 5696):Ta'anit Bechorot, Erev Pesach


1936(14thof Nisan, 5869): Ninety-year old historian Alfred Stern, a professor at the Zurich Technical Institute since 1887, a contributor to the Journal of the History of Jews in Germany  and the author of A History of the English Revolution, A History of Switzerland and History of Europe, 1815-1871 passed away today. (As reported by JTA)


1936: In Germany, “Gestapo agents…stood guard within synagogues to listen to the sermons…”


1936: The Passover “service at the Hebrew Association for the Deaf…was conducted entirely in sign language under the leadership of Mrs. Tanya Nash, director of the association.”


1936: Today, “the United Palestine Appeal…released messages from public leaders” including Frank D. Fitzgerald of Michigan, Hill McAlister of Tennessee and Harry Nice of Maryland “hailing a Zionist ideal.”


1936: In a note to Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, released today “Secretary of State Cordell Hull said: ‘The existence of a Jewish national home in Palestine has been a source of encouragement and comfort to many Jews who in these difficult times have found it necessary to seek refuge and new homes.  All will agree that the support and extension of the benevolent work of providing shelter in the Holy Land for homeless Jews is a highly unselfish and commendable task.  I sincerely hope that your efforts in this laudable undertaking will meet with success.’”


1936: In case that “involves a State law to prevent ‘frauds on religious institutions’ through sales for profit of tickets to purported religious services” “the Supreme Court continued in effect an interlocutory injuncted obtained by Sara Wachs” “in the New York ‘mushroom synagogue’ controversy.”


1936: In Lodz, Poland, “twenty-four young nationalist were sentenced today to terms of imprisonment ranging from one to four years after they had been convicted of having formed a secret society with the object of committing acts of terrorism against Jews and destroying Jewish property.”


1936: Today, “the scholarship department of the Yeshiva Endowment Foundation announced…a $10,000 bequest from the family of the late Mr. and Mrs. Albert Herskovits in memory of the parents.”


1936: Rabbis Samuel H. Goldenson and B. Benedict Glazer conducted Passover eve services at Temple Emanu-El on 65th Street.


1936: “The American Jewish Congress called upon American Jews to ‘united for the collective security of the Jewish people to combat progressive deterioration of their equal rights in their native lands’ and to organize for the ‘self-defense of the Jewish people through a world Jewish congress.’”


1936: Rabbi Jonah B. Wise, Carl J. Austrian and Rabbi Herbert S. Goldstein participated in a radio broadcast sponsored by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee “which is conducting a $3,500,000 drive” to “aid their oppressed brethren in Germany, Poland and other Eastern European Countries.”


1937: At is annual conference today, the “Jewish Marachi…adopted a resolution strongly opposing any attempt at partition of Palestine and declaring that the whole country must be open to Jews to the extent of its historic boundaries.”


1937: In Jerusalem Moshe Baram and his wife Grazia who was born in Aleppo, gave birth to MK and cabinet minister Uzi Baram.


1939: In Chicago, delicatessen owners Paul and Gertrude Krause gave birth to Jerome “Jerry” Krause the general manager who turned the Chicago Bulls into an NBA dynasty.



1941: German forces, in alliance with Hungarians and Bulgarians, invaded Yugoslavia and Greece.  The invasion was caused by the Italian Army's failure against the Greeks.  For the Jews, this meant that the Balkans would come under Nazi domination which later resulted in the destruction of some of the most ancient Jewish communities in the world.  According to some, this "diversion" delayed the invasion of the Soviet Union which resulted in the Nazi forces becoming trapped in the Russian Winter.  This in turn was a contributing factor to the final defeat of the Nazis.


1941: In New York City, 23 year old Sylvia Lubow Rindskopf married Ensign Maurice H. Rhindskopf – a marriage that would last nearly 69 years during which she played the perfect Naval wife to Rear Admiral Mike Rindskopf.


1941: The Nazis established two ghettos in Radom, Poland.  Radom's Jewish community dated back to the Middle Ages.  Nine tenths of the Jewish population of 25,000 perished in the Holocaust.  According to some reports, the remaining Jews did not return because of the anti-Semitic riots that took place in Poland after the war.


1941: “Flame of New Orleans” a comedy produced by Joe Pasternak, co-starring Mischa Auer and featuring Shemp Howard was released in the United States today.


1942: In Baltimore, MD Violet "Vi" (née Krichinsky) and Irvin Levinson, who worked in the furniture and appliance business gave birth to Academy Award winning director Barry Levinson whose works included one the greatest movies ever – “Avalon.”


1943: “Tahiti Honey,” a musical comedy starring Simone Simon “the daughter of Henri Louis Firmin Champmoynat, a French Jewish engineer, airplane pilot in World War II, who died in a concentration camp” was released in the United States today.


1944: The Jewish nursery at Izieu-Ain France was overrun by Nazi's 1945: The 14th Armored Division liberated the Serbian hospital at Camp Hammelburg whose patients included Captain Abraham Baum who had been shot in the groin while trying to rescue General Patton’s son-in-law John K. Waters who was also in the hospital recovering from his wounds.


1945: After the USS Bush, an American destroyer was struck by a Japanese suicide bomber today, Raphael J. “Ray” Moses was among those who were rescued from the East China Sea.


1946: The British consulate General in Madagascar reported in confidence to the foreign Office in London that while Madagascar might be suitable for 200 colonists of the peasant class, stress should be laid by Britain on providing the right type of colonist in the first instance and not city-bred Jews who were worn and emaciated through long confinement in concentration camps.


1947: As it begins its American tour, The Hapoel soccer team is scheduled to board a plane a Tel Aviv today as it makes its way to New York City.


1947: The first Tony Awards are presented for theatrical achievement.


1948: The Irgun raided the British Army camp at Pardes Hanna killing seven British soldiers and stealing a large quantity of weapons


1948: Operation Nachshon was launched this evening in an attempt to open the road to Jerusalem.  At the same time, a convoy left the coast and after a ten hour trip arrived in the beleaguered city.  It was the first the first convoy to reach the city in two weeks.  They found a city that was under constant bombardment from Arab Legion (Jordanian Army) artillery situated on the high round north of the Damascus Gate.  For the next three weeks, the Arabs would use their military might to try and re-gain control of the Jerusalem-Tel Aviv Road. 


1951: The Jerusalem Post reported that Israel Air Force planes bombed Syrian entrenchments in the demilitarized zone near El Hamma where seven Israeli policemen were killed and one wounded. The government lodged a complaint with the UN Security Council listing all recent Syrian border violations.


1951: The Jerusalem Post reported that for the first time since the establishment of the state, Britain announced that it was ready to sell small arms to Israel, on the same terms as had been enjoyed by Egypt.


1952: A Broadway revival of Clifford Odets’ “Golden Boy” starring John Garfield as “Joe” as after 55 performances at the ANTA Playhouse.


1954: The body of Baron Edmond de Rothschild was re-interred in Zichron Yaakov, the wine-producing village which had been established with his help.


1954: Today, during the Rudolf Kastner trial Dr. Rueben Hecht, who worked as an Irgun representative in Zurich was interrogated as the seventeenth witness by advocate Tamir who questioned him about his relationship with Dr. Jean-Marie Musy, the former president of the Swiss Confederation and “long term friend” of Heinrich Himmler.


1954(3rd of Nisan): Yiddish poet Aaron Leib Baron passed away


 


1955: David Saul Marshal, a descendant of Indian Baghdadi Jews, began serving as Chief Minister of Singapore.


 


1957: First oil tanker in Eilat arrived filled with Persian Gulf oil.


1957: In Brooklyn, “Thomas Sapolsky, an architect who renovated the restaurants Lüchow's and Lundy's and his wife gave birth to Harvard graduate Robert Morris Sapolsky, the neuroendocrinologist and the John A. and Cynthia Fry Gunn Professor at Stanford University, holding joint appointments in several departments, including Biological Sciences, Neurology & Neurological Sciences, and Neurosurgery.



1958(16th of Nisan, 5718): Second Day of Pesach; First day of the Omer


1959: “The Sound and the Fury” the movie version of the novel by the same name directed by Martin Ritt, with a script co-authored by Irving Ravetch was released in the United States today.


1959(27thof Adar II, 5719): Sixty-four year old Leo Aryeh Mayer, who worked jointly with Eleazar Sukenik, in connection with the excavations of the "Third Wall" of Jerusalem, built by in 41-44 CE, Agrippa, king of Judea, in 41-44 CE and served as rector of Hebrew University, passed away.


1959: Joseph B. Levin represented the Securities and Exchange Commission before the Fifth Circuit United States Court of Appeals in Columbia General Investment Corporation v. the SEC.



1962: Leonard Bernstein causes controversy with his remarks from the podium during a New York Philharmonic concert featuring Glenn Gould performing Brahms' First Piano Concerto.


1967: Birthdate of Brooklyn native Glenn Thrush who became the White House correspondent for the NY Times in 2017.


1967: Avraham Lanir “scored his first aerial kill in a major skirmish along the Syrian border which ended with the downing of six Syrian jets. Lanir, flying Mirage 60, downed a SAF MiG-21 with cannon fire after closing in to a distance of 200 meters. The MiG exploded and Lanir flew right through the fireball, covering his aircraft with soot. Initially blinded, enough soot was eventually blown off his canopy to afford Lanir a safe landing at Ramat David. The scorched aircraft earned the nickname ‘Black Mirage’".


1968: Romanian Jewish playwright Israil Bercovici adapted a collection of Itzik Manger's poems into a two-act stage piece, Mangheriada, which premiered today at the Romanian State Jewish Theater in Bucharest


1969: In Passaic, NJ, two Anglo-Jewish immigrants, Michael Rudd, “an historical guide and former vice president of TWA” and his wife Gloria, a sales manager at a television station gave birth to actor Paul Rudd


1969: Birthdate of actress Ari Meyers best known for her role as "Emma Jane McArdle" in the television series, “Kate & Allie.”


1969:  Gold Meir spoke to 3,000 teenagers in Jerusalem, expressing her absolutefaith that peace would come.


1971: Jews must have felt mixed emotions today when Igor Stravnisky passed away today.  On the one hand he was a giant in the world of music and yet he was also an anti-Semite.



1973: In the aftermath of the Munich Olympic Massacre, Basil al-Kubaissi, a law professor who provided arms and logistic support for Black September was shot to death while returning home from dinner in Paris.


1974(14th of Nisan, 5734): Shabbat Hagadol; Erev Pesach


1974(14th of Nisan, 5734): Canadian born poet Rochelle Mass and her family celebrate their first Pesach in Israel at a kibbutz where she had picked oranges during the Yom Kippur War in 1973.


1975: Birthdate of actor Zach Braff


1975: Sandy Helberg the American actor who is the son of 2 Holocaust survivors married Harriet Birnbaum.


1975(25th of Nisan, 5735): Seventy-one year old Ernst David Bergman, “the father of Israel’s nuclear program” passed a way today.



1976(6th of Nisan, 5736):Sidney Franklin passed away.  A Brooklyn born Jew whose name was originally Sidney Frumkin, Franklin was the U.S.’s first successful bullfighter.




1976: The Jerusalem Post reported that France sold to Egypt Mirage F-1 interceptors, the most advanced French combat aircraft. It is pointless for Israelis, or for Israel friends abroad, to shadow box with PLO, Defense Minister Shimon Peres told the International Conference on Palestinians and the Middle East, since the PLO aspires to liquidate the Jewish State. He added that the PLO had maintained its rigid extremism, and had lined up the entire Arab world behind this position.


1977: CBS broadcast, “Something for Joey” a sports film featuring Steve Guttenburg and with music by David Shire for this time today.


1977:The Jerusalem Post reported that Egyptian President Anwar Sadat called upon US President Jimmy Carter to establish "a political entity where the Palestinians can, at long last, be a community of citizens, not a group of refugees." The Israel Press Council decided to form a team to check local papers’ observance of their ban on publication of criminal suspects’ names before they are remanded. Israeli artillery shelled terrorist concentrations in Lebanon. Israeli meat producers obtained a US permit to export kosher meat to America


1979: “Israeli agents sabotaged the Osirak reactor awaiting shipment to Iraq at La Seyne-sur-Mer in France.”


 


1979: Thirteen people were injured by a bomb set off at a bus stop in Jerusalem.


1980: After six weeks, the curtain came down today on an Off-Broadway production of “Biography” written by S.N. Behrman.


1981: “Fools, a comic fable by Neil Simon” “premiered on Broadway at the Eugene O’Neill Theatre” today.


1982: “Police searched the home of Nehemiah Rozengauz, 37, a Tashkent computer scientist” and “confiscated all materials connected to Hebrew studies.”


 1982:Foreign Minister Yitzhak Shamir, speaking at the funeral of an Israeli diplomat slain two days ago in Paris, said today that Israeli forces would strike ''without reservation, without end'' at bases and headquarters of the Palestine Liberation Organization in Lebanon and elsewhere.


1982: “Katya Umanskaya of Moscow, was warned to stop her Jewish cultural activities.”


1982: “Sverdlovsk refuseniks Lev Shefer and Vladimir Yelchin were sentenced to five years’ imprisonment on charges of anti-Soviet propaganda.”


1985(15th of Pesach, 5747): Pesach


1986(26th of Adar II, 5746): Eighty nine year old Pesach Burstein, a Yiddish actor whose singing, dancing and whistling delighted audiences here and abroad for more than 70 years, died today at Lenox Hill Hospital after suffering a heart attack last Monday. http://articles.latimes.com/1986-04-13/local/me-4493_1_abraham-goldfaden


1990:In recognition of Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson’s “vital efforts, the Congress, by House Joint Resolution 173, has designated today, as "Education Day, U.S.A.


1990: U.S. premiere of “Tall Story” with a script co-authored by Julius Epstein and Howard Nemerov who wrote the novel on which the film was based.


1992: The keel was laid down today for “MY Sam Simon, fourth vessel of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society fleet, named after American television producer and writer Sam Simon, who donated the money to purchase the vessel.”


1992(3rd of Nisan, 5752): Molly Picon passed away at the age of 94..Born in 1898, the petite Molly Picon was a star of both the Yiddish theatre and a variety of American entertainment mediums.  Her career included 19 years of radio broadcasts and roles on Broadway and film.  She performed for American troops during World War II.  She was one of the first entertainers to go to Europe after the war to perform for Jewish refugees.




1992(3rd of Nisan, 5752): Isaac Assimov died at the age of 72. Born in Russia in 1920, Asimov was raised in Brooklyn which he always considered his home.  He was known as a science fiction writer but also wrote about the Bible as well.  A confirmed atheist, Assimov attributed this interest to his devoutly Jewish father.




1992: Ninety-six year old Herman F. Mark an Austrian-American chemist who fled Europe for America because he was the son of Dr. Herman Carl Mark, a Jew who converted to Lutheranism passed away today.



1993(15th of Nisan, 5753): Pesach observed for the first time in the Presidency of Bill Clinton


1994(25th of Nisan, 5754): A Palestinian suicide bomber killed 7 Israelis and himself.
1994(25th of Nisan, 5754): Eight people were killed in a Hamas terrorist car-bomb attack on a bus in the center of Afula. This was the first documented car bombing in Israel. The dead included: “Asher Attia, 48, of Afula, bus driver; Vered Mordechai, 13, of Afula; Maya Elharar, 17, of Afula; Ilana Schreiber, 45, a teacher from Kibbutz Nir David; Meirav Ben-Moshe, 16, of Afula; Ayala Vahaba, 40, a teacher from Afula; and Fadiya Shalabi, 25, of Iksal were killed in a car-bomb attack on a bus in the center of Afula. Ahuva Cohen Onalla, 37, wounded in the attack, died of her wounds on April 25.”


1995(6th of Nisan, 5755): Six Israelis were killed in two suicide bombings at Kfar Darom.


1996: “Hava Naquila, “a happy hardcore version of the classic folk song "Hava Nagila" set in a gabber beat” was released today.


1997: Andrea Mitchell “married her second husband, former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan” today


1997: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Memories of Summer: When Baseball Was an Art
and Writing About It a Game
by Roger Kahn.


1998: In “Lasar Segall’s Happy Life Didn’t Make for Great Art” Hilton Kramer examined the life and work of the Lithuanian born, Brazilian artist.



1999(20th Nisan, 5759): 6thday of Pesach


1999(20th of Nisan, 5759): Eighty-three year old British cellist William Pleeth, the son of Jewish immigrants from Warsaw, Poland passed away today.



2000:The United States Postal Service issued five stamps depicting the work of Jewish sculptor Louise Nevelson.


2000: Habib Bourguiba, President of Tunisia, passed away.  Bourguiba came to power when Tunisia gained its independence from France in 1956.  By then the Jewish population had shrunk from its 1948 high of approximately 100,000.  The Tunisian government enacted a series of anti-Jewish decrees. In 1958, Tunisia's Jewish Community Council was abolished by the government and ancient synagogues, cemeteries and Jewish quarters were destroyed for "urban renewal." The increasingly unstable situation caused more than 40,000 Tunisian Jews to immigrate to Israel. By 1967, the country's Jewish population had shrunk to 20,000. During the Six-Day War, Jews were attacked by rioting Arab mobs, and synagogues and shops were burned. The government denounced the violence, and President Habib Bourguiba apologized to the Chief Rabbi. This apology certainly marked Bourgiba as unique among Arab leaders. His government appealed to the Jewish population to stay, but did not bar them from leaving. Subsequently, 7,000 Jews immigrated to France. Today about 1,000 Jews live in Tunisia.


2001: In Out of the Jewish Ghetto and Into the Mainstream,” published today Grace Gluek traces the life and times of one of the earliest of Jewish artists, Moritz Daniel.



2002: During Operation Defensive Shield the terrorist leader responsible for trying to turn Jenin into a massive booby-trip (including the homes of the civilians) and two of his comrades were killed by Israeli troops as they cautiously made their way through the camp in an attempt to minimize civilian casulaities.


2002(24thof Nisan, 5762): Twenty-six year old Staff Sergeant Nisan Avraham from Lod was killed today and five of his comrades were wounded when Islamic Jihad terrorists attacked them at the entrance of Rafiah Yam.


2003: The New York Times included reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including ''The Crisis of Islam: Holy War and Unholy Terror'' by Bernard Lewis.


2003(4th of Nisan, 5763): Leon Levy, the co-founder of Oppenheimer & Co who was praised as an “investment genius and prolific philanthropist” passed away.



2004(15thof Nisan, 5764): Pesach


2005:  The New York Times featured a review of “In Satmar Custody.” This documentary written in English, Hebrew, Yemenite and Yiddish describes the fate of Yeminite Jews living in Israel who were brought to the United States to live in the Satmar community in Monsey, N.Y.  The Times describes the fate of such Jews as a “nightmare for a Jewish family from Yemen.


2005(26th of Adar II, 5765): Specialist Daniel J. Freeman aged 20, who “had been in Afghanistan for about two months was killed today in a helicopter crash “along with 15 other soldiers. He had not been scheduled to be on board the supply flight to Kandahar, but had volunteered for a friend. “Daniel Freeman was always the boy with the Israeli accent, a remnant of his life on a kibbutz, where he lived until he was 9 years old. Growing up in Cincinnati, he loved playing soccer and rock climbing, and was part of the local fire department’s explorer club, excited to dress up and train like a firefighter. As an older teenager, “Daniel developed a keen sense of right and wrong and would get very upset if he thought something was unfair,” said Shmuel Birkan, Freeman’s stepfather. In high school, Freeman took an enthusiastic interest in military history, a subject he studied in addition to Hebrew. He decided he wanted to enlist in the Army, “because he truly believed it was the right thing to do,” Birkan said. A participant in the Army’s early induction program, Freeman went on to complete his basic and advanced training in Fort Benning, Ga. “Daniel was never particularly in favor of [America’s] reason for being in Iraq and Afghanistan. He just knew that his mission was to keep himself and his friends safe,” Birkan said. (As reported by Maia Efrem)


2006:  The Jewish Reconstructionist Federation (JRF) of Metropolitan New York/New Jersey recognizes their Vatikim: Those Who Inspire Us with a Lifetime of Contribution with a festive evening of celebration featuring the unique Sephardic spirit and sounds of Gerard Edery and the Bnai Keshet a Cappella Singers


2006: “The industry group MarHedge awarded Matador Fund Ltd. and Manchester Trading, two funds managed by Victor Niederhoffer, the prize for best performance by a commodity trading advisor (CTA) in the two years 2004 and 2005.2006: David Bromberg is featured in a Washington Post article entitled “In Fine Fiddle” by Paul Schwartzman.


2006: In “A Homecoming, in Los Angeles, for Five Klimts Looted by Nazis,” Sharon Waxman describes Maria Altmann’s fight to regain her family’s art.



2007: As reported in Haaretz, during the Intermediate Days of Passover, Israelis visit tourist sites throughout the country, with a wide variety of festivals and activities on hand. More than 13,000 visitors came to the southern sites of Masada, Ein Gedi and Mamshit, with the total number of visitors in the Negev up from last year, according to Gilad Gabai, deputy director of the Israel Nature and Parks Protection Authority (INPPA) southern district. Roads to the Western Galilee were busy as visitors traveled to vacation spots and festivals in the region. Among the attractions is an extreme sports area at Kibbutz Yehiam, a festival at the Montfort Castle in Ma'alot-Tarshiha, the "cotton road" at Kibbutz Afeq and a monologue theater festival at Acre. Meanwhile, Haifa also hosted its 17th annual children's theater festival.


2007: “Spots of Light: To Be a Woman in the Holocaust” opens at Yad Sachem’s Exhibitions Pavilion:


2007: “A Jew Grows in Brooklyn” Jake Ehrenrich’s one-man show is playing Off-Broadway at 37 Arts.


2007: U.S. premiere of “The T.V.Set” directed, produced and written by Jake Kasdan.


 


2007(18th of Nisan, 5767): Fourth day of Pesach


2007(18th of Nisan, 5767): Seventy-two year old award winning screen writer Stan Daniels passed away today.



2008: David Blatt, the head coach of the the Istanbul-based Turkish Basketball League team Efes Pilsen, “parted ways with the team.”


2008: In Washington, D.C., Jewish authorJonathan Rieder discusses and signs The Word of the Lord Is Upon Me: The Righteous Performance of Martin Luther King, Jr. at Politics and Prose Bookstore.


2008(1st of Nisan, 5768): Rosh Chodesh Nisan


2008: The Boston Globe published “House of Cards” which investigated claims that Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story of Six MIT Students Who Took Vegas for Millions by Ben Mezrich is largely fictional and questioning its designation as “non-fiction.”


2008: The Sunday New York Times book section featured reviews of two books by Jewish authors - Fidelity by Grace Paley and Please Don’t Remain Calm by Michael Kinsley.


2008(1st of Nisan, 5768: Thirty-six year old Major Stuart Wolfer was killed today when his unit was attacked by insurgents in Baghdad. (As reported by Maia Efrem)
2009: Lubavitch Chabad of Northbrook and CJE Senior Life present the “Yiddish Club.”


2009:Ambassador Daniel Kurtzer, professor of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University delivers an address entitled "Iran, Israel and the US: Dissecting the Triangular Relationship’ at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.


2009: Mary Altaffer of AP photographed Ruth Madoff being “escorted by private security as she left the Metropolitan Correctional Center after visiting her husband” Bernard Madooff



2009:J. Ezra Merkin, a prominent New York financier whose private clients lost more than $2 billion in the collapse of Bernard L. Madoff’s Ponzi scheme, has been accused of fraud and deception in a civil lawsuit filed today by the New York attorney general, Andrew M. Cuomo.


2009:A list of 801 Jews saved during the Holocaust by German businessman Oskar Schindler has been recovered from a Sydney library, News Agencies reported today. 2010(22ndNisan, 5770): Yizkor is recited on the Eighth Day of Pesach.


2010: The Home Minister of Maharashtra State, which includes Mumbai, informed the Assembly that the bodies of the nine Pakistani gunmen from the 2008 attack on Mumbai who had murdered 8 people at Nariman House were buried in a secret location in January 2010.


2010: “Date Night,” a comedy directed and co-produced by Shawn Levy premiered in New York City.


2010:  Model and actress Lisa S. (Lisa Slesner) married David Wu today.


2010:Israeli Author Savyon Liebrecht is scheduled to speak at Yale’s Slifka Center for Jewish life.


2010: David Remnick's biography of President Barack Obama, The Bridge, was released today.


2011: Michael Applebaum began serving as Chair of the Montreal Executive committee.


2011: Season three of Top Chef Masters premiered with Chef Ruth Reichl as a judge.


2011: AlexanderMashkevitch announced his intention to found a Jewish version of Al-Jazeera that will "represent Israel on an international level, with real information


2011:Former Israeli Supreme Court Justice Dalia Dorner as keynote speaker is scheduled to speak today at an event marking the formal launch of The Berkeley Institute for Jewish Law and Israeli Law, Economy and Society at the University of California Law School.


2011:Ruth Messinger, President of the American World Jewish Service is scheduled to speak today during the New CAJE Lehrhaus webinar series. For registration and further information see http://newcajelehrhausonline.org/page.aspx?id=239947


2011(2ndof Nisan): On the Jewish calendar, Yahrzeit of The fifth Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Sholom DovBer Schneersohn ("Rashab") who passed away in 1920.


2011(2ndof Nisan): Eighty two year old Igor Yakovlevich Birman, the Russian born American economist who predicted the collapse of the Soviet Union passed away today.



2011:Tel Aviv has been ranked No. 34 out of 40 cities in the annual Knight Frank global cities index, which was released today, one place lower than last year and three below Cairo.


2012: Alexander “Mashkevitch announced his intention to found a Jewish version of Al-Jazeera that will "represent Israel on an international level, with real information”


2012(14th of Nisan, 5772): Fast of the First Born


2012(14th of Nisan, 5772): Fifty-nine year old Elan Steinberg who was head of the World Jewish Congress passed away today.  As reported by Douglas Martin)



2012: Rabbi Greg Wall is scheduled to lead the Seder at The Sixth Street Community Synagogue; an event that will “swing between tradition and utter hipness.”


Chag Kasher v'Sameach!


2012: At Kherson, in one of a series of acts of vandalism where “graves have been repeatedly covered with trash and tombstones destroyed and desecrated” a fire was set at the Jewish cemetery which “spread over an area of about 700 square meters and caused severe damage to the graves and tombstones.”


2013: Tom Arnold who converted to Judaism when he married Roseanne Barr and continues to be a practicing Jew and his fourth wife Ashley Groussman gave birth to their first child Jax Copeland Arnold.


2013: “A Bottle In The Gaza Sea” is scheduled to be shown at the Hartford Jewish Film Festival.


2013: “Joe Papp In Five Acts” is scheduled to be shown at the Westchester Jewish Film Festival.


2013: US Secretary of State John Kerry is headed to the Middle East today on his third trip there in just two weeks in a fresh bid to unlock long-stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.


2014: The New York Times reviewed books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including three written especially for children and young readers about the Holocaust: Hidden: A Child’s Story of the Holocaust by Loic Dauvillier; Hidden Like Anne Frank: Fourteen True Stories of Survival by Marcel Prins and Peter Henk Steenhuis; The Whispering Town by Jennifer Elvgren


2014: The Jerusalem Post is scheduled to hold its annual conference in New York City.


2014: “Prior to MIPTV’s official launch tomorrow, “a session titled ‘Business Opportunities in Israel’ is scheduled to be held today.


2014: A special performance of “The Last Act of Lilka Kadison” for the benefit of Yiddishkayt and in memory of NPR radio producer Johanna Cooper is scheduled to take place in Burbank, CA.


2014: In Springfield, VA, Congregation Ada Reyim is scheduled to host a Sisterhood Community Women’s Seder using a special Haggadah honoring “the role of women in Passover tradition.”


2014:An Arab-Israeli microbiologist Dr. Nof Atamna-Ismaeel, a 33-year-old mother of three, was crowned the winner of Israel’s most-watched television show, Master Chef tonight.


2014: Elections are scheduled to be held in Hungary amid charges by the “leadership of Hungarian Jewry that Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s government is pandering to nationalist voters who do not wish to be reminded of the role Hungary played in the murder of its Jewish citizens


2015: The Israeli Folk Dance group is scheduled to meet in Metairie, LA.


2015: “More than 75,000 people gathered at the Western Wall for the Priestly Blessing ceremony called Birkat Kohanim in Hebrew, during the second intermediate day of Passover.” (As reported by JTA)


2015: “Clearly unsatisfied with assurances from President Obama about the provisions of the Iran nuclear deal, Israel” today “listed specific requirements that it declared were necessary in any final agreement.”


2015(17th of Nisan, 5775): Third Day of Pesach; in the evening count Omer 3


2015(17th of Nisan): According to tradition, date on which “Noah’s Ark came to rest on Mt. Ararat.”


2015(17th of Nisan, 5775): “Bernice S. Tannenbaum, the 101 year old “former president of Hadassahwho fought against the U.N. resolutions “equating Zionism with racism” passed away today.



2016(27th of Adar II, 5776): Sixty-eight year old economist Joel Kurtzman passed away today.(As reported by Sam Roberts)



2016: “Last Musik is scheduled to present a benefit concert to protect and preserve the music composed in concentration camps, featuring Ute Lemper, renowned vocalist.”


2016: “The Kind Words” is scheduled to be shown at the Hartford Jewish Film Festival.


2016: “The Experimenter” is scheduled to be shown at the Westchester Film Festival.


2016: In New York, the Consul General of Israel is scheduled to speak at the Amal Israel Entrepreneurship Event.


2016: As a sign of the vitality of Yiddishkeit in places where you might not expect to find it, the Hadassah Book Club is scheduled to discuss the book Paradise Park: A Novel by Allegra Goodman this evening. 2017(10th of Nisan, 5777): The 10th of Nisan is the date on which the Israelites under Joshua crossed the Jordan into Eretz Israel


2017(10th of Nisan, 5777): The 10thof Nisan is the official day of national celebration in which Jewish immigration to Israel is honored and noteworthy immigrants are recognized for their contributions to the nation. (As reported by Debra Kamin)


2017(10th of Nisan, 5777): Seventy-one year old accountant and business manager to the starts Joseph Rascoff passed away today. (As reported by Richard Sandomir)



2017(10th of Nisan, 5777): Ninety year old comedian Donald Jay “Don” Rickles passed away today.





2017: In “The Great Genius of Jewish Literature” published today, Robert Alter reivews the works of S.Y. Agnon.



2017: In London, JW3 is scheduled to host a screening of “When Do We Eat, “a Pesach themed film


2017: The Maimonides Friendship Award Ceremony is scheduled to be the highlight of the final night of the 20th New York Sephardic Jewish Film Festival.


2017: In NYC, The Streicker Center is scheduled to host a presentation by Alessio Assonitis, Franesco Benelli and Lorenzo Vigotti on “Reconstructing the Ghetto in Florence.”


2018(21st of Nisan, 5778: Seventh Day of Pesach; for Reform and in Israel, last day of the holiday.http://downhomedavartorah.blogspot.com/


2018: “City of Numious Light,” an exhibition of “the Urban Impressionism of Lawrence Kushner,” is scheduled to opening in the Isaacs Gallery at the Osher Marin JCC in San Rafael.


2018: “Itzkak,” a feature film that “captures the life, work and heritage to violinists Itzhak Perlman” is scheduled to open at several U.S. theatres today including The Opera Plaza in San Francisco, the Midtown Art in Atlanta, GA and the Lagoon in Minneapolis, MN.


2018: The Reuter Center at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute in Asheville, NC is scheduled to host a screening of “Rosenwald” this evening.


2018: In Memphis, TN, Temple Israel is scheduled to host a special “Tot Shabbat Passover Experience,” this evening.


 


 

This Day, April 7, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. Levin

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April 7


451: Attila the Hun sacked Metz in what is now Germany as he pillaged his across Europe.  Based on the Thirteenth Tribe, there are those who contend that a large proportion of Europe’s Jews were descended from the Khazars a warrior people connected to Attila.



529: The Roman Emperor Justinian issued the first draft of the Corpus Juris Civilis. Justinian codified the ant-Jewish imperial view of the world that began under Constantine.The code made “anyone who was not connected to the Christian church a non-citizen.” More specifically, the principle of "Servitude of the Jews" (Servitus Judaeorum) was established by the new laws, and determined the status of Jews throughout the Empire for hundreds of years. The Jews were disadvantaged in a number of ways. Jews could not testify against Christians and were disqualified from holding a public office. Jewish civil and religious rights were restricted: ‘they shall enjoy no honors’. The use of the Hebrew language in worship was forbidden. Shema Yisrael sometimes considered the most important prayer in Judaism ("Hear, O Israel, YHWH our God, YHWH is one") was banned, as a denial of the Trinity. A Jew who converted to Christianity was entitled to inherit his or her father's estate, to the exclusion of the still-Jewish brothers and sisters. The Emperor became an arbiter in internal Jewish affairs. Similar laws applied to the Samaritans.”



1285: After a journey of almost two years “German Talmudist Judah ben Asher” arrived in Toledo, Spain today.



1348:  In the first year of the reign of Charles IV, Charles University is founded in Prague. Charles was an enlightened ruler whose years on the throne were good ones for the Jews of Prague. “The long reign of Emperor Charles IV brought the Prague Jews new privileges and relative calm even. The king ensured protection and, among others, offered a chance for them to settle inside the walls of the arising New Town. A sign of the status of the Jewish community is a banner that has survived, given to the Jews of Prague by Charles IV in 1375. From that year on the Jews would, over the centuries, come to the gates of the ghetto to welcome the kings of Bohemia in Prague. The banner was a shield and legacy of the favors of the ruler’s predecessor, a symbol of ambition and sign of hope.” Today Charles University is the home base for a Jewish Studies program offered to American college students that examines the history of Central European Jewry



1486:  The first prayer book (Siddur) was printed in Italy by Soncino. This was the only time that the Siddur was published during the 15th century. For the most part hand copied manuscripts (of which there were plenty) continued to be used.



1498: Louis XII who ordered the expulsion of the Jews from Provence began his reign today.



1506: In Portugal, a group of New Christians was arrested when they were caught conducting a Seder.  Although they were released two Dominican firiars “who paraded through the streets with an uplifted crucifix crying Heresia so inflamed the citizenry that 500 hundred New Christians were murdered on the first day of a multi-day massacre



1615: In Worms, members of the Guilds riot as part of an attempt to force the Jews to leave.



1645: Michael Cardozo became the 1st Jewish lawyer in Brazil. The Dutch West India Company granted Michael Cardoso the right to practice law in Brazil a privilege no other Jew enjoyed at that time anywhere else.  The Dutch would shortly lose control of Brazil to the Portuguese.  And in 1654, it would be a group of Jewish refugee from Recife (part of formerly Dutch Brazil) who would land in New Amsterdam to begin the modern American Jewish Community.



1720: At one of the last large auto-de-fe's in Madrid, was burned five suspected Jews who were found to have committed the crime of praying in a "secret synagogue" which had been found after the Spanish war of Succession.



1754(15thof Nisan, 5514): Pesach



1767: Christian Old Testament scholar, Johann Gottlob Carpzov, a member of the Carpzov family who specialized in the study of Hebrew and the Old Testament passed away. Carpzov authored Apparatus Historico-Criticus Antiquitatum et Codicis Sacri et Gentis Hebrææ in 1748. “According to the Jewish Encyclopedia, Carpzov represents both an advance and a retrogression in Biblical science — an advance in fullness of material and clearness of arrangement (his Introductio is the first work that deserves the name), and a retrogression in critical analysis, for he held fast to the literal inspiration of the Hebrew text of the Old Testament and bitterly opposed the freer positions of Simon, Spinoza, and Clericus. His antiquarian writings are still interesting and useful.”



1781: Birthdate of Berlin philanthropist Abraham Muhr



https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0014_0_14351.html



1788: American settlers establish Marietta, Ohio, the first new American settlement in the Northwest Territory.   Apparently a thriving Jewish community existed in Marietta during the last part of the 19thcentury and the first part of the 20th century as can be seen by the existence of two Jewish cemeteries, a Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, the Jewish War Suffers’ Society and a synagogue called B’nai Israel.



1792(15thof Nisan, 5552): First Day of Pesach and Shabbat



1807: Birthdate of Ridley Haim Herschell, the Polish born Jew who converted and founded the British Society Propagating the Gospel Among the Jews in 1842.



1810: Twenty-one year old George Hartog, “a surgeon in the King’s German Legion” who was “one of the un-sung heroes of the Battle of Waterloo” got “his medical doctorate” today.



1814(17thof Nisan, 5574): Third Day of Pesach



1814(17thof Nisan, 5574):Bernard Mordechi Kornfeld passed away today in Czechoslovakia



1818:In Ḳin'at ha-Emet(Zeal for Truth), a paper written today, and published in the collection “Nogah ha-Ẓedeḳ” (Light of Righteousness), Aron Chorin a Hungarian rabbi and advocated for religious reform, declared himself in favor of reforms, such as German prayers, the use of the organ, and other liturgical modifications. The principal prayers, the Shema', and the eighteen benedictions, however, should be said in Hebrew, he declared, as this language keeps alive the belief in the restoration of Israel. He also pleaded for opening the temple for daily service.



1822(16th of Nisan, 5582): Second Day of Pesach; first day of the Omer



1826: Birthdate of Frederick C. Salomon, the Prussian native came to the United States where he worked as a surveyor and Register of Deeds in Wisconsin before joining the Union Army where he served with distinction and was mustered out as Major General of Volunteers.



1834: A version of Giacomo Meyerbeer’s “The Fiend-Father” was presented today in New York.



1848:Baron Jozsef Eotvos, Hungarian statesman and who supported the emancipation of the Jews became Minister of Education.



1849(15thof Nisan, 5609): Pesach



1849:The Pennsylvania legislature granted a charter today to the Hebrew Education Society of Philadelphia that “authorized the establishment of schools for general education, combined with instruction in the Hebrew language and literature; the charter also authorized the establishment of a "superior seminary of learning," with power to grant the usual degrees given by other colleges.”



1851: The first school created under the jurisdiction of the Hebrew Education Society held its first class today in Philadelphia, PA.



1851: Birthdate of “German composer and conductor” Martin Roder.



1852: This morning at the Herkimer-street Synagogue in Albany a new Sefer Torah was read for the first time and then placed in the Holy Ark.  Following the reading Rabbi Raphall gave what was called “an appropriate address.”



1855: Marcus Samuel gave birth to Samuel Samuel founder of Samuel Samuel & Co who served as an MP for almost twenty years.  He was the brother of Marcus Samuel, 1st Viscount of Bearsted.



1855: At the behest of Samuel K. Labatt, The Los Angeles Star published “the lengthy and effective denunciation” William Stow written by his brilliant lawyer brother, Henry J. Labatt of San Francisco.”  Stow is William Stow who had launched an anti-Semitic attack on the Jewish people from the sanctuary of the California State Assembly. Samuel K. Labatt was the first President of the Hebrew Benevolent Society of Los Angeles. He saw part of his role as being the defender of Jews against anti-Semites.



1860(15thof Nisan, 5620): As the war clouds that will bring the Civil War begin to form in earnest during the U.S. Presidential elections, Jews observe Pesach.



1860:  A review of The History of Herodotusby George Rawlinson published today compared the writings of the ancient Greek Historian with information found in the Bible. The reviewer gives credence to the progression of history as presented in the Scripture. “The Hezekiahs, the Isaiahs, the Jacobs, the Zerubbabels, the Maccabees, the Gamaliels,…could never have appeared as the later records describe them, had there been no Samuel, no Joshua, no Moses, no Exodus from Egypt, no law-giving on Sinai, as represented to us in the marvelous yet truthful pictures of the more ancient books.”



1861: Sinai Congregation which was led by Rabbi Felsenthal and President Schoeneman was established in Chicago



1861: Forty year old Prussian born tobacconist Samuel Gluckstein the son of Lehman Meyer Gluckstein and Helena Horn who had come to Britain ten years ago was now living at  37, High Street, Whitechapel, London



1862: The Battle of Shiloh ends with a Union Victory. Among the many Jews serving at the battle was Corporal David Orbansky of the 58th Ohio Volunteer Infantry who won the Medal of Honor for his “gallantry in action against the enemy.”



1863(18thof Nisan, 5623): Fourth Day of Pesach



1863: In England, David Cohen and his wife gave birth to Henry Cohen, the graduate of Jews’ College, who served as rabbi at several congregations included, the Amalgamated Congregation of Israelites in Kingston, Jamaica, Congregation Beth Israel in Woodville, Mississippi and Congregation B’nai Israel in Galveston, Texas as well as being the Librarian of the Texas Historical Society, an executive board member of the Jewish Publication Society of America and the American Jewish Historical Society and following the historic hurricane, the Central Relief Committee of the Galveston Storm Sufferers.



1865: Birthdate of Gustav Freund who was deported from Prague in June of 1942 to Terezin where he was murdered on in August.



1866(22ndof Nisan, 5626): Eight day of Pesach and Shabbat



1867: Sir George Faudel-Phillips, the “second son of Sir Benjamin Samuel Phillips” and the future Lord Mayor of London married Helen Levy, the “daughter of Joseph Moses Levy, the owner of the London Daily Telgraph.



1868(15thof Nisan, 5628): Pesach



1868(15thof Nisan, 5628): Rabbi Carl Heinemann passed away.  He was hired as the first rabbi in Goteborg, Sweden in 1837 but was forced to resign in 1851 after he opposed the introduction of “radical reform measures.”



1870(16th of Nisan, 5631): Second Day of Pesach; 1st day of the Omer



1870: Birthdate of German anarchist Gustav Landauer.



1870: According to the review of the Art Academy, on this date, Russian –Jewish sculptor Mark Arntokolski “was granted personal name of honorary citizen ‘for wonderful knowledge of art’”.



1872: Seventy year old, W.L. Mitchell, a Professor at the Georgia State University Law School, has begun to study Hebrew. [Ed. Note – I have not been able to find out anything about Professor Mitchell i.e. whether he was Jewish or a Christian who was following what had become a popular pastime among 18th& 19thcentury Protestants.]



1875: In Ukraine, Michael Pofcher and Rose Nizel Pofcher gave birth to Louis Pofcher, the brother of David, Abram, Elias and Simon Pofcher.



1880: Birthdate of multi-talented performer Fritz Grünbaum who gave his last performance to fellow inmates at Dachau just days before his death.



http://holocaustmusic.ort.org/places/camps/music-early-camps/dachau/grnbaumfritz/



1880: In Leadville, CO, Jewish businessman Jacob Schloss was elected treasurer of the Turnverin Society



1880: Rabbi H.P. Mendez officiated at the wedding of Frederick Nathan, the son of the late Benjamin Nathan and Maud Nathan, daughter of Robert W. Nathan, which was held at Shearith Israel in New York City.



1883: In “A Movement to Unite Three Congregations” published today, the Brooklyn Eagle described attempts by Brooklyn's three leading synagogues, Baith Israel, Beth Elohim, and Temple Israel to merge.



1883: Birthdate of Maksymilian Apolinary Hartglas, the Hungarian born Zionist activist who was one of the main political leaders of Polish Jews during the interwar period, a lawyer, a publicist, and a Sejm deputy from 1919 to 1930.


1885: Birthdate of Ukrainian native Edward Dato who came to the United States in 1914 where he attended Northwestern and became an engineer and realtor in Chicago.


1888(25th of Nisan, 5648): Fifty-year old Russian businessman and philanthropist Samuel Polyakov the brother of  Lazar Polyakov and Yakov Polyakov, known as the “railroad king” and founder of “World ORT” passed away today in St. Petersburg.


1891: In Leadville, CO, Lotta Schloss married Moses L Stern who became secretary and treasurer of Schloss Bros.


1891: Birthdate of British born, New Zealand cartoonist, Sir David Low.  Low was not Jewish but he was an early and constant critic of Hitler and Mussolini.  Throughout the 1930’s his cartoons skewered the fascist dictators with such skill that no a less a personage than Sigmund Freud wrote, “"A Jewish refugee from Vienna, a very old man personally unknown to you, cannot resist the impulse to tell you how much he admires your glorious art and your inexorable, unfailing criticism."


1891: The cornerstone of the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society’s new building was laid this afternoon at 3 o’clock.


1891: Twenty-eight year old German Jewish immigrant Siegfried Lewisohn shot himself twice in the left breast today at 29 Sutton Place in New York.


1892: John L. Stoddard delivered an illustrated lecture designed as “an excursion to Jerusalem and the Holy Land.”


1893(21stof Nisan, 5653): Seventh day of Pesach


1893(21stof Nisan, 5653): Joel Joe, the son of Isaac Joel and Rebecca Solomon, husband of Catherine Isaacs and he son-in-law of Isaac Isaacs and Leah Harris passed away today.


1895: It is expected that several liquor dealers who bought “bootleg” Kosher wine from a Russian Jew known as “Gordon” will be arraigned today for failure to pay the appropriate revenue taxes.


1895: “Free Sons of Israel” published today traces the history of  Independent Order of Free Sons of Israel” which was founded in 1849 by German Jews and has grown to be one of the leading Jewish organizations of its kind throughout the United States.


1895: It was reported today that during his service as Chairman of the Committee on Endowment for the Free Sons of Israel, William A. Gans has written checks totaling $2,300,000 to provide aid for widows and orphans.


1896: Congressman Amos J. Cummings will deliver an address about Horace Greely, as the last lecture “of the regular season’s course under the auspices of the Young Men’s Hebrew Association.


1896: The Union Veteran Hebrew Association met today in New York City.


1896: Birthdate Benjamin Leiner, the son of Orthodox Jews, who as Benny Leonard learned his boxing trade on the streets of New York.  Leonard was Light Heavyweight Champion for seven and half years.  He was one of several Jewish boxing champs during the early decades of the twentieth century. Leonard was proud of being Jewish and was quoted that Jews were suited by nature to boxing because it was the highest form of self-defense. 



1896: Hermann Ahlwardt, the German anti-Semitic agitator and his two American sponsors are expected to be arraigned for their part in provoking a riot in Hoboken, NJ during which Ahlwardt reportedly drew a pistol and threatened the mob protesting his appearance.


1897: It was reported today that Oscar S. Straus, Isaac Wallack, Emanuel Lehman, Isaac Eppinger and Samuel M. Schafer were among the dignitaries who had attended the funeral services of the late Julius Ehrmann.


1897: Orthodox Jews through the world celebrated the “festival of the new sun” which “comes once every 28 years on the fourth day of the first week of Nisan.”


1897: While most services for The Blessing of the New Sun, Birkat Hachama, were held without any problems in New York City, including one held on the banks of the East River, an observance at Tompkins Park was marred by the arrest of the officiating Rabbis.  Rabbi Wechsler and Rabbi Klein had told their congregants to gather at the square.  Since the service had to be completed by nine o’clock, a large group had already gathered by eight when local police appeared on the scene.  They were concerned about the threat posed to the public safety by such a large gathering.  Nobody had thought to get a permit and the two Rabbis were taken away since their English was not effective enough to convey the purpose of the gathering.  A magistrate later released them with a warning.  In the mean time, the Jews in the square conducted the service without the benefit of clergy.


1897: Birthdate of Walter Winchell.  The son of Jewish immigrants, Winchell left school at the age of 13 to go into vaudeville.  He appeared with other such Jewish beginners as Eddie Cantor.  Winchell's career took a different turn.  He entered the world of journalism where he invented the gossip column.  Winchell's column appeared in 2,000 papers every day and his 1930's radio show was heard by 50 million listeners.  Winchell had his friends and his foes.  Both agreed that Winchell outlived himself and he died a much diminished figure in 1972.  However, he is another example of a Jew inventing something that was considered to uniquely American.



1898(15thof Nisan, 5658): Pesach



1899: “Dramatic and Musical” published today described Herr Adolf Sonnenthal’s recent portrayal of the lead character in “Nathan the Wise” which was described as “his greatest success.”  The audience burst into spontaneous, uncontrolled applause when uttered the monologue during the third act in which “Nathan commenting on Saladin’s desire for money asks, ‘Who is here the Jew?’”



1899: “In Aid of the Hebrew Infant Asylum” published today described the plans for the upcoming fundraiser sponsored by the Young Folks’ League of Hebrew Infant Asylum that has 500 members and has raised over $6,000 in the last two years to support the institution.



1899:”Musicale in Aid of Hebrew Institute” published today described the successful fund raiser held at Sherry’s which raised $4,000 for the Hebrew Technical Institute.



1900(8thof Nissan, 5660): Shabbat HaGadol



1900(8thof Nissan, 5660): Zionist poet Isaac Rabinowitz passed away.



1901(18thof Nisan): Hillel Kahane, teacher and worker for the "Enlightenment," passed away at Bottuschan.



1902: Birthdate of Leo “Red” Klauber. “the captain of the 1923 CCNY team, which had a 12-1 record. Considered one of the best teams in the country that year, their only loss was to Syracuse 31-30



1903: Second and final day of the First Kishinev Pogrom



1904(22ndof Nisan, 5664): Jews observe the 8th day of Pesach in a year when T.R. seeks to be elected to the Presidency having been serving in office because of the death of President McKinley.



1906: The Algeciras Conference, which had been convened to settle the dispute between France and Germany over Morocco, came to an end. During the conference, the United States raised the issue of the mistreatment of the Jews in the North African kingdom.  U.S. Ambassador White said, “the American government has always considered it duty…to assure due respect to all religious beliefs…My government has charged me to invoke the cooperation of the Conference…regarding the wishes for the welfare of the Israelites of Morocco.” According to Abraham Bloch, the European powers attending the conference supported the American position.  This included Russia whose anti-Semitic policies had forced untold numbers Jews to live in misery or leave the country, France which had been dealing with Dreyfus wave of anti-Semitism and Spain which had expelled it Jews en masse in 1492.



1907(old style): Second and final day of the Kishinev pogrom.



1908: H. H. Asquith of the Liberal Party takes office as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. Herbert Henry Asquith served as Prime Minister until 1916 when he was replaced by Lloyd George.  In a private letter written before he became Prime Minister, Asquith described the Jews as “a scattered and unattractive tribe.”  He did enjoy the friendship of Jews including Edwin Montagu who would become the new P.M.’s private secretary. Montagu and Asquith would have a falling out over the affections of Venetia Stanley a friend of Asquith's daughter.  Montagu gained fame as one of the British Jews who opposed the Balfour Declaration. During the 1930’s, Asquith’s daughter befriended Vladimir Jabotinsky. She is the one who introduced him to Winston Churchill.  One of Asquith’s sons served with the British Army in Palestine during WW II.



1911(9thof Nisan, 5671): Fifty-nine year old French banker and art collector Comte Isaac de Camondo who was a member of the House of Camondo passed away today.



1912: Fifty-eight year old physician and journalist Mark J. Lehman passed away today in New Orleans.



1912: In Brooklyn, Barney (Beryl) Schwartz and Fanny (Fruma) Goldman Schwartz first cousins who had run away from their home in Belaya Tserkov (Bila Tserkva, Ukraine) to come to America in 1904 gave birth to Jacob Louis Schwartz who gained fame as songwriter and composer Jack Lawrence



1915: Birthdate of Eleanora Fagan, better known as “legendary songstress Billie Holiday” who “recorded a gorgeous, impromptu cover of the Jewish classic “My Yiddishe Mamme,” which was composed by Jack Yellen and Lew Pollack



http://www.tabletmag.com/scroll/190122/billie-holidays-cover-of-my-yiddishe-mamme



1915: Birthdate of economist Albert Hirschman, “who in his youth helped rescue thousands of artists and intellectuals from Nazi-occupied France and went on to become an influential economist known for his optimism” and was the author of Exit, Voice and Loyalty. (As reported by William Yardley)



1915: New York's Governor Charles S. Whitman signed the Widowed Mothers Pension Act into law. The new statute, which provided state-funded pensions to qualifying women so that they could care for their children at home, was largely the result of the efforts of communal activist and reformer Hannah Bachman Einstein.



1916(4thof Nisan, 5676): Eighty-two year old Joseph Shields, “a collector of internal revenue,” passed away today.



1916: Reverend Charles A. Campbell, the “pastor of the Third Street Presbyterian Church” was reported today to have been among those attending a meeting in Dayton, Ohio where he contributed $50 towards a fund being raised “for the relief of the Jews” in war torn Europe.



1916: In Manhattan, David and Anne Valentine Tishman gave birth to Robert V. Tishman, “a real estate developer whose companies — bearing the family name since the 19th century — etched their mark on the skylines of cities around the nation, including construction of the World Trade Center.”



1917(15thof Nisan, 5677): First Day of Pesach and Shabbat



1917: Services for the first day of Pesach were held at the South Side Hebrew Congregation on Michigan Avenue in Chicago.



1917: “Austrian Jews Would Aid” published today described the efforts of Rabbi Samuel Buchler of Brooklyn and a group of Austro-Hungarian Jews to encourage “citizens of foreign birth who are loyal to the American flag” to enlist “in the army and navy.”



1917: In response to yesterday’s declaration of war on Germany “loyalty and patriotic support of American arms and democracy were urged in Passover sermons in many synagogues” today.



1917: At Temple Beth-El, Rabbi Samuel Schulman spoke on “Man’s Freedom, the Work of God in History” saying that “whatever differences of opinion may have existed before the decision” to go to war “was made they exist no longer.  We are today one people.”



1917: While delivering “a sermon on ‘Emancipation, Old and New’ Rabbi Maurice H. Harris of Temple Israel in Harlem predicted the coming of the democracy of the nations.”



1917: As part of their on-going correspondence President Wilson wrote to Simon Wolfe that he had “been particularly interest in the work” “of the Order of B’nai B’rith and the Hebrew Congregations of the United States” in the effort to destroy so as they can the provincialism of prejudice as between races.”



1918: “A proposal” “made by Samuel Goldstein, the President of the Jewish Federation of America” “that all Jewish organizations in the United States should be united into a national body with Nathan Starus at the head was received with enthusiasm at a convention of Romanian Jews” meeting today at the Hebrew Girls’ Technical School



1919: It was reported today that “The Institutional Synagogue has acquired a large factory building…near its present home” which will be converted into “an edifice suitable for its own uses.



1919: In Cincinnati, Ohio, Rabbi Mendel Silber of New Orleans delivered the opening prayer on the final day of the 30th convention of the Central Conference of American Rabbis which included a presentation on “Religious Education and the Future of American Judaism” by Rabbi David Lefkowitz of Dayton, Ohio



1920(19thof Nisan, 5680): Fifth Day of Pesach.



1920: The Arab Riots in Jerusalem which had begun on the second day of Pesach came to an end today.



1923(21stof Nisan, 5683): Seventh Day of Pesach



1923:  The 1st brain tumor operation under local anesthetic was performed at Beth Israel Hospital in New York City by Dr. K Winfield Ney.


1926: “Miss Irma May, a former New York relief work” who returned to New York today aboard the French liner Paris after having spent three months in Europe said  that “more than one million Jews in Poland and millions in other countries are starving as a result of the economic breakdown of the countries in which they live” and that “their only hope of being saved from extinction is in the early arrival of relief from America.”


 


1927: “The libel suit for $100,000 brought by Dr. A. Coralnick, editorial writer of “The Day” against the “Freiheit”, Communist Yiddish daily, was settled out of court today. Under the terms of the settlement, the “Freiheit” is to pay the amount of $250 to Dr. Coralnick and to publish a statement withdrawing its charges against him. Jonah J. Goldstein and Leon Savage acted as attorneys for Dr. Coralnick. The $250 will be given to the Ort, Mr. Goldstein announced. (As reported by JTA)


 


1928: After 494 performances the curtain came down on “Rio Rita” a musical orchestrated and conducted by Max Steiner which had played at the Ziegfeld, Lyric and Majectic theatres.


1928: Birthdate of producer Alan J. Paluka, who was nominated for an Oscar for his work on the cinema classic “To Kill A Mockingbird.”



http://www.nytimes.com/1998/11/20/movies/alan-j-pakula-film-director-dies-at-70.html



1929: The New York Times reports that Warner Brother’s recently released Biblical epic, “Noah’s Ark” was panned by critics in London while proving to be a box-office smash success with English audiences.  The criticism seemed to be more an expression of anti-Americanism than related to the quality of the film itself.



1930: Birthdate of Berlin native Andreas Siegfried Sachs the son of a Roman Catholic mother and Jewish father who gained fame as British actor Andrew Sachs. 



https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/01/arts/television/andrew-sachs-hapless-waiter-on-the-bbc-sitcom-fawlty-towers-dies-at-86.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well



1930: It was reported today that Palestine Mandatory Authority is preparing a plan for dividing Palestine into cantons, like Switzerland which it will then submit to the government in London. “The first experiment with such cantons will be the establishment of special Jewish district comprising Tel Aviv…with 47,000 inhabitants” and 40 nearby settlements including Petach Tikvah, Rishon Lexion and Rehoboth that would form a contiguous entity with 70,000 Jewish inhabitants.  The aim is to ultimate create 15 or 16 such cantons, seven of which be Moslem, three would be Christian and five or six which would be Jewish.



1931: In Chicago, Harry and Adele (Charsky) Ellsberg, Ashkenazi Jews who had converted to Christian Science gave birth to Daniel Ellsberg who became American history’s most famouswhistleblower with the release of The Pentagon Papers.



1932: The first radio station in Palestine was opened today in Tel Aviv under a license from the British Mandatory Government. Mendel Abranovitch operated Radio Tel Aviv.



1933(11th of Nisan, 5693): Fifty-three year old Ukrainian born Jewish intellectual who wrote under the pen-name “Baal Dimion” passed away in Kiev.



http://www.yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Shtif_Nokhem



1933: French premiere of “Zero for Conduct” a featurette filmed by cinematographer Boris Kaufman.



1933:  Hitler approved decrees banning Jews and other non-Aryans from the practice of law and from jobs in the civil service (Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service). Jewish government workers in Germany are ordered to retire. The term Nichtarier ("non-Aryan") became a legal classification in Germany. This made it "legal" to discharge Jews from their position in the universities, hospitals, and legal professions.  The law was called the Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service.  The non-Aryan clause would be extended over the next year to include everything i.e. all professional occupations, athletic competition and military service.



1934(22nd of Nisan, 5694): Shabbat and Eighth Day of Pesach



1934(22nd of Nisan, 5694): Sixty-nine year old Charlotte Béatrice de Rothschild, the daughter of banker Alphonse James de Rothschild and the wife of Russian-born banker Maurice Ephrussi, best known for her art collecting passed away today in Davos, Switzerland.



http://www.villa-ephrussi.com/en/home



https://www.rothschildarchive.org/materials/review_2008_2009_beatrice_ephrussi_1.pdf



1934: Several thousandAmericans attended a pro-Nazi rally in Queens, New York


1934: “The House of Rothschild” a biopic about the famous banking family produced by William Goetz with music with Alfred Newman was released today in the United States.


 


1935: As the 2nd Maccabiah games came to a close before 50,000 spectators the team from the United States had scored 254 giving it a wide lead over second place German (183).  The team representing the Jews of Palestine scored 139.5 points edging out Austria, Czechoslovakia and South Africa.


1935: “The importance of the work done by private philanthropic agencies was stressed” today “at an all-day conference of representatives of more than 500 Jewish fraternal and benevolent societies at the Hotel McAlpin” which had been organized under the auspices of Paul Felix Warburg.


1936(15thof Nisan, 5696): First Day of Pesach


1936: “Special prayers were for offered for German Jewry and an appeal for the fund to aid Jewish emigration from Germany was made in every synagogue in Britain today.”


 1936: “In a special address from the pulpit of the new West End Synagogue in Bayswater, Sir Herbert Samuel declared, ‘there is no alternative for the Jews of Germany but to leave the country’” and “he called on the Jewish communities of the world to cope with the emergency and rescue the ‘victims of cruel and relentless persecution.’”


1936: “At Congregation B’nai Jershurun Rabbi Israel Goldstein, president of the Jewish National Fund, “declared the exodus had been ‘a recurrent episode in the life of Israel.’”


1936: At Congregation Rodeph Shalom, in his sermon Rabbi Louis I Newman discussed “the need for great moral as well as political and economic personalities in a time of a time of stress” saying “the world today needs the ministration of men like Moses…”


1936: Rabbi Herbert S. Goldstein, the honorary president of the Union of Orthodox Congregations said today “that the treatment of the Jew ‘was the barometer of civilization.’”


1936: Mr. and Mrs. Joseph L Buttenweiser opened their home to the public where they viewed a collections of the “important works of the Dutch masters of the seventeenth century” as part of the fundraising activities of the women’s division of the United Palestine Appeal.” Although the admission fee was only one dollar, an anonymous female visitor insisted on leaving a check for one thousand dollars.


1937: The Palestine Post reported from London that according to British political circles, the Royal (Peel) Commission on Palestine might propose the setting up of two separate Jewish and Arab states, leaving Jerusalem, Bethlehem and other holy places under British Mandate. Haifa was to be a common seaport for all.


1937: The Palestine Post reported that Jewish students were attacked and beaten at the Warsaw Polytechnic Institute, which closed for a number of days.


1937: The Palestine Post reported that the Polish airline, Lot, initiated a regular three-flights-a-week schedule from Warsaw to Lod Airport.


1937: The Palestine Post reported that Jewish laborers complained that they were excluded from various development projects carried out by the government at Lod Airport.


1937: It was reported today that “the name of Heinrich Heine, the German poet, has been banished from Viennese municipal buildings by order of the Burgomaster Richard Schmitz” in response to “agitation against Heine in anti-Semitic circles.”


1938: “Mr. Moto's Gamble, the third film in the Mr. Moto series starring Peter Lorre as the title character” was released in the United States today.


1939: “Broadway Serenade” a musical featuring Al Shean was released today in the United States.


1939: Italy invaded and annexed Albania. Jews were exiled from the coastal port cities and moved to Albania’s interior. Several Austrian and German families took refuge in Tirana and Durazzo in 1939 in hope of making it eventually to the United States or South America. Many Jewish refugees also passed through Albania on their way to Palestine. These refugees were well treated by the Italian forces and by the local population. Jewish refugee families began to scatter throughout Albania and assimilate into society. Jewish children continued to attend school, but under false names and religions. Italians rejected the Final Solution and therefore did not implement anti-Jewish laws. Nevertheless, many Albanians joined the SS Division “Skanderbeg.” Some Jewish refugees were eventually placed in a transit camp in Kavaje, and from there sent to Italy. At one point, nearly 200 Jews were placed in the Kavaje camp. Some Albanian officials tried to rescue these Jews of Kavaje, by issuing identity papers to hide them in the capital Tirana.


                                                                          or



1939: In a prelude to World War II, Mussoliniinvades Albania as he tries to create a modern day Roman Empire. “Approximately, 600 Jews were living in Albania prior to World War II, 400 of whom were refugees. At the beginning of World War II, hundreds of Jews arrived in Albania seeking refuge from Nazi persecution in other regions of Europe.There was little history of anti-Semitism in Albania between the local Christians, Muslims, and Jews. Most of the Albanian population was not hostile toward the Jews and helped to hide them during the war, especially when Italy and Germany occupied the country. When Italy invaded and annexed Albania. Jews were exiled from the coastal port cities and moved to Albania’s interior. Several Austrian and German families took refuge in Tirana and Durazzo in 1939 in hope of making it eventually to the United States or South America. Many Jewish refugees also passed through Albania on their way to Palestine. These refugees were well treated by the Italian forces and by the local population. Jewish refugee families began to scatter throughout Albania and assimilate into society. Jewish children continued to attend school, but under false names and religions. Italians rejected the Final Solution and therefore did not implement anti-Jewish laws.Nevertheless, many Albanians joined the SS Division “Skanderbeg” and committed atrocities against the Serbian and Jewish populations of Kosovar. Some refugees were eventually placed in a transit camp in Kavaje, and from there sent to Italy. At one point, nearly 200 Jews were placed in the Kavaje camp. Some Albanian officials tried to rescue these Jews of Kavaje, by issuing identity papers to hide them in the capital Tirana.”  For more see http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/vjw/albania.html \



1940: Cyrus Adler, the national Jewish leader from, of all places, Van Buren, Arkansas, passed away today.






 


 


1941: Two separate ghettos were established in Radom, Poland. At Kielce, Poland, 16,000 local Jews and about a thousand Jewish deportees from Vienna are herded into a ghetto area.


1943: The Spanish Ambassador has lunch with Winston Churchill at which time the Prime Minister protested in the strongest possible language to the closure of the border between France and Spain to Jewish refugees trying to escape across the Pyrenees. Churchill’s threatening tone had its effect when a “few days later the Spanish authorities had re-opened the border to Jewish refugees.”


1943: Jewish resistance led by Michael Glanz took place at Skalat, Ukraine.


1943(2nd of Nisan, 5703): During the Holocaust in the western Ukraine, the Germans order 1,100 Jews to undress to their underwear and march through the city of Terebovlia to the nearby village of Plebanivka. They were then shot dead and buried in ditches.


1944: Birthdate of Julia Miller who gained fame as Julia Philips co-producer of “The Sting,” “Taxi Driver” and “Close Encounters of the Third Kind.”


1944:  Rudolf Vrba and Alfred Wetzler escaped from Auschwitz with the expressed the intention of telling the world what was going on. With the help of the resistance movement inside the camp, these two made it out and after two weeks found their way to Slovakia. They met with Adre Steiner and Oscar Krasnansky and described in detail what was happening including plans to murder 800,000 Hungarian Jews. Krasnansky turned their report into the thirty-page long "Auschwitz Protocols" which were then sent to contacts in the West. To say the Holocaust happened because nobody knew was not quite the case; more like people did not want to know or knew but did not care.


1944(14th of Nisan, 5704): In the evening, with the world at war, Jews sit down for the first Seder of the year including American service men and woman.  The different branches of the United States armed forces have made great effort to make it possible for Jews serving in the military to observe the holiday.  “With the cooperation of the Army and Navy, 400,000 boxes Matzah, 7,000 gallons of wine and 190,000 Haggadot have been shipped by the Jewish Welfare Board for distribution” to those serving “in every war sector as well as England, North Africa and Australia.” Holiday supplies have already been parachuted to troops serving in the upper reaches of the Rockies and dogsleds were used to get Passover goodies to those serving in outposts in Alaska.  The South African Army provided a special train so Jewish soldiers in Egypt could enjoy home hospitality in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.



1945: In Italy, the Jewish Brigade received an order to cross the Senio River “and establish a bridgehead on the other side – a move that would force the Germans to retreat in the wake of the advancing British Army.



1945: Birthdate of Robert S. Wistrich, the son of Polish Jews who had fled from Lviv to the Soviet Union to escape the Nazis, “who devoted his four-decade scholarly career to dissecting anti-Semitism, from the biblical Haman, who warned King Ahasuerus of Persia against strangers whose “laws are diverse from all people,” to modern Islamist extremists who deny Israel’s right to exist.”


1945: “Brewster’s Millions” the movie version of the novel produced by Edward Small released today in the United States.


1946: “An authoritative Jewish source in Geneva charged tonight that British authorities had used diplomatic pressure to seal the borders of eastern European countries against escaping Jews to halt illegal immigration to Palestine.”


1946: Syria's independence from France is officially recognized. The Syrian Jewish community which traced its origins back to the reign of King David and had once been thriving and prosperous had, by now, fallen on hard times. As anti-Jewish sentiment increased in the 20th century, many Syrian Jews moved to New York.  In the years just prior to Syrian independence, thousands of Syrian Jews found refuge in Palestine. A year after Syria gained independence, the ancient Jewish community of Aleppo was the victim of a Pogrom. [Reading the works of Haim Sabato, a Syrian Jew whose family moved to Egypt before settling in Israel, will give you some sense of this ancient Jewish Community.]


1947: In Jerusalem, following the High Court’s rejection today of an appeal filed by Israel Rokach on behalf of Dov Bela Gruner, it was “understood” that the Mayor of Tel Aviv would file an appeal with the Privy Council in London.


1948: In Paris, Herbert Katzki, the acting director of the emigration service of the American Joint Distribution Committee reported “that 45,000 Jewish had been helped since 1946” and that 80,000 Jews, not counting those in the DP camps, “were waiting to go to Palestine.


1949: Rogers & Hammerstein's "South Pacific" opened at Majestic Theater for the first of 1,928 performances.


1950: In one of the ironies of history, a commercial vessel now called the Tsfonit which flew the Swastki when first launched in 1937 will fly Israel’s Blue and White flag complete with the Star of David.  The ship has been purchased by the American-Israeli Shipping Company for Zim, Israel’s shipping line, according to reports published in the New York Times.  As part of Israel’s growing commitment to maritime commerce, a freighter now named the Akko will leave for Haifa next week to join three other war surplus shipping vessles that are already plying the waters between Israeli and U.S. ports.


1952: The Jerusalem Post reported from The Hague that at the reparations talks held there, Israel was waiting for a definite commitment and a specific sum to be offered as compensation, by the authoritative German delegation.


1952: The Jerusalem Post reported that the UN Technical Assistance Department proposed to set up in Israel a center for modern adobe (sun-dried earth) housing development scheme.


1952: The Jerusalem Post reported that The Jerusalem Municipal Council voted for a new entertainment tax and fixed salaries of town councilors and deputy mayors.


1955(15thof Nisan, 5715): Pesach


1955(15thof Nisan, 5715): Sixty-nine year old silent film star Theda Bara passed away today.



1956(26th of Nisan, 5716): A resident of Ashkelon was killed in her home, when attackers threw three hand grenades into her house. Two members of kibbutz Givat Haim were killed, when terrorists opened fire on their car, on the road from Plugot Junction to Mishmar HaNegev


1956(26thof Nisan, 5716): One person was killed and three others were wounded when terrorists attacked areas around Nitzanim and Ketziot tossing hand grenades and firing guns into homes and cars.


1956(26thof Nisan, 5716): Two members of kibbutz Givat Haim were killed, when terrorists opened fire on their car, on the road from Plugot Junction to Mishmar HaNegev.


1958: Writer Arch Oboler's six-year-old son, Peter, drowned in rainwater collected in excavations at Oboler's Malibu home. The house was designed by architect Frank Lloyd Wright; the Wright-designed Oboler residential complex is named Eaglefeather. The house is featured in Oboler's film “Five.”


1960:"Everybody's Somebody's Fool" is a song written by Jack Keller and Howard Greenfield” was released today.


1961(21stof Nisan, 5721): Seventh Day of Pesach


1961: In Mexico City, soap opera star Abraham Stavchansky and his wife gave birth to Ilan Stavchansky who gained famed as Ilan Stavans, “Mexican-American, essayist, lexicographer, cultural commentator, translator, short-story author, publisher, TV personality, and teacher known for his insights into American, Hispanic, and Jewish cultures.”


1963: The New York Times published a review of The Femine Mystique by Betty Friedan


1965: Robert Louis Rogers began serving as Canada’s Ambassador to Israel.


1965: “Bus Riley's Back in Town” produced by Elliot Kastner and co-starring Janet Margolin and Larry Storch was released in the United States today.


1966: Birthdate of Beersheba native Zvika Hadar who gained fame as a television game show host.


1967: Israeli fighters shot down seven Syrian MIG-21s.  This episode turned out to be one of the many flashpoints on the road to the war that would be fought in June of 1967.  The Syrians were embarrassed and infuriated by the ease with which the Israelis swept their advanced MIG’s from the sky.  So they took action to encourage Nasser to follow an aggressive policy towards Israel that would ultimately lead to a clash of arms from which the region still has not recovered at the start of the 21st century.


1970: Birthdate of Rabbi Aaron Sherman


1974: “The Conversation” with music by David Shire and featuring Allen Garfield as William P. "Bernie" Moran was released in the United States today


1974: “Cinderella Liberty” produced and direct by Mark Rydell and co-starring James Caan and Eli Wallach and featuring Allan Arbus was released in Sweden today.


1975: Forty-five year old Beverly Sills debuted at the Metropolitan Opera


1975: Birthdate of Ilias Miroslva, “the Slovakian professor who walked bare into Gaza to ‘save’ 3 kids he never met.



1976: U.S. Premiere of “Sparkle” produced by Howard Rosenman who co-authored the script with Joel Schumacher.


1976: U.S. premiere of “The Bad News Bears” co-starring Walter Matthau and Vic Morrow with music by Jerry Fielding.


1977:The Jerusalem Postreported that in Washington Egyptian President Anwar Sadat announced that a "normalization" of relations with Israel would be possible only after the signing of a peace agreement at the reconvened Geneva Peace Conference and the establishment of a Palestinian state. A Soviet diplomat called unexpectedly at the Israeli Embassy in Washington to deliver a note from his leader, Leonid Brezhnev.


1977:The Jerusalem Postreported that Taiwan was reported to have purchased Israeli missiles.


1977:The Jerusalem Postreported that Senior Israeli pilots expressed criticism of the current safety measures at Ben-Gurion Airport and warned that unless these were taken care of, an eventual disaster was inevitable.


1981: Eighty-two year old Oscar Award winning director Norman Taurog whose forty-year carrier went from the Roaring Twenties to the Elvis Presley version of the 1960’s passed away today.



1984(5thof Nisan, 5774): Parashat Metzora


1984(5thof Nisan, 5744): Seventy-year old WW II Veteran, screenwriter and producer Samuel G. Engel, the President of the Screen Producers Guild and President of the Brandeis Institute of California passed away today.



1986: Nobel Prize winning author Elias Canetti wrote a profile of Israeli poet Avraham Ben-Yitzhak born Avraham Sonne for today’s edition of The New Yorker.


1985(16thof Nisan, 5745): Second Day of Pesach


1990: Michael Milken pleaded innocent to security law violations.


1992(4th of Nisan, 5752): Eighty year old Chess Grandmaster Samuel Reshevsky passed away today.



1993(16th of Nisan, 5753): Second Day of Pesach


1994(26th of Nisan, 5754):Yishai Gadassi, age 32, of Kvutzat Yavne, was shot and killed at a hitchhiking post at the Ashdod junction by a member of HAMAS. The terrorist was killed by bystanders at the scene. 1994(26th of Nisan, 5754):Based on information it attributed to Israel Radio, The Associated Press in Jerusalem, reported that Palestinian shot and wounded at least two Israelis at a bus stop in the southern Israel port of Ashod early today before he was shot dead by a bystander.


1994(26th of Nisan, 5754):Author Golo Mann, son of Thomas Mann and Katia Mann who was Jewish passed away today.



1994: ElioToaff who had been served as Chief Rabbi of Rome since 1951 co-officiated at the Papal Concert to Commemorate the Shoah at the Sala Nervi in Vatican City, along with Pope John Paul II, and the President of Italy Oscar Luigi Scalfaro.


1994:  For the first time theVatican acknowledged Holocaust i.e. the Nazi's killing of Jews.


1998: Under the leadership of Sandy Weill, Citicorp and Travelers Group announce plans to merge creating the largest financial-services conglomerate in the world, Citigroup.


2002: During Operation Defensive Shield, the Vatican “warned Israel to respect religious sites in line with its international obligations ignoring the fact that the Church of Nativity was at risk only because Palestinian terrorist had seized control of the venerable shrine.


2001(14thof Nisan, 5761): Parashat Tzav; Shabbat Hagadol; in the evening first Seder during the Presidency of George Bush.


2002: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including ''Gershom Scholem: A Life in Letters.''


2002: In a column entitled “A Jewish Avenger, A Timely Legend,” Alisa Solomon reviews the upcoming revival English language production of H. Leivick's Yiddish classic, ''The Golem,''


2002: MEMRI (The Middle East Media Research Institute) Special Dispatch  363 quotes Al-Azhar Mosque’s Sheikh Muhammad Sayed Tantawi as announcing “every martyrdom operation against any Israeli, including children, women, and teenagers are legitimate acts according to religious law, and Islamic commandment until the people of Palestine regain their land and cause the cruel Israeli aggression to retreat.”


2005:The Prince of Wales attended a memorial service for the Hon Dame Miriam Louisa Rothschild held today at the Liberal Jewish Synagogue in London. Rabbi Alexandra Wright, officiated, assisted by Rabbi Baroness Julia Neuberger. Rabbi Mark Solomon sang and Ms Andrea Hess, cello, played during the service. Attendees included Sir Evelyn de Rothschild, the Hon Emma Rothschild, Professor Sir John Gurdon and Lord Lester of Herne Hill, QC.


2006: David Bromberg appears at the Library of Congress to speak on the historic significance of that ever-under-appreciated musical instrument, the American-made violin. The sixty year-old musical legend owns nearly 250, some dating back more than 100 years. It is the largest such collection, and they are displayed in cabinets from one end of his living room to the other.


2007: The UJA-Federation of New York’s Music for Youth initiative holds a fund raising concert at New York’s Carnegie Hall.


2007: “Be” an “Israeli show that blends music, dance and sex appeal” was performed “Off Broadway” at the Union Square Theatre.


2007: The three day festival known as Boombamela comes to an end.The festival is described by its organizers as "a place for meeting, experiencing, crossing borders and transcending social limitations through music, creation, and connection with nature." It is held on the sandy beach of Hof Nitzanim, between Ashdod and Ashkelon.


2008(2nd of Nisan, 5768): Eighty-three year old “atomic spy” Ruth Greenglass, the wife of David Greenglass, died today.



2008: RSA Conference opens in San Francisco.  RSA was developed by Ronald Rivest (R), Adi Shamir (S) and Leonard Adelman (A) in 1977.


2008:Following the latest attack targeting Yemen’s few remaining Jews during which rebel Houthi militiamen destroyed several homes that had belonged to the now-absent Jewish community in the northwestern Saada province TheJerusalemPost reported on the conditions of Jews living in Yemen.



"The Houthis destroyed part of my house and looted it," Rabbi Yehia Youssuf told Reuters in the capital, San'a. All 67 members of Saada's Jewish community fled following threats from the Houthis, the rabbi says. Some locals say the Jews were threatened because they had been selling wine to Muslims - an accusation the Jews deny, according to Reuters. A local said the Shi'ite rebels attacked the houses of other Jews after looting the rabbi's. Around 400 Jews remain in the majority Sunni state, the remnant of an ancient, close-knit community that, while remaining connected to Jewish intellectual and legal developments outside Yemen, managed to insulate itself culturally until the 20th century. According to Dr. Dov Levitan, a scholar of Yemenite Jewry at Bar-Ilan University and the Academic College of Ashkelon, the Houthi clan targets Jews to embarrass the government internationally. Apparently unrelated intertribal fighting in the province killed at least 15 people in recent days as the Houthi tribe continued its intermittent violence, begun in June 2004, against the central government and its allies. Since the early 1990s, the Yemeni government "has been very conscious of its international image," explains Levitan. "So important is the country's image to its government that the Jews have excellent government protection." When their situation in Saada became precarious about a year ago, "they were flown out in a government plane to San'a. They receive a small stipend and live in a compound protected by state security forces. This kind of concern would have been unimaginable just 15 years ago," he says. The government's concern for its image, together with pressure from American Jewish groups and US legislators, led Yemen in the early 1990s to permit most of the remaining 2,000 Jews to emigrate to Israel and elsewhere, continuing a centuries-long trickle of aliya from the country. At the founding of the Jewish state in 1948, around 35,000 Yemenite Jews lived in Israel. Another 50,000 came in the immediate aftermath of the War of Independence. Most of the 1,600 Jews who left Yemen during the 1990s now live in Rehovot. The question of why Jews remain in Yemen remains. "We have contact with these Jews. They're not the Jews who came 60 years ago," the large wave of poor refugees who fled pogroms in Operation Magic Carpet, Levitan says. "They're more educated, they're better dressed, they wear watches and drive cars. Some of them have traveled overseas. They have property there, and they are connected historically. They don't want to leave a place that has been their natural environment for generations." The Yemenite Jewish community claims to have existed since the time of the First Temple, 2,600 years ago. While this claim has not been verified, "we know with certainty that they were there for at least 1,500 years," says Levitan. Despite its unique customs and liturgy, Yemenite Jewry was never disconnected from the broader Jewish world. "For example, we know that the letters of the [medieval Jewish philosopher and legalist] Maimonides arrived in Yemen. We know from the 14th to the 16th centuries they were connected enough to receive the Shulchan Aruch [halachic codex]. And in the 18th and 19th centuries they received printed Jewish prayer books and Talmuds from abroad when there was no Jewish press in Yemen," he said. Other pressures also affect the decision of Jews to remain. The anti-Zionist Satmar hassidim work to persuade the community not to move to Israel. "They give the remaining Jews money and holy books, take them to New York and London - anything to keep them from going to Israel," says Levitan. Also, the government's concern and protection are seen as complete and genuine by the community, he says.



2008:David Grossman's latest novel, Isha Borahat Mibesora (English title: "Until the end of the land") is released by Hasifria Hahadasha, Kibbutz Hameuchad and Siman Kriah books.



2008: The Years of Extermination: Nazi Germany and the Jews, 1939-1945 by Saul Friedlander won the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction.“In his second volume of a history of the Holocaust, Mr. Friedländer, 75, interwove segments from contemporary journals and letters into the more general description of the atrocities. “Usually the history of the Holocaust is written from the viewpoint of German documents and archives,” said Mr. Friedländer, who was born in Prague, escaped to France in 1939 and emigrated to Israel in 1948. He teaches history at the University of California, Los Angeles.”



2009:The Zionist Organization of America renewed its call today for a boycott of Coca-Cola products during Pesach on behalf of an Egyptian Jewish family that is suing the company over a property dispute. “Members of the Bigio family, now living in the US, are demanding compensation from the soft-drink giant, based in Atlanta, for bottling plants they say were expropriated by the Egyptian government in 1965 and illegitimately bought by the Coca-Cola Company in 1994.  The family, which sued in 1997 in US federal court, failed to reach a settlement with Coca-Cola in mediation talks that ended in March, according to its attorney, Nathan Lewin, who claimed the company had not offered a cash settlement to the Bigios.  "The Jewish public should boycott Coca-Cola products until Coca-Cola acts fairly and ethically and rights the wrong against the Bigios," Lewin, a ZOA board member, said in a statement.  Coca-Cola did not respond to phone and e-mail requests from The Jerusalem Post seeking comment on the case.  ZOA specifically called for a boycott of the company's kosher-for-Pesach drinks, which are also popular with connoisseurs because they are sweetened with real sugar instead of high-fructose corn syrup. "Coca-Cola may have a rabbinic hechsher for Passover, but it cannot get a hechsher for its immoral and unethical behavior," said ZOA president Morton Klein.  ZOA previously called for a boycott in 2007, and also protested outside the Coca-Cola Company's annual shareholders' meeting in 2008.”



2009:Today, two days before Passover, a University of Haifa archaeologist has unearthed foot-shaped structures he believes were constructed by the Israelites at the time of the Exodus from Egypt and move into the Promised Land.  The large structures were found in the Jordan Valley by Prof. Adam Zertal, who describes them as "the first structures the Israelites built on entering Canaan, and [which] testify to the biblical idea of ownership of the land." 



2009: “Picturing the Shoah,” a film festival sponsored by YIVO that explores  how movies have represented the Holocaust from radical, provocative, and unexpected angles continues with exhibitions of “Black Book” and “Sobibor, Oct. 14, 1943.



2010: Savyon Liebrecht, who was born in Munich to Holocaust survivors and is the author of The Women My Father Knewis scheduled to discuss growing up in a home of survivors, the psychological and social phenomena of the "second generation," and how these subjects manifest themselves in her stories and play at Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York.


 2010:The Tel Aviv municipality unveiled the city's new large-scale public bomb shelter today, built under the new Habima Theater. The advanced shelter, at 3,740 square meters, can hold as many as 1,600 people over four floors. There are five doors leading in, leading to five stairwells spanning through the four floors of the shelter. Next to the official bomb shelter an underground garage will provide a further 35,000 square meters. Although the garage will not be fortified, it will still prove a better option than the outdoors in case of an attack. Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilnai, who inspected the site, said the model was an impressive one and it should be copied in other cities.


2011: The Miracle Worker is scheduled to have its final performance today in Talpiot, Jerusalem, in the Way Off Theater.


2011:Yeshiva University Museum, American Jewish Historical Society, Center for Jewish History and Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum  are scheduled to present a panel discussion entitled: "Give us Your Tired, Your Poor, Your Huddled Masses....or Not: A New Model for Civic Dialogue Within and Beyond the Gallery Walls.


2011:In Rockville, MD, Magen David Sephardic Congregation is scheduled to present a lecture by David W. Jourdan, President & Founder of Nauticos entitled “Never Forgotten: The Search for Israel’s Lost Submarine Dakar.


2011:Philo Bregstein is scheduled deliver a lecture at London’s Wiener Library in which he re-evaluates Ashes in the Wind: The Destruction of Dutch Jewry” by Jacob Presser. When it was first published in 1965, the book triggered a fierce debate on the Holocaust in the Netherlands.”


2011:A number of terrorist cells are operating in the Sinai Peninsula with the goal of kidnapping Israeli nationals, security officials warned today ahead of the upcoming Pesach holiday. According to the official, the threat to Israelis was based on concrete and firm intelligence information obtained by Israel indicating that Hamas and other terrorist groups were trying to abduct Israelis, transfer them to the Gaza Strip and use them as bargaining chips in potential prisoner swaps with the country.


2011: Two people were wounded today after an anti-tank missile exploded into a bus traveling in one of the communities surrounding the Gaza Strip.  Following the attack, 16 additional mortar shells were fired at Israeli towns in the western Negev, most of them hitting open areas. Following the attack on the bus, in which a 16-year-old boy was seriously wounded and the bus driver was hurt moderately, a barrage of 15 rockets and mortars were fired at southern Israel, most of them hitting open areas. Defense authorities instructed residents in Israeli towns 4.5 kilometers from the Gaza Strip to stay in their protected areas. Several roads in the area were also blocked.


2011:Today, the Iron Dome missile defense system successfully intercepted for the first time a Grad rocket that was fired at the Israeli city of Ashkelon from the Gaza Strip. Iron Dome's success y marks the first time in history a short-range rocket was ever intercepted. According to reports from the area, the interception could be seen in Israeli towns near northern Gaza. The second Iron Dome battery was positioned in the area of Ashkelon over the weekend, in addition to a battery already placed north of Be'er Sheva.


2011: “In Washington, D.C., the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars of the United States’ Smithsonian Institution presented the Woodrow Wilson Award for Public Service to Jacques Attali, founder and president of PlaNet Finance.”


2011:  Today, Les editions CNRS will publish the philosopher and translator Nicolas Cavaillès’s “Cioran in Spite of HImself: Writing Against Oneself.” It appears one day before the 100thanniversary of the birth of Emil Cioran


2011:The local government of the Balearic Islands in Spain will, for the first time, officially acknowledge the suffering of a local community, whose ancestors were Jewish, at a ceremony in Palma de Majorca today. Balearic Island President, Francesc Antich Oliver, will attend the commemorative event held on the 320th anniversary of the killing of 33 locals who belonged to the Cheuta minority, and were executed by the Spanish Inquisition for secretly practicing Judaism in 1691. The Cheuta (also spelled Xeuta), is a community of about 20,000 people living on the Mediterranean islands whose ancestors were forcibly converted from Judaism to Christianity in the 15th century.


2012(15thof Nisan, 5772): First Day of Pesach


2012(15thof Nisan, 5772): Ninety-three year old television broadcast journalist Mike Wallace passed away today. (Tim Weiner)



2012(15thof Nisan): According to Chabad Lubavitch, “on the 15th of Nissan of the year 2447 from creation (1314 BCE) -- exactly one year before the Exodus -- Moses was shepherding the flocks of his father-in-law, Jethro, at the foot of Mount Sinai, when G-d appeared to him in a "thornbush that burned with fire, but was not consumed" and instructed him to return to Egypt, come before Pharaoh, and demand in the name of G-d: "Let My people go, so that they may serve Me." For seven days and seven nights Moses argued with G-d, pleading that he is the wrong person for the job, before accepting the mission to redeem the people of Israel and bring them to Sinai.


2013(27thof Nisan, 5773): Seventy-three year old “American comedy writer and screenwriter” and “lifelong friend of Woody Allen” Mickey Rose passed away today.



2013(27thof Nisan, 5773): Seventy-four year old “Peter Workman, the founder of Workman Publishing, whose knack for landing best-selling trade books like “What to Expect When You’re Expecting,” and “The Silver Palate Cookbook” built his company into one of the few remaining independent book publishers in the country” passed away today.



2013: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Fear Itself by Ira Katzneson and FDR and the Jews by Richard Breitman and Allan J. Lichtman


2013: The Arab-Israeli ensemble of the IPO is scheduled to perform in Los Angeles.


2013: The YIVO Institute for Jewish Research is scheduled to present a screening of “Chronicle of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising According to Marek Edelman.”


2013: Start of “National Days of Remembrance” sponsored by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.”



2013: Hamas terrorists, who declare openly their wish to commit genocide against the Jewish people, marked Holocaust Remembrance Day their way today – with a salvo of rockets fired at Jewish civilians. Three rockets were fired, the action timed to coincide with the official Holocaust Remembrance Day ceremony taking place in Jerusalem at the same time. One rocket exploded in an open space within the Shaar Hanegev Regional Authority's jurisdiction, causing no injuries or damage. The embedded video shows a Holocaust Remembrance Day ceremony being interrupted by a "Color Red" warning, giving residents a few seconds to reach shelter from an incoming rocket (As reported by Gil Ronen)


2013: Anti-Israel hackers failed in their declared plan to wipe the Jewish state from the internet on Yom HaShoah.


2013: Second season of “House of Lies” co-starring Ben Schwartz came to an end.


2014: The Tulane University Jewish Studies Department under the chairmanship of Dr. Brian J. Horowitz is scheduled to host “Nazi Film- Melodrama” a lecture by Visiting Professor Laura Heins author of Nazi Film Melodrama.


2014: In Cannes, the MIPTV event that will include a “Focus On Israel” series “that will include lectures and screenings featuring the hottest content out of the Holy Land” is scheduled to open today.


2014: The anti-Semitic “hacker group known as Anonymous” is scheduled to launch OpIsrael, its second annual attack on the cyber infrastructure of Israel.


2014: Jael Silliman author of The Man With Many Hats and a former Professor at the University of Iowa is scheduled to deliver a talk that “will present a rich visual tour of the Calcutta Jewish community


2014: In Cedar Rapids, Iowa, the Thaler Holocaust Memorial Fund chaired by Dr. Bob Silber is scheduled to co-host “A Service of Remembrance for the Victims of the Holocuast” featuring Holocaust Survivor Cesare Frustaci.


2015: “Shall We Dance,” “the award winning Israeli theatre show” is scheduled to be performed at the Kraine Theatre tonight.


2015: Mayor Rahm Emanuel was re-elected mayor of Chicago today.


2015: In a new book, Silence No More, published today the nephew of Nelly Voskuijl posited she was a Nazi collaborator who revealed the Amsterdam hideout of the family of Anne Frank.



2016: “Dough” is scheduled to be shown at the opening night of the Northern Virginia Jewish Film Festival.


2016: “The American Sephardi Federation, The Aristides Sousa Mendes Virtual Museum, the American Jewish Historical Society, Centro de Portugal Office of Tourism, the Leo Baeck Institute, Luso-Americain Foundation, International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation, Sousa Mendes Foundation, and the YIVO Institute for Jewish History are scheduled to host the reception marking the opening of “Portugal, The Last Hope: Sousa Mendes’ Visas for Freedom.”


2016: The Skirball Center is scheduled to host an evening with architect Daniel Libeskind whose designs include the Jewish Museum in Berlin, the Danish Jewish Museum and the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco.


2016: In Memphis, TN, Temple Israel is scheduled to host a musical evening presented by Cantorial Soloist Abbie Strauss and Friends.


2016: “The American Jewish Historical Society, Museum at Eldridge Street, Anne Frank Center USA, Multifaith Alliance for Syrian Refugees” are scheduled to host a roundtable discussion on “Yearning to Breathe Free: The Jewish Response to the Global Refugee Crisis.”


2016: “Presenting Princess Shaw” is scheduled to be shown at the Westchester Jewish Film Festival today.


2016(28th of Adar II, 5776): Eighty-eight year old furniture designer Vladimir Kagan passed away today.



2016: David Feldman, Director of the Pears Institute for the study of Antisemitism, is scheduled to deliver a lecture the Cecil Roth Lecture - Living with Others: Jews and Other Minorities in England since the Seventeenth Century.


2017:  In the early hours of this day Prime Minister Netanyahu praised the United States missile attacks on a Syrian base after the Assad regime had launched a gas attack against its own citizens,


2017: As Jews “eat down their chametz in preparation for Pesach” in Memphis, TN, Temple Israel is scheduled to host a family-themed Preneg followed by a Musical Shabbat led by Abbie Strauss.


2018: The Lysander Piano Trio and clarinetist Charles Neidich are scheduled to present a program that showcases works by composers Paul Ben-Haim, Béla Bartók, Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco and Paul Hindemith, who were forced from their homelands during the rise of Nazism and fascism” at Drake University in Des Moines, IA.


2018: Chabad in Iowa City under the leadership of Rabbi Avrohom Belsofsky is scheduled to host Seudat Moshiach (Moshiach’s Meal) this evening.


2018(22nd of Nisan, 5778: Eighth Day of Pesach; last day of the holiday.http://downhomedavartorah.blogspot.com/


 


 


 


 


 


This Day, April 8, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. Levin

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April 8


73(15th of Nisan, 3833): The Great Revolt came to an end today when the defenders of Masada completed their murder/suicide pact


217: Assassination of Roman Emperor Caracalla.  Some Romans may Caracalla who was officially known as Antonius, as a disgrace to his office.  Caracalla extended the right of citizenship to all of those living in the empire as a way of raising additional taxes.  Under the “law of unintended consequences” this improved the status of the Jews.  While Caracalla showed no special affection for his Jewish subjects, he did not single them out for any special disabilities or punishments except for one matter of taxation. This was an improvement over life under some of his predecessors and many of his successors. When it came to taxes, Caracalla took as much as he could.  Since the time of Julius Caesar, the Jews of Palestine had been exempt from paying certain taxes during the Sabbatical Year.  The taxes were paid in produce which was used to feed the army.  Caracalla put an end to the exemption. Caracalla was fighting the Parthians in 216 which was a Sabbatical Year.  Rabbi Janni, a contemporary of Judah haNasi, ruled that it was permissible for the Jews of Palestine to grow crops during the Sabbatical Year so that they could pay these taxes.  He made it clear that this was a special exemption and in no way was intended as an abrogation of the Sabbatical Year.


426: Emperors Theodosius II and Valentinian III decree that Jewish parents and grandparents cannot disinherit any children and grandchildren who convert to Christianity.  This was designed to enhance the spread of Christianity since under the decree those who converted to other religions could be disinherited.


1094(19th of Nisan): Mathematician and astronomer Rabbi Isaac ben Baruch Albalia, author of “Kuppat ha-Rochlin, passed away.




1139:  Roger II of Sicily is excommunicated. Roger may have had his problems with Innocent II, but for a monarch of his time, the Jews benefited from his rule.  Roger allowed the Jews to be tried under their own legal system; the same privilege that he had extended to his Greek and Saracen subjects.  One of his close advisors was known to be sympathetic to the Jews going so far as to visit their synagogues and to donate money for the support of the community.  Finally, Roger brought a significant contingent of Greek Jews to Palermo, the capital of Sicily, who were supposed to tend silk-worms in an attempt to develop the silk trade.


1484: Local farmers of Arles, France, led by the town's monks attacked the Jewish section of the town. A number of people were killed and 50 men were forced to accept Christianity.



1559: “Dominican monks distributed inflammatory pamphlets in Cremona, Italy, urging the populace to kill the Jews.” (As reported by Abraham P. Bloch)


1730: In New York, the (first) Mill Street Synagogue which is known as Shearith Israel was consecrated. It was the first structure designed and built to be a synagogue in continental North America. During the time the congregation was at Mill Street, the Sephardic leadership worried it might become Ashkenazic. The compromise within the Jewish community was they agreed the president of the congregation would be Ashkenazi, while the services would remain under the traditional Spanish and Portuguese rite, under the guise of a Sephardic chazzan. It is now known as the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue.  One of its most famous leaders was Gershom Menes Seixas, a patriot during the Revolution, who had to leave when the British took the city.  A 1744 visitor noted that congregation's women "of whom some were very pretty, stood up in the gallery like a hen coop."


1754(16thof Nisan, 5514): Second Day of Pesach


1773(15thof Nisan, 5633): Pesach


1773: Raphael Hayyim Isaac Carregal, the native of Palestine who was reported to be the first ordained Rabbi to visit the colonies that would become the United States was described by Ezra Stiles as wearing "a high Fur Cap, exactly like a Woman’s Muff, and about 9 or 10 Inches high, the Aperture atop was closed with green cloth" at Passover services today.


1790: According to some sources, birthdate of Ruth Luzzatto, who gained fame as “Rachel Morpurgo: Queen of the Hebrew Sonnet.”




1792(16thof Nisan, 5552): Second Day of Pesach


1801:  Soldiers rioted and killed 128 Jews in Bucharest.


1817(22nd of Nisan, 5577): 8th day of Pesach


1819: A traveler who stopped in Joannina (Yanina), Greece acknowledged the following:
"In going out of the village this morning, soon after the sun rose, we passed a Turk, richly dressed, sitting upon a carpet, under a fig tree just budding…I know of no European habit of life so picturesque, as the Eastern one. Greek, Turk, and Hebrew enjoy nearly an equal protection."


1845(1stof Nisan, 5605): Rosh Chodesh


1845(1stof Nisan, 5605): Solomon Rosenthal, the younger son of Naftali Rosenthal -one of the most important leader of Hungarian Jewry- who was “active in Haskalah and Jewish culture life” passed away today in Pest. 


1847: Birthdate of Karl Wittegenstein, the Austrian steel tycoon who was often compared to his friend Andrew Carnegie.  Like so many 18thEuropean Jews, Wittegenstein converted.  For him Vienna was apparently well worth a Mass.


1851: Abraham Abrahamsohn arrived in San Francisco.  A baker by trade, Abrahamsohn had left his wife and children in Pomerania (Germany) to seek his fortune in America.  On his first day in San Francisco he “set up a canvas-roofed store” on the Long Wharf” where he made $85 in one day.  After several exciting years, Abrahamson returned to Germany where he published Interesting Accounts of the Travels of Abraham Abrahamsohn to America and Especially to the Gold Mines of California and Australia in 1856.


1857: In New York City, Rabbi Simon Brenner and Caroline Alexander gave birth to Jacob Brenner, the product of the Brooklyn public schools and Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Kings County Republican Committee who served as a city magistrate in New York City, Commissioner of Jurors of Kings County, NY and President of Temple Beth-Elhoim and was the husband of Louise Blumeanu, “the daughter of real estate developer of Levi Blumenau.


1863: Birthdate of Jules Huret who authored Sarah Bernhardt, a biography of the famous Jewish performer


1868: Birthdate of Paul Bornstein, the native of Berlin where he earned his Ph.D. and published and edited numerous works, the most important of which “was an encyclopedic review of achievements in every sphere of activity and thought in Germany during the nineteenth century.”


1869: Jacob Bibo, an orphan who was the brother of Isaac R. Bibo and who had been working for a pawnbroker in the Bowery after leaving the Hebrew Orphan Asylum “went out on the Bowery to meet some other boys of his own aged” tonight “and has never been seen or heard of by any of his friends or relatives since”


1873:Sir Julius Vogel begins serving his first term as Prime Minister of New Zealand.  Vogel was the first practicing Jew to hold this position.


1875: In Syracuse, NY, Solomon Silverstein and Esther Shevelson gave birth to Albert Silverstein the Yale graduate, “the assistant professor Orthopedic Surgery at the Denver and Gross College of Medicine” who served in the medical department of the United States Army…during the Spanish-American War and the Filipino Insurrection.”


1876(14thof Nissan, 5636):“Passover: The Jewish Feast of Unleavened Bread” published today stated that “this evening will be marked by the peculiar ceremonies incident to the Jewish festival of "Pesach" or Passover. This festival, which is also known as the "feast of unleavened bread," continues for eight days, and, with the exception of the New-Year feast and the Day of Atonement, is more generally observed than any of the very numerous festal days in the Hebraic calendar.”


1876: In Amsterdam, Karel Abraham Wertheim and Henriette van Heikelom gave birth to Gustav Abraham Wertheim van Heukelom


1879(15thof Nisan, 5639): Pesach


1879(15th of Nisan, 5639): In New York, Rabbi Frederick De Sola Mendes delivered the sermon at Shaarai Tefilla, Rabbi Henry S. Jacobs delivered the sermon at B’nai Jeshurun and Rabbi H.P. Mendes delivered the sermon at Shearith Israel.


1884: The Turkish government is a proclamation today “forbidding the immigration of Jews of any nationality, except for pilgrims who were restricted to a stay of thirty days.”


1884: In New York, German native Marks Arnheim and Fannie Arnheim gave birth to Minnie Z. Arnheim


1887(14th of Nisan, 5647): Rabbi Gustav Gottheill led the well-attended Passover eve services at Temple Emanu-El in New York City.


1887: Prince Ferdinand of Bulgaria was “among the mourners at Lucien Hirsch’s funeral” which was held today.


1887: Birthdate of Walter Supper, the native of Hamm who refused to divorce his Jewish his wife which ended his successful career as a screenwriter,


1887(14th of Nisan, 5647): “The Feast of the Passover” published today stated that “the celebration of Pesach, or the Passover, will begin at sunset this evening.  The feature of the celebration is the substitution of the matzoth or unleavened cakes for bread…”


1888: The tenth annual meeting of the Hebrew Orphan Asylum Society of Brooklyn was held today


1888: As of today there were 57 boys and 20 girls living at the Hebrew Orphan Asylum in Brooklyn.


1890: Among the victims of a riot by 8,000 unemployed workers in Vienna were the several shops owned by Jews which were plundered by the mob.


1891: In Australia, Sir John Monash, who would lead the Aussies during World War I, married Hannah Victoria Moss. Their only child, Bertha, would be born 2 years later in 1893.  


1891: John Duncan is the architect for the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society’s building now being built by Lynd Brothers. The new building will be 66 feet wide and 125 feet and will enable the society to double its capacity from 400 t0 800 orphans.  The $90,000 cost will be covered by raised by board members and prominent supports including Philip J. Joachimsen, the founder of the society and Moses Lauterbach, Chairman of the Advisory Board.


1891: U.S.N. Lt. Jonathan M. Emanuel, the native of England and current resident of Philadelphia retired today having served at sea for 15 years and 3 months.


1891: It was reported today that the self-inflicted gunshot wounds have proven to be fatal in the case of Siegfried Lewisohn, 28 year old German Jewish cheese importer who fired two bullets into his left breast after having grown despondent over the death of his wife.


1892: In the “Persecuted Jew” published today, a writer using the nom de plume “American Girl” expresses her belief that we can do more for the Jews whom she describes as persecuted outcast than answer “their call for bread” and calls upon the press to help right the wrongs done against these people.


1892: In Leopoldstadt, Vienna, Samuel Neutra, the “proprietor of a metal foundry” and Elizabeth “Betty” Glaser Neutra gave birth to “Austrian-American architect Richard Joseph Neutra.


1892: During today’s lecture on Jerusalem and the Holy land, John L. Stoddard displayed a large, rare photographic collection that included views of Jaffa and Jerusalem not seen by most Americans.


1893(22nd of Nisan, 5653): 8th day of Pesach


1893: Birthdate of Ft. Wayne, Indiana native Samuel James Pearlman the graduate of the University of Chicago and Rush Medical College, the ear, nose and throat specialists who practiced in Chicago after serving in the Army during WW I both a Camp Grant and the U.S.A. base hospital at Sarenay, France.


1893: Karl Luger, a deputy in the Austrian parliament addressed an anti-Semitic rally in Vienna tonight “at which the Jews were violently denounced.”


1893: Cardinal Herbert Alfred Vaughn was appointed Archbishop of Westminster. According to Lawrence Jeffrey Epstein, once when Vaughn was having lunch with Dr, Hermann Adler, the Chief Rabbi of the British Empire, he asked "Now, Dr. Adler, when may I have the pleasure of helping you to some ham?" The rabbi responded: "At Your Eminence's wedding".


1895: Birthdate of Barney Gorodetsky who gained fame as comedian Bert Gordon known as “the Mad Russian.”


1895: “A package of clothing addressed to the United Hebrew Charities” was sold for $23 at today unclaimed parcels auction held by the American Express.  It was the highest price paid for any of the unclaimed items.


1895 (14th of Nisan, 5655): “The Feast of the Passover” published today describes the current status of the observance of Pesach.  “The celebration of Pesach…will be begun by the Jewish people throughout the world this evening…Those of the Jewish community who still cling to the orthodox observances of the Hebraic ritual continue the celebration of the festival for eight day, the first two and last two days of that period being observed as strict holy days.  Those who have accepted the modern or reform ritual celebrate only the first and the last day of the festival.”


1896: Lewis May, President of Temple Emanu El has sent “a communication” the Union Veteran Hebrew Association offering the use of the city’s synagogues for memorial services.  Among those planning for the Memorial Day celebration are Isaac Eckstein, Isaac J. Siskin and Otto Lassner.


1896: A committee of the New York State Board of Charities that has been investigating the Ladies’ Deborah Nursery and Child Protectory submitted its report this afternoon.


1896: “Jews In Our Wars” published today provided a detailed review of The American Jew As A Patriot, Soldier and Citizen, a book written to counter the claims of anti-Semites had shirked their role as soldiers in the United States.


1896: “Scenes in the Orient” published a review of A Cruise Under the Crescent a travel book that includes descriptions of visits to Jerusalem, by Charles Warren Stoddard in which the author “tells of that vexation all travelers feel as the authenticity of the shrines in Palestine”


1897(6th of Nisan, 5657): Eighty-two year old Hungarian rabbi and Talmudic scholar Samuel Low Brill passed away.


1897: Birthday of Zhovka native Sir Hersh Lauterpacht, “a member of the United Nations' International Law Commission from 1952 to 1954 and a Judge of the International Court of Justice from 1955 to 1960.”


1897: Karl Lueger, the anti-Semitic politician, began his services as Mayor of Vienna. Historians do not agree as to the depth of Lueger’s anti-Semitism.  Some, including Amos Elon contend it was more of a political ruse designed to garner votes and power. 


1897: Birthdate of Jo Swerling, the native of Berdichev who grew up on the Lower East Side and became a leading lyricist and writer.


1897: In an article describing the Jewish observance of the Blessing of the New Sun, the New York Times reports that synagogue records “show that the new sun service has been conducted by orthodox Hebrews in this country at intervals of twenty-eight years for 180 years.”


1898(16thof Nisan, 5658): Second Day of Pesach


1898:  Birthdate of E Y "Yip" Harburg.  Born Isidore Hochberg, to Orthodox Jewish parents on New York's lower east side, Harburg appears to have enjoyed a reasonably happy childhood with his parents exposing to him art, literature and the Yiddish theatre.  After trying his hand at everything from journalism to selling appliances, Hochberg began a successful career as a lyricist during the depths of the Great Depression.  His first financial and artistic angel was Ira Gershwin.  Harburg wrote the words to the Depression hit "Brother Can You Spare A Dime."  While you may not know his name, anybody who has seen the Wizard of Oz, has heard several Harburg hits.  Harburg's career disintegrated during the Red Scare of the 1950's.  He died in an automobile accident in 1961.


1899: “The Young Folks’ League of the Hebrew Infant Asylum” is scheduled to “give its fourth annual amateur performance” this “evening at the Lexington Opera House.”


1899: The approximately 10,000 members of various trade unions who were taking part in the Socialist and Organized Labor Day Parade paused at Greene Street and Washington Place, and stood in front of the ruins of the Asch Building where 145 people many of them young Jews lost their lives in the recent Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire.


1899: A review published today of The Bible and Its Transmission by Dr. W.A. Coplinger which is an historical and bibliographical view of the Hebrew and Greek texts, notes that it contains illustrations from the first printed portion of the Hebrew Bible which was completed in 1447 in Bologna


1899: Benjamin Weinstein and official of the Hebrew Trades Union was among the speakers who addressed those participating in the Socialist Labor Day Parade.


1900: Birthdate of Gavriel Mullokandov, the native of Samarkand who was regarded by some “as the greatest Bukharian Jewish singer and musician.”


1902: Birthdate of Josef Alois Krips the Austrian conductor and violinist who left his homeland during the Nazi period because his father’s Jewish would have precluded him from pursuing his career (and might have led to an eventual trip to a concentration camp.)


1904(23rdof Nisan, 5664): In Frankfort-on-Main, author Chaim M. Horowitz passed away.


1905(3rdof Nisan, 5665): Parashat Tazria


1905(3rdof Nisan, 5665): Seventy-seven year old Philadelphian Barnett Phillips, the son of London native Isaac Phillips and husband of Sarah Moss who was a banker, member of the Philadelphia City Council and founder of the American Jewish Historical Society passed away today.



1908: Harvard University votes to establish the Harvard Business School. Among its Jewish graduates are Donna Dubinksy, Gabi Ashkenazi, Len Blavatnik, Michael Bloomberg, Stephen Allen Schwarzman and Robert Kraft.


1908: The Passover Relief Association of Harlem distributed 2,000 pounds of Matzah, 300 pounds of coffee and other items necessary to celebrate the upcoming holiday of Passover to the needy east side Jews today.


1910: Large Jewish owned mercantile houses in Salonika announce 1% of all cash takings will go toward the cost of new Turkish warships.


1911: In St. Paul, MN, Russian immigrants Elias Calvin and Rose Herwitz gave birth to Nobel Prize Winner Melvin Ellis Calvin.




1911: In the Bronx, Morris Kaplan a candy store owner who worked as a textile cutter and his wife gave birth to Judge Benjamin Kaplan, “who as an Army officer helped craft the indictment of the Nazi war criminals who were tried at Nuremberg, and who later became a Harvard law professor and served nine years on the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court.” (As reported by Bruce Weber)


1912(21stof Nisan, 5672) Seventh Day of Pesach


1915(24thof Nisan, 5675): Sixty-five year old New York William Gans who had been a partner with fellow attorney Samuel B. Hamburger for 35 years and who was active in numerous Jewish charities and fraternal organizations including the Maimonides Library of which he was President, passed away today.



1916: As of today, The Special Million Dollar Fund of the American Jewish Relief Committee “is nearing the $4,000,000 mark.”1917(16th of Nisan, 5677): Second Day of Pesach as the United States gears up to fight in World War I.


1917: Dr. Felix Adler delivered a talk on “The National Crisis” today in which he expressed his “disagreement with the pacifists and upheld the country’s right to enter the war” as long as American did not lose “their horror of war and fought with a sense of shame that the state of the world was such they had to fight.”


1917: “The Jewish League of American Patriots announced that Samuel Untermyer, head of the league” will be going to Washington, D.C. “to confer with the Secretary of War.”


1917: The Jewish League of American Patriots “sent a request to the Park Department” in New York City, “for the use of Seward Park and Jackson park for drilling grounds.”


1917: “Ambassador Gerard spoke for a few minutes” today “at a fair and concert at the Star Casino”  which was being held  to “raise $5,000 for Jewish war sufferers at Warsaw” and “said he had made arrangements before leaving Switzerland for continuation of the transmission of funds to Jewish victims of the war in Poland.”


1917: Today, Herbert S. Goldstein announced “his resignation as Associate Rabbi Congregation Kehilath Jesharun at 117 East Eighty-Fifth Street.


1917: Sir Mark Sykes wrote to the British Foreign Secretary, Lord Balfour, “That the French were hostile to the notion of bringing the United States into Palestine as a patron of Zionism.”


1917: Chaim Weizmann cabled Louis Brandeis, advising that "an expression of opinion coming from yourself and perhaps other gentlemen connected with the Government in favor of a Jewish Palestine under a British protectorate would greatly strengthen our hands."


1918: The Immigration Restriction League was instrumental in getting Congress to consider a legistlation that was designed to reduce the number of immigrants coming from Southern Eastern Europe including the large number of Russian and Romanian Jews whose co-religionists had been finding refuge in the United States since the 1880’s


1918: During World War I, Charlie Chaplin led a group of Hollywood stars in selling war bonds on the streets of New York City’s financial district.


1919: According to a message received in Copenhagen today from the Press Bureau, “the German national government will not recognize the new Soviet Republic of Bavaria” whose leaders included Ernst Toller.


1920(20th of Nisan, 5680): The Sixth Day of Pesach


1920: After days of Arab rioting, Jews in Jerusalem are able to observe a day of the holiday in peace.


1923(22nd of Nisan, 5683): 8th day of Pesach


1926: “Mrs. Abram I. Elkus, Chairman of the Women’s Division in the United Jewish Campaign in New York to raise $500,000 of the city’s $6,000,000 quota fro relief and rehabliation of Jews in Eastern Europe announced” today “that Mrs. Alfred E. Smith, the wife of the Governor and Mrs. James. J. Walker, wife of the Mayor, would in association with Mrs. Jacob H. Schiff as honorary chairman of the Women’s Division in” New York City.


1926: Birthdate of Sheldon Greenfield, the Chicago native who gained fame as comedian Shecky Greene


1927: “Bishop Dunn Praises Work In Palestine” published today described the views of “The Right Reverend John J. Dunn, Bishop Auxiliary of the Diocese of New York who had just returned to the United States who “spoke with enthusiasm of the improvements brought about” in Palestine “by the Zionists” and said “it is impossible to say enough for the work done there” under the leadership of Nathan Straus which will “within ten years” make “Palestine…one of the most thriving sections of the world.


1929: In Tel Aviv, Sir John Chancellor, the High Commissioner to Palestine, presided over the opening of the fourth Palestine and Near East exhibition.


1930: Mickey Cohen fought his first professional bout in Cleveland, Ohio


1930: During a visit to Palestine where he is gathering material for a novel based on Jacob and Joseph, Nobel Prize winning author Thomas Mann compared Zionism “in its ideals and purposes to the Romantic movement among the Germans in the 19thcentury.”  Mann was especially impressed by the Jews of Tel Aviv who seemed “freer and happier” than Jews living elsewhere.  “He believes that Tel Aviv has a bright future because of the wide-awakeness and intellectuality of its people.”


1931: Publication of “When Judge Cardozo Writes” by Felix Frankfurter, a case of one future Jewish Supreme Court Justice writing about another future Jewish Supreme Court Justice.



1933: Ludwig Kaas met Vice Chancellor Von Papen who was on his to offer a Reichskonkordat to the Vatican met on the train to Rome


1935: Birthdate of Broadway lyricist Fred Ebb.  Along with John Kinder he created numerous musicals including Chicago and Cabaret.


1935: “Sanders of the River” produced by Alexander Korda and directed by Zoltán Korda, who received “the first of his four nominations for Best Film at the Venice Film Festival” for this effort was released today in the United Kingdom.


1935: Congressional legislation created the Works Progress Administration, which developed millions of jobs for the unemployed. WPA agencies placed 8.5 million Americans on the federal payroll, including hundreds of Yiddish actors, writers, scene designers and theater directors hired for the administration’s Federal Theatre Project. Among those directly employed by the WPA was economist Solomon Adler.


1936(16th of Nisan, 5696): 2nd day of Pesach; 1st day of the Omer


1936(16th of Nisan, 5696):Robert Bárány, who won the Noble Prize for Medicine in 1914, passed away.



1936: “A total world Jewish population of 16, 240,000 of whom 5,000,000 or 30 percent live in the Americas was reported to by the Jewish Scientific Institute.”


1936: “A feature of Reich Bishop Ludwig Mueller’s Germanization of Christ’s Sermon on the Mount is the elimination of all references to Jerusalem, King Solomon, Pharisees and scribes, laws and prophets and the Ten Commandments as made in the Gospel according to Mathew” because “these references were held to be Jewish and therefore to be rejected.”


1936: It was reported today that effective April 12, Easter Sunday, “all Jewish school children from 6 to 14 years of age must leave public schools.”


1936: For the second day in a row Mr. and Mrs. Joseph L. Buttenweiser opened their home to the public where visitors paid a dollar to view their art collection with the proceeds going to the fund being raised in the United States to settle Jewish refugees from Europe in Palestine.


1937:  Birthdate of Seymour Hersh.  A graduate of the University of Chicago, Hersh is a Pulitzer Award winning reporter for the New York Times.  


1937: The Palestine Post reported from London that there was some concern among members of the House of Commons over rumors of the possibility that the Royal (Peel) Commission on Palestine might propose partition. Col. J.C. Wedgwood, MP, declared that the proposed partition of Palestine into a Jewish and an Arab state meant "the scuttling of British responsibilities under the Mandate."


1938: In Laupheim, Germany as the Nazis tightened the economic noose around the neck of the Jews, “the Jewish cattle traders were allocated a separate part on the weekly cattle market


1939: In Philadelphia, PA, Margaret Doris Bruck and Albert H. Schart gave birth to Trina Schart Hyman, artist and book illustrator who won the Caldecott Medal in 1985.


1939: In Hungary, “the First Jewish Bill was tabled today about a month after the annexation of Austria.”


1940:  Soviet troops began the massacre of what would finally total 26,000 Polish officers in Katyn Forest near Smolensk, Russia. Many Jews were among the victims.


1940: At 1:00 pm today FDR had lunch with New York Governor Herbert H. Lehman at Hyde Park.


1941: According to some sources the Nazis established Kielce (Poland) ghetto today. Others report that the ghetto was actually established on March 31, 1941.  Regardless, there is no conflict that the ghetto was liquidated in August, 1942 when 21,000 Jews were sent to Treblinka.  A remnant was shipped to Auschwitz in August of 1944.   Kielce's real claim to fame is that on July 4, 1946, the returning Jews were subjected to "an old-fashioned Nazi Pogrom" complete with tales of the blood libel.


1942: Two year old Eldad Davidovics was deported from Brno to Terezin today.


1942: The Crimean Peninsula was declared Juednfrei or Jew Free.  When the Nazis and their allies took the Crimea (part of the Soviet Union) in October of 1941, the Jewish population numbered between fifty and sixty thousand.  The Einsatzgruppen Units (special squads assigned to murder Jews) with the help of the local population took part in what was to date, the worst "ethnic cleansing" of the war.


1942:Nora Kaye's performance as Hagar in the world premiere of "Pillar of Fire" at the Ballet Theatre established her as one of the world's prima ballerinas.


1943(3rd of Nisan, 5703):Itamar Ben-Avi the son of Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, who revived Hebrew as a modern language, passed away while working as journalist in New York City. (For more see Itamar Ben-Avi by Frederick P. Miller)


1943(3rd of Nisan, 5703): The Nazis began executing Jews near Ternopol in the Ukraine.  By the time they finish on the following day, one thousand Jews will have been murdered. One thousand Jews are executed near Ternopol, Ukraine.


1943: In Buffalo, NY, Helen Ternoff who was Jewish and her husband Salvatore DiFiglia who was not gave birth to Michael Bennett DiFiglia who gained fame as seven-time Tony Award winning choreographer Michael Bennett.



1944(15th of Nisan, 5704): Pesach


1944: The Jewish Agency telegraphed from Istanbul to Jerusalem that the steamship Maritza carrying 244 Jewish refugees from Romania had arrived that day in the Turkish port and that the passenger would be leaving in two days’ time by train for Palestine.


1945: At Buchenwald at noon Polish engineer Gwidon Damazyn, an inmate since March 1941, and Russian prisoner Konstantin Ivanovich Leonov sent the Morse code message prepared by leaders of the prisoners' underground resistance.


1945: Hans von Dohnányi, who would be recognized as one of the Righteous Among the Nations, was executed today at Sachsenhausen concentration camp for his role in resistance to Hitler.


This included smuggling Jews out of Germany, seeing to it that their funds were transferred to where they could access them and for his role in the plot to kill Hitler.


1945: Betty Warner and Milton Sperling gave birth to their second child Karen who was one of the granddaughters of Harry Warner.


1946: Golda Meir, a leader of the Jewish Agency received the following telegram.  “We are 1100 Jewish refugees.  We sailed from Spezia for Palestine-our last hope.  Police arrested us on board.   We won’t leave the ship!  We demand permission to continue to Eretz-Israel Be warned:  we will sink with the ship if we are not allowed to continue to Palestine, because we cannot be more desperate.”


1946: Margaret and Hans Rey (the creator of Curious George) became United States Citizens. [Louise Borden has written a cute, fascinating tale about the Rey’s entitled “The Journey That Saved Curious George”.


1947:  Henry Ford, the creator of the Model-T passed away.  Ford may have had his moments as an industrialist, but he proved to be a notorious anti-Semite.  Among other things, he published and disseminated untold numbers of copies of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.  Ford actually believed this notorious fabrication.  His later apology was treated with various degrees of belief and disbelief.  For several decades, there were many Jews who would not by a Ford product.


1948: In New York, about 1,500 large concern in the garment and needle trades industries closed shop at 4 P.M. to per employees to part in” “the special services of prayer and intercession for Palestine” being held in temples and synagogues throughout the city.


1948: “Rabbi Irving Miller, chairman of the Administrative council of the Zionist Organization of America “denounced the arms embargo that forbids the shipment of weapons to the Jewish people in Palestine” while “speaking at the Congregation Sons of Israel at Woodmere, Long Island. 


1949: “Again” a popular song with music by Lionel Newman which had been recorded by Mel Tormé reached the Billboard magazine Best Seller chart today and lasted 15 weeks on the chart, peaking at #11


1949: Mel Tormé recording of “Blue Moon” by Rogers and Hart reached the Best Seller chart today where it lasted for five weeks.


1950: In Tel Aviv, Australian Jack Harper won the singles title of Israel’s International Open Tennis Tournament.


1950: After 380 performances the curtain came down on the original Broadway production of “Miss Liberty” directed my Moss Hart and choreographed by Jerome Robbins


1950: As the condition of the Jews in Iraq worsened, today, "the Zionist organization in Iraq call on all Iraqi Jews who wished to do so to register for emigration"  to Israel. The plight of the Jews of this ancient community had become so desperate that within three weeks "47,000 Jews" would present "themselves at registration centers in the main synagogues.  They did so despite the fact that they had to sign a declaration renouncing their Iraqi citizenship forever and effectively surrendering most of their property and goods.


1952: The Jerusalem Post reported from The Hague that reparations talks were suspended after Germany found only a $750m.justification for the joint Jewish-Israeli claim for $1,000m. Later Germany expressed surprise at the Israeli claim that the talks were suspended. The Israeli delegation reported that it had found the German statement completely unsatisfactory and that it would report fully to the Israeli government for consideration, review and decision.


1952: The Jerusalem Post reported that The IDF graduated 600 cadets of all services, the largest number ever trained to become officers.


1953: Sixteen year old J. David Bleich walked outside of his father’s synagogue in Lewiston, PA where he joined congregants in Birkat Hachmah, Blessing the Sun


1956(27thof Nisan, 5716): Sixty-seven year old Lithuanian native Zee (Wolf) Gold who served as a rabbi for congregations in Chicago, San Francisco and New York passed away today.



1957: Four years after opening on Broadway with the help of Anna Sakolow, “Camino Rea”l opened in London today.


1959: Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward gave birth to Elinor Teresa “Nell” Newman who run’s “Newman’s Own Organics.”


1960: “Wake Me When It’s Over” directed and produced by Mervyn LeRoy and co-starring Dick Shawn was released in the United States today.


1961(22ndof Nisan, 5721): Eighth Day of Pesach and Shabbat


1961: In Sheffield, UK, South African-born psychiatrist Professor Issy Pilowsky and his wife Marl gave birth to Lyn Sara Pilowsky who followed in her father’s footsteps and became a doctor of psychiatry.




1962: Governor Ralph M Paiewonsky of the Virgin Islands expressed gratification today over the message President Kenney sent to Congress recommending that the islands get the right to elect their own Governor.”


1963(14thof Nisan, 5723): Ta’anit Bechorot and Erev Pesach


1964: “The Strangler” produced by Samuel Bischoff was released in the United States today.


1966: Al Davis became Commissioner of the American Football League today.


1966: At a time when theologians such as Richard Rubenstein were questioning the role of God in a post-Holocaust world, Time magazine published its famous “Death of God” issue today.



1968: In the aftermath of the riots that followed the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Larry Rosen, the owner of Smith’s Pharmacy in Washington, D.C. returned to find his family owned business gutted by looters.




1969: The Montreal Expos Baseball team, which were owned by Charles Bronfman from the team's formation in 1968 until 1990, beat the Mets at Shea Stadium in the team’s first game.


1970: During “The War Of Attrition” while carrying out a bombing mission that struck an “Egyptian military target west of the Suez Canal, the IAF mistakenly hit a school at Bahr el-Baqar killing 46 school children and injuring another fifty.


1970: “Entertaining Mr. Sloane,” a comedy filmed by cinematographer Wolfgang Suschitzky was released in the United Kingdom today


1970: “Cry for Us All” directed by Albert Marre with music by Mitch Leigh opened on Broadway at the Broadhurst Theatre.


1971(12thof Nisan, 5731): Eighty-eight year old Norman Bentwich “a British barrister,” committed Zionist, who “was the British-appointed attorney-general of Mandatory Palestine” passed away today.



1971: San Francisco Giants pitcher Steve Stone appeared in his first major league baseball game.


1974(16thof Nisan, 5734): Second Day of Pesach


1974(16thof Nisan, 5734): Sixty-four year old Chicago born Illinois graduate and Dr. of Ophthalmology passed away today in Palm Springs, CA.


1975(27thof Nisan, 5735): Yom HaShoah


 1977: The Jerusalem Post reported that Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin had resigned from his post and said that he would not lead the Labor Party into the May elections. Rabin took this decision in the wake of new revelations concerning the illegal bank account he and his wife Leah held in a US bank. Defense Minister Shimon Peres was expected to be nominated as the Labor Party's candidate for premiership. (.Author’s note:  During the promising days of the Oslo Accords, many forgot that Rabin had been Prime Minister once before.  He was forced out of office over a financial scandal stemming from his days as Ambassador to the United States.  This seemingly minor matter not only sidetracked his career, it opened the way for the first victory of the Likud Party.)


1977: The Jerusalem Post reported that Tel Aviv Maccabi won the European basketball championship in a thrilling victory, 78-77, over Mobilgirgi of Varese, Italy.


1981: Rabbi J. David Bleich, a professor at Yeshiva University, climbs to the roof a converted brownstone that doubled as a small synagogue on the Upper East Side of Manhattan to lead the service Birkat Hachamah.


1982(15thof Nisan, 5742): Pesach


1982: According to his notebook, Daniel Shechtman, made his break through discovery while studying a metal mix of aluminum and manganese. Shechtman, a professor of materials science at Technion went on to win the Noble Prize for Chemistry.


1984: CBS broadcast the first episode of the miniseries “George Washington” co-starring Stephen Macht as “General Benedict Arnold.”


1985(17th of Nisan, 5745): Third Day of Pesach


1985: “Leader of the Pack,” a musical with lyrics and music by Ellie Greenwich and co-starring Dinah Manoff which New York Times reviewer called “an embarrassment” opened on Broadway at the Ambassador Theatre.


1986: The funeral for Yiddish actor Pesach Burstein was scheduled to be held today at Riverside Memorial Chapel.



1989: After having been diagnosed with liver cancer,  Dahn Ben-Amotzheld a farewell party at the "Hamam" club in Jaffa, to which he invited 150 acquaintances” including “Amos Keinan (a former rival), Amos Oz, Meir Shalev, Gila Almagor, Yaakov Agmon, Shlomo Artzi, Yosef Lapid, Yehudit Ravitz and Nurit Galron” after which “he made a trip to the US, to say goodbye to his children from his first marriage.


1991: Michael Landon announced he has inoperable cancer of the pancreas


1991: “I Hate Hamlet” written by Paul Rudnick premiered at the Walter Kerr Theatre today.


1993: Eli Ben-Menachem became Deputy Minister of Housing and Construction.


1994:Pope John Paul II welcomed the Chief Rabbi of Rome to the Vatican today as guest of honor at a concert to honor the memory of the victims of the Holocaust.


1994: “Leprechaun 2” a slasher film directed by Rodman Flender was released in the United States today.


1995: A staged concert of “Anyone Can Whistle, a musical with a book by Arthur Laurents and music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim” “was held at Carnegie Hall in New York City as a benefit for the Gay Men's Health Crisis that “was recorded by Columbia Records, preserving for the first time musical passages and numbers not included on the original Broadway cast recording.”


1996(19th of Nisan, 5756):Argentine film director León Klimovsky passed away. “A trained dentist, born in Buenos Aires on October 16, 1906, his real passion was always the cinema. He pioneered Argentine cultural movement known as cineclub and financed the first movie theater to show art movies. He also founded Argentina's first film club in 1929. After participating as scriptwriter and assistant director of 1944's Se abre el abismo he filmed his first movie, an adaptation of Fyodor Dostoyevsky's The Player. From this first phase, it can be also highlighted the adaptations of Alexandre Dumas' The Count of Monte Cristo and Ernesto Sabato's The Tunnel. On the 1950s Klimovsky settled in Spain, where he becomes a "professional" director. He went into spaghetti westerns and so-called exploitation films, filming in Mexico, Italy and Egypt. Perhaps he is best remembered for his contribution to Spain's horror film genre, beginning with La noche de Walpurgis. León Klimovsky confessed to have always dreamt of doing great vanguard movies but ended on filming commercial ones, but without remorse, as doing cinema was a vocational mandate for him. On 1995 he won the "Honor Award" of the Spanish Film Director Association. He died in Madrid of a heart attack. He was brother to the Argentine mathematician and philosopher Gregorio Klimovsky.”


2001(15thof Nisan, 5761): American Jews observe the first Pesach under President George Bush.


2001: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including “Spontaneous Mind: Selected Interviews, 1958-1996” by Allen Ginsberg; edited by David Carter, “Neighbors: The Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne, Poland” by Jan T. Gross and “After Progress: American Social Reform and European Socialism in the Twentieth Century” by Norman Birnbaum.


2002: Prime Minister Ariel Sharon conveyed the goals to the Knesset as being "to catch and arrest terrorists and, primarily, their dispatchers and those who finance and support them; to confiscate weapons intended to be used against Israeli citizens; to expose and destroy facilities and explosives, laboratories, weapons production factories and secret installations. The orders are clear: target and paralyze anyone who takes up weapons and tries to oppose our troops, resists them or endangers them - and to avoid harming the civilian population."


2002(26thof Nisan, 5762): During Operation Defensive  Shield “St.-Sgt. Matanya Robinson, 21, of Kibbutz Tirat Zvi, and Sgt. Shmuel Weiss, 19, of Kiryat Arba were killed by terrorist in Jenin


2002:Efraim "Effi” Eitamwas appointed Minister without Portfolio


2002:“Just after the conclusion of Passover, United Jewish Communities, a national group of 160 Jewish federations, announced a special Israel emergency fund. The organization has already collected $100 million.


2003(6th of Nisan, 5763): Eighty-eight year old Franz Rosenthal, the Sterling professor emeritus of Arabic at Yale, passed away today.



2005: “Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz said that Israel should consider not demolishing the evacuated buildings in the Gaza Strip, with the exception of synagogues (due to fears of their potential desecration, which eventually did occur), since it would be more costly and time consuming. This contrasted with the original plan by the Prime Minister to demolish all vacated buildings.”


2005:The alphabetic ordering of leaders during the funeral of Pope John Paul II resulted in Moshe Katsav sitting near Iranian President Mohammad Khatami who, like Katsav, was born in the Iranian city of Yazd


2006: Observance of Shabbat Hagadol.


2006: Haaretz reported that Algeria, Israel and Morocco have agreed to join NATO counter-terrorism naval patrols in the Mediterranean, the organization. The announcement was made in Rabat after the NATO group’s first meeting in an Arab country.


2007: At The Jewish Museum of Maryland an exhibition styled “The Other Promised Land: Vacationing, Identity, and the Jewish - American Dream” closed.  This exhibition, the first of its kind in the U.S., evokes the experiences and meanings in Jewish vacationing from the 1880s to the present. The Other Promised Land highlights legendary "Jewish" vacation destinations including Miami Beach, Atlantic City, and the Catskills -- showing how vacations represented the excitement and promise of America while shaping notions of Jewish and American identities. A full-color, book-length catalog accompanies the exhibition.


 2007: The Sunday Washington Post book section featured a review of The Grand Surprise:
The Journals of Leo Lerman
written by Leo Lerman and edited by Stephen Pascal and My Holocaust by  Tova Reich, “a shocking novel rips those who trivialize the Holocaust.”


2007: The New York Times reviewed books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including “The Polish Woman” by Eva Meker “a meticulous, raw study of the uneasy relationship between Catholic and Jewish Poles. In New York in 1967, Karolina Staszek, a Polish immigrant, becomes consumed with the suspicion that she is a Jew who had been placed with a Catholic family during World War II. The Jewish family in question, the Landaus, find the story seductive but improbable — until Karolina reveals a battery of memories unlikely to be the invention of even the canniest con artist. Told without artifice or irony, Mekler’s story of multigenerational immigration owes more to coolly composed novels like Lore Segal’s “Her First American” than to impressive acts of literary contortion like Nicole Krauss’s “History of Love.” Despite its literary trappings, “The Polish Woman” is also a straightforward mystery, littered with clues, red herrings and narrators who always know less than the reader. When Karolina first confides in Philip Landau, he suddenly recalls the warning of his parents, who escaped Poland: “The Poles were the worst, they’d declared over and over, with the pain and bitterness of personal betrayal, the worst.” When the two eventually travel to Poland to prove Karolina’s claim, they are also chasing these brief flashes of recognition, which tell the story of their shared past better than a tattered birth certificate — and explain why they have both become phantoms in their own lives. By the time the ending veers into John Grisham territory, Mekler has already transcended plot in favor of uncompromising examination.”


2008(3rdof Nisan, 5768): Eighty-five year old Bible scholar David Noel Freedman passed away. (As reported by Barry Jagoda)



2008(3rdof Nisan, 5768): Thirty­-two year old Major Mark Rosenberg was today, in Baghdad when his vehicle was struck by a makeshift bomb. (As reported by Maia Efrem)


2008: The Foreign Affairs Symposium at Johns Hopkins University hosts a lecture by Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph E. Stiglitz co-author of “The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the Iraq Conflict”, at the university's Homewood Campus in Baltimore, Md.


2008: Standing up to the Madness: Ordinary Heroes in Extraordinary Times by Amy and David Goodman was published today.


2008: Today, schools from kindergarten through 12th grade participated in a nationwide Home Front drill simulating a surprise missile attack during which a warning siren will sound for a minute and a half.


2008: Publication of the paperback edition of A Tragic Legacy by Glenn Greenwald.


2008:  Rothko Kin Sue to Transfer His Remains” published today describes the dispute over attempts to move the body of Mark Rothko, the Jewish abstract expressionist.



2009: In “A Bread Line (Unleavened, Please) for Passover” published today, Alison Cowan described the baking of matzo in 19thcentury New York as well as the distribution of this Pesach necessity to the city’s Poor.



 


2009: Birkat Hachamah – Blessing The Sun (once every 28 years)


2009: At 6:22 a.m. this morning the sun will peak over the imposing 800-million-year-old mountains of Edom, bathing the Arava Valley below in light, and triggering one of the rarest and least-known Jewish rituals: Birkat Hahama, the Blessing of the Sun, is celebrated every 28 years in Jewish communities around the world, across the spectrum of Jewish observance. This year, the blessing dawns as we burn our hametz and prepare for that evening's Seder. The next magic moment in history when the blessing falls on Erev Pessah will be 532 years from now.


2009: Fast of the First Born


2009: In the evening, first Seder


2010: David Remnick appeared on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart where he promoted “The Bridge,” his biography of Barak Obama.


2010: An exhibition entitled “Painting to Remember: The Destroyed Synagogues of Germany by Alexander Dettmar” sponsored by the Leo Baeck Institute is scheduled to open tonight.


2010:A Qassam rocket fired by Palestinian militants today hit an open area along the coast of Ashkelon. No injuries or damage were reported. The rocket struck Israel just hours after Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov urged Hamas political chief Khaled Meshal this week to stop militants in the Gaza Strip from firing rockets against Israel.


2010: Paul Goldberger delivered the keynote address “Preservation: Where Do We Go From Here?” at the Indiana State Preservation Conference.


2010: A month after previews had begun at the Lunt-Fontaine Theater, “The Addams Family” with music and lyrics by Andrew Lippa and a book by Marshall Brickman with Bebe Neuwirth as “Morticia” and Jackie Hoffman as “Grandma Addams” officially opened tonight on Broadway.


2011: “The biggest sports event in Israel” is scheduled to take place today with the running of the Tel Aviv Marathon.


2011:Esterika Gourmet Cuisine and Larry & Mindy are scheduled to celebrate the end of winter and coming of spring with a culinary and musical Kabbalat Shabbat in Jerusalem.


2011(14th of Nisan, 2011): Fast of the First Born


2011(14th of Nisan, 2011): Hedda Sterne, “an artist whose association with the Abstract Expressionists became fixed forever when she appeared prominently in a now-famous 1951 Life magazine photograph of the movement’s leading lights” passed away today at the age of 100.  (As reported by William Grimes)



2011(14th of Nisan, 2011): Sixty-six year oldEddie Phillips, a successful liquor industry entrepreneur and the son of classic advice columnist Dear Abby, (aka Pauline Phillips), died at home in Minneapolis today. Phillips was active as a philanthropist, expanding the Phillips Family Foundation of Minnesota started by his grandfather and pouring money into community needs, African-American heritage and medical research, including engineering a $10 million donation for research into Alzheimer’s at the Mayo Clinic after his mother contracted the ailment.


2011(4thof Nisan):  On the Jewish calendar, Yahrzeit of the 77 civilian doctors, nurses and other medical workers who were murdered by Arab attackers as they drove to Hadassah Hospital on Mt. Scopus in Jerusalem.


2011:Four additional rockets were fired at Ashkelon today and three were intercepted by the Iron Dome defense system, the IDF announced, adding that it had bombed the terror cell that had fired the rockets, identifying a direct hit.


2011:Today marks the 100th birthday of French-language aphorist Emil Cioran, and the celebrations in Paris include the publication of “Cioran: Mystical Short Prayers,” a philosophical appreciation by Stéphane Barsacq from Les Éditions du Seuil. A colloquium, “Cioran: Jubilatory Pessimism,” was held at this year’s Paris Book Fair.


2011: In an air strike that was executed this afternoon, IAF jets bombed smuggling tunnels in Rafah. Palestinian sources reported that a fire broke out in the area, and postulate that the bomb hit a pipeline through which fuel was being smuggled.  


2012: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including ‘No Time Like the Present’ by Nadine Gordimer.


2012(16thof Nisan): Second Day of Pesach; first day of the Omer


2013(28thof Nisan, 5773): Yom Hashoah


2013(28thof Nisan, 5773): Fifty-one year old Greg Kramer passed away.



2013: The Yiddishspiel Theater is scheduled to hold a ceremony to mark 70 years since the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising on the morning of Yom Hashoah, with actors reading and telling about the days prior to the rebellion


2013: The Mediatheque Theater in Holon is scheduled toperform Gila Almagor’s autobiographical play, “Summer of Aviya,” about a summer in the life of child of survivors, during the early days of statehood.


2013: “50 Children: The Rescue Mission of Mr. and Mrs. Kraus,” is scheduled to be aired this evening. on HBO.



2013: Much of Israel stood still for two minutes this morning in memory of the six million Jews who were killed during the Holocaust.



2013: IDF Chief of Staff Benny Gantz led today’s March of the Living ceremonies at Auschwitz-Birkenau, along with Tel Aviv’s Chief Rabbi Israel Meir Lau, himself a child survivor of the camp.



2014: “Israeli superstar” is scheduled to deliver “an intimate piano performance at the Edmond J. Safra Hall at the Museum of Jewish Heritage.


2014: “An 18-year-old Jewish student in Gothenburg spoke out about anti-Semitic abuse in her high school, reading aloud the slurs she’s received on social media, including “Go gas yourselves, you Jew bastards,” and death threats from classmates. “I have been in hell,” she tells a local TV station. “I feel bad, can’t sleep, and have nightmares.” (As reported by Yair Rosenberg)


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


2014: “Ida” and “Eagles” are scheduled to be shown at the Westchester Jewish Film Festival.


2014:Holocaust Survivor, Cesare Frustaci whose appearance is sponsored by the Thaler Holocaust Memorial Fund is scheduled to speak at Kirkwood Community College and Mt. Mercy University in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.


2015: Holocaust survivor Henry Greenbaum is scheduled to speak about his experiences at United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.


2015(19thof Nisan, 5775): Fifth Day of Pesach


2015(19thof Nisan, 5775): Ninety-eight year old Jean-Louis Crémieux-Brilhac the director of Free French propaganda broadcast from Britain during WW II, passed away today.



2015: The Westchester Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to open at the Jacob Burns Film Center.


2015: A small plane erupted into flames before takeoff at the Ben Gurion International Airport today. The plane was scheduled to take off for Russia at noon. The six passengers aboard the aircraft escaped without injuries.


2015: “An IDF soldier was stabbed in the neck and seriously injured near the West Bank settlement of Shiloh today, and a second was stabbed and lightly injured.”



2016(10thof Nisan): “According to the Book of Joshua the Israelites crossed the Jordan River into the Promised Land today ending their 40 years of wandering in the desert.”


2016(10thof Nisan, 5776): Israelis are scheduled to observe the first ever Aliyah Day, “an official day of national celebration in which Jewish immigration to Israel is honored and noteworthy immigrants are recognized for their contributions to the nation


2016: “Raise the Roof” and “Bulgarian Rhapsody” are scheduled to be shown at the Northern Virginia Jewish Film Festival.


2016: “Tamar Ettun and The Moving Company” are scheduled to perform in Bryant Park.


2016(29th of Adar II, 5776): Seventy-nine year old Charles S. Hirsch the “September 11 Coroner” passed away today. (As reported by Sam Roberts)



2016: “Youth” is scheduled to be shown at the Westchester Jewish Film Festival.


2017: The first Charlotte Jewish Playwriting Contest is scheduled to take place at the JCC in Charlotte, NC.


2017(12th of Nisan, 5777): Shabbat Hagadol;


2018: The reception marking the official opening of “City of Numinous Light” featuring “the urban impressionism of Lawrence Kushner is scheduled to take place this afternoon in the Isaacs Gallery at the Osher Marin JCC in San Rafael.


2018: In Des Moines, IA, Tifereth Israel is scheduled to host the “Community-wide Holocaust Remembrance Program” this afternoon


2018: The New York Timespublished reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Common Good by Robert B. Reich, Russian Roulette: The Inside Story of Putin’s War on America and the Election of Donald Trump by Michael Isikoff and David Corn, Never Remember: Searching for Stalin’s Gulags in Putin’s Russia by Masha Gessen with photographs by Misha Friedman and The Female Persuasion by Meg Wolitzer.


 


 


 

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

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April 9



193: Septimius Severus is proclaimed Roman Emperor by the army in Illyricum.  Severus is the first emperor to ban proselytizing by Jews.



423: Emperor Theodosius II reaffirms the Roman law according to which "No Jew may purchase Christian slaves because it is abominable that religious slaves would be defiled by the ownership of impious Jews. If anyone does this, they will be subject to the statutory punishment without any delay."



423: Theodosius II and Honorious reaffirm the Roman law which ban the seizure or burning of Synagogues but which also allows the Jews to “be punished by confiscation and exile for life if it is discovered that they have circumcised a” Christian.



614: According to “the Armenian bishop and historian Sebos” one of two possible dates the residents of Jerusalem rebelled during the war between he Byzantines and the Sasanians – a rebellion which claimed an untold number of Jews living in the city.



1141(30th of Nisan): Rabbi Joseph ben Meir Ha-Levi Ibn Migas “disciple and successor to Rabbi Isaac Alfasi” passed away today



1362: The Crown of Aragon (the name of the realm ruled by the King of Aragon) examined a court case involving the murder of a Jew by two Muslims. The widow of the man took the matter to the court after unsuccessfully seeking justice in the town where the murder occurred.



1582(7th of Nisan): Lemberg Rabbi Naphtali Herz ben Meir passed away today.



1609: “The Twelve Year’s Truce” which “was a watershed in the Eighty Years' War, marking the point from which the independence of the United Provinces received formal recognition by outside powers” and helped to provide a Dutch haven for Marranos and Sephardi Jews seeking physical safety and place from which to conduct their trade with the Levant and North Africa, took effect today.



1723(4thof Nisan): Judah Loeb ben David Neumark, author of Shoresh Yehuda which had been published at Frankfort on the Main in 1692 and who had been the manager of  the printing house owned by Daniel Ernest Jablonski  passed away today.



1782: Rabbi Isaac Hess Kugelmann and his wife gave birth to German educator and author Michael Hess whose students included “the young baron James von Rothschild.”



1792(17thof Nissan, 5552): Third Day of Pesach



1799(4thof Nisan, 5559): Forty-nine year old Abraham Mendes Seixas, the son of Isaac Mendes Seixas of Lisbon and Rachel Franks Levy of London passed away today in Charleston, SC.



1806(21st of Nisan): Rabbi Daniel of Horodno, author of “Hamudei Daniel” passed away today.



1807: Joseph and Sophia Spyer were wed today at the Great Synagogue today.



1807: Forty-five year old “Cornish historical and portrait painter” John Opie who created “An Old Jew” passed away today.
http://www.cornishwonder.com/page6.htm



1811: “The New York State Legislature granted financial aid to the parochial school of Congregation Shearith Israel.” (As reported by Abraham P. Bloch)



1816(11th of Nisan): Rabbi Simchah Bunim Rapaport of Wuerzburg, author of Hiddushei Rashbaz passed away.



1827: In Lenrburg, Germany, Abraham Greensfelder and his wife gave birth to Isaac Greensfelder, the husband of Amalia Blum who founded the Hebrew Relief Society in 1859, was charter member of Sinai Congregation in Chicago where he served as the President of the United Hebrew Charities for thirty two years and director of Michael Reese Hospital for 38 years.



1838(14th of Nisan, 5598):Ta'anit Bechorot / Erev Pesach



1838(14th of Nisan, 5598): Leopold Bettelheim passed away. Born in 1777, this Hungarian physician was also “a Hebraist of some importance.” “In 1830 Bettelheim was the recipient of a gold medal of honor from the emperor Franz I. for distinguished services to the royal family and to the nobility.”



1846: In Oberdorf, Germany, Jacob Weil and Jette Pflaumlocher gave birth to Henry Wiel, the husband of Mina Rosenthal who moved to North Carlonia where he served as President of both the Carolina Rice Mills and the Goldsboro Ice Company, trustee of the University of North Carolina, Goldsboro City Alderman and a leader of the B’nai B’rith.



1855: In London Cecilia and David Woolf Marks gave birth to Harry Hananel Marks, who founded the Financial News in 1884.



1857(15thof Nisan, 5617): Pesach



1864: Today, Jews in Keokuk, IA, chose “a Mr. J. Falk of New York…to be their schochet at an annual salary of $300, payable quarterly.”



1865: Robert E. Lee and U.S. Grant met at Appomattox Court House and concluded the agreement the marked the end of Civil War. While Jews fought on both sides of the conflict, the majority of Jews supported the Union and fought for the North.  At the same time, a description of the Siege of Petersburg includes a notation that the Confederate lines were so thin that the Jewish soldiers could not be allowed to be absent to observe their Day of Atonement as they had been in past years.  Simon Wolf, a Jewish activist of the 19th Century, collected the names of over 7000 Jewish-Americans who fought on both sides during the Civil War. In 1895, he published the list in a directory entitled The American Jew as Patriot, Soldier, and Citizen.



1865: The Eighty-Second Regiment, whose members included English born Louis Manly Emanuel, the graduate of the University of Pennsylvania doctor who had been serving as surgeon with the Army of the Potomac in every battle since Malvern Hill, “was at the extreme front of the Union Army” when Lee surrendered today at Appomattox.



1865: Andrew Jackson “Jack” Moses was among the Confederate soldiers who fought against the Union Army at Sumter, SC. 



1865(13thof Nisan, 5625): Lt. Joshua Lazarus Moses was killed today as Confederate forces fought at Mobile, Alabama. Moses had been with the army since the start of the war having fought at the First Battle of Bull Run.



1865:  Birthdate of Charles Proteus Steinmetz, the native of Breslau Germany, who came to the United States in 1889.  Viewed by some as brilliant theorist and mathematical genius, Steinmetz held more than 200 patents when he passed away in 1923.  He experimented with AC electricity. His work was primarily in the field of improving practical electrical devices and the transmission of energy.  The following comments provide some sense of his importance as a Jew and as an America. "Where does our future lie! It lies in developing and making use of men like the great Jews, Abram Jacobi, Charles Proteus Steinmetz and Louis Brandeis, who are true to their own nature, and who respond to the American environment. These men are not amateur Gentiles. They are Jews and they are Americans."



1867: The United States Senate ratified a treaty with Russia that enabled the United States to purchase Alaska. “Jews have been a prominent part of Alaska's history even before its acquisition by the U.S. in 1867. San Francisco Jewish pioneering merchants Louis Sloss and Lewis Gerstle (for whom Northeast Alaska's Gerstle River is named) are credited with opening the Alaska Territory to settlers and commercial enterprises when establishing the Alaska Commercial Company in 1868. Originally a fur-transporting firm, ACC expanded to become a salmon cannery and fishing fleet, operated a chain of trading posts providing general merchandise to natives, trappers, miners, and explorers, and supplied Alaska's first fleet of ships during the Klondike Gold Rush of 1897-1901”.



1871: The annual meeting of the "Hebrew Benevolent Fuel Association" was held at Masonic Hall this morning. This organization now has over 1,000 members, and is now entirely supported by an annual subscription of $3 per capita. The association will no long have to resort to fairs, concerts, and other soliciting entertainments” for funding. “Last year” the Association “distributed 1,000 half tons of coal” valued at $3,375 to needy New York Jews.



1872: In New York, Nathan Goldberg’s home on Division Street suffered $300 dollars’ worth of damage in a fire tonight.



1872: Birthdate of Léon Blum the first Jew to serve as French Premier. Imprisoned by the French and the Germans during World War II, he returned to politics briefly after the war before passing away in 1950.
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/2WWblum.htm



1872(1st of Nisan, 5632): Rosh Chodesh Nisan



1876(15th of Nisan, 5636): First Day of Pesach



1876: According to a report published in the Salt Lake Tribune, the forty Jewish families of Utah’s largest city celebrated Pesach



1877(26th of Nisan, 5637): Henry Grass, a New York clothier passed away today.  He is survived by his wife Rebecca, six children, his brothers Abraham and Jacob and their daughters.



1877(26th of Nisan): Rabbi Jacob Simchah of Kempna, author of “Sha’arei Simchah” passed away



1879(16thof Nisan, 5639): Second Day of Pesach



1879(16thof Nisan, 5639): Sixty-one year old Viennese poet Karl Isidor Beck passed away.
http://www.yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Beck_Karl_Isidor



1883: Businessman Nathan Barnet who helped to found the Miriam Barnert Hebrew Free School and the Barnert Memorial Hospital and the Barnert Memorial Temple was elected Mayor of Paterson New Jersey.



1884(14th of Nisan, 5644): Fast of the First Born



1884(14th of Nisan, 5644): An article entitled “The Festival Of Pesach” published in the New York Times today states that “the Jewish festival of Pesach, or the Passover will begin at sunset this evening and continue for seven days…It is also known as the Feast of Matzoth on account of the eating of the matzoth or cakes of unleavened bread during its continuance.”



1887(15thof Nisan, 5647): Pesach



1887(15th of Nisan, 5647): Dr. Gustav Gottheil preached a sermon at New York’s Temple Emanu-el.



1888: Birthdate of Hungarian native Alexander Lichtman, the pioneer American film producer.
http://projects.latimes.com/hollywood/star-walk/al-lichtman/



1888: Birthdate of Ukrainian native Solomon Gurkov who gained fame as Sol Hurok, the impresario who learned the meaning of anti-Semitism at an early age.  When he was 18, Hurok's father gave him one thousand rubles to go to Kiev.  Hurok took the money but went to Philadelphia instead.  Once in the States, Hurok began a career as an impresario promoting everything from violinists, to opera, to Anna Pavlova, to an Israel-Yemenite Singing and Dancing Troup that preserved the Jewish-Yemenite Heritage.  He passed away in 1974. Ironically, one of the first performers whom Hurok promoted was the violinist Efrem Zimablist who was also born on April 9 in another part of the Russian Empire.
https://www.nytimes.com/1974/03/06/archives/sol-hurok-the-impresario-dies-at-85-sol-hurok-impresario-for-many.html



1889:  Birthdate of Efrem Zimbalist in Rostov-on-Don Russia.  Zimbalist studied with his father who was conductor of note before coming to the United States in 1914.  He made his major musical debut in 1922.  He was one of a long list Jewish violinist to populate the musical cosmos in the last two centuries.  He passed away in 1985.



1890: The will of the late Louis Lippman was filed for probate today.



1890: An inquest was convened to determine the culpability of Abraham Marks in the death of Henry Heppner.  Marks claimed he shot Heppner when he was trying to break into his tailor’s shop through a rear window.



1891: Adolph Saphir, who had been born into a Hungarian Jewish family in 1831 and converted in 1843 after which he “served as “Missionary to the Jews” passed away today.



1892: “Three City Hospitals” published today described the efforts of New York City to provide treatment for those suffering from contagious diseases including the construction of a new pavilion at Riverside Hospital on North Brother Island for the benefit of Jewish immigrants from Russia who are suffering from typhus.



1893: On the day after Passover, Rabbi. Gustav G. Gottheil delivered a lecture entitled "The Christian Mission to the Jews; or, Who Needs Conversion!" at Temple Emanu-El in New York City.



1893: It was reported today that the anti-Semites in Vienna claim that the man who attacked Karl Lueger with a knife was an agent of the Israelite Alliance.



1893: Birthdate of Victor Gollancz, the son of a London wholesale jeweler, “nephew of Rabbi Professor Sir Hermann Gollancz and Professor Sir Israel Gollancz and grandson of Rabbi Samuel Marcus Gollancz” the British author and publisher who was one of the first to issue warnings about the impending mass murder of Jews by the Nazis.



1895: “Russian Anti-Jew Edict Enforced” published today described the lasts step in the Czar’s anti-Semitic policy in which the government has “instructed local military officials…to enforce most strictly the ant-Jew edict of 1893” that “excluded Jews from the health resorts in the Caucasus.”



1895(15thof Nisan, 5655): Pesach



1895: Birthdate of Meyer Loshie Casman, the native of Russia who “attended University of PA, University of Michigan, and the US Military Academy at West Point” and which he served as “a lawyer, army engineer and prosecutor during the Nuremberg Trials.”



1895: Dr. Solomon H. Sonnenschein who is the rabbi at Congregation Temple Israel in St. Louis will deliver a Passover Sermon entitled “The Root and Fruit of Freedom” in German at the Fifteen Street Temple in New York City. (Sermons in German were still the norm in many Reform congregations and the switch to English caused a schism in many congregations.  So much for equating Reform with being accepting of change)



1895: In Hungary, Joseph Lichtman and Pepe (aka Josephine) Zuckermandel gave birth to Alexander "Al" Lichtman a pioneering cinema businessman and movie producer whose most famous work may have been “The Young Lions.”



1898(17thof Nisan, 5658): Third Day of Pesach and Shabbat



1902: Herzl wrote to Lord Rothschild in London asking for a meeting in the British capital.



1903: Birthdate of Dr. Gregory Pincus.  Born in New Jersey, Dr. Pincus' parents where Jewish immigrants from Russia.  Dr. Pincus' father was an agronomist who hoped to train Russian Jews to become farmers in the United States. A graduate of Cornell with a Ph.D. from Harvard, Dr. Pincus is known as the "Father of the Pill."  Dr. Pincus and Dr. Chiang developed the first birth control pill; a discovery that altered American and the world's sexual behavior forever.  Pincus continued his work until his untimely death in 1967.



1905:  Birthdate of J. William Fulbright, former Senator from Arkansas.  Fulbright gained fame as Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.  Fulbright denied being pro-Arab or anti-Israel.  However, after he left the Senate he became a highly paid lobbyist for the Arab oil states.



1906(14thof Nisan, 5666): Fast of the First Born – Erev Pesach



1906(14thof Nisan, 5666): Morris Goldstein passed away.



1906: Austrian native Nettie Kinsbruner, the daughter of Shmuel Meyer Stettner and Rachel Stettner and her husband David (Aubie) Kinsbruner gave birth to Minna Katz, the older sister of American college basketball star Mac Kinsbrunner.



1906: Louis J. Goldman was elected President of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations.



1906: “When Gold Boils” published reported today that Professor “Henri Moissan has been trying some interesting experiments in vaporizing gold in the electric furnace.”  A French born Jew, Moissan won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1906.



1906(14th of Nisan, 5666): Mrs. Sarah Orenstein and two of her children were almost asphyxiated this evening.  While cleaning her house in preparation for Pesach, Mrs. Orsenstein apparently failed to replace a piece tubing that she had taken from the stove causing a gas leak.  Fortunately her husband figured out what had happened and called an ambulance before the family was overcome by the fumes.



1906(14th of Nisan, 5666): Today in a Harlem Police Court the needs of two religions clashed and the Jews lost twice.  The magistrate fined eight Orthodox Jews who had worked on done construction work on new building yesterday.  They were fined because they worked on the Christian Sabbath even though they explained to the Judge that they had only been working on Sunday so they could finish the job before the Passover.  The same magistrate fined Michael Garlick for killing chickens yesterday, Sunday, which was the Christian Sabbath.  In his defense Garlick said that his boss had told him that the Deputy Police Commissioner said it would be alright to slaughter the chickens on a Sunday because of the approaching Passover holiday.  The magistrate did not dispute the fact that the Commissioner had made the statement.  He said Garlick was guilty because the Commissioner did nave “the right to interpret the law.”



1908: Hundreds of poor Jews received free tickets at the offices of the United Hebrew Communities Charity which can be exchanged for Matzoth, meat and other groceries. Most of the recipients are women, many of whom who have brought their young children with them.  The distribution is an annual event intended to make it possible for even the poorest Jew to be able to celebrate Passover.  Tickets will be distributed as long as there funds are available to fund the purchase of the necessary food items.



1909: Birthdate of Galicia native Jack Diamond, the founder of “British Columbia’s largest meat packing firm – Pacific Meats,” the Chancellor of Simon Fraser University and husband of Sadie Mandelbuam with whom he had two son – Charles and Gordon.



1910: Birthdate of Yosef Shalom “a Haredi rabbi and posek who lives in Jerusalem, Israel.”



1910: Birthdate of Abraham A. Ribbicoff.  Born in New Britain, Connecticut, to Jewish immigrant parents from Poland, Ribbicoff attended New York University and was awarded a law degree cum laude from the University of Chicago in 1933. Starting in 1938, Ribbicoff worked his way up the Connecticut political ladder.  During the late 1950's was a popular two term governor who became an early supporter of John F. Kennedy.  Ribbicoff served two years as Secretary of H.E.W. before resigning to begin a two decade long career in the U.S. Senate.  Ribbicoff was a champion of civil rights, Medicare and the American workers.  He passed away in 1998.  Today we take the involvement of Jews at all levels of the political process for granted.  Such was not the case when Ribbicoff began his career.  An observant Jew, Ribbicoff was a trail-blazer for the dozens of Jewish Representatives and Senators who are in Washington today.



1911: Reverand Madison C. Peters, the Pastor Bloomingdale Church, gave a lecture today at Temple Beth El on Haym Salomon, “the financier of the American Revolution.”  During his talk, Rev Peters stated that “Haym Solomon…did for the Nation’s credit what Washington did on the field for freedom.”



1912(22ndof Nisan, 5672): Eighth Day of Pesach



1912: In New York City, Francis Nathan Wolff and Joseph F. Cullman, Jr. gave birth to Joseph Frederick Cullman III, the businessman who turned Philip Morris into a “tobacco powerhouse.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/01/business/joseph-f-cullman-3rd-who-made-philip-morris-a-tobacco-power-dies-at-92.html



1912: Birthdate of Lew Kopelew, Russian author and political dissident.  Like many of his generation, Kopelew career was a checkered one with his acceptance or rejection depending upon the prevailing political winds.  Unlike many of his contemporaries, Kopelew survived the Soviet Union, dying peacefully in 1997.



1913(2ndof Nisan, 5673): Sixty-five year old New York banker Leo Speyer, the husband of Sara Speyer, who bought he house on 17 E. 82nd Street in 1898 passed away today.



1913: Sixty-seven year old German “philanthropist and art collector Henriette Hertz who converted to Christianity in 1871 and “is now known mainly through her establishment of the Bibliotheca Hertziana” passed away today in Rome.



1916(6thof Nisan, 5676): Second Lt Benjamin James Polack of the 9 Worcestershire was killed today during WW I while serving for King and Country.



1916: Birthdate of Elliot Handler, who co-founded the Mattel toy company.



1916: A mass meeting was held this afternoon at the London Casino in the Bronx to protest against the Burnett Immigration Bill which Justice Peter Sheil described as “class legislation” that “was aimed primarily against the Jews” since “a large percentage of the immigration for the past several years” has been made of Jews.



1916:Among the donations listed today by the Special Million Dollar Fund of the American Jewish Relief Committee $25 from the Mobile, Alabama council of Jewish Women, $50 from Goldstein and Kirshner Co. of which Israel Kirshner was President and $1,000 from the Harriman National Bank in New York City.



1916: Among the donations listed today the Central Committee for the Relief of Jews Suffering Through the War were $12 from the Ladies Aid Society of Spring Valley, $100 from the Provisional Zionist Committee and $218 from the Rock Island, Illinois Committee for the Relief of Jews Suffering Through the War.



1917: Three days after the United States entered WW I, Samuel Untermyer, the head of The Jewish League of American Patriots is scheduled to go Washington to “confer with Secretary of War Baker on plans to enroll and drill the young Jews of New York



1917: At a meeting of the leaders of most the major Jewish organizations which had been called for by Samuel A. Goldsmith, the Executive Secretary of the Army and Navy Department of the Council of the Y.M.H.A. held today at the Astor Hotel it was decided that “all religious welfare work growing out of the participation of Jews in the war will be under the direction of a central board” with nine members



1917: During World War I, “Mark Sykes wrote to Lord Balfour that ‘The situation now is therefore that Zionist aspirations are recognized as legitimate by the French.’” Sykes was one of the leading British diplomats in the Middle East.  This correspondence with Lord Balfour was part of the jockeying for Jewish support during World War I and possession of parts of the Ottoman Empire after the war ended.



1917: It was reported today that Herbert S. Goldstein who resigned as Associate Rabbi of the Congregation Kehailath-Jeshurun so he could “dedicate his to a popular Jewish revival movement in New York City” will be leasing a house where he will be holding daily services and “a theatre for Sunday morning lectures.”



1918: Based on previously published reports Samuel R. Travis is leading a drive supported by “200 prominent orthodox Jews” to gain “additional members for the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary.



1919: According to a cablegram made public tonight by “the Palestine Anti-Zionism Society” “the latest census in Palestine places Jews at less than 7 per cent of the population and shows that only one” out of every thousand “possesses land.”



1920(21stof Nisan, 5680): Seventh day of Pesach



1920(21stof Nisan, 5680): Seventy year old Isaias Wolf Hellman the native of Bavaria who came to the United States in 1859 where he became such a success as a banker and philanthropist that he became one of the founders of the University of Southern California passed away today.
http://www.jmaw.org/isaias-w-hellman-pioneer-investment-banker-part-2-san-francisco/
http://www.jewishbookcouncil.org/book/towers-of-gold-how-one-jewish-immigrant-named-isaias-hellman-created-california



1920: In Vienna, university students delivered a resolution “to the rector demanding that in the future Jews not be appointed teachers, clerks or even servants; that academic distinctions not be conferred on Jewish professors;” and that the number of Jewish students must be limited so that it corresponds to their percentage in the general population.  (Yes, 18 years before the Anschluss ant-Semitism was alive and well in Austria.)



1920: Anti-Jewish mass meetings were held in Vienna to commemorate “the 10thanniversary of the death of Karl Lueger, the former Jew-baiting burgomaster.”



1921: Birthdate of George David Weiss the New York native who “was an American songwriter and former President of the Songwriters Guild of America.”



1921: In Jerusalem, Yosef and Myriam Navon, descendants of distinguished Sephardi families who had been living in the city since the 17th century gave birth to Yitzhak Rachamim Navon the fifth President of Israel.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/09/world/middleeast/yitzhak-navon-former-israeli-president-dies-at-94.html?_r=0



1921: Birthdate of Eugen Merzbacher, the Berlin born American physicist.
http://www.aip.org/history/acap/biographies/bio.jsp?merzbachere



1922: In Brooklyn, Samuel and Shirley Mandel, gave birth to Doctor Irwin D. Mandel, an expert on Dental Chemistry.



1922: In Prague, Marie Grabenstein Epstein and Dr. Moritz Epstein gave birth to Jindrich Epstein.



1922: Birthdate of Eleanor Chana Gordon — known as Chana – who as Chana Mlotek the “music archivist at YIVO Institute for Jewish Research and a columnist for theForward
http://yivo.org/about/index.php?tid=154&aid=1225



1923: A committee which had been formed in response to the growing number of Jews, especially those from eastern Europe, to “examine the principles and methods for more effectively sifting candidates for admission” delivered its reported today which on the surface looked like a victory for admission by merit but contained to “two key recommendations” – raise the proportion of students from the interior of the United States and limit the number of tram students – which would lead to a decline of Jewish students to ten percent which was much more to the liking of President Lowell.



1923: Birthdate of Toronto native Leonard Williams Levy who won the Pulitzer Prize for history in 1969 for Origins of the Fifth Amendment.



http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/01/obituaries/01levy.html



1925(15thof Nisan, 5685): Pesach



1925: Birthdate of Winnipeg native Esther Ghan Cohen who gained fame as Esther Ghan Firestone, the soprano and choral conductor who served as Canada’s first female cantor.
http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/esther-ghan-emc/



1925: “In Sverdlovsk (now Ekaterinburg), in the Ural Mountains” pediatric surgeon Iosif Neizvestny and “the former Bella Dizhur, a biochemist, poet and children’s book author” gave birth to sculptor Ernst Iosifovich Neizvestny
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/18/arts/international/ernst-neizvestny-a-russian-sculptor-who-clashed-with-khrushchev-dies-at-91.html?ribbon-ad-idx=2&rref=obituaries&module=Ribbon&version=origin&region=Header&action=click&contentCollection=Obituaries&pgtype=article



1926, The Rosenblums, a professional basketball team “organized and owned by Cleveland department stor woner Max Rosenblum, “won the ABL's first championship by defeating the Brooklyn Arcadians by a score of 23–22 in the final game of the league's first championship series played at Brooklyn's 71st Infantry Regiment Armory



1926: In Vilna, Max and Sonia Silverstein gave birth to “Mike Silverstein, a founder of Nina Footwear, a women’s shoe company that grew from a SoHo loft to an international concern selling around 10 million pairs of shoes a year.”



1926: It was reported today that “budgetary allotments totaling $4,436,171.59 have been approved for 1926 by the Federation for the Support of Jewish Charities under the chairmanship of Felix M. Warburg.



1927: Alfred Williams Anthony, Sidney L. Gulick and John W. Herring who have been working with the Federal council of Churches of Christ in America “sent a cablegram to John R. Mott, the General Secretary of the International Young Men’s Christian Association” which is meeting in Budapest expressing the “hope that you will recommend that the congress issue a call to the Christians everywhere to purge the world of the curse of anti-Semitism and to accord to the Jews that highly respected place in the brotherhood of peoples which they rich deserve on the base of their sacred literature and history and which is their inalienable right.”



1927: “Sacco and Vanzetti's final appeal was rejected, and the two were sentenced to death. Felix Frankfurter, then a professor at Harvard Law School, was considered to be the most prominent and respectable critic of the trial. He was appointed to the Supreme Court by Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1939.” (The Atlantic)



1928(19th of Nisan, 5688): Fifth Day of Pesach



1928(19thof Nisan, 5688): Ninety-three year old, Isaac Seligman the German born American banker who became head of “Seligman Brothers, the London branch of the Seligman merchant-banking empire” which led to his being a leading member of the Anglo-Jewish community passed away today in London.



1928: Birthdate of Tom Lehrer, folk singer and famed creator of political and social musical parodies



1929: In Brooklyn, “Samuel Lichtenstein, an immigrant from Poland, and Jennie Waldarsky, an immigrant from Ukraine” gave birth to Harvey Lichtenstein, long-time President of the Brooklyn Academy of Music.



https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/11/arts/music/harvey-lichtenstein-dead-led-bam.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=0



1929: Betty and Walter Bridgland were married at a synagogue in Adelaid, Australia



1930: Birthdate of Nathan Blumenthal, the native of Ontario who gained fame as psychotherapist Nathan Branden, “the romantic partner of Ayn Rand.”



https://www.facebook.com/pages/Nathaniel-Branden-Official-Page/123371217740717?sk=info&tab=page_info



1932: Birthdate of Jerzy Feliks Urman, the native of the “East Galician town of Stanislow” under Polish rule who ended his own life by taking cyanide at the age of 11 during the Holocaust.



http://thediaryjunction.blogspot.com/2016/05/jerzyks-tragic-story.html



1932: Birthdate of the multi-talented Paul Krassner



http://www.paulkrassner.com/



1933: As negotiations for a Concordat between Hitler and the Vatican began Ludwig Kass met with Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli, the future pope.



1934: Israel B. Brodie announced that “more than a score of industrial nations will be represented at the third biennial Levant Fair to be held in Palestine.”  Participating countries include Sweden, Great Britain, Italy, Japan and Czechoslovakia.



1935: Birthdate of comedian Avery Schreiber



1935: In an interview at the Hotel Commodore, “Norman Bentwich, a close associate of James McDonald in the work of the League of Nations for Refugees, a former Attorney General of Palestine and a Professor of International Law at Hebrew University agreed that Palestine was the ‘pivotal center’ for Jewish refugee settlement” but that the “greatest urgency” is the need to establish a fund to the 4,000 non-Jewish refugees in France, Czechoslovakia and other countries.”



1935: Americans took two first place finishes in the swimming events at the 2ndMaccabiah.  George Sheinberg won the 100-meter back-stroke and Janice Lifson won the 100-meter free style competition.



1936: Based on a survey conducted by economist Jacob Lestschinsky the total world Jewish population is 16,240,000 “of whom 5,000,000 or 30 per cent live in the Americas” of which 4,450,000 live in the United States.



1936: “The official Nazi organ, the Angriffannounced today” that Germany is to have ‘pure Easter eggs’” because the 7,000 Jews who “composed 24 per cent of the industry” have been eliminated “from the egg trade.”



1937: “Striptease Held Indecent by Court” published today described the legal outcome of a raid on Minsky’s Burlesque, precipitated in part, by the performance of Roxana Sand.  Sand was born Golda Glickman and for five weeks in 1934 she had been the wife of the Jewish boxer King Levinsky.



1937: The Palestine Post reported that over 10 million boxes of citrus were shipped out from Palestine from the beginning of the citrus season ­ 8,951,597 boxes of oranges and 1,218,896 of grapefruit.



1937: The Palestine Post reported that after Poland inaugurated a thrice-weekly air service to Palestine, the Italian airline Ala Littoria started a regular weekly hydroplane service to Haifa.



1937: The Palestine Post reported that the largest-ever single pilgrimage from England since 1888 including 1,050 English and Welsh tourists arrived in Haifa aboard the S.S. Duchess of Richmond. The pilgrims proceeded to Jerusalem by two special trains, 70 cars and 15 buses, accompanied by 70 guides. They took over, for three days, all available Jerusalem hostels and hotels.



1937: “Elephant Boy” a Kiplingesque film directed by Zoltan Korda and produced by Alexander Korda was released in the United Kingdom today.



1938: “Arturo Toscanini, who came to Palestine to conduct a series of concerts with the Palestine Orchestra, arrived in Haifa by plane this afternoon accompanied by his wife.”  Among those greeting Toscanini was H.W. Steinberg, the conductor who has been rehearsing the orchestra and who will leave Palestine to become conductor of the N.B.C. Symphony Orchestra which Toscanini had been conducting.



1939: Illinois Democrat J. Hamilton “Ham” Lewis who as a Congressman had supported a “proviso in the Balfour Declaration that Jews going to Palestine to live could retain their original citizenship instead of automatically becoming British subjects” and who as U.S. Senator led “a protest against the possible transfer of American Jews from their present homes in Palestine to other parts of the country” passed away today.



1940(1stof Nisan, 5700): Rosh Chodesh Nisan



1940: “Denmark and Norway were invaded by Nazi Germany. Realizing that successful armed resistance was impossible and wishing to avoid civilian casualties, the Danish government surrendered after a few token skirmishes on the morning of the invasion.”



1940: As the Germans invade Norway, Sigrid Helliesen Lund burnt the entire list of Czech Jews who had taken refuge in the country.



1940: The Danish cabinet decided “to accept cooperation with German authorities” today leading to the Danish police cooperating with the German occupation forces.



1940: As a result of Operation Weserübung, Germans take control of Denmark.  Three years later, the Danes will save their Jewish population from extermination by the Nazis in one of the most famous and daring rescue operations of the war.



1941: “The Ghetto in Częstochowa was set up” today.



1942: When the outnumbered U.S. and Filipino forces surrendered at Bataan today, Sergeant Louis Sachwald was among those who escaped capture as he was moved to Corregidor. Eventually he would be taken prisoner and would survive the infamous Bataan Death March and years of Japanese imprisonment.



1943: “Cabin in the Sky” the movie version of the 1940 Broadway musical, produced by Arthur Freed and Albert Lewis was released today in the United States.



1944: “The military authorities, with headquarters at Munkacs, began the rounding up of 320,000 Jews into Ghettoes within the operational area. In order to prevent any armed resistance by the Jews, they were concentrated in brick factories (as at Kassa, Ungvar, Kolozsvar) or under the open skies (as at Nagybanyam, Marosvasarchely, and Des).”



1945: Forty-eight year old “German jurist” Karl Sack who took part in the July 20 plot to kill Hitler was executed in Flossenbürg concentration



1945: Formation of the United States Atomic Energy Commission.  Two of the first three Chairman of the Commission are Jewish.  President Truman appointed David Lilienthal and President Eisenhower appointed Lewis Strauss. Neither of them were atomic scientists.



1945: Fifty-eight year old Admiral Wilhelm Franz Canaris, the head of the Abwehr “was executed in Flossenbürg concentration camp for high treason



http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/wilhelm-canaris



1946: Eleven hundred Jewish refugees who had been sailing from Spezia to Palestine and who were now being detained in Italy went on a hunger.  The leaders of the Jewish agency them not continue the fast for their own safety.  They promised the refugees that the Jews of Eretz-Israel would fast in their place until they were allowed to continue to the Jewish homeland.



1946: “The Dark Corne black-and-white film noir” based on a story by Leo Rosten with music by Emil Newman was released today in the United States.



1947: In a criminal libel suit brought against L.M. Birkehad, “national director of the Friends of Democracy” sixty-six year old Lambert Fairchild a former NYC Alderman defended himself against claims that he was an anti-Semite, testifying under oath “that he had been elected alderman in 1934 in a predominately Jewish district and that he was associated with Jews in the American Legion.”



1948: The presiding of judge at the Nuremberg Military Tribunal announced the sentence on Eduard Strauch who was a commander of a unit of the Einsatzgruppen liquidated 55,000 Jews in a ten week period during 1943, as death by hanging – a sentenced he avoided due to other trials which enable to die in a hospital in Belgium in 1955.



1948(29th of Adar II, 5708): During the fighting that preceded the actual creation of the state of Israel, the Jewish defenders of Kastel had exhausted their supplies and were forced to withdraw.  Kastel was a village that dominated the eastern end of the Tel Aviv – Jerusalem highway.  The Haganah had taken at the start of Operation Nachshon and the Arabs were determined to retake the village.  The last order given to the Jewish soldiers “by their platoon commander Shimon Alfasi, ‘All privates will retreat – all commanders will cover their withdrawal.’ Alfasi was killed in the battle, covering the retreat.  His order became a watchword during many future actions.  Abdel Kader, the commander of the Arab forces was killed in the closing moments of the battle.  Without his leadership the Arabs gave up the village a couple of days later. The Jewish forces who were preparing to re-take the village were surprised to find that the village was there without any further loss of life.  



1948: During the battle for Mishmar HaEmek, Israeli forces captured and destroyed Ghubayya al-Tahta



1949: U.S. premiere of “Champion,” directed by Mark Robson, produced by Stanley Kramer, starring Kirk Douglas with a screenplay by Carl Foreman and music by Dimitri Tomkin.



1951(3rd of Nisan, 5711): Seventy four year old Henry Englander  the native of Hungary and 1901 graduate of the University of Cincinnati and Hebrew Union College who served as the rabbi of Temple Beth-El in Providence, RI and lectured at Brown University, passed away today.



1952(14th of Nisan, 5712): Fast of the First Born



1952:The Jerusalem Post reported the Israeli official announcement that the reparation talks at The Hague had only been suspended.



1952:The Jerusalem Post reported that Israel observed the Pesach festival with all traditional holiday foods severely rationed and in a very short supply. Wine shops were well-stocked, but only the more expensive brands were available. Pesach chocolates, sweets and biscuits were completely absent. The sole bright spot was an ample supply of vegetables. Citrus fruit was either very hard to get or completely unavailable.



1952:The Jerusalem Post reported that the rubber industry, which employs over 1,000 workers, faced a complete shut-down owing to the shortage of raw materials.



1952:The Jerusalem Post reported The Palestine Conciliation Commission decided to consider an Israeli request that the Jewish property confiscated in Iraq would be charged against the abandoned Arab property in Israel.



1953: Warner Brothers premieres the first 3-D film, entitled House of Wax.



1954: President Eisenhower appointed Edward B. Lawson to serve as U.S. Ambassador to Israel.



1956(28thof Nisan, 5716): Yom HaShoah



1957:  The Suez Canal was cleared for all shipping.  This marked one of the final acts of the Suez Crisis that began in October of 1956 and resulted in a swift victory of the Israelis over the Egyptians.  The Egyptians blocked the Suez Canal in attempt to get support from the world.  In the end the Israelis left the Canal and the Sinai.  The Egyptians would fail to honor their promises of peace and when they tried to destroy Israel again in 1967, the result was an even more devastating defeat for the Arabs.



1957: Release date for “The Bachelor Party” Paddy Chayefsky’s screen adaptation of his 1953 teleplay of the same name.



1958(19thof Nisan, 5718): Sixty-seven year movie producer Solomon Max "Sol" Wurtzel passed away today.  Such was his importance that none other than renowned director John Ford delivered his eulogy.



1958(19thof Nisan, 5718): Sixty-nine year old Clarence Palitz, the native of Latvia, who earned an LLB from NYU, served as an Alderman in New York City and was active in numerous Jewish organizations including the Jewish Social Service Association, passed away today.



1963(15thof Nisan, 5723): Pesach



1963: Birthdate of Marc Jacobs, American fashion designer



1964: U.S. premiere of “The Carpetbaggers” the move version of Harold Robbins novel produced by Joseph E. Levine with music by Elmer Bernstein.



1965: In Homestead, FL, Mathew Zucker, “a cardiologist” and Arline Zucker, “a school teacher gave birth to Harvard graduate and television executive Jeff Zucker



 https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/04/magazine/cnn-had-a-problem-donald-trump-solved-it.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=photo-spot-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news



1965: “The Greatest Story” a Biblical epic movie featuring Martin Landau, Ed Wynn and Joseph Schildkraut in his last movie with music by Alfred Newman was released in the United Kingdom today.



1968: The Jewish Orthodox Home for the Aged moved from Cleveland to a 37 acre site in Beachwood Village “and adopted the name Menorah Park Jewish Home for the Aged.”



1969: The "Chicago Eight" plead not guilty to federal charges of conspiracy to incite a riot at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Illinois. Three of the “Eight” - Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin and Lee Weiner – were Jewish.  The two lead defense attorneys were Jewish and the Judge hearing the case was also Jewish.



1971(14thof Nisan, 5731): Ta’anit Behorot; erev Pesach and erev Shabbat



1972: “Sugar” a musical produced by David Merrick with tunes by Jule Styne opened on Broadway at the Majestic Theatre.



1973: Israel Defense Forces Special Forces units attacked several Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) targets in Beirut and Sidon, Lebanon in an action thought “to be part of the retaliation for the Munich massacre at the Summer Olympics in 1972.”



1974(17thof Nisan, 5734): Third day of Pesach



1974: Sixty-eight year old Marvin Lewis Kline, the 34th mayor of Minneapolis who was “criticized by journalist Arthur Kasherman” for his close connection to the “Minneapolis Mob” some of whose members were Jewish passed away.



1976: In Israel, a car bomb was dismantled on Ben Yehudah Street shortly before it was to have exploded.



1976: “All The President’s Men” co-starring Dustin Hoffman with a screenplay by William Goldman and music by David Shire was released today in the United States.



1976: “Family Plot” a thriller with a script by Ernest Lehman was released in the United States today.



1976: NBC broadcast “The First Easter Rabbit” an animated tale co-starring Stan Freberg as “Flops.”



1978: U.S. premiere of “Rabbit Test,” directed and written by Joan Rivers, produced by Edgar Rosenberg, starring Billy Crystal in his film debut and featuring Norman Fell.



1982: Birthdate of Canadian Jay Burchel who numbers a Sephardic Jewish grandfather among his ancestors.



1984(7th of Nisan, 5744): Joseph G. Weisberg, editor and publisher of The Jewish Advocate, passed away Massachusetts General Hospital after becoming ill at his desk in Boston, where The Advocate is published. He was 73 years old. Mr. Weisberg, a graduate of Harvard College and the Harvard Law School, was head of The Advocate, an English- language weekly, for more than four decades. He was a founder and past president of the American Jewish Press Association and a director of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, a worldwide news service.



1984(7th of Nisan, 5744): In Portland, OR, 76 year old Sheindel Reznick, the wife of Hyman Reznik and the mother of Naomi Blumberg passed away.



1984: Refusnik,“Ida Nudel was summoned to the police station for interrogation.
1985(18th of Nisan, 5745): Fourth Day of Pesach



1985: In an example of Jew slamming a Jew, Frank Rich panned “Leader of the Pack” the musical with music and lyrics by Ellie Greenwich.



http://www.nytimes.com/mem/theater/treview.html?res=9E03E6DD1338F93AA35757C0A963948260&_r=3&



1986: Fred Friendly began serving as Montgomery Fellow at Dartmouth College today.



1988: Pitcher Jose Bautista, a native of the Dominican Republic, played his first major league game with the Baltimore Orioles.



1988(22ndof Nisan, 5748): Eighth Day of Pesach and Shabbat



1988(22ndof Nisan, 5748): Eighty-one year old Sydney Harry “Syd” Cohen who spent parts of three seasons during the 1930’s pitching for the Washington Senators where his only act of distinction was striking out Babe Ruth in 1934, making him the last American League pitcher to whiff the great Bambino passed away today.



1989(4th of Nisan, 5749): Eighty-six year old Moshe Ziffer, a native of Przemyśl, who came to Palestine in 1919 where he became an artist and sculptor whose works included busts of Einstein, Ben-Gurion and Chaim Weismann passed away today.



1989: In “Unearthing a Roman City in Israel,” published today Matthew J. Reisz described the history of Beit Shean including the latest archeological discoveries at this ancient city whose ties to the Jewish people date back to the days of Saul and David.
http://www.nytimes.com/1989/04/09/travel/unearthing-a-roman-city-in-israel.html?pagewanted=print&src=pm



1990: “Telling the Seder's Story In the Voice of a Woman” published today provides Nadine Brozan’s description of the celebration of Pesach with a unique, feminist twist.
http://www.nytimes.com/1990/04/09/nyregion/telling-the-seder-s-story-in-the-voice-of-a-woman.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm



1990(14th of Nisan, 5750):Louis Rappaport, called Calev Ben-David and asked him to join him in interviewing Barbara Walters just hours before the start of the first Seder.



1990: Twenty year old pitcher Scott Radinsky made his major league debut with the Chicago White Sox.



1991: Statements made in an interview with James Randi published in the International Herald Tribune resulted in a suit being filed by illusionists Uri Geller.



1992: Nigel Lawson retired as Member of Parliament for Blaby.



1992: Peter Benjamin Mandelson began serving as an MP for Hartlepool.



1993: “This Boy’s Life” a film version of the memoir by Tobias Wolff who did not find that his was Jewish until he was an adult co-starring Ellen Barkin was released today in the United States.



1993(18thof Nisan, 5763): Fourth Day of Pesach



1993(18thof Nisan, 5763): Ninety year old Rabbinic heavyweight Joseph Ber Soloveitchik passed away today in Boston.
http://www.nytimes.com/1993/04/10/nyregion/no-headline-684393.html
http://www.manfredlehmann.com/news/news_detail.cgi/110/0



1993(18thof Nisan, 5763): Eight-six year old middle-weight Abie Bain who lost a title bout to Maxie Rosenbloom passed away today.



1995(9th of Nisan, 5755): Alisa Flatow, 20, was riding a public (Jewish) bus near the Israeli settlement of Kfar Darom when an Arab suicide bomber plowed his car into that bus.  Alisa and seven Israeli soldiers, all under the age of 21, were killed.  Alisa was one of 20 American victims of the so-called "Peace" process! 



1995(9th of Nisan, 5755)Staff-Sgt. Yuval Regev, 20, of Holon; Staff-Sgt. Meir Scheinwald, 20, of Safed; Sgt. Itai Diener, 19, of Rishon Lezion; Sgt. Zvi Narbat, 19, of Rishon Lezion; Sgt. Netta Sufrin, 20, of Rishon Lezion; Cpl. Tal Nir, 19, of Kibbutz Miflasim; Sgt. Avraham Arditi, 19, of Jerusalem; and Alisa Flatow, 20, of the United States were killed when a bus was hit by an explosives-laden van near Kfar Darom in the Gaza Strip. The Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the attack.



1997(2ndof Nisan, 5757): Eighty year old screenwriter and author Helene Hanff best known for 84, Charing Cross Road passed away in New York City.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-helene-hanff-1267169.html



1998(13th of Nisan, 5758): Fast of the First Born takes place today because the 14thof Nisan falls on a Friday.



1999: “Never Been Kissed” a comedy co-starring Michael Vartan, Leelee Sobieski and James Franco was released in the United States today.



2000: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including the recently released paperback editions of “For the Relief of Unbearable Urges” by Nathan Englander in which the author “combines a compassionate grasp of the Orthodox Jewish world with the skeptical irreverence of one estranged from yet still oddly defined by it,''“The Last of the Just” by Andre Schwarz-Bart a French novel that chronicles the agonies of a Jewish family from 12th-century England to Nazi Germany,” and “Picture This” by Joseph Heller.



2001(16thof Nisan, 5761): Second Day of Pesach



2001(16thof Nisan, 5761): Eighty-six year old Communist Party member and Buchenwald survivor Emil Carlebach passed away today in Frankfurt am Main.
https://www.buchenwald.de/en/1202/



2002(27th of Nisan, 5762):  Yom Ha Shoah



2002: During Operation Defensive Shield a battalion commanded by Major Oded Golomb was ambushed by terrorists in Jenin



2002(27thof Nisan, 5762):  Maj.(res.) Oded Golomb, 22, of Kibbutz Nir David; Capt.(res.) Ya'akov Azoulai, 30, of Migdal Ha'emek; Lt.(res.) Dror Bar, 28, of Kibbutz Einat; Lt.(res.) Eyal Yoel, 28, of Kibbutz Ramat Rachel; 1st Sgt.(res.) Tiran Arazi, 33, of Hadera; 1st Sgt.(res.) Yoram Levy, 33, of Elad; 1st Sgt.(res.) Avner Yaskov, 34, of Be'er Sheva; Sgt. 1st Class (res.) Ronen Alshochat, 27, of Ramle; gt. 1st Class (res.) Eyal Eliyahu Azouri, 27, of Ramat Gan; Sgt. 1st Class (res.) Amit Busidan, 22, of Bat Yam; Sgt. 1st Class (res.) Menashe Hava, 23, of Kfar Sava; Sgt. 1st Class (res.) Shmuel Danny Meizlish, 27, of Moshav Hemed; Sgt. 1st Class (res.) Eyal Zimmerman, 22, of Ra'anana were killed today while fighting at Jenin. (Jewish Virtual Library)



2002(27thof Nisan, 5762): Thirty year old Major Assaf Assoulin of Tel Aviv was killed during fighting at Nablus.



2002(27thof Nisan, 5762): Twenty-one year old Staff Sergeant Malik was killed today.



2002: A pro-Israel drew 4,000 supporters today in Miami Beach, FL.



2004: “The Alamo” an epic about the Texas war for independence co-produced by Brian Grazer and with a script co-authored by Leslie Bohem was released in the United States today.



2004: U.S. premiere of “The Girl Next Door” with a screenplay co-authored by Stuart Blumberg.



2005(29th of Adar II, 5765): Author Andrea Dworkin passed away. Born in 1946, she was variously an anarchist, anti-war activist, radical feminists and an outspoken critic of pornography which viewed as being a cause of the violent attacks suffered by women.



2006:  The Washington Post featured a review of Absolute Convictions: My Father, a City and the Conflict that Divided America by Eyal Press.  The book is an account of the battle over abortion in the United States.  The book is written by the son of Dr. Shalom Press, one of two doctors who performed abortions in Buffalo, New York.  The other was Dr. Barnett Slepian who was murdered in his kitchen when he came home from Friday night Shabbat services. Interestingly enough, the local leaders of the anti-abortion movement are twin brother who had grown up in a Jewish home and had converted to Christianity before becoming “pro-life.”



2006: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Suite Francaise by Irène Némirovsky; translated by Sandra Smith



2006: Concentration camp survivor Emil Alperin of the Ukraine is pictured in an AP photo laying down flowers at Buchenwald near Weimar in eastern Germany as part of the commemoration ceremonies for the 61st anniversary of the liberation of the former Nazi concentration camp.



2007: Haaretz reported that archeologists digging in northern Israel have discovered evidence of a 3,000-year-old beekeeping industry, including remnants of ancient honeycombs, beeswax and what they believe are the oldest intact beehives ever found. The findings in the ruins of the city of Rehov include 30 intact hives dating to around 900 B.C.E., archaeologist Amihai Mazar of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem told The Associated Press. He said it offers unique evidence that an advanced honey industry existed in the Holy Land at the time of the Bible.



2007(21st of Nisan, 5767: Seventh Day of Pesach: Reform Jews recite Yizkor on what is for them, is the last day of the holiday.



2007: In “Girls: Israel’s Racy New PR Strategy Israel” published today Kevin Peraino describes Israel’s flirtation with a new public-relations strategy”
http://israel21c.org/blog/newsweek-babes-in-the-holy-land-israel-flirts-with-a-racy-new-public-relations-strategy/



2008: Madeleine M. Kunin, the former governor of Vermont, the first Jewish  woman governor and an ambassador under the Clinton administration, discusses and signs her new book, “Pearls, Politics, and Power: How Women Can Win and Lead,” at Busboys and Poets in Washington, D.C.



2008(4th of Nisan, 5768):21-year-old Staff Sgt. Bisan Sayef from the village of Jatt was killed during clashes with Palestinian gunmen.



2008: April will be known as Jewish Heritage Month in New Jersey, thanks to legislation Gov. Jon Corzine signed at Passaic’s Ahavas Israel in front of a multi-ethnic group.



2009: In “So You Think Know Matzo?” published today in Time magazine, Claire Suddath provides a brief history of this famous unleavened bread.
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1890268,00.html



2009(15 Nisan 5769): First Day of Pesach



2009(15th of Nisan, 5769): US President Barack Obama is scheduled to celebrate Passover tonight with staff and friends in what is believed to be the first White House Seder attended by an American president. President Obama is not the first US President to attend a Seder.  That honor belongs to William Howard Taft who was the first president to attend a Seder while in office. In 1912, when he visited Providence, RI, he participated in the family Seder of Colonel Harry Cutler, first president of the National Jewish Welfare Board. Why did Taft go?  Was it an act of brotherhood and good will or was it an act of political fence mending brought on by Taft’s support of measures that were harmful to Jewish immigration.  Since 1912 was an election year and Taft was faced with a stiff challenge from Theodore Roosevelt, he needed all of the support he get from Jewish voters who had supported the Republican Party.  



2010(25thof Nisan, 5770): Ninety-year old British soldier and diplomat Sir Peter Ramsbotham whose “mother was the daughter of Jewish banker Sgismund de Stein of London” passed away today.



2010: The Westchester Film Festival is scheduled to show “Hello Goodbye” a romantic comedy about a Jewish couple from Paris who go through a midlife crisis and move to Tel Aviv staring Gérard Depardieu and Fanny Ardant.



2010:  Three days after premiering in New York “Date Night,” a comedy directed and co-produced by Shawn Levy was released to theatres throughout the United States.


2010: Rich Recht is scheduled to lead a musical and interactive Shabbat evening at the Historic Sixth and I Synagogue in Washington, D.C.


2011: Vadim Gluzman is scheduled to perform with the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra.


2011: Machaya Klezmer, “the premier klezmer band,” is scheduled to perform at The Jewish Study Center Spring Fund Raiser at Tifereth Israel Congregation in Washington, DC.


2011: In Cedar Rapids, Iowa, the Jewish community gathered for shiva minyan at the home of Kate and Gary Goldstein in memory of Gary’s father, Harold Goldstein of blessed memory.


2011: Hamas said today that it “did not intend to target Israeli schoolchildren when they fired a rocket at a bus two days ago, critically wounding a teenager and moderately wounding the bus driver, in an attack that sparked the latest round of border fighting."



 2011: Today the Israel Defense Forces spokesman's office confirmed that IAF jets attacked three top Hamas officials in the Gaza strip, as well as a smuggling tunnel and a truck carrying ammunition, after southern Israel suffered a barrage of rockets overnight.



2011: This morning two additional Grad rockets were fired at Ofakim and 25 mortar shells were fired into the Eshkol Regional Council. Fifteen Grad-model rockets had been fired from the Gaza Strip into Israeli territory during the night.  The Iron Dome rocket-defense system intercepted five of them in the Beersheba and Ashkelon areas, Israel Radio reported.


2011(5thof Nisan, 5771): Eight-six year old move director Sidney Lumet passed away today.

2012: In the third and final event in Adam Gopnik’s “Table Comes First” series, Padma Lakshmi and Amanda Hesser are scheduled to discuss the unique strengths and differences of our culinary masters and mavens at the 92nd Street Y in Manhattan.


2012: At least 70,000 people from Israel and abroad gathered at the Western Wall in Jerusalem's Old City today for the traditional priestly blessing. 



2013: “The Last Flight of Petr Ginz” is scheduled to be shown at the Westchester Jewish Film Festival



2013: An exhibit of letters, manuscripts, images, and objects about the life and literary career of Hyam Plutzik opened at Connecticut’s Trinity College of which he was one of the first Jewish alums.



2013: “Melting Away” an Israeli film with English subtitles is scheduled to be shown at the 17thMandell JCC Hartford Jewish Film Fest.



2013: In Mandeville, LA, the Northshore Jewish Congregation is scheduled to host its Yom HaShaoah Holocaust Remembrance Program. 



2013: Jack Tytell, an American-born Israeli Jew who was convicted in January of murdering two Palestinians and wounding two Israelis, was sentenced today by the Jerusalem District Court to two consecutive life sentences plus 30 years jail time, and was ordered to pay NIS 680,000 ($190,000) compensation to the victims’ families.



2013: Jewish Agency head Natan Sharansky was in the United States today to present to American Jewish leaders part of his proposal to resolve the issue of nontraditional prayer at the Western Wall in Jerusalem, which will reportedly include a greatly enlarged section for egalitarian services.



2014: “Holy Ground: Woody Guthrie's Yiddish Connection” is scheduled to best shown at the Westchester Jewish Film Festival.



2014: “Women Unchained” is scheduled to be shown at The JCC Rockland International Jewish Film Festival.



2014(9th of Nisan, 5774): Eighty-seven year old Jacob Birnbaum passed away today.
http://forward.com/articles/196373/soviet-jewry-activist-jacob-birnbaum-dies-at-/



2014: The Thaler Holocaust Memorial Fund chaired by Dr. Bob Silber is scheduled to co-host a speech by Holocaust survivor Cesare Frustaci at Coe College in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.



2015: In Orono, ME, Lewis Black is scheduled to perform at the Collins Center for Arts at the Univeristy of Main.



2015: “When a Plane Seat Next to a Woman Is Against Orthodox Faith” published today described the conditions aboard planes flying to Israel when men insist on preferential treatment because they do not want to sit next to women for religious reasons.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/10/us/aboard-flights-conflicts-over-seat-assignments-and-religion.html?login=email&hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=mini-moth&region=top-stories-below&WT.nav=top-stories-below&_r=0



2015: Shoah survivor Margit Meissner is scheduled to speak today at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.



2015: “Blumenthal,” “A Place in Heaven” and “Famous Nathan” are scheduled to be shown at the Westchester Jewish Film Festival.



2015: The Argentine government announced today that it “will declassify all intelligence documents about the March 17, 1992, attack on the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires that killed 29 people and wounded hundreds. (As reported by JTA)



2015: Vandals smashed a window and scrawled anti-Semitic messages at Copenhagen’s only kosher deli, police said today, less than two months after a man was killed in an attack outside a synagogue on the Danish city.”



2015: Funeral series are scheduled to take place for Bernice Tannenbaum, the past National President of Hadassah who passed away at the age of 101 at Riverside Memorial Chapel in New York City.



2016(1stof Nisan, 5776):  Rosh Chodesh Nisan and Shabbat HaChodesh. 



2016: “Rock in the Red Zone” is scheduled to be shown at the Hartford Jewish Film Festival.



2016: “JeruZalem” and “Baba Joon” are scheduled to be shown for the first time at the Westchester Jewish Film Festival.



2016: “Laugh Lines” and “Suicide” are scheduled to be shown at the Northern Virginia Jewish Film Festival



2017: “In an statement timed just ahead of Passover, the Temple Mount Sifting Project said today it had found a stone finger that may have belonged to a Bronze Age Egyptian statue, but conceded it wasn’t sure.”



2017: The New York Times published reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Rules Do Not Apply: A Memoir by Ariel Levy and Our Short History by Lauren Grodstein,



2017: The Autohaus on Edens is scheduled to be the venue “for an exclusive event benefiting the Women's Leadership Committee of the Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center.”



2017: In “Keep Your Politics Out of Passover,” published today Shmuel Rosner, the political editor at The Jewish Journal and a senior fellow at the Jewish People Policy Institute examines the problems with using what are supposed to be unifying Jewish customs and ceremonies to promote partisan political views.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/09/opinion/keep-your-politics-out-of-passover.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-right-region&region=opinion-c-col-right-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-right-region



2018: The Center for Jewish History and the American Jewish Historical Society are scheduled to host Psoy Korolenko and Anna Shternshis performing “satirical Yiddish anti-fascist songs from the lost Archive of the Bureau for Jewish Culture at the Ukrainian Academy of Science, written during World War II in the Soviet Union”
2018: The Jupiter Symphony Chamber Players which was founded by Jens Nygaard who directed the Washington Heights YW-YMHA concerts for 25 years is scheduled to perform “The Great vs. The Five” featuring the music of Tchaikovsky versus the music of Mily Balakirev, César Cui, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Modest Mussorgsky, and Alexander Borodin.  

2018: “From Poland to Israel: The March of the Living” sponsored by the Temple Emanu-El Streicker center is scheduled to begin today.

 


 



 



 


 

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

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April 10


401: Birthdate of Theodosius II. As Emperor he adopted many of the anti-Semitic views of his sister which led to the destruction of innumerable synagogues and the murder of the Nasi, Gamliel IV who had authorized the building of new synagogues.  Theodosius abolished of the position of Nasi in 425.  The term Nasi means Prince and starting with the last decade of the second century was the title given to the head of the Sanhedrin. The Romans had recognized the importance of the position and Jews were allowed to pay a tax for the upkeep of the Nasi.  When Theodosius killed Gamliel and abolished the position Nasi, he did not end the tax.  He diverted the money to the Roman government. 

879: Louis III becomes King of the Western Franks (also known as France).  Louis was part of the Carolingian Dynasty which was comparatively sympathetic and supportive of the Jews living in the realm as can be seen by the decrees of some of Louis III’s predecessors including Charlemagne and Louis the Pious.



1096: During the Crusades Bishop Egelbert offered to save all the Jews of Trier, Germany who are willing to be baptized.  The Jews were seeking refuge from a mob that was threatening them with death.  Most of the Jews chose to drown themselves rather than accept Christianity.


1191: In the enfolding saga of King Richard’s crusade to the Holy Land that was so costly to the Jews from the time of his departure until the payment of his ransom, the English monarch set sail from Sicily for Palestine.


1201:  King John of England confirms Charter of the Jews. King John charged the Jews four thousand marks to re-confirm the rights that had first been guaranteed by his great grandfather, King Henry


1439(25th of Nisan): Poet and kabbalist Avigdor ben Isaac Kara of Prague passed away today.


1516:  The first ghetto was established in Venice. There are various explanations of the origin of the term ghetto.  "The mostly likely explanation for the word ghetto, as applied to a special place assigned to the Jews is that one such district, set up in the city of Venice, was located near an iron-foundry which was called ‘get’ in the dialect of Venice."  While Jews had often sought to live in their own communities, the ghetto was different because it was compulsory.  Under the ghetto system, Jews were restricted by law as to where they could live while Christians were free to live everywhere.



1560(14thof Nisan): The Pentateuch with a Yiddish translation was published in Cremona, Italy



1570:  The Chumash with Yiddish translation was published in Cremona, Italy.  There were less than a thousand Jews living in Cremona at this time.  In 1559, under pressure from the Dominicans, copies of the Talmud and other Jewish books had been publicly burned in Cremona.  A quarter of a century after the printing of the above mentioned Chumash, the Jews were expelled from Cremona.



1607: As the Inquisition prepared to take action against “Jorge de Almedia, a Portuguese residing in Mexico, the husband of Dona Lenor de Andrada who was convicted by the Holy Office having kept observed the dead Law of Moses, document were posted on the door of the Cathedral in the next step to bringing him to “justice.”


1637: Venetian Rabbi, Judah di Modena “received word that his Italian manuscript entitled ‘History of Hebrew’ customs had been published in Paris.” A gentile Parisian publisher thought that “a book extolling Judaism, written by a Jew in Italian” would be of interest toChristian readers which was the authors “target audience.”  (As reported by Abraham Bloch)



1625(3rdof Nisan, 5385): Joshua Cohen Peixotto passed away.



1699: Rabbi Samuel Orgels, a friend of Baer Cohen for whom he had arranged both of his marriages, passed away.  According to the diary of Glückel of Hameln he “fell into a faint and died on the spot” on a Friday evening while in the Synagogue.



1719: Fire destroyed the Ghetto of Nikolsburg, Moravia



1728(1stof Iyar, 5488): Rosh Chodesh



1728(1stof Iyar, 5488): Solomon Ayllon,  the “Hacham” of Sephardic congregations in London and Amsterdam and who was alleged to a supporter of Sabbatai Zevi, passed away today.



1738: John Da Costa swears in writing that he has translated the will of Abraham Mendes Seixas, also known as Migule Pnacheo Da Silva from Portugese into English to the best of his ability.



1772: Empress Maria Theresa issued an order allowing Jews to “sell new garments they had made themselves" despite protests from the local tailor’s guild.



1792(18thof Nisan, 5552): Fourth Day of Pesach



1794: Birthdate of Edward Robinson an American biblical scholar, known as the “Father of Biblical Geography.” Robinson led a mission of exploration to Palestine in 1838.  Among his many finds was “the tunnel dug by Hezekiah shortly before the Assyrian siege of Jerusalem in 701/02 BCE.”  He is the Robinson of “Robinson’s Arch,” a structure found on the south-western side of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.



1800(15thof Nisan, 5560): First Pesach of the 19th Century



1816(12th of Nisan, 5576): M.H. Bock, the native of Magedburg founded a well-regarded private school “in 1807 at Berlin, and to which Christian as well as Jewish pupils were admitted” passed away today.



1825(22ndof Nisan, 5585): 8th day of Pesach



1828: Birthdate of Isaac Honig, brother of Henry Honig, the native of Mayence who came to the United States in 1850 where his mercantile prospered to the extent that he could retire in 1865.



1835: Birthdate of Johann Schnitzler “a Hungarian-Austrian Jewish laryngologist.”



1847:  Birthdate of Joseph Pulitzer.  Born in Hungary, Pulitzer came to the United States during the Civil War where he served in the Union Army.  After the war he learned English, became rich as publisher of the St Louis Post-Dispatch and the New York World.  He died in 1911.  The Pulitzer Prizes were created by his will and were first awarded in 1917.  Pulitzer's father was Jewish, but his mother was a Roman Catholic.  Although he was not Jewish, Pulitzer's enemies attacked him as one even condemning him for hiding the "fact" that he was one.


1849(17th of Nisan, 5609): Third day of Pesach


1849: Lion Metz married Julia Hart at the Great Synagogue today.


1849(17th of Nisan, 5609): In Amsterdam, David Proops, the last member of a family of printers that date back to the 18thcentury passed away today.


1855: Birthdate of Kansas City, MO native Berry Dantzig, the husband of Anna Kasor Dantzig


1855: In Philadelphia, PA, Sigmund Juris and Theresa Trautmann gave birth to Louis Jurist, the husband of Louise Stieglitz and graduate of Jefferson Medical College where he served as a lecturer while also practicing laryngology at Jewish Hospital.


1858: Jewish veterans of the Russian Army were given permission to settle in Finland which was a province in the Russian Empire.  The Jewish soldiers would have had to complete 25 years of service to gain this right


1861(30th of Nisan, 5621): As Confederate forces prepare to begin for the attack on Fort Sumter, the Jews of Charleston joined their co-religionist throughout the world in observing the first day of   Rosh Chodesh Iyyar.


1863: Jacob C. Cohen of the 27th Ohio Infantry writes from Corinth, Mississippi about life in the Union Army which is resting in preparation for what will be the climatic campaign to take Vicksburg, the “Confederate Gibraltar” on the Mississippi River.


1863: Today Ferdinand Leopold Samer was the first rabbi to be commissioned as a chaplain in the Union Army. Born in Germany, Samar was elected by the 54th New York Volunteer Regiment made up of mostly German speaking soldiers.  Samer was the first Jewish chaplain to be wounded in combat during the Civil War.


1865(14th of Nisan, 5625): On the day after the meeting at Appomattox ending the Civil War in the morning Jews, both North and South, observed the Fast of the First Born and in the evening sat down to their fist “peaceful” Seder.


1866(25th of Nisan, 5626): Fifty-nine year old Adolph Meyer, the scion of multi-generational Hanover, Germany, banking family who with his wife Fanny had eight children, passed away today.


1871: Anti-Semitic riots break out in Odessa Russia


1871: Adolph and Johanna Loeb gave birth to Esther Loeb who became Esther Greenebaum when she married Henry Napthali Greenebaum with she had four children.


1872: Thirty-one year old Philadelphia born attorney Leon da Silva Solis-Cohen, the son of Myer David Cohen and Judith Simha Solis, grandson of Jacob da Silva Solis and veteran of the Union Army married his cousin, Lucia Manness Ritterband, with whom he had two daughters (Jessie Myra and Gertrude) and one son (Leon Manness).”


1873: In “Passover: The Jewish Festival and Feast of the Year,” published today The New York Times reports that “to-morrow evening, the 11th of April the Jewish part of the inhabitants of this City will begin the celebration of the Feast of the Passover, an ancient Hebrew festival which Moses instituted to commemorate perpetually the passing over the houses of the Israelites, and the slaying of the first-born of the Egyptians, just previous to the exodus of the children of Israel.” The article is remarkable for its detailed description of the holiday including the insightful statement that “Passover is one of the three important of the festival calendar and although observed by the Jews everywhere yet the laws laid down in relation to its celebration are not followed by all classes of Jews with equal strictness”


1876(16th of Nisan, 5636): Second day of Pesach; 1st day of the Omer.


1876: In New York City, Bertha and Levi Spiegelberg gave birth to Eugene E. Spiegelberg


1879(16th of Nisan, 5639): Second day of Pesach


1879(16thof Nisan, 5639):


1882:  A pogrom in Podalia, Russia left 40 dead, 170 wounded and 1,250 dwellings destroyed. Fifteen thousand Jews were reduced to total poverty.  It was events like these that spurred the First Aliyah in the Zionist movement. 


1884(15th of Nisan, 5644): 1st day of Pesach


1887: Pope Leo XIII authorizes the establishment of The Catholic University of America. Among its most distinguished alums is David R. Levin a graduate of university’s Columbus College of Law.


1890: Sixty-one year old Hungarian born Austrian poet Karl Isidor Beck who edited the Lloyd, passed away today in Vienna.


1890: The late Louis Lippman has left a bequest of $500 to each of the following: Mount Sinai Hospital, the Hebrew Benevolent and Orphan Asylum, the Montefiore Home for Chronic Invalids and the Home for Aged and Infirm Hebrews.


1892: In an article entitled “One of the Important Hebrew Festivals Begins To-Morrow Night,” the New York Times reports that “at sunset to-morrow evening, which corresponds with the evening of the fourteenth day of the month of Nissan in the Hebraic calendar the Jewish community through the world will commence the celebration of the feast of Pesach or Passover.”


1895: In Albany, NY, the State Board of Charities approved the certificate of incorporation of the Hebrew Infant Asylum of the City of New York.



1896: A Jew named Benjamin Dreyer who had been masquerading as Turk named Ben Ouni was arraigned in Brooklyn on charges of having stolen a tray of rings.



1896: “David Finkelstein of Bridgeport, CT, got a writ of habeas corpus” today “in Special Term, Part II of the Supreme Court commanding Pesach Isenbroch…to bring into court the court, the realtor’s wife, Ida Finkelstein” whom he alleges he married under false pretenses.



1896: The Young Folks’ League of the Hebrew Infant Asylum performed a two act play at the Lexington Opera house as a fundraiser.



1897: “Books and Periodicals” published today described plans to simultaneously release Ancient Hebrew Tradition by Dr. Firtz Hommel in May. In this work, the noted Semitic language expert “controverts the method employed by the higher critics of the Old Testament and attacks the Graf Wellhausen hypothesis, also known as the documentary hypothesis.



1898(18thof Nisan, 5658): Fourth Day of Pesach



1898: Simon Jacoby, a native of England who had joined the U.S. Navy in December of 1897 was serving as a Gunner today aboard the U.S.S. Oregon.



1898: Birthdate of Evan P. Helfaer, the prominent Milwaukee businessman “who made a major contribution to the Helfaer Community Service Building, completed in 1973” before he died in February, 1974.



1898: In Los Angeles, Mamie and Henry Klein gave birth to their only son, Arthur Louis Klein who earned a Ph.D. in physics at Cal Tech where he eventually became a full Professor of Aeronautical Engineering – a position he held when in 1946 he went to Bikini to help evaluate the effect of the atomic tests.



1900: Herzl meets Arminius Vámbéry in Budapest in attempts to enlist Turkish support for the creation of the Jewish homeland in Palestine.



1903: In Vienna, Max Graf, “a member of Sigmund Freud’s circle of friends” and his wife gave birth to opera producer Herbert Graf, who was also “the Little Hans discussed in Freud's 1909 study ‘Analysis of a Phobia in a Five-year-old Boy.’”



1905: In Charleston, SC, Rabbi Simenhoff officiated at the wedding of Jacob Lichmon and Rosa Dautschman.



1906: Birthdate of Wilhelm Kauders who gained fame as Czech electrical engineer Vilém Klíma who survived Terezin and the death march to Auschwitz.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/18/books/ivan-klimas-my-crazy-century-spans-decades-of-czech-life.html?ref=books&_r=0



1910: Two days after his death, sixty-three year old Dr. of Jurisprudence Alois Klemperer, the son Julie Klemperer and Rabbi Gutmann Klemperer and husband of Eugenie Klemperer was buried in Vienna.



1910: Rabbi Avraham Elyashiv (Erener) of Gomel, Belarus, and Chaya Musha, daughter of the kabbalist Rabbi Shlomo Elyashiv gave birth to Rabbi Yosef Shalom Eliashiv



1910: More than seven hundred members of the Hebrew Retail Kosher Butchers' Protective Association met today at 763 First Avenue and resolved not to buy a pound of meat for twenty-four hours.



1910: Birthdate of New York businessman Samuel “Sam” Schulman who was best known as the owner of the NBA SuperSonics and a minority owner of NFL San Diego Chargers.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/16/sports/sam-schulman-93-team-owner-who-defied-nba-draft-rules.html
http://articles.latimes.com/2003/jun/14/local/me-schulman14



1910: “Oppressed Jews in Morocco Seek From Powers” published today described the desperate condition of these North African Jews and their attempts to get the Alliance Israelite of Paris and the Anglo-Jewish Association in London to enlist the aid of their respective governments ‘in forcing the Sultan to keep the promise of his grandfather, made to Sir Moses Montefiore in 1864, that his Jewish subjects should be dealt with justly, not cruelly”



1911: Today, The Edward Rosenstein Association distributed free matzoth to needy Jews living on the Lower East Side



1912: Sixty-eight year old French historian Gabriel Monod who “became convinced” that Dreyfus did not write the infamous “bordereau”, testified on his behalf at the Court of Cessation in 1899 and after his pardon assured Dreyfus “that come what may, he would always…defend him.”



1912: Archibald Grace IV, the man who would provide the account of Isidor Strauss’s last moments boarded the Titanic at Southampton today.



1912: Mr. Abraham Joseph Hyman who was born in the Russian Empire in 1878 and the husband of Manchester naïve Esther Levy boarded the Titanic today at Southampton as a third class passenger (ticket number 3470 which cost £7, 17s, 9d) which was the first step on journey to visit his brother Harry in Springfield, MA.



1912: Tonight marks the start of the Young Women's Hebrew Association’s campaign to raise $250,000 for a new building. Abram I. Elkus, Chairman of the Executive Committee of the campaign; Supreme Court Justice Samuel Greenbaum, Rabbi Schulman, and other speakers will address the workers at the kick-off function.



1913(3rdof Nisan, 5673): Fifty-five year old Isaac “Ike” Tuck the “publisher of the Produce Bulletin and one of the best known men in fruit trade circles all over the United States” passed away this evening at his home in Brooklyn



1913: Birthdate of Hellmuth Flieg, a German - Jewish writer, known by his pseudonym Stefan Heym. He lived in the United States (or served in its army abroad) between 1935 and 1952, before moving back to the part of his now-partitioned native Germany which was the German Democratic Republic (GDR, "East Germany"). He published works in English and German at home and abroad, and despite longstanding criticism of the GDR remained a committed socialist.



1914: Birthdate of Raphael Silverman, the native of Ithaca, NY who gained fame as “Raphael Hillyer, the founding violist of the Juilliard String Quartet and a soloist and teacher known for the warmth and expressivity of his tone.”



1914(14th of Nisan, 5674): Four hundred and fifty Jewish servicemen including sailors from the battleships Texas, North Dakota, Washington, Ohio, Wyoming and Louisiana are scheduled to take part in a Seder tonight specifically for military personnel at Tuxedo Hall in Manhattan.



1914(14th of Nisan, 5674): In a pre-Passover tragedy, George Rothstein discovered the bodies of his sister Bessie Diamond and three of her young children who were victims of an apparent murder-suicide.  According to Mrs. Diamond’s husband, Mrs. Diamond had been suffering from severe depression for which her doctor had recommended she be sent to a sanitarium.



1915: As of today at Temple Emanu-El the sisterhood which was founded in 1889 and the brotherhood which was founded in 1900 are active in providing social service and settlement work on the Lower East Side.



1916: Birthdate of Abraham Basalinsky, the native of Bethnal Green, London who gained fame as actor Alfie Bass.



1916: In Berlin at a meeting of the Relief Committee for Indigent Jews, “the President that 700,000 Jews in the occupied districts of Poland required assistance.



1916: Chairman Nathan of the Hebrew Benevolent Association today “paid a tribute to the work of American Jews in supporting the sufferers in Poland.



1916: The Professional Golfers Association of America (PGA) is created in New York City. In 1942, Herman “Barron became the first Jewish golfer to win an official PGA Tour event by winning the Western Open by two strokes over Henry Picard at Phoenix Golf Club in Phoenix, Arizona.”



1917: “Henry Morgenthau, Chairman of the campaign to raise $10,000,000 for the immediate aid of the Jewish sufferers in the eastern war zone said” today “that Governor Simon Bamberger of Utah had pledged to give one-tenth of the total amount that his state might raise for the fund.” (Editor’s note – Simon Bamberger was the first non-Mormon and the first Jew to serve as governor of Utah.)



1917: In New York, “the Provisional Executive Committee for general Zionist affairs announced” tonight that it had received a cablegram from Moscow saying that today, “the first Zionist convention ever held in Russia has just closed its sessions which were marked with tremendous enthusiasm, due to the fact that this is the first time they have been able to assemble from all part of the country and to publicly discuss questions of interest to the Jewish people without fear or arrest.”



1918: Birthdate of Alfred P. Slaner, the developer of Supp-Hose hosiery who also made Nixon’s Enemies’ List.



1918: “Zionist Unit Prepares” published today described the upcoming departure for Palestine of “the American Zionist Medical Unit with forty members” that “will co-operate with the Jewish Administrative Commission which is laying the foundation for the future Jewish State.”



1918: Birthdate of Cornell Capa, a globe-trotting photojournalist who founded the International Center of Photography in New York and dedicated himself to preserving the legacy of his older brother, war photographer Robert Capa.  He died on May 23, 2008 at the age of 90 of Parkinson’s disease.



1919: Based on reports the American Jewish Committee has received from its agents in Czechoslovakia which are similar to others received from Jews in Poland, Rumania and the Ukraine, the committee led by Judge Julian W. Mack, its Chairman and Louis Marshall, its Vice Chairman “are building their case to convince the Peace Conference that the Jews in Eastern European countries must have their rights provided for by treaty.”


1920(22nd of Nisan, 5680): Moritz Benedikt Cantor, a German historian of mathematics, passed away.


1920(22nd of Nisan, 5680): 8TH Day of Pesach


1920: First Lieutenant Meyer L. Casman was completed the treatment for his eyes today at Walter Reed Hospital in Washington, D.C.


1920: Birthdate of Alexander Livshiz, the son of Russian born parents living in Yokohama who gained fame as Dr. Alexander Leaf.
http://nutrition.med.harvard.edu/personnel/biosketch/Leaf_bio.pdf



1923: In the Netherlands, Sophie Josephine Frank, the daughter of Louis and Emma Sachs and Siegfried Frank gave birth to Julius Frank.



1923: Premiere performance of Kurt Weil’s “Divertimento for Orchestra” by the Berlin Philharmonic.



1924: Today, Michael “Balcon married Aileen Freda Leatherman, the daughter of Max Jacobs and Beatrice Leatherman, with whom he had two children Jonathan and Jill who married Poet Laureate Cecil Day-Lewis whose children were Tamasin Day-Lewis and Oscar winning actor Daniel Day-Lewis.



1925: The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald is first published in New York City, by Charles Scribner's Sons. Among the characters who populate this classic study of life in the Roaring Twenties is Meyer Wolfsheim a gambler with underworld connections who claims to have fixed the 1919 World Series.  The character is a thinly veiled fictional version of the Jewish gambler Arnold Rothstein, whom according to some, fixed the 1919 World Series.  Rothstein has been portrayed as the evil Jew who corrupts America’s pristine pastime and its innocent Christian athletes.  Is Fitzgerald trying to imply that whatever shady deals Gatsby may have engaged in are the product of the corrupting influence of this Jewish gambler?



1926: In Nuremberg, Germany, “Juda and Fanny Metzger immigrants from Poland” gave birth to  “artist and political activist” Gustav Metzger who came to Great Britain from Germany as part of the Kindertransport  and created the concept of Auto-Destructive Art while being an active member of  the anti-nuclear peace movement.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/08/arts/design/gustav-metzger-dead-auto-destructive-artist.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well



1926: “Chairman David A. Brown of the United Jewish Campaign which is seeking to raise $15,000,000 for relief and reconstruction work among the Jews of Eastern Europe” reported today “to the 1,200 members of the national committee” that original goal would be surpassed and the contributions would actually come close to $25,000,000.



1927: Birthdate of Marshall Warren Nirenberg “an American biochemist and geneticist who shared a Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1968.”



1927: “Anti-Semitism in Russia” published today provides the views of Alexander Kerensky, who led the Russian government after the fall of the Czars and before the takeover by Lenin, “that hatred toward Jews is intense at present in his country” and that “only the advent of a politically free and economically sound system of government in Russia will put an end to anti-Semitism there.”



1928(19thof Nisan, 5688): Fifth day of Pesach



1928: In Mount Vernon, NY “Chauncey Freedman and the former Dorothea Kornblum” gave birth to “Monroe H. Freedman, a dominant figure in legal ethics whose work helped chart the course of lawyers’ behavior in the late 20th century.” (As reported by Margalit Fox)
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/03/nyregion/monroe-freedman-expert-on-legal-ethics-dies-at-86.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=0



1928(19thof Nisan, 5688): Seventy-one year old Amalia “Molly” Finkelstein Mogulesko who performed in Goldfaden's "Grandmother with Grandson" and was the widow of Yiddish actor Sigmund Mogulesko passed away today.



1928: Birthdate of Claude Newman Rosenberg, the Jewish philanthropist who authored, “Wealthy and Wise: How You and America Can Get the Most Out of Your Giving” 



1930(12thof Nisan, 5690): Fast of the First Born



1930: In Austin, TX, “the land for Agudas Achim’s new building was purchased for $12,500” today



1931: “My Cousin from Warsaw” produced by Arnold Pressburger was released today in Germany and France.



1932: Birthdate of actor Omar Sharif.  The Egyptian born Sharif, who starred in such films as “Dr. Zhivago” and “Lawrence of Arabia,” found his films banned in the Arab world because he played opposite Jewish singing star Barbra Streisand.



1933: German Vice-Chancellor Frtiz von Papen met with Cardinal Pacelli, the future Pope Pius XII and presented Hitler’s offer for a Concordant between the new Nazi government and the Vatican.



1934: In Englewood, NJ. Jacob and Florence Landau gave birth Jacob Charles “Jack” Landau the attorney who served as one of the founders of the Reported Committee for Freedom of the Press.



1934: U.S. premiere of “Viva Villa!” produced by David O. Selznick with a script by Ben Hecht and featuring Joseph Schildkraut as “Gen. Pascal.”



1934:  Birthdate of David Halbestram one of the many Jewish journalists that have dominated the American literary scene.  Halbestram won a Pulitzer in 1964 for his coverage in the New York Timesof the Viet Nam War.  He gained further fame as the author of the best-selling Best and the Brightest.  He has been a prolific author on a variety of topics. Ironically, he never wrote a book on a “Jewish” topic.



1935 At Temple Emanu-El, Mrs. Israel Goldstein presided over a conference of the “leaders of Jewish women’s organizations with a combined membership of several hundred thousand” where the attendees “pledged cooperation with the Jewish National Fund” in the work of redeeming the land of Palestine.



1936: It was announced today that “Dr. Stephen S. Wise, national chairman of the $3,500,000 campaign of the United Palestine Appeal for the settlement in Palestine of a maximum number of the Jews of Germany, Poland and other lands has received messages endorsing the drive from Governor Paul V. McNutt of Indiana, Representative Schuyler Merritt of Connecticut, Governor Tom Berry of South Dakota and Governor Harold Hoffman of New Jersey.”



1936: Tonight in a broadcast over WEAF in New York, banker and philanthropist Felix M. Warburg described “the rehabilitation work of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee in fifty countries during the last twenty-two years including the current training programs “to train and rehabilitate for vocational work Jewish youths and adults in Germany who have been barred” by law taking part in commercial and professional activities.



1936: “Citing a clause of the Treaty of Versailles, Supreme Court Justice Philip J. McCook refused to recognize the ‘sovereign immunity’ claim in the courts by the German State Railroads which was the basis for its defense brought by Marcel M. Holzer, a former employee who claimed he had been discharged as a ‘non-Aryan’ and his internment in a German concentration camp.



1936: The mandatory government “prohibition on the use of the term ‘Eretz Israel’ (Land of Israel) over the radio became a national issue today when a suit was filed” in Jerusalem” to force lifting the ban.”



1937: In a pre-birthday interview given today, Dr. Pereira-Mendes, the rabbi emeritus of the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue said that any celebration of his upcoming 85th birthday would be a “surprise” to him.



1937: “She Was an Acrobat’s Daughter,” an animated short directed by Isadore Freleng, produced by Leon Schlesinger and featuring the voice of Mel Blanc was released in the United States today.



1938:  The Palestine Postreported that Itzhak Petrenko, 32, had been shot and killed and that two Arab terrorists were killed in their attack on the Nesher quarry, near Haifa. Two other Arab terrorists were killed after they attempted to attack a convoy escorting the mayor of Nablus, Suleiman Bey Toukan, on his official duties. A number of unexploded bombs were found in Jerusalem's Ben-Yehuda pedestrian mall.



1938: The Palestine Post reported that Maestro Toscanini, who had turned down an offer to participate in the Salzburg Festival, arrived in Haifa for a series of concerts.



1938:  The Palestine Postreported that The Jerusalem Church of the Holy Sepulcher was closed to the public due to urgent repairs and restorations.



1938: Birthdate of Denny Zeitlin the son of Highland Park, Il physician who gained fame as a jazz pianist and composer.



1938: In Tel Aviv, Arturo Toscanini directed his first rehearsal with the Palestine Orchestra.



1938: In the revolving door of French politics during the Third Republic, the government led by Premiere Leon Blum fell and meaning the first Jewish Premier of France, who had been physically attacked by anti-Semites lost his position for the second and final time.



1939: Laurence Steinhardt completed his service as U.S. Ambassador to Peru.



1939: Birthdate of Alan Rothenberg, President of the U.S. Soccer Association.



1939:  The Dutch government opened camp Westerbork for German Jews. The impulse to start the construction of the camp came from the Dutch authorities themselves, who in the years preceding the Second World War, sought to provide housing and shelter for Jewish refugees fleeing the horrors of Nazi-Germany. A camp was necessary because the authorities wanted to keep these refugees out of the cities, towns and villages. When the Nazi-armies invaded The Netherlands during the month of May 1940 the camp-infrastructure including inhabitants was an easy prey.”



1940: Justice Felix Frankfurter and two others met with President Roosevelt today at the White House at 4:30 and Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau, Jr. and two others met with him at 5:30 pm.



1941: Rav Aaron Kotler who had been rescued by the Vaad Hatzalah arrived in San Francisco and two years later “in 1943 fond Beth Medrash Vovoha in Lakewood, NJ.



1943: Twelve Jewish patients of Herren Loo-Lozenoord, a facility for the mentally disabled escaped from the Nazi's.



1944: “Rudolf Vrba and Alfred Wetzler escape from Auschwitz and carry detailed information about the death camp to outside world.” (Virtual Jewish Library



1944: In Tel Aviv, the deputy superintendent of police “beat death” by surviving the attack of an unknown gunman who fired three shots at him in front of the police headquarters in the central part of the city.



1944: “Tampico” starring Edward G. Robinson, with music by David Raksin was released in the United States today



1945:  U.S. Armed forces liberated the prison camp at Buchenwald, Germany. It was estimated that nearly 57,000 prisoners (mostly Jews) perished in the gas chambers of Buchenwald during its eight-year existence as a Nazi concentration camp.



1946: In Cleveland, Ohio, the Men’s Club of the Euclid Avenue Temple hosted Variety Nite, an evening of entertainment “for men’s club members and their ladies.”



1946: U.S. premiere of “Dragonwyck,” directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz who also wrote the script, co-produced by Ernst Lubitsch with music by Alfred Newman.



1946: At its annual spring luncheon at the Hotel Astor, the Women’s League for Palestine launched a building drive designed to raise $150,000 to upgrade the league’s Home for Immigrant Girls in Tel Aviv.  According to Mrs. David Isaacs, the League’s vice president, “Palestine will soon have an influx of thousands of young women from displaced camps abroad seeking shelter and rehabilitation.”  The luncheon was attended by 1,340 supporters.



1947: Birthdate of New York native David Abraham Adler the author “of nearly 200 books for children and young adults” including “several acclaimed works about the Holocaust for young readers.”
http://www.davidaadler.com/



1947: The Hapoel soccer team is scheduled to arrive in New York today, on the first stop on its good will tour of the United States. The team is scheduled to play all-star teams in several cities including Philadelphia, Baltimore, St. Louis, Chicago Detroit, Los Angeles and San Francisco.



1948: “A group of Jewish immigrants from Egypt set up a camp in an area near Sderot which would be the future location of Bror Hayil.



1948(1st of Nisan, 5708): Rosh Chodesh Nisan



1948: The Haganah repelled an Arab attack on Mishmar HaEmek.  Kibbutz Mishmar Ha-Emek (Guard of the Valley) was located on the western rim of the Jezreel Valley and had been founded by Polish chalutzim in 1926.  The fight for this strategic point lasted for eight days during which the Arab Liberation Army had the military advantage thanks to having the use of field artillery supplied by the Syrian Army.  Please note that this fight took place before the creation of the state of Israel in May, 1948.  It came during the unsuccessful attempt by the Arabs to cutoff Jerusalem from the rest of the Yishuv.  



1949: What Makes Sammy Run?, Budd Schulberg’s novel based on his father B.P. Schulberg that gave the world “Sammy Glick” was dramatized for the first time on Philco Television  Playhouse.



1950: Birthdate of Haim Ramon, a native of Jaffa who served in the IAF before pursuing a political career.



1952(15th of Nisan, 5712): 1st day of Pesach


1952: In Lviv, Ukrainian SSR, Alexei Yavlinsky and “Vera Naumovna, a Russian Jewish chemistry teacher gave birth to free market economist Grigory Yavlinsky, the twice defeated candidate for the Presidency of Russia.


1953: Ernest Gruening completed his term as 7th Territorial Governor of Alaska.


1953: Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler, better known as movie star Hedy Lamar, became a citizen of the United States.


1953: “Small Town Girl” a musical produced by Joe Pasternak, with a score by Nicholas Brodszky and André Previn and filmed by cinematographer Joseph Ruttenberg was released today in the United States.


1953:  The Jerusalem Postreported that the foreign minister, Moshe Sharett, had held "a brief interview" at the White House, with US president, Dwight Eisenhower.



1953:  The Jerusalem Postreported that Israel received as a gift, or purchased at lowered prices, America's food surplus: wheat, beans, potatoes, cheese, powdered milk, dried eggs and butter. Another important purchase was 100,000 tons of the strictly rationed American steel for local pipe factories.



1955: Dr Jonas Salk successfully tested his Polio vaccine.



1958: Birthdate of Yefim "Fima" Naumovich Bronfman a Russian born Israeli pianist.
http://www.yefimbronfman.com/



1962(9th of Nisan, 5722): Seventy five year old Michael Curitz passed away. Born Manó Kertész Kaminer on Christmas Eve in 1886, to a Jewish family in Budapest, Hungary (then Austria-Hungary), he ran away from home at age 17 to join a circus, then trained for an acting career at the Royal Academy for Theater and Art. His best known films include, The Adventures of Robin Hood, Casablanca and White Christmas.

1962: Birthdate of New York native Daneile Joyce “Dani” Shapiro the author of Hourglass: Time, Memory, Marriage who is married to Michael Maren.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/16/books/review/hourglass-time-memory-marriage-dani-shapiro.html?ref=headline&nl_art=&te=1&nl=book-review&emc=edit_bk_20170519



1963(16thof Nisan, 5723): Second Day of Pesach; 1st day of the Omer.



1966(20thof Nisan, 5726): Sixth day of Pesach



1966(20thof Nisan, 5726): Eighty-six year old Joseph Newman, the husband of Tilly Cohen, of blessed memory and the father of Captain Isidore Newman who had served as “Beadle and Collector” for Hull Central Synagogue passed away today.



1968: “Belle de Jour” a French film “based on the 1928 novel Belle de jour by Joseph Kessel was released in the United States today.



1971(15thof Nisan, 5731): Pesach



1968: “George M!” a musical with a book by Michael Stewart and Francine Pascal, produced by Emanuel Azenberg and starring Joel Grey opened on Broadway at the Palace Theatre.



1970: During the War of Attrition, “two 201 Squadron Phantoms attacked a radar facility at Wadi Zur.”



1973: Operation Spring of Youth amphibious assault by the IDF on Beirut and Sidon aimed at those who had massacred Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics came to an end today.



1974: Yitzhak Rabin replaced Golda Meir as Prime Minister.  Mrs. Meir had resigned, a casualty of the Yom Kippur War.



1974: “Our Time” a coming of age film directed and written by Peter Hyams was released in the United States today.



1974: In St. Louis, MO, Becky and Robert Greitens gave birth to Eric Greitens the decorated war hero and Rhodes Scholar whose accomplishments are so varied that he can truly be called “Renaissance Man.”
http://www.timesofisrael.com/jewish-former-navy-seal-sets-his-sights-on-governorship/
http://freebeacon.com/politics/the-great-jewish-hope/



1975: The government of Israel recognized Falashas as Jews under the law.



1978(3rd of Nisan, 5738): Ninety-one year old Irma Levy Lindheim, the second president of Hadassah passed away today.
http://www.jta.org/1978/04/12/archive/irma-levy-lindheim-dead-at-91
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/lindheim.html



1978: Harold H. Saunders who played a key role in the creation of the Camp David Accords, completed his service as the 6th Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence and Research.



1978: The Jerusalem Post reported that the UNIFIL's acute lag in recruiting to beef up the projected 4,000-man force had decreased the prospects of an early, complete Israeli withdrawal from South Lebanon.



1978: The Jerusalem Post reported that top US officials were reported to have been studying the possibility of an American treaty guarantee for a Middle Eastern settlement, "backed by a US air base in the Sinai and a naval base at Jaffa." The use of glass bottles was prohibited on Israeli beaches.



1979(13thof Nisan, 5739): One person was killed and 36 were injured when a terrorist bomb went off in a market at Tel Aviv.



1980: Birthdate of Israeli tennis player, Andy Ram



1983:Mr. and Mrs. Jerome Abrams of Roslyn, L.I., have announced the engagement of their daughter, Lori Sue Abrams, to Alan Barry Greenfield, son of Mr. and Mrs. Milton Greenfield, also of Roslyn. The groom is attending the Sackler School of Medicine in Tel Aviv, Israel



1984(8th of Nisan, 5744): Eighty-seven American movie producer and director Jack White, born Jacob Weiss in Budapest, who used “the pseudonym ‘Preston Black’” after his divorce passed away today.



1985(19thof Nisan, 5745): Fifth Day of Pesach



1987(11th of Nisan, 5747): Two Israeli soldiers were killed and two wounded in southern Lebanon, The attack occurred near Qantara, inside the ''security zone.'' Military sources said the attackers were Shiite Moslem guerrillas from the Party of God and Amal movements.



1989: Rite Aid, the drug store chain founded by Scranton businessman Alex Grass, acquired Peoples Drug’s 114 unit Lane Drug of Ohio.



1990(15thof Nisan, 5750): Pesach



1990: NBC broadcast the first episode of the sitcom “Wings” co-starring Rebecca Schull.



1990: Following his major league debut yesterday, White Sox pitcher Scott Radinsky “picked up his first major league win with one and a third innings” of relief pitching today.



1990; Ninety year old actress Natalie Schafer whose career which began in the 1920’s is remembered primarily for her role on the sitcom “Gilligan’s Island” passed away today.
http://www.nytimes.com/1991/04/13/obituaries/natalie-schafer-90-actress-who-played-in-gilligan-s-island.html



1992: In the UK, Malcolm Rifkind completed his service as Secretary of State for Transport and began serving as Secretary of State for Defense.



1992: After premiering in Cleveland, Ohio, “The Player” a satirical film featuring appearances by Sydney Pollack, Peter Falk, Jeff Goldblum and Gina Gershon was released today in the rest of the United States.


1992: U.S. premiere of “Newsies” with music by Alan Menken, filmed by cinematographer Andrew Laszlo.



1993(19thof Nisan, 5753): Fifth Day of Pesach; Shabbat Shel Pesach



1993(19thof Nisan, 5753): Ninety-five year old Maxim Lieber, the son of Adolph and Natalie Leiberman and the husband of Minna E. Lieber, the literary agent and alleged Communist spy passed away today.
https://myturntosoundoff.wordpress.com/essays/the-case-of-a-most-reluctant-witness/



1998(14th of Nisan, 5758): In the evening, First Seder.



1998: In “At the Movies” published today Bernard Weinraub described the making of a film about Lindberg based on the work of biographer A. Scott Berg.
https://www.nytimes.com/1998/04/10/movies/at-the-movies.html



1998: “My Giant” a comedy starring Billy Crystal who also produced and wrote script for the film was released in the United States today.



1998 “The Odd Couple II” written and produced by Neil Simon, directed by Howard Deutch and co-starring Walter Matthau in his second to last film was released in the United States today.



1999(24th of Nisan, 5759): Heinz Ludwig Fraenkel-Conrat passed away.  Born in Germany in 1910, he fled Nazi Germany ultimately settling in the United States where he served on the faculty of the University of California for over 40 years.  He was a noted biochemist famous for his viral research.



2001(17thof Nisan, 5761): Third Day of Pesach



2002(28thof Nisan, 5762): Ninety-two year old Israel political leader and jurist Haim Cohen passed away. The native of Lubeck is also the author of The Trial and Death of Jesus “in which he argued that it was the Romans, not the Sanhedrin, who tried and executed Jesus.



2002(28thof Nisan, 5762): “Eight were killed and 22 injured in a suicide bombing on Egged bus #960, en route from Haifa to Jerusalem, which exploded near Kibbutz Yagur, east of Haifa. Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack.  The victims: Avinoam Alfia, 26, of Kiryat Ata; Sgt.-Maj.(res.) Shlomi Ben Haim, 27, of Kiryat Yam; Sgt.-Maj.(res.) Nir Danieli, 24, of Kiryat Ata; Border Police Lance Cpl. Keren Franco, 18, of Kiryat Yam; Sgt.-Maj.(res.) Ze’ev Hanik, 24, of Karmiel; Border Police Lance Cpl. Noa Shlomo, 18, of Nahariya; Prison Warrant Officer Shimshon Stelkol, 33, of Kiryat Yam; and Sgt. Michael Weissman, 21, of Kiryat Yam.”



2003(8thof Nisan, 5763):St.-Sgt. Yigal Lifshitz, 20, of Rishon Lezion, and St.-Sgt. Ofer Sharabi, 21, of Givat Shmuel were killed and nine others wounded when Palestinian terrorists opened fire before dawn on their base near Bekaot in the northern Jordan Valley. (As reported by Jewish Virtual Library.



2005: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Splendid Solution: Jonas Salk and the Conquest of Polio by Jeffrey Kluger, Polio: An American Story by David M. Oshinsky and the recently released paperback edition of Potemkin: Catherine the Great's Imperial Partner by Simon Sebag Montefiore



2005: In Stockholm, The Zionist Federation of Sweden presents "Herzl: Up Close and Personal," the traveling exhibit which was produced by the Department for Zionist Activities, World Zionist Organization, to celebrate the visionary of the Jewish state on the 100th anniversary of his passing.



2006: The Cedar Rapids Gazette featured a photo display entitled “preparing a Jewish Tradition,” featuring pictures of bakers at the Shmurah Matzoh Bakery in Brooklyn preparing “the unleavened bread traditionally eaten by Jews at Passover.”



2007(22nd of Nisan, 5767): Eighth Day of Pesach; Yizkor, for Orthodox and Conservative Jews



2007:Moshiach's Seudah marks the end of Pesach



2007: At the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles, the “Fourth Annual Stanley F. Chyet Literary Event” features Etgar Keret. “Israel's popular young writer Etgar Keret is at once court jester, literary crown prince, and national conscience. His painfully funny and honest books, including “The Bus Driver Who Wanted to be God”and “Jetlag,” have earned him international recognition. Also a respected filmmaker, Keret took home the Israeli Film Academy Award for Best Picture for his film Skin Deep.”



2008: In Washington, D.C., Madeleine M. Kunin, the former governor of Vermont, the first Jewish  woman governor and an ambassador under the Clinton administration, discusses and signs her new book, “Pearls, Politics, and Power: How Women Can Win and Lead.”


2008(16th of Nisan, 5769): Barry H. Gottehrer, a journalist whose award-winning newspaper series “City in Crisis” helped elect John V. Lindsay mayor of New York in 1965 and who then joined the administration to help defuse the subsequent crises the city faced, died tonight near his home in Wilmington, N.C. at the age of 73.


2008: “Fram” featuring Clare Lawrence Moody in the role of “Ruth Fry” premiered in London today.


2008: In New York, at the Jewish Museum presents a lecture “When Great Art Meets Great Evil” during whichchief New York Times music critic James Oestreich speaks with authors Henry Grinberg and Eugene Drucker about their respective novels “Variations on the Beast”and “The Savior.” Both books deal with the contradictions between the greatness of German musical cultureand the depths of depravity to which Germany sank while the Nazis were in power.



2009(16 Nisan 5769): Second Day of Pesach; first day of the Omer


2009: The French government appointed Rabbi Gilles Uriel Bernheim  Knight [Chevalier] in the Légion d'honneur


2009: In “Artwork from Hearst Castle returned to heirs of Jewish couple,” published today Michael Rothfeld described how the grandchildren of a two German Jews who perished in the Holocaust received some their artistic legacy.

2009: In “Next Year In Jerusalem,” published today Cecilia Hanley, the food editor for the Cedar Rapids Gazette described attending a home Seder noting that “the food Deborah [Levin] served was so delicious, I ate way more than was comfortable.” She noted that Deb made brisket with her adaptation of the Classic Brisket Recipe from “New York Times Passover Cookbook” which Hanley shared with her readers.
2010: The Westchester Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to show “Ahead of Time,” a documentary narrated by Ruth Gerber, the  Brooklyn born foreign correspondent, photojournalist, author, and humanitarian who  describes her remarkable 70-year career during which she escorted Holocaust refugees to America in 1944, covered the Nuremberg trials in 1946, and documented the voyage of the ship Exodus in 1947, emerging as the eyes and conscience of the world with her lifelong devotion to assisting Jewish refugees  


 2010: “A Tiny Piece of Land” is scheduled to have its first performance at the Pico Playhouse in Los Angeles, CA.


2011: The American Jewish Historical Society, Centro Primo Levi, Center for Jewish History, The Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies at the University of Pennsylvania and Yeshiva University Museum are scheduled to present: “Conversations on Conversion” moderated by WNYC's Brian Lehrer


2011: “Jewish veterans of the 1960s women’s liberation movement gathered at New York University for a conference on "Women's Liberation and Jewish Identity."


2011: The Jewish Historical Society of Greater Washington is scheduled to sponsor “Walking Tour: Downtown Jewish Washington” including the Lillian & Albert Small Jewish Museum and the former sites of Ohev Sholom, Adas Israel, and Washington Hebrew Congregation.


2011: Tulane Professor Brian Horowitz is scheduled to attend a seminar on Hebrew literature at the University of Florida.


2011: The Los Angeles Timespublished reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including “Panorama,” a novel in which “Holocaust survivor H.G. Adler depicts the world of German and Austrian Jews before the Nazis came to power.”


2011: The New York Timespublished reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including “Say Her Name” by Francisco Goldman and  “The Eichmann Trial” by Deborah E. Lipstadt.


2011: Israel's government approved the famous personalities who will appear on a new series of shekel banknotes. The approval of the list today, which includes some of Israel's most beloved national poets, comes after the list was finalized last month by the Bank of Israel following more than a year of heated debate. The personalities who will grace the new notes are Rachel the Poetess on the 20 shekel note, Shaul Tchernichovsky on the 50 shekel note, Leah Goldberg on the 100 shekel note and Natan Alterman on the 200 shekel note.  Rachel, who died in 1931, is a leading poet in modern Hebrew whose works have been set to music. Tchernichovsky was a two-time winner of the Bialik Prize for Literature. Goldberg, who died in 1970, was a poet, author, playwright, literary translator and researcher of Hebrew literature who translated "War and Peace" into Hebrew. Alterman, an author, playwright, poet and newspaper columnist who died in 1970, won the 1968 Israel Prize for Literature. "In order to maintain the public's trust in the State's currency, the governor decided to replace the currency series with a new series which will include some of the world's most advanced security and identification markings in a bid to make counterfeiting more difficult," the Bank of Israel said in a statement.   The current faces on Israeli currency are former Prime Minister Moshe Sharett on the 20 shekel note; S.Y. Agnon on the 50 shekel note; and former presidents Yitzhak Ben- Zvi and Zalman Shazar on the 100 shekel and 200 shekel notes.


2012: Grand Central published A Natural Woman: A Memoir the autobiography of Carole King.

2012: Heather Klein is scheduled to provide a program of Yiddish Passover Songs in Palo Alto, CA.


2012: Ayn Sof Arkestra & Bigger Band are scheduled to perform at The Sixth Street Community Synagogue in New York City.  


2012(18th of Nisan, 5772): Eighty five year old  Zvi Dinstein, the native of Tel Aviv who served as an MK for a decade passed away today.


2012(18th of Nisan, 5772): Ninety-seven year old French Resistance leader Raymond Aurbrac, born Raymond Samuel, passed away today. (As reported by Douglas Martin)

2013: On the secular calendar, 65th anniversary of the Haganah’s victory over the Arabs at Mishmar ha-Emek (On the Jewish calendar this event took place on the 1st of Nisan, 5708)


2013: As part its “Days of Remembrance” program, the University of Utah is scheduled to host “Holocaust Workshop” for which students can receive course credit.


2013: “Aliyah” is scheduled to be shown at the Westchester Jewish Film Festival


2013:  In Skokie, Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center, is scheduled to “a special advance screening and reception for ‘No Place On Earth.’”


2013(30th of Nisan, 5773): Rosh Chodesh Iyar


2013: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is said to be considering a proposal by Jewish Agency head Natan Sharansky to establish an egalitarian prayer plaza along part of the Western Wall.


2014: Ed Millieband, the leader of the British Labor Party who has a good chance of becoming the next Prime Minister, is scheduled to arrive in Israel today for a three day visit that will have special meaning for this son of Jewish immigrants. (As reported by Raphael Ahren and Miriam Shaviv 


2014(10th of Nisan, 5774): If the legislation is by the Knesset today, the 10th of Nisan will be the “official day of national celebration in which Jewish immigration to Israel is honored and noteworthy immigrants are recognized for their contributions to the nation. (As reported by Debra Kamin)


2014: “The Sturgeon Queens’ is scheduled to be shown at the Westchester Jewish Film Festival.


2014: “Golda’s Balcony” staring Tova Feldshuh is scheduled to be performed at DCJCC’s Theatre J.


2014: In Bethesda, MD, Congregation Beth El is scheduled to host Ambassador Gideon Meir who will speak on “International Media Coverage of Israel During Conflict.”


2014(10th of Nisan): According to the Book of Joshua today is the day “that the Israelites crossed the Jordan River into the Promised Land on that date, ending their 40 years of wandering in the desert.” (As reported by Debra Kamin)


2015(21st of Nisan, 5775): Seventh Day of Pesach


2015: “The Decent One,” “Gett: The Trial of Viviane Ansalem” and “Anywhere Else” are scheduled to be shown at the Westchester Jewish Film Festival.


2015: “Woman in Gold” is scheduled to premiere in the United Kingdom.

2015: “Dutch researchers said today they believe they have uncovered a new mass grave at the former Nazi concentration camp of Bergen-Belsen, almost exactly 70 years after it was liberated’”


2015: Jewish graves were destroyed today when a tropical storm “devastated the Jewish cemetery of the State of Bahia” in eastern Brazil according to Luciano Fingergut, the community’s president.


2015: Temple Judah is scheduled to host another of its ever-popular “Musical Shabbats.”


2016: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers included the recently published paperback editions of When the Facts Change: Essays by Tony Judt, Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania by Erik Larson and Lives in Ruins: Archaeologists and the Seductive Lure of Human Rubble by Marilyn Johnson.


2016: “Rabin In His Own Words” is scheduled to be shown on the final day of the Hartford Jewish Film Festival today.


2016: “Karski & The Lords of Humanity” a documentary about the mission of Jan Karski, is scheduled to be shown at The Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center


2016: “Raise the Roof” and “Fauda, Part III” are scheduled to be shown at the Westchester Jewish Film Festival.


2017(14th of Nisan, 5777):  One-hundred-three year old journalist Jesse Lurie who began writing for the Palestine Post (now Jerusalem Post) in the 1930’s and continued having his columns published until January of this year passed away today.

2017: “Eric Schneiderman, the New York State attorney general paused to wish his fellow Jews” a happy Pesach saying “We are commanded not only to remember our story, but to imagine that we ourselves were enslaved in Egypt, and then freed — so that we may empathize with the plight of those who are fleeing oppression and danger today” in what some saw as a thinly veiled jab at President Donald Trump” whose ban on entry into the US by refugees as well as travelers from seven Muslim majority countries Schneiderman had successfully challenged.


2017(14thof Nisan, 5777): Fast of the First Born; Erev Pesach


2017:  Jews living in the lands of “the former Soviet Union” will be able to enjoy a ritually appropriate seder thanks to the efforts of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee which has provided their co-religionists “with at least ten tons of matzah.”


2018: Direct Aviva Kempner and Pam Horowitz, a former attorney with the Southern Poverty Law Center and the widow of Julian Bond are scheduled to attend tonight’s screening of “Rosenwald” at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania.


2018: The American Sephardi Federation is scheduled to present “Four Strangers, Three Faiths, One Escape to Freedom”

2018: Author Gil Troy is scheduled to “discuss the impact of Young Judaea on the Zionist Ideas” at an alumni gathering in Manhattan.


2018: The Temple Emanu-El Steicker is scheduled to host and “Evening with David Grossman,” “one of Israel’s most celebrated writers, winner of countless awards, the only Israeli ever to win the prestigious International Man Booker Prize, for his novel, A Horse Walks into a Bar


 


 


 


 

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

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April 11


145: Birthdate of Septimius Severus, the “Roman emperor, who according to the Virtual Jewish Library Lucious Septimus Severus treated “Jews relatively well, allowing them to participate in public offices and be exempt from formalities contrary to Judaism. However, he did not allow the Jews to convert anyone.”  [According to one source, this had to do with the fact that Severus was not really a Roman, but of Syrian-Phoenician stock, but I could find no further corroboration of this.]


399:  In the Roman Empire, a law is promulgated prohibiting sending emissaries to collect donations on behalf of the nasi.  "That the Jews should know that we have delivered them from this iniquitous tribute."


491: Anastasius I begins his reign as the Byzantine Emperor. The reign of Anastasius marked the renewal of warfare with the Sassanid Empire.  The Sassanid Empire was the name given to the Persian Empire of the day.  This renewal of warfare would have a negative impact on the Jews who ruled the island of Yotabe also known as Tiran, which is in the straits of Tiran.  The Jews of Yotabe played an instrumental role in the trade along the Red Sea and when the Byzantines sought to move East to take control of this trade and defeat the Sassanids, they would replace the Jewish leaders with their own people.


1241: The Mongol army under the command Batu Khan defeated King Béla IV of Hungary at the Battle of Muhi.  The defeat was a disaster for Christian forces in general and the Hungarians in particular.  Bela looked favorably on his Jewish subjects, seeing them as a force that could raise his kingdom from the impoverishment resulting from the defeat. Bela adopted measures that protected his Jewish subjects from mob violence and church control and allowed them to use their own legal system for settling communal disputes. In exchange for this protection, the Jews were to pay their taxes directly to the royal treasury.  Needless to say, Bela’s behavior did not meet with the approval of the clergy and they would move to overturn his rulings under his successor.  


1302: A decree was issued ordering the Jews of Barcelona to kneel when meeting a priest with the sacraments.


1632: “French Protestant theologian Nicolas Antoine” who had been arrested on charges of heresy after proclaiming that he was a Jew went on trial today where he “repeated constantly, ‘I am a Jew, and all I ask of God’s grace is to die for Judaism.


1649: The largest Auto De Fe in the New World was held with 109 victims in Mexico. All but one of them was accused of Judaizing. Thirteen were burned alive and 57 in effigy. This for the most part ended the prominence of crypto-Jews in Mexico.


1657: “The Council of New Amsterdam denied a petition by Jacob Cohen (Henriques) for a license to bake and sell bread.” (As reported by Abraham P. Bloch).


1713:Following today’s signing of the Peace Utrecth which marked the end of Spanish domination over Belgium Jews began to reappear in Brussels after an absence that dated back to 1370.


1715: Birthdate of Jacob Rodrigues Pereira, the Portuguese native, who gained fame as Jacob Rodrigue Péreire, who devoted his life to teaching and working with “deaf-mutes.”  Péreire who came from a family crypto-Jews, officially rejoined the faith of his fathers and was a leader in the French Jewish Community. His grandsons were two famous 19th century French financiers -, Emile and Isaac Péreire.


 
1717(30th of Nisan, 5477): Talmudist Abraham ben Saul Broda, the son of Saul Broda and a student of Rabbi Isaac ben Ze’eb Harif, passed away today in Frankfort on Main.


1755(30th of Nisan, 5515): Rosh Chodesh Iyar


1765: Founding of the Patriotic Society in Hamburg which would appoint Salomon Heine as an honorary member in 1843


1795: Birthdate of Friedrich Wilhelm Carl Umbreit, the German Protestant minister who authored works on the books of the Hebrew Bible while serving as a Professor of Old Testament Studies at the University of Heidelberg.


1789(15th of Nisan, 5549): Pesach is observed as the letter from Congress telling George Washington that he has been elected President of the United States makes its way to his home at Mt. Vernon, VA.


1792(19th of Nisan, 5552): Fifth Day of Pesach


1807: “Ezekiel Hart was elected to the Legislative Assembly of Lower Canada over three other candidates, obtaining 59 out of the 116 votes cast.”  Since the election took place on Shabbat, Hart refused to take the office on that date.  He would cause a further uproar when he did take the oath because he insisted on using a Hebrew Bible instead of the Christian Bible normally used for such events.


1825: Birthdate of Ferdinand Lassalle, the native of Breslau who became a prominent German jurist and political leader.

1827(14th of Nisan, 5587): One day after the birth of Lew Wallace, the Civil War General who wrote Ben Hur, the title character who is one of the most famous fictional Jews, the real Jews observed the Fast of the First Born and sat down for their first Seder in the evening.


1831: In Brno, Löbl Strakosch and Julia Schwarz gave birth to their 8th child Sophia.


1831: “The Society for the Education of Poor Children and Relief of Indigent of the Jewish Persuasion in the City of New York was incorporated today.


1842: John Davis married Amelia Friedberg at the Great Synagogue today.


1846(15th of Nisan, 5606): The Jews of Texas observe their first Pesach as citizens of the United States.


1850: Birthdate of Isidor Rayner, the native of Baltimore who represented the Fourth Congressional District in the House of Representatives and represented Maryland in the United States Senate.


1852: Birthdate of John Stephany, the native of London who was one of the founders of Congregation Emanu-El, the first Jewish congregation in  Statesville, NC.



1860: The State Assembly passed a bill to amend the charter of the Hebrew Benevolent Society of New York



1860: In Bielitz, Austria, Anna Kanner and Ignatz Zeisler gave birth to Chicago attorney Sigmund Zeisler who represented the defendants in Illinois vs. August Spies, et al – the criminal litigation that grew out of the Haymarket Square labor demonstration or riot, depending on your point of view.



1860: The State Assembly passed a bill to amend the charter of the Hebrew Cemetery Association of New York.


1861(1st of Iyar, 5621): Rosh Chodesh Iyar – Confederate General Beauregard sends two officers to Fort Sumter with an ultimatum for Major Anderson, the commander of the U.S. forces.  Either he can evacuate or face bombardment and attack from the surrounding Rebel forces.  Today is the last day of peace for four years in the United States.


1862: Corporal Henry Wertheim, a native of Germany who was living in Mecklenburg County (NC) enlisted in the Confederate Army.


1864(5th of Nisan, 5624): Merchant and Hebrew scholar, Elijah Bardach, who was born at Lemberg in 1794 and whose works included Akedat Yizhak written in 1833, passed away today in Vienna.


1865(15th of Nisan, 5625): Pesach observed for the first time without the firing of guns from the Army of the Potomac and the Army of Northern Virginia.


1870: In “Aid for the Hebrews of West Russia” published today, the Executive Committee of the Hebrew Board of Delegates reported receipt of the following donations:


Simeon Lodge of Titusville, PA, $13.50; Israelites of Leavenworth, Kansas, $127.10; Purim Association of Leavenworth Kansa, $202.10; Maimonides Lodge of Nashville, TN, $10.00; Congregation B’nai Brith, Wilkes-Barre, PA, $30.00.  [For those who think of American Jewish History only in terms of a few major metropolitan areas, this list might give you pause to consider another view of Jewish settlement of the United States.]


1873(14th of Nissan): This afternoon, Congregation Shaare Rachmim, officially began using the Norfolk Street Synagogue with services led by the rabbi of Ahamath Chesed, the congregation that formerly used the Norfolk Street Synagogue.  Ahamath Chesed has moved to a new location on Lexington Avenue. 


1876(16th of Nisan, 5636): Second Day of Pesach; 1st day of the Omer


1876(16th of Nisan, 5636): Fifty-eight year old “German physician and co-founder of experimental pathology in Germany” Ludwig Traube passed away today in Berlin.


1880(30th of Nisan, 5640): Rosh Chodesh Iyar


1880(30th of Nisan, 5640): Twenty-year old Fanny Adler, the wife of Moses Adler and the sister of Selig Selbiger, a Jewish peddler from Prussia, passed away today.


1880: “York Minister,” an article published today recounting the history of this English city includes an account of the attacks made on the Jews during the reign of Richard the Lionhearted. The recounting includes a graphic description of the suffering and death of 500 Jewish citizens at the hands of mob more concerned with not paying their debts and stealing from the Children of Israel than anything else


1881: Isabella Benjamin and David Moses Dyte gave birth to Henry Charles Dyte.


1881: It was reported today that in Paris, the old customs for observing Shrove Tuesday are dying out.  For example, “the traditional promenade of the Boeuf Gras” did not stop in front of the hotel of Baron de Rothschild so that the revelers might “drink to the health of the great banker” as they used to.”


1882(22nd of Nisan, 5642): Eighth Day of Pesach; 7th day of the Omer


1882(22nd of Nisan, 5642): Sixty-eight year old “German banker and philanthropist” Jacob Nachod, the son of Naftali and Bertha Nachod who served as President of the German Federation of Jewish Communities which he founded passed away today.


1884(16th of Nisan, 5644) Second Day of Pesach; 1stday of the Omer


1888: In Jacksonville, FL, Rabbi David Levy of Charleston, SC officiated at the marriage of “Mose J. Ullman of Evansville, Indiana and Susie Jacoby of Charleston.”


1889(10th of Nisan, 5649): A young Jewish boy, Tobias Hipper, died today in New York, the apparent victim of an assault by to other boys living in his neighborhood. The police have launched an investigation into the matter.


1890:  Ellis Island was designated as an immigration station.  Ellis Island would be the first stop for millions of European Jews coming to America.


1890:  In Trenton, NJ, Herman Gross, an unemployed German Jewish grocery clerk tried to kill himself for a second time while in jail where he had been taken after his failed attempt to drown himself in the creek near the Pennsylvania Train Station.


1891: An eight year old Jewish tailor's daughter disappeared on the island of Corfu, Greece.   Rumor spread that she was a Christian girl ritually killed and these charges resulted in a pogrom.   Unfortunately, at this time of the year, no Jewish community would be exempt from the possibility of charges like this and the subsequent public uprising.


1891: Lieutenant Charles A. L. Totten, the military instructor at Yale University” and the author of publications about the “Hebrew race” has reportedly discovered the exact date of the “long day” described in the Book of Joshua.


1892(14th of Nisan, 5652): Fast of the First Born observed for the last time during the Presidency of Grover Cleveland.


1893: The New York Times reported that “The stock market was not active today, a large speculative element being absent, owing to the Passover holiday.” [Editor’s Note: The italics are mine.  The description of the Jews is pure New York Times.]


1893(25th of Nisan, 5653): Eighty-one year old Adolphe Franck who “became a chevalier of the Legion of Honor in 1844”and who was an “active defender of Judaism” who continued to the "Archives Israêlites" for fifty years passed away today.


1895: Ecaterina Gaster Revici, the daughter of Phina Judith Gaster and Abraham Emauel Gaster and her husband Tulius gave birth to Teofil “Teo” Revici


1895: The will of the late Michael Stachelberg, the well-known New York cigar manufacturer was filed for probate today.


1895: The Board of Estimate and Appropriation met today in New York and disturbed the proceeds from the theatrical and concert fund to several charitable organizations including the United Hebrew Charities ($750), the Montefiore Home ($500) and Beth Israel Hospital ($100)


1896: “The Young Folks’ League of the Hebrew Infant Asylum gave its first entertainment at the Lexington Avenue Opera House” tonight.


1896: Birthdate of Rose Luria Halprin one of the foremost American Zionist leaders of the twentieth century who served twice as the national president of Hadassah and held key posts within the Jewish Agency at critical periods in the history of the Yishuv and the subsequent State of Israel. She passed away in 1978.


1896: It was reported today that David Finkelstein of Bridgeport, CT, has not lived with his Ida since they were married in March when his wife discovered that he had an artificial nose, a fact that he had not shared with her before their wedding.


1896: Convicted jewel thief Ben Ouni who had been as a Turk but claimed he really was a Jew named Benjamin Dreyer is on his way to serving a four year and six month term in the New York state penitentiary.


1897: “Jews, Anthropologically Considered” published today takes issue with the contention that the “Israelitish race” …is “the most homogenous races” describing the differences between the Sephardim, Ashkenazim as well as the “nomadic Jews” of North Africa, the Falashas, the Jews of Cochin and Bombay as well as the Jews of China.


1898(19th of Nisan, 5658): Fifth Day of Pesach


1899: The First Jewish congregation was formed in Caracas, Venezuela.


1900: “Le Juif Polonais” (The Polish Jew), “an opera in three acts by Camille Erlanger composed to a libretto by Henri Cain” was first performed today in Paris at the Opéra Comique.  The opera was adapted from a play by Erckmann-Chatrian  of the same name.  In 1871, Leopold Lewis had translated the play into English under the title of “The Bells” which provide Henry Irving with one of his most successful acting vehicles.


1901(21st of Nisan, 5661): The Ohavei Zion (Friends of Zion) plan to hold a Passover celebration and concert this evening to raise money for the “suffering Jewish farm laborers of Palestine.”  The event is being held at Cooper Union and there is a ten cents admission charge. 


1902: Birthdate of Michael Rothstein who gained fame as media magnate Michael Redstone.


1903: Thirty four year old German-Jewish poetess Else Lasker-Schuler and Berthold Lasker were divorced today.


1904: Conference of the Greater Actions Committee meets in Vienna. In the spirit of the Sixth Congress it is decided to send an expedition to East Africa. The reconciliation conference was Herzl's last great achievement.


1905:Einstein reveals his Theory of Relativity


1906: Congressman Allen L. McDermott delivered a speech in the House of Representatives in which he defended the Jewish people.  McDermott, “who represents a district in New Jersey, a state in which is published the only avowed anti-Semitic publication” produced in the United States, spoke out “against the ‘Christ Killing’ charge and the ritual murder charge.”


1907: A newspaper story entitled “More Rumors of Pogroms” describes the revival in Russia of “the old stories about the disappearance of Christian children for use in sacrifices at the time of the Jewish Passover.”  There are rumors that outbreaks of violence will take place during Russian Easter on April 2.


1908: On Saturday night, after Shabbat Ha Gadol, the East Side Business Men’s Protective Association gave away matzoth, flour, potatoes tea and eggs to over 2,000 poor Jews living on the Lower East Side.


1905: Colonel Nicolas Pike, author, naturalist and a relative of the famous explorer Zebulon Pike, passed away.  Among his possession was camp chest presented to the explorer Dr. David Livingston by Jewish philanthropist Sir Moses Montefiore. 


1908: Birthdate of Leo Rosten.  Educated at the University of Chicago and the London School of Economics, Leo Rosten spent sixty years acquainting his readers with different aspects of Jewish culture and the Yiddish language.  Some of his better known works included Captain Newman, M.D., The Joys of Yiddish and Hooray For Yiddish.  He passed away in 1997.


1909(20th of Nisan, 5669): Sixth Day of Pesach


1909(20th of Nisan, 5669): In one of the great moments of modern Jewish History, Tel Aviv (Hill of Spring), the first modern Jewish city, was founded on the sand dunes north of Jaffa with the building of 60 houses. The actual name Tel Aviv was given only the next year (Hill of Spring) and was taken from a Babylonian city (Ezekiel 3:15) and used by Nahum Sokolow as the title for his translation of Herzl's book Altneuland.  Today Tel Aviv is a thriving modern metropolis popular and favorite Mediterranean vacation spot for Europeans seeking warmth in the winter time.


1910:Members of the Hebrew Retail Kosher Butchers' Protective Association are scheduled to meet this morning, at which time they will decide whether or not to make the boycott of the slaughter houses permanent until prices are reduced at least to nine cents, as it was four months ago.


1911: Today marked the third and final day for distribution of free Matzoth by the United Hebrew Community.


1911: Birthdate of DeWitt Clinton High School child prodigy Benjamin Kaplan the Columbia Law School graduate who helped prosecute war criminals after WW II and whose Harvard Law School students included two future Supreme Court Justices – Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer.


1912: Birthdate of Elinor Sophia Coleman who became famous as Elinor Guggenheimer an advocate for children, women and the elderly. Mrs. Guggenheimer became the first woman to serve on the New York City Planning Commission and she was the city’s commissioner of consumer affairs in the 1970, where in one of her more lighthearted moments she went after a store in Queens for selling fake lox.  She passed away in 2008. Regardless of how she may have felt about Kashrut she left us with this little rhyme, “Oysters that could once delight us, now just give us hepatitis.”


1912: A campaign began today to raise $200,000 for a new facility to be used by the Young Women’s Hebrew Association in New York City.


1912: The Technikum, later to be known as the Techinion (Israel's M.I.T.) was founded in Haifa, Israel. Later that year the Hilfsverein der Deutschen Juden, which established the Haifa Technion, faced a strike by both teachers and students when they tried to institute German as the school's language instead of Hebrew. The American co-trustees agreed with the strikers and the Society left Eretz-Israel after the First World War.  There was a lively debate as to whether Yiddish, Hebrew or German would be the language of the embryonic Jewish state.  There was a strong sentiment for Hebrew since the other two were languages of the Diaspora and Hebrew was "the language of the land." 


1913(4th of Nisan, 5673): Sixty-eight year old Cheyenne, Wyoming “rancher and financier” passed away today in St. Louis, MO.


1914(15th of Nisan, 5674): Last Pesach before the start of World War I which begin a long series of cataclysms for the Jews of Europe.


1914(15th of Nisan, 5674): A special Passover luncheon is scheduled to be served to military personnel at Tuxedo Hall in New York City.


1914(15th of Nisan, 5674): On the second night of Pesach, The Jewish Sailors and Soldiers’ Passover Committee hosted a seder for U.S. soldiers, sailors and marines at Tuxedo Hall.


1914(15th of Nisan, 5674): Tonight, Rabbi Maurice H. Harris is scheduled to lead a Seder at Temple Israel of Harlem.


1914: Two days before Harry Horowitz was scheduled to be executed for his role in the shooting of gambler Herman Rosenthal, New York State Justice Goff said the new witnesses that came forward claiming that he was innocent were not credible and that he would not grant the motion for a new trial.


1915: Charlie Chaplin releases The Tramp.


1915: ‘In his sermon” this “morning in commemoration of the seventieth anniversary of Temple Eamnu-El, Dr. Joseph Silverman” the congregation’s rabbi “called for greater extension of social service and wider consideration of problems of public welfare and personal conduct as the proper course for the congregation whose founding was one of the greatest impulses in the development of reformed Judaism” in the United States.


1915(27th of Nisan, 5675): Four days before his 62nd birthday Manhattan born Dr. Louis Waldstein Walston, the son of Henry and Sophie Schriesheimer Waldstein passed away to day in England.


1916: Based on today’s reports from the Relief Committee for Indigent Jews in Berlin “nearly $2,000,000 has been spent in relief work” to aid the Jews in occupied Poland much of which has come from Jews in America.


1916: “Bundle Day timed to the seasonal change of raiment” today “brought 2,000 packages to the Industrial Department of the United Hebrew Charities at 37 Greene Street to be utilized for the poor.”


1917: The first of the “Breaking Down the Barrier Meetings” sponsored by the Gramercy Neighborhood Association which the Jews of the area have been asked to attend is scheduled to take place tonight at the Washington Irving High School.


1917: It was reported today that Utah Governor Simon Bamberger, the first Jew to hold that position, has said that “by feeding and saving three million starving Jews” in Russia “we help the new Government as well as our own people, and in making Russian democracy strong to withstand German autocracy we serve America.”  (Editor’s note: At this time it was seen as critical to keep Russia in the war fighting the Germans and to do everything possible to keep them from making a separate peace with the Kaiser whom the Americans had just declared war on a week ago.)


1917: It was reported today, that before adjourning those attending the first ever Zionist convention ever held in Russia, “sent greetings to the American Provisional Zionist Committee, to the Inner Actions Committee, to Dr. Max Nordau and to all the Zionist federations throughout the world.”


1918: “The Liberty Loan drive among the Jews of the east side was launched” tonight” at two meetings held in the Bank of United States Building at 77 Delancey Street.


1919: As Bavaria is engulfed in violence during an attempt to create a Socialist Republic, “Max Cohen, Chairman of the Central Committee and one of the Socialist leaders spoke against the terms of the Armistice and “advocated the formation of a continental bloc as an offset to the ‘Anglo-American alliance.’”


1921: The British created The Emirate of Transjordan.  The British partitioned the land of the Palestine Mandate to create this Arab kingdom.  There are those who claim that Palestine has already been partitioned.  Since the Arabs got the land east of the Jordan, the Jews should get the remaining sliver west of the Jordan River. During the 1930’s Winston Churchill opposed the partition of the land west of the Jordan River for this very reason.  Churchill knew whereof he spoke since he was the one who really created the Emirate in the first place.


1923: Birthdate of Dr. Theodore Isaac Rubin the husband of Eleanor Katz and past President of the American Institute for Psychoanalysis whose story “Lisa and David” provided the inspiration for the 1962 film of the same name.


1926: Tonight, “speaking from the pulpit of the West End Presbyterian Church, Dr. H.G. Enelow, the rabbi of Temple Emanu-El…called up on Jews and Christians to join together”…in “the religion of fellowship with God and fellowship with man.”


1926: The Union of Orthodox Rabbis of America is scheduled to meet at 2 p.m. at the Broadway Central Hotel to develop plans for participating in the United Jewish Campaign’s to raise $500,000 “for the relief and rehabilitation of Jews in Eastern Europe.


1927: Today, New York philanthropist Nathan Straus arrived back in the United States after visiting Palestine and “said that he found steady progress there in spite of the crisis of Tel Aviv which he said was temporary.”


1928: Rookie Second Baseman Andy Cohen who had been the captain of the baseball team at the University of Alabama where he belonged to a Jewish fraternity, led the Giants to a stunning opening day victory over the Boston Braves at the Polo Grounds at the end of which he was carried off the field on the shoulder of adoring fans.


1931: While speaking at a dinner given in his honor at London’s Savoy Hotel, David Lloyd George “assured the leaders of world Zionism that his faith in the Jewish national home was stronger than it was eleven years ago when his Government took over the British mandate in Palestine….The Mandate must not be administered nervously and apologetically, but firmly and fearlessly’ since Christians and Arabs under the mandate can only benefit from the success of the Zionist experiment.


1932: Time magazine published the following description of the Macabbiah.


 Three thousand Jewish athletes from 27 countries last week paraded through Tel Aviv (''Hill of Spring") in Palestine, for the opening of the first Maccabiad. Wrongly described as the "Jewish Olympics," the Maccabean Games were organized by the World Maccabee Union, named for the Israelite hero, Judas Maccabaeus. The games began when 120 pigeons in flocks of ten—messengers to the Twelve Tribes of Israel—were allowed to fly to their homes in various parts of Palestine. Led by Tel Aviv's Mayor Dizengoff riding on a white horse, the 3,000 athletes, aged 5 to 60, marched to a huge new stadium that was crowded beyond capacity (25.000). The Maccabiad lasted four days. No supremely able Jewish athletes were entered; no world's records were broken. No official team score was compiled.


1932: Birthdate of actor Joel Grey.  Born Joel Katz, he is best known as one of the stars in “Cabaret.”


1933: Mickey Cohen lost a fight with Chalky Wright in Los Angeles.



1933: The German government began employment and economic sanctions against Jews that are widely perceived as being racially based which were opposed by The Lutheran Church.



1935: Following “recent anti-Semitic riots” in Romania, “two German Nazis are reported to be among those arrested” and will be expelled from the country for “acting as agitators.”


1936: Rodgers & Hammerstein's musical "On Your Toes", premiered in New York City.


1936: “In a message read to 2,000 persons attending the annual dinner of the National Labor Committee for Jewish Workers in Palestine at the Hotel Commodore” tonight, Professor Albert Einstein expressed the opinion that a public protest would prevent the British Government from approving additional restrictions in Palestine which are now being considered.”


1936: Joseph C. Hyman, Secretary of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee announced today that if the committee succeeds in reaching its goal of raising $3,500,000, “it would allocate $1,115,000 to Jews in Eastern Europe of which 60 to 70 percent would go to aid Jewish communities and organizations in Poland.”


1936: Birthdate of Carla Furstenberg, who as Carla Cohen, became co-owner of a unique Washington, DC institution, Politics and Prose, an independent bookstore that proved too successful in spite of chain bookstores and internet shopping.


1937: It was reported today that “six American museums have acquired works by Elias Newman a Palestinian artist of the Tel Aviv Museum of Art.  Mr. Newman has been in the United States collecting works of modern American artists for Tel Aviv’s new Museum of Art. Newman was a Polish born artist best known for his water colors. 


1938: Forty-six days after The  British High Commissioner had declared Tel Aviv Harbor open Eliezer Steinlauf, a resident of Tel Aviv who had been born in Austria, disembarked from his ship at Tel Aviv making him the first passenger to disembark at the world’s first “Jewish port.” 


1938: The Palestine Post reported that since the advent of the Nazi regime in Austria, the British Consulate in Vienna had handed out more than 12,000 applications for immigration to Australia. Immigration to New Zealand had been stopped "temporarily." South Africa demanded £250 for every immigrant.


1938: The Palestine Post published a special, copyrighted story, written by Ernest Hemingway, on the activities of the American and British volunteer battalions, fighting General Franco's insurgents in Catalonia.


1938: The Palestine Post reported that Aryans said "Ja" or "Nein" (Yes or No) in Austrian Anschluss (incorporation into Germany) plebiscite. Special trains brought more than 12,000 Nazi volunteers from Czechoslovakia for this purpose.


1938: The Palestine Post reported that the new "Eden" hotel opened in Jerusalem - a valuable addition to Jerusalem's hotel amenities.


1939(22nd of Nisan, 5699): 8th day of Pesach; unbeknownst to them, for millions of European Jews this would be their last celebration of the liberation from Egypt.


1939: Birthdate of Louise Lasser, theactress who gained fame on “Mary Hartman! Mary Hartman!”


1940:  Soviet forces complete the slaughter of 26,000 Polish army officers in the Katyn Forest.  When the slaughter is discovered, the Soviets will try and blame it on the Nazis.


1940: The Nazi occupiers of Lodz,renamed the city Litzmannstadt (after the German general Karl Litzmann, who had conquered it in World War I); most of the German documents concerning the Lodz Ghetto refer to it as the "Litzmannstadt Ghetto."


1941(14th of Nisan, 5701): In Washington, D.C, Deb and Joe Levin celebrate their first Seder – a tradition begins!


1941: Erev Pesach the ghetto at Kielce, Poland “was sealed off from the outside world” following “a  Judenrat was appointed, chaired by Moshe Pelc, who was eventually arrested and deported to Auschwitz for resisting German orders.”


1941: Nazi occupiers in Netherlands confiscated Jewish assets.


1941: On Good Friday, Reverend Conrad Gröber “gave a sermon whose vocabulary came very close to the anti-Semitic vocabulary of the Nazi rulers: "As a driving force behind the Jewish legal power stood the aggressive toadyism and malevolent perfidy of the Pharisees. They unmasked themselves more than ever as Christ's arch-enemies, deadly enemies.... Their eyes were blindfolded by their prejudice and blinded by their Jewish lust for worldly dominion." As for the "people" or, in his words, the "wavering crowd of Jews", the archbishop said, "The Pharisees' secret service had awakened the animal in it through lies and slander, and it was eager for grisly excitement and blood."



1941:Jewish Weekly newspaper taken control by Nazi's.


1941: Work was begun today to open the Jadovno contraction camp in Croatia. 


1941: Birthdate of Ellen Goodman, the popular syndicated columnist for the Boston Globe.  She is yet another in a long line of Jewish journalists who have won the Pulitzer Prize.  In her case it was for Commentary.  In addition to her journalism, she is a popular author and speaker.


1942: Three thousand Jews from Zamosc, Poland, were deported to the Belzec death camp



1942: A German proclamation issued in Lvov, Ukraine, excoriated Polish civilians who assisted Jews.


1942: The USS Blue, which had not been sunk or damaged during the attack on Pearl Harbor thanks to the efforts of Ensign Nathan Asher, a graduate of the Naval Academy who took command U.S.S. Blue since the skipper was ashore” was at the Mare Island Navy Yard today.

1944; Anne Frank diary insert - ‘Who has made us Jews different to all other people? Who has allowed us to suffer so terribly up till now? It is God that has made us as we are, but it will be God, too, who will raise us up again.


1944: The trains filled with Jews from Ioannina, Arta, Volvos, Preveza, Chalkis, Patras, Trikala, Larissa, Kastoria and other Greek cities arrived at Auschwitz


1944: Shlomo Venezia saw his mother and his two little sisters – Marcia and Marta – for the last time today as he climbed out of a freight car at Auschwitz-Birkenau.

1945: American soldiers liberated the Nazi concentration camp at Buchenwald, Germany. Thousands of Jewish prisoners had been marched from other camps to Buchenwald in early 1945.  As the Americans approached, the Nazis tried to another Death March costing the lives of 25,000 mostly Jewish prisoners.  However, 21,000 prisoners were liberated including 4,000 Jews, 1000 of whom were teenagers and children.  Thirty-one members of the camp staff were later found guilty with two of them condemned to death and four getting life sentences James Hoyt, of Oxford, Iowa, 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. According to his eyewitness account,  “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.

1945:Meir Binem (Beniek) Wrzonski the son of Noah Wrzonski and was Rajzel Maroko was among those who were found alive when Buchenwald was liberated today.


1945: The Palestine Post reported medical relief units were going to be heading to Greece. Almost one-third of the team which was first heading to Cairo and then would be off to Greece was made up of Palestinians (Jews). The team was made up of doctors, nurses, sanitary officers, laboratory technicians and drivers. Some of the Palestinians were fluent in Judeo-Spanish and Greek.


1945: Based on accounts from members of the 102nd Division, United States Army, members of the SS burned to death over one thousand prisoners at Gardelgen.  The prisoners were slave laborers from several concentration camps that were being moved east to keep them away from advancing Allied soldiers.  When the SS could no longer move them by train, they herded them into a barn, soaked them with gasoline and burned them to death.  The SS soldiers killed in this manner to conserve ammunition.  Most of the dead were Jews, a large number of whom appeared to be between the ages of fourteen and sixteen


1945: Henry Oster, a native of Cologne who “was taken to the Lodz ghetto in 1941 and later to Auschwitz” was among those left alive when Buchenwald was liberated today.


1946: “More than 400 women members of Protestants churches were guests” today “at Temple Emanu-El, at an institute on Judaism held under the auspices of the National Federation of Temple Sisterhoods with the cooperation of the New York Council of Church Women” where “they heard addresses by three rabbis” who “explained the beliefs of Judaism, synagogue ritual and traditions and ceremonies of the Jewish religion.


1947: In the Bronx, “Milton Riegert a food wholesaler” and his wife Lucille, “a piano teacher gave birth to Academy Award nominate producer Peter Riegert who also was an actor and screenwriter.


1947: Birthdate of Israeli political leader Charlie-Shalom Biton.  A native of Morocco, he made Aliyah in


1948: “The first westbound convoy in almost three weeks fought its way through” to Jerusalem today from Tel Aviv having fought its way “along the 40 mile hazardous route” where it faced at least 2,000 Arab fighters.


1949.  Among other things he was one of the founders of the Israeli Black Panthers movement


1952(16th of Nisan, 5712): 2nd day of Pesach; 1stday of the Omer


1952: After having premiered at Radio City Music Hall in March,  “Singing in the Rain,” directed by Stanley Donen, produced by Arthur Freed, with a script by Betty Comden and Adolph Green, was released to theatres across the United States today.


1953: This morning, NBC radio broadcast the final episode of “The Buster Brown Program” featuring June Foray as “the voices of Midnight the Cat and Old Grandie the Piano.”


1955: “Marty”, the Oscar winning film with a script by Paddy Chayefsky was released today in the United States.


1955(19th of Nisan): Rabbi Jekuthiel Judah Greenwald, author of “Ach laZarah” passed away


1956(30th of Nisan, 5716): Terrorists opened fire on a synagogue full of children and teenagers, in the farming community of Shafir killing three children and a youth worker while wounding five more, three seriously including Albert Edery, 14, of Lod, Kamus Amos Uzan, 15, of Shafrir, Yaakov Harari, 13, of Shafrir, Simcha Silberstrom, 25, a teacher from Shafrir, Shlomo Mizrahi, 16, of Shafrir abd Nisim Assis, 13, of Jerusalem


1956: In the Chancery Division of the Superior Court of New Jersey, a decision was rendered “In Re Katz Estate” today.

1959: After 558 performances at the Imperial Theatre, the curtain came down on the original Broadway production of “Jamaica,” a musical with a book and lyrics by Yip Harburg, music by Harold Arlen and lighting design by Jean Rosenthal


1959: “Davey Jones’ Locker” with music by Mary Rogers was performed for the last time at the Morosco Theatre.


1960(14th of Nisan, 5720): Fast of the First Born


1960(14th of Nisan): Rabbi Chaim Heller, author LeHikre ha-Halakhot passed away


1961:Bob Dylan, born Robert Allen Zimmerman, makes his singing début in New York City.


1961: The trial of Adolph Eichman on charges of genocide opened in Jerusalem.  The capture of Eichman in Argentina is the stuff of James Bond.  His trial marked a turning point as Jews and non-Jews alike began to talk openly about what happened in Europe.  Eichman would be the only person ever executed by the state of Israel. “Justice Moshe Landau read the 15-count indictment aloud in Hebrew, pausing as each charge was translated into German. The charges included “causing the killing of millions of Jews,” “torture” and placing “many millions of Jews in living conditions that were calculated to bring about their physical destruction.”


1963: Pitcher Conrad Cardinal appeared in his first major league game, taking the mound for the Houston Colt 45’s, now known as the Houston Astros.


1965(9th of Nisan, 5725): Seventy-four year old Princeton graduate (1911) and New York Stock Exchange member James Bernhimer Seligamn, the son of De Witt J. (David) Seligman and Addie Seligman, passed away today.


1968: The Ernest Gold “I’m Solomon” had its first Broadway preview today.


1968:  Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act of 1968, prohibiting discrimination based on race, color, religion or national origin in the sale, rental, and financing of housing.  It took the political skill and acumen of LBJ to insure that being Jewish was no longer a disability when it came to renting or buying a home. (This is not to be confused with more famous Civil Rights of 1964, the first piece of ground breaking legislations signed into law by President Johnson who proved to be as strong voice for the underdog and disposed including the Jewish people and the state of Israel.)


1971(16th of Nisan, 5731): Second Day of Pesach


1971: A revival of Kurt Weill’s “Johnny Johnson,” a musical version of The Good Soldier Švejk opened today at the Edison Theatre


1972(27th of Nisan, 5732): Yom HaShoah


1972(27th of Nisan, 5732): Eleven days before his 54th birthday, Solomon Aaron Berson the physician who was the research partner of Rosalyn Yalow passed away.

1973: In the wake of the Munich Olympic Massacre, Zaiad Muchasi, the replacement for Hussein Al Bashir in Cyprus, was killed by a bomb in his Athens hotel room today.


1973: New York premiere of “Scarecrow” directed by Jerry Schatzberg.


1974(19th of Nisan, 5734): Fifth day of Pesach


1974(19th of Nisan, 5734): Eighteen Israelis, including 8 children were murdered today and 15 more Israelis were injured today when three terrorists belong to of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine - General Command crossed the Israeli border from Lebanon and attacked the Israeli town of Kiryat Shmona.


1974(19th of Nisan, 5734): Fifty-five year old German born, American mathematician Abraham Robinson passed away today in New Haven, CT.

1974(19th of Nisan, 5734): Polish born American actress Lilian Satz, “a member of the Adler Yiddish Theatrical dynasty” and the wife of Yiddish actor Ludwig Satz passed away today at Mamaroneck, NY.


1974: Golda Meir resigned as Prime Minister “after the Agranat Commission had published its interim reported on the Yom Kippur War.


1974: “Music! Music!” a “cavalcade of American Musice with footnotes by Alan Jay Lerner” opened today at the Theatre Center 55thStreet Theatre.


1978: The Jerusalem Post reported that Israel had started to dismantle its outposts in South Lebanon in preparation for the expected pullback. But Lebanese Christian leaders and many Israelis expressed concern that the pullback was premature. The world's greatest battleship, the US atom-powered "Nimitz," completed its Israeli visit and sailed away from Haifa.


1978: 1978: Harold H. Saunders who played a key role in the creation of the Camp David Accords, began serving as the 12th Assistant Secretary of State for Near East Affiars.


1979(14th of Nisan, 5739): Ta’anit Bechorot; Erev Pesach


1979(14th of Nisan, 5739): Eighty-two year old Detroit businessman Shmuel-Ber Leykin passed away today.

1983(28th of Nisan, 5743): General Avraham Yoffe passed away.  A sabra born at Yavne;el in 1913 Yoffe served with Orde Wingate, fought with British Army during World War II before beginning a distinguished career with the IDF that included command of the 9th Brigade during the Suez Campaign and the capture of several significant positions in the Sinai during the Six Day War.


1983: In “How Punchy Was Slapsie Maxie?” published today, Jeff Wheelwright examined the life and demise of the Jewish boxer.

1983: Twenty-second and final episode of the first season of “Family Ties” sit-com created by Gary David Goldberg was broadcast today.


1983: In “This Week’s Citation Classic” published today Theodore Lowi discussed his latest work, The End of Liberalism: Ideology, Policy and the Crisis of Public Authority.

1983:Poland's Roman Catholic Primate, Jozef Cardinal Glemp, officiated today at a mass honoring the Jewish fighters of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising. The mass was one of a series of events over the next week and a half commemorating the 40th anniversary of the resistance to the Nazis.


1984: CBS broadcast the final episode of the miniseries “George Washington” co-starring Stephen Macht as “General Benedict Arnold.”


1985(20th of Nisan, 5745): Sixth Day of Pesach


1986: “Band of the Hand” a crime movie directed by Paul Michael Glaser and starring Stephen Lang and James Remard was released today in the United States.


1986(2nd of Nisan, 5746): Eighty-nine year old Israel Goldstein the long-serving Rabbi at congregation B’nai Jerhurun and an ardent Zionist who was also the founder of both the National Conference of Christians and Jews and Brandeis University passed away today.

1987(12th of Nisan, 5747):An Israeli woman was killed by a firebomb thrown into her car in the occupied West Bank today, and in response hundreds of Jewish settlers rampaged in the West Bank town of Kalkilya overnight, breaking windows and setting cars ablaze. The Israeli woman was killed near Alfe Menashe, a Jewish settlement on the West Bank about 25 miles north of here. Her husband and two of her children, who were also in the car, were reported in serious condition. Her third child and a young family friend were treated for light burns. The army imposed a curfew on Kalkilya, located 17 miles from Tel Aviv, but security sources said they were unable to stop an estimated 600 angry Jewish settlers from entering the town.


1987: Following secret talks held in London, Shimon Peres and King Hussein of Jordan reached an agreement outlining the method whereby a peace treaty could be negotiated between Israel and Jordan.  In a tragic turn events, Yitzchak Shamir, the Prime Minister of Israel, scuttled the talks and for once it was the Israelis who may have “never missed a chance to miss a chance.”


1987(12th of Nisan, 5747): Primo Levi passed away. Primo Levi survived the Holocaust and bore witness to it through an amazing collection of literature.  Born in Turin, Italy in 1919, Levi was trained as a chemist.  He was deported to Auschwitz as a Jew and a member of the anti-Fascist Resistance.  His experiences in the camps and his grueling efforts to return to Italy after the war are the subject of two of his books, Survival in Auschwitz and The Reawakening.  He is also the author of Moments of Reprove, The Periodic Table and If Not Now When?  Levi did not make a career of being a Holocaust Survivor.  He worked as a chemist after the war and did not retire to devote full time to his writing until 1977.  He died under tragic circumstances at the age of 67.

1988(24th of Nisan, 5748): Seventy-year old screenwriter and author Jesse Lasky, Jr who wrote the scripts for two Biblical “pot-boilers” – “Ten Commandments” and “Samson and Delilah” – passed away today.

1995(10th of Nisan, 5755): Jacob Weingreen the professor of Hebrew in Trinity College, Dublin who excavated Samaria and who is the namesake for The Weingreen Museum of Biblical Antiquities passed away today.


1997: “Grosse Pointe Blank” the funniest high school reunion movie ever made featuring Alan Arkin and Jeremy Piven was released in the United States today.


1997(4th of Nisan, 5757): Terrorist killed a member of the IDF after having kidnaped him near Moshav Zanoah.


1998(15th of Nisan, 5758): First Day of Pesach


1998: In the evening, Mitchell Levin and Harvey Luber, of blessed memory, celebrate their last seder together.


1999:Matt Bloom debuted on the WWF episode of Sunday Night Heat.


1999: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or special interest to Jewish readers including “Reading the Holocaust” by Inga Clendinnen and recently published paperback editions of “The Unexpected Salami” by Laurie Gwen Shapiro and “The Children” by David Halberstam


2000: A British court resolved David Irving's libel case against Deborah Lipstadt by affirming Lipstadt's portrayal of Irving as an anti-Semitic Holocaust denier.


2001(18th of Nisan, 5761): Fourth Day of Pesach


2001: “Plotting a Pardon; Rich Cashed In a World of Chits to Win Pardon” published today described how Avner Azulay and Rich’s former wife worked with the Clintons to obtain a midnight pardon for the billionaire fugitive from justice.

2002: Palestinian terrorists begin to surrender at Jenin.


2002(29th of Nisan, 5762): In Tunisia, the El Ghriba synagogue was bombed by Al Qaeda killing 21. El Ghriba is an ancient synagogue on the Tunisian island of Djerba. It is located close to Hara Seghira, several kilometers southwest of Houmt Souk, the capital of Djerba.The history of the synagogue is reported to go back about 2000 years, making it the oldest synagogue in Africa and one of the oldest ones in the world. According to an oral tradition, it was built by Jews who had immigrated after the destruction of the first Temple in Jerusalem. The synagogue is the destination of an annual pilgrimage of many Tunisian Jews after the celebration of Passover.


2002:Manhattan Ensemble Theater presented the world premiere of a new English version of the Yiddish classic, The Golem. “Drenched in magic and mystery, the play reworks an ancient Talmudic legend about a 17th century Rabbi in Prague who molds and animates a huge clay figure to fight for the Jewish community, which has been threatened by accusations of spilling the blood of Christian children.”


2004(20th of Nisan, 5764): Sixth Day of Pesach


2004(20th of Nisan, 5674): Eighty-three year old Austrian-born British “Paul Philip Hamburger, pianist, accompanist, vocal coach and teacher” passed away today.

2004: “Focus on the Soul: The Photographs of Lotte Jacobi” came to a close.

2004: An exhibition entitled “Elijah Chair: Art, Ritual, and Social Action” comes to a close at the Jewish Museum in New York.  Elijah Chair,” a video sculpture was created for the Times Square Seder, a public art and social action project which took place in New York in 2002.


2005: The New York Times publishes an article entitled “Acts of Quiet Courage” by Bob Herbert. It describes the role that Luiz Martins de Souza Dantas, the wartime Brazilian ambassador to Franceplayed in providing the visas that saved young Felix Rohatyn and his relatives during World War II.


2005: At joint press conference with Ariel Sharon, President George W. Bush endorsed the Prime Minister’s plan to withdraw from Gaza and plans for a final peace treaty with the Palestinians that will acknowledge the new realities on the ground, including already existing major Israeli population centers, which make it unrealistic that the outcome of final status negotiations will be a full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949.


2007(23rd of Nisan, 5767): Sixty-three year old Tina Susan Rieger, the wife of United Jewish Communities’ president and CEO Howard Rieger, lost her battle with pancreatic cancer and passed away today.

2007: As part of the L.A. Theatre Works program, The Skirball Cultural Center features a performance of Jewish playwright Arthur Miller’s, “The Man Who Had All The Luck.”


2007: In an article entitled “A Youthful Chronicle of Wartime in Prague,” the New York Times reviewed The Diary of Petr Ginz: 1941-1942.


2008(6th of Nisan, 5768):Songwriter and musician Donald Kahn, the son of German born American lyricist Gus Kahn, passed away today.


2008: Jason Hutt’s documentary film “Orthodox Stance” about the pugilistic career of Dmitriy Salita which combines boxing with Orthodox Judaism opens in Los Angeles.


2008: In Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Temple Judah hosts the Dan Nichols Musical Shabbat Service!


2009(17th of Nisan, 5769): Shabbat Chol Hamoed


2010: “Sin,” a play by Mark Altman based on “The Unseen” by Isaac Beshevis Singer is scheduled to have its final performance at the Baruch Performing Arts Center.


2010: Aaron Posner’s “My Name is Asher Lev” a dramatic adaption from the Chaim Potok novel is scheduled to completed its premiere run at the Round House Theatre in Bethsda, MD.


2010:Laura Cohen Applebaum The executive director of the Jewish Historical Society of Greater Washington is scheduled to discuss the new book "Jewish Life in Mr. Lincoln's City at Barnes & Noble in Rockville MD.


2010: Public Broadcasting System is scheduled began a four day series of new programs about the Holocaust. In its first effort, PBS and Masterpiece Classic premiered a new adaptation of The Diary of Anne Frank.


2010: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including All the Whiskey in Heaven: Selected Poems by Charles Bernstein and A Ticket to the Circus: A Memoir by Norris Church Mailer who was the wife of Norman Mailer.


2010(27th of Nisan, 5770): Yom HaShoah


2011: Yeshiva University Museum and Stern College are scheduled to present a performance by The Momenta String Quartet


2011:Rabbi Jill Jacobs is scheduled to begin serving, as the executive director of Rabbis for Human Rights-North America on this date.


2011: Dr. Brian Horowitz of Tulane University, author of “Empire Jews,” is scheduled to speak at a conference on Jewish Emigration to be held at Temple University.


2011(7th of Nisan, 5771): Eighty-seven year old poet Stanley Siegleman passed away.

2011:Itzhak Perlman and the New York Philharmonic Orchestra are scheduled to perform at Lincoln Center in NYC.


2011: The New York Times included a review of The Free World,“David Bezmozgis’s intimate portrait of the Krasnanskys, a Jewish family from Latvia immigrating to the West in 1978.


2011:A 42-year-old man who participated in Friday's Tel Aviv marathon died today after being hospitalized for severe dehydration. The man collapsed of dehydration during the marathon on Friday and was brought to the emergency room in Ichilov Hospital in Tel Aviv. His condition continued to deteriorate and this morning he died due to liver damage as a result of dehydration.


2011: Center for Jewish History presents “The Library that Never Was: The Attempt to Build a Center for Jewish Books and Learning in Post-Holocaust Europe.”


2011:Assembled in Haifa and Nazareth for the third event held in Israel under the EUREKA Chairmanship year, EUREKA's national delegates today approved a series of promising cooperative R&D projects in a variety of areas, including renewable energy, agrofood technology, biotechnology, physical and exact sciences, IT and electronics, industrial manufacturing, and more.


2011:A joint Chinese-Israeli conference opens today at Tel Aviv University, entitled "Replanning Tilanqiao, Formerly the Jewish Ghetto in Shanghai."


2011: In “How Do You Say ‘Good to the Last Drop’ in Hebrew?” Stuart Elliot traces the relationship between Maxwell House, American Jewry and Jacobs Advertising.

2012: As part of the East Village Klezmer Series, Michael Winograd is scheduled to Klezmer Music with Strings in NYC.


2012(19th of Nisan): Yahrtzeit of Rabbi Menachem Zemba who was shot dead by the Nazis during the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in 1943.

2013: The Alexandria Kleztet is scheduled to perform at the Peabody Institute in Baltimore, MD


2013: As part of Holocaust memorial program, the University of Utah is scheduled to host a Candlelight Vigil followed by Peter Black’s speech entitled “70th Anniversary of the Warsaw Uprising.”


2013: “The Law In These Parts” which was selected as Best Documentary at the Jerusalem Film Festival is scheduled to be shown at the Westchester Jewish Film Festival.


2013: “Hitler’s Children” is scheduled to be shown at the Hartford Jewish Film Fest.


2013: Dr. Astrith Baltsan is scheduled to deliver a lecture entitled “Hatikvah: Hope Reborn”


2013: Gilles Uriel Bernheim resigned as chief rabbi of France.


2013:“The flag representing the 30th Infantry Division assumed a place of honor during the National Days of Remembrance ceremony, an annual event commemorating the Holocaust at the U.S. Capitol’s Rotunda. It was added to the 35 others after the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington and the U.S. Army Center for Military History determined in late 2012 that members of the division had liberated Holocaust survivors.” (As reported by Hillel Kuttler)


2013: Two days after rejecting calls to do so, French Chief Rabbi Gilles Bernheim announced that he was stepping down from his post amid two scandals, a French newspaper reported today.

2013: Police arrested five women this morning for wearing tallitot (prayer shawls) traditionally worn by men, while participating in a Rosh Hodesh prayer service at the Western Wall attended by some 200 women.

2014: “Under the Skin” is scheduled to be shown at the Jacob Burns Film Festival.


2014: “General Jack Weinstein was responsible for the firing of nine Air Force commanders in Malmstrom AFB, Montana.”


2014: Israeli artist Tirtzah Bassel’s solo exhibition is scheduled to open at the Slag Gallery.


2014: In “Laemmle’s List: A Mogul’s Heroism” published today Neal Gabler described the life and times of “Carl Laemmle, a founder of Universal Pictures” who “unlike his peers…saved Jews from the Nazis.”

2014: Education and Sharing Day as established by the United States Congress in honor of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson


2014: Cesare Frustaci, a 77 year old Holocaust survivor who has been speaking in Cedar Rapids this week under the sponsorship of the Thaler Holocaust Committee is scheduled to speak during Shabbat Evening Services at Temple Judah.


2014(11th of Nisan, 5774: Eighty-five year old Darrell Zwerling the character  who was the son of Austrian and Romanian Jewish immigrants and was one of those faces you recognize but a name you do not know passed away today.


2014(11th of Nisan, 5774): Centenarian Myer S. Kripke, the Omaha rabbi who was both a scholar and a philanthropist who relied on investment advice from his friend Warren Buffett passed away today.

2015: “David Orlowski, the son of Miriam Winter” is scheduled to be signing copies of his mother memoir Trains at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.


2015: “The Farewell Party,” “Rue Madar,” “Victor ‘Young’ Perez” and “Belle and Sebastian” are scheduled to be shown at the Westchester Jewish Film Festival.


2015: In New York City Temple Emanu-El Skirball Center is scheduled to host a Havdalah ceremony marking the end of Shabbat and Pesach featuring Idan Raichel.


2015: The family of Bernice Tannenbaum, of blessed memory, the former President of Hadassah will sit shiva this evening at her apartment.


2015(22nd of Nisan, 5775): Eight Day of Pesach, a holiday made great again in Cedar Rapids, Iowa thanks to all of the work of Deb Levin whose skills include everything from making a great Seder to provide all of the tech help to make it possible to publish two blogs.


2015: “An unseasonal recurrence of wintry weather across Israel today forced the cancellation and rescheduling of many traditional Moroccan Mimouna celebrations signifying the end of the Passover holiday.


2015: “The Zabinskis’ remarkable wartime actions — which included hiding Jews in indoor animal enclosures —  and are the subject of ‘Zookeeper’s Wife’ seem certain to gain even more renown with the inauguration today of a permanent exhibition in the villa, an attractive two-story Bauhaus home from the 1930s still on the grounds of the Warsaw Zoo.” (As reported by Vanessa Gera)

2015: “During an interviews in Warsaw” today, seventy-eight year old Moshe Tirosh recalled “hiding in a villa on the grounds of the Warsaw zoo for three weeks during World War II.”


2016: “A new study published today in the Proceedings of the National of Academy Sciences” that combined archaeology, Jewish history and applied mathematics, and involved computerized image processing” provided new information on “when the Bible was written.”

2016: “Rosenwald” is scheduled to be shown at the Westchester Jewish Film Festival.


2016: In Jerusalem Migdalei haYm haTichon is scheduled to present Journey through Jazz and French Chanson" with the Blues star Deborah Benasouli


2016: The American Jewish Historical Society is scheduled to present Jews on First (aka The Right Pitch): an adaptation from Larry Ruttman’s award winning book American Jews & America’s Game - an exploration of Jewish assimilation, identity, and guts viewed through the lens of America’s favorite pastime.


2016: Following a screening of “Rosenwald” the Northern Virginia Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to host “LaNitra M. Berger, PhD, a historian of African and African-American art talking about Julius Rosenwald’s impact on the African-American art during the Harlem Renaissance.”


2017(15th of Nisan, 5777): Seventy-one year old Dr. Mark Wainberg, the microbiologist specializing in HIV research passed away today. (As Richard Sanomir)

2017(15th of Nisan, 5777): First Day of Pesach; in the evening count the Omer. 


2018: The American Sephardi Federation is scheduled to host “Unsilencing Sephardic Women Writer” Jewish Voices from North Africa” during while “French literary scholar Nina B. Lichtenstein will “illuminate the shrouded histories and complicated… identities” of a multiply marginalized minority: Magrebi (Moroccan, Algerian, Tunisian) Sephardic women writers.”


2018: “CXX Proof, the Bernice Diener Ensemble-in-Residence at Stern College for Women, Yeshiva University, is scheduled to perform the work of Jewish composers and featuring the world premiere of Proof Positive for violin, clarinet and piano by YU faculty composer David Glaser. Musicians: Christopher Grymes, clarinet; Xiao-dong Wang, violin; Xak Bjerken, piano” at the Center for Jewish History.



2018: “The American Jewish Historical Society” is scheduled to host “We Spoke Out: Comic Books and the Holocaust” which demonstrates that “long before the Holocaust was taught in schools, the youth of America was learning about the Nazi genocide from Batman, the X-Men, Captain America, and Sgt. Rock.”



2018: Violinist David Lisker and Northwestern Theatre Professor Rives Collins are scheduled to appear the Yom HaShoah Commemoration sponsored by the Illinois Museum and Education Center that will include “a candle lighting by Holocaust Survivors and their descendants, accompanied by prayer and song by Hazzan Benjamin A. Tisser of North Suburban Synagogue Beth El



 


 

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

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April 12


70(15th of Nissan, 3830): According to some, the date on the civil calendar when Pesach is observed for the last time before the destruction of the Second Temple.


240: Shapur I whom the Talmud “referred to as King Shabur, who “had good relations with the Jewish community and was a friend of Shmuel, one of the most famous of the Babylonian Amoraim” began his reign as “the second shahanshah (king of kings) of the Sasanian (Persian) Empire.”1204: During the Fourth Crusade, Venetian and French crusaders seize Constantinople. The Crusades were a disaster for much of the Jewish population of Europe. But the Jewish suffering was really an offshoot of Christian enmity towards Muslims or, in the case, hostility between two wings of Christianity and good old fashion commercial greed.


1451: A Flemish scholar recorded his observation of the Jews of Fez (Morocco): "Fez is divided in two parts. The Old City quite populous with about 50,000 families…The Jewish quarter is surrounded by its own walls. Approximately 4,000 Jews dwell there...The more the sultan needs money, the more they have to pay."


1454: In the on-going struggle between Islam and Christianity John of Capistrano called for a crusade against the Turks. Such a crusade was started in Cracow, but never left the city. Over thirty Jews were killed and their homes plundered. The crusade later expanded to include Posen and the surrounding area.


1464(4th of Iyar, 5224): Thirty Jews were killed in Cracow


1479: The King of Portugal awarded Portuguese explorer Pedro Álvares Cabral, who relied on the services of Polish born Jew Yusuf Adil (Gaspar da Gama) when he “discovered” Brazil, “an annual allowance worth 30,000 reais” today.


1577: Birthdate of King Christian IV of Denmark. Christian reversed a prohibition against Jews living in Denmark that dated back to 1536.  He gave permission to a Jewish merchant named Albert Dionis to settle in the newly founded city of Glückstadt. More Jews followed and in 1628 their rights were formally recognized.  By the time Christian passed away in 1648, Jews could have their own cemeteries, hold religious services and enjoyed the protection of the civil law.


1660(1st of Iyar, 5420): Shabtai Horowitz, the son of Isaiah Horowitz and the cousin of Shabtai Sheftel Horowitz whose works included Emek Berakah passed away today at Vienna.


1712(4th of Nisan, 5472): Today as attempts to replace Tzvi Hirsch ben Yaakov Ashkenazi  as the “chief rabbi of the Ashkenazi congregation of Amsterdam” “the parnasim sent a secretary and two attendants of the congregation to Ashkenazi to inform him that upon the return of the letter of appointment eh would be paid the money to which he was still entitled.”


1740(15th of Nisan): Rabbi Simhon ben Joshua Moses Morforso author of Shemesh Zedakah passed away


1755:1st of Iyar, 5515): Rosh Chodesh Iyar


1769: “The Public Advertiser” attributed the origin of April Fool’s Day to the Jews based on the story of Noah sending out the dove looking for dry land after the flood.


1777: Birthdate of Henry Clay.  As a United States Senator, Clay would lead the fight against ratifying a treaty with the Swiss Confederation that discriminated against Jewish Americans.


1792(20th of Nisan, 5552): Sixth Day of Pesach


1792: Birthdate of Heimann (Chaim) Michael, the Hamburg native who gained fame as “a Hebrew bibliographer.”


1798: Five weeks after French troops “overran Switzerland” leading to the collapse of the Swiss Confederation, “121 cantonal deputies proclaimed the Helvetic Republic which would resist French attempts to emancipate the Jews, "One and Indivisible" today.


1804: Birthdate of Abbe Lieberman


1808(15th of Nisan, 5568): Pesach


1819: Birthdate of Daniel Sanders, the German lexicographer who served as a principal for ten years of a private school in his home town of Altstrelitz.


1826: Michael Abraham Gordon married Esther Benjamin today at the Great Synagogue.


1827(15th of Nisan, 5586): Pesach


1833, In Copenhagen, a new synagogue built under the leadership of Rabbi Abraham Alexander Wolff was dedicated today.


1838: In Wiesenbronn, Bavaria, Kela andSeligmann Baer (Dov) Bambergergave birth to Rabbi Moses Löb Bamberger


1838: Today, in Georgia, "Benjamin Davis advertised in the Columbus Enquirer that he had for sale 'Sixty Likely Virginia Negroes- House Servants, Field Hands, Blow boys, Cooks, Washers, Ironers, and three first-rate Seamstresses." The Davis family, who lived at Petersburg and Richmond, Virginia, owned "the largest Jewish slave-trading firm in the South." [This ad ran six days after the end of Pesach.]


1849: In New South Wales, Australia, Julia and Julia and Lewis Wolfe Levy gave birth to Rebecca Cohen


1853: During the Small Swords Society’s Uprising, formation of The Shanghai Volunteer Corps, a part time military unit that would survive until 1942 and whose Jewish members included  Noel S. Jacobs and Mendel Brown.  During the 1930’s Captain Brown commanded an all Jewish Company in the Corps and Rabbi Brown, who has head of the Sephardic community in Shanghai served as Chaplain.


1854(14th of Nisan, 5614): Fast of the First Born; erev Pesach


1859: Sir Moses Montefiore was informed today that the Pope has refused to enter into any discussion concerning Edgar Mortara and he considered what has become known as the Mortara Affair to be “a closed question.”


1860: Birthdate of Russian born German gynecologist Julius Schottlander who was appointed assistant professor at Heidelberg University in 1897.


1861: Confederate batteries fired on Fort Sumter marking the start of the Civil War. Confederate forces would include the five Moses brothers from South Carolina, the six Cohen brothers from North Carolina, the three Levy brothers from Virginia and the three Levy brothers from Louisiana as well as a Mississippian named Max Ullman who later became a rabbi in Birmingham, Alabama, David Camden de Leon who was the C.S.A.’s surgeon-general and Levi Meyers Harby the naval officer who commanded the defenses of Galveston Harbor and served as skipper of the CSS Neptune.


1861: As Confederate batteries open fire on Fort Sumter, Major Alfred Mordecai, "a senior officer in the Ordnance Department of the United States was testing artillery carriages at Fort Monroe, Virginia."  Mordecai was the most prominent Jew serving in the United States Army.  He was well-regarded for his professional skill and integrity.  But Mordecai was a native Southerner and the Confederates would attempt to get him to join their cause.  After much soul searching, Mordecai would resign from the U.S. Army but would refuse to join the Confederates.  His son had no such qualms and served gallantly with the Union Army.


1861: Future Medal of Honor winner Private Benjamin B. Levy enlisted in the 1st New York Infantry at New York City.


1862(12th of Nisan, 5622): Shabbat HaGadol


1862: In a published speech delivered in Berlin Ferdinand “Lassalle assigned primacy in society to the press over the state itself in the aftermath of the 1848 revolution – an assertion regarded as dangerous by the Prussian censorship. The entire print run of 3000 copies of the pamphlet of Lassalle's speech was seized by the authorities, who issued a legal charge against Lassalle for allegedly endangering the public peace.”


1863(23rd of Nisan): Hebrew poet Suskind Raschkow passed away today.


1863(23rd of Nisan): Dr. Julius Barrasch who in 1840 collaborated on a translation and comment on the “Eumunot” passed away in Bucharest


1864: “Max Glass, an Austrian immigrant and volunteer in the Union Army appealed to Major General Benjamin Butler to clear him of charges of desertion.”  Glass had been the victim of anti-Semitic abuse and had only left his unit so that he go to the army’s headquarters to get redress for his grievances.  There must have been some merit to his claim since Butler, who was no friend of the Jews, cleared him of the charges that could have meant his death but ordered him back to the regiment. (As reported by Abraham Bloch)


1865(16th of Nisan, 5625): Second Day of Pesach


1865: Private Louis Leon, who was a Rebel soldier being held at Elmira, NY following his capture 11 months ago “heard that Lee had surrendered.”  He joined 400 of his fellow prisoners in taking the oath of allegiance thus gaining his release today, which included transportation back to North Carolina.


1867: “La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein” a Jacques Offenbach operetta with a libretto co-authored by Ludovic Halévywas performed for the first time at the Théâtre des Variétés in Paris


1872: It was reported today that Rowland Davies, the only surviving founder of the Hebrew Benevolent Orphan Asylum Society, attended last night’s 50th anniversary celebration held at the Academy of Music.


1873(15th of Nisan, 5633): Pesach


1875: Birthdate of Giorgio Polacco, the native of Venice who became “the conductor of the Metropolitan Opera from 1915 to 1917 and the Chicago Civic Opera from 1921 to 1930.”


1879: The St. Louis Republican described the case brought by Edward Burgess again “Joseph Seligman & Co., eminent bankers of New York City.”


1879(19th of Nisan, 5639): Shabbat shel Pesach (5th day of Passover)


1879(19th of Nisan, 5639): Less than a month before his 68th birthday Hungarian born poet Karl Isidore Beck, the Austrian poet and playwright whose works included the “tragic play ‘Saul’” and who was active in the Revolutions of 1848 passed away today in “a suburb Vienna.”


1879(19th of Nisan, 5639): Eighty-two year old Philadelphia born Ophthalmologist Isaac Hays, a founder of the American Medical Association whose marriage to Sarah “Sally” Minis joined a prominent Jewish Savanah family with a  prominent Gratz  family of Pennsylvania passed away today.


1880: Birthdate of Isaac Siegel a Republican political leader who served in the U.S. House of Representatives from March, 1915 until March, 1923.



1880: Acting on behalf of the “Union of American Hebrew Congregations,” A.C Solomon and Simon Wolf requested the Secretary of State investigate the reports of the suffering that Russian Jews are enduring and to intervene on their behalf with the Czar’s government.


1880(1st of Iyar, 5640): Rosh Chodesh Iyar


1881: It was reported today that the ball sponsored by the Purim Association raised $18,817.24 which is earmarked for the building fund of the Hebrew Orphan Asylum.


1882: Several Jews were “severely wounded” and one was killed during a riot in Dubosarif, Russia.


1883:


1884: Birthdate of Otto Meyerhof. The German born psychologist and biochemist won the Nobel Prize in 1922.


1888: Birthdate of restaurant owner Samuel Feld, the husband of the former Edna Rosenfeld and the father of actor Normal Fell.


1890(22nd of Nisan, 5650): 8th day of Pesach


1890: It was reported today that during the month of March, the United Hebrew Charities had provided aid in the amount of $3,677.50 835 families with a total population of 3,589 people. This was in addition to the items such as shoes, coal, clothing, medicine and food that it had given to its existing case load which had grown by another 1,306 people during the last month.


1890: It was reported today of the most recent 2,186 Jewish immigrants to register at Castle Garden, 1,507 had stayed in New York.


1891: “The World’s Approaching End” published provides the calculations ‘of Lt. Charles A. L. Totten the military instructor at Yale who already discovered  “the exact day of the long day” described in the book of Joshua proving “that the end of the world will come in March, 1899.”


1892(15th Nisan, 5652): Jews observe the last Pesach before what will become the Great Depression of the 1890’s


1892: The New York Court of Appeals ruled that the North American Relief Society is not entitled to $50,000 under the terms of the will of the late Sampson Simpson.


1894: Among the 5,000 children attending today’s performance of Barnum and Bailey’s Great Show at Madison Square Garden were those in the care of the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society and the Hebrew Instituted


1894: Birthdate of Max Neuman one of the Jewish soldiers from Kleinsteinach who was killed in WW I while fighting for the Kaiser.


1895: The celebration of 50th anniversary of Temple Emanu-El began this evening at 5 pm with the regular Friday Night Services featuring a special sermon Rabbi Gustav Gottheil entitled “Stretching Out of his Wings Through the Breadth of the Land.”


1895:  Tragedy struck the family of Mrs. Eva Abrahams today during Chol HaMoed Pesach.  While preparing breakfast this morning, she accidently poured oil on her dress which then caught fire.  As the flames filled the tenement, Mrs. Abrahams picked up her sleeping two week old baby and rushed out into the hall where she gave the baby to a neighbor.  Then she went back into the burning room and carried out her sleeping two year old son.  Mrs. Abrahams was badly burned.  She is now lying in a bed at Gouverneur Hospital “at the point of death.”


1895: It was reported today that the residue of a trust fund the late Michael Stachelberg created for his sister Felicia Davidson will, after she dies, be equally divided among the Hebrew Benevolent and Orphan Asylum Society, the Home for Aged and Infirm Hebrews, the Mount Sinai Hospital, the Montefiore Home for Chonic Invalids and the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society


1896: The Hebrew Charity Hospital was among those organizations that will benefit from tonight’s competition between various musical and athletic clubs being held at the Grand Central Palace on Lexington Avenue.


1896: The Hebrew Infant Asylum received over one thousand dollars from that the Young Folks’ League had raised at its first benefit performance in New York.


1899: Dr. Lee Frankel of Philadelphia has accepted the position of manager of the United Hebrew Charities.  The position has been vacant since February when N.S. Rosenau was forced to resign because of his health.


1899(2nd of Iyar): Hebrew poet Abraham Baer Gottlober passed away


1903(15th of Nisan, 5663): Pesach


1903: In Portland, Oregon, Rabbi Stephen Wise and Louise Waterman Wise gave birth to distinguished Family Court judge and children's advocate Justine Wise Polier.



1903 (15th of Nisan, 5663): The New York Timesreported that “at sundown last evening in the homes of all orthodox Jews the beginning of the Passover was celebrated.  In the southern section of the city, east of the Bowery, all signs of commercial activit ceased and the Jewish families gather in their homes to eat the paschal lamb and hear the elders read the story of the deliverance from bondage.”


1903: Birthdate of Horace R. Clayton, Jr the American sociologist whom Lore Segal based her character “Carter Bayoux” in the award winning novel Her First American.


1904: This evening Rabbi B.A. Elzas officiated at the wedding Philadelphian Albert Luria Moise and South Carolinian Eva May Nathans.


1908: Fifty-seven year old Charles Adelle Lewis Totten passed away.  A West Point graduate and Professor at Yale, among other things, he supported Jewish settlement in Palestine in the 1890’s before Herzl and Zionism.



1908: Friends and members of the Free Synagogue celebrated the first anniversary of its founding at its place of worship on 81stStreet between Columbus and Amsterdam Avenues.


1909: Formation of Ha Shomer


1909: Theodore de Lemos the archictect who designed the Kuhn, Loeb & Co. Bank Building at 27 Pine Street and Macy’s Herald Square department store passed away today.



 


 


1909: “The young Jewish composers of St.Petersburg heard for the first time Joel Engels's artistic arrangements of Jewish folksongs [...] and were greatly surprised that such cultural and national value could result from such an enterprise. This concert stimulated the young Petersburg composers in the following period to the creation and performance of a whole series of Jewish song settings


1911(14th of Nisan, 5671): This evening, the Young Men’s Hebrew Association will host a public seder in New York and “special services” will be held for the Jewish immigrants currently detained at Ellis Island.


1912: Mr. and Mrs. Nathan Straus arrived in London after visiting Palestine.  However, they arrived too late to join his brother and sister-in-law – Isidor and Ida Straus – for the return voyage to the United States.  The ship carrying Isidor and his wife had sailed from Southampton on April 10.  Their ship was the SS Titanic. Nathan had been delayed because he had spent extra time helping to provide for the Jewish community in Eretz Israel.


1912: In Paris, Republicans and Socialists began “a campaign against Jewish immigrants.”


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


1912: “Jewish reservists and Jewish veterans of the Russo-Turkish and Russo-Japanese wars asked the permission of the Minister the Interior to hold a conference to protest against attacks on Jewish conscripts and to obtain the right of residence for all Jewish who have served in the army.”


1912: Management of the “Jewish Burial Society of Odessa was restored to the Jewish community.”


1912: In the Duma, deputies demanded “the exclusion of Jews from the press and printing trades.”


1912: “The Council of the Jewish Community of Rome elected Dr. Angelo Sacerdoti to the position of Chief Rabbi


1912: At the University of Berlin, Max Liebermann was “elected Senator of the Academy.”


1912: King George V appointed Lord Michelham (Sir Herbert Stern) Knight Commander of the Royal Victorian Order.


1912(25th of Nisan, 5672): Seventy-three year old New York City merchant Julius Wile passed away today.


1912(25th of Nisan, 5672): Fifty-one year old Omaha, Nebraska engineer Samuel Katz passed away today.


1912: The King of Italy appointed “Elio Melli, the President of the Provincial Council of Ferrara” to serve as “Commander of the Order of the Italian Crown.”


1912(25th of Nisan, 5672): Fifty-year old New York City attorney Moses Weinman passed away today.


1912: “Thirty-five Jewish merchants in Paterson, NJ, petitioned the Board of Alderman to amend the Sunday Closing Law so as to exempt merchants who observe the Jewish Sabbath.”


1912: Birthdate of Elinor Sophia Coleman, who as Elinor Guggenheimer, the wife of Ralph Guggenheimer became an advocate for women, children and the elderly. (As reported by Douglas Martin)


1912(25th of Nisan, 5672): Eighty-seven year old Rabbi Tobias Lipschuta passed away at Brzesko, Galicia.


1913: In Philadelphia, Frank and Elsie Pfaelzer gave birth to Morris Pfaelzer the University of Pennsylvania law school graduate, husband of Marjorie Lesser and WW II Navy veteran who practiced law in California after the war, lectured at the University of Southern Californian Law School


1914: In Laupheim, Germany, Paula (Stern) Bergmann and Max Bergmann gave birth to Gretel Bergmann who gained fame as high jumper Margaret Bergmann-Lambert



1914“Art Notes,” published today described an illustrated article by Ella Mielziner in the American Hebrew that describes the treatment of Passover by a variety of artists ranging from the Renaissance masters of the Florentine and Venetian schools to modern painters including Alma Tadema and Sir Frederick Leighton


1915: President Woodrow Wilson wrote to Simon Wolf reassuring him that when the United States “negotiated a new treaty with Russia we shall not be forgetful of the very important matter” (securing full rights for the Jews of Russia) “to which you call my attention.


1915: Birthdate of Milwaukee native Isadore Perlman the award winning nuclear chemist who, among other accomplishments, worked on the Manhattan Project and served on the faculty of Hebrew University



1916: It was said today at the offices of the Industrial Department of the United Hebrew Charities “that with the aid movements such as Bundle Day” which was begun by Ben Altheimer of St. Louis in 1914 and is now under the direction of William Hirsch “it would be possible to provide adequate relief for many poor families, as a system had been developed under which material of all kinds could be converted into money.


1917(20th of Nisan, 5677): Sixth day of Pesach


1917(20th of Nisan, 5677): Lt. Louis Hemeret, an aviator, was killed today.


1917(20th of Nisan, 5677): Second Lieutenant Gerard von Brock was killed during in WW I.


1917: “Jewish deputies call the government’s attention to the growth of “anti-Semitic agitation and anti-Semitic riots in Galicia.”


1917: American Jews are being asked to contribute to a fund started today of which Jacob H. Schiff is the temporary treasurer, “to present a copy of the Statue of Liberty to the free people of Russia” as first proposed by Herman Bernstein, the editor of The American Hebrew.


1917: “The Polish press” accused “the German Government of disseminating antagonism between Poles and Jews to secure support of the Jews for the” plan to separate the Ukraine from Russia.


1918: In Budapest, Leo Luntshi celebrated his 50thbirthday by donating a million and a quarter crowns for the establishment of a sanitarium for Hungarian war orphans.


1918(30th of Nisan, 5678): Rosh Chodesh Iyar


1918: It was reported today that the United Hebrew Trades “which represents more than 200,000 Jewish workers” in the New York metropolitan area and the Retail Clothing Salesman under the leadership of President Louis Schradnik are two of the Jewish organizations, along with a number of Jewish actors, taking the lead in raising funds for the latest Liberty Loan Drive.


1919(12th of Nisan, 5679): Parashat Metzora; Shabbat HaGadol


1919: Rabbi Silverman is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “How Can One Become Religious” at Sabbath services at Temple Eamanu-El.


1919: Rabbi Samuel Schulman is scheduled to deliver the sermon at Sabbath services this morning at Beth El Temple.


1919: “The Great Sabbath” is scheduled to be observed this morning at Temple Israel of Harlem.


1919: Playwright and WW I veteran Ernst Toller ended his six day presidency of the Bavarian Soviet Republic.


1920(24th of Nisan, 5680): “Moncia Bauer” passed away today in Cincinnati, Ohio.


1920: The National Conference of Jewish Social Service opened today at the Hotel Grunewald in New Orleans, LA.


1920: The Twelfth Conference of the Bund, the Jewish labor organization opened today in Gomel.


1921: Birthdate of Hans Steinbrück one of the Ehrenfeld anti-Nazi resistance Group who was hanged in November of 1944.


1922: In Camden, NJ, the first issue of the “Beth-Elite,” the newsletter of Congregation Beth El appeared just before Pesach.


1922(14th of Nisan, 5682): Passover services begin at 7 p.m. at Congregation Beth-El in Camden, New Jersey.


1925: U.S. premiere of “Dangerous Innocence,” a silent film produced by Carl Laemmle, with a script co-authored by Lewis Milestone and filmed by cinematographer Richard Fryer.


1925: “The Wife of Forty Years” directed, produced and written by Richard Oswald and co-starring Sig Arno was released in Germany today.


1926: Will Rogers sent a check in the amount of $2,500, which represented the proceeds from his last concert at Carnegie Hall “as his contribution to the United Jewish Campaign of New York, chaired by William Fox.


1927: Birthdate of London native, Barbara Mankowitz, the daughter of Russian Jewish immigrants and the sister of actor Wolf Mankowitz with whom she opened a shop that led to her being a driving force in the trade of China, including Spode and Wedgewood.



1927: Ernest Katz, Vice President of R.H. Macy & CO presided over a dinner at the Centre where a group of “old timers” pledged $40,000 toward the $1,500,000 fund being raised for the new Y.M.H.A. building on 92nd Street.


1928(22nd of Nisan, 5688): Observance of the 8thday of Pesach during the Presidency of Calvin Coolidge.


1929:Yehudi Menuhinwas soloist with Bruno Walter and the Berlin Philharmonic in a daunting program of concertos by Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms.’


1930(14th of Nisan, 5690): Parashat Tzav; Shabbat HaGadol; erev Pesach


1932: “Grand Hotel” based on a play by Vicki Baum and produced by Irving Thalberg was released in the United States today.


1933(16th of Nisan, 5693): Second Day of Pesach


1933(16th of Nisan, 5693): Max Hassel and Max Greenberg, “two associates of Irving ‘Waxey’ Gordon in the beer business” were murdered today in Union County, NJ.


1935: Germany prohibited publishing "not-Arian" writers.


1935: The office of the High Commissioner of Palestine announced “a new law empowering the municipalities to fix a weekly day of rest.  The law as fixed by each municipality will govern all the inhabitants of that town. The basis of the new ordinance is a by-law drafted by the municipality of Tel Aviv which defines Saturday as the city’s day of rest.”


1936: Reverend Philip J. Furlong, vice president of St Patrick’s Cathedral College, Reverend Dr. W. Russell Bowie, rector of Grace Episcopal Church and R. Abraham L. Feinberg, rabbi of Mouth Neboh Temple “spoke over WOR in a program sponsored by the National Committee for Religion and Welfare Recovery” where they issued “a joint plea for the ‘religious co-operation’ of the principle faiths of the world in a united front against persecution intolerance and hatred” as part of the “observance of Easter and Passover.”


1936: Róża (The Rose) a historical film with a script co-authored by Anatol Stern was released in Poland today.


1936(20th of Nisan, 5696): Sixth Day of Pesach


1936: “The Union of Orthodox Rabbis of the United States and Canada made public a message” today “to American Jews” which should be offered at tomorrow’s Passover service praying for “the three and half million Jews in Poland who are waging a desperate struggle with the danger of extinction.


1936: It was announced today that “Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, Dr. Israel Goldstein, Maurice Levin, Louis Lipsky and Morris Rothen will speak at Passover services throughout New York tomorrow on behalf of the United Palestine Appeal which is seeking to raise $1,500,000 to go towards reaching the national goal of $3, 500,000.


1937: Dr. Pereira Mendes, the rabbi Emeritus of the old Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue celebrated his 85th birthday.



1937: As the Nazi power continues to rise, it was reported today the Rabbi Joachim Prinz of Berlin has said “Whatever the bitter portion, Jews everywhere must lift up the cup of experience and in accordance with the ancient sanctification ceremony add the words, ‘New Life, New Strength, New Hope’” and that “in the land of Palestine the Jewish people can gain a fresh grasp on the values of the Jewish spirit.”


1938: The Polish steamer Polonia lands 250 passengers at Tel Aviv, making it the second ship to use the world’s first “Jewish port.”


1939: Birthdate of Ilan Chet, the native of Haifa who became a noted microbiologist and professor at Hebrew University.


1939: In New York City, “Johanna (Papiermeister), a jeweler, and Morton Hoffman, a caterer” gave birth to playwright William M. Hoffman.



1940: After having premiered in February, “The House of the Seven Gables” the movie version of the novel of the same name directed by Joe May, with a screenplay by Lester Cole was released in the United States today.


1941(15th of Nisan, 5701): First Day of the last Pesach before the United States enters World War II.


1941(15th of Nisan, 5701): On Shabbat the first Bar Mitzvah took place in Iceland.


1941(15th of Nisan, 5701):  As German troops entered Belgrade, Yugoslavia, a Jewish tailor who spit on the arriving troops was shot dead. Jewish shops and homes in Belgrade were ransacked by both German soldiers and resident Germans


1941: The Germans announced publicly that anyone caught leaving the Lodz Ghetto would be shot.


1941: “Hungarian forces entered Novi-Sad and immediately began terrorizing the Jewish and Serbian residents. Men between the ages of 16-65 were enlisted in labor battalions, some of which were sent to the front, primarily in the Ukraine, where they were forced to clear land mines, most of them dying in the process.” (As reported by Yad VaShem)


1941: Today, as part of the second Aufbaukommndo, Fritz Weiss was among a thousand people transported from Prague to Theresienstadt where he stayed alive thanks to his ability to put on musicals and “collaborate with orchestras outside the camp.”


1942: To maintain the deception that all was well and to better control the population, 115,000 of the Jews remaining in Lodz ghetto were told that the 100,000 Jews already deported (and in actuality gassed in Chelmno), were safe and staying in a camp near Warthburcken. Kolo was actually the town near Chelmno.


1942(25th of Nisan, 5702): Ninety year old Austrian author and jurist Marco Brociner, the brother of Joseph, Maurice and Adnrei Brociner died today while being held in a ghetto at Vienna by the Nazis


1943: In New York real estate investor Seymour Durst and his wife Bernice Herstein gave birth to Robert Durst, the brother of Douglas, Thomas and Wendy Durst, who gained notoriety for his alleged involvement in the death of his wife and a close friend.


1943: An Anglo-American Conference opens in Bermuda.  The conference was supposed to come up with ways of saving European refugees (in reality the Jews of Europe).  During the 12 days of meetings it became obvious that the Foreign Office and the State Department would do nothing including relaxing immigration quotas or opening Palestine to Jewish immigrants. 


1944: ‘Who has made us Jews different to all other people? Who has allowed us to suffer so terribly up till now? It is God that has made us as we are, but it will be God, too, who will raise us up again. . ." From the daily entry of the Diary of Anne Frank


1944:  Lillian Hellman's "Searching Wind", premiered in New York City.


1944: Arnold Newman photographed award winning author William Steig.



1944: In Oxford, UK, Jacob Bronowski and Rita Coblentz gave birth to Lisa Anne Bronowski who gained fame as British historian Lisa Anne Jardin


1945:General Dwight D. Eisenhower, Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in Europe, tvisited Ohrdruf Concentration camp with Generals George S. Patton and Omar Bradley. After his visit, Eisenhower cabled General George C. Marshall, the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in Washington, describing his trip to Ohrdruf:


. . .the most interesting--although horrible--sight that I encountered during the trip was a visit to a German internment camp near Gotha. The things I saw beggar description. While I was touring the camp I encountered three men who had been inmates and by one ruse or another had made their escape. I interviewed them through an interpreter. The visual evidence and the verbal testimony of starvation, cruelty and bestiality were so overpowering as to leave me a bit sick. In one room, where they were piled up twenty or thirty naked men, killed by starvation, George Patton would not even enter. He said that he would get sick if he did so. I made the visit deliberately, in order to be in a position to give first-hand evidence of these things if ever, in the future, there develops a tendency to charge these allegations merely to 'propaganda.'


Ohrdruf made a powerful impression on General George S. Patton as well. He described it as "one of the most appalling sights that I have ever seen." He recounted in his diary that


In a shed . . . was a pile of about 40 completely naked human bodies in the last stages of emaciation. These bodies were lightly sprinkled with lime, not for the purposes of destroying them, but for the purpose of removing the stench. When the shed was full--I presume its capacity to be about 200, the bodies were taken to a pit a mile from the camp where they were buried. The inmates claimed that 3,000 men, who had been either shot in the head or who had died of starvation, had been so buried since the 1st of January. When we began to approach with our troops, the Germans thought it expedient to remove the evidence of their crime. Therefore, they had some of the slaves exhume the bodies and place them on a mammoth griddle composed of 60-centimeter railway tracks laid on brick foundations. They poured pitch on the bodies and then built a fire of pinewood and coal under them. They were not very successful in their operations because there was a pile of human bones, skulls, charred torsos on or under the griddle which must have accounted for many hundreds


1945:Birthdate of Irving D. Rubin who served as chairman of the Jewish Defense League (JDL) from 1985 to 2002.


1945: Franklin D. Roosevelt died at Warm Springs, Georgia. Roosevelt had been quite popular with Jewish voters and Jews certainly benefited from his Presidency.  Many years after the war, historians began to raise issues of the American role concerning the plight of European Jewry and the lack of active intervention to save at least some of the Six Million.


1945: Vice President Harry Truman was sworn in as President of the United following the death of Franklin Roosevelt. No matter what, Truman will always be a hero among Jews for supporting the U.N. resolution that in effect created the state of Israel and for recognizing the state of Israel at the moment of its birth.  He did this in spite of strong opposition from advisors in the Defense and State departments.


1945: Canadian troops liberated the Nazi concentration camp Westerbork, Netherlands


1945: Two American divisions reach the Elbe and Mulde Rivers and wait for the arrival of British and Russian troops to link up with them.


1946(11th of Nisan, 5706): Henry Benisch, the American representative of Meyer and Studlei, the Swiss-based watchmaker, and brother of Dr. Max Benisch of Tel Aviv passed away at the age of 60.


1947: In London, the Foreign Office said that “the Italian Government has replied ‘favorably on the whole’ to Britain’s request for cooperation in prevent unauthorized Jewish immigration to Palestine.”


1948: The Haganah attacked the Arab Liberation Army commanded by Fawzi al-Kaukji at Mishmar Ha-Emek.  Kaukji had captured the Jewish settlement by using heavy artillery given him by the Syrian Army.  Unfortunately for Kaukji, Mishmar Ha-Emek had been used as a secret training base by the Haganah.  The smaller, poorly armed Jewish force took advantage of their unique knowledge to defeat the superior Arab force.


1948: As the Jewish settlers in Palestine continued plans to form a government that would be place when the British leave in May, the 37 member Moetzet HaAm which was the forerunner of the Provisional State Council was formed today.


1949: Birthdate of American attorney turned author, Scott Turow.



1950: Tonight, Yehudi Menuhin began a concert tour of Israel with a performance in the Tel Aviv auditorium.


1950: In New York, Elizabeth (née Grumbach) and Henry Werner gave birth to American businessman Thomas Charles “Tom” Werner, the chairman of the Boston Red Sox.


1951: The Knesset (Israel's Parliament) passed a resolution setting 27 Nissan as Yom Hashoah or Holocaust Remembrance Day. Yom is the Hebrew word for 'day' and Shoah is the Hebrew word for 'whirlwind.'  Shoah is the Hebrew term for the War Against the Jews that claimed over six million lives between 1938 and 1945. In Israel, a morning siren sounds, stopping all activity; people stand in honor of those who died. Jews around the world hold memorials and vigils, often lighting six candles in honor of the six million Holocaust victims. Many hold name-reading ceremonies to memorialize those who perished. There are many websites to consult for this observance including those supported by Yad Vashem and the Holocaust Memorial Museum.  Here is another that you might want to look at as well.www.jewishpost.com/holocaust/ 


1953(27th of Nisan, 5713): Yom HaShoah


1954: A board of inquiry led by Gordon Gay, known as the Gray Board, began hearings as part of J. Robert Oppenheimer’s appeal of the suspension of his security clearance.  By a vote of 4 to 1, the board would oppose the appeal thus ending Oppenheimer’s chance to regain his security clearance.  This was the ignominious way in which the “Father of the Atomic Bomb” was treated by his government.


1955: After almost two years of testing and opposition Jonas Salk in the presence of 700 scientists was recognized for discovering a vaccine for the prevention of poliomyelitis. His work together with Albert Sabin, who later developed an oral vaccine, drove this paralyzing disease from much of the world. In recognition he received Presidential Citation and the Congressional Medal for Distinguished Achievement.


1955, April 12(12th of Nisan 5755): Public announcement was made that Dr Jonas Salk had successfully tested his Polio vaccine.  For the first time, there was a way for people to avoid this scourge which attacked tens of thousands each year, leaving thousands of its victims paralyzed for life. Salk was actually one of three Jewish doctors who played a prominent part in the race to find a polio vaccine. His success was preceded by the work of a Polish born American Jew named Hilary Koprowski. Albert Sabin, a Russian born American Jew, developed an oral vaccine that supplanted Salk’s early product. 


1956: In Portugal, premiere of “The Rose Tattoo” Hal Kanter’s cinematic adaption of the Broadway play.


1958(22nd of Nisan, 5718): 8th day of Pesach


1959: Los Angeles Dodgers catcher Norm Sherry plays in his first major league baseball game.  Norm joined his brother Larry as the only Jewish battery in baseball.  Together, they led the 1959 Dodgers to a World Series Championship.


1959: Youth Aliyah celebrated Child’s Day at a ceremony in the Israeli Consulate in New York City.  Alan Parter, the 14 year old president of student council at Larchmont Temple Religious School presented Simcah Pratt, the Counsel General, with a sack containing 600 silver dollars which had been collected by Alan and his fellow students. 


1960(15th of Nisan, 5720): As a crowd of Democratic candidates including JFK, LBJ, Adlai and HHH are fighting for their party’s Presidential nomination, Jews observe Pesach


1962: In the UK, premiere of “A King of Loving” directed by John Schlesinger and produced by Joseph Janni.


1962: “Cape Fear” a thriller co-starring Polly Bergen and Martin Balsam, with music by Bernard Herrmann was released in the United States today.


1964(30th of Nisan, 5724): Rosh Chodesh Iyar


1964(30th of Nisan, 5724): Seventy-four year old Columbia professor and Far East Expert Nathaniel Peffer passed away today.


1968(14th of Nisan, 5728): In the evening, Pesach begins with the first Seder held in a re-united Jerusalem.


1969: Simon & Garfunkel released "The Boxer"


1971(17th of Nisan, 5731): Third Day of Pesach


1971: Birthdate of Eyal Golan, (אייל גולן;) “a popular Israeli singer who sings in the Mizrahi style. Golan is one of the most successful singers of the Mizrahi genre in Israel. Except for his debut album, all of his studio albums became platinum albums, and most were sold in hundreds of thousands of copies, Eyal Golan's channel on Youtube has garnered over 17 million views as of July 2010 with five of his videos having garnered over a million views, and two have garnered over 2 million views making him one of Israel's most clicked artists.”


1972:  “The Marty Feldman Comedy Machine” starring Marty Feldman with scripts co-authored by Feldman, Barry Levinson and Larry Gilbert was broadcast in the United States for the first time on ABC.


1973(10th of Nisan, 5733): Seventy-eight year old South Carolina born song-plugger turned movie producer Arthur Freed passed away today.



1974(20th of Nisan, 5734): Sixth Day of Pesach


1974: In Moscow, “39 Moscow activists appealed to the Central Committee of the CPSU in behalf of astrophysicist Evgeny Levich, who was punitively drafted to the army and despite ill health, sent to serve in Yakutia.”


1974: In Moscow, “activists demanded cessation of all repressions of Jews wishing to emigrate to Israel.”


1974(20th of Nisan, 5734): Pulitzer prize winning journalist Arthur Krock who for many set the standard for Washington journalists passed away today.



1975: John Gunther Dean who came to the United States as a refugee from Hitler’s Germany experienced “one of the most tragic days of his life” when as U.S. Ambassador to Cambodia he saw his country depart from Phnom Penh leaving the citizens to the butcher of the Khmer Rouge.


1979(15th of Nisan, 5739): Pesach


1979: After having been released three months earlier in France, Nosferatu the Vampyre a horror film produced by Michael Gruskoff was released in Wiesbaden, Germany.


1980: During the International Conference on Collective Phehomena that began today was attended by 40 Soviet Jewish scientists.


1981:Israel today conditionally approved the reported French initiative to deploy a new United Nations peacekeeping force in Lebanon. At the weekly Cabinet meeting in Jerusalem, Government ministers welcomed the proposal but said that the envisaged force should replace the Syrian troops in Lebanon rather than serve as a buffer between the Syrians and the Christian Phalangists.


1981:Deborah Benjamin, professionally known as Deborah Hart, and Gerald Strober were married this afternoon at Congregation Bnai Jeshurun, by Rabbi William Berkowitz, president of the Jewish National Fund, and spiritual leader of the congregation. The bride is a music columnist and feature writer for The Jewish Week, a weekly newspaper, Mr. Strober, who is national director of The American Friends of Tel Aviv University in New York, is author of five books, including ''American Jews: Community in Crisis,'' and ''Aflame for God: The Jerry Falwell Story.''


1983:Gregory Allen winner of the 1980 Arthur Rubinstein Piano Competition in Tel Aviv and a member of the piano faculty of the University of Texas in Austin gave a recital tonight at the 92nd Street Y in New York City.


1984: “Four armed Arab guerillas from the Gaza Strip reached Ashdod where they boarded, as paying passengers, an Egged Bus No. 300 en route from Tel Aviv to Ashkelon with 41 passengers.” Shortly after the bus left the station at 7:30 pm, the terrorists hijacked the bus.


1985(21st of Nisan, 5745): Seventh Day of Pesach


1985(21st of Nisan, 5745): Eighty-eight year old Rabbi B. Parzen a native of Ozorkow, Poland who came to the United States in 1907 where attended Columbia University and was ordained at Jewish Theological Seminary passed away today.



1986: Fred Friendly finished his services as a Montgomery Fellow at Dartmouth College.


1987:Israeli military helicopters rocketed roads near Shiite Moslem villages in southern Lebanon today, killing two people and wounding four others, according to the state-controlled radio.


The reported action came after a group calling itself the ''Islamic Resistance Movement'' said Moslem guerrillas had killed nine Israeli soldiers in an overnight rocket and machine-gun attack inside the belt of Lebanese territory just north of the Israeli border that the Israelis call their security zone. The radio said a number of helicopters from the Israeli Air Force strafed and fired rockets at roads in the district of Merj 'Uyun close to the zone. The radio added that the Israelis had moved reinforcements into the six-mile-deep enclave they control.


1987:Randi Joy Rosenberg and Matthew David Steele were married today at Temple Beth-El in Great Neck, L.I. Mrs. Steele is a petroleum engineer who until recently was a consultant to the East Mediterranean Oil and Gas Company in Tel Aviv.


1987: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Out of Step: An Unquiet Life in the 20th Century by Sidney Hook.


1989(7th of Nisan, 5749):  Abbie Hoffmann, American radical, passed away.



1989: Paul Goldberger delivered a lecture “Teaching About Architecture” at the National Art Education Association in Washington, D.C


1990: At the opening meeting of the German Democratic Republic’s first democratically elected Parliament, the East German legislators acknowledged responsibility for the Nazi holocaust and asked for forgiveness. The German Democratic Republic, known in the West as East Germany had been a Communist dictatorship.  The de-Nazification process in Germany had really taken place in West Germany.  In the Communist Zone, the contention was that by adopting Communism, atonement had been made.  Or so their Soviet masters told the tale.


1991: U.S. Premiere of “Out for Justice” featuring Gina Gershon and Juliana Margulies.


1995(12th of Nisan, 5755): Seventy-six year old Irving Abitz, the son of Michael and Rose Abitz and the husband of Marion Ruth Abitz who enlisted in the Army in January, 1941 following which “he was assigned to the Medical Department of the 455th AAA Bn., which served with XX Corps as part of Patton’s Third Army and fought its way across Europe from July, 1944 to May, 1945  passed away today.


1996: Israel launched the INS Dolphin, the first of its Dolphin class submarines.


1996: An exhibition, Synagogue for the Arts, featuring the works of Fritz Ascher, came to a close today.


1997(5th of Nisan, 5757): Latvian born Israeli bible scholar Nechama Leibowitz passed away. Her accomplishments are amazing in their own right.  They are even more so when you consider the male-dominated world in which worked, study and taught. For a collection of her commentaries on each of the weekly portions which are called “Gilyonot” see



1998: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of interest to Jewish readers including Tough Jewsby Rich Cohen.


1999:As part of the Millennium Lecture Series hosted by President Bill Clinton and First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton in the East Room of the White House, Holocaust survivor and Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel delivered a very moving speech on "The Perils of Indifference."


1999: In “Paying for Auschwitz” published today. Roger Rosenblatt draws on the experiences of his great uncle who survived the Nazi death camp, as he questions the attempts to put a dollar sign on the Holocaust.



2000: “Critic of a Holocaust Denier Is Cleared in British Libel Suit” published today described the defeat of David Irving in courtroom where the Judge declared that he was in fact an ‘active Holocaust Denier.’”



2001(19th of Nisan, 5761): Fifth Day of Pesach


2001: Advancing Women Professionals and the Jewish Community, a project dedicated to shattering the glass ceiling, was launched today.


2001: A Broadway revival of “Bells Are Ringing” a musical with a book and lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green and music by Jule Styne” opened at the Plymouth Theatre.


2002(30th of Nisan, 5762): Rosh Chodesh Iyar


2002: As Operation Defensive Shield came to an end “Ha'aretz reported that, "The IDF intends to bury today Palestinians killed in the West Bank camp ... The sources said two infantry companies, along with members of the military rabbinate, will enter the camp today to collect bodies. Those who can be identified as civilians will be moved to a hospital in Jenin, and then on to burial, while those identified as terrorists will be buried at a special cemetery in the Jordan Valley."


2002(30th of Nisan, 5762): Six people were murdered when a 17 year old female terrorist detonated a bomb at the Mahane Yehuda Market in Jerusalem.  The victims were Nissan Cohen, 57, of Ramot,


Yelena Konrav, 43, from Pisgat Ze'ev, Rivka Fink, 75, of Jerusalem, Zuhila Hushi, 47, Chinese citizen, of Gilo, Lin Chin Mai, 34, Chinese citizen and Chai Zin Chang, 32, Chinese citizen


 2002(30thof Nisan, 5762): “Lt. Dotan Nahtomi, 22, of Kibbutz Tzuba, died of wounds sustained earlier in the week during IDF operations in Dura (Operation Defensive Shield).”


2002(30th of Nisan, 5762): “Border policeman St.-Sgt. David Smirnoff, 22, of Ashdod was killed when a Palestinian gunman opened fire near the Erez crossing, in the Gaza Strip, killing one and injuring another four Israelis. The terrorist killed one and injured three Palestinian workers in the same shooting spree. The Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the attack.”


2005: “What Sort of Jew Was Jesus?” published today described the views of “Orthodox Rabbi Harvey Falk of Brooklyn who believes that much interreligious tension need never have existed at all.”



2005(3rd of Nisan, 5765):Ehud Manor (אהוד מנור) passed away. Born in 1941, he “was an Israeli songwriter, translator, and radio and TV personality. He composed many well-known songs, including "Ein Li Eretz Acheret" (I Have No Other Country), "Brit Olam" (World Covenant), "BaShanah HaBa'ah" (In The Next Year), "Zo Yalduti HaShniya" (This Is My Second Childhood), and "Achi HaTza'ir Yehuda" (My Younger Brother Yehuda). He wrote over 1,250 Hebrew compositions, and translated more than 600 works into Hebrew, including such Broadway hits as Cabaret and Les Misérables. He wrote the lyrics to many Israeli Eurovision entries, including the 1978 winner "Abanibi", the 1983 entry "Khay" (Alive), the 1992 song "Ze Rak Sport" (It's Just Sports), the 2004 entry, "Leha'amin" ("To Believe"; which he co-wrote with David D'Or)), and the 2005 entry, "Zman". In addition, he translated Barney songs into Hebrew for the Israeli coproduction "HaChaverim Shel Barney".


2006(14th of Nisan, 5766): Fast of the First Born; erev Pesach


2007: An exhibit styled “The Art of Aging” that explores “faith, culture and the search for meaning in the universal aspects of life’s journey”opens at the Jewish Museum of Florida.


2007: Formal ceremony was held marking the creation of AZIS, an organization of olim from Azerbaijan.  “AZIS is short for Azerbaijan-Israel but is also an Azeri word meaning ‘dear’ or ‘precious.’


2007:Holocaust survivor Manya Friedman spoke about her World War II era experiences at Coe College in Kessler Lecture Hall of Hickok Hall.  Friedman is a volunteer at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., and is an active member of the speaker’s bureau for the organization. Friedman was born in 1925 in a small Polish town that included a Jewish community dating back to the 16th century.  In the mid-1930s, the Friedman family experienced anti-Semitism as it became increasingly apparent in Poland.  In September 1939, Friedman's father was selected for forced labor following the German invasion of Poland.  A month later, her mother was arrested for violating the curfew.  In 1941, Friedman was forced to work for a German company that produced military uniforms.  In March 1943, she was separated from her family and never saw them again, as they were deported to Auschwitz. Friedman was forced to work in labor camps, and, in January 1945, she and other prisoners were transported for 10 days in open freight cars in the bitter cold to the Ravensbruck concentration camp.  Later, Friedman was taken to the Rechlin concentration camp, where she was rescued by the Swedish Red Cross in April 1945, following the liberation of Europe.  In 1950, Friedman emigrated from Sweden to the United Sates, where she continues to speak about her experiences during the Holocaust. This event is sponsored by the Joan and David Thaler Holocaust Memorial Foundation.


2008(7th of Nisan, 5768):Nearly 90 minutes after a fire had started,the bodies of the Rabbi Jacob S. Rubenstein, and his wife, Deborah, were found in the burning house.  Rabbi Rubenstein led Young Israel of Scarsdale, an Orthodox synagogue.


2008: In Iowa City, Defunct Books presented a grand night of poetry featuring famous Yiddish poet and playwright Murray Wolfe and Dan Troxell.


2008: In “Holocaust Speaker Urges Audiences to Action” published today The Cedar Rapids Gazettereported on upcoming Holocaust remembrance activities.



As those who lived through the horrors of the Holocaust continue to age, the importance of getting their stories out becomes increasingly more significant, said Hedy Epstein of St. Louis, Mo., whose parents were taken from one concentration camp to another before being sent to Auschwitz when she was 14."It is perhaps even more important now because there aren't that many of us who are still alive, and in a few years there won't be any of us left," Epstein, 83, said by phone from her St. Louis home.Epstein will speak to six audiences in Cedar Rapids and Mount Vernon this week, making stops at four area colleges and two high schools. Her visit is funded through the Thaler Holocaust Memorial Fund.Epstein was 8 years old and living with her parents in Kippenheim, Germany, when Adolf Hitler took power in 1933. She watched as the dry-goods business her father and uncle owned was boycotted because it was a Jewish business, and as her father was taken to a concentration camp in November 1938, to be returned a changed man just a few weeks later. A short time later, her parents were both taken to camps and young Hedy Wachenheimer was sent to England on a children's transport. She received a few letters from her parents in the beginning but never heard from them again once they were sent to Auschwitz.When the war was over, Epstein returned to Germany to work for the American government, then came to the United States in 1948."It is important for me that whoever is in the audience hear about the Holocaust," Epstein said. "It is one of so many tragedies that have happened then, before then and today. I want to wake them up to this horrendous event but also to things that are still happening. I want to urge them to take some responsibility to right a wrong, become personally involved in whatever they choose and do something to right a wrong somewhere."Epstein started speaking publicly about her experiences in 1970, when her son was in junior high. A teacher approached her about speaking to the class when her son explained that his grandparents were sent to the concentration camps. The teacher asked her again the following year, and word of her speeches began to spread.Sharing her experiences is one way Epstein can honor her parents, she said."Before she was deported to Auschwitz (my mother) asked me that I never forget my parents," she said. "Of course I never forget, but it's like a mandate to me. By speaking about it, my mother's wish will not be forgotten but carried through."


2009: In Northbrook, Illinois, the Bernard Weinger JCC hosts the opening of Start Smart Baseball with programs for children ages 3 – 5 and adult participants.


2009: Final performance of Arthur Miller’s “Incident At Vichy” at The Beckett Theatre in New York City.


2009: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including the recently released paperback edition of “The End of the Jews” by Adam Mansbach and Joanna Smith Rakoff’s new novel “A Fortunate Age” which traces the post-collegiate struggle of seven Jews from prosperous enclaves “slumming” in a variety of non-affluent parts of New York.


2009: The Washington Post featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including “The Soul of Medicine: Tales from the Bedside” by Dr. Sherwin B. Nuland


2009:Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas telephoned Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu this morning and wished him a happy Passover.


2009: In “Research uncovers Israelites''foothold' in Jordan Valley” published today the JerusalemPost reports that “The discovery of gigantic foot-shaped enclosures in the Jordan Valley may shed light on ancient Jewish holiday practices, according to University of Haifa researchers. The sites, identified with what the Torah terms "gilgal" (a camp or stone structure), were used for assemblies, preparation for battle, and rituals, according to a press release the university put out last week. The researchers, led by Prof. Adam Zertal, found five such structures, each shaped like an enormous foot. The term "gilgal" is mentioned 39 times in the Bible, the press release said - the most famous referring to the site where Joshua and the Israelites encamped after crossing the Jordan River into Israel


2010(28 Nisan, 5770): Yom Hashoah


2010:The International March of the Living honors six Holocaust survivors during its annual gathering at Auschwitz. The theme of the organization's annual gathering on Holocaust Remembrance Day is "Lamrot Hakol (Despite it all): Tribute to the Survivor." The group is seeking nominations of survivors who have demonstrated a "profound impact on the world" to be honored at the event, which includes 10,000 youths from around the world. The program highlights survivors of the Nazi period from various professional and social fields to emphasize how the Jewish community has succeeded in rebuilding from the ashes of the Holocaust. An international nominating committee will choose the six survivors whose accomplishments in government, business, religion and culture or academia attained great heights.One survivor to be recognized will be Rabbi Israel Meir Lau, the former chief rabbi of Israel and currently the chief rabbi of Tel Aviv, who has served "as a beacon of spirituality and leadership on behalf of the survivor community and the Jewish people everywhere," according to the committee. "The survivor has been our most important educational link to understand the unspeakable depth of Nazi evil and the unimaginable tragedy of the Holocaust," said Dr. David Machlis, vice chairman of the International March of the Living. "Yet beyond what these people experienced during the war, their accomplishments after the war years are no less extraordinary and they deserve to be recognized as the true heroes that they are."


2010:MacNeil/Lehrer Productions is scheduled to introduce “Among the Righteous,” the story of Arabs who protected Jews during the Holocaust on PBS tonight. The special is based on the book of the same name by Robert Satloff and is one of four newly created programs appearing this week on PBS as part its Memorial to the Holocaust.


2010: Due to the dissolution of Parliament today, John Simon Bercow, who was elected to office in June, 2009, will have to stand for re-election. Eventually he will be the first Jew to serve as Speaker of the House of Commons.


2011: The Hunter College Hillel is scheduled to present “Daring to Hope” “the North American debut exhibition of Israeli artist and photojournalist, Ilan Mizrahi.”


2011:YIVO and The Jewish Daily Forward are scheduled to present:  “A Celebration of Yiddish Literature in Honor of Boris Sandler,” featuring Evgeny Kissin 


2011: On the 150th anniversary of the start of the Civil War, the Jewish Historical Society of Greater Washington is scheduled to present a screening of “Jewish Historical Society of Greater Washington”documentary reveals the little-known struggles and sacrifices some 10,000 American Jewish soldiers who fought on both sides of the war


2011: Professor Faye Mosokowitz is scheduled to deliver a lecture entitled “What's Portnoy Complaining About Lately?” at Washington Hebrew Congregation.


2011: Tulane University is scheduled to present “If you Didn't Hate Me, Would I Still be Jewish? - Anti-Semitism, the Holocaust, and Jewish Identity in Post-War America” featuring Douglas Greenberg, Executive Dean, School of Arts and Sciences at Rutgers University.


2011: Followers of the Bahai faith unveiled their newly renovated holy site on the coast of Israel today drawing attention to one of the Holy Land's lesser-known religions.


2011(8 Nisan, 5711):Ninety-two year old Sidney Harman, an audio pioneer who built the first high-fidelity stereo receiver, dabbled in education and government, and made a late-in-life splash by acquiring an antiquated Newsweek magazine and wedding it with a sassy young Web site, The Daily Beast, died tonight in Washingtonhttp://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/14/business/media/14harman.html?_r=0 (As reported by Robert D. McFadden)


2012:Daniel Altman, chief economist of Big Think and best-selling author is scheduled to speak at the Global Emerging Leadership Forum hosted by the 92nd Street Y.


2012: Remembrance, a film thatdepicts “a love story between a German Jew and a Polish Catholic that blossomed amid the terror of Auschwitz in 1944” is scheduled to be shown at the Westchester Jewish Film Festival.


2012: Publication of “Screenwriting From Iowa- Writer Samson Raphaelson (Part 3)



2013: Dr. Martin Dean of the Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies is scheduled to “discuss the new findings of the USHMM's Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos Project, including the impact of the International Tracing Service--a copy of which is now housed at The Wiener Library--and other digital archives” in London, UK.


2013: “Yossi” and “All In” are scheduled to be shown at the Westchester Jewish Film Festival.


2013: “No Place on Earth” is scheduled to open in San Francisco, Berkley and San Jose.


2013: PBS is scheduled to show "Among the Righteous," which “documents the dogged search by historian and writer Robert Satloff to track down and verify any instances in which Arabs aided their Jewish neighbors while Hitler's Afrika Corps swept across North Africa.”


2013: As he begins the weekend of his Bar Mitzvah, the friends and family of Jacob Daniel Levin join him in a Shabbat Dinner in Columbus, Ohio.


2013: Police barred a group of mourners from entering Jerusalem’s Mt. Herzl military cemetery today in order to pay respect to lone soldiers killed in action whose families do not reside in Israel



2013: After 66 years of marriage, 86 year old Antoine Veil the husband of Simon Veil passed away today.


2013(25thof Nisan, 5773): Rabbi Yaakov Yosef, the eldest son of the spiritual leader of the Shas party, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, died this afternoon after suffering multisystem failure at Hadassah Hospital in Ein Kerem



2013: The IDF unearthed and defused an unexploded bomb, believed to date to World War II, near northern Tel Aviv’s Sde Dov Airport



2013:The Defense Ministry released its annual figures of fallen soldiers this morning ahead of Remembrance Day, stating that 92 soldiers had fallen this year and a total of 23,085 have fallen in Israel's wars since 1860.



2014: In Portland, Oregon, “A Pigeon and a Boy” by Meir Shalev is scheduled to be performed for the last time.


2014(12th of Nisan, 5774): Shabbat HaGadol


2014: SculptureCenter is scheduled to present the New York City book launch of Neomaterialism by Joshua Simon who is the director and chief curator of the Museums of Bat Yam.


2015: “Echoes of the Borscht Belt: Contemporary Photographs by Marisa Scheinfeld” is scheduled to close at the Yeshiva University Museum.



2015: The New York Times features books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Brothers: The Road to an American Tragedy by Masha Gessen, Better Than Before: Mastering the Habits of Our Everyday Livesby Gretchen Rubin and Ravensbrück: Life and Death in Hitler’s Concentration Camp for Women by Sarah Helm


2015: Due “an unseasonal recurrence of wintry weather” in Israel, “events planned for” today marking the celebration of Moroccan Miouna “have been canceled.


2015: “Watcher of the Sky” and “Secrets of War” are scheduled to be shown at the Westchester Jewish Film Festival.


2015: Lewis Black is scheduled to perform at Providence, Rhodes Island.


2015: “Lest We Forget,” a service of remembrance for the victims of the Holocaust featuring Holocaust survivor Renata Laxova organized by the Inter-Religious Council of Linn County and the Thaler Holocuast Memorial Fund chaired by Dr. Robert Silber is scheduled to take place this evening at Mount Mercy University in Cedar Rapids, IA.


2015: Police announced that due Rabbi Chaim Greinman’s funeral today several streets in Tel Aviv will be closed today.


2016: French art expert Eric Turquin told a news conference today about the discovery of a four year old picture called “Judith Beheading Holofernes” that “depicts the biblical heroine beheading an Assyrian Generals” which is thought to have been painted in the first decade of the 17thcentury by Caravaggio.



2016(4th of Nisan, 5776): Eighty-three year old British playwright Arnold Wesker passed away today. (As reported by Sewall Chan)



2016: In Cedar Rapids, IA with a Jewish community numbering just over 100 families, a variety of Kosher for Passover Cheese is on sale for the first time at one High-Vee Grocery Store thanks to the efforts of cheese manager Chris Luken and Deb Levin.


2016: “Rabin In His Own Words” is scheduled to be shown at the Westchester Jewish Film Festival.


2016: The Center for Jewish History, American Jewish Historical Society and Leo Baeck Institute are scheduled to present "We cannot ignore this opportunity for service": Phi Epsilon Pi‘s Student Refugee Program, 1936-1940” which described the Jewish collegiate fraternity’s expansive national effort to bring over dozens of Central European Jewish refugees who were previously expelled from universities due to the rise of Nazism. This aid work invites new frameworks for understanding American Jewish communal efforts on behalf of European Jewry in the years leading up to World War...


2016: “Sabena Hijacking” is scheduled to be shown at the Northern Virginia Jewish Film Festival.


2017: “The Israeli Opera’s mornings of kid-friendly opera is scheduled to begin today.


2017: “The Ma’alot Tarshiha Sculpture Festival” is scheduled to being today.


2018: The Leo Baeck Institute is scheduled to host a presentation by “historian Michael Brenner who will discuss contemporary Jewish life in Germany on the occasion of the publication of A History of Jews in Germany since 1945


2018:Visiting Assistant Professor Kirsten Kumpf-Baele from the Division of World Languages, Literatures and Cultures, at the German Department is scheduled to deliver a talk in honor of Yom haShoah (Jewish Holocaust Day) at 7:30 p.m. at Agudas Achim in Coralville, Iowa.


2018: The Schusterman Center for Israel Studies at Brandeis University is scheduled to host a book launch and author talk with Gil Troy, whose latest work is The Zionist Ideas



2018(27th of Nisan, 5778): Yom Hashoah – Holocaust Remembrance Day; (The internationally recognized date for Holocaust Remembrance Day corresponds to the 27th day of Nisan on the Hebrew calendar so for those who follow the Gregorian Calendar the holiday appears to “float.”)


 


 


 


 

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

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April 13


1111: Henry V is crowned Holy Roman Emperor. Henry gained power by revolting against his father Henry IV.  This was unfortunate for the Jews of Germany since Henry IV had been protective of his Jewish subjects as can be seen by his enforcement of laws forbidding the forcible baptism of Jews and allowing Jews who had been forcibly baptized to return to the faith of their fathers even if this ruling was contrary to Church doctrine. While no record exists that shows Henry V repealed the rulings his father’s loss of power was still a blow to the Jews because it was rare to find a monarch who was protective of his Jewish subjects.



1204: During the Fourth Crusade the sack of Constantinople continues. The Fourth Crusade was initially called for by Innocent III, one of the more anti-Semitic Popes. European Jews did not suffer in the way they had during the first 3 crusades, in part because of the devastation they had already experienced.  The Fourth Crusade degenerated into a fight among Christians as the Latin Crusaders made war against eastern Orthodox Christians.



1250: The Seventh Crusade, led by King Louis IX of France is defeated in Egypt. This marked the last of the Crusades.  Considering the impact they had on the Jews, the end of the Crusades was a positive thing.  This did not mark the end of the Crusading Spirit which would continue to rear its ugly head in events such as the expulsion from Spain two and half centuries later.  Louis IX’s four decade long reign was a time of misery for the Jews. It was marked by the famous burning of twenty four carloads of Talmudic writings in Paris in 1242 and a similar such conflagration two years later. 



1519: Birthdate of Catherine de' Medici who would become the wife of Henry II of France. When it came to choosing a doctor, Catherine opted to go for quality and used Jews even though Children of Israel had been banned from living in France. Catherine first employed a Marrano named Luis Nunez.  Later she began using Philotheus Montalto, a Portuguese doctor who had cured of her some un-named malady when he was passing through Paris.



1556(23rdof Nisan, 5316): Portuguese Marranos who had returned to Judaism were burned to death in Acona, Italy. A Jewish-led boycott of the port of Acona marked the first community-wide effort by "free" Jews, since the beginning of the Diaspora, to hit back at their enemies.



1587(5thof Nisan, 5347): Jacob Luzatto passed away in Venice, Italy at the age of 60.  It is not known if this is the same Jacob Luzzato who lived and preached at Safed and was a prolific author of tomes ranging from Talmudic commentaries to Haggadot.



1598: Henry IV of France issues the Edict of Nantes allowing freedom of religion to the Huguenots in Catholic France.  The edict did not cover Moslems or Jews living in France, including “New Christians” who had fled to France because of the Inquisition.



1636(7th of Nisan): Rabbi Elijah Kalmankes of Lemberg author of Eliyahu Rabbah passed away.



1660: Antonio Enrequez Basurto, a Marano poet and comedic playwright was burned in effigy after seeking refuge in Amsterdam.



1712:Shabbethai ben Joseph Bass was suddenly arrested today “on the charge of having spread abroad incendiary speeches against all divine and civic government.”



1727(22ndof Nisan, 5487): Judah ben Samuel Rosanes passed away Born in 1657, this student of Samuel ha-Levi and Joseph di Trani was appointed by the Sultan to serve as “hakam bashi” (Chief Rabbi of the Ottoman Empire because of his scholarship and linguistic skills. He was the son-in-law of Abraham Rosanes.



1743: Birthdate of Thomas Jefferson.  “Thomas Jefferson is deservedly a hero to American Jewry. His was one of the few voices in the early republic fervently championing equal political rights for Jews. Jefferson’s Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom in Virginia is a classic American statement of religious toleration. Significantly, while Jefferson championed the rights of Jews and other religious minorities, he did not do so out of respect for Judaism but because he respected the right of every individual to hold whichever faith they wished….Despite his reservations about the perceived “defects” in Judaism, Jefferson never wavered in his commitment to civil and religious freedom for Jews. Jefferson’s most notable achievement in establishing religious and civic toleration for American Jewry was his 1779 Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom in Virginia. Adopted in 1785, the Bill proclaimed: “No man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested or burdened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer, on account of his religious opinions or belief; but that all men shall be free to profess. . . their opinions in matters of religion, and that the same shall in no wise . . . affect their civil capacities.”  Two years later, in 1787, the U. S. Constitution was adopted. Article VI contains the following, Jefferson-inspired phrase: “No religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.” Despite his attitude toward Judaism as a religion, Jefferson’s advocacy of the rights of Jews –and those of other religious minorities – has become the law and custom of the land. Toleration of all religions, the absence of an official government religion, and the right to practice and express religious thought freely are the hallmarks of Jefferson’s legacy. Despite his private views of Judaism, he was indeed a most ‘righteous Gentile.’” 



1761: German native Moses Mordecai, who came to Annapolis, MD in 1758, married Elizabeth Whitlock, an English born Protestant who changed her name to Esther when she converted to Judaism.



1763: At Providence, Jacob Rivera, Aaron Lopez, Naftali Hart and Moses Lopez were among the ten signatories of the Spermaceti Candle Agreement.  The agreement was an effective tool for controlling the candle making trade in area including Pennsylvania, New York and New England.



1764: Final effective date for the Spermaceti Candle Agreement which had been supported by Jacob River, Aaron Lopez, Naftali Hart and Moses Lopez, four of the leading merchants in an industry based on whale oil.



1772: In New York, Uriah and Eva Esther Hendricks gave birth to Aaron Hendricks.



1792(21stof Nisan, 5552): Seventh Day of Pesach



1793: Birthdate of Louis Jacques Begin, a Belgium born French surgeon and author.


1822(22nd of Nisan, 5582): 8th day of Pesach


1823: In the northern Italian city of Leghorn, Samuel and Bonina Morais gave birth to Sabato Morais, a leading 19th century American Orthodox Rabbi.

1827(16th of Nisan, 5587): Second Day of Pesach


1827: Birthdate of Viennese native Josef Kopp, the attorney who became a judge and a member of the “Lower Austrian Parliament.


1829: In Great Britain, Parliament passes the Catholic Relief Act which removes most of the remaining legal obstacles to full participation of Roman Catholics in the political life of the country.  The Jews living in this British Isles saw this as a sign of hope that they would soon attain full religious freedom.  They and their non-Jewish supporters began a campaign to gain equal rights for the Jews.  Unfortunately, success was not just around the corner and the fight would take fifteen years to win.  One Catholic politician was reported to have said that he would support the Jews in their fight since he could not deny to others what had been won for him and his Catholic brethren.


1830: Boletter Salomonsen and Zacharias Isaac Levy gave birth to Arnold Zacharias who is interred in the Horsens Jewish Cemetery at Denmakr.


1840: Birthdate of Samuel Ullman, the native of Hohenzollern-Hechingen who came to the United States at the age of eleven, settled in Mississippi, fought for the Confederacy and moved to Birmingham, Alabama where he became a successful businessman and lobbied so vigorously for the rights African Americans that a high school was named in his honor.

1840: Birthdate of Ludwig Mauthner, the native of Prague who became a noted “Austrian neuroanatomist and ophthalmologist.”


1844(24th of Nisan, 5604): Parashat Shmini


1844: Today, on the first Shabbat after Pesach, Rabbi Benjamin Cohen Carillon, a native of Amsterdam “who was active in disseminating Reform principles wherever he ministered” “confirmed Hannah De Sola, a native of Santa Cruz in the Synagogue of St. Thomas” two years before Rabbi Max Lilenthal performed the same ceremony for the first time in the continental United States at Anshe Chesed in New York City


1845(6th of Nisan, 5605): Baruch Hays, the son of Solomon Hays who was the husband of both Prudence and Rachel Hays passed away today.


1849: During the Hungarian Revolution which was a revolt against being ruled by the Habsburgs of Austria, Hungary becomes a republic. Thousands of Jews fought on the side of the revolutionaries and thousands more contributed financially to the short-lived success of the cause. The new Hungarian Republic voted to give the Jews full rights of citizenship.  Unfortunately, the Jews would enjoy their new status for only two weeks.  Austrian forces conquered the Hungarians and put an end to this short lived new republic.


1850:  Birthdate of Alexander Markus, the native of Pest who gained fame author Bernhard Alexander the University of Budapest professor and father of psychoanalyst Franz Alexander.


1851: At “Weimar Jewish pianist Salomon Jadassohn was the soloist at the first performance, under Liszt's baton, of Liszt's arrangement for piano and orchestra of Carl Maria von Weber's Polonaise (Polacca) brillante "L'hilarité" in E major, Op. 72.


1851: Sabato Morais was elected Hazan of Mikveh Israel, the Spanish and Portuguese Congregation in Philadelphia, PA.


1852: Birthdate of Rabbi Haim (Henry) Pereira Méndez. Mendez was part of a family famous for its rabbis.  Mendez began his career in England before moving to the United States where he served as rabbi for Shearith Israel (The Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue) in New York.  He was also one of the founders of the Jewish Theological Seminary.

1854(15th of Nisan, 5614): Pesach


1860: “Savoy in the British Parliament” published today described Switzerland as a place “which worship William Tell; persecute the Jews; and find the Bourbons in body-guards, English clergymen in scenery, and all the world in watches” [Apparently Swiss antipathy towards Jews was a well-established fact as could be seen by a treaty that the Switzerland tried negotiated with the U.S. in the 1850’s that permitted them to discriminate against American Jews.]


1861(3rd of Iyar, 5621): Parshat Tazria-Metzora


1861: After 33 hours of bombardment by Rebel artillery, the United States garrison at Fort Sumter, SC surrendered exactly four years and four days before the South would surrender to the North at Appomattox Court House in war which pitted brother against brother, including Jewish brother against Jewish brother.


1861: On his way back to his post at Watervilet, NY, Major Alfred Mordecai stopped in Richmond where his brother George urged him to resign from the U.S. Army and join the Confederates.


1864: In Vienna, “Galician Jewish liberal newspaper publisher Mortiz Szeps” and his wife gave birth to Bertha Szeps who gained fame as writer, journalist and critic Bertha Zuckerkandl-Szeps.


1865(17th of Nisan, 5625): Third Day of Pesach


1865: In Russia Seelig Seligsohn and his wife gave birth to Max Seligsohn the American and French trained linguist whose aborted effort to study the conditions of the Falashas led to him becoming an editor of the Jewish Encyclopedia in New York in 1902.


1866(28th of Nisan, 5626): Fifty-six year old Naphtali Frankfurter, the brother of Berhnhard Frankfurter, the reform Rabbi who led the Hamburg Temple and  who was elected to serve in the Hamburg Parliament passed away today.


1867: In Washington, DC, New York lobbyist and state politician Charles H. Sherrill and Sarah Fulton (Wynkoop) Sherrill gave birth American diplomat Charles H. Sherrill who was “mesmerized by the force of Hitler’s personality and charisma” when he met to discuss the possibility of including a token Jew on the German summer and winter Olympic teams.


1870(22nd of Nisan, 5631): 8th day of Pesach


1870: The New York State Legislature granted the Metropolitan Museum of Art an Act of Incorporation marking today as the founding date of this great institution.  The Robert Lehman Collection, which was donated in 1969, following Lehman’s death is one of the largest and most unique collections on display at the museum.


1871:La belle Hélène (The Beautiful Helen), an operetta by Jacques Offenbach with a libretto co-authored by Ludovic Halévy opened in New York City at the Grand Opera House


1880: It was reported today the a Selig Selbiger, a Jewish peddler from western Prussia, has testified before the coroner that his 22 year old sister Fanny has been killed by her husband Moses Adler, a Lithuanian born matzo maker.


1881: Birthdate of Ernst Heilmann, the German jurist and political leader who was murdered at Buchenwald in 1940.


1881: An “anti-Jewish” petition was sent to Otto von Bismarck today.  The petition, which has been circulating throughout the German Empire for the last six months calls for restrictions to be placed on the number of Jews immigrating to Germany and for repealing the legislation which has given the rights of citizens to the Jews of Germany.


1882: Seventy two year old Bruno Bauer whose early works on Christianity and Judaism gave way to a series of anti-Semitic writings passed a way today.


1882:  An Anti-Semitic League was formed in Prussia.  Prussia was the dominant state in the newly united Germany.  [Obviously Hitler did not start anti-Semitism in Germany.]


1885: In Budapest, József Löwinger and his wife Adele Wertheimer gave birth to Hungarian philosopher and literary critic Georg Lukács,



1886: In London, Sir Meyer Adam Spielmann, the son of Marian and Adam Spielmann and his wife Gertrude Emily Spielmann gave birth to Eva Marian Spielmann who became Eva Marian Hubback when she married Francis William Hubback.



1890: “New Publications” published today provides a detailed review of The Temple of Solomon: History of Art in Sardinia Judea, Syria and Asia Minor by Georges Perrot and Charles Chipiez.



1892(16thof Nisan, 5652): Second Day of Pesach



1892: “Sampson Simpson’s Bequest” published today described the decision of the Court of Appeals that the North American Relief Society did not qualify as an organization established “for the purpose of ameliorating the condition of Jews in Jerusalem” and therefore the residue of the estate of Sampson Simpson should go to the descendants of his nephew Moses Isaacks.”



1893: Theodore Seligman, the son of Jesse Seligman was blackballed at the Union Club this evening when his application for membership came before that body.  The members who voted to blackball young Mr. Seligman publicly and proudly admitted that “it was a simply a matter of race prejudice.”  In response to this action, the senior Mr. Seligman who had been a member of the club for a quarter of a century and a vice president for 14 years immediately resigned.



1894: Congregation Shaaray Tefila (Gates of Prayer) dedicated their new sanctuary on west 82nd Street between Columbus and Amsterdam Avenues this evening



1895: The celebration marking the 50th anniversary of Temple Emanu-El entered its second day. Rabbi Joseph Silverman and Cantor William Sparger conducted the morning services. Approximately 2,500 people attended the evening events.



1895: The Chicago Evening Journal“welcomed the premier of the ‘American Jewess and praised its editor Rosa Sonneschein.” (As reported by the Jewish Women’s Archive)



1895: Alfred Dreyfus is placed in solitary confinement on Devil's Island, off the coast of French Guiana.



1897: During the meeting of the New York City Board of Health where contagious diseases were discussed it was noted that “the most troublesome contagion is trachoma or granulated eyelid;” a condition to which Jewish children from Russia are highly susceptible to given their constant exposure to this condition.



1898(21stof Nisan, 5658): Seventh Day of Pesach



1899: At Wesp’s Hall in Buffalo, NY, founding of the International Social and Benefit Society.



1900(14th of Nisan, 5660):  In one of those quirks of the calendar Christians observe Good Friday on the same day when Jews sit down to their first Seder. 



1900(14th of Nisan, 5660):  Poor Jews living on the Lower East Side were relieved to find that free matzoth were being distributed at Charles “Silver Dollar” Smith’s “old place on Essex Street.”  There was concern that the distribution would end since Smith had passed away last year.  Before he had changed his name, Smith was known as variously as Charles Goldschmidt or Charles Solomon.  A New York alderman who was part of the Tammany Hall machine, he was called “Silver Dollar” because of the “2,400 silver dollars used as a studded inlay in his saloon…”



1900: Herzl met with Austrian Prime Minister Ernest von Koerber. 



1902: In Paris, Baron Henri de Rothschild and Mathilde Sophie Henriette von Weissweiller gave birth to Baron Philippe de Rothschild who developed a passion for grand prix race driving and growing fine wines.



1902: Today, Rabbi Joseph Krauskopf, founder of the National Farm School said, “Not yet have we grasped the scientific truth that society is an organic whole in which the welfare of all is dependent upon the well-being of each…"



1903(16thof Nisan, 5663): Second Day of Pesach



1903(16thof Nisan, 5663): Seventy-eight year old German philosopher and Jewish communal leader and author Mortiz Lazarus passed away today.
http://humanities.tau.ac.il/history-school/images/yanivE.pdf



1905: In Vienna, Keva Padover and the former Frumet Goldover gave birth to American historian Saul Kussiel Padover whose 30 books included biographies of characters as King Louis XVI, Karl Marx and Thomas Jefferson. (As reported by Edith Evans Asbury)
http://www.nytimes.com/1981/02/24/obituaries/dr-saul-k-padover-author-dead-at-75.html



1909: The Jews took an active part in uprising of the Young Turk movement including Nissim Effendi Mazliah and Emmanuel Effendi Carusso, members of the Parliament. Many Jews from Adrianople, Constantinople, Monastir and Salonika volunteered for service in the Army of the Young Turks. The Young Turks was the name given to those who sought to modernize the Ottoman Empire.



1910:Sir Charles Walston, Lord Walston and Florence Walston, gave birth to Evelyn Sophie Alexandra Browne (Walston) the wife of Sir Patrick Reginald Evelyn Browne



1911(15thof Nisan, 5671): Pesach



1912(26th of Nisan, 5672): Fifty-two year old Rabbi Henry Klein passed away today in New York.



1912: The Titanic continues on its maiden voyage with an array of wealthy Jewish passenger as well those traveling in third class including Russian born a storekeeper in Manchester on his way to visit his brother in Massachusetts.



1913: The United Hebrew Community sent several hundred pounds of Matzoth to the Otisville Sanitarium in Otisville, NY.  The organization also sent new dishes to the sanitarium which will be used on Passover which begins next week.



1913(6th of Nisan, 5673): Fifty-two year old merchant Isadore Siegel passed away today in Newark, NJ.



1913: Founding of “Ezras Israel Synagogue” in Chicago, Illinois.



1913: In Brooklyn, Rabbi Alexander Lyons is scheduled to officiate at the funeral of Isaac Tuck, the publisher of the Produce Bulletin



1913: “In the absence of Dr. Stephen S. Wise, Dr. Henry Berkowitz of Philadelphia, the chancellor of the Jewish Chautauqua, spoke at the Free Synagogue” this morning on the topic of “Jewish Chivlary.”



1913: Founding of Keneseth Israel in Scranton, PA.



1914(17th of Nisan, 5674): Harry Horowitz a gangster also known as Gyp the Blood and a leader of the Lenox Avenue Gang in New York City was executed at Sing Sing Prison



1915: U.S. Attorney General Gregory announced that the Department of Justice had retained Louis D. Brandeis of Boston to serve as special counsel for the Interstate Commerce Commission in the five percent rate case to defend Secretary of the Treasury McAdoo and Comptroller of the Currency Williams in the injunction proceedings being brought by Riggs National Bank in Washington, D.C.



1916: The Industrial Department of the United Hebrew Charities continued to sort through the bags collected on Bundle Day, deciding what to sell and what to distribute to the less fortunate.



1917: Herman Bernstein of the American Hebrew was reported today to have said that sending a copy of the Statue of Liberty to the people of Russia would be a fitting gift from the Jews of America who love their country and “are enjoying the liberty and equality” to their co-religionists who thanks to the Revolution will now enjoy the benefits of emancipation.



1917: Alexander Lvovich Parvus (born Israel Lazarevich Gelfand), the Russian revolutionary who worked with German intelligence to send Bolshevik revolutionaries to Russia met with Lenin for the second and last time today. (Editor’s note – The Germans saw the Bolsheviks as a way to take Russia out of the war while the Bolsheviks saw the Germans as being their only way to get back to Russia so they could take control of the revolution.)



1918(1stof Iyar, 5678): Rosh Chodesh Iyar and Shabbat



1918(1stof Iyar, 5678): During World War I, 20 year old  Lieutenant Arthur Charles Lionel Abrahams the only child of Sir Lionel Abrahams KCB and Lucy (nee Joseph) Lady Abrahams “fell on the Western Front” while serving with the 3rd Battalion of the Coldstream Guards.
http://www.chch.ox.ac.uk/fallen-alumni/lieutenant-arthur-charles-lionel-abrahams



1918: According to “semi-official cables” received in Washington today, “about 100 American families who had moved from Jerusalem just prior to the British occupation of the city presumably having been released by the Turks.



1918: In Washington, The War Trade Board has placed a limit of $175,000 a month on the amount of credits which may be sent from” the United states for the relief of Jews in Syria living under Turkish control” while there is no limit as to the amount that may be sent to Jews living in territory occupied by the British.



1919: Today, Palm Sunday, the Communist Party led by Eugen Levine, the son of St. Petersburg merchant Julius Levine and his wife the former Rozalia Goldberg, seized control of the Bavarian Soviet Republic.



1919: Dr. Silverman is scheduled to lecture on “Americanism versus Bolshevism” this morning at Temple Emanu-El.



1919: Dr. Krass is scheduled to lecture on “Wanted: a New Religion” at Beth-El Temple.



1920: Birthdate of Metz, France, native Marthe Hoffnung, who gained fame as Marthe Cohn, the Holocaust survivor and decorated member of the French intelligence service who wrote Behind Enemy Lines: The True Story of a French Jewish Spy in Nazi Germany.
https://www.amazon.com/Behind-Enemy-Lines-French-Germany/dp/0307335909
http://www.jewishledger.com/2015/06/conversation-with-marthe-cohn/



1920: The National Probation Association is scheduled to begin meeting today in New Orleans as part of the National Conference of Jewish Social Service.



1920: In Patterson, NJ, Gussie and David Lefkowitz gave birth to Joseph Lefkowitz a graduate of Rutgers University who worked for the Social Security Administration until he retired in 1985 and moved to Crossville, TN where he was living at the time of his death.



1921: Today, at its meeting in Washington the Central Conference of American Rabbis adopted a “resolution recommending that the Conference request the great church organizations of this country to protest against the calling of the world anti-Semitic congress at Vienna and to petition the President and Congress to take such steps as may be advisable to prevent the call of this Congress on the ground that it is a menace to the peace of the world and to the permanence of democratic contitutions.”



1922(15thof Nisan, 5682): Pesach



1922: In Camden New Jersey, Congregation Beth El holds Passover service at 9 in the morning and seven in the evening.



1922: In Detroit, department store owner Louis Oppenheim and Julia Nurko Oppenheim gave birth to “clarinetist and…producer” David Jerome Oppenheim, the brother of Stanley Oppenheim.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/03/arts/03oppenheim.html



1922: “Make It Snappy” starring Eddie Cantor opened at the Winter Garden Theatre.



1923: Birthdate of comedian Don Adams best known for his portrayal of Maxwell Smart in the television hit Get Smart.  Smart’s father was a Hungarian Jew, but his mother was an Irish Catholic.



1924: Birthdate of Moshe Tehilimzeigger, the native of Równe, Poland who moved to Palestine in 1938 where he was first known as Moshe Shimony and then as Dahn Ben-Amotz who served in the Palmach before gaining fame as a broadcaster, journalist and author.



1924: In Columbia, South Carolina, Helen Cohen, the daughter of a jewelry salesman and Mordecai Moses Donen, a dress-shop manager gave birth to director and choreographer Stanley Donen who most famous works are “On the Town” and “Singin’ in the Rain.”



1926: It was reported today that the United Jewish Campaign is raising six million dollars “as part of a nation-wide drive” to raise fifteen million dollars to the Jews of Eastern Europe.



1927: Judge Samuel D. Levy announced today that “a campaign to raise $500,000 for the needs of the National Jewish Hospital Consumptives of Denver” which opened in 1899 and has treated 5,200 people from all over the countries regardless of their religion, is scheduled to begin on April 15.



1930: American composer and music administrator William Howard Schuman went to a Carnegie Hall concert of the New York Philharmonic, conducted by Arturo Toscanini with his older sister, Audrey. According to the Philharmonic's archives, the program included works by Brahms, Mendelssohn, Castelnuovo-Tedesco, and Smetana. Of this experience, Schuman later said, "I was astounded at seeing the sea of stringed instruments, and everybody bowing together. The visual thing alone was astonishing. But the sound! I was overwhelmed. I had never heard anything like it. The very next day, I decided to become a composer."



1930(15thof Nisan, 5690): First Pesach of the Great Depression



1930(15th of Nisan, 5690): On the first day of Pesach, rabbis combined the message of the holiday with the fact that this date marked the anniversary of the birth of Thomas Jefferson “who wrote the statue providing religious freedom in the Constitution of the State of Virginia.”  On the Upper East Side at   Temple Emanu-El Rabbi Nathan Krass declared that Moses, a figure even mightier than Thomas Jefferson, had first promulgated the doctrine of religious freedom when he had told Pharaoh that he wished to liberate everybody.  Krass also combined the message of religious freedom with the current economic crisis.  In the Bronx at the Montefiore Congregation, Rabbi Jacob Katz compared the prophetic message with sage of Monticello who championed American independence and religious liberty.  In this time of worsening financial crisis, Katz said that today we must “remove oppression, and create economic equality” just as our forefathers created political equality.  [Ed. Note: Neither of these Rabbis saw the irony of invoking the name of Jefferson the slaveholder on a holiday that celebrated the end of slavery.]



1931: In Brooklyn Morris Harkavy, “the chief engineer for the Borough of Queens” and his wife Esther gave birth to Ira Baer Harkavy, the graduate of Columbia Law School and Brooklyn Civil Court Judge “best known for his sentencing, on Dec. 7, 1987, of Morris Gross of Brighton Beach to 15 days in the six-story building Mr. Gross owned at 320 Sterling Street in what is now called Prospect-Lefferts Gardens for failing to address more than 400 housing code violations.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/22/nyregion/ira-harkavy-common-sense-new-york-judge-dies-at-84.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=1



1932: In Berlin, Peter and Irma Unger gave birth to Eva Unger who gained fame as Eva Figes, the “acclaimed novelist, memoirist, critic and author of “Patriarchal Attitudes.” (As reported by Leslie Kaufman):



1932: Birthdate of Yosef “Yossi” Banai, the native of Jerusalem who gained fame an entertainer ahd who was “one of the first members of the IDF’s famous troupe of performers – the Nahal troupe.



1933: During a debate in the House of Commons, Churchill warned that “there is a danger of the odious conditions now ruling in Germany being extended by conquest to Poland, and another persecution of pogrom of Jews begun in this new area.”



1933(17thof Nisan, 5693): Third Day of Pesach



1933:  Central Committee of German Jews for Relief and Reconstruction was founded.



1934: “Bottoms Up” a musical comedy with a script co-authored by Sid Silvers who also played the role of “Spud Mosco” was released in the United States today.



1935(10thof Nisan, 5695): Shabbat HaGadol



1935: I. Edwin Goldwasser, Michael Schaap and Nathan Strauss, the co-chairmen of the Greater New York United Jewish Appeal announced that “sermons describing the situation of the Jews in Germany” will be the topic of the upcoming Passover sermons which will help prepare for the fund raising drive beginning on April 28.



1936(21stof Nisan, 5696): Seventh day of Pesach



1936: “A hope that the United States Government ‘will find it possible to intervene on behalf of the Jews in Poland’ to prevent their persecution was expressed to Secretary of State Cordell Hull today by a committee representing members of the American Federation of Labor and 350,000 Jewish citizens” in the United States.



1936: Dr. Everett R. Clinchy, the director of the National Conference of Jews and Christians, Reverend Michael J. Ahern of Weston College and Rabbi Morris S. Lazaron of Baltimore, MD boarded a train in Washington, DC to mark the start of “a six-week’s nationwide tour in the interest of creating closer understanding and cooperation among Protestants, Catholics and Jews.”



1936: At services today marking the concluding days of Pesach, sermons are being given placing an emphasis “on the necessity for Jewish communities giving their utmost support to movements to help destitute Jews in Germany, Eastern and Central Europe and other localities where their existence is threatened.”



1937: The Zionist General Council meeting scheduled for today in London was postponed to April 20.



1937: Mishmar HaShlosha, a moshav in the lower Galilee was established today on land purchased by the Palestine Jewish Colonization Association.



1938: At 8:30 this evening, Arturo Toscanini appeared before an audience of 1,700 adoring fans and began conducting a concert by the Palestine Orchestra.  The evening included a performance of Mendelssohn’s Fourth Symphony which is a double statement against fascism since Mendelssohn has been banned by the Nazis and Toscanini said he was dedicating the performance to the Italy he still loves.



1938: The Palestine Post reported that commander Oliver Locker-Lampson, Conservative MP from Birmingham, had introduced in the House of Commons a bill proposing to extend Palestinian nationality to all persecuted Jews. The vote was 144 "Ayes" and 144 "Nays," and the bill was passed after the Speaker voted in the affirmative. There was little doubt that the bill would never reach the Statute Book and become law.



1938: The Palestine Post reported that a mounting toll of Jewish suicides continued to be reported from Vienna, including a number of prominent Jewish residents.



1939: “The Fatted Calf” a comedy filmed by cinematographer Boris Kaufman was released in France today.



1939: Following its Hollywood premiere in March, “Wuthering Heights” directed by William Wyler, Samuel Goldwyn, with a script by Ben Hecht and music by Alfred Newman was released across the United States today.



1939: In Wilmington, Delaware, George Katz and the former Beatrice Goldstein gave birth to Michael Barry Katz the author of The Underserving Poor who was “an influential historian and social theorist who challenged the prevailing view in the 1980s and ’90s that poverty stemmed from the bad habits of the poor, marshaling the case that its deeper roots lay in the actions of the powerful.” (As reported by Paul Vitello)
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/05/us/michael-b-katz-historian-who-challenged-views-on-poverty-dies-at-75.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&version=HpHedThumbWell&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=0



1940: Eugene Meyer was among those who accompanied President Roosevelt to the Gridiron Dinner at the Willard Hotel in Washington, DC.



1940: Anna Wolkoff made copies of classified documents stolen by pro-Nazi and anti-Semitic American diplomat Tyler Kent and “sent them to Berlin” where they ended up on the possession of the Abwehr while Kent planned to send these same documents to anti-FDR politicians with the hope of undermining the President’s attempt for re-election.



1941:  German troops enter Belgrade Yugoslavia. Another 75,000 more Jews would now fall under the German yoke. Jewish shops that day were ransacked by German troops and German citizens living in the Yugoslav capital city.



1941:  German troops and German citizens living in Belgrade finished the second day of a two-daylong orgy of violence aimed at the Jewish citizens of the Yugoslav capital city.



1941:  The Soviet Union and Japan sign a five year non-aggression pact. The Japanese had fought a brief undeclared war with the Russians in the late 1930’s in which they did poorly.  This helped cause Japan to turn its attention to south Asia which ultimately led to Pearl Harbor. This agreement meant that the Soviets did not have to worry about war with Japan so it could focus all of its attention on defeating the Nazis.  At the same time, the treaty made it possible for Japan to attack the United States which brought the might of America to bear against the Nazis.   



1942: Birthdate of Samuel Morgan “Sam” Slom who has represented the 9th District in the Hawaii Senate since 1996.
http://www.capitol.hawaii.gov/memberpage.aspx?member=slom



1943:  In the Katyn Forest in the Soviet Union, the Germans discovered more than 4000 corpses of Polish officers, some of them Jews. The officers were killed by the Soviets.



1944:  Birthdate of Representative Susan Davis, member of Congress from California’s 53rdCongressional District.


1944: In Hungary, Jews of the annexed territories were being rounded up and concentrated in urban ghettos.


1944: Eighty-five year old Robert Watchorn, the English born American Immigration Commissioner who in 1907attended a Seder at Ellis Island where he gave “a speech dealing with the right of every man in this country to worship God according to his own conviction and pointing out that a man who served God was sure to make a good citizen passed away today.


1945(30th of Nisan, 5705): On Rosh Chodesh Iyar, five thousand Jews being taken from Auschwitz and marched to Belsen were herded into a barn. The Germans set the barn on fire. While some escaped, many thousands more were burned to death. The Germans shot those who tried to escape during the fire.



1945(30thof Nisan, 5705): Seventy year old Breslau born philosopher Ernst Cassirer, the father of philosopher Heinz Cassier passed away after which he was buried in New Jersey “on the Cedar Park Beth-El Cemeteries in the graves of the Congregation Habonim.”
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/cassirer/



1945: Frank Towers was among the members of the U.S. Army’s 30 Infantry Division “who freed prisoners from  Bergen-Belsen” today “who had been packed into a train 40 to 50 cars long bound for Theresienstadt. (As reported by Hillel Kuttler)



1945:Hans Günther Adler gained his freedom from Buchenwald where he had been imprisoned since October of 1944.



1945: Five year old Micha Tomkiewicz, who would become a Professor of Physics, “was among the 2,500 Jewish prisoners rescued from one of what have now come to be known as the Bergen-Belson Death Trai



1945: Major Clarence Benjamin of the 743rd Tank Battalion, USA, took a photo of “a girl, perhaps 4 years old,” later identified as Shilma Spitzer, “walking up an incline holding hands with a kerchiefed young woman” “moments after they were liberated from a train transferring them from Bergen-Belsen” (As reported by Hillel Kuttler)



1946: “Using poison procured from one of Abba Kovner’s associates, three members” of “The Jewish Avengers” “spent two hours coating some 3,000 loaves of bread with arsenic, divided into four portions” with a goal of killing “12,000 SS personnel and Joseph Harmazt oversaw the operation from outside the bakery.”



1946: After 167 performances at the National Theatre, the curtain came down on “The Day Before Spring,” a musical with a book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe.



1946: During an interview today, Ben Hecht, “author and co-chairman of the American League for a Free Palestine” pleaded with Americans to provide financial support that would “enlarge the trickle of Jews from Europe to Palestine to a mass exodus despite” despite British military efforts to keep the Jews out of Eretz Israel.



1947: “For the second time since her arrest in 1946, 21 year old Geulah Cohen” escaped today from her British captors.



1947: “Early tonight a British constable was wounded” by an unknown assailant “on a busy street in the entertainment center of Jewish Jerusalem.”



1947: The Theodore Herzl, “an unauthorized immigrant ship was reported approaching Palestine tonight with” a cargo of “2,700 Jewish refugees from Europe.”



1948: At Kibbutz Yagur, Tirza and Yosef Gadish gave birth to Moshe Gadish one of the sailors lost when the Submarine Dakar sank in January, 1968.



1948: In San Antonio, TX, Gloria and S.S. “Sy” Kalter gave birth to Suzy Gershman, “author of ‘Born to Shop’ Guides.” (As reported by Dennis Hevesi)



1948: As the Arab Legion trained its guns on the besieged Jewish Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem, a kindergarten was hit injuring 20 children.



1948: As night gave way to morning, units of the Palmach took the villages of Al-Mansi and Naghnaghiya



1948(4th of Nisan, 5708):  Seventy-seven people, mostly doctors and nurses on their way Hadassah hospital on Mount Scopus, Jerusalem, were murdered by Arabs.  This took place after the Partition Vote, but before the British had left.  It was part of an Arab terror campaign to drive the Jews out Israel even before the state had been declared.  British troops stationed close by refuse to "interfere".  During this period of time, the British Army did little to acquit itself admirably from the Jewish point of view.  At the same time, their behavior of antagonism and outright hostility towards the Jews was representative of the policies and practices of the British Government.



1948: A large group of doctors, nurses, patients, professors and students joined a supply convoy which was travelling to the Hadassah Hospital on Mount Scopus. The convoy was ambushed and its vehicles blown up as it made its way through the affluent Arab neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah — only a few hundred meters from a British military outpost. With the British looking on, Arab attackers mercilessly slaughtered any personnel attempting to escape the inferno. Incredibly, having resisted Haganah attempts to rescue Jews caught in this death trap, it still took the British over six hours to intervene. Seventyeight people were murdered in the attack, or burned to death after their ambulances and buses were set on fire. Among the victims was the director of the Hadassah organization in Palestine, Dr. Chaim Yassky. (As reported by Aviva and Shmuel Bar-Am)



1948: Operation Har'el launched by Haganah at conclusion of Operation Nachshon, does not succeed in opening the road to Jerusalem. 



1948: As the Haganah fought to defend Mishmar HaEmek from being conquered by the Arab Liberation Army,Palmach units took the villages of Al-Mansi and Naghnaghiya.



1949(14th of Nisan, 5709): Fast of the First Born.



1949(14th of Nisan, 5709): In the evening, first Seder celebrated in the independent state of Israel.



1950: In Washington Heights, NY, Dorothy and Bert Perlman gave birth to actor Ron Perlman


1950: Israel informed the United Nations that it would not participate in talks with the Arabs that included return to the partition boundaries of 1947 as a pre-condition to opening negotiations.  The Israelis reminded the UN that the Arabs have consistently rejected all offers to negotiate a peace settlement and that the Jewish state has “authentic information at is to disposal to the effect that a war of revenge against Israel is a plan which exercises certain minds at the very summit of political power in the Arab world.


1950: At a luncheon meeting of the Overseas Automotive Club, “Isaac Arditi of Arditi, Ltd., a Tel Aviv importer and exporter, declared that Israel is now the biggest export market for small automotive replacement parts, tools and tires in the Near East.” The number of civilian owned automobiles has more than doubled since the days of the British mandate and in the past year Israel has imported three quarters of million dollars of various automobile supplies from the United States. 


1951: In Newark, NJ, “Bertram Weinberg, an attorney, and Ruth Weinberg, a high school physical education teacher” gave birth to Max Weinberg, drummer for Bruce Springsteen.


1953:The Jerusalem Post reported that Jordan had instructed the Barclays and Ottoman banks, as well as individual Arab refugees, to stop their participation in the Israeli scheme for the release of Arab bank accounts frozen in 1948 in Israel.



1953:The Jerusalem Post reported that the Cabinet had established committees for Internal Affairs and Services, for Legislative Drafting, for a Foreign Affairs and Security and a special Experts Committee to study the question of foreign currency control.



1953:Chaim Leavanon is elected mayor of Tel Aviv.



1953:Israel Rokach completes his service as mayor of Tel Aviv.



1954: Birthdate of Barbara Maureen Roche (née Margolis, “a British Labour Party politician, who was the Member of Parliament” and served as a cabinet minister in the government of PM Tony Blair.



1955: In France, release of “Rififi” a French crime film directed by Jules Dassin.



1956: U.S. release of “Tribute To A Bad Man” produced by Sam Zimbalist, with a script co-authored by Michael Blankfort, featuring Vic Marrow as “Lars Peterson.”



1957: Sidney Lumet’s “12 Angry Men” which was filmed by cinematographer Boris Kaufman and co-starring Lee J. Cobb, Martin Balsam and Jack Klugman was released for distribution.



1957: “Shinbone Alley” a musical orchestrated by Irwin Kostal with a book by Mel Brooks opened on Broadway at The Broadway Theatre.



1957: In Washington, D.C. George Goodman, an ophthalmologist and Dorothy (née Bock), a social worker gave birth to journalist Amy Goodman.



1962: Birthdate of Hillel Slovak, guitarist for the Red Hot Chili Peppers who passed away in 1988.



1962: “Experiment in Terror” featuring Ned Glass was released in the United States today.



1964(1stof Iyar, 5724): Rosh Chodesh Iyar



1965(11thof Nisan, 5725): Seventy-seven year old Aaron Harry “Fuzzy” Kallet, the Polish born University of Syracuse football player who earned his letter as an “End” while attending Medical School passed away today.



1965: For their work on “Mary Poppins,” Richard M. Sherman and Robert B. Sherman received the Grammy Award for “Best Original Score Written for a Motion Picture or Television Show”



1967: “Operation: Annihilate!” “the last original episode of the original American science fiction television series ‘Star Trek’” starring William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy was broadcast today.



1968(15th of Nisan, 5728): First Day of Pesach celebrated in a united Jerusalem.  The Jewish people are able to observe the holiday of liberation at the Kotel for the first time since 1948.



1969: Birthdate of white collar criminal Nevin Shapiro who as of 2013 is scheduled to be released from Federal Prison in 2027.
http://espn.go.com/college-football/story/_/id/6866006/ponzi-schemer-nevin-shapiro-says-provided-benefits-miami-athletes%27%20rel=%27nofollow



1970: During the IAF’s Operation Priha, “an Egyptian SA-2 base near Manzala is struck by a 69 Squadron pair, while two 201 Squadron birds strike at a radar facility near Wadi Zur”



1970: Intense Israeli air attacks on targets far west of the Canal Zone come to an end.


1971: Aline Milton Bernstein Saarinen was named chief of the Paris bureau of the National Broadcasting Company making her the first woman to head an overseas bureau in television.



1972(29th of Nisan, 5732): Sixty-seven year old Harry David “Dave” Skudin who played guard for NYU from 1924 through 1926 and who after graduating in 1927 “played one season in the NFL passed away today.



1974(21stof Nisan, 5734): Seventh Day of Pesach and Shabbat



1974: Yonatan Netanyahu wrote to his parents:



"I have no real girl friend at the moment. My last romance is over, and as I don't have time to run around anyway, it looks as if I'll remain on my own for the time being. . . On the whole, I've nothing to complain of. I'm up to my neck in my army work, and during leaves I move about a lot in our lovely land. The whole world marvels at the Inca and Aztec civilizations and such—and they do indeed deserve admiration. Nevertheless almost all of these came into being after the start of the Christian Era (not that this detracts from their value), whereas here it seems that the cradle of world civilization is all around us, everything dating back thousands and thousands of years. A few Saturdays ago I visited the Biblical Gibeon, and saw the remarkable ancient pool there (I'll take you to see it when you come). It's this pool that's mentioned in II Samuel in connection with Abner ben Ner and Joab ben Zeruiah, who 'met together by the pool of Gibeon' and let 'the young men arise and play before them.' And the country is all like that!"



1975(2nd of Iyar, 5735): American movie actor Larry Parks died of a heart attack at the age of 60.  Parks gained his first taste of fame at the age of 31 when he played the title role in “The Jolson Story” followed by another portrayal of the Jewish entertainer in “Jolson Sings Again.” His career was a casualty of the Red Hunt.  Despite efforts to avoid testifying, he ended appearing before the House Un-American Activities Committee where he implicated others.  His testimony did not save his career.  He was Blacklisted which meant the studios would not hire him and pictures he had already made were shelved. 



1975:  Christian Falange killed 27 Palestinians, beginning the Lebanese civil war.  Stability in Lebanon was based on a fragile power-sharing agreement between Christians and two groups of Moslems.  At one point in the 1950's President Eisenhower had sent Marines to Lebanon to help restore order.  Contrary to popular misconception, Israel was not the cause of the disintegration of Lebanon or the civil war that raged in that country.  Today, part of Lebanon is occupied by Syrian troops and is essentially a province of the Damascus government.  Control of Lebanon was part of the late President Assad's dream of a Greater Syria.  Control of Israel and part of what is now Jordan was also part of that dream.



1976: WNET broadcast the last episode of “The Adams Chronicles” written Millard Lampell



1978: The Jerusalem Post reported that radios had again reverberated and TV screens had glittered as the Israel Broadcasting Authority signed an agreement with the Journalists Association, ending an 11-day radio and TV journalists' strike.



1978: The Jerusalem Post reported that President Carter, while playing host to the Romanian president Nicolae Ceasescu, described Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, giving the town the status which the US Government had refused to acknowledge.



1979(16th of Nisan, 5739): Second Day of Pesach; 1st day of the Omer



1980: “One Day at a Time,” starring Bonnie Franklin closes its 5th season on CBS.



1980: “Renowned activist and Hebrew teacher Leoni Volvovsky was arrested in Kishinev” on charges of “vagrancy.



1983(30th of Nisan, 5743): Rosh Chodesh Iyar



1983: In a battle of “firsts” Harold Washington, Chicago’s first African-American mayor defeated Bernard Epton.  If he had been elected, Epton would have been the Windy City’s first Jewish mayor.



1984: President Ronald Reagan read the report describing the events of the Beirut Bombing attack that killed and wounded over 300 Marines in its entirety as his keynote address to the Rev. Jerry Falwell's "Baptist Fundamentalism '84" convention, in Washington, DC.  The report had been prepared by Rabbi Arnold Resincoff who was in Beirut at the time.



1984: After having been released in Australia in 1983, horse-racing movie “Phar Lap” co-starring Ron Leibman was released in the United States today.



1984(11th of Nisan, 5744): On the second day of the Egged Bus Hostage Crisis, at around seven in the morning, following lengthy negotiations “a special force of Sayeret Matkal under the command of brigadier-general Yitzhak Mordechai stormed the bus while shooting at the hijackers through the vehicle's windows. During this takeover operation the soldiers were able to eliminate two of the hijackers, capture the two additional hijackers, and release all hostages except for one passenger – a 19-year-old female soldier named Irit Portuguese who was killed during the takeover operation. Seven passengers were wounded during the course of the operation



1985(22ndof Nisan, 5745): Eighth Day of Pesach and Shabbat Shel Pesach



1985(22nd of Nisan, 5745) Oscar Nemon the Croatian born English sculptor whose work includes statutes depicting Dwight D. Eisenhower, Earl Alexander of Tunis, Viscount Montgomery of Alamein, Lord Freyberg, Harold Macmillan, Harry S. Truman and Margaret Thatcher passed away.



1986: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including “Heroes and Hustlers, Hard Hats and Holy Men: Inside the New Israel by Ze'ev Chafets



1986: Pope John Paul II, “became the first pope known to have made an official papal visit to a synagogue when he visited the Great Synagogue of Rome” today where he was greeted by Elio Toaff, Chief Rabbi of Rome.




1987: Ofra Moses was buried today in Petah Tikvah. Mrs. Moses, aged 35, was riding in a car yesterday with her husband and four children when an unidentified assailant threw the firebomb, a bottle filled with gasoline and a burning rag, through the open window of the car. They were driving to the Tel Aviv suburb of Petah Tikvah to buy food for the Passover holiday. None of the family could attend the funeral since her husband was in the hospital being treated for extensive burns, her five year old was hospitalized in critical condition and the remaining three children had not been released due to the extent of their injuries.



1988: Israeli Deputy Prime Minister, Yitzhak Navon, and Justice Minister Avraham Sharir are expected to arrive in Poland today for a one-week visit to take part in ceremonies to mark the 45th anniversary of the Warsaw ghetto uprising.



1988: U.S. Secretary of State George Schultz met with Refueniks today.



1993: A revival of George Abbott’s “Three Man On A Horse” featuring Tony Randall, Jack Klugman and Jerry Stiller opened at the Lyceum Theatre.



1994(2nd of Iyar, 5754): Hamas conducts a suicide bombing claiming that it is in response to Baruch Goldstein’s attack on mosque in Hebron in February during which he killed 29 Muslims who praying there.



1994(2nd of Iyar, 5754):  In the second such attack in a week, a Palestinian suicide bomber blew himself up today in an assault on an Israeli commuter bus, killing five Israelis and wounding 30 others at the main bus station in Hadera, a working-class town in the country's heartland. Most of the survivors had minor wounds, but they told of a scene of blood and terror, of bodies ripped apart and of people too stunned in the first moments even to scream. Those killed today included Bilha Butin, 49,Rahamim Mazgauker, 34, David Moyal, 26, Daga Perda, 44 and Sgt. Ari Perlmutter, 19


1994(2nd of Iyar, 5754):  At annual Memorial Day ceremonies in Jerusalem Prime Minister Rabin took note of last week’s bombing in Afula and today’s bombing in Hadera, both the work of Hamas when he said,  "Even today, Israelis have paid with their lives, taken by despicable murderers, enemies of peace. They are trying to torpedo the peace. Beyond the bloodshed, the booby-trapped cars and the bombs, we continue to hold out our hands for peace in order to put an end to the suffering. In spite of the difficulties, we will continue on our way to peace." The somberness of the day gave way to ceremonies tonight marking the 46th anniversary of the country's founding. But the celebrations were muted for many, not only because of the latest attack but also because of warnings from the Hamas group of Islamic militants that more horror was on the way in one of the worst terrorist waves inside Israel in years.


1997: The New York Times includes a review of “In The Memory of the Forest”, a novel by Charles T. Powers based on the fate of the Jews of Jadowia and ensuing events that take place in Polish village under the Communist regime.



1997: “An American Daughter,” a play written by Wendy Wasserstein “premiered in a Lincoln Center Theatre Production at the Cort Theatre.



2000(8thof Nisan, 5760): Eighty-four year old Giorgio Bassani, the author of the classic modern novel The Garden of the Finzi-Continis, passed away today in Rome.(As reported by Alessandra Stanley)
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/04/14/arts/giorgio-bassani-novelist-of-italy-s-fascist-era-dies-at-84.html



2001(20thof Nisan, 5761): Sixth Day of Pesach



2001: According to reports published today “an American Jewish Congress delegation” has been “invited to attend this month's inauguration of President Mathieu Kerekou of the West African West Africa.”


2001: In "Doubting the Story of the Exodus" published Teresa Watanabe summarized the current scholarly consensus about whether or not the Exodus happened:


2002: As Operation Defensive Shield, the Israeli response to terrorist attacks that culminated with a murderous bombing at hotel Seder, was coming to an end, the IDF was reported to have determined the location of 23 bodies in Jenin.


2003: The Kfar Saba-Nordau railway “station was opened today as the beginning of the Sharon Railway, only 11 days before it would be attacked by a Palestinian suicide bomber.


2003: The New York Times included reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including ''The Rebbe's Army'' by Sue Fishkoff


2004: Release date of Half Dozen by Evan and Jaron (Evan and Jaron Lowenstein)


2005: Following opening day, today, the Boston Red Sox shipped Kevin Youkilis to Pawtucket today.


2006(15th of Nisan, 5766): Pesach


2006(15th of Nisan, 5766): Eighty-eight year old Dame Muriel Spark whom “The Times named in is list of ‘the 50 greatest British writers since 1945’” passed away today.

2007: “Disturbia,” a thriller starring Shia LaBeouf was released in the United States today.



2008: The two week long Bat Yam International Biennale of Landscape Urbanism opens in this Israeli metropolis near Tel Aviv.



2008: In Denver, at The Mizel Center for the Arts, the final production of “In the Belly of the Whale.”



2008: In New York, The Center for Jewish History presentedacolloquium entitled “Objects of Affection: The Wedding in Jewish Culture” during which scholars, artists, curators and others  gather to discuss the most elaborately celebrated of Jewish life cycle events. Weddings provide rich opportunities to consider the intersection of media and Jewish religious life.



2008:The headstone unveiling for Don Novick at Eben Israel Cemetery in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.



2008: The Washington Post book section featured a review of Jewish author Cynthia Osick’s latest work, A Quartet.



2008:  The Sunday New York Times featured a review of “The Genius” by Jesse Kellerman, the Orthodox Jewish mystery writer who is the son of two other Orthodox Jewish mystery writers, Faye and Jonathan Kellerman and “Founding Faith: Providence, Politics, and the Birth of Religious Freedom in America”by Steven Waldman.



2009: At Yale University, Miriam Benson, former counsel to the International Committee of Women of the Wall delivers a talk on the Struggle of Women of the Wall for Freedom of Worship in Israel entitled "Praying in Her Own Voice."



2009:The American POWs in Germany traveling exhibit "Behind Barbed Wire" comes to Coe College in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. This educational exhibit features the experiences of Midwest prisoners of war (POWs) who were imprisoned in Hitler's Third Reich. Actually within a traveling museum called a "Buseum," this exhibit is housed in a converted school bus. The non-profit educational organization TRACES created this exhibit, which will reach nearly 120 schools, libraries and historical societies during the current tour. A reception in Perrine Gallery of Stewart Memorial Library follows this exhibition.



2009: Newsweek publishes its third annual list of the Fifty Most Influential Rabbis compiled by compiled by Sony Pictures Entertainment Chairman & CEO Michael Lynton, News Corporation Executive Vice President Gary Ginsberg and JTN Productions CEO Jay Sanderson and its first annual list of America’s 25 Most Vibrant Congregations compiled by the same businessman. [Editor’s Note: If you are upset that your rabbi did not make the list, relax.  The sages of Pirke Avot and Rashi couldn’t have either when you consider that David Saperstein got “the top spot because of his role as Washington insider and political powerbroker and Friend of Obama.” And Marvin Hier ranked #2 because he “is a major player in national and world politics…”



2010: Tali Ploskov was elected head of Arad’s municipality today.



2010: Ghaleb Majadele an Arab Israeli who became “country’s first Muslim cabinet minister” in 2007 “re-entered the Knesset today as a replacement for Yuli Tamir who had resigned her seat.”



2010: PBS is scheduled to broadcast Independent Lens: “Blessed Is the Match” the first documentary feature about Hannah Senesh, the World War II-era poet and diarist who became a paratrooper and resistance fighter and was captured, tortured and ultimately executed by the Nazis narrated by Joan Allen. Senesh is famous for her such works as “Blessed is the Match” and “Eli, Eli”  (My God, My God).



2011: The Center for Jewish History and Center for Traditional Music and Dance are scheduled to present a multi-media lecture entitled “Sounds of Immigrant New York: Bukharian Jewish Music in New York City”



2011: “Max Blumb” portrayed by Adam Pally made his appearance on the television series “Happy Endings.”



2011:Today Israel reopened a commercial crossing with the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip that was shut for seven days, as a lull in cross-border fighting continued, an Israeli spokesman said. Israel had closed the Kerem Shalom crossing during a violent flare-up in which Hamas militants fired rocket and mortars at south Israel, shooting an anti-tank rocket at a school bus.



2011:YIVO Institute for Jewish Research presents: “Ethnography of a Vanishing Courtyard: Moyshe Kulbak's Zelmenyaner”



2011:Israel’s attorney general announced today his intention to indict the foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, on corruption charges, but said he would allow Mr. Lieberman a hearing to contest an indictment before issuing a formal charge sheet.



2011(9thof Nisan, 5771): Evelyn Einstein, the 70 year old granddaughter of Albert Einstein, passed away.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/19/us/19einstein.html?_r=1
http://old.post-gazette.com/pg/11109/1140362-84-0.stm



2011:Bar Ilan University unveils four rare Haggadot”
http://www.jpost.com/VideoArticles/Video/Article.aspx?id=216404



2012(21stof Nisan, 5772): Seventh Day of Pesach; final day of observance in Israel and for Reform Jews.



2012(21stof Nisan, 5772): Thirty-five year old Jeremiah Luber the grandson of Elaine and Harvey Luber, of blessed memory, passed away today.



2012(21stof Nisan, 5772): Ninety-nine year old Pittsburg born Israeli Talmud scholar and WW II veteran Avraham Goldberg passed away today.
https://thetalmudblog.wordpress.com/2012/04/15/prof-avraham-goldberg-%D7%96%D7%9C/



2012(21stof Nisan, 5772): Eighty year old Marilyn Lovell actress, singer and activist who was the widow of composer Peter Matz passed away today.
http://variety.com/2012/legit/news/marilyn-lovell-matz-dies-at-81-1118053300/
http://www.afterdark-nyc.com/news/243-beloved-marilyn-lovell-matz-has-died



2012: “Once More, With Feelings” published today provides a detailed review of Schmidt Steps Back by Louis Begley.



2013: Congregation Ada Reyim and The Northern Jewish Film Festival are scheduled to present “Kaddish for a Friend.”



2013: PBS is scheduled to show “Blessed is the Match” which present the brave tale of Hannah Senesch, the Jewish poet who parachuted into Nazi-occupied Europe where she was murdered by her captors.



2013: “Inventing Our Life: The Kibbutz Experiment” is scheduled to be shown at the Westchester Jewish Film Festival.



2013: “All In” and “Koch” are scheduled to be shown at the Hartford Jewish Film Fest.



2013: This evening The 3rd Annual National Collegiate Jewish A Cappella Championship Competition sponsored by Adas Israel is scheduled to take place at the UDC Theatre of the Arts in Washington, DC



2013: In Columbus, Ohio, Jacob Daniel Levin is called to the Torah as a Bar Mitzvah at Congregation Tifereth Israel. L’dor V’dor



2013(3rd of Iyar, 5773): Eighty-two year old Carmen Weinstein, the President of the Jewish Community of Cairo passed away  at her home in Zamalek

2014: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including You Should Have Known, a novel by Jean Hanff Korelitz.


2014: “A man with ties to white supremicist ties opened fire outside the Overland Park JCC, killing two people” after which he “killed a third person at the Village Shalom center before being apprehended by police.”


2014: “Hellman v McCarthy,” Brian Mori’s dramatic portrayal of clash involving Jewish born playwright Lillian Hellman, the skilled playwright who was an apologist for Communism’s worst abuses is scheduled to close at the June Havoc Theatre.


2014:Filmmaker Aviva Kempner is scheduled to discuss her most recent work: a documentary on Julius Rosenwald, the Chicago Jewish businessman and philanthropist who joined with African American communities in the South to build schools during the Jim Crow era at the Washington DCJCC.


2014: WQXR is scheduled to present “A Musical Feast for Passover with Itzhak Perlman.


2014: In Tel Aviv, the European Weightlifting Championships are scheduled to come to an end.


2015: Herb Keinon, the diplomatic correspondent for the Jerusalem, is scheduled to lecture on the meaning of Israel’s elections at the University of Connecticut in Storrs, CT.


2015:  AJHS, Remember the Women Institute is scheduled to host “Women, Theatre and Holocaust.”


2015: The B’nai B’rith Music Society and the Jewish Historical Society of England are scheduled to host Dr. Malcolm Miller who will speak on “Modern Jewish Composers.


2015: The Temple Emanu-El Skirball Center is scheduled to host a reading of “Our Class” an award winning play that “unveils the truth behind a massacre of Jews in Jedwabne, Poland.”


2015: Hours before a Holocaust memorial ceremony was to be held at the Tennessee State Capitol in Nashville, shots were fired outside of the West End Synagogue leaving “at least one bullet hole between two windows at the front of the building.”


2016: “The Grüninger File,” a movie based on the courage of Swiss Police Commander Paul Grüninger—known by many as the “Oscar Schindler of the Swiss-German border region”— is scheduled to be shown at the Westchester Jewish Film Festival.


2016: “Wedding Doll” is scheduled to be shown at the Northern Virginia Jewish Film Festival.


2016: Yeshiva University Museum, Yeshiva College, Stern College for Women, Bernard Revel Graduate School of Jewish Studies and the Straus Center for Torah and Western Thought are scheduled to present “The Image of the Haggadah,” featuring Marc Michael Epstein, Ronnie Perelis, Smadar Rosensweig and Meir Soloveichik in a discussion about the imagery of the Haggadah and what it teaches us about the meaning and historical celebration of Passover.


2016: In Iowa, The Jewish Federation of Great Des Moines and Partnership2GETHER/Western Galilee is scheduled to present “The Jewish Violin with The Israeli Violinists” accompanied by Professor Michael Wolpe of The Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance.


2017(16th of Nisan, 5777): Second Day of Pesach


2017: The American Jewish Historical Society is scheduled to host a screening of “Streit’s Matzo and the American Dream” following by a Q and A “featuring director Neil A. Friedman.


2017: The Jerusalem Bird Observatory is scheduled to host “a night safari” which provides “an opportunity to watch night animals on their nocturnal wanderings.”


2018: A world taekwondo junior championship from which four Israeli athletes were banned in response to supporters of Palestinian terrorists is scheduled to come to an end in Tunisia.


2018: “Itzhak” a biopic about the world famous violinist is scheduled to open at the Summerfield in Santa Rosa, CA.


2018: Friday the 13th - How can a day that ends with Candles, Kiddush and Challah be considered unlucky?


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 

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

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April 14
69: Vitellius defeated Emperor Otho in the Battle of Bedriacum and seized the throne and becomes the third Emperor in what is known as the Year of the Four Emperors. Vitellius’ rise to power made the Roman populace very uneasy because it seemed as if the Empire was tottering on the brink of a destructive Civil War.  Following the death of Nero in 68, four men served as Emperor during 69 including. First came Galba, who was followed by Galba who was followed by Vitellius who was followed by Vespasian, the general who had been sent to Judea to put an end to the Jewish Revolt. Vespasian was the first of the Flavian Emperors.  When Vespasian replaced Vitellius it was with the understanding that he and his son Titus would bring stability to the Empire.  Jerusalem was destroyed as a demonstration of the Flavian’s ability to end civil strife in the Empire and bring a return to the Pax Rommana.  [Editor’s Note: According to this, the leaders who had seized control in Jerusalem completely failed to understand the new reality of Roman power, even as they had confused their victory of Roman Cohorts as being the same as victory over a Roman Legion. If they had spent more time considering the realities of the situation and less time killing their Jewish “enemies” they might have been able to negotiate some kind of settlement that would have avoided the destruction of the Temple and the massive deportation of the Jewish population that marked the beginning of the Diaspora.]
70: The Siege of Jerusalem begins in earnest as Titus, son of Emperor Vespasian, surrounds the Jewish capital, with four Roman legions.
73(3833):  According to the Jewish historian Josephus, 967 Jewish zealots committed mass suicide within the fortress of Masada on this last night before the walls were breached by the attacking Roman Tenth Legion. (Two women and five children survived by hiding in a cistern, and were later released unharmed by the Romans.  Technically it was not a mass suicide.  According to the story a group of the leaders killed most the population who had agreed to die this way rather than become prisoners of the Romans.  The leaders committed suicide.  This way of dealing with the Romans contrast with Yochanan Ben Zakai who negotiated with the Romans.  He ended up saving many scholars and establishing the Academy at Yavneh.  While the Legend of Masada has taken on a life of its own, the cold reality is that if the rest of the Jewish population had followed their example, the Jews of Israel would have disappeared. 


193:Septimius Severus began his reign as Roman Emperor. In 194, Severus defeated Pescennnius Niger at the Battle of Issus.  Niger had competed with Severus for throne and made his headquarters in Antioch where “he displayed especial harshness to the Jews.”  When the Jews came to complain about their heavy tax burned Niger replied “You asked me to relieve your lands of their taxes; would that I were able to tax the very air that you breathe!” Severus spent a short period in Palestine (200) following his semi-successful war with the Parthia. He promulgated laws forbidding conversion to either Christianity or Judaism. He allowed Jews to serve in public positions, but they were not to receive any pay for their work.  The people continued to suffer from attacks at the hands of marauding bands that had been active since the war with Niger. Eleazar, the son of Simon ben Jochai and Ishmael, the son of Jose the Prudent were the leading sages of this time.


1118: As the Crusaders continue their hold over the “Holy Land” Baldwin II is crowned King of Jerusalem, a title that should not be confused with that held by those who ruled from the days of Saul until 586 BCE.
1205:Bulgarians under Tsar Kaloyan of Bulgaria, soundly defeated the Crusaders under Baldwin I at the Battle of Adrianople.  The victory cemented the rule of Kaloyan and his family.  This would prove to be beneficial for Jews since Kaloyan’s nephew opened the kingdom to Jewish traders from Italy.  This also would have proved beneficial to Jewish community already living in Bulgaria which probably dated back to the second century of the Common Era
1341: In the Piedmont Region, Italian-Angevine troops sack the city of Saluzzo.  Although Jews had been living in the Piedmont since the middle ages, the first synagogue was not built until the 16th century.  A synagogue was built in Saluzzo in the early 18th century.  For more see http://synagogues360.net/synagogues.php?ident=italy_014


1484: The Cortes at Tarazona approved the formation of Inquisitional Tribunals at Valencia and Saragossa. The Inquisitors wasted no time in beginning their investigations for signs of Jewishness in the communities of the New Christians.


1660: Seven Jews were burned at the stake in Seville.


1712(7th of Nisan): Rabbi Elijah Shapira of Prague, author of Eilyahu Rabba, passed away


1755: In today’s journal entry “John Wesley refers to the excellent relations” the Jews in Liverpool “enjoyed with their Christian neighbors.”


1759: Composer George Frederic Handel passed away. Among Handel’s Oratorios that used Jewish characters and/or themes were “Esther,” Saul,” “Joseph and His Brethren,” “Athalia,” “Israel In Egypt,” “Samson,” “Joshua,” “Judas Maccabaeus,” “Jephtha” and “Deborah.” For more about Handel and the Jewish people see “George Frederic Handel and the Jews: Fact, Fiction and Tolerances of Scholarship” by David Hunter.


 1775: Massachusetts Governor Gage is secretly ordered by the British to enforce the Coercive Acts and suppress "open rebellion" among colonists by using all necessary force. From this simple statement flowed all of the events that would lead to the battles of Lexington & Concord and the American Revolution. During the American Revolution the Jewish population was so small that it could only support five synagogues which were located in, Newport, New York, Philadelphia, Charleston, and Savannah. All five followed the Sephardic Minchag. Most of the Jews supported the Revolutionaries. 


1783: Gotthold Ephraim Lessing’s “Nathan the Wise” which the church refused to be allowed to be produced during the author’s life time was performed for the first time today in Berlin.


1792(22nd of Nisan, 5552): Eight Day of Pesach and Shabbat Shel Pesach


1799:  Napoleon called for establishing Jerusalem for the Jews.


1802: Birthdate of Jacob Liebermann, the son of the Chief Rabbi of Saverne who converted to Catholicism and gained fame as Francis Mary Paul Libermann “The Second Founder of the Holy Ghost Fathers.”


1804: In Saverne, France, the town’s Chief Rabbi and his wife gave birth to Jacob Libermann  who converted to Catholicism and as Marie-Paul Liebrmann founded the Congregation of the Immaculate Heart of Mary


1805(15th of Nisan, 5565): Pesach


1809:  Three Royal Dukes visit the Great Synagogue.


1815: Birthdate of Chaim Zebi Lerner, the native of Dubno whose “reputation among Hebrew grammarians was founded on his More ha-Lashon” first published in 1859, thirty years before he passed away in 1889.


1824: In Bavaria, Fanny and David Isaac Seilgman gave birth to James (Jacob) Seligman.


1831: In Finsbury, Esther and Joseph Moses Levy gave birth to Angelia Levy.


1831: Lewis Solomons married Ann Levy today at the Hambro Synagogue.


1837: Birthdate of Jacob Herzl, the native of Zemun who was the father of Theodor Herzl.


1837(9th of Nisan, 5597): Benjamin Zeeb Wolf ben Isaac ha-Kohen Rapoport passed away today at Papa, Hungary. Born at Nikolsburg, Morvia in 1754, his views set him at odds with Mordecai Benet, the chief rabbi of Moravia and Moses Schreiber, rabbi of Presburg.  Their enmity was such that they denounced him to the civil authorities.  He published several works including Simlat Binyamin u-Bigde Kehunnah a “novellæ on that part of the Shulḥan 'Aruk (Yoreh De'ah) which deals with vows and oaths.”


1847: Founding of B’nai Israel, a New York City congregation whose membership was “composed exclusively of natives of Holland.”


1849: Hungary declares itself independent of Austria with Louis Kossuth as its leader. Kossuth was sympathetic to Jewish hopes for emancipation and the right to become full-fledged citizens of the newly independent Hungry.  Based on Kossuth’s commitment to these values Jews contributed 80,000 florins to the cause.  Thirty thousand Jews enlisted in Kossuth’s army, making them 11% of the force.  Unfortunately, the Magyar leadership and the rural peasants did not share Kossuth’s values. Anti-Semitic outbreaks in the countryside combined with the efforts of thesepolitical leaders blocked attempts to grant the Jews full rights of citizenship.  All this would become a mute point, since Kossuth and the independent Hungarian movement would be defeated by the imperial forces and Kossuth would be forced to flee for his life.  Ironically, the returning Imperial government saved their harshest punishment for the Jews.


1858: Herman Wulfson married Leah Hart today.


1859:  In Galatz, Rumania, Jews were accused of taking blood from a Christian child (for the baking of matzos) though not of killing him. Fifteen "culprits" were arrested. The next day a mob broke into the synagogue, killing some of the worshippers, destroying some fifty scrolls and demolishing the synagogue. The fifteen were soon released with no convictions, yet the government refused to allow the synagogue to be rebuilt for nearly twenty years.


1862 (14th of Nisan, 5622): Fast of the First Born.


1862: With over 1500 cows having been sold today the Jewish cattle dealers were active in the market at New York today since they would be absent tomorrow due to the fact tomorrow is “their Passover.”


1862: Private Louis Leon enlisted in Company B of the 53rdNorth Carolina (CSA). He was one of five Jews to serve in this infantry company that had been mustered at Charlotte, in Mecklenburg County, in the western part of the state of North Carolina.


1862(14th of Nisan, 5622): In the evening, during the Civil War, Pesach begins with 21 Union soldiers of the 23rd Ohio Volunteer Regiment celebrating with a Seder in Fayette, West Virginia.


1862: Birthdate of Dr. Martin Grove Brumbaugh who as Governor of Pennsylvania in 1916 issued a proclamation calling upon the citizens of that state “to set aside January 27 as a day on which to make donations for the relief of the Jewish people in various countries at war” which President Wilson had named as “Relief Day.”


1864: Fifty-seven year old Ridley Haim Herschell, the “Anglo-Polish minister who converted from Judaism to evangelical Christianity and was a founder of the British Society for Propagating the Gospel Among the Jews and of the Evangelical Alliance.


1865(18th of Nisan, 5625): Fourth Day of Pesach; erev Shabbat


1865: Abraham Lincoln was shot while attending at play at Ford Theatre.  In the late1850’s, Lincoln expressed his disgust with the “Known Nothing Party” and its platform of bigotry and ant-Semitism.  Lincoln enjoyed electoral support among Jews.  In 1860, Louis Dembitz of Kentucky was a staunch supporter of Lincoln at the Republican Convention in 1860.  (Dembitz was an ancestor of Supreme Court Justice Louis Dembitz Brandeis.) Sigmund Kaufman a German-Jewish newspaper publisher in New York worked furiously and successfully to deliver the German immigrant vote to Lincoln.  The philanthropist Moses Dropsie, founder of Dropsie College was another of Lincoln’s famous Jewish supporters.  Lincoln appointed a Jew to serve as U.S. Counsel in Zurich, the first time a Jew had been appointed to such a high diplomatic post.  But Lincoln’s most famous moment in dealing with the Jews came when he countermanded Grant’s infamous Order #11.  Lincoln was the first president to approve of the appointment of Jewish Chaplains in the U.S. Army. April the 14thwas the fourth day of Pesach.  But Lincoln was killed on Friday night, so a case can be made that he was actually killed on the fifth day of the Jewish holiday of freedom that provided so much of the liberation motif for the work of the Great Emancipator.


1867: In San Francisco, Leopold Seligmann, the son of David Isaac Seligmann and Fanny Seligmann and his wife Julia Levi gave birth to Edgar Seligman


1867(9th of Nisan, 5627): Dr. Simon Abrahams, a well-known New York physician passed away today at the age 57.


1870:  In London, Nathan Adler and Lionel Cahn established the United Synagogue. It united the Ashkenazi synagogues of London for charities and civic affairs.


1870: In New York Banker Isaias Wolf Hellman, one of the founders of the University of Southern California married Esther Newgass whose sister, Babette, was married to Mayer Lehman, one of the founders of Lehman Brothers and with whom he had three children - Isaias William Hellman, Jr., Clara, and Florence


1872: In Breidenbach, Germany, Levi Sonneborn and Amalie Bacharach gave birth to Siegmund B. Sonneburn a graduate of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and the husband of Camille K. Goldschmid who was the “managing member of Henry Sonneborn and Company which employed three thousand workers, about 60 per cent of whom were Jewish” and who was active in the Baltimore Jewish community as can be seen by his service as treasurer of the Baltimore Branch of JTS.


1873: “The Wandering Jew” by Leopold Davis Lewis, who was the author of “The Bells”, opened at the Adelphi Theatre.


1879: “A Railroad Test Case” published today described litigation filed against Joseph Seligman & Co in which if he plaintiffs are successful could ruin the “eminent bankers from New York City.”


1880: A review of a book about Palestine entitled The Land and the Book: Or Biblical Illustrations drawn from manners and customs, the Scenes and Scenery of the Holy Land by William M. Thompson was published today.


1881(15th of Nisan, 5641): American Jews observe the first and only Pesach of newly inaugurated President James Garfield who would be die from an assassin’s bullet in September of 1881.


1882: Observance of the first feast day for Justin Martyr, the second century Church leader whose most famous polemic against the Jews was “Dialogue with Trypho.”

1886: A major story, possibly the first of its kind, was published in today’s Atlanta Constituion, Georgia’s leading daily newspaper.  “The main headline read: ‘Passover Preparations for Celebrating the Festival.’ The writer stated, “The Jewish citizens of Atlanta are getting ready for the Feast of Passover. Unleavened bread will be eaten.The interesting facts about observance will be given plus an explanation of the plagues of Egypt.”


1880: “Became A Hebrew For Love” published today described the path that led to the marriage of Baltimore merchant Emanuel Strauss and Lillie Williams.  Miss Williams met and fell in love with Mr. Straus while working at Strauss Brothers, a large wholesale dry goods store in Baltimore.  Since young Mr. Strauss came from a prominent Orthodox family she studied for six months and then went through a conversion ceremony that included immersion in the mikvah at which time she changed her name from Lillie to Rachel.  The couple wed secretly and took a trip to Chicago from which they hope to return with the blessings of his family.


1882(25th of Nisan, 5642): Dr. Ludwig Waldenburg passed away in Berlin.


1885: In Minsk, Vladimir and Sophie Bernstein gave birth to Rachel Bernstein, who, as Rachel Wishnitzer gained fame as “a pioneer in the fields of Jewish art history and synagogue architecture.” (As reported by Shulamith Z. Berger)


1891: In delivering his response to the claims of Reverend Howard MacQueary “the alleged heretic who has been expelled from the Protestant Episcopal Church” Rabbi Gustav Gottheil denied claims made about the crucifixion of Jesus by the Jews” stating that “Jesus of Nazareth was never persecuted by the Jews.”


1891: Birthdate of Portage, PA native Hyman “Goldie” Goldstein the Dickinson College football player described by legendary coach Pop Warner as “being a star kicker, passer and ball carrier” possessing “the rare quality of fine judgment and generalship” who went on to serve in the Navy during WW I and pursue a legal career in Carlisle, PA.


1892(17th of Nisan, 5652): Third Day of Pesach


1892: “Russia’s Warlike Measures” published today described the major moves by Czar to strengthen his military position on the western frontier including  a demand by General Iosif Gurko that he be given permission to expel the Jewish people from the frontier and move them sixty verts (approx. 40 miles) inland. (Having forced the Jews to live in the Pale, now the Russians want to dispose them for military reasons – think of the scene at the end of Fiddler on the Roof for context)


1892: It was reported today that the Jewish Emigration Committee has decided to only send Russian Jews to the United States and Argentina who are “suitable for colonization” and to limit the immigrants to batches of a hundred.  At this rate, it will take twenty years to settle all of the land bought under Baron Hirsch’s auspices for agricultural settlements.


1893: As the Reichstag opened today in Berlin, members waited for Hermann Ahlwardt , “the Jew baiter” to produce documents proving German officials of corrupt conduct.


1893: “A Frenzied Mob In Bohemia” described an outbreak of anti-Semitic violence in Kolin, a town 35 miles from Prague which was nothing more than another blood libel.  The body of a servant girl name Marie Panlik was found floating in the Elbe and the citizenry decided that she had been killed by the Jews as part of their religious customs.  Before the military could quell the riot the homes of the Jews had been sacked, the population “assaulted” and the synagogue had been wrecked.


1894: Birthdate of Brooklyn native Robert Adler, the former journalist and public relations man who served as deputy sanitation commissioner in New York.

1894: “Shaaray Tefila’s New Home” published today described the consecration of the new home for Gates of Prayer located on West 82ndStreet between Columbus and Amsterdam Avenues.


1895: Lt. Colonel Jean Sandherr who was head of the Statistical Section, the French army’s counter-espionage unit who “gathered a secret commission of inquiry that hastily decided on Captain Alfred Dreyfus as being the author of handwritten notes found in the wastepaper basked of the German ambassador in Paris, was promoted to Colonel today.


1895: In Russia, Hannah and Max Jaffe gave birth to Adeline Jaffe who gained fame as Adeline Schulberg the talent and literary agent who married B.P. Schulberg.


1895: It was reported today that “last winter, Lord Rothschild had assured his co-religionist…that he and his associates would have not have touched the new Russian loan” without a promise from St. Petersburg that “the persecution of their people would be stopped.”  Not only have the Russians not kept their promises, in the last fortnight, they have revived all the edicts against the Jews that had been cancelled meaning that “this is to be year of peculiarly evil memory to Israel in Holy Russia,”


1895: The highlight of the third and final day marking the celebration of Temple Emanu-El’s fiftieth anniversary was “the festival arranged by the children of the religious school”


1897: It was reported today that Jewish children from Russia have a disproportionately high rate of Trachoma or “granulated eyelid.”


1897(12th of Nisan): Seventy-eight year old French rabbi and author Lazar Wogue “best known for his translation of the Pentateuch…and for his history of Bible exegesis”  passed away today in Paris.


1898(22nd of Nisan, 5658): Eighth and final day of Pesach


1899: Among the bills passed today by the New York State Assembly was one providing “for the consolidation of the Educational Alliance and the Hebrew Free School Association of New York…”


1900(15th of Nisan, 5660): First Pesach of the 20th century


1901: Henri Daniel Mayrargue and Eveline Bethsabée Lattès, the daughter Eveline Bethsabée Lattès gave birth to Albert Mayrargue


1911(16th of Nisan, 5671): Second Day of Pesach


1911(16th of Nisan, 5671): Sixty-one year old August Iganaz Einstein, the brother of Hermann Einstein and an uncle of Albert Einstein passed away today.


1912: The RMS Titanic struck an iceberg at approximately 11:45 pm. Among those who were not aboard was Nathan Strauss, the brother of Isador Strauss, and his wife “In 1912, the brothers and their wives were touring Europe, when Nathan, the more ardent Zionist of the two, impulsively said one day:- “Hey, why don’t we hop over to Palestine?”


Israel wasn’t the tourist hotspot then that it is today. Its population was ravaged by disease, famine, and poverty; but the two had a strong sense of solidarity with their less fortunate brethren, and they also wanted to see the health and welfare centers they had endowed with their millions.


However, after a week spent touring, Isidor Straus had enough.- “How many camels, hovels, and yeshivas can you see?  It’s time to go,” Isidor decreed with edgy impatience in his voice.  But Nathan refused to heed his brother’s imperious command.  It wasn’t that he was oblivious to the hardships around him; it was precisely because of them that he wanted to stay. As he absorbed firsthand the vastness of the challenges his fellow Jews were coping with, he felt the burden of responsibility.- “We can’t leave now,” he protested.  “Look how much work has to be done here. We have to help. We have the means to help. We can’t turn our backs on our people.”- “So we’ll send more money,” his brother snapped back. “I just want to get out of here.”


But Nathan felt that money simply wasn’t enough.  He felt that the Jews who lived under such dire circumstances in Palestine needed the brothers’ very presence among them: their initiative, their leadership, and their ideas. Isidor disagreed. The two argued back and forth, and finally Isidor said,- “If you insist, stay here. Ida and I are going back to America where we belong.” The two separated. Isidor and his wife returned to Europe, while Nathan and his spouse stayed in Palestine, traveling the country and contributing huge sums of money to the establishment of education, health, and social welfare programs to benefit the needy. Nathan also financed the creation of a brand-new city on the shores of the Mediterranean.  And since his name in Hebrew was Natan, and he was the city’s chief donor, the founders named it after him and called it…Natanya. Meanwhile, back in Europe, Isidor Straus was preparing to sail home to America aboard an ocean liner for which he had also made reservations for his brother, Nathan, and his wife. - “You must leave Palestine NOW!”  he cabled his brother in an urgent telegram.   “I have made reservations for you and if you don’t get here soon, you’ll miss the boat.”


But Nathan delayed. There was so much work to be done that he waited until the last possible moment to make the connection. By the time he reached London, it was April 12 and the liner had already left port in Southampton with Isidor and Ida Straus aboard. Nathan felt disconsolate that he had, as his brother had warned, “missed the boat.” For this was no ordinary expedition, no common, everyday cruise that he had forfeited, but the much ballyhooed maiden voyage of the most famous ship of the century. This was the Titanic. Nathan Straus, grief-stricken and deeply mourning his brother and sister-in-law could not shake off his sense that he had had a rendezvous with history The knowledge that he had avoided death permeated his consciousness for the rest of his life, and until his death in l931, he pursued his philanthropic activities with an intensity that was unrivaled in his time. Today, Natanya is a scenic resort city of 200,000 and headquarters to Israel’s thriving diamond trade – one of the most important industries in the country. And in almost every part of the city, there is some small reminder of Nathan Straus’s largesse, his humanity, and love for his people.”


1912: Just before midnight, Archibald Gracie IV, who had spent much of the voyage talking about the Civil War with his friend Isdiore Straus was jolted awake as the Titanic struck an iceberg.  Gracie is the source for the story of the last moments of the Mr. and Mrs. Straus who died together on the ship.


1912: Mary Antin's The Promised Land, an autobiography recounting her life in the Russian Pale of Settlement and as an immigrant in Boston, was reviewed in the New York Times.


1913(7th of Nisan, 5673): Seventy-six year old “communal worker” M.D. Levy passed away today in Springfield, Ohio.


1913(7th of Nisan, 5673): Eighty-five year old Baltimore merchant Solomon Preiss passed away today.


1913: It was reported today that “the late Joseph Liebermann who left an estate of upward of half a million dollars, bequeathed the sum of $7,000 to the leading Jewish charities in” New York and Brooklyn.


1915: In London, Lord Reading, the Lord Chief Justice of England spoke at meeting today aimed at recruiting Jews to serve in the military where he acknowledged the comparatively high rate of Jewish enlistment but called for more because Jews in England have enjoyed “the security and freedom not always known elsewhere.


1916: Birthdate of Suleiman (Solomon) Alexandrovich Yudakov , the native of Kokand who became a leading Bukharian composer whose work included “Surudi Milli,” the modern-day national anthem of Tajikistan. After surviving a lifetime under Soviet rule, he passed away in 1990. 


1917(22nd of Nisan, 5677): Eighth Day of Pesach and Shabbat Shel Pesach


1917(22nd of Nisan, 5677): Fifty-seven year old L.L. (Leyzer Leyvi) Zamenhoff, the Jewish doctor and linguist who created Esperanto passed away in Warsaw.  His youngest daughter Lidia was murdered by the Nazis at Treblinka in 1942.


1917: Those attending the tenth annual convention of the Federation of Rumanian Jews of America which began tonight at the Hebrew Technical School applauded Dr. Julius Weiss, the organization’s president “when he said that the Jews of the federation were ready to offer their lives this country now that it was at war” with Germany.


1917: Birthdate of Marvin Miller. According to The National Jewish Sports Hall of Fame and Museum “Marvin Miller never played the game, but he may have had more influence on baseball than anyone else in this half of the century. Hired by the players in 1966, he brought a wealth of experience garnered in the tough steelworkers' union to bear on baseball labor relations, and his knowledge, organizational ability, and resolve completely overmatched the owners and their representatives, particularly Commissioners Bowie Kuhn and Spike Eckert. In a time of baseball prosperity which saw manifold increase in the value of franchises, his tough tactics finally got the players not only a "bigger piece of the pie" but also greater, if grudging, respect for their wishes in regard to trades and other matters. Executive director of Players' Assn. from 1966-82; increased average salary from $19,000 to over $240,000; led 13-day strike in 1972 and 50-day walkout in '81.”



1918: The “3rd Indian Division” which had arrived in Palestine today from Mesopotamia to reinforce Allenby’s forces as they continued their drive against the Ottomans.



1918: William Edlin, the President of the Jewish Socialist League of America and the editor of The Day presided over a meeting at Beethoven Hall the aim of which to bring “all Jewish Socialist and labor organizations into hearty co-operation with the Government in a vigorous prosecution of the war” where he told the attendees they must “be prepared to stand by the United States in this crisis if they help their comrades in Russia and maintain their own self-respect.”



1918: Sixty-nine year old William J. Stone, the U.S. Senator from Missouri who as Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee had held hearings on the resolution to create Jewish Relief Day in 1916 – a proposal which he supported – and who was one of only six senators to vote against the U.S. declaration of war on Germany passed away today.



1919(14thof Nisan, 5679): Fast of the First Born



1919(14thof Nisan, 5679): Jewish Soldiers serving with His Majesty’s forces hold a Seder in Jerusalem



http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/193600#.VSs5Wpvwt9C



1920: Birthdate of Sheldon Douglas Moldoff who “drew covers for the first appearances of the characters Flash and Green Lantern in 1940”, created “some of the earliest renderings of Hawkman: and who “contributed to the first issue of Action Comics, in which Superman was introduced (though he did not draw the Man of Steel).”



1920: The National Conference of Jewish Service which had been meeting at the Hotel Grunewald in New Orleans came to an end today.



1920(26thof Nisan, 5680): Eighty-five year old Hungarian-Austrian neurologist Mortiz Benedikt passed away today.



1920: In Gomel, the Twelfth Conference of the Bund continued to meet for a third day.



1921: Joseph Barondess went to Ellis Island today where he was united with the infant child of Elka Lerner, a refugee from pogroms in Ukraine who had died last night and who was a cousin of Barondess.



1921: Pinchus Ruttenberg “announced today that within a few days his plan for electrification of Jaffa, Tel-Aviv and Petach-Tikvah will be completed.”



1921: The Jewish Telegraphic Agency reports that “Tel-Aviv has been officially recognized as an independent township.”



1921: The adoption of Hebrew names by Jewish immigrants has resulted in the adoption of government policy “permitting any change of name provided the change is duly advertised in the Official Gazette.



1924: In The Bronx, Maurice Schulweis and his wife gave birth Harold Maurice Schulweis “an influential rabbi and theologian who focused his sermons, books and social activism on connecting the Jewish community with the wider world — and vice versa —.” (As reported by Bruce Weber)
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/26/us/harold-m-schulweis-progressive-rabbi-is-dead-at-89.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=1



1925: In Manhattan Sam and Bea Traub gave birth to Marvin Stuart Traub, “the retailing impresario who transformed Bloomingdale’s from a stodgy Upper East Side family department store into a trendsetting international showcase of style and showmanship in the 1970s and ’80s.” (As reported by Robert D. McFadden)


1926: In address given today to the students of the religious schools of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, “Rabbi Michael Aaronsohn the sightless chaplain of the National Association of Disabled War Veterans predicted a revival of religious interest among Jews” and “said that in a recent tour of the country he found a great revival of Jewish consciousness and an awakened interest in the establishment of religious schools and seminaries.”


1926: In Kokomo, Indiana, Samuel and Bessie Kopelov gave birth to Connie Kopelov, one of the partners in New York’s first same-sex marriage.

1926: “Lady, Be Good” a George and Ira Gershwin musical “opened in the West End at the Empire Theatre’ today.


1927(12th of Nisan, 5687): Fast of the First born is held on a Thursday since the first seder falls on Saturday night.


1927: A campaign to raise a half million dollar to support the National Jewish Hospital for Consumptives in Denver led by a committee whose members include Judge Samuel D. Levy, Mrs. Willard Parker, Ben Altheimer, Patrick Cardinal Hayes and Bishop William T. Manning began today.


1932: U.S. premiere of “Symphony of Six Million,” “based on the story “Night Bell” by Fannie Hurst, the movie 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 and with music by Max Steiner.


1933: Today photographer Lou Bernstein “received a diploma…from The General Society of Mechanics and Tradesmen of the City New York” upon his completion of a course in “iron drafting” which enabled him to earn a living working in the shipyards of Brooklyn.


1933:  The Nationalpolitische Erziehungsanstalten (National Political Educational Institutes) were established as training schools for Nazi Party cadets.


1934: An anti-Semitic organization in Poland, Ob<ó>z Narodowo-Radykalny(National Radical Camp), was established.  Anti-Semitism was part of the Polish social fabric before and after World War II.


1934: In the second of such outbreaks in Tangier, "Arabs responded to a march by Jewish boy scouts by mounting public demonstrations against Jews."  As Martin Gilbert points out, April the 14th was Shabbat and the demonstrations took place when most Jews were in their homes.


1935(11th of Nisan, 5695): Fifty-three year old German born American mathematician and physicist Emmy Noether passed away in Bryn Mawr, PA.

1935: “Joseph Greenfield an executive member of the Young Men’s Tammany Club of the First Assembly District” is scheduled to “distributed 1,500 packages of matzoth to the poor families” living on the lower East Side” this afternoon.


1935: Publication today of “The Life and Genius of Maimonides,” a review of Maimonides: The Story of His Life and Genius by Dr. J. Muenz

1936(22nd of Nisan, 5696): 8th day of Pesach


1936: It was reported today “for the last several months the lives of over 3,000,000 Jews in the Republic of Poland have in constant jeopardy” as a result of the “persecution of the Jews” by Poland which “is openly and willfully violating the minorities clause of the League Nations.”


1936: Dr. Everett R. Clinchy, a Presbyterian minister and the director of the National Conference of Jews and Christians was quoted today as saying the aim of the cross country trip he is making with Reverend Michael J. Ahern and Rabbi Morris Lazaron “is to consolidate the recent gains in inter-faith amity as a result of Brotherhood Day and President Roosevelt’s emphasis upon cooperation among those of different faiths for the common good.”


1937: “Babes in Arms”, a Rodgers and Hart musical opened on Broadway at the Shubert Theatre today.


1937: Dr. Emanuel Libman and Dr. Nathan Ratnoff are co-chairman of the physicians’ division of the Greater New York drive of the United Palestine Appeal which it was reported today has agreed to raise $25,000.


1938: The Palestine Post reported from London that the Palestine Police Force had been supplemented and would continue to be increased - new men were being trained and sent to Palestine.


1938: The Palestine Post reported that 35 families from Rexigen in south Germany were settled, together with a number of other families in a new village, south of Nahariya. Work went on erecting buildings, the defense stockade and a search-light tower.


1939(25th of Nisan, 5699): In Tel Aviv, Samuel Solow past away at the age of 90.  Born in Russia, he moved to the United States in 1893 where he became a successful shirt manufacturer.  He retired in 1927 and moved to Palestine.  In 1935 he gave $15,000 for the construction of a students’ club at Hebrew University.


1940: Birthdate of Yossef Romano ( יוסף רומנו) “a Libyan-born, Jewish Israeli weightlifter with the Israeli team that went to the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, Germany. He was the second of eleven Israeli team members murdered in the Munich massacre by Black September terrorists during that Olympics. He was the Israeli weight-lifting champion in the light and middle-weight divisions for nine years.”


1941: Adolf Hitler appeared on the cover of Time magazine


1941: Time magazine published its cover story – “World War, Strategy: A Dictator’s Hour”

1941: Timemagazine featured a review of “Blood, Sweat and Tears,” a collection of Churchill’s public pronouncements from May 1938 to February 1941.

1941:The Ustashe, a Croatian far-right organization that pursued Nazi and fascist policies, is put in charge of the Independent State of Croatia by the Axis Powers.  The Ustashe would be responsible for the murder of at least 30,000 Croatian Jews.


1941:  Hungarian troops occupied portions of northern Yugoslavia. About 500 Jews and Serbs were shot.


1941: “After watching the German propaganda film Der Ewige Jude, Flemish paramilitaries from the Volksverwering, VNV and Algemeene-SS Vlaanderen began a pogrom in the city of Antwerp” in which “the mob, armed with iron bars, attacked and burned two synagogues in the city and threw the Torah scrolls onto the street” after which “they then attacked the home of Marcus Rottenburg, the town's chief rabbi.”


1941: Two hundred Flemish supporters of the Nazis burned two synagogues in the Oosten straat as part of what is called the “Antwerp Pogrom.”  By the end of WW II, the Jewish population had been decreased from a pre-war total of 35,000 to 15,000.  The Jewish community traced its origins back to the 13th century although its modern configuration did not begin until the end of the 18th century with reforms forced by the French Revolution.


1943:  The slave-labor camp at Siedlce, Poland, was dissolved.


1943:  A paper, Program for the Rescue of Jews from Nazi Occupied Europe, was submitted to the Bermuda Conference by the Joint Emergency Committee for European Jewish Affairs.


1943: Gerhart Riegner, World Jewish Congress representative in Geneva, suggested that money be deposited in a Swiss account to be paid after the war to enable the 70,000 Romanian Jews previously offered to the Allies to immigrate to Palestine. This comes to be known as the Riegner Plan.


1944: Henk Drogt, a 24 year old Dutch policeman who had refused orders to round up the remaining local Jews in Grootegast, Holland and deserted the police force and joined one of the Dutch resistance groups, where he took part in the smuggling of downed Allied pilots to the Belgian border as well as helping to keep Jews out of the hands of the Nazis was executed after having been caputed and sentenced to death by the Germans.


1944: Henk Drogt, a 24 year old Dutch military policeman, was executed by the Nazis eight months after having been arrested by the Nazis for his refusal to arrest Jews and then joining the Resistance. After the war, Drogt was posthumously decorated by US President Dwight D. Eisenhower, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and the Dutch Government for his actions in the resistance movement. He has also been honored as a Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem


1944: “While an agreement was arrived at between Wesenmayer, German Minister and a representative of Sauckel on the other hand, and Prime Minister Sztojay, on the other, that Hungary would place 300,000 Jewish workers at the disposal of the Reich (who were to be selected by a mixed Hungarian-German committee), total deportation was decided by Endre, Baky, and Eichmann at a meeting in the Ministry of the Interior” today.


1944:  The first transport of Athenian Jews left Greece for Auschwitz.


1944(21st of Nisan): Rabbi Benjamin Menasseh Levin, author of “Ozar ha-Geonim” passed away today


1945: U.S. Soldiers of the 84th Division of the Ninth Army liberated Salzwedel Labor Camp.  Frank J. Cmelik of Iowa was on the liberators.  Lea Fuchs Chayen was one of those who were liberated. 


1945: Private H. Miller took a picture of “slave laborers in the Buchenwald concentration camp near Jena.”

1945: U.S. Army Sgt. E.R. Allen took this picture of “one of 150 prisoners savagely burned to death by Nazi SS troops.”

1945: Pfc. W. Chichersky took this picture of “a truck load of bodies of prisoners of the Nazis, in the Buchenwald concentration camp at Weimar, Germany.”

1945: Pfc. W. Chichersky took this picture of the “bones of women that were still in the crematoriums in he concentration camp at Weimar, Germany.

1945:  Soldiers of the United States Army reached Gardelegen Camp. They found smoldering logs strewn with the bodies of the recently cremated victims.


1945: Ellen Geller was among the 60,000 people who were liberated by British troops at Bergen-Belsen.Geller and her family were taken captive by the Nazis in Poland when she was only 4 years old and she spent time in concentration camps until the age of 8. Most of her time was spent in Bergen-Belsen.”


1945: British units reach the Elbe, joining American forces who had reached the river two days earlier where they would not wait to be joined by Soviet Forces thus making the encirclement and defeat of the remaining German forces a realitiy.


1946: The New York Times reported that Bronislaw Huberman the Polish born violinist who is President and founder of the Palestine Symphony Orchestra has begun a tenth month concert tour that will take him to Europe and Egypt before he returns to Palestine in December.


1947: Two thousand five hundred fifty-two illegal immigrants reached Haifa on board the Guardian.  Three of them had been killed while unsuccessfully resisting a Royal Navy boarding party which was in the process of transporting them to Cyprus.


1948: The British withdrew from Safed.  Before leaving, they gave the Arabs the city's police station, the fortress like police station on Mount Canaan and the ancient citadel in the heart of the town.


1948: Surrounded by armed Arabs, the Jews of Safed awaited the final onslaught and their death when a Palmach platoon that was the spearhead of Operation Yiftach entered the city after marching through the mountains.  They brought food, weapons and hope.


1948: “Design for Death” an Academy Award winning documentary directed by Richard Fleischer was released today in the United States.


1949(15th of Nisan, 5709): First Day of Pesach in the newly created state of Israel.


1949(15th of Nisan, 5709): In one of the great ironies of history the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg's last judgment takes place on the first day of Pesach.  The Nuremberg Tribunal was an attempt to punish those responsible for Crimes Against Humanity (among other charges) in a judicial setting.  The alternatives were to just line people up against the wall and shoot them or let them go.  For all of its imperfections, the Tribunal was an expression of faith in the rule of law and it did punish some of the leading survivors of the Third Reich. For a full account of the work of the Tribunal on line, try this website

1953:  The Jerusalem Post reported that the tenants of the houses administered by the Custodian for Abandoned Property had from then on been allowed to sell, or transfer their flats or rooms for an agreed sum. However one-third of the price would have to be paid to the custodian.


1953:  The Jerusalem Post reported that the Israeli-Syrian Mixed Armistice Commission met for the first time in two years.


1953: Israelis intercepted a boatload of terrorists who were trying, for the first time, to infiltrate the state from the sea.


1953:  The Jerusalem Post reported that in Jerusalem’s Zion Square, hundreds of singing and dancing men celebrated the conclusion of the fourth complete reading of Gemara.


1954: Birthdate of Shari Ellin Redstone who would serve as president of National Amusements, vice-chairman of CBS Corporation and Viacom, and chairman of Midway Games. It probably did not hurt her career that she is the daughter of Sumner Redstone and the granddaughter of Michael Redstone.


1956: Twenty-year old Larry Boardman defeated the current featherweight champion “in a unanimous decision in 10 rounds, and moved up to # 7” in the rankings.


1959: Final broadcast of “The George Burns Show,” a one season attempt by George Burns to keep alive the sitcom known as” the George Burns and Gracie Allen Show” without Gracie Allen who had retired due to health problems.


1960: Birthdate of actor Brad Garrett, Robert on “Everybody Loves Raymond.”


1961: Birthdate of cartoonist David Clowes creator of Eightball and Ghost World.


1962: On Shabbat Hagadol Rabbi Maurice J. Bloom delivered a sermon at Termont Temple in the Bronx condemning the “Soviet Union’s restrictions on Matzah baking.”


1962: In a sermon delivered at Congregation and Talmud Torah Tifereth Israel, Rabbi Kurt Klappholz decried the hypocrisy being shown during the current teachers strike while ‘we stoutly maintain that the teaching profession must be on of dignity we do not provide for a decent livelihood for those who are entrusted with the molding of the characters of our children.”


1962: Rabbi Julius Mark of Temple Emanu-El and Rabbi Joseph Zeitlin of Whitestone Hebrew Center devoted their sermons to condemnations of the U.N.’s recent resolution that censured Israel for its attacks on its neighbors with censuring the Syrians for the provocations and for the world organizations failure to deal with the root cause of the problems in the Middle East.


1963: Tito, the leader Yugoslavia, rebuffed Ben Gurion’s request for help in improving relations with Egypt.  The Yugoslav leader appeared to be pandering to leaders of the so-called “Third World” by saying that he would concentrate his efforts at the United Nations instead of on bi-lateral talks. 


1963: NBC broadcast the final episode of “Car 54 Where Are You?” created by Nate Hiken who also served as director, producer and wrote the theme music for the police themed sitcom.


1964:  Sandy Koufax threw his 9th complete game without allowing a walk.


1968: “The Vengeance of She” filmed by cinematographer Wolfgang Suschitzky was released today in the United States.


1969: Barbra Streisand shared the Best Actress Oscar with Katherine Hepburn


1969: In New Haven, CT, Linda Susan (née Dronsick) who is Jewish and Professor Harry Jack Ausumus gave birth to Bradley David "Brad" Ausmus who followed his career as a major league baseball player by becoming a manager with the Detroit Tigers.



1973: Birthdate of actor Adrien Brody star of the film, “The Pianist.”


1974(22nd of Nisan, 5734): Eighth Day of Pesach


1974: ABC broadcast “Thursday’s Game,” written by James L. Brooks, with Gene Wilder, Valier Harper, Rob Reiner and Norman Fell.


1974: Several Jews from Kiev laid wreaths and flowers at Babi Yar, “in memory of the Kiryat Shmona victims and Warsaw ghetto heroes.”


1977: The President Jimmy Carter nominated Manuel D. Plotkin, of Chicago, Ill., to be Director of the Census. Plotkin is associate director of corporate planning and research for Sears, Roebuck and Co., in Chicago. (Plotkin was Jewish; Jimmy was not)


1977: NBC broadcasts “Say It Ain’t So, Chief,” the third episode in the crime drama series “Lanigan’s Rabbi” co-starring Bruce Solomon as David Small, the crime-busting rabbi,


1978: “The Medusa Touch” the movie version of the novel by the same name directed by Jack Gold and produced by Arnon Milchan was released today in the United States.


1978:  The Jerusalem Post reported that the prime minister, Menachem Begin, and his foreign minister, Moshe Dayan, had softened their policy regarding the applicability of the UN Security Council's Resolution 242 on the West Bank - hitherto the most serious area of disagreement with the US. This move was expected to bring about a renewal of the American mediation efforts in the stalled Israeli-Egyptian peace negotiations.


1979(17th of Nisan, 5739): Third Day of Pesach; Shabbat


1979: CBS broadcast the final episode of the 4thseason of “One Day At A Time” the sitcom developed by Norman Lear starring Bonnie Franklin.


1980:  Dustin Hoffman won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his starring role in 'Kramer vs.Kramer.”


1980(28th of Nisan, 5740): Jewish comedian Shimon Dzigan who along with Israel Shumacher formed “the most famous Yiddish comic duo of ‘Dzigan and Schumacher’” passed away today.


1980:  The Pulitzer Prize was awarded to Norman Mailer for The Executioner's Song.


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


1984: The IDF began blowing up the houses of the terrorists who had seized Bus 300


1988:  It was reported today that “Plans to organize independent events to mark the 45th anniversary of the Warsaw ghetto uprising have provoked bitter Government charges that the political opposition is exploiting the ghetto memory for ''petty, shallow and ad hoc political games.'' A principal organizer responded that independent events were necessary because the Communist authorities had endorsed the official program, ''and in Poland there exists a not inconsiderable distrust of whatever they say.'' A committee of 46 people, some of them linked to the political opposition, announced plans in March to unveil a monument to two leaders of the Jewish Bund, or United Jewish Workers' League, who were executed in 1941 in a Moscow prison for their criticism of Stalin's invasion of eastern Poland in 1939. Among the signers of a statement on the plans is Dr. Marek Edelman, now a cardiologist, who was deputy commander of the ghetto resistance during the 1943 uprising. The monument is to honor Henryk Erlich and Wiktor Alter, who went to Moscow, where they were arrested, tried and executed for officially protesting, as councilors of the city of Warsaw, the invasion and annexation by Russia of Polish territories. The organizers of the monument project, in a statement issued March 25, said: ''The almost complete annihilation of Polish Jews, conducted in the name of a criminal doctrine, has terminated the coexistence of two nations in one land. We express deep sorrow that all of that which we could and were able to do to save our brothers was too little in comparison to their needs.''


1990: Emma Freud appeared on the game show “Just A Minute” “playing against her father Sir Clement Freud who was a regular on the show.


1990: Detroit Tigers pitcher Steve Wapnick appeared in his first major league baseball game.


1992: A revival of Frank Loesser’s “Guys and Dolls” opened at the Martin Beck Theatre.


1994: Avi Perlmuter, a nineteen year old soldier killed in the latest round of terror attacks, who lived in the Negev town of Ir Ovot was buried today.


1994: Prime Minister Rabin accused Jordan today of helping the Islamic militant group whose suicide bombers have killed 12 Israelis in two weeks. "Israel cannot tolerate the situation of Amman being a paradise for the activities of the Hamas," Mr. Rabin said at a hastily called late-night news conference. With Foreign Minister Peres at his side, Mr. Rabin said that Israel had been in direct contact with Jordan in the last few days and that he had also discussed the issue with Secretary of State Warren Christopher. "There's a direct contact and connection between the Hamas and Jordan, the offices of the Hamas and its activists and those who carry out its activities in Judea, Samaria and Gaza," Mr. Rabin said, using the Israelis' name for the West Bank. He said, "We view very severely the fact that Jordan and its Government are not taking any steps to prevent the freedom of activity and the freedom of representation of the Hamas and its murderous activities."


1995(14th of Nisan, 5755): Fast of the First Born; Erev Pesach


1996(25th of Nisan, 5756): Eighty-two year old artist, author, friend of the famous and WW II veteran Mervyn Levy passed away today.

1997: NBC broadcast the final episode of “The Single Guy,” a sitcom starring Jonathan Silverman, the son of a sabra and the grandson of Rabbi Morris Silverman and Jessica Hecht.


1999(28th of Nisan, 5759): Sixty-seven year old multi-talented British showman Anthony Newley passed away today.

2000: U.S. release of “Keeping the Faith” with a script by Stuart Blumberg, with Rena Sofer as Rachel Rose, Lisa Edelstein as Ali Decker, Bodhi Elfman as Howard the Casanova, Susie Essman as Ellen Friedman,Ben Stiller as Rabbi Jacob "Jake" Schram,Miloš Forman as Father Havel and Eli Wallach as Rabbi Ben Lewis and with music by Elmer Bernstein.


2000: Today, The Times of London wrote about Deborah Lipstadt’s victory over David Irving saying “History has had its day in court and scored a crushing victory.”


2000: The Jewish News Weekly of Northern California reports on the reissuance of a “D.P. camp Haggadah.” "A Survivors' Haggadah" which was written by a Holocaust survivor in Germany in 1945 and 1946 was published again this year. Yosef Dov Sheinson, a Holocaust survivor from Kovno, Lithuania, created the Haggadah. Sheinson, a Hebrew teacher before the war, survived the war in slave labor camps, including a subcamp of Dachau. After a short stint in the Landsberg D.P. camp, Sheinson moved to a private house in Munich, where he worked on a Jewish newspaper. There he complied this Haggadah, which was printed by a German publishing house in return for cigarettes and food rations. Saul Touster, a retired law professor at Brandeis University, discovered the Haggadah in 1996, when he was cleaning out his late father's papers. The book was inscribed to his father, a longtime executive with the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, who received it when he visited the camps in 1952. Touster decided to publish the Haggadah - he had it translated from Hebrew and Yiddish and compiled his own commentary - in part to honor his father. "It's not about do-goodism. You go away feeling the experience. And it tempers your spirit," Touster says, recommending that it be used as a supplement to a more traditional Haggadah.With the help of 16 woodcuts created during the war by Hungarian survivor Miklos Adler, the Haggadah brings the burden of the Holocaust onto the relatively joyous Passover story. What comes through most clearly is Sheinson's struggle to find an answer to the questions of the existence of God and of Jewish survival in the wake of the Holocaust. In 1948, Sheinson moved to Montreal, where he worked in Hebrew education until he died in the mid-1990s.


2000(9th of Nisan, 5760):  Phil Katz passed away. He was the creator of "PKZIP" and the ZIParchive format, which replaced ARC as the standard mechanism for distributing files on IBM PC compatible systems.


2001(21st of Nisan, 5761): Seventh Day of Pesach and Shabbat Shel Pesach

2002(2nd of Iyar, 5762): Eighty-one year old British jurist and author Sir Michael Robert Emanuel Kerr passed away today.

2002: In Skokie, Illinois, Gary Elkins collected $50,000 for the IDF today at a rally for Russian Jews.


2002: IN the aftermath of Operation Defensive Shield, IDF Chief of Staff Shaul Mofaz told the media that “the army intended to bury the bodies” of the terrorists killed during the Battle of Jenin “in a special cemetery.”


2002: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including the recently published paperback edition of “Collected Poems In English” by Joseph Brodsky; edited by Ann Kjellberg, a large volume containing all the verse that appeared in English during Brodsky's lifetime.


2003: U.S. troops captured Abul Abbas in Baghdad.  Abbas was the leader of the Palestinian terrorists who high jacked the Achille Laura in 1985.  They threw Leon Klinghoffer a wheel-chair bound Jewish passenger overboard.  According to some accounts, Abbas was "allowed to escape" by Italian authorities. 


2004: Prime Minister Ariel Sharon formally announced his plan for withdrawing from Gaza today in a letter to U.S. President George W. Bush, stating that "there exists no Palestinian partner with whom to advance peacefully toward a settlement"


2005: After having premiered in Greece last week, “The Interpreter” directed by Sydney Pollack who also made a cameo appearance was released today in the United Kingdom.


2006: Following Ariel Sharon’s second stroke, Ehud Olmert officially became acting Prime Minister.


2007:Calling the decision by the Vatican ambassador to Israel to boycott the Holocaust memorial services at Yad Vashem "inappropriate and insulting," the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) today repeated its longstanding call for the Vatican to open its wartime archives so that the facts concerning the wartime actions of Pope Pius XII may finally be brought to light. Archbishop Antonio Franco, the Vatican's ambassador to Israel, has made the unprecedented announcement that he will boycott the April 16 memorial events at Yad Vashem, Israel's national memorial to the Holocaust, in protest of a photo caption in an exhibit that seemingly charges Pope Pius XII with failing to save Jews during the Holocaust.


2008: In Seattle, Washington,Naveed Haq is scheduled to go on trial for a shooting rampage at the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle. Haq, 32, is charged with aggravated first-degree murder for storming into the Jewish charity in July 2006, killing one woman and injuring five others. He railed against the Iraq war and Israel during the rampage.


2008: State Department veteran Aaron David Miller, discusses his new book, The Much Too Promised Land: America's Elusive Search for Arab-Israeli Peace, at the World Affairs Council of Washington, D.C.


2008: Time magazine features a profile of Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell “Hillary’s Point Man” during the state Democratic Primary.  The article mentions Rendell’s New York origins but says nothing about his Jewish heritage.


2009(20th of Nisan, 5769) Sixth Day of Pesach


2009(20th of Nisan, 5769): Just nine days before his 91stbirthday Maurice Druon, a hero of the French Resistance of and the author of “The Accursed Kings” – seven novels about the 14th century French monarch – passed away today.

2009: Publication date for Rhyming Life and Death a new book written by Amos Oz and translated by Nicholas de Lange. According to a prepublication review, this is “an ingenious, witty, behind-the-scenes novel about eight hours in the life of an author.


2010: PBS is scheduled to show “Worse Than War” which is based on Daniel Goldhagen’s book of the same title. The program offers an exploration of the nature of genocide, ethnic cleansing and large-scale mass murder in our time during which Goldhagen speaks with victims, perpetrators, witnesses, religious leaders, politicians, diplomats, historians, humanitarian aid workers and journalists. 


2010: The new on-line Chabad Talmud Course for Beginners is scheduled to begin today.


2011: The Center for Jewish History, The Jewish Week and Nextbook are scheduled to present “Revisiting Eichmann: The Fiftieth Anniversary of the Trial That Shook the World.”


2011: Elie Wiesel is scheduled to give a lecture entitled “The Rebbe of Ger: A Tragedy in Hasidism” which will include information of “Rabbi Yitzhak Meir, founder of the rebbes who lead the movement and the profound effects of his life and work.”   


2011: Teenage heartthrob Justin Beiber has invited children from Sderot to attend his concert that is scheduled to take place today in Tel Aviv.


2011: The second annual Festigalgal happening, a colorful joyous occasion which offers funky entertainment, informative workshops, outdoor education and an opportunity to boost Jerusalemites’ awareness of the existence of, and need for, cycling in the capital is scheduled to take place today.


2011:IDF pensioners demonstrated outside the Defense Ministry in Tel Aviv today, complaining that their pensions were being eaten up by inflation.


2011: Rabbi Gilad Kariv, head of the Reform Movement in Israel, told The Jerusalem Post today that the nighttime attack on The Kehilat Ra’anan synagogue in Ra’anana by vandals was the third such attack of its kind. Unknown persons shattered six windows – covering two sides of the synagogue – with stones, and spray-painted a black Star of David below the words “It has begun” on one of the exterior walls.


2011:President Shimon Peres paid a surprise visit to Kibbutz Nahal Oz, where he met with children who were on school bus before it was hit by an anti-tank missile last week.Nahal Oz, which was founded in 1951 as the first Nahal settlement – one begun by soldiers from the IDF’s Nahal Brigade – became a civilian settlement in 1953 and has always been vulnerable to attack. One of its members, Ro’i Rutenberg, was killed in April 1956, when the kibbutz was attacked by Sudanese serving in the Egyptian Army. Moshe Dayan, who was then the chief of General Staff, attended Rutenberg’s funeral and delivered a stirring eulogy. Peres, who was a great friend of Dayan’s recalled the event and was saddened that despite the passing of years, Nahal Oz remains in the eye of the storm. “Nahal Oz is the Tel Hai of the South,” he said, referencing the settlement in the Galilee panhandle that Yosef Trumpeldor and seven comrades died defending against a much larger Arab force in 1920.


2012(22nd of Nisan, 5772): 8th day of Pesach with services to include Hallel, Yizkor and Shir HaShrim


2012: “Free Men,” a film based on actual events that took place during the Nazi occupation of Paris, is scheduled to be shown at the Westchester Jewish Film Festival.


2012: Hillel “Slovak was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the Red Hot Chili Peppers today with his brother accepting on his behalf.”


2013: “Iron Man 3” based on a character created by Stan Lee, Larry Lieber and Jack Kirby and co-starring Gwyneth Paltrow and Jon Favreau was shown publicly for the first time in Paris at the Jules Verne Adventure Film Festival


2013: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Odds Against Tomorrowby Nathaniel Rich and Mary Coin by Marisa Silver.


2013: Historian Daniel Goldhagen is scheduled premieres his book and documentary feature "Worse Than War" on PBS.


2013: The week-long “National Days of Remembrance” sponsored by the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum is scheduled to end today.


2013: The Maccabeats are scheduled to perform at the Jewish Community Center of Paramus (NJ) this afternoon.


2013: The State of Israel Memorial Day Service marking Yom Hazikaron, sponsored by the Consulate General of Israel in New York is scheduled to take place at the 92nd Street Y.


2013: PBS is scheduled to broadcast “Orchestra of Exiles” that describes the creation of whatis now the Israel Philharmonic in the darks days just before WW II.


2013: In the evening, Israel is scheduled to begin the observance of Memorial Day for servicemen and women and terror victims.


2013: Israel’s population at its 65th Independence Day stands at 8,018,000 people, three-fourths of whom are Jewish, according to data released by the Central Bureau of Statistics today.


2014(14 of Nisan): Fast of the first born- Erev Pesach


2014: “Nearly 100 members of the ancient Jewish community of Kaifeng, China, attended a first-of-its-kind traditional Passover Seder” tonight.

2014: The International Jewish Vegetarian Society is scheduled to host a Vegan and Kosher Seder at 8 Balfour Street in Jerusalem


2014: The Tel Aviv Municipality is scheduled to host a Seder in the community center in Beit Dani, in Hatikva Quarter


 
2014: White City Shabbat in partnership with Hineni is scheduled to host “a massive international community Seder in Tel Aviv.”



2015: Zohar Weiman-Kelman is scheduled to deliver a lecture entitled “Libe and Linguistics: Towards an Archive of Yiddish Sexuality” at the Center for Jewish History.


2015: Maggie Anton is scheduled to discuss her latest work Enchantressat the Skirball Center


2015: “Zero Motivation” and “Beneath the Helmet: From High School to the Home Front” are scheduled to be shown at the Westchester Jewish Film Festival.


2015: The Jewish Historical Society of England is scheduled to sponsor Paul Anticoni’s lecture “My Jewish Humanitarian Journey around the World.”


2015(25th of Nisan, 5775): Eighty-four year old senior Israeli diplomat Meir Rosenne passed away today.

2016(6th of Nisan, 5776): Eighty-one year old Brooklyn restaurateur Walter Rosen passed away today. (As reported by Rick Rojas)

 2016: Bernie Sanders took part in the Presidential debate known as the Battle In Brooklyn.


2016:The Leo Baeck Institute and American Sephardi Federation are scheduled to present “German Jewry and the Allure of the Sephardic” in which John M. Efron “explains how German Jews depicted the Sephardim as worldly, moral, and beautiful—products of a tolerant Muslim environment.”


2016: “Mikey and Nicky, the great gangster movie of the 1970s” is scheduled to be shown at the Westchester Jewish Film Festival.


2016: In San Francisco, an exhibition of the paintings of Rabbi Lawrence Kushner at Congregation Emanu-El is scheduled to come to an end.


2016: Israeli rocker Tamar Eisenman is scheduled to perform at Joe’s Pub in NYC.


2017(18th of Nisan, 5777): Fourth Day of Pesach


2017(18th of Nisan, 5777): Twenty-one year old Hannah Bladon, a British exchange student at the Hebrew University was stabbed to death and two more were injured by a Palestinian terrorist in Jerusalem. (As reported by Judah Ari Gross)


2017: In Tel Aviv, Abraham Hostel is scheduled to host “Exodus, a day of world music performances, dance, worships and vegan food.


2017: Israel’s Legion Run is scheduled to take place “along the beach at Kiryat Yam.”


2017: The Israeli Opera is scheduled to perform “The Magic Flute” at 9:30 a.m.


2017: With today chosen as National Beer Day, Jews must be wondering if there is Beer Day Sheni just as there is a Pesach Sheni.


2018 (29th of Nisan, 5778): Parashat Shemini and start of the Pirke Avot Study Cycle; for more see http://downhomedavartorah.blogspot.com/


2018: Ronit Schachart is scheduled to perform songs from “her latest album Lirdof Acharei HaRuach(Chasing After the Wind) at Noctorno Café this evening in Jerusalem.


 


 


This Day, April 15, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. Levin

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April 15

 

1191: Coronation of Henry VI as Holy Roman Emperor during whose reign anti-Semitic riots took place stretching from the districts along the Rhine all the way to Vienna.  Ephraim Ben Jacob of Bonn was one of the leading Talmudist during this period.

1250:  Pope Innocent III refused the Jews of Cordova permission to build a synagogue.

1402:  Pope Boniface IX granted "liberal privileges" to the Jews of Rome – “reducing their taxes, ordering their Sabbath to be protected, placing them under the jurisdiction of the Curia, protecting them from oppression by officials; all Jews and Jewesses dwelling in the city to be regarded and treated as Roman citizens.”

1452:  Birthdate of Leonardo Di Vinci who painted what, according to some, was the most famous Seder ever held - The Last Supper.

1642: Birthdate Suleiman II, Ottoman Sultan.  His short reign would prove to be uneventful for his Jewish subjects, which included two doctors, one named Levi and the other named Hayati Zade, who served as court physicians.

1677: Today The City Council of Lubeck decreed that no Jew should be permitted to stay in the city overnight without the express permission of the senate, which was rarely given.

1698(4th of Iyar, 5458): Jacob ben Aaron Sasportas, the native Oran, who was the father of Isaac ben Jacob Sasportas and who was rabbi of the Portuguese community until his death at Amsterdam today.

1714(30th of Nisan, 5474): Esther Liebmann (née Schulhoff)a German Jewish financier who served as Court Jew to King Friedrich I of Prussia, inheriting the title and also the Münzregal from her second husband, Jost Liebmann” passed away today.

1715: The Yamasee War, a two year conflict in which Native Americans tried to drive the colonial settlers out of South Carolina, began today. At the outbreak of the war Jews had already begun settling in the colony. The original constitution of South Carolina which had been written by John Locke in 1669 granted liberty to “Jews, Heathens and Dissenters.”  Simon Valentine is the first Jewish settler whose presence can be officially confirmed.  A resident of Charleston, he served as an interpreter for Governor Archdale.  There must have been more Jews living there since “as early as 1703 protest was raised against "Jew strangers" voting in the election of members to the Common House of Assembly.”

1777: In Saarlouis, Marx Levy Mordechai, “the rabbi of Trier” and Eva Lwow gave birth to Herschel Mordechai who gained fame as Heinrich Marx the lawyer and convert to the Lutheran Church who was the father of Karl Marx, the Christian born author of the Communist Manifesto.

1783: Today the Continental Congress of the United States officially ratifies the preliminary peace treaty with Great Britain that was signed in November 1782. The congressional move brings the nascent nation one step closer to the conclusion of the Revolutionary War.

Five months later, on September 3, 1783, the Treaty of Paris was signed by representatives of the United States, Great Britain, Spain and France, officially bringing an end to the Revolutionary War. It also formalized Great Britain’s recognition of America’s independence.

1788(8th of Nisan, 5548): Joseph Levy, the first Jew to be buried in Australia, passed away. Apparently his burial was not marked by any special Jewish ceremony. 

 

1802: William Wordsworth and his sister, Dorothy see a "long belt" of daffodils, inspiring the former to pen I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud. According to N.I. Matar, “Wordsworth” described the Wandering Jew without considering  that Jews had been established in England for decades, and that Jews were ‘eagerly’ trying to change their ‘homeless’ image.”

1802: In New York, Solomon Levy and Rebecca Eve (Hendricks) Levy gave birth to Juliet Levy who became Juliet Moss when she married Joseph Lyons Moss.

1806(27th of Nisan): Rabbi Isaac Ashkenazi of Lemberg, author of “Taharot ha-Kodesh” passed away.

1808(18th of Nisan 5568):  Benjamin Goldsmid, a leading English financer, passed away.  Born in Holland in 1755, he was the eldest son of Aaron Goldsmid and the brother of Abraham Goldsmid who was also his business partner.  Goldsmid married Jessie Salmons making him the son-in-law of Israel Levin Salomons which benefited him financially and socially.  He was a friend of Pitt the Younger and the founder of the Naval Asylum.

1813(15th of Nisan, 5573): As the second year of the War of 1812 grinds on, Jews in the United States and the United Kingdom are united in their observance of Pesach.

1815: Birthdate of Lazar Zweifel the native of Moghilef who defended the Chasidim saying that “persecutions which they were forced to endure at the hands of their opponents were as unjust as the oppression of Jews by Christians.”

1819(20th of Nisan, 5579): Sixth day of Pesach

1819(20th of Nisan, 5579): David Maurtiz, the nephew of Rabbi Samuel Marx whose other more famous nephew was Karl Marx, passed away today.

1819: Birthdate of Ludwig Lewysohn, the native of Posen who served as a rabbi in Frankfort-on-Order, Worms and Stockholm.

1828: Jacob Levy married Elizabeth Solomon today at the Great Synagogue.

1830: Following William Huskisson’s presentation of a petition signed by 2,000 people from Liverpool calling for the removal of the civil disabilities facing the Jews of the United Kingdom, Robert Grant introduced a bill in Parliament seeking to accomplish that goal.

1832(15th of Nisan, 5592): As Andrew Jackson seeks a second term as President, Jews observe Pesach.

1833: Birthdate of Viennese born French astronomer Maurice Loewy.

1834: Birthdate of Joseph Kohen Moline, the Brussels born poet.

1834: Birthdate of Emma Simon, the native of Kolberg who married Louis Bernheim with whom she gave birth to historian Ernst Bernheim

1837: Birthdate of Horace Porter, the American Civil War hero who served as U.S. Ambassador to France during the Dreyfus Affair, which Poerwe was falsely accused of attributing to an English plot to weaken the French.

1840:  In London, a split took place between the liberal Reform Jews and the Orthodox

1840: The West London Synagogue of British Jews, a Reform Jewish congregation of London was established today.

1840: Birthdate of Giuseppe Foa “the Rabbino Maggiore (Grand Rabbi) of Turino who married Annetta Luzzati Foa with whom he had two children – Ida Dolce Foa Ghiron and Ernesto Foa.

1841: Karl Marx received his Doctorate from the University of Jena

1843: Birthdate of American author Henry James. For an interesting insight into this great American authors view of the Jewish people see The Jewish East Side by Milton Hindus, specifically the entry entitled “Henry James – The American Scene” pages 65-78

1847: In Warsaw, Rabbi Avraham Mordechai Alter and his wife gave birth to Yehudah Aryeh Leib Alter, the author of Sfas Emes and the Rebbe of the Gerrer Hasidim.

1848(12thof Nisan, 5608): Shabbat HaGadol

1848:  Now that the church on Chrysitie Street between Walker and Hester streets has been successfully re-modeled to meet the needs of its new Jewish owner the building of what would become Congregation Temple Emanu-El was dedicated today.

1849: In Trieste, Elisa Morpurgo and Giuseppe/Joseph Baron von Morpurgo gave birth to Irène Renée Cahen d'Anvers (de Morpurgo)

1853: In New York, Henry and Sophie Waldstein gave birth to Louis Waldstein the New York trained physician who moved to London in 1898 to continue his practice and who wrote “The Sub-Conscious Self in its Relation to Education and Health.

1858: Birthdate of Emile Durkheim French the sociologist who is regarded as one of the most important founders of the modern field of sociology. One of his most significant contributions is his development of the term and concept of "social facts," what Durkheim believed should be the primary focus of the scientific study of society. Durkheim grew up in a Jewish family and it was assumed by his relatives that he would eventually become a rabbi. However, he displayed impressive intellectual capabilities and earned a position at the Ecole Normale Superieure in Paris, the most prestigious teachers' college in France. Around this time he also generally lost his religious faith, although he retained a strong desire for moral reform and moral studies. Instead of religion, he hoped that science - and in particular the scientific study of society - would help bring about moral reformation. As a Jew, even if he wasn't very religious, he experienced the bitter anti-Semitism of France of that era. The end of the century saw the advent of the Dreyfuss Affair, when a Jewish army officer was falsely accused and convicted of espionage. This led to an increase in anti-Semitism, especially towards those like Durkheim who worked to have Dreyfuss exonerated. For example, Durkheim's record indicates that he almost certainly should have been elected to the Institut de France, but he was passed over entirely. During World War I he was also accused of disloyalty and preference for the German enemies, something perhaps motivated not only by his Jewish heritage but also his German name and his origins in the disputed Alsace-Lorraine region. Durkheim died in 1917 a year after his son died during World War I, fighting for the French.

1858: In New York City, Moses Richman and Rosa Mellis gave birth to Isabel R. Wallach, the wife of Joseph G. Wallach who was vice president for the New York State Council of Jewish Women and President of the Shaaray Tefila Sisterhood.

1861 “From the West Indies” published today provides a potpourri of information about Santa Domingo and Cuba including the fact that there is one Jew among the 15 or 20 slave-traders working the markets in Havana.

1861: Following the attack on Fort Sumter, President Lincoln issues a call for 75,000 volunteers to serve for three months.  This would turn out to a mere down payment in terms of the number of soldiers it would take to save the Union.  Among them would be thousands of Jews including Frederick Knefler, an immigrant from Hungary who would rise to the rank of Major General under William Tecumseh Sherman, Brigadier General Blumenberg who had previously escaped the wrath of Secessionist mob in Baltimore, and General Max Einstein whose troops covered the retreat of the Union Army following the First Battle of Bull Run.

1861: As President Lincoln issues a call for volunteers to fight the Confederates, Major Alfred Mordecai makes a last ditch effort to stay in the U.S. Army without having to fight against his southern kinsman. He sends a letter to his superiors asking that he be relieved of duty at the Watervliet Arsenal so he would not be making munitions to fire against family and friends from North Carolina and Virginal.  He requested that he be transferred to California or some other such distant posting where he felt he could stay in the Army, serve his country and still avoid fighting his fellow Southerners.

1862(15th of Nisan, 5622): First Day of Pesach

1862(15th of Nisan, 5622): The first Jewish services were held in Dubuque, Iowa during Pesach

1862: Business was off today at the New York Cattle Market because “the Jewish dealers” were absent today “being their Passover.”

1863: Birthdate of Isaac Levy, the husband of Lena Levy.

1865(19thof Nisan, 5625): Fifth Day of Pesach and Shabbat Shel Pesach

1865: President Abraham Lincoln dies after having been shot the night before at Ford’s Theatre. For more see Lincoln and the Jews by Jonathan Sarna and Benjamin Shapell http://www.shapell.org/lincoln-and-the-jews/lincoln-and-the-jews-a-history/  OR

1867: “New York Jewish merchants met at Congregation Shearith Israel to consider action against insurance companies which refused to insure Jewish business establishments.” (As reported by Abraham P. Bloch).

1870(14th of Nisan, 5630): Erev of Pesach

1871: An article published today provided “further details of religious disturbances at Odessa” (Russia) during which “the Hebrews’ gave been the victims “religious intolerance.”  According to the article, The Standard, a paper published in London “has a dispatch from Vienna stating that a religious riot has occurred at Odessa.  The Jews were despoiled” and have suffered “great devastation.”  According to the dispatch, the “authorities were powerless” to quell the riot.

1872: On the eve of Greek Easter Sunday, Greeks attacked Jews in a bloody riot. "The Christians were set loose, and beat, massacred, and demolished the houses of Jews…" It was reported one Jews was stabbed to death, and others were injured. It was only after Turkish soldiers guarded the Jews that the violence ended.


1874: Birthdate of Johannes Stark.  A Nobel Prize winning physicist, he is known for the Stark Effect. Stark attacked Einstein and other Jewish scientists because they were Jewish.  He also disparaged their scientific accomplishments.  He joined the Nazi party.  After the war, he was sentenced to four years in prison by a De-Nazifcation Court.  He died in 1957.  Just because you win the Nobel Prize does not mean you are "smart."

1875: The "Jewish Exponent" was first issued for the first time. R. Charles Hoffman, Ephraim Lederer, and Felix Gerson served as the editors.

1877: Birthdate of Rosalie Moses, the native of Horn, Austria-Hungary who as Rosalie Moser was a passenger on the S.S. St. Louis and died during the Holocaust sometime after having been disembarked in France, her last known place of residence.

1880:  In New York, the District Attorney delivered a lecture entitled “Some Phases of Crime” at tonight’s meeting of the Young Men’s Hebrew Associations.

1878: Birthdate of Dr. Felix Kornfeld, the native of Bohemia who was the husband of Paul Mandl

1880: In Heldesheim, Rabbi Jakob Guttmann and his wife gave birth to Rabbi Julius Guttman who became Professor of Jewish Philosophy at Hebrew University in 1934.

1881: During the four day observance of Russian Orthodox Easter, a Pogrom begins in Elizavetgrad, Russia.

1883: Pauline Moses and David Holtz were married today in New York City.

1886: A group of Sephardic Jews formed a corporation for a congregation named in honor of Moses Montefiore.

1886(10th of Nisan, 5646): Eighty-five year old German jurist Moritz Warburg the native of Altona who was elected to the Schleswig -Holstein constituent assembly in 1848 passed away today.

1887:Herzl is installed as an editor of the "Wiener Allgemeine Zeitung" but holds the post only a short time.

1887: The Jewish Exponent, a weekly publication servicing the Philadelphia Jewish community was published for the first time today.

1889(14th of Nisan, 5649): Ta'anit Bechorot

1890: Representatives of the Young Women’s Hebrew Association and the Emma Lazarus Club were among those attending the opening session of the convention of the Association of Working Girls’ Societies being held at the Metropolitan Opera House.

1892: Birthdate of Corrie ten Boom, Dutch devotional author whose family was arrested by the Gestapo during WWII for hiding Jewish refugees in their home. Corrie's experience with the Nazis was depicted in the 1971 film, "The Hiding Place."1892 Birth of Corrie ten Boom, Dutch devotional author whose family was arrested by the Gestapo during WWII for hiding Jewish refugees in their home (Corrie's experience with the Nazis was depicted in the 1971 film, "The Hiding Place").

1892(18th of Nisan, 5652): Fourth day of Pesach

1892(18th of Nisan, 5652): Sixty-six year old New York City builder Marc Eidlitz, the brother of architect Leopold Eidlitz and the father of Cyrus. L.W Eidlitz whose construction projects included the Temple Emanu-El sanctuary located at 5th Avenue and 43rdStreet, passed away today.

1893: “Ahlwardt’s Promise Not Kept” published today described the rejection by the President of the Reichstag of Hermann Ahlwardt’s written statement that purported to prove that high government officials were guilty of “corrupt conduct.” Ahlwardt is a notorious anti-Semite who contends that the Jews are behind plots to bribe German leaders.

1893: Birthdate of Kiev native Herman Morris Pomrenze, who came to Chicago in 1913 where he earned an MD from Loyola and went on to a career as a surgeon and a member of the faculty of Northwestern while being an active member of the city’s Jewish community.

1894: Jacob Green, the four year old son of a Jewish peddler, accidently fell from the fifth floor fire escape at a 19 Allen Street on the lower east side.

1895: “The certificate of incorporation of the Hebrew Infant Asylum of the City of New York was filed” today in the office of the country clerk.

1896: Birthdate of Pesach Burstein, the Polish born American entertainer who among other things was a director in the Yiddish theatre.  (At least two sites attribute his first name to the fact that he was born on Pesach but he the 15thof April corresponds to the 2nd of Iyar 5656.  To have been born on Pesach, 1896, his birthdate would have been March 29)

1897:  The date on which Oscar Altman and Rosie Wachtel were to be married in New York City.

1898(23rd of Nisan, 5658): Fifty-five year old Italian lawyer and Senator Cesare Parenzo passed away today.

1898: Birthdate of Isaac Palacci who was deported from Istanbul to France in 1942.

1899: Birthdate of Karl Bernhardt, the native of Worms who gained fame as director Kurt Bernhardt who fled Germany in 1933 and pursued his career in France and Great Britain before settling the United States where his last picture was “Kisses for My President” – a film that Hilary Clinton should appreciate since it is comedic look at the first female President.

1899: In a cable sent to the Navy Department in Washington, DC today Admiral Dewey notes that the “native government established by Edward Taussig on Guam was working well.

1900: The head of nineteen year old Ernst winter was recovered from a pool in Konitz, West Prussia. Other parts of his dismembered body had been recovered at various times since his disappearance in early March. Local anti-Semites began to accuse the Jews in what would become a 20th century blood libel.

1902: In New York City, at a meeting of the Board of Alderman, Alderman Devlin introduced a resolution asking the Mayor to instruct Commissioner Partridge not to interfere with Jewish peddlers selling their wares on the east side next Sunday because that day was the day before Passover.  The resolution was denounced by Aldermen Walkley and Oatman because it was asking the mayor to sanction a violation of the city’s “blue laws. The Council adopted the resolution.

1902: Birthdate of Samuel Arthur Weiss who served “as a member of the Pennsylvania State House of Representatives from 1935 to 1939 and as a member of United States House of Representatives from 1941 to 1946.

1903(18th of Nisan, 5663):Gustav Gottheil, one of the leading Reform Rabbis of his time passed away. Born in Prussia, in 1827, he was trained in Berlin before holding pulpits in Great Britain and the United States where he was the Senior Rabbi at New York’s Temple Emanu-El.  While this brief entry cannot do justice to his many accomplishments it must be noted that he was unique among Reform rabbis for his early support of the Zionist movement.  In fact, he was a delegate to the First Zionist Congress.

1903: Herzl arrives in Paris and confers with Lord Rothschild, Zadoc Kahn and other members of the ICA on ways to further the project of establishing a Jewish homeland in Palestine with the British government.

1905:Thousands of dollars in money and great quantities of matzoth were distributed tonight among the poor Jews of the lower east side, as is the custom every year before the feast of the Passover, which opens on Wednesday and will be observed by all Jews throughout the world for the next eight days.

1905: Birthdate of Herman Steiner the native of Slovakia who became “a United States chess player, organizer, and columnist.

1907:  Birthdate of chess master Gerald Abrahams. Born in Liverpool, Abrahams wrote “Teach Yourself Chess.”

1907:Dr. Stephen Samuel Wise “so inspired those who heard his message that today more than a hundred of his followers met at the Hotel Savoy to establish a free synagogue. Henry Morgenthau, Sr., who would become the congregation’s first president, declared that day, "The Free Synagogue is to be free and democratic in its organization; it is to be pewless and dueless." A religious school opened that October, and six months later had an enrollment of 150 students. Dr. Wise’s Sunday morning services, held at the Universalist Church of Eternal Hope on West 81st Street, drew more than 1,000 people.

1907: Birthdate of Esther Gottlieb the wife of abstract expressionist painter Adolph Gottlieb and the founder and president of the Adolph and Esther Gottlieb Foundation.

1908: In Bavaria, Max Neuberger and his wife Bertha Hiller gave birth to Albert Neuberger, the British Professor of Chemical Pathology the University of London’s St. Mary’s Hospital.

1908 (14th of Nisan, 5668): A Seder is scheduled to be held this evening on Ellis Island for Jews who have not been able to enter the United States.  The Acting Commissioner of Immigration has given permission for the service to be held in the dining room of the facility’s main building. 

1911: Birthdate of Murray Bernthal, the Brooklyn born violin prodigy and “Syracuse University basketball player.

1911: Birthdate of Odessa native Charles Robert Goldenberg, who grew up in Milwaukee and played for the University of Wisconsin before embarking on 13 year career with the Green Bay Packers that included playing as a lineman on three NFL championship teams.

1912(28th of Nisan, 5672): H.M.S. Titanic sank.  According to some, there were enough Jews on board that kosher meals were served.  The Jewish passengers represented a cross section of Jewish society.  Two unusual women on board were Edith Louise Rosenbaum and Mrs. Henry B. Harris.  Mrs. Rosenbaum was a writer for Women’s Wear Daily. During World War I, she would become the first female war correspondent.  Mrs. Harris went on to become a famous New York theatrical producer.  Three of the most famous passengers were Benjamin Guggenheim and Isidor and Ida Straus.  Guggenheim was a ne’er do-well from a famous New York family.  His most famous accomplishment was to give the world his daughter Peggy Guggenheim the famous patron of the arts.  Isidor Straus was part of a fabled New York family that had ownership interests in Macy’s and Abraham & Straus.  He was mourned as one of New York’s greatest philanthropists.

1912(28th of Nisan, 5672): Sixty-three year old Ida Straus, born Rosalie Ida Blun, the German born daughter of Nathan Blun and Wilhelmine Freudenberg and the husband of department store own Isidor Straus with whom she had seven children passed away today when the RMS Titanic sank.

1912: Eight tombstones in the Jewish cemetery at Yarmouth, Nova Scotia marking the burial site of 8 unnamed Jews who perished aboard the Titanic.

1912(28th of Nisan, 5672): New York City theatrical manager Henry B. Harris died aboard the Titanic today.

1912(28th of Nisan, 5672): Forty-eight year old Emil Brandeis of Omaha, Nebraska died aboard the Titanic today.

1912(28th of Nisan, 5672): Forty-eight year old Spanish American War veteran Adolph Bauer of Mobile, Alabama passed away today.

1912(28th of Nisan, 5672): Mrs. Max Landsburg of Rochester, NY, passed away today.

1912(28th of Nisan, 5672): Forty-six year old Benjamin Guggenheim died aboard the Titanic today.

1912: “The Times of London” reported today the “discovery of a papyrus volume containing text of the greater part of the Book of Deuteronomy,” and all of the Book of Jonah as well as text from the New Testament.

1912: Albert Einstein refers to time as “the fourth dimension.”

1912: M.J. I. Judelsohn was “appointed to the United States Consular Service today.

1913: The Southern Education which Rabbi Max Raisin of Meridian, Mississippi attended as a delegate opened today in Richmond, Va.

1913(8th of Nisan, 5673): Seventy-nine year old New York merchant Adolph Silberstein passed away today.

1915: “Relief Work Wins Praise” published today described the words of approval that the New York City investigators had for the work of the United Hebrew Charities.

1915: It was reported today that there eleven thousand Jews serving in the British army and navy” which Lord Reading, the Lord Chief Justice of England described as “a good number for so comparatively small a community.”

1915: Louis Gutman, the Jewish officer who recommended Hitler for his Iron Cross First Class in 1918, “was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant and appointed as both a company commander and acting adjutant for the Regiment’s artillery Battalion. “

1916: Birthdate of Helene Hanff, the Philadelphia born screenwriter and author who most famous work was 84, Charing Cross Road.

1916(12th of Nisan, 5676): Shabbat HaGadol

1916: In New York City Hiram Bloomingdale and Rosalind Schiffer gave birth to Alfred S. Bloomingdale, the grandson of Lyman Bloomingdale, who along with his brother Joseph founded Bloomingdale’s Department Store.

1916: George Kroll of Paris, who was staying at the Ritz Carlton today described the sacrifices that Russian Jews living in France have made for their adopted country saying that “the Jews have disproved the assertions that they cannot fight” and that “none have fought more bravely” than these refugees thousands of whom volunteered as soon as the war began.

1917: F.L. Fagley, Secretary of the Cincinnati Federation of Churches said that of the $14,000 collected to provide relief of the Armenians and Syrians, $4,000 was contributed by Jews.

1917: “A group who styled themselves ‘revolutionary socialists;” which included members claiming to be Jews met today to protest the Canadian government’s detention of Leon Trotsky whom authorities at Halifax said was trying to return to Russia so that he could “provoke another revolution which would nullify the stand of the” new Russian government which had overthrown the Czar.

1917: “A cable message praising the provisional Government of Russia for having emancipated the Jews was sent to the Foreign Minister” today “by all of the delegates” attending the annual convention of the Federation of Rumanian Jews being held at the Hebrew Technical School for Girls in New York.

1917: Two hundred Jewish leaders are scheduled to hold a conference today at the Astor Hotel this morning where “they will choose the most effective means of putting Jewish loyalty at the service of America” as it enters into WW I.

1917: Today, at a meeting of the Executive Committee of the American Jewish Committee a resolution was adopted “expressing a willingness to co-operate with the Board and favoring the passage by Congress of a bill providing for twenty chaplains-at-large in the Army” several of whom “will be Jewish ministers.”

1917:  The Problem of Space in Jewish Medieval Philosophy by I.I. Efros was one of the books listed as a selection on “Three Hundred Books of Spring” published today.

1918: The Brooklyn Federation of Jewish Charities Campaign to raise $500,000 ended tonight “with the announcement that $300,000 had been raised” and “that the campaign would re-opened after the present Liberty Bond campaign” has been concluded.

1918: It was reported today that in the last few weeks, the Jews of New York City have “formed 18 district organizations” or Kehillahs “throughout the city to bring a cooperative effort to the solution of various social problems to the New York City Jewish population.

1919(15th of Nisan, 5679): Pesach

1919: Today, in Great Britain, “a week after the Morning Post had informed its readers that the Russian Jews were purveyors of Bolshevism, Major E. H. Coumbe…to the first step toward committing the” London “Council to a policy of not employing aliens” which was the first step in his plan to get the Council to bar all aliens, naturalized or otherwise, from employment

1919: At Le Mans, France, Rabbi Lee J. Levinger held a Seder on the second night of Passover for members of the AEF (American Expeditionary Force) who had been issued furloughs so they could observe the holiday

1920: Birthdate of Hank Kaplan, noted boxing historian and writer.

1920: In Stuttgart, Marianne (von Graevenitz) von Weizsäcker and Ernst von Weizsäcker gave birth to Richard von Weizsäcker the President of West Germany.

1920: In what would become the “first act” of the case of Sacco and Vanzetti, two security guards are murdered during a robbery in South Braintree, Massachusetts. Among those who would rally to Anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti would be convicted of and executed for the crime, amid much controversy. Among their defenders were several prominent Jews including Professor (and later Supreme Court Justice) Felix Frankfurter, Judge Julian Mack and Harold Laski.

1921: “Baby Born At Sea Mother Dies Here” published today

1922: In Flushing, NY, Nathan Schacther and the former Anna Fruchter, both of whom were Romanian Jewish immigrants gave birth to Dr. Stanley Schacter, the Columbia University professor who “was one of the few social psychologists to be elected to the National Academy of Sciences.” (As reported by Karen Freeman)

1922: Birthdate of Michael Ansara who played “Haman” in the television miniseries entitled “The Greatest Heroes of the Bible.”

1922(17th of Nisan, 5682): Third day of Pesach

1922(17th of Nisan, 5682): Fifty-five year old Isaac David Broydé who served as librarian to the Alliance Israélite Universelle from 1895 to 1900 and then “joined the editorial staff of the Jewish Encyclopedia” passed away today.

1923:Insulin first became generally available for use by diabetics. Sir Frederick Banting, one of the two men who won a Nobel Prize for their work with Insulin based his work on the 1889 discoveries of the Jewish Polish-German physician Oscar Minkowski.

1923: Dr. Spiegel, the representative of the German Red Cross who was working on the transmigration of 300 Jewish refugees who had been expelled from Poland arrived in Warsaw.  The refuges must leave Poland by September 1 and they are seeking to stay in German until they have obtained visas to enter the United States. (As reported by JTA)

1923: Preparations have been made along the White Russian border to provide food and shelter for Jewish refugees from Poland who are being forced to return to their former homes in the Soviet Union. (As reported by JTA)

1923: Hugo Riesenfeld “co-presented a show at the Rivoli Theater in New York City of 18 short films made in the Phonofilm sound-on-film process.”

1923: BirthdateofNaomi Bronheim Levine, the first woman to become executive director of the American Jewish Congress.

1923: “A Few Minutes With Eddie Cantor” opened “at the Rivoli Theatre in New York City.

1923: Birthdate of Harvey Lembeck, the Brooklyn native whose career as character actor included originating the role of “Sam Insigna” in the Broadway production of Mr. Roberts, appearing as “Harry Shapiro” in the WW II classic “Stalag 17” and serving as one of the underlings and sidekicks for Phil Silvers in the television sitcom portraying the antics of con-man Sergeant Ernie Bilko.

1926: “Nanette Makes Everything” a silent film starring Fritz Spira was released today in Germany/

1926: According to Professor of Mathematics Julian Coolidge there “has been a marked slump in religion at Harvard” since the end of the World War but that among Jews who made up about one fifth of the class of 1922 there was an increase of those who described themselves as “believers” with about “one half of the Jews” being classified as “religiously inclined.”

1927: In Izbica, a largely Jewish shtetl in the Lublin district of Poland, Leon and Masha Felicia Blatt gave birth to Tomasz Toivi Blatt who survived the 1943 revolt at Sobibor.

 

1927: It was reported today that in two weeks members of Temple Emanu-El and Temple Beth-El, two of the  oldest Reform Congregations in New York will vote on plan for consolidation already approved by the trustees under which the “combine organization will be known as Temple Emanu-El the chapel will called Chapel Beth-El  and that after using Temple Beth-El as its home for the next two years, the new congregation will move into the new Temple Emanu-El being built at Fifth Avenue and 65th Street “on the site of the Vincent Astor Residence

1931: Brooklyn Outfielder Alta Cohen played in his first major league game.

1931: Birthdate of Yitzhak Zamir,  the native of Warsaw who made Aliyah at the age of 3 and enjoyed a successful career in the law including serving as Attorney General of Israel and as a member of the Supreme Court.

1932: “Girls to Marry, a romantic comedy starring Fritz Grünbaum who would be murdered at Dachau in 1941 and S.Z Sakall who escaped from Hungary in 1940 and madolee his way to Hollywood where his memorable performances included “Carl” the head waiter in the classic “Casablanca” was released in Germany today.

1935: It was reported today that in London, Leonard G. Montefiore has informed “a joint foreign committee to the Jewish Board of Deputies” that “the position of the Jews in Germany seem to have become worse since” this past winter.

1936(23rd if Nisan, 5696): Harvard alum Simon J. Lubin the Sacramento, CA born son of David Lubin and the nephew of Harris Weinstock who founded Lubin and Weinstock “the largest department store” in that city and the husband of Rebecca Cohen with whom he had three children – David, Ruth and Miriam, passed away today in San Francisco.

1936(23rd of Nisan, 5696): On the day after Pesach, Arabs in Palestine renewed their riots which quickly grew into a full-scale uprising.The uprising began with an attack today on a convoy of trucks on the Nablus to Tulkarm road during which the assailants shot and murdered two Jewish drivers, Israel Khazan, who was killed instantly, and Zvi Dannenberg, who died five days later

1936: “Arab brigands” “told their victims they were robbing” them so they could “carry on the work of the ‘Holy Martyrs’ started Izzedin El-Kassam who aimed to kill Jews and Britons in Palestine.

1936: Eustace Seligman was named chairman of the lawyer’s division of the New York campaign of the Joint Distribution Committee which was formed during a luncheon at the Lawyer’s Club with the goal of raising $125,000 to go toward the nationwide fund being raised to aid the Jews of Germany and Central and Eastern Europe.

1936: Dr. Daniel A. Poling, the editor of the Christian Herald who has just returned from 10 months in Europe told those attending a luncheon at the Town Hall Club about conditions in Italy and Germany where he said “opposition is solidifying” against the government because of “the persecution of Jews, Catholics, Protestants, Masons and war veterans.”

1936: Tonight, members of the United Palestine Appeal honored Judge Julian W. Mack for his twenty-five years spent on the Federal bench as well as his work on behalf of the movement to settle Jews in Palestine.

1937: It was reported today that German Government is protesting the screening of “Modern German Christian Martyrs” at the Riverside Church in New York characterizing “the film as ‘a new method of brazen Jewish propaganda in America.”

1938: The Palestine Post reported that Arab terrorist gangs, searching for money and valuables, killed four Arabs in the vicinity of Nazareth.

1938: The Palestine Post reported that for the first time in many years, the annual Nebi Musa procession failed to take place in Jerusalem.

1938: The Palestine Post reported that new regulations warned that wearing any uniforms of His Majesty Forces, or attire resembling such uniforms, was punishable by life imprisonment.

1938: The Palestine Post commented on the tragedy of a new immigrant, imprisoned for carrying an allegedly false passport, who committed suicide. The message from his relatives, promising assistance and legal defense, failed to reach him in time due to the lack of an interpreter.

1938(14th of Nisan, 5698) Fast of the firstborn; erev Pesach

1938: In Vienna, Jewish houses of worship that have been closed since March 15 were permitted to reopen today in time for Passover.

1938(14th of Nisan, 5698): Jews are killed and injured during an anti-Semitic pogrom at Dabrowa Tarnowska, Poland.

1938: In Budapest, the police arrested 24 Jews who are suspected “of being responsible for issuing leaflets “urging Budapest Jews to oppose the government’s numerus clausus bill.

1939: In Turin, Italy, Natalia Ginzburg and Leone Ginzburg gave birth to historian Carlo Ginzburg author of The Cheese and the Wormsand The Night Battles: Witchcraft and Agrarian Cults in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries

1940: Birthdate of Yossef Romano a Libyan-born, Jewish Israeli weightlifter with the Israeli team that went to the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, Germany where he was murdered by Black September terrorists.

1941: Birthdate of Howard Berman, Congressman from California’s 28th District.

1941:  In the Belfast Blitz, two-hundred bombers of the German Air Force (Luftwaffe) attack Belfast, Northern Ireland killing one thousand people.During World War II, a number of Jewish children escaping from the Nazis, via the Kindertransport, reached and were housed in Millisle. The Millisle Refugee Farm (Magill’s farm, on the Woburn Road) and was founded by teenage pioneers from the Bachad movement. It took refugees from May 1938 until its closure in 1948.

1942: “49th Parallel,” a British war movie based on an original story by Emeric Pressburger who wrote the screenplay and starring Leslie Howard which had premiered in New York as “The Invaders” was released in the rest of the United States today.

1943: In Cleveland, Ohio, Rabbi Abba Hillel Silver delivered the eulogy at the memorial service for Zvi Hirsch Masliansky which “was held …in the Straus Auditorium of The Educational Alliance at 197 East Broadway. This was the place to honor his memory, for it was the hall where he had spoken so often to a generation of Jewish immigrants.

1943: “The Gentle Sex” directed by Leslie Howard who also narrated the film and starring Lilli Palmer was released today in the United States.

1944: Prime Minister Churchill “pondered the question of who should succeed Sir Harold MacMichael, whose term as British High Commissioner was coming to an end.”  Churchill put forth two possibilities, Lord Melchett, a British Jew and the son of the distinguished industrialist Sir Alfred Mond and Chaim Weizmann.  Of course, Weizmann did not get the post and within a year’s time Churchill would betray his Jewish friend and ally by holding firm against Jewish immigration to Palestine and postponing the creation of a Jewish state.

1944:  Seventy Jews and ten Russians attempted to escape from the forests surrounding the two of Ponary. Lithuania. From July 1941 until July 1944, approximately 100,000 people (mainly Jews) were murdered in the forests surrounding Ponary a resort town in Lithuania. As the Red Army approached a group of 70 Jews and 10 Russians were given the task of burning all the bodies to cover up the mass murder. Realizing that at the end of their work they too would be killed they (over a period of three months) dug a tunnel 30 meters long with spoons. On the night of April 15 they escaped. Only 13 reached safety alive.

1945:  British forces liberated the Bergen-Belsen camp. The British soldiers were horror-stricken at the spectacle that greeted them. They found some 60,000 human beings alive under appalling conditions. Most of them were seriously ill. Alongside them were thousands of unburied corpses, strewn in every direction, and vast numbers of emaciated bodies in mass graves and piles. Because the British Army was not geared to treat everyone who needed assistance, 14,000 additional prisoners died in the first few days and a similar number perished in the following weeks. The British forces began to treat and rehabilitate the rest of the survivors.

1945: Esti Reichman and some of her fellow prisoners including a woman named Dora encountered one “disappointment” following the liberation of Bergen-Belsen when they discover that they have missed celebrating Passover.  The women had thought it was a leap year and had been hoarding their meager rations to make a Seder.  At the time of their liberation they discovered that this was not a leap year.  There was no Adar and Pesach had begun on March 29.  [Hopefully somebody told them about Pesach Sheini.]

1945: Leonard Mlodinow’s father was liberated by forces under the command of General Patton. At the time, he weighed 80 pounds.

1945(2nd of Iyar, 5705): The mother of Holocaust survivor Zoltan Zinn-Collis died in Belsen on the same day the Red Cross had come to rescue her. He brother Aladar died earlier in the year in the same camp and his father Adolf is believed to have died in Ravensbruck in 1944.  Zoltan and his Edit were brought to Ireland after the war where he was able to rebuild his life.

1945: Special services were held in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem honoring the later President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

1946(14th of Nisan, 5706):Ta'anit Bechorot/Erev Pesach

1946: First Seders were held in Germany following WW II.

1946: Rabbi Balfour Brickner conducted the Seder at the Euclid Avenue Temple in Cleveland, Oho with the help of Erwin Jospe and Sam Levine who provided the music for an event that included an Afikomon Treasure Hunt for the Children.

1946: Golda Meir is joined by her children for a Seder.

1946: As the hunger strike in Palestine designed to show support for the Jews from Spezia who being detained in Italy entered the third day, “thousands of people carrying flowers came to Jerusalem to show their support.  The chief rabbis, who” had join the “fast preside over an unusual Seder.”  Everyone “would eat a single piece of matzah, no bigger than an olive.”  As they went through the Haggadah, those fasting consumed cups of teas instead of cups of wine.

1946: In Germany, a group of children was photographed at the Foehrenwald D.P. Camp

1947: Eighty-six year old Theodor Lewlad the Christian civil servant and nephew of Jewish novelist Fanny Lewald who was removed from his position on the International Olympic Committee because “his paternal grandmother was Jewish,’ passed away today.

1947: Jackie Robinson debuts for the Brooklyn Dodgers baseball team, breaking that sport's color line. Hank Greenberg reportedly gave moral support and guidance to Robinson based on his experiences.  Brooklyn was a heavily Jewish borough where winning the pennant and beating the hated Yankees was more important than issues of pigmentation.

1948: Birthdate of American composer Michael Kamen whose work included “Mr. Holland’s Opus.”

1948:  Arabs attacked a convoy of armored buses on their way to the Hadassah hospital enclave on Mt. Scopus.  Seventy-seven Jewish doctors, nurses and patients were killed in the ambush.

1948:  The National Opera (Israel) held its first performance in Tel Aviv.  The opera was the creation of Edis de Philippe from Brooklyn and Mordechai Galinkin from Leningrad.  The debut was an act of supreme optimism since the Arabs were busy trying to destroy the state before it had even been created.  As one observer wrote at the time, "Noisy accompaniment was supplied by the gunfire from nearby skirmishes between Tel Aviv and Jaffa."

1948: This evening, “a company composed of Golani, Palmach and irregulars” traveling “in two armed cars and two Egged buses made an unsuccessful attack on the Nabi Yusha police fortress which cost the lives of four Jewish fighters.

1948: Jewish forces seized Meggido, the sight of the Biblical Battle of Armageddon and one of Lord Allenby’s great victories during World War I.

1948: Jewish forces defeated Arab fighters at Tel Litvinsky, six miles from Tel Aviv.  The camp had served as a base for the U.S. Army Air Force in World War II.

1948: The Harel Brigade captured the village of Saris the “strategic hilltop position” “overlooking the highway to Jerusalem” which the Arabs had used to fire on Jewish vehicles thus helping to blockade the city.

1948: The Haganah won a costly victory at Mishmar Ha-Emek fighting against overwhelming odds.  This was part of the famous "battle for the Jerusalem Road."

1948: Soldiers from Iraq and Jews fought for control of the Wadi Sara camp fifteen miles south of Tel Aviv.  Iraqi forces were reported have reached the camp first but after encountering attacking Jewish forces fled because they feared encirclement and capture.

1952(20th of Nisan, 5712): Sixth day of Pesach

1952(20th of Nisan, 5712): Seventy-one year old Issac Lowi passed away today following which he was buried in the Beth Israel Cemetery in Gadsden, Alabama.

1952: Birthdate of author Avital Ronell the daughter of Israeli stationed in Prague and the “chair of the Department of Germanic Languages and Literature at NYU.”

1953(30th of Nisan, 5713): Rosh Chodesh Iyar

1953:The Jerusalem Post reported on the strange ruling of the chairman of the UN Israeli-Jordanian Mixed Armistice Commission who claimed that civilians were allowed to shoot at each other across the border. The Israeli delegation took exception to this "astonishing stand."

1953:The Jerusalem Post reported that an Israeli patrol captured a boat and a terrorist who tried to infiltrate by sea from Lebanon. The second boat escaped.

1953:The Jerusalem Post reported that "Yemin Orde," a Youth Aliya village at Nir Etzion on the Carmel Hills was opened by Lorna Wingate in memory of her husband, Capt. Charles Orde Wingate, who formed the Jewish "night squads" and helped settlers to defend themselves.

1953:The Jerusalem Post reported that The Jerusalem YMCA was crowded with well-wishers who came to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the building, a landmark and a significant cultural center in the Capital.

1954(12th of Nisan, 5714) Fast of the First Born

1955: Birthdate of Anthony Horowitz, an English novelist and screenwriter

1956(4th of Iyar, 5714): Yom HaZikaron

1957: After almost seven years of Ruth Roman to Mortimer Hall with whom she had one child, Richard, Ruth Roman’s divorce decree was granted today.

1958(25th of Nisan, 5718): Seventy-six featherweight boxer Benny Yanger whose record included fitty wins (30 by Kos) and eight losses (4 by Kos) passed away today.

1958: Birthdate of Canadian poet and novelist Anne Michaels the author of Fugitive Pieces and Winter Vault.

1958: “The Camp on Blood Island” a WW II movie featuring Lee Montague was released in the United Kingdom today.

1959: US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles resigned.  Dulles was viewed as the architect of the Eisenhower Administration’s foreign policy.   He was Cold Warrior in the truest sense of that term seeing everything in terms of Communists versus Anti-Communists.  The one time he broke with this view was during the Suez Crisis of 1956.  There he sided with the Soviets against the Israelis, the British and the French.  Eisenhower and Dulles saved the Egyptian dictator Nasser by allowing the Soviets to threaten the British with atomic weapons and threatening Israel with economic destruction if she did not withdraw from the Sinai.  Israel did withdraw and the disastrous policy of Dulles led to war in 1967 and the volatile situation that exists on the West Bank to this day.

1959: In New York City, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Brayer and his wife gave birth to Nachum Dov Brayer the grandson of the former Boyaner Rebbe of New York, Rabbi Mordechai Shlomo Friedman and the husband of Shoshana Bluma Reizel Heschel, who became the Rebbe of the Boyan Hasidic dynasty in 1984.

1959(7th of Nisan, 5719): A guard was killed at kibbutz Ramat Rachel.

1960: In Copenhagen, Hennie Jonas and Rudolf Salomon Bier gave birth to Susanne Bier who won “the Oscar for Best Foreign Language film for ‘In a Better World.’”

1960: Ed Wynn and Maxie Rosenbloom played themselves in “The Man in the Funny Suit” broadcast for the first time today.

1962(111th of Nisan, 5722): Forty-five year old Harold Ashe (Harold D. Ashkenazy) who played guard for the Bowdoin College “Polar Bears” for three seasons starting in 1935 passed away today.

1962: Catcher Joe Ginsberg played in his last major league baseball game as a member of the expansion New York Mets.

1964(3rd of Iyar, 5724): Yom HaZikaron

1965(13th of Nisan, 5725): Syd Chaplin, actor and half-brother of Charlie Chaplin passed away at the age of 80.

1965: Paddy Chayefsky’s “The Americanization of Emily” directed by Arthur Hiller, co-starring Melvyn Douglas and with music by Johnny Mandel premiered in the United Kingdom today.

1968: Future Anglo-Jewish author Anthony Horowitz received a human skill from his mother on his 13thbirthday.

1972: Barbra Streisand joined other recording industry stars performing at a benefit for George McGovern for President. 

1974: “Fifty prisoners, including eleven Jews in Perm camps 35 and 36 began a hunger strike demanding improved conditions of detention, changes in starvation diet of prisoners in punishment cells and the transfer to hospital of Russian dissident, Vladimir Bukovsky.

1975(4th of Iyar, 5735): Yom HaZikaron

1975: “A Chorus Line” with music by Marvin Hamlisch and lyrics by Edward Kleban “opened Off Broadway at the Public Theatre.

1976(15th of Nisan, 5736): Pesach is observed for the last time under President Ford.

1977: The Yale Center for British Art “designed by Louis I. Kahn” which was “located across the street from the Yale University Art Gallery” Kahn’s first major commission was opened to the public today.

1979(18th of Nisan, 5739) Fourth Day of Pesach

1979: Four terrorists were killed to day crossing from Jordan near Tirat Zir.

1980: The Nobel Prize winning existentialist author and philosopher Jean-Paul Sartrepassed away at the age of 74.  Sartre was not Jewish.  But he did write about the Jewish people.

In 1946, immediately after World War II, Sartre published his brilliant dissection of anti-Semitism and the Jewish condition, “Reflections sur la Question Juive.”  “The little booklet has gone through a number of editions, has been widely reviewed, and is still undoubtedly among Sartre's most famous works. As one would expect in the case of a controversial writer, a number of reviewers had important criticisms. If Sartre's analysis had striking insights, some of his assertions were remarkably naive. He thought that "socialism" would do away with anti-Semitism. He was preoccupied-occupied with rabid anti-Semitism but gave little thought to the perhaps more prevalent genteel hatred of Jews. Many Jewish reviewers felt that he short-changed "Jewish self-consciousness" by asserting that anti-Semitism is the onlybasis for it. We now know, from Sartre's own words a few weeks before his death that at the time of writing his book he had been incredibly ignorant, and willfully so, of all things Jewish. Nevertheless, Sartre was a man much listened to, as he is still today after his death, and his writings were given close attention.”  Frenchmen would do well to heed the words of one of their most famous citizens, “The cause of the Jews would already be half won if only their friends found in their defense a little of the passion and the perseverance that their enemies devote to their destruction. To awaken this passion, it is useless to appeal to the generosity of the Aryans because even among the best of these this virtue is disappearing. But it may well be pointed out to each of them that the fate of the Jew is his own fate. No Frenchman will be secure as long as a Jew, in France or elsewhere in the world, has reason to fear for his life.”

1981: In Hamilton, Ontario, Dr. Mark Levy and his wife Lisa gave birth actress and singer Caissie Shira Levy, the younger sister of Robi and Josh Levy.

1982: Five Muslim extremists who murdered Egyptian President Sadat were executed.

1982: In Vancouver, the former Sandy Belogus, “a social worker” and Mark Rogen “an assistant director of the Workmen's Circle Jewish fraternal organization” who “met o kibbutz Beitt Alfa,”gave birth to actor Seth Rogen

1983: During a burglary at the L.A. Mayer Institute for Islamic Art “200 items, including paintings and dozens of rare clocks and watches, were stolen.”

1984(13th of Nisan, 5744): Eighty-four year old German born “mathematician and philosopher” Grete Hermann passed away today in her home town of Bremen.

1986: Edwin R. Theile, who is “best known for his chronological studies of the pre-exilic Jewish kingdoms and the author The Mysterious Numbers of the Hebrew Kings passed away today.

1988: Anglo-Jewish author Anthony Horowitz married Jill Green in Hong Kong.

1989: “Brenda Starr,” a film based on the comic strip character of the same name with script co-authored by Delia Ephron and with music by Johnny Mandel premiered in the United States today.

1992: William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy were inducted into National Association of Broadcasters Hall of Fame.  Yes the number one and number two leaders crossing space, the last frontier, were Members of the Tribe.  For those of you wondering who is Jewish, when Shatner's wife passed away her "mourned her in the Jewish fashion" and was reported to be working on a script called "Shiva" based on his mourning experiences.

1992: Billionaire Leona Helmsley was sent to jail for tax evasion.

1993(24th of Nisan, 5753): Eighty-six year old Chicago trial lawyer Leo H. Arnstein whose clients included Whirlpool and Sears passed away today at Glencoe, Illinois.

1993:In a last-minute letter apparently intended to defuse the controversy on the 50th anniversary of the Warsaw ghetto uprising, Pope John Paul II told Roman Catholic nuns today to move from their convent at the Auschwitz death camp.

1994:In “No New Arab Attack, but Israelis Celebrate Independence Tensely,” published today Clyde Haberman described how the Jewish state celebrated its independence day despite threats by Arab terrorists to turn it into a day from hell.

1995(15th of Nisan, 5755): First Day of Pesach coincides with Shabbat.

1996(26th of Nisan, 5756): Eight-three year old Arthur J. Leylveld, a leading Reform Rabbi, passed away today. (As reported by Lawrence Van Gelder)

1997(8th of Nisan, 5757): Sam Moskowitz, author, critic and the teacher of the first college level course on Science Fiction passed away at the age of 76.

1999: A symposium entitled The History of American Jewish Political Conservatism opens at American University in Washington, D.C.

2001(22nd of Nisan, 5761): Eighth and final day of Pesach.

2001: The New York Timesfeatured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including “The Paintings of Our Lives” by Grace Schulman and “Maurve: How One Man Invented a Color That Changed the World”by Simon Garfield.

2002: Following the Battle of Jenin, Palestinian Red Crescent Society and International Committee of the Red Cross staff entered the camp, accompanied by the IDF.

2002:A pro-Israel rally in Washington, organized in less than a week, attracted a crowd estimated at 100,000 people from across the spectrum of American Jewry.

2003(13th of Nisan, 5763): Eighty-year old Dartmouth alum and second generation movie maker Maurice Rapf, “a founder of the Writers Guild of America” passed away today.

2005: “Or” the Israeli film starring Dana Ivgy in the title role premiered in Sweden today.

2005: An exhibition entitled “Wild Things: The Art of Maurice Sendak” opens at the Jewish Museum in New York.

2005:David Baddiel discusses “The Secret Purposes” at The Sunday Times Oxford Literary Festival

2006: Today the inauguration of the Russian Orthodox Church in Ein Kerem  was postponed. Construction of the church began in the first decade of the 20th century but was never completed because of the Russian Revolution. The dedication of the recently completed church was postponed at the request of Russian President Putin. Putin wanted the inauguration delayed until Prime Minister Sharon had sufficiently recovered from his stroke to attend the ceremonies.

2007: At the Sherwin Miller Museum of Jewish Art in Tulsa, Oklahoma, an exhibition styled “From Shtetl to the Sooner StateCelebrating Oklahoma's Jewish History In conjunction with the Centennial Celebration of Oklahoma Statehood” comes to a close.

2007: Major League Baseball and the Israel Baseball League (IBL) hold a tryout in California for players who did not make major or minor league rosters.

2007: “The Last Jew In Europe” is performed at the Triad Theatre.

2007: As Jews all over the world begin the observance of Yom Hashoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day,Haaretz reported that the first comprehensive study of the incidence of cancer among Holocaust survivors has shown that Holocaust survivors were found to be 2.4 times more likely to have cancer than their peers who had not been through the Holocaust.

2007: As reported in HaaretzIsrael fell silent as a two-minute siren wailed across the country this morning in commemoration of Holocaust Memorial Day. The siren followed memorials at the Knesset and the Yad Vashem Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority. Holocaust victims' names were read aloud at ceremonies held at both locations. At the Knesset, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert read the names of the members of the Richter family, relatives of his wife Aliza, who were killed in the Holocaust and opposition chair Benjamin Netanyahu read the names of his wife Sara's relatives. Vice Premier Shimon Peres told of parting from his grandfather, Rabbi Zvi Melzer, at the railway station. Social Affairs Minister Isaac Herzog told of his father's cousin who was caught trying to cross the French border and was sent to her death in Auschwitz. The ceremonies began after Israelis stood silently for two minutes to remember the victims of the Holocaust on yesterday morning. Pedestrians froze in their tracks, buses stopped on busy streets, and cars on highways pulled over as the country paused to pay respect to the 6 million Jews killed by the Nazis.

2007: The Sunday New York Times book section featured a review of All Whom I Have Loved by Israeli author Aharon Appelfeld. In his new novel set on the eve of the Holocaust, the Israeli writer Aharon Appelfeld tells the story of Paul Rosenfeld, a 9-year-old Jewish boy in Czernowitz, Romania (now Chernovtsy, Ukraine).

2007: The Sunday Washington Post book section featured reviews of Jurgen Neffe's Einstein: A Biography, Walter Isaacson”sEinstein: His Life and Universe and Once Upon a Country by Sari Nusseibeh, who joined Ami Ayalon, the former head of Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security agency, in unveiling a “courageous peace plan”in 2002.

2008(10th of Nisan, 5768):Hendrik Samuel "Hank" Houthakker a Dutch Jewish American economist passed away. Houthakker was born in Amsterdam. In 1924. His father was a prominent art dealer. As a teenager he lived through the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands and, according to an interview he gave to the Valley News, was once arrested by the Gestapo but escaped and was sheltered for some months by a Roman Catholic family. He completed his graduate work at the University of Amsterdam in 1949. He taught at Stanford University from 1954 to 1960 and then completed the rest of his career at Harvard University. Houthakker served on President Nixon's Council of Economic Advisers from 1969 to 1971. Houthakker's contributions to economic theory have been summarized by Pollak (1990). He is particularly well known for the Strong Axiom of Revealed Preference, to which his name is often attached (see Houthakker 1950). This paper reconciles Paul Samuelson's revealed preference approach to demand theory with the earlier ordinal utility approach of Eugene Slutsky and Sir John Hicks, by showing that demand functions satisfy his Strong Axiom if and only if they can be generated by maximising a set of preferences that are "well-behaved" in the sense that they satisfy the axioms of choice theory, that is, they are reflexive, transitive, complete, montononic, convex and continuous—essentially the conditions required for a Hicksian approach to demand theory.”

2008: In Cedar Rapids, Hedy Epstein, whose parents died in concentration camps during the Holocaust speaks at Kirkwood Community College and at Xavier High School.

2008: The Washington Post reviews The Much Too Promised LandAmerica's Elusive Search for Arab-Israeli Peace by Aaron David Miller

2008:Todaythe Jewish prayer for the dead echoed across what was once the heart of the Warsaw ghetto as Israeli and Polish leaders marked the 65th anniversary of the doomed battle by young Jews against Nazi troops. President Shimon Peres and his Polish counterpart, Lech Kaczynski, led a crowd of 1,000 gathered beneath the stark granite Monument to the Heroes of the Ghetto in ceremonies honoring the Jews who rose up on April 19, 1943. Israeli and Polish flags fluttered in the afternoon breeze as Poland's chief orthodox rabbi, Michael Schudrich, read out the Kaddish, or Jewish prayer for the dead. Then, to the beat of a military drum, Peres, Kaczynski and survivors of the ghetto uprising placed wreaths at the foot of the monument, which was flanked by two large iron menorahs. Peres praised the young fighters, who he said displayed "a heroism that our children will proudly carry with them in their hearts."

 

2008:Poking into crevices between the ancient stones of the Western Wall in the Old City of Jerusalem, today a senior rabbi and his helpers removed thousands of handwritten notes placed there by visitors who believe their requests will find a shortcut to God by being deposited at Judaism's holiest site. The operation is carried out twice each year: before the Passover festival which begins this weekend and at the Jewish New Year in the fall.

2008: “Behind the Velvet Curtain: Songs from the Motion Picture Redbelt” by Rebecca Pidgeon, the wife of David Mamet was released today on the Great American Music label.

2008: “History Awaits the Pope and the Rabbi” published today described Rabbi Arthur Schneier’s preparations for the visit of Pope Benedict XVI.

 

2009(21st of Nisan, 5769): Seventh Day of Pesach; Reform recite Yizkor

2009: “The first reading of ‘What Strong Fences Make’ by Israel Horovitz was staged by New York's Barefoot Theater Company” today.

2009: Roseanne Barr made an appearance on Bravo's 2nd Annual A-List Awards in the opening scenes.

2010: A showing of “War Against The Weak” is scheduled at the Westchester Jewish Film Festival.

2010: Prof. Jerome Copulsky, Director of Jewish Studies at Goucher College, is scheduled to present a talk entitled “Zionism: Past, Present & Future” at George Mason University sponsored by the GMU Religion Department and GMU Hillel.

2010: The Sarah Silverman Program had its final showing on Comedy Central.

2010: Israeli customs officials said today that they have already confiscated at least 10 iPads in response to Israel’s ban on the importation of Apple’s newest product.  The Israelis are concerned that the powerful gadget’s wireless signals could disrupt other devices.   Israelis have every reason to believe that the problem will be solved prior to the date of the international release of the iPad.

2011: After having pleaded guilty to charges of corruption, former New York State Comptroller Alan Hevesi was sentenced to a term of 1 to 4 years in the state penitentiary.

2011:The Jerusalem Fair, the Annual Fundraising Bazaar for the Jerusalem Rape Crisis Center is scheduled to take place at the Jerusalem Cinematheque

2011: Beth Chaverim Reform Congregation in Ashburn, VA is scheduled to host a Chocolate Passover Seder where attendees can “learn about and taste the symbols of Passover” by sampling a “variety of chocolate items including chocolate covered matzah, chocolate eggs, bitter chocolate, chocolate for dipping” and an Elijah's cup filled with chocolate milk.

2011: The works of Israeli composer Chaya Czernowin are scheduled to be featured at Columbia University’s Miller Theatre.

2011:Following nearly a week of quiet for the residents of the South, warning sirens were heard in the Ashdod area this afternoon after two Grad rockets were fired from the Gaza Strip

2011:U.S. President Barack Obama extended a warm greeting today to all those celebrating Passover and likened the holiday's story to the revolutions sweeping the Middle East. In a signed letter, Obama noted that the story of Passover – "the passage of the children of Israel from bondage and repression to freedom and liberty"– applies to the "modern stories of liberation" in the Middle East. For the past two years, Obama has hosted a Passover Seder in the White House for some 20 friends and staff members, and he plans to do so this year as well. He is the first U.S. President to have hosted a Seder at the White House.

2011:Defense Minister Ehud Barak welcomed today a decision by the U.S. House of Representatives to approve a budget which includes $205 million intended for continuing development of the Iron Dome anti-missile system.  

2012: Filmmaker Judy Lieff and poets Aneta Brodski and Tahani Salah are scheduled to appear at the Westchester Jewish Film Festival.

2012: In Fairfax, VA, Congregation Olam Tikvah is scheduled to sponsor a silent auction combined with a post Passover Pizza Party.

2012: Mitzvah Day, sponsored by Agudas Achim, is scheduled to take place in Iowa City, Iowa

2012: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including “The Crisis of Zionism” by Peter Beinart and ‘Schmidt Steps Back’ by Louis Begley. 

2012:Jacob Ostreicher, a 53-year-old Chasidic Jew from New York who is in a jail in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, launched a hunger strike following 10 months of appeals to the U.S. State Department.

2013: The Hartford Jewish Film Fest is scheduled to close with a screening of “Hava Nagila – The Movie.”

2013: “A Work-In-Progress Screening: On Becoming A Soldier” is scheduled to be shown at the Westchester Jewish Film Festival.

2013: Dr. David Kraemer is scheduled to deliver the first in a series of lectures – All of Rabbinic Literature in Seven Sessions – at the Skirball Center.

2013(5thof Iyar, 5773: Yom Hazikaron – All places of entertainment are closed. Twice during the day, at the sound of a siren throughout the country, everything—and everyone— stops completely for two minutes.

2013:The head of the security network for US Jewish organizations said the community is "standing vigilant" following bombings at the Boston Marathon today.

2013: The annual torch-lighting ceremony at Jerusalem's Mount Herzl marked the end of Remembrance Day this evening and touched off Israel's 65th Independence Day celebrations.

2013: Bret Stephens, a former editor-in-chief of The Jerusalem Post, has won the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for commentary for The Wall Street Journal, the prize committee announced today.

2013: Ceremonies, festivities and general revelry around the country marked Israel’s 65th Independence Day anniversary today.

2013:Israel must prepare for the possibility of striking Iran’s nuclear program on its own, Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon warned today, during an Independence Day speech he delivered in Herzliya

2014(15th of Nisan, 5774): Pesach

2014:Yuli Kosharovsky best known for his work as an active leader of the Jewish refusenik movement passed away today. (As reported by Laura Bialis)

2014: In the evening Chuck Friedman is scheduled to lead the Agudas Achim Community Seder catered by the Motley Cow Café.

2014: After having been released by the Chicago Bears, today punter Adam Podesh signed a one year contract with the Pittsburgh Steelers.

2014; In “Golda Meir, late Israeli prime minister, vitally revealed in ‘Golda’s Balcony’” published today Peter Marks reviews the performance of Tova Feldshuh.

2015: The Oregon Board of Rabbis is scheduled to present Yom HaShoah: The Holocaust, Memory and the Future Congregation Beth Israel in Portland.

2015: Speaking today at the museum’s National Tribute dinner in Washington, “FBI director James Comey called the Holocaust the most significant event in history and said that’s why a US Holocaust Memorial Museum program on its lessons is mandatory for new agents.

2015: Peter Appelbaum is scheduled to discuss “Loyal Sons: Jewish Soldiers in the German Army in the Great War” at the Center for Jewish History.

2015: Professor of History and the Jeremy Zwelling Professor of Jewish Studies from Wesleyan University are scheduled to present “Connected Histories: Sephardic and Ashkenazi Responses to Blood Libels in Pre-modern Europe” at the University of Connecticut.

2015: “Jews, Judaism and American Law” with Rabbi Lance J. Sussman is scheduled to open at the National Museum of American Jewish History in Philadelphia.

2015: Just in time for the anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic, Marshal Weiss provides us with “Kosher deli in England a Titanic survivor’s legacy.”

2016: The graduate student council of the City University of New York is scheduled to “vote on a resolution to boycott Israeli academic institutions.”

2016(7th of Nisan, 5776): Ninety-four year old Frederick Mayer, the teenage refugee from Nazi Germany who ended up being captured and tortured by Nazi captors while taking part in operation “Greenup” passed away today. (As reported by Eric Lichtblaum)

2016: In Cedar Rapids, Shir Yehudah is scheduled to lead Temple Judah a “musical Shabbat.”

2016: Steven Gimbel, the professor of philosophy at Gettysburg College and author of Einstein: The Man is scheduled to lecture at the Suffolk Y JCC on Long Island, NY.

2016: “Claude Lanzmann: Spectres of the Shoah” and “I Don’t Belong Anywhere: The Cinema of Chantal Akerman” are scheduled to be shown at the Westchester Jewish Film Festival.

2017(19th of Nisan, 5777): Shabbat shel Pesach

2017(19th of Nisan, 5777): Ninety-two year old psychiatrist Dr. Joseph Lifschutz passed away today. (As reported by Sam Roberts)

2017(19th of Nisan, 5777): Sixty-four year old Mendel Deitsch, a Chabad Rabbi who was severely beaten six months ago in the western Ukrainian city of Zhytomir during a robbery died today in Jerusalem as a result of the wounds he had sustained.

2017: “Speaking to an Israel Radio reporter on the sidelines of a conference on the civil war in Yemen in Paris, Yemen’s Information Minister Moammer al-Iryani said today that the Houthis view the tiny remaining Jewish population as an enemy and are engaged in a campaign of ethnic cleansing that includes ridding Yemen of its Jewish community.”

2017: All decent people mourn the death of 20 year old Hannah Bladon, a British student stabbed in Jerusalem “by a Palestinian man” on Good Friday in an attack that also left a fitty year old man and a 30 year old pregnant woman with undisclosed injuries.

2017: Courtesy of Bank Hapoalim, 35 Israeli museums and national sites offer free entry today.

2018(30th of Nisan, 5778): Rosh Chodesh Iyar

2018: The Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington and the Jewish Historical Society of Greater Washington are two of the organizations scheduled to host the “Blacks and Jews Unity Poetry Slam.”

2018: “A new exhibition revealing the impact of the Jewish émigrés behind some of Britain’s most iconic designs” at the Jewish Museum in London is scheduled to come to an end today.

2018: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Italian Teacher, a novel by Tom Rachman, In the Enemy’s House: The Secret Saga of the FBI Agent and the Code Breaker Who Caught the Russian Spies by Howard Blum, The People vs. Democracy:Why Our Freedom Is in Danger and How to Save It by Yascha Mounk and How Democracies Die by Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt

2018: The Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center is scheduled to host a lecture by Adrienne G. Alexanian, the author of Forced into Genocide, as part of the commemoration of the 103rdAnniversary of the Armenian Genocide.

2018: “Holocaust survivor Irene Miller, author of Into No Man’s Land: A Historical Memoir, is scheduled to be the keynote speaker at this year’s Yom Ha’Shoah Community-wide Holocaust Memorial Program, held this evening,  April 15  at the Uptown JCC in New Orleans, LA.

2018: The Schultz Campus for Jewish Life is scheduled to host “Remember the Holocaust Yom Hashoah Commemoration with Ingrid Kennedy” this evening.

2018: The Center for Jewish History and the YIVO Institute are scheduled to present “Jews in Space” featuring Rob Schwimmer, Vickie L. Kloeris and Anna Martin.

2018: Auschwitz survivor Helen Weingarten is scheduled to be the featured speaker at the 53rd Annual Community Wide Holocaust Commemoration hosted by The Breman Museum in Atlanta, GA.

2018: The Governor of Georgia proclaims today as Holocaust Remembrance Day.

 

 

This Day, April 16, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. Levin

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April 16



1457 BCE: Egyptian forces under Thutmose III defeated a group of rebellious Canaanite Vassal States at the Battle of Megiddo. This would have taken place while the Israelites were slaves in Egypt. The strategic position of Megiddo would make it the site of many battles including one between Egypt and the Kingdom of Judah in 609 BCE and the British and the Turks in 1918. This is the same Megiddo where Solomon kept horses and chariots and which is thought to be the site of the mythic Battle of Armageddon.


537 BCE (1st of Iyar, 3223): According to the Book of Ezra, the foundation of the Second Temple was laid on this date


69:  Otho, Roman Emperor, commits suicide ending his short-lived reign.  Otho was the second of the four men to hold the position of Emperor in the Year of the Four Emperors.  According to some, it was the instability that Otho and his compatriots brought to the Empire that led to Titus destroying the Temple instead of merely settling for the defeat and humiliation of the Jews of Judea.


 
73: According to some calculations this is the day that Masada fell to the Romans after several months of siege, ending this Jewish Revolt against Rome.  Of course, this was not the final revolt.



 
778: Birthdate of King Louis I or Louis the Pious France. Louis continued the favorable policies towards the Jews adopted by his father, Charlemagne. Although considered to be a weak ruler (who wouldn’t have been if had to follow Charlemagne) and quite pious, he protected his Jewish subjects from the clergy and the nobles.  He continued to allow them settle in any part of his dominion and out of sympathy for his Jewish subjects, changed the Market Day from Saturday (the Jewish Sabbath) to Sunday.



1158: In Genoa, the name of a Jewish trader, Jusuphus Judeos, appeared for the first time on an official deed drawn up “from the public notary Giovanni Scriba.


1203(26th of Nisan, 4963): “German synagogal poet” Menahem Ben Jacob Ben Solomon whose great-grandfather Simson, was living in Worms at the time of the First Crusade and was surnamed "Ha-Darshan," passed away at Worms today.


1319: Birthdate of King John II of France.  During the Hundred Years War, John was captured by the English and held for ransom.  Desperate for funds, John’s son who was serving as Regent during his father’s imprisonment negotiated a deal with Manessier de Vesoul that would allow Jews to return to France in return for their financial support of the impoverished kingdom.  Once John was ransomed, he gave into pressure and reneged on some of his son’s promises.  


 
1641: “Don Lope de Vara y Alarcon, alias Judah the Believer, appeared before the Inquisition to repudiate a previous spurious defense which he had offered to the tribunal against its charge of heresy.”  Don Lope was a Christian (not a Convserso) who converted to Judaism.  Eventually he would be burned at the stake because he referred to recant and return to Christianity. (As reported by Abraham Bloch)



1669(15th of Nisan): Rabbi Jonah Teomim of Metz, France, author of Kikayon de-Yonah passed away


1681: A rescript issued today “repeated that Jews were not to come into Denmark without a special Geleitsbrief.”


1729(17th of Nisan, 5489): Seventeenth and 18th century “German rabbi and Talmudic author” Jacob Eliezer Braunschweig passed away today.


1741(30th of Nisan, 5501): Abraham Spitz, “who purchased the freedom of Imprisoned Jews from Buda” passed away today.


1746: An army commanded by William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, loyal to the British government defeated Jacobite forces of Charles Edward Stuart at the Battle of Culloden. George Frideric composed “Judas Maccabaeus” a three act oratorio “as a compliment to the victorious Prince William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland.”  The oratorio was based on the characters known to all who have celebrated the holiday of Chanukah.


1799: Napoleon defeated the Ottoman Turks in the Battle of Mount Tabor and drove them across the Jordan River.This the same Mount Tabor that was the staging area for the armies of Deborah and Barak, as they faced the assembly of Canaanites and their chariots arrayed below them on the plain to the west.  It is also the same Mount Tabor where the Midianite kings killed the brothers of the Judge named Gideon.  Both episodes are described in the Book of Judges.


1804:  Establishment of the London Board for Shechita.


181730th of Nisan, 5577): Rosh Chodesh Iyar


 
1823: In Berlin, Johan Konstantin Eisenstein and Helene Pollack who had converted from Judaism to Christianity gave birth to mathematician Ferdinand Gotthold Max Eisenstein.



 
1826: In The Hague, Leonardus Levy Abraham Verveer and Caroline Elkan gave birth to Dutch painter and engraver Elchanan Verveer



1842: Today, as part of the Creole case during which Judah P. Benjamin represented the insurance companies and stated in his argument that the “a slave…is a human being” who “has feelings, passion and intellect, the Admiralty Court in Nassau “ordered the surviving mutineers to be released” today.


1844: Birthdate of Nobel Prize winning author Anatole France.  The non-Jewish France joined his friend Émile Zola in the Dreyfus case and was the first to sign Zola's famous article J'Accuse, condemning the false treason indictment of Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish officer. At a 1904 International Congress of Freethinkers at Paris, France said, "The gods advance, but they always lag behind the thoughts of men.... The Christian God was once a Jew. Now he is an anti-Semite."


1848: Edward Falcke married Ann Russell today.


1849:Le prophète” (The Prophet), an opera in five acts by Jewish composer Giacomo Meyerbeer was first performed today  by the Paris Opera at the Salle Le Peletier


1850: In Shutesbury, MA, Nathaniel and Harriet Adams gave birth to Herbert Baxter Adams, the Johns Hopkins University who has contributed “valuable papers on the services of” Haim Solomon, “the patriotic Jew.”


1852: In New York, Johan Levy, a merchant and sea captain and Francis Phillips gave birth to Jonas Levy the New York Congressman who was the nephew of Uriah Phillips Levy.



1855: In St. Louis, over 400 hundred people attended that cornerstone laying ceremony for the first synagogue constructed in St. Louis and the first synagogue built west of the Mississippi.


1858(2ndof Iyar, 5618): Sixty-three year old Alois Isidor Jeitteles the Austrian physician who co-founded the Jewish weekly Siona with his cousin Ignaz Jeitteles passed away today.


1861(6thof Iyar, 5621): One year old Lucy Esther Goetz passed a way today after which she was interred at the Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.


1862(16th of Nisan, 5622): Second Day of Pesach; 1st day of the Omer


1862: Sixty-five year old Max Samuel Mayer, the son of the rabbi in his native Fruendal who became a Lutheran in 1834, five years after he earned a law degree, and eventually became a Professor at the University of Tubingen (a position that was open to him because he was no longer a Jew) passed away today.


1862: Franziska Montefiore, the daughter of Salomon Bernard Sichel and Fanny Sichel and Joseph Mayer Montefiore gave birth to Edward Mayer Montefiore


1862: It was reported the Jewish dealers had been present when the cattle market opened on Monday but were absent the following day because it was Passover; a fact that caused a drop off in market activity.


1864: Copies of “A History of the World” by Philip Smith are now available. The second part of this volume presents the history of Egypt including the “history of the Hebrew Theocracy and Monarchy from the exodus to the destruction of the kingdoms or Israel and Judah, and the Babylonian Captivity of the Jewish nation.”  The work includes information based on newly revealed discoveries about the area.


1864: Today’s “Literary Gossip” column reported that a new edition of Reverend Henry Hart Milman’s “History of Christianity from the Birth of Christ to the Abolition of Paganism in the Roman Empire by Constantine” by Henry Hart Milman, the noted English clergyman has been published.  This work is part of trilogy, the other two works of which are “History of Latin Christianity” and “History of the Jews.” Milman published “History of the Jews in 1829 was unique for its time since it tried to portray the Jews as a historical people and “minimized the miraculous.”  This approach, which he used in his later works, made him the target of attacks from Biblical literalists among others.  This portrayal of the Jews actually impeded the career of this Christian minister.


1865(20thof 5625): As Jews observed the Sixth Day of Pesach, Union forces under James Wilson defeated the Confederates at a battle on the Alabama-Georgia border which was the last major conflict of the Civil War and John Wilkes Booth continued his escape across southern Maryland.


1867: Nathan Mayer Rothschild, 1st Baron Rothschild, Baron de Rothschild married Emma Louise von Rothschild, a cousin from the Rothschild banking family of Germany in Frankfurt with whom he had three children Lionel Walter, Evelina Rothschild-Behrens and Nathaniel Charles.


1871:  All civic limitations imposed on Jews of the German Empire were lifted. It was thought that this would bring medieval anti-Semitism to a conclusion.


1871: In “Hebrew Charity” published today provided a most positive report on the various benevolent activities engaged in by the Jewish community to alleviate the suffering of their less fortunate co-religionists.  Last fall’s Hebrew Charity Fair raised enough funds to provide over $100,000 for Mount Sinai Hospital and over $33,000 for the Hebrew Benevolent and Orphan Asylum.  The Hebrew Benevolent Fuel Association, the B’nai Brit, the Society of B’nai Abraham and the Society of Kesha Shel Barsel (Order of the Golden Crown) are among other community-wide organizations aiding the needy.  This does not include Mt. Sinai Hospital (formerly the Jews Hospital) which now serves Jews as well as the general population or the various aid societies sponsored by the 30 synagogues and temples located in the city.


1872(8thof Nisan, 5632): Moritz Reichenheim, founder of the Orphan’s Home passed away today in Berlin.


1874: Birthdate of Ashland, Ohio, native Louis M. Cahn, the Harvard lawyer and “first executive director of the Jewish Federation Charities of Chicago who was the brother of Tillman Cahn and Mrs. Fanny C. Holzheimer.


1876(22nd of Nisan, 5636): 8th day of Pesach


1879(23rd of Nisan, 5639): Leyser Lazarus who had been elected President of the Jewish Theological Seminary of Breslau in 1875 following the death of Zecharais Frankel passed away today.


1880: David Smith, a Jewish speculator and cigar dealer who has been a long-time resident of Chicago has disappeared, reportedly leaving behind “fraudulent debts in the amount of nearly $5,000.” It is thought that he may have gone to be with his daughter who lives in Australia.


1880: It was reported that The Young Men’s Hebrew Association held its 6thannual reception last night at the Chickering Hall in New York City.


1880: It was reported today David Smith, a Jewish speculator and cigar dealer, has disappeared in Chicago leaving behind him debts totaling $5, 000. Smith has a daughter living in Australia and it is thought he may have to seek refuge with her.


1881: According to “The Jews In Germany” published today Prime Minister Bismarck and the Crown Prince Frederick William are not sympathetic to the movement sweeping parts of Germany aimed at limiting the number of and opportunities for Jews in Germany.


1881: Pogroms spread to villages surrounding Elizavetgrad (Russia) where anti-Semitic violence had broken out during Easter observances.


1881: In Dodge City, Kansas, Bat Masterson fights his last gun battle. This happened at the same time that Beersheba, the first of seven agricultural colonies established in Kansas was being started by 60 Jewish families from Russia.  Wyatt Earp, one of Masterson’s best friends married a Jewish woman named Josie.  Gene Barry, a Brooklyn born Jew, played the title role in a television series about the western lawman called “Bat Masterson.”


1881: In New York, the Board of Estimate and Apportionment made the annual distribution of financial aid to a variety of charitable institutions including a payment of $1,440 to the Home for Aged and Infirm Hebrews and $240 for the Zion Aged Relief Association.


1881: A review of “Buried Alive: Or Ten Years of Penal Servitude in Siberia” reports that the cast of characters includes a hypocritical “Jew who acts a pawnbroker and money-lender to the other convicts” while observing his religious with a great display of public piety. [The stereotype of the Jewish money lender survived in Russian literature about Siberia only to be joined by another stereotype – the Jewish revolutionary, be he communist, socialist or anarchist.


1882: Jakob and Barbara/Babette Bondy gave birth to Antonie Wagner who died at Riga in 1942 during the Holocaust.


1883: On the day after his marriage to Pauline Moses, David Holtz endures a “violent lunatic” from his wife.


1884: Thirty-four year old German historian Ernst Bernheim married 22 year old Amalie ("Emma") Henriette Jessen


1885: Birthdate of Hungarian composer and music educator Leo Weiner.

1887(22nd of Nisan, 5647): 8th day of Pesach


1889(15th of Nisan, 5649): First day of Pesach


1889: Birthdate of Silent Screen Star Charlie Chaplin.  Many will consider the Little Tramp as his greatest comedic triumph. Others will remember him for The Great Dictator, "a talkie" that poked fun at Hitler and Mussolini when the world was still having trouble standing up to the Nazis and the Fascists.  Born in England of Jewish parents, he was forced to retreat to his native soil during the McCarthy Period.  He passed away on December 25, 1977.  Interestingly, the lengthy obituary in the New York Times makes no mention of Chaplin's ethnic origins.


1890: It was reported today that Jesse Seligman was one of those be considered as the Republican nominee in the upcoming mayoral race. It is felt that in addition to drawing the “full Republican vote” he would also be able to attract a large percentage of the Jewish vote.


1891(8thof Nisan, 5651): Fifty-six year old Joseph H. Hepner, a Jewish immigrant from Poland who came to the United States 8 years ago, took his own life at the grocery store he has owned for the last three years on East Broadway.


1892(19thof Nisan, 5652): Shabbat Shel Pesach


1893(30th of Nisan, 5653): Rosh Chodesh Iyar


1893: At Temple Emanu-El, during his sermon which was a response to aggressive attempts by Protestants to convert Jews, Rabbi Joseph Silverman “charged corruption in the methods by which the Protestants are seeking to proselyte the Jews” saying that “the Christian missionaries and the so-called ‘converted’ Jews are paid commissions for making converts and in order to make their business brisk and produce a good showing they divide their commissions with their ‘converts’.”


1893: The Reverend Merle St. Croix Wright, pastor of the Lenox Avenue Unitarian Church delivered a sermon condemning the Union League Club’s rejection of Theodor Seligman because of his “race.”


1894: The doctors reported today that four year old Jacob Green, the son of a Jewish peddler had only suffered a broken collarbone when he fell from the fifth floor of his tenement.  Before he hit the ground, the boy landed on Morris Eisenberg who was standing in front of the building.  Despite great pain from what turned out to be a broken shoulder, Eisenberg got the boy to the hospital where he received prompt medical attention.


1895: The newly incorporated Hebrew Infant Asylum of New York City is publicly committed to provided care for Jewish orphans under the age of five.  Among the trustees are Jacob Fleishhauer, Minnie Frank, Jacob B. Seligman and Esther Wallenstein.


1896: Birthdate of Samuel Rosenstock, who gained fame as Tristan Tzara, poet, playwright and founder of the Dada Movement.  He passed away in 1963.


1897)14thof Nisan, 5657): Ta’anit Bechorot


1897: The will of Francis Danzig, the widow of Louis Danzig was filed for probate today.


1897: Fifty-nine year old August Seligman passed away today at his home in New York City.  A native of Oppenheim, Germany, he came to the United States 45 years ago where he began in the importing business before turning to the manufacture of corsets He was a member of Temple Beth El and  was active in Jewish fraternal organizations.


1897: Birthdate of John B Glubb the British officer who was the commander of Jordan's Arab Legion.  It was Glubb and those like him who trained the Jordanian Army and made it in effective fighting force against the Israelis.  The Arab Legion was the only force to score a meaningful victory over the Jewish fighters which left the Jordanians in control of the eastern section of Jerusalem and what is now the West Bank.  Nobody wanted to set up a Palestinian State in the West Bank in those days.


1897(14th of Nisan, 5657): The New York Times reported that “At sundown this evening the Feast of Passover will begin, and will continue for seven days, ending at sundown on April 22. The feast is celebrated generally by the Jews, with services in the synagogues on the first and last days, and the evenings preceding those days. The "matzoth," or unleavened bread, is used in place of the usual bread during the week…Each family, however poor, manages to live well by some means or other during the Passover week, the poorer ones being assisted by others who are more fortunate.”


1898: “Four days before the Spanish-American War was declared, Dr. Joseph M. Heller who went to the Surgeon General of the Army and volunteered his services.


1900: Birthdate of Polly Adler Russia, author of A House is not a Home. Long before “Sex and the City” was a television show, this famous Madame was providing the real thing.


1903: During the so-called Melvin Bellis Case, as rumors of pogroms began to circulate, the Russian Minister of Justice telegraphed the Kiev District Prosecutor ordering him to personally investigate the cause of Andrei Yustschinkski’s death.


1905: Peddlers on the east side planned to be out selling their wares today even though it was Sunday.  Sigmund Schwartz, President of the East Side Peddlers Assoication had told them that Police Commissioner McAdoo had given them permission to ignore the laws because of the approaching celebration of Passover.


1905: In “How Passover Will Be Observed on the East Side; The Beautiful Sentiment of Opening the Door to the Poor with Which This Time-Honored Jewish Festival Is Initiated at the Seder Table," published today it was reported that ‘Next Wednesday evening, the first night of Passover, thousands of the Children of Israel on the great east side will sit by their firesides in faith, hope, and contentment. From the dim haze of antiquity hunted from shore to shore, they have at last found peace -- in this country of glorious freedom, where they can at least worship their God in peace, and where their Passover comes without menace of riot and bloodshed”


1906: Twenty Jewish butchers working in Harlem were found guilty of selling meat after midnight on Saturday.  The magistrate hearing the case said that he was fining them reluctantly and wished that “the legislature would repeal this absurd law.”


1911: During what would become known as “The Case of Mendel Bellis,” the Russian Minister of Justice ordered the Kiev District Prosecutor to personally investigate the death of Andrei Yustschinski; an investigation that would include a second autopsy conducted by two professors from the Kiev Medical School.


1912: The RMS Carpathia, carrying hundreds of the Titanic survivors including journalist Edith Rosenbaum and Elizabeth and Martin Rothschild, the aunt and uncle of Dorothy Parker, began making its way to New York.


1913(9thof Nisan, 5673):Sixty-five year old Leo Speyer, who was a member of the New York Stock Exchange for 25 years and was a director of the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Association “died suddenly today in his apartment at the Savoy Hotel in New York.”


1913: Twenty-nine year old Lt. J.G. Albert Morris Cohen was “appointed as an aid on the staff of the Commander-in-Chief of the United States Atlantic Fleet today.


1913: Mrs. I.J. Robin, the president of the Jewish Consumptives’ Relief Society and Mrs. Ignatz J. Reis, the president of the Conference of Jewish Women’s Organizations were among those who spoke at conference day arranged by the Jewish Consumptives’ Relief Society of Chicago.


1914: In Lithuania, Rabbi Nathan Milikowsky and Sara Milikowsky gave birth to Matthew Milikowsky


1914: According to Dr. Ben Wildauer, a friend of Leo M. Frank, Dan S. Lehon of the Burns Detective Agency hired C.C. Tedder today “paying him $500 cash, $250 as an advance on his salary and $250 for expenses” as part of plan to have the detective agency look at the possibility that perjured evidence had been used to convict Frank, the Jewish factory who was convicted of killing a Mary Phagan in one of the worst orgies of anti-Semitism in the history of United States.


1915: Birthdate of Coleman Jacoby, the native of Pittsburg, PA  a comedy writer who created the laughter for many famous names including Fred Allen, Phil Silvers, Jackie Gleason and Art Carney.  He passed away at the age of 95 in 2010.


1916: Abraham K. Cohen, Samuel Fleishman and Joseph Levinson presided over “the dedication of the B’nai B’rith Building of the Independent Order of the B’nai B’rith tonight at the new headquarters on Broadway where attendees heard speeches by Marcus M. Marks, Otto Irving Wise, Abraham K. Cohen and Herman Asher followed by “a prayer for peace delivered by Herbert S. Goldstein.


1916: Among the contributions reported today by The Central Committee for the Relief of Jews Suffering Through the War were $31 from Rabbi L.J.Haas and $32 from people in Wharton, TX.


1916: Jacob Schiff, Dr. Cyrus Adler, Dr. J.L. Magnes and Professor Mordecai M. Kaplan were among the speakers when “the new quarters of the Teachers’ Institute of the Jewish Theological Seminary on the fifth floor of the annex to the Hebrew Technical Institute” were dedicated this afternoon.


1916: “Jews in America” published today provided a review of the 23rd of the American Jewish Historical Society’s series of Publications that deals “in the main with the history of Jews of America” including William Vincent Byars discussion of the papers of 18th century Philadelphia merchants Bernard and Michael Gratz.

1916: Birthdate of “Rabbi Moshe Yehoshua Hager, the leader of one the world’s largest Hasidic sects, the Viznitz Hasidim.” (As reported by Joseph Berger)


1916: France and Britain divided up the Middle East in the Sykes-Picot Agreement. France wasassured of Syria and the Mosul, with English gaining control of Northern Arabia and Central Mesopotamia. Pre-state Israel was divided with France controlling the Galilee, Britain the Haifa area and the rest of the region to be under some sort of undefined international control.


1917(24th of Nisan, 5677): Edouard Gaspard Marcel Kahn, “chief of battalion” was killed today during WW I.


1917: Twenty-four year old philosopher Walter Benjamin married Dora Pollak today after which they went to a sanatorium in Dachau for treatment of his sciatica.


1917: The American Jewish Relief Committee received telegrams today from the brothers of Utah Governor Simon Bamberger – J.E. Bamberger and Herman Bamberger, “who control large mining interests” – promising to match the Governors’ pledge to contribute an amount equal to 10 per cent of the contributions from Utah.


1917: Reports received today in New York from Jerusalem claim that “fully 50 per cent of the population of Palestine and Syria are facing death by starvation” and that “the only chance for relief is the capture of Jerusalem and the seaport of Jaffa by British forces” which would “enable the Allies to bring supplies from Egypt.”


1917: Herman H. Lehman, Treasurer of the Joint Distribution Committee announced that the committee received $180,000 today.


1917: In Berlin, Dr. Albert Salomon, a prominent surgeon and his wife gave birth to Charlotte, the artist who was gassed at Auschwitz in 1943.

1918(4thof Iyar, 5678): 2nd Lt. Cecil Shekury, a native of Singapore and was attending school in England in 1914 when the war broke out and he enlisted in the Army was killed today.


1918: Dr. Hyman Gerson Enelow completed his services “as a member of the Overseas Commission of the Jewish Welfare Board.”


1918: “A protest against alleged ‘continuous unjust, unfair, and discriminatory treatment’ of Jews in the war was with Secretary Baker today by Louis Marshall of New York, head of the American Jewish Committee” including the complaint “that not a single among the large number with the expeditionary forces in France has been commissioned from the ranks” although many such commissions have been awarded to others.


1919(16thof Nisan, 5679): Second Day of Pesach


1919: Furloughs granted to members of the AEF (American Expeditionary Force) so they could observe Passover came to an end at midnight.


1920: A union was founded to strengthen and develop friendly relations between Moroccan Jewry and Spain.


1920: The Twelfth Conference of the Bund continue to meet for a fifth day in Gomel.


1920: Birthdate of Richard Nathaniel Goldman, a native of San Francisco who founded Goldman Insurance Services for co-founded “the Goldman Environmental Prize, which is given to six grass-roots environmental activists every year.”  He pass away in 2010 at the age of 90.


1922:  Po'al ha-Mizrachi, the religious Zionist labor movement, founded.  Unlike many other Orthodox, the followers of Mizrachi were ardent Zionist from the earliest days.  They played a vital role in the creation of Jewish Palestine under the mandate and the creation of the state of Israel in 1948.


1922: Germany and the Soviet Union sign the Treaty of Rapallo which was effectively a peace treaty between these two parties from WW I.  The Russian and German empires that had been warring parties had been replaced by these two national entities.  The treaty drew the two “pariah states” of Europe into an embrace that included training of the German Army in the Soviet Union.  Yes, in one of those great ironies of history, Stalin would provide the training for the Wermacht that would invade his country; an invasion that resulted in the death of millions of Jews.


1923(30th of Nisan, 5683): Rosh Chodesh Iyar


1926: “Judge Mack and Rabbi Landman Debate Zionism” published today described the presentation of the different opinions about Palestine held by Judge Julian W. Mark and Rabbi Isaac Landman.

1926: “The Wooing of Eve” a silent film written by Robert Liebmann was released in Germany today.


1927(14thof Nisan, 5687): Shabbat HaGadol; erev Pesach


1927: Judge Otto A Rosalsky, the Vice President of the Jewish Educational Association which is seeking to raise a half million dollars “to provide religious training for the Jewish youth of New York City” said today “that the world more than ever today must turn to the task of providing religious training for the young” a sentiment echoed by Jonah J. Goldstein, the Chairman of the campaign who said that “giving our youth a Jewish education is giving them a heritage that will proved more valuable than merely earthly possessions.”


1927: The Hebrew Sheltering and Immigrant Aid Society is scheduled to hold a Seder at 425 Lafayette Street which will be attended by “the fifteen members of the Hakoah soccer team of Vienna.”


1927: The Hebrew Sheltering and Immigrant Aid Society is scheduled to hold a Seder on Ellis Island for approximately “150 immigrants temporarily detained there” as well as for an untold “number of deportees.


1927: Temple Anshe Chesed began its last Passover observance at its current location at Seventh Avenue and 114th Street before moving into the facility “being erected at West End Avenue and 100th Street.


1927: Seventy-six year old Florence Earle Coates who “was among "artists and intellectuals" who spoke out against the wrongful imprisonment, and would pen four poems relating to the affair: "Dreyfus" (1898), "Dreyfus" (1899), "Picquart" (1902) and "Le Grand Salut" (1906)” passed away today. (As reported by Sonja N. Bohm)


1927:Nathan Straus, New York philanthropist, arrived on the White Star liner Adriatic after a visit to Palestine. He said that he found steady progress there, in spite of the crisis in Tel Aviv, which he said was temporary. Straus praised Lord Plumer, the High Commissioner and reported that “friction between Arabs and Jews was on the decline.


1928(26thof Nisan, 5688): Seventy-seven year old Pavel Axelrod, the Jewish Menshevik born Pinkhus Borukh, died in exile today in Berline.

1928: In Brooklyn, Samuel and Lily (Lazell) Sylbert gave birth to “Richard "Dick" Sylbert, a two-time Academy Award-winning production designer.”

1928: In Brooklyn, Samuel and Lily (Lazell) Sylbert gave birth to “Oscar-winning production designer” Paul Sylbert.

1929: Violinist Efrem Zimbalist is scheduled to perform this on radio station WOR.


1930: In Jamaica, Queens, NY, store owner Louis Herman and “the former Yetta Scheer, a seamtress” gave birth to Dolphin researcher Louis Herman.

1930: Birthdate of Herbert Jay Solomon who gained fame as Herbie Mann, a leading American jazz flutist.


1931(29th of Nisan, 5691): Rachel Bluwstein Sela passed away at the age of 40. She “was a Hebrew poet who immigrated to Palestine in 1909 who was known by her first name, Rachel, (רחל) or as Rachel the poetess (רחל המשוררת). Born in Saratov[  in Russia in 1890, she was “the eleventh daughter of Isser-Leib and Sophia Bluwstein, and granddaughter of the rabbi of the Jewish community in Kiev. During her childhood, her family moved to Poltava, Ukraine, where she attended a Russian-speaking Jewish school and, later, a secular high school. She began writing poetry at the age of 15. When she was 17, she moved to Kiev and began studying painting. At the age of 19, Rachel visited Eretz Israel with her sister en route to Italy, where they were planning to study art and philosophy. They decided to stay on as Zionist pioneers. They settled in Rehovot and worked in the orchards. Later, Rachel moved to Kvutzat Kinneret on the shores of the Sea of Galilee, where she studied and worked in a women's agricultural school. At Kinneret, she met Zionist leader A. D. Gordon who was to be a great influence on her life, and to whom she dedicated her first Hebrew poem. During this time, she also met and had a romantic relationship with Zalman Rubshov - object of many of her love poems who later became known as Zalman Shazar and was the third president of Israel. In 1913, on the advice of A. D. Gordon, she journeyed to Toulouse, France to study agronomy and drawing. When World War I broke out, unable to return to Palestine, she returned instead to Russia where she taught Jewish refugee children. It may have been at this point in her life that she contracted tuberculosis.


After the end of the war in 1919 she returned to Palestine on board the ship Ruslan and for a while joined the small agricultural kibbutz Degania, a settlement neighboring her previous home at Kinneret. However, shortly after her arrival she was diagnosed with tuberculosis, then an incurable disease. Now unable to work with children for fear of contagion, she was expelled from Degania and left to fend for herself. In 1925 she lived briefly in a small white house in the courtyard of No. 64 Street of the Prophets in Jerusalem (courtyard of the William Holman Hunt House). She spent the rest of her life traveling and living in Tel Aviv, and finally settled in a sanatorium for tuberculosis patients in Gedera…. She is buried in the Kinneret cemetery in a grave overlooking the Sea of Galilee, following her wishes as expressed in her poem ‘If Fate Decrees.’ Alongside her are buried many of the socialist ideologues and pioneers of the second and third waves of immigration. In recent years, Naomi Shemer was buried near Rachel, according to Shemer's wish. Rachel began writing in Russian as a youth, but the majority of her work was written in Hebrew. Most of her poems were published on a weekly basis in the Hebrew newspaper Davar, and quickly became popular with the Jewish community in the Palestine and later, in the State of Israel. The majority of her poetry is set in the pastoral countryside of Eretz Israel. Many of her poems echo her feelings of longing and loss, a result of her inability to realize her aspirations in life. In several poems she mourns the fact that she will never have a child of her own. Lyrical, exceedingly musical and characterized by its simple language and deep feeling, her poetry deals with fate, her own difficult life, and death. Her love poems emphasize the feelings of loneliness, distance, and longing for the beloved; her lighter poetry is ironic, often comic. Her writing was influenced by French imagism, Biblical stories, and the literature of the Second Aliyah pioneers. In one poem she identifies with Michal, wife of David. Rachel also wrote a one-act comic play ‘Mental Satisfaction,’ which was performed but not published in her lifetime. This ironic vignette of pioneer life was recently rediscovered and published in a literary journal.  Anthologies of Rachel's poetry remain bestsellers to this day. Many of her poems were set to music, both during her lifetime and afterwards, and are widely sung by Israeli singers. Her poems are included in the mandatory curriculum in Israeli schools. A selection of her poetry was translated to English and published under the title ‘Flowers of Perhaps: Selected Poems of Rachel,’ by the London publisher Menard. In his foreword to the 1994 edition of ‘Flowers of Perhaps,’ the acclaimed Israeli poet Yehuda Amichai stated: ‘What may be most remarkable about the poetry of Ra'hel, a superb lyric poet, is that it has remained fresh in its simplicity and inspiration for more than seventy years.’ In 2011, Rachel was chosen as one of four great Israeli poets whose portraits would be on Israeli currency (the other three being Leah Goldberg, Shaul Tchernichovsky, and Nathan Alterman).”

1932: In Karlovac, which at the time was part of Yugoslavia, Iva (Ischak) Goldstein and his wife gave birth to Danko Goldstein who changed his name to Daniel Ivin when he moved to Israel but later returned to his native Croatia where he pursued a career as a writer and human rights activist.

1935: As the Red Sox open their A.L. season, Moe Berg is the team’s third-string catcher thanks to the efforts of Joe Cronin who signed after the Jewish “odd-ball” had been released by the Cleveland Indians.



 
1935: Birthdate of Steffi Sidney-Splaver, the daughter of famed Hollywood columnist Sidney Skolsky, who as a young actress appeared in and then gave up acting to become a Hollywood writer, publicist and producer.  She passed away in 2010 at the age of 74.


1935: Birthdate of American “character actor” Al Israel, one of those people you send an untold number of movies such as “Carlito’s Way” and “Scarface” but whose name you never know.

1936: “Mr. Deeds Goes to Washington” the comedy for which Robert Riskin wrote the Oscar winning script was released in the United States toay.


1936: In Bucharest, Rumania, “the Liberal Party combined with the National Peasant Party” today demanded “that the government put an end to the activities of the Iron Gaurds” and others that are part of “the extreme right wing anti-Semitic Fascist movement.”


1936: In the Netherlands, “Het Volk, the leading Labor newspaper” said the German “consulate distributed copies of a Nazi publication, ‘Germans Abroad’ which contains an article that is an insult to Amsterdam’s Jewish population.”


1936: Dr. Albert Einstein wrote a letter to Rabbi Lazar Schonfeld soliciting his support for Yeshiva College.

1937: When a caretaker opened the gates at a Jewish cemetery this morning he “found sixteen tombstones overturned” and damage to the cemetery wall in several places which was “believed to have been” done by the Nazis.


1938(15th of Nisan, 5698): First Day of Pesach


1938: On the first day of Pesach, Rabbi David de Sola Pool at the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue said " The Passover message of freedom is a ringing call to- man to struggle to preserve his civic liberty and his freedom of thought, speech and conscience." Speaking to a crowd o 2,500 at Temple Emanu-El, Rabbi Samuel Goldenson stressed the necessity for Jews “to reaffirm the importance of liberty and freedom.”  He also drew a comparison between the plight of the Jews of Egypt and plight of Jews living in totalitarian states in Europe. 


1938: Arturo Toscanini conducted the Palestine Orchestra in Tel Aviv. “The program was a repetition of that given in Haifa earlier this week, but tonight’s performance was even more brilliant because the better acoustics at the Tel Aviv Hall.”


1939: Birthdate of New York native and NYU alum Harvey Golub, “a senior partner with McKinsey and Company” and the CEO of American Express.


1939:  Stalin requested the creation of a British, French & Russian anti-Nazi pact.  Stalin was not blind to Hitler's ambition.  He sought an alliance with the West. However, London and Paris dithered because they were concerned about joining forces with the Communist dictator.  Fearing isolation and having to fight the Germans alone, Stalin negotiated a non-aggression pact with Hitler which freed the Nazis to attack Poland and then turn against the West.  By the time the Germans attacked the Russians, a new government was in power in London.  When Churchill was asked if he would aid Stalin, Churchill said that he would help the Devil if he were fighting the Nazis.


1939: Sensing opportunities with the Soviet Union, Mussolini welcomes the notion of a pact of solidarity with that country.


1940(18thof Nisan, 5700): Sixty-nine year old Esther Greenebaum, the daughter of Adolph and Johanna Loeb and the wife of Henry Naphtali Greenebaum with whom she had four children – Charlotte, Sarah, Michael and Henry – passed away today in Chicago.


1940: Before going to Griffith Stadium to watch the opening game of the baseball stadium, President Roosevelt met this morning with Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau, Jr.


1940: On opening day at Griffith Stadium, the home of the Washington Senators, President Roosevelt accidently smashed the camera of a Jewish photographer.Irving Schlossenberg was a photographer with the Washington Post.  After FDR had thrown the ceremonial “first pitch,” Schlossenberg convinced him to do it a second time so that he could get a better picture.  Unfortunately, Roosevelt’s second pitch went wild and smashed Schlossenberg’s camera.  Schlossenberg went on to serve as a combat photographer with the United States Marine Corps hitting the beach in the first wave at four different landings – a fete that help to earn him four bronze stars.


1941: Germans invade Sarajevo, and with the help of Muslims (of whom they had incited) looted and destroyed the main Sephardic synagogue.  All Jews were ordered to surrender their radios.


1941: German troops and local Muslims looted and destroyed the main synagogue in Sarajevo, Yugoslavia.


1941(19th of Nisan, 5701): Aron Beckermann became the first Jew to be shot by the Germans for resistance in France.


1942: SS officials in the Ukraine informed authorities in Berlin that the Crimea is judenrein (purged of Jews).


1944: After forcing the Jews to register, the Hungarian government confiscated the property of the Jewish population.


1944: The Parczew partisans, fighters in irregular military groups participating in the Jewish resistance movement against Nazi Germany and its collaborators during World War II “participated in the take over the city of Parczew today.

1944:In impressive services held this afternoon at the Central Synagogue, Lexington Avenue at Fifty-Fifth Street, three American Jewish leaders including S.W. Baron, J.N. Rosenberg and W. Rosenwald received the honorary degree of Doctor of Hebrew Letters from Hebrew Union College


1946(15th of Nisan, 5706): On the first day of Pesach, American journalist Mrs. Margaret Ashton Stimson Lindsley entered Acre Prison so that she could interview imprisoned members of the Irgun.  The British had turned down her requests to review the prisoners, so Mrs. Lindsley took advantage of the British practice of allowing family members to visit prisoners on Pesach.  Mrs. Lindsley pretended to be a member of the first family of Revisionist Zionism, the Jabotinskys, so she could join them on a visit to jail.  There she interviewed Eri Jabotinsky, son of the Revisionist Zionist leader, Vladimir Ze'ev Jabotinsky. a leader of the Irgun's "aliya bet" underground railroad, which smuggled tens of thousands of Jews from Europe to Palestine in defiance of British immigration restrictions and his 17-year-old cousin Peleg Tamir, who was also an Irgun activist


1946: Birthdate of Little Rock, AR native Margot Adler, the granddaughter of Alfred Adler, the author whose writing on Neopaganism showed how far she had moved from her from the faith of her grandfather.

1947:  Bernard Baruch the famed Jewish financier and unofficial advisor to several Presidents reportedly coined the term “cold war” to describe the relationship between the U.S. and the Soviets.


1947(26th of Nisan, 5707): The British executedfour members of the Irgun – Dov Gruner, Mordechai Alkahi, Hehiel Dresner and Eliezer Kashani – in Acre Prison.1948:  During the Israeli War for Independence a platoon of Palmach soldiers made its way into the city of Safed where the Jewish quarter was under siege from a large Arab force.  The appearance of this small but tough group of Israeli fighters stiffened the spirit of the besieged population.  With the sanction of the local rabbis, the largely Orthodox population worked to improve the defenses of the Jewish quarter even though the work would interfere with preparations for Pesach.  The Palmach arrived just in the nick of time, since the departing British forces turned over the keys to their police fortress and other fortified positions to the Arab military forces. Ultimately, the Jews of Safed would prevail and the Arab military units would be driven out.  


1948:Jamal Husseini, “the former Secretary to the Executive Committee of the Palestine Arab Congress” told the Security Council today, “The representative of the Jewish Agency told us yesterday that they were not the attackers, that the Arabs had begun the fighting. We did not deny this. We told the whole world that we were going to fight.”


1948: In Manhattan, Sam Aaron “a founder and chairman of Sherry-Lehman, the New York wine merchant” and “the former Florence Goldberg, a geriatric therapist” gave birth to Jane Frances Aaron the “filmmaker and illustrator” best known to many for the animated shorts she made for “Sesame Street.”

1950(29th of Nisan, 5710): A four story building in Jaffa collapsed killing twelve and injuring thirty.  Most of the dead were newly arrived immigrants.  The cause of the collapse is still under investigation but it is thought to have been the result of the removal of one of the building’s pillars to make room for carpentry equipment being installed in a shop on the ground floor.


1951: The Beh Sabagahs arrived at the airport at Baghdad where they were greeted by mobs yelling “Rot in Hell” and then were abused by guards before they could board a plane for Israel.


1951: Cantor David Werdyger and his wife gave birth to .Mordechai Werdyger, “an American Hasidic Jewish singer and songwriter popular in the Orthodox Jewish community known by his stage name Mordechai Ben David.


1951: “The Great Caruso” the biopic produced by Joe Pasternak was released in the United States today.


1952: Birthdate of Esther Roth-Shachamorov , the native of Tel Aviv and record-setting track and field star who married gymnast and coach Peter Roth with she had two children – a daughter Einat and a son Yaron who became a national fencing champion.


1953(1st of Iyar, 5713): Rosh Chodesh Iyar


1953: U.S. premiere of “Titanic” a cinematic treatment of the ocean disaster with music by Sol Kaplan.


1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that army engineers had completed a new road, bringing Wadi Ramon within 212 km. of Tel Aviv. The last stage comprised a steep descent of 250 meters along 4.5 km. of the literally vertical wall of the Makhtesh - a great engineering achievement. The road was now planned to reach Eilat. Syria reportedly prepared a list of all Jewish property to be placed in the hands of a custodian, should Israel carry out its decision to sell the property of Arab refugees.


1953: Birthdate of J. Neil Schulman author, screenwriter, journalist, radio personality, and filmmaker who is the son of famed violinist Julius Schulman.


1953:The New York Times reports that “Jack Benny plans to increase his television appearances next fall to once every three weeks, and will film six of the half-hour programs this summer. The six or seven remaining shows for the 1953-54 season will be done "live."


1954:In the Bronx, Evelyn (née Rozin) Barkin and Sol Barkin gave birth to actress Emmy and Tony award winning actress Ellen Rona Barkin, the sister of George Barkin who has been the editor-in-chief of National Lampoon and High Times. The Bronx born actress appeared in such films as the big Easy and the Sea of Love and gained additional fame as the fourth wife of “Cosmetic’s King” Ron Perlemen.


1957: Terrorists infiltrated from Jordan, and killed two guards at Kibbutz Mesilot.


1959: Vic Morrow appeared in the premiere of NBC's 1920s crime drama “The Lawless Years” in the episode "The Nick Joseph Story".


1960: Birthdate of Long Island native award-winning author Daniel Mendelsohn the graduate of U. Va. and holder of a Ph.D. from Princeton whose works include The Lost: A Search for the Six Million.

1962: In New York City, Judith and Donald Blinken gave birth to foreign policy expert Anthony “Tony” John Blinken who was raised in part his step-father attorney and Holocaust Survivor Samuel Pisar.


1963(22ndof Nisan, 5723): Eighth Day of Pesach


1964(4thof Iyar, 5724): Yom HaAtzma’ut


1964: In New York City “writer Buz Kohan and novelist Rhea Kohan gave birth to producer and writer David Sanford Kohan and his “twin brother Jono.


1965(14th of Nisan, 5725): Ta'anit Bechorot


1965(14th of Nisan, 5725): Seventy-eight year old Mendel Osherowitch, a former editor “The Jewish Daily Forward” and a leading Yiddish author passed away today in Manhattan

1966: Jan Peerce “was one of the participants in the Metropolitan's farewell gala marking the last performance in the old opera house.”


1968(18th of Nisan, 5728): Fourth day of Pesach


1968(18th of Nisan, 5728): Eighty-two year old author Edna Ferber passed away  Born in Michigan in 1885, Ferber's parents were Jewish immigrants from Hungary.  Ferber was proud of her Jewish heritage.  In her autobiography she described anti-Semitic episodes of her youth.  She also recounted the story of a meeting with three of her friends and a New York society matron.  When the society lady, boasted about having thrown away a book because it was written by a Jew, Ferber and her friends (all Jewish as well) walked out on her.  Ferber won a Pulitzer for So Big.  She is also known for other epics including Showboat and Giant, both of which became successful movies.

1970(10th of Nisan, 5730): Seventy-eight year old Vienna born American architect Richard Joseph Neutra passed away today.

1972: “The Culpepper Cattle Co.” the first film produced by Jerry Bruckheimer as released today in the United States.


1973(14th of Nisan, 5733): Fast of the First Born; erev Pesach


1978: NBC broadcast “The Gathering Darkness” the first episode of the miniseries “Holocaust” tonight.


1978: The Jerusalem Post reported that US president Carter's Administration, which had just sold 50 F-5E jet fighters to Egypt, was prepared to approve the sale of 3,000 US-made armored carriers to Egypt. In Washington, Alfred Atherton, the US Middle Eastern envoy, said that it was up to Israel to make the stalled peace negotiations with Egypt possible


1978: The Jerusalem Postreported that the number of those making Aliya in March, 1978, increased by 35 percent in comparison with that of March, 1977. The majority of the 1,988 new immigrants who arrived in March came from the Soviet Union.


1979:  Zaventem Airport in Belgium was the scene of a failed attack by Palestinian terrorists.


1980: The Presidium of the Brussels World Conference on Soviet Jewry opened its meeting today in Paris.


1980: Phyllis Trible whom Athalya Brenner called one of the "prominent matriarchs of contemporary feminist bible criticism" became a full Professor at Union Theological Seminary.

1982:“Leningrad refusenik student Mikhail Tsyvin was again arrested after chaining himself to the railings outside St. Basil’s Cathedral in Red Square, demanding permission to emigrate to Israel.”


1984(14thof Nisan, 5774): Fast of the First Born; erev Pesach


1984: Birthdate of White Plains, NY native Noah Fleiss, the actor who “is a distant relative” of the infamous Heidi Fleiss.


1986(7thof Nisan, 5746): One day after celebrating his 75th birthday, University of Wisconsin alum Charles “Buckets” Goldenberg who played for 13 years with the Green Bay Packers passed away today.

1986:Yitzhak Moda'I switched from serving as Minister of Finance to Minister of Justice.


1989: “In recognition of Rabbi Schneerson’s” works “Congress, by House Joint Resolution 173 designated” today as “Education Day, U.S.A.”


1993(25thof Nisan, 5753): Hamas stages what is believed to be its first suicide car bombing at Mehola Junction, killing two and wounding ten.


1995(16thof Nisan, 5755): Second Day of Pesach


1995: “The Sarajevo Haggadah,” one of the world's most beautiful illustrated Jewish manuscripts, emerged today from the chaos of the Bosnian war at a Passover ceremony that offered a moment of reconciliation in a shattered city. The fate of the richly illustrated 14th-century Haggadah, or Passover ceremonial book, had been unknown since the war began in 1992. Rumors circulated that the medieval book, perhaps the best known Hebrew illustrated manuscript in existence, had been destroyed, lost or sold. But the Bosnian Government, acting at the request of Sarajevo's vestigial Jewish community, laid the rumors to rest today by bringing the Haggadah from the vaults of the national bank to an unusual Passover ceremony. In a city encircled and bereft of freedom, about 70 people gathered for a feast celebrating the freedom of the Jews through deliverance from Egypt. Addressing himself to Sarajevo's Jews, of whom 525 remain from a prewar total of 1,300, President Alija Izetbegovic said: "I ask you not to leave Bosnia, I ask you to stay here. This is also your country. "Our wish is that this country should be a tolerant community of religions and nations, as it has been for centuries," he added. President Izetbegovic, the leader of Bosnia's governing Muslim nationalist Party of Democratic Action, did not remain in the synagogue for the Seder itself. But his presence at the start of a ceremony also attended by religious leaders of the city's Catholic, Orthodox and Muslim sects was clearly intended to buttress emotional support for a multi-ethnic Bosnia at a time when three years of war appeared to have done irreparable damage to that ideal. "Spend your holiday in peace, and enjoy," President Izetbegovic said, "as much as is possible in these circumstances." In the synagogue, where Jews, Muslims, Serbs and Croats mingled amid quiet conversation and mutual respect, peace appeared possible for a moment. It was as if the frail Haggadah, with its painstakingly beautiful and vivid illustrations of subjects including the creation of the world and Moses blessing the Israelites, had imparted a lesson of patience and tolerance. But outside, the city lived another day of ordinary violence. A French soldier in the United Nations peacekeeping force was killed while trying to set up an anti-sniper barrier outside the Holiday Inn, where many journalists and diplomats stay. He was the second French soldier killed in two days. NATO jets swooped overhead, to no visible effect, and there were regular bursts of machine-gun fire. It had been thought that the Haggadah, created in northern Spain between 1350 and 1400, might have been another victim of this violence. Kept but very rarely shown at the Sarajevo National Museum before the war broke out, the book had disappeared from view completely. Before today, the book was last seen in 1989, on a single afternoon as part of an exhibition called "The Jews of Yugoslavia." Before that, it had only been seen once since World War II, when it was displayed for a few hours in 1966, on the 400th anniversary of the arrival in Sarajevo of the Spanish Jews. The Haggadah (meaning "the telling" in Hebrew) is an account of the Egyptian bondage of the Jews, a thanksgiving to God for deliverance and a prayer for ultimate redemption. The Sarajevo manuscript, consisting of 142 pages of vellum, some illustrated, some blank, belonged to a Jewish family that was probably expelled from Spain in 1492. From there, the exact steps are unknown, but in 1609 it was sold in Italy. After that, it did not resurface until 1894, when a Sarajevo family of Sephardic Jews named Kohen sold the book to the National Museum, then under the administration of Austro-Hungarian officials. The book was then taken to Vienna. Later it was returned to the Sarajevo Museum, where a German officer tried to take it in 1941. But the museum's director contrived to hide it from the Nazis, and the book was returned to the museum at the end of the war. Marked with wine stains and children's scrawls, the book bears the evidence of its peregrinations. It is at once a religious manuscript of unusual beauty and a well-used family prayer book. The Haggadah's value was appraised at $700 million in 1991, when Spain asked for it to be sent there for an 1992 exhibition marking the 400th anniversary of its expulsions of Jews. The book was not lent. Today, Ivan Ceresnjes, the head of the Jewish community of Bosnia and Herzegovina, said that President Izetbegovic had mentioned the possibility of sending the Haggadah somewhere for restoration, perhaps the United States. "It's 700 years old, but who will take care of it for the next 700 years?" he asked. But President Izetbegovic made no reference in his remarks, and it appeared unlikely that a book so identified with this city could be sent elsewhere at this time. Mr. Ceresnjes said he believed that Bosnia's mixed society was not yet totally destroyed, but that "the longer the war goes on, the more difficult it is because people are losing confidence in each other." He added that the Government was being pushed toward a more radical identification with Islam. At the start of the war, the Jewish community, helped by Muslim, Croatian and Serbian volunteers, established an aid organization called Benevolencia -- named after a society set up by Sarajevo Jews in 1892 to help the poor. The organization has provided medicine, a first-aid clinic, food and postal services. "Our work, it shows us our standpoint," said Mr. Ceresnjes. "We are a small community, but we have set out to show that it is still possible to live like before."


1996(27thof Nisan, 5756): Yom HaShoah


1997: In “Retracing Jewish Steps, Through Haroseth” Joan Nathan traces the origins of this staple of the Seder plate.

1999: A symposium entitled The History of American Jewish Political Conservatism held at American University in Washington, D.C. comes to a close.


2000: Fifty year old Raik Haj Yahia, an Israeli Arab who had served in the Knesset as a member of the Labor Party passed away today.


2000: The New York Times included reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including “Lingua Ex Machina: Reconciling Darwin and Chomsky With the Human Brain” by William H. Calvin and Derek Bickerton,The Knowledge Factory: Dismantling the Corporate University and Creating True Higher Learning” by Stanley Aronowitz and the recently released paperback edition of “The First Two Centuries of Slavery in North America” by Ira Berlin in which “the historian examines the many forms and meanings of slavery between the arrival of the first blacks in Virginia in 1619 and the rise of King Cotton.”


2000(11th of Nisan, 5760): Seventy-seven year old international law scholar Abram Chayes passed away today.

2002(4th of Iyar, 5762):  Yom Hazikaron.


2002:The Sherman Brothers' classic motion picture, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang was adapted into a London West End Musical in 2002 and premiered at the London Palladium today featuring many new songs and a reworked score by both Sherman Brothers


2003(14thof Nisan, 5763): Ta’anit Bechorot; Erev Pesach


2003: U.S premiere of “A Mighty Wind” a comedy based on “the 2003 tribute concert to folk music producer Harold Leventhal” featuring Harry Shearer and Eugene Levy who also co-authored the script.


2003: In “Once Sweet and Heavy, Now Dry and Desirable,” published today Amanda Hesser describes the change in the nature of Kosher for Passover wine and the growth of it is a commercial operation. “It was not so long ago that kosher wines ranked right up there with Jägermeister and Coors Light on the quality scale. They were as sweet as Cherry Coke and about as complex. And those kosher wines that did try to break the mold were rough around the edges at best. For makers of kosher wine, this has been a difficult reputation to shake, partly because some people are so accustomed to the sweet-style Passover wines that they become oddly sentimental when faced with new choices, and partly because consumers maintain a misperception that all kosher wine has been boiled and therefore must be bad. But over the last decade, the kosher wine industry has worked to change people's minds. The efforts were conservative at first, with winemakers rolling out a handful of new labels advertised as dry rather than sweet. Now, however, they are attracting consumers with kosher wines -- good kosher wines, as it happens -- made all over the world, from the Barossa Valley in Australia to Bordeaux, sherries to Champagnes, and with prices up to $250. In some instances, it is working. Sales at the Web site kosherwine.com have grown more than 300 percent this year, and the company now offers more than 400 kosher wines and spirits. Astor Wines & Liquors in Manhattan, which carried about 40 kosher labels five years ago, now has more than 100.”

2004: “An Agent for Good” published today described the life and career of “Edward Lewis Wallant” an author whose premature death did not keep people from comparing him to “postwar Jewish American writers - Saul Bellow, Bernard Malamud, Norman Mailer and Philip Roth.”

2005:Tears as day of deliverance from Belsen recalled” published today described the liberation of Begen-Belsen in the words of the surviors.

2006: The New York Times featured a review of Sweet and Low: A Family Story, by Rich Cohen. Yes, it is a Jewish family that is responsible for bring Sweet N Low, that staple of the diet world, to the American dieting consumer.  Eat, eat my child gives way to diet, diet my child. The Times also reviewed the recently released paperback edition of “The Orientalist: Solving the Mystery of a Strange and Dangerous Life” by Tom Reiss.  Part cultural biography, part literary mystery, Reiss's book chronicles the life of Lev Nussimbaum (1905-42), a Jew who transformed himself into a Muslim prince and became a bestselling author in Nazi Germany. Under the pen name Kurban Said, Nussimbaum wrote "Ali and Nino," a romance novel set in Azerbaijan at the time of the Russian Revolution. His enormously popular books and articles as "Essad Bey" opened a window on the Islamic world. Disentangling fact from fiction in Nussimbaum's life, Reiss also unlocks fascinating details on everything from the rise of fascism to the origins of the Shiite-Sunni split.”


2007: An exhibition entitled “Daring to Resist: Jewish Defiance in the Holocaust” opens at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York. “During the Holocaust, Jews throughout Europe, through individual and collective acts of resistance, sought to undermine the Nazi goal of the annihilation of the Jewish people. Jews engaged in a range of resistance activities with the aim of preserving Jewish life and dignity despite unimaginable difficulties.  Their efforts powerfully refute the popular perception that Jews were passive victims. Through testimony, archival footage, and authentic artifacts, the exhibition will help visitors to understand the dilemmas that Jews faced under impossible circumstances.  Whether praying clandestinely, documenting the experiences of Jews in the ghettos, or taking up arms to fight, these responses took many forms, but each and every one was a courageous act of resistance.”


2007: Time Magazine featured an article by Walter Isaacson entitled “Einstein & Faith.”  The article was based on Walter Isaacson”s latest literary effort, Einstein: His Life and Universe.


2007(28th of Nisan, 5767): Ninety-three year old college basketball star and attorney Abe Weissbrodt passed away today.

2007(28th of Nisan, 5767): In one of history’s many ironies, a Holocaust Survivor was murdered on the day after Yom HaShoah. Liviu Librescu aged 76; a Romanian born Israeli teaching at Virginia Tech was killed in a massacre, in which a gunman killed 33 people at the university before committing suicide. This was the deadliest shooting rampage in modern U.S. history. Students of the Israeli lecturer who said he saved the lives of several students by blocking the doorway of his classroom from the approaching gunman before he was fatally shot. "He himself was killed but thanks to him his students stayed alive," an Israeli student who survived the massacre told Army Radio. Librescu, had known tragedy since childhood. When Romania joined forces with Nazi Germany in World War II, the young Librescu was interned in a labor camp, and then sent along with his family and thousands of other Jews to a central ghetto in the city of Focsani, his son said. Hundreds of thousands of Romanian Jews were killed by the collaborationist regime during the war.


2007: Israeli photographer Oded Balilty working for the Associated Press won the Pulitzer Prize for Photography.This is the award-winning picture of the Amona outpost evacuation


2008(11th of Nisan, 5768): Three IDF soldiers were killed and two others were wounded Wednesday after coming under heavy fire from Palestinian gunmen while patrolling the border with the Gaza Strip.The soldiers who were killed were identified as Sgt. Matan Ovdati, 19, from Patish, Sgt. Menhash Albaniat, 20, a tracker from Kuseife in the Negev and Sgt. David Papian, 21, from Tel Aviv.


2008: In Florida, Rabbi Andrew Baker presents a program entitled “Confronting the Resurgence of Anti-Semitism in Europe.” As the American Jewish Committee's Director of International Jewish Affairs, Rabbi Baker is a leading expert on anti-Semitism in Europe and other challenges including Holocaust restitution. As director of European affairs for 8 years he was instrumental in developing programs to promote tolerance in the emerging democracies of Central and Eastern Europe and was awarded the Officer's Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany. He is a founding member of a national commission in Romania chaired by Elie Wiesel that examines the history of the Holocaust.


2008: As part of the Israel at 60 Celebration, the 92nd Street Y presents Professor Uri Cohen’s review of the development of Israeli culture from1948 to the Present through an examination of Israeli Film, Music and Literature.


2008: Hedy Epstein, whose parents died in concentration camps during the Holocaust speaks at Cornell College in Mt. Vernon and Mount Mercy College in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.


2008: In New York, The Center for Jewish History presents “The History of Jewish Involvement
in Building New York” with the following breakout sessions:


  • New York 1908: The Apartment House Comes to Gotham...
    and Look Who Moves In presented by Barry Lewis, Architectural Historian

  • Who Are the People in Your Neighborhood? Jewish Migration and Ethnicity in New York City presented by Joseph Salvo, Demographer

  • The Banker, the Realtor, and the Delicatessen Owner: The Jewish Businessmen of the Lower East Side presented by Annie Polland, Lower East Side Historian

  • The Evolution of the Jewish Real Estate Family moderated by Judith H. Dobrzynski, former New York Times Editor and Reporter and Simon Ziff, Ackman-Ziff Real Estate Grou
2008: The New York Times reviewed The Much Too Promised Land by Aaron David Miller a Jewish native of Cleveland, Ohio who spent most of two decades as diplomat involved in America’s attempts to bring peace to the Middle East.



2009(22nd of Nisan, 5769):Eight Day of Pesach. 


2009:Jan Karski was honored by the Polish Government and New York City today. In recognition of Karski’s wartime courage and lifelong commitment to the memory and history of Polish Jews, Poland memorialized Karski with the unveiling of a new street sign in front of the De Lamar Mansion, the Consulate’s residence at 233 Madison Avenue at East 37th Street, which was officially designated Jan Karski Corner during the ceremony. As a courier for the Polish Underground during World War II, Karski was the first person to bring news of the Holocaust directly to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and English Prime Minister Winston Churchill.


2010: A memorial service is scheduled to be held today honoring Steffi Sidney-Splaver.


2010: Altered States of Reality: an Exhibition of Analog and Digital Photography an exhibition featuring six Israeli artists, Offer Goldfarb, Goodash, Gabriel Leitner, Uri Mahlev, Eli Matityahu and Shifra, is scheduled to open at Agora Gallery in New York City.


2011(12 Nisan, 5771): Shabbat Ha-Gadol.


2011(12 Nisan, 5771): Television and film script writer Sol Saks passed away at the age of 100.  Among other accomplishments was his role in the creation of the hit television sit-com, “Bewitched” for which he wrote the first script. (As reported by Margalit Fox)

2011(12 Nisan, 5771):Milton D. Glick, 73, the 15th president of the University of Nevada, Reno and nationally respected figure in higher education, whose academic career spanned more than 50 years, passed away today in Reno.


2011: Yahrzeit for the Jews of York, England: On Shabbat Ha-Gadol (Nisan, 4950) in 1190 the Jews of York were attacked by a mob including crusaders heading for the Holy Land.  They gave the Jews the choice of converting or death.  Most of the Jews chose death, which meant murder-suicide pacts.  A few Jews did surrender to the mob, but they were murdered any way. 


2011: “A Late Marriage,” an Israeli film set in the Georgian community of Tel Aviv, is scheduled to be shown at Columbia Jewish Congregation’s (CJC) 2011 - Nineteenth Season of Movies in Columbia, MD.


2011: Gil and Orli Shaham are scheduled to give a recital at the 92nd St Y that will include Achron’s Hebrew Dance, Op. 35, No. 1 and Hebrew Melody, Op. 33  as well as Bloch’s Ba’al Shem for Violin and Piano.


2011:Air Force fighter jets struck two targets in Gaza early today in response to a double-Grad rocket attack on Ashdod that shattered a six-day cease-fire.


2012: Holocaust survivors John and Michael Schwabacher are among those who are planning on attending the memorial program scheduled to begin today in Wurzburg, Germany – the city from which they fled after having survived the Holocaust.


2012: “Follow Me: The Yoni Netanyahu Story” is scheduled to be shown at the Westchester Jewish Film Festival.


2012: Rabbi Alfredo F. Borodowski is scheduled to begin teaching “The Maimonides Letters: Leadership at a Time of Crisis” at the Skirball Center for Adult Jewish Learning.


2013(6thof Iyar, 5773): Yom Haatzmaut (Israel Independence Day)


2013: “Koch” and “Yossi” are scheduled to be shown at the Westchester Jewish Film Festival.


2013: In London, the Wiener Library is scheduled to host a genealogy workshop, at no charge, that “is designed for descendant of refuges and Holocaust survivors, especially members of the second generation.”


2013: The Center for Jewish History and the American Jewish Historical are scheduled to present an evening with Ann Kirschner author Lady at the O.K. Corral, a biography of Josephine Sara Marcus Earp, the wife of the famous western lawman who had him buried in a Jewish cemetery.


2013: The Center for Jewish History and Israel Film Center are scheduled to present “Through His Eyes,” a ” documentary history of Israeli cinema through the eyes of a still photographer, Yoni Hamenahem, who for the past 40 years has photographed the sets of many of Israel's classic films.”


2013: Mathew Nash’s film – “16 Photographs at Ohrdruf” –which tells of the first concentration liberated by the U.S. Army in 1945 is scheduled to be shown at the Boston International Film Festival


2013: Eighty-nine year old Holocaust survivor Renee Firestone is scheduled to speak at Kirkwood Community college this morning and at Mount Mercy University this evening.  Her appearance is sponsored by the Joan and David Thaler Holocaust Memorial Foundation.


2013(6th of Iyar, 5773): Ninety-eight year old Jake Alhadeff, the native of Atlanta, GA who moved to Maitland, FL in 2003 passed away today.


2013: Eighty-nine year old Holocaust survivor Renee Firestone is scheduled to speak at Kirkwood Community college this morning and at Mount Mercy University this evening.  Her appearance is sponsored by the Joan and David Thaler Holocaust Memorial Foundation.


2014(16th of Nisan, 5774): Second Day of Pesach – First day of the Omer


2014: Macon Openshaw, 21, of Salt Lake City, pleaded guilty today in U.S. District Court for the District of Utah to firing three rounds from a handgun at the Congregation Kol Ami synagogue in Salt Lake City (As reported by JTA)


2014: The Magical Festival is scheduled to open this morning in Tel Aviv’s Hayarkon Park.


2015(27th of Nisan, 5775): Yom HaShoah


2015(27th of Nisan, 5775): Ninety-three year old mental health pioneer Mira Rothenberg whose father died in the Holocaust passed away today.

2015: As part of the Skirball Center’s Yom HaShoan observance Menachem Z. Rosensaft the editor of God, Faith & Identity from the Ashes, New York Times reporter Joseph Berger, senior editor of Tablet Magazine Stephanie Butnick, Amichai Lau-Lavie, founder of Storahtelling, David Miliband, former Foreign Secretary of the UK, and senior fellow at New York University, Thane Rosenbaum, are scheduled to discuss how memories of the past affect their lives.


2015: Holocaust survivor Bob Behr is scheduled to speak at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum as part of the First Person program.


2015: “Bialik” King of the Jews” is scheduled to be shown at the Westchester Jewish Film Festival.


2015: “Saviors on the Screen,”  “a special Films Series dedicated to the rescuers of Jews during the Holocaust presented by the International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation and the JCC Manhattan is scheduled to take place today.


2015: On Yom HaShoah, Nancy Baron-Baer, the Regional Director of the ADL is scheduled to “conduct a discussion about Anti-Semitism in today's world and how to combat it” at the National Museum of American Jewish History.


2015: According to Army Radio, an “ultra-Orthodox soldier was threatened and called a Nazi by Haredi men today in Beit Shemesh near Jerusalem.



2016(8thof Nisan, 5776): Shabbat HaGadol;



2016: “Junun” and “Rosenwald” are scheduled to be shown for the last time at the Westchester Jewish Film Festival.


2016: Israeli composer Ophir Ilzetzki is scheduled to have his American premiere at the 2016 MATA Festival.

2017: The Jerusalem Bird Observatory is scheduled to conduct a trip on the Knesset trail – “a free tour about birds, Jerusalem history and nature.”


2017: In upholding “the government’s closure of the Taba border crossing into Egypt over the Passover festival,” Israel’s High Court “found that there was a genuine threat and risk to Israeli tourists” and that therefore, “the government was correct in closing the border.


2017: Today the navy sent a specialized search ship and an elite team of divers to the Sea of Galilee to help in the search for three people -- Itamar Ohana, 19, from the northern city of Kiryat Shmona; Nahman Itah, 21, from the West Bank settlement of Beitar Illit; and Liron Karadi, 17, from the coastal Israeli city of Netanya -- who went missing last week after they were swept by winds away from the coast and into deeper water.”


2017: The New York Times featured reviews by Jewish writers and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The First Love Story: Adam, Eve and Us by Bruce Feiler and What to do About the Solomons by Bethany Ball.


2018(1stof Iyar, 5778): Rosh Chodesh Iyar; for more see http://downhomedavartorah.blogspot.com/


2018: The YIVO Institute is scheduled to present “a discussion led by Edna Nahsohn about her recent book Wrestling with Shylock: Jewish Responses to the Merchant of Venice.


2018: The ADL’S 30th annual Sam Miller Catholic Jewish Colloquium with Rev. Dennis McManus and Rabbi Stephen Weiss is scheduled to take place in the Center for Pastoral Leadership.


2018: Holocaust survivor Michael Bornstein who was only four years old when liberated and his daughter Debbie Bornstein Holinstat are scheduled to speak at the Community Yom HaShoah Service in Cedar Rapids, IA which is being sponsored by The Thaler Holocaust Education Programming Committee chaired Dr. Robert Silber.


2018: In Cleveland, Ohio, the Ritz-Carlton is scheduled to open its new Kosher kitchen with a staff trained by “Israeli kosher chefs Kobi Ohanyon and Adir Cohen.


 



 


 

This Day, April 17, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. Levin

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April 17



69: After the First Battle of Bedriacum, Vitellius becomes Roman Emperor. The year 69 was called “The Year of the Four Emperors” because four different claimants held the position in this brief period of time.  According to Rome and Jerusalem, the sacking of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Second Temple were byproducts of this violent year and grew out of a need by Vitellius’ successor, Vespasian, to prove his power and legitimacy.



392: The Roman Emperors issued a new law “stating that Jewish leaders who have been expelled by their community cannot be forced back on the” Jewish community by Roman judges.  While this may seem like a gain for the Jews, the decree refers to them as “belonging to the Jewish superstition” – language that does not bode well for the long-term well-being of the Jews in the Roman Empire.



1222:  Deacon Robert of Reading (England) was burned for converting to Judaism, setting the precedent for the burning of heretics.



http://www.executedtoday.com/tag/robert-of-reading/



http://www.oxfordjewishheritage.co.uk/projects/osney-abbey-first-public-burning-in-england/137-the-robert-of-reading-plaque



1397: Geoffrey Chaucer tells the Canterbury Tales for the first time at the court of Richard II. Chaucer scholars have also identified this date (in 1387) as when the book's pilgrimage to Canterbury starts. There should be no connection between the Jewish people and Chaucer since the Jews had been expelled from England a century before he told his “tales.”  But Chaucer is proof that you do not need Jews to have anti-Semitism.  The “Prioress’s Tale,” one of the the twenty-three stories contains the following plot line,  “While wandering through the Jewish section of town singing hymns of his faith an eight-year old Christian child is murdered…The frantic mother uncovers the crime when she hears her newly buried son singing Alma Redemptoris.  Justice is sternly served when the Jewish community is wiped out in retaliation.” 



1506(Nisan, 5266): In Lisbon, several Conversos were discovered who had in their possession "some lambs and poultry prepared according to Jewish custom.”  They also had “unleavened bread and bitter herbs” needed “according to the regulations for the Passover, which festival they celebrated far into the night." Several of them were seized, but were released after a few days. Angered by the release, mobs would riot and attack conversos living in the Portuguese capital.



1525(Nisan, 5285): Isaac ben Jacob Margolioth, the son of Nuremberg Rabbi Jacob Margolioth, who served as a rabbi at Prague and wrote a preface to one of his father’s works passed away today.



1528: First Jews settle legally in Fuerth, Bavaria



1559:  At Cremona, Italy, Sixtus Senesis, an apostate Jew, who had become a Dominican, tried to convince the local Spanish governor to burn the Talmud. The governor demanded witnesses before he would give the order. Vitttorio Eliano the converted grandson of Elias Levita and one Joshua dei Cantori bore witness that the Talmud was full of lies about Christianity. A few days later approximately 10,000 books were burned. The Zohar was not touched since the Pope and the Catholic Church was interested in its publication believing that it would supplant the Talmud and make it easier to convert the Jews. Ironically it was Eliano himself who wrote the preface to the Cremora Zohar.



1579: The seaside town of Youghal in County Cork, Ireland was damaged during the which was badly damaged today during the Second Desmond Rebellion had had the unique distinction in 1555 of being the first Irish town to have a Jewish mayor – William Moses Annyas Eanes, the grandson of Gil Eanes of Belmonte, Portugal.  Francis Eanes served as the town’s mayor on three different occasions coinciding with the rebellion but the relation between the two men has yet to be determined.



1581: King Phillip, who commanded the governor of Milan to expel the Jews from Alessandra, began his reign as King of Portugal and Algarves.



1671: In Amsterdam, construction began on a synagogue under the direction of the architect, Elias Bouman. The Sephardic community had bought the land in December of 1670.



1682(9thof Nisan, 5441): Today a riot broke out in Carpentras which “French liturgical poet” Saul ben Joseph of Monteux memorialized in a piyyut.



1731: Yeshivah Minhat Arab became the first Jewish day school in North American when it was founded today in the colony of New York. “The hazzan who taught the classes was instructed to teach the students ‘the Hebrew Spanish and English writing and arithmetick.’Eventually its name was changed to the Polonies Talmud Torah.”



1748(19thof Nisan, 5508): Raphael Meldola passed away at Leghorn. Born at Leghorn in 1685, he was the son of Eleazar Meldola and Reina Senior.  He served as rabbi in Pisa, Bayonne and St. Esprit.



1750:  Frederick II issued a general patent to the Jews limiting their role in the Prussian economy to activities involving commerce and industry. Jews were no longer viewed as dependents of the monarch but as citizens of the state even though they were not first class citizens. On the one hand, Jews were encouraged to be part of the state and its economy. On the other hand they were still second class citizens and divided into two classes - privileged and protected. Considered by some to be an "enlightened monarch," King Frederick wrote his “Political Testament” that was published in 1752 in which he described Jews as dangerous, superstitious and backward.



1765: Jews of Arnhem were given permission to build a synagogue.



1770: Charleston (SC) merchant, Moses Lindo responded to an appeal from Hezekiah Smith and contributed five pounds to Rhode Island College which is now known as Brown University. (As reported by Abraham Bloch)  “Moses Lindo was the inspector-general and surveyor of indigo, drugs, and dyes for South Carolina.”



1775: As “Paul Revere clattered through ‘every Middlesex village and farm’ there were approximately 3,000 Jews living in the thirteen colonies to respond to his call to arms. 



1782(3rd of Iyar, 5542): Chaim Samuel Jacob Falk, known as the “Baal Shem of London” passed away. Reportedly born in 1708, possibly in Furth, Germany, Falk escaped to England in 1742 after authorities in Westphalia had sentenced the Kabbalist and Mystic to death on charges of sorcery.    “Falk left a diary, now in the library of the bet ha-midrash of the United Synagogue, which is a quaint medley of dreams, records of charitable gifts, booklists, cabalistic names of angels, lists of pledges, and cooking-recipes.”



1790: American Patriot, Scientist, Printer and liver of the good life Benjamin Franklin passed away at the age of 84.  As with so many of those of his time, Franklin espoused moral values but mistrusted organize religion.  He used the Exodus from Egypt as a metaphor for the colonists clash with King George, a modern day Pharaoh.  He wanted to have a depiction of the Israelites crossing the Sea of Reeds as part of the Great Seal of the United States.  At a more practical level, his name was at the top of the list of prominent Philadelphians who contributed funds to Congregation Mikveh Israel at the time of its financial need.



1790(3rd of Iyar, 5550):  A major pogrom took place in the Jewish community of Tetouan, Morocco. On this day the Muslim ruler Mawlay Yazid entered the city, rounded up all of the Jews, men women and children, and violently stripped them of their clothing. They were left with no dignity, naked for three days in prison. Some of the Jews fearing for their lives escaped to the graves Moorish saints where they would pray for their lives. The Muslim leader had some Jews beheaded to make a statement.



1797: “The status of the Jews of Posen was now determined by the "General-Juden-Reglement" of this date which aimed to make them, as mechanics and trades-men, useful members of the state.



1797:  In Eastern Poland, after falling to Prussia in the third partition of Poland in 1793, the government enacted "The Regulation" which removed a number of regulations regarding occupations and domicile restrictions for Jews. This still left many of the old regulations in place, including that of not being able to marry under the age of 25 and then only upon proof of a fixed income.



1798: Jews were given permission to “settle within the old city walls of Cologne.”



1801(4thof Iyar, 5561): Fifty-one year old Ruben Moses Rubino the husband of Minkel Rubino passed away today.



1802:  Birthdate of Joseph Salomons, the third son of Levi Salomons. In 1824, he married  a daughter of Joseph Monteflore. He had three daughters, one of whom became the wife of Aaron Goldsmid of London; another the wife, of Lionel Benjamin Cohen; and the third became the wife of Prof. Jacob Waley. Salomons passed away in January, 1829. (As reported by Sir David Salomons)



1801(4thof Iyar, 5561): Fifty-one year old Robert Moses Rubino passed away in Fritzlar, Germany



1817(1st of Iyar, 5577): Rosh Chodesh Iyar



1818: In Mainz, Germany, Michael Creizenach and his wife gave birth to poet and historian Theodor Creizenach.



1829: The consecration of the Maiden Lane Synagogue that had originally been established in 1810 in Soho “as a result of a rupture with the Westminster Congregation (the future Western Synagogue) took place today in Londo.



1833: Thomas Babington Macaulay delivered his speech “on the disabilities of the Jews” in the House of Commons.



1837: Albert Moses Levy's ship, the Independence, was captured by two Mexican brigs-of-war. After three months he escaped and walked back to Texas, where he set up medical practice in Matagorda. The next year he received an appointment to a medical board established by both houses of the Congress of the republic.



1840: In Frankfurt, Clementine Oppenheim and her husband Adolphe de Reinach the Belgian consul in Frankfurt gave birth to French banker Baron Jacob Adolphe Reinach



1840: Birthdate of Hippolyte Bernheim the French born physician whose work with hypnotherapy attracted the attention of Sigmund Freud.



1844: A cabinet order issued today allowed Meno Burg “to replace his black epaulettes with the red shoulder pieces” that were indicative of his role in the Prussian Artillery and which he had been denied to the right to wear because he was Jewish



1848(14thof Nisan, 5608): Fast of the First Born; erev Pesach



1848: The gates of the Rome Ghetto were pulled down during the Revolutions of 1848 that swept much of Europe in general and Italy in particular. Ciceruacchio, a popular Italian Catholic leader, led a group who tore down the gates Passover eve. The Jews in the ghetto at first thought they were being attacked and hid in their houses.



1851(15thof Nisan, 5611): Pesach



1853: Birthdate of German mathematician Arthur Moritz Schoenflies, the great-uncle of Walter Benjamin.



1854: A French-language version of “Margherita d'Anjou an operatic melodramma semiseria in two acts by Giacomo Meyerbeer was performed in New Orleans today.



1856(12th of Nisan, 5616): Fast of the First Born.



1858: Birthdate of Leonard L. Cohen, the President of the Board of Guardians.



1865(21stof Nisan, 5625): Seventh Day of Pesach



1865: In North Carolina, Union General William Tecumseh Sherman met with Confederate General Johnston to discuss the surrender of the Rebels on the same day he learned about the assassination of President Lincoln.



1866: Bryants Minstrels acting as Ethiopian Fun Makers will perform “The Challenge Dance of Shylock” or “The Jew of Chatham Street” tonight in New York City.  [Most Jews are aware of Shylock as a figure of anti-Semitism.  In 19thcentury American references to Chatham Street were equally anti-Semitic.  Chatham Street was the local of the 2nd hand clothing business in New York.  Supposedly the trade was dominated by Jews were who always exploiting the Christians who frequented their shops]



1869: The Mercantile Club, a Jewish social club established in Philadelphia in 1853, was incorporated today. Louis Bomeisler and Clarence Wolf have served as Presidents of the club. Other Jewish clubs included The Garrick, the Progress, and the Franklin.



1870(16th of Nisan, 5630): Second day of Pesach; 1st day of the Omer



1875: “Die Maccabäer” (The Maccabees) an opera in three acts by Anton Rubinstein and Salomon Hermann Mosenthal which is itself based on the biblical story of the Maccabees was first performed today at the Hofoper, Berlin.



1878(14th of Nisan, 5638): “The Deliverance of Israel” published today noted that some Jews are no longer substituting bread for Matzoth during Passover especially thosr who are members of the congregations led by Rabbi David Einhorn and Rabbi Gustave Gottheil two Reform rabbis who led Congregation Adath Israel and Temple Emanu-el respectively.



1880: Birthdate of Sir Charles Leonard Woolley, the British archeologist whose work at Ur (the Biblical city) led him to “finding ties between ancient Aegean and Mesopotamian civilizations” which led to greater understanding to some of the references in the Bible and who also found substantiation for Noah’s flood.



1881: Nathan Blesenthal, a prominent Buffalo, NY, Jew became a Presbyterian today. His conversion was a condition set by Gertrude Deming if the couple was going to be wed.  Blesenthal’s mother had opposed the conversion and young Nathan only left the “faith of his fathers” after his mother passed away.



1881: The property occupied by the Brooklyn Hebrew Orphan Asylum was purchased today for $12,500.



1881: It was reported today that the Jews are talking about erecting a national synagogue in Washington, DC.”



1882: Birthdate of Polish pianist and classical composer Artur Schnabel. Like so many others, he left Europe to escape Nazi persecution. The pianist was famous for his performances of Beethoven’s Piano Sonatas. He passed away in 1951.



1882(28thof Nisan, 5642): Joel Samuel Polack passed away.  Born in 1807, he was the first Jewish settler in New Zealand, arriving there in 1831.



1884(22nd of Nisan, 5644): 8th day of Pesach



1884: In Cuero, Texas, Rudolph Frank and Rachel Rae Jacobs gave birth to Leo Frank who moved to New York when he was three months which would lead some to characterize him as “a New York Jew” when he was convicted of the murder of Mary Phagan – a crime of which he was innocent but thanks to a wave of anti-Semitism led to his lynching in 1915 – an event that seems to be part of an unusual “amnesia” for much of the American Jewish community.



1884: Theodore Hoffman who will be hanged tomorrow after having been found guilty of murdering a Jewish peddler named Zife Marks, ate a breakfast of fried oysters this morning in his cell at White Plains, NY



1887: President Levy presided over tonight’s meeting of the Jewish Immigrants’ Protective Society which was held at the synagogue on Rivington Street in New York.  In its first year of operation the society has given $1,600 to “newly arrived immigrants.



1888(6thof Iyar, 5648): Businessman and philanthropist Abraham Warshawski passed away in St. Petersburgn.



1889(16th of Nisan, 5649): Second day of Pesach; 1st day of the Omer



1891: Jacob Ezekiel Hyneman, a Union veteran of the Civil War resigned as 1stLieutenant Veteran Corps of the First Regiment of the Pennsylvania National Guard



1892(20thof Nisan, 5652): Sixth Day of Pesach



1892: “Jews Who Speak Spanish” published today provided a review of Biblioteca Espanola-Portugueza Judaica: Jewish Authors-Titles of their Works in Spanish and Portuguese with a notice on Spanish Jews and a Collection of Spanish Proverbs by Meir Kayserling.



1892: In Brooklyn, NY, Temple Israel dedicated its new building a the corner of Bedford and Lafayette Avenues.



1892: Based on reports published today the personal efforts of Emperor William bring peace between the Government and the Conservatives have been hampered by Pastor Stoecker and his anti-Jewish policies which are growing ever more popular.



1892: “Clerical Control of Education Their Ultimatum” published today included a description of a libel trial in Berlin during which the President of the Berlin Municipal School Bard testified “that out of the twenty-four members composing the board thirteen, or a majority, were Jews and the rest agnostics and that all of them cooperated against religious teaching in the schools.”



1892: An article entitled “Given A Breathing Spell” attributes the sluggishness in the New York real estate market to the celebration of Easter and Passover.  As the author says, “It is a good thing for the real estate market that such holidays as the Passover and Easter do not come too often.”



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



1893: The will of Mrs. Babet Karl, the widow of Abraham Karl was executed today and Benjamin Blumenthal, Simon Goldsmith and Theodore Hirsch were named as executors.



1893: It was reported today that the leading Jews of Bulgaria have ordered from Budapest “an album inlaid with diamonds, rubies and emeralds to be given to Prince Ferdinand and his bridge on their wedding day.”



1893: As the New York Jewish community responded to aggressive attempts by Protestants to convert Jews, Rabbi Joseph Silverman of Temple Emanu-El embellished on his sermon give yesterday by saying “I am not ready to be drawn into a public discussion on this subject but the charges which I make against the Christians I can prove, and if the Protestant organizations which are devoting themselves to this work of so-called convention will come forward and deny my general charges I will produce the facts on which my allegations rest specifically and in detail.”



1894(11thof Nisan, 5654): Seventy-five year old Fanny Neuda passed away.



http://www.yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Neuda_Fanny_Schmiedl



1895: As beef prices continue to rise, Jewish butchers on the lower East Side express their gloom about any chance of improvement.



1895(23rdof Nisan, 5655): Fifty-two year old Moritz Dessauer, the son of Gabriel L. Dessauer, who was the district rabbi at Meiningen and author of several works including one on Spinoza and Hobbes passed away today.



1895(23rdof Nisan, 5655): Seventy-seven year old Hermann “Hirschel” Bodenheimer, the son of Emanuel and Johanna Bodenheimer passed away today after which he was buried in the Durbach Jewish Cemetery.



1895(23rdof Nisan, 5655): Fifty-eight year old Jorge Isaacs Ferrer, the son of “George Henry Isaacs, an English Jew originally from Jamaica” and whom Isaac Goldberg described as “a half-Jew” “who is “Spanish America’s most famous novelist” passed away today.



http://walldesign.ml/jorge-isaacs-ferrer-april--was-a-colombian-writer-politician-and-soldier-his-only-novel-maria-became-one-of-the-most-notable-works-of-the.html



http://biography.yourdictionary.com/jorge-isaacs



1895: Thanks to the efforts of New York state senator Joseph C. Wolff, the Hebrew Infant Asylum received its charter today.



1895: In South Carolina, Mary Beatrice Levy married Miguel Bofill



1896: The will of the late Leonard Friedman will filed for probate today in the Surrogate’s office.



1897(15thof Nisan, 5657): Pesach



1897: A list of the bequest’s made by the late Frances Danzig, the widow of Frances Danzig, whose estate was valued at $40,000 included “$500 to each of the following instiutions: The Montefiore Home for Chronic Invalids, the Hebrew Benevolent and Orphan Asylum, the Mounts Sinai Hospital and the Home for Aged and Infirm Hebrews” as well as “the income of the sum of $1,000 to be applied by Temple Emanu-El to the care of the Danzig family plot in the Salem Fields Cemetery.”



1897: Art and Artists published today described recently published books including A Handful of Exotics: Scenes and Incidents Chiefly of Russo-Jewish Life by Samuel Gordon



1898: “Comic Opera for Charity” published today described the performance given by the Young Folks’ League of the Hebrew Infant Asylum of “The Little Tycoon” in which Silas Musliner directed the members including Henry D. Kleinman Emanuel Cohen, Celia Baumann, Clara Weinstein and J.S. Kornicker, in an event designed to raise fund for the orphans.



1900: Herzl began a two week journey that would take him from Karlsruhe, to Paris and finally to London. Like so many of his trips, Herzl was again seeking support from the rich and famous for the creation of a Jewish homeland in the Land of Israel.



1902: The Dr. Joseph H. Hertz, who was a member of Lord Milner's High or Advisory Committee in South Africa, and Chaplain of the Rand Rifles, was among the passengers who arrived on the White Star liner Teutonic today.  Yes, the Rabbi Hertz who gave us the “Hertz Chumash” and the “Hertz Siddur” served as the chaplain for a military unit that helped protect Johannesburg during the Boer War



1903: Birthdate of Russian born, cellist Gregor Piatigorsky.  This musical prodigy escaped Lenin’s Russia,made his way to the United States where he made a name for himself as a performer and academic.  He passed away in 1976.



1903(20thof Nisan, 5663): Seventy year old Abraham Printz,, the native of Kashau  and husband of Rosa Printz with whom he had seven children passed today in Youngstown, Ohio.



1904: Birthdate of New York native and playwright Edward Chodorov.



http://www.nytimes.com/1988/10/12/obituaries/edward-chodorov-84-playwright-and-writer-and-producer-of-films.html



1905: The First American Rumanian Congregation was scheduled to continue distributing matzoth to poor Jews living on the Lower East Side today.



1909(26thof Nisan, 5669): Sixty year old Andrew Rosewater, the native of Bohemia who came to the United States in 1854 and pursued a career where he pursued a career as a civil engineer passed away after which he was buried in Omaha, Nebraska.



http://www.jmaw.org/rosewater-jewish-omaha-bee/



1910: In Warsaw, Zelig and Henia (nee Lieberman) Vilenski gave birth to Israeli composer Moshe Vilenski who “was voted the 187th-greatest Israeli of all time, in a poll by the Israeli news website Ynet to determine whom the general public considered the 200 Greatest Israelis.” He collaborated with lyricist Nathan Alterman and singer Shoshana Damari to create the Israeli classic “Kalaniyot.”



1910: By four o’clock this afternoon, at least 3,000 persons had been given supplies for Passover by the United Hebrew Community at their offices on East Broadway. Distribution of the supplies is schedule to continue throughout the week or until they run out, whichever comes first.



1910: Louis Diamond, Secretary of the United Hebrew Community called for additional contributions to help defray the costs of the increased demand for Passover supplies to help out the city’s needy Jews.



1911: According to statements made tonight, a Kheillah is meeting to consider what steps to take in the case of Esther Yachnin, the sixteen year old girl who converted to Christianity last year at the age of 15.  Esther had come to United States at the age of 13 and had enrolled in an English language class offered by the Young Women’s Christian Association which eventually led to her conversion.  The parents had no prior knowledge of the plans for the conversion.  Given the Esther’s youth and the estrangement from her family and community, Jews living on the Lower East Side question the validity of the conversion.  They may also be concerned that their unsuspecting children will become candidates for similar such conversions. The Kheillah is considering legal action if such recourse to law can be effective.



1911: Birthdate of George Stenius who grew up to be director George Seaton. According to Hello, I Must Be Going: Groucho and His Friends by Charlotte Chandler, Seaton “grew upon in a Jewish neighborhood in Detroit where he was the “Shabbas goy for his friends” learned enough Hebrew to be “bar mitzvahed” receiving the fabled fountain pen as a gift.



1912: Birthdate of British lawyer and patron of the arts Isador Caplan.



1912: “Mountain Ridge Country Club, located in West Caldwell, New Jersey, was officially formed today, when 25 charter members filed a Document of Incorporation with the State of New Jersey. Among its founders were Louis Bamberger, whose Newark department store, Bamberger’s, was among the largest in the Unites States, and Felix Fuld, Bamberger’s brother-in-law who was the first Parks Commissioner of New Jersey. The prominent membership has also included Joseph Weintraub, former Chief Justice of the New Jersey Supreme Court, U.S. Senator Frank Lautenberg, and A.J. Dimond.



1913: Seventy-eight year old German-born British shipbuilder and politician Gustav Wilhelm Wolff passed away. He was raised as a Lutheran because his father had converted before his birth.  This was one of many examples of Jews who were “lost” in the wake of those who thought a trip to the baptismal font was the price of economic success and/or social acceptance.  The racial policies of the Nazis would prove them wrong.



1914: Original date set for the execution of Leo Frank.



1915: The Zion Mule Corps left for Gallipoli. Commanded by Colonel Henry Patterson and organized by Trumpeldor and Jabotinsky, they were a Jewish auxiliary unit of the British Army. The British were not interested in giving them the ability to fight, so they were assigned to provide provisions to the front lines.  Gallipoli was part of the Ottoman Empire.  With the stalemate on the Western Front, Churchill convinced other Allied leaders to attack at Gallipoli in an attempt to outflank the Central Powers. Churchill thought the Allies would easily defeat the Turks, open up the water route to Russia and end the war.  Unfortunately, the plan and the Allied Forces, including the Zion Mule Corps were forced to withdraw.  The Jewish troops performed with distinction and later became the nucleus for the Jewish Legion that was formed in 1917.  This was part of the on-going process of the creation of creating what would eventually become the IDF.  While the original Zionist dream had been a peaceful, almost pacifist comments, the realities of the neighborhood forced the Jews to become adept warriors.



1915: “The following additional appropriations for the relief of the war sufferers” were reported today” to have been made by the Executive Committee of the American Jewish Relief Committee: “$15,000 to Russian Poland; $15000 to German Poland; $50,000 to those parts of Galicia now occupied by Russia; $3,000 to Monastir, Serbia and $2,500 to Aleppo, Syria.”



1916(14th of Nisan, 5676):Ta'anit Bechorot;  Erev Pesach



1916: Harold Rich “was the master of ceremonies” at a Seder held tonight in Sing Sing Prison conducted by the Jewish member of the Mutual Welfare League which included a sermon by Dr. Abraham Cronbach of the Free Synagogue of New York City “on the religious significance of the event” and a violin solo by Dachin Jacobson.



1916: Approximately “175 Jewish soldiers and sailors from forts and battleships near” New York City joined “with 200 others” for “a Seder at the Young Men’s Hebrew Association building at the corner of Lexington Avenue and Ninety-second Street.



1916: Rabbi Stephen Wise officiated at the marriage of Elinor Fatman and Henry Morgenthau, Jr; a marriage that was unusual for its time because the bride had proposed to the groom.



1916: Isadore Hershfield of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society of New York returned to Berlin from Vienna and a trip through Galicia and the Austrian-occupied sections of Poland where he “completed arrangements for forwarding letters and appeals for assistance from distressed Jews and other inhabitant to relatives in the United States.



1916: It was learned today that David R. Francis, the new American Ambassador to Russia who has just left for his new post is carrying with him a draft for a new treaty of commerce which is intended to replace the old treaty which was allowed to lapse a few years ago “because of the refusal of the Russian Government to honor proper passports issued to American Jews, particularly to American Jewish citizens of Russian birth.”



1916: “Herman Bernstein” became “editor of the American Hebrew today.”



1917(25thof Nisan, 5677): During WW I, Lieutenant-colonel Rene Cahen was killed today.



1917(25thof Nisan, 5677): Gustavus I. Peavy, of Peavy Brothers who was a director of the National Association of Clothiers passed away today.



1917: In Russia, “the first congress of the Jewish Social Democratic Party known as ‘the Bund’ opened today” and the leading item on the agenda was the condition of the Jews in Finland.



1917: French President Raymond Poincare bemoaned the fact that “in London our agreements are now considered null and void.”  He was upset by the fact that the British were now calling for a larger role in the post-World War Middle East including acknowledgement of Zionist plans for Palestine.



1917: During World War I, the British army employs tanks for one of the first times in the Middle East in an attempt to defeat the Turks at Gaza.  The so-called Second Battle of Gaza will prove to be a costly defeat for His Majesty’s Forces who will suffer over six thousand casualties.



1918: “Jews Protest To Baker” published today described the formal complaint being lodged by Louis Marshall the prominent New York lawyer and chair of the American Jewish Committee with Secretary of War Newton Baker concerning discrimination against Jewish soldiers that also contends a demand that the discrimination be stopped and the officers responsible for it be punished.



1919(17thof Nisan, 5679): Third day of Pesach



1919: Bernhard Dernburg, whose father publisher Friedrich Dernburg had converted to the Lutheran religion began serving today as “Federal Minister of Finance and Vice Canceller” during the early days of the Weimar Republic.



1919: In Chicago, the funeral was today for Jacob Joel, the husband of Elise Joel



1919: As part of an episode that would have far-reaching implications for the Middle East in general and Israel in particular, the French prepared a declaration today that was presented to Prince Feisal.  Feisal expected the document to be a written affirmation of Clemenceau’s promise of total Arab independence for Syria – a Syria to be ruled by Feisal.  But according to the French document, the French army would occupy Damascus, and the new Arab nation would actually exist as a mere federation of local autonomous states in which all the government advisers, including the governors and heads of major government bureaus, as well as the judiciary, would be French, under Paris's control as they were in Lebanon. What's more, Faisal himself would be compelled to publicly declare the importance of France's historic relationship with the Maronite Christians. Other than that, said the French, Syria would be completely "independent."  Faisal quickly refused, encouraged by Lawrence of Arabia, who advised him to demand total independence "without conditions or reservations." Clemenceau, however, would not tolerate what he considered Arab impudence. Faisal summarily left Paris for Syria to claim his nation. Faisal, who had signed a letter welcoming the Zionists to Palestine, would fail.  The perfidy of the French would lead to an unstable Syria that would become an implacable enemy of Israel. Faisal would settle for throne of another British creation, Iraq. 



1920: The Twelfth Conference of the Bund continued its meeting Gomel.



1923(1st of Iyar, 5683): Rosh Chodesh Iyar



1924: Today, the ownership of “The Dewey House, also referred to as Building 29, North Chicago VA Medical Center,” which was designed by David Adler “was transferred to the United States Department of Veterans Affair.”



1924: In Brooklyn, Joseph Geller, an artist who earned a living painting signs, and his wife, Olga gave birth to ” Andrew Geller, an architect who embodied postwar ingenuity and optimism in a series of inexpensive beach houses in whimsical shapes, many of them in the Hamptons, and who helped bring modernism to the masses with prefabricated cottages sold at Macy’s.” (As reported by Fred A. Bernstein)



1924: Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pictures & Louis B Mayer Company merged to form MGM. Many of the early motion picture studios were dominated, if not owned outright, by Jews.  Many of them were immigrants who made movies idealizing America since that was what sold at the box office.  The film industry may have been run by Jews, but you sure would not have known from the content.



1925: “The Golden Calf” a silent drama filmed by cinematographer Mutz Grennbaum was released in Germany today.



1925: “Father Voss” a silent comedy written by Robert Liebman was released in Germany today.



1926: Birthdate of Aharon Yadlin, the sabra from Ben Shemen who served with Palmach and as an MK and Education Minster from 1974 through 1977.



1926: Birthdate of British composer Ronald Senator.



http://www.timesofisrael.com/jewish-composer-and-his-musician-wife-die-in-ny-house-fire/



1927(15thof Nisan, 5687): Pesach



1927: At Congregation B’nai Jeshurun, Rabbi Israel Goldstein is scheduled to deliver a Passover sermon “The Messiah – A Universal Hope.”



1928: According to an interview sent out by the Jewish Telegraph Agency, Emil Vandervelde, a member of the Belgian Cabinet, is “greatly impressed” with the work being done by the Jewish settlers in Palestine. He said that it was only through personal observation that he “had he been able to understand the difficulties and appreciate their achievements in transforming deserts and swamps into flourishing” settlements.  He “cited the municipality of Tel Aviv as a marvelous expression” of the Jewish ability to build and improve the land.  Furthermore, in a speech at Hebrew University, the Belgian leader cited Zionism’s “fraternal tendencies toward the Arabs which was an important factor toward international peace.



1928: A conference of Communist youth being held in Tel Aviv was broken up by police.  Fourteen boys, including one Arab, and six girls were detained by the authorities.



1928: Birthdate of Cynthia Ozick, author of the “Puttermesser Papers”. Born in New York City to Jewish immigrants from Russia, who both worked as pharmacists, Ozick grew up in the care of her grandmother, who was always telling her stories. She grew up to write several more novels full of Jewish mysticism and history, including “The Messiah of Stockholm”and “The Puttermesser Papers”but she's perhaps best known for her essays, collected in  Art and Ardor,Metaphor and Memory and Quarrel and Quandary (2000).  Ozick said, "I believe a writer can weave in and out of genres—do it all. It is a gluttonous point of view, to be sure. Then again, when it comes to writing, that is what I truly am and nothing less: a glutton."



1929: As of today, the Jews of Cincinnati have contributed $107,000 to the Cleveland Jewish Orphan Home Fund for a New Building chaired by Herbert R. Bloch.



1931(30th of Nisan, 5691): Rosh Chodesh Iyar



1931: In South Central Los Angeles, Morris George Axelrod, “an organizer for the radical Industrial Workers of the World union” and “the former Pearl Plaskoff” gave birth to “producer, arranger and composer” David Axelrod.



https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/16/arts/music/david-axelrod-dead-music-producer-composer.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=0



1931: Birthdate of Harold Martin Feinstein, whose black and white pictorial record of his native Coney Island marked him as yet “another Jew with a camera.”



http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/30/arts/harold-feinstein-dies-at-84-froze-new-york-moments-in-black-and-white.html?rref=obituaries&module=Ribbon&version=origin&region=Header&action=click&contentCollection=Obituaries&pgtype=article



1931: The Post Office in England is planning to broadcast “from Jerusalem” today “as part of the celebration of the seventh anniversary of the Hebrew University.” (JTA)



1933(21stof Nisan, 5693): Seventh Day of Pesach



1934(2ndof Iyar, 5694): Fifty-three year old Harry Krensky, a merchant in Waterloo, Iowa, passed away today.



1934(2ndof Iyar, 5694): Maria Isaak the wife of Abraham Isaak with whom she “founded the anarchist-inspired Aurora Colony near Lincoln, California” in 1909 passed away today.



1934: Birthdate of Don Kirshner who was “known as The Man With the Golden Ear.” He was an American song publisher and rock producer who is best known for managing songwriting talent as well as successful pop groups such as The Monkees and The Archies. He passed away in 2011.



1935(14thof Nisan, 5695): Ta’anit Bechorot; Erev Pesach



1935: Ben Heiineman married Natalie Goldstein who as Natalie Goldstein Heineman became a pioneering national champion for children’s welfare and respected community and national leader, who changed the lives of thousands of children through her innovative and thoughtful leadership.” (As reported by Pastora San Juan Cafferty)



1935: In a sermon delivered this evening “at the Downtown Branch of the Institutional Synagogue” Rabbi Herbert S. Goldstein said that “the world has come to realize that Hitler is not only the enemy of the Jew but also the enemy of God” and that “Hitlerism could have and would have been nipped in the bud” it had not been deemed a Jewish problem “but a humanitarian problem.”



1936: Eighty-one year old German orientalist Fritz Hommel author of Ancient Hebrew Tradition passed away today.



1936: In Tel Aviv, the funeral for 61 year old Israel Hazan who had been killed during a robbery two days ago by Arab who said they were stealing money “to buy arms to carry on the work of the ‘Holy Martyrs’” turned into demonstration which turned violent when “police prohibited eulogies” and attempted to divert the funeral procession.



1936: At a funeral held this morning in Tel Aviv for a Jewish victim of Arab violence, a clash broke out between Jewish protesters and police.



1936: Mrs. Amy G. Wyle, the chairman of the Women’s Division of the Greater New York Campaign of the Joint Distribution Committee which seeking to raise $1,500,000 as the city’s share of the national fund for the aide of Jews of Germany and Central and Eastern Europe hosted a dinner at Park Avenue home tonight.



1936: At today’s hearings being conducted by the Senate Lobby Committee correspondence was produced between W. Cleveland Runyon of Plainfield, NJ and Alexander Lincoln, an investment bank from Boston and the President of the Sentinels of the Republic in which Mr. Lincoln “declared the ‘Jewish threat’ to the United States was a ‘real one’” to which Mr. Runyon replied, “old-line Americans…want a Hitler.”



1937: Rabbi William Rosneblum is scheduled to lead services this morning at Temple Israel.



1937: Today, “The Committee for Special Jewish Interests” “which represents 120,000 Jews living in the Netherlands” “issued a protest against the prohibition by Germany of all Jewish meetings for sixty days in retaliation for Mayor Fiorello La Guardia’s speeches in New York.”



1938(16thof Nisan, 5698): Second Day of Pesach



1938: “Attacking ‘totalitarian religion’ Rabbi Stephen S. Wise declared in” his Sunday morning sermon at the Free Synagogue in Carnegie Hall “that Jews cannot believe in ‘the Christ of dogma’ in order ‘to be saved or to be safe.” The sermon was in response to two books Where Now, Little Jew”? by Magnus Hermansson and An Open Letter to Jews and Christians by John Cournos that “attempt to prove that the answer to the Jewish problem lies in the acceptance of Jesus Christ.”



1938: Arturo Toscanini conducts the Palestine Orchestra in a second performance in Tel Aviv.  Unlike last night’s performance which was given to a packed house filled with officials and those who could afford high priced tickets, tonight’s performance was for workers who paid greatly reduced prices for their tickets.



1940: In Brooklyn, “George Stein, a stockbroker, and the former Anne Shuchman, who taught history and civics at Erasmus Hall High School” to award winning author Professor Judith Stein. (As reported by Sam Roberts)



https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/12/books/judith-stein-dead-historian-author-on-marcus-garvey.html



1940: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt went to dinner this evening at the residence of Mr. and Mrs. Henry Morgenthau, Jr. at the Washington residence of the Secretary of the Treasury.



1941(20thof Nisan, 5701): Sixth day of Pesach



1941: In the Warsaw Ghetto, “Michał Klepfisz, a member of the Jewish Labour Bund (Yiddish: der algemeyner yidisher arbeter bund), and his wife, Rose Klepfisz (née Shoshana Perczykow)” gave birth to “Yiddishist” Irena Klepfisz, the co-editor of The Tribe of Dina: A Jewish Women’s Anthology.



https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/klepfisz-irena



1941: Following a coup staged by “four anti-British army colonels” who called themselves “The Gold Square” staged a coup which was supported by the Nazis, “British troops landed unopposed in Basra” and following military successes forced the Germans, Italians and their Arab Allies, including the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, to flee.



1941: Yugoslavia surrenders to the Nazis. Nearly 60,000 Jews were murdered by the German army.   Gold teeth from the murdered victims were later found in the palace of the Catholic Bishop of Zagreb (Croatia).



1941(20th of Nisan, 5701):  In Warsaw, a Jewish policeman named Ginsberg was bayoneted and shot by German soldiers after asking a soldier to return a sack of potatoes taken from a Jewish woman.



1941: Photojournalist David E. Scherman was among the 201 passengers aboard the Egyptian liner Zamzam when it was sunk by the German “surface raider” Atlantis which the British would find and sink thanks to the photographs he took from a lifeboat.



1942: French General Henri Giraud escapes from his castle prison in Festung Königstein where he was a German POW.  Giraud joined the Free French in North Africa. In 1943, while serving as High Commissioner he said that Vichy's anti-Jewish laws "no longer exist," promised to hold municipal elections in North Africa. He also revoked the Cremieux Decree of 1870, which granted French citizenship en bloc to Jews in Algeria, but excluded the Arabs. Henceforth, Moslems and Jews must complement each other economically, "the latter working in his shop, the former in the desert, without either having advantage over the other, France assuring both security and tranquility." This even-handed sounding speech is a bit disingenuous.  Many of the Vichy restrictions against Jews continued during this period in an attempt by the Allies to placate the Arabs.



1942(30th of Nisan, 5702):  The Gestapo entered the Warsaw ghetto and shot 52 people on Rosh Chodesh Iyar.



1943: Birthdate of journalist, writer and member of the Brandeis faculty, Robert Kuttner.



1943: In a meeting at Klessheim Castle near Salzburg, Hitler met with the Hungarian Regent, Admiral Horthy, to urge the Hungarians to deport their Jewish population. Hitler explained, ". . . they are just pure parasites . . . they had to be treated like tuberculosis bacilli which in a healthy body may become infected." Horthy and Hungary continued to hold out against Hitler's demands.  Things would change in 1944 and most of Hungary's Jews became victims of the Final Solution.



[Editor’s Note:Holocaust Deniers might want to consider the findings of British author Gerald Reitlinger.  He claimed to have found conclusive proof of a Hitlerian liquidation policy in the protocol of a conversation between Hitler and Hungarian Regent Horthy on April 17, 1943. Hitler complained about the black market and subversive activities of Hungarian Jews and then made the following comment: "They have thoroughly put an end to these conditions in Poland. If the Jews don't wish to work there, they will be shot. If they cannot work, at least they won't thrive"]



1944: Mordechai (Motke) Eldar was among the Jews from Transylvanian taken to the Sltina Ghetto where he would be held until May when he was shipped to Auschwitz.



1944: Seventy-three year old German actor Eugen Burg who had converted to Christianity to Judaism but was banned from the film industry when the Nazis came to power died today at Theresienstadt concentration camp today.



1944: The Lady and the Monster” based on a novel by Curt Siodmak with a script by Frederick Kohner co-starring Erich von Stroheim was released in the United States today.



1945: Surviving inmates of Sachsenhausen and Ravenbruck were forced to march deeper into Germany. With the war coming to an end, the Germans continued to force evacuees including 17,000 women and 46,000 men to move away from the Allied armies.  Those who once boasted of their effort to make Europe "Jew Free" now worked feverishly to cover up what would come to be called "Crimes Against Humanity."



1945: Lieutenant Al Ungerleider approached Nordhausen with orders to take and hold part of an industrial complex there. “His detachment had to fight its way through the gates and the barbed wire, dodging machine-gun fire from enemy soldiers hiding in towers near the entrance. After his men took out the enemy, the camp inmates began to appear. They were so emaciated that only a few could stand upright. Some fell over, he recalled. Still others were lying in bed, covered in lice and sores. Lt. Ungerleider sent his men to check the grounds for remaining Nazi soldiers. They captured 44 SS troopers, all of whom surrendered. Billy Millhander, one of” his “soldiers, Ungerlider entered a large building at the center of the camp and discovered 10 huge ovens — crematoriums.” At the time, he did not know what they were. According to Ungerleider, “The ovens were cold, and the doors were closed.” he said. He began opening the doors of the oven expecting to find German troops in hiding. “The first four contained ashes. But when the lieutenant opened the fifth, Millhander immediately fired several rounds, killing an armed German guard.” They returned to the main yard, and Lt. Ungerleider spoke a mixture of Yiddish, English and German to the camp inmates. He asked how many were still alive. The reply came: maybe 250 out of thousands. He asked what they were making at the plant. Someone said V-2 rockets, missiles that were launched against England. “And that’s when the enormity of the evil that the Germans were doing to these people hit me,” Ungerleider said later. “And this was a slave labor camp, not a death camp. They were making a product for the war effort. The first thought that came into my mind is how the Germans could take [thousands of people] and put them to work. How could they not feed them, take care of their medical needs, not clothe them?” He led the survivors in the mourner’s kaddish, the Jewish prayer for the dead. Al Ungerleider enjoyed a successful career in the U.S. Army rising to the rank of General.  At the same time, he remained an active member of the Jewish community wherever he was stationed.



1945: Robert Limpert, the head of a genuine anti-Nazi underground group, sought to get the leaders of the Bavarian city of Ansbach to defy Wermacht fanatics and to surrender to the approaching American Army.



1945: William Scott of the 183rd Combat Engineers, an all-African-American unit took pictures of Leon Bass and other members of the unit at Buchenwald six days after its liberation by the U.S. Army.



1947: General Lucius D. Clay, the United States Military Governor, announced today the closing of displaced camps in Germany “to further Jewish refugees infiltrating from Poland.”



1947: “Top representative of the American-Jewish Joint Committee were scheduled to meet in Paris in response to General Clay’s announcement.



1947: “Pan Ruczaj, described as the organizer of last July’s anti-Semitic riot in Kielce, where forty-two Jews were killed, surrendered to Polish security officers in Waldenberg, Silesia” but even though he “made a full confession, “under the terms of the Polish amnesty, he will not be punished.” (Editor’s note – This report was carried in the New York Times which means that the world had a contemporaneous account of this Pogrom and recent attempts by the Polish government to change the narrative about Jewish history in Poland is, to put it mildly, based on pure fabrication.



1948(8th of Nisan, 5708): On Shabbat Hagadol news came that a convoy bringing in needed supplies to Jerusalem had broken through by night. Crowds came down to the Romema road block to greet the convoy. Over 250 lorries bringing a thousand tons of food and arms and ammunition came streaming into the entrance to the city. Written on the first lorry were the words: "If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, may my right hand forget its cunning".



1948: As Jewish soldiers fight to open the road to Jerusalem and break the blockade that was strangling the city reports circulate through the City of David that five Arab villages had been taken and as many as 350 Arab fighters had been killed.



1948: In his report on the massacre of the staff going to the Hadassah Hospital on Mt. Scopus, Robert Watson, the American Consul in Jerusalem wrote " . . . queried as to whether convoy included armoured cars, Haganah guards, arms and ammunition in addition to doctors, nurses and patients, Kohn [of the Jewish Agency] replied in affirmative saying it was necessary to protect convoy."



1949(18th of Nisan, 5709): Meir Bar-llan, an Orthodox Rabbi from Lithuania who was a leader of the Mizrachi movement passed away today in Jerusalem. Bar-Illan University was named in his memory.



1950: The New York Times reported that the obsolete conditions at the port of Tel Aviv pose a threat to the continued economic growth of the infant Jewish state.  According to Jose Ensuade, President of Flomarcy Company, “Israel’s maritime position and the continued growth of her foreign comer, which has had an almost phenomenal growth may be impaired unless harbor facilities are improved.”  He marveled at the fact that the port which is the nation’s entry point for 25,000 immigrants arriving each month and which has seen a remarkable growth in trade “is virtually without modern docking facilities.”



1951: Birthdate of Yaky Yosha, the Tel Aviv born award winning film director.



1952(22nd of Nisan, 5712): 8th day of Pesach



1954(14th of Nisan, 5714): Shabbat Ha-Gadol; Erev Pesach



1954: Aaron Jean-Marie Lustiger who was born as into an Ashkenazi Jewish family was ordained as a Roman Catholic Priest today.



1954: In Tel Aviv, the family of Emanuel Shoam celebrates the first Seder with three friends of his brother Joe, who had been held as a prisoner of war by the Jordanians during the War of Independence.  The three were a young Canadian Jew named Martin and two gentile deserters from the British army named Paddy and Harry who had stolen tanks from the British in 1948 and brought them to the Haganah.



1955: Chicago Cubs’ pitcher Hy Cohen played in his first major league baseball game.



1957: George Pirkis Kidd, Canada’s first Ambassador to Israel, completed his term of service.



1957: Margaret Blanche Meagher began serving as Canada’s Ambassador to Israel, making her the first Canadian woman to hold an ambassadorial place.



1958(27thof Nisan, 5718): Yom HaShoah



1958: Los Angeles Dodgers’ pitcher Larry Sherry appears in his first major league baseball game.  Sherry would lead the Dodgers to a World Series Championship in 1959.



1959: U.S. premiere of “Imitation of Life” the cinematic treatment of Fannie Hurt’s novel produced by Ross Hunter with a musical score co-authored by Sammy Fain.



1961: In London, Bernardine Coverley and artist Lucian Freud gave birth fashion designer Bella Freud, the great granddaughter of the inventor of psychoanalysis Sigmund Freud.



1964: Birthdate of Ofer Hugi, the Shas MK who ended up going to prison for two years after being convicted of numerous illegal acts.



1965(15th of Nisan, 5725): 1st day of Pesach



1965: Cincinnati Reds outfielder Art Shamsky appears in his first major league baseball game.



1967: CBS broadcast the final episode of “Gilligan’s Island” a sitcom created by Sherwood Schwartz and co-starring Natalie Schafer as “Lovey Wentworth Howell.”


1967:  Egypt, Syria and Iraq signed a treaty of alliance that placed their military forces under a unified command with the stated purpose of “liberating Palestine” i.e. destroying the state of Israel.



1968(19thof Nisan, 5728): Fifth Day of Pesach



1968(19thof Nisan, 5728): Seventy-five year old Birmingham born Pathologist Arnold Rice Rich, the husband of “pianist and composer Helen Jones and the father of Adrienne and Cynthia Rich, whose scientific work led to the discovery of Rich Focus, passed away today.



 http://www.whonamedit.com/doctor.cfm/2547.html



1969: Sirhan Sirhan, the Palestinian terrorist, was convicted of murdering Senator Robert Kennedy, the leading nominee for the Democratic nominee for the Presidential nomination, thus single handedly changing the course of history.



1970: The Auditorium Building in Chicago “one of the best known designs of Dankmar Adler” and his partner “was added to the National Register of Historic Places” today.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Auditorium_Building_Chicago_June_30,_2012-92.jpg



1971(22ndof Nisan, 5731): Eighth Day of Pesach and Shabbat Shel Pesach



1971: Susan Brownmiller organized today’s New York Radical Feminist Conference on Rape



1973(15thof Nisan, 5733): Pesach



1973(15thof Nisan, 5733): Ninety-one year old Clara Ferrin-Bloom the native of Tucson, AZ who was a school teacher when she married merchant David Bloom with whom she had three children, one of whom David A. “established the Bloom Southwest Jewish Archives at the University of Arizona passed away today.



1974: “Professor David Azbel and his family were granted permission to emigrate to Israel” today.



1977: The Broadway production of “I Love My Wife” with a book and lyrics by Michael Steward, music by Cy Coleman and directed by Gene Sakes opened today at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre.



1978: NBC broadcast “The Road to Babi Yar” the second part he miniseries “Holocaust.”



1979(20thof Nisan, 5739): Sixth Day of Pesach



1979(20thof Nisan, 5739): Terrorists who had crossed the border from Lebanon killed one Israeli soldier today and injured six others.



1980: The Presidium of the Brussels World Conference on Soviet Jewry had its final meeting today in Paris.


1983(4th of Iyar, 5743): Yom HaZikaron



1984(15thof Nisan, 5744): Pesach



1986: Authorities foiled an attempted bombing at Heathrow Airport. Israeli airline security guards at Heathrow Airport in London took a hard look at Anne-Marie Murphy and her luggage as she was about to board an El Al flight for Tel Aviv. Beneath a false bottom in her bag they found 10 pounds of plastic explosive rolled paper-thin -enough, the police said, to destroy the El Al Boeing 747 and its 340 passengers. The police said Miss Murphy told them that the bag, which had passed unnoticed through Heathrow security checks, had been handed to her by Nazar Hindawi, a Jordanian who had several passports. The woman's father said Mr. Hindawi had given Miss Murphy, who is pregnant, $300 to buy a wedding dress and promised that they would be married yesterday in Israel. At the airport, according to the police, Mr. Hindawi told his fiancee he had second thoughts about flying on an Israeli plane and would take a different airline. He hurried off but was arrested later at a London hotel. A sophisticated microchip timer was set to ignite the bomb after a stopover in Munich, the police said. It was possible that Miss Murphy, who had been working as a hotel maid in the London Hilton, intended to disembark at Munich, the police said, but more likely she was an innocent victim of the plot.



1986(8thof Nisan, 5746): Ninety-four year old French aircraft builder Marcel Dassault who as Marcel Bloch was imprisoned in Buchenwald for his refusal to collaborate with the Nazis passed and who became a Catholic after the war passed away today
http://www.nytimes.com/1986/04/19/obituaries/marcel-dassault-leading-figure-in-french-aviation-is-dead-at-94.html



1987(18th of Nisan, 5747): Comedian Dick Shawn, born Richard Schulefand, died on stage from a heart attack at age 63
http://www.nytimes.com/1987/04/19/obituaries/no-headline-625287.html



1987: “Wild Thing,” a murder mystery featuring Maury Chaykin and Shawn Levy was released today in the United States.



1987: In the UK, premiere of “Prick Up Your Ears” directed by Stephen Frears based on the by John Lahr.



1988(30thof Nisan, 5748): Eighty-eight year old Russian born American sculptor Louis Nevelson passed away today.
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/nevelson.html



1991(3rdof Iyar, 5751): Yom HaZikaron



1991(3rdof Iyar, 5751): Ninety-seven year old songwriter Jack Yellen whose most famous ditty was FDR’s campaign song, “Happy Days Are Here Again” passed away today.
http://www.nytimes.com/1991/04/19/obituaries/jack-yellen-97-wrote-the-lyrics-to-happy-days-are-here-again.html?scp=1&sq=&st=nyt



1997: The Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra made its Carnegie Hall debut under the direction of Jewish conductor Yakov Kreizberg



1997: Joyce Shepard of the Citizens Action Committee for Change met with Alan G. Hevesi and Mayor Giuliani at City Hall where they promised her that more facilities would be provided for the victims of domestic abuse.



1997(10th of Nisan, 5757): Chaim Herzog passed away.  Born in Ireland in 1918, Herzog was the son of the distinguished Rabbi Yitzhak HaLevi Herzog. Herzog moved to Palestine in 1935 and served in the Haganah during the Arab Uprising that started in 1936.  During World War II, Herzog served in the British Army where he worked with intelligence units liberating concentration camps.  During the War for Independence, Herzog was a leader in the fighting at Latrun, part of the heroic campaign to keep the road to Jerusalem open thus ensuring that the ancient city would be part of modern Israel.  Herzog had a distinguished career in the IDF and retired in 1962 with the rank of Major General.  In civilian life he pursued a career in business and the law while also serving as a media commentator on military matters.  In the middle seventies, he returned to public service as Israel's Ambassador to the U.N. and then as a Member of the Knesset for the Labor Party.  He served two terms as Israel's President (1983-1993). His historical writings include The Arab-Israeli Wars, War of Atonement: The Inside Story of the Yom Kippur War, Who Stands Accused? and Israel's Finest Hour.



http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1997-04-17/news/9704180154_1_chaim-herzog-tel-aviv-shin-bet



1998(17thof Nisan, 5758): Third day of Pesach



1998(7thof Nisan, 5758): Fifty-six year old Linda McCartney the wife of Beatle Paul McCartney, the granddaughter of Jewish immigrants from Germany and Russia passed away today.



1998: In “Putting the Inquisition on Trial” published today, Richard Boudreaux reports on newly published records from the Vatican that shed light on the ancient practices of the church.
http://articles.latimes.com/1998/apr/17/news/mn-40292



1998:Six months after it opened in the U.S., ”Deconstructing Harry” a Woody Allen comedy co-starring Bob Balaban, Richard Benjamin and Billy Crystal was released in the United Kingdom today.



1998:  Marek Edelman one of the last surviving leaders of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising was awarded with Poland's highest decoration, the Order of the White Eagle.



1998: U.S. premiere of “The Object Of My Affection” directed by Nicholas Hytner, with a script by Wendy Wasserstein and co-starring Paul Rudd.



1999: In Australia, a production of Harold Pinter’s “Betrayal” closed today at the Sydney Theatre Company.



2002(5th of Iyar, 5762):  Yom Ha’atzmaut.



2002: “shortly after calling a game between the Indiana Pacers and Philadelphia 76ers on TNT,” Marv Albert was injured in a car crash in which he “sustained facial lacerations, a concussion, and a sprained ankle” leaving him unable to call the opening game of the NBA playoffs.



2003(15thof Nisan, 5763): Pesach



2004: For the fifth time terrorists, in this case Hamas and Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Bridge, stage an attack at the Erez Crossing.



2004:  An Israeli missile strike killed Hamas leader Abdel Aziz Rantisi.  In the words of the Associated Press, "Rantisi was Hamas' top leader in Gaza and one of the most hard-line members of the militant movement who rejects all compromise with Israel and calls for the destruction of the Jewish state."



2005: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including “The Outlaw Bible of American Literature” Edited by Alan Kaufman, Neil Ortenberg and Barney Rosset and the recently released paperback edition of “Alexander Hamilton” by Ron Chernow.



2005:  A Jewish Museum of Belmonte (Museu Judaico de Belmonte) opened today. Marranos living in Belmonte are sometimes referred to as the "Belmonte Jews." They are a community that has survived in secrecy for hundreds of years by maintaining a tradition of endogamy and by hiding all the external signs of their faith. The community in the municipality of Belmonte, Cova da Beira subregion, Portugal, goes back to the 12th century and they were only discovered in 1917 by a Polish Jewish mining engineer named Samuel Schwarz. Some of them returned to Judaism in the 1970s, and opened a synagogue in 1996. In 2003, the Belmonte Project was founded under the auspices of the American Sephardi Federation, in order to raise funds to acquire Judaic educational material and services for the community which now numbers 300. William Annyas (or Anes) - a descendant of a Marrano family from Belmonte who immigrated to Ireland - became the Mayor of Youghal in County Cork in 1555, the first person of the Jewish religion to hold such an elected position in Ireland or Britain. William Annyas was the grandson of Gil Anes. Many of the first Jewish people to come to Ireland were Marrano merchants from the Iberian Peninsula. His daughter married Yacov Kassin (Shamus Ciosain) daughter of Yehuda Kassin (Juan Cassin) a Marrano merchant who had moved to Galway in Ireland.



2006: At precisely 4:00 P.M., President Moshe Katsav calls the 17th Knesset to order in its maiden session with three blows of the gavel.   MK Shimon Peres (Kadima) is invited to conduct the session. As the most senior MK, Peres will be acting speaker of the Knesset until a permanent speaker is selected.



2006(19thof Nisan, 5766): Nine people were killed and at least 40 wounded in a suicide bombing near the old central bus station in Tel Aviv. The blast ripped through Falafel Rosh Ha'ir, the same restaurant that was hit by an attack on January 19. The Islamic Jihad and Fatah’s Al Aksa Martyrs Brigades both claimed responsibility for the attack. The Hamas led PA government defended the suicide bombing, calling it an act of "self-defense." Hamas official spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri called the attack "a natural result of the continued Israeli crimes against our people".



2006(19th of Nisan, 5766):Rabbi Arthur Hertzberg, a leading Jewish scholar and civil rights advocate known for his provocative, often contrarian views, has passed away at the age of 84.  The cause of death was heart complications. Hertzberg was president of the American Jewish Congress from 1972 to 1978, and vice president of the World Jewish Congress from 1975 to 1991. He also wrote a dozen of books on Jewish thought and history. Dedicated to the creation of Israel, he angered many Jews by also calling for a Palestinian state. An early advocate of civil rights for blacks, Hertzberg was among the prominent participants in Martin Luther King Jr.'s 1963 March on Washington. Nine years later, he headed the first Jewish delegation to meet formally with the Vatican about the Roman Catholic Church's silence during the Holocaust. Born in southeastern Poland, Hertzberg's family emigrated to the U.S. when he was five. He studied at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York and met his wife while serving as an air force chaplain in Britain. After returning to the U.S., he became a congregational rabbi at the conservative Temple Emanu-el in New Jersey, where he served until 1985.



2006: Today “to mark the centennial of the birth of the playwright Clifford Odets, Lincoln Center Theatre will open a new production of “Awake and Sing!,” Odets’s first full-length play and the one that made him a literary superstar in 1935, at the age of twenty-eight.”



2006: In today’s issue of The New Yorker Seymour “Seymour Hersh reported on the Bush administration's purported plans for an air strike on Iran” that would include “the possible use of B61-11 bunker-buster nuclear weapon to eliminate underground Iranian uranium enrichment facilities.”



2007: The Israel Project and The Hebrew University's Truman Institute sponsors a one day conference entitled “IRAN, HIZBALLAH and HAMAS: Money, Martyrdom and the Mahdi.” The Israel Project describes itself as “an international non-profit organization devoted to educating the press and the public about Israel while promoting security, freedom and peace. It provides journalists, leaders and opinion-makers accurate information about Israel. The Israel Project is not related to any government or government agency.”



2007: The New York Times reviewed Shimon Peres: The Biography by Michael Bar-Zohar.



2008: Famed author Cynthia Ozick celebrates her 80th birthday. "Ozick is the most high-browed of all the Jewish-American writers, completely lacking well-read Saul Bellow's interest in the demimonde and the low-life. And yet her prose is always alive and crackling, flashy and sensuous, and as distinctive as the markings on a hoopoe." - Clive Sinclair, Times Literary Supplement (3/11/2006) http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/Ozick.html



2008: In Cedar Rapids, Hedy Epstein, whose parents died in concentration camps during the Holocaust speaks at Coe College and at Kennedy High School.



2008: In Iowa City, Iowa. Agudas Achim and Hillel hold a siyyum for the Fast of the Firstborn. For the siyyum, Professor Steven Green leads a presentation on the Talmudic section called “Yadyim,” which discusses the laws of Levitical cleanliness or un-cleanliness of the hands.



2008:  UNITE HERE, a union of textile workers and hospitality workers, organized a rally outside the offices of Goldman Sachs in downtown Manhattan to advocate higher wages for the company’s cafeteria workers. Though few of the cafeteria workers are Jewish, the rally will feature a mock Seder along with Passover songs.



2008: “A Catered Affair” starring Harvey Fierstein who also wrote the book for the musical opened on Broadway today.



2009: A.B. Yehoshua, the award-winning Israeli writer, presents a lecture, "From Mythology to History," as well as discusses his latest novel, “Friendly Fire.” This event is part of the University of Maryland’s (College Park),"George Wasserman Family Israeli Cultural Event" series.



2009: In Cedar Rapids, Temple Judah hosts the final Musical Shabbat in this the second season of this popular celebration of the start of the “Day of Rest.”



2010: The Westchester Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to show “Rafting to Bombay,” a documentary about three generations of a family who recollect their history among the European Jews who found safe haven in Bombay after fleeing the Nazis and “Forgotten Transports: To Estonia,” the third in Lukas Pribyl’s seminal series of documentaries on Czech Jews in WWII which in this case, chronicles girls who were transported together through the Nazi archipelago of camps in Estonia.



2010: Jonathan Biss, American-Jewish pianist is schedule to perform at the Kaufman Concert Hall in New York City.



2010: As part of its pre-festival screening The Northern Virginia 10thInternational Jewish Film Festival showed of "No. 4 Street of Our Lady" a film tells the story of a Polish-Catholic woman who rescues 16 of her Jewish neighbors during the war.



2011: The Jewish Genealogy Society of Greater Washington is scheduled to sponsor a workshop entitled Women’s World War II Resistance at Beth El Hebrew Congregation is Alexandria, VA.



2011: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including “Sempre Susan: A Memoir of Susan Sontag” by Sigrid Nunez.



 2011: The Los Angeles Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including “Jerusalem, Jerusalem: How the Ancient City Ignited Our Modern World” by James Carroll.



2011(13thof Nisan. 5771): “The teenager who was critically wounded after Gaza militants launched an anti-aircraft missile at a school bus in southern Israel earlier this month succumbed to his wounds today. 16-year-old Daniel Viflic died in the Soroka Medical Center in Be'er Sheva after his condition seriously deteriorated last week. The missile hit the bus traveling near Kibbutz Sa'ad just moments after it had dropped off the rest of the school children, wounding Viflic and the bus driver, who was moderately wounded by shrapnel wounds in his leg.



2011 Israeli security forces have arrested two teenage residents of the West Bank Arab village of Awarta for allegedly carrying out last month's murder of five family members in the settlement of Itamar, the lifting of a gag order revealed today.



2011(13thof Nisan. 5771): Ninety-four year old Dr. Alfred M. Freedman, a psychiatrist and social reformer who led the American Psychiatric Association in 1973 when, overturning a century-old policy, it declared that homosexuality was not a mental illness” passed away today.



2012: Dr. Neil Gillman is scheduled to begin teaching “The Prophets: An Anthology” at the Skirball Center for Adult Jewish Learning.



2012: “On the run from the Nazis. A Boynton man remembers” published today.
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/news/on-the-run-from-the-nazis-a-boynton-man-remembers/nN3DP/



2012: “Paul Goodman Changed My Life is scheduled to be shown at the Westchester Jewish Film Festival followed by a Q&A with filmmaker Jonathan Lee.



2013: Dr. Diane M. Sharon is scheduled to begin teaching “Reading the Hebrew Bible in One Year’ at the Skirball Center for Adult Jewish Learning.



2013: The Center for Jewish History, Leo Baeck Institute and Taschen Books are scheduled to present “The Hanover Esther Scroll, 1746 – a Masterpiece of Jewish Scribal Art Rediscovered.



2013: “Let My People Go and “Simon and the Oaks” are scheduled to be shown at the Westchester Jewish Film Festival.



2013: Renee Firestone, the native of Hungary who survived Auschwitz is scheduled to address students at Washington High School, Xavier High School and Coe College.  Mrs. Firestone’s “is sponsored by the Joan and David Thaler Holocaust Memorial Foundation. Dr. David Thaler was a native of Lvov who graduated from the Medical School at the University of Paris and came to the United States before WW II. He served in the United States Army where, ironically, he treated German POWs.  He settled in Cedar Rapids in 1946 where he practiced until he passed away. Dr. Thaler’s father and sister perished in the Lvov Ghetto. Dr. Thaler established the foundation as an educational tool that brings Holocaust survivors and their children to Cedar Rapids each year to provide a human face to what for some is an imaginable event.  Joan Thaler has graciously carried on the work started by her late husband to ensure that this vital effort continues.



2013: The Helly Nahmad Gallery remained closed today following the arrest of Hillel Nahmad for his alleged role in an international money laundering and gambling conspiracy. Nahmad is the scion of a prominent family that traces its roots to the famous Jewish community of Aleppo where it was led by the patriarch who was also named Hillel Nahmad



2013: Two Grad rockets were fired on the southern city of Eilat this morning. One landed in a residential neighborhood and the other in an open area in the outskirts of the city



2014: Alexander Fiterstein, Ian David Rosenbaum and Arnaud Sussman are scheduled to perform at the Kaplan Penthouse.



2014: “The Jewish Cardinal” is scheduled to be shown at the JCC Rockland International Jewish Film Festival.



2014: "Zero Motivation” a zany, dark comedic portrait of everyday life for a unit of young female Israeli soldiers is scheduled to be shown at the Tribeca Film Festival.



2015(28thof Nisan, 5775): Ninety-one year old real estate tycoon A. Alfred Taubman passed away today.



http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/19/business/a-alfred-taubman-shopping-mall-tycoon-involved-in-price-fixing-scandal-dies-at-91.html?_r=1



2015: “Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with Jewish Home leader Naftali Bennett today and later with Yisrael Beytenu head Avigdor Liberman as well, as an initial deadline for the formation of a new governing coalition approached with no deals yet made.”



2015: “Woman in Gold” is scheduled to open in Israeli theatres today.
http://www.timesofisrael.com/as-woman-in-gold-premieres-meet-the-man-who-battled-for-the-klimt/



2015: “Rue Mandar” and “The Art Dealer” are scheduled to be shown at the Westchester Jewish Film Festival.



2015: “Lost Stories, Found Images: Portraits of Jews in Wartime Amsterdam” which has been on display at the Goethe Institute in San Francisco is scheduled to come to an end today.
http://www.timesofisrael.com/wartime-mystery-on-display-with-new-portrait-trove-of-dutch-jews/
http://www.jewishfed.org/news/events/lost-stories-found-images-portraits-jews-wartime-amsterdam



2016(9thof Nisan, 5776): Eight-four year old broadcaster Elton Spitzer, the driving force behind WLIR, passed away today.
 
2016: Under the leadership of Dr. Brian Horowitz, the chair of the Jewish Studies Department, Tulane University is scheduled to host “Kol Minei Dvarim: All Different Things” - The Inaugural Jewish Studies Colloquium


 
2016: In Cedar Rapids, Iowa The Thaler Holocaust Memorial Fund under the leadership of Dr. Robert Silber and the Inter-Religious Council of Linn County are scheduled to host the annual Yom HaShoah Service where “the speaker will be Magda Brown, who was 17 years old in 1944 when she and her family were deported on one of the final transports to Auschwitz-Birkenau. In March 1945, Ms. Brown was sent on a 3-day death march from Birkenau Concentration Camp. Magda and several other prisoners in her group escaped and hid in a barn. A few days later they were discovered and liberated by two American Armed Forces. Only Magda and her brother survived from her immediate family and only six cousins survived from her extended family of 70.



 
2016: In Northern Virginia, the Olam Tikvah Men’s Club is scheduled to host its Survivors Tribute Brunch where Irene Fogel Weiss, “a survivor of Auschwitz who has made many presentations of her story and testified recently at the trial of a Nazi Auschwitz official in Germany” will be honored.

2016: “Raise the Roof” is among the pictures to be shown on the final day of the Northern Virginia Jewish Film Festival.  

 
2016: In Atlanta, GA, the Breman Museum is scheduled to host Hershel Greenblat who spent the first two years of life hiding with other Jews in a dark cave in Ukraine and the next five years in a DP camp before coming to the United States in 1950.


 
2016: “Rock in the Red Zone” is scheduled to be shown at the Westchester Jewish Film Festival.


 
2016: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers includingAmerica’s War for the Greater Middle East by Andrew J. Bacevich and the recently released paperback editions of Michelle Obama: A Life by Peter Slevin, Ravensbrück: Life and Death in Hitler’s Concentration Camp for Women by Sarah Helm, Thieves of State: Why Corruption Threatens Global Securityby Sarah Chayes and Publishing: A Writer’s Memoir by Gail Goodwin



2017(21st of Nisan, 5777):  Seventh Day of Pesach



2017(21st of Nisan, 5777): Eighty-one year old forensic psychiatrist Dr. Robert L. Sadoff passed away today. (As reported by Sam Roberts)
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/20/us/robert-sadoff-dead-forensic-psychiatrist.html
http://jaapl.org/content/jaapl/36/3/286.full.pdf



2017: In Jerusalem, the Hebrew Music Museum is scheduled to host several “interactive exhibits and activities” as part of their Passover program to acquaint visitors with “the rich traditions of Jewish and Israeli music.”



2017: While hundreds of Palestinian prisoners began a hunger strike, Israelis used “life fire” to control the mobs who joined in supporting the prisoners, many of whom were convicted terrorists.



2018: The Jewish Federation of Cleveland Yom Hazikaron ceremony is scheduled to take place today at the Mandel JCC Stonehill Auditorium in Beachwood.



2018: The Leo Baeck Institute is scheduled to host a talk by Rudolf Klein a professor of modern architectural history at Szent István University” “on his new book, Synagogues in Hungary, 1867–1918“which “is the first comprehensive study that systematically covers all synagogues in Hungary from the Edict of Tolerance by Joseph II to the end of World War I.”



2018: Holocaust survivor Michael Bornstein who was only four years old when liberated and his daughter Debbie Bornstein Holinstat are scheduled to speak at Kirkwood Community College in Cedar Rapids and at Cornell College in Mt. Vernon as part of the Yom HoShoah memorial which is being sponsored by The Thaler Holocaust Education Programming Committee chaired Dr. Robert Silber.



2018: Today in Jerusalem, Beit Avi Chais is scheduled to host a Yom HaZikaron event that will include “animated films from the Panim project” as well as music and personal stories.



 

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

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April 18



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



1753(14thof Nisan, 5513): Jews in England observe the Ta’anit Bechorot; and sit down to their Seder under the reign of Philo-Semitic King George II.



1756: In Philadelphia Mathias Bush and his first wife Tabitha Mears gave birth to Nathan Bush



1772(15thof Nisan, 5532): Pesach



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



1773: In Tunis, Shalom Belais and his wife gave birth to Rabbi Abraham Belais.



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



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



1818: Birthdate of Salvatore de Benedetti, the native of Piedmont whose works included Vita e Morte di Mose,published in 1879 in which “he gathered and translated the legends concerning the great Jewish leader.



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



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



1833: In Vienna, Moritz Moses Jacob von Goldschmidt and Nanette von Goldschmidt gave birth to Julius von Goldschmidt



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



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



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



1857: In Jackson, CA, “a meeting was held” today at which “it was decided to build a synagogue” which was the first such structure “erected in the mining districts.



1860: Louisa de Samuel married Baron George de worms, the son of Baron Solomon Benedict de Worms and Henritta Samuel after which she was known as Louisa de Worms



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



1861: This evening the 26th Regiment of Pennsylvania Volunteers whose members included Dr. Jacob Da Silva Solis Cohen “started from Philadelphia under orders requiring it to be taken through Baltimore ‘at or before daylight.’”



1865(22ndof Nisan, 5625): As Jews observed the eighth and final day of Pesach General Sherman and General Johnston met to finalize the terms of the surrender of the largest remaining Confederate force remaining in the field following the surrender of Lee at Appomatax.



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



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



1874: Birthdate of Abraham Pflaum, the Chicago born lawyer and an officer with the United Hebrew Charities and the Jewish Aid Society whose wife was the Recording Secretary of the Chicago Woman’s Aid which met at Sinai Temple in Chicago and had been organized in 1882.



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



1875: In Syracuse, Solomon Silverstein and Esther Shevelson gave birth to Dr. Albert Silverstein who graduated from Yale and Gross Medical College of Denver where practice medicine and taught with the exception of a one year stint with Medical Department of the United States Army which he served in the Philippines during the Spanish American War and the insurrection that followed.



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



1875: In Eichstein Leopold and Babette Bloch gave birth to Julie Bloch who became Julie Moses after she married Moses Moses, the son of Abraham and Rosa Moses.



1878(15thof Nisan, 5638): Pesach



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



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



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


1881(19th of Nisan, 5641): Fifth day of Pesach


1881(19th of Nisan, 5641): Sixty-one year old Hungarian born American physician and chemist Joseph Jacob Goldmark who was “credited with the discovery of red phosphorous” passed away today in Brooklyn.


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



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



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



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



1887: In New York City, Joseph and Babette Seligman gave birth to Joseph Lionel Seligman.



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



1889: Birthdate of Budapest native George Vajan who “founded a bookstore and publishing in his home town in 1920” before coming to the United States in 1939 where he founded Transatlantic Arts.



https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1968/05/23/76947985.pdf



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



1895: Dr. Maurice H. Harris delivered a lectured on Shylock at a meeting of the Young Men’s Hebrew Association which was followed by a series of recitations and the performance of musical selections.



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



1911: Birthdate of Maurice Goldhaber, the native of Vienna ,a physicist who delved into the intricacies of atoms and headed the Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island for more than a decade and was the father of physicist Alfred Scharff Goldhaber and the grandfather of physicist David Goldhaber-Gordon.



http://articles.latimes.com/2011/may/25/local/la-me-maurice-goldhaber-20110525



1912: Three days after the sinking of the Titanic, The RMS Carpathia, carrying hundreds of the Titanic survivors including journalist Edith Rosenbaum and Elizabeth and Martin Rothschild, the aunt and uncle of Dorothy Parker, arrived in New York.



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


1913(11th of Nisan, 5673): Julius Neumark, the President of the Jewish Community in Kortshin, a town in central Poland passed away today.


1913(11thof Nisan, 5673): Fifty-eight year old Sigmund L. Bendit, a merchant, passed away today in New York City.


1913: In Richmond, VA, the Southern Educational Convention which Rabbi Max Raisin of Meridian, Mississippi was attending as a delegate came to an end today.


1915: “Over 200 delegates representing 177 Jewish labor organization with a membership of over 300,000 attended” tonight’s first ever convention of the National Women’s Committee for Jewish Rights in Belligerent Counties which has been formed “to agitate for equal Rights for Jews, especially those living in Russia.”


1915: It was reported today that Funk & Wagnalls have published “John Foster Fraser’s new work, The Conquering Jew which contains the results the author’s studies of the Jew, his adaptability and vitality” and well as the views on the future of the Jews.


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


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



1916(15thof Nisan, 5676): Pesach


1916: According to previously published reports Jews in Russia will not have to worry about violent attacks based on “blood accusation of ritual murder’ because “this year there will be neither Seder nor pogrom” in Russia because the homes of Jews “are wrecked and deserted and their inhabitants have been scattered an driven far away before the successive tidal waves of war.”


1916: Because today is Passover, “collection of bundles and bags for the United Hebrew Charities Bundle Day” will not take place today.”


1916: In New York, approximately 175 Jewish soldiers and sailors from Forts Totten, Wadsworth, Slocum, Hancock Terry and Wright and battleships Delaware, Wyoming, Missouri and Maine who are here by special permission of the Secretaries of War and Navy” are scheduled to attend services at several synagogues today following which they will attend a second Seder this evening.


1916: According to a report published today, S.S. Rosenstamm, the Chairman of the Y.M.H.A. there are 6,000 Jews serving in the army and navy for whom “Seders have been arranged all over the United States.


1916: According to a letter written by John Reed, he said that reports that he had accused “all Jews of being traitors to Russia” were wrong since “as a matter of fact, they are astonishingly loyal.”


1916: It was reported today that “the Israelite Alliance of Vienna will undertake the collection and forward of letters” from Jews living in Galicia trying to contact people in the United States “at its own expense.”


1917: It was reported today that the “chief business discussed at the first congress of the Jewish Social Democrat was the disabilities suffered by the Jews of Finland.”



1918: During WW I with Jewish soldiers on both sides of the line the Germans tried to seize the heights at Kemmelberg as part of the Great Spring offensive designed to end the war before the Americans could make up for the loss of Russia.



1919(18thof Nisan, 5679): Fourth Day of Pesach



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



1920: The Twelfth Conference of the Bund, the Jewish labor organization, continued to meet in Gomel.



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



1921: In New York, Russian-Jewish immigrants Jacob and Fanny Cahn gave birth to Miles Cahn who,
with his wife Liilian” founded the Coach Leatherware Company in 1961.



https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/11/business/miles-cahn-dead-coach.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well



1923: In Savannah, GA, Elinor Grunsfeld and Sam G. Adler, the son of Leopold Adler, the founder of Adler’s Department store gave birth to Georgia Bulldog and WW II Naval Air Corps veteran Lee Adler who was an award winning champion of historic preservation and an advocate for “providing safe affordable housing for low-income” occupants.



1924(14thof Nisan, 5684): Ta’anit Bechorot; Erev Pesach



1924: “A number of Jewish students at Harvard” are scheduled to participate in a Seder this evening at the home of Professor Harry K. Messenger, the Latin and Greek scholar who along with his wife converted to Judaism.



1926: David A. Brown, the National Chairman of the United Jewish Campaign said today that the organization would exceed its goal after “the Association of Reform Rabbis” unanimously adopted a resolution endorsing the campaign.



1926: “The completion of the first stage in the development of Palestine as the Jewish homeland was announced” today “by Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, the Chairman of the United Palestine Appeal following the receipt of a cablegram from Dr. Chaim Weizmann” which said that “immigration figures just compiled show that 100,000 new Jewish settlers entered Palestine from 1919 to 1925.”



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



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



1931: “City Streets” a mystery film starring Sylvia Sidney and Paul Lukas was released today in the United Sates.



1933(22ndof Nisan, 5693): Eighth Day of Pesach



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



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



1935(15thof Nisan, 5695): Pesach



1935: Birthdate of Paul A Rothschild record producer who helped to build the Elektra record label.
http://www.nytimes.com/1995/04/03/obituaries/paul-rothchild-record-producer-59.html



1936: After 233 performance, the curtain came down on “Jumbo,” a musical produced by Billy Rose with music and lyrics by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz with a book co-authored by Ben Hecht at the Hippodrome Theatre.



1936: “Bury The Dead” an anti-war play written by Irwin Shaw opened at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre in New York City.



1936: The Chief Rabbi of Vienna, Dr. Feuchtwag” issued “a strongly worded answer” in response to recent anti-Semitic attacks.



1936: In what may have been part of the attempt to improve Germany’s image prior to this summer’s Olympic games, “The German Calisthenics Association appears to have reversed the ruling of the Reich Sport League no Jew may belong to a German sport organization” but at the same time it empowered the directors of all local sport groups to expel any one for any reason.”



1937: Thomas Mann and his daughter Erika are scheduled to address the Free Synagogue in Carnegie Hall today.



1937: Rabbi Louis I. Newman is scheduled to deliver the sermon this morning at Temple Rodeph Sholom.



1937: Rabbi Lichtenstein is scheduled to deliver the sermon this morning at the Jewish Science Society.



1937: Birthdate of Ed Parish (E.P.) Sanders the New Testament Scholar whose works include Paul and Palestinian Judaism in which he “argued that the traditional Christian interpretation that Paul was condemning Rabbinic legalism was a misunderstanding of both Judaism and Paul's thought,” Jesus and Judaism in which “he argued that Jesus began as a follower of John the Baptist and was a prophet of the restoration of Israel” and Judaism” Practice and Belief.



https://www.ibr-bbr.org/files/bbr/BBR_1996_13_Neusner_JudaismBySanders.pdf



1937: “Top of the Town” a comedy directed by Sam White and featuring Gregory Ratoff and Mischa Auer was released in the United States today.



1938(17thof Nisan, 5698): Third Day of Pesach



1938: Plans for an upcoming “exhibition and sale of paintings at the Studio Gallery for “the benefit of the Joint Distribution Committee” were reported today.



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



1939(29th of Nisan, 5699): Seventy-seven year old Sir Matthew Nathan a British soldier and diplomat who  “served as the Governor of Sierra Leone, Gold Coast, Hong Kong, Natal and Queensland” passed away in Somerset, UK.
http://www.easter1916.ie/index.php/people/a-z/sir-matthew-nathan/
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Sir-Matthew-Nathan/228561157166481?sk=wall&rf=113712101972648



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



1940: President Roosevelt met with David Lasser, the science fiction writer turned labor activist who was serving as the President of the Worker’s Alliance of America today in the White House.



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



1944: Congressman Arthur Klein entered into the Congressional Record a report by Laura L. Margolies, a representative of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee in Shanghai on the conditions of “Refugees in the Far East.”



http://archives.jdc.org/assets/documents/shanghai_refugees-in-the-far-east.pdf



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



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



1945: Birthdate of Joseph Bernstein, the native of Moscow who became a leading Israeli mathematician.



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



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



1945: As World War II comes to an end, and concentration camps were being liberated “an opinion survey” taken today “suggested that 81 percent of the British population would answer ‘yes’ to the question ‘Do you think the atrocity stories are true,’ whereas in December, 1944 the proportion had been only 37 percent.”



1946: The Broadway production of “Call Me Mister” a revue with music by Harold Rome opened at the National Theatre.



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



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



“Yes, the death cell soared that night.



 At its sight



 The heads of a conquering nation



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



Like a thief caught in the act.”



1947: Birthdate of Karen Lehmann, who as Kathy Acker gained fame as author of “Blood and Guts In High School before she passed away in 1997



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



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



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



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



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



1953: After 540 performances, the curtain came down on a revival of the Rogers and Hart hit musical "Pal Joey.”



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



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



1955: Birthdate of banker Amschel Rothschild.



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



http://einstein.biz/



1961: Birthdate of columnist John Podhoretz



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



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



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



http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007040



http://the.hitchcock.zone/wiki/The_Times_(20/Apr/1964)_-_Obituary:_Mr_Ben_Hecht



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



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



1966(28thof Nisan, 5726): Yom HaShoah



1966(28thof Nisan, 5726): Seventy-three year old Yiddish author and editor Leon Goldin passed away today.



http://yleksikon.blogspot.com/2015/05/osher-arye-goldin-leon-goldin.html



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



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



1972: Birthdate of film director Eli Roth.



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



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



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



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



1978: NBC broadcast “The Final Solution,” the third episode in the mini-series “Holocaust.”



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



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



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



1981(14thof Nisan, 5741): Shabbat Hagadol; in the evening Jews sit down to the first Seder during the Presidency of Ronald Reagan.



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



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



1983: The Nożyk Synagogue which the Nazis had partially destroyed during WW II was officially reopened today in Warsaw.



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



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



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



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



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



1987(19thof Nisan, 5747): Fifth Day of Pesach and Shabbat



1987(19thof Nisan, 5747): Ninety-six year old Austrian born California jurist and prison reform advocate Isaac Pacht passed away today.



http://articles.latimes.com/1987-04-21/news/mn-25_1_prison-reform



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



1988:  Barbra Streisand recorded "Warm All Over”



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



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



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



1992(15thof Nisan, 5752): Pesach is observed for the last time during the Presidency of George Bush.



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



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



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



1996: Ninety-two year old Boleslavs Maikovskis, who took part in the mass execution of 200 Latvian villagers during WW II died today.



http://www.nytimes.com/1996/05/08/nyregion/boleslavs-maikovskis-92-fled-war-crimes-investigation.html



1998: U.S. premiere of “Since You’ve Been Gone,” a made-for-TV movie directed by David Schwimmer and co-starring Schwimmer, Jon Stewart and Joey Slotnick.



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



2005: Today, David Littman helped to organize “a major Parallel NGO Day Conference.”



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



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



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



2008(13thof Nisan, 5768): Ninety-one year old William Frankel, the barrister and general secretary of the Mizrachi organization who served as the editor of the “Jewish Chronicle and was the author of several books including Friday Night’and Israel Observed passed way today.



http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/20/AR2008042002077.html



2008: “Forgetting Sarah Marshall,” a romantic comedy directed by Nicholas Stoller, co-produced by Judd Apatow and written by Jason Segal who also starred in the film and featuring Mila Kunis was released today in the United States.



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



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



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



2009: A revival production of “Ragtime,” a musical based on the novel by E.L. Doctorow “opened at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C.



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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


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



2012: “Charles Rosen, the pianist, polymath and author whose National Book Award-winning volume The Classical Style illuminated the enduring language of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven” gave his last lecture today in the series Music in 21st-Century Society, at the Barry S. Brook Center for Music Research and Documentation of the CUNY Graduate Center.



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



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



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



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



http://www.jpost.com/NationalNews/Article.aspx?id=266815



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



2013: Rabbi Hayyim Kassorla is scheduled to officiate at the funeral of Jake Alhadeff at Greenwood Cemetery in Atlanta, GA.



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



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



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



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



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



2013: “U.S. Arms Deal With Israel and 2 Arab Nations Is Near” published today described “a $10 billion arms deal with Israel, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.”



http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/19/world/middleeast/us-selling-arms-to-israel-saudi-arabia-and-emirates.html?hp&_r=1&



2013(8thof Iyar, 5773): Ninety-six year old “Orville Slutzky, who with his brother founded the Hunter Mountain ski resort in upstate New York, known in the 1960s for its celebrity clientele and in the 1970s and ’80s for its unmatched number of snow-making cannons” passed away today. (As reported by Paul Vitello)



http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/02/nyregion/orville-slutzky-an-owner-of-hunter-mountain-ski-resort-dies-at-96.html?hpw&_r=1&



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



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



2015: Parashat Shemini and Chapter I of Pirke Avot



2015: Lewis Black is scheduled to perform at the Peace Center Concert Hall in Greenville, SC.



2015: Poet and activist Elly Gross is scheduled to share her experiences during the Shoan at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum



2015: Lou Reed is scheduled to be inducted in to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame today.



2015: “Clouds of Sils Maria” and “While We’re Young” are scheduled to be shown at the Westchester Jewish Film Festival.



2016(10th of Nisan, 5776): Ninety-two year old Rabbi Ben-Zion Gold, the native of Radom, Poland “who came to America in 1947 and settled in Cambridge, MA, where he became Director of the Hillel at Harvard.



2016: The Jewish Music Forum of ASJM, American Jewish Historical Society, American Sephardi Federation, Center for Traditional Music and Dance are scheduled to present “New sounds of Old Judeo-Spanish Songs,” a talk by Edwin Seroussi, “about some of the oldest recordings of Sephardic music (c.1906-1913), which have recently resurfaced in London. Recorded in a variety of locations, they feature the voices of legendary performers of the Judeo-Spanish song in the early 20th century.”



2016: Members of the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center are scheduled to enjoy a week’s worth of free viewing of “Lincoln’s Undying Words” starting today.



2016: 2016: At Cornell College, in Mt. Vernon, IA, The Thaler Holocaust Memorial Fund under the leadership of Dr. Robert Silber and the Inter-Religious Council of Linn County are scheduled to host a presentation be Magda Brown, who was 17 years old in 1944 when she and her family were deported on one of the final transports to Auschwitz-Birkenau. In March 1945, Ms. Brown was sent on a 3-day death march from Birkenau Concentration Camp. Magda and several other prisoners in her group escaped and hid in a barn. A few days later they were discovered and liberated by two American Armed Forces. Only Magda and her brother survived from her immediate family and only six cousins survived from her extended family of 70.


2016: “The Kind Words” and “The Grüninger File” are scheduled to be shown for the last time at the Westchester Jewish Film Festival.



2016: This evening, “at least 21 people were injured in bus bombing in Jerusalem” which was “the first such attack in years.



2016: The IDF revealed today it had “discovered a ‘terror tunnel’ inside Israeli territory” that had been dug by Hamas in Gaza.



2017(22nd of Nisan, 5777): /Eighth Day of Pesach; Yizkor -



2017: In Jerusalem, the Abraham Hostel is scheduled to host Mimouna, “the traditional North African celebration that marks the end of Passover typically marked with music and tasty, not-kosher-for-Passover treats.



2017: After two weeks, The Art of Banksy Exhibition in Herzliya is scheduled to come to an end.



2018: “Itzhak” a biopic about the world famous violinist is scheduled to open in Tunkhannock, PA.



2018: The Jewish Center and Park Avenue Synagogue are scheduled to co-sponsor a celebration of Israel’s birthday featuring Cantor Chaim Dovid Berson, The Jewish Center; Cantor Azi Schwartz, Park Avenue Synagogue and Cantor Mo Glazman, Temple Emanu-El


2018: The Temple-Tifereth Israel is scheduled to celebrate Israel’s 70 anniversary with a party at the Ritz Carlton in Cleveland.


2018: Holocaust survivor Michael Bornstein who was only four years old when liberated and his daughter Debbie Bornstein Holinstat are scheduled to speak at Kirkwood Community College in Cedar Rapids and at Cornell College in Mt. Vernon as part of the Yom HoShoah memorial which is being sponsored by The Thaler Holocaust Education Programming Committee chaired Dr. Robert Silber


2018(3rdof Iyar, 5778): Yom Hazikaron – Israel Remembrance Day (which like all Jewish Holidays begins on the evening before the date on the secular calendar)



 


 

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

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April 19



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


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


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


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


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


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


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


1541: Ignatius of Loyola took office as the first Superior General of the Society of Jesus.


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

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


1670(29thof Nisan, 5430): Moses Samson Bacharach, the son of Samuel and Eva Bacharach who married “Fiege, the widow of Moses Ha-Kohen Nerol” after the death of his first wife” Dobrusch, a daughter of Isaac ben Phœbus, of Ungarisch-Brod, Moravia” and who was the chief rabbi at Worms passed away.


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


1689: Sixty-two year old Augusta Christian, the Queen of Sweden who studied Hebrew literature and was philo-Semitic as could be seen by her friendship with Menassaeh ben Israel and “other Hebrew Scholars” but who was unable “to  prevent the banishment of the Jews of Vienna, decreed by Emperor Leopold in 1670 “ passed away today.


1707: Emperor Joseph I confirmed an arrangement reached by the Council of Worms on June 7, 1699 which granted “certain concessions” to the Jews of that city.


1753(15thof Nisan, 5513): Jews in Great Britain observed the first day of Pesach as they waited for Parliament to act on a bill that would provide them with full civil rights.


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


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


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


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


1799(14thof Nisan, 5559): Final Fast of the First Born in the 18th century


1807: David Braham married Sarah Abrahams today at the Western Synagogue.


1810(15thof Nisan, 5570): Pesach


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


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


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


1826: According to the Jewish Encyclopedia, today, in The Hague, Leonardus Levy Abraham Verveer and Caroline Elkan gave birth to Dutch painter and engraver Elchanan Verveer whose paintings included "The First Pipe" and "Winter," both in the museum at Rotterdam, and "The Widow" and "Sufferers from Sea-Sickness," which belong to the Stadtmuseum in The Hague.”


1827(22ndof Nisan, 5587): Eighth and final day of Pesach


1837(14thof Nisan, 5597): Fast of the First Born observed for the first time during the Presidency of Martin Van Buren, the first Chief Executive to be born in the independent United States of America.


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


1841: After Jacob Ezekiel wrote to President John Tyler challenging Tyler’s reference “to the American nation as a ‘Christian people’” President Tyler wrote back to Ezekiel today explaining his reason for the statement and assuring him that he meant no disrespect to Jews in the United States.


1848(16thof Nisan, 5608): Second day of Pesach


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


1851: In Germany, Harris Loewenthal and Hannah Myers gave birth to their daughter Hattie, who became Hattie Weindhandler when she married Solomon Weindhandler after which she served as Vice president of the Federation of Sisterhoods and organizer of the Sisterhood at Rodeph Shalom in New York.


1855: In New York, Solomon Belais, the son of Rabbi Abraham and Naomi Belais and Jael Belais gave birth to Julia Ascher


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


1856(14th of Nisan, 5616): In the evening, first Seder.


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


1860: At Madison, Indiana, Raphael Sulzer and Rachel Meimendinger gave birth to attorney Marcus R. Sulzer, the husband of Lida Griffith who was active in Republican politics and served as President of District Grand Lodge, No.2 of B’nai B’rth.

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


1861: The 26th Pennsylvania Volunteer Regiment whose members included Dr. Jacob da Silva Solis Cohen was attacked by a group of Rebel sympathizer as it went through Baltimore, MD on its way to Washington, DC.


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


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


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


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


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

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


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


1868:At the suggestion of Chief Rabbi N. M. Adler, the three city synagogues—the Great, the Hambro', and the New—with their western branches at Portland street and Bayswater agreed to a scheme today which was submitted to the Charity Commissioners of England and embodied by them in an Act of Parliament in 1870.


1868(27thof Nisan, 5628): Seventy-two year old Judith Russell Nathans, the native of Baltimore who was the second wife of Isaiah Nathans with whom she had seven children passed away today in Philadelphia, PA.


1869: Theodore Minis Etting who had volunteered to serve in the U.S. Navy during the Civil War was promoted from the rank of Midshipman to Ensign today.


1870: German native Adolph Marix who had joined the Navy in 1864 while living in Iowa became an Ensign today.


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


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


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


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


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


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


1875: In Lunny (near Grodno) Russia, Max Rubinow and Esther Shereshewsky, the husband of Sophie Himowich,  father of Raymond and Olga Rubinow  and graduate of Columbia Medical College who became an actuary and author of The Quest of Security which “established him as the most recognized theorist on social insurance in the first three decades of the twentieth century.”


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


1877: In Jacksonville, Florida, David Levy officiated at the wedding of Martha Ritzwoller of Berlin and Mr. Furchgott of Charleston, S.C.


1877: In Frankfurt am Main, Germany, Julie Judith Bamberger and Isaac Seckel Bamberger, the son of Kela Bamberger and Rav Yitschak Dov Halevi Bambergerg, gave birth to Nathan Bamberger


1878: In Bellaire, Ohio, Alexander Schoenfeld and Rose Hartman gave birth to Julia Schoefeld, a graduate of Allegheny (PA) College who worked as a probation officer and school teacher while also serving as a “a member of the State Committee of Federated Women’s Clubs of Pennsylvania” which worked “to effect improvement in child labor legislation and in conditions of working women.”


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


1889: In London, UK, Sir Meyer Adam Speilman and Gertrude Emily Spielman gave birth to Claude Myer Spielman


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


1891: Abraham Shapiro married Sarah Jacobs at the East London Synagogue today


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


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


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


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


1892(22ndof Nisan, 5652): Eighth and final day of Pesach


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


1893(3rdof Iyar, 5653): Sixty-three year old Bailey Gatzert, the first only Jewish mayor of Seattle passed away today.

1893: In Hungary, Judah and Marjem Grunwald gave birth to Samuel Greenwald the husband of Szeri Greenwald.


1893: “Converting The Jews” published today provided editorial comment on “the procedure adopted by certain crude and violent evangelists to ‘convert the Jews’” saying that to convert “an educated Chinaman or an educated Hebrew to ‘convert’ him must strike him in the first place as a piece of appalling impudence.”


1895: According to remarks published today made by Rabbi Maurice H. Harris of Temple Israel in Harlem Shakespeare did not want Shylock to be seen as “a selfish monster who lived for gain” but as the victim of persecution who “if he had been treated justly and not gibed and sneered at…would not have wanted his pound of flesh.”


1895(25thof Nisan, 5655): Sixty-three year old Philadelphia philanthropist Lucien Moss, the son of Eleazer Moss and Mary Levy passed away today in his home town.


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


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


1896: The Union Hebrew Veterans’ Association met at the Grand Opera House in New York City.1897: The first of Boston Marathons was run. While many Jews have run in the race, none is more famous than the team from the Jewish Special Education Cooperative. Team JSEC ran in the 108th Boston Marathon.  Runners included Dan Rosen, Amira Rosenberg, Josh Rosenberg, and David Katz.1897: The Civil Service Commission is scheduled to conduct tests for foreign language interpreters including those fluent in Hebrew.


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


1900: In Leeds, U.K., Annie Morris and Hyman Morris, the son of Fanny Sapira Morris and Jacob Samuel Morris, gave birth to Albert Morris


1902: Birthdate of Newark, NJ native Phil “K.O.” Kaplan a leading middleweight who fought most of the great boxers of the 1920 including his co-religionist Maxie Rosnebloom


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


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


1905(14thof Nisan, 5665): Fast of the First Born


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


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


1908: Organization of the Sons of Zion fraternal order whose members included Jacob S. Strahl, Nathan Chasan and Solomon Neuman


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


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


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


1913(12thof Nisan, 5673): Parashat Achrei Mot and Shabbat HaGadol


1913(12thof Nisan, 5673): Fifty-five year old Sigmund Kohlman, the husband of Julia H. Kolman passed away today after which he was interred in the Springhill Avenue Temple Cemetery in Mobile, Alabama.


1913: It was reported today that based on information from Beirut Baron Edmond Rothschilde has been granted permission from the government in Constantinople “to undertake excavations in Palestine” and that he “intends to establish a museum in Jerusalem in which all the objects that have historic tic bearing upon the Jewish in Palest will be collected.”


1913: It was reported today that “The Jewish World of London has been acquired by the proprietors of The Jewish Chronicle of London and will be published from the offices of the Chronicle.


1915: In the case of “Frank v. Mangum” “the Supreme Court denied Leo Frank’s appeal” by a seven to two vote with Oliver Wendell Holmes, one of the dissenters writing "It is our duty to declare lynch law as little valid when practiced by a regularly drawn jury as when administered by one elected by a mob intent on death."


1915: Elisa and Clairce Lispector gave birth to their middle daughter Tania.


1915: Approximately 800 people filled in the Educational Alliance building in New York with an overflow crowd in the streets heard Rabbi Stephen S. Wise speak at “a mass meeting in honor of Baron Nathan Rothschild who died recently in London” where he praised him for “his efforts to give education to the Jews of the world over.”


1916(16thof Nisan, 5676): Second Day of Pesach; 1st Day of the Omer


1916: Because today is the second day of Passover, “the collection of bundles and bags for the United Hebrew Charities Bundle Day” did not take place today but is scheduled to be resumed tomorrow.


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


1917(27thof Nisan, 5677): Lt. Joshua Levy, who had been a “clothier” before enlisting in the British Army in 1914 died today while serving with the Norfolk Regiment.


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


1917: On the same day that the Russian Foreign Minister offered reassurances that his country would not make a separate peace and that Lenin was criticized for having accepted German assistance to return to Russia, reports continued to circulate that attempts were being made to “organize a massacre of the Jews and intelligent classes” in Kishinev.


1918(7thof Iyar, 5678): Lt. Lawrence Braham Rosenbaum one of the sons of Solomon Rosenbaum, a Russian-born pawnbroker, died today while serving with the Monmouthshire Regiment.


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


1919: Eugene Schiffer completed his term as Minister of Finance in Germany.


1919: The Hebrew Scouts Movement is founded.


1919: In Cedar Rapids, IA, John and Ruth Miller gave birth to Joan Miller Lipsky, the widow of Abbot Lipsky.

1919: Birthdate of Philadelphia Sol Kaplan the successful concert pianist and concert business who was blacklisted by the House Committee on Un-American Activities.


1920: At Gomel The Twelfth Conference of Bund “where the party was split into two separate parties, the majority Communist Bund and the minority Social Democratic Bund, came to an end today. (Editor’s note: Yes, strange as it may seem to us looking at events from 98 years ago, this sort of philosophic wrangling went in in deadly earnest even as post-War Europe was racked with revolution and privatation.)


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


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


1920: Associated Justice Louis Brandeis voted with the majority today in deciding State of Missouri v. Holland, United States Game Warden a case in which Louis Marshall, Esq. submitted an amicus curae brief to the U.S. Supreme Court on Missouri v. Holland on behalf of the Association for the Protection of the Adirondacks was decided today.


1920: Birthdate of Marvin Mandel, the 56th Governor of Maryland.


1922: Birthdate of New York born American actress Marian Winters


1924(15thof Nisan, 5684): Pesach


1924(15thof Nisan, 5684): In the evening, some of Harvard’s Jewish students are scheduled to attend a seder at the home of Greek and Latin Professor Harry K. Messenger, who along with his converted to Judaism.


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


1926: “A group of prominent real estate men met tonight at the Park Lane Hotel” and “announced their contribution of $200,000 to the United Jewish Campaign which formally opens later this week in the presence of Mayor James Walker who had defied doctor’s orders to attend the event.


1927: “King of Kings” a Biblical epic silent film starring Joseph Schildkraut and Rudolph Schildkraut with music by Hugo Riesenfeld and Joseph Zuro and including an appearance by Ayn Rand as an extra was released today in the United States.


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

1929: “Dinner Aids Salomon Fund” published today described inauguration of the Haym Salomon monument campaign which begin with a dinner at the Hotel Biltmore where attendees heard a speech by “Benjamin Winter, President of the Federation of Polish Jews, which is sponsoring the Salomon memorial.”


1930: In The Bronx, “operatic tenor Jan Peerce and talent agent Alice (Kalmanowitz) Peerce” gave birth to director Lawrence “Larry” Peerce whose most famous film may “Goodbye, Columbus.”


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


1931: After having premiered in New York City two week ago, “Crack Nuts” a comedy with music by Max Steiner was released to the rest of the United States


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


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


1935(16thof Nisan, 5695): Second Day of Pesach


1935: It was reported today that the project to settle 1,600 Jewish children from Germany to Palestine by February 1936 “is among those supported by American Jewry through the United Jewish Appeal which is conducting a nationwide drive” to raise $3,250,000.


1936: Carl J. Austrian made public telegrams “Presidents and chancellors of several colleges and university in” the United States sent to Rabbi Jonah B. Wise in which they deplored “a decree promulgated shortly after Easter excluding Jewish children from German public schools.”


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


1936: Arabs attacked Jews in the Tel Aviv-Jaffa district this morning leaving nine Jews dead and another fifty seriously wounded.


1936: “The economic plight of Jews in Poland suffering anti-Semitism was described at a mass meeting at the Hotel Pennsylvania today called by the Federation of Polish Jews in America in behalf of the American Committee Appeals for Polish Jews” which is trying to raise one million dollars to help the Poles.


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


1937: Construction of the Golden Gate Bridge a project on which Joseph Strauss served as Chief Engineer was completed today.


1938(18thof Nisan, 5698) Fourth Day of Pesach


1938: Two hundred eighty prisoners attended a Passover service tonight at Sing Sing Prison where were led by Rabbi Jacob Katz, the Jewish chaplain and Zalman Yavneh the cantor at the West Side Institute Synagogue.


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


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


1939: The Women’s League of Palestine raised $30,000 at a luncheon at the Hotel Astor.


1940: In Sofia, Bulgaria, the governments of Bulgaria and Romania signed an agreement creating an airline which will operate between Sofia and Bucharest with connecting flights to Tel Aviv.


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


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


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


1943: Chaike Belchatowska who had joined he ZOB (Jewish Fighting Organization) in January, 1943, and her future husband Boruch Spiegel, a commander of a ZOB fighting unit were among those who took part in the uprising that began today and we among the handful of fighters who survived.

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


1943: A year and a half after having been “to the predominately Jewish district of Sophienstreasse in Berlin,” “Arthur Schmidt was sent on Transport 37 from Gleis (Track) 17 of Berlin-Grunewald Station to Auschwitz” after which he was never heard from again.


1943: “Richard Law, the senior British representative at today’s Bermuda Conference wrote to his boss, foreign secretary Anthony Eden, ‘Sorry to bother you about Jews.  I know what a bore it is.’”


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


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

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


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


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


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

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


1945: U.S. Army troops captured Leipzig, Germany today where they found a general of the Volksstrum who had committed suicide lying in the floor of city “with a torn picture of His feuhrer beside his clenched fist.”

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


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


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


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


1947:  This evening, The Shanghai Jewish Youth Community Center opened its Warsaw Ghetto Commemoration week with a Yizkor service. 


1947: Comedian Shelly Berman married Sarah Berman


1948: Twenty-four armored trucks filled with Jewish veterans who had served with the British Army during WW II, drove to a hilltop “situated less than a mile from the Arab village of Bureir” where the Jews disembarked and established a new settlement called Brur Hayal.


1948: Haganah captured Tiberias


1948: A Palmach unit used Al-Kafrayn for a training base before blowing it up


1949(20th of Nisan, 5709): Reform Rabbi and Zionist leader Stephen Samuel Wise who in 1942 had met with U.S. Under-secretary of State Sumner Wells and that held “a press conference where he announced that the Nazis had a plan for the extermination of all European Jews, and had already killed 2 million” passed away passed away today. (Editor’s note – Guess the World really did know and the world just did not care)

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


1951: CBS broadcast the first episode of “Casey, Crime Photographer” produced by Martin Manulis, with music by Morton Gould.


1951: “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn,” with lyrics by Dorothy Fields and music by Arthur Schwartz, based on the novel with the same name opened at the Alvin Theatre


1952: Herb “Gorman appeared for the St. Louis Cardinals against the Chicago Cubs today pinch-hitting in the 7th inning and grounding out” in what “was his only game in the majors.”


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


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


1953:Hermann Merkin and Ursula Merkin (née Ursula Sara Breuer) gave birth Jacob Ezra Merkin the financier who was a friend and business associate of Bernard Madoff with whom he colluded in the one of the worst Ponzi Schemes of the 21stcentury.


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


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


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


1955: Ten months after having premiered in the United Kingdom, “The Young Lovers” with a screenplay by George Tabori, a score by Benjamin Frankel and featuring David Kossoff who would a British Film Academy Award as “most promising newcomer to film” was released in the United States today.


1960(22ndof Nisan, 5720): Eighth Day of Pesach marking the last observance of the holiday during the Presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower.


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


1962(15thof Nisan, 5722): Pesach


1962: U.S. premiere of “Five Finger Exercise” based on the play by Peter Shaffer, directed by Daniel Mann with music by Jerome Moross.


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


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

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


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


1971: In Casablanca, Moroccan Sephardic JewsDavid and Régine Elmaleh gave birth to “French stand-up comedian and actor” Gad Elmaleh.
 
1972: The late Diane Arbus's photographs were chosen to appear in the Venice Biennale, marking the first time an American photographer was honored at the event.



1973(17thof Nisan, 5733): Third Day of Pesach


1973(17thof Nisan, 5753): Ninety one year old Hans Kelsen, the main author of Austria's new constitution after the First World War” and the Pure Theory of Law passed away today at Berkley, CA.

1973:  Barbra Streisand recorded "Between Yesterday & Tomorrow"


1973: “Soylent Greent,’ a science fiction cliff hanger directed by Richard Fleishcer and co-starring Edward G. Robinson was released today in the United States.


1973: Birthdate of Israeli professional tennis player Tzipora “Tzipi” Obziler who represented Israel at the 2008 Summer Olympics in China.”


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


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


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


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



1976: Professor of Meterology Tzvi Gal-Chen and his wife gave birth to Rivka Galchen “a Canadian-American writer and physician whose first novel, Atmospheric Disturbances, was published in 2008.” She has served as an adjunct professor in the writing division of Columbia University's School of Art



1978: Yitzhak Navron was elected 5th President of Israel.
http://www.mfa.gov.il/mfa/aboutisrael/state/pages/yitzhak%20navon.aspx



1978: NBC broadcast “The Saving Remnant,” the fourth and final episode of the mni-series “Holocaust”



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



1978: In Palo Alto, CA, Betsy Lou (née Verne), a writer and occasional actress, and Douglas Eugene "Doug" Franco a Silicon Valley businessman who met while they were students at Stanford gave birth to James Franco “an American actor, director, screenwriter, producer, teacher, author and poet.”



1979(22ndof Nisan, 5739): Eighth Day of Pesach and Yizkor



1979:Five Prisoners of Zion - Boris Penson, Anatoly Altman, Leib Khnokh, Hillel Butman and Wolf Zalmanson – were “pardoned by the Soviet authorities and left for Israel.



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



1982: Aharon Abuhatzira was convicted today “of larceny, breach of trust and fraud.”



1985: In a joint ceremony, President Ronald Reagan presented the Congressional Gold Medal to Elie Wiesel and on signed the Jewish Heritage Week Proclamation at the same time that Wiesel  “stirred deep emotions when he tried to dissuade President Ronald Reagan from taking time from a planned trip to West Germany to visit a military cemetery there, in Bitburg, where members of Hitler’s elite Waffen SS were buried” saying “That place, Mr. President, is not your place…Your place is with the victims of the SS.’
http://www.pbs.org/eliewiesel/resources/reagan.html



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



1989(14thof Nisan, 5749): Ta’anit Bechroto; erev Pesach



1991: “Drop Dead Fred” a comedy starring Phoebe Cates was released today in the United States.



1993(28thof Nisan, 5753): Yom HaShoah observed for the first time during the Presidency of Bill Clinton.



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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

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


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



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


2005: A new mikvah designed by an Israeli architect was dedicated at the Grand Choral Synagogue in St. Petersburg, Russia.


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


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


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


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


2007: Paul “Kurtz appeared on Penn & Teller's television show Bullshit! arguing that exorcism and Satanic cults are merely "hype and paranoia.”


2007(1stof Iyar): Rosh Chodesh Iyar


2007: The Jerusalem Post reported that A Bible that a condemned member of the pre-state underground gave to his British prison guard minutes before he and a fellow Zionist fighter killed themselves is to be returned by the guard's son in Jerusalem today, six decades later


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


2010(5th of Iyar, 5770): Yom Hazikaron


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


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


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


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


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


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


2011: A revival performance of Larry Kramer’s “The Normal Heart” opened today


2011:Venerable Art Dealer Is Enmeshed in Lawsuits” published today looks at the challenges facing 65 year old Guy Wildenstein, the leader of “a discreet dynasty of Jewish art dealers.”



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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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

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

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

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



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


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

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


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


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


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


2014:The main synagogue in Nikolayev, located in the southeast of Ukraine, was firebombed today when two Molotov cocktails were thrown at the synagogue’s door and window. (As reported by JTA)


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


2014: Premiere of “5 to 7” directed by Victor Levin at the Tribeca Film Festival.


2015: “The Art Dealer” is scheduled to be shown as part of the UK Jewish Film Festival.


2015: “G-D’s Honest Truth” is scheduled to be performed for the last time at Theatre J in Washington, D.C.


2015: In Washington, D.C. Dr. Samuel Gruber is scheduled to deliver a lecture entitled “ Before Modernism: American Synagogue Architecture Before WW II.”


2015(30thof Nisan, 5775): Rosh Chodesh Iyar


2015: “American Jewish comedian Amy Schumer” talked about her “new film ‘Trainwreck’” today “at the 2015 Tribeca Film Festival.”


2015(30thof Nisan 5775): Eleven days before his one hundredth birthday Elio Toaff who served as Chief Rabbi of Rome from 1951 to 2002 passed away today.

2015: The New York Times features books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Fall of the Ottomans: The Great War in the Middle East by Eugene Rogan and the recently released paperback edition of Mad As Hell:The Making of “Network” and the Fateful Vision of the Angriest Man in Movies by Dave Itzkoff


2015: In commemoration of Yom HaShoah the Guy Mendilow Ensemble and the Philadelphia Girls’ Choir are scheduled to a perform a concert that includes compositions in English and Ladino that takes us "musical trek from bustling Mediterranean ports and resplendent Balkan capitals to communities shattered in the Second World War and all but forgotten" at the National Museum of Jewish History in Philadelphia.


2015: Today’s Yom Hashoah observance at the William Breman Jewish Heritage Museum in Atlanta, GA is scheduled to include a speech by Ambassador Stuart Eizenstat and the Atlanta Boy Choir performing “I Never Saw Another Butterfly.”


2015: The President’s Residence announced today that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will meet with President Reuven Rivlin tomorrow “to request an extension in forming” a new government. (Times of Israel)


2015: “Hundreds of people commemorated the 72nd anniversary of the outbreak of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising” this afternoon in the Polish capital city.


2015: “Hungarian Holocaust survivors rescued 70 years ago from a train taking them from one concentration camp to another today paid tribute to the American soldiers who helped liberate them.”


2015: The 12th annual “March of Good Will” a demonstration against anti-Semitism took place today in Prague.


2016(11thof Nisan, 5576): Ninety-three year old Nobel Prize laureate Walter Kohn passed away today. (As reported by Sam Roberts)

2016: The American Jewish Historical Society is scheduled to present “Kosher USA: How Coca-Cola Came to the Passover Seder and Other Tales of Modern Kosher Food” which “follows the journey of kosher foods through the modern industrial food system, traces how iconic products such as Coca Cola tried to become kosher, what made Manischewitz wine the very first kosher name brand to gain an African American audience, and more.


2016: In “Streti’s Matzo, a New York Tale of a Lost Love” published today Nicolas Rapold provided a review of a documentary about the Big Apple and the Bread of Affliction.

2016: Future Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, “an early Trump supporter” attended Trump’s victory party “after the New York Republican primary” today.


2016: In an appearance sponsored by the Thaler Holocaust Memorial Fund, “Magda Brown, who was 17 years old in 1944 when she and her family were deported on one of the final transports to Auschwitz-Birkenau” is scheduled to speak at Kennedy Sr. High School.


2016: “Norman Lear: Just Another Version of You” is scheduled to be shown at the Westchester Jewish Film Festival.”


2016(11th of Nisan, 5776): Fifty-one year old Israeli movie star Ronit Elkabetz passed away today.

2016: All decent human beings pray for the recovery of 15 year old Eden Dadon and all of the other victims of yesterday’s terrorist bus bombing in Jerusalem as they fight to recover from their wounds and burns.


2017(23rdof Nisan, 5777): Ninety-six year old Ruth Sulzberger Holmberg, the former publisher of The Chattanooga Times, the Sulzberger paper before the New York Times, passed away today.

2017: The UK Jewish Film Organization is scheduled to sponsor a screening of “The Pickle Recipe” in Glasgow, Scotland


2017: The UK Jewish Film Organization is scheduled to host a special preview screening of “The Zookeeper’s Wife” at the Phoenix Cinema.


2017: “Barney’s Version” and “Weirdos” are scheduled to be shown at the Vancouver Jewish Film Centre. 2017: “An Israeli computer scientist,” “Adi, Sahmir, a professor at the Weizmann Institute” is scheduled to receive a Japan Prize today as recognition “for his contribution to information security through pioneering research on cryptography.”


2017:Poland’s chief Rabbi Michael Schudrich led “the burial ceremony of Torah Scrolls in the Warsaw Jewish Cemetery” today.


2017: “Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faced harsh criticism from bereaved parents today over his management of the 2014 Gaza war during an emotional three-and-a-half-hour-long hearing, including a series of heated back and forths between politicians and families of those killed in battle.”


2017: “Holocaust Escape Tunnel,” a “Nova” production shown this evening, sheds new light on the attempt by 80 imprisoned men and women — mostly Lithuanian Jews — to make a break for freedom in the face of Nazi bullets

2018(4thof Iyar): Israel Independence Day observed since the fifth of Iyar falls on erev Shabbat; for more see http://downhomedavartorah.blogspot.com/


2018: The Jewish Federation of Cleveland is scheduled to host Israeli singer-songwriter David Broza at its Yom Ha’atzmaut celebration at Landerhaven,


2018: “Ina Lancman, daughter of Naftali Herts Kon, well-known Yiddish poet and writer, are scheduled to give a presentation together with Polish attorney Tomasz T. Koncewicz. Lancman that will focus on Naftali Herts Kon’s literary career and the stirring story of his persecution and the confiscations of his papers under the Soviet and communist Poland regimes”

2018: Natan Sharansky is scheduled to receive his Israel Prize for promoting immigration today as part of Israel’s Independence Day celebrations


 

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