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This Day, October 26, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. Levin

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OCTOBER 26


1235: King Andrew II of Hungary passed away. During the reign of King Andrew II (1205–1235) there were Jewish Chamberlains and mint-, salt-, and tax-officials. The nobles of the country, however, induced the king, in his Golden Bull (1222), to deprive the Jews of these high offices. When Andrew needed money in 1226, he farmed the royal revenues to Jews, which gave ground for much complaint. The pope (Pope Honorius III) thereupon excommunicated him, until, in 1233, he promised the papal ambassadors on oath that he would enforce the decrees of the Golden Bull directed against the Jews and the Saracens (by this time, the papacy had changed, and the Pope was now Pope Gregory IX; would cause both peoples to be distinguished from Christians by means of badges; and would forbid both Jews and Saracens to buy or to keep Christian slaves.


1407:  Mobs attacked the Jews in Cracow, Poland.  The so-called Cracow Accusations was one of the first libels in Poland. The Jews tried to defend themselves and were forced to take refuge in the Church of St. Anne which was surrounded and then set afire. Any children left alive were forcibly baptized.
 
1496: An edict expelling the Jews was signed in Naples.


1520: The coronation of Charles V as King of Germany, to whom the Jews of Speyer complained that they were mistreated and denied their given rights. This included beatings, tortures and killings, imprisonment, robbery, expulsion, closing of schools and synagogues, payment of tolls and duties and the denial of the right to appeal to the imperial or other courts” which led him “to renew and confirm the Jews’ charter” took place today.


1631: Birthdate of Cardinal Leopold Karl von Kollonitsch who advised the King to repopulate Hungary with Catholic Jews from Germany and who “held that the Jews could not be exterminated at once but must be weeded out by degrees as bad coin is gradually withdrawn from circulation.  To that end he called for the enforcement of the decree by the Diet of Pressburg, “imposing double taxation on the Jews” and deny them right to “engage in agriculture” or “to own any real estate.”


1689: General Piccolomini of Austria burned down Skopje in Macedonia to prevent the spread of cholera. Skopje was part of the Ottoman Empire and it was one of the towns where Jews fleeing from Spain after 1492 found refuge and were able to prosper in the fields of trade, finance and medicine.  In the 21st century, most of the handful of Macedonian Jews lives in Skopje, the country’s capital.


1714: Emperor Charles VI approved an arrangement previously “confirmed by Joseph I that protected the Jews against any infringements of their rights on the Part of the Council of Worms.


1803: Moses Mosely married Rosetta Samuel at the Great Synagogue today.


1819: On the Isle of Jutland, Aaron Goldschmidt and Leah Rothschild gave birth to the “distinguished Danish poet, novelist and journalist,” Professor Meyer Aaron Goldschmidt.


1825:The Erie Canal opens with passage from Albany, New York to Lake Erie. Eventually the canal would provide a water access to Buffalo, thus opening a water route that would stretch from the Atlantic Oceans to the all of the lands bordering on the Great Lakes.  This would create immeasurable commercial opportunities for all Americans, including the Jews.  It would lead to the creation of thriving Jewish communities in places like Cleveland, Detroit and Chicago.  Mordechai M. Noah, one of the most prominent Jews of the early 19th century was originally an opponent of the canal but changed his mind when he saw that successful development of the land along the Canal would help make his dream of Ararat, A City of Refuge for Jews, a reality.


1826: In New York, John Solomons and Julia Levy gave birth to Adolphus Simeon Solomons, the husband of Rachel Seixas Phillips who became “an influential Washingtonian with strong White House and Congressional connections.”


1829: One day after he had has passed away, Hyam Emanuel was buried today at the “Brady Street Jewish Cemetery.”


1829: Two days after he had passed away, Michael Solomon, the wife of husband of Hannah Solomon and father of Samuel Solomon was buried today at the “Brompton (Fulham Road) Jewish Cemetery.


1831: Morris Lee married Rachel Nathan at the New Synagogue today.


1833(12thof Cheshvan, 5594): Forty-six year old David Phillip (Feist) Schloss, the son of Jacob and Sprinz Schloss and the husband of Malchen Schloss passed away today at Frankfurt am Main.


1836: John Wagg married Harriet Cohen at the Great Synagogue today.


1841: Birthdate of Viennese born German dramatist Jacob Bettelheim


1842: Henrik Wergeland who had rejected the anti-Semitic views of his father Nikolai, published his book Jødesagen i det norske Storthing ("The Jewish issue in the Norwegian parliament"), which in addition to arguing for the cause also provides interesting insights into the workings of the parliament at the time


1844: Birthdate of American playwright and producer Edward “Ned” Harrigan the author and producer of “Mordecai Lyons” an 1882 drama which unlike some “Jew plays” is “serious and valuable” when it comes to portraying its Jewish characters.


1853: Dr. Raphall, a New York Rabbi, delivered an address about Russia at a meeting of the Young Men’s Literary Association. 


1853: Following Dr. Raphall’s address to the Hebrew Young Men’s Literary Association, Mr. Mosely Lyon delivered an address describing the purpose of the organizations.


1854:Hermann Mayer Salomon Goldschmidt discovered Asteroid 32 Pomona.


1855: Birthdate of Richmond dramatist Sydney Rosenfeld, the “first editor of Puck,” “one of the main movers in the effort to secure a National Theatre for the United States” and husband of “Genie Holzmeyer Johnson” who was the author of several plays including “A Possible Case” and “The Club Friend” as well as several “operettas and musicals” including “The Lady or the Tiger” and “The Passing Show.”


1858: Albert Goldsmid was promoted to the rank of major-general in the British Army.  Born in 1794, the son of Benjamin Goldsmid, he entered the army in 1811 which gave him the opportunity to fight the French in Spain to serve at the Battle of Waterloo.


1858: The Personal Column published today reported that a "A Moldavian Jew, Israel Benjamin SRAEL, is preparing for a journey through Afghanistan and China. Since 1845, he has gone over the Eastern countries of Europe, as well as Egypt, Palestine, Persia, the Regencies of Tripoli and Tunis, Algeria, and Morocco. The Geographical Society of Berlin have charged him to solve several geographical and ethnographical questions. He has just published Eight Years Travel in Asia and Africa by Israel Benjamin


1859:  Bernhard Bettmann who had “established a men’s clothing business in 1856 at Cincinnati, Ohio married Tillie Wald of New York City with whom he had seven children.


1860: In Sweden, Jews, who up until now were only permitted to own property in urban areas, were granted the “right to acquire real estate in rural communities.”


1861: During the American Civil War, the 9thWisconsin Volunteer Infantry Regiment was mustered into service as part of the United States under the command of Colonel Frederick C. Salomon.  When Salomon was appointed Brigadier General, he brother Charles became the Colonel commanding the regiment.  This may have made the 9thWisconsin the only unit on either side of the conflict to be commanded successively by two brothers who were Jewish.


1862: Birthdate of Justine Dreyfus Levy who would be buried in Natchitoches, LA in 1917.


1864:  Myer Isaacs sent a strongly worded letter to President Lincoln warning him against a deal that he allegedly made with a group of New York Jews who, presenting themselves as leaders of the community, had promised to deliver the “Jewish vote” for him. This letter is one of the germinal documents of early Jewish participation in the American political process.


Your  Excellenc
As a firm and earnest Union man, I deem it my duty to add a word ... with reference to a recent "visitation" on the part of persons claiming to represent the Israelites of New York or the United States and pledging the "Jewish vote" to your support, and, I am informed, succeeding in a deception that resulted to their pecuniary profit.
Having peculiar facilities for obtaining information as to the Israelites of the United States, from my eight years' connection with the Jewish paper of this city and my position as Secretary of their central organization, the "Board of Delegates" . . . I feel authorized to caution you, Sir, against any such representations as those understood to have been made.
There are a large number of faithful Unionists among our prominent coreligionists — but there are also supporters of the opposition, and indeed the Israelites are not as a body, distinctly Union or democratic in their politics ... the Jews as a body have no politics.
Therefore, Sir, I am pained and surprised to find that you had been imposed upon by irresponsible men ... such acts are discountenanced and condemned most cordially by the community of American Israelites ...
There is no "Jewish vote"— if there were, it could not be bought. As a body of intelligent men, we are advocates of the cherished principles of liberty and justice, and must inevitably support and advocate those who are the exponents of such a platform — "liberty and union, now and forever."
Pardon the liberty I take in thus trespassing on your attention, but I pray that you will attribute it to the sole motive I have, that of undeceiving you and assuring you that there is no necessity for "pledging" the Jewish vote which does not exist — but at the same time that the majority of Israelite citizens must concur in the attachment for the Union and a determination to leave no means untried to maintain its honor and integrity.


Yours most Respectfully,
Myer S. Isaacs


1865: In Philadelphia, PA, “mining magnate Meyer Guggenheim” and his wife Barbara Meyers gave birth to their fifth son Benjamin Guggenheim whose marriage to Florette  Seligman would unite to of America’s wealthiest Jewish families and whose death at age 46 aboard the RMS Titanic was an unexpected tragedy.


1869: Austen Henry Layard, the archeologist who excavated Nimrud and Niniveh as described in Discoveries at Nineveh completed his service as First Commissioner of Works in the government of Prime Minster Gladstone.


1872: In Brooklyn, banker Joseph S. Taussig and the former Mary L. Cuno gave birth to Frederick Joseph Taussign, the St. Louis educated graduate of Harvard and Washington University Medical School who developed a specialty in gynecology, served as a “professor of clinical obstetrics and gynecology” at Washington University and married Florence Gottschalk.

1872: It was reported today that the Jews of Rumania want to immigrate to the United States en masse. They have written to the Interior Department to see if they can acquire a large enough section of public lands to meet the needs of a large colony. Current laws preclude the granting of their request.


1877: In Philadelphia, PA, Florence LIveright, the daughter of Abraham and Reccah Kahn and Simon Liveright gave birth to Arthur K. Liveright


1877: In Kovno, Lithuania, Leopold and Matilda Marver Enelow gave birth to Hyman Gerson Enelow a graduate of the University of Cincinnati who was ordained by Rabbi Isaac M. Wise in 1898 who served several congregations including Temple Israel in Paducah, Congregation Adath Israel and Temple Emanu-El in New York City.


1881(3rd of Cheshvan, 5642) Eighty-six year old Austrian Talmudist Aaron Kornfeld passed away today at his home town of Goltsch-Jenikau Bohemia.


1881: In Charleston, SC, at Congregation Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim on Hasell Street, Rabbi David Levy officiated at the marriage of Henry J. Harby of Sumter, SC to “Adeline Wineman, the only daughter of L.G. Emanuel of Georgetown, SC.”


1881: The Gunfight at the OK Corral takes placed in Tombstone, Arizona.  The most famous participant in the fight is Marshall Wyatt Earp. Earp was not Jewish but his last wife Josie was.  When Earp died she had his remains buried in the Marcus family plot in a Jewish cemetery in Coloma, California.  When Josie died, she was buried next to him.  The man with the star lies under the star – of David that is.


1882: “Mordecai Lyons” was performed tonight before a very large crowd at Theatre Comique in New York City.


1883: The Paris Figaro contained a detailed account of the duel between Hungarian attorney Dr. Jules Rosenberg and Count Battyany over the affections that the former had displayed for Mlle. Hona de Schossberger, the daughter of a Jewish family whose patriarch sought to marry his daughter off to a Hungarian nobeleman.


1882: The Troy (NY) Times reported that Harris Udovitch , who has been jailed on charges of assaulting Mrs. Louis Cohen claims that she was injured inadvertently during a fracas between him and Mr. Cohen over the latter’s refusal “to sell his cred with…for $150.”


1883: It was reported today that when Sir Moses Montefiore celebrated his 99thbirthday two days ago he was hailed as “the most celebrated Hebrew now living England” and the most celebrated Hebrew of our generation with the exception of Benjamin Disraeli. “He is more than an ornament to the Jewish race; he is an ornament to mankind…”


1884: The Montefiore Centenary as described in a book by Haim Gudella of the same name published in 1885 began today.


1884: Today is the first of two days during which service are scheduled to “be held in synagogues all over Europe all over in honor of the centenary” of Moses Montefiore.


1884:  It was reported today that “Sir Moses Montefiore received hundreds of telegrams congratulating him” on reaching his 100th birthday “from all parts of world” including a large number from the United States.


1884: In Rochester, NY, Rabbi Max Landsberg and Rev. N.M. Mann of the Unitarian church spoke at Temple Berith Kodesh during services marking the centennial celebration of the birth of Sir. Moses Montefiore.


1884: In Rochester, NY, Etz Chayim Synagogue hosted services marking the centennial celebration of the birth of Sir. Moses Montefiore during which “E.S. Ettenheimer read a sketch of Montefiore’s life,” Sarah Rothschild read an original poem and Rabbi Max Moll delivered a closing oration.


1884: In Petersburg, VA, “Jews and Gentiles united in celebrating the one hundredth birthday of Sir Moses Montefiore” at the city’s synagogue where “a special prayer for the long preservation of the life of the great philanthropist was offered by Rabbi Freudenthal” after which “a collection was taken up for the poor of the city.”


1884: In Washington, DC, “the orthodox and liberal congregation held joint exercise” attended by many Christians, honoring Sir Moses Montefiore.


1884: In Cincinnati, Ohio, “the Hebrew Congregations assembled in the Mound Street Temple this afternoon to celebrate the birthday of Sir Moses Montefiore” followed by an evening celebration sponsored “by the Jewish fraternities at the Allemonia Club..”


1884: In Memphis, TN, Rabbi Samfield spoke at the services held to honor Sir Moses Montefiore on his one hundredth birthday.


1884: In Wilkes-Barre, PA, Rabbi David Stern “delivered an eloquent address” at the centennial celebration of the birth of Sir Moses Montefiore.


1884: In a second day of celebration, Baltimore’s Hanover Street Synagogue was the scene of special ceremonies marking the one hundredth anniversary of the birth of Sir Moses Montefiore.

1884: “An Anglican Bishop For Jerusalem” published today described the failure of efforts to convert “Jews and Turks” living in Palestine.  The Church Missionary Society has spent more than £120,000 pounds in the last 33 years and “as can be proven from their own papers” has “never made a convert…”

1884: “The Czar’s Views of Justice” published today describes efforts to ameliorate the sentences imposed on those who took part in the anti-Jewish riots at Novogrod. In what appears to be the first decision of its kind, the Czar “has at least to some extent taken sides with the oppressed Jew” by refusing to show any leniency and expressing his determination “to take measures to prevent these bloody excesses.”

1884: It was reported today that “the chief rabbi at Naples” has been “rebuked by ultra-orthodox Jews for shortening the fast on the recent Day of Atonement” as a measure to avoid the cholera outbreak plaguing the city. The precaution must have been “a good one since not a single Jews has yet died of the disease. [Editor’s note – Fourteen thousand peopled died from Cholera in Naples in 1884.]

1884: It was reported today no Jews have died of cholera at Toulon, but five Jews died of the disease at Marseilles.

1884: It was reported today that “the reports of Sarah Bernhardt’s illness have been greatly exaggerated” and she will be able to perform in Sardou’s new play, “Theodroa” which is opening at the Porte Saint Martin Theatre.

1884: “Pereira, the Teacher of Deaf Mutes” published today traced the career of Jacob Rodrigues Pereira, the Portuguese born Sephardic French Jew whose first student was his sister who was born with the ability to speak or hear

1884: “Every pew was filled to over-flowing” and the galleries were completely filled as Temple Emanu-El held services to mark the one hundredth birthday of Sir Moses Montefiore.

1884: “Every seat…was occupied at Shearith Israel, the oldest synagogue in New York, when services honoring Sir Moses Montefiore began at three o’clock this afternoon.

1884: According to the dedicatory plaque, on this day “The Israelites of the City of New York” dedicated the Home for Chronic Invalids in honor of the centennial celebration of the birth of Sir Moses Montefiore

1885: The Patrick Divver Hebrew Association of the Sixth Ward held its annual ball today. (Divver who was Irish Catholic, was a Tammany Hall politician who understood the value of the Jewish vote)

1886: President M. Warley Platzek is scheduled to present an outline of the accomplishments of the Young Men’s Hebrew Association when it meets this evening.

1886: In New York, founding of the Ladies’ Hebrew Benevolent Society of Green point which “meets on the fourth Tuesday of the month except in July and August.”

1886: Samuel S. Cox, the U.S. Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire delivered an address to the Young Men’s Hebrew Association “on the condition of the Hebrews in the Orient.

1887: Three days after he had passed away, Baron Herman de Stern, the husband of the former Julia Goldsmid, was buried today at the “Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.”

1887: Rebecca Wolf, “the youngest daughter of the late Mr. and Mrs. Simon Wolff of Ridgeville, SC married Aaron David at his parent’s home in Columbia, SC.

1888: Birthdate of Sokollko native Herman Max Cohen, who in 1891 came to the United States where he earned an M.A. from Columbia and was ordained at Jewish Theological Seminary after which he served as the rabbi of several congregations including Beth Shalom in Kansas City, MO starting in 1919 where helped the growing congregation to build and dedicate a new facility with seats for 1,200 which the “Kansas City Star and Architectural League of Kansas City praised for its beauty and architectural detail”

1889: It was reported today that August Belmont has contributed $50,000 to New York City’s World’s Fair Fund and that Kuhn, Loeb & Co has contributed $60,000 to the same fund.

1889: It was reported today that that the Order of B’nai B’rith will take part in the upcoming Educational Fair being sponsored by the Jews of New York City.

1889: It was reported today that a dinner is going to be held in honor of Sir Julian Goldsmid during his visit to New York City.


1890: Rabbi Kaufman Kohler will conduct funeral services this morning for Joseph Rosenthal the New York merchant born in Bavaria in 1816 who came to the United States in 1845 where he has operated the dry goods firm of J. Rosenthal & Co. for the last forty-five years.


1890: “In the New York Clubs” published today provides a snapshot of the exclusive private clubs including the five whose members are primarily Jewish -- Harmonie, Progress, Fidelio, Metropolitan and Fredundschatt.


1890: In Philadelphia, PA, eighteen year old Roman Catholic Annie Eichert married Morris Stein who was Jewish – a union that Father Henry Dressman would try and put an end to when he told the family that she had to leave her husband because of his religion.


1890: It was reported today that Oscar Hammerstein’s “bold undertaking to establish grand opera in English permanently in New York City seems destined to succeed.”


1891: “An Indictment Russia” published today described events in the career of Jewish businessman Samuel Polyakov as well as their mistreatment at the hands of “the infamous” Count Nikolay Pavlovich Ignatyev.


1892: The Ladies’ Uptown Aid Society gave $50 to the Hebrew Orphan Asylum “in commemoration of the Columbian anniversary” and presented “a gold medal to Colonel Martin Cohen the leader of the Military Bond.”


1892: In Charleston, SC, Rabbi David Levy officiated at the wedding of Charles Levin of Georgetown, SC and Estell Rothstein.


1892: “No Belgian Jews Wanted” published today described the demand by the Russian Government that Belgian passports to be used by those wishing to visit Russia show their religion which would mean that Belgian Jews will either be denied admission or “treated to many indignities if they visit Russia.”  The Belgians have not responded since failure to comply will close Russia to Belgian businessmen.


1893: Birthdate of New York native Samuel Hamilton Kaufman, the NYU School of Law graduate and “a judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York” who presided over “the first trial of Alger Hiss for perjury.

1894: Plans were announced for the upcoming meeting of the United Hebrew Charities in New York City.


1894: According to a list published today, the Hebrew Orphan Asylum received $79,000 from the Board of Estimates and Apportionment in 1894 and is asking for $80,000 in 1895 while the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society of New York Orphan Asylum received $82,000 in 1894 and is asking for $85,000 in 1895.


 1894: In Newark, NJ, “a double force” of policemen under the command of Captain Bergen are standing guard at the non-union hat factory of J.L. Kreidel which has been surrounded by “a mob” of angry Polish and Russian Jewish “hatters” who have been fired by Kreidel’s nephew.


1894: Count George Leo of Caprivi who defended the Jews against the attacks of the Anti-Semites led by, among other Herr Zimmerman, completed his service as Chancellor of Germany.


1897(30th of Tishrei, 5658): Rosh Chodesh Cheshvan


1897(30th of Tishrei, 5658): Forty-nine year old Rachel Nelson, the wife of Barnet Nelson and the daughter of Mrs. Isaac Bernstein passed away today in London.


1898:A Zionist Delegation led by Theodor Herzl arrives in the port of Yaffo (Jaffa). They visit Mikveh Israel and Rishon LeZion.


1898: Wisconsin native Louis C. Wolf was promoted to the rank of 1st Lieutenant today.


1898: After visiting Nes Zionah, Rehovot and Herzl returns to Yaffo where he met with Reverend William Hechler.  William Hechler formed a committee of Christian Zionists to help move Russian Jewish refugees to Palestineafter a series of pogroms. In 1884, Hechler wrote a pamphlet called “The Restoration of Jews to Palestine According to the Prophets.” A few years later, he befriended Theodor Herzl after reading Herzl’s book The Jewish Stateand joined Herzl to drum up support for Zionism. Hechler even arranged a meeting between Herzl and Kaiser Wilhelm II to discuss Herzl’s proposal to establish a Jewish state in Palestine. The two men remained close friends up until Herzl’s death in 1904.


1902: Feminist, Suffragette and Social Activist, Elizabeth Cady Stanton passed away. She helped to create The Women’s Bible “a collection of essays by a committee of women intellectuals on passages of the Judeo-Christian scriptures that discuss women.” “Stanton and her contributors highlighted and heightened the role of the women” putting “particular emphasis on Miriam’s role in the quest for Jewish freedom, for instance” and “the important work of Deborah the judge.” At the same time she wrote, “We found nothing grand in the history of the Jews nor in the morals inculcated in the Pentateuch.... I know of no other books that     so fully teach the subjection and degradation of woman.”


1905; Norway becomes independent from Sweden. According to the census conducted at the turn of the century, there were 642 Jewish residents in a population totaling just over 2 million. In 1814, when control of Norway shifted from Denmark to Sweden, the Norwegians adopted “The Constitution of 1814 that contained “The Jew Clause” in the Constitution of 1814 which stated "No person of the Jewish creed may enter Norway, far less settle down there".  The clause was repealed in 1851 which opened a trickle of Jewish immigration to Norway while it was still part of Sweden.  In one of those quirks of history, the man most responsible for the repeal of the Jew Clause was the son of the man who led the fight to have included in the Constitution.


1905: In Melsungen, Hessen, Germany, Flora and Isaac Alfred Speier gave birth to Leo Speyer who was murdered at Auschwitz.


1906: Antoine Louis Targe who helped to clear Captain Dreyfus began serving as the Private Secretary to fellow Dreyfusard George Picquart.


1907: The Tennessee Volunteers coached by Izzy Levene continued their winning ways today defeating Maryville College bringing their record to 4 and 1.


1909:The new ballroom of the Hotel Astor is the scene of an event celebrating the 25th anniversary of the founding of the Montefiore Home Gifts aggregating $101,500 were announced tonight as the birthday presents to the Montifore Home where . B.J. Greenhut, announces that gifts totaling $101,500 have been donated to support the institution. Greenhut, Chairman of the committee sponsoring the event, said that although he had not been authorized to make public the amount of the gifts and the names of the generous friends, he felt the occasion demanded it. The audience broke into applause when it was announced that J.H. Schiff had donated $50,000 to this worthy cause.


1910(23rdof Tishrei, 5671): Simchat Torah


1911:  Birthdate of Minneapolis native Sidney ‘Sid” Gillman the Ohio State University football player who went to a successful college and NFL coaching career.


1911: The Daily News reported that the Orthodox Jews in Batavia, NY “purchased a house at 232 Liberty Street to use as a synagogue.


1911:By an order of the Governor all Jews in the RussianProvince of Ekaterinoslaff are subject to expulsion with some minor exceptions.


1912: As a result of the First Balkan War, Thessalonikibecomes part of modern day Greece. The leaders of the Jewish Community are immediately received by King George I and the Prime Minister Eleftherios Venizelos who promised to respect the rights of the community and offered full equality in the eyes of the Law.


1912:  Birthdate of movie director Don Siegel, the native of Chicago who directed Clint Eastwood in several of his finest films.


1913: During the First Balkan War, Bulgarian forces begin bombarding the city of Adrianople in what will become the Siege of Adrianople which would last until March of 1914.  Three thousand of the city’s Jews sought shelter in the local schools while another 9,200 were left with no place to go.


1913: Louis Marshall denied tonight that he would have any involvement Governor William Sulzer’s planned appeal of the decision of the High Court of Impeachment. Marshall, a prominent lawyer and leader of the Jewish Community, had reluctantly agree to represent the embattled governor.


1913: Rabbi Rudolph I. Coffee expressed his displeasure over the support that many New York rabbis had given to Governor Sulzer during his recent impeachment trial.  Coffee felt that there involvement in this partisan political issue compromised their roles as spiritual leaders of the Jewish people especially when one considers the sleazy nature of the Tammany and anti-Tammany forces.  Coffee, the rabbi at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, has been visiting the city during the trial. He ended his comments by saying that “these Rabbis have hurt their religion and they certainly do not each nor practice its ideals.”


1913: Temple Sinai (First Hebrew Congregation of Oakland) broke ground at 28thand Webster on its new building which was completed in 1914.


1914: Twenty four year old Louis Weinstein “a British subject from Cape Town” arrived in New York today aboard the SS Voltaire “without funds” which resulted in him becoming a charge of the HIAS.


1914: “Brandeis Speaks on Zionism” published today described a speech by the Boston lawyer who said that Zionist movement “must be considered by the Jews of American not only from the point of view of their own platform but from that of the needs born of the war” which meant that Palestine could a welcome refuge to the Jews of Eastern Europe “relieving in part the inevitable heavy immigration that otherwise must flow from the devastated battlefield countries to the United States.”


1916: After reading the report of his Adjutant General that while there while statements had been that Christians were preferred as members of the National Guard and some of those connected with recruitment had admitted to “a distinct bias against Jewish applicants” “the evidence does not show a general prevalence of discrimination” when it comes to recruiting Jewish members of the  National Guard, Government Whitman issued additional orders stating that “no applicant shall be rejected on account of his race or religion” and that “it shall be the duty of officers charged with making enlistments to see that their subordinates are free from such bias or prejudice…”


1916: “Maurice Simmons, Chairman of the Committee for the Protection of the Good Name of Immigrant Peoples released a statement in answer to the findings of Adjutant General Louis W. Stotesbury that Jews are not discriminated against” when trying to enlist in the National Guard that took issue with the outcome because the complaint was not that there was a “general prevalence of discrimination against Jews” but that the prejudice “existed in certain units.”


1916: Ten days after the Brownsville Clinic opened Fania Mindell was among those arrested by undercover agents because they providing education about, and distributing, birth control materials.

1917(10thof Cheshvan, 5678): J.H. Valentine, the  rabbi of the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue in Manchester who preferred to be called “Reverend” and who was tireless worker for the Anglicization of Jewish immigrants from Russia as can be seen by his statement “The Manchester Working Men’s Club” would not be a “place for dry sermons and must history” but would instead “raise the tone of our poor brethren by instilling into them habits of industry, thrift, education them in the language and customs of the country whiter they come have come to seek an asylum” passed away today in Manchester.


1917: In England, The Times“published a leading article attacking” the government for its repeated delays in issuing a statement support the Zionist cause. Ironically, the delay was caused, in part, by the concern among some English Jews that support for Zionism would call into question their loyalty to the Crown.


1917: In Kostroma, “The Black Hundreds accused Jews of speculation” which was the justification for the looting of Jewish shops by those looking for food.


1917: In Poltava and Oryol, the militia and other “local organizations” put down attacks on Jews accused of speculating that raised the cost of food.


1917(10thof Cheshvan, 5678): Eight Jews were killed and another twenty were wounded “in an outbreak of anti-Jewish violence” at Pereyaslav.


1918(20thof Cheshvan, 5679): Parashat Vayera


1918(20thof Cheshvan, 5679: Today during WW I, 23 year old Sergeant William Sawelson,  a Sergeant, Company M, 312th Infantry, 78th Division, AEF, United States Army “upon his own initiative, left shelter, crawled through heavy machine gun fire to a wound man lay, gave him what water he had in his own canteen and went back to the shell hole in which he had been lying, obtained more water and was killed by a machine gun bullet while returning to aid is wounded comrade. (Editor’s Note – he was posthumously awarded “the Medal of Honor for valor in combat.)


1919: In Philadelphia, Solomon and Dora (Levin) Pressman gave birth to Jacob “Jack” Pressman the graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and the Jewish Theological Seminary who “served as the rabbi of Temple Beth Am in Los Angeles for 35 years and who was “a co-founder of the American Jewish University in Bel-Air

1922: Judge Bernard A. Rosenblatt, the accredited representative for Tel Aviv in the United States announced that “Harvey Fisk & Sons, Inc have been appointed commercial and fiscal agency in the United States for Tel Aviv, the modern section of Jaffa which is the principal port of Palestine.”  The announcement is important to commercial interests in the United States since Jaffa has become the principal port in Asia Minor following the destruction of Smyrna.


1926:In Paris, France, the trial of Sholom Schwartzbard comes to an end.A jury of 12 petit-bourgeois Parisians acquitted the Ukrainian-born Jewish immigrant and anarchist of the charge of murder for shooting to death former Ukrainian president Symon Petliura.


1928: “Suzy Saxophone” a French-German silent film featuring Herman Picha and filmed by cinematographer Otto Heller was released today.


1929(22ndof Tishrei, 5690): Shimini Atzeret and Shabbat


1929(22ndof Tishrei, 5690): Sixty-three year old Abraham Mortiz “Aby” Warburg, a member of the famed German banking family who turned his back on the family business and alternate plans to enter the rabbinate to become a leader in the field of art history passed away today in his home town of Hambrug.

1930(4th of Cheshvan, 5691): Ninety year old Waldemar Mordecai Wolff Haffkine the Russian born bacteriologist who developed “vaccines used against cholera and bubonic plague” and who not only refused to convert to advance his career but was active in Jewish affairs, passed away today.

1931: In Manhattan, Romanian Jewish immigrants gave birth to their second child Larry Lieber, the “American comic book artist and writer” who was nine years younger than his brother “Stanley Martin Lieber, later best known as Marvel Comics editor and impresario Stan Lee.”


1931(15thof Cheshvan, 5692): Sixty-nine year old George Washington Ochs-Oaks the son of Bertha and Julius Ochs a member of the Ochs family of New York Times whose varied career included serving as newspaper reporter, a member of the New York National Guard during WW I and may of Chattanooga, TN passed away today.

1932:The Canada Dry Program, starring Jack Benny was broadcast for the last time on the NBC Blue Network


1932: “Scampolo,” a comedy film produced by Lothat Stark who would be forced to seek refuge in Copenhagen when the Nazis come to power, with a script by Max Kolpe, Felix Salten and Billy Wilder and music by Artur Guttman and Franz Waxman was released today in Germany by Bavaria Film.


1934: Featherweight Harry Blitman fought his 77th and final bout today in Philadelphia,


1936: Birthdate of Deborah Tobias Portiz, the Brooklyn native who was the first woman to serve as the Attorney General of New Jersey and the first Chief Justice of the New Jersey Supreme Court.


1936: The Church of England issued its “first pronouncement on the agitation by Sir Oswald Mosley’s Fascist movement” today “branding the recent East End disturbances as ‘monstrous’” while the London Diocesan Conference adopted a resolution “urging Christians not to tolerate anti-Semitisms.”


1936: As part of the efforts of the Nazi regime’s “efforts to enforce its discriminator laws against Jews in other countries as well as in Germany,” “The Juridical Weekly” announced that the foreign department of the National Socialist Association “has established a world register of ‘Aryan’ lawyers abroad” who “are fitted to represent German interests abroad” while issuing a warning to “all Germans against employeeing Jewish lawyers in other countries.


1938: “The Gestapo was ordered to arrest and deport all Polish Jews living in Germany immediately resulting in the arrest of 12,000 Polish Jews who were “stripped of their property and herded aboard trains headed for Poland.”


1939: The Nazis prohibited Sh'chita in Poland supposedly on humanitarian grounds.


1939: The Nazis abolished its military government in Poland.  It is replaced by the Military Generalgouvernment under the command of Hans Frank. In his first speech he announced that “there will be no room for . . . Jewish exploiters in a territory under German sovereignty."


1939: The Labor Department of the Generalgouvernement of Occupied Poland issues the Arbeitspflicht(Work obligation) decree, which makes slave labor mandatory for all Polish men and women over the age of 14 and under age 60.


1939: Birthdate of University of Iowa Economics Professor Michael Balch.

1939: Following a plan devised by Adolf Eichmann, the Nazis deport and "resettle" some 78,000 Jews to a "reservation" located in the Lublin-Nisko region of southeast Poland in a three and half month period ending in the middle of February, 1940.  The project is temporarily suspended when rolling rail stock is needed for German military campaigns against the Low Countries.


1941: After the Odessa Action which started on October 23 and ended on October 25 leaving 20,000 murdered Jews, another 10,000 more were sent to various concentration camps from that City.


1941: Cardinal Emmanuel Célestin Suhard, the Archbishop of Paris “addressed a dispatch to Hitler” in an attempt “to save hostages in Nantes and Châteaubriant.


1941: Germans inform Jews of Kalisz, Poland, that elderly Jews in convalescent homes are to be moved to another home the next day


1942: Birthdate of The Rev. Lawrence Boadt, a Roman Catholic priest, publisher and Bible scholar who used his study of the Old Testament as a vehicle for promoting understanding between Christians and Jews,


1942: In Oszmiana, Poland, 400 Jews were deported. To save the remaining 600, the head of the ghetto decided to send only the old so to make up the quota.


1943: At the Janowska camp in Lvov, the Nazis continued to shoot Jews and burn them on pyres. After the mothers and children would undress, the Germans would swing small children, smashing their heads into trees until they died. All this was done in front of the mothers who themselves would be beaten, hung or shot.


1943: Seventy-nine year old Sir Marc Aurel Stein, the Budapest born Jew who became a Lutheran to advance his career as an archaeologist passed away today in Kabul while on the last of his many expeditions to Central Asia.


1943: Three thousand Jews are deported from Kovno, Lithuania, to the slave-labor camp at Klooga, Estonia.


1945: “Fallen Angel” directed and produced by Otto Preminger and with music by David Raskin was released in the United States today.


1946: Kurt Daluege, former SS-Obergruppenführerand deputy Reichsprotektor of Bohemiaand Moravia, is hanged in Prague, Czechoslovakia, after being convicted of war crimes.


1946: “A Jewish agency spokesman said today the inner Zionist Council would call on Palestine Jews…to take certain specified measures in cooperation with the Government against the use of violence…” The move was part of bargain to gain the release of 700 Jews who have been held by the British without charges or trial since last June.  Among those who would be released is Moshe Shertok, head of the Jewish Agency’s political department.”  The deal would also allow Moshe Sneh head of the Haganah and David Ben-Gurion to return to Palestine from France where they have endured a self-imposed exile in an attempt to avoid imprisonment by the British.


1946: Holocaust survivor and future French political leader Simone Annie Liline Jacob became Simone Veil when she married Antoine Veil whom she met while study law at the University of Paris.


1947: In Washington, DC dedication of the Oscar S. Straus Memorial which “commemorates the accomplishments” of President Theodore Roosevelt’s Secretary of Commerce and Labor and “the first Jew to serve in the cabinet of a U.S President.”

1947: The British ended their occupation of Iraq.  The British departure made it possible for the Arab population to move against the Jews of Iraq.  The situation would only grow worse once the Israelis defeated the Arab Armies, including the Iraqis the following year.  However, the violence against the Jews began before the UN partition and before there was a state Israel.


1947: Arabian King Ibn Saud warned President Harry Truman that American support of partition of Palestinewas an unfriendly and useless act.  “The Arabs will isolate such a state from the world and lay siege to it until it dies by famine.”


1947:The day before the Hollywood 10 began testifying, the anti-HUAC celebrities aired the first of a two-part national broadcast called "Hollywood Fights Back!," co-written by Norman Corwin and Robert Presnell Jr., and featuring Garland, Kelly, Bacall, "Bogie," Robinson, Lancaster, Henreid, John Beal and William Holden. HUAC’s investigation into the Communist influence in the film business was tainted in many ways including a predilection for anti-Semitism.


1948(23rdof Tishrei, 5709): Simchat Torah


1948: “The Return of October” a comedy directed by Joseph H. Lewis and script co-authored by Melvin Frank was released in the United States today.


1948: Today, “in a public ceremony at naval headquarters in Haifa Prime Minister David Ben Gurion appointed Kvarnit Shulman to the postial of commander in chief of the Israeli Naval Service” which meant that the twenty-six and half year old former U.S. Navy Lieutenant “could not assume the title of Aluf or admiral.”


1950: Sixty-one year old Miguel Mariano Gómez who as President of Cuba in 1936 negotiated with Congressman William I Sirovich about the possibility of “Cuba opening her doors to at least 100,000 persecuted German Jews” passed away today.


1951: “The Blue Veil” a dramatic film directed by Curtis Bernhardt with a screenplay by Norman Corwin and music by Franz Waxman which had premiered in September was released in the United States today by RKO.


1951:Emanuel “Manny” Shinwell, Baron Shinwell completed his service Minister of Defense when the Labor Party was defeated in the “snap election” of 1951.


1951: Winston Churchill “became Prime Minister for the second time.” Chaim Weizmann, the first President of Israel, sends a message of genuine congratulations.  In his reply, Churchill refers to the Zionist leader as “my old friend.”


1951:In Brooklyn  Esta Greenberg and Jack Schnabel gave birth to American artist and filmmaker Julian Schnabel who grew up in Brownsville, Texas creating  a culture clash that must have had an effect on his artistic creativity.


1954(29thof Tishrei, 5715): Eighty-eight year old Jennie Wallenstein Kohnstamm the oldest child of Esther Hellman Wallenstein, the founding president of the Hebrew Infant Asylum, passed away today.


1955: The last American occupation troops left Austria and Austria enacts laws of proclaiming permanent neutrality.  The American occupation had been a rather benign affair since the Austrians had been declared the first victim of Nazi aggression rather than a willing partner of the Third Reich.  Considering the number of Austrian Nazis, the number of Austrians who served in with the German military and the zeal with Austrian Nazis attacked and helped to exterminate the Jewish population, this was a total misreading of the situation. 


1955(10thof Cheshvan, 5716):“An Egyptian raid today against the small Israeli post at Be'erotaim resulted in the killing of one Israeli soldier and the capture of two others


1955: “A large force of Egyptian soldiers reinforced with artillery, armor and anti-aircraft cannon, took up positions on both sides of the demilitarized zone near Sabcha and Ras-Siram” with “elements of the Egyptian force penetrating one kilometer into Israeli territory and entrenching themselves near a strategic hill, code-named “Lilly” by the Israelis.”


1956: “The Opposite Sex” a romantic comedy produced by Joe Pasternak, with a screenplay by Fay and Michael Kanin and music by Nicholas Brodszky, Sammy Cahn, Ralph and George Stoll was released in the United States today.


1956: “The Brave One” directed by Irving Rapper and produced by Frank King who risked a lot by allowing one of those on the Blacklist to write the script was released today in the United States.


1956: “The 202nd Paratroopers Brigade, under the command of Ariel Sharon, is assigned to drop a paratroopers regiment in the Mitla Pass in Sinai and to lead the rest of the brigade forces via land to the landing zone in the Mitla Pass. Sharon is not aware that the task of his brigade is chiefly to deceive the Egyptian army (so it would seem as though IDF is carrying out a limited scope type of action) and to supply the pretext for the involvement of Britain and France.”


1957(1st of Cheshvan, 5718):  Dr. Gerty Theresa Cori, the first Jewish-American woman to receive the Nobel Prize in Medicine and Physiology passed away today at the age of 61.  An internationally known biochemist she and her husband Dr. Carl F. Cori and Dr. B.A. Houssay shared the 1947 Nobel Prize.

1958: Sixty-five year old architect László Hudec Hungary’s honorary consul in Shanghai during WW II who helped Jewish refugees from Europe by issuing them passports to ravel safely to Canada and the United States passed away today.

1959: “Burning Bright” produced by Lewis Freedman and Henry Weinstein was broadcast today as “The Play of the Week.”


1959:  Dr. Arthur Kornberg is awarded the Nobel Prize Physiology or Medicine 1959 for his discovery of "the mechanisms in the biological synthesis of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA)" together with Dr. Severo Ochoa of New YorkUniversity.


1960: “The 49th Cousin” starring Menasha Skulnik as “Isaac,” Marian Winters as “Tracy Lowe” and Eli Mintz as “Simon Lowe” opened on Broadway at the Ambassador Theatre.


1965: “The first Broadway performance of” Peter Shaffer’s “The Royal Hunt of the Sun” “took place at the ANTA Playhouse.”


1967: “Wait Until Dark” a thriller starring Alan Arkin “as a violent criminal searching for drugs” was released in the United States by Warner Brothers-Seven Arts.


1967: A production of Lillian Hellman’s “Little Foxes” directed by “Mike Nichols, a third cousin twice removed of scientist Albert Einstein, through Nichols' mother” opened today “at the Vivian Beaumont Theatre in Lincoln Center.”


1970(26th of Tishrei, 5731): Sixty-nine year old Kiev native Louis “Kid” Kaplan the resident of Connecticut who also fought under the name of Benny Miller and “was the world featherweight champion in 1925 and 1926 passed away today.


1972:  Dutifully playing his part to ensure the re-election of Richard Nixon, Henry Kissinger declares "Peace is at hand" in Vietnam.  The November elections would come and go and the war would drag on.


1973(30thof Tishrei, 5734): Rosh Chodesh Cheshvan


1973: Fire broke out in a store in Malverne, NY owned by Arthur Shilkret, the son of Nathaniel Shlkret, the creator the Genesis Suite.


1973: In violation of the ceasefire agreement, the Egyptian Third Army attempted to breakthrough surrounding Israeli; an attempt that was thwarted by the IDF and the IAF.


1973:  West German authorities arrested 4 Arabs armed with explosives.


1974: “Israel and the River Plate,” published today, C. L. Sulzberger writes from Herzliya that “it would probably astonish most people to know that Israel counts on Argentinaas potentially the largest remaining source of Jewish immigration that can answer this dynamic little country's constant clamor for more people.” To make things even better, the Argentinean Jewish community would provide an already-educated cadre of immigrants.


1975“A Talk With Amos Oz,” by Hebert Mitgang published today provides interesting insights into the life and thoughts of one Israel’s most prominent authors:

1975: As Arab states seek to recoup their losses from the Yom Kippur War, the Syrian Minister of Defense arrived in Budapest today.


1976: Yorkshire Television broadcast “Success” the fifth episode of “Dickens of London” with music by Monty Norman.


1978(25th of Tishrei, 5739):Alexander Gerschenkron a Russian-born American Jewish economic historian and professor at Harvard who was trained in the Austrian School of economics passed away. He is the grandfather of author Nicholas Dawidoff


1978(25thof Tishrei, 5739): Eighty-one year old William Jacob Mack, Sr. the son of Lydia and Millard William Mack, who was married to Henritte L. Segal before marrying Grace Bernice Mack passed away today in his home town of Cincinnati, Ohio.


1984: Birthdate of Olympic figure skater Sasha Cohen.


1984: “Firstborn” a drama that marked the film debut of Corey Haim and co-starring Sarah Jessica Parker was released in the United States today.


1984: “Body Double” a mystery movie featuring Al Israel with a script by Robert J. Avrech, a graduate of Brooklyn’s Yeshiva of Flatbush was released today in the United States today.


1986(23rdof Tishrei, 5747): Simchat Torah


1988: NBC broadcast the first episode of “Tattingers” created by Bruce Paltrow and co-starring Jerry Stiller and Rob Morrow.


1989: In Great Britain, Nigel Lawson completed his term as Chancellor of the Exchequer.


1990(7th of Cheshvan, 5751: William Paley, the founder and CEOof CBS died of a heart attack at the age of 89. (As reported by Jeremy Gerard)

1992: In a case of “Jew versus Jew” Frank Rich reviews David Mamet’s “Oleanna.”

1992: Today, “President George H.W. Bush signed into law the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act” which made Zapruder’s film of the JFK assassination an official “assassination record” and the official property of the United States Government – a designation which the Zapruder contested claiming that it belonged to the family and demanding that it be returned to them.


1992: The Times quoted Jewish born financier George Soros as saying: "Our total position by Black Wednesday had to be worth almost $10 billion. We planned to sell more than that. In fact, when Norman Lamont said just before the devaluation that he would borrow nearly $15 billion to defend sterling, we were amused because that was about how much we wanted to sell."


1994: Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin of Israeland Prime Minister Abdel Salam Majali of Jordan signed a peace treaty in a ceremony attended by President Clinton.


1994: Dame Shirley Porter, “the daughter and heir of Sir Jack Cohen, the founder of Tesco supermarkets” completed her services as Deputy Lieutenant of Greater London.


1995:  Fathi Shikaki, a leader of the terrorist organization Islamic Jihad was assassinated while staying on the island of Malta.  It is claimed that Mossad agents were responsible for his death.


1997:The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or on topics of special Jewish interesting including Wait Till Next Year: A Memoir by Doris Kearns Goodwin, The Stolen Legacy of Anne Frank:Meyer Levin, Lillian Hellman, and the Staging of the ''Diary” by Ralph Melnick and Panther in the Basementby Amos Oz; translated by Nicholas de Lange.


1997: “Before Women Had Wings” a made for television movie for which Ellen Barkin won an Emmy was released in Canada today.


1998: Rededication of the Oscar Straus Memorial in Washington, DC.

1999: Eighty-eighty year old author and screenwriter Abraham Polonsky, one of the many victims of Hollywood’s Blacklist passed away today. (As reported by William Honan)

2000: Palestinian Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for today’s bombing in the Gaza Strip.


2001(9th of Cheshvan, 5762): Ninety-six year old Laszlo Halasz, the Hungarian born musician who served as the first director of the New York City Opera in which capacity he mount the first performance of “The Dybbuk,” a three act opera by David Tamkin. (As reported by Allan Kozinn)

2003: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or on topics of special Jewish interesting including And the Dead Shall Rise:  The Murder of Mary Phagan and the Lynching of Leo Frankby Steve Oney and Gellhorn: A Twentieth-Century Lifeby Caroline Moorehead.


2004: Jewish Community Relations Council of San Francisco celebrates its 60thanniversary.


2004:Israel's parliament approved Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plan for withdrawing from the Gaza Strip and parts of the West Bank.


2005(23rd of Tishrei, 5766): Simchat Torah


2005: Jerry Reinsdorf’s Chicago White Sox win the World Series replacing Theo Epstein’s Red Sox at the top of the major league heap.


2005: Avram Grant announced his resignation as the coach of Israel’s national football team.


2005(23rd of Tishrei, 5766): A suicide bomber who had been relased from an Israeli prison a month ago, struck in Hadera wounding 55 and killing five -- Michael Koifman, 68, of Hadera; Perahiya Makhlouf, 53, of Hadera;; Sabiha Nissim, 66, of moshav Ahituv; Jamil Mohammed Ka'adan, 48, of Baqa al-Gharbiyye; Ya'akov Rahmani, 68, of Hadera; Genia Poleis, 66, of Hadera and Larissa Grishchenko, 39, of Hadera


2006: A concert entitled “The Yiddish Voice of Love: Songs of Beyle Shaechnter-Gottesmanon ” is presented at the 92ndStreet Y in New York City.  “Schaechter-Gottesman is known as one America’s premier Yiddish poets and her work has been a source of inspiration for many Yiddish musicians.  A native of Vienna, raised in pre-war Romania, Schaechter-Gottesman won the National Heritage Fellowship in 2005.


2007: The New York Times featured a review of World War IV: The Long Struggle against Islamofasacism by Norman Podhoretz.


2007: In the evening, five kassam rockets fired by the Islamic Jihad from the Gaza Strip landed in open fields south of Ashkelon and near Sderot.


2007: “Before the Devil Knowns You’re Dead” the last film directed by Sidney Lumet was released in the United States today.


2008:Rutgers University presents a lecture on the psychological effects of terrorism on Israelis entitled "Does the War End When the Shooting Stops?" by Zahava Solomon, director of the Adler Research Center for Child Welfare & Protection at Tel Aviv University.


2008: The Center for Jewish History presents Jewish Youth and Cultural Change:
A Conference on Rethinking American Jewish History:
This conference brings together historians, anthropologists, and scholars of culture in order to reflect on the ways in which young Jews experienced their lives as Jews and Americans over the past two centuries, and how communal and cultural change were reflected in anxieties about Jewish youth.


2008: The Washington Postfeatures reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or on topics of special Jewish interesting including My Father’s Paradise:A Son's Search for His Jewish Past in Kurdish Iraqby Ariel Sabar,Hitler’s Private Library: The Books That Shaped His Life by Timothy W. Ryback, and the paperback edition of Janet Malcolm's dual biography of Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, entitled Two Liveswhich is "a meditation on literature and morality, built around the disquieting fact that Stein and Toklas, both Jewish, remained in Europe throughout World War II without either hiding or being swept up in the Holocaust."


2008:Kadima leader Tzipi Livni announced that her efforts to build a coalition government were unsuccessful, and recommended that early general elections be held.


2009: The Center for Jewish History and The Center for Traditional Music and Dance present “Celebrating a Lifetime in Yiddish Song,”  conversation and performance featuring Beyle Schaechter-Gottesman, America's leading Yiddish poet and songwriter, who will be joined by her son Itzik Gottesman, Associate Editor of the Yiddish Forward. In 2006, Beyle Schaechter-Gottesman was awarded the prestigious N.E.A. National Heritage Fellowship, our nation's highest honor in the traditional arts.


2009:Steven D. Levitt (a professor of economics at the University of Chicago) and Stephen J. Dubner (a former writer and editor at the New York Times Magazine) discuss their new book, "SuperFreakonomics: Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes, and Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance," in a program at The Washington Post Conference Center.


2009: At The Hyman S. & Freda Bernstein Jewish Literary Festival Melvin Urofsky discusses "Louis D. Brandeis: A Life," his biography of the Supreme Court Justice (which is the annual Bernard Wexler Lecture on Jewish History)


2009: An activist in Jerusalem's ultra-Orthodox Eda Haredit community was conditionally released from prison today, a day after his arrest for allegedly spraying an ultra-Orthodox woman with tear gas in the capital's Mea She'arim neighborhood. Yoel Kraus was arrested after the woman filed a police complaint.


2010: According to Sally Kohn “3 things Progressive and Tea Partiers can agree on are “ensuring clean elections,” “ending bailouts and subsidies for Big Business” and the abolition of “Corporate parenthood.”

2010: George Soros donated $1 million, the largest donation in the campaign, to the Drug Policy Alliance to fund Proposition 19 that would have legalized marijuana in the state of California if it had passed


2010:Sam Brylawski is scheduled to deliver a lecture styled Emile Berliner: Inventor of the Gramophone, Part II that is a follow up to an earlier lecture on the life of Jewish-German immigrant Emile Berliner who “emigrated as a young man from Hannover to Washington in 1870 and became famous internationally for his many inventions and business acumen.”


2010: The Historic 6th& I Synagogue is scheduled to host Challah & Chutney: An Indian Jewish cooking class where Shulie Madnick, an Indian Jewish food blogger, provides lessons in how to prepare a vegetarian Indian meal, traditional to the Jewish community of India.


2010: The annual trade show of the kosher food industry opened today at the Meadowlands Exposition Center in Secaucus, N.J. More than 6,000 visitors are expected at the two-day gathering, according to organizers. This year’s focus is on the kosher foods of Canada. The winners in 18 categories of new kosher food products reflect growing trends in kosher food, including general health and wellness, reduced fat, soy replacements, natural, gluten-free, spelt and organic. An Australian natural foods producer won best new product at this year’s Kosherfest. The 2010 Best in Show prize went to Mountain Bread Wraps, a gourmet food product that is distributed by No Worries Natural Foods of Fremantle, Wash. There are eight varieties of Mountain Bread, which are soft flatbreads that roll up. Along with best overall product, No Worries Natural Foods took home the prize for best baked good, bread, grain or cereal. The Best in Show runner-up was Lily Bloom’s Kitchen of Shoreview, Mont., honored for its chocolate macaroons.


2011: A program featuring a discussion “Odessa: Genius and Death in a City of Dreams” by Charles Kings is scheduled to take place at the Hyman S & Freda Bernstein Jewish Literary Festival in Washington, D.C.


2011: Rabbi Nissan Antine, the Associate Rabbi and Director of Education at Beth Sholom Congregation, is scheduled to lead a class entitled Responsa of the Holocaust at the JCC of Greater Washington.


2011: The International Conference on the Life and Work of Israeli author Aharon Applefeld is scheduled to open at the University of Pennsylvania.


2011: Former Shin Bet security service director Yuval Diskin defended Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas today, saying that Abbas is against terrorism..


2011: In excerpts of an interview released today from an upcoming interview on Sixty Minutes,the wife of the financial swindler Bernard Madoff claims that the couple attempted suicide by taking pills on Christmas Eve 2008 after his estimated $65 billion Ponzi scheme was exposed.  The attempt, which she described as “impulsive” left her “glad” that “we woke up.” 


2011:Three Grad rocket were fired from the Gaza Strip at the Ashdod and Bnei Aish areas shortly before midnight today. 


2012(10thof Cheshvan, 5773): Fifty-one year old television producer and comedy writer Alan Kirschenbaum passed away today.

2012(10thof Cheshvan, 5773): Eight year old Arnold Greenberg, the founder of Snapple passed away today. (As reported by Margalit Fox)

2012: Israeli Cellist Elad Kabilio is schedule to lead the musical accompaniment to tonight’s performance of the Ballet Next Ensemble at the Joyce Theatre.


2012: “The Other Son” a film about “two young men–one Israeli, the other Palestinian–who discover they were accidentally switched at birth and the complex repercussions facing them and their respective families” is scheduled to appear for the first time in selected theatres in the United States.


2012:The British government opposed the establishment of the Nuremberg war crimes tribunals at the end of the Second World War because it wanted selected Nazi leaders to be summarily executed and others to be imprisoned without trial, according to a contemporary account that was declassified today.

2012:Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s tie-up with far-right coalition partner Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman could backfire by eroding their lead ahead of Israel’s Jan. 22 ballot, a poll said today. Read more: http://forward.com/articles/165001/netanyahus-hard-right-alliance-could-backfire/#ixzz2ARoW83Xe


2012: “Orchestra of Exiles,” a documentary that tells the tale of Bronislaw Huberman’s effort to create what became the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra opened today in New York.

2012: Sonja Spear is scheduled to give a talk about Halloween in America after the Shabbat Dinner being held at the University of Iowa Hillel House in Iowa City, Iowa.


2013: “Channel 2 (Reshet)” released the first episode of “The X Factor Israel.”


2013: Beginning of Jewish Book Month 2013 sponsored by the Jewish Book Council


2013: Sidney A. Katz closed Wolfson’s Department Store on East Diamond Avenue in Gaithersburg, MD which had been started in 1918 by is grandparents Jacob and Rose Wolfson.


2013: Jewish Community Center of Northern Virginia is scheduled to host “A Bit of Bling.”


2013: The Eden-Tamir Music Center is scheduled to host a performance of “Don Giovanni” featuring Israel Wind Soloists:
Oboes: Amir Bakman, Josue Cordero
Clarinets: Danny Erdman, Daniel Gurfinkel
Bassoons: Mauricio Paez, Kristijonas Grigas
Contrabassoon: Isaac Ramon Leyva
Horns: Adrian Solis, Edo Hayek


2013: Australian police charged three people today over an anti-Semitic attack on five people in Bondi Beach, Sydney. The five Jews who were taken to St. Vincent’s Hospital included four men aged 27, 39, 49 and 66 wearing yarmulkes and a 62-year-old woman.


2013:Eight Israeli citizens and a Palestinian girl sustained moderate injuries when stones were hurled at the direction of vehicles traveling in south Mount Hebron (As reported by Itmar Fleishman)


2014: Aaron David Miller, the vice-president of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars os scheduled to be the keynote speaker at the annual Jewish Endowment Fund Brunch at the Hilton Hotel Riverside where Dr. Edward Soll and his wife Karne will be honred with the presentation of the Tzedakah award.  (As reported by the Crescent City Jewish News – the source for everything in the land of the Kosher Cajuns)


2014: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including  Pay Any Price: Greed, Power and Endless War by James Risen, who has been friends with Yossi Klein Halevi “since they both crashed the Nazi Party headquarters in Chicago as student reporters 30 years ago” and recently released paperback editions of You Should of Known by Jean Hanff Korelitz and Drama High: The Incredible True Story of a Brilliant Teacher, a Struggling Town and the Magic of Theatre by Michael Sokolove.


2014: “Dylan Thomas in America: A Centennial Exhibition” is scheduled to open at the 92nd Street Y.

2014:In Indianapolis, Lauren and Adam Cantor are scheduled to sing camp songs and share their memories of being song leaders at Goldman Union Camp Institute  at the annual meeting of the Indiana Jewish Historical Society


2014: Amid on-going terrorist inspired violence that has shut down parts of the Jerusalem Light Rail, the funeral of the Hamas terrorist who murdered a three month old baby and injured numerous others who were waiting to board the light rail is scheduled to be buried today.  (Editor’s note – So far there has been no condemnation of the murder of an infant by the UN)


2014: “Life in Stills” and “The Hangman” are scheduled to be shown on the first day of the Israeli Film Festival sponsored by the Tulane University Jewish Studies Department under the leadership of Dr. Brian Horowitz.


2014: "The Wartime Escape: Margret and H.A. Rey's Journey from France" an exhibition that unveils the history behind the children's character, Curious George whose creators The Jewish couple, Margret and H.A. Rey fled Paris on bicycles in 1940 to escape the Nazi invasion and eventually made their way to the United States with their manuscripts and illustrations for the book, "The Adventures of Fifi," which was retitled "The Adventures of Curious George" is scheduled to come to an at the Argenta Branch of the North Little Rock Public Library.


2014: At two o’clock this morning, Israelis change their clocks back to standard time.


2014: In what would appear to be a check of its “lethal arsenal” Hamas has for the eighth since the end of Operation Protective Edge fired rockets into the Mediterranean Sea. (As reported by Cynthia Blank)


2014: “The Arab population in Israel is part and parcel of the Jewish state and will always be a fundamental component of Israeli society, President Reuven Rivlin said today at a memorial ceremony to mark the 58th anniversary of the Kfar Kassem massacre, during which Israeli border police shot to death 49 Arab Israelis, among them several women and many children.”

2014(2nd of Cheshvan, 5775): Twenty-two year old Yemima Muskara became the second victim of Wednesday’s terrorist attach when she died of wounds suffered when a Hamas acolyte struck nine people with his car outside the Ammunition Hill Light Rail stop. (As reported by Gil Ronen)


2015(12th of Cheshvan, 5776): Seventy-eight year old physicist Leo P. Kadanoff passed away today in Chicago.  (As reported by Kenneth Chang)

2015: “The Pesach Tikvah social agency in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, hosted a reunion for three of the Ewschwege survivors – Sari Gruenzweig, Esther Epstein and Lea Singer – and Alan Golub the American pilot who in April of 1945 forced a German shop keeper to give him the cloth so that these women could have dresses. For more see http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/09/nyregion/a-pilot-and-holocaust-survivors-bound-by-the-fabric-of-war-are-reunited-in-brooklyn.html?mabReward=CTM&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&region=CColumn&module=Recommendation&src=rechp&WT.nav=RecEngine&_r=0


2015: The 15th Annual National Conference is scheduled to come to an end today in Chicago.


2015: A memorial service was held today at St. Paul’s Chapel honoring the late Joseph F. Traub, founder of the Computer Science Department at Columbia University.

2015: The 92nd Street Y is scheduled to host Jennifer Koh & Shai Wosner is the first of the Bridge to Beethoven concert series.


2015: The Tulane University Jewish Studies Department is scheduled to host Stephen Russell who will lecture on “A Geography of Royal Power in the Biblical World.”


2015: The Israeli Film Festival is scheduled to open at Tulane University with screenings of “Life in Stills” and “The Hangman.”


2015: Twenty-first anniversary of the Peace Treaty between Jordan and Israel.


2016: In Coralville, IA, Jeannette Gabriel from the Iowa Women’s Archives is scheduled to evaluate family “treasures” as part of the Agudas Achim Centennial celebration.


2016: “A rare, ancient papyrus dating to the First Temple Period” which “has been found to bear the oldest known mention of Jerusalem in Hebrew” “was formally unveiled by the Israel Antiquities Authority” today.


2016: Today “Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recalled Israel’s ambassador to UNESCO in protest of two recent resolutions by the UN cultural body that ignored Jewish and Christian historical ties to Jerusalem holy sites.”


2016: In Atlanta, the Breman Museum is scheduled to host a tour of Jewish Grounds at the Oakland Cemetery


2016: The Leo Baeck Institute and the Center for Jewish History are scheduled to host a lecture by David Biale the Emanuel Ringelblum Distinguished Professor of Jewish History at the University of California at Davis that examines the life and times of Gershom Sholem entitled “Sholem In Love: Affective Ties of a Jewish Historian.”


2016: Tahneer Oksman and New Yorker contributor Liana Finck are scheduled to discuss Oksman’s new book How Come Boys Get to Keep Their Noses: Women and Jewish American Identity in Contemporary Graphic Memoirs, drawing connections between graphic storytelling and the unstable postmodern Jewish self in an event sponsored by the American Jewish Historical Society.


2016: In Paris, UNESCO”s World Heritage Committee is scheduled to vote on a resolution condemning “Israeli violations in Jerusalem’s Old City” that effectively denies the historic connection of Judaism and the Jewish people to Jerusalem and therefore also undermines the entire story of Jesus as presented in the Gospels. 


2017: ““Challah in the CLE,” an event where more than 1,500 local women and girls came together to make challah and take part in other festivities, returned to the east side of Cleveland today as the kickoff event of “a larger weekend-long series of events that are part of the Shabbos Project Cleveland – the local chapter of an international, grassroots Jewish identity movement to unite Jews around the world for a full Shabbat.


2017: In New Orleans, the Uptown JCC is scheduled to host a screening of “The Butler.”


2017: The Oxford University Jewish Society is scheduled to host a fun evening of Challah baking and Mezuzah decorating.


2017: The American Sephardi Federation is scheduled to host a celebration of Deccan Heritage Foundation's new publication; Jewish Heritage of the Deccan; Mumbai, The Northern Konan, Pune co-authored by Kenneth X. Robbins and Pushkar Sohoni with photographs by Surendra Kumar.


2017: Samuel Nortich is scheduled to moderate a discussion “The Pew Jew Study: American and German-Jewry In Comparison” in which Steven Cohen and Robin Judd compare and contrast the “situations of German Jews a century ago and American Jews today.”


2017: Yeshiva University Museum, the Center for Jewish History and the American Sephardi Federation are scheduled to present Giuseppe Veltri discussing “The Temple in Renaissance Imagination.”


2017: Gili Cohen, “an Israeli judoka who won a gold medal” today “at the Abu Dhabi Grand Slam judo tournament…had to his sing his own private ‘Hatikvah’ because the organized refused to play the Israeli national anthem.”


2018: The Oxford University Jewish Society is scheduled to host Kabbalat Shabbat services following by a dinner as part of the “Oxford 3rdWeek Bring a Friend Shabbat.”


2018: The Eden-Tamir Music Center is scheduled to host the “Ensemble Phoenix on early instruments program” where performers us “period instruments.”


2018: The Jerusalem Theatre Piano Festival Is scheduled to host a “Kabbalat Shabbat – Salute to Yankeleh Rotblit.”


 


 


 


 


 


This Day, October 27, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. Levin

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OCTOBER 27

312:  Constantine the Great is said to have received his famous Vision of the Cross which will join the Sword of Constantine to the Cross of Christ in the governing of the Roman Empire, much to the detriment of the Jews for centuries to come.


710: Islamic forces, variously described as Saracens, Berbers or Moors, raided Sardinia which is under the nominal control of the Byzantine (Christian) Empire. This is just one more in a series of raids that began in the first decade of the eighth century.  Jews had been living on the island from the days of the Emperor Tiberius when 4,000 of them were banished from Rome.  While information about the Jews living on Sardinia during this period is sketchy there were numerous Jewish communities including one at Cagliari, the capital of Sardinia. Toward the end of the sixth century, a converted Jew named Peter placed images of saints in the synagogue in Cagliari on Easter Monday. The Jews lodged a complaint with Pope Gregory the Great, who ordered Bishop Januarius of Cagliari to have the images at once removed. We also know that the Jews must have survived whatever damage was done to the island by marauding Moors because there is a record of the synagogue in Cagliari having been destroyed by a fire at the end of the 8th century.


1156:Birthdate of Raymond VI, Count of Toulouse and Marquis of Provence.  He was considered to be so sympathetic to the Jews that Pope Innocent III caused him to take an oath "that he would deprive the Jews of their offices and that he would never appoint any Jews or in any way favor them. 


1275: Founding of the modern city of Amsterdam.  While there are reports of Jews living in the Low Countries an area that would have included the Netherlands, going back to Roman times, the Jewish community of Amsterdam dates from the 16th century when Marranos and Sephardim found there way to the Protestant city.


1430: Vytautas the Great, Grand Prince of Lithuania, passed away. According to some Jewish historians, the reign of Vytautas the Great was the golden age for Jews of Lithuania-Poland.


1466:  Birthdate of Dutch humanist and theologian Desiderius Erasmus.  While Erasmus may be revered by the world at large, he gets mixed notices from Jewish sources.  On the one hand he spoke up for Jews when he said, “If it is Christian to hate the Jews, all of us are only too good Christians.” At the same time he was above a little Jew-bashing when wrote, “Jews are very numerous in Italy; in Spainthere are hardly Christians.  I am aft raid that when the occasion arise, that pest formerly suppressed, will raise its head again.”


1495: Coronation of Manuel I, the king of Portugal who “at the outset of his reign released all of the Jews who had been made captive during the reign of John II” but who changed his policy towards the Jews and agreed to persecute and expel them as the price for being able to marry Infanta Isabella of Aragon the daughter of the Spanish monarchs who had expelled the Jews from their realm.


1682: Founding of the city of Philadelphia by William Penn.  The city’s name means “brotherly love.” Twenty-six years before William Penn, the Quaker leader who founded Philadelphia set foot in the New World in 1682, a few Jews were trading with the Native Americans along the South River, later known as the Delaware River. After the British took New York, merchants from the former Dutch city, included Jewish merchants, saw opportunity in Philadelphia.  One of them was the New York-born son of Moses Levy, established merchant, active in the Jewish community of New York. In 1737, Nathan Levy settled permanently in Philadelphiawhere he built a business of his own. He and his cousin, David Franks, formed the first important Jewish company there, Levy and Franks, importers and merchants. In the 1740’s Levy would be the leader of the group that formed MikvehIsraelCemetery.  MikvehIsraelCemeterywould lead to the formation of the first Jewish congregation in Philadelphia, Mikveh Israel. 


1708: The community of Metz entered into contract with Abraham ben Saul Broda for him to serve as the community’s rabbi.


1752: Isaac ben Issachar of Einhorn who had passed away on Shabbat was buried today at the “Alderney Road (Globe Rd) Jewish Cemetery.


1753(29thof Tishrei, 5514): Abraham Oppenheimer, who had been born in 1740, passed away today in Vienna.


1765: The last public Auto da Fe was held in Portugal.


1786: Birthdate of Frédéric Cerfberr, the native of Strasburg whom Napoleon appointed secretary of the imperial commissariat in the Ionian Islands and who served as the French consul during the post-Napoleonic period in several places including New York, New Orleans and Hatti.


1779: During the American Revolution, Solomon Bush, whose father Matthias had been one of the signers of the non-importation agreement in 1765, was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel today.


1786: Birthdate of Frédéric Cerfberr, the native of Strasburg, the French diplomat who served as consul in New York, New Orleans and Haiti where his daughter was killed in an earthquake and he suffered what would prove to be fatal injuries.


1807:Ephriam Mosely, the father of Francis, Moses and Rosetta Mosely, was buried today in the UK.


1820: In Alsace, France, Charlotte Aron, the daughter of Asser Lion and Gitlé Loëw and Alexandre Aron gave birth to Henri Alexandre Aron.


1825(15thof Cheshvan, 5586): Sixty-six year old Jacob (Jehuda) Herz Beer, the son of Naphtali (Herz) Beer and Jente Enoch Beer, husband of Amalie Beer and the father of composer of Giacomo Meyerbeer passed away today in Berlin.


1827: Birthdate of Levi Goldenberger, the native of Germany who came to the United States where he became a successful lace importer.


1827: AtBučovice, near Brno, South Moravia Julia and Leopold "Löbl Jünger" Strakosch gave birth to Anna Strakosch


1839: Birthdate of Karolin native “Yitzchak Yaakov Reines (Isaac Jacob Reines) the Orthodox rabbi whose belief in Zionism led him to found the Mizrachi Religious Zionist Movement and who was the father of Jewish author Moses Reines, the native of Lida who pre-deceased his father.



1840, Sultan Abdulmecid issued his famous ferman concerning the "Blood Libel Accusation" saying: "... and for the love we bear to our subjects, we cannot permit the Jewish nation, whose innocence for the crime alleged against them is evident, to be worried and tormented as a consequence of accusations which have not the least foundation in truth...". (from Jews in the Ottoman Empire and Turkey)


1844: Ferdinand Eberstadt of Worms/Mannheim and his wife Sara Seligmann gave birth to Elizabeth Eberstadt, the sister of architect Rudolph Eberstadat and the second wife of Sir George Henry Lewis.


1848: Königsberg native, Johann Jacoby, a doctor by training who became active in the political upheavals of the 1840s called for ‘the rescue of the Viennese revolution” when the “counter-parliament convened in Berlin” today.


1858: RH Macy & Co opened its first store on Sixth Avenue in New York City. Gross receipts for the day totaled $1106.  The Straus family, which had been leasing space in Macy's to operate a chinaware department, the store's most profitable section, acquired the Macy’s in 1896 and turned it into one of the country’s leading department stores.  One sign of the change came in when they relocated the store to its Herald square location at 34th Street and Broadway in


1858: Birthdate of Theodore Roosevelt 26th President of the United States.  In 1903, Roosevelt moved boldly to confront the Czar over the massacre of the Jews at Kishinev.  Roosevelt’s intervention on behalf the Jews was unusual and won him and the Republican Party a great deal of support in years to come. Theodore Rooseveltwas the first President to appoint a Jew to a presidential cabinet. In 1906 he named Oscar S. Straus Secretary of Commerce and Labor. Theodore Roosevelt was also the first President to contribute his own funds to a Jewish cause. In 1919, when he received the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts while President to settle the Russo-Japanese War, Roosevelt donated some of his prize money to the National Jewish Welfare Board.


1859: Sir Saul Samuel begins serving the first of two terms as Treasurer of New South Wales.


1861: In Cincinnati, Ohio, Julius and Bertha Levy Ochs gave birth George Ochs who gained fame as George Washington Ochs-Oaks a member of the Ochs family of New York Times whose varied career included serving as newspaper reporter, a member of the New York National Guard during WW I and mayor of Chattanooga, TN who died one day before his seventieth birthday.



1862: Emanuel Moyer, who would reach the rank of Sergeant before being killed in fighting at White House, VA, began his services in Company H of the 155thRegiment.


1862: In a report published today the New York Times special correspondent covering the Army of the Potomac described troop movements in and around Culpepper and Warrenton, VA as well as the disposition of Rebel troops in Richmond.  The report is based on an interview that he had with a man whom he described as “a Jew” who has resided in the South for several years, “so that his statement are not considered the most reliable.”  This Jew claimed that the reason he had taken refuge within the lines of the Union Army was to escape the rebellion.


1864: Philadelphian Theodore Jacobs began serving as Assistant Surgeon with the 187thRegiment in the Union Army.


1865: Four days after he had passed away, Edward Crawcour, the son of “Isaac and Simha” Crawcour and the husband of the former Margaret Buchanan with whom he had two children – John and Helen – was buried today at the Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.


1866: Sir George Jessel, Solicitor-General and Master of the Rolls and Amelia Moses gave birth to Herbert Jessel, British soldier and Member of Parliament.


1872: “A Startling Novelty” published today traces the history of embalming.  Based on Genesis, “And Joseph commanded his servants, the physicians to embalm his father; and the physicians embalmed Israel” and “So Joseph died, and being an hundred and ten years old; and they embalmed him and he was put in a coffin in Egypt.”  While the Israelites learned about embalming from the Egyptians, the latter used a much more elaborate process and “the embalmers were regarded as…sacred persons.”


1875: “Hebrews of New York” published today praised the record “which Jacob Hess has made for himself in one session of the Assembly” as “one of which any patriot may be proud.”


1878: It was reported today that the Hebrew Benevolent Society is among those organizations in New Orleans that is continuing to provide aid to those suffering during the region’s Yellow Fever Epidemic.


1878: Birthdate of Murray Seasongood, future Mayor of Cincinnati and Harvard law school professor.


1879: “Bull-Dozing In Mississippi” published today described a political meeting held at Bolivar Landing, in Bolivar Country, MS, where a resolution was allegedly passed denouncing Edward Storm as “a dishonest Jew, the servile tool of the slave-owner before the war, and the convenient and abandoned ally of the corrupt carpet bagger” since the end of the Civil War. (Since no record can be found of a Jew by this name, one has to wonder if labeling him as a “Jew” was an attempt to smear him by his political opponents who had already identified him with the aristocracy, carpetbaggers and Republicans)


1880: Henry Abbey and Louis de Bebian were among those who greeted the famous Jewish actress Sara Bernhardt when she arrived off the coast of the United States aboard the SS Amerique.


1880:“Jewish Longevity” published today reported that the Jews “have become the admired and beloved of the life insurance companies…The reason is that the Christians, after paying one or two premiums, has an unpleasant way of dying…The insured Jew…pays his premium year after year and thus becomes a constant source of income.”  There is a great deal of speculation as to why this is true. According to the author, it may be tied to the business practices of Jews which tend to be less speculative than those of Christians.  This enables the Jew to sleep soundly at night while his Christian counterpart tosses and turns. Diet is another reason.  Jews eat and drink in moderation as compared to their Christian counterparts and do not eat pork. Finally, Jews marry other Jews which preserves “the purity of their blood.”


1881: A woman who claimed to be  Mrs. Amelia Goldberg, an English Jew and her 11 year old child were found wandering the streets of New York dressed in rags today which led to them being taken into custody and “being committed to the care of the Commissioners of Charities and Correction.


1882: Julian Adolf Cannot, the infant son of Kitie (Rebecca) and Emile Henri Cannot was buried today at the Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.


1882: “Mordecai Lyons” published today reviewed Edward Harrigan’s new play which features “a Jew who, when he finds that his daughter has been betrayed” tries to avenge her. While the reviewer found the play disappointing he felt that Mr. Harrigan “was artistically effective as the Jew, Mordecai, though rather uncertain at the important situations.


1884: “A service was held at Ramsgate to-day in honor of Sir Moses Montefiore. Chief Rabbi Adler read a special prayer. Sir Moses insisted upon standing through the entire service, at the conclusion of which he said in a very strong voice: "I cannot tell a thousandth or a ten thousandth part of what I feel when by the blessing of the almighty I have arrived at so full an age.” A reception followed the service.  On this day alone, Montefiore received more than 800 letters and 600 telegrams from a whole host of well-wishers, Jew and Gentile alike.


1884: “A Life Spent In Charity” published today described the various services held to honor Sir Moses Montefiore on his 100th birthday. Henry Ward Beecher, the leading Protestant minister of his time, described him as being “the distinguished citizen of the world” who “by his long life and by his splendid services in the way of humanity, has become himself a text that involves in it the truths both of the Old and the New Testament.”


1885: It was reported today “Miss Rebecca Rosenthal, a Baxter Street Blond” joined hands with Patrick Divver, the candidate for Ward 6 Alderman, to lead the opening march at the Patrick Divver Hebrew Association’s annual ball.  Jewish political leader Coroner Levy addressed the attendees and urged them to vote for Divver.


1886: Reports published today described the view of S.S. (Samuel Sullivan) Cox, the U.S. Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, on the condition of Jewish communities overseas including the fact that “he had been as favorably impressed by the Hebrews of Turkey as by those of Western Europe and America.”


1886: Three days after she had passed away, Rebecca (nee Mocatta) Montefiore, the daughter of Daniel Mocatta and the former Nancy Goldsmid and the husband of Joseph Barrow Montefiore with whom she had thirteen children was buried today at the “Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.”


1888: Heinrich Graetz, the author of the multi-volume History of the Jews“was appointed an honorary member of the Spanish Academy, to which, as a token of his gratitude, he dedicated the third edition of the eighth volume of his history.”


1889: “A Patriarchal Scribe” published today described the work of an aged Hebrew working in the corner of a grocery store on Division Street in New York’s lower east side.  For a small fee he wrote letters in Hebrew to be sent back to families in Europe while demonstrating the skill to complete the information on the envelope so that the epistle would arrive at its proper destination.


1889: It was reported today that while on their way back from raiding the offices of the Louisiana Lotter, police in Boston had arrested “Barnett Gompertz, the little English Jew eyeglass peddler who has had a stand at the head of Williams Court, otherwise known as Pie Alley, for over twenty years.”


1889: “Christians Made Jewess” published today described the process by which a young English woman converted to Judaism before she was married at the West London Synagogue on Upper Berkeley Street.


1889: In Vienna, Josef Schoenstein, the son of Moritz Schoenstein married Perla Pauline Mose, the daughter of Josef Mose.


1891: Birthdate of Paul Grüninger the police commander in Canton of St. Gallen in Switzerland who saved 3,601 from the Nazis following the Anschluss in 1938.


1891: It was reported today that the government of Turkey has prohibited the immigration of Jewish families of any nationality meaning that they cannot settle in Palestine. But individual Jews are allowed to pass through the empire.


1893: Riga born Socialist Party leader Julius Gerber “applied for and was granted USA citizenship on today in Kings County, Brooklyn, New York.”


1893: Alice Emily Henriques, the daughter of Philip Joseph Gutteres Henriques and the former Beatrice Rachel Faudel-Phillips was buried today at the “Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.”


1894: At Temple Emanu-El in New York, Rabbi Joseph Silverman delivered a sermon related to the upcoming election in which he used the life of Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes to deliver an apolitical lesson on civic responsibility.


1895:Austrian Prime Minister Badeni revives the "Presse", forerunner and now out-lived rival of the "Neue Freie Press." Herzl is offered the editorship of the "Presse". After some days of negotiations with Moritz Benedikt, Herzl refuses the offer.


1896(20thof Cheshvan, 5657): Less than a month before his 62nd birthday, Isaac Bamberger, the rabbi at the reform congregation in Königsberg passed away today.


1896: Birthdate of Cardiff native Isaac E. Feinstein, who in 1903 came to the United States where he graduated from Temple University in Philadelphia and who as “president of both the local and state nursing convalescent homes” promised in 1953 full cooperating “in preventing overcrowding and fire hazards” in these facilities.


1896: Birthdate of New York native Herbert Raubenheimer, the first basketball coach and athletic director at Long Island Univeristy.



1897(1stof Cheshvan, 5658): Rosh Chodesh Cheshvan


1897: In Cheshire, Mr. and Mrs. Louis S. Breslauer gave birth to a son.


1898: In Tangier, Rachel Hélène Cazès gave birth to Rachel Hélène Cazès who gained fame as Hélène Cazès-Benatar, “Morocco’s first woman lawyer” organizer of relief efforts for North African Jews during WW II who “after the war helped Jewish refugees move to Israel.”



1898: Philip S. Golderman served his last day as Color Sergeant of the 203rdNew York Infantry.


1902:Herzl arrives in Viennahaving finished his trip to London.


1903: Herzl travels to Edlach, Austria.


1904: Rabbi Rubin officiated at the marriage of Joseph Baron and Annie Pinosky in South Carolina today.


1904: At seven this evening the general public began riding the first subway in what has become “the largest transit system of its kind” and includes the A Train which travels through the Jewish neighborhoods in Washington Heights, the Village and Crown Heights and “the 1, which passes through Riverdale, Washington Heights and the “one true shtetl” of the Upper West Side. (As reported by Jonathan Paul Katz)


1905: William T. Jerome, who was running for re-election as New York County District Attorney addressed a crowd of about 3,000 Jews in Beethoven Hall this evening where he made a reference to one of his opponents eating hogs, which some considered prejudicial concerning the dietary laws.


1906: Mutilated bodies of Jewish women were found in the streets of Arzila, Tangier.


1908: Two days after she had passed away, “Esther Goldstein, the widow of Abraham Goldstein” was buried today at the “Plashet Jewish Cemetery in London.”


1908: In Brooklyn, NY, “Russian Jewish immigrants “Chane (nee Weiss) and Joseph Krasner gave birth to Lena Krassner who gained fame as abstract expression painter Lenore “Lee” Krasner, the wife and helpmate in the truest sense of that word, of Jackson Pollock.



1909(12thof Cheshvan, 5670): Theresa Otterbourg, the older daughter of Raphael Isaac Cohen, the sister of Bertha Lewis, the sister-in-law of David Lewis and wife of Dr. Jonas Salomon Otterbourg who “directed a very successful girls’ school at Marine House in Dover” passed away today.


1911: Samuel Morris was elected a member of the Town Council in Doncaster, England.


1911: In Manchester, the Beth Din adopted a resolution “protesting against an amendment proposed by the Board of Deputies to Animals Slaughter Bill.”


1911: An article datelined Yuzivka, Russia, entitled “More Jews to be Expelled: Will Cuase Much Hardship,” reports that the Governor has signed a proclamation stating that  all Jews in the Province of Ekaterinoslaff are subject to expulsion, with some limited exceptions.


1912: Erna Reiss and Alfred Döblin, the German born physician and author gave birth to their first son Peter “who was baptized a Protestant.


1912: In Denver, Colorado, dedication of the “Schoenberg Memorial Hospital Building of National Jewish Hospital Jewish Hospital for Consumptives.


1912: In New York City Leopold "Leo" Sulzberger and Beatrice Sulzberger gave birth to Cyrus L. Sulzberger, the “husband of Mariana Tatiana Sulzberger” and the New York Times Pulitzer prize winning correspondent and author, the nephew of NYT publisher Arthur Hays Sulzberg, who was known by his initials as C.L. Sulzberger



1913: In Brooklyn, “pharmacist Louis Silverman” and “homemaker Gussie (Zuckerblatt) Silverman” gave birth to Pearl Silverman who gained fame as Patricia Schiller, the pioneering attorney and wife of fellow attorney Irving Schiller. (As reported by Neil Genzlinger)



1913: During the first Balkan war, practically the entire Jewish community of Itchip numbering 710 people fled to Salonica to avoid having to face the conquering Bulgarian army. Only 6 men and 2 youths stayed behind. Two of the old men were killed; all the Jewish homes were plundered and demolished. Synagogues were desecrated and burned, as were 24 Jewish stores and homes. 


1914: Twenty-four year old Louis Weinstein “a British subject from Cape Town, described the events that took him from the coast of South Africa to Brazil and eventually to New York where he “is in the care of the Hebrew Sheltering and Immigrant Aid Society.”


1914: As Americans respond to the needs for funds to relieve the suffering of war torn Europe, Jacob Schiff, the Treasurer of the New York branch of the American Red Cross “announced additional subscriptions amounting to $2, 841.”


1915: In Manchester, England, Neville Jonas Laski and the former “Phina Emily, the eldest daughter of Moses Gaster” gave birth to English author Marghanita Laski, the niece of Harold Laski.”



1915: Dr. Anthony Maliauskis, a Lithuanian priest who arrived in New York today on the Norwegian steamer Frederik VIII said that the plight of refugees fleeing the fighting on the Russian front which included at least 200,000 Jews “appears to be far worse than anything of the kind that afflicted the people of Belgium.


1915: Birthdate of Quebec native Herschel Saltzman, who gained famed as Harry Saltzman, the co-producer of the James Bond film series.



1916: After having been arrested for distributing information about birth control and spending the night in jail Fania Mindell and her two colleagues were released on bail today


1916: It was reported today that the Adjutant General of the New York National Guard has offered assurances that if the changes recommended by the Governor to the recruiting regulation do not end discrimination against Jews in the recruiting process others “with teeth” will be inserted in the Military Regulations” while the Committee for the Protection of the Good Name of Immigrant Peoples “proposes to see to it that no offending officer shall escape punishment…”


1916: In his erev Shabbat sermon at Temple Israel in Brooklyn, Rabbi Nathan Kress condemned the resolution adopted by the Episcopal General Convention at St. Louis “urging the conversion of Jews to Chrsitianity.”


1917: Based on reports from the Petrograd correspondent of the Jewish Daily Forward, it was reported today that “the Central Committee of the All Russian Councils” wants to immediately “organize anti-Pogrom Committees throughout the provinces to combat and suppress the counter revolutionary and anti-Semitic agitation.”


1917: In London, the Jewish Chroniclepublished a report from its Petrograd correspondent in London describing the mistreatment of the Jews by the Germans in Russia in which he said the German “commandant of a village order the Jews to remove from here streets because he had to pass through those streets on the way to his office and objected to meeting so many Jews”


1917: Colonel Harry Cutler, of Providence, RI, the Chairman of the Jewish Welfare Board discussed the drive to raise one million dollars which would enable the Board to provide Jewish soldiers with “the same facilities for recreation and religious observance provided for soldiers of other faiths” which was necessitated by the fact that forty percent of the men at Camp Upton were Jews, 16 percent of the men at Camp Meade were Jews and seven percent of the men at Camp Dix were Jews.


1918: The Citizen’s Union’s analysis of judicial and legislative included the following: “Justice Nathan Ottinger, a Republican, has demonstrated clearly during the period that he has sat on the bench by appointment that he possesses high judicial qualifications which justify his election.”


1918: German General Erich Ludendorff, the second in command of the German Army who was the brains behind the figurehead Hindenburg, a declared anti-Semite, one of the architects of the “stabbed-in-the-bag” canard and a partner with Hitler in the 1923 attempted putsch, was forced to resign his position today just a couple of weeks before the end of WW I.


1918: Fifty-one year old Alexander Protopopov who as Russian Minister of the Interior said in 1916 that he believed “in equal rights for Jews” and that this would be part of the move to abolish “everything that hinders further progress” in Russia was executed by the Cheka (Soviet secret police) today.


1922(5thof Cheshvan, 5683): Civil War Congressional Medal of Honor winner who received the commendation at the Battle of Franklin (TN) passed away today.


1922: “Marie Antoinette, the Love of a King” “a silent historical drama film directed, produced and written by Rudolf Meinert was released in the Weimar Republic (Germany) today.


1923: On the upper West Side of Manhattan realtor Milton Lichtenstein and Beatrice Werner Lichtenstein gave birth to Roy Lichtenstein who “did cartoon inspired paintings that helped launch the Pop Art movement. “



1924: Grigorii Zinoviev, the Jewish born head of the Comintern issued a denial that he authored the so called Zinoviev Letter that stated in part "The letter of 15th September, 1924, which has been attributed to me, is from the first to the last word, a forgery. Let us take the heading. The organization of which I am the president never describes itself officially as the "Executive Committee of the Third Communist International"; the official name is "Executive Committee of the Communist International." Equally incorrect is the signature, "The Chairman of the Presidium." The forger has shown himself to be very stupid in his choice of the date. On the 15th of September, 1924, I was taking a holiday in Kislovodsk, and, therefore, could not have signed any official letter...”  The denial was finally published in the December 1924 issue of The Communist Review, the monthly theoretical magazine of the CPGB, well after the MacDonald government had fallen. Decades later, independent academic research proved that the letter was a forgery.


1924(29th of Tishrei, 5685): Fifty-six year old Chicago attorney and Sears, Robebuck and Co. executive Albert Henry Loeb “died of a heart attack today less than two months after his son was sentence to life plus ninety-years” for murdering 14 year old Bobby Franks.




1924: Premiere of “The Story Without A Name,” a silent film melodrama produced by Adolph Zukor and Jesse Lasky.


1926(19th of Cheshvan, 5687): Seventy-eight year old Harry Bresslau, the father-in-law of Albert Schewitzer and German historian who “believed in the possibility of a complete assimilation of German Jewry through an open affirmation of the ideal of German nationhood” and who played a key role in the founding of the Historical Commission for the History of the Jews in Germany by the Union of German-Jewish Congregations passed away today.


1927: The USS Scorpion (PY-3) which had been commanded by Adolph Marx the first Jewish graduate of the United States Naval Academy during the Spanish-American War was decommissioned for the last time today.


1929(23rd of Tishrei, 5690): Simchat Torah


1929: “Albert Steinfeld, Tucson's Merchant Prince, Arrived Here 57 Years Ago, When City Had Only 1200 Population” published today described the career of one of the leading early citizens of southeast Arizona.



1933: Arabs protesting Jewish immigration to Palestine clashed with police today resulting in at least twenty deaths and injuries to another 130 of the demonstrators.  Among the dead and wounded were Arabs who had attacked a police station in Haifa where a policeman was stabbed in the back.


1933(7th of Cheshvan, 5694): Forty-six year old Rabbi Meir Shapiro who made “the proposal of the study of Daf Yomi in 1923 passed away today.





1935: One hundred and fifty Zionists honored Morris Rothenberg President of the Zionist Organization of America with banquet at New York’s Hotel Astor.  After being introduced by Louis P. Rocker, Rothberg described the progress he had seen on his recent visit to the Palestine but said that “a concerted drive to unite all American Jews in support of the” development of Palestine was necessary for ultimate success.


1936: Today, the National Conference of Jews and Christians announced “that six honorary vice presidents of the Freethinkers Association had their names to be removed from the roster of the organization because of an appeals to Jews by Joseph Lewis, its president to renounced their ‘antiquated creed’


1936: “Seven Jewish students were severely injured today by Nationalist in the Warsaw College where a virtual battle was fought between the police and the rioters” who ignored the appeal from the Minister of Education “against the persecution of Jews in the colleges.”


1936: “The National Conference of Jews and Christians announced” today “ that six honorary vice presidents of the Freethinkers Association had” had “their names removed from the roster of that organization because an appeal to Jews by Joseph Lewis, its president to renounce their ‘antiquated creed.’”


1936: Due to “a heavy rain” the only demonstration that greeted the 537 Jewish refugees who arrived at Cape Town today aboard the Stuttgart  “consisted of subdued booing from a small knot of Gray Shirts” “a local anti-Semitic organization.


1937: The Palestine Post reported that in DanzigJewish shops and houses were pillaged and windows smashed. This outbreak of violence against the Jews took place almost two years before the outbreak of World War II.  The Nazis did not invent anti-Semitism.  They exploited it and made it as efficient as an assembly line for automobiles.


1937: As the Arab violence against the Jews continued The Palestine Post reported that a Jew and an Arab constable were killed when some 15 Arab terrorists ambushed a six-truck convoy carrying 21 Jewish laborers from the Palestine Potash concession on the Dead Sea back to Jerusalem. A number of policemen were injured in various shooting incidents, reported throughout the country, and in particular in Safed where the Jewish community was almost under siege.


1938: Ernst Lubitsch, the German-American movie director and his wife, British actress Vivian Gaye gave birth to their daughter Nicola who survived a 1939 U-Boat attack on the SS Athenia which was taking her to Montreal.


1938(2nd of Cheshvan, 5699): Fifty four year old Soprano Alma Gluck passed away today in New York



1938: German authorities began arresting Jews of Polish citizenship living in the Reich and transporting them to the Polish border. Responding to a Polish decree that all passports of Polish residents abroad would be rescinded by the end of October unless a special permit for reentry to Poland was received, the Germans preempted the Polish government by forcibly deporting thousands of Jews across the border into Poland.



1938: Hitler expelled 18,000 Jews from Germany who were born in the former Polish provinces. The Jews were abused and tortured as they made their way to the border.  The Poles did not want to admit the Jews and for a while many were left to languish on the border.  This was a prelude to the statelessness that would help ensure the death of millions of Jews.


1938: The Germans began arresting Jews with Polish citizenship who had been living in Germany and began deporting them to Poland. The Polish authorities placed the Jews in the border town of Zbaszyn and forbade them from leaving in the hope that the large number of Jews near the border would pressure the Germans into beginning negotiations to allow them back into Germany. The negotiations ended in January 1939- some Jews had already been taken in by friends and family in Poland, while other deportees were permitted to return to Germany to wind up their affairs, and then return to Poland.  For a photographic record see:



1938: Sendel Grynszpan described the deportation of the Jews to Poland, “Then they took us in police trucks, in prisoners’ lorries, about 20 men in each truck, and they took us to the railway station. The streets were full of people shouting: "Juden raus! Aus nach Palästina!" ("Out with the Jews! Off to Palestine!")  The Grynszpans and thousands of other Jews were stranded at the border because the Poles refused to admit them.


1938(2nd of Cheshvan, 5699): Following the massacre of Jews by Arabs in Tiberias on October 2, “Tiberian Arabs murdered the Jewish mayor Isaac Zaki Alahdif” today.


1939(14th of Cheshvan, 5700): Eighty-one year old the attorney from Erie, PA who was one of the founders of B’nai B’rith and an original member of the American Jewish Committee passed away today.



1940:  Ritual slaughter is banned in Belgium.  Were the conquering Germans animal lovers or did they realize the importance of the dietary laws in maintaining Jewish identity.


1941: Jews of Sluzk, 60 miles south of Minsk, Belorussia, are annihilated by Einsatzkommandotroops, half of whom are German, half Lithuanian.


1941: In the Polish town of Kalisz a large black truck drove up and took on a passenger load of Jews. Escorted by two Gestapo cars, the truck drove away. Its passengers were never heard from again. This was the first of the gas-wagons.  This method of extermination was not efficient and would give way to that ultimate in German efficiency – the gas chamber.



1941 “A cryptic message from SOE said that it had ‘been decided that the progress” Isidore Newman “has made justifies his selection for work of a very responsible nature abroad” so “kindly take the necessary action and get him post to us” as of the first of November.



1942: The Nazis sent 3,000 Jews from Opoczno, Polandto Treblinka.  At the start of the war almost half the town of Opocznowas Jewish.  Jews had lived there since the 14th century.  The Jews had lived there continually since the start of the 18th century.At the time of the mass deportation in October 1942, scores of Jews fled to the forests and organized partisan units there. The best known unit, "Lions", under the command of Julian Ajzenman- Kaniewski, conducted a number of successful guerilla actions against Nazi forces and the Opoczno-Konskie railway line. After the war, the Jewish Community of Opoczno was not reconstituted.


1942: Max Basseches, David Becker, Nils Beck, Adolf Berkowitz, Richard Bernstein, Samuel Bernstein, Seiki Bernstein, Sigmund Bernstein, Herman Bild, Leopold Bild, Philip Moses Bild, Hillel Blatt, Benjamin Bodd, Bernhard Bodd, Isak Bodd, Leiser Bodd, Salomon Bodd, Salomon Bogomolno, Paul Borinsky, Abraham Borochstein, Harry Braude, Isak Braude, Rubin Claes, Fritz Cohn and Franz Daus were among the Norwegian Jews arrested today prior to being sent to Auschwitz.


1942: Seven thousand Kraków, Poland, Jews are deported to Belzec while another 600 are killed in Kraków.


1943: Germany announced that any Pole helping Jews to escape should be dealt with “without the necessary delay of court hearings.” The penalty for assisting Jews was death.


1944: In the parts of Warsaw still under German control the Nazis still search for hidden Jews. Seven would be found and shot.  For those who doubt that the War Against the Jews was of primary consideration for the Germans, remember that they were busy tracking down Jews while the Soviet Army was breathing down their necks. 


1944(10th of Cheshvan, 5705): Thirty-nine year old Judith Auer, the daughter of writer Erich Vallentin, the wife of Erich Auer and a genuine resistance fighter was hanged at Plötzensee Prison in Berlin for her role in the fight against Hitler.


1946: In Komárno, Czechoslovakia (now in Slovakia), Klara and Ladislav "Leslie" Reitman who were respectively a survivor of Auschwitz and a member of the underground in WW II, gave birth  to Canadian producer-director Ivan Reitman whose most famous cinematic effort was the hit comedy “Animal House.”


1947: At Petah Tikva a house belonging to a member of Haganah was blown up, reportedly by members of the Irgun.  Haganah leaders said they will not back down despite warnings by Irgun of a looming civil war between the two Jewish organizations. 


1947: The quiz show "You Bet Your Life", with Groucho Marx, premiered on ABCradio.  The show would later move to television where a whole new generation would discover the rapier wit, the bushy eyebrows and the smoldering cigar of what some consider a comic genius.


1948: During Operation Yoav, Israeli forces capture the Egyptian held fort at Bet Guvrin.  The Egyptians had taken the fort when the invaded Israel in May of 1948.


1948 Israelrecaptured Nizzanim in the Negev. Nizzanim is in southern Israel on the,Mediterranean.  In 1990, the same people who high jacked the Achille Loro planned a terrorist attack on the beaches of Nizzanim.  The attack was foiled.


1948(24th of Tishrei, 5709): Seventy one year old Rabbi Judah Leon Magnes passed away.




1950:  Birthdate of Fran Lebowitz, “a Jewish-American author. She is known for her sardonic social commentary on American life as filtered through her New York sensibilities. She has been compared to Dorothy Parker. She was born and raised in Morristown, New Jersey by an observant family. After being expelled from high school, Lebowitz was hired by Andy Warhol as a columnist for Interview. This was followed by a stint at Mademoiselle. Her first book was a collection of essays titled Metropolitan Life, released in 1978, followed by Social Studies in 1981, both of which were collected into The Fran Lebowitz Reader.”


1952: The Jerusalem Post commented in an editorial that a number of ugly incidents in Nazareth and the arrest of an Arab underground group, undergoing military training in the Majdal Krum area, drew less public attention than it deserved. There were obvious severe shortcomings in the management of the affairs of Arabs living in Israel. The government undertook to build 50,000 concrete dwellings within the next three years in order to accommodate the almost 80,000 families still living in ma’abarot.


1953: Birthdate of New York native Michael M. Kaiser the Brandeis and MIT graduate who served “as president of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts from 2001 to 2014.


1954:Associate Justice of the Supreme Court William O. Douglas and Congressman Emanuel Celler spoke to 500 people attending a dinner sponsored by the American Mogen Dovid for Israel where “Morris Morgenstern and S. Ralph Lazrus were honored at the dinner for donating an ambulance to the Red Mogen David, the equivalent of the Red Cross in Israel.” (As reported by JTA)


1955: A paratroop regiment which “is on a mission to capture the Kuntila Fortress in Sinai, deep in Egyptian territory…kills ten Egyptian soldiers and captures twenty nine” while suffering casualties that included two dead and two wounded.”


1955: “Rebel Without A Cause” the cult adolescent rebellion film with a screenplay by Stewart Stern and Irving Shulman and music by Leonard Rosenman was released today by Warner Brothers.


1957(2nd of Cheshvan, 5718): Galicia native and Yiddish author Fishl Verber, the Zionist who made Aliya in 1934 passed away today “in Ramatayim, Israel.”



http://yleksikon.blogspot.com/2016/06/fishl-verber.html



1957: Psychologist Dr. Joyce Brothers put her boxing trivia to the test and came away with $64,000.  Dr. Brothers, who was appearing on the game show The $64,000 Challenge, took the top prize, competing against a team of seven boxers on boxing lore. This was her second time winning the program's top prize — two years earlier she had claimed her first victory (when the show was called The $64,000 Question), also on the subject of boxing. Brothers' appearance on The $64,000 Question not only garnered her a substantial prize, but also sparked her career as a talk-show psychologist. After her appearance on Challenge, Brothers was picked to co-host WATV's show, Sports Showcase. In 1958, NBC offered Brothers her own talk show, The Dr. Joyce Brothers Show. The show, which counseled viewers on childrearing, marriage, and sex, was an instant success and soon became syndicated nationally. In 1963, Brothers began writing a monthly column for Good Housekeeping, which remains a feature of the magazine today. She also writes a daily column that is published in more than 350 newspapers, and has written several books, including What Every Woman Should know About Men(1982) and How to Get Whatever You Want Out of Life (1978). Her most personal and popular work was Widow (1990), which described Brothers' emotional journey after the death of her husband in 1989 after thirty-nine years of marriage.



1958(13thof Cheshvan, 5719): Eighty-four Lithuanian born “professor of Hebrew Literature” and “chief redactor of the Encyclopedia Hebraica” Joseph Gedaliah Klausner, “the great uncle of Amos Oz” whose seminal works were Jesus of Nazareth and From Jesus to Paul passed away today in Jersulaem.



https://www.jta.org/1958/10/28/archive/prof-joseph-klausner-noted-scholar-dies-in-israel-was-84



 



1959: NBC broadcast “The Secret World of Kids” featuring Ed Wynn in Episode 4 of the Startime television anthology series.



1964: U.S. premiere of “The Americanization of Emily” a great film that must be seen by everybody directed by Arthur Hiller, with a screenplay by Paddy Chayefsky, co-starring Melvyn Douglas and featuring Steve Franken was released in the United States today.



1964(21stof Cheshvan, 5725): Sixty-six year old director and producer Rudolph Maté, born Rudolf Mayer in Krakow who began his career as a cinematographer passed away today.



http://www.cinematographers.nl/GreatDoPh/mate.htm



1964: “Ben Franklin in Paris” a musical with songs by Jerry Herman opened at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre,



1964: Linda and Malcolm Glazer gave birth to Bryan Glazer, a graduate of American University and Whittier Law School became an executive vice president of the NFL Tampa Bay Buccaneers.



1966(13thof Cheshvan, 5727):A civilian was wounded by an explosive charge on the railroad tracks to Jerusalem.”



1967(23rdof Tishrei, 5728): Jews celebrate Simchat Torah in a united Jerusalem



1967: In London, Susan Davis and David Wolfson, Baron Wolfson of Sunningdale, gave birth to Simon Adam Wolfson, Guise the chief executive of the clothing retailer Next and a Conservative life peer who is the founder of the £250,000 Wolfson Economics Prize.



1968(5th of Cheshvan, 5729): Lise Meitner, a physicist who played a key role in the discovery of Nuclear Fission passed away at the age of 89.


1968: In Mexico City, the Summer Olympics, during which the Soviet Union’s Volleyball Team led by Georgy Mondzolevski, came to a close.


1969(15th of Cheshvan, 5730): Sixty-eight year old British entertainer and broadcaster Albert Eric Maschwitz passed away today.



1970: ITV broadcast the first episode of “The Lovers” a British sitcom created by Jack Rosenthal who also served as the writer and director.


1970(27thof Tishrei, 5731): Seventy-two year old Henrietta L. Pitler, the wife of Jacob Albert Pitler, a coach on the 1955 Brooklyn Dodgers World Series champions passed away today after which she was buried at “Temple Israel Riverside Cemetery.”


1973(1stof Cheshvan 5734): Rosh Chodesh Cheshvan and Parashat Noach


1973: The first season of “Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids” with Lou Scheimer doing the voice of “Dumb Donald” came to an end.


1973: Cable service which provided telex and telecommunication between Syria and the outside world including Egypt was restored after having been knocked by Israeli frogman on October 18.


1975: Eight people, including two Israelis, were injured “by a car bomb detonated in front of a hotel in Jerusalem.


1977(15thof Cheshvan, 5738): Seventy-eight year old Hungarian football (soccer) player and coach who was a member of Hakoah in the 1920’s passed away today.


1978: Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin were named winners of the Nobel Peace Prize.


1979(6thof Cheshvan, 5740): Parashat Noach


1979(6thof Cheshvan, 5740): Eight-one year old Sir Louis Gluckstein, the son of “Joseph Gluckstein, whose brothers Isidore and Montague had founded J. Lyons and Co., a British coffee house and catering empire” and brother of painter Hannah Gluck who served in both World Wars and served as a Conservative MP passed away today.


1981: “SOS Children's Village Arad (known as Kfar Neradim) which was built in the southern outskirts of Arad was inaugurated” today.


1983:Four days after the attack on the Marine Barracks the White House team that visited Beirut, led by Vice President of the United States, George H. W. Bush, asked Rabbi Arnold Resnicoff to write a report on the attack and its aftermath


1986: In the UK, “the sudden deregulation of financial markets” known as the “Big Bang” which Nigel Lawson, Margaret Thatcher’s Chancellor of the Exchequer, played a key role began today.


1986: “The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat” “a one-act chamber opera by Michael Nyman…adapted from the case study of the same name by Oliver Sacks” “was first performed today at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London.’


1986: “Meatballs III” co-starring Al Waxman and featuring Maury Chaykin was released in Canada today.


1986: In an article published today. Time magazine correspondent provides background on the life of Elie Wiesel as describes the Nobel Laureate’s work on behalf of mankind and the Jewish people including his efforts on behalf of Cambodian refugees, the Miskito Indians in Nicaragua and starving children in Africa. “Last week he exhorted Soviet Leader Mikhail Gorbachev to allow five Soviet Jews, as well as Dissident Physicist Andrei Sakharov, to emigrate, and this week he is traveling to Moscow to help organize a conference on non-Jewish victims of Nazism.”




1987: Actor Dustin Hoffman and Lisa Gottsegen Hoffman give birth to Alexandra Lydia.


1988: NBC broadcast the first episode “Cheers” a sitcom created by James Burrows and co-starring Rhea Perlman and Bebe Neuwirth.


1988(16th of Cheshvan, 5749) Just days before her 93rd birthday, Hadassah and ZOA leader Judith G. Epstein passed away. (As reported by Susan Fox)



1989: “Worth Winning” a comedy featuring David Brenner and filmed by cinematographer Adam Greenberg was released in the United States today by 20thCentury Fox.


1992(30th of Tishrei, 5753): Rosh Chodesh Cheshvan


1992(30th of Tishrei, 5753): David Bohm, American-born physicist, philosopher, and neuropsychologist passed away.


1994: Judith R. Shapiro, a widely respected cultural anthropologist who has done pioneering research on gender differences, was inaugurated as president of BarnardCollege.



1995: Prime Minister Rabin took the courageous step of agreeing “that when the time came for Palestinian elections, election posters could be placed anywhere in East Jerusalem and that the voting in the city would be supervised by the Palestinian Central Election Commission.



1995: “Leaving Las Vegas” co-starring Richard Lewis was released in the United States today.



1995: “Mighty Aphrodite” a comedy directed, written and starring Woody Allen, produced by Letty Aronson and featuring Michael Rapaport and Clair Bloom



1996: The first episode of Season eight of the “The Simpsons” a cartoon sitcom developed by James L. Brooks and Sam Simon was broadcast tonight.



1996(15th of Cheshvan, 5757): Seventy-four year old comedian Morey Amsterdam passed away (As reported by David Stout)



1997: “Losses resulting from Victor Niederhoffer’s investment in Thai banks stocks combined with a 554-point (7.2%) single day decline in the Dow Jones Industrial Average (the eighth largest point decline to date in index history), forced Niederhoffer Investments to close its doors.


1997: “Fair Tale: A True Story” produced by Wendy Finerman and co-starring Harvey Keitel was released today in the United States today.


1998(7th of Cheshvan, 5759): Eighty year old Morris R. “Moe” Becker the Guard for he Duquesne University Dukes passed away today. (According to Wikipedia he passed away in 1998.  At this point I have not been able to resolve the descrepency)


1999: “Esther Williams Is All Wet” published today provides a defense of the late Jeff Chandler from accusations that appeared in her autobiography.



2000: U.S. premiere of “Requiem for a Dream” directed by Darren Aronofsky featuring Ben Shenkma


2002:The New York Times book section features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or on topics of special Jewish interest including Genius: A Mosaic of One Hundred Exemplary Creative Minds by Harold Bloom.


2002(3rd of Cheshvan, 5775): Three  Israelis  – 41 year old Tamir Masad, 22 year old Lieutenant Matan Zagron and 32 year old Sgt.Maj. Amihud Hasid -- were killed, and 20 bystanders were wounded in a suicide bombing at a gas station near the settlement of Ariel. The two officers and soldier were killed while trying to prevent the terrorist from detonating the bomb. Hamas and the Al Aksa Martyrs Brigades claimed responsibility for the attack.


2004:  The Jerusalem Post reported that Israel's Knesset approved a plan for disengagement from Gaza.  Those citing the Bible for opposing this decision should re-read the text.  From David to David - from King David to David Ben Gurion- Jewish leaders have avoided taking control of Gaza.  Furthermore, the wise King Solomon is reported in the Book of Kings to have given up 23 towns in Israelto Hiram.  And I do not remember any Rabbi threatening to assassinate King Solomon over the issue.


2004:  Under the executive leadership of Theo Epstein, the Red Sox win the World Championship for the first time since 1918.


2004: CBS broadcast the first episode of Season Eight of “The King of Queens” a sitcom cost starring Jerry Stiller.


2005: Citizens of Hadera, a city of 82,000, thirty miles north of Tel Aviv, were still dealing with the effects of yesterday’s terrorist bombing which twisted corrugated tin roofs and shattered windows of grocery stores across the street from Falafel Barzalai, a restaurant popular with Arabs who work in the central market and left the sidewalk carpeted in leaves and branches.


2006: The Anti-Defamation League posthumously presented to Hiram "Harry" Bingham IV its "Courage to Care" award at the ADL’s national conference in Atlanta. As Vice Consul in Marseille, he helped to save 2,500 Jews from the Nazis as they swept through France at the start of WW II.


2006: The Jewish Daily Forward reported “that in a startling move, Primo Levi’s 1975 book The Periodic Table, was named ‘best science book ever written’ by the Royal Institution of Great Britain. The book — which unfolds in 21 autobiographical stories, each tied to an element of the periodic table — edged out works by DNA pioneer James Watson and even The Voyage of the Beagle by Charles Darwin. Tim Radford, onetime science editor of the Guardian newspaper, served as the book’s champion in the contest. ‘The science book is the ultimate in nonfiction,” he said. “This book pinions my awareness to the solidity of the world around me.’” A chemist by training, Levi survived the death camps and fought as a partisan.  He passed away in 1987.


2006: “The Last Virgin”, “a bluntly satirical comedy about Jews and Muslims in the Middle East” is performed for the last time in Frankfurt, Germany.  The play was written by Tuvia Tenenbom and Maria Lowry.  Tenenbom is an Israeli and founder the Jewish Theatre in New York.


2007:New York’s Erez Safar celebrates the launch of his new website called Shemspeed (www.shemspeed.com) with a gala event in London.



2007: The Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra performs Broadway show music from Evita, Les Miserables, The Phantom of the Opera, Chicago, Cats, Cabaret and more at the Performing Arts Center in Jerusalem


 


2007: An exhibition entitled “The Sculpture of Louise Nevelson: Constructing a Legend” opens at the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco.


2007(15th of Cheshvan, 5768): Eighty year Leslies Eleazer Orgel” the Salk Institute theoretical chemist who was the father of the RNA world theory of the origin of life and the author of Orgel's Second Rule: "Evolution is cleverer than you are" passed away today.




2007: The lawyers representing Mariane Pearl, the widow of slain journalist Daniel Pearl, dropped “the lawsuit seeking damages against al-Qaida, a dozen reputed terrorists, and Pakistan's largest bank” citing personal reasons that “should have no bearing on the merits of the lawsuit.”


2008: In Washington, D.C., opening of the Ethics and War Reading and Discussion Series, an interfaith reading series co-sponsored by Theatre J that deals with questions concerning “ethical behavior” when a nation is at war.


2008: The winter session of the Knesset opens with President Shimon Peres calling for early elections since Kadima leader Livini cannot form a government.


2008: Time magazine includes a review of “All My Sons” by Jewish playwright Arthur Miller which is “now getting a starry revival on Broadway.”


2008: “During a guest appearance on The Daily Show, journalist Campbell Brown and the wife of Daniel Samuel Senor, announced her second pregnancy.”


2009: At The Hyman S. & Freda Bernstein Jewish Literary Festival Dara Horn reads from and discusses her novel "All Other Nights" (Jewish spies in the Civil War)


2009: At Cornell College in Mt. Vernon, Iowa, a screening of Paper Clips in the Rathskeller. Paper Clips is the moving and inspiring documentary that captures how students from Whitwell, Tenn. responded to lessons about the Holocaust—with a promise to honor every lost soul by collecting one paper clip for each individual exterminated by the Nazis. The amazing result: a memorial railcar filled with 11 million paper clips.


2009:Iran-backed Hezbollah based in southern Lebanon fired a Katyusha rocket into Israel today.  \


2009:Today, a right-wing comedian was fined 10,000 euros by a French court for "public anti-Semitic insults" after he invited Robert Faurisson, an academic and Holocaust denier, on stage during a comedy show to receive an "award" from an actor dressed as a Jewish deportee. The Paris court told Dieudonne M'bala M'bala, a 43-year-old French stand-up comic, to pay a further 10,000 in damages and legal fees to organizations that sued him, French news agency AFP reported.


2009:Government prosecutors tried to use witness testimony today to prove a former kosher slaughterhouse manager knew he was employing illegal immigrants at his plant. The testimony was intended to show that the manager, Sholom Rubashkin, lied to a lender bank about his compliance with the law.


2010:Award winning authorRebecca Newberger Goldstein, a recipient of the MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, is scheduled to deliver  The Gerald L. Bernstein Memorial Lecture  entitled “36 Arguments for the Existence of God: A Work of Fiction” on the closing night of the Hyman S. & Freda Bernstein Jewish Literary Festival 


 


2010:Comedian Jon Stewart is the most influential man of 2010, according to a poll released today by AskMen.com, an American online magazine.


2010:The Israel Forum for International Humanitarian Aid (IsraAID) announced on today that it will send a team to Haiti, despite the current cholera outbreak.


2011: Robert Lipsyte and John Bloom are scheduled to take part in “Telling It Like It Is; Jews, Sports and Writing,” a panel discussion that is part of The Hyman S. & Freda Bernstein Jewish Literary Festival.


2011: The New York Review of Books published part one of Saul Bellow’s “A Jewish Writer in America.”



2011:Dr. Hasia Diner the Paul and Sylvia Steinberg Professor of American Jewish History at New York University, and founder and Director of the Goldstein-Goren Center for American Jewish History is scheduled to deliver a lecture entitled “Between History and Memory: Rethinking the American Jewish Past” in Washington, D.C.


2011: Marvin Kalb and his daughter Deborah Kalb “participated in a webcast of the book Haunting Legacy: Vietnam and the American Presidency from Ford to Obama at the Pritzker Military Library today.


2011:Ilan Grapel, an American-Israeli citizen jailed in Cairo on suspicion of espionage for over four months, met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel today after he was released (As reported by Barak Ravid and Natasha Mozgovaya)


2011 The Israel Air Force targeted three centers of terrorist activity in the Gaza Strip and a weapons storage site in the South early this morning, IDF Spokesman's Office said in a statement. The attacks hit their precise targets and all planes returned safely to base.  The activity came in retaliation to one Grad rocket that was fired from the Gaza Strip at Ashdod and Bnei Aish areas shortly before midnight


2011:As the death toll in the deadly earthquake in eastern Turkey rose today, an Israeli cargo plane landed in Ankara, carrying humanitarian aid that Turkish officials at first had declined to accept. The Israeli plane carried seven prefabricated houses and other supplies, NTV television reported said. The plane was redirected to Ankara because the airport near Van, the hardest-hit area, was too small.


2011(29th of Tishrei, 5772): Eighty-five year old Allen Mandelbaum, the award winning translator of Dante’s “Divine Comedy” passed away today. (As reported by William Grimes)



2012: “Youth movements and social NGOs are scheduled to gather in Tel Aviv’s Rabin Square  for an alternative ceremony to honor the anniversary of former prime minister Yitzhak Rabin’s assassination” this evening. (As reported by Lahav Harkov


2012: Israeli cellist Elad Kabilio is scheduled to perform at the Joyce Theatre in NYC.


2012: The Edent-Tamir Music Center is scheduled to present “Musica Antiqua” featuring Zohar Shefi on the harpsichord and Drora Bruck on the recorder.


2012: Andras Schiff is scheduled to play Book 1 of “Well-Tempered Clavier” at the 92nd Street Y


2012(11th of Cheshvan): On the Hebrew calendar, the Yahrzeit of Rachel which is normally observed by pilgrimages to her tomb.  Since the event fell on Shabbat, the observant made their pilgrimages on the 25th.


2012(11th of Cheshvan, 5773): Ninety-six year old Joseph Hazan whose family traced their roots to the Jewish community of Salonica passed away today.



2012: Seventeen year-old Naomi Cohen won gold today at the 2012 RS:X Youth World Windsurfing Championships in Taiwan. Several other Israeli participated in today’s competition, with Shahar Tibi finishing fifth, Ofri Givati 10th, Noga Geller 12th and Adi Cohen in 18th place, according to Ynet. (As reported by Yoel Goldman)


2012: “Israeli immigrant’s joyful art products designed to be worn, used” published today highlights the life and artistic creations of Giora Neta an Israeli living in Cedar Rapids, Iowa



2012: An American monitoring group said today that satellite images of the aftermath of the explosion on October 24th at a Sudanese weapons factory suggested the site was hit by an airstrike.



2012: An estimated 20,000 Israelis gathered tonight in Tel Aviv to commemorate the 17th anniversary of former Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin’s assassination at the square where he was killed in 1995, and which was subsequently renamed in his honor.



2013: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Love and Math: The Heart of Hidden Reality by Edward Frenkel as well as interviews with J.J. Abrams http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/27/books/review/j-j-abrams-by-the-book.html?ref=booksand Jill Abramson’s “Kennedy, the Elusive President.”



2013: Dr. Elliot Lefkovitz is scheduled to moderate a panel discussion among several survivors of the Kindertransport at the Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center.


2013: Chicago Premiere of “Signs of Life” a musical which is “based on the true story of Terezin” comes to an end.


2013: The Jewish Historical Society of Greater Washington is scheduled to host its Guardain-Benefactor Luncheon featuring Rabbi Arnold Resnicoff who will speak on the commemoration of the 30thanniversary of the Bombing of the Marine Barracks in Beirut.


2013: In New Orleans, Beth Israel, the Orthodox Synagogue that survived Hurricane Katrina, is scheduled to host its annual fundraiser.


2013: For the first time in history two Jewish brothers squared off against each in an NFL game today at Arrowhead Stadium when offensive tackle Mitchell Schwartz of the Cleveland Browns played against offensive guard Geoff Schwartz of the Kansas City Chiefs.


2013: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's cabinet today unanimously approved the appointment of Karnit Flug as the first female governor of the Bank of Israel (As reported by Moti Bossok)


2013(23rd of Cheshvan, 5774): Eighty-one year old Dr. Leonard Herzenberg who “created a device that can pick out individual cells from a mass of trillions of them and then capture, sort and count them so they can be analyzed and used to fight disease” passed away today. (As reported by Douglas Martin)



2013(23rd of Cheshvan, 5774): Seventy-one year old rock and roll innovator and icon Lou Reed passed away today.



2013: Daylight Saving Time will switch to Standard Time in the early hours of Sunday morning marking Israel's transition to the winter clock.



2013: Two mortar shells were fired from Gaza into the Eshkol region in the western Negev.


2014: The American Sephardi Federation and the Center for Jewish History are scheduled to honor the legacy of Daniel Pearl with a special concert “Building Bridges: From Bene Beraq to Baghdad.


2014: At the Gerard Behar Theatre the all-male religious dancers of the Ka’et Ensemble are scheduled to perform at the Heaven and Earth Festival starting today.


2014: “The Garden of Eden” and “Life Sentences” are scheduled to be shown at the Israeli Film Festival hosted by the Tulane University Jewish Studies Department chaired by Dr. Brian Horowitz.


2014: The Center for Jewish History is scheduled to host Rabbi Deborah Prinz speaking about “Jews on the Chocolate Trail.”


2014: Mathew Klickstein, author of Slimed: An Oral History of Nickelodeon’s Golden Age is the feature at the Hyman S & Freda Bernstein Jewish Literary Festival.


2014: PuppetCinema which “began in 2009 as an experiment in Israel” is scheduled to open with Zvi Sahar in New York.


2014: Hundred atteneded the funeral this morning for 22 year old Karen Yemima Muscara who was killed “in last week;s terrorist a ttack on a Jerusalem light rail station.”


2014: “Putting perceived security concerns before conscience, US intelligence and law enforcement agencies likely employed over 1,000 Nazis as spies during the Cold War, sometimes ignoring or concealing their war crimes and helping them immigrate to the United States, the author of a soon-to be released book wrote in an article published today.” (As reported by Spencer Ho)


2014: Indirect talks between Hamas and Israel which were scheduled to resume today will not take place because Egypt has closed its border to the Hamas delegation following a deadly terror attack in Sinai for which the Egyptians hold Hamas responsible. (As reported by Elhanan Miller)


2015(14th of Cheshvan, 5776): Seventy-six year old Richard Larkin, an American educator who had moved to Israel and became an advocate for coexistence between Jews and Muslims succumbed to the wounds he had suffered when a terrorist bombed the bus he was riding in Jerusalem two weeks ago.



2015: “Apples from the Desert” an Israeli film is scheduled to be shown at the Jewish Arts & Film Festival of Fairfield County.


2015: The YIVO Institute for Jewish Research and the JDC Archives are scheduled to present a lecture by Mish Itsel on “The Great Terror in the USSR (1937-1938) and the Destruction of the Agro-Joint Program.”


2015: The David D. and Betty Cooper Wallerstein Fund for Judaic Studies, the GW Law School, the Program in Judaic Studies and the Department of History are scheduled to sponsor “Reckoning with the Ghosts of Leo Frank” a “public conversation among journalist Steve Oney, lawyer David Kendall and GWU Law Dean Blake Morant, that commemorates the centennial of Leo Frank's lynching, a national cause célèbre that exposed the racial, religious, ethnic and sectional divides in 20th century America, revitalizing the Ku Klux Klan on the one hand and galvanizing the Anti-Defamation League on the other.”


2015:Rabbi Asher Lopatin, the President of Yeshivat Chovevei Torah Rabbinical School, is scheduled to lecture on "Does God Care” at the Skirball Center


2015: “The Garden of Eden” and “Life Sentences” are scheduled to be shown at the Israeli Film Festival at Tulane University.


2016: Ari Shavit, a prominent Haaretz columnist and author of the bestselling My Promised Land  “accused of unwanted groping and sexual advances during an interview with American Jewish reporter apologized to her today ‘from the bottom of my heart’ but insisted the incident was ultimately the result of a ‘misunderstanding.’”


2016: “At a conference today, archaeologists Assaf Avraham and Perez Reuven presented an ancient Muslim inscription that refers to the Dome of the Rock on the Temple Mount as "Bait al-Maqdess," an Arabicized version of the Hebrew words for the Temple, Beit Hamikdash.”


2016: Today “the Syrian government complained about alleged Israeli archaeological excavations at Bir Ajam on the Syrian Golan Heights, drawing an irate response from Israel’s ambassador to UNESCO.”


2016: “Israeli archaeologists today presented new details of what they said were the first tiny artifacts, unearthed in situ on the Temple Mount, ever conclusively dated to the time of the First Temple over 2,600 years ago.”


2016: “Yaad, Biran, a Ph.D. candidate in the Yiddish program of the Hebrew University is scheduled to deliver a lecture entitled “Yiddish Writers Do The Holy Land” where he examines the lives of three writers who moved to Palestine from New York – “Yehoash, a Poaley Tsionist and the story of his failed immigration in 1914; Tsivyon, a Bundist who criticized the Zionist project in his 1921 visit; and Yosef Opatoshu, a socialist writer who turned his experience in 1934 into a novella, offering an unusual understanding of old and new Palestine.”


2016: The Skirball Center is scheduled to host “an evening with Jeffrey Goldberg” the new editor of the Atlantic magazine.


2016: At Tulane University, Hillel is scheduled to host its Hebrew Café as alumnae come to campus for pre-homecoming events.


2016: Today, “workers removed the top marble layer of the tomb said to Jesus, in the Church of Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem.”



2016: Jess Olson is scheduled to conduct “a gallery talk and tour of Yeshiva University Museum’s exhibition exploring the vital creative character and dramatic social context of pre- and post-revolutionary Odessa, Ukraine (formerly Russia) through the work of two of the city’s most important artists - the writer Isaac Babel and the painter Yefim Ladyzhensky.”


2017(7th of Cheshvan, 5778): Yom HaAliyah


2017: “At least 15 firefighting crews and four planes were still battling the forest fire in the Sataf area west of Jerusalem this morning, almost 24 hours after it began.”


2017(7th of Cheshvan, 5778): Eighty-year old Joe Taub, the co-founder of ADP and “part owner of the NBA New Jersey Nets” passed away today. (Richard Sandomir)



2017: Publication of Jewish Anzacs: Jewish in the Australian Military by Mark Dapin.



2017: The Oxford University Jewish Society is scheduled to host Kabbalat Shabbat, followed by dinner, a Q&A with Rabbi Michael Rosenfeld-Schuler and a tisch.


2017: ShabbatUK which Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis said is “one of the most inspiring events of the ear bringing together Jewish children united in their enthusiasm for Shabbat and Judaism” is scheduled to begin today.


2018(18th of Cheshvan, 5779): Parashat Va-yayra – for more see http://downhomedavartorah.blogspot.com/


2018: In Jerusalem, the Nocturno Café is scheduled to host  “A Spiritual Stand Up with Mrs. Rabia”


2018: The Eden-Tamir Music Center is scheduled to host “The Best of Chamber Music with Cellist Simcha Heled and Friends.”


2018: The Oxford University Jewish Society is scheduled to host a full day of services along with a Shabbat Lunch and Seudah Shlishit as part of the Oxford 3rd Week Bring a Friend Shabbat.


2018: The Jerusalem Theatre Piano Festival is scheduled to host its closing concert, “Hebrew Love” featuring Einav Jackson Cohen and Daniel Shoham.


2018: The 14th Street Y is scheduled to host the final performance of “Theo’s Dream,” “a radical, hallucinogenic trip through the fever dream of Theodore Herzl.”


 


 

This Day, October 28, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. Levin

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OCTOBER 28

97: Emperor Nerva is forced by the Praetorian Guard, to adopt general Marcus Ulpius Trajanus as his heir and successor. Trajan would not become Emperor until Nerva died in January of the following year. Trajan will be remembered as the ruler who was on the throne during the revolt in the diaspora referred to as “The Revolt Against Trajan” that took place between 115 CE and 117 CE.  It was the second of three Jewish revolts against Rome – the first being the Great Revolt that ended with the destruction of the Second Temple and the third being Bar Kochba’s revolt

312: Roman emperor Constantine, 32, defeated the army of Maxentius, a contender to the throne, at Milvian Bridge, after trusting in a vision he had seen of the cross, inscribed with the words, "In this sign conquer." Constantine was converted soon after and became the first Roman emperor to embrace the Christian faith.  This was the turning point for Christianity in Europe.  With the support of the imperial government, Christianity was able to establish itself THE religion in Europe.  It marked a downhill slide for the Jews of Europe.

1216: At Gloucester, the first coronation of Henry III who “exacted” from Elias of London also known as Elijah ben Moses “no less a sum than £10,000, besides £100 a year for a period of four years.”

1138: Fifty-two year old Bolesław III Wrymouth who “recognized the utility of the Jewish in the development of the commercial interests of” Poland and whose “tolerant regime” encourage them to settle as far east as Kiev passed away today.

1348: As the Black Death made its way across France, the authorities began arresting “the Jews of the bailiwick of Amont (Haute-Saôte)” and confiscating their property to arrest the Jews of the bailiwick of Amont (Haute-Saôte) 

1516: Turkish forces under the Grand Vizier Sinan Pasha defeat the Mameluks near Gaza at the Battle of Yaunis Khan. Jews fared poorly under the rule of the Mameluks. Without going into details about the conflicts within Islam in general, and the role of the Mameluks in particular, suffice it to say that what was “bad news for them” was “good for the Jews.”

1549: “Queen Bona, “the wife of Sigismund, the King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania” “ordered her governor Kimbar to assemble the Jews of Grodno to elect a rabbi who was no relative of the Judichs, and decreed that in case this should not be done without opposition, the opponents of the Judichs were to elect a separate rabbi with the same rights and privileges as enjoyed by the one chosen by that family. 

1600: James Roberts the copyright he had obtained for “The Merchant of Venice” (also known as The Jew of Venice) to stationer Thomas Hayes “who published the first quarto before the end of” 1600.

1636: Harvard University is established in colonial Massachusetts. Harvard certainly has had it share of Jewish students, graduates and faculty members.  But the Jewish relationship with Harvard has had its darker moments. “During and after World War I, American Jewry became the target of anti-Semitism by a variety of social groups, including the Ku Klux Klan and various immigration restriction advocates. Ivy League universities were no exception, and several of these venerable schools moved to restrict Jewish enrollment during the 1920s. Some Jewish students at Harvard, the bellwether in American education, did not take admission restrictions lying down. Nativism and intolerance among segments of the white Protestant population were aimed at both Eastern European Jews and Southern European Catholics. In higher education, Jews were particularly resented. By 1919, about 80% of the students at New York's Hunter and City colleges were Jews and 40% at Columbia. Jews at Harvard tripled to 21% of the freshman class in 1922 from about 7% in 1900. Ivy League Jews won a disproportionate share of academic prizes and election to Phi Beta Kappa but were widely regarded as competitive, eager to excel academically and less interested in extra-curricular activities such as organized sports. Non-Jews accused them of being clannish, socially unskilled and either unwilling or unable to “fit in.” In 1922, Harvard's president, A. Lawrence Lowell, proposed a quota on the number of Jews gaining admission to the university. Lowell was convinced that Harvard could only survive if the majority of its students came from old American stock. Lowell argued that cutting the number of Jews at Harvard to a maximum of 15% would be good for the Jews.  He contended that limits would prevent further anti-Semitism. Lowell reasoned, “The anti-Semitic feeling among the students is increasing, and it grows in proportion to the increase in the number of Jews. If their number should become 40% of the student body, the race feeling would become intense.” The fight against Jewish quotas at Harvard was led by Harry Starr, an undergraduate and the son of a Russian immigrant who established the first kosher butcher shop in Gloversville, New York. As president of the Menorah Society, Harvard's major Jewish student organization, Starr organized a series of meetings between Jewish and non-Jewish students, faculty and administrators to discuss Lowell's proposed quota. The meetings were frequently heated and painful. As Starr recalled in an account published in 1985, which can be found at the American Jewish Historical Society, “We learned that it was numbers that mattered; bad or good, too many Jews were not liked. Rich or poor, brilliant or dull, polished or crude - [the problem was] too many Jews.” Starr insisted that there could be no “Jewish problem” at Harvard or in America. Starr observed, “The Jew cannot look on himself as a problem.... Born or naturalized in this country, he is a full American.” If admitting all qualified Jews to Harvard meant a change in the traditional social composition of the student body, so be it. Starr refused to hear any hokum about 'pure' American stock as a way to limit Jewish admissions to Harvard. “Tolerance,” he wrote in the Menorah Journal, “is not to be administered like castor oil, with eyes closed and jaws clenched.” Lowell received a great deal of public criticism, particularly in the Boston press. Harvard's overseers appointed a 13-member committee, which included three Jews, to study the university's “Jewish problem.” The committee rejected a Jewish quota but agreed that “geographic diversity” in the student body was desirable. Harvard had been using a competitive exam to determine who was admitted, and urban Jewish students were scoring highly on the exam. Urban public schools such as Boston Latin Academy intensely prepared their students, many of whom were Jewish, to pass Harvard's admissions test. The special committee recommended that the competitive exam be replaced by an admissions policy that accepted top-ranking students from around the nation, regardless of exam scores. By 1931, because students from urban states were replaced by students from Wyoming and North Dakota who ranked in the top of their high school classes, Harvard's Jewish ranks were cut back to 15% of the student body. In the late 1930s, James Bryant Conant, Lowell's successor as president, eased the geographic distribution requirements, and Jewish students were once again admitted primarily on the basis of merit. Harry Starr, who lived until 1992, became a national Jewish communal leader, including a term of service as a trustee of the American Jewish Historical Society. Professionally, he became the director of the Lucius N. Littauer Foundation, which was established by a Jewish congressman from Gloversville and which over the years has given many generous gifts to Harvard. Harry Starr held no grudges against the university which in 1922 he lovingly battled on behalf of his fellow Jews.


1700: In the same year that he published his second tract which he hoped would cause Jews to convert to Christianity, Cotton Mather wrote in his diary today about the conversion of Shalom Ben Shalomoh who had joined a Congregational Church in London. Cotton Mather differed from other Christian leaders.  He believed that the Jews practice a theological incorrect religion which is why sought to convince them to convert.  But reason rather than the lash or the burning stake was his method.  "As a humanitarian...he demanded that Jews should be free from religious persecution."


1704: John Locke, the English political theorist who in 1689 “Letter Concerning Toleration” wrote that “Neither Pagan, nor Jew, ought to be excluded from the civil rights of the commonwealth because of his religion” passed away today.


1718: Alexander Felix (David Penso), Jacob Do Porto, and David Machado Do Sequeira, on behalf of the Ashkenazim, leased from Captain Chichester Phillips of Drumcondra Castle (an MP in the Irish Parliament) a plot of land on which the Ballybough Cemetery, Dublin’s oldest Jewish burial ground, was subsequently built.


1778: Rabbi Chaim Joseph David Azulai ben Isaac Zerachia, the Jerusalem native married his second wife, Rachel while studying in Pisa.  His first wife, Sarah had died five years earlier.


1784:  Birthdate of Sir Moses Montefiore. Born in Leghorn (Italy) Montefiore was raised in London where he became a successful merchant and married into the House of Rothschild.  In 1824, he "retired" from business and devoted his life to public office and philanthropy.  He was the first to hold numerous political and civic positions in Great Britain.  He was a leader of the Jewish Community in England and throughout Europe.  He was an early supporter of Jewish settlement in Eretz Israel.  Montefiore’s Windmill is a famous landmark in Jerusalem.  His 100th birthday was celebrated as a holiday in Jewish communities in the British Isles and the Continent.  He passed away in 1885.


1805: Birthdate of dramatist and lawyer, Jonas B. Phillips.  The son of Benjamin J. Phillips, this native of Philadelphia, PA produced plays including “Cold Stricken,” “Camillus,” and “The Evil Eye.”  After studying law, he became the assistant district attorney for New York County.


1807(26th of Tishrei, 5568): Gutchen Sheyer, the wife of Moses Joseph Schiff passed away today.



1813: Samuel Levy married Judith Magnus were married at the Great Synagogue today.



1820: In Ruzhyn, Ukraine, Rabbi Yisrael Friedman of Ruzhyn, the founder of the Ruzhiner dynasty, and his wife, Sarah gave birth to Avrohom Yaakov Friedman, the first Rebbe of the Sadigura Hasidic dynasty.



1824(6thof Cheshvan, 5585): Fifty-five year old Benedict-Benedikt Moses Worms, the son of Henriette and Moses Gabriel Worms and the “husband of Schönche Jeanette Worms” passed away today.



1827: One day after he had passed away, 53 year old “Hirsch ben Yaacov” was buried today at the Brady Street Jewish Cemetery “on the 2nd day of Rosh Chodesh Marcheshvan, 5590.”



1828: In Hamburg, Jacob Magner and Ulrika Hahn gave birth to Jacob Magner who was one of the founders of several institutions in New Orleans including the Association for the Relief of Jewish Widows and Orphans (1855), Touro Infirmary (1868), Temple Sinai (1870) and the Harmony Club.



1829: Birthdate of Emanuel Oscar Menahem Deutsch, the native of Silesia who worked on Semitic studies at the British Museum where his writings on the Talmud kindled interest among English Christians and who “acted as special correspondent to The Times during the Ecumenical Council which met at the Vatican in 1869 and 1870.



1835: Leon Maness Ritterband, who was born in Poland in 1809 married Benvenida Solis today in New York today.



1836: In Ireland, John Chapel and his wife gave birth to Monsignor Thomas John Capel, the controversial Catholic cleric who in a show of ecumenism that was unusual in the 19th century addressed the Young Men’s Hebrew Association at Chickering Hall on November 12, 1884.



1836: Birthdate of Bavarian native Simon Wolf, who after coming to the United States in 1848 pursued a business career after which he pursued a legal career that led him to Washington, D.C. where he “made friendships with presidents Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, William McKinley and Woodrow Wilson” a leader of the American Jewish community.



1840: Sir Moses Montefiore had an audience with the Sultan. Among the topics discussed were the blood libel accusations on the island of Rhodes and in Damascus. The Sultan later issued a public firman exonerating Jews from anything to do with ritual murder accusations.  



1844: Birthdate of Moses Jacob Ezekiel, the native of Richmond, VA who was the first Jew to attend Virginia Military Institute and who, after serving with the Confederate Army, became a renowned sculptor.



1844: In New York City, for the first time, Mordecai M. Noah presented “his plan for the restoration of a Jewish state in Palestine to a Christian audience” at the Broadway Tabernacle.



1849: In Albany, NY, Rabbi Isaac M. Wise and Therese Bloch gave birth to Leo Wise, the husband of Pauline Goodman, who earned an LL.B from the University of Michigan and served with the River Flotilla of the U.S. Navy during the Civil War before becoming the publisher of several Jewish publications including “Die Deborah” and the “American Israelite.”



http://www.jta.org/1933/01/30/archive/leo-wise-dies-in-84th-year-son-of-isaac-m-wise-wife-died-week-ago



1853: “Russia.; Delivered before the Hebrew Young Men's Literary Association” published today described Rabbi Raphall’s appearance before the Hebrew Young Men's Literary Association at Academy Hall, No. 663 Broadway, at which time he delivered a lecture enititled “Russia” The speaker was introduced by Isaac Seligman, the who was serving as chairman. Raphall described the gains in power that Russia has made in the last 150 years and the territorial aspirations of the current rulers.  He also described the history and the plight of the Jews living in that land.  Mr. Mosely Lyon followed Rabbi Raphall to the lectern where he delivered an address on the purpose of the Hebrew Young Men’s Literary Association.



1857: "Defaulting Farmers" published today takes issue with the notion that the farmer is not only possessed of "sturdy virtues that enoble humanity" but also the backbone of the national economy. In fact, the "western farmer has no more nobleness of soul than a Wall Street stock gambler or a Chatham street Jew." The term "Chatham Street Jew" was extremely derisive.  It referred to the fact that the lucrative trade in used clothes on Chatham Street on the Lower East was dominated by Jews where Christians were sure that they were being victimized by the sharp business practices of "the Tribe of Judah."


1858 RH Macy & Co opened its first store on Sixth Avenue in New York City. Gross receipts for the day totaled $11.06.  The Straus family, which had been leasing space in Macy's to operate a chinaware department, the store's most profitable section, acquired the Macy’s in 1896 and turned it into one of the country’s leading department stores.  One sign of the change came in when they relocated the store to its Herald square location at 34th Street and Broadway in New York.


1858: At a thousand people attended tonight’s banquet and ball which was a fundraiser for the Jew’s Hospital.Benjamin Nathan, the President of Hospital Board provided over the event which was attended by Mayor Tilman.  Rabbi J.J. Lyon recited the blessings before the meal began and Rabbi Kramer chanted the Grace After Meal. Mr. Nathan told the attendees that the hospital had treated 747 patients since its opening, all but 73 at no charge and that the treasury was now empty. Lionel Goldberg read the list of donations which totaled $12,000.



1860: Samuel Isaac Joseph Schereschewsky who had converted in 1855 “was ordained to the priesthood by Bishop Boone in the mission school chapel, later known as the Church of our Savior in Hongkew”



1862: Moses P. Arnold, who was promoted from Sergeant to First Sergeant, began his service with Company A of the 172nd Regiment.



1863: Philadelphian Levi Arnold who had risen to the rank of Sergeant in Company F of the 143rd Regiment “transferred to the Veteran Reserve Corps” today.



1864:The Council of the Academy decided to award Russian-Jewish sculptor Mark Antokolski with the Small Silver Medal for the "Tailor" also known as “The Jewish Tailor.”



1867:Maimonides College “the first Jewish theological seminary in America” opened today in Philadelphia, PA.  Isaac Lesser, Sabato Morais, Marcus Jastrow, Aaron S. Bettelheim, L. Buttenwieser and William H. Williams were the members of the faculty with Lesser doubling as the school’s provost. The school closed in December of 1873, reportedly due to lack of financial support which may be explained by the economic hard times that the country was suffering a the time.



1870(3rdof Cheshvan, 5631): Sixty-three year old Prague-born physician Gottfried S. Schmelkes who earned his medical degree in 1837 after which he joined the staff of the Jewish hospital “Töplitz (Teplitz), Bohemia, where he worked until he passed away today.



1870: President Jacob Pisa presided over tonight’s meeting of the Young Democratic Jews’ Association of the Second Assembly District in New York.  During the meeting which was held on Mott Street, the Jewish political organization endorsed the local and state candidates supported by “the Young Democracy, but did not make any endorsement of Congressional candidates.


1872: Birthdate of San Francisco native Aaron Altman, artist and teacher who “was director of art education in the San Francisco public schools.



http://www.askart.com/artist/Aaron_Altmann/4399/Aaron_Altmann.aspx



1873(7th of Cheshvan, 5634): Immanuel Oscar Menahem Deutsch, a German oriental scholar, passed away today.  Born in 1829 at Neisse, Prussian Silesia (now Nysa, Poland) he studied theology and Talmud at the University of Berlin. “In 1855 Deutsch was appointed assistant in the library of the British Museum. He worked intensely on the Talmud and contributed no less than 190 papers to Chambers' Encyclopaedia, in addition to essays in Kittos and Smiths' Biblical Dictionaries, and articles in periodicals. In October 1867 his article on The Talmud, published in the Quarterly Review, made him known. It was translated into French, German, Russian, Swedish, Dutch and Danish. He died at Alexandria on 12 May 1873.His Literary Remains, edited by Lady Strangford, were published in 1874, consisting of nineteen papers on such subjects as The Talmud, Islam, Semitic Culture, Egypt, Ancient and Modern, Semitic Languages, The Targums, The Samaritan Pentateuch, and Arabic Poetry



1874: Birthdate of St. Louis native Robert Henry Polack who became a successful businessman in New Orleans where he served as an officer of the Jewish Welfare Fund.



1874: Rabbi Benjamin Artom officiated at the wedding of Mr. Isaac Abecassis of Lisbon and Miss Helena Ben Saude of the Azores.  Among the many guests were J.O. Bradford, Paymaster General of the U.S. Navy and his wife.



1876: In Cleveland, OH, Emanuel Ullman and Sara Mayer gave birth to their third child, Leo Emanuel Ullman, the husband of Blanche McKee Heller.



1877: “Early Christian Greek Story” published today provide a summary of Abraham the Jew and the Merchant Theodore printed by Combefisius  from a manuscript, copies of which are in the National Library at Paris and the library in Turin.



1881: It was reported today that “the question of Jewish emigration to America is still a subject of concern to the Russian government.” To that end the government will make another attempt “to turn the Jews into peasant farms and settle them in the provinces of Kherson and Ekaterinoslav.”



1881: John A. Goldberg appeared in Essex Market Court where he denied the charges of Mrs. Amelia Goldberg that she was his wife and that he had deserted her.  He presented evidence that he had obtained a divorce from her from a Rabbi while they were living in England because she had been unfaithful.  He also produced evidence that he had provided her with financial assistance when she came to the United States even though he was under no obligation to do so.



1882: Harris Udovitch is out on bail after having been arrested for assaulting Mrs. Louis Cohen during his thwarted attempt to buy Louis Cohen’s “credit with heaven” for $150.



1883: The 9th annual meeting of the Board of Relief of the United Hebrew Charities was held this morning at a house on St. Mark’s Place.



1884: It was reported today that a reception was held at Ramsgate yesterday to honor Sir Moses Montefiore on his 100th birthday; “an anniversary that was celebrated throughout Europe.”



1885: It was reported today that Jonas Loeb, a prominent Jewish merchant in Georgia is insolvent since he has liabilities of $64,000 and assets of $10,000.  Litigation has already been threatened by his creditors.



1886: The Statue of Liberty, a gift from the people of France, was dedicated in New York Harbor by President Cleveland. The Jewish poetess Emma Lazarus wrote "The New Colossus" in 1883 for an art auction "In Aid of the Bartholdi Pedestal Fund." While France had provided the statue itself, American fundraising efforts like these paid for the Statue of Liberty's pedestal. In 1903, sixteen years after her death, Lazarus' sonnet was engraved on a plaque and placed in the pedestal as a memorial.



          “The New Colossus”



 Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,



With conquering limbs astride from land to land;



Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand



A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame



Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name



Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand



Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command



The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.



"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she



With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,



Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,



The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.



Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,



I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"



1886: Social reformer and future Presidential candidate addressed the United Hebrew George Club.



1888: The “Jewish Agriculturists’ Aid Society of America,” whose members would include Morris Weil, Maurice W. Kosinski and Edward Rose was “organized today in Chicago, Illinois.



1888: Birthdate of Hungarian anti-Semite Tibor Eckhardt, the head of the Association of Awakening Magyars during the 1920’s whose members “bombed a charity ball organized by the Jewish women of Csongrad in which several people were killed.” (Editor’s Note – this is just another example of the anti-Semitism that was so common during the inter-war years which made the Holocaust possible.)



1888: Joseph Navon the driving force behind the Jaffa-Jerusalem railway “received a 71-year concession from the Ottoman authorities that also gave him permission to extend the line to Gaza and Nablus



1888: Rabbi Leon Harrison delivered an address entitled “Is it a Misfortune to be a Jew?” at Temple Israel on Greene Avenue in Brooklyn.



1888: The New York Times reviewed Life of Lord Beaconsfield by T.E. Kebble.



1888: “The Jewish-Americans” published today cites information that originally appeared in the Jewish Messenger to question why New York City has not produced a “distinctly American-Jewish congregation.  The city has all manner of synagogues for Hungarian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, etc. Jews but none that is uniquely American.



1889: President Henry Rice presided over the 15thannual meeting of The United Hebrew Charities held its at Temple Emanu-El in New York City where he said that “in the las ten years the disbursements of the society have more than doubled” noting that “in 1879 the total relief distributed amounted to a little more than $35,000 and that during the past year the Treasurer has expended more than $72,000.”



1889: Edwin Booth, the great Shakespearian actor played Shylock and Helena Modjeska played his daughter Portia in tonight’s performance of “The Merchant of Venice” at the Broadway Theatre.



1890: Dr. Robert Collyer, Dr. Maurice H. Harris, Oscar Straus, Joseph Blumenthal and Seth Low, the President of Columbia are scheduled to address those attending the a meeting of the Young Men’s Hebrew Association at Chickering Hall.



1890: Three days after he had passed away, “Samson Asher Samson,” the son of Asher and Amelia Samson and the husband of the former Eva Nathan was buried today at the “Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.”



1894: “No Man Controls The Hebrew Vote” published today provides the view of Dr. Joseph Silverman the rabbi at Temple Emanu-El that the “Hebrew vote” does not exist and that it is the “child of the politician’s active brain.  Jews do as they please in politics.”  The Jew “is a Jew in the synagogue but elsewhere he is an American citizen, and most of all at the ballot box.”(Silverman was decrying the trivializing of the electoral process with politicians seeking to divide voters by ethnic and religious lines)



1896: The funeral of Moses Kind is scheduled to be held at his home at 49 West 96th Street in Manhattan this morning.



1896: In Charleston, SC, Rabbi B.A. Elzas officiated at the wedding of Sam Feinstein and Carrie Rice.



1897(2nd of Cheshvan, 5658): “After a short illness,” Marie Benecke, the wife of Charles Victor Benecke  and the “eldest daughter of the late Feliz Mendelssohn Bartholdy” passed away at Norfolk Lodge in the United Kingdom



 1897: Birthdate of Edith Claire Posener, the daughter of Max Posener and Anna E. Levy, the Searchlight, Nevada who would gain fame as award winning fashion designer Edith Heath. During her long career in Hollywood, Head’s costumes won her 35 Oscar nominations.  She won 8 of the bronze statuettes.  She died in October of 1981.



1897: “A meeting of the North London Jewish Literary and Social Union” is scheduled “to be held in the hall adjoining the Dalston Synagogue” where the Right Honorable Earl Beauchamp will open a debate on ‘Religious Education in the Board Schools.’”



1898: Theodor Herzl “docked at the port of Jaffa today and traveled by train to Jersualem.”



1898:Kaiser William II (Prussia) visited pre-state Israel and met with Herzl. At this time Eretz Israel was part of the Ottoman Empire.  The Kaiser was trying to gain the Turks as an ally.  He also sought to make himself the European protector of Jerusalem.  Herzl was disappointed by the lack of commitment on the part of the Kaiser. Much of this was due to the opposition of German Liberal Jews, bankers, and his foreign minister Bernhard von Bulow to the Zionist movement. http://www.zionistarchives.org.il/en/datelist/Pages/ZionistDelegation.aspx#!prettyPhoto[horizontal]/0/



1898: Philip S. Golderman, a Color Sergeant with the 203rd NY Infantry was promoted to the rank of 2nd Lieutenant.



1898: During the Spanish-American War, Sam Steinberg of Texas who had been serving with Co. C, 1st U.S. Volunteer Infantry was mustered out of service.



1898: During the Spanish-American War, Jake Waixel of Texas who had been serving with Co. J, 1st U.S. Volunteer Infantry was mustered out of service.



1898: During the Spanish-American War, Gus G. Nussbaum of Texas who had been serving with Co. L, 1st U.S. Volunteer Infantry was mustered out of service.



1898: During the Spanish-American War, Joseph Levy of Texas who had been serving with the Regimental Ban, Co. M 1st U.S. Volunteer Infantry was mustered out of service.



1898: During the Spanish-American War, Charles C. Jacobs of Texas who had been serving with Co. M 1st U.S. Volunteer Infantry was mustered out of service.



1898: During the Spanish-American War, H.S. Hyneman of Texas who had been serving with Co. F 1st U.S. Volunteer Infantry was mustered out of service.



1898: During the Spanish-American War, Harry Ferlman of Texas who had been serving Co. D 1st U.S. Volunteer Infantry was mustered out of service.



1898: During the Spanish-American War, Herman H. Blum of Texas who had been serving Co. M 1st U.S. Volunteer Infantry was mustered out of service.



1898: During the Spanish-American War, Max Blumberg of Texas who had been serving with Co. C 1st U.S. Volunteer Infantry was mustered out of service at Galveston



1898: During the Spanish-American War, William Rosing of Texas who had been serving with Co. C 1st U.S. Volunteer Infantry was mustered out of service



1898: During the Spanish-American War, Solomon Gordon of Texas who had been serving with Company K 1st U.S. Volunteer Infantry was mustered out of service



1898: During the Spanish-American War, Gus L. Berkman of Texas who had been serving with the Hospital Corps of Co. M 1st U.S. Volunteer Infantry was mustered out of service.



1898: During the Spanish-American War, Harry Friedman of Texas who had been serving with Co. E 1st U.S. Volunteer Infantry was mustered out of service.



1898: During the Spanish-American War, Charles Fischl of Texas who had been serving with the Hospital Corps of Co. M 1st U.S. Volunteer Infantry was mustered out of service.



1898: During the Spanish-American War, Edward Seelig of Texas who had been serving with Co. C, 1st U.S. Volunteer Infantry was mustered out of service.



1898: During the Spanish-American War, Sam Steinberg of Texas who had been serving with Co. C, 1st U.S. Volunteer Infantry was mustered out of service.



1898: “At today’s session of the Court of Cassation in the Palace of Justice, Alphonse Bard concluded his report of the Dreyfus case” and “said that the Court should make every investigation necessary to enlighten its members and place the whole truth in evidence.”



1900: Seventy-six year old German linguist and Oriental scholar Friedrich Max Müller who challenged the claim of Nicolas Notovitch, a Russian Jew, that the Life of Issa” was a legitimate work depicting the life of Jesus (Issa) which had Him leaving the Galilee and studying with Buddhists and Hindus in India before returning to Judea.



1902:Opening of theZionist Annual Conference at which The Anglo-Palestine Company is sanctioned. It will begin operations in summer 1903.



1903: The engagement of Israel Zangwill to Edith Aryton was made public.  Edith Aryton’s father is one of the best known electrical engineers in England. Her mother is a noted scientist in her own right and the daughter of Levi and Alice Marks, a Jewish family from Portsea.



1906: In Russia, Sergei Witte “induced the Czar to issue a manifesto proclaiming freedom of speech, press and person” the day before pogroms broke out in “200 places in Russia” including Odessa.



1908: Birthdate of playwright and screen writer Albert Malz whose fame as one of the Hollywood Ten overshadowed his accomplishment including writing the Oscar nominated script for the super-patriotic “Pride of the Marines.”



1909: Birthdate of Brest-Litovsk native Josef Gingold, the violinist, concertmaster and long-time instructor at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music.



http://www.nytimes.com/1995/01/13/obituaries/josef-gingold-85-violinist-and-influential-teacher-dies.html



1911: The Chancellor of the Exchequer met with a group of Jews to discuss “the Insurance Bill” today.



1911: “In a letter to the Jewish Morning Journal” said “that if Russia refuses to accede” to the conditions concerning the treatment of Jews he will support the “abrogation of the Treaty with Russia” and advised Jewish organizations to pass resolutions on the subject and send them to their Congressmen.



1912:  As the election campaign of 1912 comes to an end, Oscar Straus sends a telegram denying that he had ever been connected with R. H. Macy or Abraham and Straus.


1913: Mendel Beilis was acquitted. The Beilis Trial (Russia) took place after a Christian boy was found dead near a brick factory in which Mendel Beilis worked. On June 22, 1911 he was accused of ritual murder by the government. The only evidence was the word of a drunken couple who claimed they saw a man with a black beard walking with the child. The Russian government actively took up the case after the assassination of Stolypin by a Jewish revolutionist. Professor Sikowsky, a neurologist, "proved" that Jews use Christian blood for ritual purposes. Beilis's lawyers, Margolin and Grusenberg, fought the government for two years until diplomatic pressure forced the Russians to drop the charges. Beilis then settled in the United States, where he died after a long illness in 1934.



1914: In New York City, Daniel and Dora (Press) Salk gave birth to the first son, Dr. Jonas Edward Salk, the American medical researcher who developed the first vaccine against polio.  In one of those ironic twists of fate, both the first and the second polio vaccines were developed by Jewish Doctors.



1914: “Governor Names Mercy Committee” published today provided a list of those named by Martin Glyn to take the lead in providing aid to those who have been made destitute by the war including Adolph S. Ochs, Samuel Lewisohn and Oscar S. Straus.



1914:Ileana Schapira, the daughter of Mihail Schapira, a prominent Jewish industrialist was born in Bucharest, Romania.  As Ileana Sonnabend, she became a legendary gallery owner who had an eye for the art that nobody else wanted.  She died in 2007 at the age of 92.



1914: In New York City, with Governor Martin Glynn at his side Jacob H. Schiff delivered a speech at the National Theatre in support of the Governor’s re-election



1914: In New York, Mayor Mitchell expressed his displeasure with the recommendation that Charities Department should be placed under a board whose members would be nominated by the Jewish, Protestant and Catholic charitable institutions that receive some $5,000,000 from the city through this very department.



1915: “Dr. De Sola Pool, rabbi of the Portuguese Synagogue” addressed “a gathering of students of the Menorah Society” today where he “described the conditions of the Jews in Palestine as affected by the European war.”



1915: Henry M. Toch presided over tonight’s dinner at the Ritz-Carlton given by the Directors of the Young Men’s Hebrew Association in honor of Felix M. Warburg who is beginning his 8th year as president of the organization.



1916: In the Bronx, Louis and Libby Galenson gave birth to Dr. Eleanor Galenson, “a psychoanalyst whose research demonstrated that children are aware of sexual identity in infancy, even earlier than Freud had propounded…” (As reported by Dennis Hevesi)



1916: In Washington, attorney Simon Wolf, the friend of several Presidents beginning with Lincoln and a President B’nai B’rith celebrated his 80thbirthday today which “was made occasion of a notable demonstration and scores of friends in all parts of the country, united in doing him honor” including “Terence Vince Powderly of the United States Immigration Service” who wrote a special poem to mark the moment.



1916: Mrs. Samuel Elkeles the President of the National Jewish women’s organization for war relief said “that enthusiasm had been awakened wherever the appeals the committee had gone” as could be seen by the $200 hundred dollars Mrs. J. I. Peyser of Washington, D.C. had sent to the offices in New York.



1916: A letter was written today from a soldier at Camp Wilson, Texas serving with Battery “F” of the Field Artillery asking for help from Simon Wolf so he could be furloughed to the Reserves.  When he enlisted in 1913, he said that nobody was look to him for “support” but now he has found out about the desperate condition of his family in Kalios, Russia and he needs to be able to send them money.



1916: In his sermon today at Temple Rodolph Sholem at Lexington and 63rd, Rabbi Rudolph Grossman severely criticized “the resolution urging the conversion of Jews to the Christian faith as adopted by last week by the Episcopal General Convention at St. Louis.



1917: During the New York City Mayoral election in which Morris Hillquit was a candidate, the New York Timespublished a “sarcastically title” article “Rich Mr. Hillquit, Poor Man’s Candidate” “tried to play up ‘the capitalistic corporation lawyer living in luxury’; point out that the rent for Hillquit’s apartment was two thousand dollars a year; that he owned a big seven passenger automobile.”



1917: A National Special Assembly of the Jews of the United States which had been called for by Felix M. Warburg, Chairman of the Joint Distribution Committee, is scheduled to be held in New York today “for the purposed of devising means to reach the $10,000,000 goal for Jewish war relief set for 1917.”



1917: It was reported today that in those part of Russia which are now under the control of the German Army “Jews are fined or arrested for forgetting to bow to German officers or not getting out of their way on the pavements,” are not allowed to walk on the pavement “when they see a German officer on it,” and are “abducted for forced State labor” and “to assist officers in hunting or in other pleasures and games.”



1917: It was reported today that the Jewish Board for Welfare Work in the United States of Army of which Colonel Harry Cutler of Providence is the Chairman has issued an appeal to the Jews of United States “to raise a fund of $1,000,000 within the next few weeks to be used in the welfare work among the soldiers, both at home and abroad.”



1917: It was reported today that there are more than fifty thousand Jews serving in the U.S. Army with Jews making up 40% of the men at Camp Upton, 16% of the mean at Camp Meade and 7% of the mean at Camp Dix.



1917: Nearly one thousand Jews representing their co-religionist throughout the United States met at the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue where, among other things they adopted “a resolution whereby a committee of ten prominent Jews was appointed to urge President Wilson to extend the work of the Belgian Relief Commission to Poland, Lithuania and similar war stricken countries.”



1918: Rabbi Hyman Gerson Enelow who was touring the Western Front as a member of the Overseas Commission of the Jewish Welfare Board wrote today that “it is a real privilege to move about among the men.  “They are all glad to see me” because “it means to them that they are not forgotten by the Jewish community and that they get a chance to talk over their difficulties nand problems.



1918(22ndof Cheshvan, 5679): During the Post-World War Influenza Pandemic, fifty-nine year old Leopold S. Kahn, the “dwarf performer known as Admiral Dot when he was with P.T. Barnum, passed away. Before he would marry Lottie Naomi Swartwood, a fellow performer, she had to convert to Judaism so that they marriage could be performed by a rabbi.



1918(22nd of Cheshvan, 5679): Twenty-four year old Sol Henry Miller passed away today in Denver after which he was buried at Mt. Nebo Memorial Park in Aurora, CO.

1918:  Czechoslovakia gains its independence. There were almost four hundred thousand Jews living in the part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire that became Czechoslovakia.  This meant Jews were about 2.5% of the new republics population.  The Jewish population in that part of Czechoslovakia known as Bohemia traced its roots back to the tenth century.  Most of the Jews of the Central European nation would perish in the Holocaust.

1919: The Congress voted to override President Wilson’s of the Volstead Act, the law which would give the United States “Prohibition.”  One of the families to profit from this was the Bronfmans, the Canadian liquor barons.

1920: Fifteen days after address the World Brotherhood Congress in Washington where “he urgedthe organization to go on record as protesting against ‘the outrages and inhumanities being practiced on Jews in other countries, Simon Wolf celebrated his 84thbirthday.

1921: Birthdate of old Vilnus native Rachel Margolis, the WW II partisan, turned biology professor and Holocaust preservationist.

http://sites.keene.edu/cohencenter/rachel-margolis-lithuanian-partisan-and-survivor/

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/women-of-courage-rachel-margolis-2236081.html

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/women-of-courage-rachel-margolis-2236081.html

1921: Birthdate of Frederick Mayer, the native of Freiburg and son of a recipient of the Iron Cross who enlisted in the U.S. Army the day after Pearl Harbor was attacked and parachuted back into Germany as an agent for the O.S.S. (As reported by Eric Lichtblau)

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/21/world/europe/frederick-mayer-jew-who-spied-on-nazis-after-fleeing-germany-dies-at-94.html?hpw=undefined&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=0

1921: The Tuschinski Theatre, the “crowning achievement” in the career of Dutch businessman Abraham Icek Tuschinski “opened its doors in Amsterdam today.”

1922:  Birthdate of Gershon Kingsley a Jewish German-American composer, most famous for composing the early electronic pop song Popcorn. He led the First Moog Quartet and was the first person to use the Moog synthesizer in live performance.

1922: March on Rome Italian fascists led by Benito Mussolini march on Rome and take over the Italian government with the assistance of the Catholic Church; pope Pius XI declares that "Mussolini is a man sent by divine providence." According to Michele Sarfatti’s new book, The Jews in Mussolini’s Italy as reviewed in The ForwardsJews were so well integrated into Italian society that by 1922 when Mussolini took power, they were in every branch of government, including the military, and were represented all across the political spectrum. There were Jews who at first adhered enthusiastically to Mussolini’s program, others were among the first to organize antifascist activities, as well as many who hoped to remain neutral. The range of activities of Italian Jews extended from academics and professionals all the way to shop keepers and panhandlers. What emerges is a heterogeneous population that professed varying degrees of religious identity and many different levels of assimilation. But anti-Semitic sentiment in Italy, as Sarfatti shows, can be traced far back. As he argues, the leftovers of the medieval Catholic anti-Judaism provided fertile grounds for anti-Jewish nationalism, which in turn fed Fascist anti-Semitism. In 1934, Benito Mussolini famously declared that “there has never been anti-Semitism in Italy.” A mere four years later, after abandoning his Jewish mistress of 27 years, he passed his infamous racial laws. The rise of an anti-Semitic ideology escalated with Italy’s colonial war in Abyssinia of 1935. The Fascists first developed the concept of “Difesa della razza” (“defense of the race”) in dominating the black population of the African colony. At this early stage, this doctrine had parallels only in Nazi Germany and was completely absent in the rhetoric of Fascist movements, from Spain to Hungry, Romania and Poland. Based on newly discovered documents and an abundance of statistical data, the book demonstrates that, contrary to popular belief, Mussolini’s policies toward the Jews were independently conceived and implemented, and not — as some have argued — a late concession to Hitler’s war against the Jews. Despite Il Duce’s alliance with Hitler, “only” about 7,000 Italian Jews (16.3% of the Jewish population) died in Nazi death camps. Moreover, documented instances of Italians risking their lives to save Jews abound—a fact that reinforced the perception of Italians as “brava gente” (“good people,” the kind who helped preserve Jewish lives). Sarfatti maintains that the seeds of anti-Semitism were present in the Fascist regime since its inception, though anti-Semitism was not yet official policy. With a multitude of documented examples, the book follows the anti-Semitic crescendo in both official political discourse and practice. As early as 1934, the office of the Interior Ministry pressed for the replacement of Ferrara’s mayor: “It has been brought to our attention that the local citizenry feels displeasure to have a mayor of the Israelite religion at the head of the city’s administration. Therefore, it is desirable that he be replaced with a Catholic mayor.” In 1938, the Italian dictator passed and enforced the racial laws, in many respects even more restrictive than anti-Jewish legislation in Nazi Germany, and Italy became an officially anti-Semitic country. Sarfatti stresses that Mussolini was never pressured by Hitler regarding racial policies. Italians on the whole did not protest the laws until their lethal consequences became clear. By 1943, the Fascists began confiscating Jewish property and rounding up Jews for deportation, and abruptly many of those who had not protested against anti-Jewish laws rushed to save Jews.

1923: In Lawrence, Massachusetts, Samuel Joseph Bernstein the son of “Dina and Judah Bernstein” and his wife Jennie Charna Bernstein gave birth to Shirley Anne Bernstein, the younger sister of “music man” Leonard Bernstein.

1923: Birthdate of David Aronson a native of Lithuania who became “a leading Boston Expressionoist.”

http://www.timesofisrael.com/top-expressionist-the-rebel-son-of-a-rabbi-dies-at-91/

http://www.puckergallery.com/artists/aronson/aronson_publications.html

https://news.artnet.com/people/painter-david-aronson-dies-at-91-315171

1927: “Fabulous Lola” a silent comedy with music by Artur Guttmann was released by Parufamet in Gernmany today.

1928(14th of Cheshvan, 5689): “Theodore Rieanch, famous French Jewish lawyer, historian and archaeologist, one of the foremost authorities on comparative religion and Hellenic literature” died at today in Paris at the age of 68. “He was a brother of Solomon Reinach, President of the Alliance Israelite Universelle. Among his many literary works were “a history of the Jews from the Dispersion to our times,” Short History of Christianity and a French translation of the works of the Josephus, the Jewish first century Jewish historian.

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=F40D1FFD3958127A93C2AA178BD95F4C8285F9

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_Reinach

1932: “Lord Camber’s Ladies” a British murder mystery directed by Benn W. Levy who co-authored the screenplay was released today.

1933: “The Kennel Murder Case” directed by Michael Curtiz was released in the United States today by Warner Bros.

1936(12th of Cheshvan, 5697): Ninety-year old Moses Hirsch Landau, the father of Jacob Landaun, the founder and managing director of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, passed away today in New York. (As reported by JTA)

1936: “The third annual Night of the Stars benefit presentation to raise funds for Jewish emergency needs abroad was held in Madison Square Garden tonight” and according to Chairman Harold Jacob had raised $75,000.

1936 It was reported today that Rabbi Leo M. Franklin of Detroit protested the appeal by Joseph Lewis an Alabama born Jew who became head of the Freethinkers Association to denounce Yom Kippur as “the most degrading and humiliating day in all the superstitious annals of religion.”

1937, The Palestine Post reported that some 50,000 out of the 400,000 trees in the Balfour Forest were burnt by Arab arsonists who used cotton-waste bombs, soaked in paraffin.  From a historic point of view, this was no mere act of arson.  By the end of the 19th centuries vast swaths of Eretz Israel were treeless waste or swamps.  The JNF made reforestation a major part of its plan.  In burning these trees, the terrorists were not just starting a forest fire.  They were showing a determination to reject improvement and modernization.

1937:  The Palestine Post reported that the two chief rabbis, Dr. Isaac Herzog and Rabbi Jacob Meir, issued a manifesto asking for a national moderation and discipline on the part of Jews in responding to the intensified Arab terror campaign.  The manifesto was issued in response to reports of Jews attacking Arabs during this attempted “reign of terror.”

1937: As Arab violence continued, 12 shots were fired a police patrol car in Lydda shattering the windshield wounding three Arab policemen.

1938: “Suez,” a biopic about the building of the canal featuring J. Edward Bromberg, Joseph Schildkraut, and Maurice Moscovitch was released in the United States today by 20thCentury Fox.

1938: Germany expels “some 18,000” Jews with Polish citizenship to the Polish border. Poles refuse to admit them; Germans refuse to allow them back into Germany. Seventeen thousand are stranded in the frontier town of Zbaszyn, Poland.

1938: “All male Polish Jews living in Karlsruhe were deported to Poland.”

1938: Today, “during the so-called Polish Intervention” sixty year old Bernhard Maissner (also known as Bejrich Bernhard Majzner), the husband of Regina Rivka Richter, was deported to Bentschen, in Poland which was the first step on the trip to his murder at Treblinka

1938: Birthdate of Aharon Abuhatzira the native of Morocco who moved to Israel in 1949 where he pursued a career in politics that included serving in the Knesset and as Mayor of Ramla.

1940: Birthdate of television writer and producer Susan Harris (née Spivak) who created a raft of sitcoms the most famous of which may be “Golden Girls.”http://www.museum.tv/eotv/harrissusan.htm


1940: Mussolini’s Italian army cross Albania and invades Greece. The Greek army included 12,000 Greek Jews which fought fiercely and stopped the Italian advance. Between 510 and 615 Greek Jewish soldiers from Salonica were killed.


1940: Following the German occupation of France, the Vichy regime no longer offered a safe haven to Jeanne Mandello the German Jewish photographer living in Paris and her husband Arno Grünebaum.

1940: German occupiers in Belgium pass anti-Semitic legislation.

1941: Today, Warrant Officer Jozef Gabčík (Slovak) and Staff Sergeant Karel Svoboda (Czech) were chosen to carry out the British operation code-named Anthropoid aimed at the “assassination of Schutzstaffel (SS)-Obergruppenführer and General der Polizei Reinhard Heydrich, head of the Reichssicherheitshauptamt (Reich Main Security Office, RSHA), the combined security services of Nazi Germany, and acting Reichsprotektor of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia.”

1941: In Kovno, Lithuania, 27,000 Jews who were assembled in Democracy Square must pass before an SS officer named Rauca, who signals life or death for each. 9200 of the Jews - 4300 of them children - are sent to their deaths at pits at the nearby Ninth Fort. (Friedlander, in The Years of Extermination puts the number at 10,000)


1941: Eichmann noted "in view of the approaching final solution of the European Jewry problem, one has to prevent the immigration of Jews into the unoccupied area of France."



1942: Two thousand elderly and sick Jews were deported from Plonsk to Auschwitz. Three more transports, each carrying 2,000 Jews, left from Plonsk for Auschwitz in the next six weeks



1942: Jewish Warsaw Ghetto leaders ask Jan Karski, a Polish Catholic working for the underground, to tell the Polish and Allied governments: "We are helpless in the face of the German criminals....The Germans are not trying to enslave us as they have other people; we are being systematically murdered....Our entire people will be destroyed...."



1942: The SS issues a secret directive that mittens and stockings confiscated from Jewish children at death camps be gathered and sent to SS families.



1942: The Nazis deported 2,000 children and 6,000 adults from Cracow for shipment to Belzec.



1942: SS directive orders all children's mittens and stockings to be sent from the death camps to the SS families.



1942: Sixteen thousand Jews are murdered at Pinsk, Poland.


1942: Mieczyslaw Gruber, a Jewish former soldier in the Polish Army, escapes with 17 others from a Nazi POW camp on Lipowa Street in Lublin. The group will later establish a partisan group in the forest northwest of the city.


1943: “More than 1,200 friends and admirers of Ben Bernie, orchestra leader and radio favorite” attended the funeral of “the Old Maestro” at Temple Rodeph Sholom where Rabbi Louis I. Newman “who conducted the service praised Bernie for his “generosity and selfness” after which he recited “When I Am Dead” written by Chaim Nachman Bialik.


1944: Thirty nine year old Czech journalist Josef Taussig “was transported today with his parents one other relative to Auschwitz on the last train from Theresienstadt.”


1944: Thirty-four year old German author H.G. Adler “was deported to Niederoschel, a subdivision of Buchenwald” two weeks after his wife who was a doctor and his mother-in-law were gassed at Auschwitz.


1944: “Hippopotamus: Profile of a Great Custodian by Nathan Ausubel published today described as “the true story” of the late Abraham Solomon Freidus, “the man who built up the Jewish Room of the New York Public Library” was published in today’s Morning Freiheit Magazine Section.


1944: The last transport train from Theresienstadt arrived at Birkenau with 2,038 Jews. Of them 1,589 would find their fates in the gas chambers. Also 164 Jews from Bolzano arrived at the same time and 137 of them would be gassed immediately.



1944(11th of Cheshvan, 5705): A train from Bolzano, Italy, reaches Auschwitz with 301 prisoners. Of these, 137 are immediately gassed.


1944(11th of Cheshvan, 5705): Forty-seven year old actor and director Kurt Gerron was gassed today along with his wife upon their arrival at Auschwitz.


1944: Hannah Senesh, a member of the British Army was tried for treason in Budapest today by her Facist captors in direct violation of the Geneva Convention.


1944:  Birthdate of actor Dennis Franz, known best for his role as Detective Sipowicz on NYPD Blues.

1945:  Birthdate of Sandy Berger, National Security Advisor to President Clinton

1945: With only eight days left before voters go to the polls to elect the Mayor of New York, Judge Johna H. Goldstein, the Republican-Liberal-Fusion nominee trails the favored candidate, William F. O’Dwyer. Goldstein had been a lifelong Democrat and according to some, his candidacy was based on the belief that he could draw Jewish votes away from O’Dwyer, the Democrat Party candidate and thus improve the chances of the third candidate, Newbold Morris. (Hey it can’t all be Talmud and Torah)

1946: More than two thirds of the 300,000 eligible voters participated in today’s election in Palestine for the 79 delegates to the 22nd World Zionist Congress scheduled to open on December 9 in Basle, Switzerland.

1947: English solicitor Sir David Napley and his wife the former Leah Rose Saturley gave birth to their second daughter Penelope Susan

1947: During an interview in New York, Moshe Pomrok, a member of the Palestine Maritime League, described the steps taken to establish a maritime industry in Palestine in the eleven years since the Arabs closed the harbor of Jaffa as part of their “down to the sea” movement.  Accomplishments have included the building of a harbor at Tel Aviv, establishment of a maritime training school at Haifa, and attempts to develop interest among Jewish youth in being part of the fishing industry.  The league is now trying to gain support for a New York to Haifa shipping line based on a potential annual booking of 50,000 to 80,000 passenger a year plus a large import trade

1947: Dalton Trumbo, who write the screenplay for “Exodus” was held in contempt by the HUAC

1948: Dr. David De Sola Pool, the rabbi at the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue and Dr. Louis Finkelstein, the President of JTS will officiate at the funeral for Rabbi Judah Magnes


1948: In the evening, Operation Hiram, which was designed to secure the Upper Galilee began. Named after the biblical King Hiram of Tyre, the goal was to secure the Upper Galilee as far as the northern boundary of the Palestine Mandate.   The IDF is facing a Palestinian military force that does not consider itself bound UN Truce Agreements as well as regular Arab troops including units of the Syrian Army. The sixty hour operation was successful in securing part of Israel’s border



1948: Israeli forces clear the Egyptians from the Mediterranean coastal plain to an area south of Yad Mordechai. 



1948: Following their failed attempt to destroy the state of Israel, Egyptian forces retreated “southward from the Israeli city of Ashdod.”



1948: The flag of Israel was adopted by the government, five months after the country’s establishment. However, the flag, which depicts a blue Star of David on a white background between two horizontal blue stripes, first appeared some 50 years before becoming a national symbol. At the core of the flag is the Star of David, which can be traced back to the medieval era where it was used for decorations, ornaments and protective amulets. Not until the 17th century did the hexagram begin to represent the Jewish community as a whole. In fact, the Jewish quarter of Vienna was formally distinguished from the rest of the city by a boundary stone having the Star of David on one side and the Christian cross on the other. In the 18th century, the Star of David represented the Jewish people in both religious and political contexts. It was only a century later that it became an international symbol when in 1891, the Zionist Movement used the Star of David to create a flag almost identical to the one we are familiar with today. During the first Zionist congress in 1897, which discussed the establishment a homeland for Jews in Palestine, several flags were considered to represent the Jewish people internationally. One of them was Theodor Herzl’s design which had seven gold stars and represented the 7-hour work quota. Another design was put forward by Morris Harris, a member of the Zionist group Hovevei Zion, who used his awning shop to design a suitable banner and decorations for the reception. His mother Lena Harris sewed the flag. It was made with two blue stripes and a large blue Star of David in the center. Ultimately, Herzl’s design failed to garner support and the latter was adopted instead as the official Zionist flag during the second international Zionist congress in 1898. Regarding the design of the flag, at the time, the Star of David seemed to be the obvious choice. However, the blue stripes were inspired by those of the Talit, the Jewish prayer shawl. Some controversy has surrounded the meaning of these stripes with certain people arguing that they secretly represent the Nile and the Euphrates Rivers, the borders of the Promised Land as described in the Bible. However, all relevant sources indicate that the Talit was the sole inspiration behind the “stripes.” In a turn of events, the flag with the symbol that was once used to identify Jews during the Nazi era at its core, has recently become the largest national symbol in the world.  In 2007, a flag measuring 660 by 100 meters and weighing 5.2 tons, was unfurled near the ancient Jewish fortress of Masada, breaking the world record for the largest flag. (As reported by Daniel Bensadolin)



1950: The Jack Benny Show starring Jack Benny aired for the first time on television.   The show ran for 15 years which is an exceptionally long run in the world of television.  Thus the Jewish comedian Jack Benny proved to be a star in all entertainment medium – radio, film and television.



1950: After 13 performances at the Broadhurst Theatre, the curtain came down on “Burning Bright,” produced by Rodgers and Hammerstein



1950: Three years after its original release, “The Sin of Harold Diddlebock,” a comedy featuring Lionel Stander and Julius Tannen was re-released in the United States today.



1951: Fifty-nine year old actress Mady Christians, who had left her native Germany because of the rise the Nazis and the treatment of the Jews and ended up being one of the few non-Jews to be Blacklisted, in part for her friendship with such people as Lillian Hellman, passed away today.



1952: The Jerusalem Post reported that John Blandford of UNRWA admitted that 881,600 Palestine refugees were eating out of the relief money planned for development and there was little progress in resettlement. The US, Britain, France and Turkey asked the UN for additional funds to be added to the sums already allocated. The Arab states worked diligently to create the “Arab Refugee” problem.  While Israel was busy absorbing refugees from all over the world (including Arab states), the Arabs kept the brethren penned up in camps in Gaza and other border areas.


1952: The Jerusalem Post reported that a well with a capacity of 88,800 gallons of water per hour was discovered near Beersheba. This is the same Beersheba where wells were dug in Biblical times.  The discovery of an additional water source in the Negev was big news.

1953: Anna Malin conveyed title to the Temple Israel property in Leadville, CO, to Steve J. and Anna Malin

1954: “Justice Douglas Compares Israel and U.S. Immigrant Absorption” published today described a speech in which the Supreme Court Justice  “linked Israel’s problem in absorbing immigrants from many lands with the traditional “melting pot” role of the United States in assimilating people of many races and cultures.” (As reported by JTA)

1954: “The Rainmaker” a play by N. Richard Nash (born Nathan Richard Nusbaum) opened on Broadway at the Cort Theatre.

1954: “Carmen Jones” the film version of the 1943 stage production directed and produced by Otto Preminger and based on a libretto by Oscar Hammerstein II was released today in the United States.

1955: “After a border incident with Egypt around the Auja al-Hafir demilitarized zone, Golani was tasked with leading Operation Volcano, an attack on the Egyptian army in the area and the largest military operation at the time since the 1948 war”

1955: In response to a raid by Egyptian forces on “a small Israeli outpost at Be’erotayim” two-hundred paratroopers commanded by Ariel Sharon attacked the Kuntilla outpost.

1956: The curtain came down an Off-Broadway production of a Kurt Weill musical “Johnny Johnson” directed by Stella Adler.

1956: Having won their opening game in September, Sid Gillman’s Los Angeles Rams lost for the fourth straight week, this time against the Detroit Lions.

1956: The University of Miami Orchestra performedNew England Triptych” a symphonic composition by William Schuman for the first time.

1956: Having exhausted all other options, the Israeli Cabinet agrees that IDF forces will cross the Egyptian border and attack in the Sinai Peninsula.

1956: Units of the 202ndParatroopers Brigade moved “in a long column to the Israeli-Egyptian border.”

1957(3rd of Cheshvan, 5718):Ernst Gräfenberg a German-born physician and scientist who is known for developing the intrauterine device (IUD), and for his studies of the role of the woman's urethra in orgasm, passed away today in New York City.  Born in 1881 at Adelebsen, Germany, he studied medicine at Göttingen and Munich. “He began working as a doctor of ophthalmology at the university of Würzburg, but then moved to the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at the University of Kiel, where he published papers on cancer metastasis (the "Gräfenberg theory"), and the physiology of egg implantation. In 1910 Gräfenberg worked as a gynaecologist in Berlin, and by 1920 was most successful, with an office on the Kurfurstendamm. He was chief gynecologist of a municipal hospital in Britz, a working class Berlin district, and was beginning scientific studies of the physiology of human reproduction at Berlin University.
During the First World War, he was a medical officer, and continued publishing papers, mostly on human female physiology. In 1929 he published his studies of the "Gräfenberg ring", the first IUD for which there are usage records. When Nazism assumed power in Germany, Gräfenberg, a Jew, was forced in 1933 to resign as head of the department of gynaecology and obstetrics in the Berlin-Britz municipal hospital. In 1934, Hans Lehfeldt attempted to persuade him to leave Nazi Germany; he refused, believing that since his practice included wives of high Nazi officials, he would be safe. He was wrong, and was arrested in 1937 for having smuggled out a valuable stamp from Germany. Margaret Sanger ransomed him from Nazi prison, and he was finally allowed to leave in 1940, whereupon he went to the US and opened a practice in New York City.

1958: Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli becomes Pope and takes the name Pope John XXIII. John XXIII had worked to save Jews during the Holocaust.  As Pope he worked to improve relations with the Jewish People. 

1958:Edgar D'Arcy McGreer completed his service as Canada’s Ambassador to Israel.

1959: “Samuel Engel Elected President of Brandeis Institute of California” published today described the elevation of the famed 20th Century Fox movies producer to leadership position of this educational facility located on a 2,000 acre campus near Los Angeles under the direction of Dr. Shlomo Bardin.(JTA)

1961: After 795 performances on Broadway the curtain came down on “Fiorello!” the Pulitzer Prize musical with lyrics by Sheldon Harnick, music by Jerry Bock and a book co-authored by Jerome Weidman.



1962: Jeff Barry and Ellie Greenwich got married today “and shortly afterwards decided to write songs exclusively with each other — a decision that disappointed Barry's main writing partner, Artie Resnick.”

1964: Over 10,000 people attend a rally in New York’s Madison Square Garden, the earliest large scale public demonstration for Soviet Jews.



1965: In Chicago, Sharyn and Walter Gertz gave birth to Jami Gertz, the sister of Michael and Scott Gertz, who was raised in Glenview and plays Muff on Square Pegs.

1965: Nostra Aetate, the "Declaration on the Relation of the Church with Non-Christian Religions" of the Second Vatican Council, was promulgated by Pope Paul VI; it absolves the Jews of the alleged killing of Jesus, reversing Innocent III’s declaration from 760 years ago. In short, Pope Paul VI announces that ecumenical council has decided that Jews are not collectively responsible for the killing of Christ.

1970: “The Twelve Chairs” a comedy directed and written by Mel Brooks was released in the United States today.

1972(20th of Cheshvan, 5733): Parashat Vayera

1972(20th of Cheshvan, 5733): Russian born, American chemist and engineer Isaac Bencowtiz who served in the in the Infantry during WW II and became one of the “Monuments Men” in 1946 passed away today.

https://www.monumentsmenfoundation.org/the-heroes/the-monuments-men/bencowitz-capt.-isaac

1972: In St. Paul, MN, Marvin Levine, a CPA and Harriet Levine, a high school guidance counselor gave birth to Anthony Michael “Tony” Levine, a three year starter for Minnesota at wide receiver and member of the Minnesota Fighting Pike in the Arena Football who went on to pursue a career in coaching that included 4 seasons as the head coach at the University of Houston.



1973: During the Yom Kippur “most of the heavy fighting ended” today although intermittent fighting on a small scale would continue into January of the following year.

1973: Rabbi Max Hausen officiated at the wedding of Rachela Lea Subel and Joseph Saul Solomon at the Main Line Reform Temple.

1973: “ Israeli and Egyptian military leaders meet to implement the cease-fire at Kilometer 101 marker in the Sinai. It is the first meeting between military representatives of the two countries in 25 years.” (JTA)

1974: In San Juan, Puerto Rico, John Lee Bottom “a lapsed Catholic” and his wife Arlyn the daughter of Jewish immigrants from Russia and Hungary gave birth to actor Joaquin Phoenix.

1974: In Detroit, MI,Meg (née Goldman), a writer, and writer-director Lawrence Kasdan gave birth to director Jacob "Jake" Kasdan, the brother of Jon Kasdan and the husband of Inara George.

1975: “The 37th issue of the samizdat “Chronicle of Current Events” was circulated in the USSR” today.

1976: Maria Slepak appealed to Senator Kennedy on behalf of Boris Chernobilsky and Iosif Ahs.


1977: The Jerusalem Post reported that the US had bluntly told the Arab States that Israel had demonstrated significant flexibility on procedures for the reconvening of the Geneva Peace Conference that it is now up to the Arabs to respond in kind.



1978: “My Life,” a song by Billy Joel was released today.



1981: “A front-page article in the Washington Post falsely reported that Leon Bass “liberated Buchenwald with an all-black unit.”



1981: Today, Leon “Calvin” Murray, the Ohio State running back who would later convert to Orthodox Judaism was re-signed by the Philadelphia Eagles who had be drafted him and then release him earlier in the year.



http://www.aish.com/sp/so/From-Rose-Bowl-to-Rashi-My-Unique-Journey-to-Judaism.html?s=mm



1982: In “Operetta: ‘Shulamth’ by Goldfaden” published today, the author notes that “it is just 100 years ago this year that Yiddish theater opened in America, according to its historians, and that the one Yiddish theater that is celebrating it is doing so most appropriately with a performance of Abraham Goldfaden's operetta ''Shulamith,'' first performed here in 1882, with Boris Thomashevsky.



http://www.nytimes.com/1982/10/28/arts/operetta-shulamith-by-goldfaden.html



1987: Today, the Russian government of Mikhail Gorachev exonerated poet and essayist Osip Mandelstam of charges made in the 1930’s that he was guilty of “counter-revolutionary activities”; a charge that led to his imprisonment and mysterious death in the Gulag in 1938.



1988(17thof Cheshvan, 5749): Eighty-four year old Andrew Howard “Andy” Cohen the New York Giant second baseman who in 1928 provided the inspiration for “Cohen At the Bat” – a parody of “Casey at the Bat that ended with “Then from the stands and bleachers the fans in triumph roared, And Andy raced to second and the other runner scored; Soon they took him home in triumph, midst the blare of auto honks, There may be no joy in Mudville, but there’s plenty in the Bronx” – passed away today



1988: “Shalom,” a culturalsociety was formed in Moscow.



1990(9thof Cheshvan, 5751): Ninety-nine year old Maurice B. Hexter, the native of Cincinnati, Ohio and former executive vice president of the Federation of Jewish Philanthropies who first went to Jerusalem in 1929 to help with the rebuilding following destructive Arab riots passed away today. (As reported by Glenn Fowler)



http://www.nytimes.com/1990/10/29/obituaries/maurice-b-hexter-99-a-leader-in-jewish-social-causes-is-dead.html



 1991(20th of Cheshvan, 5752): Seventy-eight year old Sylvia Fine, the widow of Danny Kaye and a noted producer, lyricist and composer in her own right, passed away today. (As reported by William Grimes)



http://www.nytimes.com/1991/10/29/arts/sylvia-fine-kaye-78-songwriter-a-proponent-of-musical-theater.html



1995: During an opposition rally in Jerusalem’s Zion Square, a photographic montage was circulated showing Rabin in a Nazi uniform.



1997: Eighty-two year old Paul Jarrico (born Israel Shapiro) the blacklisted screenwriter passed away today.



http://www.nytimes.com/1997/10/30/arts/paul-jarrico-82-blacklisted-screenwriter.html



1997: In a letter with today’s date, Holocaust denier David “Irving threatened to sue John Lukacs for libel if he published his book, The Hitler of Historywithout removing certain passages highly critical of Irving's work” – a threat that delayed the publication of the book in the United Kingdom.



1998(8thof Cheshvan, 5759): Seventy-one  year old James Goldman the screenwriter and playwright whose most noted work may have been “The Lion in Winter” and who was the brother of William Goldman, passed away today in New York.



2000: The Battered Immigrant Women Protection Act introduced by Illinois Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky became law.



2000: The BBC broadcast “King Death” the 5th episode of “A History of Britain is a documentary series written and presented by Simon Schama.”



2001:The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or on topics of special Jewish interesting including The Death of Comedyby Erich Segal and The Brother:The Untold Story of Atomic Spy David Greenglass and How He Sent His Sister, Ethel Rosenberg, to the Electric Chair by Sam Roberts.



2001(11th of Cheshvan, 5762):St.-Sgt. Yaniv Levy, 22, of Zichron Yaakov was killed by Palestinian terrorists in a drive-by machine-gun ambush near Kibbutz Metzer in northern Israel. The Tanzim wing of Arafat's Fatah faction claimed responsibility for the murder.



2001(11th of Cheshvan, 5762):Ayala Levy, 39, of Elyachin; Smadar Levy, 23, of Hadera; Lydia Marko, 63, of Givat Ada; and Sima Menahem, 30, of Zichron Yaakov were killed when two Palestinian terrorists, members of the Palestinian police, armed with assault rifles and expanding bullets, opened fire from a vehicle on Israeli pedestrians at a crowded bus-stop in downtown Hadera. About 40 were wounded, three critically. The Islamic Jihad claimed responsiblity for the attack.



2001(11th of Cheshvan, 5762):Listening to the horror unfold over his cellphone, Asher Kilgor heard the staccato fire of Palestinian gunmen cutting down his fiancée, Sima Menachem, on her way home from work today. In an interview with the Jerusalem Post following the terrorist attack, Kilgor said “he was waiting at a bus stop here for her return from her job as a secretary in a law office in the nearby city of Hadera. Ms. Menachem's 8-year-old daughter was waiting with him at the bus stop. ''She always took the 1:55 p.m. bus from Hadera,'' Mr. Kilgor said. ''At 2:30, I called her and she told me that the bus was late, then she called back to say that she would take a taxi.''''Two minutes later, I got another call, and all I heard was shots and screams,'' Mr. Kilgor continued. ''I think she called to tell me something was happening. I heard bursts of gunfire. I shouted into the phone until the call was disconnected. I called back, but the phone was not in service. I called the police station, and they said there had been an attack in Hadera.'' Ms. Menachem was one of four Israeli women killed when two Palestinian gunmen in a sport utility vehicle opened fire with M-16 rifles near a bus stop on Hadera's main street, riddling dozens of commuters and pedestrians with bullets. The gunmen, from the militant group Islamic Holy War, were killed by the police. More than 30 people were injured in the attack. Ms. Menachem, 30, had met Mr. Kilgor, 33, a police officer, four years ago. They moved in together, raising two daughters from her first marriage and a third of their own in this picturesque hill town overlooking the Mediterranean. They had planned to marry in a month, but instead Mr. Kilgor stood grief-stricken today at Ms. Menachem's wreath-covered grave. Surrounded by her wailing sisters and mother, Ms. Menachem was buried here today. They remembered her as a dynamic woman with an easy laugh who liked to dress well, and most of all loved to be at home with her children. ''You were a victim of the terrible price in blood exacted by life here,'' a sister said in her farewell. The other victims were also killed on their daily rounds. Lidya Marko, 63, was heading home from a dental appointment. Smadar Levy, 23, a medical secretary, was on her way to work. Ayala Levy, 39, was returning from her job as an assistant kindergarten teacher. The seats at the bus stop where they died were covered with memorial candles and flowers today. Bullet holes still scarred the bus shelter, but pockmarks left by the bullets in a nearby library building had already been filled in an effort to erase traces of the attack and get back to normal as quickly as possible. Across the street, Oz Zahavian, 24, sat in his health and beauty aids shop. He had seen it all from his seat, he said, and it was hard to go back to business as usual. ''I keep seeing the pictures in my head,'' he said. ''Teenage girls hit in the legs and chest, a girl whose leg was shattered, and someone crying: 'I want to walk. I don't want to be a cripple.''The shock waves of the attack emptied downtown Hadera today.” There were few people on the sidewalks, and traffic was light. ''It's impossible to get back to normal the next day, if at all,'' Mr. Zahavian said.



2001: “Delivering Milo” starring Anton Yelchin in the title role was released to by Hanover House in the United States.



2001: “Donnie Darko” a sci-fi film that premiered at Sundance ten months ago starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Maggie Gyllenhaal and featuring Seth Rogen was released in the United States today.



2003: At the “Visas For Life” Reception at the U.S. State Department, Colin Powell met with Abigail Endicott and Robert Kim Bingham to honor their father Hiram Bingham IV who as U.S. Vice Consul defied government orders and saved a large number of refugees from the Nazis and the Holocuast.



2003: Illinois attorney Stuart Levine is the guest of honor at a lavish reception hosted by the “Friends of Israel Defense Force.”  In 2008, Levine will plead guilty to a variety of charges and became a key witness in a major political bribery trial.



2003:The incumbent mayors of most cities and towns were voted back into office in today's municipal elections, but the Likud lost control of several important cities, including Bat Yam, Rosh Ha'ayin, Dimona, Hod Hasharon, Eilat and Kiryat Malachi. 



2003:The BBC Reports that an organization in Israel has gained rabbinical approval to train pigs to guard Jewish settlements in the West Bank.



2003:Colin Powell meets Abigail Endicott and Robert Kim Bingham to honor their father Hiram Bingham IV, who did so much to rescue people from Hitler’s Europe, at the "Visas For Life" Reception, State Department



2004:The World Jewish Film Festival, the first of its kind in Israel and the Jewish world opens in Tel Aviv.



2005: Newspapers reported that response to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's call for Israel to be "wiped off the map" has been uniformly negative. 



2005: As part of the Plame Affair Lewis Libby vice president Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, is indicted by federal prosecutors. Libby resigns later that day. Valerie Palme and Lewis Libby are both Jewish.



2005: “The Weatherman” a mid-life crisis dark comedy produced by Steve Tisch with music by Hans Zimmer was released in the United States by Paramount Pictures.



2006: An exhibition in Abbot Hall Art Gallery in England, “David Bomberg: Spirit in Mass” came to an end.



2006: Bettye Ackerman who played Dr. Maggie Graham in the medical television series “Ben Casey” and who was the wide of Sam Jaffe suffered a stroke today.



2006(6th of Cheshvan, 5767): Red Auerbach, the man many believe was the greatest professional basketball coach of all times, passed away. (As reported by Matt Schudel)



http://www.boston.com/sports/basketball/celtics/articles/2006/10/29/auerbach_pride_of_celtics_dies/



http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/28/AR2006102801102.html



2007:Premiere performance of Jay "Bluejay" Greenberg's Violin Concerto at Carnegie Hall.



2007: New York’s Erez Safar celebrates the launch of his new website called Shemspeed (www.shemspeed.com) with a gala event in Los Angeles.



2007: The Sunday New York Times features reviews of the following books by Jewish authors and/or that featured Jewish topics including The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century by Alex Ross, Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brainby Oliver Sacks who was dubbed "the poet laureate of medicine" by the New York Times,  a biography of Ervin Nyiregyhazi entitled Lost Genius:The Curious and Tragic Story of an Extraordinary Musical Prodigy by Kevin Bazzana, Gentlemen of the Road by Michael Chabon author of The Yiddish Policemen’s Union  one of the dumbest books ever written at least by a Jewish author on a Jewish topic.



2007: The Washington Post features reviews of the following books by Jewish authors and/or that featured Jewish topics including Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brainby Dr. Oliver Sacks, The Museum of Dr. Moses by Joyce Carol Oates, In Among the Righteous: Lost Stories From the Holocaust's Long Reach Into Arab Lands, Robert Satloff’s search throughout the Middle East for evidence that Arabs helped Jews during World War II. "Satloff's efforts to tell the story of Arab behavior -- both complicity and heroism -- during the Holocaust are important."



2007: The Chicago Tribune reports on the controversy surrounding the introduction of Mishkan T’filah, the new prayer book for the Reform Movement in an article entitled “Prayer book ignites debate” featuring an interview with Rabbi Peter Knobel , the Evanston, Illinois rabbi who heads the rabbinical group that publishes the movement’s liturgy.



2007: In NewOrleans sees resurgence of Jewish life in Hurricane Katrina Aftermath,” published today Anshel Pfeffer describes conditions in the Crescent City two years after if endured the worst aquatic disaster since the days of Noah:



http://www.bethisraelnola.com/media/haaretz.pdf



 


2008: In Little Rock, Arkansas, Bat Mitzvah of Rochel, daughter of Rabbi Pinchus and Estie Ciment.  The Lamplighters provide yet another spark – Mazel Tov.



2008: Rabbi Yehuda Amital retired as Rosh Yeshiva of Yeshivat Har Etzion



2008: Rabbi Mosheh Lichtenstein, the son of Rabbi Aharon Lichtenstein officially assumed the position as Co-Rosh Yeshiva at Yeshivat Har Etzion



2009: Morris Dickstein discusses and signs Dancing in the Dark: A Cultural History of the Great Depression at Politics and Prose Bookstore in Washington, D.C.



2009:The Hyman S. & Freda Bernstein Jewish Literary Festival comes to a close on, with the presentation of the annual Gerald L. Bernstein Memorial Lecture, "Current Israeli Myths and Realities: The Way to Peace," by Howard M. Sachar, author of A History of Jews in the Modern World.



2009:Astronomers said today that a race halfway across the universe had ended in a virtual tie. And so the champion is still Albert Einstein — for now. The race was between gamma rays of differing energies and wavelengths spit in a burst from an exploding star when the universe was half its present age.



2009(10th of Cheshvan, 5770): Just months before celebrating his 100th birthday British epidemiologist Jeremy N. Morris passed away today. (As reported by Dennis Hevesi)



http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/08/health/research/08morris.html



2010(20th of Cheshvan, 5771): Seventy six year old Ehud Netzer, “one of Israel’s best-known archeologists who unearthed King Herod’s tomb near Bethlehem three years ago, died today after being injured in a fall at the site.(As reported by Ethan Bronner)



http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/30/world/middleeast/30netzer.html



http://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-me-ehud-netzer-20101106-story.html



2010(20th of Cheshvan, 5771): Eighty-seven year old actor Robert “Bob” Ellenstein the son of two-time Mayor of Newark Meyer Ellenstein, passed away today in Los Angeles.



http://www.latimes.com/local/obituaries/la-me-robert-ellenstein-20101104-story.html



2010:Center for Jewish History and Leo Baeck Institute is scheduled to present: Chamber Music of Mozart, Brahms and Schubert that will include a web-based essay on the lives of Jews in Germany in the 18th and 19th centuries with material drawn from the archives of the Leo Baeck Institute.



2010:Jonathan D. Sarna is scheduled to deliver an address entitled Ulysses S. Grant and the Jews: A New Look at Tulane University sponsored by the Jewish Studies Program.



2010:A team from The Israel Forum for International Humanitarian Aid (IsraAID) will leave Israel today to assess the progress of IsraAID's programs in Haiti, as well as present its work in an exhibit using the IDF hospital tent in the upcoming Jewish Federation General Assembly in New Orleans.  The team is going despite the current cholera outbreak.



2010: Debbie Rosenbloom and her husband David Levin are among those taking part in the first Israeli version of the Susan G. Koman Walk for the Cure.



2011(30th of Tishrei, 5772): Rosh Chodesh Cheshvan



2011:Wendy Perron, the Editor in Chief of Dance Magazine, is scheduled to lead a panel delving into the Diaspora of Israeli Dance as part of Fall for Dance DanceTalk, a free pre-performance panel discussion series. Panelists include Zvi Gotheiner, Saar Harari, Neta Pulvermacher, and Noa Wertheim. The panel will explore the many ways that the Israeli aesthetic is influencing dance internationally and how it has impacted these choreographers.



2011: Louis B. James is scheduled to present “Poison,” Deville Cohen’s first solo exhibition in New York City.



2011:Israel prepared to send emergency aid to Thailand today, in response to violent flooding that has killed 377 since July.



2011:Hundreds of Palestinians clashed with the IDF and security forces in a number of locations in the West Bank..



2012: The Yeshiva University Museum is scheduled to sponsor a symposium titled “The Mystery and History of the Eruv.”



2012(12th of Cheshvan 5773): Fifty-nine year old Larry Bloch “who built the Wetlands Preserve in TriBeCa into an influential rock club and a hub of environmental activism” passed away today. (As reported by James C. McKinley, Jr)



http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/03/nyregion/larry-bloch-who-opened-wetlands-club-dies-at-59.html?hpw&_r=0



http://www.jambands.com/news/2012/10/29/larry-bloch-1953-2012/#.UnGQuJ0o6po



2012: Erika Dreifus reviewed The Curse of Gurs by Werner L. Frank.



https://www.erikadreifus.com/2012/10/from-my-bookshelf-the-curse-of-gurs-by-werner-l-frank/



2012: The JCC of Northern Virginia is scheduled to host The Ruth Spector Memorial Mah Jongg Tournament.



20212 “Forty Years on the Bimah,” a retreat organized by Leah Novick “the oldest woman rabbi” opened today at Mount Madonna Center.



2012:The Kobi Arad Band is scheduled to present “a jazz tribute show as part of the City Winery's 'Klezmer Brunch' series to the legendary Jewish-Moroccan mystic Baba Sali.”



2012: 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 Louis D. Brandeis: A Life by Melvin I. Urofsky



2012: The Jewish Endowment Foundation of Louisiana is scheduled to present The Tzedakah Award to the Bart Family at a brunch in New Orleans, LA.



2012: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the murder of Yitzhak Rabin “one of the worst crimes of the new age,” during his opening remarks to the weekly Cabinet meeting today.



http://www.timesofisrael.com/on-17th-anniversary-of-rabin-assassination-netanyahu-calls-his-murder-one-of-the-worst-crimes-of-the-new-age/?utm_source=The+Times+of+Israel+Daily+Edition&utm_campaign=4a17853e8a-2012_10_28&utm_medium=email



2012: The government unanimously approved a plan to bolster fortifications for all Israeli localities between 4.5 km and 7 km of the Gaza Strip, according to Israel Radio, as ongoing rocket fire from the Hamas-run enclave once again forced southern residents into bomb shelters.



http://www.jpost.com/Defense/Article.aspx?id=289532



2012: In anticipation of superstorm Sandy the 14thStreet Y closed today at 4 pm. http://forward.com/articles/165072/jewish-neighborhoods-in-sandys-crosshairs/



2012:Egyptian authorities confiscated some 1.7 million documents reportedly proving Jewish ownership of land and assets in Cairo. The documents were reportedly about to be shipped out of the country to Israel, in what the Egyptian daily Al-Ahram is calling “the most dangerous case of security breach in history.” The documents were found in 13 large cases, ready to be transported to Jordan and from there to Israel, Egyptian media reported today


2013: In the UK, The Wiener Library an evening with Thomas Harding, author of Hans and Rudolf: The German Jews and the Hunt for the Kommandant of Auschwitz.


2013: The Jewish National Fund National Conference being held in Denver, CO, is scheduled to come to an end.


2013: Israeli violinist Vadim Gluzman is among those scheduled to perform at Good Shepherd Church in NYC.


2013:The “Red Alert” siren was heard early this morning in the Hof Ashkelon Regional Council and in communities in the Gaza belt. Residents reported hearing several explosions, as the Iron Dome anti-missile system intercepted at least two rockets that were fired by Gaza terrorists towards southern Israel.


2013: Gaza-based terrorists fired four rockets at southern Israel early this morning. The Iron Dome anti-missile system intercepted one of the rockets, and the other three exploded in open areas. There were no physical injuries or damages.


2013: Women of the Wall presented a list of 16 conditions today under which it would move its monthly prayer service to a third, egalitarian section of the Western Wall’s plaza

2014: The “core exhibition of the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews” is scheduled to open today.

2014: The reconstructed ceiling of the destroyed wooden Gwozdziec Synagogue is scheduled to be unveiled today.


2014: The Hyman S. & Freda Bernstein Jewish Literary Festival is scheduled to host The Bernard Wexler Lecture on Jewish History featuring Martin Goldsmith, author of Alex’s Wake: A Voyage of Betrayal and a Journey of Remembrance


2014: The University of Connecticut is scheduled to host the Louis J. Kuriansky Annual Conference: The Dangerous Neighborhood of the Middle East, with Dr. Bruce Hoffman and Dr. Michael Rubin


2014: Jeffrey Burds, associate professor of history at Northeastern University is scheduled to deliver The Joseph and Rebecca Meyerhoff Annual Lecture speaking on “Communist Collaborators and German Occupation in the Soviet Union during the Holocaust, 1941-43.”


2014: “Support for Hamas and for armed struggle against Israel is gaining popularity in the Palestinian territories, a new survey showed today, despite languishing rehabilitation efforts in the war-battered Gaza Strip. (As reported by Avi Issacharoff)


2014: “Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu today lashed out at international condemnation of plans to build new housing in East Jerusalem, voicing his own unique view that “the criticism, and not the building, was pushing peace further away.” (Based on reports by Joshua Davidovich)


2015: Due to have heavy storms, 15,000 homes in Israel without power and the traffic light system in parts of Tel Aviv have cease function. (As reported by Raanan Ben Zur and Gilad Morag)


2015: The funeral was held today for Richard Larkin, the American who had made Aliyah and worked to improve relations between Moslems and Jews but ironically was murdered by a terrorist while traveling on a bus in Jerusalem.

2015: In Atlanta, GA, The Breman Museum is scheduled to host a tour of “Historic Oakland Cemetery’ which will included an exploration of “the history, burial customs, and symbolism found throughout the Jewish Grounds of this powerful city landmark.”


2015: “Besa: The Promise” is scheduled to be shown tonight at the Jewish Arts & Film Festival of Fairfield County, Ct.


2015: In Little Rock, Lubavitch of Arkansas is scheduled to host the first session “Journey of the Soul – exploring its journey through life, death and beyond.”
2015: The 16th Annual Rutgers Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to begin tonight.”


2015: An opening night gala is scheduled to be held this evening marking the opening of the 29th Israel Film Festival in Los Angeles.


2015: The portrait of radio host Joan Hamburg was unveiled tonight at Sardi’s.


2015: The American Sephardi Federation is scheduled to present “Dennis Shasha one of the editors of Iraq’s Last Jews, who will present recollections from this remarkable collection of first-person accounts.”


2016: “Jew Vs. Malta” a play inspired by Marlowe’s “The Jew of Malta: is scheduled to open at The Club at LaMaMa.


2016: “The daily newspaper Haaretz announced that senior columnist Ari Shavit will take a “time out from his journalistic work” amid sexual assault allegations.” (As reported by Sharon Bareket)


2016: “Finding Babel” is scheduled to open in New York.


2016: Homecoming weekend is scheduled to begin at Tulane University, home of the Jewish Studies Department chaired by Dr. Brian Horowitz whose newest book is Vladmir Jabotinsky: Story of My Life


2016: Tulane Hillel is scheduled to host a Homecoming reception at its Broadway facility while Tulane Chabad is scheduled to host a four course Shabbat dinner.


2016: Ephraim Sneh, the son of Moshe Sneh was among those who disputed the veracity of the list of Israeli leaders who listed as KGB in an article published today in Yediot Acharonot.
2017(8th of Cheshvan, 5778): Parashat Lech-Lecha;


2017: The Maccabeats are scheduled to perform a Havdalah Concert at the Watford Colosseum in London.


2017: Holocaust survivor George Levy Mueller whose “father and uncle were arrested and taken to Sachsenhausen  Concentration Camp after Kristallnacht is scheduled to tell his tale of survivor at the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center.


2017: At Oxford Rabbis Michael or Tracey Rosenfeld-Schueler are scheduled to a lunch just for “Undegrad Freshers”


2017: “ShabbatUK” which involved more than 100,000 people in 100 communities in 2016 is scheduled to continue for a second and final day.


2017: The Oxford University Jewish Society, Jonah Dov Cowen is scheduled to lead a session on Pirkei Avot followed by Ma’ariv and a musical Havdalah led by Bertie Green


2018: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Kafka’s Last Trial: The Case of a Literary Legacy by Benjamin Balint and the recently released paperback edition of A Bold and Dangerous Family: The Remarkable Story of an Italian Mother, Her Two Sons and Their Fight Against Fascism by Caroline Moorehead


2018: The Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center is scheduled to host a screening of “NANA,” “a feature-length transgenerational documentary” in which “filmmaker Serena Dyamant retraces the Auschwitz survival story of her grandmother, Maryla Michalowski-Dymamant.”


2018: At part of the “Home: Lens on Israel” series, the Temple Emanuel Streicker Center is scheduled to open the photographic exhibition “Moroccan Jews Outside Haifa.”


2018: “The 2018 Conference on Jews and Conservatism” which included a tribute to the late Charles Krauthammer is scheduled to be held today in New York City

2018: “Budget airline Wizz Air” is scheduled to launch “ a regular flight from Luton to Eliat” today.


2018: The Center for Jewish History, American Jewish Historical Society, YIVO Institute for Jewish Research & American Friends of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra are scheduled to host “Broadway performer Alexandra Silber” and “Leonard Bernstein’s eldest daughter, Jamie Bernstein, as she discusses her new book, Famous Father Girl: A Memoir of Growing Up Bernstein


2018: After two months, “Hershey Felder as Irving Berlin” is schedule to close at 59E59Theatres in New York.


2018: “The Criminal Complaint and Supporting Affidavit” that include the 29 charges filed against Robert Bowers for his role in the Shabbat Massacre in Pittsburgh which has claimed the lives of at least people attending services is scheduled to be released at nine o’clock this morning.


2018: Less than two weeks before the observance the 80thanniversary of Kristallnacht, Jews awake this morning to the reality that ant-Semitic speech leads to anti-Semitic deeds and that killing Jews is still acceptable behavior in certain segments of our society.


 


 


 


 

This Day, October 29, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. Levin

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OCTOBER 29


539 BCE:  On the secular calendar, Babylonfell to Cyrus the Great of Persia.  This is a significant date because it marked the start of the return of the exiles to Eretz Israelwhere the SecondTemple would be built.


969: Byzantine troops occupy Antioch which was then part of Syria but would become part of Turkey in the 20th century. Antioch is one of the oldest cities in the world having been founded in the 4th century BCE by one of Alexander the Great’s generals.  Over the centuries, control of the city changed hands many times. The Arabs had conquered the city during the 7th century and held it until the Byzantine returned in the 10th century. At one time, Antioch would appear to have had a thriving Jewish community.  However, Emperor Pochas tried to force the Jews to convert to Christianity in the first decade of the 7thcentury and when the Jews resisted most of them were either killed or forced into exile. Little is heard about them until the latter part of the 12thcentury when Benjamin of Tudela reported that there were approximately ten Jewish families living in the city, most of whom were engaged in the glass making industry.


1422: Charles VII of France becomes king in succession to his father Charles VI of France, the monarch who had banished the Jews from France.


1462: Jews were expelled from Mainz, Germany.


1486:Obadiah ben Abraham of Bertinoro, who had served as the rabbi in Bertinoro and Castello, left Italy and began the journey that would lead him to Jerusalem two years later.  He was a student of Joseph Colon Trabotto and authored a commentary on the Mishnah.


1626: Vincent II, whom “Jewish violinist and composer” Salamone Rossi served as Concert Master, began his reign as Duke of Mantua.


1757: “In order to stimulate manufacturing in his realm” while taking advantage of the lack of civil rights accorded to the Jews, Frederick the Great of Prussia decreed “that no Jews should receive new priviliges unless they promised to start factories” and that any Jew who started a new factory would be permitted to “register an additional child.”


1741: Handel completed the third and final act of his oratorio “Samson” which was based on the tale told in chapter 16 of the Book of Judges.


1811: Birthdate of New York native and “commission merchant” Emanuel B. Hart, the New York City Alderman and member of the House of Representatives who also served as a Lt. Col. in the state militia and Surveyor of the Port of New York.


1824: Birthdate of Thomas Francis Bayard, who as “President Cleveland’s Secretary of State” in 1885 wrote to the U.S. charge d’affairs in Vienna expressing his disgust with the government of Austria-Hungary’s refusal to accept Anthony M Keiley as the American minister “on the ground of his wife being a Jewess.”


1831: Birthdate of Leopold Sonnemann the “publisher and editor of the Frankfurter Zeitung” and founding member of the German People’s Party.


1832: Solomon Samuel married Frances Israel at the Western Synagogue today.


1833: All Jews except for peddlers and petty traders were granted civic equality in the Germanic domain called Hesse-Cassel. The remainder of Germany took nearly forty years to follow suit.


1843(5th of Cheshvan, 5604): Sixty-nine year old Nathan Rubino, the son of Minkel and Ruben Moses Rubino passed away.


1844: In Vienna Charlotte and Anselm von Rothschild gave birth to the youngest child Albert Salomon von Rothschild nicknamed “Salbert.”


1844: Birthdate of Siegfried Goldschmidt the native of Cassel who earned a Ph.D before serving as a volunteer in the Franco-Prussian War after which “he was appointed assistant professor of the newly created University of Strasburg.”


1845: Israel Beer Josafat, a native of Kassel, Germany, “moved to London, where he called himself Joseph Josephat.”  By the end of the next month he would be known as Paul Julius Reuter, the founder of Reuters News Agency.


1847: In New York Lewis and Augusta Feuchtwanger gave birth to Charles Feuchtwanger


1850: In Dubrouna, Alexander Sender Frumkin and his wife gave birth to Israel Dov Frumkin who moved to Jerusalem at the age of 9 where he became a Hebrew author and journalist.



1851(3rdof Cheshvan, 5611): Rebbe Yisrael of Ruzhin the leader of the Sadigur Chassidus passed away today.


1854: Birthdate of Samuel Sale, the native of Louisville, KY who served as the rabbi for Congregation Shaare Emeth in St. Louis for 32 years.


1862: The New York Times reported that at Harper's Ferry Provost-Marshal Howe has “seized a gang of counterfeiters and one hundred and thirty gallons of whisky, and turned out fifty-eight Jew traders during the last week.”


1857: Birthdate of Konrad Haebler the German born linguist and librarian whose works included studies on early Hebrew printers and Hebrew books.


1860: Two days after he had passed away, London native Edward Salamon, the husband of Henrietta Levien with whom he had seven children, was buried today at the “Rockwood Cemetery, Rockwood, New South Wales, Australia


1860: In McGregor, IA, the town’s first Jewish settler, “Mr. B. Strauss, a prosperous and prominent citizen” “was one of the founders and a charter member of Clayton Chapter No. 27” of the Masons which was “organized” today.


1861:  Second Lieutenant Isaac B. Kauffman who would die in 1862 of wounds sustained at Moore’s Hill, KY, began his service with Company H of the 92nd Regiment of the Ninth Cavalry.


1863: When the Superior Court heard the case of Richard Escott vs. John J. Crane et al a civil suit involving an opera company and whether it had performed at the level expected “a gentleman of the Hebrew persuasion, experienced in music and old clothes, enlightened the jurors in regard to the value of the wardrobe and voices of the members of the troupe, all of which he pronounced to be second class. While Jews could be maligned as “Chatham Street peddlers,” they also could be called as “expert witnesses” in breach of contract litigation.


1863: “The New Jewish Orphan Asylum” published today described the efforts to build a new Jewish Orphan Asylum in New York which “has been constructed under the auspices of the Hebrew Benevolent Society, into which the German Hebrew Benevolent Society was merged in 1859.” Construction of the asylum, which is almost completed, began in August of 1862 and the cornerstone was laid on September 30 of that year.  The building is located on 77thStreet and can accommodate 200 orphans.  The fifty thousand dollars required to construct the asylum was raised by the Building Committee whose membership included Messrs. M. Rossman, Philip Frankenheimer, Samuel Hackes, Jacob Goldsmith, Henry Lewis, H.B. Herts, Jr., S.M. Cohen, M. Cooper, W. Heller and Seligman Adler. The pride felt by the Jewish community can be seen when looks above the doorway and sees an arched slab bearing the inscription, "Hebrew Orphan Asylum;" and in the centers of each of the projecting gables is a Mogen David, or David's shield, of double triangles, with the date "1862"


1863: During the Civil War, the 15th Kentucky Cavalry that had been formed a year ago under the command Lt. Col. Gabriel Netter, a Jewish supporter of the Union, was mustered out of service.


1864(29th of Tishrei, 5625): Sixty-three year old Simcha Pinkser the orientalist who deciphered the Karaite Manuscripts belonging to Abraham Firkowitz  and who was the father of Judah Leib Pinsker passed away today in Odessa, Russi


1865: In Philadelphia, the Independent Order of Free Sons Israel organized the Ephraim Lodge – the third lodge formed in the City of Brotherly Love this year – today.


1872: In Brussels, a meeting is scheduled to be held today in local synagogue that will discuss ways of dealing with the plight of the oppressed Jews of Romania.  The Israelite Alliance in Berlin had called for such a meeting which has attracted delegated from Belgium, Great Britain, German, Holland, France and Austria.  Among those attending are Sir Moses Montefiore and Adolphe Crémieux. Among the proposed solutions would be support for wholesale immigration of Romanian Jews to “civilized countries.”


1874: “A protocol was signed between the United States and the Sublime Porte allowing Americans to acquire legal title to land in Palestine.”


1874: Birthdate of St. Louis native and American Orientalist William Popper who earned his Ph.D. at Columbia under Dr. Richard Gotthel and was the wife of Tess Magness, the sister of Dr. Judah L. Magness.



1875(30th of Tishrei, 5636): Rosh Chodesh Chesvan


1875(30th of Tishrei, 5636): Marks Abrams passed away today after which he was buried in the Tree of Life Cemetery in Sharpsburg, PA.


1875: It was reported that John Morrisey, the anti-Tammany Hall candidate for the New York State Senate had addressed a crowd of more than 400 people “at the head-quarters of the Hebrew Ant-Tammany Club of the Fourth Senatorial District.”  [In the rough and tumble world of New York City politics, Jews could be found supporting the Tammany Democratic Party Machine and opposing it.  Some like Morrisey who was Irish, began as Tammany supporters and then switched to other side. The important thing is that Jews were involved in all aspects of the political process which is one of the things that separates the American Jewish Experience from the earlier history of the Wandering Jews.]


1879: In New York City, the Commissioners of Emigration received a letter from the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society offering to provide for the Curriak children, the offspring of Polish Jew who has already arrived in the United States.  While the oldest boy is now with his father, the other children are so covered with sore that the medical authorities at Castle Garden said it will take two months to cure them. [This was one of the first public acts by the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society which had been formed in September of 1879.  The officers and workers were all Jewish women; most of whom might be called Uptown Jews.  The Society had been formed to protect the poor Jewish children of the city, many of whose parents could not provide them with the basics of life.]


1879:  Birthdate Lev Davidovich who gained fame as LeonTrotsky the Communist leader who turned his back on the Jewish people and became the number two man in the Bolshevik Revolution.  As the father of the Red Army he saved the Communists from defeat by invading armies as well as the Whites who supported the Czar.  Trostky would lose out in to Stalin for the role as Lenin’s successor.  He would be forced to flee the Soviet Union ending up in Mexico where Stalin would have him murdered in 1940.


1880: Birthdate of Soviet physicist Abram Ioffe.


1881: Birthdate of Vilna native Arthur Lyon Malkenson, who in 1896 came to the United States in 1896 where he graduated from CCNY and earned a laws degree from NYU after which he pursued a care in journalism which led to him serving as “president and publisher of “The Jewish Morning Journal” while raising a family of five children with his wife “Freda Friedkin Malenson.”


1881: Justice Flammer is scheduled to hear more evidence in the case of Mrs. Amelia Goldberg who claims that she is the wife of John A. Goldberg.  The destitute Mrs. Goldberg was found wandering the streets. John Goldberg, a successful businessman from England said he had been married to her but that he had received a divorce decree from a rabbinic court in UK based on charges of adultery


1881: It was reported today that “no Conservative or Anti-Semitic candidate received enough votes” in the first round of voting for members of the Reichstag to advance to the second ballot.  Herr Ernst “Henrici, the notorious Jew-baiter, only received 800 votes out of a possible 40,000 votes.


1882: “Wished To Buy Heavenly Bliss” published today recounts the case of Harris Udovitch and Louis Cohen, two Jews living in Troy, NY.  Udovitch has been jailed on charges having struck Cohen’s wife during a dispute stemming from “Cohen’s refusal to sell his credit with heaven to Udovitch for $150.”  The term “credit with heaven” is normally interpreted to mean “Good deeds that buy the future world.”  There are some “ignorant orthodox Jews” who believe they can “buy the benefits of another man’s good deeds.”


1883: It was reported today that in the last 17 months the Board of Relief of the United Hebrew Charities have provided assistance to 12,000 individuals.  The organization has helped 1.047 settle in other parts of the United States at a cost of $8,247.26 and spent $3,413.13 to bury 450 individuals.


1883: “Cohen and Aaron” published today described recent events in a London courtroom where Lewis Cohen convinced a judge to excuse him from serving on a Coroner’s Jury because “he was a lineal descendant of the original Aaron, the great high priest of the Jews. While the Judge offered no explanation as to why he believed the claim, concern has been expressed that Jews in England and the United States will invoke this claim as a way to avoid all forms of public service.


1884:  Birthdate of Fred Lazarus, Jr. The grandson of a rabbi who began a small retail establishment in pre-Civil War Cincinnati, Lazarus parlayed his family’s commercial ventures into the retail giant known as Federated Department Stores.  The only Jew who had a greater impact on the celebration of Christmas in the United Statesthan Fred Lazarus, Jr. would have been Jesus himself. During the Great Depression, he convinced President Franklin Roosevelt that changing the Thanksgiving holiday from the last Thursday of November to the fourth Thursday, extending the Christmas shopping season, would be good for the nation's business. A 1941 Act of Congress perpetuated the arrangement. No other Jew besides Jesus may have had as big an impact on the celebration of Christmas as did Lazarus may have had the biggest impact on the Christmas  This American merchandiser and philanthropist passed away in May, 1973.


1885: The annual meeting of the United Hebrew Charities of the City of New York took place tonight at 58 St. Mark’s Place.


1886: It was reported today that Henry George, the social reformer and author of a “single tax plan” delivered a lecture on “Moses” to a group of Jewish supporters.


1888: The meeting of the United Hebrew Charities of New York was held at Temple Emanu-El tonight.


1888: “The Glory of the Jew” published today described a lecture by Rabbi Leon Harrison at Temple Israel where his subject was “Is It A Misfortune to be a Jew?” --- which he answers in the negative since “according to Disraeli” the Jew is “the true conqueror of the world.”


1889: “A Splendid Exhibit” published today included a summary of the work of the United Hebrew Charities which showed “that the Hebrews of New York take commendable care of their worthy poor from the cradle to the grave.”


1889: George B. Herzig presided over a meeting of the Alumni Association of Ahavath Chesed, located at 55th Street and Lexington Avenue.


1889: Sir Julian Goldsmid, the prominent Anglo-Jewish leader, was the center of attention at a dinner held in his honor at Delmonico’s in New York City.


1889: “The Broadway Theatre” published today provided a review of new production of “The Merchant of Venice” starring Edwin Booth as Shylock.  “Booth’s Shylock is a well-known performance of the character and the best that this generation has seen or is likely to seek.” Shylock’s most famous scene centers around his encounter with Venetians and “here Booth depicts the conflicting passions of the Jew with greater force and mare variety of expression…than any other actor of our time.”


1890: It was reported today that given the “anti-Semtic feeling of the government and the public the existing regulations” aimed at the Jews “will be applied with the utmost vigor” while the nation awaits further anti-Semitic laws.


1891: At Temple Beth-El in New York, President Henry Rice, who is also Chairman of the Executive Committee, presided over the seventeenth annual meeting of the United Hebrew Charities which opened with him reading “the reports showing the work of the various departments of relief in 1891.”


1891: As of today, the Russian Refugee Fund has grown from $28,000 to $58,000 of which $5,000 has been spent on bringing needy Russian Jews to the United States for whom the United Hebrew Charities has secured jobs.


1891: Hungarian Jewish immigrant Rose Stern and Charles Borach, New York saloon owners gave birth to their third child Fania Borach who gained fame as “Fanny Brice.” In 1908, she dropped out of school to work in a burlesque review. She is best known for her association with Florenz Ziegfeld, and headlined his Ziegfield Follies starting in 1910 and continuing into the 1930s. During the late 1930s, she had her own radio show which featured her as a bratty toddler known as "Baby Snooks".  The multitalented entertainer passed away in May of 1951.


1892: Abram L. Levy of the Hebrew World was elected vice president of Metropolitan Press Club which was formed by 14 young editors who gathered for the first time at parlor 22 of the New York Hotel.


1892 Birthdate of author Abraham Bernard Levy, the son of tailor from Hull (UK) whose works included In Search of East End,  The Sephardim: A problem of survival? and Friday night: A Jewish Chronicle anthology co-authored by William Frankel.


1892(8thof Cheshvan, 5653): Sixty-nine year old “Austrian historian” Gerson Wolf passed away today in Vienna.



1893: “The First Woman Rabbi” published today provided a portrait of Miss Rachel or Miss Ray Frank, the California native who is studying at Hebrew Union College who plans on “becoming the first woman rabbi in the world.”


1893: “Biblical Romance” published today provides a brief review of The Son of A Prophet in which George Anson Jackson develops a story that revolves around Eleazar Ben Shammah which portrays love as it was displayed “in the age of Solomon.”



1893: “A Memorial For Rebecca Gratz” published today described $100,000 bequest from the late Hyman Gratz to Congregation Mikve Israel in Philadelphia that is to be used “for the establishment and support for a college” to be operated by the Sephardic congregation in memory of his sister Rebecca Gratz.


1893: It was reported today that Charles Frohman, the Jewish impresario, has canceled any further performances of “The Younger Son” which opened last week.


1893: In San Francisco, “Rosalie Meyer and Sigmund Stern,” “the president of Levi Strauss and Co. and nephew of Levi Strauss gave birth Elsie Stern who became Elsie Haas, when she “married Walter Abraham Strauss, the President of Levi Strauss and Co. with whom she “had three children – Walter A. Jr, Peter and Wanda.


 
1893: Richard Mansfield’s portrayal of Shylock in the Merchant of Venice appearing at Hermman’s in New York is described by reviewers as “one of his most artistic efforts” and “assuredly” one of his most “popular.”  (The role of Shylock became one of Mansfield’s signature Shakesperian character portrayals.)



1894: The anti-Semitic newspaper La Libre Parole appeared with the headline: “Arrest of the Jewish Officer A. Dreyfus.  The editor of the paper, Edouard Drumont, would fill subsequent editions of the paper with lurid “facts” detailing the “confirmed evidence against the Jewish traitor.” 


1894: Rabbi Kaufmann Kohler opened tonight’s meeting of the United Hebrew Charities with a prayer followed by an address by Henry Rice, the president of the organization which was celebrating its 20th anniversary. The high point of the evening was an address by Seth Low, the President of Columbia who would eventually be elected Mayor of New York City.


1894: The first “open meeting” of the Monte Relief Society, an organization designed to aid poor Jews was held tonight at the Terrace Garden.


1894: Major Mercier du Paty de Clam showed “the entire text of the bordereau to Dreyfus, and then he made him copy it” which the accused to deny that the document was a product of his handwriting.”


1896(22nd of Cheshvan, 5657): Twenty year old Abraham L. Fox who like his mother Ernestine Fox suffered from consumption passed away today at his home on Madison Avenue in Manhattan.


1898:The Zionist Delegation sets out for Jerusalem.


1898: “More Help For Dreyfus” published described the public response to Alphonse Bard’s “report to the Court of Cassation” with some saying the report “clearly set forth the truth and proved the innocence of Dreyfus” while others insist that the report was merely a pleading in favor of the prisoner.”


1898: “Outside a small Rothschild funded Jewish agricultural settlement, Herzl publicly awaited the Kaiser on his way to Jerusalem. The Kaiser’s and his cortege stopped to speak briefly with Herzl. It was the first public acknowledgement of Herzl as the leader of the world Zionist movement by a major European power.”


1902: Herzl's health deteriorates. After the Annual Conference, Herzl finds himself in a state of collapse, incapable of writing a single line. He reports himself sick to the office of the Neue Freie Presse and goes for a rest cure to Edlach a little village at the foot of the Rax Alpes, south of Vienna.


1903: Birthdate of Alexander Steiner the Hungarian Jewish grain merchant who was the husband of Klara Fejer and the father of Agnes Leah Steiner who survived the Holocaust and made Aliyah in 1949.


1903: Three one-act plays by Arthur Schnitzler – “the Last Masks,” “At the Sign of the Green Parrot” and “Literature” – were performed tonight at the German theatre in Irving Place (NYC).


1903(8th of Cheshvan, 5664):Hillel Noah Maggid, “a Russian-Jewish genealogist and historian who was the author of a biography of David Oppenheim, the rabbi of Prague,” passed away today.


1905: A day after the Czar issued “the famous manifesto proclaiming freed of speech, press and person: a “pogrom or slaughter of Jews broke out more than 200 places in Russia” including Odessa.


1906: In Lüdenscheid, Germany Hermann Süskind and Frieda Kessler gave birth to Walter Süskind, “a German Jew of Dutch parents who helped about 600 Jewish children escape the Holocaust.”



 


1908: Birthdate of Sara Katz


1909: Alliance Israelite Universelle makes representation to the French legislation over the hardships suffered by the Jews of Fez. 


1910: “In St. John’ Wood, in north west London,” Reine Citroën, a member of a Dutch-Jewish family who founded the Citroën car company in France” and “Jules Ayer, a Swiss Calvinist financier who worked for the Rothschild family gave birth to philosopher and author “Sir Alfred Jules ‘Freddie’ Ayer also known as A.J. Ayer.”



1910: Ten men and two women established Degania Alef, the first Kibbutz on the shore of the Lake Kinneret (Sea of Galilee).


1911: Joseph Pulitzer passes away. The life of this Hungarian born Jew who served in the Union Cavalry during the Civil War, reminds one of a colorful novel more than the life of an American newspaperman who built what we would call today a media empire.  After his death in Charleston, SC, his estate funded the Pulitzer Prizes which honor excellence in journalism and other field of culture and art.


1912:  Oscar Straus who is running for governor of New York on the Bull Moose Ticket (the party of Teddy Roosevelt) announced that he will spend the last four days campaigning on New York’s East Side and Brooklyn.


1912: In Rotterdam, “Luis Fuld, a merchant in occasional goods” and his wife gave birth to Yiddish songster Lazarus “Leo” Fuld.




1913:Birthdate of Oliver Louis Zangwill, an influential British neuropsychologist who was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1977.


1914: In Bucharest, “Mihail Schapira a successful businessman and financial advisor to King Carol II of Romania and “his Viennese wife, Marianne Strate-Felber” gave birth to Ileana Schapira who gained fame as “Ileana Sonnabend…one of the most formidable contemporary art dealers of her time.” (As reported by Roberta Smith)



1914: “Austria Feeling War’s Disasters” published today described the reverses suffered by the Austro-Hungarians which, among other things, has resulted a wave of refugees arriving in Vienna including a large contingent of Jews from Galicia which “further complicates the life of the city.”


1914: “Addressing the members of the United Charities at their annual at Temple EmanupEl tonight, Jacob H. Schiff asserted that thousands and thousands of Jews in New York were ‘dodging’ their duty’ toward the poor and suffering in this city while contributing liberally to funds for the relief of war sufferers in Europe.”


1915: Birthdate of Dr. William Berenberg, an American physician, Harvard professor, and pioneer in the treatment and rehabilitation of and cerebral palsy.  He was a member of the Board Of Advisors of New England Sinai Hospital Center when he passed away in 1995.


1915: “Jews’ Problem Now Bitter” published today concluded with Rabbi De Sola Pool’s conclusion that “the war has intensified conditions among the Jews in Europe.  Such conditions are bound to exist as long as the Jews are in a minority, refusing to be assimilated. War has made the Jewish problem more bitter.”


1915: Jacob H. Schiff, he longtime President of the Young Men’s Hebrew Association was quoted today as having said “We Jews have to choose whether we want to be Jewish-American or American Jews; and God forbid that we permit a hyphen to be placed between and America.  God forbid that it be said that the Jews form a group by themselves.  We want to be united as Jews but by our religion only.”


1916(2nd of Cheshvan, 5677): Sixty-six year old Maurice Ephrussi the French banker and Thoroughbred breeder passed away today.


1916: “The Joint Distribution Committee of the various Jewish relief funds has received to date more than $6,055,000.”


1916: Among the contributions received by the Central Committee for the Relief of Jews Suffering Through the War were $39 from Rabbi J.N. Rosenberg, $150 from the Canada Jewish Alliance and $122 from Congregation Ohav Shalom in Williamsport, PA.


1916: It was reported today that as soon as Dr. Judah Magnes returns from Europe, a mass meeting will be held at Carnegie Hall where he will deliver an eyewitness account of the suffering of the Jews in the war zones and a campaign to raise ten million dollars to relieve their suffering will be started.


1916: In “Dernburg Tells Germany U.S. Is Changing” published today Dr. Bernhard Dernburg who was raised as a Lutheran since his father had converted from Judaism described the growing gulf between his country and the United States including the belief uttered by former President Teddy Roosevelt that in 1910 he had been in Berlin where “he had been allowed by the German General Staff to see plans for an attack on the United States.”


1917: It was reported today that the Jewish Board for Welfare Work in the United States Army, chaired by Colonel Harry Cutler and located at 31 Union Square West in New York City” is waging “an aggressive campaign” to raise one million dollars to help meet the welfare of troops serving at home and abroad.


1917: It was reported today that at a meeting of Jewish leaders being held at the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue “a resolution was passed pledging to President Wilson the undivided support of the Jewish communities…”


1918(23rd of Cheshvan, 5679): Twelve days before the end of World War I, Lt. Henry Brown of Detroit, Michigan “who was repeatedly for bravery” while under fire died today in France.


1918: Birthdate of Bernard Gordon, an American writer and producer who was a victim of Hollywood’s blacklist.


1918: “In the House of Commons, Mr. Bonar Law, in answer to a question by Major Gly declares that no final statement in regard to the future Government administration of Syria and Palestine can be made now” and that “the settlement of the future of these territories rest with the Peace Conference.”


1919: Birthdate of Dorothy Dorfman, eldest daughter of Vera and Nathan Dorfman, a proud graduate of the University of Chicago who become Deborah Levin, wife of Joseph Levin


1919: In Chicago, Morton David Cahn, the “son of Joseph and Miriam Cahn” and his wife “Julia Elizabeth Cahn” gave birth to Julius Hofeller Cahn


1920: Premiere of “The Golem: How He Came Into the World” a silent movie filmed by cinematographer Karl Freund that “begins with Rabbi Loew” in the Jewish ghetto of Prague.


1920: It was reported today that Rabbi Israel J. Sarasohn, a native of Worcester, Massachusetts and graduate of Clarke University who served as a chaplain during the World War and has been leading a congregation in Augusta, GA, has been retained to lead a congregation in Cumberland, MD.


1920: Birthdate of “Dr. Baruj Benacerraf, an immunologist who received a Nobel Prize for his groundbreaking work in exploring why diseases like multiple sclerosis affect some people but not others…”  Born in Caracas, Venezuela, he was the son of Sephardic Jews. His father, born in Morocco, was a textile importer; his mother, born in Algeria, was a homemaker. (As reported by Denise Gellene)


1922:Isa Kremer made her United States debut at Carnegie Hall in NYC.


1923: “The Ancient Law” a silent film directed by E.A. Dupont was released today in Germany.


1923: In Vienna, Samuel Djerassi, a dermatologist and specialist in sexually transmitted diseases and Alice Friedmann, a Viennese dentist and physician” gave birth to “Carl Djerassi an Austrian-born Bulgarian-American chemist, novelist, and playwright best known for his contribution to the development of oral contraceptive pills.”



1924: Liberal MP Edward Lessing lost his seat in the General Election held today in the United Kingdom.


1925: In Poland, “Issachar Feiner, a chocolate salesman, and Rivka Herzberg, a housewife” gave birth to Haim Feiner who would gain fame Israeli songwriter, poet and author Haim Hefer.



1925: Birthdate of Klaus Roth German-born British mathematician who was awarded the Fields Medal in 1958. His major work has been in number theory, particularly the analytic theory of numbers. He solved in the famous Thue-Siegel problem (1955) concerning the approximation to algebraic numbers by rational numbers (for which he won the medal). Roth also proved in 1952 that a sequence with no three numbers in arithmetic progression has zero density (a conjecture of Erdös and Turán of 1935).


1926: Dr. Chaim Weismann, President of the World Zionist Organization arrived in New York tonight from England on the Cunard line Berengaria. His was on a mission to gain support from American Jews for the creation of a Jewish Home in Palestine.


1927: “The Forbidden Woman,” a silent film directed by Paul Stein was released today in the United States.


1927: Middleweight Seymour “Cy” Schindel fought his 14th bout in Brooklyn which he won.


1927: “The Famous Woman” the cinematic treatment of a play by Hungarian author Melichor Lengyel who also wrote the screenplay, directed by Robert Wiene and produced by Josef Somlo and Arnold Pressburger was released in Germany today.


1927(3rdof Cheshvan, 5688): Bertha Schwimmer, the widow of Max Schwimmer and the mother of pacifist leader Rosika Schwimmer passed away today.


1927(3rd of Cheshvan, 5688): Forty-five year old German mathematician and philosopher who was a co-founder of The Internationaler Sozialistischer Kampfbund ("International Socialist Militant League") passed away today.


1928: Birthdate of Sherwin H. Raiken, the right handed guard for Villanova and the New York Knicks.



1928: Lord Melchett, who was a Jewish businessman named Alfred Moritz Mond appeared on the cover of today’s Time magazine.


1929: Major Alan Saunders, the man who had served as acting commandant of police at the times of riots spent six hours on the witness stand answering question before the British Commission of Inquiry investigating the riots at the Western Wall.  He was questioned about the lack of preparation by the police and the decision to disarm British-Jewish constables in the face of threatening behavior by the Arab population.


1929:  On "Black Tuesday," the New York Stock Market crashed, triggering the "Great Depression."  Like millions of their countrymen, the Jews suffered great financial hardships.  Many newly arrived immigrants who were just beginning to make progress up the economic ladder found themselves on relief.  As the economy soured, social unrest increased and there was a rise in various forms of anti-Semitism.  The coming of the New Deal would prove a boon to many Jews.  Besides providing relief through a variety of federal programs, the New Deal opened up career opportunities for many newly educated first-generation American Jews.  For example, many young lawyers and accountants who found themselves locked out of the Christian only banks and law firms got their first jobs and gained valuable career experience working for the myriad of new federal agencies.  These men (yes most of them were men) went to become part of a core of dedicated civil servants who really served the public good. 


1929: Jewish financier Felix Warburg and Lord Melchett, each donated five hundred thousand dollars to start a financial concern aimed at helping development in Palestine.


1932: Birthdate of Charlotte Knoblock, president of Germany’s Jewish community and one of only about 100 surviving Munich residents who returned to the city after World War II.


1932: In a letter to Louis Strauss, President Herbert Hoover reaffirms support for the Balfour Declaration on the 15th anniversary of the issuance of this seminal document in Jewish History.


On the occasion of your celebration of the 15th Anniversary of the Balfour Declaration, which received the unanimous approval of both Houses of Congress by the adoption of the Lodge-Fish resolution in 1922, I wish to express the hope that the ideal of the establishment of the National Jewish Home in Palestine, as embodied in that Declaration, will continue to prosper for the good of all the people inhabiting the Holy Land. I have watched with genuine admiration the steady and unmistakable Progress made in the rehabilitation of Palestine which, desolate for centuries, is now renewing its youth and vitality through the enthusiasm, hard work and self-sacrifice of the Jewish pioneers who toil there in a spirit of peace and social justice. It is very gratifying to note that many American Jews, Zionists as well as non-Zionists, have rendered such splendid service to this cause which merits the sympathy and moral encouragement of everyone.


1936:”Ladies in Love,” a romantic comedy featuring Simone Simon, Paul Lukas and J. Edward Bromberg was released in the United States today.


1936(13thof Cheshvan, 5697): Eighty-one year old “Joseph Proskauer, the Richmond born son of  John and Adelaide Proskauer, the husband of Bertha Richman Proskauer, and brother-in-law of educator Julia Richman who was the president of William C. Popper and Co. a printing and lithographing firm passed away today in New York.



1936: Geoffrey Lloyd, Under-Secretary in the Home Office told the House of Commons today that “Fascist anti-Jewish disorders in London’s East End are decreasing.”


1936: “The Palestine Foundation Fund spent $28,405,00o for Jewish colonization and reconstruction activities from June, 1920 to June, 1936 according to a report submitted” tonight “at the annual meeting of the American Palestine Campaign in the Hotel Astor” “read by Louis Lipsky, chairman of the board of the directors who is also a national chairman of the United Palestine Appeal.


1937: The Palestine Post reported that the High Commissioner, General Sir Arthur Wauchope, announced his wish to retire from office.  


1937: The Times of London claimed that the present Arab disturbances were inspired by secret societies in Syria. The newspaper endorsed the appeal of the former Prime Minister, David Lloyd George, who asked Britainto carry on the good work of historic justice in Palestine and to keep the Mandate.


1937: Two Arab gun men fired on Jewish drainage workers who had been working at Herod’s Gate and were getting on a truck to go home.  One Jew was seriously wounded by the gunman who had climbed on to the truck.


1937: “Live, Love and Learn,” a comedy with a script by Richard Maibaum was released in the United States today.


1937: “Ali Baba Goes to Town” starring comedian Eddie Cantor was released in the United States today.


1937(24th of Cheshvan, 5698): Erev Shabbat, Aaron Alkabat, a 32 year old Jew from Morocco was shot to death and two other Jews were seriously wounded this evening when they were fired on as they returned from praying at the Western Wall.


1938: “Gehenna, a melodrama” directed by Michał Waszyński who converted to Roman Catholicism and written by Anatol Stern was released today in Poland.


1938: “You Can't Take It with You,” a comedic play in three acts by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart which had premiered at the Booth Theatre in 1936 was performed for the last time at the Imperial Theatre before continuing its Broadway run at the Ambassador Theatre.


1938: Passports of Polish citizens “not revalidated by today would no longer entitle the bearers to return to Poland”; a fact which the German government had used as an for arresting Polish Jews living in Germany two days before so they could be expelled from the Reich.


1939: Birthdate of Australian barrister Aaron Ronald “Ron Castan” whose human rights advocacy resulted in the creation of The Castan Centre for Human Rights Law at Monash University which named in honor of Sir John Monash the Jewish engineer who was the country’s leading soldier in WW I.


1939: Birthdate of Ralph Bakshi. Born in Haifa, Bakshi is a director of animation and occasionally live-action films. As the American animation industry fell into decline during the 1960’s and 1970’s Bakshi tried to bring change to the industry by creating and directing a number of animated feature films that were aimed at adults instead of children. His most famous effort centered Fritz the Cat, the first animated feature film to get an X- Rating.  Bakshi is also reported to be the inspiration for the Comic Book Guy, a character in the weekly cartoon program, The Simpsons.


1941(8th of Cheshvan, 5702): The SS and Lithuanian police carried out the brutal massacre of those Kovno Jews who were not "selected" the prior day for work. In groups of a hundred, Jews were stripped naked, marched to the edge of ditches, and then fired upon. Most were killed instantly. Many were left to die slowly of their wounds. Einsatskommando reported the killing of 2,008 men, 2,920 women and 4,257 children.


1941: “Let’s Face It” a musical with a by Herbert and Dorothy Fields starring Danny Kaye opened on Broadway today at the Imperial Theatre.


1942(18th of Cheshvan, 5703: Eliyahu Rozanski of the Jewish Fighting Organization assassinates Jakub Lejkin, the new commander of the Jewish police in the Warsaw ghetto. Soon after an additional 13 Jewish police who were very involved with the Warsaw actions of the summer were also killed.  The Jewish resistance movements and many others in the ghettos viewed the ghetto police as loathsome collaborators.  From their point of view, the police were doing the work of the Nazis.  They were herding others off to the death camps in a deluded belief that somehow they and their loved ones could avoid the same fate.  While the idea of one Jew killing another Jew may seem troublesome from the distance of six decades, those who were not there have no right to judge those who were in hell we cannot even begin to imagine.


1942: Written comments by Winston Churchill excoriating Germanyfor the systematic extermination of European Jews are read at a London protest meeting chaired by the archbishop of Canterbury.


1942(18th of Cheshvan, 5703: The Nazis murdered 3230 thousand Jews from Sandomierz, Poland at the Belzec extermination camp.


1942(18th of Cheshvan, 5703: The Nazis killed 16,000 Jews in Pinsk, Russia.


1942: Leading clergymen, including the Archbishop of Canterbury, and political figures held a public meeting to register outrage over Nazi Germany's persecution of Jews.  This expression of outrage did not include a meaningful demand that the British government lift the ban on Jewish immigration to Eretz Israel.  This would have meant that Jews who escaped from Nazi control would have a place of refuge.


1943: “Flesh and Fantasy” a cinematic trilogy starring Edward G. Robinson and music by Alexandre Tansman was released today in the United States.


1944: The Big Red One, the U.S. Army’s fabled First Infantry Division, took an added distinction.  One of its GI’s, Private Max Fuchs who had been fighting since he hit the beaches of Normandy on D-Day, served as the volunteer cantor for a brief service held at Aachen, Germany.  The service which was broadcast live by NBC radio, was billed as the first public Jewish service to be held on German soil since the rise of Hitler. Captain Sydney Lefkowitz, a Chaplain who had also been fighting since landing on Omaha Bulge, served as the Rabbi.






1944: Agnes Steiner, who had been living in “a Jewish safe house in Budapest was sent by her grandfather to live at the Red Cross Children’s home in Buda on Orso Utca because he feared for her safety.


1944(12thof Cheshvan, 5705): Fifty-five year old German actor and movie star Otto Wallburg “who was wounded on the Eastern Front after winning an Iron Cross” whose attempts to escape the Nazis were thwarted was murdered today at Auschwitz.


1945: The first ballpoint pen went on sale at that Jewish emporium, New York’s Gimbels Department Store.


1945: Anna Rosenberg became the first woman to receive the Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award offered by the United States. In 1947 she would be the first woman to be awarded the United States Medal for Merit. In 1950 she was appointed Assistant Secretary of Defense, the highest position ever held up until that time by a woman in the United States military establishment. Her main task as Assistant Secretary of Defense was to coordinate the Defense Department's manpower, which had been divided among many different agencies. In the 1930s Rosenberg served in the New Deal administration as a regional director for the National Recovery Administration (1935) and on the Social Security Board (1936-1943), becoming a trusted advisor to both Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman. She also advised and coordinated several Democratic congressional campaigns. Before being appointed Assistant Secretary of Defense, she was President Roosevelt's personal assistant in Europe. She has been acclaimed for her talents as a labor mediator, diplomat, adviser, troubleshooter, and administrator. She was also involved in many Jewish causes, including serving as the director of the Women's Division of the Joint Distribution Committee and the Federation of Jewish Philanthropies. (Jewish Women’s Archives)



1946: “Jameal el Husseini, acting head of the Arab Executive Committee of Palestine…denied reports that the committee intended to demand that King Ibn Saud…cancel American oil rights in his kingdom as a result of President Truman’s reiterated support for substantial Jewish immigration to Palestine”



1946: British authorities held “Zionist extremists” responsible for destruction of an Army jeep that was blown up by an electrically detonated land mine in the Plain of Sharon north of Tel Aviv. Two soldiers were wounded as a result of the attack.



1947: Birthdate of actor Richard Dreyfuss who has enjoyed a long and successful career playing everything from college bound students, to police undercover agents to music teachers.


1947: While giving a speech in Tel Aviv tonight, “David Ben-Gurion, chairman of the Jewish Agency for Palestine said …that he had asked Sir Alan G. Cunningham, the British High Commissioner, for some preliminary arrangements to help the inhabitants of Palestine to carry on the administration prior to the British withdrawal but that the suggestion had been turned down as ‘premature.’”  In the same speech, the future Prime Minister of Israel said that he welcomed what he described as a recent statement of peace by King Abdullah of Trans-Jordan. [This speech was given exactly one month before the UN was to vote the issue of partition.  The British government was opposed to the creation of a Jewish state and they would provide aide to the Arab Palestinians but not to the Jewish Palestinians. Ben-Gurion’s comments about the King of Jordan were either disingenuous or wishful thinking.  Abdullah wanted Palestine and especially Jerusalem for his kingdom.  He offered the Jews protected status if they would just give up their notion of an independent state.]



1947: At a ceremony held on Mount Scopus that marks the opening of the academic year, Dr. Judah Magnes speaks out against the growing divisions in the society, and against the terrorism that had begun to divide Jew from Jew.


1948: Prior to the launch of Operation Hiram, tonight, Israeli aircraft flew 13 missions, dropping 21 tons on the villages whose capture was part of the goal of an operation intended to ensure that the upper Galilee would be in Jewish hands when the next UN ceasefire began.


1948: As part of Operation Hiram, the Israeli Seventh occupied Qaddita, Meirun, Safsaf and Jish.  The village of Safsaf was defended by the Arab Liberation Army's Second Yarmuk Battalion. The battle lasted through the night with both sides suffering serious casualties.


1948: Operation Hiram continues with a pitched battle at the strong of Jish which is the same place as Gush Halav where the Jews had fought the Romans 2000 years ago.  The difference is that this time the Jews are the victors.


1949: Emmanuel Roble’s French language play “Montserrot” which had been adapted for Broadway by Lillian Hellman opened in New York under Hellman’s direction


1949: “Lend An Ear” a musical revue featuring sketches by Joseph Stein that had opened on Broadway at the National Theatre, then moved to the Shubert Theatre where it was performed for the last time today prior to moving to another venue on Broadway.


1952: The Jerusalem Post’s editorial commented on the recent unrest of new immigrants in ma’abarot. While it was a pity that the current, mostly Communist agitation in camps turned the immigrants’ mind aside from the achievements of the government and the Jewish Agency in absorbing the massive immigration under difficult conditions, it was high time that the conscience of the entire Israeli people to be aroused to a nationwide effort to integrate the ma'abarot residents into the life of the country by a practical and abiding personal interest in their problems.  Ma'abarot was the name given to the large, temporary camps constructed for newcomers to Israel.  The first one was built in 1949 and hundreds more would be built to take care of the influx of immigrants.  They were obviously not a perfect solution but they were the best the struggling state could do under the circumstances.  Today there is a company that markets a variety of agricultural products including baby food and pet food under the name Macabre Products.



1955: Operated Egged, an attack on the Egyptian military post at Kuntilla in the Sinai came to an end.



1956: The Sinai Campaign known in Hebrew as the Mivtza Kadesh began. It lasted 8 days; it was coordinated with both France and England. The reasons for the war were twofold: The increased attacks on civilians by the Egyptian backed Fedayeen from Gazahad caused 1300 casualties in Israel. The second was the blockade of the Gulf of Aqabawhich denied the Red Sea shipping routes to Israeli ships or the ships of other nations that would be bring goods to Israel.   This meant that Israeli shipping was limited to Mediterranean ports which meant that Israeli’s economy was “breathing on one lunge.” The French and English on the other hand were concerned with Egypt’s decision to nationalize the Suez Canal. While Israel attacked Gaza and pushed into half of Sinai, the French and English secured the canal itself. On the Israeli side 171 people were killed with several hundred wounded. Under massive United Statesand Soviet pressure Israelwas forced to withdraw from the Sinai.  The campaign began with an audacious paratroop drop by Israeli forces at the Straits of Tiran which opened the Gulf of Aqabato Israeli shipping.  As Chief of Staff, Moshe Dayan masterminded the lightning campaign that swept across the Sinai Peninsula.  The man with eye patch became an international symbol for the “new Jew,” a resourceful fighter, the citizen soldier building and defending the ancient Jewish state.  The Suez Campaign actually lasted for about 100 hours.  The lightning quick victory gave rise to a number of jokes among comedians in the United States.  “Why did the fighting only take 100 hours?  The equipment was rented and the Jews had to get it back in time or they would lose their deposit.” 


1956: Four Israeli propeller-driven P-51 fighters cross into the Sinai.  Flying at 12 feet above the ground, they use their propellers to cut the telephone lines connecting the Egyptian air force and army communication centers. The Egyptians have the larger force.  It is well supplied by the Soviets with the latest in equipment.  But the Israelis have the “advantages” of audacity and desperation.  This was followed by a drop of less than 400 hundred paratroopers at the eastern end of the MitlaPass.The MitlaPass was the key to the Israeli advance across the Sinai.  Fortunately for the Israelis, the Egyptians were confused as to what was happening.  If they had moved aggressively at this moment, these future four hundred war heroes would have been POW or casualties and the Sinai Campaign would have been over before it started.  


1956: Border Police platoon shot and killed 48 unarmed Arab civilians in the village of Kafr Kasim east of Petah Tikvah because the residents were unknowingly in violation of a curfew imposed on the village due to the onset of the Sinai Campaign. The subsequent trial and conviction of the border policemen created a legal precedent that determined that certain military orders - such as those to shoot unarmed curfew violators - are so manifestly illegal that they must be disobeyed. The President of Israel apologizes publicly for this episode in a speech on December 21, 2007.


1956: “A regiment of paratroopers under the command of Rafael Eitan (Raful), lands near the eastern entrance of the Mitla Pass. The rest of the brigade forces move through the Sinai desert, capturing on their way several Egyptian strongholds after swift battles. Rafael Eitan's regiment deploys near the dropping zone and waits for the rest of the brigade to join.


1957(4th of Cheshvan, 5718): The MGMproducer and movie mogul Louis B. Mayer died at the age of 71. More than one person claimed to have attended Mayer’s funeral just to make sure he was dead.



1957: A blast from a hand grenade or a bomb in the Knesset wounded David Ben Gurion and four cabinet ministers. Moshe Carmel suffered a broken arm as a result of the attack.


1958: In Hackensack, NJ, “Barbara (Seigel), an art teacher, and Edward C. Remnick, a dentist” gave birth to New Yorker Magazine editor David Remnick who won the Pulitzer Prize in 1994 for Lenin’s Tomb: The Last Days of the Soviet Empire and who in 1987 married Esther Fein with whom he had three children – Alex, Noah and Natasha.


 1960: “Wildcat,” the Cy Coleman (born Seymour Kaufman) opened in Philadelphia for a pre-Broadway run that earned it a “glowing review in Variety.”


1961(19thof Cheshvan, 5722): Seventy-one year old David J. Galter, “the editor of The Jewish Exponent from 1932 to 1952,” a columnist who “wrote under the pseudonym Baruch Haba” and the husband of Minnie Galter with whom he had two daughters passed away today in Philadelphia.



1963: Supreme Court Justice Arthur J. Goldberg, Senator Abraham Ribicoff and Senator Jacob Javits, met with Soviet Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin but failed to effect any policy changes after “challenge him regarding Moscow’s treatment of Jews.”


1964: “The Time Travelers,” a sci-fi flic produced by Iowa native Samuel Z. Arkoff and featuring an appearance by Steve Franken, the second cousin of Senator Al Franken,was released today in the United States.


1964: The town of Carmiel which is “twinned” with Baltimore, MD was established today.


1967: Expo 67, which featured “Habitat 67, or simply Habitat, a model community and housing complex in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, designed by Israeli/Canadian architect Moshe Safdie came to an end today.


1969 (17th of Cheshvan, 5730): Sixty-seven year old Chicago native and Chicago alum Meyer Aaron Perlstein who became a successful pediatrician passed away today.


1969: “The Secret of Santa Vittoria” a film version of the novel of the same name directed and produced by Stanley Kramer and with music by Ernest Gold was released today in the United States.


1970: The life of the great English sleuth is brought to the screen by two Jews as “The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes,” a creation of I.A.L. Diamond and Billy Wilder which premiered in the United States.


1971: In Olmstead County, Minnesota, Cynthia Palmer and Michael Horowitz gave birth to Winona Laura Horowitz who gained fame as actress Winona Ryder “who has described herself as Jewish.”


1972: “Nearly 8 weeks after the Munich Massacre, a Lufthansa jet was hijacked by two Black September members, who demanded the release of the three” surviving terrorists.


1972: Jamal Al-Gashey, Adnan Al-Gashey, and Mohammed Safady the 3 surviving Munich terrorists were released in exchange for the hostages onboard hijacked Lufthansa Flight 615 and travelled to Libya, where they went into hiding.


1974: Shlomo Hillel completed his Internal Affairs Minister of Israel.


1974: Yosef Burg began serving as Israel’s Internal Affairs Minister.


1976(5thof Cheshvan, 5737): Fifty-four year old Irving M. Cohen, the “President of the Fifth Avenue Card chain” founded by his father Isidore and the husband of Vera Cohen with whom he had two sons – Eugene and Arthur – lost his battle with cancer and passed away today.



1977(17thof Cheshvan, 5738): Parashat Vayera


1977(17thof Cheshvan, 5738): In one of those inexplicable tragedies, twelve year old Joshua Berman the son of Sarah and Shelley Berman passed away today.


1981: NBC broadcast the first episode of “Gimme A Break” a sitcom created by Mort Lachman and Sy Rosen and co-starring Jonathan Silverman.


1982: “Q” a “fantasy horror film directed, produced and written by Larry Cohen was released in the United States today.


1982: In Monmouth County, NJ, Rabbi Jerome Malino, the immediate past president of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, was the guest speaker at the formal dedication of the new sanctuary which was named in memory of Rabbi Aaron Lefkowitz.


1986: “Several months before his death,” Buddy Rich and his big band appeared for the last time on the Terry Wogan Show.


1987(6thof Cheshvan, 5748): World War I Veteran and Medal of Honor Winner Phillip Carl Katz passed away.


1990(10thof Cheshvan, 5751): Seventy-seven year old producer Herbert Brodkin whose career encompassed the “golden television” when he gave us such quality dramatic programs as “Playhouse 90” passed away today.(As reported by Eleanor Blau)



1993(14th of Cheshvan, 5754):Chaim Mizrahi, resident of Beit-El, was kidnapped by three terrorists from a poultry farm near Ramallah. He was murdered and his body burned. Three Fatah members were later convicted of the murder


1993(14thof Cheshvan, 5754): Seventy nine year old Lativan-American mathematician Lipman Bers passed away in New Rochelle, America.



1993: “The Nightmare Before Christmas” starring Danny Elfman who also wrote the music was released today in the United States.


1998:Hurricane Mitch the most powerful hurricane of the 1998 Atlantic hurricane season makes landfall in Honduras.  (If you know the name of the guy who does this, you will understand how this storm rates a mention in a Jewish history blog.)


1998: Hamas claimed responsibility for the “1st Kfar Darom bombing.”


1998: “Susan’s Plan” directed by John Landis and featuring Rob Schneider and Lisa Edelstein “was screened at the AFI Film Festival” today.


2000: The New York Times book section features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or on topics of special Jewish interesting includingGhost Light: A Memoir by Frank Rich and Susan Sontag:The Making of an Icon by Carl Rollyson and Lisa Paddock.


2001: Funeral services are scheduled to be held for seventy-five year old Harry Gerard Bissinger this morning.


2001: “Adam Yauch of the Beastie Boys performed at the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York City” today.


2002: Random House published David Blaine's Mysterious Stranger: A Book of Magic


2004: “Palaces of Prayer, a new exhibit at the Angel Orensanz Foundation on New York’s Lower East Side, includes 70 superb color prints of synagogues that should convince even the most book-bound skeptic that Jews really do love to build, and have built very well when given the chance” opened today at the Angel Orensanz Center on Norfolk Street in New York City.


2004:In Toronto, Avi Lewis and Naomi Klein release a big screen documentary entitled “The Take.”


2004: At the Municipal Building in New York Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph E. Stiglitz married Anya Schiffrin of Columbia University.



2004:  Newspapers and sports programs continued to sing the praises of Theo Epstein, the young, Jewish, General Manager who played a key role in Boston Red Sox’s first World Series victory since 1918.


2006:Benjamin "Ben" Weider announced his retirement as President of the International Federation of BodyBuilders


2006: As the investigation into allegations of sexual harassment continued, Moshe Katsav was advised to step down from his position of President of Israel.


2006: The seventh International Poetry Festival opens at Jerusalem's Mishkenot Sha'ananim. with a reading of "Kol Koreh," accompanied by students from the Rimon School of Jazz. The artistic directors of the Jerusalem festival are the poet Agi Mishol and Prof. Ariel Hirschfeld.


2006: The Washington Post book section features Haim Watzman’s review of Prisoners: A Muslim and a Jew Across the Middle East Divide by Jeffrey Goldberg.


2006: The New York Times book section features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or on topics of special Jewish interesting includingJourney to a Revolution: A Personal Memoir and History of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 by Michael Korda and the paperback version Wickett’s Remedy by Myla Goldberg.


2007: The Bank Leumi hosts a West End Gala as part of the UK Jewish Film Festival sponsoring a showing of the The Band's Visit.


2007:Jon Entine discusses his new book, Abraham's Children: Race, Identity, and the DNA of the Chosen People, as part of a book forum at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C.


2007(17th of Cheshvan, 5768): St.-Sgt. Maj. (res.) Ehud Efrati, a 34-year-old father of three and the IDF's third casualty in Gazathis year, was killed in clashes with Palestinian gunmen near the Sufa Crossing in southern Gaza.


2007(17thof Cheshvan, 5768): Sixty-six year old Israeli comedian and actor Yisrael "Poli" Poliakov who was a member of “HaGashash HaHiver” passed away today


2007:Prime Minister Ehud Olmert announced he has been diagnosed with prostate cancer.


2007(17th of Cheshvan, 5768): Israel “Poli” Poliakov, actor, singer and member of the legendary comedy trio Hagashash Hahiver (The Pale Scout) died of cancer at Petah Tivkva’s Rabin Medical-Beilinson Campus at the age of 66.


2008: In Montreal, the demolition of Bens De Lux Delicatessen & Restaurant continued as the “vertical red Bens sign that was visible for several blocks, was taken down.”


2008:The "Nextbook" series and the D.C. Jewish Community Center present a reading and discussion with Israeli writer David Grossman, author of The Yellow Wind, the novel Someone to Run Withand the newly-published Writing in the Dark: Essays on Literature and Politics, at AmericanUniversity, in Washington, D.C.


2008: “The First Basket,” a documentary about Jews and basketball opens in New York City.www.thefirstbasket.com.


2008: The Twenty-Third Israel Film Festival opens in New Yorkwith a gala event at the Ziegfeld Theater featuring the US premiere of the film "Lost Islands” the biggest Box Office Success in Israel in 2008.


2008(30th of Tishrei, 5769): Rosh Chodesh Cheshvan


2008:Agriprocessors, the largest kosher meat company in the country until recently, has been hit with nearly $10 million in fines for withholding workers’ wages..


2008: The 2008 Chicago Festival of Israeli Film opens tonight with the debut screening of "Waves Of Freedom." 


2008:Plans for a Jerusalem museum dedicated to tolerance and coexistence got the final go-ahead to from Israel's Supreme Court, which rejected an appeal by Muslims who complained the site covers part of an ancient Muslim cemetery.


2009: David Sax comes to Manny’s Deli in Chicago to discuss the fate of Jewish delicatessen and promote his new book Save the Deli: In Search of Perfect Pastrami, Crusty Rye, and the Heart of Jewish Delicatessen.  One question that might come up is can a Jewish delicatessen really be Jewish if it is not Kosher?


2009:The Greater Washington Council of NA'AMAT USA is hosting its Annual Book and Author Luncheon at Temple Emanuel in Kensington Md., featuring journalist Naftali Bendavid, author of "The Thumpin': How Rahm Emanuel and the Democrats Learned to Be Ruthless and Ended the Republican Revolution," Barbara Graham, editor of "Eye of My Heart: 27 Writers Reveal the Hidden Pleasures and Perils of Being a Grandmother" and Washington Post writer Steve Luxenberg, author of the memoir "Annie's Ghosts: A Journey Into a Family Secret."


2009: In Houston, TX, Heroes & Legacies presents a Kinky Friedman Cigar Event, featuring a visit by Texas’ greatest living Jewish iconoclast, Kinky Friedman.


2009: The New York Times featured a review of Eating:A Memoir by Jason Epstein


2009: Stephen Tobolowsky, the character actor best known for his portrayal of “Ned Ryerson” in “Groundhog Day” “started a new podcast on /Film called The Tobolowsky Files, where he tells stories, in a similar fashion to Tobolowsky's film Stephen Tobolowsky's Birthday Party.”


2010:Tamar Eisenman is scheduled to perform at the BAMcafe in Brooklyn NY


2010:Two packages addressed to Chicago-area synagogues containing explosive devices that were shipped from Yemen were intercepted today.  Officials have not yet identified the synagogues but they have said that “neither was addressed to the synagogue across the street from President Obama's Hyde Park home, where he is expected to spend part of the weekend while in Chicago.”


2010:The Jewish Museum in New York is opening a new exhibition, “Houdini: Art and Magic,” today and curator Brooke Kamin Rapaport says the entrance gallery will feature a replica stage projecting a life-size image of the great Jewish magician performing his water torture act. It's a new way to keep alive the memory of Houdini, joining an annual séance that seeks to contact the daring escape artist and a graveside ceremony for a man who was called “The World’s Handcuff King and Prison Breaker” and the “Justly World-Famous Self-Liberator.” Born Ehrich Weiss in Budapest, Hungary, in 1874, Houdini was the son of a rabbi who immigrated with his family to Wisconsin in 1878. “Coming to America, Houdini’s family faced a lot of the same issues that other Jewish immigrants faced, including anti-Semitism,” said Rapaport. “I never was ashamed to acknowledge that I was a Jew, and never will be,” Houdini is quoted as writing to a friend in the show’s sepia-toned and well-documented catalog. According to the exhibition wall text written by Rapaport, his escapes "had particular resonance for those who sought liberation from political, ethnic, or religious persecution.” Generally considered among the most famous magicians ever, Houdini died on Oct. 31, 1926, probably as a result of appendicitis compounded by a blow to the stomach. “He really was involved with the new media of this time. He was a savvy marketer,” said Rapaport while taking a short break from installing the more than 160 objects, including advertising posters and broadsides that Houdini used to promote his shows. Also on display will be works by artists influenced by Houdini and magic apparatus he made famous: handcuffs, shackles, a straitjacket, a milk can and a packing trunk, as well as a re-creation of the famous Water Torture Cell. Included, too, are everyday objects like those used in the East India Needle Threading Trick, where Houdini would swallow needles and thread before slowly pulling the line from his mouth with the needles threaded on it. As for October 31, Rapaport doesn’t expect anything unusual to happen. “You’ll be the first one to know,” the curator quipped. The Jewish Museum also will be presenting a panel discussion titled “Conjuring Houdini in the Popular Imagination.” Dorothy Dietrich, a magician who has appeared on stage and TV, will be among the panelists. Dietrich's Houdini-related expectations for Oct. 31? She'll be waiting for a sign. “At 1:26 p.m., the time when Houdini died, a group will sit around a table and join hands,” said Dietrich, who will function as the medium at a seance run by the Harry Houdini Museum in Scranton, Pa., where she is co-director. At the given moment, Dietrich will begin the seance by saying, “Houdini, if you are here, give us a sign.” "Houdini said that if he can’t escape from the other side, then no one can,” said Dietrich, who is known for having duplicated many of Houdini’s famous escapes. In recounting the history of the Houdini seance, Scranton museum co-director Dick Brookz explains that for 10 years after Houdini’s death, the magician’s wife, Bess, would hold a seance on Oct. 31. Once she stopped, the tradition was passed on to others. “Houdini spent his life debunking charlatans, exposing them on a regular basis,” Brookz said. Ever fearful that frauds would take advantage of his death, untimely or otherwise, Houdini provided his wife with a code to authenticate his return. "The code was based on 'Rosabelle Believe,'" Brookz related. "It was the name of a popular song of the time.” The museum's seance will be open to the public for a fee. “People can also try and contact Houdini that day, and e-mail us with a report,” Brookz said. The museum’s email address is magicus@comcast.net. The museum’s website advises “No kooks please, this is a serious seance test and seance tribute.” After Halloween, another participant on The Jewish Museum’s panel discussion, magician George Schindler will be among several magicians paying their respects at Houdini’s grave at the Machpelah Cemetery in the Queens borough of New York City. Houdini is interred there in a bronze casket created for his buried-alive stunt. Schindler, the dean of the Society of American Magicians, and the others at the cemetery will be remembering Houdini at a ceremony that includes Hebrew prayer. “We used to perform the ceremony on Halloween, but it became too much of a zoo," he said. "So we moved it to the Hebrew date of his death. This year the dates coincide, so we are doing it on the day he was buried, Nov. 4." Schindler and members of his society informally take care of the Houdini grave site. “We clean it up, clearing it of playing cards, handcuffs, coins,” he said. Schindler noted that in the "broken wand ceremony" the magicians hold for Houdini, the wand, broken in the silence of the cemetery, symbolizes the magician’s death. Houdini was concerned for the welfare of other magicians and performers, Schindler said, and toward that end he started an organization to help them and the Red Cross. Rabbis' Sons, as it was called, raised $8,000 to aid the Red Cross, according to a 1918 edition of The New York Times. Among its members: Al Jolson and Irving Berlin. “Upon his death, his wife, Bess, left $1,000 to the magicians’ society for a Houdini Fund,” Schindler said. The fund, now around $300,000, is used to support magicians who have fallen ill or who have been injured. It covers expenses not normally covered by insurance like wheelchairs, nurses and comfort assistance." Schindler recalled one last way of remembering Houdini. “At the graveside ceremony a rabbi is present," he said. "We say Kaddish.”


2010: Dwight Garner reviewed “Must You Go? My Life With Harold Pinter” Antonia Fraser’s fond and affecting new memoir of the late playwright with whom she spent the last decades of his life.


2011(1st of Cheshvan): Rosh Chodesh Cheshvan and Parshat Noach


2011: Nathan Abramoff is scheduled to be called to the Torah as a Bar Mitzvah at Agudas Achim in Iowa City, Iowa.


2011: The Best of Chamber Music – Woodwinds Fest featuring Esti Hfafa (flute) Tibi Zeiger (clarinet), Miki Zohar (oboe), Alon Reuven (horn) and Mauricio Paez (bassioon) is scheduled to take place at the Tamir Music Center, Ein Kerem-Jerusalem


2011: The Hyman S & Freda Bernstein Jewish Literary Festival is scheduled to present an evening with Ursula Hegi, whose newest novel “Children and Fire “is set in the fictional town of Burgdorf, Germany in the early days of the Third Reich”


2011: 55th anniversary of the Sinai Campaign, Israel’s first successful major military operation against an Arab state dedicated to her destruction.


2011: 67th anniversary of the broadcast of a Jewish service at Aachen, Germany which was described as the first Jewish service to be held publicly on German soil since the rise of Hitler. 



2011: The IAF struck an Islamic Jihad training camp today in southern Gaza Strip, killing a commander of the Palestinian faction and four of its munitions experts, officials on both sides said.


2011: Some 20 rockets and mortar shells were fired from Gaza into southern Israel today, killing one man and wounding four others.


2011:Some 20,000 people gathered tonight for a social protest at Rabin Square in Tel Aviv, almost two months after the largest protest in Israel's history took place. In Jerusalem, about 3,000 people gathered and 200 gathered in Rishon Letzion. The social protest in Be'er Sheva was canceled after the Home Front Command forbade public gatherings of more than 500 people, in light of the barrage of rockets being fired from the Gaza Strip toward southern Israel.


2012: Swedish Ambassador Hans Magnusson is scheduled to deliver a lecture entitled “Raoul Wallenberg, 100 years: will the riddle ever be solved?” at the Wiener Library in London.


2012: As Hurricane Sandy made its way up the East Coast of the United States the Jewish Federation of Greater Washington and area day schools were closed today as were the offices of the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia.


2012(13thof Cheshvan, 5773):Jessie Streich-Kest, 24, who worked as a high school teacher in New York City, and Jacob Vogelman, a student at Brooklyn College were killed tonight “in Brooklyn by a falling tree during superstorm Sandy. (As reported by March Oster)


2012:U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Martin Dempsey was in Israel today to discuss a joint missile defense drill that began a week ago.


2012: Twenty Kassam rockets were fired into southern Israel early this morning, shortly after the Israeli Air Force struck terrorist targets in the Gaza Strip.


2013: The 25th annual Kosherfest is scheduled to open in Secaucus, NJ.


2013: The Arava Insitute Hazon Israel Bicycle Ride is scheduled to begin at Jerusalem.


2013: J.J. Abrams is scheduled to release S, a novel by Doug Dorst.


2013: Members of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra and conductor/violinist Julian Rachlin are scheduled to return to New York for a jubilant one-night benefit engagement at Alice Tully Hall.


2013: At Temple Solel, Naomi Ragen is scheduled to discuss her latest novel, The Sisters Weiss.


2013: Signs purporting to be from the Israeli government were placed on dozens of military graves at the Mount Hertzl cemetery in Jerusalem today, in protest of the impending release of 26 Palestinian prisoners later today. The release constitutes the second phase of a four-stage deal between Israel and the Palestinian Authority meant to keep the US-brokered peace talks on track. (As reported by Gavriel Fiske)


2013: As Israel prepares to release 26 more terrorist prisoners as a "gesture" to the Palestinian Authority, Arutz Sheva presents a partial list of those slated for freedom.


2014: “Gett, the Trial of Vivian Amsalem” is scheduled to be shown at the Sydney Opening Night of the Jewish International Film Festival.


2014: The opening reception for “L’Chaim – To Life!” is scheduled to take place today in Portland, Oregon.


2014: Gal “Mekel was waived by the Mavericks.”


2014: The Twin Cities Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to host “Jewish Food For Thought” “featuring animated shorts and graphic novels by Hanan Harchol.


2014: The Center For Jewish History is scheduled to host “The Lost Jewish Music of Belarus.”


2014: The Wiener Library for the Study of the Holocaust & Genocide is scheduled to host the launch event for “The 1984 Anti-Sikh Pogroms Remembered.”


2014: The Tulane University Jewish Studies Department under the leadership of Dr. Brian Horowitz is schedule to host a “Panel on the Jewish Life in the Mississippi Delta” with Michael Cohen, Carol Mills and Anny Bloch-Raymon.


2014: In Washington, DC, the annual Hyman S. & Freda Bernstein Jewish Literary Festival is scheduled to come to an end.


2014: “Democrats and administration officials rushed to distance themselves today from profane anti-Netanyahu remarks attributed to a senior administration official one day earlier – and argued against the conclusion that US-Israel relations were in an unprecedented crisis.” As reported by Rebecca Shimoni Stoil)  [Editor’s note: Based on media coverage, this “crisis” is a one-sided affair because there has been no coverage on any of the major outlets.]


2014: “Israel Police raised the level of preparedness across the country tonight following the attempted murder of prominent right wing activist Rabbi Yehuda Glick earlier this evening in Jerusalem.” (As reported by Lazar Berman and Ilan Ben Zion)


2015: Faird Abdouch, “an Arab-Frenchman accused of assaulting a rabbi and his son after stabbing a Jewish man in Marseille” was charged today “with aggravated assault” “according to Michele Teboul, a leader of the Jewish community of Marseille.”


2015: The Catholic Center at NYU is scheduled “to host Cilia and Hadasa Bau, the daughters of Holocaust survivors Rebecca and Joseph Bau, the original couple whose wedding is featured in the film “Schindler’s List.”


2015: The Tulane University Jewish Studies Department is scheduled to host a “Panel on the Jewish Life in the Mississippi Delta” with Michael Cohen, Carol Mills and Anny Bloch-Raymond.


2015: “Above and Beyond: The Birth of the Israeli Air Force” and “The Last Mentsch” are scheduled to be shown at the Jewish Arts & Film Festival of Fairfield County, CT.


2015: Rabbi Bradley Shavit Artson is scheduled to discuss his latest work, Renewing the Process of Creation: A Jewish Integration of Science and Spirit at Temple Emanu-El.


2015: “Egypt: faith after the pharaohs” an exhibition that includes “the Gaster Bible, a 9th-century Torah from Egypt featuring one of the oldest Hebrew illuminated text” and “fragments of documents from the Cairo Geniza containing Hebrew, Judeo-Arabic, Aramaic and Arabic texts detailing Jewish life in Cairo during the Middle Ages” is scheduled to open today at the British Museum.”


2016(27th of Tishrei, 5777): As the Torah cycle begins again with Parasha Bereshit Jeremiah Collins is scheduled to be called to the Torah as a Bar Mitzvah at Agudas Achim. 


2016(27th of Tishrei, 5777): Eighty-nine year old William Morris talent agent Norman Brokaw passed away today. (As reported by Sam Roberts)



2016: Marguerite MIshkin, who along with her older sister Annette, were hidden by a rural Belgian Catholic family during WW II is scheduled to deliver a “Survivor Talk” at the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center.


2016: “Soviet and Russian stage and film legend, Vladimir Zeldin was hospitalized today in Moscow’s Sklifosovsky Institute of Emergency Medicine>


2016: “Not That Jewish” starring Emmy® Award-winning and Golden Globe® nominated writer, actress and comedian Monica Piper stars in this autobiographical ride of a Jew-“ish” woman’s life is scheduled to open at New World Stages in Manhattan.


2016: In Chicago, the Cubs led by President Theo Epstein are scheduled to take on the Cleveland Indians led by General Manager Mike Chernoff in the fourth game of the World Series.


2017: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Power by Naomi Alderman, Keep Her Safe by Sophie Hannah and the recently released paperback edition of A Gambler’s Anatomy by Jonathan Lethem and Ike’s Gamble: America’s Rise to Dominance in the Middle East by Michael Doran as well as interview with author Ron Chernow.


2017: Today, “two Palestinians, Youssef Khaled Mustafa Kamil, 20, and Muhammad Ziad Abu al-Rub, 19, were indicted on charges of premditated murder for their role in the stabbing to death of sixty-nine year old Reuven Schmerling whose body was dismembered after he was killed on October 4, “the day before the start of Sukkot.” (As reported by Judah Ari Gross)


2017(9th of Cheshvan, 5778): Ninety-six year old Tzipora Jochsberger, the refugee from Nazi Germany and founder of the “Hebrew Arts School Music and Dance,” now known as the “Kaufman Music Center” passed away today in Jerusalem.  (As reported by Richard Sandomir)



2017(9th of Cheshvan, 5778): Eighty-six year old Linda Nochlin, the Crown Heights raised “art historian” passed away today. (As reported by Roberta Smith)



2017: The Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center is scheduled to open the “Take a Stand Center--named by Smithsonian Magazine as one of the top 12 fall exhibitions in the world—which takes visitors on a journey about the dangers of hatred, prejudice, and indifference-and the power of individual voices-in a new multi-million-dollar exhibit.”


2017: “Wonder Woman” star Gal Gadot will not be presenting the Tree of Life Award to director and producer Brett Ratner “at dinner for the Jewish National” today “at Lowes Hollywood Hotel as previously planned.


2017: At Temple Israel in Memphis, TN, the Sisterhood is scheduled to host a class on “Cooking Like Bubbie Did” while the Brotherhood is scheduled to host a board meeting followed by dinner and a night of poker. (Editor’s Note – Personally, I would rather join the Sisterhood event)


2017: In Australia, the Sydney Jewish Museum is scheduled to host “Beyond Empathy: Responsibility in a post-truth World.”


2017: The Yeshiva University Museum is scheduled to host an “international conference, featuring scholars from Israel, Italy, Sweden and the United States,” who will explore “the historical context and cultural significance of the Arch of Titus from Imperial Rome to modern-day Israel.”


2017: The Jewish Federation is scheduled to host Super Sunday.


2018: In Des Moines, IA, the Jewish community is scheduled to “hold a vigil, memorial and healing service for the victims of the mass shooting at Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh led by “our rabbis and invited speakers from the interfaith community” at Tifereth Israel Synagogue


2018: In Jerusalem, the Eden-Tamir Music Center is scheduled to host the first program in the Concert Lecture Series where the question is “Bach on the Piano or on the harpsichord?”


2018: The YIVO Institute for Jewish Research is scheduled to host a lecture by Professor David Biale on “Was the Baal Shem Tov the founder of Chasidism?” as part of the course on “Chasidism: A New History.”


2018: The Museum of Jewish Heritage is scheduled to host a lecture by Eric Vuillard, the author of The Order of the Day, on “the extraordinary sequence of events and individual acts that led to the catastrophe of the Anschluss.”


2018: Sara J. Bloomfield, director, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and Daniel Greene, historian and curator, Americans and the Holocaust special exhibition at the New York Tribute dinner of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.


 


 


 


 


 


 


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

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OCTOBER 30

1207BCE: According to “three scientists from Beersheba’s Ben Gurion University” who used NASA date today is the date of the eclipse which is described in the Book of Joshua as God making the sun stand still so that the Israelites could defeat the Amorites.

http://www.timesofisrael.com/eclipse-stopped-the-sun-for-biblical-joshua-israeli-scientists-say/

1270: Eighth Crusade comes to an ignominious end.  The crusade started under the banner of France’s anti-Semitic King Louis IX. But he died of stomach ailment in August.  Effective leadership devolved to Charles, King of Naples.  The crusaders got no further than Tunis.  The crusaders agreed to lift their siege of the Arab capital in exchange for commercial advantages.  The crusaders went home having failed to accomplish any of their own noble aims.  Considering the miseries that the Crusaders heaped on the Jews, they were just as glad to finally glad to see them come to an end after almost two centuries.

1340: At the Battle of Río Salado King Afonso IV of Portugal and King Alfonso XI of Castile defeated Muslim ruler Abu al-Hasan 'Ali of Marinid dynasty and Nasrid ruler Yusuf I.  A Marinid victory would not have been a good thing for the Jews.  In fact, Alfonso was greeted by crowds of cheering Jews when he returned to his capital.  The victory was doubly important to the Jews of Spain and Portugal because the successors to both of these monarchs followed policies that were favorable to the Jewish people in their realms.


1348: After two days, the authorities of Amont, in France, had finished arresting all of the local Jews and taking their possession.  The arrest of the Jews was tied to the belief that they were responsible for the Black Plague which was working its way across France.  The Jews of Amont were lucky to have been just arrested and robbed since in most towns the Jews were expelled without their possessions or murdered.


1485: King Henry VII of England is crowned. Henry was quite willing to continue the policy of keeping England free of Jews; a policy that dated back to 1290. When Henry VII was arranging for the marriage of his son to Catherine of Aragon, the daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella “he promised never to allow Jews into his domain.  Isabella had made it quite clear, if he refused the oath, the marriage was off.


1491: Gershon Soncino printed the first copy of “Immanuel Romi, Mahberot” (The Notebook of Imamanuel Romi) at Brescia, Italy.  (Heinrich Graetz described him as a “Jewish Dante)


1649: In Pawtuxet, Colony of Rhode Island, “Stephen and Sarah Arnold” gave birth to Israel Arnold, the husband of “Mary (Barker) Arnold” with whom he had fourteen children while find time to serve as Deputy Governor of the colony.


1682: Pope Innocent XI issued an edict by which all the money-lending activities carried out by the Roman Jews were to cease. However ultimately convinced that such a measure would cause much misery in destroying livelihoods, the enforcement of the edict was twice delayed

1708: Abraham ben Saul Broda entered into a contract with Jewish community of Metz to serve as its rabbi.


1735: Birthdate of John Adams, Founding Father and Second President of the United States.The correspondence of John Adams reflects the complexity with which Jews and Judaism were viewed in early national America.  Most "enlightened" American Christians such as Adams saw Jews as an ancient people who, by enunciating monotheism, laid the groundwork for Christianity. He also saw them as individuals who deserved rights and protection under the law. Like many of his peers, Adams venerated ancient Jews and thought contemporary Jews worthy of respect, but found Judaism, the religion of the Jewish people, an anachronism and the Jewish people candidates for conversion to Christianity. In an 1808 letter criticizing the depiction of Jews by the French Enlightenment philosopher Voltaire, Adams expressed his respect for ancient Jewry. Adams wrote of Voltaire, "How is it possible [that he] should represent the Hebrews in such a contemptible light? They are the most glorious nation that ever inhabited this Earth. The Romans and their Empire were but a Bauble in comparison of the Jews. They have given religion to three quarters of the Globe and have influenced the affairs of Mankind more, and more happily, than any other Nation ancient or modern." Aware of Adams' benign view of Jews, American Jewish newspaper editor, politician, diplomat and playwright Mordecai Manuel Noah (1785-1851) maintained a correspondence with the former president. In 1818, Noah delivered a speech consecrating the new building erected by his own Congregation Shearith Israel, the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue in New York. Noah's "Discourse," a copy of which resides in the archives of the American Jewish Historical Society, focused on the universal history of Jewish persecution at the hands of non-democratic governments and their peoples. An early Zionist, Noah believed that only when the Jewish people were reestablished in their own home, with self-governance, could they live free of oppression. Noah sent a copy of his "Discourse" to Adams. Adams responded encouragingly to Noah, although the former president was evasive regarding Jewish self-governance. Adams expressed to Noah his personal wish that "your Nation may be admitted to all Privileges of Citizens in every Country of the World." Adams continued, This Country has done much. I wish it may do more, and annul every narrow idea in Religion, Government and Commerce. … It has please the Providence of the 'first Cause,' the Universal Cause [phrases by which Adams' defined G-d], that Abraham should give Religion, not only to the Hebrews but to Christians and Mahomitans, the greatest Part of the Modern civilized World." For Adams, Jews had earned their rights by virtue of their historic contributions and by virtue of their citizenship, but he did not respond to the idea of a Jewish homeland. Remarkably, a year later, Adams made the first pro-Zionist declaration by an American head of state, active or retired. In 1819, Noah sent Adams a copy of his recently published travel book, Travels in England, France Spain and the Barbary States. In his letter acknowledging the gift, Adams praised Noah's tome as "a magazine of ancient and modern learning of judicious observations & ingenious reflections." Adams expressed regret that Noah had not extended his travels to "Syria, Judea and Jerusalem" as Adams would have attended "more to [his] remarks than to those of any traveller I have yet read." Adams continued, "Farther I could find it in my heart to wish that you had been at the head of a hundred thousand Israelites . . . & marching with them into Judea & making a conquest of that country & restoring your nation to the dominion of it. For I really wish the Jews were again in Judea an independent nation." What was the source of Adams's Zionist sympathies? What moved him to make his extraordinary statement? A clue can be found in the next sentence of his letter: I believe [that] . . . once restored to an independent government & no longer persecuted they [the Jews] would soon wear away some of the asperities and peculiarities of their character & possibly in time become liberal Unitarian Christians for your Jeh-vah is our Jeh-vah & your G-d of Abraham Isaac and Jacob is our G-d.  Alexis de Tocqueville observed, "The Americans combine notions of Christianity and of liberty so intimately in their minds, that it is impossible to conceive the one without the other." Adams was clearly confident that freedom would lead the Jewish people to enlightenment and that enlightenment would lead them to Christianity. For Adams, Jewish self-governance in the Holy Land was a step toward their elevation. Today, our understanding of democracy includes respect for diversity and support for the retention of one's religious faith.


1785: Birthdate of Hermann, Fürst von Pückler-Muskau who met Rabbi Moses Sachs in Tunis in 1835 and was so impressed with him and his plan to settle Jews in Palestine that he arranged for him to meet with Baron Salomon Mayer von Rothschild of Vienna


1786: A deadly fire in the Jewish Ghetto of Verona occurred causing a great loss of life.


1798: In Berlin, “Adolf Martin Schlesinger, founder of the music journal Berliner allgemeine musikalische Zeitung” and his wife gave birth to Moritz Adolf Schlesinger the German music editor who was known by the French as Maurice Schlesinger the creator of the journal Gazette musical.


1815(26th of Tishrei, 5576): Ninety-one year old Rachel Pinto whose loyalty fluctuated during the American Revolution passed away today in New York City.


1821: Birthdate of Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky. The author of such major works as The Brothers Karamazov and Crime and Punishment was an anti-Semite.  As he grew older he became convinced that Jews were the cause of all social ills and he was phobic on the idea of letting Jews live outside of the Pale of Settlement.


1835: In Philadelphia,Eleazer (Eugene) Moss and Mary (Levy) Moss the daughter of Solomon and Rebecca Eve Levy gave birth to John Moss II.


1850: Samuel Vandersluis married Hannah Kasner today at the Great Synagogue.


1856: William Cullen Bryant delivered a speech tonight in favor of the abolition of slavery. He recounted the story of the Israelite encounter with the Amalekites when Moses arms grew weary and Aaron and Hur contrived to keep Moses hands raised until victory was achieved.  He urged the attendees to lend their support to the leaders of the fight against slavery so that when their arms grew weary like Moses, the people would lend their hands in support of abolition.


1856: During an anti-Slavery rally held at the Academy of Music in New York the speakers, who were Christian ministers, took issue with the idea that the Bible supported the institution of slavery as practiced in the United States. They contended that "there was no such idea of property in a servant existing among the ancient Jews." [For once somebody had actually read and understood the text of "The Old Testament."]


1860:The biennial banquet and ball in aid of the Jew’s Hospital, well known charitable Institution took place at the City Assembly Rooms this evening. As on former occasions of the same kind, the attendance was large, and the contributions in aid of the Institution were most liberal. Not less than 600 ladies and gentlemen of the Jewish faith sat down to the banquet, and subsequently joined in the dance. Mr. Benjamin Nathan the President of the Hospital, presided at the banquet, and on his right and left, at the head of the tables, sat Rabbi Lyons of the Nineteenth-street Synagogue , Rabbi Isaacs of the Wooster-street Synagogue, Rabbi Cramer, of the Greene-street Synagogue, and other prominent clergymen and laymen of the Jewish faith. The "grace before meal" was said in Hebrew by Rabbi Lyons, and the "grace after" was sung in the same language by Rev. Mr. Cramer. Following the latter, the President of the Institution addressed the audience, giving a brief sketch of the "Jews' Hospital in New-York," and welcoming his hearers to the entertainments of the evening. He said that the Jews' Hospital, since its foundation, in 1855, had accommodated 1,225 inmates, of whom 1,127 had been treated gratuitously. The benefits of the Institution were not confined to any creed or sect, but the sick and unfortunate of all creeds and nations had partaken of its blessings. At the same time it had neither asked nor received any aid from the State or Municipal Governments, but had depended entirely upon the voluntary contributions of its friends for support. In the intervals between the toasts, the Secretary read off a list of the donations received from those present, as well as by letter from absent donors. Among the latter was a letter from Gov. Morgan, speaking in the highest terms of the Jews' Hospital, and inclosing a check for $100. The total amount of donations announced last evening reached the liberal sum of $14,000. At the conclusion of the toasts the party retired to the ball-room adjoining, when the, dancing commenced, and was continued till a late hour of the night.


1863(17th of Cheshvan, 5624): Philadelphian Nathan Rosenfelt, a Sergeant serving with Company D of the 26th Regiment who had been serving with the Union Army since 1861 succumbed to wounds he had suffered on the second day of the Battle of Gettysburg.


1864:Helena, Montana's capital, founded.  Jews were involved with the Helena from its earliest days. According to local legend Russian born Julius Basinsky arrived in Helena in 1866 with one thousand cigars and not enough pocket change to buy lunch in one of the town’s saloons. Louis Kaufman came to Helena and worked in mining until 1872.  He and Louis Stadler formed Stadler and Kaufman Meat Company in 1872.  Charles M. Russell, one of America’s premier Western artists managed their ranch for several years. From the 1870’s on banks owned completely or partially be Jews were launched in towns and cities all over the Far West including Lewish Herschfield’s Merchants National Banking Company in Helena. 


1869: In Karlin, “Leopold and Sofie Sara Pick gave birth to Amalie Pick” who became Amalie Kun when she married Franz Kuhn with whom she had one son -  “Leopold ‘Poldi’ Kun.”


1869: In Vienna, Leopold Bloch, “the son of Samuel and Theresia Bloch” and his wife Rosa Bloch gave birth to Sophie Bloch, who became Sophie Eber after she married Ernst Eber Bloch.


1872: Morris Joseph married Frances Amelia Henry, “the third daughter of Michael Henry of Effingham House.”


1872: A two day meeting at Brussels that had been called so that leading European Jews could discuss measures that could be taken to relieve the suffering of their co-religionist in Romania was scheduled to come to an end.


1873: “In the hacienda of El Rosario, in Parras de la Fuente, Coahuila, Francisco Ignacio Madero Hernández and Mercedes González Treviño gave birth to Mexican Revolutionary and President who employed Felix A. Sommerfield a colorful German Jew Felix A. Sommerfield as his Secret Service chief which lead to his further involvement in Mexican civil wars including working for Pancho Villa.


1874: In London, Julia Matilda Cohen, “the daughter of Jacob and Matilda Waley” and her husband, Nathaniel Louis Cohen, gave birth to Jacob Waley-Cohen


1875(1st of Cheshvan, 5636): Rosh Chosesh Cheshvan and Parashat Noach


1875: As the debate over the use of public tax dollars to support religious education it was reported that in New York the Catholic Schools receive almost $1,400,000 or 91% of the amount spent while the Jewish schools receive less than $26,000.


1877: Birthdate of Salman Schocken, the German born publisher who became an ardent Zionist. Among other things, he founded Schocken Publishing House and published Haaretz.  His life is too rich and textured for this blog and you are urged to study from the many resources that tell his fascinating story.


1878: Rebecca (nee Abrahams) Norva, the son of George Norva with whom he had four children, was buried to at the “Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.”


1879: In New York, the Young Men’s Hebrew Association is scheduled to present its first “down-town entertainment of the season” at the Pythagoras Hall.


1880: Billee Taylor or The Reward of Virtue "a nautical comedy opera" by Edward Solomon, the Anglo-Jewish composer and conductor was first produced today at the Imperial Theatre in London


1880: Birthdate of playwright and lyricist Aaron Hoffman whose works included “Welcome Stranger” a play set in “a narrow-minded New England town” where an “energetic kind-hearted Jew named Isidor Solomon confront the region’s “prejudice against the Jew” and whose basic theme “centers on the prejudice shown in some quarters against the Jew – because of fear or dislike of the Jew’s strong rivalry in business” or “because of his religion.


1881: Dr. Kaufmann Kohler gave his first Sunday lecture this morning at Temple Beth-El in New York.  This is a reform championed by the Rabbi which will replace traditional Saturday morning services with an observance on Sunday since the realities of the American business world prevents people from attending services on the traditional day.


1882: “Church Contributions” published today provided a breakdown of charitable efforts by denomination including the fact that there are 2,937 Jews in New York who have contributed $100,000 for “benevolent purposes” that there are 12,516 Jews throughout the United States who contributed $300,000 “for benevolent purposes.”


1883: “Mr. Henry Irving In ‘The Bells’” published today gives a full-scale review of English actor Henry Irving’s performance in the American premiere of “The Bells.”  “The Bells” by Anglo-Jewish playwright Leopold Davis Lewis is based on “The Polish Jew” by the French team of Erckmann and Chatrian.


1884(11th of Cheshvan, 5645): Isaac Honig, a native of Mayence who came to the United States in 1859 where he became a leading real estate dealer as well as a patron of the Hebrew Benevolent and Orphan Asylum Society and Mount Sinai Hospital passed away today.


1884: In a letter written today, J.S. Moore was critical of the rabbi who was part of group of clergymen that met with Republican Presidential candidate James Blaine because they had only come “to speak evil about” his opponent Grover Cleveland saying that he at least should have known that the Biblical punishment for speaking evil is “leprosy.”


1885: The newly elected officers of the United Hebrew Charities are: Henry Rice, President; Henry S. Allen and Morris Tuska, Vice Presidents; J.H. Hoffman, Treasurer; and I.S. Isaacs, Secretary.


1887: Mrs. Philip J. Joachimsen, President of the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society reported that currently the society is providing “a home” to 543 children, 384 of whom range in age from 2 to 5 years.  The facility which is on Washington Heights is the only facility in the city that provides shelter for “orphans, half-orphans or deserted children.”


1887: “The Oldest Jewish Gravestone” published today relied on information first published in the Times of London to the latest discovery about the history of the Jews of Europe.  Up until now, a headstone on a grave in a cemetery at Worms dated 4660 (or 900 CE) has been thought to be the oldest of its kind.  But now a headstone has been found at “Zahlbach, a small village close to Mayence” that bears the date 4560 (806 BC).  After having been verified by Rabbi Lehman of Mayence, the stone was placed in the town’s museum.


1888: It was reported today that in the last year the United Hebrew Charities of New York assisted 16,953 in the past year.  The society provided help to 29,602 immigrants who arrived at Castle Garden.  Approximately 2,600 people were “provided with employment” and 600 poor Jews were provided with free burial.  The society collected over $73,000.00 and spent all but $4,000 in providing assistance.


1889: “He Talks To Hebrews” published today described a well-received address Colonel Elliot F. Shepard a prominent lawyer and civic leader gave at Avhavth Chesed in New York City.


1889: Professor Morris Jastrow of the University of Pennsylvania presented a paper on “The Text Books of the Assyrians and Babylonians” at today’s meeting of the American Oriental Society.


1889: David Harfeld, a Richmond pawnbroker and the brother of Rabbi Eugene Harfeld went on trial for bigamy today in New York City


1889: “His Race Proud of Him” published today reported that Jesse Seligman presided over the dinner held in honor of Sir Julian Goldmid, Seligman praised the visiting Englishman as “one of the champions of Hebrew emancipation throughout the world” who “had made this voice heard in the halls of Parliament in behalf of civil and religious liberty and the removal of political disabilities from Jewish citizens of all nations.”


1890: According to reports in the London Figaroand the New York Times, the key to Baron Hirsch’s close relationship with the Prince of Wales is a combination of his great wealth and, more importantly, his good manners.  The Baron is considered remarkable for his philanthropy and his love of England.


1891: As Russia reels from a series of social and economic problems that have been exacerbated by a famine it was reported today that “the suffering Russian peasantry has…avenged their sufferings upon the Jews who are already under an official as well as popular ban and this direction of their energies is entirely pleasing to the Russian Government.”


1892: Twenty women and sixty-three men, all of whom are Polish and Russian Jews were arrested today at the cloakmaking fir of S.M. Levi & Co on charges that they had violated the laws banning working on Sunday.


1892: V. Henry Rothschild, Lyman G. Bloomingadle, Isaac Eppinger, Sigmund Neustadt, Isidor Straus, Louis Gans, Samuel H. Eckman and Henry S. Hermnaa were elected directors of the Montefiore Home for Chronic Invalids when the patrons and managers held their annual meeting today.


1892: “Felix Adler’s New Book” published today provides a detailed review The Moral Instruction of Children by Felix Adler.


1893: “Koh-i-Noor” a one act operetta authored by Oscar Hammerstein opened tonight at Koster and Bial’s Music Hall.


1894(30th of Tishrei, 5655): Rosh Chodesh Cheshvan


1894: The Board of Estimate and Apportionment is scheduled to meet today to consider requests for 1895 including $80,000 by the Hebrew Orphan Asylum, $85,000 for the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society of New York Orphan Asylum and $5,000 for the Sanitarium for Hebrew Children


1894: Superintendent Stump of the Bureau of Immigration has received a letter from Baron Hirsh, stating that the Jewish Colonization Society, of which Baron Hirsch is the head, is engaged in diverting Jewish immigration from the United States to Argentina; a county that is more open to accepting the Jewish immigrants.


1895: President Henry Rice and General Manager Nathaniel S. Rouseau presented the annual reports at the annual meeting of the United Hebrew Charities which was held at Temple Emanu-El today.


1896(23rd of Cheshvan, 5657): Samuel Corn, a native of Prussia who came to the United States in 1825 at the age of 22 where he became a successful businessman in the cap and furrier business as well as a patron of the Hebrew Orphan Asylum Society and the Montefiore Home passed away today.


1897: In the United Kingdom, Morris Joseph and the former Frances Ameila Henry celebrated their silver anniversary.
1897(4th of Cheshvan, 5658): Parashat Noach
1897:  Dr. Adler, the Chief Rabbi delivered the sermon at the Hampstead Synagogue where he also consecrated “the new class rooms which have been erected” next to the synagogue.
1898: Three days after he had passed away, Harris Isaacs was buried today at the “Plashet Jewish Cemetery in London.”
1898: Birthdate of Lothar Kreyssig the German judge who defied the Nazis by trying to stop their euthanasia program and who hid two Jews on his farm.
1899: In Saratov, Russia, Yakov Arkad'evich Khazin and Vera Yakovlevna Khazina gave birth to Nadezhda Yakovlevna Mandelstam the author and educator who was the wife of poet Osip Mandelstam.


1899:Major Karri Davies was among the Jewish soldiers who fought during the Siege of Ladysmith which began today during the Second Boer War.


1899: In Charleston, SC, Rabbi B.A. Elzas officiated at the wedding of Joe H. Epstein and Bertha N. Mothner.


1900: In Kishinev, Chazkel and Dvoira Gurfinkel gave birth to Goldie Steinberg (née Gurfinkel) a survivor of the Kishinev Pogrom and the widow of Philip Steinberg, who lived to the age of 114 years, 290 days.”



1903: During the debate over accepting Uganda as a Jewish homeland, even on a temporary basis, the newspaperDie Weltpublishes Menachem Ussishkin's letter and Herzl's answer. Menachem Ussishkin opposed an expedition to Uganda.


1904: Cypriotes in Athens, Greece adopt a resolution, which they plan to send to England to protest against the increasing immigration of Jews to Cyprus.1905: The massacre and pillage of the Jews of Odessa which would leave 8,000 dead and 12,000 dead began today.


1905(1stof Cheshvan, 5666): Rosh Chodesh Cheshvan


1905: A production of “In New York Town,” a musical comedy based on the work of Loney Haskell” and “with music by Albert Von Tilzer” opened today at the Fourteenth Street Theatre.


1905: After a nation-wide strike, Russia’s Czar Nicholas II issued a manifesto granting a constitution and a Duma (parliament) in which the Constitutional Democrats (Cadets) and Social Democrats would participate. These revolutionaries many of whom were Jews, were known as the "Octoberists." The reforms did not work.  Conditions worsened, in part because the Czar was a weak ruler and not committed to reform.  Seventeen years later, Russia would explode in a revolution that would bring the Communists to power.


1907: In Chicago, “Morris Paul Tax and Kate (Hanwit Tax” gave birth to Sol Tax, who earned a Ph.D from the University of Chicago and founded “Current Anthropology.”

1910: A review of three plays by Arthur Schnitzler published today decries the fact that there is no English theatre equivalent to the German theatre as represented by Schnitzler’s work.  That Schnitzler was actually an Austrian born Jew did not keep the critic from identifying the noted playwright as being “German.”  Of course large numbers of the Jews in Austria and Germany would see themselves in the same way until they had their rude awakening in the 1930’s.


1910: During a pogrom known as the Shiraz Blood Libel, 12 Jews were killed, 50 more were injured and 6,000 were robbed of all their possession by a mob seeking vengeance for the baseless charge that the Jews had ritually murdered a Muslim girl.


1912: The first phase of the State of New York v Charles Becker came to an end.  Becker was a police officer who had been charged with having a group of Jewish gangsters from the Lower East Side murder Herman Rosenthal, a well-known New York gambler.


1912: When the Bulgarians captured the Greek city of Didymoteikhon, the economic conditions of the Jews deteriorated when a great deal of their property including Jewish owned stores were damaged or destroy.


1914: The Ottoman Empire enters the Great War as an ally of Germany and Austro-Hungary.  


1914: During the election campaign Nathan Strauss spoke at Niblo’s Gardens where he “struck down the charges of religious prejudice” that had been unfairly lodged against Governor Glynn.


1914: Dr. Bernard Drachman, the rabbi of Congregation Oham Zedek spoke out against the injection of religious prejudice in the current gubernatorial campaign.


1915: It was reported today that of the one million refugees created by the Russian withdrawal on the Eastern front who are facing mass starvation, 200,000 of them are Jews from Lithuania.


1915: In New York “Therese Friendly Wachenheimer and Samuel Wachenheimer, a jewelry manufacturer” gave birth to Ferdinand Friendly Wachenheimer who gained fame as Fred Friendly, the courageous, creative producer who worked with Edward Morrow on See It Now.  There most famous broadcast was the one exposing Senator McCarthy.  George Clooney played the role of Friendly in Good Night and Good Luck which captured the courage of Friendly and Morrow as well as the hostile environment in which they lived.

1915: “A financial report issued” today by “the American Jewish Relief Committee of which Felix  Warburg is treasurer listed donors and their donations including $15 from the Jewish inmates at Green Meadow Prison, $100 from the Lawrence, Massachusetts Jewish Relief Committee, $70 from the Hebrew Literary Social Club and $32 from Temple Israel in Uniontown, PA.


1915: It was decided today to award the Nobel Prize in Medicine to Dr. Robert Barany of Vienna University for his work in the physiology and pathology of the ear.


1916(3rd of Cheshvan, 5677): Eighty-four year old German author and satirist Julius Stettenheim passed away today.


1916: Birthdate of New York native Herb Gershon who played for ten years in the American Basketball League, one of the forerunners of what is now the National Basketball Association where one of his teammates was New York University grad Simon “Si” Bordman.


1917: Today, Rabbi David Goldberg was commissioned “as the first Jewish Chaplain in the United States Navy – which must have been a lonely role to play since he was the only rabbi to be commissioned by the Navy.


1918: Two days after she had passed away, 18 year old Mary Sack was buried at the “Streatham Jewish Cemetery.”


1918: Sándor Wekerle, who had supported “a bill providing for equal religious rights for Jews and Christians” completed his second term as Prime Minister of Hungary.


1918: “Towards the end of World War I, the Sharifian Army led by Emir Faisal, backed by the British Army, captured Damascus from the Ottomans as part of the Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Empire.”


1918: The Ottoman Empire signed an armistice signifying the end of hostilities for World War I.  The news was greeted with great joy by the Jews of Palestine who believed that a benign British military government would allow them to live under the terms of the Balfour Declaration.


1919: Birthdate of Czarna (née Zielinski) Levy, the native of Poltusk who was the wife of Reuven “Ruwek” (Lewin) Levy


1919: In Poland, “Yisrael Aryeh Werdyger, a well-to-do wholesaler of men's shirts and dry goods and a prominent member of the Gerrer Hasidic community of Kraków (Cracow)” and his wife gave birth to their youngest son, David Werdyger, the Holocaust survivor and “Chasidic Chazan” “considered to be one of the pioneers of 20th century Jewish music.”

1920(18thof Cheshvan, 5681): Parashat Vayera


1920: Dr. Maurice H. Harris is scheduled to deliver a sermon this morning on “Unsuspected Powers” at Temple Israel of Harlem.


1920: At Petach Tikvah in Brooklyn, Rabbi Aaron Eisenman is scheduled deliver a sermon “The Greatnes of Human Sympathy.


1920: Dr. H.G. Enelow is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “The Jew and the Bible” at Temple Emanu-El.


1920: Rabbi Max Reichler is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “Perpetual Youth” at Sinai Temple of the Bronx.


1922: Benito Mussolini became Premier of Italy. Mussolini was no anti-Semite.  Several Jews supported him and he had a Jewish mistress.  Mussolini would turn on the Jews during the 1930’s.  How much of this was a matter of his own doing and how much was merely in response to curry favor with Hitler has become a matter of debate.  Any diminution of suffering enjoyed by the Italian Jews was a credit to the people of Italy and not to Mussolini.


1923: Four days after he had passed away, Abraham Sackwild was buried today at the “East Ham Jewish Cemetery.”


1923: In New York, Yiddish theatre performer Berel and Helen Bernardi gave birth Herschel Bernardi best known for his portrayal of “Lieutenant Jacoby” on the television detective show “Peter Gunn.”


1926(22ndof Cheshvan, 5687):Rebbe Yissachar Dov, the third Rebbe of the Belz Chasidic dynasty and the father of Aharon Roekach who would succeed him and become the fourth Rebbe of the Belz Hasidic dynasty passed away today.
1927: With more than 1,000 representatives of American Zionism to hear his challenge at a conference in Cleveland, Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, of New York, today called upon Zionist leaders attending the national conference on Palestine to hold Britain to its pledge to carry out the obligations of the Balfour Declaration of 1917 to facilitate the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine.


1928:  Birthdate of Daniel Nathans, the son of Russian Jewish immigrants.  Despite the fact that his father lost his business during the Great Depression, Nathans took advantage of the American education system graduating from Washington University in St. Louis.  A microbiologist, he spent at least some of his time at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovoth. Nathans won the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1978. He won the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1978.   He passed away in 1999.


1930: In Brooklyn, Samuel Adelman, “an amateur photographer and craftsman who helped install the floors when Harry S. Truman renovated the White House” after WW II and the form Anna Pomerantz gave birth to Robert Melvin Adelman, the free-lance photographer best known for his pictures of the fight to end segregation in the South. (As reported by Sam Roberts)

1930: Austrian born bacteriologist and pathologist Dr. Karl Landsteiner won the Nobel Prize for Medicine today.  Since 1922, Landsteiner has been doing his research at New York City’s Rockefeller Institute ofr Medical Research.

1931: “The Yellow Ticket” the cinematic adaption of the play by the same name that tells a tale about Russian Jews living under martial law that features Mischa Auer as “Melchior” was released in the United States today.


1932:The Jack Benny Program is broadcast for the first time on CBS Radio.


1932: A rabbi officiated at the marriage of Czech born American talent agent Paul Kohner, the founder of Paul Kohner Talent Agency and Mexican actress Lupita Tover at the home of his parents “Julius "Kino" Kohner, who managed the local movie theater and published a film industry newspaper, and his mother was Helene Kohner (née Beamt).”


1933: Irma Lindheim, a wealthy American-born Jewish woman who became President of Hadassah in 1926 joined Kibbutz Mishmar Haemek today


1935: In Hampstead, London, Helen (née Zlota) and George Joseph Winner gave birth to director and producer Robert Michael Winner who was best known as “a restaurant critic for The Sunday Times

1935: In New York, Cele (née Mendelow) and Benjamin Caro gave birth to  author Robert Caro, best known for his multi-volume biography of Lyndon Johnson http://www.robertcaro.com/


1935:As reported in today’s Baltimore Sun, “Long owned by the Dukes of Brunswick, the treasure was purchased by a consortium of art dealers and sold to the government of Prussia.”  “The treasure” refers to 82 pieces of the Guelph treasure which four Jewish art dealers, Zachary Max Hackenbroch, Julius Falk Goldschmidt, Isaac Rosenbaum and nephew Saemy Rosenberg bought from the Duke of Brunswick for 7.5 million reichsmarks in1929” and “the government of Prussia” refers to Hermann Goering.


1936: In London Hester and Siegfried Sassoon gave birth to their only child George Sassoon whose father described his expectations for his son to Max Beerbohm when he wrote "Will he, I wonder, become Prime Minister, Poet Laureate, Archbishop of Canterbury, or merely Editor of The Times Literary Supplement? Or Master of The Quorn? Or merely Squire of Heytesbury?"


1936: “The Trouble with Money” a Dutch comedy directed by Max Ophuls and produced by Will Tuschinksi the son Dutch businessman Abraham Tuschinski  who built the famous movie theatre in Amsterdam that bears his name and who was murdered at Auschwitz, was released today in the Netherlands.


1936: A law promulgated today that empowers Josef Wagner “the new price commissar recently by ‘economic dictator’ Hermann Goering to fix ‘just prices’ for ‘goods and services of all kinds’” demonstrated that “Hitler’s second Four Year Plan” was not based on the “capitalistic law and supply and demand” but on “a more socialistic managed economy.”  (The term Nazi meant National Socialist, a fact conveniently forgotten who sought to paint Hitler as anti-Communist defending the Free Enterprise System)


1936: While delivering a speech on the economy tonight in Berlin, Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels declared “I am told that the Jews are becoming impertinent again.  Let them beware.  The more impertinent they become, the harder will be our laws.”


1938: In “A Poignant Record of Palestine,” published today T.R. Ybarra reviewed Going Home by Ernst Harthern, a German newspaper correspondent who has been working in Scandinavia which means he has been spared much direct contact with Hitler and his Nazis.  In fact Hitler is not mentioned in this book which described Harthern’s first visit to Palestine in which he has the sensation of a true homecoming.  As he says at one point, “Almost anywhere on earth there are more modern buses with better springs, but they are not Jewish buses.”


1938: Birthdate of Marina Ratner, the Moscow native who had to overcome the anti-Semitism of her native land to become an award winning Israeli mathematician.

1938: In “Fear Colors All Life In The Stricken Holy Land” Madeleine Miller describes the toll that Arab violence which she describes as a “civil war” has taken on Jews and Arabs.


1938: Mitch Miller was playing oboe with the CBS Symphony tonight during the broadcast of “The War of the Worlds” based on a script co-authored by Howard Koch.


1938: Washingtonian Henry Brylawski, the future president of the Jewish Historical Society of Greater Washington was among those who heard the broadcast “The War of the Worlds” today.


1938(5thof Cheshvan, 5699): Fifty-two year old Baruch Nachman Charney (Baruch Charney Vladeck), the American Jewish labor leader who was the manager of the Jewish Daily Forward passed away today.

1938: This afternoon help arrived at Zbaszyn for the Polish Jews deported from Germany “from Warsaw, supplied by Emanuel Ringelblum and Yitzhak Gitterman of the Joint Distribution Committee, who were to form the General (Jewish) Aid Committee for Jewish Refugees from Germany in Poland”


1939: Heinrich Himmler head of the S.S. was instructed to have about a million people transported from the Generalgouverenment. Half are to be Jews and half are to be Poles.


1939: SS chief Heinrich Himmler designates the next three months as the period during which all Jews must be cleared from the rural areas of western Poland. Hundreds of communities will be affected, and thousands of Jews will be expelled with nothing but what they can carry with them.


1940: In New York, “Mollie and Walter Fox, a Jewish immigrant from Poland gave birth to composer Charles Ira Fox whose score for “The Other Side of the Mountain” was nominated for a Golden Globe.


1941(9th of Cheshvan, 5702): Four thousand Jews are murdered at Nesvizh, Belorussia.


1941: A 12-year-old boy who escapes the Ninth Fort massacre of October 28 returns to the Kovno Ghetto and reveals what happened.


1942: “The Men in Her Life” directed and produced by Gregory Ratoff with a script by Frederick Kohner and music by David Raskin was released in the United States today.


1942; The New York Times features a review of On Native Grounds: An Interpretation of Modern American Prose Literatureby the Jewish author Alfred Kazin.


1943(1stof Cheshvan, 5704): Rosh Chodesh Cheshvan


1943(1stof Cheshvan, 5704): Max Reinhardt, the Austrian-born American who was a director in both live theatre and film passed away today in New York at the age of 70.  If you read the New York Times obituary of this (for his time) titan of the theatre and cinema you will find no mention of the fact that he was in New York because after the Anschlusshe could not remain in Austria.

1943: Dr. Zelik Levinbok, a Jewish doctor interned at the Koldichevo camp in Belorussia, escapes with his wife and eight-year-old son.


1944: Rudolf Kastner “travelled to St. Gallen, accompanied by Kurt Becher and Dr. Wilhem Billitz, director of the Manfred Weiss Works.


1944: The Martha Graham ballet ''Appalachian Spring,'' with music by Aaron Copland, premiered at the Library of Congress, with Graham in a leading role. Aaron Copland is another example of an American Jew who helped create a uniquely American culture.


1944: The final deportation train from Theresienstadt, Czechoslovakia, to Auschwitz arrives at the camp. Of the 2038 prisoners on board, 1689 are immediately gassed.


1944: Edith Frank was separated from her daughters today when she was selected for the gas chambers; a fate she avoided when with a friend “she escaped to another section of the camp.”


1944:Alberto Carlos de Liz-Texeira Branquinho, Portugal’s Chargé d'Affaires in Budapest who is credited with saving the lives of thousands of Jews in Nazi-occupied Hungary” was recalled to Lisbon today.


1944: The Nazis deported Margot and Anne Frank from Auschwitz to Bergen Belsen, where they both died five months later.


1944(13th of Cheshvan, 5705): On her 75thbirthday, Sophie Eber, the widow of Ernst Erno Eber, and the “mother of Vilma Eber; Grete Eber; Erzsébet Anna Éber and Olga Eber” passed away in her home town of Vienna.


1945:  “The Day Before Spring” a Lerner and Loewe musical “opened at the Shubert Theatre in Boston.”


1945: On the West Side of Manhattan, “Ilse Anna Marie Winkler (née Hadra) and Harry Irving Winkler, a lumber company president” who had “emigrated from Berlin, Germany, to the United States in 1939, on the eve of World War II” gave birth to actor and director Henry Franklin Winkler who foar a whole generation of television viewers will always be The Fonz of the sitcom Happy Days.


1946: In New Rochelle, NY, Cecile Mitchell and Sydney Mitchell, “the chief executive officer and partial owner of a furniture company and longtime president of New Rochelle’s Beth El Synagogue gave birth to NBC newscaster Andrea Mitchell. When asked if her Judaism has ever been an issue, positive or negative, in the course of her career she responded as follows.  “It's certainly not been a negative issue. I think when I was watching the signing of the Camp David Accords in 1979, after the Camp David Summit in 1978; I certainly felt a tremendous emotional connection to the issue and to the chances of a breakthrough between the Israelis and the Arabs. Seeing Sadat and Begin was a very emotional experience. Similarly, in 1993 I was one of many people on the South Lawn who were very excited about prospects for peace, when we finally saw Rabin and Arafat shake hands under the guidance of Bill Clinton. Perhaps it made me more eager to go the West Bank and interview people and learn more about the Palestinian perspective. So I think it's less a religious issue than a cultural connection to the Middle East. One other experience that was important was the controversy over President Reagan's visit to the cemetery in Bitburg where S.S. soldiers were buried. I remember when Elie Weisel came to appeal to the president not to go. That was a very powerful experience for me. I spent a lot of time covering that issue, then we ended up going and visiting Bergen-Belsen with the president. Certainly all of my childhood experiences and my parents' stories about the Holocaust are part of my personal and intellectual history. Our family was not Holocaust survivors, but it was a very important part of the way we were raised. My mother and father talked about it all the time.”


1946: British authorities held groups described as “Zionist extremists” responsible for the death of two British soldiers and one British police sergeant who were killed in separate land mine explosions today.


1947: “A Haganah sourced said today that a number of” its leading members “had been attacked and would by members of…Irgun Zvai Leumi in the Tel Aviv region last night.”


1948: During the War For Independence, Egyptian planes dropped supplies to their troops trapped in the Faluja pocket.


1948: The village Sa'sa' which was later re-built as a Kibbutz in the Upper Galilee “was demolished by the Israeli Seventh Brigade and Oded Brigade today.”


1948: During Operation Hiram, the Carmeli Brigade successfully fulfilled it mission of thwarting counter attacks from Syria and Lebanon when it crossed into Lebanon and surged all the way to the Litani River.


1949: Birthdate of James Judd, native of Hertfordshire who is “Music Director of the Israel Symphony Orchestra Rishon LeZion


1950: During the Korean War, Chinese forces attacked Tibor Rubin’s unit (Company I, 8th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division) at Unsan, North Korea during a massive nighttime assault.” Tibor manned a 30 caliber machine gun at the south end of the unit's line which would mark the start of one-man holding operation that lasted for more than twenty four hours. (Based on Tibor’s Medal of Honor Citation)


1952,The Jerusalem Post reported that the Jewish National Fund had been granted a six million dollar loan by the Bank of America to further settlement activities in draining the Hula region, and for land reclamation and acquisition.


1952:  The Jerusalem Post reported that work began on the 165-meter westward extension of Haifa Port's main quay to make it accessible to the largest ship in the Mediterranean.  Building a new state took many forms including immigrant absorption, irrigating the Negev and expanding port facilities for future export trade.


1953: “Take the High Ground” a war movie set in Korea directed by Richard Brooks, produced by Dore Schary with music by Dimitri Tiomkin was released in the United States today by MGM.


1953(21stof Cheshvan, 5714): Sixty-nine year old classical pianist Leonid Kreutzer passed away today in Tokyo.

1955:Mohammed V, who according to Meredith Hindley, found Vichy’s laws pertaining to Jews “appalling” and did what he could given his limited power, to ameliorate their affect began his reign as Sultan Morocco.


1956: During the Sinai Campaign Israel captured the Egyptian military post at El-Thamad 


1956: Soldiers in Rafael Eitan’s regiment spot an Egyptian armored column and call for an airstrike which destroys the vehicles, that unbeknownst to the Israelis, are empty because the Egyptian soldiers were already in position in the Mitla Pass.


1956: During the Sinai Campaign Israeli paratroops dug in to hold the Mitla Pass and await what would be the successful linkup with IDF armor moving overland.  Egyptian aircraft attacked the Israelis for the first time, but the IDF was able to hold its own despite long odds.


1956: President Eisenhower assured Ben-Gurion that the United States would not censure Israel as long as the Sinai attack was not a grab for additional territory.  Ben-Gurion responded that all Israel wanted was the end of Egyptian support for the fedayeen (the name for Arab terrorists), the end of Arab economic warfare against Israel and the opening of the Straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping.  Ben-Gurion would stick to his goals.  Eisenhower would betray his promise. 


1957: In San Francisco Elaine Harlow and Robert Pollak gave birth to Craig Pollak’s younger brother actor and comedian Kevin Elliot Pollak, who demonstrated the ability to provide those supporting roles that are key to a film’s success as can be seen by his portrayal of Sam Weinberg, the number 2 defense lawyer in “A Few Good Men” and Jacob Goldman in the “Grumpy old men” movies.


1957: Birthdate of Moscow native Shlomo Mintz whose family moved to Israel in 1959 where he became a violin virtuoso and conductor.

1958: In San Francisco, Elaine Harlow and Robert "Bobby" Pollak gave birth to their youngest son Kevin Elliot Pollak, host of Celebrity Poker.


1959: U.S. Premiere of “The Wasp Woman” with music by Fred Katz.


1961:Birthdate of Emmanuel Finkiel, the French-born producer/director of Voyages,considered by some to be the best Jewish film of 2000)


1962: Yosefi Almogi began serving as Minister of Housing and Construction


1963: Sixty-five year old Monsignor Hugh O’Flaherty whose courage in rescuing Italian Jews during WW II has earned him the sobriquet “the Irish Schindler” passed away today.

1963: U.S. premiere of “A New Kind of Love” a romantic comedy directed, produced and written by Melville Shavelson, co-starring Paul Newman and featuring George Tobias and Marvin Kaplan


1965(4thof Cheshvan, 5726): Parashat Noach


1965(4thof Cheshvan, 5726): Seventy-seventy year old historian and Harvard professor Dr. Arthur Meir Schlesinger, Sr., whose father had converted and  the father of celebrity historian Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. passed away today in Boston.

1966(16thof Cheshvan, 5727): Fifty-year old “Samuel Adelman, the Rabbi of Adath Jeshurun Synagogue in Newport News, VA” who spent four weeks in Russia during the summer of 1956 “as a member of the Rabbinical Council of America Mission to the Soviet Union” passed away today after which he was buried at Mount Nebo Memorial Park in Aurora, CO.


1968: Israeli helicopter-borne Sayeret Matkal commandos carry out Operation Helem (Shock), destroying an Egyptian electric transformer station, two dams along the Nile River and a bridge. The blackout causes Nasser to cease hostilities for a few months while fortifications around hundreds of important targets are built. Simultaneously, Israel reinforces its position on the east bank of the Suez Canal by construction of the Bar Lev Line


1968: “The Lion in Winter” the Oscar winning movie version of James Goldman’s play produced by Joseph E. Levine was released in the United States and the United Kingdom by Avco Embassy Pictures.


1974(14thof Cheshvan, 5735):Eighty-four year old Brno born theatre director and producer who fled Europe after the Anschluss with his wife actress Adrienne Gessner and was the brother of author Hans Müller-Einigen passed away today.


1974: The National Religious Party joined the governing coalition led by Yitzhak Rabin who had replaced Golda Meir as Prime Minister.


1976: The second season of “Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids” with Lou Scheimer as the voice of “Dumb” Donald came to an end.


1976: Clarence Chamberlin, the second man to fly the Atlantic and the first to do so with a passenger, passed away.  The passenger was a Jewish businessman from Massachusetts, Charles Albert Levine who had been dabbling in the new field of commercial aviation.


1977:  The settlement of Mevo Dotan was founded on the West Bank by secular settlers.


1979(9thof Cheshvan, 5740): Seventy-five year old Northwestern University School of Law Jack Nicholas Pritzker who was part of the family that founded the law firm of Pritzker and Pritzker as well as the Hyatt Hotel Chain and who was the husband of the former Rhoda Goldberg of Manchester, UK with whom he had one son Nicholas J. Pritzker passed away today.

1981: “Halloween II” a slasher film directed by Rick Rosenthal was released today in the United States.


1982: In Monmouth County, Temple Beth Miriam “hosted a gala Dinner-Dance in Jacobson Hall.”


1984: Seventy-one year old Charles “Charlie” Thompson Winters, the American businessman who was imprisoned for his role in helping to smuggle three B-17’s to Israel during the War for Independence passed away today.

1984(4thof Cheshvan, 5735): Eighty-four year old German actor and director Wolfgang Heinz, born David Hrisch, who “President of the Academy of the Arts in Berlin between 1968 and 1974” passed away today.


1986: “ In 1986 Esther Rantzen, presenter of That's Life!, a popular consumer TV show, suggested to the BBC that they create "Childwatch", a program about child abuse that was screened today on BBC1, the aim being to try to detect children at risk before their lives were in danger”


1988: NBC broadcast the first episode of “Family Ties,” a sitcom created by Gary David Goldberg in what would be its seventh and final season.


1988: “At Temple Beth Israel in Niagara Falls, NY Rabbi Samuel Porath and Cantor Herbert Strauss officiated at the wedding of New York lawyer Claudia Leigh Grossman, the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Stanley Grossman and Civil Engineer Aaron David Jaffe, a project manager with the Tishman Construction Company, the son “Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Jaffe of Shaker Heights, Ohio.”


1991:  Mid East peace conference began in Madrid, Spain.


1993(15thof Cheshvan, 5754): Eighty six year old “screenwriter and actress” Maria Matray, who fled her native Germany when the Nazis came to power but eventually returned after the war passed away today in Munich.


1995: In a case of Jew versus Jews Ben Kamin, Senior Rabbi, Temple-Tifereth Israel Beachwood, Ohio, wrote the following letter-to-the editor in response to a column by Thomas L. Friedman.


Thomas L. Friedman's Oct. 29 column on Israel's emerging and opulent culture says a great deal about postmodern Israel, but it ultimately oversimplifies. Israel is a lot more than a cell phone, and Jewish identity has to do with a lot more than a new shopping mall in Kfar Saba. I was born in Kfar Saba, and I share some of Mr. Friedman's amazement at the transition. It's true that the orchards of my childhood are giving way to shopping plazas, condominiums and automatic teller machines. But a lot of the fear and concern that was part of those years has given way to a certain contentment with life that was not part of things a generation ago. Contrary to Mr. Friedman's assertion, a Jew who can have a pizza delivered via a cellular phone is not a Jew with a lost identity. That is a Jew who is free. I remember Kfar Saba very vividly. The dusty, underdeveloped hamlet was a prototype of early Israel. My birth village, tucked next to the Samarian Mountains, sat on a tense border with what was then the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. A mile from my grandmother's house, where we lived, the Arab town of Qalqilya brooded with hostility and occasional mortar fire. When I sat with my grandmother on her back porch and recited the words of the Prophets, we could see the minarets of Qalqilya to the east. The Mediterranean Sea was just a few miles to the west. We were living the post-Holocaust predicament of national Jewish life in a land still fighting for its life. There was indeed a strong pioneering spirit in Kfar Saba and throughout the fledgling country. Our teachers came from many other lands and many difficult experiences. They often wept while leading us in Hebrew folk songs and exhorting us to love the Bible. The mailman came on a tall horse. His sinewy arms betrayed the tattoos of Auschwitz. There was something to be learned from every conversation with people who either valued or feared life. The orange groves of the valley sent us a fragrance that none of us shall ever forget. It was the smell of rebirth. Somehow we knew that we were the free children of a dream that the world had disparaged and that even Qalqilya next door was determined to destroy. Now, many groves are gone and the delicious smell is no more. Yes, my birth village of donkeys and orange trees is a successful hub of sports cars and video stores. It's so easy for all who no longer live there, who are not taking the risks of peace, to criticize and lament. How ironic to dispatch a report about the creeping technological dexterity of Israel via electronic mail. All Israel is doing is becoming more like us. This is what we hoped for a generation ago. None of us would begrudge an Israeli youngster the right not to be killed in battle, not to fear the future or not to call his or her mother via a cell phone from any army base in Lebanon. None of us who lived in quaint Kfar Saba back then wanted anything for our descendants but the chance to be free or prosperous enough to draw cash out of a machine or to enjoy a fashionable coffee outdoors in the very same century as Hitler and Eichmann.


1996: Milton Berle was a guest on Howard Stern’s morning talk show.


1997(29thof Tishrei, 5758): Eighty-five year old writer and director Samuel Fuller, the decorated war hero who filmed footage of the liberation of a concentration camp and used his experiences fighting with the famous 1st Division in the 1980 film “The Big Red One” passed away today.(As reported by Richard Severo)

1998: “American History X” a film about neo-Nazis co-starring Elliott Gould was released today in the United States.


1999 (Britain's emeritus chief rabbi, Lord Immanuel Jakobovits attended Shabbat services for the last time.  He suffered a cerebral hemorrhage and passed away on the following day.


2000(1stof Cheshvan, 5761): Rosh Chodesh Cheshvan


2000(1stof Cheshvan, 5761): The body of 30 year old Amos Makhlouf, who was the victim of an unknown murderer, was founded today in a ravine near Beit Jala.


2001: Lawsuits are filed seeking the removal Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore’s Ten Commandments monument.  (Moore’s disregard for the Constitution is not a unique phenomenon in Alabama as anybody who remembers George Wallace and his ilk will know)


2003: In Miami, The IsraFest Foundation proudly presented Don BrowneCOO of Telemundo Communications Group, with the 19th Israel Film Festival 2003 Lifetime Achievement Award; Community Activist and Philanthropist Marcy Lefton with the 2003 IFF Humanitarian Award and Innovative Artist Ilana Lilienthal and Human Potential Researcher Alexander Brodt with the 2003 IFF Visionary Award. The Award Ceremony, hosted by NBC TV columnist Ike Seamans, will be followed by a special screening of the award-winning smash hit Wisdom of the Pretzel to be introduced by writer/director Ilan Heitner and star Benni Avni.


2003: Broadway premiere of the Stephen Schwartz musical “Wicked: The Untold Story of the Witches of Oz.”


2004: The exhibition “David Bomberg en Ronda: at the Museo Joaquin Peinado in Ronda in Andalusia which showed work by Bomberg in the city and environment which he had celebrated in paintings and drawings in 1934-35 and 1954-47 came to an end.


2004: “Houdini enthusiast Sidney Hollis Radner” who had bought most of Houdini’s “props and effects” including “the water torture cell” from the magician’s brother, Theodore Hardeen, in the 1940’s auctioned his collection today in Las Vegas.


2005: Idina Menzel appeared off-Broadway in the Public Theater's production of “See What I Wanna See, “which premiered today and for which she received Drama Desk Award and Drama League Award nominations.


2005: An Islamic Jihad fugitive was shot and killed by Israeli security forces in a gun battle that erupted outside a house in Kabatiyah near Jenin.  The man who died, rather than surrender to the Israelis, was being sought in connection with the part he played in the suicide attack on Hadera.  The murder killed five Israelis and wounded at least fifty people in the peaceful coastal town of 80,000.


2005:The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or on topics of special Jewish interesting including Ahmad’s War, Ahmad’s Peace: Surviving Under Saddam, Dying in the New Iraqby Michael Goldfarb, Women’s Letters: America from the Revolutionary War to the Present, edited by Lisa Grunwald and Stephen J. Adler and Faith for Beginnersby Aaron Hamburger


2006Israeli-born scholar Prof. Jehezkel Shoshani published an article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science identifying the remains of a 27-million-year-old creature unearthed in Eritrea as those of an ancestor of the modern elephant. The article describes an animal which was the size of a cow - about 1.5 meters high and weighing about half a ton - and has been named "Eritreum," for short. According to the fossil evidence, the animal had a long snout and small tusks, and fed mostly on vegetation. Prof. Shoshani, says it is the missing link in elephant evolution. It is customary to name new species after the scientist who discovers them. However, Shoshani chose to name the old-new creature after the farmer who found it and the country in which it was unearthed: Eritreum melekegabrachristos. He said he hoped that this would encourage the citizens of Eritrea to continue to assist scientific research.


2006(8thof Cheshvan, 5767): Ninety year old Jacob Mendel Lazarus, the son of Sam and Annie Stein Lazarus and the husband of Maxine B. Lazaurs passed away today after which he was interred at the Sunset Hill Cemetery in Valdosta, GA.


2006: Efraim Sneh was appointed Deputy Minister of Defense.


2007: Columnist Michael J. Gerson, a former speechwriter for President Bush, discusses and signs Heroic Conservatism: Why Republicans Need to Embrace America's Ideals (And Why They Deserve to Fail If They Don't) in Reston, Virginia


2007: Haaretz reports that a new memorial center opens at Bergen-Belsen camp.


2007: The state prosecution told the High Court of Justice that it had changed its mind about the indictment of Moshe Katsav on the basis of evidence from the two key complainants.


2007(18th of Cheshvan, 5768): Sixty-six year old Israeli comedian and actor Yisrael Poliakov died of cancer at the Rabin Medical Center-Beilinson Campus Petah Tikva  after which there was a public memorial service at the Cameri Theatre followed by a burial at Kibbutz Einat.
 
2008: Dor Chadash presents the exclusive New York premiere of “The Debt.”  “Twenty years after WWII has ended, three Mossad agents kidnap the infamous "Surgeon of Birkenau" in Berlin. As they await their return to Israel with this monstrous Nazi war criminal, a psychological duel commences between the Nazi and the young Mossad agents.”



2008(1st of Cheshvan, 5769): Rosh Chodesh Cheshvan, 5769


2008: The former manager of Agriprocessors was arrested on charges related to the hiring of illegal workers. Sholom Rubashkin was arrested today by immigration officials and was due to appear in federal court later that day.



2008: Haaretz reported that an Israeli archaeologist digging at a hilltop south of Jerusalem believes a ceramic shard found in the ruins of an ancient town bears the oldest Hebrew inscription ever discovered, a find that could provide an important glimpse into the culture and language of the Holy Land at the time of the Bible.



2008:The "gutter," or water system mentioned in the Bible as the way King David's men conquered Jerusalem may have been found. Dr. Eilat Mazar, an archaeologist excavating the City of David, the most ancient part of Jerusalem, believes it has, and is to present her findings this evening at a seminar at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.



2009:Hundreds of exhibits supporting a scathing report on the Securities and Exchange Commission’s past investigations of Bernard L. Madoff were released today by the author of the report, the agency’s inspector general, H. David Kotz. The exhibits include a full account of an interview with Mr. Madoff, who confessed in March to running the largest Ponzi scheme in history, a fraud whose victims number in the thousands and whose cash losses are now put at more than $21 billion..



2009(12th of Cheshvan, 5770)Claude Lévi-Strauss the "father of modern anthropology" passed away. (As reported by Edward Rothstein
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/04/world/europe/04levistrauss.html?pagewanted=all



2009:The Tower of David Museum presents: "Peace Making in Jerusalem--a Concert at the Tower of David Museum:"



2009:Opening of "Synergy,” the new exhibit on display in Beit Tzarfat, at Hebrew University's Givat Ram campus. The group exhibit displays the drawing, sculpture, and photography of artists Ann Rakover, Gila Robinson, Datia Landau, Yitzhak Shalhevet and Sasson Tiram.



2009: The Los Angeles Times featured a review of Ariel Sabar’s memoir “My Father's Paradise: A Son's Search for His Family's Past," which won a 2009 National Book Critics Circle Award and has just been reissued in paperback.



2009: “Seven Jewish Children: A Play for Gaza” a play panned by The Sunday Times, condemned by the Board of Deputies of British Jews and described as “a blood libel” by Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic opened at Gustavus Adolphus College today



2010:Mark Zuckerberg received a "Medal of Fear" at the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear



2010: The 16th Annual R' Shlomo Carlebach Memorial Concert sponsored by The R' Shlomo Carlebach Foundation is scheduled to take place in Jerusalem.



2010: The 15th Memorial Day Rally commemorating the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin is scheduled to be held at 7:30pm in Rabin Square in Tel Aviv.



2010: Brazilian-born violist Myrna Herzog performed this evening at the Blumenthal Center in Tel Aviv.



2011: Sam Kringlen, Temple Judah’s young violin virtuoso is scheduled to perform at The Hadassah Donor Dinner in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.



2011:The Spertus Institute of Jewish Studies in Chicago, Illinois, is scheduled to show Legado (Legacy) a documentary that tells the story of the Jewish colonization in Argentina.



2011:Acclaimed up-and-coming novelists David Bezmozgis, author of The Free World and one of The New Yorker’s “2010 top 20 fiction writers under the age of 40;” Nadia Kalman, author of The Cosmopolitans; and Haley Tanner, author of Vaclav & Lena are scheduled to explore the modern Russian immigrant experience with moderator Faye Moskowitz, author and professor of English and creative writing at George Washington University at the Hyman S & Freda Bernstein Jewish Literary Festival.



2011: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Jerusalem: The Biography” the 650 page epic tale by Simon Sebag Montefiore whose great-great uncle was Sir Moses Montefiore a giant of 19th century Jewry whom some only remember because of the windmill in Jerusalem that bears his name – Montefiore’s Windmill.



2011:Israel was hit with another volley of rockets launched by Gaza militants, despite reports that Egypt was working to secure a truce between Israel and the Islamic Jihad that would halt all rocket attacks from the Gaza Strip effective 10 P.M.



2011:Tel Aviv court sentences former soldier for gathering and possessing secret military documents, passing them to "Haaretz" reporter Uri Blau.  The Tel Aviv District Court sentenced Anat Kamm to four and a half years in prison this morning.



2011:Minister Binyamin Netanyahu reiterated the Israeli government's policy of strict retaliation against those that harm Israelis, warning both Islamic Jihad and Hamas not to test Israel. His comments came the day after an Israeli man was killed by shrapnel when a Grad rocket hit Ashdod.


2012: The Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra is scheduled to perform at the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles under the baton of Zubin Mehta.


2012: Publication today of “The Hidden Stories of Jews and English Football.”

2012: It was reported today that “actor Daniel Day-Lewis and his sister Tamasin are donating papers belonging to his father, the poet Cecil-Day Lewis which fill 54 boxes and included early drafts of the poet’s work” to Oxford University


2012: “Forty Years on the Bimah” a retreat organized by 80 year old Leah Novick the oldest woman rabbi within the Reconstructionist, Reform, and Renewal movements came to an end today.


2012: In Bloomfield Hills, MI, Temple Beth El is scheduled to present Jan Durecki speaking on “Behind the Wheel” part of the Rabbi Leo M. Franklin Archives Jewish History Detectives Lecture series.


2012:Iran's foreign ministry spokesman said today that Tehran was ready to discuss the 1994 terrorist bombing of a Buenos Aires Jewish community center.



2012:More than 120 major decision makers, scholars and leaders from around the Jewish world will attend a conference in Jerusalem today to discuss strategic issues facing the Jewish people and the State of Israel in the future.http://www.jpost.com/JewishWorld/JewishNews/Article.aspx?id=289754


2013: Les Ballets Jazz de Montreal is scheduled to perform a new work by American-born Israeli choreographer Barak Marshal.


2013: French Film Director Ilan Duran Cohen is scheduled to attend the opening of The UK Jewish Film Festival


2013: “Wicked: The Untold Story of the Witches of Oz,” a musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz and book by Winnie Holzman celebrated its tenth anniversary on Broadway today.


2013: The 25th annual Kosherfest is scheduled to come to an end today.


2013: The Israel Philharmonic Orchestra under the direction of conductor/violinist Julian Rachlin is scheduled to perform tonight at The Beverly Hills Hotel.


2013:Today the Israel Antiquities Authority released the discovery of a 1,700 year old curse found at the City of David archaeological site in Jerusalem.


2013: Teva Pharmaceutical Industries announced today that its president and CEO for the past two years, Jeremy Levin, has agreed to step down. Trading in shares of Teva were halted following the announcement of Levin's departure, and once trading resumed, the stock plummeted by 8 percent.


2014: The Skirball Center is scheduled to present Jerry Rabow lecturing on “The Lost Matriarch: Finding Leah in the Bible and Midrash.”


2014: Louis Black is scheduled to perform at the Hull Center in Eugene, Ohio


2014:“Rescue, Relief, and Renewal: 100 Years of ’the Joint’ in Poland” is scheduled to open at the Galicia Jewish Museum in Krakow today.
http://archives.jdc.org/about-us/articles/galicia-jewish-museum.html


2014: YIVO and the Museum of the City of New York are scheduled to present “Creating History: Can We Tell the Past?”


2014: “The suspected shooter in yesterday’s assassination attempt on a Temple Mount activist in Jerusalem was killed in the mixed Jewish-Arab Jerusalem neighborhood of Abu Tor early this morning following a shootout with police.” (As reported by Ilan Ben Zion)


2014: “A senior IDF official warned today that Lebanon’s Hezbollah terror group would likely target Ben Gurion International Airport and the Haifa seaport in a future war with Israel in an attempt to cut Israelis off of international travel.”


2014:Kevin Youkilis “announced his retirement from baseball.”


2014: Thaler Holocaust Memorial Fund Planning Committee under the direction of Dr. Bob Silber is scheduled to meet in Cedar Rapids, IA.


2015: Judge Thomas Kelly Ryan set today as the sentencing date for “Frazier Glenn Miller Jr., 74, a former Ku Klux Klan leader with a history of racist and anti-Semitic actions who was convicted of capital murder in the shooting deaths of three people (none of whom were Jewish) a year ago at a Jewish community center and an assisted living facility in suburban Kansas City.”


2015: “Academic, writer, and cultural diplomat Annie Cohen-Solal is scheduled to discuss European and American modernism, the work of Niki de Saint Phalle, and the interactions among art, literature, and society” at the American Art Museum.


2015: “Hana’s Suitcase,” Emil Sher’s adaptation of Karen Levine’s best-selling novel is scheduled to be performed for the last time at the Young People’s Theatre in Toronto.


2015(17th of Cheshvan, 5776): “Dr. Joel Elkes, who published the first scientific trial of a medication for schizophrenia and became a foundational figure in modern psychiatry, describing a framework to understand how brain chemistry shapes behavior” passed away today at the age of 101. (As reported by Benedict Carey)
 
2015: Paul Singer, a billionaire New York investor sent a letter “dozen of Republican donors” describing Senator Marco Rubio as being “the only candidate who can navigate the complex primary process and still be in a position to defeat Hillary Clinton in a general election.”



2015: An “Israeli man in his 20s sustained moderate injuries after being stabbed near the Ammunition Hill light rail station on Bar-Lev Street by a 23-year-old resident of Kfar Akeb in East Jerusalem” while “a second man was injured by police gunfire when security forces tried to subdue the attacker, who was shot and critically wounded.”


2015: Cellist Inbal Segev is scheduled to perform J.S. Bach’s Cello Suites at Bargemusic in Brooklyn.


2016: The New York Times featured books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including recently released paperback editions of Killing A King: The Assassination of Yitzhak Rabin and the Remaking of Israel by Dan Ephron, America’s Bank: The Epic Struggle to Create the Federal Reserve by Roger Lowenstein and The Gay Revolution: The Story of the Struggle by Lillian Faderman


2016: The Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education is scheduled to host an Open House at its new offices.


2016: Today, “Noa and her longtime collaborator, Gil Dor, are scheduled to return to the Skirball Center for an intimate concert with special guest singer/songwriter Mira Awad.”


2016: The Center for Jewish History is scheduled to host a lecture by Rhoda Miller on “Long Island’s Jewish History.”


2016: The Jewish Historical Society of Greater Washington is scheduled to host a lecture by award-winning cookbook author Joan Nathan which will include a look at her new book King Solomon’s Table.


2016: As part of the Jewish Film Series, the Jewish Federation of Greater Des Moines is scheduled to host a screening of “Marvin Hamlisch: What he did for Love.”


2016: In Ridgefield, CT, Congregation Shir Shalom is scheduled to host an afternoon of musical theatre history featuring Ira Joe Fisher.


2016: “Last Portraits” “a new Dutch film about Annemie Wolff” who courageously created a photographic record of Dutch Jewry during the German occupation is scheduled to be shown as the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center opens a new exhibition “Lost Stories, Found Images.”


2016: The unveiling of Kevin Skinner’s matzevah is scheduled to take place this afternoon at Eben Israel Cemetery in Cedar Rapids, IA.


2016: Today, Anna Grinis “a 75 year old Russian born Israeli woman” “who was just two days old when World War II broke out” “was crowned Israel’s 5th‘Miss Holocaust Survivor’ in an unconventional beauty pageant dedicated to women who survived the horrors of World War II”


2016 “Senior journalist Ari Shavit resigned from both Haaretz and Channel 10 today as a former J Street staffer came forth as the “second woman to accuse him of sexual harassment.”


2016: In Chicago, the Cubs led by President Theo Epstein are scheduled to take on the Cleveland Indians led by General Manager Mike Chernoff in the fifth game of the World Series.


2017: The Temple Emanue-El Streicker Center is scheduled to host an evening with former first daughters Jenna Bush Hager and Barbara Pierce Bush.


2017: Amid charges of sexual misconduct NBC and MSNBC “terminated Mark Halperin’s contract with the network.


2017(10th of Cheshvan, 5778): Ninety-six year old Argentine native Dr. Salvador Minuchin, a cutting-edge American psychotherapist passed away today.  (As reported by Sam Roberts)

2017(10th of Cheshvan, 5778): Seventy-seven year old urban photographer Mel Rosenthal passed away today.  (As reported by Neil Genzlinger)

2017: The Oxford University Jewish Society is scheduled to host an interfaith discussion co-facilitated by Rabbi Michael Rosenfeld-Schueler where attendees will examine the topic of the “Mind” by “looking at texts from the three Abrahamic traditions, Christianity, Islam and Judaism.”


2017: Dr. David Kraemer is scheduled to lecture on “Diaspora In Jewish History and Thought” in which he examines the ways in which, over 2,500 years, the diaspora competed with Zion “allowing for the growth of Torah even when are distant from their original home” which is an alternative to view that Jewish history is 2 millennia of misery that could only relieved by a return to Israel.


2018: Vanderbilt University and the Nashville Jewish Film Festival are scheduled to host a screening of “Who Will Write Our History: The Secret Archive of the Warsaw Ghetto” followed a by a discussion with the executive producer, Nancy Spielberg the sister of Steven Spielberg.


2018: In London, the Jewish Museum is scheduled to host “Generation Unexpected and Jewish Life in Contemporary Poland” in which “theatre makers Katka Reszke and Michael Rubenfeld discuss Jewish life and culture in today’s Poland.”


2018: The Streicker Center is scheduled to host “All About Seltzer,” in which Barry Joseph, author of Seltzertopia: The Extraordinary Story of an Ordinary Drink, Kenny Gomberg, the third-generation owner of Gomberg Seltzer Works in Canarsie and hit cookbook author, Adeena Sussman” discuss “the Jewish Champaign.”


2018: The Frankel Center for Judaic Studies at the University of Michigan is scheduled to host “Whitechapel Noise: Politics, sex and religion in Yiddish rhyme on the streets of London’s East End 1884-1914,” in which “Vivi Lachs of Birkbeck, University of London will examine Yiddish kupletn (rhyming couplets) written by Jewish immigrant songwriters and poets in pre-World War I London.”


2018: The American Sephardi Federation and Reimagine are scheduled to present “Crafting a Memory; Preserving a Memory” which will included a “tour of the Spanish and Portuguese Cemetery” and a workshop at The Center for Jewish History.


2018: After five days, “The Israel Ride,” the country’s “premiere cycling experience sponsored by the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies is scheduled to come to an end today.


2018: Israel is scheduled to hold municipal elections including one in Tel Aviv, “where Ron Huldai, a former fighter pilot with a 20 year seniority as mayor, will face competition from his own deputy mayor for the past ten years Asaf Zamir and comedian turned entrepreneur Assaf Harel.


2018: A public letter in Arab media from "the Islamic nationalist forces in Al-Quds (Jerusalem)” calling on Arab Jerusalemites to boycott today’s elections asserted: "Whoever takes part in the elections is a traitor who harms all the Palestinian values.”


2018: The day after he called the press the “true Enemy of People” in an early morning tweet, President Trump is scheduled to visit Pittsburgh in the wake of Saturday’s murder of eleven Jews in their synagogue by a gunman who reportedly called for the death of the Jews and took particular exception to the work of HIAS because it aids immigrants.


 


 


 

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

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OCTOBER 31


445 BCE: In Jerusalem Ezra, the Scribe reads the Scroll of the Law, the Torah, to the Jews of Judea as described in Nehemiah 9:1. 


475: Twenty five years after the redaction of the Jerusalem Talmud, Orestes refused to “wear the Purple” and named his son Romulus Augustus as Western Roman Emperor.  Romulus Augustus would be the last person to hold this job and when he was deposed in 476 it marked the end of the Roman Empire, at least in the West.  This period of chaos combined with the rise of Christianity as the state religion in Europe was not conducive to the well-being of the Jews who had settled in what once had been the Roman Empire.


1345: Birthdate King Fernando I of Portugal.  During his reign Jews not only enjoyed a certain amount of self-government through the position of a Chief Rabbi or Ar-Rabbi Mor.  The King trusted Jews so much that Don Judah served as his chief treasurer and Don David Negro served as “his confidant and counselor.”


1391: Birthdate of King Duarte of Portugal who during his reign enacted laws prohibiting Jews from employing Christians.


1497: Last date given by King Manuelfor Jews to leave Portugal. Four years after the expulsion of Jews from Spain, he had ordered them expelled from Portugal. As his real desire was not to see the Jews leave for financial reasons, he only opened one port forcing most of them to remain behind after the designated date then baptizing them against their will.


1514: Birthdate of Viennese cartographer Wolfgang Lazius who “suggested that after Babel the earliest Hebrews had migrated from Mesopotamia to German” and who found evidence of Hebrew in European languages


1517: Luther posted 95 theses on Wittenbergchurch starting the Protestant Reformation.  From the point of view of Jewish history it is ironic that Luther took his action on Halloween, the holiday known for trick or treat.  In his battle with the Pope, Luther sought to gain the support of the Jews.  He publicly admitted that Christians had ill-treated the Jews and it was time to change.  He believed that once the Jews experienced Christian love, Jews would embrace his version of Christianity en masse.  When the Jews refused to convert, Luther turned on them and became a virulent anti-Semite.  At the same time, the Jews would become the unwitting victims as the Protestants and Catholics engaged in a variety of religious wars that would consume Europe for the next one hundred years.


1655: As the week long Tishrei festivals come to an end, Manassah Ben Israel prepared to make his voyage where is to meet with Oliver Cromwell whom he hopes will allow the Jews to return to the British Isles.


1655: A “humble address” is sent from Manasseh ben Israel to Oliver Cromwell, The Lord Protector. A fortnight later on 13 November he submitted a petition for the readmission of Jews to England.


1705: Birthdate of Clement XIV, the Pope who declared the Jews “innocent of the slanderous blood accusation” and who moved the Jews from the jurisdiction of the Inquisition to the “Viciariato di Roma.” (The Vicar of Rome who is the Pope)


1759(10th of Cheshvan, 5520): An earthquake killed several hundred Jews in Safed.  Safed is the town most people connect with Jewish mystics and the famous Shabbat Eve hymn, Lecha Dodi.  Prior to the earthquake, Safed had been a thriving city.  The first printing presses in the Middle Eastwere set up in Safed and the first Hebrew book published in Eretz Israel was produced in Safed in the year before the earthquake.  The quake was one of a series of disasters including plagues and Arab attacks that would turn the town into a comparative backwater until the creation of the modern state of Israel.


1784(16th of Cheshvan, 5545): Couronna, the wife of Lion Acher ou Shaagat Arie and the mother of Asser, Juda and Wolf Lion passed away today in Metz, Lorraine, France.


1761: Birthdate of Sir Rutger Jan Schimmelpenninckthe who in 1802 as the  Batavian (Dutch) Ambassador to France delivered a note to the French foreign minister on behalf of the Jews of Germany.


1806: In Philadelphia, PA, John Moss and Rebecca Lyons gave birth to Eleazer (Eugene) Moss


1810: Philip Raphael married Grace Simmons at the Great Synagogue today.


1817: Birthdate of Tzvi Hirsch Graetz who gained fame as historian Heinrich Graetz.


1821: Samuel Jacobs married Phoebe Levy at the Great Synagogue today


1821: Mordecai ben Joseph married Mata bat Simon at the Western Synagogue today.


1824: Birthdate of Galician author Fabius Mieses whose works including “a history of modern philosophy from Kant to his own time” published in 1887.

1826: Birthdate of Agnes (nee Lewin) Byk, the native of Pinsk who was the wife of Samuel Alexander Byk.


1827: Jacob ben Moses married Shifra bat Joel at the New Synagogue today.


1827: Isaac Cohen married Sarah Samuel at the Great Synagogue today.


1830: Solomon ben Nathaniel Ha-Levi married Beila bat David at the Western Synagogue today.


1831: Samuel Hyam married Phoebe Levy at the New Synagogue today.


1832: Moses Levin married Sarah Nannette Joseph at the Great Synagogue today.


1834(28thof Tishrei, 5595): Samuel Landau, the chief dayan of Prague who was the son of Rabbi Yechezkel ben Yehuda Landau passed away today.


1835: Birthdate of Johann Friedrich Wilhelm Adolf von Baeyer, known as Adolph von Baeyer, the first Jew to ever receive the Nobel Prize. A native of Berlin, this German chemist was acknowledged in 1905 for synthesizing dye indigo and was awarded the Davie Medal by the Royal Society of London in 1881, for his work with indigo. He passed away in 1917.


1837: Birthdate of Bertha Eppstein, the husband of Max Eppstein and the mother of Seraphine Eppstein Pisko.


1841: In the first Jewish marriage in New Zealand, David Nathan wed Rosetta Aarons in Kororareka.


1842(27th of Cheshvan, 5603):Eighty year old Rabbi Solomon Hirschell passed away. Born in 1761, he was the Chief Rabbi of Great Britain, from 1802 until his death.  He is best remembered for his unsuccessful attempt to stop the spread of Reform Judaism in Britain by excommunicating its leaders. His father was a Polish Jew from Galicia Hirschel Levin, Chief Rabbi of London and Berlin and a friend of Moses Mendelssohn. His older brother was Talmudist Saul Berlin.

1842(27thof Cheshvan, 5603): Joseph Simson, the son of Solomon and Sarah Simon and the husband Francs (Frumet) Simons passed away in New York City.


1848: Birthdate of Andrew Rosewater, the native of Bohemia and graduate of the Cleveland, Ohio public schools who became a civil and sanitary engineer as well as the editor of the Omaha (Neb) Bee.


1849; Mordecai Manuel Noah wrote to Daniel Webster today inviting him to attend the Hebrew Benevolent and German Hebrew Benevolent Society banquet to be held in New York on November 13.  In the letter, Noah informs Webster that there are 13,000 Jews living in New York City and that number is continuing to rise daily.


1851: “Hebrew Customs – Interesting Case” published today described a case being heard in the Court of Common Pleas in Philadelphia where P.S. Rowland, a Jewish plaintiff has filed suit against the widow of his brother and her new husband contesting the distribution of the will based on the Biblical concept of the Levirate Marriage .


1856: Birthdate of Julia Raphael the mother of Dorothy Elizabeth Levitt a pioneer female automobile and motor boat racer


1856: Eighty-year old Fogel Solomon was buried today at the “Exeter Jewish Cemetery.”


1856: In Philadelphia, PA, Abraham Kahn and the former Rebecca Ezekiel gave birth to Florence Kahn Liveright, the wife of Simon Livewright and Jewish community leader who serve as a Director of the Hebrew Education Society and was active in the Jewish Hospital Auxiliary and the Personal Interest Section of the United Hebrew Charities.


1857: In a letter to the editor published in today's New York Times, "Grace, a farmer's wife" expresses her indignation of having the farmer classed with "the Wall-street gamblers or Chatham-street Jews."  In New York, Chatham Street was the center of the second-hand clothing business, an industry dominated by immigrant Jews who allegedly took advantage of their Christian costumers.


1860: The News of the Day Column published today reported that “a ball and banquet in aid of the ‘Jews Hospital in New-York’ was given at the City Assembly Rooms last evening, which was largely attended by members of the Jewish faith and others. Donations in aid of the Hospital were received from those present, and from absent persons, by letter, amounting to $14,000. Among the donors was Gov. Morgan, who sent a complimentary letter in closing $100.”


1861: The General News column published today reported that “A murder of a most atrocious nature has been committed in New-Jersey, on the body of a German Jew named Sigismund Felluer. Deceased had only been in this country a few days, and had property in jewels and diamonds to the amount of $50,000. A man with whom Felluer left the Prescott House, and a Jewess in whose company Felluer was seen, are suspected, and the police are diligently searching for them. A reward of $500 for the discovery of the murderer or murderers has been offered by the friends of Felluer.


1864:  Nevada is admitted as the 36th U.S. state.  It was a series of silver strikes, the most famous of which was the Comstock Lode that attracted large numbers of early settlers to Nevada including Jews as well as Gentiles.  For example, when Eureka, Nevada experienced its silver strike the town’s population reached four thousand including more than one hundred Jews.  Among these Jews was Ben C. Levy a native of France who became superintendent of two mines and who, along with his wife, was a leader of the Jewish community.  David H. Cohen was typical of these early Jewish settlers.  He began as a “49er” in California, moved on to Virginia City, Nevada before “striking it reach” with a liquor business in Austin, Nevada.  Adoph Sutro left the most lasting monument to the intrepid Jewish population of Nevada’s early days.  This placer panner turned entrepreneur raised the money for the construction of the four mile long Sutro Tunnel designed to drain water from the mines thus making them safer and more protective. The man who made the modern Nevada was Jewish gangster Bugsy Siegel, the man behind Las Vegas.  As of 2000, there were an estimated 77,100 Jews living in Nevada, representing an increase of 277% from 1990.


1864: Birthdate of Albert Henry Jessel, a London –born “communal worker.”


1865: James Goldsmith, who had risen from the rank of Corporal to Sergeant since joining Company H of the 163rd Regiment of the 18thCavalry in 1862 completed his “term of service today.”


1866: On the Isle of Wight, Read Admiral John Bourmaster Dickson and his wife gave birth to John Dickson-Poynder, the first Baron Islington who in 1922 and 1930 condemned the mandate in Palestine because he said it favored the Jews whom he described as “undesirable.”


1869: Birthdate of David Pollock, the native of Lida, Russia who became the Superintendent of the Zion Hebrew Sabbath Schools in Chicago and the editor of the Zion Messenger.


1872(29thof Tishrei, 5633): Edward Henry Beddington, the “chairman of the Building Committee of the United Synagogue and treasurer of Jew’s College who played a key role in “connection with the erection of the Central Synagogue” and the creation “of a new Jewish cemetery at Willesden” passed away today. (As reported by Joseph Jacobs and Goodman Lipkind)


1873: Birthdate of Rudolf Lubinski the Croatian architect whose projects included the synagogue in Sarajevo, Il Kal Grandi.


1875: It was reported today that “eight Jews and Jewesses were recently baptized in London.


1875: It was reported today that in England, a revision of the Book of Isaiah has been completed and work on a revision of the translation of the Book of Jeremiah has reach the midpoint of that book of the Bible.


1875: It was reported today that the Jewish messenger said of Moody and Sankey, “We give the two enterprising gentlemen the credit of being honest in their intentions, earnest in their work and as the past has proved, disinterested in the pecuniary results of their vast undertakings.  Would that we could say the same of all our Deacons and Trustees, Pastors and Rabbis” [ Moody is Dwight Moody, the famous evangelist.  Sankey is Ira David Sankey, “The Sweet Singer of Methodism” who was known for his composition and singing of gospel music. During a trip to the United Kingdom, the two raised tens of thousands of dollars for the use of missionaries.


1875: In Los Angeles, Harriet (née Newmark) and Marc Eugene Meyer gave birth to Eugene Meyer, a Yale graduate, who established his own very successful banking firm and did not choose to continue identifying as a Jews.  Starting with World War I, he served actively on numerous government boards and committees.  He gained lasting fame when he bought the bankrupt Washington Post at public auction.  As published of the Post until 1946 and then as chairman of the board of the Washington Post & Times Herald,Meyer was instrumentally in making the Post a leading American newspaper and creating a media empire that included the Washington outlet of CBS and Newsweek Magazine. He passed away in 1959.  His daughter, Katherine Graham would continue his work and take the Post to levels of which he only dreamed.


1879: According to reports published today from Berlin, Romania is seeking to gain formal recognition of her independence in light of her government’s recent action concerning the emancipation of the Jews.


1880: Simon Sterne was among those who attended a reception this evening for President and Mrs. Grant at Parlor No. 81 in New York City.


1880: Reverend J.P. Newman delivered a sermon this morning at New York’s Central Methodist Church on “The Impending Danger to Our Public Schools  in which he contended “that the public schools were sectarian” because all children including Jewish children “meet there on an equal footing…without undergoing sectarian instruction.” (This benign view of the public schools was one that many Jews showed they favored by sending their children to them.  This was especially true among the Russian and Polish Jews who saw the schools as the pathway to “Americanization.’)


1881: It was reported today that “the Turkish Governor of Jerusalem has recently received orders from Sultan Abdul Hamid to resume the work” on “restoration of Solomon’s Temple” that had stopped five years ago.  The first order of business is to remove “all the rubbish and …vegetation” that has filled the area. The original restoration work had begun “at the instance of” Franz Joseph and the Austrian imperial family.


1881: It was reported today a fair being held in Cincinnati, Ohio, will raise $50,000 for the Jewish Orphan Asylum in Cleveland, Ohio.


1881: “Reformed Judaism” published today described the change in Jewish observance that took place at Temple Beth-El where Dr. Kaufmann Kohler delivered a lecture entitled “Our Religious and Social State” as part of a Sunday morning service that will now replace the traditional Saturday Sabbath observance.


1884: “The Clergymen and Mr. Blaine” published today took “Rabbi Brown” task for the manner in which he expressed his support for the Republican candidate for President.


1885: Rabbi de Sola Mendes responded approvingly today to plans to create a prayer book with selections in Hebrew and English “for the home use of women and children” Rabbi Mendes said there is nothing new about such tomes but that for some reason those that exist are all written in German.


1885: In Lemberg, Bernhard Sobelsohn, a postal worker and his wife gave birth to Karl Sobelsohn who gained fame as Communist revolutionary Karl Radek who was murdered while serving a ten year sentence after being convicted in one of Stalin’s notorious Show Trials.


1885: One day after he had passed away, “George Henry Morris, the infant son of Henry Martin Morris” and the former “Julie Pollitzer” was buried today at “Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.”


1885: It was reported today that the Hebrew Journal has endorsed Walter Howe to serve in the New York State representing the 10th District.  Howe was active in the protesting the treatment of Russian Jews and has worked to have the penal code changed so that Jews who observed Shabbat can work on Sunday.


1885: In Zitomar, Russia Rebecca and Israel Jacob Wainer gave birth to Colonel Max Robert Wainer, who was presented with the “French Legion of Honor, Chevalier” by Marshal Foch for his “service on General John J. Pershing’s General Staff and who served as “Chairman of the U.S. Army Quartermaster Board at Fort Lee, Virginia during WW II” while being married to “Amy Elivin Shephard Wainter with whom he had two children – Amos and Max.”


1886: It was reported today that, in a rare display of 19th ecumenical harmony, English Jews and Protestants joined with Catholics in celebrating the 50th anniversary of the ordination of János Cardinal Simor


1887: The annual meeting of the United Hebrew Charities was held this evening at Temple Emanu-El where the following officers were elected: President – Henry Rice, Vice President – Morris Tuska, Treasurer – James H Hoffman, Secretary – J.S. Isaacs


1887(13thof Cheshvan, 5648): Two weeks before his 77th birthday, “educator and author” Jacob Auerbach author of “Lessing and Mendelssohn” and a “History of the Jewish Community of Vienna from 1784” passed away today.


1888: Based on information supplied by Mrs. Philip J. Joachimsen, the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society has taken 1,339 Jewish children since it began providing service.  Currently there are 585 children living in the institution 278 of whom are girls and 307 are boys.  207 of the children were born in the Austro-Hungarian Empire and 242 came from Russia or Poland.


1889: Mr. Rosenthal, the leader of the Republicans in the Fourth District and the head of the Hebrew-American Republic Party sent a letter to the leader of the district today stating that he is leaving the party because of its “ingratitude” and “disregard for sacred promises.”


1889: Elise Hausch and Major General Erwin Von Heimerdinger gave birth to Gertrud von Heimerdingerwho was employed in the German Foreign Office as assistant Chief of the Diplomatic Courier Section but as an anti-Nazi, secretly arranged for special passes to enable diplomat Fritz Kolbe (the main Allied source of intelligence) to make frequent trips to Switzerland to pass on information to Allen Dulles, head of American O.S.S. (Jewish Virtual Library)


1889: “Lore of the East” published today described the recent meeting of the American Oriental Society during which Professor Isaac Hall read from “The Colloquy of Moses on Mount Sinai, the Martyrdom of St. George and the Story of the Letters which Fell from Heaven” and attendees examined “a scroll of the Law in Hebrew which” had been found “in China.


1889: “Marriage or Betrothal” published today described events surrounding claims that David Harfeld is a serial bigamist.  Miss Julia Harlan testified that after nine years of marriage, Harfield had disappeared without a trace. Last year she heard that that Harfeld had been wed to Sarah Marx in a traditional Jewish ceremony.  The defendant’s brother, who is a rabbi, testified that it was a betrothal ceremony, a claim that Miss Marx repeated on the stand.  However, Rabbi DeSola Mendes testified that the ceremony described was a wedding ceremony.  However, Mendes is a Sephardic Jew and the contract submitted by the defense was identified as what Polish Jews consider a betrothal contract. The confused Judge has not rendered a verdict.


1890: Two days after she had passed away, 60 year old Sarah Joseph, “the wife of Samuel Joseph” was buried today at the “Plashet Jewish Cemetery in London.”


1890: In Zutphen, Holland, Philip Cohen who died at Auschwitz and the former Betje Brook gave birth to Sabiena Cohen who died at Sobibor, the wife of Levie Van Praage who died at Sobibor.


1892: The eighty-six Russian and Polish workers arrested yesterday at the cloakmaking firm of S.M. Levi & Co on charges that they were violating the “Sunday law” claimed that they did not work on Saturday which meant that they could work on Sunday according to the law.  Labor leader Joseph Barondess claimed that this was not so and that they along with thousands of other cloakmakers in the city worked seven days a week.  The Judge released them with a warning that if they were ever brought before him on these charges again “he would fine them heavily.”


1893: “Mr. Hammerstein’s Work” published today described a speech given by Oscar Hammerstein at the premiere of “Koh-i-Noor” in which he said he had made “a bet of $100” with himself “that he could write an operetta, words and music, design the scenery and costumes, engage the company and get 300 columns of advance notices in the newspaper, all in forty-eight hours” and that he was pleased to say he had won the bet.


1894: Governor Roswell P. Flower delivered speeches today at Niagara Falls and Suspension in which he warned of an alliance between the Republicans and the American Protective Association (A.P.A.) a secret Protestant organization that promotes “hostility to Jews and Catholics” and would keep “men from employment and pubic office on account of their religious belief.” (Compare this to the anti-immigrant stance taken in the 21st century)


1894: Major Du Paty de Clam “finished his inquiry, and handed in his report, which accused Dreyfus but left it to the minister to decide what further steps should be taken.”


1894: Jacob H. Schiff chaired this evening’s meeting at Cooper Union where “German-American Citizen” enthusiastically endorsed the anti-Tammany ticket.  Among those on the platform were Aaron Levy, Hy Hyman, Magnus Levy and Dr. Felix Adler.


1894: Max Nordeau’s “drama Die Kugel was presented at the Lessing Theatre” today.


1894: In Charleston, SC, Gustave Pollitzer and his wife, the former Clara Guinzberg gave birth to suffragette Anita Pollitzer who was also a protégé of Alfred Stieglitz. (Another Jew with a camera!)

1894: A summary of the annual report for the United Hebrew Charities in New York published today showed that the organization had responded to 37,097 applications for relief. The new applications for relief included 623 from people over sixty and 1,107 widows. In responding to all requests for assistance, the society spent $225, 063.73 while bringing in $227, 244.82 from all sources.


1895: “Annie Silverman of 105 Allen Street was arrested” today “on a warrant sworn out by Max Sanftman, an agent for the Hebrew Anti-Vice Society, charging her with being a disorderly woman.”


1895: In Lachva, Russia, Maurice Glass and Pearl Chafters gave birth John Judah Glass who came to Canada in 1907, served with the Canadian Expeditionary Force in WW I, began practicing law in 1920 before going into politics where he represented St. Andrew in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario.


1896(24th of Cheshvan, 5657): Sixty year old Ernestine Fox died from consumption 2 days after her son Abraham passed away from the same cause.


1896: The University of Wisconsin football team led by first year head coach Philip King, a Jewish native of Washington, DC won its fifth straight game today.


1896: Joseph Jacobs, “the distinguished Jewish scholar” arrived in New York from London aboard the SS St. Louis.  The President of the British Folklore Association, some of Jacobs best known works are Jews of Angevin England, Sources of Spanish History and the recently published Jewish Year Book.


1897(5thof Cheshvan, 5658): In London, Lizzie Emanuel, the wife of Emanuel Emanuel passed away today.


1897: “The eleventh session of the Board of the Federation of Synagogues” of which Sir Samuel Montagu is president opened this evening at the Jewish Working Men’s Club in London.


1897: Mr. B.A. Elkin presided over a debate at the West Central Institute on the subject of “Is Happiness the Aim of Life.”


1898: George Jessel Jones, Morris Conheim and Carly Meyer who were serving with the 1stMissouri Volunteer Infantry were mustered out today at St. Louis, the city where all three men lived before the war.


1898: Second Lt. Charles F. Wolf, Sergeant Charles Olschefskie and Privates Simon J. Bush and Simon Freund all of who were serving with Company A from Hartford were among those whose military service came to an end when the 1stRegiment Connecticut Volunteer Infantry was mustered out today.


1898: Detective Connelly arrested Leopold Lederer and Abraham Zucker on charges of arson in the first and second degrees.  Zucker is the brother of Isaac Zucker who is serving 36 years in prison for burning down his own store.


1898: Private Louis W. Cahn of New Haven, who had been serving with Battery C of the 1st Regiment of the Connecticut Volunteer Artillery was mustered out of service today.


1898: Solomon Loeb was elected honorary vice president at tonight’s annual meeting of the Society of United Hebrew Charities which was held at Temple Emanu-El


1898: Their Majesties, the Emperor and Empress of Germany attended the consecration of the Church of the Redeemer in Jerusalem, which is part of the trip where the Herzl will meet with the Kaiser to promote his Zionist dream.


1898: Theodor Herzl wrote in his diary today “When I remember thee in days to come, O, Jerusalem, it will not be with pleasure” which some say is proof that “the founder of modern Zionism had no particular affection for the holy city.” (As reported by Mitch Ginsburg)


1900: In New York Hugo Piesen married Annie Piesen the daughter of Abraham and Sarah Abrahamowitz.


1905(2nd of Cheshvan, 5666): Three hundred Jews were killed in a Pogrom in Odessa, Russia.


1905: Rabbi Moses and Tamara Shorr were married at Königsberg


1905: Constantine Petrovitch Pobiedonostzeff , Chief Procurator of the Holy Synagogue “who has persecuted the Jews, Lutherans and Catholics….with unswerving zeal” and who “from 1890 to 1902 caused 6,000,000 Jewish families to be expelled from Russia” resigned.


1907: The apartment building at 67 Riverside Drive in Riverdale, designed by architect George F. Pelham who also designed the synagogue for Beth Jacob Anshe Sholom in Brooklyn, opened today.


1907: Birthdate of Helen Brook, the daughter of a London furrier who gained fame as Helen Lessore, the director of the Beaux Arts Gallery.

1911: In Brooklyn Edward and Martha Esther Cahn gave birth Ruth Cahn who became Ruth Marshall when she married Harold Marshall


1911(9th of Cheshvan, 5672): At Constantinople Daoud Effendi Molho, a member of the Ottoman Diplomatic Staff, passed away at the age of 67.


1912: Birthdate of Oscar Dystel  “who combined sharp editorial judgments, shrewd marketing and attention-grabbing covers to propel Bantam Books from the brink of collapse to pre-eminence in paperback publishing after World War II.” (As reported by Douglas Martin)


1912: In Lancaster, PA, Laurence B. Myers and Edith Hirsh Myers gave birth to Robert Julius Myersthe actuary who helped to create the Social Security program and to set America’s official retirement age at 65


1913: Birthdate of Milton Green, the world class hurdler, Harvard graduate and WW II veteran who refused to participate in the Nazi 1936 Olympics.

1913: After thirty-five years as head of the Cleveland Jewish Orphan Home, Dr. Samuel Wolfenstein was forced to retire today “due to failing health.”


1913: A motion granting Leo Frank a new trial “was brought” today “but after a bitter fight was denied with Judge Roan adding, "Gentlemen, I have thought about this case more than any other I have ever tried. With all the thought I have put on this case, I am not thoroughly convinced that Frank is guilty or innocent. But I do not have to be convinced. The jury was convinced. There is no room to doubt that."[


1914: As charges of bigotry come to dominate the New York gubernatorial race, former President Theodore Roosevelt, the leader of the Progressive Party delivered a speech tonight in which said that his party treats “with absolute equality all me, whether they are Catholics, Protestants or Jews.”


1914: Charles H. Sherrill, the former American Minister to Argentina, reported on “the patriotism of Russian Jews” who are “rallying to the Russian flag in the present war.”


1915: Reverend Anthony Maliauskis, a Lithuanian priest is scheduled to speak to in New York and Newark on the plight of the Lithuanian and Jewish refugees fleeing in the wake of the Russian army’s withdrawal and to try and raise funds for these people who are face with starvation and death.


1915: “Sisterhood Wants Help” published today described the appeals of the Sisterhood of the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue for help in continuing activities this winter at “the neighborhood house at 88 Orchard Street which houses “Talmud Torah schools, an advice and information bureau” and provides classes, lectures and relief for the poor.


1915: The final session of the triennial convention of the 124 lodges of the Independent Order Free Sons of Israel came to a close today at the Free Sons Hall in New York with the installation of new officers.


1915: In London, Leopold de Rothschild presided over a meeting “held in behalf of the fund for the relief of Jewish victims of the war in Russia” where “it was announced that 1,500,000 Russian Jews were starving.”


1915: “Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, addressing an audience of 2,500 person who filled Carnegie Hall” tonight “to hear his sermon on woman suffrage before the Free Synagogue said that war would never end before women have the vote and that if the vote continued to be withheld and wars continue he would wish to see women make a united protest by refusing to bear children.”


1915: It was reported today that “during the past week the American Jewish Relief Committee of which Felix M. Warburg is the Treasurer” will use all of the money it has collected “for the relief of Jewish sufferers in the war zones of Europe – Russia, Poland and Galicia – with the exception of $1,000 which was sent to Crete.”


1916: A letter which was triggered by the anti-Semitic writings that appeared in Psychology of War by U.S. Army Captain LeRoy indicating the favorable attitude of the War Department as it pertains to the quality of Jewish soldiers “was given out at the White House executive offices today.”


1916: In his annual report to the Board of Managers the Sinai Congregation of the Bronx, Rabbi Max Reicher wrote today that “the year 1916 was a banner year in the history of Sinai Congregation” as can be seen by the dedication of the new facility, the doubling of membership which is now approaching 300 families and the growth in attendance at Friday evening and Saturday morning services.


1917: Jacob Schiff, Louis Marshall, Adolph Lewisohnn, Oscar S. Straus, Joseph Barondess, Isaac Allen, Bernard G. Richards, Louis Lipsky, Daniel Guggenheim, Samuel Strauss and Henry Morgenthau were the “prominent Jews” who signed a statement addressed to the citizens of New York “urging the re-election of Mayor Mitchel.”


1917:  During World War I, the “last successful cavalry charge in history” took place at the Battle of Beersheba.  The Battle of Beersheba was part of the British campaign against the Ottoman Turks. In an era dominated by machine guns, barbed wire and massed heavy artillery, the Australian 4thLight Horse Brigade charged four miles of Turkish trenches, overran them and captured the wells at Beersheba. The British needed to take Beersheba because its wells would provide the water needed for a successful campaign.  On October 30, 2004, the day before the anniversary of this event Jews around the world would read an account from the book of Bereshit of contest between Abraham and Abimelech over the wells at Beersheba.  Surely some Rabbi in Sydney or Melbourne would include mention of this battle in his d'var torah on the sidrah. The capture of Beershebaleads to the seizure of Gazaby British troops including the Jewish Soldiers of the 39thBattalion of Royal Fusiliers.


1917: In Great Britain, “the cabinet overrode the opposition of two cabinet members and authorized the Foreign Secretary to issue a much-diluted version of the assurance of support that Weizmann had requested.”  This “statement of support” would soon be known as The Balfour Declaration.


1918: Following the armistice with Turkey today, the 38th Battalion under the command of Colonel John Henry Patterson (the Jewish Legion) was sent to Raf


1918: As WW I wound down, The Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867 that established the dual monarchy and re-established the sovereignty of the Kingdom of Hungary which emancipated its Jews in1867, was formally terminated today – a move that would prove detrimental to the Jews of Central Europe.


1918: Six days after he had passed away, Jack Berge was buried today in the “Plashet Jewish Cemetery in London.”


1918: Birthdate of Massachusetts native Jack Rotman who earned All-New England honors while playing basketball for Boston University from 1938 through 1940.


1919: “The Crucifixion of Jews Must Stop!” published today written by Marin Henry Glynn, the former of governor of New York appeared in today’s issue of The American Hebrew. Glynn lamented the poor conditions for European Jews after World War I. He “referred to these conditions as a potential ‘holocaust’ and asserted that ‘six million Jewish men and women are starving across the seas’. Because of these coincidences, the article has been exploited by Holocaust-denial groups. Others, while in no way intending to deny the Holocaust, nonetheless acknowledge that the commonly-quoted figure of six million deaths is an estimate, that the actual number may have been less, that not all of the victims were Jewish, and that there is a wide margin of error.”


1920: The Directors of the Jewish Theological Seminary decided to name a professorship in memory of Jacob H. Schiff.


1920: Attorney John Levy is scheduled to give the opening address at the public forum at the Bronx Free Synagogue where attendees will discuss the League of Ntionals.


1920: “The formal dedication of the new building of the Bronx Maternity Hospital is scheduled to take places this afternoon under the auspices of President Elias Bayer and Secretary Barnett E. Koppelman.


1920: In Berlin Klara "Claire" (née Marquis) and Max Neustädter, a button factory owner gave birth to photographer Helmut Newton.



1924: Birthdate of Yehuda Klien who as Yehuda Amital would become an Orthodox rabbi, the Rosh Yeshiva of Yeshivat Har Etzion and a member of the Israeli cabinet.


1924: The Civil Tribunal of the Seine granted a divorce to Mrs. Hart O. Berg, the wife of Jewish business manager of the Wright Brothers.


1925(13th of Cheshvan, 5686): Max Linder, French actor, director and screenwriter, passed away.


1926(23rd of Cheshvan, 5687): Erich Weiss better known as magician Harry Houdini, died in Detroit of gangrene and peritonitis resulting from a ruptured appendix thought to have been brought on by interaction at an earlier performance.

1926: Following his recent arrival in the United States Dr. Chaim Weismann, President of the ZOA announced that “he had come to work with his friends on behalf of the Jewish National Home in Palestine. He said that he feld confident that this time, as on earlier occasions, his pleading would find a sympathetic response among the great Jewish Community of America.


1927: In New York, Witia (née Haskell), an actress and teacher, and Abraham W. Rosenthal, a realtor and educator gave birth to their only child Lyova Haskell Rosenthal who gained fame as actress Lee Grant.


1928: Lord Allenby called on Dr. Chaim Weizmann at the Hotel Commodore where he “expressed his satisfaction with the results of the Non-Zionist Conference on Palestine, which will unite American Jews for the rebuilding of Palestine.”


1928: “The Power of the Press” a silent newspaper movie written by Sonya Levien was released in the United States by Columbia Pictures.


1929: In New York, Mr. and Mrs. William Zeckendorf, Sr. gave birth to William Zeckendorf, Jr. who “transformed New York City by making big bets on big projects that helped refashion neighborhoods from the Upper West Side to Union Square.” (As reported by Douglas Martin)


1930: Dr. Karl Landsteiner, who was just named as the recipient of the Nobel Prize in Medicine talked today “of his researches that led to the discovery of a serum for infantile paralysis; of his studies of human blood groups, which have opened a new field in the establishment of the paternity of children…and of his work in immunology…” His work in the classification of blood into thirty subdivisions has improved the selection of blood donors transforming transfusions from a “dangerous operation” to “a safe and frequently used procedure.”


1930: General Wilhelm Adam succeeded General Baron Kurt von Hammerstein as head of the The Truppenamt or 'Troop Office' which was a cover for the German General Staff which had been outlawed by the Versailles Treaty.  The existence of the organization was proof that Germany’s violation of the treaty began in 1919 and not in 1933.


1930: Tonight approximately eight thousand “Jews gathered in Tel Aviv to celebrate the fiftieth birthday of Vladimir Jabotinsky”   and to protest against the White Paper on the British Policy in Palestine.


1931: U.S. premiere of “Platinum Blonde,” a romantic comedy produced Harry Cohn and a script by Robert Riskin and future Tony Award winner Jo Swerling.


1931: Professor Otto Warburg’s explanation of “how respiration takes place in the cell” and proof that “a living cell can breathe only in the presence of the iron carried by a specific enzyme” was published today.  This is the work for which Warburg won this year’s Nobel Prize for Physiology and Medicine. Warburg explained that his conclusion had differed from Dr. Heinrich Wieland’s because he had used living cells and Wieland, who had won the Nobel Prize in 1928, used dead cell material.


1932: In Chicago, Fanny (née Doppelt) and A.N. Pritzker gave birth to entrepreneur Donald Pritzker, part of the legendary Pritzker clan.

1932: In Cleveland, the National Council of Jewish Federations and Welfare Funds was formed today and elected officers including William J. Shroder of Cincinnati, President; Dr. Solomon Lowenstein, Edward M. Baker, Vice Presidents; Irwin Bettman, Secretary; Eugene Warner of Buffalo, Treasurer and George W. Rabbinoff, Executive Director.


1933: “The new port of Haifa, the first modern port in Palestine” which had been chosen by the Mandatory government “because of its natural harbor and its proximity to important shipping lanes, to rail transport to the rest of Palestine and Egypt, and to the Hejaz railway to Jordan and Syria” was opened today.


1934: U.S. premiere of “Broadway Bill,” a comedy with a script by Mark Hellinger and Robert Riskin.


1935(4thof Cheshvan, 5696): According to the New York Times, Professor Sylvain Levy, the President of the Alliance Isarelite Universelle passed away today. (Other sources show October 30)

1935: Under orders from the German government, SS Albert Balin was re-named the SS Hansa because Ballin was Jewish.


1936(15thof Cheshvan, 5697): Parashat Vayera


1936: At Temple Emanu-El, Rabbi B. Benedict Glazer is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “The Social Significance of a Righteous Minority.”


1936: At the West End Synagogue, Rabbi Hyman Judah Schachtel is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “The Call for Sacrifice.”


1936: At Temple Rodeph Sholom, Rabbi Wendell A. Phillips is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “Respect for the Individual in Religion.”


1936: On Halloween, Bess Houdini, the widow of the Harry Houdini and his manager Edward Saint conducted a "Final Houdini Séance" on the roof of the Knickerbocker Hotel in Hollywood at the conclusion of which she put out the candle beside a photograph of Houdini that was said to have burned for ten years.”


1936:  Birthdate of Eugene Orowitz, better-known as Michael Landon, the actor and director who first gained fame playing the part of Little Joe on the hit western Bonanza.  Pa Cartwright was played by Jewish actor Lorene Greene.  Later he played the father on another television hit, Little House on the Prairie.  Once again Jewish artists helped to create the cultural American myth.  He died of cancer in 1991.

1938: As of this date the Polish government would no long allow Jews of Polish origins “whom it no longer considered to be Polish citizens” to enter the country. (Editor’s note – Jews from Poland living in Germany had been forced to leave Germany by the Nazis.  Now the Poles were saying that these Jews could not enter Poland.  Gives a whole new meaning to the term stateless.


1938:  As of today between five and ten thousand Jewish refugees are trapped in the Polish border town of Zbaszyn.  The Germans have expelled them and the Poles will not let them enter Poland hoping that somehow pressure will be brought to bear on Hitler’s government and the Jews will be allowed to return to the Reich.


1938: “You Can’t Take It With You” written by Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman and directed by Kaufman continued its Broadway run with it opened at the Ambassador Theatre.


1939:  Psychologist Otto Rank passed away.  Born Otto Rosenfeld in Vienna in 1884, Rank was one of Freud’s closest aides and colleagues.  He later split with Freud and became one his critics.  He extended psychoanalytic theory to the study of legend, myth, art, and other works of creativity. Instead of the Freudian Oedipus-Complex he took the trauma of birth to be more profound.  He was living in New York Citywhen he passed away.


1939: In New York, Miriam and Herman Rifkin gave birth to the first of their three children Saul M. Rifkin who gained fame as actor Ron Rifkin.


1939:In what is now central Israel, Kfar Warburg or Warburg Village was founded by members of the "Menachem" organization. It was named after Felix M. Warburg, one of the leaders of the Jewish community in the United States and a founder of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee


1940: The French authorities in Morocco imposed the Vichy racial laws on its own Jewish population of over 150,000.


1940:  During World War II, the Nazi air attacks against the British Isles known as the Battle of Britain ended.  The good news was that the victory of the RAF (Royal Air Force) meant there would be no invasion of England.  The British would live on to fight another day.  The bad news was that the end of the Battle of Britain meant that Hitler was working to put his plan to invade the Soviet Union into effect.  The invasion of the Soviet Union would lead to the murder of millions of Jews.


1940: “Władysław Szpilman and his family, along with all other Jews living in Warsaw, were forced to move into the Warsaw Ghetto.


1941: Eighty year old James Joseph Speyer, the German educated banker who was part of “The House of Speyer” which before WW I was the “third largest investment banking firm” and whose philanthropies included founding the Museum of the City of New York and the University Settlement Society of New, “the first settlement house in the United States” passed away today.

1941(10th of Cheshvan, 5702): The Nazis murdered 200 Jews in Kleck (Byelorussia) when its council members tried to make contact with non-Jews from outside the ghetto.  Jews had lived in Kleck since 1529.  At the start of the war, there were more than 4000 Jews living in the town.  After putting most of the Jews in a ghetto, the ghetto was set on fire and most of the Jews perished.  The community was not rebuilt after the war.


1941(10thof Cheshvan, 5702): Sixty-two year old Herwarth Walden died in Stalin’s Gulag.

1942: “Now, Voyager,” a psychological melodrama directed by Irving Rapper, produced by Hal B. Wallis, with music by Max Steiner was released in the United States today.


1942: Local peasants betray six members of the Jewish Fighting Organization near Kraków, Poland, alerting German troops to the Jews' presence.


1942: Three thousand Jews readied for deportation from eastern Poland to the Belzec death camp are stripped naked to prevent resistance.


1943(2nd of Cheshvan, 5704: Max Reinhardt passed while living in New York. Born Max Goldman, Reinhardt was an influential Austrian actor and director.


1944: Birthdate of Kinky Friedman, musician and candidate for governor of the state of Texas in 2006.


1944: By the end of October, the Jewish brigade under the command of Brigadier General Ernest F. Benjamin had been shipped to Italy where it joined the British Eighth Army.


1944: The gas chambers at Birkenau were silenced and ceased operating. The Germans began to dismantle them in a futile attempt to hide their evil deeds.


1944: Days before his own death, Hungarian poet Miklós Radnóti wrote “Postcard 4” which “describes the horror of seeing ‘his friend, the violinist Miklós Lorsi" executed.”

"Postcard 4"


I fell next to him. His body rolled over.


It was tight as a string before it snaps.


Shot in the back of the head- "This is how


you'll end.""Just lie quietly," I said to myself.


Patience flowers into death now.


"Der springt noch auf," I heard above me.


Dark filthy blood was drying on my ear.


Szentkiralyszabadja October 31, 1944


1945: Birthdate of Iraqi born Israeli historian Avi Shalim who is “emeritus professor of International Relations at the University of Oxford” and author of several works including The Cold War and the Middle East.


1945: In the wake of the British government’s decision to continue enforcing the White Paper of 1939, “Palmach sank three British patrol boats, 2 in Haifa and one in Jaffa, and were involved in 153 bomb attacks on bridges and culverts of the railway system.”


1945: “Spellbound,” a murder mystery with a strange twist produced by David O. Selznick, written by Ben Hecht and with music by Miklós Rózsa premiered in New York City.


1946: Two bombs exploded at a Jerusalem railway station killing a British constable.  Meir Feinstein, a British army veteran, Daniel Azulai, Massoud Bouton and Moshe Horowitz were captured afterwards and charged with the bombing.


1947: Following a request by Major Leon B. Poullada, Milton Crook joined the lawyers defending the accused during the Dora-Mittelbau War Crimes Trial.


1948(28thof Tishrei, 5709): Seventy-one year old Emilie (Mimi) Borchardt (Cohen) the daughter of Eduard and Ida Cohen and the wife of Dr. Ludwig Borchardt passed away today at Basel.


1948: The United Nations observers in Jerusalemreported that “Last night the cannons thundered again in most part parts of the city.  There have been 108 instances of Arab firing at Jewish positions in the city during the last week.”


1948:  Despite their lack of modern equipment, Israeli forces liberated the Galilee panhandle and actually took the land all the way to the Litani River in Lebanon at the end of Operation Hiram.


1948: During the Israel War of Independence a ceasefire was scheduled to go into effect today at eleven o’clock


1948: As October came to an end, “the Egyptian paper, El-Ahram, estimated that as a result of arrests, trials and sequestration of property, the Iraqi treasury collected some 20 million dinars or the equivalent of 80 million U.S. dollars.”


1949: “Regina,” an opera by Marc Blitzstein, based on the play “The Little Foxes” by Lillian Hellman “with choreography by Anna Sokolow” “premiered on Broadway at the 46th Street Theatre under the baton of conductor Maurice Abravanel.


1949: Today Lux Radio Theatre “presented an long adaption the movie version of Robert Nathan’s 1940 novel Portrait of Jennie.”


1950: During the Korean War, Tibor Rubinmanned a .30 caliber machine gun at the south end of the unit's line after three previous gunners became casualties. He continued to man his machine gun until his ammunition was exhausted. His determined stand slowed the pace of the enemy advance in his sector, permitting the remnants of his unit to retreat southward.” (From his Medal of Honor citation)


1954: The Algerian Revolution against the French begins.  The French were sure that President of Nasser was a driving force behind the Arab uprising in Algeria.  They would join with Israel and Britain in an ill-fated attempt to unseat him in what became known as the Suez Campaign in 1956.  Much to the dismay of France, President Eisenhower would join with the Soviets to keep Nasserin power.


1956:Britain and France begin to bomb Egyptairfields during the Suez Crisis.  According the scenario, the bombing was supposed to be part of European intervention designed to save the canal. It would be a week before the Anglo-French military force would show up in Egypt. This meant that the dirty work of the infantry fell to the Israelis.  In point of fact the Israelis had moved quicker than planned and the Egyptians had folded like a cheap suit leaving the Anglo-French forces with no fig-leaf to cover their mission.


1956: An Egyptian frigate began shelling Haifaat in the morning.  A French destroyer, later joined by two Israeli ships, drove off the attacker.  As dawn broke, the ship that bombarded Haifa with more than two hundred rounds was attacked by two Israeli warplanes.  The damage to the vessel forced the captain to run up the white flag.  Later that morning that captured vessel was ignominiously towed into the harbor at Haifa.


1956: The rest of the paratroop brigade joins Rafael Eitan’s regiment and completed its missional


1956:  In what would be part of a pattern for his career, Sharondisobeyed orders and launched an unnecessary attack into the MitlaPass.  The force was ambushed by the Egyptians and suffered a total loss of 158 killed and wounded.  The Pass was taken, but the price was unnecessarily high. 


1956:  The Egyptians put up a stubborn defense at Abu Agelia.  This would be the start of a two day battle for this key piece of real estate that Israel need to protect and supply its forces on the way to the Suez Canal.  Anybody who thinks that Arabs cannot fight need only go to Abu Agelia. 


1957: “Jamaica, a musical with a book by Yip Harburg and Fred Saidy, lyrics by Harburg, and music by Harold Arlen” “opened on Broadway at the Imperial Theatre.


1958: “Dreaming Lips,” a Germany film written by Paul Czinner and Carl Mayer was released in the United States today.


1963(13thof Cheshvan, 5724): Fifty nine year old “screenwriter and art director” Hans Jacoby who was forced to flee from Germany to the United States when the Nazis came to power and who returned to his native land during the 1950’s passed away today in Zurich.


1963: Birthdate of comedic actor Rob Schneider.


1964: Birthdate of Yoram Marciano, the native of Lod who is Labor MK.


1964:  Barbra Streisand's album "People," began a five week stint at the top of music charts.


1965: Arthur Gelb, the managing editor of the New York Times phoned McCandlish Phillips to tell him that that Ku Klux Klan Grand Dragon Daniel Burros whose Jewish origins he had exposed had shot himself to which Phillips replied, “What I think we’ve seen here, Arthur is the God of Israel acting in judgment.” (As reported by Margalit Fox)


1966: Birthdate of entertainer Adam Keefe Horovitz, a.k.a. King Ad-Rock.


1967: NBC broadcast “Stranger on the Run” a made-for-television directed by Don Siegel t0day.


1967(27th of Tishrei, 5728): Seventy year old German born American award winning book cover designer George Salter passed away today

1967: Birthdate of Adam Schlesinger, Jewish-American composer, musician, and producer. He has performed on bass guitar in the indie pop band Ivy and the power pop band Fountains of Wayne. In 1997 he also earned an Academy Award nomination for best original song for the title song to That Thing You Do!


1968(9thof Cheshvan, 5729): Sixty-eight year old producer William Perlberg who teamed with George Seaton to create such movie classics as “The Song of Bernadette” and “Miracle on 34th Street” passed away today.


1968: “In response to two heavy artillery bombings conducted by the Egyptian army on IDF positions along the Suez Canal, which killed 25 soldiers,” Israeli paratroopers conducted “Operation Schock,” a raid on the new Qena bridge 280 miles south of Cairo, the Nag Hammadi bridge 35 miles west of Qena span and the Nag Hammadi transformer station near the bridge” that “provided electricity to the area and was described as a switching station on a high tension line between Cairo and the Aswan Dam.”


1969: Birthdate of “stage magician and escapologist” Dorothy Dietrich who now holds the “yearly tribute” held yearly at the Houdini Museum in Scranton, PA.


1972: “Escape to the Sun,” a film about people fleeing the anti-Semitism of the USSR directed, produced and written by Menahem Goland and starring Laurence Harvey and Yehuda Barkin was released today in the United States.


1974(15thof Cheshvan, 5735): Seventy-four year old Charles Solomon “Buddy” Meyer the Washington Senator’s Second Baseman who won the American League batting crown in 1935 passed away today.

1975: “One hundred nineteen Soviet Jews signed a protest against the UN Third Committee draft resolution equating Zionism with racism claiming it is ‘essentially anti-Semitic’.”


1975: “Boris Penson, sentenced to 10 years imprisonment at the first Leningrad trial, declared a hunger strike to “mark political prisoner day” in the USSR.”. 


1975: “The Night That Panicked America” a made-for-television movie written by Nicholas Meyer and co-starring Tom Bosley and Vic Morrow was broadcast for the first time on ABC.


1975(26thof Cheshvan, 5736): Seventy-three year old Bernard Irvin Greenhut who served as Mayor of Pensacola, FL from 1965 to 1967 passed away today in Pensacola.


1978: The West End production of “Bar Mitzvah Boy,” a musical by Jule Styne, Don Black and Jack Rosenthal opened at Her Majesty’s Theater. 


1980: The Soviets arrested refusnik “Isaac Moschcowtiz in Kharko.”


1980: The dedication of the Altheimer Laboratory Agricultural Experiment State, named in honor of Ben J. Altheimer, took place at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville.


1982: A revival performance of Abraham Goldfaden’s “Shulamith” takes place at the Norman Thomas Theater in New York City.


1982: In Monmouth County, NH, Temple Beth Miriam “a ceremony was held for the Religious School in which a Time Capsule designed by Joseph Bergman was filled with items made by the children and deposited at the entrance of the Temple.”


1984:The Mapleton Park Hebrew Institute, which houses a synagogue and a yeshiva, at
2022 66th Street
, Brooklyn, was virtually destroyed in an arson fire.


1985: Richard Schifter, an American lawyer who was one of the Ritchie Boys, began serving as Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs


1987: “The Man Who Broke 1,000 Chains” directed by Daniel Mann and co-produced by Yoram Ben Ami was released in the United States today


1988(20thof Cheshvan, 5749): Eighty-six year old actor and producer John Houseman whose mother was a English Christian and whose father was an Alsatian born Jew passed away today.

1989: “The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled in favor of Bette Midler, deciding that a voice is as distinctive and personal as a face and awarding Ms. Midler $400,000” leaving her lawyer Peter Laird, to say he hoped ''national advertisers and advertising agencies will think twice in the future before they disregard the rights of artists.''


1991(23rd of Cheshvan, 5752): Seventy year old Joseph Papp, American theatrical producer, passed away.

1991: Geula Cohen completed her service as Deputy Minister of Science and Technology.


1992(4thof Cheshvan, 5753): Parashat Noach


1992(4thof Cheshvan, 5753): Eighty-two year old Mt. Pleasant, PA native Henry Wineberg  the Duquesne lineman who led his team to victory in the precursor of the Orange Bowl in 1934 and went to play for one season in 1934 with the Pittsburgh Pirates (now known as the Steelers) passed away today.


1993:Galgalatz an Israeli radio station operated by Israel Defense Forces Radio began broadcasting this morning


1995(7th of Cheshvan, 5756): Austrian born violinist, Erika Morini passed away in New York at the age of 91. She had retired in 1976, and passed away soon after the theft of her Stradivari violin.


1995: Doctors Jennifer and Todd Burstain give birth to their second son Jonathan, who like his Biblical namesake, is fine and virtuous young man.


1996(18th of Cheshvan, 5757):Ninety-three year old businessman, philanthropist and founder of the UJA, William Rosenwald, passed away today. (As reported by Lawrence Van Gelder)

1997: Publication of “POPE JOHN PAUL II TO A SYMPOSIUM ON THE ROOTS OF ANTI-JUDAISM.”

1999:The New York Timesfeatures reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or on topics of special Jewish interesting including Rebellionby Joseph Roth, translated by Michael Hofmann,Ice Fire Water: A Leib Goldkorn Cocktail byLeslie Epstein and A Flame of Pure Fire:Jack Dempsey and the Roaring '20sby Roger Kahn.


1999 (21st of Cheshvan, 5760): Seventy-eight year old Lord Immanuel Jakobovits, Britain's emeritus chief rabbi,  died unexpectedly early this morning at his London home after suffering a cerebral hemorrhage.

1999: After playing the role of the Phantom for a month, Stanley Bert Eisen bowed out of the Toronto production of The Phantom of the Opera.


2001: Ninety-two year old Indian diplomate Braj Kumar Nehru, the husband of Holocaust Survivor Magdolna Friedman

2002: As the scandal surrounding Enron continues to grow Andrew “Fastow was indicted by a federal grand jury in Houston, Texas on 78 counts including fraud, money laundering, and conspiracy.”


2003: As part of the government’s ongoing battle with Mikhail Borisovich Khodorkovsky u Vladimir Putin froze shares of Yukos, his petroleum company, because of tax charges


2003: In Tel Aviv, the first ever AzrieliCircularTowerrun-up competition (with 1144 stairs to the top) takes place.  Winners of the contest get to participate in the following year's EmpireStateBuildingrun-up competition.


2003: “Mazel Tov Y'all! The South as a Melting Pot,” Pam Kingsbury’s interview with Roy Hoffman, author of Chicken Dreaming Corn was published today.

2004:The New York Times features a review of The Story of a Lifeby Aharon Appelfeld. Translated by Aloma Halter


2004: TheFounders and Builders and Charter Members of the Jewish Historical Society were honored at the Double Chai (36th) anniversary banquet held at Etz Chaim Synagogue.


2005:  There are numerous signs today that Israel is breaking out of its diplomatic and cultural isolation.  First, the UN has scheduled a vote on the establishment of an international Holocaust remembrance day. The proposal, which was submitted by Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom, enjoys a solid majority, with at least 100 out of a total of 190 UN members promising to approve it.The motion - which marks the first time Israel has submitted a resolution to the GA - calls for January 27, the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, to be recognized as an international day of Holocaust remembrance. As part of the proposal, all member states will be called upon to develop an educational curriculum meant to instill the memory of the Holocaust in future generations to prevent genocide from occurring again. UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has expressed his support for the measure. The draft resolution reads, in part: "The Holocaust constituted a systematic and barbarous attempt to annihilate an entire people, in a manner and magnitude that have no parallel in human history. Six million Jews, a full third of the Jewish people, together with countless other minorities, were murdered. And yet, while the Holocaust was a unique tragedy forthe Jewish people, its lessons are universal. "The United Nations, an organization founded on the ashes of the Holocaust and committed to `save succeeding generations from thescourge of war' and to uphold and protect the `dignity and worth of human beings,' bears a special responsibility to ensure that the Holocaust and its lessons are never forgotten and that this tragedy will forever serve as a warning to all people of the dangers of hatred, bigotry, racism and prejudice." Second, the Jordaninans have agreed to end an anti-Semitic television series based on the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.  Third, Italian notables plan on taking part in public demonstration later this week protesting Iran’s call for the destruction of the state of Israel.


2006: For the first time ever, one of the largest and most prestigious music festivals in New York, the “Cmj Music Marathon” dedicates an entire evening to Israeli artists who sing in English. The festival which lasts through November 5, invited three Israeli artists to participate in this first time event.


2007: The Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra performs Gershwin’s American in Paris, Hindemith’s Kammermusik No. 6 and Sibelius’s Symphony No. 1 at the Jerusalem Theater in Jerusalem.


2007: At the Israel Museum in Jerusalem an exhibition entitled “Beliefs and Believers: Ancient Art from the Israel Museum” comes to an end.


2007:The seventh Alex Rider novel, Snakeheadby Anglo-Jewish author Anthony Horowitz was released today.


2007: Halloween - Should Jews participate in holiday celebrations.  See, Rabbi Michael Broyde’s “Collecting Candy on Halloween: Harmless Pastime or Halachic Prohibition?” for one view on this topic.http://www.myjewishlearning.com/holidays/About_Jewish_Holidays/Secular_Holidays/HalloweenBroyde.htm.


2008: At the Lincoln Plaza Cinemas, premier of “One Day You’ll Understand.” A meditation on loss, memory, identity and family legacy, directed by acclaimed Israeli director Amos Gitai, “One Day You’ll Understand” takes place in Parisduring the Klaus Barbie trial of 1987.


2008: The BBC broadcast “What is An American” the fourth and final episode of “The American Future: A History” “a four-part documentary series written and presented by Simon Schama.


2008: Suits were violated today relating to allegations that Deep Marine Technology (DMT) had illegally funneled campaign contributions to Norm Coleman through Hays Companies the employer of his wife Laurie.


2008(2nd of Cheshvan, 5769):Studs Terkel, 96, the preeminent oral historian of 20th-century America who described the major events of his time through the experiences and observations of the ordinary men and women who lived them, died today at his home in Chicago after a fall. (As reported by William Grimes)

2009:In Jerusalem the Camery Theater presents "Amadeus," with Itzhak Hezkiah, Itai Tiran, Chani Firstenberg, Ezra Daggan, Eran Mor, Ori Ravitz, Ohad Shahar/Moti Katz/Amir Kriaf, Eran Sarel, and ten dancers.


2010:Theodore C. Sorensen, who was a close adviser and counselor to John F. Kennedy for 11 years, writing words and giving voice to ideas that shaped the president’s image and legacy, passed away today at the age of 82. The Nebraska native was the daughter Annis Chaikin, a Russian Jew.  However he was raised as a Unitarian. In reality, he was best known as Kennedy’s Ghost Writer and the real author of “Profiles in Courage.” (As reported by Tim Weiner)

2010: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Finishing the Hat by Stephen Sondheim and Adam and Eve by Sena Jeter Naslund. 


2010:The Ruth Spector Memorial Mah Jongg Tournament is scheduled to take place at the JCC of Northern Virginia


2010:AMC broadcast the first episode of “The Waling Dead” starring Jonathan Edward “Jon” Bernthal as “Shane Walsh.”


2010:The Israeli film, Intimate Grammar, won the Tokyo Sakura Grand Prize Film Award at the 23rd Tokyo International Film Festival today. The film directed by Nir Bergman and starring actress Orly Zibershatz, was based on a novel by Israeli author David Grossman.


2010: Susan Jacoby reviewed Simon Wiesenthal: The Life and Legends by Tom Segev.


2011: Israeli violinist and UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador told a masterclass today “don’t be so polite with music, its’ like being love!”


2011(3rd of Cheshvan, 5772): Seventy-seven year old “director and producer) Gilbert “Gil” Cates (born Gilbert Katz) passed away today. (As reported by Michael Cieply)

2011: The Hyman S. & Freda Bernstein Jewish Literary Festival is scheduled to present a program based on “Precious Objects: A Story of Diamonds, Family, and a Way of Life” by Alicia Oltuski.


2011: An exhibition on the Mamilla Mall in Jerusalem featuring sculptures of stone, bronze and other materials, depicting Biblical scenes and characters,which were created by some of Israel’s top artists is scheduled to come to an end today.


2011: The David Posnack Jewish Day Schoolin south Florida's Broward County, known as “the Rams” is scheduled to begin its Basketball Season today.


2011: IAF targeted the squad responsible for launching the rockets early this morning.



2011:  Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz said he’s “very worried” about Israel’s economy in 2012 at a Knesset Finance Committee meeting today. “Our economic ship did not sink like most of the West’s ships did,” he explained, “but black storm clouds are gathering around us, and we have yet to steer the ship to shore safely



2011:  Defense Minister Ehud Barak said the IDF does not pay attention to empty calls for cease fires from various terrorist groups, in an interview today with Army Radio. If they want a cease fire, Islamic Jihad and Hamas will need to actually stop their attacks, he explained.


2012: In “Holocaust survivor tailors an American success story” published today Ned Martel tells the story of Buchenwald inmate Martin Greenfield.

2012: Before the arrival of Hurricane Sandy, the Center for Jewish History had been scheduled to present “The Circumcision Debates, Then and Now: Religious Ritual in Historic Perspective.”


2012: Labor Party chairwoman Shelly Yachimovich said today that Israel should take more concrete steps to accommodate non-Orthodox


2012: Interior Minister Eli Yishai called on the public to boycott Israel’s largest supermarket chain after it announced it would be raising prices today. The Shufersal chain announced earlier today it will bump up the prices of thousands of products by 4 percent on average, the latest in a wave of unpopular price hikes.


2012: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu won pledges from France’s president to push harder for new sanctions against Iran to keep it from developing nuclear weapons — but no empathy for any possible Israeli military strike against Iran. In a visit to Paris today, Netanyahu praised French pressure on Iran and called for tougher sanctions.”The sanctions are taking a bite out of Iran’s economy … unfortunately they have not stopped the Iranian program,” Netanyahu said


2013: The Israel Philharmonic Orchestra String Quarter is scheduled to perform in Sonoma County, marking the first time the quartet has performed in this California County.


2013: “The Jewish Film Festival of Sonoma County is scheduled to present a special screening of ‘Orchestra of Exiles’ at the Rialto Cinemas in Sebastopol, CA.” “Orchestra of Exiles is the suspenseful chronicle of how one man helped save Europe’s premiere Jewish musicians from obliteration by the Nazis during WWII!”


2013: Halloween – See below for the Jewish Connection to the American Candy Orgy centered on good-natured ghosts and ghouls!

2013: The European Union’s foreign policy chief today condemned Israel’s announcement of expansion plans in East Jerusalem neighborhoods, calling on the government to desist even from construction intended to accommodate “natural growth.” (As reported by Raphael Ahren)


2013: While Israel has remained tight-lipped over an alleged strike in Syria, an Obama administration official confirmed today that Israeli warplanes had in fact attacked an airbase in Latakia yesterday. The target was “missiles and related equipment” the Israeli government assessed might be transferred to the Lebanese terror group Hezbollah, the report said. (As reported by Yifa Yaakov, Lazar Berman and Ilan Ben Zion)


2013: “Former Yale Standout Breslow, Boston Red Sox Win World Series” published today described the role of Craig Breslow in defeating the St. Louis Cardinals.

2014: The Eden-Tamir Music Center is scheduled to host a piano recital by Dana Vakhustinsky as part of their Future Generation Series.


2014: Lewis Black is scheduled to appear at the Arlene Schnitzer Hall in Portland, OR.


2014: Before Shabbat, “Theodore Bikel: In the Shoes of Sholom Aleichem is scheduled to be shown at the Jewish International Film Festival in Sydney, Australia.


2014: The site called the Temple Mount by Jews and the Noble Sanctuary by Muslims which had been closed following a wave of Arab violence is scheduled to be re-opened today.


2014: As children are scheduled to participate in Halloween, Rabbi Regina Sandle-Phillips shares her views on whether Jews should participate in “Zombies, Vampires, and Things That Come Back to Life: A Rabbi’s Take on Halloween and Beyond.”

2014: “The National Post reported” today “that the 1944 comic book ‘Jewish War Heroes’ turned up in a box of books donated to the Kelly Library…”


2014: “In Jerusalem a group of young East Jerusalem Palestinians attempted to storm a police cordon around the Temple Mount but were repelled” while on the same day “Public Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch was saying he did not believe Palestinian rioting in Jerusalem and the West Bank would develop into an all-out intifada, or popular uprising, as violent incidents

2014: “Police arrested a man who they said may have assisted the alleged shooter of right-wing activist Rabbi Yehudah Glick, Mu’taz Hijazi, Channel 2 reported.”


2015: Jonathan Alpeyrie’s series “Last Jews of Cuba” is scheduled to come to an end today at Anastasia’s New York Gallery.


2015: “Dough” is scheduled to be shown this evening at Jewish Arts & Film Festival of Fairfield County.


2015: “To Life/The Train” and “The Farewell Party” are scheduled to be shown this evening at the Rutgers Jewish Film Fesitval.


2015: “Fauda” “Sabena” and “10% My Child” are scheduled to be shown at the 29th Israel Film Festival in Los Angeles.


2015: Agudas Achim is scheduled to sponsor “An Intimate Evening with Matisyahu: featuring an evening of “Reggae-Flavored Rap, Jewish Style” at the Englert Theatre in Iowa City


2015: Triple Crown winner American Pharaoh owned by Ahmed Zayat, an American Jew born in Cairo is scheduled to race for the last time in today’s American Breeder’s Cup Race.


2015: Mark Schapiro formally began working as the President and CEO of the Toronto Blue Jays baseball team.


2015(18th of Cheshvan, 5776): Shabbat Va-yayra 


2015(18th of Cheshvan, 5776): Eighty-eight year old Thomas Blatt, one of the few who survived the uprising at Sobibor in 1943 passed away today.



2015(18th of Cheshvan, 5776): Eighty-four year old composer Michael Leonard passed away today. (As reported by Robert Simonson)

2016: Those preparing to greet the costumed kids on Halloween can spend the time reading “For Halloween, 5 Spooky Tales of Haunted Synagogues.

2016: On the secular calendar, 90th anniversary of the death of Houdini.


2016: The New York Times Company announced today that the company’s vice chairman, 67 year old Michael Golden “a member of the fourth generation of the Ochs/Sulzberger family that has controlled The Times since 1896, who has been at the company for 32 years and has been its vice chairman since 1997” will step down from his potion at the end of 2016.


2016: After a three month break, the Knesset opened its winter session today. (As reported by Marissa Newman)


2016: “Three Israeli soldiers were wounded, one of them seriously, in a shooting attack when a Palestinian police officer opened fire on them at a checkpoint outside the West Bank city of Ramallah” today. (As reported by Judah Ari Gross)


2016: In Washington, “the 1876 synagogue” is scheduled to be cut and lifted three feet from its base in preparation of the move to its new location.


2016: The Jewish Community Center of Northern Virginia is scheduled to host a “special author even with Leslie Rupley, author of Beyond the Silk Mills, an historically rich Jewish immigrant sage of love, obsession and regret.”


2017: One hundredth anniversary of the charge of the Australian Light Horse at Beersheba during Allenby’s campaign to defeat the Ottomans during WW I.


2017(11th of Cheshvan, 5778): Forty-eight year old Ariel Erlij, “a Jewish steel mill owner from the city of Rosario in central Argentina” was among eight people killed in a terrorist truck-ramming attack today in New York City.


2017(11th of Cheshvan, 5778): Ninety year old Holocaust survivor Solomon David “Sam” Kimelman passed away today.

2017: “Following the screening of The Bloom of Yesterday, German-Australian historian and Holocaust researcher Professor Dr. Konrad Kwiet and University of Sydney’s Dr Michael Robertson are scheduled to discuss trauma through the generations and the frailty and malleability of memory.”


2017: The Streicker Center is scheduled to host “Have I Got A Story For You: Exploring the Jewish Oral Tradition” in which Pennah Schram “will explore the need for folktales, the types of tales in our heritage, the dominant values and themes of these stories and, above all, the imperative to keep telling these tales.”


2017: Halloween – for Jews, who seem to have a penchant for making everything complicated, to celebrate or not to celebrate?

2018: Following yesterday’s funerals for 66-year old Dr. Jerry Rabinowitz, 71-year old Daniel Stein and for the brothers Cecil and David Rosenthal which was attended by members of the Pittsburgh Steelers, an additional “visitation” is scheduled to be held this evening “due to the large number of people wanting to see the Rosenthal family.”


2018: Today marks the deadline for submitting entries in “Jewish News and Wizo UK’s completion for budding author” for which “novelist and children’s author Santa Montefiore…is serving as the guest judge.”


2018: The Oxford University Jewish Society is scheduled to host “Jewbilation”


2018: As part of the “Legends from the Dawn of Humanity” series, the Bible Lands Museum is scheduled to host “Isis and King Ra” which tells the tale of Egyptian goddess who attempted to save the monarch from a deadly snake bite.


2018: In London, those visiting the Jewish Museum are scheduled to “take part in an alternative Halloween experience in celebration of the bicentennial of Mary Shelley’s ‘Frankenstein.’”


 

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

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November 1

1179: Philip II is crowned King of France. In 1180, Phillip would order the arrest of all Jews living in his realm based on charges of ritual murder. It should come as no surprise that two years later, in 1182 Phillip confiscated all of the property belonging to the Jews as he banished them from his kingdom. The Jews would seek refuge in Champagne which was not a part of France at this time.



1210:  King John, brother of Richard the Lionhearted, began imprisoning the Jews of England.  As the conditions worsened in England, many Jews sought to flee the kingdom.  King John had no intention of losing this exploitable economic commodity. So he jailed his Jews rather than lose them.  By the end of the century, the English monarchs would have stripped the Jews of their wealth and would send them packing.   



1223: Louis VIII of France issued an ordinance that prohibited his officials from recording debts owed to Jews, thus reversing the policies set by his father Philip II Augustus. Usury (lending money with interest) was illegal for Christians to practice. According to Church law it was seen as a vice in which people profited from others' misfortune (like gambling), and was punishable by excommunication, a severe punishment. However since Jews were not Christian, they could not be excommunicated, and thus fell in to a legal grey area which secular rulers would sometimes exploit by allowing (or requesting) Jews to provide usury services, often for personal gain to the secular ruler, and to the discontent of the Church. Louis VIII's prohibition was one attempt at resolving this legal problem which was a constant source of friction in Church and State courts.Twenty-six barons accepted, but Theobald IV (1201–53), the powerful Count of Champagne, did not, since he had an agreement with the Jews that guaranteed him extra income through taxation. Theobald IV would become a major opposition force to Capetian dominance, and his hostility was manifest during the reign of Louis VIII. For example, during the siege of Avignon, he performed only the minimum service of 40 days, and left home amid charges of treachery.



1290: Final expulsion of the Jews from England.  On July 18, 1290, Edward I (England)pressured by his barons, the Church, and possibly his mother, announced the expulsion of all the Jews. By November approximately 4000 had fled. The Jews had to pay their own passage, mostly to France. They were allowed to take movables (i.e. clothing). A number of Jews were robbed and cast overboard during the voyage by the ship captains. The Jews did not return to England until 1659. This was the first national expulsion of the Jews. England was one of the only centralized and national monarchies of that time.


1348: The Jews are caught in power struggle among contending Christian factions in Spain when the anti-royalist Union of Valencia attacks the Jews of Murviedro because they are serfs of the King of Valencia and thus "royalists".


1349: Duke of Brabant ordered the execution of all Jews in Brussels. He accused them of poisoning the wells.


1478: The Holy See issued a Papal Bull empowering Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain “to appoint three bishops…with complete jurisdiction over heretics and their accomplices.”  This simple statement marked the start of the infamous Spanish Inquisition.


1503: Start of the papacy of Julius II who in 1512 refused to sell a copy of the Hebrew Bible belonging to the Vatican for an amount valued in the 19th century at £20,784.  Why Julius turned down the offer when he needed the money in his fight with King Louis XII of France is not known.


1504: The most important and unfortunate decree was that made by King Vladislav today: “ …and we grant to the citizens the favour that neither we nor future kings of Bohemia will bring more Jews into this city, as the Jews have been given to your city by our forefathers for your benefit. We therefore confirm in writing and with our royal powers in Bohemia that your city and its citizens have the right to expel the Jews from your city whenever you like without any hindrance from our side or from future kings of Bohemia.” In 1504, the citizens of Pilsen took this ‘glorious privilege’ literally and expelled all Jews from the city without taking account of the income they would lose from the Jewish taxes.


1512: “The ceiling of Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel” which according to Rabbi Benjamin Blech, an associate professor of Talmud at Yeshiva University and the author of The Sistine Secrets: Unlocking the Codes in Michelangelo's Defiant Masterpiece is “actually a ‘bridge’ between the Roman Catholic Church and the Jewish faith” was “exhibited to the public for  the first time” today.


1519: Leo X, one of the Medici popes, issued a bull “in which he remitted the Jewish hearth and banking taxes, granted amnesty for all offenses committed by Jews, confirmed all the privileges and advantages granted to them by his predecessors and prescribed that a Jewish offender should be arraigned before qualified judges and should condemned only on evidence given by trustworthy witnesses.”


1706(24th of Cheshvan): Rabbi Chaim ben Benjamin Asael of Salonika, author of Sam Hayyai, passed away


1768: Maksym Zaliznyak, the Ukrainian leader who was responsible for the Jews at Uman earlier in the year was deported to Bilhorod for leading a rebellion (not for killing Jews).


1780: Esther Mordecai because Esther Mordecai Russell today when she married Dr. Philip Moses Russell, a Jewish Surgeon's Mate, who received a special commendation from General George Washington for his services at Valley Forge during the winter of 1777-1778 in a ceremony performed by her father Rabbi Mordecai Moses Mordecai.


1784: Birthdate of Rabbi Gotthold Salomon “the first Jew to translate the TaNaCh into High German.”


1793(26 of Cheshvan, 5554): Forty-two year old Lord George Gordon the Scottish noble and MP who converted to Judaism passed away today.



1798: In Savannah, GA, Abraham de Lyon and his wife gave birth to their daughter Hannah Lyon.


1809: Twenty year old Zipporah Hart, the daughter of Jacob Naphtali Hart and Leah Nathan married Eleazar S. Lazaurs today.


1813: Benjamin D’Israeli, the grandfather of Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli, signed his last will and testament.


1817: Birthdate of Marseilles journalist Joseph Cohen who wrote about the Jews of Algeria and who was one of the editors of the first French Jewish weekly, "La Vérité Israélite," in which he published his famous work, "Les Déicides," an investigation into the life of Jesus, in which he attacks the originality of the moral teaching of the Gospels, and defends the Pharisees.”


1819: The Privy Council of Saxony ordered the expulsion of Joseph Friedlander.


1826: Joseph Abrahams married Ann Hannah at the Western Synagogue today.


1831: John Solomon Harris married Rosetta Phillips at the Western Synagogue today.


1832: Michael Alexander, the Prussian born Jew who moved to England and eventually became an Anglican was ordained today as a priest in the Church of England.


1836: In London, Jane and Isaac Salaman gave birth to Myer Salaman, the husband of Sarah Salaman


1839: In Soulzmatt, Rabbi Seligman Loeb and his wife gave birth to Isidore Loeb the French born scholar and historian who was the editor of Revue des Études Juives, the main literary product of Société des Etudes Juives


1840: Barnett Hyams married Elizabeth Davis at the Great Synagogue today.


1843: Future French general Bernard Abraham “entered the École Polytechnique at the age of nineteen.”


1844: In Brody, Josef Bodek and Henriette (Scheindel) Bodek gave birth to Dr. Arnold Heinrich Bodek


1851: Birthdate of Parisian composer Andre Alphonse Wormers who was awarded the Prix de Rome in 1875.


1855: In Ivančice (Eibenschütz), Moravia, Joachim Adler, “a physician who died of typhoid fever in 1857 and his wife Franciska gave birth to “musicologist and writer Guido Adler.


1857: In New York, Samuel Hillel Isaacs and Miriam Hadassah Philipowski gave birth to Jeannette Isaacs Davis, the wife of Benjamin Davis and public school teacher in Jersey City who moved to Chicago where she held a number of positions including principal of the Sabbath School of the Southside Hebrew Congregation and Director of the Jewish Home for the Aged while serving as editor of the Bazaar Bell and contributing to Bernheimer’s “The Russian Jew in America.”



1859: Birthdate of Lodz native Marcus Gale, who in 1882 came to the United States where he settled in Oregon where he was a farmer and store owner.


1861: Ellis C. Strouss, who rose from the rank of Private to the rank of Captain began his three and half years of service with the 57th Regiment.


1861: General George B McClellan made general in chief of Union armies.  McClellan would actually serve two terms as commanding General of the Army of the Potomac.  A great organizer, he seemed to have had an aversion to actually waging war.  His failure to win victories and his over-inflated sense of self-worth brought him on a collision course with President Lincoln who fired him in 1862.  Eventually, McClellan, who was a popular figure made his way to New York where he worked August Belmont, the Jewish financier.  Belmont would provide the financial backing that led to McClellan’s nomination for President on the Democrat Party ticket in 1864.


1862: Philadelphian Benjamin B. Goodman began serving as First Lieutenant with Company G of the 174thRegiment.


1864: John Hay, President Lincoln’s private secretary wrote a letter to Myer Isaacs that was a response to his letter of October 26 in which he warned the President that a group of New York Jews with whom he met were not leaders of the Jewish community and could not deliver the Jewish vote. In his letter, Hay assured Isaacs that when Lincoln met with “certain gentlemen of the Hebrew faith” they did not promise to deliver the Jewish vote nor did the President offer them any inducement to do so.  In other words, Isaacs was either misinformed or worrying without cause.


1870(7th of Cheshvan, 5631): Eighty-one year old German mathematician Ephraim Salomon Unger who was a Professor at the University of Erfut passed away today.


1870(7th of Cheshvan, 5631): Ninety-seven year old Naphtali Phillips the second child and first son of Jonas Phillips and Rebecca Mendz Machado who married Esther Siexas one year after the death of his first wife Rachel and became the publisher of the National Advocate passed away today.


1872:”A General Conference of the Jews” is taking place in Brussels.  A delegation of Romanian Jews has described the conditions under which they are living.  The delegation reported that the Romanian Jews had abandoned their idea of moving en masse to the United States and instead were planning on petitioning the Romanian government to grant them full civil and political rights.


1873: A report published today describing the changing state of affairs in the newly united Kingdom of Italy. The Jews have been among the most ardent supporters of the new government which has removed the onerous restrictions under which they been living.  For example Jews can now own real estate in areas that were formally under Papal Control.  This was a right the Catholic Church had denied them despite repeated petitions for change.  Several of the editors of the leading publications are Jewish and they lend their support to the new government.  According to some, “the Jews…have grown rich in Italy” because they have not hesitated to take advantage of their new opportunities.


1874: In Savanna, Harry Weiskopf of Jacksonville, Florida, married Marie Klauber of Amsterdam, NY.


1877: Gilbert and Sullivan’s “The Sorcerer” in which soprano Giulia Warwick (born Julia Ehrenberg) would play “Aline” did not open today as originally planned.


1878: A lease was obtained for a building today and provisions were made to convert it into the Brooklyn Hebrew Orphan Asylum.


1879: Acting on behalf of the Board of Delegates of American Israelites, Simon Wolf has presented the Secretary of State with a memorandum urging the United States to withhold recognition of Romania’s independence until that country grants the Jews full civil and religious and civil liberty as provided for by The Treat of Berlin.


1879: Birthdate of Oskar Barnack who invented the Leica 35 mm camera which was than mass produced by Ernst Leitz.  Letiz would take advantage of the economic power and world-wide reach of his company that was based on Barnack’s invention to mount the rescue effort of German Jews known as the Leica Freedom Train.




 1880:  Birthdate of novelist and playwright Sholem Asch (pronounced shō'lum ăsh).  Born in Poland Asch first wrote in Hebrew but switched to Yiddish.  His writings were well received and he was quite popular.  He moved to the United States before World War I and his popularity continued to grow.  He became a citizen in the 1920’s.  However, during the late 1930’s and 1940’s he wrote a trilogy of novels that dealt with Christianity.  The works were well received by the general public, but the Yiddish world rejected the works because of the subject matter.  The Forward refused to publish any more of his writings. In the 1950's, Asch settled in a suburb of Tel Aviv.  After his death in 1957, his home in Israel was turned into a Sholem Asch museum.  The following quotes are a sample of his wit and insights into the human condition.“To dream of the person you would like to be is to waste the person you are."“Writing comes more easily if you have something to say.” “The lash may force men to physical labor; it cannot force them to spiritual creativity."“The sword conquered for a while, but the spirit conquers forever!”


1880: It was reported today that in his most recent sermon Dr. J.P Newman of New York’s Central Methodist Church spoke on the “Impending Danger to Our Public Schools.”  He praised the current public schools as places where “the children of the Christina, Jews and infidel meet…on an equal footing without undergoing sectarian instruction.”  The teaching of religious doctrine should be left to parochial schools paid for by the churches.  (The public school system, free from religious indoctrination would prove to be a boon to the waves of Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe that would soon be washing up on America’s shores.)


1881: In Orwell, Ohio, Abram and Mollie (Bloch) Polsky gave birth to Bert A. Polsky the Akron businessman and community leader whose memory is honored annually by the presentation of “the Polsky Humanitarian Award to individuals who best exemplify Bert Polsky's dedication and contributions to humanitarian causes in the greater Akron area.”


1883: Birthdate of Minsk native Lesser Paley, the husband of Zelda Paley, who 1898 came to Rochester, NY where became a successful businessman and leader of the Jewish community.


1884: In Philadelphia, Blanche and Isadore Langsdorf gave birth Jacob Loeb Langsdorf, “a travel agent and cigar maker” who was the husband of “Louise Silberman Langsdorf” with whom he had two children, Benjamin and Blanche.


1884(NS): In Berdychiv, Ukraine, Russian Empire, “Menakhem Mendl Kahanovich, a smoked-fish merchant at Astrakhan on the Volga River” and his wife Leah gave birth to Pinchus Kahanovich who wrote under the pseudonym “Der Nister”  and who  at the age of 65 in the Gulag after having been arrested during Stalin’s purge that was designed to wipe out Jewish authors and the culture that had produced them.



1885: Birthdate of industrial chemist, the great-grandson of Solomon Bennet, the “Demonstrator in Chemistry at the University of Cambridge and Major in the Royal Engineers who co-authored Radium and other Radioactive Elements and Gas Recorders.


1885: “An English Hebrew Prayer Book” published today described the recent decision of the rabbis who had been meeting in Baltimore to create a prayer book that included a mixture of prayers in English and Hebrew, some of which are traditional and some of which are original.  There are numerous text like this in German, but “only one or two in English.”


1886: “Caught in a Corner,” a play featuring a performance by “Mr. Curtis whose forte is to caricature” modern Germans, is scheduled to open an 8 week run at the Fourteenth Street Theatre in Manhattan.


1886: Birthdate of author Hermann Broch, writer and refugee from the Nazis.  Born in Austria, Broch was imprisoned in a concentration camp by the Nazis in 1938.  While in the camp he began writing one of his greatest works The Death of Virgil.  The book would be published in 1945.  Several prominent authors including James Joyce intervened on Broch’s behalf and he was released by the Nazis.  He came to the United States where he continued writing until his death in 1951.


1887: It was reported today that of the 25,788 Jewish “immigrants who land at Castle Garden during the year, 18,197 remained” in New York and “16 were returned” to Europe “as paupers by the Commissioners of Emigration. 


1887: It was reported today that the United Hebrew Charities, under the presidency of Henry Rice, had provided assistance to 17,385 Jews living in New York City


1888: It was reported today that Rabbi A.S. Isaacs and Joseph Arthur Levy addressed those who attended the consecration of new synagogue and school at 186 West 80th Street in NYC.  The school will offer instruction for Hebrew for students of all ages at no charge.


1889(7th of Cheshvan, 5650): Sixty-five year old August Henry Edinger, the well-known wine merchant who came to United States in 1849 from his native Worms-on-the-Rhine and was a patron of Mount Sinai Hospital, the Montefiore Home and the Hebrew Orphan Asylum, passed away today.


1889: The following notice appeared in the New York papers today: “Siegelstein – Bubis – At Mayor’s office, Oct. 13, 1888 and at the church, June 9, 188.  Pierre Siegelstein to Mary Bubis.  Pierre Siegelstein is now studying medicine.” (Read tomorrows TDIJ for details)


1890: Jacob H. Schiff expressed his support for the anti-Tammany forces in the upcoming municipal elections when he said that “he was heart and soul for Mr. Francis M. Scott and the rest of the Municipal League Ticket” because he thought that Scott was “just the kind of Mayor the people of New York needed.”


1890: Birthdate of Vienna native and Austrian director Otto Kreisler whose films included “The Jewess of Toledo.”


1890: As New Yorkers prepared to vote for Mayor, Jesse Seligman expressed his support for Francis M. Scott saying that “I consider the Tammany Hall organization rotten to the core and I see no reason why…Tammany Hall should not be overthrown.”


1890: As of this date another 1,982 Russian immigrants had arrived in Philadelphia, PA, which was an increase from 694 during the same period last year.


1890: “MR. FROUDE ON LORD BEACONSFIELD'S RELIGION” published today provided the view James Anthony Froude, the author of a biography on Disraeli, feels that the former British Prime Minister had on this subject.


1891: In Wilmington, NC, Leopold and Johanna Bluenthenthal gave birth to Arthur “Bluey” Bluethenthal the Princeton All-American football player who died during WW I while flying with the Lafayette Escadrille.


1891: As of today, 62,574 Jews came to New York this year in Steerage, 54,194 of whom were from Russia.


1891: “In Weld County, Colorado, Philip and Anna (Shames) Quiat” gave birth to Denver University Law School Graduate and Colorado State Senator Ira Louis Quiat the husband of Esther Greenblatt.


1891: It was reported today that of the 239,000 Jews who came to the United States in the last six years, 90% came to New York and 70% of them have remained in the city.


1894: Czar Alexander III who implemented the anti-Semitic May Laws of 1882 and sought to deal with the Jews through his one-third, one-third, one-third policy died today.


1894: Nicholas II becomes Czar after the death of Alexander III.  Nicholas was the last Czar.  He was an incompetent reactionary.  He was also an anti-Semite.


1894: Having been finally given permission to speak out, Louise Dreyfus told her brother-in-law Mathieu about the charges leveled against her husband which led to Mathieu Dreyfus becoming the leading architect of the Dreyfus Defense.


1894: The French Army high command announced that it would proceed with a formal court-martial with Dreyfus as the defendant.


1895: According to a summary published today, the United Hebrew Charities collected $144,539.90 from all sources and spent $138,895.11 to provide services


1895: It was reported today that 27,065 Jewish immigrants had arrived in New York City this year as compared with 16, 381 who come in 1894. 


1895: As of today there are 300,000 Jews living in New York City


1895: The City Magistrate of Essex Market Police Court “dismissed the charges of extortion brought against Max Sanftman, an agent for the Hebrew Branch of the Anti-Vice Society, Barney Silverman” a restaurant owner whose wife had been arrested based on information provided by Sanftman.


1895:Ludovic Trarieux, a Dreyfusard who was the founding president of the League of Human and Civil Rights completed his term as Minister of Justice.


1896: Joseph Jacobs, the editor of Macmillan’s Jewish Library is reported to be in the United States so that he can deliver a series of lectures during the upcoming meeting of the National Council of Jewish Women.


1897: The first of what would be a flood of 2,079 immigrants arrived in Philadelphia.


1898: Professor Richard Gotheil, a Professor of Oriental Languages at Columbia addressed a meeting of the West Side Zion Society where he spoke about events at the Zionist Conference which he attended at Basel last August.


1898: Based on reports published today, the heat has taken its toll on the Kaiser and his wife during their visit to Palestine.  They have cancelled their trip to Jericho and will be returning to Germany sooner than expected. Since nearly 40 horses have died from the heat, the Kaiser has decided to return to Haifa from Jaffa by sea.


1898: Twenty-five year old Kate Hart, “a devout Roman Catholic” who fell in love Charles Mundag, “a devout Jew” and married him five years ago despite the opposition of her family burned herself to death after her family made overtures of reconciliation.


1898: According to a summary of the report of the United Hebrew Charities published today, the society raised $133,107.12 and spent $120,540 on providing services to the city’s needy Jews.


1898: Leopold Lederer is being held in the Tombs charged with having burned down his home in August, 1894 and Abraham Zucker is being held in the Tombs on charges of setting fire to his dry goods store on the Corner of 41stStreet and 9th Avenue.


1898: Today marked the end of a 12 month period during which 2,079 Jewish immigrants arrived in Philadelphia.


1899(28th of Cheshvan, 5660): Moses Bruhl, who has been in the jewelry business for 46 years, passed away today.  He came to the United States in 1854 at the age of 18 and became a noted philanthropist as well as a successful businessman.


1899: J. Charles Wechsler and Dr. M.J. Burstain presented plans for the proposed Emanuel Hospital and Dispensary which will serve Jews from Galicia, Austria and Hungary living on the East Side to the State Board of Charities today.


1899: As of today, the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society is providing direct care for “876 children ranging in age from three to sixteen years” of whom 534 are boys.


1899: Isaac Stern, Chairman of the Executive Board of Mount Sinai Hospital and President Isaac Wallach of Mount Sinai Hospital expressed their opposition to the construction of a new hospital for which, according to them, there is no real support.


1903: Eighty-five year old Pulitzer Prize winning author and historian Theodor Mommsen “who strongly opposed anti-Semitism” and wrote a pamphlet in which he opposed the views of Heinrich von Treitschke “who popularized the phrase "Die Juden sind unser Unglück!" ("The Jews are our misfortune!"), which was adopted as a motto by the Nazi publication Der Stürmer several decades later.


1904:Max "Kid Twist" Zwerbach, a Jewish gangster, met with Richie Fitzpatick in an attempt to decide which one of them would lead Monk Eastman Gang. During the meeting, Firzpatrick was shot to death by one of Kid Twist’s henchmen.


1905: This evening in Kiev, after the Cossacks had clashed with “the populace that had seized the Town Hall, “the Jewish quarter was sacked.”


1905: As revolutionary violence swept parts of Russia, “there were anti-Jewish demonstrations today at Kherson” in the Ukraine.


1905: “In fighting between toughs and Jews on Dalnitskaya Street” in Odessa, “thirty-seven persons were killed and eighty-one were wounded seriously enough to be taken to the hospital.


1905: “A dispatch sent from Odessa attributes today’s outbreaks there” including the attacks on the Jews “to the instigation of the disarmed and disbanded police.


1905: In New York City, Abraham and Bluma Postal gave birth to Bernard Postal, journalist, author and the co-author “with Jesse and Roy Silver of The Encyclopedia of Jews in Sports who was married to Bella Posta.



1907: Birthdate of Elimelekh-Shimon Rimalt, the native of Galicia who served in the Knesset and as the Minister of Postal Services.


1909(17th of Cheshvan 5670): Abram Hirschberg passed away today.


1910: Birthdate of Polish native John “Jack” Grossman, “a three-sports star” at Rutgers during the 1930’s after which he played professional football with the NFL Brooklyn Dodger and “move to Latin where her played professional baseball and soccer


1910: Archeologist Max von Oppenheim, “a member of the Oppenheim banking dynasty” continued to work in Cairo as a diplomat until 1910 when he was dismissed from the diplomatic service with the rank of Ministerresident today


1911(10th of Cheshvan, 5672): Four month old Salomon Maurtis Hartog, the son of Daniel Joseph Hartogh and Estelle Celine Abrahams passed away today in Paramaribo, Suriname


1914(12th of Cheshvan, 5675): During WW I, 15 year old “Midshipman Vivian George Edward S. Schreiber, HMS Monmouth, RN, died today.”


1914: Birthdate of Rabbi Moshe (Moses) Teitelbaum  Chasidic Rebbe and the world leader of the Satmar Hasidim, which is believed to be the largest Chasidic community in the world, with some 100,000 followers.


1914: Birthdate of Sofia Cosma, the native of Latvia “who defied long odds to rebuild her career after seven years in Soviet prison camps.”



1914: “Immigration” published today provides the views of Edward A. Ross on how the World War will affect population movement including a prediction that “the possible alleviation of the status of the Jew in Russia” will lead to a decrease in their “outflow” from western Asia.


1914: Today’s “City Brevities” column includes a description of an upcoming meeting of the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society.


1914: “Finds Russian Jews Aflame As Patriots” published today described the study by Charles H. Sherrill of the patriotism of Russian Jews who are rallying to the Russian flag in the present war” and its impact on Jews living in the United States.


1915: The list of the officers of the Independent Order Free Sons of Israel published today included Grand Master – Emil Tusing; Grand Treasurer – Benjamin Blumenthal; Grand Secretary – Abraham Blumenthal; Grand Secretary – Abraham Hafer; Deputy Grand Masters – Solon J. Liebeskind, Henry Jacobs and Adolph Pike; Counsel Maurice B. Blumenthal, the former Deputy Attorney General who said that “The Jews of America are first, last and all the time Americans.”


1915: It was reported today that Joseph Hertz, the Chief Rabbi of the British Empire has told his co-religionists in London that the Jewish leaders of Petrograd had expected a million pounds ($5,000,000) from the British Jews to help deal with the privations of the World War but had only received $300,000.


1915: In seeking to show his support for women getting the vote, Rabbi Stephen S. Wise was quoted to as having asked the question, “In the face of this great calamity of war, how can men say that government would be made worse by the participation of women?”


1915: “A general congress of American Jews to consider methods of assisting their co-religionists in the war zones” called for by The American Jewish Committee and its President, Louis Marshall, was scheduled to begin today in Washington, DC.


1915: A contest sponsored by the Federation of American Zionists that will award a student “in any college or university in the United States or Canada” “for the best original essay on some phase of Jewish life and culture in Palestine” judged by Julian W. Mack, Felix Frankfurter and Richard Gottheil  is scheduled to close out today


1916:Arnold Schönberg “completes the Four Songs for Voice and Orchestra, op. 22.”


1916: The Ottoman Jewish Union was founded with aim of fostering friendly relations between Jews of different countries and the Ottomans, as well as closer association of the Ottoman Jews with the other nationalities in Turkey.


1916: A letter which was triggered by the anti-Semitic writings that appeared in Psychology of War by U.S. Army Captain LeRoy indicating the favorable attitude of the War Department as it pertains to the quality of Jewish soldiers “was given out at the White House executive offices today.”


1917: W.T. Massey, British correspondent with the British army fighting in Palestine transmitted a dispatch headlined “Beersheba Taken In Night Charge.” According to him Australasian Cavalrymen dismounted to storm defenses held by Germans and Turks. The infantry cleared the way, tearing down wire entanglements with their bare hands.  At the same time, over four hundred Turkish soldiers were captured in fighting at Gaza.


1917: Today is the deadline for the American Jewish Relief Committee to raise enough money for the Jewish War Relief Fund to trigger a matching contribution by Julius Rosenwald of Chicago that could reach ten per cent of all the money raised up to ten million dollars.


1917: Oscar Straus told the “three hundred members of the Authors Club” attending a dinner “in their Carnegie Club Rooms” where they “heard denunciations of Kaiserism and Kultur” that “any candidate for Mayor of New York who was not heart and soul with the American Government in the conduct of the war was a traitor to the country” and “that he had recently been told by a prominent diplomat of an allied nation that if the present city administration were defeated on Election Day, the German people would take it as a sign that the war was unpopular here and would closer to the militarist German party.”


1917: Tonight “speaking before a large Jewish audience at Hunt’s Point Palace in the Bronx, Samuel Untermyer made a strong appeal to the patriotism of the Jewish voters and urged them as a duty to their adopted country to vote against the Socialist candidate for Mayor.” (Untermeyer was a prominent Jewish leader, Zionist and served as President of the Keren Hayesod)


1918: As of today “the total number of casualties in the American Expeditionary Force was 64,157” of which 3.9 per cent or 2,502 were Jewish


1918:  Responding to demands for an end to the monarchy, the Kaiser tells an emissary from Prince Max, ‘I wouldn’t dream of abandoning the throne because of a few hundred Jews and a thousand workers.”  The German monarch’s anti-Semitism trumped the reality of the thousands of Jews who had fought and died for the fatherland from 1914 until 1918.


1919(8thof Cheshvan, 5680): Parshat Lech-Lecha


1919(8thof Cheshvan, 5680): Seventy year old “editor and author” Gustave Pollak a native of Vienna whom came to the United States in 1866 and who was a contributor to the Evening Post, In New York, and the Nation, for 40 years” passed away today at the home of his daughter Mrs. Paul J. Sachs.


1919: In London, “Celebration of the 25th annual dinner of the Readers’ Pensions.”


1919: “The Federation of Hungarian Jews in America was organized” today.


1920: At Columbia University’s Teachers College, Mrs. Norvin Lindheim and Mrs. I.B. Berkson are scheduled to supervise “a course in household dietetics and kindred subjects” for women who want work in Social Work in Palestine


1921: Congregation Beth El located in Camden, NJ, was official incorporated by the state of New Jersey. 1921: Hadoar, the first Hebrew daily Hebrew paper published in the United States appeared for the first time.


1922: In Springfield, MA, Rebecca (née Sack) and Abraham Shelasky, a haberdasher, gave birth George Irving Shelasky better known as actor George S. Irving who made his debut in the original production of “Oklahoma” in 1943. (As reported by Richard Sanomir)



1922: The last sultan of the Ottoman Empire, Mehmed VI, abdicates. The Sultan and the empire would be replaced by a secular Turkish Republic led by Attaturk Kemal.  Large numbers of Jews fled Turkey during this period as a result of the Greco-Turkish war which was fought at this time.  Jews of the new republic also suffered a loss international protection under the terms of the Treaty of Locarno under pressure from the new regime. 


1923: Birthdate of Menachem Fetter, who made in Aliyah in 1935 and became the note Israeli jurist Menachem Elon who became Deputy President of the Supreme Court of Israel.


1923: In Warsaw, Rachel and Aryeh Turkeltabu, ‘a Zionist who ran a paper products business gave birth to Abba Tor “whose engineering prowess helped the landmark Trans World Flight Center take wing at Kennedy International Airport.” (As reported by David W. Dunlap)



1923: Paul Whiteman, asked Jewish composer  George Gershwin “to contribute a concerto-like piece for an all-jazz concert he would give in Aeolian Hall in February 1924” that would eventually lead to the creation of “Rhapsody in Blue.”


1924(4thof Cheshvan, 5685): Parashat Noach


1924(4thof Cheshvan, 5685): Fifty-seven year old Jules Greenbaum “the founder of production and distribution companies Deutsche Bioscop and Vitascope” and “one of the pioneers of the German film industry” who “introduced such directors as Max Mack and Richard Oswald to the cinema and produced the groundbreaking drama “Der Andere” (The Other) passed away today in his native Berlin.


1924: It was reported today that the wife of Hart. O Berg, the man who was the business representative for the Wright Brothers and shepherded them through pre-War Europe so they can demonstrate and sell their newly invented airplanes has been granted a divorce by courts in Paris.


1924: U.S. premiere of “White Man” the silent film produced by B.P. Schulberg that marked the cinematic debut of Clark Gable.  (Gable was not Jewish but it is still worth noting)


1924: Birthdate of Aharon Uzan, the Tunisian born Israeli political leader who held the positions Minister of Immigrant Absorption and Minister of Labor and Social Welfare after Abuhatzira resigned from both posts following his conviction for larceny, breach of trust and fraud from 1982 until 1984.


1928: The silent film version of “Noah’s Ark” directed by Michael Curitz was released today by Warner Brothers.


1928: In Washington, DC, the Rumanian Legation announced that “George Cretziano, Rumanian Minister to the United States has been decorated by the King with the Grand Cross of the Order of the Crow or Rumania in recognition of the services rendered since his appointment” including improving relations with the American Jewish community which has led to “Jewish support for Rumania’s financial stabilization program.”


1928: “Attorney General Ottinger, the Republic candidate for Governor” whom City Court Judge Gustave Hartman said “had been brought up in a real Jewish home” spoke at five meetings in Manhattan tonight where he urged voters to support Herbert Hoover for President “as the best means of insuring a continuance of prosperity.”


1929: “The Trespasser” a film that had both a silent and talkie versions edited by Cyril Gardner was released in New York City today.


1930: A new cooperative housing project, spearheaded by Lieutenant Governor Herbert Lehman and Aaron Rabinowitz opened on the site of the old Hoe & Co Printing Plant on Delancey Street.  An editorial writer for the New York Times referred to this effort as “the first step toward the rejuvenation of the Lower East Side.


1930: A demonstration was held in Jerusalem to protest the White Paper on British Policy in Palestine.


1930: The British government is making preparations to prevent any demonstrations tomorrow (the anniversary of the Balfour Declaration) by Jews who have been protesting against the White Paper on the British Policy in Palestine.


1931: The New York Times reports the Yasha Heifitz will go to Palestine next Spring to present a series of five concerts.  The Times reported approvingly of the growth of the appreciation in Palestine for “good Occidental music” in a land where until only recently “companies of wandering Egyptian musicians were the only artists heard.”


1933: The first issue of Ristow's anti-Semitic Blick in die Zeit (A Look at the Times) is published in Germany.


1933: “Only Yesterday” a film “based on the novel Briefe einer unbekannten (Letter from an Unknown Woman) by Stefan Zweig directed by John M. Stahl (Jacob Morris Strelitsky) and produced by Carl Laemmle, Jr. was released today in the United States.


1934(23rdof Cheshvan, 5695): Sixty-eight year old Simon Oscar Pollock, the husband of Julia Moschowitz and Russian revolutionary who “was counsel to the Political Refugees Defense League of New York” succumbed to the injuries that resulted from being scalded in a shower and passed away today.


1934: “We Live Again” a cinematic adaptation of the novel Resurrection produced by Samuel Goldwyn who made the film to showcase his latest acting find and with music by Alfred Newman was released in the United States by United Artists.


1934: Birthdate of Lt. General Sidney T. Weinstein, the native of Camden, NJ and West Point Graduate whose expertise led to his being inducted into the Military Intelligence Hall of Fame.



1934: Italian nuclear physicist Bruno Pontecorvo, the son of Jewish textile manufacturer “was made a temporary assistant at the Royal Institute of Physics.


1935: “Members of the religious agricultural training in Telz, Lithuania” were photographed today.



1935: The first edition of The American Hebrew, which was the successor to the American Hebrew and Jewish Tribune appeared today.


1935: Birthdate of Robert Andrzej Krauthammer the native of Warsaw, who, after he was smuggled out of the Warsaw Ghetto was given the name of Andre Tchaikowskyunder which he became a famous composer whose extra claim to fame is the fact that Royal Shakespeare Company uses his skull as prop, per the terms of his will.


1935: An addition to the Reich Citizenship Law disqualifies Jews from German citizenship.


1936: An exhibition of water-color landscapes of Palestine opened this afternoon at the Jewish Club in New York City.  The paintings “are the work of Elias Newman, an American artist who has lived in Palestine for eight year and is affiliated with the Tel Aviv Museum.”


1936: In an American Football game at Harry Newman of the Brooklyn Dodgers kicked a field goal which gave his team a temporary three to zero lead over the New York (football) Yankees.


1936: A parade organized by a group of Protestants, Catholic and Jews that “would be an affirmation of the faith of the people in God” was scheduled to be held today in New York City.


1936: It was reported today that “the most recent victims of the anti-Semitic campaign are the Jewish apothecaries” who effective October 1 were “all compelled to lease or sell their establishments and retire from the business” while Jews no longer are employed in drug stores because they were “discharged by the order of the Reich Druggist Leader.”


1936: “Literary agents for the late Edgar Wallace reported that his works have been banned in Germany because of rumors that the writer was of Jewish extraction” and they “have asked the aid of the writer’s family in proof of Mr. Wallace’s ‘Aryan’ ancestry.”


1936: This morning “in an address before the congregation of the Free Synagogue in Carnegie Hall, Rabbi Stephen S. Wise vigorously denounced the political implication put for in the present campaign that there is such a thing as a ‘Jewish vote,’ and added that there never was a campaign in which it would have been easier and more natural to shut out every reference to the Jewish race than the present one.”


1936: Leo Perper, who has been working for R.H. Macy for the last twenty years is scheduled to “become president of the Roger Kent stores” today.


1936: “Government aid cannot supplant private philanthropy Government, Governor Lehman said tonight in an address in Madison Square Garden where stage and screen stars held benefit performances for the Hebrew National Orphan Home.”


1936: Governor Herbert Lehman was an unexpected speaker at a dinner at the Hotel Astor attended by more than 2,000 guests in honor of Benjamin J. Rabin, deputy commissioner and counsel general of the New York State Mortgage Commission which was a fund raiser of the American Jewish Distribution Committee.


1936: “Four hundred and forty pupils of Jewish religious schools of New York City received prizes for attendance and scholastic records during the 1935-36 school year at a festival held this afternoon by the Jewish Education Association at the Washington Irving High School.”


1936: "Palestine Arabs Turn to Boycott" published today reported that "As was expected immediately after the Arab general strike was called off through Palestine, an anti-Jewish boycott movement has taken root."  If it continues, it can have a disastrous effect on all those living in Palestine - Arab and Jew alike


1937: Birthdate of Micha Shagrir, the native of Linz who moved to Palestine in 1938 and became one of Israel’s “leading filmmakers.”


1937: ThePalestine Post reports the death of Rabbi Henry Pereira Mendes of the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue of New York City. Born in Birmingham, England in 1852, he was one of the two founders in 1886 of the Jewish Theological Seminary. Mendes was rabbi emeritus of Shearith Israel since retiring after 43 years in 1920.


1937: The Palestine Post reported that Raphael Ben-Israel Namda was severely wounded and Ahmed Moussa el-Masri, a Persian, was killed by an Arab terrorist at the corner of Nahlat Shiva and Jaffa Road, in the center of Jerusalem. A day earlier, Jacob Weiss, the manager of the German Bank, was stabbed by an Arab assailant, but was out of danger. Shots were fired at Palestine Quarries workers near Motza. 


1937(27thof Cheshvan, 5698): Seventy-eight year old dermatologist Sigmund Pollitzer passed away today in New York City.



1938: A British Mandate police report noted that although the Arabs of Palestine had not yedclared 'a complete Jihad,' yet Jihad had been preached in many village mosques in Palestine, Syria and Iraq.   If the British government were to announce a poicy 'which is adverse to Arab interest,' the report warned, 'a complete Jihad will be declared by the more prominent religious leaders of Islam.'


1938: The “first solo exhibition of the work of Frida Kahlo” which was mounted by Julian Levy who had studied with Paul J. Sachs opened today at 15 East 57thStreet in New York.


1938: Father Bernhard Lichtenberg, a Roman Catholic priest in Berlin, condemns the German assault on Jews. One of the few German Catholics to denounce the immoral behavior of the government, Father Lichtenberg sermonizes: "Outside the synagogue is burning, and that also is a house of God."


1939: Hans Frank, governor-general of Occupied Poland, sets up the first "self-governing" Jewish council (Judenrat)within Jewish ghettos. The council leaders must obey the demands of the Nazis.


1939: Birthdate of French politician and physician Bernard Kouchner whose father was Jewish and who is the co-founder of Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) and Médecins du Monde.


1940(30thof Tishrei, 5701): Manchester native and Cambridge graduate Joseph Lewis Cohen, the economist and Zionist who helped organize the Jewish Legion in WW I and “directed the political office of the World Union of Poale Zion in London” while serving as an “economic advisor to Marks and Spencer” was killed today during the Blitz.


1941: Isidore Newman who has been training to be a member with the SOE was promoted to the rank of 2nd Lieutenant and given the code name “Athlete.”


1941: Today, “President Roosevelt announced that the U.S. Coast Guard” who most famous WW II Jewish member might have been comedian Sid Caesar “would now be under the direction of the U.S. Navy, a transition of authority usually reserved only for wartime”


1942: The Nazis completed the murder of the Jews of Pinsk, Russia, begun on October 29.  As of this date there are reportedly no more Jews left alive in the city.


1942: More than 170,000 Jews are killed within one week at the Belzec, Auschwitz, and Treblinka death camps.


1942: Birthdate of Paul L. Dickstein, the Bronx native who was Mayor Koch’s third and longest serving Budget Director. (As reported by Douglas Martin)


1943: In Algiers, Simon Attali, the owner of a perfume shop gave birth to twins Bernard Attali and Jacques Attali the French economist who was “first president of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.


1943: Joseph Stalin, Franklin Roosevelt, and Winston Churchill sign the Moscow Declaration. Because of British suspicions that the Jews and Poles are exaggerating German atrocities, the declaration omits references to gas chambers. Also, while promising postwar justice for murderers, the declaration does not mention Jews.


1943: When Francis Osborne D’Arcy, the British envoy to the Vatican, had an hour-long private audience with Pope Pious XII, the Pontiff insisted that he had no complaints about the Nazi occupation of Rome.  This is a recurring theme that reinforces the view that Pious was either totally insensitive, at best, or really an anti-Semite.


1944: Since The Russian army had driven the Germans from eastern Poland and from most of Hungary Jews began to emerge from their hiding places.


1944: In Chicago, Dr. S. Thomas Friedman and Minnie (Samet) Friedman gave birth to Texas’ legendary Richard Samet "Kinky" Friedman.



1945: In response to the British decision to continue enforce the White Paper of 1939, units of the Palmach and the Irgun conducted a series of coordinated attacks on the British run railway system and sunk “three…guard boats” in Haifa and Jaffa.


1946: In the opening game of the fledgling Basketball Association of America (BAA), Ossie Schectman scored the opening basket for the New York Knickerbockers against the Toronto Huskies. Schectman and his teammates Sonny Hertzberg, Stan Stutz, Hank Rosenstein, Ralph Kaplowitz, Jake Weber, and Leo "Ace" Gottlieb went on to win the opening game 68 – 66 and finish the season with a 33 – 27 record. In 1949, the BAA became the National Basketball Association (NBA), and Schectman’s shot is considered the first basket in the NBA.


1946: “A Matter of Life and Death,” co-directed, co-produced and co-written by Emeric Pressburger premiered today in the United Kingdom


1946: Sonny Herzberg, a six foot guard who had played for City College “was on the court -- a floor covering the ice at Maple Leaf Gardens -- when the Knicks played the first game in their history, and the inaugural game of the Basketball Association of America, the forerunner of the N.B.A.”


1947: “Canada Confirms Ban” published today described the decision of the government at Ottawa to bar “Ben Hecht’s A Flag is Born” a pageant that is a plea for the establishments of a “free Palestine as a homeland for Jews” “has been barred from Canada under Tariff Act, clause 1201 banning ‘treasonable or seditious material.”


1947: At Lake Success, NY, “a Palestine subcommittee of the United Nations General Assembly today took up Zionist proposals for modifying the economic union between the proposed Arab and Jewish states” while the British officially reacted unfavorably to the “United States plan for carrying out the partition of Palestine.”


1947: “Irwin Rosen, director of emigration of the Joint Distribution Committee announced” today “that nearly 11,000 certified Jewish emigrants will have been brought Palestine this year at a cost of more than $1,000,000 by the committee,” which is a “major American agency aiding distressed Jews aboard.”


1949: In Los Angeles“actress/comedian/screenwriter/playwright Elaine May (née Berlin) and inventor Marvin May gave birth to Jeannie Brette May who gained fame as actress and screenwriter Jeannie Berlin.


1950: Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion formed his second government today with a political coalition that included the United Religious Front.


1950(21st of Cheshvan, 5711): Eighty-four year old Colonel Hebert Jessel passed away today.  A member of the distinguished Jessel family, he was known as Sir Herbert.  A graduate of Oxford, he served in the House of Commons before being elevated to a peerage.


1950: Private First Class Tibor Rubin, a Hungarian born survivor of the Holocaust, was taken captive in North Korea by the Chinese enemy. With an injured left hand and shrapnel lodged in his chest, he was forced to march the long distance to the Prisoner of War camp. There, for many long months, Rubin stood out among his comrades as a hero, stealing out of the camp each night to obtain food, just as he had done five years earlier, as a Hungarian child in a Nazi concentration camp. For over half a century, the United States Army failed to recognize Rubin’s valor, in part, as one of his fellow GI’s said, because of anit-Semitism.  In 2005, President Bush announced that he was bestowing upon this great patriot our nation's highest award for bravery, the Medal of Honor."


1951: “Top Banana” a musical starring Phil Silvers in his Tony Award winning performance “as Jerry Biffle”opened today on Broadway at the Winter Garden Theatre


1952: The United States detonated the first Hydrogen bomb – a weapon whose development was championed by Edward Teller and opposed by J. Robert Oppenheimer, the “father of the Atomic Bomb.”


1954: After dissolving the “Left Faction, Rostam Bastuni rejoined Mapam today.


1954: Eleanor (née Lebenthal) and Harry Gerard Bissinger II, a former president of the municipal bond firm Lebenthal & Company gave birth to Harry Gerard "H. G." Bissinger III, best the “American Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author, best known for his non-fiction book Friday Night Lights.


1955: Birthdate of Michael “Mike” David Mendoza, the controversial sports radio talk show host who is a cousin of Peter Sellers and a descendant of the legendary boxer Daniel Mendoza.


1956: During the Sinai Campaign, Israeli forces fought a bitter battle with Egyptians in order to take control of Rafa at the entrance to the Gaza Strip which was a base for fedayeen, the name given to the Arab terrorists of the period.


1956(27th of Cheshvan, 5717): A car in which members of Kibbutz Erez were travelling hit a mine laid by fedayeen killing three of the passengers.


1956: “Teenage Rebel” featuring Warren Berlinger, Milton Berle’s nephew, “as Dick Hewitt was released in the United States by 20thCentury Fox.


1957: Starting today and continuing for almost three weeks, 486 Egyptian Jews were arrested under 'Military Proclamation No. 4.'


1958(18th of Cheshvan, 5719): Parashat Vayera


1958(18th of Cheshvan, 5719): Eighty-five year old Jennie Franklin Purvin the daughter of Henry Franklin and Hannah Mayer and wife of businessman of Moses L Purvin who was active in Jewish communal work passed away today.



1959(30th of Tishrei, 5720): Rosh Chodesh Cheshvan


1959(30th of Tishrei, 5720): Gershon Agron mayor of Jerusalem passed away at the age of 66.  Born Gershon Agronksy in the Ukraine in 1894, Agron immigrated to the United States with his parents.  During World War I he served with the Jewish Legion in Palestine.  In 1932, he started an English language newspaper called the Palestine Post.  In 1950, for obvious reasons, he changed the name of the paper to the Jerusalem Post.  By publishing in English, Agron provided a voice that could be understood by the British occupiers and the nascent American Zionist movement.  His brother was Martin Agronsky, a distinguished American broadcast journalist.


1960(11thof Cheshvan, 5721): Sixty-two year old Herbert R. Abeles, the husband of Etta Abeles with whom he had two children – Abby and Robert – and President of the Jewish Community Organizations of America passed away today in West Orange, NJ.


1961: Women Strike For Peace (WSP) was inaugurated with a day-long strike by an estimated 50,000 women in 60 cities, all pressing for nuclear disarmament. Bella Abzug helped form and run the group, and she became the chairperson of WSP's legislative committee. Abzug remained active in WSP until she was elected to Congress in 1970. (As reported by Jewish Women’s Archive)


1961: “The Comancheros” an epic western directed by Michael Curtiz, co-starring Ina Balin and Nehemiah Persoff and with music by Elmer Bernstein was released in the United States today.


1961: Birthdate of Peggy Orenstein, the author of the New York Timesbest-selling memoir, “Waiting for Daisy: A Tale of Two Continents, Three Religions, Five Infertility Doctors, An Oscar, an Atomic Bomb, A Romantic Night, and One Woman's Quest to Become a Mother.”


1962: It was reported today that Robert St. John has written two more books about Israel that are due to be published in the near future – “They Came From Everywhere: Twelve Who Helped Mold Modern Israel” and “The Man Who Played God.”


1962(4thof Cheshvan, 5723): Seventy-three year old Abraham Joseph Balaban (A.J.) the movie theatre mogul who was the “Balaban” in the team of Balaban and Katz passed away today.



1964: Birthdate of “Old Bethpage, Long Island,” native Erich Mendelsohn, the award winning director and screenwriter who also “teaches a Columbia University’s School of the Arts.”


1965: Over 85% of the Israeli electorate participated in today’s election to choose member for the 6th Knesset.


1966: Following a debate over the design of a new chapel at Congregation Shaar Hashomayim of Montreal, following a “motion by Joe Eliesen and seconded by Dr. George Strean, the Board of Trustees” rejected the concept of having the Bimah in the center “and decided to have the Bimah in front, in an arrangement similar to the Main Synagogue” but made no decision regarding creating a special ladies section which Rabbi Shuchat “felt discouraged ladies from attending services.”


1967: “Cool Hand Luke,” the cinema version of the book by the same name directed by Stuart Rosenberg, with music by Lalo Schifrin and starring Paul Newman was released in the United States today.


1967: Birthdate of Brooklyn native Ed Horowitz, the right handed hitting catcher, first baseman and third baseman who was drafted by the Baltimore Orioles in the 15th round of the 1989 Major League Draft.


1968: The day after Operation Shock, IAF jets took photographs over Upper Egypt revealing “that seven of the nine transformers had been destroyed or severely damaged, that Cairo's southern suburbs were disconnected from the electrical system and that the Qena Bridge was irreparably damaged.”


1971: In “Messing with Max” published today the reviewer pans “The Incomparable Max” a play centering on the life of Max Beerbohm.



1972:“The Israeli ambassador to Bonn was called back to Jerusalem for consultations which many interpreted as the government’s ways of showing displeasure” with the German government’s “speedy” release of the surviving members of the terror squad  that killed the Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics. (As reported by Yael Greenfeter and Matti Golan)


1976: Asher Yadlin was scheduled to succeed Moshe Sanbar as governor of the Bank of Israel.


1978: President Jimmy Carter established the President’s Commission on the Holocaust. The purpose of the Commission was to make recommendations on establishing and funding an appropriate memorial to victims of the Holocaust. The Commission suggested the following:


  • that a living memorial be established to honor the victims and survivors of the Holocaust and which would ensure that the lessons of the Holocaust be taught in perpetuity;

  • that an educational foundation be established to stimulate and support research in the teaching of the Holocaust;

  • that a Committee on Conscience be established that would collect information on and alert the national conscience regarding reports of actual or potential outbreaks of genocide throughout the world; and

  • that a national Day of Remembrance of victims of the Holocaust be established in perpetuity and be held annually.


1978: Ruth Bader Ginsburg argued for Duren when the Supreme Court heard Duren v. Missouri in what would be her last appearance before the High Court as an attorney


1981: In an article entitled “Kvetching About the Human Condition” Wallace Markfield reviewed A Bintel Brief Volume II. Letters to the Jewish Daily Forward 1950-80. Compiled and Edited by Isaac Metzker. (Translated by Bella S. Metzker and Diana Shalet Levy, Under the Supervision of Isaac Metzker)   For more than eighty years the Jewish Daily Forward's legendary advice column, "A Bintel Brief" ("a bundle of letters") dispensed shrewd, practical, and fair-minded advice to its readers. Created in 1906 to help bewildered Eastern European immigrants learn about their new country, the column also gave them a forum for seeking advice and support in the face of problems ranging from wrenching spiritual dilemmas to petty family squabbles to the sometimes hilarious predicaments that result when Old World meets New. Issac Metzker, who began writing for the paper in the 1920’s created this compilation column


1984(6th of Cheshvan, 5745): Seventy-four year old Norman Krasna an American screenwriter, playwright, and film director passed away.  He is best known for penning screwball comedies, melodrama, and early films noir. Krasna also directed three films during a forty-year career in Hollywood. He garnered four Academy Award screenwriting nominations, winning once for 1943's Princess O'Rourke, a film he also directed. Later in his career, he also wrote plays, including Time for Elizabeth (1948) cowritten with Groucho Marx, and the popular Kind Sir which he adapted into the movie Indiscreet (1958). He married Al Jolson's widow Erle in 1951, and they remained married until Krasna's death.


1985(17th of Cheshvan, 5746): Seventy-three year old famed funny man Phil “Silvers passed away.  Born Phillip Silversmith in 1911 in Brooklyn, Silvers was the son of Russian Jewish immigrants.  He began his career at the age of 11.  He would sing in “movie theatres” when the film would stop due to a broken projector – a common problem in the early days of film.  His most famous role came in the 1950’s when he played Sergeant Ernie Bilko on the Phil Silvers Show.  The fast talking Bilko was the comedic con artist par excellence always looking for a way to outsmart the military establishment and his dim witted Colonel.



 


1985: “To Live and Dies in L.A.” directed and written by William Friedkin and produced by Irving Levin was released in the United States today.


1987: Because Jonathan Pollard committed his crimes prior to this date “he is eligible for parole” possibly in November, 2015.


1987: After 2,209 performances the curtain came down “Little Shop of Horrors” a musical by composer Alan Menken and writer Howard Ashman.


1988:Actor Jeff Goldblum and actress Geena Davis wed in Las Vegas


1988:  Over 79 per cent of the eligible Israelis (2.3 million voters) turned out to participate in the elections for the 12thKnesset. 


1988: “Shaday,” “an album by Israeli singer Ofra Hazaz and produced by Izhar Ashot was released today.


1990(13th of Cheshvan, 5751): Eighty-three year old Sir Alan Abraham Mocatta passed away.  A graduate of Oxford who served in WW II, he a leading English jurist and a leader of the British Sephardic community


1991(24th of Cheshvan, 5752): Eighty-eight year old civic leader Frank Binswanger passed away today.





 


1993: Yosef Harish left the post of Attorney General and was replaced by Michael Ben-Yair.


1995: After 13 months, Abner J. Mikva completed his services as White House Counsel under President Clinton.


1995: When he met with Yehuda Avner, his long-time English speechwriter and friend today Yitzhak Rabin provided some of the rationale for his negotiations with Yassir Arafat. He said that he considered the likelihood of reaching a peaceful resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with Yasser Arafat to be only “a long shot.” But he attempted it, reluctantly, via the Oslo process, because he recognized that Muslim fundamentalists were gradually winning over the hearts and minds of the Palestinians of the West Bank and Gaza, and that their domination would mean “the certainty of no settlement at all.” “It is either the PLO or nothing,” Rabin said. [This conversation took place three days before Rabin was murdered on November 4.}


1995: “Assassins” produced and directed by Richard Donner was released in France today.


1996: Premiere in Israel of “Saint Clara” a film directed by Ari Folman and Ori Sivan based on the novel The Ideas of Saint Clara by Pavel Kohout.


1997: “Titanic” co-produced by Jon Landau was screened at the Tokyo International Film Festival.


1998: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or about topics of Jewish interest including Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human by Harold Bloom, Anne Frank: The Biography by Melissa Müller; Translated by Rita Kimber and Robert Kimber, Principles For A Free Society: Reconciling Individual Liberty With the Common Goodby Richard A. Epstein and Israel and the Bomb by Avner Cohen  


2000: FOX broadcast the first episode of Season 12 of the Simpsons a cartoon sitcom developed by James Brooks and Sam Simon with them music composed by Danny Elfman.


2000(3rd of Cheshvan, 5761): Lt. David-Hen Cohen, 21, of Karmiel and Sgt. Shlomo Adshina, 20, of Kibbutz Ze'elim were killed in a shooting incident in the Al-Hader area, near Bethlehem.


2000(3rd of Cheshvan, 5761): Maj. (res.) Amir Zohar, 34, of Jerusalem was killed in the Nahal Elisha settlement in the Jordan Valley while on active reserve duty


2002: “The Santa Clause 2” a comedy that is part of the Santa Clause Trilogy directed by Michael Lembeck and filmed by Israeli cinematographer Adam Greenberg was released today in the United States.


2004: Before returning from injury, Matt Bloom was released from his WWE contract


2004(17th of Cheshvan, 5765): Tatiana Ackerman, 32, of Tel Aviv, Shmuel Levy, 65, of Jaffa and Leah Levine, 64, of Givatayim were murdered and more than 30 people were injured when a 16 year old PFLP terrorist detonated a bomb this morning “at the Carmel Market located at the heart of Tel Aviv's business district.”



2005: The U.S. Senate enters a rare closed session to discuss the Plame affair and intelligence in the Iraq disarmament crisis. The Plame in the Plame Affair is Valerie Plame an American CIAagent who discovered her Jewish ancestry as an adult.


2005:  In a resolution co-sponsored by 104 Member States, the General Assembly today designated 27 January as Holocaust Remembrance Day, drawing immediate praise from Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who said the United Nations would do its part to keep the memory alive in a bid to prevent future acts of genocide.


2006 Yuli Tamire replaces Ophir Pines Paz as Science and Technology Minister


2006: Former Conservative Party MP Nigel “Lawson's lecture to the Centre for Policy Studies think-tank, published today] criticizes the Stern Review and proposed what is described as a rational approach, advocating adaptation to changes in global climate, rather than attempting mitigation, i.e., reducing greenhouse gas emissions.”


2006: At the United Nations Building in New York, Haaretz.comsenior editor Bradley Burston received an Eliav -Sartawi Award for Middle East Journalism, an annual prize for Arab, Israeli and international journalists. The winning article was entitled “Let their people go.” Israeli musician David Broza and Palestinian musicians Wisam Murad and Said Murad won an award for their song “In My Heart,” which describes the bond that Israelis and Palestinians share for the same land.


 


2007: In Washington, D.C., Architect Allan Greenberg presents a lecture, "American Architecture and the Legacy of the Revolution," drawn from his book Architecture of Democracy (his illustrated musing on the link between America's political ideals and architectural traditions), at the Ethics and Public Policy Center.


2007: An exhibition opens at Yad Vashem designed to showcase Muslims who saved Jews from Nazis during the Holocaust. The exhibition focuses on more than a dozen of the scores of Muslim Albanians previously recognized as "Righteous Among the Nations" - the Holocaust center's highest honor - for risking their lives to save Jews during World War II. The exhibit, titled "BESA: A Code of Honor - Muslim Albanians Who Rescued Jews During the Holocaust," is a collection of photographs by the American photographer Norman Gershman of the Albanian Righteous and their families, accompanied by short texts.


2007:Aaron Kintu Moses, director of the Abayudaya Jewish community of Uganda, visited Agudas Achim in Iowa City, IA.  The Abayudaya is a group of native Ugandans who have been practicing Judaism since 1919 when their local leader studied the Hebrew Bible and adopted the observances of all of Moses’ commandments including circumcision.


2007: “Sub on Wheels”, the first glatt-kosher food truck which provides a variety of items including hamburger, hot dogs and a variety of other fleshig sandwiches offers its Williamsburg customers a unique item for Thursday – Cholent which can be set aside and served for Shabbat.


2007: The Ant-Defamation League released recent survey results which it says show 15 percent of American adults hold “unquestionably anti-Semitic” views.


2008: In Cedar Rapids, Iowa Temple Judah offers a Saturday Double Header:


·         In the Morning, Balfour Shabbat Shacharit Services


·         In the Evening, Dinner, a Havdalah Service and Musical Concert with Doug Cotler


2009: Opening of the 31st Annual St. Louis Jewish Book Festival which claims to be the largest Jewish book festival in the United States.


2009: Elisa New discusses and signs her new memoir, "Jacob's Cane: A Jewish Family's Journey from the Four Lands of Lithuania to the Ports of London and Baltimore," at Politics and Prose Bookstore in Washington, D.C.


2009: After only 9 performances, Neil Simon’s “Brighton Beach Memoirs” closed today.


2009: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or on topics special interest to Jewish readers including Ayn Rand and the World She Made by Anne C. Heller, Look At the Birdie: Unpublished Short Fiction by Kurt Vonnegut and Enemies of the People My Family’s Journey to America by Kati Marton


2009: The Los Angeles Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or on topics special interest to Jewish readers including The Humbling by Phillip Roth.


2009(14thof Cheshvan, 5770): Seventy-nine year old author and survivor of life in Siberia Esther Hautzig passed away today. (As reported by Joseph Berger)



2009: “Lionel Perez was elected in the Darlington district of the Côte des Neiges-Notre-Dame-de-Grâce borough in today’s election as a member of Mayor Gérald Tremblay’s Union Montréal team, taking the seat held by Saulie Zajdel.”


2009: Seventy-five year old George Hirsch, the founding published of New York Magazine and the man who helped Fred Lewbow plan the first five boorugh NYC Marathon in 1976 is scheduled to be at the starting line of the NYC Marathon today when the runners set off from the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge.


2009: “A rare rift in George and Ira Gershwin's harmony” published today



2010:  The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Finishing the Hat: Collected Lyrics (1954-1981) With Attendant Comments, Principles, Heresies, Grudges, Whines and Anecdotes by Stephen Sondheim and Adam and Eve by Sena Jeter Naslund


2010: YIVO Institute for Jewish Research is scheduled to present a lecture by Dr. Maros Borský who launched the Slovak Jewish Heritage Route. A network linking 24 prominent Jewish heritage sites around Slovakia, it includes synagogue buildings, branches of the Museum of Jewish Culture, and three historic Jewish cemeteries.


2010: “Polish wartime hero accused of being Nazi collaborator” published today



2010: In the Netherlands, Onno Hoes began serving as Mayor of Maastricht.


2010: Holocaust Education Week begins



2010: Beate Auguste Künzel Klarsfeldvisited the Shoah Memorial Mural installed inside the Evangelische Vaterunser Kirche in Berlin. Her host was Pastor Annemarie Werner, the head of the congregation.


2010: The Atlantic Monthly cited Diane Ravitch as a “Brave Thinker” for her changing views on the types of educational reform needed in the United States.



2011: Today marks the return of Marc Chagall's America Windows to the Art Institute of Chicago. The popular exhibit underwent conservation and research treatment the past five years. The stained- glass windows commemorate the American Bicentennial and first debuted at the Art Institute in 1977. They also appeared in the movie "Ferris Bueller's Day Off.: The windows are now the centerpiece for a presentation of public art in the Rubloff Auditorium.


2011: in commemoration of the 25th anniversary of first  broadcast of Pee-wee’s Playhouse starring Paul Ruebens,, a book by Caseen Gaines called Inside “Pee-wee's Playhouse: The Untold, Unauthorized, and Unpredictable Story of a Pop Phenomenon,” is  scheduled to be released by ECW Press


2011:The 31st Annual Holocaust Education Week begins



2011:Professor Avner Cohen, author of “The Worst-Kept Secret: Israel’s Bargain with the Bomb,” and journalist Ron Rosenbaum, author of “How the End Begins: The Road to a Nuclear World War III,” are scheduled to sit down with distinguished journalist and former network correspondent Marvin Kalb to discuss the history and risks of Israel’s nuclear ambiguity and worst-case-scenarios in an age of atomic anxiety at the Jewish Literary Festival in Washington, D.C.


2011:Judge Richard Goldstone, who led the UN investigative commission into Israel and Hamas’ conduct during Israel’s Operation Cast Lead, defended Israel against charges of being an “apartheid state” in a New York Times op-ed published today


2011:Israel delayed a military operation in the Gaza Strip to stem Palestinian rocket fire due to an Egyptian request to give an additional 24 hours to cease-fire efforts, The Jerusalem Post learned today.


2012: In Minneapolis, MN, The Sabes Jewish Community Center is scheduled to present “To the Ladies of the Cool,” a concert featuring Kathy Kosins.


2012: Unless disrupted by the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, the 7th Annual JCCNV Jewish Book Festival is scheduled to open in Fairfax. VA


2012: Despite the advent of Hurricane Sandy, Andras Schiff is still scheduled to perform Book 2 of “Well-Tempered Clavier” at the 92nd Street Y.


2012: “The Act of Killing an award winning documentary film directed by Joshua Oppenheimer was released today in Indonesia.


2012: Indonesian premier of “The Act of Killing” directed by Joshua Oppenheimer.


2012: The 16th UK Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to begin today.


2012: Former Penn State President Graham Spanier is charged in the Jerry Sandusky child molestation case.



2012: Cartoons in major newspapers across the Arab world are portraying President Barack Obama and his Republican challenger Mitt Romney as being in the pocket of Jews and Israel, the Anti-Defamation League said today



2012: Israel’s political arena was rife with rumors today that retiring Communications Minister Moshe Kahlon, arguably the most popular minister in the outgoing government, is considering launching a breakaway party to rival his own Likud, possibly because of disagreements with the prime minister.



2013: The ceremony dedicating the South Campus of the Jewish Primary Day School of the Nation’s Capital Kay and Robert Schattner Center is scheduled to take place this morning in Washington, DC.


2013: In Rockville, MD, Congregation Tikvat Israel is scheduled to host the opening session of “Chocolate & Jewish Values: A Fair Trade Experience.


2013: Chassida Shmella - Ethiopian Jewish Community Inc.is scheduled to host a Shabbat Dinner and Sigd Celebration this evening in New York City.


2013: In Iowa City, Rabbi Gershom Sizomu, leader of the Abayudaya Jewish community of eastern Uganda is scheduled to present the unusual musical synthesis vital to the spiritual practice of this century old native African community


2013: Rabbi Gershom Sizomu, leader of the Abayudaya Jewish community of eastern Uganda is scheduled to lead a Kabbalat Shabbat service in Iowa City.


2013: One soldier was seriously wounded and another was in moderate condition today after an IDF operation last night to destroy part of a tunnel, east of Khan Younis just inside the Gaza Strip, was targeted by Hamas. A total of five soldiers were injured when an explosive device planted by Hamas detonated, the IDF said in a statement. Four members of Hamas’s armed wing, Izz ad-Din al-Qassam, were killed in the clash, including three of the Islamist group’s tunnel and rocket experts, an Israeli military source said. (As reported by Yoel Goldman and Ricky Ben-David)


2013: Based on reports broadcast by Channel 2 and Channel 10 in Israel “Israel is fuming with the White House” for its announcement that the IAF “had struck a military base near the Syrian port city of Latakia…hitting weaponry that was set to be transferred to Hesbollah.”


2014: Pierre Moscovici is scheduled to begin serving as European Commissioner for Economic and Financial Affairs, Taxation and Customs


2014: The Eden-Tamir Music Center is scheduled to host a piano recital by Tatyana Rubina.


2014: PuppetCinema with Zvi Sahar is scheduled to perform for the last time.


2014: In Oregon, “Portland Jewish Book Month” is scheduled to begin.


2014: “The Last Mensch” is scheduled to be shown in Sydney at Jewish International Film Festiva.


2014: “My German Friend” is scheduled to be shown at the Twin Cities Jewish Film Festvial.


2014: Lech Lecha


2014: Ronal lauder, the head of the World Jewish Congress “warne a Swiss museum against accepting a priceless set of art works including Nazi-lotted paintings from the estate of Cornelius Gurlit.


2014: “Speaking at the 19th annual Rabin memorial rally tonight, former president Shimon Peres issued scathing criticism of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s handling of the peace process with the Palestinians and of his government’s approach to the conflict.


2015: The New York Times included reviews of books by Jewish authors including The Witches: Salem, 1692 by Stacy Schiff


2015: The Foundation for Jewish Studies is scheduled to co-sponsor a walking tour of Jewish Old Town Alexandria which will trace the history of that Jewish community across the Potomac from Washington, DC from the 1850’s to the 21stcentury.


2015: The Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center hosted “Testimony and Tikkun Olam” as part of The Movement to End Gender-Related Violence.


2015: “Once in a Lifetime” is scheduled to be shown on the final night of the Jewish Arts & Film Festival of Fairfield County, CT.


2015: Trio Sefardi - Susan Gaeta, Tina Chancey, and Howard Bass – a group founded to share Sephardic music is scheduled to perform at the JCCNV


2015: At the Center for Jewish History Jeremy Dauber, Ken Frieden, Martin Peretz, and Michael Steinlauf are scheduled to discuss Y.L. Peretz’s contributions on the 100th anniversary of his death.


2015: E. Randol Schoenberg is among those scheduled to be honored at the Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust 2015 Gala Dinner.


2015: The JDC Archives and the Center for Jewish History are scheduled to host a program designed to help researches use the JDC Archives Names Database.


2015: The Oregon Jewish Museum and Center For Holocaust Education is scheduled to host a talk by Deb Mrowka who will recount the experiences of her mother during the Holocaust.


2016: The Skirball Center is scheduled to present an evening with Bill Kristol as part of the two-day “Ask the Press” program.


2016: “Three Balconies and a Door” an exhibition featuring the work of Michal Nachmany is scheduled to close at the Manny Cantor Center.


2016: Nearly 14 million dollars was by the American Friends of Magen David Adom at the Red Star Ball in Los Angeles with “some five million dollars of the total coming from a single donor, Maurice Kanbar, creator of Skyy Vodka.” (As reported by Marcy Oster)


2016: In Cleveland, the Cubs led by President Theo Epstein are scheduled to take on the Cleveland Indians led by General Manager Mike Chernoff in the sixth game of the World Series.


2016(30th of Tishrei, 5777): Rosh Chodesh Cheshvan


2016(30th of Tishrei, 5777): Eighty-nine year old Pulitzer Prize winning publisher Stanford Lipsey passed away today. (As reported by Sam Roberts.)



2017: Meir (Miro) Gal and Ortal Ben Dayan are scheulded to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Meir Gal’s widely acclaimed “9 Out of 400: the West and the Rest” at the Kovno Room of the Center for Jewish History.


2017: The Oxford University Jewish Society is scheduled to cost an “Interfaith Formal” at Trinity College.


2017: In New Orleans, the Jewish Federation is scheduled to present the Steeg-Grinspoon award to the educator of the year.


2017: “The School of Humanities and Languages, University of NSW, the Department of Hebrew, Biblical and Jewish Studies, University of Sydney and the Sydney Jewish Museum are scheduled to host “Why the Holocaust? Teaching the Next Generation.”


2018: Funeral services are scheduled to be held today in Pittsburgh 65 year old Richard Gottfried, 86 year old Sylvan Simon and his 84 year old wife Bernice Simon.


2018: Holocaust survivor Maxwell Smart is scheduled to deliver a lecture at the Canadian Museum of Immigration at part of the 15th Annual Holocaust Education Week.


2018: AJHS and HIAS are scheduled to host a “Book Talk” with Gary Shteyngart, author of the new novel Lake Success.


2018: In the wake of the Pittsburgh Massacre, the University of Iowa is scheduled to host a panel discussion on anti-Semitism with Rabbi Esther Hugenholtz, Professor Robert Cargill, and Professor Elizabeth Heineman.


2018: In Los Angeles, Yiddishkayt is scheduled to host an evening with  host Lithuanian author and journalist Rūta Vanagaitė to speak about her controversial best-seller Mūsiškiai (Our People: Journey with an Enemy), co-authored with world-famous Holocaust historian Dr. Efraim Zuroff.


2018: The “12th Annual Other Israel Film Festival” is scheduled to open at the JCC Manhattan.


2018: In Chicago, Professor Lauren Stokes is scheduled to lecture on The Rise of Homosexual Persecution in Nazi Germany” at an event sponsored by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.


 


 


 

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

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November 2



655: The Ninth Council of Toledo which was held under the auspices of King Recceuith and would adopt a resolution “that all conversos, not only converted Jews also others who had come during the Migration Period, had to pass Christian festivals in the presence of their bishop so as to prove the veracity of their faith” and that “lack of compliance with this last rule would in flogging or forced fasting, depending on the age of the offend” opened today.



1285: King Peter III of Aragon passed away.  According to the Jewish Encyclopedia, Pedro III “protected the Jews from the hatred of the clergy, who destroyed their vineyards and disturbed their graves, and though he took especially severe measures against the Bishop of Castellnou, who favored these outrages yet he did this more in his own interest than from any humanitarian motive. He was one of the kings of Aragon who placed the Jews under contribution and exacted enormous taxes from them. They supported him in his wars against Africa, Sicily, and France with voluntary subsidies. When, in 1283, he was threatened with invasion by France, he made the Jews of Faca and Gerona and their districts bear half the expense of improving the towers and fortifications; and a year later the Jews of his state had to raise 130,000 sueldos in taxes at the shortest notice. When he wished to marry his daughter to King Diniz of Portugal, he found that the sum of 185,000 sueldos of the promised dowry was lacking; thereupon he imposed a tax for that amount on the Jews. As soon as he did not require money from the Jews he ceased to be gracious to them. In 1278 he threatened them with the loss of all their privileges if these were not submitted to him for confirmation within a month. When, in 1283, the Jews of Catalonia asked the Cortes of Barcelona for recognition as vassals of the barons in whose cities or territories they lived or had acquired property, Pedro opposed this request. He even declared that in the future no Jew might come to court or act as "bayle" or tax-collector or hold any office whatsoever entailing any jurisdiction over Christians. An oath was to be taken by them in a specially prescribed form; and they were not to be permitted to slaughter in the public slaughter-houses or within the cities they inhabited.”



1327: King James II of Aragon, who employed a Jew as his secretary and interpreter, passed away. James levied a special tax on the Jews to support his war against Sicily but for some reason he exempted the Jews of Monzon from the tax.  James followed in the footsteps of his predecessors and allowed the Jews of Montpelier to practice medicine with “the proviso that the Jewish physicians must pass the regular examinations before exercising their profession.”



1389: In what would prove to be a good thing for the Jews, Boniface IX began his papacy today. During his reign he gave the Jews of Rome “legal right to observe their Shabbat, protection from local oppressive officials, and a reduction of taxes as well as giving “to treat Jews as full-fledged Roman citizens.”



1603: Birthdate of Adam Boreel, the Dutch theologian and Hebrew Scholar who was a friend of Baruch Spinoza who provided him with a home after he was expelled from the Amsterdam Jewish community.



1648: Twelve thousand Jews were massacred by Chmielnicki's forces. The revolt of the Ukrainians against their Polish masters was a disaster for the Jews of Poland.  When the slaughter ended, the Jewish community had lost the position and prosperity it had gained over the previous three centuries.  As Poland, which had been a haven for Jews fleeing persecution in Germany and Spain, descended into chaos Jews would seek refuge in the Messianic phenomenon of Sabbatai Z’ Vie and the Chassidism of the Baal Shem Tov.



1687: Juan Bautista Diamante, “a minor Spanish dramatist” whose family appeared to falsify family records to obscure their Jewish origins passed away today.



1712: Elkan Frankel “was pilloried, scourged and sent to the Wurzburg for life imprisonment” today.



1780: A court of inquiry met at West Point, NY and exonerated Colonel David Franks of any involvement in Benedict Arnold’s plot to betray the United States and surrender West Point to the British



1781: During the reign of King Joseph II of Austria an ordinance was adopted that Jews were to be "considered 'fellow-men' and all excesses against them were to be avoided. 


1783: Elias Boudinot, who was persuaded by James Adair’s History of the American Indians that the Native Americans were descendants of the Ten Lost Tribes and that the Hebrew was the origin of their language completed his service as “2nd President of the Confederation of Congress.”


1791: Samuel Phillips married Rebecca Jacobs at the Great Synagogue today.


1791: Birthdate of “Austrian industrialist and philanthropist” Hermann Todesco.




1792: Aaron Aarons married Catherine “Kitty” Solomons at the Great Synagogue today.


1793: Birthdate of Louis Jacques Begin the native of Liege who served as a surgeon in Napoleon’s campaigns against Germany and Russia.


1815(29th of Tishrei, 5576): Herz Schiff’s son, Moses Schiff, the father of Jacob Hirsh and grandfather of his namesake Moses Schiff, passed awa today.


1820: In London, Lydia,( nee’ Lyons) the widow of Sampson Samuel gave birth to Sir Saul Samuel the Australian merchant and member of Parliament who was born after his father had passed away.


1821: One day after she had passed away, 78 year old “Gitla bat Eliezer” was buried today at the “Brady Street Jewish Cemetery.”


1826: Joseph Davis married Miriam Phillips at the Great Synagogue today.


1830: Birthdate of French composer Jules Emile David Cohen who “composed new music for the choruses of two biblically based operas – “Athalie” and “Esther.”


1830: In Alsace-Lorraine, Wolff Levy and Dina Matz gave birth to Samuel Wolff Levy, the husband of Babette Bloch, who came to the United States when he was 16 and later served as the President of the Eureka Benevolent Association, Treasurer of Associated Charities of San Francisco and founder of the Pacific Hebrew Orphan Asylum and Home Society.



1831:The formal establishment of the congregation that came to be called The Great Synagogue (known in Hebrew as Beth Yisrael - "House of Israel") took place today in Sydney, Australia.


1831: Birthdate of Julius Stettenheim, the Hamburg born son an art dealer, who gained fame as humor writer.


1833: In Philadelphia, PA, abolitionist Annis Pulling Furness and abolitionist William Henry Furness gave birth to Horace Howard Furness who worked with Professor Paul Haupt “on a new translation of Hebrew Bible” in the last decade of the 19th century.


1837: Helen Skirving Mowbray and the Rev. Ridley Haim Herschell, who was a native of Strzelno, in Prussian Poland and who as “young man convert from Judaism to Christianity and took a leading part in found the British Society for the Propagation of the Gospel Among the Jews” gave birth to Farrer Herschell, 1st Baron Herschell


1840: Birthdate of Mark Antokolski, the Wilno native who gained famed as a sculptor.  Among his early works were "Jewish Tailor", "Nathan The Wise", "Inquisition's Attack against Jews" and “The Talmudic Debate".



1843:Lazarus Morgenthau, “the legendary patriarch of one of the great Jewish American” families married Babette Guggenheim.”


1844:  Birthdate of Mehmed V, the Sultan who was on the throne when the Ottoman Empire entered World War I on the side of the Central Powers, Germany and Austria. The Sultan was really a figurehead and real power rested in the hands of the “Three Pashas.” Therefore, he cannot be held responsible for the hostile treatment of the Jews living in Palestine. At the same, during his reign, Jews served in responsible positions in the government and in the military.


1847: One day after she had passed away, Abigail Nathan, the daughter of Simeon Nathan and Catherine Barnet, was buried today at the “Brady Street Jewish Cemetery.”


1848:Johann Jacobyhe gained great popular acclaim as a member of a parliamentary delegation to the Prussian monarch with his remark, "It is the tragedy of kings, that they will not hear the truth."


1852: In Lorraine, France, Mathiled and Alphonse Henrion Berr gave birth to Louis Lehmann Berr, the husband of Henriette Alice Berr.


1856: As reported in The News of the World, in Italy the Pope "commands” people to turn in known heretics-including Jews. He desires them to denounce family, friends, and associates if appropriate to the "Holy Inquisition." The Pope requests the "names of every one of whom they know."


1861: Philadelphian Samuel S. Bloom a 2nd Lieutenant with Company H of the 111th Regiment began his “term of service” today.


1863: In Prague, Leopold and Sofie Sara Pick gave birth to Rosa Pick who became Rosa Volk When she married Alexander Volk with whom she had one daughter – Margarete Volk.


1864(3rd of Cheshvan, 5625): Antony Mayer de Worms passed away in London.


1865: One day after she had passed away, 59 year old Hannah Levy, the wife of Aaron Levy, was buried today at the “Bancroft Road (Maiden Lane) Jewish Cemetery.


1865: Birthdate of Warren G. Harding, 29th President of the United States.  During his presidency, Harding signed into law an extremely restrictive immigration bill that had previously been vetoed by Woodrow Wilson that used a quota system that all but put an end to the immigration of Jews from Eastern Europe. On the other hand, he signed a Joint Resolution passed by Congress that spoke of “favoring the establishment in Palestine of a National Home for the Jewish people.”


1872: It was reported in New York today that the Jews of Romania will not be immigrating en masse to the United States. Such a plan had been considered by some as a way of relieving the miserable conditions under which these people live.


1876: In the United Kingdom, Martin Jaffé and his wife gave birth to their “younger son,” Daniel Joseph, Jaffé, a civil engineer who constructed waterworks in China and Jaffe Road in Hong Kong was named in his honor.


1876: Birthdate of London native Charles Joseph Singer, the son of Simeon Singer (a native of Hungary who served as a rabbi at several English synagogues and is best known for his Authorized Daily Prayer Book first published in 1890) a physician by training who gained fame as medical historian.


1877: Birthdate of Aga Khan III whom Doctor Waldemar Haffkine “approached” in 1898 “with an offer…to settle Jews in Palestine” on land that would be purchased from” Ottoman Sultan’s subjects.


1879: It was reported today that some Romans still do not like Jews.  When a Jewish funeral procession passed a saloon, some of the patrons jeered and then assaulted the mourners.  The police had to be called so that the procession could continue.  When the mourners were returning, they were again attacked and the police had to be called out to prevent a riot.


1879(16thof Cheshvan, 5640): David Einhorn, the German born rabbi who became one of the first leaders of the Reform Movement in the United States pass away today just eight days before his 70th birthday.





1881: “The specifications for a building to occupied by the Hebrew Benevolent and Orphan Asylum were filed in the Bureau of Inspection of Buildings” in New York City today.


1881: Rabbi David Levy officiated at the wedding of Edward H. Lopez to Cecile Ottolengui, the daughter of Israel Ottolengui which took place at the bride’s home.


1881: Rabbis in Washington, DC has joined with ministers of other denominations in soliciting funds to building a hospital in memory of President James Garfield


1881: It was reported today that in Germany, the “Jews…have instituted proceedings against Dr. Adolf Stoecker” for his role “in stirring up the people against the Jews.


1881: It was reported today that the Public Prosecutor in Berlin has instituted legal proceedings against Ernst Henrici, “the notorious ‘Jew baiter’”.


1882: “The Jews and Cromwell” published today recounts the efforts of Oliver Cromwell to convince the Council of State to readmit Jews to the British Isles. Although he failed to win over the Council, The Protector found a way to open the realm to a trickle of Jews who became the cornerstone of the modern Anglo-Jewish community.


1882: Frankfurt native Edward Goetz, who was naturalized in 1877, was buried today at the “Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.”


1883: Five Jews from Neustettin went on trial today in Koslin, Hungary on charges that they intentionally burned down a synagogue to collect the insurance money.


1883: Based on the date on the manuscript, today is when Emma Lazarus’ famous sonnet, "The New Colossus," was either completed or presented to others. She wrote the poem for an art auction "In Aid of the Bartholdi Pedestal Fund." The Statue of Liberty, designed by sculptor Frederic Auguste Bartholdi, was erected on October 28, 1886. It was given to the people of the United States by France in recognition of the friendship between the two nations established during the American Revolution. While France provided the statue itself, American fundraising efforts paid for the pedestal. In 1903, sixteen years after Lazarus's death, "The New Colossus" was engraved on a plaque and placed in the pedestal as a memorial. In the 1880s when anti-Semitism was sweeping through Eastern Europe and pogroms were a common occurrence, there was a massive Jewish flight to America. During this time, Lazarus, already a well-known poet, visited Russian refugees and helped at the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society. She became a spokesperson and advocate for the Jewish community and responded with some of her most powerful works. Lazarus's famous lines in "The New Colossus,""Give me your tired, your poor,/ Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free," caught the national imagination and continue to inspire the way Americans think about freedom and exile. The poem captures what the Statue of Liberty came to mean to the millions of people who migrated to the United States seeking freedom, and to those who continue to come to this day. Cited frequently, including at the 2004 Republican National Convention, the "The New Colossus" continues to symbolize America's promise of opportunity and freedom to the "huddled masses" of every land


1884: Fifty-six year old Isaac Honig, was buried in Salem Fields Cemetery on Long Island following a funeral that had been held at the home of his brother Henry Honig.  A native of Mayence, he came to the United States in 1850 and became a successful realtor.  He was an active supporter of the Hebrew Benevolent and Orphan Asylum Society and Mount Sinai Hospital.


1884: It was reported today that the Russians have found a new way to torment its Jewish population. In Pultowa, it has been proposed to change the designation of every place in which there is no town hall into villages” since, under the law, Jews can be expelled from villages but not from towns.


1884: It was reported that the French Minister to Morocco has threatened to take action if attacks on Jewish citizens of France living in the North African country do not come to half.  French Jews in Fez “have been scourged for refusing to walk barefooted in the streets.


1886: Isidor Rayner was elected to the House of Representatives from Maryland’s Fourth Congressional District.


1886: “Fourteenth-Street Theatre” published today reviewed the “Caught in a Corner” by W. J. Shaw which centers around “Isaac Greenwald” a Jewish broker “who bets, matches coins, plays tennis makes love and upsets the plans of villainous speculators with equal facility.” H.B. Curtis, who is known for playing Jewish comedic roles, stars in the role of Greenwald.


1886: It was reported today that the Jews, who usually vote Republican had voted for Abraham Hewitt, the Democratic candidate for Mayor of New York instead of Teddy Roosevelt, the Republican candidate.  Roosevelt actually placed third, with second place going to Henry George, the reform candidate who had established his own following among working class and immigrant Jews.


1887: In what is now part of Belarus, Sarah Savitsky and Max Mendel Wolfson gave birth to Henry Austryn Wolfson “a scholar, philosopher, and historian at Harvard University, the first chairman of a Judaic Studies Center in the United States” passed away today.





1887: In Baltimore, Solomon Joseph Goldstein and Rose Goldstein, “sister of Isidor Zuckermann” gave birth to Hyman Isaac Goldstein the University of Pennsylvania and Vienna trained physician who discovered “Goldstein’s Toe Sign,” served in the Medical Corps, USA, during WW II and was part of a family of doctors – Dr. Leopold Z. Goldstein, Dr. Henry Z. Goldstein and David E. Cooper, the husband of his sister who earned his DD.S from the University of Pennsylvania.




1887: “The Senatorial Fight” published today examines the qualifications of the candidates seeking to be elected to the New York State Senate. Assemblyman Jacob A. Cantor is the Democratic candidate for the Tenth Senatorial District, a district that contains one fifth of the voters of New York City. Cantor, who is Jewish, is described as an effective reformer whose election would serve the city well.


1888: It was reported from Odessa, that “foreign Jewish farmers have ordered to leave Poland within a month” and that “foreign Jews in southern Russia expect to be expelled.”


1888: In Astryna (in modern day Balarus) Sarah and Max Wolfson gave birth to Henry Austryn Wolfson “a scholar, philosopher, and historian at Harvard University and the first chairman of a Judaic Studies Center in the United States”





1889: Joseph Toole, who would lay the cornerstone for Temple Emanu-El in Helena, began serving his term as Montana’s first elected governor.


1889: North and South Dakota are admitted as the 39th and 40th U.S. states. Jews came to the Dakotas before the territories were divided into what would become two states. Nathan Dorfman, the grandfather of the editor of “This Day… in Jewish History” moved from Chicago and tried his hand at homesteading in the Dakotas.  He lasted for one winter before returning to the windy city.  According to family lore, Nathan and his brother Jake survived on a large supply of soda crackers.  Nathan left the land with Jake who supposedly enjoyed a small financial success when oil was found on the land.  “Many of the Jews who came to North Dakota were lured by the promise of free land. Baron Maurice de Hirsch, a banker and philanthropist, believed that Jewish immigrants entering the United States should leave East Coast cities for the vast interior, where they would disperse and assimilate into American society. He set up a fund to encourage such migration.” Free land, wouldn't that have sounded like the American dream?" asked Dianne Siegel, whose great-grandfather ventured to North Dakota thanks to the de Hirsch fund. Other Jews came as merchants or peddlers, sensing opportunity in the territory, which gained statehood in 1889. "There was a Jewish merchant in just about every town along the railroad," recalled Myer Shark, who grew up in Devils Lake, N.D. Shark's father came to North Dakota in 1909 and opened a men's clothing store. But Jews who settled the Great Plains didn't have an easy road. Hal Ettinger, an architect in Lawrence, Kan., said his great-grandparents, Simon and Sophie Ettinger, arrived in North Dakota via Chicago and St. Paul, Minn., where Simon had been a peddler. With six children in tow, the family moved into a 12-by-14-foot shack where they homesteaded a 170-acre property with livestock and crops. Simon died a year after being issued his land permit, and Sophie moved to Chicago with the children, selling the property for $10. "Why a German or Russian immigrant coming to the U.S. could possibly think they could make it in North Dakota or the Dakota territories is unbelievable," Ettinger said. "I guess it's some indication of how bad they had it" in the Old World. The Jews who arrived on the plains had little inkling of what lay ahead. Jews had not been allowed to own land in Russia, and had little knowledge of how to farm. Crop failures, harsh winters and prairie fires made harvesting difficult, and life on the frontier did not include modern conveniences like plumbing and heating systems. Additionally, accounts show that Jews weren't always greeted hospitably. In 1885, 25 North Dakota farmers petitioned to have a Jewish colony removed from a village called New Jerusalem. Shark felt the prejudice. "Early in my childhood I learned I was different than the other kids," he said. Shark said that a man in the community once tried to block his mother from moving into his neighborhood, saying, "I don't like the idea of a Jew building a home in that area." Still, Jews lived -- and lived Jewishly -- in North Dakota. Siegel said that her family kept kosher, and that the state's lone rabbi would come to town for major ceremonies. Shark recalled that "the district judge would not set a term of court until he checked with one of the Jewish residents to find out when High Holidays were" -- even though the judge wasn't Jewish himself.”


1890: Reports that Jews are supporting the entire Tammany ticket were refuted by large number of Jewish leaders who claim that they are supporting the People’s Municipal League and “denounced as an insult the bid for the Jewish vote by Tammany” saying that the Jewish has never been a “class vote” and all that the Jews want is “honest and efficient government.”


1890: George M. Bersick announced that he has received the endorsement of Harmonia, Fiedelo and other leading Jewish clubs in his bid to be elected to the Assembly from the 21st District.


1891(1st of Cheshvan, 5652): Rosh Chodesh Cheshvan


1891(1st of Cheshvan, 5652): Julia (Lewenthal) Cantor, the wife of American lawyer and political leader, Jacob Aaron Cantor, passed away.


1892: Israel Levy married Ester Levi in London today.


1892: The opinion was published today that in light of the three day demonstration in London by unemployed Jews, English Jews seem “to be less philanthropic than American Jews” because unemployed Jews in the United States “have not been permitted to become a public charge…because they have been taken care of by their co-religionists.”


1892: “Slighted by Gladstone” published today expressed surprise at the decision of the Prime Minister and other leaders to boycott the inaugural banquet of Lord Mayor-elect Stuart Knill because he is Catholic since Polydore De Keyser who is also Catholic has held the job and his successor was Henry Aaron Isaacs who was Jewish.


1893: Two days after she had passed away, 79 year old Frances Phillips, the daughter of Lawrence Phillips and Esther Spyer was buried today at the Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.


1894: At the start of the Dreyfus affair when some Frenchmen were really trying to find the spy in their midst, the Italian military attaché Colonel Panizzardi telegraphed in cipher to his government "If Captain Dreyfus has had no intercourse with you, it would be to the purpose to let the ambassador publish an official denial, in order to forestall comments by the press." This telegram, written in cipher, and of course copied at the post-office, was sent to the Foreign Office to be deciphered. The first attempt left the last words uncertain; they were thus translated: "our secret agent is warned." This version, communicated to Colonel Sandherr, the chief of French counter-intelligence, seemed to him a new proof against Dreyfus.


1894: A letter was sent to the Committee of Seventy today signed by several prominent Jewish leaders including Simon Sterne, Jacob Schiff and Max J. Lissauer refuting the “unjust accusations” that  William L. Strong, the Republican candidate for Mayor of New York City, had opposed the election of Theodore Seligman to the Union League Club.


1895: Miss Julia Richamn, a public school principle and “who is also an active worker at the Hebrew Institute and the Hebrew Free Schools addressed a meeting at Arlington Hall where she expressed her pleasure at seeing the that “first organization of the boys and girls to assist in keeping the east-side streets clean was formed at the Hebrew Institute.”


1895: Birthdate of Judith Epstein, the Worcester, MA born Hadassah leader.


1896 Family physician Dr. J. C. Lewinsky and long-time family friend Solomon Kuntz spoke today at the simple funeral services of 28 year old Abraham Fox and his mother, 60 year old Christine Fox who died within two days of each other.


1896: Birthdate of Sir Jack Cohen the native of Northumberland and husband of Kitty Sinclair who was served in World War I, held a variety of elective offices as a member of the Labour Party and was chairman of the Sunderland Zionist Society.  (He is one of several people with this name so it is easy to confuse the facts about their respective lives)


1896: The funeral for Samuel Corn, who enjoyed a successful career in the cap and furrier trade before entering the field of real, is scheduled to take place at 9:30 this morning at Temple Israel on the corner of 125th Street and 5th Avenue.


1897: The forces of Tammany were successful in today’s elections which disappointed Rabbi Gustav Gottheil because he was afraid “that the cause of good government had suffered and that the progress of the last few years would lost.”


1898:”Sacrificed Herself By Fire” published today describe the death of Kate Hart, “a devout Roman Catholic” who had fallen in love with Charles Mundag, “a devout Jew” whom she married despite parental opposition.


1898(17thof Cheshvan, 5659): Julius Goldschmidt of Milwaukee who had served as Consul General in Vienna during the administration of President Harrison and who has been serving Consul General in Berlin since last year passed away today.


1898: Theodore Herzl was part of a delegation of Jews who met with Kaiser Wilhelm II in Jerusalem.  Herzl’s meeting with the Kaiser was part of his plan to rebuild the Jewish national home by gaining the support of leading political leaders.  The Kaiser had his own agenda in the East.  A settlement of German Jews in the Middle East would have provided him with leverage in dealing with the English in Egypt.  But the Kaiser was afraid to give Herzl too much support lest he offend the Turks who ruled the ancient Jewish homeland.  In the end, Herzl accomplished much less with this meeting than he thought he had.


1898: In an action that would presage the famed reforesting project of the JNF complete with Tree Certificates, Zionist leaders Herzl and Wolffsohn plant trees in Motza near Jerusalem. One is a cedar and the other is a date-palm.


1899: Isaac Stern Chairman of the Executive Board of the Mount Sinai Hospital voiced his opposition to plans for building the Emanuel Hospital and Dispensary saying “that he had not heard of any real support of the new hospital except from twelve or fifteen physicians” and Isaac Wallach said he is opposed to the plan because it will be a duplicate of effort that will deplete Jewish resources.


1899: “Oppose Emanuel Hospital” published today described the opposition of Isaac Stern and Isaac Wallach of Mount Sinai Hospital to the construction of a new hospital that would be supported by donors from the Jewish community.


1899: The Boers begin their 118 day siege of British held Ladysmith during the Second Boer War. According to the Jewish Encyclopedia, “Jews fought on both sides during the Second Anglo-Boer War (1899–1902). Some of the most notable fights during the three years' Boer war — such as the Gun Hill incident before the Siege of Ladysmith — involved Jewish soldiers like Major Karri Davies. Nearly 2,800 Jews fought on the British side and the London Spectator counted that 125 were killed. Around 300 Jews served among the Boers during the second Boer War and were known as Boerjode: those who had citizenship rights were conscripted along with other burghers ("citizens"), but there were also a number of volunteers. Jews fought under the Boers' Vierkleur ("four colored") flag in many of the major battles and engagements and during the guerilla phase of the war, and a dozen are known to have died. Around 80 were captured and held in British POW camps in South Africa. Some were sent as far afield as St. Helena, Bermuda, and Ceylon to where they had been exiled by the British. Some Jews were among the Bittereinders ("Bitter Enders") who fought on long after the Boer cause was clearly lost.”


1900: Nina Jenny Warburg, the daughter of Salomon and Betty Loeb, and her husband Paul Moritz gave birth to Bettina Warburg who became Bettina Grimson when she married Samuel Bonarions Grimson.


1901: In Kiev, Israel and Celia Goldberg gave birth to Herschel Goldberg, the brother of “Hyman Goldberg, a syndicated columnist and food critic for the New York Post and author of several books including Our Man in the Kitchen"who gained fame as author Harry Grey, the husband of Mildred Beck with whom he had three children – Beverle, Harvey and Simeon.



1902: Birthdate of Isaak Semyonovich Brook, Russian pioneer in the field of computer technology. In 1939, the  37-year old Doctor of Technical Sciences, presented a paper at a session of the Presidium of the Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union, in which he described a mechanical integrator capable of solving differential equations up to the sixth order. The integrator was built under Brook's supervision at the Electric Systems Laboratory of the Academy of Sciences Power Engineering Institute. Brook's report aroused great interest because there were no other such machines in the Soviet Union at that time. Only the US and Great Britain had one model each.


1904(24thof Cheshvan, 5656): Sixty-five year old Giuseppe Ottolenghi  who began his military career in 1859 and rose to the rank of brigadier-general in 1888 and who, after holding a series of successively more important position was named commandant of the Italian army’s first corps in 1903, passed away today.


1905: At Odessa, the massacre of the Jews that began on October 30 during which “the police and Cossacks murdered all the Jews in one quarter as large as that of La Chapelle in Paris,” “poured boiling water on the children and threw the old men out of windows” leaving 1,500 corpses in their wake, appeared to have come to an end today.


1905: “Workmen carrying the Emperor’s portrait attacked the Jewish shops at Kernson today and plundered the market.”


1905: During today’s celebration in Vyazma marking the granting of a Constitution, “a Jewish service was held in memory of those who died in the cause of freedom.”


1905: In Bachmut, Bessarabia, a three-day long attack began on the Jews that appeared to have been organized by the police that including the beating of Jewish students, the sacking of Jewish stores and the plundering of Jewish residences.


1905: In Minsk, the doctors at the Jewish Hospital worked all night “on the wounded brought in from the railroad station where the troops had fired volleys at the demonstrators.”


1905: Riot, Slaughter, Looting” published today described how the Jews have been victims of mobs in several cities including Kiev, Minsk, Kherson and Elizabethgrad where, after having attended services at the Cathedral, “loyalists bearing a lot a portrait of Emperor Nicholas went to the Jewish quarter” where they beat, wounded and killed several Jews while sacking their houses and stores.


1906: In Baltimore, MD, Frieda and Louis Phillip Hamburger gave birth to Louis P. Hamburger, Jr. the “husband of Klare Hamburger” and “father of Fritzi Hamburger.”


1907: The Tennessee Volunteers coached by Izzy Levene continued their winning ways today against Chattanooga bring their record to 5 and 1.


1909: Professor F.C. Woodward of Richmond College is scheduled to deliver a lecture and Mrs. Sigmund Mesdames Hutzler and Clarke are scheduled to perform a piano duet at “the second general meeting of the Council of Jewish Women” at Temple Beth Ahabah in Richmond, Va.


1911: Russian Premier Kokovtzoff has heeded the appeal of the 1,500 Jews who have settled in Ekaterinoslaff since 1882 to modify the original order of expulsion.  Under the revised order issued by the provincial governor today, only those Jews who have settled in the province since 1906 will be expelled.


1914: Russia declares war on the Ottoman Empire. With this declaration of war, the Ottomans regarded the Jews of Palestine, a large number of whom were from Russia, as an enemies of the state and treated them accordingly.


1914: A protest was held in Sophia, Bulgaria by the Jewish community, against ritual murder accusations in a case associated with memorial services for soldiers who fell in war.


1915: In New York, state elections which newly naturalized Jewish citizens had been urged to participate in at a rally held Adolph Lewisohn Stadium, took place today.


1915: Michael Sidney Luft, a minor movie producer who would gain fame as the husband of Judy Garland, was born to Jewish parents who had immigrated from Germany and Russia.


1915(25th of Cheshvan, 5676): Sixty-five year old Isaac Leopold Rice, the Bavarian born American chess patron and inventor who build 85 submarines and 722 sub chasers for the U.S. Navy during World War I passed away today


1916: Turkish military leader Djemal Pasha orders barricades erected to prevent Jews from praying at the Western Wall in Jerusalem.


1916: Klemens Wilhelm von Klemperer author of German Resistance Against Hitler: The Search for Allies Abroad, 1938-1945 was born in Berlin today into what had been a Jewish family until his grandfather, Gustav, the director of one of Germany’s largest banks, converted to Protestantism. (As reported by Dennis Hevesi)


1916(6thof Cheshvan, 5677): Dr. Henry W. (Pinchas HaLevi) Schneeberger, the Rabbi at Chizuk Amuno Congregation in Baltimore, MD passed away.  On the afternoon of his death The Baltimore newspapers that afternoon ran a photograph of Dr. Schneeberger with a caption above it saying, ‘Grand Old Man’ Dies after Long Illness, Beloved Rabbi Dead.’”


1917: Arthur Balfour, British Secretary for Foreign Affairs, sent Lord Rothschild a letter declaring the government's sympathy and support for the Zionist cause. Known as the Balfour Declaration, this document helped to supply the legal and international political underpinnings for the nascent Zionist movement.  Almost thirty years to the day of the sending of this letter, the UN would vote to create a Jewish state in Palestine.



Foreign Office



November 2nd, 1917





Dear Lord Rothschild:



I have much pleasure in conveying to youon behalf of His Majesty's Government, the following declaration of sympathy with Jewish Zionist aspirations which has been submitted to, and approved by, the Cabinet:



His Majesty's Government views with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.



I should be grateful if you would bring this declaration to the knowledge of the Zionist Federation.



Yours,
Arthur James Balfour



1917: Winston Churchill who was Minister of Munitions wrote Sir Frederic Nathan the Jewish explosives expert asking why his ministry was collecting 25,000 tons of horse chestnuts.  Nathan explained to Churchill that the horse chestnuts were part of Dr. Chaim Weitzman’s experiments to create large quantities of acetone which was need to make cordite the smokeless powder used as the propellant in making ammunition.



1917: Four days before the hotly contested election for Mayor of New York, “Oscar S. Straus, Chairman of the Public Service Commission and former Ambassador to Turkey declared that any candidate who refused to buy Liberty bonds was treasonable” which was an indirect “slap” at Morris Hillquit the Socialist candidate.



1917: In Russia, “food riots and anti-Jewish disturbances” took place at Tambov, Belopolie and Alexandrovsk,



1918(27thof Cheshvan, 5679): Parashat Chaeyei Sara



1918(27thof Cheshvan, 5679): First Lieutenant Louis G. Bernheimer, the son of Sidney Bernheimer of New York and a pilot with Aero Squadron, along with his Observer, “on their own initiative went on a reconnaissance mission, flying fifteen kilometers behind the German lines, securing valuable information on the condition of the bridges across the Meuse River and activity in the back areas while also harassing enemy troops.”



1919: “On the second anniversary of the Balfour Declaration, the Zionist Actions Committee issued a manifesto declaring” its hope “that the British Government will adhere to the declaration made by Mr. Balfour which the world Zionist organization hopes will be realized with the next few months.”



1919: In London, the “Conference of Mizrahi Societies of the United Kingdom sent a telegram to Dr. Weizmann and Mr. Ussishkin in Jerusalem pledging support to their political and economic endeavors for Palestine.”



1919: On Declaration Day, Lord Curzon, the Secretary for Foreign Affairs, sent a message to Nahum Sokolow “declaring that there has been no change in the policy of His Majesty’s Governemnt with regard to the establishment of a National Jewish Home in Palestine.”



1920: Birthdate of Morris Mazer, the son of Brooklyn kosher poultry worker, who as Bill Mazer became a “fixture” in the world of those who covered sports in the New York area. (As reported by Richard Goldstein)



1920: Warren G Harding elected President on his 55thbirthday. Warren Harding was the first President to sign a Joint Congressional Resolution endorsing the Balfour Declaration and the Palestine Mandate supporting the establishment in Palestine of a national Jewish home for the Jewish people. The resolution was signed September 22, 1922.



1920: Nathan David Perlman was elected as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from New York’s 14th District.



1920: Henry Abrams of Indianapolis, Indiana, was re-elected to the State Legislature.



1920: In New York City, Otto A. Rosalsky, the judge of the Court of General Sessions was re-elected today.



1920: Simon L. Adler of Rochester, NY, was re-elected to the State Legislature.



1920: Elijah Adlow of Boston, Mass. was elected to the State Legislature.



1920: M.C. Ansorge of New York City was elected to the United States House of Representatives.



1920: Benjamin Antin of New York City was re-elected to the State Legislature.



1920: Bernard Aronson of New York City was elected to the State Legislature.



1920: Isaac Bachrach of Atlantic City, NJ, was re-elected to the United States House of Representatives.



1920: Harry Baum of New York City was re-elected to the State Legislature.



1920: Maurice Bloch of New York City was re-elected to the State Legislature.



1920: Mitchell Erlanger of New York City was elected judge of the Supreme Court.



1920: Bernard Finkelstein of Boston, Mass, was elected to the State Legislature.



1920: Noel B. Fox of New York City was re-elected to the State Legislature.



1920: Ralph Halpern of New York City was re-elected to the State Legislature.



1920: Maxwell S Harris of New York City was elected the State Senate.



1920: Gustave Hartman of New York City was elected judge of the City Court.



1920: Henry Jaeger of New York City was elected to the State Legislature.



1920: Julius Kahn of San Francisco, CA, was re-elected to the United States House of Representatives.



1920. Milton Krauss of Peru, Indiana, was re-elected to the United States House of Representatives.



1920: Nathan Leibman of New York City was re-elected to the State Legislature.



1920: Meyer London of New York City was elected to the United States House of Representatives.



1920: Isaac May was re-elected Mayor of Rome, GA.



1920: Morris A. Penter of Pueblo, CO, was elected to the State Legislature.



1920: Nathan D. Perlman of New York City was elected to the United States House of Representatives.



1920: M. Warley Platzek of New York City was elected judge of the Supreme Court.



1920: L.G. Moses of New York City was elected to the State Legislature.



1920: Samuel Orr of New York City was re-elected to the State Legislature.



1920: Schuyler M.  Meyer of New York City was elected to the State Senate.



1920: M.D. Reiss of New York City was elected to the State Legislature.



1920: Louis B. Rosenfeld of Hartford, CT, was elected to the State Senate.



1920: Adolph J. Sabath of Chicago, Illinois, was re-elected to the United States House of Representatives.



1920: Albert B. Rossdale of New York City was elected the United States House of Representatives.



1920: Joseph W. Schulman of Chicago, Illinois, was elected Judge of Municipal Court today.



1920: Charles Shulman of Boston, Mass., was elected to the State Legislature today.



1920: Isaac Siegel of New York City was re-elected to the United States House of Representatives.



1920: Coleman Silbert of Boston, Mass., was elected to the State Legislature.



1920: Charles Solomon of New York City was re-elected to the State Legislature.



1920: Joseph Steinberg of New York City was re-elected to the State Legislature.



1920: Nathan Straus, Jr. of New York City was elected to the State Senate.



1920: Sol Ullman of New York City was re-elected to the State Senate.



1920: Lester D. Volk of Brooklyn was elected to the United States House of Representatives.



1920: Isidor Wassservogel of New York City was elected judge of the Supreme Court in New York and Bronx Counties.



1921(1stof Cheshvan, 5682): Rosh Chodesh Chesvan)



1921(1stof Cheshvan, 5682): Rabbi Zalman was among four Jews murdered when Arabs rioted in Jerusalem on the fourth anniversary of the Balfour Declaration injured an addition 20 people.



1921: Graduation ceremonies for the first class of nurses to complete the three year program at the Hadassah nursing school are postponed due to Arab riots.



1922: “Peter the Great” a biopic about the Czar co-starring Fritz Kortner was released in Germany today.



1922: Founding of the moshav Balfouriyyah on the fifth anniversary of the Balfour Declaration.



1924(5th of Cheshvan, 5685): Zionist leader Dr. Menachem Mandel Scheinkin was killed today in a street car accident in Chicago.  Dr. Scheinkin was born in Balta Bessarabia 54 years ago.  He was a rabbi in the small town before moving to Palestine thirty years ago.  He worked to development the Jewish settlements founded by the late Baron Rothschild and was one of the founders of Tel Aviv.



1924: “The Man from Mexico” a film version of a Broadway play produced by Adolph Zukor and Daniel Frohman was released today in the United States.



1927: In the Bronx, Emanuel and Anna Frank Cohen give birth to Morris Leo Cohen, a “book lover who shunned the practice of law because it was too contentious and became one of the nation’s most influential legal librarians, bringing both the Harvard and Yale law libraries into the digital age.”



1928: “Louis Marshall, Chairman of the Non-Zionist Conference on Palestine announced that he has appointed Felix M. Warbrug, Dr. Lee K. Frankerl, Dr. Cyrus Adler, James H. Becker, David A. Brown, Colonel Herbert H. Lehman and Dr. Julian Morgenstern as “the seven American non-Zionist representative to the extended Jewish agency.”



1928: Tonight, Louis Marshall declined to comment on $100,000 libel and defamation filed against by David S. Polier in which plaintiff alleges that Marshall had “stigmatized” him “as a person of low mentality and unprincipled conduct, of religious bigotry and of petty and low-minded political principles” because of his comments as Jewish voting patterns.



1929: Today, Shmuel “Samuel” Eisner” and his wife Fannie gave birth to their youngest child Rhoda, the sister of “cartoonist and publisher” Wil Eisner, one of those responsible for the popularity of the graphic novel.



1929:  Birthdate of Harold Faberman, founder and Artistic Director of the Conductors Institute at Bard College. Harold Farberman was born on New York City's Lower East Side. Coming from a family of musicians (his father was the drummer in a famous 1920s klezmer band led by Schleomke Beckerman; his brother was also a drummer), it was inevitable that he would pursue music as a career. After graduating from the Juilliard School of Music on scholarship in 1951, Farberman became the youngest member of the Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO) when he joined its percussion section.



1930: In “Fair Play to the Jews”, published today Churchill attacked the Passfield White Paper that contended Britain’s’ obligations to the Jews and Arabs under the Mandate were equal.  Churchill contended that the British owed a debt to the Jewish people as embodied in the words and spirit of the Balfour Declaration.  To say otherwise was a betrayal of British honor.



1932: Birthdate of Nobel Prize winning physicist Melvin Schwartz.



1933(13th of Cheshvan, 5694): Sixty-three year old Sameul S. Piser, a native of Russia who came to Chicago when he was sixteen and has operated an undertaking business for the last twenty years, passed away today.



1934(24th of Cheshvan, 5695): Eighty-nine year old Baron Edmond Benjamin James de Rothschild a member of the French line of the House of Rothschild  whose early support of Zionism included the establishment of the Palestine Jewish Colonization Association, passed away today.



http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/rothschild.html



1934: “The Merry Widow” the cinematic version of the operetta produced by Irving Thalberg and Ernst Lubitsch who also was the director, with a libretto by Victor Leon and Leo Stein and a screenplay by Samson Raphaelson was released in the United States today by MGM.



1934: Funeral services were held this afternoon for former Russian revolutionary Simon Oscar Pollock, the “counsel to the Political Refugees Defense League of Work followed by internment  at Mount Zion Cemetery in Queens, NY.



1934: “Transatlantic Merry-Go-Round” a musical comedy-drama co-starring Jack Benny and Sid Silvers with a score by Alfred Newman was released today by United Artists.



1936: It was reported today that most of the newspapers in Vienna have expressed “great satisfaction” that Otto Lowei, a professor at Austria’s Graz University was a co-winner of the Nobel Prize in Medicine.  The clerical newspapers are the exception to the rule, which may be because Lowei is Jewish.  The Clerical Reichspost gave the story four and a half lines and the Weltblatt hid the story in the Personal News Column.



1936: Birthdate of Martin Aronstein, a native of Pittsfield, MA whose career as lighting designer on Broadway spanned 36 years whose creations earned him five Tony award nominations.



http://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/15/arts/martin-aronstein-65-designer-who-lighted-broadway-shows.html



1936: Father Charles E. Coughlin denied he had ever “assailed Jews” but admitted he had challenged the Jews “to abandon the philosophy of an eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth.”



1936:  Italian dictator Benito Mussolini proclaims the Rome-Berlin Axis, establishing the alliance of the Axis Powers.



1937: Republican Stanley M. Isaacs was elected Manhattan Borough President.



1937(28th of Cheshvan 5698): Eighty-two year old Vladimir Jochelson, the Jewish revolutionary who used his time as an exile in Siberia to study the “language, managers and folk-lore “of the indigenous peoples of the Russian North.”


http://archives.nypl.org/mss/1565



1937:” I'd Rather Be Right,” a musical with a book by Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman, lyrics by Lorenz Hart, and music by Richard Rodgers premiered on Broadway at the Alvin Theatre The story produced by this Jewish quartet, is a Depression-era political satire set in New York City, about Washington politics and political figures, such as President Franklin Roosevelt. The plot centers on Peggy Jones and her boyfriend, who needs a raise in order for them to get married. The President steps in and solves their dilemma. It starred George M. Cohan as Franklin Roosevelt. (Some people mistakenly thought that Cohan’s name was a form of the name Cohen and that he was Jewish.)



1937: On the 16th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration, “the Syrian newspaper al-Ayyam expressed support for the measures being implemented by the French authorities to protect the Jews Quarter of Damascus from Muslim attacks.” 


1938: As a result of The Munich Agreement Hungary was “awarded the Felvidek region of South Slovakia and Ruthenia.


1938:Abraham Liessin, well-known Yiddish poet and editor of Zukunft, the literary and political monthly collapsed Wednesday while reading a poem at the funeral services for his friend and associate, B. Charney Vladeck. (As reported by JTA)


1938:  Birthdate of musician Jay Black of “Jay and the Americans.”



1938: Krystyna Skarbek the future British espionage agent whose father was a Polish Catholic noble and whose mother was Jewish married Jerzy Giżycki in Warsaw.



1941(12th of Cheshvan, 5702): Seventy-three old John Simon Guggenheim, businessman, philanthropist and former U.S. Senator from Colorado passed away today in New York City



.http://www.gf.org/



1941: The Nazis deported more than 15,000 Serbian Jews to a concentration camp at Sajmiste, Yugoslavia. They are later killed in mobile gassing units disguised as Red Cross vans.



1941: The Germans begin the construction of an extermination center at Belzec, Poland.



1941 A Jewish ghetto at Grodno, Belorussia, is established.



1941 A Nazi-sanctioned concentration camp opens at Hadjerat-M'Guil, North Africa.



1941: Diana Barnato Walker, the daughter of Woolf Barnato and granddaughter of Barney Barnato who secured the family fortune in his diamond and gold mining operations, “was admitted to the ATA's Elementary Flying Training School at White Waltham” today.



1942: On the 25th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration, Churchill sent a telegram to Weizmann and a message to the Jewish Chronicle recognizing the special suffering being endured by the Jewish people and reiterating his continued support of Zionism



1942(22nd of Cheshvan, 5703): The Nazis begin deportations in the Bialystok region. Reportedly, 3,000 to 6,000 Jews were deported from Siemiatzycze. Hundreds were shot while trying to revolt against the round up. The resistance was led by Herschl Shabbes. Hundreds of Jews managed to escape from the actions. Some Poles helped the Jews hide while others didn't. Those who were caught assisting a Jew were shot. When the train of Siemiatzycze Jews reached the Treblinka station, one car was heard singing "Hatikvah'. Some of the people were stripped naked in near freezing temperatures, taken to the fields and shot dead. All the rest but 152 of the 3,200 were gassed.  As part of the Action in the Bialystok region, hundreds of small towns would be raided, their Jews rounded up for deportation. The total of captured Jews was estimated to be above 100,000. There were too many to be processed immediately. Interim camps were then set up. Eventually most of them would be transported to Treblinka over the next several weeks and months.



1942(22nd of Cheshvan, 5703): In the Lithuanian town of Marcinkance, 370 Jews who refuse to board trains for deportation bolt for the ghetto boundaries. In the mêlée that follows, 360 Jews and many guards are killed. Between deaths and successful escapes, not one Jew is left to board the trains



1942(22nd of Cheshvan, 5703):In Zolochev, Ukraine, the chairman of the Jewish Council is murdered by Germans after refusing to sign a paper saying that the liquidation of the ghetto was necessitated by the spread of a typhus epidemic. The poet S. J. Imber, the nephew of the author of Hatikvah is among the 2500 Zolochev Jews deported to Belzec.



1942: More than 100,000 Jews remaining in the towns and villages in the Bialystok region of Poland are arrested and deported to holding camps at Zambrów, Volkovysk, Kelbasin, and Bogusze before being sent to the Auschwitz and Treblinka death camps.



1942: Wolfram Sievers, head of Germany's Ancestral Heritage Society, requests skeletons of 150 Jews. SS chief Heinrich Himmler approves a plan to establish a collection of Jewish skeletons and skulls at the Strasbourg Anatomical Institute in France, near the Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp.



1942: The Nazis shipped the Jews of Rujenoy were shipped to Treblinka.  Among them was the family of Yitzhak Shamir, who according to the future Prime Minister of Israel, were not able to leave for Palestine when that opportunity was still a possibility “because they could not afford the £1,000 fee demanded by the British.”


1943: Nazis liquidated Riga ghetto sending the remaining 1,000 Jews from the Riga Ghetto to Birkenau.


1943(4th of Cheshvan, 5704): The Germans commenced operation "Harvest Festival" - the destruction of the survivors of the Warsaw ghetto uprising who were held captive since April. Within a few days 50,000 Jews would be shot in ditches at Majdanek. At Trawniki, all the Jews were machine-gunned down. Of the 500,000 Warsaw Jews driven away from the ghetto and placed in camps between July 1942 and May 1943 only about three hundred survived.  Some of the survivors would form a Kibbutz in Israel memorializing the brave stand of their fallen comrades.



1943: Stanley Isaacs, a political ally of Mayor Fiorello La Guardia, was elected to the New York City Council.



1943: In Genoa, “the hunt for Jews began…when two German police agents entered the office of the Jewish community and forced the custodians, Linda and Bino Polacco, to turn over membership lists and summon members to a meeting at the synagogue the following morning. (As reported by the Jewish Virtual Library)



1943: While serving in the U.S. Navy, Kirk Douglas married Diana Dill with whom he had two sons – Michael and Joel Douglas.



1944: Orders were sent from Berlin to suspend killing of Jews at Auschwitz.  This was not a humanitarian act.  



1945: Anti-Jewish riots broke out in Egypt.


1945: “Confidential Agent” a film set in the Spanish Civil War co-starring Lauren Bacall and Peter Lorre with music by Franz Waxman was released today in the United States.


1945: While responding to parliamentary questions, British Foreign Minister Bevin of the newly installed Labor Government made the observation that “if the Jews, with all their suffering, want to get too much at the head of the queue, you have the danger of another anti-Semitic reaction through it all.” While Britain has had its Philo-Semites, anti-Semitism is a common currency whether it be the genteel kind of the Conservatives or the more uncouth variety found among some members of Labor at this time.  Bevin’s statement was an indication that he and Prime Minister Attlee were about to turn against the promises of the Balfour Declaration and continue o enforce the White Paper adopted as British policy in 1939.



1947:  “The world of religion owes and incalculable debt to Judaism,” President said in a message issued today “by the Union of American Hebrew Congregations in commendation of its American Jewish cavalcade.”



1947: The National Finance Council of the National Welfare Board ended it three-day meeting in Detroit today by adopting a 1948 budget amounting to $1,447,800 which, among other things, will go to help support the National Associating of the Jewish Community Centers, the Y.M.H.A. and the Y.W.H.A.



1948: President Harry S. Truman surprised the experts, narrowly winning re-election over Republican challenger Thomas E. Dewey.  Truman’s upset victory was due in part to heavy support among Jewish voters in critical states with large electoral votes such as New York.  Truman’s liberal social policies such as support for federal school lunches and health insurance for the elderly were popular among Jewish voters.  Most Jews will remember and revere Truman as the man who supported the creation of the state of Israel.  Despite opposition from most of the leaders in his administration, including George C. Marshall whom Truman revered, the man from Missouri ensured the United States was the first nation to recognize the re-born Jewish state.



1948: On the anniversary of the Balfour Declaration, the Israeli military cancelled the blackout in West Jerusalem.  “’The city blazed with lights and its citizens crowded the streets and cafes to taste the future they had fought for.’”



1948: Marcus Sieff sends a letter to Winston Churchill stating that “many Israeli leaders were anxious to see ties with Britain renewed, but that British policy in the United Nations Assembly with regard to Israel and the Arab States prevents any such rapprochement.”



1949: Weizmann Institute of Science was dedicated in Rehovot.



1950: “Harriet Craig” a melodrama directed by Vincent Sherman was released in the United States by



1951(3rd of Cheshvan, 5712): Ninety year old Martha Bernays, the widow of Sigmund Freud, passed away today Columbia Pictures.



1953: Major General (Ret) Kenneth Nichols became General Manager of the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) which enable him to initiate the AEC Personnel Security Board hearing on the loyalty and trustworthiness of atomic scientist J. Robert Oppenheimer



1955: “‘Hill 24 Doesn't Answer,’ an Israeli-made feature had its première tonight at the World Theatre.”



1955: Birthdate of Bob Tufts, the major league pitcher who went to Princeton before going into professional baseball and got an MBA at Columbia after he left the game.



1955(17th of Cheshvan, 5716): Ninety-one year old Samuel Shulman the Russian born American rabbi whose first pulpit was at Temple Emanu-El in Helena, Montana and who eventually replaced Kaufman Kohler as the rabbi Temple Beth-El and Temple Emanu-El in New York City passed away today.



1955: Hadassah, the Women's Zionist Organization of America, has been designated by the Government as the central agency for the distribution of surplus American food in Israel.



1955: A force of paratroops from the 890th Battalion augmented by a Nahal company attacked the Egyptian emplacements at Sachba while units from the Golani Brigade's 12th Battalion attacked Egyptian emplacements at Ras-Siram this evening in the start of Operation Volcano.



1956: Israel captured Gaza, Sheham and El Arish (the Egyptian capital of the northern Sinai) during the war with Egypt.



1956: Much to everybody’s surprise Israeli tanks came to within ten miles of the Suez Canal. The IDF captured sixty armored cars and forty modern tanks from the retreating Egyptians.  These weapons were part of the large mass of modern weapons that the Soviets had supplied Nasser in exchange for Arab support and much of the future Egyptian cotton crop.  The weapons were much better than anything the IDF had and would be incorporated into the arsenal of the Israeli military forces.



1956: During the Sinai Campaign, the specter of a wider war opened when the Syrian embassy in Washington informed the United States government that Syria had ‘decided to implement immediately’ the joint Egyptian-Syrian defense pact.



1956: The governors of Gaza City and the Gaza strip surrender to the Israelis.



1956: “Emergency Hospital” a dramatic film directed by Lee Sholem and produced by Howard Koch was released today in the United States.



1956: “The Rack” a film about Korean vets starring Paul Newman with a script by Stewart Stern was released in the United States by MGM



1956: U.N. Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld informed Israel that the General Assembly had passed a cease fire resolution.



1959(1st of Cheshvan, 5720): Rosh Chodesh Cheshvan



1959: “The Dock Brief” and “What Shall We Tell Caroline?” produced by David Susskind were broadcast on “The Play of the Week.”



1959: During the Congressional investigations of the “Quiz Show Scandals,” Charles Van Dorn admits that he had received answers in advance when he appeared on the hit quiz show, “Twenty-One.”  Van Dorn was part of a famous family of WASP intellectuals.  “Twenty-One” was the creation of two Jews named Jack Berry and Dan Enright.  Herbert Stempl, a Jew from Brooklyn, was the contestant who “took a dive” so that Van Dorn could win.



1960(12th of Cheshvan, 5721): After a short illness, “Mrs. Blanche Bruner Levy, the widow of Julius H. Levy, the former executive secretary of the New York Clothing Manufacturers Exchange” who had performed as “a concert pianist under name” and “gave operalouges with Mrs. Edwin Franko Goldman” passed away today at Lawrence, L.I.



https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1960/11/03/119113041.pdf



https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1960/11/03/119113020.pdf



1960(12th of Cheshvan, 5721): Seventy-seven year old NYU Law School Graduate and “former Domestic Relations Court Justice” I. Montefiore Levy, the former President of the New York Guild for the Jewish Blind” and member of the Board Education who led the effort before WW I “to permit women teachers to continue at work although married passed away today.



https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1960/11/03/119113020.pdf



1961: “The fifth Knesset started with David Ben-Gurion’s Mapai part forming the tenth government” today.



1961: Eliyahu Sasson began serving as the Minister of Postal Services in Israel.



1961: Eliyahu Sasson began serving as the Minister of Communications.



1961: Dr Giora Yoseftal began serving as Israel’s first Minister of Housing and Construction.



1961: Elections confirm the predominance of the Labor movement. Mapia remained the largest party with forty-two seats.  But this was still 19 short of the sixty one seats needed for a majority which meant that Ben Gurion would have to form another coalition government.



1961: Birthdate of Nancy Morris, the Montreal native “a Reform rabbi, who was appointed to Glasgow Reform Synagogue, formerly known as Glasgow New Synagogue, in October 2003, making her the first female rabbi in Scotland.”



1963: In UK, June Flewett and Sir Clement Freud, the grandson of Sigmund Freud gave birth to Matthew Freud, the head of Freud Communications.



1964: King Saud of Saudi Arabia is deposed by a family coup, and replaced by his half-brother King Faisal. Saud was on the throne during the 1956 Suez war and stopped exporting oil to Britain and France due to the Suez Crisis.  At the same time, he was an opponent of Nasser’s imperial dreams and provided aide to the royalist forces in Yemen. As king, Faisal continued the close alliance with the United States begun by his father, and relied on the U.S. heavily for arming and training his armed forces. Faisal was also anti-Communist. He refused any political ties with the Soviet Union and other Communist bloc countries, professing to see a complete incompatibility between Communism and Islam, and associating Communism with Zionism, which he also criticized sharply. He also engaged in a propaganda and media war with Egypt's pan-Arabist president, Gamal Abdel Nasser, and engaged in a proxy war with Egypt in Yemen that lasted until 1967 (see Yemeni Civil War). Faisal never explicitly repudiated pan-Arabism, however, and continued to call for inter-Arab solidarity in broad terms. During the 1973 Arab-Israeli War, launched by Faisal withdrew Saudi oil from world markets, in protest over Western support for Israel during the conflict. This action quadrupled the price of oil and was the primary force behind the 1973 energy crisis. It was to be the defining act of Faisal's career, and gained him lasting prestige among many Arabs and Muslims worldwide. The new oil revenue allowed Faisal to greatly increase the aid and subsidies begun following the 1967 Arab-Israeli to Egypt, Syria, and the Palestine Liberation Organization.



1965: In Israel, elections scheduled to be held will pit former Premier David Ben-Gurion and his newly formed Israel Workers Party against Premiere Levi Eshkol whom Ben Gurion had selected as his predecessors two years ago. (As reported by James Feron)



1966: “The Professionals” an Oscar nominated western directed, produced and written by Richard Brooks and edited by Paul Zinner was released today by Columbia Pictures.



1966:  In Flushing, Queens, “attorneys Arthur and Arlene Coleman-Schwimmer” gave birth to David Schwimmer best known for his role as Ross on the television hit Friendsbut who demonstrated the fact that he does have some range as an actor when he played a miss-fit officer in the World War II series, Band of Brothers.


1970: Bella Abzug was elected to the United States House of Representatives on a proudly feminist, anti-war, environmentalist platform.



1970: Roger Greenspun reviewed “WUSA” directed by Stuart Rosenberg, with music by Lialo Schifrin and co-starring Paul Newman and Laurence Harvey.



1973: Birthdate of New York City native “Amy Nadya Finkelstein” the MIT Professor of Economics and winner of “a MacArthur Genius fellowship” in 2018.



https://economics.mit.edu/faculty/afink



1973: "Barbra Streisand ...and Other Musical Instruments" airs on CBS TV



1975:The impact of the publication of Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape was reflected in four different articles published in the Washington Post



1976: Jimmy Carter who received 71% of the Jewish vote defeated Gerald Ford who received 27% of the Jewish vote in the U.S presidential election..  Carter will be remembered as the man who brokered the peace treaty between Egypt and Israel as well as the ex-President who voiced increasingly anti-Israeli opinions as the 20thcentury gave way to the 21st century.



1976: In Israel, founding of the Democratic Movement for Change known as DASH.



1977: “Madame Rosa” the cinematic adaptation of The Life Before Us by Romain Gary which tells the story of “a frail, aging, retired Jewish prostitute and Auschwitz survivor” directed by Moshe Miarahi who also wrote the script was released today in France.



1978(2nd of Cheshvan, 5739): Eight-six year old producer Max Gordon passed away today.



http://www.playbill.com/person/max-gordon-vault-0000029063



1983(26th of Cheshvan, 5744): Seventy-five year old Leonard Bertram Naman Schapiro the native of Glasgow who spent part of his childhood in Russia and who is the author of The Origins of the Communist Autocracy and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union passed away.



1984: A Brooklyn synagogue two blocks from one that was virtually destroyed in an arson fire two days ago was the target of an arson attempt this evening. The latest fire was set in the doorway of Congregation and Talmud Torah Tifereth Israel, at 2025 64th Street in the Bensonhurst section. A passer-by spotted the small fire at 6:35 P.M. and put out the flames, the police said. The Fire Department said that a flammable liquid had apparently been splashed on the door. The fire caused little damage. The earlier fire occurred at the Mapleton Park Hebrew Institute, which houses a synagogue and a yeshiva, at 2022 66th Street.



1986(30th of Tishrei, 5747): Sixty-six year old Paul Frees, the man with a million voices whom we all heard when we watched Rocky and Bullwinkle passed away today.



http://articles.latimes.com/1986-11-06/local/me-16406_1_paul-frees



1988:  Yitzchak Shamir led Likud to victory in the Israeli election.



1988: “Gracie Allen Still Steals the Show” published today provides a review of Gracie: A Love Story by George Burns was well as providing a brief summary of how devoted Burns was to the wife who made his career.”http://www.nytimes.com/1988/11/02/arts/gracie-allen-still-steals-the-show.html



1988(22nd of Cheshvan, 5749): Screenwriter Lukas Heller, the native of Kiel whose film credits including “Hush…Hush, Sweet Charlotte” and who is the father of British writers Bruno and Zoe Heller, passed away today.



1990: James Bartleman completed his service as Canada’s Ambassador to Israel.



1991(25th of Cheshvan, 5752): Movie Producer Irwin Allen, best known for The Poseidon Adventure, passed away.http://www.iann.net/irwinallen/



1991(25th of Cheshvan, 5752): Eighty-one year old Yosef Aharon Almogi passed away in Haifa.  Born in the Polish part of the Russian Empire, he made Aliyah in 1930 and served in the British Army during World War II.  During his political career he served in the Knesset and held various cabinet posts.



1993: Ehud Olmert defeats Teddy Kollek, ending Kollek’s twenty-eight tenure as Jerusalem’s mayor.



1994(1st of Kislev, 5755): Rosh Chodesh Kislev



1994: The Hobcaw Barony, which consisted of over 15,000 acres in South Carolina acquired by Bernard Baruch which became a nature preserve and eventually came to be owned by The Belle W. Baruch Foundation “was named to the National Register of Historic Places”



http://www.hobcawbarony.org/BellB.htm



1994: Snapple, a maker of bottled and canned iced tea and fruit drinks, founded by Hyman Golden and Arnold Greenberg in 1972, “announced today that it had agreed to be acquired by the Quaker Oats Company for $14 a share, well above the $5 a share that Snapple got when it went public in December 1992” but well below “the $23 a share other had paid “when Snapple insiders unloaded 9.2 million shares a year ago.”



1997: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or about topics of Jewish interest including The World of Benjamin Cardozo: Personal Values and the Judicial Process by Richard Polenberg, Paris in the Fifties by Stanley Karnow,Where She Came From: A Daughter's Search for Her Mother's Historyby Helen Epstein, Strangers to the Tribe: Portraits of Interfaith Marriage by Gabrielle Glaser, Roadkill by Kinky Freeman, My Vast Fortune by Andrew Tobias, The Autobiography of Foudini M. Cat by Susan Fromberg and Memoirs by Sir George Solti.



1997(2nd of Cheshvan, 5758): Eighty year old German born Gerhard Heumann who earned his U.S. citizenship through his service with the “Flying Tigers” and went to become a leading aviation engineer and General Electric executive passed away.



http://01907themagazine.com/herman-the-german-looking-back-at-the-extraordinary-life-of-gerhard-neumann/



1999: A recording of “The Famous 1938 Carnegie Jazz Concert” Benny Goodman’s ground-breaking music tour de force which had been recorded at the time was reissued today.



2000(6th of Cheshvan, 5761): Parashat Noach



2001(16th of Cheshvan, 5761): Ninety-two year old Elmer Balaban the last of surviving the movie theatre owning Balaban Brothers passed away today. (As reported by Douglas Martin)



http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/09/business/elmer-balaban-cinema-magnate-dies-at-92.html



2000(6th of Cheshvan, 5761): Ayelet Shahar Levy, 28, and Hanan Levy, 33, were killed and ten others were injured in a car bomb explosion near the Mahane Yehuda market in Jerusalem for which The Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility,



2001(16th of Cheshvan, 5762):  Elazar Menachem Man Shach a leading Haredi Rabbi in Bnei Baraik passed away today at the age of 102.



https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/elazar-shach



2001(16th of Cheshvan, 5762): Shoshana Ben Ishai, 16, of Betar Illit and Menashe (Meni) Regev, 14, of Jerusalem were killed when a Palestinian terrorist opened fire with a sub-machine gun shortly before 16:00 at a No. 25 Egged bus at the French Hill junction in northern Jerusalem. 45 people were injured in the attack.



2001(16th of Cheshvan, 5762):  Rabbi Morton M. Applebaum passed away at age 90 in Boca Raton. He was Rabbi of Temple Israel from 1953 to 1979, and continued as Rabbi Emeritus of Temple Israel until his death.Rabbi Morton M. Applebaum was born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.  He received his B.A. degree at the University of Toronto, and was graduated from and ordained by the Hebrew Union College, Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1940, where he also obtained his Master of Hebrew Letters degree, and his Doctor of Divinity degree in 1965.  Upon ordination, Rabbi Applebaum was called to serve as rabbi of Congregation Shaarey Zedek, in Lansing, Michigan, and also as Counselor of the B'nai B'rith Hillel Extension at Michigan State College.  In 1943 he was invited to become spiritual leader of Temple Beth El in Flint, Michigan, and served there until his call to Temple Israel of Akron, Ohio, in July, 1953, his congregation for over 46 years. He had contributed articles to national and international Anglo-Jewish periodicals, lectured in many American colleges, and addressed numerous church and service club audiences.  In 1959 he authored the book What Everyone Should Know About Judaism, which was the result of many of the questions that had been asked of him by Christians and Jews about Judaism.   During his term in Akron he started the children's interfaith service, a men's exchange program with St. Paul's Episcopal Church, and an annual Christian clergy institute on Judaism.  He served as a member of several major boards of Reform Judaism in America.  From 1979 to 2001 he served as our Rabbi Emeritus.  The Applebaum Chapel is named for him. His son, Bruce had preceded him in death, and a Temple Israel tribute fund for supporting youth programming was established by the congregation in his son's honor.  A Temple Israel tribute fund for supporting Scholarship has established by the congregation in Rabbi Applebaum's honor.



2001: Radio Liberty reported that fifty gravestones in a Jewish cemetery were desecrated in Baku, Azerbaijan. The head of the Religious Community of Mountain Jews of Azerbaijan, Semyon Ikhilov, was quoted by Radio Liberty as saying that this is not the first time such an attack has taken place. The government of Azerbaijan has recently warned of the threat of rising Islamic extremism to Jewish and minority Christian groups and has closed some mosques associated with radical Islamic tendencies.



2002: Matan Vilnai completed his term Minister of Culture and Sport.



2002: Binyamin Fuad Ben-Eliezer completed his term as Minister of Defense.



2003: The New York Times book section features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or on topics of special Jewish interest including Family Circle: The Boudins and the Aristocracy of the Left by Susan Braudy, Autumn of the Moguls: My Misadventures With the Titans, Poseurs, and Money Guys Who Mastered and Messed Up Big Mediaby Michael Wolff and George Gershwin: A New Biography by William G. Hyland



2004: After today’s murder of Theo van Gogh, Dr. Raphael Evers, the Rabbi of Rotterdam and a recognized leader of the Dutch Jewish community was among the three clergymen who presented “a Samenlevingscontract (Cohabitation Agreement) to the President of the Dutch House of Representatives.



2005: German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer praised the decision of The United Nations General Assembly to unanimously approve the proposal to set January 27 as the "International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust." The decision was made at the end of a special General Assembly session that began at UN headquarters in New York on Monday, November 1.January 27, 1945 is the day the former Nazi concentration and extermination camp, Auschwitz-Birkenau, was liberated. Fischer reminded the world that for the German people the Holocaust will forever be a dark time in their history demanding special treatment.



2005: As further evidence of the changing face of Conservative Judaism in Israel  three new female rabbis and one male who were ordained on at the Masorati/Conservative movement's Schechter Rabbinical Seminary, with religious backgrounds ranging from Orthodox to secular and a variety of cultural heritages, including Moroccan and French.



2006: Following a call by Baruch Marzel, Itamar Ben-Gvir and Hillel Weiss for a “holy war” against the upcoming Jerusalem Gay Pride Parade, “a demonstration” today “in Meah Shearim led to rioting” with “thousands of protestors blocking roads with burning garbage cans.”



2006: The Helicon Association's Sha'ar Poetry Festival opens at the Hebrew-Arabic Theater Complex in Jaffa. The Tel Aviv festival's artistic director is the poet Amir Or. The Sha'ar Festival of Poetry will also be hosting 12 poets from abroad and many local artists. The festival opens at Helicon House in Tel Aviv with a lecture by poet Admiel Kosman on sex and gender in Talmudic texts.


2007: Richard Pratt, the Polish born  Jewish Australian businessman  and the Visy group received a A$36 million fine, representing both the largest fine in Australian history and an estimated 0.75% of the Pratt fortune] Federal Court judge Justice Heerey said Mr Pratt and his senior executives were knowingly concerned in the cartel, which involved price fixing and market sharing


2007: Physician Oliver Sacks discusses and signs Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brainat Politics and Prose Bookstore in Washington, D.C.


2007: This evening, four mortar shells were fired at an Israeli community north of Gaza. All landed in open territory, and no wounded or damage were reported. This was the second such attack from Gaza in the least two days.


2008: Saul Steinberg: Illuminations, a travelling exhibition, which displays original Steinberg works came to a close at Kunsthaus Zürich


2008: James Galway, “the man with the golden flute," gives a concert at Tel Aviv's Performing Arts Center.


2008: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or about topics of Jewish interest including The Road To Rescue: The Untold Story of Schindler’s Listby Mietek Pemper with Viktoria Hertling, assisted by Marie Elisabeth Müller; translated by David Dollenmayer and Searching for Schindler: A Memoir by Thomas Keneally



2008: The Washington Post book section reviewed Chagall: A Biographyby Jackie Wullschlager and featured the work of Jewish poet Brenda Hillman including a poem entitled “Partita for Sparrows,"



2009:Mitch Albom, author of the bestselling Tuesdays with Morrie, reads from and signs his new inspirational book, Have a Little Faith: A True Story, at the Sixth & I Historic Synagogue in Washington, D.C.



2009: At the St. Louis Jewish Book Festival, Thomas M. Bloch leads a presentation entitled: “Stand for the Best” during which he discusses “What I Learned After Leaving My Job as CEO of H&R Block to Become a Teacher and Founder of an Inner-City Charter School



2009(15th of Cheshvan, 5770): Sixty-one year old Shabati Kalmanovich “a KGB spy, who later became known in Russia as a successful businessman, concert promoter and basketball sponsor” was killed today.



2009 (15 Cheshvan, 5770): Seventy-three year old Lord Leonard Steinberg, a much loved leader and philanthropist who passed away today.




2009 (15 Cheshvan, 5770):Sixty-eight year old Amir Pnueli, “who turned a philosopher’s explorations of time, logic and free will into a critical technique for verifying the reliability of computers, passed away today.”  (As reported by Kenneth Change)



2010(25th of Cheshvan, 5771): Eighty-eight year old Sarah Doron passed away.  A native of Lithuania she made Aliyah in 1933 and pursued a political career that led to her being elected to the Knesset as a member of Likud.


2010: “Political newcomer Steve Katz, was elected assemblyman for the 99th Assembly District as a candidate of the Republican and Independence Parties.”


2010: Proposition 19 which would have legalized marijuana in the State of California, a cause to which George Soros had contributed a million dollars, failed to pass in today’s election.


 


 


 


2010: The New York Times reviewed two books by Jewish authors: Cleopatra: A Life by Stacy Schiff and Frank:The Voice by James Kaplan


 


 


2010:Cedar Lake is scheduled to present the New York Premier of Israeli born Hofesh Shecter’s “The Fools” at the Joyce.


 


2010: Eric Cantor, the only Republican Jewish member of the House of Representatives, is among those standing for office in the U.S. elections which are scheduled to be held today.


2010:Today's US midterm elections propose to present a disproportionately large number of Jewish candidates for high office, some of them in quite unexpected places. Several already well-known political names in important races are California Senator Barbara Boxer (D), running for re-election in a close race with former Hewlett Packard executive Carly Fiorina, and former Connecticut state attorney-general Richard Blumenthal who has maintained a slight lead against Linda McMahon of WWE wrestling fame for the state's open Senate seat. Blumenthal has managed to maintain a single-digit lead, despite a minor scandal over exaggerated claims of Vietnam War service, in no small part due to Connecticut women's discomfort with McMahon's close ties with a sport known for violence and a significant element of misogyny


2011: The Center for Jewish History is scheduled to a present a lecture entitled “Glikl’s Legacy: Jewish Women in France before the Revolution” by Professor Jay Berkowitz, the Center’s inaugural National Endowment for the Humanities Senior Scholar Fellowship,


2011: Hyman S. & Freda Bernstein Jewish Literary Festival is scheduled to come to a close tonight in Washington, D.C.


2011: Six months after premiering at Cannes, “La Source Des Femmes,” featuring Hiam Abbass was released today in France.


2011:Israel test-fired a ballistic missile today, at the Palmahim Israel Defense Forces base in central Israel. The test was part of an examination of a new missile currently being developed by the defense establishment.


2011:Local rabbi: Circus turned down 400,000 euros to relocate from site of Jewish house of worship destroyed by the Nazis.  Jews in the Russian city of Kaliningrad want to rebuild a grand synagogue on the same spot where it stood before the Nazis destroyed it, but first they have to evict the current tenants: the local circus.Rabbi David Shvedik told The Jerusalem Post today he has been trying for years to relocate the circus from the vacant plot where the majestic Konigsberg Synagogue once stood but to no avail. “We own the land but they won’t leave,” he said over the phone from Kaliningrad. “They’ve threatened us by saying if they were forced to leave and then all the children will be angry at the Jews because there’d be no more circus in town.” The Chabad emissary said members of the local Jewish community have tried to pay the circus to move. “We don’t want a war,” Shvedik said, “which is why we’ve offered them 400,000 euros to go, but they said no.” Kaliningrad is the capital of an eponymous Russian exclave bordering Poland to the south, Lithuania to the north and separated by hundreds of kilometers from the rest of the country. The city was formerly known as Konigsberg and was part of Germany until 1945 when it was conquered by the Soviets who expelled its German inhabitants renaming it Kaliningrad in honor of a communist politician. Before the Nazis rise to power the city was home to a relatively small but influential Jewish community. Political theorist Hannah Arendt; Leah Rabin, the late wife of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, and Moshe Smoira, the first president of the Supreme Court, were born there. Many members of the community fled Nazi persecution before World War II. Most of those who remained were killed in the Holocaust. Shvedik said the new synagogue in Kaliningrad would be an exact replica of the Konigsberg Synagogue destroyed on Kristallnacht in 1938. Besides religious services, the rabbi said it would house a nursery and community center serving some 2,000 Jews in the region. Despite the deadlock, Shvedik laid a cornerstone for the synagogue last month in a ceremony attended by Kaliningrad Mayor Alexander Yaroshuk, as originally reported by chabad.org. “I believe it will take two years to build,” he said optimistically. Asked if he were willing to consider another location, Shvedik categorically refused. “We are continuing the tradition from when Jews lived here when it was Kongisberg,” he said. “There was a rich Jewish life here and we want to renew it.” 


2012: After premiering at the Toronto International Film Festival, “A Late Quartet,” a simply marvelous must see movie directed and co-produced by Yaron Zilberman, with a script by Seth Grossman and Yaron Zilberman was released today in the United States.


2012: U.S. premiere of “A Late Quartet” a must see “little cinematic gem” produced and directed by Yaron Zilberman who co-authored the script along with Seth Grossman.


2012: As part of the Turkish-Jewish Festival, Tikvat Israel in Rockville, MD is scheduled to follow Kabbalat Shabbat with “an authentic vegetarian Turkish dinner prepared by Beyhan Cagri Trock author of The Ottoman Turk and the Pretty Jewish Girl – Real Turkish Cooking.


2012:Beth El, Shir Tikvah, Temple Israel, Kol Ami, & Emanu-El are scheduled to host the WRJ Central District Convention.


2012: Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas denounced the firing of rockets from Gaza into Israel in an interview with Channel 2 that aired in its entirety tonight.


2012: Thecomments by Defense Ministry security and diplomacy chief Amos Gilad do not reflect the positions of the security establishment nor do they reflect the positions of Gilad, the Defense Ministry said in a statement today. The statement follows comments made by Gilad earlier in the day at the IDC Herzliya's "Strategic Fridays" event, in which he said that "There is no talking going on between (Israel's) and Egypt's political echelons and I don't think there will be."


2012: The Ritual Committee of Temple Judah is scheduled to host a Spaghetti Dinner as part of the Friday night Shabbat celebration.


2012: In “The Lox Sherpa of Russ & Daughters” Corey Klignannon described the role of Chhappte Sherpa “saving the salmon” at the “popular lox purveyor” as Hurricane Sandy struck New York.



2012: “Orchestra of Exiles” is scheduled to open in Los Angeles.



2012: Ninety-fifth anniversary of the Balfour Declaration


2013: In Jerusalem, the Eden-Tamir Music Center is scheduled to host a chamber music concert, “From Mozart to Kleizmer.”


2013: The 19th annual San Diego Jewish Book Store is scheduled to begin this evening.


2013: The Oshman Family JCC in Palo Alto, California, is scheduled to host a screening of “Orchestra of Exiles” and a performance of by the string quartet from the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra.


2013: IDF Spokesperson's Unit reported that IDF fired at two Syrians who approached the border fence from the Syrian side in the southern Golan Heights while trying to steal mines. One of the Syrians was injured in his leg. The two ran back to where they came from. (As reported by Maor Buchnik, Yoav Zitun)


2013:  German Chancellor Angela Merkel today cautioned her countrymen against the dangers of anti-Semitism, a week ahead of the 75th anniversary of Kristallnacht, a series of pogroms carried out against German Jews in 1938.


2013: In a review published today “of an American production of the play, Bad Jews, Times of Israel critic Jordan Hoffman said “Bad Jews” was the “finest work about Jewish assimilation [he had] come across since Philip Roth’s 2004 novel ‘The Plot Against America.’”


2013: Tom Maayan “started at point guard in Seton Hall’s first of the season” today.


2013: “Oregon or Bust” is scheduled to come to an end at the Oregon Jewish Museum.



2014: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Nazis Next Door: How America Became a Safe Haven for Hitler’s Men by Eric Lichtblau, Villiage of Secrets: Defying the Nazis in Vichy, France by Caroline Moorehead and Lincoln and the Power of the Press: The War for Public Opinion by Harold Holzer


2014: Under the leadership of Amy Barnum, Hadassah is scheduled to hold its annual Donor Dinner in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.


2014: Artist Shirley Gittlesohn is scheduled to host “an informal tour of her exhibit ‘L’Chaim—To Life! At the Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocuast Education


2014: A Day of Jewish Learning, an “annual adult education conference featuring seventy sessions” is scheduled to take place at American University in Washington, DC.


2014: The Twin Cities Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to come to an end today.


2014: “A senior Hamas official rapped Israel for closing the crossings into the Gaza Strip on today, two days after a rocket was fired from the coastal enclave at southern Israel.” (As reported by Spencer Ho)


2014: “Police Chief Yohanan Danino told an emergency meeting of the Knesset Internal Affairs Committee on Sunday that he is determined to maintain the right of Jews to access the Temple Mount compound, including by deploying as many officers as it takes to enable visits.” (As reported by Stanley Winer)


2014: “Part of a wrought-iron gate, bearing the Nazis’ cynical slogan “Arbeit macht frei” or “Work sets you free,” was stolen from the former Dachau concentration camp, police said today


2014: “Holocaust Education Week” is scheduled to begin today.



2015(20thof Cheshvan, 5776): Ninety-one year old timpanist Richard Horowitz passed away today. (As reported by Margalit Fox)



2015: The Aleph Society is scheduled to host its annual dinner with Rabbi Adin Even-Israel Steinsaltz.


2015: The Center for Jewish History is scheduled to host “Peretz Markish and the Destruction of Soviet Jewish Culture” which include a screening of a documentary on the poet and playwright and readings from his works by Yiddish actor Shane Baker.


2015: “Marrying An Ice Cream Factory” is scheduled to be shown at the 29thIsrael Film Festival in Los Angeles.


2015: Three people including an 80 year old woman were wounded this afternoon in a stabbing attack by a Palestinian in the central city of Rishon Lezion, a southern suburb of Tel Aviv


2015: The Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center is scheduled to host a screening of Boris Maftisr’s “Guardians of Remembrance.”


2015: “Holocaust Education Week” is scheduled to begin today.



2016(1st of Cheshvan, 5777): Rosh Chodesh Cheshvan


2016: “In a sign of a growing rift, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu criticized American Jewish leaders today as a struggle over a stalled plan for equal prayer rights for both sexes at a Jerusalem holy site erupted with mutual recriminations and a tumultuous protest led by liberal rabbis carrying Torah scrolls”


2016: Holocaust Education Week’s “scholar-in-residence Ron Levi, who holds the George Ignatieff Chair of Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Toronto, is scheduled to speak tonight at Beth Emeth Bais Yehuda Synagogue with HEW’s opening night speaker Gavriel D. Rosenfeld, professor of history at Fairfield University in Connecticut, about how the Holocaust fits into the current political climate.”


2016: The Center for Jewish History is scheduled to host its “Young Jewish American Composers Concert.”


2016: Ninety year old Miriam Weinstein” the mother of movie moguls Harvey and Bob Weinstein passed away today. (As reported Anita Gates)



2016: Today, “A group of Conservative and Reform rabbis and Women of the Wall members’ tried to bring Torah scrolls into the Western Wall compound in Jerusalem.”


2016: The Illinois Holocaust Museum and Educational Center is scheduled to host a lecture by Dr. Rachel G. Saidel on “Women in the Holocaust.


2017(13th of Cheshvan, 5778): Ninety-six year old Irv Refkin, whose work for the OSS during WW II included acts of sabotage and risky spying earned him the Bronze Star, the Distinguished Service Award from OSS Society and the newly created “Congressional Medal to World War II Spies” passed away today. (As reported by Sam Roberts) Yes, there was a real “James Bond and he was a 5’6” Jew from Wisconsin



2017: In Toronto, start of the 37th Annual Neuberger Holocaust Education Week.


2017: “Rabbi Elie Kaplan Spitz the author of Does the Soul Survive: A Jewish Journey to Belief in Afterlife, Past Lives & Living with Purpose is scheduled to lecture on “Past-life regression. Reincarnation. Near-death experiences” at the Temple Emanu-El Streicker Center


2017: The JNF community breakfast, “Northern Ohio Breakfast for Israel” with Rabbi Joseph Telushkin is scheduled to begin at 7:30 this morning.


2017: The American Jewish Historical Society is scheduled to host a “book talk launching and celebrating Najat Abdulhuq’s Jewish and Greek Communities in Egypt: Entrepreneurship and Business before Nasser, followed by a response from Joyce Zonana (CUNY BMCC), author of Dream Homes: From Cairo to Katrina, an Exile's Journey.


2017:  100th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration.



2018: “Enduring Tension: (En)countering Antisemitism in Every Age,” an exhibition that explores the long history of anti-Jewish bias in the United States within an international context” co-sponsored the Kennesaw State University Museum of History and Holocaust Education is scheduled to open today at the Breman Museum in Atlanta.


2018: In Cedar Rapids, Temple Judah, which under the leadership of Jill Diner has honored those murdered in Pittsburgh by making donations to the Tree of Life Congregation, the ADL and HIAS, is scheduled to include special memorial observances in tonight’s services.


2018: National Jewish Book Month is scheduled to begin today.


2018: The 15th Annual Holocaust Education Week is scheduled to come to an end today.



2018: The Eden-Tamir Music Center is scheduled to host a piano recital featuring Tatyana Rubina.


2018: Funeral services are scheduled to be held for ninety-seven year Pittsburgh massacre victim Rose Mallinger “at Congregation Rodef Shalom.”



 


 


 


 



 


 


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

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November 3



166 BCE (15th of Cheshvan, 3595): Mattathais ben Yochanan passed away.



361: Roman Emperor Constantius II died. Constantius II enhanced the anti-Jewish policies begun by his father. Under his rule, converting to Judaism became a combination of trip down the road to economic ruin and a capital offense. He prohibited Jews from marrying Christian women and from converting Christian women to Judaism.  Christian slaves owned by Jews were freed and it was a capital offense for Jews to circumcise slaves in their household. He decreed that Christians who converted to Judaism would forfeit their property to the state. 



644:Umar, the “2ndCaliph of the Rashidun Caliphate” who visited Jerusalem in 637 where changed the policy of the Byzantines and encouraged Jews to return to the city and deliberately instituted offering of Moslem prayers on the site of the destroyed Temple” was assassinated by the Persians today.



1394: Enforcement of an order expelling all Jews from France that had Charles the VI had signed on Yom Kippur.  The pretext for issuing the order on September 17, 1394, was a report that a Parisian named Denis Machuit who had converted to Christianity had returned to Judaism.



1534: Pope Paul III decided that the bulls of his predecessor, Pope Clement that favored the Marranos and expressed opposition to the Inquisition should not be issued.



1507: An edict was issued today that “again decrees that whatever had belong to the Jews of Grodno before their expulsion must be returned to them.”



1604: Birthdate of Osman II, a Sultan who reigned during the 17th century which was a period of decline for the Ottoman Empire and its Jewish subjects.  Unlike many of his predecessors, it appears that Osman did not employ an Jews as court physicians or close advisors.



1643(21st of Cheshvan): Rabbi ben Mordecai Azulai, author of Or ha-Hamah passed away



1654: David Abrabanel Dormido, presented a petition calling for the re-admission of the Jews to England Oliver Cromwell, the English Lord Protector. Dormido, was a leading Amsterdam Jew, who had been entrusted by Manasseh ben Israel to handle negotiations aimed at gaining the re-admittance of the Jews into England. Cromwell recommended that the Council accept the petition, but the matter stalled and Cromwell was forced to find another way to reach his goal.


1766: Twenty-seven year old German mathematician Thomas Abbt who befriend Moses Mendelsohn before he became famous, passed away today.


1777(3rd of Cheshvan, 5538):Aaron ben Meir of Brest, the Belarusian rabbi and advocate of the Pilpul whose “response may be found in Meḳor Mayim Ḥayyim a work by his grandson, Jacob Meir of Padua passed away today in Brest-Litovsk.


1780(5th of Cheshvan, 5541): Seventy-two year old Isaac Mendes Seixas, a native of Lisbon, Portugal, passed away today at Newport, Rhode Island


1783: At the end of the American Revolution, The American Continental Army was disbanded. The majority of the small Jewish community in the United States supported the Revolution.  Among those who fought for the cause were: Francis Salvador of South Carolina who literally lost his scalp while fighting for the American cause, Mordecai Sheftall of Georgia who served as Commissary-General for the state’s troops, David Franks who had the mis-fortune of serving as aide-de-camp to Benedict Arnold, Isaac Franks who was captured at the Battle of Long Island but escaped to fight another day and Solomon Bush who rose to the rank of Lt. Colonel, possibly making him the highest ranking Jew to serve in the Continental Army.


1787: Seventy-six year old Robert Loth, a Bishop of the Church of England who was awarded a Doctorate in Divinity by Oxford University, for his treatise on Hebrew poetry entitled Praelectiones Academicae de Sacra Poesi Hebraeorum (On the Sacred Poetry of the Hebrews) in 1754 and whose translation of Isaiah would be rated as the best English version by scholars in the 19th century passed away today.


1807: After his first had passed away in 1804, today in Philadelphia sixty-three year old Jacob I Cohen married “the widow Rachel (Polack) Jacobs, a descendant of the first Jews in Savannah, GA.


1810: Birthdate of German Reform rabbi Leopold Stein who “composed for the Reform ritual the song "Tag des Herrn," to be sung to the music of "Kol Nidre" on the eve of the Day of Atonement.”


1810: In Zagare, Lithuania, Rabbi Zev Wolf and his wife Leah gave birth to Rabbi Yisroel ben Ze'ev Wolf Lipkin, also known as "Yisroel Salanter" or "Israel Salanter" the father of the Musar movement in Orthodox Judaism



1817: Eighty-seven year old “Sarah Rachele bat Nathaniel” was interred at the “Hope Street Burial Ground.”


1823: In Bavaria, Abraham and Bella Kohn gave birth to Isaac Kohn the husband of Henrietta Yetta Kohn.


1826: The French version “Margherita d'Anjou,” an operatic melodramma semiseria in two acts by Giacomo Meyerbeer premiered at Theatre Odéon in Paris


1835: Two days after he had passed away, 61 year old Joel Barnett, the husband of Sarah Moss with whom he had four children was buried today at “Brompton (Fulham Road) Jewish Cemetery.


1835: In Hungard “Alois (or Abraham) Fleischmann, a Jewish distiller and yeast maker, and his wife Babette gave birth to Charles Louis Fleischmann, the husband of Henriette Robinson Fleischman with whom he had three children – Julius, Bettie and Max and the brother of Maximllian with whom ccreated America’s first commercially produced yeast, which revolutionized baking in a way that made today’s mass production and consumption of bread possible.  Yes, Fleischmann’s yeast is Kosher.


1837: Birthdate of German actor Ludwig Chronegk, the native of Brandenburg-on-the-Havel who “was the stage-manager and "Intendanzrath" of the famous Meininger troupe established at Weimar by Duke George of Meiningen.”


1839: Issuance of The Hatt-ı Şerif of Gülhane a proclamation that “launched a period of reforms” in the Ottoman Empire which held to improve the situation of Turkish Jews.


1841: Abraham Segenberg married Mary Levy at the New Synagogue today.


1846(14th of Cheshvan, 5607): Rabbi Abraham Auerbach, nephew of Joseph David Sinzheim who survived the Reign of Terror in France and whose seven sons included Rabbi Benjamin Hirsch Auerbach, passed away today in Bonn, Germany.


1847: Samuel Barnett married Phoebe Judah at the Great Synagogue today.


1847: Elias Isaacs married Kate Benjamin today.


1847: Kehillat Anshe Ma'arab, the first Jewish congregation in Chicago, was established today, when a constitution was adopted and signed by fourteen members. Morris L. Leopold, a young man of twenty-six, born in Laubheim, Württemberg, was elected president (As reported by the Jewish Encyclopedia)


1852: Catherine (nee Levy) Davis, the wife of Noah Davis with whom he had four children – Isaac, Marcus, James and Jane – was buried today at the “Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.”


1860: The first neighborhood outside the old city wall of Jerusalem was dedicated. The site was purchased by Sir Moses Montefiore five years earlier and known as Mishkenot Sha'ananim. Although there was initial resistance to leaving the "security" of the old city walls, it soon led to the establishment of dozens of new neighborhoods.


1862: David D. Meyers, who would rise to the rank of Corporal before his discharge, began his service today a member of Company A of the 154th Regiment.


1867: Enrico Guastalla, the son of Jewish family from Milan, was among those who fought with forces of Garibaldi today at the Battle of Mentana.


1867: In Hamburg as Reform and Orthodox community clashed, statues for a new DIG (Ashkenazi Deutsch-Israelitische Gemeinde zu Hamburg) were enacted in a new constitution that provided for tolerance among the DIG members as to matters of the cult and religious tradition. “This unique model, thus called Hamburg System (Hamburger System), established a two-tiered organization of the DIG with the college of representatives and the umbrella administration in charge of matters of general Ashkenazi interest, such as cemetery, zedakah for the poor, hospital and representation of the Ashkenazim towards the outside. The second tier formed the so-called Kultusverbände (cult associations), Associations independent in religious and financial matters by their own elected boards and membership dues, but within the DIG, took care of religious affairs.” Effectively, the new system allowed for community cohesion while allowing the Reform to have their own house of worship using their own prayer books and rituals.


1867: “After the Paris Exposition of 1867” which closed today, “the reviewer for The Times called Antoine Samuel Adam-Salomon’s pictures ‘matchless,’ beyond praise’ and ‘the finest photographic portraits in the world.’”


1868: U.S. Grant won the Presidential election defeating Horatio Seymour. Grant was the first President to attend a synagogue service while in office. In 1876 Adas Israel Congregation in Washington D.C. was dedicated and Grant was in attendance. At the time, Adas Israel was an Orthodox Congregation.  Today it is one of two Conservative congregations still in the District of Columbia.


1869: The Philadelphia Conference of Reform Rabbi opened today


1873: George de Worms, 2nd Baron de Worms and Louisa de Samuel gave birth to Percy de Worms the grandson of Solomon Benedict de Worms and Henrietta Samuel and the great-great-grandson of Mayer Amschel Rothschild.


1877: As conflict continues to swirl through the Balkans, it was reported today, that several Polish dissidents who may  have been the intended recipient of arms being shipped secretly from Vienna have been arrested based on information provided by an un-named Jew from Gratz “who has turned state’s evidence for a consideration. [Editor’s note – the veracity of this report is open to question.  It could have represented an attempt to stir up enmity between Poles and Jews; the image of the Jew selling out for money is as old as the calumny about Judas Iscariot]


1878: First settlers moved to Petach Tikva.  Petach Tikva is Hebrew for Gateway of Hope.  A group of Jews from Jerusalem bought land from a Greek landowner on the coastal plain.  The initial settlement failed because of malaria and crop failure.  Petach Tikva would rise again and a youthful David Ben Gurion would be one of the settlers.


1879: The Board of Trustees of Temple Beth-El met this evening to plan the funeral for the Rabbi David Einhorn, of blessed memory. Mrs. Einhorn, who had wanted the funeral to be a private affair agreed to allow for a more public event which will be conducted by Rabbi Kauffman Kohler, her son-in-law and the man who had succeeded Rabbi Einhorn when he retired as the spiritual leader of Temple Beth-El


1879: It was reported today that France has successfully reasserted herself in the field of foreign affairs.  Among the areas where the French appear to be on the verge of accomplishing their goals is Romania where she has worked to convince the government of the need to fully emancipate her Jewish population.  This is reported as a self-less act since the French have no national interest in accomplishing this.


1880: Rabbi Sigmund Mannheimer and his wife gave birth to Rabbi Eugene M. Mannheimer, the husband of Irma Shloss Mannheimer, who was buried in the Emanuel Cemetery in Des Moines, IA, after he passed away.


1881: It was reported today that the Hebrew Benevolent and Orphan Asylum is planning on building a new facility that will house 600 children.  Located between 136thand 138th street, the new structure will cost $250,000 which does not include the cost of the land.


1884: “Tried For Burning A Synagogue” published today draws on information that first appeared in the London Standard  describes a trial In Hungary where five  Jews have been charged with arson for their role in burning down a synagogue five years ago.  The trial is expected to last two weeks since testimony is to be heard from 90 witnesses.


1884: Based on information that first appeared in the London Truth, that the Duke of Westminster has declined to renew Sir Moses Montefiore’s lease on the house in Park Lane that has been his home for several decades on the terms requested.  Instead he has said that he will “accept the worthy old gentleman as a yearly tenant”


1885(25th of Cheshvan, 5646): Milton Silverman, the son of shoemaker Julius Silverman died as a result of a blow struck by Julius Rubiner, a Jew from Poland who owned a grocery store on Hester Street.


1888: In St. Petersburg, the police “have given notice that Jews will not be allowed to change their names or to reside in the capital without a permit.”


1885: At Maida Vale, London, “Benjamin Keysor, a Jewish clock importer and his wife gave birth to Australian war hero and businessman today. (As reported by Dudley McCarthy)



1887: Birthdate of New York City native Nathaniel Stanley “Nat” Fleischer, the boxing expert who found Ring Magazine.




1889: Professor Felix Adler is scheduled to speak at the funeral of August Henry Edinger, the patron of several Jewish charities which is to be held this morning at 9:30 a.m.


1889: It was reported today that 30% of the students at the four inns of court in England “who passed examinations qualifying them to be called barristers” have “names that are Jewish.”


1890(20th of Cheshvan, 5651): Sixty four year old Manuel Joël, the Jewish philosopher who wrote essays on Ibn Gabriol and Maimonides and succeeded Abraham Geiger as the rabbi in Breslau, passed away today.


1894: At Memorial Hall in Boston, 2,000 Jews attended “a mock funeral service” in which they rejoiced over the death of Czar Alexander III.


1894: George T. Selikovitsch, the former editor of the Jewish Eagle declined an invitation to speak at the “mock funeral” for Czar Alexander III saying that “he disliked the Czar but was unwilling to trample on the grave.”


1894: As European government’s mourned the death of Czar Alexander III, the Vienna correspondent for the London Standard reported that “some time ago a deputation petitioned the Czarevitch to intervene” on behalf of the Russian Jews.  The heir to the Russian throne replied, “I despise and condemn the expulsion of your countrymen, but my hands are tied.”  (The Czarevith, Nicholas II, proved to be as anti-Semitic as his late father)


1895: Thirty year old Dr. Lucian Mayer Langbank, who would be murdered during the Holocaust married Ernestine Langbank.


1895: The second annual concert of the Halevy Singing Society took place this evening at the Hebrew Institute Hall at East Broadway and Jefferson Street.


1895: It was reported today that in Paris, the anti-Semitic Libre Parole is making an effort “to elevate personal hatred of the Jews to the height of a great principle


1895(16th of Cheshvan, 5656): Just twenty days before his 94th birthday Barrow Jacob Montefiore the son of Eliezer Montefiore and Judith Montefiore and the husband Justina Lydia Montefiore who with his brother worked to develop a number of commercial ventures in Australia including the Bank of Australasia and founded the township of Montefiore, at the confluence of the Bell and MacQuarrie rivers, in Wellington Valley, passed away today in London.


1895(16th of Cheshvan, 5656): Forty year old Morris Deschner, forty-five Isaac Pensen and fifty-five old Jacob Shapiro, all Jewish tailors from Russia died today in a fire this morning at 7 Pelham Street which is “in the heart of the sweat-shop district.”


1895: The monthly visiting day at the Hebrew Sheltering Arms was not held because the place has been placed under quarantine because of the measles epidemic.


1895: “Youngsters In Politics” published today described a meeting co-hosted by the Hebrew Institute Street Cleaning League in which Mayor Strong addressed the Jewish boys and girls who have voluntarily joined together to keep the streets of the Lower East Side free from trash and garbage.


1896: William McKinley defeated William Jennings Bryan in the race of the Presidency.  Like many populists of the day, Bryan dabbled in anti-Semitism.  The image of the international Jewish bankers denying the “free silver” to American farmers and workers was a favorite of the time. (You have to know American history to follow this one.)  Tom Watson of Georgia ran on the ticket with Bryan as the candidate for Vice President.  Watson’s anti-Semitism was cruder and more blatant than many other of his contemporaries.  Watson was a supporter of the Klan.  In 1913, he was a leader in whipping up anti-Semitic sentiment against Leo Frank. Watson may not have actually been at Frank’s lynching, but he certainly played a major role in making it possible to put the noose around the innocent Frank’s neck.


1896: “Mother and Son Buried” published today described the joint funeral services that were held for Abraham Fox and his mother Ernestine Fox who had died two days from the effects of consumption, the same illness that claimed Abraham’s life.


1897: In London, at the Central Synagogue, the Chief Rabbi, assisted by Rabbis Fay and Spero officiated at the marriage of Jacob Waley Cohen, “the eldest son of Nathaniel Louis Cohen” and Katherine Cohen “the fourth daughter of Arthur Cohen, Esq.”


1897:  Two days after he passed away, 82 year old Clara Goldsmid, the wife of Moses Goldsmid, was buried today at the “Plashet Jewish Cemetery in London.”


1898:The Zionist Delegation leaves Jerusalem and goes back to Yafo. Herzl wants to leave the country immediately and they board the English orange freighter "Dundee" for Alexandria, Egypt.


1899(1st of Kislev, 5660): Rosh Chodesh Kislev


1899(1st of Kislev, 5660): Belgian engraver Jacques Wiener who designed the first Belgian postage stamps and whose talent led to him being “decorated with the Order of the Knights of Leopold and the Prussian Eagle” passed away today.


1902(3rd of Cheshvan, 5663): Eighty-five year old philanthropist Ferdinand Reichenheim passed away in Berlin.


1902: In Vienna, Alma and Gustave Mahler gave birth to Anna Justine “Gucki” Mahler


1903: Panama proclaimed its independence from Colombia.  The first Jews who arrived in Panama in the early 16th century were Conversos, secret Jews.  The Jews formed their first community in 1876.  Within a decade after the revolution that created the independent Panama, there were approximately 500 Jews living in Panama.  Two of the families living in Panama at that time were the Henriques and the Sassos.  Vera Sasso, the daughter of a Sephardic merchant made her way to the United States where she became Vera Sasso Levy.  She is the great-great-great- grandmother of Jacob and Rachel Levin.


1903(13th of Cheshvan, 5664: Mena Roos, wife of Aaron Roos passed away.  Born in Bavaria in 1826, she was buried in Natchez, Mississippi, which at one time was home to a thriving Jewish community.  


1905: As the violence during what would be called the “Russian Revolution of 1905” continued Jews were attacked by both sides as could be seen today when Jewish stores at Romny were burned to the ground during a riot that began when a rich merchant refused to take off his hat for a red flag while “The Black Hundreds” were attacking Jews at Smolensk. (The Red flag belonged to the left wing revolutionaries while the Black Hundreds were a right-win ultranationalist movement)


1905: Czar Nicholas II of Russia signs a document of amnesty for political prisoners.


1905: “The Russian People” published today provided a commentary on the current violence in Russia including the revelation that “the continuance of murderous assaults upon the Jews in Odessa and elsewhere is well-nigh incomprehensible” and that “these outbreaks against the Jews, which were generally believed to be encouraged by the local Government authority, were among the gravest evils under the autocracy.”


1905: In Odessa, “mobs pillaged a number of Jewish shops” including the “biggest wholesale grocery in the city owned by Rabinovitch” and “killed a physician and two assistants who were dressing wounds.”


1905: As a dispatch arrived at St. Petersburg, saying that “attacks on the Jews were continuing today” “Baron von Aehrenthal, the Ambassador of Austria-Hungary visited General Trepoff and called special situation to the situation in Odessa and Kiev and C.A. Spring-Rice, the British Charge d’Affairs demanded protection for the persons and property of British subjects at Odessa, Kiev, Rostoff-on-Don and Grodny.


1905: “Slaying Jews Everywhere” published today described the murderous assaults on the Jews at Rostoff-on-Don where all of the “rich Jewish establishments were sacked” while “all of the houses of the Christians” were spared and Minks where “fifty four bodies have been buried in the Jewish cemetery” and where funerals are taking place “every half-hour.


1905: “5,000 Victims of Odessa Mob” published today described the continuing massacre of the Jews in the Russian city where “Jews are being hunted down in the streets and killed and beaten, while their shops are given over to pillage.” “The Jewish women and children” have reported been “hacked to pieces” and the rioters “say they will not leave one alive.”


1905: In an interview this morning, “a leading General…argued that the disturbances” in Odessa “ were the result of the behavior of the Jews, who, he said rudely shocked Russian patriotism by the manner in which they celebrated the publication of the imperial manifesto” and “abused their new –found freedom by tearing down the national flag, hoisting revolutionary banners, insulting the Emperor and boasting that they along gave Russia freedom.


1905: Riots which had been organized by the police continued for a second day in Bachmut, Bessarabia.


1907: Birthdate of Georgetown University Law School graduated David Adelman who won “his first two consecutive titles in the shot put at the Penn Relays in Philadelphia” in 1929.


1908:William Howard Taft was elected 27th President. Taftwas 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. This was probably a political fence-mending gesture designed to recapture some of the Jewish political support Taft lost when he failed to support efforts to halt anti-Semitic policies of the Czar aimed at American Jews.


1908: Morris Hillquite received 21.23% of the vote in today’s election where he was running for the House seat in the 9thCongressional District.


1910: Forty-two year old Parisian born Jewish journalist and politician Louis-Lucien Klotz began serving as Minister of Finance in the second government of Aristide Briand.


1911: Hundreds of Jews were left destitute by floods at Serres, Salonica.


1911: The New York Timesreports that the Russian Premier has “heeded to the plea of the Jews” and modified the order to expel the Jews from the province of Ekaterinoslaff.


1911(12th of Cheshvan, 5672): Seventy-five year old Rabbi Solomon Mosche passed away.


1911: Phillip Klein of Budapest, was created a Royal Counsellor by the Emperor of Austria.


1911: Today, “Professor Mahler was compelled to resign from the University of Prague because of” his support of the Zionism.’


1911: A Jewish teacher at government school for girls at Volo, Greece was dismissed as not being “qualified to instruct Christian children.”


1911: Today, in Turkey, the Chief Rabbi, in cooperation with the Patriarchs of Christians, who have similar grievances, took measures to prevent conversion of Jewish girls in Salonica to” Islam.
1912: A Jewish teacher in a government school for girls in Volo, Greece, was dismissed as not being qualified to instruct Christian children.


1913: In Pittsburgh, PA, Harry and Mary Levine gave birth to Milton Martin Levine, who “With his brother-in-law, Levine…devised what was eventually named Uncle Milton's Ant Farm, which was an instant hit in the fad-crazy 1950s.”


1913: The New York Timesreports on a study conducted by Abram Lipsky and published in the American Hebrew that examines the question of whether or not there is among the Jews of New York City a "Jewish vote" that can be depended upon for political purposes.


1913: Birthdate of Nathan “Nat’ Frankel who played guard and forward for the basketball teams at Samuel J. Tilden High School and Brooklyn College before spending a season with the Pittsburgh Ironmen of the Basketball Association of America.


1914: Meyer London defeated his Tammany Hall backed opponent in his bid for election to the House of Representatives.  This made him the second member of the Socialist Party to be elected to Congress.


1914: Russia declared war on the Ottoman Empire


1914: Mary Phelps Jacob won a patent for the first modern brassiere.  Mary Phelps Jacob was not Jewish.  But the woman who took the bra to its next level was. “During the flat-chested Flapper era in the 1920’s, a Russian immigrant named Ida Rosenthal noticed that a bra that fit one woman did not fit another woman of the same bra size. With the help of her husband William, they founded Maidenform. Ida was responsible for grouping women into bust size categories (cup sizes) and developed bras for every stage of life from puberty to maturity.” (And you thought this was all about Talmud, Torah and Nobel Prizes.)


1916: Joseph P. Tracy, the Adjutant General of the War Department wrote to Simon Wolf in response to the latter’s letter seeking help in getting a hardship reassignment for a soldier serving with Battery “F” of the Field Artillery saying that given the conditions described, the reassignment was possible and the solider should apply through appropriate channels.


1917(18thof Cheshvan, 5678): Parashat Vayera


1917: At Leeds, UK, Sir Montague Maurice Burton, “fonder of Burton, one of Great Britain’s’ largest chains of clothes shops and Sophie Burton gave birth to Arnold James Burton and Raymond Montague Burton.


1917: At Temple Beth-El, Rabbi Samuel Schulman delivered a sermon in which he “assailed prominent Jews who had advised” their co-religionists “to vote in a particular direction” saying that “it was an insult to the Jews to classify them in any respect, except that of religion.”


1917: “Emphasizing that there is no Jewish vote en masse and that the Jews are discriminating voters, Dr. Nathan Krass, the rabbi of Temple Israel in Brooklyn made an earnest appeal to Jews not to vote for Morris Hilliquit because he stands for things that are dangerous.”


1917:  As the Russian Revolution moves to its climax, which means Russia, will drop out of the war leaving the Germans to turn the full weight of the arms against the Allies on the Western Front, plans are made to send three leading Zionists, including Vladimir Jabotinsky, to Petrograd to rally Russian Jewry to the Allied cause.  One British official, Lord Hardinge, summed up the British expectations by writing, “With skillful management of the Jews of Russia the situation may still be restored by spring.”  Alas, the Allies were a day late and a dollar short.  They underestimated the power of the Bolsheviks and they overestimated the power of the Zionists and believed too much, like philo-Semites and anti-Semites, in the mythic power of “the Jews.”


1918:Today  Private Abe Levinson of Company G, 167thRegiment received the “Distinguished Service Medal for extraordinary heroism in action near Croix Rouge Farm, northeast of Chateau Thierry on July 27.”


1918: “More than 15,000 persons representing the three great religious groups attended the United War Work Campaign meeting today in Madison Square Garden and heard…speakers for Protestants, Catholics and Jews call upon a America united religiously to support the seven war relief organizations’ campaign” to raise over $170,000,000 which begins next week.


1918:  Poland proclaims independence from Russia after WW I.  There were about three million Jews living in Poland.  Many Jews were active in the movement for Polish Independence.  From 1918 until 1921, Poland was wracked by a series of wars and internecine conflicts that included several Pogroms.  There was enough concern among the Western Powers about Polish anti-Semitism that there was a series of explicit clauses in the Paris Peace Conference protecting the rights of minorities in Poland. In 1921 the March Constitution gave the Jews the same legal rights as other citizens and guaranteed them religious tolerance.  Unfortunately, the Polish government did not always honor these guarantees.


1921: In his diary, Zionist leader Arthur Rupin describes how he convinced Montague David Eder that the four victims of Arab rioting should not be buried in quietly in the evening but should be interred following a dignified public funeral


1924(6th of Cheshvan, 5685): Frederick Abel, who rose to the rank of Captain during the Civil War passed away today in his home town of Brooklyn.


1924: Josiah Wegwood, the English political leader who would opposed the appeasement of Hitler and the British anti-Zionist policies in the 1930’s relinquished the role of Chancellor of the Duchy Lancaster.


1928: Arnold Rothstein was shot and mortally wounded while conducting some business affairs at Manhattan's Park Central Hotel. He died the next day at the Stuyvesant Polyclinic Hospital in Manhattan. The shooting was allegedly linked to a gambling event that Rothstein had participated in the previous month with several associates and acquaintances


1928: Premiere of B.P. Schulberg’s “Abie’s Irish Rose,” a film based on a play of the same name with a script co-authored by Herman Mankiewicz, that “tells the story of a Jewish boy, Abie Levy, who falls in love with and secretly marries Rosemary Murphy, an Irish Catholic girl, but lies to his family, saying that she's Jewish.”


1928: Norman Thomas, the Socialist candidate for President delivered a radio address tonight in which he condemned racial and religious bigotry and pointed that “hunger cold, poverty, oppression and war do not ask our religion” while “wage cuts are no respecters of Catholics, Jews or Protestants.


1929(30th of Tishrei, 5690): Rosh Chodesh Cheshvan


1929 (30th of Tishrei, 5690):Yakov Blumkin, the Checka and GPU agent was killed today – an apparent victim of Stalin’s drive to beat out Trotsky for control of the Communist Party and the USSR.



1932: German industrial leaders petitioned President Hindenburg to appoint Hitler as Chancellor, thus putting the lie to the later claim that they had not been early supporters of the Nazis.


1933: Funeral services were scheduled to be held today for Samuel S. Piser, who is survived by his widow Cella Greenberg Piser and their three daughters – Mrs. Sylvia Heller, Mrs. Beatrice Kaye and Mrs. Gertrude David – following which interment will take place at the Waldheim Cemetery.


1933: “Scandal in Budapest” a comedy produced by Joe Pasternak with music by Nicholas Brodszky was released today in Germany.


1933: “The Tunnel” a Franco-German sci-fi film directed by Curtis Bernhardt who co-authored the script along with Henry Koster was released today in France and Germany.


1935(7th of Cheshvan, 5696): Dr. Harry Bernard Podlasky, the Milwaukee physician and Jewish community leader passed away today.


1936: President Roosevelt was re-elected in a landslide over Republican Alfred "Alf" Landon. During this second term, FDR would appoint Felix Frankfurter as a Supreme Court Justice.


1936(18th of Cheshvan, 5697): Seventy-six year old Emily Grace Solis-Cohen, the daughter of David Hays Solis and Elvira Nathan Solis, the wife of Dr. Solomon Solis-Cohen (her 1st cousin) with whom she had three children and whose support for Zionism including “raising funds for the School of the Parents' Education Association in Jerusalem” passed away today in her native Philadelphia.


1936: Birthdate of Manford Levy the most ardent Longhorn fan on the face of the earth and one of the nicest people to grace the face of the earth.


1936: “Opinion” a Jewish publication of which Rabbi Stephen S. Wise is the editor announced today it was sponsoring an essay contest on ‘How to Combat Anti-Semitism in America.’


1937(29th of Cheshvan, 5698): Alderman Nathan Promisle passed away today in his native Hartford, CT.


1938: In Hanover, Rabbi Emil Schorsch and his wife gave birth to Ismar Schorsch, the sixth Chancellor of The Jewish Theological Seminary.


1938:Dr. Simon Ginzburg of Tel Aviv announced the formation of an American campaign committee to help raise $50,000 for the Palestine Hebrew Culture Fund. He had come to the United States to promote the interests of the fund. “Dr. Ginsburg is the chairman of the Hebrew Writers Association of Palestine and honorary secretary of the Hebrew Pen Club of Palestine.”  Plans are also in the works to “call a world conference of Hebrew writers, educators and laymen in connection with the World’s Fair in New York during May or June, 1939.”


1938: In Paris, Herschel Grynszpan received a post card from his sister Berta that described how his family had been forced to leave Germany and then were stranded on the Polish border because the Poles would not admit them.


1939: “Main Street Lawyer,” a crime drama written by Joseph Krumgold and Devery Freeman was released in the United States today.


1939: “Drums Along the Mohawk,” a movie version of the novel by the same name with a script by Sonya Levien and music by Alfred Newman was released in the United States today.


1939: In Los Angeles, CA, Arthur and Zelda Wolpe gave birth to Howard Eliot Wolpe, the “congressman who played a crucial role in passing legislation that imposed economic sanctions on South Africa in the 1980s, helping to bring an end to apartheid while overcoming two vetoes by President Ronald Reagan. (As reported by Dennis Hevesi)


1940: Sixty-year old Lewis Wickes Hine who created a photographic record of Jews arriving at Ellis Island passed away today.



1941: Einsatzgruppe B reported 80,000 Jews have been killed in the Ukraine up to this point


1942: During World War II the Second Battle of El Alamein ended in Egypt with the British defeating the German and Italian forces under Erwin Rommel. This defeat was one of the turning points of the war because it ended the threat of Axis conquest of the Suez Canal which would have severed the British lifeline to India and Australia.  It also ended the threat of genocide for the Jews of Palestine.  The same killing units that had joined the German Army when it swept across Eastern Europe were posted to the Rommel’s forces.  The threat was so real that the Jews had made plans for fighting a Nazi invasion in an attempt to ameliorate the impending slaughter.


1942: Nathan Goldstein was elected for the first time as New York State Attorney General on the Republican ticket.


1942: Forty-four year old Saul Adler of Ouachita Parish married Doshie Katherine Medaries of Lincoln Parish.


1942(23rd of Cheshvan, 5703) Jewish communities of Bilgoraj, Poland, and Ostryna, Belorussia, are destroyed at the Belzec and Auschwitz death camps, respectively.


1943(5th of Cheshvan, 5704): At Majdanek, 17,000 Jewish prisoners were mowed down by machine-gun fire.


1943(5th of Cheshvan, 5704): Kalonymus Kalman Shapira, the Grand Rabbi of Piaseczno, Poland, whose works included Esh Kodesh, “a compilation of weekly sermons that contend with complex questions of faith in the face of the mounting suffering of the Jews in the ghetto” was among those murdered by the Nazis – a fate made all the more tragic by the fact that this sage had survived the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.



1943(5th of Cheshvan, 5704): The Nazis murdered 43,000 in Aktion Erntefest (Operation Harvest Festival)



1943: Three hundred Jews at Borki, Poland, near Chelm, are put to work exhuming 30,000 corpses, mostly of Red Army POWs taken prisoner and murderedlate in 1941. The bodies are burned on massive pyres.


1943: The Germans undertake Erntefest(Harvest Festival), a planned massacre of Jews of three camps in the area around Lublin, Poland. About 18,000 are murdered at Majdanek, 10,000 at Trawniki, and 15,000 at Poniatowa. At Poniatowa, Jews who resist are burned alive in a barrack.


1943: Jacob Katz, a Jewish cleaner at the Budzyn, Poland, concentration camp, rescues seven elderly Jews by hiding them beneath mattresses.


1943: Riccardo Pacifici, rabbi of Genoa, Italy, is deported to Auschwitz along with 200 members of his congregation and 100 Jewish refugees from Northern Europe. The community in Genoa traced its roots to 511 C.E.


1943:  Birthdate of pitcher Ken Holtzman who was often compared to that other Jewish southpaw, Sandy Koufax.  Holtzman’s rookie season coincided with Koufax’s last in the majors.  In his final game, Koufax pitched against Holtzman.  At the end of a pitcher’s duel, youth was served and Ken beat Sandy.


1944: A trainload of Jews from the labor camp at Sered, Slovakia, arrives at Auschwitz. Because the camp's gas chambers are being dismantled, the 990 Jews on board are sent to work or to barracks rather than to their deaths.


1945: Anti-Jewish riots continued for a second day in Egypt.


1947: Four officers in the German Elite Guard – Oswald Pohl, Georg Loerner, Franz Eirenschmaltz and Karl Sommer – were sentenced to death as war criminals after their trial at Nuremberg and nine others were sentenced to 25 years in prison today.


1947: At Lake Success, NY, “the Soviet Union proposed today that Britain surrender the mandate in Palestine by January 1, 1948 and withdraw all of her troops by April 30,1948.”


1952:Mordechai Nurock became Israel’s first Minister of Postal Services which later became the Ministry of Communications.


1952: In Salt Lake City, Utah, Helen (née Davis), a bookkeeper and cashier, and Jerome Hershel "Jerry" Barr, gave birth to the first child Roseanne Cherrie Barr who gained fame as the star of the hit sitcom “Roseanne.”


1953: In Fort Worth, TX, Edwin Leon Nail and his wife Beverly Sue gave birth to Kathleen Sue Nail who gained fame as actress Kate Capshaw and the wife of Stephen Spielberg whom married after converting to Judaism.


1953: Stanley M. Isaacs garnered 65.14% of the election for New York City Council.


1955: “ ‘Israeli 'Hill 24 Doesn't Answer' at World” published today provides a review of one the earliest and what would prove to be one of Israel’s most enduring cinematic efforts.



1955: The third Knesset started with David Ben-Gurion forming the seventh government of Israel today


1955:Israel Bar-Yehuda replaced Haim-Moshe Shapira as Internal Affairs Minister in Israel.


1955: Operation Volcano was completed this morning when units from the Golan Brigade’s 12 Battalion destroyed all of “the targeted Egyptian emplacements” at Sachba capturing “22 military vehicles of various types, anti-aircraft and anti-tank guns, heavy machine guns, mortars, light arms and communications equipment’ while killing and/or capturing 136 of the enemy.


1956: During the Suez Crisis, British bombers attacked Egyptian ammunition dumps, airfields and military barracks.


1956: During the Sinai Campaign, Israel informed Dag Hammarskjold that she accepted the cease fire and that her forces had already halted 15 kilometers east of the Suez Canal.


1956: Among the large quantities of Egyptian military stores captured, Israeli soldiers found that captured Egyptian officers carried Arabic translations of Mein Kampf.


1957: CBS broadcast “The Changing Ways of Love” written by S.J. Perelman and starring Piper Laurie (Rosetta Jacobs), the opening program an 11 part anthology series The Seven Lively Arts  which would include “A Few Folks and Their Songs” hosted by Theodore Bikel.


1957: William Reich passed away.  Reich was born in Austria and trained under Freud. In 1933, he published The Mass Psychology of Fascism. When the text was banned by the Nazis Reich came to the United States.  His work with orgone got him in trouble with the FDA and he ended up in prison.  He passed away before he could gain parole.


1958(20th of Cheshvan 5719): Sixty-nine year old Samuel Fassler, the owner of a trucking company, founder of Fassler Iron Works before WW I and the City Commissioner of Buildings in New York,  who was “a trustee of Yeshiva University” and “founder and president of the Ninth Street Day Nursery and Orphans Home while being the husband of “the former Ruth Schlanger with whom he had three children – Arnold, Mildred, and Selma – passed away today at his home on 5thAvenue.



1959:Elections for the fourth Knesset were held in Israel today. Voter turnout was 81.5%


1960: “The Unsinkable Molly Brown” directed by Dore Schary opened tonight at the Winter Garden Theatre.


1960: Two days after he had passed away, funeral services were held at Ohem Shalom in South Orange, NJ, for sixty-two year old Herbert R. Abeles, the husband of Etta Abeles with whom he had two children – Abby and Robert – and President of the Jewish Community Organizations of America


1960: Birthdate of Orig Yogev “an Israeli businessman who served as the appointed head of the Budget Division in the Ministry of Finance between 2002 and 2004 and who in 2009 was appointed Chairman of the Israel National Economic Council Advisory Committee.


1961: Eliyahu Sasson began serving as Minister of Communications.


1962: Birthdate of Phil Katz, the programmer who created PZIP.


1964:  President Lyndon B. Johnson who got 90% of the Jewish vote, soundly defeated Arizona Republican Senator Barry Goldwater who received 10% of the Jewish, to win a White House term on his own right.  Senator Goldwater’s father was Jewish, but Goldwater was raised as an Episcopalian.  Goldwater’s running mate was Congressman Miller who happened to be Catholic.  Bigots characterized the ticket as the Arizona Israelite and his fellow traveler from the Vatican.  During this second term Johnson would support Israel during the Six Day War in 1967.  Among other things, when the Soviets threatened Israel when the war went against their Arab clients, Johnson sent the Sixth Fleet into the eastern Mediterranean to let the Russians know that their interference would not be tolerated.


1964(28th of Cheshvan, 5725): Bank manager Shimon Shalom, the father of Silvan Shalom, was murdered today during a bank robbery


1966: In Florence the Arno River began overflowing its banks threatening “hundreds of rare Jewish books, documents, archives and Judaica items, some of them centuries old.”1967: “Middle East: A Bitter Exchange” published today described the Israeli reaction to the sinking of the “Elath,” an Israeli destroyed by Egypt.http://content.time.com/time/subscriber/printout/0,8816,837441,00.html#


1968: The New York Times includes a review of Mosby’s Memoirs and Other Stories, Saul Bellow’s first work since the publication of Herzog.


1968: During what became known as the War of Attrition, IAF jets rise up to meet Egyptian MiG-17s attacking positions held by the IDF.


1969: The Lebanese government signed the Cairo Agreement which granted Palestinians the right to launch attacks on Israel from southern Lebanon in coordination with the Lebanese Army


1970: Bella Abzug was elected to the United States House of Reprsentatives.


1970: U. S. Premiere of “The Owl and the Pussycat” co-starring Barbra Streisand and George Segal.


1970: Salvador Allende, an avowed Marxist, was elected President of Child.  “He immediately set about nationalizing the banks and larger industries.  The development was as alarming to the Jews as it was to the rest of the nation’s middle class citizens.  At least 6,000 of Chile’s 30,000 Jews departed for Israel or the United States within months of his election.


1971: U.S. premiere of Fiddler on the Roof the movie version of the famous Broadway musical starring Chaim Topol


1972(26th of Cheshvan, 5733): Seventy-seven year old vaudevillian, musician and song-and-dance man Harry Richman best known for his role in “Putting on the Ritz” passed away today.




1971(15th of Cheshvan, 5732): Eighty-three year old Dr. Leon Banov, Sr., the son of Alexander and Sonia Banov and husband of Minnie Monash Banov with whom he had two children Morton and Leon, who followed in his father’s footsteps passed away today in Charleston after which he was buried at Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim Cemetery.


1973(8th of Cheshvan, 5734):Gustave "Gus" Levy a senior partner of Goldman Sachs since 1969 when he succeeded the legendary Sidney Weinberg passed away. Levy was born in 1910 in New Orleans, one of three children of Sigmund and Bella Levy. Levy briefly attended Tulane University before dropping out, moving to New York City, working various job in the financial sector, and then joining Goldman Sachs in 1933 to head the then one-man trading department for a salary of $27.50 a week. He remained at Goldman Sachs for rest of his career and rose to senior partner in 1969. Levy was known for his tremendous energy, short temper, intelligence, and generosity.


1977(22nd of Cheshvan, 5738): Eighty-five year old Armand Lunel the native of Aix-en-Provence, France “the writer, librettist, philosopher and teacher who was the last known speaker of Shuadit” passed away today.



1978(3rd of Cheshvan, 5739): Fifty-six year old Marian Winters passed away while appearing on Broadway in “Deathtrap.”


1979(13th of Cheshvan, 5740): Parashat Lech-Lecha


1979(13th of Cheshvan, 5740): Eight-four year old Dr. Marie Pichel Warner, the family planning specialist and husband of Dr. Benjamin Warner, passed away today.



1981: David Levy began serving as Deputy Prime Minister of Israel.


1988: Soviet Union agreed to allow the teaching of Hebrew


1989: “Bloodhounds of Broadway” a comedy featuring Dinah Manoff was released in the United States today.


1992: Jerry Nadler completes his service as a member of the New York State Assembly from the 67th District.


1992: Jerry Nadler was elected to House of Representative for New York’s 17th district.


1992: Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer were elected to the U.S. Senate, becoming the first Jewish women senators, the first female senators from California, and the first two women to ever represent any state at the same time. An advocate and advisor on prison reform to California Governor Edmund (Pat) Brown; Feinstein became the first woman president of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1969. In 1979, she won election as the first female mayor of San Francisco after the brutal assassination of Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk. In 1992, she won a special Senate election to replace Pete Wilson who had left his seat to become governor of California. She was re-elected in the 1994 and 2000 elections. Feinstein became the first female member of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Inspired to run for Senate by the Anita Hill-Clarence Thomas hearings, Barbara Boxer became a Senator after 10 years of service in the House of Representatives. She was elected to a second six-year term in 1998. The Senate's leading defender of a woman's right to choose, Senator Boxer authored the Family Planning and Choice Protection Act and helped lead the floor fight for passage of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act.


1992: Bill Clinton defeats George Bush and Ross Perot to become President of the United States.  During Clinton’s presidency, Jordan and Israel signed a peace treaty.  He also played a key role in brokering the peace accords between the Israelis and the PLO.  When Rabin and Arafat shook hands in the presence of a beaming Clinton most people thought a new day had dawned in the Middle East.  Unfortunately Arafat would never be able to make the leap from photo op to being the next “Anwar Sadat.”  Of course, another Jew, Monica Lewinsky played a prominent part in another aspect of the Clinton presidency as did Mark Rich the man who was mysteriously pardoned by Bill as he literally walked out of the White Office.


1994: “Market Place; Big Winners, Big Losers in Snapple’s Life Story published today provides Floyd Norris’ view of the beverage company originally founded by Arnold Greenberg and Hyman Goldman.



1994(29thof Cheshvan, 5755): Eighty-seven year old Max Perlman, the husband of Helen Perlman and University of Wisconsin graduate who during WW II was given the rank of Lt. Col. by the British and Americans while he was working to help Jews escape from Nazi controlled Europe passed away today.




1998: Brian Schatz was elected to the Hawaii House of Representatives from the 24thDistrict.


1998(14th of Cheshvan, 5759): Bob Kane, the creator of Batman, passed away.  Born Robert Kahn, you might say was the high priest of the World of Action Heroes.


1998: In “A Holocaust Memoir in Doubt,” published today Doreen Carvajal discusses the controversy swirling around Fragments by Binjamin Wilkomirski.



2001: Sir Ernst Gombrich passed away.  Born in Austria in in 1909 to a Jewish family that converted to a form of mystical Protestantism, Gombrich was left Austria in 1936 and moved to England where he became a renowned art historian.  Although he never reversed his family’s conversion Gombrich had a strong Jewish identity.  After the Nazis came to power he was always insistent on describing himself as an Austrian Jew.


2002: In an article entitled “Norman Podhoretz's Old-Time Religion” Judith Shulevitz reviews The Prophets: Who They Were, What They Are and provides a vivid description of how Podhoretz manipulates the ancient text to fit his modern political agenda.


2002(28th of Cheshvan, 5763): Actor Jonathan Harris passed away.  He was best known for his portrayal of Dr. Smith on Lost in Space.


2002: Brian Schatz was elected to the Hawaii House of Representatives from the 25th District.


2002: FOX broadcast the first episode of season 14 of The Simpsons, the cartoon comedy featuring the theme music of Danny Elfman


2003: One person was injured when a bomb was detonated at Azzoun.


2003: FOX broadcast the first episode of season 15 of The Simpsons’ featuring the voices of Julie Kavner and Harry Shearer.


2003: The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore’s appeal of a lower court order to remove his Ten Commandments Monument from the rotunda in Montgomery, Alabama.


2004: The World Jewish Film Festival, the first of its kind in Israel and the Jewish world comes to a close in Tel Aviv.


2004: NPR features Kevin Rudd, foreign policy spokesman, in a segment on the Australian Labour Party and its policy toward Israel and the Jewish people in which he defends the party against charges of anti-Semitism and hypocrisy by Barry Cohen.


2005: In a major shift of public sentiment Israeli newspapers reported that Pro-Israel rallies held in front of Iran embassies across Europe. A wave of demonstrations in support of Israel swept across Europe as protestors gathered in front of Iranian embassies in a number of capitals. In France a demonstration organized by the CRIF umbrella group of French Jewish organizations and the Union of Jewish Students of France (UEJF) gathered near the Iranian embassy in Paris.Protestors chanted out support for Israel and wore stickers reading "Israel est eternel" (Israel is eternal). Pro-Israel rallies were also held in Vienna, Austria, and Budapest, Hungary, where protestors drew up signs that read "Israel today, Europe tomorrow?"


2005: While bemoaning the defacing of the “beautiful highway landscaping in downtown” Las Vegas, Mayor Oscar Goodman “suggested that those who deface freeways with graffiti should have their thumbs cut off on television”


2005: A Broadway revival of StephenSondheim’s “Sweeny Todd” opened at the Eugene O’Neil Theatre.


2005: Officials in a Slovak town have apologized to local Jews for a pogrom that took place shortly after the end of World War II. "We express deep regret of the tragic event, which has no equivalent in our modern history in terms of its evil and inhuman character," said the statement by Topolcany municipal officials presented to representatives of the Federation of Jewish Communities at a meeting Sunday attended by more than 50 of the town's Jewish former residents. Topolcany today has a population of approximately 15,000. Some 3,000 Jews lived there before the war. About 10 percent survived the Holocaust and returned from concentration camps, only to face the anti-Semitic wrath of their neighbors, witnesses recalled. One of them was Ruzena Hornova, 90, who survived the pogrom after some "good-hearted people" from town warned her about it and she managed to hide. Jan Emila, Topolcany's deputy mayor, said it was hard to find proper words for the apology. Some councilors said they should wait for a comment from the Institute of National Memory. Frantisek Alexander, chairman of the Slovak Federation of Jewish Communities, told JTA that the apology "was a very good thing, in spite of being quite late. I do not think people have changed that much in the town from the time of the pogrom, but it was very important for them to hear the words of town officials on the subject." Alexander noted that the apology had been in the works for some time thanks to pressure from the federation. Israeli historian Robert Buchler said the riot against Topolcany Jews on September 24, 1945 was provoked by a rumor that a Jewish doctor was injecting children with a poisonous serum. During the pogrom, 48 people were seriously injured, according to the federation. During World War II, Slovakia was a puppet fascist state that cooperated with Nazi Germany. The regime paid Germany 500 German marks for each Jew deprived of Slovak citizenship and deported to concentration camps. Some 70,000 Slovak Jews were sent to extermination camps, where most of them perished. Another survivor of the pogrom, Dr. Jaroslav Gerhart, blamed it on the statements and positions of Slovak politicians, including Jozef Tiso, a priest and president of the wartime government. The issue remains controversial, even today. Less than a year ago, the Slovak public TV Company broadcast a documentary about the pogrom, but the film, which documented the hatred against Topolcany's Jewish population, caused unintended controversy. The station director halted the screening shortly before the scheduled broadcast because of extreme anti-Semitic statements made by one resident in the film. The station director said airing the program could violate laws against racial and national defamation. Critics, including Jewish groups, argued that the program needed to be seen so that an open debate about current anti-Semitism could be held in Slovakia. Following protests, the film was broadcast. For Jews living in Iowa, this story has special relevance since the National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library located in Cedar Rapids will be hosting "The Tragedy of Slovak Jews," a special, temporary exhibition from the Museum of the National Uprising in Banska Bystrica, Slovak Republic. The exhibition addresses the tragic demise of the Jewish communities in Slovakia.


2007: In the early morning hours, one Hamas terrorist was killed and two others wounded when an IAF helicopter attacked a Hamas outpost in the southern Gaza Strip.  The Israelis were responding to mortar attacks launched against from Gaza against southern Israel. 


2007: The Kibbutz Chamber Orchestra under Doron Salomon presents its Balkan music program at the Givataim Theatre at the Tel Aviv Museum featuring Theodosii Spassov the greatest player of a unique type of flute called the kaval


2007: U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is scheduled to arrive in the evening for her eighth trip to Israel in 2007.  The reported purpose of the trip is to bring pressure on Israel to ensure that the upcoming meeting between Arabs and Israelis in Annapolis is a success.


2007: The Cedar Rapids Gazette reports that seven out of ten of the 265 Kibbutzim in Israel are now at least partially privatized operations.


2008:  “Mumbai’s Jews Suddenly Reconsider Their Serene Existence” published today provided a look at the changes in the life of India’s Jewish community in the wake of the terrorist attack “on Nariman House, the community center run by Chabad-Lubavitch” which left the rabbi and his wife among the victims.



2008:Centro Primo Levi presents a lecture by David Ruderman, the Director of the Center for Advanced Judaic Studies at the University of Pennsylvania and renowned expert in the history of ideas that shaped the identity and culture of Italian Jewry, entitled “Beyond the Dialectic of Ghetto Versus Integration: Towards a New Vision of Jewish Cultural History in Italy.”


2008: Time magazine includes a notice in its Milestones section about the recent death of Frank “Lefty” Rosenthal who ran four Las Vegas casinos in the 1970s and was the inspiration for Robert De Niro’s character in Martin Scorese’s film “Casino” as well as a review of Philip Roth’s newest novel, Indignation which begins with the reviewer writing “The first thing to say about Roth’s Indignation is that it’s a terrible book.”


2008: The National Religious Party “announced a merger with the National Union, Tkuma and Moledet to form a new right-wing party, later named The Jewish Home.”


2009: Janice Lieberman, author of How To Shop for a Husband: A Consumer Guide to Getting A Great Buy on a Guy appears at the 31st Annual St. Louis Jewish Book Festival.


2010: Alina Treiger to become first female rabbi ordained in Germany since war” published today compares her life with that of Rabbi Regina Jones who died in Auschwitz.



2010: Centro Primo Levi, CDEC, Milan, NYU Skirball Department for Hebrew and Judaic Studies, and Casa Italiana Zerilli Marimò are scheduled to present a symposium entitled “Racial Policies in Fascist Italy: New Documents and Perspectives.”


2010: The San Diego Jewish Book fair is scheduled to open this evening with a presentation by Mosab Hassan Yousef, author of Son of Hamas: A Gripping Account of Terror, Betrayal, Political Intrigue and Unthinkable Choices


2010: The IDF, working with the Israel Security Agency (ISA), killed a senior Al-Qaeda terrorist in Gaza today. The terrorist was identified as 27-year-old Mohammed Jamal a-Nahmnam. He was plotting attacks against Israel and American targets in Sinai, Egypt, in coordination with Hamas.


2010: About 500 Jewish agencies joined a 75-minute conference call today focusing on security. The call was organized after the thwarted mail-bomb threat against two Jewish institutions in Chicago.


2010(26th of Cheshvan, 5770): Eighty-one year old Jerry Bock who composed the scores for such hits as “Fiddler on the Roof” and “Fiorello” passed away today.  (As reported by Robert Bervist)



2011: In New York City, Israeli historian and journalist Gershom Gorenberg is scheduled to discuss the policies that threaten Israel's democracy, the little known history behind them, and the new direction that Israel needs to take to remain a democratic and Jewish state.


2011: Dr. Judith Hauptman, the E. Billi Ivry Professor of Talmud and Rabbinic Culture at the Jewish Theological Seminary is scheduled to deliver a lecture entitled “Did Women Study Torah in the Talmudic Period?”  at Temple Shalom in Chevy Chase, MD


2011: President Obama called for keeping up international pressure on Iran amid news reports that Israel may be preparing for war with the Islamic Republic.


2011: Palestinian terrorists fired at Israeli security forces near Gaza today and Israel Defense Forces retaliated by firing at the source of the shooting, killing two. Israeli security forces were doing routine work on the border fence near the area of Kibbutz Zikim in the northern Gaza Strip when Palestinian terrorists fired at them.  .


2011: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu decided today to freeze funding to UNESCO after it had granted the Palestinians membership. Israel transfers some $2 million to the UN cultural body yearly.


2012: Director Eytan Fox’s “Yossi” is scheduled to be shown at the UK Jewish Film Festival.


2012: In Springfield, VA, Adat Reyim is scheduled to sponsor a fundraiser “Casino Royim.”


2012: In Cedar Rapids, Iowa, the traditional minyan is scheduled to observe Jewish Book Month Shabbat celebrating two Living Literary Legends – Sir Martin Gilbert and Herman Wouk.


2012: Jewish and Arab protesters squared off in Jerusalem tonight, a day after a Jewish man was non-fatally stabbed in the predominately Arab neighborhood of Ras al-Amoud.


2012: In the wake of Hurricane Sandy, the 14th Street Y gets it power back today and announces that it will be open for business tomorrow.


2013: SIGD Celebration 2013 sponsored by the Ethiopian Jewish Community is scheduled to end today.


2013: Former Wall Street Journal editor Naomi Schaefer Riley is scheduled to talk about interfaith marriage at the San Diego Jewish Book Fair.


2013: At Tikvat Israel in Rockville, MD, “Chocolate & Jewish Values: A Fair Experience” – a program which is designed to “promote overseas fair trade in the context of Jewish values – is scheduled to come to a close.


2013: Jeremie Bracka's hilarious one-man Israeli comedy "Arafat in Therapy" satirizes the Middle-East peace process through farce, mockumentary and autobiographical monologue is scheduled to have its final performance at the United Solo Theatre.


2013: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Social: Why Our Brains Are Wired to Connect by Matthew D. Lieberman, Dogfight: How Apple and Google Went to War and Started a Revolution by Fred Vogelstein and DOT Complicated: Untangling Our Wired Lives by Randi Zuckerberg


2013: One of the largest, if not the largest picture of Chabad Rabbis is scheduled to be taken this morning at the Annual International Shluchim Convention (Kinus Hashluchim)  in Brooklyn, NY


2013: Brad Ausmus was named the 37th manager in the history of the Detroit Tigers,


2013:Chief of Staff Benny Gantz visited the soldiers who had been wounded in last Thursday's tunnel explosion on the Gaza Strip border. At the same time doctors are fighting to save the eyesight of Ahiya Klein, one of the soldiers wounded in the attack. (As reported by Maayana Miskin)


2013: “A pregnant Syrian woman gave birth at Safed’s Ziv Medical Center this morning. Her son is the first baby from a mother fleeing Syria’s civil war to be born in Israel. When the mother realized there was no one in Syria who could deliver her, she asked to be taken to the border, where she hoped Israeli soldiers would pick her up and send her to an Israeli medical center, she said. (As reported by Judy Siegel-Itzkovich)


2014: “A Letter to Mother,” the 1939 film which one of the last Yiddish movies made in Poland before the Nazi invasion is scheduled to be shown at the Center for Jewish History today.


2014: JTA Washington Bureau Chief Ron Kampeas, Israel Correspondent Ben Sales and Senior Correspondent Uriel Heilman are scheduled to participate in a telephone discussion on the state of U.S. – Israeli relations.


2014: In Sydney, “Gett, the Trial of Vivian Amsalem” and “The Outrageous Sophie Tucker” are among the films scheduled to be shown at the Jewish International Film Festival.


2014: In London, The Wiener Library for the Study of the Holocaust & Genocide is scheduled to host “The Normality of Terror: the Heinrich and Margarete Himmler Correspondence.”


2014: The U.S. Supreme Court hears arguments today for a second time in a case that combines Middle East policy with the dueling foreign policy roles of the president and Congress. It's a political hot potato that asks what U.S. passports should say about the birthplace of American citizens born in Jerusalem


2014(10thof Cheshvan): On this date 1656 from Creation, Noah and family entered the Ark. (Aish)


2015: The American Sephardi Federation and the Indian Consulate at NY are scheduled to present Blue Like Me: An Indian-Jewish Artist's Boundless Imagination and "Baghdadis & the Bene Israel in Bollywood & Beyond"


2015: As part of Holocaust Education Week, The Bloor Gladstone Library is scheduled to host “1492, The Other Path: Sephardic Jews in the Balkans which will include “a presentation that will share the history of Sephardic Jews in the Balkans, the fate of their communities during the Holocaust, and how a small group of Holocaust survivors and their children looked back on their years of co-existence with others to choose a path other than hate.”


2015: “Grove Press released Kliph Nesteroff's first book The Comedians: Drunks, Thieves, Scoundrels and the History of American Comedy (ISBN 0802190863) today to uniformly positive reviews.”


2015: The Leo Baeck Insitute is scheduled to present German-born Israeli industrialist Stef Wertheimer discussing his new biography, The Habit of Labor with Jane Eisner, Editor-in-Chief of the Forward.


2015: In “The Facebook Intifada” published today Michah Lakin Avni examined “What inspired to young Palestinian men to savagely attack my father and a busload of passengers?”



2015: Jewish Voices, an annual event with readings by prominent Jewish poets and writers who share from their personal collections is scheduled to take place in the auditorium of the Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education. 


2015: In Essex, UK, Joyce Michel is scheduled to discuss the life of Moses Edrehi in “Scholars, peddlers, or schnorrers? Tales of a Wandering Jew (and Son).”



2015: “In what archaeologists are describing as “a solution to one of the great archaeological riddles in the history of Jerusalem,” researchers with the Israel Antiquities Authority announced today that they have found the remnants of a fortress used by the Seleucid Greek king Antiochus Epiphanes in his siege of Jerusalem in 168 BCE.


2016: In Washington, the historic 1876 synagogue is scheduled to literally make its next move before the Lillian and Albert Small Jewish Museum finally settles into its new home at Third and F Streets, NW in Washington, DC.



2016: In Toronto, Canada, Holocaust Education Week is scheduled to continue with “The Power of Memoir and Storytelling: How do we Teach Others about the Past?” featuring authors Nate Leipciger and Theodore Fontaine.


2016: The Center for Jewish History and the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research are scheduled to host the final session of “Mysticism and Morality: Clarice Lispector in Context” taught by Dr. Rebecca Ariel Porte.


2016: Friends and family prepare to celebrate the 80thbirthday of Manford Levy, a quiet pillar of the Little Rock Jewish community and the most ardent Longhorn and Dallas fan on the planet.


2017: The Oxford University Jewish Society is scheduled to present a lecture by Jordan Bernstein on Duties of the Heart by the Sephardic Rabbi Bahya Ibn Paquda followed by two Kabbalat Shabbat services and dinner.


2017: Two months after it had “premiered at the Telluride Film Festival” “Lady Bird” produced by Scott Rudin and featuring Beanie Feldstein was released in the United States today.


2017: As part of Homecoming at Tulane University, Hillel is scheduled to offer “Take-out Shabbat meals” so that students can host a Shabbat dinner with friends at home.”


2017: In the United Kingdom, Balfour Shabbat is scheduled to begin with a series of special events including “Friday night dinners.”


2018: In Attleboro, MA, Congregation Agudas Achim is scheduled to host “a Sabbath of Peace Gathering in memory of our Jewish brothers and sisters murdered at Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh” that took place last Shabbat.


2018: Miha Rodman is scheduled to perform Asher Kravitz’s “The Jewish Dog” this afternoon at United Solo, “the world’s largest solo theatre festival.”


2018: In Cedar Rapids, IA, the History Center is scheduled to host a book signing for Barbara Feller, the Hebrew teacher par excellence, author of the newly released Road to Waubeek: Discovering Jay G. Sigmund.


2018: “The Ann and Stephen Kaufman Jewish Book and Arts Festival” is scheduled to open today at the Evelyn Rubenstein Jewish Community Center of Houston.


2018: “Working Woman” is scheduled to be shown this evening at the “12th Annual Other Israel Festival.”


2018(25th of Cheshvan, 5779): Parashat Chayei Sarah; for more see http://downhomedavartorah.blogspot.com/


 


 


 

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

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November 4


1310: King Jaime II issued a royal decree exempting Judah Bonseynor from all taxes to which the Aljama of Barcelona was usually required to pay.  “The king also ordered that neither Bonsenyor nor his children should be molested on account of unpaid taxes, and that he should be at liberty to enter or leave the "Juderia," or Jewish quarter, at will.” Bonseynor severed Alfonso II and his son Jaime as Notary General of Aragon. He was the official who provided the authoritative translation of documents from Arabic into Spanish.  Considering the makeup of the Iberian Peninsula at this time, this was a position of great importance. (As reported by Richard Gottehil and Meyer Kayserling



1380: In France, coronation of Charles VI, the monarch who issued an order in 1394 expelling all the Jews from his kingdom



1482: In Spain by this date, nearly 298 persons had been burned at the hand of the Inquisition, while 98 had been imprisoned in Inquisitional prisons.



1501: Catherine of Aragon, the daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella (the Spanish monarchs who expelled the Jews from Spain) meets Arthur Tudor, the oldest son of English monarch Henry VII, for the first time.  One of the conditions of marriage between the two royal offspring is requirement by the Spanish monarchs that Henry VII promise that Jews would be forever banned from his kingdom.  



1541: Wolfgang Capito the German religious reformer who tried to find harmony between the followers of Zwingill and Luther while also seeking to refute claims that Jewish books contained anti-Christian references and who counted among his friends and colleagues Joseph (Josel) ben Gershom of Rosheim passed away today.http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/capito-koepfel-wolfgang-fabricius-x00b0



1650: Birthdate of William III who was supported by Solomon de Medina who serve as an “army contractor when the monarch went to England to lead the Glorious Revelation  



1677: The future Mary II of England marries William, Prince of Orange. They would later be known as William and Mary who took the English throne after the Glorious Revolution.  According to the historian Cecil Roth, the Glorious Revolution was financed, in part, by a Dutch Jew who lent the would-be monarchs an interest free loan of two million crowns and that “prayers were uttered in Dutch synagogues” for their success.



1762(18th of Cheshvan, 5523): Moses Levi Ulff, the son of Levi Ulff, passed away today. In 1714 Levi Ulff “had moved his ribbon factory from Wesel to Charlottenberg” and the “king appointed him as his Court Jew ordering the royal regiments to secure their ribbons from his factory. In 1720, when Moses took over from his father “the order was renewed” and Crown Prince Frederick required the younger Ulff “to supply all the royal regiments with the necessary braid.”



1722: Birthdate of Raphael Cohen, the native of Lithuania who became Chief Rabbi of Altona-Hamburg-Wandsbek.



1778: Philadelphian Leah Nathan and Bavarian born Jacob Naphtali Hart, the parents of Zipporah Hart, were married today.



1782: Today, Elias Boudinot, who was persuaded by James Adair’s History of the American Indians that the Native Americans were descendants of the Ten Lost Tribes and that the Hebrew was the origin of their language began his service as “2nd President of the Confederation of Congress.”


1787: Birthdate of English actor Edmund Kean who first  played Shylock in 1814 and whose subsequent portrayals Shakespeare’s famous Jewish character “could not be surpassed” and who gives him the form not of a figure from Genesis but from Venice in the Middle Ages.



1789: Today, Elias Boudinot, who was persuaded by James Adair’s History of the American Indians that the Native Americans were descendants of the Ten Lost Tribes and that the Hebrew was the origin of their language began his service as a “Member of the U.S House of Representatives from New Jersey.”



1795: Today, Elias Boudinot, who was persuaded by James Adair’s History of the American Indians that the Native Americans were descendants of the Ten Lost Tribes and that the Hebrew was the origin of their language completed his service as a “Member of the U.S House of Representatives from New Jersey.”


1796: “The Treaty of Tripoli, first treat between the United States and Tripoli (now Libya) to secure commercial shipping rights and protect American ships” which included Article 11 stating that "the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion" was signed in Libya today six months were it was unanimously ratified by the United States Senate.


1806: M.J. Bing, one of Rothschild’s clients in Frankfurt wrote to Nathan Rothschild, head of the House of Rothschild in Great Britain, urging him to exercise caution in circumventing Napoleon’s ban on goods being shipped from England to Europe.


1829: Benjamin Woolf married Isabella Levy at the Western Synagogue today.


1837: Forty-four year old French politician Benoit Fould was re-elected as the representative for St. Quentin.


1841: In Warsaw, pianist and composer Aloys Tausig and his wife gave birth to pianist, arranger and composer Carl Tausig.


1842: Birthdate of Caroline Bamberger who would be buried in the Indianapolis, Indiana, Hebrew Congregation Cemetery when she passed away in 1907.


1843: In St. Louis, the United Hebrew Congregation assumed full ownership of the first Jewish cemetery which had been created in 1840. The cemetery was used until 1868. In 1867, the City of St. Louis prohibited further use of the grounds as a burial place. United Hebrew acquired land out in the county, which later became University City with the streets known as North and South Rd. and Canton Ave. Formal dedication of the new cemetery, called Mount Olive occurred in 1880. In 1880, the bodies in the original cemetery, as well as some of the stones were transferred to Mount Olive. In 1960, the name of the cemetery was changed from Mount Olive to United Hebrew.


1843(11thof Cheshvan, 5604): Parashat Lech-Lecha


1843(11thof Cheshvan, 5604): Forty-year old British welterweight champion Young Dutch Sam, the son of Samuel Elias, the British boxer known simply as Dutch Sam, passed away today.


1845: Aaron George Jones married Rachel Myers at the Great Synagogue today.


1846: Saling Schiff married Katherine Mosely at the Great Synagogue today.


1846: Two days after she had passed away, 77 year old Hannah Harris, “the wife of Henry Harris of Shadwell” was buried today at the Brady Street Jewish Cemetery.


1847: German composer Felix Mendelssohn passed away. Born in 1809, Felix was the grandson of Moses Mendelssohn, one of the leaders who provided the basis for what became the Reform Movement.  Felix’s father wanted his children to be able to fully participate in German life, so he had them Baptized in 1816. Despite the trip to the Baptismal font and Felix’s brilliance, he lost out on at least one major appointment because he was Jewish.  Also, such musical luminaries as Wagner did not accept him.  They used his works as examples of misguided attempts to Judacize (and weaken) German culture in general and German music in particular.


1848: “In Schmieheim, Germany to Leon and Fanny (Dreyfuss) Bernheim gave birth to Isaac Wolfe Bernheim who after moving to Kentucky, started “the I.W. Harper brand of premium bourbon whiskey.




1849: The Grand Secretary of the Free Sons of Israel, the first officer of any Grand Lodge to be paid a salary, received $20 for a year beginning today.


1852: Count Cavour became Prime Minister of Piedmont. Along with Mazzini and Garibaldi, Cavour made up the trinity who unified the states of the Italian peninsula and created the modern nation of Italy. Jews were among the most active supporters of the creation of Italian nationalism. Despite Cavour’s complaints the tough banking practices of Baron James Rothschild, Rothschild supplied Cavour with financial backing for the impending war with Austria.  Parts of Italy were in the Austrian Empire.  The two disguised the expenditures as being funds for a tunnel through the Alps.  Cavour appointed Jews to several top posts in his government, something hitherto unheard.  Isaac Arton served as his confidential secretary and “faithful lieutenant.”


1856: In Charleston, at the synagogue on Hasell Street, Rabbi Mayer officiated at the marriage of M.J. Solomons of Savannah, GA and Henrietta S. Emanuel of Georgetown, SC.


1857: In Charleston, SC, Rabbi Henry S. Jacobs officiated at the marriage of Zachariah Falk and Gerogiana S. Jacobi “the youngest daughter of W.J. Jacobi.”


1860(19thof Cheshvan, 5621): In the UK, Sixty-four year old Sophia Levy, the widow of Nathaniel Levy and the mother of Maria Levy passed away today.


1861: The University of Washington opened in Seattle, Washington as the Territorial University.. Today Washington has 2,000 Jewish undergrads and 1, 000 grad students out of student population of 31,000 undergraduates and 12,000 grad students.  Washington offers approximately 20 Jewish studies courses with both a major and a minor in Jewish studies.  The university also offers year-round study programs in Israel.


1862: Corporal Jacob Kauffman began his service with Company F of the 171stRegiment.


1863: Birthdate of Joseph Mendes da Costa, a Dutch born Sephardi sculptor.


1867: Following yesterday’s defeat at the Battle of Mentana, forces under the command of Italian patriot Giuseppe Garibaldi and included Italian Jewish patriot Enrico Guastalla “retreated to the Kingdom of Italy.”


1871: Mr. R. J. de Cordova, famed Jewish raconteur and humorist delivered an address tonight entitled "Our First Baby" to packed house at the Association Hall in New York City.


1872:  In Syracuse, NY, founding of Adat Yeshuren, whose members included Rabbi David Levine, J.B.. Harrison, N.K. Packard, M.L. Wechsler, David Davis and Meyer Dembo.


1876: “New Publications” includes a review of The Conquests of the Saracens by Howard A Freeman “which meets a general demand on the part of the reading public for information on the history of religion (most notably Islam) and politics in the East. “In answer to Lord Derby’s remark that in past times Jews…have been worse treated in Western Europe than Christians are now treated” in the part of Europe controlled by the Ottomans, “Mr. Freeman says that while the condition of the Jews has been getting better and better, that of the Christians under Turkish rule has been getting worse and worse.” (Derby’s comment on the treatment of Jews in Christian Europe comes, considering when it was uttered, as a real eye-opener.)


1877: Birthdate of Chicago native Elias Mayer the Northwestern University trained lawyer who served as “secretary of the Council of Jewish Federations and Welfare Funds in the United States and a director of the Jewish Charities of Chicago.


1877: It was reported today that The Alliance Israélite Universelle or Universal Israelite Alliance “has become a very active and useful association.  Among its many goals, the Alliances provides instruction for the children of destitute Jews living in “the East” with training in the Hebrew language and religious customs.  According to the Jewish Messenger, the Association is supported by a wide range of Jews including Reform minded Germans, the Anglo-Jewish Associations, the growing American Jewish community and, of course, the French Jewish community.


1878: “The Bible in the Schools” published today described the controversy in New Haven, CT concerning the reading of the sacred text in the public schools.  Opposition and concern comes from many quarters including Roman Catholics, Protestants and German immigrants but not from the Jews who were apparently of no concern to Christian board members.


1878: It was reported today the Industrial School of the Hebrew Orphan Asylum has printed copies of a pamphlet by Dr. Isaac Schwab entitled “Can Jews be Patriots.”  The pamphlet was written as a refutation of Professor Goldwin Smith’s depiction of Jews as being unpatriotic. Goldwin Smith was a British-born Canadian college professor who was a notorious anit-Semite.


1878: Birthdate of Budapest native Jean Schwartz, the songwriter who came to the United States at the age of 13 who wrote “Mr. Dooley” – a song “which was sung by the title character in The Wizard of Oz”


1879:Justice of the Peace, Nathan Colman who was also the lay religious leader for the Jewish community, officiated at the first Jewish wedding in the Black Hills, when Rebecca Reubens married David Holzman today.


1879:  It was reported today that Rabbi David Einhorn’s funeral will take place at 9 o’clock on November 6. Services will be led by two of Einhorn’s sons-in-law – Rabbi Kaufman Kohler of Temple Beth-El and Rabbi Emil Hirsch of Louisville – and Dr. Samuel Hirsch of Philadelphia who was one of Rabbi Einhorn’s closest friends.


1879:  Birthdate of humorist, social commentator and vaudeville star, Will Rogers.  Rogers owed his early fame and fortune to Flo Ziegfeld.  Ziegfeld put Rogers in his famous Follies, leting Rogers stand on stage as a he twirled his lariat and came up with political zingers that would have made John Stewart smile. In 1924, the KKK was reaching the height of its power and was planning a large parade in New York.  Using his wit to try and deflate the Klan, Rogers pointed out that the Klan’s anti-Semitism was misguided if not downright anti-American.  As Rogers explained it, the Christians were beholden to the Jews for a successful Christmas.  After all, it was the Jews (remember this is the days of Gimbals’ and Macys) who sold the Christians all of the presents which were critical to the holiday celebration. 


1882: It was reported today that “drunken rioters have plundered” the shops owned by the Jews of Presburg, Hungary. The renewal of anti-Jewish violence has resulted in the death of at least one Jewess. Apparently the sentencing of those involved in the September riots to three months in prison has not brought matters under control.


1882: Birthdate of New Jersey native and University of Pennsylvania graduate Sydney Davis, the chemist turned real estate broker and “president of the Brotherhood of Temple B’nai Jershurun of Newark who was the husband of Saide Davis with whom he had one daughter.


1883: It was reported today that the Jews in New York “are solid” in their support for ex-Sheriff James O’Brien, the anti-Tammany Hall candidate for the position of Register.


1884: Grover Cleveland was elected to first of two terms as President of the United States.  He is the only President to be defeated in his bid for re-election and then to come back and win the office on his “third try.”  During his first term, Cleveland appointed Oscar Solomon Straus, the leading American Jew of his time, as envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary to Turkey.  Cleveland intended the appointment “as an indirect rebuke to the government of Austria Hungary, which had refused to accept an appointee as United States ministers because the minister’s wife was Jewish.  In his second term, Cleveland vetoed immigration bill aimed at keeping Jews, among others, from entering the United States.  After he had left the White House, Cleveland continued to show support for Jewish causes by appearing at protest rallies against Russia’s treatment of her Jewish citizens.


1884: James Rubiner, a Polish Jew who owns a grocery store on Hester Street is still in jail today facing charges of having killed a youngster named Julius Silverman.  Silverman was part of a gang that started a bonfire in front Rubiner’s store as part of their election-night hijinks.


1884: The New York Times reprints an article from the London Timesentitled “Montifore and the Jews” describes the Italian town in which the great philanthropists family had its roots an describes the growth and generosity of Moses Montifore.


1887: It was reported today that Michael Simon has been elected as a magistrate in Glasgow. “He is the first Jew elected to that office in Scotland.”


1888(30th of Cheshvan, 5649): Rosh Chodesh Kislev


1888: Dr. Gustav Gottheil delivered a lecture at Temple Emanu-El this morning entitled “Government by the People and what it Owes to Judaism.


1889: Mr. Rosenthal, the leading Republican in the Fourth District and the leader of the Hebrew American Republican League who has left the Republican Party plans to endorse the Tammany ticket at a mass meeting tonight.


1892: Former Chancellor Bismarck was quoted today as saying “that only newspapers, Poles and Jews desired war between the Russians and the Germans.” (The Jew as warmonger would gain transaction as can be seen Lindbergh’s and Patrick Buchanan’s invocation of the image in the 20th and 21stcenturies)


1893: Six Polish Jews were arrested in Hudson, NY for illegal registration.


1894: “Boston Hebrews Rejoice” published today described “a mock funeral” held in Boston in which a large audience that included 2,000 Jews held in response to the death of the autocratic, anti-Semitic Czar Alexander III.


1894: A cross section of editorial opinion from Jewish newspapers following the death of Czar Alexander III published today included: The Jewish Herald– “We are glad to announce that the tyrannic heart of Alexander II beats no more”; The Volksadvocat – “Hurrah for the Angel of Death!” and The Abendblatt – “The Czar is dead.  Long live the social revolution!”


1894: Rabbi Joseph delivered a sermon today at Temple Emanu-El on “Civil and Religious Liberty in 1894”


1894: “Russia’s Puerile Autocrat” published today provides a portrait of Russia new Czar, Nicholas II including  a report circulating in London that Mlle. Kischeneffski, “the beautiful Jewess” has been the mistress of Nicholas for the last three years and that she “has two Romanoff children.


1895: It was revealed today that Samuel Levy owned the tenement on Pelham that burned down yesterday living four Jewish dead also owned the building on Cherry Street which was destroyed by fire last year.


1895: Chancellor von Caprivi who is an opponent of the anti-Semitic parties had an audience with the Emperor today.


1895: The will of the late Julius Lipman was filed in the Surrogate’s office today.


1895: “The Halevy Singing Society” published today described a concert sponsored by the Jewish musical organization under the direction of Leon Kramer that featured soprano Catherine Hilke, baritone Karl Dufft, tenor Charles A. Kaiser and violinist Sam Franko.


1895: The quarantine at the Hebrew Sheltering Arms ordered by Superintendent Henry Bernstein beause of the outbreak of measles continued in effect today.


1897: Birthdate of New York City native Albert D. “Dolly” Stark “the first Jewish umpire in the modern Major Leagues.



1897: In Philadelphia, the Association of Jewish Immigrants which had been founded in 1884 “to protect Jewish immigrants, to facilitate their reaching their destination and their relatives and to aid them” in whatever was necessary was scheduled to hold its monthly board meeting today.


 



1897: Pennsylvanian George J. Newgarden was promoted to Captain and Assistant Surgeon in the U.S. Army.



1897: In his address at the Teacher’s College at Morningside Heights, William T. Harris, the National Commissioner of Education said that among the threads of education is “the Hebrew thread…the religious one which we recognize in the celebration of worship one day each week and in the various holy days” which “we acknowledge” as “the most essential thread of our civilization.



1898: Dr. Maurice Harris delivered an address tonight at Temple Israel in which he replied Israel Zangwill’s criticism of Reformed Judaism.



1898: Abram Nelson has filed a petition on behalf of his client Jacob H. Bibo in Surrogate’s court that will finally settle the estate of Jacob Bibo, his nephew who disappeared mysteriously in the 1860’s and his brother Isaac for whose estate he is the executor.



1902: “The Admirable Crichton” produced by Charles Frohman opened at the Duke of York's Theatre.



1904(26th of Cheshvan, 5665): Willy Bambus passed away. 



1905: A production of “In New York Town,” a musical comedy based on the work of Loney Haskell” and “with music by Albert Von Tilzer” came to a close today at the Fourteenth Street Theatre.



1905: “The Earl and the Girl” with additional music and lyrics by Jerome Kern opened at the Casino Theatre in New York.



1905: In Bachmut, Bessarabia, attacks on the Jews were “temporarily stopped” this morning “through the efforts of Russian peasants, but” after “the police spread false reports which aroused the mob, there was a renewal of the plunder and massacre” which resulted in losses reaching into the millions of dollars.



1905: “Odessa Terror Unchecked” published today included a summary of the violence in the Russian city which had begun “late in the afternoon” of October 31 when “all Jews found in the streets were severely beaten and may were killed in their shops which were ruthlessly pillaged.  In the poorer’ Jews’ quarters, on the outskirts of the town, whole streets were destroyed” while “crowds of workmen, women and children laden with all kinds of loot walked openly through the streets quarreling over the spoils.”  The violence has continued unabated on a daily basis ever since.



1907: Birthdate of London native Anthony Baruh Lousada, a barrister and patron of the arts.



http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-sir-anthony-lousada-1425832.html



http://www.barrow-lousada.org/chiswick.htm



1908: Birthdate of nuclear physicist and anti-nuclear activist Joseph Rotblat.



1910: Attack made on the Jewish bank in Sophia, Bulgaria.



1911(13th of Cheshvan, 5672): Parashat Lech-Lecha



1911(13th of Cheshvan, 5672): “Chicago merchant” Leon Mandel passed away today.



1911: Birthdate of Jack Rose the native of Warsaw who became an American gag writer and screen playwright.



1912: Birthdate of singer Frances Faye, who died on November 8, 1991.



1913: Jacob Aaron Cantor began his first term a member of the U.S. House of Representatives.



1913: Benjamin Cardozo was elected Justice of State Supreme Court of New York. In February of the following year he was made a judge on the Court of Appeals.



1913: “The Marks Nathan Orphanage” published in today’s Daily Jewish Courier provided “the entire report of Mr. Trotsky, the superintendent” of the institution.



http://flps.newberry.org/article/5423972_6_1591



1914(15thof Cheshvan, 5675): Twenty-four year old Isidor Schloss, the son of Leopold and Karoline Schloss and the husband of Emilie Schloss  who worked as a bank clerk was killed today during World War One.



1916: Figures were given out today showing the results accomplished since the establishment of the Joint Distribution Committee’s Remittance Bureau chaired by Felix Warburg which was established “to forward to the Jews in the war stricken countries remittances from relatives in the United States which it has been impossible to forward through any other private or governmental agency – a task made almost impossible because of “changing fortunes of war” in Russia, Rumania, Poland and Austria where territory “passes and repasses” from one country’s military to another.



1917: At the Central Jewish Institute East 85thStreet, Israel Unterberg presided over the memorial service for philanthropist Samuel I. Hyman, officiated over by Rabbis Hyamson and Goldstein where the speakers included Dr. Cyrus Adler, Dr. J.L. Magnes and Louis Marshall who delivered a eulogy in which he “urged the necessity for patriotism and loyalty among the Jews in America.”



1917(19th of Cheshvan, 5678): Seventy year old Leopoldo Franchetti, a member of a family that came to Italy from Tunisia in the 18th century and who became an Italian political leader with a special interest in the problems of southern Italy passed away today.



1917(19thof Cheshvan, 5678): Eighty-seven year old Civil War veteran Solomon Stern passed away today in New Orleans.



1917: To the cheers of 12,000 inside Madison Square Garden and thousands more outside of the building Morris Hillquit, the Socialist candidate for Mayor closed his campaign “with an appeal to class feeling” and pacifism.



1918: Five days after he had passed away, 28 year old Private Sidney Finsten of the Worcestershire Regiment was buried today at the Plashet Jewish Cemetery.



1918: The German Revolution began when forty-thousand sailors took over the port in Kiel.  During the revolt, the Communist Party which included “Jewish members” would try and seize power much as their counterparts in Russia had done a year earlier.  The revolt would fail and eventually the Weimar Republic which also had Jewish leaders would come to power in the 1920’s.  Hitler would use the German fear of disorder and the presence of Jews in both of these movements to whip anti-Semitism and justify the Final Solution.



1918: In Germany, Bavaria became the first (state to become a socialist “republic” under the leadership of moderate, non-Bolshevik Jew named Kurt Eisner



1918: For the “heroism” he showed on the battlefield today, “Isadore Solomon of Chicago,” was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross in 1921.



1919:  Birthdate of Martin Balsam one of the finest and most prolific television and movie character actors of the 20thcentury.  From a juror in Twelve Angry Men, to Admiral Kimmel in Tora, Tora, Tora, to an officer in the wacky comedy Catch 22, Balsam played them all with skill and aplomb. He passed away in 1996.



1920: “A ‘flying squadron’ on one hundred prominent Jewish businessmen, bankers, educators and philanthropists head by Julius Rosenwald, Mortimer Scheiff, Congressman Julius Kahn and others of international note” is scheduled to start today “on a forty-day tour of the principle cities” in the United States “to bring the message of rejuvenated Judaism to the Jews of America and to talk of the aims of the Union of Hebrew Union Congregations to revive the spirit of Judaism.”



1921: Hadassah nurses and their teachers join the funeral procession which ends with the burial of the four victims of Arab violence at the Jewish Cemetery on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem.



1922(13th of Cheshvan, 5683): Parashat Lech-Lecha



1922(13th of Cheshvan, 5683): Seventy-one year old Hungarian born Dávid Leimdörfer who served as the Rabbi for the Hamburg Temple, “the first permanent Reform synagogue” starring in 1883 passed away today.



1922: Hashomer Hatzair alpha settlers from Poland who had helped to start Kibbutz Geva in 1921 established the modern kibbutz, Beit Alpha, located in the Lower Galilee on the site of “a 6thcentury Jewish settlement.”



1923: Rabbi Samuel Schulman at Temple Beth-el and Rabbi Stephen S. Wise at the Free Synagogue defended Israel Zangwill's recent address at Carnegie Hall in which the Jewish publicist declared that political Zionism was dead.



1924: Eighteen year old featherweight Maurice Holtzer fought and won his first bout.



1924: Republican candidate Jesse H. Metcalf was elected to the United States by the citizens of Rhode Island. In June of 1933, during a Senate debate on the treatment of Jews in Germany, Metcalf would join those who condemned the Nazi government. “We as a national can only declare the existence of racial or religious prejudice to be untenable as a national ideal.”



1924: Republican candidate Albert Ottinger was elected Attorney General for the State of New York.



1925: Birthdate of Doris May Green, the St. Louis native who was raised by her mother Ann Meltzer and her step-father Chester H. Roberts, who gained fame as Emmy award winning actress Doris Roberts best known for her role as the nagging mother on “Everybody Loves Raymond.”



1925: One day after he had passed away, 68 year old Jacob Silver, the husband of Bloomah Silver, was buried today in the Steatham Jewish Cemetery.



1926: In Brooklyn, “Aaron Fuchs, a baker and the former Rose Mintzer” gave birth to Murray Louis Fuchs who gained fame as choreographer Murray Louis. (As reported by Jack Anderson)



http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/02/arts/dance/murray-louis-choreographer-with-a-comic-flair-dies-at-89.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=0



1926: Birthdate of Laurence Rosenthal, the Detroit native who gained fame as a composer, arranger and conductor creating the scores for  “Raisin in the Sun” and “Becket”



1926: Nineteen year old middleweight Seymour “Cy” Schindell fought his 10th bout leaving his record at 9 to 1.



1926: Rabbi Bernard Drachman and Rabbi B.A. Tinter officiated at the funeral of Harry Houdini which took place at the Machpelah Cemetery in the borough of Queens and was attended by “more than 2,000 mourners.



http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=FB0714FD3D591B7A93C1A9178AD95F428285F9



1927: Rabbi David Cohen and Sarah Elkin gave birth to Eliyahu Yosef She’ar Yashuv Cohen, chief rabbi of Haifa known for his Torah scholarship, interfaith work and strict vegetarian lifestyle” http://www.timesofisrael.com/rabbi-shear-yashuv-cohen-scholar-and-warrior-dies-at-88/


1928: While speaking at Carnegie Hall this morning on “For the Honor of the Jews” Dr. Stephen S. Wise “scorned the negative and collective way in which challenges of that sort are usually responded to and advocated answers would be both positive and individual.”



1928(21st of Cheshvan, 5689): Fifty-six year old Lithuanian native Fannie Shubert Weissager, the daughter of David and Gittle Shubert and sister of Lee Shurbert, who was married to Isaac Isaacs and William H. Weissager passed away today in Syracuse, NY after which she was buried in the “Shubert Vault” in Brooklyn.



1928(21st of Cheshvan, 5689): Arnold Rothstein passed away.  Rothstein was one of New York City's most notorious gamblers.  He was a crook and a mobster; certainly not a credit to the Jewish people.  He was rumored to have been the brains behind the fixing of the 1919 World Series also known as the Black Sox Scandal.  He was shot to death over a poker game or gambling debts.



https://www.biography.com/people/arnold-rothstein



http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/arnold-rothstein



1928: “Morris J. Goldstein, the Vice President of the Yeshivath Torah Vodaath Mesifta,”  “a Jewish grammar and high school in Brooklyn” said tonight that the school which is located in a part of that is dealing with an economic depression, would need to between $50,000 and $70,000 to stay open.



1928: Six months after premiering in New York City, “The Man Who Laughs” the screen version of the novel of the same name directed by Paul Leni and produced by Paul Kohner was released in the rest of the United States.



1930: The Baltimore Jewish Times reported that Cantor Abba Yosef Weisgal’s Adolph Coblenz was his “first rabbi in Baltimore, MD.”



1932(5th of Cheshvan, 5693): Seventy Four year old Salomon Reinach, the distinguished French archaeologist passed away. The brother of author and politician Jospeh Reinach and archaeologist Theodore Reinach, he was an active member of the Jewish community serving as vice president of the Alliance Israélite Universelle 



1932:  Birthdate of actor and director Noam Pitlik who appeared in a variety of sit-coms including the Bob Newhart Show and whose directorial work included several episodes of the detective comedy series, Barney Miller.  He passed away in 1999.



1935: Birthday of Uri Zohar, the Tel Aviv native who went from being a successful entertainer to the life of a Haredi rabbi.



1936 Cardinal Michael von Faulhaber, the Archbishop of Munic travelled to Hitler's mountain retreat near Berchtesgaden



1936: In London, “Count Edward Raczynski, the Polish Ambassador called at the Foreign Office and intimated to Sir Robert Vansittart, the permanent Under-Secretary” that in his upcoming trip to the United Kingdom, Colonel Josef Beck, the Foreign Minister of Poland wants to discuss “the question of Jewish immigration” from Poland to Palestine with Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden” because the government in
Warsaw fears that the British authorities at Jerusalem are inclined to make concessions to the Arabs and temporarily restrict, if not block altogether, the flow of immigrants” by which Beck means Polish Jews fleeing that country’s on-going wave of anti-Semitism.



1937:, Isaac Kaplan, who was the first member of his family to go to college, and  Bessie Zwirn Kaplan gave birth to  Fred Kaplan who  grew up in the lower-middle-class environment of third-generation Jewish Ashkenazic immigrant culture, first in the Bronx and then in Brooklyn, where his family moved when he was ten. He was one of four sons, the other three of whom became lawyers. His avid reading of novels and other books at home, in the public library, in the public schools of Brooklyn, and at Brooklyn College, where he majored in classics and philosophy (B.A., 1959), led to his partial assimilation into Anglo-American culture; he then earned an M.A. Fred Kaplan's biographies of Thomas Carlyle and Charles Dickens are part of a projected biographical quartet charting the sweep of Anglo-American culture from the Romantic to the modern era. Kaplan is committed to biography as a literary form and draws upon the techniques of narrative art; he aspires to combine the power and dramatic resources of narrative prose and the rigorous intellectual requirements of historical literary scholarship and cultural analysis.



1937: The Palestine Post reported the British government’s announcement that there would be no retraction of the measures taken against members of the Arab Higher Committee and that the recent restrictions on Jewish immigration were only temporary. (The British must have had their fingers crossed on this last part of the statement since not only wouldn’t the restrictions be lifted they would actually be tightened.) It was decided, however, not to put pressure on the French authorities in Lebanon for the extradition of the mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin el-Husseini, from Beirut to Jerusalem (even though he was the architect of much of the Arab terrorism).



1938: “The Great Waltz,” a biopic with a script co-authored by Gottfried Reinhardt and Vicki Baum was released in the United States today.



1938: “At a public meeting in Epping, Winston Churchill narrowly survived an attempt by fellow Conservative and constituent Sir Colin Thornton-Kemsley to remove him from Parliament” which if it had been successful would have meant that Hitler’s most outspoken foe would not have been able to serve as First Lord or Prime Minister when WW II broke out ten months later.



1941: Stanley M. Isaacs won a seat on the New York City Council as an At-Large representative from Manhattan.



1941: Franklin Mott Gunther, the U.S. minister to Romania “described in detail the massacres committed in Bessarabia and in Bukovina and the cruelties that were committed during the deportations to Transnistria.”



1941: Last of a twenty train convoy made its way from Germany to the Lodz ghetto. In all, 19,837 Jews were taken. Banishment became official as the Reich Treasury issued directives that "Jews not employed in businesses of importance to the people's economy will be banished to one of the cities in the East. The property of the Jews who are to be banished will be confiscated



1942(24th of Cheshvan, 5703): Sixty-eight  year old University of Michigan graduate and steel company executive Julius Kahn, the German born son of Joseph and Rosalie Kahn and the brother of Albert Kahn with whom “he designed the ‘Kahn bar’” and who was the husband of Margaret Kohut Kahn with whom he had three children” passed away today.



https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1942/11/06/88506500.pdf



1942: Regina Jonas, the Berlin native who “became the first woman to be ordained as rabbi” was forced by the Nazis “to fill out a declaration form that listed her property, including her books.”



1942: During World War II, Axis forces retreated from El Alamein in North Africa in a major victory for British forces commanded by Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery.  This would mark the end of the Axis threat to the Jewish community in Eretz Israel.  Reluctantly, the British had turned to the leaders of the Yishuv to help prepare for the defense of the Middle East if Rommel had broken through at El Alamein and seized Egypt and the Suez Canal.  Many Egyptians were prepared to welcome what they would be a victorious German army and there were reports of Nazi flags being flown in parts of Cairo.  The defeat of the Axis at El Alamein, along with the battles at Midway and Stalingrad, was considered a major turning point in the war.  The Allied victory in the spring of 1943 would free the Jews of North Africa from the threat of the Nazis and the Vichy French. 



1943: In Poland, 3,898 Jews were deported from the Szebnie labor camp to Birkenau



1943: The Jews of Florence, Italy were rounded up and deported.



1943: “North Star” a cinematic treatment of a short story by Lillian Hellman who wrote the script, directed by Lewis Milestone, produced by Samuel Goldwyn and with music by Aaron Copeland was released today in the United States.



1943: The Germans put down an inmate revolt at the slave-labor camp at Szebnie, Poland. The camp is liquidated; about 3000 Jews are deported to Auschwitz.



1944(18th of Cheshvan, 5705) Parashat Vayera



1944(18th of Cheshvan, 5705): Eighty-two year old New York native and “retired cotton-goods manufacturer William Israel Walter, the son of Israel and Henrietta Walker and husband of the former Florence Bernheimer with whom he had two children – Marjorie and Florence -- who was a member of Phi Beta Kappa at his alma mater Columbia and a supporter of such worthy causes as the “children’s clinic at Mt. Sinai Hospital and the History Department at Bryn Mawr College” passed away today.



https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1944/11/05/85081531.pdf



1944: The ‘Death March' from Bor, Hungary, makes its way to Gyor, Hungary after a six week journey. Here hundreds of survivors were beaten or shot to death. The bodies were thrown into massive graves that the prisoners had dug just before their extermination. Five thousand people would start the march and only nine would survive to the end of the war. Many other similar marches would follow. After being forced to dig their own graves, hundreds of Jews from the copper-mine labor camp at Bor, Hungary, are shot or beaten to death at Györ, Hungary. Among the victims is a noted poet named Miklós Radnóti, age 35.



1944: Weizmann and Churchill met to discuss the future of Palestine.



1944: Sixty-two year old Sir John Greer Dill  who was the first British General to serve as the head of the Palestine from 1936 to 1937 passed away today in Washington, DC following which he was buried in Arlington National Cemetery.



1945: Reports of of anti-Semitic “demonstrations in Syria, Lebanon and Egypt published today in Tarabaulus el Gharb, a Libyan newspaper helped “to fan the flames of existing anti-Jewish feeling” that led to an outbreak of anti-Semitic riots.



1945: Anti-Jewish riots broke out in seven cities in Libya, including Tripoli. The riots would last for four days during which ten synagogues were burned an looted and Jewish homes and businesses were broken into and looted.


1945: Drastic measures including imposing an extended curfew upon a wide strategic area southward and northward of the central harbor town of Haifa were announced by Maj. Gen. C.F. Loewen, British military commander of Northern Palestine.



1946: Nathaniel Lawrence Goldstein is re-elected New York State Attorney General, make it two wins a row for Republican leader and lawyer.



1947: Henry A. Wallace, the editor of The New Republic who had been FDR’s Vice President during his third term arrived in New York after visiting Palestine and Europe said “that in Palestine he got the impression that the tension is not as great as it had been reported” and that “he did not believe there would be bloodshed after the withdrawal of the British from Palestine, particularly if the findings of the United Nations committee are accepted.” (Editor’s note – I cannot find a report from anybody on either side of the issue who agreed with this kind of rosy view.)



1948: The United Nations Security Council called for the withdrawal of all forces to the positions they had held on October 14, 1948.  It also called for negotiations to be conducted between the combatants.  The Israelis rejected the first part.  They were going to hold on to their gains in the Negev.  The Arabs refused to negotiate with the Israelis since they claimed that to do so would provide legitimacy to “the Zionist entity.”



1948: Birthdate of Shaul Mofaz, the native of Tehran who became the IDF’s 16th Chief of the General Staff in 1998.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaul_Mofaz



1949: Elyahu Elath, the Israeli Ambassador to the United States asked George McGhee, the United States Assistant Secretary of the State for Near Eastern, South Asian and African Affairs if the United States would raise the question of the plight of Iraqi Jewry aat the United Nations, McGhee replied that  he ‘strongly’ recommended not raising the issue, because ‘a debate in the Gerneral Assemly would stir up feelings and do Iraq’s Jews more harm than good.”



1950: Billboard reported today that Arnold Eidus, a prominent radio and concert musician is one of the founders of Stradivari Record which is production chamber music featuring performance by this famed violinist.



1952: “The Prisoner of Zenda” a re-make of the 1937 film produced by Pandro S. Berman with music by Alfred Newman which was filmed by cinematographer Joseph Ruttenberg was released in the United States today by MGM.



1952: Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower was elected president, defeating Democrat Adlai Stevenson.  At the end of his first term, President Eisenhower would turn against the Israelis during the Suez Crisis.  He would side with the Soviets and save Nasser.  



1952 (16th of Cheshvan, 5713):Aaron Nusbaumpassed away.  The Elgin, Illinois native was a vice president of Sears Roebuck & Co. and brother in law of Julius Rosenwald.  A noted philanthropist, he played a key role in the creation of the Adler Planetarium.



1955: U.S. premiere of “The Tender Trap” the movie version of Max Shulman’s play for which he co-authored the screenplay Julius Epstein and which was produced by Lawrence Weingarten.



1956: It was reported today that an Egyptian communique claimed Egyptian forces “had sunk four Biriths naval vessels and captured three troop landing craft at Suez.



1956: During the Suez Crisis, it was reported that the British and French paratroopers would drop into the Canal Zone within the next 48 hours now that the British had neutralized the Egyptian air force.



1956:  During the Sinai Campaign, a.k.a. The Hundred Hours War, Israeli forces reached the Suez Canal.



1956: An IDF force of 180 vehicles successfully made the trek through the Sinai wilderness and took Sharm es Sheikh from the Egyptians.  After six hours of fighting, the IDF prevailed and opened the Straits of Tiran.


1956: Soviet Army units unleashed a massive attack on Budapest as part of their move to suppress the Hungarian Revolution.  Jewish students had been prominent participants in the uprising.  Seeing that the revolt had failed and fearing a Stalinist style reprisal approximately 40,000 Jews joined the 170,000 Hungarians who fled to Austria.



1956: Sid Gillman’s Los Angeles Rams continued their losing ways dropping a game to the Chicago Bears – their fifth loss in a row after winning the opening game of the season.



1960: Marilyn Monroe finishes her last film, The Misfits.



1960: “Butterfield 8” a cinematic treatment of the 1934 novel directed by Daniel Mann, produced by Pandro S. Berman and starring Elizabeth Taylor (who won an Oscar), Laurence Harvey and Eddie Fisher was released today in the United States.



1961: Birthdate of Annabelle Gurwitch, the Alabama born, Miami Beach High School graduate who pursued a career as an actress and author/



https://www.annabellegurwitch.com/



1961:  In Los Angeles Edward Baitz, “an executive of the Carnation Company” and his wife gave birth to Jon Robin Baitz who after a career in the California entertainment industry became “a professor at Stony Brook Southampton and The New School where he served Artistic Director of the BFA theatre program.”



1964: Comedian Lenny Bruch and club owner Howard Solomon were both found guilty of obscenity.



1965: Birthdate of French concert violinist Anne Gravoin.



1966: In Florence, hundreds of rare Jewish books, documents, archives and Judaica items, some of them centuries old, which were damaged when the Arno River continued to overflow its banks today.



http://www.timesofisrael.com/50-years-ago-mud-angels-came-to-flooded-florence-to-save-centuries-of-jewish-history/



 



1968: Seventy-nine year old Joseph Lewis, the Montgomery, Alabama born Jew turned atheist who as President of The Freethinkers of America” called on Jews to “renounce their ‘antiquated creed’” and denounced “Yom Kippur as the ‘most degrading and humiliating day in all the superstitious annals of religion’” passed away today.



1970: “Song of Norway” a movie version of the “operetta of the same name” co-starring Edward G. Robinson was released today in the United States.



1970: U.S. premiere of “A.k.a. Cassius Clay” which was filmed by cinematographer Isidore Mankofsky.



1971(16th of Cheshvan, 5732): Eighty-three year old Dr. Leon Banov, Sr. , the son of Alexander and Sonia Banov, the husband of Minnie Banov with whom he had two children – Leon and Morton --  was buried in the Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim Cemetery after have passed away today in Charleston, SC.



1973: Birthdate of Holon, Israel native and award winning screen writer and director Eran Kolirin



1973(9th of Cheshvan, 5734): Fifty-one year old Tel Aviv native and Columbia graduate Dr. Haim Ginott, the child psychologist and author of Between Parent and Child passed away today in New York.



https://www.nytimes.com/1973/11/06/archives/dr-ham-ginott-psychologist-51-professor-and-author-of-parent-and.html



1974: “Lowly Bagel Transformed By An Artist” published today described how Judy Blau, the University of Rochester Fine Arts degree holder transformed the delicatessen delight into an artistic ornament.



https://www.nytimes.com/1974/11/04/archives/lowlybagel-transformed-by-an-artist-active-as-a-painter-smiling.html?_r=1



https://www.thejewniverse.com/2018/lowly-bagel-transformed-by-artist-judy-blau/



1974: New Yorker Richard Ottinger was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives.



1974: “In a letter to Senator Henry Jackson, one hundred Soviet Jews accused Soviet authorities of using the military draft as punitive measure against young Jewish applicants for emigration to Israel.”



1975: As the Soviet Union continued to play power politics in the Middle East, Hungary, a member of the Eastern Bloc signed an agreement with Syria “on military co-operation” today.



1977: The Vatican appealed to Israel to release Greek Catholic Archbishop Hilarion Capucci, who had just completed three years of his 12-year prison sentence for smuggling arms for Arab terrorists from Beirut to Jerusalem. An undertaking was given that Capucci, if released, would no longer engage in any anti-Israeli activity and would be posted to a monastery outside the Middle East. (The statement speaks for itself in terms of analyzing Vatican-Israeli relations).



1977: Three people were injured when a bomb exploded as it was being removed from a bus in Jerusalem.



1979(14th of Cheshvan, 5740): Sixty eight year old Rabbi Samuel Sandmel, the Dayton, OH born son of Morris and Rebecca Sandmel, the University of Missouri Phi Bea Kappa graduate and the recipient of an M.H.L. degree from Hebrew College in 1937 who was a prolific author and the husband of Philadelphian Frances Langsdorf Fox with whom he had three children passed away today. 




https://www.nytimes.com/1979/11/07/archives/samuel-sandmel-scholar-helped-better-jewishchristian-relations.html



https://www.amazon.com/Samuel-Sandmel/e/B001HOK64I



1979: A group of Iranian “students” stormed the U.S. Embassy in Teheran and seized 52 Americans whom they held hostage for 444 days.  The prolonged crisis was instrumental in Regan’s defeat of Carter which marked a fundamental change in the American political landscape.  It is also part of the Mosaic of Moslem attacks on Western Civilization of which the demand for the destruction of the state of Israel is another part.



1980:  More than 300 Soviet Jews sign an open letter to President Brezhnev accusing the Soviet government of paying lip service to the human rights provisions of the Helsinki Final Act and failing to honor the commitments on emigration.



1980(25th of Cheshvan, 5741): A suicide operation carried out by the Shiite Muslims and supported by Syria killed thirty six Israeli soldiers in Lebanon. The attack came after both sides had agreed to a cease-fire.



1982(18th of Cheshvan, 5743): Just days before his 93rd birthday day “German textile merchant and manufacturer Karl Amson Joel who fled the Nazis via Switzerland and Cuba and was the “grandfather of conductor Alexander Joel and musician Billy Joel passed away today.



https://www.revolvy.com/main/index.php?s=Karl%20Amson%20Joel&item_type=topic



1986(2nd of Cheshvan, 5747): Eight year old German born British mathematician passed away today.



http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Hirsch.html



1987(12th of Cheshvan, 5748): Eighty-seven year old American painter, Raphael Soyer whose brother Moses and Isaac were also painters passed away today in New York. For more see Raphael Soyer and the Search for Modern Jewish Art by Samantha Baskind  http://uncpress.unc.edu/browse/page/203



http://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/raphael-soyer-papers-9465/more



http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/Raphael_Soyer.html



1989: “As the Communist regime in East Germany began to topple, Stefan Heym joined other prominent would-be reformers at Marx Engels Square in the center of East Berlin where he spoke to a crowd of 100,000, saying that ''socialism, the right kind, not the Stalinist kind, is what we want to build for our benefit and the benefit of all Germany.'' (As reported by David Binder)



1990(16th of Cheshvan, 5751): Shalom-Avraham Shaki passed away.  Born in Yemen in 1906, he made Aliyah in 1914.  He worked as teacher before pursuing a career in politics that included service in the Knesset from 1962 until 1965.



1991: Mid East peace conference ends in Madrid Spain.



1991: In Ashdod, French born Israeli Maggie and “Avi Day the owner of a geological-engineering company involved in mineral drilling gave birth to Alon Day, “an Israeli professional stock racing driver” who was “the first Israeli drive to compete in an IndCar-sanctioned series.



1992: In “Faith, Reason and the Holocaust” published today Stephen Holden reviews “The Quarrel,” the cinematic adaption of Chaim Grade’s short story in which Eli Cohen grapples with the questions of “reason versus faith” in the shadow of the Holocaust.



https://www.nytimes.com/1992/11/04/movies/review-film-on-faith-reason-and-the-holocaust.html



1993: The BBC broadcast the final episode of “Scarlet and Black” co-starring Rachel Weisz.



1993(20th of Cheshvan, 5754): Seventh-three year old Peabody award winning producer Ely A. Landau passed away. (As reported by Eric Pace)



http://www.nytimes.com/1993/11/08/obituaries/ely-landau-producer-73-dies-filmed-plays-for-tv-and-theaters.html



1994(1st of Kislev, 5755): Rosh Chodesh Kislev.



1994: Unveiling of a sculpture of Fred Lebow created by Jesus Ygnacio Dominguez designed to honor the Holocaust survivor who founded the NYC Marathon. The sculpture depicts Lebow timing runners with his watch. In 2001, the statue was moved to its permanent location on the East Side Central Park Drive at 90th Street.  Every year, however, the statue is moved to a spot in view of the finish line of the Marathon



1994: “Oleanna” a “film written and directed by David Mamet based on his play Oleanna” was released today in the United States.



1995: Aviv Geffen was scheduled to perform at tonight’s peace rally where chose to sing “Cry for You” (Livkot Lekha)



199511th of Cheshvan, 5756): Seventy-eight year old Brandeis University Professor of Sociology who was the subject of Mitch Albom’s Tuesday’s with Morrie passed away today.



http://www.nytimes.com/1995/11/09/us/morris-s-schwartz-professor-78.html



1995 (11th of Cheshvan, 5756): Yitzchak Rabin, Prime Minster of Israel, was assassinated by a right wing fanatic who was opposed to Rabin’s efforts to bring peace to Israel and its Arab neighbors.  Rabin was born in Jerusalem in 1922, making him Israel’s first sabra Prime Minister.  Rabin’s distinguished career in the IDF included serving as Chief of Staff during the Six Day in 1967.  Rabin’s first stint as Prime Minister during the during the 1970’s ended with him being forced to leave office do to a personal financial scandal.  His defeat opened the way for Begin and the Likud to come to power for the first time in Israel.  Rabin did not have any illusions about the PLO and Arafat.  We will never know if Rabin’s vision would have borne fruit.  Instead a killer took it upon himself to end the life of man who had spent his life risking his life in defense of Israel and the Jewish people.



http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/bday/0301.html



http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/rabin.html



1995: Shimon Peres began serving as Minister of Defense in Israel.



1996: In “A Man Who Makes Us Worry” published today in The Information Bulletin of the Library of Congress, Harry Katz reports on the decision by Jules Feiffer to donate his papers to the library and describes the importance of the collection.



1996(22nd of Cheshvan, 5757): Ninety-one year old Irma Ullman who had carried on the philanthropic work of her husband Siegfried Ullman through the Ullmann Family Foundation, passed away today.



https://www.nytimes.com/1996/11/12/nyregion/irma-ullmann-91-science-benefactor-in-us-and-israel.html



2000: The BBC broadcast “Burning Convictions” the 6th episode of “A History of Britain is a documentary series written and presented by Simon Schama.”



2001:The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or about topics of Jewish interest including Old Men At by Chaim Potok and Where The Stress Fallsby Susan Sontag



2001(18th of Cheshvan, 5762): Shoshana Ben Ishai, 16, of Betar Illit and Menashe (Meni) Regev, 14, of Jerusalem were killed when a Palestinian terrorist opened fire with a sub-machine gun shortly before 16:00 at a No. 25 Egged bus at the French Hill junction in northern Jerusalem. 45 people were injured in the attack.



2002: On his 54th birthday, Shaul Mofaz began serving as Israel’s Minister of Defense



2002(29th of Cheshvan, 5763):  Security guard Julio Pedro Magram, 51, of Kfar Sava, and Gastón Perpiñal, 15, of Ra'anana, both recent immigrants from Argentina, were killed and about 70 people were wounded in a suicide bombing at a shopping mall in Kfar Sava. The Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the attack.



2003:  A ketubbah (Jewish marriage contract) printed in Utica, New York in 1863, is showcased as a "Second Guest of Honor" at the Louis Marshall Award Dinner at the Pierre Hotel. The "Second Guest of Honor" program is another effort to further expose the treasures of The JTS Library that the Board instituted in which a rare piece from The Library's collection will appear at an event outside JTS.



2005(2nd of Cheshvan, 5766): Earl Leslie Krugel the West Coast coordinator of the Jewish Defense League was murdered by a fellow inmate, who struck him in the head with a block of concrete.



2005: The Center for Tel Aviv History organized a special tour to mark the anniversary of the assassination of late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.



2005(2ndof Cheshvan, 5766): Ninety-year old David Wilfred Abse, the native of Cardin who became “an eminent psychoanalyst” and “professor of psychiatry at the University of Virginia” passed away today.



2005: In Cedar Rapids, the National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library (NCSML) began hosting "The Tragedy of Slovak Jews," a special, temporary exhibition from the Museum of the National Uprising in Banska Bystrica, Slovak Republic. The exhibition addresses the tragic demise of the Jewish communities in Slovakia. Prior to World War II, Jews held an important and significant position in Slovak culture. The exhibit focuses on Slovak society and the solution of the Jewish question in the years 1938 – 1945, the first wave of deportations (March – October 1942), the origination of working and prison camps, the second wave of deportations in 1944, and the fascist reprisals in Slovakia.



2005: As further proof of the changing face of Reform Judaism in Israel, the four new Reform rabbis ordained at Jerusalem’s Hebrew Union College half are women and include three native Israelis and one of Iraqi heritage.



2006: Opening of the 10th Annual UK Jewish Film Festival



2007: Publication of Flotsam, by David Wiesner.



2007: Author E.L. Doctorow, the son of parents “of Russian-Jewish origin,” received the Chicago Tribune Literary Prize.



2007: The Sunday New York Times features reviews of the following books by Jewish authors and/or that featured Jewish topics including The World in a City: Traveling the Globe Through the Neighborhoods of the New New York by Joseph Berger and Proust Was a Neuroscientistin which author Jonah Lehrerthe son of former Los Angeles ADL chief David Lehrer argues that artists predict the scientific future.



2007: The Sunday Washington Post features reviews of the following books by Jewish authors and/or that featured Jewish topics including Gentlemen of the Road by Michael Chabon and Young Stalin by Simon Sebag Montefiore.



2007: At the Jewish Community Center of Greater Washington 38th annual Book Festival, Pulitzer Prize winning David Vise discusses The Google Story: Inside the Hottest Business, Media and Technology Success.



2007: In a festive ceremony at the Weizmann Institute of Science, 11 young women scientists, who had completed their PhD studies with honors at several Israeli universities and academic institutions, each received an award of about $20,000 per year for two years.


2007: The New York city Marathon Minyan celebrates its 25th year of enabling runners to a join a minyan, lay tefillin and shout out the blessing ‘hanoten layaef koakh – He who gives strength to the weary’ prior to setting out on the 26.2 mile course through the city’s five boroughs. 


2007: National Jewish Book Month begins.


2007: During the worst economic crisis in United States history Robert Rubin began serving as acting Chairman of Citigroup.


2008: In the Presidential election Senator Barak Obama who received 78% of the Jewish vote and who was the first major presidential candidate whose closest political advisor – David Axelrod – is Jewish and who has a rabbi - Capers Funnye – as a family member defeated Senator John McCain who received 22% of the Jewish vote.


2008:   Agriprocessors filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection


2008: A record number of Jews were elected to Congress. The next session of Congress will include 45 Jewish lawmakers, a new record, after Democrats Alan Grayson of Florida and John Adler of New Jersey took two House seats from the Republican column. Jared Polis, also a Democrat, was widely expected to win his Colorado House seat to match the previous record, set in the 2006 elections. The House will have 32 Jewish members. Only the class of 1990 had more Jewish members - 34 - but there were fewer Jewish senators at the time. The next Senate will have 13 Jewish members, the same as the previous session, despite a toss-up race in Minnesota, where both Republican incumbent Norm Coleman and his Democratic challenger, comedian Al Franken, are Jewish.


The following is a list of the 45 Jewish members —13 senators and 32 representatives — who will serve in the 111th U.S. Congress that convenes in January:


U.S. SENATE


Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.)


Benjamin Cardin (D-Md.)


Norm Coleman (R-Minn.)**


Russ Feingold (D-Wisc.)


Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.)


Herb Kohl (D-Wisc.)


Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.)**


Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.)


Carl Levin (D-Mich.)**


Bernard Sanders (I-Vt.)


Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.)


Arlen Specter (R-Pa.)


Ron Wyden (D-Ore.)


HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES


Gary Ackerman (D-N.Y.)


John Adler (D-N.J.)*


Shelley Berkley (D-Nev.)


Howard Berman (D-Calif.)


Eric Cantor (R-Va.)


Stephen Cohen (D-Tenn.)


Susan Davis (D-Calif.)


Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.)


Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.)


Bob Filner (D-Calif.)


Barney Frank (D-Mass.)


Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.)


Alan Grayson (D-Fla.)


Jane Harman (D-Calif.)


Paul Hodes (D-N.H.)


Steve Israel (D-N.Y.)


Steve Kagen (D-Wisc.)


Ron Klein (D-Fla.)


Sander Levin (D-Mich.)


Nita Lowey (D-N.Y.)


Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.)


Jared Polis (D-Colo.)*


Steve Rothman (D-N.J.)


Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.)


Allyson Schwartz (D-Pa.)


Adam Schiff (D-Calif.)


Brad Sherman (D-Calif.)


Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.)


Henry Waxman (D-Calif.)


Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.)


Robert Wexler (D-Fla.)


John Yarmuth (D-Ky.)


* Elected to Congress for the first time


** Senators who were re-elected (Coleman defeated Democratic challenger Al Franken in Minnesota by fewer than 700 votes, triggering a state-mandated recount. Franken also is Jewish, leaving 13 Jewish senators regardless of who emerges as the winner.)


2009: Opening session of Union for Reform Judaism's 70th Biennial Convention in Toronto, Canada.


2009: Nancy Lieberman broke yet another barrier when she became the first woman head coach of the Dallas Mavericks’ D-League affiliate team, a male professional basketball team.


2009: Israeli navy commandos seized the M.V. Francop a cargo ship early today in the Mediterranean Sea that was carrying rockets and ammunition bound for militants from Hezbollah in what was known as Operation Four Species.


2009: French premiere of “Le Concert” directed by Romanian born French (Jewish) Radu Mihăileanu


2009: Today “Nancy Lieberman broke yet another barrier when she became the first woman head coach of the Dallas Mavericks’ D-League affiliate team.”



2010: Jeffrey Rosen, Professor of Constitutional Law at The George Washington University, is scheduled to speak on Religious Freedom and the Right to Worship, Freedom of Speech, Press, Assembly, and how the Supreme Court impacted the First Amendment of the Constitution, at Northern Virginia Hebrew Congregation, in Reston, VA.


2010: The Center for Jewish History, Centro Primo Levi and PEN World Voices Festival in collaboration with the Consulate General of Slovenia are scheduled to present: “Boris Pahor's Necropolis: A Slovenian Story of Culture, Conflict, and Persecution on the Northeastern Border of Italy.”


2010:Germany's burgeoning Jewish community ordained its first female rabbi since the Holocaust today, a major step for a religious group that until recently imported its leaders from abroad - most of them men. The ordination of Alina Treiger, a Ukrainian-born 31-year-old, is a sign of the growing diversity of Germany's largely conservative Jewish community, observers say, though some warned she will face an uphill battle among worshippers used to being led by male rabbis.


2011: George Schindler,the dean of the Society of American Magicians, other magicians and members of the general public are scheduled to visit Harry Houdini’s grave at the Machpelah Cemetery in the Queens borough of New York City on the 85th anniversary of his funeral. The visit used to take place on Halloween, Houdini’s Yahrtzeit


2011: The Phoenix Ensemble is scheduled to perform at Studio Hecht in Haifa.


2011: The “Excellence Concert Series” is scheduled to present “Young Piano Masters” at the Aldwell Institute of the Jerusalem Conservatory of Music and Dance


2011: This afternoon the Israel Navy intercepted two boats that approached the coast of the Gaza Strip with the intent to violate Israel's naval blockade of the territory. After the boats failed to heed calls to turn around or dock in Egypt or Israel, Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Benny Gantz ordered naval forces to board the ships. Nobody was injured during the boarding of the ships, a military source said.


2011:Immediately following his return from Cyprus today, President Shimon Peres joined the children, grandchildren and great grandchildren of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin at the monument erected on the site of Rabin's assassination. Peres, who had been at a huge peace rally in Tel Aviv with Rabin on the fateful night of November 4, 1995, laid a wreath at the monument, as did Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai.


2012: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including the recently released paperback editions of The Puppy Diaries by Jill Abramson and The Convert by Deborah Baker.


2012: A day after three Syrian tanks entered the demilitarized zone on the Golan Heights to attack Syrian rebels, IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Benny Gantz visited the border region today, and warned army forces that “the Syrian affair could turn into our affair.” Gantz instructed the IDF to be on alert in the area, and to prevent any spillover of the Syrian conflict onto Israeli territory.



2012: The Jerusalem Foundation honors Sir Winston Churchill today.



2012:“Letters of Light” New Works by Anna Gil, “a solo show of new works inspired by Jewish Mysticism” is scheduled to open at the Gallery Orange on Royal Street in the famous French Quarter of New Orleans.


2012: In Cedar Rapids, Iowa, The Hadassah Donor Dinner celebrating 100 years of Hadassah is scheduled to take place at Temple Judah.


2012: As part of its Turkish-Jewish Festival, in Rockville, MD, Tikvat Israel is scheduled to sponsor a performance by “renowned Sephardic musician Flory Jagoda.


2012: “A Kid For Two Farthings” is scheduled to be shown at the UK Jewish Film Festival.


2013: “Disaster!, a musical comedy starring Seth Rudetsky and written by both Rudetsky and Jack Plotnick, opened Off-Broadway at the St. Luke's Theatre.”


2013: The Annual International Shluchim Convention (Kinus Hashluchim) in Brooklyn, NY is scheduled to come to an end.


2013: B’nai Jeshurun is scheduled to host a Yitzhak Rabin Memorial Service this evening co-sponsored by the Israeli Consulate and Hashomer Hatzair Youth Movement


2013: Jonathan Kirsch is scheduled to deliver a talk on “the truth behind Kristallnacht” in which he examines “the tragic life…of Herschel Grynszpagn” at the San Diego Jewish Book Fair.


2013: As we mark the centenary of the trial of Melvin Beilis, the Center for Jewish History is scheduled to present a roundtable discussion “Reflecting on the Beilis Trial.”


2013: The Knesset raised the legal marriage age from 17 to 18 today. The bill, initiated by a group of Knesset members from across the political spectrum, was meant to fight the early betrothal customary in certain sectors, where minors are wed under familiar and community pressures. (As reported by Moran Azulay)


2013:Women of the Wall held a peaceful prayer service under police protection at the Western Wall to mark the group’s 25th anniversary.



2013(1st of Kislev, 5774): Ninety-one year Eleanor Mlotek, “the Queen of Yiddish Musicology” passed away today. (As reported by Joseph Berger)



2014: In Sydney, “Zero Motivation” and “The Farewell Party” are scheduled to be shown at the Jewish International Film Festival.


2014: “Sotheby’s I selling a 1917 gouache and crayon work ‘Seated Woman With Bent Left Leg’” which “once belonged to Fritz Grünbaum, a Viennese cabaret performer whose large art collection was inventoried by Nazi agents after he was sent to the Dachau concentration camp, where he died” but for which the family will receive no compensation because “United States federal courts have found that the family waited too long to file its claim and that there was insufficient evidence to conclude “Seated Woman” had been stolen.”


2014: The Tulane Jewish Studies Department under the leadership of Dr. Brian Horowitz is scheduled to present a lecture by Michael Stanislawski entitled “The Jewish and Muslim Enlightenments in Imperial Russia: A Comparison.”


2014: Elfriede Starer, a Kindertransportee, is scheduled to tell her story at the Wiener Library in London.


2014: “Jewish Voices,” a reading by prominent Jewish poets and writers is scheduled to take place for the fifteenth year at the Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education.


2014: The Five Boroughs Food Talk is scheduled to feature “Jewish Food”



2014(11th of Chesvan): Yarhrzeit of Rachel who passed away while giving birth to her second son Benjamin, the 12thson of Jacob and his 13th child.



2014: As Americans go to the polls Republicans Adam Kwasman, Lee Zeldin, Bruce Blakeman, Elon Carr and Micah Edmond each of whom are running for Congress hope to fill the shoes left empty by the defeat of Eric Cantor who was the on Jewish Republican serving in the House of Representatives.


2014: “Dozens of rival fans from Hapoel Tel Aviv and Maccabi Tel Aviv brawled in the street outside the city Magistrate's Court today, as rioters who invaded the pitch during Monday night's derby were brought to face a judge. Among those arrested after the fight was the son of MK Dov Khenin.” (As reported by Gilad Morag)


2014: “Israel and the United States used the inauguration of a joint warplane project today to stress it was business as usual in an alliance hit by acrimony over Israeli settlement building and strategy against Iran.”


2014: “Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz warned Tuesday that Israel was prepared to completely eviscerate Lebanon in response to any cross-border missile attack by Hezbollah.”


2015: Hindy Najman the first woman and the first Jew to serve as the Oriel Laing Professor for the Interpretation of Holy Scripture is scheduled to speak at the Lunch and Learn sponsored by the Oxford University Jewish Society.


2015: In Cedar Rapids, IA, “Lenka Lichtenberg, one of Toronto’s best-loved world fusion musicians with Czech and Jewish roots, is scheduled to perform traditional Jewish liturgical songs and poems” at CSPS Hall.


2015: The Skirball Center is scheduled to host “Remember Rabin” a memorial marking the 20th anniversary of the assassination of Yithak Rabin.


2015: The Consulate General of Israel in New York in partnership with IAC, JNF, WZO, StandWithUS and AZM a scheduled to showcase a panoply of educational programs focused on Israel and the Israeli experience.


2015: As part of Holocaust Education Week Beth Tikvah Synagogue in Toronto is scheduled to host “a panel of individuals born post-Holocaust in the Bergen-Belsen DP camp will address issues of intergenerational trauma; social, emotional and physical implications of their shared circumstances of birth; and how their parents’ Holocaust experiences informed their lives.”


2015: The biennial conference of the Union for Reform Judaism is scheduled to open today in Orlando, Florida.


2016: Eighteen year old Mahin Khan, “an Arizona teenage who has pleaded guilty to plotting an attack on government buildings and the Tucson Jewish Community Center is scheduled to be sentenced today.


2016: In Toronto, as part of Holocaust Education Week, Ron Levi is scheduled to speak at a Lunch ‘N Learn on “The Swiss banks Holocaust litigation and settlement: What can we learn from the proposals to allocate residual Funds?”


2016 At the Bernard Museum of Judaica at Temple Emanu-El, the opening of the exhibition “All About Golda” is scheduled to take places following Friday evening services.


2017(15thof Cheshvan, 5778): Parashat Va-yayra –


2017: “Some 85,000 people turned out at the annual rally in Tel Aviv’s Rabin Square this evening marking the 22nd anniversary of the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, which this year tried to emphasize national unity rather than its traditional focus on peace.” (As reported Jacob Magid)


2017:  In Cedar Rapids, Harrison Ginsberg is scheduled to be called to the Torah as a Bar Mitzvah


2017: Jonah Cowen is scheduled to lead a Pirke Avot learning session followed by Ma’ariv and Havdalah all of are sponsored by The Oxford University Jewish University.


2017: In Memphis, TN, Rabbi Noam Katz is scheduled to lead the Musical Shabbat morning service at Temple Israel.


2017: Today, “tweets surfaced of Editor in Chief of the Saint, Scotland's largest student newspaper and based at the University of St Andrews, Joseph Cassidy, calling into question Israel's right to exist - which have been criticized as blatantly Anti-Semitic.”


2017: In New Orleans, LA, “the Touro Foundation Gala honoring Dr. Tom Oelsner is scheduled to take place this evening.


2017: In the United Kingdom, as part of Balfour Shabbat, Orthodox synagogues are scheduled to recite “a special prayer” composed by Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis “to mark the centenary of the Balfour Declaration.


2018: In London, the Jewish Museum is scheduled to host “Fiona Sampson, the author of, ‘In Search of Mary Shelley: The Girl Who Wrote Frankenstein’ and the artist Maya Attoun as they discuss the allure and fascination of Frankenstein and his monster.”


2018: The Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center is scheduled to host a screening of “The Good Nazi” “a 50 minute television documentary that chronicles the scientific work of a joint US-Canadian-Israeli-Lithuanian research team in July, 2017 on a site, HKP 562, a Nazi labor camp on the outskirts of Vilnius where the largest number of Vilna Ghetto Jews survived thanks to the efforts of a compassionate Nazi Officer, Major Karl Plagge.”


2018: In Haverhill, MA, Temple Emanu-El is scheduled to host “photographer Udi Goren” as he takes attendees “on a journey along the Israel National Trail.”


2018: "New Perspectives on Kristallnacht: After 80 Years, the Nazi Pogrom in Global Comparison," a conference “co-organized by the USC Shoah Foundation Center for Advanced Genocide Research and the USC Casden Institute for the Study of the Jewish Role in American Life, and presented in cooperation with the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington D.C., and the Center for Research on Antisemitism at the Technical University Berlin, Germany” is scheduled to begin today.


2018: In Iowa City, IA, Prairie Lights Bookshop is scheduled to host a book signing for Barbara Feller, the Hebrew teacher par excellence, author of the newly released Road to Waubeek: Discovering Jay G. Sigmund.


2018: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including She Wants It: Desire, Power and Toppling the Patriarchy by Jill Soloway, The Corrosion of Conservatism: Why I Left the Right by Max Boot and Ruth Bader Ginsburg: A Life by Jane Sherron De Hart.


 


 


 


 


 


 


 

This Day, November 5, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. Levin

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November 5


 

1271: Birthdate of Mahmud Ghazan, the Mongol ruler whose conversion to Islam in 1295 led to the “Persian Jews in Tabriz” being relegated “once again to the status of dhimmis” which was followed by his successors destruction of several synagogues and enforcement of laws requiring to wear “a distinctive mark on their head.



1370: King Casimir IIIof Poland passed away.  Born in 1310, he came to the throne in 1333.  From the Jewish point of Casimir III was seen as a cut above the average ruler. He was favorably disposed toward Jews. On October 9, 1344 he confirmed the privileges granted to Jewish Poles in 1264 by Boleslaus V. Under penalty of death he prohibited the kidnapping of Jewish children for the purpose of forcible Christian baptism. He inflicted heavy punishment for the desecration of Jewish cemeteries. Although Jews were living in Poland earlier, Casimir allowed them to settle in Poland in great numbers and protected them as king's people.


1597: Sir Henry Finch, the author of a book calling for “the restoration of the Jews to the promised land” addressed Parliament on the need to create a committee to examine “the extreme and miserable estate of the godly honest sort of the poor subjects of this realm.”


1605: The Gunpowder Plot, an attempt to blow up the House of Lords which would be the first move in putting a Catholic on throne, was thwarted today.  This event which is tied in the popular mind to Guy Fawkes could have had a negative impact on the small, concealed Jewish population of the British Isles since a Catholic on the throne at this time might have tied the kingdom to Spain the home of the Inquisition.


1615: Birthdate of Ibrahim I, another of the Sultans who reigned during the seventeenth century, a period of decline for the Ottoman Empire.  He did employ at least one Jew in close capacity, Doctor Moshe Raphael Abravanel who changed his name to Hayati Zade.


1655: In New Amsterdam, the government refused to allow Jews to stand guard, requiring them to pay a tax instead. In effect, this made Jews “second class citizens.”  Jacob Barsimon and Asser Levy refused to pay the tax petitioned to stand guard.  At first they were met with resistance, but Asser Levy performed the guard duties anyway just like any other burgher of the town. He would later be granted full citizenship rights in New Amsterdam, the first for a Jew in North America.


November 5(8th of Cheshvan, 5446):1685: In Surinam, Congregation Bracha V'Shalom, one of the oldest congregations in the Americas was dedicated at Jodensvanne or“Jewish Savanna.” Built “on a hill in accordance with Talmudic interpretation” and one the bank of the Suriname River which provided “naturally flowing water purification rituals,” the 90 by 40 by 33 structure was used as a Beit Knesset, Beit Din and Beit Midrash for over 180 years at which time it was abandoned due to the shrinking Jewish population which had been declining since the first decades of the 18thcentury following an invasion by a French fleet.


1688: William of Orange lands at Brixham marking the start of the Glorious Revolution which was financed, in part, “by the Jewish banker Francisco Lopes Suasso who lent two million guilder and when asked what security he desired, Suasso answered: ‘If you are victorious, you will surely repay me; if not, the loss is mine.’”As King William III he would be the English monarch who knighted a Jew - Solomon de Medina,


1735: In Mantua, a town in the Italian province of Lombardy, a pact between the Jewish community and the local high school was mediated by the Secretary of State. In return for the Jewish community providing liquor, and other gifts to the school on St. Catherine's day, the students would not press their right to throw objects at any Jew who passes the school.


1785:the council of Pennsylvania, under the presidency of Benjamin Franklin, ordered that a pension be paid to Colonel Solomon Bush, the brother of fellow solider Jonas Bush, for his meritorious services during the American Revolution.


1785: Birthdate of Dutch teacher and author Moses Leman whose works included Spirit of Talmudic Lord and Test of Talmudic Mathematics.


1779(26th of Cheshvan, 5540):Isaac Simon Cohen Kats-Shamash who had been born at Amsterdam in 1701 passed away today in his native city.


1816: Birthdate of historian Siegfried Hirsch who “published an award winning essay on King Henry I” but who died before he could finish “his treatise on Holy Roman Emperor Henry II and whose cousin, the historian Theodor Hirsch had converted to Christianity.


1819: In Lemberg, Solomon Judah Löb Rapoport and Franziska Freide Rapoport gave birth to Guttel Katharina Rapaport who was known as Katharina Busch after she married Simon Busch.


1823: Benjamin ben Chaim HaLevi married Eve bat Solomon today at the Western Synagogue.


1824: In Frankfurt am Main Malchen and David Philipp Schloss gave birth to Daniel Hirsch Schloss.


1824: In Frankfurt am Main Malchen and David Philipp Schloss gave birth to Leopold Schloss the husband of Annie Montefiore, the daughter of Horatio J. Montefiore, who was a “member of the Council and Past Warden of the West London Synagogue as well as Vice President of the Anglo-Jewish Association.


1826(5th of Cheshvan, 5587): Élie Halévy, a French Hebrew poet and author who was the father of Fromental and Léon Halévy passed away. Born in 1760 at Fürth in Bavaria, Halévy moved to Paris, where he became cantor and secretary to the Jewish Consistoire of Paris. His knowledge of the Talmud and his poetical talent earned him the esteem of many French scholars, particularly the well-known Orientalist Sylvestre de Sacy. His first poem was "Ha-Shalom", a hymn composed on the occasion of the treaty of Amiens; it was sung in the synagogue of Paris, in both Hebrew and French, on the 17th Brumaire (8 November) 1801. The poem was praised in Latin verses by Protestant pastor Marron. In 1808 Halévy composed a prayer to be recited on the anniversary of the battle of Wagram; in 1817, with the help of some of his co-religionists, he founded the French weekly "L'Israélite Français", which, however, expired within two years. To this periodical he contributed a remarkable dialogue entitled "Socrate et Spinosa" (ii. 73). His "Limmude Dat u-Musar" (Metz, 1820) is a text-book of religious instruction compiled from the Bible, with notes, a French translation, and the decisions of the Sanhedrin instituted by Napoleon. Halévy left two unpublished works, a Hebrew-French dictionary and an essay on Æsop's fables. He attributes the fables to Solomon (comp. I Kings v. 12-13 [A. V. iv. 32-33]), and thinks the name "Æsop" to be a form of "Asaph".


1828(28th of Cheshvan, 5589):Berr Isaac Beer a French manufacture passed away. Born at Nancy in 1744, he came from “a rich and estimable family; received an excellent education, especially in Hebrew and rabbinical literature—in the latter from Jacob Perle, chief rabbi of Nancy. Inheriting the title of syndic of the Jewish community of Nancy, bestowed upon his father in 1753 by King Stanislaus, he took an active part in the direction of the affairs of the community.


In 1789 he was elected by the Jews of Alsace deputy to the States-General, where he was admitted to plead for Jewish emancipation before the Assembly. At about that time he published a pamphlet in which he refuted the anti-Jewish discourse delivered by De la Farre, bishop of Nancy. Berr was appointed successively member of the Assembly of Notables and member of the Sanhedrin; and he cooperated effectively in the organization of Jewish worship in France and in Italy. In his old age he retired, pensioned by the king, to one of his estates called "Turique"—the name of which he added to his own with the royal permission.”


1834: At Angenrod in the grand duchy of Hesse- Darmstadt, Mayer Bamberger and his wife gave birth to Isaac Bamberger, the German Rabbi who made a great effort to aid the Russian Jews who took refuge in Germany after 1882 when the Czar’s anti-Jewish laws began to have their most pernicious effect.


1835: In Busk, Galicia, Fannie and Dr. Leo Szeps gave birth to Moritz Szeps, the journalist who was editor-in-chief of the Vienna Morgenpost , a friend of Crown Prince Rudolf and the husband of Amalie Szeps with whom he had five children.



1845: Abraham Alexander married Louisa Reuben at the West London Synagogue today.


1845: In Szeged, Bernát (Bernhard) Schwimmer and his first wife gave birth to Max (Miksa or Maximilian) Bernát Schwimmer who along with his grandfather, father and brothers bought and sold horses in Turkey and the Balkans while also earing income from their farm, orchards, flour mills and distillery.


1849(20th of Cheshvan): Rabbi Elijah ben Jacob Raoler of Kalisz, author of Yad Eliyahu passed away today


1852: It was reported today from Constantinople that ten years ago Smyrna had had a population of 130,000 which included 13,000 Jews and that today the population has grown to 160,000 with percentage of Jews remaining about the same.


1852: It wasreported today that “the Senate of Frankfort, supported by a resolution of the German Diet, has cancelled the article of the law of 1849 securing equality of political rights to citizens of all persuasions, thus excluding Jews from all share in the elections.  New elections will take place immediately,” at which time only Christians will be allowed to vote.


1853:  "Australia" published today reported on the wonders of the land down under including a description of Melbourne, a town with streets that were broader than those of New York and filled with a strange medley of people that including Jews, among others.


1853: In London, Marcus Samuel, a member of an Iraqi Jewish family who “ran a successful import-export business” and his wife gave birth to Sir Marcus Samuel, 1st Viscount Bearsted, “the founder of the Shell Transport and Trading Company, which later became a part of Royal Dutch Shell” and holder of several public offices including Alderman of the City of London, Sherriff and Lord Mayor.



1855: Birthdate of Eugene V. Debs, labor activist, reformer and Socialist Candidate for President of the United States.  From the Civil War until the Great Depression a majority of Jews tended to vote for Republican Presidential candidates.  Debs helped to break that trend.  His Socialist views found support among the immigrants from Eastern Europe, many of whom were working in the garment industry.  When Debs ran for President against the Republican Harding and Democrat Davis he gained 38% of the Jewish vote.  This almost matched Harding’s 43% and far exceeded Davis’ 19%.  The real shift in Jewish voting patterns would be seen in the election of 1928 when Al Smith was the Democratic standard bearer.


1860(20th of Cheshvan, 5621): Birthdate of Sholom Dovber Schneersohn, the fifth Lubavitcher Rebbe. There is no way this blog can do justice to this Rebbe who provided leadership through the difficult days of the May Laws and World War I.



1862: Simon J. Arnold of Company K of the 151stRegiment which served as bodyguard for President Lincoln who would reach the rank of Sergeant and would be wounded at Gettysburg, enlisted today.


1863: In New York, the Hebrew Benevolent and Orphan Asylum under the leadership of President Benjamin I. Hart and Superintendent Herman Baar “dedicated its orphan asylum on East 77th Street.


1870: Horatio Simon Samuel, the husband of the former Henrietta Montefiore and father of Harry Simon Samuel, was buried today at the “Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.”


1871: It was reported today that the Jewish Messenger has expressed its opposition to the attempt by some Jews to stop observing the Hebrew Sabbath and shift to observing the Christian Sunday. The Messenger takes issue with those who claim that change is allowed since the observance of the Sabbath was intended for a specific place (ancient Israel) and/or that it was to political measure intended to curry favor with the laborers of ancient time. The Messenger claims that there is no basis in fact for these claims.  It quotes the commandment to prove its point that the Jewish Sabbath is a blessing to be observed on the seventh day. ”The children of Israel shall observe the Sabbath, to keep it throughout their generations for a permanent covenant; it is a sign between me and the children of Israel forever.”


1873: An article published today described the origins and current status of the various religious groups found in New York City. The unnamed author reported that the while the exact date of the arrival of the first Jews is not known, the date usually used is 1660 which is four years before the English took control of the city from the Dutch. Regardless of the exact date, the Jews were here before the Roman Catholics or the Episcopalians.  The early Jews had to deal with various forms of “persecution” but are now successful members of the community who build not only beautiful houses of worship but have established numerous institutions for the care of the sick, the aged and the helpless. There are approximately 40,000 Jews living in New York, most of whom who have come in the last 25 years. The city has 26 synagogues valued at $2,500,000. The average salary for a Rabbi is $2,200.  The lowest paid makes $500 and the highest paid makes $6,000. For a point reference Unitarians earn an average of $5,000 and Lutherans earn an average of $1,800.


1875: Based on information that had appeared in the Times of London, it was reported today that Czar has given a young Jew named Frehmann a commission in the Russian Army.  If so, this would make him the first Jew to ever serve as an officer in the forces of the Czar. [This would seem to contradict claims that Joseph Trumpeldor was the first Jewish officer in the Russian Army.]


1877: It was reported today that supporters of Thomas C.E. Ecclesine, a candidate for the New York State Senate have taken advantage of his German sounding name to pass him off as being Jewish in those part of the district that have a large Jewish vote. However, they have also claimed that he is an Irish Catholic in an attempt to garner that segment of the vote. (Since he was married at St. Ann’s Church by Father William Jackson, it is fair to say that his attempt to gain the Jewish vote was not based on fact. The ruse attests to the growing importance of the Jewish Vote.)


1880: Seventy-three year old Louis Félicien Joseph Caignart de Saulcy the French nobleman and amateur archeologist who first visited Palestine in 1850, toured the Dead Sea, made the first map of Masada and “identified Tell es-Sultain as the site of ancient Jericho passed away today.


1880: Birthdate of Vienna native Richard W. Ornstein who gained fame as German director Richard Oswald who was forced to flee when the Nazis came to power and who “made a number of films about sexuality and prostitution in collaboration with Magnus Hirschfeld.”


1881: It was reported today that the Deutsch Tagblatt, an anti-Semitic newspaper has announced that the Conservative Committee has sent a telegram to Bismarck declaring their continued opposition to the Progressives in the Reichstag.


1881: In Philadelphia, German-Jewish immigrants Sophie and Abraham Henry Marcus gave birth to their first child, publisher Henry Marcus.



1881: Based on information that first appeared in the National Zeitung, it was reported today that Chancellor Bismarck has declared that he “would never entertain a proposal to curtail the rights of Jews.”


1881: In response to a request by a an interdenominational committee, rabbis throughout the United States are expected to address their congregations during Shabbat services about the creation of James Garfield Hospital in Washington, DC and solicit their financial support for the creation of this memorial to the late U.S. President.  Christian ministers will address their congregations on the subject tomorrow.


1882: “Not Prejudiced Against Jews” published today contains a list of prominent citizens including Dr. Abraham Jacobi, Felix Adler and the Seligmans attesting to the fact that ex-Governor Edward Salomon “does not entertain any prejudices against the Jewish race.”  (Salomon is not to be confused with Edward Selig Salomon who was a German Jewish immigrant and who also served as a governor)


1883: It was reported today that the preparations for celebrating the centennial of Moses Montefiore which will take place next year have the added proof of putting to rest doubts among some Englishman that any person has attained the age of 100.


1885(27th of Cheshvan, 5646): Jonas Strauss, the head of the dry goods firm of J. Strauss, Brother & Company passed away today in New York.  He was also a partner in Levi Strauss & Co. in San Francisco.  The San Francisco company was started in 1851 by Jonas, Louis and Levi Strauss (the man who gave us Levi jeans).  Twenty-one year old Jonas Strauss stayed in New York and shipped material “around the Horn” to his brothers in California.  His prosperity could be measured by his generous contributions to various Jewish charities and not by his life-style which was so simple that he refused to purchase his own horse and carriage.



1887: It was reported today that the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society for Children will be hosting a benefit performance next week.


1887: Birthdate of Paul Wittgenstein “an Austrian-born concert pianist, who became known for his ability to play with just his left hand, after he lost his right arm during the First World War. He devised novel techniques, including pedal and hand-movement combinations that allowed him to play chords previously regarded as impossible for a five-fingered pianist.The Wittgenstein family had converted to Christianity three generations before his birth on the paternal side and two generations before on the maternal side; nonetheless they were of mainly Jewish descent, and under the Nuremberg laws they were classed as Jews. Following the rise of the Nazi Party and the annexation of Austria, Paul tried to persuade his sisters Helene and Hermine to leave Vienna, but they demurred: they were attached to their homes there, and could not believe such a distinguished family as theirs was in real danger. Ludwig had already been living in England for some years, and Margaret (Gretl) was married to an American. Paul himself, who was no longer permitted to perform in public concerts under the Nazis, departed for the United States in 1938. From there he and Gretl…managed to use family finances (mostly held abroad) and legal connections to attain non-Jewish status for their sisters. The family finances supposedly consisted of the voluntary surrender of all properties and assets in Germany and occupied lands with a total value of about US$6 billion at the time, which may have been the largest private fortune in Europe. Essentially all family assets were surrendered to the Nazis in return for protection afforded the two sisters under exceptional interpretations of racial law, allowing them to continue to live in their family palace in Vienna.” He died in New York City in 1961


1888(1st of Kislev, 5649): Rosh Chodesh Kislev


1888(1st of Kislev, 5649): Seventy-nine year old orientalist Louis Lowe who traveled to Palestine where he studied the practices of the Samaritans and the works of the Karaites and who headed two different Jewish schools in England passed away today.


1888: It was reported today that among the books now available in New York are Idylls of Israel and Other Poems by D. J. Donahue and The Wandering Jew, a three volume work by Eugene Sue.


1888: “Government By The People” published today summarized a lecture by Dr. Gustav Gottheil in which he contended that the concept of popular government has its origins in Biblical Judaism.  According to the rabbi, “The whole idea of popular government pervaded the law of god and the sentiments of the Jews.”


1892: Birthdate of Rochester, NY native Ralph Eugene Samuel, the husband of Florence Sameul with who he had three children – Ralph, Donald and Howard – “who played a central role in the founding of Commentary magazine/


1893: “Candidates of the Parties” published today provided profiles of those running on Democratic State ticket in New York including Simon W. Rosendale, native of Albany who is running for Attorney General and who a trustee of Congregation Anshe-Emeth, President of the Jewish Home Society and a leader of B’nai B’rith


1893: Tammany Hall closed the campaign tonight with three mass meetings including one at the Hebrew Institute.


1893: “Work of the Reichstag” published today described activities at the current session of the German parliament including the introduction of bills designed to “counteract the dismemberment of the large estates and to regulate interest on loans and mortgages” which are both said to have an “anti-Semitic flavor” because the landed gentry who borrow from Jewish bankers pay off their debts by selling portions of their landed holdings.


1893: According to the annual report delivered by Morris Goodhart, President of the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian a summary of which was published today, the society is caring for 2,339 children, 974 of whom were born in the United States, 521 of whom were born in Poland, 367 of whom were born in the Austro-Hungarian Empire with balance coming from places as disparate as Britain, Germany, France, Holland, Spain, Sweden and Jerusalem.


1893: Five Polish Jews continued to be held in jail at Hudson, NY as they await Grand Jury action on charges of “illegal registration”


1894: The speeches at the rally for Congressman Timothy J. Campbell were delivered in a variety of foreign languages including Russian and Hebrew which would provide some indication as to the importance of the Jewish immigrant vote in the upcoming election.


1895: A list of the bequests left by the late Julius Lipman published today including $500 to be given to each of the following: Mount Sinai Hospital, the Montefiore Home, the United Hebrew Charities and Congregation B’nai Jeshurun.


1895: At 8 o’clock this evening Isaac Klein and M.D. Rothschild were the only two leaders of Confederated Good Government Clubs to be found at its headquarters on Broadway where reports of a Tammany victory were being received with the expected dismay and disappointment.


1895: In the response of Dr. Maurice H. Harris to Israel Zangwill’s views on Reform Judaism published today the rabbi at Temple Israel said, “It may be easy for critics to formulate a rational Judaism, or a poetic Judaism, a Judaism conservative or a Judaism radical.  It is not a better Judaism that we want but better Jews.”


1896(29th of Cheshvan, 5657): Eighty-year old Rachel, Countess d’Avigdor second daughter of Sir Isaac Lyon and Isabel Goldsmid and wife of Count Salamon Henri d'Avigdor who “was at one time president of the Ladies' Committee of the Jews' Deaf and Dumb Home, and honorary secretary of the West End Charity; also a member of the committees of the Jewish Convalescent Home, of the workhouse committee of the Jewish Board of Guardians, and of the West End Sabbath School” passed away today.


1897: It was reported today that the essay on Voltaire’s “Candide” written by Herman L. Pass has won the “annual essay of St. John’s College, Cambridge.”


1897: It was reported today “that an attempt is being made to federate the Western Synagogue and the West End Talmud Torah” in London.


1897: “The Dreyfus Scandal” published today described “Bernard Lazare’s self-appointed mission to rouse European opinion and obtain a fresh trial for ex-Captain Dreyfus” which “is being rewarded by some slight measure of success.


1898: “Books and Authors” published today included a review of several works translated by Dr. Samuel A. Binion the native of Suwalki who was educated in both Hebrew and the Talmud before he moved to England in the 1860’s where he converted to Christianity.  He also exposed a manuscript reputed to have been written by Maimonides which had been purchased by Adolph Sutro, the first Jewish mayor of San Francisco as being a forgery.


1898: Among the soldiers who completed their service today when the 3rd Virginia Volunteer Infantry was “was mustered out of the U.S. Service were Private, Lewis M. Moses from Charlottesville, Corporal Abraham Cohen of Petersburg, Private William Goldsmith from Fredericksburg, Hiram C. Rosenbaum of Abingdon and Private August Hahn of Baltimore, MD.


1899:The twentieth annual meeting of the Directors of the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society was held today. Samuel D. Levy, President of the Board of Trustees, read his annual report, which included the report of the Treasurer for the fiscal year just ended. The income from bequests and membership fees was $102,911.19, and the disbursements $102,725.52.


1899: Rabbi Samuel Schulman delivered a talk today entitled “Zangwill’s Children of the Ghetto, an Incomplete Picture of Jews and Judaism.”


1900: In Red Bank, NJ, “Jennie Elizabeth (née Tim) and Charles Emanual Schafer” gave birth to the eldest of their three children, Natalie Schafer whose most famous role was that of Eunice Howell who, along with her husband Thurston Howell, made up the snobby rich couple on the sit-com “Gilligan’s Island”


1902: Herzl's London representative, Leopold Greenberg, met Lord Cromer, British Counsel-General in Egypt, and Egyptian prime minister Boutros Ghali Pasha. He succeeded in winning them over to the Zionist cause.


1902: “In the small town of Lagow,in the Opatow district of Radom in what is now Poland” Abraham and Sara Gitel Salesburg gave birth to Joseph Baruch (J.B.) Salesberg who at the age of 11 settled in Toronto with his family where he eventually pursued a political career that included serving as being a member of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario.



1902:  Birthdate of Boruch Minewitz the native of the Ukraine who gained fame as harmonica great and actor Borrah Minevitch, leader of The Harmonic Rascals.



1905: As violence continues to rock Russia and Jews throughout the Empire from Moscow, to Odessa to Bessarabia continue to live in fear off further attack by mobs many of whom are egged on the police and the army, twenty people were killed and another eighty were injured in Kremechug.


1905: From Riga, United States Consul Bornholdt telegraphed the U.S. Chargé d'affaires in St. Petersburg saying “that the situation was extremely serious” and “demanding military protection”


1905: An appeal arrived from George R. Martin, the American Consular Agent at Rostoff-on-Don asking for military protection due to the detonating situation.


1905: “A private telegram from St. Petersburg” arrived in Berlin saying there have been massacres of Jews in Odessa, Kiev, Kishinev, Saratoff, Kazan, Minsk, Tomsk, Theodosia, Jaroslav, Mariupol, Elizabethgrad “and many other city” with an “enormous numbers of persons murdered” and “incalculable property loss.”


1905: A tour today of Odessa today showed that “the poorer Jewish quarters suffered the worst” damage while with few exception the Russian shops painted with crosses and ikons “were untouched.”


1905: At an overflow meeting held on the third floor of Clinton Hall, Joseph Barondess paid tribute to the memory of the Secretary of State Hay who had stopped the first outbreak of violence against the Jews of Kiev while the attendees “decided that working people all over the United States should, on a day yet to be selected, cease their work and gather to listen to addresses and pass resolutions of protects in order to call the attention of the civilized world to the wholesale killing of Jews in Russia.”


1905: Tonight, “at the Sixty-seventh Street Synagogue, a large gathering of Jews denounced the massacres in Russia” and made plans “to take definite steps to protest in the name of the Jews of America and civilization against conditions prevailing in Russia and to raise contributions for the widows and orphans of those slain.”


1909: The Turkish Ministry of Interior asked the Council of State to accelerate the passage of immigration laws. On the same day several hundred Jewish recruits presented themselves for enrollment in the Turkish Army.


1910: It was reported today that Alfred M. Heinsheimer has donated one million dollars to the New York Foundation, a non-sectarian organization he founded “to promote charitable, educational and philanthropic enterprises.  The one million dollars had been a bequest from the late Louis A. Heinsheimer, which, according to his will, was supposed to be left to 6 existing Jewish charities if they could come together and form one common federation within two years.  When they failed to do so, under the terms of the will, the money then went to Alfred.  Alfred was so intent on fulfilling his brother’s wish of creating a Jewish Federation, that he said he would waive his claim to the money if five of the charities would come together.  They failed to do so and Alfred acted in a manner consistent with his brother’s generosity.


1911: After declaring war on the Ottoman Empire on September 29, 1911, Italy annexed Tripoli and Cyrenaica marking the end of 350 years of Ottoman rule. There were approximately 20,000 Jews living there at the time.  Over the next twenty years, the Jewish population would increase as Italian Jews made their way to this area which is known as Libya.  While one source describes this “as a golden age for Libya’s Jews” others note the clashes that took place between the native population and their co-religionists who came with the Italian conquerors.


 1912: Woodrow Wilson was elected President, defeating Progressive Republican Theodore Roosevelt and incumbent Republican William Howard Taft.  Wilson appointed Louis Brandeis to the Supreme Court.  Brandeis was the first Jew appointed to the high court.


1912: Oscar Straus who was running on both the Progressive and Independence League tickets lost his bid to be elected Governor of New York.


1912: Maxim Birnkraut was elected to the New York State Legislature.


1912: Simon L. Adler of Rochester, NY was re-elected as a member of the State Legislature.


1912: Morris J. Speiser of Philadelphia, PA, was elected to the State Legislature today.


1912: Joseph Rabinowitz was elected Mayor of Woodbine, NJ.


1912: Sigmund J. Gans of Philadelphia, PA, was elected to the State Legislature today.


1912: Jacob Frohlich of New Haven, CT, was elected to the State Legislature today.


1912: Mark Goldberg of New York City was re-elected to the State Legislature.


1912: Henry M. Goldfogle, of New York City was re-elected to the State Legislature.


1912: Isaac Gordon of Boston, Mass, was elected to the State Legislature.


1912: Abraham Greenberg of New York City was elected to the State Legislature.


1912: Maurice Caro of Boston, MA was elected to the State Legislature.


1912: Morris Bernstein of Cleveland, Ohio, was elected State Senator today.


1912: P.C. Cohn of Sacramento, CA was elected to the State Legislature


1912: In Pittsburgh, PA. Adolph Edlis was re-elected Treasure of the School Board.


1912: Mark Eisner of New York City was elected to the State Assembly.


1912: Henry Elgart of Colchester, CT was elected to the State Legislature.


1912: In Rhode Island, Jacob A. Eaton was elected to the State Legislature.


1912: Sam B. Bradner of Benson, AZ was elected as member of the State Constitutional Convention and the State Legislature.


1912: Aaron J. Levy and Jefferson M. Levy both of New York City were re-elected to the State Legislature.


1912: Max Levy of Newport, R.I., was elected to the State Legislature.


1912: Joseph Leonard of Boston, Mass, was elected to the State Legislature.


1912: Sim Leopold of Phoenix, LA, was elected to the State Legislature.


1912: Max M. Neuman of Spokane, Washington, was elected to serve in the State Legislature.


1912: Robert Robinson of Boston, MA, was elected to the State Legislature.


1912(25th of Cheshvan, 5673): Fifty-nine year old Mississippi native Lazarus “Lazar” Schwartz, the son of Jacob Schwartz and Judith Morritz and husband of Sophie Weyl who moved to Texas in the 1880’s before settling in Los Angeles where he owned a grocery store passed away today.


1914: Great Britain declared war on the Ottoman Empire


1914: Birthdate of Alexander Abramovich the native of Moscow who gained fame as Israeli composer Alexander “Sasha” Argov.


1914: Publication of Der Tog(The Day) a Yiddish language newspaper began in New York City with Herman Bernstein as editor and David Shapiro as Publisher


1914: Reverend George Blyth, the Anglican Bishop of Jerusalem who shifted his attempts at conversion from fellow Christians to Jews and Muslims passed away today.


1914: Birthdate of Salomon Gluck, the Swiss born French physician who served in the Resistance and who was murdered by the Nazis along with the other victims aboard the infamous Convoy 73.


1915: “A Munich dispatch to the Vossische Zeitung says that the regulation against Jews becoming officer in the Bavarian Army has been modified.”


1915: Birthdate of Martin Dannenberg the native of Baltimore, MD who served as chairman of the Sun Life Insurance Company and who, while serving with Patton’s Third Army who “discovered an original copy of the Nuremberg Laws signed by Adolf Hitler.”


1916: At Carnegie Hall, Rabbi Stephen S. Wise delivered an address entitled “How Ought I To Vote” in which he “denounced hyphenism in all its phases”


1916: “Rabbi Samuel Schulman delivered a pre-election nonpartisan sermon” this “morning at Temple Beth-El called “Before the Ark of the American Covenant” in which he “likened the act of voting to the annual visit made by the high priest into the innermost sanctuary of the Jewish temple to the presence of the Ark which contained the tablets of testimony” but also decried the political activity of ministers in partisan politics which meant he would not tell anybody for whom he was going to vote.


1916: “Rabbi J.L. Magnes, who was sent to the occupied portions of Poland and Lithuania to study the condition of the Jews” in those countries “and the distribution of relief sent from America told a graphic story of the hardships he had seen at meeting” tonight “of representatives of the American Jewish Relief Committee, the Central Relief Committee and the People’s Relief Committee” during which he predicted that if the war last three or four years, “the Jewish race” will waste away and “there will be very few left.” (Editor’s Note: With all of the emphasis on the Holocaust, we tend to lose sight of the desperate conditions faced by the Jews of Eastern Europe during WW I.)


1917: In Buchanan v. Warley,The Supreme Court unanimously agreed to strike down as unconstitutional a Louisville KY ordinance that made it unlawful for any white or black person to move into and occupy as a residence any house upon any block upon which a greater number of houses were occupied by persons of the opposite color. A white property owner challenged the statute on the ground that it impaired his ability to sell his house, which was situated in an exclusively white neighborhood, to a prospective black buyer. The court held that the statute deprived the white homeowner of his right to dispose of his property without due process of law. The Court reasoned that he should be able to dispose of his property to any prospective purchaser, regardless of race.This was the first race case in which the newly-appointed Justice Brandeis participated and it was perceived by the public at the time to represent a fairly dramatic victory for the cause of Civil Right.  While African Americans and their supporters were pleased with the outcome, it drew the ire of many whites.


1917: Thirty-one year old Rabbi David Goldberg of Corsicana was named today by Secretary Josephus Daniels as “the first Jewish Chaplain of the U.S. Navy” with the rank of Lieutenant Junior Grade.


1918: “Fires On Italy’s Hills Told of Trieste’s Fall” published described the Italian reaction to the occupation of Trieste which fell “on the feast day of San Juste, the patron saint of Trieste, that all of the population including the Jews, used to celebrate under Austrian rule as a patriotic demonstration of their Italian nationality. (Editor’s note – the idea of Jews recognizing a saint’s day does have a strange sound to it.)


1919(12th of Cheshvan, 5680): Seventy-one year old Polish born, American rabbi and Bible translator who was rumored to have converted to Christianity and then returning to Judaism (something he denied) and of whom the Nation News Archive wrote, “his life work, represented by eleven substantial volumes dedicated to the elucidation of the Scriptures, merits the grateful appreciation of all those to whom the Bible is an integral part of human civilization.:http://americanjewisharchives.org/publications/journal/PDF/1971_23_01_00_stern.pdf


1920: Rabbi I. Mortimer Bloom is scheduled to deliver a sermon this evening on “The Wandering Jew – Fact and Fiction” at the Hebrew Tabernacle at Broadway.


1920: Dr. M.H. Harris is scheduled to deliver a sermon this evening on “Pilgrim’s Landing Tercentenary – Puritan and Jew” at Temple Israel in Harlem.


1923: Following the collapse of the German mark, several thousand impoverished German descended upon Berlin’s Scheunenviertel district, inhabited principally by Ostjudent (Eastern Jews) and for two days beat hundreds of Jews and ransacked nearly a thousand Jewish shops before police managed to put an end to the violence.


1923(26th of Cheshvan, 5684): Pittsburgh, PA attorney and Spanish American War veteran Alfred Cahen passed away today.


1924: Jesse H. Metcalf who as early as June of 1933 would join in the attack on the Nazi treatment of the Jews when he declared “We as a nation can only declare the existence of racial or religious prejudice to be untenable as a national ideal” was elected to the United States from Rhode Island, a position he would hold until 1937.


1926: In London, Stanley Berger, “a non-observant Jew and winner of the Military Cross in WW I  who converted to Catholicism” and his wife Miriam gave birth to multi-talented John Peter Berge, the author of the novel G which won the Man Booker Prize for Fiction in 1972.


1928: In “Gangsters Shoot Arnold Rothstein” published today in The Atlanta Constitution reported that the “notorious gangster” is “in serious condition after an attack on a New York Street.”


1928: “An exhibition of paintings, etchings and sculptures by Jewish artists” including works by Joseph Hecht, Hermann N. Struck and Joseph Topper opened tonight “under the auspices of the Women’s Committee of the Central Synagogue at the Community House on East 62nd Street.”


1930: In Marburg, Germany, historian Wilhelm Mommsen and his wife gave birth to historians Theodor and Hans Mommsen, the latter of which has specialized in studies of the role of Hitler, the Nazis and the German people in the Holocaust.


1930: In New York, Jay Irving, a cover artist for Collier’s magazine and “the creator of the syndicated comic strip Potts and his wife gave birth to Clifford Irving who was best known for his creation of a phony auto-biography of Howard Hughes.



1931: In the Flatbush section of Brooklyn, former Ann Seidlitz and William Herzenberg gave birth to Leonard Arthur Herzenberg, the Nobel Prize winning immunologist. (As reported by Douglas Martin)



1931:Rufus Daniel Isaacs, 1st Marquess of Reading completed his service as Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs


1933:Dr. Judah L. Magnes, Chancellor of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem announced a program of expansion which will provide fourteen posts for former German scholars including Professors Torczyner, Guttman, Koebner, Lewy and Fraenkel


1933: Birthdate of Brooklyn born actor Herbert Edelman who appeared on stage, in movies and in television with such skill that he “was twice nominated for and Emmy.”



1934: “The Gumps” a radio comedy written by Irwin Shaw and directed by Himan Brown was broadcast for the last time on WGN after which it was broadcast by CBS until the summer of 1937.


1936: “A few hours after” Earl Peel and the members of the Royal Commission left for Jerusalem, “W. G. A. Ormsby-Gore, Secretary of State for Colonies announced one of the most sweeping reductions ever made in the number of Jewish labor immigrants to Palestine” sayings “that for the next six months a maximum of only 1,800 labor certificated would be issued” as compared with the 4,500 issued in April before the Arab riots began.


1936: In Bucharist, King Carol received a memorandum from Corneliu Zelea Cordeanu, the leader of the fascist Iron Guard, who had assassinated Premier Ion Duce and other liberal politicians threatening the King with death while declaring that Rumanian youths are opposed to the Little Entente because it is “drenched in the spirit of world Jewry” (The Little Entente was an alliance that was aimed at blocking Hitler’s advances in Central Europe.)


1937(1st of Kislev, 5698): Rosh Chodesh Kislev1937: CBS radio broadcast the last episode of “The Gumps” a radio sitcom based on the comic strip with scripts written by Irwin Shaw.


1937: The Palestine Post reported that an Egged bus driver and two his passengers were wounded when their vehicle was fired on, at the infamous Kilometer 5 of the Jerusalem-Jaffa road. A lone Jewish lorry driver was shot there and wounded. The Egged Bus Company was founded in 1933.  The Hebrew word Egged means “union.” The company was so named because it was formed from the merger of four smaller bus companies.  Today, the Egged Bus Company is the second largest transportation company in the world.


1937: The Palestine Postreported that the Arab terror continued when the Iraqi petroleum pipeline was punctured and set on fire. Shots were fired and a bomb was thrown at the Beisan police station


 


1937: Hitler chairs a secret conference in which he informs the High Command and others of his racial, geopolitical, and military plans to dominate Europe. The conference is recorded by Colonel Friedrich Hossbach and called after him. Hitler lays out the core of his policy to his military leaders. "The aim of the German policy was to make secure and to preserve the racial community and to enlarge it. It was a question of SPACE.""Germany had the right to greater living space...and its future was whole conditional upon the solving of the need for space." Two countries stood in Germany's way: Britain and France. Hitler details a broad plan for war and preparedness against France, Britain, Italy, and Russia, and analysis each country's military and political position. Note that Italy, which would become a willing ally of Hitler, was considered as a possible enemy only two years prior to the start of WW II.  On the one hand Hitler thought that he could gain most of his goals by bluffing the weak, decadent western powers. At the same time, he knew that he would have to defeat England and France so that he could then fight the ultimate war against the Soviets without fear of a two front war.


1938(11th of Cheshvan): Yiddish poet Abraham Liessin passed away.




1938: Walter Krivitsky (“real name Samuel Goldberg) “NKVD agent, defected to the United States.


1938: Gershom Bader’s seventieth birthday is scheduled to celebrate this evening with a dinner hosted by the Federation of Polish Jews in America at Central Plaza.


1938: In Cairo, at the Egyptian University 2,000 students gathered to denounce “America’s pro-Zionist sympathies” and express their support of “their Moslem brethren in Palestine.”


1940(4th of Cheshvan, 5701): During World War II, as the Greeks fought against the invading Italians Haham Raphael Joseph Antzelou was killed in the Battle of Kalpaki on the Albanian front. Many Jews of Ioannina, a city in northwest Greece, fought on the Albanian front. The chief of staff of the Greek forces said of them, "The Greek Jews fulfilled their duty in full measure."


1941: Birthdate of Kay Leipzig, an ayshis chayel in the truest sense of the word.


1941: “Blithe Spirit” opened today at the Morosco Theatre, five days before a special benefit performance for the scholarship fund of the Neighborhood Playhouse of the Theatre founded by Irene Lewisohn in 1928.


1941: Birthdate of singer and songwriter Art Garfunkel.


 1941(15th of Cheshvan, 5702): Seventeen thousand Jews are killed outside Rovno, Ukraine.


1942(25th of Cheshvan, 5703): The Nazis deported the last 1,800 Jews from Ciechanow, Poland.  Jews had lived in the town since the middle of the sixteenth century. During the deportation an SS man politely asks a Jewish woman to hand him her baby. When she complies, the trooper smashes the baby to the street headfirst, killing it. Some of the deportees took part in the uprising at Auschwitz.  Approximately 100 people from the town survived the war but they did not try to restore their community.


1942: Jewish men from Stopnica, Poland, are sent to a slave-labor camp at Skarzysko-Kamienna, while 400 old people and children are shot in the town cemetery. Three thousand others are put on a forced march; many are shot along the way, and survivors are sent to Treblinka.


1942: Peasants in Siedliszcze, Poland, gather scythes in anticipation of the day's roundup of Jews, for which they'll be paid for each Jew caught.


 1942: Six hundred Jews from Borislav, Poland, are deported naked to prevent resistance.


 1942: In France, 745 Jews, including 35 residents of the Rothschild Old Age Home, are deported from Paris to Auschwitz. After arrival, Jews awaiting entry into the gas chamber spy a truck loaded with corpses but continue on to their deaths


1942: Over the next six days, 1060 Greece-born Jews in and around Paris are seized and deported to Auschwitz Bernhard Lichtenberg, the anti-Nazi priest whom among other things  prayed daily from his pulpit in the St Hedwig Cathedral for the both Jews and Jewish Christians as well as other victims of the regime.


1942:Manfred Silberwasser, Leo Bretholz and a thousand others were deported on convoy 42, operated by the state-owned railway, the Société Nationale des Chemins de fer Français, or S.N.C.F which was headed for Auschwitz and from which the two escaped by prying loose the bars of a small window and jumping while on a curved stretch of rail somewhere in eastern France.


1942: The Gestapo arrested Regina Jonas, the first woman ordained as a rabbi and deported her to Theresienstadt


.1942: Birthdate of Richie Scheinblum Bronx-born outfielder for the Kansas City Royals. Scheinblum became the only Jewish switch-hitter (and 7th switch-hitter total) to bat .300 during a full season.


 1943: While waiting to be deported to Dachau, 67 year old Bernhard Lichtenberg, the anti-Nazi priest whom among other things prayed daily from his pulpit in the St Hedwig Cathedral for the both Jews and Jewish Christians as well as other victims of the regime died today.


1943: Gertrude Luckner, a Christian social worker involved in the German resistance to Nazism, was arrested by the Gestapo before she could transfer funds destined for the last Jews of Berlin and imprisoned at Ravensbruck concentration camp.


1943(7th of Cheshvan, 5704): Operation "Harvest Festival" continued at Poniatowa as 15,000 Jews were killed in one day.   The children of the Siaulia Ghetto in Lithuania were deported to Birkenau and perished. The Nazis murdered 17,000 prisoners at Majdanek.


1944: In Manhattan, columnist Leonard Lyons and his wife Sylvia gave birth movie and t.v. critic Jeffrey Lyons




1945: This evening, following a second of anti-Jewish rioting in several Libyan cities, “the British authorities, who had been in control of Libya since the defeat of the German-Italian forces there in 1943, imposed a curfew.”  The curfew failed to halt the violence which would continue unabated for at least two more days.


1947: It was learned today that “with prolonged debate, and possibly a deadlock, threatening in the Palestine question, plans are being prepared to keep the Special Palestine Committee of the United Nations General Assembly in session, if necessary, after the other delegates go home.”


1948: “Ben Gurion reported his cabinet: Jerusalem has as yet hardly enjoyed one night of quiet.’”


1948: Israeli forces retake Yad Mordecai from the Egyptians.


1948: The Provisional State Council, the body that temporarily governed Israel until January of 1949, decided that the Constituent Assembly (later called the Knesset) would have 120 members.


1948: In Béni Saf, French Algeria, millionaire businessman André Lévy and his wife gave birth to Bernard-Henri Levy author of Who Killed Daniel Pearl?



1950: NBC broadcast the first episode of the popular radio program “The Big Show” which owed much of its success to the scripts of Goodman Ace and Selma Diamond.


1950: Chaya and Yehezkel Bornstien, have found refuge in the Rosh Pina ma'abara immigrant transit camp. Both are natives of Lodz, Poland; both escaped to the Soviet Union before the Nazis entered their hometown, and managed to survive the Holocaust. Now they are on a quest to find their daughter Lusia whom they had sent the Zionist Coordination for the Redemption of Jewish Children when they were still living in post-war Poland because of economic duress and the outbreak of anti-Semitic violence as typified by the pogrom at Kielce.


1951: Yaakov Hazan of Mapam said in the Knesset: "Nazism is rearing its ugly head again in Germany, and our so-called Western 'friends' are nurturing that Nazism; they are resurrecting Nazi Germany.... Our army, the Israel Defense Forces, will be in the same camp as the Nazi army, and the Nazis will begin infiltrating here not as our most terrible enemies, but rather as our allies


1953: Armed Jordanians murdered a guard in a nighttime attack upon a post along the railway track north of Hadera in the coastal plain.


1953 U.S. premiere of “How To Marry A Millionaire,” a comedy co-starring Lauren Bacall, a cousin of Shimon Peres and future convert to Judaism Marilyn Monroe featuring a score conducted by Alfred Newman.


1955: “Man with the Gun” a Western produced by Samuel Goldwyn, Jr. was released in the United States today.


1956:  During the Sinai Campaign, British and French troops land at the Suez Canal and move south under the pretext of protecting the canal from the warring Egyptians and Israelis.  The Anglo-French force meets a political defeat when the Eisenhower Administration immediately pressures its two NATO allies to promise to remove the troops without delay.  At the same time, the Soviets remind the Israelis that they have missiles capable of hitting the Jewish state with nuclear warheads.  In trying to evaluate the situation Ben Gurion dispatches Golda Meir and Shimon Peres to see if the French will stand by the Israelis if the Soviets move to intervene.  This is another example of Jewish history being played out against a much larger tapestry of world events; in this case the Cold War between the East and the West and the conflict between third world nationalism and European colonialism.


1959: Paddy Chayefsky’s “The Tenth Man” opened on Broadway.


1960: “The Plunderers” a cowboy movie directed and produced by Joseph Pevney, starring Jeff Chandler and with music by Leonard Rosenman was released in the United States today.


1967: The last of Aden's Jews arrived in Israel marking the end of this ancient Jewish community.


1967: Igal Pazi who lost “his right leg below the knee” when he “stepped on a foot mine” while fighting on the Golan during the Six Days War and Judith Cohen-Aloro who was his nurse while he was being treated at the Rambam hospital at Haifa, were married today.


1967: “The Incident” a thriller directed by Larry Peerce, the son of opera singer Jan Peerce and featuring Jack Gilford was released today in the United States.


1968: Six people, including 2 Jews and 4 Arabs, three of whom were children were injured today at the Tomb of the Patriarchs.


1968: Republican Richard M. Nixon won the presidency, defeating Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey and third-party candidate George C. Wallace.  From the perspective of Jewish history, Nixon’s shining moment came when he ordered the re-supply of Israeli forces during the Yom Kippur War in 1973.  According to some experts, without this, the Israelis well might have been defeated and the state of Israel destroyed. Of course, it was the Nixon Administration that had told the Israelis they could not mount a pre-emptive strike or mobilize their forces when intelligence reports provided unquestionable evidence that the Egyptians were on the verge of attack.  The massive re-supply effort would not have been needed because the Egyptians would have been crushed before the crossing the Canal and the Syrians would never have acted on their own. On the other hand, Nixon had made begun his rise to political power as part of the right wing of the Republican Party which hid a streak of anti-Semitism behind its domestic Red Hunting policies.  Also, Nixon’s voice as captured on his White House tapes portrayed a man haunted by anti-Semitism and a belief in Jewish conspiracies.


1974: Richard Stone was elected to the U.S. Senate from Florida


1975(1st of Kislev, 5736): Rosh Chodesh Kislev


1975(1st of Kislev, 5736): American author and critic Lionel Trilling passed away at the age of 70.



1975: In Jerusalem, Meira Diskin and Jacob Shaham gave birth pianist Orli Shaham, the sister of violinist Gil Shaham and the wife of conductor David Robertson.


1977(24th of Cheshvan, 5738): Parashat Chayei Sara


1977(24th of Cheshvan, 5738): Fifty-one year old cartoonist René Goscinny, the co-creator of Astérix,passed away today in his native Paris.





1979: “Caricaturist Al Hirschfeld and the late S. J. Perelman are among the recipients of the Mayor’s Awards of Honor for Arts and Culture” scheduled to be honored tonight at the American Museum of Natural History.


1979(15th of Cheshvan, 5740): Al Capp the cartoonist who created the comic strip Lil' Abner passed away at the age of 70.  The eastern Jew created the imaginary hillbilly community of Dog Patch complete with Ma and Pa Yokum, Daisy Mae, Marryin’ Sam, and the ever popular Schmoos (rhymes with Schmooze and reminds one of the descriptions of manna in the Bible).



1981: “Eighty Hebrew teachers in Moscow, some of whom were under constant surveillance, were individually ordered to stop teaching.


1981(8th of Cheshvan, 5742): Eighty-year old Irving J. Pozen, the husband of Berte Pozen and the father of Walter Pozen and Marilyn Krinzman who “was an executive for the B.V.D. Corporation and International Ship Suppliers of Hoboken, NJ” before serving “as director of procurement for the Job Corps from 1961 to 1968” passed away today Suburban Hospital in Bethesda, MD.


1984(10th of Cheshvan, 5745):The Hon. Ivor Goldsmid Samuel Montagu  a British filmmaker, screenwriter, producer, film critic, writer, table tennis player and apparent Soviet spy passed away.



1987(13th of Cheshvan, 5748): Elimelekh Rimalt passed away. A native of Galicia, he was an ordained Rabbi who earned a PhD in psychology.  He made Aliyah in 13.  A member of the Knesset fro Likud, he served as Minister of the Postal Services in 1969 and 1970.


1989 (7th of Cheshvan, 5750):  Pianist Vladimir Horowitz passed away at the age of 85. (As reported by Bernard Holland)



1989: In “The Legends of Kibbutz Country,” published today Mathew Nevisky describes the role that the Jezreel Valley has played in Jewish History and the efforts that have been made to preserve the history of this unique part of ancient and modern Israel.  The article reads in part, “Overseen by the brooding heights of Mount Tabor and Mount Gilboa, the Jezreel Valley resonates with memories of ancient Israelite kings and warrior-judges. In modern times, the same area was the scene of the Zionist movement's pioneering efforts in land reclamation, agriculture and self-defense. To Israelis these achievements, and the people of the Jezreel, like Moshe Dayan, have almost mythic significance. Accordingly, the Jezreel is dotted with almost as many museums devoted to the founding of modern Israel as it is with archeological sites revealing the biblical past. To the foreign visitor, who too often is shunted around the valley to the flashier tourist sites in Galilee or along the coast, the Jezreel heartland offers insight into another aspect of Israel.”


1990 (17th of Cheshvan, 5751): Meir Kahane was murdered by an Arab terrorist.



1991(28th of Cheshvan, 5752): Robert Maxwell passed away at the age of 68. Born Ján Ludvík Hoch in pre-war Czechoslovakia, Maxwell became a British media magnate.



1993: “Flesh and Bone” produced by Mark Rosenberg and Paula Weinstein and co-starring James Caan and Gwyneth Paltrow was released in the United States today.


1993: The family of Hannah Szenes living in Israel was informed today that a Hungarian military court convened after the fall of the Communist regime had officially exonerated her.


1995: President Clinton is scheduled to leave today for Jerusalem where he will attend the funeral of Prime Minister Rabin.


1995(12th of Cheshvan, 5756): Eighty-eight year old “percussionist and drum teacher” Max Abrams, the Glasgow native who was “regarded as one of Britain’s foremost drum teachers” and the author of “50 jazz tutor books” passed away today.


1995: “Assassination In Israel” published today described the reaction of American leaders including President Clinton and former Secretary of State Warren Christopher to the murder of Prime Minister Rabin.



1996: United States President Bill Clinton defeats Republican challenger Robert J. Dole and Reform party candidate H. Ross Perot to become the first democratic president since Franklin Roosevelt to win a second term in office. Three of the major events of Clinton’s second term centered around Jews.  The first was the Monica Lewinsky Scandal.  The second was the Camp David Peace initiative that Clinton mounted in 2000.  The meetings between Ehud Barak and Yassar Arafat failed to produce a peace treaty; a failure for which Clinton blamed Arafat.  The third was the pardon of Marc Rich issued on Clinton’s last day in office.  In one of those ironies of life, Rich was represented by Lewis “Scooter” Libby.  Libby, who was Jewish would end up being denied a pardon by President Bush for his role in the case of Valier Plame; a denial that would cause a public split between Bush and Dick Cheney.


1996: The Coming Street Cemetery, the Charleston South Carolina burial site that is one of the oldest in the United States having been founded in 1762 was listed on the National Register of Historic Places today.


1997(5th of Cheshvan, 5758):  Isaiah Berlin passed away at the age of 88 (As reported by Marilyn Berger)




1999(26th of Cheshvan, 5760): Sixty-seven year old collapsed today in the House of Lords and “was pronounced dead in the ambulance” taking him to the hospital.




1999: A.M. Rosenthal wrote the last of his twice-weekly “On My Mind” columns today entitle “Please Read This Column” which was the name of the first of these columns written in 1987.



1999: “The Insider” a film based on The Man Who Knew Too Muchby Marie Brenner, directed and produced by Michael Mann who wrote the screenplay with Eric Roth was released in the United States today.


1999: “The Bone Collector” a thriller produced by Martin and Michael Bregman was released in the United States today.


2000:The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or about topics of Jewish interest including The Bialy Eaters: The Story of a Bread and a Lost World by Mimi Sheraton


2000: Susa Berman, the daughter of Las Vegas David Berman wrote to Robert Durst (who would later be charged with her murder) “expressing the hope that her financial entreaties would not ruin their friendship.”


2002: After over 20 years in elected public life, Linda Lingle was elected as Hawaii’s first female and first Jewish governor on. Lingle and former Vermont Governor Madeleine Kunin are the only Jewish women governors in U.S. history.


2003: At a Jewish forum in New York City, George Soros “partially attributed a resurgence in anti-Semitism to the policies of the Bush administration and the Sharon administration” as well as the perception that “Jews rule the world” based on his role in affairs.


2005:  Haaretz and The Jerusalem Post reported that the Secretary General of the United Nations had canceled his upcoming trip to Iran.  The canceled trip was another manifestation of the international community’s disgust with Iran’s call for the destruction of the state of Israel.  How long this expression of goodwill towards the Jewish state will last is unknown.  But for now, at least, Israel bashing is not a “cool” thing to do.


2006: The New York TimesSunday book section features a review of David Mamet’s, The Wicked Son: Anti-Semitism, Self-Hatred, and the Jews.


2006: Under the title “His devils made him do it,” Jeffrey Meyers reviewed Isaac B. Singer: A Life by Florence Noiville, translated from the French by Catherine Temerson.


2006: Under the title “The Altered States,” The Times of London reviewed American Vertigo: On the Road from Newport to Guantanamo by Bernard-Henri Levy, the biographer of Daniel Pearl.


2006:  Opening of the 10th Annual Dayton Jewish Book Fair.


2006: Yuli Tamir named acting Science and Technology Minister.


2007:Jerome Groopman, a physician at Harvard Medical School, discusses How Doctors Thinkat the Sixth & I Historic Synagogue (formerly Adas Israel Synagogue) in Washington, D.C.


2007: In a Time magazine article entitled “The Genius Who Wanted to Be a Hack” Lev Grossman reviews Gentlemen of the Road by Michael Chabon.


2007(24th of Cheshvan, 5768): Eighty-eight year Dr. Michael Solomons  “a distinguished gynecologist, a pioneer of family planning in Ireland and a veteran of the 1983 constitutional amendment campaign” who was the second son of Gertrude Levy and Dr. Bethel Solomons  passed away today.



2007: In Canada, the Quebec Human Rights Tribunal decided that a Jewish hospital must pay $15,000 to female workers denied shifts.


2008: New York premiere of “The Little Traitor.”  “Based on Panther in the Basement by world-renowned novelist, Amos Oz, this beautiful story of an implausible friendship between an amiable British soldier and a spirited, 11-year-old Israeli militant who wants the occupying imperialists off his land takes place just a few months before Israel achieves independent statehood. When Proffy Liebowitz meets British officer Sergeant Dunlop, he's reprimanded for roaming the streets after dark and breaking curfew. They later become friends, but town officials soon learn of their secret and accuse the boy of being a traitor. The ensuing events will forever change their respective outlook on life.”


2008: Following a successful run on Broadway, Jake Ehrenreich’s “A Jew Grows in Brooklyn has its Chicagoland” premier at the North Shore Center for the Performing Arts.


2008: English author Michael Rosen “was presented with an Honorary master’s degree at the University of Worcester.”


2008: The New Republicmagazine includes reviews of The Life and Thought of Hans Jonas: Jewish Dimensions by Christian Wiese and Memoirs by Hans Jonas; edited by Christian Wiese and translated by Krishna Winston.


2008: Today, one day after the Presidential elections ABC named Jake Tapper “Senior White House Correspondent.”


2009: “Ambassadors and diplomats from 44 countries, military attaches from 27 armies in the world, and the international media were invited by the IDF and the Foreign Ministry to show them the weapons and munitions seized from the Francop ship.”


2009: The 40th Annual Book Festival sponsored by the JCC of Greater Washington opens with presentations by Steve Roberts, author of From Every End of This Earth and Peter Yarrow author of Day is Done.


2010:A Free Tour of Herodian in Honor/Memory of Ehud Netzer z"l the famous archeologist who passed away on October 28 is scheduled to take place in Jerusalem


2010:A new documentary, “Jews and Baseball, an American Love Story,” which opened today in New York, is a film that largely succeeds at telling the story of a great American people (the Jews that is) via the tale of a great American pastime. It may not be a grand slam, but it’s at least a double. (As reported by Jordana Horn)



2010: Agudas Achim in Iowa City is scheduled to host its annual New Comers’ Shabbat Dinner


2010:  Friends and family share in the joy of Kay Leipzig’s birthday.


2010: It was reported today that “new findings contradict the conventional belief that Italians began to enforce anti-Semitic laws only after German troops occupied the country in 1943, and then reluctantly. In a spate of studies, many of them based on a little-publicized Italian government report commissioned in 1999, researchers have uncovered a vast wartime record detailing a systematic disenfranchisement of Italy’s Jews, beginning in the summer of 1938, shortly before the Kristallnacht attacks in November....


Ilaria Pavan, a scholar at the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa, said a series of incrementally more onerous laws in 1939 and 1940 revoked peddlers’ permits and shopkeepers’ licenses, and required Jewish owners of businesses — as well as stock or bond holders — to sell those assets to “Aryans.” Bank accounts were ordered turned over to government authorities, ostensibly to prevent the transfer of money out of the country. There is little record of the sums involved in the confiscations and forced sales of Jewish-held property between 1938 and 1943, said Ms. Pavan, who was a member of the official government commission charged with investigating the anti-Semitic plundering. But between 1943 and 1945, when the Italian government was under the direct supervision of German overseers, the looting of property of Jewish Italian citizens and Jewish refugees who had fled to Italy in hopes of sanctuary, she said, totaled almost $1 billion in today’s values....



2010: The New York Times featured a review of “I Remember Nothing And Other Reflections: by Nora Ephron.



2011: Nadina Wintraub (piano), Yelena Tishin (violin), Avraham Leventhal (viola) and Dmitry Golderman (cello) are scheduled to perform “Favorite Piano Quarters” as part of The Best of Chamber Music program at Edin-Tamar Music Center.


2011: Opening night of the 6th Annual JCC of Northern Virginia Book Festival


2011: Remembrance Shabbat is observed at Temple Judah in Cedar Rapids commemorating three major November Events: The Balfour Declaration, Kristallnacht and the UN vote approving partition which created the Jewish State.


2011(8th of Cheshvan): Yahrzeit of Avraham Elimelch ben Yosef Dov, whose nickname was Melech and whose English name was Abraham Levin, of blessed memory.


2011: As Jews read Lech-Lecha, will any Rabbi deliver a sermon tying the ancient words from Bereshit with the anniversary of the Balfour Declaration which was observed 3 days ago?


2011:Israel Defense Forces aircraft struck targets in the southern Gaza Strip this evening, thwarting an attempt by Islamic Jihad to launch a rocket into Israel.


2011:"It will take a year, two years, but I will return. I will never leave you again." These words were written by missing IAF navigator Ron Arad, whose plane was shot down over Lebanon in 1986, to his wife Tami and his daughter Yuval. Arad's diaries were obtained by Channel 2 and shown today. He most likely wrote them during his first weeks in captivity. The notes were written on pages ripped from books Arad's captors gave him. "To my dearest of all, Tami and Yuval, I am trying to forget you because I get a lump on my throat with every memory," he wrote. "I love you, and you are the only reason keeping me from thinking about the worst of all. I promise you this at least: I will return. A year, two years – I will never leave you again, even if I have to stop flying. We will have a warm and loving and good home like we never had." Arad writes to his wife Tami: "I had a dream about you last night. It was wonderful. We both met on the grass after a long workday and talked as usual, and I was with you again. I woke up in a sweat, but it gave me a few minutes of happiness." Arad's letters remained in Lebanon for 20 years. They were returned to Israel three years ago as part of a swap deal with Hezbollah (in which Israel received the bodies Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser). In some of the letters Arad wrote the address of his parents' house in Hod Hasharon, suggesting he believed his captors would mail them to his loved ones


2012: The Palestinians will press ahead with a bid to upgrade their status at the United Nations, a senior official said today, brushing off a request by Israel to halt the initiative.Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has renewed his call for an immediate resumption of peace talks and has warned Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas against making any unilateral moves in the UN General Assembly. (Jerusalem Post)


2012: The UJA-Federation of New York released $10 million in Hurricane Sandy emergency relief aid to its network agencies and synagogues this morning (As reported by JTA)


2012: Microsoft launched its Windows 8 smartphones in Israel today


2012: At the University of Chicago, Professor Hanna Holbron Gray is scheduled to deliver a lecture entitled “European Émigré Scholars and the American Academy After 1933."


2012: “Coffee and Conversation for Holocaust Survivors” is scheduled to take place the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center in Skokie, Illinois.


2012: The Jewish Genealogical Society of the Conejo Valley and Ventura County (JGSCV) is scheduled to present: "From the Spanish Inquisition to the Present: A Search for Jewish Roots"


2013: The five day bike ride sponsored by the Arava Institute Hazon that began in Jerusalem is scheduled to end today in Eilat.


2013: Retire Ambassador Daniel C. Kurtzer, the S. Daniel Abraham Professor in Middle East Policy Studies at the Woodrow Wilson School of Princeton University is scheduled to talk about the conflicts in the Middle East at the San Diego Jewish Book Fair.


2013: In London, the Pears Institute For The Study Of Anti-Semitism is scheduled to sponsor by Professor Philip Spencer on “The Recurrence of Genocide Since the Holocaust.”


2013: US Secretary of State John Kerry arrived in Israel this evening and visited Rabin Square in Tel Aviv, the location of Prime Minister Yizhak Rabin's murder on November 4, 1995. "I can promise Israelis that America will stand by the side of Israel every step of the way," Kerry said. (As reported by Gilad Morag)


2013: Residents in 38 municipalities – from the tiny town of Migdal, near Tiberias, to Petah Tikva – voted today in second-round elections for mayor. (As reported by Henry Rome and Lahav Harkov)


2014: For the first time ever “Cats” is scheduled to be performed in Israel starting today at Tel Aviv’s Charles Bronfman Auditorium.


2014: In Sydney, “Night Will Fall” and “Regarding Susan Sontag” are scheduled to be shown at the Jewish International Film Festival.


2014: Christie’s is scheduled to sell Schiele’s 1910 watercolor “Town on the Blue River,” today in conjunction with a restitution agreement that treats the work as looted art and provides compensation to the heirs of “Fritz Grünbaum, a Viennese cabaret performer whose large art collection was inventoried by Nazi agents after he was sent to the Dachau concentration camp, where he died.”


2014: The Skirball Center is scheduled to host “Israel in the Eyes of the Media: From Menachem Begin to Today.”


2014:Arsonist responsible for setting fire to a kosher supermarket during July 20 riot in Sarcelles was sentenced to four years in prison.” (As reported by Stephanie Butnick)


2014: “Border Police officer Jedan Assad, 38, from Beit Jann, a Druze village the father to a three-year-old boy whose wife is five months pregnant was murdered this moring and 14 others injured when a Hamas terrorist “plowed his vehicle into a crowd of people at a light rail station along the seam-line between East and West Jerusalem” this morning. (As reported by Spencer Ho)


2014: This evening, three soldiers were injured when a vehicle driven by a Hamas terrorist deliberately struck them. (As reported by Ilan Ben Zion)


2014: Results early today showed that Lee Zeldin, a New York State Senator has been elected to the House of Representatives from a district in Long Island making him the only Republican to have been accomplished such a feat, making him Eric Cantor’s replacement for this singular honor.


2015: “Blood” an exhibition that explores this subject through “manuscripts, prints, Jewish ritual and ceremonial objects, art, film, literature and cultural ephemera to present a rich exploration of how blood can unite and divide, reflecting on over 2,000 years of history” is scheduled to open at the Jewish Museum of London.


2015: Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks is scheduled to deliver the keynote address at “Rising Hatred: Confronting Global & Local Anti-Semitism” hosted by the Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center.


2015: “Bringing a message of peace through music, the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra” is scheduled to perform this evening at Carnegie Hall/


2015: “A Borrowed Identity” and “Dough” are scheduled to be shown at the Rutgers Jewish Film Festival.


2015: Funeral services are scheduled to be held in South Bend, Indiana for Harry Portman, the father of Rabbi Jeff Portman.


2016: The 20th UK International Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to open tonight in London with a screening of “Indignation” which will be attended by director James Schamus.


2016: “Big: The Musical” featuring music by David Shire and with a book by John Weidman, the son of Jerome Weidman is scheduled to open at the Theatre Royal Plymouth.


2016: The Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education is scheduled tours of its “Karkomi Holocaust Exhibition.”


2016(4thof Cheshvan, 5777):  Parahat Noach


2016: “Thousands of Israelis were set to gather in central Tel Aviv” this evening ‘for the 21st anniversary marking the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin.”


2016(4th of Cheshvan, 5777): Ninety-three year painter and subject of F.B.I. surveillance Arnold Mesches passed away today. (As reported by William Grimes)




2016: In Toronto, as part of Holocaust Education Week, Jennifer Teege is scheduled to discuss her book, My Grandfather Would Have Shot Me: A Black Woman Discovers Her Family's Nazi Past



2017: The New York Times featured books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including All The Dirty Parts by Daniel Handler and the recently released paperback editions of Hitler: Ascent 1889-1939 by Volker Ullrich as well as a special interview with Walter Isaacson whose biographies included Einstein.


2017: Today, “Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman called on President Reuven Rivlin to pardon Elor Azaria, a former IDF soldier imprisoned for killing an incapacitated Palestinian assailiant in the West Bank” (As reported by Alexander Fulbright and Judah Ari Gross)


2017: Rabbi James Rudin is scheduled to be the guest speaker at the Kristallnacht Commemoration at St. William Catholic Church in Naples, FL.


2017: This morning “police detained two confidants of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for interrogation in the investigation into suspected corruption in the purchase of naval vessels from a German shipbuilder.”(As reported by Alexander Fulbright)


2017: Joan and Dr. Gerald Berenson are scheduled to be honored at the Jewish Community Day School gala which is fundraiser for the school in suburban Metairie, LA.


2017: The 27th Conference of the Society for Crypto-Judaic Studies “Crypto-Judaism in the Americas” is scheduled to open today in Philadelphia, PA.


2018(27thof Cheshvan, 5779): Yahrzeit of Deborah D. Levin, wife of Joseph B. Levin with whom she had three children – Judy, Mitchell and David.


2018: "New Perspectives on Kristallnacht: After 80 Years, the Nazi Pogrom in Global Comparison," a conference “co-organized by the USC Shoah Foundation Center for Advanced Genocide Research and the USC Casden Institute for the Study of the Jewish Role in American Life, and presented in cooperation with the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington D.C., and the Center for Research on Antisemitism at the Technical University Berlin, Germany” is scheduled to continue for a second day with topics including “Kristallnacht – Pogrom or State Terror? A Terminological Reflection.”


2018: The U.S. premiere of “Looking for Zion” a documentary in which Tamara Erde embarks on a journey through the photographs of her grandfather, a Zionist photographer from the 1930s” is scheduled to take place this evening at the 12thAnnual Other Israel Film Festival.


2018: In Ames, IA, a speaker from the U.S Holocaust Memorial Museum is scheduled to deliver two presentations at Iowa State University and one at the Ames Public Library on the topic of “what the American population knew about Nazi Germany and the Holocaust, particularly through newspapers.”


2018: Dr. David Kraemer is scheduled to teach the first class on “Maimonides, The Man and His Genius” at the Streicker Center


2018: The Temple Emanu-El Streicker Center is scheduled to host a screening of “The Hippocratic Oath,” the first in the film series “Claude Lanzmann’s Shoah: Four Sisters.”


2018: As the Jewish community continues to grapple with “Shabbat Slaughter, in Somerville, MA, Havurat Shalom is scheduled to offer a timely program “Ephemeral Meets Eternal: The God/Human Bond.”


 


 

This Day, November 6, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. Levin

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November 6


355: Roman Emperor Constantius II promotes his cousin Julian to the rank of Caesar, entrusting him with the government of the Prefecture of Gaul. Constantius II followed the pro-Christian and anti-Jewish policies of his father, Constantine The Great.  Julian would follow his cousin as Caesar and enter history as Julian, the Apostate.  Julian was a Pagan who sought to reverse the Christianizing policies of his two predecessors.  He reversed the rules against the Jewish people and was reportedly planning to allow them to re-build the Temple; a plan that was aborted by his assassination.



1095: At the Council of Claremont, Pope Urban II summoned Christians to retake the Holy Land from the Moslems, alleging that they destroyed Christian holy places. A combination of religious, economic and social motives resulted in the overwhelming response that became known as the First Crusade. The Pope formed an army headed by special knights (i.e. Raymond, Godfrey, etc.). A "people's" army also joined, encouraged by Peter the Hermit and other local clerics. There would eventually be a total of eight Crusades, but only the first four were of any real significance. The Crusades meant death and destruction for the Jews of Europe and the Levant.  The “People’s Army” would lay waste to the Jewish communities of Germany and Austria as they marched across Europe.  After all, why wait until they got to Palestine to kill the enemies of Christ when they were living right there in Europe?  Of course, plundering and pillaging the Jews of their wealth was just an unexpected benefit of religious zeal.



1441: In Worms, the guilds of the “bakers, butchers and marketmen” enacted regulations aimed at the city’s Jews.



1494: Birthdate of Ottoman Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent. By 1517 the Islamic Ottoman Empire, ruled by Selim I, took Palestine from the Egyptian Mamelukes. Suleiman was so taken with the city of Jerusalem and its plight (having suffered centuries of neglect under Mameluke rule), that he ordered the construction of a magnificent surrounding fortress-wall that still stands around the Old City. He reigned from 1520 to 1566. There is not room here to acquaint you with all of the military and cultural accomplishments of the Ottoman Empire’s longest serving sultan.  Like many living under his rule, the Jews benefited from his policies. The Ottomans had taken Palestine from the Egyptian Mamelukes three years before he came to the throne. Sulieman was so disgusted with the effect of Mameluke neglect of the city that he built “a magnificent surrounding fortress-wall that still stands around the Old City.”  “Suleiman was renowned as a just and fair ruler, choosing his subordinates according to merit rather than social status or popularity. In 1553 Suleiman declared a law to stop the persecution of Jews via Blood libels, decreeing that all accusations of the slaughter of Christian children by Jews be referred to the Imperial Divan where the courts would expose these lies. The preparation of the law included the input of Moses Hamon, a favorite doctor and dentist of the Sultan. Another symbol of the Muslim-Jewish tolerance was the building of a synagogue and mosque which was built by Suleiman.”



1498: The Jews of Nuremberg were scheduled to be expelled today but for some reason it was postponed until “the fourth Sunday in the season of Lent” in 1499.



1593(11th of Cheshvan, 5354): Rabbi Abraham Menachem Rapoport author of Minchah Beluah, passed away



1632: Christiana, who made Clement X end the custom of chasing the Jews through the streets of Rome during carnival and who issued a declaration in 1686 placing the Jews of Rome under her protection, began her reign as Queen of Sweden.



1637: Italian Jewish Hebraist Gai Solomon wrote Johannes Buxtorf a Swiss born Christian Hebraist that “he had emigrated to Botzen, a town in Tyrol, where he had become the tutor of the two sons of a rich man named Jacob Moravia.”



1637: In a second letter written today in Latin with a Hebrew introduction Solomon Gai wrote to Johannes Buxtorf about Hebrew books that the latter had not seen and which he would later purchase on his behalf.



1643(24th of Cheshvan, 5404): Abraham ben Mordecai Azulai, the native of Fez who “was a Kabbalistic author and commentator, passed away today at Hebron.



1730: For the second time, Moses ben Aaron received permission from the King to serve as a rabbi in Frankfort-on-the-Oder under the condition that he make a yearly payment of 300 marks to the chief rabbi of Berlin.



1755: Stanisław Staszic, a Catholic priest and government minister, who “attempted to subject Polish Jewish books to the severest scrutiny” so that “no Jewish book was to be printed or sold in the land or imported from aboard through sale or subscription without the express permission of the Commission of Religion Denominations and Public Enlightenment” was baptized today.



1794: Marriage of Isaac Katzenelnbogen to Fanny Neuburg



1796: Catherine II, “whom the Boyars called The Great,” died. Many of her predecessors on the Russian throne had done all they could to keep Jews from living in the empire.  Catherine’s aggressive foreign policy helped to lead to the dismemberment of Poland. With one fell swoop, Catherine undid all their efforts when she gained the Jews of a large part of Poland and Lithuania.  Despite some early dabbling at enlightened treatment of her Jewish subjects, Catherine began the policies that would create the Pale of Settlement.



1805(14th of Cheshvan, 5566): Meir Obornik, a Biblical commentator in the style of Moses Mendelssohn who translated the Joshuaand Judges into German passed away today in Vienna.



1807: In Wiesenbronn, Bavaria, Shimon Simcha Bamberger and Judith Bamberge gave birth Seligman Baer Bamberger twho studied under Rabbis Wolf Hamburger and Judah Leib Halberstadt, served as the rabbi at Wurzburg for 38 years and was the husband of Kela Bamberger.



1815: Birthdate of Rabbi and educator Max Lilienthal



http://www.yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Lilienthal_Max



https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0013_0_12538.html



1816: The Four Great Powers – England, Russia, Austria and Prussia – sent a second note demanding that Frankfort repeal its ordinances that discriminated against the Jews, in part because the regulation “of the affairs of the Jews had been reserved for the Bundestag.”



1817: According to today’s entry in Friedrich von Gentz’s diary he “worked on an important memorial on behalf of the Jews of Austria.”



1819: Seventeen year old Joël Jolson was baptized and became Lutheran lawyer and politician Friedrich Julius Stahl.



1830: Twenty-nine year old Salomon Herxheimer became the district rabbi at Eschwege where he wrote "Yesode ha-Torah," which went through 29 printings in the next fifty-three years.



1833: Joel Abrahams married Fanny Nathan in Dover, UK.



1834: The Jews of Austria were forbidden to have the first names of Christian saints.


1838: Birthdate of Abraham Shalom Friedberg, the failed businessman who found success as one of the earliest authors to write in Hebrew who was the editor of Ha-Eshkol, a Hebrew encyclopedia and whose works included Ḳorot ha-Yehudim bi-Sefarad, a history of the Jews in Spain.


1839(29th of Cheshvan, 5600): Rabbi Hayim Rapoport, of Ostrowiec passes away. Rapoport was a member of a distinguished family of Jewish scholars.  He was the author of a collection of Responsa called Maxim Chayyim.


1840: At Constantinople, Sultan Abd Al-Majid issued a firman declaring that Jews did not use blood in their ceremonies, and for any of the Sultan's subjects to say the Jews did was not truth.  Moses Montefiore met with the Sultan and helped to secure this Decree. The Sultan issued the firman to protect the Jews of Rhodes and in Damascus, who were being persecuted by this old anti-Semitic remark.


1842: The first Jewish benevolent society in St. Louis was formed, Chesed v'Emeth ("Mercy and Truth"). Its purpose was to aid indigent Jews. In December 1846 the group formally incorporated as the Hebrew Benevolent Society (H.B.S.).


1843: Tobias Phillips married Hannah Harris at the Great Synagogue today.


1846: “At Wollstein, Prussia,” Henry and Zelda Rosnosky gave birth to Isaac Rosnosky who came to Massachusetts in 1861 where he became a partner of Lewis H. Clark, a manufacturer of clothing, a member of the Boston Common Council, the first Jew to serve in the state legislature, a delegate to two Democratic National Council and the long time “president of Temple Ohabei Shalom, the oldest Hebrew Congregation in Boston.”


1853: In Hartford, Conn, Samson and Adelaide Wallach gave birth to Leopold Wallach, the prominent New York lawyer who was the father of Mrs. Max Morgenthau, Jr.


1853:Joseph Seligman and Babette Seligman gave birth to their daughter Sophie who married Morris Walter and became Sophie Seligman Walter.


1854: In Cincinnati, OH, Solomon and Fannie Kuhn Loeb gave birth to Therese Schiff.


1855: In “Rachel’s French Critic” published today described career ofElizabeth-Rachel Félix the Jewish-French actress known as Mademoiselle Rachel,


1856: The first work of fiction by the author later known as George Eliot is submitted for publication. George Eliot was the pen name of Mary Anne Evans. Daniel Deronda, published in 1876, would the last novel she completed and the only one set in the contemporary Victorian society of her day. Its mixture of social satire and moral searching, along with a sympathetic rendering of Jewish proto-Zionist and Kaballistic ideas has made it a controversial final statement of one of the greatest of Victorian novelists.


1858: According to the police reports published in the New York Times, “when the case of Henry Myers” who was “charged with assault and battery was called, Judge Osborn, the presiding judicial officer declared “Now you’ll see some hard swearing. They’re a parcel of Jews.”


1859: Birthdate of clergyman and author Madison Clinton Peters, the native of Lehigh County, PA whose works included Justice to the Jew, Haym Solomon, The Genius of the Jew, The Jews as a Patriotand The Wit and Wisdom of the Talmud.


1859: In Poland (part of the Russian Empire) Chaja Szarka and Symcha Jakum Dancygier gave birth to Abraham Dancygier who gained fame as Adolphe Danziger De Castro whose multifaceted career included authoring Jewish Forerunners of Christianity which covered Jewish history from Hillel through Judah HaNasi


1860: Birthdate of Earlville, Illinois native Stephen Arnold Douglas “Steve” Behel the 19th century baseball player who at one time was classified as being Jewish.





1860: In the United Kingdom, Mr. I. Lewis-Barned and his wife gave birth to H.B. Lewis Barned the husband Albert Louis Cohen’s elder daughter Lily who joined the army in 1878, rose to the rank of Major during the war with South Africa, while serving the Jewish community in several capacities including Warden of the Council of the West London Synagogue of British Jews, co-founder of the Maccabaeans and co-founder and Assistant Commandment of the Jewish Lads’ Brigade. 


1860(21st of Cheshvan, 5621): Warder Cresson, who was known by his Jewish name - Michael Boaz Israel ben Abraham – after he converted to Judaism, passed away today in Jerusalem. Born in 1798, Cresson was a member of a Quaker family that traced its roots back to the earliest days of the founding of the American colonies.  Like many men of his time, Cresson was captivated by questions of morality and religion. Unlike others, he found his answers in Judaism. Cresson was the first American to be commissioned Consul at Jerusalem and the time spent in that city may have been the cause of his conversion.  At any rate, his family took him to court and tried to have him declared a lunatic for his change in religious beliefs.  Having prevailed in court, Cresson returned to Jerusalem where he took an active role in the early projects aimed at having Jews settle in Palestine.  Her married and had two children. “The Key of David” is his most famous literary effort.  It is biographical in part.  It was written at a time when he was being persecuted for his religious beliefs so it contains a comparatively harsh description of Christianity.




1860:  Abraham Lincoln was elected 16th President of the United States.  The message of opportunity and defense of the Union represented by Lincoln and the recently created Republican Party resonated positively with many Jews. As President, Lincoln took action to make the Jews feel like “first class” citizens.  In 1862 he signed an act of Congress that required Army chaplains to be Christian ministers.  Now, Rabbis could officially serve in this position.  Lincoln also rescinded General Grant’s notorious Order #10 that barred Jewish merchants from operating in the military theatre under his command.


1860: Two days after she had passed away, 64 year old Sophia Levy, the wife of Nathaniel Levy with whom she had eight children was buried today at the “West Ham Jewish Cemetery.”


1861: Philadelphian Morris Kayser who rose from the rank of First Lieutenant to Captain in Company B of the 91st Regiment began serving in the Union Army today.


1861: Birthdate of Scottish chemist Arthur Pillans Laurie who “in 1939 Laurie the notorious The Case for Germany, a pro-Nazi, anti-Semitic work which praises Hitler…as a painter” and “continues with a revisionist defiance of Nazism that denigrates the Jewish people and socialism.”


1861: Philadelphian Isaac M. Abraham began a three year enlistment with the 85th Regiment where he was a Captain in Company G.


1862: Dr. Thomas Torrance and Susan Watt gave birth to Dr. David Watt Torrance who arrived in Tiberias in 1885 where he soon tired of his attempts to convert the local population and began ministering to the sick and injured with such skill that he was viewed as a Chasid by the Jews living in and around the Sea of Galilee. (Torrance was not Jewish but he was part of a small stream of Anglo-Christians who may have come to convert but who stayed to improve the life of the local population)


1863: Aaron Miller began his term of service with Company K of the 119th Regiment during which he would rise to the rank of Corporal and held prisoner for ten months.


1870: In Österreich, Leopold Bloch, the “son of Samuel and Theresia Bloch” and his wife Rosa Bloch gave birth to Richard Bloch.


1870: Birthdate of Herbert Louis Samuel, 1st Viscount Samuel, the brother of Sir Stuart Samuel and husband of Beatrice Franklin whose distinguished career in public service included being name the 1st High Commissioner of Palestine.



1871: Salomon Otterbourg married Theresa Cohen at the Northampton Street Synagogue in Dover.


1876: Johann Emanuel Veith, a Bohemian born Jew who became a Roman Catholic priest passed away today.


1876: Birthdate of Maurice E. Pollak, a graduate of the University of Cincinnati who was an executive with an “Iron Company” and director the city’s Community Chest.


1876: Johann Emanuel Veith, the Jewish native of Bohemia who became a doctor and a Roman Catholic passed away today.


1876: Giacomo Antonelli, the Cardinal Secretary of State passed away today. During the Mortara Affair, Antonelli refused to allow British to see the Pope about this matter.  He declared it “a closed question.”  Oddly enough, Antoneli was reputed to have Jewish ancestors, a condition not uncommon among Italian Catholics of a certain vintage.


1879: The funeral services for Rabbi David Einhorn of blessed memory took place this morning at Temple Beth-El in New York City.  The services, which began at 9 a.m. were conducted in both German and Hebrew Rabbis. There were numerous rabbis from across the country and several local dignitaries in attendance.  Two of Einhorn’s sons-in-law – Rabbis Kaufman Kohler and Emile Hirsch – and his close friend Rabbi Samuel Hirsch of Philadelphia presided over this solemn event which ended with burial in Green Wood Cemetery.


1879: Daniel Dougherty is scheduled to deliver a lecture entitled “The Stage” at a meeting of the Young Men’s Hebrew Association in New York City.


1881: “Judaism and Heine” published today described the Bible as the great treasure of the Jews which has been their gift to the world.


1882: It was reported today that Colonel Emmons Clark, the reform candidate for Sheriff in New York, has issued a statement denying claims that he has used his influence to keep Jews from serving under his command in the Seventh Regiment.  While the Colonel has no role in choosing members of the regiment he is proud of the fact that there are Jewish members in each of the companies that make up the regiment. Clark’s version of events has been accepted by “the managers of the newspapers which is recognized as the organ of” the Hebrew “race.”


1884: Hovevei Zion was founded in Kattowitz, Poland


1884: In Budapest, Alexander Germanus and Rosalia Zobel gave birth to Julius Germanus the Islamologist, author and member of the Hungarian Parliament.


1885: It was reported today that “the Industrial School of the United Hebrew Charities” is enrolling Jewish girls aged ten and above where they will learn to sew by hand and machine at no charge.


1886: The Wendell Phillips Literary Society is scheduled to sponsor a “dramatic entertainment” this evening which is a fund raiser to for the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society which is planning on building a new, more spacious home for the children in its care.


1886: Birthdate of Sir Ian Morris Heilbron, the Glasgow born pioneer in the field of organic chemistry.



1886: Birthdate of Gustav Gerson Kahn, the native of Koblenz whose family moved to Chicago in 1890 where he developed the skills that led to a career as a songwriter named Gus Kahn, the lyricist for such “standards” as “Yes Sir, That’s My Baby,” “It Had to Be You” and “Dream a Little Dream of Me” who went on to create musicals in Hollywood while being married to Grace Kahn with whom he had one son, Donald.



1887:  Formation of Federation of Synagogues.


1888: “The Protestant Reformation” published today provides a review of the History of the Reformation by Philip Schaff in which the author says of Martin Luther that he hated “Popery” and that “his last books against…the Jews are the worst.


1888: It was reported today that Republicans in Merrill, Indiana, “stocked a room with whiskey and beer and sent carriages out among the Polish Jews of the neighborhood.”  Once the Jews had been gathered together and joined in the revelry, the Republicans tried to convince them to vote for their candidates and failing that offered to buy their votes for two dollars a head. (Editor’s note – regardless of Party or locations, practices like this were all to common in the electoral until well into the first half of the 20th century.)


1888: Republican Benjamin Harrison defeated Grover Cleveland in his bid for re-election.  Cleveland won the popular vote, but Harrison won in the Electoral College.  In 1890, word reached the west, that Czar Alexander III was planning additional punitive measured aimed at making the lives of Russians Jews even more miserable. Harrison received a personally received a petition from a committee of prominent Americans (including the Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court and leading Christian ministers) urging him to act on behalf of the Russian Jews. “The petitioners called for the first international conference "to consider the Israelite claim to Palestine as their ancient home, and to promote in any other just and proper way the alleviation of their suffering condition."  Years before the first Zionist Congress, they were calling for a Jewish home in Palestine.  Harrison instructed Secretary of State James G. Blaine to contact the U.S. Ambassador in Moscow and express United States’ displeasure with any measures aimed against the Jews.  Despite the urging of Harrison and others, the Czar acted ordering the immediate removal of Jews from Moscow, St. Petersburg and Kiev, using violent force if necessary.


1889: It was reported today that in three days, Sir Henry Isaacs will installed as the Lord Mayor of London.  He is third Jew to hold the position in the last 20 years.


1897: Today, in the United Kingdom, The Jewish World published a letter from “Don’t Cringe” on the subject of Zionism that concluded with the wish that publication provide “us a full and rational discussion on the Zionist movement.”


1898: Birthdate of Louis Buckhater the son of a rabbi who “emigrated from Lithuania to Ireland” with his family at the age of 5 to escape anti-Semitism and who gained fame as “footballer and cricketer Louis Bookman


1892: Two days before the general election the Jewish Democrats of the Fourth Assembly District in New York City held “an enthusiastic meeting” at the Hebrew Institute at the corner of Broadway and East Jefferson.


1892: “Beards” published today provides a brief history facial history including the observation that “the ancient Jews considered it the greatest insult that could be offered to a man to pluck his beard which may account in part for the wonderful state of preservation that tradition has connected with the beard of the Old World Male.”


1893: “Jews In Early England” published today provided a complete review of The Jews of Angevin England by Joseph Jacobs.


1893: On the day before elections are held in New York, Rabbi Kaufman Kohler wrote that “It has always been my rule as a clergyman not to meddle with politics” but that he is making an exception today because he feels “bound to publicly declare that so far as” he knows his “co-religionist there is no right-minded Jew in this country to whom law and justice, the welfare and good order of the State are not of paramount importance.”


1895: Based on reports circulating in Vienna today the Ottoman government is strictly enforcing emigration policies that will Jews to only Jews visit Palestine for 30 days and then only if they have a Turkish passport.


1895: Two days after he had passed away, 63 year old Lewis Nathan, the son of Simon Nathan and Catherine Barnet and the husband of Regina Kisch with whom he had ten children was buried today at the “West Ham Jewish Cemetery on Buckingham Road.”


1895: “End Fusion Ticket Business” published today described the Republican leader Edward Lauterbach to the Tammany Victory which led him to decry ever being involved with any kind of Good Government political coalition.


1895(19th of Cheshvan, 5656): Joel Müller, the German rabbi who left the pulpit to pursue an academic career that included a professorship at the Hochschule für die Wissenschaft des Judentums, or Higher Institute for Jewish Studies passed away in Berlin today.


1896: Birthdate of Otto Hahn who was deported from Prague in 1942 to Ujazdow where he was murdered.


1896: Sir Edward Levien Samuel, 2nd Bt. and Ray Cowan gave birth to Sir Edward Louis Samuel, 3rd Bt an “officer in the Royal Field Artillery in WW I and a “Major in the Royal Artillery in WW II” who “was Bursar of the Prince of Wale’s Endowment Fund of Toc House.”


1897: “The Beni Zion Association” is scheduled to host a debated at King’s Hall on Commercial Road in London


1897: In Paris, Gladys and Stella Dreyfus left school for the last time telling their teachers that “they were going to London with their parents.” (They would not return because their parents would kill them as part of a murder suicide plot.  The family was distantly related to the French Captain convicted of treason but their deaths had nothing to do with the scandal.


1897: “In a letter published by Le Temps today, Gabriel Monod stated his conviction that Dreyfus was innocent and demanded that his case be reviewed, denying that it would be an insult to the army: "There is no shame in a error that is consciously committed and consciously rectified."


1898: A truce was agreed upon today between the Dope Sing Kong Saw (the Chinese Laundrymen’s Association) and the Hebrew Laundrymen’s Union which should bring an end to the “price war” between the competitors.


1899: “Hebrew Guardian Society” published today provided a summary of the annual report of the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society which is led by Samuel D. Levy as President and Directors Clara Jacobs, Samuel D. Levy and Eli Bernays.


1899: Birthdate of František Lederer, the Bohemian born American stage and film actor.(As reported by Todd S. Purdum)



1900: Herzl writes to David Wolffsohn. He wants him to ask Jacobus Kann in The Hague whether he can raise £ 700.000 for a Turkish loan.


1901: Birthdate of Austria native Jacob Pferstein, the New Jersey lawyer and Jewish community leader who was the husband Viera Pfeferstein and the father of Melvin and Marcio Pfeferstein.


1902: Birthdate of Chicago native Joseph Rabinovich, who attended Walworth Institute in New York City, served in the National Guard and was “active in the Federation of Jewish Philanthropies and the United Palestine Appeal.


1903: Racing driver Dorothy Levitt was summoned “to appear at Marlborough Street Assizes for speeding in Hyde Park.”  The magistrate fined her £5 with 2s costs


1904(28th of Cheshvan, 5665): Seventy-nine year old merchant turned novelist, Salomon Kohn, author of Gabriel, passed away today in his native Prague.


1904: Birthdate of British philatelist Marcus Francis Javier Samuel who served in the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve during WW II and “was also a founder member of the Society of Postal Historians.”


1904: Elections in Italy result in the return of 13 Jewish candidates, among them 3 new members for the Chamber of Deputies.


1905: In Tomsk, Siberia, “the troops today were forced to charge with bayonets against which was pillaging Jewish houses” which left “a number of people killed and wounded.”


1905: Count Sergei Yulyevich Witte, whose career had suffered because his second wife, Matilda Ivanovna (Isaakovna) Lisanevich, was a converted Jew, began his service as 1st Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Russian Empire


1905:  As “anti-Semitic disturbances” continue in the outlying districts around Odessa, “fresh disorders were reported at 5 o’clock this evening in the suburb of Dalnia Melnitzi”


1905: It was reported today that in the Jewish quarter of Odessa, “all the bakeries and shops and nearly 600 homes have been destroyed” while the “skulls of Jews were battered with hammers,” their “eyes were gouged out,” their “ears were severed” and many of their bodies were disemboweled.


1906: Today, Max James Kohler, the son of Reform Rabbi Kaufman Kohler, married Winfred Lichtenauer, the daughter of banker Joseph M. Lichtenauer


1907(29th of Cheshvan, 5668): Elias Shaare Zedek Abrams passed away today in Pittsburgh, PA.


1909: Celebration of the Einhorn-Adler Centenary.


1911: Francisco I. Madero who employed Felix A. Sommerfield a colorful German Jew Felix A. Sommerfield as his Secret Service chief today became the 33rd President of Mexico.


1911: Édouard Alphonse de Rothschild, and Germaine Alice Halphen, gave birth to Jacqueline Rebecca Louise de Rothschild who gained fame as the multi-talented Jacqueline Piatigorsky.




1911: Birthdate of Florence Spurgeon who as Florence Zacks Melton, “took a material invented as a helmet liner for World War II tank crewmen and turned it into cushy foam-rubber slippers that have soothed billions of tired feet.” (As reported by Dennis Hevesi)


1913: In Brooklyn, Isadore Franklin, a furniture dealer and his wife, the former Mae Bisgyer, gave birth to Bernice Annette Franklin who gained fame as Hadassah Present Bernice S. Tannenbaum.


1913: Mortimer L. Schiff announced at a meeting of the Chamber of Commerce today that $500,000 had been offered to found a College of Commerce by a man who was not ready to have his name revealed. Few of the members present had heard of the gift, and the announcement was received with much enthusiasm. There were several people, who when they first of the donation, attributed to the famous Jacob Schiff.  Such was not the case.


1914: One day after Great Britain declared war on the Ottoman Empire, “Lord Herbert Samuel…met with Prime Minister Asquith to urge the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine.


1914:Gladys Guggenheim Straus and Roger W. Straus gave birth to Oscar Straus II the American businessman who became Chairman of the Daniel and Florence Guggenheim Foundation, and the Fred Lavanburg Foundation


1914:Today, the German Ambassador wrote a letter “in response to an inquiry by Herman Bernstein as to the allegations of German barbarities in the Jewish towns of Russian Poland,” in which he said that “war is not play and there no doubt that all the occupied countries must suffer from its burdens and horrors” but that the German Army which is “coming to Russian Poland as defenders of the German frontier” has “done everything in its power to protect from the ravages of war the innocent civilian population in those districts” which it has occupied.


1914(17th of Cheshvan, 5675):Baron Alexis George de Günzburg who “joined the 11th (Prince Albert's Own) Hussars and then was attached as an interpreter to the Royal Horse Guard was killed today on the Western Front.


1915: A circular sent out today to 25,000 people from “more than 200 prominent professional and business men” in New York City called for “the organization of a federation of the contributors to Jewish charities” which will be formed when one thousand people have endorsed the plan.


1915: Today the Russians explained blamed “the capture of a certain hill by the Germans in the Galician campaign” on “betrayal by the Jews” saying that “there are 900,000 Jews in Galicia spitefully disposed toward us and maintaining without doubt a very close relationship with the Jews who served in our ranks” which leads to “the Jewish soldiers betraying the secrets” of the Russian Army “to Jewish civilians who immediately making the enemy aware of the disposition and movements of our forces.”


1915: “Jews May Be Officers” published today described the appearance of Baron Kress Von Kressenstein, the Bavarian War Minister, before the Finance Committee where he said “that Jews had not been behind members of other religious faiths in discharging their duty in the war and that the Jews had thus obtained full opportunity to become reserve officers” as can be seen by the fact that “many Jews have promoted to commissions during the course of the war..”


1915:: Congressman Meyer London, the Chairman of the People’s Relief Committee, said today that the newly formed committee “is not intended as a rival to the American Jewish Committee of which Louis Marshall is Chairman and Felix Warburg is Treasurer” but it to work in conjunction with them with the work being divided so that the American Jewish Committee will direct its efforts among the richer Jews; the Central Relief Committee will among the Orthodox Jews and the People’s Committee will confine itslelf to the radical, laboring and professional elements. (Talk about “market segmentation)


1916: Simon Wolf, who is “well-known throughout the United States for his work for the Jews of this country and of Russia” said today that he believed that “Jews of Poland will benefit greatly by the establishment of an independent Poland.”


1916: It was reported today that Rabbi J.L. Magnes who has just returned from the war zones on the Eastern Front where he could gone to examine the programs aimed at distributing aid from Americans to the Jews of that area “said he had heard little of anti-Semitism on the part of German officials” and “that the funds from America which went to the Central committee of German Jews in Berlin were handled admirably…”


1917: Morris Hillquit, the Socialist Party Candidate placed third in today’s New York Mayoral election.


1917: In Massachusetts, “The Anti-Aid Amendment” which “provides for the withdrawal of all State appropriations from institutions which hare controlled by secular bodies including Protestants, Catholics and Jews” was passed today despite opposition led by Cardinal O’Connell.


1917: It was reported today that Samuel Untermyer has “called upon leaders of the Jews…to do everything in their power to avert ‘such a catastrophe for my race’ as the election of Morris Hillquit by the votes of Jews” because “the Jews are the bulwark…of the Socialist party,” the Socialist Party candidate is a Jew and “the Jews will be held responsible in the public estimate” if the “seditious” views of the Socialist Party triumph in the upcoming Mayoral election.


1917: Birthdate Joseph Bloch, a professor of piano literature at the Juilliard School in New York. A native of Indianapolis today Bloch earned a bachelor’s degree from the Chicago Musical College and, after service in Guam with the Army Air Forces in World War II, a master’s in musicology from Harvard. For five decades except for an interruption in the 1980s when he tried unsuccessfully to retire, every Juilliard pianist passed through Mr. Bloch’s classroom. His pupils included many of the best-known performers of the second half of the 20th century, among them Van Cliburn, Emanuel Ax, Garrick Ohlsson, Misha Dichter, Jeffrey Siegel and Jeffrey Swann.


1917: As the British under General Allenby began its “Southern Palestine Offensive” XX Corps attacked on Hareira and Sheira. (This matters in Jewish History because after several failed attempts, Allenby would finally take Palestine which make the Balfour Declaration a reality instead of just a note between English gentlemen.)


1918: Itamar Ben-Avi of the Jewish Council and son of Eliezer Ben-Yehuda was one of the twelve delegates explaining to the three hundred guests attending a dinner at the Hotel Plaza the purpose and plans of the Mid-European Union which had been founded in October at Independence Hall in Philadelphia.


1920(25th of Cheshvan, 5681): Parashat Chayei Sara


1920: Rabbi Zinsler is scheduled to deliver a sermon this morning on “Age Means Reverence” at Mt. Sinai Anshe Emeth.


1920: Rabbi I.L. Bril is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “Can Intermarriage Be Prevented” this morning at Shaarei Zedek.


1920: Rabbi David Davidson is scheduled to deliver a sermon “Marriage in the Light of Judaism” this morning.


1922: In Cincinnati, Ohio, James G. Heller, the Rabbi of the Plum Street Temple, delivered an address on “Americanizing Our Universities” in which he “said the proposal to restrict the number of Jews at Harvard was an the outgrowth of a steadily growing anti-Semitism” in the United States “which had for its aim a social segregation of the Jew and Gentile.”


1925: In Portland, Oregon, grocer Charles Mann and his wife Anna “a singer and pianist gave birth to


“medical pioneer Alfred Mann,” the brother Robert Mann, “a founder of the Juilliard String Quarter” and concert pianist Rosalind Koff.



1925: “Dancing Mad” a comedy directed by Alexander Korda who co-authored the script with Adolf Lantz was released in Germany today.


1926: Edith Gregor Halpert opened her Downtown Gallery on West 13thStreet in New York’s Greenwich Village.  The gallery was revolutionary because it promoted “American modernists when their European counterparts overshadowed them.”


1928: Birthdate of Zara Steiner, (née Shakow) the British born historian and author whose works include Britain and the Origins of the First World War and “in 2007 was elected a Fellow of the British Academy (FBA), the UK's national academy for the humanities and the social sciences” while her raising her son David Steiner along with her husband Francis George Steiner.


1928: In Pittsburgh, Louis N. Matz and Alice (née Krieger) Matz gave birth to Peter Matz the Chemical Engineer turned composer, arranger and conductor.



1928: Republican Herbert Hoover was elected president, beating the Democrat candidate. Alfred E. Smith. Smith was a Catholic, but he received a large Jewish vote.  What counted in America was that the he was from New York which had a large Jewish population and he espoused programs that appealed to the working class and newly enfranchised immigrants.  This was the profile of the large mass of Jewish voters.  In a strange quirk of history, the conservative Quaker from Iowa would appoint Benjamin Cardozo, a liberal Jew from New York, to the Supreme Court.  Hoover viewed this as such an unremarkable act, that he covers it in one paragraph in his multi-volume autobiography.


1928: Albert E. Ottinger, the Republican candidate for governor was defeated by FDR in an election that was decided by less than one per cent of the total vote. 


1931:  Birthdate of director Mike Nichols.  Born in Berlin in, Nichols attended a segregated school for Jewish children. His father, a doctor, fled the Nazis by moving the family to New York City when Nichols was still a child.  His greatest early fame came when he teamed with another Jew, Elaine May to create some of the most memorable comedy sketches of the mid-twentieth century


1931:Counselor-at-Law by Elmer Rice premiers at New York's Plymouth Theater, with Austrian-born actor Paul Muni (originally Muni Weisenfreund) in the starring role.


1933: In Los Angeles, the strike by the ILGWU (International Ladies Garment Workers Union) that was led by Rose Pesotta who had come from New York to organize the west coast garment workers many of whom were Mexicans came to an end today after 26 days after which “Dressmakers Union Local 96 with a membership of 2, 646” was formed.


1934: Memphis, Tennessee becomes the first major city to join the Tennessee Valley Authority, the major New Deal project overseen by David Lilienthal.


1936: The Maccabees, the soccer champions of Palestine were tendered an official farewell at City Hall today by Mayor La Guardia.  The mayor gave the players a New York City flag in exchange for the flag of Tel Aviv that the team had given him when they arrived in New York.  Jeremiah T. Mahoney, honorary chairman of the tour committee and Benjamin Winter President of the Federal of Polish Jews in America also attended the farewell ceremony.


1936: “Rembrandt” a biopic produced and directed by Alexander Korda was released in the United Kingdom today.


1937: Mussolini gave Von Ribbentrop, the German Foreign Minister, his approval of Hitler's plans for Austria. "Let events (in Austria) take their natural course. He was giving his approval to the German annexation of Austria which would take place in 1938.  The annexation would prove to be quite popular with most Austrians, a fact they tried to soft-peddle after the war.  For the Jews of Austria, the Anschluss meant they were now under the control of the Nazis and their racial laws.


1938: First anti-Semitic attack over the radio in the U.S. was broadcast.


1938: Herschel Grynszpan spent the night in a cheap hotel after having  asked his uncle Abraham to send money to his family – a request that Abraham was loath to fufill because he said he had little to spare, and that he was incurring both financial cost and legal risks by harbouring his nephew, an undocumented alien and unemployed youth.


1938(12 Cheshvan, 5699): Sixty eight year old Abraham Liessin the Yiddish poet and editor of Zukunft passed away today.




1939: Birthdate of Civil Rights Activist, Michael “Mickey” Schwerner.  Schwerener was murdered in 1964 outside of Philadelphia, Mississippi along with two fellow Civil Rights workers, Andrew Goodman (who was also Jewish) and James Chaney, an African-American.  Their murder has become part of the folklore of the fight for equal treatment for all Americans.


1940: Birthdate of Ruth Wyler Messinger, a political liberal who served as Manhattan Borough President before running for Mayor. She is the CEO of American Jewish World Service and one those listed as “Forward Fifty” by The Forward.


1941: Popular German film star Joachim Gottschalk kills his family and himself rather than submit to the deportation and probable deaths of his Jewish wife and child.


1941(16th of Cheshvan, 5702): This was the second of two successive days in which the Nazis took Rovno, Ukraine, 17,500 Jews to the forests at Rovno in the Ukraine and ordered them to dig five large pits. In the bitter cold they were ordered to strip and the all murdered over a two day period.


1941(16th of Cheshvan, 5702): The Nazis massacred 500 Jews of Kolomyya, Galicia and 15,000 Jews of Rowno, Poland.


1942: One thousand Jews were deported to Birkenau from Drancy.  Drancy was the the “transit camp in a Paris suburb from which 70,000 French Jews were shipped to death camps in the East.  Drancy was run by the French police until the summer of 1943 when the SS took over.


1942(26th of Cheshvan, 5703): The Nazis executed 12,000 Jews from Minsk.


1942: One day after the Gestapo arrested Rabbi Regina Jonas, the Nazis confiscated all of her property “for the benefit of the German Reich.”


1942: “The Falcon’s Brother “ one of several of the films in the Falcon series, edited by Mark Robson was released today in the United States.


1943: Five weeks after escaping from a work detail at the Babi Yar, Ukraine, mass-murder site, about 14 Jews and Soviet POWs come out of hiding to greet the Red Army as it liberates Kiev, Ukraine.


1943: Fourteen survivors of the massacre at Babi Yar made it to the victorious Red Army in Kiev, and joined its troops.


1944:  Two members of Lehi (the Stern Gang) – Eliyahu Hakim and Eliyahu Bet Zuri murdered Lord Moyne in Cairo. This led to what some call, The Hunting Season, which the name given to the Haganah’s campaign to curtail the activities of Irgun and Lehi


1944: Thousands of Hungarian Jews were sent westward to Austria. For most Jews, this was a Death March.  Exposure to the harsh European winter, exhaustion, snarling dogs and German bullets all took their toll.  In an additional act of wives would bury their husbands, then be shot dead themselves and finally thrown into the same graves.


1944(20th of Cheshvan, 5705): Hungary's Arrow Cross murders 19 Jews in Budapest and drives close to 30,000 toward the old Austrian border.


1944: In the Bronx, Harold and Ruth Berg gave birth to James Berg, President of the Realty Advisory Board on Labor Relations, the collective bargaining agent for the owners of more than 4,000 residential and commercial buildings in the city.(As reported by Dennis Hevesi)


1945: Stanley Isaacs was reelected to the New York City Council.


1946: In Chicago, publisher Oscar Dystel and Marion Dystel   gave birth to John J. Dystel


1946: In London British MP Maurice Orbach and his wife gave birth to Susie “a British psychotherapist, psychoanalyst, writer and social critic”



 


1947: Meet the Press, billed as “America’s first televised, spontaneous press conference” made its television debut.  Meet the Press was the creation of producer and moderator, Lawrence “Larry” Spivak. The half hour show was live and came on late on Sunday afternoon - a dead zone in television broadcasting.  The show featured one guest, who ranged from American political leaders to the Prime Minister of France to the Foreign Minister of the Soviet Union, and three journalists. The only things that the current iteration of the program has in common with the original are the name of the show, that it appears on Sunday and that it is broadcast on NBC.


1947: It was announced today that “contributions of food, clothing and other relief supplies received by the Supplies for Overseas Survivors collection of the Joint Distribution Committee in the first ten months of this year totaled 5,400,000 pounds.”


1948: Birthdate of Sidney Blumenthal, journalist, author and advisor to President Bill Clinton as well as Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.


1948: The village of Bayt Jirja was captured “during the final phase of Operation Yoav.”


1948: “Barbara was captured by troops of the Negev, Giv'ati and Yiftach brigades today during Operation Yoav.


1948: During its initial Broadway run “Born Yesterday” a play written by Garson Kanin and starring Judy Holliday transferred from the Lyceum Theatre to Henry Miller’s Theatre.


1950: Birthdate of Amir Can Aczel,, the Haifa born science writer.(As reported by William Grimes)



1951: Premiere of “Let’s Make It Legal” a comedy with a script by I.A.L. Diamond and a score by Lionel Newman, the uncle of Randy Newman


1951: U.S. premiere of “Detective Story” a dark tale of a big city police precinct directed, produced and written by William Wyler, starring Kirk Douglas and featuring Lee Grant in her screen debut.


1952(18th of Cheshvan, 5713): Eighty-six year old Adolph Joachim "A.J." Sabath, the native of Bohemia who came to the United States in 15 where, after graduating from law school, he began a career in Chicago politics that led to him serving in the House of Representatives from 1907 until 1952.1952: The Jerusalem Postreported that the Knesset passed the first reading of a measure recognizing the World Zionist Organization as the agency authorized to coordinate the activities in Israel of all Jewish corporate bodies and associations engaged in the development of the country and the integration of immigrants. During discussions Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion said he regretted his choice of words when he referred to American Zionist leaders as "bankrupt" because they failed to immigrate. However, he stood by the substance of his accusations.  Ben Gurion, as an ardent Zionist, believed that the only authentic Jewish existence was in Israel.  1953: Israel complained to the United Nations truce supervision organization in Jerusalem today that armed Jordanians murdered a guard last night in an attack upon a post along the railway track north of Hadera in the coastal plain.


1956: During the Sinai Campaign, Golda Meir and Shimon Peres met with French officials.  The two Israeli ministers were looking for French support in the face of Soviet threats to use missiles against Israel.  The French Foreign minister told the Israelis that his government would “support Israel with everything we’ve got.”  But, he also pointed out that the Soviets were more powerful and that their arsenal included missiles and nuclear bombs. As the two ministers flew back to Tel Aviv, the Eisenhower administration flip-flopped on its earlier statements. It demanded that Israel withdraw immediately from the Sinai or suffer the consequences. (The behavior of the United States during the Suez Crisis would cause the French to create their own nuclear weapons program.  This would lead to De Gaulle’s decisions to take the French Army out of the NATO military command.  This widening gulf between the French and Americans haunts the relationship between these two old allies to this very day.)


1956: President Eisenhower sent a message to Ben Gurion demanding that Israeli forces stop fighting immediately and withdraw from the Sinai.


1957: Birthdate of Lori Singer.  The Texas born actress was the daughter of Jewish Canadian parents. Her film credits include starring roles in TheFalcon and the Snowman and The Man with One Red Shoe.


1958: Syria resumed its artillery bombardment of the Galilee, while Israeli workers were involved in a massive project draining Lake Huleh to obtain more agricultural land for the country. Under orders from IDF Chief of Staff Haim Liaskov, the Israelis fired back at their attackers.


1959: “The Wreck of the Mary Deare” produced by Julian Blaustein and filmed by cinematographer Joseph Ruttenberg was released today in the United States.


1967: In Eugene, Oregon. Danna (née Wilner), a writer and instructor at Portland Community College, and Dr. Benson Schaeffer, a child psychologist gave birth to actress Rebecca Schaeffer, costar of the 1980’s sitcom My Sister Sam. Tragically, she is best remembered for her manner of dying.  She was murdered in 1989 by an obsessive fan who had been stalking her for years.


1968: “Head” a musical satire directed, produced and written by Bob Rafelson was released in the United States today.


1969: “Downhill Racer” a movie version of the book by the same name with a script by James Salter was released today in the United States.


1971: “The Incomparable Max,” a play co-authored by Jerome Lawerence based the works of Max Beerbohm, closed today after twenty three performances at the Royale Theatre.


1972: “Guess Who’s for Richard Nixon” published today described the improbable voters supporting Nixon’s bid for re-election including Rabbi Herschel Schacter, former chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Jewish Organizations; and David Luchins, who headed the 1972 Jewish Youth for Humphrey.


1973: “The Girl Most Likely To” a dark comedy written by Joan Rivers with theme music composed by Bernardo Segall “a made-for-television movie was broadcast for the first time on ABC” tonight.


1973: Abe Beame defeated Mayor John Lindsay to become the first Jewish mayor of New York City. Born on New York’s lower East Side in 1906, Beame rose through the ranks and served two terms as comptroller before unseating the ineffectual but popular Lindsay.  Beame inherited the worst fiscal crisis in the city’s history. Forced to slash budgets and reduce the city work force, Beame was a courageous but unpopular figure.  He passed away in 2001.  It does seem strange to many that New York, with its large Jewish population would have waited so long to have a Jewish mayor.  Heck, gentile dominated Oregon had a Jewish senator twenty years before Manhattan et al had a Jewish chief executive.


1974: A group of refuseniks met with Senator James Buckley of New York after which he promised to support them.


1974: Ratz (the Movement for Civil Rights and Peace) left the governing coalition headed by Prime Minister Yithak Rabin.


1975: A revival of David Merrick’s “Hello Dolly” starring Pearl Bailey and Billy Daniels in all-black production opened at the Minskoff Theatre.


1975: John Gunter, a Jewish refugee from Nazi Germany who became a member of the Foreign Service, presented his credentials as U.S. Ambassador to Denmark.


1976((13thof Cheshvan, 5737): Sixty-nine year old Albert Lasker Award winning physician passed away today.



1977(25thof Chehsvan, 5738): PLO gunners fired katyusha rockets from across the Lebanese border at the seaside town of Nahariya killing two, one of whom was a Holocaust survivor and mortally wounding another.


1977: The Immigrants, a novel by Howard Fast “hit number 5 on the New York Times adult best seller list” today.


1978: Today, for the first time, NBC broadcast “Rainbow” a biopic starring Pipe Laurie and featuring Jack Carter, Donna Pescow and Martin Balsam


1979: “The Fish that Saved Pittsburgh” featuring the voice of Harry Shearer and a cameo appearance by Marv Albert was released today in the United States.


1987(14th of Cheshvan, 5748): Zohar Argov (a popular Israeli singer and a distinctive voice in the Mizrahi music scene passed away.


1987: The 27th episode of “My Sister Sam” co-starring Rebecca Schaeffer aired tonight on CBS.


1989: Kitty Dukakis, the Jewish wife of presidential candidate and Massachusetts governor Michael Dukakis is hospitalized for drinking rubbing alcohol. 


1989: “Closer Than Ever” a revue with music by David Shire opened “at the off-Broadway Cherry Lane Theatre, where it ran for 312 performances.”


1991: The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments in Lee v. Weisman a school prayer case that had its origins in a request by a middle school principle to have rabbi deliver a prayer at the graduation ceremony which was objected to by the parents of Deborah Weisman.


1994: Michael Mark Appelbaum begins servings as Montreal City Councillor for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce


1995: In his first court appearance on Yigal Amir, 25, asserted that he was required to kill Mr. Rabin under religious law because the Prime Minister was betraying Jewish lives and land to the enemy.


1995: In “The Unvanquished,” published today Michael D. Lemonick describes how a group of young Jews “survived the Nazis, studied in Germany and liberated themselves” which runs contrary to usual picture of Jews seeking to flee the Home of the Holocaust.



1997: Robert D. Sack “was nominated by President Clinton” today, to a seat on the United States court of Appels for the Second Circuit.


1998: “The Siege” a fictional look at Washington’s reaction to a wave of terrorism directed and produced by Edward Zwick who also co-authored the script was released in the United States today.


1998: “B. Monkey” directed by Michael Radford who co-authored the script as well was released today in the United Kingdom.


1999: Almost after its release in the United States, “B.Monkey” directed by Michael Radford who co-authored the screenplay was released in the United Kingdom today.


2001(20th of Cheshvan, 5762): Capt. (Res.) Eyal Sela, 39, of Moshav Nir Banim, was shot dead in an ambush by three Palestinian terrorists on the southern Nablus bypass road.


2001(20thof Cheshvan, 5762): Seventy-five year old barrister and author Anthony Joshua Shaffer whose most famous work is the play Sleuth and who was the twin brother of Peter Shaffer passed away today.



2002(1stof Kislev, 5763): Rosh Chodesh Kislev


2002(1stof Kislev, 5763): Sgt.-Maj. Madin Grifat, 23, of Beit Zarzir was killed when a mine exploded during a routine patrol northeast of Netzarim in the Gaza Strip. The Givati Brigade company commander was wounded. The Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the attack.


2002: The Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 which was intended to limit the impact of big donors on the political process which was co-sponsored by Senator Russ Feingold became effective today.


2003: The Chicago Sun-Times published the last column written by 91 year old Irv Kupcinet.


2003: In “Rabbi Asher Wade tackles questions of Holocaust, God at local lecture” Sherry Greenfield describes the upcoming lecture by Rabbi Asher Wade on "God didn't die in Auschwitz: Answering the question: Where was God in the Holocaust?" at the Beth Sholom Community Center in Frederick, MD.


2005: A mosaic and the remains of a building uncovered recently in excavations on the Megiddo prison grounds may belong to the earliest church in the world, according to a preliminary examination by the Israel Antiquities Authority. The church dates from some time in third or fourth century.  It features a table, instead of an altar, on which a sacred meal was consumed to commemorate the Last Supper.  If this interpretation is accurate it might shed new light on the origins of Christian rituals.  The Church was uncovered when digging had begun to extend the prison facility.  Archaeology is “Israel’s national sport” and evidence of other people’s practices and civilizations are treated reverently by Israelis. The prison is located near Tel Megiddo, which is supposed to be the site for the mythic Battle of Armageddon.  The Israelis expect that this latest find will be a boon to the tourist industry which has suffered in recent years because of Arab Terrorism.


2005: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or on topics of special Jewish interest including The Chosen: The Hidden History of Admission and Exclusion at Harvard, Yale, and Princetonby Jerome Karabel and Dean and Me (A Love Story)
by Jerry Lewis and James Kaplan


2006:  Borat, the cinematic creation of British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen, was the leading box office hit over the weekend, grossing 26 million dollars in sales.  This financial success is all the more amazing when you consider the limited number of theatres in which the film appeared.


2006: The edition of Sports Illustrated of this date features two page retrospective on the recently deceased Arnold “Red” Auberach without mentioning the fact that he was Jewish.  This is no small oversight when one considers the role of two Jews - Abe Sapperstien and Red Auberach - for opening up careers in professional basketball players to African Americans.


2006: The edition U.S. News & World Report of this date reported that “prosecutors in Argentina are placing blame on ‘the highest authorities’ of the then government in Tehran for the 1994 Jewish Center bombing in Buenos Aires that killed 85 people and injured more than 2000.  Prosecutors are seeking arrest orders for former Iranian President Rafsanjani and seven others, alleging that they plotted to have Lebanon-based Hezbollah stage the bombing, the worst terrorist attack ever in Argentina.”


2007: The Diaspora Museum (Beth Hatefutsoth), marks the 40th anniversary of the Six Day War with the opening of an exhibition covering the Jewish nationalist spirit that Israel's incredible 1967 military victory ignited among Russian Jewry, setting of a struggle that began with a cry for free immigration to Israel and ended with the struggle to lead a free Jewish existence in the Soviet Union. Entitled, Jews of Struggle: The Jewish National Movement in the USSR, 1967-1989, the exhibition presents photographs, posters, rare footage, artifacts, rare documents, books, diaries, albums, letters and art (pictured is the Let My People Go! poster, USA, 1973, artist Saul Bass; the Ilan Roth Collection, Herzliya). The subjects covered include the anti-Semitism that existed in the Soviet Union during the period of Stalin and his successors; the repression of Jews across the USSR; the attempts of various governments to hide the destruction of the Jews in the Holocaust; the reactions of Soviet Jews to the establishment of the State of Israel; Golda Meir's visit to Moscow in 1948; the closing of the Israeli embassy in 1967; the movement on behalf of Soviet Jewry among Jews around the world; and finally, the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989 that opened the floodgates of Aliyah to Israel.


2007: At the Jewish Community Center of Greater Washington 38th annual Book Festival, Walter Isaacson discusses his bestselling biography Einstein: His Life and Universe.


2007: Shalom Auslander reads from his biography Foreskin’s Lament at Prairie Lights Books in Iowa City, Iowa.


2007: In what appears to be a challenge to David Ben-Gurion’s old dream of “making the desert bloom” The Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel (SPNI) released a report detailing the extent of recent agricultural development throughout the Negev and the underestimated impact of this development on the local ecology.


2007(25th of Cheshvan, 5768): Staff Sergeant Yariv Amitai of Moshav Hazor’im was killed in a Jeep accident along the border with Gaza.


2007: At rededication ceremonies at Sha’ar Hashamayim Synagogue Cairo, D. Gaber Baltagi recited one of his works in Arabic and Hebrew calling for peace among the nations followed by the sounding of loud Shofar blast.


2008: One day after she had passed away, a memorial service was held today in Austin for 94 year old Pauline Hirschfeld.



2008: At ColumbiaUniversity, the Alliance Program presents a seminar entitled “Israel As A Jewish and Democratic State: A Reappraisal” moderated by Peter Awn, Director of the Middle East Institute.


2008: U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrived in Israel in a last ditch attempt to salvage something from the aborted “peace talks” held in Annapolis.  Secretary Rice is forced to admit that none of the grandiose Bush talk about peace in the Middle East have become a reality.


2008: Rahm Israel Emanual accepted an offer from President-elect Barack Obama to become the White House Chief of Staff in Obama's administration, which begins on January 20, 2009.


2009: Nobel Prize winning Israeli economist Daniel Kahneman “was awarded an honorary doctorate from the department of Economics at Erasmus University in Rotterdam, Netherlands.”


2009: The 40th Annual Book Festival sponsored by the JCC of Greater Washington continues with a presentation by Fashion Institute of Technology Professor Helene Verin sharing the story of Beth Levine, the trend-setting designer who led shoe fashion from the early 1950’s through mid-1970’s


2009: Beginning of Chabad’s New York Weekend



2010: Rivka Zohar, famed Israeli singer, is scheduled to perform at Bnei Zion Hall in New York.


2010: Lauren Beth Denenberg married Alex Bettman, the son of Gary Bettman, the commissioner of the National Hockey League, tonight at the Plaza Hotel in New York.


2010(29thof Cheshvan, 5771): Eighty-eight year old Robert J. Lipshutz,"who as White House counsel to President Jimmy Carter played an important behind-the-scenes role in negotiations leading to the Camp David peace accords, passed away today. (As reported by Dennis Hevesi)



2011: Annual Afternoon Tea featuring Karen Bergreen, author of “Following Polly,” is scheduled to take place at the JCC of Northern Virginia Annual Jewish Book Festival.


2011: Calvin Goldscheider, the Professor Emeritus of Sociology and Judaic Studies at Brown University, is scheduled to discuss his recent book, "A Typical Extraordinary Jew: From Tarnow to Jerusalem", which tells the story of a charming Polish Jew, Shmuel Braw (1906 – 1992) who lived through the traumatic historical events that shaped Jewish experience in the twentieth century in the Adas Israel Freudberg Memorial Sisterhood Library


2011(9thof Cheshvan, 5772): Ninety-two year old Hal Kanter, the Savannah born Jew who made everybody from Eddie Cantor to Bob Hope to Jerry Lewis sound funny to their audiences passed away today.



2011(9thof Cheshvan, 5772): Seventy-eight year old Israeli author Peretz Kidron whose translations include the memoires of Yitzak Rabin and Ezer Weizman, as well as biography of David Ben Gurion.



2011: The Upshernish of Menachem Mendel Blesofsky is scheduled to take place this evening in Iowa City, Iowa.


2011: The 33rd Annual St. Louis Jewish Book Festival, which claims to be the largest Jewish book festival in the United States, is scheduled to begin this evening.


2011: The Illinois Holocaust Memorial Museum is scheduled to present “The Valiant and the Indifferent – Honoring Rescuers, Commemorating Kristallnacht.”


2011: The Jewish Historical Society of Greater Washington is scheduled to hold its 51stannual meeting where it will celebrate the Giant Food Archival Project.  The Giant was the name of what became a leading supermarket chain which was founded in 1936 by Nehemiah Cohen and Samuel Lehrman.  Although the Giant was not “a Jewish store,” in the 1950’s the men who worked at the fish counter at the Spring Valley store knew what to grind if you wanted to make Gefilte fish and the Giant was the first chain store in Washington to carry fresh baked challah.  2011: Peace Now activists said tonight that the words "price tag" had been sprayed on the walls of the building where the movement operates in Jerusalem.


2011: Police announced today that they have arrested a suspect in last month's stabbing attack in which a Jewish youth was seriously injured in Jerusalem's Ramot neighborhood. The suspect, 20-year-old Zaid Abd al-Rahman from the village of Beit Iksa near Ramot, was arrested several days ago in a joint, police, IDF and Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) operation.


2011: The Jewish Federations of North America’s (JFNA) General Assembly opened today in Denver, Colorado amid questions of how much funding the Jewish federations will continue to provide to the Jewish Agency for Israel and the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee.


2011(9thof Cheshvan, 5772): Seventy-eight year old Israeli author and journalist Peretz Kidron passed away.  A native of Vienna, his family escaped to Britain at the time of the Anschluss and he eventually made his to Israel where he lived at Kibbutz Zikim.  


2011: Irish blogger and author John Connolly, a member of the Anglican Friends of Israel who has criticized the General Synod of the Church of England for endorsing the Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel, a group he claims has an anti-Israel bias and a history of misleading the public about its own activities” scooped everybody when he published a picture of “Irish politician Chris Andrews smiling and shaking hands with Bashar Al-Assad of Syria.”


2012: “The Price of Kings: Shimon Peres” is scheduled to have its British premiere at the UK Jewish Film Festival.


2012: Colorado voters adopted a newly permissive approach to marijuana following a campaign spearheaded by Jewish activist Mason Tvert. (As reported by Ben Harris)


2012” Mill Creek entertainment released a DVD version of “Yellowneck” a film about Confederate deserters and Seminole Indians with a musical score by Laurence Rosenthal.


2012: In the U.S. elections are scheduled to be held for President, the House of Representatives, one third of the United States and host of state and local positions. Among the candidates is Shelly Adler who is running in New Jersey’s 3rd Congressional District.  Mrs. Adler late husband had held the seat until he was defeated in 2010.


2012: The United Nations today condemned the Syrian military’s breach of the demilitarized zone between the Israeli and Syrian Golan Heights on Saturday, calling it a violation of the 1974 disengagement agreement.


2012: An explosion tore through the Gaza - Israel border this morning, injuring three IDF soldiers.


The blast occurred as an IDF force was on a routine patrol near southern Gaza. Paramedics treated all the injured soldiers at the scene, two of whom suffered light injuries. The third soldier was evacuated to hospital via helicopter with moderate injuries.


2013: “The Prime Ministers: The Pioneers,” a film based on The Prime Ministersby Yehuda Avner produced by Richard Tank is scheduled to open in Los Angeles. (As reported by Renee Ghert-Zand)


2013: “Child Refugees” Five Portraits from the Kindertransport” is scheduled to come to an end at the Wiener Library in London, UK.


2013(3rdof Kislev, 57754): Josef Harish, “an Israeli jurist who served as Attorney General between 1986 and 1993” passed away today at Tel Aviv


2013: A three-judge panel at the Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court unanimously acquitted former foreign minister Avigdor Liberman of fraud and breach of trust charges this morning, clearing the way for him to retake his cabinet post. (As reported by Elie Leshem and Haviv Rettig Gur)


2013: The year-round Washington Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to show “AKA Doc Pomus.”



2014: “The Art Dealer” is scheduled to be shown on the opening night of 18thannual UK Jewish Film Festival.


2014: The ADL is expected make an announcement confirming reports by JTA that Jonathan Greenblatt has been named to succeed Abraham Foxman as its new national director.


2014: The Center for Jewish History is scheduled to present “Czechs, Slovaks and the Jews, 1938-48: Beyond Idealization and Condemnation”


2014: The Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center is scheduled to host “Science Confronts Race: A Contested History.”


2014: “Thousands attended the funeral today for Israeli Border Policy officer Jedan Assad in the northern Druze village of Beit Jann after he was murdered yesterday by a Hamas terrorist. (As reported by Spencer Ho)


2014: “An East Jerusalem man attacked a light rail security guard this morning after being asked to provide his identification papers.” (As reported by Stuart Winer)


2014(13thof Cheshvan, 5775): Seventy-four year old multi-talented Daniel Meltzer passed away today.



2015: Author Amos Oz “said in comments published” today in the Maariv newspaper that ‘in the wake of growing extremism in the present government’s policy in various areas, I informed my hosts that I prefer not to be invited to events held in my honor at Israeli embassies overseas’” because he is protesting “against what he says are extremist Israel policies.”


2015: Peninsula Art Space is scheduled to host the reception marking the opening of Pairing Down an exhibition that will include the works of Israeli artist Ariel Reichman.


2015: Israeli artist Sara Erenthal is scheduled to open an exhibition of her works on the construction wall adjacent to FiveMyles on St. Johns Place as part of the Interlude Project.


2015: The Eden-Tamir Music Center is scheduled to host a “guest recital by the world famous pianist Oxana Yablonskaya.


2015: As part of Holocaust Education Week, 2015 Scholar-in-Residence Dr. Hilary Earl is an historian of the Holocaust whose research focuses on perpetrator testimony and war crimes trials in the aftermath of the Holocaust is scheduled to talk about why “the Allies had gone back on their promise to hold Nazi war criminals accounts” and to examine “the processes that encouraged the early release and in some case amnesties for Nazi war criminals in the aftermath of the war.”


2015: “How Franklin, The Black ‘Peanuts’ Character Was Born” published today described the role Harriet Glickman played in the creation of a new friend for Charlie Brown.



2015(24thof Cheshvan, 5776): Ninety-four year old Yitzhak Navon, Israel’s fifth present and the first Sephardic Jew born in Jerusalem to hold the position passed away today.




2015: Jewish Book Month begins.


2016: The Temple Emanu-El Skirball Center is scheduled to host Rabbi Leon A. Harris speaking on “The Past, Present and Future Meaning of Jewish Identity.”


2016: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including the recently released paperback edition of The Fall of the Ottomans: The Great War in the Middle East by Eugene Rogan and The Tree in the Courtyard: Looking Through Anne Frank’s Window by Jeff Gottsefeld and illustrated by Peter McCarty which was listed as one of “The New York Times Best Illustrated Children’s Books of 2016”


2016: The Jewish Review of Books is scheduled to hold its 2nd Annual Conference at the Yehsiva University Museum at the Center for Jewish History.



           Bret Stephens on  America, Israel, and Geopolitics


           Dara Horn and Ruth R. Wisse on Should Jewish Literature Be Depressing?


           Shai Held and Meir Soloveichik on Does God Love the Jews?


           Joseph H.H. Weiler and Moshe Halbertal on Nationalism and Its Critics in Europe and Israel


           Eliot Cohen on David Ben-Gurion in War and Peace


           Leon Wieseltier on The Soul of American Jewry


 


2016: Mrs. Goldie Plotkin of Toronto, Canada, is scheduled to speak the dedication of The Mikvah at the Chabad Center for Jewish Life in Little Rock, AR which is led by Rabbi Pinchas Ciment, the consummate “lamplighter.”


2016: “The 90 Minute War” and “Mr. Predictable” are scheduled to be shown at the 20thUK International Jewish Film Festival today.


2017: In Philadelphia, the “27th Conference of the Society for Crypto-Judaic Studies


“Crypto-Judaism in the Americas” is scheduled to continue for a second day.


2017: The Temple Emanu-El Streicker Center is scheduled to host “a conversation with Leon Wieseltier on “The Syrian Refugee Crisis – Their Agony, Our Conscience.”


2017: Led by Adam Cohen the family of the singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen is scheduled to host “Tower of Song: A Memorial Tribute to Leonard Cohen” in Montreal a year after Cohen’s death on November 7, 2016.


2018: "New Perspectives on Kristallnacht: After 80 Years, the Nazi Pogrom in Global Comparison," a conference “co-organized by the USC Shoah Foundation Center for Advanced Genocide Research and the USC Casden Institute for the Study of the Jewish Role in American Life, and presented in cooperation with the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington D.C., and the Center for Research on Antisemitism at the Technical University Berlin, Germany” is scheduled to continue for a third day with topics including “Anti-Jewish excesses in response to von Rath’s assassination”: Public responses of the Jewish Community in Japan-controlled Harbin to the Kristallnacht” and “Kristallnacht in Film: From Reportage to Reenactments, 1938-1948.”


2018: In Nashville, TN, Vanderbilt University is scheduled to host “The 80th Anniversary of Kristallnacht with Survivor Marion Lazan” who “will recount the devastating years that shaped her childhood” after Hitler’s rise to power.


2018: Rabbi Robert Hirt is scheduled to lecture on “Zionism and the Challenge to American Jewry” at the Skirball Center.


2018: The Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage is scheduled to host “a docent-led guided tour of ‘Israel: Then and Now,’a first-of-its-kind special exhibition that combines milestone moments, historic images, interactive media, and film.”


2018: Among those whose political fates will be decided today “are 56 candidates for Congress who identify as Jewish.” (As reported by Ron Kampeas)



 


 


 

This Day, November 7, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. Levin

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November 7


305 B.C.E.: Ptolemy, a Macedonian general who had fought by the side of Alexander the Great, became King of Egypt.  Alexander’s empire broke into three parts after his death.  Jerusalem and Judea came under the sway of the Ptolemy’s who left the Jews to practice their religion in comparative freedom.  Things would change when the Ptolemy’s would lose control of Judea to the Seleucids setting the stage for what we know as the story of Chanukah.
1180(4941): Maimonides completed the Mishneh Torah
1532(29th Cheshvan, 5293): Solomon Molcho, Marrano Kabbalist and mystic, was burned at the stake.  Solomon Molcho’s life is too fascinating for this small snippet.  Born Diogo Pires in 1500 to Portuguese Marranos, Molcho fell under the spell of a mysterious Jewish visitor name David Reuveni.  Molcho circumcised himself and adopted his Jewish name.  He traveled back and forth across the lands surrounding the Mediterranean.  In the end he saw himself as a Messiah, a role that did sit with Charles V, the Holy Roman Emperor.  He was having enough problems with the Lutherans and finally had Molocho put to death for trying to convert people to Judaism.


1573: Solomon Luria, known as the Maharshal, passed away. A famed Talmudic scholar, he believed in a plain, lucid approach to study.  Two of his commentaries were Yam Shel Shlomo (The Sea of Solomon) and Chokmat Shel Shomo (The Wisdom of Solomon).  He was the son-in-law of Kalonymus Haberkasten, having married the Rosh Yeshiva’s daughter Lipka.


1611(1st of Kislev,): Joseph Siegel Ish Lito, published Givat ha-Moreh, the first critical discussion of the philosophy of Maimonides written in Lithuania
1612: “Jewish residence in Hamburg, Germany, was officially authorized but the Jews were denied he right of publish worship and circumcision” which led to a demand by “frustrated Lutheran clergy” to demand “that a ‘Christian rabbi’ be appointed to preach at Jewish services.”
1687(2nd of Kislev): Philosopher and poet Isaac (Balthazar) Orobio de Castro past away.

1707(12th of Cheshvan): Rabbi Israel ben Aaron Jaffe of Shklov, leading kabbalist and author of Or Yisrael, passed away today.


1719: It was reported today a marriage is planned between Isaac Franks, the son of Abraham Franks and Simcha (Frances) Hart the daughter Moses Hart.


1736(3rd of Kislev): Rabbi Joseph David of Salonika, author of Bet David, passed away today.


1745: In London Frederick, Prince of Wales and Augusta of Saxe-Gotha gave birth to Prince Henry, Duke of Cumberland and Strathearn the patron of Jacob Philadelphia, the magician, physicist, mechanic, juggler, astrologer, alchemist, and Kabbalist whose name was Jacob Meyer before he converted.


1765: David Franks, a prominent Philadelphia merchant and Jewish leader signed the Non-Importation Resolution. This was the Colonial response to the Stamp Act and was one of the acts of defiance that eventually led to the American Revolution.  In one of those strange twists of fate, when war came, Franks became a Loyalist, the party that supported Great Britain and opposed the move for the colonies to gain their independence.


1825(26th of Cheshvan, 5586): Charlotte Dacre, the daughter John King (born Jacob Rey) “a moneylender and radical writer and Sara Lara, “the English author of Gothic novels” the best known of which is Zofloya passed away today
1827: Isaac Levy Miers married Elsey Jacobs at the Great Synagogue.


1832: Birthdate of Jacob Gottstein, the native of Lissa, Austria, who graduated as an MD from the University of Breslau in 1856 and returned to as a faculty member in 1872.


1832: John Allen married Ann Myers today.


1839: Birthdate of Hermann Levin the son of a German rabbi who as music director at Saarbrücken and chief conductor of the German opera in Rotterdam


1839: Moses Asher Goldsmid married Sarah Montefiore at the Great Synagogue today.


1841: Nineteen slaves led by Madison Washington seized control of the brig Creole from the slave traders marking the beginning of an international incident that would result in litigation in which Judah P. Benjamin “represented insurance companies being sued.”


1846: In Moravia, Katharina Schreiber and Siegmund Brüll gave birth to their eldest son pianist and composer Ignaz Brüll.


1847: In Hungary, the session of the Diet that opened today refused to take favorable action on the emancipation of the Jews.


1848:  Zachary Taylor was elected President of the United States. While President, Taylor appointed Joseph Jonas as Postmaster of Quincy, Illinois in 1849.  According to some, Jonas was the first Jew to settle in the area west of the Allegheny Mountains.  Taylor died in 1850 and was followed in office by his Vice President, Millard Fillmore.  Fillmore is the President who opposed a treaty with Switzerland that would have allowed the Swiss to discriminate against American citizens who were Jewish.


1849: August Belmont married Caroline Slidell Perry, niece of John Slidell, a Senator from Louisiana who would gain fame as a minor representative of the Confederate Government during the Civil War.  The marriage would produce three sons prominent in the affairs of 19th century America but they were lost to the Jewish community. This would not be the last Jewish connection for Slidell.  His daughter would marry a French Jewish banker while he was serving the Confederacy in Paris.


1849: Abraham Lewis married Rachel Solomon at the Great Synagogue today.


1853: Dr. Raphall, Rabbi of the Greene-street Synagogue, tonight delivered the first of a series of lectures on the “Sacred Poetry of the Hebrews.



1857: A letter published was highly critical of Judge Osborne for declaring “Now, you’ll hearing some hard swearing” when the case of Henry Myers was called followed by the statement “They’re a parcel of Jews.”  The writer wonders if the term “hard swearers” refer to the invalidity of the oaths i.e. they would lie on the stand.  The letter continues “Doubtless many of your readers will agree with me that, taking as examples the respectable class of our Jewish residents, we have none more peaceable and respected and law-obeying citizens in our metropolis – men…whose friendship once gained is esteemed without prejudice to their religious opinion.  Does Judge Osborn forget that not many years since ‘a Jew’ faithfully performed, upon the bench of the Court of Sessions, similar duties to those now devoling upon himself and at who whose decease thousands of the citizens of New York marked their respect by attendance at his funeral?  Does he know that even now in our Senate and our House of Representatives as well as many public offices of this City, we have several able members of these same religion, whose ‘hard swearing’ has never yet been called in questions.  If not, it is well they should inform himself…” the letter ends with a reminder that the citizens elect people based on their ability to act with dignity as well as their ability.



1860(22nd of Cheshvan, 5621): Jacob Joseph Ottinger, the native of Glogau who was appointed acting rabbi at Berlin in 1825 following the death of Meyer Simon Weyl passed away today.



1862: During the Civil War, Corporal Alexander Jacobs began his term of service with Company F of the 165th Regiment.



1864(8th of Cheshvan, 5625): Seventy-two year old David Sassoon passed away.  Born in October 1792, he was the treasurer of Baghdad between 1817 and 1829. He became the leader of the Jewish community in Bombay (now Mumbai) after Baghdadi Jews emigrated there. Most important of all, he was the founding Patriarch of the Sassoon clan.



1864: During the American Civil War, Major Alfred Mordecai, Jr., completed his service as Chief of Ordinance for the Department of the Army of Ohio.


1864: Alfred Mordecai, Jr. a Major serving in the Union Army was appoint Senior and Supervising Ordinance of the Army of the Cumberland under the command of Major General George Thomas.  Mordecai was a second generation Army officer.  Both he and his father distinguished themselves in the field of ordinance which essentially the artillery arm of the army.


1868: Birthdate of Royal S. Copeland, a Republican U.S. Senator from New York, who “crossed the aisles to support Senator Joe T. Robinson, the Democratic Majority Leader, in his remarks condemning the attacks by the new Nazi government on its Jewish citizens in 1933.


1868: Birthdate of Julius Benjamin “Julie” Freeman the right hander who pitched one game for the St. Louis and who was identified as being Jewish until “Jesse Silver” corrected the error.


1869: Theobald Epstein and Auguste Seligmann gave birth to Cäcilie Epstein, the older sister of mathematician Paul Epstein and Tilly Epstein who was born in 1873.


1871: An article published today entitled “Chatham Street” described the variety of experiences that would greet visitors to this New York thoroughfare including an encounter with a Jewish clothes vendor who would try and sell them “a nice pair of pants dirt cheap for seven dollars” or “a jolly Jewess whose black-eyed daughters…have beguiled many a young Gentile into purchasing paper collars and ten cent butterflies.”


1876: U.S. Presidential were held today which pitted Republican Rutherford B. Hayes and Democrat Samuel Tilden.  Until 2000, it was the only Presidential election that was not settled at the ballot box.  Hayes would eventually be declared the winner thanks to a grand compromise. Hayes “was the first president to designate a Jewish ambassador for the stated purpose of fighting anti-Semitism. In 1870, he named Benjamin Peixotto Consul-General to Rumania. Hayes also was the first president to assure a civil service employee her right to work for the Federal government and yet observe the Sabbath.”


1876: At the Tombs Police Court in New York City, Judge Duffy heard a case concerning alleged vote buying. A Jew named Morris Isaacs testified that a co-religionist named Mark Cohn gave him a dollar if he would vote the Republican ticket.  Cohn denied the charge claiming that the dollar was partial payment for the $1.50 he owed Isaacs.  Although he denied giving Isaacs a Republican ticket and Isaacs could not produce a copy of the Republican ticket, the judge still remanded the accused.


1878: Birthdate of physicist Lise Meitner.


1879: Sixty-nine year old Daniel Lowenthal was buried today at the “Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.”


1879: It was reported today that the citizens of Elmira plan on erecting a monument to Adam, of biblical fame.  According to the report, if they are able to raise the funds a personage fluent in Hebrew will remind them that Adam means red and that according to tradition the first man was made from red clay.  This means that the proposed granite monument will have to be made from red granite.


1879: Birthdate of Lev Davidovich Bronstein known to history of Leon Trotsky, leader of the Bolshevik Revolution and due to his work with the Red Army, savior of the Communist cause.


1879: Birthdate Latvian Markus Nurock who gained fame as Mordechai Nurock, an ordained Rabbi and Doctor of Philosophy who served as member of the Lativian Parliament and the Knesset.


1880: Three days after he had passed away, Moses Isaacs was buried today at the “West Ham Jewish Cemetery on Buckingham Road.”


1880: It was reported today that the rulers of Persia continue to follow the practice of appointing foreigners to positions of influence that can be traced back to the Middle Ages when, for example Shah Arghim appointed his Jewish physician Matthias to the position of Minister of Finance.


1880: “Married Jewess Cutting Their Hair” published today traces this customs which “is universally followed in Poland, southern Spain and Northern Africa” as well as modern day London.  “The act of removal of the hair is regarded as an important ceremony and takes place on the evening of the day previous to the wedding…in the presence of…relatives of both families.”


1880: Birthdate of Joseph Otto Mandel, the native of Vienna who gained fame as director and producer Joe May.


1880: Birthdate of multitalented author and director Peretz Hirschbein, the Grodno native who moved to the United States during WW I where he remained until his death in 1948.




1881: “Palestine Exploration” published today provided a detailed review of East of the Jordan: A Record of Travel and Observations by Selah Merrill an archaeologist with the American Palestine Exploration Society.


1881: Two days after she had passed away, 59 year old Julia Braun, the daughter of Joseph and Fanny Joseph and wife of Louis Braun with whom he had eight children was buried today at the “Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.”


1882: In an example of how important the “Jewish vote” has become, it was reported today that in an attempt to get that vote, the opponents of Emmons Clark, the reform candidate of for Sheriff, have issued claims that Clark has kept Jews from serving in his New York militia regiment and Clark has issued a strong denial of the claim.


1882: “Useful Opposition In Politics” published cited the claim that Edward Salomon “was unfriendly to followers of the Hebrew faith” as evidence of the appeals to religious prejudice that permeated the campaign in New York City.


1883: Sir Henry Irving played the role of Shylock and Ellen Terry played the role of his daughter Portia in tonight’s performance of “The Merchant of Venice” at the Star Theatre of New York


1885: In Rostov-on don  Naphtul Arkadjevitch Spielrein, a merchant, and, Emilia (Eva) Marcovna Lujublinskaja, a dentist gave birth to “Sabina Spielrein, a pioneer active in the early stages of the birth of psychoanalysis who made significant contributions to the field, was the first person to propose the thesis about instinctual life, which Freud later adapted.” (As reported by Karen Hall)


1886: “Gold Thread Embroidery” published refutes the claim that the Jewish use gold embroidery as described in Exodus 39 was an art form learned from the Egyptians. “No stuff wove with gold have been found in Egyptian tombs.”


1886: It was reported today that the German term “Suso-Oppenheimer” does not mean “a wine the reverse of dry” but refers to “a shrewd Jew of Heidelberg who in 1733 became financial agent of Duke Karl Alexander of Wurtemberg.


1886: In a review published today of Arnold White’s The Problems of a Great City quotes the author as writing “dispassionately of the London Jews and…their own religious leaders” of early marriages among the poorer classes” which “is declared to a source of unmitigated evil.”  Russian and Polish Jews come to England and New York “where the parents are not more than 20 and they have three children. In order ‘to sterilize the unfit’ Mr. White believes that the legal age of marriage should be raised” so “that reckless marriages should be prevented.”


1886:  Birthdate of Aron Nimzowitch, the Riga, Latvia and world class chess master known for his innovative strategies who passed away in Denmark in 1935.


1886: Birthdate of Reinhold Schünzel, the native St. Pauli, Hamburg who began his film career in 1915 who spent WW II making movies in the United States before returning to Germany where passed away in 1954.


1892: The day before the Presidential elections a letter from President Grover Cleveland addressed to Jews living in New York is published which said in part, “It has always been a matter of pride and pleasure to me to feel that I have always enjoyed the good will of the Hebrews of this our common country.”


1893: “Hebrews For Law and Justice” published today provides Rabbi Kaufman Kohler’s reluctant endorsement of the Republican candidate for Court of Appeals, Bartlett, over his Democratic opponent, Maynard, the latter having been endorsed  by “Jewish journals represent the less liberal element of New York Judaism.”


1895: Birthdate of Jacob Kaplan who served as the Chief Rabbi of Paris from 1950 until 1955 when he began serving as Chief Rabbi of Paris.


1896: The University of Wisconsin football team led by first year head coach Philip King, a Jewish native of Washington, DC defeated the University of Chicago today.


1897: Two days after she had passed away, 40 year old Esther Jonas, the wife of Samuel Jonas was buried today at the “Plashet Jewish Cemetery” in London.


1897: In New York City, Franz Mankiewicz and Johanna Blumenau gave birth to screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewizc whose film credits include a variety of works among which are Citizen Kane, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and Pride of the Yankees.  He won an Oscar for Citizen Kane.  He died in 1953.


1897: “The New York Hebrew Mutual Benefit Association held its twenty-fifth annual banquet and ball” tonight at “Terrace Garden on Lexington Avenue and 58thStreet.”


1897: At Temple Emanu-El on 5th Avenue and 43rd Street a service was held to honor the memory of Lewis May, the congregation’s late president who passed away last July.


1897: Today, in the United Kingdom, The Jewish World published a letter from “Don’t Cringe” on the subject of Zionism that concluded with the wish that publication provide “us a full and rational discussion on the Zionist movement.”


1897: The Anglo-Jewish Association Council Meet is scheduled to meet this morning at the Great Western Hotel in Paddington.


1897: Mr. and Mrs. Lewis Manuel are scheduled to give out the prizes at the South East London Synagogue Hebrew and Religion Classes.


1897: “The Concert Season” is scheduled to open at the Jewish Workingmen’s Club this evening with Bernard Cohen directing the first event.


1897: Israel Zangwill is scheduled to address the “members of the West Central Jewish Girls Club” today.


1898(22nd of Cheshvan, 5659): Sixty-two year old Isaiah Luzzatto passed away in his native Padua, Italy.  The son of S.D. Luzzatto he trained as a lawyer and served as a notary.  He wrote a variety books including one “on the battle of Legnano.”


1898(22ndof Cheshvan, 5659): Medal of Honor winner Jacob Trautman, the native of Hamburg who served as a First Sergeant with the 7th U.S. Calvary passed away today in Philadelphia.


1898: At the auction of Reverend William Makellar of Edinburgh’ library which included a wide selection of Biblical literature in several languages the following were sold: The Gutenberg Bible (£2,950); Tyndale’s Pentateuch (£270 and £60) and “The Bokes of Solomon: printed by Edwarde Whytchurh (£20).


1899: Herzl writes to Nouri Bey, General Secretary of the Turkish Foreign Office, seeking to arrange a meeting with the Sultan.


1899(5th of Kislev, 5660): Julia Elkus, the widow of Isaac Elkhus, who was a Director of the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society, passed away today.


1900: Birthdate of Efrem the native of St Petersburg Russia, who was one of many world renowned conductors of Russian Jewish origins. At one point after World War II he was the conductor of the Houston (Texas) Symphony Orchestra.  He passed away in 1995.


1901: In St. Louis, 100 people met at the Columbian Club and formed the Jewish Charitable and Educational Union with Moses Fraley serving as the first president.


1903: In Vienna, Dr. Lucian Mayer Langbank and Ernestine Langbank gave birth to Alexander Langbank.


1903: “Synagogue for Camden Hebrews” published today described plans by Camden, New Jersey Jews led by Abe Fuhrman, J.G. Blank, E.J. Weinstein, William Fox and Harry Pinksky  for the erection of Adath Israel Synagogue and a Jewish school on the corner of Fifth and Spruce Streets at cost of $10,000


1905: It was reported today that “a telephone message from Moscow says the Jews are terror stricken with fear of a massacre there” and that “many of them have abandoned their lodgings and are sleeping in the houses of friends”


1905: “Killing of Jews Continues” published today described a three day attack on the Jews of Bachmut, Bessarabia that had begun on November 2nd in which “Jewish students were beaten, the Jewish stores were sacked” and their homes were pillaged “before the eyes of the soldiers and police” who would do nothing to stop the attacks but did keep the Jews from fighting the fires when “the torch was applied to stores and houses.”


1905: It was reported today that “in view of the devastation of almost all the Jewish mills, shops and factories, the trade of Odessa is threatened with ruin and wholesale bankruptcies feared” which will put the international credit of Russia at risk. (Ant-Semitism is not good for business)


1905: “The Rioting In Russia” published today were directed against the Jews shows how deeply rooted is the spirit of persecution under autocratic rule” and warns that if the attacks do not end “revolution will seek to finish the work which the Czar’s proclamation has failed to accomplish.


1905: This afternoon at New York’s Temple Emanu-El Jacob H. Schiff chaired a meeting of Jews from all section of the where plans were devised to put an end “to the massacre of Jews in Russia and to raise funds to aid the survivors.” Those chosen to lead the effort which in one afternoon has raised $56,800 were Oscar S. Straus, Chairman; Cyrus Sulzberger, Secretary; Jacob H. Schiff.


1905: Abraham Kahn described “ a plan of the Hebrew Defenders…to send 7,000 delegates to march to the White House for the purpose of appealing to the President to bring the Russian government to its senses” and end the violence aimed at the Jews.


1905: The Bucharest correspondent of the Daily Mail reports today that “Famine reigns throughout Bessarabia and the Jews are taking refuge in the cellars where they are dying wholesale.  A mob of a thousand rioters engaged in a massacre of Jews in Ismaili.”


1906: Birthdate of Viola Spolin, the Chicago native who “is considered the godmother of improvisation for her development of Theater Games, a series of techniques to stimulate creativity in children that became popular with comedy, theater and film artists and were later developed for people of all ages and walks of life.” (As reported by Jewish Women’s Archives)



1909: Birthdate of Norman Krasna “an American screenwriter, playwright, and film director” who won the Oscar for screening in 1943 for “Princess O’Rourke.”


1909(23rdof Cheshvan, 5670): Behre Preischach passed away today


1909: In Leipzig, Gertrud Jakoby and Ephraim Carlebach, a rabbi and founder of Höhere Israelitische Schule , gave birth to Esriel Gotthelf Carlebach who as Ezreiel Carlebach “was the first editor of Israel's two largest newspapers, beginning with Yediot Ahronot which he left to found Ma’ariv.


1910: Oscar Hammerstein’s “Naughty Marietta” opened on Broadway at the New York Theatre where it lasted for 136 performances.


1911: In Baltimore, MD, Myer J. Block was re-elected Judge of Orphans’ Court.


1912: M. Benveniste who was the president of the Alliance school in Ionia wrote on the conditions in his locale. Everything "becomes more and more serious and has taken a disquieting turn. We are absolutely isolated…Greece is about to blockade the only road which remains open….Everything has quadrupled and even quintupled in price. Flour is lacking…."


1912: A Tel-Aviv magazine reported that an association had been founded to establish a new neighborhood in Jerusalem called Talipot. Talipot was to be located on tract of land near the German Colony and the railroad tracks.  Construction on the newly purchased land was slated to begin in the spring of 1913.


1913(7thof Cheshvan, 5674): Ninety-one year old Austrian banker and businessman Max von Gomprez who had been awarded the Grand Cross of the Order of Franz Joseph, passed away today in Vienna.


1913: Birthdate of French Philosopher Albert Camus. According to Adam Krisch  “Albert Camus, who worked on the resistance newspaper Combat, is the most famous example of the few French writers who actively worked against the German occupation” For more about Camus and the Jews seehttp://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-arts-and-culture/books/82555/camus-the-jew


1913: Eleven Jewish students “gathered at New York University to found the first official chapter of Alpha Epsilon Pi (AEPi).” (As reported by Rachel Cohen)


1914: The first issue of The New Republic Magazine was published.  Walter Lippmann, an assimilated Jew, was one of the cofounders.  The current owner and editor-in-chief is Martin Peretz, a man who is aggressively proud of his Jewish background.  Leon Wieseltier, the author of the book Kaddishis a longtime literary editor.


1915: Supreme Court Justice Irving Lehman presided over “the eighth semi-annual assembly of the Eastern Council of Reform Rabbis” which opened at Temple Emanu-El in New York City tonight and where the attendees heard addresses by Rabbi Maurice H. Harris, the President of the Council and Professor Morris Jastrow of the University of Pennsylvania.


1915: Jacob Grossman, 27 years old, a shoemaker by trade, disappeared from Richmond, Virginia leaving his wife Annie and their small baby. Mr. Grossman took everything his wife owned and left her without a penny. He was born in Russia and came to America eight years ago.


1915: Birthdate of New York native Leo “Moose” Disend the Albright College lineman whose two years with the Brooklyn Dodgers included playing professional football’s first televised game and were followed by one final season in 1940 with the Green Bay Packers.


1915: Among those reported today to have signed a circular calling for the organization of a federation of Jewish charities in New York were Max Adler, Louis Auerbach, Nathan Bijur Jefferson Seligman, Elias Spingarn and Jacob Wetheim.


1916: Birthdate of jazz musician Joe Bushkin.


1916: Woodrow Wilson was re-elected President of the United States. From a Jewish perspective, Wilson is best known for his appointment of Louis Brandeis to the Supreme Court.  Wilson enjoyed the support of many of Jewish leaders and Jews played an active role in the peace negotiations at Versailles that marked the conclusion of World War I


1916: It was reported today that newly formed Kingdom of Poland which has been created by the joint-action of the German and Austro-Hungarian Emperors whose armies have conquered the land in the fight with Russia will benefit the Jews of Eastern Europe because the new country will grant “equal rights to the Jews” according to the German Embassy in Washington, D.C.


1917:  In Russia, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin and Leon Trotsky ousted Kerensky and took over the government.  The Kerensky forces were the ones who had actually made the revolution against the Czars. The Mensheviks (Kerensky’s party) and the Bolsheviks (aka the Communists) had Jews in top leadership positions. The victorious Communists would turn on the Jews and subject them to treatment that was little better or even worse than what they had experience under the Czars.


1917: In a letter sent to Samuel Untermyer today, Dr. Samuel Schulman, the Rabbi of Temple Beth-El, “reiterated his charge that Mr. Untermyer in a campaign speech had injected a Jewish religious issue into the municipal campaign in an unjustifiable manner” asserting “that his pre-election prophecy that ‘Jews as Jews’ will not be responsible for the result had been borne out and urged that never again should the names of Jews, as such be dragged into any political fight.”


1917: During World War I, the British captured Gaza from Turkey.  The Jewish Legion was part of the British Army that was making its way across Palestine, heading for Jerusalem and beyond.


1917: As Allenby’s Egyptian Expeditionary Force fought its way toward Jerusalem units of the British Army completed their victory at Hareira and Sheira.


1918: Birthdate of Reverend Billy Graham who was caught on tape discussing “the total Jewish domination of the media” after he had previously denied making such comments when visiting the Nixon White House. These and other similar remarks came as a shock to some Jews since the American Jewish Committee had honored Graham in 1977 for his role in improving Protestant-Jewish relations.




1918: “In Munich, Kurt Eisner, a Prussian Jew and follower of Lenin, who in his professional life was the theatre critic of the Munchener Post, declared the establishment of a Bavarian Soviet Republic.


1919: In Denver, CO, Tillie (Bienenstock) Klausner and Josef Klausner gave birth to Aaron Klausner, the husband of Pearl Klausner.


1920: Joseph Ransohoff of Cincinnati, Ohio, received “an honorary degree of LL.D. from the Medical College of the University of Cincinnati” today.


1920: “The Triennial Convention of the Council of Jewish Women” is scheduled to begin at the Brown Palace Hotel in Denver, CO, where the first event will a meeting of the National Board.


1920: This evening  the Y.M. and Y.W.H.A. of Borough Park is scheduled to celebrate the third anniversary of the opening of its new building” with “a banquet for the founders followed” by a “social evening: that will include a musical program


1920: Birthdate of Marion Philippina van Binsbergen who gained fame as Marion Pritchard, “a Dutch social work student who was recognized by Yad Vashem for “saving dozens of Jews during the Holocaust.




1920: Birthdate of Max Kampelmacher who gained fame as diplomat and foreign negotiator Max Kampelman.



1922: Birthdate of Louis Stettner, the Brooklyn native who turned photographs of ordinary street scenes into art.




1922: Socialist Meyer London was defeated in his bid to be re-elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from New York’s 12th Congressional District.


1922: “Rabbi On Race Restriction” published today described Rabbi James G. Heller’s reaction to college entrance restrictions aimed at limiting Jewish attendance which he described as being contrary to “the American ideal”


1922: Australian philanthropist Merlyn Myer and Sydney Myer who created “Myer” the leading Australian department store chain gave birth to their second child Neilma, the future wife of Vallejo Gantner by whom she had two children – Carrillo and Vallejo.


1924: Birthdate of British multi-dimensional writer Cyril Wolf Mankowitz.



1927: According to Stalinist historians, today, on the anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution, “Trotsky, Kameneneff, Zinovieff and other committed a flagrant act of illegality in attempting a public appeal to the masses in the streets” that “was a complete fiasco” as well as “counter-revolutionary agitation” that eventually led to their exile, imprisonment and/or execution” which “was universally approved of. (This version justifies the murderous excesses of the Stalinist regime that would include several waves of good old fashioned Russian anti-Semitism.)


1928: As the final results of the vote in Massachusetts were tallied today, Al Smith’s victory in that state was attributed to defection “in what were called the foreign groups, citizens of foreign extraction” including the Jews in Wars 12 and 14 in Boston and suburban Brookline.


1930:  Birthdate of Senator Rudy Boschwitz.  In his day Boschwitz was a double anomaly.  He was a Jew elected to the Senate from Minnesota, hardly a place with a big Jewish base.  And he was a Republican at a time when most Jewish voters were Democrats.  In 1990, he was involved in one of the strangest (from a Jewish perspective) Senatorial elections.  The Jewish Boschwitz ran against the Jewish Democrat, Paul Wellstone.  In other words, in America’s heartland, the winner was going to be a Jew no matter what. 


1931: With Sid Gillman playing End, Ohio State defeated the Naval Academy.


1931: “The Mad Genius” a horror film directed by Michael Curtiz and featuring Carmel Meyers was released in the United States by Warner Brothers.


1932: In Powell v. Alabama, 287 U.S. 45 (1932) decided today the United States Supreme Court reversed the convictions of nine young "ignorant and illiterate" black men for allegedly raping two white women on a freight train near Scottsboro, Alabama in what is known as the Scottsboro Boys case.  Samuel Leibowitz worked for 4 years with no reimbursement and great personal danger to save them from a judicial system stacked against and/or the real threat of a lynching.


1933(18th of Cheshvan): Zionist leader Leo Motzkin passed away.



1934: Italian nuclear physicist Bruno Pontecorvo, the son of Jewish textile manufacturer “was listed as co-author of a landmark paper on slow neutrons that reported that hydrogen slowed neutrons more than heavy elements, and that slow neutrons were more easily absorbed.”1936(29th of Cheshvan, 5697): Parashat Toldot


1936: Sophomore Harry Shorten and the rest of his NYU teammates lost their third game of the football season.


1936: “The flower of the Red Army(the largest regular force under arms in Europe and the organized proletariat celebrated today in the Red Square of Moscow the nineteenth anniversary of the Bolshevist Revolution” which “was also a tribute to Stalin, the Red leader whose authority and influence are greater than those of any Czar.”


1936: In Wilkes-Barre, PA, seventy-seven year old the Very Reverend Monseigneur John J. Curran , the militant Catholic who was a great supporter of the working man and who uniquely for this time in history, “was reputed to have as many friends among Protestants and Jews as among Catholics.”


1937: The Palestine Post reported that two unarmed British soldiers of the Black Watch (Royal Highland Regiment) were shot at and killed at the entrance to the Animal Hospital, at the foot of Mount Zion in Jerusalem. Their murderers escaped to the Silwan village. A police van was fired at on the Jerusalem-Hebron road.


1938(13th of Cheshvan, 5699): “Talmudist Samuel M. Paley” passed away in Brookline MA


1938: One thousand mourners filled Forward Hall the site of the funeral for Abraham Liessin which drew an additional 5,000 mourners who stood outside in the rain. (As reported by JTA)


1938: A distraught young Jew named Herschel Grynszpan, whose family has just been deported to Zbaszyn, enters the German Embassy in Paris and mortally wounds Third Secretary of Legation Ernst vom Rath. The Nazis will exploit this event by instigating a long-planned terror campaign against all Jews in Germany and Austria.



1938: In Rome, “the cabinet met this morning under the chairmanship of Premier Mussolini and approved a decree conforming the decision of the Fascist Grand Council declaring that Jews are ineligible for membership in the Fascist Party.” (So much for the myth that Mussolini et al weren’t anti-Semites.)


1939: The Germans began expelling Jews from Western Poland. Jews in Sierpc were ordered to wear a yellow patch on which is written "JUDE".


1941: George Mandel whom Winston Churchill referred to as “the first resister” was sentenced to life imprisonment by the Vichy regime as part of it plan to curry favor with its Nazi allies.


1941: The Nazis murder 2,580 Jews at Nemyriv, Ukraine.


1941: Twelve thousand Jews are transported from Minsk, Belorussia, to burial pits in the nearby Tuchinka Forest and murdered.



1941: In Bobruisk, Belorussia, 20,000 Jews are executed.



1941: In Minsk, the Nazis shot 13,000 Jews.



1941: More than 17,000 Jews are forced from Rovno, Ukraine, and murdered at burial pits in the Sosenki Forest, outside of town.



1941: Close to 5000 Jews are killed in Pogulanka, outside Dvinsk, Latvia


1942: Birthdate of American economist Donald Lewis Kohn


1942: Between now and the end of November, more than 50,000 Jews in Poland and the Ukraine are deported to death camps at Belzec, Treblinka, and Majdanek.


1944 (21st of Cheshvan, 5705): Chana (or Hannah) Senesh (Szenes) was executed in Budapest, by the Nazis.  Born in Hungary in 1921, Senesh was the daughter of intellectual, middle class, non-observant Jews.  Although the Senesh family was assimilated, anti-Semitic sentiment in Budapest led her to involvement in Zionist activities. Hannah Senesh left Hungary for the Land of Israel in 1939 where she lived on Kibbutz Sdot Yam.  In 1943 Senesh joined the British Army and volunteered to be parachuted into Europe. The purpose of this operation was to help the Allied efforts in Europe and establish contact with partisan resistance fighters in an attempt to aid beleaguered Jewish communities. Senesh was parachuted in March, 1944 into Yugoslavia, and spent three months with Tito's partisans. At this time, she wrote a poem called "Blessed is the Match" that memorializes her idealism and commitment to her cause. Senesh then crossed the border into Hungary where she was caught almost immediately by the Hungarian police. Although tortured repeatedly and cruelly over the next several months, Senesh refused to reveal information. She did not cooperate even when the police threatened to harm her mother. When she was executed by a firing squad on November 7, she chose to stare at her executors rather than be blindfolded. In 1950, Senesh's remains were brought to Israel and re-interred in the military cemetery on Mount Herzl. Her diary and literary works were later published, and many of her more popular poems, including "Towards Caesarea,""Eli, Eli," and "Blessed is the Match," have been set to music. She was a brave young woman who captured the imagination because of her valor and because of the ardor which she expressed in her poetry.


 


Walk to Caesarea” by Hannah Sensh                                        


Eli, Eli, she loh yigamer leolam


Hachol vehayam,


Rishroosh shel hamayim


Berack hashamayim


Tfilat haadam



My Lord, my Lord let it never end


The sand and the sea,


The water’s whisper


The sky’s glitter


Man’s Prayer.


Blessed Is the Match



Blessed is the match consumed in kindling flame



Blessed is the flame that burns in the heart's secret places.



Blessed is the heart with strength to stop its beating for honor's sake



Blessed is the match consumed in kindling flame.




A Poem Written While in Prison


One - two - three . . . eight feet long,


Two strides across, the rest is dark


 . . .Life hangs over me like a question mark.


One - two - three . . . maybe another week,


Or next month may still find me here,


But death, I feel, is very near.



I could have been twenty-three next July;


I gambled on what mattered most,


The dice were cast. I lost.


 


Words Written While Waiting to Die


 “There are stars whose radiance is visible on Earth though they have long been extinct. There are people whose brilliance continues to light the world though they are no longer among the living. These lights are particularly bright when the night is dark. They light the way for humankind.”





1944: The Birkenau gas chambers ceased being operational. Jews who arrived there were all now given tattoo numbers, a practice usually reserved for those who were not selected for immediate death


1944: Albert Montefiore Hyamson, Basil Henriques, Sir Brunel Cohen, Joseph Leftwich, Louis Gluckstein, and Rabbi Israel Mattuck were among the leaders who founded The Jewish Fellowship today as a way “to campaign against (political) Zionism from a Jewish perspective.


1945: Today, a defecting Soviet espionage told FBI investigators “that in late 1942 or early 1943” from two Soviet spies, one of whom was Nathan Silvermaster, “that one source of the government documents they were photographing and passing on to her and NKVD spymaster Jacob Golos was Harry Dexter White.”


1945(2nd of Kislev, 5706): Sixty-Sixty year song writer and “talent scout” Gus Edwards, whose discoveries included Eddie Cantor and George Jessel and who would have celebrated his 40thwedding anniversary in December with his wife, the former Lilian Boulanger, passed away today.



 1945: After having been elected New York City Comptroller, the New York Times today “praised Lazarus Joseph “stating that ‘In the eleven years that he served as a member of the State Senate, Lazarus Joseph earned a reputation as an expert in budgetary and financial matters and as an authority on real estate law and finance.’"


1945: The unnamed infant child of Sylvan and Elizabeth Friedman, the parent of Sam Friedman passed away today and is buried next to his parent in at the Jewish Cemetery in Natchitoches, LA.


1947: Birthdate of Israeli actor and comedian Sefi Rivlin.


1947: Mrs. Gerda Schairer, the executive director of the World Festivals for Friendship, Inc. announced today that 500,000 presents have been collected by children throughout the United States which are awaiting to shipment to Europe where they will be distributed as Christmas and Chanukah gifts in what might be called a mini “Marshall Plan.”


1948: Egyptian forces retreat from Majdal and take refuge in Gaza, leaving IDF forces in control of this portion of the Mediterranean coast.


1950(11th of Cheshvan, 5753): Twenty-six year old violinist Josef Hassid passed away.




1950: Republican Nathaniel Lawrence Goldstein won re-election as New York State Attorney General.


1952: The Jerusalem Post reported a group of immigrants that had been demonstrating for a long time against the Jewish Agency¹s absorption activities and asked to be returned to their native India, and was finally allowed to do so last April, had now pleaded to be allowed to return from India to Israel again.


1952: The Jerusalem Post reported that the Arab Legion opened fire on children playing near no-man¹s-land in the Musrara quarter of Jerusalem. One boy was hit and slightly wounded. The Arab Legion was the name of the Jordanian Army.


1956: During the Sinai Campaign, Prime Minister David Ben Gurion responded to Eisenhower’s demand for an immediate end to the fighting and the immediate withdrawal of the IDF from the Sinai Peninsula.  Israel was prepared to stop fighting immediately, abide by the UN Cease Fire Resolution and advance no further.  But Israel would only withdraw from the Sinai with appropriate assurances.  The Israelis wanted an end to terror raids from Gaza, the opening of the Straits of Tiran and end to Egyptian restrictions on the use of the Suez Canal by ships stopping at Israel’s ports.


1958(24th of Cheshvan, 5719): A week before her 86th birthday, Emma Mueden, a sister of Mrs. Theodore Moritz passed away today.



1961: Republican Louis J. Lefkowitz was defeated in today’s New York City Mayoral election.


1961: Republican Stanley M. Isaacs was elected to the New York City Council.


1961: “Ex-Magistrate on City Board” published today described the appointment of Morris Ploscowe, the vice president of the American Jewish Committee by NYC Mayor Wagner to the New York City Commission on Intergroup Relations – a position for which the former city magistrate will received no pay.


1962:  Eleanor Roosevelt, widow of FDR, passed away.  She was mourned by many Jews because she was a champion of number of social and political causes they supported and because of the high regard in which her husband was held.  More to the point, Mrs. Roosevelt championed the cause of Jewish refugees during World War II. Unfortunately, FDR lagged behind his wife on this and it cost the Jews of Europe dearly.


1965(12th of Cheshvan, 5726): Eighty year Leopold Phillip, the Hanoverian engineer turned American realtor whose civic achievement earned him the “Man of the Year Award” from the Uptown Young Men’s Christian Association passed away today.



1965: “A Fatah cell that infiltrated from Jordan blew up a house in Moshav Givat Yeshayahu, south of Beit Shemesh.”


1966: “Cul-de-sac” a comedy directed by Roman Polanski who co-authored the script and co-starring Lionel Stander was released today in the United States.


1967: ITV broadcast the last episode of “At Last the 1948 Show” a show known for its satire that co-starred Marty Feldman who helped to create the program.


1972: “The Divine Miss M” “the debut studio album by American singer and actress Bette Midler” was released today.


1973: “Executive Action” a movie about the Kennedy assassination with a script co-authored by Dalton Trumbo and Donald Freed with music by Randy Edelman was released in the United States today.


1974: Eighty-five year old Helene Thimig, the Austrian actress who was the widow of Max Reinhardt who had died in the United States where the two sought refuge during the Nazi era passed away today in her native Vienna.


1975: “Hey, I’m Alive” a made for television movie co-starring Edward Asner and Milton Seltzer was broadcast for the first time today on ABC.


1975: Birthdate of French singer and actor Raphaël Haroche “known under his mononym Raphaël.”


1977:  The Israeli government reluctantly sent aircraft on a retaliatory mission against the PLO bases from which rockets had been launched against northern Israel.  While the Sinai had been quiet, citizens in the north could be blasted at a moment’s notice.  This was unacceptable.


1977.  In a speech marking the opening of the Egyptian Parliament, Anwar Sadat expressed his desire and his willingness to address the Knesset.  Despite doubts among some Israeli leaders, Prime Minister Begin responded by sending an invitation to Sadat that very evening using American diplomats to carry the message.


1977:  The Jerusalem Post reported that Hilarion Capucci, the Greek Orthodox archbishop who had served three years out of his 12-year sentence for smuggling arms for terrorists from Lebanon to Israel, was released and flown to Rome, in a goodwill gesture towards the pope and the Vatican. Assurances were given that he would no longer engage in any anti-Israeli activities. (This promise was never kept properly).


1979: In Budapest, 95 year old orientalist Gyula Germanus who converted from Judaism to Islam passed away today.


1982: Birthdate of outfield Brian Jeffery Horowitz whose nickname was “The Rabbi.”


1984: Madeleine Kunin was elected as the first Jewish and first female governor of Vermont.  Born in Switzerland, she was brought to the United States as a child in 1940 as her mother sought to escape the growing Nazi threat. After graduating from the University of Massachusetts and Columbia University, Kunin moved to Vermont to work for the Burlington Free Press. After marriage and four children, Kunin devoted herself both to her domestic responsibilities and involvement as a community organizer, educating neighbors and community leaders on current health care legislation and a number of communal safety concerns. Elected to the state legislature in 1972, Kunin sought to mobilize support for the ERA, the environment, education, and the welfare of families and children. Kunin was elected the lieutenant governor of Vermont in 1978 and governor in 1984. She is, to date, the only woman elected to three terms as governor in any state. As governor, Kunin focused on education, environmental concerns, the development of a family court, and the implementation of new land use planning laws. She provided a strong feminist voice in state government. Kunin left the governor’s office in 1991 and became the U.S. deputy secretary of education in 1993. In 1996 she was appointed the US ambassador to her native country of Switzerland. Kunin currently leads the Institute for Sustainable Communities and teaches political science at two Vermont colleges


1985: Seventy-one  year old Vladimir Sokolov, “a former lecturer at Yale University went on trial today on Federal charges that he willfully concealed his activities as a Nazi collaborator who wrote articles calling for the annihilation of Jews.”


1987: Birthdate of Larry Cohen, a South African footballer, who is the son of Martin Cohen, one of South Africa's prominent footballers in the 1970s


1987: In Tunisia, President Habib Bourgiba is overthrown ending two decades of power.  When Tunisia gained its independence from France in 1956, Bourgiba promised his 90,000 Jewish citizens full civil and political rights in the new republic.  Jews occupied prominent positions in government and journalism.  After six years of increasing economic instability, a third of the Jews had left the country.  By 1965, the Jewish population had dwindled to 8,000.  After 13 years of rule by Bourgiba’s successors, the once proud Jewish population had dwindled to a few hundred.


1987: CBS broadcast the final episode of “Everything’s Relative” starring Jason Alexander


1988: Bob Hope was a “surprise” guest at the, “Broadway Tribute to Lee Guber” at the Minskoff Theatre. He joined such stars as Robert Merrill, Eli Wallach, Theodore Bikel, Charles Strouseand Henny Youngman, in acclaiming Broadway producer Guber “a man of the theater with the mind of a philosopher and the heart of a social scientist” who had died in March of that year. The evening’s proceeds were to benefit the YM-YWHA’s Emanu-El Midtown Y and its [then] newly renamed Lee Guber Jewish Repertory Theater.  


1988: Nita M. Lowey was re-elected to the House of Representatives from New York.


1989: Judge Douglas H. Ginsburg asked President Ronald Reagan to withdraw his nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court, citing the clamor that arose over Ginsburg's admission that he had smoked marijuana. As chief judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, Ginsburg upheld the decision of Secretary of State Powell designating Meir Kahan’s Kahane Chai as a terrorist organization.


1992(11 Cheshvan, 5753): Just twelve days before his 86th birthday, violinist Henri Temianka passed away.



1992: Solomon Wachtler the Republican politician who was serving as Chief Judge of the New York Court of Appeals was arrested “on charges including extortion, racketeering, and blackmail.”


1993(30th of Cheshvan, 5754): Efraim Ayubi of Kfar Darom, Rabbi Chaim Druckman's personal driver, was shot to death by terrorists near Hebron. HAMAS publicly claimed responsibility for the murder.


1995: Israel’s Acting Prime Minister Shimon Peres “said he would not call elections quickly, a step that would have taken advantage of the wave of sympathy aroused by the assassination of…Yitzhak Rabin” (As reported by Serge Schemann)


1997:  Haaretz published, on its front page, a letter from Sir Isaiah Berlin to his close friend Professor Avishai Margalit expressing his final thoughts the "Israeli Palestinian Situation.”


1997: ABC broadcast “Before Women Had Wings,” starring Ellen Barkin in her Emmy award winning portrayal of “Glory Marie Jackson” for the first time this evening.


1999: President Rand Harris declared today “a special day in the history of Adat Ari El” during the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the David Familian Chapel which has been designated “as a Point of Historical Interest by the California Assembly.”


1999: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or about topics of Jewish interest including A People Apart: The Jews in Europe, 1789-1939by David Vital and Women: Photographs by Annie Leibovitz, including an introductory essay by Susan Sontag.


1999: Judith Anne Shulevitz and Nicholas Lemann, writers in New York, were married today by Rabbi Marion R. Shulevitz, the bride's mother, at the University Club in New York. The bride, 36, is the New York editor and cultural columnist for Slate, the online magazine. The bridegroom, 45, is a staff writer at The New Yorker magazine.


1999: Governor Gray Davis proclaimed today “David Familian Chapel Day” two months after The David Familian Chapel had been made a California State Landmark


2000: Judge Roy Moore, of Ten Commandments Memorial Fame who does not understand the concept of separation of church and state and believes that the government should promote Christianity is elected Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court.


2000: When President Clinton called Pacifica’s WBAI today on Election Day morning to shore up the vote for Vice President Al Gore and his running mate Joe Lieberman as well as First Lady Hillary Clinton, he did not expect to spend 30 minutes defending his administration’s record on the death penalty, the Middle East and racial profiling, among other issues. But that is exactly what happened when he encountered Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman and Gonzalo Aburto, host of WBAI’s La Nueva Alternativa.


2001: “Gosford Park,” a clever who-done-it that was the brain-child of Bob Balaban who co-produced and co-starred in the film premiered today in London.


2003: Eretz Nehederet (ארץ נהדרת‎, lit. A Wonderful Land) “a satirical Israeli television show, made its debut today.


2003: “Elf, a Christmas comedy” co-starring James Caan and Ed Asner and directed by Jon Favreau who followed in the faith of his mother by attending Hebrew School and having a Bar Mitzvah was released in the United States today.


2004:In Mein Kampf': The Italian Edition,” published today Lila Azam Zanganeh explores the relationship between Hitler and Mussolini especially as it regarded issues of nationalism and racial purity; issues that have special bearing on the road to the Shoah.



 


 


2005: Author Jonathan Rosen won the 2005 Reform Judaism Prize for Jewish Fiction for Joy Comes in the Morning his second novel. The prize carries a $5,000 award.


2005: According to published reports, Israel will give the Holy See possession of the Coenaculum, or the Room of the Last Supper (also known as the Upper Room or the Cenacle), on Mount Zion. In exchange, Israel is to gain control of a 12th-century synagogue in Toledo, Spain, which is currently the Santa Maria la Blanca Church, says the Times of London. The synagogue became a church during the 15th-century expulsion of Jews from Spain.


2006: As America gathers to vote in the Congressional elections, there seems to be one thing seems to be certain.  Vermont will elect its first Jewish Socialist to the United States Senate, Bernie Sanders.  The 65 year old Sanders was born in Brooklyn and raised by Jewish immigrants from Poland who had lost a large part of their family in the Holocaust.  Sanders is currently serving as Vermont’s only member of the House of Representatives
2006: Elliot Spitzer was elected Governor of New York with 69% of the vo
2006: Ed Rendell wins a second term as Governor of Pennsylvania by defeating football hero Lynn Swann.


2006: After three days the 19th International Catholic-Jewish Liaison Committee (ILC) Meeting came to an end in Cape Town, South Africa.


2006: In an apparent reversal of the decision to discontinue the manufacture of the Merkava tank, Haaretz reported that the IDF General Staff had decided to defer a decision on the fate of the battle tank based on an assessment “if properly deployed” the Merkava Mark IV “can provide its crew with better protection than in the past.”


2007: The Kibbutz Chamber Orchestra under Doron Salomon presents an evening of Balkan Music at Beit Shean, a kibbutz in the shadow of Mt. Gilboa famed for its olive production and the fact that Michael Levin of Lubbock, Texas, spent his junior year in high school living, working and studying at this monument to Zionist idealism.


2007: At the Center for Jewish History the American Jewish Historical Society and the Jewish Women's Archive cosponsor a panel discussion entitled “You Never Call! You Never Write! An Exploration of the Contemporary Jewish Mother.” Through personal reflection and stories, an illustrious panel of mothers and daughters provide an intimate, heartfelt, affectionate and---of course--- critical look at the contemporary Jewish Mother based on Joyce Antler's recent book:  You Never Call! You Never Write!


2007: At the Jewish Community Center of Greater Washington 38th annual Book Festival, Pulitzer Prize winning author Thomas Friedman discusses his best-selling work The World Is Flat.



2007: Interpol issued six warrants five Iranian and one Lebanese terror suspects connected with bombing Jewish buildings in Argentina.



2007(26th of Cheshvan, 5768): Eighty-seven year old American producer George W. George, the son of cartoonist Rube Goldberg passed away today. (As reported by Allison J. Peterson)



http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/obituaries/articles/2007/11/20/george_w_george_at_87_writer_producer_of_films_and_broadway_plays/



2007: At the Jerusalem Theatre, The Emet Prize for Arts and Science were awarded to Prof. Micha Sharir - Exact Sciences, Prof. Shmuel Agmon - Exact Sciences, Prof. Vitali Milman - Exact Sciences, Former Justice Aharon Barak - Social Sciences, Prof. Shlomo Giora Shoham - Social Sciences, Prof. Eliora Ron - Life Sciences, Prof. Yosef Yarden - Life Sciences, Prof. Myriam Yardeni – Humanities, Prof. Avishai Margalit – Humanities, David Grossman - Culture & Arts, and Sami Michael - Culture & Arts.  Grossman, whose son was kiled during fighting in the Second Lebanon War refused to shake the hand of the Pime Minister or the Supremem Court Presdient as a means of protests.



2008:The AIA Center for Architecture presents Technion lecturer Nili Portugali speaking on
"Architecture Is Made For People: A Holistic-Phenomenological Approach to Architecture"



2008: After premiering in Westwood in October, “Role Models,” directed and written by David Wain was released today in the United States.



2008: In Chicago, premier showing of “The boy in the Striped Pajamas.” The “able adaption” of the 2006 young adult noble by John Boyne “shows the Holocaust through a child’s eyes.”



2008: On the eve of the 70th anniversary of Kristallnacht Duke Helfand writes the following article entitled “L.A. Jews celebrate Yanov Torah's survival,” in which he describes how “Los Angeles Jews celebrate the story of a Torah that was pieced together from scattered texts smuggled into a Nazi labor camp.” 



http://articles.latimes.com/print/2008/nov/07/local/me-torah7



2009: In Rockville, MD, the Magen David Sephardic Synagogue presents a screening of “Women from Sarajevo,” the story of how two families – one Jewish, one Muslim- save each other during slaughters in the Balkans.



2009: The New York City Opera presents a revival performance of Hugo Weisgall”s “Esther” in the recently renovated David H. Koch Theatre.  “The opera, which originally premiered in 1993 to universal acclaim, was especially praised for addressing questions of Jewish identity and assimilation, as well as its refusal to exult over the massacre of an enemy.”



2009: When the World Series of Poker opens today in Las Vegas, four of the nine players will be Jewish – Jeff Shulman, Steven Begleiter, Eric Buchman and Kevin Schaffel.



2009: “Seven Jewish Children: A Play for Gaza” a play panned by The Sunday Times,condemned by the Board of Deputies of British Jews and described as “a blood libel” by Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic was performed for the last time at Gustavus Adolphus College today



2010: Gomez Mill House is scheduled to present “Jewish Merchants in the New World, 1800-1900.”



2010: Hulin, which deals with the laws of slaughtering animals, the last Talmud tractate in the Steinsaltz series is scheduled to be completed.  Ceremonies celebrating the event will be held around the world.


2010:The 2010 General Assembly (GA) and the International Lion of Judah Conference (ILOJC) of theJewish Federations of North America are scheduled to begin in New Orleans, LA.


2010: Cathleen Schine is scheduled to discuss The Three Weissmanns of Westport at the opening session of the Jewish Community Center of Northern Virginia Book Festival.


2010: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish authors including Cleopatra: A Life by Stacy Schiff, Scorpions:The Battles and Triumphs of FDR’s Great Supreme Court Justicesby Noah Feldman and The Instructions by Adam Levin.


2010:German soldiers, including one wearing a skullcap with his uniform, filed silently through a leaf-covered cemetery in Frankfurt today to lay wreaths at a memorial for 467 Jewish soldiers killed fighting for the Kaiser during World War I. The memorial, the first public service at the site for as long as anyone can remember, was organized by the Association of Jewish Soldiers, a small but growing group in the German military whose existence testifies to the feeling by at least some Jews that it is possible for them to be patriots again in the nation that once tried to wipe them out. “More and more young Jews are placing their trust in the Bundeswehr,” Gideon Römer-Hillebrecht, a general staff officer in the German Defense Ministry and deputy chairman of the Jewish soldiers association, told representatives of several national armies and numerous dignitaries at the memorial ceremony. Michael Berger, chairman of the group and a German Army captain, said there was no exact count of the number of Jewish soldiers now in the Bundeswehr, as the force has been known since being reconstituted after World War II. But it is no more than about 200, he said. While all young German men are subject to conscription, they can easily opt to perform civilian public service instead. Mr. Hillebrecht said that in 2008 a few soldiers and a rabbi held a memorial at the site in Frankfurt, a semicircular stone marker erected in 1925. But there was no official event with wide participation before today. “For an increasing number of young Jewish men and women, the Bundeswehr is not only an attractive employer; they can also identify with its values and help shape them,” Christian Schmidt, an undersecretary in the German Defense Ministry, told the 100 or so people who attended. Abraham Ben, the son of a concentration camp survivor who has helped organize similar events in Munich, said that he saw no problem with Jews serving in the modern German army. “Ten years ago I would have given you a different answer,” he said. But, he said, “Jews in Germany are no longer sitting around with their bags packed. This is home.” Some 12,000 Jewish soldiers died fighting on the German side in World War I. Jews hoped that military service would promote their acceptance into German society, according to speakers at the memorial and a panel discussion afterward. Instead, after the war, Nazi “stab in the back” myths blamed Jewish treachery for Germany’s defeat. Salomon Korn, vice chairman of the Central Committee of Jews in Germany, read from the diary of a Jewish soldier in World War I who was recommended for the Iron Cross by one commander but had to listen to another refer to Jews as “cowardly dogs.” As part of the ceremony, unarmed soldiers in long gray wool coats walked two abreast in a light drizzle through the otherwise-deserted cemetery, which has effectively been closed to burials since the late 1920s and appears to be rarely visited. Gravestones are covered in moss and many are askew, while pathways are choked with leaves. After the soldiers laid wreaths at the memorial, a military bugler blew a mournful tune. An officer and a civilian read the names of 50 soldiers buried nearby, and a rabbi said a prayer. The memorial, with lettering in both Hebrew and German, was partially restored after large pieces were found two months ago embedded in the surrounding earth, said Majer Szanckower, the cemetery director. But the memorial is still missing large chunks, and Sunday also marked the beginning of an effort to fully restore it. Mr. Szanckower said it was not clear whether the memorial was the victim of Nazi vandalism or simply age and weather. Hellmut Königshaus, defense commissioner in the German Parliament, said during the panel discussion that there had been recent cases of harassment against Jewish soldiers in the army. But perpetrators face severe punishment and are usually expelled from the force, he said. As a citizen’s army, he said, “the Bundeswehr is a mirror of society.”


2010(30th of Cheshvan, 5771): Rosh Chodesh Kislev


2011: Gilad Sharon, author of Sharon: Life of a Leaderis scheduled to appear at the St. Louis Jewish Book Festival.


2011:In New York City, leading Adlerian psychoanalyst and president of the Alfred Adler Institute of New York Ellen Mendel is scheduled to present a comprehensive introduction to Alfred Adler, the man, his theories and his impact, providing attendees of the lecture with a broad understanding of Adler’s psychology and philosophy.  In New York City


2011(10th of Cheshvan, 5772): Ninety year old “Dov Schwartzman also called Berel Schwartzman, a Haredi Jewish rabbi and rosh yeshiva of Bais Hatalmud” passed away in Jerusalem.



2011:All Israeli government and security-related websites that crashed yesterday started working once again today after long hours of malfunctions.


2011:A general strike by Israel's public sector ended today after four hours of near paralysis across in the economy.


2012:The staff of Maariv has gone on strike for the first time in the Israeli daily newspaper's 64-year history. The Hebrew-language paper was not printed today and its website NRG has not been updated since yesterday evening, when the employees walked off the job.


2012: Israeli leaders congratulated President Obama on his reelection. "The strategic alliance between Israel and the U.S. is stronger than ever," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a short statement issued today morning in Israel shortly after Obama delivered his victory speech. "I will continue to work with President Obama in order to assure the interests that are vital to the security of the citizens of Israel."


2012: Jose Ramon was arrested in connection with the disappearance with the disappearance of Etan Patz.


2012: “The World Is Funny” is scheduled to be shown at the Melbourne Opening Night of the Jewish International Festival in Australia.


2012: Start of Jewish Book Month sponsored by the Jewish Book Council


2012: British premiere of “Aliyah” at the UK Jewish Film Festival


2013: In honor of the 20thanniversary of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, The Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism is scheduled to host a panel discussion “Restored or Endangered? The State of Free Exercise of Religion in America”


2013: The Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center “with special cooperation from the Consulate General of the Republic of Bulgaria in Chicago,” is scheduled to add the names of two Bulgarian rescuers to the Ferro Fountain of the Righteous.


2013: The Center for Jewish History is scheduled to host a panel discussion “The Vilna Gaon and the Make of Modern Judaism.”


2013: Daniel Jonah Goldhagen, author of The Devil That Never Dies: The Rise and Threat of Global Antisemitism, is scheduled to speak at the San Diego Jewish Book Fair.


2013:Terrorists fired on IDF soldiers overnight and attempted to run one officer down (As reported by Gil Ronen)


2013:A terrorist was shot dead Thursday evening after he used a flare gun to fire at Israeli civilians at a hitchhiking stop (As reported by Gil Ronen)


2014: Today marks the 70th anniversary of the murder of Hannah Senesh at the hands of her fascist captors


2014: Lewis Black is scheduled to perform at the Peppermill Hotel Casino.


2014: Israel’s Sephardi Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef today called on Jews to stop their attempts to visit Jerusalem’s Temple Mount, in order to restore calm to the capital after weeks of violence and religious clashes surrounding the holy site” and because it “was religiously forbidden for Jews to ascend to the mount at all, reiterating a long-held consensual rabbinical view that today’s impure Jews should not risk defiling the holiest site in Judaism.” (As reported by Itamar Sharon and Times of Israel staff)


2014(14thof Cheshvan, 5775): Seventeen year old yeshiva student Shalom Ba’adan, the nephew of Shas Rabbi Shimon Ba’adani died of wounds he sustained two days ago when a 48 year old Hamas terrorist “plowed into pedestrians at a light rail station along the seam-line between East and West Jerusalem.”



2014: While giving his closing argument today in a Detroit federal court, Assistant U.S Attorney Jonathan Tukel told jurors that it is “ridiculous” to be lieve that Rasmieth Odeh “didn’t think she had to disclose conviction for bombings in Israel when she applied for U.S. Citizenship in 2004.”


2014: Thanks in no small measure to efforts of Steven Shepard, Congregation Beth Shalom in Clearwater, FL is among those who are scheduled to observe “Hannah Senesh Shabbat.”


2015: Timothy Snyder, award-winning author of the new book Black Earth, the validity of which has been challenged by Walter Laqueur http://mosaicmagazine.com/observation/2015/11/timothy-snyder-the-newton-of-the-holocaust/is scheduled to deliver a lecture on “The Holocaust as History and Warning” in Chicago, Illinois.


2015: In Toronto, Beth Avraham is scheduled to host a showing of “Robert Clary: A Memoir of Liberation followed by a Q & A led by Jewish History teacher Chaim Klein.


2015: “Phoenix” will be shown at the Rutgers Jewish Film Festival.


2015(25thof Cheshvan, 5776): Parsahat Chayei Sara


2015(25thof Cheshvan, 5776): Seventy year publishing executive Rena Wolner passed away today. (As reported by Sam Roberts)



2015: Hannah Senesh Shabbat:  Today marks the 71st anniversary of the murder of Hannah Senesh at the hands of her fascist captors.  Wouldn’t it be wonderful if temples and synagogues all across the globe could dedicate their Shabbat services to memorializing this marvelous young woman?  She not only embodied bravery, patriotism and loyalty to both her comrades in arms and the Jewish people, she left behind a corpus of poetry and song lyrics that have enriched us for decades.  Imagine the joy the heavenly hosts would feel if the whole House of Israel were to join in singing אלי, אלי.  It might serve as reminder that there is more that binds us together as the Jewish People than separates us as individual Jews.


Blessed is the match consumed in kindling flame.


Blessed is the flame that burns in the secret fastness of the heart.


Blessed is the heart with strength to stop its beating for honor's sake.


Blessed is the match consumed in kindling flame.  Hannah Sensesh


 


2016: The Exhibition “All About Golda” is scheduled to officially open today at the Skirball Center.


2016: “The Future of Holocaust Memory” a panel discussion whose participants included Karen


Jungblut, the Director of Collections at USC Shoah Foundation and Holocaust survivor Pinchas Gutter is scheduled to take place at the Anne Tanenbaum Center for Jewish Studies at the University of Toronto as part of HEW (Holocaust Education Week)


2016(6thof Cheshvan, 5777): Eighty-two year old Canadian “singer, songrwriter, musician, novelist and painter passed away today.




2016: “The Tenth Man” and “The Small World Sammy Lee” are scheduled to be shown at the 20th UK International Jewish Film Festival.


2017(18thof Cheshvan, 5778): Sixty year old “award winning documentarian Debra Chasnoff” passed away today. (As reported by Sam Roberts)



2017: The American Sephardi Federation is scheduled to present “No Friends But the Kurds: A Story of Surviving Saddam” which includes “researchers from the Diarna Geo-Musuem of North African and Middle Eastern Jewish Life presenting a virtual guided tour of Jewish historical sites in Iraqi-Kurdistan, ranging from synagogues and communal caves to the purported shrines of Biblical prophets and the tomb of the first woman rabbi.”


2017: In Philadelphia, PA, the “27th Conference of the Society for Crypto-Judaic Studies


“Crypto-Judaism in the Americas” is scheduled to come to an end today.


2017: Peninnah Schram, “an internationally known storyteller, educator, recording artist and author whose most recent book is Jewish Stories of Love and Marriage: Folktales, Legends and Letters (co-authored with Sandy Eisenberg Sasso)” is scheduled to lecture on “Have I Got A Story For You: Exploring The Jewish Oral Tradition.”2018: Today marked the 74nd anniversary of the murder of Hannah Senesh at the hands of her fascist captors on the secular calendar.



2018: The Breman Museum is scheduled to host “a tour of Congregation Or VeShalom, the first Sephardic synagogue in Atlanta” which is celebrating its 100thanniversary.


2018: The Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center is scheduled to host a Kristallnacht Commemoration featuring “Cantorial Soloist Kenneth Lyonswright of Congregation Sukkat Shalom and a discussion led by Mark Weitzman, the Director of Government Affairs at the Simon Wiesenthal, on attempts to “discredit the facts of the Holocaust” and “whitewash history.”


2018: Today, the 12th Annual Other Israel Film Festival is scheduled to host the New York premier of “Death of a Poetess.”


2018: Dr. Daniel Rynhold is scheduled to deliver the first in a series of lectures on “Nietzsche and Judaism” at the Streicker Center.


2018: In London, JW3 is scheduled to host the final screening of “The Summoning.”


2018: The Center for Jewish History is scheduled to host a “Gala” honoring founder Bruce Slovin.



 


 

This Day, November 8, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. Levin

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November 8



30: Birthdate of Marcus Cocceius Nerva, the Roman Emperor who changed the way in which the special tax on Jews was collected so that would not be the humiliating experience created by his Flavian predecessors.



641: “Jews were permitted to continue to reside in Alexandria by the treaty that sealed the Arab conquest of Egypt.” Jews had been living in Alexandria since its founding in 332 BCE



1223: Louis VIII of France declared that the interest on Jews' debts should no longer hold good. At the same time, he ordered that the capital should be repaid to the Jews in three years and that the debts due the Jews should be inscribed and placed under the control of their lords. The lords then collected the debts for the Jews, doubtless receiving a commission. Louis furthermore ordered that the special seal for Jewish deeds should be abolished and replaced by the ordinary one.



1226: Louis IX, whose “attitude toward the Jews was characterized by implacable enmity” as can be seen such his seizure in 1234 of “one third of the debts owe to the Jews, failure to protect the Jews from “would-be crusaders” in 1236 and his burning of cartloads of Jewish” began his reign as King of France today.



1414: Sigismund of Luxemberg, the future Holy Roman Emporer who “drained the Jews of their wealth whenever he could” was crowned King of Germany today.



1576: During the Eighty Years War, leaders of the provinces of the Netherlands sign the Pacification of Ghent which committed them to a joint effort to drive the Spanish from their soil.  The Dutch Protestants would prove triumphant and they would create a haven for Sephardic



1602: The Bodleian Library at Oxford University is opened to the public. Today “The Bodleian Library holds what is probably still regarded as the best collection of Hebrew manuscripts in the world, alongside an extraordinarily rich collection of early Hebrew and Yiddish printed books. All fields of traditional Hebrew scholarship are represented in the collection... The earliest manuscript accessions in Hebrew were received in 1601 and in the first catalogue of the library (1605) there are 58 books with titles in Hebrew script. They are mostly of Venetian origin, where Hebrew printing was then in its prime. The Library’s founder, Thomas Bodley, took a personal interest in them and, at the end of the catalogue, he added his own corrections in Latin of some misprints in Hebrew. After Bodley’s death, the Library continued to enrich the Hebrew collections. In 1692 it purchased the collections of Dr Robert Huntingdon and Professor Edward Pococke, the Regius Professor of Hebrew. Among the 212 manuscripts in the Huntingdon collection is the Mishneh Torah of Maimonides (1155-1204) with the author’s signature (MS. Huntingdon 80), attesting that the text had been corrected against the original. The acquisition in 1817 of the manuscript collection which had belonged to the Venetian Jesuit, Matteo Luigi Canonici, represented the largest single purchase ever made by the Library. The collection contains over 110 valuable Hebrew manuscripts, chiefly on vellum. In 1829 the Bodleian bought the Oppenheimer Library, thought to be the most important and magnificent Hebraica collection ever accumulated. Rabbi David ben Abraham Oppenheimer (1664-1736) was the Chief Rabbi of Prague and during his lifetime he had amassed 780 manuscripts and 4,220 printed books in Hebrew, Yiddish and Aramaic, many of which are the only surviving copies. Further significant collections of Hebrew manuscripts were added in 1848 and 1890. In 1848 the Library purchased the library of Heimann Joseph Michael, numbering 862 volumes and nearly 1,300 separate works. The most recent acquisition of Hebrew manuscripts of major international importance was the purchase of fragments from the Cairo Genizah, beginning in 1890. A genizah is usually a room attached to a synagogue used for storing texts which were worn out and had become unusable; in this case the genizah was in the attic of the Ezra synagogue in Old Cairo. An enormous number, over 200,000, of fragments in Hebrew, Judaeo-Arabic and Yiddish were kept there, which are now dispersed in over 25 public and private libraries across the world. Cambridge, with over 150,000 has the majority of them, while 25,000 are in New York, 10,000 in Manchester and 5,000 each in the British Library and the Bodleian. Although Yiddish became the spoken language of most Jews in Europe and beyond, historically it had an inferior status to Hebrew and was chiefly used to address women, children and males ignorant of Hebrew; significantly, the first book printed in Yiddish (Cracow, 1534) is a translation of difficult phrases in biblical Hebrew. For the same reason, early books in Yiddish were badly printed and ephemeral, and so have survived, if at all, in very few copies. One of the few bibliophiles to collect these objects systematically was Rabbi David Oppenheimer (see above) so the Bodleian finds itself with a very important collection of early Yiddish printed books, in many cases holding the only surviving copy. Later, because of its proletarian status, Yiddish was the natural choice of language for the propagation of socialism. The donation in 1981 of the library of the US daily Yiddish newspaper Morning Freiheit, founded in 1922 by the Jewish section of the American Communist Party, gave the Bodleian an extensive representation of the rich Socialist literature of the later nineteenth-century and the first half of the twentieth.”



1604: Baptism of Edward Pococke, the Anglican minister who was the chair of Hebrew at Oxford and whose works included the Porta Mosis, extracts from the Arabic commentary of Maimonides on the Mishnah


1616: In Amsterdam an ordinance championed by the States General was implemented that prohibited Jews from “speaking publicly against the Christian religion or publishing anything against it, and forbidding them to mar Christians.”


1665(30thof Cheshvan, 5426): Ephraim Hezekiah Bueno “a distinguished Dutch physician” and who “in 1650, in conjunction with Jonah Abravanel, published several liturgical works, among which were a Spanish translation of the Psalms, entitled "Psalterio de David, en Hebrayco Dicho Thehylim, Transladado con Toda Fidelidad Verbo de Verbo del Hebrayco," passed away today in Amsterdam.


1687: The reign of Mehmed IV the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire during which Safed, the home to numerous Jewish mystics and sages “was destroyed by Arabs” and the Jews of Yemen were banished to Mawza Desert came to an end.


1703 (30th of Cheshvan): Rabbi Joseph Samuel of Frankfor, author Mesorat ha¬Shas, passed away


1744: Frederick the Great took Prague in the Wars of Succession and the populace ransacked the ghetto. He soon left and the Croats returned. They accused the Jews of treason and again their quarters were sacked, this time with the help of Austrian and Hungarian soldiers.


1761: Birthdate of Akiva Eger, the Hungarian-born Rabbi and nephew of Rabbi Wolf Eger, whose works include “Tosafot Rabbi Akiva Eiger” and “Hagahot Rabbi Akiva Eiger”


1801:Élie Halévy’s first poem, "Ha-Shalom", a hymn composed while negotiations were being conducted at Amiens, was sung in the synagogue of Paris, in both Hebrew and French.  The treaty would bring a temporary end to the war between the French Republic and the United Kingdom.


1808: In Charleston, SC, this evening, Rabbi Jacob Suares officiated at the wedding of Israel Solomons to Esther Ottolengui.


1811: Birthdate of Georg Friedrich Heinrich Hitzig, a member of the famous Itzig family.  A successful architect, he converted to the Lutheran religion.  He passed away in 1881.


1811: Birthdate of Samuel Strauss, the husband of Rosalia Drucker and the father of Arthur Strauss the Conservative MP “who later joined the Labour Party.”


1815: Lewis Adolphus Hollander married Sally Rachel Gompertz at the Hambro Synagogue.


1815: Abraham Solomons married Percelia Moses at the Hambro Synaogue.


1818: In Hamburg, the lay leaders of the Jewish community met with the leaders of the Hamburg Temple and asked them to stop using their new (Reform) prayer book since "it did not agree with the ritual accepted by all Jewish communities."  The Hamburg Temple rejected the request out of hand.  The Hamburg Temple received an unexpected vote of support in a letter from Lazarus Riesser who praised the innovations in the prayer-book and labeled the opponents as "sanctimonious hypocrites."


1825(27th of Cheshvan): Rabbi Raphael Ashkenazi, author of Mareh Einayim, passed away.


1827: “Le Roi et le batelier (The King and the oarsman) is a one-act opéra comique by Fromental Halévy was first performed today at the Opéra Comique in Paris.”


1828(2nd of Kislev, 5589): Fifty-six year old Salomon Oppenheim Jr., the founder of Sal. Oppenheim who created his own banking dynasty through the 12 children he had with wife Therese passed away today.


1831(3rd of Kislev, 5592): Twenty days before her 79th birthday, Grace Mendes Seixas, the daughter Lisbon native Isaac Mendes Seixas and London born Rachel Franks Levy passed away today in New York City.


1837:  Mary Lyon founded Mount Holyoke Female Seminary, which later becomes Mount Holyoke College. According to latest available published reports there are 100 Jewish students among the school’s 2,300 undergraduates.  The Mount Holyoke Jewish Student Union serves as the campus Hillel. At Mount Holyoke, the Jewish studies program is interdisciplinary in orientation and scope. The study of Jewish culture draws on a wide variety of disciplines, including English, German, gender studies, history, international relations, and religion. As an interdisciplinary endeavor, Jewish Studies provides students with opportunities to cross intellectual boundaries and to make connections across diverse cultural phenomena. Religion and theology, Middle East politics, the history of Jews throughout the world, literature and languages, the Holocaust, contemporary American culture, the history and role of women--all these and more are bound up with the study of the Jewish people, their history and culture.


1837: In Charleston, following her marriage today, Caroline Jacobs, the eldest daughter of Colonel Jacobs became Caroline Lazarus.


1838(20th of Cheshvan, 5599): Eighty year old author and teacher Peter Beer passed away at Prague.



1840: Baron Lionel de Rothschild) and Baroness Charlotte de Rothschild (née von Rothschild), gave birth to their eldest son Nathan Mayer Rothschild, 1st Baron Rothschild, known as “Natty”


1846: In Wollstein, Germany, Henry Rosnosky and Selda Schmule gave birth to Isaac Rosnosky, the husband of Henrietta Verdonoer who served multiple terms as a member of the Boston Common Council and was the “first Jew” be elected to the Boston City government and the Massachusetts State Legislature while also serving as President of Temple Ohabei Shalom and District No. 1 of the Independent Order of B’nai B’rith.


1847: Twenty-five year old Baltimore native Phineas Horowitz who had graduated from the University of Maryland in 1845 with a Doctor of Medicine degree was appointed Assistant Surgeon.


1852: “Letting the Cat out of the Budget” published today reported on the efforts of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Benjamin Disraeli, to balance the budget.  The author predicts that the Disraeli will soon move to remove the duty on French wine based on reports that he told his win merchant that the price of Claret was “too dear…too dear.”  The assumption is that the price of Claret is too high and the only way to reduce it is to cut the tarrif on it.  The author also gives Disraeli for always arriving at his desk early as he pursues his duty indicating that he does not overimbibe while the House is sitting.


1854: Over 200 people gathered in the City Assembly Rooms on Broadway tonight to celebrate the 11th anniversary of the German Benevolent Society.  Joseph Seligman, President of the Society presided over the event.  Last year’s dinner raised $5,000 of which $4,400 was given to the needy and $500 was contributed to the Hospital Fund.  This year’s dinner has raised at least $4,000 in contributions.


1855: The U.S. agreed not to protest against Swiss discrimination against American Jews.  Apparently it was the price of completing a trade agreement with the Swiss.  Obviously America has changed in the way it fights for the rights of its Jewish citizens.


1855: The United States ratified a commercial treaty that permitted the Swiss to discriminate against U.S. citizens who are Jewish.


1857: In Marysville, CA, where “a Hebrew benevolent society” had been functioning since 1852, Congregation B’nai B’rith was organized and by August of 1860 was serving a Jewish community that included “23 families” and “105 bachelors.


1860: Two days after he had passed away, 84 year old Simeon Samson, the husband of the former Catherine Davis and father of Rosetta Samson, was buried today at the “Brompton (Fulham Road) Jewish Cemetery.”


1864: Abraham Lincoln was re-elected President of the United States, defeating Georgia B. McClellan, the unsuccessful Union general.


1864: On Election Day, August Belmont was not allowed to vote because he was charged with having bet on the election by an official at the polling place.  According to George Templeton Strong, a New York attorney who witnessed the event, “Belmont went off in a range.”  Bystanders, most of whom were Union sympathizers “chuckled over his discomfiture.”  Belmont, who was born Jewish, had supported Democratic candidates and was identified with the new class of money-men. 


1864: Philadelphian Lyon Levy Emanuel, the brother of Louis Manly Emanuel and a Major in Compnay A of the 82nd Regiment completed his three year enlistment during the Civil War.


1868: In Breslau, Louis Hausdorff and his wife gave birth to German mathematician who would die a tragic death during the Holocaust


1871: Mayer Woolfson married Julia Phillips at Farnham, UK.


1874: Rabbi Rubin officiated at the wedding this evening of Emile Nehimer of Sheldon, SC and Fannie Rothstein of Providence, R.I.


1876: David Mathew Levy (Davitchon Effendi) was elected to the Ottoman parliament.


1878: Sixty-three year old Hermann Ottomar Friedrich Goedsche the anti-Semitic author who used the pseudonym Sir John Retcliff and provided much of the material that later was in the infamous “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion” passed away today.


1878: It was reported today that Sir Henry Drummond Wolff has been named England’s Consul-General to Romania and Mr. William Gifford Palgrave has been named England’s Consul-General to Bulgaria.  Both men are the sons of Jewish converts. Sir Henry’s father, Joseph Wolff was the son of a Rabbi from Wellersbach. Palgrave’s father is Sir Francis Palgrave who was the son of Meyer Cohen, a London stock broker. The Palgrave name came from a relative of Sir Francis’ wife.


1879: An editorial published today that being “events determine little men and great men determine events” identified the late Rabbi David Einhorn as an example of the latter. It praised him for becoming a voice for the Reform Judaism when that movement was in its infancy as well as becoming a spokesman for liberal ideas including the abolition of slavery.


1879: In New York, the Board of Estimate and Apportionment met in the Mayor’s office where it adopted a resolution of pay bills for charitable institutions for the support of children committed by the Police Magistrates including $646 for the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society.


1879: It was reported today that Fischl Hirsch has “discovered a very rare Hebrew book,” a Machzor printed by Abraham Corat in Mantua (Italy) in 1840.  The Machzor follows the worship patterns of the Roman Jewish community. [A resident of Halberstadt, Germany, Hirsch devoted himself to the collection and sale of Hebrew books and manuscripts.  He became a recognized expert in this field who played a role in the Hebrew book and manuscript collections in the British Museum, The Bodleian Library and the Rosenthal Library at Amsterdam.]


1880(5thof Kislev, 5641): Aaron Samuel Liebermann died today in Syracuse, NY.


1880: Two days after he had passed away way, 50 year old John Hart was buried today at the “West Ham Jewish Cemetery.”


1881: Samuel Shrimski completed his term as a Member of the New Zealand Parliament for Waitaki.


1883: The 99th birthday of Sir Moses Montefiore was observed today at the Home for Aged and Infirm Hebrews in New York City. Today was the 8thof Cheshvan which was the date on the Hebrew calendar when the Anglo-Jewish philanthropist was born.


1883:  In New York City, the 99thbirthday of Sir Moses Montefiore was observed at the Hebrew Home for the Aged and Infirmed.  As part of the celebration Rabbi Lavien led the gathering in the “daily service” with special prayers added in honor of the famed philanthropist.  Rabbi Koehler of Temple Beth-el gave a special address in which he praised Montefiore’s great generosity.


1883: “Queen Victoria, Albert Edward Prince of Wales, and many hundreds of Sir Moses Montefiore’s most distinguished fellow citizens sent telegrams of congratulation” “as he entered his 100th year.”


1883: As the British celebrate the 99th birthday of Sir Moses Montefiore, there are numerous stories circulating among the English “illustrative of his great benevolence.” Among them is the tale of how he responded to Edwin Arnold’s request to help build a hospital for the poor people in Jerusalem. When asked for money the reply was “What will you have, £50? £500? £5,000?  Only name the sum.” The hospital was built but the hospital was eventually demolished because of a quarrel between the Greeks and the Turks.


1884: Congratulatory address from synagogues through the United States and the British Empire will be presented to Sir Moses Montefiore today on his 100thbirthday, as marked on the Hebrew Calendar.


1885(30thof Cheshvan, 5646): Just weeks short of his 57th birthday, Albert Jacob Cardozo passed away. A practicing lawyer, he was a justice of the New York State Supreme Court, a leader of Congregation Shearith Israel and the father of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Benjamin Cardozo.


1885: In New York City, funeral services are scheduled to take place for Jonas Strauss, who was a partner and brother of Levi Strauss, the man who gave us “Levis.”


1886: It was reported today that The Modern Jew – His Present and Future by Anna Laurens Dawes is now available for purchase at a cost of $.50. (Dawes was the daughter of a Republican political leader who served as U.S. Senator from Massachusetts.  I cannot find out why this prolific author chose this particular topic for a book.)


1886: Philip Zalig Phillips, the son of Joseph Phillips and Charlotte Mozely, was buried today at the “Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.


1887: The Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society will host a benefit at the Terrace Garden under the guidance of Miss Ray Leszynsky, Secretary of the Board of Managers.


1887: A benefit performance for the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society for Children is scheduled to take place this evening by the Thalia Theatre Company at the Lexington Avenue Opera House in New York City.


1888: An auction is scheduled to be held this evening for seats at the new school that is being opened by Zichron Osher in New York City.


1889:  Montana is admitted as the 41st U.S. state. In Montana, from the last decade of the 19th century through WW I the leading female occupation after housewife was ‘fancy lady or madam.’ In Butte Ida Lev operated on of the leading houses in the red light district.  A Jewish hooker demonstrated her ethnic pride by taking the professional name of Jew Jess.  She must have been well connected since she was often arrested but rarely convicted.  And you thought it was all about peddlers turned mercantile merchants.


1889: Joseph Kemp Toole who would lay the cornerstone for Helena’s Temple Emanu-El in 1890, began serving as Montana’s first elected governor


1890: In Philadelphia, PA, Judge Hare heard a case in which Morris Stein a young Jew from Camden was trying to re-unite with his wife Annie Stein whose Roman Catholic family was trying to invalidate the marriage.


1892: “Emil Jeremias Abraham,” the son of “Jehuda Leib Abraham” and “Katalin Bohm” married “Fannie Belf”, the daughter of Jakob Moses Belf today in Budapest.


1891: In New York, The Hebrew Institute’s new building which is located at the corner of Jefferson and East Broadway was dedicated today.  The building will house The Young Men’s Hebrew Association, The Hebrew Free School Association and the Aguillar Free Library.  All three of these organizations share in the common goal of Americanizing the growing number of Jewish immigrants arriving in New York City.


1892: Republican William Warner, who lost the Jewish vote due to the anti-Semitism of State Committeeman Blake, was defeated by William J. Stone in his bid to become Governor of Missouri.


1892: Grover Cleveland was elected President for the second time.  Cleveland is the only two-term President to have his terms separated by the election of another President.  This split always causes confusion in counting American Presidents.  During his second term in office, Cleveland vetoed an immigration bill that contained a literacy test.  The bill was aimed at keeping immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe out of the United States.  Its enactment was opposed by many Jewish leaders because it would have trapped the Jews of such places as Czarist Russia in their increasingly anti-Semitic homelands.


1893: The Abbey Theatre which would be acquired by Theatrical Syndicate headed by Charles Frohman in 1896, opened today.


1894: A report published today claimed that Jacob A. Cantor had lost his bid to represent New York’s 15th Congressional District because of a rumor that he was engaged to be married to a professional dance, Loie Fuller.  When Cantor, whose wife passed away in 1891, did not respond to the rumor the women in the district banded together to gain support for the Republican Philip G. Low. (One has to wonder at the nature of the smear since Fuller was not Jewish and Cantor depended on Jewish votes for his election.  Cantor would remarry and would be elected to Congress in the next decade)


1894: In New York, The Hebrew Institute is scheduled to host a lecture on Switzerland.


1896: Birthdate of Samuel Adelberg, one of the passengers aboard the SS St. Louis, who found refuge in Belgium and survived WW II.


1896: Three days after he had passed away, 74 year old Charles Levy, the husband of Louisa Levy with whom he had eight children,, was buried today at the “Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.”


1896: Herzl accepted the invitation of the "Austrian Union of Israelites", a middle class anti-Zionist organization. His speech is well received.


1897: “Twenty-one families of Russian Jews left San Francisco for the Wymore Ranch near Dayton, Nevada to begin working the land for which they had made down payment of $14,000.


1897: The House Committee of the Jews’ Hospital and Orphan Asylum met this afternoon.


1897: In Paris, “a man named Dreyfus who is believed to be a cousin of Captain Dreyfus, the deported artillery officer imprisoned on an island off the coast of French Guiana; his wife, formerly Rebecca Fortado Abraham, an American their three daughters” aged 13, 11 and 7 “were found dead this morning at their residence on the Avenue Marceau.” (As tragic as this entry is, it is interesting to note how they describe the man who was at the center of one of the major scandals in pre-War France.)


1897: The two thousand people were reported today to have attended the New York Hebrew Mutual Benefit Association banquet included toastmaster Abraham Levy Judge John Henry McCarthy, Judge Joseph E. Newburger, Judge H.M. Goldfolge, Julius Harburger and John McIntyre.


1897: “In Memory of Lewis May” published described the memorial service held at Temple Emanu-El for the distinguished Jewish leader who passed away unexpectedly in July.


1898: In Charleston, SC, this evening, Rabbi B.A. Elzas officiated at the wedding of Montague Triest and Addie Israel, the daughter of Morris Israel.


1898: Second Precinct leader Patrick Divver told Tammany Leader Richard Croker that the reason he was having trouble getting enough voters to turn out today was because “the Hebrew vote was lacking” to which Croker, who relied on Jewish voters as part of his base of support, replied that “if the Hebrews were not in the Democratic ranks” he should have been told about it two weeks ago when it could have done some good.


1900: In Adelaide, Australia, “George Solomon Lewis, an accountant from England, and his South Australian-born wife Ré Lewis, née Isaacs, an elocution teacher” gave birth to Sir Aubrey Julian Lewis “the first Professor of Psychiatry at the Institute of Psychiatry in London and a driving force behind elevating the level of the profession in the Post WW II world.


1901: Dinah Cassell, the daughter of Solomon Nathan and Hannah Abrahams and the wife of Bennett Cassell was buried today at the “Plashet Jewish Cemetery.”


1904:President Theodore Roosevelt defeated Alton B Parker.  TR had become President when McKinley had been assassinated.  This was his chance to gain office on his own.Theodore Roosevelt was the first President to appoint a Jew to a presidential cabinet. In 1906 he named Oscar S. Straus Secretary of Commerce and Labor. Theodore Roosevelt was also the first President to contribute his own funds to a Jewish cause. In 1919, when he received the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts while President to settle the Russo-Japanese War, Roosevelt donated some of his prize money to the National Jewish Welfare Board.


1905: U.S. Ambassador White of Morocco wrote a letter describing the treatment of the local Jews. He stated, "Concurrent testimony positively affirms the intolerance of the Mohammedan rule in that country toward non-Musselmans. Jews, especially, appear to suffer from painful and injurious restrictions."


1905: “The Jewish Defense Association met” tonight “ in the assembly hall of the Educational Alliance and decided to turn over to Mr. Schiff the funds raised under its auspices for the relief of the Jewish suffers in Russia and those who befriended the Jews” so he would see to it that they were used accordingly.


1905: A letter written from Odessa, Russia concluded “by saying that the distress is alarming” since “people are dying from starvation and exposure” while “many prosperous Jewish merchants are reduced to beggary.”


1905: The Bucharest correspondent of the Daily Mail says that “the towns of Urbat and Calarisz have been burned and all the Jews perished in the flames.”


1905: “To insure united action in giving financial aid to the victims of the outrages in Russia, a call to the Jewish people of America was issued in Chicago tonight by Adolph Kraus, President of the Independent Order of B’nai B’rith who has been in telegraphic correspondence with the leaders of all the Jewish organizations in the United States and was authorized to sign the call on behalf of each organization.”


1906: Birthdate of Nettie Konigsberg, the mother of Allan Stewart Konigsberg, better known as Woody Allen


1907: In New York, Max Abrahams and Fannie Danovitch gave birth to Dr. Elias “Ely” Abrahams, a dentist who practiced in New York but lived in Brooklyn and was “the husband of the former Violet Dreishpoon and father of Paul Abrahams.


1909(24thof Cheshvan, 5670): Naftali Freidberg passed away today.


1909(24th of Cheshvan, 5670): Sir Benjamin Louis Cohen, Baronet a British businessman and Conservative politician passed away after a long illness at his home in Hyde Park Gardens, London, at the age of 64. “He was the son of Louis Cohen, a stockbroker, and his wife Rebecca Keyser. After a private education, he entered his father's firm. Apart from his business activities he was involved in public and political works and in supporting Jewish charities. In particular he served on the committees of the Stepney Jewish Schools, the Jews' Orphan Asylum and the Home for Aged Jews.mIn 1887 his brother, Lionel Louis Cohen, president of the Board of Guardians for the Relief of the Jewish Poor, died. Benjamin succeeded him in the post, holding the office until 1900. During his term he was very successful in raising large sums of money for the charity. He also altered the board's constitution, allowing women to be members. In the 1880s he was involved in the resettlement of Russian Jews, and supported proto-Zionist groups seeking to settle in Palestine.  In 1889 he was elected as one of the members of the first London County Council, representing the City of London for the Conservative-supported Moderate Party. He retained the seat until 1904. His brothers, Alfred and Nathaniel, were also members of the council. At the 1892 general election he was elected to the Commons as Unionist Member of Parliament for Islington East. He held the seat for eleven years, until he was defeated in the Liberal landslide of 1906. In 1905 he was created a baronet "of Highfield in the parish of Shoreham and county of Kent"


1911: Birthdate of Tel Aviv native Yair Sprinzak who served in the Knesset from 1988 to 1992.


1911: Lord Rothschild celebrated his 71st birthday.


1912: “Jack A. Dryfoos, a wealthy hosiery manufacturer who was also the treasurer of a paper novelty manufacturing company” and his wife gave birth to Orville Eugen Dryfoos the husband of “Marian Sulzberger and the publisher of The New York Times from 1961 until he passed away in 1963.


1913: The Arab newspaper Falastin (Palestine) printed a poem by Sheikh Suleiman al-Taji, a founder of the Jaffa based Ottoman Patriotic Party entitled "The Zionist Danger."   Falstin, an anti-Zionist newspaper, was first published in 1911.


1913: Birthdate of New York native Robert Strauss whose most memorable performance may have been as “Animal” in the POW classic “Stalag 17”


1914: In Ohio, Olga Landesco and Alexander A. Landesco, the Romanian born graduate of the University of Wisconsin Law School, founder of Mohawk State Bank of Ohio and longtime employee of Lazard Feres and Company gave birth to their older son, Alexander A. Landesco, Jr.


1915: “3,000,000 Jews Ruined” published today quoted Rabbi Maurice H. Harris, the president of the Eastern Council of Reform Rabbis as saying there are three million Jews in Poland “who have been economically ruined while the number of Jewish casualties in that section of the war zone can be placed at about 100,000.”


1915: It was reported today that more money was raised for the 600 victims of the Kishinev Pogroms than have been raised to help the suffering Jews in Eastern Europe.


1915: Louis D. Brandeis addressed the members of the Crotona Lodge of the Independent Order of the B’rith Abraham…on Zionism and the condition of the Jews today in the warring countries” where “he said that 7,000,000 Jews in Europe were homeless and starving and that after the war the Jews would be even worse off than the Belgians.”


1916: The “Warheit” a Jewish newspaper, said today “that the Jewish vote had been five to one for President Wilson and that “the best indication that the Jewish vote went for the President was contained in the returns from the Twelfth Congressional District where the proportion of Jewish voters is to be the heaviest.”


1917:In the wake of the Bolshevik revolt against the Kerensky government, Herman Bernstein, the Jewish newspaper who had been in Petrograd during the riots last July said “he was confident that Trotsky was only the agent of Lenin” who had been “directed the revolt from hiding” and that they “can’t win because Lenin and Trotsky are both extremely unpopular.”1917: The British bombed the German air field at El-tine destroying 11 planes on the ground and frightening the Turkish garrison in to fleeing.


1917: As the British “Egyptian Expeditionary Force” continued its southern offensive in the Sinai and Palestine, The Desert Mounted Corps, the Australian Mounted Division and the 5th Mounted Brigade capture a series of “water holes” as they pursued the retreating Ottoman forces.


1917: As of this evening “all of the Ottoman positions of the Gaza to Beersheba line had been captured the Ottoman 8th Army was in full retreat.”


1917: On the second day of the Russian Revolution which would have such a great impact on the Jews the Second Congress of Soviets “elected a Council of People's Commissars with Lenin as leader as the basis of a new Soviet Government” and began arresting members of opposition parties.


1918: As WW I staggered to an end German authorities left Warsaw opening the way for the creation of a truly independent Poland – which would prove to be a blessing and then a curse for millions of Jews.


1918: In Germany, Jewish political leader Kurt Eisner ler his followers in a peaceful takeover of the Bavarian Diet.


1918(4thof Kislev, 5679): Second Lieutenant Thomas Maurice Cummins of Johannesburg passed away today.


1918(4thof Kislev, 5679): Lieutenant Sonneberg of South Africa passed away today.


1918: In San Francisco, Roland Schiller, “a clothing manufacturer” and the former Lucille Bloch gave birth to Emmy award winning writer Robert Achille Schiller who wrote for radio and television in the “golden age” of both entertainment mediums.




1920: The seventh annual convention of the Mizrachi Organization of the United States and Canada is scheduled to open in Baltimore today.


1920: The second day of the Triennial Convention of the Jewish Women “will be largely devoted to the regular business of the convention.


1920(27thof Cheshvan, 5681): Shloyme Zanvl Rappoport, the Russian Jewish playwright and author who used the pseudonym S. Ansky passed away today.




1921: Beatrix (née Lewkowitz) and Morris J. Saks gave birth to Director Gene Saks whose credits include Cactus Flower, Bye Bye Birdie and Brighton Beach Memoirs.



1921: In the aftermath of WW I ratifications were exchanged today in Vienna of the U.S. – Austrian Peace Treaty which had been made necessary by the Senate’s rejection of the treaties that had negotiated in 1919 to end the war.


1921: Birthdate of New York native and Oscar winning producer Walter Mortimer Mirisch.



1922: Dr. Arthur Ruppin, said to be the foremost authority on the economic situation in Palestine, declared tonight at the Hotel Astor in his first address to American Zionists that Palestine now offers sound investments with opportunities for profit - capital Is safe there and investors are assured of good returns.


1923: Adolf Hitler launched his first attempt to seize power with a failed coup in Munich, Germany, that came to be known as the Beer-Hall Putsch.  Hitler would be imprisoned for this failed attempt at revolution.  While he prison, where he was treated like a celebrity, he wrote Mein Kampf.


1925(21stof Cheshvan, 5686): Sixty-two year old Prague native Rosa Volk, the daughter of Leopold and Sofie Sara Pick, the “wife of Alexander Volk” and “the mother of Margarete Volk” passed away today in Vienna.


1926: Featherweight Harry Blitman fought and won his sixth straight bout.


1927: In Manhattan, Mitzi (née Epstein) and Samuel Irving Newhouse Sr., the founder of Advance Publications gave birth to Samuel Irving "S.I." Newhouse Jr who along with his brother managed and grew the publication empire created by his father.



1927: In Budapest, Katharina Adler Munk and Lajos "Louis" Munk gave birth to Peter Munk one of those who escaped aboard the “Kastner Train” who founded Barrick Gold, “the world’s largest gold-mining company.”  (As reported by Ian Austen)



1928: Pinky Silverberg lost to “Kid Chocolate” a future Featherweight Champion in ten round bout at New York’s St. Nicholas Arena.


1928: Birthdate of Edward René David “widely known as Teddy Goldsmith, an Anglo-French environmentalist, writer and philosopher.”


1929: With the removal of the curfew, residents of Jerusalem are free to move about the city at night for the first time in three months.  The curfew had been put in place in response to a wave of Arab violence that had begun in August and included attacks on the ancient Jewish communities at Hebren and Safed.


1929: The British Commission of Inquiry canceled its hearings scheduled to be held in Jerusalem today and instead took an auto trip to Tel Aviv and Jaffa.


1929: Birthdate of Bertrand “Bert” Russell Berns the native New Yorker who was a prominent songwriter and record producer.



1930: “The White Horse Inn” an operetta based on a comedy by Oscar Blumenthal that was created by Ralph Benatzky who was not Jewish but who had two Jewish wives, premiered today in Berlin.


1931: In Toronto, Ontario, two Jews from Austria, “Anna (née Cohn) and Max Safer, an upholsterer” gave birth to popular, long time CBS correspondent Morley Safer.




1931: Winston Churchill published an article in the Sunday Chronicle about Moses that reflected his fascination with Jewish history and the concept that Jews’ monotheism and ethics were a central factor in the evolution and maintenance of modern civilization.


1932: U.S. premiere of Kameradschaft, a film about German miners rescuing French miners co-starring Alexander Granach.


1932: New York Gov. Franklin D. Roosevelt defeated incumbent Herbert Hoover for the presidency.  Roosevelt’s New Deal would prove a boon and tonic for large segments of the American Jewish Community.  His election and his New Deal prevented the rise of fascism and communism in the United States, neither of which would have been good for the Jews.


1932: Herbert Lehman was elected governor of New York.


1932: Socialist Candidate Morris Hillquit placed third in the New York City mayoral election.


1932: As teachers continued their protest in an attempt to secure back pay, the Mizrachi organization approved the resignation of Hechsel Farbstein from the Jewish Agency Executive at a “stormy meeting” this evening.  “Mr. Farbstein was joined in his resignation by Emanuel Neumann of New York.”  Both were protesting against budget cuts.


1934: In France, Georges Mandel began serving as Minister of Posts, Telegraphs and Telephones.


1935: American labor leaders formed the CIOor Congress of Industrial Organizations.  The leaders of the CIOchampioned militant organizing efforts on an industry by industry basis.  This was contrary to philosophy of the more conservative AF of L which was organized along the craft union model. Founding fathers of the CIO included Sidney Hillman, head of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, David Dubinsky, President of the ILGWU and Max Zaritsky, President of the Hatters, Cap and Millinery Workers


1935: “Mutiny on the Bounty” produced by Irving Thalberg with music by Walter Jurmann was released in the United States today by MGM.


1936: The Maccabees, the champion soccer team from Palestine, plays the final contest of their U.S. tour today at Yankee Stadium.  The game is the 11th contest of the tour which has left the Jewish team with a record of 6, 2 and 2.


1936(23rdof Cheshvan, 5697): Fifty-one year old Isidore Pinckowitz, the Romanian born butcher who parlayed selling hot dogs into the creation the iconic Kosher Company, Hebrew National passed away today after which he was interred at Mount Hebron Cemetery.



1936: Two hundred thousand people are expected today’s “congress” of “the Jorga-Cuza anti-Semitic groups in Bucharest for which the government reportedly issued free railway tickets to bring supporters to the city.


1936: “About 200,000 persons, mostly peasants, were brought” to Bucharest “today by special trains with the government's approval, to take part in an anti-Semitic and pro-Fascist demonstration arranged by the National Christian party, which is an amalgamation of the Fascist and anti-Semitic groups of Octavian Goga and A.C. Cuza.”


1936: Harry “Newman lateraled for both of Brooklyn's touchdowns and kicked both extra points in a 15–14 loss to the Cleveland Rams.”


1936: In address at a dinner marking the “opening of the 20th annual campaign of the Federation for the Support of Jewish Philanthropic Societies, Governor Lehman said that in his “opinion nothing could be more unsound or dangerous than the belief” that government through social security or relief activities could ever take the place of private welfare agencies.”


1936 “The celebration of the anniversary of Hitler’s beer-hall putsch was opened tonight with a reunion of the ‘Old Guard’ in the historic Buergerbraeukeller” and speech by the Chancellor that included at least two attack lines on the Jews.


1937:The Palestine Post reported that a new wave of anti-Jewish excesses was reported from various parts of Poland. In Vilna Jewish students were beaten by their gentile colleagues.


1937: The Palestine Post reported that after a heated debate, the Hadassah Convention in Atlantic City adopted a resolution demanding that the Zionist Executive should negotiate with the British government to affect a constructive policy for the complete implementation of the Palestinian Mandate over an undivided Palestine. Many Zionists and supporters of Israel were opposed to the partition of Palestine.  As far as they were concerned, the British had already partitioned Palestine when it created the nation of Trans-Jordan from the Mandatory land.  Since the Arabs had this state, these Jews felt that the British should honor the spirit of the Balfour Declaration leave those living in the Yishuv with the rest.


1937: The Eternal Jew' exhibition opened in Nuremberg.  It portrayed the Jew as the leaders of international Bolshevism, dedicated to destroying Germany


1938: In Great Britain, the Woodhead Report which opposed the creation of independent Jewish and Arab states in Palestine was submitted to Parliament


1938: Georg Elsner’s attempt to kill Hitler today, which is the subject of the movie “13 minutes” failed.



1938: Doctors struggled to save the life of Ernst von Rath, the junior level German embassy official who was under Gestapo investigation for pro Jewish activity when he was shot yesterday by Herschel Grynszpan


1938: Wilfred Israel called on the British Embassy in Berlin in an attempt to repudiate Hirsch Grynszpan's actions.


1938: Henry Horner, Governor of Illinois, suffered a major health setback while listening to the election results at the Congress Hotel in Chicago. 


1939: “Life With Father” the comedy produced by Oscar Serlin which became “the longest-running non-musical play on Broadway” opened at the Empire Theatre today.


1939: Maurice Duplessis who as Premier of the Province of Quebec issued the warrant which empowered the provincial police to raid “the cultural section of the Canadian Labor Circle, a Jewish fraternal organization” during which they removed “eight hundred books of the 950 volume library maintained by Jewish cultural circle” completed his service as the 16th Premier of Quebec.


1939: “Two months after Germany invaded Poland, Georg Elser, a young Bavarian carpenter” who had become “convinced that the top Nazi leadership had to be eliminated to end the war” placed a bomb behind a lectern in a beer hall where Hitler was scheduled to speak. Hitler escaped injury because he left the hall early but seven others were killed. For more see the film “Elser: 13 Minutes.”


1940: “The Mark of Zerro” which “was nominated for an Academy Award for Best original score” thanks to composer Alfred Newman was released today in the United States.


1941: A Jewish ghetto at Lvov, Ukraine, is established.


1941: In Manhattan, attorney Jacob Goldsmith and his wife, grade school teacher Dorothy Markowitz gave birth to Susan Jane Goldsmith who gained fame as political scientist Susan Tolchin


1942: The Jews from Drancy, France, arrive by train at Auschwitz, where 227 are assigned to forced labor and 773 are gassed.


1942: During World War II, Allied Operation Torch landings took place on the Algerian coast and incidentally ensure the safety of 117,000 Algerian Jews. Algerian-Jewish resistance armed by the United States, helped limit the impact of the Vichy French response to the Allied landings.


1942: Lt. Commander Arthur M. Erhsler served “as pilot of plane in Escort Scouting Squadron Twenty-Nine attached to the U.S.S. Santee when the “assault on the occupation of French Morocco” began today.


1942: José Aboulker “led the occupation of the main strategic points in Algiers by 377 members of the Resistance (315 of them were Jewish), seizing the central police station, with his deputy Bernard Karsenty and the help of Guy Calvet and Superintendent Achiary.”


1942: In Tripoli, Libya, German occupiers pressed 2600 Jews into forced labor to build military roads.


1944: The Stern Gang assassinates Lord Walter Moyne, Britain's minister of state in the Middle East. The Stern Gang was named for its founder Avraham Stern.  The Stern Gang was in 1940 by former members of the Irgun.  They were opposed to the Irgun’s decision to join with the Haganah which meant setting aside the fight with the British to fight the Nazis. Stern was killed by British security forces. The Stern Gang negotiated with the Nazis offering to work with the Germans in a fight against the British if the Nazis would support the creation of a Jewish state.  But they assassinated Lord Moyne, Britain’s leading official in Egypt because of his association with anti-Semitic Arab groups.  The Stern Gang was branded as terrorists by the Yishuv.  On the other hand, Yitzchak Shamir, a member of the Stern Gang would follow Begin as Prime Minister in Israel.


1944 Germans initiate a death march of Jews from Budapest to the Austrian border. Raoul Wallenberg's intervention saved thousands of Jews but thousands more continue the trek that would lead to Auschwitz.


1944 John W. Pehle, head of the War Refugee Board who has delayed for months a request that Auschwitz be bombed, changed his mind. He argued that bombing would destroy the gas chambers as well as German factories and soldiers in the area, encourage resistance, and free prisoners. Assistant Secretary of War John J. McCloy rejected Pehle's reasoning, erroneously arguing that bombing Auschwitz will hinder the war effort.


1944: Nazi collaborator Karoly (Charles) Zentai murdered a Jewish teenager named Peter Balazs in Budapest. Zentai served in a unit of the Hungarian army that was active in hunts for Jews in Budapest in the fall of 1944 when the fascist Arrow Cross came to power. Balazs was murdered because Zentai caught him riding on a streetcar in Budapest without the required yellow star sewn on his coat. Balazs and Karoly grew up in the suburb of Budafolk, so Zanti knew that the teenager was Jewish and violating Nazi law.


1944: The U.S.N. Drum (SS-228) a submarine under skippered by Commander Maurice H Rindskopf completed its 11th war patrol which was spent “In enemy controlled water of the Luzon Straits in the Philippines.”  Rindskopf, who rose to the rank of Rear Admiral, was awarded the Navy Cross for his gallantry shown during the dangerous mission during which he sunk 20,000 tons of enemy shipping.


1945: General Sir Alan Gordon Cunningham is appointed high commissioner for Palestine and Transjordan.


1945: Dr. Izzat George Tannous, head of Arab Office in London, says Truman recommendation for Jewish immigration to Palestine was made without consulting Arabs and denounces Zionism.


1947: The University of Michigan, led by Dan Dworsky who played “linebacker, fullback and center” defeated the University of Indiana for their seventh straight win of the season


1947: According to eyewitness reports The Pan Crescent and the Pan York which are carrying a total of 12,000 emigrants are preparing to sailing from Turkey to Palestine in what would be the “largest unauthorized transports of Jewish refugees to Palestine.


1948: It was announced today that “Jack Benny has accepted new contract terms proposed by the National Broadcasting Company, with the result that he will continue to be heard on the NBC network at 7 P.M. Sundays. The network submitted the proposals after the Columbia Broadcasting System sought to induce the comedian to shift the base of his activities to the CBS network on Sundays.”


1948:  Following the first census by the government of Israel, the Jewish homeland was found to contain 712,000 Jews and 68,000 Arabs.


1949: Beginning of Operation Magic Carpet, which was one of the great moments of modern Jewish history.  At the moment of its birth, Israel immediately established itself as haven for Jews throughout the world.Operation Magic Carpet was the name given to the Israeli Airlift that flew 60,000 Jews from Yemen to Israel.  Golda Meir, who would eventually become Prime Minister of Israel, would go out to the airport and greet Israel’s newest citizens.  She said she marveled at their courage and endurance.  She asked one elderly chap if he had ever seen an airplane before. He told her had not.  She asked him if was afraid.  He said he was not afraid.  After all, this had all been foretold in the Book of Isaiah. “They shall mount up on wings of eagles.”  And then he stood there and recited the entire passage from Chapter Forty of the Book of Isaiah.  Part of this is found in this week’s haftarah, “But they that wait upon the Lord she all renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles…”  If you can ever read this haftarah again without getting a lump in your throat, you are a better person than I am. 


1949: The New York Herald Tribune revealed that tens of thousands of Jews had been moved dramatically from Yemen to the then British colony of Aden, and were flown to Israel from there. The operation bore the legendary name "Magic Carpet." The immigrants themselves prefer to describe the event with a biblical image: "On the wings of eagles." Israel's military censor only permitted publication of the operation's details once they were published abroad. The scoop belonged to U.S. reporter Ruth Gruber, who had been invited to join one of the flights from Yemen as the guest of the Joint Distribution Committee. A disagreement arose as to whether she had been invited to write "for publication," or only "for background" information.


1949: Republican Stanley M. Isaacs was elected to the New York City Council


1949: U.S premiere of “All The King’s Men” produced, directed and written by Robert Rossen with music by Louis Gruenberg.


1950: “The Lady’s Not for Burning” co-starring Claire Bloom opened at the Royale Theatre.


1951: “Quo Vadis” a big screen biblical epic directed by Mervyn LeRoy, produced by Sam Zimbalist with a script by S.N. Berhman and Sonya Levien was released in the United States today.


1956: Six Israelis were wounded when gunmen opened fire on a train, attacked cars and blew up wells, in the North and Center of Israel.


1957: “The Story of Mankind” the film version the book by the same name, directed, produced and written by Irwin Allen was released in the United States today.


1958: Republican Stanley M. Isaacs, was elected to the New York City Council where he serve as the Minority Leader.


1958(25thof Cheshvan, 5719): Parashat Chayei Sara


1958(25thof Cheshvan, 5719): Seventy-nine year old CCNY and NYU Law School graduate Dr. Gabriel Davidson, the “former managing director of the Jewish Agricultural Society, author of Our Jewish Farmers and an active member of the Jewish community as can be seen by his membership in the American Jewish Historical Society and the American Friends of the Hebrew University” whose wife Anna passed away in 1947 succumbed to “a heart ailment” today at Parsons Hospital.




1960: In Montreal, David Libman and Goldie Araonovitch gave birth to architect turned politician who served as a mayor and as a member of the National Assembly of Quebec and who has three children – Kevin, Daniel and Jonathan – with his wife the former Joanne Shapir.


1960:  In one of the closest elections on record, John Kennedy defeated Richard Nixon to become President of the United States. Support of Jewish voters was critical to electing America’s first Roman Catholic to the White House. Kennedy named two Jews to his cabinet - Abraham Ribicoff as Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare, and Arthur Goldberg as Secretary of Labor. Kennedy was the only President for whom a national Jewish Award was named. The annual peace award of the Synagogue Council of America was re-named the John F. Kennedy Peace Award after his assassination in 1963.


1962(11th of Cheshvan, 5723): On the day after celebrating his 83rd birthday MK Mordechai Nurock passed away.  An ordained Rabbi who earned a Doctorate in Psychology, he was Israel’s first Minister of Postal Services which is now known as Minister of Communication.


1962: A remake of “Mutiny Bounty” directed by Lewis Milestone and produced by Aaron Rosenberg was released in the United States by MGM.


1962:Shalom-Avraham Shaki, the native of Yemen who made Aliyah in 1914 became an MK for the first time, replace the late Mordechai Nurock.


1966(25thof Cheshvan, 5727): Seventy-five year old Dr. Bernhard Zondek passed away. Born in German, the pioneer in modern endocrinology made Aliyah in 1934 and won the Israel Prize in medicine in 1958.


1966: “Madame X” a film version of the French play by the same name produced by Ross Hunter was released today in the United States.


1972: Birthdate of Yavilah McCoy, the African-American Jew educated in Crown Heights and the founder of “Ayecha.”




1973: “In the Boom Boom Room” directed by Joseph Papp and co-starring Madeline Khan opened at the Vivian Beaumont Theatre in New York.


1974: “Cinderella Liberty” an off-beat comedy-drama directed and produced by Mark Rydell and starring James Caan and Eli Wallach was released in Finland.


1974: Soviet Jewish emigration to Israel declined by 37% to 14,822 in the first 10 months of 1974 compared with the same period in 1973, according to the Committee for European Migration, Geneva. 


1975(4th of Kislev, 5736): Esther Vilenska passed away. Born at Vilnius in 1918, she made Aliyah in 1938. Vilenska became a “communist politician, journalist and author who served as a member of the Knesset for Maki between 1951 and 1959 and then again from 1961 to 1965.”


1977: Having defeated incumbent Mayor Abraham Beame in the Democratic primary, Ed Koch was elected Mayor of New York today.


1977: The Jerusalem Postreported that after the Katyusha bombing of Nahariya in which two local residents were killed, Israeli gunners blasted Palestinian terrorist strongholds in South Lebanon.  This is an example of the inability of the government of Lebanon to control its borders.  The PLO set up a state within a state in southern Lebanon.  It was these conditions that would finally force the Israelis to cross the border in the early 1980’s and eventually set up a buffer state on the border with Lebanon.


1978: In Belize, Frances Imeon Myvette and Dean Barrow, gave birth to Jamal Michael Barrow, the rapper known as Shyne who legally had his name to changed Moses Michael Levi.


1978:”Magic” the cinematic version of the book by the same name written by William Goldman who also authored the script which was produced by Joseph E. Levine and Richard P. Levine with music by Jerry Goldsmith was released in the United States today.


1978(8thof Cheshvan, 5739): Seventy-six year old Latvian born American “poet, critic and educator” Eli Siegel, the founder of Aesthetic Realism passed away today.




1979(18thof Cheshvan, 5740): Sixty-three year old English actor Sydney Tafler passed away today after which he was buried at the Golders Green Jewish Cemetery in London Borough.



1981: “The Leningrad KGB did not allow students studying Hebrew to enter the apartment of their teacher Yakov Rabinovich who had been told to stop teaching or he would face arrest”


1985: “Transylvania 6-5000” a comedy-horror film starring Jeff Goldblum and featuring Norman Fell was released today in the United States.


1985: The trial of former Yale University lecturer Vladimir Sokolov on charge that “he willful concealed his activities as a Nazi collaborator who wrote articles calling for the annihilation of Jews” continued for a second day.



1986: In Chicago Susan and Robert Swartz gave birth to computer programmer Aaron Swartz founder of “Demand Progress.”


1988: Nita M. Lowey was elected to Congress where she is currently serving her 8th term. She is a leading proponent of educational opportunity, health care reform and biomedical research, stricter gun control and public safety laws, environmental protection, and women's issues. She is a member of the House Appropriations Committee. Lowey was the first woman to chair the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, leading the organization from 2001 to 2002. She has served as Chair of the Congressional Women's Caucus and the House Pro-Choice Caucus, and has been called "the most prominent abortion right advocate in Congress" by the Washington Post. Before being elected to Congress, Lowey served as Assistant Secretary of State for the State of New York.


1988: Gov. Madeline M. Kunin of Vermont won a third two-year term, defeating Michael Bernhardt, the state House minority leader.


1995: “An Appeal for Forgiveness published today contained the full text of an apology issued by the family of Yigal Amir, “the confessed assassin of Prime Minister Rabin.



1996: “Mad Dog Time” a “crime comedy” directed and written by Larry Bishop (the son of comedian Joey Bishop) starring Richard Dreyfuss, Jeff Goldblum, Ellen Barken and Rob Reiner was released in the United States today.


1996: “Ransom,” based on adaptation of “Fearful Decision” by Richard Maibaum the New York native who graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Iowa in 1931 and earned a masters from the Speech and Dramatic Arts Department and produced by Scott Rudin and Brian Grazer was released in the United States today.


1997: North Carolinians came together today, to honor one the state’s civic leaders and pathbreaking women. Born in 1913 in Virginia, Hannah Block (née Solomon) studied music at the prestigious Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore. After completing her studies, Block ventured to New York City where she forged her way as a jazz singer and performed in some of Manhattan’s most popular night spots. While in New York, Block met her future husband Charles Morris Block. After they married, the couple settled in Wilmington, N.C. where Charles was a partner in a manufacturing company.Block embraced her new home with verve and spirit. During World War II, she became the first woman to serve as head lifeguard at Carolina Beach, where she taught swimming and lifesaving courses for the Red Cross. The attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941 inspired Block to become more involved with the war effort. Bringing new life and depth to her jazz career, she volunteered her time performing for troops at the local USO. Block organized and trained a group of 60 young women who visited and entertained soldiers on nearby military bases before their deployment overseas.Towards the war’s end, Block enlisted volunteers to welcome GI’s back to the U.S. and to help them readjust to life as civilians. One friend fondly dubbed Hannah Block “Mrs. World War II Wilmington.”After the war, Hannah Block remained active in civic life. She served twice as president of the local American Legion Auxiliary and organized many pageants, turning them into, as she put it, “more than a swimsuit contest on the beach.” In her late 40s, she became the first woman to serve on the Wilmington City Council, and later, the first woman to serve as the city’s mayor pro tempore. Block also led efforts in Wilmington to preserve and restore buildings of historical significance. One of these buildings was the USO center Block has performed in decades earlier. The building, which had served as Wilmington’s Community Arts Center since 1973, was renamed in 1997 in honor of Block. That same year on November 8th, the Community Arts Center in the “Hannah Block Historic USO” put on a jazz and cabaret review to honor Block. At the event, Block was awarded the Order of the Long Leaf Pine, one of North Carolina’s highest honors recognizing service to the state. (As reported by Jewish Women’s Archive)


1998: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or about topics of Jewish interest including Turbulent Souls: A Catholic Son's Return to His Jewish Family
by Stephen J. Dubner, Work In Progressby Michael D. Eisner, with Tony Schwartz and The Book of Job translation, introduction and notes by Raymond P. Scheindlin



1998: In “The Specter of Hitler in the Music of Wagner,” published today, Joseph Horowtiz re-examines the issues surrounding the German composer and the anti-Semitism of the Nazis.



1999: “Jewish Chapel’s 50th Anniversary Marked” published today described the gathering at Ada Ari El Synagogue celebrating the 50thanniversary of the David Familian Chapel.



2000(10thof Cheshvan, 5761): Noa Dahan, 25, of Moshav Mivtahim in the south, was shot to death while driving to her job at the Rafah border crossing in Gaza.


2000: The BBC broadcast “The Body of the Queen” the 7th episode of “A History of Britain is a documentary series written and presented by Simon Schama.”


2001: “Michael Steinhardt’s Voyage Around His Father” published today tells the true story of the hedge fund manager his father Sol Frank “Red” Steinhardt.



2002:Linda Lingle, Hawaii’s governor-elect, has made news for the 50th state and for Hadassah, the Women’s Zionist Organization of America. She is Hawaii’s first woman governor, its first Jewish governor – and the only chief executive of a state to become a life member of Hadassah at her own initiative. Hours after her election, Lingle said: "I am aware of the wonderful work accomplished at Hadassah Hospital and am very proud of being a life member. I recently had a meeting with the Israel Consul General during his trip to Hawaii, and he extended to me an invitation to visit Israel. I look forward to doing so in the near future and to finally have the opportunity to visit Hadassah Hospital and meet the physicians and dedicated people responsible for making it so successful." Lingle, the former mayor of Maui, is also Hawaii’s first Republican governor in 40 years. Four years ago, a member of the Hawaii chapter made a one-time gift of annual membership to Lingle. Last year, the chapter was delighted to receive a check from Lingle that upgraded her status to life member, according to Sharon Goodhart, then-Vice President of Membership. According to the 2001 edition of the American Jewish Yearbook, there are approximately 7,000 Jews in Hawaii. Hadassah Hawaii, which counts some 200 members, is understandably proud of one of their own becoming governor. “We are thrilled and enormously proud of Linda on her election to governor of our state. We support her completely in her continued effort to bring about a new beginning for Hawaii," said chapter President Phyllis Donlin.


2002: After premiering at the Venice International Film Festival two months ago, “Far From Heaven,” a film that looks behind the façade of mid-20th century suburbia with music by Elmer Bernstein and filmed by cinematographer Edward Lachman was released today in the United States.


2004:  First Day of Jewish Book Month. Check out the library at your local Temple or Synagogue.  Temple Judah in Cedar Rapids has just built a new, modern library.  This is also a good time of the year to make donations of books or funds to the library.  Finally, since Kislev (the month with Chanukah) actually starts in November this year, why not look for some books for Chanukah gifts.  After all, we are "the people of the book."


2005: An overwhelming majority of adult Israelis are satisfied or very satisfied with their lives. While 82 percent are happy, 52 percent of the population believes their lives will improve in the coming years. The third annual survey by the Central Bureau of Statistics found that 47 percent of adults are satisfied with their financial situation. About 41 percent believe their financial situation will improve in the coming years.


2005: The trial of Holocaust denier Ernst Zündel which was scheduled to begin today but was postponed when the Judge rule that his lawyer “Horst Mahler whose license to practice as a lawyer was withdrawn in 2004 and who, in January 2005, was sentenced to nine months in prison for inciting racial hatred, could not be part of the defense team.”


2006: The Jerusalem Post reported that “containers for ritual offerings, weapons and jewelry are among the finds uncovered after builders in Jerusalem’s Vayit Vagan neighborhood stumbled upon a 4,000 year old Canaanite cemetery. 


2007: Jon Lovitz “had the grand opening for his new comedy club ‘The Jon Lovitz Comedy Club at Aubergine’ in the Gaslamp District of San Diego, CA.


2007: At the Jewish Community Center of Greater Washington 38th annual Book Festival, Rabbi Harold Kushner discusses his latest work, Overcoming Life’s Disappointments.


2007:  In Cedar Rapids, Iowa, The Suzanne and Bert Katz Fund of the Temple Judah Foundation presents “The Case for Israel” with Professor Alan Dershowitz at Sinclair Auditorium on the campus of Coe College.


2007: Spain's Constitutional Court ruled that Holocaust denial will not be punishable by imprisonment, due to the fact that it falls within freedom of speech. Spanish law had mandated a sentence of up to two years in prison for Holocaust denial, but the court, which deliberated on the case following the trial of a neo-Nazi activist, ruled that such a punishment was unconstitutional. Nonetheless, the court did rule that imprisonment is a constitutional punishment for any individual convicted of justifying the Holocaust or any other genocide for that matter.


2008: In Highland Park, Il, Dana Levin, daughter of Gigi Cohen and Michael Levin is called to the Torah as a Bat Mitzvah.


2008: John Key, the son of Austrian-Jewish mother completed his service as leader of the loyal opposition following the electoral victory of the New Zealand National Party.


2009: An exhibition of the works of Gustav Metzger at the Serpentine Gallery in London that “included the installation Flailing Trees, which consists of 15 upturned willow trees embedded in a block of concrete, symbolizing a world turned upside down by global warming” came to an end today.


2009:Rabbi Simcha Weinstein discusses his book Up, Up, and Oy Vey: How Jewish History, Culture, and Values Shaped The Comic Book Superhero at the Walters Art Museum, Graham Auditorium.


2009(21st of Cheshvan, 5770): Ninety-three year old “Vitaly L. Ginzburg, the Russian physicist who helped develop the first Soviet hydrogen bomb and went on to win the Nobel Prize, passed away today. (As reported by Michael Schwirtz)



2009: Closing session of Union for Reform Judaism's 70th Biennial Convention in Toronto, Canada.


2009 (21st Cheshvan): On the Jewish calendar, Yahrzeit Chanah (Hanah) Senesh (Sznes) who was executed 65 years ago today on the 21st of Cheshvan, 5705.


2009: New York Times bestselling author Neal Bascomb discusses his riveting new book Hunting Eichmann: How a Band of Survivors and a Young Spy Agency Chased Down the World’s Most Notorious Nazi at the Fourth Annual JCCNV Jewish Book Festival.


2009: Distinguished educator Dr. Erica Brown, author of Spiritual Boredom: Rediscovering the Wonder of Judaism, explores how boredom manifests itself within Judaism and the cultural impact on a faith structure that advises sanctifying time, not merely passing it at the JCCGW 40th Annual Book Festival


2009:Students from three Israeli high schools garnered top honors at the seventh annual International Student Film Festival Hollywood (ISFFH), which concluded today.


2010: The Center for Jewish History and Center for Traditional Music and Dance are scheduled to present “Josh Waletzky: Boiberik and Beyond Yiddish Songs for the 21st Century.”


2010(1st of Kislev, 5771): Rosh Chodesh Kislev


2010: “Jazz singer and WWII USO champion Hannah Block is awarded North Carolina’s Order of the Long Leaf Pine.”



2010(1st of Kislev, 5771): Ninety five year old Jack Levine, an unrepentant and much-admired realist artist whose crowded history paintings skewered plutocrats, crooked politicians and human folly” passed away today. (As reported by William Grimes)http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/10/arts/10levine.html?pagewanted=all


2010: Mark Helprin “was awarded the 2010 Salvatori Prize in the American Founding by Clarmont Institute.


2011:Dan Byman author of “A High Price: The Triumphs and Failures of Israeli Counterterrorism” and Jennifer Griffin and Greg Myre co-authors of “This Burning Land: Lessons Learned from the Front Lines of the Transformed Israeli-Palestinian Conflict” are scheduled to take part in Panel Discussion at the JCC of Northern Virginia’s Book Festival


2011:Cantor Sharon Steinberg, the cantor at Beth El Hebrew Congregation in Alexandria, Virginia is scheduled to deliver the first in a series of lectures that provide “An Overview of Jewish Liturgical Music.


2011: “Fascinating Facts: Exploring the Myths and Mysteries of Judaism” is scheduled to begin tonight. Fascinating Facts: Exploring the Myths and Mysteries of Judaism


2011: In St. Louis, MO, the scheduled Community Krisallnacht Program will feature Hannie J. Voyles, author of “Storming The Tulips.”



2011: Today, Knesset Speaker Reuven released his speech for the upcoming memorial session, during which Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, President Shimon Peres, Supreme Court President Dorit Beinish and opposition leader Tzipi Livni (Kadima) were scheduled to speak. Rivlin plans to slam “price tag” vandalism, calling it “Jewish terrorism,” during a special Knesset session in memory of former prime minister Yitzhak Rabin to be held tomorrow.


2011: The Religious Services Ministry placed burdensome restrictions today on the Tzohar Rabbinical Council, which provides a legal and religious alternative to weddings performed outside the framework of the Rabbinate.


2011(11thof Cheshvan, 5772): Sixty-eight year old Nosson Tzvi Finkel, Rosh Yehsiva of the Mir Yeshiva in Jerusalem passed away today.


2011: Release of “Haver Hadash” (“New Boyfriend”) a single by Elisha Banai and the Forty Thieves was released today.


2012:Larry Tye Author of Superman: The High Flying History of America's Most Enduring Hero is scheduled to speak at JCCNV Jewish Book Festival in Fairfax, VA.


2012:My Dad is Baryshnikov” is scheduled to shown at the UK Jewish Film Festival this evening.


2012: Tesa Cohen, one of Temple Judah’s younger congregants, is scheduled to appear in the opening performance of Neil Simon’s “Brighton Beach.”


2012: Bentlee Birchansky and Lincoln Ginsberg, students at Temple Judah Religious School, are scheduled to appear in the opening performance of “Guys and Dolls.”


2012: Prior to their scheduled performance at the Engler Theatre in Iowa Cit, The Klezmatics are scheduled to give a lecture and demonstration on Klezmer music.


2012: A well dating from 8,500 years ago, with the bones of two prehistoric people inside, was uncovered during recent excavations in the Jezreel Valley, the Israel Antiquities Authority said today.


2012: Three mortar shells landed across Israel’s border with Syria in the Golan Heights this morning, in what security officials said was likely a spillover from fighting between government forces and rebels in the ongoing Syrian civil war


2012: IDF soldiers exchanged gunfire with Palestinian terrorists from Gaza today. According to initial reports, a work crew came under fire near Kibbutz Nirim on the Gaza border and the soldiers returned fire. (As reported by Ron Friedman)


2012: Yale University announced that 54 year old Peter Salovey would be the new president three months after Richard C. Levin announced the he would be leaving the position “at the end of the academic year.


2012: Danish premiere of “The Act of Killing,” a documentary about the Indonesian killings directed by Joshua Oppenheimer.


2013: “Swastikas, Slurs and Torment in Town’s Schools” published today describes allegations of anti-Semitism in the Pine Bush Central School District.



2013(5thof Kislev, 5774): Ninety-one year old Holocaust survivor Saul Kagan, the founding director of the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany passed away today. (As reported by Paul Vitello)



2013: The Eden-Tamir Music Center is scheduled to host a noon-time Grand Master Recital.


2013: Tina Sutton, author of The Making of Markova: Diaghilev’s Baby Ballerina to Groundbreaking Icon is scheduled to speak this morning at the San Diego Jewish Book Fair.


2013: Shepard, former Editor-in-Chief of Business Week and Lynn Povich author of The Good Girls Revolt are scheduled to appear at The San Diego Jewish Book Fair’s Lunch & Talk


2013: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged US Secretary of State John Kerry today “not to rush to sign” a deal with Iran over its controversial nuclear program. (As reported by Times of Israel Staff)


2013: US President Barack Obama marked the 75th anniversary of Kristallnacht today saying that the 1938 pogrom in which Nazis burned synagogues and murdered Jews across Germany serves as an example of what silence in the face of hatred can bring.


2014: Shabbat Va-yayra


2014: Lewis Black is scheduled to perform at the convention center in Denver.


2014: “The Divorce” and “Samuel-613” are scheduled to be shown at the UK Jewish Film Festival.


2014: In Sydney, “A Place in Heaven” and “Zero Motivation” are scheduled to be shown at the Jewish International Film Festival.


2014(15thof Cheshvan): “Yahrtzeit of Matityahu, the leader of the Maccabees in their fight against the Syrian-Greeks, as recorded in the Chanukah story.” (As reported by Aish)


2014(15thof Cheshvan): Yahrtzeit of Rabbi Avraham, the Chazon Ish, the Vilna born scholar who made Aliyah in 1933. (As reported by Aish)


2014: “Clashes between police and Palestinian rioters raged tonight in Arab neighborhoods of East Jerusalem as tensions remained high in the capital.”


2014: “Tens of thousands of Israelis, most members of Israeli youth movements, gathered in central Tel Aviv tonight to mark the 19th anniversary of the assassination of prime minister Yitzhak Rabin.”


2015: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Not In God’s Names: Confronting Religious Violence by Jonathan Sacks, 1944: FDR and the Year That Changed History by Jay Winik and The Crime of Silence by Anna Bikont


2015: In Orlando, Florida, the biennial conference of the Union for Reform Judaism is scheduled to come to an end.


2015: The author of Murder of a Mafia Daughter: The Life and Tragic Death of Susan Berman appeared on FOX News to discuss Susan Berman’s “relationship with Robert Durst


2015: Approximately, 3,000 arrived in Washington for the opening session of the annual General Assembly of the Jewish Federations of North America.


2015: Following a rocket attack, tonight, the “IAF launched an airstrike against a terrorist infrastructure belonging to Hamas in southern Gaza.”


2015: “The Last Mentsch” is scheduled to be the final movie shown at the annual Rutgers Jewish Film Festival.


2015: The Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education is scheduled to host “Confronting Extremism: The State of Hate Today.”


2015: The Jewish Arts & Film Festival of Fairfield County is scheduled to host a “post festival encore” – Commemorating Kristallnacht: Varian Fry, The American Schindler.


2015: The Jewish Genealogy Society of Greater Washington is scheduled to host a workshop followed by a lecture by Ken Sutak on “Cinema Judaica: The Wars.”


2015: At The York Theatre the curtain is scheduled to come down on the final performance “Rothschild & Sons.”


2015: The annual General Assembly of the Jewish Federations of North America is scheduled to open today in Washington, D.C.


2016(7thof Cheshvan, 5777): Yom HaAliyah


2016(7thof Cheshvan, 5777): Seventy-nine year old Holocaust survivor and historian Yaffa Eliach passed away today. (As reported by Joseph Berger)




2016: Today, “the Israel Securities Authority (ISA) carried out a highly unusual raid on the Ramat Gan offices of iTrader, a company that offered binary options and forex trading to the Israeli public” and arrested “seven of its top managers and salespeople.” (As reported by Simona Weinglass and David Horovitz)


2016: Forty-two year old Republic Eric Greitens a Rhodes Scholar a Navy SEAL whose decorations included the Bronze Star became the first Jewish governor of Missouri today when defeated his Democratic opponent in the general election.


2016: In Pennsylvania, Democrat Josh Shaprio was elected state Attorney General.


2016: Professor Sara B. Horowitz is scheduled to moderate a debate on “the place and value of literary approaches to Holocaust memory” as part of HEW (Holocaust Education Week) in Toronto.


2016: Glenn Dynner, a Professor of Religion at Sarah Lawrence is scheduled to deliver a lecture that will focus on JDC’s generous aid to Jewish traditionalists (Orthodox and Hasidic Jews) entitled “"The Fountain of Judaism": JDC Aid to Traditionalist Jews in Interwar and Nazi-Occupied Poland” at The Center for Jewish History.


2016: “Primary Colors” and “Weiner” are scheduled to be shown at the 20thUK International Jewish Film Festival.


2016: Among those planning on voting in today’s Presidential election is centenarian “Menia Perelman of South Florida who arrived in the United States at the age of 84” and  who became a U.S. citizen so she could vote in this election. (As reported by JTA)


2016: Among the candidates on the ballot today is Mindy Finn who, in Utah, is running for vice president as an independent on a ticket headed by a Mormon – a ticket that has the blessing of Mitt Romney, the influential Mormon who was the Republican Nominee for President in 2012.



2017: The Streicker Center is scheduled to host an evening with “Bernard-Henri Lévy for a discussion on why Jewish values, traditions and memory are modern saving graces for the Jewish people.”


2017: As part of its “Titans of Industry” program, the Center for Jewish History is scheduled to host an evening with Jeffrey G. Gural, Chairman of GFP Real Estate and Barry M. Gosin, CEO of Newmark Knight Frank.


2017: Yeshiva University Museum, the Center for Jewish History and the American Sephardi Federation are scheduled to host “To Be A Scribe In Italy: A Century Old Legacy” during which Rav Amedeo Spagnoletto the recently appointed chief rabbi of Florence, who has become a keeper of the Italian tradition handed down for centuries will discuss the history, art, and halakhic norms that converge in the making of handwritten Hebrew text.”


2018: “Remember the Kindertransport: 80 Years On,” an exhibition that allows visitors to “discover the stories of the child refugees in their own words” is scheduled to open at the Breman Museum.


2018: The Center for Jewish History is scheduled to present “Kristallnacht: 80th Anniversary Commemoration,” “featuring remarks by historian Marion Kaplan (NYU), the premiere of a short documentary featuring individuals sharing their memories of 1938, reflections by radio personality and author Martin Goldsmith, and a musical performance by the Phoenix Chamber Ensemble.


2018: The Center for Jewish History is scheduled to host “What’s New In Jewish Genetics” during which “computational geneticist Itsik Pe’er (Columbia University) and moderator Nathan Pearson (rootdeep.com) explore what our genomes say today...and may reveal in the future.”


2018: The 12th Annual Other Israel Film Festival is scheduled to come to an end today.


2018: “Working Woman” is scheduled to be shown as part of the Opening Night Gala marking the start of the UK Jewish Film Festival.


2018(30th of Cheshvan, 5779): Rosh Chodesh Kislev; for more see http://downhomedavartorah.blogspot.com/


 


 


 


 

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

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November 9



694: Opening meeting of the Seventeenth Council of Toledo during which the Visigoth Catholic monarch, King Egica publicly charged the Jews with planning to "exterminate and [destroy] their homeland."  This charge was the excuse for the enactment of some of the most stringent laws aimed at the Jews of Iberia.  The Jews and their property essentially became the possession of the crown, allowing the King to dispose of them as he saw fit.  Furthermore, any Christian found helping Jews would be punished.  These laws represented the climax of more than a century's worth of anti-Jewish laws.  Is it any wonder that the Jews greeted the Moors with open arms when the invaded Spain in 711?


1382:  Publication date for the Cambridge Yiddish Codex, “the oldest surviving document written in Yiddish


1389: Consecration of Boniface IX who gave the Jews of Rome the legal right to observe Shabbat, protection from local oppressive officials, a reduction in their taxes, and assurance that they would be treated as Roman citizens.


1491: Azriel Günzenhäuser printed “Avicenna Canon” at Naples Italy. Azriel Günzenhäuser was a 15th century German printer who was also known as the “Ashkenazi.”


1494: The Family de' Medici expelled as rulers of Florence. According to Rebecca Weiner, “The fate of the Jewish community was tied to the fate of the Medici family in Florence. Lorenzo il Magnifico defended the Jewish community from expulsions and from the aftermath of vitriolic sermons given by Bernardino da Feltre. A Catholic theocracy was installed in the 1490's under the Dominican friar Girolama Savonarola, who decreed that both the Jews and the Medici family be expelled from Florence. A loan from the Jewish community to the republic postponed the expulsion for a short period of time. The Medicis returned to power in 1512 and the Jewish ban was lifted, until the next Medici expulsion in 1527. Alessandro de Medici regained influence as a duke, in 1531, and abolished anti-Jewish acts. In 1537 Cosimo de’Medici gained power in the Florentine government. He sought the advice of Jacob Abravanel, a Sephardic Jew living in Ferrara. Abravanel convinced Cosimo to guarantee the rights and privileges of Spanish and Portuguese Jews, and other Levantines who settled on his borders. This was the start of the growth of the Sephardic Jewish community in Florence. Refuge was given to Jews from other papal states who left due to Pope Paul IV’s anti-Jewish measures, which were not enacted in Florence. Once Cosimo received the title of grand duke of Tuscany, his policies toward the Jews changed for the worse. He forced Jews to wear badges in 1567, closed the Tuscan border to non-resident Jews in 1569, shut down Jewish banks in 1570 and established a ghetto in 1571


1526: The Jews were expelled from Hungary after being falsely accused of aiding the Turks in the war against Hungary.  This is an example of the Jews being caught up in the cross currents of European Religious Wars.  Most of Hungary had come under the control of the Turks (yes the Islamic Ottoman Empire penetrated that far into central Europe a fact not lost on radical Islamists today).  The Hungarians were all that stood between the Turks and the Germanic Holy Roman Empire.  But Charles V, the Emperor was not supplying aide for reasons of his own, so the Jews ended up being scapegoats for the newly enthroned Hungarian King’s inability to dislodge the Turks. 


1526: Jews of Pressburg (now Bratislava) were expelled by order of Queen Maria.


1571(21st of Cheshvan): Rabbi David ben Solomon ibn Abi Ziimra (Radbaz) passed away


1621: A 16 year old New Christian, Moses Simonson (or Symonson) arrived in Plymouth, Massachusetts on the ship Fortune. He came from Leyden, Holland.


1656(21st of Cheshvan): Rabbi Moses ben Isaac Judah Levy, author of Helkat Mehokek passed away


1683: Birthdate of King George II for whose coronation Handle wrote “Zadok the Priest,” an anthem based on Kings 1:38-40 which has been sung at every coronation since 1727.


1713: Rabbi Tzvi Ashkenazi and Moses Hagiz, the son of Jacob Hagiz were “formally placed under a ban” by the Portuguese community in Amsterdam.


1720: The Rabbi Yehuda Hasid Synagogue in Jerusalem, which later became known as the Hurva Synagogue was set afire.  Rabbi Yehuda Hasid and a small group of a few hundred followers arrived in Eretz Israel. The rabbi purchased the courtyard in the Old City for the synagogue, and construction of the facility was started after his death, but was never completed. Due to the non-payment of a loan taken by Jews from Arabs for the construction of the synagogue, Arabs burned down the site, desecrating its 40 Torah scrolls. The destruction wrought at the time became the root of the name of the "Hurva" (ruin) synagogue, and building recommenced in the late 1830s, by Perushim followers of the Vilna Gaon. After its completion in 1864, the Hurva loomed as a cultural and religious symbol in Eretz Israel and Jerusalem. The Hurva retained its status as Jerusalem's leading synagogue, and public gatherings and celebrations were held in it. Among other events, a prayer gathering to mark the coronation of King George V was held at the Hurva. Two days after the Jewish Quarter fell to Jordanian legionnaires during the 1948 war; the Jordanians blew up the Hurva. The Jordanian commander on the scene reported to his superiors: "For the first time in 1,000 years, there's not a single Jew left in the Jewish Quarter, and not a single building that hasn't been damaged. This will make the return of Jews here impossible." After the 1967 Six-Day War, the Hurva became a memorial to the fall of the Jewish Quarter in 1948. A large square was created around the site of the Hurva; and visitors could measure the dimensions of the synagogue which once stood at the locale. An arch was built at the site which rose to about half the height of the destroyed building, which is as high as the top of the synagogue's dome. In 2002, the Israeli government adopted a NIS 28 million plan to restore the Hurva synagogue in the Old City of Jerusalem. The restoration should take four years.


1757: The local bishop at Kamienice who had side with the Sabbatians and was responsible for the burning of “huge numbers of copies of the Talmud” being burned starting in October died today, which “which the rabbinic Jews recognized as divine vengeance” but which struck such “fear in the hearts of the Sabbatians” “that many of them fled to Turkey.


1780: Birthdate of Nicolai Wergeland, the Norwegian anti-Semite who sought to ban Jews from his country because “it would incompatible with Judaism to deal honestly with Christians.”


1803: Nathan Joseph Magnus married Simony Solomon today.


1815: Birthdate of Anton Ree, the son of a Hamburg banker who started as a teacher at the Jewish Free School in 1838 and became its director in 1848.


1828: In Philadelphia, PA, Isaac Phillips and his wife, the former Sarah Moss, the daughter of John Moss gave birth to Barnet Phillips, a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, husband of Jospehine Myers of Savannah and a writer for the New York Times starting in 1872 who also wrote several books including The Struggle and Burning Their Ships.  (Isidor Levi shows the birthdate as November 7, 1827)


1829(13th of Cheshvan, 5590): Sixty-five year old Rebecca Levy, the wife of Solomon Levy and the daughter of Uriah and Eva Esther Hendricks passed away today.


1832: One day after she had passed away, 6 year old “Rita b Hayim” was buried today at the “Ipswich Old Jewish Cemetery.”


1837: British philanthropist Moses Montefiore, 52, became the first Jew to be knighted in England. Montefiore was a banking executive who devoted his life to the political and civil emancipation of English Jews.


1841: The Creole, a brig whose cargo of slaves had seized the ship sailed into the harbor at Nassau in what would be the next “act” in an international incident that would result in litigation in which Judah P. Benjamin “represented insurance companies being sued.”


1845:The original Jewish Publication Society was established in Philadelphia today. Abraham Hart was its first president. The society owed its existence to Isaac Leeser. It published eleven works, including two by Grace Aguilar.


1847: Birthdate of Edward VII, son of Queen Victoria and King from 1901 to1910.  As Prince of Wales, “Bertie” had several Jewish associates and friends including the Rothschilds and the Sassoons.  Such friendship did not meet with universal approval of the British aristocracy.  Those who thought that Edward’s philo-Semitism was limited to the wealthy were confounded by Edward’s pronouncements on the subject of the Russian Jews. Edward insinuated himself in foreign relations, a field limited to the politicians, by trying to convince Czar Nicholas II to improve the condition of his Jewish subjects.  For a man portrayed as vapid, vain and empty-headed, he showed himself to be of stout heart in a matter of major importance to the Jewish people.


1849: Daniel Webster wrote a letter to M. M. Noah today expressing his regrets that he will not be able to attend the anniversary dinner of the Hebrew Benevolent and German Hebrew Benevolent Society to be held later this month in New York City.   In the letter he expressed his on-going "respect and sympathy" for the Jewish people whose "scriptures I regard as the fountain from which we draw all we know of the world around us, and of our own character and destiny as intelligent, moral and responsible beings."  What Webster did not say in the letter that he had to turn down the invitation due to health problems.


1850: Birthdate of Louis Lewin, the German pharmacologist who “published the first methodical analysis of the Peyote cactus.


1853: Moses Moss married Sophia Levy at the Great Synagogue today.


1853: “Sacred Poetry of the Hebrews” published today described the “first in a series of lectures on the Sacred Poetry of Hebrews” delivered by Rabbi Morris Jacob Raphill of B’nai Jeshurun also known as the Greene Street Synagogue in which among other things he “divided the poetry of the Hebrews into four periods” – “antediluvian” through the Joseph; “Moses to David;” “David to the death of Solomon; “the Prophetic Poetry from the subdivision of the Hebrew Monarchy down to the return after the Babylonian captivity.”


1854:  Morris Simeon Oppenheim, the London born of “son of Simeon Oppenheim, secretary of the Great Synagogue” “was admitted as a student to the Middle Temple” today which was the first step to his being “called to the bar in1858.”


1855: Rabbi Nathan Adler founded Jew’s College


1856: In Pittsburgh, Congregation Rodef Shalom was charted today listing among its primary objectives “the furtherance of the cause of Religion” and “the establishment of a good school in which the young shall be instructed in the principles of the Hebrew Religion as well as general branches of knowledge.”


1858: “Abduction of a Christian Duty” published today traces the history of the Mortara Affair in which an Italian Jewish boy was effectively kidnapped by the Pope himself.  According to the article, the Pope’s behavior puts him at odds with many of the governments of Europe and jeopardizes the rights of all Protestants (as well as Jews and Moslems) that visit any of the papal domains.


 1861: In New York City, Pauline Sondheim and Emanuel Lehman, the co-founder of Lehman Brothers gave birth to Philip Lehman would gain fame as investment banker and art collector.



1862: In Warsaw, Pauline and Feibisch Jolles gave birth to Dr. Adolf Jolles


1864: Phillip Levy, who risen to rank of Sergeant in Company G of the 193rdRegiment completed his military service today


1865: In Vincennes, Indiana, Adam Gimble who had come to the U.S. from Bavaria in 1835 and his wife gave birth to Ellis A. Gimbel, Sr. the department store owner, co-founder of the Pennsylvania Broadcasting Company and philanthropist


1866: Birthdate of Salt Lake City native, Florence Pag Kahn. Six years after the passage of the 19th amendment, Calvin Coolidge was in the White House, prohibition was still on the books, and newly widowed Florence Prag Kahn became the first Jewish woman to be elected to the U.S. Congress on February 17, 1925. As the wife of the U.S. Congressman from San Francisco, Kahn had developed her own public voice by writing a column for her hometown newspaper about Washington doings. When her husband died in 1925, she won a special election that made her only the fifth woman to serve in Congress. Kahn served twelve years until 1937, a strong Republican voice for Bay Area public works projects and the rights of Chinese women and Native Americans. The next Jewish woman to serve in Congress was New York's Bella Abzug who was elected in 1970. Kahn argued that "there is no sex in citizenship and there should be none in politics." She made this point in a slightly different way in the context of a newspaper interview that noted her refusal to lose weight or tend to her hair in order to please others. When asked later in the interview why it was that she received more than twice as many votes as her late husband ever got, she responded, "sex appeal!"


1871:Birthdate of Florence Rena Sabin an American medical scientist. As a pioneer for women in science she was the first woman to hold a full professorship at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, the first woman elected to the National Academy of Sciences, and the first woman to head a department at the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research. In her retirement years, she pursued a second career as a public health activist in Colorado, and in 1951 received a Lasker Award for this work. She passed away in 1953.


1873: Three days after he had passed away, 73 year old “watch and clockmaker” Lewis Lyon, the husband of Mary Phillips with whom he had nine children, was buried today at the “Brompton (Fulham Road) Jewish Cemetery.”


1874(29th of Cheshvan, 5635): Israel Bak, the man who created the first Hebrew printing press,passed away.Israel Bak was a native of Berdichev in the Ukraine who came to Safed in 1831. In his native city, he had published some thirty books. He reestablished his publishing operations in Safed. First off the press, in 1832, was a Sefardi prayer book, the first Hebrew book printed in the Holy Land after a hiatus of 245 years. This was followed in 1833 by the Book of Leviticus, with the commentaries of Rashi and Hayim Joseph David Azulai, a favorite of Sefardi Jews. No traces remain of either Genesisor Exodus, if indeed they were ever published, but it is possible that they were destroyed during the peasant revolt against Muhammad Ali in 1834, in which Bak's press was destroyed and Bak himself was wounded. More likely only Leviticus was published, the first of a projected five-volume edition of the Pentateuch, because it was the custom to begin instruction of the Chumash in the schools not with Genesis but with Leviticus. The school year began in the spring, when the Book of Leviticus was being read in the synagogue, and it made good sense to synchronize Bible study in the school with Bible reading in the synagogue. Bak turned to agriculture but continued printing, even after the earthquake of 1837 devastated his shop. The Druze revolt in 1838 destroyed both his farm and press, and Bak departed for Jerusalem where, in 1841, he once again established his press, the first Hebrew press in Jerusalem.


1878(13th of Cheshvan, 5639):Abraham Dob Bär Lebensohn passed away. Born in Vilinius between 1789 and 1794, he was a rabbi known for his poetical works including Shir Habibim. He was the father-in-law of Rabbi Joshua Steinberg, who worked with the Russian government as an educator and who wrote works in English, Hebrew and German.


1879: The service at Temple Beth-El in memory of the late Rabbi David Einhorn began at 4 o’clock this afternoon.  The sanctuary was completely filled and late arrivals had to be turned away.  Rabbis Kohler, Gottheil, Hirsch and Jacobs delivered eulogies.  Einhorn’s funeral had taken place on November 6.


1879: Professor Felix Adler delivered a lecture today entitled “Struggle of Free Religion in the United States” which was “a glowing and eloquent tribute” to the late Rabbi David Einhorn, even though it did not specifically mention the Jewish leader by name.


1879(23rd of Cheshvan, 5640): Abraham Aub passed away.  He has served as President of the Orphan Asylum of Cleveland since it was established by the B’nai Brit and is a past President of the Jewish Hospital and Hebrew Relief Association.


1880: At today’s meeting of the Board of Estimate and Apportionment funds were allocated to a variety of charities including $1,898.28 to the Hebrew Children’s Guardian Society


1880: David Belasco using the stage name of “Walter Kingsley” opened with the cast of “The Legion of Honor” when it opened at the Park Theatre in New York City.


1880: In Leadville, David May and Rosa Shoenberg who were married today received a “china chamber set” as wedding gift from Jacob Schloss and his son-in-law Morris D. Altman both whom were “prominent merchants in the liquor business” and leaders in the Jewish community.


1881: Specifications were filed today at the Bureau of Inspection of Buildings for a new building to be occupied by the Home for Aged and Infirm Hebrews.


1881: In Paris, “The Eleventh Correctional Chamber finished up today the first act of a suit for swindling” in which “the plaintiffs are a couple of Dutch Jews” named Vandenborg who are in the business of buying and selling old clothes as well as moneylending.  (This combination of businesses was not unusual, as those successful in the first often leveraged into the latter.)


1881: It was reported today that the Jewish “bears” have lost three hundred thousand francs on speculation surrounding the Union General.


1882: “Co-Operation In Alms-Giving” published today described efforts to promote cooperation among charities in New York City including the participation of all Jewish congregations in the United Hebrew Charities.


1883: “Sir Moses Montefiore’s Birthday” published today described the celebrations of the distinguished Anglo-Jewish philanthropist who Rabbi Kaufman Kohler said “was the same kind of benefactor to Jewish people that Peter Cooper had been to the American people.”


1883: “The Duel At Temesvar” published today described the duel fought between Dr. Jules Rosenberger, a prominent Jewish Hungarian lawyer and Comte Etienne de Battyany over the love of a woman – Hona de Schossberger.  Rosenberger, the young woman’s husband, mortally wounded his royal rival when the Count refused to end the duel when he was wounded during the first round of gunfire.


1884: A fire broke out today at a building on Cannon Street in Manhattan that house the workshops of several Jewish tailors and cigar-makers


1884: It was reported today that John H. Bird will play Shylock, the Jew, in an upcoming performance of the “Merchant of Venice.”


1885: The Auckland Synagogue was opened.


1886: Birthdate of Ed Wynn. Wynn was one of a long list of Jewish entertainers who enjoyed successively successful careers in vaudeville, film, radio and television.  Wynn starred on comedy variety programs during the 1950’s.  One of his signature props was a piano that was configured as part of tricycle.  Others remember him for his portrayal as one of the zany characters in the Disney film Mary Poppins.  He passed away in 1966.


1888: “Verestchagin’s Paintings” published today described the wide variety of canvases produced by the “globe-trotting” Russian painter Vasily Vasilyevich Vereshchagin whose works included pictures of Palestine and local  Jews.


1889: It was reported today that the Harlem Glee Club will be performing at an upcoming benefit concert that is a fundraiser for the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society.


1889: It was reported today Professor Edwin R.A. Seligman of Columba College will address an upcoming meeting of the Young Men’s Hebrew Association.


1890: “Austrian society” is impressed by the Prince of Wales’ weeklong visit to BaronMaurice de Hirsch. Given the view of Jews in European High Society, the idea that the heir to the British throne would travel such a great distance to spend a week with a Jew was almost beyond their comprehension.  The Baron is the son of a Bavarian banker and is now worth above 20,000,000 English pounds.


1890: Annie Stein, who had been erroneously advised by a Roman Catholic priest that her marriage to her Jewish husband Morris Stein was not valid and had left him for that reason, has returned to him now that the Judge has explained to her that in the eyes of the law she was indeed married and she had been given bad advice.


1891(8th of Cheshvan, 5652): Sixty-eight year old Simon Bacher the Hungarian poet who wrote in Hebrew and whose son posthumously published “a selection of his works” “under the title Sha’ar Shim’on.


1891: In Brooklyn, violinist Mark N. Isaacson and Amelia Isaacson gave birth to Charles David Isaacson, the nephew of Barney Isaacson, a court violinist to Queen Victoria, who was a newspaper music critic, opera company manager and a radio broadcasting pioneer serving as the innovative director at Stations WRNY and WGL.



1892: After helping build the main line of the Jaffa to Jerusalem railroad, engineer George Franjieh today proposed a tramway in Jerusalem, which would connect it to Ein Kerem and Bethlehem—only six weeks after the line's official opening.


1892: Birthdate of Erich Auerbach



1893: Lewis May presided at tonight’s “mass meeting” of young Jews at the building belonging to the Retail Grocers’ Union where plans were made to raise money to build a new home for the Young Men’s Hebrew Association.


1893: The Hebrew Orphan Asylum Band performed at the Lenox Lycuem.


1893: The will of the late Louis Arnheim was filed for probate today.


1894: In New York under the consolidated charter, the Hebrew Benevolent Society receives $79,000 and the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society receives $32,000 for the year.


1894: The American Hebrew celebrated its 15thanniversary today by printing a special memorial issue.


1896: Julius Harburger, the Excise Commissioner of New York City, addressed a meeting of the Boston chapter of the Independent Order of Free Sons of Israel, of which he is a Grand Master.


1896: Four days after she had passed away, eighty year old Rachel, Countess d’Avigdor , “the second daughter of Sir Isaac Lyon and Isabel Goldsmid, the wife of Count Salamon Henri d'Avigdor, son of the d'Avigdor who was a member of the Great Sanhedrin assembled by Napoleon, with whom she had three sons and one daughter was buried today at the “Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.”


1896: Dr. Wendell C. Phillips will deliver a lecture on “Prevention of Germ Diseases” tonight at the Hebrew Institute which is sponsored by the Education Alliance.


1897: The Apprenticing Committee of the Jews’ Hospital and Orphan Asylum is scheduled to meet this morning at Hamilton House in London.


1897: The Library Sub-Committee of Jews’ College is scheduled to at the office of the Chief Rabbi at Finsbury Square.


1897: In what was one of the major events of the social season, Dr. Joseph Silverman, the assistant Rabbi at Temple Emanu-El officiated at the weeding Miss Ray Baumgartern, the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Moses Baumgarten to Adolph Levy at the Madison Square Garden Concert Hall


1897: Police believe today that a cousin of Captain Dreyfus and his American born wife Rebecca Fortado Abraham committed suicide by inhaling charcoal fumes.  In a letter addressed to his business partner and his mother-in-law, Dreyfus wrote that “It is better for the children to die with their parents, as their mother has also elected to commit suicide” which would seem to be the justification for their killing their three young daughters.


1898: Theodore Herzl began his two dayjourney to Naples aboard the "Regina Margherita".


1898(24thof Cheshvan, 5659): Private George C. Hahn, from Putnam who had been serving with Company G of the 1st Regiment Connecticut Volunteer Infantry passed away toay.


1898: Reliable sources were saying tonight that Richard Croker was one of the Tammany district leaders who would be replaced in the wake of the electoral defeat because he had failed to deliver the Jewish vote in New York County.


1899: Texan Andrew Moses who had been serving as 2nd Lieutenant in the 7thArtillery was promoted to the rank of 1st Lieutenant in the 3rdArtillery


1903: Birthdate of Dr. Gregory Goodwin Pincus: Father of "The Pill." Dr. Pincus and Dr. M.C. Chiang, his collaborator, developed the first practical oral contraceptive birth-control pill after being persuaded to do so by Margaret Sanger, a leader in the American birth-control movement, and Katherine Dexter McCormick, an heir to the International Harvester fortune.


1905: The National Committee for the Relief of Suffers by Russian Massacres met at the United Hebrew Charities Building to organize relief efforts for those who have suffered during the last ten days of violence in Russia.  While most of the victims were Jews, it was decided that aid would be distributed to all who have suffered regardless of their religious affiliation


1905: An appeal for aid for the suffering Jews in Russia entitled “To the Jews of America” published today read in part “The victims of the awful riots and massacres in Russia re not all numbered with the dead.  The living, starving survivors who have lost their breadwinners and the maimed mutely appeal to a pitying world for aid.  Therefore each community is hereby requested to organize at once and without further notice for the purpose of raising fund to aid these destitute living victims. Funds when collected by may forewarned to Mr. Jacob H. Schiff of New York for proper distribution.


1905: “It is reported from St. Petersburg that” “the Jewish population is panic-stricken” because “there are signs in that city of preparations to massacre the Jews.”


1907: In St. Thomas, Isaac and Rebecca Kushner Paiewonsky gave birth to Ralph Moses Paiwonsky, “the second person of Jewish heritage to serve as the governor of the Virgin Islands.


1907: In New York City Eugene E. Sperry and Rosalie Stanton Bloomingdale gave birth to Lucy Bloomingdale Sperry.


1909(25thof Cheshvan, 5670): Forty year old Miss Chasse Stikan passed away today.


1909(25th of Cheshvan, 5670): Rabbi Joseph Mayor Asher, Professor at the Jewish Theological Seminary, an “erudite Talmudic scholar” and Rabbi at Or Chayim Synagogue since 1906 passed away at the age of 37.


1911: I.N. Bloom of Louisville, KY, was appointed by the Governor to serve on the committee arranging the dedication of the Lincoln Memorial Building in Hodgeville, KY.


1912(29thof Cheshvan, 5673): Parashat Toldot


1912(29thof Cheshvan, 5673): Isaac Levy, a merchant, passed away today in Columbus, Ohio.


1912: It was reported today that “the Pharmaceutical Society of Ireland has awarded this year’s gold medal for highest marks at their license examinations to Mr. Joel Green of Dublin.”


1912: It was reported today that “Dr. Meyer has been appointed senior tuberculosis officer by the municipality of Hull, England.”


1912: It was reported today that “a son of the editor of the Hebrew paper Haor, published daily in Jerusalem, has been arrested for having written an article” that spoke “of the Turkish government in unfavorable terms.”


1912: In New York City, Adolph and Rose Brodkin gave birth to the youngest of their six children, Herbert Brodkin who produced shows for the high quality dramatic television program “Playhouse 90.” (As reported by Eleanor Blau)



1913: Arnold Schönberg “completes the orchestral song "Seraphita", op. 22, No. 1.


1914: Birthdate of William Lewis Abramowitz, the 1935 MIT graduate and “plastics company executive” who was the husband of “the former Lena Epstein, with whom he had four children – Kenneth, Susan, Ava and Gail.



1914: In Vienna, Lemberg born bank director Emil Kiesler and pianist Gertrud Lichtwitz gave birth to Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler who would gain fame as actress Hedy Lamarr.


1914: When Liberal MP Herbert Samuel asked Sir Edward Grey about a homeland for the Jewish people, the Foreign Secretary replied “that the idea had alwas had a strong sentimental appeal to him and he would be prepared to work for it if the opportunity arose.”


1914: Four days after Britain’s declaration of war on the Ottoman Empire “Zionism was first discussed at a British Cabinet meeting” after which David Lloyd George, the Chancellor of the Exchequer (and future Prime Minister) assured fellow cabinet member Herbert Samuel that "he was very keen to see a Jewish state established in Palestine."


1915: Joseph Kornfeld of Columbus, Ohio, was re-elected member of the Board of Education.


1915: “7,000,000 Jews Starving” published today included the description by Louis Brandeis of the plight the Jews in war-torn Europe as well as “the success of the Jewish colony in Palestine which…is becoming stronger and stronger every day.


1915: “Correspondence of the Frankfurter Zeitung from Jerusalem says…twenty thousand Russian Jews requested Turkish citizenship which was granted without the payment of the ordinary taxes.


1915: “A plea for Americanism as above Zionism was made by Jacob H. Schiff before a large audience at the joint meeting of the Eastern Council of Reform Rabbis and the Jewish Religious School at Temple Emanu-El” tonight during which he “denounced Zionism or any other movement that tended to emphasize the question of race or nationalism as foreign to the best interests of the Jewish people,”


1916: It was reported today that victory of Meyer London, the Socialist candidate running for the House of Representatives from the 12th Congressional District was due to large support among Jewish voters but the large Jewish vote for President Wilson was not enough for him to carry Manhattan.


1917:  During World War I, Australian and New Zealand forces under the command of General Allenby were within twenty miles of Latrun which is the western entrance to the hills on the road to Jerusalem.  Yes, this is the same Latrun that Jewish forces tried to seize during the War for Independence to open the road from the coast to Jerusalem.


1917: British aircraft continued to bomb and strafe Turkish forces retreating from Beersheba.


1917: In London, the British Government made public the letter sent a week earlier which is known as the Balfour Declaration.  Herbert Samuel spoke at a thanksgiving rally at Covent Garden in which he finished by intoning, in Hebrew, the age old declaration, “Next Year in Jerusalem.” The declaration was published in the Jewish Chronicle.  According to one source, the government had deliberately delayed the public announcement so that it would appear for the first time in a Jewish paper.


1917: “A German aircraft was shot down in flames near the Wadi Hesi, as Australian aircraft attacked Ottoman and German installations and ammunition dumps


1918: “Oppose Zionist Plan” published today described a meeting of 500 Syrians at a Brooklyn hotel where they adopted a resolution calling on the Allies to oppose any settlement by Jews in Palestine – an opposition may have been more of the desire for the development of “Greater Syria” which was a goal of some Arab leaders following the breakup of the Ottoman Empire.


1918: As World War I was coming to an end Prince Max Baden, the Chancellor, announced the abdication the Kaiser and then later that day found himself forced to resign – creating the chaos that would later lead to the “stabbed in the back myth.”


1918: As Germany falls into social and political chaos at the end of World War I, Kurt Eisner, Provisional National Council Minister-President, declares Bavaria to be a republic. Kurt Eisner was born at Berlin on May 14 1857, of Jewish parents, his parental name being Kamonowsky. Eisner was the name he took when he began to write, and that name he adopted in his work for Social-Democracy.


1918(5thof Kislev, 5679): Sixty-one year old Albert Ballin, the owner and manager of the Hamburg America Line passed away.



1920: In Denver, CO, The Triennial Convention of Jewish Women continued to meet for a third day at the Brown Hotel.


1920: In Baltimore, MD, the seventh annual convention of the Mizrachi Organization of the United States and Canada continued for a second day.


1920: This evening Dr. Edwin Slosson of Columbia University, the author of Major Prophets of Today and Einstein’s Theory of Relativity is scheduled to deliver an address on “Jewish Achievement in Science” to members “of the Auxiliary of Central Synagogue.”


1922: The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awards Albert Einstein the Nobel Prize for Physics.


1924: In Zurich, Switzerland, Rosa and Hermann Frank gave birth to cinematographer and photographer Robert Frank.


1924: “He Who gets Slapped” a silent drama produced by Irving Thalberg and co-starring his future wife Norma Shearer was released in the United States today.


1925: In Kurenets, Belarus, Miriam Kremer and Mendel Kremer who would be murder by the Nazis in 1943 gave birth to Emma Eshke Greisdorf.


1927: Birthdate of Salo Linder the native of Berlin whose family made Aliyah in 1933 and as Shlomo Lahat rose to the rank of Major General in the IDF and served for terms as Mayor of Tel Aviv.


1928: CCNY basketball star Nat Krinsky and his wife Hilda gave birth to Paul L Krinsky, the honor graduate of the U.S. Merchant Marine Company who served at sea with both the Merchant Marines and Navy who pursued a career that led to serve as the “Superintendent of the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy with the rank of Rear Admiral.


1928: In Chicago, “Dr. Schmarya Levin, a member of the World Zionist Executive Board and head of the largest Hebrew publishing house in Palestine today expressed sharp disagreement with Julius Rosenwald, the Chicago capitalist and philanthropist on the experiment of colonizing Jews in Russia.”


1929: Birthdate of Hungarian Holocaust survivor Imre Kertesz recipient of the 2002 Nobel Prize in Literature.



1929(6th of Cheshvan): “Rabbi Joseph Leib Bloch, dean of the Yeshivah at Telz passed away


1931: Birthdate of Marvin Kessler, the Brooklyn native “who spent more than half a century in basketball as a player, a coach, a scout and, most prominently, a camp instructor who molded young athletes like Patrick Ewing and Stephon Marbury…” (As reported by Richard Goldstein)


1932: One hundred teachers invaded the offices of the Jewish Agency Executive this morning, occupied them, stationed guards at the exits, and announced that they would permit no member of the Executive to leave the building until arrears in salary from May to August were paid.


1932: In Des Moines, IA, Harry and Bessie Stein gave birth to Arnold “Arny” Davidson, a graduate of the University of Iowa and husband of Brenna Persellin who “was the owner and president of Globe Financial Services in Iowa City where he was a member of Agudas Achim.


1934: In Brooklyn, Sam Sagan, an immigrant garment worker from Russia and Rachel Molly Gruber gave birth to Carl Sagan, American astronomer and television personality – a man who brought science to the mass American audience.


1934: “Holiday Land,” one of the nominees for the Oscar for Best Animated Short Film, produced by Charles Mintz was released in the United States today.


1934: “Woman in the Dark” a film version of a short story directed by Phil Rosen and filmed by cinematographer Joseph Ruttenberg was released in the United States today.


1934: In Cape Town, South Africa, Isobel (née Pepper) and Isaac Horwitz gave birth to Ronald Horwitz who moved to London in 1951 to pursue his acting career where he changed his surname to Harwood and gained fame as Ronald Harwood the author of “The Dresser” a play which he turned into an Oscar winning movie.


1935: Charles and Hylda Wolfson gave birth to David Wolfson, the future Baron Wolfson of Sunningdale


1936: Josef Beck, the Foreign Minister of Poland is scheduled to begin two days of meetings with Sir Anthony Eden where he plans to bring up the subject of Jewish immigration from his country to Palestine.


1936: In Warsaw, “several Jews were beaten, one seriously, in street fighting on the anniversary of battles between Jews and Polish university students” last year.


1936: Birthdate of folk singer Mary Travers.  She is the Mary of Peter, Paul and Mary.


1937(5th of Kislev, 5698): Five members of the Gordonia group working on a Jewish National Fund afforestation project near Kiryat Anavim were ambushed and murdered by Arabs.


1938: Funeral services are scheduled to be held today in Paris for sixty-sixty year old Dr. Leo Motzkin the “noted Jewish statesman who “fought earnestly for his conception of the Jews as a national minority with their religious and cultural development safeguarded by international treaties and obligations.” (As reported by JTA)


1938: British troops and Arabs clashed twice in revolt-torn Palestine today. Two soldiers were killed and five were injured. Arab casualties were not learned. “Troops were ambushed on the Tel Aviv-Haifa road and Arabs staged a surprise attack on a garrison at a village near Tul Karm.


1938: In Great Britain, the Woodhead Report which opposed the creation of independent Jewish and Arab states in Palestine was submitted to Parliament


 


1938: Hitler mentions to Hermann Göring that he would like to see all German Jews forcibly resettled on the island of Madagascar. Opportunistically chosen by the Nazi leadership, the date of the pogrom is of great symbolic importance. It coincides with two important national holidays, the Nazi Blood Witness Day of November 9 and Martin Luther's birthday of November 10. Blood Witness Day commemorates the Nazi "martyrs" who died for their cause. Martin Luther advocated the destruction of Jewish homes and synagogues as well as the impoverishment, forced labor, exile, and death of Jews.


1938: Ernst von Rath, the third secretary to the German embassy in Paris died from wounds inflicted by Hershel Grynszpan, a seventeen year old Jewish refugee on November 7. Grynszpan's parents were among the 12,000 Polish-Jewish refugees who had been living in Germany who were transported to the Polish frontier a month earlier. The killing was a protest against the harsh treatment of these suffering, stateless Jews at the hands of the Nazis.


1938: Kristallnacht (Night of Broken Glass) occurs across Germany and Austria. Ninety-one Jews are killed; others are beaten. Thirty thousand male Jews are sent to concentration camps, though most will be released in a few weeks. 267 synagogues are desecrated and destroyed (almost all of the synagogues of Germany and Austria). SS Security Service chief Reinhard Heydrich instructs security agencies to burn the synagogues unless German lives or property are endangered. Jewish businesses are looted and destroyed.




1938: “During the November Pogrom” known as Kristallnacht, in Berlin, “the Neue Synagoge was broken into, Torah scrolls desecrated, furniture smashed and other combustible furnishings piled up and set on fire.


1938: During Kristallnacht, the Leipzig synagogue which had been “built in 1855 by the German Jewish architect Otto Simonson was destroyed tonight.


1938:  On Kristallnacht, “the Jewish men of Karlsruhe including Opa Oppenheimer,” the grandfather of future Monuments Men Harry Ettlinger “were rounded up and put in Dachau and the hundred year old Kronenstrasse Synagogue “was burned to the ground.”


1938: In Vienna, two Gestapo agents entered the apartment of 17 year old Roy Rogers with the intent of arresting his father who was not at home.  When asked how old he was, his mother lied about his age thus saving the future British soldier from a trip to a concentration camp.(As reported by Ed Lion)


1938: Twelve days after all of the Polish Jews living in Karlsruhe were forced to go to the Polish border for deportation; the synagogues in this southwestern German city were destroyed.


1938(15th of Cheshvan, 5699): On what would become known as Kristallnacht,Goebbels, the Nazi Propaganda Minister called von Rath's murder "a Jewish conspiracy" and the German government organized a nation-wide pogrom.  Fifty thousand Jews were arrested and taken to concentration camps; five hundred synagogues were destroyed, and the Jewish community was forced to pay one billion Reich marks ($4,000,000) for the damage.  In point of fact, Kristallnacht was part of the Nazi effort to redistribute wealth in Germany without impacting the German upper classes. 


1938: In the following article entitled “Why did Nazis protect rabbi on Kristallnacht?” Nadav Shragai explores the unique story of Rabbi Avraham Kuperstock and an alternative theory as to the origin of Kristallnacht


On the night between November 9 and 10, 1938 - Kristallnacht - while synagogues across the German Reich were set ablaze and Jews and their property became victims of state-initiated pogroms, a strange sight took place in the heart of Berlin. German police rushed to 25 Mintz Street, where they used their bodies as shields to protect the synagogue housing the yeshiva headed by Rabbi Avraham Kuperstock from rioters seeking to harm the rabbi, his family, students or property. This remarkable story was brought to light by Prof. Meier Schwarz, 83, a researcher who lost his entire family in the Holocaust and today runs "Ashkenaz House," a Jerusalem-based organization dedicated to conducting research and preserving the heritage of German Jewry. Kuperstock and his synagogue were saved thanks to the assistance he provided German authorities during World War II. But his story begins much earlier, in 1914 Warsaw, when the city was still under Russian control. The Russians were recruiting young people across the region, Jews and Poles alike. Among those conscripted were some of the rabbi's yeshiva students. Two of them deserted the army, were caught and sentenced to death and were hung by the Russians in the city square to deter other students from following their example. Kuperstock was made to stand beside the gallows while the grim sentence was carried out. The rabbi never forgot the experience and vowed to one day avenge the injustice the Russians had visited upon his yeshiva. As World War II dragged on, Germany fought on two fronts, to the West against the British, Americans, Canadians and their allies and, to the East, against the Soviet Union. The Third Reich diverted the bulk of its resources toward the eastern front, but struggled against the tough topographic conditions and the Russians' sophisticated line of virtually impenetrable fortifications. In 1941, in Operation Barbarossa, the German army suddenly penetrated the Soviet lines, smashing through its adversary's fortifications and paving a path to the East. In his research Prof. Meier Schwarz found that Kuperstock, as revenge for the death of his two students, had transferred intelligence to the Germans on the Russian fortification system, including secret pathways allowing the bulwarks to be breached. The revelation was confirmed by Kuperstock's neighbors, who had heard of the arrangement from the rabbi himself. They said in exchange for the information, Kuperstock was granted the status of "protected Jew," and during the darkest days of the Holocaust sold the Germans leaven his community had thrown out during Passover. Additional confirmation came from a relative of the rabbi now living in Australia. What remains unclear, however, is how was Kuperstock able to obtain the Russian documents, and whether he had acted alone. While the war was in full swing, Kuperstock and his students were transferred to East Berlin, where the authorities provided them with accommodations for living, praying and studying on Mintz Street. The rabbi was promised a pension for the rest of his life, German citizenship and financial support of the yeshiva. When President Paul von Hindenburg appointed Adolf Hitler chancellor in 1933, the rabbi's special status was registered. Unlike other Polish Jews residing in Germany, Kuperstock and his students were not transferred to Poland, but in 1941, after the rabbi died, his students were sent to the death camps in the East. Last year Ashkenaz House published a study on the events leading up to Kristallnacht. Key among these was the assassination of German diplomat Ernst vom Rath by Herschel Grynszpan, a 17-year-old German Jew of Polish extraction. The traditional account of the shooting holds that Grynszpan acted after his family and 17,000 other Jewish families with Polish roots were ordered to leave Germany for Poland. However, Prof. Schwarz believes vom Rath was actually killed by an envoy of Adolf Hitler himself. "The Germans, and not Grynszpan, were the ones who murdered vom Rath, but they blamed the Jews. Vom Rath, who seemed to have been seriously wounded, was transferred to hospital, where he was 'treated' by Hitler's personal doctor, who made sure he died," he said. "Kristallnacht had been planned two months before the second week of November 1938."




1938: Al Capp, the Jewish cartoonist of Lil' Abner creates Sadie Hawkins Day.


1939: Five hundred Jewish families were deported from Lublin, Poland.


1939: Lodz was officially annexed to the Reich, a step followed by an intensification of the German terrorization of the Jews and Poles.


1939: “Life With Father,” produced by Oscar Serlin opened today “at the Empire Theatre” and ran for 3,213 performances.” (Editor note – NYT says the 9th.  Wiki says the 8th)


1939: MGM released “Ninotchka” produced and directed by Ernst Lubitsch, with a script by Billy Wilder, co-starring that Georgia (USA) born Jew, Melvyn Douglas.


1941: A photograph was taken of Jews working in Bakery #3 in the Lodz Ghetto.



1941: Having finished murdering the Jews of Minsk on November 6, the Nazis began moving thousands of German Jews into the town.


1941 (19th of Cheshvan): Rabbi Abraham Zevi Kama, head of the Yeshivah of Mir, was among the 1,500 Jews of Mir killed by the Nazis today.


1942: While serving with Escort Scouting Squadron Twenty-nine aboard the U.S.S. Santee, an escort carrier, today Lt. Cmdr. Arthur M. Ershler, “distinguished himself today when at grave risk to his personal safety he attacked a hostile convoy of trucks during which his plane was materially damaged by gunfire leaving him nauseated from the gasoline fumes which did not keep him from flying “to a hostile airdrome where he scored a direct hit on a hangar, damaged several planes on the ground and strafed numerous machine gun emplacements.


1942: Following yesterday’s Allied landings at Algiers which were facilitated by Jose Aboulker and his predominately Jewish resistance group, “the XIXth Army Corps of the Vichy Government tried to mobilize to oppose the Allied landings, but concentrated its efforts on the Resistance fighters led by Aboukler and others who decided to evacuate their positions since their mission had been accomplished and they wanted to avoid having Frenchman fight Frenchman.


1942: More than 700 Greek born Jews from Salonica living in Paris were deported.


1942: Germans deport Jews from Paris to Birkenau death camp. These Jews were Greeks from Salonica who went to France thinking it would be a safe haven.


1942: The Nazis opened another death camp named Majdanek Four thousand Lublin Jews already deported to two other concentration camps, were sent to open Majdanek. Majdanek joined Chelmno, Treblinka, Sobibor and Belzec as factories of death.


1943: Two hundred Jews from Venice, Italy, are deported to Auschwitz. Four hundred Jews from Florence and Bologna, Italy, are deported to Auschwitz.


1943: At the Theresienstadt, the Council of Elders head Jacob Edelstein and three other Jews are accused of saving 55 of the ghetto's Jews from deportation by falsifying population reports.


1943: U.S. Senator Guy Gillette, Representative Will Rogers, Jr. (son of the great comedian and social commentator) and Representative Joseph Baldwin introduce a resolution into Congress calling upon the president to establish "a commission of diplomatic, economic, and military experts to formulate and effectuate a plan of action to save the surviving Jewish people of Europe." This resolution will serve as the basis of the War Refugee Board (WRB).


1943: Four hundred Jews were deported from Florence and Bologna to Birkenau.


1945(4th of Kislev, 5706): Sarah Lavanburg Straus the widow of Oscar Straus passed away today.



1945: Birthdate of Zevulun Orlev, an Israeli politician and a former leader of the National Religious Party. He was Minister of Welfare & Social Services (March 2003 - November 2004), and is currently a Member of the Knesset for the The Jewish Home party. Orlev is a decorated war hero who received the Medal of Distinguished Service in the Yom Kippur War.


1945: “The House I Live In,” “a ten-minutes short film written by Albert Maltz, and directed and produced by Mervyn LeRoy” “made to oppose anti-Semitism at the end of World War II” which “received an Honorary Academy Award and a special Golden Globe award in 1946” was released in the United States today by RKO.


1946: “Using the Potomac Shipwrecking Co. of Washington, D.C. as its agent, the Jewish paramilitary organization Haganah bought SS President Warfield from the WSAand transferred control of it to Hamossad Le'aliyah Bet, the branch of the Haganah that organized Aliyah Bet activities.” The Warfield would gain fame as the SS Exodus.


1946: As part of growing wave of terror caused by Britain failing to honor its war time promise to allow Jewish immigration to Eretz Israel and increasing repressive measure aimed at the Jews of the Yishuv, four British policemen were killed when a booby-trap bomb exploded while they were searing a house for hidden explosives.


1946: “Mr.Hex” a Bowery Boy comedy starring Leo Gorcey and featuring his brother David Gorcey was released in the United States today.


1946: Warner Bros. released “Never Say Goodbye,” a romantic comedy based on a story by Ben and Norma Barzman with a script co-authored by I.A. L. Diamond featuring famed character actor S.Z. Sakall as “Luigi”/


1947: In Pittsburg, PA, “Robert N. Nathan, the former chairman of the planning commission of the War Production Board, told 135 Jewish communal leaders here today that the resettling in Palestine of 150,00 Jews from European camps of displace person in the next two years would cost about $400,000,000.”


1948:  During the War of Independence Operation Yoav comes to a successful close.  Operation Yoav was part of the campaign to secure the Negev from the invading Egyptian forces.  Yigal Allon one of the true heroes of the creation of the Jewish state was the commander of the venture.


1948: The IDF launched Operation Shmone to capture the Tegart fort in the village of Iraq Suwaydan. The fort's Egyptian defenders had previously repulsed eight attempts to take it, including two during Operation Yoav. Israeli forces bombarded the fort before an assault. After breaching the outlying fences without resistance, the Israelis blew a hole in the fort's outer wall, prompting the 180 Egyptian soldiers manning the fort to surrender without a fight. The defeat prompted the Egyptians to evacuate several nearby positions, including hills the IDF had failed to take by force. Meanwhile, IDF forces were met with stiff resistance in Iraq Suwaydan itself, losing 6 dead and 14 wounded


1948: Israeli forces ended the Arab siege of Negbah


1948: Leon Frankel, one of the American volunteers who helped create and flew with Israel’s air force during the War for Independence returned to the United States today.


1948: “101 Squadron moved south to Chatzor to take a position closer to the southern front, where it flew most missions. One advantage of the more southerly location was that it was further along the route that the daily shuftikite flew and so gave more time for an intercept.”


1948: Joseph Zaritsky chose “an abstract still life” to show at the “New Horizons” exhibition that opened today in Tel Aviv.


1949: The biennial convention of the American Jewish Congress opens in New York City.


1949:  Democrat Herbert H. Lehman defeated Republican John Foster Dulles, the future Secretary of State who back Nasser over Israel in 1956 in a special election for a seat in the Senate which would later be filled by Jacob Javits who was a liberal, Jewish Republican. 


1949: Yaakov Dori completed his terms as the first Chief of Staff of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). Born Yakov Dostrovsky in the present day Ukraine in 1899, his family emigrated to Ottoman Palestine following the anti-Jewish pogrom in Odessa in 1905. Upon completing high school at the Hebrew School in Haifa, he enlisted in the Jewish Legion of the British Army during World War I. He later joined the Haganah and adopted the underground name of "Dan". In Haganah he was the commander of the Haganah Forces of Haifa. In 1939, Dori was appointed Chief of Staff of the Haganah, a position he held until 1946. As Haganah’s Chief of Statt, it was Yaakov Dori's duty to take the Haganah from a diffuse self-defense organization to a model army. From 1946 to 1947 he also headed the Palestinian Jewish delegation sent to purchase arms in the United States. When the IDF was formed, Dori took over as its first Chief of Staff. Yet, despite his good command and organizational skills, he was already suffering from failing health, and had difficulty commanding his troops during Israel's War of Independence, and was forced to rely heavily on his deputy, Yigael Yadin. After he completed his term as Chief of Staff, Dori retired from the military. He was succeeded by his deputy, Yadin. Even after his release from the army, however, he continued to wear the officer's pin he was awarded when he first became a second lieutenant. Upon leaving the IDF, Dori was appointed chairman of the Science Council, attached to the Prime Minister's office. He was later made president of the Technion in Haifa, a position he held until 1965. He passed away in 1973.


1950:  Birthdate of Dr. Yosi Ben-Dov, the Haifa, who after a successful career in business “became the Headmaster and managing director of The Hebrew Reali School in Haifa.”


1951: An instrumental version of “Charmaine" co-composed by Lew Pollack reached the top spot on Billboard today.


1951(10th of Cheshvan, 5712): Sigmund Rombergpassed away in New York City. Born Romberg Zsigmond in Hungary, Romberg gained fame as the creator of numerous operettas including The Student Prince and The Desert Song.



1952(21st of Cheshvan, 5713):  Chaim Weizmann First President of Israel and Zionist statesman passed away. There is no way that any blurb here could do justice to one of the giants of the Zionist cause. Would there have been an Israel had there been no Weizmann?  Who knows?  The creative chemist pursued Herzl’s dream with unparalleled zeal, playing a key role in the issuance of the Balfour Declaration, creating the Yishuv after World War I and lobbying American leaders including Harry Truman for their vital support of the unborn Jewish state.  To paraphrase Shakespeare, while others of his generation were abed enjoying the material rewards of the scientific genius, he was in the field fighting for the creation of Eretz Israel at a time when it was not “the in thing to do.”



1952: Yosef Sprinzak began serving as interim President, a post he would hold until the inauguration of Yitzhak Ben-Zvi thirty days later.


1953: Ibn Saud, the Saudi King who expressed his disdain for the Jews when he met with President Roosevelt in 1945, who declared war on Israel in 1948 and who squandered his nation’s oil wealth rather than use it to help his less fortunate “Arab brothers” in other lands died today.


1954: “The Divided Heart” a movie about three year old boy in Germany during WW II filmed by cinematographer Otto Heller and starring Yvonne Mitchell was released in the United Kingdom today.


1956: Sixty-one year old Hildebrand Gurlitt, the Nazi art thief passed away having survived the war with a secret stash of art that he had acquired for his fellow Nazis.



1959: “A Month in the Country” produced by Lewis Freedman and Henry Weinstein co-starring Luther Adler was broadcast as The Play of the Week.


1959: “I, Don Quixote,” a non-musical play to which Mitch Leigh would add music and make “Man of La Mancha” was broadcast on CBS television tonight.


1962:”The Came From Everywhere: Two Who Helped Modern Israel” by Robert St. John went on sale today.


1962: In Philadelphia, architect Louis Kahn and Harriet Pattison gave birthdate to filmmaker Nathaniel Kahn whose works include “Two Hands” and “My Architect,” a film about his father.


1964(4th of Kislev, 5725): Felix Weltsch passed away Born in 1884 he was a German-speaking Jewish librarian, philosopher, author, editor, publisher and journalist. A close friend of Max Brod and Franz Kafka, he was one of the most important Zionists in Bohemia.


1965: A funeral service for New York realtor and leader of the Jewish community Leopold  Philipp is scheduled to be held this morning at Temple Israel which is “now meeting in All Souls Unitarian Church” in Manhattan.


1965:  The New York Times features a review of Biography of An Idea: Memoirs of Public Relations Counsel Edward L. Bernays by Edward L. Bernays.


 1967: “Custer of the West” a biopic about the 19th cavalry officer directed by Robert Siodmak was released in the United States today.


1967: In the first issue of Rolling Stone published today critic Jon Landau “compared Jimi Hendrix and his debut album, Are You Experienced, to Eric Clapton and Cream's debut album, Fresh Cream.”


1970: Charles DeGaulle, former French President and leader of the Free French during World War II passed away. The imperious De Gaulle told the Israelis not strike first against the Arabs in 1967.  After the June War, De Gaulle made derogatory remarks about the Jewish state; withheld military equipment from the IDF that Israelis had paid for and pursued an unabashedly pro-Arab line.  Those who remembered De Gaulle as the lone French voice willing to stand against the Nazis in World War II shook their collective heads and opined that some men stay in the public eye beyond their days of mental competence.


1972: Avraham Lanir scored his second aerial kill today, downing a Syrian MiG-21 while flying Mirage 72


1973: Ofer Tsidon was killed in action when his F-4E Phantom Jet was shot down by an Egyptian SAM.


1973: Gideon Shefer was taken prisoner today when his F-4E Phantom Jet was shot down by an Egyptian SAM.


1973: “The Mackintosh Man,” “a cold war spy movie” starring Paul Newman and featuring Wolfe Morris as “Malta Police Commissioner” was released today in the United Kingdom.


1974: Materials about the persecution of Jews in Minsk, letters of the Jews to various state institutions, and notebooks which were discovered when Anatoly Sharansky and Anatoly Malkin were detained in Minsk were confiscated by authorities.


1974: Vladimir Davidov was detained in Sverdlovsk following which documents describing the situation of Jews in Novosibirsk and notebooks were taken.


1977: Egyptian President Anwar Sadat startled the world by announcing his intention to go to Jerusalem.


1979: “The Rose” a biopic about Janis Joplin directed by Mark Rydell, produced by Aaron Russo, with a screenplay by Bo Goldman and music by Paul A Rothchild was released in the United States today.


1980(1stof Kislev, 5741): Rosh Chodesh Kislev


1980(1stof Kislev, 5741): Eighty-one year old silent movie star Carmel Myers passed away.



1984: “No Small Affair,” comedy directed by Jerry Schatzberg and featuring Jeffrey Tambor was released in the United States today.


1986(7th of Cheshvan, 5747): Seventy-three year old A. James Speyer, the Pittsburg born “son of Stella (Tillie) Speyer and Alexander C. Speyer and graduate of Carnegie Institute of Technology who was one of the “leading experts on contemporary American and European art” passed away today.



1988: “Child’s Player” a horror film featuring Dinah Manoff was released in the United States today.


1988(29th of Cheshvan, 5749): Ninety-two year old Jacob “Jake” Friedman, the native of Bridgeport who played three games for the Hartford Blues, an early NFL team passed away today.


1989: Today, Sony Corporation acquired Guber-Peters Entertainment Company, which up until September of 1989 had been known asBarris Industries, Inc. an American game show production company that was founded by Chuck Barris


1991(2nd of Kislev, 5752): Parashat Toldot


1991(2nd of Kislev, 5752): Ralph Moses Paiwonsky, “the second person of Jewish heritage to serve as the governor of the Virgin Islands passed away on his eighty-fourth birthday.


1992; Two days before the nationwide PBS broadcast of “Liberators,” the world premiere was held at New York City’s Lincoln Center before an audience of prominent Jewish and black Americans, including Mayor David Dinkins, Lena Horne, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Harvey Meyerhoff, the chairman of the US Holocaust Memorial Council. The event was sponsored by WNET/Channel 13, the film’s chief financial backer and PBS’s affiliate in New York City, and the Holocaust Council, the federal organization established in 1980 to build and operate the nation’s Holocaust Museum in Washington. (As reported by Mark Schulte)


1993(25thof Cheshvan, 5754): Salman 'Id el-Hawashla, age 38, an Israeli Bedouin of the Abu Rekaik tribe who was driving a car with Israeli plates, was killed by three armed terrorists driving a truck hijacked from the Gaza municipality, in a deliberate head-on collision


1994(6thof Kislev, 5755): Eighty-four year old New Orleans native Louis Boasberg, a member of the 1931 Tulane football team that went 11-0 in the regular season and barely lost to USC in the Rose Bowl and founder of the New Orleans Novelty Company passed away today.


1997: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or about topics of Jewish interest including The Difference Between God and Larry Ellison: Inside Oracle Corporationby Mike Wilson.


2001(23rd of Cheshvan, 5762):Hadas Abutbul, 39, of Mevo Dotan in northern Samaria was shot and killed by Palestinian terrorists on Friday afternoon as she drove from work in nearby Shaked.


2002(4th of Kislev, 5763): Sgt.-Maj. Madin Grifat, 23, of Beit Zarzir was killed when a mine exploded during a routine patrol northeast of Netzarim in the Gaza Strip. The Givati Brigade company commander was wounded. The Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the attack.


2003: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or on topics of special Jewish interest including Right to Exist: A Moral Defense of Israel's Warsby Yaacov Lozowick, The Case For Israel by Alan Dershowitz and Horse People: Scenes From the Riding Life by Michael Korda


2004: Chabad filed its lawsuit against the Russian Federation, the Russian Ministry of Culture and Mass Communication, the Russian State Library, and the Russian State Military Archive, asserting violations of international law and seeking the return of its collection of sacred, irreplaceable religious books and manuscripts.


2004: Today “after Ariel Sharon declined the NRP's demand to hold a national referendum regarding the disengagement, Zevulun Orlev and the party resigned from the coalition and the government, vowing to pursue general elections in an effort to replace Sharon with a right-wing prime minister.


2005: Amir Peretz, the former chairman of the Histadrut trade union federation, defeated Shimon Peres in the primary elections for the Labour leadership today.


2005: On Election Day voters chose Jewish political leader Loretta Weinberg to serve the remaining portion of Jewish New Jersey State Senator Byron Baer's four-year term of office, which ends in January 2008.


2005: “Joyeux Noël” a cinematic treatment of the Christmas truce in 1914 (which is fully described in Silent Night: The Story of the World War I Christmas Truce by Stanley Weintraub) one of whose major character is “Lt. Horstmayer, the German Jewish officer of the 93rd Infantry” and featured Dany Boon was released today. (Editor’s Note – Personally I think this is a marvelous, must-see film.)


2005: Hussam Fathi Mahajna, 36, an Israeli Arab businessman from Umm al-Fahm, was among 57 people murdered and 300 wounded in simultaneous attacks by suicide bombers in Amman, Jordan at three luxury hotels. Mahajna was a guest at a wedding held at the Radisson Hotel, known to be popular with Israeli tourists. Al-Qaida claimed responsibility for the attacks.


2005:  Kristallnacht Remembrance Day.


2005: In New York, Novel Jews monthly literary series presents a Henry Roth Tribute.


2006: The 10th Annual UK Jewish Film Festival comes to a close.


2006(18th of Cheshvan, 5767): Eighty-three year old East German spymaster Markus Wolf, the son Friedrich Wolf, the politically active physician who took his family to Moscow when the Nazis came power, passed away today.



2006: As “Jews throughout Germany mark the 68thanniversary of Kristallnacht” the Munich Jewish community dedicated “a major new synagogue that symbolizes the city’s ongoing effort to realize the elusive goal of normalcy in its relationship with the Jewish community…The synagogue is part of a larger complex of three Jewish communal buildings that includes a Jewish museum and community center, complete with a day school, a library and a kosher restaurant”  that will be known as the “Jakobsplatz Jewish Center.” Munich is home to Germany’s second largest Jewish community. German businessman Herbert Burda contributed $1.3 million to building the community center.  Burda’s father was a Nazi who profited from “The War Against the Jews.” Herbert Burda has “received the Leo Baeck Prize in recognition of his efforts to repair the wrongs committed by the preceding generation.”


2006: An exhibit of photographs by Julian Voloj, titled “Forgotten Heritage: Uncovering New York’s Hidden Jewish Past” opened at the Bronfman Center for Jewish Life at New York University.


2007: Premier of Joel and Ethan Coen’s ‘No county for Old Men.’


2007: At Temple Judah in Cedar Rapids, Friday Evening services are dedicated to a Remembrance of Kristallnacht with a talk by Fred Rogers a former resident of Frankfurt who was spared from the Shoah.  Fred is long time, leading member of the Jewish community.  When he speaks we hear the voices of all the Fred Rogers’ who did not survive.  When he speaks we hear the voices of all the future Fred Rogers’ that were lost in the smoke of The Night. When he speaks we hear the voice of a mensch.  When he speaks, “the Murder of the Six Million” takes on the dimension of personal loss.


2007: “Birds,” an exhibition of the paintings of Audrey Berner, on display at the Bernard Gallery in Tel Aviv comes to a close.


2007: U.S. premiere of “Lions for Lambs” co-starring Andrew Garfield and Peter Berg.


2007: IDF troops shot two Palestinians who were crawling near the security fence separating the Gaza Strip from Israel on Friday night, apparently planting an explosive device, the army said.


2007: Natavia Lowery is arrested and charged with the killing of Linda Stein, the 62 year old New Yorker who had gone from manager of punk rock musicians to real estate broker.


2008: In New York City, the 92nd Street Y presents “Neil Gaiman in Conversation with Chip Kidd: Sandman 20th-Anniversary Celebration” during which “The New York Times best-selling Jewish born author, Neil Gaiman, discusses Sandman, the acclaimed comic book series widely considered to be one of the most original and artistically ambitious series of the modern age. Sandman is a rich blend of modern myth and dark fantasy in which contemporary fiction, historical drama and legend are seamlessly interwoven. Gaiman is the author of children’s and adult titles including, The Graveyard Book, American Gods, Coraline, Neverwhere and Stardust. (Editor’s note: Considering the Jewish origins of Superman, one would wonder if the evening’s presentation might include an inquiry to any special relationship between Jews and Comic Books.)


2008: Final Chicago area performance of Jake Ehrenreich’s “A Jew Grows in Brooklyn at the North Shore Center For the Performing Arts.


2008: The 20th meeting of the International Catholic-Jewish Liaison Committee of the Holy See’s Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews opened today in Budapest.


2008: “God On Trial,” the made-for-TV movie that depicts a trial at Auschwitz in which God is charged with Breach of Contract for allowing the Nazis to torture and murder Jews aired on PBS.


2009: Kristallnacht Remembrance


2009:At the Hudson Institute, Norman Podhoretz, a former editor in chief of the journal Commentary, discusses and signs his newest book, Why Are Jews Liberals?


2009:Israel and Jordan conducted a joint earthquake drill today in the Beit She'an Valley, practicing techniques in evacuation and treatment procedures, according to IDF Army Radio.


2009: The recent decision of Mahmoud Abas not to seek re-election as President of the Palestine Authority was one of the main topics of discussion in today’s meeting between President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held at the White House.


2010: The New York Times featured a review of Brute: The Life of Victor Krulak, U.S. Marine by Robert Coram.  Unbeknownst to most people the famous general was the son of Russian Jews.  “He lied about this heritage, claiming he was raised an Episcopalian. Perhaps he was only attending to reality. At the time, the author points out, the Marine Corps was “a veritable witches’ brew of racism and discrimination.” But General Krulak went further than he had to, essentially disavowing his parents and family back home in Denver for the rest of his life.


2010: Publication of the paperback edition of Lauren Grodstein’s A of the Family today.


2010: Toronto’s 30th Annual Holocaust Education Week which began on November 1 is scheduled to come to an end today.


2010: Rodale Publishing released America the Edible: A Hungry History from Sea to Dining Sea by Adam Richman.


2010: Kristallnacht Remembrance Day is observed at a time when word comes that Samuel Willenberg and Kalman Taigman, 87-year-old Israelis, who are believed to be the last two survivors of the most chillingly efficient killing, machine of the Nazi Holocaust: the Treblinka extermination camp in occupied Poland are now devoting their final years trying to preserve the memory of the 875,000 people who were systematically murdered at Treblinka in a one-year killing spree at the height of World War II.


2010:Yeshiva University Museum and YIVO Institute for Jewish Research are scheduled to present a program entitled “16mm Postcards: Home Movies of American Jewish Visitors to 1930s Poland.”


2010: Agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation arrested several suspects charged with defrauding a German government fund that had been established to provide help to survivors of Nazi persecution. Over 16 years, the suspects used fake identification documents, doctored government records and a knowledge of Holocaust history to defraud the fund of more than $42 million, according to an indictment unsealed today by the United States attorney in Manhattan, Preet Bharara. In all, 17 people were indicted.


2011:Ellen Futterman is scheduled to moderate the Fiction Panel at the St. Louis Jewish Book Festival.


2011: The 31st Annual Holocaust Education Week sponsored by Toronto’s Sarah and Chaim Neuberger Holocaust Education Centre is scheduled to come to end.  The theme for Holocaust Education Week


2011 has been “Accountability” in commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the trial of Adolf Eichmann and the 65th anniversary of the first Nuremberg Trials.


2011: Kristallnacht Remembrance


2011: A conference focusing on Romania's Holocaust-era war crimes in Ukraine and Moldova called on Romania to acknowledge and apologize for the murder of hundreds of thousands of Jews.  The conference, which ended today, on the anniversary of Kristallnacht, was convened to bring the full scope of World War II Romania’s fascist state-sponsored genocide to light.


2011:The Palestinian Authority said today that it was weighing its next steps in wake of reports that the UN Security Council has failed to reach consensus on the Palestinian application for membership in the international organization.


2011: The Penn State Board of Trustees announced tonight that Graham Spanier had resigned and head football coach Joe Paterno had been fired--in both cases, effective immediately as part of the child sex abuse scandal brought on by Jerry Sandusky.


2011: Israeli-American psychologist Daniel Kahneman “was awarded the Talcott Parsons Prize by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences


2012(24th of Cheshvan, 5773): Seventy-six year Isaiah Sheffer passed away. (As reported by Douglas Martin


2012: John Gaultier, a member of the 71st Division Infantry Division and one of the soldiers who liberated Gunskirchen Lager Concentration Camp is scheduled to speak this evening at Temple Judah’s Shabbat eve services commemorating Kristallnacht and celebrating Veteran’s Day.


2012: In Greensboro, NC, Temple Emanuel is scheduled to host the URJ Southern Region Shabbaton


2012: As Israel prepared for a stormy, wintry weekend, the airport in Eilat, the country’s usually sunny southernmost city, was closed this afternoon due to heavy rains which caused flooding on its landing strips. As a result, two flights from Eilat to Tel Aviv were delayed.


2012: The New York Timesfeatured a review of Poems 1962-2012 by Louise Glück


2012: “Unidentified persons uprooted 11 memorial plaques commemorating local victims of Nazism in the German city of Greifswald today, the 74th anniversary of Kristallnacht, The Jews of Greifswald were among those targeted throughout Germany on Kristallnacht – the Night of Broken Glass, on November 9, 1938. Synagogues and businesses were destroyed, and Jews throughout the country were murdered and arrested en masse.” (As reported by Jerusalem Post staff)


2013: “Open House Jerusalem” is scheduled to come to a close.


2013: Marion Grodin, author of Standing Up: A Memoir of a Funny (not Always) Life and


Fred Stoller author of Maybe We'll Have You Back: The Life of a Perennial TV Guest Star are scheduled to speak at the San Diego Jewish Book Fair.


2013: 75th anniversary of Kristallnacht. While remembering the evil it is good to remember the righteous such as Ernst Leitz, the head of the Leica Camera Company his daughter Elsie Kuehn-Leitz who saved hundreds of Jews with the Leica Freedom Train.



2013: According to a statement issued released by IsraAID today, the team that it is sending to the Philippines to help in the aftermath of a powerful typhoon that hit the multi-island nation yesterday “will work primarily in Tacloban City in Leyte. (As reported by Times of Israel staff)


2013: Former deputy foreign minister Danny Ayalon said today that while he respected the Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court unanimous decision to acquit former foreign minister Avigdor Liberman of fraud and breach of trust charges, the “truth doesn’t always come out” in courts of law.


2013: Sampson Gordon "Sam" Berns, an American who suffered from progeria and helped raise awareness about the disease, “dropped the ceremonial first puck” as a guest of the Boston Bruins.


2014: At Melbourne, “Transit and “Night Will Fall” are scheduled to be shown at the Jewish International Film Festival.


2014: The Center for Jewish History is scheduled to host a conference on “World War I and the Jews.”


2014(16thof Cheshvan): Yarhrzeit of Rabbi Elazar M. Shach, dean of the Ponevitch Yeshiva in Bnei Brak.”


2014: General Assembly of the Jewish Federation is scheduled to begin today


2014: The Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center is scheduled to host “Kristallnacht Remembered” and a screening of “A Voice Among the Silent: The Legacy of James G. McDonald.”


2014: “A ministerial committee gave the go-ahead today for a bill that would force the IDF’s Central Command to issue military directives for Israelis in the West Bank that match civil laws passed in the Knesset.” (As reported by Tamar Pleggi)


2014: “An Israel Navy ship fired at a suspicious Palestinian vessel returning to the Gaza Strip from the Sinai Peninsula late tonight.” (As reported by Lazar Berman)


2014: “World War and the Jews” a conference marking the centenary of the start of World War One opened today at the Center for Jewish History.


 To mark the centenary of the start of World War I the Center for Jews hosts


2014: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate by Naomi Klein, Gabriel: A Poem by Edward Hirsch and In Real Life by Cory Doctorow.


2014: “According to the Channel 2 TV documentary Uvda (“Fact”), portions of which were broadcast tonight” “there is an ‘unprecedented rift’ between the Shin Bet and the IDF” over the amount of warning given before the most recent war in Gaza.


2015: “The Romance and Tragedy of Soviet Yiddish Culture” a four week long course is scheduled to come to an with a lecture “From Heymland to a Non-Jewish Jewish Autonomous Region (1953-present)” presented by David Shneer, the Louis P. Singer Endowed Chair in Jewish History at the University of Colorado Boulder.



2015: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is scheduled to arrive in Washington, DC today.


2015: “A painting of an outstretched nude woman by the early-20th-century Jewish artist Amedeo Modigliani sold tonight for $170.4 million.” (As reported by Robin Pogrebin and Scott Reyburn)


2015: The Center for Jewish History is scheduled to host a reception marking the opening of a new exhibition “After the War: Recovery, Relief and Return, 1945-1949” during which “Atina Grossmann, author of Jews, Germans, and Allies: Close Encounters in Occupied Germany will discuss the varied experiences of the surviving remnant of European Jewry in the immediate postwar period.”


2015: The Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center is scheduled to host citywide memorial “Kristallnacht: The Spark That Ignited the Holocaust” that will feature “5 distinguished cantors: Benjamin Warschawski, Pavel Roytman, Rachel Rosenberg, Faryn Rudnick, Laurie Akers, Cantorial Soloist


2015: In Toronto, Holocaust Education is scheduled to come to an end with an exploration “of how synagogues destroyed during Kristallnacht are brought to life in contemporary Germany through digital media” and “a candle-lighting ceremony commemorating the 77th anniversary of Kristallnacht.”


2015(27thof Cheshvan, 5776): Ninety-five year old American fencer Byron Lester Krieger who represented the United States in the 1952 and 1956 Olympics passed away today.



2016: Seventy-eighth anniversary of Kristallnacht.


2016:Holocaust historian and author of the award-winning book FDR and the Jews, Richard Breitman, is scheduled to speak at the Kristallnacht Memorial Service sponsored by the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center where he will examine the U.S. government response to the November Pogrom.



2016: Hannah Lessing, the Secretary General of the National Fund of the Republic of Austria and the General Settlement Fund for Victims of National Socialism, as well as the Fund for the Restoration of the Jewish Cemeteries in Austria who is also the daughter of Holocaust survivor and photographer Erich Lessing is scheduled to speak on “Bringing the Rimonim Home: A Personal Restitution Journey” at the closing event of HEW (Holocaust Education Week) in Toronto.


2016: Beit Sefer is scheduled to present “Kristallnacht Remembrance at Tifereth Israel Synagogue in Des Moines, Iowa.


2016: “Germans and Jews” and “Family Commitments” are scheduled to be shown at the 20thUK International Jewish Film Festival.


2017: “The 9th of November,” by Rachael Cerrotti was published today in Commentary.



2016: “Alda’s Secrets” and Return to the Fatherland” are scheduled to have their Chicago premier at the Chicago Festival of Israeli Cinema.


2017: The 21st UK International Jewish Festival is scheduled to begin today “at venues across the United Kingdom.”


2017: The 37th Annual Neuberger Holocaust Education Week” came to an end in Toronto at the Sarah and Chaim Neuberger Holocaust Education Centre.”


2017: The American Jewish Historical Society is scheduled to host a screening of “From Brooklyn to Beirut, in which Rola Khayyat explores the landscape of belonging for the community of Lebanese Jews in New York – along with the fragilities and complexities associated with a politicized identity.”


2017: In Des Moines, IA, the Jewish Federation is scheduled to co-host “The Moment That Changed Everything,” “a community program for Kristallnacht.”


2017: The Jewish United Fund/Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago, Jewish Community Relations Council Community Partners are scheduled to co-host “Commemoration: Kristallnacht A Night of Broken Glass, Shattered Dreams.”


2017: Yeshiva University Museum, the Center for Jewish History and the American Sephardi Federation are scheduled to present a lecture by Rav Amedeo Spagnoletto on “Traditions of Roman Jews: Life and Religion.”


2018: In Coralville, Iowa, following Friday night services Agudas Achim is scheduled to host a lecture by Ari Ariel on “Becoming Yeminitie/Becoming Israel.”


2018: The UK Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to host a screening of “An Act of Defiance.”


2018: Eightieth Anniversary of Kristallnacht
https://www.ushmm.org/collections/bibliography/kristallnacht
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/background-and-overview-of-kristallnacht
https://www.holocaust.cz/en/history/events/kristallnacht/


2018(1st of Kislev, 5779): Rosh Chodesh Kislev; for more see http://downhomedavartorah.blogspot.com/


 


 


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

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November 10


1217: During the Fifth Crusade, King Andrew II of Hungary defeated Sultan Al-Adi in what would prove to by a pyric on the banks of Jordan River.  The Moslems retreated into fortified positions from which they could not be dislodged and the Hungarian monarch finally went home with little more than bags of “relics” to show for all of his campaigning. 



1290: The community of Huesca, Spain prohibited Christians from buying meat or poultry from Jews under a penalty of 70 days in jail.  



1444:  At the Battle of Varna the Ottoman Sultan Murad II defeated a Christian Crusading Army under the Polish King Vladislus III.  The Turkish victory paved the way for the Ottoman Moslem conquest of parts of Eastern Europe as well as the conquest of Constantinople. The extension and consolidation of the Ottomans was “a good thing for the Jews” since Ottoman Empire was a place of refuge for Jews escaping Christian Europe. Murad II opened his empire to Jews escaping from persecution in Germany and employed two Jews as court physicians.  Vladislus III followed in the footsteps of his father Valdislus II and attempted to deny the Jews the rights and privileges granted by previous Polish monarch.  The Battle of Varna paved the way for the fall of Constantinople in 1453 which in turn provided some of the impetus for the search for a water route to the Orient which gave rise to the travels of Columbus which opened the way for what would become the American Jewish community.  No, this is not a shaggy dog story.  It is the law of unintended consequences that makes up the history of Jews.



1483: Birthdate of Martin Luther, German religious leader and reformer. At first Luther was friendly to the Jews thinking that this kindly treatment would them to accept his new form of Christianity.  When the Jews accepted his friendship but rejected conversions, he turned on them and began his anti-Semitic attacks.  He died in 1546.



1509: Emperor Maximilien issued a second mandate reproaching the Jews of Frankfort for disobeying his first edict and ordering the confiscation of their holy books to continue.


1549: Pope Paul III passed away.  According to the Graetz, “Paul III was specially well-disposed to Jews.”  According to a Bishop named Sadolet of Carpentras, “No pope has ever bestowed on Christians so many honors, such privileges and concessions as Paul III has givn to the Jews.  They are not onlyu assisted, but positively armed with benefits and prerogatives.”  Paul protected the Marranos from the Inquisition and employed a Jewish physician named Jacob Mantin.



1619: René Descartes has the dreams that inspire his Meditations on First Philosophy. Descartes would play a major role in the development of the philosophy of Baruch Spinoza with the Dutch Jew first accepting and the rejecting Descartes’ notion of duality.  Furthermore, while Descartes was able to maintain some semblance of religious practice even though his philosophy was at odds with Catholic doctrine, Spinoza took a different road. When he found a dissonance between his philosophy and Judaism, he ceased to follow its rituals and customs. 



1659(24th of Cheshvan, 5420): Antonio Fernandez Carvajal(a Portuguese-Jewish merchant, who became the first naturalized English Jew passed away. He was born about 1590, probably at Fundão, Portugal. He appears to have left Fundão on account of the persecution of the Inquisition and, proceeding to the Canary Islands, acquired much property there, made many commercial connections, which led him (about 1635) to London, where he settled in Leadenhall Street. In 1649 the council of state appointed him one among the five persons who received the army contract for corn. In 1653 Carvajal was reported as owning a number of ships trading to the East and West Indies, to Brazil, and to the Levant. He dealt in all kinds of merchandise, including gunpowder, wine, hides, pictures, cochineal, and especially corn and silver, and is reported to have brought to England, on average, £100,000 worth of silver per annum. In the early days of his residence in England, Carvajal used to attend mass at the Spanish ambassador's chapel, and in 1645 was informed against for not attending church; but the House of Lords, on the petition of several leading London merchants, quashed the proceedings. In 1650, when war broke out with Portugal, Carvajal's ships were especially exempted from seizure, though he was nominally a Portuguese subject. In 1655 he and his two sons were granted denizenship as English subjects (the patent being dated August 17 of that year); and when the war with Spain broke out in the following year, his property in the Canaries was liable to seizure, as he was a British subject. Oliver Cromwell made arrangements by which Carvajal's goods were transported from the Canaries in an English ship which passed under Dutch colors. When Menasseh Ben Israel came to England in 1655 to petition Parliament for the return of the Jews to England, Carvajal, though his own position was secured, associated himself with the petition; and he was one of the three persons in whose names the first Jewish burial-ground was acquired after the Robles case had forced the Jews in England to acknowledge their creed. Carvajal, besides advancing money to Parliament on cochineal, had been of service to Cromwell in obtaining information as to the Royalists' doings in Holland (1656). One of his servants, Somers, alias Butler, and also a relative, Alonzo di Fonseca Meza, acted as intelligencers for Cromwell in Holland, and reported about Royalist levies, finances, and spies, and the relations between Charles II and Spain. It was to Carvajal that Cromwell gave the assurance of the right of Jews to remain in England. Under the date of February 4, 1657, Burton, in his diary, states: The Jews, those able and general intelligencers whose intercourse with the Continent Cromwell had before turned to profitable account, he now conciliated by a seasonable benefaction to their principal agent [Carvajal] resident in England. In 1648 a cargo of logwood belonging to Carvajal was seized by the customs officers. He assembled his servants and friends, broke open the government warehouses, and carried off his merchandise. The litigation to which this gave rise was interrupted only by Carvajal's death, which occurred in London.



1674: As provided in the Treaty of Westminster which ended the Anglo-Dutch War, the Netherlands ceded New Netherlands to England.  This meant that New Amsterdam would become New York and the Jewish community in the New World would be tied to the fate of an English speaking world.



1687: The Jews of Posen, Poland successfully defended themselves against attack by anti-Semitic mobs  



1766: William Franklin (son of Benjamin Franklin born out of wedlock) royal governor of the colony of New Jersey, signs the charter of Queen’s College which is now known as Rutgers University. Today, “The Department of Jewish Studies at Rutgers offers an interdisciplinary approach to the academic study of all aspects of the Jewish experience. Courses offered by the Department, which are open to all students, address the historical, social, cultural, religious and political life of the Jewish people from ancient times to the present. Students pursuing a B.A. degree may major or minor in Jewish Studies.”



1773: Birthdate of Joseph Perl, the native of Galicia who went from being a youthful follower of Chasidism to being a leader of the Haskalah  (Jewish Enlightenment Movement)



1775: The United States Marine Corps was founded at Tun Tavern in Philadelphia by Samuel Nicholas.  Robert Magnus was probably the highest ranking Jew to serve with the Marine Corps.  When he retired in July of 2008 he had four stars on his shoulders and had just finished serving a tour as the Assistant Commandant of the Marine Corps. Barney Ross is considered by some to be the most famous Jewish hero to serve with the Marine Corps.  Despite the fact that he was in this 30’s when Pearl Harbor was attacked, Ross enlisted in the Marines.  He rejected a ceremonial, public relations role and insisted on joining the combat forces.  He got his wish when he began a tour on Guadalcanal where he earned a Silver Star, the third highest commendation awarded for bravery in battle. The largest single contingent of Jewish members of the corps to serve in one place might have been at Iwo Jima where approximately 1,500 Sons of Jacob joined their fellow Leathernecks in the some of the fiercest fighting in the Pacific.  The most famous novel to come out of World War II about the Marines was Battlecry written by Leon Uris, a Jewish Marine who had a flair for words and a combat veteran’s view of war that was up close and personal.



1776(28th of Cheshvan, 5537): Six year old Aaron Levy, the song of David Segal Levi, who was described as “a darling and pleasant child” passed away today in the United Kingdom.



1807: The Jews of the region of Widdin on the Danube escape destruction leading to “an annual celebration known as the Purim of the Poisoned Sword.”



1808: Birthdate of Lewis Charles Levin the first Jew elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. He was the American Party candidate from Pennsylvania in 1844. Born in Charleston South Carolina, he graduated from South Carolina College (now the University of South Carolina) with a law degree. He was a founder of the Native American Party and published and edited the Philadelphia Daily Sun. Levin was reelected twice before being defeated in 1850. He then returned to the practice of law in Philadelphia until his death on March 14, 1860. [The Native American Party, popularly called The No-Nothings, was a nativist, anti-Catholic, anti-immigrant party supposedly founded by WASPS.  So one must wonder how a Jew got involved with this and/or how did these people let a Jew became part of their party.]/



1809: In Diespeck, Bavaria, Maier and Karoline Einhorn gave birth to David Einhnorn one of the most influential of the Rabbis in the early days of the Reform Movement who risked his life while serving at Har Sinai in the slave holding state of Maryland to denounce the institution and support the cause of the Union.



1810: Birthdate of Lazarus Adler, the Bavarian born rabbi and author whose last “work, favoring wise reforms, bore the title Hillel and Shammai.



1810: Birthdate of Eduard Simson the Konigsberg born Jew whose family converted in 1823; a move which surely helped him rise to serve as the first President of the German Parliament.



1813: Lawrence Phillips married Esther Spyer at the Great Synagogue today.



1819: Emanuel Minden married Sarah Davis at the Great Synagogue today.



1824: Solomon Hyams married Rachel Davis at the Great Synagogue today.



1824: Lewis Marks married Mary Solomons at the Great Synagogue today.



1826: In Loslau, Upper Silesia, David Hamburger and his wife gave birth to Jacob Hamburger the “editor of the first explicitly Jewish Encyclopedia.”



1828: Birthdate of Hector-Jonathan Crémieux, the French librettist who collaborated with Ludovic Halévy to create “Orpheus in the Underworld.”



1840: Birthdate of Alois Kaiser, the Hungarian born Chazzan and Composer who came to the United States in 1866 where he soon became  the cantor at Oheb Shalom in Baltimore, MD. He passed away in 1908l



1848: Ibrahim Pasha, who served as the de facto Kehdive of Egypt and Sudan passed away. In 1840 he he had forbidden “the Jews to page the passage in front of the (Western) Wall” and had “cautioned them against ‘raising their voices and displaying their books there.’”



1852: Dr Raphall is scheduled to give a lecture entitled “The Literature of the Hebrews” this evening at the Hebrew Young Men’s Literary Association at Stuyvesant Institute in NYC.



1853: The Jews of Philadelphia established the Mercantile Club. Louis Bomeisler was its first president.



1854: In the United Kingdom, the will of Moses Alexander was probated today.



1856: Jews’ College, the rabbinical seminary of London opened its doors today



1859: In Moravia, Charlotte Eisler and Joseph Singer gave birth to Isidor Singer who served “as literary sectary to Count Foucher de Carell, the former French Ambassador at Vienna” before coming to New York in 1895 where he became managing editor of the Jewish Encyclopedia. http://collections.americanjewisharchives.org/ms/ms0042/ms0042.html



1860: Birthdate of Philadelphian Oscar Brower Teller who was interred in that city’s Mt. Sinai Cemetery.


1861: Three rabbis, including Marcus Jastrow who had participated in Polish nationalist activities were arrested today and imprisoned in the citadel of Warsaw.


1861: In London, Lewis Levy and Isobel Levin gave birth to Amy Levy, the author and poet who was the first Jewish student to attend Newnham College, Cambridge and whose love affair with Vernon Lee provided the impetus for her work on Sapphic love.



1862: During the Civil War, Sergeant Henry H. Jacobs began serving with Company F of the 165th Regiment.


1862: During the Civil War, Corporal Nathan From began serving with Company A of the 167th Regiment.


1865: Henry Wirz, the commandant at Andersonville Prison whose inmates included Jewish Medal of Honor winner George Geiger, was hung today after a Union Court Martial found him guilty of conspiracy and murder for his role in administering the p.o.w. compound.


1865: Four days after he had passed away, 48 year old David Meyer Davidson, the son of Meyer Davidson and Jesse Cohen and the husband of Henrietta Cohen was buried today at the West Ham Jewish Cemetery.


1865(21stof Cheshvan, 5626): Fifty-eight year old Dr. Marcus Mosse the son of Salomon Moses and Henriette (Jette) Marcus Levin and husband of Ulrike Mosse passed away in Posen.


1866: Philip Peyser and Natalie Ann Kiliñski gave birth to Pauline "Lena" Peyser who would be buried in the Washington, DC Hebrew Cemetery in 1923.


1867: Birthdate of Lieutenant Colonel John Henry Patterson a supporter of the Zionist cause who commanded the Zion Mule Corps and the Jewish Legion.




1867(12thof Cheshvan, 5628): Fifty-three year old Solomon Klein, the Grand Rabbi at Colmar in Alsace, passed away today.


1868(25th of Cheshvan, 5629): Samuel Sampson, a solicitor and secretary to the London Board of Deputies passed away today. Born in 1804, he began life on the Stock Exchange, but after some time resigned his membership and entered the legal profession. He became honorary solicitor to several of the leading charities; as solicitor and secretary to the Board of Deputies his advice was sought on many important issues, and he accompanied Sir Moses Montefiore on his mission to Morocco. Samuel was a member of the committee of the Great Synagogue and of nearly all the charitable institutions, in the foundation of many of which he was concerned. He helped to establish the Jews' Infant School, London, and took an active part in its management. (As reported by Joseph Jacobs and Goodman Lipkind)


1869: Moritz Ellinger became publisher of The Jewish Times


1874: (1st of Kislev, 5635): Rosh Chodesh Kislev


1875: In Chicago, Joseph and Miriam Cahn gave birth to Northwestern University School of Law graduate Bertram Joseph Cahn who was a member of the Urban League.


1875: Charles Harald Hansen married Dinah Nathan today in New Zealand.


1876: In Philadelphia, PA, The Centennial International Exhibition where Charles Fleishmann who “created the first commercially produced yeast” “demonstrated Viennese baking” which “dramatically increased” the revolutionary product, came to an end.


1879: A report published today described conditions in the central Asian city of Merv including the fact that this “immense walled city with 2,000 houses and 5 palaces included “a small quarter for the Jews separated by a wall from the rest of the city.”


1880: “Polish Jewish refugee Max and Mary Epstein gave birth Jacob Epstein the New York City born sculptor who worked chiefly in England, where he pioneered modern sculpture, often producing controversial works that challenged taboos concerning what public artworks appropriately depict but in the end was enough of an “establishment figure” that he was knighted for his effort thus becoming Sir Jacob Epstein




1880: It was reported today that “3,000 Jews have left Romania” for the United States by way of the prot of Bremen.


1881: “A Home For Aged Hebrews” published today described plans for the new building that will be constructed by the Home for Aged and Infirm Jews at a cost of $100,000 for its clients and patients.


1883: It was reported today that Jews have joined with Protestants and Catholics in the opening of the celebration at Eisleben of the 400th anniversary of the birth of Martin Luther. (Considering how Luther treated the Jews, this is a surprising entry.)


1883: It was reported today that “a mob attacked the Jews” at Zalaloevoe, Hungary.  The mob fired on the police who came to protect the Jews.


1883: “Helping The Prophets” published today described the demise of the Palestine Railroad Company “which has been dissolved by order of a Massachusetts court.”  In addition to providing transportation for those traveling from Cairo to Jerusalem, the builders thought the locomotive fulfilled the prophetic vision “that fiery chariots would someday be seen in the streets of Jerusalem.”


1884: “A Rear Tenement Fire” published today described the efforts of fireman to put out a fire on Cannon Street that housed the shops of Jewish tailors, slipper makers and  cigar manufactures S.G. Goldsmith, Sieche & Hummel and Meigner & Kander. The loss to building and contents is estimated to exceed ten thousand dollars.


1884: English actor Henry Irving played the role of Shylock, the Jew, in tonight’s performance of “The Merchant of Venice” at the Start Theatre.  Shylock is one of Irving’s singular roles.


1885: Mrs. Clara Bronner Waterman, the daughter of Isaac H. Bronner applied for a divorce today in the Common Pleas Court in New York City.


1885: In St. Louis, MO, Frederick “Tiny” Pagels fired a double-barreled shotgun at a Kohn a Jewish business rival, killing him instantly. Pagels would be tried and sentenced to death for the crime. (Unlike in Europe, the fact that the victim was Jewish was not enough to beat the hangman.)


1886: A fire broke out this evening in a school run for Jewish children by Joseph Isaac Bluestone in New York City.


1887(23rdof Cheshvan, 5648): In the UK, Solomon Levy the older brother of Abraham Levy passed away today.


1887: Birthdate of German born author and peace activist Arnold Zweig.


1889: Celeste Martin and Julius P. Witmark performed a musical sketch entitled “When We Are Married” as part of the benefit concert being held tonight for the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society at Hardman Hall in NYC.


1889: It was reported today that the “American Hebrew, the excellent Jewish newspaper pbished yb the American Hebrew Publishing company has issued a special” edition “to make the close of the 10thand beginning of the eleventh year of its existence.”


1889: A reception was held today at the newly completed annex at the Home for Aged and Infirm Hebrews on 9th Avenue between 105th and 106thStreet in New York City.


1889: Ascher Lodge Number 13 of the Order of Free Sons of Israel celebrated its 20thanniversary tonight at Webster Hall.


1890: “Literary Notes” published today included anecdotes about Lord Beaconsfield that can be found in James Anthony Froude’s biography of the British statesman including “one pertaining to the death of the Prince Imperial in Africa” of whom he said, “A remarkable people the Zulus.  They defeat our Generals, the convert our Bishops, they have settled the fate of a great European dynasty.”


1890: According to reports published today, the third volume of Renan’s Histoire du People d’ Israel will soon be available in Paris.  In this volume, Renan presents the evidence that the turning point in the history of the world was the return of the Jews from the Babylonian captivity.  If this had not happened, he contends that Jews would have suffered the same fate as the citizens of the Northern Kingdom which would have meant Christianity would never have been created and the world would not have known the information contained in Biblical literature.


1890: Birthdate of El Lissitzky, multi-talented Russian born artist.


1892(20thof Cheshvan, 5653): Seventy-four year old Israel Meyer Japhet who “was choir director at the Realschule (Adass Jeschurun) in Frankfurt am Main” passed away today.



1893(1stof Kislev, 5654): Rosh Chodesh Kislev


1893: Baron Hirsch’s “four year old brown fill La Fleche” won the Liverpool Autumn Cup. Among the horses she beat was “The Jew” which had led as the horses turned into the straightaway and headed for home.


1893: As young Jewish men in New York seek to elicit support from leaders of the community such as Nathan Straus and Edward C. Stone, for an new facility for the Young Men’s Hebrew Association, it was reported that the organization has gained 200 members since last May bringing its membership up to 700 and that it has a small surplus having paid off all of its debts.


1893: The list of those receiving bequests from the late Louis Arnheim published today included  $500 each to the Hebrew Benevolent and Orphan Asylum Society and Mount Sinai Hospital  and $100 each to the Home for Aged and Infirm Hebrews, the Montefiore Home for Chronic Invalids and the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society.


1893: The immigrants who arrived at Ellis Island today aboard the SS Poland most of whom were Russian Jews have been described by Commissioner Senner as “the worst lot he has had to contend with” and that “nearly all of them are impoverished, unclean and unkempt.


1894: In Newark, NJ, Ferdinand Bornstein told police today that four sets of the Ten Commandments were stolen from a closet in his synagogue. Bound in silver, they “were valued at $600.”


1894: Birthdate of author Meyer Wolf Weisgal, the native of the Pale of Settlement who came to the United States at the age of 11 who served as president of both the Weizmann Institute of Science and the Diaspora Museum in Tel Aviv.



1894: In Kurenitz, Morris L. Kramer and Rachel Elka Stikan gave birth to their 7thchild, Samuel Kramer.


1895: In New York details are announced describing the events of "The Great Hebrew Fair" to be held in December.  The goal is to raise at least $225,000 to aide in educational endeavors.


1895; In Moravia, Joseph Singer and Charlotte Eisler gave birth to Isidor Singer who became the literary secretary to Count Foucher de Careil in 1887 and then move to New York in 1895 where he became the driving force for the creation of a Jewish Encyl


1897: In Vienna, there was an outbreak of violence caused by a demonstration that the Jewish students blamed on their German counterparts.


1897: President Henry Rice presided over the annual meeting of the United Hebrew Charities held tonight at Temple Emanu-El


1897(15thof Cheshvan, 5658): Sixty-six year old stockbroker and historian whose works included Sketches of Anglo-Jewish History passed away today.



1897: Two days after she had passed away, 72 year old Leah Marks, the widow of Reuben Marks was buried today at the “Plashet Jewish Cemetery in London.”


1898: Tammany leader Croker was reported today to have expressed his displeasure with Patrick Divver for waiting until election to tell him that the Democrats were in danger of losing the Jewish vote in New York County because if such were the case he should have known about “two weeks” before the election when he should have sounded the alarm.


1898: Henry Rice was re-elected President at tonight’s meeting of the United Hebrew Charities. Others chosen were Henry S. Allen and Isaiah Joseph, Vice Presidents; C.L Sulzberger, Treasurer and I.S. Isaacs, Secretary.


1898: The Hebrew Infant Asylum which had been housed at 490 Mott Avenue “moved into its new building on Eagle Avenue near 161st Street.


1899: In Paris, “pandemonium” reigned in the Senate as the galleries echoed with cries of “Down with the Jews’ and a Dreyfusard Deputy traded blows with an anti-Dreyfusard journalist.


1899: A summary of the October report for the United Hebrew Charities of New York published today that the society had received 2,306 applications from 7,687 seeking various forms of relief and assistance including help with finding employment.


1900: In “Central Bohemia,” Ferdinand and Eugenie Pick gave birth to Elsa Pick, who became Elsa Rina when she married Wilhelm Rind who perished with her during the Holocaust.


1900: At Karl-Ferdinand University students call for a boycott of the classes taught by Czech patriot and intellectual Tomas Masaryk for his role in gaining a re-trial for Leopold Hilsner on the trumped up charges of ritual murder following the death of Agnes Hruza.  Masaryk felt that the faculty and the student body were “infected with the uncultivated virus of street anti-Semitism.


1901: In Vienna Victor Stern, “an Italian/Austrian doctor of Jewish descent attached to the Austro-Hungarian Imperial and Royal Army and, later, to the International Red Cross” and her Roman Catholic mother Felicie gave birth to Elise Amelie Felicie Stern who gained fame as photographer Lisette Model.



1905: It was reported today that in St. Petersburg, “proclamation have been posted in the Alexander Market calling on the population to kill the Jews.”


1905: In Moscow, while “alarming rumors are in circulation that anti-Jewish outbreaks will occur simultaneously” in Russia’s two largest cities, “foreigners and Jews have received threatening letters and have asked the authorities for protection” – a request that so far has met with no response from the government.


1905: It was reported today that at Rostoff-on-Don the “houses of 7,000 Jews were looted, the synagogue burned” and the families without shelter who “appealed to the authorities for protection…were shot.”


1906: “Dr. Jacob Hamburger, the Landrabbiner of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, who would be honored by the Central Conference of American Rabbis as “one of the most devoted workers in the field of literature” celebrated his 80thbirthday today.


1908: It was reported that Sir Joseph J. Duveen, a partner in Duveen Brothers of London, one of the largest art dealers in the world, has passed away while visiting France.


1909: This morning’s session of the Central Conference of American Rabbis “was devoted to the reading of reports from various committees and biographic paper by Rabbi Kaufman Kohler, President of the Hebrew Union College…in honor of the hundredth anniversary of the birth of” Rabbi David Einhorn.


1909: Rabbi Emil G. Hirsch of Chicago’s Sinai Congregation delivered a memorial address in honor of the centenary of the birth of Rabbi David Einhorn. “Judaism…is not a matter of confession, nor yet of race.”  It is “a gift of birth that cannot be lost or shaken off and that carries with it the mission of spreading the monotheistic conception among all nations until the messianic age of love and righteousness be accomplished.”  At the same time, Dr. Hirsch spoke out against Zionism, Zionists and attempts to create a Jewish homeland in Palestine.


1909: Birthdate of Mt. Vernon, NY songwriter Johnny Marks who, ironically is responsible for such Christmas hits as “Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” and Holly Jolly Christmas.”



1909: This afternoon delegates attending the meetng of the Central Conference of American Rabbis visited the Hebrew Technical School for Boys and the Hebrew Technical School for Girls at the United Charities Building in New York City.


1910: Birthdate of New York native Abe Eliowitz who in 1932 earned an honorable mention as Grantland Rice All America while serving as the co-captain of the Michigan State Spartans for whom he also excelled as a record setting baseball player.


1911: Rabbi Moses Franco of Rhodes was made Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem.


1911: The British Board of Agriculture and Fisheries appointed Frederick M. Davis “as assistant naturalist in connection International Fisheries Investigations.


1911: A.H. Jessel, K.C. was “elected a Bencher of Lincoln’s Inn.


1911: The Town Council elected Mayer Fredman as Mayor of Devenport.


1911: The Queen of Holland appointed R. Couvee as an Officer of the Order of Orange-Nassau.


1911: In Camden, NJ, the Congregation of the Sons of Israel held its annual meeting today.


1911: Press department of Zionist Central Bureau in Berlin denies report that Chief Rabbi of Tripoli had telegraphed to Rome welcoming Italians. The Hahambashi in Turkey declared there is no, and has not been any, chief rabbi in Tripoli for a long time.


1912(30thof Cheshvan, 5673): Rosh Chodesh Kislev


1912: Jewish Consumptives’ Relief Society headquartered in Denver opened their 8thannual meeting today in New York City.


1912: Dr. Emil G. Hirsch is scheduled to deliver a sermon “Two Reformations, Luther and Einhorn” at Sinai Temple on the south side of Chicago.


1912: In Chicago, Rabbi Joseph Stolz is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “The Responsbility of Power” at the Isaiah Temple. (Editor’s note – these are examples of the Reform movement’s attempt to make Sunday “the Sabbath” replacing the traditional Saturday observance.


1912: The People’s Synagogue Association is scheduled to hold services under the leadership of Dr. Gerson B. Levi at Chicago’s Ziefgeld Theatre.


1913:  Birthdate of Karl Shapiro, Pulitzer Prize winning poet and fifth Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress



1913: Birthdate of American poet James Broughton who would be the father of Gina, the daughter of film critic Pauline Kael.  (Kael was Jewish; I could find no record concerning him.



1914: In Brooklyn Al McCoy the New Jersey born Jewish Middleweight World Champion successfully defended his crown.



1914: The treasurer for the Central Committee for the relief of Jews “reported today that the committee has received $16,441 and that additional subscriptions were coming in at the rate of about $1,000 a day.”



1915: It was reported today that “the railroad system” in Palestine “has been greatly enlarged” since the start of the war with a new line reaching Gaza and “the line from Jaffa to Jerusalem” having been united with the Hedsmas Railway.”



1915: It was reported today that “Ira S. Wile of the Board of Education” has told the Eastern Council of Reform Rabbis that the Gary Plan has “dragged religion into the schools creating barriers and denominational differences between children, between children and their teachers and between homes.”



1915(3rd of Kislev, 5676): Fifty-nine year old County Tax Commissioner Sam Cohn passed away today in Toledo, Ohio.



1915: “The German Branch of the Alliance Israelite Universelle issued a protest against the circular sent abroad by the French Secretary General of the organization which, the members of the German Branch say, contains the ‘gravest charges against our Fatherland.’”



1916: Today “the triennial convention of the Young Men’s Hebrew and Kindred Associations opened for a three day session in the Young Women’s Hebrew Association Building on 110th Street”



1916: Birthdate of Lynn, MA, native Harold D. Ashkenazy who gained fame as Harold Ashe All-New England guard on the Bowdoin College football team.



1917: Rabbi Felix A. Levy is scheduled to lead Shabbat morning services at Temple Emanuel in Chicago.



1917: Three days after the armed insurrection that brought the Bolsheviks to power deposing the Kerensky government, opposition forces uses “posters and newspapers” to criticize the their action and refuse to recognize their authority.



1917(25th of Cheshvan, 5678): Parashat Chayei Sara



1917(25th of Cheshvan, 5678): During The Battle of Passchendaele, also known as the Third Battle of Ypres where Monty Moss, a buyer for Moss Bros. which had been founded by his grandfather Moses and was now being run by his father George was killed ended today.



1917(25th of Cheshvan, 5678): As of today, “over 350 Jewish men fight under British command are known to have been killed today since the start of the Battle for Passchendaele which began on July 31, 1917.



1917: It was reported today that 31 year old Rabbi David Goldberg has been commissioned in Acting Chaplain with the rank of Lt. Junior Grade (the equivalent of 1st Lt. in the Army) by Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels making him the first Jewish person to fill such a post in the history of the United States Navy.



1918: Five days after he had passed away, Harry Geller, the son of Nathan and Rachel Geller, was buried today at the “Plashet Jewish Cemetery in London.”



1918: Following an angry denunciation against those whom he felt had betrayed him including the Jews, Kaiser Wilhelm, having abdicated the day before, “crossed the border by train and went into exile in neutral Holland.



1918: Samuel Untermeyer, Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Keren Hayeson announced that a dinner would be held on Sunday, November 13 for a delegation of Zionists led by Vladimir Jabotinsky that would be arriving in New York on November 11.



1918: Louis Marshall presided over the 12th annual meeting of the American Jewish Committee at the Hotel Astor where a report of the war activities was submitted that “said from 150,000 to 200,000 Jews were serving in the American armed forces or about 130,00 in the army and about 20,000 in the Navy and Marine Corps.”



1919: A special committee formed by the House of Representatives to determine whether or not a convicted felon and war opponent should be seated as a member of Congress concluded that Victor L. Berger should not be allowed to take his seat.  The committee then declared his seat vacant.



1920: The seventh annual convention of the Mizrachi Organization of the United States and Canada continued to meet on its second to last day in Baltimore, MD.



1920: The New York Times reported on a luncheon attended by about thirty members of the Jewish clergy, at the Cafe Boulevard honoring Dr. Frederick De Sola Mendes, one of the oldest rabbis in New York, following his retirement from the Rabbinate two weeks ago.



1920: The Triennial Convention of the Council of Jewish Women continued to meet in Denver, CO at the Brown Hotel.



1924: A campaign for 5,000 new members of the Hadassah -- the women s Zionist organization of America -- was launched at a luncheon attended by 2,000 women, in the Hotel Astor today. The guests of honor were Miss Henrietta Szold, President of the Hadassah, and Mrs. Edward Jacobs and Mrs. A.H. Fromenson, two members of the National Board, all of whom have recently returned from Palestine.



1925: Two days after she had passed away, 62 year old Rosa Volk, the daughter of Leopold and Sofie Sara Pick and the wife of Alexander Volk, was buried today in Vienna.



1928: Birthdate of New York native Norma Anna Bella Zuckerman, the actress known as Norma Crane who grew up in El Paso, “studied drama at Texas State College for Women in Denton (now NTSU) and then made the leap to Elia Kazan’s Actors Studio which prepared her for her Broadway debut in “The Crucible”



https://www.nytimes.com/1973/09/29/archives/norma-crane-dead-played-tevyes-wife.html



1929: Birthdate of Marilyn Katz, the native of Brooklyn who became the wife of Alan Bergman and who as Marilyn Bergman joined him in creating decade’s worth of hit songs including the lyrics for the score of “Yentl” starring Barbara Stressiand and “The Way We Were” another Streisand film.



1932: “I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang,” a crime-drama film directed by Mervyn LeRoy and starring Paul Muni was released today in the United States.



1933: Birthdate of Eliezer David Jaffe “the founder and president of The Israel Free Loan Association and a professor at Hebrew University of Jerusalem”



1934: “Jacob W. Mack, newly elected chairman of the executive board of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations” presided over “his first board meeting tonight where resolutions were passed in memory of the board’s late leader, Mr. Ludwig Vogelstein. (As reported by JTA)



1936: Nicolas Louis Alexandre, Baron de Gunzburg arrived in New York City today “and rented an apartment in the Ritz Tower.



1936: In London, the text of the government’s new public order bill aimed at curb the activities of Sir Oswald Mosley’s Black Shirts and similar groups,” which was necessitated by the “recent violent disorders’ in the predominately Jewish neighborhoods of  East End of London, Manchester and Leeds  “was made availed to members of the House of Commons today.”



1936: During his visit to London, “Colonel Josef Beck, the Polish Foreign Minister asserted today that there was ‘no longer any reason for the existence of small Jewish shopkeepers’ in Poland” and said that he had discussed the need for letting Jews immigrate to Palestine with Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden.



1937: Benjamin Cohen, a 70-year old American Jew living in Tel Aviv sued Hebrew University for 5,000 pounds in damages for rejecting his discovery reversing the theory of Copernicus today in the District Court of Jerusalem.  The case was heard by Judge W. Clive Curry, President of the District Court. “After forty years of work” Cohen “has become convinced that the sun revolves around the earth and sets in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea.”   Cohen contends that “the university committed a crime against science” by not accepting his discovery.  “Judge Curry rejected the claim for damages since the claimant had no contract with the University for accepting his discovery and since the institution caused him no damage in any sense whatsoever.”



1937:The Palestine Post reported that five young pioneers: Itzhak Migdal, Moshe Baumgarten, Joshua Puchovsky, Arie Mordecovitch and Aaron Olechowsky, members of Kvutzat "Bama’aleh" of Gordonia, were murdered by eight armed Arabs in the Judean hills while engaged in clearing grounds for a new settlement, "Kiryat Anavim B" (renamed Ma¹aleh Hahamisha in their honor). Police arrested 12 Arab villagers.



1938: It was learned today that “fifty-one of the sixty-eight persons condemned since the establishment of military courts” on November 18, 1938 “had been hanged.”



1938: The synagogue in Hanau, a town outside of Frankfurt am Main was set afire today.  The Jewish community shrank from less than 500 in 1933 to a mere 82 souls in pre-war 1939.



1938: The Neu-Isenburg orphanage which had been founded by the late Bertha Pappeheim was attacked today and the main building was burned to the ground.



1938: One hundred thousand cheering Germans attend a rally in Nuremberg, Germany, celebrating Kristallnacht.


1938: After 24 hours of nationwide violence, 91 Jews have been killed, 30,000 more have been arrested and sent to Dachau concentration camp, and 8,000 have been evicted from Berlin. Tens of thousands of shops and homes have broken into and Nazi Storm Troopers have set fire to 191 Synagogues.



1938: Most of the men living in Karlsruhe were arrested today and sent to Dachau.



1938: The largest synagogue in Vienna, The Leopoldstädter Tempel, was destroyed during the Reichskristallnacht. The building designed by Ludwig Förster was built in 1858. All that remains is a memorial plaque that reads:Here stood the Leopoldstädter Tempel, built in 1858 in the moorish style according the plans of architect Leopold Förster, all but the foundation of which was completely destroyed by National Socialist barbarians on the so-called "Night of Broken Glass", on the 10th of November 1938).



1938: American musical icon Kate Smith sang her signature song, Irving Berlin’s God Bless America, for the first time on radio.



1938: Paul “Sachs, one of the founding members of The Museum of Modern Art, who had been serving as a trustee since 1929 completed his service in that role today.



1938: One day after Kristallnacht, the main building of the Neu-Isenburg orphanage for Jewish girls, founded by Bertha Pappenheim was burned down “and the other buildings were burned down.



1939: U.S. Premiere of “First Love” directed by Henry Koster and co-produced by Koster and Joe Pasternak,



1941: Friedric Jeckeln, arrived in Berlin where he would discuss plans with Himmler for the liquidation of the Riga Ghetto.



1941: The scholarship fund of the Neighborhood Playhouse of the Theatre, “a non-profit organization founded in 1928 by Miss Irene Lewisohn of New York and her sister, Mrs. Herbert Crowley, the former Miss Alice Lewisohn to train students in the theatre arts” “will benefit from the performance of ‘Blithe Spirit’ at the Morsco Theatre” this evening.



1942: “Arthur Babbit, one of Walt Disney’s earliest animators” who later sued Disney after he was terminated enlisted in the Marines today.



1942: During World War II, Germany invaded Vichy France following French Admiral François Darlan's agreement to an armistice with the Allies in North Africa.  Vichy referred to the pro-Nazi “rump” French government headed by Marshall Petain.  As bad as things were for the Jews under Vichy, they would get a whole lot worse now that the Nazis were in total control.



1942: Six thousand Polish Jews who have been hiding in forests since the spring of 1942 surrender after the Germans promise safe passage to a new Jewish ghetto.



1943(12th of Cheshvan, 5704): Fifty-four year old Russian born Dr. Max Bakst, the 1911 graduate of Long Island College Hospital Medical School and associate otolaryngologist at Beth Moses Hospital who was the husband of Frannie Graf Bakst with whom he had two children – Daniel and Grace – passed away today in Brooklyn.



https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1943/11/13/85132966.pdf



1944(15th of Cheshvan, 5658): Thirteen members of the anti-Nazi Ehrenfeld group which included “escaped detainees from forced labor camps and Jews” were “publicly hanged in Cologne.



1944(15th of Cheshvan, 5658): Thirty-five year old Miklós Radnóti was murdered by militia man while a group of 3,200 Jews was being forced march into central Hungary and “buried in a mass grave near the village of Abda.”



http://forward.com/articles/187883/hungarian-jewish-poets-statue-struck-by-a-car-brea/



1945: In New York City, William Lindsay Gresham, the author of Nightmare Alley and Joy Davidman the author of Smoke on the Mountain gave birth to author and actor Douglas Howard Gresham who with his wife Merrie has had five children.



1947: “The United States and the Soviet Union reconciled their basic differences over Palestine today to support a new United Nations plan for enforcement of partition under which Britain would bother her mandate and her military occupation of the Holy Land” by May 1, 1948.



1948: The United Nations ruled that the Israelis had violated the truce.



1948: There are reports that the Israelis detained two UN representatives who were trying to observe the fighting in the Negev.



1949: Israel holds a reception for new immigrants.  According to the Jewish Agency 32,000 Yemenite Jews have been flow from Aden to Israel and that another 15,000 will be flown out in the next two weeks.  At the same time, Jews living in the USSR, Romania and Hungary have been prevented by their governments from making Aliyah



1950: Broadway premiere of “The Country Girl” written and directed by Clifford Odets, the Philadelphia born son of Jewish immigrants from Russia and Romania.



1952: The Jerusalem Post reported extensively on the death of the first president of the State of Israel, Dr. Chaim Weizmann, 78, who died at his home in Rehovot on the morning of 21 Heshvan, 5713, November 9, 1952. The funeral was planned to take place on a consecrated spot in Rehovot, in an olive grove of 75 trees planted in honor of his 70th and 75th birthdays. Born in Russia in 1874, Weizmann was trained as a biochemist in Switzerland.  He moved to England in 1905 where he became a leader in the Zionist movement.  Weizmann’s discovery of acetone played a key role in the issuance of the Balfour Declaration.  Weizmann played a leading role during the inter-war years in developing the Jewish home in Eretz Israel.  He was elected Israel’s first President in 1949 and was received by President Truman in that capacity at the White House.



1952: During a parliamentary debate on Egypt, Winston Churchill rose in the House of Commons to pay tribute to Chaim Weizmann who had passed away the day before and to the accomplishments of the Zionist movement.



1956(6th of Kislev, 5717): Just ten days before his 45th birthday photojournalist David Seymour was killed by Egyptian machine-gun fire while covering the aftermath of the Suez War.



http://lightbox.time.com/2013/01/16/a-second-look-chims-children-of-war/#1



http://merrill.umd.edu/events/visible-scars-children-and-war-photography-david-chim-seymour



http://museum.icp.org/mexican_suitcase/bio_chim.html



1961: Tonight’s episode of The Twilight Zone is “Deaths-Head Revisited” Rod “Serling's statement on the Holocaust, written in reaction to the then-ongoing Eichmann trial, in which a former Nazi, on a nostalgic visit to Dachau, is haunted and ultimately driven insane by the ghosts of inmates he had killed there during the war including “Alfred Becker” portrayed by Austrian born American actor Joseph Schildkraut.



1966: “Penelope” a film version of novel by Howard Fast, directed by Arthur Hiller and starring Peter Falk, Dick Shawn and Lou Jacobi was released today in the United States.



1967: The HMS Totem formerly a British submarine, was commissioned as the INS Dakar by the Israeli Navy.



1968: A testimonial dinner was held in honor of Samuel Lerner “who had completed forty years of service” to Congregation Shaar Hashomayim of Montreal, “the last fifteen of them as principal of the congregational schools.”



1969: NBC broadcast episode nine of “My World and Welcome to It” created by Melville Shavelson, produced by Sheldon Leonard and co-starring Harold J. Stone.



1969: Debut of Sesame Street.  Joan Ganz Cooney, one of the two creators of the program, was a Roman Catholic.  However, her father was Jewish and her maternal grandfather was Emil Ganz, the three-mayor of Phoenix, AZ, where Cooney grew up.



1970: Richard Rodger’s “Two By Two” a musical based on Clifford Odets's play “The Flowering Peach” that tells the story of Noah's preparations for the Great Flood and its aftermath with a cast that included Danny Kaye and Madeline Kahn opened at the Imperial Theatre today.



1974: Anatoly Sharansky and Anatoly Malkin were detained in Minsk. During the search materials about the persecution of Jews in Minsk, letters of the Jews to various state institutions, and notebooks were confiscated.



1975: PLO leader Yasser Arafat addressed the United Nations General Assembly.  In a low point in the history of an organization founded to support peace, the members of the General Assembly applauded as the pistol-packing Arafat arose to address them with the blood the Israeli athletes slaughtered at the Munich Olympics on his hands.  In the 21st century the world learned the price of those applauses as terrorists struck from New York, to London, to Madrid, to Mumbai, to…the list goes on.


1975: In New York City, Adele and R. Gerald Grodstein gave birth to Columbia University graduate Lauren Grodstein, the novelist and Rutgers University Professor best known for the novel A Friend of the Family who was married to musician Ben Freeman with whom she had two children – Nate and Penny.


1975: The UN General Assembly voted to equate Zionism with Racism. This infamous proclamation was officially retracted 16 years later in December 1991.



1975: Daniel Patrick Moynihan, America's Ambassador to the UN proclaimed: “The United States does not acknowledge, it will not abide by, it will never acquiesce in this infamous act.” The “infamous act” was Resolution 3379, calling Zionism racism, slandering one form of nationalism, Jewish nationalism.



 1975: Israel's Ambassador Chaim Herzog, carrying the dignity of 4,000 years of Jewish history, declared: “I stand here not as a supplicant. For the issue is neither Israel nor Zionism. The issue is the continued existence of this organization, which has been dragged to its lowest point of discredit by a coalition of despots and racists. You yourselves bear the responsibility for your stand before history. We, the Jewish people, will not forget.” Herzog then ripped the resolution to shreds.



1976: “The Next Man,” a thriller centering around Israel and OPEC produced by Martin Bregman was released in the United States today.



1976: “Prisoners of Zion Yuri Vudka and Lazar Lubarsky received exit visas to Israel.”



1976: “The United Nations Security Council issued a Consensus Statement, which warned Israel “that any act or profanation of the Holy Places, religious buildings and sites, or any encouragement of, or connivance at, any such act, may seriously endanger international peace and security.’ Ironically, the first Israeli interference with worship in Jerusalem was made against the Jews, whom the Israeli authorities prevented praying on the Harram, in deference to Muslim sensibilities.”



1977: The Jerusalem Post reported that Israeli jets bombed PLO bases in South Lebanon, in response to the Katyusha rocket attack by Palestine terrorists in which Rivka Lupu, 35, was killed and five persons were wounded by shrapnel



1978:  Hannah Ruppin the widow of the late Zionist leader Arthur Ruppin and a longtime resident of Jerusalem expressed her concern that the treaty with Egypt would not work. She wrote a letter stating, “As I am a Pessimist, I don’t believe we will have peace.”  There was a special poignancy in these words since Arthur Ruppin had been a supporter of a bi-national state.  He gave up on the concept during the Arab Riots that started in 1929 and became a supporter of an independent Jewish state. \



1978(10th of Cheshvan, 5739): Eighty-seven year old American born jurist Juris Arthur Lehman Goodhart who became a leading British professor of law passed away today in London.



http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/law/wps/WPS2010-01_Goodhart.pdf



1981(13th of Cheshvan, 5242): Seventy-five year old Manfred Erich Swarsensky, the German born rabbi who survived being imprisoned Sachsenhausen concentration camp and escaped to America in 1940 where he served for 36 years as the spiritual leader of Temple Beth El in Madison Wisconsin.



1983: “Amen Corner” a musical “with a book by Philip Rose and Peter Udell” who also wrote the lyrics opened on Broadway today at the Nederlander Theatre.



1984(15thof Cheshvan, 5745): Parsahat Vayera



1984(15thof Cheshvan, 5745): Seventy-eight year old British mathematician Louis Rosenhead who “noted for his work on Fluid mechanics, and who was Head of Department at Liverpool University from 1933 to 1973 passed away today.



1989: A revival of Paddy Chayefsky’s “The Tenth Man” opened at the Lincoln Center Theatre.



1990: Final broadcast of Pee-wee’s Playhouse starring Paul Reubens.



1991: Marty Glickman broadcasts his 1,000th football game. What is less remembered about the Nazi Olympics is the saga of two American Jewish sprinters, Marty Glickman and Sam Stoller. In 1936, Marty Glickman was an 18-year-old track and football star at Syracuse University.  Glickman and Sam Stoller, a star athlete at the University of Michigan made the 1936 U. S. Olympic squad as members of the 400-yard relay team. Glickman and Stoller traveled to Germany and prepared diligently for the relay race. The day before the race, however, with little explanation, the U.S. track team coaches replaced Glickman and Stoller with two other runners, Jesse Owens and Ralph Metcalfe, both African-Americans. By Glickman’s own account, the last-minute switch was a straightforward case of anti-Semitism. Avery Brundage, chairman of the United States Olympic Committee, was an enthusiastic supporter of Hitler’s regime and denied that the Nazis followed anti-Semitic policies. Brundage and assistant U. S. Olympic track coach Dean Cromwell were members of America First, an isolationist political movement that attracted American Nazi sympathizers. Additionally, Cromwell coached two of the other Olympic sprinters, Foy Draper and Frank Wyckoff, at the University of Southern California and openly favored those two over Glickman and Stoller. Glickman’s suspicions about the fairness of the relay team selection process began at the American Olympic team trials in New York, when he was told he placed fifth of the seven runners competing in the sprint finals. Finish-line photography was not yet in use at that time, but films of the race seem to indicate that Glickman actually finished third behind Owens and Metcalfe. The judges, apparently under pressure from Cromwell, placed Glickman fifth behind Draper and Wyckoff. As a result, Glickman was not one of the three sprinters entered in the 100-yard dash, a premiere Olympic event. Instead, Glickman and Stoller traveled to Berlin as part of the 400-yard relay team, each scheduled to run a 100-yard leg of the race. As an 18 year old, Glickman was grateful to be going to the Olympics; even if he felt that he’d been robbed of his chance at a medal in the 100 yard dash. There was an effort made by some American Jewish organizations to convince the U. S. Olympic committee to boycott the Nazi Olympics, but Brundage prevailed and the team went. Glickman, like most American Jews, thought that the anti-Semitism he might encounter in Berlin would be no worse than what he faced growing up in Brooklyn. Like many Americans, Glickman had no inkling of the horrific fate awaiting German Jewry in the years after 1936. Once in Germany, Glickman, Stoller, Draper and Wyckoff spent two weeks practicing as the 400-yard relay team. They were confident of victory. Then, on the day of the qualifying trials, head track coach Lawson Robertson told Glickman and Stoller that Owens and Metcalfe would be replacing them. To his credit, Owens protested to Robertson that Glickman and Stoller deserved to run. Glickman pointed out to Robertson that any combination of the seven teammates could win the race by 15 yards. Robertson replied that he would enter his four best athletes in the relay and that, in his judgment, Owens and Metcalfe were better than Stoller and Glickman. Robertson said his goal was winning, nothing more. Glickman turned to assistant coach Cromwell and said, "Coach, you know that Sam and I are the only two Jews on the track team. If we don’t run there’s bound to be a lot of criticism back home." Cromwell retorted, "We’ll take our chances." The American team won in record time as Glickman watched from the stands. Glickman (who remained a close friend of Owens until the latter’s death) and Stoller were devastated by the decision. Stoller, age 21, announced his retirement from track competition but later recanted. Later that year, he won an NCAA sprint championship. Glickman returned to college and became a football All-American. After a brief professional career in football and basketball, Glickman went on to become a distinguished sportscaster, best known as the voice of the New York Knicks and football Giants. He joined the radio station WHN and by 1943 was its sports director. A long, distinguished broadcasting career followed. When the New York Knickerbockers were formed in 1946, Glickman was their radio announcer. Later, he was the National Basketball Association's first announcer for TV. He was the voice of the football Giants, for 23 years, of the Knicks for 21, Yonkers Raceway for 12, the New York Jets for 11. Glickman did pre- and postgame shows for the Dodgers and Yankees for 22 years; he broadcast track meets, wrestling matches, roller derbies and rodeos, even a marbles tournament. NBC employed him as a critic and teacher of its sports announcers. In 1988 WCBS hired him for his second tour as the Jets' play-by-play announcer on radio. It was from that position that Glickman quietly said goodbye to his last audience in December 1992, at age 74. Glickman underwent heart bypass surgery Dec. 14. He died of complications from the operation at the age of 83.



1992(14th of Cheshvan, 5753): Six days before his 76thbirthday, Albert Weiner, the son of “Soloman Weiner and Gertrude Talesknic” and the husband of “Sylvia Cooper” passed away today in Baltimore, MD.



1994: In Los Angeles, “actress Lea Thompson and director Howard Deutch” gave birth to actress Zoey Deuch who “was raised in her father's Jewish religion, and had a Bat Mitzvah ceremony.”



1997: The Dark Side of Camelot by Jewish investigative reporter Seymour Hirsch is published.



1997: Edward S. Walker, Jr. was appointed U.S. Ambassador to Israel.



1997: Daniel Charles Kurtzer, a graduate of Yeshiva University, was appointed U.S. Ambassador to Egypt by President Clinton.



1999(1st of Kislev, 5760): Rosh Chodesh Kislev



1999: “Light it Up featuring Amy Landecker in the role of a “Reporter” was released in the United States today.



1999(1st of Kislev, 5760): Actress Mary Kay Bergman passed away.  Bergman continued in the tradition of Mel Blanc as the voice for numerous animations ranging from South Park to Mrs. Butterworth, the symbol of pancake syrup.



2000(12th of Cheshvan, 5761):Sgt. Shahar Vekret, 20, of Lod was fatally shot by a Palestinian sniper near Rachel's Tomb at the entrance to Bethlehem.



2002(5th of Kislev, 5763): Revital Ohayon, 34, and her two sons, Matan, 5, and Noam, 4, as well as Yitzhak Dori, 44 - all of Kibbutz Metzer - and Tirza Damari, 42, of Elyachin, were killed when a terrorist infiltrated the kibbutz, located east of Hadera near the Green Line, and opened fire. The Fatah Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades claimed responsibility for the attack.



2002: The New York Timesfeatures reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or on topics of special Jewish interest including the following two works released in new paperback editions:



Collected Stories by Saul Bellow; All but one of these 13 stories appeared in earlier collections, but together they provide new and old fans with an immersion into Bellow's vibrant world, a place where events happen, (typically brainy) characters think about them and then the fun begins.



The Same Sea by Amos Oz; Set in modern-day Tibet and Tel Aviv, this novel revolves around the sexual mixing and matching of several sets of characters, including a middle-aged widower and his son, who wanders off to the Himalayas in search of himself. (The characters telephone the author from time to time, criticizing him for the way he portrays them in the novel.)



2003(15th of Cheshvan, 5764): Irv Kupcinet, the famed Chicago Sun-Times columnist passed away at the age of 91. (As reported by Richard Severo)



http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/11/us/irv-kupcinet-91-dies-chronicled-chicago-for-60-years.html?pagewanted=print&src=pm



2005: Cantor Rebecca Garfein performed a concert at Carnegie Hall where she presented the debut of “Golden Chants in America…Commemorating 350 Years of Jewish Music, 1654-2004.



2005:  Haaretz reported on the work of Aaron Lansky, founder and director of the National Yiddish Book Center in Massachusetts.  Lansky started the center 27 years ago when he singled handedly set out to save the remaining Yiddish books in the world from extinction. The center which is located at Hampshire College is the home of a large book center, which now houses 1.5 million books in Yiddish and has 32,000 members. The center is active all over the world, inviting young people to study Yiddish language, literature and culture. The center's story is documented in Outwitting History: The Amazing Adventures of a Man Who Rescued a Million Yiddish Books.



2006: In Halbe, Germany suspected neo-Nazis attacked a memorial to a synagogue burned down on Kristallnacht, the anti-Jewish pogrom of 1938. The German government vows to take action to bring the perpetrators to justice. What a difference six decades can make.



2006:After the original Jerusalem Gay Pride Parade was cancelled but the Jerusalem Open House announced that it would hold a parade today after reaching an agreement with the police and with the municipality



2007: “One Family”, an exhibit of the works of Israeli photographer Vardi Kahana opens at New York’s Andrea Meislin Gallery.



2007: The Kibbutz Chamber Orchestra under Doron Salomon presents its Balkan music program at Kibbutz Givat Brenner.



2007: Zeev Tene releases his new album “Heder” at a concert in Tel Aviv.



2007(29th of Cheshvan, 5768): Novelist, Pulitzer Prize winning writer and pseudo-social rebel, Norman Mailer passed away at the age of 84.  The Brooklyn Jew with the engineering science degree from Harvard used his experiences as a soldier in the Philippines to launch his literary career with The Naked and the Dead.



https://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/nov/10/books.booksnews



2007: Freshman Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, a third generation Arizona Jew, married astronaut Mark Kelly.



2008: In New York City, presentation of two works by Israeli choreographer Netta Yerushalmy that are parts of two larger works – “Dispostif” and an unnamed project scheduled to premiere in 2009.



2008: Time magazine publishes a list of “The 50 Best Inventions of the Year” that lists at the thirty first spot “Einstein's Fridge.” That Albert Einstein guy had some pretty good ideas — relativity, the photoelectric effect, the "up" hairdo — but his contributions to the field of refrigerator theory have been sadly neglected. No longer; scientists at Oxford University have resurrected an eco-friendly refrigerator design that Einstein and a collaborator patented in 1930. Instead of cooling the interior of the refrigerator with freon — a serious contributor to global warming — Einstein's design uses ammonia, butane and water. It also requires very little energy. Though Einstein's original refrigerator wasn't all that efficient, the Oxford researchers have tweaked his version and believe it could eventually compete in the marketplace. Then maybe we'll remember Einstein the way he wanted — as a guy who liked to keep things cool.



2009:Patrick K. O'Donnell discusses and signs They Dared Return: The True Story of Jewish Spies Behind the Lines in Nazi Germany at Borders in Baileys Crossroads, Va.



2009:Jonathan Tropper as he discusses his latest novel, This Is Where I Leave You, at the Fourth Annual JCCNVJ Jewish Book Festival.



2009: The hardcover edition of “A Friend of the Family” by Lauren Grodstein was published today.



2009: Charles London, author of Far From Zion: In Search of a Global Jewish Community, shares his personal journey grappling with his heritage and coming to terms with his connection to Israel at a session of the 40th Annual Book Festival sponsored by the JCCGW.



2010: Robert L. Bernstein delivered The Shirley and Leonard Goldstein Lecture University of Nebraska at Omaha on Human Rights entitled “Human Rights in the Middle East



2010: Paramount Pictures releases “Morning Glory,” a marvelous, underappreciated comedy co-produced by J.J. Abram and co-starring Jeff Goldlbum



2010: Elaine Hall author of Now I See The Moon: A Mother, A Son, A Miracle and Abraham H. Foxman, author of Jews & Money: The Story of a Stereotypeare scheduled to appear at The St. Louis Jewish Book Festival, which is :Proud to be the Largest Jewish Book Festival in the U.S.!”



2010: It was reported that The U.S. Attorney's Office in New York has charges against 17 people for participating in a $42.5 million fraud at the Claims Conference. Details of the charges were disclosed at a news conference yesterday afternoon by the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York. Officials at the Claims Conference, which acts as a pass-through to distribute more than $400 million per year from Eastern European governments directly to survivors, discovered late last year that it had paid out at least $7 million in pension payments dating back as far as 1980 to 202 imposters who used fraudulent documents to file claims for payments. In July, the Claims Conference notified recipients of the money that their payments were being suspended and that they had 90 days either to return all the money they had received or appeal the suspension. Claims Conference officials first noticed a year ago that several claimants had falsified information to receive payments from the Hardship Fund, an account established by the German government to give one-time payments of roughly $3,000 to those who fled the Nazis as they moved east through Germany. A further internal investigation revealed that more fraudulent claimants received payments from the organization’s Article 2 fund, through which the German government gives pension payments of roughly $375 per month to those who spent either six months minimum in a concentration camp or at least 18 months in a Jewish ghetto in hiding or living under a false identity to avoid the Nazis. Conference officials said they immediately notified the FBI and the U.S. Attorney’s Office, and discussed the matter in meetings with the German government. The Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Claims Conference are continuing to investigate the matter. “We are determined to get to the bottom of this,” Gregory Schneider, the executive vice president of the Claims Conference, told JTA over the summer. “We have worked very closely with law enforcement.”



2010:The storied career of an indomitable ultra-Orthodox political fixer appears to have entered its final phase with the conviction of Rabbi Milton Balkany, known to the press as the “Brooklyn Bundler.”Balkany was found guilty today of attempting to extort $4 million from Steven A. Cohen, a hedge fund manager. The rabbi is now home on $1 million bail, allowed only to see his doctor and to attend synagogue once a week as he awaits sentencing.  Balkany, whose only official job is as dean of a Boro Park girls yeshiva, has been known for decades as a major donor to conservative politicians, capable of bringing home significant government cash to causes dear to the Orthodox community. He has also escaped conviction in a number of previous financial scandals.


2011(13th of Cheshvan, 5772): Durham, N.C. native and University of North Carolina graduate Robert Alan Koch (MFA) who retrieved stolen art during and after WW II as one of the Monuments Men passed away today.



2011: Sonia Taitz is scheduled to discuss her novel “In the King’s Arms” at the JCC of Northern Virigina’s Jewish Book Festival.


2011: In Israel “the supreme court delivered its opinion today unanimously upholding Moseh Katsav's conviction and sentence.”


2011: Bob Gruen and Joel Dovev are schedule to participate in the “Rock & Roll Retro Nite” at the 33rdAnnual St. Louis Jewish Book Festival.


2011: “Jewish Political Behavior in Europe, Israel and the United States,” a two-day symposium  that will explore aspects of Jews' political experience in Eastern Europe, the United States, Israel, and in the international arena is scheduled to open at the University of Michigan.


2011: Professor Brian Horowitz, of Tulane University, is scheduled to take part in “Jews in Russian and East European Politics in Historical Perspective,” a panel discussion that is part of a symposium sponsored by the Frankel Institute for Advanced Judaic Studies.


2011: Dennis B. Ross, a seasoned diplomat who has been one of President Obama’s most influential advisers on Iran, the Middle East peace process and the political upheaval in the Arab world, will leave the White House in December, a senior administration official said today. Mr. Ross, who announced his departure at a lunch with Jewish leaders, told White House officials that he promised his wife he would leave the government after two years.


2011: Jewish comedian Billy Crystal has agreed to take over the role of Oscar host. Mr. Crystal lit up the blogosphere late Thursday afternoon by posting a message to Twitter: “Am doing the Oscars so the young woman in the pharmacy will stop asking my name when I pick up my prescriptions. Looking forward to the show.” A spokeswoman for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences confirmed that Mr. Crystal wasn’t joking.


2011:A delegation of Muslim, Christian, Jewish and Druze religious leaders in Israel met today with Pope Benedict XVI in a high-profile display of their efforts to promote interfaith peace initiatives in the region.Israeli chief rabbi Yonah Metzger praised the "historic" nature of the audience with the German-born pope and noted that it fell on the anniversary of the Kristallnacht, the Nazi's 1938 anti-Jewish pogrom which left 91 Jews dead, damaged more than 1,000 synagogues and left some 7,500 Jewish businesses ransacked and looted. 


2011(13th of Cheshvan, 5772): Ninety-three year old Irving H. Franklin, co-founder of Franklin Sports and innovator of the baseball batting glove, passed away.(As reported by Douglas Martin)



2012: Temple Judah’s Tessa Cohen is scheduled to appear in tonight’s final performance Neil Simon’s “Brighton Beach Memoir” at Linn-Mar High School


2012: Temple Judah’s Bentlee Birchansky and Lincoln Ginsberg are scheduled to appear in tonight’s final performance of “Guys & Dolls.”


2012: In Greensboro, NC, the URJ Southern Region Shabbaton hosted by Temple Emanuel is scheduled to come to an end.


2012: “Off White Lies” is scheduled to be shown at the UK Jewish Film Festival.


2012: The 4thInternational Holiday Bazar is scheduled to open today at the Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center.


2012: Maggie Anton, author of the book-club favorite Rashi’s Daughter, Secret Scholar, is scheduled to introduce her new historical novel, Rav Hisda’s Daughter: A Novel of Love, the Talmud and Sorcery at Beth Shalom of Whittier, in Whittier, CA.


2012:Southern Israel came under a barrage of rocket fire from Gaza tonight, in a cross-border escalation following an earlier terrorist attack that injured four soldiers. Israel carried out counter-strikes, killing five Palestinians and wounding 30.


2012:Intermittent rainfall accompanied by strong winds and unseasonably cold weather were experienced in the North and Center this morning after yesteday’s showers caused flooding and damage in Haifa and Eilat. Rain was expected to weaken this afternoon; however additional showers were likely to fall at the beginning of next week, according to the Israel Meteorological Service.


2012: David “Amram was the recipient of the second annual Pete and Toshi Seeger Power of Song Award at Symphony Space in New York City, in a gala evening presented by Peter Seeger's Clearwater Foundation.”


2013: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Double Down: Game Change 2012 by Mark Halperin and John Heilemann, With A Mighty Hand: The Story in the Torah adapted by Amy Ehrlich, The Barefoot Book of Jewish Tales by Shoshanah Boyd Gelfland and the recently released paperback edition of The New Religious Intoleranceby Martha C. Nussbaum


2013: Sholem is scheduled to present “Yiddish on the Silver Screen – Tevya “ @Westdie Neighborhood School


2013: Members of Temple Judah as well as friends and family from the community are scheduled to take a field trip to the Holocuast Museum in Skokie, Illinois.


2013: “The Jewish Cardinal,” a dramatization of the life of Cardinal Jean Marie Lustiger is scheduled to be shown at the UK Jewish Film Festival.


2013: The Fourth Annual Israeli-Russian Film Festival is scheduled to take place at the Tribeca Film Center.


2013: Lauren Strauss presented “Kosher Southern Belles and Yankee Bubbies Confront America’s Greatest Crisis: Jewish Women and the Civil War” at the Jewish Museum of Baltimore.


2013: The General Assembly of the Jewish Federations of North America is scheduled to open in Jerusalem.


2013: Dozens of protesters gathered in front of the U.S. Consulate in Jerusalem to express their displeasure with Secretary of State John Kerry’s remarks that gave the green light to terrorists to start a 3rd Infitdada because of “Israeli intransigence.”  (As reported by Daniel K. Eisenbud)


2013: Today “the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial Center commemorated the 75th anniversary of Kristallnacht, “the night of broken glass,” when Nazis swept through Jewish towns and neighborhoods throughout Germany burning homes and synagogues, destroying shops, and attacking Jews. (As reported by David Lev)


2013: “Imprinting on Clay” is scheduled to come to an end at the Eretz Israel Museum in Tel Aviv.



2014: As part of its World War I and the Jews initiate, the Center for Jewish History is scheduled to host “Jews and the Great War: A Reflection at the Centennial.”


2014: In Melbourne, “Yalom’s Cure” and “The Israeli Code” are scheduled to be shown at the Jewish International Film Festival.


2014: “Hora 79” is scheduled to be shown at the UK Jewish Film Festival.


2014: Israeli television is scheduled to air a segment that “focuses on the search for shadowy commander Muhammad Deif.” (As reported by Avi Issacharoff)


2014(17th of Cheshvan, 5775): Twenty year old Almog Shiloni was stabbed today by a terrorist as he walked to a train station in Tel Aviv.


2014(17th of Cheshvan, 5775): Ninety-three year old  Dorian “Doc” Paskowitz, the surfing physician passed away today



2014(17th of Cheshvan, 5775): Twenty-six year old Dalia Lemkus was murdered by a terrorist as she waited at a bus stop.


2014: “An Israeli legal group filed suit against Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas at the International Criminal Court today, arguing that the Fatah head was responsible for rocket attacks from the Gaza Strip on Israeli cities during the summer conflict which were claimed by members of his faction.”


2014: Sydney A. Katz completed his service as Mayor of Gaithersburg, MD.


2014: A federal jury found 67 year old Rasmieh Yousef Odeah charged with immigration fraud guilty for failing to disclose her conviction and imprisonment for taking part in the bombing of a Jerusalem supermarket that took the lives of two people.                                      


2015: “In partnership with The Foundation for Jewish Studies and the Jewish War Veterans of the U.S., the Jewish Historical Society of Greater Washington is scheduled to host special bus trip to study the Civil War in Anacostia at the Smithsonian Anacostia Community Museum and Frederick Douglass House.


2015: “The Last Marranos” which “takes a fascinating look at the village of Belmonte, Portugal” is scheduled to be shown in St. Augustine, Florida, on the Flagler College Campus.


2015: The Center for Jewish History is scheduled to host a tour of the Ackman & Ziff Family Genealogy Institute “a cutting-edge facility for family history research.”


2015: CUNY New York City College of Technology is scheduled to host “Kristallnacht, 77 Years After: Never Again Anti-Semitism, Indifference and Racism!  in Brooklyn.”


2015: In Washington, DC, the annual General Assembly of the Federations of North America came to an end.


2016: “Some 500 Jewish mothers from around the world bonded in Jerusalem” today “as they participated in “The Great Big Challah Bake” and baked hundreds of the twisted egg bread loaves “for Israeli soldiers.”


2016: “The annual concert of works by Israeli composer Emanuel Vahl took placed at the Studio of ‘Hassadna’ Convservatory in Jerusalem.


2016; The Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education and the Genocide Studies Project at PSU are scheduled to host From humanitarian relief to Holocaust rescue: Tracy Strong Jr. and the fate of Jewish refugees in southern France.


2016 The WRJ SW District Biennial is scheduled to open today in Memphis, TN.


2016: The Habima National Theater is scheduled to stage “A Simple Story,” based on a story by S. Y. Agnon, in the West Bank settlement of Kiryat Arba for the first time after sparking criticism of the theater troupe amid an ongoing dispute over a government attempt to have cultural acts toe a more nationalistic line.


2016: “Denial” is scheduled to be shown in Auckland as part of the Jewish International Film Festival.


2016: In Toronto, Michael Gray is scheduled lead a discussion about “Exploring the Future of Holocaust Education in a Contemporary Setting.


2016: Today, President Obama met in the Oval Office with Donald Trump whose election led to a drive by “Arizona-based Modern Orthodox Rabbi Shmuly Yankolowitz,” “the dead of the Valley Beit Midrash and co-founder of the Orthodox social justice movement Uri L’Tzedek” to replace the recitation of “Hanoten Teshua” with a new “Prayer for our Nation.”


2016: “Moon in the 12th House and “Harold and Lillian: A Hollywood Love Story” are scheduled to be shown at the 20th UK International Jewish Film Festival.


2016: The multi-talented Leonard Cohen, a member of congregation Shaar Hashomayim was laid to rest “in a simple pine casket” in Montreal “at a cemetery on Mount Royal.”


2016: “The Kind Words’ and “Voice of Peace” are scheduled to be shown at Chicago Festival of Israeli Cinema.


2017: JNF’s National Conference which it describes as “the premiere annual event in Jewish philanthropy” is scheduled to open at The Diplomat Resort and Spa in Hollywood, FL.


2018: Omer Meir Wellber, a sabra from Be’er Sheva is scheduled to conduct a “performance of Bizet’s Carmen” as part of his Metropolitan Opera debut.”


2018: Oxford Jsoc 5th Week MT Shabbat is scheduled to continue today with Morning and Afternoon services, lunch and Seudah Shlishit.


2018: “Bye Bye Germany” and “Heading Home: The Tale of Team Israel” are scheduled to be shown at the Rutgers Jewish Film Festival.


2018: In Springville, IA, the Springville Public Library is scheduled to host a book signing for Barbara Feller, the Hebrew teacher par excellence, author of the newly released Road to Waubeek: Discovering Jay G. Sigmund.


2018: Avi Avital is scheduled to bring his “mandolin magic” to the Stern Auditorium at Carnegie Hall.


2018(2ndof Kislev, 5779): Parashat Toldot; for more see http://downhomedavartorah.blogspot.com/


 


 


 

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

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November 11


603 BCE (7th of Kislev): King Jehoiakim burned the scroll which had been dictated by the prophet Jeremiah to Barcuh ben Heriah.



518 BCE: A delegation of Babylonian Jews arrived in Jerusalem to inquire from the prophet Zechariah whether the fast of Av should be discontinued (Zechariah 7:1)



1050: Birthdate of Henry IV, who as Holy Roman Emperor took steps to protect his Jewish subjects.  For example, Henry granted the request of Moses ben Guthiel, leader of the Jewish community of Speyer that Jews who had been forcibly converted by marauding Crusaders be allowed to renounce the vow and return to Judaism without penalty. This and other such protective measures set him at odds with various leaders of the Church.



1155: Birthdate of King Alfonso VIII of Castile who employed a number of Jews in position of importance including Joseph ben Solomon Ibn-Shoshan and Abraham Ibn-Alfachar who served as his ambassador to Morocco which was governed by the intolerant Almohades.



1215: The meeting of the Fourth Lateran Council during the the papacy of Pope Innocent III(1161-1215) marked the zenith of Papal power. Old anti-Jewish decrees were expanded and Jews were compelled to wear the Yellow Patch, the "Badge of Shame", to distinguish them from Christians. It was enforced in France, England, Germany and later in Hungary. The Pope also originated the Doctrine of Transubstantiation, in which the wafer (Host) and wine in the Eucharist are believed to become the blood and flesh of Jesus. This led to the infamous Host Desecration libels of the next few centuries.



1500: Louis XII of France and Ferdinand II of Aragon sign The Treaty of Granada in which they agree to divide the Kingdom of Naples between them. The treaty did not hold and Ferdinand would not gain control of Naples until 1510 at which time he would expel the Jews, following the same pattern he adopted in 1492.    



1651: The Cossacks are forced to accept a peace treaty dictated by John Caimir, the Polish King.  One of the terms of the treaty, was a guarantee that Jews could settle anywhere in the Ukraine and could hold property on lease.  Chmeilnicki, the leader of the Cossack uprising would soon break the treaty and the violence would resume again.



1711: Birthdate of Benjamin Mendez Pacheo a New York merchant, the uncle of Isaac M. Seixas and husband of Judith Seixas who “donated money for the erection of the first synagogue of Congregation Shearith Israel and for the steeple on Trinity Church



1711(29th of Cheshvan: Rabbi Moses Hefez (Gentili) author of Melekhet Mahashevet, passed away.



1736: The Will of Isaac Franks, the brother of Isaac and Aaron Franks, all three of whom were”anmed as contributors two the fund for part of the new synagogue in New York in 1730” was probated in London today.



1766: In Philadelphia, PA, Moses Mordecai from Bonn, Germany and Elizabeth "Esther" [Whitlock] Mordecai from England gave birth to their third son Joseph Mordecai who moved to Virginia before finally settling in Charleston, SC.



1792: Birthdate of Mary Anne Evans, who gained fame as Mary Anne Disraeli, 1stVicountess Beaconsfield, the wife of Benjamin Disraeli.



1803(26th of Cheshvan, 5564) Eighty-one year old Raphael Cohen who served as Chief Rabbi of Alton-Hamburg-Wandsbek passed away today.



1807: In Charleston, SC, Rebecca Phillips married Josiah Moses this evening.



1807: Nathan ben Yedhuda and Sara bat Chaim were married today at the Great Synagogue.



1813: During the War of 1812, Mordecai Myers of Newport, Rhode Island, was wounded “while leading the Thirteenth Pennsylvania Infantry at the Battle of Chrysler’s Farm” which was fought on the Canadian side of the St. Lawrence River



1813: Mordecai Davis married Esther Bendahn at the Great Synagogue today.



1819(23rd of Cheshvan): Rabbi Joseph Raphael Hazzan, a native of Smyrna who came to Palestine in 1811 where served as a Rabbi at Hebron and then Jerusalem who was the father of four rabbis and the grandfather of two more – Hyyim Palaggi and Israel Moses Hazan, passed away today.



1820: Today, “Philadelphia educator and social activist Rebecca Gratz wrote to her sister-in-law Maria Gist Gratz in Kentucky” saying “One of the curses of slavery is the entire dependence the poor mistress is reduced to when she is rich enough to have all her wants supplied by numerous servants.”



1821: Birthdate of Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Dostoyevsky”s anti-Semitic views were revealed in The Diary of a Writer.



1830 (26th of Cheshvan): Rabbi Raphael Yekutiel Zalman author of Torat Yekutiel passed away



1835: One day after he had passed away, Henry Ezekiel, the son of Abraham and Sarah Ezekiel and the husband of the former Betsy Levy and father of Ellen Ezekiel was buried today at the Exert Jewish Cemetery.



1839: At, Lexington, founding of Virginia Military Institute (VMI), “the oldest state supported military college” in the United States. Moses Jacob Exekiel, who joined his fellow cadets at the Battle of New Market in 1864, was the first Jew to attend the academy.



1840: In New York, Esther Nathan, the daughter of Isaac and Sarah Nathan became Esther Lazarus when she married Moses Lazarus with whom she had several children the most famous of whom as the poet Emma Lazarus.



1842: Salomon Grätz and Henrietta Grätz gave birth to attorney Louis Alexander Gratz, the Mayor of North Knoxville, TN and a Major in the Union Army serving with the Army of the Cumberland and fighting at the Battle of Chickamauga with the 6th Kentucky Cavalry.



1848: In Moravia, Elijah Karpeles and his wife gave birth to historian and editor Gustav Karpeles.



1849: Birthdate of Kherson, Ukraine native Maximilian Bern the novelist whose first work was Auf Schwankem Grunde which seemed to open the road to success in Berlin but was actually the highpoint of a life that ended with suicide in the 1920’s that was driven, in part, by the hyperinflation of the time.



1851: Reverend Henry Giles delivered at lecture at the Mercantile Library Association entitled “The Hebrew Man, or the Man of Faith." Giles "gave a clear analysis of Hebrew laws, showing that the thought they seemed extremely sever, yet provisions was always made to mitigate or avert them. He contended that "The Hebrew man stands out among ancient men as the special recipient of religion -- among modern men as its special witness, and often as its special martyr.  As the man of Faith, the, he may be considered, first, as the man of theocracy; second as the man of tradition....His mere existence is evidence of vitality, and strength and honor."



1852: Rabbi Jonas Wiesner and Estra (Therese) Wiesner gave birth to Leopold Wiesener.



1852: Tonight a number of citizens of the Jewish persuasion, met at Constitution Hall, to celebrate the Fiftieth Anniversary of the "HEBRA HASED V. AMET," a society originally established, and still sustained, by Benevolent Israelites, for the purpose of aiding the sick of their faith who need aid, and to bury the dead according to the rites and ceremonies of the Jewish persuasion. George Henriques chaired the event.  He was assisted by Isaac Philips, the President of the Association.



1853: One day after he had passed away, Philip Magnus was buried today at the Lauriston Road Jewish Cemetery.



1853: The Jewish Chroniclereported that in Jersey, Alfred Alexander Jones of Quality Court, Chancery Lane was elected to represent the synagogue in London.



1855: Philosopher Soren Kierkegaard passed away.



http://pietyonkierkegaard.com/category/kierkegaard-and-the-jews/



1857: In the UK, the will of John Abrahams, a member of Bevis who worked as manufacturer of jewelry, upholsters, cabinets and furniture was probated today.



1857: Morris Rosenbach and Isabella Polock, the parts of collector and rare books expert Abraham Simon Wolf Rosenbach were marred today.



1860: First Jewish wedding takes place in Buenos Aires Argentina.



1862: During the Civil War, Jacob Miller, a Corporal serving with Company H of the 61st Regiment was discharged from the Army today because of the injuries he had sustained when wounded while fighting a Malvern Hill during McClellan’s ill-fated Peninsular Campaign.



1863: Mrs. Sarah Brydges Willyams passed away today.  She left her considerable estate to Benjamin Disraeli “in testimony of her affection for him and in approval and admiration of his efforts vindicate the race of Israel…”



1864: Birthdate of Alfred Hermann Fried, Austrian born pacifist and winner of the 1911 Nobel Peace Prize.



http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/alfred-fried



1864: During the Civil War Corporal Jacob Frank completed his six months of service with Company C of the 197thRegiment.



1872(10th of Cheshvan, 5633): Thirty-one year old Annetta Luzzati Foa, the wife of Professor Giuseppe Foa, chief rabbi and Knight of the Crown of Italy, passed away today.



1874: The Times of London reported approvingly on the judicial performance of Sir George Jessel who disdained the “proverbial slowness” of others serving in the judiciary.  Jessel cleared cases quicker and with more accuracy than his colleagues.



1874: “A Rabbi’s Scientific Expedition, published today traced the life of Mardochée abi Serour the son of a poor Moroccan Jewish family whose travels took him to Palestine where his studies earned him the title of Rabbi.  He traveled to Timbuktu where he established the first Jewish counting-house which he ran successfully for ten years until his caravans were attacked leaving him penniless. Mardochée eventually made his way to Paris where he convinced the French government to provide financial support for an expedition to Timbuktu that will combine commerce with scientific inquiry.



1878:  It was reported today that Dr. E. M. Snow’s Annual Vital Statistics Report shows that only two Jews were married in Providence, Rhode Island.  This ranks them at the bottom of the list along with the members of the Mormons.



1882: It was reported today that following riots in the suburbs of Vienna, the police tore down posters from the lampposts reading “Down with the Jews.”



1883: It was reported today that the district attorney in Troy, NY, will prosecute an unnamed Jewish merchant for bigamy if he goes ahead with his planned marriage.  The Polish Jewish merchant said he plans on marrying a Jewess from New York City because he has received a bill of divorce from a religious tribunal.  The DA does not recognize their authority in this matter.



1883: “By Direction of the Grand Lodge No. 1, of the Independent Order of the Free Sons of Israel, Julius Harburger, the District Grand Master, will send Sir Moses Montefiore a letter congratulating on him on the celebration of his 99th birthday.”



1883: Birthdate of Judge William F. Bleakly, who during his unsuccessful bid to defeat Governor Lehman in 1936 smeared David Dubinsky as a “Red” the sobriquet for being a Communist at a time when the anti-Semites were making the unwarranted connection between Communism and Judaism.



1884: It was reported today that Mt. Sinai Hospital in NYC is planning a reception to introduce its recently completed wards.



1884: “Mr. Irving” published today highlights the month-long appearance of Henry Irving and Ellen Terry who bring an added dimension to their respective portrayals of Shylock and his daughter Portia in “The Merchant of Venice.”  Irving, a noted English actor portrays Shylock in a manner that is “delightful” for its “completeness, beauty” and “scholarship.” 



1884: Counselor John H. Bird is scheduled to play the role of Shylock, the Jew in the Mimosa Dramatic Society’s performance of “The Merchant of Venice.”



1885: The funeral of Albert Cardozo, attorney, jurist, leader of the Sephardic Jewish community and father of future Supreme Court Justice, was scheduled to take place at 10:30 this morning in NYC.



1885: Birthdate of General George Patton, Jr. Regardless of how you may about the career of Old Blood and Guts” and allegations that he was an anti-Semite, many Jews will always remember Patton as the leader of the troops that liberated Ohrdruf, a sub-camp of Buchenwald, the first concentration camp liberated by American troops. (There is a note of irony that the Warrior General was born on the date that would become synonymous with “Peace In Europe.”



1885: It was reported today that Referee hearing the suit for divorce filed by Mrs. Clara Bronner Waterman against her husband B. Frank Waterman.  The Watermans were married in a synagogue in Syracuse but she moved back to New York City after he suffered financials reversals and stopped supporting her and their children.



1886: It was reported today that all of the students escaped unharmed when a night school for Jewish children caught fire in New York City.  It was determined that the fire was started by a kerosene stove in the basement of the building occupied by Joseph Bluestone, his wife and child all of whom escaped from the flames.



1887: Albert Parsons, the husband of Lucy Parsons who addressed the Jewish dominated the Jewish dominated Chicago Tailor’s Union on the danger of overly powerful capitalists, was hung today for his alleged role in the Haymarket Riot.



1888: Birthdate of Stefan Lux the  Jewish Czech journalist, who committed suicide in the general assembly room of the League of Nations during its session to alert the world on the perils of German anti-Semitism.



1888: Two days after he had passed away, four month old George Ernest Leverson, the son of Ernest Leverson and the former Ada Esther Beddington, was buried today at the Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.



1888: It was reported today that Acting Grand Master Julius Harburger addressed the 400 people who attended the 20th anniversary celebration of the Free Sons of Israel.



1888: It was reported today that the benefit council held for the Hebrew Sheltering and Guardian Society was well-attended and raised “a neat sum.”



1889: It was reported that new wards have been added to the Home For Aged and Infirm Hebrews to meet the needs for the “exceedingly old and infirm patients.” This latest addition to the building and improvement to the grounds cost $24,000 and was brought to fruiting under the leadership of Simon Borg and the Building Committee.



1889 The Young Men’s Hebrew Association is scheduled to host its “first informal entertainment of the season” tonight at the Vienna Hall in New York City.



1889: Washington joins the Union as the 41st state. Isadore Friedlander, a trader in Washington during its territorial days, gained fame and notoriety when he married an Indian princess named Sken-What-Ux who was also known as Elizabeth.  According to one source, “in her later days she became affectionately known as ‘Grandmother Elizabeth’ Friedlander.” Edward S. Salomon, a decorated hero of the Civil War and one of the famed Salomon cousins all of whom became generals in the Union Army, served as governor of Washington territory for two years.  Bailey Gatzert served as mayor of Seattle during the 1870’s. Gatzert had married Babette Schawbacher. Her three brothers had settled in Walla Walla, Washington where they prospered as merchants becoming leaders of the communities in Walla Walla and Seattle.  Babette is described as the first woman (not just the first Jewish woman) to establish a home on the northwestern frontier.  The ups and downs of the Schawbacher clan, which played an active role in Washington’s secular and Jewish communities until the 1970’s, is a saga worthy of a made for television movie or HBO special.



1891(10th of Cheshvan, 5652): “Hungarian oculist” Ignaz Hirschler, “who was made a life member of the Hungarian House of Magnates by the Emperor Franz Joseph and who “was the intellectual leader of the Jewish community in Hungary” passed away today.



1890: Today Rabbi Samuel Schulman married Emma Wienberg with whom he “had four children: Mitchell Simon, Aubry Aaron, Walter Harris and Dorothy.



1891: Birthdate of Lilya Yuryevna Brik, the Moscow born Jewess who was married to Osip Brik, the Jewish-Russian author.



1893: Birthdate of Clarence D. Chamberlain who flew Charles Albert Levine to Europe in what would make the Jewish businessman, the first “passenger” to fly the Atlantic.



1893: By special request the band from the Hebrew Orphan Asylum is scheduled to play this evening at Mr. McCrow’s Flower Show, a major New York City social event.



1894: Birthdate of Aaron Avshalomov who fled pogroms and revolutions in Russia in the beginning of the 20th century, went to China where he entered the world of Shanghai's academia and trained a number of young Chinese musicians in classical music, who in turn became leading musicians in contemporary China. He moved to Portland Oregon and was the father of composer Jacob Avshalomov, conductor of the Portland Junior Symphony (now called the Portland Youth Philharmonic Orchestra) from 1953-1994.



1894: The London Daily News reported that the total number of Jews leaving Russia in 1894 will total 250,000 by the end of the year.



1894: A “fire was discovered at 11:10 o’clock” tonight on the first floor of a tenement at 80 Henry Street which is occupied by 20 families most of whom are Jewish.



1894: Professor Felix Adler delivered the first in a series of lecture on “the religion of humanity” at the Society of Ethical Culture entitled “It’s Dawn In Palestine.”



1894: A fund raiser was held tonight at the Lenox Lyceum for the benefit of Beth Israel Hospital, “the poorest of the three Jewish hospitals in New York.”



1895: Birthdate of Gertrude Wald Kaphan, the sister of Nobel Prize winning Professor Dr. George Wald and the wife of Dr. Ludwig Kaphan who “was a founder and former president of the Women’s International ORT (Organization for Rehabilitation Through Training” and “a consultant on problems facing Jewish youth in Africa, Europe and Israel.”



https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1968/07/09/77093676.pdf



1897: The Education Committee of Jews’ College met this evening in the office of the Chief Rabbi



1897: Today, in New York City, Miss Julia Richman, the Principal of Grammar School 77 will celebrate “the 25thanniversary of her first appointment as a teacher in the public schools.  In addition to her work as a public school educator, Miss Richman is a champion of improving the quality of Jewish education as can be seen in her works as the Director of the Hebrew Free School Association, Vice President of the Jewish Religious School Union and “Chairman of the National Committee on Sabbath School Work of the Council of Jewish Women.



1897: According to reports published today during the past year the United Hebrew Charities of New York raised $135, 348.93 and spent $133,680.97 providing aid and assistance.  The society spent $38, 210.24 in relief work while expending additional sums for 16,420 free burials and working to obtain employment for almost 6,600 people.



1897(16th of Cheshvan, 5658): Rabbi Sabato Morais passed away. Rabbi Sabato Morais was the spiritual leader of Philadelphia's Spanish and Portuguese Congregation Mikveh Israel from 1851 until his death in 1897. To many in his community, the Italian-born Morais epitomized the idealized traits of a sage: piety, humility, and wisdom.



http://personal.stevens.edu/~llevine/sabato_morais.pdf



1898: Today, Mr. Stern of the firm of Stern and Jackson which had purchased the property on Clinton Street that had been home Ohab Zedek for fifty years following a mortgage foreclosure,  proposed to sell the property back to the congregation for $66,000 which the congregants said would be impossible that the “sanctuary would have to go.



1899: In Paris, the police raided the offices of the La Croix the daily newspaper published by the Assumptionist priests which was “the principal vehicle for the transmission of the Catholic Church’s anti-Semitism during the late 19th century.”



1899: A list of the editors of compiling “The Jewish Encyclopedia” which is to be published by Funk & Wagnalls showed Dr. Isidiore Singer of New York City “who is the author of several books on the Jewish question” as being the managing editor.



1899: In New York, Ida Japhe and advertising executive Samuel Knopf gave birth to Edwin H. Knopf who pursued a career in film after working for his brother’s publishing house – Alfred Knopf.



1899: “Florodora,” a musical with lyrics and music by Paul Rubens opened in London at the Lyric Theatre.



1899: “In Re Haym Salomon – The Loan Never Returned “published today



1900: In Lithuania, Hannah Rivkin and Abraham Saks gave birth to Emil Solomon (Solly) Sachs who gained fame as English labor leader Emil Solomon Sachs.



http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/emil-solomon-sachs



1900: Birthdate of Nat Holman’s younger brother Aron Holman who played forward on the 1920 NYU championship basketball team.



1901: The Charles Frohman production “Quality Street,” a comedy in four acts written by the same author who created Peter Pan opened today at the Knickerbocker Theatre in New York.



1901: Birthdate of Helen Faith Kahn, the daughter of Jewish immigrants from Poland, who would gain famed as Helen Reichert, the graduate of Cornell University who founded The Round Table of Fashion Executives.



1901: Birthdate of Bensison Gotlob, the native of Pologne, France who was on board Convoy 25 that left Drancy for Auschwitz in August of 1942.



1903: Birthdate of Sam Spiegel.  Born in Galicia, Spiegel enjoyed a successful career in Europe until the rise of the Nazis.  He left Germany and came to the United States.  He is remembered as the producer of several cinematic hits including “On the Waterfront” and “Bridge Over The River Kwai.”



1903: Herzl writes the "Letter to the Jewish People".



1905: On New York’s Lower East Side a meeting at Capitol Hall tonight raised $2,000 for the Relief Fund Committee which had been formed to aid those suffering from the massacre of Jews in Russia.



1906: Eighty-one prominent Jewish Americans met at the Hotel Savoy in New York and established the American Jewish Committee.



https://www.ajc.org/



https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/the-american-jewish-committee/



1906: Birthdate of “Theodore Gottlieb, who as Brother Theodore performed apocalyptic one-man shows about life, death and broccoli in Greenwich Village nightclubs to dazzling and disturbing effect.” (As reported by Douglas Martin)



1910: Birthdate of Israel Scheib who gained fame as Israel Elad, leader of Lehi. He described his activities from 1938 in The First Tithe which was finally published in English by the Jabotinsky Institute in 2008. He passed away at his home in Jerusalem in January of 1996.



1910: A Jew, Zeki Effendi Hayon, was appointed Inspector of Finance for the Ottoman Empire.

1911: Jewish colony of Petach-Tikvah in Palestine passes a resolution to contribute 1,000 Francs to the Ottoman military towards defense of the [Turkish] country.



1911: It was reported that in Camden, NJ the Sons of Israel has chosen Samuel Albert as the President of the Board of Education governing the congregation’s Hebrew school.



1912(1st of Kislev, 5673): Rosh Chodesh Kislev



1912(1st of Kislev, 5673): Seventy year old Lithuanian native Hinde Margolis, the daughter of  David Aryeh Leib Zirilstein and Kaila Bernstein and the wife of Isaac Margolis passed away today in the Bronx.



1912: The Jewish Consumptives’ Relief Society headquartered in Denver continued their 8th annual meeting for a second day in New York City.



1912: Birthdate of Cleveland, OH native and Western Reserve University alumnus Morris Abrams the president of Curtis Industries, “a founder of Albert Einstein College of Medicine and the Technion” and an advocate for a strengthened United Nations.



https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1963/09/17/89546923.pdf



1914: In New York, “Ida (née Miller), a British Jewish immigrant, and  Barney Fast,a Ukrainian Jewish immigrant whose name was shortened from Fastovsky upon his arrival in America” gave birth to author Howard Fast who is known to many as the author of Spartacus, the historical novel that provided the inspiration for a movie and television series.



https://spartacus-educational.com/USAfast.htm



https://www.notablebiographies.com/newsmakers2/2004-Di-Ko/Fast-Howard.html



1914: Birthdate of Jacob C. Hurewitz, “Columbia University professor whose voluminous research, belief in the importance of local histories and evenhanded scholarship contributed depth and complexity to the emerging field of Middle Eastern studies starting in 1950.” (As reported by Douglas Martin)



1914: “Sell Stamps to Aid Jews” published today described a plan of the Central Committee for the relief of Jews” to issue “self-taxation stamps to storekeepers and others who will then sell them to their customers and use them on their business letters.”



1914: It was reported today that according to Dr. Alexander von Nuber de Pereked, the Austro-Hungarian Consul General…there were more than 400,000 Jewish refugees from Galicia, Poland and other parts of the war zone in Vienna and Budapest nearly of” who “were in need of immediate relief.”



1915: In the Bronx, ”Hillel Jacobson and the former Pauline Shainmark, Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe” gave birth to Anna Jacobson who would gain fame as “Anna J. Schwartz, a research economist who wrote monumental works on American financial history in collaboration with the Nobel laureate Milton Friedman..” (As reported by Robert D. Hershey, Jr)



1915: In a case of Jew versus Jew “German Jews Indignant” published today described the anger of the German members of the Alliance Israelite Universille over a circular sent by its French Secretary General which has led to the decision to “dissolve relations with the International Society until full satisfaction is given.”



1915: While in a hospital in England, Corporal Zalman Cogan wrote today about the impact Second Lieutenant Alex Grodsky’s death had on the members of the Zion Mule Corps including its commander Colonel Patterson. ‘He had been an officer and at the same time best friend of all the soldiers. Owing to his knowledge of English he was the intermediary between us and the Colonel … I never heard from him one complaint … an honest and just man …we have lost one of the best men of the Corps …promoted in the field to Lieutenant.’ (Jewish Virtual Library)



1916: “Ralph Horween (born Ralph Horwitz) kicked a 35-yard field goal to lead Harvard over previously unbeaten Princeton



1916: Herman Bernstein, the editor of the American Hebrew said “that Poland will again become an independent nation after the present European war, whether or  not the Central Powers make good their recent promise to grant her independence” and “that the position of the many of Jews in Poland might be very precarious under the new regime unless steps were taken immediately to insure them equal rights with other citizens of the new country.”



1916: It was announced today that “a campaign to raise $10,000,000 for the relief of Jews in the war zones of Europe” under the auspices of the Joint Distribution Committee for the Relief of Jewish War Suffers will officially begin on December 21 with a meeting in Carnegie Hall.



1916: The triennial convention of the national council of Young Men’s Hebrew and Kindred Associations continued to meet for a second day in New York City.



1917: Louis Marshall presided over “the Eleventh Annual Meeting of the American Jewish Committee at the Hotel Astor in New York City.”



1917: Birthdate of Eliezer Henkin the son of a rabbi and Talmudic scholar who gained fame as “Louis Henkin, a legal scholar often credited with creating the field of human rights law and the author of classic works on constitutional law and the legal aspects of foreign policy…”



1918: The Western Allies and the Germans signed an Armistice that signified the official end of World War I with an Allied victory. Out of the estimated 1,506,000 Jewish soldiers in all the armies approximately 170,000 were killed and over 100,000 cited for valor. In Germany alone over 100,000 Jews fought for the Fatherland with 12,000 killed. According to Winston Churchill some 60,000 Jews had fought in the Armed Forces of the British Empire.  Of these 2,324 gave their lives for the cause and 6,350 were wounded.  Five Jewish soldiers won the Victoria Cross, Britain’s highest decoration and another 1,533 won other awards for bravery.  Considering the small size of the Jewish population, Churchill described the Jewish participation as disproportionately high for such a small number of people.



1918: Among those who breathed a sigh of relief that the war was over was Saul Adler, the son of Russian Jewish immigrants who was born in Pittsburgh, PA and who proudly kept the marksman’s medal he earned as a Marine long after the war was over.



1918(7th of Kislev, 5679): At 10:45 am, 15 minutes before the Armistice on the Western Front was to go into effect, Battery D, 2nd Battalion, 129th Field Artillery of the American Expeditionary fired its last barrage.  The unit was commanded by Captain Harry S. Truman, the man who consider himself as a modern day Cyrus for the role he played 30 years later during the creation of the state of Israel and included in its ranks his friend Eddie Jacobson who would boldly plead for President Truman’s support of the Jewish state 



1918: Rabbi Hyman Gerson Enelow “submitted a report to the Jewish Welfare Board and the people of Temple Emanu-El today” which “set forth in details his activities” starting with July 18, 1918 which was when he arrived in France.



1918:  Birthdate of Stubby Kaye. The chubby, cherubic Kaye played in a wide variety of hits including “Guys & Dolls,” “Lil' Abner” and “Cat Ballou.”



1918: Józef Piłsudski comes to Warsaw and assumes supreme military power in Poland. Poland regains its independence. “As one of his first acts as chief of state, he assured a delegation of Jewish leaders of his full-heated commitment to their people’s security.” But the Poles did not share Pilsudski’s enlightened views.  As a wave of xenophobia in general, and anti-Semitism in particular, swept the re-born nation of Poland, Pilsudski gave into to pressure to diminish the role of the Jewish people.  Pilsudski would become disgusted with Polish political life and return to serving as chief of the Army.  In the mid-twenties he was brought back to political power in a bid to bring peace to the nation.  At the time of his return, conditions improved for the Jews.  However, with the advent of the Great Depression, anti-Semitism returned in full force.



1918:  In Cedar Rapids, Iowa, William L. Shirer, who was in an officer training unit watched the Armistice celebrations with a sense of disappointment because he would not be able to respond to Wilson’s call to fight in the “War to end all Wars.”  Shirer would see the face of war as covered the rise of Adolph Hitler and the opening years of WW II for CBS News and write two classics on the subject - Berlin Diary and The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich.


 


1918: As WW I comes to an end, “at least thirty nine Utah Jews” had joined the armed forces.


1919: “The first Armistice Day in Jerusalem” was celebrated today on a cloudless, sunny day by an outdoor party hosted by Lady Watson and Mrs. Popham which brought “together for the first time in the history of Jerusalem representatives of all races and religions” in a public event.


1920: Birthdate of Chaike Belchatowska Spiegel, the Warsaw native who would become a fighter during the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.  Spiegel was one of the few who survived the fighting and settled in Montreal after the war.



1920: The Triennial Convention of the Council of Jewish Women continued to meet in Denver at the Brown Hotel.



1920: The seventh annual convention of the Mizrachi Organization of the United States and Canada came to a close in Baltimore, MD.



1921: Vladimir Jabotinsky, organizer of the Jewish Legion, which served under General Allenby in Palestine, arrives in New York on the SS Olympic with a delegation of European Zionists headed by Nahum Sokolow.



1921: “Violets” a silent melodrama co-starring Eugen Berg was released in Germany today.



1922 (20th of Cheshvan): Composer Abraham Baer Birnbaum passed away.



1922: The Executive Committee of the American Jewish Committee met for the sixth time this year.



1922: After having won the British Middleweight title in June Ted “Kid” Lewis won the European Middleweight title.



1923: Today at the Klaw Theatre, “the Lenox Quartet gave the first performance of Ernest Bloch's Piano Quintet No. 1.”



1923: Today, “the Maccabean Hall (also known as the Jewish War Memorial) in Darlinghurst Rod, Darlinghurst in Sydney was officially opened by Sir John Monash.”



1924: The Martin Beck Theatre which will be renamed the Al Hirschfeld Theatre in 2003 opened in New York City.



1925: “The Gentleman Without a Residence” a silent comedy film starring Paul Otto who will commit suicide in 1943 when his Jewish origins were discovered was released in Germany today.



1926: Birthdate of Yitzhak Arad “a Lithuanian-born Israeli historian and retired IDF brigadier general. A veteran of the Nazi-era Jewish resistance movement in ghetto; partisan, he has researched, lectured, and published extensively on the Holocaust.”



1926: “Chaste Susanne” a silent comedy film starring Otto Wallburg was released in Germany today.



1927: GUS magnate Sir Isaac Wolfson, 1st Baronet and his wife gave birth to Sir Leonard Gordon Wolfson who would become 2nd Baronet in 1991.



http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/leonard-wolfson-businessman-and-philanthropist-1990944.html



1927: “Turkish Delight” a silent comedy co-starring Rudolph Schildkraut was released in the United States today.



1928: In Omaha, Nebraska, Russian-Jewish immigrants “Sonia (née Feldman) and Hymie Zorinsky” gave birth to U. of Nebraska graduate Edward Zorinsky, the Mayor of Omaha and when elected Senator , “the first Jew to be elected to a statewide office.



https://www.nytimes.com/1987/03/08/obituaries/edward-zorinsky-58-dies-us-senator-from-nebraska.html



1928: In Vienna, at the Vienna University, “groups of Christian students who favored the return of the monarchy attacked Jewish students, including the girls, throwing them downstairs, beating them with sticks while shouting “Down with the Jews! Down with the Jewish Republic.”



1928: In Jerusalem, “memorial services were held “today” at the British military cemetery” and “wreaths were laid on the graves of soldiers who fell on the Palestine front” as part of the commemoration of the tenth anniversary of the Armistice ending the World War.



1928: In the Bronx, “Adolfo Socolovsky, an Argentine who had trained as a classical violinist, and the former Sarah Mindich” gave birth to Saint Socolow, who under the name Sandy Socolow became a leading executive of CBS news during its “golden years.”



http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/04/business/media/sandy-socolow-cbs-newsman-during-heady-days-dies-at-86.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=0



https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/sandy-socolow-news-producer-for-walter-cronkite-at-cbs-dies-at-86/2015/02/02/5824b2a8-aaf1-11e4-abe8-e1ef60ca26de_story.html



1930: In Brooklyn, Polish Jewish immigrants “Ethel (Teichtheil) and Meyer Spiewak” gave birth to Mildred Spiewak who gained fame as MIT professor Mildred Dresselhaus, “the recipient of numerous awards including the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the National Medal of Science, the Enrico Fermi Award and the Vannevar Bush Award.”



https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/mildred-dresselhaus-physicist-dubbed-queen-of-carbon-dies-at-86/2017/02/22/3355d3a2-f8a7-11e6-be05-1a3817ac21a5_story.html?utm_term=.176059ee9105



1930: Patent number US1781541 was awarded to Albert Einstein and Leó Szilárd for their invention, the Einstein refrigerator.



1933: In Cleveland, Ohio, Helen Rosenfeld and Joseph Lewis, who co-founded the Progressive Mutual Insurance Company, gave birth to Peter Benjamin Lewis the insurance mogul who was also a noted philanthropist.



http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2013/11/peter_b_lewis_dies.html



1934: Following today’s meeting of the executive board of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations “200 leaders of Reform Jewry” attended a memorial service at Temple Emanu-El for the late Ludwig Vogelstein, the industrialist and philanthropist who chairman of the board of the executive board of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations at the time of his death.



1934: The landscape of the modern town of Tiberias “was shaped by today’s great flood.”



1934: Father Coughlin, the anti-Semitic pro-fascist Detroit priest announces the formation of the National Union for Social Justice.



1936: In Brooklyn, “dance band musician Mal Keller and his wife Reva” gave birth to James Walter Keller who gained fame as “composer, songwriter and record producer” Jack Keller whose musical partners included Howard Greenfield.



1936: The officers and board members of the Jewish Education Association tonight attended a testimonial dinner at the Savoy-Plaza hosted by Harry H. Liebovitz in honor of Mark Eisner, chairman of the Board of Higher Education of the City of New York.



1936: In Los Angeles, Lupita Tovar a Roman Catholic Mexican born actress and Paul Kohner  a Czech Jewish movie producer from Bohemia gave birth to Gold Globe award winning actress Susanna “Susan”Kohner.



1936: In Belgrade, Yugoslavian, “Prince Paul, the Regent, gave an audience to Dr. Nachum Goldman, the president of the Jewish World Congress” during which he “expressed a strong interest in Zionism and grief over the present maltreatment of Jews in Central Europe” said that “my dynasty has always regarded Jews as loyal and trustworthy citizens.”



1936: Armistice Day exercises held this evening at Temple Rodeph Sholom under the auspices of the Jewish War Veterans of the United States, the Metropolitan Conference of B’nai B’rith and the Men’s Association of Temple Rodeph Sholom were opened with an invocation by Rabbi Wendell A. Phillips and included a speech by former Supreme Court Justice Joseph M. Proskauer who reviewed the commendable  record of Jews during the World War and assailed the anti-Semites who smear Jews with the claim that all Jews are Communists.



1936: The Maccabee champion soccer team which had been playing exhibition matches in the United States since September 14th, departed for home on the French liner Normandie.



1936: The Peel Commission was sent to Palestine to investigate the Arab riots. Though Peel judged Arab claims to be baseless, he encouraged partition into three separate Arab and Jewish states. This, he claimed, would silence Arab objections to a Jewish state.



1936:  The members of the Peel Commission arrived in Jerusalem and since it  was Armistice Day, they attended the memorial services at the British Military Cemetery on Mt. Scopus. 



1937:  Birthdate of sportscaster Warner Wolf.  Yes, Jewish boys can grow up to be something besides lawyers, accountants, doctor or dentists.



1938: Jews are killed and injured during an anti-Semitic pogrom at Bratislava, Slovakia.



1938: After having escaped from Vienna in March, seventeen year old Leo Bretholz  finally found a safe haven in Antwerp where he spent the next 18 months learning to become an electrician.



1938(17th of Cheshvan, 5699):Fifty-year old Jesse Sampter an influential Zionist educator, a poet, and a Zionist pioneer passed away at Kibbutz Givat Brenner. Born into a highly assimilated home in New York City, Sampter was influenced by Henrietta Szold, Josephine Lazarus, Mary Antin, Mordecai Kaplan and others to become an ardent advocate of Judaism and Zionism. Assuming the role of Hadassah's leading educator, she produced manuals and textbooks and organized lectures and classes. She led Hadassah's School of Zionism, training speakers and leaders for both Hadassah and other Zionist organizations. She also wrote poems and short stories throughout her life that emphasized her primary concerns: pacifism, Zionism, and social justice. Having contracted polio at age thirteen she remained in poor health throughout her life. This did not prevent her from settling in Palestine in 1919 where she helped organize the country's first Jewish Scout camp. Sampter developed a strong commitment to assisting Yemenite Jews, founding classes and clubs especially for Yemenite girls and women who often received no education. At the time of her death, she had established a vegetarian convalescent home at Kibbutz Givat Brenner. Henrietta Szold presided at her funeral.



1938: Erich Kreutzberger and Anna Blumenfeld Neufeld, the parents of Mario Luis Kreutzberger Blumenfeld also known as television personality Don Francisco, escaped to Chile.



1938:The Italian council of ministers announces a series of new anti-Semitic laws:all Jews will get a special notation in their civil records, they are excluded from the military, they are not allowed to employ "Aryan" servants, marriages between Jews and "Aryans" are forbidden, any such marriages that currently exist are annulled, and Jews are forbidden from owning large tracts of land.”



1938: Following Kristallnacht, Heydrich reported to Goering that 815 shops, 29 department stores, and 171 dwellings of Jews had been burned or otherwise destroyed, and that 267 synagogues had been set ablaze or completely demolished (in fact, this was only a fraction of the synagogues destroyed). The selfsame report refers to 36 Jews killed and the same number severely injured, but it was later officially stated that the number killed was 91. In addition, hundreds perished in the concentration camps.



1939: At Franklin Field in Philadelphia, Penn State led by their Team Captain Spike Alter defeated the University of Pennsylvania.



1939: Six hundred Jews are murdered by German troops at Ostrow Mazowiecki, Poland.



1939: Two Jews are among six men and three boys taken from Zielonka, Poland, to be shot in nearby woods.



1939(29th of Cheshvan, 5700): Thirty-eight year old wilderness advocate Robert Marshall, the son of lawyer and Jewish communal leader Louis Marshall who had served as chief of forestry in the Bureau of Indian Affairs, from 1933 to 1937, and head of recreation management in the Forest Service, from 1937 to 1939” passed away unexpectedly today.



http://www.jta.org/1939/11/13/archive/robert-marshall-u-s-forestry-official-dead-at-37-was-son-of-louis-marshall



1939:Under threat of military action from the Nazis, António de Oliveira Salazar issued orders today that consuls were not to issue Portuguese visas to "foreigners of indefinite or contested nationality; the stateless; or Jews expelled from their countries of origin". This order was followed only six months later by one stating that "under no circumstances" were visas to be issued without prior case-by-case approval from Lisbon.


1940: Fifty-five non-Jewish Polish intellectuals are murdered at Dachau, Germany.


1940: German authorities in Poland officially declare the existence of the Warsaw (Poland) Ghetto.


1940:  Birthdate of Barbara Boxer, U.S. Senator from California since 1993.  Born Barbara Levy, Boxer worked her way through the system like any other politician serving a stint in the Marin County Government and the House of Representative before being elected to the Senate.


1941: Sixty-one year old Charles Huntziger, the French general who “was one of the signatories of the anti-Semitic Statute on Jews” which “excluded Jews from the army, press, commercial and industrial activities, and the civil service and were quickly followed by other anti-Semitic laws that ingratiated him with the victorious Nazis died today in a plane crash


1942(2nd of Kislev, 5703): Seventy-four year old who had been sent to Drancy was murdered today at Auschwitz.


1942: Norwegian Protestant bishops in Oslo publicly protest deportations of Norwegian Jews. They state in a letter to Norwegian Prime Minister Vidkun Quisling: "God does not differentiate between people."


1942: Seven hundred forty-five French Jews were shipped to Auschwitz.


1942: As German troops “invaded the Southern Zone and occupied all of France” Leon “Blum could see the troops moving south” which caused him to be concerned about his own well-being as well as that of his future wife Janot.


1942: After the Nazis took over “unoccupied France” today, the Vichy government transferred Jewish resistance fighter Georges Mandel to the Gestapo.


1942: Jews living in the Free Zone of France were ordered to start wearing the Yellow Star.


1942: Until today, following the German occupation of all of France, employees of HICEM which was “an acronym HIAS, ICA and Emigdirect” – the three sponsoring organizations – were at work in all of the French internment camps, including Gurs, which were little more than way-stations on the road to the East and the death camps.


1942: In Newark, Henry and Ruth Wolkstein gave birth to Diane Wolkstein, “a children’s author and folklorist who once served as New York City’s official storyteller.”  (As reported by Paul Vitello)


1942: Varlık Vergisi ("wealth tax" or "capital tax") was levied on the non-Muslims citizens of Turkey including the Jews which was intended to pay for the national defense if the country should enter the war – something which did not happen.


1942: HICEM which was “an acronym HIAS, ICA and Emigdirect” – the three sponsoring organizations –


1943 “The Battle of Russia” the fifth film in the “Why We Fight” series written by Julius and Phillip Epstein was released in the United States today.


1943: Following in the centuries old custom of an individual community creating its own special Purim when it is delivered from great calamity, the Jews of Casablanca celebrated Hitler Purim (1 Kislev) when the city was saved from falling into German hands.  “A Hitler Scroll was written, paraphrasing the traditional Megillah, including the words ‘cursed be Hitler, cursed be Mussolini,’ and naming many of the other Nazi and Fascist leaders.”


1943: On the 25th anniversary of the signing of the Armistice in the forest of Compiegne, German officials take revenge by assembling all 47,000 Jews not yet deported from Theresienstadt ghetto to Birkenau in a large square for an ill-organized “census.” At 4:00 AM the torture began by rousing them all and making them stand in the cold in the city square. As night fell, the Jews stood in a drizzle made more miserable by falling temperatures. The Germans held them until 10 pm at which time the survivors were allowed to seek shelter inside. Drizzle came, the dark of night, and the temperatures lowered.


1943: “What’s Up?” the musical created by Frederick Lowe and Alan Jay Lerner opened on Broadway at the National Theatre.


1944: The leadership of Histadrut condemned the killing of Lord Moyne and condemned the Stern Gang and Irgun as fascist. 


1945: Senator Ralph O. Brewster (Maine) says British-Russian disputes in Middle East may presage another war and urges creation of a Jewish commonwealth in Palestine.


1945(6th of Kislev, 5706): Broadway and cinematic composer, Jerome David Kern passed away.  Kern was born in 1885 to a first generation Jewish family from Germany.  Kern wanted to follow a career in music.  His father wanted him to enter the family business.   In one of his first deals, Kern was sent to buy two pianos.  However, he mistakenly signed an order for two hundred pianos.  When the pianos were delivered, Kern’s father gave in.  Young Jerome pursued his musical education and then followed with a successful career as composer for Broadway and the movies.



1945(6th of Kislev, 5706): Yehoushua Hankin passed away. Born in the Ukraine in 1864, Hankin made Aliyah in 1882 when he moved with his family to Rish Litzion. He was active in making purchasing land on behalf of the World Zionist Organization.  Among his first purchases was the land that would be occupied by Rehovoth.



1946: Nikolai V. Novikov, Soviet ambassador to Washington, suggests that Palestine be given independence from Britain and the area be placed under UN trusteeship.


1947: Vaad Leumi (Jewish National Council) votes to raise money for defense fund against Arab and Jewish terrorists.


1947: Release date for “Gentlemen's Agreement,” the cinema version of Laura Hobson’s novel that dealt with the issue of anti-Semitism with a script by Moss Hart and Elia Kazan and co-starring John Garfield. Daryl Zanuck, who was mistakenly thought to be Jewish produced the movie despite objections from Jewish movie moguls who were afraid of how audiences would react to a movie on this topic.


1948: “Long Is the Road,” “the first German-made film to directly portray the Holocaust” which it examines from the perspective of a Polish Jewish family and a young man who is able to escape while being transported to a Concentration Camp” was released today in the United States.


1948:”Recently ousted Haganah Chief of Staff Yisrael Galili briefed members of the Mapam Political Committee” about reports concerning “the killing of civilians during Operations Yoav and Hiram.”


1951: “An American in Paris” an Oscar winning musical “inspired by George Gershwin’s 1928 orchestral composition,” produced by Arthur Freed, with a script by Alan Jay Lerner and co-starring Oscar Levant was released today in the United States.


1953(4th of Kislev, 5714):Rabbi Louis Ginzberg, a prominent Talmudist and leading figure in the Conservative Movement of Judaism passed away in New York City.



1953(4th of Kislev, 5714): Krakow native Gershom Bader, the son of Izaak Moyzesz Bader and Helene Bader passed away in New York City.
 1954: Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt is scheduled to deliver an address on “Is American Facing World Leadership this evening in San Diego, CA at event sponsored by the Jewish Community Center which is a fund raiser for the organization.


1954: Shearith Israel, the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue, the oldest Jewish congregation In New York City celebrated its 300thanniversary today.


1954(15thof Cheshvan, 5715): Sixty-eight year old German actor and director Reinhold Schünzel who spent WW II in the United States passed away today in Munich.1955: At Touro Infirmary in New Orleans, Alan Smason gets a sister with the arrival in the world of Arlene Smason Weider.


1955(26th of Cheshvan, 5716): Jerry Ross an American lyricist and composer whose works with Richard Adler for the musical theater include The Pajama Game and Damn Yankees, winners of Tony Awards in 1955 and 1956 respectively in both the "Best Musical" and "Best Composer and Lyricist" passed away.



1956:”Samuel Adelman, the Rabbi of Adath Jeshurun Synagogue of Newport News,” who “spent four weeks in Russia this summer as a member of the Rabbinical Council of America Mission to the Soviet Union” is scheduled to “be the guest speaker at a special Jewish Community Center Jewish War Veterans” event today where he will deliver an address entitled “An Eye Witness Account of Conditions Behind the Iron Curtain.”


1956: Sid Gillman’s Los Angeles Rams ended a five game losing streak by defeating the San Francisco 49ers for their second win of the NFL season


1957: The New York Times reported from Jerusalem that “digging in Israel supports the Bible’s accuracy as a historical document.” The contention is based on the recent discovery of a “massive gate” that was “unearthed in Hazor” which “appears to have been built by Solomon.” Further evidence of the Bible's accuracy as a historical document has been uncovered by Israeli archaeologists in their diggings at the site of ancient Hazor


1957(17thof Cheshvan, 5718): Sixty-eight year old Russian native Samuel Kappel, “the last survivor of the three founders of Howard Stores Corporation” and the husband of Minnie Kappel with whom he had four daughters who was “a member of the American Committee for the Weitzman Institute of Industry and Science” and “a fellow Brandeis University.”



1963: Brian Epstein and Ed Sullivan sign a 3 show contract for the Beatles


1964: Murray Schisgal's "Luv," directed by Mike Nichols and co-starring Alan Arkin, Eli Wallach, Gene Wilder and Larry Blyden premieres in New York City.


1965: Birthdate of Chicago native Jason Nidorf “Max” Mutchnik the television producer and writer who has received both an Emmy and a People’s Choice Award.


1966:”Father of Biophilosophy” published today described the plans that Jonas Salk has for the Salk Institute in La Jolla, CA.


1969(1st of Kislev, 5730): Rosh Chodesh Kislev observed for the first time during the Presidency of Richard Nixon.


1971: Neil Simon’s “Prisoner of Second Avenue” premiered in New York City.


1973: The Egyptians and Israelis began negations for the disengagement of forces along the Suez Canal.  When the fighting had stopped, Israeli forces were on the West Bank of the Suez Canal.  They had reached kilometer 101 on the Suez-Cairo Road. The Israelis offered to cross the Canal and to a position 10 kilometers to the east.  Egypt wanted a much deeper withdrawal with Israeli forces taking up positions on a line east of the passes in the Sinai that were key to controlling the entire Peninsula.


1974(26th of Cheshvan, 5736): Seventy-seven year old Jane Ace (born Jane Epstein) the wife of Goodman Ace with whom she created the American radio hit show “Easy Aces” and who made America life with her “Jane-isms” passed away today.



1975: Today, after ignoring the political solution recommended by Professor Zelman Cowen Governor-General Sir John Kerr sacked the Prime Minister.


1979(21st of Cheshvan, 5740): Ukrainian born American composer Dimitri Tiomkin passed away. Tiomkin wrote the scores for countless film classics including Lost Horizon, It’s A Wonderful Life, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and High Noon.  He also wrote themes for popular television westerns including Rawhide and Wild Wild West.



1980: The first phase of the Conference on monitoring the implementation of CSCE or Helsinki agreements opened today in Madrid with Ambassador Max Kampelman heading the U.S. delegation.


1980: “Shogun Assassin,” with a script co-authored by David Weisman who also served as producer was released today in the United States.


1981(14th of Cheshvan, 5742): Eighty-three year old Soviet economist Evsei Grigorievich Liberman whose “wife, Regina Horowitz, pianist and pedagogue, was a sister of the famed pianist Vladimir Horowitz” passed away today.


1982: A gas explosion at an Israeli army headquarters results in 60 deaths.


1984(16th of Cheshvan, 5745): Fifty six year old Ritz Charmetz Davidson the Yale Law School graduate and wife of David Sternheimer Davidson who became “the first woman to serve on the Maryland Court of Appeals.



1987: “Siesta” a film version of the novel of the same name starring Ellen Barkin was released in the United States today.


1988: U.S. premiere of “Iron Eagle II” a film based on Operation Opera, the Israeli bombing of an Iraqi nuclear reactor, co-starring Stuart Margolin and Maury Chaykin.


1991: “Black and White” for which John Landis would help develop the music video was released today.


1992: "The Liberators," a film that portrayed the neglected history of the 761st Battalion, putting considerable stress on the involvement of some of its members at the liberations of two of the most notorious camps in Germany, Dachau and Buchenwald was viewed today. (The film became controversial because of the lack of evidence concerning the liberation of these camps by this unit)


1998: Israel's Cabinet narrowly ratified a land-for-peace agreement with the Palestinians.  Six years later, the world is waiting for the Peace.


1998: ABC broadcast the final episode of “The Secret Lives of Men” a sit-com created by Susan Harris.


1999(2nd of Kislev, 5760): Rosh Chodesh Kislev


1999(2nd of Kislev, 5760): Jacobo Timmerman passed away.  Born in 1923, Timmermanpublished a newspaper in Argentina that publicized human rights violations by the Argentinean government, in particular calling attention to the disappearances of people during that government's "Dirty War". As a result, he was arrested, and during interrogations he was subjected to electric shock treatments, beatings, and solitary confinement. He chronicled his experiences in his 1981 book, Prisoner Without a Name, Cell Without a Number.After his release, he immigrated to Israel.


1999: After almost 21 years of service, David Herbert Samuel ceased to be a member of the British House of Lords.


2000(13th of Cheshvan, 5761): Sgt. 1st Class Avner Shalom, 28, of Eilat, was killed in a shooting attack at the Gush Katif junction in the Gaza Strip.


2001(25th of Cheshvan, 5762): Aharon Ussishkin, 50, head of security at Moshav Kfar Hess, east of Netanya, was shot and killed at the entrance to the moshav on Sunday evening, after being summoned to investigate a suspicious person.


2003: The helipad at the Ted Arison Medical Center in Tel Aviv is used by the Israeli Air Force for the first time.


2003: Today, “in an interview with The Washington Post, Soros said that removing President George W. Bush from office was the "central focus of my life" and "a matter of life and death".


2003: Museum of Jewish Museum in New York presents an exhibition styled “Ours to Fight For: American Jews During the Second World War” The inaugural exhibition for the Robert M. Morgenthau wing, “Ours To Fight For: American Jews in the Second World War” was named the grand-prize winner of the Excellence in Exhibition Competition at the American Association of Museums Annual Meeting in New Orleans. Citing the exhibition's use of the first-person narrative, the judges felt this approach engaged museum visitors and allowed them to make connections with the experiences of soldiers 60 years ago and troops serving today. The exhibition companion volume, Ours To Fight For: American Jewish Voices from the Second World War,chronicles the experience of American Jewish men and women who came together with other Americans to heed their nation's call to arms.


2004: The reunion episode of Israeli sit-com “Krovim Krovim” named "Hamatzav Tzav" was filmed today in the studios of the Israeli Educational Television


2004: Theatre Or presents Voices from the Holy Land-A Festival of Staged Readings of Cutting Edge Plays at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, N.C. Local co-sponsors North Carolina Hillel, the Freeman Center for Jewish Life, Judea Reform Congregation, and Beth Meyer Synagogue. The purpose of the festival is to present the community with unique artistic works from a foreign culture that pose questions of universal urgency, help us reflect about our values in new ways and promote cross-cultural dialogue. All plays are by Israeli artists. The dramatic presentations include:


Hard Love by Motti Lerner:Two young ultra-orthodox newlyweds are forced to divorce when the husband turns his back on religion. Twenty years later, their children fall in love, and the two meet to discuss their children's budding relationship. Can they also rekindle their own? (Director - Joseph Megel)



 Women's Minyan by Naomi Ragen: Chana flees her orthodox home in Mea Shearim, Jerusalem, leaving behind her 12 children, and carrying with her a terrible secret. Two years later, armed with a secular order, she returns to see her children who have now been hidden. She convenes a secular minyan, a trial of 10 women, to judge her fitness to see them. (Director - Joseph Megel)



 The Fist by Misha Shulman: Shauli, a highly-decorated officer, refuses to serve his military duty in the occupied territories, spurring a three generational family debate about what it means to serve and protect. Is conscientious objection justifiable? (Director - Jerome Davis)

The Demonstration by Elisheva Greenbaum: Ambulance sirens interrupt two Israeli sisters, who are arguing the merits of attending a peace rally. When the radio announces that the terrorists have struck a bus, the sisters wait anxiously to learn the fate of one of their daughters.  

Masked Faces by Ilan Hatzor: The play describes the dilemma of three Arab brothers during the Intifada as they wrestle with conflicts between duty, family, survival and principles. The play is a brave attempt by an Israeli playwright to depict the point of view of the "other" side. (Director - John Feltch)



2005: The topsy-turvy world of Israeli politics becomes even more confused. Shimon Peres has been defeated by Amir Peretz in the race to head the Labor Party.  This could bring down the government led by Likud’s Ariel Sharon forcing new national elections.  Since Sharon well might lose the chair of the Likud Party, the elections might include a coaltion party led by Peres and Sharon, two national leaders who cannot control their own political parties. 



2005: “The Constant Gardner” a movie version of the novel by the same name starring Rachel Weisz was released today in the United Kingdom



2005: Right-wing British historian David Irving, who claimed that Adolf Hitler knew nothing about the systematic slaughter of six million Jews, has been arrested in Austria on a warrant accusing him of denying the Holocaust.  Under an Austrian law Holocaust denial is a crime punishable by up to 20 years in prison.


2005: “Zathura” a sci-fi fantasy adventure film directed by Jon Favreau was released in the United States today.


2005: “The Bee Season,” the movie version of Myla Goldberg’s novel of the same name was released in the United States today.


2005: The Princeton University Board of Trustees approved the endowment for S. Daniel Abraham Visiting Professor in Middle East Policy Studies in the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. Daniel C. Kurtzer, former U.S. ambassador to Israel and Egypt was the first one appointed to fill this endowed chair



2006: Members of Congregation Beth-El, gathered, in St. Johnsbury, Vermont, to celebrate their heritage and the many people who have enriched and defended it



2006: Initial screening of Yoav Segal’s “Battle of Cable Street” in selected London cinema houses.



2006: As America honors its veterans on Armistice Day, the Jewish community of Cedar Rapids takes special note of the following who served in uniform:  Harold Becker, Arnold Bucksbaum, Maurice Estes, Bill Gasway, Herman Ginsberg, Bert Katz, Sol Maikon, Oscar Siegel and Ed Spector



2006: The United States vetoed a U.N. Security Council draft resolution today that sought to condemn an Israeli military offensive in the Gaza Strip and demand Israeli troops pull out the territory. U.S. Ambassador John Bolton said the Arab-backed draft resolution was "biased against Israel and politically motivated."



2006(19th of Cheshvan, 5767): Esther Lederberg, pioneering microbial geneticist and wife of Nobel Prize winner Joshua Lederberg passed away at the age of 83. https://www.theguardian.com/science/2006/dec/13/obituaries.guardianobituaries



2007:In Tampa, FL, as part of Jewish Book Day, the JCC, features an afternoon with nationally acclaimed writer Gloria Goldreich, author of Leah's Journey, Dinner with Anna Kareninaand other award-winning books for adults and children.



 2007: At the Jewish Community Center of Greater Washington 38th annual Book Festival, Brad Meltzer discusses his latest novel, The Book of Fate.



2007: The Sunday New York Times and the Washington Post book sections each feature a review of Otto Preminger: The Man Who Would Be King by Foster Hirsch.



2007: On Veteran’s Day, The Cedar Rapids Gazette features an article about the World War II military exploits of Bert Katz the 85 year old businessman, philanthropist and pillar of the Jewish Community.



2007(1st of Kislev, 5768): Rosh Chodesh Kislev – It’s beginning to look a lot like Latke Time.



2008: 90th anniversary of the Armistice that needed the War to End All Wars. The impact of that war is with us to this day in places like Jerusalem, Baghdad and any home in the United States where families mourn the loss of a loved one in Iraq or Afghanistan.



2008: Idina “Menzel released ‘Hope’ benefitting Stand Up To Cancer.”



2008: Wagner College and the Center for Jewish History present “The Pulpit and the "Bully Pulpit":Religion in the 2008 Presidential Campaign in which a panel including Rev. James M. Dunn, PhD, Divinity School, Wake Forest University, Rabbi James Rudin, Senior Advisor on Inter-religious Affairs of the American Jewish Committee, Peter Steinfels, PhD, New York Times columnist, Co-Director, Fordham Center on Religion & Culture, Seymour P. Lachman, PhD, Hugh L. Carey Center for Government Reform, Wagner College, co-author One Nation Under God: Religion in Contemporary American Science, Moderator discussed “How religion affected the 2008 presidential election and voting patterns.”



2008:U.S. Jewish organizational leaders are meeting today with Bahraini King Hamad ibn Issa al-Khalifa, who has introduced democratic reforms in his Persian Gulf island nations; he recently named Houda Nonoo, a Jewish woman, as ambassador to Washington. The meeting is taking place in New York week during an interfaith dialogue held under the auspices of the United Nations and Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah, who has pressed in recent years for greater interreligious understanding despite resistance from his kingdom’s Islamist clerics.



2008:Uri Lupolianski completed his service as Mayor of Jerusalem.



2008: Lyricsby Paul Simon appears on bookstore shelves.  Lyrics spans his entire career from Simon & Garfunkel’s 1964 debut album through this year’s unrealeased songs ‘Rewrite’ and ‘Hard Times.’”



2008:Over 35 percent of eligible voters cast their ballot in the Jerusalem mayoral race by 9:00 p.m. on Tuesday, an indication that opposition leader Nir Barkat and MK Meir Porush of the United Torah Judaism Party will be in for close finish. Incumbent mayors of Afula and Beit Shean had reportedly won re-election as Israelis went to the polls to vote in mayoral elections across the country.



2009:Stephen P. Cohen, the president of the Institute for Middle East Peace and Development, discusses and signs his new book, "Beyond America's Grasp: A Century of Failed Diplomacy in the Middle East," at Politics and Prose Bookstore in Washington, D.C.



2009(24thof Cheshvan, 5770): Seventy-four year old Emanuel Zisman, a former MK and the 2006 recipient of the Yakir Yerushalayim award passed away today.



2009(24thof Cheshvan, 5770): Seventy-eight year old movie and television producer Mavin Minoff, the husband of actress Bonnie Franklin passed away today.



http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/latimes/obituary.aspx?pid=135914438



 



2009:David Makovsky, author of Myths, Illusions, & Peace: Finding a New Direction for America in the Middle East“offers a groundbreaking explanation of how we have repeatedly fallen prey to dangerous myths about the Middle East highlighting those with roots that reach back decades and still persist today” during a session of the 40th Annual Book Festival sponsored by the JCCGW.



2010: Americans observed Veterans Day.  This holiday was originally known as Armistice Day.  It was celebrated on November 11th because on the 11thday of the 11th month at the 11th hour the guns fell silent on the Western Front marking the end of what was then called the Great War.  One person who opposed the Armistice was General John J. Pershing, the commander of the American Expeditionary Force. He wanted the Allies to push forward with great assault on the German Army.  He said that if the war end now, the German Army would march back into Germany as an intact force and the people would never accept the fact that they had been defeated; a fact that was fraught with all sorts of unforeseen consequences.  Apparently Pershing knew what he was talking about, because no sooner had the war ended then the myth that the German Army had not been defeated but had been stabbed in the back began to gain wide currency.  This myth, which features the Jews as prominent backstabbers, would become a staple of right wing politicians including Hitler and his supporters.



2010:In New York City, The National Yiddish Theatre – Folksbiene is scheduled to present the noted Israeli actor Rafael Goldwaser in “New Worlds: A Celebration of I.L. Peretz,” an evening of multi-media one-acts based on the writing of the great Yiddish writer I.L. Peretz.



2010:A 1600 for 1600 rally was held on the mall in Washington, DC this evening. The goal was to attract at least 1600 people to protest against the abduction and continuing imprisonment of Gilad Shalit, who has spent 1600 days in captivity.



2010: “Roy Lichtenstein painting fetches $42.6m at auction” published today described the record setting sale of the Jewish artists work.



http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-11732551



2010:Today Egyptian security forces arrested 25 members of a terror cell who allegedly intended to carry out attacks on Israeli tourists in Sinai. The terrorists were residents of the Egyptian cities of El-Arish, Sheikh Zuwaid and Rafah, according to the report. Earlier on today, Time magazine reported that Egyptian intelligence operatives gave Israel information that led to last week's Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) assassination of an al-Qaida-affiliated terrorist outside Hamas security headquarters in Gaza City.



2010: Mohammed Namnam, 27, a top operative with the Army of Islam, was killed by a missile shot at his car from an Israeli helicopter.



2010:The remains of IAF pilot Maj. Amihai Itkis, 28, and navigator Maj. Emmanuel Levi, 30, whose F16I jet crashed at the Ramon Crater last night, were found this afternoon. IAF commander Major General Ido Nehushtan notified the pilot and navigator's families of their loss. Nehushtan arrived earlier to the scene of the crash so that he could oversee the search for the missing bodies. Army rabbis also arrived to help with the searches of the two servicemen who were feared dead. The IAF found the black box of the jet just a few hours after the discovery of the remains, IAF Brig.-Gen Nimrod Shefer said. The Air Force expressed hope that the black box will help them understand what occurred in the final minutes before the crash.



2010:Today, the  Anti-Defamation League criticized as “completely inappropriate and offensive” remarks by Glenn Beck on his radio and television programs, in which he drew a link between the behavior of US Jewish billionaire investor George Soros as a young boy and the actions of others in sending Jews to death camps during the Holocaust.  On his October 10 radio show, Beck described how Soros, who was born in Hungary to Orthodox Jewish parents, “used to go around with this anti-Semite and deliver papers to the Jews and confiscate their property and then ship them off. And George Soros was part of it. He would help confiscate the stuff. It was frightening. Here’s a Jewish boy helping send the Jews to the death camps.” ADL national director Abe Foxman released a statement slamming the Fox News commentator's criticism of Soros. "Glenn Beck’s description of George Soros’s actions during the Holocaust is completely inappropriate, offensive and over the top.  For a political commentator or entertainer to have the audacity to say – inaccurately – that there’s a Jewish boy sending Jews to death camps, as part of a broader assault on Mr. Soros, that’s horrific," said Foxman. Foxman, a holocaust survivor, added that while he too sometimes disagrees with Soros, known for his support of left-wing causes and occasional criticism of Israel, Beck's comments were unacceptable. "To hold a young boy responsible for what was going on around him during the Holocaust as part of a larger effort to denigrate the man is repugnant. The Holocaust was a horrific time, and many people had to make excruciating choices to ensure their survival. George Soros has been forthright about his childhood experiences and his family’s history, and there the matter should rest," added Foxman.



2011: “Jewish Political Behavior in Europe, Israel, and the United States,” a two-day symposium at the University of Michigan is scheduled to come to an end.



2011: Agudas Achim Congregation is scheduled to host its annual New Member Shabbat Dinner



2011: Charlene Bry, Ellie S. Grossman, Jon Harris and Ari Axelbaum are scheduled to take part in “Missouri’s Own Program” at the St. Louis Jewish Book Festival.



2011: The Miami Marlins owned by Jeffery Loria and led by President David Samson announced their re-branding campaign today.



2011:  The UN Security Council met today in New York behind closed doors to review a report presented on whether the Palestinians meet the criteria for admission to the UN, but did not raise a vote on the issue, nor is it clear when or if such a vote would be brought to the body.


2011: The Dead Sea was not among the winners in the New 7 Wonders of Nature contest despite a high profile campaign on the part of the government, according to a list of provisional results released at about 9:30 p.m. Israel time today. Among the winners, in alphabetical order, were the Amazon of South America, Halong Bay of Vietnam, Iguazu Falls of Argentina and Brazil, Jeju Island of South Korea, Komodo of Indonesia, Puerto Princesa Underground River of the Philippines and Table Mountain of South Africa.Dov Litvinoff, mayor of the Tamar Regional Council, the southern of the two councils that border on the Dead Sea, expressed his disappointment in the loss. “I'm disappointed because we were so close,” Litvinoff told The Jerusalem Post tonight. “We were just in the top 14 but we are also very proud of our Dead Sea and the place that we got after four years of campaigns and 400 nominees. We are among the top 14, so I think it's a great achievement for the place. I think the campaign we had did a lot of good for the Dead Sea and brought it to the center of the table. Of course we are disappointed but we are also proud.” 


2012: Yiddish Vinkl’s 20th Anniversary concert with Cantor Michael Smolash is scheduled to take place at the Sabes Jewish Community Center in Minneapolis, MN.



2012:The largest annual Jewish philanthropic conference in the country - The Jewish Federations of North America’s General Assembly – is scheduled to open in Baltimore, MD.



2012: At the UK Jewish Film Festival, premiere showing of “The Other Son,” a film about a Jewish and Muslim baby who are switched at birth.



2012: “For his Chromatic Silence show,” Wissam Jubran, a resident of Nazareth, “will take the stage with only oud for company.



2012: The 4th Annual International Bazaar sponsored by the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Educational Center is scheduled to come to an end.



2012: Armistice Day – Today marks the 94th anniversary of the end of WW I.  On the 11th day, of the 11thmonth at the 11th hour, the guns fell silent on the Western Front marking the conclusion of what was called “The War To End All Wars.”  For the Jews of Eastern Europe, this would be a farce as tens of thousands more would die in the many wars and revolutions that plagued the old Russian Empire into the 1920’s.  On the other hand, Zionists were heartened by the end of the hostilities which made it possible for Jews who had been expelled from Palestine by the Turks to return to their homes and opened the way for the implementation of the Balfour Declaration.



2012: Veteran’s Day – As the following article points out. Jews have been serving in the military since colonial times



http://www.timesledger.com/stories/2010/45/at_column_berger_20101104.html



2012:Three people were wounded by rocket fire in Sderot during a barrage fired to coincide with the daily commute to work. One man was moderately injured by shrapnel and flying glass in his car, while a couple heading to work was lightly hurt by shrapnel outside. A fourth person sustained injuries while racing for cover at a bomb shelter during the rocket siren.



http://www.jpost.com/Defense/Article.aspx?id=291300



2012:The IDF fired a warning shot, in the form of a guided missile, at the Syrian military on today after a Syrian shell exploded in the Golan Heights for the second time in recent days. Israel has not fired at Syria since the 1973 Yom Kippur War.



2013: Rabbi Arnold Resnicoff a decorated retired military chaplain and Rear Admiral Herman Shelanski are scheduled to speak at the “53rd Annual Meeting: Fait and the Foxhole” at Adas Israel in Washington, DC



2013: The Center for Jewish History is scheduled to sponsor a discussion of The Short, Strange Life of Herschel Grynszpan led by the father and son literary duo – Jonathan and Adam Kirsch.


2013: 95thanniversary of the end of “The War to End All Wars


2013: Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, Religious Affairs Minister Naftali Bennett and Deputy Religious Affairs Minister Eli Ben-Dahan proposed a bill today that would create one chief rabbi replacing the dual system that leaves the state with the Ashkenazi and Sephardic chief rabbis. (As reported by Lahav Harkov)


2013:Yisrael Beytenu Avigdor Liberman is now Foreign Minister, after he was sworn in to the position in the Knesset today, less than a week after his acquittal from fraud and breach of trust charges.” (As reported by Lahav Harkov)


2013: Today, “during the First Creative Economy Forum between Korea and Israel held in Tel Aviv, which featured the exposure of the Korea-Israel Hi-Tech Network - a project aimed to increase industrial collaborations in various hi-tech fields,” “Korean Ambassador in Israel Kim Il-soo announced that Israel and South Korea could become an economic powerhouse, referring to hi-tech cooperation between the countries.”


2014:Professor Emma Maayan Fanar  a visiting Art Historian from the University of Haifa spending the academic year at UConn.is scheduled to deliver a lecture on Photographic Expeditions to the Holy Land in the 19th & Early-20th Century


2014: In Virginia, George Mason University Hillel is scheduled to host its second annual “Expression of the Holocaust” that will include “Uniform,” a one act play by Aaron Sulkin.


2014: As Americans observed Veterans Day, Jews can take pride in their military service which dates back to 1654 when Asher Levy insisted he be allowed to serve as a guard in New Amsterdam and refused to pay a fee that would have excused his service.


2014: The “whole House of Israel” and decent people everywhere mourn the passing of 20 year old Almog Shiloni an IDF soldier who was murdered yesterday by a terrorist at a Tel Aviv train station.


2014: The “whole House of Israel” and decent people everywhere mourn the passing of 26 year old Dalia Lemkus who was stabbed to death yesterday as she waited at a bus stop.


2014: Fifty-nine year old Gilad Goldman is reported to be recovering from the wounds he suffered yesterday when he tried to thwart a terrorist attack yesterday in Tel Aiv.


2014: “Thanks to a curious library volunteer, Canadians learned of the discovery of a rare comic book honoring Jewish World War II heroes in time for the country’s Remembrance Day” which is celebrated today.



2014: “The IDF today deployed an Iron Dome missile defense battery in northern Israel as a precaution against possible rocket fire from Lebanon or Syria.” (As reported by Stuart Winer)


2014: Former New York Times printer Carl Tobias Schlesinger was scheduled to be laid to rest today.



2014: “Jews in the American Military,” an exhibit that conveys the role of American Jews in defending their country, from Asser Levy’s being granted the right to bear arms in 1657 to help protect Manhattan, to the 55 Jewish men and women killed in this era in Iraq and Afghanistan” opened at at the National Museum of American Jewish Military History. (As reported by Hillel Kutler)



2015: In Los Angeles, “Paris On The Water” is scheduled to be shown at the 29thIsrael Film Festival.


2015: Veterans Day – a good time to remember the work of the Jewish War Veterans of the USA who use this week to raise funds for the valuable work.



2016: On Veterans Day, which was originally called Armistice Day to mark the day when the guns fell silent on the Western Front, we are reminded that more than 200,000 Jews served in the U.S. Army which meant that Jews, who made up only three per cent of the U.S. population made up four per cent of the American fighting force.


2016: “Disturbing the Peace” is scheduled to be shown for the first time in New York City.


2016: In honor of Veterans Day, no films are scheduled to be shown at the Chicago Festival of Israeli Cinema.


2016: The BBC rebroadcast portion of a 2007 interview with Leon Cohen in which he spoke about his view about religion in which he said that while he “investigates other spiritual systems,” he feels “very much part of” the Jewish tradition” which he practices and which his children practice.


2016: In the Crescent City friends and family of Arlene Smason Weider, the Advertising & Marketing Director of the Crescent City Jews, the leading voice for  all things Jewish in the “City that Care Forget” prepare to celebrate her natal day.


2016: The Shabbos Project is scheduled to begin this evening.



2017(22ndof Cheshvan, 5778): Parashat Chayei Sarah


2017: In the United States, Veterans Day – While Jews have served in the American military since the Revolutionary War and many of them have served with such distinction that have won the Medal of Honor or reached the rank of General, the Jewish  military man who has had the greatest impact on the nation’s defense was one who never fired a shot in anger – Admiral Hyman Rickover, the “father of the nuclear navy” which was the most leg of the “triad” during the Cold War and which provides the U.S. with an edge against a myriad of threats in the 21st century.  (Editor’s note – at a time when nativism seems to be popular political stance of the day, one might ask where we would have been if a Polish Jew named Chaim Godalia had been kept out of the United States)


2017: The Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center is scheduled to host the first day of its “Holiday Boutique Weekend.”


2017: In New Orleans the JCC is scheduled to host an evening affair celebrating the successful completion of its Capital Expansion Project.


2017: The JNF”s National Conference is scheduled to continue for a second day in Hollywood, FL.


2017: “Master of York” and “The Outer Circle” are scheduled to be shown this evening in Manchester as part of the 21st UK International Jewish Film Festival.


2017: In New Orleans, Armistice Day takes on an added festive note as the friends and family of Arlene Smason Weider of the Crescent City Jewish News are scheduled to gather to celebrate her natal day.


2018: The New York Times features books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jews including The Novel of Ferrara by Giorgio Bassani


2018: The Yoav Eshed Trio Millionaires with Yoav Eshed on guitar, Oren Hardy on Bass and Eviator Slivnik on Drums is scheduled to perform at the Blue Note Jazz Club in New York City.


2018: “Who Will Write Our History?” and “An Israeli Love Story” are scheduled to be shown on the final day of the Rutgers Jewish Film Festival.


2018: While the rest of the world is celebrating the 100th anniversary of the end of the War to End all Wars, the friends and family of Arlene Smason Wieder, the sister of Alan Smason are scheduled to gather to celebrate her natal day.


2018: The Jewish Federation of Greater Des Moines is scheduled to host “A Global Day of Learning.”


2018: In Kansas City, MO, “For Liberty: American Jewish Experience in WW I” an exhibition hosted by The National WWI Museum and Memorial is scheduled to come to an end today.




2018: The Center of Jewish History is scheduled to host a panel discussion that covers material found in World War I and the Jews: Conflict and Transformation in Europe, the Middle East, and America by Volker Berghahn.


2018: One hundredth anniversary of the Armistice when on the 11th day, of the 11th month at the 11th hour the guns fell silent on the Western Front.

 


 


 

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

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November 12



1290: Al-Ashraf Khalil began his reign as Sultan of Egypt and Syria during which he drove the Crusaders from their last stronghold from Acre marking an end to the multi-century Christian assault on the Holy Land which had brought so much death and destruction to Jews living in Europe and Asia Minor.



1414(Cheshvan, 5175): The Disputation of Tortosa, which had begun in February of 1413 came to an end after nine months.  At the final session of the disputation the the Jews were forced to listen to the Treatise of Geronimo De Santa, a convert to Christianity, in which he contended that the Talmud recognized Jesus as the Messiah. Joseph ibn Vidal Labi, a prominent Spanish-Jewish scholar and orator, son of the philosopher Solomon ibn from Saragossa, was one of the 25 rabbis who by order of Pope Benedict XIII assisted at the disputation where he distinguished himself by his oratorical ability. Of course, no amount of Jewish scholarship or oratorical skill would change the outcome of these disputations since the Church was always going to win. Jews tried to avoid participating, and, when forced to, “pulled their punches” lest they anger Catholics or the mob which result in riot or death.



1532: Giles of Viterbo, “a 16th-century Italian Augustinian friar, bishop of Viterbo and cardinal” who “is coupled with the grammarian Elias Levita, who honed his knowledge of Hebrew and Aramaic passed away today When the turmoil of war drove Levita from Padua to Rome, he was welcomed at the palace of the bishop, where, with his family, he lived and was supported for more than ten years. It was there that Levita's career as the foremost tutor of Christian notables in Hebrew lore commenced. The first edition of Levita's Baḥur (Rome, 1518) is dedicated to Aegidius. Aegidius introduced Levita to classical scholarship and the Greek language, thus enabling him to utilize Greek in his Hebrew lexicographic labors — a debt acknowledged by Levita, who, in 1521, dedicated his Concordance to the cardinal.



1558(21st of Cheshvan, 5319):  Rabbi Shalom Shakna ben Joseph passed away.  Born in 1500, Shalom Shakna was the Rabbi of Lublin, Poland and later of the entire province.  Shakna and two of his contemporaries, Rabbi Moses Isserles and Rabbi Solomon Luria laid the groundwork for the great Yeshivot of Poland.  Prior to this period, Polish Jews were dependent upon the academies in Austria and Germany.  Considering the importance of study to Jewish survival, the development of Polish centers of learning was critical to the spiritual and communal foundation of the growing Jewish community in Poland and Lithuania.  Shakna was also instrumental in founding the inter-communal government that regulated the life of Jewish Poland. The institutions he helped found were part of the Jewish way of life until the Holocaust when it was all swept away.



1631: Simon Wolf Auerbach, the native of Posen who served as a rabbi in several including Posen and Vienna passed away today in Prague where he had been serving as Chief Rabbi.



1701: The will of Sarah Aboab Delawal, a widow living in Covent Garden was probated today.



1720: Birthdate of Simon von Gelden, the native of Vienna who was a traveler, author and the great uncle of Heinrich Heine who said of his ancestor, “His charlantry, which we do not wish to deny, was not of a common kind.”



1735: The will of Emanuel Abenatar aka Manuel Vander Croon was probated today.



1777: In Fulda, Rabbi Joseph Joe who “later took the name of Wiesbaden” and his wife gave birth to Ashe ben Joseph who Joseph Johlson became a leader of the Haskalah, or Jewish Enlightenment Movement.



1787: Joseph II (Austria-Hungary) forced the Jews to adopt family names as part of his "Aufklaring" policy. “Aufklaring was an eighteenth-century philosophical movement, characterized by free thought, emancipation from dogma, and materialistic tendencies.  In the Germanic Catholic world, it meant an overhaul of the education system that included processes previously associated with the Protestants. It also meant a comparatively more enlightened social view than had prevailed and this included trying to make the Jews appear to be more included (even if reality said otherwise).



1792: The will of Lewis Bare was probated today.



1794: Sander Russelsheim married Rachel Moses at the Great Synagogue today



1797(23rd of Cheshvan): Judah ben Mordecai Halevi Hurwitz, physician and author of Sefer Amudei Bet Yehudah, passed away



1812: Birthdate of British portrait painter Julia Goodman née Salaman



1813: Following the Battle of Crysler’s Farm, the American forces including Mordecai Myers who had commanded the 13th Pennsylvania Infantry began the retreat that would eventually take them back to Plattsburg.



1817: In Charleston, SC, Dr. Abraham Sheftall a resident of Savannah, GA and the son of the late Levi Sheftall married Miss Sarah De La Motta this evening.



1818: Birthdate of Jakob Eduard Polak, the native of Bohemia who was one of the first westerners to teach medicine in Iran and who was the “personal physician of Naser-aldin Shah,” the ruler of Persia.



1819: Birthdate of German lexicographer Daniel Sanders, the native of Strelitz who published a translation of the Song of Songs in 1866.



1831: Birthdate of Elie-Aristide Astruc, the native of Bordeaux who served as Chief Rabbi of Belgium, helped care for the wounded during the Franco-Prussian and returned to his native country in 1879 where he pursued a career as an author.



1833: The Kentish Gazette reported that “Mr. Joseph Abrahams of Canterbury” has married Fanny Nathan the daughter of a fruit merchant in Dover, UK.



1834:  In “Haigerloch, Germany, Samuel Newburger” and his wife gave birth to Morris Newburger, the “vice president and chairman of the School Committee of the Reform Congregation Keneseth Israel in Philadelphia” and “president of the Jewish Publication Society from 1888 to 1902.”



1834(10th of Cheshvan, 5595): Chazan Moses Belasco passed away today which meant that Moses Cohen D’Azevedo Samuel Elias Daniels and Edward Aaron Moses “acted alternatively” and without pay as the Chazanim until they left Barbados for Philadelphia.



1841: The headline of today’s Voice of Jacob read: “The Attempt to Establish a Synagogue On Principles Opposed To Our Laws and Customs” highlighted the conflict between those attempt to “form a United Congregation” that reflected the practices of the Reform movement



1841: The first edition of The Jewish Chronicle appeared in London, UK



1841: In a postscript to a note thanking Nathan Marcus Adler for his contribution to a fund to aid the Jews of Smyrna, Sir Moses Montefiore wrote I feel most anxious to obtain a copy of your sermons. It would be presumptuous in me to express how greatly they would prove serviceable to our brethren in England.” At that Adler was serving the Jewish community of Hanover and nobody could have known that someday he would become the Chief Rabbi in the UK.



1849: The first report of the Finance Committee of the Free Sons of Israel was made at the 29th meeting of the Grand Lodge.



1849: In Wheeling, VA, founding of “Congregation Leshem Shomayim” (for the sake of Heaven), the first Jewish congregation in West Virginia, which became known as the Eoff Street Temple whose members included Samuel Kraft, Joseph Emsheimer, Henry Baer, Irma Kraft, Millie Stein and Lee Baer.



1854: Rabbi Zeev Wolf and Toba Bluma (née Barg) gave birth to Yehuda Dovid Eizensztejn who gained fame as Julius (Judah David or JD) Eisenstein, the Polish-Jewish-American writer who established America's first society for the Hebrew language, called Shocharei Sfat Ever and was also the first to translate into Hebrew and Yiddish the Constitution of the United States



1856: The will of John Moses, the husband of Caroline Moses, a wine merchant in Bristol was probated today naming William Wolfe Alexander and Thomas as executors. (As described by David Alexander)



1858: In New York City, August and Caroline Belmont gave birth to Oliver Hazard Perry Belmont.  August Belmont was a German born Jewish American financier who chose the route of assimilation.  His wife was the daughter of the naval hero, Commodore Mathew Perry and the Great Niece of the even more legendary Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry, young Belmont’s namesake.  Belmont graduated from the United States Naval Academy, a school not noted for its acceptance of Jews. One must wonder if his maternal Naval connection were able to overcome his father’s Semitic origins. Belmont lived out the life of a wealthy gentile playboy.



1859: William H. Seward, the U.S. Senator from New York, arrived in Paris today on the return leg of his trip from Jerusalem and the Holy Land.  No reason was given for the trip by the man would who seek the Republican nomination for President in 1860 and served as Secretary of State under Presidents Lincoln and Johnson.  



1862: During the Civil War, Corporal Daniel Straus began his service with Company F of the 167th Regiment.



1862: During the Civil War, Sergeant Joseph Jacoby began his service with Company I of the 167th Regiment.



1865: One day after he had passed away, 56 year old Julius Sing, the husband of Rika Woolf with whom he had three sons – Aaron, Jacob and Simon – was buried today at the “West Ham Jewish Cemetery.”



1870: In Stettin, German, Elias Witt and Sophie Schlesinger gave birth to Max S. Witt, the husband of Margaret Gonzalez, who became a composer of popular songs including “The Moth and the Flame” and “My Little Georgia Rose.”



1871: In St. Paul, MN, founding of the Hebrew Ladies’ Benevolent Society whose members included Mrs. B.B. Plechner and Mrs. Sol Fox which “meets on the first Wednesday of the month from September to April inlclusive.”



1871: Robert Strahl, Jr., Samuel D. Sewards, Davis Kisch and Joseph Dorenfeld were among the speakers who addressed a meeting of the Hebrew Young Men’s Literary and Benevolent Association that was held tonight at Cooper Union in New York City.



1879: It was reported today that Professor Felix Adler, “who has been accused of being a rationalist,” an infidel and an atheist, proved his critics wrong during his lecture entitled “Struggle of Free Religion in the United States” in which “he paid a glowing and eloquent tribute…to the late Rabbi Einhorn, one of the founders of Reformed Judaism.”



1880: Birthdate of Dutch physicist Leonard Salomon Ornstein



1880: Theodor Mommsen’s declaration that “referred to Anti-Semitism as a contagious plague that threatened to poison the relationship between Jews and Christians” which “was signed by seventy-five well-known scholars and other public figures, Jews and non-Jews alike” was published today “in the Berlin daily National-Zeitung.”



1883(12th of Cheshvan, 5644): Sixty-three year old Sigmund Max Einhorn, the “son of Karoline and Maier Mendel Einhorn” and the husband of a different Karoline Einhorn with whom he had four children, passed away today



1883: It was reported today that “the Lord Mayor of London has refused to allow Herr Stocker, the ‘Jew-baiter,’ who is no in London to lecture at the Mansion House.” (Stocker is Adolf Stoecker, a German Lutheran theologian. The Lord Mayor was Sir Robert Nicholas Fowler)



1884: In New York Monseigneur Thomas John Capel delivered an address on “Patriotism” to a meeting of the Young Men’s Hebrew Association.



1884: Businessman Mordecai Yitzhak Lubowsky a native of Lithuania who had lived in the United States in 1870 “bought…a large tract of land of 2,800 dunams at “Maroun” …in the district of Safed.



1885: It was reported today that the Hebrew Ladies’ Benevolent Society is planning on hosting a fair to raise funds “to assist the poor without regard to creed, color or nationality…”



1885: In an interview published today, Ohio Governor George Hoadley defended issuing a Thanksgiving Proclamation that did not mention God by declaring that “the founders of this Government wanted it free for the Jews and the Gentile, the infidel and the worshiper… I have no right to command the people of this State to worship God on a certain day.”  (This defense of religious freedom is one of the things that has made the Jewish experience in America different from that in other places.)



1886(14th of Cheshvan): Rabbi Avraham of Kosover, also known as Rabbi Borcuh Kosover, author of Amud ha-Avodah passed away today.



1886(14th of Cheshvan): Jehiel Brill, publisher and editor of the Hebrew monthly “Ha-Lebanon” and author of Yesod ha-Ma'alah passed away.



http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=9A00E2D81730E13BBC4B53DFB566838D629EDE



1890: Birthdate of Lily Kronberger who was Hungary’s first World Champion in figure skating.



https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/kronberger-lily



1890: Birthdate of Irma Shloss Mannheimer was buried at Emanuel Cemetery in Des Moines, IA when she passed away in 1974.



1891: Six days after she had passed away, 67 year old Ann Benjamin Braham, the daughter of Alexander and Jane Jones and the wife of Isaac Benjamin and Francis Brahm was buried today at the Lauriston Road Jewish Cemetery.



1892: The Metropolitan Press Club of which Abram Levy of the Hebrew World is Vice President is scheduled to hold its second regular meeting tonight.



1892: The New York Times reports on the successes and failures of organized Jewish agricultural efforts including those in Connecticut and those in New Jersey sponsored by Baron Hirsch.



1892(22nd of Cheshvan, 5653): Sixty-two year Seligman Adler, who was born in Bavaria in 1830 and who established “the wholesale dry goods house of Adler, Newbouer & Co at New York in 1858” passed away today.



1893: “Court Martial Oaths” published today traces the changes that have taken place to the point now where “the Jews are customarily sworn by the five books of Moses and the great God of Israel, that the evidence…shall be the truth and nothing but the truth.”



1894: Following yesterday’s fire at a tenement on 80 Henry Street that housed more than twenty Jewish families, losses today including those at Lewis Fisher’s tailor shop, were estimated at $1,500.



1894: It was reported today that 100,000 Jews most of whom are poor, live within a half-mile radius of Beth Israel which is the poorest of New York’s Jewish hospital.



1896: H.W. Greene is scheduled to speak on “The Development of American Song” this evening as part of the free lecture series sponsored by the Educational Alliance at the Hebrew Institute in New York City.



1896: “(Mrs. J.B.) Rebecca M. Judah, the President of the Louisville, KY Section of the National Council of Jewish Women submitted her report that described the largest of the city’s four or five religious schools as having an enrollment of 250 children “under the direct care of Dr. Adolph Moses” and described the section as having 69 members divided into 5 circles.



1897: Rabbi Maurice H. Harris of Temple delivered a lecture this evening entitled “The Value of Our Good Name in the Present Municipal Contest” in which he decried “appeals to a Jew to vote as a Jew” as an “insult to the patriotism of the Jew” and asks “How often need the depraved politician be informed that in his civic duty here the Jew knows only one Nation, the American nation?”



1897: It was reported today Mr. Joseph Tobias Levy, who is an American citizen, continued to be “detained by Moorish authorities” despite the fact that “the United States has demanded his release..”



1897: It was reported today that “a neat sheet calendar for 5658 has been issued by the Bene Israel Mutual Fund Society of Bombay.



1897: Birthdate of obstetrician  Samuel W. Kalb, a graduate of Valparaiso University and the University of Cincinnati School Medicine and Marine Corps veteran who practiced in Newark for 35 years.



https://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/fl-xpm-1992-11-05-9202270823-story.html



https://www.nytimes.com/1992/11/04/obituaries/samuel-w-kalb-obstetrician-94.html



1899: Birthdate of Galicia native Menashe Unger whose expertise in the field Chasidism can be seen his book Social Origins of Chasidism” and who in 1934 came to NYC where he became “a writer for The Day” and lived with his wife Ruth Brilliant Unger and their daughter Judith.



http://yleksikon.blogspot.com/2015/12/menashe-unger.html



http://www.yivoarchives.org/index.php?p=collections/controlcard&id=32882



https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1969/07/08/78386020.pdf



https://www.europeana.eu/portal/en/record/09321/F875D5C9B3FCB52165AF1661B549804C9A77EA2A.html



1899: It was reported today that Jules Guerin, “who proposed to suppress all who stood in his way and by the revolver to drive the Jews from France and by that weapon to convert unbeliever to his doctrine of anti-Semitism” will probably stand trial for his role in an attempted coup-d’état he had plotted with Paul Déroulède



1900: Birthdate of Caroline Klein Simon, a pioneering attorney, communal worker, and state official. After graduating from law school in 1925, Simon was unable to find a law firm that would hire her. She turned to volunteering, working as an unpaid clerk at a law office and immersing herself in political work with many of New York City's secular and Jewish women's organizations. She involved herself particularly in issues of crime prevention and correction. In 1935, Simon became executive director of the New York State Council of Jewish Women. Throughout her long and active life, Simon worked to change a number of discriminatory laws in her community. In the 1930s, Simon led a campaign to allow women to serve on juries in New York. In the 1940s, she helped to draft the nation's first state law on job bias based on religion, race, or nationality, and was a founding member of the State Commission Against Discrimination. In 1957, Simon became the first woman to be nominated for city-wide office in New York City. Although she lost that election for president of the New York City Council, Governor Nelson Rockefeller named her New York Secretary of State in 1959. She held that position for four years. In 1958 Simon also served as the legal advisor to the American delegation to the United Nations Human Rights Commission. In the 1960s, she sat on the New York Court of Claims. Simon remained active in legal work into her nineties.



1900: Lord Robert Cecil, the uncle of Lord Balfour of Balfour Declaration fame, completed his final term as Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, a position that he had first held under his political mentor, Benjamin Disraeli.



1902: Joseph Whyl married Rosa Phillips today.



1902: Birthdate of Buffalo, NY, native Philip Halpern, the University of Buffalo trained lawyer and “Associate Justice of the State Supreme Court’s Appellate Division” and  the husband of “the former Goldene Friedman with whom he had two sons – James and Charles



https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1963/08/26/89956283.pdf



http://www.nycourts.gov/history/legal-history-new-york/history-legal-bench-appellate-04.html?http://www.nycourts.gov/history/legal-history-new-york/luminaries-appellate/halpern-philip-4.html



https://www.jta.org/1963/08/27/archive/justice-philip-halpern-dead-at-62-served-on-important-u-n-body



1905: Based on rumors that have been circulating in Moscow, “anti-Jewish outbreaks” are scheduled to “occur simultaneously in Moscow and St. Petersburg today.



1905: It was reported today that many Jewish families “are fleeing to Finland” because of the on-going outbreaks of anti-Semitic violence



1905: “Arm the Jews Says Rabbi” published today described the view of Charles Fleischer the rabbi at Temple Adath Israel in Boston that given the pogroms taking place in Kishinev and Odessa, that “if the Russian Government cannot protect the people against lawlessness then the law-abiding must encouraged to protect themselves” which means entrusting the Jews with arms.”



1905: Meetings expressing support for the Jews of Russia and to raise funds for their relief are scheduled to be held at Capitol Hall on Manhattan and 63 Meserole Street in Manhattan.



1905: “The fund being raised in” the United States “for the relief of the victims of the Russian massacres was increased” today “by the addition of a check for $10,000 from Andrew Carnegie who announced his gift in a letter to Isidor Strauss.”



1905: Leah Dinah Goldberg, the wife of Morris Goldberg with whom she had five children – Miriam Rachel, Kate, Annie and Mordecai – was buried today at the Plashet Jewish Cemetery in London.



1905: The Jews of Paterson, NJ met this morning in Barnet Memorial Temple to raise funds for the suffering Jews of Russia and ex-Mayor Nathan Barnet who presided over the meeting said “I do not know how this money…is to be expended but if I were to spend it I assure you the greater part of it would purchase dynamite to be used for assassinating the Czar, the Romanoffs and their followers.”



1905: In Pittsburgh, PA, Henry Jackson, President of the Zionists’ Council of Pittsburg presided over a meeting at the Washington Street Synagogue this evening “where steps were taken to assist in the relief of the stricken Jews of in Russia.”



1905: At a meeting this afternoon at the Forest Street Temple in Cleveland, Ohio, $541 which will be forward to Jacob H. Schiff was raised to help the Jews of Russia.



1905: In Boston, “a mass meeting was held today in the Baldwin Place Synagogue for the purpose of aiding a movement to raise $50,000 for the relief of the Jews in Russia.”



1905: Herman Rosenthal, the chief of the Slavonic department of the New York Public Library and one of the editors of the Jewish Encyclopedia was quoted as saying that “In a nutshell the situation the situation” in Russia regarding the Jews is this: “Russia in its attitude to Jews, is just about where England was in the thirteenth century” where “the Jew was always pictured as the villain, the man to be hated, despised and ill-treated.”  While the Anglo-Saxons decided three centuries ago that “the Jew was a human being to be treated liked themselves” such is not the case in Russia nor will it be for some time to come.



1905: Tonight, 10,000 Jews of the East End of London gather “gathered in the great assembly hall where a memorial services was held for the Jews recently killed in Russia” during which “almost all present burst into tears and mournful wailing during the chanting of the Fifth Chapter of Lamentations.”



1905: In Warsaw, “at 9 o’clock this evening an infantry patrol, without provocation, fired into a crowd of Jews, seriously wounding eight.”



1905: In Chicago, $50 was raised for the relief of Russian Jews at a meeting of Jewish peddler and the Central Committee announced that it had received contributions in the amount of $400 for the same purpose.



1905: Mass meetings were held in Rochester, NY tonight to raise funds for the Jews of Russia.



1905: In Baltimore, MD, Samuel Rosenthal presided over a meeting of Jewish citizens including rabbis, lawyer, doctors and businessman at the Eutaw Place Temple where plans were made to aid “their persecuted co-religionists in Russia” and where $10,250 was raised in half an hour for that purpose.



1905: In St. Louis, MO, an inter-denominational meeting raised $16,000 this afternoon to aid Jews of Russia.



1905: At a meeting this afternoon at Cincinnati’s Plum Street Temple $5,000 was raised “for the Jewish victims of the atrocities in Russia.”



1905: Five meetings were held in Philadelphia today for the purposed of raising relief funds for the Jews of Russia, the largest of which was held at Mercantile Hall where $20,000 was raised.



1905: In response to a message sent by the Archbishop of Canterbury to the Metropolitan of St. Petersburg. “reminding him of his duty to exert the full force of his influence to prevent a recurrence of the Jewish massacres” Chief Rabbi Adler said today that “it as a noble utterance; a grand recognition of the fact that the Russian horrors are something which concern not simply the Jews but everybody who loes the right and abhors religious persecution and fiendish inhumanity.”



1907: Birthdate of Klara Fejer, the future wife of Alexander Steiner and mother of Agnes Steiner.



1908: Birthdate of Harry Blackmun, who replaced Abe Fortas as U.S. Supreme Court Justice. It would not be until 1993 that another Jew would successful to a seat on the Supreme Court.



1909: Birthdate of Chemistry Professor David Perlman, the author of A Guide of Qualitative Organic Analysis and the husband of “the former Evelyn Rose.”



https://www.nytimes.com/1972/04/06/archives/dr-david-perlman-62-dies-chemistry-professor-here.html



1911: Birthdate of Yehoshua Rabinovitz, the native of Vishneva who made Aliyah in 1934 and became Mayor of Tel Aviv in 1969. 1913: Rodosto, Turkey is taken, and 60 Turkish Jewish families sought safety in Constantinople. The Rodosto referenced here is a city in northwest Turkey that had originally been founded Greeks.  The fighting mentioned here was part of The Balkan Wars, which preceded World I, and in some respects, helped to provide the kindling that brought on that worldwide firestorm.



1912: In New York, third and final day of the 8th annual meeting of the Jewish Consumptives’ Relief Society which is headquartered in Denver, CO.



1913: At the Montefiore Home, opening of the largest Jewish hospital in the world, built at a cost of nearly $2,000,000.



1913: In Konigsberg, Elkhanan Elkes, “a prominent doctor who became a medical officer in the Russian Army during World War I and the Russian Revolution” and his wife, the former Miriam Albin, both of whom were murdered by the Nazis, gave birth to Dr Joel Elkes “who published the first scientific trial of a medication for schizophrenia and became a foundational figure in modern psychiatry…” (As reported by Bernard Carey)



http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/18/science/joel-elkes-who-cast-light-on-psychosis-dies-at-101.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=0



1913: “Committees composed of both Christian and Jews, with the assistance of the German government” are operating soup kitchens in Warsaw and Lodz to help feed the hundreds of thousands in who are “suffering for want of food.”



1916:”Dr. Samuel Schulman who preached this morning at Temple Emmanu-El on ‘The Jewish Congress’ said that the union of the Jews of all factions in this country was necessary in to make an appeal to the ‘conscience of Christendom’ to provide fairly for the future of the Jews” in those parts of Europe “where they are now oppressed.”



1916: “An International Committee of Correspondence to facilitate a world-wide demand for the settlement of the Jewish problem at the end of the war in Europe was proposed by Oscar S. Straus, Chairman of the Public Service Commission, at the tenth annual convention of the American Jewish Committee held at the Hotel Astor” today.



1916: At the Tenth Annual Meeting of the American Jewish Committee, the issued “was silent as to the condition of” the Jews in Russian whose “misery” defied description.



1917: After a twelve day voyage across the Atlantic, Abraham Blaustein, would become a decorated war hero arrived at Brest, France with the rest of the 165th Regiment.



1917: Following the Bolshevik takeover, anti-Bolshevik forces begin fighting the Red Guards at Tsarekoye Selo.



1917: Jewish Soldiers’ Councils were formed at Prague, Theresienstadt, Olmutz and Bruenn with the approval Czech leaders.



1918; In New York, the Provisional Zionist Committee received a cable from Dr. Chaim Weitzman, President of the British Zionist Committee and Dr. Nachun Sokolow of the Inner Actions Committee “giving the complete text of the British proposal” known as the Balfour Declaration “which differs somewhat from the first reports published in” the United States.



1918: As World War I came to an end and the Austro-Hungarian Empire died and the predominately Germanic portion of the old imperial state became a republic called German Austria, popularly known as Austria. The new state included 300, 000 Jews, 200,000 of which were living in the capital city of Vienna.  The little known Treaty of St. Germaine which had a major impact on the inter-war years guaranteed, among other things, the rights of Jews as a minority living in the news Austrian Republic.  Unfortunately, this would mean little when anti-Semitism reared its head in the 1930’s capped by the final blow of Anshluss in 1938. 1918: Jozef Pilsduski, head of the newly-born Polish state received a delegation of Jewish leaders.  Yizhak Gruenbaum, a prominent Zionist, demanded autonomy for Poland’s Jews.  Pilsduski promised to take measures to repress anti-Jewish violence.



1918: Abraham and Mildred Gussow gave birth to Roy Gussow, “an abstract sculptor whose polished stainless-steel works with swooping contours gleam in public squares and corporate spaces.” (As reported by Dennis Hevesi)



1919 Dr. J. Stanley Durkee in 1936 would criticize “Jews for declining to become ‘an integral part of the civilization around them’ was “inaugurated as President of Howard University in Washington, D.C.



1919: Governor Al Smith appointed Abram Isaac Elkus to fill a vacancy on the New York Court of Appeals.



1919: Birthdate of ”Estelle Ellis Rubinstein, who as promotion director of the brand-new Seventeen magazine helped American businesses discover what she called ‘a whole new country’ — the untapped market of millions of teenage girls” (As reported by Douglas Martin)



1920: It was reported today that “A.C. Cuza, the last of Romania’s anti-Semites in public life is retiring.”



1920: In New York, the former Dorothy Milius, the daughter of Pauline and George Washington Milius and her first husband, Sidney Walter Kaufman, gave birth to Katherine Kaufman



1920: Birthdate of Manhattan native Leonard James Schliefer, “the son of a clothing-company executive” who gained fame as director James Sheldon. (As reported by Anita Gates)



https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/18/arts/television/james-sheldon-director-whose-career-reflected-tvs-evolution-dies-at-95.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well



1920: The Triennial Convention of the Council of Jewish Women which has been taking place at the Brown Hotel in Denver came to an end.



1921: In Brooklyn, Rebecca Leiber and William Leiber, “a junk dealer” gave birth to WW II Army veteran “modernist painter” Gerson Leiber (As reported by Richard Sandomir)



https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/30/obituaries/gerson-leiber-96-dies-artist-created-museum-with-designer-wife.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well



1922: The Chicago Cardinals football team defeated the Akron Pros 7-0 thanks to a long pass thrown by Arnold "Arnie" Horween



1922: In Camden, NJ, Lieutenant Lewis Liberman delivered an address entitled “Y.M.H.A. Boys in Service” during a memorial service held this afternoon to honor the five Y.M.H.A. members who lost their lives during World /War I.



1924: “The Yeshivah of Slobodka opened a branch in Hebron



1924: During the first cycle of Daf Yomi “small siyums’ were held to mark the completion of Tractate Berachot.



1925: In the Bronx, Pauline and Milton Redlich gave birth to Norman Redlich, a quiet luminary of the New York legal community who pioneered the pro bono defense of indigent death row inmates and who, as a staff member of the Warren Commission, helped develop the so-called single-bullet theory to explain how President John F. Kennedy was killed by a lone gunman. (As reported by Paul Vitello)



1927: Seymour “Cy” Schindel fought his 19th bout today which he lost on points to “Italian Joe Gans.”



1927:  Leon Trotsky was expelled from Soviet Communist Part as Stalin tightened his grip on the USSR after the death of Lenin.  Stalin played the card of anti-Semitism in his fight with Trotsky.  It would not be the last time that the Georgian would show himself to be a vindictive anti-Semite.



1928: Today, Victor released a recording of “Making’ Whoopee” with lyrics by Gus Kahn which was “first popularized by Eddie Cantor in the 1928 musical Whoopee!



1930(21st of Cheshvan, 5691): Forty-five year old Israel George “Izzy” Levene, the End on the University of Pennsylvania football team who went on to head coaching jobs at Tennessee and Wake Forest.



1931: Sixty-three year old Harvard Professor Robert DeCourcy Ward, the co-founder of the Immigration Restriction League who had informed Congressmen in 1919 that Jews were about to enter the United States as part of “well-organized immigration” plan passed away today.



1930(20th of Cheshvan, 5691): Forty-five year old U of Pennsylvania All-American end Israel George “Izzy” Levene who served as an assistant under the legendary John Heisman before serving as head coach at the University of Tennessee and Wake Forest University passed away today.



1933: The Nazis received 92% of vote in Germany only a few months after gaining power through an electoral squeaker.



1933: Birthdate of Abram Krivosheyev, the Soviet “middle distance runner” who represented the Soviet Union at the 1960 and 1964 Olympics.



1935: “No Monkey Business” a British comedy with must by Benjamin Frankel was released today in the United Kingdom.



1936(27th of Cheshvan, 5697): Fifty-six year old Hungary native Gustave Hartman the “son of Sarah Luchs and Kalman Hartman,”  and “lawyer, municipal court judge, city court judge, Republican political leader  and philanthropist” who “founded the Israel Orphan Asylum” and was honored by the creation of the Gustave Hartman Triangle in New York passed away today.



https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/20722848#view-photo=7648827



https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1936/11/16/85435329.pdf



1936: “Although the Lord Chamberlain banned the public performance of Lillian Hellman’s The Children's Hour in Great Britain in March 1935 the play was presented in its entirety today “at a private performance at the Gate Theatre Studio in London.



1936: On the day before his 80th birthday took his place at the Supreme Court just as he has every day for the last two decades since he was appointed by President Wilson and “his deep tones rang clearly through the room as he questioned New York attorney Frederick H. Wood on aspects of the New York Unemployment Insurance Law.”



1936: Dr. Stephen S. Wise, president of the American Jewish Congress announced today “that a series of public celebrations would be held to honor Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis on his eightieth birthday tommorw, November 13,



1936: Birthdate of Brooklyn born composer Mort Shuman.  Classically trained, Shuman gained fame as a popular song writer composing for everybody from Elvis, to Janis Joplin to the music group known as “Dion and the Belmonts.”  If you ever heard “Save the Last Dance For Me,” you have heard the works of Shuman. 



1936: “Theodora Goes Wild” a comedy with a script co-authored by Sidney Buchman and co-starring Melvyn Douglas was released in the United States by Columbia Pictures.



1937: The Palestine Post reported that two Arabs were killed and five wounded by a bomb which exploded outside the National Bus offices, off Jaffa Road in Jerusalem. The bomb, which appeared to be home-made, exploded with a tremendous force. A curfew was imposed on the city. Jewish extremists were suspected of having thus responded to the murder of five young Israelis at Ma¹aleh Hahamisha. The Mandatory authorities announced that henceforth any member of the forces would be able to arrest any person reasonably suspected of having planned or committed any offence that could be tried in military courts.



1937: “The Last Gangster” a crime film starring Edward G. Robinson and featuring Lionel Stander was released in the United States by MGM.



1937:  Birthdate of Ina Rosenberg the Brooklyn native who gained famed as actress Ina Balin whose first break came when she appeared on the Perry Como Show during the 1950’s.  The high point in her acting career came when she was nominated for a Golden Globe for her work in From the Terrace.  Balin appeared in numerous pictures with some of Hollywood’s biggest name before her untimely death at the age of 52.



1938: Hermann Goring leads a discussion of German officials that results in a one-billion-mark ($400-million) fine against the German-Jewish community to pay for Kristallnacht.Göring calls this extortion an "expiation payment." Seizing the money German insurance companies were paying the Jews for their damages, the Nazis require the Jews to pay for the repair of their own properties damaged in Kristallnacht.



1938: The Nazis decide on a decree to remove all Jews from the German economy, society, and culture. Reinhard Heydrich suggests that every Jew be forced to wear a badge. Nazi Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels suggests that Jews be kept from using public parks. Hermann Goring mentions that Hitler told him on the phone on November 9 that if war breaks out, Germany "will first of all make sure of settling accounts with the Jews. [Hitler] is going to ask the other nations: 'Why do you keep talking about the Jews? Take them!'" In the Nazi Party's principal newspaper, Goebbels writes: "We want only one thing, that the world loves the Jews enough to rid us of them all."



1938: Speaking at a meeting with the South African minister of economics and defense, Hitler remarks that Europe's Jews will be killed in the event of war.



1938: Hermann Goring announced consideration of Madagascar as a home for European Jewry



1939: The Nazis ordered the Jews of Lodz, Poland to wear yellow armband as they began to deport them to other parts of Poland.



1939: Heydrich, Chief of German Secret Security, ordered Jews cleared from portions of annexed Poland that were now considered to be part Greater Germany.  Heydrich was truly evil person.  He was one of Hitler’s favorites and many thought that he was Hitler’s successor.  Heydrich was the prime author of the Final Solution.  He never got to fulfill his dreams since the British had him murdered while he was serving in Bohemia.



1939: In an article entitled “Activity in Palestine,” Peter Gradenwitz reports on the successful year enjoyed by the Palestine Symphony Orchestra. “The Summer heat, the pre-war mood and the outbreak of war in Europe have not been able to paralyze Palestine’s musical life.  On the contrary the Palestine Orchestra had its most extensive Summer Season since the start of its activities.  From June to September the orchestra played twice weekly in the specially arrange gardens of the Levan Fair Grounds to a large an appreciative audience, and in addition to the Tel Aviv concerts there were offerings in Jerusalem, Hair and the Rechovoth.



1940: Vichy France ordered all Jewish businesses to be sold or expropriated for Aryanization.   In other words, the French joined Germany in the plundering of Jewish assets.  Anti-Semitism was and continues to be “good business” for those who trade in it.



1940: “Land of Liberty” a documentary that traces American history from pre-revolutionary days to 1939 written by Jesse L. Lasky, Jr with music by Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II premiere today at Williamspor.



1941(22nd of Cheshvan, 5702): Abe "Kid Twist" Reles, a hit-,man for Murder Incorporated turned “stool-pigeon” fell (or was pushed) to his death.



1941: Laurence Adolph Steinhardt completed his service as United States Ambassador to the Soviet Union.



1941: In Berlin Friedrich Jeckeln met with Himmler who gave him orders on liquidating the entire Riga ghetto.



1943: Benito Mussolini argued at a general Fascist Party congress to have all Jews in Italy declared enemy aliens by law.



1943: William Schuman’s “Symphony for Strings” which “was commissioned by the Koussevitzky Foundation, dedicated to the memory of Natalie Koussevitzky” was performed for the first time today.



1943: Birthdate of Valerie Leon, the London born daughter of Textile Company executive who went from being “a trainee fashion buyer at Harrods” to a career in acting that including performing as “a Bond girl” in “The Spy Who Love Me” and “Never Say Never Again.”



1943: Birthdate of actor Wallace Shawn



1943: Birthdate of Poughkeepsie native and Republic politcian Stephen M. Saland the graduate of the University of Buffalo and Rutgers Law School who was a Republican member of the New York State Senate, representing the 41st District from 1990-2012.”



1944:  Birthdate of sports reporter Al Michaels.  If Jews could not play the game, they sure could write and talk about it.



1944: Otto Blumenthal, a German mathematician died in the Nazi concentration camp Theresienstadt. Born a Jew, Blumenthal became a Protestant at the age of 19.  He remained in Germany after the rise of the Nazis.  At the age of 67, he asked to be sent to Theresienstadt so he could be with his sister who reportedly had feel while imprisoned there.  Unfortunately for Blumenthal, she had died before his arrival.



1945: Six hundred rabbis march to Capitol and stop at White House and British Embassy to plead that Palestine be opened for Jewish immigration.



1945: The American League for a Free Palestine announced today that Senator Warren G. Magnuson of Washington State, Representative Bertrand W. Gearhart of California’s 9th Congressional District and Guy W. Gillette, the former Senator from Iowa are scheduled to discuss “The United States Congress and Palestine” in a program to be broadcast tomorrow night by the American Broadcasting Company (ABC). Gillette was the president of the American League for a Free Palestine, a pro-Zionist group seeking to create a Jewish state. (As you can see, the term Palestine has not always by synonymous with Arabs),




1945: A photographic record is created of Kibbutz Buchanwald, “the first agricultural training camp established in Germany after the Holocaust” which was ironically established in what had been a death camp.



http://www1.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/this_month/november/13.asp



1946: It is announced that 1,050 Jews in Cyprus will be admitted to Palestine under quotas until mid-January.



1947: The Jewish Agency plans to establish Jewish state within boundaries set by UNSCOP, regardless of any UN decision. There are rumors that King Abdullah of Jordan plans to take over part of Palestine outside Jewish state



1948: Israeli premier David Ben-Gurion confirms that talks are under way between Israel and two Arab governments (presumed to be Egypt and Transjordan). Israel is opposed to new UN proposal whereby Israeli troops give up recent gains in Negev. In original partition plan, Negev is consigned to Jews. Ben-Gurion claims dispute can be settled in four weeks if U.S. stops Britain from interfering with Arabs' wish to talk peace terms.



1948: UN mediator Ralph Bunche orders Israel to give up Iraq Suweidan.



1948: “No More Vices” a comedy directed and produced by Lewis Milestone with a screenplay by Arnold Manoff and music by Franz Waxman was released in the United States today by MGM.



1950: “Southside 1-1000” a drama about a gang of real life counterfeiters starring George Tobias was released today in the United States.



1952:The Jerusalem Post reported from Rehovot that more than 250,000 persons filed past the bier carrying the body of Dr. Chaim Weizmann, the first president of the State of Israel, statesman and scientist. Sirens brought the nation to a standstill at 2:30 p.m. A few hundred persons were privileged to be present during the burial ceremony in his garden, while some 30,000 others gathered on nearby hilltops. Messages of condolence poured from all over the world. US President-elect Dwight Eisenhower sent a cable to the Israeli Ambassador, Abba Eban, and asked him to forward it to Mrs. Vera Weizmann.



1953: A “Salute From American Higher Education to the Hebrew University” which will be attended by Professor Benjamin Mazar, the newly chosen President of the Hebrew University, is scheduled to be held tonight at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel.



1954: Ellis Island, the gateway to America for millions of immigrants, including untold number of Jews, closed today.



https://www.yahoo.com/travel/bp/nov-12-1954-ellis-island-closes-admitting-millions-164516820.html



1954: Edward B. Lawson, the U.S. Ambassador to Israel presented his credentials today.



1955(27th of Cheshvan, 5716): Parashat Chayei Sarah



1956: “Middle-East Echoes” published today described the impact of Anglo-French military action during the Suez Crisis on the economy in general and the commodities market in particular.



http://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,824597,00.html



1962: “Billy Budd” a movie version of the 19th century novel with a screenplay co-authored by Robert Rossen and featuring Melvyn Douglas was released in the United States today.



1967: Today, “Rabbi J.J. Kokotek delivered the sermon at the New Liberal Jewish Congregation’s annual service held “in commemoration of the 1938 pogroms” after which the “memorial panels on which the names of the congregation’s past officers and members are inscribed” were dedicated.



1969: Investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, the son of Yiddish speaking Litvak immigrants, broke the story of the My Lai Massacre.



1969(2nd of Kislev, 5730): Sixty-nine year old Columbia graduate and Parkinson disease patient A. Wilfred May, the former foreign correspondent for the New York Herald Tribune, NANA and The London Financial Times and “economic expert with the SEC” fell to his death from his 4th floor suite at the Plaza Hotel



https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1969/11/13/83689321.pdf



 



1969(2nd of Kislev, 5730: Harry Scherman an American economist. passed away. He wrote several works during the second third of the twentieth century. Maybe his best known book is The Promises Men Live By, published in 1938. In it he develops an analysis of economic problems in terms of people beliefs. His open criticism to accepted policies and then fashionable Keynesianism brought his work to oblivion; something a little ironic, taking into account that he had been one of the co-founders of The Book of the Month Club in 1926. http://www.columbia.edu/cu/lweb/archival/collections/ldpd_4079308/



1970: “The Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmer” a British satirical film co-starring Harold Pinter and featuring Valerie Leon was released today in the United Kingdom.



1973(18th of Cheshvan, 5734): Eighty-nine Dutch born American cinematographer David Abel “who filmed 110 films for RKO” and who was the husband of Eva “Chava” Rayevsky , passed away today in Los Angeles.



1976(19t of Cheshvan, 5737): Seventy year old Yale trained psychologist and psychiatrist Dr. Samuel Yochelson the World War II veteran of the Army Medical Corps and the husband of “the former Kathryn Mersey” passed away today.



https://www.nytimes.com/1976/11/30/archives/dr-samuel-yochelson-dies-at-70-an-expert-on-criminal-behavior.html



1976: “Two-Minute Warning” one of those epic disaster films directed by Larry Peerce and co-starring Martin Balsam was released in the United States today.



1980: Mayor Ed Koch admitted to trying marijuana.  Ah yes, the Jew with the Joint.



1982: Israeli political leader Avraham Hirschson and his wife gave birth to their second son Elroi.



1982: The Path to Power, Robert Caro’s fist volume about Lyndon Johnson which would win the 1983 National Book Award was released today.



1982: “White Dog,” a cinematic treatment of Romain Gary’s novel of the same name and directed by Samuel Fuller was released in the United States today.



1982: The Tucson Citizen published “Jewish Pioneers, Temple Due Honors” today which “snapshots of the lives of pioneer Jews Samuel and Philip Drachman, Albert Steinfeld, Isodore Gotthelf, and Sam Mansfeld.”



http://swja.arizona.edu/content/jewish-pioneers-temple-due-honors



1992(16th of Cheshvan, 5753): Eighty-three year old Edward Mier Mayehoff the Baltimore born salesman turned actor passed away today.



http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0562305/bio



1985: Birthdate of Roy Kafri the native of Moshav Nahal who has carved a career in the Israeli entertainment industry.



1992: Two days after he had passed away, 75 year old accountant Albert Weiner, the son of “Soloman Weiner and Gertrude Talesknic” and the husband of “Sylvia Cooper” was buried today in Baltimore, MD.



1993: CBS broadcast the final episode of “ Family Album,” a sitcom created by David Crane and Marta Kauffman.



1995: “Showtime” broadcast “Fearless” an episode of “Fallen Angels” based on “a novelette of the same name” by Walter Mosley who identifies as “African-American and Jewish.”



1996(1st of Kislev, 5757): Rosh Chodesh Kislev



1996(1st of Kislev, 5757): Seventy-seven year old Denver native Aaron Klausner, the son Tillie (Bienenstock) Klausner and Josef Klausner and the husband of Pearl Kalusner passed away today.



1997:  In an unusual move, The Berlin Literary Trust released a statement that included Sir Isaiah Berlin's last letter expressing his views on the subject of the Israeli-Palestinian situation and the events surrounding the writing and publication of the letter.



1997: Terrorist Ramsi Yousef was found guilty of masterminding the bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993.


1997: Despite a tire-burning protest set off by the main event up the road – Today marked the grand opening of a new fortified complex encasing Rachel's Tomb, the traditional burial place of the wife of the biblical patriarch Jacob. The festivities, attended by hundreds of strictly Orthodox Jews, Defense Minister Yitzhak Mordechai and Israel's two Chief Rabbis, were a celebration of Israel's continued control of the ancient shrine venerated by Jews for generations. The opening took place despite a tire-burning protest which was part of the violent Palestinian protests that have been going on for the past twelve months. 


1998: At the Vivian Beaumont Theatrre “first preview performance” of “Parade” a musical that “dramatizes the 1913 trial of Jewish factory manager Leo Frank.”


1998: A Broadway revival of Neil Simon’s “Little Me” opened today at the Criterion Center Stage Right


2000: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or about topics of Jewish interest including Echoes Down The Corridor: Collected Essays, 1944-2000 by Arthur Miller, Edited by Steven R. Centola, Flux: Women on Sex, Work, Kids, Love, and Life in a Half-Changed World by Peggy Orenstein, Karl Popper – The Formative Years, Politics and Philosophy in Interwar Vienna 1902-1945 by Malachi Haim Hacohen, Lower East Side A Jewish Place in America by Hasia R. Diner and One Palestine, Complete:Jews and Arabs Under the British Mandate by Tom Segev, Translated by Haim Watzman.


2000(14th of Cheshvan, 5761): Leah Rabin, widow of Yitzchak Rabin, passed away.



2001(26thof Cheshvan, 5762): Eighty-one year old “German American composer and actor” Albert Hague passed away today.



2003: Rabbi Asher Wade tackles questions of Holocaust, God at local lecture” published today described a lecture given by the Jewish leader who had been a pastor in the United Methodist Church until he converted in 1983.



2004: “Controversial American radio personality” advocates dropping a bomb on the funeral of Yasser Arafat.


2005: NYPD Chief of Detectives Al Seedman said that his decision to become a police officer date back to when “as a kid” he had been made “an Official Stairwell Monitor.”


2005: “Nothing Lasts Forever” a comedy produced by Lorne Michaels in 1984 that was not released to the public, co-starring Mort Sahl, Sam Jaffe and Eddie Fisher with music by Howard Shore was screened today at the St. Louis International Film Festival.


2006: “Grace period” granted to American born Joel Covington (a.k.a. rapper Rebel Sun) his wife Soshanna and their two Israeli born children is scheduled to come to an end.  The African American musician and his family have been attempting to make aliyah since 1999.  They are not Jewish.  They want to convert, but they cannot take part in a conversion program until they have visas and so far the government has not granted them visas; talk about “Catch 22.”


2006: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Fairest by Gail Carson Levine, Sala’s Gift: My Mother’s Holocaust Story by Ann Kirschner and Too Soon to Say Goodbyeby Art Buchwald.


2006: “Box on the Boulevard, an outdoor exhibit of large-scale Keren Kaymet boxes by contemporary Israeli artists,” opened in Haifa at the Carmel Auditorium.  These artistic renderings of the famed “little blue charity boxes” were warmly received at its opening in Tel Aviv.  The exhibit will be open in Haifa until November 26.


2006(15th of Cheshvan, 5767): Gary Siegel passed away at the age 62.  He was associate accounting professor at Depaul University and founder of the Jewish Burial Society of Chicago.


2006:  The 10th Annual Dayton Jewish Book Fair comes to an end.


2006: Today, Bruce “Karatz retired from KB Home and agreed to pay the Company the profits he received based on KB Home’s stock option back-dating procedures.”


2007: The Kibbutz Chamber Orchestra under Doron Salomon presents a program featuring Balkan music at Ein HaShoresh in the Natania-Hadera region.


2007: Jewish economistRobert Kuttner, founder and co-editor of the magazine American Prospect, discusses and signs The Squandering of America: How the Failure of Our Politics Undermines Our Prosperityat Politics and Prose Bookstore in Washington, D.C.


2007 (2 Kislev 5768): Staff-Sergeant Asaf Waxman, 28, from Rishon Leziyon, was killed and four others were lightly to moderately injured when an armored personnel carrier overturned during a training exercise in the Golan Heights.


2007 (2 Kislev 5768): Seventy eight year old Ira Levin, “a mild-mannered playwright and novelist who liked nothing better than to give people the creeps” passed away today (As reported by Margalit Fox)



2008: As part of the Israeli Voices Series, the Israeli guitar playing vocalist Chava Alberstein performs at the 92nd St Y in Manhattan.  .


2008:U.S. Jewish organizational leaders are scheduled to meet with the King of Saudi Arabia. The meeting is taking place in New York this week during an interfaith dialogue held under the auspices of the United Nations and Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah, who has pressed in recent years for greater interreligious understanding despite resistance from his kingdom’s Islamist clerics. The meeting will be held behind closed doors.


2008: This afternoon, IDF troops gunned down four Gaza terrorists as fresh clashes raised new concerns that the increasingly shaky five-month-old truce could collapse. Troops spotted a group of Palestinian gunmen some 300 meters from the Gaza border, near the Kissufim crossing, the army said. The gunmen were apparently planning to plant a bomb near the fence. Palestinians fired two Kassam rockets at Israeli communities in the Western Negev this evening, several hours after clashes between IDF troops and Hamas gunmen in the Gaza Strip killed four Palestinians. No one was hurt in the attack and the rockets did not cause damage. Earlier, six mortar shells were fired from the Gaza Strip towards Israel. The Islamic Jihad terrorist group claimed responsibility for firing the shells, which landed in open areas and did not cause any injuries or damage.


2008: In Budapest, “The 20th meeting of the International Catholic-Jewish Liaison Committee (ILC) of the Holy See's Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews and the International Jewish Committee on Interreligious Consultations (IJCIC)” came to a close toda


2008: Following a very close race, the media declared that Alaska Congressman Don Young had defeated Ethan Berkowitz and Don Wright.  Berkowitz is Jewish.  The other two are not.


2009: “Crocodile Tears” by Anthony Horowitz, the 8th Alex Rider novel, was released in the UK today.


2009: The 31stAnnual Jewish Book Festival comes to a close.


2009: Opening of Jewish Book Month, an annual event sponsored by The Jewish Book Council.


2009: In Iowa City, Israeli Film & Food Night will include a showing of the award-winning Israeli film, The Band’s Visit.


2009: Today a jury found Sholom Rubashkin, formerly a manager of the Agriprocessors plant in Postville, guilty of 86 charges of money laundering and bank, mail and wire fraud. He faces another trial on 72 immigration charges.


2010: “The Electric Mind,” a documentary created by Israeli filmmaker Nadav Harel is scheduled to have its U.S. premiere at the American Museum of Natural History in NYC.


2010:IAF pilot Major Amichai Itkis will be buried today in Kfar Saba. Itkis had died in a training crash along with his navigator, Major Emanuel Levi. The funeral will begin at noon in the Kfar Saba military cemetery. Itkis, 28, who lived in Sde Warburg, is survived by his parents and a sister. A brother, Barak, died in 1998 during his military service in the navy. Barak had dreamed of becoming a pilot but was unable to do so due to imperfect eyesight. Family friends said Thursday that becoming an IAF pilot was Amichai's dream as well. Amichai was engaged to marry in March. He had recently begun studying at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya.


2010:Antonia Fraser’s new memoir, “Must You Go? My Life With Harold Pinter,” is the first tome listed on the New York Times list of Coffee Table Books.


2010 Morris Lapidus: Architecture of Joy is one of the books on antiques that the New York Times recommends buying as a gift during the upcoming Holiday Season. [Lapidus is the Russian born American architect who set the style for the resort hotels built in Miami Beach and its environs during the 1950’s]


2010: Ariel Sharon was moved from the long-term care facility to his home in Havat Shikmim for a 48-hour period, the first of five planned home visits.


2010: “Tiny Furniture” “ a comedy-drama written by, directed by and starring Lena Dunham” and also co-starring Laurie Simmons and Alex Karposvsky was released in the United States today.


2011(15th of Cheshvan, 5772): Seventy-five year old “Evelyn H. Lauder, a refugee of Nazi-occupied Europe who married into an illustrious family in the beauty business and became an ardent advocate for breast cancer awareness, raising millions for research” passed away today. (As reported by Cathy Horn)



2011: The 3rdAnnual International Holiday Bazaar is scheduled to begin at the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center.


2011: The Hadassah Attorneys' Council of Greater Washington  is scheduled to sponsor a lecture by Charles S. Fax entitled "Justice and Accountability in the Face of Genocide: Suing the Hungarian State Railroad Company in Federal Court For Its Role in Transporting Jews to the Auschwitz Death Camp"


2011: The JCC of Northern Virginia is scheduled to sponsor its Fall Fundraising Gala: A Night of the Arts in Arlington, VA.


2011: Around 10,000 people gathered in Rabin Square in central Tel Aviv this evening for a memorial for the late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who was assassinated 16 years ago by a right-wing Jewish extremist.


2011: Seventy-five year old “Evelyn H. Lauder, a refugee of Nazi-occupied Europe who married into an illustrious family in the beauty business and became an ardent advocate for breast cancer awareness, raising millions for research died today from the effects of nongenetic ovarian cancer. (As reported by Cathy Horyn)



2012: At the UK Jewish Film Festival premiere screening of “Life In Stills,” about the life and work of Israeli photographer Rudi Wasserstein.


2012: Jewish Historical Society of Greater Washington is scheduled to sponsor a screening of “The Ritchie Boys” as part of the Veteran’s Day commemorations.


2012:Dorit Beinisch, the first woman to serve as President of the Israeli Supreme Court, “was awarded Doctor of Philosophy "honoris causa" degree from the Weizmann Institute of Science.”


 2012: Muhamad Abd al-Wahab, Farid al-Atrash, Layla Mourad and Asmahan are scheduled to perform at the Jerusalem International Oud Festival. (The pear-shaped instrument is compared to the lute)


2012:A Grad rocket landed in the yard of a house in the southern city of Netivot this morning. No one was injured, but the explosion caused damage to the building and its surroundings, leading to power outages in parts of the city. Twenty-six people were treated for shock.


2012:There’s no predominantly anti-Israel sentiment on most American campuses – rather apathy is the true danger facing the Jewish state, according to an Israeli diplomat.


2012:Israel fired at and struck two Syrian mortar launchers today, following the second time in as many days that Syrian artillery shells exploded in Israeli territory.,A tank from the 401 Armored Brigade fired at the Syrian targets in what was an escalated Israeli retaliation to Syrian fire. Unlike Sunday’s exchange, the IDF fired with the intention of hitting its target, as part of a new policy designed to deter Syrian forces from firing into Israel.


2013: The Pears Institute for the Study of Antisemitism in partnership with the Anne Frank Trust is scheduled to host Baroness Helena Kennedy who will speak on “What Does the Rule of Law Really Mean?”


2013: In Jerusalem, the General Assembly of the Jewish Federations of North America chaired by CEO Jerry Silverman is scheduled to end today.


2013: Today, in Washington, D.C, “75 people” including Bulgarian Ambassador Elena Poptodorova, D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson, and Neil Glick attended a ceremony naming “the intersection adjacent to the Embassy of Bulgaria at 22ndStreet and R Street, NW, Dimitar Peshev Plaza” in honor of Dimitar Peshev, the Bulgarian leader who helped to prevent the deportation of Bulgaria's 48,000 Jews “ for which he was named one of the "Righteous Among the Nations".


2013: The UK Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to present “Water: Israeli-Palestinian Cinematic Project.


2013: Jewish Agency chairman Natan Sharansky and Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat called today for the urgent release of imprisoned Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard a day after US Ambassador Dan Shapiro appeared to end hope that he would be freed any time soon. (As reported by Gil Hoffman)


2013: Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu directed Housing and Construction Minister Uri Ariel to "reconsider" plans for preliminary planning of some 24,0000 housing units beyond the Green Line, saying this would harm efforts to stop Iran's nuclear program. (As reported by Herb Heinon and Tovah Lazaroff)


2013: Interior Minister Gideon Sa'ar responded today to Beit Shemesh Mayor Moshe Abutbul's homophobic remarks in a Friday interview with Channel 10, saying: "I condemn, in the most unequivocal way, the words of Beit Shemesh mayor. The things that he said represent a dark and outrageous perception, and it's hard to believe that someone would say these things in this day and age." (As reported by Omri Efraim


2014: “In a new spree of anti-Semitic incidents in Paris, a kosher restaurant is firebombed, and a Jewish student wearing a yarmulke is assaulted outside his private high school.”


2014: The Skirball Center and the United States are scheduled to host “Rescuing the Evidence: Three Minutes in Poland” 


2014: The Center for Jewish History is scheduled to host “Modeling the Synagogue – from Dura to Touro.”


2014: The University of Connecticut is scheduled to host a lecture by Professor Sanders on “Scholem’s Myth of Oral Torah and Jewish Interpretation before the Bible”


2014: “The Foreign Ministry announced today it would not cooperate with the UN inquiry into the summer Gaza conflict, and rejected an entry request issued by three members of the investigative committee seeking to gather evidence, leaving them stranded in Amman. (As reported by Mariss Newman)


2014: “A new report from the Ministry of Health into the leading causes of death in Israel between 2000 and 2011 shows a significant decline in mortality from heart disease, stroke, accidents, diabetes and chronic respiratory diseases over the past decade. At the same time, there has been a dramatic increase in fatalities from Alzheimer's and dementia.” (As reported by Yaron Keiner)


2014: Oren Kosansky, an “Associate Professor of Anthropology and Chair of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Lewis & Clark College” is scheduled to deliver a lecture on the Jewish-Muslim relations in Morocco as part of Portland Jewish Book Month.



2015(30thof Cheshvan, 5776): Rosh Chodesh Kislev


2015(30thof Cheshvan, 5776): Ninety-three year old portrait artist Aaron Shikler passed away today. (As reported by William Grimes)



2015: Funeral services are scheduled to be held at Temple Judah for 93 year old Fred Rodgers, a long-time member of the Cedar Rapids Jewish Community followed by burial at Eben Israel Cemetery.  Ironically, Mr. Rodgers passed away on November 10, the day after Kristallnacht. For years, Mr. Rogers would speak each about Kristallnacht describing his family’s experience at that time while living in Frankfort.


2015: Hezbollah weapons warehouses were the targets of this afternoon’s  Israeli airstrikes in Syria.


2015: Angela Bothelo is scheduled to lecture on “Modern Marrano: German Jews and the Persistence of Jewish Identity in Conversion as part of the Speakers Series sponsored by the Tulane University Jewish Studies Department.


2015: “Fired Birds” and “Sabena” are scheduled to be shown at the 29thIsrael Film Festival in Los Angeles.


2015: The Jewish Studies Center at Baruch College is scheduled to host a screening of “The Return,” “a documentary about being young and Jewish in today’s Poland, followed by a discussion with director Adam Zucker.”


2015: The Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center is scheduled to host “author and film historian Thomas Doherty-Professor of American Studies at Brandeis University-as he addresses the impact of Nazism in films and newsreels from his book Hollywood and Hitler, 1933-1939.”


2016(11thof Cheshvan, 5777): Parashat Lech-Lecha


2016: The Shabbos project continues



2016: “The Diary of Anne Frank” and “A Grain of Truth” are scheduled to be shown at the 20th UK International Jewish Film Festival.


2016; In Canberra, “The People vs Fritz Bauer is scheduled be shown at the Jewish International Film Festival.


2016: The 106 year old Mexican-born actress Lupita Tovar, the wife of Paul Kohner, the Czechoslovakian born Jewish producer whom she married in 1932 and the mother of actress Susan Kohner, passed away today.


2016; Agudas Achim is scheduled to host “Eat, Sing, Love--an Evening of Jewish Music” as part of the congregation’s centennial celebration.


2016: “Wounded Land” and “Sand Storm” are scheduled to be shown at the


11thChicago Festival of Israeli Cinema.


2016: “Israel moved into third place with nine points in its soccer World Cup qualifying Group G by beating Albania 3-0 in Elbasan, near Tirana” tonight.


2016: “Big: The Musical” featuring music by David Shire and with a book by John Weidman, the son of Jerome Weidman is scheduled to have its final performance at the Theatre Royal Plymouth tonight.


2017: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Alone: Britain, Churchill, and Dunkirk: Defeat Into Victory by Michael Korda, The Bad Mood and The Stick by Lemony Snicket, The Boy and The Whale by Mordicai Gerstein and the recently released paperback editions of Idaho by Emily Ruskovich and Thank You for Being Late: An Optimist’s Guide to Thriving in the Age of Accelerations by Thomas L. Friedman as well as Ruth Bader Ginsburg: The Case of R.B.G. vs. Inequalityby Jonah Winter which appeared on list of “The Best Illustrated Children’s Books of 2017.”


2017: The Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center is scheduled to host a “reading of Toni and Markus written by Walter Roth explores the everyday lives of the author's relatives both in German, and as refugees in Chicago.”


2017: In Des Moines, Beit Sefer Shalom is scheduled to host a “Global Day of Jewish Learning.”



2017: In Manchester, UK, as part this year’s “Remembrance Sunday” members of the Jewish community are scheduled “to place small wooden Magen Davis poppies” which “are an innovative joint initiative between the Jewish Representative Council (JPR) and the Manchester branch of the national Association of Jewish Ex-Servicemen and Women (AJEX)” “at cenotaphs across the city.”


2017: The Primo Levi Center is scheduled to present “Dressing the Sacred Text: Mappòt, Me’ilim and Parochyot in the Synagogues of Rome.”


2017: In honor of Veterans Day, The Jewish Historical Society of Greater Washington, the National Museum of American Jewish Military History and Jewish War Veterans of the USA are scheduled to co-host a tour the Jewish Sites at Arlington National Cemetery.


2017: The 19th annual Jewish Children’s Book Writers & Illustrators Seminar is scheduled to take place today in NYV.


2017: Jewish Book Month, an annual event that provides us with a chance to contemplate the lives of Jewish authors such Herman Wouk who has been with us for more than half a century and Jewish books for the next thirty days is scheduled to begin today.


2018: In an interview broadcast on CBS’s “60 Minutes, “six-time Olympic medalist Aly Raisman” who is Jewish “said that she was sexually abused by Dr. Larry Nassar, who worked as the women’s gymnastics national team doctor of decades.”
2018: The Zionist Organization of America feted Stephen K. Bannon, a founding member of the board of Breitbart News, at a gala dinner in New York tonight


2018: The “Parallel Lines” Jewelry Exhibition featuring works by Israeli artists Naama Bergman, Tamar Navama, Ruta Reifen, Dana Hakim, Noga Harel, Vered Kaminski, and Einat Leader” is scheduled to open today in New York City.


2018: Yeshiva University Museum is scheduled to host curator Jacob Wisse as he leads “a tour of Lost & Found, exploring the remarkable story of a pre-war family photo album that was owned a woman who was deported from the Kovno Ghetto in 1943.”


2018: Dr. David Kraemer is scheduled to teach the second class on “Maimonides, The Man and His Genius” at the Streicker Center


2018: Centro Primo Levi and The American Sephardi Federation are scheduled to present an evening with Dora Piperno, Celeste Pavoncello Piperno and Rav Umberto Piperno who will discuss “The Silk Tallit Renaissance.”



2018: The Temple Emanu-El Steicker Center is scheduled to host “Jewish Broadway” during which “leading Broadway and nightclub stars will celebrate the iconic tunes that brought the Jewish American songbook to life, putting its indelible stamp on the popular culture of our country and the world.”


2018: Classes have been canceled in Israeli communities along the border with Gaza following rocket attacks and clashes with Hamas terrorists that claimed the life of a yet to be identified IDF officer.


 

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

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November 13


354:  Birthdate of St. Augustine of Hippo.  While St. Augustine may be held in high regard by the Roman Catholic Church, he held the Jews in especially low regard. In his famous work The City of God, Augustine reports that the Jews were exiled because of their rejection of Jesus. The dispersal of the Jews to so many different places is way of reminding Christians that their belief in Jesus as Messiah is correct.  The exile came about because the Jews were enemies of the Church, but the Jews must not be slain so that they can finally see the error of their ways and repent.  The sword of Constantine and the cross of Augustine would soon draw together to make a bitter brew for Jews for centuries to come.



361: Emperor Constantius II who continued the anti-Semitic policies of his father and who, among other things, “decreed that a person who was proven to have converted from Christianity to Judaism would have all of his property confiscated by the state” passed away today. (Those who contend that Christianity grew because of spiritual superiority might want to rethink this in light of this entry)



1160:  Marriage of Louis VII of France with Adele of Champagne. Unfortunately, this marriage produced King Phillip II who exploited the Jews and then expelled them from his kingdom. 



1312: At Windsor Castle, King Edward II and Isabella of France gave birth to King Edward III who borrowed 140,000 florins “on the eve of the Hundred Years’ War” from a consortium led by Vivelin of Strasbourg, “an Alsatian Jewish financier” who was thought to be “one of the richest people living in the Holy Roman Empire.”



1460: Prince Henry the Navigator of Portugal passed away at the age of 66.  A devout Catholic who was a master of the Knights Templar, Henry was dedicated to bring glory to Portugal through maritime endeavors.  To that end he was only too willing to employ Jewish mathematicians, astronomers and cartographers despite his strong Crusading temperament.



1549: Paul Fagius, who learned Hebrew from Elia Levita with whom he founded a printing business that published Shemot Devarim, an Old Yiddish-Hebrew-Latin-German dictionary, in 1542 and who served as Hebrew lecturer at the University of Cambridge before being replaced by convert Immanuel Tremellius passed away today.



1685: King James II of England ordered the Attorney General to stop any proceedings against the Jews because “they should not be troubled upon his (the King’s) account but they should quietly enjoy the free exercise of their religion whilst they behaved dutifully and obediently to his government.”



1742: Founding of the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters to which Ludwig Lewin Jacobson in 1809 announced rediscovery of and researches concerning a hitherto unknown absorptive organ in the human nose (later named after him "the Jacobsonian organ").



1757: The Talmud was publicly burned in Kamenets-Podolski (Poland). Jacob Frank, a follower of the false Messiah Shabbetai Zevi had begun his own movement which emphasized the Kabbalah and denigrated the Talmud. His practices (some of which were of sexual nature) were condemned by the local Rabbinate. In revenge, he arranged a dispute in Lvov between himself and the local Jewish leaders. Bishop Nicholas Dembowski who presided over the disputation ruled in favor of Frank and ordered all copies of the Talmud found to be dragged through the streets and burned. Around 1000 copies of the Talmud were destroyed. Within a few years, many of the Frankists converted to Christianity.



1761(19th of Cheshvan, 5522): Nathan Nata Spira, the son of Selig Spira and grandson of Nathan Nata Spira passed away at at Eibenschütz, in Moravia, where he had been serving as rabbi for the past year.



1773(o.s.): In Liozna, Sterna Segal and Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi gave birth to Dovber Schneuri the second Rebbe of  the Chabad Lubavitch Chasidic movement also known as the “Mitteler Rebbe” or Middle Reebe since he was the second in the chain of the first three leaders of Chabad.



1785:Hirsch Janow, known as “Hirsch Harfi” (Hirsch the acute)  who had succeeded his father-in-law Raphael Kohn as the rabbi of Posen in 1776 before becoming chief rabbi at Furth passed away today in Bavaria.



1791: King Louis XVI signed the resolution of emancipation guaranteeing all French Jews full rights of citizenship.



1796: In Offenbach-on-the Main, Wolf Breidenbach and his wife gave birth to Moritz Breidenbach, who earned an LL.D. from the University of Heidelberg in 1817 “whose principal literary work was his commentary on the Hessian legal code” of which he had been the “principal author.”



1799: Henry Harris married Fyla Frances at the Great Synagogue today.



1799: Moses Levy married Sarah Phillips at the Great Synagogue today.



1806: Jewish merchants of Gibraltar wrote Aaron Nunez Cardozo a prominent merchant serving as a liaison between the British government and the Muslim Barbary States seeking his help in getting them an exemption from the Moroccan dress code for dhimmis. As the following entry shows, dhimmi status was part of the “peculiar relationship” that the Muslims imposed on the Jews.  “The Muslim attitude toward Jews is reflected in various verses throughout the Koran, the holy book of the Islamic faith. "They [the Children of Israel] were consigned to humiliation and wretchedness. They brought the wrath of God upon themselves, and this because they used to deny God's signs and kill His Prophets unjustly and because they disobeyed and were transgressors" (Sura 2:61). According to the Koran, the Jews try to introduce corruption (5:64), have always been disobedient (5:78), and are enemies of Allah, the Prophet and the angels (2:97­98). Still, as "People of the Book," Jews (and Christians) are protected under Islamic law. The traditional concept of the "dhimma"("writ of protection") was extended by Muslim conquerors to Christians and Jews in exchange for their subordination to the Muslims. Peoples subjected to Muslim rule usually had a choice between death and conversion, but Jews and Christians, who adhered to the Scriptures, were allowed as dhimmis (protected persons) to practice their faith. This "protection" did little, however, to insure that Jews and Christians were treated well by the Muslims. On the contrary, an integral aspect of the dhimma was that, being an infidel, he had to openly acknowledge the superiority of the true believer--the Muslim. In the early years of the Islamic conquest, the "tribute" (or jizya), paid as a yearly poll tax, symbolized the subordination of the dhimmi. Later, the inferior status of Jews and Christians was reinforced through a series of regulations that governed the behavior of the dhimmi. Dhimmis, on pain of death, were forbidden to mock or criticize the Koran, Islam or Muhammad, to proselytize among Muslims or to touch a Muslim woman (though a Muslim man could take a non-­Muslim as a wife). Dhimmis were excluded from public office and armed service, and were forbidden to bear arms. They were not allowed to ride horses or camels, to build synagogues or churches taller than mosques, to construct houses higher than those of Muslims or to drink wine in public. They were not allowed to pray or mourn in loud voices-as that might offend the Muslims. The dhimmi had to show public deference toward Muslims-always yielding them the center of the road. The dhimmi was not allowed to give evidence in court against a Muslim, and his oath was unacceptable in an Islamic court. To defend himself, the dhimmi would have to purchase Muslim witnesses at great expense. This left the dhimmi with little legal recourse when harmed by a Muslim. Dhimmis were also forced to wear distinctive clothing. In the ninth century, for example, Baghdad's Caliph al-Mutawakkil designated a yellow badge for Jews, setting a precedent that would be followed centuries later in Nazi Germany. The Moslem view of the Jew as permanent second class citizen would help to explain the hostility towards the state of Israel.  Under the concept of dhimmi Moslems could not accept living in a state where Jews had equal rights and they certainly could not accept living in a state that had been created by a victory of Jewish soldiers over soldiers of Islam.



1827: Birthdate of Philadelphia lawyer Leonard Myers, the native of Attleborough, PA who “was elected as Republican from the 3rdDistrict of Pennsylvania to the 38th, 39th, 40th, 41st, 42nd and 43rd Congresses.”



1830: Joseph Mérilhou, the Minister of Public Education under Louis Phillippe, offered a motion placing Judaism on an equal footing with the Christian religions, paying Synagogues and rabbis from the public treasury in the same manner as was done for Churches and their ministers.  In presenting his motion, "which was adopted by a large majority" Merilhou spoke approvingly of how well Jews had performed as citizens of the republice since they had been granted citizenship during the French Revolution.



1833: Birthdate of Edwin Booth, a member of the famous 19thcentury acting family of whom critics said that “there is no other actor who can realize so well as he all the meaning of the character of Shylock, the bitter hatred, the firmness of purpose, the deep passion, the unswerving faith and the tenderness of his undemonstrative affection for his child” which sets apart from all his contemporaries including Lawrence Barrett..



1834: Birthdate of Benjamin Franklin Peixotto a New York born lawyer who was the son of Dr. Daniel Levy Maduro Peixotto and the grandson of Rabbi Moses L. M. Peixotto. After attending school in New York he went to Cleveland, Ohio, where he studied law under Stephen A. Douglas and wrote for the Cleveland Plaindealer. In 1867 he removed to San Francisco, where he continued his practice as a lawyer. In 1870-'5 he was United States consul in Bucharest, Romania, where his influence was marked in securing civil and religious liberty. In 1876 he returned to the United States and took part in the presidential canvass in favor of Rutherford B. Hayes. In 1877 he declined the appointment of consul-general at St. Petersburg. He was subsequently made United States consul at Lyons, France, a post which he held until 1885, when he returned to New York and resumed the practice of law. Peixotto was active in various Jewish educational and charitable movements throughout the United States.  A well-known lecturer, he was the editor of the Menorah, a publication established in 1886 which highlighted the activities of the B’nai Brith as well as the Jewish religion and literature.



1839: In Darmstadt, Germany, Lob and Bina Oppenheimer gave birth to Rosa Oppenheimer who became Rosa Bloom when she married her second husband Isidor Bloom.



1839: In Charleston, SC, Rabbi Gustavus Poznanski officiated at the wedding of John J. Cohen of Augusta, GA and Miss Cornelia Anne Jacobs, the daughter of Colonel Jacobs.



1844(3rd of Kislev): Purim Amtchislav (Mstislavl, Belorussia) was annually observed by that community in a commemoration of a happy event that took place on that day



1844: Czar Nicholas I of Russia issued a decree calling for the establishment of a school for Jewish students and a seminary to train rabbis and teachers.  This was not nearly as benign as it sounded and most Jews avoided the siren call of enrolling their young in schools run by the government of Czarist Russia.  The Czar had a secret plan to gradually close the old Jewish schools and thus leave Jewish education in the hands of a government committed to the extinction of the Jewish people in Russia.



1845: In Germany, Zadek and Esther Machol gave birth to Michaelis Machol, the graduate of the Theological Seminary of Breslau and served as rabbi at Kehillath Anshe Maariv in Chicago before beginning his long-term service as a Rabbi at Temple Anshe Chesed in Cleveland, Ohio.



http://www.clevelandjewishhistory.net/people/machol.htm



http://www.clevelandjewishhistory.net/people/machol-ccar.htm



 



1849: The Hebrew Benevolent and German Hebrew Benevolent Society are scheduled to hold its anniversary in New York City.


1852: Birthdate of Jacob Voorsanger, the native of Amsterdam who came to the United States in the early 1870’s where he served as the rabbi at several congregations including Emanu-El in San Francisco while also serving as a professor of Semitic Languages at the University of California and a chaplain at Stanford.


1853: Birthdate of Moses Alexander, the Mayor of Boise and Governor of Idaho who was the husband of Helena Kaestner Alexander and the father of Leha Alexander Spiro.




1855: Rabbi Isidor Kalisch’s translation of a Phoenician inscription that had been found in Sidon, Asia was read before the Syro-Egyptian Society of London,


1856: Birthdate of Louis Brandeis.  Southern born, Harvard educated; Brandeis pursued a successful legal career as a champion of the underdog.  He was an ally and confidant of President Woodrow Wilson.  Wilson appointed Brandeis to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1916.  This was a milestone in American history and Jewish history.  Brandeis was the first Jew named to the high court.  He was also the first of whole group of minorities who would eventually take their place on the court including African-American and women.  The Brandeis nomination was contested by anti-Semites and the American business community.  Brandeis served on the bench until 1939.  Brandeis was also a committed Zionist and a leader of the movement in the United States.  He passed away in 1941.  Words from Brandeis: “The greatest menace to freedom is an inert people.”  “Every American Jew who aids in advancing the Jewish settlement in Palestine, though he feels that neither he nor his descendants will ever live there, will be a better man and a better American for doing so.” 




1856: In New York, the Hebrew Benevolent Society celebrated the 35thanniversary of its founding with a lavish banquet held in the City Assembly Rooms



1857: One day after he had passed away, 61 year old Lewis Abrahams, the husband of Julia Abrahams and the father of Charles Abrahams was buried today at the Brady Street Jewish Cemetery.



1858:  The New York Times reported that "the Jews of New Orleans have contributed $150 for the New Orleans sick."


1860: Four days after he passed away, Reuben Salomons, the son of Barent and Rose Salomons and the husband of the former Sarah Hurwitz was buried today at the Balls Pond Jewish Cemetery.


 


1863: Sixty-four year old Alexander McCaul, the Anglo-Irish author who spent over a decade trying to convert Jews in Poland, who “wrote vigorously against the blood libel” and who “became professor of Hebrew and rabbinical literature at King’s College, London” passed away today.


1866: In Louisville, KY, Moritz and Esther Flexner gave birth to Dr. Abraham Flexner, the husband of the former Anne Crawford with whom he had two daughters Jean and Eleanor



 


1868: In Philadelphia, “Seligman Bernheimer and Betty Loeb” gave birth to Dr. Charles S. Bernheimer, a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, the President of the Young Men’s Hebrew Union and a member of the Jewish Chautauqua Society who was the “compiler and editor” of “The Russian Jew in the United States.”


1871: In Orangeburg, SC, Philip and Jennie Rich were wed today.


                                               


1872: It was reported today that, based on information that had first appeared in The Times of London that the suffering of the Romanian Jews has given rise to a demand for concerted action by their co-religionists to protest and improve their condition.  A conference to be held in Brussels for this purpose is attracting delegates who are prominent leaders from several places including Paris, London and Berlin.


1872: Birthdate of Savannah, GA native Charles Garfunkel, the husband of Lina Adler Garfunkel with whom he had two sons – Benjamin and Sylvan


1873: One day after she had passed away, Edith Russell was buried today at the Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.



1875: Birthdate of Gershon Lichetenstein, the native of Babimost who would be murdered by the Nazis in Lodz at the age of 65.



1878: Birthdate of German born American mathematician Max Wilhelm Dehn, who look so many others gave up his career in his homeland with the rise of the Nazis, but unlike others, was able to find refuge in the United States.



1880: Todays dispatch to the London Standard from Berlin stated “A petition has been presented to Prince Bismarck to restrict the civil rights of the Jews and repeal the absolute equality enjoyed by them with German citizens.” (Prince Bismarck is Otto Von Bismarck, the Iron Chancellor who really ran Germany)



1881: Seventy-four year old Harris Michaels, the husband of the former Elizabeth Daniel and the father of Priscilla Michaels, was buried today at the Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.



1882: It was reported today that “the Mount Sinai Hospital…is one of the leading hospitals” in New York City.  It treats patients of all creeds and its “list of free patients is as large as any other institution of its kind in the country.”



1882(2nd of Kislev, 5643): Ephraim Alex the Anglo-Jewish philanthropist who served as overseer of the Great Synagogue and founded the Jewish Board of Guardians passed away today in London.



1883: It was reported today that when the Lord Mayor of London refused to allow the Dr. Stocker, the anti-Semitic Chaplain to the Court of Germany to lecture at Mansion House, he said “he could not disregard the feelings of the Jewish community of London by giving prominence…to a man who has excited hostility against the Jews.”



1884: Rosa Schuminchler, a Polish Jewess who had previously been deported, and her seven children were among those who arrived in the United States today aboard the SS Queen



1884: Samuel A. Lewis, Tammany political leader, former President of the Board of Alderman and the editor of Jewish newspaper was arrested as a result of civil suit brought by his sister, Harriet L. Lewis.



1884: “Mgr. Capel on Patriotism” published today described the speech by Monsignor Thomas John Capel to the Young Men’s Hebrew Association” in which he calls for quality public education where the teachers are “appointed upon their merits and goodness” and not “because they are friends of the mayor.” In describing the role of women, he reminds his listeners that “husbands are breadwinners” but women “are formers of character.” (Why Capel, a Catholic priest who stood accused of a variety of “improprieties” during his lifetime, was chosen to lecture to a Jewish organization is something for which I have not found an explanation.)



1884: English thespians Henry Irving and Ellen Terry will perform “The Merchant of Venice” this evening.  She will play the Jewess Portia and he will play Shylock, the Jew – one of his signature dramatic roles.  (Based on newspaper accounts at the time, this particular Shakespearian drama was extremely popular in the post-Civil War United States.)



1885: William Sharon, the former Senator from Nevada, who would bequeath $5,000 to the Hebrew Orphan Asylum at San Francisco passed away today.



1886: It was reported today that plans are being made for a concert at the Home for Aged and Infirm Hebrews.



1888: One day after she had passed away, Henrietta Salamon, the daughter of Solomon and Harriet Prager Levien and the wife of Edward Salamon with whom she had eight children was buried today at the “Rookwood Cemetery in Rookwood, NSW Australia.”



1889: A delegation of Jews went to New York political leader Coroner Levy to protest the failure of authorities to bury Abraham Bergman, a child who died two weeks ago.



1892: “Israel in the Wilderness” a cantata by Dr. Alfred R. Gaul which opens with “a Hebrew chorale” was performed for the first time in New York City.



1892: Founding of the Perth Hebrew Congregation “the oldest of three synagogues serving the Jewish community of Perth, Australia”



1892: The Trustees of Temple Emanu-El met today and decided to hold a memorial service in honor of the late Seligman Adler the New York businessman who was a trustee of the Temple for 22 years.



1893: In Romania, birthdate of Rubin Zelicovici, who gained fame as Israeli painter Reuven Rubin whose works included an oil canvas painted in 1922 entitled “Self Portrait with a Flower” which is on display in the Rubin Museum. http://www.flickr.com/photos/32357038@N08/6152510301/



http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/reuven-rubin



For more of his paintings see http://www.imj.org.il/artcenter/galleryE.asp?artist=277535&list=



1894: In Vienna, Jewish philosopher Nathan Birnbaum and Rosa Korngut gave birth to Austrian artist Uriel Birnbaum.



1894: Three days after she had passed away, Kettchen May, the daughter of Isaak Simon Landauer and Sprinz Salomon Michel and wife of Ferdinand May was buried today at the West Ham Jewish Cemetery on Buckingham Road.



1894: Following their debut at London in July pianists Rose Laura Sutro and Ottilie Sutro played a Bach concerto during their American debut which took place in Brooklyn today.



1895: According to a summary of the United Hebrew Charities’ monthly report, during October the society processed 2,507 applications which provided assistance for a total of 8, 356 people.



1895: Work of United Hebrew Charities” published today described the successful operations of this New York organization which collected $14, 413. 50 this past month of which it spent over $10,000 to provide services ranging from the support of an industrial school for girls to providing transportation for immigrants to settle in other parts of the country.



1895: After the Emperor had refused to ratify the election of “Dr. Karl Luger, the anti-Semitic leader in the Reichsrath” as Burgomaster of Vienna, the Municipal Council elected him to the position again today which led to an imperial decree dissolving the council.



1895: The New York Times reported on an instructive and most entertaining lecture on the subject of “Ghosts” given in the West End Synagogue by Rabbi F. de Sola Mendes to an audience composed almost entirely of women and young girls.



1896: “Dowers For Orphan Girls” published today described the work of the newly formed Greater New York German Orphan Society which was modeled on a program started several years ago by Mr. Morgenthau for Jewish girls that will provide dowries to German girls, regardless of their religious denomination which will enable these worthy but impoverished maidens a chance to enjoy the benefits of marriage.



1897: Birthdate of Rabbi Yaakov Yosef Friedman, the founder and former spiritual leader of the Garment Center Synagogue in Manhattan. Born in Jerusalem, Rabbi Friedman came to the United States with his mother and brother in 1918 to escape famine in his homeland. His father had arrived a year earlier. Trained as a scribe, Rabbi Friedman began his rabbinical studies in 1919. He was a rabbinical graduate of Yeshiva University's Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary. He was ordained in 1921. After his ordination, he was appointed rabbi of Congregation Ezrath Israel in Ellenville, N.Y., a position he held for four years before moving to Brooklyn. In 1931, after serving at several synagogues in New York City, Rabbi Friedman founded the Garment Center Synagogue. In the mid-1950's, he was named rabbi emeritus. He passed away in 1993 at the age of 95.


1897(18th of Cheshvan, 5658): Mrs. Marion Levy, the widow of A.S. Levy, who was born in New York in 1857 and who later moved to Brooklyn passed away in her adopted home town.


1897(18th of Cheshvan, 5658): Sixty-four year old Dutch banker and philanthropist A.C. (Abraham Carel) Wertheim who was the husband of Rosalie Marie Wertheim with whom he had eight children passed away today.


1897(18th of Cheshvan, 5658): Sixty-seven year old James Picciotto passed away today at his mother-in-law’s residence in London.


1897: In Vienna police were called to quell the fighting that broke out today between German and Jewish university students


1897: “The Rev. Sabato Morais” published today eulogized the life of the recently deceased Rabbi whom the secular press said devoted his life “ to the promotion of the liberty and advancement of the human race, the defense of the conservatism of the Jewish religion and the leadership and uplifting of the Jewish People.”


1898: Plans were published today describing the upcoming course of Monday talks to be given at the Young Men’s Hebrew Association.


1899: In Chicago, Julia (née Cohen) and Paul Caspary gave birth to American “lady of letters” Vera Louise Caspary who wrote the novel Laura, which was turned into one of the finest films-noire



1900: Herzl meets the French millionaire Reitlinger and discusses the idea of redeeming the Turkish debt.


1903(22nd of Cheshvan, 5664): French impressionist painter Camille Pissarro passed away at the age of 73. Born Jacob-Abraham-Camille Pissarro he was the son of a Sephardic Jew living in the Virgin Islands where owned by Denmark. “None of Pissarro's paintings refer to the Bible or Jewish rituals or include Hebrew inscriptions. However, the art historian Stephanie Rachum has pointed out references to Judaism in three pen and ink drawings that Pissarro created in 1890 for his nieces. In "Capitol," Pissarro drew a smartly-dressed man with a hooked nose amidst throngs of needy people. In a letter to his nieces, Pissarro identified the ‘vulgar and ugly’ figure as a portrait of a rich Jew, ‘of an Oppenheim, of a Rothschild, of a Gould, whatever.’ The hooked noses appear in two other illustrations in the series, which also depict the Golden Calf. Although some might consider Pissarro a self-hating Jew for drawing these pictures, it is significant that they were not intended for publication. They reflect the complicated way in which his anarchist political views confronted his Jewish identity; to Pissarro, a rich Jew seemed to have been primarily a rich man and coincidentally Jewish. Joachim Pissarro, an art scholar and Camille's great-grandson, suggests that Camille's complicated relationship with Judaism impacted his work. The artist's religious struggles helped him develop, according to Joachim, "a critical stance which he could apply to the system of taste and to the conventions that governed art teaching at the time of his arrival in France in 1855."



1904: In Hamburg, Louise (née Löwenthal) and John Biermann gave birth to Dagobert Biermann the Jewish resistance fighter who was murdered by the Nazis at Auschwitz.


1905: “Jacob H. Schiff told an audience at the headquarters of the Educational Alliance” tonight “of the outrages” suffered by the Jews of Russia which is causing their “exodus…to the United States” where they “would make… the greatest Jew of all the ages.”


1905: As of tonight, approximately $40,000 “has been collected by the various Jewish organizations” in Philadelphia, PA for the relief of the Jewish “survivors of the massacre in Russia.”


1905: “At the meeting of the Executive Committee” today ‘in the United Hebrew Charities Building word was received from the banking houses of Rothschild in London and Paris that London’s fund, of which Baron Rothschild is Treasurer, has reached £53,000 and the Paris fund is 625,000 francs which is about half the London fund.”


1905: According to Mr. Spring-Rice, the Attaché of the British Legation, today, “the house of every Jew in St. Petersburg was marked with chalk as a preliminary to a general campaign against the Jewish race”


1905: As a sign that the concern for the plight of the Jews of Russia is not limited to a single “creed or faith” a meeting is scheduled to be held this afternoon at the Baptist Church of the Epiphany at Madison and 64th Street “to protest against the massacres and to take steps to aid in the relief work.”


1905: The Free Sons of Israel sent a “communication” today to Jacob Schiff declaring that the Order “was now actively engaged in the collection in the collection of money for the alleviation of the sufferings of the Russian Hebrews” along with its first contribution of $1,000.


1905: In Odessa, “the dismissal of Prefect D.B. Neidhartd” who is considered to be responsible for many of the recent anti-Semitic attacks “was announced this evening” which brought “rejoicing to the Jewish population.”


1906: In spite of her efforts to conceal the fact, Eleanora Leigh, the actress appearing in “Pippa Passes” at the Majestic Theatre finally conceded that she is really “Alice Lewisohn, the daughter of the late Leonard Lewisohn and the sister of Jesse Lewisohn.


1906: Birthdate of Eva Zeisel, American industrial designer. Born in Hungary, Zeisel is another refugee from Hitler’s Europe who enriched American culture; in her case in the world of ceramics and pottery.


1906: Miss Alice Lewisohn, the daughter of the late Leonard Lewisohn and the sister of Jesse Lewisohn explained that she was performing in “Pippa Passes” under the name of “Eleanora Leigh” because while she enjoyed the theatre she did not want to be known as a professional actress.


1907: In West Park, Ohio, Wilbur and May Nichols gave birth to Kenneth David “Nick” Nichols, a Major General who played a key role in the Manhattan project and who was one of the driving forces behind removing the security clearance of J. Robert Oppenheimer whom he said was a community “in every sense except that he did not carry a party card.”


1909(29thof Cheshvan, 5670): Elje Schafirstein passed away today.


1911: The Vaad or Council of Rabbis of the Jewish community of Safed voted 20,000 Francs toward the [Turkish] war fund.


1913: Birthdate of Karl Jay Shapiro, the Baltimore native who “was appointed the fifth Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 1946.


1914(24thof Cheshvan, 5675): Seventy year old “Hebraic scholar” Moses Neumann, the son of Wolf Neumann of Austrian Galicia who came to the United States seventeen years ago passed away today in New York


1914: In Sydney, the Hebrew Standard of Australasia reported that thirty-four year old Louis Sefton Cullen joined the Royal Fusiliers.


1916: Herman Bernstein, the editor of The American Hebrew said today that “the economic boycotts against the Polish Jews of which he had spoken about previously had taken place in Russian Poland and not in the part” of Poland occupied by the German forces.


1916(17thof Cheshvan, 5677): Private Philip Samuels, the native of West Kensington, London and son of Charles and Rebecca Samuel was killed today during the Battle of the Somme while serving with the 7th Battalion of the Royal Fusiliers.


1916: Julius Rosenwald, Chicago merchant and philanthropist contributed $500,000 toward the endowment fund for the proposed medical department of the University of Chicago


1917: During the “October Revolution” the Bolsheviks used artillery to gain control of Moscow but Alexander Kerensky, the moderate Socialist who was Chairman of the deposed Russian Provisional Government continued to enjoy support outside of the Russian capital.


1917: Private Abraham Balustein and the rest of the 165th which had just arrived in France from the United States remained in Brest for a second day.


1917: As Egyptian Expeditionary Force continue its advance after the battles at Beersheba and Gaza, Allenby’s forces drove back the Ottoman forces from their strong defensive positions in what was known as the Battle of Mughar Ridge, but was, in a typical case of English understatement as the Action of El Mughar in official dispatches.


1918: A group of prominent Jewish leaders including Samuel Untermeyer, Nathan Straus, Abram I. Elkus, Louis Marshal, Adolph Lewisohn Samuel C. Pamport, Louis Lipsky, Judge Otto A. Rasalsky, Dr. Samuel Schlman, Israel Unterberg and Franklin Simon host a dinner in New York for a delegation of visiting Zionists led by Vladimir Jabotinksy that includes Professor Otto Warburg and Alexander Goldstein.


1919: Birthdate of Isadore “Izzy” Spector who lead the Grand Junction High School to the state championship in Colorado before playing three years at the University of Utah where he earned honorable mention on the Grantland Rice All-America team in 1940.


1920(2ndof Kislev, 5681): Parashat Tolodot


1920: Dr. R. H. Melamed is scheduled to deliver a sermon on the portion of the week at Petach Tikvah in Brooklyn.


1920: Rabbi E.L. Solomon is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “The Doctrine of Immortality” at Kehilath Jeshurun.


1920: Rabbi David Davidson is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “Jacob and Esau: A Character Study for Simple Folks and Superwise Critics” at Atereth Israel’


1920: Birthdate of Eugene Ferkauf “the founder of the E. J. Korvette chain of discount department stores, whose 1950s strategy of low prices, quick turnover and high volume helped shape today’s retail landscape…” (As reported by Douglas Martin)


1921: Over 2,000 men, women and children gathered today to commemorate “the completion of thirty-nine years by Edward Lauterbach as a trustee of the Hebrew Orphan Asylum.


1921(12th of Cheshvan, 5682) Fifty-one year old Ignác (Yitzhaq Yehuda) Goldziher passed away.  Born in 1850, this Hungarian Jew is considered with of the three founders of modern Islamic studies in Europe.



1921: Dr. Joseph Silverman, rabbi emeritus of Temple Emanu-El, surprised almost 1,200 guests at a dinner at the Hotel Astor tonight by declaring himself in favor of the upbuilding of Palestine and the establishment there of a republic patterned after the democracy of the United States. “Rabbi Silverman has always been known as a non-Zionist, and while his beliefs do not quite coincide with those of the ardent Zionist, they were accepted by the large attendance as a practical endorsement of the Zionist movement.”


1921: In Camden, NJ Rabbi Mortimer J. Cohen of Philadelphia’s Beth Sholom and Rabbi Max Klein took part in the services dedicated the building which would serve as the temporary home for Congregation Beth El


1922: The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that Samuel Bashlow had delivered a eulogy entitled “Facts of the Unknown” at the service in Camden, NJ honoring the five members of the Y.M.H.A. who had lost their lives in the World War which was followed by Rabbi Harry S. Davidowitz’s speech and closing prayer offered by Rabbi Solomon Grayzel.


1923: In Boyle Heights, Morton and Fanny Greenstone gave birth to Leonard Greenstone, “a Los Angeles businessman and developer who helped create innovative training and rehabilitation programs for California prison inmates during 50 years of volunteer service to the prison system…” (As reported by Rebecca Trounson)



1923: In Edmonton, Alberta, Harry Hiller the owner of a secondhand musical instrument store and the former Rose Garfin gave birth to director Arthur Hiller whose most famous picture was the schmaltzy,  tear-jerker “Love Story.” (As reported by Dave Kehr)



1924: “Waxworks,” a silent horror film directed Paul Leni and Leo Birinsky who was also the producer was released in Germany today.


1926: In his 11th bout, Seymour “Cy” Schindel suffered his second loss at the Walker Athletic Club in New York.


1927: In New York, Louis and Mary (Halkin) Wiener, gave birth to Dr. Naomi W. Cohen, the Columbia University trained history professor and author who was the wife of Gerson D. Cohen, the Jewish historian and chancellor of JTS.





1928: During a dinner “arranged by the Union of Orthodox Congregations of America in’ honor of the fifty years of religious and public service of Dr. H. Pereira Mendes which was broadcast by WJZ, Rabbi Mendes called for the “convocation of the Jewish World Sanhedrin, the religious parliament which has not met since the Roman era, to deal with problems of orthodox Judaism raised by recent social and economic changes” in the modern world.


1931: In Budapest Klara nee Fejer and grain merchant Alexander Steiner gave birth to Agnes Steiner who survived the Holocaust and made a new life for herself as Leach Barcela in Israel.


1930: Birthdate of New York native left-wing Princeton Professor Richard A. Falk who was able to provide a rationalization for the terrorist bombing of the Boston Marathon. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/15/world/middleeast/un-israel-palestine-apartheid.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=second-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0


1933: The film version of “The Invisible Man” produced by Carl Laemmle, Jr. was released in the United States today.


1933: In contrast to how the Jews were being treated in Germany, the Baden Interior Minister “sent the following directive to police headquarters” today: "Forceful measures against Catholic clergymen outside the framework of the general laws are not permitted in the future."


1933: “A rally of German Christians was held at the Berlin Sportpalast, where — before a packed hall — banners proclaimed the unity of National Socialism and Christianity, interspersed with the omnipresent swastikas and  series of speakers addressed the crowd's pro-Nazi sentiments with ideas such as:


·         the removal of all pastors unsympathetic with National Socialism


·         the expulsion of members of Jewish descent, who might be arrogated to a separate church


·         the implementation of the Aryan Paragraph church-wide


·         the removal of the Old Testament from the Bible


·         the removal of "non-German" elements from religious services


·         the adoption of a more "heroic" and "positive" interpretation of Jesus, who in pro-Aryan fashion should be portrayed to be battling mightily against corrupt Jewish influences.


1934: “J. W. Mack to Remain As Head of Reform Union Body Till’35” published today described the decision to have “Jacob W. Mack, newly elected chairman of the executive board of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, serve in that capacity at least until the Union’s thirty-fourth annual council in Washington in March, 1935.” (As reported by JTA)


1936: Winston Churchill wrote to his son Randolph that the initial basis for the creation of the Anti-Nazi League was Jewish resentment at their abominable persecution, the base had grown to include all those who are prepared to support genuine military action to resist tyranny or aggression.


1936: Four meetings sponsored by the Brooklyn council of the American Jewish Congress scheduled to be held this evening in honor of Justice Louis D. Brandeis who is celebrating his 80th birthday today include a discussion of the jurist’s life led by Zionist leader Abraham Goldberg “at an open forum in the Flatbush Congress House.


1936: Those sending cables and telegrams to Justice Brandies on his 80thbirthday included Chaim Weizmann, President of the World Zionist Organization; David Ben Gurion on behalf of the 100,000 members of the Federation of Jewish Workers in Palestine; Dr. Israel Goldstein on behalf of the Jewish National Fund of America; Menachem M. Ussishkin, Henrietta Szold and Isaac Ben Zvi on behalf of “Palestine Jewry.”


1936: The executive board of Hadassah, which had announced “that the out-patient department of the medical center now under construction in Jerusalem  would be named for Justice Brandies and that a Brandeis for would be established in his honor in Palestine,” today “sent a birthday message to Justice Brandeis on half of its 52,000 members.”


1936: In Washington, DC, at Adas Israel, Rabbi Solomon Metz is scheduled to deliver a Friday night sermon “Brandeis, a Modern Sage” which will be followed by “an open forum with a talk on ‘Brandeis, the Champion of the People.


1937: In Konigsberg, Germany, “Rabbi Josef Hirsch Dunner” and “Yitta (Ida) Dunner” gave birth to “Abraham (Aba) Moshe Dunner.”


1938: “The twenty-seventh annual convention of the New Jersey Federation of the Y.M.H.A. and Y.W.H.A continued to meet at the Morristown Jewish Center.


1938: The Nazi government orders the Jews to cease all trading and business activities by end of the year.


1938: “Pastors at many congregations protested in sermons from their pulpits” today “against the renewed persecution of the Jews in Germany” and “the congregation of the Community Church approved” sending “a message to the German Ambassador in Washington asking him to inform his government of American reaction.”


1939: “Divisional meetings of members of the Women’s League for Palestine were held…at the homes of members in all part of” New York “ to discuss plans for a campaign to raise $100,000 for a new league center in Jerusalem similar to those already established in Haifa and Tel Aviv.”


1939: SS troops in Poland arrest and execute 53 Jewish men who happen to reside at the same address as a Jewish man who has shot and killed a Polish policeman.


1940: In Bay Shore, New York, Dorothy K. Kripke and Myer S. Kripke would serve as rabbi at Beth El Synagogue in Omaha, Nebraska gave brith to their first child, “philosopher and logician” Saul Kripke


1941: Warsaw diarist Chaim Kaplan writes that his wife has been stricken with typhus.


1941: Francie Rabiner, the Ft. Dodge, Iowa, native who was the daughter of Samuel and Daisy Lumelsky Rabiner became Francie Cohen when she married Samuel Cohen today in Cedar Rapids, IA.


1942: The members of a Kibbutz originally called Sha’ar HaNegev “moved to the Finger of the Galilee, where they established a new kibbutz called Kfar Szold.”


1942: The American (Jewish) Joint Distribution Committee (AJDC) report on the situation of Jews in North Africa including the fact that the occupation by Spanish military forces at Tangiers had led to the introduction of anti-Jewish laws being put into effect.


1943(15thof Cheshvan, 5704): Parashat Vayera


1943(15thof Cheshvan, 5704): Today, after a year in hiding the Urman family was betrayed and when the German police came to arrest them eleven and half year old Jerzy Feliks Urman took his own life, telling his mother with his dying breath “Mummy, I took the cyanide.”


1943: Frizt Lustig tried to escape from Birkenau. He was caught and shot ten days later.


1944: Due to “constantly rising costs, irreplaceable personnel losses, curtailed business due to war conditions and mounting losses,” today, after 57 years, “The Jewish Daily Courier, one of the oldest Jewish newspapers in the United States, suspended publication.” (JTA)


1944: In Newcastle upon Tyne Labour Party political leader Bennie Abrahams and his wife gave birth to David Martin Abrahams, the British real estate developer and Labour Party activist.


1945: American soprano Edis de Philippe landed in Israel and within a short time created the Israel National Opera.  De Philippe's company performed night after night all over the country. The company was so successful, that it attracted young and rising international opera stars to spend some time in Israel.


1945: Prime Minister Clement Attlee suggests formation of a joint Anglo-American committee to investigate the problem of Jewish refugees and devise a solution to it.  This apparently benign suggestion was an attempt to smooth Truman’s ruffled feathers over the British government’s refusal to accept Truman’s request that 100,000 Jews be admitted immediately to Palestine.


1945: British Foreign Minister Bevin gives a speech attacking Zionism and the Jewish people.


1945: President Truman and British foreign minister Ernest Bevin announce U.S.-British agreement on creating joint committee of inquiry to examine problem of European Jews and Palestine. Bevin suggests that Palestine become a trustee state of UN and later have self-government.


1945: Foreign Minister Bevin refuses the entry of 100,000 Jews into Palestine and declares a quota of 1,500 immigrants a month, subject to Arab acquiescence.


1945: Senator Kenneth McKellar (Tennessee) charges that British are distributing arms to Arabs and denounces UK Foreign Minister Bevin.


1945. Senator Warren G. Magnuson of Washington State, Representative Bertrand W. Gearhart of California’s 9th Congressional District and Guy W. Gillette, the former Senator from Iowa appeared on radio show tonight to discuss the situation in Palestine.  During the broadcast, Senator Gillette charged “that the present restrictions on Jews in Palestine were comparable with the anti-Jewish Nuremberg laws of Nazi Germany.”  Senator Magnuson “discounted the idea that transfer of large numbers of Jews to Palestine would cause any trouble with the Arabs.”  Representative Gearhart, a conservative Republican said, “Every Hebrew who declares his desire to go to Palestine should be declared a citizen of that land, ipso fact, and should immediately be repatriated”



1945: Congressman Emanuel Celler (New York) denounced the British.


1946: As part of growing wave of terror caused by Britain’s failure to honor its war time promise to allow Jewish immigration to Eretz Israel and increasing repressive measure aimed at the Jews of the Yishuv, two British policemen were killed while patrolling the Jerusalem-Jaffa rail line.


1947: U.S. premiere of “Out of the Past” starring Kirk Douglas


1947: Today, “the Synagogue Council of America appealed to the American rabbinate to give special attention to the collection of books and religious articles for Europe’s needy Jews” because as important as it is to send clothing, food and medical supplies, it also important to send those things that will “help in the cultural rebirth of the remnant of European Jewry.


1948: The newly created Israeli government announced that it will launch shortly a full-scale development plan for the Negev desert area of southern Palestine, centered on Beersheba as an Israeli town, it was learned today.


1948: President Truman feels that direct Arab-Jewish negotiations might work. He advocates a full recognition of Israel and aid for 500,000 Arab refugees in Middle East.


1948:UN Security Council listens to plan by UN mediator Ralph Bunche. Israel would withdraw to October 14 lines. Egypt would stay where it had retreated in Negev fighting. A large part of Negev would be demilitarized pending UN negotiations for peace. Israel rejects part of plan in which Beersheba would be under Arab administration. Plan is endorsed by Council's special committee on Negev and Bunche orders Egypt and Israel to carry out plan.


1949: The biennial convention of the American Jewish Congress comes to an end


1952: In Chicago, Illinois, Shirley (née Horwitz) Garland. a director of volunteer services at Chicago's Council for Jewish Elderly and Cyril Garland, the head of Garland Advertising gave birth to Judge Merrick Garland, the Supreme Court Nominee whom the Republican refused to consider because they claimed lame duck President were not supposed to fill openings on the High Court, a position that set them at odds with Presidents going back to George Washington who as a lame duck President during an election year (1796) filled two positions on the court.


1954: Larry Blyden completed an eleventh month run as “Grant Cobble” in the Broadway production of “Oh, Men! Oh, Women!”


1955: Two Jewish refugees who met and married while living in China during WW II gave birth Eliezer “Eli” Marom, the native Moshav Sde Eliezer who served as the Commander of the Israeli Navy” from 2007 to 2011.



1956: The first Israeli train arrived in Gaza, after Israeli troops drove out the occupying Egyptian army and cleaned out the terrorist bases.  Israeli troops would leave Gaza in 1957 under pressure from the U.N. and the Eisenhower Administration.  Ten years later, the U.N. would fail to honor the guarantees made to Israel concerning protecting the Jewish state from the Arabs.  The result would the Six Day War in 1976.


1956: In London, Sylvia (née Packman) Cesarini and Henry Cesarini, a hairdresser, gave birth to Jewish historian David Cesarani.



1960: “North to Alaska” a cold weather westerner co-produced by Charles Feldman with a script co-authored by Ben Hecht and music by Lionel Newman was released in the United States today.


1960:  Sammy Davis, Jr. married Swedish actress May Britt.  Davis was probably one of the most famous if not the most famous convert to Judaism in the middle of the 20thcentury.  His marriage to Britt caused a furor because it was inter-racial.  Others, with a more parochial view, were upset that he had married a non-Jew.


1963: U.S. premiere of “Take her, She’s Mine,” produced and directed by Harry Koster based on a play by Henry and Phoebe Ephron with music by Jerry Goldsmith.


1964: Birthdate of actress Tzufit Grant, the native of Petah Tikvah who hosted the television show “Milkshake” and who has had two children with her husband Avram Grant.


1967(10th of Cheshvan, 5728): Seventy-two year old Lemberg, Austria, native, Harry Salpeter, “an art deal and critic” and the husband of Betty Berkowitz passed away today.




1967(10th of Cheshvan, 5728):  Seventy-one year old world class pianist Harriet Cohen passed away. Born in London in 1895, she studied at the London Conservatory before going on to fame and fortune.  Such was her skill, that she was honored as a CBE (Most Excellent order of the British Empire) in 1938. 


1970: Birthdate of Ariel Atias, the Tel Aviv native who has served as an MK and cabinet minister.


1971: “The Go-Between” a movie version of the novel by the same name with a script by Harold Pinter was released in the United States today.


1973: Maj.-Gen. Shmuel (“Gorodish”) Gonen wrote to IDF Chief of Staff Maj.-Gen. David “Dado” Elazar that as the cease-fire appeared to be stable, “the timing is right to ask that you investigate the conduct of General Sharon and if my claims are proven, that he stand trial” adding “that failure to do so “after what happened, will cause demoralization and damage the character of the army.”


1975: In Jerusalem an explosive charge went off near cafe Naveh, on Jaffa Road near the pedestrian mall. Seven people were killed and 45 injured.


1976: In Houston, TX, attorney J. Kent Friedman, the Tulane University baseball player and his wife gave birth to Andrew Friedman who followed in his father’s footsteps by playing baseball at Tulane who went from being a financial analyst to a career in baseball management that led him to becoming the President of Baseball Operations of the Los Angeles Dodgers”



1977: Palestinian terrorists detonated bombs in 2 separate attacks in Jerusalem during which two of the bombers were killed and four bystanders were injured.


1977: The comic strip ''Li'l Abner'' by Jewish cartoonist Al Capp appeared in newspapers for the last time.


1979: Birthdate of Ya'akov "Kobi" Shimoni known by his stage name Subliminal an Israeli hip hop artist and music producer.


1980: “Victor Brailovsky, the editor of the samizdat journal “Jews in the USSR” and organizer of the unofficial scientific symposia”, was arrested today


1982: Rabbi Arnold Resnicoff, the former military chaplain who “worked to create the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, DC…delivered the closing prayer” today at its official dedication.


1984: David Levy finds his 1st comet.


1987: “Cross My Heart” a comedy produced by Lawrence Kasdan and featuring Paul Reiser was released in the United States today.


1988: ABC broadcast the first episode of “War and Remembrance,” “an American miniseries based on the novel of the same name written by Herman Wouk”


1990: Comptroller Liz Holtzman greeted the Committee for Responsive Democracy when it began its hearings in New York City by “saying that ‘many don’t see themselves as being represented.’”


1991: World Premiere of Beauty and the Beast, a 1991 American animated musical romantic fantasy film, with music by Alan Menken.


1995: “Israeli Security Neglected a Tip Of a Rabin Plot” published today revealed failures that led to the assassination of the Prime Minister by Yigal Amir including a reliable tip received last June about the killer’s intention on which there was no follow up.


1995: The Henry and Lucy Moses Fund, freely admitting that it was reviving the charitable practices of a bygone era, announced that it would give a total of $2 million to four leading New York City hospitals to help pay for care for uninsured patients as government cutbacks are made in Medicare and Medicaid. 1996: Eighty-five year old June Gale, the second wife of Oscar Levant passed away today.


1998: “Lord Levene of Portsoken became the eighth Jewish Lord Mayor of London. An Ashkenazi by birth, Lord Levene's first public act was to walk, with a retinue, from his official residence (Mansion House) to Bevis Marks Synagogue, for the Sabbath Eve service.”


1998: U.S. premiere of “Meet Joe Black” directed and produced by Martin Brest, with a script by Bo Goldman, music by Thomas Newman and filmed by cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki.


2000(15th of Cheshvan, 5761): Gabi Zaghouri, 36, of Netivot was killed by gunfire directed at the truck he was driving near the Kissufim junction in the southern part of the Gaza Strip


2000(15th of Cheshvan, 5761): Sarah Leisha, 42, of Neveh Tzuf was killed by gunfire from a passing car while travelling near Ofra, north of Ramallah.


2001(15th of Cheshvan, 5761): Cpl. Elad Wallenstein, 18, of Ashkelon, and Cpl. Amit Zanna, 19, of Netanya were killed by gunfire from a car passing the military bus carrying them near Ofra.


2002(3th of Kislev, 5763): Irving D. Rubin chairman of the Jewish Defense League (JDL) from 1985 to 2002 died in jail awaiting trial on charges of conspiracy to bomb private and government property.


2003:In a reiteration of the American commitment to the separation of church and state, the Alabama Court of the Judiciary (COJ), issued a unanimous opinion ruling that "Chief Justice Moore has violated the Alabama Canons of Judicial Ethics” and that he was being removed from office because it was obvious from his past behavior and statements that he would not comply with any orders regarding the removal of his “Ten Commandments Monument”


2004: Opening of the 2004 Inaugural Festival of New Jewish Liturgical Music


2005: Today, during an interview on “60 Minutes,” Jim Cramer discussed “his violent temper and what finally led him to come to his senses and ‘calm down’.”


2005: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or on topics of special Jewish interest including A Time to Run by Barbara Boxer


2006: Haaretz reported that an initiative to refurbish the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp has sparked a storm among Holocaust survivors in Israel. The initiative was announced last month by the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum's new director, who claimed that the current exhibits were outdated and insufficiently attractive to visitors. A detailed refurbishing plan has yet to be drawn up, but participants at a recent meeting of Holocaust survivors' organizations warned against moves to "beautify" the site, as has been done with other Nazi concentration camps. "Dachau and Sachsenhausen have already become well-kept gardens; we won't allow the same to happen to Auschwitz," they said.


2007(3rdof Kislev, 5768): Eighty year old Peter Zinner, the Oscar and Emmy award winning film editor passed away today.



2007:Wagner College and the Center for Jewish History present “Immigration to New York City:100 Years of Transformation” in whicha distinguished panel explores the changing face of New York City through the framework of three diverse ethnic and religious communities--Irish, Italian, and Jewish--and address the implications of these transformations on current and future generations.


2007: While visiting Israel, Ukrainian President Viktor Yuschenko promised followers of Reb Nachman that he would protect the gravesite from sale or commercial exploitation.


2007: Joe Roth, the former chairman of 20th Century Fox and Walt Disney Studios “was introduced as the majority owner of the Seattle Sounders, the Major League Soccer team that began playing in 2009.2008: The Jewish Reconstructionist (JRF) Biennial Convention opens in Boston, Mass.


2008: In New York, the 23rd annual Israel Film Festival comes to an end.


2008: Opening of The 32nd annual Philadelphia Museum of Art Craft Show will be held at the Pennsylvania Convention Center. This premier show and sale of contemporary craft features 23 artists from Israel among the 195 artists who will be showing and selling their wares.


2008: Opening of Congregation Beth Judea’s Family Education Weekend featuring Mordechai Rosenstein as its Artist in Residence in Long Grove, Il.  “The Hebrew alphabet is the essence of the art of Mordechai Rosenstein.”


2008: In Iowa City, Award winning authorAmy Bloom attends a reception at the University of Iowa Hillel and then participates in a reading at Prairie Lights Book Store.


2008: Hassan Diab, 54, a dual Lebanese-Canadian citizen who teaches at the University of Ottawa, was arrested at his home in Gatineau, Quebec today by Royal Canadian Mounted Police acting on a French request for extradition. Diab is suspected in the October 3, 1980 bombing of a Paris synagogue that killed four people, including an Israeli woman, and wounded dozens.


2008: Today, the day after municipal elections, secular Jerusalem mayor-elect Nir Barkat attempted to assuage the fears of the city's haredi community, whose candidate Meir Porush failed in his bid to replace Mayor Uri Lupolianski, saying he would gladly welcome the ultra-Orthodox parties into his coalition if they agree to his basic party line.


2008: US President-elect Barack Obama's White House chief of staff apologized to the Arab-American community today for remarks his Israeli-born father made to Ma'ariv. Last week, Benjamin Emanuel talked about his son Rahm Emanuel's new job and told the Israeli daily that "obviously he'll influence the president to be pro-Israel. Why wouldn't he? What is he, an Arab? He's not going to be mopping floors at the White House." That prompted an outcry from the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, which called on Rahm Emanuel, a former Israeli citizen, to condemn the "unacceptable smear." On Thursday, Rahm Emanuel called the group's president, Mary Rose Oakar, to apologize on behalf of his family. "These are not the values upon which I was raised or those of my family," the group quoted him as saying. Oakar said the apology was accepted. Emanuel spokesman Nick Papas confirmed the phone call and said Emanuel "offered to meet with representatives of the Arab-American community at an appropriate time in the future."


2009(29thof Cheshvan, 5770): Hannah Block, one of the Tar-Heel State’s leading civic leaders and trailblazing feminists passed away at the age of 96 in Wilmington, North Carolina.



2009: At 8 PM this evening Lt Col (Ret) Bruce Lichtman will lead a Veteran’s Day Service at Ft. Belvoir in Virginia. Services will be preceded by a deli dinner at the Fort Belvoir Chapel Social Hall. Rabbi Chaplain Gary Davidson is the featured speaker for the evening.


2009: Friday the 13th– The idea that Friday the 13th is inherently unlucky is a belief whose origin has been lost.  According to some, it is tied to the story of Jesus i.e. there were thirteen people at the Last Supper which provided the impetus for Good Friday.  Others claim that the Egyptian First Born died on Friday the 13th.  The idea that 13 is unlucky for Jews would certainly come as a heck of a shock to the legion of Bar Mitzvah Boys whose right of religious passage is tied to their 13th birthday.


2009: An 18-year-old Arab terrorist attempted to attack a group of IDF soldiers near the Mughrabi Gate in the Old City of Jerusalem today. Shouting "Allahu Akbar!" (Allah is Great), the cry of the Muslim jihad (holy war), the young man unsheathed a knife and tried to stab a Border Patrol officer. The soldier managed to fight off the attacker, who was subdued by other soldiers and then arrested.


2009: Jeffrey Pollack announced on his Twitter feed that he was resigning as Commissioner of the World Series of Poker.


2010: On Shabbat,Rahm Emanuel formally kicked off his campaign for Chicago mayor at large public gathering.


2010: Today, 94 year old Eli “Wallach received an Academy Honorary Award for his contribution to the film industry from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.”


2010: Bernard Kouchner, the French physician who co-founded Doctors Without Borders completed his term as Minister of Foreign and European Affairs


2010: Chavruta, the first ever county wide Night of Jewish Learning and Celebration complete with a Chinese/Sushi Bar sponsored by the Westchester Board of Rabbis and The Westchester Jewish Council is scheduled to be held tonight at the Temple Israel Center of White Plains in White Plains, NY.


2010:Hollywood's Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is scheduled to award an honorary Oscar to French filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard, "a notorious vocal...anti-Semite."


2011: Funeral services will be held at noon today at Temple Beth Emunah, for “Irving H. Franklin …co-founder of Franklin Sports and innovator of the baseball batting glove.”


2011: The 8th Jewish Eye Festival, the World Jewish Film Festival held each year in Ashkelon is scheduled to open today.


2011: Erin Bode is scheduled to appear with St. Louis Symphony Musicians in a concert featuring the works of Rogers and Hammerstein at the St. Louis Jewish Book Festival.


2011: Dr. Stephen P. Morse is scheduled to present a lecture entitled “Getting Ready for the 1940 Census” sponsored by the Jewish Genealogy Society of Greater Washington.


2011: The 3rd Annual International Holiday Bazaar sponsored by the Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center is scheduled to come to an end in Skokie, Illinois.


2011:The Global Day of Jewish Learning is scheduled to take place in over 200 Communities in 40 different countries.



2011: Ken Jebsen, a popular German radio host is slated to return to his program today, after being temporarily pulled from his post for writing an email denying the Holocaust and spreading conspiracy theories against the US to a listener earlier this month.


2011:Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat today urged District Police Commander Niso Shaham to put a stop to the exclusion of women's images from billboards across the city, and to the defacing of advertisements on which women do appear, both trends initiated of late by the local ultra-Orthodox sector. out of advertising in the capital.


2011:Egyptian security forces have arrested 16 suspects in connection with recurrent attacks on a pipeline for the supply of gas to Israel and Jordan, a security source said today. The head of security in North Sinai, Saleh al-Masri, told DPA that the search for suspects began yesterday with police and the army deployed in Sinai.


2012: The Hebrew language film “The Matchmaker” is scheduled to be shown at the UK Jewish Film Festival.


2012: Ilan Elia, whose songs “have always combined local Jewish and Israeli traditions with ancient ones from the mountains of Kurdistan,” is scheduled to perform at the Jerusalem International Oud Festival.


2012: Israeli artist Domy Reiter-Soffer is scheduled to lecture at the Library of Congress in Washington, DC.


2012: In Baltimore, MD, the largest annual Jewish philanthropic conference in the country - The Jewish Federations of North America’s General Assembly - is scheduled to come to an end today.


2012: The Free Library of Philadelphia hosted authors Franklin Foer and Marc Tracy for a discussion of their book Jewish Jocks: An Unorthodox Hall of Fame followed by a discussion that featured contributors David Plotz and Mark Leibovich.


2012: Israel faces threats on two fronts why Syria fires into the Golan and terrorists fire more rockets from Gaza.


2012: Two rockets fired by Gaza terrorists slammed into a greenhouse in the Hof Ashkelon region this afternoon, breaking a brief lull in hostilities after four days of cross border fire.


2012: Israel's Defense Minister Ehud Barak during a visit to the Gaza border said the current episode of rocket fire from the coastal strip is not over. Today Barak held a security analysis with the Israel Defense Forces chiefs in the area.


2012:Elie Wiesel and President Obama are not writing a book together, as reported by an Israeli newspaper. The subscription-only Publisher's Lunch, citing a source close to Obama,reported that there is no book and no book deal, the Forward reported today.


2013: In California, the Center for Jewish Culture is scheduled to present “Pacific Jews: Exploring 19th Century Jewish In California” in which Dr. Joellyn Zollman “will look at the many reasons American Jews settled in the Golden State.”


2013: Israeli born glass artist, Ilanit Shalev is scheduled to lead a “fused glass workshop at the LFJCC.


2013: The History Channel is scheduled to broadcast “Lost in Translation,” the first in a series entitled “Bible Secrets Revealed” part of which “was shot in Tel Zekah” where U of I Professor Robert Cargill is “participating in an excavation of a sit on the border of the Biblical kingdoms of Judah and the Philistines.”


2013(10th of Kislev, 5774): Eighteen year old Eden Atias, an Israeli soldier was stabbed to death by a sixteen year old Palestinian terrorist from Jenin as he slept on a bus in Afula.  Atias was still in basic training and was returning to his base from his home in Nazareth Illit. The murderous attack comes a day after Prime Minister Netanyahu had called a halt to further construction In Jerusalem in compliance with Secretary of State Kerry’s demand which he said, if unmet, could lead to a third Intifada.  There has been no comment from the Secretary on this latest act of violence


2013(10th of Kislev, 5774): Ninety-eight year old Marjory Raskin, the Polish born daughter of Rachel and Morris Kurtzman and the wife of Morris Raskin passed away today in “West Bloomfield Township, Michigan.”


2013: Jerry Levin received the Hall of Fame Award at the National Shoe Retail Leadership Conference today in Boston, MA.


2013: Benjamin Weiser described the government’s response to charges of ant-Semitism in New York’s Pine Bush Central School District first reported in the New York Times on November 8.



2014: Lewis Black is scheduled to perform at the Mahalia Jackson Theatre of the Performing Arts in New Orleans, LA.


2014: Barbara Winton, the daughter of Nicholas Winton is scheduled to share the “story of her father’s rescue of Czech Jewish children on the eve of the Holocaust” at the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center.


2014: The Center for Jewish History is scheduled to host a panel discussion – “Giving Women their Place in Holocaust History.”


2014(20thof Cheshvan, 5775): Eighty-six year old German born French mathematician Alexander Grothendieck who won the Fields Medal in 1966 passed away today.



2014: “Next Year Jerusalem” is scheduled to be shown at the 18th UK Jewish Film Festival.


2014: “The US government condemned the scheduled demolition of homes belonging to Palestinians who carried out terror attacks in Israel, with State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki contending that such a move amounted to collective punishment and would only heighten tensions in the region.”


2014: "Preet Bharara, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, and George Venizelos, the assistant director of the New York field office of the FBI, announced the indictments” of “more than a dozen members of a prominent Satmar Hasidic family in New York who were charged with lying to obtain $20 million in mortgages while also receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars in public benefits.” (As reported by JTA)


2014: “Rising anti-Semitism in Europe threatens not only Jews but overall European values, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, said at a conference on anti-Semitism in Berlin” that ended today.


2014: “The trilateral meeting in Amman between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Jordan’s King Abdullah II and US Secretary of State John Kerry to discuss the recent surge of violence in Jerusalem ended this evening, with Kerry issuing a statement praising the sides for their commitment to reduce tensions surrounding the Temple Mount.”


2014: “Closer to the Moon” a “dark comedy” based on the Ioanid Gang screened at the Romanian Film Festival in London


2014: “THE INTELLIGENT HOMOSEXUAL’S GUIDE TO CAPITALISM AND SOCIALISM WITH A KEY


TO THE SCRIPTURES” by Tony Kushner is scheduled to open at Theatre J in Washington, DC.


2015(1stof Kislev, 5776): Rosh Chodesh Kislev


2015: The Eden-Tamir Music Center is scheduled to host the winners of the Kol Hamusica Young Artists Competition.


2015: “Under the Wings of the Sultan: The Rise of Jewish Communities in the Ottoman Empire" is scheduled to be delivered as the opening lecture in “The Rise and Fall of Ladino-Speaking Jews” at the Yiddish Book Center.


2015: “Indecent,” “a play by Paula Vogel” that “recounts the controversy surrounding the play God of Vengeance by Sholem Asch, which was produced on Broadway in 1923, for which the cast of the original production was arrested on the grounds of obscenity” opened today at the La Jolla Playhouse.


2016: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish writers and or of special interest to Jewish readers including Bridge of Words: Esperanto and the Dream of a Universal Languageby Esther Schor and Algren :A Life, Mary Wisniewski’s biography of Nelson Ahlgren Abraham whom the world knew as author Nelson Algren.


2016: The recently renamed Ben Katz Post No. 580 of the Jewish War Veterans of America is scheduled to host a prayer service and a special program in honor of Jewish war veterans and servicemen and servicewomen at Shir Chadash Conservative Congregation where Major Carol Berman will speak on “A Jewish Soldier in a Hostile War Zone” and Post Commander Judge Sol Gothard, who will deliver a talk on “Jewish Defenders of Freedom Throughout the Ages.” (As reported by the Crescent City Jewish News)


2016: The Jewish Community Day School (JCDS) is scheduled to celebrate 21 “fabulous” years in a Las Vegas style gala fundraising affair at Congregation Gates of Prayer synagogue in Metairie, LA this evening.


2016: The 11th Annual Chicago Festival of Israeli Cinema is scheduled to come to an end with a screening of “Mr. Gaga.”


2016: The American Sephardi Federation is scheduled to host a reading and discussion of Sarit Yishai-Levi’s award winning novel The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem


2016: Last chance to see “Odessa: The Soul of a City” an exhibition that provides a picture of this city that played such a critical role in the development of Jewish culture including “literature, art and politics” at the Yeshiva University Museum.”


2016: One-hundred sixtieth birthday of Louis D. Brandeis, the ground-breaking lawyer, distinguished Jurist and ardent Zionist who 100 years ago, in 1916 became the first Jew to sit on the Supreme Court.



2017: Dr. Diane M. Sharon is scheduled to continue lecturing on “Demagogues, Madmen and Cowards” The Failure in the Book of Judges at the Streicker Center.


2017: The YIVO Institute for Jewish Research is scheduled to host a presentation on “Imagining I.N. Steinsberg’s Jewish in the Kimberly” which examines “I. N. Steinberg’s plans for a Jewish refugee settlement in the Kimberley region of Western Australia.”


2017: “Mr. Emmanuel” and “The Women’s Balcony” are scheduled to be shown at the 21stUK International Jewish Film Festival.


2017: Today “the United Nations authorized Israel to expand its technological support for its peacekeeping mission in the Central African Republic and help improve security in the country.”


2017: The Jewish National Fund’s National Conference is scheduled to end today.


2017: Jewish Book Month, an annual event that provides us with a chance to contemplate the lives of Jewish authors such as mystery writer Faye Kellerman whose sleuths combine crime solving with observing Kashrut and Shabbat and Jewish books for the next thirty days is scheduled to continue for a second day.


2018: The 30th Kosherfest is scheduled to begin at the Meadowlands Exposition Center in Secaucus, NJ.

2018: After suffering through a night filled with a barrage of “over 300 rockets and mortar shells” “school was cancelled today for all students in Ashkelon Kiryat Malachi and Kiryat Gat.” (As reported by Matan Tzuri, Yoav Zitun, Ilana Curiel and Elior Levy)

2018: In Ann Arbor, Michigan, Eddie Portnoy of the YIVO Institute is scheduled to “discuss the seamy underbelly of pre-World War II New York and Warsaw, the two major centers of Yiddish culture in the late- 19th and early-20th centuries” during his lecture entitled “The Bizarre Tales of Yiddishland: What the Yiddish Press Reveals about the Jews.”


2018: The Streicker Center is scheduled to host the second in a series of lectures on “New York Jewish History” in which Dr. David E Kaufman explores the “Jerusalem of America.”


2018: In Brooklyn, The Community Bookstore is scheduled to host a discussion of Muckwith its author Dror Burstein and Joshua Cohen, author of Book of Numbers

 


 


 


 

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

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November 14


109 BCE (25 Cheshvan, 3652): John Hyrcanus defeated the Samaritans in Samaria and destroyed their temple. The Samaritans were a mixed race who had been in conflict with the Jews since the end of the Babylonian Exile.  They believed in a form of monotheism but rejected all oral law. They believed that Mt. Gerizim, near Nablus, was their place of sacrifice.  John Hyrcanus was a nephew of Judah Maccabee.  He was the third son of Simon, the last of the original Maccabee brothers.  John Hyrcanus ruled from 134 BCE through 104 BCE.  He felt that it was his mission to restore the territory of the original Davidic Kingdom to Jewish control.  The victory over the Samaritans was part of this grand plan of conquest



565: Roman Emperor Justinian dies at 82. As Christianity grew in power in the Roman Empire it influenced the emperors to limit further the civil and political rights of the Jews. Justinian's Law said Jews may not offer testimony against Christians who are engaged in litigation.



1305: In Lyon, consecration of Pope Clement, the first of the “Avignon Popes” who was the “first pope to threaten Jews with an economic boycott in an attempt to force them to stop charging Christians interest on loans.”



1417: On St. Martin’s Day, the Council of Constance elected Otto Colona Pope who as Martin V accorded “many privileges” to the Jews of Ancona in an effort to “increase the economy of the city and the state.”



1650: Birthdate of King William III of England.  Also known as William of Orange, he was the ruler who came to the throne as a result of the Glorious Revolution, which was financed, in part by Dutch Jews.  The newly readmitted Jewish community in England had nothing to fear from the new who King who be the first English monarch to bestow knighthood on a Jewish subject.


1792: Moses Ephriam married Lydia Nathan at th Great Synagogue today.


1797: Birthdate of Moses M. Haarbleicher the German-Jewish poet and critic whose father founded the Jewish School of Hamburg.


1802: Nathan Salomons married Esther Aron Goldsmid at the Great Synagogue today.


1805: Birthdate of pianist and composer Fanny Mendelssohn.  Her brother was Felix Mendelssohn and according to some, his closest confidante.  Fanny was the granddaughter of Moses Mendelssohn.  Both of her parents were Jewish at the time of her birth.  As a youngster, her parents had her (and her other siblings) baptized as Lutherans.  Her father, like five of the six of Moses Mendelssohn’s children would also convert.


1810: Birthdate of educator and author Jacob Auberbach, the brother-in-law of novelist Berthold Auerbach who wrote Lessing and Mendelssohn and a History of the Jewish Community of Vienna from 1874.


1815: Birthdate of  Moritz Duschak, the Moravian born rabbi who had studied with Rabbi Moses Sofer and who had served the community of Cracow, before finally settling “in Vienna where he spent his last days in neglect and disappointment.”


1820: “Margherita d’Anjou” an operatic melodramma semiseria in two acts by German-Jewish composer Giacomo Meyerbeer was performed for the first time in Milan, Italy.


1821: In Charleston, SC, Rabbi Peixotto officiated at the wedding of Myer J. Ellis and Miss Francis Polack Abrahams, the daughter of Jacob Abrahams.


1825: Three days after she had passed away, Elizabeth Phillips, the wife of Lyon Phillips and the mother of Joseph Phillips was buried to in the “Brompton (Fulham Road) Jewish Cemetery” today.


1827: Lesser Gottheimer married Elza Zachariah at the Great Synagogue today.


1831: German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel passed away.  The work of this leading thinker of the Age of Enlightenment is beyond our grasp.  For a better understanding of Hegel’s views on Judaism and his impact on Jewish thought see Chapter Three of Hegel's Philosophy of History by Robert L. Perkins entitled “The Fossil and the Phoenix: Hegel and Krochmal on the Jewish Volksgeist” by Shlomo Avineri or the entry in the Jewish Encyclopedia



1834: Moritz Wolff and Fanny Schwabe gave birth to Gustav Wilhelm Wolff, a German born British shipbuilder and politician. Wolff’s family had converted in 1819 so he was raised as a Lutheran.


1837: Danish painter David Monies married Bolette Jacobsen the daughter of Isaac Jacobson, a merchant and his wife, the former Sara Heimann.


1838: In Charleston, SC, Marx E. married Armida Harby, the “daughter of the later Isaac Harby.”


1848: Birthdate of Sándor Wekerle, the Hungarian Premier who introduced a bill into the Hungarian Parliament that provided “for equal religious rights for Jews and Christians.”


1852: In St. Louis, MO, Joachim Fleischman and Kathrine Bloch gave birth to Samuel M. Fleischman, the husband of Mathilda Kahn who served as a rabbi in Akron, Ohio from 1880 to 1886 and began serving as Superintendent of the Jewish Foster Home and Orphan Asylum at Philadelphia in 1886.


1853: Isidore Newman arrived in New Orleans today.


1855: Two days after she had passed away, 55 year old Mary Kensington Levy, the wife of Moses Levy of Notting Hill (London) with whom she had ten children, “who opened the first soup kitchens in the East End” was buried today at the Brady Street Jewish Cemetery.


1864: During the Civil War, Sherman’s Army, including the 82nd Illinois Infantry under the command of


Colonel Edward Selig Salomon spent its last night in Atlanta as it prepared for the March to the Sea.


1870: An English language production of “La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein,” an operetta, based on a libretto co-authored by Ludovic Halevy at the Metropolitan in New York City.


1871:


1871: It was reported today that “during the remainder of the Jewish year the following holidays will be observed by our Hebrew population: Dec. 8, Feast Chanukah; Dec. 22, Feast of Teveth; March 21, 1872, Fast of Esther; March 24, Purim; March 25, Shushan Purim; April 23, first day of Passover; June 12, Feast of Weeks; July 23, Fast of Tammuz; August 13, Fast of Av.”


1873(24th of Cheshvan, 5634): Seventy-three year old Louis (Ludwig) Bischoffsheim who had married the daughter of Chaim Goldschmidt of Frankfort-on Main and the son of Raphael (Nathan) Bischoffsheim passed away today.


1879: Joseph Betzky lost five members of his family, including his wife and two sons in a fire this morning in the tenement house at #80 Cannon Street in New York City. Solomon and Lena Cohen were questioned about the origins of the fire since the son of the building’s owner claimed that Mrs. Cohen had started it. However, authorities released them without making any charges after the deposition was taken.


1880: “A Story of the East” published today provided a lengthy review Ben Hurby Lew Wallace. The reviewer has nothing but praise for this creation by Civil War General Lew Wallace who created the character of Judah ben Hur, a prince among his people.


1881: Birthdate of Nicholas M. Schenck, the native of Rybinsk who became one of the early movers and shakers in the film industry.


1881: Pavel Axelrod and his wife Nadezhda Ivanovna Kaminer, one of his former students gave birth to their third child Sofia today.


1882: Birthdate of Dr. William Fileerman who at the beginning of World War was the President of the Federation of the Unions of the Jewish Communities in Romania



1883: In state Supreme Court, Judge Larremore married Samuel Moressor and Fannie Abraham.  Moressor agreed to marriage to avoid further incarceration on charges of breach of promise of marriage.


1883: In a case of Jew versus Jews, the Sheriff arrested Morris Dampsky in a suit for $10,000 for breach of promise of marriage brought against him by Annie Zeiss.


1883: In Manhattan, David Salzman, Russian Jewish youngster who earns his living by blacking boots in Castle Garden, found a check in the amount of $1,250 today.


1884: It was reported today that Rosa Schuminchler, who arrived in this country yesterday, will be deported for a second time.  She had been sent back to Poland after she took part “in the disturbance in the offices of the Hebrew Aid Society on State Street in New York City.


1885: The annual fair of the Hebrew Ladies Benevolent Society, a fund raising activity, opened tonight at Parepa Hall in New York City


1885: Birthdate of Galveston native and merchant George Solomon Cohen.


1885: In Gradizhsk, a village in the Ukraine, Anne Terk Stern and Elie Stern give birth to Sonia Stern, who as Sonia Delaunay became known for her vivid use of color and her bold, abstract patterns, breaking down traditional distinctions between the fine and applied arts as an artist, designer and printmaker. (As reported by Julio Maryann De)


1886: The Board of Directors of the Hebrew Free School Association hosted a reception today in honor of 3 of its members who have just returned from Europe.


1886: “M. De Giers” published today described the shifting foreign policy of the Russian Empire and the increased role that Nicholas de Giers, who “comes from a Swedish-Fin family of Jewish extraction” will be playing in shaping relationships with Germany and other European powers. De Giers, “whom haughty Grand Dukes, intriguing Panslavists and impatient Generals sneer at as ‘the Jew’ has a reputation for taking the blame for policies that are not of his making.  In this case, he was supporting the Czar’s continued desire to ally with Germany. 


1886: The residents of the Home for Aged and Infirm Hebrews will be entertained this evening by a concert featuring Master I. Wessell.


1887: “Life in the Holy Land 1900 Years Ago” published today provided a detailed review of Palestine in the Time of Christ by Edmond Stapfer


1889: “Why The Child Is Not Buried” published today describes the fate of Abraham Bergman, a child who died two weeks but remains unburied because Marcus Sanftman, the former President of the Warschauer Benefit Sick and Burial Society has refused to sign the burial permit even though  the burial fee has been paid.  By his own admission, Warschauer has failed to act because of a dispute he is having with the newly installed President.


1889: Birthdate of Jawaharlal Nehru, leader of the movement for Indian Independence and first Prime Minister of India.  Nehru was opposed to the creation of the state of Israel.  Like so many others, Nehru admired the suffering Jews, but did not like to see them in a position of power.  More to the point, he opposed the creation of a Jewish state in an attempt to curry favor with India’s Moslem minority.  After the creation Israel, Nehru did what he could to isolate the new Jewish state.  Fortunately, over the last decade, India and Israel have developed harmonious relations at both the personal and governmental level.


1889: In St. Louis, MO, Joseph Lazarus Kranson and Caroline Kranson gave birth to Abraham H. Kranson.


1890: Judge David McAdam, the Chief of the City Court and the Judge-elect of the Superior Court published his campaign expenses today which included $25 owed to the Hebrew World, $10 owed to the Hebrew Leader and $40 owed to the Jewish Daily News.


1890: In New York City. De Witt J. (David) Seligman, the son of James (Jacob) Seligman and Rosa Seligman and Addie Seligman gave birth to James Bernheimer Seligman.


1892: In St. Petersburg, the prohibition against Jews being allowed to emigrate “that was enforce during the cholera epidemic” has been lifted.


1892: In another example of how Jewish culture infuses Western culture,  the New York premier of Israel in the Wilderness, a cantata  that opens with a Hebrew Chorale and includes sections entitled “The God Abram Praise,” “Forth from the Land of Egypt” and “O Fertile Land of Egypt” was well received by the audience and the journalist who reviewed it.


1892: In Cincinnati, Ohio, Reverend Henry P. Smith a noted Professor of Hebrew at Lane Theologilical Seminary is being tried by his fellow Presbyterians for his beliefs which question the inerrancy of Scripture and question the accuracy of statements made in the Bible when one considers the differences between events described the books of Samuel and Kings as opposed to the description in Chronicles. 


1892: Judge Henry M. Goldfogle presided over the special meeting of the Grand Lodge, District No. 1 Order of B’nai B’rith which had been called to deal with the financial crisis facing the organization.


1892: In an interview published today, former Chancellor Bismarck denied that Germans or Russians wanted to fight a war with each other saying that “the only warlike elements in Russia are the press, the Poles and the Jews.” (Bismarck seemed to have forgotten the German decision not renew its alliance with Russia which pushed it into the arms of the French.  But aw we have seen in our times, it is so much easier to blame the Jews and the media)


1892: Reports published in New York today relying on information provided by the Vienna correspondent of the London Standard described the confirmation received by “the leading financial house of Vienna” that “the Paris house of Rothschild has declined to have anything with the new Russia loan. Baron Alphonse agreed with the logic stated by the London house of Rothschild that the House of Rothschild would not assist those who oppress Jews. (Contrary to the Shylock image of the Jew, this was a case where principle outweighed profit)


1893(5th of Kislev, 5654): Fifty-six year Baron Moritz von Königswarter, the Austrian banker and spokesmen who  was appointed by the emperor a life member of the Austrian House of Peers in 1879 and who was outspoken defender of his co-religionists passed away today.


1894: The 15th annual reported of the President of the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society of New York which has been issued as pamphlet “contains an interesting history of the work that has been done by the society.”


1896: In New York delegates are gathering from across the country for the first convention of the National Council of Jewish Women which is scheduled to open tomorrow.


1896: Mr. Isidor Straus presided over the dinner at Delmonico’s given “in honor of Joseph Jacobs, the English author and critic who is here to deliver a series of lectures to the National Council of Jewish Women” before moving on to Johns Hopkins University and the University of Chicago.


1896(9thof Kislev, 5657): Eighty-four year old Ephraim Wolbach, a native of Bavaria who “was engaged in the jewelry and tailoring businesses before retiring 24 years ago” passed away today at the home of his niece, Mrs. Max Lion.


1896: “The advanced pupils of the Academy of Dramatic Arts are scheduled to participate in a pantomime and play directed by Henry E. Dixey” this evening at the Hebrew Institute at the corner of East Broadway and Jefferson Street.


1897: In Vienna, the authorities blamed the Jewish students for the second outbreak of violence because they were angered by the Germans who had attacked them in the first uproar earlier in the week.


1897: “The winter program of the Jews’ College Literary Society” is scheduled to begin today with a lecture by “Mr. Alexander” a rabbi who served “one or two provincial congregations” before going into business in London


1897: Professor Felix Adler delivered a lecture at Carnegie Hall to members of the Society for Ethical Culture entitled “What Has Religion Done for Civilization?”


1897(19thof Cheshvan, 5658): Benn Levy, the youngest son of Joseph and Cordella Levy of Leicester died today after “a fall from his horse.”


1897: Three days after he had passed away, 33 year old Henry Barend Hayman was buried today at the “Plashet Jewish Cemetery in London”


1897: “Honors to the American Author” published today described the visit of Mark Twain to Vienna where “the utmost attention is being paid him by the press, the ‘Jewish press’ as the big Vienna dailies are called.  The anti-Semitic papers have hardly taken any notice of his visit.” (While in Vienna, Twain would write about the government’s used of anti-Semitism to deflect public attention from rioting in the Empire and he later defended his comments in “Concerning the Jews” which was published in Harper’s magazine.


1898: Barnet Phillips is scheduled to deliver at lecture this evening entitled “The Past in the Present” which will be the first in a series of weekly talks sponsored by the Young Men’s Hebrew Association.


1898: “Israel Zangwill delivered an address on the religion of the Ghetto” tonight at the annual meeting of the Education Alliance at Temple Emanu-el.


1898: A “mass meeting” attended by 3,000 was held tonight at Oheb Zedek on Clinton Street in an attempt to raise the $3,000 from the realtors wrecking ball.


1899: Lord Rothschild, Sir Samuel Montagu and Mr. Benjamin Montagu were among the Jewish leaders who were on the platform at the tercentenary celebration of Oliver Cromwell which included “the unveiling of a statue of the Protecter.


1900(22nd of Cheshvan): Author Judah Behak passed away


1900(22ndof Cheshvan): Sixty-eight year old Adolph Pollitzer, the Budapest native who “was regarded as the most eminent” violin teacher “of his time in England” passed away today.


1900: Leopold Hilsner was found guilty of the ritual murder of Agnes Hruza of Polna Bohemia


1900: Herzl seeks a meeting with Lord Rothschild.


1900:  In Brooklyn, Harris Morris Copland, a merchant who had Anglicized its name from the original Kaplan, and Sarah Mittenthal Copland gave birth to Aaron Copland who was noted for a variety of concertos for piano and clarinet, the suite Quiet City and the Ballets Billy the Kid, Rodeo and Appalachian Spring.  He won a Pulitzer Prize for this last creation. He passed away in 1990.  ‘Many of Aaron Copland's fans have wondered how a young Jewish music-lover from Brooklyn came to compose such works as Billy the Kid and Rodeo. Copland himself had a handy explanation: his grandparents had once lived in Texas, where his grandfather owned a store in Dallas.  Frank James - brother of Jesse James – was reputed to have been one of the employees. But for the persistence of choreographer Agnes de Mille, Rodeo might never have been produced. After the success of Billy the Kid, she suggested that Copland write another Western ballet. Copland resisted giving as his initial response, ‘I've already composed one of those. Can't you do a ballet about Ellis Island?’"




1903: “A few of his veteran friends” celebrated the 50th anniversary of the arrival of Isidore Newman in New Orleans


1904: In Camden, NJ Abraham Lichtenstein purchased the property at 335 Liberty


Street which had previously belonged to Congregation Sons of Israel today.


1904: Today, “on the West Side of Manhattan, David Mannes and the former Clara Damrosch - founders of the Mannes College of Music” gave birth to “author, journalist and critic” Marya Mannes “who wrote under the pen name of ‘Sec’”.



1904: As of today “the nature of the rift that has split the Camden, NJ Jewish community with the Sons of


Israel going to” property at South and Sycamore Street and others staying at 335 Liberty Street is


unknown.


1905(16thof Cheshvan, 5666): Five year old Morris Samuel Abrams passed away today after which he was buried at the Shaare Zedek in Pittsburgh, PA.


1905: David Belasco's "Girl of Golden West," premieres in New York City. Belasco’s father was Jewish.  His mother was Roman Catholic.


1905: “Three influential Jews left Odessa for St. Petersburg today to present to the Council of Ministers a full account of the outbreak at Odessa, supported by documentary evidence.”


1905: The list of the Directors of the Educational Alliance published today included “James Frank, Albert Friedlander, Samuel Greenbaum, Ferdinand Kuhn, Henry M. Leipziger, Louis Marshall, William Salomon, Isidor Straus and Benjamin Tuska.”


1905: Today’s American Hebrew called for “new measures to cope with” the massacres of Russian Jews including “convening a Jewish congress in the United States” for the purpose of coordinating the relief efforts of every Jewish organization.


1905: It was reported today that in Odessa, P.D. Neidhart has been replaced by “General Gergorieff, a conservative anti-Semite. (This is the same general who will massacre the Jews of Odessa in the Summer of 1919 during the Russian Civil War)


1905: As of today “the fund for the relief of Jewish sufferers from the Russian massacres” “has reached at $200,000 although there is actually in hand about $70,000 less than that sum.”


1905: The Citizens’ Permanent Relief Committee is scheduled to meet in the office of the Mayor of Philadelphia today to discuss ways of providing “immediate relief to the survivors of the massacre in Russia.”


1906: “Miss Alice Lewisohn Is Now An Actress” published today provided the explanation by the daughter of the late philanthropist and businessman Leonard Lewisohn that she concealed her identity while performing in “Pippa Passes” at the Majestic Theatre because she did not plan on being a professional actress and that her appearance was purely for educational purposes that would help her with the amateur theatrical productions at the Henry Street Settlement House.


1907: In Brooklyn, Joseph Steig, a house painter, and his wife Laura Ebel Steig, a seamstress gave birth to multi-talented graphic artist William Steig.



1908: Oscar Straus' musical "Der tapfere Soldat," premieres in Vienna. .  Straus dropped the


 second‘s’ at the end of his name so he would not be confused the more famous Strauss family.


1908: Albert Einstein presents the quantum theory of light


1908: Birthdate of Yedida Shofet the native of Kashan, Iran who was the last Chief Rabbi of Iran “and the worldwide spiritual leader of Persian Jewry.


1909(1st of Kislev, 5670): Rosh Chodesh Kislev


1909(1stof Kislev, 5670): Thirteen year old Benze Zieg passed away today.


1910: Emma Keyman “the second daughter of Mr. & Mrs. Keyman” married David Krichefski, the youngest sont of Mr. & Mr. Krichefski of Jersy at the Wellington Road Synagogue.


 


1909: Birthdate of artist, illustrator and author of children’s books William Steig.  Steig sold his first cartoon to the New Yorker Magazine in 1930.  His work would appear so often in that publication (including 117 covers, that he was dubbed the “king of cartoons.’ Here are a couple of his more “bland” works.  For more covers go to



1909: Dr. Emil G. Hirsch, the Rabbi at Chicago’s Temple Sinai, gave an address tonight at the Broad Street at event celebrating the centenary of Rabbi David Einhorn, of blessed memory. During his speech he demonstrated how the Reform movement had revitalized Judaism from the dead hand and hypocrisy of Orthodoxy. “Nine hundred and ninety-nine ot of every thousand Orthodox Jews who pray regularly to back to Jerusalem would be stricken with apoplexy if the Messiah should suddenly announce that they could go back.”


1910: Today, the Nobel Prize Committee awarded German poet and novelist Paul Johann Ludwig Heyse the Nobel Prize for Literature.


1912(4thof Kislev, 5673): Eighty-three year old Civil War veteran Joseph Rosenthal passed away today in Chicago.


1913(14thof Cheshvan, 5674): Seventy-five year old Joseph Hiam Levy, the native of Aldgate and son of Lawrence Levy whom he upset by leaving the Great Synagogue for the more liberal West London Synagogue and who was an Inspector of Accounts at the Department of Education before becoming a lecturer at Birkbeck College and a leader of the Personal Rights Association passed away today.


1914: In Georgia, the appellate court, upheld the trial court’s ruling denying Leo Frank a new trial.


1914: Birthdate of Shmuel Tankus, the native of the Neve Shalom district of Jaffa who became the 5th commander of the Israeli Navy.


1914: It was reported today that “there will be five Jews in the next Congress” including two Democrats – Julius Kalen of California and A.T. Sabath of Illinois --, two Socialists – Victor Berger of Wisconsin and Meyer Loudon of New York – and one Republican – Isaac Sigel of New York.


1914: It was reported today that “the Massachusetts Commission recently stated that Russian Jews in Massachusetts presented a larger proportion of naturalized citizens than any other nationality with which the commission came into contacts.”


1915: “Old Heidelberg” a silent romance co-starring Erich von Stroheim was released today in the United States.


1915: “Revive Jewish Artistry” published today described an exhibition in New York of works from Jerusalem’s Bezalel School under the leadership of Professor Boris Schatz who has led to the revival of the arts among “the Hebrews in Palestine.”


1915: An order signed today by Russian Cavalry General Oblonsky commands “that when the Russians enter a town of the enemy, or reconquer a town of their own , the leaders of the Jewish community be taken and held as hostages” and that “at the same time a warning should be given to all Jews that if any one of them should be in any way help the enemy, even after we have left the town, these Jewish leaders will be killed.”


1915: “It was decided at the ninth annual meeting of the American Jewish Committee” which held was held today at the Hotel Astor in New York City “to call a conference “which will take steps to organize “organize a congress of American Jews” that will meet after the end of the World War “to consider” ways to ensure “the rights of Jews in belligerent lands and Romania.”


1916: As control of Poland shifts from Russia to Germany during WW I, it was reported that Herman Bernstein, the editor of the American Hebrew has urged all concerned “that steps should be taken” to ensure that Jews enjoy “equal rights with others in Poland after war” comes to an end.


1916: Birthdate of writer and producer, Sheldon Schwartz.  Schwartz is another Jew who played a key role in the creation of what some call middlebrow American culture.  He wrote for Ozzie and Harriet, produced The Brady Bunch and created and produced Gilligan’s Island.


1917: “A bloody battle” was fought between the Turks and The Kiwis (New Zealand soldiers fighting under General Allenby) at Ayun Kara, a village “southeast of Tel Aviv.”


1917: It was reported today that “the declaration by Great Britain of its purpose to facilitate the effort of the Zionists to establish a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine…carries with it a proviso that the establishment of a Jewish State in the Holy Land shall not in any way conflict with the rights of non-Jewish communities now existing in Palestine” while carrying “pledges by Great Britain to oppose any project which might in any way impair the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.


1917: Amid growing attempts to prevent Jewish students from receiving scholarships, Stuart Samuel and Charles Emanuel met with Cyril Cobb, the Chairman of the London County Council’s Education Committee and Sir Robert Cecil in a failed attempt to thwart the change in policy that would require eligible candidates “to be British when applying for the award and to have been born or have fathers who were born in Britain or in the Dominions.”


1918: Czechoslovakia becomes a republic. Jan Masaryk was the guiding force behind this effort the first president of the new Czech Republic. Masaryk was one of the most decent and courageous leaders of the 19th and 20thcentury.  During the 1880’s when Prague was swept by a series of anti-Semitic riots including charges of the blood libel, Masaryk condemned the anti-Semites and worked to alleviate the suffering of the Jews.  Ironically, in 1916, Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandies, whose parents had emigrated from Bohemia (later to be part of Czechoslovakia) who arranged for Masaryk’s first meeting with President Wilson.  Wilson’s support would prove to be critical in the creation of the Czech Republic. Thanks to the Masaryk’s Jews enjoyed the benefits of full citizenship in law as well as in fact.  “Jewish communal institutions and holidays enjoyed full juridical recognition and protection.”  Jews played a key role in creating a vibrant, Czech economy and played a leading role in the areas of art and culture.  Of course, the most famous Jewish artist of the time was Franz Kafka.  We are not better acquainted with the rest of these Jewish Czech artists because the Nazis did their job all too well.


1918: Days after the Armistice was signed, Rabbi Hyman Gerson Enelow wrote today that “these have been wonderful days in Paris” where “the streets have been full of wild enthusiasm” and “the people don’t seem to be able to find a way to express their joy” now that “the most terrible war in human history has come to an end.


1919: In a move that must have the Jews feel "uncomfortable," the Constituent Assembly in Poland declared Sunday as the official day of rest.


1920: Birthdate of Izo Hertzig, the native of Siret, Romania who gained fame as Israeli MK Yitzhak Artzi.



1920: “The fourteenth annual meeting of the American Jewish Committee…was held at the Hotel Astor” today where “President Louis Marshall presented the annual report of the Executive Committee, which dealt with endeavors to obtain improvement of the condition of the Jews in Poland, the Ukraine, Hungary and Rumania.”


1920(3rd of Kislev, 5681): Sixty-one year old  Jacob Wertheim, the son of Baruch and Henrietta Wertheim who turned ownership in a small New York cigar story in “the United Cigar Manufacturers Company with a capital of twenty million dollars” and who was “one of the foundrs of the Federation ofr the Support of Jewish Philanthropic Societies” passed away today.


1920: Today, “leading Jews in America untied to protest against the announced proposal to undertake an evangelization campaign among the Jews of New York City” for which “the Presbyterian Church has” raised “nearly $200,000.”


1920: Birthdate of Irving Dover Ravetch the Newark born son of a Jewish immigrant who had fled the Russian pogroms, became a pharmacist and, later, a rabbi. His mother, an immigrant from what is now northern Israel, was a Hebrew teacher. He gained fame as Irving Ravetch, whose playwriting career stalled on the brink of Broadway but who became half of one of Hollywood’s most successful husband-and-wife screenwriting teams, creators of the Oscar-nominated scripts for “Hud” and “Norma Rae,”


1921: “Honor Lauterbach For Aid To Orphans” published today described the honors paid to Edward Lauterbach for his 39 years of service to the Hebrew Orphan Asylum including a brief talk by one of the children, Paula Schwartz who “said that this name would be everlastingly remembered by those who were housed in the institution during his trusteeship.”


1923: Winston Churchill told British businessman and leading member of Jewish community, Sir Robert Waley Cohen, that he would no longer be able to work with him on the merger of two of Cohen’s companies with the Anglo-Persian Company.  Churchill turned his back on this lucrative business arrangement because he had decided to return to public life as a Member of Parliament.  Ironically, Churchill would lose his first bid to return to Parliament in March of 1924.  It speaks to Churchill and his business partners sense of rectitude that both wanted to avoid an appearance of impropriety regardless of any financial reverses that either of them might suffer.


1924: In Shanghai, Celia Krisel and Alexander Krisel, “a lawyer and distributor for United Arts films,” gave birth to architect William Krisel. (As reported by Sam Roberts)



1924: Birthdate of famed Russian violinist Leonid Kogan who won the Lenin Prize in 1952 proving that regardless of which side of the Iron Curtain you looked you would find a Jewish Fiddler on the Roof.


1925: Birthdate of Gladys Lenore Blum who would attain theatrical success as Gladys Nederlander, producer of nine Broadway shows.  She passed away in July, 2008


1927: As Stalin consolidated his control over the Communist Party, Trotsky was expelled from the Party.


1928: “Impressive Armistice Day Celebration is Held in Jerusalem” published today described how “two hundred members of the former Jewish Legion which fought in the British Army during the World War for the liberation of Palestine passed in review before Acting High Commissioner H. C. Luke” as part of the ceremonies marking the anniversary of the end of the World War.


1929: Birthdate of Alan J. Shallack who collaborated with Margaret Rey staring in the 1970’s to bring Curious George, the creation of her late husband, to the television.


1929: It was reported today that “the Abyssinian government has awarded the Order of the Ethiopian Star to Dr. Jaques Faitlovitch, the international explorer and executive director of the work among the Falashas in Abyssinia” who “has made six expeditions into Abyssinia, during which he made scientific studies of the Falasha, a people that has observed the Jewish faith for over 2,000 years.” (As reported by JTA)


1929: Fritz and Charlotte Fuerst, got married today in Vienna, Austria. “Fritz Fuerst illegally immigrated to Eretz Israel in 1938. His wife, Charlotte, was deported to Kielce, Poland. Charlotte perished in the Holocaust “



1930: “Morocco” a romantic film for which Josef von Sternberg received an Oscar nomination for Best Director was released in the United States today.


1931: With Sid Gillman playing End, Ohio State defeated Wisconsin for its fifth victory out of seven games played to date.


1931: After 91 performances, the curtain came down on “The House of Connelly” starring Stella Adler, J. Edward Bromberg and Clifford Odets which was staged by Lee Strasberg at the Martin Beck Theatre.


1931: Montefiore Kahn, vice president of Oil Shares, Inc., a $6,000,000 corporation having its principal offices in Jersey City, was held on $25,000 bail for a hearing Tuesday, upon his arraignment before Magistrate Capshaw in Jefferson Market Court on a charge of being a fugitive from justice in New Jersey. He is wanted in connection with the theft of $100,000.


1933: In Passaic, N.J., Nathan and Anne Zion gave birth to Sidney Zion, “a journalist and author who turned his daughter’s death at New York Hospital in 1984 into a crusade that led to national reforms in the training, workload and supervision of young doctors.” (As reported by Robert D. McFadden


1934: It was announced today that Leo Arnstein, the “vice president and treasurer of J. H. Rossbach and Bros., Inc., and the Rossbach Brazil Co., who is a director of Federation of Jewish Philanthropic Associations” “was elected a member of the Board of Trustees of the Central Savings Bank.”


1935: The Nazis began the First Implementation Order to the Reich Citizenship, Clause 5; "A Jew is a person descended from at least three grandparents who were full Jews by race."   This meant that a lot of Christian Germans found out that they were “really Jewish” since the conversion of their parents offered no protection from being designated as a Juden.  As many as 500,000 German citizens fall into the Mischlinge or mixed-racecategory. Marriages between Jews and second-generation Mischlinge are prohibited by law.


1935: Seventy-year old German classical scholar Friedrich Münzer “was officially classified as Jewish, upon which many colleagues and acquaintances distanced themselves from him.”


1935(18th of Cheshvan, 5695) Seventy-five year old French banker and art collector Count Moïse de Camondo who rebuilt the family mansion on Parc Monceau complete with a Kosher Kitchen, passed away today. Unfortunately the family’s position and wealth was not enough to protect his family. The Camondo family disappeared after the French deported his daughter, Béatrice, his son-of-law Léon Reinach and their children, Fanny and Bertrand to Auschwitz where they were murdered.




1935: Birthdate of King Hussein of Jordan.  The Jordanian monarch presented a mixed bag when it came to relations with Israel.  In 1967, despite pleas from the Israelis, Hussein joined Syria and Egypt in waging war against Israel.  It was his fortunate choice of action that resulted in Israel ending up with all of Jerusalem and the West Bank.  At the same time, Hussein personally and publicly apologized for terrorist attacks against Israelis in 1997.  Finally, in 1994, with cancer consuming his body, the King signed a peace agreement with Yitzchak Rabin.  As he said, he finally completed the work begun by his grandfather, King Abdullah.


1935: Herbert Samuel completed his service as MP for Darwen which had begun in 1929.


1935(18th of Cheshvan, 5695): New York attorney Morris Cooper, the husband of Alice Jaretzki Cooper with whom he had two children – “Richard M. Cooper and Mrs. Gay V. Land”—passed away today.


1936: Sophomore Harry Shorten helped lead NYU to victory over Rutgers.


1936: Today, “the Provincial Commission in Tripoli issued an order…to the effect that all shops were to remain open all days of the week except Sunday” which was part an attempt to force Jewish shopkeepers to leave the new quarter of the city and return to the less economically attractive old quarter of Tripoli.


1936: “Representative Samuel Dickstein of New York, the chairman of the House Immigration Committee” announced “that in view of the large amount of religious and racial ‘hate propaganda’ brought out in the Presidential election campaign he will offer a resolution in the Congress for an investigation of subversive and un-American activities by the House committee which in 1934 looked into Nazi activities” in the United States.


1936: An exhibition of paintings by Elias Newman, an American artist who lived in Palestine for eight years that has been on display at the Jewish Club in New York comes to an end.


1937: The New York Times reports on the publication of the text of “And Stars Remain” by Julius S. and Philip G. Epstein, a comedy produced by the Theatre Guild during the 1936 season


1937: Dancer and choreographer Anna Sokolow debuted on Broadway. Sokolow got her professional start in "radical dance" in 1929 when she joined Martha Graham's dance company, and for the next decade she studied and danced with Graham, but she also began to work with other groups and to choreograph pieces of her own. Sokolow felt the need to move beyond Graham's orbit to draw upon her own ethnic background and to use dance to dramatize the economic, social, and political crises of the time. Sokolow's first major composition for a group, Anti-War Trilogy, was performed at the 1933 First Anti-War Congress, and the dangers of war and fascism continued to be reflected in her later work. Sokolow was a key figure in the development of modern dance in both Israel and Mexico, and worked with a variety of dance forms. Sokolow often worked with theater productions, choreographing many Broadway performances. She was a central figure in the choreography and staging of the musical Hairin 1967. In the later part of her career, Sokolow incorporated Jewish themes more heavily in her work. Her first piece with clear Jewish content was The Exile (1939), and many of her compositions returned to the themes of exile and suffering. Her 1945 Kaddish, which was choreographed just as the war was ending, drew upon traditional Jewish elements to express her pain and suffering. Sokolow's 1961 work, Dreams, was the first serious dance exploration of the Holocaust. She also based a number of her works on Jewish female figures, both Biblical and modern, ranging from Ruth and Deborah to Hannah Senesh and Golda Meir.


1937: “In the mixed Arab Jewish quarter of Romemah on the outskirts of Jerusalem Arabs attacked Jew who was rescued by a policeman.  Two Jewish girls walking along the road were hit by a stray bullet and injured slightly.”


1938: “Daniel Frohman, dean of Broadway theatrical producers was one of the many show people who signed a telegram” sent to President Roosevelt today “urging him to ‘express the feeling of horror and indignation of American people toward Nazi brutality by invoking” his “Executive powers under existing American laws to declare an official embargo on all trade with Germany.”


1938: Dorothy Thompson, who in 1934 had become the first American journalist to be expelled from Nazi Germany, made an impassioned broadcast to an estimated 5 million listeners in defense of Herschel Grynszpan, pointing out that the Nazis themselves had made heroes of the assassins of Austrian Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss and German Foreign Minister Walther Rathenau.


1938: “Contrary to early reports, Henry Morgenthau, Jr., Secretary of the Treasury was not consulted in advance on the new French financial decrees and knew nothing of the French plans until he read of the in the newspapers, the Secretary said at a press conference this afternoon.”


1938: “Storm Over Bengal” which received a an Oscar nomination for Best Score for the music written by Cy Feuer was released in the United States today.


1939: Divisional meetings of members of the League for Palestine were today at the homes of members throughout the Long Island area today to discuss plans for a campaign to raise $100,000 for a new league center in Jerusalem similar to those already established in Haifa and Tel Aviv.


1939: “Five hundred Jewish refugees, mostly from Poland and the first to arrive since the war started, landed near Tel Aviv today and were taken into custody by British officials who said their entry was illegal.”


1940(13thof Cheshvan, 5701): Eighty year old Albert Kahn, the son cattle dealer Louis Kahn and Babette Bloch,  a millionaire Parisian banker and philanthropist whose plan to use his fortune to document the world in photographs was thwarted by the Great Depression died in France today during the Nazi occupation.



1940: During the Blitz, the Nazis bombed Coventry. Unbeknownst to people at the time, the bombing of Coventry, a civilian target of no military value, presented Churchill with his greatest moral dilemma of the war.  Because of Ultra, the English could “read” Nazi communications which gave them a great edge.  When Churchill found out that the Nazis were going to bomb Coventry which lacked anti-aircraft defense, he had to decide if he should send guns to the city which would have tipped the Germans off that the English were reading their code which would have led to them changing the code or let them remain defenseless during the terror raid.  He opted for the latter.  As cold-blooded as this decision may seem to us today, to have done otherwise might have led to the loss of the Battle of Britain which would have brought The Final Solution to the British Isles.  http://www.jewishgen.org/jcr-uk/Community/coventryh.htm


1941: In a message to the Jewish Chronicle Winston Churchill recognized the Jewish suffering. "None has suffered more cruelly than the Jew... The Jew bore the brunt of the Nazis' first onslaught upon the citadels of freedom and human dignity."  Fine words, but there was no action to back them up.  The doors to Palestine remained firmly shut and millions of Jews perished


1941: “I Wake Up Screaming” a film noir produced by Milton Sperling was released in the United States today.


1941: Nine thousand Jews from Slonim, Belorussia, are murdered at Czepielow


1942: The Nazis set up Ghettos in Radom, Cracow, and Galicia.


1942: In Perth Australia engineer Simon Feldman and his wife gave birth to Guggeheim Fellow and Dan Prize winner Marcus Feldman, who, ironically earned one of his degrees at Monash University, a school named after Sir John Monash the leading Australian general in WW I and a leader of the post-war Australian Jewish community.



1942(5thof Kislev, 5703): Sixty-one year old Henry Charles Dyte, the son of Isabella Benjamin and David Moses Dyte passed away today.


1943: At today’s general Fascist Party Congress, Benito Mussolini arranged “to have all Jews in Italy declared enemy aliens” under the law.


1943: Italian fascists in Ferrara killed 3 Jews in cold blood in broad daylight. They were not arrested or prosecuted in any way. 


1943:Chicago Bear’s Sid Luckman passed for 7 touchdowns as the Monsters of the Midway defeated the New York Giants, 56 to 7.


1943: Having recently been appointed assistant conductor of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, Leonard Bernstein made his conducting debut on last-minute notification—and without any rehearsal—after Bruno Walter came down with the flu. He became instantly famous because the concert was nationally broadcast. The soloist for that concert was Joseph Schuster, solo cellist of the New York Philharmonic, who played Richard Strauss's Don Quixote. Because Bernstein had never conducted the work before, Bruno Walter coached him on it prior to the concert. It is possible to hear this concert thanks to a transcription recording made from the CBS radio broadcast that has since been issued on CD.


1944(28th of Cheshvan, 5705): Seventy-one year old Hungarian violinist Carl Flesch died in Lucerne, Switzerland today.



1944: The Nazis hanged German businessman Walter Cramer, for his role in the attempt to kill Hitler on July 20.


1945: Dr. Abba Hillel Silver and Dr. Stephen S. Wise, joint chairmen of the American Zionist Emergency Council, criticize U.S. for agreeing to the creation of an Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry designed to determine the facts concerning the conflict in Palestine and to make recommendations to improve the situation.


1945: Hadassah and World Jewish Congress criticized British foreign minister Ernest Bevin.


1945: Former Senator Guy Gillette, who is the President of the American League for a Free Palestine, is scheduled to fly to London today as head of an unofficial delegation to the British Government on behalf of the establishment of Palestine as a “free and democratic state.” [Until the creation of the state of Israel, the Jewish homeland was referred to as Palestine and Gillette was head of a Zionist organization.”]


1946: Birthdate of folk musician Jay Ungar who with his wife Molly Mason wrote “the soundtrack to the acclaimed documentary film Brother's Keeper” and “Ashokan Farewell.”



1946: The Board of Deputies of British Jews condemns the idea of anti-British being expanded from Palestine to Britain.


1947: In Egypt, Lucy and Eliyahu gave birth to Yosef Frachi who was a member of the INS Dakar when it was lost at sea in 1968.


1947: Violence erupted in Palestine after the British kill three Jewish girls and two boys are at a farmhouse where a cache of weapons is found.


1948: "While Iraqi troops were still on the battlefield, an Iraqi law had added 'Zionism' to communism, anarchism and immorality in a list of offences whose propagation was punishable by seven years in prison or a heavy fine.


1948(12th of Cheshvan, 5709): Sixty-seven year old Samuel Abelow, the Lithuanian born son of Harris Abelow and the husband of Jeanette Abelow who served on the Board of Education of the School of Biblical Instruction passed away today after which he was buried at the Mount Hebron Cemetery in Queens.


1950: “An official publication Reshumot (Portofolio of Notifications 130) announcement on the election to Jerusalem municipality council, that were held today, states that among the approved candidates Rabbi Amram Aburbeh was candidate number 7 to honor the Yichud Shevet Yehudah party candidates list, representing the religious Sephardi Jews.”


1956: The Knesset agreed to an Israeli withdrawal from all territory captured in the Sinai campaign, provided that the United Nations Emergency Force (UNEF) could be used to keep Egypt from closing the Straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping and stop Gaza from serving as a base for terrorists attacking Israel.  Eleven years later, it would be the unilateral withdrawal of UNEF from the Sinai and the blockade of the Straits that would lead to the famous Six Days War in June of 1967.


1956: “Love Me Tender” Elvis Presley’s first film with music by Lionel Newman was released in the United States today.


1956: Birthdate of Avraham “Avi” Cohen a football player who played for Liverpool in England.


1957: The West End production of the musical “Bells Are Ringing” “with a book and lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green and music by Jule Styne


1960: Alexander "Alex" Bittelman was formally expelled from the Communist Party.


1960: “The Facts of Life” co-directed, co-produced and co-written by Melvin Frank and featuring Louis Nye was released in the United States today.


1962: Birthdate of Keyboardist Josh Silver.


1963: “The Servant,” Harold Pinter’s film adaptation of a novelette of the same name in which he appears as “Society Man” “opened at London's Warner Theatre.”


1966(1stof Kislev, 5727): Rosh Chodesh Kislev


1966(1stof Kislev, 5727): Seventy-eight year old Rabbi Moses Aaron Poleyeff, a native of Minsk who was on the faculty of Yeshiva College passed away today in Jersey City, NJ.


1968(23rd of Cheshvan, 5729): Seventy-two year old Riga native, Samuel J. Briskin who worked at produced films for several major studies including Columbia, RKO, Paramount, MGM and Liberty as well as the U.S. government during WW II passed away today.


1968: “The Shoes of the Fisherman,” the film version of the novel of the same name produced by George Enguland, the son of Mabel Albertson and the nephew of Jack Albertson, was released in the United States today.


1969: Two days after he had passed away, funeral services were held today for sixty-nine year old Columbia graduate and Parkinson disease patient A. Wilfred May, the former foreign correspondent for the New York Herald Tribune, NANA and The London Financial Times and “economic expert with the SEC”


1972: Birthdate of wrestler Mathew Jason “Matt” Bloom.


1974: Birthdate of actor David Moscow. When asked about his religious upbringing Moscow said, “My father is Jewish and my mother is Mormon. Culturally, I was raised Jewish. We celebrated the major holidays in my house but we celebrated many Christmases with my mother’s side of the family.”


1974: “Leading Jewish activist Victor Polsky received an exit visa” which will lead to his arrival in Israel on December 24th.


1977:  In an interview with CBS newscaster Walter Cronkite, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat repeated his willingness to visit Israel.


1977: In an unauthorized interview, IDF Chief of Staff, General Motta Gur said that Egyptian forces were being prepared for an attack against Israel in 1978.


1978(14th of Cheshvan, 5739): Eighty year old Edwin Herbert Samuel, 2ndViscount, the son of Herbert Samuel and the father of Professor David Samuel passed away.  A WW I veteran who served with the Jewish Legion he served as the last Director of the Palestine Broadcasting Service which was part of the Mandatory Government.


1978: David Samuel, the 3rd Viscount Samuel, began serving in the British House of Lords.


1980: It was reported today that 1,424 Soviet Jews had emigrated during the month of October.


1980: “The Idolmaker,” a musical co-starring Tovah Felshuh was released in the United States today.


1986: “Wall Street arbitrageur Ivan Boesky” the son of Jewish Detroit delicatessen owners “pleads guilty to insider trading and agrees to pay a $100 million fine and cooperate with the Securities and Exchange Commission’s investigation.”


1986: “Streets of Gold” a movie about Jew who wants to play on the Russian basketball team directed and produced by Joe Roth was released in the United States.


1986: Five days after he had passed away, a memorial service for seventy-three year old A. James Speyer, the Pittsburg born “son of Stella (Tillie) Speyer and Alexander C. Speyer and graduate of Carnegie Institute of Technology who was one of the “leading experts on contemporary American and European art” is scheduled to be held today at the Art Institute.



1986: U.S. premiere of “Hoosier’s” the basketball movie with the signature score by Jerry Goldsmith.


1986: “Every Time We Say Goodbye,” a movie about “a gentile American in the Royal Air Force, stationed in mandatory Jerusalem, who falls in love with a girl from a Sephardic Jewish family” directed and written by Moshe Mizrahi and filmed mostly in Israel” was released in the United States today.


1988: Neil Simon’s latest play, “Rumors” is scheduled to open today at the Broadhurst Theatre under the direction of Gene Saks.



1990(26thof Cheshvan, 5751): Seventy-one year composer Saul Kaplan passed away today.



1990: U.S. premiere of “The King’s Whore” with a script by Frederic Raphael.


1991: Today,the music video for "Black or White" which John Landis helped to create “premiered on MTV, BET, VH1, and Fox (giving them their highest Nielsen ratings ever at the time) as well as the BBC's Top of the Pops in the UK.”


1994: In East Jerusalem, the al-Wasiti Art Centre was opened in Sheikh Jarrah.  Its first exhibition of paintings was entitled ‘From Exile to Jerusalem.’


1999: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or about topics of Jewish interest including The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World Since 1948 by Avi Shlaim Righteous Victims: A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict, 1881-1999 by Benny Morris, The David Story: A Translation With Commentary of 1 and 2 Samuelby Robert Alter, Spanking Watson by Kinky Friedman  and Give Us A King Samuel, Saul, and David: A New Translation of Samuel I and II with an introduction and notes by Everett Fox.


2002: In “Holocaust Writer in Storm Over Role of Catholic Church,  published today “ Mark Landler describes the response of the Catholic Church to 'A Moral Reckoning: The Role of the Catholic Church in the Holocaust and Its Unfulfilled Duty of Repair by Daniel Jonah Goldhagen



2003: In an interview conducted by Yedioth Ahronoth reporters Alex Fishman and Sima Kadmon, Ami Ayalon and three other former heads of the Israeli Security Agency (ISA), Avraham Shalom, Yaakov Peri and Carmi Gillon “warn of an impending "catastrophe" for Israel and urge the public to rally behind a document created which sets out the principles of a two-state solution for Israel and Palestine.”


2004: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or on topics of special Jewish interest including What We Owe Iraq: War and the Ethics of Nation Buildingby Noah Feldman, Ulysses S. Grant: The Unlikely Heroby Michael Korda and The Final Solution: A Story of Detection by Michael Chabon.


2004: Shalshelet’s2004 Inaugural Festival of New Jewish Liturgical Music which was held at Temple Shalom in Chevy Chase, Maryland, comes to an end.


2005:  Boychicks, Beantown, Basketball, Baseball.  Sports Illustrated Magazine of this date carried stories about Red Auerbach and Theo Epstein.  Auerbach, a coach legend in his own time and the President of the Boston Celtics attended the team’s home opener at the age of 88.  Feisty and competitive as ever, Red, sans cigar, was insisting that it was time for another championship, something that has eluded the Celtics since 1986.  Epstein, last year’s boy-wonder who broke the Boston Red Sox jinx, found himself out a job.  Even a genius general manager has a boss.  In the world of work, when employees clash with the boss, the boss always wins even when he (or she) is not right.


2006: At Brown University a three day conference entitled “The Jerusalem Perspective: 150 years of Archaeological Research” comes to an end.  The conference features abstracts by Jon Seligman, Jerusalem region archeologist for the Antiquities Authority.


2006: Fran Dreshcer guest starred today in “The War at Home,” an episode of Law & Order: Criminal Intnent.


2006: Those participating in the Perek Yomi Program complete the final chapter of the Book of Chronicles, the final book of the Tanach.  This calls for a Siyum Tanach, a party celebrating this milestone in Jewish study.  Siyum is the Hebrew word meaning “finish.”


2007: “The Quarrel” is performed at the Museum of Jewish Heritage-A Living Memorial to the Holocaust in New York followed by a discussion with playwright Rabbi Joseph Telushkin  “This provocative play follows a chance encounter between two estranged friends, each believing that the other had perished in the concentration camps. One man an Orthodox rabbi, the other a secular writer, their experiences and losses during the Holocaust have reinforced the rabbi’s trust in God and the writer’s trust in himself. Capturing the bittersweet memories of two men revisiting their past, the play confronts the spiritual questions raised by these survivors’ opposing lifestyles.”


2007(3rd of Kislev, 5768): Eighty-five year old clarinetist David Oppenheim, the former Dean of the N.Y.U. School of Arts passed away today.



2007: The Israel Antiquities Authority announced that the remains of an ancient terraced street that dates back to the roman period have been uncovered in the Western Wall tunnels. The street, which like led to the nearby Temple Mount itself, dates back nearly 2,000 years when the city was call Aelia Capitolina during the second to fourth centuries of the Common Era.


2007: New York Governor Elliot Spitzer withdrew an executive order that would have allowed the state to issue driver’s licenses to illegal aliens starting in December.


2007: “The Farnsworth Invention” “a stage play by Aaron Sorkin did not open on Broadway as scheduled today due to a strike by stagehands.


2008:“No Rock Like You: Songs for the Jewish Soul” Shalshelet’s annual musical festival comes to an end in Washington, D.C.


2008: Today, Rabbi Rachel Cowan was awarded HUC-JIR’s President's Medallion at Jerusalem Academic Convocation


2008 “The First Basket,” a documentary about Jews and basketball, opens in Los Angeles.www.thefirstbasket.com.


2008:In Cedar Rapids, Iowa,Curtis David Litow, son of Kathy and Charlie Litow, begins his Bar Mitzvah weekend by leading Friday Evening Services. “Am Yisroel Chai”


2008: At an initial appearance today on new charges of bank fraud, former Agriprocessors Chief Executive Officer Sholom Rubashkin, 49, was ordered by Magistrate Judge Jon Scoles to be held until a detention hearing Wednesday.


2008: Following the morning's Kassam rocket strikes on Sderot and the Sha'ar Hanegev region, the Ashkelon area also came under attack on Friday afternoon. Five Grad-type Katyusha rockets were fired at the region, one of which hit the city center and another that landed on its outskirts. Three more struck open areas. Shortly afterwards, another Kassam rocket landed in a kibbutz in the Sha'ar Hanegev Regional Council. Also, a mortar shell exploded near the Kissufim area. Three people were sent into shock as a result of the attack and were evacuated to Ashkelon's Barzilai Hospital.


2009: Congregation Sha’are Shalom, Loudoun County’s Conservative synagogue, hosts its annual art auction this evening. Proceeds from the art auction will be used to benefit the synagogue.


2009: In Acre Registration begins for the Second UNESCO World Heritage Workshop on “Disaster Risk Reduction to Cultural Heritage. “Professionals from 16 countries are coming for the conference, including speakers from Italy, Japan, Peru and India. The workshop is about reducing the risk to cultural heritage sites - in Israel and around the world. There are ways to stop the damage before it happens. Israel was chosen to host the event due to the country's abundance of cultural heritage sites, Kislev said. Places such as Masada, Caesarea and Safed are exposed to many risks, from earthquakes to floods to vandalism”


2009: In San Francisco, after Shabbat, Yuri Foreman became the first Israeli to claim a professional boxing crown when he defeated Daniel Santos of Puerto Rico to take the WBA junior middleweight (under-70 kilogram) title on points. Foreman, a Belarus-born Israeli who has lived in Brooklyn for 10 years and is studying to be an Orthodox rabbi, won the 12-round bout by unanimous decision - 116-110, 117-109 and 117-10.   The 29-year-old Foreman was so excited after his victory that a few minutes after midnight he called his father in Haifa from his MGM hotel suite in Las Vegas to give him the big news.


2009: Hundreds of hareidi religious Jews picketed outside the plant belonging to computer chip giant Intel at the Har Hotzvim hi-tech industrial area in Jerusalem, in protest of the fact that the plant employs workers on the Sabbath.


2009: Tonight was a split decision for Jewish boxers.  In New Castle, England, Dimitry Salita lost to Amir Khan when the two fought for the WMA light welterweight title. In Las Vegas, Yuri Foreman won the WBA super welterweight championship by a unanimous 2010: The Los Angeles Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including I Remember Nothing and Other Reflections by Nora Ephron


2010: In Cedar Rapids, Iowa the Hadassah Donor Dinner features Temple Judah’s own Murray Wolfe, an award-winning playwright, who is scheduled to read from his one-man autobiographical play, “My Name is Moses Volvovic.” Murray’s many interests and accomplishments mark him as the epitome of the term Renaissance Man. Of course Murray is fortunate to enjoy the support of his wife Charlene a culinary virtuoso and an Ashish Chayil in the truest sense of the term.


2010:“With Earth and Each Other: A Virtual Rally for a Better Middle East,” an online event promoting peace through cross-border cooperation is scheduled for a global broadcast today at www.withearthandeachother.org.  Anti-Israel groups have failed to get Pete Seeger and others to refrain from taking part in the event.


2010: The 50th Anniversary Annual Meeting of the Jewish Historical Society is scheduled to take place at Adas Israel, one of two Conservative congregations in the District of Columbia.


2010: The American Sephardi Federation is scheduled to present “A Moroccan Jewish Odyssey.” 


2010: Major Emanuel Levi who was serving as navigator for IAF pilot Major Amichai Itkis when their plane crashed earlier this week will be buried today at 11:30 a.m. The funeral is scheduled to take place in the Har Herzl military cemetery in Jerusalem. He was from Maaleh Adumim and is survived by his parents, two younger brothers who are serving in the army, and a sister. Friends and family described him as a talented, caring, well-liked man who was “addicted to the army” and had planned to work as a career soldier.


2010: As part of Jewish Book Month, Michelle Edward read from her new book, “The Hannukkah Trike” this morning.


2010: The Temple Rodef Shalom Players performed “Fools” – A Comic Fable by Neil Simon


2010: The head of state-owned French railway company SNCF made an unprecedented show of regret today for the company’s responsibility in sending some 76,000 Jews in France to Nazi death camps.The apology came as part of a bid to assuage American and Jewish community reticence about working with a company that notoriously collaborated with Nazi occupiers.


2011: The Jewish Agency for Israel’s board of governor is scheduled to convene today in Argentina.


2011: Molly Birnbaum and Rabbi Andrea Myers are scheduled to take part in the “Memoir Panel” at the St. Louis Jewish Book Festival.


2011: “Love Me Please” based on the life of Russian journalist Anastasia Baburova is scheduled to be shown at the Jewish Eye World Film Festival.


2011 Funeral service for Evelyn Lauder are scheduled to be held at 11:30 at Central Synagogue in New York City.


2011: Archaeologists have deciphered a grey marble slab whose 800-year-old Arabic inscription makes it the only Crusader artifact in that language ever found in the Middle East, the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) said today.


2011: The Knesset approved this evening a bill proposing to abolish the rule that a justice cannot be appointed Supreme Court president unless he is at least three years short of the mandatory retirement age of 70. The bill would pave Justice Asher Grunis' way to becoming Supreme Court president.


2012: “Simon and the Oaks,” a film depicting the story of Simon Larsson’s childhood under the specter of Nazi German, is scheduled to be shown at the UK Jewish Film Festival


2012: Shawn Joe Lichaa is scheduled to deliver a lecture “As It Is Written - Karaite Judaism: Texts, Textualists and Tradition” at the Library of Congress in Washington, DC


2012: Harry Brod read from Superman Is Jewish?: How Comic Book Superheroes Came to Serve Truth, Justice, and the Jewish-American Way  Prairie Lights in Iowa City.


2012:  “A New York grand jury indicted Pedro Hernandez on charges of second-degree murder and first-degree kidnapping in the case of Etan Kalil Patz the six year old who disappeared from his New York neighborhood in 1979.


2012: Dorit Beinisch, the first woman to service as president of the Supreme Court in Israel  was awarded "Doctor of Humane Letters-Honoris Causa"by The "Hebrew Union College"Jerusalem,


2012: In response to the incessant rocket attacks from the Gaza Strip - more than 800 have struck Israel since the beginning of the year, and more than 120 since Saturday - the IDF has launched a widespread campaign against terror targets in Gaza. The operation, called Pillar of Defense, has two main goals: to protect Israeli civilians and to cripple the terrorist infrastructure in Gaza


2012: Second and final day of Kosherfest



2013: The 7th annual Other Israel Film Festival is scheduled to open today in NYC


2013: The Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio is scheduled to perform at the 92ndStreet Y.


2013: Four mortars were fired into Israel from Gaza with one landing in the Eshkol Regional Council, one landing in “PA Arab Territory” and two landing around Ofakim.


2103: The IAF blasted “two concealed missile launchers in northern Gaza in response to a barrage of rockets and mortars fired by terrorists.


2013: Today “a United Nations interpreter, unaware that her microphone was on, uttered words of truth in reaction to the General Assembly’s adoption of nine politically-motivated resolutions condemning Israel, and zero resolutions on the rest of the world.”


2013: “Janet Yellen breezed through questions about the financial crisis, the Fed's stimulus efforts and banking regulation, as the Senate Banking Committee weighed her nomination to serve as future head of the Federal Reserve” today


2014(21stof Cheshvan): “Yahrtzeit of Rabbi David ibn Abi Zimra (1480-1573), known by the acronym of his name, Radbaz who served as the Chief Rabbi of Egypt.”


2014(21stof Cheshvan, 5775): Ninety-three year old composer Irving Getz passed away today.  (As reported by Margalit Fox)



2014: In Melbourne, “Night Will Fall” and “Operation Sunflower” are scheduled to be shown at the Jewish International Film Festival.


2014: “This Is Where I Leave You” is scheduled to be shown at the UK Jewish Film Festival


2014: In Coralville, IA, at Agudas Achim composer Samuel Adler and  guest cantor Deborah Norin-Kuhn are scheduled to lead Friday night services.


2014: “Walking With the Enemy” is scheduled to open in Cedar Rapids, IA.



2014: The family of Palestinian terrorist Abdel-Rahman al-Shauludi who killed two people including an infant at light rail station in Jerusalem last month has forty-eight hours to aplea the order issued today for the demolition of the home in Silwan.


2014: MKs Hanin Zoabi (Balad) and Afu Agbaria (Hadash) as well as Sheikh Raed Salah, head of the radical wing of the Islamic Movement in Israel were among those demonstrating in Umm al-Fahm while others threw rocks and blocked the road north of Jerusalem today. (As reported by Itamar Sharon)


2015: “Son of Saul” is scheduled to be shown at Auckland as part of the Jewish International Film Festival.


2015: The Hong Kong Jewish Film Festival began today.


2015: “Afterthought” and “Man in the Wall” are scheduled to be shown at the 29thIsrael Film Festival in Los Angeles.


2015: A screening and discussion of the 2003 documentary El último sefardí (The Last Sephardic Jew) are scheduled to take place at the Yiddish Book Center


2016: “The Second Time Around” and "The Settlers” are scheduled to be shown at the 20th UK International Jewish Film Festival.


2016: “The Tenth Man” and “Sand Storm” are scheduled to be shown in Sydney, Australia as part of the Jewish International Film Festival.


2016: The American Jewish Historical Society and American Sephardi Federation are scheduled to host author Yossi Sucary in “a staged reading” of Benghazi Bergen-Belsen, “the first novel exploring the experiences of Libyan Jews in the Holocaust.”


2017: In New Orleans, the Bart Jewish Cultural Series is scheduled to host an evening with author Walter Isaacson who latest work is a biography of Leonardo da Vinci.


2017(25thof Cheshvan, 5778): Ninety-three year old Tulane trained, iconic architect Albert C. Ledner passed away today in New Hampshire. (As reported by Neil Genzlinger)





2017: Today Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu offered humanitarian assistance to the victims of the devastating earthquake that has killed hundreds in Iran and Iraq.


2017: It was revealed to that “an Iron Dome missile defense battery was deployed in the Dan region — made up of Tel Aviv and the surrounding suburbs to protect against a possible rocket attack.”


2017: The Jewish Federation’s General Assembly is scheduled to come to an end today in Los Angeles.


2017: “Lenny” and “Monsieur Mayonnaise” are scheduled to be shown at the 21stUK International Film Festival.


2017: Dr. Naomi Weinberger is scheduled to lecture on “American Priorities in the Middle East” at the Streicker Center.


2017: Jewish Book Month, an annual event that provides us with a chance to contemplate the lives of Jewish authors such Sir Martin Gilbert, the official biographer of Winston Churchill and the author of 80 books many of which provide a highly literate look at the Jewish people and the events of the World Wars, and Jewish books for the next thirty days is scheduled to continue for a third day.


2018: While the people of Gaza danced last night celebrating the truce that had been reached after their unprecedented, massive barrage of rocket and mortars, Israelis are awakening this morning to reports of squabble among government ministers over what actions should have been taken and will be taken


2018: Tali Rubinstein, an Israeli born and raised musician is scheduled to make her debut at Lincoln Center.


2018: The Gersham Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to host the Philadelphia premiere of “Heather Booth: Changing the World


2018: Irene Pletka, a Vice Chairman of the YIVO Board and Founder and Chairman of the Kronhill Pletka Foundation,” is scheduled to honored this evening as “The YIVO Institute Research’s 2018 Gala Award Dinner.”


2018: The Breman Museum is scheduled to host “The Science of Photography: Jewish Pathways” in which “Professor Michael Berkowitz will explore the particular historical circumstances that allowed and encouraged Jewish innovators” including “Gabriel Lippmann, a French pioneer in color photography; Nahum Luboshez, responsible for huge advances in radiography; Leopold Mannes and Leopold Godowsky, Jr., the co-inventors of Kodachrome; and Edwin Land, founder of Polaroid” “to challenge photographic conventions.”


2018: The Oxford Jewish Society and the Islamic Society are scheduled to host tonight’s “Interfaith Formal Dinner” at Lady Margaret Hall.


2018: The Uri Gurvitch Quarter whose leader “was only 20 years old when he won Israel’s Jazz Player of the Year competition” is scheduled to perform at “Dizzy’s Club at Coca-Cola.”


2018: The Streicker Center is scheduled to host a screening of “In Love and Anger” followed by a discussion with screenwriter and AIDS “activist” Larry Kramer.”


2018: The 30th Kosherfest is scheduled to come to an end today at the Meadowlands Exposition Center in Secaucus, NJ.



 


 

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