April 11
145: Birthdate of Septimius Severus, the “Roman emperor, who according to the Virtual Jewish Library Lucious Septimus Severus treatd “Jews relatively well, allowing them to participate in public offices and be exempt from formalities contrary to Judaism. However, he did not allow the Jews to convert anyone.” [According to one source, this had to do with the fact that Severus was not really a Roman, but of Syrian-Phoenician stock, but I could find no further corroboration of this.]
399: In the Roman Empire, a law is promulgated prohibiting sending emissaries to collect donations on behalf of the nasi. "That the Jews should know that we have delivered them from this iniquitous tribute."
491: Anastasius I begins his reign as the Byzantine Emperor. The reign of Anastasius marked the renewal of warfare with the Sassanid Empire. The Sassanid Empire was the name given to the Persian Empire of the day. This renewal of warfare would have a negative impact on the Jews who ruled the island of Yotabe also known as Tiran, which is in the straits of Tiran. The Jews of Yotabe played an instrumental role in the trade along the Red Sea and when the Byzantines sought to move East to take control of this trade and defeat the Sassanids, they would replace the Jewish leaders with their own people.
1241: The Mongol army under the command Batu Khan defeated King Béla IV of Hungary at the Battle of Muhi. The defeat was a disaster for Christian forces in general and the Hungarians in particular. Bela looked favorably on his Jewish subjects, seeing them as a force that could raise his kingdom from the impoverishment resulting from the defeat. Bela adopted measures that protected his Jewish subjects from mob violence and church control and allowed them to use their own legal system for settling communal disputes. In exchange for this protection, the Jews were to pay their taxes directly to the royal treasury. Needless to say, Bela’s behavior did not meet with the approval of the clergy and they would move to overturn his rulings under his successor.
1302: A decree was issued ordering the Jews of Barcelona to kneel when meeting a priest with the sacraments.
1649: The largest Auto De Fe in the New World was held with 109 victims in Mexico. All but one of them was accused of Judaizing. Thirteen were burned alive and 57 in effigy. This for the most part ended the prominence of crypto-Jews in Mexico.
1657: “The Council of New Amsterdam denied a petition by Jacob Cohen (Henriques) for a license to bake and sell bread.” (As reported by Abraham P. Bloch).
1713:Following today’s signing of the Peace Utrecth which marked the end of Spanish domination over Belgium Jews began to reappear in Brussels after an absence that dated back to 1370.
1715: Birthdate of Jacob Rodrigues Pereira, the Portuguese native, who gained fame as Jacob Rodrigue Péreire, who devoted his life to teaching and working with “deaf-mutes.” Péreire who came from a family crypto-Jews, officially rejoined the faith of his fathers and was a leader in the French Jewish Community. His grandsons were two famous 19thcentury French financiers -, Emile and Isaac Péreire.
1717(30thof Nisan, 5477): Talmudist Abraham ben Saul Broda, the son of Saul Broda and a student of Rabbi Isaac ben Ze’eb Harif, passed away today in Frankfort on Main.
1755(30th of Nisan, 5515): Rosh Chodesh Iyar
1765: Founding of the Patriotic Society in Hamburg which would appoint Salomon Heine as an honorary member in 1843
1795: Birthdate of Friedrich Wilhelm Carl Umbreit, the German Protestant minister who authored works on the books of the Hebrew Bible while serving as a Professor of Old Testament Studies at the University of Heidelberg.
1789(15thof Nisan, 5549): Pesach is observed as the letter from Congress telling George Washington that he has been elected President of the United States makes its way to his home at Mt. Vernon, VA.
1807: “Ezekiel Hart was elected to the Legislative Assembly of Lower Canada over three other candidates, obtaining 59 out of the 116 votes cast.” Since the election took place on Shabbat, Hart refused to take the office on that date. He would cause a further uproar when he did take the oath because he insisted on using a Hebrew Bible instead of the Christian Bible normally used for such events.
1825: Birthdate of Ferdinand Lassalle, the native of Breslau who became a prominent German jurist and political leader.
1831: In Brno, Löbl Strakosch and Julia Schwarz gave birth to their 8thchild Sophia.
1831: “The Society for the Education of Poor Children and Relief of Indigent of the Jewish Persuasion in the City of New York was incorporated today.
1846(15thof Nisan, 5606): The Jews of Texas observe their first Pesach as citizens of the United States.
1850: Birthdate of Isidor Rayner, the native of Baltimore who represented the Fourth Congressional District in the House of Representatives and represented Maryland in the United States Senate.
1860: The State Assembly passed a bill to amend the charter of the Hebrew Benevolent Society of New York;
1860: The State Assembly passed a bill to amend the charter of the Hebrew Cemetery Association of New York.
1861(1st of Iyar, 5621): Rosh Chodesh Iyar – Confederate General Beauregard sends two officers to Fort Sumter with an ultimatum for Major Anderson, the commander of the U.S. forces. Either he can evacuate or face bombardment and attack from the surrounding Rebel forces. Today is the last day of peace for four years in the United States.
1862: Corporal Henry Wertheim, a native of Germany who was living in Mecklenburg County (NC) enlisted in the Confederate Army.
1864(5th of Nisan, 5624): Merchant and Hebrew scholar, Elijah Bardach, who was born at Lemberg in 1794 and whose works included Akedat Yizhak written in 1833, passed away today in Vienna.
1870: In an article entitled “Aid for the Hebrews of West Russia” published today, the Executive Committee of the Hebrew Board of Delegates reported receipt of the following donations:
Simeon Lodge of Titusville, PA, $13.50; Israelites of Leavenworth, Kansas, $127.10; Purim Association of Leavenworth Kansa, $202.10; Maimonides Lodge of Nashville, TN, $10.00; Congregation B’nai Brith, Wilkes-Barre, PA, $30.00. [For those who think of American Jewish History only in terms of a few major metropolitan areas, this list might give you pause to consider another view of Jewish settlement of the United States.]
1873(14thof Nissan): This afternoon, Congregation Shaare Rachmim, officially began using the Norfolk Street Synagogue with services led by the rabbi of Ahamath Chesed, the congregation that formerly used the Norfolk Street Synagogue. Ahamath Chesed has moved to a new location on Lexington Avenue.
1876(16thof Nisan, 5636): Second Day of Pesach; 1st day of the Omer
1876(16thof Nisan, 5636): Fifty-eight year old “German physician and co-founder of experimental pathology in Germany” Ludwig Traube passed away today in Berlin.
1880(30th of Nisan, 5640): Rosh Chodesh Iyar
1880(30thof Nisan, 5640): Twenty-year old Fanny Adler, the wife of Moses Adler and the sister of Selig Selbiger, a Jewish peddler from Prussia, passed away today.
1880: “York Minister,” an article published today recounting the history of this English city includes an account of the attacks made on the Jews during the reign of Richard the Lionhearted. The recounting includes a graphic description of the suffering and death of 500 Jewish citizens at the hands of mob more concerned with not paying their debts and stealing from the Children of Israel than anything else
1881: Isabella Benjamin and David Moses Dyte gave birth to Henry Charles Dyte.
1881: It was reported today that in Paris, the old customs for observing Shrove Tuesday are dying out. For example, “the traditional promenade of the Boeuf Gras” did not stop in front of the hotel of Baron de Rothschild so that the revelers might “drink to the health of the great banker” as they used to.”
1884(16th of Nisan, 5644) Second Day of Pesach; 1st day of the Omer
1889(10th of Nisan, 5649): A young Jewish boy, Tobias Hipper, died today in New York, the apparent victim of an assault by to other boys living in his neighborhood. The police have launched an investigation into the matter.
1890: Ellis Island was designated as an immigration station. Ellis Island would be the first stop for millions of European Jews coming to America.
1890: In Trenton, NJ, Herman Gross, an unemployed German Jewish grocery clerk tried to kill himself for a second time while in jail where he had been taken after his failed attempt to drown himself in the creek near the Pennsylvania Train Station.
1891: An eight year old Jewish tailor's daughter disappeared on the island of Corfu, Greece. Rumor spread that she was a Christian girl ritually killed and these charges resulted in a pogrom. Unfortunately, at this time of the year, no Jewish community would be exempt from the possibility of charges like this and the subsequent public uprising.
1893: The New York Times reported that “The stock market was not active today, a large speculative element being absent, owing to the Passover holiday.” [Editor’s Note: The italics are mine. The description of the Jews is pure New York Times.]
1893(25thof Nisan, 5653): Eighty-one year old Adolphe Franck who “became a chevalier of the Legion of Honor in 1844”and who was an “active defender of Judaism” who continued to the "Archives Israêlites" for fifty years passed away today.
1895: The will of the late Michael Stachelberg, the well-known New York cigar manufacturer was filed for probate today.
1895: The Board of Estimate and Appropriation met today in New York and disturbed the proceeds from the theatrical and concert fund to several charitable organizations including the United Hebrew Charities ($750), the Montefiore Home ($500) and Beth Israel Hospital ($100)
1896: “The Young Folks’ League of the Hebrew Infant Asylum gave its first entertainment at the Lexington Avenue Opera House” tonight.
1896: Birthdate of Rose Luria Halprin one of the foremost American Zionist leaders of the twentieth century who served twice as the national president of Hadassah and held key posts within the Jewish Agency at critical periods in the history of the Yishuv and the subsequent State of Israel. She passed away in 1978.
1896: It was reported today that David Finkelstein of Bridgeport, CT, has not lived with his Ida since they were married in March when his wife discovered that he had an artificial nose, a fact that he had not shared with her before their wedding.
1896: Convicted jewel thief Ben Ouni who had been as a Turk but claimed he really was a Jew named Benjamin Dreyer is on his way to serving a four year and six month term in the New York state penitentiary.
1897: “Jews, Anthropologically Considered” published today takes issue with the contention that the “Israelitish race” …is “the most homogenous races” describing the differences between the Sephardim, Ashkenazim as well as the “nomadic Jews” of North Africa, the Falashas, the Jews of Cochin and Bombay as well as the Jews of China.
1899: The First Jewish congregation was formed in Caracas, Venezuela.
1900: “Le Juif Polonais” (The Polish Jew), “an opera in three acts by Camille Erlanger composed to a libretto by Henri Cain” was first performed today in Paris at the Opéra Comique. The opera was adapted from a play by Erckmann-Chatrian of the same name. In 1871, Leopold Lewis had translated the play into English under the title of “The Bells” which provide Henry Irving with one of his most successful acting vehicles.
1901(21st of Nisan, 5661): The Ohavei Zion (Friends of Zion) plan to hold a Passover celebration and concert this evening to raise money for the “suffering Jewish farm laborers of Palestine.” The event is being held at Cooper Union and there is a ten cents admission charge.
1902: Birthdate of Michael Rothstein who gained fame as media magnate Michael Redstone.
1903: German-Jewish poetess Else Lasker-Schuler and Berthold Lasker were divorced today.
1904: Conference of the Greater Actions Committee meets in Vienna. In the spirit of the Sixth Congress it is decided to send an expedition to East Africa. The reconciliation conference was Herzl's last great achievement.
1905:Einstein reveals his Theory of Relativity
1905: Colonel Nicolas Pike, author, naturalist and a relative of the famous explorer Zebulon Pike, passed away. Among his possession was camp chest presented to the explorer Dr. David Livingston by Jewish philanthropist Sir Moses Montefiore.
1906: Congressman Allen L. McDermott delivered a speech in the House of Representatives in which he defended the Jewish people. McDermott, “who represents a district in New Jersey, a state in which is published the only avowed anti-Semitic publication” produced in the United States, spoke out “against the ‘Christ Killing’ charge and the ritual murder charge.”
1907: A newspaper story entitled “More Rumors of Pogroms” describes the revival in Russia of “the old stories about the disappearance of Christian children for use in sacrifices at the time of the Jewish Passover.” There are rumors that outbreaks of violence will take place during Russian Easter on April 2.
1908: On Saturday night, after Shabbat Ha Gadol, the East Side Business Men’s Protective Association gave away matzoth, flour, potatoes tea and eggs to over 2,000 poor Jews living on the Lower East Side.
1908: Birthdate of Leo Rosten. Educated at the University of Chicago and the London School of Economics, Leo Rosten spent sixty years acquainting his readers with different aspects of Jewish culture and the Yiddish language. Some of his better known works included Captain Newman, M.D., The Joys of Yiddish and Hooray For Yiddish. He passed away in 1997.
1909(20th of Nisan, 5669): Sixth Day of Pesach
1909(20th of Nisan, 5669): In one of the great moments of modern Jewish History, Tel Aviv (Hill of Spring), the first modern Jewish city, was founded on the sand dunes north of Jaffa with the building of 60 houses. The actual name Tel Aviv was given only the next year (Hill of Spring) and was taken from a Babylonian city (Ezekiel 3:15) and used by Nahum Sokolow as the title for his translation of Herzl's book Altneuland. Today Tel Aviv is a thriving modern metropolis popular and favorite Mediterranean vacation spot for Europeans seeking warmth in the winter time.
1910:Members of the Hebrew Retail Kosher Butchers' Protective Association are scheduled to meet this morning, at which time they will decide whether or not to make the boycott of the slaughter houses permanent until prices are reduced at least to nine cents, as it was four months ago.
1911: Today marked the third and final day for distribution of free Matzoth by the United Hebrew Community.
1912: Birthdate of Elinor Sophia Coleman who became famous as Elinor Guggenheimer who gained famed as an advocate for children, women and the elderly. Mrs. Guggenheimer became the first woman to serve on the New York City Planning Commission and she was the city’s commissioner of consumer affairs in the 1970, where in one of her more lighthearted moments she went after a store in Queens for selling fake lox. She passed away in 2008. Regardless of how she may have felt about Kashrut she left us with this little rhyme, “Oysters that could once delight us, now just give us hepatitis.”
1912: A campaign began today to raise $200,000 for a new facility to be used by the Young Women’s Hebrew Association in New York City.
1912: The Technikum, later to be known as the Techinion (Israel's M.I.T.) was founded in Haifa, Israel. Later that year the Hilfsverein der Deutschen Juden, which established the Haifa Technion, faced a strike by both teachers and students when they tried to institute German as the school's language instead of Hebrew. The American co-trustees agreed with the strikers and the Society left Eretz-Israel after the First World War. There was a lively debate as to whether Yiddish, Hebrew or German would be the language of the embryonic Jewish state. There was a strong sentiment for Hebrew since the other two were languages of the Diaspora and Hebrew was "the language of the land."
1914(15thof Nisan, 5674): Last Pesach before the start of World War I which began a long series of cataclysms for the Jews of Europe.
1914(15th of Nisan, 5674): A special Passover luncheon is scheduled to be served to military personnel at Tuxedo Hall in New York City.
1914(15th of Nisan, 5674): On the second night of Pesach, The Jewish Sailors and Soldiers’ Passover Committee hosted a seder for U.S. soldiers, sailors and marines at Tuxedo Hall.
1914(15th of Nisan, 5674): Tonight, Rabbi Maurice H. Harris is scheduled to lead a Seder at Temple Israel of Harlem.
1914: Two days before Harry Horowitz was scheduled to be executed for his role in the shooting of gambler Herman Rosenthal, New York State Justice Goff said the new witnesses that came forward claiming that he was innocent were not credible and that he would not grant the motion for a new trial.
1915: Charlie Chaplin releases The Tramp.
1921: The British created The Emirate of Transjordan. The British partitioned the land of the Palestine Mandate to create this Arab kingdom. There are those who claim that Palestine has already been partitioned. Since the Arabs got the land east of the Jordan, the Jews should get the remaining sliver west of the Jordan River. During the 1930’s Winston Churchill opposed the partition of the land west of the Jordan River for this very reason. Churchill knew whereof he spoke since he was the one who really created the Emirate in the first place.
1931: While speaking at a dinner given in his honor at London’s Savoy Hotel, David Lloyd George “assured the leaders of world Zionism that his faith in the Jewish national home was stronger than it was eleven years ago when his Government took over the British mandate in Palestine….The Mandate must not be administered nervously and apologetically, but firmly and fearlessly’ since Christians and Arabs under the mandate can only benefit from the success of the Zionist experiment.
1932: Time magazine published the following description of the Macabbiah.
Three thousand Jewish athletes from 27 countries last week paraded through Tel Aviv (''Hill of Spring") in Palestine, for the opening of the first Maccabiad. Wrongly described as the "Jewish Olympics," the Maccabean Games were organized by the World Maccabee Union, named for the Israelite hero, Judas Maccabaeus. The games began when 120 pigeons in flocks of ten—messengers to the Twelve Tribes of Israel—were allowed to fly to their homes in various parts of Palestine. Led by Tel Aviv's Mayor Dizengoff riding on a white horse, the 3,000 athletes, aged 5 to 60, marched to a huge new stadium that was crowded beyond capacity (25.000). The Maccabiad lasted four days. No supremely able Jewish athletes were entered; no world's records were broken. No official team score was compiled.
1932: Birthdate of actor Joel Grey. Born Joel Katz, he is best known as one of the stars in “Cabaret.”
1933: Mickey Cohen lost a fight with Chalky Wright in Los Angeles.
1933: The German government began employment and economic sanctions against Jews that are widely perceived as being racially based. The Lutheran Church opposed the sanctions
1936: Rodgers & Hammerstein's musical "On Your Toes", premiered in New York City.
1936: Birthdate of Carla Furstenberg, who as Carla Cohen, became co-owner of a unique Washington, DC institution, Politics and Prose, an independent bookstore that proved to successful in spite of chain bookstores and internet shopping.
1937: “Six American museums” were reported today to “have acquired works by Elias Newman a Palestinian artist of the Tel Aviv Museum of Art. Mr. Newman has been in the United States collecting works of modern American artists for Tel Aviv’s new Museum of Art. Newman was a Polish born artist best known for his water colors.
1938: Forty-six days after The British High Commissioner had declared Tel Aviv Harbor open Eliezer Steinlauf, a resident of Tel Aviv who had been born in Austria, disembarked from his ship at Tel Aviv making him the first passenger to disembark at the world’s first “Jewish port.”
1938: The Palestine Post reported that since the advent of the Nazi regime in Austria, the British Consulate in Vienna had handed out more than 12,000 applications for immigration to Australia. Immigration to New Zealand had been stopped "temporarily." South Africa demanded £250 for every immigrant.
1938: The Palestine Post published a special, copyrighted story, written by Ernest Hemingway, on the activities of the American and British volunteer battalions, fighting General Franco's insurgents in Catalonia.
1938: The Palestine Post reported that Aryans said "Ja" or "Nein" (Yes or No) in Austrian Anschluss (incorporation into Germany) plebiscite. Special trains brought more than 12,000 Nazi volunteers from Czechoslovakia for this purpose.
1938: The Palestine Post reported that the new "Eden" hotel opened in Jerusalem - a valuable addition to Jerusalem's hotel amenities.
1939(22nd of Nisan, 5699): 8th day of Pesach; unbeknownst to them, for millions of European Jews this would be their last celebration of the liberation from Egypt.
1939: Birthdate of Louise Lasser, the actress who gained fame on “Mary Hartman! Mary Hartman!”
1940: Soviet forces complete the slaughter of 26,000 Polish army officers in the Katyn Forest. When the slaughter is discovered, the Soviets will try and blame it on the Nazis.
1940: The Nazi occupiers of Lodz,“renamed the city Litzmannstadt (after the German general Karl Litzmann, who had conquered it in World War I); most of the German documents concerning the Lodz Ghetto refer to it as the "Litzmannstadt Ghetto."
1941(14th of Nisan, 5701): In Washington, D.C, Deb and Joe Levin celebrate their first Seder – a tradition begins!
1941: Erev Pesach the ghetto at Kielce, Poland “was sealed off from the outside world” following “a Judenrat was appointed, chaired by Moshe Pelc, who was eventually arrested and deported to Auschwitz for resisting German orders.”
1941: Nazi occupiers in Netherlands confiscated Jewish assets.1941: On Good Friday, Reverend Conrad Gröber “gave a sermon whose vocabulary came very close to the anti-Semitic vocabulary of the Nazi rulers: "As a driving force behind the Jewish legal power stood the aggressive toadyism and malevolent perfidy of the Pharisees. They unmasked themselves more than ever as Christ's arch-enemies, deadly enemies.... Their eyes were blindfolded by their prejudice and blinded by their Jewish lust for worldly dominion." As for the "people" or, in his words, the "wavering crowd of Jews", the archbishop said, "The Pharisees' secret service had awakened the animal in it through lies and slander, and it was eager for grisly excitement and blood."
1941:Jewish Weekly newspaper taken control by Nazi's
1941: Birthdate of Ellen Goodman. This popular syndicated columnist writes for the Boston Globe. She is yet another in a long line of Jewish journalists who have won the Pulitzer Prize. In her case it was for Commentary. In addition to her journalism, she is a popular author and speaker.
1942: Three thousand Jews from Zamosc, Poland, were deported to the Belzec death camp
1942: A German proclamation issued in Lvov, Ukraine, excoriated Polish civilians who assisted Jews.
1944; Anne Frank diary insert - ‘Who has made us Jews different to all other people? Who has allowed us to suffer so terribly up till now? It is God that has made us as we are, but it will be God, too, who will raise us up again.
1944: Shlomo Venezia saw his mother and his two little sisters – Marcia and Marta – for the last time today as he climbed out of a freight car at Auschwitz-Birkenau.
1945: American soldiers liberated the Nazi concentration camp at Buchenwald, Germany. Thousands of Jewish prisoners had been marched from other camps to Buchenwald in early 1945. As the Americans approached, the Nazis tried to another Death March costing the lives of 25,000 mostly Jewish prisoners. However, 21,000 prisoners were liberated including 4,000 Jews, 1000 of whom were teenagers and children. Thirty-one members of the camp staff were later found guilty with two of them condemned to death and four getting life sentences James Hoyt, of Oxford, Iowa, was the radio operator and driver for a four-man reconnaissance team when two Buchenwald escapees flagged them down. The team went to the camp, which was hidden in a forested area. According to his eyewitness account, “When the people saw our vehicle with the American markings on it, they really went wild. They tore a part of the fence down. They threw us up in the air,” Hoyt told The Gazette 10 years ago. “It was a very sorry sight all the way. They were skin and bones, the living ones. Of course, there were all kinds of dead ones there.” In all, about 238,500 prisoners were held at the camp.
1945:Meir Binem (Beniek) Wrzonski the son of Noah Wrzonski and was Rajzel Maroko was among those who were found alive when Buchenwald was liberated today.
1945: The Palestine Post reported medical relief units were going to be heading to Greece. Almost one-third of the team which was first heading to Cairo and then would be off to Greece was made up of Palestinians (Jews). The team was made up of doctors, nurses, sanitary officers, laboratory technicians and drivers. Some of the Palestinians were fluent in Judeo-Spanish and Greek.
1945: Based on accounts from members of the 102nd Division, United States Army, members of the SS burned to death over one thousand prisoners at Gardelgen. The prisoners were slave laborers from several concentration camps that were being moved east to keep them away from advancing Allied soldiers. When the SS could no longer move them by train, they herded them into a barn, soaked them with gasoline and burned them to death. The SS soldiers killed in this manner to conserve ammunition. Most of the dead were Jews, a large number of whom appeared to be between the ages of fourteen and sixteen
1947: Birthdate of Israeli political leader Charlie-Shalom Biton. A native of Morocco, he made Aliyah in 1949. Among other things he was one of the founders of the Israeli Black Panthers movement
1952(16th of Nisan, 5712): 2nd day of Pesach; 1st day of the Omer
1952: After having been released in New York in March, “Singing in the Rain,” directed by Stanley Donen, produced by Arthur Freed, with a script by Betty Comden and Adolph Green, was released to theatres across the United States today.
1955: Release date for “Marty”, the Oscar winning film with a script by Paddy Chayefsky.
1955(19th of Nisan): Rabbi Jekuthiel Judah Greenwald, author of “Ach laZarah” passed away
1956(30thof Nisan, 5716): Gunmen opened fire on a synagogue full of children and teenagers, in the farming community of Shafir killing three children and a youth worker were killed on the spot, while wounding five more, three seriously.
1960(14th of Nisan): Rabbi Chaim Heller, author LeHikre ha-Halakhot passed away
1961:Bob Dylan, born Robert Allen Zimmerman, makes his singing début in New York City.
1961: The trial of Adolph Eichman on charges of genocide opened in Jerusalem. The capture of Eichman in Argentina is the stuff of James Bond. His trial marked a turning point as Jews and non-Jews alike began to talk openly about what happened in Europe. Eichman would be the only person ever executed by the state of Israel. “Justice Moshe Landau read the 15-count indictment aloud in Hebrew, pausing as each charge was translated into German. The charges included “causing the killing of millions of Jews,” “torture” and placing “many millions of Jews in living conditions that were calculated to bring about their physical destruction.”
1963: Pitcher Conrad Cardinal appeared in his first major league game, taking the mound for the Houston Colt 45’s, now known as the Houston Astros.
1968: Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act of 1968, prohibiting discrimination based on race, color, religion or national origin in the sale, rental, and financing of housing. It took the political skill and acumen of LBJ to insure that being Jewish was no longer a disability when it came to renting or buying a home. (This is not to be confused with more famous Civil Rights of 1964, the first piece of ground breaking legislations signed into law by President Johnson who proved to be as strong voice for the underdog and disposed including the Jewish people and the state of Israel.)
1972(27thof Nisan, 5732): Yom HaShoah
1972(27thof Nisan, 5732): Eleven days before his 54th birthday, Solomon Aaron Berson the physician who was the research partner of Rosalyn Yalow passed away.
1973: In the wake of the Munich Olympic Massacre, Zaiad Muchasi, the replacement for Hussein Al Bashir in Cyprus, was killed by a bomb in his Athens hotel room today.
1973: New York premiere of “Scarecrow” directed by Jerry Schatzberg.
1974(19thof Nisan, 5734): Fifth day of Pesach
1974(19thof Nisan, 5734): Fifty-five year old German born, American mathematician Abraham Robinson passed away today in New Haven, CT.
1974: Golda Meir resigned as Prime Minister “after the Agranat Commission had published its interim reported on the Yom Kippur War.
1978: The Jerusalem Post reported that Israel had started to dismantle its outposts in South Lebanon in preparation for the expected pullback. But Lebanese Christian leaders and many Israelis expressed concern that the pullback was premature. The world's greatest battleship, the US atom-powered "Nimitz," completed its Israeli visit and sailed away from Haifa.
1983(28th of Nisan, 5743): General Avraham Yoffe passed away. A sabra born at Yavne;el in 1913 Yoffe served with Orde Wingate, fought with British Army during World War II before beginning a distinguished career with the IDF that included command of the 9thBrigade during the Suez Campaign and the capture of several significant positions in the Sinai during the Six Day War.
1983: Twenty-second and final episode of the first season of “Family Ties” sit-com created by Gary David Goldberg was broadcast today.
1983:Poland's Roman Catholic Primate, Jozef Cardinal Glemp, officiated today at a mass honoring the Jewish fighters of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising. The mass was one of a series of events over the next week and a half commemorating the 40th anniversary of the resistance to the Nazis.
1987(12th of Nisan, 5747):An Israeli woman was killed by a firebomb thrown into her car in the occupied West Bank today, and in response hundreds of Jewish settlers rampaged in the West Bank town of Kalkilya overnight, breaking windows and setting cars ablaze.The Israeli woman was killed near Alfe Menashe, a Jewish settlement on the West Bank about 25 miles north of here. Her husband and two of her children, who were also in the car, were reported in serious condition. Her third child and a young family friend were treated for light burns.The army imposed a curfew on Kalkilya, located 17 miles from Tel Aviv, but security sources said they were unable to stop an estimated 600 angry Jewish settlers from entering the town.
1987: Following secret talks held in London, Shimon Peres and King Hussein of Jordan reached an agreement outlining the method whereby a peace treaty could be negotiated between Israel and Jordan. In a tragic turn events, Yitzchak Shamir, the Prime Minister of Israel, scuttled the talks and for once it was the Israelis who may have “never missed a chance to miss a chance.”
1987(12th of Nisan, 5747): Primo Levi passed away. Primo Levi survived the Holocaust and bore witness to it through an amazing collection of literature. Born in Turin, Italy in 1919, Levi was trained as a chemist. He was deported to Auschwitz as a Jew and a member of the anti-Fascist Resistance. His experiences in the camps and his grueling efforts to return to Italy after the war are the subject of two of his books, Survival in Auschwitz and The Reawakening. He is also the author of Moments of Reprove, The Periodic Table and If Not Now When? Levi did not make a career of being a Holocaust Survivor. He worked as a chemist after the war and did not retire to devote full time to his writing until 1977. He died under tragic circumstances at the age of 67.
1988(24thof Nisan, 5748): Seventy-year old screenwriter and author Jesse Lasky, Jr who wrote the scripts for two Biblical “pot-boilers” – “Ten Commandments” and “Samson and Delilah” – passed away today.
1995(10thof Nisan, 5755): Jacob Weingreen the professor of Hebrew in Trinity College, Dublin who excavated Samaria and who is the namesake for The Weingreen Museum of Biblical Antiquities passed away today.
19974thof Nisan, 5757): Terrorist killed a member of the IDF after having kidnaped him near Moshav Zanoah.
1998(15th of Nisan, 5758): First Day of Pesach
1998: In the evening, Mitchell Levin and Harvey Luber, of blessed memory, celebrate their last Seder together.
1999:Matt Bloom debuted on the WWF episode of Sunday Night Heat.
1999: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or special interest to Jewish readers including “Reading the Holocaust” by Inga Clendinnen and recently published paperback editions of “The Unexpected Salami” by Laurie Gwen Shapiro and “The Children” by David Halberstam
2000: A British court resolved David Irving's libel case against Deborah Lipstadt by affirming Lipstadt's portrayal of Irving as an anti-Semitic Holocaust denier.
2001: “Plotting a Pardon; Rich Cashed In a World of Chits to Win Pardon” published today described how Avner Azulay and Rich’s former wife worked with the Clintons to obtain a midnight pardon for the billionaire fugitive from justice.
2002: Palestinian terrorists begin to surrender at Jenin.
2002(29th of Nisan, 5762): In Tunisia, the El Ghriba synagogue was bombed by Al Qaeda killing 21. El Ghriba is an ancient synagogue on the Tunisian island of Djerba. It is located close to Hara Seghira, several kilometers southwest of Houmt Souk, the capital of Djerba.The history of the synagogue is reported to go back about 2000 years, making it the oldest synagogue in Africa and one of the oldest ones in the world. According to an oral tradition, it was built by Jews who had immigrated after the destruction of the first Temple in Jerusalem. The synagogue is the destination of an annual pilgrimage of many Tunisian Jews after the celebration of Passover.
2002:Manhattan Ensemble Theater presented the world premiere of a new English version of the Yiddish classic, The Golem. “Drenched in magic and mystery, the play reworks an ancient Talmudic legend about a 17th century Rabbi in Prague who molds and animates a huge clay figure to fight for the Jewish community, which has been threatened by accusations of spilling the blood of Christian children.”
2004: “Focus on the Soul: The Photographs of Lotte Jacobi” came to a close.
2004: An exhibition entitled “Elijah Chair: Art, Ritual, and Social Action” comes to a close at the Jewish Museum in New York. “Elijah Chair,” a video sculpture was created for the Times Square Seder, a public art and social action project which took place in New York in 2002.
2005: The New York Times publishes an article entitled “Acts of Quiet Courage” by Bob Herbert. It describes the role that Luiz Martins de Souza Dantas, the wartime Brazilian ambassador to Franceplayed in providing the visas that saved young Felix Rohatyn and his relatives during World War II.
2007(23rd of Nisan, 5767): Sixty-three year old Tina Susan Rieger, the wife of United Jewish Communities’ president and CEO Howard Rieger, lost her battle with pancreatic cancer and passed away today.
2007: As part of the L.A. Theatre Works program, The Skirball Cultural Center features a performance of Jewish playwright Arthur Miller’s, “The Man Who Had All The Luck.”
2007: In an article entitled “A Youthful Chronicle of Wartime in Prague,” the New York Timesreviewed The Diary of Petr Ginz:1941-1942.
2008: Jason Hutt’s documentary film “Orthodox Stance” about the pugilistic career of Dmitriy Salita which combines boxing with Orthodox Judaism opens in Los Angeles.
2008: In Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Temple Judah hosts the Dan Nichols Musical Shabbat Service!
2009(17th of Nisan, 5769): Shabbat Chol Hamoed
2010: “Sin,” a play by Mark Altman based on “The Unseen” by Isaac Beshevis Singer is scheduled to have its final performance at the Baruch Performing Arts Center.
2010: Aaron Posner’s “My Name is Asher Lev” a dramatic adaption from the Chaim Potok novel is scheduled to completed its premiere run at the Round House Theatre in Bethsda, MD.
2010:Laura Cohen Applebaum The executive director of the Jewish Historical Society of Greater Washington is scheduled to discuss the new book "Jewish Life in Mr. Lincoln's City at Barnes & Noble in Rockville MD.
2010: Public Broadcasting System is scheduled began a four day series of new programs about the Holocaust. In its first effort, PBS and Masterpiece Classic premiered a new adaptation of The Diary of Anne Frank.
2010: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including All the Whiskey in Heaven: Selected Poems by Charles Bernstein and A Ticket to the Circus: A Memoir by Norris Church Mailer who was the wife of Norman Mailer.
2010(27th of Nisan, 5770): Yom HaShoah
2011: Yeshiva University Museum and Stern College are scheduled to present a performance by The Momenta String Quartet
2011:Rabbi Jill Jacobs is scheduled to begin serving, as the executive director of Rabbis for Human Rights-North America on this date.
2011: Dr. Brian Horowitz of Tulane University, author of “Empire Jews,” is scheduled to speak at a conference on Jewish Emigration to be held at Temple University.
2011(7thof Nisan, 5771): Eighty-seven year old poet Stanley Siegleman passed away.
2011:Itzhak Perlman and the New York Philharmonic Orchestra are scheduled to perform at Lincoln Center in NYC.
2011: The New York Times included a review of The Free World, “David Bezmozgis’s intimate portrait of the Krasnanskys, a Jewish family from Latvia immigrating to the West in 1978.
2011:A 42-year-old man who participated in Friday's Tel Aviv marathon died today after being hospitalized for severe dehydration. The man collapsed of dehydration during the marathon on Friday and was brought to the emergency room in Ichilov Hospital in Tel Aviv. His condition continued to deteriorate and this morning he died due to liver damage as a result of dehydration.
2011: Center for Jewish History presents “The Library that Never Was: The Attempt to Build a Center for Jewish Books and Learning in Post-Holocaust Europe.”
2011:Assembled in Haifa and Nazareth for the third event held in Israel under the EUREKA Chairmanship year, EUREKA's national delegates today approved a series of promising cooperative R&D projects in a variety of areas, including renewable energy, agrofood technology, biotechnology, physical and exact sciences, IT and electronics, industrial manufacturing, and more.
2011:A joint Chinese-Israeli conference opens today at Tel Aviv University, entitled "Replanning Tilanqiao, Formerly the Jewish Ghetto in Shanghai." The three-day event, organized by the Azrieli School of Architecture, will focus on the history and preservation of the ghetto. Participating in the conference are six senior officials from the Shanghai municipal planning department and three professors from the Architecture and Urban Planning School of Tongji University. The Jewish ghetto in Shanghai was created in the 1930s, in the city's Hongkou district. Thanks to international agreements, it was possible to immigrate to the city then without a passport or visa, which allowed some 20,000 European Jews to escape there during World War II. The area is now threatened by real estate development. Last year, TAU's Prof. Moshe Margalit traveled to Shanghai and made contact with local urban planning officials and academics.
2012: As part of the East Village Klezmer Series, Michael Winograd is scheduled to Klezmer Music with Strings in NYC.
2012(19thof Nisan): Yahrtzeit of Rabbi Menachem Zemba who was shot dead by the Nazis during the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in 1943
2013: The Alexandria Kleztet is scheduled to perform at the Peabody Institute in Baltimore, MD
2013: As part of Holocaust memorial program, the University of Utah is scheduled to host a Candlelight Vigil followed by Peter Black’s speech entitled “70thAnniversary of the Warsaw Uprising.”
2013: “The Law In These Parts” which was selected as Best Documentary at the Jerusalem Film Festival is scheduled to be shown at the Westchester Jewish Film Festival.
2013: “Hitler’s Children” is scheduled to be shown at the Hartford Jewish Film Fest.
2013: Dr. Astrith Baltsan is scheduled to deliver a lecture entitled “Hatikvah: Hope Reborn”
2013: Gilles Uriel Bernheim resigned as chief rabbi of France.
2013:“The flag representing the 30th Infantry Division assumed a place of honor during the National Days of Remembrance ceremony, an annual event commemorating the Holocaust at the U.S. Capitol’s Rotunda. It was added to the 35 others after the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington and the U.S. Army Center for Military History determined in late 2012 that members of the division had liberated Holocaust survivors.” (As reported by Hillel Kuttler)
2013: Two days after rejecting calls to do so, French Chief Rabbi Gilles Bernheim announced that he was stepping down from his post amid two scandals, a French newspaper reported today.
2013: Police arrested five women this morning for wearing tallitot (prayer shawls) traditionally worn by men, while participating in a Rosh Hodesh prayer service at the Western Wall attended by some 200 women.
2014: “Under the Skin” is scheduled to be shown at the Jacob Burns Film Festival.
2014: “General Jack Weinstein was responsible for the firing of nine Air Force commanders in Malmstrom AFB, Montana.”
2014: Israeli artist Tirtzah Bassel’s solo exhibition is scheduled to open at the Slag Gallery.
2014: In “Laemmle’s List: A Mogul’s Heroism” published today Neal Gabler described the life and times of “Carl Laemmle, a founder of Universal Pictures” who “unlike his peers…saved Jews from the Nazis.”
2014: Education and Sharing Day as established by the United States Congress in honor of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson
2014: Cesare Frustaci, a 77 year old Holocaust survivor who has been speaking in Cedar Rapids this week under the sponsorship of the Thaler Holocaust Committee is scheduled to speak during Shabbat Evening Services at Temple Judah.
2014(11thof Nisan, 5774): Centenarian Myer S. Kripke, the Omaha rabbi who was both a scholar and a philanthropist who relied on investment advice from his friend Warren Buffett passed away today.
2015: “David Orlowski, the son of Miriam Winter” is scheduled to be signing copies of his mother memoir Trains at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.
2015: “The Farewell Party,” “Rue Madar,” “Victor ‘Young’ Perez” and “Belle and Sebastian” are scheduled to be shown at the Westchester Jewish Film Fesitval.
2015: In New York City Temple Emanu-El Skirball Center is scheduled to host a Havdalah ceremony marking the end of Shabbat and Pesach featuring Idan Raichel.
2015: The family of Bernice Tannenbaum, of blessed memory, the former President of Hadassah will sit shiva this evening at her apartment.
2015(22ndof Nisan, 5775): Eight Day of Pesach, a holiday made great again in Cedar Rapids, Iowa thanks to the all of the work of Deb Levin whose skills include everything from making a great Seder to provide all of the tech help to make it possible to publish two blogs.